148	----	The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin edited by Charles Eliot presented 
16931	----	FOUR AMERICAN LEADERS BY CHARLES W. ELIOT BOSTON AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 1906 Copyright, 1906 American Unitarian Association _Note_ The four essays in this volume were written for celebrations or commemorations in which several persons took part. Each of them is, therefore, only a partial presentation of the life and character of its subject. The delineation in every case is not comprehensive and proportionate, but rather portrays the man in some of his aspects and qualities. _Contents_ I. Franklin 1 An address delivered before the meeting of the American Philosophical Society to commemorate the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin, Philadelphia, April 20, 1906. II. Washington 31 An address given before the Union League Club of Chicago at the exercises in commemoration of the birth of Washington, February 23, 1903. III. Channing 57 An address made at the unveiling of the Channing statue on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of William Ellery Channing, Boston, June 1, 1903. IV. Emerson 73 An address delivered on the commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Boston, May 24, 1903. _Four American Leaders_ FRANKLIN The facts about Franklin as a printer are simple and plain, but impressive. His father, respecting the boy's strong disinclination to become a tallow-chandler, selected the printer's trade for him, after giving him opportunities to see members of several different trades at their work, and considering the boy's own tastes and aptitudes. It was at twelve years of age that Franklin signed indentures as an apprentice to his older brother James, who was already an established printer. By the time he was seventeen years old he had mastered the trade in all its branches so completely that he could venture, with hardly any money in his pocket, first into New York and then into Philadelphia without a friend or acquaintance in either place, and yet succeed promptly in earning his living. He knew all departments of the business. He was a pressman as well as a compositor. He understood both newspaper and book work. There were at that time no such sharp subdivisions of labor and no such elaborate machinery as exist in the trade to-day; and Franklin could do with his own eyes and hands, long before he was of age, everything which the printer's art was then equal to. When the faithless Governor Keith caused Franklin to land in London without any resources whatever except his skill at his trade, the youth was fully capable of supporting himself in the great city as a printer. Franklin had been induced by the governor to go to England, where he was to buy a complete outfit for a good printing office to be set up in Philadelphia. He had already presented the governor with an inventory of the materials needed in a small printing office, and was competent to make a critical selection of all these materials; yet when he arrived in London on this errand he was only eighteen years old. Thrown completely on his own resources in the great city, he immediately got work at a famous printing house in Bartholomew Close, but soon moved to a still larger printing house, in which he remained during the rest of his stay in London. Here he worked as a pressman at first, but was soon transferred to the composing room, evidently excelling his comrades in both branches of the art. The customary drink money was demanded of him, first by the pressmen with whom he was associated, and afterwards by the compositors. Franklin undertook to resist the second demand; and it is interesting to learn that after a resistance of three weeks he was forced to yield to the demands of the men by just such measures as are now used against any scab in a unionized printing office. He says in his autobiography: "I had so many little pieces of private mischief done me by mixing my sorts, transposing my pages, breaking my matter, and so forth, if I were ever so little out of the room ... that, notwithstanding the master's protection, I found myself obliged to comply and pay the money, convinced of the folly of being on ill terms with those one is to live with continually." He was stronger than any of his mates, kept his head clearer because he did not fuddle it with beer, and availed himself of the liberty which then existed of working as fast and as much as he chose. On this point he says: "My constant attendance (I never making a St. Monday) recommended me to the master; and my uncommon quickness at composing occasioned my being put upon all work of dispatch, which was generally better paid. So I went on now very agreeably." On his return to Philadelphia Franklin obtained for a few months another occupation than that of printer; but this employment failing through the death of his employer, Franklin returned to printing, becoming the manager of a small printing office, in which he was the only skilled workman and was expected to teach several green hands. At that time he was only twenty-one years of age. This printing office often wanted sorts, and there was no type-foundry in America. Franklin succeeded in contriving a mould, struck the matrices in lead, and thus supplied the deficiencies of the office. The autobiography says: "I also engraved several things on occasion; I made the ink; I was warehouse man and everything, and in short quite a factotum." Nevertheless, he was dismissed before long by his incompetent employer, who, however, was glad to re-engage him a few days later on obtaining a job to print some paper money for New Jersey. Thereupon Franklin contrived a copperplate press for this job--the first that had been seen in the country--and cut the ornaments for the bills. Meantime Franklin, with one of the apprentices, had ordered a press and types from London, that they two might set up an independent office. Shortly after the New Jersey job was finished, these materials arrived in Philadelphia, and Franklin immediately opened his own printing office. His partner "was, however, no compositor, a poor pressman, and seldom sober." The office prospered, and in July, 1730, when Franklin was twenty-four years old, the partnership was dissolved, and Franklin was at the head of a well-established and profitable printing business. This business was the foundation of Franklin's fortune; and better foundation no man could desire. His industry was extraordinary. Contrary to the current opinion, Dr. Baird of St. Andrews testified that the new printing office would succeed, "for the industry of that Franklin," he said, "is superior to anything I ever saw of the kind; I see him still at work when I go home from the club, and he is at work again before the neighbors are out of bed." No trade rules or customs limited or levied toll on his productiveness. He speedily became by far the most successful printer in all the colonies, and in twenty years was able to retire from active business with a competency. One would, however, get a wrong impression of Franklin's career as a printer, if he failed to observe that from his boyhood Franklin constantly used his connection with a printing office to facilitate his remarkable work as an author, editor, and publisher. Even while he was an apprentice to his brother James he succeeded in getting issued from his brother's press ballads and newspaper articles of which he was the anonymous author. When he had a press of his own he used it for publishing a newspaper, an almanac, and numerous essays composed or compiled by himself. His genius as a writer supported his skill and industry as a printer. The second part of the double subject assigned to me is Franklin as philosopher. The philosophy he taught and illustrated related to four perennial subjects of human interest--education, natural science, politics, and morals. I propose to deal in that order with these four topics. Franklin's philosophy of education was elaborated as he grew up, and was applied to himself throughout his life. In the first place, he had no regular education of the usual sort. He studied and read with an extraordinary diligence from his earliest years; but he studied only the subjects which attracted him, or which he himself believed would be good for him, and throughout life he pursued only those inquiries for pursuing which he found within himself an adequate motive. The most important element in his training was reading, for which he had a precocious desire which was imperative, and proved to be lasting. His opportunities to get books were scanty; but he seized on all such opportunities, and fortunately he early came upon the "Pilgrim's Progress," the Spectator, Plutarch, Xenophon's "Memorabilia," and Locke "On the Human Understanding." Practice of English composition was the next agency in Franklin's education; and his method--quite of his own invention--was certainly an admirable one. He would make brief notes of the thoughts contained in a good piece of writing, and lay these notes aside for several days; then, without looking at the book, he would endeavor to express these thoughts in his own words as fully as they had been expressed in the original paper. Lastly, he would compare his product with the original, thus discovering his shortcomings and errors. To improve his vocabulary he turned specimens of prose into verse, and later, when he had forgotten the original, turned the verse back again into prose. This exercise enlarged his vocabulary and his acquaintance with synonyms and their different shades of meaning, and showed him how he could twist phrases and sentences about. His times for such exercises and for reading were at night after work, before work in the morning, and on Sundays. This severe training he imposed on himself; and he was well advanced in it before he was sixteen years of age. His memory and his imagination must both have served him well; for he not only acquired a style fit for narrative, exposition, or argument, but also learned to use the fable, parable, paraphrase, proverb, and dialogue. The third element in his education was writing for publication; he began very early, while he was still a young boy, to put all he had learned to use in writing for the press. When he was but nineteen years old he wrote and published in London "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain." In after years he was not proud of this pamphlet; but it was, nevertheless, a remarkable production for a youth of nineteen. So soon as he was able to establish a newspaper in Philadelphia he wrote for it with great spirit, and in a style at once accurate, concise, and attractive, making immediate application of his reading and of the conversation of intelligent acquaintances on both sides of the ocean. His fourth principle of education was that it should continue through life, and should make use of the social instincts. To that end he thought that friends and acquaintances might fitly band together in a systematic endeavor after mutual improvement. The Junto was created as a school of philosophy, morality, and politics; and this purpose it actually served for many years. Some of the questions read at every meeting of the Junto, with a pause after each one, would be curiously opportune in such a society at the present day. For example, No. 5, "Have you lately heard how any present rich man, here or elsewhere, got his estate?" And No. 6, "Do you know of a fellow-citizen ... who has lately committed an error proper for us to be warned against and avoid?" When a new member was initiated he was asked, among other questions, the following: "Do you think any person ought to be harmed in his body, name, or goods, for mere speculative opinions or his external way of worship?" and again, "Do you love truth for truth's sake, and will you endeavor impartially to find it, receive it yourself, and communicate it to others?" The Junto helped to educate Franklin, and he helped greatly to train all its members. The nature of Franklin's own education accounts for many of his opinions on the general subject. Thus, he believed, contrary to the judgment of his time, that Latin and Greek were not essential subjects in a liberal education, and that mathematics, in which he never excelled, did not deserve the place it held. He believed that any one who had acquired a command of good English could learn any other modern language that he really needed when he needed it; and this faith he illustrated in his own person, for he learned French, when he needed it, sufficiently well to enable him to exercise great influence for many years at the French court. As the fruit of his education he exhibited a clear, pungent, persuasive English style, both in writing and in conversation--a style which gave him great and lasting influence among men. It is easy to say that such a training as Franklin's is suitable only for genius. Be that as it may, Franklin's philosophy of education certainly tells in favor of liberty for the individual in his choice of studies, and teaches that a desire for good reading and a capacity to write well are two very important fruits of any liberal culture. It was all at the service of his successor Jefferson, the founder of the University of Virginia. Franklin's studies in natural philosophy are characterized by remarkable directness, patience, and inventiveness, absolute candor in seeking the truth, and a powerful scientific imagination. What has been usually considered his first discovery was the now familiar fact that northeast storms on the Atlantic coast begin to leeward. The Pennsylvania fireplace he invented was an ingenious application to the warming and ventilating of an apartment of the laws that regulate the movement of hot air. At the age of forty-one he became interested in the subject of electricity, and with the aid of many friends and acquaintances pursued the subject for four years, with no thought about personal credit for inventing either theories or processes, but simply with delight in experimentation and in efforts to explain the phenomena he observed. His kite experiment to prove lightning to be an electrical phenomenon very possibly did not really draw lightning from the cloud; but it supplied evidence of electrical energy in the atmosphere which went far to prove that lightning was an electrical discharge. The sagacity of Franklin's scientific inquiries is well illustrated by his notes on colds and their causes. He maintains that influenzas usually classed as colds do not arise, as a rule, from either cold or dampness. He points out that savages and sailors, who are often wet, do not catch cold, and that the disease called a cold is not taken by swimming. He maintains that people who live in the forest, in open barns, or with open windows, do not catch cold, and that the disease called a cold is generally caused by impure air, lack of exercise, or overeating. He comes to the conclusion that influenzas and colds are contagious--a doctrine which, a century and a half later, was proved, through the advance of bacteriological science, to be sound. The following sentence exhibits remarkable insight, considering the state of medical art at that time: "I have long been satisfied from observation, that besides the general colds now termed influenzas (which may possibly spread by contagion, as well as by a particular quality of the air), people often catch cold from one another when shut up together in close rooms and coaches, and when sitting near and conversing so as to breathe in each other's transpiration; the disorder being in a certain state." In the light of present knowledge what a cautious and exact statement is that! There being no learned society in all America at the time, Franklin's scientific experiments were almost all recorded in letters written to interested friends; and he was never in any haste to write these letters. He never took a patent on any of his inventions, and made no effort either to get a profit from them, or to establish any sort of intellectual proprietorship in his experiments and speculations. One of his English correspondents, Mr. Collinson, published in 1751 a number of Franklin's letters to him in a pamphlet called "New Experiments and Observations in Electricity made at Philadelphia in America." This pamphlet was translated into several European languages, and established over the continent--particularly in France--Franklin's reputation as a natural philosopher. A great variety of phenomena engaged his attention, such as phosphorescence in sea water, the cause of the saltness of the sea, the form and the temperatures of the Gulf Stream, the effect of oil in stilling waves, and the cause of smoky chimneys. Franklin also reflected and wrote on many topics which are now classified under the head of political economy,--such as paper currency, national wealth, free trade, the slave trade, the effects of luxury and idleness, and the misery and destruction caused by war. Not even his caustic wit could adequately convey in words his contempt and abhorrence for war as a mode of settling questions arising between nations. He condensed his opinions on that subject into the epigram: "There never was a good war or a bad peace." Franklin's political philosophy may all be summed up in seven words--"first freedom, then public happiness and comfort." The spirit of liberty was born in him. He resented his brother's blows when he was an apprentice, and escaped from them. As a mere boy he refused to attend church on Sundays in accordance with the custom of his family and his town, and devoted his Sundays to reading and study. In practising his trade he claimed and diligently sought complete freedom. In public and private business alike he tried to induce people to take any action desired of them by presenting to them a motive they could understand and feel--a motive which acted on their own wills and excited their hopes. This is the only method possible under a régime of liberty. A perfect illustration of his practice in this respect is found in his successful provision of one hundred and fifty four-horse wagons for Braddock's force, when it was detained on its march from Annapolis to western Pennsylvania by the lack of wagons. The military method would have been to seize horses, wagons, and drivers wherever found. Franklin persuaded Braddock, instead of using force, to allow him (Franklin) to offer a good hire for horses, wagons, and drivers, and proper compensation for the equipment in case of loss. By this appeal to the frontier farmers of Pennsylvania he secured in two weeks all the transportation required. To defend public order Franklin was perfectly ready to use public force, as, for instance, when he raised and commanded a regiment of militia to defend the northwestern frontier from the Indians after Braddock's defeat, and again, when it became necessary to defend Philadelphia from a large body of frontiersmen who had lynched a considerable number of friendly Indians, and were bent on revolutionizing the Quaker government. But his abhorrence of all war was based on the facts, first, that during war the law must be silent, and, secondly, that military discipline, which is essential for effective fighting, annihilates individual liberty. "Those," he said, "who would give up essential liberty for the sake of a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." The foundation of his firm resistance on behalf of the colonies to the English Parliament was his impregnable conviction that the love of liberty was the ruling passion of the people of the colonies. In 1766 he said of the American people: "Every act of oppression will sour their tempers, lessen greatly, if not annihilate, the profits of your commerce with them, and hasten their final revolt; for the seeds of liberty are universally found there, and nothing can eradicate them." Because they loved liberty, they would not be taxed without representation; they would not have soldiers quartered on them, or their governors made independent of the people in regard to their salaries; or their ports closed, or their commerce regulated by Parliament. It is interesting to observe how Franklin's experiments and speculations in natural science often had a favorable influence on freedom of thought. His studies in economics had a strong tendency in that direction. His views about religious toleration were founded on his intense faith in civil liberty; and even his demonstration that lightning was an electrical phenomenon brought deliverance for mankind from an ancient terror. It removed from the domain of the supernatural a manifestation of formidable power that had been supposed to be a weapon of the arbitrary gods; and since it increased man's power over nature, it increased his freedom. This faith in freedom was fully developed in Franklin long before the American Revolution and the French Revolution made the fundamental principles of liberty familiar to civilized mankind. His views concerning civil liberty were even more remarkable for his time than his views concerning religious liberty; but they were not developed in a passionate nature inspired by an enthusiastic idealism. He was the very embodiment of common sense, moderation, and sober honesty. His standard of human society is perfectly expressed in the description of New England which he wrote in 1772: "I thought often of the happiness in New England, where every man is a freeholder, has a vote in public affairs, lives in a tidy, warm house, has plenty of good food and fuel, with whole clothes from head to foot, the manufacture perhaps of his own family. Long may they continue in this situation!" Such was Franklin's conception of a free and happy people. Such was his political philosophy. The moral philosophy of Franklin consisted almost exclusively in the inculcation of certain very practical and unimaginative virtues, such as temperance, frugality, industry, moderation, cleanliness, and tranquillity. Sincerity and justice, and resolution--that indispensable fly-wheel of virtuous habit--are found in his table of virtues; but all his moral precepts seem to be based on observation and experience of life, and to express his convictions concerning what is profitable, prudent, and on the whole satisfactory in the life that now is. His philosophy is a guide of life, because it searches out virtues, and so provides the means of expelling vices. It may reasonably determine conduct. It did determine Franklin's conduct to a remarkable degree, and has had a prodigious influence for good on his countrymen and on civilized mankind. Nevertheless, it omits all consideration of the prime motive power, which must impel to right conduct, as fire supplies the power which actuates the engine. That motive power is pure, unselfish love--love to God and love to man. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart ... and thy neighbor as thyself." Franklin never seems to have perceived that the supreme tests of civilization are the tender and honorable treatment of women as equals, and the sanctity of home life. There was one primary virtue on his list which he did not always practise. His failures in this respect diminished his influence for good among his contemporaries, and must always qualify the admiration with which mankind will regard him as a moral philosopher and an exhorter to a good life. His sagacity, intellectual force, versatility, originality, firmness, fortunate period of service, and longevity combined to make him a great leader of his people. In American public affairs the generation of wise leaders next to his own felt for him high admiration and respect; and the strong republic, whose birth and youthful growth he witnessed, will carry down his fame as political philosopher, patriot, and apostle of liberty through long generations. WASHINGTON The virtues of Washington were of two kinds, the splendid and the homely; I adopt, for my part in this celebration, some consideration of Washington as a man of homely virtues, giving our far-removed generation a homely example. The first contrast to which I invite your attention is the contrast between the early age at which Washington began to profit by the discipline of real life and the late age at which our educated young men exchange study under masters, and seclusion in institutions of learning, for personal adventure and responsibility out in the world. Washington was a public surveyor at sixteen years of age. He could not spell well; but he could make a correct survey, keep a good journal, and endure the hardships to which a surveyor in the Virginia wilderness was inevitably exposed. Our expectation of good service and hard work from boys of sixteen, not to speak of young men of twenty-six, is very low. I have heard it maintained in a learned college faculty that young men who were on the average nineteen years of age, were not fit to begin the study of economics or philosophy, even under the guidance of skilful teachers, and that no young man could nowadays begin the practice of a profession to advantage before he was twenty-six or twenty-seven years old. Now, Washington was at twenty-one the Governor of Virginia's messenger to the French forts beyond the Alleghanies. He was already an accomplished woodman, an astute negotiator with savages and the French, and the cautious yet daring leader of a company of raw, insubordinate frontiersmen, who were to advance 500 miles into a wilderness with nothing but an Indian trail to follow. In 1755, at twenty-three years of age, twenty years before the Revolutionary War broke out, he was a skilful and experienced fighter, and a colonel in the Virginia service. What a contrast to our college under-graduates of to-day, who at twenty-two years of age are still getting their bodily vigor through sports and not through real work, and who seldom seem to realize that, just as soon as they have acquired the use of the intellectual tools and stock with which a livelihood is to be earned in business or in the professions, the training of active life is immeasurably better than the training of the schools! Yet Washington never showed at any age the least spark of genius; he was only "sober, sensible, honest, and brave," as he said of Major-General Lincoln in 1791. By inheritance and by marriage Washington became, while he was still young, one of the richest men in the country; but what a contrast between his sort of riches and our sorts! He was a planter and sportsman--a country gentleman. All his home days were spent in looking after his farms; in breeding various kinds of domestic animals; in fishing for profit; in attending to the diseases and accidents which befall livestock, including slaves; in erecting buildings, and repairing them; in caring for or improving his mills, barns, farm implements, and tools. He always lived very close to nature, and from his boyhood studied the weather, the markets, his crops and woods, and the various qualities of his lands. He was an economical husbandman, attending to all the details of the management of his large estates. He was constantly on horseback, often riding fifteen miles on his daily rounds. At sixty-seven years of age he caught the cold which killed him by getting wet on horseback, riding as usual about his farms. Compare this sort of life, physical and mental, with the life of the ordinary rich American of to-day, who has made his money in stocks and bonds, or as a banker, broker, or trader, or in the management of great transportation or industrial concerns. This modern rich man, in all probability, has nothing whatever to do with nature or with country life. He is soft and tender in body; lives in the city; takes no vigorous exercise, and has very little personal contact with the elemental forces of either nature or mankind. He is not like Washington an out-of-door man. Washington was a combination of land-owner, magistrate, and soldier,--the best combination for a leader of men which the feudal system produced. Our modern rich man is apt to possess no one of these functions, any one of which, well discharged, has in times past commanded the habitual respect of mankind. It is a grave misfortune for our country, and especially for our rich men, that the modern forms of property,--namely, stocks and bonds, mortgages, and city buildings--do not carry with them any inevitable responsibilities to the state, or involve their owner in personal risks and charges as a leader or commander of the people. The most enviable rich man to-day is the intelligent industrial or commercial adventurer or promoter, in the good sense of those terms. He takes risks and assumes burdens on a large scale, and has a chance to develop will, mind, and character, just as Queen Elizabeth's adventurers did all over the then known world. Again, Washington, as I have already indicated, was an economical person, careful about little expenditures as well as great, averse to borrowing money, and utterly impatient of waste. If a slave were hopelessly ill, he did not call a doctor, because it would be a useless expenditure. He insisted that the sewing woman, Carolina, who had only made five shirts in a week, not being sick, should make nine. He entered in his account "thread and needle, one penny," and used said thread and needle himself. All this closeness and contempt for shiftlessness and prodigality were perfectly consistent with a large and hospitable way of living; for during many years of his life he kept open house at Mt. Vernon. This frugal and prudent man knew exactly what it meant to devote his "life and fortune to the cause we are engaged in, if needful," as he wrote in 1774. This was not an exaggerated or emotional phrase. It was moderate, but it meant business. He risked his whole fortune. What he lost through his service in the Revolutionary War is clearly stated in a letter written from Mt. Vernon in 1784: "I made no money from my estate during the nine years I was absent from it, and brought none home with me. Those who owed me, for the most part, took advantage of the depreciation, and paid me off with sixpence in the pound. Those to whom I was indebted, I have yet to pay, without other means, if they will wait, than selling part of my estate, or distressing those who were too honest to take advantage of the tender laws to quit scores with me." Should we not all be glad if to-day a hundred or two multi-millionaires could give such an account as that of their losses incurred in the public service, even if they had not, like Washington, risked their lives as well? In our times we have come to think that a rich man should not be frugal or economical, but rather wasteful or extravagant. We have even been asked to believe that a cheap coat makes a cheap man. If there were a fixed relation between a man's character and the price of his clothes, what improvement we should have seen in the national character since 1893! At Harvard University, twelve hundred students take three meals a day in the great dining-room of Memorial Hall, and manage the business themselves through an elected President and Board of Directors. These officers proscribe stews, apparently because it is a form in which cheap meat may be offered them, neglecting the more important fact that the stew is the most nutritious and digestible form in which meats can be eaten. Mr. Edward Atkinson, the economist, invented an oven in which various kinds of foods may be cheaply and well prepared with a minimum of attention to the process. The workingmen, among whom he attempted to introduce it, took no interest in it whatever, because it was recommended to them as a cheap way of preparing inexpensive though excellent foods. This modern temper affords a most striking contrast to the practices and sentiments of Washington, sentiments and practices which underlay his whole public life as well as his private life. If he were alive to-day, would he not be bewildered by much of our talk about the rights of men and animals? Washington's mind dwelt very little on rights and very much on duties. For him, patriotism was a duty; good citizenship was a duty; and for the masses of mankind it was a duty to clear away the forest, till the ground, and plant fruit trees, just as he prescribed to the hoped-for tenants on his Ohio and Kanawha lands. For men and women in general he thought it a duty to increase and multiply, and to make the wilderness glad with rustling crops, lowing herds, and children's voices. When he retired from the Presidency, he expressed the hope that he might "make and sell a little flour annually." For the first soldier and first statesman of his country, surely this was a modest anticipation of continued usefulness. We think more about our rights than our duties. He thought more about his duties than his rights. Posterity has given him first place because of the way in which he conceived and performed his duties; it will judge the leaders of the present generation by the same standard, whatever their theories about human rights. Having said thus much about contrasts, let me now turn to some interesting resemblances between Washington's times and our own. We may notice in the first place the permanency of the fighting quality in the English-American stock. Washington was all his life a fighter. The entire American people is to-day a fighting people, prone to resort to force and prompt to take arms, the different sections of the population differing chiefly in regard to the nature and amount of the provocation which will move them to violence and combat. To this day nothing moves the admiration of the people so quickly as composure, ingenuity, and success in fighting; so that even in political contests all the terms and similes are drawn from war, and among American sports the most popular have in them a large element of combat. Washington was roused and stimulated by the dangers of the battlefield, and utterly despised cowards, or even men who ran away in battle from a momentary terror which they did not habitually manifest. His early experience taught him, however, that the Indian way of fighting in woods or on broken ground was the most effective way; and he did not hesitate to adopt and advocate that despised mode of fighting, which has now, one hundred and fifty years later, become the only possible mode. The Indian in battle took instantly to cover, if he could find it. In our Civil War both sides learned to throw up breastworks wherever they expected an engagement to take place; and the English in South Africa have demonstrated that the only possible way to fight with the present long range quick-firing guns, is the way in which the "treacherous devils," as Washington called the Indians, fought General Braddock, that is, with stratagem, surprise, and ambuscade; with hiding and crawling behind screens and obstacles; with the least possible appearance in open view, with nothing that can glitter on either arms or clothes, and with no visible distinction between officers and men. War is now a genuinely Indian performance, just as Washington saw one hundred and fifty years ago that it ought to be. The silent Washington's antipathy to the press finds an exact parallel in our own day. He called the writers of the press "infamous scribblers." President Cleveland called them "ghouls." But it must be confessed that the newspapers of Washington's time surpassed those of the present day in violence of language, and in lack of prophetic insight and just appreciation of men and events. When Washington retired from the Presidency the _Aurora_ said, "If ever a Nation was debauched by a man, the American Nation has been debauched by Washington." Some of the weaknesses or errors of the Congresses of Washington's time have been repeated in our own day, and seem as natural to us as they doubtless seemed to the men of 1776 and 1796. Thus, the Continental Congress incurred all the evils of a depreciated currency with the same blindness which afflicted the Congress of the Southern Confederacy and the Union Congress during the Civil War, or the Democrat-Populist party of still more recent times. The refusal of the Congress of 1777 to carry out the agreement made with the Hessian prisoners at Saratoga reminds one of the refusal of Congress, in spite of the public exhortations of our present Executive, and his cabinet, to carry out the understanding with Cuba in regard to the commercial relations of the island with the United States. In both cases the honor of the country was tarnished. The intensity of party spirit in Washington's time closely resembles that of our own day, but was certainly fiercer than it is now, the reason being that the questions at issue were absolutely fundamental. When the question was whether the Constitution of the United States was a sure defence for freedom or a trap to ensnare an unsuspecting people, intensity of feeling on both sides was well-nigh inevitable. During Washington's two administrations a considerable number of the most eminent American publicists feared that dangerous autocratic powers had been conferred on the President by the Constitution. Washington held that there was no ground for these fears, and acted as if the supposition was absurd. When the question was whether we should love and adhere to revolutionary France, or rather become partisans of Great Britain--the power from which we had just won independence--it is no wonder that political passions burnt fiercely. On this question Washington stood between the opposing parties, and often commended himself to neither. In spite of the tremendous partisan heat of the times, Washington, through both his administrations, made appointments to public office from both parties indifferently. He appointed some well-known Tories and many Democrats. He insisted only on fitness as regards character, ability, and experience, and preferred persons, of whatever party, who had already proved their capacity in business or the professions, or in legislative or administrative offices. It is a striking fact that Washington is the only one of the Presidents of the United States who has, as a rule, acted on these principles. His example was not followed by his early successors, or by any of the more recent occupants of the Presidency. His successors, elected by a party, have not seen their way to make appointments without regard to party connections. The Civil Service Reform agitation of the last twenty-five years is nothing but an effort to return, in regard to the humbler national offices, to the practice of President Washington. In spite of these resemblances between Washington's time and our own, the profound contrasts make the resemblances seem unimportant. In the first years of the Government of the United States there was widespread and genuine apprehension lest the executive should develop too much power, and lest the centralization of the Government should become overwhelming. Nothing can be farther from our political thoughts to-day than this dread of the power of the national executive. On the contrary, we are constantly finding that it is feeble where we wish it were strong, impotent where we wish it omnipotent. The Senate of the United States has deprived the President of much of the power intended for his office, and has then found it, on the whole, convenient and desirable to allow itself to be held up by any one of its members who possesses the bodily strength and the assurance to talk or read aloud by the week. Other forces have developed within the Republic quite outside of the Government, which seem to us to override and almost defy the closely limited governmental forces. Quite lately we have seen two of these new forces--one a combination of capitalists, the other a combination of laborers--put the President of the United States into a position of a mediator between two parties whom he could not control, and with whom he must intercede. This is part of the tremendous nineteenth century democratic revolution, and of the newly acquired facilities for combination and association for the promotion of common interests. We no longer dread abuse of the power of state or church; we do dread abuse of the powers of compact bodies of men, highly organized and consenting to be despotically ruled, for the advancement of their selfish interests. Washington was a stern disciplinarian in war; if he could not shoot deserters he wanted them "stoutly whipped." He thought that army officers should be of a different class from their men, and should never put themselves on an equality with their men; he went himself to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, and always believed that firm government was essential to freedom. He never could have imagined for a moment the toleration of disorder and violence which is now exhibited everywhere in our country when a serious strike occurs. He was the chief actor through the long struggles, military and civil, which attended the birth of this nation, and took the gravest responsibilities which could then fall to the lot of soldiers or statesmen; but he never encountered, and indeed never imagined, the anxieties and dangers which now beset the Republic of which he was the founder. We face new difficulties. Shall we face them with Washington's courage, wisdom, and success? Finally, I ask your attention to the striking contrast between the wealth of Washington and the poverty of Abraham Lincoln, the only one of the succeeding Presidents who won anything like the place in the popular heart that Washington has always occupied. Washington, while still young, was one of the richest men in the country; Lincoln, while young, was one of the poorest; both rendered supreme service to their country and to freedom; between these two extremes men of many degrees as regards property holding have occupied the Presidency, the majority of them being men of moderate means. The lesson to be drawn from these facts seems to be that the Republic can be greatly served by rich and poor alike, but has oftenest been served creditably by men who were neither rich nor poor. In the midst of the present conflicts between employers and employed, between the classes that are already well to do and the classes who believe it to be the fault of the existing order that they too are not well to do, and in plain sight of the fact that democratic freedom permits the creation and perpetuation of greater differences as regards possessions than the world has ever known before, it is comforting to remember that true patriots and wise men are bred in all the social levels of a free commonwealth, and that the Republic may find in any condition of life safe leaders and just rulers. CHANNING We commemorate to-day a great preacher. It is the fashion to say that preaching is a thing of the past, other influences having taken its place. But Boston knows better; for she had two great preachers in the nineteenth century, and is sure that an immense and enduring force was theirs, and through them, hers. Channing and Brooks! Men very unlike in body and mind, but preachers of like tendency and influence from their common love of freedom and faith in mankind. This city has learned by rich experience that preaching becomes the most productive of all human works the moment the adequate preacher appears--a noble man with a noble message. Such was Channing. His public work was preceded and accompanied by a great personal achievement. All his life he grew in spirit, becoming always freer, broader, and more sympathetic. In forty years he worked his way out of moderate Calvinism without the Trinity into such doctrines as these:--"The idea of God ... is the idea of our own spiritual natures purified and enlarged to infinity." "The sense of duty is the greatest gift of God. The idea of right is the primary and highest revelation of God to the human mind; and all outward revelations are founded on and addressed to it." There is "but one object of cherished and enduring love in heaven or on earth, and that is moral goodness." "I do and I must reverence human nature.... I honor it for its struggles against oppression, for its growth and progress under the weight of so many chains and prejudices, for its achievements in science and art, and still more for its examples of heroic and saintly virtue. These are marks of a divine origin and pledges of a celestial inheritance." "Perfection is man's proper and natural goal." What an immense distance between these doctrines of Channing's maturity and the Calvinism of his youth! He was a meditative, reflecting man, who read much, but took selected thoughts of others into the very substance and fibre of his being, and made them his own. The foundation of his professional power and public influence was this great personal achievement, this attuning of his own soul to noblest harmonies. Thousands of ministers and spiritually-minded laymen of many denominations have travelled since Channing's death the road he laid out, and so have been delivered from the inhuman doctrines of the fall of man, the wrath of God, vicarious atonement, everlasting hell for the majority, and the rescue of a predestined few. They should all join in giving heartfelt praise and thanks to Channing, who thought out clearly, and preached with fervid reiteration, the doctrines which have delivered them from a painful bondage. Another remarkable quality of Channing's teachings is their universality. Men of learning and spirituality in all the civilized nations have welcomed his words, and found in them teachings of enduring and expansive influence. Many Biblical scholars, in the technical sense, have arrived eighty years later at Channing's conclusions about the essential features of Christianity, although Channing was no scholar in the modern sense; while they go far beyond him in treating the Bible as a collection of purely human writings and in rejecting the so-called supernatural quality of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. Indeed, many Biblical scholars belonging to-day to evangelical sects have arrived not only at Channing's position, but also at Emerson's. Just how much Channing's published works have had to do with this quiet but fateful revolution no man can tell. The most eminent to-day of American Presbyterian divines preached an excellent sermon in the Harvard College Chapel one Sunday evening not many years ago, and asked me, as we walked away together, how I liked it. I replied: "Very much; it was all straight out of Channing." "That is strange," he said, "for I have never read Channing." It is great testimony to the pervasive quality of a prophet's teachings when they become within fifty years a component of the intellectual atmosphere of the new times. At a dinner of Harvard graduates I once complained that, although I heard in the College Chapel a great variety of preachers connected with many different denominations, the preaching was, after all, rather monotonous, because they all preached Channing. Phillips Brooks spoke after me and said: "The President is right in thinking our present preaching monotonous, and the reason he gives for this monotony is correct; we all do preach Channing." The direct influence of Channing's writings has been vast, for they are read in English in all parts of the world, and have been translated into many languages. Thirty years ago I spent a long day in showing Don Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil, some of the interesting things in the laboratories and collections of Harvard University. He was the most assiduous visitor that I ever conducted through the University buildings, intelligently interested in a great variety of objects and ideas. Late in the afternoon he suddenly said, with a fresh eagerness: "Now I will visit the tomb of Channing." We drove to Mount Auburn, and found the monument erected by the Federal Street Church. The Emperor copied with his own hand George Ticknor's inscriptions on the stone, and made me verify his copies. Then, with his great weight and height, he leaped into the air, and snatched a leaf from the maple which overhung the tomb. "I am going to put that leaf," he said, "into my best edition of Channing. I have read all his published works,--some of them many times over. He was a very great man." The Emperor of Brazil was a Roman Catholic. Channing's philanthropy was a legitimate outcome of his view of religion. For him practical religion was character-building by the individual human being. But character-building in any large group or mass of human beings means social reform; therefore Channing was a preacher and active promoter of social regeneration in this world. He depicted the hideous evils and wrongs of intemperance, slavery, and war. He advocated and supported every well-directed effort to improve public education, the administration of charity, and the treatment of criminals, and to lift up the laboring classes. He denounced the bitter sectarian and partisan spirit of his day. He refused entire sympathy to the abolitionists, because of the ferocity and violence of their habitual language and the injustice of their indiscriminate attacks. He distrusted money worship, wealth, and luxury. These sentiments and actions grew straight out of his religious conceptions, and were their legitimate fruit. All his social aspirations and hopes were rooted in his fundamental conception of the fatherhood of God, and its corollary the brotherhood of men. It was his lofty idea of the infinite worth of human nature and of the inherent greatness of the human soul, in contrast with the then prevailing doctrines of human vileness and impotency, which made him resent with such indignation the wrongs of slavery, intemperance, and war, and urge with such ardor every effort to deliver men from poverty and ignorance, and to make them gentler and juster to one another. In no subject which he discussed does the close connection between Channing's theology and his philanthropy appear more distinctly than in education. He says in his remarks on education: ... "There is nothing on earth so precious as the mind, soul, character of the child.... There should be no economy in education. Money should never be weighed against the soul of a child. It should be poured out like water for the child's intellectual and moral life." It is more than two generations since those sentences were written, and still the average public expenditure on the education of a child in the United States is less than fifteen dollars a year. Eastern Massachusetts is the community in the whole world which gives most thought, time, and money to education, public and endowed. Whence came this social wisdom? From Protestantism, from Congregationalism, from the religious teachings of Channing and his disciples. Listen to this sentence: "Benevolence is short-sighted indeed, and must blame itself for failure, if it do not see in education the chief interest of the human race." It is impossible to join in this centennial celebration of the advent to Boston of this religious pioneer and philanthropic leader without perceiving that in certain respects the country has recently fallen away from the moral standards he set up. Channing taught that no real good can come through violence, injustice, greed, and the inculcation of hatred and enmities, or of suspicions and contempts. He believed that public well-being can be promoted only through public justice, freedom, peace, and good will among men. He never could have imagined that there would be an outburst in his dear country, grown rich and strong, of such doctrines as that the might of arms, possessions, or majorities makes right; that a superior civilization may rightly force itself on an inferior by wholesale killing, hurting, and impoverishing; that an extension of commerce, or of missionary activities, justifies war; that the example of imperial Rome is an instructive one for republican America; and that the right to liberty and the brotherhood of man are obsolete sentimentalities. Nevertheless, in spite of these temporary aberrations of the public mind and heart, it is plain that many of Channing's anticipations and hopes have already been realized, that his influence on three generations of men has been profound and wholly beneficent, and that the world is going his way, though with slow and halting steps. His life brightened to its close. In its last summer but one he wrote: "This morning I plucked a globe of the dandelion--the seed-vessel--and was struck as never before with the silent, gentle manner in which nature sows her seed.... I saw, too, how nature sows her seed broadcast.... So we must send truth abroad, not forcing it on here and there a mind, and watching its progress anxiously, but trusting that it will light on a kindly soil, and yield its fruit. So nature teaches." May those who stand here one hundred years hence say,--the twentieth century supplied more of kindly soil for Channing seed than the nineteenth. EMERSON Emerson was not a logician or reasoner, and not a rhetorician, in the common sense. He was a poet, who wrote chiefly in prose, but also in verse. His verse was usually rough, but sometimes finished and melodious; it was always extraordinarily concise and expressive. During his engagement to the lady who became his second wife, he wrote thus to her: "I am born a poet,--of a low class without doubt, yet a poet; that is my nature and vocation. My singing, be sure, is very husky, and is, for the most part, in prose. Still, I am a poet in the sense of a perceiver and dear lover of the harmonies that are in the soul and in matter, and specially of the correspondences between these and those." This husky poet had his living to get. His occupations in life were those of the teacher, minister, lecturer, and author. He was a teacher at various times between 1818 and 1826; but he never liked teaching. He was a preacher at intervals from 1826 to 1847, but a settled minister only from 1829 to 1832. His career as a lecturer began in the autumn of 1833; and his first book, "Nature," was published in 1836, when he was thirty-three years old. His lectures for money were given as a rule during the winter and early spring; and for thirty years the travelling he was obliged to do in search of audiences was often extremely fatiguing, and not without serious hardships and exposures. These occupations usually gave him an income sufficient for his simple wants; but there were times when outgo exceeded income. The little property his first wife left him ($1200 a year) relieved him from serious pecuniary anxiety by 1834; although it did not relieve him from earning by his own labor the livelihood of his family. In 1834 he went to live in Concord, where his grandfather had been the minister at the time of the Revolution, and in 1835 he bought the house and grounds there which were his home for the rest of his days. Before settling in Concord, he had spent one winter and spring (1826-27) in the Southern states, and seven months of 1833 in Europe. Both of these absences were necessitated by the state of his health, which was precarious during his young manhood. With these exceptions, he had lived in Boston or its immediate neighborhood, until he settled in Concord. His progenitors on both sides were chiefly New England ministers. His formal education was received in the Boston Latin School and Harvard College, and was therefore purely local. How narrow and provincial seems his experience of life! A little city, an isolated society, a country village! Yet through books, and through intercourse with intelligent persons, he was really "set in a large place." The proof of this largeness, and of the keenness of his mental and moral vision, is that, in regard to some of the chief concerns of mankind, he was a seer and a fore-seer. This prophetic quality of his I hope to demonstrate to-night in three great fields of thought--education, social organization, and religion. Although a prophet and inspirer of reform, Emerson was not a reformer. He was but a halting supporter of the reforms of his day; and the eager experimenters and combatants in actual reforms found him a disappointing sort of sympathizer. His visions were far-reaching, his doctrines often radical, and his exhortations fervid; but when it came to action, particularly to habitual action, he was surprisingly conservative. With an exquisite candor, and a gentle resolution of rarest quality he broke his strong ties to the Second Church of Boston before he was thirty years old, abandoning the profession for which he had been trained, and which, in many of its aspects, he honored and enjoyed; yet he attended church on Sundays all his life with uncommon regularity. He refused to conduct public prayer, and had many things to say against it; but when he was an Overseer of Harvard College, he twice voted to maintain the traditional policy of compelling all the students to attend morning prayers, in spite of the fact that a large majority of the Faculty urgently advocated abandoning that policy. He manifested a good deal of theoretical sympathy with the community experiments at Brook Farm and Fruitlands; but he declined to take part in them himself. He was intimate with many of the leading abolitionists; but no one has described more vividly their grave intellectual and social defects. He laid down principles which, when applied, would inevitably lead to progress and reform; but he took little part in the imperfect step-by-step process of actual reforming. He probably would have been an ineffective worker in any field of reform; and, at any rate, strenuous labor on applications of his philosophy would have prevented him from maintaining the flow of his philosophic and prophetic visions. The work of giving practical effect to his thought was left for other men to do,--indeed for generations of other serviceable men, who, filled with his ideals, will slowly work them out into institutions, customs, and other practical values. When we think of Emerson as a prophet, we at once become interested in the dates at which he uttered certain doctrines, or wrote certain pregnant sentences; but just here the inquirer meets a serious difficulty. He can sometimes ascertain that a given doctrine or sentence was published at a given date; but he may be quite unable to ascertain how much earlier the doctrine was really formulated, or the sentence written. Emerson has been dead twenty-one years, and it is thirty years since he wrote anything new; but his whole philosophy of life was developed by the time he was forty years old, and it may be doubted if he wrote anything after 1843, the germinal expression of which may not be found in his journals, sermons, or lectures written before that date. If, therefore, we find in the accepted thought, or established institutions, of to-day recent developments of principles and maxims laid down by Emerson, we may fairly say that his thought outran his times certainly by one, and probably by two generations of men. * * * * * I take up now the prophetic teachings of Emerson with regard to education. In the first place, he saw, with a clearness to which very few people have yet attained, the fundamental necessity of the school as the best civilizing agency, next to steady labor, and the only sure means of permanent and progressive reform. He says outright: "We shall one day learn to supersede politics by education. What we call our root-and-branch reforms, of slavery, war, gambling, intemperance, is only medicating the symptoms. We must begin higher up--namely, in education." He taught that if we hope to reform mankind, we must begin not with adults, but with children: we must begin in the school. There are some signs that this doctrine has now at last entered the minds of the so-called practical men. The Cubans are to be raised in the scale of civilization and public happiness; so both they and we think they must have more and better schools. The Filipinos, too, are to be developed after the American fashion; so we send them a thousand teachers of English. The Southern states are to be rescued from the persistent poison of slavery; and, after forty years of failure with political methods, we at last accept Emerson's doctrine, and say: We must begin earlier,--at school. The city slums are to be redeemed; and the scientific charity workers find the best way is to get the children into kindergartens and manual training schools. Since the Civil War, a whole generation of educational administrators has been steadily at work developing what is called the elective system in the institutions of education which deal with the ages above twelve. It has been a slow, step-by-step process, carried on against much active opposition and more sluggish obstruction. The system is a method of educational organization which recognizes the immense expansion of knowledge during the nineteenth century, and takes account of the needs and capacities of the individual child and youth. Now, Emerson laid down in plain terms the fundamental doctrines on which this elective system rests. He taught that the one prudence in life is concentration; the one evil, dissipation. He said: "You must elect your work: you shall take what your brain can, and drop all the rest." To this exhortation he added the educational reason for it,--only by concentration can the youth arrive at the stage of doing something with his knowledge, or get beyond the stage of absorbing, and arrive at the capacity for producing. As Emerson puts it, "Only so can that amount of vital force accumulate which can make the step from knowing to doing." The educational institutions of to-day have not yet fully appreciated this all-important step from knowing to doing. They are only beginning to perceive that, all along the course of education, the child and the youth should be doing something as well as learning something; should be stimulated and trained by achievement; should be constantly encouraged to take the step beyond seeing and memorizing to doing,--the step, as Emerson says, "out of a chalk circle of imbecility into fruitfulness." Emerson carried this doctrine right on into mature life. He taught that nature arms each man with some faculty, large or small, which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other, and thus makes him necessary to society; and that this faculty should determine the man's career. The advocates of the elective system have insisted that its results were advantageous for society as a whole, as well as for the individual. Emerson put this argument in a nutshell at least fifty years ago: "Society can never prosper, but must always be bankrupt, until every man does that which he was created to do." Education used to be given almost exclusively through books. In recent years there has come in another sort of education through tools, machines, gardens, drawings, casts, and pictures. Manual training, shop-work, sloyd, and gardening have come into use for the school ages; the teaching of trades has been admitted to some public school systems; and, in general, the use of the hands and eyes in productive labor has been recognized as having good educational effects. The education of men by manual labor was a favorite doctrine with Emerson. He had fully developed it as early as 1837, and he frequently recurred to it afterwards. In December of that year, in a course of lectures on Human Culture, he devoted one lecture to The Hands. He saw clearly that manual labor might be made to develop not only good mental qualities, but good moral qualities. To-day, it is frequently necessary for practical teachers, who are urging measures of improvement, to point this out, and to say, just as Emerson said two generations ago, that any falseness in mechanical work immediately appears; that a teacher can judge of the moral quality of each boy in the class before him better and sooner from manual work than from book-work. Emerson taught that manual labor is the study of the external world; that the use of manual labor never grows obsolete, and is inapplicable to no person. He said explicitly that "a man should have a farm or a mechanical craft for his culture"; that there is not only health, but education in garden work; that when a man gets sugar, hominy, cotton, buckets, crockery ware, and letter paper by simply signing his name to a cheque, it is the producers and carriers of these articles that have got the education they yield, he only the commodity; and that labor is God's education. This was Emerson's doctrine more than sixty years ago. It is only ten years since the Mechanic Arts High School was opened in Boston. We are all of us aware that within the last twenty years there has been a determined movement of the American people toward the cultivation of art, and toward the public provision of objects which open the sense of beauty and increase public enjoyment. It is curious to see how literally Emerson prophesied the actual direction of these efforts:-- "On the city's paved street Plant gardens lined with lilac sweet; Let spouting fountains cool the air, Singing in the sun-baked square; Let statue, picture, park, and hall, Ballad, flag, and festival The past restore, the day adorn, And make to-morrow a new morn!" We have introduced into our schools, of late years, lessons in drawing, modelling, and designing,--not sufficiently, but in a promising and hopeful way. Emerson taught that it is the office of art to educate the perception of beauty; and he precisely describes one of the most recent of the new tendencies in American education and social life, when he says: "Beauty must come back to the useful arts, and the distinction between the fine and the useful arts be forgotten." That sentence is the inspiration of one of the most recent of the efforts to improve the arts and crafts, and to restore to society the artistic craftsman. But how slow is the institutional realization of this ideal of art education! We are still struggling in our elementary and secondary schools to get a reasonable amount of instruction in drawing and music, and to transfer from other subjects a fair allotment of time to these invaluable elements of true culture, which speak a universal language. Yet the ultimate object of art in education is to teach men to see nature to be beautiful and at the same time useful, beautiful because alive and reproductive, useful while symmetrical and fair. Take up to-day the last essays on education, the last book on landscape architecture, or the freshest teachings of the principles of design, and you will find them penetrated with Emerson's doctrine of art as teacher of mankind. Emerson insists again and again that true culture must open the sense of beauty; that "a man is a beggar who only lives to the useful." It will probably require several generations yet to induce the American people to accept his doctrine that all moments and objects can be embellished, and that cheerfulness, serenity, and repose in energy are the "end of culture and success enough." It has been clearly perceived of late that a leading object in education is the cultivation of fine manners. On this point the teachings of Emerson are fundamental; but the American institutions of education are only beginning to appreciate their significance. He teaches that genius or love invents fine manners, "which the baron and the baroness copy very fast, and by the advantage of a palace better the instruction. They stereotype the lesson they have learned into a mode." There is much in that phrase, "by the advantage of a palace." For generations, American institutions of education were content with the humblest sort of shelters, with plain wooden huts and brick barracks, and unkempt grounds about the buildings. They are only lately beginning to acquire fine buildings with pleasing surroundings; that is, they are just beginning to carry into practice Emerson's wisdom of sixty years ago. The American cities are beginning to build handsome houses for their High Schools. Columbia University builds a noble temple for its library. The graduates and friends of Harvard like to provide her with a handsome fence round the Yard, with a fair array of shrubs within the fence, with a handsome stadium instead of shabby, wooden seats round the football gridiron, and to take steps for securing in the future broad connections between the grounds of the University and the Cambridge parks by the river. They are just now carrying into practice Emerson's teaching; by the advantage of a palace they mean to better Harvard's instruction in manners. They are accepting his doctrine that "manners make the fortune of the ambitious youth; that for the most part his manners marry him, and, for the most part, he marries manners. When we think what keys they are, and to what secrets; what high lessons, and inspiring tokens of character they convey, and what divination is required in us for the reading of this fine telegraph,--we see what range the subject has, and what relations to convenience, power, and beauty." In Emerson's early days there was nothing in our schools and colleges which at all corresponded to what we now know too much about under the name of athletic sports. The elaborate organization of these sports is a development of the last thirty years in our schools and colleges; but I find in Emerson the true reason for the athletic cult, given a generation before it existed among us. Your boy "hates the grammar and Gradus, and loves guns, fishing-rods, horses, and boats. Well, the boy is right, and you are not fit to direct his bringing-up, if your theory leaves out his gymnastic training.... Football, cricket, archery, swimming, skating, climbing, fencing, riding are lessons in the art of power, which it is his main business to learn.... Besides, the gun, fishing-rod, boat, and horse constitute, among all who use them, secret free-masonries." We shall never find a completer justification of athletic sports than that. In his memorable address on The American Scholar, which was given at Cambridge in 1837, Emerson pointed out that the function of the scholar should include creative action, or, as we call it in these days, research, or the search for new truth. He says: "The soul active ... utters truth, or creates.... In its essence it is progressive. The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius.... They look backward and not forward. But genius looks forward. Man hopes: genius creates. Whatever talents may be, if the man create not, the pure efflux of the Deity is not his;--cinders and smoke there may be, but not yet flame." And more explicitly still, he says: "Colleges have their indispensable office,--to teach elements. But they can only highly serve us when they aim not to drill, but to create." When Emerson wrote this passage, the spirit of research, or discovery, or creation had not yet breathed life into the higher institutions of learning in our country; and to-day they have much to do and to acquire before they will conform to Emerson's ideal. There are innumerable details in which Emerson anticipated the educational experiences of later generations. I can cite but two of them. He taught that each age must write its own books; "or rather, each generation for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will not fit this." How true that is in our own day when eighty thousand new books come from the press of the civilized world in a single year! Witness the incessant remaking or re-casting of the books of the preceding generation! Emerson himself has gone into thousands of books in which his name is never mentioned. Even history has to be re-written every few years, the long-surviving histories being rather monuments of style and method than accepted treasuries of facts. Again, contrary to the prevailing impression that the press has, in large measure, stripped eloquence of its former influence, Emerson taught that "if there ever was a country where eloquence was a power, it is the United States." He included under eloquence the useful speech, all sorts of political persuasion in the great arena of the Republic, and the lessons of science, art, and religion which should be "brought home to the instant practice of thirty millions of people," now become eighty. The colleges and universities have now answered in the affirmative Emerson's question, "Is it not worth the ambition of every generous youth to train and arm his mind with all the resources of knowledge, of method, of grace, and of character to serve such a constituency?" But then Emerson's definition of eloquence is simple, and foretells the practice of to-day rather than describes the practice of Webster, Everett, Choate, and Winthrop, his contemporaries: "Know your fact; hug your fact. For the essential thing is heat, and heat comes of sincerity.... Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak." * * * * * I turn next to some examples of Emerson's anticipation of social conditions, visible to him as seer in his own day, and since become plain to the sight of the ordinary millions. When he accumulated in his journals the original materials of his essay on Worship, there were no large cities in the United States in the present sense of that term. The great experiment of democracy was not far advanced, and had not developed many of its sins and dangers; yet how justly he presented them in the following description: "In our large cities, the population is godless, materialized,--no bond, no fellow-feeling, no enthusiasm. These are not men, but hungers, thirsts, fevers, and appetites walking. How is it people manage to live on, so aimless as they are? ... There is faith in chemistry, in meat and wine, in wealth, in machinery, in the steam-engine, galvanic battery, turbine wheels, sewing-machines, and in public opinion, but not in divine causes." In Emerson's day, luxury in the present sense had hardly been developed in our country; but he foresaw its coming, and its insidious destructiveness. "We spend our incomes for paint and paper, for a hundred trifles, I know not what, and not for the things of a man. Our expense is almost all for conformity. It is for cake that we run in debt; it is not the intellect, not the heart, not beauty, not worship, that costs us so much. Why needs any man be rich? Why must he have horses, fine garments, handsome apartments, access to public houses and places of amusement? Only for want of thought.... We are first thoughtless, and then find that we are moneyless. We are first sensual and then must be rich." He foresaw the young man's state of mind to-day about marriage--I must have money before I can marry; and deals with it thus: "Give us wealth and the home shall exist. But that is a very imperfect and inglorious solution of the problem, and therefore no solution. Give us wealth! You ask too much. Few have wealth; but all must have a home. Men are not born rich; in getting wealth the man is generally sacrificed, and often is sacrificed without acquiring wealth at last." We have come to understand by experience that the opinion of masses of men is a formidable power which can be made safe and useful. In earlier days this massed opinion was either despised or dreaded; and it is dreadful, if either confined or misdirected. Emerson compares it to steam. Studied, economized, and directed, steam has become the power by which all great labors are done. Like steam is the opinion of political masses! If crushed by castles, armies, and police, dangerously explosive; but if furnished with schools and the ballot, developing "the most harmless and energetic form of a state." His eyes were wide open to some of the evil intellectual effects of democracy. The individual is too apt to wear the time-worn yoke of the multitude's opinions. No multiplying of contemptible units can produce an admirable mass. "If I see nothing to admire in a unit, shall I admire a million units?" The habit of submitting to majority rule cultivates individual subserviency. He pointed out two generations ago that the action of violent political parties in a democracy might provide for the individual citizen a systematic training in moral cowardice. It is interesting, at the stage of industrial warfare which the world has now reached, to observe how Emerson, sixty years ago, discerned clearly the absurdity of paying all sorts of service at one rate, now a favorite notion with some labor unions. He points out that even when all labor is temporarily paid at one rate, differences in possessions will instantly arise: "In one hand the dime became an eagle as it fell, and in another hand a copper cent. For the whole value of the dime is in knowing what to do with it." Emerson was never deceived by a specious philanthropy, or by claims of equality which find no support in the nature of things. He was a true democrat, but still could say: "I think I see place and duties for a nobleman in every society; but it is not to drink wine and ride in a fine coach, but to guide and adorn life for the multitude by forethought, by elegant studies, by perseverance, self-devotion, and the remembrance of the humble old friend,--by making his life secretly beautiful." How fine a picture of the democratic nobility is that! In his lecture on Man the Reformer, which was read before the Mechanics' Apprentices' Association in Boston in January, 1841, Emerson described in the clearest manner the approaching strife between laborers and employers, between poor and rich, and pointed out the cause of this strife in the selfishness, unkindness, and mutual distrust which ran through the community. He also described, with perfect precision, the only ultimate remedy,--namely, the sentiment of love. "Love would put a new face on this weary old world in which we dwell as pagans and enemies too long.... The virtue of this principle in human society in application to great interests is obsolete and forgotten. But one day all men will be lovers; and every calamity will be dissolved in the universal sunshine." It is more than sixty years since those words were uttered, and in those years society has had large experience of industrial and social strife, of its causes and consequences, and of many attempts to remedy or soften it; but all this experience only goes to show that there is but one remedy for these ills. It is to be found in kindness, good fellowship, and the affections. In Emerson's words, "We must be lovers, and at once the impossible becomes possible." The world will wait long for this remedy, but there is no other. Like every real seer and prophet whose testimony is recorded, Emerson had intense sympathy with the poor, laborious, dumb masses of mankind, and being a wide reader in history and biography, he early arrived at the conviction that history needed to be written in a new manner. It was long before Green's History of the English People that Emerson wrote: "Hence it happens that the whole interest of history lies in the fortunes of the poor." In recent years this view of history has come to prevail, and we are given the stories of institutions, industries, commerce, crafts, arts, and beliefs, instead of the stories of dynasties and wars. For Emerson it is always feats of liberty and wit which make epochs of history. Commerce is civilizing because "the power which the sea requires in the sailor makes a man of him very fast." The invention of a house, safe against wild animals, frost, and heat, gives play to the finer faculties, and introduces art, manners, and social delights. The discovery of the post office is a fine metre of civilization. The sea-going steamer marks an epoch; the subjection of electricity to take messages and turn wheels marks another. But, after all, the vital stages of human progress are marked by steps toward personal, individual freedom. The love of liberty was Emerson's fundamental passion:-- "For He that ruleth high and wise, Nor pauseth in His plan, Will take the sun out of the skies Ere freedom out of man." The new National League of Independent Workmen of America has very appropriately taken its motto from Emerson:-- "For what avail the plough or sail Or land or life, if freedom fail?" The sympathetic reader of Emerson comes often upon passages written long ago which are positively startling in their anticipation of sentiments common to-day and apparently awakened by very recent events. One would suppose that the following passage was written yesterday. It was written fifty-six years ago. "And so, gentlemen, I feel in regard to this aged England, with the possessions, honors, and trophies, and also with the infirmities of a thousand years gathering around her, irretrievably committed as she now is to many old customs which cannot be suddenly changed; pressed upon by the transitions of trade, and new and all incalculable modes, fabrics, arts, machines, and competing populations,--I see her not dispirited, not weak, but well remembering that she has seen dark days before;--indeed with a kind of instinct that she sees a little better in a cloudy day, and that in storm of battle and calamity, she has a secret vigor and a pulse like a cannon." Before the Civil War the Jew had no such place in society as he holds to-day. He was by no means so familiar to Americans as he is now. Emerson speaks twice of the Jew in his essay on Fate, in terms precisely similar to those we commonly hear to-day: "We see how much will has been expended to extinguish the Jew, in vain.... The sufferance which is the badge of the Jew has made him in these days the ruler of the rulers of the earth." Those keen observations were made certainly more than forty years ago, and probably more than fifty. Landscape architecture is not yet an established profession among us, in spite of the achievements of Downing, Cleveland, and Olmsted and their disciples; yet much has been accomplished within the last twenty-five years to realize the predictions on this subject made by Emerson in his lecture on The Young American. He pointed out in that lecture that the beautiful gardens of Europe are unknown among us, but might be easily imitated here, and said that the landscape art "is the Fine Art which is left for us.... The whole force of all arts goes to facilitate the decoration of lands and dwellings.... I look on such improvement as directly tending to endear the land to the inhabitant." The following sentence might have been written yesterday, so consistent is it with the thought of to-day: "Whatever events in progress shall go to disgust men with cities, and infuse into them the passion for country life and country pleasures, will render a service to the whole face of this continent, and will further the most poetic of all the occupations of real life, the bringing out by art the native but hidden graces of the landscape." In regard to books, pictures, statues, collections in natural history, and all such refining objects of nature and art, which heretofore only the opulent could enjoy, Emerson pointed out that in America the public should provide these means of culture and inspiration for every citizen. He thus anticipated the present ownership by cities, or by endowed trustees, of parks, gardens, and museums of art or science, as well as of baths and orchestras. Of music in particular he said: "I think sometimes could I only have music on my own terms; could I ... know where I could go whenever I wished the ablution and inundation of musical waves,--that were a bath and a medicine." It has been a long road from that sentence, written probably in the forties, to the Symphony Orchestra in this Hall, and to the new singing classes on the East Side of New York City. For those of us who have attended to the outburst of novels and treatises on humble or squalid life, to the copious discussions on child-study, to the masses of slum literature, and to the numerous writings on home economics, how true to-day seems the following sentence written in 1837: "The literature of the poor, the feelings of the child, the philosophy of the street, the meaning of household life are the topics of the time." * * * * * I pass now to the last of the three topics which time permits me to discuss,--Emerson's religion. In no field of thought was Emerson more prophetic, more truly a prophet of coming states of human opinion, than in religion. In the first place, he taught that religion is absolutely natural,--not supernatural, but natural:-- "Out from the heart of Nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old." He believed that revelation is natural and continuous, and that in all ages prophets are born. Those souls out of time proclaim truth, which may be momentarily received with reverence, but is nevertheless quickly dragged down into some savage interpretation which by and by a new prophet will purge away. He believed that man is guided by the same power that guides beast and flower. "The selfsame power that brought me here brought you," he says to beautiful Rhodora. For him worship is the attitude of those "who see that against all appearances the nature of things works for truth and right forever." He saw good not only in what we call beauty, grace, and light, but in what we call foul and ugly. For him a sky-born music sounds "from all that's fair; from all that's foul:"-- "'Tis not in the high stars alone, Nor in the cups of budding flowers, Nor in the redbreast's mellow tone, Nor in the bow that smiles in showers, But in the mud and scum of things There alway, alway something sings." The universe was ever new and fresh in his eyes, not spent, or fallen, or degraded, but eternally tending upward:-- "No ray is dimmed, no atom worn, My oldest force is good as new, And the fresh rose on yonder thorn Gives back the bending heavens in dew." When we come to his interpretation of historical Christianity, we find that in his view the life and works of Jesus fell entirely within the field of human experience. He sees in the deification of Jesus an evidence of lack of faith in the infinitude of the individual human soul. He sees in every gleam of human virtue not only the presence of God, but some atom of His nature. As a preacher he had no tone of authority. A true non-conformist himself, he had no desire to impose his views on anybody. Religious truth, like all other truth, was to his thought an unrolling picture, not a deposit made once for all in some sacred vessel. When people who were sure they had drained that vessel, and assimilated its contents, attacked him, he was irresponsive or impassive, and yielded to them no juicy thought; so they pronounced him dry or empty. Yet all of Emerson's religious teaching led straight to God,--not to a withdrawn creator, or anthropomorphic judge or king, but to the all-informing, all-sustaining soul of the universe. It was a prophetic quality of Emerson's religious teaching that he sought to obliterate the distinction between secular and sacred. For him all things were sacred, just as the universe was religious. We see an interesting fruition of Emerson's sowing in the nature of the means of influence, which organized churches and devout people have, in these later days, been compelled to resort to. Thus the Catholic Church keeps its hold on its natural constituency quite as much by schools, gymnasiums, hospitals, entertainments, and social parades as it does by its rites and sacraments. The Protestant Churches maintain in city slums "settlements," which use the secular rather than the so-called sacred methods. The fight against drunkenness, and the sexual vice and crimes of violence which follow in its train, is most successfully maintained by eliminating its physical causes and providing mechanical and social protections. For Emerson inspiration meant not the rare conveyance of supernatural power to an individual, but the constant incoming into each man of the "divine soul which also inspires all men." He believed in the worth of the present hour:-- "Future or Past no richer secret folds, O friendless Present! than thy bosom holds." He believed that the spiritual force of human character imaged the divine:-- "The sun set, but set not his hope: Stars rose; his faith was earlier up: Fixed on the enormous galaxy, Deeper and older seemed his eye." Yet man is not an order of nature, but a stupendous antagonism, because he chooses and acts in his soul. "So far as a man thinks, he is free." It is interesting to-day, after all the long discussion of the doctrine of evolution, to see how the much earlier conceptions of Emerson match the thoughts of the latest exponents of the philosophic results of evolution. The present generation of scholars and ministers has been passing through an important crisis in regard to the sacred books of Judaism and Christianity. All the features of the contest over "the higher criticism" are foretold by Emerson in "The American Scholar." "The poet chanting was felt to be a divine man; henceforth the chant is divine also. The writer was a just and wise spirit; henceforward it is settled the book is perfect. Colleges are built on it; books are written on it.... Instantly the book becomes noxious; the guide is a tyrant." This is exactly what has happened to Protestantism, which substituted for infallible Pope and Church an infallible Book; and this is precisely the evil from which modern scholarship is delivering the world. In religion Emerson was only a nineteenth-century non-conformist instead of a fifteenth or seventeenth century one. It was a fundamental article in his creed that, although conformity is the virtue in most request, "Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist." In the midst of increasing luxury, and of that easygoing, unbelieving conformity which is itself a form of luxury, Boston, the birthplace of Emerson, may well remember with honor the generations of non-conformists who made her, and created the intellectual and moral climate in which Emerson grew up. Inevitably, to conformists and to persons who still accept doctrines and opinions which he rejected, he seems presumptuous and consequential. In recent days we have even seen the word "insolent" applied to this quietest and most retiring of seers. But have not all prophets and ethical teachers had something of this aspect to their conservative contemporaries? We hardly expect the messages of prophets to be welcome; they imply too much dissatisfaction with the present. The essence of Emerson's teaching concerning man's nature is compressed into the famous verse:-- "So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can." The cynic or the fall-of-man theologian replies--Grandeur indeed, say rather squalor and shame. To this ancient pessimism Emerson makes answer with a hard question--"We grant that human life is mean, but how did we find out that it was mean?" To this question no straight answer has been found, the common answer running in a circle. It is hard indeed to conceive of a measure which will measure depths but not heights; and besides, every measure implies a standard. * * * * * I have endeavored to set before you some of the practical results of Emerson's visions and intuitions, because, though quite unfit to expound his philosophical views, I am capable of appreciating some of the many instances in which his words have come true in the practical experience of my own generation. My own work has been a contribution to the prosaic, concrete work of building, brick by brick, the new walls of old American institutions of education. As a young man I found the writings of Emerson unattractive, and not seldom unintelligible. I was concerned with physical science, and with routine teaching and discipline; and Emerson's thinking seemed to me speculative and visionary. In regard to religious belief, I was brought up in the old-fashioned Unitarian conservatism of Boston, which was rudely shocked by Emerson's excursions beyond its well-fenced precincts. But when I had got at what proved to be my lifework for education, I discovered in Emerson's poems and essays all the fundamental motives and principles of my own hourly struggle against educational routine and tradition, and against the prevailing notions of discipline for the young; so when I was asked to speak to you to-night about him, although I realized my unfitness in many respects for such a function, I could not refuse the opportunity to point out how many of the sober, practical undertakings of to-day had been anticipated in all their principles by this solitary, shrewd, independent thinker, who, in an inconsecutive and almost ejaculatory way, wrought out many sentences and verses which will travel far down the generations. I was also interested in studying in this example the quality of prophets in general. We know a good deal about the intellectual ancestors and inspirers of Emerson; and we are sure that he drank deep at many springs of idealism and poetry. Plato, Confucius, Shakespeare, and Milton were of his teachers; Oken, Lamarck, and Lyell lent him their scientific theories; and Channing stirred the residuum which came down to him through his forbears from Luther, Calvin, and Edwards. All these materials he transmuted and moulded into lessons which have his own individual quality and bear his stamp. The precise limits of his individuality are indeterminable, and inquiry into them would be unprofitable. In all probability the case would prove to be much the same with most of the men that the world has named prophets, if we knew as much of their mental history as we know of Emerson's. With regard to the Semitic prophets and seers, it is reasonable to expect that as Semitic exploration and discovery advance, the world will learn much about the historical and poetical sources of their inspiration. Then the Jewish and Christian peoples may come nearer than they do now to Emerson's conceptions of inspiration and worship, of the naturalness of revelation and religion, and of the infinite capacities of man. Meantime, it is an indisputable fact that Emerson's thought has proved to be consonant with the most progressive and fruitful thinking and acting of two generations since his working time. This fact, and the sweetness, fragrance, and loftiness of his spirit, prophesy for him an enduring power in the hearts and lives of spiritually-minded men. 
11174	----	FOUR GREAT AMERICANS WASHINGTON FRANKLIN WEBSTER LINCOLN A BOOK FOR YOUNG AMERICANS BY JAMES BALDWIN, PH.D. CONTENTS THE STORY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON CHAPTER I WHEN WASHINGTON WAS A BOY II HIS HOMES III HIS SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS IV GOING TO SEA V THE YOUNG SURVEYOR VI THE OHIO COUNTRY VII A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCES VIII A PERILOUS JOURNEY IX HIS FIRST BATTLE X THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR XI THE MUTTERINGS OF THE STORM XII THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR XIII INDEPENDENCE XIV THE FIRST PRESIDENT XV "FIRST IN THE HEARTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN" THE STORY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN CHAPTER I THE WHISTLE II SCHOOLDAYS III THE BOYS AND THE WHARF IV CHOOSING A TRADE V HOW FRANKLIN EDUCATED HIMSELF VI FAREWELL TO BOSTON VII THE FIRST DAY IN PHILADELPHIA VIII GOVERNOR WILLIAM KEITH IX THE RETURN TO PHILADELPHIA X THE FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND XI A LEADING MAN IN PHILADELPHIA XII FRANKLIN'S RULES OF LIFE XIII FRANKLIN'S SERVICES TO THE COLONIES XIV FRANKLIN'S WONDERFUL KITE XV THE LAST YEARS THE STORY OF DANIEL WEBSTER CHAPTER I CAPTAIN WEBSTER II THE YOUNGEST SON III EZEKIEL AND DANIEL IV PLANS FOR THE FUTURE V AT EXETER ACADEMY VI GETTING READY FOR COLLEGE VII AT DARTMOUTH COLLEGE VIII HOW DANIEL TAUGHT SCHOOL IX DANIEL GOES TO BOSTON X LAWYER AND CONGRESSMAN XI THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE XII WEBSTER'S GREAT ORATIONS XIII MR. WEBSTER IN THE SENATE XIV MR. WEBSTER IN PRIVATE LIFE XV THE LAST YEARS THE STORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN CHAPTER I THE KENTUCKY HOME II WORK AND SORROW III THE NEW MOTHER IV SCHOOL AND BOOKS V LIFE IN THE BACKWOODS VI THE BOATMAN VII THE FIRST YEARS IN ILLINOIS VIII THE BLACK HAWK WAR IX IN THE LEGISLATURE X POLITICS AND MARRIAGE XI CONGRESSMAN AND LAWYER XII THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY XIII LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS XIV PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES XV THE END OF A GREAT LIFE THE STORY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON [Illustration of George Washington] THE STORY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON * * * * * I.--WHEN WASHINGTON WAS A BOY. When George Washington was a boy there was no United States. The land was here, just as it is now, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific; but nearly all of it was wild and unknown. Between the Atlantic Ocean and the Alleghany Mountains there were thirteen colonies, or great settlements. The most of the people who lived in these colonies were English people, or the children of English people; and so the King of England made their laws and appointed their governors. The newest of the colonies was Georgia, which was settled the year after George Washington was born. The oldest colony was Virginia, which had been settled one hundred and twenty-five years. It was also the richest colony, and more people were living in it than in any other. There were only two or three towns in Virginia at that time, and they were quite small. Most of the people lived on farms or on big plantations, where they raised whatever they needed to eat. They also raised tobacco, which they sent to England to be sold. The farms, or plantations, were often far apart, with stretches of thick woods between them. Nearly every one was close to a river, or some other large body of water; for there are many rivers in Virginia. There were no roads, such as we have nowadays, but only paths through the woods. When people wanted to travel from place to place, they had to go on foot, or on horseback, or in small boats. A few of the rich men who lived on the big plantations had coaches; and now and then they would drive out in grand style behind four or six horses, with a fine array of servants and outriders following them. But they could not drive far where there were no roads, and we can hardly understand how they got any pleasure out of it. Nearly all the work on the plantations was done by slaves. Ships had been bringing negroes from Africa for more than a hundred years, and now nearly half the people in Virginia were blacks. Very often, also, poor white men from England were sold as slaves for a few years in order to pay for their passage across the ocean. When their freedom was given to them they continued to work at whatever they could find to do; or they cleared small farms in the woods for themselves, or went farther to the west and became woodsmen and hunters. There was but very little money in Virginia at that time, and, indeed, there was not much use for it. For what could be done with money where there were no shops worth speaking of, and no stores, and nothing to buy? The common people raised flax and wool, and wove their own cloth; and they made their own tools and furniture. The rich people did the same; but for their better or finer goods they sent to England. For you must know that in all this country there were no great mills for spinning and weaving as there are now; there were no factories of any kind; there were no foundries where iron could be melted and shaped into all kinds of useful and beautiful things. When George Washington was a boy the world was not much like it is now. * * * * * II.--HIS HOMES. George Washington's father owned a large plantation on the western shore of the Potomac River. George's great-grandfather, John Washington, had settled upon it nearly eighty years before, and there the family had dwelt ever since. This plantation was in Westmoreland county, not quite forty miles above the place where the Potomac flows into Chesapeake Bay. By looking at your map of Virginia, you will see that the river is very broad there. On one side of the plantation, and flowing through it, there was a creek, called Bridge's Creek; and for this reason the place was known as the Bridge's Creek Plantation. It was here, on the 22d of February, 1732, that George Washington was born. Although his father was a rich man, the house in which he lived was neither very large nor very fine--at least it would not be thought so now. It was a square, wooden building, with four rooms on the ground floor and an attic above. The eaves were low, and the roof was long and sloping. At each end of the house there was a huge chimney; and inside were big fireplaces, one for the kitchen and one for the "great room" where visitors were received. But George did not live long in this house. When he was about three years old his father removed to another plantation which he owned, near Hunting Creek, several miles farther up the river. This new plantation was at first known as the Washington Plantation, but it is now called Mount Vernon. Four years after this the house of the Washingtons was burned down. But Mr. Washington had still other lands on the Rappahannock River. He had also an interest in some iron mines that were being opened there. And so to this place the family was now taken. The house by the Rappahannock was very much like the one at Bridge's Creek. It stood on high ground, overlooking the river and some low meadows; and on the other side of the river was the village of Fredericksburg, which at that time was a very small village, indeed. George was now about seven years old. * * * * * III.--HIS SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS. There were no good schools in Virginia at that time. In fact, the people did not care much about learning. There were few educated men besides the parsons, and even some of the parsons were very ignorant. It was the custom of some of the richest families to send their eldest sons to England to the great schools there. But it is doubtful if these young men learned much about books. They spent a winter or two in the gay society of London, and were taught the manners of gentlemen--and that was about all. George Washington's father, when a young man, had spent some time at Appleby School in England, and George's half-brothers, Lawrence and Augustine, who were several years older than he, had been sent to the same school. But book-learning was not thought to be of much use. To know how to manage the business of a plantation, to be polite to one's equals, to be a leader in the affairs of the colony--this was thought to be the best education. And so, for most of the young men, it was enough if they could read and write a little and keep a few simple accounts. As for the girls, the parson might give them a few lessons now and then; and if they learned good manners and could write letters to their friends, what more could they need? George Washington's first teacher was a poor sexton, whose name was Mr. Hobby. There is a story that he had been too poor to pay his passage from England, and that he had, therefore, been sold to Mr. Washington as a slave for a short time; but how true this is, I cannot say. From Mr. Hobby, George learned to spell easy words, and perhaps to write a little; but, although he afterward became a very careful and good penman, he was a poor speller as long as he lived. When George was about eleven years old his father died. We do not know what his father's intentions had been regarding him. But possibly, if he had lived, he would have given George the best education that his means would afford. But now everything was changed. The plantation at Hunting Creek, and, indeed, almost all the rest of Mr. Washington's great estate, became the property of the eldest son, Lawrence. George was sent to Bridge's Creek to live for a while with his brother Augustine, who now owned the old home plantation there. The mother and the younger children remained on the Rappahannock farm. While at Bridge's Creek, George was sent to school to a Mr. Williams, who had lately come from England. There are still to be seen some exercises which the lad wrote at that time. There is also a little book, called _The Young Man's Companion_, from which he copied, with great care, a set of rules for good behavior and right living. Not many boys twelve years old would care for such a book nowadays. But you must know that in those days there were no books for children, and, indeed, very few for older people. The maxims and wise sayings which George copied were, no doubt, very interesting to him--so interesting that many of them were never forgotten. There are many other things also in this _Young Man's Companion_, and we have reason to believe that George studied them all. There are short chapters on arithmetic and surveying, rules for the measuring of land and lumber, and a set of forms for notes, deeds, and other legal documents. A knowledge of these things was, doubtless, of greater importance to him than the reading of many books would have been. Just what else George may have studied in Mr. Williams's school I cannot say. But all this time he was growing to be a stout, manly boy, tall and strong, and well-behaved. And both his brothers and himself were beginning to think of what he should do when he should become a man. * * * * * IV.--GOING TO SEA. Once every summer a ship came up the river to the plantation, and was moored near the shore. It had come across the sea from far-away England, and it brought many things for those who were rich enough to pay for them. It brought bonnets and pretty dresses for George's mother and sisters; it brought perhaps a hat and a tailor-made suit for himself; it brought tools and furniture, and once a yellow coach that had been made in London, for his brother. When all these things had been taken ashore, the ship would hoist her sails and go on, farther up the river, to leave goods at other plantations. In a few weeks it would come back and be moored again at the same place. Then there was a busy time on shore. The tobacco that had been raised during the last year must be carried on shipboard to be taken to the great tobacco markets in England. The slaves on the plantation were running back and forth, rolling barrels and carrying bales of tobacco down to the landing. Letters were written to friends in England, and orders were made out for the goods that were to be brought back next year. But in a day or two, all this stir was over. The sails were again spread, and the ship glided away on its long voyage across the sea. George had seen this ship coming and going every year since he could remember. He must have thought how pleasant it would be to sail away to foreign lands and see the many wonderful things that are there. And then, like many another active boy, he began to grow tired of the quiet life on the farm, and wish that he might be a sailor. He was now about fourteen years old. Since the death of his father, his mother had found it hard work, with her five children, to manage her farm on the Rappahannock and make everything come out even at the end of each year. Was it not time that George should be earning something for himself? But what should he do? He wanted to go to sea. His brother Lawrence, and even his mother, thought that this might be the best thing. A bright boy like George would not long be a common sailor. He would soon make his way to a high place in the king's navy. So, at least, his friends believed. And so the matter was at last settled. A sea-captain who was known to the family, agreed to take George with him. He was to sail in a short time. The day came. His mother, his brothers, his sisters, were all there to bid him good-bye. But in the meanwhile a letter had come to his mother, from his uncle who lived in England. "If you care for the boy's future," said the letter, "do not let him go to sea. Places in the king's navy are not easy to obtain. If he begins as a sailor, he will never be aught else." The letter convinced George's mother--it half convinced his brothers--that this going to sea would be a sad mistake. But George, like other boys of his age, was headstrong. He would not listen to reason. A sailor he would be. The ship was in the river waiting for him. A boat had come to the landing to take him on board. The little chest which held his clothing had been carried down to the bank. George was in high glee at the thought of going. "Good-bye, mother," he said. He stood on the doorstep and looked back into the house. He saw the kind faces of those whom he loved. He began to feel very sad at the thought of leaving them. "Good-bye, George!" He saw the tears welling up in his mother's eyes. He saw them rolling down her cheeks. He knew now that she did not want him to go. He could not bear to see her grief. "Mother, I have changed my mind," he said. "I will not be a sailor. I will not leave you." Then he turned to the black boy who was waiting by the door, and said, "Run down to the landing and tell them not to put the chest on board. Tell them that I have thought differently of the matter and that I am going to stay at home." If George had not changed his mind, but had really gone to sea, how very different the history of this country would have been! He now went to his studies with a better will than before; and although he read but few books he learned much that was useful to him in life. He studied surveying with especial care, and made himself as thorough in that branch of knowledge as it was possible to do with so few advantages. * * * * * V.--THE YOUNG SURVEYOR. Lawrence Washington was about fourteen years older than his brother George. As I have already said, he had been to England and had spent sometime at Appleby school. He had served in the king's army for a little while, and had been with Admiral Vernon's squadron in the West Indies. He had formed so great a liking for the admiral that when he came home he changed the name of his plantation at Hunting Creek, and called it Mount Vernon--a name by which it is still known. Not far from Mount Vernon there was another fine plantation called Belvoir, that was owned by William Fairfax, an English gentleman of much wealth and influence. Now this Mr. Fairfax had a young daughter, as wise as she was beautiful; and so, what should Lawrence Washington do but ask her to be his wife? He built a large house at Mount Vernon with a great porch fronting on the Potomac; and when Miss Fairfax became Mrs. Washington and went into this home as its mistress, people said that there was not a handsomer or happier young couple in all Virginia. After young George Washington had changed his mind about going to sea, he went up to Mount Vernon to live with his elder brother. For Lawrence had great love for the boy, and treated him as his father would have done. At Mount Vernon George kept on with his studies in surveying. He had a compass and surveyor's chain, and hardly a day passed that he was not out on the plantation, running lines and measuring his brother's fields. Sometimes when he was busy at this kind of work, a tall, white-haired gentleman would come over from Belvoir to see what he was doing and to talk with him. This gentleman was Sir Thomas Fairfax, a cousin of the owner of Belvoir. He was sixty years old, and had lately come from England to look after his lands in Virginia; for he was the owner of many thousands of acres among the mountains and in the wild woods. Sir Thomas was a courtly old gentleman, and he had seen much of the world. He was a fine scholar; he had been a soldier, and then a man of letters; and he belonged to a rich and noble family. It was not long until he and George were the best of friends. Often they would spend the morning together, talking or surveying; and in the afternoon they would ride out with servants and hounds, hunting foxes and making fine sport of it among the woods and hills. And when Sir Thomas Fairfax saw how manly and brave his young friend was, and how very exact and careful in all that he did, he said: "Here is a boy who gives promise of great things. I can trust him." Before the winter was over he had made a bargain with George to survey his lands that lay beyond the Blue Ridge mountains. I have already told you that at this time nearly all the country west of the mountains was a wild and unknown region. In fact, all the western part of Virginia was an unbroken wilderness, with only here and there a hunter's camp or the solitary hut of some daring woodsman. But Sir Thomas hoped that by having the land surveyed, and some part of it laid out into farms, people might be persuaded to go there and settle. And who in all the colony could do this work better than his young friend, George Washington? It was a bright day in March, 1748, when George started out on his first trip across the mountains. His only company was a young son of William Fairfax of Belvoir. The two friends were mounted on good horses; and both had guns, for there was fine hunting in the woods. It was nearly a hundred miles to the mountain-gap through which they passed into the country beyond. As there were no roads, but only paths through the forest, they could not travel very fast. After several days they reached the beautiful valley of the Shenandoah. They now began their surveying. They went up the river for some distance; then they crossed and went down on the other side. At last they reached the Potomac River, near where Harper's Ferry now stands. At night they slept sometimes by a camp-fire in the woods, and sometimes in the rude hut of a settler or a hunter. They were often wet and cold. They cooked their meat by broiling it on sticks above the coals. They ate without dishes, and drank water from the running streams. One day they met a party of Indians, the first red men they had seen. There were thirty of them, with their bodies painted in true savage style; for they were just going home from a war with some other tribe. The Indians were very friendly to the young surveyors. It was evening, and they built a huge fire under the trees. Then they danced their war-dance around it, and sang and yelled and made hideous sport until far in the night. To George and his friend it was a strange sight; but they were brave young men, and not likely to be afraid even though the danger had been greater. They had many other adventures in the woods of which I cannot tell you in this little book--shooting wild game, swimming rivers, climbing mountains. But about the middle of April they returned in safety to Mount Vernon. It would seem that the object of this first trip was to get a general knowledge of the extent of Sir Thomas Fairfax's great woodland estate--to learn where the richest bottom lands lay, and where were the best hunting-grounds. The young men had not done much if any real surveying; they had been exploring. George Washington had written an account of everything in a little note-book which he carried with him. Sir Thomas was so highly pleased with the report which the young men brought back that he made up his mind to move across the Blue Ridge and spend the rest of his life on his own lands. And so, that very summer, he built in the midst of the great woods a hunting lodge which he called Greenway Court. It was a large, square house, with broad gables and a long roof sloping almost to the ground. When he moved into this lodge he expected soon to build a splendid mansion and make a grand home there, like the homes he had known in England. But time passed, and as the lodge was roomy and comfortable, he still lived in it and put off beginning another house. Washington was now seventeen years old. Through the influence of Sir Thomas Fairfax he was appointed public surveyor; and nothing would do but that he must spend the most of his time at Greenway Court and keep on with the work that he had begun. For the greater part of three years he worked in the woods and among the mountains, surveying Sir Thomas's lands. And Sir Thomas paid him well--a doubloon ($8.24) for each day, and more than that if the work was very hard. But there were times when the young surveyor did not go out to work, but stayed at Greenway Court with his good friend, Sir Thomas. The old gentleman had something of a library, and on days when they could neither work nor hunt, George spent the time in reading. He read the _Spectator_ and a history of England, and possibly some other works. And so it came about that the three years which young Washington spent in surveying were of much profit to him. The work in the open air gave him health and strength. He gained courage and self-reliance. He became acquainted with the ways of the backwoodsmen and of the savage Indians. And from Sir Thomas Fairfax he learned a great deal about the history, the laws, and the military affairs of old England. And in whatever he undertook to do or to learn, he was careful and systematic and thorough. He did nothing by guess; he never left anything half done. And therein, let me say to you, lie the secrets of success in any calling. * * * * * VI.--THE OHIO COUNTRY. You have already learned how the English people had control of all that part of our country which borders upon the Atlantic Ocean. You have learned, also, that they had made thirteen great settlements along the coast, while all the vast region west of the mountains remained a wild and unknown land. Now, because Englishmen had been the first white men to see the line of shore that stretches from Maine to Georgia, they set up a claim to all the land west of that line. They had no idea how far the land extended. They knew almost nothing about its great rivers, its vasts forests, its lofty mountains, its rich prairies. They cared nothing for the claims of the Indians whose homes were there. "All the land from ocean to ocean," they said, "belongs to the King of England." But there were other people who also had something to say about this matter. The French had explored the Mississippi River. They had sailed on the Great Lakes. Their hunters and trappers were roaming through the western forests. They had made treaties with the Indians; and they had built trading posts, here and there, along the watercourses. They said, "The English people may keep their strip of land between the mountains and the sea. But these great river valleys and this country around the Lakes are ours, because we have been the first to explore and make use of them." Now, about the time that George Washington was thinking of becoming a sailor, some of the rich planters in Virginia began to hear wonderful stories about a fertile region west of the Alleghanies, watered by a noble river, and rich in game and fur-bearing animals. This region was called the Ohio Country, from the name of the river; and those who took pains to learn the most about it were satisfied that it would, at some time, be of very great importance to the people who should control it. And so these Virginian planters and certain Englishmen formed a company called the Ohio Company, the object of which was to explore the country, and make money by establishing trading posts and settlements there. And of this company, Lawrence Washington was one of the chief managers. Lawrence Washington and his brother George had often talked about this enterprise. "We shall have trouble with the French," said Lawrence. "They have already sent men into the Ohio Country; and they are trying in every way to prove that the land belongs to them." "It looks as if we should have to drive them out by force," said George. "Yes, and there will probably be some hard fighting," said Lawrence; "and you, as a young man, must get yourself ready to have a hand in it." And Lawrence followed this up by persuading the governor of the colony to appoint George as one of the adjutants-general of Virginia. George was only nineteen years old, but he was now Major Washington, and one of the most promising soldiers in America. * * * * * VII.--A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. Although George Washington spent so much of his time at Greenway Court, he still called Mount Vernon his home. Going down home in the autumn, just before he was twenty years old, he found matters in a sad state, and greatly changed. His brother Lawrence was very ill--indeed, he had been ill a long time. He had tried a trip to England; he had spent a summer at the warm springs; but all to no purpose. He was losing strength every day. The sick man dreaded the coming of cold weather. If he could only go to the warm West Indies before winter set in, perhaps that would prolong his life. Would George go with him? No loving brother could refuse a request like that. The captain of a ship in the West India trade agreed to take them; and so, while it was still pleasant September, the two Washingtons embarked for Barbadoes, which, then as now, belonged to the English. It was the first time that George had ever been outside of his native land, and it proved to be also the last. He took careful notice of everything that he saw; and, in the little note-book which he seems to have always had with him, he wrote a brief account of the trip. He had not been three weeks at Barbadoes before he was taken down with the smallpox; and for a month he was very sick. And so his winter in the West Indies could not have been very pleasant. In February the two brothers returned home to Mount Vernon. Lawrence's health had not been bettered by the journey. He was now very feeble; but he lingered on until July, when he died. By his will Lawrence Washington left his fine estate of Mount Vernon, and all the rest of his wealth, to his little daughter. But George was to be the daughter's guardian; and in case of her death, all her vast property was to be his own. And so, before he was quite twenty-one years old, George Washington was settled at Mount Vernon as the manager of one of the richest estates in Virginia. The death of his little niece not long afterward made him the owner of this estate, and, of course, a very wealthy man. But within a brief time, events occurred which called him away from his peaceful employments. * * * * * VIII.--A PERILOUS JOURNEY. Early the very next year news was brought to Virginia that the French were building forts along the Ohio, and making friends with the Indians there. This of course meant that they intended to keep the English out of that country. The governor of Virginia thought that the time had come to speak out about this matter. He would send a messenger with a letter to these Frenchmen, telling them that all the land belonged to the English, and that no trespassing would be allowed. The first messenger that he sent became alarmed before he was within a hundred miles of a Frenchman, and went back to say that everything was as good as lost. It was very plain that a man with some courage must be chosen for such an undertaking. "I will send Major George Washington," said the governor. "He is very young, but he is the bravest man in the colony." Now, promptness was one of those traits of character which made George Washington the great man which he afterward became. And so, on the very day that he received his appointment he set out for the Ohio Country. He took with him three white hunters, two Indians, and a famous woodsman, whose name was Christopher Gist. A small tent or two, and such few things as they would need on the journey, were strapped on the backs of horses. They pushed through the woods in a northwestwardly direction, and at last reached a place called Venango, not very far from where Pittsburg now stands. This was the first outpost of the French; and here Washington met some of the French officers, and heard them talk about what they proposed to do. Then, after a long ride to the north, they came to another fort. The French commandant was here, and he welcomed Washington with a great show of kindness. Washington gave him the letter which he had brought from the governor of Virginia. The commandant read it, and two days afterward gave him an answer. He said that he would forward the letter to the French governor; but as for the Ohio Country, he had been ordered to hold it, and he meant to do so. Of course Washington could do nothing further. But it was plain to him that the news ought to be carried back to Virginia without delay. It was now mid-winter. As no horse could travel through the trackless woods at this time of year, he must make his way on foot. So, with only the woodsman, Gist, he shouldered his rifle and knapsack, and bravely started home. It was a terrible journey. The ground was covered with snow; the rivers were frozen; there was not even a path through the forest. If Gist had not been so fine a woodsman they would hardly have seen Virginia again. Once an Indian shot at Washington from behind a tree. Once the brave young man fell into a river, among floating ice, and would have been drowned but for Gist. At last they reached the house of a trader on the Monongahela River. There they were kindly welcomed, and urged to stay until the weather should grow milder. But Washington would not delay. Sixteen days after that, he was back in Virginia, telling the governor all about his adventures, and giving his opinion about the best way to deal with the French. * * * * * IX.--HIS FIRST BATTLE. It was now very plain that if the English were going to hold the Ohio Country and the vast western region which they claimed as their own, they must fight for it. The people of Virginia were not very anxious to go to war. But their governor was not willing to be beaten by the French. He made George Washington a lieutenant-colonel of Virginia troops, and set about raising an army to send into the Ohio Country. Early in the spring Colonel Washington, with a hundred and fifty men, was marching across the country toward the head waters of the Ohio. It was a small army to advance against the thousands of French and Indians who now held that region. But other officers, with stronger forces, were expected to follow close behind. Late in May the little army reached the valley of the Monongahela, and began to build a fort at a place called Great Meadows. By this time the French and Indians were aroused, and hundreds of them were hurrying forward to defend the Ohio Country from the English. One of their scouting parties, coming up the river, was met by Washington with forty men. The French were not expecting any foe at this place. There were but thirty-two of them; and of these only one escaped. Ten were killed, and the rest were taken prisoners. This was Washington's first battle, and he was more proud of it than you might suppose. He sent his prisoners to Virginia, and was ready now, with his handful of men, to meet all the French and Indians that might come against him! And they did come, and in greater numbers than he had expected. He made haste to finish, if possible, the fort that had been begun. But they were upon him before he was ready. They had four men to his one. They surrounded the fort and shut his little Virginian army in. What could Colonel Washington do? His soldiers were already half-starved. There was but little food in the fort, and no way to get any more. The French leader asked if he did not think it would be a wise thing to surrender. Washington hated the very thought of it; but nothing else could be done. "If you will march your men straight home, and give me a pledge that they and all Virginians will stay out of the Ohio Country for the next twelve months, you may go," said the Frenchman. It was done. Washington, full of disappointment went back to Mount Vernon. But he felt more like fighting than ever before. He was now twenty-two years old. * * * * * X.--THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. In the meanwhile the king of England had heard how the French were building forts along the Ohio and how they were sending their traders to the Great Lakes and to the valley of the Mississippi. "If we allow them to go on in this way, they will soon take all that vast western country away from us," he said. And so, the very next winter, he sent over an army under General Edward Braddock to drive the French out of that part of America and at the same time teach their Indian friends a lesson. It was in February, 1755, when General Braddock and his troops went into camp at Alexandria in Virginia. As Alexandria was only a few miles from Mount Vernon, Washington rode over to see the fine array and become acquainted with the officers. When General Braddock heard that this was the young man who had ventured so boldly into the Ohio Country, he offered him a place on his staff. This was very pleasing to Washington, for there was nothing more attractive to him than soldiering. It was several weeks before the army was ready to start: and then it moved so slowly that it did not reach the Monongahela until July. The soldiers in their fine uniforms made a splendid appearance as they marched in regular order across the country. Benjamin Franklin, one of the wisest men in America, had told General Braddock that his greatest danger would be from unseen foes hidden among the underbrush and trees. "They may be dangerous to your backwoodsmen," said Braddock; "but to the trained soldiers of the king they can give no trouble at all." But scarcely had the army crossed the Monongahela when it was fired upon by unseen enemies. The woods rang with the cries of savage men. The soldiers knew not how to return the fire. They were shot down in their tracks like animals in a pen. "Let the men take to the shelter of the trees!" was Washington's advice. But Braddock would not listen to it. They must keep in order and fight as they had been trained to fight. Washington rode hither and thither trying his best to save the day. Two horses were shot under him; four bullets passed through his coat; and still he was unhurt. The Indians thought that he bore a charmed life, for none of them could hit him. It was a dreadful affair--more like a slaughter than a battle. Seven hundred of Braddock's fine soldiers, and more than half of his officers, were killed or wounded. And all this havoc was made by two hundred Frenchmen and about six hundred Indians hidden among the trees. At last Braddock gave the order to retreat. It soon became a wild flight rather than a retreat; and yet, had it not been for Washington, it would have been much worse. The General himself had been fatally wounded. There was no one but Washington who could restore courage to the frightened men, and lead them safely from the place of defeat. Four days after the battle General Braddock died, and the remnant of the army being now led by a Colonel Dunbar, hurried back to the eastern settlements. Of all the men who took part in that unfortunate expedition against the French, there was only one who gained any renown therefrom, and that one was Colonel George Washington. He went back to Mount Vernon, wishing never to be sent to the Ohio Country again. The people of Virginia were so fearful lest the French and Indians should follow up their victory and attack the settlements, that they quickly raised a regiment of a thousand men to defend their colony. And so highly did they esteem Colonel Washington that they made him commander of all the forces of the colony, to do with them as he might deem best. The war with the French for the possession of the Ohio Country and the valley of the Mississippi, had now fairly begun. It would be more than seven years before it came to an end. But most of the fighting was done at the north--in New York and Canada; and so Washington and his Virginian soldiers did not distinguish themselves in any very great enterprise. It was for them to keep watch of the western frontier of the colony lest the Indians should cross the mountains and attack the settlements. Once, near the middle of the war, Washington led a company into the very country where he had once traveled on foot with Christopher Gist. The French had built a fort at the place where the Ohio River has its beginning, and they had named it Fort Duquesne. When they heard that Washington was coming they set fire to the fort and fled down the river in boats. The English built a new fort at the same place, and called it Fort Pitt; and there the city of Pittsburg has since grown up. And now Washington resigned his commission as commander of the little Virginian army. Perhaps he was tired of the war. Perhaps his great plantation of Mount Vernon needed his care. We cannot tell. But we know that, a few days later, he was married to Mrs. Martha Custis, a handsome young widow who owned a fine estate not a great way from Williamsburg, the capital of the colony. This was in January, 1759. At about the same time he was elected a member of the House of Burgesses of Virginia; and three months later, he went down to Williamsburg to have a hand in making some of the laws for the colony. He was now twenty-seven years old. Young as he was, he was one of the richest men in the colony, and he was known throughout the country as the bravest of American soldiers. The war was still going on at the north. To most of the Virginians it seemed to be a thing far away. At last, in 1763, a treaty of peace was made. The French had been beaten, and they were obliged to give up everything to the English. They lost not only the Ohio Country and all the great West, but Canada also. * * * * * XI.--THE MUTTERINGS OF THE STORM. And now for several years Washington lived the life of a country gentleman. He had enough to do, taking care of his plantations, hunting foxes with his sport-loving neighbors, and sitting for a part of each year in the House of Burgesses at Williamsburg. He was a tall man--more than six feet in height. He had a commanding presence and a noble air, which plainly said: "This is no common man." [Illustration: Mount Vernon.] [Illustration: Tomb at Mount Vernon.] He was shrewd in business. He was the best horseman and the best walker in Virginia. And no man knew more about farming than he. And so the years passed pleasantly enough at Mount Vernon, and there were few who dreamed of the great events and changes that were soon to take place. King George the Third of England, who was the ruler of the thirteen colonies, had done many unwise things. He had made laws forbidding the colonists from trading with other countries than his own. He would not let them build factories to weave their wool and flax into cloth. He wanted to force them to buy all their goods in England, and to send their corn and tobacco and cotton there to pay for them. And now after the long war with France he wanted to make the colonists pay heavy taxes in order to meet the expenses of that war. They must not drink a cup of tea without first paying tax on it; they must not sign a deed or a note without first buying stamped paper on which to write it. In every colony there was great excitement on account of the tea tax and the stamp act, as it was called. In the House of Burgesses at Williamsburg, a young man, whose name was Patrick Henry, made a famous speech in which he declared that the king had no right to tax them without their consent. George Washington heard that speech, and gave it his approval. Not long afterward, news came that in Boston a ship-load of tea had been thrown into the sea by the colonists. Rather than pay the tax upon it, they would drink no tea. Then, a little later, still other news came. The king had closed the port of Boston, and would not allow any ships to come in or go out. More than this, he had sent over a body of soldiers, and had quartered them in Boston in order to keep the people in subjection. The whole country was aroused now. What did this mean? Did the king intend to take away from the colonists all the liberties that are so dear to men? The colonies must unite and agree upon doing something to protect themselves and preserve their freedom. In order to do this each colony was asked to send delegates to Philadelphia to talk over the matter and see what would be the best thing to do. George Washington was one of the delegates from Virginia. Before starting he made a great speech in the House of Burgesses. "If necessary, I will raise a thousand men," he said, "subsist them at my own expense, and march them to the relief of Boston." But the time for marching to Boston had not quite come. The delegates from the different colonies met in Carpenter's Hall, in Philadelphia, on the 5th of September, 1774. Their meeting has since been known as the First Continental Congress of America. For fifty-one days those wise, thoughtful men discussed the great question that had brought them together. What could the colonists do to escape the oppressive laws that the King of England was trying to force upon them? Many powerful speeches were made, but George Washington sat silent. He was a doer rather than a talker. At last the Congress decided to send an address to the king to remind him of the rights of the colonists, and humbly beg that he would not enforce his unjust laws. And then, when all had been done that could be done, Washington went back to his home at Mount Vernon, to his family and his friends, his big plantations, his fox-hunting, and his pleasant life as a country gentleman. But he knew as well as any man that more serious work was near at hand. * * * * * XII.--THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR. All that winter the people of the colonies were anxious and fearful. Would the king pay any heed to their petition? Or would he force them to obey his unjust laws? Then, in the spring, news came from Boston that matters were growing worse and worse. The soldiers who were quartered in that city were daily becoming more insolent and overbearing. "These people ought to have their town knocked about their ears and destroyed," said one of the king's officers. On the 19th of April a company of the king's soldiers started to Concord, a few miles from Boston, to seize some powder which had been stored there. Some of the colonists met them at Lexington, and there was a battle. This was the first battle in that long war commonly called the Revolution. Washington was now on his way to the North again. The Second Continental Congress was to meet in Philadelphia in May, and he was again a delegate from Virginia. In the first days of the Congress no man was busier than he. No man seemed to understand the situation of things better than he. No man was listened to with greater respect; and yet he said but little. Every day, he came into the hall wearing the blue and buff uniform which belonged to him as a Virginia colonel. It was as much as to say: "The time for fighting has come, and I am ready." The Congress thought it best to send another humble petition to the king, asking him not to deprive the people of their just rights. In the meantime brave men were flocking towards Boston to help the people defend themselves from the violence of the king's soldiers. The war had begun, and no mistake. The men of Congress saw now the necessity of providing for this war. They asked, "Who shall be the commander-in-chief of our colonial army?" It was hardly worth while to ask such a question; for there could be but one answer. Who, but George Washington? No other person in America knew so much about war as he. No other person was so well fitted to command. On the 15th of June, on motion of John Adams of Massachusetts, he was appointed to that responsible place. On the next day he made a modest but noble little speech before Congress. He told the members of that body that he would serve his country willingly and as well as he could--but not for money. They might provide for his necessary expenses, but he would never take any pay for his services. And so, leaving all his own interests out of sight, he undertook at once the great work that had been entrusted to him. He undertook it, not for profit nor for honor, but because of a feeling of duty to his fellow-men. For eight weary, years he forgot himself in the service of his country. Two weeks after his appointment General Washington rode into Cambridge, near Boston, and took formal command of his army. It was but a small force, poorly clothed, poorly armed; but every man had the love of country in his heart. It was the first American army. But so well did Washington manage matters that soon his raw troops were in good shape for service. And so hard did he press the king's soldiers in Boston that, before another summer, they were glad to take ship and sail away from the town which they had so long infested and annoyed. * * * * * XIII.--INDEPENDENCE. On the fourth day of the following July there was a great stir in the town of Philadelphia. Congress was sitting in the Hall of the State House. The streets were full of people; everybody seemed anxious; everybody was in suspense. Men were crowding around the State House and listening. "Who is speaking now?" asked one. "John Adams," was the answer. "And who is speaking now?" "Doctor Franklin." "Good! Let them follow his advice, for he knows what is best." Then there was a lull outside, for everybody wanted to hear what the great Dr. Franklin had to say. After a while the same question was asked again: "Who is speaking now?" And the answer was: "Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. It was he and Franklin who wrote it." "Wrote what?" "Why, the Declaration of Independence, of course." A little later some one said: "They will be ready to sign it soon." "But will they dare to sign it?" "Dare? They dare not do otherwise." Inside the hall grave men were discussing the acts of the King of England. "He has cut off our trade with all parts of the world," said one. "He has forced us to pay taxes without our consent," said another. "He has sent his soldiers among us to burn our towns and kill our people," said a third. "He has tried to make the Indians our enemies," said a fourth. "He is a tyrant and unfit to be the ruler of a free people," agreed they all. And then everybody was silent while one read: "We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, solemnly publish and declare that the united colonies are, and of right ought to be, _free and independent states_" Soon afterward the bell in the high tower above the hall began to ring. "It is done!" cried the people. "They have signed the Declaration of Independence." "Yes, every colony has voted for it," said those nearest the door. "The King of England shall no longer rule over us." And that was the way in which the United States came into being. The thirteen colonies were now thirteen states. Up to this time Washington and his army had been fighting for the rights of the people as colonists. They had been fighting in order to oblige the king to do away with the unjust laws which he had made. But now they were to fight for freedom and for the independence of the United States. By and by you will read in your histories how wisely and bravely Washington conducted the war. You will learn how he held out against the king's soldiers on Long Island and at White Plains; how he crossed the Delaware amid floating ice and drove the English from Trenton; how he wintered at Morristown; how he suffered at Valley Forge; how he fought at Germantown and Monmouth and Yorktown. There were six years of fighting, of marching here and there, of directing and planning, of struggling in the face of every discouragement. Eight years passed, and then peace came, for independence had been won, and this our country was made forever free. On the 2d of November, 1783, Washington bade farewell to his army. On the 23d of December he resigned his commission as commander-in-chief. There were some who suggested that Washington should make himself king of this country; and indeed this he might have done, so great was the people's love and gratitude. But the great man spurned such suggestions. He said, "If you have any regard for your country or respect for me, banish those thoughts and never again speak of them." * * * * * XIV.--THE FIRST PRESIDENT. Washington was now fifty-two years old. The country was still in an unsettled condition. True, it was free from English control. But there was no strong government to hold the states together. Each state was a little country of itself, making its own laws, and having its own selfish aims without much regard for its sister states. People did not think of the United States as one great undivided nation. And so matters were in bad enough shape, and they grew worse and worse as the months went by. Wise men saw that unless something should be done to bring about a closer union of the states, they would soon be in no better condition than when ruled by the English king. And so a great convention was held in Philadelphia to determine what could be done to save the country from ruin. George Washington was chosen to preside over this convention; and no man's words had greater weight than his. He said, "Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God." That convention did a great and wonderful work; for it framed the Constitution by which our country has ever since been governed. And soon afterwards, in accordance with that Constitution, the people of the country were called upon to elect a President. Who should it be? Who could it be but Washington? When the electoral votes were counted, every vote was for George Washington of Virginia. And so, on the 16th of April, 1789, the great man again bade adieu to Mount Vernon and to private life, and set out for New York. For the city of Washington had not yet been built, and New York was the first capital of our country. There were no railroads at that time, and so the journey was made in a coach. All along the road the people gathered to see their hero-president and show him their love. On the 30th of April he was inaugurated at the old Federal Hall in New York. "Long live George Washington, President of the United States!" shouted the people. Then the cannon roared, the bells rang, and the new government of the United States--the government which we have to-day--began its existence. Washington was fifty-seven years old at the time of his inauguration. Perhaps no man was ever called to the doing of more difficult things. The entire government must be built up from the beginning, and all its machinery put into order. But so well did he meet the expectations of the people, that when his first term was near its close he was again elected President, receiving every electoral vote. In your histories you will learn of the many difficult tasks which he performed during those years of the nation's infancy. There were new troubles with England, troubles with the Indians, jealousies and disagreements among the lawmakers of the country. But amidst all these trials Washington stood steadfast, wise, cool--conscious that he was right, and strong enough to prevail. Before the end of his second term, people began to talk about electing him for the third time. They could not think of any other man holding the highest office in the country. They feared that no other man could be safely entrusted with the great responsibilities which he had borne so nobly. But Washington declared that he would not accept office again. The government was now on a firm footing. There were others who could manage its affairs wisely and well. And so, in September, 1796, he published his Farewell Address. It was full of wise and wholesome advice. "Beware of attacks upon the Constitution. Beware of those who think more of their party than of their country. Promote education. Observe justice. Treat with good faith all nations. Adhere to the right. Be united--be united. Love your country." These were some of the things that he said. John Adams, who had been Vice-President eight years, was chosen to be the new President, and Washington again retired to Mount Vernon. * * * * * XV.--"FIRST IN THE HEARTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN." In the enjoyment of his home life, Washington did not forget his country. It would, indeed, have been hard for him not to keep informed about public affairs; for men were all the time coming to him to ask for help and advice regarding this measure or that. The greatest men of the nation felt that he must know what was wisest and best for the country's welfare. Soon after his retirement an unexpected trouble arose. There was another war between England and France. The French were very anxious that the United States should join in the quarrel. When they could not bring this about by persuasion, they tried abuse. They insulted the officers of our government; they threatened war. The whole country was aroused. Congress began to take steps for the raising of an army and the building of a navy. But who should lead the army? All eyes were again turned toward Washington. He had saved the country once; he could save it again. The President asked him if he would again be the commander-in-chief. He answered that he would do so, on condition that he might choose his assistants. But unless the French should actually invade this country, he must not be expected to go into the field. And so, at the last, General Washington is again the commander-in-chief of the American army. But there is to be no fighting this time. The French see that the people of the United States cannot be frightened; they see that the government cannot be driven; they leave off their abuse, and are ready to make friends. Washington's work is done now. On the 12th of December, 1799, he mounts his horse and rides out over his farms. The weather is cold; the snow is falling; but he stays out for two or three hours. The next morning he has a sore throat; he has taken cold. The snow is still falling, but he will go out again. At night he is very hoarse; he is advised to take medicine. "Oh, no," he answers, "you know I never take anything for a cold." But in the night he grows much worse; early the next morning the doctor is brought. It is too late. He grows rapidly worse. He knows that the end is near. "It is well," he says; and these are his last words. Washington died on the 14th of December, 1799. He had lived nearly sixty-eight years. His sudden death was a shock to the entire country. Every one felt as though he had lost a personal friend. The mourning for him was general and sincere. In the Congress of the United States his funeral oration was pronounced by his friend, Henry Lee, who said: "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, he was second to none in the humble and endearing scenes of private life. Pious, just, humane, temperate, uniform, dignified, and commanding, his example was edifying to all around him, as were the effects of that example lasting. "Such was the man America has lost! Such was the man for whom our country mourns!" THE STORY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN TO THE YOUNG READER * * * * * I am about to tell you the story of a very great and noble man. It is the story of one whom all the world honors--of one whose name will forever be remembered with admiration. Benjamin Franklin was not born to greatness. He had none of the advantages which even the poorest boys may now enjoy. But he achieved greatness by always making the best use of such opportunities as came in his way. He was not afraid of work. He did not give up to discouragements. He did not overestimate his own abilities. He was earnest and faithful in little things; and that, after all, is the surest way of attaining to great things. There is no man to whom we Americans owe a greater debt of gratitude. Without his aid the American colonies would hardly have won independence. It was said of him that he knew how to subdue both thunder and tyranny; and a famous orator who knew him well, described him as "the genius that gave freedom to America and shed torrents of light upon Europe." But, at the close of a very long life, the thing which gave him the greatest satisfaction was the fact that he had made no man his enemy; there was no human being who could justly say, "Ben Franklin has wronged me." THE STORY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. * * * * * I.--THE WHISTLE. Nearly two hundred years ago, there lived in Boston a little boy whose name was Benjamin Franklin. On the day that he was seven years old, his mother gave him a few pennies. He looked at the bright, yellow pieces and said, "What shall I do with these coppers, mother?" It was the first money that he had ever had. "You may buy something with them, if you would like," said his mother. "And will you give me more when they are gone?" he asked. His mother shook her head and said: "No, Benjamin. I cannot give you any more. So you must be careful not to spend them foolishly." The little fellow ran out into the street. He heard the pennies jingle in his pocket as he ran. He felt as though he was very rich. Boston was at that time only a small town, and there were not many stores. As Benjamin ran down toward the busy part of the street, he wondered what he should buy. Should he buy candy or toys? It had been a long time since he had tasted candy. As for toys, he hardly knew what they were. If he had been the only child in the family, things might have been different. But there were fourteen boys and girls older than he, and two little sisters that were younger. It was as much as his father could do to earn food and clothing for so many. There was no money to spend for toys. Before Benjamin had gone very far he met a boy blowing a whistle. "That is just the thing that I want," he said. Then he hurried on to the store where all kinds of things were kept for sale. "Have you any good whistles?" he asked. He was out of breath from running, but he tried hard to speak like a man. "Yes, plenty of them," said the man. "Well, I want one, and I'll give you all the money I have for it," said the little fellow. He forgot to ask the price. "How much money have you?" asked the man. Benjamin took the coppers from his pocket. The man counted them and said, "All right, my boy. It's a bargain." Then he put the pennies into his money drawer, and gave one of the whistles to the boy. Benjamin Franklin was a proud and happy boy. He ran home as fast as he could, blowing his whistle as he ran. His mother met him at the door and said, "Well, my child, what did you do with your pennies?" "I bought a whistle!" he cried. "Just hear me blow it!" "How much did you pay for it?" "All the money I had." One of his brothers was standing by and asked to see the whistle. "Well, well!" he said, "did you spend all of your money for this thing?" "Every penny," said Benjamin. "Did you ask the price?" "No. But I offered them to the man, and he said it was all right." His brother laughed and said, "You are a very foolish fellow. You paid four times as much as it is worth." "Yes," said his mother, "I think it is rather a dear whistle. You had enough money to buy a whistle and some candy, too." The little boy saw what a mistake he had made. The whistle did not please him any more. He threw it upon the floor, and began to cry. But his mother took him upon her lap and said: "Never mind, my child. We must all live and learn; and I think that my little boy will be careful, after this, not to pay too dear for his whistles." * * * * * II.--SCHOOLDAYS. When Benjamin Franklin was a boy there were no great public schools in Boston as there are now. But he learned to read almost as soon as he could talk, and he was always fond of books. His nine brothers were older than he, and every one had learned a trade. They did not care so much for books. "Benjamin shall be the scholar of our family," said his mother. "Yes, we will educate him for a minister," said his father. For at that time all the most learned men were ministers. And so, when he was eight years old, Benjamin Franklin was sent to a grammar school, where boys were prepared for college. He was a very apt scholar, and in a few months was promoted to a higher class. But the lad was not allowed to stay long in the grammar school. His father was a poor man. It would cost a great deal of money to give Benjamin a college education. The times were very hard. The idea of educating the boy for the ministry had to be given up. In less than a year he was taken from the grammar school, and sent to another school where arithmetic and writing were taught. He learned to write very well, indeed; but he did not care so much for arithmetic, and so failed to do what was expected of him. When he was ten years old he had to leave school altogether. His father needed his help; and though Benjamin was but a small boy, there were many things that he could do. He never attended school again. But he kept on studying and reading; and we shall find that he afterwards became the most learned man in America. Benjamin's father was a soap-boiler and candle-maker. And so when the boy was taken from school, what kind of work do you think he had to do? He was kept busy cutting wicks for the candles, pouring the melted tallow into the candle-moulds, and selling soap to his father's customers. Do you suppose that he liked this business? He did not like it at all. And when he saw the ships sailing in and out of Boston harbor, he longed to be a sailor and go to strange, far-away lands, where candles and soap were unknown. But his father would not listen to any of his talk about going to sea. * * * * * III.--THE BOYS AND THE WHARF. Busy as Benjamin was in his father's shop, he still had time to play a good deal. He was liked by all the boys of the neighborhood, and they looked up to him as their leader. In all their games he was their captain; and nothing was undertaken without asking his advice. Not far from the home of the Franklins there was a millpond, where the boys often went to swim. When the tide was high they liked to stand at a certain spot on the shore of the pond and fish for minnows. But the ground was marshy and wet, and the boys' feet sank deep in the mud. "Let us build a wharf along the water's edge," said Benjamin. "Then we can stand and fish with some comfort." "Agreed!" said the boys. "But what is the wharf to be made of?" Benjamin pointed to a heap of stones that lay not far away. They had been hauled there only a few days before, and were to be used in building a new house near the millpond. The boys needed only a hint. Soon they were as busy as ants, dragging the stones to the water's edge. Before it was fully dark that evening, they had built a nice stone wharf on which they could stand and fish without danger of sinking in the mud. The next morning the workmen came to begin the building of the house. They were surprised to find all the stones gone from the place where they had been thrown. But the tracks of the boys in the mud told the story. It was easy enough to find out who had done the mischief. When the boys' fathers were told of the trouble which they had caused, you may imagine what they did. Young Benjamin Franklin tried hard to explain that a wharf on the edge of the millpond was a public necessity. His father would not listen to him. He said, "My son, nothing can ever be truly useful which is not at the same time truly honest." And Benjamin never forgot this lesson. * * * * * IV.--CHOOSING A TRADE. As I have already said, young Benjamin did not like the work which he had to do in his father's shop. His father was not very fond of the trade himself, and so he could not blame the boy. One day he said: "Benjamin, since you have made up your mind not to be a candle-maker, what trade do you think you would like to learn?" "You know I would like to be a sailor," said the boy. "But you shall not be a sailor," said his father. "I intend that you shall learn some useful business, on land; and, of course, you will succeed best in that kind of business which is most pleasant to you." The next day he took the boy to walk with him among the shops of Boston. They saw all kinds of workmen busy at their various trades. Benjamin was delighted. Long afterwards, when he had become a very great man, he said, "It has ever since been a pleasure to me to see good workmen handle their tools." He gave up the thought of going to sea, and said that he would learn any trade that his father would choose for him. His father thought that the cutler's trade was a good one. His cousin, Samuel Franklin, had just set up a cutler's shop in Boston, and he agreed to take Benjamin a few days on trial. Benjamin was pleased with the idea of learning how to make knives and scissors and razors and all other kinds of cutting tools. But his cousin wanted so much money for teaching him the trade that his father could not afford it; and so the lad was taken back to the candle-maker's shop. Soon after this, Benjamin's brother, James Franklin, set up a printing press in Boston. He intended to print and publish books and a newspaper. "Benjamin loves books," said his father. "He shall learn to be a printer." And so, when he was twelve years old, he was bound to his brother to learn the printer's trade. He was to stay with him until he was twenty-one. He was to have his board and clothing and no other wages, except during the last year. I suppose that during the last year he was to be paid the same as any other workman. * * * * * V.--HOW FRANKLIN EDUCATED HIMSELF. When Benjamin Franklin was a boy there were no books for children. Yet he spent most of his spare time in reading. His father's books were not easy to understand. People nowadays would think them very dull and heavy. [Illustration: Birthplace of Franklin Boston U.S.] [Illustration: Press at which Franklin worked.] But before he was twelve years old, Benjamin had read the most of them. He read everything that he could get. After he went to work for his brother he found it easier to obtain good books. Often he would borrow a book in the evening, and then sit up nearly all night reading it so as to return it in the morning. When the owners of books found that he always returned them soon and clean, they were very willing to lend him whatever he wished. He was about fourteen years of age when he began to study how to write clearly and correctly. He afterwards told how he did this. He said: "About this time I met with an odd volume of the _Spectator_. I had never before seen any of them. "I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. "I thought the writing excellent, and wished if possible to imitate it. "With that view, I took some of the papers, and making short hints of the sentiments in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should occur to me. "Then I compared my _Spectator_ with the original, discovered some of my faults and corrected them. "But I found that I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them. "Therefore, I took some of the tales in the _Spectator_ and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again." About this time his brother began to publish a newspaper. It was the fourth newspaper published in America, and was called the _New England Courant_. People said that it was a foolish undertaking. They said that one newspaper was enough for this country, and that there would be but little demand for more. In those days editors did not dare to write freely about public affairs. It was dangerous to criticise men who were in power. James Franklin published something in the _New England Courant_ about the lawmakers of Massachusetts. It made the lawmakers very angry. They caused James Franklin to be shut up in prison for a month, and they ordered that he should no longer print the newspaper called the _New England Courant_. But, in spite of this order, the newspaper was printed every week as before. It was printed, however, in the name of Benjamin Franklin. For several years it bore his name as editor and publisher. * * * * * VI.--FAREWELL TO BOSTON. Benjamin Franklin did not have a very happy life with his brother James. His brother was a hard master, and was always finding fault with his workmen. Sometimes he would beat young Benjamin and abuse him without cause. When Benjamin was nearly seventeen years old he made up his mind that he would not endure this treatment any longer. He told his brother that he would leave him and find work with some one else. When his brother learned that he really meant to do this, he went round to all the other printers in Boston and persuaded them not to give Benjamin any work. The father took James's part, and scolded Benjamin for being so saucy and so hard to please. But Benjamin would not go back to James's printing house. He made up his mind that since he could not find work in Boston he would run away from his home. He would go to New York and look for work there. He sold his books to raise a little money. Then, without saying good-bye to his father or mother or any of his brothers or sisters, he went on board a ship that was just ready to sail from the harbor. It is not likely that he was very happy while doing this. Long afterwards he said: "I reckon this as one of the first _errata_ of my life." What did he mean by _errata?_ _Errata_ are mistakes--mistakes that cannot easily be corrected. Three days after leaving Boston, young Franklin found himself in New York. It was then October, in the year 1723. The lad had but very little money in his pocket. There was no one in New York that he knew. He was three hundred miles from home and friends. As soon as he landed he went about the streets looking for work. New York was only a little town then, and there was not a newspaper in it. There were but a few printing houses there, and these had not much work to do. The boy from Boston called at every place, but he found that nobody wanted to employ any more help. At one of the little printing houses Franklin was told that perhaps he could find work in Philadelphia, which was at that time a much more important place than New York. Philadelphia was one hundred miles farther from home. One hundred miles was a long distance in those days. But Franklin made up his mind to go there without delay. It would be easier to do this than to give up and try to return to Boston. * * * * * VII.--THE FIRST DAY IN PHILADELPHIA. There are two ways of going from New York to Philadelphia. One way is by the sea. The other is by land, across the state of New Jersey. As Franklin had but little money, he took the shorter route by land; but he sent his little chest, containing his Sunday clothes, round by sea, in a boat. He walked all the way from Perth Amboy, on the eastern shore of New Jersey, to Burlington, on the Delaware river. Nowadays you may travel that distance in an hour, for it is only about fifty miles. But there were no railroads at that time; and Franklin was nearly three days trudging along lonely wagon-tracks, in the midst of a pouring rain. At Burlington he was lucky enough to be taken on board a small boat that was going down the river. Burlington is only twenty miles above Philadelphia. But the boat moved very slowly, and as there was no wind, the men took turns at rowing. Night came on, and they were afraid that they might pass by Philadelphia in the darkness. So they landed, and camped on shore till morning. Early the next day they reached Philadelphia, and Benjamin Franklin stepped on shore at the foot of Market street, where the Camden ferry-boats now land. No one who saw him could have guessed that he would one day be the greatest man in the city. He was a sorry-looking fellow. He was dressed in his working clothes, and was very dirty from being so long on the road and in the little boat. His pockets were stuffed out with shirts and stockings, and all the money that he had was not more than a dollar. He was hungry and tired. He had not a single friend. He did not know of anyplace where he could look for lodging. It was Sunday morning. He went a little way up the street, and looked around him. A boy was coming down, carrying a basket of bread. "My young friend," said Franklin, "where did you get that bread?" "At the baker's," said the boy. "And where is the baker's?" The boy showed him the little baker shop just around the corner. Young Franklin was so hungry that he could hardly wait. He hurried into the shop and asked for three-penny worth of bread. The baker gave him three great, puffy rolls. Franklin had not expected to get so much, but he took the rolls and walked out. His pockets were already full, and so, while he ate one roll, he held the others under his arms. As he went up Market street, eating his roll, a young girl stood in a doorway laughing at him. He was, indeed, a very funny-looking fellow. The girl's name was Deborah Read. A few years after that, she became the wife of Benjamin Franklin. Hungry as he was, Franklin found that he could eat but one of the rolls, and so he gave the other two to a poor woman who had come down the river in the same boat with him. As he was strolling along the street he came to a Quaker meeting-house. The door was open, and many people were sitting quietly inside. The seats looked inviting, and so Franklin walked in and sat down. The day was warm; the people in the house were very still; Franklin was tired. In a few minutes he was sound asleep. And so it was in a Quaker meeting-house that Benjamin Franklin found the first shelter and rest in Philadelphia. Later in the day, as Franklin was strolling toward the river, he met a young man whose honest face was very pleasing to him. "My friend," he said, "can you tell me of any house where they lodge strangers?" "Yes," said the young man, "there is a house on this very street; but it is not a place I can recommend. If thee will come with me I will show thee a better one." Franklin walked with him to a house on Water street, and there he found lodging for the night. And so ended his first day in Philadelphia. * * * * * VIII.--GOVERNOR WILLIAM KEITH. Franklin soon obtained work in a printing house owned by a man named Keimer. He found a boarding place in the house of Mr. Read, the father of the girl who had laughed at him with his three rolls. He was only seventeen years old, and he soon became acquainted with several young people in the town who loved books. In a little while he began to lay up money, and he tried to forget his old home in Boston as much as he could. One day a letter came to Philadelphia for Benjamin Franklin. It was from Captain Robert Holmes, a brother-in-law of Franklin's. Captain Holmes was the master of a trading sloop that sailed between Boston and Delaware Bay. While he was loading his vessel at Newcastle, forty miles below Philadelphia, he had happened to hear about the young man Franklin who had lately come from Boston. He sat down at once and wrote a letter to the young man. He told him how his parents and friends were grieving for him in Boston. He begged him to go back home, and said that everything would be made right if he would do so. When Franklin read this letter he felt very sad to think of the pain and distress which he had caused. But he did not want to return to Boston. He felt that he had been badly treated by his brother, and, therefore, that he was not the only one to be blamed. He believed that he could do much better in Philadelphia than anywhere else. So he sat down and wrote an answer to Captain Holmes. He wrote it with great care, and sent it off to Newcastle by the first boat that was going that way. Now it so happened that Sir William Keith, the governor of the province, was at Newcastle at that very time. He was with Captain Holmes when the letter came to hand. When Captain Holmes had read the letter he was so pleased with it that he showed it to the governor. Governor Keith read it and was surprised when he learned that its writer was a lad only seventeen years old. "He is a young man of great promise," he said; "and he must be encouraged. The printers in Philadelphia know nothing about their business. If young Franklin will stay there and set up a press, I will do a great deal for him." One day not long after that, when Franklin was at work in Keimer's printing-office, the governor came to see him. Franklin was very much surprised. The governor offered to set him up in a business of his own. He promised that he should have all the public printing in the province. "But you will have to go to England to buy your types and whatever else you may need." Franklin agreed to do this. But he must first return to Boston and get his father's consent and assistance. The governor gave him a letter to carry to his father. In a few weeks he was on his way home. You may believe that Benjamin's father and mother were glad to see him. He had been gone seven months, and in all that time they had not heard a word from him. His brothers and sisters were glad to see him, too--all but the printer, James, who treated him very unkindly. His father read the governor's letter, and then shook his head. "What kind of a man is this Governor Keith?" he asked. "He must have but little judgment to think of setting up a mere boy in business of this kind." After that he wrote a letter of thanks to the governor. He said that he was grateful for the kindness he had shown to his son, and for his offer to help him. But he thought that Benjamin was still too young to be trusted with so great a business, and therefore he would not consent to his undertaking it. As for helping him, that he could not do; for he had but little more money than was needed to carry on his own affairs. * * * * * IX.--THE RETURN TO PHILADELPHIA. Benjamin Franklin felt much disappointed when his father refused to help send him to England. But he was not discouraged. In a few weeks he was ready to return to Philadelphia. This time he did not have to run away from home. His father blessed him, and his mother gave him many small gifts as tokens of her love. "Be diligent," said his father, "attend well to your business, and save your money carefully, and, perhaps, by the time you are twenty-one years old, you will be able to set up for yourself without the governor's help." All the family, except James the printer, bade him a kind good-bye, as he went on board the little ship that was to take him as far as New York. There was another surprise for him when he reached New York. The governor of New York had heard that there was a young man from Boston on board the ship, and that he had a great many books. There were no large libraries in New York at that time. There were no bookstores, and but few people who cared for books. So the governor sent for Franklin to come and see him. He showed him his own library, and they had a long talk about books and authors. This was the second governor that had taken notice of Benjamin. For a poor boy, like him, it was a great honor, and very pleasing. When he arrived in Philadelphia he gave to Governor Keith the letter which his father had written. The governor was not very well pleased. He said: "Your father is too careful. There is a great difference in persons. Young men can sometimes be trusted with great undertakings as well as if they were older." He then said that he would set Franklin up in business without his father's help. "Give me a list of everything needed in a first-class printing-office. I will see that you are properly fitted out." Franklin was delighted. He thought that Governor Keith was one of the best men in the world. In a few days he laid before the governor a list of the things needed in a little printing-office. The cost of the outfit would be about five hundred dollars. The governor was pleased with the list. There were no type-foundries in America at that time. There was no place where printing-presses were made. Everything had to be bought in England. The governor said, "Don't you think it would be better if you could go to England and choose the types for yourself, and see that everything is just as you would like to have it?" "Yes, sir," said Franklin, "I think that would be a great advantage." "Well, then," said the governor, "get yourself ready to go on the next regular ship to London. It shall be at my expense." At that time there was only one ship that made regular trips from Philadelphia to England, and it sailed but once each year. The name of this ship was the _Annis_. It would not be ready to sail again for several months. And so young Franklin, while he was getting ready for the voyage, kept on working in Mr. Keimer's little printing-office. He laid up money enough to pay for his passage. He did not want to be dependent upon Governor Keith for everything; and it was well that he did not. * * * * * X.--THE FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND. At last the _Annis_ was ready to sail. Governor Keith had promised to give to young Franklin letters of introduction to some of his friends in England. He had also promised to give him money to buy his presses and type. But when Franklin called at the governor's house to bid him good-bye, and to get the letters, the governor was too busy to see him. He said that he would send the letters and the money to him on shipboard. The ship sailed. But no letters, nor any word from Governor Keith, had been sent to Franklin. When he at last arrived in London he found himself without money and without friends. Governor Keith had given him nothing but promises. He would never give him anything more. He was a man whose word was not to be depended upon. Franklin was then just eighteen years old. He must now depend wholly upon himself. He must make his own way in the world, without aid from anyone. He went out at once to look for work. He found employment in a printing-office, and there he stayed for nearly a year. Franklin made many acquaintances with literary people while he was in London. He proved himself to be a young man of talent and ingenuity. He was never idle. His companions in the printing-office were beer-drinkers and sots. He often told them how foolish they were to spend their money and ruin themselves for drink. He drank nothing but water. He was strong and active. He could carry more, and do more work, than any of them. He persuaded many of them to leave off drinking, and to lead better lives. Franklin was also a fine swimmer. There was no one in London who could swim as well. He wrote two essays on swimming, and made some plans for opening a swimming school. When he had been in London about a year, he met a Mr. Denham, a merchant of Philadelphia, and a strong friendship sprang up between them. Mr. Denham at last persuaded Franklin to return to Philadelphia, and be a clerk in his dry-goods store. And so, on the 23rd of the next July, he set sail for home. The ship was nearly three months in making the voyage, and it was not until October that he again set foot in Philadelphia. * * * * * XI.--A LEADING MAN IN PHILADELPHIA. When Franklin was twenty-four years old he was married to Miss Deborah Read, the young lady who had laughed at him when he was walking the street with his three rolls. They lived together very happily for a great many years. Some time before this marriage, Franklin's friend and employer, Mr. Denham, had died. The dry-goods store, of which he was the owner, had been sold, and Franklin's occupation as a salesman, or clerk, was gone. But the young man had shown himself to be a person of great industry and ability. He had the confidence of everybody that knew him. A friend of his, who had money, offered to take him as a partner in the newspaper business. And so he again became a printer, and the editor of a paper called the _Pennsylvania Gazette_. It was not long until Franklin was recognized as one of the leading men in Philadelphia. His name was known, not only in Pennsylvania, but in all the colonies. He was all the time thinking of plans for making the people about him wiser and better and happier. He established a subscription and circulating library, the first in America. This library was the beginning of the present Philadelphia Public Library. He wrote papers on education. He founded the University of Pennsylvania. He organized the American Philosophical Society. He established the first fire company in Philadelphia, which was also the first in America. He invented a copper-plate press, and printed the first paper money of New Jersey. He also invented the iron fireplace, which is called the Franklin stove, and is still used where wood is plentiful and cheap. After an absence of ten years, he paid a visit to his old home in Boston. Everybody was glad to see him now,--even his brother James, the printer. When he returned to Philadelphia, he was elected clerk of the colonial assembly. Not long after that, he was chosen to be postmaster of the city. But his duties in this capacity did not require very much labor in those times. He did not handle as much mail in a whole year as passes now through the Philadelphia post-office in a single hour. [Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.] * * * * * XII.--FRANKLIN'S RULES OF LIFE. Here are some of the rules of life which Franklin made for himself when he was a very young man: 1. To live very frugally till he had paid all that he owed. 2. To speak the truth at all times; to be sincere in word and action. 3. To apply himself earnestly to whatever business he took in hand; and to shun all foolish projects for becoming suddenly rich. "For industry and patience," he said, "are the surest means of plenty." 4. To speak ill of no man whatever, not even in a matter of truth; but to speak all the good he knew of everybody. When he was twenty-six years old, he published the first number of an almanac called _Poor Richard's Almanac_. This almanac was full of wise and witty sayings, and everybody soon began to talk about it. Every year, for twenty-five years, a new number of _Poor Richard's Almanac_ was printed. It was sold in all parts of the country. People who had no other books would buy and read _Poor Richard's Almanac_. The library of many a farmer consisted of only the family Bible with one or more numbers of this famous almanac. Here are a few of Poor Richard's sayings: "A word to the wise is enough." "God helps them that help themselves." "Early to bed and early to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." "There are no gains without pains." "Plow deep while sluggards sleep, And you shall have corn to sell and to keep." "One to-day is worth two to-morrows." "Little strokes fell great oaks." "Keep thy shop and thy shop will keep thee." "The sleeping fox catches no poultry." "Diligence is the mother of good luck." "Constant dropping wears away stones." "A small leak will sink a great ship." "Who dainties love shall beggars prove." "Creditors have better memories than debtors." "Many a little makes a mickle." "Fools make feasts and wise men eat them." "Many have been ruined by buying good pennyworths." "Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt." "For age and want save while you may; No morning sun lasts the whole day." It is pleasant to know that Franklin observed the rules of life which he made. And his wife, Deborah, was as busy and as frugal as himself. They kept no idle servants. Their furniture was of the cheapest sort. Their food was plain and simple. Franklin's breakfast, for many years, was only bread and milk; and he ate it out of a twopenny earthen bowl with a pewter spoon. But at last, when he was called one morning to breakfast, he found his milk in a china bowl; and by the side of the bowl there was a silver spoon. His wife had bought them for him as a surprise. She said that she thought her husband deserved a silver spoon and china bowl as well as any of his neighbors. * * * * * XIII.--FRANKLIN'S SERVICES TO THE COLONIES. And so, as you have seen, Benjamin Franklin became in time one of the foremost men in our country. In 1753, when he was forty-five years old, he was made deputy postmaster-general for America. He was to have a salary of about $3,000 a year, and was to pay his own assistants. People were astonished when he proposed to have the mail carried regularly once every week between New York and Boston. Letters starting from Philadelphia on Monday morning would reach Boston the next Saturday night. This was thought to be a wonderful and almost impossible feat. But nowadays, letters leaving Philadelphia at midnight are read at the breakfast table in Boston the next morning. At that time there were not seventy post-offices in the whole country. There are now more than seventy thousand. Benjamin Franklin held the office of deputy postmaster-general for the American colonies for twenty-one years. In 1754 there was a meeting of the leading men of all the colonies at Albany. There were fears of a war with the French and Indians of Canada, and the colonies had sent these men to plan some means of defence. Benjamin Franklin was one of the men from Pennsylvania at this meeting. He presented a plan for the union of the colonies, and it was adopted. But our English rulers said it was too democratic, and refused to let it go into operation. This scheme of Franklin's set the people of the colonies to thinking. Why should the colonies not unite? Why should they not help one another, and thus form one great country? And so, we may truthfully say that it was Benjamin Franklin who first put into men's minds the idea of the great Union which we now call the United States of America. The people of the colonies were not happy under the rule of the English. One by one, laws were made which they looked upon as oppressive and burdensome. These laws were not intended to benefit the American people, but were designed to enrich the merchants and politicians of England. In 1757 the people of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Georgia, decided to send some one to England to petition against these oppressions. In all the colonies there was no man better fitted for this business than Benjamin Franklin. And so he was the man sent. The fame of the great American had gone before him. Everybody seemed anxious to do him honor. He met many of the leading men of the day, and he at last succeeded in gaining the object of his mission. But such business moved slowly in those times. Five years passed before he was ready to return to America. He reached Philadelphia in November, 1762, and the colonial assembly of Pennsylvania thanked him publicly for his great services. But new troubles soon came up between the colonies and the government in England. Other laws were passed, more oppressive than before. It was proposed to tax the colonies, and to force the colonists to buy stamped paper. This last act was called the Stamp Tax, and the American people opposed it with all their might. Scarcely had Franklin been at home two years when he was again sent to England to plead the cause of his countrymen. This time he remained abroad for more than ten years; but he was not so successful as before. In 1774 he appeared before the King's council to present a petition from the people of Massachusetts. He was now a venerable man nearly seventy years of age. He was the most famous man of America. His petition was rejected. He himself was shamefully insulted and abused by one of the members of the council. The next day he was dismissed from the office of deputy postmaster-general of America. In May, 1775, he was again at home in Philadelphia. Two weeks before his arrival the battle of Lexington had been fought, and the war of the Revolution had been begun. Franklin had done all that he could to persuade the English king to deal justly with the American colonies. But the king and his counsellors had refused to listen to him. During his ten years abroad he had not stayed all the time in England. He had traveled in many countries of Europe, and had visited Paris several times. Many changes had taken place while he was absent. His wife, Mrs. Deborah Franklin, had died. His parents and fifteen of his brothers and sisters had also been laid in the grave. The rest of his days were to be spent in the service of his country, to which he had already given nearly twenty years of his life. * * * * * XIV.--FRANKLIN'S WONDERFUL KITE. Benjamin Franklin was not only a printer, politician, and statesman, he was the first scientist of America. In the midst of perplexing cares it was his delight to study the laws of nature and try to understand some of the mysteries of creation. In his time no very great discoveries had yet been made. The steam engine was unknown. The telegraph had not so much as been dreamed about. Thousands of comforts which we now enjoy through the discoveries of science were then unthought of; or if thought of, they were deemed to be impossible. Franklin began to make experiments in electricity when he was about forty years old. He was the first person to discover that lightning is caused by electricity. He had long thought that this was true, but he had no means of proving it. He thought that if he could stand on some high tower during a thunder-storm, he might be able to draw some of the electricity from the clouds through a pointed iron rod. But there was no high tower in Philadelphia. There was not even a tall church spire. At last he thought of making a kite and sending it up to the clouds. A paper kite, however, would be ruined by the rain and would not fly to any great height. So instead of paper he used a light silk handkerchief which he fastened to two slender but strong cross pieces. At the top of the kite he placed a pointed iron rod. The string was of hemp, except a short piece at the lower end, which was of silk. At the end of the hemp string an iron key was tied. "I think that is a queer kind of kite," said Franklin's little boy. "What are you going to do with it?" "Wait until the next thunder-storm, and you will see," said Franklin. "You may go with me and we will send it up to the clouds." He told no one else about it, for if the experiment should fail, he did not care to have everybody laugh at him. At last, one day, a thunder-storm came up, and Franklin, with his son, went out into a field to fly his kite. There was a steady breeze, and it was easy to send the kite far up towards the clouds. Then, holding the silken end of the string, Franklin stood under a little shed in the field, and watched to see what would happen. The lightnings flashed, the thunder rolled, but there was no sign of electricity in the kite. At last, when he was about to give up the experiment, Franklin saw the loose fibres of his hempen string begin to move. He put his knuckles close to the key, and sparks of fire came flying to his hand. He was wild with delight. The sparks of fire were electricity; he had drawn them from the clouds. That experiment, if Franklin had only known it, was a very dangerous one. It was fortunate for him, and for the world, that he suffered no harm. More than one person who has since tried to draw electricity from the clouds has been killed by the lightning that has flashed down the hempen kite string. When Franklin's discovery was made known it caused great excitement among the learned men of Europe. They could not believe it was true until some of them had proved it by similar experiments. They could hardly believe that a man in the far-away city of Philadelphia could make a discovery which they had never thought of as possible. Indeed, how could an American do anything that was worth doing? Franklin soon became famous in foreign countries as a philosopher and man of science. The universities of Oxford and Edinburgh honored him by conferring upon him their highest degrees. He was now _Doctor_ Benjamin Franklin. But in America people still thought of him only as a man of affairs, as a great printer, and as the editor of _Poor Richard's Almanac_. All this happened before the beginning of his career as ambassador from the colonies to the king and government of England. I cannot tell you of all of his discoveries in science. He invented the lightning-rod, and, by trying many experiments, he learned more about electricity than the world had ever known before. He made many curious experiments to discover the laws of heat, light, and sound. By laying strips of colored cloth on snow, he learned which colors are the best conductors of heat. He invented the harmonica, an ingenious musical instrument, in which the sounds were produced by musical glasses. During his long stay abroad he did not neglect his scientific studies. He visited many of the greatest scholars of the time, and was everywhere received with much honor. The great scientific societies of Europe, the Royal Academies in Paris and in Madrid, had already elected him as one of their members. The King of France wrote him a letter, thanking him for his useful discoveries in electricity, and for his invention of the lightning-rod. All this would have made some men very proud. But it was not so with Dr. Franklin. In a letter which he wrote to a friend at the time when these honors were beginning to be showered upon him, he said: "The pride of man is very differently gratified; and had his Majesty sent me a marshal's staff I think I should scarce have been so proud of it as I am of your esteem." * * * * * XV.--THE LAST YEARS. In 1776 delegates from all the colonies met in Philadelphia. They formed what is called the second Continental Congress of America. It was now more than a year since the war had begun, and the colonists had made up their minds not to submit to the king of England and his council. Many of them were strongly in favor of setting up a new government of their own. A committee was appointed to draft a declaration of independence, and Benjamin Franklin was one of that committee. On the 4th of July, Congress declared the colonies to be free and independent states. Among the signers of the Declaration of Independence was Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania. Soon after this Dr. Franklin was sent to Paris as minister from the United States. Early in the following year, 1777, he induced the king of France to acknowledge the independence of this country. He thus secured aid for the Americans at a time when they were in the greatest need of it. Had it not been for his services at this time, the war of the Revolution might have ended very differently, indeed. It was not until 1785 that he was again able to return to his home. He was then nearly eighty years old. He had served his country faithfully for fifty-three years. He would have been glad if he might retire to private life. When he reached Philadelphia he was received with joy by thousands of his countrymen. General Washington was among the first to welcome him, and to thank him for his great services. That same year the grateful people of his state elected him President of Pennsylvania. Two years afterwards, he wrote: "I am here in my _niche_ in my own house, in the bosom of my family, my daughter and grandchildren all about me, among my old friends, or the sons of my friends, who equally respect me. "In short, I enjoy here every opportunity of doing good, and everything else I could wish for, except repose; and that I may soon expect, either by the cessation of my office, which cannot last more than three years, or by ceasing to live." The next year he was a delegate to the convention which formed the present Constitution of the United States. In a letter written to his friend Washington not long afterwards, he said: "For my personal ease I should have died two years ago; but though those years have been spent in pain, I am glad to have lived them, since I can look upon our present situation." In April, 1790, he died, and was buried by the side of his wife, Deborah, in Arch street graveyard in Philadelphia. His age was eighty-four years and three months. Many years before his death he had written the following epitaph for himself: "The Body of Benjamin Franklin, Printer, (Like the cover of an old book, Its contents torn out, And stripped of its lettering and gilding,) Lies here food for worms. Yet the work itself shall not be lost, For it will (as he believed) appear once more In a new And more beautiful Edition, Corrected and Amended By The Author." THE STORY OF DANIEL WEBSTER [Illustration: _DANIEL WEBSTER_.] THE STORY OF DANIEL WEBSTER. * * * * * I.--CAPTAIN WEBSTER. Many years ago there lived in New Hampshire a poor farmer, whose name was Ebenezer Webster. His little farm was among the hills, not far from the Merrimac River. It was a beautiful place to live in; but the ground was poor, and there were so many rocks that you would wonder how anything could grow among them. Ebenezer Webster was known far and wide as a brave, wise man. When any of his neighbors were in trouble or in doubt about anything, they always said, "We will ask Captain Webster about it." They called him Captain because he had fought the French and Indians and had been a brave soldier in the Revolutionary War. Indeed, he was one of the first men in New Hampshire to take up arms for his country. When he heard that the British were sending soldiers to America to force the people to obey the unjust laws of the king of England, he said, "We must never submit to this." So he went among his neighbors and persuaded them to sign a pledge to do all that they could to defend the country against the British. Then he raised a company of two hundred men and led them to Boston to join the American army. The Revolutionary War lasted several years; and during all that time, Captain Webster was known as one of the bravest of the American patriots. One day, at West Point, he met General Washington. The patriots were in great trouble at that time, for one of their leaders had turned traitor and had gone to help the British. The officers and soldiers were much distressed, for they did not know who might be the next to desert them. As I have said, Captain Webster met General Washington. The general took the captain's hand, and said: "I believe that I can trust you, Captain Webster." You may believe that this made Captain Webster feel very happy. When he went back to his humble home among the New Hampshire hills, he was never so proud as when telling his neighbors about this meeting with General Washington. If you could have seen Captain Ebenezer Webster in those days, you would have looked at him more than once. He was a remarkable man. He was very tall and straight, with dark, glowing eyes, and hair as black as night. His face was kind, but it showed much firmness and decision. He had never attended school; but he had tried, as well as he could, to educate himself. It was on account of his honesty and good judgment that he was looked up to as the leading man in the neighborhood. In some way, I do not know how, he had gotten a little knowledge of the law. And at last, because of this as well as because of his sound common sense, he was appointed judge of the court in his county. This was several years after the war was over. He was now no longer called Captain Webster, but Judge Webster. It had been very hard for him to make a living for his large family on the stony farm among the hills. But now his office as judge would bring him three hundred or four hundred dollars a year. He had never had so much money in his life. "Judge Webster," said one of his neighbors, "what are you going to do with the money that you get from your office? Going to build a new house?" "Well, no," said the judge. "The old house is small, but we have lived in it a long time, and it still does very well." "Then I suppose you are planning to buy more land?" said the neighbor. "No, indeed, I have as much land now as I can cultivate. But I will tell you what I am going to do with my money. I am going to try to educate my boys. I would rather do this than have lands and houses." * * * * * II.--THE YOUNGEST SON. Ebenezer Webster had several sons. But at the time that he was appointed judge there were only two at home. The older ones were grown up and were doing for themselves. It was of the two at home that he was thinking when he said, "I am going to try to educate my boys." Of the ten children in the family, the favorite was a black-haired, dark-skinned little fellow called Daniel. He was the youngest of all the boys; but there was one girl who was younger than he. Daniel Webster was born on the 18th of January, 1782. He was a puny child, very slender and weak; and the neighbors were fond of telling his mother that he could not live long. Perhaps this was one of the things that caused him to be favored and petted by his parents. But there were other reasons why every one was attracted by him. There were other reasons why his brothers and sisters were always ready to do him a service. He was an affectionate, loving child; and he was wonderfully bright and quick. He was not strong enough to work on the farm like other boys. He spent much of his time playing in the woods or roaming among the hills. And when he was not at play he was quite sure to be found in some quiet corner with a book in his hand. He afterwards said of himself: "In those boyish days there were two things that I dearly loved--reading and playing." He could never tell how or when he had learned to read. Perhaps his mother had taught him when he was but a mere babe. He was very young when he was first sent to school. The school-house was two or three miles away, but he did not mind the long walk through the woods and over the hills. It was not a great while until he had learned all that his teacher was able to teach him; for he had a quick understanding, and he remembered everything that he read. The people of the neighborhood never tired of talking about "Webster's boy," as they called him. All agreed that he was a wonderful child. Some said that so wonderful a child was sure to die young. Others said that if he lived he would certainly become a very great man. When the farmers, on their way to market, drove past Judge Webster's house, they were always glad if they could see the delicate boy, with his great dark eyes. If it was near the hour of noon, they would stop their teams under the shady elms and ask him to come out and read to them. Then, while their horses rested and ate, they would sit round the boy and listen to his wonderful tones as he read page after page from the Bible. There were no children's books in those times. Indeed, there were very few books to be had of any kind. But young Daniel Webster found nothing too hard to read. "I read what I could get to read," he afterwards said; "I went to school when I could, and when not at school, was a farmer's youngest boy, not good for much for want of health and strength, but expected to do something." One day the man who kept the little store in the village, showed him something that made his heart leap. It was a cotton handkerchief with the Constitution of the United States printed on one side of it. In those days people were talking a great deal about the Constitution, for it had just then come into force. Daniel had never read it. When he saw the handkerchief he could not rest till he had made it his own. He counted all his pennies, he borrowed a few from his brother Ezekiel. Then he hurried back to the store and bought the wished-for treasure. In a short time he knew everything in the Constitution, and could repeat whole sections of it from memory. We shall learn that, when he afterwards became one of the great men of this nation, he proved to be the Constitution's wisest friend and ablest defender. * * * * * III.--EZEKIEL AND DANIEL. Ezekiel Webster was two years older than his brother Daniel. He was a strong, manly fellow, and was ready at all times to do a kindness to the lad who had not been gifted with so much health and strength. But he had not Daniel's quickness of mind, and he always looked to his younger brother for advice and instruction. And so there was much love between the two brothers, each helping the other according to his talents and his ability. One day they went together to the county fair. Each had a few cents in his pocket for spending-money, and both expected to have a fine time. When they came home in the evening Daniel seemed very happy, but Ezekiel was silent. "Well, Daniel," said their mother, "what did you do with your money?" "I spent it at the fair," said Daniel. "And what did you do with yours, Ezekiel?" "I lent it to Daniel," was the answer. It was this way at all times, and with everybody. Not only Ezekiel, but others were ever ready to give up their own means of enjoyment if only it would make Daniel happy. At another time the brothers were standing together by their father, who had just come home after several days' absence. "Ezekiel," said Mr. Webster, "what have you been doing since I went away?" "Nothing, sir," said Ezekiel. "You are very frank," said the judge. Then turning to Daniel, he said: "What have you been doing, Dan?" "Helping Zeke," said Daniel. When Judge Webster said to his neighbor, "I am going to try to educate my boys," he had no thought of ever being able to send both of them to college. Ezekiel, he said to himself, was strong and hearty. He could make his own way in the world without having a finished education. But Daniel had little strength of body, although he was gifted with great mental powers. It was he that must be the scholar of the family. The judge argued with himself that since he would be able to educate only one of the boys, he must educate that one who gave the greatest promise of success. And yet, had it not been for his poverty, he would gladly have given the same opportunities to both. * * * * * IV.--PLANS FOR THE FUTURE. One hot day in summer the judge and his youngest son were at work together in the hayfield. "Daniel," said the judge, "I am thinking that this kind of work is hardly the right thing for you. You must prepare yourself for greater things than pitching hay." "What do you mean, father?" asked Daniel. "I mean that you must have that which I have always felt the need of. You must have a good education; for without an education a man is always at a disadvantage. If I had been able to go to school when I was a boy, I might have done more for my country than I have. But as it is, I can do nothing but struggle here for the means of living." "Zeke and I will help you, father," said Daniel; "and now that you are growing old, you need not work so hard." "I am not complaining about the work," said the judge. "I live only for my children. When your older brothers were growing up I was too poor to give them an education; but I am able now to do something for you, and I mean to send you to a good school." "Oh, father, how kind you are!" cried Daniel. "If you will study hard," said his father--"if you will do your best, and learn all that you can; you will not have to endure such hardships as I have endured. And then you will be able to do so much more good in the world." The boy's heart was touched by the manner in which his father spoke these words. He dropped his rake; he threw his arms around his father's neck, and cried for thankfulness and joy. It was not until the next spring that Judge Webster felt himself able to carry out his plans to send Daniel to school. One evening he said, "Daniel, you must be up early in the morning, I am going with you to Exeter." "To Exeter?" said the boy. "Yes, to Exeter. I am going to put you in the academy there." The academy at Exeter was then, as it still is, a famous place for preparing boys for college. But Daniel's father did not say anything about making him ready for college. The judge knew that the expenses would be heavy, and he was not sure that he would ever be able to give him a finished education. It was nearly fifty miles to Exeter, and Daniel and his father were to ride there on horseback. That was almost the only way of traveling in those days. The next morning two horses were brought to the door. One was Judge Webster's horse, the other was a gentle nag, with a lady's side-saddle on his back. "Who is going to ride on that nag?" asked Daniel. "Young Dan Webster," answered the judge. "But I don't want a side-saddle. I am not a lady." "Neighbor Johnson is sending the nag to Exeter for the use of a lady who is to ride back with me. I accommodate him by taking charge of the animal, and he accommodates me by allowing you to ride on it." "But won't it look rather funny for me to ride to Exeter on a lady's saddle?" "If a lady can ride on it, perhaps Dan Webster can do as much." And so they set out on their journey to Exeter. The judge rode in advance, and Daniel, sitting astride of the lady's saddle, followed behind. It was, no doubt, a funny sight to see them riding thus along the muddy roads. None of the country people who stopped to gaze at them could have guessed that the dark-faced lad who rode so awkwardly would some day become one of the greatest men of the age. It was thus that Daniel Webster made his first appearance among strangers. * * * * * V.--AT EXETER ACADEMY. It was the first time that Daniel Webster had been so far from home. He was bashful and awkward. His clothes were of home-made stuff, and they were cut in the quaint style of the back-country districts. He must have been a funny-looking fellow. No wonder that the boys laughed when they saw him going up to the principal to be examined for admission. The principal of the academy at that time was Dr. Benjamin Abbott. He was a great scholar and a very dignified gentleman. He looked down at the slender, black-eyed boy and asked: "What is your age, sir?" "Fourteen years," said Daniel. "I will examine you first in reading. Take this Bible, and let me hear you read some of these verses." He pointed to the twenty-second chapter of Saint Luke's Gospel. The boy took the book and began to read. He had read this chapter a hundred times before. Indeed, there was no part of the Bible that was not familiar to him. He read with a clearness and fervor which few men could equal. The dignified principal was astonished. He stood as though spell-bound, listening to the rich, mellow tones of the bashful lad from among the hills. In the case of most boys it was enough if he heard them read a verse or two. But he allowed Daniel Webster to read on until he had finished the chapter. Then he said: "There is no need to examine you further. You are fully qualified to enter this academy." Most of the boys at Exeter were gentlemen's sons. They dressed well, they had been taught fine manners, they had the speech of cultivated people. They laughed at the awkward, new boy. They made fun of his homespun coat; they twitted him on account of his poverty; they annoyed him in a hundred ways. Daniel felt hurt by this cruel treatment. He grieved bitterly over it in secret, but he did not resent it. He studied hard and read much. He was soon at the head of all his classes. His schoolmates ceased laughing at him; for they saw that, with all his uncouth ways, he had more ability than any of them. He had, as I have said, a wonderful memory. He had also a quick insight and sound judgment. But he had had so little experience with the world, that he was not sure of his own powers. He knew that he was awkward; and this made him timid and bashful. When it came his turn to declaim before the school, he had not the courage to do it. Long afterwards, when he had become the greatest orator of modern times, he told how hard this thing had been for him at Exeter: "Many a piece did I commit to memory, and rehearse in my room over and over again. But when the day came, when the school collected, when my name was called and I saw all eyes turned upon my seat, I could not raise myself from it. "Sometimes the masters frowned, sometimes they smiled. My tutor always pressed and entreated with the most winning kindness that I would venture only _once_; but I could not command sufficient resolution, and when the occasion was over I went home and wept tears of bitter mortification." Daniel stayed nine months at Exeter. In those nine months he did as much as the other boys of his age could do in two years. He mastered arithmetic, geography, grammar, and rhetoric. He also began the study of Latin. Besides this, he was a great reader of all kinds of books, and he added something every day to his general stock of knowledge. His teachers did not oblige him to follow a graded course of study. They did not hold him back with the duller pupils of his class. They did not oblige him to wait until the end of the year before he could be promoted or could begin the study of a new subject. But they encouraged him to do his best. As soon as he had finished one subject, he advanced to a more difficult one. More than fifty years afterwards, Dr. Abbott declared that in all his long experience he had never known any one whose power of gaining knowledge was at all equal to that of the bashful country lad from the New Hampshire hills. Judge Webster would have been glad to let Daniel stay at Exeter until he had finished the studies required at the academy. But he could not afford the expense. If he should spend all his money to keep the boy at the academy, how could he afterwards find the means to send him to college where the expenses would be much greater? So he thought it best to find a private teacher for the boy. This would be cheaper. * * * * * VI.--GETTING READY FOR COLLEGE. One day in the early winter, Judge Webster asked Daniel to ride with him to Boscawen. Boscawen was a little town, six miles away, where they sometimes went for business or for pleasure. Snow was on the ground. Father and son rode together in a little, old-fashioned sleigh; and as they rode, they talked about many things. Just as they were going up the last hill, Judge Webster said: "Daniel, do you know the Rev. Samuel Wood, here in Boscawen?" "I have heard of him," said Daniel. "He takes boys into his family, and gets them ready for college." "Yes, and he does it cheap, too," said his father. "He charges only a dollar a week for board and tuition, fuel and lights and everything." "But they say he is a fine teacher," said Daniel. "His boys never fail in the college examinations." "That is what I have heard, too," answered his father. "And now, Dannie, I may as well tell you a secret. For the last six years I have been planning to have you take a course in Dartmouth College. I want you to stay with Dr. Wood this winter, and he will get you ready to enter. We might as well go and see him now." This was the first time that Daniel had ever heard his father speak of sending him to college. His heart was so full that he could not say a word. But the tears came in his eyes as he looked up into the judge's stern, kind face. He knew that if his father carried out this plan, it would cost a great deal of money; and if this money should be spent for him, then the rest of the family would have to deny themselves of many comforts which they might otherwise have. "Oh, never mind that, Dan," said his brother Ezekiel. "We are never so happy as when we are doing something for you. And we know that you will do something for us, some time." And so the boy spent the winter in Boscawen with Dr. Wood. He learned everything very easily, but he was not as close a student as he had been at Exeter. He was very fond of sport. He liked to go fishing. And sometimes, when the weather was fine, his studies were sadly neglected. There was a circulating library in Boscawen, and Daniel read every book that was in it. Sometimes he slighted his Latin for the sake of giving more time to such reading. One of the books in the library was _Don Quixote_. Daniel thought it the most wonderful story in existence. He afterwards said: "I began to read it, and it is literally true that I never closed my eyes until I had finished it, so great was the power of this extraordinary book on my imagination." But it was so easy for the boy to learn, that he made very rapid progress in all his studies. In less than a year, Dr. Wood declared that he was ready for college. He was then fifteen years old. He had a pretty thorough knowledge of arithmetic; but he had never studied algebra or geometry. In Latin he had read four of Cicero's orations, and six books of Virgil's _Aeneid._ He knew something of the elements of Greek grammar, and had read a portion of the Greek Testament. Nowadays, a young man could hardly enter even a third-rate college without a better preparation than that. But colleges are much more thorough than they were a hundred years ago. * * * * * VII.--AT DARTMOUTH COLLEGE. Dartmouth College is at Hanover, New Hampshire. It is one of the oldest colleges in America and among its students have been many of the foremost men of New England. It was in the fall of 1797, that Daniel Webster entered this college. He was then a tall, slender youth, with high cheek bones and a swarthy skin. The professors soon saw that he was no common lad. They said to one another, "This young Webster will one day be a greater man than any of us." And young Webster was well-behaved and studious at college. He was as fond of sport as any of the students, but he never gave himself up to boyish pranks. He was punctual and regular in all his classes. He was as great a reader as ever. He could learn anything that he tried. No other young man had a broader knowledge of things than he. And yet he did not make his mark as a student in the prescribed branches of study. He could not confine himself to the narrow routine of the college course. He did not, as at Exeter, push his way quickly to the head of his class. He won no prizes. "But he minded his own business," said one of the professors. "As steady as the sun, he pursued, with intense application, the great object for which he came to college." Soon everybody began to appreciate his scholarship. Everybody admired him for his manliness and good common sense. "He was looked upon as being so far in advance of any one else, that no other student of his class was ever spoken of as second to him." He very soon lost that bashfulness which had troubled him so much at Exeter. It was no task now for him to stand up and declaim before the professors and students. In a short time he became known as the best writer and speaker in the college. Indeed, he loved to speak; and the other students were always pleased to listen to him. One of his classmates tells us how he prepared his speeches. He says: "It was Webster's custom to arrange his thoughts in his mind while he was in his room, or while he was walking alone. Then he would put them upon paper just before the exercise was to be called for. "If he was to speak at two o'clock, he would often begin to write after dinner; and when the bell rang he would fold his paper, put it in his pocket, go in, and speak with great ease. "In his movements he was slow and deliberate, except when his feelings were aroused. Then his whole soul would kindle into a flame." In the year 1800, he was chosen to deliver the Fourth of July address to the students of the college and the citizens of the town. He was then eighteen years old. The speech was a long one. It was full of the love of country. Its tone throughout was earnest and thoughtful. But in its style it was overdone; it was full of pretentious expressions; it lacked the simplicity and good common sense that should mark all public addresses. And yet, as the speech of so young a man, it was a very able effort. People said that it was the promise of much greater things. And they were right. In the summer of 1801, Daniel graduated. But he took no honors. He was not even present at the Commencement. His friends were grieved that he had not been chosen to deliver the valedictory address. Perhaps he also was disappointed. But the professors had thought best to give that honor to another student. * * * * * VIII.--HOW DANIEL TAUGHT SCHOOL. While Daniel Webster was taking his course in college, there was one thing that troubled him very much. It was the thought of his brother Ezekiel toiling at home on the farm. He knew that Ezekiel had great abilities. He knew that he was not fond of the farm, but that he was anxious to become a lawyer. This brother had given up all his dearest plans in order that Daniel might be favored; and Daniel knew that this was so. Once, when Daniel was at home on a vacation, he said, "Zeke, this thing is all wrong. Father has mortgaged the farm for money to pay my expenses at school, and you are making a slave of yourself to pay off the mortgage. It isn't right for me to let you do this." Ezekiel said, "Daniel, I am stronger than you are, and if one of us has to stay on the farm, of course I am the one." "But I want you to go to college," said Daniel. "An education will do you as much good as me." "I doubt it," said Ezekiel; "and yet, if father was only able to send us both. I think that we might pay him back some time." "I will see father about it this very day," said Daniel. He did see him. "I told my father," said Daniel, afterwards, "that I was unhappy at my brother's prospects. For myself, I saw my way to knowledge, respectability, and self-protection. But as to Ezekiel, all looked the other way. I said that I would keep school, and get along as well as I could, be more than four years in getting through college, if necessary, provided he also could be sent to study." The matter was referred to Daniel's mother, and she and his father talked it over together. They knew that it would take all the property they had to educate both the boys. They knew that they would have to do without many comforts, and that they would have a hard struggle to make a living while the boys were studying. But the mother said, "I will trust the boys." And it was settled that Ezekiel, too, should have a chance to make his mark in the world. He was now a grown-up man. He was tall and strong and ambitious. He entered college the very year that Daniel graduated. As for Daniel, he was now ready to choose a profession. What should it be? His father wanted him to become a lawyer. And so, to please his parents, he went home and began to read law in the office of a Mr. Thompson, in the little village of Salisbury, which adjoined his father's farm. The summer passed by. It was very pleasant to have nothing to do but to read. And when the young man grew tired of reading, he could go out fishing, or could spend a day in hunting among the New Hampshire hills. It is safe to say that he did not learn very much law during that summer. But there was not a day that he did not think about his brother. Ezekiel had done much to help him through college, and now ought he not to help Ezekiel? But what could he do? He had a good education, and his first thought was that he might teach school, and thus earn a little money for Ezekiel. The people of Fryeburg, in Maine, wanted him to take charge of the academy in their little town. And so, early in the fall, he decided to take up with their offer. He was to have three hundred and fifty dollars for the year's work, and that would help Ezekiel a great deal. He bade good-bye to Mr. Thompson and his little law office, and made ready to go to his new field of labor. There were no railroads at that time, and a journey of even a few miles was a great undertaking. Daniel had bought a horse for twenty-four dollars. In one end of an old-fashioned pair of saddle-bags he put his Sunday clothes, and in the other he packed his books. He laid the saddle-bags upon the horse, then he mounted and rode off over the hills toward Fryeburg, sixty miles away. He was not yet quite twenty years old. He was very slender, and nearly six feet in height. His face was thin and dark. His eyes were black and bright and penetrating--no person who once saw them could ever forget them. Young as he was, he was very successful as a teacher during that year which he spent at Fryeburg. The trustees of the academy were so highly pleased that they wanted him to stay a second year. They promised to raise his salary to five or six hundred dollars, and to give him a house and a piece of land. He was greatly tempted to give up all further thoughts of becoming a lawyer. "What shall I do?" he said to himself. "Shall I say, 'Yes, gentlemen,' and sit down here to spend my days in a kind of comfortable privacy?" But his father was anxious that he should return to the study of the law. And so he was not long in making up his mind. In a letter to one of his friends he said: "I shall make one more trial of the law in the ensuing autumn. "If I prosecute the profession, I pray God to fortify me against its temptations. To be honest, to be capable, to be faithful to my client and my conscience." Early the next September, he was again in Mr. Thompson's little law office. All the money that he had saved, while at Fryeburg, was spent to help Ezekiel through college. * * * * * IX.--DANIEL GOES TO BOSTON. For a year and a half, young Daniel Webster stayed in the office of Mr. Thompson. He had now fully made up his mind as to what profession he would follow; and so he was a much better student than he had been before. He read many law books with care. He read _Hume's History of England_, and spent a good deal of time with the Latin classics. "At this period of my life," he afterwards said, "I passed a great deal of time alone. "My amusements were fishing and shooting and riding, and all these were without a companion. I loved this solitude then, and have loved it ever since, and love it still." The Webster family were still very poor. Judge Webster was now too old to do much work of any kind. The farm had been mortgaged for all that it was worth. It was hard to find money enough to keep Daniel at his law studies and Ezekiel in college. At last it became necessary for one of the young men to do something that would help matters along. Ezekiel decided that he would leave college for a time and try to earn enough money to meet the present needs of the family. Through some of his friends he obtained a small private school in Boston. There were very few pupils in Ezekiel Webster's school. But there were so many branches to be taught that he could not find time to hear all the recitations. So, at last, he sent word to Daniel to come down and help him. If Daniel would teach an hour and a half each day, he should have enough money to pay his board. Daniel was pleased with the offer. He had long wanted to study law in Boston, and here was his opportunity. And so, early in March, 1804, he joined his brother in that city, and was soon doing what he could to help him in his little school. There was in Boston, at that time, a famous lawyer whose name was Christopher Gore. While Daniel Webster was wondering how he could best carry on his studies in the city, he heard that Mr. Gore had no clerk in his office. "How I should like to read law with Mr. Gore!" he said to Ezekiel. "Yes," said Ezekiel. "You could not want a better tutor." "I mean to see him to-day and apply for a place in his office," said Daniel. It was with many misgivings that the young man went into the presence of the great lawyer. We will let him tell the story in his own words: "I was from the country, I said;--had studied law for two years; had come to Boston to study a year more; had heard that he had no clerk; thought it possible he would receive one. "I told him that I came to Boston to work, not to play; was most desirous, on all accounts, to be his pupil; and all I ventured to ask at present was, that he would keep a place for me in his office, till I could write to New Hampshire for proper letters showing me worthy of it." Mr. Gore listened to this speech very kindly, and then bade Daniel be seated while he should have a short talk with him. When at last the young man rose to go, Mr. Gore said: "My young friend, you look as if you might be trusted. You say you came to study and not to waste time. I will take you at your word. You may as well hang up your hat at once." And this was the beginning of Daniel Webster's career in Boston. He must have done well in Mr. Gore's office; for, in a few months, he was admitted to the practice of law in the Court of Common Pleas in Boston. It was at some time during this same winter that Daniel was offered the position of clerk in the County Court at home. His father, as you will remember, was one of the judges in this court, and he was very much delighted at the thought that his son would be with him. The salary would be about fifteen hundred dollars a year--and that was a great sum to Daniel as well as to his father. The mortgage on the farm could be paid off; Ezekiel could finish his course in college; and life would be made easier for them all. At first Daniel was as highly pleased as his father. But after he had talked with Mr. Gore, he decided not to accept the offered position. "Your prospects as a lawyer," said Mr. Gore, "are good enough to encourage you to go on. Go on, and finish your studies. You are poor enough, but there are greater evils than poverty. Live on no man's favor. Pursue your profession; make yourself useful to your friends and a little formidable to your enemies, and you have nothing to fear." A few days after that, Daniel paid a visit to his father. The judge received him very kindly, but he was greatly disappointed when the young man told him that he had made up his mind not to take the place. With his deep-set, flashing eyes, he looked at his son for a moment as though in anger. Then he said, very slowly: "Well, my son, your mother has always said that you would come to something or nothing--she was not sure which. I think you are now about settling that doubt for her." A few weeks after this, Daniel, as I have already told you, was admitted to the bar in Boston. But he did not think it best to begin his practice there. He knew how anxious his father was that he should be near him. He wanted to do all that he could to cheer and comfort the declining years of the noble man who had sacrificed everything for him. And so, in the spring of 1805, he settled in the town of Boscawen, six miles from home, and put up at his office door this sign: D. WEBSTER, ATTORNEY. * * * * * X.--LAWYER AND CONGRESSMAN. When Daniel Webster had been in Boscawen nearly two years, his father died. It was then decided that Ezekiel should come and take charge of the home farm, and care for their mother. Ezekiel had not yet graduated from college, but he had read law and was hoping to be admitted to the bar. He was a man of much natural ability, and many people believed that he would some day become a very famous lawyer. And so, in the autumn of 1807, Daniel gave up to his brother the law business which he had in Boscawen, and removed to the city of Portsmouth. He was now twenty-five years old. In Portsmouth he would find plenty of work to do; it would be the very kind of work that he liked. He was now well started on the road towards greatness. The very next year, he was married to Miss Grace Fletcher, the daughter of a minister in Hopkinton. The happy couple began housekeeping in a small, modest, wooden house, in Portsmouth; and there they lived, very plainly and without pretension, for several years. Mr. Webster's office was "a common, ordinary-looking room, with less furniture and more books than common. He had a small inner room, opening from the larger, rather an unusual thing." It was not long until the name of Daniel Webster was known all over New Hampshire. Those who were acquainted with him said that he was the smartest young lawyer in Portsmouth. They said that if he kept on in the way that he had started, there were great things in store for him. The country people told wonderful stories about him. They said that he was as black as a coal--but of course they had never seen him. They believed that he could gain any case in court that he chose to manage--and in this they were about right. There was another great lawyer in Portsmouth. His name was Jeremiah Mason, and he was much older than Mr. Webster. Indeed, he was already a famous man when Daniel first began the practice of law. The young lawyer and the older one soon became warm friends; and yet they were often opposed to each other in the courts. Daniel was always obliged to do his best when Mr. Mason was against him. This caused him to be very careful. It no doubt made him become a better lawyer than he otherwise would have been. While Webster was thus quietly practicing law in New Hampshire, trouble was brewing between the United States and England. The English were doing much to hinder American merchants from trading with foreign countries. They claimed the right to search American vessels for seamen who had deserted from the British service. And it is said that American sailors were often dragged from their own vessels and forced to serve on board the English ships. Matters kept getting worse and worse for several years. At last, in June, 1812, the United States declared war against England. Daniel Webster was opposed to this war, and he made several speeches against it. He said that, although we had doubtless suffered many wrongs, there was more cause for war with France than with England. And then, the United States had no navy, and hence was not ready to go to war with any nation. Webster's influence in New Hampshire was so great that he persuaded many of the people of that state to think just as he thought on this subject. They nominated him as their representative in Congress; and when the time came, they elected him. It was on the 24th of May, 1813, that he first took his seat in Congress. He was then thirty-one years old. In that same Congress there were two other young men who afterwards made their names famous in the history of their country. One was Henry Clay, of Kentucky. The other was John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina. Both were a little older than Webster; both had already made some mark in public life; and both were in favor of the war. During his first year in Congress, Mr. Webster made some stirring speeches in support of his own opinions. In this way, as well by his skill in debate, he made himself known as a young man of more than common ability and promise. Chief Justice Marshall, who was then at the head of the Supreme Court of the United States, said of him: "I have never seen a man of whose intellect I had a higher opinion." In 1814, the war that had been going on so long came to an end. But now there were other subjects which claimed Mr. Webster's attention in Congress. Then, as now, there were important questions regarding the money of the nation; and upon these questions there was great difference of opinion. Daniel Webster's speeches, in favor of a sound currency, did much to maintain the national credit and to save the country from bankruptcy. The people of New Hampshire were so well pleased with the record which he made in Congress that, when his first term expired, they re-elected him for a second. * * * * * XI.--THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. In 1816, before his second term in Congress had expired, Daniel Webster removed with his family to Boston. He had lived in Portsmouth nine years, and he now felt that he needed a wider field for the exercise of his talents. He was now no longer the slender, delicate person that he had been in his boyhood and youth. He was a man of noble mien--a sturdy, dignified personage, who bore the marks of greatness upon him. People said, "When Daniel Webster walked the streets of Boston, he made the buildings look small." As soon as his term in Congress had expired, he began the practice of law in Boston. For nearly seven years he devoted himself strictly to his profession. Of course, he at once took his place as the leading lawyer of New England. Indeed, he soon became known as the ablest counsellor and advocate in America. The best business of the country now came to him. His income was very large, amounting to more than $20,000 a year. And during this time there was no harder worker than he. In fact, his natural genius could have done but little for him, had it not been for his untiring industry. One of his first great victories in law was that which is known as the Dartmouth College case. The lawmakers of New Hampshire had attempted to pass a law to alter the charter of the college. By doing this they would endanger the usefulness and prosperity of that great school, in order to favor the selfish projects of its enemies. Daniel Webster undertook to defend the college. The speech which he made before the Supreme Court of the United States was a masterly effort. "Sir," he said, "you may destroy this little institution--it is weak, it is in your hands. I know it is one of the lesser lights in the literary horizon of our country. You may put it out. "But if you do so, you must carry through your work! You must extinguish, one after another, all those greater lights of science which, for more than a century, have thrown their light over our land!" He won the case; and this, more than anything else, helped to gain for him the reputation of being the ablest lawyer in the United States. * * * * * XII.--WEBSTER'S GREAT ORATIONS. In 1820, when he was thirty-eight years old, Daniel Webster was chosen to deliver an oration at a great meeting of New Englanders at Plymouth, Massachusetts. Plymouth is the place where the Pilgrims landed in 1620. Just two hundred years had passed since that time, and this meeting was to celebrate the memory of the brave men and women who had risked so much to found new homes in what was then a bleak wilderness. The speech which Mr. Webster delivered was one of the greatest ever heard in America. It placed him at once at the head of American orators. John Adams, the second president of the United States, was then living, a very old man. He said, "This oration will be read five hundred years hence with as much rapture as it was heard. It ought to be read at the end of every century, and, indeed, at the end of every year, forever and ever." But this was only the first of many great addresses by Mr. Webster. In 1825, he delivered an oration at the laying of the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill monument. Eighteen years later, when that monument was finished, he delivered another. Many of Mr. Webster's admirers think that these two orations are his masterpieces. On July 4th, 1826, the United States had been independent just fifty years. On that day there passed away two of the greatest men of the country--John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Both were ex-presidents, and both had been leaders in the councils of the nation. It was in memory of these two patriots that Daniel Webster was called to deliver an oration in Faneuil Hall, Boston. No other funeral oration has ever been delivered in any age or country that was equal to this in eloquence. Like all his other discourses, it was full of patriotic feeling. "This lovely land," he said, "this glorious liberty, these benign institutions, the dear purchase of our fathers, are ours; ours to enjoy, ours to preserve, ours to transmit. Generations past and generations to come hold us responsible for this sacred trust. "Our fathers, from behind, admonish us with their anxious, paternal voices; posterity calls out to us from the bosom of the future; the world turns hither its solicitous eyes; all, all conjure us to act wisely and faithfully in the relation which we sustain." Most of his other great speeches were delivered in Congress, and are, therefore, political in tone and subject. Great as Daniel Webster was in politics and in law, it is as an orator and patriot that his name will be longest remembered. * * * * * XIII.--MR. WEBSTER IN THE SENATE. When Daniel Webster was forty years old, the people of Boston elected him to represent them in Congress. They were so well pleased with all that he did while there, that they re-elected him twice. In June, 1827, the legislature of Massachusetts chose him to be United States senator for a term of six years. He was at that time the most famous man in Massachusetts, and his name was known and honored in every state of the Union. After that he was re-elected to the same place again and again; and for more than twenty years he continued to be the distinguished senator from Massachusetts. I cannot now tell you of all his public services during the long period that he sat in Congress. Indeed, there are some things that you would find hard to understand until you have learned more about the history of our country. But you will by-and-by read of them in the larger books which you will study at school; and, no doubt, you will also read some of his great addresses and orations. It was in 1830 that he delivered the most famous of all his speeches in the senate chamber of the United States. This speech is commonly called, "The Reply to Hayne." I shall not here try to explain the purport of Mr. Hayne's speeches--for there were two of them. I shall not try to describe the circumstances which led Mr. Webster to make his famous reply to them. But I will quote Mr. Webster's closing sentences. Forty years ago the school-boys all over the country were accustomed to memorize and declaim these patriotic utterances. "When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent, on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! "Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory, 'What is all this worth?' nor those other words of delusion and folly, 'Liberty first and Union afterwards;' but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its folds, as they float over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every American heart--Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!" In 1841, Daniel Webster resigned his seat in the senate. He did this in order to become secretary of state in the cabinet of the newly elected president, William Henry Harrison. But President Harrison died on the 5th of April, after having held his office just one month; and his place was taken by the vice-president, John Tyler. Mr. Webster now felt that his position in the cabinet would not be a pleasant one; but he continued to hold it for nearly two years. His most important act as secretary of state was to conclude a treaty with England which fixed the northeastern boundary of the United States. This treaty is known in history as the Ashburton Treaty. In 1843, Mr. Webster resigned his place in President Tyler's cabinet. But he was not allowed to remain long in private life. Two years later he was again elected to the United States senate. About this time, Texas was annexed to the United States. But Mr. Webster did not favor this, for he believed that such an act was contrary to the Constitution of our country. He did all that he could to keep our government from making war upon Mexico. But after this war had been begun, he was a firm friend of the soldiers who took part in it, and he did much to provide for their safety and comfort. Among these soldiers was Edward, the second son of Daniel Webster. He became a major in the main division of the army, and died in the City of Mexico. * * * * * XIV.--MR. WEBSTER IN PRIVATE LIFE. Let us now go back a little way in our story, and learn something about Mr. Webster's home and private life. [Illustration: The Mansion Marshfield] [Illustration: The Library] [Illustration: The Tomb] In 1831, Mr. Webster bought a large farm at Marshfield, in the southeastern part of Massachusetts, not far from the sea. He spent a great deal of money in improving this farm; and in the end it was as fine a country seat as one might see anywhere in New England. When he became tired with the many cares of his busy life, Mr. Webster could always find rest and quiet days at Marshfield. He liked to dress himself as a farmer, and stroll about the fields looking at the cattle and at the growing crops. "I had rather be here than in the senate," he would say. But his life was clouded with many sorrows. Long before going to Marshfield, his two eldest children were laid in the grave. Their mother followed them just one year before Mr. Webster's first entry into the United States senate. In 1829, his brother Ezekiel died suddenly while speaking in court at Concord. Ezekiel had never cared much for politics, but as a lawyer in his native state, he had won many honors. His death came as a great shock to everybody that knew him. To his brother it brought overwhelming sorrow. When Daniel Webster was nearly forty-eight years old, he married a second wife. She was the daughter of a New York merchant, and her name was Caroline Bayard Le Roy. She did much to lighten the disappointments of his later life, and they lived together happily for more than twenty years. In 1839, Mr. and Mrs. Webster made a short visit to England. The fame of the great orator had gone before him, and he was everywhere received with honor. The greatest men of the time were proud to meet him. Henry Hallam, the historian, wrote of him: "Mr. Webster approaches as nearly to the _beau ideal_ of a republican senator as any man that I have ever seen in the course of my life." Even the Queen invited him to dine with her; and she was much pleased with his dignified ways and noble bearing. And, indeed, his appearance was such as to win the respect of all who saw him. When he walked the streets of London, people would stop and wonder who the noble stranger was; and workingmen whispered to one another: "There goes a king!" * * * * * XV.--THE LAST YEARS. Many people believed that Daniel Webster would finally be elected president of the United States. And, indeed, there was no man in all this country who was better fitted for that high position than he. But it so happened that inferior men, who were willing to stoop to the tricks of politics, always stepped in before him. In the meanwhile the question of slavery was becoming, every day, more and more important. It was the one subject which claimed everybody's attention. Should slavery be allowed in the territories? There was great excitement all over the country. There were many hot debates in Congress. It seemed as though the Union would be destroyed. At last, the wiser and cooler-headed leaders in Congress said, "Let each side give up a little to the other. Let us have a compromise." On the 7th of March, 1850, Mr. Webster delivered a speech before the senate. It was a speech in favor of compromise, in favor of conciliation. He thought that this was the only way to preserve the Union. And he was willing to sacrifice everything for the Constitution and the Union. He declared that all the ends he aimed at were for his country's good. "I speak to-day for the preservation of the Union," he said. "Hear me for my cause! I speak to-day out of a solicitous and anxious heart, for the restoration to the country of that quiet and harmony, which make the blessings of this Union so rich and so dear to us all." He then went on to defend the law known as the Fugitive Slave Law. He declared that this law was in accordance with the Constitution, and hence it should be enforced according to its true meaning. The speech was a great disappointment to his friends. They said that he had deserted them; that he had gone over to their enemies; that he was no longer a champion of freedom, but of slavery. Those who had been his warmest supporters, now turned against him. A few months after this, President Taylor died. The vice-president, Millard Fillmore, then became president. Mr. Fillmore was in sympathy with Daniel Webster, and soon gave him a seat in his cabinet as secretary of state. This was the second time that Mr. Webster had been called to fill this high and honorable position. But, under President Fillmore, he did no very great or important thing. He was still the leading man in the Whig party; and he hoped, in 1852, to be nominated for the presidency. But in this he was again disappointed. He was now an old man. He had had great successes in life; but he felt that he had failed at the end of the race. His health was giving way. He went home to Marshfield for the quiet and rest which he so much needed. In May, that same year, he was thrown from his carriage and severely hurt. From this hurt he never recovered. He offered to resign his seat in the cabinet, but Mr. Fillmore would not listen to this. In September he became very feeble, and his friends knew that the end was near. On the 24th of October, 1852, he died. He was nearly seventy-one years old. In every part of the land his death was sincerely mourned. Both friends and enemies felt that a great man had fallen. They felt that this country had lost its leading statesman, its noblest patriot, its worthiest citizen. Rufus Choate, who had succeeded him as the foremost lawyer in New England, delivered a great oration upon his life and character. He said: "Look in how manly a sort, in how high a moral tone, Mr. Webster uniformly dealt with the mind of his country. "Where do you find him flattering his countrymen, indirectly or directly, for a vote? On what did he ever place himself but good counsels and useful service? "Who ever heard that voice cheering the people on to rapacity, to injustice, to a vain and guilty glory? "How anxiously, rather, did he prefer to teach, that by all possible acquired sobriety of mind, by asking reverently of the past, by obedience to the law, by habits of patient labor, by the cultivation of the mind, by the fear and worship of God, we educate ourselves for the future that is revealing." THE STORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN [Illustration: _ABRAHAM LINCOLN_.] THE STORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. * * * * * I.--THE KENTUCKY HOME. Not far from Hodgensville, in Kentucky, there once lived a man whose name was Thomas Lincoln. This man had built for himself a little log cabin by the side of a brook, where there was an ever-flowing spring of water. There was but one room in this cabin. On the side next to the brook there was a low doorway; and at one end there was a large fireplace, built of rough stones and clay. The chimney was very broad at the bottom and narrow at the top. It was made of clay, with flat stones and slender sticks laid around the outside to keep it from falling apart. In the wall, on one side of the fireplace, there was a square hole for a window. But there was no glass in this window. In the summer it was left open all the time. In cold weather a deerskin, or a piece of coarse cloth, was hung over it to keep out the wind and the snow. At night, or on stormy days, the skin of a bear was hung across the doorway; for there was no door on hinges to be opened and shut. There was no ceiling to the room. But the inmates of the cabin, by looking up, could see the bare rafters and the rough roof-boards, which Mr. Lincoln himself had split and hewn. There was no floor, but only the bare ground that had been smoothed and beaten until it was as level and hard as pavement. For chairs there were only blocks of wood and a rude bench on one side of the fireplace. The bed was a little platform of poles, on which were spread the furry skins of wild animals, and a patchwork quilt of homespun goods. In this poor cabin, on the 12th of February, 1809, a baby boy was born. There was already one child in the family--a girl, two years old, whose name was Sarah. The little boy grew and became strong like other babies, and his parents named him Abraham, after his grandfather, who had been killed by the Indians many years before. When he was old enough to run about, he liked to play under the trees by the cabin door. Sometimes he would go with his little sister into the woods and watch the birds and the squirrels. He had no playmates. He did not know the meaning of toys or playthings. But he was a happy child and had many pleasant ways. Thomas Lincoln, the father, was a kind-hearted man, very strong and brave. Sometimes he would take the child on his knee and tell him strange, true stories of the great forest, and of the Indians and the fierce beasts that roamed among the woods and hills. For Thomas Lincoln had always lived on the wild frontier; and he would rather hunt deer and other game in the forest than do anything else. Perhaps this is why he was so poor. Perhaps this is why he was content to live in the little log cabin with so few of the comforts of life. But Nancy Lincoln, the young mother, did not complain. She, too, had grown up among the rude scenes of the backwoods. She had never known better things. And yet she was by nature refined and gentle; and people who knew her said that she was very handsome. She was a model housekeeper, too; and her poor log cabin was the neatest and best-kept house in all that neighborhood. No woman could be busier than she. She knew how to spin and weave, and she made all the clothing for her family. She knew how to wield the ax and the hoe; and she could work on the farm or in the garden when her help was needed. She had also learned how to shoot with a rifle; and she could bring down a deer or other wild game with as much ease as could her husband. And when the game was brought home, she could dress it, she could cook the flesh for food, and of the skins she could make clothing for her husband and children. There was still another thing that she could do--she could read; and she read all the books that she could get hold of. She taught her husband the letters of the alphabet; and she showed him how to write his name. For Thomas Lincoln had never gone to school, and he had never learned how to read. As soon as little Abraham Lincoln was old enough to understand, his mother read stories to him from the Bible. Then, while he was still very young, she taught him to read the stories for himself. The neighbors thought it a wonderful thing that so small a boy could read. There were very few of them who could do as much. Few of them thought it of any great use to learn how to read. There were no school-houses in that part of Kentucky in those days, and of course there were no public schools. One winter a traveling schoolmaster came that way. He got leave to use a cabin not far from Mr. Lincoln's, and gave notice that he would teach school for two or three weeks. The people were too poor to pay him for teaching longer. The name of this schoolmaster was Zachariah Riney. The young people for miles around flocked to the school. Most of them were big boys and girls, and a few were grown up young men. The only little child was Abraham Lincoln, and he was not yet five years old. There was only one book studied at that school, and it was a spelling-book. It had some easy reading lessons at the end, but these were not to be read until after every word in the book had been spelled. You can imagine how the big boys and girls felt when Abraham Lincoln proved that he could spell and read better than any of them. * * * * * II.--WORK AND SORROW. In the autumn, just after Abraham Lincoln was eight years old, his parents left their Kentucky home and moved to Spencer county, in Indiana. It was not yet a year since Indiana had become a state. Land could be bought very cheap, and Mr. Lincoln thought that he could make a good living there for his family. He had heard also that game was plentiful in the Indiana woods. It was not more than seventy or eighty miles from the old home to the new. But it seemed very far, indeed, and it was a good many days before the travelers reached their journey's end. Over a part of the way there was no road, and the movers had to cut a path for themselves through the thick woods. The boy, Abraham, was tall and very strong for his age. He already knew how to handle an ax, and few men could shoot with a rifle better than he. He was his father's helper in all kinds of work. It was in November when the family came to the place which was to be their future home. Winter was near at hand. There was no house, nor shelter of any kind. What would become of the patient, tired mother, and the gentle little sister, who had borne themselves so bravely during the long, hard journey? No sooner had the horses been loosed from the wagon than Abraham and his father were at work with their axes. In a short time they had built what they called a "camp." This camp was but a rude shed, made of poles and thatched with leaves and branches. It was enclosed on three sides, so that the chill winds or the driving rains from the north and west could not enter. The fourth side was left open, and in front of it a fire was built. This fire was kept burning all the time. It warmed the interior of the camp. A big iron kettle was hung over it by means of a chain and pole, and in this kettle the fat bacon, the venison, the beans, and the corn were boiled for the family's dinner and supper. In the hot ashes the good mother baked luscious "corn dodgers," and sometimes, perhaps, a few potatoes. In one end of the camp were the few cooking utensils and little articles of furniture which even the poorest house cannot do without. The rest of the space was the family sitting-room and bed-room. The floor was covered with leaves, and on these were spread the furry skins of deer and bears, and other animals. It was in this camp that the family spent their first winter in Indiana. How very cold and dreary that winter must have been! Think of the stormy nights, of the shrieking wind, of the snow and the sleet and the bitter frost! It is not much wonder if, before the spring months came, the mother's strength began to fail. But it was a busy winter for Thomas Lincoln. Every day his ax was heard in the woods. He was clearing the ground, so that in the spring it might be planted with corn and vegetables. He was hewing logs for his new house; for he had made up his mind, now, to have something better than a cabin. The woods were full of wild animals. It was easy for Abraham and his father to kill plenty of game, and thus keep the family supplied with fresh meat. And Abraham, with chopping and hewing and hunting and trapping, was very busy for a little boy. He had but little time to play; and, since he had no playmates, we cannot know whether he even wanted to play. With his mother, he read over and over the Bible stories which both of them loved so well. And, during the cold, stormy days, when he could not leave the camp, his mother taught him how to write. In the spring the new house was raised. It was only a hewed log house, with one room below and a loft above. But it was so much better than the old cabin in Kentucky that it seemed like a palace. The family had become so tired of living in the "camp," that they moved into the new house before the floor was laid, or any door hung at the doorway. Then came the plowing and the planting and the hoeing. Everybody was busy from daylight to dark. There were so many trees and stumps that there was but little room for the corn to grow. The summer passed, and autumn came. Then the poor mother's strength gave out. She could no longer go about her household duties. She had to depend more and more upon the help that her children could give her. At length she became too feeble to leave her bed. She called her boy to her side. She put her arms about him and said: "Abraham, I am going away from you, and you will never see me again. I know that you will always be good and kind to your sister and father. Try to live as I have taught you, and to love your heavenly Father." On the 5th of October she fell asleep, never to wake again. Under a big sycamore tree, half a mile from the house, the neighbors dug the grave for the mother of Abraham Lincoln. And there they buried her in silence and great sorrow. There was no minister there to conduct religious services. In all that new country there was no church; and no holy man could be found to speak words of comfort and hope to the grieving ones around the grave. But the boy, Abraham, remembered a traveling preacher, whom they had known in Kentucky. The name of this preacher was David Elkin. If he would only come! And so, after all was over, the lad sat down and wrote a letter to David Elkin. He was only a child nine years old, but he believed that the good man would remember his poor mother, and come. It was no easy task to write a letter. Paper and ink were not things of common use, as they are with us. A pen had to be made from the quill of a goose. But at last the letter was finished and sent away. How it was carried I do not know; for the mails were few and far between in those days, and postage was very high. It is more than likely that some friend, who was going into Kentucky, undertook to have it finally handed to the good preacher. Months passed. The leaves were again on the trees. The wild flowers were blossoming in the woods. At last the preacher came. He had ridden a hundred miles on horseback; he had forded rivers, and traveled through pathless woods; he had dared the dangers of the wild forest: all in answer to the lad's beseeching letter. He had no hope of reward, save that which is given to every man who does his duty. He did not know that there would come a time when the greatest preachers in the world would envy him his sad task. And now the friends and neighbors gathered again under the great sycamore tree. The funeral sermon was preached. Hymns were sung. A prayer was offered. Words of comfort and sympathy were spoken. From that time forward the mind of Abraham Lincoln was filled with a high and noble purpose. In his earliest childhood his mother had taught him to love truth and justice, to be honest and upright among men, and to reverence God. These lessons he never forgot. Long afterward, when the world had come to know him as a very great man, he said: "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." * * * * * III.--THE NEW MOTHER. The log house, which Abraham Lincoln called his home, was now more lonely and cheerless than before. The sunlight of his mother's presence had gone out of it forever. His sister Sarah, twelve years old, was the housekeeper and cook. His father had not yet found time to lay a floor in the house, or to hang a door. There were great crevices between the logs, through which the wind and the rain drifted on every stormy day. There was not much comfort in such a house. But the lad was never idle. In the long winter days, when there was no work to be done, he spent the time in reading or in trying to improve his writing. There were very few books in the cabins of that backwoods settlement. But if Abraham Lincoln heard of one, he could not rest till he had borrowed it and read it. Another summer passed, and then another winter. Then, one day, Mr. Lincoln went on a visit to Kentucky, leaving his two children and their cousin, Dennis Hanks, at home to care for the house and the farm. I do not know how long he stayed away, but it could not have been many weeks. One evening, the children were surprised to see a four-horse wagon draw up before the door. Their father was in the wagon; and by his side was a kind-faced woman; and, sitting on the straw at the bottom of the wagon-bed, there were three well-dressed children--two girls and a boy. And there were some grand things in the wagon, too. There were six split-bottomed chairs, a bureau with drawers, a wooden chest, and a feather bed. All these things were very wonderful to the lad and lassie who had never known the use of such luxuries. "Abraham and Sarah," said Mr. Lincoln, as he leaped from the wagon, "I have brought you a new mother and a new brother and two new sisters." The new mother greeted them very kindly, and, no doubt, looked with gentle pity upon them. They were barefooted; their scant clothing was little more than rags and tatters; they did not look much like her own happy children, whom she had cared for so well. And now it was not long until a great change was made in the Lincoln home. A floor was laid, a door was hung, a window was made, the crevices between the logs were daubed with clay. The house was furnished in fine style, with the chairs and the bureau and the feather bed. The kind, new mother brought sunshine and hope into the place that had once been so cheerless. With the young lad, Dennis Hanks, there were now six children in the family. But all were treated with the same kindness; all had the same motherly care. And so, in the midst of much hard work, there were many pleasant days for them all. * * * * * IV.--SCHOOL AND BOOKS. Not very long after this, the people of the neighborhood made up their minds that they must have a school-house. And so, one day after harvest, the men met together and chopped down trees, and built a little low-roofed log cabin to serve for that purpose. If you could see that cabin you would think it a queer kind of school-house. There was no floor. There was only one window, and in it were strips of greased paper pasted across, instead of glass. There were no desks, but only rough benches made of logs split in halves. In one end of the room was a huge fireplace; at the other end was the low doorway. The first teacher was a man whose name was Azel Dorsey. The term of school was very short; for the settlers could not afford to pay him much. It was in mid-winter, for then there was no work for the big boys to do at home. And the big boys, as well as the girls and the smaller boys, for miles around, came in to learn what they could from Azel Dorsey. The most of the children studied only spelling; but some of the larger ones learned reading and writing and arithmetic. There were not very many scholars, for the houses in that new settlement were few and far apart. School began at an early hour in the morning, and did not close until the sun was down. Just how Abraham Lincoln stood in his classes I do not know; but I must believe that he studied hard and did everything as well as he could. In the arithmetic which he used, he wrote these lines: "Abraham Lincoln, His hand and pen, He will be good, But God knows when." In a few weeks, Azel Dorsey's school came to a close; and Abraham Lincoln was again as busy as ever about his father's farm. After that he attended school only two or three short terms. If all his school-days were put together they would not make a twelve-month. But he kept on reading and studying at home. His step-mother said of him: "He read everything he could lay his hands on. When he came across a passage that struck him, he would write it down on boards, if he had no paper, and keep it until he had got paper. Then he would copy it, look at it, commit it to memory, and repeat it." Among the books that he read were the Bible, the _Pilgrims Progress_, and the poems of Robert Burns. One day he walked a long distance to borrow a book of a farmer. This book was Weems's _Life of Washington_. He read as much as he could while walking home. By that time it was dark, and so he sat down by the chimney and read by firelight until bedtime. Then he took the book to bed with him in the loft, and read by the light of a tallow candle. In an hour the candle burned out. He laid the book in a crevice between two of the logs of the cabin, so that he might begin reading again as soon as it was daylight. But in the night a storm came up. The rain was blown in, and the book was wet through and through. In the morning, when Abraham awoke, he saw what had happened. He dried the leaves as well as he could, and then finished reading the book. As soon as he had eaten his breakfast, he hurried to carry the book to its owner. He explained how the accident had happened. "Mr. Crawford," he said, "I am willing to pay you for the book. I have no money; but, if you will let me, I will work for you until I have made its price." Mr. Crawford thought that the book was worth seventy-five cents, and that Abraham's work would be worth about twenty-five cents a day. And so the lad helped the farmer gather corn for three days, and thus became the owner of the delightful book. He read the story of Washington many times over. He carried the book with him to the field, and read it while he was following the plow. From that time, Washington was the one great hero whom he admired. Why could not he model his own life after that of Washington? Why could not he also be a doer of great things for his country? * * * * * V.--LIFE IN THE BACKWOODS. Abraham Lincoln now set to work with a will to educate himself. His father thought that he did not need to learn anything more. He did not see that there was any good in book-learning. If a man could read and write and cipher, what more was needed? But the good step-mother thought differently; and when another short term of school began in the little log school-house, all six of the children from the Lincoln cabin were among the scholars. In a few weeks, however, the school had closed; and the three boys were again hard at work, chopping and grubbing in Mr. Lincoln's clearings. They were good-natured, jolly young fellows, and they lightened their labor with many a joke and playful prank. Many were the droll stories with which Abraham amused his two companions. Many were the puzzling questions that he asked. Sometimes in the evening, with the other five children around him, he would declaim some piece that he had learned; or he would deliver a speech of his own on some subject of common interest. If you could see him as he then appeared, you would hardly think that such a boy would ever become one of the most famous men of history. On his head he wore a cap made from the skin of a squirrel or a raccoon. Instead of trousers of cloth, he wore buckskin breeches, the legs of which were many inches too short. His shirt was of deerskin in the winter, and of homespun tow in the summer. Stockings he had none. His shoes were of heavy cowhide, and were worn only on Sundays or in very cold weather. The family lived in such a way as to need very little money. Their bread was made of corn meal. Their meat was chiefly the flesh of wild game found in the forest. Pewter plates and wooden trenchers were used on the table. The tea and coffee cups were of painted tin. There was no stove, and all the cooking was done on the hearth of the big fireplace. But poverty was no hindrance to Abraham Lincoln. He kept on with his reading and his studies as best he could. Sometimes he would go to the little village of Gentryville, near by, to spend an evening. He would tell so many jokes and so many funny stories, that all the people would gather round him to listen. When he was sixteen years old he went one day to Booneville, fifteen miles away, to attend a trial in court. He had never been in court before. He listened with great attention to all that was said. When the lawyer for the defense made his speech, the youth was so full of delight that he could not contain himself. He arose from his seat, walked across the courtroom, and shook hands with the lawyer. "That was the best speech I ever heard," he said. He was tall and very slim; he was dressed in a jeans coat and buckskin trousers; his feet were bare. It must have been a strange sight to see him thus complimenting an old and practiced lawyer. From that time, one ambition seemed to fill his mind. He wanted to be a lawyer and make great speeches in court. He walked twelve miles barefooted, to borrow a copy of the laws of Indiana. Day and night he read and studied. "Some day I shall be President of the United States," he said to some of his young friends. And this he said not as a joke, but in the firm belief that it would prove to be true. * * * * * VI.--THE BOATMAN. One of Thomas Lincoln's friends owned a ferry-boat on the Ohio River. It was nothing but a small rowboat, and would carry only three or four people at a time. This man wanted to employ some one to take care of his boat and to ferry people across the river. Thomas Lincoln was in need of money; and so he arranged with his friend for Abraham to do this work. The wages of the young man were to be $2.50 a week. But all the money was to be his father's. One day two strangers came to the landing. They wanted to take passage on a steamboat that was coming down the river. The ferry-boy signalled to the steamboat and it stopped in midstream. Then the boy rowed out with the two passengers, and they were taken on board. Just as he was turning towards the shore again, each of the strangers tossed a half-dollar into his boat. He picked the silver up and looked at it. Ah, how rich he felt! He had never had so much money at one time. And he had gotten all for a few minutes' labor! When winter came on, there were fewer people who wanted to cross the river. So, at last, the ferry-boat was tied up, and Abraham Lincoln went back to his father's home. He was now nineteen years old. He was very tall--nearly six feet four inches in height. He was as strong as a young giant. He could jump higher and farther, and he could run faster, than any of his fellows; and there was no one, far or near, who could lay him on his back. Although he had always lived in a community of rude, rough people, he had no bad habits. He used no tobacco; he did not drink strong liquor; no profane word ever passed his lips. He was good-natured at all times, and kind to every one. During that winter, Mr. Gentry, the storekeeper in the village, had bought a good deal of corn and pork. He intended, in the spring, to load this on a flatboat and send it down the river to New Orleans. In looking about for a captain to take charge of the boat, he happened to think of Abraham Lincoln. He knew that he could trust the young man. And so a bargain was soon made. Abraham agreed to pilot the boat to New Orleans and to market the produce there; and Mr. Gentry was to pay his father eight dollars and a half a month for his services. As soon as the ice had well melted from the river, the voyage was begun. Besides Captain Lincoln there was only one man in the crew, and that was a son of Mr. Gentry's. The voyage was a long and weary one, but at last the two boatmen reached the great southern city. Here they saw many strange things of which they had never heard before. But they soon sold their cargo and boat, and then returned home on a steamboat. To Abraham Lincoln the world was now very different from what it had seemed before. He longed to be away from the narrow life in the woods of Spencer county. He longed to be doing something for himself--to be making for himself a fortune and a name. But then he remembered his mother's teachings when he sat on her knee in the old Kentucky home, "Always do right." He remembered her last words, "I know you will be kind to your father." And so he resolved to stay with his father, to work for him, and to give him all his earnings until he was twenty-one years old. * * * * * VII.--THE FIRST YEARS IN ILLINOIS. Early in the spring of 1830, Thomas Lincoln sold his farm in Indiana, and the whole family moved to Illinois. The household goods were put in a wagon drawn by four yoke of oxen. The kind step-mother and her daughters rode also in the wagon. Abraham Lincoln, with a long whip in his hand, trudged through the mud by the side of the road and guided the oxen. Who that saw him thus going into Illinois would have dreamed that he would in time become that state's greatest citizen? The journey was a long and hard one; but in two weeks they reached Decatur, where they had decided to make their new home. Abraham Lincoln was now over twenty-one years old. He was his own man. But he stayed with his father that spring. He helped him fence his land; he helped him plant his corn. But his father had no money to give him. The young man's clothing was all worn out, and he had nothing with which to buy any more. What should he do? Three miles from his father's cabin there lived a thrifty woman, whose name was Nancy Miller. Mrs. Miller owned a flock of sheep, and in her house there were a spinning-wheel and a loom that were always busy. And so you must know that she wove a great deal of jeans and home-made cloth. Abraham Lincoln bargained with this woman to make him a pair of trousers. He agreed that for each yard of cloth required, he would split for her four hundred rails. He had to split fourteen hundred rails in all; but he worked so fast that he had finished them before the trousers were ready. The next April saw young Lincoln piloting another flatboat down the Mississippi to New Orleans. His companion this time was his mother's relative, John Hanks. This time he stayed longer in New Orleans, and he saw some things which he had barely noticed on his first trip. He saw gangs of slaves being driven through the streets. He visited the slave-market, and saw women and girls sold to the highest bidder like so many cattle. The young man, who would not be unkind to any living being, was shocked by these sights. "His heart bled; he was mad, thoughtful, sad, and depressed." He said to John Hanks, "If I ever get a chance to hit that institution, I'll hit it hard, John." He came back from New Orleans in July. Mr. Offut, the owner of the flatboat which he had taken down, then employed him to act as clerk in a country store which he had at New Salem. New Salem was a little town not far from Springfield. Young Lincoln was a good salesman, and all the customers liked him. Mr. Offut declared that the young man knew more than anyone else in the United States, and that he could outrun and outwrestle any man in the county. But in the spring of the next year Mr. Offut failed. The store was closed, and Abraham Lincoln was out of employment again. * * * * * VIII.--THE BLACK HAWK WAR. There were still a good many Indians in the West. The Sac Indians had lately sold their lands in northern Illinois to the United States. They had then moved across the Mississippi river, to other lands that had been set apart for them. But they did not like their new home. At last they made up their minds to go back to their former hunting-grounds. They were led by a chief whose name was Black Hawk; and they began by killing the white settlers and burning their houses and crops. This was in the spring of 1832. The whole state of Illinois was in alarm. The governor called for volunteers to help the United States soldiers drive the Indians back. Abraham Lincoln enlisted. His company elected him captain. He did not know anything about military tactics. He did not know how to give orders to his men. But he did the best that he could, and learned a great deal by experience. His company marched northward and westward until they came to the Mississippi river. But they did not meet any Indians, and so there was no fighting. The young men under Captain Lincoln were rude fellows from the prairies and backwoods. They were rough in their manners, and hard to control. But they had very high respect for their captain. Perhaps this was because of his great strength, and his skill in wrestling; for he could put the roughest and strongest of them on their backs. Perhaps it was because he was good-natured and kind, and, at the same time, very firm and decisive. In a few weeks the time for which the company had enlisted came to an end. The young men were tired of being soldiers; and so all, except Captain Lincoln and one man, were glad to hurry home. But Captain Lincoln never gave up anything half done. He enlisted again. This time he was a private in a company of mounted rangers. The main camp of the volunteers and soldiers was on the banks of the Rock river, in northern Illinois. Here, one day, Abraham Lincoln saw a young lieutenant of the United States army, whose name was Jefferson Davis. It is not likely that the fine young officer noticed the rough-clad ranger; but they were to know more of each other at a future time. Three weeks after that the war was at an end. The Indians had been beaten in a battle, and Black Hawk had been taken prisoner. But Abraham Lincoln had not been in any fight. He had not seen any Indians, except peaceable ones. In June his company was mustered out, and he returned home to New Salem. He was then twenty-three years old. * * * * * IX.--IN THE LEGISLATURE. When Abraham Lincoln came back to New Salem it was nearly time for the state election. The people of the town and neighborhood wanted to send him to the legislature, and he agreed to be a candidate. It was at Pappsville, twelve miles from Springfield, that he made his first campaign speech. He said: "Gentlemen and fellow-citizens-- "I presume you all know who I am. "I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to become a candidate for the legislature. "My politics are short and sweet. "I am in favor of a national bank; am in favor of the internal improvement system, and a high protective tariff. "These are my sentiments and political principles. If elected, I shall be thankful; if not, it will be all the same." He was a tall, gawky, rough-looking fellow. He was dressed in a coarse suit of homespun, much the worse for wear. A few days after that, he made a longer and better speech at Springfield. But he was not elected. About this time a worthless fellow, whose name was Berry, persuaded Mr. Lincoln to help him buy a store in New Salem. Mr. Lincoln had no money, but he gave his notes for the value of half the goods. The venture was not a profitable one. In a few months the store was sold; but Abraham did not receive a dollar for it. It was six years before he was able to pay off the notes which he had given. During all this time Mr. Lincoln did not give up the idea of being a lawyer. He bought a second-hand copy of _Blackstone's Commentaries_ at auction. He studied it so diligently that in a few weeks he had mastered the whole of it. He bought an old form-book, and began to draw up contracts, deeds, and all kinds of legal papers. He would often walk to Springfield, fourteen miles away, to borrow a book; and he would master thirty or forty pages of it while returning home. Soon he began to practice in a small way before justices of the peace and country juries. He was appointed postmaster at New Salem, but so little mail came to the place that the office was soon discontinued. He was nearly twenty-five years old. But, with all his industry, he could hardly earn money enough to pay for his board and clothing. He had learned a little about surveying while living in Indiana. He now took up the study again, and was soon appointed deputy surveyor of Sangamon county. He was very skilful as a surveyor. Although his chain was only a grape-vine, he was very accurate and never made mistakes. The next year he was again a candidate for the legislature. This time the people were ready to vote for him, and he was elected. It was no small thing for so young a man to be chosen to help make the laws of his state. No man ever had fewer advantages than Abraham Lincoln. As a boy, he was the poorest of the poor. No rich friend held out a helping hand. But see what he had already accomplished by pluck, perseverance, and honesty! He had not had access to many books, but he knew books better than most men of his age. He knew the Bible by heart; he was familiar with Shakespeare; he could repeat nearly all the poems of Burns; he knew much about physics and mechanics; he had mastered the elements of law. He was very awkward and far from handsome, but he was so modest, so unselfish and kind, that every one who knew him liked him. He was a true gentleman--a gentleman at heart, if not in outside polish. And so, as I have already said, Abraham Lincoln, at the age of twenty-five, was elected to the state legislature. He served the people so well that when his term closed, two years later, they sent him back for another term. The capital of Illinois had, up to this time, been at Vandalia. Mr. Lincoln and his friends now succeeded in having a law passed to remove it to Springfield. Springfield was nearer to the centre of the state; it was more convenient to everybody, and had other advantages which Vandalia did not have. The people of Springfield were so delighted that they urged Mr. Lincoln to come there and practice law. An older lawyer, whose name was John T. Stuart, and who had a good practice, offered to take him in partnership with him. And so, in 1837, Abraham Lincoln left New Salem and removed to Springfield. He did not have much to move. All the goods that he had in the world were a few clothes, which he carried in a pair of saddle-bags, and two or three law books. He had no money, and he rode into Springfield on a borrowed horse. He was then twenty-eight years old. From that time on, Springfield was his home. * * * * * X.--POLITICS AND MARRIAGE. The next year after his removal to Springfield, Mr. Lincoln was elected to the legislature for the third time. There were then, in this country, two great political parties, the Democrats and the Whigs. Mr. Lincoln was a Whig, and he soon became the leader of his party in the state. But the Whigs were not so strong as the Democrats. The legislature was in session only a few weeks each year; and so Mr. Lincoln could devote all the rest of the time to the practice of law. There were many able lawyers in Illinois; but Abe Lincoln of Springfield soon made himself known among the best of them. In 1840, he was again elected to the legislature. This was the year in which General William H. Harrison was elected president of the United States. General Harrison was a Whig; and Mr. Lincoln's name was on the Whig ticket as a candidate for presidential elector in his state. The presidential campaign was one of the most exciting that had ever been known. It was called the "log cabin" campaign, because General Harrison had lived in a log cabin, and his opponents had sneered at his poverty. In the East as well as in the West, the excitement was very great. In every city and town and village, wherever there was a political meeting, a log cabin was seen. On one side of the low door hung a long-handled gourd; on the other side, a coon-skin was nailed to the logs, the blue smoke curled up from the top of the stick-and-clay chimney. You may believe that Abraham Lincoln went into this campaign with all his heart. He traveled over a part of the state, making stump-speeches for his party. One of his ablest opponents was a young lawyer, not quite his own age, whose name was Stephen A. Douglas. In many places, during this campaign, Lincoln and Douglas met in public debate upon the questions of the day. And both of them were so shrewd, so well informed, and so eloquent, that those who heard them were unable to decide which was the greater of the two. General Harrison was elected, but not through the help of Mr. Lincoln; for the vote of Illinois that year was for the Democratic candidate. In 1842, when he was thirty-three years old, Mr. Lincoln was married to Miss Mary Todd, a young lady from Kentucky, who had lately come to Springfield on a visit. [Illustration: Log cabin (No caption)] [Illustration: Monument at Springfield.] [Illustration: Residence at Springfield.] For some time after their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln lived in a hotel called the "Globe Tavern," paying four dollars a week for rooms and board. But, in 1844, Mr. Lincoln bought a small, but comfortable frame house, and in this they lived until they went to the White House, seventeen years later. Although he had been successful as a young lawyer, Mr. Lincoln was still a poor man. But Mrs. Lincoln said: "I would rather have a good man, a man of mind, with bright prospects for success and power and fame, than marry one with all the horses and houses and gold in the world." * * * * * XI.--CONGRESSMAN AND LAWYER. In 1846, Mr. Lincoln was again elected to the legislature. In the following year the people of his district chose him to be their representative in Congress. He took his seat in December. He was then thirty-nine years old. He was the only Whig from Illinois. There were many famous men in Congress at that time. Mr. Lincoln's life-long rival, Stephen A. Douglas, was one of the senators from Illinois. He had already served a term or two in the House of Representatives. Daniel Webster was also in the Senate; and so was John C. Calhoun; and so was Jefferson Davis. Mr. Lincoln took an active interest in all the subjects that came before Congress. He made many speeches. But, perhaps, the most important thing that he did at this time was to propose a bill for the abolition of the slave-trade in the city of Washington. He believed that slavery was unjust to the slave and harmful to the nation. He wanted to do what he could to keep it from becoming a still greater evil. But the bill was opposed so strongly that it was not even voted upon. After the close of Mr. Lincoln's term in Congress, he hoped that President Taylor, who was a Whig, might appoint him to a good office. But in this he was disappointed. And so, in 1849, he returned to his home in Springfield, and again settled down to the practice of law. He was then forty years old. Considering the poverty of his youth, he had done great things for himself. But he had not done much for his country. Outside of his own state his name was still unknown. His life for the next few years was like that of any other successful lawyer in the newly-settled West. He had a large practice, but his fees were very small. His income from his profession was seldom more than $2,000 a year. His habits were very simple. He lived comfortably and respectably. In his modest little home there was an air of order and refinement, but no show of luxury. No matter where he might go, Mr. Lincoln would have been known as a Western man. He was six feet four inches in height. His face was very homely, but very kind. He was cordial and friendly in his manners. There was something about him which made everybody feel that he was a sincere, truthful, upright man. He was known among his neighbors as "Honest Abe Lincoln." * * * * * XII.--THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY. The great subject before the country at this time was skivery. It had been the cause of trouble for many years. In the early settlement of the American colonies, slavery had been introduced through the influence of the English government. The first slaves had been brought to Virginia nearly 240 years before the time of which I am telling you. Many people saw from the beginning that it was an evil which would at some distant day bring disaster upon the country. In 1772, the people of Virginia petitioned the king of England to put a stop to the bringing of slaves from Africa into that colony. But the petition was rejected; and the king forbade them to speak of the matter any more. Washington, Jefferson, and other founders of our nation looked upon slavery as an evil. They hoped that the time might come when it would be done away with; for they knew that the country would prosper better without it. At the time of the Revolution, slavery was permitted in all the states. But it was gradually abolished, first in Pennsylvania and then in the New England states, and afterwards in New York. In 1787, a law was passed by Congress declaring that there should be no slavery in the territory northwest of the river Ohio. This was the territory from which the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin were formed; and so, of course, these states were free states from the beginning. The great industry of the South was cotton-raising. The people of the Southern states claimed that slavery was necessary, because only negro slaves could do the work required on the big cotton plantations. Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana were admitted, one by one, into the Union; and all were slave states. In 1821, Missouri applied for admission into the Union. The South wanted slavery in this state also, but the North objected. There were many hot debate's in Congress over this question. At last, through the influence of Henry Clay, the dispute was settled by what has since been known as the Missouri Compromise. The Missouri Compromise provided that Missouri should be a slave state; this was to satisfy the South. On the other hand, it declared that all the western territory north of the line which formed the southern boundary of Missouri, should forever be free; this was to appease the North. But the cotton planters of the South grew more wealthy by the labor of their slaves. More territory was needed for the extension of slavery. Texas joined the United States and became a slave state. Then followed a war with Mexico; and California, New Mexico and Utah were taken from that country. Should slavery be allowed in these new territories also? At this time a new political party was formed. It was called the "Free Soil Party," and the principle for which it contended was this: "_No more slave states and no slave territory_." This party was not very strong at first, but soon large numbers of Whigs and many northern Democrats, who did not believe in the extension of slavery, began to join it. Although the Whig party refused to take any position against the extension of slavery, there were many anti-slavery Whigs who still remained with it and voted the Whig ticket--and one of these men was Abraham Lincoln. The contest between freedom and slavery became more fierce every day. At last another compromise was proposed by Henry Clay. This compromise provided that California should be admitted as a free state; that slavery should not be prohibited in New Mexico and Utah; that there should be no more markets for slaves in the District of Columbia; and that a new and very strict fugitive-slave law should be passed. This compromise is called the "Compromise of 1850." It was in support of these measures that Daniel Webster made his last great speech. It was hoped by Webster and Clay that the Compromise of 1850 would put an end to the agitation about slavery. "Now we shall have peace," they said. But the agitation became stronger and stronger, and peace seemed farther away than ever before. In 1854, a bill was passed by Congress to organize the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. This bill provided that the Missouri Compromise should be repealed, and that the question of slavery in these territories should be decided by the people living in them. The bill was passed through the influence of Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. There was now no bar to the extension of slavery into any of the territories save that of public opinion. The excitement all over the North was very great. In Kansas there was actual war between those who favored slavery and those who opposed it. Thinking men in all parts of the country saw that a great crisis was at hand. * * * * * XIII.--LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS. It was then that Abraham Lincoln came forward as the champion of freedom. Stephen A. Douglas was a candidate for reelection to the Senate, and he found it necessary to defend himself before the people of his state for the part he had taken in repealing the Missouri Compromise. He went from one city to another, making speeches; and at each place Abraham Lincoln met him in joint debate. "I do not care whether slavery is voted into or out of the territories," said Mr. Douglas. "The question of slavery is one of climate. Wherever it is to the interest of the inhabitants of a territory to have slave property, there a slave law will be enacted." But Mr. Lincoln replied, "The men who signed the Declaration of Independence said that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights--life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.... I beseech you, do not destroy that immortal emblem of humanity, the Declaration of Independence." At last, Mr. Douglas felt that he was beaten. He proposed that both should go home, and that there should be no more joint discussions. Mr. Lincoln agreed to this; but the words which he had spoken sank deep into the hearts of those who heard them. The speeches of Lincoln and Douglas were printed in a book. People in all parts of the country read them. They had heard much about Stephen A. Douglas. He was called "The Little Giant." He had long been famous among the politicians of the country. It was believed that he would be the next President of the United States. But who was this man Lincoln, who had so bravely vanquished the Little Giant? He was called "Honest Abe." There were few people outside of his state who had ever heard of him before. Mr. Douglas returned to his seat in the United States Senate. Mr. Lincoln became the acknowledged edged leader of the forces opposed to the extension of slavery. In May, 1856, a convention of the people of Illinois was held in Bloomington, Illinois. It met for the purpose of forming a new political party, the chief object and aim of which should be to oppose the extension of slavery into the territories. Mr. Lincoln made a speech to the members of this convention. It was one of the greatest speeches ever heard in this country. "Again and again, during the delivery, the audience sprang to their feet, and, by long-continued cheers, expressed how deeply the speaker had roused them." And so the new party was organized. It was composed of the men who had formed the old Free Soil Party, together with such Whigs and Democrats as were opposed to the further growth of the slave power. But the greater number of its members were Whigs. This new party was called The Republican Party. In June, the Republican Party held a national convention at Philadelphia, and nominated John C. Frémont for President. But the party was not strong enough to carry the election that year. In that same month the Democrats held a convention at Cincinnati. Every effort was made to nominate Stephen A. Douglas for President. But he was beaten in his own party, on account of the action which he had taken in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. James Buchanan was nominated in his stead, and, in November, was elected. And so the conflict went on. In the year 1858 there was another series of joint debates between Lincoln and Douglas. Both were candidates for the United States Senate. Their speeches were among the most remarkable ever delivered in any country. Lincoln spoke for liberty and justice. Douglas's speeches were full of fire and patriotism. He hoped to be elected President in 1860. In the end, it was generally acknowledged that Lincoln had made the best arguments. But Douglas was re-elected to the Senate. * * * * * XIV.--PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. In 1860 there were four candidates for the presidency. The great Democratic Party was divided into two branches. One branch nominated Stephen A. Douglas. The other branch, which included the larger number of the slave-owners of the South, nominated John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky. The remnant of the old Whig Party, now called the "Union Party," nominated John Bell, of Tennessee. The Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln. In November came the election, and a majority of all the electors chosen were for Lincoln. The people of the cotton-growing states believed that, by this election, the Northern people intended to deprive them of their rights. They believed that the anti-slavery people intended to do much more than prevent the extension of slavery. They believed that the abolitionists were bent upon passing laws to deprive them of their slaves. Wild rumors were circulated concerning the designs which the "Black Republicans," as they were called, had formed for their coercion and oppression. They declared that they would never submit. And so, in December, the people of South Carolina met in convention, and declared that that state had seceded from the Union--that they would no longer be citizens of the United States. One by one, six other states followed; and they united to form a new government, called the Confederate States of America. It had long been held by the men of the South that a state had the right to withdraw from the Union at any time. This was called the doctrine of States' Rights. The Confederate States at once chose Jefferson Davis for their President, and declared themselves free and independent. In February, Mr. Lincoln went to Washington to be inaugurated. His enemies openly boasted that he should never reach that city alive; and a plot was formed to kill him on his passage through Baltimore. But he took an earlier train than the one appointed, and arrived at the capital in safety. On the 4th of March he was inaugurated. In his address at that time he said: "In your hands, my dissatisfied countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. Your government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government; while I shall have the most solemn one to protect and defend it." The Confederate States demanded that the government should give up all the forts, arsenals, and public property within their limits. This, President Lincoln refused to do. He said that he could not admit that these states had withdrawn from the Union, or that they could withdraw without the consent of the people of the United States, given in a national convention. And so, in April, the Confederate guns were turned upon Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, and the war was begun. President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 men to serve in the army for three months; and both parties prepared for the great contest. It is not my purpose to give a history of that terrible war of four years. The question of slavery was now a secondary one. The men of one party were determined, at whatever hazard, to preserve the Union. The men of the other party fought to defend their doctrine of States' Rights, and to set up an independent government of their own. President Lincoln was urged to use his power and declare all the slaves free. He answered: "My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery. "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it. If I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it. If I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that." At last, however, when he saw that the success of the Union arms depended upon his freeing the slaves, he decided to do so. On the 1st of January, 1863, he issued a proclamation declaring that the slaves, in all the states or parts of states then in rebellion, should be free. By this proclamation, more than three millions of colored people were given their freedom. But the war still went on. It reached a turning point, however, at the battle of Gettysburg, in July, that same year. From that time the cause of the Confederate States was on the wane. Little by little the patriots, who were struggling for the preservation of the Union, prevailed. * * * * * XV.--THE END OF A GREAT LIFE. At the close of Mr. Lincoln's first term, he was again elected President of the United States. The war was still going on, but the Union arms were now everywhere victorious. His second inaugural address was very short. He did not boast of any of his achievements; he did not rejoice over the defeat of his enemies. But he said: "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." Five weeks after that, on the 9th of April, 1865, the Confederate army surrendered, and the war was at an end. Abraham Lincoln's work was done. The 14th of April was Good Friday. On the evening of that day, Mr. Lincoln, with Mrs. Lincoln and two or three friends, visited Ford's Theatre in Washington. At a few minutes past 10 o'clock, an actor whose name was John Wilkes Booth, came into the box where Mr. Lincoln sat. No one saw him enter. He pointed a pistol at the President's head, and fired. He leaped down upon the stage, shouting "_Sic semper tyrannis_! The South is avenged!" Then he ran behind the scenes and out by the stage door. The President fell forward. His eyes closed. He neither saw, nor heard, nor felt anything that was taking place. Kind arms carried him to a private house not far away. At twenty minutes past seven o'clock the next morning, those who watched beside him gave out the mournful news that Abraham Lincoln was dead. He was fifty-six years old. The whole nation wept for him. In the South as well as in the North, the people bowed themselves in grief. Heartfelt tributes of sorrow came from other lands in all parts of the world. Never, before nor since, has there been such universal mourning. Such is the story of Abraham Lincoln. In the history of the world, there is no story more full of lessons of perseverance, of patience, of honor, of true nobility of purpose. Among the great men of all time, there has been no one more truly great than he. 
40704	----	FRANKLIN. A SKETCH JOHN BIGELOW. Price 25 Cents] FRANKLIN A SKETCH. BY JOHN BIGELOW. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, & CO. 1879. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. FRANKLIN. Franklin, Benjamin (1706-1790), one of the most eminent journalists, diplomatists, statesmen, and philosophers of his time, was born in the city of Boston, and in the colony of Massachusetts Bay, on the 17th of January 1706. He was the youngest of ten children, and the youngest son for five consecutive generations. His father, who was born at Ecton, in Northamptonshire, England, where the family may be traced back for some four centuries, married young, and emigrated to America with three children in 1682, From his parents, who never knew any illness save that of which they died (the father at eighty and the mother at eighty-five), he inherited an excellent constitution, and a good share of those heroic mental and moral qualities by which a good constitution is preserved. In his eighth year Benjamin, who never could remember when he did not know how to read, was placed at school, his parents intending him for the church, That purpose, however, was soon abandoned, and in his tenth year he was taken from school to assist his father, who, though bred a dyer, had taken up, on his arrival in New England, the business of tallow-chandler and soap-boiler. The lad worked at this, to him, most distasteful business, until his twelfth year, when he was apprenticed to his elder brother .James, then just returned from England with a new printing press and fount of type, with which he proposed to establish himself in the printing business. In 1720-31 James Franklin also started a newspaper, the second that was published in America, called _The New England Courant_. Benjamin's tastes inclined him rather to intellectual than to any other kind of pleasures, and his judgment in the selection of books was excellent. At an early age he had wade himself familiar with the _Pilgrim's Progress_, with Locke _On the Understanding_, and with some odd volumes of the _Spectator_, then the literary novelty of the day, which he turned to good account in forming the style which made him what he still remains, the most uniformly readable writer of English who has yet appeared on his side of the Atlantic. His success in reproducing articles he had read some days previously in the _Spectator_ led him to try his hand upon an original article for his brother's paper, which he sent to hire anonymously. It was accepted, and attracted some attention. The experiment was repeated until Benjamin had satisfied himself that his success was not an accident, when he threw off his disguise. He thought that his brother treated him less kindly after this disclosure; but that did not prevent James from publishing his paper in Benjamin's name, when, in consequence of some unfortunate paragraphs which appeared in its columns, he could only obtain his release from prison, to which the colonial assembly had condemned him, upon on that he "would no longer print the _New England Courant_." The relations of the two brothers, however, gradually grew so inharmonious that Benjamin determined to quit his brother's employment and leave New England. He sold some of his books, and with the proceeds, in October 1723, he found his way to the city of Philadelphia, where, 400 miles from home, at the immature age of seventeen, without an acquaintance, and with only a few pence in his pocket, he was fortunate enough to get employment with a Jew printer named Keimer. Keimer was not a man of business, and knew very little of his trade, nor had he any very competent assistants. Franklin, who was a rapid composer, ingenious and full of resources, soon came to be recognized by the public as the master spirit of the shop, and to receive flattering attentions from prominent citizens who had had opportunities of appreciating his cleverness. Among others, Sir William Keith, the governor of the province, who may have possessed all the qualifications for his station except every one of the few which are quite indispensable to a gentleman, took him under his patronage, and proposed to start him in business for himself, and to give hint the means of going to England and purchasing the material necessary to equip a new printing office. Franklin, rather against the advice of his father, whom he revisited in Boston to consult about it, embraced the governor's proposal, took passage for London, which he paid with his own money (the governor being more ready with excuses than coin), and on reaching London in December 1724, where he had been assured he would find a draft to cover his expenses, discovered too late that he had been the dupe of Keith, and that he must rely upon his own exertions for his daily bread. He readily found employment at Palmer's, then a famous printer in Bartholomew Close, where, and afterwards at Wall's printing house, he continued to be employed until the 33d of July 1736, when he again set sail for Philadelphia in company with a Mr Dunham, whose acquaintance he had made on his voyage out, and who tempted him back by the offer of a position as clerk in a commercial business which he proposed to establish in Philadelphia. While in London Franklin had been engaged in setting up the type of a second edition of Wollaston's _Religion of Nature_. The perusal of this work led him toy write and print a small edition of a pamphlet, which he entitled _A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Paris_. Had he deferred printing it a few years, it would probably never have been heard of, for he lived to be rather ashamed of it. It procured him, however, the acquaintance of Dr Mandeville, author of the _Fable of the Bees_, whom he described as a most facetious and entertaining companion. Only a few months after Franklin's return to Philadelphia, the death of Mr Dunham put an end to his career as a merchant. While awaiting something more favourable, he was induced by large wages to return to his old employer Keimer. This led to his making the acquaintance of a young man of the name of Meredith, whom he afterwards described as a "Welsh Pennsylvanian, thirty years of age, bred to country work, honest, sensible, who had a great deal of solid observation, was something of a reader, but given to drink." He was learning the printer's art, and offered to furnish the capital to establish a new printing office--his father being a man of some means--if Franklin would join him and direct the business. This proposal was accepted, the types were sent for, a house was rented at £20 a year, part of which was sublet to a glazier who was to board them, and before the expiration of a year front his return to Philadelphia, Franklin, for the first time in his life, was in business for himself. "We had scarce opened our letters and put our press in order," he says, "before George House, an acquaintance of mine, brought a countryman to us whom he had met in the street inquiring for a printer. All our cash was now expended in the variety of particulars we had been obliged to procure, and this countryman's five shillings, being our first-fruits, and coming so seasonably, gave us more pleasure than any crown I have since earned, and the gratitude I felt towards House has made me often more ready than perhaps I should otherwise leave been to assist young beginners." Almost simultaneously, in September 1729, he bought for a nominal price the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, a newspaper which Keimer had started nine months before to defeat a similar project of Franklin's which accidentally came to his knowledge. It had only 90 subscribers. His superior arrangement of the paper, his new type, some spirited remarks on a controversy then waging between the Massachusetts assembly and Governor Burnet (a son of the celebrated Bishop Gilbert Burnet) brought his paper into immediate notice, and his success, both as a printer and as a journalist, was from that time forth assured and complete. The influence which he was enabled to exert by his pen through his paper, and by his industry and good sense, bore abundant fruit during the next seventeen years, during which he was at the head of journalism in America. In 1731 he established the first circulating library on the continent; in 1732 he published the first of the _Poor Richard's Almanacs_, a publication which was continued for twenty-five years, and attained a marvellous popularity. The annual sale was about 10,000 copies, at that time far in excess of any other publication in the colonies, and equivalent to a sale at the present time of not less than 300,000. In the next ten years he acquired a convenient familiarity with the French, Italian, Spanish, and Latin languages. In 1736 Franklin was chosen a clerk of the general assembly, and was re-elected the following year. He was then elected a member of assembly, to which dignity he was re-elected for ten successive years, and was appointed one of the commissioners to treat with the Indians at Carlisle. In 17 37 Colonel Spotswood, then postmaster-general, appointed him deputy postmaster at Philadelphia. About this time he organized the first police force and fire company in the colonies, and a few years later initiated the movements which resulted in the foundation of the university of Pennsylvania and of the American Philosophical Society, in the organization of a militia force, in the paving of the streets, and in the foundation of a hospital; in fact, he furnished the impulse to nearly every measure or project which contemplated the welfare and prosperity of the city in which he lived. It was during this period, and in the midst of these very miscellaneous avocations, that he made the discoveries in electricity which have secured him undisputed rank among the most eminent of natural philosophers. He was the first to demonstrate that lightning and electricity were one. The Royal Society, when an account of his experiments, which had been transmitted to a scientific friend in England, was laid before it, made sport of them, and refused to print them. Through the recommendation of his friend they were printed, however, in an extra number of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, of which the publisher ultimately sold five editions. A copy chancing to fall into the hands of Buffon, he saw their value, and advised their translation and publication in France, where they immediately attracted attention. The "Philadelphia experiments," as they were called, were performed in the presence of the royal family in Paris, and became the sensation of the period. The Royal Society of London found it necessary to reconsider its action, published a summary of the experiments in its _Transactions_, and, as Franklin afterwards averred, more than made him amends for the slight with which it had before treated him, by electing him an honorary member, exempting him from the customary payments, and sending him for the rest of his life a copy of the _Transactions_. Since the introduction of the art of printing, it would be difficult to name any discovery which has exerted a more important influence upon the industries and habits of mankind. In 1754 a war with France was impending, and Franklin, who by this time had become the most important man in the colony of Pennsylvania, was sent to a congress of commissioners from the different colonies, ordered by the Lords of Trade to convene at Albany, to confer with the chiefs of the Six Nations for their common defence. Franklin there submitted a plan for organizing a system of colonial defence which was adopted and reported; it provided for a president-general of all the colonies to be appointed by the crown, and a grand council to be chosen by the representatives of the people of the several colonies. The colonies so united, he thought, would be sufficiently strong to defend themselves; and there would then be no need of troops from England. Had this course been pursued, the subsequent pretence for taxing America would not have been furnished, and the bloody contest it occasioned might have been avoided. The Lords of Trade, however, feared that any such union of the colonies would reveal to them their strength; and the project of union, though accompanied with a recommendation from the governor of the province of Pennsylvania, when it was brought into the assembly, as it was during Franklin's casual absence from the hall, was rejected. This Franklin thought a mistake. "But such mistakes," he said, "are not new; history is full of the errors of states and princes. Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are there fore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion." Instead of allowing the colonists to unite and defend themselves, the home Government sent over General Braddock with two regiments of regular English troops, whom the colonists were expected to maintain. The proprietaries, Thomas and Richard Penn, sons of William Penn, and the hereditary governors of the colonies, however, "with incredible meanness," instructed their deputies--the governors they seat out--to pass no act for levying the necessary taxes unless their vast estates were in the same act exempt. They even took bonds of their deputies to observe these instructions. The assembly finally, "finding the proprietaries obstinately persisted in manacling their deputies with instructions inconsistent not only with the privileges of the people but with the service of the crown,"--we are quoting the language of Franklin,--"resolved to petition the king against them," and appointed Franklin as their agent to go to England and present their petition. He arrived in London on the 27th July 1757, not this time as a poor printer's boy, but as a messenger to the most powerful sovereign in the world from a corporate body of some of his most loyal subjects. Franklin lost no time, after reaching London, in waiting upon Lord Grenville, then president of the council, and held with him a conversation which he deemed of so much importance that he made a record of it immediately upon returning to his lodgings. Nor did he exaggerate its importance, for in it were the germs of the revolt and independence of the North American colonies. "You Americans," said Grenville, "have wrong ideas of the nature of your constitution; you contend that the king's instructions to his governors are not laws, and think yourselves at liberty to regard or disregard them at your own discretion. But those instructions are not like the pocket instructions given to a minister going abroad for regulating his conduct in some trifling point of ceremony. They are first drawn up by judges learned in the law; they are then considered, debated, and perhaps amended in council, after which they are signed by the king. They are then, so far as they relate to you, the _law of the land_, for the king is the legislature of the colonies." Franklin frankly told his lordship that this was new doctrine,--that he understood from the colonial charters that the laws of the colonies were to be made by their assemblies, approved by the king, and when once approved the king alone could neither alter nor amend them. Franklin admits that he was alarmed by this conversation, but he was not as much alarmed as he had reason to be, for it distinctly raised the issue between the king and a fraction of his people which was to require a seven years' war to decide. Franklin next sought an interview with the brothers Penn to lay before them the grievances of the assembly. Finding them entirely inaccessible to his reasonings, he supplied the material for an historical review of the controversy between the assembly and the proprietaries, which made an octavo volume of 500 pages. The success of Franklin's mission thus far was not encouraging, for he appealed to a class largely interested in the abuses of which he complained. Meantime, Governor Denny, who had been recently sent out to the province by the proprietaries, tired of struggling with the public opinion which was surging about him in Pennsylvania, and in disregard of his instructions, assented to the passing of laws which taxed equally the entire landed property of the province, and assumed that the assembly was the proper judge of the requirements of the people it represented. An equivalent in paper money was issued upon the faith of this tax. The proprietaries were very angry with the governor, recalled him, and threatened to prosecute him for a breach of his instructions. But they never carried their threat into execution. The subject of "taxing all estates," after a careful discussion by counsel on both sides in London, was finally referred to a committee of the privy council for plantations, who reported adversely to the petitioners whom Franklin represented. Disappointed, but not discouraged, he suggested a compromise involving a personal engagement on his part that, among other things, the assembly should pass an act exempting from taxation the _unsurveyed_ waste lands of the Penn's' estate, and secure the assessment of the surveyed waste lands at the usual rate at which other property of that description was assessed. Upon this proposal, to the infinite disgust of the Penns, a favourable report was made, and approved by the king, George II., then within a few weeks of his death. "Thus," wrote Franklin, a few days later, to Lord Kames, "the cause is at length ended, and in a great degree to our satisfaction." Franklin's stipulation gave to the Penns nothing, in fact, which they had not always had, and therefore the assembly never passed the superfluous act for securing it. They did, however, relieve Pennsylvania from the financial embarrassments that must have followed the repeal of a money bill which had already been a year in operation, and it established the principle till then denied by the proprietaries, that their estates were subject to taxation. The success of his first foreign mission, therefore, was substantial and satisfactory. During this sojourn of five years in England, Franklin made many valuable friends outside court and political circles, among whom the names of Hume, Robertson, and Adam Smith are conspicuous. In the spring of 1759 he received the degree of doctor of laws from the Scottish university of St Andrews. He also made active use of his marvellous and unsurpassed talent for pamphleteering. He wrote for the _Annual Register_, of which young Edmund Burke was then editor, and with whom, at a later day, he was destined to have closer relations, a paper "On the Peopling of Countries," traces of which may readily be discerned in the first book of The _Wealth of Nations_. In this paper Franklin combated the popular delusion that the people and wealth of the colonies were necessarily so much population and wealth abstracted from the mother country, and he estimated that the population of the colonies, by doubling once in every twenty-five years, would, at the end of a century, give a larger English population beyond the Atlantic than in England, without at all interfering with the growth of England in either direction. Franklin's conjecture, that the population of the colonies would double every twenty-five years, commended itself to the judgment of Adam Smith, who adopted it; and it has thus far been vindicated by the census. On the 25th of October 1760 King George II. died, and his grandson ascended the throne. A clamour for peace followed. Franklin was for a vigorous prosecution of the war then pending with France, and wrote what purported to be a chapter from an old book, which he said was written by a Spanish Jesuit to all ancient king of Spain, entitled, _On the Means of disposing the Enemy to Peace_. It was ingenious and had a great effect, and, like everything Franklin wrote, is about as readable to-day as when first printed. Soon after the capture of Quebec, Franklin wrote a more elaborate paper, entitled, _The Interests of Great Britain considered with regard to her Colonies and the Acquisitions of Canada and Guadeloupe_. Its purpose was to show that, while Canada remained French, the English colonies of North America could never be safe nor peace in Europe permanent. Tradition reports that this pamphlet had great weight in determining the ministry to retain Canada, which, thanks in a large degree to his foresight and activity, is to-day one of the brightest jewels in the English crown. "I have long been of opinion," he wrote about this time to Lord Kames, "that the foundations of the future grandeur and stability of the British empire lie in America; and though, like other foundations, they are low and little now, they are, nevertheless broad and strong enough to support the greatest political structure that human wisdom ever erected. I am, therefore, by no means for restoring Canada. If we keep it, all the country from the St Lawrence to the Mississippi will in another century be filled with British. Britain will become vastly more populous by the immense increase of its commerce. The Atlantic sea will be covered with your trading ships; and your naval power, thence continually increasing, will extend your influence round the whole globe and awe the world." What Englishman can read these papers to-day without a feeling of regret that Franklin was not permitted to occupy a seat in parliament as one of the representatives of the British colonies, so that England and the world might have had the advantage in a larger measure of his rare wisdom, sagacity, and patriotism? Franklin sailed again for America in August 1762, after an absence of five years, during which he had found an opportunity of visiting large portions of the Continent, and of acquiring information about European affairs both in and out of England, which made him more than ever an enlightened and trustworthy authority in America upon all foreign questions affecting the interests of the colonists. The peace with the proprietary government was only temporary. The question of taxing their estates had come up in a new form, and finally resulted in a petition from the assembly drawn by Franklin himself for a charge of government for Pennsylvania. The election which took place in the fall of 1764 turned upon the issue raised in this petition, and the proprietary party succeeded, by a majority of 28 votes out of 4000, in depriving Franklin of the seat to which he had been chosen for fourteen successive years in the provincial assembly. The victory, however, was a barren one, for no sooner did the assembly convene than it resolved again to send Franklin as its special agent to England to take charge of their petition for a change of government, and to look after the interests of the province abroad. On the 7th of November following his defeat, he was again on his way across the Atlantic. We may as well here say at once that the petition which he brought with him for a change of government came to nothing. Franklin presented and the Penns opposed it; but matters of so much graver consequence continually arose between 1765, when it was presented, and 1775, when the revolution began, that it was left to the final disposition of time. The Penns at last had the sagacity to sell betimes what they were not wise enough to keep. The State of Pennsylvania gave them £130,000 for their interest in its soil, and the British Government settled upon the head of the family a pension of £4000 a year. Early in the year of 1764 Grenville, the prime minister, had sent for the agents of the American colonies resident in London, and told them that the war with France which had just terminated had left upon England a debt of £73,000,000 sterling, and that he proposed to lay a portion of this burthen upon the shoulders of the colonists by means of a stamp duty, unless the colonists could propose some other tax equally productive and less inconvenient. He directed the agents to write to their several assemblies for instructions upon this point. The assembly of Pennsylvania, which expressed the sentiment of all the colonies, was decidedly of the opinion that to tax the colonies, which were already taxed beyond their strength, and which were surrounded by aboriginal enemies and exposed to constant expenditures for defence, was cruel, but to tag them by a parliament in which they were not represented was an indignity. While such was their feeling, they allowed it to be understood that they would not reject any requisition of their king for aid, and if he would only signify his needs in the usual way, the assembly would do their utmost for him. These views were summed up in a "resolution" thus expressed: "that, as the assembly always had, so they always should think it their duty to grant aid to the crown, according to their abilities, whenever required of them in the usual manner." To prevent the introduction of such a bill as the ministry proposed, and which Franklin characterized as "the mother of mischief," he left no stone unturned, by personal intercession, by private correspondence, and through the press. At last, in despair, he, with his associate agents, sought an interview with the minister. They found him inexorable. The Government wanted the money, and it did not wish to recognize the principle upon which the colonists resisted the Government method of obtaining it. The bill was introduced, and was promptly passed, only 50 voting against it in the Commons, and the Lords not dividing upon it. The sum expected from this tax being only £100,000, it was thought the colonists would soon be reconciled to it. This was evidently Franklin's hope, which he did his utmost to realize. Writing home to a friend shortly after the passage of the Act he said, "The tide was too strong for us. We might as well have hindered the sun's setting; but since it is down, my friend, and it may be long before it rises again, let us make as good a night of it as we can. We may still light candles. Frugality and industry will go a great way towards indemnifying us. Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliament." But when the news of the passage of the Stamp Act reached the colonies, and its provisions came to be scanned,[1] the indiscretion of those who advised it was manifest. Meetings were held in all the colonies, where resolves were passed unanimously to consume no more British manufactures until the hateful Act was repealed. For simply recommending a trusty person to collect the tax, Franklin himself was denounced, and his family in Philadelphia was in danger of being mobbed. The Act not only failed of its purpose in producing a revenue, but before it went into operation a formidable agitation for its repeal had already commenced. [1] One clause of the Act provided that the Americans shall have no commerce, make no exchange of property with each other, neither purchase, nor grant, nor recover debts; they shall neither marry nor make their wills unless they pay such and such sums in specie for the stamps which are to give validity to the proceedings. Franklin testified under oath before a committee of parliament that such a tax would drain the Government of all their specie in a single year. The succeeding session of parliament, which began in December 1765, is specially memorable for Franklin's examination before a committee of the House on the effects of the Stamp Act; for the magnificent parliamentary debut of Edmund Burke, whose speeches for the repeal, said Dr Johnson, "filled the town with wonder;" and for the repeal of the offensive Act by a majority of 108. The first six weeks of this session were devoted to taking testimony at the bar of the house on American affairs, and especially upon the probable advantages and disadvantages of the Stamp Act. Franklin was the only one of the witnesses who lifted a voice that could be heard by posterity. Burke said the scene reminded him of a master examined by a parcel of schoolboys. George Whitfield, the great field preacher, wrote--"Our trusty friend, Dr Franklin, has gained immortal honour by his behaviour at the bar of the House. The answer was always found equal to the questioner. He stood unappalled, gave pleasure to his friends, and did honour to his country." The examination was first published in 1767, without the name of printer or of publisher, and the following remarks upon it appeared in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for July of that year "From this examination of Dr Franklin the reader may form a clearer and more comprehensive idea of the state and disposition of America, of the expediency or inexpediency of the measure in question, and of the character and conduct of the minister who proposed it, than from all that has been written upon the subject in newspapers and pamphlets, under the titles of essays, letters, speeches, and considerations, from the first moment of its becoming the object of public attention till now. The questions in general were put with great subtlety and judgment, and they are answered with such deep and familiar knowledge of the subject, such precision and perspicuity, such temper and yet such spirit, as do the greatest honour to Dr Franklin, and justify the general opinion of his character and abilities." The light thrown upon colonial affairs by Franklin's examination, more probably than all other causes combined, determined parliament to repeal the bill almost as soon as it was to have gone into operation, and immediately upon the conclusion of Franklin's examination. It was to Franklin a never-to-be-forgotten triumph. He celebrated it characteristically. "As the Stamp Act," he wrote to his wife, "is at length repealed, I am willing you should have a new gown, which you may suppose I did not send sooner as I knew you would not like to be finer than your neighbours unless in a gown of your own spinning. Had the trade between the two countries totally ceased, it was a comfort to me to recollect that I had once been clothed, from head to foot, in woollen and linen of my wife's manufacture, that I never was prouder of my dress in my life, and that she and her daughter might do it again if it was necessary. I told the parliament that it was my opinion, before the old clothes of the Americans were worn out, they might have new ones of their own making, I have sent you a fine piece of Pompadour satin, 14 yards, cost 11s. a yard; a silk négligée and petticoat of brocaded lute string, for my dear Sally [his daughter]; with two dozen gloves, four bottles of lavender water, and two little reels." The news of the repeal filled the colonists with delight, and restored Franklin to their confidence and affection. From that time until the end of his days he was, on the whole, the most popular man in America. Unhappily the repeal of the Stamp Act was a concession to the commercial interests of the mother country not to the political dogmas of the colonists. The king's party was more irritated than instructed by its defeat, and instead of surrendering any of its pretensions to tax the colonies, almost immediately brought in a bill, which was passed, asserting the absolute supremacy of parliament over the colonies, and in the succeeding parliament another bill, which also passed, imposing duties on the paper, paints, glass, and tea imported by the colonies. This tax was resented by the colonies with no less bitterness and determination than they had resented the Stamp Act. It conveyed sterility into their recent triumph, and aroused a feeling akin to disloyalty. It made the minor differences among the colonists disappear, and crystallized public opinion with marvellous rapidity around the principle of "no taxation without representation,"--a principle which it was impossible to make acceptable to the king, whose old-fashioned notions of the royal prerogative had only been confirmed and strengthened by the irritating pertinacity of the colonists. Thus the issue was gradually made up between the mother country and its American dependencies. Each party felt that its first duty was to be firm, and that any concession would be disastrous as well as dishonourable. Such a state of feeling could terminate but in one way. It is now clear to all, as it was then clear to a few, that the passing of the tea and paper bill, made the difference between the crown and the colonists irreconcilable, and that nothing but the death of the king could prevent a war. The nine succeeding years were spent by the contending parties in struggling for position,--the colonies becoming more indifferent to the mother country, and the mother country less disposed to put up with the pretensions of her offspring. Franklin, when he went to London in 1764, confidently expected to return in the following year; but he was not destined to leave England till ten years later, and then with the depressing suspicion that the resources of diplomacy were exhausted. Meantime he remitted no effort to find some middle ground of conciliation. Equipped with the additional authority derived from commissions to act as the agent of the provinces of Massachusetts, of New Jersey, and of Georgia, and with a social influence never possessed probably by any other American representative at the English court, he would doubtless have prevented the final alienation of the colonies, if such a result, under the circumstances, had been possible. But it was not. The colonists were Englishmen for the most part, and they could not be brought to make concessions which would have dishonoured them; and Franklin was not the man to ask of them such concessions. He took the position that "the parliament had no right to make any law whatever binding the colonies; that the king, and not the king, Lords, and Commons collectively, was their sovereign; and that the king, with _their_ respective parliaments, is their only legislator." In other words, he asked only what England has since granted to all her colonies, and what, but for the fatuous obstinacy of the king, who at this time was rather an object of commiseration than of criticism, she would undoubtedly have yielded. But under the pressure of the crown, negotiation and debate seemed rather to aggravate the differences than to remove them. The solemn petitions of the colonists to the throne were treated with neglect or derision, and their agents with contumely, and Franklin was openly insulted in the House of Lords, was deprived of his office of deputy-postmaster, and was scarcely safe from personal outrage. Satisfied that his usefulness in England was at an end, he placed his agencies in the hands of Arthur Lee, an American lawyer practising at the London bar, and on the 21st of March 1775, again set sail for Philadelphia. On reaching home his last hope of maintaining the integrity of the empire was dissipated by the news which awaited him of collisions which had occurred, some two weeks previous, between the people and the royal troops at Concord and at Lexington. He found the colonies in flagrant rebellion, and himself suddenly transformed from a peacemaker into a warmaker. The two years which followed were among the busiest of his life. The very morning of his arrival he was elected, by the assembly of Pennsylvania, a delegate to that continental congress then sitting in Philadelphia which consolidated the armies of the colonies, placed George Washington in command of them, issued the first continental currency, and assumed the responsibility of resisting the imperial government. In this congress he served on not less than ten committees. One of its first measures was to organize a continental postal system and to make Franklin postmaster-general. Thus he was avenged for his dismissal 18 months before from the office of deputy by being appointed to a place of higher rank and augmented authority. He planned all appeal for aid from the king of the French, and wrote the instructions of Silas Deane, a member of the congress, who was to convey it; he was sent as one of three commissioners to Canada, in one of the most inclement months of the year, on what proved an in effectual mission to persuade the Canadians to join the new colonial union; he was elected a delegate from Philadelphia to the conference which met on the 18th of June 1776, and which, in the name of the people of the colonies, formally renounced all allegiance to King George, and called for an election of delegates to a convention to form a constitutional government for the United Colonies. He was also one of the committee of five which drew up what is known as the "Declaration of Independence." When about to sign it, Hancock, one of his colleagues, is reported to have said, "We must be unanimous; there must be no pulling different ways; we must all hart; together." "Yes," replied Franklin, "we must hang together, or we will be pretty sure to hang separately." He was also chosen president of the convention called to frame a constitution for the State of Pennsylvania, which commenced its session on the 16th of July 1776. He was selected by congress to discuss terms of peace with Admiral Lord Howe, who had arrived in New York harbour on the 12th of July 1776, to take command of the British naval forces in American waters, and on the 26th of September, upon the receipt of encouraging news from France, he was chosen unanimously to be one of three to repair to the court of Louis XVI. and solicit his support. His colleagues were John Adams, destined to be Washington's successor in the presidency, and Arthur Lee, Franklin's successor in the agency in London. Franklin, now in the seventieth year of his age, proceeded to collect all the money he could command, amounting to between £3000 or £4000, lent it to congress, and with two grandsons set sail in the sloop of war "Reprisal" on the 27th day of October, arriving at Nantes on the 7th of December, and at Paris towards the end of the same month. With his usual tact and forecast he found quarters in a house in Passy (then a suburb but now a part of the city of Paris) belonging to an active friend of the cause he represented--Le Ray de Chaumont--who held influential relations with the court, and through whom he was enabled to be in the fullest communication with the French Government without compromising it. At the time of Franklin's arrival in Paris, he was already one of the most talked about men in the world. He was a member of every important learned society in Europe; he was a member, and one of the managers of the Royal Society, and one of eight foreign members of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris. Three editions of his scientific works had already appeared in Paris, and a new edition, much enlarged, had recently appeared in London. To all these advantages he added a political purpose--the dismemberment of the British empire--which was entirely congenial to every citizen of France. "Franklin's reputation," wrote Mr Adams, who, unhappily, was never able to regard his colleague's fame with entire equanimity, "was more universal than that of Leibnitz or Newton, Frederick or Voltaire, and his character more beloved and esteemed than all of them.... If a collection could be made of all the gazettes of Europe for the latter half of the 18th century a greater number of panegyrical paragraphs upon _le grand Franklin_ would appear, it is believed, than upon any other roan that ever lived." "Franklin's appearance in the French salons; even before he began to negotiate," says the German historian Schlosser, "was an event of great importance to the whole of Europe.... His dress, the simplicity of his external appearance, the friendly meekness of the old man, and the apparent humility of the Quaker, procured for Freedom a mass of votaries among the court circles who used to be alarmed at its coarseness and unsophisticated truths." We may here add that such was the number of portraits, busts, and medallions of him in circulation before he left Paris that he would have been recognized from them by nearly every adult citizen in any part of the civilized world. Writing to his daughter in the third year of his residence in Paris, of a medallion to which she had alluded, he says--"A variety of others have been made since, of different sizes; some to be set in the lids of snuff-boxes and some so small as to be worn in rings, and the numbers sold are incredible. These, with the pictures, busts, and prints (of which copies are spread everywhere) have made your father's face as well known as the moon, so that he durst not do anything that would oblige him to run away, as his phiz would discover him wherever he should venture to show it." The story of Franklin's mission to France, as recorded in his own correspondence, is singularly interesting and romantic. In these respects it is difficult to find its parallel in the literature of diplomacy. Its results may be summed up in a few words. He became at once, as already stated, an object of greater popular interest than any other man in France,--an interest which, during his eight years' sojourn there, seemed always on the increase. Streets in numerous cities, and several societies, were named after him; the French Academy paid him its highest honours, and he conferred more distinction upon any salon he frequented than it could reciprocate. He animated French society with a boundless enthusiasm for the cause of the rebel colonists, persuaded the Government that the interests of France required her to aid theta, obtained a treaty of alliance at a crisis in their fortunes in the winter of 1777, when such an alliance was decisive, and the great moral advantage of a royal frigate to convey the news of it to America. A few months later he signed the treaties which bound the two countries to mutual friendship and defence, and on the morning of the 30th March 1778 the three envoys were formally received by the king at Versailles, and through them the country they represented was first introduced into the family of independent nations. In February of the following year General Lafayette, who had distinguished himself as a volunteer in the rebel army, returning to France on leave, brought a commission from the American congress to Dr Franklin as sole plenipotentiary of the United States to the court of France. From this time until the close of the war it was Franklin's paramount duty to encourage the French Government to supply the colonists with money. How successfully he discharged this duty may be inferred from the following statement of the advances made by France upon his solicitation:--In 1777, 2,000,000 francs; in 1778, 3,000,000 francs; in 1779, 1,000,000 francs; in 1780, 4,000,000 francs; in 1781, 10,000,000 francs; in 1782, 6,000,000 francs; in all, 26,000,000 francs. To obtain these aids at a time when France was not only at war, but practically bankrupt, and in defiance of the strenuous resistance of Necker, the minister of finance, was an achievement, the credit of which, there is the best reason for believing, was mainly due to the matchless diplomacy of Franklin. Writing to the French minister in Philadelphia, December 4, 1780, the Count de Vergennes said-- "As to Dr Franklin, his conduct leaves congress nothing to desire. It is as zealous and patriotic as it is wise and circumspect, and you may affirm with assurance, on all occasions where you think proper, that the method he pursues is much more efficacious than it would be if he were to assume a tone of importunity in multiplying his demands, and above all in supporting them by menaces (an allusion to the indiscreet conduct of Franklin's colleagues), to which we should give neither credence nor value, and which would only tend to render him personally disagreeable." Again, February 15, 1781, Vergennes wrote:-- "If you are questioned respecting an opinion of Dr Franklin, you may without hesitation say that we esteem him as much on account of the patriotism as the wisdom of his conduct; and it has been owing in a great part to this cause, and the confidence we put in the veracity of Dr Franklin, that we have determined to relieve the pecuniary embarrassments in which he has been placed by congress. It may be judged from this fact, which is of a personal nature, if that minister's conduct has been injurious to the interests of his country, or if any other would have had the same advantages." Franklin had been for some years a martyr to the gout, which, with other infirmities incident to his advanced age of seventy-five, determined him to ask congress, in 1781, to relieve him, in a letter so full of dignity and feeling, that no one can read it even now, after the lapse of nearly a century, without emotion. "I must now," he wrote, after disposing of official topics, "beg leave to say something relating to myself--a subject with which I have not often troubled congress. I have passed my seventy-fifth year, and I find that the long and severe fit of the gout which I had the last winter had shaken me exceedingly, and I am yet far from having recovered the bodily strength I before enjoyed. I do not know that my mental faculties are impaired,--perhaps I shall be the last to discover that,--but I am sensible of great diminution of my activity, a quality I think particularly necessary in your minister at this court. I am afraid, therefore, that your affairs may some time or other suffer by my deficiency. I find also that the business is too heavy for me and too confining. The constant attendance at home, which is necessary for receiving and accepting your bills of exchange (a matter foreign to my ministerial functions), to answer letters, and perform other parts of my employment, pre vents my taking the air and exercise which my annual journeys formerly used to afford me, and which contributed much to the preservation of my health. There are many other little personal attentions which the infirmities of age render necessary to an old man's comfort, even in some degree to the continuance of his existence, and with which business often interferes. "I have been engaged in public affairs, and enjoyed public confidence in some shape or other during the long term of fifty years, and honour sufficient to satisfy any reasonable ambition; and I have no other left but that of repose, which I hope the congress will grant me by sending some person to supply my place. At the same time I beg they may be assured that it is not any the least doubt of their success in the glorious cause, nor any disgust received in their service, that induces me to decline it, but purely and simply the reasons I have mentioned. And as I cannot at present undergo the fatigues of a sea voyage (the last having been almost too much for me), and would not again expose myself to the hazard of capture and imprisonment in this time of war, I propose to remain here at least till the peace--perhaps it may be for the remainder of my life--and if any knowledge or experience I have acquired here may be thought of use to my successor, I shall freely communicate it and assist him with any influence I may be supposed to have, or counsel that may be desired of me." Congress not only declined to receive his resignation, but with its refusal sent him a commission, jointly with John Adams and John Jay, who had been the agent of the congress in Spain, to negotiate a peace. Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown on the 17th of October of that year, the anniversary of Burgoyne's disastrous surrender at Saratoga just four years before, and a farther prosecution of the war beyond what might be necessary to secure the most favourable terms of peace was no longer advocated by any party in England. Active negotiations with Franklin and his associates were opened, and on the 30th of November a preliminary treaty was signed by the English and American commissioners; a definitive treaty was signed on the 30th of September 1783, and ratified by congress January 14, 1784, and by the English Government on the 9th of April following. At the conclusion of the preliminary treaty Franklin renewed his application to congress to be relieved, to which he received no answer. A few weeks after signing the definitive treaty, he renewed it again, but it was not until the 7th of March 1785 that congress adopted the resolution which permitted "The Honourable Benjamin Franklin to return to America as soon as convenient," and three days later it appointed Thomas Jefferson to succeed him. During his stay in Paris Franklin gave by no means all his time to political problems. He wrote a paper for the Royal Society on the subject of balloons, a topic which, under the auspices of the Montgolfiers, attracted a great deal of attention at that time in France. Sir Joseph Banks commended it for its completeness. To some one who asked the use of the new invention Franklin replied by asking, "What is the use of a new-born baby?" In 1784 he was appointed by the French Academy one of a commission ordered by the king to investigate the phenomena of "mesmerism"; and to a large extent he directed the investigation which resulted in the disgrace and flight of Mesmer and his final disappearance from the public eye. Franklin's _Information to those who would Remove to America_, his _New Treatise on Privateering_, his _Essay on Raising the Wages in Europe by the American Revolution_, his _Letter to Vaughan on Luxury_, his _Story of the Whistle_, together with his private as well as official correspondence, kept the world constantly talking about him and wondering at the inexhaustible variety and unconventional novelty of his resources. "You replace Dr Franklin," I hear, said the Count de Vergennes to Jefferson when they first met. "I succeed, no one can replace him," was Jefferson's reply. It was on the 12th of July 1785 that, accompanied by some members of his family and most intimate friends, he set out for Havre on his return to America. In view of his infirmities, the queen had placed one of her litters at his disposal; the next day he was constrained by a most pressing invitation to accept the hospitality of Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld at Gaillon. At Rouen, he was waited upon by a deputation of the Academy of that city. At Portsmouth, where the party joined the vessel that was to take them home, the bishop of St Asaph's, "the good bishop," as Franklin used to style him, an old friend and correspondent, came down with his family to see him, and remained with him for the two or three days before they sailed. On the 13th of September Franklin, who had become by far the most widely known and the most eminent of Americans, disembarked again at the very wharf in Philadelphia on which, sixty-two years before, he had landed a homeless, homeless, friendless, and substantially penniless runaway apprentice of seventeen. The day succeeding his arrival, the assembly of Pennsylvania voted him a congratulatory address; the public bodies very generally waited upon him, and General Washington, by letter, asked to join in the public gratulations upon his safe return to America, and upon the many eminent services he had rendered. Sensible as his countrymen were of the magnitude of their obligations to him, and of his increasing infirmities, it never seems to have occurred to them that they could dispense with his services. In the month succeeding his arrival he was chosen a member of the municipal council of Philadelphia, of which he was also unanimously elected chairman. He was soon after elected by the executive council and assembly president of Pennsylvania, by seventy-six out of the seventy-seven votes cast. "I have not firmness enough," he wrote to an old friend, "to resist the unanimous desire of my country folks, and I find myself harnessed again to their service another year. They engrossed the prime of my life. They have, eaten my flesh, and seem resolved now to pick my bones." At the expiration of his term in 1786, he was unanimously re-elected, and again unanimously in 1787. He was also chosen a member of the national convention, of which Washington was a member and president, which met on the second Monday of May 1787, to frame a constitution for the new confederacy. To the joint influence of Franklin and Washington probably should be ascribed the final adoption of the constitution which this convention framed, and which continues to be the fundamental law of the United States. The most original, if not the most ingenious, and perhaps, in view of the grave difficulties it disposed of, the most important feature of the constitution they constructed--that which gave the States equal representation in the upper house or senate and in the lower house representation according to population--was the device of Franklin. For his three years' service as president of Pennsylvania Franklin refused to accept any compensation beyond a reimbursement of the postage he had paid on official letters, amounting to some £77, 5s. 6d., it being one of his notions, which he advocated in the convention, that the chief magistrates of a nation should serve without pecuniary compensation. Franklin survived his retirement from office two years, which he consecrated almost as exclusively to the public use as any other two of his life, although most of the time the victim of excruciating pain. His pen was never more actively nor more effectively employed. He helped to organize and was president of the first society formed on the American continent or anywhere else, we believe, for the abolition of slavery, and as its president wrote and signed the first remonstrance against slavery addressed to the American congress. Franklin died in his own house, in Philadelphia, on the 17th of April 1790, and in the eighty-fifth year of his age. Since then, as in life, his fame has gone on increasing. No American has ever received such varied and extensive homage from his countrymen. There is no State in the United States, and there are few counties that have not a town called Franklin (Ohio has nineteen of them); scarce a town that does not boast of its Franklin Street, or its Franklin Square, or its Franklin hotel, or its Franklin bank, or its Franklin insurance company, and so on; his bust or portrait is everywhere; and some sort of a monument of Franklin is among the attractions of almost every large city. When Franklin, the fugitive apprentice boy, in 1723, walked up Market Street on the morning of his first arrival in Philadelphia, munching the rolls in which he had invested a portion of the last dollar he had in the world, the curious spectacle he presented did not escape the attention of Miss Read, a comely girl of eighteen years who chanced to be standing in the door of her father's house when he passed. Not long after, accident gave him an introduction to her; they fell in love, and, soon after his return from his trip to England, he married her. By her he had two children, a son who died young, whom Franklin spoke of as the finest child he ever saw, and a daughter, Sally, who married Richard Bache, of Yorkshire, England. Mrs Bache had eight children, from whom are descended all that are now known to inherit any of the blood of Benjamin Franklin. Before his marriage Franklin had a son whom he named William, who acted as his secretary during his first official residence in England, and who, as a compliment to the father, was made governor of the province of New Jersey. When the rebellion broke out, William adhered to the mother country, which exposed him to serious indignities and was a source of profound mortification to his father. Next to the loss of his only legitimate son, this was perhaps the greatest sorrow of Franklin's life. "You conceived, you say," wrote Franklin to him nine years after the rupture, "that your duty to your king and regard for your country required this. I ought not to blame you for differing in sentiments with me on public affairs. We are men all subject to errors. Our opinions are not in our own power. They are formed and governed much by circumstances that are often as inexplicable as they are irresistible. Your situation was such that few would have censured your remaining neuter, though there are natural duties which precede political ones, and cannot be extinguished by them." Without presuming to extenuate anything that was unfilial in Governor Franklin's conduct, we cannot help remarking that Franklin, with a blindness common to parents, quite overlooked the fact that his son, when he determined to adhere to the sovereign whom he had sworn loyally to serve, was a lusty lad of forty-five years. In his will the father left William his lands in Nova Scotia, and forgave him the debts due to him. "The part he acted against me in the late war," continued the will, "which is of public notoriety, will account for my leaving him no more of an estate he endeavoured to deprive me of." Governor Franklin had a son who also was not born in wedlock, named William Temple Franklin. He was brought up by his grandfather and served him in the capacity of private secretary daring most of his residence in France, and after his return to the United States. Franklin tried repeatedly but unsuccessfully to have the young man appointed to some subordinate mission. He had been brought up in France, his education was strangely deficient, and he does not seem to have left an altogether favourable impression upon his countrymen abroad or at home after his return. It would not be strange if they judged him more correctly than his grandfather did. To this grandson Franklin bequeathed most of his books and all his manuscripts and papers, from which he published the first edition of the writings of his grandfather, purporting to be complete, in 1816, and after a delay never satisfactorily explained and apparently inexcusable. A criticism of this publication, attributed to Jeffrey, appeared in the _Edinburgh Review_, No. 56, August 1817. Though spending more than half of his life in the public service, Franklin was never for a moment dependent upon the Government for his livelihood. With the aid of his newspaper, his frugality, and his foresight, he was enabled to command every comfort and luxury he desired through his long life, and to leave to his descendants a fortune neither too large nor too small for his fame, and valued at the time of his death at about £30,000 sterling. Though rendering to his country as a diplomatist and statesman, and to the world as a philosopher, incalculable services, he never sought nor received from either of these sources any pecuniary advantage. Wherever he lived he was the inevitable centre of a system of influences always important and constantly enlarging; and dying, he perpetuated it by an autobiography which to this day not only remains one of the most widely read ant readable books in our language, but has had the distinction of enriching the literature of nearly every other. No man has ever lived whose life has been more universally studied by his countrymen or is more familiar to them. Though his pen seemed never idle, the longest production attributed to his pen was his autobiography, of less than 300 8vo pages, and yet, whatever subject occupied his pen, he never left the impression of incompleteness. He was never tedious, and an inexhaustible humour, a classic simplicity, an exquisite grace, and uniform good sense and taste informed and gave permanent interest to everything he wrote. Franklin was not an orator, but when he spoke, as he did occasionally in the several deliberative bodies of which he was a member, his word, though brief, was, like his writings, always clear, judicious, felicitous, and potential. No man ever possessed in a greater degree the gift of putting an argument into an anecdote. His country owes much to him for his service in various public capacities; the world owes much to the fruits of his pen; but his greatest contribution to the welfare of mankind, probably, was what he did by his example and life to dignify manual labour. While Diderot was teaching the dignity of labour in France and the folly of social standards that proscribed it, Franklin was illustrating it in America, and proving by his own most conclusive example that "Honour and fame from no condition rise." There are few born into this world so ill-conditioned that they cannot find comfort and encouragement from some portion of the life of Franklin; none of any station who may not meditate on it with advantage. That feature of it which is most valuable will probably be found most difficult to imitate. It is stated by himself in the following extract from his diary in 1784:-- "_Tuesday 27th._--Lord Fitzmaurice called to see me, his father having requested that I should give him such instructive hints as might be useful to him. I occasionally mentioned the old story of Demosthenes's answer to one who demanded what was the first point of oratory? _Action_; the second? _Action_; the third? _Action_,--which I said had been generally understood to mean the action of an orator with his hands in speaking but that I thought another kind of 'action' of more importance to an orator who would persuade people to follow his advice, viz.,--such a coarse of action in the conduct of life as world impress them with an opinion of his integrity as well as of his understanding; that this opinion once established, all the difficulties, delays, and oppositions usually occasioned by doubts and suspicious were prevented; and such a man, though a very imperfect speaker, would almost always carry his points against the most flourishing orator who had not the character of sincerity. To express my sense of the importance of a good private character in public affairs more strongly, I said the advantage of having it, and the disadvantage of not having it, were so great that I even believe if George III. had had a bad private character and John Wilkes a good one, the latter might have turned the former out of his kingdom." Though Franklin was far from being insensible to what are termed worldly considerations, his public life was singularly free from any vulgar or degrading trace of self seeking; he never is found making the public interests secondary to his own; though holding office a good portion of his life, he never treated office holding as a profession, nor the public treasury as the accumulations of the many for the good of a few. His private affairs and the public business were never allowed to become entangled or to depend the one upon the other. Though, from the nature of his various employments, a target for every form of malevolence and detraction during the last half of his life, his word was never impeached, nor his good faith and fairness, even to his enemies, successfully questioned. Of some irregularities in his youth he early repented, and for the benefit of mankind made a public confession, and all the reparation that was possible. The most complete edition of Franklin's works is that of Jared Sparks, in 10 vols. 8vo, Boston, 1836-40. An edition of the autobiography, revised by John Bigelow, from original MSS., appeared in 1868, and again in 1875, 3 viols. Parton's _Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin_, 2 vols., was published at New York in 1864. * * * * * Transcriber's Note Page 20 "forcaste" was changed to "forecast" (With his usual tact and forecast). 
43809	----	Benjamin Franklin and the First Balloons BY ABBOTT LAWRENCE ROTCH Reprinted from the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society Volume XVIII WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS THE DAVIS PRESS 1907 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND THE FIRST BALLOONS. BY ABBOTT LAWRENCE ROTCH. The recent bi-centenary of Franklin's birth, which coincided with the revival of interest in balloons, makes this a timely topic, especially since Franklin's descriptions of the first balloon ascensions are almost unknown and do not appear among his philosophical papers. The five letters which I have the honor to present were written to Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society of London, in 1783, when Franklin was Minister to the Court of France and, with the collateral documents, they give perhaps the most complete and accurate account of the beginning of aerial navigation, enlivened with the humor and speculation characteristic of the writer. It is certainly remarkable that Franklin, in the midst of diplomatic and social duties, could have found time to investigate personally this new invention of which he at once appreciated the possibilities. The documents which I publish are copies of Franklin's letters, made on thin paper in a copying press (probably the rotary machine invented by Franklin), and all but one bear his signature in ink. They have corrections in the author's hand-writing and, except for a few words, are quite legible. They were purchased by me from Dodd, Mead & Co., in December, 1905, and previously had belonged to G. M. Williamson, of Grandview-on-the-Hudson, to whom they had come from Vienna. None of the letters appear in Sparks' edition of Franklin's Works, and while all but one are included in the collections compiled by Bigelow and Smyth, there are numerous inaccuracies, some of which will be specified hereafter. Drafts of three of the letters are deposited in the University of Pennsylvania, but the existence of one letter and the whereabouts of another were unknown to the late Mr. Smyth, the editor of the last and most complete edition of Franklin's Works,[1] who made careful search for the original documents. Although the American owners of these copies did not allow them to be transcribed, Mr. Smyth states that he printed one letter from my copy, and he noted how the other copies differed from the drafts in the University of Pennsylvania. In general it may be said that, whereas Bigelow gives the text without paragraphs, capital letters or the old spelling,[2] Smyth follows the originals more closely. In view of the historic and scientific interest of these letters, they are now printed exactly according to the press-copies. The letter dated November 30, appears never to have been printed and whereas Smyth reproduced the letter of November 21 from the University of Pennsylvania draft, this or another draft (or possibly this copy) was in the possession of the French aeronaut, Gaston Tissandier, about 1887.[3] [1] The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, collected and edited by Albert Henry Smyth, Volume IX, New York, 1906. [2] Complete Works of Benjamin Franklin, compiled and edited by John Bigelow, Volume VIII, New York, 1888. [3] Histoire des Ballons, Paris, 1887, Volume I, page 29. (THE FIRST HYDROGEN BALLOON.) PASSY, Aug. 30, 1783. Sir, On Wednesday, the 27th Instant the new aerostatic Experiment, invented by Mess^rs. Montgolfier, of Annonay, was repeated by M. Charles, Professor of experimental Philosophy at Paris. A hollow Globe 12 feet Diameter was formed of what is called in England Oiled Silk, here _Taffetas gommé_, the Silk being impregnated with a Solution of Gum elastic in Lintseed Oil, as is said. The Parts were sewed together while wet with the Gum, and some of it was afterwards passed over the Seams, to render it as tight as possible. It was afterwards filled with the inflammable Air that is produced by pouring Oil of Vitriol upon Filings of Iron, when it was found to have a tendency upwards so strong as to be capable of lifting a Weight of 39 Pounds, exclusive of its own Weight which was 25 lbs. and the Weight of the Air contain'd. It was brought early in the morning to the _Champ de Mars_, a Field in which Reviews are sometimes made, lying between the Military School and the River. There it was held down by a Cord till 5 in the afternoon, when it was to be let loose. Care was taken before the Hour to replace what Portion had been lost, of the inflammable Air, or of its Force, by injecting more. It is supposed that not less than 50,000 People were assembled to see the Experiment. The Champ de Mars being surrounded by Multitudes, and vast Numbers on the opposite Side of the River. At 5 aClock Notice was given to the Spectators by the Firing of two Cannon, that the Cord was about to be cut. And presently the Globe was seen to rise, and that as fast as a Body of 12 feet Diameter, with a force only of 39 Pounds, could be suppos'd to move the resisting Air out of its Way. There was some Wind, but not very strong. A little Rain had wet it, so that it shone, and made an agreeable Appearance. It diminished in Apparent Magnitude as it rose, till it enter'd the Clouds, when it seem'd to me scarce bigger than an Orange, and soon after became invisible, the Clouds concealing it. The Multitude separated, all well satisfied and delighted with the Success of the Experiment, and amusing one another with discourses of the various uses it may possibly be apply'd to, among which many were very extravagant. But possibly it may pave the Way to some Discoveries in Natural Philosophy of which at present we have no Conception. A Note secur'd from the Weather had been affix'd to the Globe, signifying the Time & Place of its Departure, and praying those who might happen to find it, to send an account of its State to certain Persons at Paris. No News was heard of it till the next Day, when Information was receiv'd, that it fell a little after 6 aClock, at Gonesse, a Place about 4 Leagues Distance, and that it was rent open, and some say had Ice in it. It is suppos'd to have burst by the Elasticity of the contain'd Air when no longer compress'd by so heavy an Atmosphere. One of 38 feet Diameter is preparing by Mr. Montgolfier himself, at the Expence of the Academy, which is to go up in a few Days. I am told it is constructed of Linen & Paper, and is to be filled with a different Air, not yet made Public, but cheaper than that produc'd by the Oil of Vitriol, of which 200 Paris Pints were consum'd in filling the other. It is said that for some Days after its being filled, the Ball was found to lose an eighth Part of its Force of Levity in 24 Hours; Whether this was from Imperfection in the Tightness of the Ball, or a Change in the Nature of the Air, Experiments may easily discover. I thought it my Duty, Sir, to send an early Account of this extraordinary Fact, to the Society which does me the honour to reckon me among its Members; and I will endeavour to make it more perfect, as I receive farther Information. With great Respect, I am, Sir, Your most obedient and most humble Servant B. FRANKLIN SIR JOSEPH BANKS, Bar^t. P. S. Since writing the above, I am favour'd with your kind Letter of the 25th. I am much obliged to you for the Care you have taken to forward the Transactions, as well as to the Council for so readily ordering them on Application. Please to accept and present my Thanks. I just now learn, that some observers say, the Ball was 150 Seconds in rising, from the Cutting of the Cord till hid in the Clouds; that its height was then about 500 Toises, but, being moved out of the Perpendicular by the Wind, it had made a Slant so as to form a Triangle, whose Base on the Earth was about 200 Toises. It is said the Country People who saw it fall were frightned, conceiv'd from its bounding a little, when it touched the Ground, that there was some living Animal in it, and attack'd it with Stones and Knives, so that it was much mangled; but it is now brought to Town and will be repaired. The great one of M. Montgolfier, is to go up, as is said, from Versailles, in about 8 or 10 Days; It is not a Globe but of a different Form, more convenient for penetrating the Air. It contains 50,000 cubic Feet, and is supposed to have Force of Levity equal to 1500 pounds weight. A Philosopher here, M. Pilatre du Rozier has seriously apply'd to the Academy for leave to go up with it, in order to make some Experiments. He was complimented on his Zeal and Courage for the Promotion of Science, but advis'd to wait till the management of these Balls was made by Experience more certain & safe. They say the filling of it in M. Montgolfier's Way will not cost more than half a Crown. One is talk'd of to be 110 feet Diameter. Several Gentlemen have ordered small ones to be made for their Amusement. One has ordered four of 15 feet Diameter each; I know not with what Purpose; But such is the present Enthusiasm for promoting and improving this Discovery, that probably we shall soon make considerable Progress in the art of constructing and using the Machines. Among the Pleasanteries Conversation produces on this Subject, some suppose Flying to be now invented, and that since Men may be supported in the Air, nothing is wanted but some light handy Instruments to give and direct Motion. Some think Progressive Motion on the Earth may be advanc'd by it, and that a Running Footman or a Horse slung and suspended under such a Globe so as to have no more of Weight pressing the Earth with their Feet, than Perhaps 8 or 10 Pounds, might with a fair Wind run in a straight Line across Countries as fast as that Wind, and over Hedges, Ditches & even Waters. It has been even fancied that in time People will keep such Globes anchored in the Air, to which by Pullies they may draw up Game to be preserved in the Cool & Water to be frozen when Ice is wanted. And that to get Money, it will be contrived to give People an extensive View of the Country, by running them up in an Elbow Chair a Mile high for a Guinea &c. &c. B. F. (A HOT AIR BALLOON CARRYING ANIMALS.) PASSY, Oct. 8, 1783. Sir, The Publick were promised a printed particular Account of the Rise & Progress of the Balloon Invention, to be published about the End of last month. I waited for it to send it to you, expecting it would be more satisfactory than anything I could write; but it does not appear. We have only at present the enclosed Pamphlet, which does not answer the expectation given us. I send you with it some prints. That of the Balloon raised at Versailles is said to be an exact representation. I was not present, but am told it was filled in about ten minutes by means of burning Straw. Some say water was thrown into the flame, others that it was Spirits of Sal Volatile. It was supposed to have risen about 200 Toises: But did not continue long at that height, was carried horizontally by the Wind, and descended gently as the Air within grew cooler. So vast a Bulk when it began to rise so majestically in the Air struck the spectators with surprise and Admiration. The Basket contained a sheep, a duck, and a Cock, who, except the Cock, received no hurt by the fall. The Duke de Crillon made a feast last week in the Bois de Boulogne, just by my habitation, on occasion of the Birth of two Spanish Princes; after the Fireworks we had a Balloon of about 5 feet Diameter filled with permanent inflammable Air. It was dismissed about One aClock in the Morning. It carried under it a large Lanthorn with inscriptions on its sides. The Night was quite calm and clear, so that it went right up. The appearance of the light diminished gradually till it appeared no bigger than one of the Stars, and in about twenty minutes I lost sight of it entirely. It fell the next Day on the other side of the same Wood near the Village Boulogne, about half after twelve, having been suspended in the Air eleven hours and a half. It lodged in a tree, and was torn in getting it down; so that it cannot be ascertained whether it burst when above, or not, tho' that is supposed. Smaller Repetitions of the Experiment are making every day in all quarters. Some of the larger Balloons that have been up are preparing to be sent up again in a few Days; but I do not hear of any material improvements yet made either in the mechanical or Chemical parts of the Operation. Most is expected from the new one undertaken upon subscription by Messieurs Charles and Robert, who are Men of Science and mechanic Dexterity. It is to carry up a Man. I send you enclosed the Proposals, which it is said are already subscribed to by a considerable number and likely to be carried into execution. If I am well at the Time, I purpose to be present, being a subscriber myself, and shall send you an exact Account of Particulars. With great esteem and respect, for yourself and the Society; I have the honour to be, Sir, Your most obedient & most humble Servant, B. FRANKLIN SIR JOSEPH BANKS, Bar^t. (THE FIRST AERIAL VOYAGE BY MAN.) PASSY, Nov^r 21st, 1783 Dear Sir, I received your friendly Letter of the 7th Inst. I am glad my Letters respecting the Aerostatic Experiment were not unacceptable. But as more perfect Accounts of the Construction and Management of that Machine have been and will be published before your Transactions, and from which Extracts may be made that will be more particular and therefore more satisfactory, I think it best not to print those Letters. I say this in answer to your Question; for I did not indeed write them with a view of their being inserted. Mr. Faujas de St. Fond acquainted me yesterday that a Book on the Subject which has been long expected, will be publish'd in a few Days, and I shall send you one of them. Enclosed is a Copy of the _Procès verbal_ taken of the Experiment made yesterday in the Garden of the Queen's Palace la Muette where the Dauphin now resides which being near my House I was present. This Paper was drawn up hastily, and may in some Places appear to you obscure; therefore I shall add a few explanatory Observations. This Balloon was larger than that which went up from Versailles and carried the Sheep, &c. Its bottom was open, and in the middle of the Opening was fixed a kind of Basket Grate in which Faggots and Sheaves of Straw were burnt. The Air rarified in passing thro' this Flame rose in the Balloon, swell'd out its sides, and fill'd it. The Persons who were plac'd in the Gallery made of Wicker, and attached to the Outside near the Bottom, had each of them a Port thro' which they could pass Sheaves of Straw into the Grate to keep up the Flame, & thereby keep the Balloon full. When it went over our Heads, we could see the Fire which was very considerable. As the Flame slackens, the rarified Air cools and condenses, the Bulk of the Balloon diminishes and it begins to descend. If those in the Gallery see it likely to descend in an improper Place, they can by throwing on more Straw, & renewing the Flame, make it rise again, and the Wind carries it farther. _La Machine poussée par le Vent s'est dirigée sur une des Allées du Jardin._ That is against the Trees of one of the Walks. The Gallery hitched among the top Boughs of those Trees which had been cut and were stiff while the Body of the Balloon lean'd beyond and seemed likely to overset. I was then in great Pain for the Men, thinking them in danger of being thrown out, or burnt for I expected that the Balloon being no longer upright the Flame would have laid hold of the inside that leaned over it. But by means of some Cords that were still attach'd to it, it was soon brought upright again, made to descend, & carried back to its place. It was however much damaged. _Planant sur l'Horizon._ When they were as high as they chose to be, they made less Flame and suffered the Machine to drive Horizontally with the Wind, of which however they felt very little, as they went with it, and as fast. They say they had a charming View of Paris & its Environs, the Course of the River, &c but that they were once lost, not knowing what Part they were over, till they saw the Dome of the Invalids, which rectified their Ideas. Probably while they were employed in keeping up the Fire, the Machine might turn, and by that means they were _desorientés_ as the French call it. There was a vast Concourse of Gentry in the Garden, who had great Pleasure in seeing the Adventurers go off so chearfully, & applauded them by clapping &c. but there was at the same time a good deal of Anxiety for their Safety. Multitudes in Paris saw the Balloon passing; but did not know there were Men with it, it being then so high that they could not see them. _Développant du Gaz._ That is, in plain English, _burning more straw_; for tho' there is a little Mystery made, concerning the kind of Air with which the Balloon is filled, I conceive it to be nothing more than hot Smoke or common Air rarify'd, tho' in this I may be mistaken. _Aiant encor dans leur Galerie les deux tiers de leur Approvisionement._ That is their Provision of Straw; of which they carried up a great Quantity. It was well that in the hurry of so hazardous an Experiment, the Flame did not happen by any accidental Mismanagement to lay hold of this Straw; tho' each had a Bucket of Water by him, by Way of Precaution. One of these courageous Philosophers, the Marquis d'Arlandes, did me the honour to call upon me in the Evening after the Experiment, with Mr. Montgolfier the very ingenious Inventor. I was happy to see him safe. He informed me that they lit gently without the least Shock, and the Balloon was very little damaged. This Method of filling the Balloon with hot Air is cheap and expeditious, and it is supposed may be sufficient for certain purposes, such as elevating an Engineer to take a View of an Enemy's Army, Works, &c. conveying Intelligence into, or out of a besieged Town, giving Signals to distant Places, or the like. The other Method of filling a Balloon with permanently elastic inflammable Air, and then closing it is a tedious Operation, and very expensive; Yet we are to have one of that kind sent up in a few Days. It is a Globe of 26 feet diameter. The Gores that compose it are red and white Silk, so that it makes a beautiful appearance. A very handsome triumphal Car will be suspended to it, in which Mess^rs. Robert, two Brothers, very ingenious Men, who have made it in concert with Mr. Charles propose to go up. There is room in this Car for a little Table to be placed between them, on which they can write and keep their Journal, that is take Notes of every thing they observe, the State of their Thermometer, Barometer, Hygrometer, &c which they will have more Leisure to do than the others, having no fire to take Care of. They say they have a contrivance which will enable them to descend at Pleasure. I know not what it is. But the Expence of this Machine, Filling included, will exceed, it is said, 10,000 Livres. This Balloon of only 26 feet diameter being filled with Air ten times lighter than common Air, will carry up a greater Weight than the other, which tho' vastly bigger was filled with an Air that could scarcely be more than twice as light. Thus the great Bulk of one of these Machines, with the short duration of its Power, & the great Expence of filling the other will prevent the Inventions being of so much Use, as some may expect, till Chemistry can invent a cheaper light Air producible with more Expedition. But the Emulation between the two Parties running high, the Improvement in the Construction and Management of the Balloons has already made a rapid Progress; and one cannot say how far it may go. A few Months since the Idea of Witches riding thro' the Air upon a Broomstick, and that of Philosophers upon a Bag of Smoke, would have appeared equally impossible and ridiculous. These Machines must always be subject to be driven by the Winds. Perhaps Mechanic Art may find easy means to give them progressive Motion in a Calm, and to slant them a little in the Wind. I am sorry this Experiment is totally neglected in England where mechanic Genius is so strong. I wish I could see the same Emulation between the two Nations as I see between the two Parties here. Your Philosophy seems to be too bashful. In this Country we are not so much afraid of being laught at. If we do a foolish thing, we are the first to laugh at it ourselves, and are almost as much pleased with a _Bon Mot_ or a good _Chanson_, that ridicules well the Disappointment of a Project, as we might have been with its Success. It does not seem to me a good reason to decline prosecuting a new Experiment which apparently increases the Power of Man over Matter, till we can see to what Use that Power may be applied. When we have learnt to manage it, we may hope some time or other to find Uses for it, as Men have done for Magnetism and Electricity of which the first Experiments were mere Matters of Amusement. This Experience is by no means a trifling one. It may be attended with important Consequences that no one can foresee. We should not suffer Pride to prevent our progress in Science. Beings of a Rank and Nature far superior to ours have not disdained to amuse themselves with making and launching Balloons, otherwise we should never have enjoyed the Light of those glorious objects that rule our Day & Night, nor have had the Pleasure of riding round the Sun ourselves upon the Balloon we now inhabit. With great and sincere Esteem, I am, Dear Sir, Your most obed^t & most humble Servant, B. FRANKLIN Sir JOSEPH BANKS. (POSTPONEMENT OF CHARLES' AND ROBERT'S ASCENSION.) PASSY, Nov. 30, 1783 Dear Sir, I did myself the honour of writing to you the Beginning of last Week, and I sent you by the Courier, M. Faujas's Book upon the Balloons, which I hope you have receiv'd. I did hope to have given you to day an Account of Mr. Charles's grand Balloon, which was to have gone up yesterday; but the filling it with inflammable Air having taken more time than had been calculated, it is deferr'd till to-morrow. I send you herewith a Paper in which you will see what was proposed by Mess^rs Robert who constructed the Machine; and some other Papers relative to the same Subject, the last of which is curious, as containing the Journal of the first Aerial Voyage performed by Man.--I purpose being present to-morrow at the Experiment, and shall give you an Acc^t of it by the Wednesday's Post. With sincere & great Esteem, I have the honour to be, Sir, Your most obed^t humble Serv^t B. FRANKLIN Sir JOS. BANKS, Bar^t. (THE SECOND AERIAL VOYAGE BY MAN.) PASSY, Dec. 1, 1783. Dear Sir, In mine of yesterday, I promis'd to give you an Account of Mess^rs. Charles & Robert's Experiment, which was to have been made at this Day, and at which I intended to be present. Being a little indispos'd, & the Air cool, and the Ground damp, I declin'd going into the Garden of the Tuilleries where the Balloon was plac'd, not knowing how long I might be oblig'd to wait there before it was ready to depart; and chose to stay in my Carriage near the Statue of Louis XV. from whence I could well see it rise, & have an extensive View of the Region of Air thro' which, as the Wind sat, it was likely to pass. The Morning was foggy, but about one aClock, the Air became tolerably clear, to the great Satisfaction of the Spectators, who were infinite, Notice having been given of the intended Experiment several Days before in the Papers, so that all Paris was out, either about the Tuilleries, on the Quays & Bridges, in the Fields, the Streets, at the Windows, or on the Tops of Houses, besides the Inhabitants of all the Towns & Villages of the Environs. Never before was a philosophical Experiment so magnificently attended. Some Guns were fired to give Notice, that the Departure of the great Balloon was near, and a small one was discharg'd which went to an amazing Height, there being but little Wind to make it deviate from its perpendicular Course, and at length the Sight of it was lost. Means were used, I am told, to prevent the great Balloon's rising so high as might indanger its Bursting. Several Bags of Sand were taken on board before the Cord that held it down was cut, and the whole Weight being then too much to be lifted, such a Quantity was discharg'd as to permit its Rising slowly. Thus it would sooner arrive at that Region where it would be in Equilibrio with the surrounding Air, and by discharging more Sand afterwards, it might go higher if desired. Between One & Two aClock, all Eyes were gratified with seeing it rise majestically from among the Trees, and ascend gradually above the Buildings, a most beautiful Spectacle! When it was about 200 feet high, the brave Adventurers held out and wav'd a little white Pennant, on both Sides their Car, to salute the Spectators, who return'd loud Claps of Applause. The Wind was very little, so that the Object, tho' moving to the Northward, continued long in View; and it was a great while before the admiring People began to disperse. The Persons embark'd were Mr. Charles, Professor of Experimental Philosophy, & a zealous Promoter of that Science; and one of the Messieurs Robert, the very ingenious Constructors of the Machine. When it arrived at its height, which I suppose might be 3 or 400 Toises, it appeared to have only horizontal Motion. I had a Pocket Glass, with which I follow'd it, till I lost Sight, first of the Men, then of the Car, and when I last saw the Balloon, it appear'd no bigger than a Walnut. I write this at 7 in the Evening. What became of them is not yet known here. I hope they descended by Day-light, so as to see & avoid falling among Trees or on Houses, and that the Experiment was completed without any mischievous Accident which the Novelty of it & the want of Experience might well occasion. I am the more anxious for the Event, because I am not well inform'd of the Means provided for letting themselves gently down, and the Loss of these very ingenious Men would not only be a Discouragement to the Progress of the Art, but be a sensible Loss to Science and Society. I shall inclose one of the Tickets of Admission, on which the Globe was represented, as originally intended, but is altered by the Pen to show its real State when it went off. When the Tickets were engraved, the Car was to have been hung to the Neck of the Globe, as represented by a little Drawing I have made in the Corner A. I suppose it may have been an Apprehension of Danger in straining too much the Balloon or tearing the Silk, that induc'd the Constructors to throw a Net over it, fix'd to a Hoop which went round its Middle, and to hang the Car to that Hoop, as you see in Fig. B. Tuesday Morning, Dec. 2. I am reliev'd from my Anxiety, by hearing that the Adventurers descended well near l'Isle Adam, before Sunset. This Place is near 7 Leagues from Paris. Had the Wind blown fresh, they might have gone much farther. If I receive any farther Particulars of Importance I shall communicate them hereafter. With great Esteem, I am, Dear Sir, Your most obedient & most humble servant, B. FRANKLIN P. S. Tuesday Evening. Since writing the above, I have receiv'd the printed Paper & the Manuscript, containing some Particulars of the Experiment, which I enclose.--I hear farther, that the Travellers had perfect Command of their Carriage, descending as they pleas'd by letting some of the inflammable Air escape, and rising again by discharging some Sand; that they descended over a Field so low as to talk with Labourers in passing and mounted again to pass a Hill. The little Balloon falling at Vincennes, shows that mounting higher it met with a Current of Air in a contrary Direction: An Observation that may be of use to future aerial Voyagers. Sir JOSEPH BANKS, Bar^t. (SOME PARTICULARS OF THE SECOND VOYAGE.) Mr. Le Chevalier de Cubière qui a suivi la marche du Globe est arrivé chez M. Charles hier à 10 heures 1/4 du Soir et a dit, Que les Voyageurs étoient descendus lentement et volontairement à trois heures 3/4 dans les Marais de Nesle et d'Hebouville, une lieue et demie après l'Isle Adam. Ils y ont été accueillis par Mrs. le Duc de Chartre et Fitz James, qui après les avoir embrassés, ont signé le Procès verbal de lieu et d'heure. Beaucoup d'habitants de la campagne et le curé de Nesle et d'Hebouville se sont aussi trouvés à leur arrivée. Les Voyageurs ont assuré n'avoir éprouvé que des Sensations agréables dans leur traversée. Mr. Robert étant sorti du Char, et aidé de quelques Paysans, se disposoit à remplacer sa Pesanteur avec de la Terre; mais M. Charles voulant profiter du peu de Jour qui lui restoit, pour faire encore quelques observations, impatienté de la Lenteur de cette operation, a repris son Vol à 4 heures et 1/4, avec un excédant de Légèreté d'environ 100 Livres par une Ascension droite et une rapidité telle qu'en peu de tems le Globe s'est trouvé hors de vue. La Chute du Jour l'a déterminé à redescendre une lieue et 1/2 plus loin, aux environs de Fouroy. La Machine n'a éprouvé aucun Accident. Elle perdoit légèrement par une petite ouverture qui existoit dejà quelques heures avant son Depart auprès de l'appendice, et dont le Morceau de Taffetas que l'on y avoit appliqué au moment de l'expérience, s'étoit detaché. * * * * * Le petit Ballon est tombé dans la Cour du Dongeon à Vincennes. Il a été ramassé par des Enfans et vendu 6_d._ au nommé Bertrand. Il avoit perdu son air inflammable par le Robinet qu'on avoit laissé ouvert exprès pour empêcher l'explosion à trop grande hauteur. On évalue qu'il a été 50 minutes en l'air. Le Taffetas étoit roussi aux deux Extremités. NOTES CONCERNING THE LETTERS. _Letter of August 30._ The hand-writing is in a more flowing style than the subsequent letters. Bigelow omits paragraph ten beginning "It is said." Both Bigelow and Smyth give another paragraph in the Postscript, beyond the signature "B. F." in my copy; also a note dated Sept. 2^d, which contains calculations in French relating to the balloon. Smyth says that these additions are not in the University of Pennsylvania draft but that they occur in this press-copy, which is obviously a mistake. In paragraph two of the Postscript "mov'd out," in Smyth, should read "being moved out," and in the last line but one "upon" should read "up in." _Letter of October 8._ In the eighth line after the word "Balloon" Smyth inserts "lately." Part of the valedictory and the signature are omitted by Bigelow and Smyth, but the former gives an "Extract of the Proposals" for the balloon of which I have no copy. _Letter of November 21._ This should be dated Nov. 22, since the ascension of d'Arlandes and de Rozier which, according to the letter, took place the previous day is known to have been on the 21st. The orthography of the French words in Bigelow and Smyth does not always agree with the copy. In paragraph three, for "Post," in Smyth, read "Port;" in paragraph six for "Adventures," in Smyth, read "Adventurers;" in paragraph thirteen for "By the emulation," in Smyth, read "But the Emulation;" in paragraph fifteen for the phrase, in Smyth and Bigelow, beginning, "I wish I could see the same emulation," correct to end, "between the two Nations as I see between the two Parties here;" in paragraph sixteen, in both Bigelow and Smyth, for "Experiment," read "Experience;" and for the unintelligible phrase in both Bigelow and Smyth, "Beings of a frank and [sic] nature," read "Beings of a Rank and Nature." Minor discrepancies between this and the other press-copies and the letters as printed by Bigelow and Smyth also occur. The signature is in pencil in this copy. A "P. S. Nov. 25th" is not in the press-copy, contrary to Smyth's statement, but I have a press-copy of the French _Procès-Verbal_, therein referred to, in Franklin's handwriting with his name and eight others affixed as witnesses. Neither Bigelow nor Smyth print this document, which was first reproduced in the book mentioned by Franklin in the first paragraph of his letter, viz: "Description des Expériences de la Machine Aérostatique par M. Faujas de Saint-Fond, Paris, 1783." Since Franklin's copy of the _Procès-Verbal_ differs only in his spelling the word "_sang-froid_" instead of "_sens-froid_," I do not print it. However, other changes were introduced in the _Procès-Verbal_ when reprinted in the second volume of M. Faujas' work, published in 1784. The plate forming the frontispiece to this volume shows the balloon as seen from Mr. Franklin's terrace at Passy. _Letter of November 30._ This has never been published so far as I know. "The Journal of the first Aerial Voyage," here mentioned, was written by the Marquis d'Arlandes to M. Faujas de Saint-Fond on Nov. 28th and first printed in the _Journal de Paris_ but was republished by Faujas de Saint-Fond in his second volume. _Letter of December 1._ Smyth states that he reproduced this letter from my press-copy but he omits the capital letters and the contractions in spelling, as well as the references "A" and "B," which are given by Bigelow with the remark that the drawings were not found. "The Manuscript, containing some Particulars of the Experiment, which I enclose," mentioned in the Postscript, is a two-page account in French, in Franklin's handwriting, by an eye-witness of the voyage, M. le Chevalier de Cubière. As this interesting document has never been published, to my knowledge, I have given it here _literatim_ from my press-copy. --Transcriber's note-- A caret (^) indicates the following character or characters were printed in superscript. Some superscripts were silently converted to regular characters (i.e. 27th instead of 27^th). Except for the following corrections, the original text and punctuation remain unchanged: p. 7, Added a missing comma after "Sir" at the beginning of the letter "A hot air balloon carrying animals", as there is one in every other letter; p. 7, added missing "t" to "than" in "more satisfactory than anything"; p. 9, "Procés verbal" corrected to "Procès verbal"; p. 11, added a missing comma after "Robert" in "Mess^rs. Robert, two Brothers,"; p. 11, "Aiant encor dans leur Galerie le deux tiers de leur Approvissonement." was corrected to "... les deux tiers de leur Approvisionement." "Aiant encor" might be "Ayant encore", as printed in the "Journal des sçavans" of January 1784, but was not corrected here; p. 14, "Carr" corrected to "Car" in "on both Sides their Car,"; p. 16, removed a space after "d'" in "Beaucoup d'habitants"; p. 16, "Bart." corrected to "Bar^t." in "Sir JOSEPH BANKS, Bar^t."; p. 17, "Sept. 2d" corrected to "Sept. 2^d", for 2nd. The following possible mispellings have been retained: p. 6, "M. Pilatre du Rozier" should be "M. Pilâtre de Rozier"; p. 10, "chearfully" is possibly an older spelling for "cheerfully"; p. 16, there are several missing accents that might have been in the original French document, in "desorientés", "operation", "dejà", "depart", "detaché" and "extremités". There are two occurences of "&c" for "&c." 
29482	----	generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) The Riverside Biographical Series 1. ANDREW JACKSON, by W. G. BROWN. 2. JAMES B. EADS, by LOUIS HOW. 3. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, by PAUL E. MORE. 4. PETER COOPER, by R. W. RAYMOND. 5. THOMAS JEFFERSON, by H. C. MERWIN. 6. WILLIAM PENN, by GEORGE HODGES. 7. GENERAL GRANT, by WALTER ALLEN. 8. LEWIS AND CLARK, by WILLIAM R. LIGHTON. 9. JOHN MARSHALL, by JAMES B. THAYER. 10. ALEXANDER HAMILTON, by CHAS. A. CONANT. 11. WASHINGTON IRVING, by H. W. BOYNTON. 12. PAUL JONES, by HUTCHINS HAPGOOD. 13. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, by W. G. BROWN. 14. SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN, by H. D. SEDGWICK, Jr. Each about 140 pages, 16mo, with photogravure portrait, 65 cents, _net_; _School Edition_, each, 50 cents, _net._ HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON AND NEW YORK The Riverside Biographical Series NUMBER 3 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN By PAUL ELMER MORE BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY PAUL E. MORE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. EARLY DAYS IN BOSTON 1 II. BEGINNINGS IN PHILADELPHIA AND FIRST VOYAGE TO ENGLAND 22 III. RELIGIOUS BELIEFS.--THE JUNTO 37 IV. THE SCIENTIST AND PUBLIC CITIZEN IN PHILADELPHIA 52 V. FIRST AND SECOND MISSIONS TO ENGLAND 85 VI. MEMBER OF CONGRESS--ENVOY TO FRANCE 109 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN I EARLY DAYS IN BOSTON When the report of Franklin's death reached Paris, he received, among other marks of respect, this significant honor by one of the revolutionary clubs: in the café where the members met, his bust was crowned with oak-leaves, and on the pedestal below was engraved the single word VIR. This simple encomium, calling to mind Napoleon's _This is a man_ after meeting Goethe, sums up better than a volume of eulogy what Franklin was in his own day and what his life may still signify to us. He acted at one time as a commander of troops, yet cannot be called a soldier; he was a great statesman, yet not among the greatest; he made famous discoveries in science, yet was scarcely a professional scientist; he was lauded as a philosopher, yet barely outstepped the region of common sense; he wrote ever as a moralist, yet in some respects lived a free life; he is one of the few great American authors, yet never published a book; he was a shrewd economist, yet left at his death only a moderate fortune; he accomplished much as a philanthropist, yet never sacrificed his own weal. Above all and in all things he was a man, able to cope with every chance of life and wring profit out of it; he had perhaps the alertest mind of any man of that alert century. In his shrewdness, versatility, self-reliance, wit, as also in his lack of the deeper reverence and imagination, he, I think, more than any other man who has yet lived, represents the full American character. And so in studying his life, though at times we may wish that to his practical intelligence were added the fervid insight of Jonathan Edwards, who was his only intellectual equal in the colonies, or the serene faith of an Emerson, who was born "within a kite string's distance" of his birthplace in Boston, yet in the end we are borne away by the wonderful openness and rectitude of his mind, and are willing to grant him his high representative position. Franklin's ancestors were of the sturdy sort that have made the strength of the Anglo-Saxon race. For three hundred years at least his family had lived on a freehold of thirty acres in the village of Ecton, Northamptonshire; and for many generations father and son had been smiths. Parton, in his capital Life of Franklin, has observed that Washington's ancestors lived in the same county, although much higher in the social scale; and it may well have been that more than one of Franklin's ancestors "tightened a rivet in the armor or replaced a shoe upon the horse of a Washington, or doffed his cap to a Washington riding past the ancestral forge." During these long years the family seems to have gathered strength from the soil, as families are wont to do. Seeing how the Franklins, when the fit of emigrating seized upon them, blossomed out momentarily, and then dwindled away, we are reminded of Poor Richard's wise observation,-- "I never saw an oft-removëd tree Nor yet an oft-removëd family That throve so well as those that settled be." About the year 1685, Josiah Franklin, the youngest of four sons, came with his wife and three children to Boston. He had been a dyer in the old home, but now in New England, finding little to be done in this line, he set up as a tallow-chandler and soap-boiler, and prospered in a small way. By his first wife he had four more children, and then by a second wife ten others,--a goodly sheaf of seventeen, among whom Benjamin, the destined philosopher, was the fifteenth. The second wife, Benjamin's mother, was the daughter of Peter Folger, one of the settlers of Nantucket,--"a godly and learned Englishman," who, like many of the pious New England folk, used to relieve his heart in doggerel rhymes. In his "Looking-Glass for the Times" he appeals boldly for liberty of conscience in behalf of the persecuted Anabaptists and Quakers, and we are not surprised that Franklin should have commended the manly freedom of these crude verses. Young Benjamin was open to every influence about him, and something of the large and immovable tolerance of his nature may have been caught from old Peter Folger, his grandfather. We can imagine with what relish that sturdy Protestant, if he had lived so long, would have received Benjamin's famous "Parable against Persecution," which the author used to pretend to read as the last chapter of Genesis, to the great mystification of his audience,--"And it came to pass after these things that Abraham sat in the door of his tent," etc. Try the trick to-day, and you will find most of your hearers equally mystified, so perfectly has Franklin imitated the tone of Old Testament language. But we forget that our hero, like Tristram Shandy, is still in the limbo of non-existence. Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, January 6 (old style), 1706. At that time the family home was in Milk Street, opposite the Old South Church, to which sacred edifice the child was taken the day of his birth, tradition asserting that his own mother carried him thither through the snow. Shortly afterwards the family moved to a wooden house on the corner of Hanover and Union streets. Naturally in so large a family, where the means of support were so slender, young Benjamin had to get most of his education outside of the schoolroom, and something of this practical unscholastic training clung to his mind always. Perhaps this was just as well in that age and place, where theology and education were synonymous terms. Certainly his consequent lack of deep root in the past and his impressionability, though limitations to his genius, make him the more typical of American intelligence. At the age of eight he was sent to the grammar school, where he remained less than a year, and then passed under the charge of Mr. George Brownell, a teacher of the three R's. Benjamin had learned to read so young that he himself could not remember being unable to read, and at school he did notably well. It is curious, however, that he found difficulty with his arithmetic, and was never a mathematician, though later in life he became skillful in dealing with figures. No error could be greater than Carlyle's statement that ability in mathematics is a test of intelligence. Goethe, scientist as well as poet, could never learn algebra; and Faraday, the creator of electrical science, knew no mathematics at all. When ten years old the lad was taken from school and set to work under his father. But his education was by no means ended. There is a temptation to dwell on these early formative years because he himself was so fond of deducing lessons from the little occurrences of his boyhood; nor do I know any life that shows a more consistent development from beginning to end. There is, too, a peculiar charm in hearing the world-famous philosopher discourse on these petty happenings of childhood and draw from them his wise experience of life. So, for instance, at sixty-six years of age he writes to a friend in Paris the story of "The Whistle." One day when he was seven years old his pocket was filled with coppers, and he immediately started for the shop to buy toys. On the way he met a boy with a whistle, and was so charmed with the sound of it that he gave all his money for one. Of course his kind brothers and sisters laughed at him for his extravagant bargain, and his chagrin was so great that he adopted as one of his maxims of life, "Don't give too much for the whistle." As he grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, he thought he met with many, very many, who gave too much for the whistle,--men sacrificing time and liberty and virtue for court favor; misers, giving up comfort and esteem and the joy of doing good for wealth; others sacrificing every laudable improvement of the mind and fortune and health to mere corporal sensations, and all the other follies of exorbitant desire. Another experience, this time a more painful lesson in honesty, he relates in his Autobiography. Having one day stolen some stones from an unfinished house while the builders were away, he and his comrades built up a wharf where they might stand and fish for minnows in the mill-pond. They were discovered, complained of, and corrected by their fathers; "and though I demonstrated the utility of our work," says Franklin, "mine convinced me that that which was not honest could not be truly useful." It is interesting, too, to see the boy showing the same experimental aptitude which brought scientific renown to the man. Like all American boys living on the coast, he was strongly attracted to the water, and early learned to swim. But ordinary swimming was not enough for Benjamin: with some skill he made a pair of wooden paddles for his hands, which enabled him to move through the water very rapidly, although, as he says, they tired his wrists. Another time he combined the two joyful pursuits of swimming and kite-flying in such a manner perhaps as no boy before him had ever conceived. Lying on his back, he held in his hands the stick to which the kite-string was attached, and thus "was drawn along the surface of the water in a very agreeable manner." Later in life he said he thought it not impossible to cross in this manner from Dover to Calais. "But the packet-boat is still preferable," he added. We shall see how he managed to put even his knowledge of swimming to practical use; and kite-flying, every one knows, served him in his most notable electrical experiment. Certainly, if it could ever be said of any one, it might be said of him, "The child is father of the man." But swimming and boyish play formed a small, though it may be important, part of his education. He was from childhood up "passionately fond of reading," and he was moreover a wise reader, which is still better. Books were not so easy to get in those days; and the good libraries of the country were composed chiefly of great theological volumes in folio on the shelves of the clergymen's studies. But in one way and another Franklin contrived to lay hands on the food he most needed. All the money he could save he devoted to buying books, and he even had recourse to unusual methods of saving for this purpose. When sixteen he chanced to read a treatise commending a vegetable diet, and forthwith he put himself under this regimen, finding he could thus set aside half his board money to increase his library. He also made the acquaintance of the booksellers' apprentices from whom he could borrow books; and often he would read late into the night so as to return the purloined volume early the next morning. The first book he owned was the "Pilgrim's Progress," which remained a favorite with him through life and even served to a certain extent as a model for his own work. This book he sold to buy Burton's "Historical Collections" in forty volumes. His father's library was mainly theological, and the young lad was courageous enough to browse even in this dry pasture, but to his little profit as he thought. There was, however, a book on his father's shelves which was admirably suited to train one destined himself to play a large part in a great drama of history. Where could patriotism and fortitude of character better be learnt than in Plutarch? and Plutarch he read "abundantly" and thought his "time spent to great advantage." That was in the good days before children's books and boys' books were printed. In place of--whom shall we say, Henty or Abbott or another?--boys, if they read at all, read Plutarch and the "Spectator." They came to the intellectual tasks of manhood with their minds braced by manly reading and not deboshed by silly or at best juvenile literature. It is safe to say that no book written primarily for a boy is a good book for a boy to read. Apart from lessons in generous living, Franklin may have had his natural tendency to moralize strengthened by this study of Plutarch. It is indeed notable that in one respect eighteenth-century literature has marked affinity with the Greek. The writers of that age, and among them Franklin, were like the Greeks distinctly ethical. In telling a story or recording a life, their interest was in the moral to be drawn, rather than in the passions involved. Another book which had a special influence on his style may be mentioned. An odd volume of the "Spectator" coming into his hands, he read the essays over and over and took them deliberately as a model in language. This was before the date of Johnson's well-known dictum: "Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison." His method of work was "to make short hints of the sentiments in each sentence," lay these by for a few days, and then having reconstructed the essay from his notes to compare his version with the original. Sometimes he jumbled the collection of hints into confusion and thus made a study of construction as well as of style; or again he turned an essay into verse and after a while converted it back into prose. And this we believe to be the true method of acquiring a good style, more efficacious than any English course in Harvard College. At sixteen he was reading Locke "On Human Understanding,"--very strong meat for a boy--and the Port Royal "Art of Thinking." From Xenophon's "Memorable Things of Socrates" he acquired a lesson which he never forgot and which he always esteemed of importance in his education. This was the skillful assumption of ignorance or uncertainty in dispute, the so-called "irony" of Socrates. At first he employed this ironical method to trap his opponents into making unwary statements that led to their confusion; and in this way he grew expert in obtaining victories that, as he said, neither he nor his cause deserved. Accordingly he afterwards gave up this form of sophistry and only retained the habit of expressing himself in terms of modest diffidence, always saying: He conceived or imagined such a thing to be so, and never using the words _certainly_, _undoubtedly_, and the like. Books, however, occupied but a small part of his life at this time. After leaving school he was first made to assist his father in the tallow-chandler business; but his distaste for this trade was so great that his father, fearing the boy would run away to sea, began to look about for other employment for him. He took the lad to see "joiners, brick-layers, turners, braziers, etc., at their work," in order to discover where the boy's inclination lay. And this event of his boyhood he as an old man remembered, saying, that it had ever since been a pleasure to him to see good workmen handle their tools, and adding that it was useful to him in his business and science to have learned so much in the way of handicraft. At length Benjamin's love of books determined his occupation, and like many another famous author he was set to the printing-press. In 1717 his brother James had come back from England with a press and letters, and at the age of twelve Benjamin was bound to his brother as an apprentice. James soon discovered Benjamin's cleverness with the pen and induced him to compose two ballads, "The Light-House Tragedy," being the story of a recent shipwreck, and "Blackbeard," a sailor's song on the capture of that notorious pirate. These ballads, which the author frankly, and no doubt truthfully, describes as "wretched stuff," were printed and hawked about the streets by the boy. "The Light-House Tragedy" at least sold prodigiously, and the boy's vanity was correspondingly flattered; but the father stepped in and discouraged such work, warning Benjamin that "verse-makers were generally beggars." So, perhaps, we were spared a mediocre poet and given a first-rate prose writer, for the stuff of poetry was not in Franklin's sober brain. At this time the good people of Massachusetts were dependent for the news of the world on a single paper, the "Boston News-Letter," afterwards called the "Gazette" (and indeed there was no other paper in the whole country), published, as was commonly the case in those days, by the postmaster of the town. But in 1721 James Franklin, much against the advice of his friends, started a rival paper, the "New England Courant," which the young apprentice had to carry about to subscribers after helping it through the press. Benjamin, however, soon played a more important part than printer's devil. Several ingenious men were in the habit of writing little Addisonian essays for the paper, and Benjamin, hearing their conversation, was fired to try his own skill. "But being still a boy,"--so he tells the story himself,--"and suspecting that my brother would object to printing anything of mine in his paper if he knew it to be mine, I contrived to disguise my hand, and writing an anonymous paper, I put it at night under the door of the printing-house. It was found in the morning and communicated to his writing friends when they called in as usual. They read it, commented on it in my hearing, and I had the exquisite pleasure of finding it met with their approbation, and that in their different guesses at the author none were named but men of some character among us for learning and ingenuity." Naturally the lad was flattered by the success of his ruse; and he continued to send in his anonymous essays for more than a year. They have been pretty conclusively identified as the series of articles signed "Silence Dogood," and are a clever enough imitation of the "Spectator's" style of allegory and humorous satire, such as Franklin was fond of using all his life. The signature, too, Silence Dogood, was characteristic of the man who turned all religion into a code of morality, and was famous for his power of keeping a secret. Like the ancient poet Simonides, he knew the truth of the saying, _Silence hath a safe reward_. Those days were not easy times for printers, nor was the freedom of the press any more respected than liberty of conscience. Trouble very soon arose between the new paper and the authorities chiefly on account of the "Courant's" free handling of the church. Already the free-thinking party which afterwards formed into the Unitarian church was showing its head, and the writers for the "Courant" were among the most outspoken. The climax was reached when one day the paper appeared with a diatribe containing such words as these: "For my own part, when I find a man full of religious cant and palaver, I presently suspect him to be a knave,"--a sentiment which the religious authorities very properly took as an insult to themselves. James was arrested and imprisoned for a month, and on his release was forbidden to print the "Courant." To escape this difficulty the old indenture of Benjamin was canceled and the paper was printed in his name; at the same time, however, a new indenture was secretly made so that James might still, if he desired, claim his legal rights in the apprentice. It was a "flimsy scheme," and held but a little while. Bickerings had been constant between the two brothers, and Benjamin was especially resentful for the blows his master's passion too often urged him to bestow. "My mind now is set, My heart's thought, on wide waters,"-- said the youth in the old Anglo-Saxon poem, and this same sea-longing was bred in the bones of our Boston apprentice. Now at length the boy would break away; at least he would voyage to another home, though he might give up the notion of becoming a sailor. He intimates, moreover, that the narrow bigotry of New England in religion was distasteful to him--as we may well believe it was. Yet he always retained an affectionate memory of the place of his birth; and only two years before his death he wrote pleasantly regarding the citizens of that town, "for besides their general good sense, which I value, the Boston manner, turn of phrase, and even tone of voice and accent in pronunciation, all please and seem to refresh and revive me." The newspapers of those days were full of advertisements for runaway apprentices, and Benjamin was one to get his freedom in the same way. He sold his books for a little cash, took secret passage in a sloop for New York, and in three days (some time in October, 1723) found himself in that strange city "without the least recommendation or knowledge of anybody in the place." The voyage had been uneventful save for an incident which happened while they were becalmed off Block Island. The crew here employed themselves in catching cod, and to Franklin, at this time a devout vegetarian, the taking of every fish seemed a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had done or could do their catchers any injury. But he had been formerly a great lover of fish, and the smell of the frying-pan was most tempting. He balanced some time between principle and inclination, till, recollecting that when the fish were opened he had seen smaller fish taken out of their stomachs, he bethought himself: "If you eat one another I don't see why we may not eat you;" so he dined upon cod very heartily, and continued through life, except at rare intervals, to eat as other people. "So convenient a thing it is," he adds, "to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do." II BEGINNINGS IN PHILADELPHIA AND FIRST VOYAGE TO ENGLAND The only printer then in New York was old William Bradford, formerly of Philadelphia, whose monument may still be seen in Trinity Churchyard. To Mr. William Bradford accordingly young Franklin applied for work; but there was little printing done in the town and Bradford had no need of another hand at the press. He told Franklin, however, that his son at Philadelphia had lately lost his principal assistant by death, and advised Franklin to go thither. Without delay Franklin set out for that place, and after a somewhat adventurous journey arrived at the Market Street wharf about eight or nine o'clock of a Sunday morning. Philadelphia at that time was a comfortable town of some ten thousand inhabitants, extending a mile or more along the Delaware and reaching only a few blocks back into the country. It was a shady easy-going place, with pleasant gardens about the houses, and something of Quaker repose and substantial thrift lent a charm to its busy life. Men were still living who could remember when unbroken forests held the place of Penn's city:-- "And the streets still reëcho the names of the trees of the forest, As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose haunts they molested." Franklin was fond of contrasting his humble entrance into his adopted home with the honorable station he afterwards acquired there. He was, as he says, in his working dress, his best clothes coming round by sea. He was dirty from being so long in the boat. His pockets were stuffed out with shirts and stockings, and he knew no one nor where to look for lodging. Fatigued with walking, rowing, and the want of sleep, he was very hungry; and his whole stock of cash consisted in a single dollar and about a shilling in copper coin, which he gave to the boatmen for his passage. At first they refused it on account of his having rowed, but he insisted on their taking it. "Man is sometimes," he adds, "more generous when he has little money than when he has plenty; perhaps to prevent his being thought to have but little." It was indeed a strange entrance for the future statesman and scientist. As he walked up to Market Street he met a boy with bread, which reminded him forcibly of his hunger, and asking the boy where he had got his loaf he went straight to the same baker's. Here, after some difficulty due to difference of names in Boston and Philadelphia, he provided himself with three "great puffy rolls" for threepence, and with these he started up Market Street, eating one and carrying one under each arm, as his pockets were already full. On the way he passed the door of Mr. Read's house, where his future wife saw him and thought he made an awkward, ridiculous appearance. At Fourth Street he turned across to Chestnut and walked down Chestnut and Walnut, munching his roll all the way. Coming again to the river he took a drink of water, gave away the two remaining rolls to a poor woman, and started up Market Street again. He found a number of clean-dressed people all going in one direction, and by following them was led into the great meeting-house of the Quakers. There he sat down and looked about him. It was apparently a silent meeting, for not a word was spoken, and the boy, being now utterly exhausted, fell into a sleep from which he was roused only at the close of the service. That night he lodged at the Crooked Billet, which despite its ominous name seems to have been a comfortable inn, and the next morning, having dressed as neatly as he could, set out to find employment. Andrew Bradford had no place for him; but another printer named Keimer, who had recently set up in business, was willing to give him work. It was a queer house and a queer printer. There was an old damaged press, on which Franklin exercised his skill in repairing, and a small worn-out font of type. Keimer himself, who seems to have been a grotesque compound of knave and crank, was engaged at once in composing and setting up in type an elegy on the death of a prominent young man. He is the only poet to my knowledge who ever used the composition-stick instead of a pen for the vehicle of inspiration. The elegy may still be read in Duyckinck's Cyclopædia, and on perusing it we may well repeat the first line:-- "What mournful accents thus accost mine ear!" Now began a period of growing prosperity for our philosopher. The two printers of Philadelphia were poorly qualified for their business, and Franklin by his industry and intelligence soon rendered himself indispensable to Keimer. He was making money, had discovered a few agreeable persons to pass his evenings with, and was contented. He took lodging with Mr. Read, and now, as he says, "made rather a more respectable appearance in the eyes of Miss Read." He was even in a fair way to forget Boston when an incident occurred of some importance in his life. Robert Holmes, who had married his sister, being at Newcastle, forty miles below Philadelphia, heard of him and wrote entreating him to return home. To this appeal Franklin replied giving his reasons for leaving Boston. Now Sir William Keith, governor of Pennsylvania, chanced at this time to be at Newcastle, and, being shown the letter by Holmes, was so much impressed with it that he determined to offer encouragement to the writer. Great, then, was the surprise of Benjamin and his master when one day the governor and another gentleman in their fine clothes called at the printing-house and inquired for the young man. They took him to a tavern at the corner of Third Street, and there over the Madeira the governor proposed that Benjamin should start an independent shop, promising in this case to give him the government printing. Benjamin was skeptical, but at last it was decided that he should go to Boston and seek help of his father; and in April, 1724, with a flattering letter from the governor, he set out for his old home. Benjamin's father, however, though pleased by the governor's approval, thought the boy too young to assume so much responsibility, and sent him back to Philadelphia with no money, but with his blessing and abundant good counsel, advising him to restrain his natural tendency to lampoon, and telling him that by steady industry and prudent parsimony he might save enough by the time he was twenty-one to set himself up, and withal promising help if he came near the matter. The return voyage was unimportant save for an amusing incident which showed Franklin's innocence at that time whatever he may have been later on, and for an agreement he made to collect a debt of thirty-five pounds in Pennsylvania for one Vernon,--an agreement which was to cost him considerable anxiety. While stopping in New York, too, his reputation as a reader got him an invitation to visit Governor Burnet, who showed him his library and conversed with him on books and authors. "This," as Franklin observes, "was the second governor who had done me the honor to take notice of me, and for a poor boy like me it was very pleasing." In New York he had picked up his old friend Collins, a companion of his childhood, who had preceded him from Boston. Collins had passed from license of belief to license of morals, and was now besotting himself with drink. On the way to Philadelphia Franklin had collected the money due to Vernon, and Collins pressed him until he drew largely on this sum to help the spendthrift. Franklin regarded this as one of the chief _errata_ of his life, and would have repented his error still more seriously perhaps if Vernon had not allowed him time to make good the defalcation. It was some five years before he was able to restore the money, and then, having paid both principal and interest, he felt a load taken off his mind. His association with Collins came to an amusing end. Once when they were on the Delaware with some other young men, Collins refused to row in his turn. "I will be rowed home," said he. "We will not row you," said Franklin. "You must," said he, "or stay all night on the water, just as you please." The others were willing to indulge him, but Franklin, being soured with his other conduct, continued to refuse. Collins swore he would make Franklin row or throw him overboard, and came along stepping on the thwarts to carry out his threat. But he mistook his man. Franklin clapped his head under the fellow's thighs and, rising, pitched him headforemost into the river. Collins was a good swimmer, but they kept him pulling after the boat until he was stifled with vexation and almost drowned. And that was the end of the friendship between the two. Collins later went to the Barbadoes, that limbo of the unsuccessful in colonial days, and Franklin never heard of him again. With his employer, Keimer, Franklin had little sympathy, despising both his knavery and his false enthusiasms. Keimer wore his beard at full length, because somewhere in the Mosaic law it is said, "Thou shalt not mar the corners of thy beard." He likewise kept the seventh day Sabbath. Franklin disliked both practices, but agreed to them on condition of their adopting a vegetarian diet, this whim suiting him at the time, both because he could save money by it and because he wished to give himself some diversion in half starving the gluttonous fanatic. Poor Keimer suffered grievously, grew tired of the project in three months, longed for the fleshpots of Egypt, and ordered a roast pig. He invited Franklin and two women friends to dine with him; but the pig being brought too soon upon the table, he could not resist the temptation, and ate the whole before his guests came. Having to do with such a man, Franklin was very glad to accept Sir William Keith's offer to set him up alone. It was agreed that Franklin should sail to London, with letters of introduction, and also with letters of credit for purchasing press, types, paper, and such like. But for one reason and another the governor delayed writing the letters, and at last Franklin actually found himself afloat and on the way to London without a word from his patron. Great was his chagrin when he learned during the passage that it was a habit of this amiable magistrate to promise anything and perform nothing. Franklin's comment on the occasion displays the imperturbable justice of his mind: "But what shall we think of a governor playing such pitiful tricks and imposing so grossly on a poor ignorant boy! It was a habit he had acquired. He wished to please everybody, and having little to give he gave expectations. He was otherwise an ingenious, sensible man, a pretty good writer, and a good governor for the people, though not for his constituents, the proprietaries." Franklin reached London December 24, 1724, and remained there some nineteen months, doing many things and learning many things during this time that were of use to him in after life. But interesting as his experiences were, we pass over them with a few words. Without difficulty he got work with the printers, and employed his time industriously--of that there could be no doubt. As always, his head was full of plans of economy; and we are amused to see him carry his reforms into the printing chapel, attempting to persuade the men to give up their expensive beer and take to hot-water gruel. But though Franklin was always industrious, he was far from leading a confined life. Then as ever he mixed much with men, and his experience in London added largely no doubt to his knowledge of human nature. He even saw something of the ways of Grub Street through his friend Ralph, who had come with him from Philadelphia. "This low writer," as Pope called him, is now remembered only for a couple of vicious lines in the Dunciad, and for the ignominious part he plays in Franklin's Autobiography. For many months he was a continual drain on Franklin's pocket, and seems to have been the boy's evil genius in immorality as well. Another acquaintance introduced him to a phase of character quite new to the youth from America. This was an old maiden lady of seventy, who occupied the garret of his lodging house. She was a Roman Catholic, and lived the secluded life of a nun, having given away to charities all her estate except twelve pounds a year, out of which small sum she still gave a part, living herself on water gruel only, and using no fire but to boil it. Franklin was permitted to visit her once, and remarks that she was cheerful and polite, as also that the room was almost without furniture. "She looked pale," he says, "but was never sick; and I give it as another instance on how small an income life and health may be supported."--Not another word! Ah, Doctor Franklin, you were very wise in this world's wisdom! Your life was for a young struggling nation a splendid example of probity and thrift and self-culture. And yet we think your countrymen could wish you had used this poor enthusiast's folly as something else than a mere lesson in economy. But the religious imagination played a small part in our philosopher's life, and least of all was it active in these London days. His skepticism in fact became acute, and sought relief in public expression. As a compositor Franklin was engaged in setting up one of the many religious treatises then pouring out against the deists, and as the author's arguments seemed insufficient to the young reasoner, he wrote and printed a rejoinder. This is the pamphlet called "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain," which he inscribed to his friend Ralph, and whose printing he afterwards regretted as one of the _errata_ of his life. It is a disquisition quite after the manner of the day, and, though it has no permanent value, is nevertheless a most unusual production for a boy of nineteen. He accepts the belief in a God and an all-powerful Providence, and argues thence the complete absence of free will in man; pleasure and pain are necessary correlatives, and cannot exist apart; the soul is perhaps immortal, but loses its personal identity at death. It was time for Franklin to come home and prepare for the great work before him. He was indeed ready to come when his skill in swimming almost lost him to this country. He had made such an impression by his feats in the water that one of his friends and pupils in the art proposed they should travel over Europe together, and support themselves by giving exhibitions. Fortunately Mr. Denham, an older and wiser friend, persuaded Franklin to return with him to America. III RELIGIOUS BELIEFS.--THE JUNTO Franklin reached Philadelphia some time in October, 1726, and found many things had changed during his absence. Keith was no longer governor, but walked the streets as a common citizen. He seemed a little ashamed at seeing Franklin, and passed him by without saying anything. Miss Read, too, whom he had left under the pledge of an engagement, had grown tired of his long neglect, and at the insistence of her friends had married a potter named Rogers. The union, however, had proved unfortunate, and the lady was again living at home under her maiden name, it being believed that Rogers had a previous wife. Franklin at once entered the employment of his friend Denham, who opened a thriving business on Water Street. But after an engagement of four months he was left idle by Mr. Denham's death, and, finding nothing better to do, returned to his old employer, Keimer. Here he received good wages as foreman of the shop, but soon discovered that he was engaged only to teach Keimer's raw hands the trade, and was to be dismissed as soon as this was accomplished. Franklin had a habit apparently of breaking with a burdensome friend by means of a judicious quarrel. He had done so with his brother James, with Collins, with Ralph, and now he parted with Keimer in the same way. After an interval of a few months, during which he was again for a while in the employment of Keimer, he entered into partnership with one of the hands, Meredith by name, and in the spring of 1728 started an independent printing-house. At this point Franklin interrupts the narrative of his life to give some account of his religious beliefs, and we will follow his example. And first of all let us say frankly that Parton, whose work is likely long to remain the standard biography of Franklin, gives a false color to the religious experience of his hero. Of regeneration there is in Franklin no sign, but instead of that a constant growth,--which is far more wholesome. He was always an amused and skeptical observer of the revivals and wild enthusiasms kindled by his friend Whitefield and by the inspired preacher of Northampton. And it is quite absurd to speak of Franklin as "the consummate Christian of his time." There was in him none of the emotional nature and little of the spirituality that go to make the complete Christian. His strength lay in his temperance, prudence, justice, and courage,--eminently the pagan virtues; and indeed he was from first to last a great pagan, who lapsed now and then into the pseudo-religious platitudes of the eighteenth century deists. His family had early adopted the reformed faith, and had possessed the courage to continue of this faith through the bloody persecutions of Queen Mary. Under Charles II. Benjamin's father went a step further, casting in his lot with the non-conformist Presbyterians; and it was the persecutions of that society which drove him with his family to America. Independence, or even recalcitrance, together with broad toleration of the faith of others, was in the family blood, and Benjamin continued the good tradition. From revolt against Rome to revolt against the established English Church, and from this to complete independence of individual belief, was after all a natural progression. Among the books which Franklin had read in Boston were Shaftesbury and Collins, representative deistical writers of the time, and he had been led by them, as he says, to doubt "many points of our religious doctrines." Now there are in religion two elements quite distinct and at times even antagonistic, though by the ordinary mind they are commonly seen as blended together. These are the emotional and the moral natures. In many religious ceremonies of the Orient, religion is purely an emotion, an exaltation of the nerves, accompanied at times by outbreaking immorality; and unfortunately the same phenomena have been too often seen in our own land. This emotional element is always connected with the imagination and with belief in some form of revelation. The other element of religion is the law of morality which has been taught the world over by true philosophers, and which depends at last on the simple feeling that a man should to a certain varying extent sacrifice his personal advantage for the good of the community. Now the deists of the eighteenth century, of whom Voltaire was the great champion, denied revelation and sought to banish the emotions from religion. They believed in a God who manifested himself in the splendid pageantry of nature, and this they called natural revelation. They laid especial emphasis on morality, but in their attempt to sever morals from enthusiasm (_enthousiasmos_, god-in-us) they too often reduced human life to a barren formula. From this brief account it will be seen how naturally Franklin, with his parentage and particular genius, fell a prey to the teachings of Shaftesbury. After a little while, however, he began to notice that certain of his friends who protested most loudly against religion were quite untrustworthy in their morals as well. Moreover he attributed several _errata_ of his own early life to lack of religious principles, and to remedy this defect he now undertook--deliberately if we may credit his later confessions--to build up a religion of his own. There is, one must acknowledge, something grotesque in this endeavor to supply the warmth of the emotional imagination by the use of cold reason, and had Franklin possessed less wit and more humor he would never have fallen into such bathos. The little book still exists in which Franklin wrote out his creed and private liturgy. The creed expresses a belief in "one Supreme, most perfect Being, Author and Father of the gods themselves." Finding this God to be infinitely above man's comprehension, our religionist goes on to say: "I conceive, then, that the Infinite has created many beings or gods vastly superior to man, who can better conceive his perfections than we, and return him a more rational and glorious praise.... It may be these created gods are immortal; or it may be that, after many ages, they are changed, and others supply their places. Howbeit, I conceive that each of these is exceeding wise and good, and very powerful; and that each has made for himself one glorious sun, attended with a beautiful and admirable system of planets. It is that particular wise and good God, who is the author and owner of our system, that I propose for the object of my praise and adoration." Thereupon follows the form of adoration, or liturgy, including an invocation, psalm, indication of philosophic reading to take the place of the lessons, singing of the Hymn to the Creator from Milton's Paradise Lost, and litany. The whole is not without elevation, and the litany, composed as it is by a young man of twenty-two, touches one with a feeling almost of pathos for its true humility and reaching out after virtue. Franklin continued to use this form of worship for a number of years; but its fantastic nature seems to have dawned on him at last, and he gave it up for a still simpler creed consisting merely in reverence for the Deity and in respect for the moral law. In the matter of public worship he was of the same opinion as Spinoza and many other philosophers. He esteemed public worship salutary for the state, and paid an annual subscription to the Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia; but he also esteemed it his privilege to stay away from service, and indulged in this privilege to the full, making Sunday his chief day of study. Though affiliated in this way to the Presbyterians, he showed perfect impartiality, or even indifference, to the various denominations of the Christian world. The only sect he ever really praised was the Dunkers, whom he commended for their modesty in not formulating a creed. He quotes with pleasure the character given himself of being merely "an honest man of no sect at all." Tolerance in religion and in every other walk of life was indeed a marked and distinguishing trait of his character. He was of the mind of Bishop Warburton, when he said, "Orthodoxy is my doxy and Heterodoxy is your doxy." It is a little disconcerting to find our philosopher himself proposing a new sect, which should be called the Society of the Free and Easy, and which actually progressed so far as to possess two enthusiastic disciples. The creed of this projected sect may be taken as an expression of Franklin's mature belief:-- "That there is one God, who made all things. "That he governs the world by his providence. "That he ought to be worshipped by adoration, prayer, and thanksgiving. "But that the most acceptable service to God is doing good to man. "That the soul is immortal. "And that God will certainly reward virtue and punish vice, either here or hereafter." The real religion of his life consisted in the practice of virtue with a minimum of emotional imagination. His methodical mind found it convenient to tabulate the virtues in a manner more precise, as he thought, than they usually appear. His table is not without interest:-- "1. TEMPERANCE.--Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. "2. SILENCE.--Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. "3. ORDER.--Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. "4. RESOLUTION.--Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. "5. FRUGALITY.--Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing. "6. INDUSTRY.--Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. "7. SINCERITY.--Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and if you speak, speak accordingly. "8. JUSTICE.--Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting benefits that are your duty. "9. MODERATION.--Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. "10. CLEANLINESS.--Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation. "11. TRANQUILLITY.--Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable. "12. CHASTITY.... "13. HUMILITY.--Imitate Jesus and Socrates." These virtues he has arranged in such an order that the acquisition of one naturally leads to the acquisition of the following. As regards chastity, he says himself: "The hard-to-be-governed passion of youth" had more than once led him astray. But there is every reason to suppose he exercised great self-control in this as in all other passions. We may remark here that Franklin had an illegitimate son, William, whom he reared in his own home, but who caused him great pain by siding with the Tories in the Revolution. An illegitimate son of William, born in London and named William Temple Franklin, adhered to the grandfather and was a great comfort to him in his old age. One other of these virtues Franklin could never acquire. He confesses sadly that try as he might he could never learn orderliness. But in general it may be said that few men have ever set before themselves so wise a law of conduct, and that still fewer men have ever come so near to attaining their ideal. This was both because his ideal was so thoroughly practical, and because he was a man of indomitable will who had genuinely chosen true Philosophy as his guide. "O vitæ Philosophia dux! O virtutum inda-gatrix expultrixque vitiorum!"--O Philosophy, thou guide of life! thou searcher out of virtues and expeller of vices!--he wrote as one of the mottoes on his little book of conduct, and to him the words were a living reality. The virtues in Franklin were eminently human. Though dwelling in a community of Quakers and often identified with them, he looked to anything rather than the inner light for guidance, nor could he conceive the meaning of those "divine pleasures" which William Penn declared "are to be found in a free solitude." On his voyage home from London the boy philosopher had written in his journal: "Man is a sociable being, and it is, for aught I know, one of the worst of punishments to be excluded from society." Accordingly on his return to Philadelphia he began to cultivate seriously his "sociable being." Among the few clubs famous in literature is the Junto which Franklin established in 1727, and which lasted for forty years. This club was a little circle of friends, never more than twelve, who met on Friday evenings to discuss matters of interest. Twenty-four questions were read, with a pause after each for filling and drinking a glass of wine. Two or three of these questions will suffice to show their general aim. "1. Have you met with anything in the author you last read, remarkable, or suitable to be communicated to the Junto, particularly in history, morality, poetry, physic, travels, mechanic arts, or other parts of knowledge? "11. Do you think of anything at present, in which the Junto may be serviceable to mankind, to their country, to their friends, or to themselves? "15. Have you lately observed any encroachment on the just liberties of the people? "20. In what manner can the Junto, or any of them, assist you in any of your honorable designs?" Besides the answering of these questions, there were regular debates, declamations, and the reading of essays; while the wise Franklin took care always that no undue heat should enter into the proceedings. Singing and drinking and other amusements also claimed a fair share of the time. It is curious to observe that in his Autobiography Franklin half apologizes for mentioning the Junto, and declares that his reason for so doing was to show how the various members of the club aided him in his business. Were the Autobiography our only source of information, we might sum up the lessons of Franklin's life in the one word _Thrift_. The truth is that many of Franklin's schemes for public improvement first found a hearing in the secrecy of these friendly meetings. Before returning to Franklin's active life, let us insert here an amusing epitaph which he composed about this time, and which has become justly famous:-- THE BODY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN PRINTER (LIKE THE COVER OF AN OLD BOOK ITS CONTENTS TORN OUT AND STRIPT OF ITS LETTERING AND GILDING) LIES HERE, FOOD FOR WORMS. BUT THE WORK SHALL NOT BE LOST FOR IT WILL (AS HE BELIEVED) APPEAR ONCE MORE IN A NEW AND MORE ELEGANT EDITION REVISED AND CORRECTED BY THE AUTHOR. IV THE SCIENTIST AND PUBLIC CITIZEN IN PHILADELPHIA Franklin was twenty-two years old when he began business with Meredith. They had no capital, and in fact were in debt for part of their appurtenances. Meredith proved not only incompetent, but a hard drinker as well; so that Franklin, accepting the kindness of two friends who lent him the money, soon bought his partner out and conducted the shop alone. He prospered steadily, and in twenty years was able to retire from active business. From the beginning friends came to his aid: through a member of the Junto he got printing from the Quakers; by his careful work he drew away from old Bradford the public printing for the Assembly; he engaged assistants, and before many years was far the most important printer in the colonies. Besides his regular trade he was bookbinder, sold books and stationery, and dealt in soap and any other commodity that came handy. The description of his thrift we must give in his own words: "In order to secure my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care not only to be in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid the appearance to the contrary. I dressed plain, and was seen at no places of idle diversion. I never went out a-fishing or shooting; a book indeed sometimes debauched me from my work, but that was seldom, was private, and gave no scandal; and to show that I was not above my business I sometimes brought home the paper I purchased at the stores through the streets on a wheelbarrow." When Franklin became independent of Keimer he turned to his favorite project of establishing a newspaper. But in this case his usual habit of secrecy failed him, and knowledge of his plans reached Keimer's ears. Immediately his old master anticipated him by issuing proposals for a paper which he grandiloquently styled "The Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences, and Pennsylvania Gazette,"--an utterly absurd sheet, whose contents were taken chiefly from an encyclopædia recently published in London. To counteract this Franklin published in Bradford's paper, "The Mercury," a series of essays after the manner of Addison, to which he subscribed the name "Busy-Body." Other members of the Junto contributed to the series; and Keimer, being stung by their satire, replied with coarse abuse, and also with attempted imitation. But Keimer was quite unequal to the conflict, and after publishing thirty-nine numbers of the paper sold it for a small sum to Franklin and Meredith, and himself moved to the Barbadoes. Number 40, October 2, 1729, under the simple title of "The Pennsylvania Gazette," came from Franklin's press. The encyclopædic extracts were cut short, and in their stead appeared what news could be gathered, with occasional clever essays such as only Franklin could write. It was for the times a good paper, and the printing was admirably done. With prosperity Franklin began to think of matrimony. A family of Godfreys lived in the same house with him, and now Mrs. Godfrey undertook to make a match between him and the daughter of a relative of hers. Franklin's account of this affair for its coolness and placidity may almost be compared with Gibbon's "I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son." On learning that the girl's parents could not or would not give with her enough money to pay off his debts, the gallant suitor at once and irrevocably withdrew. He then looked about him for another match, but found to his chagrin that an adventurous printer could not command an agreeable wife and a dowry at the same time. Being determined to marry, that he might bring order into his life, he at last turned to Miss Read, with whom he had maintained a friendly correspondence, and notwithstanding the difficulties in the way married her on the 1st of September, 1730. If he rejected Miss Godfrey because she brought no dowry with her, he praised his wife chiefly because she aided him in his economies. "He that would thrive must ask his wife," he quotes, and congratulates himself that he has a wife as much disposed to frugality as himself. She helped in the business; they kept no idle servants; their table was plain and simple, their furniture of the cheapest. His breakfast for a long time was bread and milk, and he ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer with a pewter spoon. "But mark," he adds, "how luxuries will enter families and make a progress despite of principles: being called one morning to breakfast, I found it in a china bowl, with a spoon of silver! They had been bought for me without my knowledge by my wife, and had cost her the enormous sum of twenty-three shillings, for which she had no other excuse or apology to make but that she thought _her_ husband deserved a silver spoon and china bowl as well as any of his neighbors. This was the first appearance of plate and china in our house, which afterward, in a course of years as our wealth increased, augmented gradually to several hundred pounds in value." Mrs. Franklin's temper was not of the serenest, and her manners perhaps were not such as would have honored him had she followed him into the great world; but she made him a good wife,--and we need not repeat the tattle which we are told is still current among some of the high families of Philadelphia. They had two children,--a son, the idol of his father's heart, who died as a child; and a daughter, who married Richard Bache, and is the ancestress of a large family. In this happy home, and as his business prospered, Franklin found more and more time for study and self-improvement. In 1733 he began the acquisition of languages, teaching himself to read French fluently, and then passing on to Italian and Spanish. Chess was always a favorite amusement with him; and we can imagine the grave philosopher playing a cautious and invulnerable game, with now and then, when least expected, a brilliant sally. But his conscience seems always to have protested against the waste of time involved, and he now made use of the game to forward his studies. With his favorite antagonist he agreed that the victor in each game should impose some task in Italian, which the other on his honor was to complete before the next meeting. As his opponent was a pretty even match for him they both made steady progress in the language. In Latin he had had a year's instruction at school, and later in life he dabbled a little in that language; but his knowledge of the classics was always superficial, and he seems to have entertained something like a spite against them. In 1732 Franklin began the publication of an almanac under the name of Richard Saunders, which he continued for twenty-five years, and which gained immense popularity as Poor Richard's Almanac. It was the flourishing time of such publications. Since the year 1639, when Stephen Daye printed his first almanac at Cambridge, these annual messages had increased in number until after theology they became perhaps the most genuine feature of colonial literature. And from the first they displayed the sort of shrewdness and humor which have always been characteristic of the American mind. So, too, the bulk of Poor Richard's production was humor, sometimes blunt and coarse, and sometimes instinct with the finest irony. Perhaps the best of Poor Richard's jokes is that played at the expense of Titan Leeds, his rival in Philadelphia. In the first issue Mr. Saunders announces the imminent death of his friend Titan Leeds: "He dies, by my calculation, made at his request, on October 17, 1733, 3 ho., 29 m., P.M., at the very instant of the [symbol for conjunction] of [symbol for sun] and [symbol for Mercury].[1] By his own calculation, he will survive till the 26th of the same month. This small difference between us we have disputed whenever we have met these nine years past; but at length he is inclined to agree with my judgment. Which of us is most exact a little time will now determine. As, therefore, these Provinces may not longer expect to see any of his performances after this year, I think myself free to take up the task." Naturally Mr. Titan Leeds objected with strenuous voice to this summary manner of being shuffled out of the world; and Franklin's yearly protest that Leeds is really dead, and his appeal to the degenerating wit of Leeds's almanac to prove his assertion, is one of the most successful and malicious jokes ever perpetrated. We ought to add, however, that this venomous jest is borrowed bodily from Dean Swift's treatment of the poor almanac-maker, Partridge. Indeed it might be said of Franklin, as Molière said of himself, that he took his own wherever he found it. [1] [conjunction symbol] signifies _conjunction_; [sun symbol] _the sun_; [Mercury symbol] _Mercury_. But what gave the almanac its permanent fame was the cleverness of the maxims scattered through its pages. These wise saws Franklin gathered from far and wide, often, however, reshaping them and marking them, with the stamp of his peculiar genius. As might be expected, they are chiefly directed to instill the precepts of industry and frugality. On ceasing to edit the almanac in 1757 Franklin gathered together the best of these proverbs and wove them into a continuous narrative, which he pretends to have heard spoken at an auction by an old man called Father Abraham. This speech of Father Abraham became immediately famous, was reprinted in England, was translated into the languages of Europe, and still lives. It made the name of Poor Richard a household word the world over. Franklin, however, had many intellectual interests besides reading and writing. He was always interested in music, himself playing the guitar and harp and violin; and one of his proudest achievements was the perfection of a musical instrument called the armonica, which consisted of a series of glasses so designed as to give forth the notes of the musical scale when chafed with the moistened finger. He was moreover sensitive in his own way to the various spiritual movements that swept over the country. This was the period of wild revivals, when religion, entering into the converted soul with inconceivable violence, found expression in gasping shrieks, rigid faintings, and strong convulsions; and the leader of this movement, strange as it may seem, was a warm friend of Franklin's. George Whitefield first visited Philadelphia in 1739, and immediately filled the city with enthusiasm by his powerful oratory. Franklin was astonished at the hold he got on the people, especially as he assured them they were naturally half beasts and half devils; but our philosopher admits that he himself succumbed once to the preacher's spell. Whitefield was preaching a begging sermon for a project which Franklin did not approve, and the latter made a silent resolve that he would not contribute. He had in his pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As the orator proceeded, he began to soften and concluded to give the copper. Another stroke of eloquence made him ashamed of that and determined him to give the silver; and the peroration was so admirable that he emptied his pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all. But he was never too much carried away to omit analyzing and observing; and on one occasion, when Whitefield was preaching in the open air, he calculated by a clever experiment that the speaker might be heard by more than thirty thousand persons. Nor did he suffer Whitefield's cant phrases to pass unchallenged. At one time he invited the preacher to stop at his house, and Whitefield in accepting declared that if Franklin made the kind offer for Christ's sake he should not miss of a reward. To which the philosopher replied: "Don't let me be mistaken; it was not for _Christ's_ sake, but for _your_ sake." This intimate acquaintance with Whitefield forms something like a bond of union between Franklin and his only intellectual compeer, Jonathan Edwards; and the different attitude of the two men towards the wandering revivalist is a good illustration of the great contrast in their characters. If Franklin may in some ways be called the typical American, yet the lonely, introverted, God-intoxicated soul of Edwards stands as a solemn witness to depths of understanding in his countrymen which Dr. Franklin's keen wit had no means of fathoming. But in one respect the two minds were alike: they were both acute observers of nature, and we have only to read Edwards's treatise on spiders, written when he was twelve years old, and to follow his later physical investigations, which indeed foreshadowed some of Franklin's electrical discoveries, to learn how brilliant a part he might have played in science if his intelligence had not been troubled by the terrible theology of the day. As for Franklin, we have seen the inquisitive bent of his mind in childhood, and as he grew older the habit of observing and recording and theorizing became his master passion. Though scarcely a professional scientist, his various discoveries in natural history and his mechanical inventions brought great renown to him as a man, and were even an important factor in the national struggle for independence. Nothing was too small or too great to attract his investigating eyes. All his life he was interested in the phenomena of health and in the care of the body, and even as a boy, it will be remembered, he had experimented in the use of a vegetarian diet. He had his own theory in regard to colds, maintaining that they are not the result of exposure to a low temperature, but are due to foul air and to a relaxed state of the body,--as in general they no doubt are. His letters are full of clever protests against the common theory, and at times he was brought by his opinions into amusing conflict with the habits of other persons. On one occasion in a tavern he was compelled to occupy the same bed with John Adams, who, being an invalid and afraid of night air, shut down the window. "Oh!" says Franklin, "don't shut the window, we shall be suffocated." Adams answered that he feared the evening air. Dr. Franklin replied, "The air within the chamber will soon be, and indeed now is, worse than that without doors. Come, open the window and come to bed, and I will convince you. I believe you are not acquainted with my theory of colds." Whereupon Adams got into bed, and the Doctor began an harangue upon air and cold, respiration and perspiration, with which the Bostonian was so much amused that he soon fell asleep and left Franklin and his philosophy together. The effect of drafts on chimneys was just as interesting to our philosopher as their effect on the human system, and it was one of his diversions when visiting the great houses of England and Europe to cure smoky fireplaces. From chimneys to stoves is an easy step, and the invention of the so-called Pennsylvania stove is one of his best known achievements. All his life he was an observer of the weather, and a student of the winds and tides. His first discovery in natural history was an observation of the fact that storms move against the wind, that is, for instance, that a northeast storm along the coast is felt at Philadelphia earlier than at Boston. He made a careful study of the temperature of the gulf stream in the Atlantic; and in a letter written when he was seventy-nine years old he gives a long account of his inventions and observations in nautical matters. But his discoveries in electricity quite overshadow all his other work of the sort, and on them must rest his real claim to scientific renown. For many years the world had been amusing itself with various machines for making sparks and giving shocks, and after the discovery of the Leyden jar, in 1745, the manipulation of electrical toys and machines became the rage among scientists and even among the people of society. Just about this time a friend in England sent Franklin specimens of the glass tubes used to create electricity by friction, and immediately Franklin's inquisitive mind was fired to take up the new study. So fully indeed was his attention engrossed by the series of experiments he now undertook, alone and with several investigating friends in the city, that business became irksome to him and he retired from active management of the printing house. Besides making many ingenious toys and showy experiments, Franklin added three contributions of real importance to science. 1. He anticipated Faraday in the discovery that the electricity in a charged Leyden jar resides on the glass and not on the metal coatings. He, however, made no generalizations from this discovery. 2. He advanced the fluid theory of electricity, recognizing clearly the dual nature of the varieties commonly called positive and negative from the mathematical symbols used to express them. 3. He established the identity of lightning and electricity. To understand the importance of this last discovery we must remember with what terror the world had hitherto regarded this bewildering apparition of the sky. It was not so much the dread of feeling above one an irresponsible power subject to a law that knows no sympathy with human life, as the more debasing fear of superstition, that sees in the red thunderbolt a deadly instrument of vengeance hurled by the hand of an angry deity, and that loosens the inmost sinews of a man's moral courage. With the knowledge that lightning is only a magnified electrical spark, fell one of the last strongholds of false religion. And there is something eminently fit in the fact that this lurking mystery of the heavens was finally exploded by Dr. Franklin, the exponent of common sense. I am told by a specialist that the neatness and thoroughness of the reasoning by which Franklin established his theory before proceeding to experimentation are most laudable, and I am sure his letters of explanation have a literary charm not often found in scientific writing. The paper in which Franklin developed his theory and showed how it might be tested by drawing lightning from the clouds by means of a pointed wire set up on a steeple, was sent to his friend in England, and there printed; and at the suggestion of the great Buffon the same paper was translated into French. The pamphlet created a sensation in France, and the proposed experiment was actually performed in the presence of the king. Before the report, however, of the successful experiment reached Franklin he had himself verified his theory, using a kite to attain an altitude, as there was no spire or high building in Philadelphia. Taking his son with him, he went to an old cow house in the country, before a storm, and there, to catch the electric fluid, sent up his kite made of an old silk handkerchief. A wire extended from the upright stick of the kite, and this was connected with the cord, which when wet acted as a good conductor. The part of the cord held in his hand was of silk, and between this and the wet hempen cord a key was inserted and connected with a Leyden jar. How successful the experiment proved to be, all the world knows. Somehow all the important events of Franklin's life are dramatic and picturesque, and this scene, especially, of the philosopher in the storm drawing down the very thunderbolts of heaven has always had a fascination for the popular mind. The detailed story of the experiment became public only through Franklin's conversation with his friends. When he learned that his theory had been previously verified in France, his modesty was so great that in writing he simply told how the experiment might be performed with a kite, never that he himself had actually accomplished it. In consequence of this discovery he was at once elected a member of the Royal Society of London, Yale and Harvard gave him the honorary degree of master of arts, and everywhere he was celebrated as the foremost philosopher of the day. When the time comes we shall see that Franklin's scientific fame was a real aid to him in his diplomatic career; now we must turn our eyes backward and trace from the beginning his slow rise in political and civic power. And it is a peculiar feature of the day and of Franklin's individual character that many of his reforms took their start in the gayety of social intercourse. There was nothing morose, nothing stern, in our genial philosopher. Though always temperate, his vivacity and easy politeness made him welcome in any merry company of the day. He could sing with the best of the young blades and even compose his own ditties; and one of these songs, "The Old Man's Wish," he tells us he sang at least a thousand times. The chorus of the song is characteristic enough to be quoted:-- "May I govern my passions with absolute sway, Grow wiser and better as my strength wears away, Without gout or stone, by gentle decay;" and another ballad in praise of his wife still has a kind of popularity:-- "Of their Chloes and Phyllises poets may prate, I sing my plain country Joan, These twelve years my wife, still the joy of my life, Blest day that I made her my own." Franklin's first public improvement carries us back to the early leathern-apron days of the Junto. Books were a rare commodity among the frugal members of that club, and for a while they increased their resources by keeping all their volumes together in the club room for common use. But this plan proving hardly feasible, Franklin in the year 1731 drew up proposals for a city library. His method of arousing public interest in the scheme was one to which he always had recourse on such occasions, and is a credit to his modesty as well as to his shrewdness. "I put myself," he says, "as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a number of friends, who had requested me to go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading." He succeeded, as he always did in his projects, and the library, still an honored institution of Philadelphia, is the parent of all the subscription libraries of the country. Through the aid of the Junto, also, Franklin set in motion another project. As a boy he had seen the first fire company started in Boston, and now that his Quaker home had grown to be a thriving city, he undertook to introduce the same system there. No doubt many of our readers have seen the curious relics of these colonial fire companies,--old leathern buckets stamped with various devices and with the owner's name, which were used to pass water rapidly from hand to hand. The companies had a social as well as a useful aim, so that families were proud to preserve such memorials of the old days. Owing to the wretched system in vogue, the night watch of the city had fallen into a deplorable state, the watchmen consisting of a set of ragamuffins who passed their nights in tippling and left the town to take care of itself. To remedy this evil Franklin made use of the Junto and of his paper, "The Gazette," and once more his efforts were successful. It seemed, indeed, as if there were no limits to his activity. At different times he bent his energies to getting the streets paved, to improving the lighting of the city, to introducing various novelties in agriculture, and to assisting other projects, such as the establishment of the Pennsylvania hospital. More important, perhaps, than these was the founding of the academy which has since developed into the University of Pennsylvania. As early as 1743 we find Franklin regretting that there was no convenient college where he might send his son to be educated; and in 1749 he took up the matter seriously, publishing a pamphlet which he called, "Proposals relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania." Nor did his zeal end here. He continued to urge on the project, and in a short time the money was raised and the school actually opened. Franklin was for more than forty years a trustee of the institution, and took just pride in the good which it accomplished for the community. His purpose in one respect, however, was foiled; he was an ardent advocate of English and the sciences in education, and would have been glad to have the study of Latin and Greek utterly banished from the schools. Fortunately in this matter public opinion was too strong for him, and he was obliged to succumb to the regular curriculum. For some reason, whether because of early lack of training in these studies or because his mind was of such a sort as to be completely absorbed in the present, he was all his life violently prejudiced against the classics, and on his very death-bed one of his last acts was to compose a mocking diatribe against the use of those languages. It is one of the few cases where his judgment was marred, not by the limitations of his intelligence, but a lack of the deeper imagination,--where he applied his footrule of utility to measure quantities beyond its reach. With Franklin's increasing prosperity and popularity his influence in matters political grew more and more dominant. His first recognition in this field was in 1736, when he was chosen clerk of the General Assembly,--a position which he continued to hold until he was elected a member of the Assembly itself. He found this office very tedious, but amused himself during the long debates by constructing magic squares of figures and by other diversions of the sort. Constant to his practice he lets us know that he retained the position chiefly because it enabled him to get control of the public printing, and once when threatened by the advent of a new member with loss of this lucrative employment he saved himself by his usual recourse to honorable stratagem. Having heard that this gentleman had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, Franklin wrote him a note expressing a desire to read the volume and asking to borrow it for a few days. The book came immediately, and the two students were at once bound together in friendship. "This is another instance," Franklin adds, "of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says: 'He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged.'" Other positions came to Franklin in due time. The very next year he was made postmaster of Philadelphia, and filled the office so well that some years later he was put at the head of the postal system for the colonies. This gave him an opportunity to become familiar with the political affairs of the whole country and enhanced his usefulness very much. What first brought him into real prominence was his activity during the troublesome times that now followed with the Indians. England was at war with France, and as usual the combatants stirred up the savages to commit all kinds of atrocities. Franklin was much incensed that the peace-loving Quakers of his colony should refuse to make any provision for defense against the Indians on the western frontier or against possible attacks of the French from the river. His indignation was increased by a visit to Boston in 1746, where he found the people in a state of warlike fervor after the conquest of Louisburg; and on returning home he wrote an eloquent pamphlet, called "Plain Truth," to rouse the colony to a sense of its peril. Despite the half-hearted opposition of the Quakers in the Assembly companies were raised, cannon, by the shrewd policy of Franklin, were got from New York, and the promoter of the movement was even asked to act as colonel of the troops,--an honor which he declined. One of Franklin's friends now warned him that the Quakers in the Assembly would dismiss him from his position as clerk and advised him to resign at once to avoid the disgrace. Franklin's reply, which he was fond of quoting in after life, shows the sturdy nature of the man: "I shall never _ask_, never _refuse_, nor ever RESIGN an office." As it happened, however, he was again chosen unanimously at the next election, and we may suppose that he was keen enough to know with whom he had to deal. The good Quakers would not fight, but they were not always averse to have some one do their fighting for them. We are approaching the tumultuous times of the Seven Years' War, when the sound of cannon was indeed heard round the world, and when the prowess of England's arms added India and Canada to her empire. In 1752 Franklin, who was now a member of the legislature, was sent, together with the speaker of the Assembly, to confer with the Indians of Ohio; and if no important results came from the conference it at least helped to give Franklin an insight into Indian character such as few men possessed. Two years later, when actual war became imminent, he was chosen one of the commissioners from Pennsylvania to meet those of the other colonies at Albany and consult on measures of common defense. Any one might see that the colonies would be stronger united than separated, and several of the commissioners came prepared with proposals of union. Franklin had already published in his "Gazette" an article on the subject, to which he had added a wood-cut showing a snake cut in thirteen pieces with the device JOIN OR DIE. On the way to Albany he had drawn up a plan of union which pleased the Congress, and which resembled very much the form of union afterwards adopted during the Revolution; but as Franklin observes, "Its fate was singular; the Assemblies did not adopt it, as they all thought there was too much prerogative in it; and in England it was judged to have too much of the democratic." Instead of this scheme the London Board of Trade devised a plan of their own which, besides other objectionable features, involved the deplorable principle of taxing the colonies without their consent. It is interesting to find Franklin the next winter in Boston discussing the improprieties of this plan with Governor Shirley, and it has been truly observed that his arguments include almost all that was later brought out when the question of taxation without representation became a burning question. In 1755 we find Franklin connected with an event which first brought Washington into prominence. That was the year of Braddock's unfortunate campaign, and the Assembly of Pennsylvania, which had refused to grant money for the war and now feared that Braddock would take revenge by ravaging the colony, sent Franklin into Maryland to consult with the general and pacify him if possible. It is needless to say that Franklin succeeded. By cunning advertisements and appeals to the farmers in Pennsylvania he got wagons and teams for the army; but to do this he had to pledge himself for a considerable sum of money, his own credit being higher than that of the government, and after the general rout in which many of the wagons and horses were lost he was compelled to pay out large sums of money for which he was never entirely reimbursed. He also persuaded the Assembly of Pennsylvania to provide the younger officers of the regiment with horses and stores for the campaign, although to Washington, as we know, all this accumulation of provisions for such an expedition seemed no better than a nuisance. Franklin, too, had his fears, and even went so far as to caution Braddock against the ambuscades of the Indians. Braddock smiled at his ignorance, and replied: "These savages may indeed be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia, but upon the king's regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible they should make any impression." Franklin tells us he was conscious of the impropriety of disputing with a military man in matters of his profession, and said no more. The story of Braddock's defeat is only too well known; but to Franklin at least the campaign brought some profit. When later he went to England he found that the general's account of his intelligence and generosity had added considerably to his reputation. The failure of the expedition had left the western frontier open to the savage raids of the Indians, and Pennsylvania, owing to her unprotected condition, suffered more than the other colonies. Franklin came to the rescue with a bill to raise volunteers which was carried through the Assembly; troops were quickly organized, and the philosopher was himself appointed general. He was two months in the field and conducted himself with admirable prudence, although he did not undergo the test of actual fighting. After that time he was recalled by the governor to Philadelphia, for the Assembly was about to meet and his services were needed at home. The old trouble between the proprietary governor and the Assembly had now reached an acute stage. The two sons of William Penn, into whose hands the colony had descended, pursued a narrow and selfish policy, forcing the governor to veto every bill for raising money unless the estates owned by the proprietors were exempted from taxation. From the beginning Franklin had stood with the popular party in opposing these regulations, yet curiously enough had always been a favorite with the governors. These magistrates were bound to follow the proprietors' will under penalty of being recalled; but on the other hand their salary was dependent on the pleasure of the Assembly, and they may well have clung to a wise and tolerant intermediary like Franklin. Nothing, however, could now allay the hostile feelings. The Assembly voted money for immediate defense under the conditions imposed, but at the same time declared that the measure was not to be held as a precedent for the future; and Franklin was sent to England to treat with the proprietaries in person, and if necessary with the Crown. V FIRST AND SECOND MISSIONS TO ENGLAND Franklin reached London July 27, 1757, when he was fifty-one years old. He remained in England five years, and during that period his life was one of manifold interests and vexations. His business with the Penns first engaged his attention; but from those stubborn gentlemen he got nothing but insolence and delays. After much manoeuvring the dispute was brought before a committee of the Privy Council, where the Pennsylvania Assembly through its representative virtually won its case. The proprietary estates were made subject to taxation, and this bone of contention was for a time removed. It was indeed a great victory for the Philadelphia printer; but perhaps its chief value was the training it gave him for the more important diplomatic negotiations that were to come later. There was that in Franklin's nature which made him an ideal diplomatist. Under the utmost candor and simplicity he concealed a penetration into character and a skill in using legitimate chicanery that rarely missed their mark. Then, too, he was persistent: what he undertook to do he never left until it was done. Though far from being an orator, he wielded a pen that for clearness and logical pointedness has scarcely been surpassed, and his powers of irony and sarcasm were worthy of Swift himself. Among other subjects which engaged Franklin's pen at this time was a question of vital interest, as he thought, to the empire. Under the masterly guidance of the great Pitt, England had come out victorious in the struggle with France, and the government was now debating whether Canada should be retained or given back to the French. The chief argument for surrendering the province was ominous of the future. "A neighbor that keeps us in some awe is not always the worst of neighbors.... If we acquire all Canada, we shall soon find North America itself too powerful and too populous to be governed by us at a distance." To this timid reasoning, which was attributed to William Burke, Franklin replied in a pamphlet, discussing the whole question with the utmost acumen, displaying the future greatness of the empire in America, and denying that the colonies would ever revolt. Touching this last apprehension he says: "There are so many causes that must operate to prevent it that I will venture to say a union amongst them for such a purpose is not merely improbable, it is impossible.... When I say such a union is impossible, I mean without the most grievous tyranny and oppression.... _The waves do not rise but when the wind blows._... What such an administration as the Duke of Alva's in the Netherlands might produce, I know not; but this, I think, I have a right to deem impossible." Strange words to come from Franklin in those days; but it is thought they were of considerable influence in the final decision of the question. Franklin indeed was always fond of prophesying the future greatness of America, and again in the diplomatic debates after the revolutionary war he long insisted that Canada should be severed from England and joined to the thirteen States. But our philosopher had much to occupy him besides politics. He had taken lodgings at No. 7 Craven Street with a Mrs. Stevenson, in whom and in whose daughter he found warm and congenial friends. His correspondence with "Dear Polly," the daughter, contains some of his most entertaining letters; and he even planned, but unsuccessfully, to make her the wife of his son William. His fame as a scientist had preceded him, and introduced him into the society of many distinguished men in England and Scotland, among whom his genial nature freely expanded. And nothing could stop the activity of his mind, not even sickness. For eight weeks he struggled with a fever, but the letter to his wife conveying the story of his illness reads as if he were almost willing to undergo such an experience for the opportunity of studying pathology which it offered. At last he was ready to return home. The University of St. Andrews had conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws, and afterwards Oxford had done the same. He had succeeded in his mission, his son had been appointed governor of New Jersey, and he looked forward to a life of honorable ease in his adopted city. Just before sailing he wrote to Lord Kames: "I am now waiting here only for a wind to waft me to America, but cannot leave this happy island and my friends in it without extreme regret, though I am going to a country and a people that I love. I am going from the old world to the new, and I fancy I feel like those who are leaving this world for the next. Grief at the parting, fear of the passage, hope of the future,--these different passions all affect their minds at once, and these have _tendered_ me down exceedingly." Peace had come to Europe in 1763, but not to America. The Indians, who had been aroused by European intrigue, were not so easily pacified, and western Pennsylvania especially continued to suffer from their ravages. The men of the frontier banded together for retaliation, and unfortunately their revenge equaled the brutality of the red savages. Religious odium added bitterness to the passions. The Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of the west, enraged at the supineness of the eastern Quakers, made the extermination of the Indians a point of religion. The horror reached its climax when the good people of Paxton in cold blood massacred twenty helpless and innocent Indians, and then with a large following marched towards Philadelphia with the avowed purpose of murdering in the name of an angry God one hundred and forty peaceful Moravian Indians. The governor, a nephew of the proprietaries, came, as all men did, to Franklin in his perplexity; he even lodged in Franklin's house, and concerted with him hourly on the means of repelling the invaders. The "Paxton boys" had reached Germantown. The city was in a panic, and there was no time to lose. Franklin first got together a regiment of militia, and then, with three other gentlemen, went out to Germantown to remonstrate with the fanatics. His mission was successful, and the insurrection was quelled; but Franklin himself had gained many enemies by his action. The people were largely in favor of the Paxton rioters; and the governor, now relieved of his immediate fears, made an infamous proclamation setting a price upon Indian scalps. A strong coalition was formed against Franklin; to the enmity of the proprietary party was now added the distrust of the people. Just at this time the old trouble between the governor and the Assembly broke out more virulently. Despite the decision of the London Council, the governor vetoed an important bill because the proprietary estates were not exempted from taxation. An angry debate arose in the Assembly as to whether they should petition the king to withdraw Pennsylvania from the proprietaries and make it a crown colony. Franklin took an active part in this contest, and threw all the weight of his authority in favor of the petition; but in the election which followed in 1764 the combination of the aristocrats, who sided with the proprietaries, and of the fanatics, who favored the Paxton uprising, was too strong for him, and he was not returned. After a stormy debate, however, the Assembly adopted the petition; and Franklin, despite the bitter personal attacks of John Dickinson, was chosen as agent to carry the request to England. The petition was not allowed, and Pennsylvania remained in the hands of the proprietaries until it became an independent state. But other questions, far more important than the local difficulties of any one colony, were to occupy Franklin's and the other commissioners' time. Franklin was in England from December, 1764, until March of 1775, and during these ten years was busily engaged in supporting the colonies in their unequal struggle against the British Parliament. He was the accredited representative of Pennsylvania, Georgia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, and before the government and the people of England stood as the champion of the whole province. Every one knows the nature of the acts which finally created a new empire in the West,--the Stamp Act, the duty on tea, the Boston Port bill. Their very names still stir the patriotic blood of America. The principle at issue was clearly announced in the battle cry, "No taxation without representation." Franklin was a stanch advocate of the American claims, and threw all the weight of his personal influence and of his eloquent pen into the work. But in one respect he seems to have been deceived: during the first years of his mission he held Parliament responsible for all the tyrannical measures against the colonies, and looked upon the king as their natural protector. It was a feeling common among Americans who wished to preserve their allegiance to the empire while protesting against the authority of the laws. Even as late as 1771 he could write these words about George III: "I can scarcely conceive a king of better dispositions, of more exemplary virtues, or more truly desirous of promoting the welfare of his subjects." When at last the bigoted character of that sovereign was fully revealed to him, he despaired utterly of reconciliation with the mother country. Franklin's labors may well be portrayed in two dramatic incidents: his examination before Parliament in 1766, and the so-called Privy Council outrage in 1774. After the passage of the Stamp Act, Franklin wrote to a friend: "Depend upon it, my good neighbor, I took every step in my power to prevent the passing of the Stamp Act. Nobody could be more concerned and interested than myself to oppose it sincerely and heartily.... We might as well have hindered the sun's setting. That we could not do. But since it is down, my friend, and it may be long before it rises again, let us make as good a night of it as we can. We can still light candles. Frugality and industry will go a great way towards indemnifying us. Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments. If we can get rid of the former, we may easily bear the latter." But Franklin's philosophical habit of accepting the inevitable,--a habit which for a time brought him the hostility of such strenuous patriots as the Adamses,--did not prevent him from doing all in his power to further the repeal of that act when the matter was again taken up by Parliament. Nor did America lack friends in Parliament itself, and these gentlemen now arranged that Franklin should give testimony before the bar of the House. In the examination which followed, Franklin showed the fullness of his knowledge and the keenness of his wit better perhaps than in any other act of his life. It is impossible to give at length the replies with which he aided the friends of repeal and baffled its foes; but a few of his answers may indicate the nature of all. _Q._ "What was the temper of America towards Great Britain before the year 1763?" _A._ "The best in the world. They submitted willingly to the government of the Crown, and paid in their courts obedience to acts of Parliament.... They had not only a respect, but an affection for Great Britain; for its laws, its customs, and manners; and even a fondness for its fashions, that greatly increased the commerce. Natives of Britain were always treated with particular regard; to be an _Old England man_ was, of itself, a character of some respect, and gave a kind of rank among us." _Q._ "What is their temper now?" _A._ "Oh, very much altered." _Q._ "How would the Americans receive a future tax, imposed on the same principle as the Stamp Act?" _A._ "Just as they do the Stamp Act; _they would not pay it_". _Q._ "Would the colonists prefer to forego the collection of debts by legal process rather than use stamped paper?" _A._ "I can only judge what other people will think and how they will act by what I feel within myself. I have a great many debts due to me in America, and I had rather they should remain unrecoverable by any law than submit to the Stamp Act. They will be debts of honor." The examination was a complete success; not even the Tories could object to it, and to Burke it seemed like the examination of a master by a parcel of schoolboys. A few days later the repeal was carried. But the relief was only temporary, and Parliament soon returned to its high-handed measures of repression. One day in the midst of the contest Franklin was talking with a friendly member of Parliament and inveighing against the violence of the government towards Boston. The Englishman replied that these measures of repression did not originate in England, and to prove his assertion placed in Franklin's hands a packet of letters written by Hutchinson, governor of Massachusetts, and others to a member of Parliament with the intention of reaching the ears of Lord Grenville. These letters, written by native-born Americans, advised the quartering of troops on Boston, advocated the making of judges and governors dependent on England for their salaries, and were full of such sentiments as that "there must be an abridgment of what are called English liberties." Franklin by permission sent them to Boston, where they naturally raised a furor of indignation. A petition was immediately sent over to have Governor Hutchinson removed from office, but for a while government took no action. After a time the letters got into the London newspapers with the most deplorable result. One Thomas Whately, brother of the gentleman to whom they had been addressed, was accused of purloining the letters and sending them to America. This caused a duel, and a second duel was about to be fought when Franklin published a note in the "Public Advertiser" avowing that the letters had not passed through Mr. Whately's hands, that he himself was responsible for sending them to Boston, and that no blame could be attached to the action as the letters were really of a public nature. The Tories now saw their opportunity to attack Franklin. The petition for removing Hutchinson was taken up by the Committee for Plantation Affairs, and Franklin was summoned to appear before them. Wedderburn, the king's solicitor-general, was there to speak for Hutchinson, and Franklin, having no counsel, had the proceedings delayed for three weeks. On the appointed day the Council met in a building called the Cockpit, and Franklin appeared before them. The room was furnished with a long table down the middle, at which the lords sat. At one end of the room was a fireplace, and in a recess at one side of the chimney Franklin stood during the whole meeting. His advocates spoke, but without much effect, and the defense of Hutchinson was then taken up by Wedderburn. But instead of arguing the point at issue, Wedderburn made it the occasion for delivering, much to the delight of the Tory lords present, a long and utterly unjustified tirade against Franklin. With thunderous voice and violent beating of his fist on the cushion before him, he denounced Franklin as the "prime mover of this whole contrivance against his majesty's two governors." Although the letters had been given to Franklin for the express purpose of having them conveyed to America, Wedderburn accused him of base treachery; turning to the committee he said: "I hope, my Lords, you will mark and brand the man, for the honor of this country, of Europe, and of mankind. Private correspondence has hitherto been held sacred, in times of the greatest party rage, not only in politics but religion." "He has forfeited all the respect of societies and of men. Into what companies will he hereafter go with an unembarrassed face, or the honest intrepidity of virtue? Men will watch him with a jealous eye; they will hide their papers from him, and lock up their escritoirs. He will henceforth esteem it a libel to be called _a man of letters_; _homo TRIUM litterarum_ (i.e., _fur_, thief)!" "But he not only took away the letters from one brother; but kept himself concealed till he nearly occasioned the murder of the other. It is impossible to read his account, expressive of the coolest and most deliberate malice, without horror." "Amidst these tragical events, of one person nearly murdered, of another answerable for the issue, of a worthy governor hurt in his dearest interests, the fate of America in suspense; here is a man, who, with the utmost insensibility of remorse, stands up and avows himself the author of all. I can compare it only to Zanga, in Dr. Young's "Revenge";-- "'Know then 'twas--I; I forged the letter, I disposed the picture; I hated, I despised, and I destroy.' I ask, my Lords, whether the revengeful temper attributed, by poetic fiction only, to the bloody African is not surpassed by the coolness and apathy of the wily American?" The picture of Franklin standing unmoved under this torrent of abuse is, I think, the most dramatic incident of his life. It was a victory of glorious endurance; it was the crown of unmerited infamy which was needed to give depth of interest to his successful career. An eyewitness thus described the scene: "Dr. Franklin's face was directed towards me, and I had a full, uninterrupted view of it, and his person, during the whole time in which Mr. Wedderburn spoke. The Doctor was dressed in a full dress suit of spotted Manchester velvet, and stood _conspicuously erect_ without the smallest movement of any part of his body. The muscles of his face had been previously composed, so as to afford a placid, tranquil expression of countenance, and he did not suffer the slightest alteration of it to appear during the continuance of the speech, in which he was so harshly and improperly treated. In short, to quote the words which he employed concerning himself on another occasion, he kept his 'countenance as immovable as if his features had been made of _wood_.'" Fortunately, to sustain him in these trials, Franklin had a cheerful home and the society of the best men in England. He was living at the old house on Craven Street, where Mrs. Stevenson did all in her power to make him forget that he was an exile. Indeed, were it not that Mrs. Franklin had an unconquerable dread of crossing the water, it is quite possible that our philosopher might have carried his family to England and lived permanently among his new friends; and in estimating the services of Franklin to America we should never forget to give due credit to his loyal wife who stayed quietly at home, managing his affairs for him in Philadelphia and keeping warm his attachment for his adopted city. Besides the eminent statesmen, such as Pitt and Burke, with whom Franklin's business brought him naturally in contact, he associated much with liberal clergymen,--with Priestley particularly, the discoverer of oxygen, and with the family of the good Bishop of St. Asaph's, at whose house he had almost a second home. To one of the bishop's daughters he sent the inimitable epitaph on the squirrel Mungo which he had given her as a present from America. The influence for good is almost incalculable which Franklin thus exercised by the noble type of American character he displayed to the liberal party in England. Nor did he ever lose an opportunity to accomplish what he could with the pen. At one time, to lay bare the suicidal policy of the government, he published in a newspaper a satirical squib quite in the vein of Dean Swift, entitled "Rules for reducing a Great Empire to a Small One." The opening sentences were as follows: "An ancient sage valued himself upon this, that, though he could not fiddle, he knew how to make a great city of a little one. The science that I, a modern simpleton, am about to communicate, is the very reverse;" and with this introduction the author proceeds to give a detailed account of the treatment of the colonies by Parliament. In another paper Franklin reduced certain arguments of the ministry to the absurd. This was a pretended "Edict of the King of Prussia," in which Frederick was supposed to announce the same sovereignty over England, which had been originally settled by Germans, as Parliament now claimed over America. Speaking of these two papers Franklin says, in a letter to his son: "I sent you one of the first, but could not get enough of the second to spare you one, though my clerk went the next morning to the printer's, and wherever they were sold.... I am not suspected as the author, except by one or two friends; and have heard the latter spoken of in the highest terms, as the keenest and severest piece that has appeared here a long time. Lord Mansfield, I hear, said of it, that it _was very ABLE and very ARTFUL indeed_; and would do mischief by giving here a bad impression of the measures of government; and in the colonies, by encouraging them in their contumacy.... What made it the more noticed here was, that people in reading it were, as the phrase is, _taken in_, till they had got half through it, and imagined it a real edict, to which mistake I suppose the King of Prussia's _character_ must have contributed. I was down at Lord Le Despencer's, when the post brought that day's papers. Mr. Whitehead was there, too (Paul Whitehead, the author of "Manners"), who runs early through all the papers, and tells the company what he finds remarkable. He had them in another room, and we were chatting in the breakfast parlor, when he came running in to us, out of breath, with the paper in his hand. 'Here!' says he, 'here's news for ye! Here's the King of Prussia, claiming a right to this kingdom!' All stared, and I as much as anybody; and he went on to read it. When he had read two or three paragraphs, a gentleman present said, 'Damn his impudence, I dare say we shall hear by next post, that he is upon his march with one hundred thousand men to back this.' Whitehead, who is very shrewd, soon after began to smoke it, and looking in my face, said, 'I'll be hanged if this is not some of your American jokes upon us.' The reading went on, and ended with abundance of laughing, and a general verdict that it was a fair hit." After the Privy Council outrage there was very little for Franklin to do. Lord Chatham consulted with him before introducing in Parliament a liberal bill for conciliating the colonies, and Franklin himself was present in the House of Lords when the old statesman, despite the protests of his gout, plead for fairer measures. It may very well be that if these troubles had occurred in Chatham's vigorous days he might have been able to preserve the integrity of the empire. But now he was crippled by the gout and debarred from active life; and in the interesting "Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout" the philosopher might have retorted upon that exacting lady the mischief she had done his people by laming Pitt. Again Franklin had to stand the bitter denunciation of the Tories, while Lord Sandwich held him up as "one of the bitterest and most mischievous enemies this country had ever known;" but he also had the satisfaction of hearing a noble eulogy of his character pronounced by the great Chatham. Then, after a good deal of secret negotiation with Lord Howe, Franklin reluctantly abandoned the situation and turned homeward. His last day in London was passed with Dr. Priestley, who has left an interesting record of their conversation. He says of Franklin that "the unity of the British empire in all its parts was a favorite idea of his. He used to compare it to a beautiful china vase, which, if ever broken, could never be put together again; and so great an admirer was he of the British constitution that he said he saw no inconvenience from its being extended over a great part of the globe. With these sentiments he left England." VI MEMBER OF CONGRESS AND ENVOY TO FRANCE Franklin reached Philadelphia May 5, 1775; and what a home-coming it was! His wife had died, and he was now to live with his daughter Mrs. Bache. The battle of Lexington had been fought while he was at sea, and the whole country was in a ferment of excitement. It was in regard to this battle, it may be remembered, that he uttered one of his famous witticisms. To a critic who accused the Americans of cowardice for firing from behind stone walls, he replied: "I beg to inquire if those same walls had not two sides to them?" He received the most honorable welcome home, and on the very morning after his arrival was unanimously chosen one of the Pennsylvania delegates to the Continental Congress about to meet in Philadelphia. Our philosopher, now seventy years old, had come home to rest, but found himself instead in the very vortex of public affairs. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety and a burgess in the Assembly, but later he gave himself entirely to Congress. Afterwards when in Paris he declared that he used to work twelve hours out of the twenty-four on public business. His part in Congress was one of conciliation between conflicting interests,--a rôle he was admirably adapted to fill. Very early he proposed, as he had done at Albany, a union of the thirteen colonies, but the times were not yet ripe for such a measure. Of the great act of this Congress, the Declaration of Independence, Franklin's share was small, as might be inferred from the nature of the man. He did indeed serve with Jefferson and three others on the committee appointed to draft this document, but, as every one knows, the actual writing of the Declaration was the work of Jefferson. Franklin is chiefly remembered for one or two witticisms in connection with the affair. "We must be unanimous," said Hancock, when it came to signing the document, "there must be no pulling different ways; we must all hang together." "Yes," replied Franklin, "we must, indeed, all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." Over Franklin's manifold occupations we may now pass rapidly, for, though he was connected with almost every prominent transaction of the times, yet he was not a true leader of the revolutionary movement. He was easily the most illustrious man in America, and, since the death of Jonathan Edwards, the most intellectual; but his mind was inquisitive and contemplative rather than aggressive, and rougher hands were now needed at the helm. He acted as postmaster for the colonies, and served on many committees. So, for instance, he went with John Adams and Edward Rutledge to confer with Lord Howe on Staten Island. The embassy, however, came to nothing, as Lord Howe utterly refused to treat with them as envoys of a Congress whose existence he could not acknowledge. It was too late for negotiations. And now we are to see Franklin in a new part. Of the great leaders of the Revolution each had his peculiar task. There was Samuel Adams in Boston, the herald of division and battle, whose office it was to make clear the mind of the country and to stir up in the people the proper enthusiasm; there was Thomas Jefferson, imbued with French eighteenth-century notions of the rights of man, incapable perhaps of distinguishing between theory and fact, but for that very reason suited to formulate the national Declaration of Independence, a document not rigorously true in philosophy but inimitable as the battle cry of freedom and progress; there was Washington, whose military genius, indomitable will, and noble solidity of character were able to carry the war through to the end; and there was Franklin, too cool-headed ever to have inflamed the hearts of the people with the inspiration of hope and revenge, incapable of uttering political platitudes which could express tersely the national feeling, a lover of peace and without the grim determination of a soldier, but still able in his own way to serve the state more effectually perhaps than any other man except the great Captain himself. It was absolutely necessary, both for actual help in money and arms and for moral support, that the young nation should receive recognition abroad. To win this recognition was just the task of Franklin. Already he was known personally to many of the leading spirits of England and the Continent. The respect and friendship felt for him by Burke, Fox, Lord Shelburne, Lord Rockingham, did much to augment the power of the opposition in England, and on the Continent the high reputation of Franklin as a philosopher and statesman contributed largely to the general confidence in the ultimate success of the rebellion. The first really important communication from Europe came to Congress through Dr. Dubourg, of Paris, who wrote a long letter to Franklin, addressing him as "My dear Master," and assuring him of the sympathies of France. Congress hereupon appointed Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee commissioners to Paris, the two last being already in Europe. Before departing Franklin got together what money he could, "between three and four thousand pounds," and lent it to Congress; he then sailed with his two grandsons, William Temple Franklin and Benjamin Franklin Bache, reaching Paris December 21, 1776. Considering the dangers and hardships of the voyage this was no light undertaking for a man of his age, and he was in fact physically exhausted when he arrived on the other side. Franklin came now to reap the fruits of a long and well spent life. His personal fame aided him in a land where philosophers had become the fashion of the day, and as the representative of a people struggling for liberty he was peculiarly dear to the French, who were themselves speculating on such matters and preparing for their own revolution. It is of course easy to exaggerate the influence of sentiment in the case. France was glad to encourage America because the loss of the colonies would weaken the British Empire, and that was natural; but it is, I think, a mistake not to acknowledge the generous sentiments of the people and even of the grandees of the land. Voltaire and Rousseau had not been preaching in vain; the American Declaration of Independence was quite in the drift of French political ideas. But to awaken trust in a people who dwelt in a far-off wilderness and who were commonly esteemed little better than savages, the presence of such a man as Franklin was of incalculable value. After a brief interval M. de Chaumont, one of the wealthy Frenchmen of the day, offered Franklin rooms at Passy in his Hôtel de Valentinois, and there our philosopher fixed his abode, living in some style, and spending perhaps about thirteen thousand dollars a year. His popularity was immediate and almost unexampled. The great people of France--philosophers, statesmen, titled noblemen, and fine ladies--thought it an honor to receive the famous American; and it is said that so great was his fame among the common people that the shopkeepers would run to their doors to see him pass down the street. Innumerable pictures were drawn and medallions cut of his figure, until, as he wrote, his countenance was made "as well known as that of the moon, so that he durst not do anything that would oblige him to run away, as his phiz would discover him wherever he should venture to show it." Parton quotes this interesting account of the commissioners from the Memoirs of Count Sigur: "Nothing could be more striking than ... the almost rustic apparel, the plain but firm demeanor, the free and direct language, of the envoys, whose antique simplicity of dress and appearance seemed to have introduced within our walls, in the midst of the effeminate and servile refinement of the eighteenth century, some sages contemporary with Plato, or republicans of the age of Cato and of Fabius. This unexpected apparition produced upon us a greater effect in consequence of its novelty, and of its occurring precisely at the period when literature and philosophy had circulated amongst us an unusual desire for reforms, a disposition to encourage innovations, and the seeds of an ardent attachment to liberty." But life was not all roseate for Franklin; he and the other envoys had plenty of work to do. Among other things an endless number of foreign officers applied to Franklin for commissions in the American army. Some of these applicants--such as Lafayette and Steuben--were heartily welcome, and really aided the cause; but he was beset by innumerable others who would have been merely a burden on the army. For men of this stamp he drew up and actually used more than once a blank recommendation beginning with these ominous words: "The bearer of this, who is going to America, presses me to give him a letter of recommendation, though I know nothing of him, not even his name. This may seem extraordinary, but I assure you it is not uncommon here," etc. He was also kept busy managing the affairs of the small but active navy, which was largely fitted out in France, and which brought most of its prizes into French ports. But of all his labors the most difficult and the most important was the raising of money for Congress. Into the details of this exasperating task we cannot here enter. Congress was not wise, and its necessities were desperate, and, despite the generosity of the French court, he had often to employ extreme measures to borrow money on doubtful security or none at all. To excite interest in favor of the colonies Franklin wrote several papers, whose practical ideas of political liberty were not without effect in guiding the French people on to their own revolution. Even the wit of "the old fox," as he was called in England, appealed strongly to that nation of esprit. So, for instance, when asked if a certain story of American defeat told by Lord Stormont, the British ambassador, was a truth, he answered: "No, monsieur, it is not a truth; it is only a Stormont." And straightway "a stormont" became the polite word for a lie. Again, when told that Howe had taken Philadelphia he retorted: "I beg your pardon, sir, Philadelphia has taken Howe." But though Franklin could maintain his philosophic calm, and could even joke in the presence of disaster, yet the strain on his nerves was tremendous. I believe that only once in his life was he betrayed into manifesting a strong emotion. Mr. Austin, a messenger from Boston, is coming with important news. All the American commissioners, together with Beaumarchais, are at Passy waiting his arrival. His chaise is heard in the court, and they go out to meet him. But before he even alights Franklin cries out, "Sir, _is_ Philadelphia taken?" "Yes, sir," says Austin. It seemed then that all was over. Without a word Franklin clasped his hands and turned toward the house. "But, sir," said Austin, "I have greater news than that GENERAL BURGOYNE AND HIS WHOLE ARMY ARE PRISONERS OF WAR!" "The news," as one of the party afterwards declared, "was like a sovereign cordial to the dying." How deep the impression upon Franklin was we may judge from his gratitude to the messenger. Mr. Austin relates that often he "would break from one of those musings in which it was his habit to indulge, and clasping his hands together, exclaim, 'Oh, Mr. Austin, you brought us glorious news!'" It was indeed glorious news. The result in France was instantaneous and immense. Franklin and his companions had long wished the court to acknowledge publicly the independence of the United States and to make a treaty of commerce with them. The news of Burgoyne's surrender reached Paris on the 4th of December, 1777; the desired treaty was actually signed on the 6th of February following. Dr. Bancroft, who was present when both parties signed the document, tells us that Franklin on that occasion wore the old suit of Manchester velvet which he had worn on the day of his outrage in the Privy Council, and which had been long laid aside. It was apparently a bit of quaint and secret revenge in which the philosopher indulged himself. But when Dr. Bancroft intimated to Franklin his suspicions in the matter, the philosopher only smiled, and said nothing. Several weeks later the new treaty was to receive formal recognition, and the American commissioners were to be presented to Louis XVI in their public capacity. Franklin intended to wear the regular court costume at the presentation, but was balked of his desire. The costume did not come in time; and when the perruquier brought his wig it refused to sit on the Doctor's head. Franklin suggested that the wig might be too small. "Monsieur, it is impossible," cried the perruquier, and then, dashing the wig to the floor, exclaimed, "No, Monsieur!--it is not the wig which is too small; it is your head which is too large." At any rate the wig could not be worn, and Franklin appeared in his own gray hair, dressed in black velvet, with white silk stockings, spectacles on nose, and no sword at his side. The king received the envoys courteously, saying: "Gentlemen, I wish the Congress to be assured of my friendship. I beg leave also to observe that I am exceedingly satisfied in particular with your own conduct during your residence in my kingdom;" and with these words walked out of the apartment. Immediately Lord Stormont, the British ambassador, left Paris; and a few days later M. Gérard, the first minister of France to this country, sailed for America. Franklin had met the king; he had now to meet a greater and more famous man than Louis,--the only man living whose fame was equal to his own. Voltaire, eighty-four years old, feeble in body but with intellect unconquered, had just come to Paris after his long exile to hear the plaudits of his countrymen, and to die. The American envoys asked permission to wait upon the great man, and were received by Voltaire lying on his couch. He quoted a few lines from Thomson's "Ode to Liberty," and then began to talk with Franklin in English; but his niece, not understanding that language, begged them to speak in French. Whereupon Voltaire replied: "I beg your pardon. I have for a moment yielded to the vanity of showing that I can speak in the language of a Franklin." When Dr. Franklin presented his grandson, the old philosopher pronounced over his head only these words: "_God and Liberty!_" All who were present shed tears. John Adams tells the story of a more public meeting between the two men at the Academy of Sciences: "Voltaire and Franklin were both present, and there presently arose a general cry that M. Voltaire and M. Franklin should be introduced to each other. This was done, and they bowed and spoke to each other. This was no satisfaction; there must be something more. Neither of our philosophers seemed to divine what was wished or expected. They, however, took each other by the hand; but this was not enough. The clamor continued until the exclamation came out, 'Il faut s'embrasser à la Française!'[2] The two aged actors upon this great theatre of philosophy and frivolity then embraced each other by hugging one another in their arms and kissing each other's cheeks, and then the tumult subsided. And the cry immediately spread throughout the kingdom, and I suppose over all Europe, 'Qu'il était charmant de voir embrasser Solon et Sophocle!'"[3] [2] They must embrace like Frenchmen. [3] How charming it was to see Solon and Sophocles embrace. The mention of John Adams recalls us to the most disagreeable part of Franklin's experience. During all his sojourn in France he was subject to continual and annoying interference from his colleagues. Before his arrival in Paris, Silas Deane had entered for Congress into semi-commercial relations with the French government through the eccentric and industrious Beaumarchais. Franklin was content to leave these affairs to him, and did not at the time even know their real nature. But with Arthur Lee it was different. Of all characters in American history Lee is almost the hardest to endure. He was patriotic, and in a way honest, but meddlesome, suspicious, vain, and quarrelsome to an incredible degree. He immediately made up his mind that Deane was peculating, and never ceased writing accusatory letters until Congress recalled the unfortunate envoy. All this time he was also acting toward Franklin in a manner which can only be described as insane. He fumed at Franklin's easy way of conducting business; his vanity suffered indescribable tortures at every mark of respect paid to his distinguished colleague; he suspected him of treason and every other crime; and with his partisans (whose names we need not here mention) he wrote voluble letters of incrimination to Congress. When Silas Deane was recalled, John Adams was sent over to take his place, and for a while Franklin received support from his new colleague,--for Adams, with all his faults, was at least single-hearted in his patriotism. But their characters were too widely different for them to work easily together in harness. Adams's vanity was almost as great as Arthur Lee's. The homage paid to Franklin drove him almost into a frenzy of rage, both because he thought himself overlooked and because such homage savored of aristocracy. In Franklin's catalogue of the virtues there were two which he could not claim to have attained,--chastity and orderliness; and these two weaknesses now rose to exact their penalty. Adams could not believe that a man who had been lax with women could be honest in anything else; Adams was the spirit of petty orderliness, and Franklin's easy ways seemed to him the destruction of all business. At last Congress came to the rescue, and for once acted sensibly: Lee and Adams were recalled, and Franklin was left as sole plenipotentiary in Paris. With other Americans Franklin's relationship was of a pleasanter sort. To the American navy and privateers Franklin was the American government; and, though he was often annoyed by the unreasonable conduct of importunate captains, yet he also shared in the glory of their deeds. John Paul Jones was one of the many forced to endure Arthur Lee's impertinences, and had it not been for Franklin's aid and friendship our navy would have lost the honor of that name. At one time Paul Jones was in Paris with no ship to command, and though he tried every channel to obtain a vessel from the French court, was always put off. At last, as he was reading a French translation of Poor Richard's Almanac, his eye was struck by this sentence: "If you would have your business done, go; if not, send." Without delay he went himself to Versailles, and obtained an order to purchase an old ship of forty guns. This good vessel he christened Le Bon Homme Richard, which is French for Poor Richard, and the story of how she beat the Serapis need not here be retold. Through all these difficulties in France, as before in England, Franklin found consolation and amusement in the intellectual society of a great capital. And what a society this was! The very list of names of Franklin's friends is an inspiration. With the scientists of the day he continued to discuss philosophic questions; and with the great ladies of society he could find relaxation from his graver cares. Chess still absorbed more of his time than his conscience approved, and there are several well known stories of him in connection with that game. Once when playing with the old Duchess of Bourbon, the lady happened to put her king into prize, and the Doctor took it. "Ah," says she, "we do not take kings so." "We do in America," said the Doctor; and this pleasant joke he seems to have repeated several times in different forms. To Madame Brillon, a wealthy and amiable lady of the neighborhood, he wrote a number of those clever sketches which might well find a place in the "Spectator,"--such as The Ephemera, The Petition of the Left Hand, The Whistle, The Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout, and others almost as well known. One of his best friends was Madame Helvetius, widow of the celebrated philosopher, and it was to her he wrote his famous dream ending with the words, "Let us avenge ourselves." We must at least find space for Mrs. Adams's curious account of that lady: "She entered the room with a careless, jaunty air; upon seeing ladies who were strangers to her, she bawled out, 'Ah! mon Dieu, where is Franklin? Why did you not tell me there were ladies here?' You must suppose her speaking all this in French. 'How I look!' said she, taking hold of a chemise made of tiffany, which she had on over a blue lute-string, and which looked as much upon the decay as her beauty, for she was once a handsome woman; her hair was frizzled; over it she had a small straw hat, with a dirty gauze half-handkerchief round it, and a bit of dirtier gauze than ever my maid wore was bowed on behind. She had a black gauze scarf thrown over her shoulders. She ran out of the room; when she returned, the Doctor entered at one door, she at the other; upon which she ran forward to him, caught him by the hand, 'Hélas! Franklin;' then gave him a double kiss, one upon each cheek, and another upon his forehead. When we went into the room to dine, she was placed between the Doctor and Mr. Adams. She carried the chief of the conversation at dinner, frequently locking her hand into the Doctor's, and sometimes spreading her arms upon the backs of both the gentlemen's chairs, then throwing her arm carelessly upon the Doctor's neck." Another house to which Franklin was welcome was that of the Countess d'Houdetot celebrated for her part in the life of Rousseau. It was at her château that Franklin had to undergo the ordeal of such a glorification as must have tried his philosophic nerves to the uttermost. The chronicler of the occasion declares that "the venerable sage, with his gray hair flowing down upon his shoulders, his staff in hand, the spectacles of wisdom on his nose, was the perfect picture of true philosophy and virtue." But the "sage" must have found his virtue a burden on that day. He was escorted through the grounds; wine was poured out freely; music was played, and the company in turn celebrated the guest in stanzas which were none the less fulsome because they were true. The ceremony closed with the planting of a Virginia locust by the Doctor. The surrender of Burgoyne in 1777 had brought about the treaty with France; the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, four years later, was the beginning of peace and the cause of the treaty with England. What effect the news of Cornwallis's defeat had in England; how Lord North, the Prime Minister, received the message "as he would have taken a ball in his breast," walking wildly up and down the room, tossing his arms, and crying out, "Oh God! it is all over! it is all over!"--all this is known to everybody. The diplomacy which now passed between the belligerent parties is a most complicated chapter of history. Franklin, Jay, and Adams were appointed by Congress to treat with England concerning peace, with instructions to consult the French government in every measure. The first difficulty was one of form. England was ready to sign a treaty of peace and acknowledge the independence of the colonies; but the envoy sent to Paris for this purpose was empowered to treat only with commissioners of the "colonies or plantations," and Jay and Adams felt incensed that the United States did not receive recognition by name. Franklin regarded the matter as a mere formality and was eager to push on the proceedings; but his colleagues were obdurate, and after some delay England made the required recognition. Three important points had then to be settled: 1. Whether the Americans should be allowed to fish on the New Foundland banks; 2. Whether the western boundary should extend to the Mississippi River; 3. Whether the United States government should reimburse the losses of the Tories. Adams, who as a Bostonian understood the importance of the first measure, insisted stubbornly that England should cede this point, and finally won the day. That the United States were not confined to a strip of land along the seacoast was chiefly due to Jay. And here a new complication came in. Jay had from the first suspected that France was playing a double game, and convincing evidence of duplicity now fell into his hands. To obtain concessions for herself, France was secretly encouraging England to refuse the American claims on the New Foundland fishing banks and on the territory lying between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. Jay thereupon insisted that the American envoys should treat secretly with England without consulting the French court, and Adams sided with him. Franklin was at first much averse to this mode of procedure, both because Congress had distinctly commanded them to act in concert with Versailles, and because he could not believe in the treachery of his French friends. When, however, Jay laid the matter clearly before him he gave up the point, and the negotiations proceeded. England acknowledged the American right to the western territory, but was more obstinate in regard to the Tory indemnification. Franklin was willing to grant this if England in return would cede Canada to the American union, and for a time the question was debated in this form. Finally a compromise was adopted, Congress promising to recommend to the state legislatures "to restore the estates, rights, and properties of real British subjects,"--which was of course a concession in words only, as Congress had no authority to enforce such a recommendation. The preliminary treaty between England and America was signed November 30, 1782, and Franklin had at once to appease the wrath of the French government which felt it had been duped. With consummate skill he accomplished this task, and all the vexing questions at issue were settled by the signing, on September 3, 1783, of separate definitive treaties between the three hostile powers. Franklin's great work was done. He had before this urged Congress to release him from his heavy duties, and at last--in 1785, after he had assisted in making treaties with the other powers of Europe--his resignation was accepted, and he was free to return home. Thomas Jefferson came over to Paris as plenipotentiary in his stead. When asked if he replaced Dr. Franklin, Jefferson used to reply: "I _succeed_. No one can _replace_ him." Franklin returned to Philadelphia laden with years and honors; yet still his country could not let him repose. For three successive years he was elected President of Pennsylvania; but the labors entailed were not severe, and the old man found time for amusement and quiet study. We have a beautiful picture of his life at home with his daughter and her family in one of his letters of the time: "The companions of my youth are indeed almost all departed; but I find an agreeable society among their children and grandchildren. I have public business enough to preserve me from ennui, and private amusement besides in conversation, books, my garden, and cribbage. Considering our well-furnished, plentiful market as the best of gardens, I am turning mine, in the midst of which my house stands, into grass plots and gravel walks, with trees and flowering shrubs. Cards we sometimes play here in long winter evenings; but it is as they play at chess,--not for money, but for honor, or the pleasure of beating one another. This will not be quite a novelty to you, as you may remember we played together in that manner during the winter at Passy. I have indeed now and then a little compunction in reflecting that I spend time so idly. But another reflection comes to relieve me, whispering: '_You know that the soul is immortal. Why, then, should you be such a niggard of a little time, when you have a whole eternity before you?_' So, being easily convinced, and, like other reasonable creatures, satisfied with a small reason when it is in favor of doing what I have a mind to, I shuffle the cards again, and begin another game." Yet the old man could not but feel lonely at times in the new society growing up about him. He says pathetically in another letter: "I seem to have intruded myself into the company of posterity, when I ought to have been abed and asleep." In 1787 the constitutional convention met in Philadelphia, and it was a fitting thing that the statesman and philosopher should live to aid in framing laws by which his country is still governed. He was now too weak to stand long, so that his speeches on various questions had to be read out by a friend. His work in the convention was altogether subordinate to that of Madison and one or two other leading spirits; but his part in reconciling various factious elements in the convention was of the greatest importance. When at last the deadlock came between the smaller and the larger States on the question of representation in the legislature, it was Franklin who saved the day by a suggestion which led to the famous compromise, making the Senate represent the individual States, while the lower house is proportioned to population. Washington presided over the assembly; and we are told that while "the last members were signing, Dr. Franklin, looking towards the president's chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him that painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. 'I have,' said he, 'often and often in the course of the session and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising, and not a setting sun.'" It was, however, the setting sun for Franklin. The few years that remained to him were peaceful and noble; but his old maladies increased on him, until at the last he was confined to his bed. Yet through it all he showed the same untiring energy. He wrote against the study of the classics, against the abuse of the liberty of the press, and from his very deathbed sent out a stinging letter against slavery. The end was come: at eleven o'clock at night, April 17, 1790, he passed away. Philadelphia knew that she had lost her most distinguished citizen, and he was followed to the grave by a procession including all that was honorable in the city. In closing this brief Life of a great and good man we cannot do better than quote the words sent to him by America's greatest citizen: "If to be venerated for benevolence, if to be admired for talent, if to be esteemed for patriotism, if to be beloved for philanthropy, can gratify the human mind, you must have the pleasing consolation to know that you have not lived in vain. And I flatter myself that it will not be ranked among the least grateful occurrences of your life to be assured that so long as I retain my memory you will be recollected with respect, veneration, and affection by your sincere friend." To receive such praise from Washington is sufficient answer to all the petty cavils that have been raised against the memory of Benjamin Franklin. 
13911	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 13911-h.htm or 13911-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/3/9/1/13911/13911-h/13911-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/3/9/1/13911/13911-h.zip) Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF AMERICAN STATESMEN by ELBERT HUBBARD Memorial Edition 1916 CONTENTS THE LITTLE JOURNEYS CAMP GEORGE WASHINGTON BENJAMIN FRANKLIN THOMAS JEFFERSON SAMUEL ADAMS JOHN HANCOCK JOHN QUINCY ADAMS ALEXANDER HAMILTON DANIEL WEBSTER HENRY CLAY JOHN JAY WILLIAM H. SEWARD ABRAHAM LINCOLN THE LITTLE JOURNEYS CAMP BERT HUBBARD A little more patience, a little more charity for all, a little more devotion, a little more love; with less bowing down to the past, and a silent ignoring of pretended authority; a brave looking forward to the future with more faith in our fellows, and the race will be ripe for a great burst of light and life. --Elbert Hubbard [Illustration: THE LITTLE JOURNEYS CAMP] It was not built with the idea of ever becoming a place in history: simply a boys' cabin in the woods. Fibe, Rich, Pie and Butch were the bunch that built it. Fibe was short for Fiber, and we gave him that name because his real name was Wood. Rich got his name from being a mudsock. Pie got his because he was a regular pieface. And they called me Butch for no reason at all except that perhaps my great-great-grandfather was a butcher. We were a fine gang of youngsters, all about thirteen years, wise in boys' deviltry. What we didn't know about killing cats, breaking window-panes in barns, stealing coal from freight-cars, and borrowing eggs from neighboring hencoops without consent of the hens, wasn't worth the knowing. There used to be another boy in the gang, Skinny. One day when we ran away to the swimming-hole after school, this other little fellow didn't come back with us. You see, there was the little-kids' swimmin'-hole and the big-kids' swimmin'-hole. The latter was over our heads. Well, Skinny swung out on the rope hanging from the cottonwood-tree on the bank of the big-kids' hole. Somehow he lost his head and fell in. None of us could swim, and he was too far out to reach. There was nothing to help him with, so we just had to watch him struggle till he had gone down three times. And there where we last saw him a lot of bubbles came up. The inquiry before the Justice of Peace with our fathers, which followed, put fright in our bones, and the sight of the old creek was a nightmare for months to come. After that we decided to keep to the hills and woods. This necessitated a hut. But we had no lumber with which to build it. However, there were three houses going up in town--and surely they could spare a few boards. So after dark we got out old Juliet and the spring-wagon and made several visits to the new houses. The result was that in about a week we had enough lumber to frame the cabin. Our site was about three miles from town, high up on the Adams Farm. After many evening trips with the old mare and much figuring we had the thing done, all but the windows, door, and shingles on the roof. Well, I knew where there was an old door and two window-sash taken off our chicken-house to let in the air during Summer. And one rainy night three bunches of shingles found their way from Perkins' lumber-yard to the foot of the hill on the Adams Farm. In another five days the place was finished. It was ten by sixteen, and had four bunks, two windows, a paneled front door, a back entrance and a porch--altogether a rather pretentious camp for a gang of young ruffians. But it was a labor of love, and we certainly had worked mighty hard. Our love was given particularly to the three house-builders and to Perkins, down in town. Of course we had to have a stove. This we got from Bowen's hardware-store for two dollars and forty cents. He wanted four dollars, and we argued for some time. The stove was a secondhand one and good only for scrap-iron anyway. Scrap was worth fifty cents a hundred, and this stove weighed only two hundred fifty, so we convinced the man our offer was big. At that we made him throw in a frying-pan. For dishes and cutlery, I believe each of our mothers' pantries contributed. Then a stock of grub was confiscated. The storeroom in the Phalansterie furnished Heinz beans, chutney, and a few others of the fifty-seven. John had run an ad in "The Philistine" for Heinz and taken good stuff in exchange. For four years after that, this old camp was kept stocked with eats all the time. We would hike out Friday after school and stay till Sunday night. At Christmas-time we would spend the week's vacation there. Many times had I tried to get my Father to go out and stay overnight. But he wouldn't go. One time, though, I did not come home when I had promised, so Father rode out on Garnett to find me. Instead of my coming back with him he just unsaddled and turned Garnett loose in the woods and stayed overnight. We gave him the big bunk with two red quilts, and he stuck it out. Next morning we had fried apples, ham and coffee for breakfast. What there was about it I did not understand, but John was a very frequent visitor after that. You know we called Father, John, because he said that wasn't his name. He used to come up in the evening and would bring the Red One or Sammy the Artist or Saint Jerome the Sculptor. Once he brought Michael Monahan and John Sayles the Universalist preacher. Mike didn't like it. The field-mice running on the rafters overhead at night chilled his blood. He called them terrible beasts. From then on we youngsters were gradually deprived of our freedom at camp. These visitors were too numerous for us and we had to seek other fields of adventure. John got to going out to the camp to get away from visitors at the Shop. He found the place quiet and comforting. The woods gave him freedom to think and write. It so developed that he would spend about four days a month there, writing the "Little Journey" for the next month. How many of his masterpieces were written at the Camp I can not say, but for several years it was his Retreat and he used it constantly. He reminded us boys several times when we kicked, that he had a good claim on it--for didn't he furnish the door and the window-frames? I never suspected he would recognize them. GEORGE WASHINGTON He left as fair a reputation as ever belonged to a human character.... Midst all the sorrowings that are mingled on this melancholy occasion I venture to assert that none could have felt his death with more regret than I, because no one had higher opinions of his worth.... There is this consolation, though, to be drawn, that while living no man could be more esteemed, and since dead none is more lamented. --Washington, on the Death of Tilghman [Illustration: GEORGE WASHINGTON] Dean Stanley has said that all the gods of ancient mythology were once men, and he traces for us the evolution of a man into a hero, the hero into a demigod, and the demigod into a divinity. By a slow process, the natural man is divested of all our common faults and frailties; he is clothed with superhuman attributes and declared a being separate and apart, and is lost to us in the clouds. When Greenough carved that statue of Washington that sits facing the Capitol, he unwittingly showed how a man may be transformed into a Jove. But the world has reached a point when to be human is no longer a cause for apology; we recognize that the human, in degree, comprehends the divine. Jove inspires fear, but to Washington we pay the tribute of affection. Beings hopelessly separated from us are not ours: a god we can not love, a man we may. We know Washington as well as it is possible to know any man. We know him better, far better, than the people who lived in the very household with him. We have his diary showing "how and where I spent my time"; we have his journal, his account-books (and no man was ever a more painstaking accountant); we have hundreds of his letters, and his own copies and first drafts of hundreds of others, the originals of which have been lost or destroyed. From these, with contemporary history, we are able to make up a close estimate of the man; and we find him human--splendidly human. By his books of accounts we find that he was often imposed upon, that he loaned thousands of dollars to people who had no expectation of paying; and in his last will, written with his own hand, we find him canceling these debts, and making bequests to scores of relatives; giving freedom to his slaves, and acknowledging his obligation to servants and various other obscure persons. He was a man in very sooth. He was a man in that he had in him the appetites, the ambitions, the desires of a man. Stewart, the artist, has said, "All of his features were indications of the strongest and most ungovernable passions, and had he been born in the forest, he would have been the fiercest man among savage tribes." But over the sleeping volcano of his temper he kept watch and ward, until his habit became one of gentleness, generosity, and shining, simple truth; and, behind all, we behold his unswerving purpose and steadfast strength. And so the object of this sketch will be, not to show the superhuman Washington, the Washington set apart, but to give a glimpse of the man Washington who aspired, feared, hoped, loved and bravely died. * * * * * The first biographer of George Washington was the Reverend Mason L. Weems. If you have a copy of Weems' "Life of Washington," you had better wrap it in chamois and place it away for your heirs, for some time it will command a price. Fifty editions of Weems' book were printed, and in its day no other volume approached it in point of popularity. In American literature, Weems stood first. To Weems are we indebted for the hatchet tale, the story of the colt that was broken and killed in the process, and all those other fine romances of Washington's youth. Weems' literary style reveals the very acme of that vicious quality of untruth to be found in the old-time Sunday-school books. Weems mustered all the "Little Willie" stories he could find, and attached to them Washington's name, claiming to write for "the Betterment of the Young," as if in dealing with the young we should carefully conceal the truth. Possibly Washington could not tell a lie, but Weems was not thus handicapped. Under a mass of silly moralizing, he nearly buried the real Washington, giving us instead a priggish, punk youth, and a Madame Tussaud, full-dress general, with a wax-works manner and a wooden dignity. Happily, we have now come to a time when such authors as Mason L. Weems and John S.C. Abbott are no longer accepted as final authorities. We do not discard them, but, like Samuel Pepys, they are retained that they may contribute to the gaiety of nations. Various violent efforts have been made in days agone to show that Washington was of "a noble line"--as if the natural nobility of the man needed a reason--forgetful that we are all sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But Burke's "Peerage" lends no light, and the careful, unprejudiced, patient search of recent years finds only the blood of the common people. Washington himself said that in his opinion the history of his ancestors "was of small moment and a subject to which, I confess, I have paid little attention." He had a bookplate and he had also a coat of arms on his carriage-door. The Reverend Mr. Weems has described Washington's bookplate thus: "Argent, two bar gules in chief, three mullets of the second. Crest, a raven with wings, indorsed proper, issuing out of a ducal coronet, or." * * * * * Mary Ball was the second wife of Augustine Washington. In his will the good man describes this marriage, evidently with a wink, as "my second Venture." And it is sad to remember that he did not live to know that his "Venture" made America his debtor. The success of the union seems pretty good argument in favor of widowers marrying. There were four children in the family, the oldest nearly full grown, when Mary Ball came to take charge of the household. She was twenty-seven, her husband ten years older. They were married March Sixth, Seventeen Hundred Thirty-one, and on February Twenty-second of the following year was born a man child and they named him George. The Washingtons were plain, hard-working people--land-poor. They lived in a small house that had three rooms downstairs and an attic, where the children slept, and bumped their heads against the rafters if they sat up quickly in bed. Washington got his sterling qualities from the Ball family, and not from the tribe of Washington. George was endowed by his mother with her own splendid health and with all the sturdy Spartan virtues of her mind. In features and in mental characteristics, he resembled her very closely. There were six children born to her in all, but the five have been nearly lost sight of in the splendid success of the firstborn. I have used the word "Spartan" advisedly. Upon her children, the mother of Washington lavished no soft sentimentality. A woman who cooked, weaved, spun, washed, made the clothes, and looked after a big family in pioneer times had her work cut out for her. The children of Mary Washington obeyed her, and when told to do a thing never stopped to ask why--and the same fact may be said of the father. The girls wore linsey-woolsey dresses, and the boys tow suits that consisted of two pieces, which in Winter were further added to by hat and boots. If the weather was very cold, the suits were simply duplicated--a boy wearing two or three pairs of trousers instead of one. The mother was the first one up in the morning, the last one to go to rest at night. If a youngster kicked off the covers in his sleep and had a coughing spell, she arose and looked after him. Were any sick, she not only ministered to them, but often watched away the long, dragging hours of the night. And I have noticed that these sturdy mothers in Israel, who so willingly give their lives that others may live, often find vent for overwrought feelings by scolding; and I, for one, cheerfully grant them the privilege. Washington's mother scolded and grumbled to the day of her death. She also sought solace by smoking a pipe. And this reminds me that a noted specialist in neurotics has recently said that if women would use the weed moderately, tired nerves would find repose and nervous prostration would be a luxury unknown. Not being much of a smoker myself, and knowing nothing about the subject, I give the item for what it is worth. All the sterling, classic virtues of industry, frugality and truth-telling were inculcated by this excellent mother, and her strong commonsense made its indelible impress upon the mind of her son. Mary Washington always regarded George's judgment with a little suspicion; she never came to think of him as a full-grown man; to her he was only a big boy. Hence, she would chide him and criticize his actions in a way that often made him very uncomfortable. During the Revolutionary War she followed his record closely: when he succeeded she only smiled, said something that sounded like "I told you so," and calmly filled her pipe; when he was repulsed she was never cast down. She foresaw that he would be made President, and thought "he would do as well as anybody." Once, she complained to him of her house in Fredericksburg; he wrote in answer, gently but plainly, that her habits of life were not such as would be acceptable at Mount Vernon. And to this she replied that she had never expected or intended to go to Mount Vernon, and moreover would not, no matter how much urged--a declination without an invitation that must have caused the son a grim smile. In her nature was a goodly trace of savage stoicism that took a satisfaction in concealing the joy she felt in her son's achievement; for that her life was all bound up in his we have good evidence. Washington looked after her wants and supplied her with everything she needed, and, as these things often came through third parties, it is pretty certain she did not know the source; at any rate she accepted everything quite as her due, and shows a half-comic ingratitude that is very fine. When Washington started for New York to be inaugurated President, he stopped to see her. She donned a new white cap and a clean apron in honor of the visit, remarking to a neighbor woman who dropped in that she supposed "these great folks expected something a little extra." It was the last meeting of mother and son. She was eighty-three at that time and "her boy" fifty-five. She died not long after. Samuel Washington, the brother two years younger than George, has been described as "small, sandy-whiskered, shrewd and glib." Samuel was married five times. Some of the wives he deserted and others deserted him, and two of them died, thus leaving him twice a sad, lorn widower, from which condition he quickly extricated himself. He was always in financial straits and often appealed to his brother George for loans. In Seventeen Hundred Eighty-one we find George Washington writing to his brother John, "In God's name! how has Samuel managed to get himself so enormously in debt?" The remark sounds a little like that of Samuel Johnson, who on hearing that Goldsmith was owing four hundred pounds exclaimed, "Was ever poet so trusted before?" Washington's ledger shows that he advanced his brother Samuel two thousand dollars, "to be paid back without interest." But Samuel's ship never came in, and in Washington's will we find the debt graciously and gracefully discharged. Thornton Washington, a son of Samuel, was given a place in the English army at George Washington's request; and two other sons of Samuel were sent to school at his expense. One of the boys once ran away and was followed by his uncle George, who carried a goodly birch with intent to "give him what he deserved"; but after catching the lad the uncle's heart melted, and he took the runaway back into favor. An entry in Washington's journal shows that the children of his brother Samuel cost him fully five thousand dollars. Harriot, one of the daughters of Samuel, lived in the household at Mount Vernon and evidently was a great cross, for we find Washington pleading as an excuse for her frivolity that "she was not brung up right, she has no disposition, and takes no care of her clothes, which are dabbed about in every corner, and the best are always in use. She costs me enough!" And this was about as near a complaint as the Father of his Country, and the father of all his poor relations, ever made. In his ledger we find this item: "By Miss Harriot Washington, gave her to buy wedding-clothes, $100.00." It supplied the great man joy to write that line, for it was the last of Harriot. He furnished a fine wedding for her, and all the servants had a holiday, and Harriot and her unknown lover were happy ever afterwards--so far as we know. From Seventeen Hundred Fifty to Seventeen Hundred Fifty-nine, Washington was a soldier on the frontier, leaving Mount Vernon and all his business in charge of his brother John. Between these two there was a genuine bond of affection. To George this brother was always, "Dear Jack," and when John married, George sends "respectful greetings to your Lady," and afterwards "love to the little ones from their Uncle." And in one of the dark hours of the Revolution, George writes from New Jersey to this brother: "God grant you health and happiness. Nothing in this world would add so to mine as to be near you." John died in Seventeen Hundred Eighty-seven, and the President of the United States writes in simple, undisguised grief of "the death of my beloved brother." John's eldest son, Bushrod, was Washington's favorite nephew. He took a lively interest in the boy's career, and taking him to Philadelphia placed him in the law-office of Judge James Wilson. He supplied Bushrod with funds, and wrote him many affectionate letters of advice, and several times made him a companion on journeys. The boy proved worthy of it all, and developed into a strong and manly man--quite the best of all Washington's kinsfolk. In later years, we find Washington asking his advice in legal matters and excusing himself for being such a "troublesome, non-paying client." In his will the "Honorable Bushrod Washington" is named as one of the executors, and to him Washington left his library and all his private papers, besides a share in the estate. Such confidence was a fitting good-by from the great and loving heart of a father to a son full worthy of the highest trust. Of Washington's relations with his brother Charles, we know but little. Charles was a plain, simple man who worked hard and raised a big family. In his will Washington remembers them all, and one of the sons of Charles we know was appointed to a position upon Lafayette's staff on Washington's request. The only one of Washington's family that resembled him closely was his sister Betty. The contour of her face was almost identical with his, and she was so proud of it that she often wore her hair in a queue and donned his hat and sword for the amusement of visitors. Betty married Fielding Lewis, and two of her sons acted as private secretaries to Washington while he was President. One of these sons--Lawrence Lewis--married Nellie Custis, the adopted daughter of Washington and granddaughter of Mrs. Washington, and the couple, by Washington's will, became part-owners of Mount Vernon. The man who can figure out the exact relationship of Nellie Custis' children to Washington deserves a medal. We do not know much of Washington's father: if he exerted any special influence on his children we do not know it. He died when George was eleven years old, and the boy then went to live at the "Hunting Creek Place" with his half-brother Lawrence, that he might attend school. Lawrence had served in the English navy under Admiral Vernon, and, in honor of his chief, changed the name of his home and called it Mount Vernon. Mount Vernon then consisted of twenty-five hundred acres, mostly a tangle of forest, with a small house and log stables. The tract had descended to Lawrence from his father, with provision that it should fall to George if Lawrence died without issue. Lawrence married, and when he died, aged thirty-two, he left a daughter, Mildred, who died two years later. Mount Vernon then passed to George Washington, aged twenty-one, but not without a protest from the widow of Lawrence, who evidently was paid not to take the matter into the courts. Washington owned Mount Vernon for forty-six years, just one-half of which time was given to the service of his country. It was the only place he ever called "home," and there he sleeps. * * * * * When Washington was fourteen, his schooldays were over. Of his youth we know but little. He was not precocious, although physically he developed early; but there was no reason why the neighbors should keep tab on him and record anecdotes. They had boys of their own just as promising. He was tall and slender, long-armed, with large, bony hands and feet, very strong, a daring horseman, a good wrestler, and, living on the banks of a river, he became, as all healthy boys must, a good swimmer. His mission among the Indians in his twenty-first year was largely successful through the personal admiration he excited among the savages. In poise, he was equal to their best, and ever being a bit proud, even if not vain, he dressed for the occasion in full Indian regalia, minus only the war-paint. The Indians at once recognized his nobility, and named him "Conotancarius"--Plunderer of Villages--and suggested that he take to wife an Indian maiden, and remain with them as chief. When he returned home, he wrote to the Indian agent, announcing his safe arrival and sending greetings to the Indians. "Tell them," he says, "how happy it would make Conotancarius to see them, and take them by the hand." His wish was gratified, for the Indians took him at his word, and fifty of them came to him, saying, "Since you could not come and live with us, we have come to live with you." They camped on the green in front of the residence, and proceeded to inspect every room in the house, tested all the whisky they could find, appropriated eatables, and were only induced to depart after all the bedclothes had been dyed red, and a blanket or a quilt presented to each. Throughout his life Washington had a very tender spot in his heart for women. At sixteen, he writes with all a youth's solemnity of "a hurt of the heart uncurable." And from that time forward there is ever some "Faire Mayde" to be seen in the shadow. In fact, Washington got along with women much better than with men; with men he was often diffident and awkward, illy concealing his uneasiness behind a forced dignity; but he knew that women admired him, and with them he was at ease. When he made that first Western trip, carrying a message to the French, he turns aside to call on the Indian princess, Aliguippa. In his journal, he says, "presented her a Blanket and a Bottle of Rum, which latter was thought the much best Present of the 2." In his expense-account we find items like these: "Treating the ladys 2 shillings." "Present for Polly 5 shillings." "My share for Music at the Dance 3 shillings." "Lost at Loo 5 shillings." In fact, like most Episcopalians, Washington danced and played cards. His favorite game seems to have been "Loo"; and he generally played for small stakes, and when playing with "the Ladys" usually lost, whether purposely or because otherwise absorbed, we know not. In Seventeen Hundred Fifty-six, he made a horseback journey on military business to Boston, stopping a week going and on the way back at New York. He spent the time at the house of a former Virginian, Beverly Robinson, who had married Susannah Philipse, daughter of Frederick Philipse, one of the rich men of Manhattan. In the household was a young woman, Mary Philipse, sister of the hostess. She was older than Washington, educated, and had seen much more of polite life than he. The tall, young Virginian, fresh from the frontier, where he had had horses shot under him, excited the interest of Mary Philipse, and Washington, innocent but ardent, mistook this natural curiosity for a softer sentiment and proposed on the spot. As soon as the lady got her breath he was let down very gently. Two years afterwards Mary Philipse married Colonel Roger Morris, in the king's service, and cards were duly sent to Mount Vernon. But the whirligig of time equalizes all things, and, in Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six, General Washington, Commander of the Continental Army, occupied the mansion of Colonel Morris, the Colonel and his lady being fugitive Tories. In his diary, Washington records this significant item: "Dined at the house lately Colonel Roger Morris confiscated and the occupation of a common Farmer." Washington always attributed his defeat at the hands of Mary Philipse to being too precipitate and "not waiting until ye ladye was in ye mood." But two years later we find him being even more hasty and this time with success, which proves that all signs fail in dry weather, and some things are possible as well as others. He was on his way to Williamsburg to consult physicians and stopped at the residence of Mrs. Daniel Parke Custis to make a short call--was pressed to remain to tea, did so, proposed marriage, and was graciously accepted. We have a beautiful steel engraving that immortalizes this visit, showing Washington's horse impatiently waiting at the door. Mrs. Custis was a widow with two children. She was twenty-six, and the same age as Washington within three months. Her husband had died seven months before. In Washington's cash-account for May, Seventeen Hundred Fifty-eight, is an item, "one Engagement Ring £2.16.0." The happy couple were married eight months later, and we find Mrs. Washington explaining to a friend that her reason for the somewhat hasty union was that her estate was getting in a bad way and a man was needed to look after it. Our actions are usually right, but the reasons we give seldom are; but in this case no doubt "a man was needed," for the widow had much property, and we can not but congratulate Martha Custis on her choice of "a man." She owned fifteen thousand acres of land, many lots in the city of Williamsburg, two hundred negroes, and some money on bond; all the property being worth over one hundred thousand dollars--a very large amount for those days. Directly after the wedding, the couple moved to Mount Vernon, taking a good many of the slaves with them. Shortly after, arrangements were under way to rebuild the house, and the plans that finally developed into the present mansion were begun. Washington's letters and diary contain very few references to his wife, and none of the many visitors to Mount Vernon took pains to testify either to her wit or to her intellect. We know that the housekeeping at Mount Vernon proved too much for her ability, and that a woman was hired to oversee the household. And in this reference a complaint is found from the General that "housekeeper has done gone and left things in confusion." He had his troubles. Martha's education was not equal to writing a presentable letter, for we find that her husband wrote the first draft of all important missives that it was necessary for her to send, and she copied them even to his mistakes in spelling. Very patient was he about this, and even when he was President and harried constantly we find him stopping to acknowledge for her "an invitation to take some Tea," and at the bottom of the sheet adding a pious bit of finesse, thus: "The President requests me to send his compliments and only regrets that the pressure of affairs compels him to forego the Pleasure of seeing you." After Washington's death, his wife destroyed the letters he had written her--many hundred in number--an offense the world is not yet quite willing to forget, even though it has forgiven. * * * * * Although we have been told that when Washington was six years old he could not tell a lie, yet he afterwards partially overcame the disability. On one occasion he writes to a friend that the mosquitoes of New Jersey "can bite through the thickest boot," and though a contemporary clergyman, greatly flurried, explains that he meant "stocking," we insist that the statement shall stand as the Father of his Country expressed it. Washington also records without a blush, "I announced that I would leave at 8 and then immediately gave private Orders to go at 5, so to avoid the Throng." Another time when he discharged an overseer for incompetency he lessened the pain of parting by writing for the fellow "a Character." When he went to Boston and was named as Commander of the Army, his chief concern seemed to be how he would make peace with Martha. Ho! ye married men! do you understand the situation? He was to be away for a year, two, or possibly three, and his wife did not have an inkling of it. Now, he must break the news to her. As plainly shown by Cabot Lodge and other historians, there was much rivalry for the office, and it was only allotted to the South as a political deal after much bickering. Washington had been a passive but very willing candidate, and after a struggle his friends secured him the prize--and now what to do with Martha! Writing to her, among other things he says, "You may believe me, my dear Patsy, when I assure you in the most solemn manner that so far from seeking the appointment I have done all in my power to avoid it." The man who will not fabricate a bit in order to keep peace with the wife of his bosom is not much of a man. But "Patsy's" objections were overcome, and beyond a few chidings and sundry complainings, she did nothing to block the great game of war. At Princeton, Washington ordered campfires to be built along the brow of a hill for a mile, and when the fires were well lighted, he withdrew his army, marched around to the other side, and surprised the enemy at daylight. At Brooklyn, he used masked batteries, and presented a fierce row of round, black spots painted on canvas that, from the city, looked like the mouths of cannon at which men seek the bauble reputation. It is said he also sent a note threatening to fire these sham cannon, on receiving which the enemy hastily moved beyond range. Perceiving afterwards that they had been imposed upon, the brave English sent word to "shoot and be damned." Evidently, Washington considered that all things are fair in love and war. Washington talked but little, and his usual air was one of melancholy that stopped just short of sadness. All this, with the firmness of his features and the dignity of his carriage, gave the impression of sternness and severity. And these things gave rise to the popular conception that he had small sense of humor; yet he surely was fond of a quiet smile. At one time, Congress insisted that a standing army of five thousand men was too large; Washington replied that if England would agree never to invade this country with more than three thousand men, he would be perfectly willing that our army should be reduced to four thousand. When the King of Spain, knowing he was a farmer, thoughtfully sent him a present of a jackass, Washington proposed naming the animal in honor of the donor; and in writing to friends about the present, draws invidious comparisons between the gift and the giver. Evidently, the joke pleased him, for he repeats it in different letters; thus showing how, when he sat down to clear his desk of correspondence, he economized energy by following a form. So, we now find letters that are almost identical, even to jokes, sent to persons in South Carolina and in Massachusetts. Doubtless the good man thought they would never be compared, for how could he foresee that an autograph-dealer in New York would eventually catalog them at twenty-two dollars fifty cents each, or that a very proper but half-affectionate missive of his to a Faire Ladye would be sold by her great-granddaughter for fifty dollars? In Seventeen Hundred Ninety-three there were on the Mount Vernon plantation three hundred seventy head of cattle, and Washington appends to the report a sad regret that, with all this number of horned beasts, he yet has to buy butter. There is also a fine, grim humor shown in the incident of a flag of truce coming in at New York, bearing a message from General Howe, addressed to "Mr. Washington." The General took the letter from the hand of the redcoat, glanced at the superscription, and said: "Why, this letter is not for me! It is directed to a planter in Virginia. I'll keep it and give it to him at the end of the war." Then, cramming the letter into his pocket, he ordered the flag of truce out of the lines and directed the gunners to stand by. In an hour, another letter came back addressed to "His Excellency, General Washington." It was not long after this a soldier brought to Washington a dog that had been found wearing a collar with the name of General Howe engraved on it. Washington returned the dog by a special messenger with a note reading, "General Washington sends his compliments to General Howe, and begs to return one dog that evidently belongs to him." In this instance, I am inclined to think that Washington acted in sober good faith, but was the victim of a practical joke on the part of one of his aides. Another remark that sounds like a joke, but perhaps was not one, was when, on taking command of the army at Boston, the General writes to his lifelong friend, Doctor Craik, asking what he can do for him, and adding a sentiment still in the air: "But these Massachusetts people suffer nothing to go by them that they can lay their hands on." In another letter he pays his compliments to Connecticut thus: "Their impecunious meanness surpasses belief." When Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Washington refused to humiliate him and his officers by accepting their swords. He treated Cornwallis as his guest, and even "gave a dinner in his honor." At this dinner, Rochambeau being asked for a toast gave "The United States." Washington proposed "The King of France." Cornwallis merely gave "The King," and Washington, putting the toast, expressed it as Cornwallis intended, "The King of England," and added a sentiment of his own that made even Cornwallis laugh--"May he stay there!" Washington's treatment of Cornwallis made him a lifelong friend. Many years after, when Cornwallis was Governor-General of India, he sent a message to his old antagonist, wishing him "prosperity and enjoyment," and adding, "As for myself, I am yet in troubled waters." * * * * * Once in a century, possibly, a being is born who possesses a transcendent insight, and him we call a "genius." Shakespeare, for instance, to whom all knowledge lay open; Joan of Arc; the artist Turner; Swedenborg, the mystic--these are the men who know a royal road to geometry; but we may safely leave them out of account when we deal with the builders of a State, for among statesmen there are no geniuses. Nobody knows just what a genius is or what he may do next; he boils at an unknown temperature, and often explodes at a touch. He is uncertain and therefore unsafe. His best results are conjured forth, but no man has yet conjured forth a Nation--it is all slow, patient, painstaking work along mathematical lines. Washington was a mathematician and therefore not a genius. We call him a great man, but his greatness was of that sort in which we all can share; his virtues were of a kind that, in degree, we too may possess. Any man who succeeds in a legitimate business works with the same tools that Washington used. Washington was human. We know the man; we understand him; we comprehend how he succeeded, for with him there were no tricks, no legerdemain, no secrets. He is very near to us. Washington is indeed first in the hearts of his countrymen. Washington has no detractors. There may come a time when another will take first place in the affections of the people, but that time is not yet ripe. Lincoln stood between men who now live and the prizes they coveted; thousands still tread the earth whom he benefited, and neither class can forgive, for they are of clay. But all those who lived when Washington lived are gone; not one survives; even the last body-servant, who confused memory with hearsay, has departed babbling to his rest. We know all of Washington we will ever know; there are no more documents to present, no partisan witnesses to examine, no prejudices to remove. His purity of purpose stands unimpeached; his steadfast earnestness and sterling honesty are our priceless examples. We love the man. We call him Father. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN I will speak ill of no man, not even in matter of truth; but rather excuse the faults I hear charged upon others, and upon proper occasion speak all the good I know of everybody. --_Franklin's Journal_ [Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN] Benjamin Franklin was twelve years old. He was large and strong and fat and good-natured, and had a full-moon face and red cheeks that made him look like a country bumpkin. He was born in Boston within twenty yards of the church called "Old South," but the Franklins now lived at the corner of Congress and Hanover Streets, where to this day there swings in the breeze a gilded ball, and on it the legend, "Josiah Franklin, Soap-Boiler." Benjamin was the fifteenth child in the family; and several having grown to maturity and flown, there were thirteen at the table when little Ben first sat in the high chair. But the Franklins were not superstitious, and if little Ben ever prayed that another would be born, just for luck, we know nothing of it. His mother loved him very much and indulged him in many ways, for he was always her baby boy, but the father thought that because he was good-natured he was also lazy and should be disciplined. Once upon a time the father was packing a barrel of beef in the cellar, and Ben was helping him, and as the father always said grace at table, the boy suggested he ask a blessing, once for all, on the barrel of beef and thus economize breath. But economics along that line did not appeal to Josiah Franklin, for this was early in Seventeen Hundred Eighteen, and Josiah was a Presbyterian and lived in Boston. The boy was not religious, for he never "went forward," and only went to church because he had to, and read "Plutarch's Lives" with much more relish than he did "Saints' Rest." But he had great curiosity and asked questions until his mother would say, "Goodness gracious, go and play!" And as the boy wasn't very religious or very fond of work, his father and mother decided that there were only two careers open for him: the mother proposed that he be made a preacher, but his father said, send him to sea. To go to sea under a good strict captain would discipline him, and to send him off and put him under the care of the Reverend Doctor Thirdly would answer the same purpose--which course should be pursued? But Pallas Athene, who was to watch over this lad's destinies all through life, preserved him from either. His parents' aspirations extended even to his becoming captain of a schooner or pastor of the First Church at Roxbury. And no doubt he could have sailed the schooner around the globe in safety, or filled the pulpit with a degree of power that would have caused consternation to reign in the heart of every other preacher in town; but Fate saved him that he might take the Ship of State, when she threatened to strand on the rocks of adversity, and pilot her into peaceful waters, and to preach such sermons to America that their eloquence still moves us to better things. Parents think that what they say about their children goes, and once in an awfully long time it does, but the men who become great and learned usually do so in spite of their parents--which remark was first made by Martin Luther, but need not be discredited on that account. Ben's oldest brother was James. Now, James was nearly forty; he was tall and slender, stooped a little, and had sandy whiskers, and a nervous cough, and positive ideas on many subjects--one of which was that he was a printer. His apprentice, or "devil," had left him, because the devil did not like to be cuffed whenever the compositor shuffled his fonts. James needed another apprentice, and proposed to take his younger brother and make a man of him if the old folks were willing. The old folks were willing and Ben was duly bound by law to his brother, agreeing to serve him faithfully, as Jacob served Laban, for seven years and two years more. Science has explained many things, but it has not yet told why it sometimes happens that when seventeen eggs are hatched, the brood will consist of sixteen barnyard fowls and one eagle. James Franklin was a man of small capacity, whimsical, jealous and arbitrary. But if he cuffed his apprentice Benjamin when the compositor blundered, and when he didn't, it was his legal right; and the master who did not occasionally kick his apprentices was considered derelict to duty. The boy ran errands, cleaned the presses, swept the shop, tied up bundles, did the tasks that no one else would do; and incidentally "learned the case." Then he set type, and after a while ran a press. And in those days a printer ranked considerably above a common mechanic. A man who was a printer was a literary man, as were the master printers of London and Venice. A printer was a man of taste. All editors were printers, and usually composed the matter as they set it up in type. Thus we now have the expressions: a "composing-room," a "composing-stick," etc. People once addressed "Mr. Printer," not "Mr. Editor," and when they met "Mr. Printer" on the street removed their hats--but not in Philadelphia. Young Franklin felt a proper degree of pride in his work, if not vanity. In fact, he himself has said that vanity is a good thing, and whenever he saw it come flaunting down the street, always made way, knowing that there was virtue somewhere back of it--out of sight perhaps, but still there. James, being a brother, had no confidence in Ben's intellect, so when Ben wrote short articles on this and that, he tucked them under the door so that James would find them in the morning. James showed these articles to his friends, and they all voted them very fine, and concluded they must have been written by Doctor So-and-So, Ph.D., who, like Lord Bacon, was a very modest man and did not care to see his name in print. Yet, by and by, it came out who it was that wrote the anonymous "hot stuff," and then James did not think it was quite so good as he at first thought, and moreover, declared he knew whose it was all the time. Ben was eighteen and had read Montaigne, and Collins, and Shaftesbury, and Hume. When he wrote he expressed thoughts that then were considered very dreadful, but that can now be heard proclaimed even in good orthodox churches. But Ben had wit and to spare, and he leveled it at government officials and preachers, and these gentlemen did not relish the jokes--people seldom relish jokes at their own expense--and they sought to suppress the newspaper that the Franklin brothers published. The blame for all the trouble James heaped upon Benjamin, and all the credit for success he took to himself. James declared that Ben had the big head--and he probably was right; but he forgot that the big head, like mumps and measles and everything else in life, is self-limiting and good in its way. So, to teach Ben his proper place, James reminded him that he was only an apprentice, with three years yet to serve, and that he should be seen seldom and not heard all the time, and that if he ran away he would send a constable after him and fetch him back. Ben evidently had a mind open to suggestive influences, for the remark about running away prompted him to do so. He sold some of his books and got himself secreted on board a ship about to sail for New York. Arriving at New York, in three days he found the broad-brimmed Dutch had small use for printers and no special admiration for the art preservative; and he started for Philadelphia. Every one knows how he landed in a small boat at the foot of Market Street with only a few coppers in his pocket, and made his way to a bakeshop and asked for a threepenny loaf of bread, and being told they had no threepenny loaves, then asked for threepenny's worth of any kind of bread, and was given three loaves. Where is the man who in a strange land has not suffered rather than reveal his ignorance before a shopkeeper? When I was first in England and could not compute readily in shillings and pence, I would toss out a gold piece when I made a purchase and assume a 'igh and 'aughty mien. And that Philadelphia baker probably died in blissful ignorance of the fact that the youth who was to be America's pride bought from him three loaves of bread when he wanted only one. The runaway Ben had a downy beard all over his face, and as he took his three loaves and walked up Market Street, with a loaf under each arm, munching on the third, he was smiled upon in merry mirth by the buxom Deborah Read, as she stood in the doorway of her father's house. Yet Franklin got even with her, for some months after, he went back that way and courted her, grew to love him, and they "exchanged promises," he says. After some months of work and love-making, Franklin sailed away to England on a wild-goose chase. He promised to return soon and make Deborah his wife. But he wrote only one solitary letter to the broken-hearted girl and did not come back for nearly two years. * * * * * Time is the great avenger as well as educator; only the education is usually deferred until it no longer avails in this incarnation, and is valuable only for advice--and nobody wants advice. Deathbed repentances may be legal-tender for salvation in another world, but for this they are below par, and regeneration that is postponed until the man has no further capacity to sin is little better. For sin is only perverted power, and the man without capacity to sin neither has ability to do good--isn't that so? His soul is a Dead Sea that supports neither ameba nor fish, neither noxious bacilli nor useful life. Happy is the man who conserves his God-given power until wisdom and not passion shall direct it. So, the younger in life a man makes the resolve to turn and live, the better for that man and the better for the world. Once upon a time Carlyle took Milburn, the blind preacher, out on to Chelsea embankment and showed the sightless man where Franklin plunged into the Thames and swam to Blackfriars Bridge. "He might have stayed here," said Thomas Carlyle, "and become a swimming-teacher, but God had other work for him!" Franklin had many opportunities to stop and become a victim of arrested development, but he never embraced the occasion. He could have stayed in Boston and been a humdrum preacher, or a thrifty sea-captain, or an ordinary printer; or he could have remained in London, and been, like his friend Ralph, a clever writer of doggerel, and a supporter of the political party that would pay the most. Benjamin Franklin was twenty years old when he returned from England. The ship was beaten back by headwinds and blown out of her course by blizzards, and becalmed at times, so it took eighty-two days to make the voyage. A worthy old clergyman tells me this was so ordained and ordered that Benjamin might have time to meditate on the follies of youth and shape his course for the future, and I do not argue the case, for I am quite willing to admit that my friend, the clergyman, has the facts. Yes, we must be "converted," "born again," "regenerated," or whatever you may be pleased to call it. Sometimes--very often--it is love that reforms a man, sometimes sickness, sometimes sore bereavement. Doctor Talmage says that with Saint Paul it was a sunstroke, and this may be so, for surely Saul of Tarsus on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians was not in love. Love forgives to seventy times seven and persecutes nobody. We do not know just what it was that turned Franklin; he had tried folly--we know that--and he just seems to have anticipated Browning and concluded: "It's wiser being good than bad; It's safer being meek than fierce; It's better being sane than mad." On this voyage the young printer was thrust down into the depths and made to wrestle with the powers of darkness; and in the remorse of soul that came over him he made a liturgy to be repeated night and morning, and at midday. There were many items in this ritual--all of which were corrected and amended from time to time in after-years. Here are a few paragraphs that represent the longings and trend of the lad's heart. His prayer was: "That I may have tenderness for the meek; that I may be kind to my neighbors, good-natured to my companions and hospitable to strangers. Help me, O God! "That I may be averse to craft and overreaching, abhor extortion and every kind of weakness and wickedness. Help me, O God! "That I may have constant regard to honor and probity; that I may possess an innocent and good conscience, and at length become truly virtuous and magnanimous. Help me, O God! "That I may refrain from calumny and detraction; that I may abhor deceit, and avoid lying, envy and fraud, flattery, hatred, malice and ingratitude. Help me, O God!". Then, in addition, he formed rules of conduct and wrote them out and committed them to memory. The maxims he adopted are old as thought, yet can never become antiquated, for in morals there is nothing either new or old, neither can there be. On that return voyage from England, he inwardly vowed that his first act on getting ashore would be to find Deborah Read and make peace with her and his conscience. And true to his vow, he found her, but she was the wife of another. Her mother believed that Franklin had run away simply to get rid of her, and the poor girl, dazed and forlorn, bereft of will, had been induced to marry a man by the name of Rogers, who was a potter and also a potterer, but who Franklin says was "a very good potter." After some months, Deborah left the potter, because she did not like to be reproved with a strap, and went home to her mother. Franklin was now well in the way of prosperity, aged twenty-four, with a little printing business, plans plus, and ambitions to spare. He had had his little fling in life, and had done various things of which he was ashamed; and the foolish things that Deborah had done were no worse than those of which he had been guilty. So he called on her, and they talked it over and made honest confessions that are good for the soul. The potter disappeared--no one knew where--some said he was dead, but Benjamin and Deborah did not wear mourning. They took rumor's word for it, and thanked God, and went to a church and were married. Deborah brought to the firm a very small dowry; and Benjamin contributed a bright baby boy, aged two years, captured no one knows just where. This boy was William Franklin, who grew up into a very excellent man, and the worst that can be said of him is that he became Governor of New Jersey. He loved and respected his father, and called Deborah mother, and loved her very much. And she was worthy of all love, and ever treated him with tenderness and gentlest considerate care. Possibly a blot on the 'scutcheon may, in the working of God's providence, not always be a dire misfortune, for it sometimes has the effect of binding broken hearts as nothing else can, as a cicatrice toughens the fiber. Deborah had not much education, but she had good, sturdy commonsense, which is better if you are forced to make choice. She set herself to help her husband in every way possible, and so far as I know, never sighed for one of those things you call "a career." She even worked in the printing-office, folding, stitching, and doing up bundles. Long years afterward, when Franklin was Ambassador of the American Colonies in France, he told with pride that the clothes he wore were spun, woven, cut out, and made into garments--all by his wife's own hands. Franklin's love for Deborah was very steadfast. Together they became rich and respected, won world-wide fame, and honors came that way such as no American before or since has ever received. And when I say, "God bless all good women who help men do their work," I simply repeat the words once used by Benjamin Franklin when he had Deborah in mind. * * * * * When Franklin was forty-two, he had accumulated a fortune of seventy-five thousand dollars. It gave him an income of about four thousand dollars a year, which he said was all he wanted; so he sold out his business, intending to devote his entire energies to the study of science and languages. He had lived just one-half his days; and had he then passed out, his life could have been summed up as one of the most useful that ever has been lived. He had founded and been the life of the Junto Club--the most sensible and beneficent club of which I ever heard. The series of questions asked at every meeting of the Junto, so mirror the life and habit of thought of Franklin that we had better glance at a few of them: 1. Have you read over these queries this morning, in order to consider what you might have to offer the Junto, touching any one of them? 2. Have you met with anything in the author you last read, remarkable, or suitable to be communicated to the Junto; particularly in history, morality, poetry, physics, travels, mechanical arts, or other parts of knowledge? 3. Do you know of a fellow-citizen, who has lately done a worthy action, deserving praise and imitation; or who has lately committed an error, proper for us to be warned against and avoid? 4. What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately observed or heard; of imprudence, of passion, or of any other vice or folly? 5. What happy effects of temperance, of prudence, of moderation, or of any other virtue? 6. Do you think of anything at present in which the members of the Junto may be serviceable to mankind, to their country, to their friends, or to themselves? 7. Hath any deserving stranger arrived in town since last meeting that you have heard of? And what have you heard or observed of his character or merits? And whether, think you, it lies in the power of the Junto to oblige him, or encourage him as he deserves? 8. Do you know of any deserving young beginner, lately set up, whom it lies in the power of the Junto in any way to encourage? 9. Have you lately observed any defect in the laws of your country, of which it would be proper to move the legislature for an amendment? Or do you know of any beneficial law that is wanting? 10. Have you lately observed any encroachment on the just liberties of the people? 11. In what manner can the Junto, or any of its members, assist you in any of your honorable designs? 12. Have you any weighty affair on hand in which you think the advice of the Junto may be of service? 13. What benefits have you lately received from any man not present? 14. Is there any difficulty in matters of opinion, of justice and injustice, which you would gladly have discussed at this time? The Junto led to the establishment, by Franklin, of the Philadelphia Public Library, which became the parent of all public libraries in America. He also organized and equipped a fire-company; paved and lighted the streets of Philadelphia; established a high school and an academy for the study of English branches; founded the Philadelphia Public Hospital; invented the toggle-joint printing-press, the Franklin Stove, and various other useful mechanical devices. After his retirement from business, Franklin enjoyed seven years of what he called leisure, but they were years of study and application; years of happiness and sweet content, but years of aspiration and an earnest looking into the future. His experiments with kite and key had made his name known in all the scientific circles of Europe, and his suggestive writings on the subject of electricity had caused Goethe to lay down his pen and go to rubbing amber for the edification of all Weimar. Franklin was in correspondence with the greatest minds of Europe, and what his "Poor Richard Almanac" had done for the plain people of America, his pamphlets were now doing for the philosophers of the Old World. In Seventeen Hundred Fifty-four, he wrote a treatise showing the Colonies that they must be united, and this was the first public word that was to grow and crystallize and become the United States of America. Before that, the Colonies were simply single, independent, jealous and bickering overgrown clans. Franklin showed for the first time that they must unite in mutual aims. In Seventeen Hundred Fifty-seven, matters were getting a little strained between the Province of Pennsylvania and England. "The lawmakers of England do not understand us--some one should go there as an authorized agent to plead our cause," and Franklin was at once chosen as the man of strongest personality and soundest sense. So Franklin went to England and remained there for five years as agent for the Colonies. He then returned home, but after two years the Stamp Act had stirred up the public temper to a degree that made revolution imminent, and Franklin again went to England to plead for justice. The record of the ten years he now spent in London is told by Bancroft in a hundred pages. Bancroft is very good, and! have no desire to rival him, so suffice it to say that Franklin did all that any man could have done to avert the coming War of the Revolution. Burke has said that when he appeared before Parliament to be examined as to the condition of things in America, it was like a lot of schoolboys interrogating the master. With the voice and tongue of a prophet, Franklin foretold the English people what the outcome of their treatment of America would be. Pitt and a few others knew the greatness of Franklin, and saw that he was right, but the rest smiled in derision. He sailed for home in Seventeen Hundred Seventy-five, and urged the Continental Congress to the Declaration of Independence, of which he became a signer. Then the war came, and had not Franklin gone to Paris and made an ally of France, and borrowed money, the Continental Army could not have been maintained in the field. He remained in France for nine years, and was the pride and pet of the people. His sound sense, his good humor, his distinguished personality, gave him the freedom of society everywhere. He had the ability to adapt himself to conditions, and was everywhere at home. Once, he attended a memorable banquet in Paris shortly after the close of the Revolutionary War. Among the speakers was the English Ambassador, who responded to the toast, "Great Britain." The Ambassador dwelt at length on England's greatness, and likened her to the sun that sheds its beneficent rays on all. The next toast was "America," and Franklin was called on to respond. He began very modestly by saying: "The Republic is too young to be spoken of in terms of praise; her career is yet to come, and so, instead of America, I will name you a man, George Washington--the Joshua who successfully commanded the sun to stand still." The Frenchmen at the board forgot the courtesy due their English guest, and laughed needlessly loud. Franklin was regarded in Paris as the man who had both planned the War of the Revolution, and fought it. They said, "He despoiled the thunderbolt of its danger and snatched sovereignty out of the hand of King George of England." No doubt that his ovation was largely owing to the fact that he was supposed to have plucked whole handfuls of feathers from England's glory, and surely they were pretty nearly right. In point of all-round development, Franklin must stand as the foremost American. The one intent of his mind was to purify his own spirit, to develop his intellect on every side, and make his body the servant of his soul. His passion was to acquire knowledge, and the desire of his heart was to communicate it. The writings of Franklin--simple, clear, concise, direct, impartial, brimful of commonsense--form a model which may be studied by every one with pleasure and profit. They should constitute a part of the curriculum of every college and high school that aspires to cultivate in its pupils a pure style and correct literary taste. We know of no man who ever lived a fuller life, a happier life, a life more useful to other men, than Benjamin Franklin. For forty-two years he gave the constant efforts of his life to his country, and during all that time no taint of a selfish action can be laid to his charge. Almost his last public act was to petition Congress to pass an act for the abolition of slavery. He died in Seventeen Hundred Ninety, and as you walk up Arch Street, Philadelphia, only a few squares from the spot where stood his printing-shop, you can see the place where he sleeps. The following epitaph, written by himself, not, however, appear on the simple monument that marks his grave: The Body of Benjamin Franklin, Printer (Like the cover of an old book, Its contents torn out, And stripped of its lettering and gilding,) Lies here food for worms. Yet the work itself shall not be lost, For it will (as he believes) appear once more In a new And more beautiful Edition Corrected and Amended By The Author. THOMAS JEFFERSON If I could not go to Heaven but with a Party, I would not go there at all. --Jefferson, in a Letter to Madison [Illustration: THOMAS JEFFERSON] William and Mary College was founded in Sixteen Hundred Ninety-two by the persons whose names it bears. The founders bestowed on it an endowment that would have been generous had there not been attached to it sundry strings in way of conditions. The intent was to make Indians Episcopalians, and white students clergymen; and the assumption being that between the whites and the aborigines there was little difference, the curriculum was an ecclesiastic medley. All the teachers were appointed by the Bishop of London, and the places were usually given to clergymen who were not needed in England. To this college, in Seventeen Hundred Sixty, came Thomas Jefferson, a tall, red-haired youth, aged seventeen. He had a sharp nose and a sharp chin; and a youth having these has a sharp intellect--mark it well. This boy had not been "sent" to college. He came of his own accord from his home at Shadwell, five days' horseback journey through the woods. His father was dead, and his mother, a rare gentle soul, was an invalid. Death is not a calamity "per se," nor is physical weakness necessarily a curse, for out of these seeming unkind conditions Nature often distils her finest products. The dying injunction of a father may impress itself upon a son as no example of right living ever can, and the physical disability of a mother may be the means that work for excellence and strength. The last-expressed wish of Peter Jefferson was that his son should be well educated, and attain to a degree of useful manliness that the father had never reached. And into the keeping of this fourteen-year-old youth the dying man, with the last flicker of his intellect, gave the mother, sisters and baby brother. We often hear of persons who became aged in a single night, their hair turning from dark to white; but I have seen death thrust responsibility upon a lad and make of him a man between the rising of the sun and its setting. When we talk of "right environment" and the "proper conditions" that should surround growing youth, we fan the air with words--there is no such thing as a universal right environment. An appreciative chapter might here be inserted concerning those beings who move about only in rolling chairs, who never see the winter landscape but through windows, and who exert their gentle sway from an invalid's couch, to which the entire household or neighborhood come to confession or to counsel. And yet I have small sympathy for the people who professionally enjoy poor health, and no man more than I reverences the Greek passion for physical perfection. But a close study of Jefferson's early life reveals the truth that the death of his father and the physical weakness of his mother and sisters were factors that developed in him a gentle sense of chivalry, a silken strength of will, and a habit of independent thought and action that served him in good stead throughout a long life. Williamsburg was then the capital of Virginia. It contained only about a thousand inhabitants, but when the Legislature was in session it was very gay. At one end of a wide avenue was the Capitol, and at the other the Governor's "palace"; and when the city of Washington was laid out, Williamsburg served as a model. On Saturdays, there were horse-races on the "Avenue"; everybody gambled; cockfights and dogfights were regarded as manly diversions; there was much carousing at taverns; and often at private houses there were all-night dances where the rising sun found everybody but the servants plain drunk. At the college, both teachers and scholars were obliged to subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles and to recite the Catechism. The atmosphere was charged with theology. Young Jefferson had never before seen a village of even a dozen houses, and he looked upon this as a type of all cities. He thought about it, talked about it, wrote about it, and we now know that at this time his ideas concerning city versus country crystallized. Fifty years after, when he had come to know London and Paris, and had seen the chief cities of Christendom, he repeated the words he had written in youth, "The hope of a nation lies in its tillers of the soil!" On his mother's side he was related to the "first families," but aristocracy and caste had no fascination for him, and he then began forming those ideas of utility, simplicity and equality that time only strengthened. His tutors and professors served chiefly as "horrible examples," with the shining exception of Doctor Small. The friendship that ripened between this man and young Jefferson is an ideal example of what can be done through the personal touch. Men are great only as they excel in sympathy; and the difference between sympathy and imagination has not yet been shown us. Doctor Small encouraged the young farmer from the hills to think and to express himself. He did not endeavor to set him straight or explain everything for him, or correct all his vagaries, or demand that he should memorize rules. He gave his affectionate sympathy to the boy who, with a sort of feminine tenderness, clung to the only person who understood him. To Doctor Small, pedigree and history unknown, let us give the credit of being first in the list of friends that gave bent to the mind of Jefferson. John Burke, in his "History of Virginia," refers to Professor Small thus: "He was not any too orthodox in his opinions." And here we catch a glimpse of a formative influence in the life of Jefferson that caused him to turn from the letter of the law and cleave to the spirit that maketh alive. After school-hours the tutor and the student walked and talked, and on Saturdays and Sundays went on excursions through the woods; and to the youth there was given an impulse for a scientific knowledge of birds and flowers and the host of life that thronged the forest. And when the pair had strayed so far beyond the town that darkness gathered and the stars came out, they conversed of the wonders of the sky. The true scientist has no passion for killing things. He says with Thoreau, "To shoot a bird is to lose it." Professor Small had the gentle instinct that respects life, and he refused to take that which he could not give. To his youthful companion he imparted, in a degree, the secret of enjoying things without the passion for possession and the lust of ownership. There is a myth abroad that college towns are intellectual centers; but the number of people in a college town (or any other) who really think, is very few. Williamsburg was gay, and, this much said, it is needless to add it was not intellectual. But Professor Small was a thinker, and so was Governor Fauquier; and these two were firm friends, although very unlike in many ways. And to "the palace" of the courtly Fauquier, Small took his young friend Jefferson. Fauquier was often a master of the revels, but after his seasons of dissipation he turned to Small for absolution and comfort. At these times he seemed to Jefferson a paragon of excellence. To the grace of the French he added the earnestness of the English. He quoted Pope, and talked of Swift, Addison and Thomson. Fauquier and Jefferson became friends, although more than a score of years and a world of experience separated them. Jefferson caught a little of Fauquier's grace, love of books and delight in architecture. But Fauquier helped him most by gambling away all his ready money and getting drunk and smoking strong pipes with his feet on the table. And Jefferson then vowed he would never handle a card, nor use tobacco, nor drink intoxicating liquors. And in conversation with Small, he anticipated Buckle by saying, "To gain leisure, wealth must first be secured; but once leisure is gained, more people use it in the pursuit of pleasure than employ it in acquiring knowledge." * * * * * Had Jefferson lived in a great city he would have been an architect. His practical nature, his mastery of mathematics, his love of proportion, and his passion for music are the basic elements that make a Christopher Wren. But Virginia, in Seventeen Hundred Sixty-five, offered no temptation to ambitions along that line; log houses with a goodly "crack" were quite good enough, and if the domicile proved too small the plan of the first was simply duplicated. Yet a career of some kind young Jefferson knew awaited him. About this time the rollicking Patrick Henry came along. Patrick played the violin, and so did Thomas. These two young men had first met on a musical basis. Some otherwise sensible people hold that musicians are shallow and impractical; and I know one man who declares that truth and honesty and uprightness never dwelt in a professional musician's heart; and further, that the tribe is totally incapable of comprehending the difference between "meum" and "tuum." But then this same man claims that actors are rascals who have lost their own characters in the business of playing they are somebody else. And yet I'll explain for the benefit of the captious that, although Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry both fiddled, they never did and never would fiddle while Rome burned. Music was with them a pastime, not a profession. As soon as Patrick Henry arrived at Williamsburg, he sought out his old friend Thomas Jefferson, because he liked him--and to save tavern bill. And Patrick announced that he had come to Williamsburg to be admitted to the bar. "How long have you studied law?" asked Jefferson. "Oh, for six weeks last Tuesday," was the answer. Tradition has it that Jefferson advised Patrick to go home and study at least a fortnight more before making his application. But Patrick declared that the way to learn law is to practise it, and he surely was right. Most young lawyers are really never aware of how little law they know until they begin to practise. But Patrick Henry was duly admitted, although George Wythe protested. Then Patrick went back home to tend bar (the other kind) for Laban, his father-in-law, for full four years. He studied hard and practised a little betimes--and his is the only instance that history records of a barkeeper acquiring wisdom while following his calling; but for the encouragement of budding youth I write it down. * * * * * No doubt it was the example of Patrick Henry that caused Jefferson to adopt his profession. But it was the literary side of law that first attracted him--not the practise of it. As a speaker he was singularly deficient, a slight physical malformation of the throat giving him a very poor and uncertain voice. But he studied law, and after all it does not make much difference what a man studies--all knowledge is related, and the man who studies anything if he keeps at it will become learned. So Jefferson studied in the office of George Wythe, and absorbed all that Fauquier had to offer, and grew wise in the companionship of Doctor Small. From a red-headed, lean, lank, awkward mountaineer, he developed into a gracious and graceful young man who has been described as "auburn-haired." And the evolution from being red-headed to having red hair, and from that to being auburn-haired, proves he was the genuine article. Still he was hot handsome--that word can not be used to describe him until he was sixty--for he was freckled, one shoulder wets higher than the other, and his legs were so thin that they could not do justice to small-clothes. Yet it will not do to assume that thin men are weak, any more than to take it for granted that fat men are strong. Jefferson was as muscular as a panther and could walk or ride or run six days and nights together. He could lift from the floor a thousand pounds. When twenty-four, he hung out his lawyer's sign under that of George Wythe at Williamsburg. And clients came that way with retainers, and rich planters sent him business, and wealthy widows advised with him--and still he could not make a speech without stuttering. Many men can harangue a jury, and every village has its orator; but where is the wise and silent man who will advise you in a way that will keep you out of difficulty, protect your threatened interests, and conduct the affairs you may leave in his hands so as to return your ten talents with other talents added! And I hazard the statement, without heat or prejudice, that if the experiment should be made with a thousand lawyers in any one of our larger cities, four-fifths of them would be found so deficient, either mentally, morally or both, that if ten talents were placed in their hands, they would not at the close of a year be able to account for the principal, to say nothing of the interest. And the bar of today is made up of a better class than it was in Jefferson's time, even if it has not the intellectual fiber that it had forty years ago. But at the early age of twenty-five, Jefferson was a wise and skilful man in the world's affairs (and a man who is wise is also honest), and men of this stamp do not remain hidden in obscurity. The world needs just such individuals and needs them badly. Jefferson had the quiet, methodical industry that works without undue expenditure of nervous force; that intuitive talent which enables the possessor to read a whole page at a glance and drop at once upon the vital point; and then he had the ability to get his whole case on paper, marshaling his facts in a brief, pointed way that served to convince better than eloquence. These are the characteristics that make for success in practise before our Courts of Appeal; and Jefferson's success shows that they serve better than bluster, even with a backwoods bench composed of fox-hunting farmers. In Seventeen Hundred Sixty-eight, when Jefferson was twenty-five, he went down to Shadwell and ran for member of the Virginia Legislature. It was the proper thing to do, for he was the richest man in the county, being heir to his father's forty thousand acres, and it was expected that he would represent his district. He called on every voter in the parish, shook hands with everybody, complimented the ladies, caressed the babies, treated crowds at every tavern, and kept a large punch-bowl and open house at home. He was elected. On the Eleventh of May, Seventeen Hundred Sixty-nine, the Legislature convened, with nearly a hundred members present, Colonel George Washington being one of the number. It took two days for the Assembly to elect a Speaker and get ready for business. On the third day, four resolutions were introduced--pushed to the front largely through the influence of our new member. These resolutions were: 1. No taxation without representation. 2. The Colonies may concur and unite in seeking redress for grievances. 3. Sending accused persons away from their own country for trial is an inexcusable wrong. 4. We will send an address on these things to the King beseeching his royal interposition. The resolutions were passed: they did not mean much anyway, the opposition said. And then another resolution was passed to this effect: "We will send a copy of these resolutions to every legislative body on the continent." That was a little stronger, but did not mean much either. It was voted upon and passed. Then the Assembly adjourned, having dispatched a copy of the resolutions to Lord Boutetourt, the newly appointed Governor who had just arrived from London. Next day, the Governor's secretary appeared when the Assembly convened, and repeated the following formula: "The Governor commands the House to attend His Excellency in the Council-Chamber." The members marched to the Council-Chamber and stood around the throne waiting the pleasure of His Lordship. He made a speech which I will quote entire. "Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the House of Burgesses: I have heard your resolves, and augur ill of their effect. You have made it my duty to dissolve you, and you are dissolved accordingly." And that was the end of Jefferson's first term in office--the reward for all the hand-shaking, all the caressing, all the treating! The members looked at one another, but no one said anything, because there was nothing to say. The secretary made an impatient gesture with his hand to the effect that they should disperse, and they did. Just how these legally elected representatives and now legally common citizens took their rebuff we do not know. Did Washington forget his usual poise and break out into one of those swearing fits where everybody wisely made way? And how did Richard Henry Lee like it, and George Wythe, and the Randolphs? Did Patrick Henry wax eloquent that afternoon in a barroom, and did Jefferson do more than smile grimly, biding his time? Massachusetts kept a complete history of her political heresies, but Virginia chased foxes and left the refinements of literature to dilettantes. But this much we know: Those country gentlemen did not go off peaceably and quietly to race horses or play cards. The slap in the face from the gloved hand of Lord Boutetourt awoke every boozy sense of security and gave vitality to all fanatical messages sent by Samuel Adams. Washington, we are told, spoke of it as a bit of upstart authority on the part of the new Governor; but Jefferson with true prophetic vision saw the end. * * * * * One of the leading lawyers at Williamsburg, against whom Jefferson was often pitted, was John Wayles. I need not explain that lawyers hotly opposed to each other in a trial are not necessarily enemies. The way in which Jefferson conducted his cases pleased the veteran Wayles, and he invited Jefferson to visit him at his fine estate, called "The Forest," a few miles out from Williamsburg. Now, in the family of Mr. Wayles dwelt his widowed daughter, the beautiful Martha Skelton, gracious and rich as Jefferson in worldly goods. She played the spinet with great feeling, and the spinet and the violin go very well together. So, together, Thomas and Martha played, and sometimes a bit of discord crept in, for Thomas was absent-minded and, in the business of watching the widow's fingers touch the keys, played flat. Long years before, he had liked and admired Becca, gazed fondly at Sukey, and finally loved Belinda. He did not tell her so, but he told John Page, and vowed that if he did not wed Belinda he would go through life solitary and alone. In a few months Belinda married that detested being--another. Then it was he again swore to his friend Page he would be true to her memory, even though she had dissembled. But now he saw that the widow Skelton had intellect, while Belinda had been but clever; the widow had soul, while Belinda had nothing but form. Jefferson's experience seems to settle that mooted question, "Can a man love two women at the same time?" Unlike Martha Custis, this Martha was won only after a protracted wooing, with many skirmishes and occasional misunderstandings and explanations, and sweet makings-up that were surely worth a quarrel. Then they were married at "The Forest," and rode away through the woods to Monticello. Jefferson was twenty-seven, and although it may not be proper to question closely as to the age of the widow, yet the bride, we have reason to believe, was about the age of her husband. It was a most happy mating--all their quarreling had been done before marriage. The fine intellect and high spirit of Jefferson found their mate. She was his comrade and helpmeet as well as his wife. He could read his favorite Ossian aloud to her, and when he tired she would read to him; and all his plans and ambitions and hopes were hers. In laying out the grounds and beautifying that home on Monticello mountain, she took much more than a passive interest. It was "Our Home," and to make it a home in very sooth for her beloved husband was her highest ambition. She knew the greatness of her mate, and all the dreams she had for his advancement were to come true. With her, ideality was to become reality. But she was to see it only in part. Yet she had seen her husband re-elected to the Virginia Legislature; sent as a member to the Colonial Congress at Philadelphia, there to write the best known of all American literary productions; from their mountain home she had seen British troops march into Charlottesville, four miles away, and then, with household treasure, had fled, knowing that beautiful Monticello would be devastated by the enemy's ruthless tread. She had known Washington, and had visited his lonely wife there at Mount Vernon when victory hung in the balance; when defeat meant that Thomas Jefferson and George Washington would be the first victims of a vengeful foe. She saw her husband War-Governor of Virginia in its most perilous hour; she lived to know that Washington had won; that Cornwallis was his "guest," and that no man, save Washington alone, was more honored in proud Virginia than her beloved lord and husband. She saw a messenger on horseback approach bearing a packet from the Congress at Philadelphia to the effect that "His Excellency, the Honorable Thomas Jefferson," had been appointed as one of an embassy to France in the interests of the United States, with Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane as colleagues, and, knowing her husband's love for Franklin, and his respect for France, she leaned over his chair and with misty eyes saw him write his simple "No," and knew that the only reason he declined was because he would not leave his wife at a time when she might most need his tenderness and sympathy. And then they retired to beloved Monticello to enjoy the rest that comes only after work well done--to spend the long vacation of their lives in simple homekeeping work and studious leisure, her husband yet in manhood's prime, scarce thirty-seven, as men count time, and rich, passing rich, in goods and lands. And then she died. And Thomas Jefferson, the strong, the self-poised, the self-reliant, fell in a helpless swoon, and was laid on a pallet and carried out, as though he, too, were dead. For three weeks his dazed senses prayed for death. He could endure the presence of no one save his eldest daughter, a slim, slender girl of scarce ten years, grown a woman in a day. By her loving touch and tenderness he was lured back from death and reason's night into the world of life and light. With tottering steps, led by the child who had to think for both, he was taken out on the veranda of beautiful Monticello. He looked out on stretching miles of dark-blue hills and waving woods and winding river. He gazed, and as he looked it came slowly to him that the earth was still as when he last saw it, and realized that this would be so even if he were gone. Then, turning to the child, who stood by, stroking his locks, it came to him that even in grief there may be selfishness, and for the first time he responded to the tender caress, saying, "Yes, we will live, daughter--live in memory of her!" * * * * * When two men of equal intelligence and sincerity quarrel, both are probably right. Hamilton and Jefferson were opposed to each other by temperament and disposition, in a way that caused either to look with distrust on any proposition made by the other. And yet, when Washington pressed upon Jefferson the position of Secretary of State, I can not but think he did it as an antidote to the growing power and vaunting ambition of Hamilton. Washington won his victories, as great men ever do, by wisely choosing his aides. Hamilton had done yeoman's service in every branch of the government, and while the chief sincerely admired his genius, he guessed his limitations. Power grows until it topples, and when it topples, innocent people are crushed. Washington was wise as a serpent, and rather than risk open ruction with Hamilton by personally setting bounds, he invited Jefferson into his cabinet, and the acid was neutralized to a degree where it could be safely handled. Jefferson had just returned from Paris with his beloved daughter, Martha. He was intending soon to return to France and study social science at close range. Already, he had seen that mob of women march out to Versailles and fetch the King to Paris, and had seen barricade after barricade erected with the stones from the leveled Bastile; he was on intimate and affectionate terms with Lafayette and the Republican leaders, and here was a pivotal point in his life. Had not Washington persuaded him to remain "just for the present" in America, he might have played a part in Carlyle's best book, that book which is not history, but more--an epic. So, among the many obligations that America owes to Washington, must be named this one of pushing Thomas Jefferson, the scholar and man of peace, into the political embroglio and shutting the door. Then it was that Hamilton's taunting temper awoke a degree of power in Jefferson that before he wist not of; then it was that he first fully realized that the "United States" with England as a sole pattern was not enough. A pivotal point! Yes, a pivotal point for Jefferson, America and the world; for Jefferson gave the rudder of the Ship of State such a turn to starboard that there was never again danger of her drifting on to aristocratic shoals, an easy victim to the rapacity of Great Britain. Hamilton's distrust of the people found no echo in Jefferson's mind. He agreed with Hamilton that a "strong government" administered by a few, provided the few are wise and honorable, is the best possible government. Nay, he went further and declared that an absolute monarchy in which the monarch was all-wise and all-powerful, could not be improved upon by the imagination of man. In his composition, there was a saving touch of humor that both Hamilton and Washington seemed to lack. He could smile at himself; but none ever dared turn a joke on Hamilton, much less on Washington. And so when Hamilton explained that a strong government administered by Washington, President; Jefferson, Secretary of State; Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury; Knox, Secretary of War; and Randolph, Attorney-General, was pretty nearly ideal, no one smiled. But Jefferson's plain inference was that power is dangerous and man is fallible; that a man so good as Washington dies tomorrow and another man steps in, and that those who have the government in their present keeping should curb ambitions, limit their own power, and thus fix a precedent for those who are to follow. The wisdom that Jefferson as a statesman showed in working for a future good, and the willingness to forego the pomp of personal power, to sacrifice self if need be, that the day he should not see might be secure, ranks him as first among statesmen. For a statesman is one who builds a State--and not a politician who is dead, as some have said. Others, since, have followed Jefferson's example, but in the world's history I do not recall a man before him who, while still having power in his grasp, was willing to trust the people. The one mistake of Washington that borders on blunder was in refusing to take wages for his work. In doing this, he visited untold misery on others, who, not having married rich widows, tried to follow his example and floundered into woeful debt and disgrace; and thereby were lost to useful society and to the world. And there are yet many public offices where small men rattle about because men who can fill the place can not afford it. Bryce declares that no able and honest man of moderate means can afford to take an active part in municipal affairs in America--and Bryce is right. When Jefferson became President, in his messages to Congress again and again he advised the fixing of sufficient salaries to secure the best men for every branch of the service, and suggested the folly of expecting anything for nothing, or the hope of officials not "fixing things" if not properly paid. Men from the soil who gain power are usually intoxicated by it; beginning as democrats they evolve into aristocrats, then into tyrants, if kindly Fate does not interpose, and are dethroned by the people who made them. And it is not surprising that this man, born into a plenty that bordered on affluence, and who never knew from experience the necessity of economy (until in old age tobacco and slavery had wrecked Virginia and Monticello alike), should set an almost ideal example of simplicity, moderation and brotherly kindness. Among the chief glories that belong to him are these: 1. Writing the Declaration of Independence. 2. Suggesting and carrying out the present decimal monetary system. 3. Inducing Virginia to deed to the States, as their common property, the Northwest Territory. 4. Purchasing from France, for the comparatively trifling sum of fifteen million dollars, Louisiana and the territory running from the Gulf of Mexico to Puget's Sound, being at the rate of a fraction of a cent per acre, and giving the United States full control of the Mississippi River. But over and beyond these is the spirit of patriotism that makes each true American feel he is parcel and part of the very fabric of the State, and in his deepest heart believe that "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth." SAMUEL ADAMS The body of the people are now in council. Their opposition grows into a system. They are united and resolute. And if the British Administration and Government do not return to the principles of moderation and equity, the evil, which they profess to aim at preventing by their rigorous measures, will the sooner be brought to pass, viz., the entire separation and independence of the Colonies. --Letter to Arthur Lee [Illustration: SAMUEL ADAMS] Samuel and John Adams were second cousins, having the same great-grandfather. Between them in many ways there was a marked contrast, but true to their New England instincts both were theologians. John was a conservative in politics, and at first had little sympathy with "those small-minded men who refused to pay a trivial tax on their tea; and who would plunge the country into war, and ruin all for a matter of stamps." John was born and lived at the village of Braintree. He did not really center his mind on politics until the British had closed all law-courts in Boston, thus making his profession obsolete. He was scholarly, shrewd, diplomatic, cautious, good-natured, fat, and took his religion with a wink. He was blessed with a wife who was worthy of being the mother of kings (or presidents); he lived comfortably, acquired property, and died aged ninety-two. He had been President and seen his son President of the United States, and that is an experience that has never come and probably never will come to another living man, for there seems to be an unwritten law that no man under fifty shall occupy the office of Chief Magistrate of these United States. Samuel was stern, serious and deeply in earnest. He seldom smiled and never laughed. He was uncompromisingly religious, conscientious and morally unbending. In his life there was no soft sentiment. The fact that he ran a brewery can be excused when we remember that the best spirit of the times saw nothing inconsistent in the occupation; and further than this we might explain in extenuation that he gave the business indifferent attention, and the quality of his brew was said to be very bad. In religion, he swerved not nor wavered. He was a Calvinist and clung to the five points with a tenacity at times seemingly quite unnecessary. When in that first Congress, Samuel Adams publicly consented to the opening of the meeting with religious service conducted by the Reverend Mr. Duche, an Episcopal clergyman, he gave a violent wrench to his conscience and an awful shock to his friends. But Mr. Duche met the issue in the true spirit, and leaving his detested "popery robe" and prayer-book at home uttered an extemporaneous invocation, without a trace of intoning, that pleased the Puritans and caused one of them to remark, "He is surely coming over to the Lord's side!" But in politics, Samuel Adams was a liberal of the liberals. In statecraft, the heresy of change had no terrors for him, and with Hamlet, he might have said, "Oh, reform it altogether!" The limitations set in every character seem to prevent a man from being generous in more than one direction; the bigot in religion is often a liberal in politics, and vice versa. For instance, physicians are almost invariably liberal in religious matters, but are prone to call a man "Mister" who does not belong to their school; while orthodox clergymen, I have noticed, usually employ a homeopathist. In that most valuable and interesting work, "The Diary of John Adams," the author refers repeatedly to Samuel Adams as "Adams"! This simple way of using the word "Adams" shows a world of appreciation for the man who blazed the path that others of this illustrious name might follow. And so with the high precedent in mind, I, too, will drop prefix and call my subject simply "Adams." On the authority of King George, General Gage made an offer of pardon to all save two who had figured in the Boston uprising. The two men thus honored were John Hancock (whose signature the King could read without spectacles), and the other was "one, S. Adams." Adams, however, was the real offender, and the plea might have been made for John Hancock that, if it had not been for accident and Adams, Hancock would probably have remained loyal to the mother country. Hancock was aristocratic, cultured and complacent. He was the richest man in New England. His personal interests were on the side of peace and the established order. But circumstances and the combined tact and zeal of Adams threw him off his guard, and in a moment of dalliance the seeds of sedition found lodgment in his brain. And the more he thought about it, the nearer he came to the conclusion that Adams was right. But let the fact further be stated, if truth demands, that both John Hancock and Samuel Adams, the first men who clearly and boldly expressed the idea of American Independence, were moved in the beginning by personal grievances. A single motion made before the British Parliament by we know not whom, and put to vote by the Speaker, bankrupted the father of Samuel Adams and robbed the youth of his patrimony. The boy was then seventeen; old enough to know that from plenty his father was reduced to penury, and this because England, three thousand miles away, had interfered with the business arrangements of the Colony, and made unlawful a private banking scheme. Then did the boy ask the question, What moral right has England to govern us, anyway? From thinking it over he began to formulate reasons. He discussed the subject at odd times and thought of it continually, and, in Seventeen Hundred Forty-three, when he prepared his graduation thesis at Harvard College he chose for his subject, "The Doctrine of the Lawfulness of Resistance to the Supreme Magistrate if the Commonwealth Can Not Otherwise be Preserved." When Massachusetts admitted that she was under subjection to the King, yet argued for the right to nullify the Acts of the English Parliament, she took exactly the same ground that South Carolina did a hundred years later. The logic of Samuel Adams and of Robert Hayne was one and the same. Yet we are glad that Adams carried his point; and we rejoice exceedingly that Hayne failed, so curious are these things we call "reasons." The royalists who heard of this youth with a logical mind denounced him without stint. A few newspapers upheld him and spoke of the right of free speech and all that, reprinting the thesis in full. And in the controversy that followed, young Adams was always a prominent figure. He was not an orator in the popular sense, but he held the pen of a ready writer, and through the Boston papers kept up a constant fusillade. The tricks of journalism are no new thing belonging to the fag-end of this century. Young Adams wrote letters over the "nom de plume" of Pro Bono Publico, and then replied to them over the signature of Rex Americus. He did not adopt as his motto, "Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth," for he wrote with both hands and each hand was in the secret. During the years that followed his graduation from college he was a businessman and a poor one, for a man who looks after public affairs much can not attend to his own. But he managed to make shift; and when too closely pressed by creditors, a loan from Hancock, or John Adams, Hancock's attorney, relieved the pressure. In fact, when he went to Philadelphia "on that very important errand," he rode a horse borrowed from John Adams, and his Sunday coat was the gift of a thoughtful friend. In Seventeen Hundred Sixty-three, it became known that the British Government had on foot a scheme to demand a tribute from the Colonies. On invitation of a committee, possibly appointed by Adams, Adams was requested to draw up instructions to the Representatives in the Colonial Legislature. Adams did so and the document is now in the archives of the old State House at Boston, in the plain and elegant penmanship that is so easily recognized. This document calls itself, "The First Public Denial of the Right of the British Parliament to tax the Colonies without their Consent, and the first Public Suggestion of a Union on the part of the Colonies to Protect themselves against British Aggression." The style of the paper is lucid, firm and logical; it combines in itself the suggestion of all there was to be said or could be said on the matter. Adams saw all over and around his topic--no unpleasant surprise could be sprung on him--twenty-five years had he studied this one theme. He had made himself familiar with the political history of every nation so far as such history could be gathered; he was past master of his subject. However, when he was forty years of age his followers were few and mostly men of small influence. The Calkers' Club was the home of the sedition, and many of the members were day-laborers. But the idea of independence gradually grew, and, in Seventeen Hundred Sixty-five, Adams was elected a member of the Massachusetts Colonial Legislature. In honor of his writing ability, he was chosen clerk of the Assembly, for in all public gatherings orators are chosen as presidents and newspapermen for secretaries. Thus are honors distributed, and thus, too, does the public show which talent it values most. On November Second, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-two, on motion of Adams, a committee of several hundred citizens was appointed "to state the Rights of the Colonies and to communicate and publish them to the World as the sense of the Town, with the infringements and violations thereof that have been or may be made from time to time; also requesting from each Town a free communication of their sentiments on this Subject." This was the Committee of Correspondence from which grew the union of the Colonies and the Congress of the United States. It is a pretty well attested fact that the first suggestion of the Philadelphia Congress came from Samuel Adams, and the chief work of bringing it about was also his. It was well known to the British Government who the chief agitator was, and when General Gage arrived in Boston in May, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-four, his first work was an attempt to buy off Samuel Adams. With Adams out of the way, England might have adopted a policy of conciliation and kept America for her very own--yes, to the point of moving the home government here and saving the snug little island as a colony, for both in wealth and in population America has now far surpassed England. But Adams was not for sale. His reply to Gage sounds like a scrap from Cromwell: "I trust I have long since made my peace with the King of Kings. No personal consideration shall induce me to abandon the Righteous Cause of my Country." Gage having refused to recognize the thirteen Counselors appointed by the people, the General Court of Massachusetts, in secret session, appointed five delegates to attend the Congress of Colonies at Philadelphia. Of course Samuel Adams was one of these delegates; and to John Adams, another delegate, are we indebted for a minute description of that most momentous meeting. A room in the State House had been offered the delegates, but with commendable modesty they accepted the offer of the Carpenters' Company to use their hall. And so there they convened on the fifth day of September, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-four, having met by appointment, and walked over from the City Tavern in a body. Forty-four men were present--not a large gathering, but they had come hundreds of miles, and several of them had been months on the journey. They were a sturdy lot; and madam! I think it would have been worth while to have looked in upon them. There were several coonskin caps in evidence; also lace and frills and velvet brought from England--but plainness to severity was the rule. Few of these men had ever been away from their own Colonies before, few had ever met any members of the Congress save their own colleagues. They represented civilizations of very different degrees. Each stood a bit in awe of all the rest. Several of the Colonies had been in conflict with the others. Meeting new men in those days, when even the stagecoach was a passing show worth going miles to see, was an event. There was awkwardness and nervousness on the swarthy faces; firm mouths twitched, and big, bony hands sought for places of concealment. The meeting had been called for September First, but was postponed for five days awaiting the arrival of belated delegates who had been detained by floods. Even then, delegates from North Carolina had not arrived, and Georgia not having thought it worth while to send any, eleven Colonies only were represented. Each delegation naturally kept together, as men will who have a fighting history and a pioneer ancestry. It was a serious, solemn business, and these men were not given to levity in any event. When they were seated, there was a moment of silence so tense it could be heard. Every chance movement of a foot on the uncarpeted floor sent an echo through the room. The stillness was first broken by Mr. Lynch, of South Carolina, who arose and in a low, clear voice said: "There is a gentleman present who has presided with great dignity over a very respectable body and greatly to the advantage of America. Gentlemen, I move that the Honorable Peyton Randolph, one of the delegates from Virginia, be appointed to preside over this meeting. I doubt not it will be unanimous." It was so; and a large man in powdered wig and scarlet coat arose, and, carrying his gold-headed cane before him like a mace, walked to the platform without apology. The New Englanders in homespun looked at one another with trepidation on their features. The red coat was not assuring, but they kept their peace and breathed hard, praying that the enemy had not captured the convention through strategy. Mr. Randolph's first suggestion was not revolutionary; it was that a secretary be appointed. Again Mr. Lynch arose and named Charles Thomson, "a gentleman of family, fortune and character." This testimonial of family and fortune was not assuring to the plain Massachusetts men, but they said nothing and awaited developments. All were cautious as woodsmen, and the motion that the Council be held behind closed doors was adopted. Every member then held up his right hand and made a solemn promise to divulge no part of the transactions; and Galloway, of Pennsylvania, promised with the rest, and straightway each night informed the enemy of every move. Little was done that first day but get acquainted by talking very cautiously and very politely. The next day a notable member had arrived, and in a front seat sat Richard Henry Lee, a man you would turn and look at in any company. Slender and dark, with a brilliant eye and a profile--and only one man in ten thousand has a profile--Lee was a gracious presence. His voice was gentle and flexible and luring, and there was a dignity and poise in his manner that made him easily the foremost orator of his time. Near him sat William Livingston, of New Jersey, and John Jay, his son-in-law, the youngest man in the Congress, with a nose that denoted character, and all his fame in the future. The Pennsylvanians were all together, grouped on one side. Duane, of New York, sat near them, "shy and squint-eyed, very sensible and very artful," wrote John Adams that night in his diary. Then over there sat Christopher Gadsden, of South Carolina, who had preached independence for full ten years before this, and who, when he heard that the British soldiers had taken Boston, proposed to raise a troop at once and fight redcoats wherever found. "But the British will burn our seaport towns if we antagonize them," some timid soul explained. "Our towns are built of brick and wood; if they are burned we can rebuild them; but liberty once gone is gone forever," he retorted. And the saying sounds well, even if it will not stand analysis. Back near the wall was a man who, when the assembly stood at morning prayers, showed a half-head above his neighbors. His face was broad, and he, too, had a profile. His mouth was tightly closed, and during the first fourteen days of that Congress he never opened it to utter a word, and after his long quiet he broke the silence by saying, "Mr. President, I second the motion." Once, in a passionate speech, Lynch turned to him and pointing his finger said: "There is a man who has not spoken here, but in the Virginia Assembly he made the most eloquent speech I ever heard. He said, 'I will raise a thousand men, and arm and subsist them at my expense and march them to the relief of Boston.'" And then did the tall man, whose name was George Washington, blush like a schoolgirl. But in all that company the men most noticed were the five members from Massachusetts. They were Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Gushing and Robert Treat Paine. Massachusetts had thus far taken the lead in the struggle with England. A British army was encamped upon her soil, her chief city besieged--the port closed. Her sufferings had called this Congress into being, and to her delegates the members had come to listen. All recognized Samuel Adams as the chief man of the Convention. His hand wrote the invitations and earnest requests to come. Galloway, writing to his friends, the enemy, said: "Samuel Adams eats little, drinks little, sleeps little and thinks much. He is most decisive and indefatigable in the pursuit of his object. He is the man who, by his superior application, manages at once the faction in Philadelphia and the factions of New England." Yet Samuel Adams talked little at the Convention. He allowed John Adams to state the case, but sat next to him supplying memoranda, occasionally arising to make remarks or explanations in a purely conversational tone. But so earnest and impressive was his manner, so ably did he answer every argument and reply to every objection, that he thoroughly convinced a tall, angular, homely man by the name of Patrick Henry of the righteousness of his cause. Patrick Henry was pretty thoroughly convinced before, but the recital of Boston's case fired the Virginian, and he made the first and only real speech of the Congress. In burning words he pictured all the Colonies had suffered and endured, and by his matchless eloquence told in prophetic words of the glories yet to be. In his speech he paid just tribute to the genius of Samuel Adams, declaring that the good that was to come from this "first of an unending succession of Congresses" was owing to the work of Adams. And in after-years Adams repaid the compliment by saying that if it had not been for the cementing power of Patrick Henry's eloquence, that first Congress probably would have ended in a futile wrangle. The South regarded, in great degree, the fight in Boston as Massachusetts' own. To make the entire thirteen Colonies adopt the quarrel and back the Colonial army in the vicinity of Boston was the only way to make the issue a success, and to unite the factions by choosing for a leader a Virginian aristocrat was a crowning stroke of diplomacy. John Hancock had succeeded Randolph as president of the second Congress, and Virginia was inclined to be lukewarm, when John Adams in an impassioned speech nominated Colonel George Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. The nomination was seconded very quietly by Samuel Adams. It was a vote, and the South was committed to the cause of backing up Washington, and, incidentally, New England. The entire plan was probably the work of Samuel Adams, yet he gave the credit to John, while the credit of stoutly opposing it goes to John Hancock, who, being presiding officer, worked at a disadvantage. But Adams had a way of reducing opposition to the minimum. He kept out of sight and furthered his ends by pushing this man or that to the front at the right time to make the plea. He was a master in that fine art of managing men and never letting them know they are managed. By keeping behind the arras, he accomplished purposes that a leader never can who allows his personality to be in continual evidence, for personality repels as well as attracts, and the man too much before the public is sure to be undone eventually. Adams knew that the power of Pericles lay largely in the fact that he was never seen upon but a single street of Athens, and that but once a year. The complete writings of Adams have recently been collected and published. One marvels that such valuable material has not before been printed and given to the public, for the literary style and perspicuity shown are most inspiring, and the value of the data can not be gainsaid. No one ever accused Adams of being a muddy thinker; you grant his premises and you are bound to accept his conclusions. He leaves no loopholes for escape. The following words, used by Chatham, refer to documents in which Adams took a prominent part in preparing: "When your Lordships look at the papers transmitted us from America, when you consider their decency, firmness and wisdom, you can not but respect their cause and wish to make it your own. For myself, I must avow that, in all my reading--and I have read Thucydides and have studied and admired the master statesmen of the world--for solidity of reason, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion under a complication of difficult circumstances, no body of men can stand in preference to the general Congress of Philadelphia. The histories of Greece and Rome give us nothing like it, and all attempts to impress servitude on such a mighty continental people must be in vain." In the life of Adams there was no soft sentiment nor romantic vagaries. "He is a Puritan in all the word implies, and the unbending fanatic of independence," wrote Gage, and the description fits. He was twice married. Our knowledge of his first wife is very slight, but his second wife, Elizabeth Wells, daughter of an English merchant, was a capable woman of brave good sense. She adopted her husband's political views and with true womanly devotion let her old kinsmen slide; and during the dark hours of the war bore deprivation without repining. Adams' home life was simple to the verge of hardship. All through life he was on the ragged edge financially, and in his latter years he was for the first time relieved from pressing obligations by an afflicting event--the death of his only son, who was a surgeon in Washington's army. The money paid to the son by the Government for his services gave the father the only financial competency he ever knew. Two daughters survived him, but with him died the name. John Adams survived Samuel for twenty-three years. He lived to see "the great American experiment," as Mr. Ruskin has been pleased to call our country, on a firm basis, constantly growing stronger and stronger. He lived to realize that the sanguine prophecies made by Samuel were working themselves out in very truth. The grave of Samuel Adams is viewed by more people than that of any other American patriot. In the old Granary Burying-Ground, in the very center of Boston, on Tremont Street--there where travel congests, and two living streams meet all day long---you look through the iron fence, so slender that it scarce impedes the view, and not twenty feet from the curb is a simple metal disk set on an iron rod driven into the ground and on it this inscription: "This marks the grave of Samuel Adams." For many years the grave was unmarked, and the disk that now denotes it was only recently placed in position by the Sons of the American Revolution. But the place of Samuel Adams on the pages of history is secure. Upon the times in which he lived he exercised a profound influence. And he who influences the times in which he lives has influenced all the times that come after; he has left his impress on eternity. JOHN HANCOCK Boston, Sept. 30, 1765 Gent: Since my last I have receiv'd your favour by Capt Hulme who is arriv'd here with the most disagreeable Commodity (say Stamps) that were imported into this Country & what if carry'd into Execution will entirely Stagnate Trade here, for it is universally determined here never to Submitt to it and the principal merchts here will by no means carry on Business under a Stamp, we are in the utmost Confusion here and shall be more so after the first of November & nothing but the repeal of the act will righten, the Consequence of its taking place here will be bad, & attended with many troubles, & I believe may say more fatal to you than us. I dread the Event. --Extract From Hancock's Letter-Book [Illustration: JOHN HANCOCK] Long years ago when society was young, learning was centered in one man in each community, and that man was the priest. It was the priest who was sent for in every emergency of life. He taught the young, prescribed for the sick, advised those who were in trouble, and when human help was vain and man had done his all, this priest knelt at the bedside of the dying and invoked a Power with whom it was believed he had influence. The so-called learned professions are only another example of the Division of Labor. We usually say there are three learned professions: Theology, Medicine and Law. As to which is the greatest is a much-mooted question and has caused too many family feuds for me to attempt to decide it. And so I evade the issue and say there is a fourth profession, that is only allowed to be called so by grace, but which in my mind is greater than them all--the profession of Teacher. I can conceive of a condition of society so high and excellent that it has no use for either doctor, lawyer or preacher, but the teacher would still be needed. Ignorance and sin supply the three "learned professions" their excuse for being, but the teacher's work is to develop the germ of wisdom that is in every soul. And now each of these professions has divided up, like monads, into many heads. In medicine, we have as many specialists as there are organs of the body. The lawyer who advises you in a copyright or patent cause knows nothing about admiralty; and as they tell us a man who pleads his own case has a fool for a client, so does the insurance lawyer who is retained to foreclose a mortgage. In all prosperous city churches, the preacher who attracts the crowd in the morning allows a 'prentice to preach to the young folks in the evening; he does not make pastoral calls; and the curate who reads the service at funerals is never called upon to perform a marriage ceremony except in a case of charity. Likewise the teacher's profession has its specialists: the man who teaches Greek well can not write good English; the man who teaches composition is baffled and perplexed by long division; and the teacher who delights in trigonometry pooh-poohs a kindergartner. Just where this evolutionary dividing and subdividing of social cells will land the race no man can say; but that a specialist is a dangerous man, is sure. He is a buzz-saw with which wise men never monkey. A surgeon who has operated for appendicitis five times successfully is above all to be avoided. I once knew a man with lung trouble who inadvertently strayed into an oculist's and was looked over and sent away with an order on an optician. And should you through error stray into the office of a nose and throat specialist, and ask him to treat you for varicose veins, he would probably do so by nasal douche. Even now a specialist in theology will lead us, if he can, a merry "ignis-fatuus" chase and land us in a morass. The only thing that saved the priest in days agone was the fact that he had so many duties to perform that he exercised all his mental muscles, and thus attained a degree of all-roundness which is not possible to the specialist. Even then there were not lacking men who found time to devote to specialties: Bishop Georgius Ambrosius, for instance, who in the Fifteenth Century produced a learned work proving that women have no souls. And a like book was written at Nashville, Tennessee, in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-nine, by the Reverend Hubert Parsons of the Methodist Episcopal Church (South), showing that negroes were in a like predicament. But a more notable instance of the danger of a specialty is the Reverend Cotton Mather, who investigated the subject of witchcraft and issued a modest brochure incorporating his views on the subject. He succeeded in convincing at least one man of its verity, and that man was himself, and thus immortality was given to the town of Salem, which, otherwise, would have no claim on us for remembrance, save that Hawthorne was once a clerk in its custom-house. A very slight study of Colonial history will show any student that, for two centuries, the ministers in New England occupied very much the same position in society that the priest did during the Middle Ages. As the monks kept learning from dying off the face of the earth, so did the ministers of the New World preserve culture from passing into forgetfulness. Very seldom, indeed, were books to be found in a community except at the minister's. And during the Seventeenth Century, and well into the Eighteenth, he combined in himself the offices of doctor, lawyer, preacher and teacher. Mr. Lowell has said: "I can not remember when there was not one or more students in my father's household, and others still who came at regular intervals to recite. And this was the usual custom. It was the minister who fitted boys for college, and no youth was ever sent away to school until he had been drilled by the local clergyman." And it must further be noted that genealogical tables show that very nearly all of the eminent men of New England were sons of ministers, or of an ancestry where ministers' names are seen at frequent intervals. As an intellectual and moral force, the minister has now but a rudiment of the power he once exercised. The tendency to specialize all art and all knowledge has to a degree shorn him of his strength. And to such an extent is this true, that within forty years it has passed into a common proverb that the sons of clergymen are rascals, whereas in Colonial days the highest recommendation a youth could carry was that he was the son of a minister. The Reverend John Hancock, grandfather of John Hancock the patriot, was for more than half a century the minister of Lexington, Massachusetts. I say "the minister," because there was only one: the keen competition of sect that establishes half a dozen preachers in a small community is a very modern innovation. John Hancock, "Bishop of Lexington," was a man of pronounced personality, as is plainly seen in his portrait in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. They say he ruled the town with a rod of iron; and when the young men, who adorned the front steps of the meetinghouse during service, grew disorderly, he stopped in his prayer, and going outside soundly cuffed the ears of the first delinquent he could lay hands upon. In his clay there was a dash of facetiousness that saved him from excess, supplying a useful check to his zeal--for zeal uncurbed is very bad. He was a wise and beneficent dictator; and government under such a one can not be improved upon. His manner was gracious, frank and open, and such was the specific gravity of his nature that his words carried weight, and his wish was sufficient. The house where this fine old autocrat lived and reigned is standing in Lexington now. When you walk out through Cambridge and Arlington on your way to Concord, following the road the British took on their way out to Concord, you will pass by it. It is a good place to stop and rest. You will know the place by the tablet in front, on which is the legend: "Here John Hancock and Samuel Adams were sleeping on the night of the Eighteenth of April, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-five, when aroused by Paul Revere." The Reverend Jonas Clark owned the house after the Reverend John Hancock, and the ministries of those two men, and their occupancy of the house, cover one hundred years and five years more. Here the thirteen children of Jonas Clark were born, and all lived to be old men and women. When you call there I hope you will be treated with the same gentle courtesy that I met. If you delay not your visit too long, you will see a fine, motherly woman, with white "sausage curls" and a high back-comb, wearing a check dress and felt slippers, and she will tell you that she is over eighty, and that when her mother was a little girl she once sat on Governor Hancock's knee and he showed her the works in his watch. And then as you go away you will think again of what the old lady has just told you, and as you look back for a parting glance at the house, standing firm and solemn in its rusty-gray dignity, you will doff your hat to it, and mayhap murmur: The days of man on earth--they are but as a passing shadow! "Here John Hancock and Samuel Adams were sleeping when aroused by Paul Revere!" Merchant-prince and agitator, horse and rider--where are you now? And is your sleep disturbed by dreams of British redcoats or hissing flintlocks? Phantom British warships may lie at their moorings, swinging wide on the unforgetting tide, lanterns may hang high in the belfry of the Old North Church tower, hurried knocks and calls of defiance and hoof-beats of fast-galloping steed may echo and echo again, borne on the night-wind of the dim Past, but you heed them not! * * * * * The Reverend John Hancock of Lexington had two sons. John Hancock (Number Two) became pastor of the church of the North Precinct of the town of Braintree, which afterwards was to be the town of Quincy. The nearest neighbor to the village preacher was John Adams, shoemaker and farmer. Each Sunday in the amen corner of the Reverend John Hancock's meetinghouse was mustered the well washed and combed brood of Mr. and Mrs. Adams. Now, this John Adams had a son whom the Reverend John Hancock baptized, also named John, two years older than John, the son of the preacher. And young John Adams and John Hancock (Number Three) used to fish and swim together, and go nutting, and set traps for squirrels, and help each other in fractions. And then they would climb trees, and wrestle, and sometimes fight. In the fights, they say, John Hancock used to get the better of his antagonist, but as an exploiter of fractions John Adams was more than his equal. The parents of John Adams were industrious and savin'--the little farm prospered, for Boston supplied a goodly market, and weekly trips were made there in a one-horse cart, often piloted by young John, with the minister's boy for ballast. The Adams family had ambitions for their son John--he was to go to Harvard and be educated, and be a minister and preach at Braintree, or Weymouth, or perhaps even Boston! In the meantime the Reverend John Hancock had died, and the widowed mother was not able to give her boy a college education--times were hard. But the lad's uncle, Thomas Hancock, a prosperous merchant of Boston, took quite an interest in young John. And it occurred to him to adopt the fatherless boy, legally, as his own. The mother demurred, but after some months decided that it was best so, for when twenty-one he would be her boy just as much and as truly as if his uncle had not adopted him. And so the rich uncle took him, and rigged him out with a deal finer clothing than he had ever before worn, and sent him to the Latin School and afterward over to Cambridge, with silver jingling in his pocket. Prosperity is a severe handicap to youth; not very many grown men can stand it; but beyond a needless display of velvet coats and frilled shirts, the young man stood the test, and got through Harvard. In point of scholarship he did not stand so high as John Adams; and between the lads there grew a small but well-defined gulf, as is but natural between homespun and broadcloth. Still the gulf was not impassable, for over it friendly favors were occasionally passed. John Hancock's mother wanted him to be a preacher, but Uncle Thomas would not listen to it--the youth must be taught to be a merchant, so he could be the ready helper and then the successor of his foster-father. Graduating at the early age of seventeen, John Hancock at once went to work in his uncle's counting-house in Boston. He was a fine, tall fellow with dash and spirit, and seemed to show considerable aptitude for the work. The business prospered, and Uncle Thomas was very proud of his handsome ward, who was quite in demand at parties and balls and in a general social way, while the uncle could not dance a minuet to save him. Not needing the young man very badly around the store, the uncle sent him to Europe to complete his education by travel. He went with the retiring Governor Pownal, whose taste for social enjoyment was very much in accord with his own. In England, he attended the funeral of George the Second, and saw the coronation of George the Third, little thinking the while that he would some day make violent efforts to snatch from that crown its brightest jewel. When young Hancock was twenty-seven, the uncle died, and left to him his entire fortune of three hundred fifty thousand dollars. It made him one of the very richest men in the Colony--for at that time there was not a man in Massachusetts worth half a million dollars. The jingling silver in his pocket when sent to Harvard had severely tested his moral fiber, but this great fortune came near smothering all his native commonsense. If a man makes his money himself, he stands a certain chance of growing as the pile grows. There is little doubt as to the soundness of Emerson's epigram, that what you put into his chest you take out of the man. More than this, when a man gradually accumulates wealth, it attracts little attention, so the mob that follows the newly rich never really gets on to the scent. And besides that, the man who makes his own fortune always stands ready to repel boarders. There may be young men of twenty-seven who are men grown, and no doubt every man of twenty-seven is very sure that he is one of these; but the thought that man is mortal never occurs to either men or women until they are past thirty. The blood is warm, conquest lies before, and to seize the world by the tail and snap its head off seems both easy and desirable. The promoters, the flatterers and friends until then unknown flocked to Hancock and condoled with him on the death of his uncle. Some wanted small loans to tide over temporary emergencies, others had business ventures in hand whereby John Hancock could double his wealth very shortly. Still others spoke of wealth being a trust, and to use money to help your fellow-men, and thus to secure the gratitude of many, was the proper thing. The unselfishness of the latter suggestion appealed to Hancock. To be the friend of humanity, to assist others--this is the highest ambition to which a man can aspire! And, of course, if one is pointed out on the street as the good Mr. Hancock it can not be helped. It is the penalty of well-doing. So in order to give work to many and to promote the interests of Boston, a thriving city of fifteen thousand inhabitants, for all good men wish to build up the place in which they live, John Hancock was induced to embark in shipbuilding. He also owned several ships of his own which traded with London and the West Indies, and was part owner of others. But he publicly explained that he did not care to make money for himself--his desire was to give employment to the worthy poor and to enhance the good of Boston. The aristocratic company of militia, known as the Governor's Guard, had been fitted out with new uniforms and arms by the generous Hancock, and he had been chosen commanding officer, with rank of Colonel. He drilled with the crack company and studied the manual much more diligently than he ever had his Bible. Hancock lived in the mansion, inherited from his uncle, on Beacon Street, facing the Common. There was a chariot and six horses for state occasions, much fine furniture from over the sea, elegant clothes that the Puritans called "gaudy apparel," and at the dinners the wine flowed freely, and cards, dancing and music filled many a night. The Puritan neighbors were shocked, and held up their hands in horror to think that the son of a minister should so affront the staid and sober customs of his ancestors. Still others said, "Why, that's what a rich man should do--spend his money, of course; Hancock is the benefactor of his kind; just see how many people he employs!" The town was all agog, and Hancock was easily Boston's first citizen, but in his time of prosperity he did not forget his old friends. He sent for them to come and make merry with him; and among the first in his good offices was John Adams, the rising young lawyer of Braintree. John Adams had found clients scarce, and those he had, poor pay, but when he became the trusted legal adviser of John Hancock, things took a turn and prosperity came that way. The wine and cards and dinners hadn't much attraction for him, but still there were no conscientious scruples in the way. He patted John Hancock on the back, assured him that he was the people, looked after his interests loyally, and extracted goodly fees for services performed. At the home of Adams at Braintree, Hancock had met a quiet, taciturn individual by the name of Samuel Adams. This man he had long known in a casual way, but had never been able really to make his acquaintance. He was fifteen years older than Hancock, and by his quiet dignity and self-possession made quite an impression on the young man. So, now that prosperity had smiled, Hancock invited him to his house, but the quiet man was an ascetic and neither played cards, drank wine nor danced, and so declined with thanks. But not long after, he requested a small loan from the merchant-prince, and asked it as though it were his right, and so he got it. His manner was in such opposition to the flatterers and those who crawled, and whined, and begged, that Hancock was pleased with the man. Samuel Adams had declined Hancock's social favors, and yet, in asking for a loan, showed his friendliness. Samuel Adams was a politician, and had long taken an active part in the town meetings. In fact, to get a measure through, it was well to have Samuel Adams at your side. He was clear-headed, astute, and knew the human heart. Yet he talked but little, and the convivial ways of the small politician were far from him; but in the fine art that can manage men and never let them know they are managed he was a past-master. Tucked in his sleeve, no doubt, was a degree of pride in his power, but the stoic quality in his nature never allowed him to break into laughter when he considered how he led men by the nose. In Boston and its vicinity, Samuel Adams was not highly regarded, and outside of Boston, at forty years of age, he was positively unknown. The neighbors regarded him as a harmless fanatic, sane on most subjects, but possessed of a buzzing bee in his bonnet to the effect that the Colonies should be separated from their protector, England. Samuel Adams neglected his business and kept up a fusillade of articles in the newspapers, on various political subjects, and men who do this are regarded everywhere as "queer." A professional newspaper-writer never takes his calling seriously--it is business. He writes to please his employer, or if he owns the paper himself, he still writes to please his employer, that is to say, the public. Journalism, thy name is pander! The man who comes up the stairway furtively, with a manuscript he wants printed, is in dead earnest; and he has excited the ridicule, wrath or pity of editors for three hundred years. Such a one was Samuel Adams. His wife did her own work, and the grocer with bills in his hand often grew red in the face and knocked in vain. And yet the keen intellect of Samuel Adams was not a thing to smile at. Any one who stood before him, face to face, felt the power of the man, and acknowledged it then and there, as we always do when we stand in the presence of a strong individuality. And this inward acknowledgment of worth was instinctively made by John Hancock, the biggest man in all Boston town. John Hancock, through his genial, glowing personality, and his lavish spending of money, was very popular. He was being fed on flattery, and the more a man gets of flattery, once the taste is acquired, the more he craves. It is like the mad thirst for liquor, or the Romeike habit. John Hancock was getting attention, and he wanted more. He had been chosen selectman to fill the place that his uncle had occupied, and when Samuel Adams incidentally dropped a remark that good men were needed in the General Court, John Hancock agreed with him. He was named for the office and with Samuel Adams' help was easily elected. Not long after this, the sloop "Liberty" was seized by the government officials for violation of the revenue laws. The craft was owned by John Hancock and had surreptitiously landed a cargo of wine without paying duty. When the ship of Boston's chief citizen was seized by the bumptious, gilt-braided British officials, there was a merry uproar. All the men in the shipyards quit work, and the Calkers' Club, of which Samuel Adams was secretary, passed hot resolutions and revolutionary preambles and eulogies of John Hancock, who was doing so much for Boston. In fact, there was a riot, and three regiments of British troops were ordered to Boston. And this was the very first step on the part of England to enforce her authority, by arms, in America. The troops were in the town to preserve order, but the mob would not disperse. Upon the soldiers, they heaped every indignity and insult. They dared them to shoot, and with clubs and stones drove the soldiers before them. At last the troops made a stand and in order to save themselves from absolute rout fired a volley. Five men fell dead--and the mob dispersed. This was the so-called Boston massacre. Pinkerton guards would blush at bagging so small a game with a volley. They have done better again and again at Pittsburgh, Pottsville and Chicago. The riot was quelled, and out of the scrimmage various suits were instigated by the Crown against John Hancock, in the Court of Admiralty. The claims against him amounted to over three hundred thousand dollars, and the charge was that he had long been evading the revenue laws. John Adams was his attorney, with Samuel Adams as counsel, and vigorous efforts for prosecution and defense were being made. If the Crown were successful the suits would confiscate the entire Hancock estate--matters were getting in a serious way. Witnesses were summoned, but the trial was staved off from time to time. Hancock had refused to follow Samuel Adams' lead in the controversy with Governor Hutchinson as to the right to convene the General Court. The report was that John Hancock was growing lukewarm and siding with the Tories. A year had passed since the massacre had occurred, and the agitators proposed to commemorate the day. Colonel Hancock had appeared in many prominent parts, but never as an orator. "Why not show the town what you can do!" some one said. So John Hancock was invited to deliver the oration. He did so to an immense concourse. The address was read from the written page. It overflowed with wisdom and patriotism; and the earnestness and eloquence of the well-rounded periods was the talk of the town. The knowing ones went around corners and roared with laughter, but Samuel Adams said not a word. The charge was everywhere made by the captious and bickering that the speech was written by another, and that, moreover, John Hancock had not even a very firm hold on its import. It was the one speech of his life. Anyway, it so angered General Gage that he removed Colonel Hancock from his command of the cadets. An order was out for Hancock's arrest, and he and Samuel Adams were in hiding. The British troops marched out to Lexington to capture them, but Paul Revere was two hours ahead, and when the redcoats arrived the birds had flown. Then came the expulsion of the British, the closing of all courts, the Admiralty included. The merchant-prince breathed easier, and that was the last of the Crown versus John Hancock. * * * * * Throughout the months that had gone before, when the Hancock mansion was gay with floral decorations, and servants in livery stood at the door with silver trays, and the dancing-hall was bright with mirth and music, Samuel Adams had quietly been working his Bureau of Correspondence to the end that the thirteen Colonies of America should come together in convention. Chief mover of the plan, and the one man in Massachusetts who was giving all his time to it, he dictated whom Massachusetts should send as delegates. This delegation, as we know, included John Hancock, John Adams and Samuel Adams himself. From the danger of Lexington, Hancock and Adams made their way to Philadelphia to attend the Second Congress. At that time the rich men of New England were hurriedly making their way into the English fold. Some thought that the mother country had been harsh, but still, England had only acted within her right, and she was well able to back up this authority. She had regiment upon regiment of trained fighting men, warships, and money to build more. The Colonies had no army, no ships, no capital. Only those who have nothing to lose can afford to resist lawful authority--back into the fold they went, penitent and under their breath cursing the bull-headed men who insisted on plunging the country into red war. Out in the cold world stood John Hancock, alone, save for Bowdoin, among the aristocrats of New England. The British would confiscate his property, his splendid house--all would be gone! "It will all be gone, anyway," calmly suggested Samuel Adams. "You know those suits against you in the Admiralty Court?" "Yes, yes!" "And if we can unite these thirteen Colonies an army can be raised, and we can separate ourselves entire, in which case there will be glory for somebody." John Hancock, the rich, the ambitious, the pleasure-loving, had burned his bridges. He was in the hands of Samuel Adams, and his infamy was one with this man who was a professional agitator, and who had nothing to lose. General Gage had made an offer of pardon to all--all, save two men: Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Back into the fold tumbled the Tories, but against John Hancock the gates were barred. John Adams, Attorney of the Hancock estate, rubbed his chin, and decided to stand by the ship--sink or swim, survive or perish. Down in his heart Samuel Adams grimly smiled, but on his cold, pale face there was no sign. The British held Boston secure, and in the splendid mansion of Hancock lived the rebel, Lord Percy, England's pet. The furniture, plate and keeping of the place were quite to his liking. Hancock's ambitions grew as the days went by. The fight was on. His property was in the hands of the British, and a price was upon his head. He, too, now had nothing to lose. If England could be whipped he would get his property back, and the honors of victory would be his, beside. Ambition grew apace; he studied the Manual of Arms as never before, and made himself familiar with the lives of Cæsar and Alexander. At Harvard, he had read the Anabasis on compulsion, but now he read it with zest. The Second Congress was a Congress of action; the first had been one merely of conference. A presiding officer was required, and Samuel Adams quietly pushed his man to the front. He let it be known that Hancock was the richest man in New England, perhaps in America, and a power in every emergency. John Hancock was given the office of presiding officer, the place of honor. The thought never occurred to him that the man on the floor is the man who acts, and the individual in the chair is only a referee, an onlooker of the contest. When a man is chosen to preside he is safely out of the way, and no one knew this better than that clear-headed man, wise as a serpent, Samuel Adams. Hancock was intent on being chosen Commander of the Continental Army. The war was in Massachusetts, her principal port closed, all business at a standstill. Hancock was a soldier, and was, moreover, the chief citizen of Massachusetts--the command should go to him. Samuel Adams knew this could never be. To hold the Southern Colonies and give the cause a show of reason before the world, an aristocrat with something to lose, and without a personal grievance, must be chosen, and the man must be from the South. To get Hancock in a position where his mouth would be stopped, he was placed in the chair. It was a master move. Colonel George Washington was already a hero; he had fought valiantly for England. His hands were clean; while Hancock was openly called a smuggler. Washington was nominated by John Adams. The motion was seconded by Samuel Adams. Hancock turned first red and then deathly pale. He grasped the arms of his chair with both hands, and--put the question. It was unanimous. Hancock's fame seems to rest on the fact that he was presiding officer of the Congress that passed the Declaration of Independence, and therefore its first signer, and, without consideration for cost of ink and paper, wrote his name in poster letters. When you look upon the Declaration the first thing you see is the signature of John Hancock, and you recall his remark, "I guess King George can read that without spectacles." The whole action was melodramatic, and although a bold signature has ever been said to betoken a bold heart, it has yet to be demonstrated that boys who whistle going through the woods are indifferent to danger. "Conscious weakness takes strong attitudes," says Delsarte. The strength of Hancock's signature was an affectation quite in keeping with his habit of riding about Boston in a coach-and-six, with outriders in uniform, and servants in livery. When Hancock wrote to Washington asking for an appointment in the army, the wise and farseeing chief replied with gentle words of praise concerning Colonel Hancock's record, and wound up by saying that he regretted there was no place at his disposal worthy of Colonel Hancock's qualifications. Well did he know that Hancock was not quite patriot enough to fill a lowly rank. The part that Hancock played in the eight years of war was inconspicuous. However, there was little spirit of revenge in his character: he sometimes scolded, but he did not hate. He never allowed personal animosities to make him waver in his loyalty to independence. In fact, with a price upon his head, but one course was open for him. Just before Washington was inaugurated President, he visited Boston, and a curious struggle took place between him and Hancock, who was Governor. It was all a question of etiquette--which should make the first call. Each side played a waiting game, and at last Hancock's gout came in as an excellent excuse and the country was saved. In one of his letters, Hancock says, "The entire Genteel portion of the town was invited to my House, while on the sidewalk I had a cask of Madeira for the Common People." His repeated re-election as Governor proves his popularity. Through lavish expenditure, his fortune was much reduced, and for many years he was sorely pressed for funds, his means being tied up in unproductive ways. His last triumph, as Governor, was to send a special message to the Legislature, informing that body that "a company of Aliens and Foreigners have entered the State, and the Metropolis of Government, and under advertisements insulting to all Good Men and Ladies have been pleased to invite them to attend certain Stage-Plays, Interludes and Theatrical Entertainments under the Style and Appellation of Moral Lectures.... All of which must be put a stop to to once and the Rogues and Varlots punished." A few days after this, "the Aliens and Foreigners" gave a presentation of Sheridan's "School for Scandal." In the midst of the performance the sheriff and a posse made a rush upon the stage and bagged all the offenders. When their trial came on, the next day, the "varlots and vagroms" had secured high legal talent to defend them, one of which counsel was Harrison Gray Otis. The actors were discharged on the slim technicality that the warrants of arrest had not been properly verified. However, the theater was closed, but the "Common People" made such an unseemly howl about "rights" and all that, that the Legislature made haste to repeal the law which provided that play-actors should be flogged. Hancock defaulted in his stewardship as Treasurer of Harvard College, and only escaped arrest for embezzlement through the fact that he was Governor of the State, and no process could be served upon him. After his death his estate paid nine years' simple interest on his deficit, and ten years thereafter, the principal was paid. His widow married Captain Scott, who was long in Hancock's employ as master of a brig; and we find the worthy captain proudly exclaiming, "I have embarked on the sea of Matrimony, and am now at the helm of the Hancock mansion!" No biography of Governor Hancock has ever been written. The record of his life flutters only in newspaper paragraphs, letters, and chance mention in various diaries. Hancock did not live to see John Adams President. Worn by worry, and grown old before his time, he died at the early age of fifty-six, of a combination of gout and that unplebeian complaint we now term Bright's Disease. Thirty-three years after, hale old John Adams down at Quincy spoke of him as "a clever fellow, a bit spoiled by a legacy, whom I used to know in my younger days." He left no descendants, and his heirs were too intent on being in at the death to care for his memory. They neither preserved the data of his life, nor over his grave placed a headstone. The monument that now marks his resting-place was recently erected by the State of Massachusetts. He was buried in the Old Granary Burying-Ground, on Tremont Street, and only a step from his grave sleeps his friend Samuel Adams. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS To the guidance of the legislative councils; to the assistance of the executive and subordinate departments; to the friendly co-operation of the respective State Governments; to the candid and liberal support of the people, so far as it may be deserved by honest industry and zeal, I shall look for whatever success may attend my public service; and knowing that "except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh in vain," with fervent supplications for His favor, to His overruling providence I commit, with humble but fearless confidence, my own fate and the future destinies of my country. --_Inaugural Address_ [Illustration: JOHN QUINCY ADAMS] Nine miles south of Boston, just a little back from the escalloped shores of Old Ocean, lies the village of Braintree. It is on the Plymouth post-road, being one of that string of settlements, built a few miles apart for better protection, that lined the sea, Boston being crowded, and Plymouth full to overflowing, the home-seekers spread out north and south. In Sixteen Hundred Twenty, when the first cabin was built at Braintree, land that was not in sight of the coast had actually no value. Back a mile, all was a howling wilderness, with trails made by wild beasts or savage men as wild. These paths led through tangles of fallen trees and tumbled rocks, beneath dark, overhanging pines where winter's snows melted not till midsummer, and the sun's rays were strange and alien. Men who sought to traverse these ways had to crouch and crawl or climb. Through them no horse or ox or beast of burden had carried its load. But up from the sea the ground rose gradually for a mile, and along this slope that faced the tide, wind and storm had partly cleared the ground, and on the hillsides our forefathers made their homes. The houses were built facing either the east or the south. This persistence to face either the sun or the sea shows a last, strange rudiment of paganism, making queer angles now that surveyors have come with Gunter's chain and transit, laying out streets and doing their work. A mile out, north of Braintree, on the Boston road, came, in Sixteen Hundred Twenty-five, one Captain Wollaston, a merry wight, and thirty boon companions, all of whom probably left England for England's good. They were in search of gold and pelf, and all were agreed on one point: they were quite too good to do any hard work. Their camp was called Mount Wollaston, or the Merry Mount. Our gallant gentlemen cultivated the friendship of the Indians, in the hope that they would reveal the caves and caverns where the gold grew lush and nuggets cumbered the way; and the Indians, liking the drink they offered, brought them meal and corn and furs. And so the thirty set up a Maypole, adorned with bucks' horns, and drank and feasted, and danced like fairies or furies, the livelong day or night. So scandalously did these exiled lords behave that good folks made a wide circuit 'round to avoid their camp. Preaching had been in vain, and prayers for the conversion of the wretches remained unanswered. So the neighbors held a convention, and decided to send Captain Miles Standish with a posse to teach the merry men manners. Standish appeared among the bacchanalians one morning, perfectly sober, and they were not. He arrested the captain, and bade the others begone. The leader was shipped back to England, with compliments and regrets, and the thirty scattered. This was the first move in that quarter in favor of local option. Six years later, the land thereabouts was granted and apportioned out to the Reverend John Wilson, William Coddington, Edward Quinsey, James Penniman, Moses Payne and Francis Eliot. And these men and their families built houses and founded "the North Precinct of the Town of Braintree." Between the North Precinct and the South Precinct there was continual rivalry. Boys who were caught over the dead-line, which was marked by Deacon Penniman's house, had to fight. Thus things continued until Seventeen Hundred Ninety-two, when one John Adams was Vice-President of the United States. Now this John Adams, lawyer, was the son of John Adams, honest farmer and cordwainer, who had bought the Penniman homestead, and whose progenitor, Henry Adams, had moved there in Sixteen Hundred Thirty-six. John Adams, Vice-President, afterwards President, was born there in the Penniman house, and was regarded as a neutral, although he had been thrashed by boys both from the North and from the South Precinct. But at the last, there is no such thing as neutrality. John Adams sided with the boys from the North Precinct, and now that he was in power it occurred to him, having had a little experience in the revolutionary line, that for the North Precinct to secede from the great town of Braintree would be but proper and right. The North Precinct had six stores that sold W.I. goods, and a tavern that sold W.E.T. goods, and it should have a post-office of its own. So John Adams suggested the matter to Richard Cranch, who was his brother-in-law and near neighbor. Cranch agitated the matter, and the new town, which was the old, was incorporated. They called it Quincy, probably because Abigail, John's wife, insisted upon it. She had named her eldest boy Quincy, in honor of her grandfather, whose father's name was Quinsey, and who had relatives who spelled it De Quincey, one of which tribe was an opium-eater. Now, when Abigail made a suggestion, John usually heeded it. For Abigail was as wise as she was good, and John well knew that his success in life had come largely from the help, counsel and inspiration vouchsafed to him by this splendid woman. And the man who will not let a woman have her way in all such small matters as naming of babies or towns is not much of a man. So the town was named Quincy, and brother-in-law Cranch was appointed its first postmaster. Shortly after, the Boston "Centinel" contained a sarcastic article over the signature, "Old Subscriber," concerning the distribution of official patronage among kinsmen, and the Eliots and the Everetts gossiped over their back fences. At this time Abigail lived in the cottage there on the Plymouth road, halfway between Braintree and Quincy, but she got her mail at Quincy. The Adams cottage is there now, and the next time you are in Boston you had better go out and see it, just as June and I did one bright October day. June has lived within an hour's ride of the Adams' home all her blessed thirty-two sunshiny summers; she also boasts a Mayflower ancestry, with, however, a slight infusion of Castle Garden, like myself, to give firmness of fiber--and yet she had never been to Quincy. The John and Abigail cottage was built in Seventeen Hundred Sixteen, so says a truthful brick found in the quaint old chimney. Deacon Penniman built this house for his son, and it faces the sea, although the older Penniman house faces the south. John Adams was born in the older house; but when he used to go to Weymouth every Wednesday and Saturday evening to see Abigail Smith, the minister's daughter, his father, the worthy shoemaker, told him that when he got married he could have the other house for himself. John was a bright young lawyer then, a graduate of Harvard, where he had been sent in hopes that he would become a minister, for one-half the students then at Harvard were embryo preachers. But John did not take to theology. He had witnessed ecclesiastical tennis and theological pitch and toss in Braintree that had nearly split the town, and he decided on the law. One thing sure, he could not work: he was not strong enough for that--everybody said so. And right here seems a good place to call attention to the fact that weak men, like those who are threatened, live long. John Adams' letters to his wife reveal a very frequent reference to liver complaint, lung trouble, and that tired feeling, yet he lived to be ninety-two. The Reverend Mr. Smith did not at first favor the idea of his daughter Abigail marrying John Adams. The Adams family were only farmers (and shoemakers when it rained), while the Smiths had aristocracy on their side. He said lawyers were men who got bad folks out of trouble and good folks in. But Abigail said that this lawyer was different; and as Mr. Smith saw it was a love-match, and such things being difficult to combat successfully, he decided he would do the next best thing--give the young couple his blessing. Yet the neighbors were quite scandalized to think that their pastor's daughter should hold converse over the gate with a lawyer, and they let the clergyman know it as neighbors then did, and sometimes do now. Then did the Reverend Mr. Smith announce that he would preach a sermon on the sin of meddling with other folk's business. As his text he took the passage from Luke, seventh chapter, thirty-third verse: "For John came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, he hath a devil." The neighbors saw the point, for a short time before, when the eldest daughter, Mary, had married Richard Cranch (the man who was to achieve a post-office), the community had entered a protest, and the Reverend Mr. Smith had preached from Luke, tenth chapter, forty-second verse: "And Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her." So there, now! And John and Abigail were married one evening at early candlelight, in the church at Weymouth. The good father performed the ceremony, and nearly broke down during it, they say, and then he kissed both bride and groom. The neighbors had repaired to the parsonage and were eating and drinking and making merry when John and Abigail slipped out by the back gate, and made their way, hand in hand, in the starlight, down the road that ran through the woods to Braintree. When near the village they cut across the pasture-lot and reached their cottage, which for several weeks they had been putting in order. John unlocked the front door, and they entered over the big, flat stone at the entry, and over which you may enter now, all sunken and worn by generations of men gone. Some whose feet have pressed that doorstep we count as the salt of the earth, for their names are written large on history's page. Washington rode out there on horseback, and while his aide held his horse, he visited and drank mulled cider and ate doughnuts within. Hancock came often, and Otis, Samuel Adams and Loring used to enter without plying the knocker. Through the earnest work of William G. Spear, the cottage has now been restored and fully furnished, as near like it was then as knowledge, fancy and imagination can devise. When we reached Quincy we saw a benevolent-looking old Puritan, and June said, "Ask him!" "Can you tell me where we can find Mr. Spear, the antiquarian?" I inquired. "The which?" said the son of Priscilla Mullins. "Mr. Spear, the antiquarian," I repeated. "It's not Bill Spear who keeps a secondhand-shop, you want, mebbe?" "Yes; I think that is the man." And so we were directed to the "secondhand-shop," which proved to be the rooms of the Quincy Historical Society. And there we saw such a wondrous collection of secondhand stuff that, as we looked and looked, and Mr. Spear explained, and gave large slices of Colonial history, June, who is a Daughter of the American Revolution, gushed a trifle more than was meet. Nothing short of a hundred years will set the seal of value on an article for Mr. Spear, and one hundred fifty is more like it. On his walls are hats, caps, spurs, boots and accouterments used in the Revolutionary War. Then there are candlesticks, snuffers, spectacles, butter-molds, bonnets, dresses, shoes, baby-stockings, cradles, rattles, aprons, butter-tubs made out of a solid piece, shovels to match, andirons, pokers, skillets and blue china galore. "Bill Spear" himself is quite a curiosity. He traces a lineage to the well-known Lieutenant Seth Spear, of Revolutionary fame, and back of that to John Alden, who spoke for himself. The bark on the antiquarian, is rather rough; and I regret to say that he makes use of a few words I can not find in the "Century Dictionary," but as June was not shocked I managed to stand it. On further acquaintance I concluded that Mr. Spear's bruskness was assumed, and that beneath the tough husk there beats a very tender heart. He is one of those queer fellows who do good by stealth and abuse you roundly if accused of it. For twenty-five years Mr. Spear has been doing little else but studying Colonial history, and making love to old ladies who own clocks and skillets given them by their great-grandmammas. There is no doubt that Spear has dictated clauses in a hundred wills devising that William G. Spear, Custodian of the Quincy Historical Society, shall have snuffers and biscuit-molds. At first, Mr. Spear collected for his own amusement and benefit, but the trouble grew upon him until it became chronic, and one fine day he realized that he was not immortal, and when he should die, all his collection, which had taken years to accumulate, would be scattered. And so he founded the Quincy Historical Society, incorporated by a perpetual charter, with Charles Francis Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams, as first president. Then, the next thing was to secure the cottage where John and Abigail Adams began housekeeping, and where John Quincy was born. This house has been in the Adams family all these years and been rented to the firm of Tom, Dick and Harry, and any of their tribe who would agree to pay ten dollars a month for its use and abuse. Just across the road from the cottage lives a fine old soul by the name of John Crane. Mr. Crane is somewhere between seventy and a hundred years old, but he has a young heart, a face like Gladstone and a memory like a copy-book. Mr. Crane was on very good terms with John Quincy Adams, knew him well and had often seen him come here to collect rent. He told me that during his recollection the Adams place had been occupied by full forty families. But now, thanks to "Bill Spear," it is no longer for rent. The house has been raised from the ground, new sills placed under it, and while every part--scantling, rafter, joist, crossbeam, lath and weatherboard--of the original house has been retained, it has been put in such order that it is no longer going to ruin. From the ample stores of his various antiquarian depositories Mr. Spear has refurnished it; and with a ripe knowledge and rare good taste and restraining imagination, the cottage is now shown to us as a Colonial farmhouse of the year Seventeen Hundred Fifty. The wonder to me is that Mr. Spear, being human, did not move his "secondhand-shop" down here and make of the place a curiosity-shop. But he has done better. As you step across the doorsill and pass from the little entry into the "living-room," you pause and murmur, "Excuse me." For there is a fire on the hearth, the tea-kettle sings softly, and on the back of a chair hangs a sunbonnet. And over there on the table is an open Bible, and on the open page is a pair of spectacles and a red, crumpled handkerchief. Yes, the folks are at home: they have just stepped into the next room--perhaps are eating dinner. And so you sit down in an old hickory chair, or in the high settle that stands against the wall by the fireplace, and wait, expecting every moment that the kitchen-door will creak on its wooden hinges, and Abigail, smiling and gentle, will enter to greet you. Mr. Spear understands, and, disappearing, leaves you to your thoughts--and June's. John and Abigail were lovers their lifetime through. Their published letters show a oneness of thought and sentiment that, viewed across the years, moves us to tears to think that such as they should at last feebly totter, and then turn to dust. But here they came in the joyous springtime of their lives; upon this floor you tread the ways their feet have trod; these walls have echoed to their singing voices, listened to their counsels, and seen love's caress. There is no surplus furniture nor display nor setting forth of useless things. Every article you see has its use. The little shelf of books, well-thumbed, displays no "Trilby" nor "Quest of the Golden Girl"--not an anachronism any where. Curtains, chairs, tables, and the one or two pictures--all ring true. In the kitchen are washtubs and butter-ladles and bowls; and the lantern hanging by the chimney, with a dipped candle inside, has a carefully scraped horn face. It is a lanthorn. In the cupboard across the corner are blue china and pewter spoons and steel knives, with just a little polished-brass stuff sent from England. Down in the cellar, with its dirt walls, are apples, yellow pumpkins and potatoes--each in its proper place, for Abigail was a rare good housekeeper. Then there is a barrel of cider, with a hickory spigot and an inviting gourd. All tells of economy, thrift, industry and the cunning of woman's hands. In the kitchen is a funny cradle, hooded, and cut out of a great pine log. The little mattress and the coverlet seem disturbed, and you would declare the baby had just been lifted out, and you listen for its cry. The rocker is worn by the feet of mothers whose hands were busy with needles or wheel as they rocked and sang. And from the fact that it is in the kitchen, you know that the servant-girl problem then had no terrors. Overhead hang ears of corn, bunches of dried catnip, pennyroyal and boneset, and festooned across the corner are strings of dried apples. Then you go upstairs, with conscience pricking a bit for thus visiting the house of honest folks when they are away, for you know how all good housewives dislike to have people prying about, especially in the upper chambers--at least June said so! The room to the right was Abigail's own. You would know it was a woman's room. There is a faint odor of lavender and thyme about it, and the white and blue draperies around the little mirror, and the little feminine nothings on the dresser, reveal the lady who would appear well before the man she loves. The bed is a high, draped four-poster, plain and solid, evidently made by a ship-carpenter who had ambitions. The coverlet is light blue, and matches the draperies of windows, dresser and mirror. On the pillow is a nightcap, in which even a homely woman would be beautiful. There is a clothespress in the corner, into which Mr. Spear says we may look. On the door is a slippery-elm button, and within, hanging on wooden pegs, are dainty dresses; stiff, curiously embroidered gowns they are, that came from across the sea, sent, perhaps, by John Adams when he went to France, and left Abigail here to farm and sew and weave and teach the children. June examined the dresses carefully, and said the embroidery was handmade, and must have taken months and months to complete. On a high shelf of the closet are bandboxes, in which are bonnets, astonishing bonnets, with prodigious flaring fronts. Mr. Spear insisted that June should try one on, and when she did we stood off and declared the effect was a vision of loveliness. Outside the clothespress, on a peg, hangs a linsey-woolsey every-day gown that shows marks of wear. The waist came just under June's arms, and the bottom of the dress to her shoe-tops. We asked Mr. Spear the price of it, but the custodian is not commercial. In a corner of the room is a cedar chest containing hand-woven linen. By the front window is a little, low desk, with a leaf that opens out for a writing-shelf. And here you see quill-pens, fresh nibbed, and ink in a curious well made from horn. Here it was that Abigail wrote those letters to her lover-husband when he attended those first and second Congresses in Philadelphia; and then when he was in France and England, those letters in which we see affection, loyalty, tales of babies with colic, brave, political good sense, and all those foolish trifles that go to fill up love-letters, and, at the last, are their divine essence and charm. Here, she wrote the letter telling of going with their seven-year-old boy, John Quincy, to Penn's Hill to watch the burning of Charlestown; and saw the flashing of cannons and rising smoke that marked the battle of Bunker Hill. Here she wrote to her husband when he was minister to England, "This little cottage has more comfort and satisfaction for you than the courts of royalty." But of all the letters written by that brave woman none reveals her true nobility better than the one written to her husband the day he became President of the United States. Here it is entire: Quincy, 8 February, 1797 "The sun is dressed in brightest beams, To give thy honors to the day." "And may it prove an auspicious prelude to each ensuing season. You have this day to declare yourself head of a Nation. And now, O Lord, my God, Thou hast made Thy servant ruler over the people. Give unto him an understanding heart, that he may know how to go out and come in before this great people; that he may discern between good and bad. For who is able to judge this Thy so great a people, were the words of a royal Sovereign; and not less applicable to him who is invested with the Chief Magistracy of a nation, though he wear not a crown, nor the robes of royalty. "My thoughts and my meditations are with you, though personally absent; and my petitions to Heaven are that the things which make for peace may not be hidden from your eyes. My feelings are not those of pride or ostentation upon the occasion. "They are solemnized by a sense of the obligations, the important trusts, and numerous duties connected with it. That you may be enabled to discharge them with honor to yourself, with justice and impartiality to your country, and with satisfaction to this great people, shall be the daily prayer of your "A.A." It was in this room that Abigail waited while British soldiers ransacked the rooms below and made bullets of the best pewter spoons. Here her son who was to be President was born. John Quincy Adams was six years old when his father kissed him good-by and rode away for Philadelphia with John Hancock and Samuel Adams (who rode a horse loaned him by John Adams). Abigail stood in the doorway holding the baby, and watched them disappear in the curve of the road. This was in August, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-four. Most of the rest of that year Abigail was alone with her babies on the little farm. It was the same next year, and in Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six, too, when John Adams wrote home that he had made the formal move for Independency and also nominated George Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the army; and he hoped things would soon be better. Those were troublous times in which to live in the vicinity of Boston. There were straggling troops passing up and down the Plymouth road every day. Sometimes they were redcoats and sometimes buff and blue, but all seemed to be very hungry and extremely thirsty, and the Adams household received a great deal more attention than it courted. The master of the house was away, but all seemed to know who lived there, and the callers were not always courteous. In such a feverish atmosphere of unrest, children evolve quickly into men and women, and their faces take on the look of thought where should be only careless, happy, dimpled smiles. Yes, responsibility matures, and that is the way John Quincy Adams got cheated out of his childhood. When eight years of age, his mother called him the little man of the house. The next year he was a post-rider, making a daily trip to Boston with letter-bags across his saddlebows. When eleven years of age, his father came home to say that some one had to go to France to serve with Jay and Franklin in making a treaty. "Go," said Abigail, "and God be with you!" But when it was suggested that John Quincy go, too, the parting did not seem so easy. But it was a fine opportunity for the boy to see the world of men, and the mother's head appreciated it even if her heart did not. And yet she had the heroism that is willing to remain behind. So father and son sailed away; and little John Quincy added postscripts to his father's letters and said, "I send my loving duty to my mamma." The boy took kindly to foreign ways, as boys will, and the French language had no such terrors for him as it had for his father. The first stay in Europe was only three months, and back they came on a leaky ship. But the home-stay was even shorter than the stay abroad, and John Adams had again to cross the water on his country's business. Again the boy went with him. It was five years before the mother saw him. And then he had gone on alone from Paris to London to meet her. She did not know him, for he was nearly eighteen and a man grown. He had visited every country in Europe and been the helper and companion of statesmen and courtiers, and seen society in its various phases. He spoke several languages, and in point of polish and manly dignity was the peer of many of his elders. Mrs. Adams looked at him and then began to cry, whether for joy or for sorrow she did not know. Her boy had gone, escaped her, gone forever, but, instead, here was a tall young diplomat calling her "mother." There was a career ahead for John Quincy Adams--his father knew it, his mother was sure of it, and John Quincy himself was not in doubt. He could then have gone right on, but his father was a Harvard man, and the New England superstition was strong in the Adams heart that success could only be achieved when based on a Harvard parchment. So back to Massachusetts sailed John Quincy; and a two-year course at Harvard secured the much-desired diploma. From the very time he crawled over this kitchen-floor and pushed a chair, learning to walk, or tumbled down the stairs and then made his way bravely up again alone, he knew that he would arrive. Precocious, proud, firm, and with a coldness in his nature that was not a heritage from either his father or his mother, he made his way. It was a zigzag course, and the way was strewn with the flotsam and jetsam of wrecked parties and blighted hopes, but out of the wreckage John Quincy Adams always appeared, calm, poised and serene. When he opposed the purchase of Louisiana it looks as if he allowed his animosity for Jefferson to put his judgment in chancery. He made mistakes, but this was the only blunder of his career. The record of that life expressed in bold stands thus: 1767--Born May Eleventh. 1776--Post-rider between Boston and Quincy. 1778---At school in Paris. 1780--At school in Leyden. 1781--Private Secretary to Minister to Russia. 1787---Graduated at Harvard. 1794--Minister at The Hague. 1797--Married Louise Catherine Johnson, of Maryland. 1797--Minister at Berlin. 1802--Member of Massachusetts State Senate. 1803--United States Senator. 1806--Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard 1809--Minister to Russia. 1811--Nominated and confirmed by Senate as Judge of Supreme Court of the United States; declined. 1814--Commissioner at Ghent to treat for peace with Great Britain. 1815--Minister to Great Britain. 1817--Secretary of State. 1825--Elected President of the United States. 1830--Elected a Member of Congress, and represented the district for seventeen years. 1848--Stricken with paralysis February Twenty-first in the Capitol, and died the second day after. * * * * * "Aren't we staying in this room a good while?" said June; "you have sat there staring out of that window looking at nothing for just ten minutes, and not a word have you spoken!" Mr. Spear had disappeared into space, and so we made our way across the little hall to the room that belonged to Mr. Adams. It was in the disorder that men's rooms are apt to be. On the table were quill-pens and curious old papers with seals on them, and on one I saw the date, June Sixteenth, Seventeen Hundred Sixty-eight--the whole document written out in the hand of John Adams, beginning very prim and careful, then moving off into a hurried scrawl as spirit mastered the letter. There is a little hair-covered trunk in the corner, studded with brass nails, and boots and leggings and canes and a jackknife and a bootjack, and, on the window-sill, a friendly snuffbox. In the clothespress were buff trousers and an embroidered coat, and shoes with silver buckles, and several suits of every-day clothes, showing wear and patches. On up to the garret we groped, and bumped our heads against the rafters. The light was dim, but we could make out more apples on strings, and roots and herbs in bunches hung from the peak. Here was a three-legged chair and a broken spinning-wheel, and the junk that is too valuable to throw away, yet not good enough to keep, but "some day may be needed." Down the narrow stairway we went, and in the little kitchen, Sammy, the artist, and Mr. Spear, the custodian, were busy at the fireplace preparing dinner. There is no stove in the house, and none is needed. The crane and brick oven and long-handled skillets suffice. Sammy is an expert camp-cook, and swears there is death in the chafing-dish, and grows profane if you mention one. His skill in turning flapjacks by a simple manipulation of the long-handled griddle means more to his true ego than the finest canvas. June offered to set the table, but Sammy said she could never do it alone, so together they brought out the blue china dishes and the pewter plates. Then they drew water at the stone-curbed well with the great sweep, carrying the leather-baled bucket between them. I was feeling quite useless and asked, "Can't I do something to help?" "There is the lye-leach--you might bring out some ashes and make some soft soap," said June pointing to the ancient leach and soap-kettle in the yard, the joys of Mr. Spear's heart. Sammy stood at the back door and pounded on the dishpan with a wooden spoon to announce that dinner was ready. It was quite a sumptuous meal: potatoes baked in the ashes, beans baked in the brick oven, coffee made on the hearth, fish cooked in the skillet, and pancakes made on a griddle with a handle three feet long. Mr. Spear had aspirations toward an apple-pie and had made violent efforts in that direction, but the product being dough on top and charcoal on the bottom we declined the nomination with thanks. June suggested that pies should be baked in an oven and not cooked on a pancake griddle. The custodian thought there might be something in it--a suggestion he would have scorned and scouted had it come from me. To change the rather painful subject, Mr. Spear began to talk about John and Abigail Adams, and to quote from their "Letters," a volume he seems to have by heart. "Do you know why their love was so very steadfast, and why they stimulated the mental and spiritual natures of each other so?" asked June. "No, why was it?" "Well, I'll tell you: it was because they spent one-third of their married life apart." "Indeed!" "Yes, and in this way they lived in an ideal world. In all their letters you see they are always counting the days ere they will meet. Now, people who are together all the time never write that way, because they do not feel that way--I'll leave it to Mr. Spear!" But Mr. Spear, being a bachelor, did not know. Then the case was referred to Sammy, and Sammy lied and said he had never considered the subject. "And would you advise, then, that married couples live apart one-third of the time, in the interests of domestic peace?" I asked. "Certainly!" said June, with her Burne-Jones chin in the air. "Certainly; but I fear you are the man who does not understand; and anyway I am sure it will be much more profitable for us to cultivate the receptive spirit and listen to Mr. Spear--such opportunities do not come very often. I did not mean to interrupt you, Mr. Spear; go on, please!" And Mr. Spear filled a clay pipe with natural leaf that he crumbled in his hand, and deftly picking a coal from the fireplace with a shovel one hundred fifty years old, puffed five times silently, and began to talk. ALEXANDER HAMILTON The objects to be attained are: To justify and preserve the confidence of the most enlightened friends of good government; to promote the increasing respectability of the American name; to answer the calls of justice; to restore landed property to its due value; to furnish new sources both to agriculture and to commerce; to cement more closely the union of the States; to add to their security against foreign attack; to establish public order on the basis of an upright and liberal policy: these are the great and invaluable ends to be secured by a proper and adequate provision, at the present period, for the support of public credit. --_Report to Congress_ [Illustration: ALEXANDER HAMILTON] We do not know the name of the mother of Alexander Hamilton: we do not know the given name of his father. But from letters, a diary and pieced-out reports, allowing fancy to bridge from fact to fact, we get a patchwork history of the events preceding the birth of this wonderful man. Every strong man has had a splendid mother. Hamilton's mother was a woman of wit, beauty and education. While very young, through the machinations of her elders, she had been married to a man much older than herself--rich, wilful and dissipated. The man's name was Lavine, but his first name we do not know, so hidden were the times in a maze of obscurity. The young wife very soon discovered the depravity of this man whom she had vowed to love and obey; divorce was impossible; and rather than endure a lifelong existence of legalized shame, she packed up her scanty effects and sought to hide herself from society and kinsmen by going to the West Indies. There she hoped to find employment as a governess in the family of one of the rich planters; or if this plan were not successful she would start a school on her own account, and thus benefit her kind and make for herself an honorable living. Arriving at the island of Nevis, she found that the natives did not especially desire education, certainly not enough to pay for it, and there was no family requiring a governess. But a certain Scotch planter by the name of Hamilton, who was consulted, thought in time that a school could be built up, and he offered to meet the expense of it until such a time as it could be put on a paying basis. Unmarried women who accept friendly loans from men stand in dangerous places. With all good women, heart-whole gratitude and a friendship that seems unselfish ripen easily into love. They did so here. Perhaps, in a warm, ardent temperament, sore grief and biting disappointment and crouching want obscure the judgment and give a show of reason to actions that a colder intellect would disapprove. On the frontiers of civilization man is greater than law--all ceremonies are looked upon lightly. In a few months Mrs. Lavine was called by the little world of Nevis, Mrs. Hamilton, and Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton regarded themselves as man and wife. The planter Hamilton was a hard-headed, busy individual, who was quite unable to sympathize with his wife's finer aspirations. Her first husband had been clever and dissipated; this one was worthy and dull. And thus deprived of congenial friendships, without books or art or that social home life which goes to make up a woman's world, and longing for the safety of close sympathy and tender love, with no one on whom her intellect could strike a spark, she keenly felt the bitterness of exile. In a city where society ebbs and flows, an intellectual woman married to a commerce-grubbing man is not especially to be pitied. She can find intellectual affinities that will ease the irksomeness of her situation. But to be cast on a desert isle with a being, no matter how good, who is incapable of feeling with you the eternal mystery of the encircling tides; who can only stare when you speak of the moaning lullaby of the restless sea; who knows not the glory of the sunrise, and feels no thrill when the breakers dash themselves into foam, or the moonlight dances on the phosphorescent waves--ah, that is indeed exile! Loneliness is not in being alone, for then ministering spirits come to soothe and bless--loneliness is to endure the presence of one who does not understand. And so this finely organized, receptive, aspiring woman, through the exercise of a will that seemed masculine in its strength, found her feet mired in quicksand. She struggled to free herself, and every effort only sank her deeper. The relentless environment only held her with firmer clutch. She thirsted for knowledge, for sweet music, for beauty, for sympathy, for attainment. She had a heart-hunger that none about her understood. She strove for better things. She prayed to God, but the heavens were as brass; she cried aloud, and the only answer was the throbbing of her restless heart. In this condition, a son was born to her. They called his name Alexander Hamilton. This child was heir to all his mother's splendid ambitions. Her lack of opportunity was his blessing; for the stifled aspirations of her soul charged his being with a strong man's desires, and all the mother's silken, unswerving will was woven through his nature. He was to surmount obstacles that she could not overcome, and to tread under his feet difficulties that to her were invincible. The prayer of her heart was answered, but not in the way she expected. God listened to her after all; for every earnest prayer has its answer, and not a sincere desire of the heart but somewhere will find its gratification. But earth's buffets were too severe for the brave young woman; the forces in league against her were more than she could withstand, and before her boy was out of baby dresses she gave up the struggle, and went to her long rest, soothed only by the thought that, although she had sorely blundered, she yet had done her work as best she could. * * * * * At his mother's death, we find Alexander Hamilton taken in charge by certain mystical kinsmen. Evidently he was well cared for, as he grew into a handsome, strong lad--small, to be sure, but finely formed. Where he learned to read, write and cipher we know not; he seems to have had one of those active, alert minds that can acquire knowledge on a barren island. When nine years old, he signed his name as witness to a deed. The signature is needlessly large and bold, and written with careful schoolboy pains, but the writing shows the same characteristics that mark the thousand and one dispatches which we have, signed at bottom, "G. Washington." At twelve years of age, he was clerk in a general store--one of those country stores where everything is kept, from ribbon to whisky. There were other helpers in the store, full grown; but when the proprietor went away for a few days into the interior, the dark, slim youngster took charge of the bookkeeping and the cash; and made such shrewd exchanges of merchandise for produce that when the "Old Man" returned, the lad was rewarded by two pats on the head and a raise in salary of one shilling a week. About this time, the boy was also showing signs of literary skill by writing sundry poems and "compositions," and one of his efforts in this line describing a tropical hurricane was published in a London paper. This opened the eyes of the mystical kinsmen to the fact that they had a genius among them, and the elder Hamilton was importuned for money to send the boy to Boston that he might receive a proper education and come back and own the store and be a magistrate and a great man. No doubt the lad pressed the issue, too, for his ambition had already begun to ferment, as we find him writing to a friend, "I'll risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station." Most great things in America have to take their rise in Boston; so it seems meet that Alexander Hamilton, aged fifteen, a British subject, should first set foot on American soil at Long Wharf, Boston. He took a ferry over to Cambridgeport and walked through the woods three miles to Harvard College. Possibly he did not remain because his training in a bookish way had not been sufficient for him to enter, and possibly he did not like the Puritanic visage of the old professor who greeted him on the threshold of Massachusetts Hall; at any rate, he soon made his way to New Haven. Yale suited him no better, and he took a boat for New York. He had letters to several good clergymen in New York, and they proved wise and good counselors. The boy was advised to take a course at the Grammar School at Elizabethtown, New Jersey. There he remained a year, applying himself most vigorously, and the next Fall he knocked at the gate of King's College. It is called Columbia now, because kings in America went out of fashion, and all honors formerly paid to the king were turned over to Miss Columbia, Goddess of Freedom. King's College swung wide its doors for the swarthy little West Indian. He was allowed to choose his own course, and every advantage of the university was offered him. In a university, you get just all you are able to hold--it depends upon yourself--and at the last all men who are made at all are self-made. Hamilton improved each passing moment as it flew; with the help of a tutor he threw himself into his work, gathering up knowledge with the quick perception and eager alertness of one from whom the good things of earth have been withheld. Yet he lived well and spent his money as if there were plenty more where it came from; but he was never dissipated nor wasteful. This was in the year Seventeen Hundred Seventy-four, and the Colonies were in a state of political excitement. Young Hamilton's sympathies were all with the mother country. He looked upon the Americans, for the most part, as a rude, crude and barbaric people, who should be very grateful for the protection of such an all-powerful country as England. At his boarding-house and at school, he argued the question hotly, defending England's right to tax her dependencies. One fine day, one of his schoolmates put the question to him flatly: "In case of war, on which side will you fight?" Hamilton answered, "On the side of England." But by the next day he had reasoned it out that if England succeeded in suppressing the rising insurrection she would take all credit to herself; and if the Colonies succeeded there would be honors for those who did the work. Suddenly it came over him that there was such a thing as "the divine right of insurrection," and that there was no reason why men living in America should be taxed to support a government across the sea. The wealth produced in America should be used to develop America. He was young, and burning with a lofty ambition. He knew, and had known all along, that he would some day be great and famous and powerful--here was the opportunity. And so, next day, he announced at the boarding-house that the eloquence and logic of his messmates were too powerful to resist--he believed the Colonies and the messmates were in the right. Then several bottles were brought in, and success was drunk to all men who strove for liberty. Patriotic sentiment is at the last self-interest; in fact, Herbert Spencer declares that there is no sane thought or rational act but has its root in egoism. Shortly after the young man's conversion, there was a mass-meeting held in "The Fields," which meant the wilds of what is now the region of Twenty-third Street. Young Hamilton stood in the crowd and heard the various speakers plead the cause of the Colonies, and urge that New York should stand firm with Massachusetts against the further encroachments and persecutions of England. There were many Tories in the crowd, for New York was with King George as against Massachusetts, and these Tories asked the speakers embarrassing questions that the speakers failed to answer. And all the time young Hamilton found himself nearer and nearer the platform. Finally, he undertook to reply to a talkative Tory, and some one shouted, "Give him the platform--the platform!" and in a moment this seventeen-year-old boy found himself facing two thousand people. There was hesitation and embarrassment, but the shouts of one of his college chums, "Give it to 'em! Give it to 'em!" filled in an awkward instant, and he began to speak. There was logic and lucidity of expression, and as he talked the air became charged with reasons, and all he had to do was to reach up and seize them. His strong and passionate nature gave gravity to his sentences, and every quibbling objector found himself answered, and more than answered, and the speakers who were to present the case found this stripling doing the work so much better than they could, that they urged him on with applause and loud cries of "Bravo! Bravo!" Immediately at the close of Hamilton's speech, the chairman had the good sense to declare the meeting adjourned--thus shutting off all reply, as well as closing the mouths of the minnow orators who usually pop up to neutralize the impression that the strong man has made. Hamilton's speech was the talk of the town. The leading Whigs sought him out and begged that he would write down his address so that they could print it as a pamphlet in reply to the Tory pamphleteers who were vigorously circulating their wares. The pens of ready writers were scarce in those days: men could argue, but to present a forcible written brief was another thing. So young Hamilton put his reasons on paper, and their success surprised the boys at the boarding-house, and the college chums and the professors, and probably himself as well. His name was on the lips of all Whigdom, and the Tories sent messengers to buy him off. But Congress was willing to pay its defenders, and money came from somewhere--not much, but all the young man needed. College was dropped; the political pot boiled; and the study of history, economics and statecraft filled the daylight hours to the brim and often ran over into the night. The Winter of Seventeen Hundred Seventy-five passed away; the plot thickened. New York had reluctantly consented to be represented in Congress and agreed grumpily to join hands with the Colonies. The redcoats had marched out to Concord--and back; and the embattled farmers had stood and fired the shot "heard 'round the world." Hamilton was working hard to bring New York over to an understanding that she must stand firm against English rule. He organized meetings, gave addresses, wrote letters, newspaper articles and pamphlets. Then he joined a military company and was perfecting himself in the science of war. There were frequent outbreaks between Tory mobs and Whigs, and the breaking up of your opponents' meeting was looked upon as a pleasant pastime. Then came the British ship "Asia" and opened fire on the town. This no doubt made Whigs of a good many Tories. Whig sentiment was on the increase; gangs of men marched through the streets and the king's stores were broken into, and prominent Royalists found their houses being threatened. Doctor Cooper, President of King's College, had been very pronounced in his rebukes to Congress and the Colonies, and a mob made its way to his house. Arriving there, Hamilton and his chum Troup were found on the steps, determined to protect the place. Hamilton stepped forward, and in a strong speech urged that Doctor Cooper had merely expressed his own private views, which he had a right to do, and the house must not on any account be molested. While the parley was in progress, old Doctor Cooper himself appeared at one of the upper windows and excitedly cautioned the crowd not to listen to that blatant young rapscallion Hamilton, as he was a rogue and a varlet and a vagrom. The good Doctor then slammed the window and escaped by the back way. His remarks raised a laugh in which even young Hamilton joined, but his mistake was very natural in view of the fact that he only knew that Hamilton had deserted the college and espoused the devil's cause; and not having heard his remarks, but seeing him standing on his steps haranguing a crowd, thought surely he was endeavoring to work up mischief against his old preceptor, who had once plucked him in Greek. It seems to have been the intention of his guardians that the limit of young Hamilton's stay in America was to be two years, and by that time his education would be "complete," and he would return to the West Indies and surprise the natives. But his father, who supplied the money, and the mystical kinsmen who supplied advice, and the kind friends who had given him letters to the Presbyterian clergymen at New York and Princeton, had figured without their host. Young Hamilton knew all that Nevis had in store for him: he knew its littleness, its contumely and disgrace, and in the secret recesses of his own strong heart he had slipped the cable that held him to the past. No more remittances from home; no more solicitous advice; no more kind, loving letters--the past was dead. For England he once had had an almost idolatrous regard; to him she had once been the protector of his native land, the empress of the seas, the enlightener of mankind; but henceforth he was an American. He was to fight America's battles, to share in her victory, to help make of her a great Nation, and to weave his name into the web of her history so that as long as the United States of America shall be remembered, so long also shall be remembered the name of Alexander Hamilton. * * * * * What General Washington called his "family" usually consisted of sixteen men. These were his aides, and more than that, his counselors and friends. In Washington's frequent use of that expression, "my family," there is a touch of affection that we do not expect to find in the tents of war. In rank, the staff ran the gamut from captain to general. Each man had his appointed work and made a daily report to his chief. When not in actual action, the family dined together daily, and the affair was conducted with considerable ceremony. Washington sat at the head of the table, large, handsome and dignified. At his right hand was seated the guest of honor, and there were usually several invited friends. At his left sat Alexander Hamilton, ready with quick pen to record the orders of his chief. And methinks it would have been quite worth while to have had a place at that board, and looked down the table at "the strong, fine face, tinged with melancholy," of Washington; and the cheery, youthful faces of Lawrence, Tilghman, Lee, Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton and the others of that brave and handsome company. Well might they have called Washington father, for this he was in spirit to them all--grave, gentle, courteous and magnanimous, yet exacting strict and instant obedience from all; and well, too, may we imagine that this obedience was freely and cheerfully given. Hamilton became one of Washington's family on March First, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-seven, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He was barely twenty years of age; Washington was forty-seven, and the average age of the family, omitting its head, was twenty-five. All had been selected on account of superior intelligence and a record of dashing courage. When Hamilton took his place at the board, he was the youngest member, save one. In point of literary talent, he stood among the very foremost in the country, for then there was no literature in America save the literature of politics; and as an officer, he had shown rare skill and bravery. And yet, such was Hamilton's ambition and confidence in himself, that he hesitated to accept the position, and considered it an act of sacrifice to do so. But having once accepted, he threw himself into the work and became Washington's most intimate and valued assistant. Washington's correspondence with his generals, with Congress, and the written decisions demanded daily on hundreds of minor questions, mostly devolved on Hamilton, for work gravitates to him who can do it best. A simple "Yes," "No" or "Perhaps" from the chief must be elaborated into a diplomatic letter, conveying just the right shade of meaning, all with its proper emphasis and show of dignity and respect. Thousands of these dispatches can now be seen at the Capitol; and the ease, grace, directness and insight shown in them are remarkable. There is no muddy rhetoric or befuddled clauses. They were written by one with a clear understanding, who was intent that the person addressed should understand, too. Many of these documents were merely signed by Washington, but a few reveal interlined sentences and an occasional word changed in Washington's hand, thus showing that all was closely scrutinized and digested. As a member of Washington's staff, Hamilton did not have the independent command that he so much desired; but he endured that heroic Winter at Valley Forge, was present at all the important battles, took an active part in most of them, and always gained honor and distinction. As an aide to Washington, Hamilton's most important mission was when he was sent to General Gates to secure reinforcements for the Southern army. Gates had defeated Burgoyne and won a full dozen stern victories in the North. In the meantime, Washington had done nothing but make a few brave retreats. Gates' army was made up of hardy and seasoned soldiers, who had met the enemy and defeated him over and over again. The flush of success was on their banners; and Washington knew that if a few thousand of those rugged veterans could be secured to reinforce his own well-nigh discouraged troops, victory would also perch upon the banners of the South. As a superior officer he had the right to demand these troops; but to reduce the force of a general who is making an excellent success is not the common rule of war. The country looked upon Gates as its savior, and Gates was feeling a little that way himself. Gates had but to demand it, and the position of Commander-in-Chief would go to him. Washington thoroughly realized this, and therefore hesitated about issuing an order requesting a part of Gates' force. To secure these troops as if the suggestion came from Gates was a most delicate commission. Alexander Hamilton was dispatched to Gates' headquarters, armed, as a last resort, with a curt military order to the effect that he should turn over a portion of his army to Washington. Hamilton's orders were: "Bring the troops, but do not deliver this order unless you are obliged to." Hamilton brought the troops, and returned the order with seal intact. The act of his sudden breaking with Washington has been much exaggerated. In fact, it was not a sudden act at all, for it had been premeditated for some months. There was a woman in the case. Hamilton had done more than conquer General Gates on that Northern trip; at Albany, he had met Elizabeth, daughter of General Schuyler, and won her after what has been spoken of as "a short and sharp skirmish." Both Alexander and Elizabeth regarded "a clerkship" as quite too limited a career for one so gifted; they felt that nothing less than commander of a division would answer. How to break loose--that was the question. And when Washington met him at the head of the stairs of the New Windsor Hotel and sharply chided him for being late, the young man embraced the opportunity and said, "Sir, since you think I have been remiss, we part." It was the act of a boy; and the figure of this boy, five feet five inches high, weight one hundred twenty, aged twenty-four, talking back to his chief, six feet three, weight two hundred, aged fifty, has its comic side. Military rule demands that every one shall be on time, and Washington's rebuke was proper and right. Further than this, one feels that if he had followed up his rebuke by boxing the young man's ears for "sassing back," he would still not have been outside the lines of duty. But an hour afterwards we find Washington sending for the youth and endeavoring to mend the break. And although Hamilton proudly repelled his advances, Washington forgave all and generously did all he could to advance the young man's interests. Washington's magnanimity was absolutely without flaw, but his attitude towards Hamilton has a more suggestive meaning when we consider that it was a testimonial of the high estimate he placed on Hamilton's ability. At Yorktown, Washington gave Hamilton the perilous privilege of leading the assault. Hamilton did his work well, rushing with fiery impetuosity upon the fort--carried all before him, and in ten minutes had planted the Stars and Stripes on the ramparts of the enemy. It was a fine and fitting close to his glorious military career. * * * * * When Washington became President, the most important office to be filled was that of manager of the exchequer. In fact, all there was of it was the office--there was no treasury, no mint, no fixed revenue, no credit; but there were debts--foreign and domestic--and clamoring creditors by the thousand. The debts consisted of what was then the vast sum of eighty million dollars. The treasury was empty. Washington had many advisers who argued that the Nation could never live under such a weight of debt--the only way was flatly and frankly to repudiate--wipe the slate clean--and begin afresh. This was what the country expected would be done; and so low was the hope of payment that creditors could be found who were willing to compromise their claims for ten cents on the dollar. Robert Morris, who had managed the finances during the period of the Confederation, utterly refused to attempt the task again, but he named a man who, he said, could bring order out of chaos, if any living man could. That man was Alexander Hamilton. Washington appealed to Hamilton, offering him the position of Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton, aged thirty-two, gave up his law practise, which was yielding him ten thousand a year, to accept this office which paid three thousand five hundred. Before the British cannon, Washington did not lose heart, but to face the angry mob of creditors waving white-paper claims made him quake; but with Hamilton's presence his courage came back. The first thing that Hamilton decided upon was that there should be no repudiation--no offer of compromise would be considered--every man should be paid in full. And further than this, the general government would assume the entire war debt of each individual State. Washington concurred with Hamilton on these points, but he could make neither oral nor written argument in a way that would convince others; so this task was left to Hamilton. Hamilton appeared before Congress and explained his plans--explained them so lucidly and with such force and precision that he made an indelible impression. There were grumblers and complainers, but these did not and could not reply to Hamilton, for he saw all over and around the subject, and they saw it only at an angle. Hamilton had studied the history of finance, and knew the financial schemes of every country. No question of statecraft could be asked him for which he did not have a reply ready. He knew the science of government as no other man in America then did, and recognizing this, Congress asked him to prepare reports on the collection of revenue, the coasting trade, the effects of a tariff, shipbuilding, post-office extension, and also a scheme for a judicial system. When in doubt they asked Hamilton. And all the time Hamilton was working at this bewildering maze of detail, he was evolving that financial policy, broad, comprehensive and minute, which endures even to this day, even to the various forms of accounts that are now kept at the Treasury Department at Washington. His insistence that to preserve the credit of a nation every debt must be paid, is an idea that no statesman now dare question. The entire aim and intent of his policy was high, open and frank honesty. The people should be made to feel an absolute security in their government, and this being so, all forms of industry would prosper, "and the prosperity of the people is the prosperity of the Nation." To such a degree of confidence did Hamilton raise the public credit that in a very short time the government found no trouble in borrowing all the money it needed at four per cent; and yet this was done in face of the fact that its debt had increased. Just here was where his policy invited its strongest and most bitter attack. For there are men today who can not comprehend that a public debt is a public blessing, and that all liabilities have a strict and undivorceable relationship to assets. Alexander Hamilton was a leader of men. He could do the thinking of his time and map out a policy, "arranging every detail for a kingdom." He has been likened to Napoleon in his ability to plan and execute with rapid and marvelous precision, and surely the similarity is striking. But he was not an adept in the difficult and delicate art of diplomacy--he could not wait. He demanded instant obedience, and lacked all of that large, patient, calm magnanimity so splendidly shown forth since by Abraham Lincoln. Unlike Jefferson, his great rival, he could not calmly and silently bide his time. But I will not quarrel with a man because he is not some one else. He saw things clearly at a glance; he knew because he knew; and if others would not follow, he had the audacity to push on alone. This recklessness to the opinion of the slow and plodding, this indifference to the dull, gradually drew upon him the hatred of a class. They said he was a monarchist at heart and "such men are dangerous." The country became divided into those who were with Hamilton and those who were against him. The very transcendent quality of his genius wove the net that eventually was to catch his feet and accomplish his ruin. * * * * * It has been the usual practise for nearly a hundred years to refer to Aaron Burr as a roue, a rogue and a thorough villain, who took the life of a gentle and innocent man. I have no apologies to make for Colonel Burr; the record of his life lies open in many books, and I would neither conceal nor explain away. If I should attempt to describe the man and liken him to another, that man would be Alexander Hamilton. They were the same age within ten months; they were the same height within an inch; their weight was the same within five pounds, and in temperament and disposition they resembled each other as brothers seldom do. Each was passionate, ambitious, proud. In the drawing-room where one of these men chanced to be, there was room for no one else--such was the vivacity, the wit, and the generous, glowing good-nature shown. With women, the manner of these men was most gentle and courtly; and the low, alluring voice of each was music's honeyed flattery set to words. Both were much under the average height, yet the carriage of each was so proud and imposing that everywhere they went men made way, and women turned and stared. Both were public speakers and lawyers of such eminence that they took their pick of clients and charged all the fee that policy would allow. In debate, there was a wilful aggressiveness, a fiery sureness, a lofty certainty, that moved judges and juries to do their bidding. Henry Cabot Lodge says that so great was Hamilton's renown as a lawyer that clients flocked to him because the belief was abroad that no judge dare decide against him. With Burr it was the same. Both made large sums, and both spent them all as fast as made. In point of classic education, Burr had the advantage. He was the grandson of the Reverend Jonathan Edwards. In his strong, personal magnetism, and keen, many-sided intellect, Aaron Burr strongly resembled the gifted Presbyterian divine who wrote "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." His father was the Reverend Aaron Burr, President of Princeton College. He was a graduate of Princeton, and, like Hamilton, always had the ability to focus his mind on the subject in hand, and wring from it its very core. Burr's reputation as to his susceptibility to women's charms is the world's common--very common--property. He was unhappily married; his wife died before he was thirty; he was a man of ardent nature and stalked through the world a conquering Don Juan. A historian, however, records that "his alliances were only with women who were deemed by society to be respectable. Married women, unhappily mated, knowing his reputation, very often placed themselves in his way, going to him for advice, as moths court the flame. Young, tender and innocent girls had no charm for him." Hamilton was happily married to a woman of aristocratic family; rich, educated, intellectual, gentle, and worthy of him at his best. They had a family of eight children. Hamilton was a favorite of women everywhere and was mixed up in various scandalous intrigues. He was an easy mark for a designing woman. In one instance, the affair was seized upon by his political foes, and made capital of to his sore disadvantage. Hamilton met the issue by writing a pamphlet, laying bare the entire shameless affair, to the horror of his family and friends. Copies of this pamphlet may be seen in the rooms of the American Historical Society at New York. Burr had been Attorney-General of New York State and also United States Senator. Each man had served on Washington's staff; each had a brilliant military record; each had acted as second in a duel; each recognized the honor of the code. Stern political differences arose, not so much through matters of opinion and conscience, as through ambitious rivalry. Neither was willing the other should rise, yet both thirsted for place and power. Burr ran for the Presidency, and was sternly, strongly, bitterly opposed as "a dangerous man" by Hamilton. At the election one more electoral vote would have given the highest office of the people to Aaron Burr; as it was he tied with Jefferson. The matter was thrown into the House of Representatives, and Jefferson was given the office, with Burr as Vice-President. Burr considered, and perhaps rightly, that were it not for Hamilton's assertive influence he would have been President of the United States. While still Vice-President, Burr sought to become Governor of New York, thinking this the surest road to receiving the nomination for the Presidency at the next election. Hamilton openly and bitterly opposed him, and the office went to another. Burr considered, and rightly, that were it not for Hamilton's influence he would have been Governor of New York. Burr, smarting under the sting of this continual opposition by a man who himself was shelved politically through his own too fiery ambition, sent a note by his friend Van Ness to Hamilton, asking whether the language he had used concerning him ("a dangerous man") referred to him politically or personally. Hamilton replied evasively, saying he could not recall all that he might have said during fifteen years of public life. "Especially," he said in his letter, "it can not be reasonably expected that I shall enter into any explanation upon a basis so vague as you have adopted. I trust on more reflection you will see the matter in the same light. If not, however, I only regret the circumstances, and must abide the consequences." When fighting men use fighting language they invite a challenge. Hamilton's excessively polite regret that "he must abide the consequences" simply meant fight, as his language had for a space of five years. A challenge was sent by the hand of Pendleton. Hamilton accepted. Being the challenged man (for duelists are always polite), he was given the choice of weapons. He chose pistols at ten paces. At seven o'clock on the morning of July Eleventh, Eighteen Hundred Four, the participants met on the heights of Weehawken, overlooking New York Bay. On a toss Hamilton won the choice of position and his second also won the right of giving the word to fire. Each man removed his coat and cravat; the pistols were loaded in their presence. As Pendleton handed his pistol to Hamilton he asked, "Shall I set the hair-trigger?" "Not this time," replied Hamilton. With pistols primed and cocked, the men were stationed facing each other, thirty feet apart. Both were pale, but free from any visible nervousness or excitement. Neither had partaken of stimulants. Each was asked if he had anything to say, or if he knew of any way by which the affair could be terminated there and then. Each answered quietly in the negative. Pendleton, standing fifteen feet to the right of his principal, said: "One--two--three--present!" and as the last final sounding of the letter "t" escaped his teeth, Burr fired, followed almost instantly by the other. Hamilton arose convulsively on his toes, reeled, and Burr, dropping his smoking pistol, sprang towards him to support him, a look of regret on his face. Van Ness raised an umbrella over the fallen man, and motioned Burr to be gone. The ball passed through Hamilton's body, breaking a rib, and lodging in the second lumbar vertebra. The bullet from Hamilton's pistol cut a twig four feet above Burr's head. While he was lying on the ground Hamilton saw his pistol near and said, "Look out for that pistol, it is loaded--Pendleton knows I did not intend to fire at him!" Hamilton died the following day, first declaring that he bore Colonel Burr no ill-will. Colonel Burr said he very much regretted the whole affair, but the language and attitude of Hamilton forced him to send a challenge or remain quiet and be branded as a coward. He fully realized before the meeting that if he killed Hamilton it would be political death for him, too. At the time of the deed Burr had no family; Hamilton had a wife and seven children, his oldest son having fallen in a duel fought three years before on the identical spot where he, too, fell. Burr fled the country. Three years afterwards, he was arrested for treason in trying to found an independent State within the borders of the United States. He was tried and found not guilty. After some years spent abroad he returned and took up the practise of law in New York. He was fairly successful, lived a modest, quiet life, and died September Fourteenth, Eighteen Hundred Thirty-six, aged eighty years. Hamilton's widow survived him just one-half a century, dying in her ninety-eighth year. So passeth away the glory of the world. DANIEL WEBSTER Not many days ago I saw at breakfast the notablest of all your notabilities, Daniel Webster. He is a magnificent specimen. You might say to all the world, "This is our Yankee-Englishman; such links we make in Yankeeland!" As a logic fencer, advocate or Parliamentary Hercules, one would incline to back him at first sight against all the extant world. The tanned complexion; the amorphous, craglike face; the dull black eyes under the precipice of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces needing only to be blown; the mastiff mouth accurately closed; I have not traced so much of silent Berserker rage that I remember of in any other man. "I guess I should not like to be your nigger!" --Carlyle to Emerson [Illustration: DANIEL WEBSTER] Those were splendid days, tinged with no trace of blue, when I attended the district school, wearing trousers buttoned to a calico waist. I had ambitions then--I was sure that some day I could spell down the school, propound a problem in fractions that would puzzle the teacher, and play checkers in a way that would cause my name to be known throughout the entire township. In the midst of these pleasant emotions, a cloud appeared upon the horizon of my happiness. What was it? A Friday Afternoon, that's all. A new teacher had been engaged--a woman, actually a young woman. It was prophesied that she could not keep order a single day, for the term before, the big boys had once arisen and put out of the building the man who taught them. Then there was a boy who occasionally brought a dog to school; and when the bell rang, the dog followed the boy into the room and lay under the desk pounding his tail on the floor; and everybody tittered and giggled until the boy had been coaxed into taking the dog home, for if merely left in the entry he howled and whined in a way that made study impossible. But one day the boy was not to be coaxed, and the teacher grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck, and flung him through a window so forcibly that he never came back. And now a woman was to teach the school: she was only a little woman and yet the boys obeyed her, and I had come to think that a woman could teach school nearly as well as a man, when the awful announcement was made that thereafter every week we were to have a Friday Afternoon. There were to be no lessons; everybody was to speak a piece, and then there was to be a spelling-match--and that was all. But heavens! it was enough. Monday began very blue and gloomy, and the density increased as the week passed. My mother had drilled me well in my lines, and my big sister was lavish in her praise, but the awful ordeal of standing up before the whole school was yet to come. Thursday night I slept but little, and all Friday morning I was in a burning fever. At noon I could not eat my lunch, but I tried to, manfully, and as I munched on the tasteless morsels, salt tears rained on the johnnycake I held in my hand. And even when the girls brought in big bunches of wild flowers and cornstalks, and began to decorate the platform, things appeared no brighter. Finally, the teacher went to the door and rang the bell: nobody seemed to play, and as the scholars took their seats, some, very pale, tried to smile, and others whispered, "Have you got your piece?" Still others kept their lips working, repeating lines that struggled hard to flee. Names were called, but I did not see who went up, neither did I hear what was said. At last, my name was called: it came like a clap of thunder--as a great surprise, a shock. I clutched the desk, struggled to my feet, passed down the aisle, the sound of my shoes echoing through the silence like the strokes of a maul. The blood seemed ready to burst from my eyes, ears and nose. I reached the platform, missed my footing, stumbled, and nearly fell. I heard the giggling that followed, and knew that a red-haired boy, who had just spoken, and was therefore unnecessarily jubilant, had laughed aloud. I was angry. I shut my fists so that the nails cut my flesh, and glaring straight at his red head shot my bolt: "I know not how others may feel, but sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my heart and my hand to this vote. It is my living sentiment and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment. Independence now, and independence forever." That was all of the piece. I gave the whole thing in a mouthful, and started for my seat, got halfway there and remembered I had forgotten to bow, turned, went back to the platform, bowed with a jerk, started again for my seat, and hearing some one laugh, ran. Reaching the seat, I burst into tears. The teacher came over, patted my head, kissed my cheek, and told me I had done first-rate, and after hearing several others speak I calmed down and quite agreed with her. * * * * * It was Daniel Webster who caused the Friday Afternoon to become an institution in the schools of America. His early struggles were dwelt upon and rehearsed by parents and pedagogues until every boy was looked upon as a possible Demosthenes holding senates in thrall. If physical imperfections were noticeable, the fond mother would explain that Demosthenes was a sickly, ill-formed youth, who only overcame a lisp by orating to the sea with his mouth full of pebbles; and every one knew that Webster was educated only because he was too weak to work. Oratory was in the air; elocution was rampant; and to declaim in orotund, and gesticulate in curves, was regarded as the chief end of man. One-tenth of the time in all public schools was given over to speaking, and on Saturday evenings the schoolhouse was sacred to the Debating Society. Then came the Lyceum, and the orators of the land made pilgrimages, stopping one day in a place, putting themselves on exhibition, and giving the people a taste of their quality at fifty cents per head. Recently, there has been a relapse of the oratorical fever. Every city from Leadville to Boston has its College of Oratory, or School of Expression, wherein a newly discovered "Natural Method" is divulged for a consideration. Some of these "Colleges" have done much good; one in particular I know, that fosters a fine spirit of sympathy, and a trace of mysticism that is well in these hurrying, scurrying days. But all combined have never produced an orator; no, dearie, they never have, and never can. You might as well have a school for poets, or a college for saints, or give medals for proficiency in the gentle art of wooing, as to expect to make an orator by telling how. Once upon a day, Sir Walter Besant was to give a lecture upon "The Art of the Novelist." He had just adjusted his necktie for the last time, slipped a lozenge into his mouth, and was about to appear upon the platform, when he felt a tug at the tail of his dress-coat. On looking around, he saw the anxious face of his friend, James Payn. "For God's sake, Walter," whispered Payn, "you are not going to explain to 'em how you do it, are you?" But Walter did not explain how to write fiction, because he could not, and Payn's quizzing question happily relieved the lecture of the bumptiousness it might otherwise have contained. The first culture for which a people reach out is oratory. The Indian is an orator with "the natural method"; he takes the stump on small provocation, and under the spell of the faces that look up to him, is often moved to strange eloquence. I have heard negro preachers who could neither read nor write, move vast congregations to profoundest emotion by the magic of their words and presence. And further, they proved to me that the ability to read and write is a cheap accomplishment, and that a man can be a very strong character, and not know how to do either. For the most part, people who live in cities are not moved by oratory; they are unsocial, unimaginative, unemotional. They see so much and hear so much that they cease to be impressed. When they come together in assemblages they are so apathetic that they fail to generate magnetism--there is no common soul to which the speaker can address himself. They are so cold that the orator never welds them into a mass. He may amuse them, but in a single hour to change the opinions of a lifetime is no longer possible in America. There are so many people, and so much business to transact, that emotional life plays only upon the surface--in it there is no depth. To possess depth you must commune with the Silences. No more do you find men and women coming for fifty miles, in wagons, to hear speakers discuss political issues; no more do you find campmeetings where the preacher strikes conviction home until thousands are on their knees crying to God for mercy. Intelligence has increased; spirituality has declined, and as a people the warm emotions of our hearts are gone forever. Oratory is a rustic product. The great orators have always been country-bred, and their appeal has been made to rural people. Those who live in a big place think they are bigger on that account. They acquire glibness of speech and polish of manner; but they purchase these things at a price. They lack the power to weigh mighty questions, the courage to formulate them, and the sturdy vitality to stand up and declare them in the face of opposition. Revolutions are fought by farmers and rail-splitters; these are the embattled men who fire the shots heard 'round the world. When Daniel Webster's father took up his residence in New Hampshire, his log cabin was the most northern one of the Colonies. Between him and Montreal lay an unbroken forest inhabited only by prowling Indians. Ebenezer Webster's long rifle had sent cold lead into many a redskin; and the same rifle had done good service in fighting the British. Once, its owner stood guard before Washington's Headquarters at Newburgh, and Washington came out and said, "Captain Webster, I can trust you!" Ebenezer Webster would leave his home to carry a bag of corn on his back through the woods to the mill ten miles away to have it ground into meal, and his wife would be left alone with the children. On such occasions, Indians who never saw settlers' cabins without having an itch to burn them, used sometimes to call, and the housewife would have to parley with these savages, "impressing them concerning the rights of property." So here was born Daniel Webster, in Seventeen Hundred Eighty-two, the second child of his mother. His father was then forty-three, and had already raised one brood, but his mother was only in her twenties. It seems that biting poverty and sore deprivation are about as good prenatal influences as a soul can well ask, provided there abides with the mother a noble discontent and a brave unrest. However, it came near being overdone in Daniel Webster's case, for the Mrs. Gamp who presided at his birth declared he could not live, and if he did, would "allus be a no-'count." But he made a brave fight for breath, and his crossness and peevishness through the first years of his life were proof of vitality. He must have been a queer toddler when he wore dresses, with his immense head and deep-set black eyes and serious ways. Being sickly, he was allowed to rule, and the big girls, his half-sisters, humored him, and his mother did the same. They taught him his letters when he was only a baby, and he himself said that he could not remember a time when he could not read the Bible. When he grew older he did not have to bring in wood and do the chores--he was not strong enough, they said. Little Dan was of a like belief, and encouraged the idea on every occasion. He roamed the woods, fished, hunted, and read every scrap of print that came his way. Being able to read any kind of print, and not being strong enough to work, it very early was decided that he should have an education. It is rather a humbling confession to make, but our worthy forefathers chiefly prized an education for the fact that it caused the fortunate possessor to be exempt from manual labor. When Daniel was fourteen, a member of Congress came to see Ebenezer Webster, to secure his influence at election. As the great man rode away, Ebenezer said to his son: "Daniel, look there! he is educated and gets six dollars a day in Congress for doing nothing; while I toil on this rocky hillside and hardly see six dollars in a year. Daniel, get an education!" "I'll do it," said Daniel, and throwing his arms around his father's neck, burst into tears. The village of Salisbury, where Webster was born, is fifteen miles north of Concord. You leave the train at Boscowan, and there is a rickety old stage, with a loquacious driver, that will take you to Salisbury, five miles, for twenty-five cents. The country is one vast outcrop of granite; and one can not but be filled with admiration, mingled with pity, for the dwellers thereabouts who call these piles of rock "farms." As we wound slowly around the hills, the church-spire of the village came in sight; and soon we entered the one street of this sleepy, forgotten place. I shook hands with the old stage-driver as he let me down in front of the tavern; and as I went in search of the landlord, I thought of the remark of the Chicago woman who, in riding from Warwick over to Stratford, said, "Goodness me! why should a man like Shakespeare ever take it in his head to live so far off!" Salisbury has four hundred people. You can rent a house there for fifty dollars a year, or should you prefer not to keep house, but board, you can be accommodated at the tavern for three dollars a week. There are various abandoned farms round about, and they are abandoned so thoroughly that even Kate Sanborn would not have the courage to their adoption try. The landlord of the hotel told me that were it not for the "Harvest Dance," the dance on the Fourth of July, and the party at Christmas, he could not keep the house open at all. Of course, all the inhabitants know that Webster was born at Salisbury, but there is not so much local pride in the matter as there is at East Aurora over the fact that one of her former citizens is a performer in Barnum and Bailey's Circus. The number of old men in one of these New England villages impresses folks from the West as being curious. There are a full dozen men at Salisbury between seventy-five and ninety, and all have positive ideas as to just why Daniel Webster missed the Presidency. I found opinion curiously divided as to Webster's ability; but all seemed to argue that when he left New Hampshire and became a citizen of Massachusetts, he made a fatal mistake. * * * * * The sacrifices that the mother and the father of Daniel Webster made, in order that he might go to school, were very great. Every one in the family had to do without things, that this one might thrive. The boy accepted it all, quite as a matter of course, for from babyhood he had been protected and petted. At the last we must admit that the man who towers above his fellows is the one who has the power to make others work for him; a great success is not possible in any other way. Throughout his life Webster utilized the labor of others, and took it in a high and imperious manner, as though it were his due. No doubt the way in which his family lavished their gifts upon him fixed in his mind that immoral slant of disregard for his financial obligations which clung to him all through life. There is a story told of his going to a county fair with his brother Ezekiel, which shows the characters of these brothers better than a chapter. The father had given each lad a dollar to spend. When the boys got home Daniel was in gay spirits and Ezekiel was depressed. "Well, Dan," said the father, "did you spend your money?" "Of course I did," replied Daniel. "And, Zeke, what did you do with your dollar?" "Loaned it to Dan," replied Ezekiel. But there was a fine bond of affection between these two. Ezekiel was two years older and, unfortunately for himself, was strong and well. He was very early set to work, and I can not find that the thought of giving him an education ever occurred to his parents, until after Daniel had graduated at Dartmouth, and Dan and Zeke themselves then forced the issue. In stature they were the same size: both were tall, finely formed, and in youth slender. As they grew older they grew stouter, and the personal presence of each was very imposing. Ezekiel was of light complexion and ruddy; Daniel was very dark and sallow. I have met several men who knew them both, and the best opinion is that Ezekiel was the stronger of the two, mentally and morally. Daniel was not a student, while Ezekiel was; and as a counselor Ezekiel was the safer man. Up to the very week of Ezekiel's death Daniel advised with him on all his important affairs. When Ezekiel fell dead in the courtroom at Concord and the news was carried to his brother, it was a blow that affected him more than the loss of wife or child. His friend and counselor, the one man in life upon whom he leaned, was gone, and over his own great, craglike face came that look of sorrow which death only removed. But care and grief became this giant, as they do all who are great enough to bear them. It was two years after his brother's death that he made the speech which is his masterpiece. And while the applause was ringing in his ears he turned to Judge Story and said, "Oh, if Zeke were only here!" Who is there who can not sympathize with that groan? We work for others; and to win the applause of senates or nations, and not be able to know that Some One is glad, takes all the sweetness out of victory. "When I sing well, I want you to meet me in the wings of the stage, and taking me in your aims, kiss my cheek, and whisper it was all right." When Patti wrote this to her lover she voiced the universal need of a some one who understands, to share the triumph of good work well done. The nostalgia of life never seems so bitter as after moments of success; then comes creeping in the thought that he who would have gloried in this--knowing all the years of struggle and deprivations that made it possible--is sleeping his long sleep. In that speech of January Twenty-sixth, Eighteen Hundred Thirty, Webster reached high-water mark. On that performance, more than any other, rests his fame. He was forty-eight years old then. All the years of his career he had been getting ready for that address. It was on the one theme that he loved; on the theme he had studied most; on the only theme upon which he ever spoke well--the greatness, the grandeur and the possibilities of America. He spoke for four hours, and in his works the speech occupies seventy close pages. He was at the zenith of his physical and intellectual power, and that is as good a place as any to stop and view the man. On account of his proud carriage, and the fine poise of his massive head, he gave the impression of being a very large man; but he was just five feet ten, and weighed a little less than two hundred. His manner was grave, deliberate and dignified; and his sturdy face, furrowed with lines of sorrow, made a profound impression upon all before he had spoken a word. He had arrived at an age when the hot desire to succeed had passed. For no man can attain the highest success until he has reached a point where he does not care for it. In oratory the personal desire for victory must be obliterated or the hearer will never award the palm. Hayne was a very bright and able speaker. He had argued the right of a State to dissent from, or nullify, a law passed by the House of Representatives and Senate, making such law inoperative within its borders. His claim was that the framers of the Constitution did not expect or intend that a law could be passed that was binding on a State when the people of that State did not wish it so. Mr. Hayne had the best end of the argument, and the opinion is now general among jurists that his logic was right and just, and that those who thought otherwise were wrong. New England had practically nullified United States law in Eighteen Hundred Twelve, the Hartford Convention of Eighteen Hundred Fourteen had declared the right; Josiah Quincy had advocated the privilege of any State to nullify an obnoxious law, quite as a matter of course. The framers of the Constitution had merely said that we "had better" hang together, not that we "must." But with the years had come a feeling that the Nation's life was unsafe if any State should pull away. Once, on the plains of Colorado, I was with a party when there was danger of an attack from Indians. Two of the party wished to go back; but the leader drew his revolver and threatened to shoot the first man who tried to seek safety. "We must hang together or hang separately." Logically, each man had the right to secede, and go off on his own account, but expediency made a law and we declared that any man who tried to leave did so at his peril. To Webster was given the task of putting a new construction on the Constitution, and to make of the Constitution a Law instead of a mere compact. Webster's speech was not an argument; it was a plea. And so mightily did he point out the dangers of separation; review the splendid past; and prophesy the greatness of the future--a future that could only be ours through absolute union and loyalty to the good of the whole--that he won his cause. After that speech, if Calhoun had allowed South Carolina to nullify a United States law, President Jackson would have made good his threat and hanged both him and Hayne on one tree, and the people would have approved the act. But Webster did not get the case quashed: he got only a postponement. In Eighteen Hundred Sixty, South Carolina moved the case again; she opened the argument in another way this time, and a million lives were required, and millions upon millions in treasure expended to put a construction on the Constitution that the framers did not intend; but which was necessary in order that the Nation might exist. In the battle of Bull Run, almost the first battle of the war, fell Colonel Fletcher Webster, the only surviving son of Daniel Webster, and with him died the name and race. * * * * * The cunning of Webster's intellect was not creative. In his argument there is little ingenuity; but he had the power of taking an old truth and presenting it in a way that moved men to tears. When aroused, all he knew was within his reach; he had the faculty of getting all his goods in the front window. And he himself confessed that he often pushed out a masked battery, when behind there was not a single gun. Under the spell of the orator an audience becomes of one mind: the dullest intellect is more alert than usual and the most discerning a little less so. Cheap wit will then often pass for brilliancy, and platitude for wisdom. We roar over the jokes we have known since childhood, and cry "Hear, hear!" when the great man with upraised hands and fire in his glance declares that twice two is four. Oratory is hypnotism practised on a large scale. Through oratory ideas are acquired by induction. Webster was a lawyer; and he was not above resorting to any trick or device that could move the emotions or passions of judge and jury to a prejudice favorable to his side. This was very clearly brought out when he undertook to break the will of Stephen Girard. Girard was a freethinker, and in leaving money to found a college devised that no preacher or priest should have anything to do with its management. The question at issue was, "Is a bequest for founding a college a charitable bequest?" If so, then the will must stand. But if the bequest were merely a scheme to deprive the legal heirs of their rights--diverting the funds from them for whimsical and personal reasons--then the will should be broken. Mr. Webster made the plea that there was only one kind of charity, namely, Christian charity. Girard was not a Christian, for he had publicly affronted the Christian religion by providing that no minister should teach in his school. Mr. Webster spoke for three hours with many fine bursts of tearful eloquence in support of the Christian faith, reviewing its triumphs and denouncing its foes. The argument was carried outside of the realm of law into the domain of passion and prejudice. The court took time for the tumult to subside, and then very quietly decided against Webster, sustaining the will. The college building was erected and stands today, the finest specimen of purely Greek architecture in America; and the good that Girard College has done and is now doing is the priceless heritage of our entire country. One of Webster's first greatest speeches was before the United States Supreme Court in the Dartmouth College case. Here he defended the cause of education with that grave and wonderful weight of argument of which he was master. In the Girard College case, eighteen years after, he reversed his logic, and touched with rare skill on the dangers of a too-liberal education. No man now is quite so daring as to claim that Webster was a Christian. Neither was he a freethinker. He inherited his religious views from his parents, and never considered them enough to change. He simply viewed religion as a part of the fabric of government, giving sturdiness and safety to established order. His own spiritual acreage was left absolutely untilled. His services were for sale; and so plastic were his convictions that once having espoused a cause he was sure it was right. Doubtless it is self-interest, as Herbert Spencer says, that makes the world go round. And thus does sincerity of belief resolve itself into which side will pay most. This question being settled, reasons are as plentiful as blackberries, and are supplied in quantities proportionate in size to the retainer. John Randolph once touched the quick by saying, "If Daniel Webster was employed on a case and he had partially lost faith in it, his belief in his client's rights could always be refreshed and his zeal renewed by a check." Webster had every possible qualification that is required to make the great orator. All those who heard him speak, when telling of it, begin by relating how he looked. He worked the dignity and impressiveness of his Jovelike presence to its furthest limit, and when once thoroughly awake was in possession of his entire armament. No other American has been able to speak with a like degree of effectiveness; and his name deserves to rank, and will rank, with the names of Burke, Chatham, Sheridan and Pitt. The case has been tried, the verdict is in and recorded on the pages of history. There can be no retrial, for Webster is dead, and his power died thirty years before his form was laid to rest at Marshfield by the side of his children and the wife of his youth. Oratory is the lowest of the sublime arts. The extent of its influence will ever be a vexed question. Its result depends on the mood and temperament of the hearer. But there are men who are not ripe for treason and conspiracy, to whom even music makes small appeal. Yet music can be recorded, entrusted to an interpreter yet unborn, and lodge its appeal with posterity. Literature never dies: it dedicates itself to Time. For the printed page is reproduced ten thousand times ten thousand times, and besides, lives as did the Homeric poems, passed on from generation to generation by word of mouth. Were every book containing Shakespeare's plays burned this night, tomorrow they could be rewritten by those who know their every word. With the passing years the painter's colors fade; time rots his canvas; the marble is dragged from its pedestal and exists in fragments from which we resurrect a nation's life; but oratory dies on the air and exists only as a memory in the minds of those who can not translate, and then as hearsay. So much for the art itself; but the influence of that art is another thing. He who influences the beliefs and opinions of men influences all other men that live after. For influence, like matter, can not be destroyed. In many ways, Webster lacked the inward steadfastness that his face and frame betokened; but on one theme he was sound to the inmost core. He believed in America's greatness and the grandeur of America's mission. Into the minds of countless men he infused his own splendid patriotism. From his first speech at Hanover when eighteen years old, to his last when nearly seventy, he fired the hearts of men with the love of native land. And how much the growing greatness of our country is due to the magic of his words and the eloquence of his inspired presence no man can compute. The passion of Webster's life is well mirrored in that burning passage: "When mine eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union: on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent: on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood. Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, or a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as 'What is all this worth?' nor those other words of delusion and folly, 'Liberty first and Union afterwards'; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, 'Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.'" HENRY CLAY If there be any description of rights, which, more than any other, should unite all parties in all quarters of the Union, it is unquestionably the rights of the person. No matter what his vocation, whether he seeks subsistence amid the dangers of the sea, or draws it from the bowels of the earth, or from the humblest occupations of mechanical life--wherever the sacred rights of an American freeman are assailed, all hearts ought to unite and every arm be braced to vindicate his cause. --Henry Clay [Illustration: HENRY CLAY] There is a story told of an Irishman and an Englishman who were immigrants aboard a ship that was coming up New York Harbor. It chanced to be the fourth day of July, and as a consequence there was a needless waste of gunpowder going on, and many of the ships were decorated with bunting that in color was red, white and blue. "What can all this fuss be about?" asked the Englishman. "What's it about?" answered Pat. "Why, this is the day we run you out!" And the moral of the story is that as soon as an Irishman reaches the Narrows he says "we Americans," while an Englishman will sometimes continue to say "you Americans" for five years and a day. More than this, an Irish-American citizen regards an English-American citizen with suspicion and refers to him as a foreigner, even unto the third and fourth generation. No man ever hated England more cordially than did Henry Clay. The genealogists have put forth heroic efforts to secure for Clay a noble English ancestry, but with a degree of success that only makes the unthinking laugh and the judicious grieve. Had these zealous pedigree-hunters studied the parish registers of County Derry, Ireland, as lovingly as they have Burke's Peerage, they might have traced the Clays of America back to the Cleighs, honest farmers (indifferent honest), of Londonderry. The character of Henry Clay had in it various traits that were peculiarly Irish. The Irishman knows because he knows, and that's all there is about it. He is dramatic, emotional, impulsive, humorous without suspecting it, and will fight friend or foe on small provocation. Then he is much given to dealing in that peculiar article known as palaver. The farewell address of Henry Clay to the Senate, and his return thereto a few years later, comprise one of the most Irishlike proceedings to be found in history. There is no finer man on earth than your "thrue Irish gintleman," and Henry Clay had not only all the highest and most excellent traits of the "gintleman," but a few also of his worst. Clay made friends as no other American statesman ever did. "To come within reach of the snare of his speech was to love him," wrote one man. People loved him because he was affectionate, for love only goes out to love. And the Irish heart is a heart of love. Henry Clay called himself a Christian, and yet at times he was picturesquely profane. We have this on the authority of the "Diary" of John Quincy Adams, which of course we must believe, for even that other fighting Irishman, Andrew Jackson, said, "Adams' Diary is probably correct--damn it!" Clay was convivial in all the word implies; his losses at cards often put him in severe financial straits; he stood ready to back his opinion concerning a Presidential election, a horse-race or a dog-fight, and with it all he held himself "personally responsible"--having fought two duels and engaged in various minor "misunderstandings." And yet he was a great statesman--one of the greatest this country has produced, and as a patriot no man was ever more loyal. It was America with him first and always. His reputation, his fortune, his life, his all, belonged to America. * * * * * The city of Lexington contains about twenty-five thousand inhabitants. In Lexington two distinct forms of civilization meet. One is the civilization of the F.F.V., converted into that peculiar form of noblesse known the round world over as the Blue-Grass Aristocracy. Blue-Grass Society represents leisure and luxury and the generous hospitality of friendships generations old; it means broad acres, noble mansions reached by roadways that stray under wide-spreading oaks and elms where squirrels chatter and mild-eyed cows look at you curiously; it means apple-orchards, gardens lined with boxwood, capacious stables and long lines of whitewashed cottages, around which swarm a dark cloud of dependents who dance and sing and laugh--and work when they have to. Over against these there are to be seen trolley-cars, electric lights, smart rows of new brick houses on lots thirty by one hundred, negro policemen in uniforms patterned after those worn by the Broadway Squad, streets torn up by sewers and conduits, steam-rollers with an unsavory smell of tar and asphalt, push-buttons and a Hello-Exchange. As to which form of civilization is the more desirable is a question that is usually answered by taste and temperament. One thing sure, and that is, that a pride which swings to t'other side and becomes vanity is often an element in both. Each could learn something of the other. Lots that you can jump across, rented to families of ten, with land a mile away that can be bought for fifty dollars an acre, are not an ideal condition. On the other hand, inside the city limits of Lexington are mansions surrounded by an even hundred acres. But at some of these, gates are off their hinges, pickets have been borrowed for kindling, creeping vines and long grass o'ertop the walls of empty stables, and a forest of weeds insolently invades the spot where once nestled milady's flower-garden. Slowly but surely the Blue-Grass Aristocracy is giving way to purslane or asphalt, moving into flats, and allowing the boomer to plat its fair acres--running excursion-trains to attend auction-sales where all the lots are corner lots and are to be bought on the installment plan, which plan is said by a cynic to give the bicycle face. Just across from Ashland is a beautiful estate, recently sold at a sacrifice to a man from Massachusetts, by the name of Douglas, who I am told is bald through lack of hair and makes three-dollar shoes. The stately old mansion mourns its former masters--all are gone--and a thrifty German is plowing up the lawn, that the cows of the Douglas (tender and true) may eat early clover. But Ashland is there today in all the beauty and loveliness that Henry Clay knew when he wrote to Benton: "I love old Ashland, and all these acres with their trees and flowers and growing grain lure me in a way that ambition never can. No, I remain at Ashland." The rambling old house is embowered in climbing vines and clambering rosebushes and is set thick about with cedars, so that you can scarcely see the chimney-tops above the mass of green. A lane running through locust-trees planted by Henry Clay's own hands leads you to the hospitable, wide-open door, where a colored man, whose black face is set in a frame of wool, smiles a welcome. He relieves you of your baggage and leads the way to your room. The summer breeze blows lazily in through the open window, and the only sound of life and activity about seems to center in two noisy robins which are making a nest in the eaves, right within reach of your hand. The colored man apologizes for them, anathematizes them mildly, and proposes to drive them away, but you restrain him. After the man has gone you bethink you that the suggestion of driving the birds away was only the white lie of society (for even black folks tell white lies), and the old man probably had no more intent of driving the birds away than of going himself. On the dresser is a pitcher of freshly clipped roses, the morning dew still upon them, and you only cease to admire as you espy your mail that lies there awaiting your hand. News from home and loved ones greets you before these new-found friends do! You have not seen the good folks who live here, only the old colored man who pretended that he was going to kill cock-robin, and didn't. The hospitality is not gushing or effusive--the place is yours, that's all, and you lean out of the window and look down at the flowerbeds, and wonder at the silence and the quiet and peace, and feel sorry for the folks who live in Cincinnati and Chicago. The soughing of the wind through the pines comes to you like the murmur of the sea, and breaking in on the stillness you hear the sharp sound of an ax--some Gladstone chopping, miles and miles away. Your dreams are broken by a gentle tap at the door and your host has come to call on you. You know him at once, even though you have never before met, for men who think alike and feel alike do not have to "get acquainted." Heart speaks to heart. He only wishes to say that your coming is a pleasure to all the family at Ashland, the library is yours as well as the whole place, lunch is at one o'clock, and George will get you anything you wish. And back in the shadow of the hallway you catch sight of the old colored man and see him bow low when his name is mentioned. Ashland is probably in better condition today than when Henry Clay worked and planned, and superintended its fair acres. The place has seen vicissitudes since the body of the man who gave it immortality lay in state here in July, Eighteen Hundred Fifty-two. But Major McDowell's wife is the granddaughter of Henry Clay, and it seems meet that the descendants of the great man should possess Ashland. Major McDowell has means and taste and the fine pride that would preserve all the traditions of the former master. The six hundred acres are in a high state of cultivation, and the cattle and horses are of the kinds that would have gladdened the heart of Clay. In the library, halls and dining-room are various portraits of the great man, and at the turn of the stairs is a fine heroic bust, in bronze, of that lean face and form. Hundreds of his books are to be seen on the shelves, all marked and dog-eared and scribbled on, thus disproving much of that old cry that "Clay was not a student." Some men are students only in youth, but Clay's best reading was done when he was past fifty. The book habit grew upon him with the years. Here are his pistols, spurs, saddle and memorandum-books. Here are letters, faded and yellow, dusted with black powder on ink that has been dry a hundred years, asking for office, or words of gracious thanks in token of benefits not forgot. Off to the south stretches away a great forest of walnut, oak and chestnut trees--reminders of the vast forest that Daniel Boone knew. Many of these trees were here then, and here let them remain, said Henry Clay. And so today at Ashland, as at Hawarden, no tree is felled until it has been duly tried by the entire family and all has been said for and against the sentence of death. I heard Miss McDowell make an eloquent plea for an old oak that had been rather recklessly harboring mistletoe and many squirrels, until it was thought probable that, like our first parents, it might have a fall. It was a plea more eloquent than "O Woodman, spare that tree." A reprieve for a year was granted; and I thought, as I cast my vote on the side of mercy, that the jury that could not be won by such a young woman as that was hopelessly dead at the top and more hollow at the heart than the old oak under whose boughs we sat. * * * * * Ashland is just a mile south of the courthouse. When Henry Clay used to ride horseback between the town and his farm there were scarce a dozen houses to pass on the way, but now the street is all built up, and is smartly paved, and the trolley-line booms a noisy car to the sacred gates every ten minutes. Lexington was laid out in the year Seventeen Hundred Seventy-four, and the intention was to name it in honor of Colonel Patterson, the founder, or of Daniel Boone. But while the surveyors were doing their work, word came of the battle of some British and certain embattled farmers, and the spirit of freedom promptly declared that the town should be called Lexington. Three years after the laying-out of Lexington, Henry Clay was born. He was the son of a poor and obscure Baptist preacher who lived at "The Slashes," in Virginia. The boy never had any vivid recollection of his father, who passed away when Henry was a mere child. The mother had a hard time of it with her family of seven children, and if kind neighbors had not aided, there would have been actual want. And surely one can not blame the widow for "marrying for a home" when opportunity offered. Only one out of that first family ever achieved eminence, and the second brood is actually lost to us in oblivion. Henry Clay was a graduate of the University of Hard Knocks; he also took several post-graduate courses at the same institution. Very early in life we see that he possessed the fine, eager, receptive spirit that absorbs knowledge through the finger-tips; and the ability to think and to absorb is all that even college can ever do for a man. I doubt whether college would have helped Clay, and it might have dimmed the diamond luster of his mind, and diluted that fine audacity which carried him on his way. In this capacity to comprehend in the mass, Clay's character was essentially feminine. We have Thoreau for authority that the intuition and the sympathy found always in the saviors of the world are purely feminine attributes--the legacy bequeathed from a mother who thirsted for better things. From a clerk in a country store to a bookkeeper, then a copyist for a lawyer, a writer of letters for the neighborhood, a reader of law, and next a lawyer, were easy and natural steps for this ambitious boy. Virginia with its older settlements offered small opportunities, and so we find young Clay going West, and landing at Lexington when twenty years old. He requested a license to practise law, but the Bar Association, which consisted of about a dozen members, decided that no more lawyers were needed at Lexington. Clay demanded that he should be examined as to fitness, and the blackberry-bush Blackstones sat upon him, as a coroner would say, with intent to give him so stiff an examination that he would be glad to get work as a farmhand. A dozen questions had been asked, and an attempt had been made to confuse and browbeat the youth, when the Nestor of the Lexington Bar expectorated at a fly ten feet away, and remarked, "Oh, the devil! there is no need of tryin' to keep a boy like this down--he's as fit as we, or fitter!" And so he was admitted. From the very first he was a success; he toned up the mental qualities of the Fayette County Bar, and made the older, easy-going members feel to see whether their laurel wreaths were in place. When he was thirty years of age he was chosen by the Legislature of Kentucky as United States Senator. When his term expired he chose to go to Congress, probably because it afforded better opportunity for oratory and leadership. As soon as he appeared upon the floor he was chosen Speaker by acclamation. So thoroughly American was he, that one of his very first suggestions was to the effect that every member should clothe himself wholly in fabrics made in the United States. Humphrey Marshall ridiculed the proposition and called Clay a demagogue, for which he got himself straightway challenged. Clay shot a bullet through his English-made broadcloth coat, and then they shook hands. When his term as Congressman expired, he again went to the Senate, and served two years. Then he went back to the House, and through his influence, and his alone, did we challenge Great Britain, just as he had challenged Marshall. England accepted the challenge, and we call it the War of Eighteen Hundred Twelve. Very often, indeed, do we hear the rural statesmen at Fourth of July celebrations exclaim, "We have whipped England twice, and we can do it again!" We whipped England once, and it is possible we could do it again, but she got the best of us in the War of Eighteen Hundred Twelve. Henry Clay plunged the country into war to redress certain grievances, and as a peace commissioner he backed out of that war without having a single one of those grievances indemnified or redressed. After the treaty of peace had been declared and "the war was over," that fighting Irishman, Andrew Jackson, Irishlike, gave the British a black eye at New Orleans, just for luck, and this is the only thing in that whole misunderstanding of which we should not as a nation be ashamed. If England had not had Napoleon on her hands at that particular time, Wellington would probably have made a visit to America, and might have brought along for us a Waterloo. And these things are fully explained in the textbooks on history used in the schools of Great Britain, on whose possessions the sun never sets. But as Henry Clay had gotten us into war, his diplomacy helped to get us out, and as it was a peace without dishonor, Clay's reputation did not materially suffer. In fact, the terms of peace were so ambiguous that Congress gave out to the world that it was a victory, and the exact facts were quite lost in the smoke of Jackson's muskets that hovered over the cotton bales. Later, when Clay ran against Jackson for the Presidency he found that a peace-hero has no such place in the hearts of men as a war-hero. Jackson had not a tithe of Clay's ability, and yet Clay's defeat was overwhelming. "Peace hath her victories"--yes, but the average voter does not know it. The only men who have received overwhelming majorities for President have been war-heroes. Obscure men have crept in several times, but popular diplomats--never. The fate of such popular men as Clay, Seward and Blaine is one. And when one considers how strong is this tendency to glorify the hero of action, and ignore the hero of thought, he wonders how it really happened that Paul Revere was not made the second President of the United States instead of John Adams. Clay was a most eloquent pleader. The grace of his manner, the beauty of his speech, and the intense earnestness of his nature often convinced men against their wills. There was sometimes, however, a suspicion in the air that his best quotations were inspirations, and that the statistics to which he appealed were evolved from his inner consciousness. But the man had power and personality plus. He was a natural leader, and unlike other statesmen we might name, he always carried his town and district by overwhelming majorities. And it is well to remember that the first breath of popular disfavor directed against Henry Clay was because he proposed the abolition of slavery. Those who knew him best loved him most, and this was true from the time he began to practise law in Lexington, when scarcely twenty-one years old, to his seventy-fifth year, when his worn-out body was brought home to rest. On that occasion all business in Lexington, and in most of Kentucky, ceased. Even the farmers quit work, and very many private residences were draped in mourning. Memorial services were held in hundreds of churches, the day was given over to mourning, and everywhere men said, "We shall never look upon his like again." * * * * * Before I visited Lexington, my cousin, Little Emily, duly wrote me that on no account, when I was in Kentucky, must I offer any criticisms on the character of Henry Clay; for if I grew reckless and compared him with another to his slightest disadvantage, I should have to fight. That he was absolutely the greatest statesman America has produced is, to all Kentuckians, a fact so sure that they doubt the honesty or the sanity of any one who hints otherwise. He is their ideal, the perfect man, the model for all youths to imitate, and the standard by which all other statesmen are gauged. Clay to Kentucky scores one hundred. And as he was at the last defeated for the highest office, which they say was his God-given right, there is a flavor of martyrdom in his history that is the needed crown for every hero. Complete success alienates man from his fellows, but suffering makes kinsmen of us all. So the South loves Henry Clay. He is so well loved that he is apotheosized, and thus the real man to many is lost in the clouds. With his name, song and legend have worked their miracles, and to very many Southern people he is a being separate and apart, like Hector or Achilles. With my cousin, Little Emily, I am always very frank--and you can be honest and frank with so few in this world of expediency, you know! We are so frank in expression that we usually quarrel very shortly. And so I explained to Emily just what I have written here, as to the real Henry Clay being lost. She contradicted me flatly and said, "To love a person is not to lose him--you never lose except through indifference or hate!" I started to explain and had gotten as far as, "It is just like this," when the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of General Bellicose, who had come to take us riding behind a spanking pair of geldings, that I was assured were standard bred. In Lexington you never use the general term "horse." You speak of a mare, a gelding, a horse, a four-year-old, a weanling or a sucker. To refer to a trotter as a thoroughbred is to suffer social ostracism, and to obfuscate a side-wheeler with a single-footer is proof of degeneracy. This applies equally to the ethics of the ballroom or the livery-stable. In Kentucky they read Richard's famous lines thus: "A saddler! a saddler! my kingdom for a saddler!" So when I complimented General Bellicose on his geldings and noted that they went square without boots or weights, and that he used no blinders, it thawed the social ice, and we were as brothers. Then I led the way cautiously to Henry Clay, and the General assured me that in his opinion the Henry Clays were even better than the George Wilkes. To be sure, Wilkes had more in the 'thirty list, but the Clays had brains, and were cheerful; they neither lugged nor hung back, whereas you always had to lay whip to a Wilkes in order to get along a bit, or else use a gag and overcheck. I pressed Little Emily's hand under the lap-robe and asked her if all Kentuckians were believers in metempsychosis. "Colonel Littlejourneys is making fun of you, General," said Little Emily; "the Colonel is talking about the man, and you are discussing trotters!" And then I apologized, but the General said it was he who should make the apology, and raising the carriage-seat brought out a box of genuine Henry Clay Havanas, in proof of amity. It's a very foolish thing to smile at a man who rides a hobby. Once there was a man who rode a hobby all his life, to the great amusement of his enemies and the mortification of his wife; and when the man was dead they found it was a real live horse and had carried the man many long miles. General Bellicose loves a horse; so does Little Emily and so do I. But Little Emily and the General know history and have sounded politics in a way that puts me in the kindergarten; and I found before the day was over that what one did not know about the political history of America the other did. And mixed up in it all we discussed the merits of the fox-trot versus the single-foot. We saw the famous Clay monument, built by the State at a cost of nearly a hundred thousand dollars, and with uncovered heads gazed through the gratings into the crypt where lies the dust of the great man. Then we saw the statue of John C. Breckinridge in the public square, and visited various old ebb-tide mansions where the "quarters" had fallen into decay, and the erstwhile inhabitants had moved to the long row of tenements down by the cotton-mill. My train whistled and we were half a mile from the station, but the General said we would get there in time--and we did. I bade my friends good-by and quite forgot to thank them for all their kindness, although down in my heart I felt that it had been a time rare as a day in June. I believe they felt my gratitude, too, for where there is such a feast of wit and flow of soul, such kindness, such generosity, the spirit understands. When I arrived home I found a box awaiting me, bearing the express mark of Lexington, Kentucky. On opening the case I found six quart-bottles of "Henry Clay--1881"; and a card with the compliments of Little Emily and General Bellicose. On the outside of the case was neatly stenciled the legend, "Thackeray, Full sett, 14 vol., half Levant." I do not know why the box was so marked, but I suppose it was in honor of my literary proclivities. I went out and blew four merry blasts on a ram's horn, and the Philistines assembled. JOHN JAY Calm repose and the sweets of undisturbed retirement appear more distant than a peace with Britain. It gives me pleasure, however, to reflect that the period is approaching when we shall be citizens of a better ordered State, and the spending of a few troublesome years of our eternity in doing good to this and future generations is not to be avoided nor regretted. Things will come right, and these States will yet be great and flourishing. --Letter to Washington [Illustration: JOHN JAY] America should feel especially charitable towards Louis the Great, called by Carlyle, Louis the Little, for banishing the Huguenots from France. What France lost America gained. Tyranny and intolerance always drive from their homes the best: those who have ability to think, courage to act, and a pride that can not be coerced. The merits possessed by the Huguenots are exactly those which every man and nation needs. And these are simple virtues, too, whose cultivation stands within the reach of all. These are the virtues of the farmers and peasants and plain people who do the work of the world, and give good government its bone and sinew. To a great degree, so-called society is made up of parasites who fasten and feed upon the industrious and methodical. If you have read history you know that the men who go quietly about their business have been cajoled, threatened, driven, and often, when they have been guilty of doing a little independent thinking on their own account, banished. And further than this, when you read the story of nations dead and gone you will see that their decline began when the parasites got too numerous and flauntingly asserted their supposed power. That contempt for the farmer, and indifference to the rights of the man with tin pail and overalls, which one often sees in America, are portents that mark disintegrating social bacilli. If the Republic of the United States ever becomes but a memory, like Carthage, Athens and Rome, drifting off into senile decay like Italy and Spain or France, where a man may yet be tried and sentenced without the right of counsel or defense, it will be because we forgot--we forgot! In moral fiber and general characteristics the Huguenots and the Puritans were one. The Huguenots had, however, the added virtue of a dash of the Frenchman's love of beauty. By their excellent habits and loyalty to truth, as they saw it, they added a vast share to the prosperity and culture of the United States. Of seven men who acted as presiding officer over the deliberations of Congress during the Revolutionary Period, three were of Huguenot parentage: Laurens, Boudinot and Jay. John Jay was a typical Huguenot, just as Samuel Adams was a typical Puritan. In his life there was no glamour of romance. Stern, studious and inflexibly honest, he made his way straight to the highest positions of trust and honor. Good men who are capable are always needed. The world wants them now more than ever. We have an overplus of clever individuals; but for the faithful men who are loyal to a trust there is a crying demand. The life of Jay quite disproves the oft-found myth that a dash of Mephisto in a young man is a valuable adjunct. John Jay was neither precocious nor bad. It is further a refreshing fact to find that he was no prig, simply a good, healthy youngster who took to his books kindly and gained ground--made head upon the whole by grubbing. His father was a hard-headed, prosperous merchant, who did business in New York, and moved his big family up to the little village of Rye because life in the country was simple and cheap. Thus did Peter Jay prove his commonsense. Peter Jay copied every letter he wrote, and we now have these copy-books, revealing what sort of man he was. Religious he was, and scrupulously exact in all things. We see that he ordered Bibles from England, "and also six groce of Church Wardens," which I am told is a long clay pipe, "that hath a goodly flavor and doth not bite the tongue." He also at one time ordered a chest of tea, and then countermanded the order, having taken the resolve to "use no tea in my family while that rascally Tax is on--having a spring of good, pure water near my house." Which shows that a man can be very much in earnest and still joke. John was the baby, scarcely a year old, when the Jay family moved up to Rye. He was the eighth child, and as he grew up he was taught by the older ones. He took part in all the fun and hardships of farm life--going to school in Winter, working in Summer, and on Sundays hearing long sermons at church. We find by Peter Jay's letter-book that: "Johnny is about our brightest child. We have great hopes of him, and believe it will be wise to educate him for a preacher." In order to educate boys then, they were sent to live in the family of some man of learning. And so we find "Johnny" at twelve years of age installed in the parsonage at New Rochelle, the Huguenot settlement. The pastor was a Huguenot, and as only French was spoken in the household, the boy acquired the language, which afterwards stood him in good stead. The pastor reported favorably, and when fifteen, young Jay was sent to King's College, which is now Columbia University, kings not being popular in America. Doctor Samuel Johnson, who nowise resembled Ursa Major, was the president of the College at that time. He was also the faculty, for there were just thirty students and he did all the teaching himself. Doctor Johnson, true to his name, dearly loved a good book, and when teaching mathematics would often forget the topic and recite Ossian by the page, instead. Jay caught it, for the book craze is contagious and not sporadic. We take it by being exposed. And thus it was while under the tutelage of Doctor Johnson that Jay began to acquire the ability to turn a terse sentence; and this gained him admittance into the world of New York letters, whose special guardians were Dickinson and William Livingston. Livingston invited the boy to his house, and very soon we find the young man calling without special invitation, for Livingston had a beautiful daughter about John's age, who was fond of Ossian, too, or said she was. And as this is not a serial love-story, there is no need of keeping the gentle reader in suspense, so I will explain that some years later John married the girl, and the mating was a very happy one. After John had been to King's College two years we find in the faded and yellow old letter-book an item written by the father to the effect that: "Our Johnny is doing well at College. He seems sedate and intent on gaining knowledge; but rather inclines to Law instead of the Ministry." Doctor Johnson was succeeded by Doctor Myles Cooper, a Fellow of Oxford, who used to wear his mortarboard cap and scholar's gown up Broadway. In young Jay's veins there was not a drop of British blood. Of his eight great-grandparents, five were French and three Dutch, a fact he once intimated in the Oxonian's presence. And then it was explained to the youth that if such were the truth it would be as well to conceal it. Alexander Hamilton got along very well with Doctor Cooper, but John Jay found himself rusticated shortly before graduation. Some years after this Doctor Cooper hastily climbed the back fence, leaving a sample of his gown on a picket, while Alexander Hamilton held the Whig mob at bay at the front door. Cooper sailed very soon for England, anathematizing "the blarsted country" in classic Latin as the ship passed out of the Narrows. "England is a good place for him," said the laconic John Jay. So John Jay was to be a lawyer. And the only way to be a lawyer in those days was to work in a lawyer's office. A goodly source of income to all established lawyers was the sums they derived for taking embryo Blackstones into their keeping. The greater a man's reputation as a lawyer, the higher he placed his fee for taking a boy in. In those days there were no printed blanks, and a simple lease was often a day's work to write out; so it was not difficult to keep the boys busy. Besides that, they took care of the great man's horse, blacked his boots, swept the office, and ran errands. During the third year of apprenticeship, if all went well, the young man was duly admitted to the Bar. A stiff examination kept out the rank outsiders, but the nomination by a reputable attorney was equivalent to admittance, for all members knew that if you opposed an attorney today, tomorrow he might oppose you. To such an extent was this system of taking students carried that, in Seventeen Hundred Sixty-eight, we find New York lawyers alarmed "by the awful influx of young Barristers upon this Province." So steps were taken to make all attorneys agree not to have more than two apprentices in their office at one time. About the same time the Boston newspaper, called the "Centinel," shows there was a similar state of overproduction in Boston. Only the trouble there was principally with the doctors, for doctors were then turned loose in the same way, carrying a diploma from the old physician with whom they had matriculated and duly graduated. Law schools and medical colleges, be it known, are comparatively modern institutions--not quite so new, however, as business colleges, but pretty nearly so. And now in Chicago there is a "Barbers' University," which issues diplomas to men who can manipulate a razor and shears, whereas, until yesterday, boys learned to be barbers by working in a barber's shop. The good old way was to pass a profession along from man to man. And it is so yet in a degree, for no man is allowed to practise either medicine or law until he has spent some time in the office of a practitioner in good standing. In the Catholic Church, and also in the Episcopal, the novitiate is expected to serve for a time under an older clergyman; but all the other denominations have broken away, and now spring the fledgling on the world straight from the factory. Several other of his children having sorely disappointed him, Peter Jay seemed to center his ambitions on his boy John. So we find him paying Benjamin Kissam, the eminent lawyer, two hundred pounds in good coin of the Colony to take John Jay as a 'prentice for five years. John went at it and began copying those endless, wordy documents in which the old-time attorney used to delight. John sat at one end of a table, and at the other was seated one Lindley Murray, at the mention of whose name terror used to seize my soul. Murray has written some good, presentable English to the effect that young Jay, even at that time, had the inclination and ability to focus his mind upon the subject in hand. "He used to work just as steadily when his employer was away as when he was in the office," a fact which the grammarian seemed to regard as rather strange. In a year we find that when Mr. Kissam went away he left the keys of the safe in John Jay's hands, with orders what to do in case of emergencies. Thus does responsibility gravitate to him who can shoulder it, and trust to the man who deserves it. It was in Kissam's office that Jay acquired that habit of reticence and serene poise which, becoming fixed in character, made his words carry such weight in later years. He never gave snapshot opinions, or talked at random, or voiced any sentiment for which he could not give a reason. His companions were usually men much older than he. At the "Moot Club" he took part with James Duane, who was to be New York's first continental mayor; Gouverneur Morris, who had not at that time acquired the wooden leg which he once snatched off and brandished with happy effect before a Paris mob; and Samuel Jones, who was to take as 'prentice and drill that strong man, De Witt Clinton. Before his years of apprenticeship were over, John Jay, the quiet, the modest, the reticent, was known as a safe and competent lawyer--Kissam having pushed him forward as associate counsel in various difficult cases. Meantime, certain chests of tea had been dumped into Boston Harbor, and the example had been followed by the "Mohawks" in New York. British oppression had made many Tories lukewarm, and then English rapacity had transformed these Tories into Whigs. Jay was one of these; and in newspapers and pamphlets, and from the platform, he had pleaded the cause of the Colonies. Opposition crystallized his reasons, and threats only served to make him reaffirm the truths he had stated. So prominent had his utterances made his name, that one fine day he was nominated to attend the first Congress of the Colonies to be held in Philadelphia. In August, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-four, we find him leaving his office in New York in charge of a clerk, and riding horseback over to the town of Elizabeth, there joining his father-in-law, and the two starting for Philadelphia. On the road they fell in with John Adams, who kept a diary. That night at the tavern where they stopped, the sharp-eyed Yankee recorded the fact of meeting these new friends and added, "Mr. Jay is a young gentleman of the law ... and Mr. Scott says a hard student and a very good speaker." And so they journeyed on across the State to Trenton and down the Delaware River to Philadelphia, visiting, and cautiously discussing great issues as they went. Samuel Adams, too, was in the party, as reticent as Jay. Jay was twenty-nine and Samuel Adams fifty-two years old, but they became good friends, and Samuel once quietly said to John Adams, "That man Jay is young in years, but he has an old head." Jay was the youngest man of the Convention, save one. When the Second Congress met, Jay was again a delegate. He served on several important committees, and drew up a statement that was addressed to the people of England; but he was recalled to New York before the supreme issue was reached, and thus, through accident, the Declaration of Independence does not contain the signature of John Jay. * * * * * In Seventeen Hundred Seventy-eight, Jay was chosen president of the Continental Congress to succeed that other patriotic Huguenot, Laurens. The following year he was selected as the man to go to Spain, to secure from that country certain friendly favors. His reception there was exceedingly frosty, and the mention of his two years on the ragged edge of court life at Madrid, in later years brought to his face a grim smile. Spain's diplomatic policy was smooth hypocrisy and rank untruth, and all her promises, it seems, were made but to be broken. Jay's negotiations were only partially successful, but he came to know the language, the country and the people in a way that made his knowledge very valuable to America. By Seventeen Hundred Eighty-one, England had begun to see that to compel the absolute submission of the Colonies was more of a job than she had anticipated. News of victories was duly sent to the "mother country" at regular intervals, but with these glad tidings were requests for more troops, and requisitions for ships and arms. The American army was a very hard thing to find. It would fight one day, to retreat the next, and had a way of making midnight attacks and flank movements that, to say the least, were very confusing. Then it would separate, to come together--Lord knows where! This made Lord Cornwallis once write to the Home Secretary: "I could easily defeat the enemy, if I could find him and engage him in a fair fight." He seemed to think it was "no fair," forgetting the old proverb which has something to say about love and war. Finally, Cornwallis got the thing his soul desired--a fair fight. He was then acting on the defensive. The fight was short and sharp; and Colonel Alexander Hamilton, who led the charge, in ten minutes planted the Stars and Stripes on his ramparts. That night Cornwallis was the "guest" of Washington, and the next day a dinner was given in his honor. He was then obliged to write to the Home Secretary, "We have met the enemy, and we are theirs"--but of course he did not express it just exactly that way. Then it was that King George, for the first time, showed a disposition to negotiate for peace. As peace commissioners, America named Franklin, John Adams, Laurens, Jay and Jefferson. Jefferson refused to leave his wife, who was in delicate health. Adams was at The Hague, just closing up a very necessary loan. Laurens had been sent to Holland on a diplomatic mission, and his ship having been overhauled by a British man-of-war, he was safely in that historic spot, the Tower of London. So Jay and Franklin alone met the English commissioners, and Jay stated to them the conditions of peace. In a few weeks Adams arrived, still keeping a diary. In that diary is found this item: "The French call me 'Le Washington de la Negociation': a very flattering compliment indeed, to which I have no right, but sincerely think it belongs to Mr. Jay." Jay quitted Paris in May, Seventeen Hundred Eighty-four, having been gone from his native land eight years. When he reached New York there was a great demonstration in his honor. Triumphal arches were erected across Broadway, houses and stores were decorated with bunting, cannons boomed, and bells rang. The freedom of the city was presented to him in a gold box, with an exceedingly complimentary address, engrossed on parchment, and signed by one hundred of the leading citizens. Jay spent just one day in New York, and then rode on horseback up to the old farm at Rye, Westchester County, to see his father. That evening there was a service of thanksgiving at the village church, after which the citizens repaired to the Jay mansion, one story high and eighty feet long, where a barrel of cider was tapped, and "a groce of Church Wardens" passed around, with free tobacco for all. John Jay stood on the front porch and made a modest speech just five minutes long, among other things saying he had come home to be a neighbor to them, having quit public life for good. But he refused to talk about his own experiences in Europe. His reticence, however, was made up for by good old Peter Jay, who assured the people that John Jay was America's foremost citizen; and in this statement he was backed up by the village preacher, with not a dissenting voice from the assembled citizens. It is rather curious (or it isn't, I'm not sure which) how most statesmen have quit public life several times during their careers, like the prima donnas who make farewell tours. The ingratitude of republics is proverbial, but to limit ingratitude to republics shows a lack of experience. The progeny of the men who tired of hearing Aristides called The Just are very numerous. Of course it is easy to say that he who expects gratitude does not deserve it; but the fact remains that the men who know it are yet stung by calumny when it comes their way. That fine demonstration in Jay's honor was in great part to overwhelm and stamp out the undertone of growl and snarl that filled the air. Many said that peace had been gained at awful cost, that Jay had deferred to royalty and trifled with the wishes of the people in making terms. And now Jay had got home, back to his family and farm, back to quiet and rest. The long, hard fight had been won and America was free. For eight years had he toiled and striven and planned: much had been accomplished--not all he hoped, but much. He had done his best for his country, his own affairs were in bad shape, Congress had paid him meagerly, and now he would turn public life over to others and live his own life. All through life men reach these places where they say, "Here will we build three tabernacles"; but out of the silence comes the imperative Voice, "Arise, and get thee hence, for this is not thy rest." And now the war was over, peace was concluded; but war leaves a country in chaos. The long, slow work of reconstruction and of binding up a nation's wounds must follow. America was independent, but she had yet to win from the civilized world the recognition that she must have in order to endure. Jay was importuned by Washington to take the position of Secretary of Foreign Affairs, one of the most important offices to be filled. He accepted, and discharged the exacting duties of the place for five years. Then came the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and the election of Washington as President of the United States. Washington wrote to Jay: "There must be a Court, perpetual and Supreme, to which all questions of internal dispute between States or people be referred. This Court must be greater than the Executive, greater than any individual State, separated and apart from any political party. You must be the first official head of the Executive." And Jay, as every schoolboy knows, was the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. By his sagacity, his dignity, his knowledge of men, and love of order and uprightness, he gave it that high place which it yet holds, and which it must hold; for when the decisions of the Supreme Court are questioned by a State or people, the fabric of our government is but a spider's web through which anarchy and unreason will stalk. In Seventeen Hundred Ninety-four, came serious complications with Great Britain, growing out of the construction of terms of peace made in Paris eleven years before. Some one must go to Great Britain and make a new treaty in order to preserve our honor and save us from another war. Franklin was dead; Adams as Vice-President could not be spared; Hamilton's fiery temper was dangerous--no one could accomplish the delicate mission so well as Jay. Jay, self-centered and calm, said little; but in compliance with Washington's wish resigned his office, and set sail with full powers to use his own judgment in everything, and the assurance that any treaty he made would be ratified. Arriving in England, he at once opened negotiations with Lord Grenville, and in five months the new treaty was signed. It provided for the payment to American citizens for losses of private shipping during the war; and over ten million dollars were paid to citizens of the United States under this agreement. It fixed the boundary-line between the State of Maine and Canada; provided for the surrender of British posts in the Far West; that neither nation was to allow enlistments within its territory by a third nation at war with another; arranged for the surrender of fugitives charged with murder or forgery; and made definite terms as to various minor, but none the less important, questions. A storm of opposition greeted the treaty when its terms were made known in America. Jay was accused of bartering away the rights of America, and indignation meetings were held, because Jay had not insisted on apologies, and set sums of indemnity on this, that and the other. Nevertheless, Washington ratified the treaty; and when Jay arrived in America there was a greeting fully as cordial and generous as that on the occasion of his other homecoming. In fact, while he was absent, his friends had put him in nomination as Governor of New York. His election to that office occurred just two days before he arrived, and when he landed his senses were mystified by hearing loud hurrahs for "Governor Jay." When his term of office expired he was re-elected, so he served as Governor, in all, six years. The most important measure carried out during that time was the abolition of slavery in the State of New York, an act he had strenuously insisted on for twenty years, but which was not made possible until he had the power of Governor, and crowded the measure upon the Legislature. Over a quarter of a century had passed since John Adams and John Jay had met on horseback out there on the New Jersey turnpike. Their intimacy had been continuous and their labors as important as ever engrossed the minds of men, but in it all there was neither jealousy nor bickering. They were friends. At the close of Jay's gubernatorial term, President Adams nominated him for the office of Chief Justice, made vacant by the resignation of Oliver Ellsworth. The Senate unanimously confirmed the nomination, but Jay refused to accept the place. For twenty-eight years he had served his country--served it in its most trying hours. He was not an old man in years, but the severity and anxiety of his labors had told on his health, and the elasticity of youth had gone from his brain forever. He knew this, and feared the danger of continued exertion. "My best work is done," he said; "if I continue I may undo the good I have accomplished. I have earned a rest." He retired to the ancestral farm at Bedford, Westchester County, to enjoy his vacation. In a year his wife died, and the shock told on his already shattered nerves. "The habit of reticence grew upon him," says one writer, "until he could not be tricked into giving an opinion even about the weather." And so he lived out his days as a partial recluse, deep in problems of "raising watermelons, and sheep that would not jump fences." He worked with his hands, wore blue jeans, voted at every town election, but to a great degree lived only in the past. The problems of church and village politics and farm life filled his declining days. To a great degree his physical health came back, but the problems of statecraft he left to other heads and hands. His religious nature manifested itself in various philanthropic schemes, and the Bible Society he founded endures even unto this day. These things afforded a healthful exercise for that tireless brain which refused to run down. His daughters made his home ideal, their love and gentleness soothing his declining years. Death to him was kindly, gathering him as Autumn, the messenger of Winter, reaps the leaves. * * * * * No one has ever made the claim that Jay possessed genius. He had something which is better, though, for most of the affairs of life, and that is commonsense. In his intellect there was not the flash of Hamilton, nor the creative quality possessed by Jefferson, nor the large all-roundness of Franklin. He was the average man who has trained and educated and made the best use of every faculty and every opportunity. He was genuine; he was honest; and if he never surprised his friends by his brilliancy, he surely never disappointed them through duplicity. He made no promises that he could not keep; he held out no vain hopes. As a diplomat he seems nearly the ideal. We have been taught that the line of demarcation between diplomacy and untruth is very shadowy. But truth is very good policy and in the main answers the purpose much better than the other thing. I am quite willing to leave the matter to those who have tried both. We can not say that Jay was "magnetic," for magnetic men win the rabble; but Jay did better: he won the confidence and admiration of the strong and discerning. His manner was gentle and pleasing; his words few, and as a listener he set a pace that all novitiates in the school of diplomacy would do well to follow. To talk well is a talent, but to listen is a fine art. If I really wished to win the love of a man I'd practise the art of listening. Even dull people often talk well when there is some one near who cultivates the receptive mood; and to please a man you must give him an opportunity to be both wise and witty. Men are pleased with their friends when they are pleased with themselves, and no man is ever so pleased with himself as when he has expressed himself well. The sympathetic listener at a lecture or sermon is the only one who gets his money's worth. If you would get good, lend your sympathy to a speaker, and if, accidentally, you imbibe heresy, you can easily throw it overboard when you get home. John Jay was quiet and undemonstrative in speech, cultivating a fine reserve. In debate he never fired all his guns, and his best battles were won with the powder that was never exploded. "You had always better keep a small balance to your credit," he once advised a young attorney. When the first Congress met, Jay was not in favor of complete independence from England. He asked only for simple justice, and said, "The middle course is best." He listened to John Adams and Patrick Henry and quietly discussed the matter with Samuel Adams; but it was some time before he saw that the density of King George was hopeless, and that the work of complete separation was being forced upon the Colonies by the blindness and stupidity of the British Parliament. He then accepted the issue. During those first days of the Revolution, New York did not stand firm, as did Boston, for the cause of independence. "The foes at home are the only ones I really fear," once wrote Hamilton. First to pacify and placate, then to win and hold those worse than neutrals, was the work of John Jay. While Washington was in the field, Jay, with tireless pen, upheld the cause, and by his speech and presence kept anarchy at bay. As president of the Committee of Safety he showed he could do something more than talk and write. When Tories refused to take the oath of allegiance he quietly wrote the order to imprison or banish; and with friend, foe or kinsman there was neither dalliance nor turning aside. His heart was in the cause--his property, his life. The time for argument had passed. In the gloom that followed the defeat of Washington at Brooklyn, Jay issued an address to the people that is a classic in its fine, stern spirit of hope and strength. Congress had the address reprinted and sent broadcast, and also translated and printed in German. His work divides itself by a strange coincidence into three equal parts. Twenty-eight years were passed in youth and education; twenty-eight years in continuous public work; and twenty-eight years in retirement and rest. As one of that immortal ten, mentioned by a great English statesman, who gave order, dignity, stability and direction to the cause of American Independence, the name of John Jay is secure. WILLIAM H. SEWARD I avow my adherence to the Union, with my friends, with my party, with my State; or without either, as they may determine; in every event of peace or war, with every consequence of honor or dishonor, of life or death. --Speech in the United States Senate, 1860 [Illustration: WILLIAM H. SEWARD] When I was a freshman at the Little Red Schoolhouse, the last exercise in the afternoon was spelling. The larger pupils stood in a line that ran down one aisle and curled clear around the stove. Well do I remember one Winter when the biggest boy in the school stood at the tail-end of the class most of the time, while at the head of the line, or always very near it, was a freckled, check-aproned girl, who once at a spellin'-bee had defeated even the teacher. This girl was ten years older than myself, and I was then too small to spell with this first grade, but I watched the daily fight of wrestling with such big words as "un-in-ten-tion-al-ly" and "mis-un-der-stand-ing," and longed for a day when I, too, should take part and possibly stand next to this fine, smart girl, who often smiled at me approvingly. And I planned how I would hold her hand as we would stand there in line and mentally dare the master to come on with his dictionary. We two would be the smartest scholars of the school and always help each other in our "sums." Yet when time had pushed me into the line, she of the check apron was not there, and even if she had been I should not have dared to hold her hand. But I must not digress--the particular thing I wish to explain is that one day at recess the best scholar was in tears, and I went to her and asked what was the matter, and she told me that some of the big girls had openly declared that she--my fine, freckled girl, the check-aproned, the invincible--held her place at the head of the school only through favoritism. I burned with rage and resentment and proposed fight; then I burst out crying and together we mingled our tears. All this was long ago. Since then I have been in many climes, and met many men, and read history a bit--I hope not without profit. And this I have learned: that the person who stands at the head of his class (be he country lad or presidential candidate) is always the target for calumny and the unkindness of contemporaries who can neither appreciate nor understand. Not long ago I spent several days at Auburn, New York, so named by some pioneer who, when the Nineteenth Century was very young, journeyed thitherward with a copy of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" in his pack. Auburn is a flourishing city of thirty thousand inhabitants. It has beautiful wide streets, lined with elms that in places form an archway. There are churches to spare and schools galore and handsome residences. Then there are electric cars and electric lights and dynamos, with which men electricute other men in the wink of an eye. I saw the "fin-de-siecle" guillotine and sat in the chair, and the jubilant patentee told me that it was the quickest scheme for extinguishing life ever invented--patented Anno Christi Eighteen Hundred Ninety-five. Verily we live in the age of the Push-Button! And as I sat there I heard a laugh that was a quaver, and the sound of a stout cane emphasizing a jest struck against the stone floor. "We didn't have such things when I was a boy!" came the tremulous voice. And then the newcomer explained to me that he was eighty-seven years old last May, and that he well remembered a time when a plain oaken gallows and a strong rope were good enough for Auburn--"provided Bill Seward didn't get the fellow free," added my new-found friend. Then the old man explained that he used to be a guard on the walls, and now he had a grandson who occupied the same office, and in answer to my question said he knew Seward as though he were a brother. "Bill, he was the luckiest man ever in Auburn--he married rich and tumbled over bags of money if he just walked on the street. He believed in neither God nor devil and had a pompous way o' makin' folks think he knew all about everything. To make folks think you know is just as well as to know, I s'pose!" and the old man laughed and struck his cane on the echoing floor of the cell. The sound and the place and the company gave me a creepy feeling, and I excused myself and made my way out past armed guards, through doorways where iron bars clicked and snapped, and steel bolts that held in a thousand men shot back to let me out, out into a freer air and a better atmosphere. And as I passed through the last overhanging arch where a one-armed guard wearing a G.A.R. badge turned a needlessly big key, there came unbeckoned across my inward sight a vision of a check-aproned girl in tears, sobbing with head on desk. And I said to myself: "Yes, yes! country girl or statesman, you shall drink the bitter potion that is the penalty of success--drink it to the very dregs. If you would escape moral and physical assassination, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing--court obscurity, for only in oblivion does safety lie." All mud sticks, but no mud is immortal, and that senile fling at the name of Seward is the last flickering, dying word of detraction that can be heard in the town that was his home for full half a century, or in the land he served so well. And yet it was in Auburn that mob spirit once found a voice; and when Seward was Lincoln's most helpful adviser, and his sons were at the front serving the country's cause, cries of "Burn his house! Burn his house!" came to the distracted ears of wife and daughter. But all that has gone now. In fact, denial that calumny was ever offered to the name of Seward springs quickly to the lips of Auburn men, as they point with pride to that beautiful old home where he lived, and where now his son resides; and then they lead you, with a reverence that nearly uncovers, to the stately bronze standing on the spot that was once his garden--now a park belonging to the people. Time marks wondrous changes; and the city where William Lloyd Garrison lived in "a rat-hole," as reported by Boston's Mayor, now honors Commonwealth Avenue with his statue. And so the sons of Seward's enemies have devoted willing dollars to preserving "that classic face and spindling form" in deathless bronze. And they do well, for Seward's name and fame are Auburn's glory. * * * * * I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that all the worry of the world is quite useless. And on no subject affecting mortals is there so much worry as on that of (no, not love!) parents' ambitions for their children. When the dimpled darling toddles and lisps and chatters, the satisfaction he gives is unalloyed; for he is so small and insignificant, his demands so imperious, that the entire household dance attendance on the wee tyrant, and count it joy. But by and by the things at which we used to laugh become presumptuous, and that which was once funny is now perverse. And the more practical a man is, the larger his stock of Connecticut commonsense, the greater his disillusionment as his children grow to manhood. When he beholds dawdling inanity and dowdy vanity growing lush as jimson, where yesterday, with strained prophetic vision, he saw budding excellence and worth, his soul is wrung by a worry that knows no peace. The matter is so poignantly personal that he dare not share it with another in confessional, and so he hugs his grief to his heart, and tries to hide it even from himself. And thus does many a mother scrub the kitchen-floor on her knees, rather than face the irony of maternity and ask the assistance of the seventeen-year-old pert chit with bangs, who strums a mandolin in the little front parlor, gay with its paper flowers, six plush-covered chairs and a "company" sofa. The late Commodore Vanderbilt is reported to have said, "I have over a dozen sons, and not one is worth a damn." I fear me that every father with sons grown to manhood has at some time voiced the same sentiment, curtailed, possibly, only as to numbers, and softened by another expletive, which does not mitigate the anguish of his cry, as he sees the dreams he had for his baby boys fade away into a mist of agonizing tears. And is all this worry the penalty that Nature exacts for dreaming dreams that can not in their very nature come true? Jean Jacques Rousseau, who wrote so beautifully on child-study, avoided the risk of failure by putting his children into an asylum; several "Communities" since have set apart certain women to be mothers to all, and bring up and care for the young, and strangely, with no apparent loss to the children; and Bellamy prophesies a day when the worries of parenthood will all be transferred to a "committee." But the worry is futile and senseless, being born often of a blindness that will not wait. Man has not only "Seven Ages," but many more, and he must pass through this one before the next arrives. The Commodore certainly possessed what is called horse-sense, and if his conceptions of character had been clearer, he might have realized that in more ways than one the abilities of his sons were going to be greater than his own. His eldest son was, nevertheless, banished to a Long Island farm on a pension, "because he could not be trusted to do business." The same son once modestly asked the Commodore if he would allow him to have the compost that had been for a year accumulating outside the Fifth Avenue barns. "Just one load, and no more," said pater. William thereupon took twenty teams and as many men, and transferred the entire pile to a barge moored in the river. It was a barge-load. And when pater saw what had been done, he said, "The boy is not so big a fool as I thought." The boy was forty-five ere death put him in possession of the gold that the father no longer had use for, there being no pockets in a shroud, and he then showed that as a financier he could have given his father points, for in a few years he doubled the millions and drove horses faster without a break than his father had ever ridden. Seward's father was a doctor, justice of the peace, merchant, and the general first citizen of the village of Florida, Orange County, New York. And he had no more confidence in his boy William than Vanderbilt had in his. He educated him only because the lad was not strong enough to work, and it seems to have been the firm belief that the boy would come to no good end. In order to discipline him, the father put the youngster in college on such a scanty allowance that the lad was obliged to run away and go to teaching school in order to be free from financial humiliation. Here was the best possible proof that the young man had the germs of excellence in him; but the father took it as a proof of depravity, and sent warning letters to the young school-teacher's friends threatening them "not to harbor the scapegrace." The years went by and the parental distrust slackened very little. The boy was slim and slender and his hair was tow-colored and his head too big for his body. He had gotten a goodly smattering of education some way and was intent on being a lawyer. He seemed to know that if he was to succeed he must get well away from the parent nest, and out of the reach of daily advice. His desire was to go "Out West," and the particular objective point was Auburn, New York. The father gave him fifty dollars as a starter, with the final word, "I expect you'll be back all too soon." And so young Seward started away, with high hopes and a firm determination that he would agreeably disappoint his parents by not going back. He reached Albany by steamboat, and embarked on a sumptuous canal packet that bore a waving banner on which were the words woven in gold, "Westward Ho!" And he has slyly told us how, as he stepped aboard that "inland palace," he bethought him of having written a thesis, three years before, proving that De Witt Clinton's chimera of joining the Hudson and Lake Erie was an idea both fictile and fibrous. But the inland palace carried him safely and surely. He reached Auburn, and instead of writing home for more money, returned that which he had borrowed. The father, who was a pretty good man in every way, quite beyond the average in intellect, lived to see his son in the United States Senate. And the moral for parents is: Don't worry about your children. You were young once, even if you have forgotten the fact. Boys will be boys and girls will be girls--but not forever. Have patience, and remember that this present brood is not the first generation that has been brought forth. There have been others, and each has been very much like the one that passed before. The sentiment of "Pippa Passes" holds: "God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world." * * * * * In Eighteen Hundred Thirty-four, Seward was the Whig candidate for Governor of New York. He was defeated by W.L. Marcy. Four years later he was again a candidate against Marcy and defeated him by ten thousand majority. Seward was then thirty-six years of age, and was counted one of the very first among the lawyers of the State, and in accepting the office of Governor he made decided financial sacrifices. Seward was a man of positive ideas, and, although not arbitrary in manner, yet had a silken strength of will that made great rents in the mesh of other men's desires. Before a court, his quiet but firm persistence along a certain line often dictated the verdict. The faculty of grasping a point firmly and securely was his in a marked measure. And any man who can quietly override the wishes and ambitions of other men is first well feared, and then thoroughly hated. One of Seward's first efforts on becoming Governor was to insure a common-school education among the children of every class, and especially among the foreign population of large cities. To this end he advocated a distribution of public funds among all schools established with that object; and if he were alive today it is quite needless to say he would not belong to the A.P.A. nor to any other secret society. He knew too much of all religions to have complete faith in any, yet his appreciation of the fact that the Catholics minister to the needs of a class that no other denomination reaches or can control was outspoken and plain. This, with his connection with the Anti-Masonic Party, brought upon his name a stigma that was at last to defeat him for the Presidency. Seward's clear insight into practical things, backed by the quiet working energy of his nature, brought about many changes, and the changes he effected and the reforms he inaugurated must ever rank his name high among statesmen. By his influence the law's delay in the courts of chancery was curtailed, and this prepared the way for radical changes in the Constitution. He inaugurated the geological survey that led to making "Potsdam outcrop" classic, and "Medina sandstone" a product that is so known wherever a man goes forth in the fields of earth carrying a geologist's hammer. Largely through his efforts, a safe and general banking system was brought about; and the establishment of a lunatic asylum was one of the best items to his credit during that first term as Governor. But there was one philological change that proved too great even for his generalship. The word "lunacy," as we know, comes from "luna," the belief in the good old days being that the moon exercised a profound influence on the wits of sundry people. I'm told that the idea still holds good in certain quarters, and that if the wind is east and the moon shows a horn on which you can hang a flatiron, certain persons are looked upon askance and the children cautioned to avoid them. Seward said that insane people were simply those who were mentally ill, and that "Hospital" was the proper term. But the classicists retorted, "Nay, nay, William Henry, you have had your way in many things and here we will now have ours." It has taken us full a century officially to make the change, and the plain folks from the hills still refuse to ratify it, and will for many a lustrum. It was during Seward's administration that the "debtors' prison" was done away with, and it was, too, through his earnest recommendation that the last trace of law for slaveholding was wiped from the statute-books of the State of New York. The question of slavery was taken up most exhaustively in what was known as the "Virginia Controversy." This interesting correspondence can be seen in a stout volume in most public libraries. It is a series of letters that passed between Governor Seward of New York and the Governor of Virginia, as to the requisition of two persons in New York charged by the Governor of Virginia with abducting slaves. Seward made the patent point, and backed it up with a forest of reasons in politest English, that the accused persons being charged with abducting slaves, and there being no such thing as slaves known in New York, no person in New York could be apprehended for stealing slaves--for slaves were things that had no existence. Then did the Governor of Virginia admit that slaves could not be abducted in New York; but he proceeded to explain in lusty tomes that slavery legally existed in Virginia, and that if slaves were abducted in Virginia, the criminal nature of the act could not be shaken off because the accused changed his geographical base. Seward was a prince of logicians: the subtleties of reasoning and the smoke of rhetoric were to his fancy, and although there is not a visible smile in the whole "Virginia Controversy," I can not but think that his sleeves were puffed with laughter as he searched the universe for reasons to satisfy the haughty First Families of Virginia. And all the while, please note that he held the alleged abductors safe and secure 'gainst harm's way. In this correspondence he placed himself on record as an Abolitionist of the Abolitionists; and the name of Seward became listed then and there for vengeance--or immortality. The subject had been forced upon him, and he then expressed the sentiment that he continued to voice until Eighteen Hundred Sixty-five, that America could not exist half-free and half-slave. It must be a land of slaveholders and slaves, or a land of free-men--he was fully and irrevocably committed to the cause. In Eighteen Hundred Forty, he was re-elected Governor. The second administration was marked, as was the first, by a vigorous policy of pushing forward public improvements. At the close of his second term Seward found his personal affairs in rather an unsettled condition, the expenses of official position having exceeded his income. He had had a goodly taste of the ingratitude of republics, and philosopher though he was, he was yet too young to know that his experience in well-doing was not unique, a fact he came to comprehend full well, in later years. And so he did that very human thing--declared his intention of retiring permanently from public life. Once back at Auburn, clients flocked to him, and he took his pick of business. And yet we find that public affairs were in his mind. Vexed questions of State policy were brought to him to decide, and journeys were made to Ohio and Michigan in the interests of men charged with slave-stealing. There was little money in such practise and small honors, but his heart was in the work. In Eighteen Hundred Forty-four, Seward entered with much zest into the canvass in behalf of Henry Clay for President, as he thought Clay's election would surely lead the way to general emancipation. In Eighteen Hundred Forty-eight, he supported General Taylor with equal energy. When Taylor was elected, there proved to be a great deal of opposition to him among the members from the South, in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. The administration felt the need of being backed by strong men in the Senate--men who could think on their feet, and carry a point when necessary against the opposition that sought to confuse and embarrass the friends of the administration with tireless windmill elocution. From Washington came the urgent request that Seward should be sent to the United States Senate. In Eighteen Hundred Forty-nine, he was chosen senator and from the first became the trusted leader of the administration party. The year after Seward's election to the Senate, President Taylor died and Vice-President Fillmore (who had the happiness to live in the village of East Aurora, New York) succeeded to the office, but Seward still remained leader of the Anti-Slavery Party. Seward's second term as United States Senator closed in Eighteen Hundred Sixty-one. In Eighteen Hundred Fifty-five, when his first term expired, there was a very strenuous effort made against his re-election. His strong and continued anti-slavery position had caused him to be thoroughly hated both North and South. He was spoken of as "a seditious agitator and a dangerous man." But in spite of opposition he was again sent back to Washington. Small, slim, gentle, modest and low-voiced, he was pointed out in Pennsylvania Avenue as "one who reads much and sees quite through the deeds of men." Men who are well traduced and hotly denounced are usually pretty good quality. No better encomium is needed than the detraction of some people. And men who are well hated also have friends who love them well. Thus does the law of compensation ever live. In Eighteen Hundred Fifty-six, there was a goodly little demonstration in favor of Seward for President, but the idea of running such a radical for the chief office of the people was quickly downed; and Seward himself knew the temper of the times too well to take the matter very seriously. But the years between Eighteen Hundred Fifty-six and Eighteen Hundred Sixty were years of agitation and earnest thought, and the idea that slavery was merely a local question was getting both depolarized and dehorned. The non-slaveholding North was rubbing its sleepy eyes, and asking, Who is this man Seward, anyway? The belief was growing that Seward, Garrison, Sumner and Phillips were something more than self-seeking agitators, and many declared them true patriots. In every town and city, in every Northern State, political clubs sprang into being and their battle-cry was "Seward!" It seemed to be a foregone conclusion that Seward would be the next President. When the convention met, the first ballot showed one hundred seventy-three votes for Seward and one hundred two for Lincoln, the rest, scattering. But Seward's friends had marshaled their entire strength--all the rest was opposition--while Lincoln was an unknown quantity. When the news went forth that Lincoln was nominated, Seward received the tidings in his library at Auburn; and the myth-makers have told us that he cried aloud, and that the carved lions on his gateposts shed salty tears. But Seward knew the opposition to his name, and was of too stern a moral fiber to fix his heart upon the result of a wire-pulling convention. The motto of his life had been: Be prepared for the unexpected. It may be that the lions on the gateposts shed tears, and it is possible there was weeping in the Seward household--but not by Seward. He entered upon a hearty and vigorous campaign in support of Lincoln--making a tour through the West and being greeted everywhere with an enthusiasm that rivaled that shown for the candidate. Seward said to his wife, when the news came that Lincoln was nominated: "He will be elected, but he will have to face the greatest difficulties and carry the greatest burdens that ever a man has been called to bear. He will need me, but look you, my dear, I will not serve under him. I must be at the head or nowhere." Lincoln knew Seward, and Seward didn't knew Lincoln. And so after the Convention Lincoln journeyed down East. It took two days to go from Chicago to Buffalo, and there were no sleeping-cars; and then Lincoln went on from Buffalo to Auburn--another day's journey. Lincoln wore his habitual duster and the tall hat, a little the worse for wear. He telegraphed Seward he was coming, and, of course, Seward met him at the station in Auburn. Lincoln got off the car alone, unattended, carrying his carpetbag, homemade, with the initials "A.L." embroidered on the side by the fair hands of Fannie Anna Rebecca Todd. Seward and his two sons--William and Frederick--met the coming President, and the boys laughed at the dusty, uncouth, sad and awkward individual, six feet five, who disembarked. The carriage was waiting, but Lincoln refused to ride, saying, "Boys, let's walk," and so they walked up the hill, in through past the stone gateposts where the lions stood that shed tears. Seward ran ahead into the house and said to his wife: "Look you, my dear, we have misjudged this man. Do not laugh. He is the greatest man in the world!" Three months later, Seward met Lincoln by appointment in Chicago; and from that time on, to the day of Lincoln's death, Seward served his chief with hands and feet, with eyes and ears, and with brain and soul. When Lincoln was elected, his wisdom was at once manifest in securing Seward as Secretary of State. The record of those troublous times and the masterly way in which Seward served his country are too vivid in the minds of men to need reviewing here, but the regard of Lincoln for this man, who so well complemented his own needs, is worthy of our remembrance. Seward was the only member of Lincoln's first Cabinet who stood by him straight through and entered the second. Early in April, Eighteen Hundred Sixty-five, Seward met with a serious accident by being thrown from his carriage and dashed against the curbstone. One arm and both jaws were fractured, and besides he was badly bruised in other parts of his body. On April Thirteenth, Lincoln returned from his trip to Richmond, where he had had an interview with Grant. That evening he walked over from the White House to Seward's residence. The stricken man was totally unable to converse, but Lincoln, sitting on the edge of the bed and holding the old man's thin hands, told in solemn, serious monotone of the ending of the war; of what he had seen and heard; of the plans he had made for sending soldiers home and providing for an army whipped and vanquished, and of what was best to do to bind up a nation's wounds. Five years before, these men had stood before the world as rivals. Then they joined hands as friends, and during the four years of strife and blood had met each day and advised and counseled concerning every great detail. Their opinions often differed widely, but there was always frank expression and, in the main, their fears and doubts and hopes had all been one. But now at last the smoke had cleared away, and they had won. The victory had been too dearly bought for proud boast or vain exultation, but victory still it was. And as the strong and homely Lincoln told the tale the stricken man could answer back only by pressure of a hand. At last the presence of the nurse told Lincoln it was time to go; in grave jest he half-apologized for his long stay, and told of a man in Sangamon County who used to say there is no medicine like good news. And rumor has it that he then stooped and kissed the sick man's cheek. And then he went his way. The next night at the same hour a man entered the Seward home, saying that he had been sent with messages by the doctor. Being refused admittance to the sick-chamber, he drew a pistol and endeavored to shoot Seward's son who guarded the door; but being foiled in this he crushed the young man's skull with the heavy weapon, and springing over his body dashed at the emaciated figure of Seward with uplifted dagger. A dozen times he struck at the face and throat and breast of the almost dying man, and then thinking he had done his work made rapidly away. At the same time, linked by Fate in a sort of poetic justice, with the thought that if one deserved death so did the other, Hate had with surer aim sent an assassin's bullet home--and Lincoln died. Weeks passed and the strong vitality that had served Seward in such good stead did not forsake him. Men of his stamp are hard to kill. On a beautiful May-day, Seward, so reduced that a woman carried him, was taken out on the veranda of his house and watched that solid mass of glittering steel and faded blue that moved through Pennsylvania Avenue in triumphal march. Sherman with head uncovered rode down to Seward's home, saluted, and then back to join his goodly company, and many others of lesser note did the same. Health and strength came slowly back, and happy was the day when he was carried to the office of Secretary of State and, propped in his chair, again began his work. Another President had come, but meet it was that the Secretary of State should still hold his place. Seward lived full eleven years after that, seemingly dragging with unquenched spirit that slashed and broken form. But the glint did not fade from his eye, nor did the proud head lose its poise. He died in his office among his books and papers, sane and sensible up to the very moment when his spirit took its flight. ABRAHAM LINCOLN The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth. --Speech at Gettysburg [Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN] No, dearie, I do not think my childhood differed much from that of other good healthy country youngsters. I've heard folks say that childhood has its sorrows and all that, but the sorrows of country children do not last long. The young rustic goes out and tells his troubles to the birds and flowers, and the flowers nod in recognition, and the robin that sings from the top of a tall poplar-tree when the sun goes down says plainly it has sorrows of its own--and understands. I feel a pity for all those folks who were born in a big city, and thus got cheated out of their childhood. Zealous ash-box inspectors in gilt braid, prying policemen with clubs, and signs reading, "Keep Off the Grass," are woeful things to greet the gaze of little souls fresh from God. Last Summer six "Fresh Airs" were sent out to my farm, from the Eighth Ward. Half an hour after their arrival, one of them, a little girl five years old, who had constituted herself mother of the party, came rushing into the house exclaiming, "Say, Mister, Jimmy Driscoll he's walkin' on de grass!" I well remember the first Keep-Off-the-Grass sign I ever saw. It was in a printed book; it wasn't exactly a sign, only a picture of a sign, and the single excuse I could think of for such a notice was that the field was full of bumblebee-nests, and the owner, being a good man and kind, did not want barefoot boys to add bee-stings to stone-bruises. And I never now see one of those signs but that I glance at my feet to make sure that I have shoes on. Given the liberty of the country, the child is very near to Nature's heart; he is brother to the tree and calls all the dumb, growing things by name. He is sublimely superstitious. His imagination, as yet untouched by disillusion, makes good all that earth lacks, and habited in a healthy body the soul sings and soars. In childhood, magic and mystery lie close around us. The world in which we live is a panorama of constantly unfolding delights, our faith in the Unknown is limitless, and the words of Job, uttered in mankind's early morning, fit our wondering mood: "He stretcheth out the north over empty space, and hangeth the earth upon nothing." I am old, dearie, very old. In my childhood much of the State of Illinois was a prairie, where wild grass waved and bowed before the breeze, like the tide of a summer sea. I remember when "relatives" rode miles and miles in springless farm-wagons to visit cousins, taking the whole family and staying two nights and a day; when books were things to be read; when the beaver and the buffalo were not extinct; when wild pigeons came in clouds that shadowed the sun; when steamboats ran on the Sangamon; when Bishop Simpson preached; when Hell was a place, not a theory, and Heaven a locality whose fortunate inhabitants had no work to do; when Chicago newspapers were ten cents each; when cotton cloth was fifty cents a yard, and my shirt was made from a flour-sack, with the legend, "Extra XXX," across my proud bosom, and just below the words in flaming red, "Warranted Fifty Pounds!" The mornings usually opened with smothered protests against getting up, for country folks then were extremists in the matter of "early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." We hadn't much wealth, nor were we very wise, but we had health to burn. But aside from the unpleasantness of early morning, the day was full of possibilities of curious things to be found in the barn and under spreading gooseberry-bushes, or if it rained, the garret was an Alsatia unexplored. The evolution of the individual mirrors the evolution of the race. In the morning of the world man was innocent and free; but when self-consciousness crept in and he possessed himself of that disturbing motto, "Know Thyself," he took a fall. Yet knowledge usually comes to us with a shock, just as the mixture crystallizes when the chemist gives the jar a tap. We grow by throes. I well remember the day when I was put out of my Eden. My father and mother had gone away in the one-horse wagon, taking the baby with them, leaving me in care of my elder sister. It was a stormy day and the air was full of fog and mist. It did not rain very much, only in gusts, but great leaden clouds chased each other angrily across the sky. It was very quiet there in the little house on the prairie, except when the wind came and shook the windows and rattled at the doors. The morning seemed to drag and wouldn't pass, just out of contrariness; and I wanted it to go fast because in the afternoon my sister was to take me somewhere, but where I did not know, but that we should go somewhere was promised again and again. As the day wore on we went up into the little garret and strained our eyes across the stretching prairie to see if some one was coming. There had been much rain, for on the prairie there was always too much rain or else too little. It was either drought or flood. Dark swarms of wild ducks were in all the ponds; V-shaped flocks of geese and brants screamed overhead, and down in the slough cranes danced a solemn minuet. Again and again we looked for the coming something, and I began to cry, fearing we had been left there, forgotten of Fate. At last we went out by the barn and, with much boosting, I climbed to the top of the haystack and my sister followed. And still we watched. "There they come!" exclaimed my sister. "There they come!" I echoed, and clapped two red, chapped hands for joy. Away across the prairie, miles and miles away, was a winding string of wagons, a dozen perhaps, one right behind another. We watched until we could make out our own white horse, Bob, and then we slid down the hickory pole that leaned against the stack, and made our way across the spongy sod to the burying-ground that stood on a knoll half a mile away. We got there before the procession, and saw a great hole, with square corners, dug in the ground. It was half-full of water, and a man in bare feet, with trousers rolled to his knees, was working industriously to bail it out. The wagons drove up and stopped. And out of one of them four men lifted a long box and set it down beside the hole where the man still bailed and dipped. The box was opened and in it was Si Johnson. Si lay very still, and his face was very blue, and his clothes were very black, save for his shirt, which was very white, and his hands were folded across his breast, just so, and held awkwardly in the stiff fingers was a little New Testament. We all looked at the blue face, and the women cried softly. The men took off their hats while the preacher prayed, and then we sang, "There'll be no more parting there." The lid of the box was nailed down, lines were taken from the harness of one of the teams standing by and were placed around the long box, and it was lowered with a splash into the hole. Then several men seized spades and the clods fell with clatter and echo. The men shoveled very hard, filling up the hole, and when it was full and heaped up, they patted it all over with the backs of their spades. Everybody remained until this was done, and then we got into the wagons and drove away. Nearly a dozen of the folks came over to our house for dinner, including the preacher, and they all talked of the man who was dead and how he came to die. Only two days before, this man, Si Johnson, stood in the doorway of his house and looked out at the falling rain. It had rained for three days, so that they could not plow, and Si was angry. Besides this, his two brothers had enlisted and gone away to the War and left him all the work to do. He did not go to War because he was a "Copperhead"; and as he stood there in the doorway looking at the rain, he took a chew of tobacco, and then he swore a terrible oath. And ere the swear-words had escaped from his lips, there came a blinding flash of lightning, and the man fell all in a heap like a sack of oats. And he was dead. Whether he died because he was a Copperhead, or because he took a chew of tobacco, or because he swore, I could not exactly understand. I waited for a convenient lull in the conversation and asked the preacher why the man died, and he patted me on the head and told me it was "the vengeance of God," and that he hoped I would grow up and be a good man and never chew tobacco nor swear. The preacher is alive now. He is an old, old man with long, white whiskers, and I never see him but that I am tempted to ask for the exact truth as to why Si Johnson was struck by lightning. Yet I suppose it was because he was a Copperhead: all Copperheads chewed tobacco and swore, and that his fate was merited no one but the living Copperheads in that community doubted. That was an eventful day to me. Like men whose hair turns from black to gray in a night, I had left babyhood behind at a bound, and the problems of the world were upon me, clamoring for solution. * * * * * There was war in the land. When it began I did not know, but that it was something terrible I could guess. I thought of it all the rest of the day and dreamed of it at night. Many men had gone away; and every day men in blue straggled by, all going south, forever south. And all the men straggling along that road stopped to get a drink at our well, drawing the water with the sweep, and drinking out of the bucket, and squirting a mouthful of water over each other. They looked at my father's creaking doctor's sign, and sang, "Old Mother Hubbard, she went to the cupboard." They all sang that. They were very jolly, just as though they were going to a picnic. Some of them came back that way a few years later and they were not so jolly. And some there were who never came back at all. Freight-trains passed southward, blue with men in the cars, and on top of the cars, and in the caboose, and on the cowcatcher, always going south and never north. For "Down South" were many Rebels, and all along the way south were Copperheads, and they all wanted to come north and kill us, so soldiers had to go down there and fight them. And I marveled much that if God hated Copperheads, as our preacher said He did, why He didn't send lightning and kill them, just in a second, as He had Si Johnson. And then all that would have to be done would be to send for a doctor to see that they were surely dead, and a preacher to pray, and the neighbors would dress them in their best Sunday suits of black, folding their hands very carefully across their breasts, then we would bury them deep, filling in the dirt and heaping it up, patting it all down very carefully with the back of a spade, and then go away and leave them until Judgment-Day. Copperheads were simply men who hated Lincoln. The name came from copperhead-snakes, which are worse than rattlers, for rattlers rattle and give warning. A rattler is an open enemy, but you never know that a copperhead is around until he strikes. He lies low in the swale and watches his chance. "He is the worstest snake that am." It was Abe Lincoln of Springfield who was fighting the Rebels that were trying to wreck the country and spread red ruin. The Copperheads were wicked folks at the North who sided with the Rebels. Society was divided into two classes: those who favored Abe Lincoln, and those who told lies about him. All the people I knew and loved, loved Abe Lincoln. I was born at Bloomington, Illinois, through no choosing of my own, and Bloomington is further famous as being the birthplace of the Republican party. When a year old I persuaded my parents to move seven miles north to the village of Hudson, that then had five houses, a church, a store and a blacksmith-shop. Many of the people I knew, knew Lincoln, for he used to come to Bloomington several times a year "on the circuit" to try cases, and at various times made speeches there. When he came he would tell stories at the Ashley House, and when he was gone these stories would be repeated by everybody. Some of these stories must have been peculiar, for I once heard my mother caution my father not to tell any more "Lincoln stories" at the dinner-table when we had company. And once Lincoln gave a lecture at the Presbyterian Church on the "Progress of Man," when no one was there but the preacher, my Aunt Hannah and the sexton. My Uncle Elihu and Aunt Hannah knew Abe Lincoln well. So did Jesse Fell, James C. Conklin, Judge Davis, General Orme, Leonard Swett, Dick Yates and lots of others I knew. They never called him "Mister Lincoln," but it was always Abe, or Old Abe, or just plain Abe Lincoln. In that newly settled country you always called folks by their first names, especially when you liked them. And when they spoke the name, "Abe Lincoln," there was something in the voice that told of confidence, respect and affection. Once when I was at my Aunt Hannah's, Judge Davis was there and I sat on his lap. Years afterward I boasted to Robert Ingersoll that when I wore trousers buttoned to a calico waist I used to sit on the lap of David Davis, and Colonel Ingersoll laughed and said, "Now I know you are a liar, for David Davis didn't have any lap." The only thing about the interview I remember was that the Judge really didn't have any lap to speak of. After Judge Davis had gone, Aunt Hannah said, "You must always remember Judge Davis, for he is the man who made Abe Lincoln!" And when I said, "Why, I thought God made Lincoln," they all laughed. After a little pause my inquiring mind caused me to ask, "Who made Judge Davis?" And Uncle Elihu answered, "Abe Lincoln." Then they all laughed more than ever. * * * * * Many volunteers were being called for. Neighbors and neighbors' boys were enlisting--going to the support of Abe Lincoln. Then one day my father went away, too. Many of the neighbors went with us to the station when he took the four-o'clock train, and we all cried, except mother--she didn't cry until she got home. My father had gone to Springfield to enlist as a surgeon. In three days he came back and told us he had enlisted, and was to be assigned his regiment in a week, and go at once to the front. He was always a kind man, but during that week when he was waiting to be told where to go, he was very gentle and more kind than ever. He told me I must be the man of the house while he was away, and take care of my mother and sisters, and not forget to feed the chickens every morning; and I promised. At the end of the week a big envelope came from Springfield marked in the corner, "Official." My mother would not open it, and so it lay on the table until the doctor's return. We all looked at it curiously, and my eldest sister gazed on it long with lack-luster eye and then rushed from the room with her check apron over her head. When my father rode up on horseback I ran to tell him that the envelope had come. We all stood breathless and watched him break the seals. He took out the letter and read it silently and passed it to my mother. I have the letter before me now, and it says: "The Department is still of the opinion that it does not care to accept men having varicose veins, which make the wearing of bandages necessary. Your name, however, has been filed and should we be able to use your services, will advise." Then we were all very glad about the varicose veins, and I am afraid I went out and boasted to my play-fellows about our family possessions. It was not so very long after, that there was a Big Meeting in the "timber." People came from all over the county to attend it. The chief speaker was a man by the name of Ingersoll, a colonel in the army, who was back home for just a day or two on furlough. Folks said he was the greatest orator in Peoria County. Early in the morning the wagons began to go by our house, and all along the four roads that led to the grove we could see great clouds of dust that stretched away for miles and miles and told that the people were gathering by the thousands. They came in wagons and on horseback, carrying babies; two boys on one horse were common sights; and there were various four-horse teams with wagons filled with girls all dressed in white, carrying flags. All our folks went. My mother fastened the back door of our house with a bolt on the inside, and then locked the front door with a key, and hid the key under the doormat. At the grove there was much hand-shaking and visiting and asking after the folks and for the news. Several soldiers were present, among them a man who lived near us, called "Little Ramsey." Three one-armed men were there, and a man named Al Sweetser, who had only one leg. These men wore blue, and were seated on the big platform that was all draped with flags. Plank seats were arranged, and every plank held its quota. Just outside the seats hundred of men stood, and beyond these were wagons filled with people. Every tree in the woods seemed to have a horse tied to it, and the trees over the speakers' platform were black with men and boys. I never knew before that there were so many horses and people in the world. When the speaking began, the people cheered, and then they became very quiet, and only the occasional squealing and stamping of the horses could be heard. Our preacher spoke first, and then the lawyer from Bloomington, and then came the great man from Peoria. The people cheered more than ever when he stood up, and kept hurrahing so long I thought they were not going to let him speak at all. At last they quieted down, and the speaker began. His first sentence contained a reference to Abe Lincoln. The people applauded, and some one proposed three cheers for "Honest Old Abe." Everybody stood up and cheered, and I, perched on my father's shoulder, cheered too. And beneath the legend, "Warranted Fifty Pounds," my heart beat proudly. Silence came at last--a silence filled only by the neighing and stamping of horses and the rapping of a woodpecker in a tall tree. Every ear was strained to catch the orator's first words. The speaker was just about to begin. He raised one hand, but ere his lips moved, a hoarse, guttural shout echoed through the woods, "Hurrah'h'h for Jeff Davis!!!" "Kill that man!" rang a sharp, clear voice in instant answer. A rumble like an awful groan came from the vast crowd. My father was standing on a seat, and I had climbed to his shoulder. The crowd surged like a monster animal toward a tall man standing alone in a wagon. He swung a blacksnake whip around him, and the lash fell savagely on two gray horses. At a lunge, the horses, the wagon and the tall man had cleared the crowd, knocking down several people in their flight. One man clung to the tailboard. The whip wound with a hiss and a crack across his face, and he fell stunned in the roadway. A clear space of full three hundred feet now separated the man in the wagon from the great throng, which with ten thousand hands seemed ready to tear him limb from limb. Revolver shots rang out, women screamed, and trampled children cried for help. Above it all was the roar of the mob. The orator, in vain pantomime, implored order. I saw Little Ramsey drop off the limb of a tree astride of a horse that was tied beneath, then lean over, and with one stroke of a knife sever the halter. At the same time fifty other men seemed to have done the same thing, for flying horses shot out from different parts of the woods, all on the instant. The man in the wagon was half a mile away now, still standing erect. The gray horses were running low, with noses and tails outstretched. The spread-out riders closed in a mass and followed at terrific speed. The crowd behind seemed to grow silent. We heard the patter-patter of barefoot horses ascending the long, low hill. One rider on a sorrel horse fell behind. He drew his horse to one side, and sitting over with one foot in the long stirrup, plied the sorrel across the flank with a big, white-felt hat. The horse responded, and crept around to the front of the flying mass. The wagon had disappeared over a gentle rise of ground, and then we lost the horsemen, too. Still we watched, and two miles across the prairie we got a glimpse of running horses in a cloud of dust, and into another valley they settled, and then we lost them for good. The speaking began again and went on amid applause and tears, with laughter set between. I do not remember what was said, but after the speaking, as we made our way homeward, we met Little Ramsey and the young man who rode the sorrel horse. They told us that they had caught the Copperhead after a ten-mile chase, and that he was badly hurt, for the wagon had upset and the fellow was beneath it. Ramsey asked my father to go at once to see what could be done for him. The man, however, was quite dead when my father reached him. There was a purple mark around his neck: and the opinion seemed to be that he had got tangled up in the harness or something. * * * * * The war-time months went dragging by, and the burden of gloom in the air seemed to lift; for when the Chicago "Tribune" was read each evening in the post-office it told of victories on land and sea. Yet it was a joy not untinged with black; for in the church across from our house, funerals had been held for farmer boys who had died in prison-pens and been buried in Georgia trenches. One youth there was, I remember, who had stopped to get a drink at our pump, and squirted a mouthful of water over me because I was handy. One night the postmaster was reading aloud the names of the killed at Gettysburg, and he ran right on to the name of this boy. The boy's father sat there on a nail-keg, chewing a straw. The postmaster tried to shuffle over the name and on to the next. "Hi! Wha--what's that you said?" "Killed in honorable battle--Snyder, Hiram," said the postmaster with a forced calmness. The boy's father stood up with a jerk. Then he sat down. Then he stood up again and staggered his way to the door and fumbled for the latch like a blind man. "God help him! he's gone to tell the old woman," said the postmaster as he blew his nose on a red handkerchief. The preacher preached a funeral sermon for the boy, and on the little pyramid that marked the family lot in the burying-ground they carved the words: "Killed in honorable battle, Hiram Snyder, aged nineteen." Not long after, strange, yellow, bearded men in faded blue began to arrive. Great welcomes were given them; and at the regular Wednesday evening prayer-meeting thanksgivings were poured out for their safe return, with names of company and regiment duly mentioned for the Lord's better identification. Bees were held for some of these returned farmers, where twenty teams and fifty men, old and young, did a season's farm-work in a day, and split enough wood for a year. At such times the women would bring big baskets of provisions, and long tables would be set, and there were very jolly times, with cracking of many jokes that were veterans, and the day would end with pitching horseshoes, and at last with singing "Auld Lang Syne." It was at one such gathering that a ghost appeared--a lank, saffron ghost, ragged as a scarecrow--wearing a foolish smile and the cape of a cavalryman's overcoat with no coat beneath it. The apparition was a youth of about twenty, with a downy beard all over his face, and countenance well mellowed with coal-soot, as though he had ridden several days on top of a freight-car that was near the engine. This ghost was Hiram Snyder. All forgave him the shock of surprise he caused us--all except the minister who had preached his funeral sermon. Years after I heard this minister remark in a solemn, grieved tone: "Hiram Snyder is a man who can not be relied on." * * * * * As the years pass, the miracle of the seasons means less to us. But what country boy can forget the turning of the leaves from green to gold, and the watchings and waitings for the first hard frost that ushers in the nutting season! And then the first fall of snow, with its promise of skates and sleds and tracks of rabbits, and mayhap bears, and strange animals that only come out at night, and that no human eye has ever seen! Beautiful are the seasons; and glad I am that I have not yet quite lost my love for each. But now they parade past with a curious swiftness! They look at me out of wistful eyes, and sometimes one calls to me as she goes by and asks, "Why have you done so little since I saw you last?" And I can only answer, "I was thinking of you." I do not need another incarnation to live my life over again. I can do that now, and the resurrection of the past, through memory, that sees through closed eyes, is just as satisfactory as the thing itself. Were we talking of the seasons? Very well, dearie, the seasons it shall be. They are all charming, but if I were to wed any it would be Spring. How well I remember the gentle perfume of her comings, and her warm, languid breath! There was a time when I would go out of the house some morning, and the snow would be melting, and Spring would kiss my cheek, and then I would be all aglow with joy and would burst into the house, and cry: "Spring is here! Spring is here!" For you know we always have to divide our joy with some one. One can bear grief, but it takes two to be glad. And then my mother would smile and say, "Yes, my son, but do not wake the baby!" Then I would go out and watch the snow turn to water, and run down the road in little rivulets to the creek, that would swell until it became a regular Mississippi, so that when we waded the horse across, the water would come to the saddlegirth. Then once, I remember, the bridge was washed away, and all the teams had to go around and through the water, and some used to get stuck in the mud on the other bank. It was great fun! The first "Spring beauties" bloomed very early in that year; violets came out on the south side of rotting logs, and cowslips blossomed in the slough as they never had done before. Over on the knoll, prairie-chickens strutted pompously and proudly drummed. The war was over! Lincoln had won, and the country was safe! The jubilee was infectious, and the neighbors who used to come and visit us would tell of the men and boys who would soon be back. The war was over! My father and mother talked of it across the table, and the men talked of it at the store, and earth, sky and water called to each other in glad relief, "The war is over!" But there came a morning when my father walked up from the railroad-station very fast, and looking very serious. He pushed right past me as I sat in the doorway. I followed him into the kitchen where my mother was washing dishes, and heard him say, "They have killed Lincoln!" and then he burst into tears. I had never before seen my father shed tears--in fact, I had never seen a man cry. There is something terrible in the grief of a man. Soon the church-bell across the road began to toll. It tolled all that day. Three men--I can give you their names--rang the bell all day long, tolling, slowly tolling, tolling until night came and the stars came out. I thought it a little curious that the stars should come out, for Lincoln was dead; but they did, for I saw them as I trotted by my father's side down to the post-office. There was a great crowd of men there. At the long line of peeled-hickory hitching-poles were dozens of saddle-horses. The farmers had come for miles to get details of the news. On the long counters that ran down each side of the store men were seated, swinging their feet, and listening intently to some one who was reading aloud from a newspaper. We worked our way past the men who were standing about, and with several of these my father shook hands solemnly. Leaning against the wall near the window was a big, red-faced man, whom I knew as a Copperhead. He had been drinking, evidently, for he was making boozy efforts to stand very straight. There were only heard a subdued buzz of whispers and the monotonous voice of the reader, as he stood there in the center, his newspaper in one hand and a lighted candle in the other. The red-faced man lurched two steps forward, and in a loud voice said, "L--L--Lincoln is dead--an' I'm damn glad of it!" Across the room I saw two men struggling with Little Ramsey. Why they should struggle with him I could not imagine, but ere I could think the matter out, I saw him shake himself loose from the strong hands that sought to hold him. He sprang upon the counter, and in one hand I saw he held a scale-weight. Just an instant he stood there, and then the weight shot straight at the red-faced man. The missile glanced on his shoulder and shot through the window. In another second the red-faced man plunged through the window, taking the entire sash with him. "You'll have to pay for that window!" called the alarmed postmaster out into the night. The store was quickly emptied, and on following outside no trace of the red man could be found. The earth had swallowed both the man and the five-pound scale-weight. After some minutes had passed in a vain search for the weight and the Copperhead, we went back into the store and the reading was continued. But the interruption had relieved the tension, and for the first time that day men in that post-office joked and laughed. It even lifted from my heart the gloom that threatened to smother me, and I went home and told the story to my mother and sisters, and they too smiled, so closely akin are tears and smiles. * * * * * The story of Lincoln's life had been ingrained into me long before I ever read a book. For the people who knew Lincoln, and the people who knew the people that Lincoln knew, were the people I knew. I visited at their houses and heard them tell what Lincoln had said when he sat at table where I then sat. I listened long to Lincoln stories, and "and that reminds me" was often on the lips of those I loved. All the tales told by the faithful Herndon and the needlessly loyal Nicolay and Hay were current coin, and the rehearsal of the Lincoln-Douglas debate was commonplace. When our own poverty was mentioned, we compared it with the poverty that Lincoln had endured, and felt rich. I slept in a garret where the winter's snow used to sift merrily through the slab shingles, but then I was covered with warm buffalo-robes, and a loving mother tucked me in and on my forehead imprinted a goodnight kiss. But Lincoln at the same age had no mother and lived in a hut that had neither windows, doors nor floor, and a pile of leaves and straw in the corner was his bed. Our house had two rooms, but one Winter the Lincoln home was only a shed enclosed on three sides. I knew of his being a clerk in a country store at the age of twenty, and that up to that time he had read but four books; of his running a flatboat, splitting rails, and poring at night over a dog-eared law-book; of his asking to sleep in the law-office of Joshua Speed, and of Speed's giving him permission to move in. And of his going away after his "worldly goods" and coming back in ten minutes carrying an old pair of saddlebags, which he threw into a corner saying, "Speed, I've moved!". I knew of his twenty years of country law-practise, when he was considered just about as good and no better than a dozen others on that circuit, and of his making a bare living during that time. Then I knew of his gradually awakening to the wrong of slavery, of the expansion of his mind, so that he began to incur the jealousy of rivals and the hatred of enemies, and of the prophetic feeling in that slow but sure moving mind that "a house divided against itself can not stand. I believe this Government can not endure permanently half-slave and half-free." I knew of the debates with Douglas and the national attention they attracted, and of Judge Davis' remark, "Lincoln has more commonsense than any other man in America"; and then, chiefly through Judge Davis' influence, of his being nominated for President at the Chicago Convention. I knew of his election, and the coming of the war, and the long, hard fight, when friends and foes beset, and none but he had the patience and the courage that could wait. And then I knew of his death, that death which then seemed a calamity--terrible in its awful blackness. But now the years have passed, and I comprehend somewhat of the paradox of things, and I know that this death was just what he might have prayed for. It was a fitting close for a life that had done a supreme and mighty work. His face foretold the end. Lincoln had no home ties. In that plain, frame house, without embellished yard or ornament, where I have been so often, there was no love that held him fast. In that house there was no library, but in the parlor, where six haircloth chairs and a slippery sofa to match stood guard, was a marble table on which were various giftbooks in blue and gilt. He only turned to that home when there was no other place to go. Politics, with its attendant travel and excitement, allowed him to forget the what-might-have-beens. Foolish bickering, silly pride, and stupid misunderstanding pushed him out upon the streets and he sought to lose himself among the people. And to the people at length he gave his time, his talents, his love, his life. Fate took from him his home that the country might call him savior. Dire tragedy was a fitting end; for only the souls who have suffered are well-loved. Jealousy, disparagement, calumny, have all made way, and North and South alike revere his name. The memory of his gentleness, his patience, his firm faith, and his great and loving heart are the priceless heritage of a united land. He had charity for all and malice toward none; he gave affection, and affection is his reward. Honor and love are his. * * * * * SO HERE ENDETH "LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF AMERICAN STATESMEN," BEING VOLUME THREE OF THE SERIES, AS WRITTEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD: EDITED AND ARRANGED BY FRED BANN; MCMXXII 
26295	----	[Transcriber's Note: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other inconsistencies. Text that has been changed to correct an obvious error is noted at the end of this ebook.] The PRINTER BOY. OR HOW BENJAMIN FRANKLIN MADE HIS MARK. AN EXAMPLE FOR YOUTH. BY WILLIAM. M. THAYER AUTHOR OF "THE BOBBIN BOY", "TALES FROM THE BIBLE", ETC. [Illustration: Medallion of Benjamin Franklin.] ILLUSTRATIONS BY JULIAN PORTCH ENGRAVED BY BALE & HOLMAN. LONDON JAMES HOGG & SONS [Illustration: "How much did you give for your whistle!"--See page 4.] PREFACE. This book is designed to illustrate the familiar maxim, that "THE BOY IS FATHER TO THE MAN." The early life of Franklin is sketched from his childhood to the time he was established in business, thus showing what he was in boyhood and youth; and the achievements of his manhood are summed up in a closing chapter, to substantiate the truth of the above proverb. The author believes that the lives of distinguished men may be incorporated into a story, uniting narrative and dialogue so as to be more attractive to the young. John Bunyan was the first to adopt this style, and his inimitable Pilgrim's Progress charms the young reader, not only by its graphic imagery, but also by its alternation of narrative and dialogue. Since his day, others have adopted a similar style, particularly in works of fiction, with success. Why may not truth appear in such a dress as successfully as fiction? Why may not _actual_ lives be presented in this manner as vividly as _imaginary_ ones? The young mind will seize upon a truth or fact that is conveyed in a story, when it will remain wholly indifferent to it as it appears in a simple statement. So the life of an eminent man may engage the attention of this class, if he is made to speak and act for himself, when they would not be interested in it, if it were presented to them in a plain summary of facts. In this volume, the actual, early life of Franklin is wrought into a story. The imagination has done no more than weave the facts of his boyhood and youth into a "tale of real life." It makes Benjamin and his associates speak and do what biographers say they spoke and did. It simply paints the scenes and acts of which other writers have _told_. A conspicuous place is given in the work to the maxims of Franklin, for the purpose of conveying important lessons in regard to the formation of character, and thus stimulating the young in the path of well-doing. Whole volumes of meaning are condensed into many of his wise and pithy sayings. W. M. T. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE WHISTLE. The Holiday--The Coppers in Benjamin Franklin's Pocket--Inquiry-- Bounding Out--The Toy-Shop Then and Now--The Boy and his Whistle--Resolved to Purchase--The Bargain--Going Home--Making Music--Discussion about the Price--A Pocketful of Good Things-- Benjamin crying over his Whistle--A Benefit--What Franklin said of it Sixty Years after--Boys do not Learn from the Past--Other Ways of paying too dear for a Whistle--Deceit and Falsehood-- Tippling--Worldly Pleasure 1-8 CHAPTER II. AT SCHOOL. Talk about School--Brothers at Trades--Benjamin for the Church-- Early learned to Read--Long Process of Preparation for the Ministry--"Uncle Benjamin's" Remarks and Offer--Who is "Uncle Benjamin"--A Hundred Years Ago--When Benjamin was Born--Baptized on Same Day he was Born--The Record--Description of his Birthplace-- Early Love of Books--His Father's Violin--Poor but Industrious-- Seventeen Children--Decision to Enter School--Where it was, and by Whom kept--His Rapid Progress--Mr. Franklin's Trust in Providence-- At the Head of his Class--The Boy Father to the Man--Daniel Webster--David Rittenhouse and George Stephenson--Hopes of Benjamin 9-18 CHAPTER III. A CHANGE. Conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Franklin--Decision to Remove Benjamin from School--Trials of Ministers--Bread before Learning--Subject opened to Benjamin--His Feelings--Character of Schools then--Mr. Brownwell's Writing-school--Benjamin's Obedience--His Father Strict--Keeping the Sabbath--Lore and Respect for his Father--Rebuking the Inquisitive Landlord--Erecting Marble Stone to the Memory of his Parents--The Stone replaced by Citizens of Boston--Obedience of the Peel Boys--Harry Garland--Stephenson's Noble Act to his Parents--The Eight Brothers at Inauguration of the Franklin Statue--Progress in Penmanship--Beloved by Teacher 19-28 CHAPTER IV. MAKING CANDLES. Put to Candle-making at Ten Years of Age--His Father a Tallow- chandler--Benjamin opposed to it--Importance of Industry--His Father's Hive without Drones--Benjamin's Maxims about Industry in Later Life--"The used key always bright."--"Diligence the Mother of Good Luck"--Bad Luck--Bible View--No Schooling after Ten Years of Age--Cutting Candle-wicks--Where was the Shop--Benjamin desires to go to Sea--His Mother's Veto--An Older Brother went to Sea--Talk with his Father--His Father's Veto--Promise of another Pursuit-- Respect for a Paternal "No"--His Sports on the Water--No Prospect of Fame--Giotti Marking in the Sand--Webster's Pocket-handkerchief-- Roger Sherman at his Bench--Boys not excused from School by these Examples--Benefit of a Little Knowledge--Saved Benjamin Russell in Thunder-storm--How Stephenson felt for his Son 29-43 CHAPTER V. THE ROGUE'S WHARF. "All Abroad"--The Quagmire--Proposal to build a Wharf--The Heap of Stones--Plan to steal them--Time set in the Evening--The Plan executed--The Wharf done--Keeping the Secret--Benjamin's Father finds him out--Benjamin in a tight place--Promises to do better--How the Boys were found out--Benjamin's Reading Habits--What Books liked--Mather's "Essays to Do Good"--Letter to Mather's Son--Boys should be at Home in Evenings--Advantage of Reading--Letter to a Girl on the Subject 44-54 CHAPTER VI. TABLE TALK. Interview with a Friend--His Ancestors--Their Hardships--Denied Liberty of Conscience--The Bible under the Stool--Leaving the Church of England--Emigration for Religious Freedom--Conversation on Useful Themes at Table--No Complaints allowed about Food--Guests introduced and sensible Remarks made--Effect on Benjamin--The Washburne Family--Benefit of Good Conversation--His Father's Remarks about Food--Benjamin Temperate in Eating and Drinking--"The Water- American"--No Temperance Societies then--Table Talk now--A Table Scene 55-63 CHAPTER VII. CHOOSING A TRADE. Still Opposed to Candle-making--A Dirty, Simple Business--Wants to do something that requires Ingenuity--His Father and Mother conferring together--"A rolling stone gathers no moss"--Afraid he will go to Sea--Benjamin's Views and Maxims--Opportunity to choose a Trade--Going to see different Trades--Devotes a Day to it--Joiners', Turners', and Bricklayers' Work--Cutlery Shop, his Cousin's--Which Trade he chose--His Father's Decision--Arrangement to learn to make Cutlery--Wise to Consult Taste and Tact of Benjamin--Handel the Musician--Sir Joshua Reynolds--Father of John Smeaton--Opposing a Child's Bent of Mind 64-75 CHAPTER VIII. THE PRINTER-BOY. Taken Away from Cousin Samuel--His Brother's Return from England-- Setting Up the Printing Business--Proposal to Benjamin--A Long Apprenticeship--Benjamin disposed to turn Printer-boy--His Brother's Offer to Teach Him the Art of Printing--Borrowing Books to read, and sitting up at Night--Mr. Adams's Library and his Kindness-- Going to it for Books--Scarcity of Books--Compared with now--Two and a half Books made in a Minute--No Libraries then--Their enormous Size now--Habit of Reading made him punctual--Example of Lord Brougham 76-84 CHAPTER IX. FIRST LITERARY ENTERPRISE. A Piece of Poetry--Pronounced Good--Proposition to Print his Articles--"The Lighthouse Tragedy"--A Sailor's Song--Printing them--Selling them in the Streets--A Successful Enterprise--His Father opposes--Condemns Poetry in general and Benjamin's in particular--A severe Rebuke--Crestfallen--Conference with James-- His Father's Censure a Benefit--Practice of writing Composition excellent--How it Benefited Benjamin, even Pecuniarily--The Farmer's Son and Minister 85-92 CHAPTER X. THE DISPUTE. Dispute with John Collins--A Bookish Fellow--The Education of Girls--The Controversial Correspondence--His Father finds the Letters--His Criticisms--Collins _versus_ Benjamin--Bought a Copy of the Spectator and studied it laboriously--Sorry that he did not continue to write Poetry--His Father's Counsel--His Economy of Time--A Book always by his side--His Maxims on this Subject-- Violating the Sabbath to gain Time for Study--Useful Conversation and Talking Nonsense--Hundreds ruined by a similar cause--Walter Scott hiding Novels from his Father--Pope going to the Theatre-- Exceptions to the General Rule 93-103 CHAPTER XI. PLAIN FARE. Proposition to board Himself--Became a Vegetarian by Reading Tryon's Book--Why he did it--How much Money he saved by doing it--Spent it for Books--How much Time saved also--Cocker's Arithmetic--Other Books read at odd moments--His Plan to save Time--His Maxims on saving Time--Aim to be Useful--The English Grammar--Shaftesbury's Works--Benjamin a Doubter--Makes known his Doubts to Collins--Danger of Reading Attacks upon the Gospel 104-113 CHAPTER XII. THE NEWSPAPER. Starting the Third Newspaper in America--Opposition to it--Number of Newspapers now--Forty Million Sheets from Eight Presses--Seventy-one Miles a day of Newspapers from One Office--Almost enough to reach around the Earth in a Year--Weigh these Papers--Four Million Pounds in a Year--Two Thousand Two-Horse Loads--The New England Courant started--Printer, News-carrier, and Collector--The Club--Incited to write an Article--Tucks it under Printing-office Door--Hears it favourably commented on--Writes other Articles--This an Incident that decides his Career--Canning at Eton and the "Microcosm"--Similar Paper in Seminaries now 114-122 CHAPTER XIII. THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG. Eager to Own the Pieces--Discloses the Authorship to James-- Interview with the Club--Surprise that Benjamin wrote them-- Treated with Attention by the Club--Oppressed by James--Trouble with him--Benjamin resolves to leave him--The Printing-office furnishes many Scholars--A New England Divine--Benjamin directed in the Path to which his Native Endowments pointed--So of Lord Nelson--Anecdote of him--Buxton, Wilberforce, and Others--Example of the Author of the "Optic Library" 123-129 CHAPTER XIV. THE ARREST. Action of General Court to Arrest James Franklin for Libel--The Legislative Order--James imprisoned four weeks, and Benjamin arrested, but discharged--The immediate Cause of the Arrest--Meeting of the Club--Decision to publish the Paper in Benjamin's Name-- Shrewd Evasion--Youngest Conductor of a Paper who ever lived--His Thrusts at the Government--Benjamin born in troublous Times-- Attacks and Massacres by the Savages--Prepared thereby to act in achieving Independence--Bears in Boston 130-136 CHAPTER XV. THE RUNAWAY. A Quarrel--Asserting his Freedom--Statement of the Case--Appeal to his Father--His Father's Decision--Leaves his Brother--Fails to get Work--Charged with being an Infidel--Plans to run away--Conference with Collins--His Plan to get away--Collins's Talk with the Captain of a New York Sloop, and his Base Lie--Benjamin Boards the Sloop--Arrival in New York--His lonely Condition--Guilt of a Runaway--Quarrel between Brothers painful--Case of William Hutton--Lines of Dr. Watts 137-147 CHAPTER XVI. ANOTHER TRIP AND ITS TRIALS. Calls on Printer Bradford in New York--No Work--Recommended to go to Philadelphia--Arranges for the Trip--Starts for Philadelphia--The Drunken Dutchman--His wet Volume and Bottle--Struck by a Squall--A sad Night off Long Island--Benjamin's Feelings--The next morning-- Storm subsides--Next night on shore--Advantage of a little Reading-- Boys lose nothing by spending leisure Hours in Reading--The Young Man in Maine--Discipline of the Mind--Case of Gibbon--What Boys say--Sir Walter Scott in Boyhood, and his warning Words-- Benjamin leaving Amboy--Fifty Miles on Foot--Suspected of being a Runaway--Reaches the Quack Doctor's Tavern--Arrival at Burlington--The Gingerbread Woman--The Boat gone--Going back to the Gingerbread Woman--His Walk--The unexpected Boat and his Passage--In Cooper's Creek at Midnight--Reached Philadelphia on Sunday Morning--The Shilling--The Boy and his Loaf--Going up Market Street with a Baker's Loaf under each Arm--Miss Read--Asleep in a Quaker Church--Suspected again of being a Runaway--First Night in Philadelphia 148-166 CHAPTER XVII. GETTING WORK. Call upon Andrew Bradford--His Surprise--Disappointment--Directed to Keimer--The Interview--Advantage of Thoroughness--Benjamin did things well--Bradford's Talk with Keimer--Keimer ensnared--Benjamin makes a Disclosure--Keimer astonished--Repairing a Printing-press-- At work for Keimer--Goes to Board at Mr. Read's--His Power of Observation--Stephenson like him--William Hutton again and his Dulcimer--Perseverance--Not proud--How many Boys would have done--Maxims 167-175 CHAPTER XVIII. NEWS FROM HOME, AND RETURN. The Unexpected Letter--Benjamin's Reply--Governor Keith calls to see him--Surprise of Keimer--Invites him to the Tavern--Advises him to set up Business for Himself--Benjamin's Objections overruled--Decides to return to Boston to ask his Father's Assistance--How the Governor learned of Benjamin--His Return to Boston--Joy at Home--His gentlemanly appearance--Goes to his Brother's Printing-office-- Cold Reception--Interview with the Workmen--Exhibition of his Silver Coin--His Watch--The Dollar "Treat"--James incensed--Interview with his Mother--Stating Business to his Father, and giving him the Governor's Letter--His Father's Talk with Captain Homes--His Father's Denial--Collins returns with him 176-178 CHAPTER XIX. BACK AGAIN. Sails for New York--Stops at Newport and visits his Brother--The New Passengers--The Old Quaker Lady's Attention--A Narrow Escape--Arrival in New York--Collins there first and intoxicated--Makes a Confession to Benjamin--Owns that he gambles--Loses all his Money--Message from Governor Burnet--Benjamin goes to see him--Trip to Philadelphia-- Collects Vernon's Debt--Takes Collins to board with him--Throws Collins into the River Delaware--The Fate of Collins--Interview with Governor Keith--The Governor promises to set him up in Business. 188-195 CHAPTER XX. A LITERARY GAME. The Three Associates--Their Characters--Discussion about Poets and Poetry--A Proposition to Paraphrase the Eighteenth Psalm--Osborne's Prejudice, and how to prove him--Benjamin reads Ralph's Piece as his own--The Success of the Ruse--Subsequent Interview of Benjamin and Ralph--Their Delight over the Result--The Exposure of Osborne at the next Meeting--His Mortification--Fate of Watson and Osborne-- Advantage of such Literary Clubs 196-203 CHAPTER XXI. GOING TO ENGLAND. Interview with Governor Keith--Arrangements to go to England in the Annis--Only one vessel a year to sail--Still works for Keimer--The latter a singular Man--Experiment of a Vegetable Diet--Keimer's Abhorrence of it--Eats the whole of a Pig at last--How Benjamin came to relinquish a Vegetable Diet--Courting Miss Read--Her Mother objects to Engagement--Ralph resolves to go with him--Four or Five Printing-offices then, and Two or Three Thousand now--The Governor's Letters--Set Sail--Arrival in London--Discovers that his Letters are Worthless--The Governor a Deceiver--Tells his Story to Denham--Goes to Work in a Printing-office--An Advantage of written Composition-- His "Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain"--Won him Fame--Bargain with a Bookseller--Beer-drinking in the Office-- Benjamin's Opposition to it--He wrought a Reform--His Firmness and Independence--Swimming--Drawn a Mile by his Kite on the Water-- Advised to open a Swimming-School--Decides on Returning to America--A Scene forty years after 204-219 CHAPTER XXII. FAREWELL TO ENGLAND. Arrival in Philadelphia--Calls on Keimer--Meets Governor Keith in the Street--Interview with Miss Read--His want of Fidelity--Denham opened a Store, and Benjamin was his Clerk--The Sickness of both--Denham dies--Benjamin thrown out of Business--Returns to his Trade, and works for Keimer--Legacy from Denham--His Fidelity always pleased his Employers--Many Youth do not care for the Employer's Success--Fidelity one Secret of Benjamin's Success--The Oxford Student--Dangers of Theatrical Amusements and Bad Company--Trouble with Keimer--Refuses to work for him--Arrangements to go into Business with Meredith 220-229 CHAPTER XXIII. SETTING UP BUSINESS. The Inventory--Keimer's Message--At Burlington--Friends made there--Interview with the Surveyor-general--Opening his Office-- Samuel Mickle--His Croaking--The Result--Poetical Notice in the Printing-office--His Resolution in the Outset--His Industry-- Prophecies about Failure--The Every-Night Club--The Lounger rebuked--Franklin never above his Business--Case of Judge Marshall--Economy--How he began to Keep House--Maxims-- Integrity--The Slanderer turned away--Socrates and Archelaus-- Business prosperous--Hopes and Fears--Coleman and Grace, and their Offer--Talk with Meredith, and the Latter leaves 230-243 CHAPTER XXIV. THE JUNTO. A Literary Club--What Franklin said of it--A New Proposition for a Library--Scarcity of Books--Franklin the Father of Circulating Libraries--Size of the First Library now--Questions asked by the "Junto"--Their Practical Character--Questions Discussed--Members limited to Twelve--No Improvement on the "Junto"--Franklin's Hand seen in it--All but one or two Members became Respectable, and most of them distinguished Men--Studying French, Italian, and Spanish-- Playing Chess--Studying Latin--The "Junto" Copied in England-- Canning--Franklin begins to think more of Religion--Doubting his Doubts--A Minister calls upon him--Goes to Meeting--The Fatal Sermon--Power of Conscience--Prays, and his Form of Prayer-- His Book of Goodness--Rules of Conduct, and what they show 244-253 CHAPTER XXV. CONCLUSION. The Printer Boy and Man--His Brother reconciled to him--Rears his Nephew--Holds important Offices--Refuses Patent of a Stove--Gift to English Clergyman--Improves Street Lamps--Forms Fire-Company-- Organizes Militia--A Schedule of the Offices he filled and the Honours he Won--Honoured in France, and all Europe--Societies and Towns named after him--A Library Presented to the Town of Franklin, Mass.--His Remark about more Sense than Sound-- Washington's Praise of him--Action of Congress--Demonstrations of Respect in France--A Benjamin truly, and not a Ben-Oni-- Regretting his early disregard of Religion--His Benevolence-- Emptied his Pockets for Whitefield--His Humanity, and Words of a Biographer--His Reverence for God in High Places--Proposed the First Fast--Advocates Prayers in the National Convention--The Young Man at his Death-bed--His Last Words for the Bible 254-264 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. "HOW MUCH DID YOU GIVE FOR YOUR WHISTLE?" _Frontispiece_ MEDALLION OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN _Vignette Title_ THE ROGUE'S WHARF _Page_ 44 THE MYSTERIOUS CONTRIBUTOR 123 FRANKLIN SAVING THE DUTCHMAN 149 MISS READ'S FIRST GLIMPSE OF HER FUTURE HUSBAND 162 ANECDOTE OF DR. MATHER AND FRANKLIN--HUMILITY "BEATEN IN!" 186 "SAWDUST PUDDING"--ANECDOTE OF FRANKLIN'S INDEPENDENCE 242 THE PRINTER-BOY. CHAPTER I. THE WHISTLE. It was a bright, welcome holiday to little Benjamin Franklin, when his kind parents put some coppers into his pocket, to spend as he saw fit. Possibly it was the first time he was ever permitted to go out alone into the streets of Boston with money to spend for his own pleasure; for he was now but seven years old. "Can I have more coppers when these are gone?" he inquired. "No," replied his mother, "you have quite as many now as will be for your welfare, I think. You must be a good boy, and keep out of mischief." "What are you going to buy?" asked an older brother; and without waiting for a reply, he answered the question himself, by saying, "Candy, of course." "Lay out your money wisely," added his mother; "I shall want to see how much wisdom you display in your purchases. Remember 'all is not gold that glitters.'" His mother had scarcely ceased speaking, when Benjamin bounded out of the house, eager to enjoy the anticipated pleasures of the day. Like other boys, on such occasions, his head was filled with bewitching fancies, and he evidently expected such a day of joy as he never had before. First in his thoughts stood the toy-shop, into the windows of which he had often looked wistfully, although it was a small affair compared with the Boston toy-shops of the present day. Every article in it could have been examined in one or two hours, while now it would take as many days to view all the articles in one of these curiosity-shops. It is almost wonderful, and even fabulous, this multiplication of playthings for the children. There seems to be no end to them, and many a girl and boy have been put to their "wits' end" to know what to choose out of the thousands of articles arranged on the shelves. Benjamin had not proceeded far before he met a boy blowing away upon, a new-bought whistle, as if its music were sweeter than the voice of lark or nightingale. He could scarcely help envying him the happiness of owning so valuable a treasure. He stopped and looked at him with an expression of delight, and they exchanged glances that showed a genuine sympathy springing up between them. At once he resolved to possess a similar musical instrument, as I suppose it may be called; and away he hastened to the toy-shop, knowing that it must have been purchased there. "Any whistles?" he inquired. "Plenty of them," answered the proprietor, with a smile, as he brought forth a number, to the amazement of his little customer. "I will give you all the money I have for one," said Benjamin, without waiting to inquire the price, so enthusiastic was he to become the possessor of such a prize. "Ah! all you have?" responded the merchant. "Perhaps you have not so much as I ask for them. You see these are very nice whistles." "I know it," added Benjamin, "and I will give you all the money I have for one," still more afraid that he should not be able to obtain one. "How much money have you?" Benjamin told him honestly just how much he had, and the merchant agreed to give him a whistle in exchange for it. Never was a child more delighted than he, when the bargain was made. He tried every whistle, that he might select the one having the most music in it; and when his choice was settled, he turned his steps towards home. He thought no more of other sights and scenes, and cared not for sweetmeats and knick-knacks, now that he owned this wonderful thing. He reached home and hurried into the house, blowing his whistle lustily as he went, as if he expected to astonish the whole race of Franklins by the shrillness, if not by the sweetness, of his music. "What have you there, Benjamin?" inquired his mother. "A whistle," he answered, hardly stopping his blowing long enough to give a reverent reply. "You got back quick, it seems to me," she continued. "Have you seen all that is to be seen?" "All I want to see," he answered; which was very true. He was so completely carried away with his whistle that he had lost all his interest in everything else belonging to the holiday. His cup of delight was running over now that he could march about the house with musical sounds of his own making. "How much did you give for your whistle?" asked one of his cousins, who was present. "All the money I had," he replied. "What!" exclaimed his brother, "did you give all your money for that little concern?" "Yes, every cent of it." "You are not half so bright as I thought you were," continued his brother. "It is four times as much as the whistle is worth." "You should have asked the price of it, in the first place," said his mother. "Some men will take all the money they can get for an article. Perhaps he did not ask so much as you gave for it." "If you had given a reasonable price for it," said his brother, "you might have had enough left to have bought a pocketful of good things." "Yes," added his cousin, "peppermints, candy, cakes, and more perhaps; but it is the first time he ever went a shopping on a holiday." "I must confess you are a smart fellow, Ben" (as he was familiarly called by the boys), "to be taken in like that," continued his brother, rather deridingly. "All your money for that worthless thing, that is enough to make us crazy! You ought to have known better. Suppose you had had twice as much money, you would have given it all for the whistle, I suppose, if this is the way you trade." "Perhaps he would have bought two or three of them in that case," said his cousin, at the same time looking very much as if he intended to make sport of the young whistler. By this time Benjamin, who had said nothing in reply to their taunts and reproofs, was running over with feeling, and he could hold in no longer. He burst into tears, and made even more noise by crying than he had done with his whistle. Both their ridicule and the thought of having paid so much more than he ought for the article, overcame him, and he found relief in tears. His mother came to the rescue, by saying-- "Never mind, Benjamin, you will understand better next time. We must all live and learn. Perhaps you did about as well as most boys of your age would." "I think so, too," said his cousin; "but we wanted to have a little sport, seeing it is a holiday. So wipe up, 'Ben,' and we will have a good time yet." On the whole, it was really a benefit that Benjamin paid too much for his whistle. For he learned a lesson thereby which he never forgot. It destroyed his happiness on that holiday, but it saved him from much unhappiness in years to come. More than sixty years afterwards, when he was in France, he wrote to a friend, rehearsing this incident of his childhood, and said-- "This, however, was afterwards of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind; so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, _Don't give too much for the whistle_; and I saved my money. "As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many who _gave too much for the whistle_. "When I saw one too ambitious of court favour, sacrificing his time in attendance on levées, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and, perhaps, his friends, to attain it, I have said to myself, _This man gives too much for his whistle_. "When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly employing himself in political bustles, neglecting his own affairs, and ruining them by that neglect, _He pays, indeed_, said I, _too much for his whistle_. "If I see one fond of appearance, or fine clothes, fine houses, fine furniture, fine equipages, all above his fortune, for which he contracts debts, and ends his career in a prison, _Alas!_ say I, _he has paid dear, very dear for his whistle_. "When I see a beautiful, sweet-tempered girl married to an ill-natured brute of a husband, _What a pity_, say I, _that she should pay so much for a whistle!_ "In short, I conceive that great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimates they have made of the value of things, and by their _giving too much for their whistle_." Thus Benjamin made a good use of one of the foolish acts of his boyhood, which tells well for both his head and heart. Many boys are far less wise, and do the same foolish thing over and over again. They never learn wisdom from the past. Poor, simple, pitiable class of boys! Let the reader prove himself another Benjamin Franklin in this respect. Remember that there is more than one way _to pay too dear for a whistle_, and he is wisest who tries to discover them all. When a boy equivocates, or deceives, to conceal some act of disobedience from his parents or teachers, and thereby lays the foundations for habitual untruthfulness, he pays too dear for the whistle; and he will learn the truth of it when he becomes older, and cannot command the confidence of his friends and neighbours, but is branded by them as an unreliable, dishonest man. In like manner, the boy who thinks it is manly to smoke, and fill the wine-cup, will find that he has a very expensive whistle, when he becomes "hail fellow well met" among a miserable class of young men, and is despised and discarded by the virtuous and good. So, in general, the young person who is fascinated by worldly pleasure, and supposes that wealth and honour are real apples of gold to the possessor, thinking less of goodness and a life of piety than he does of mere show and worldliness, will find that he has been playing with a costly whistle, when age and his last sickness comes, and death confronts him with its stern realities. CHAPTER II. AT SCHOOL. "Well, Benjamin," said his father, laying down his violin, upon which he was wont to play in the evening, for his own and children's amusement, "how should you like to go to school and qualify yourself to be a minister? You are as fond of your books as James is of printing, or John of making candles!" "I should like to go to school well enough," replied Benjamin, after some hesitation; "but I don't know about the rest of it." "You are old enough now," continued his father, "to think about a trade or profession. Your elder brothers have their trades, and, perhaps, you ought to give your service to the Church. You like to study, do you not?" "Yes, sir; the best of anything I do." A very correct answer, since he began to read so young, that he could not remember the time when he could not read his Bible. "It will cost a good deal to keep you at school and educate you, and perhaps I shall not be able to do it with so large a family to support. I have to be very industrious now to make my ends meet. But if you are diligent to improve your time, and lend a helping hand at home, out of school hours, I may be able to do it." "When shall I begin, if you decide to let me go?" "Immediately. It is a long process to become qualified for the ministry, and the sooner you begin the better." "Uncle Benjamin," as he was called in the family, a brother of our little hero's father, sat listening to the conversation, and, at this point, remarked, "Yes, Benjamin, it is the best thing you can do. I am sure you can make very rapid progress at school; and there ought to be one preacher in the family, I think." "So many people have told me," added his father. "Dr. Willard (his pastor) said as much to me not long ago, and I am fully persuaded to make the trial." "It won't be a severe trial, either," said Uncle Benjamin. "The thing can be accomplished more easily than at first appears. I tell you what it is, Benjamin," addressing himself to the boy, "when you are qualified for the office, I will give you my large volume of short-hand sermons, and the reading of these will improve your manner of sermonizing." This uncle had recently come over from England, and was boarding in the family. He was a very intelligent man, quite a literary character for the times, and had been accustomed to take down the sermons to which he listened, in short-hand, until he had preserved a large manuscript volume of them, which he valued highly. It was this volume which he promised to bequeath to his nephew when he should become qualified to enter the ministry. This interview occurred almost one hundred and fifty years ago, between Benjamin Franklin, who paid too much for the whistle, and his father, whose Christian name was Josiah. The lad was eight years old at the time, a bright, active, intelligent boy, who was more fond of reading than any other child in the family. He was born in Boston, on Sunday, January 6 (Old Style, corresponding to January 17, New Style), 1706, and on the same day was carried into the Old South Church, and there baptized. Both his father and mother were members of that church. If you ask how it is known that he was born and baptized on the same day, we answer, that on the "Old Boston Town Records of Births," under the heading, "Boston Births, entered 1708," is the following:-- "Benjamin, son of Josiah Franklin, and Abiah, his wife, Born 6 Jan. 1706." By some oversight or negligence the birth was not recorded until two years after Benjamin was born; yet it shows that he was born on Jan. 6, 1706. Then we turn to the records of the Old South Church, and find among the baptism of infants the following:-- "1706, Jan. 6, Benjamin, son of Josiah and Abiah Franklin." Putting these two records together, they establish beyond doubt the fact that Benjamin Franklin was born and baptized on the same day. It has generally been said that we do not know by whom he was baptized, although the rite must have been performed either by Dr. Samuel Willard, or Rev. Ebenezer Pemberton, who were then pastors of the Old South Church. But the fact that the record is made in the handwriting of Dr. Willard would indicate that he baptized him. He was born in Milk Street, opposite the church, so that he had only to be carried across the street to receive the ordinance of baptism. A picture of the old house in which he was born has been preserved, and it stood on the spot where now rises a lofty granite warehouse, bearing, in raised letters beneath the cornice, the inscription, "BIRTHPLACE OF FRANKLIN." The house measured twenty feet in width, and was about thirty feet long. It was three stories high in appearance, the third being the attic. On the lower floor of the main house there was only one room, which was about twenty feet square, and served the family for the triple purpose of parlour, sitting-room, and dining-hall. It contained an old-fashioned fireplace, so large that an ox might have been roasted before it. The second and third stories originally contained but one chamber each, of ample dimensions, and furnished in the plainest manner. The attic was an unplastered room, where probably some of the elder children lodged. This house stood about a hundred years after the Franklins left it, and was finally destroyed by fire, on Saturday, Dec. 29, 1810. He was named after the aforesaid uncle, and this circumstance alone was well suited to beget a mutual interest and attachment between them. His love of books early attracted the attention of his parents and others, and they regarded him as a precocious child. On this account the remark was often volunteered, "that he ought to be sent to college." We have said that Mr. Franklin was playing upon his violin on the evening of the aforesaid interview. He was very fond of music, was a good singer, and performed well upon the violin. He was wont to gather his family around him during the leisure hours of evening, and sing and play. Many cheerful and happy seasons were passed in this way at the fireside, the influence of which was excellent upon his children. That it would be doubtful whether he could meet the expense of sending Benjamin to college, must appear to the reader, when he learns that he was a labouring man, and had a family of seventeen children, thirteen of whom sat around his table together at one time. Fourteen were older than Benjamin, and two were younger. To support so large a family must have taxed the energies of the father to the utmost, even though no one of them was destined for a learned profession. It was arranged that Benjamin should immediately enter school, and enjoy the best literary advantages which the poverty of his father could provide. He acceded to the plan with hearty good-will, and commenced his studies with a zeal and enthusiasm such as few scholars exhibit. The school was taught by Mr. Nathaniel Williams, successor of the famous Boston teacher, Mr. Ezekiel Cheever, who was instructor thirty-five years, and who discontinued teaching, as Cotton Mather said, "only when mortality took him off." The homely old wooden school-house, one story and a half high, stood near by the spot on which the bronze statue of Franklin is now seen, and there was the "school-house green," where "Ben" and his companions sported together. It was probably the only free grammar-school which Boston afforded at that time; for it was only a little village compared with its present size. It then contained only about ten thousand inhabitants, and now it has more than fifteen times that number. There were no stately public buildings at that time, like the State-house, Court-house, Custom-house, Athenæum, Public Library, etc. Such splendid granite blocks of stores as we now behold on almost every business street, were then unknown; and no shops could be found, as now, filled with the fabrics of every land. There were no costly houses of worship, the "Old South Meeting-house," then about half its present size, being the oldest one in existence at the time. When Benjamin was born, the streets of Boston were not named. This was not done until the year after, when there were but one hundred and ten of them in number. Now there are a thousand streets, courts, and places. Thus it will be seen that the Boston of that day resembled the present Boston little more than Benjamin Franklin blowing his whistle resembled Benjamin Franklin the great statesman and philosopher. "I have seen the teacher to-day," said Mr. Franklin to his wife, two or three months after his son entered school, "and he says that he is making rapid progress, and will soon stand first in his class, although others have enjoyed much better advantages." "I am glad to hear it," answered Mrs. Franklin, with a satisfied air, such as mothers are likely to betray when they know that their children are doing well; "I think he will make a good scholar if he can have the opportunity, though I scarcely see how you will be able to educate him." "I can hardly see how myself," said her husband; "yet I trust that God will provide a way. At any rate, I hope for the best." "It will be more and more expensive every year to support him," added Mrs. Franklin, "since his clothes will cost more as he advances in years. The least expense in educating him we are having now." "That is very true, and I have looked at the matter in this light, all the while not being able to see my way quite clear, yet trusting to Providence for a happy issue." "It is well to trust in Providence if it is not done blindly, for Providence sometimes does wonders for those who trust. It is quite certain that He who parted the waters of the Red Sea for the children of Israel to pass, and fed them with manna from the skies, can provide a way for our Benjamin to be educated. But it looks to me as if some of his bread would have to drop down from heaven." "Well, if it comes, that is enough," responded Mr. Franklin, rather drily. "If God does anything for him, he will do it in his own time and way. I shall be satisfied to see him qualified for usefulness in the service of the Church." Within a few months after Benjamin entered school, he had advanced from the middle to the head of his class. He was so apt to learn, and gave so close attention to his lessons, that his teacher spoke of him as a boy of uncommon promise. He did not stand at the head of his class long, however, before he was transferred to a higher one. He so far outstripped his companions that the teacher was obliged to advance him thus, otherwise his mental progress would have been injuriously retarded. His parents were highly gratified with his diligent improvement of time and opportunities, and other relatives and friends began to prophesy his future eminence. It is generally the case that such early attention to studies, in connection with the advancement that follows, awakens high hopes of the young in the hearts of all observers. Such things foreshadow the future character, so that people think they can tell what the man will be from what the boy is. So it was with young Benjamin Franklin. So it was with Daniel Webster,--his mother inferred from his close attention to reading, and his remarkable progress in learning, that he would become a distinguished man, and so expressed herself to others. She lived to see him rise in his profession, until he became a member of Congress, though she died before he reached the zenith of his renown. The same was true of David Rittenhouse, the famous mathematician. When he was but eight years old he constructed various articles, such as a miniature water-wheel, and at seventeen years of age he made a clock. His younger brother relates that he was accustomed to stop when he was ploughing in the field, and solve problems on the fence, and sometimes cover the plough-handles over with figures. The highest expectations of his friends were more than realized in his after life. The peculiar genius which he exhibited in his boyhood gave him fame at last. Again, George Stephenson, the great engineer, the son of a very poor man, who fired the engine at the Wylam Colliery, began his life labour when a mere boy. Besides watching the cows, and barring the gates at night after the coal waggons had passed, at twopence a day, he amused himself during his leisure moments in making clay engines, in imitation of that which his father tended. Although he lived in such humble circumstances that he was almost entirely unnoticed, yet it would have been apparent to any observer, that his intense interest in, and taste for, such mechanical work, evinced what the future man would be. It was quite natural, then, for the parents and friends of Benjamin Franklin to be encouraged by his love of books, and diligent attention, especially when so much intellectual brightness was also manifest. The sequel will prove whether their hopes were wisely cherished. CHAPTER III. A CHANGE. Benjamin had not been in school quite a year, when his father saw plainly that he would not be able to defray the expense of educating him. "I might keep him along for the present," said he to his wife, "but I am satisfied that I cannot carry him through. My family expenses are now very great, and they will be still larger. It will make considerable difference in my expenses whether Benjamin is kept at school, or assists me by the labour of his hands." "I am not surprised at all at your conclusion," replied Mrs. Franklin. "It is no more than I have expected, as I have before intimated. Parents must be better off than we are to be able to send a son to college." "If they have as many children to support, you might add," said Mr. Franklin. "I could easily accomplish it with no larger family on my hands than some of my neighbours have." "Do you intend to take Benjamin away from school at once?" "Yes! I have very reluctantly come to the conclusion that I must. It is contrary to all my desires, but necessity compels me to do it." "I am sorry for Benjamin," continued Mrs. Franklin, "for he has become much interested in his school, and it will be a great disappointment to him." "I thought of that much before coming to my present decision; but there is no alternative. Providence seems to indicate, now, the course I should take, and I am the more willing to follow, because the times do not hold out so much encouragement to those who would enter the service of the Church. There are many trials and hardships to be met in the work, and at the present day, they seem to be peculiar." "There are trials almost anywhere in these times," said Mrs. Franklin, "and I suppose we ought to bear them with fortitude. So far as that is concerned, I think Benjamin will not escape them, let him follow what business he may." "True, very true, and I trust that I desire to place him where God would have me; but he has certainly hedged up his way to the ministry." This subject was very thoroughly considered before it was opened to Benjamin. His father was too anxious to educate him to change his purpose without much patient thought and circumspection. Nothing but absolute necessity induced him to come to this decision. The hard hand of poverty was laid upon him, and he must have "bread before learning" for his children. One evening, as the school term was drawing to a close, Mr. Franklin said to Benjamin-- "I think I shall be under the necessity of taking you away from school at the close of the term. The times are so hard, that I find, with my best exertions, I can do little more than supply you with food and clothes." "And not go to school any more?" anxiously inquired Benjamin. "Perhaps not. Such appears to be your prospect now, though I cannot say that God may not open a way hereafter; I hope he will. You are but nine years old, and there is time yet for a way to be provided." "Why can I not attend school till I am old enough to help you?" "You are old enough to help me now. I could find a plenty for you to do every day, so that you could make yourself very useful." In those days boys were put to work much earlier than they are now. They had very small opportunities for acquiring knowledge, and the boys who did not go to school after they were ten years old were more in number than those who did. Besides, the schools were very poor in comparison with those of the present age. They offered very limited advantages to the young. It was not unusual, therefore, for lads as young as Benjamin to be made to work. "But I do not intend to set you to work immediately," continued Mr. Franklin. "You ought to give some attention to penmanship and arithmetic, and I shall send you to Mr. Brownwell's writing-school for a season." "I shall like that, for I want to know how to write well. Some of the boys no older than I am have been to his school some time." "It is equally important that you learn to cipher, and Mr. Brownwell is an excellent teacher of arithmetic. It will not take you many months to become a good penman under his tuition, and to acquire considerable knowledge of numbers." "I care more about writing than I do about arithmetic," said Benjamin. "I don't think I shall like arithmetic very well." "Boys have to study some things they don't like," responded his father. "It is the only way they can qualify themselves for usefulness. You would not make much of an appearance in the world without some acquaintance with numbers." "I know that," said Benjamin; "and I shall try to master it, even if I do not like it. I am willing to do what you think is best." "I hope you will always be as willing to yield to my judgment. It is a good sign for a boy to accept cheerfully the plans of his father, who has had more experience." Benjamin was generally very prompt to obey his parents, even when he did not exactly see the necessity of their commands. He understood full well that obedience was a law of the household, which could not be violated with impunity; therefore he wisely obeyed. His father was a religious man, puritanical and even severe in his views and habits; a walk was never allowed on Sunday, and "going to meeting" was one of the inexorable rules of the family. Benjamin was reared under such family regulations. He was expected to regard them with becoming filial respect. Nor did he grow restless and impatient under them, nor cherish less affection for his father in consequence. We have no reason to believe that he sought to evade them; and there is no doubt that the influence of such discipline was good in forming his character. He certainly loved and respected his father as long as he lived. Many years thereafter, when his father was old and infirm, he was wont to perform frequent journeys from Philadelphia to Boston, to visit him. It was on one of these journeys that he rebuked the inquisitiveness of a landlord, by requesting him, as soon as he entered his tavern, to assemble all the members of his family together, as he had something important to communicate. The landlord proceeded to gratify him, and as soon as they were brought together in one room, he said, "My name is Benjamin Franklin; I am a printer by trade; I live, when at home, in Philadelphia; in Boston I have a father, a good old man, who taught me, when I was a boy, to read my book, and say my prayers; I have ever since thought it was my duty to visit and pay my respects to such a father, and I am on that errand to Boston now. This is all I can recollect at present of myself that I think worth telling you. But if you can think of anything else that you wish to know about me, I beg you to out with it at once, that I may answer, and so give you an opportunity to get me something to eat, for I long to be on my journey that I may return as soon as possible to my family and business, where I most of all delight to be." This was a keen rebuke to a landlord who was disposed to be inquisitive, and interrogate his guests in an ungentlemanly way. But we have cited the incident to show that the filial love and respect which Benjamin had for his parents continued as long as they lived. The last act of affection and reverence that he could possibly perform to them was cheerfully made. It was the erection of a marble stone over their remains in Boston, bearing the following inscription:-- "JOSIAH FRANKLIN And ABIAH his wife Lie here interred. They lived lovingly together in wedlock Fifty-five years; And without an estate, or any gainful employment, By constant labour, and honest industry (With God's blessing) Maintained a large family comfortably; And brought up thirteen children and seven grandchildren Reputably. From this instance, reader, Be encouraged to diligence in thy calling, And distrust not Providence. He was a pious and prudent man, She a discreet and virtuous woman. Their youngest son, In filial regard to their memory, Places this stone. J. F. born 1645; died 1744. �t. 89. A. F. born 1667; died 1752. �t. 85." This stone had become so dilapidated in 1827, that the citizens of Boston supplied its place with a granite obelisk, on which the foregoing inscription may still be read. It is good for boys, who are very likely to want their own way, to be obliged to obey exact rules in the family. It is a restraint upon their evil tendencies that tells well upon their riper years. It was to such an influence that Sir Robert Peel felt much indebted for his success in life. As an illustration of the obedience he was obliged to practise, in common with his brothers, he relates, that, in his youth, a comrade called one day to solicit their company upon some excursion. He was a young man of handsome address, intelligent, smart, and promising, though quite accustomed to enjoy much pastime. He was a fashionable young man for the times, wearing "dark brown hair, tied behind with blue ribbon; clear, mirthful eyes; boots which reached above his knees; a broad-skirted, scarlet coat, with gold lace on the cuffs, the collar, and the skirts; and a long waistcoat of blue silk. His breeches were buckskin; his hat was three-cornered, set jauntily higher on the right than on the left side." His name was Harry Garland. To his request that William, Edmund, and Robert might go with him, their father replied, "No, they cannot go out." Although the boys earnestly desired to go, they dared say nothing against their father's emphatic "No." He had work for them to do, and he never allowed pleasure to usurp the time for labour. The result is recorded on the page of English history. The three brothers of the Peel family became renowned in their country's brilliant progress. Harry Garland, the idle, foppish youth, became a ruined spendthrift. In this way the language of inspiration is verified. "Honour thy father and mother (which is the first commandment with promise), that it may be well with thee." The providence of God appears to make it well with the children who obey the commandment. Not the least of their reward is the respect and confidence of mankind which their obedience secures. Men universally admire to witness deeds that are prompted by true filial love. Such an act as that of the great engineer, George Stephenson, who took the first thirty pounds he possessed, saved from a year's wages, and paid off his blind old father's debts, and then removed both father and mother to a comfortable tenement at Killingworth, where he supported them by the labour of his hands, awakens our admiration, and leads us to expect that the Divine blessing will rest upon the author. When the statue of Franklin was inaugurated, in 1856, a barouche appeared in the procession that carried eight brothers, all of whom received Franklin medals at the Mayhew School in their boyhood, sons of the late Mr. John Hall. They were all known to fame for their worth of character and wide influence. As the barouche in which they rode came into State Street, from Merchants' Row, these brothers all rose up in the carriage, uncovered their heads, and thus remained while passing a window at which their excellent and revered mother sat,--an act of filial regard so impressive and beautiful as to fill the hearts of beholders with profound respect for the affectionate sons. Benjamin was taken away from school, agreeably to his father's decision, and sent to Mr. Brownwell, to perfect himself in arithmetic and penmanship. Less than a year he had attended the grammar-school, with little or no prospect of returning to his studies. But the disappointment was somewhat alleviated by the advantages offered at Mr. Brownwell's writing class. Here he made rapid progress in penmanship, though he failed in mastering the science of number. He had more taste, and perhaps tact, for penmanship than he had for arithmetical rules and problems, and this may account for the difference of his improvement in the two branches. We should have remarked that Benjamin endeared himself to his teacher while he was a member of the public school, and it was with regret that the latter parted with his studious pupil. His close attention to his duties, and his habitual good deportment, in connection with his progress, made him such a scholar as teachers love. CHAPTER IV. MAKING CANDLES. When Benjamin was ten years old he had acquired all the education his father thought he could afford to give him. He could write a very good hand, and read fluently, though his knowledge of arithmetic was very limited indeed. "Are you about ready, Benjamin, to come into the shop and help me?" inquired his father, at the dinner table. "Am I not going to Mr. Brownwell's school any longer?" he asked, instead of replying to his father's question,--a Yankee-like way of doing things, truly. "I think the close of this term will complete the education I am able to give you," replied his father. "You will fare, then, better than your brothers, in respect to schooling." "I had rather not go into the shop," said Benjamin. "I think I shall not like to make candles, and I really wish you would engage in some other business." "And starve, too," said his father. "In such times as these we must be willing to do what will insure us a livelihood. I know of no other business that would give me a living at present, certainly none that I am qualified to pursue." Mr. Franklin was a dyer by trade, in England, and designed to continue it when he removed to America, about the year 1685. But he found, on arriving at Boston, that it would be quite impossible for him to support his family at this trade. The country was new, and the habits of the people were different from those of the English, so that the dyeing business could receive but little patronage. The next pursuit that presented itself, with fair promises of success, was that of "tallow-chandler and soap-boiler;" not so cleanly and popular a business as some, but yet necessary to be done, and very useful in its place; and this was enough for such a man as Mr. Franklin to know. He cared very little whether the trade was popular, so long as it was indispensable and useful. To him no business was dishonourable, if the wants of society absolutely demanded it. "Well, I should rather make soap and candles than starve," said Benjamin; "but nothing else could make me willing to follow the business." "One other thing ought to make you willing to do such work," added his father. "You had better do this than do nothing, for idleness is the parent of vice. Boys like you should be industrious, even if they do not earn their bread. It is better for them to work for nothing than not to work at all." "I think they may save their strength till they can earn something," said Benjamin. "People must like to work better than I do, to work for nothing." "You do not understand me," continued Mr. Franklin. "I mean to say, it is so important for the young to form industrious habits, that they had better work for nothing than to be idle. If they are idle when they are young, they will be so when they become men, and idleness will finally be their ruin. 'The devil tempts all other men, but idle men tempt the devil,' is an old and truthful proverb, and I hope you will never consent to verify it." Mr. Franklin had been a close observer all his life, and he had noticed that industry was characteristic of those who accomplished anything commendable. Consequently he insisted that his children should have employment. He allowed no drones in his family hive. All had something to do as soon as they were old enough to toil. Under such influences Benjamin was reared, and he grew up to be as much in love with industry as his father was. Some of his best counsels, and most interesting sayings, when he became a man, related to this subject. The following are among the maxims which he uttered in his riper years:-- "Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labour wears; while the used key is always bright." "But dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of." "If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality." "Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all easy; and he that ariseth late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night; while laziness travels so slowly, that poverty soon overtakes him." "At the working man's house hunger looks in, but dares not enter." "Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all things to industry." "One to-day is worth two to-morrows." "Drive thy business, let not thy business drive thee." "God helps them that help themselves." These are very beautiful and expressive sentences, and they show that Benjamin Franklin thought as much of industry in his manhood as his father did a quarter of a century before. Take the first, in which he compares slothfulness to rust, which will consume iron tools or machinery faster than their constant use will. As the use of a hoe or a spade keeps it polished, so the habitual exercise of the powers of human nature preserves them in a good condition. A key that is cast aside soon rusts, and is spoiled, but "the used key is always bright." It is more fit for use because it has been used. How true it is that "hunger dare not enter the working-man's house!" By the sweat of his brow he earns his daily bread, and his children do not cry with hunger. It is the lazy man's table that has no bread. His children rise up hungry, and go to bed supperless. God himself hath said, "If any would not work, neither should he eat." "Diligence is the mother of good luck." Another gem of wisdom that commands our acquiescence. How common for the indolent to complain of "bad luck!" Their families need the necessaries of life, as both a scanty table and rent apparel bear witness, and they cast the blame upon "ill luck," "misfortune," "unavoidable circumstances," or something of the kind. Many men whose faces are reddened and blotched by intemperance, begotten in the barroom where they have worse than idled away days and weeks of precious time, are often heard to lament over their "bad luck," as if their laziness and intemperance were not the direct cause of their misery. But it is not often that the diligent experience "bad luck." They receive a reward for their labours, and thrift and honour attend their steps, according as it is written in the Bible: "The soul of the sluggard desireth, and _hath_ nothing; but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat. Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men." But we need not enlarge upon these sayings of Franklin. They are all charged with wisdom, and might be expanded into volumes. The more we study them, the more beauty we perceive. It was settled that Benjamin should assist his father in the manufacture of candles, notwithstanding his disinclination to engage in the business. His prospects of more schooling were thus cut off at ten years of age, and now he was obliged to turn his attention to hard work. It was rather an unpromising future to a little boy. No more schooling after ten years of age! What small opportunities in comparison with those enjoyed by nearly every boy at the present day! Now they are just beginning to learn at this early age. From ten they can look forward to six or eight years of golden opportunities in the school-room. Does the young reader appreciate the privileges which he enjoys? "To-morrow for the work-shop, Benjamin!" exclaimed Mr. Franklin, with a tone of pleasantry, on the evening before he was initiated into the mysteries of making candles. "I am full of business, and need another hand very much at present." "You can't expect much help from me," said Benjamin, "till I learn how to do the work. So I am thinking you will continue to be hurried for a while, unless you have another hand besides me." "You can do what I shall set you about just as well as a boy, or even a man, who had worked at the business for a year." "I wonder what that can be, that is so easy!" added Benjamin, with some surprise. "You can cut the wicks, fill the moulds for cast-candles, keep the shop in order, run hither and thither upon errands, and do other things that will save my time, and thus assist me just as much as a man could in doing the same things." "I am sure," said Mrs. Franklin, who had been listening to the conversation attentively, "that is inducement enough for any boy, but a lazy one, to work. You can make yourself about as useful to your father as a man whom he would have to pay high wages." "You will aid me just as much in going errands," said his father, "as in doing anything else. I have a good deal of such running to do, and if you do it, I can be employed in the more important part of my business, which no one else can attend to. Besides, your nimble feet can get over the ground much quicker than my older and clumsier ones, so that you can really perform this part of the business better than I can myself." Benjamin made no reply to these last remarks, although he was more favourably impressed, after hearing them, with the tallow-chandler's calling. On the following day he entered upon his new vocation, and, if "variety is the spice of life," then his first day in the shop had a plenty of spice. The shop was situated at the corner of Hanover and Union Streets, having the sign of a large blue ball, bearing the inscription: 1698 JOSIAS FRANKLIN 1698. He cut wicks, filled moulds, performed errands, and played the part of general waiter, in which there was much variety. And this was his work for successive weeks, very little of his time running to waste. Do you ask how he likes it? The following conversation with his mother will answer. "I don't like it at all, mother,--no better than I thought I should," he said. "I wish I could do something else." "What else is there for you to do, Benjamin?" replied his mother. "What would you like to do?" "I would like to go to sea." "Go to see what?" she inquired, as if she did not understand him at first. "Go on a voyage to Europe, or the East Indies." "What!" exclaimed his mother, exhibiting surprise, for she had not dreamed that her son had any inclination to go to sea. "Want to be a sailor? What put that into your head?" "I have always thought I should like to go to sea," he answered; "and I am so tired of making candles that I want to go now more than ever." "I am astonished, Benjamin. You might know that I should never give my consent to that. I should almost as lief bury you. And how can you want to leave your good home, and all your friends, to live in a ship, exposed to storms and death all the time?" "It is not because I do not love my home and friends, but I have a desire to sail on a voyage to some other country. I like the water, and nothing would suit me so well as to be a cabin-boy." "There, Benjamin, you must never say another word about it," continued his mother; "and you must not think any more about going; for I shall never give my consent, and I know _your father never will_. It was almost too much for me when your brother broke away from us, and went to sea. I could not pass through another such trial. So you must not persist in your wish, if you would not send me down to the grave." And here his mother alluded to one of the most bitter experiences of her life, when a son older than Benjamin became restless at home, and would not be persuaded from his purpose of going to sea. It caused her many unhappy hours. Benjamin had said nothing about this matter to his father, and this prompt veto of his mother put a damper on his hopes, so that he continued to work at the shop, with all his dislike for the business. His parents talked over the matter, and his father was led thereby to watch him more carefully, that he might nip the first buddings of desire for the sea. At length, however, Benjamin ventured to make known his wishes to his father. "I have thought," said he, "that I should like to go to sea, if you are willing;" and there he stopped, evidently expecting to be refused. "What has happened to lead you to desire this?" inquired his father. "Not anything," he answered. "I always thought I should like it,--though I have had a stronger desire lately." "I see how it is," continued his father. "You have been to the water with the boys frequently of late, and I have noticed that you loved to be in a boat better than to make candles. I am afraid that your sports on the water are making you dissatisfied with your home, and that here is the secret of your wanting to go to sea." "No, father; I think as much of my home as I ever did, and I like a boat no better now than I did the first time I got into one." "Perhaps it is so; but boys don't always know when they are losing their attachment to home. You need not say another syllable, however, about going to sea, for I shall never consent to it. You may as well relinquish at once all thought of going, since I strictly forbid your laying any such plans. If you do not wish to be a tallow-chandler, you may try some other business. I shall not insist upon your working with me, though I shall insist upon your following some calling." "I shall not want to go to sea against your wishes," said Benjamin. "I only thought I would go if you and mother were perfectly willing. I can work at this dirty trade, too, if you think it is best, though I can never like it." "I am glad to see that you have so much regard for your parents' wishes," said his father. "If your brother had been as considerate, he never would have become a sailor. Children should always remember that their parents know best, as they have had more experience and time to observe. I say again, if you will abandon all thoughts of a seafaring life, I will try to find you a situation to learn some trade you may choose for yourself." Benjamin was not disposed to enter upon a sailor's life contrary to his parents' counsels, and he submitted to his father's decision with as much cheerfulness and good feeling as could be expected in the circumstances. He knew that it was little use to tease his father when he said "no" to a project. His emphatic "no" usually put an end to all controversy. There is little doubt that Benjamin had been somewhat influenced by his frolics in and on the water. For some time, as opportunity offered, he had been down to the water both to bathe and take boat-rides. He had become an expert swimmer in a very short time, and not one of the boys so readily learned to manage a boat. He exhibited so much tact in these water feats, that he was usually regarded as a leader by the boys, and all matters of importance were referred to his judgment. It was not strange that he should be more in love with an ocean life after such pastimes with his comrades. Whether he admitted it or not, it is probable that his desire to go to sea was greatly increased by these pleasant times in and on the water. It was certainly a poor prospect that was before the young tallow-chandler. It was not a trade to call into exercise the higher and nobler faculties of the mind and heart. On that account, no one could expect that Benjamin would rise to much distinction in the world; and this will serve to awaken the reader's surprise as he becomes acquainted with the sequel. A little fellow, ten or twelve years of age, cutting the wicks of candles, and filling the moulds, does not promise to become a great statesman and philosopher. Yet with no more promise than this some of the most distinguished men commenced their career. Behold Giotti, as he tends his father's flock, tracing the first sketches of the divine art in the sand with a clumsy stick,--a deed so unimportant that it foreshadowed to no one his future eminence. See Daniel Webster, the great expounder of the American Constitution, sitting, in his boyhood, upon a log in his father's mill, and studying portions of that Constitution which were printed upon a new pocket-handkerchief; a trivial incident at the time, but now bearing an important relation to that period of his life when his fame extended to every land. Recall the early life of Roger Sherman, bound as an apprentice to a shoemaker in consequence of his father's poverty, with little education and no ancestral fame to assist him,--how exceeding small the promise that his name would yet be prominent in his country's history! In like manner, the little candle-making lad of Boston, in 1717, scarcely appears to be related to the philosopher and statesman of the same name, in 1775. But the hand of God is in the lives of men as really as in the history of nations. The reader should not make use of the fact that Franklin, and other eminent men, enjoyed small opportunities to acquire knowledge, as a plea that he himself need not be kept in school for a series of years. It is true that a little mental improvement may work wonders for a person in some circumstances, and it should lead us to inquire, if a little will accomplish so much, what will greater advantages do for him? A very little knowledge of electricity once saved the life of Benjamin Russell in his youth. He was an eminent citizen of Boston, born in the year 1761, and in his younger years he had learned from the writings of Franklin, who had become a philosopher, that it was dangerous to take shelter, during a thunder-shower, under a tree, or in a building not protected with lightning-rods. One day, in company with several associates, he was overtaken by a tempest, and some of the number proposed that they should take shelter under a large tree near by, while others advised to enter a neighbouring barn. But young Russell opposed both plans, and counselled going under a large projecting rock as the safest place. The result showed that a little knowledge of electricity was of great service to him; for both the barn and the tree were struck by lightning. But neither Benjamin Russell, nor any one else, from that day to this, would think of saying that there is no need of knowing much about electricity, since a little knowledge of it will do so much good. They might say it as reasonably, however, as a youth can say that there is no need of much schooling, since Benjamin Franklin, and others, became honoured and useful though they did not go to school after ten or twelve years of age. The deep regret of all this class of influential men ever has been, that their early advantages were so limited. George Stephenson, who did not learn to read until he was eighteen years old, felt so keenly on this point, that, when his own son became old enough to attend school, he sat up nights and mended the shoes and clocks of his neighbours, after having completed his day's labour, to obtain the means of educating him. [Illustration: The Rogue's Wharf.--See page 44.] CHAPTER V. THE ROGUE'S WHARF. "All aboard!" exclaimed Benjamin, and so saying he bounded into the boat that lay at the water's edge. "Now for a ride: only hurry up, and make the oars fly;" and several boys leaped in after him from the shaking, trampled quagmire on which they stood. "We shall be heels over head in mud yet," said one of the number, "unless we try to improve the marsh. There is certainly danger that we shall go through that shaky place, and I scarcely know when we shall stop, if we begin to go down." "Let us build a wharf," said Benjamin, "and that will get rid of the quagmire. It won't be a long job, if all take hold." "Where will you get your lumber?" inquired John. "Nowhere. We don't want any lumber, for stones are better," answered Benjamin. "It is worse yet to bring stones so far, and enough of them," added John. "You must like to lift better than I do, to strain yourself in tugging stones here." "Look there," continued Benjamin, pointing to a heap of stones only a few rods distant. "There are stones enough for our purpose, and one or two hours is all the time we want to build a wharf with them." "But those stones belong to the man who is preparing to build a house there," said Fred. "The workmen are busy there now." "That may all be," said Benjamin, "but they can afford to lend them to us awhile. They will be just as good for their use after we have done with them." "Then you expect they will lend them to you, I perceive; but you'll be mistaken," answered Fred. "My mode of borrowing them is this,--we will go this evening, after the workmen have gone home, and tug them over here, and make the wharf long before bedtime;" and Benjamin looked queerly as he said it. "And get ourselves into trouble thereby," replied another boy. "I will agree to do it if you will bear all the blame of stealing them." "Stealing!" exclaimed Benjamin. "It is not stealing to take such worthless things as stones. A man couldn't sell an acre of them for a copper." "Well, anyhow, the men who have had the labour of drawing them there won't thank you for taking them." "I don't ask them to thank me. I don't think the act deserves any thanks," and a roguish twinkle of the eye showed that he knew he was doing wrong. And he added, "I reckon it will be a joke on the workmen to-morrow morning to find their pile of stones missing." "Let us do it," said John, who was taken with the idea of playing off a joke. "I will do my part to carry the thing through." "And I will do mine," said another; and by this time all were willing to follow the example of Benjamin, their leader. Perhaps all were afraid to say "No," according to the dictates of conscience, now that the enterprise was indorsed by one or two of their number. Boys are too often disposed to go "with the multitude to do evil." They are often too cowardly to do what they know is right. The salt marsh, bounding a part of the millpond where their boat lay, was trampled into a complete quagmire. The boys were accustomed to fish there at high water, and so many feet, so often treading on the spot, reduced it to a very soft condition. It was over this miry marsh that they proposed to build a wharf. The evening was soon there, and the boys came together on their rogue's errand. They surveyed the pile of stones, and found it ample for their purpose, though it looked like a formidable piece of work to move them. "Some of them are bigger than two of us can lift," said Fred. "Then three of us can hitch to and carry them," said Benjamin. "They must all be worked into a wharf this evening. Let us begin,--there is no time to lose." "The largest must go first," said John. "They are capital ones for the foundation. Come, two or three must take hold of this," at the same time laying hold of one of the largest. So they went to work with decided perseverance (the only commendable thing about the transaction), sometimes three or four of them working away at one stone, lifting and rolling it along. Benjamin was never half so zealous in cutting candle-wicks as he was in perpetrating this censurable act. He was second to no one of the number in cheerful active service on this occasion. The evening was not spent when the last stone was carried away, and the wharf was finished,--a work of art that answered their purpose very well, though it was not quite so imposing as Commercial Wharf is now, and was not calculated to receive the cargo of a very large Liverpool packet. "What a capital place it makes for fishing!" exclaimed Fred. "It is worth all it cost for that." "Perhaps it will cost more than you think for before we get through with it," said John. "We can tell better about that when the workmen find their stones among the missing." "I should like to hear what they will say," responded Benjamin, "when they discover what we have done, though I hardly think they will pay us much of a compliment. But I must hurry home, or I shall have trouble there. Come on, boys, let us go." At this they hastened to their homes, not designing to make known the labours of the evening, if they could possibly avoid interrogation. They knew that their parents would disapprove of the deed, and that no excuse could shield them from merited censure. It was not strange, then, that they were both afraid and ashamed to tell of what they had done. But we will let twenty-four hours pass. On the following evening, when Mr. Franklin took his seat at his fireside, Benjamin had taken his book and was reading. "Benjamin," said his father, "where was you last evening?" Benjamin knew by his father's anxious look that there was trouble. He imagined that he had heard of their enterprise on the previous evening. After some hesitation, he answered, "I was down to the water." "What was you doing there?" "We were fixing up a place for the boat." "See that you tell the truth, Benjamin, and withhold nothing. I wish to know what you did there." "We built a wharf." "What had you to build it with?" "We built it of stones." "And where did you get your stones?" "There was a pile of them close by." "Did they belong to you?" "I suppose not." "Did you not know that they belonged to the man who is building the house?" "Yes, sir." "Then you deliberately resolved to steal them, did you?" "It isn't stealing to take stones." "Why, then, did you take them in the evening, after the workmen had gone home? Why did you not go after them when the workmen were all there?" Benjamin saw that he was fairly caught, and that, bright as he was, he could not get out of so bad a scrape unblamed. So he hung his head, and did not answer his father's last question. "I see plainly how it is," continued his father; "it is the consequence of going out in the evening with the boys, which I must hereafter forbid. I have been willing that you should go out occasionally, because I have thought it might be better for you than so much reading. But you have now betrayed my confidence, and I am satisfied more than ever that boys should be at home in the evening, trying to improve their minds. You have been guilty of an act that is, quite flagrant, although it may have been done thoughtlessly. You should have known better, after having received so much good instruction as you have had at home." "I did know better," frankly confessed Benjamin. "And that makes your guilt so much the greater," added his father. "Do you think you will learn a lesson from this, and never do the like again?" "I will promise that I never will." Thus frankly did Benjamin confess his wrong, and ever after look upon that act with regret. In mature age he referred to it, and called it one of the first evil acts of his life. It was the second time he _paid too dear for his whistle_. If seems that the workmen missed their stones, when they first reached the spot in the morning, and they soon discovered them nicely laid into a wharf. The proprietor was indignant, and exerted himself to learn who were the authors of the deed, and in the course of the day he gained the information, and went directly, and very properly, to their parents, to enter complaint. Thus all the boys were exposed, and received just rebuke for their misdemeanor. Benjamin was convinced, as he said of it many years afterwards, "that that which is not honest, could not be truly useful." We have referred to Benjamin's habit of reading. It had been his custom to spend his evenings, and other leisure moments, in reading. He was much pleased with voyages, and such writings as John Bunyan's. The first books he possessed were the works of Bunyan, in separate little volumes. After becoming familiar with them, he sold them in order to obtain the means to buy "Burton's Historical Collections," which were small, cheap books, forty volumes in all. His father, also, possessed a good number of books for those times, when books were rare, and these he read through, although most of them were really beyond his years, being controversial writings upon theology. His love of reading was so great, that he even read works of this character with a degree of interest. In the library, however, were three or four books of somewhat different character. There was "Plutarch's Lives," in which he was deeply interested; also Defoe's "Essay on Projects." But to no one book was he more indebted than to Dr. Mather's "Essay to do Good." From this he derived hints and sentiments which had a beneficial influence upon his after life. He said, forty or fifty years afterwards, "It gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events of my life." And he wrote to a son of Cotton Mather, "I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good, than on any other kind of reputation; and if I have been, as you seem to think, a useful citizen, the public owes the advantage of it to that book." Some of the sentiments of the book which particularly impressed him were as follows: "It is possible that the wisdom of a poor man may start a proposal that may save a city, save a nation." "A mean (humble) mechanic,--who can tell what an engine of good he may be, if humbly and wisely applied unto it?" "The remembrance of having been the man that first moved a good law, were better than a statue erected for one's memory." These, and similar thoughts, stimulated his mind to action, and really caused him to attempt what otherwise would have been impossible. If Benjamin had been engaged as usual, in reading, on that unfortunate evening, he would have escaped the guilt of an act that turned out to be a serious matter rather than a joke. The habit of spending leisure hours in poring over books, has saved many boys from vice and ruin. Many more might have been saved, if they had been so fond of books as to stay at home evenings to read. It is an excellent habit to form, and tends to preserve the character unsullied, while it stores the mind with useful knowledge. We shall see, as we advance, that Benjamin became very systematic and economical in the use of his time, that he might command every moment possible to read. The benefit he derived from the exercise when he was young caused him to address the following letter, many years thereafter, to a bright, intelligent girl of his acquaintance. The letter, being devoted to "_Advice on Reading_," is a valuable one to young persons now. "I send my good girl the books I mentioned to her last night. I beg of her to accept of them as a small mark of my esteem and friendship. They are written in the familiar, easy manner for which the French are so remarkable, and afford a good deal of philosophic and practical knowledge, unembarrassed with the dry mathematics used by more exact reasoners, but which is apt to discourage young beginners. "I would advise you to read with a pen in your hand, and enter in a little book short hints of what you find that is curious, or that may be useful; for this will be the best method of imprinting such particulars on your memory, where they will be ready either for practice on some future occasion, if they are matters of utility, or, at least, to adorn and improve your conversation, if they are rather points of curiosity; and, as many of the terms of science are such as you cannot have met with in your common reading, and may therefore be unacquainted with, I think it would be well for you to have a good dictionary at hand, to consult immediately when you meet with a word you do not comprehend the precise meaning of. "This may, at first, seem troublesome and interrupting; but it is a trouble that will daily diminish, as you will daily find less and less occasion for your dictionary, as you become more acquainted with the terms; and, in the meantime, you will read with more satisfaction, because with more understanding. When any point occurs in which you would be glad to have further information than your book affords you, I beg that you would not in the least apprehend that I should think it a trouble to receive and answer your questions. It will be a pleasure and no trouble. For though I may not be able, out of my own little stock of knowledge, to afford you what you require, I can easily direct you to the books where it may most readily be found. Adieu, and believe me ever, my dear friend, "B. FRANKLIN." CHAPTER VI. TABLE TALK. "Yes," replied Mr. Franklin, to the inquiry of a friend who was dining with him; "my ancestors were inured to hardships, and I myself am not altogether a stranger to them. I had but little opportunity of going to school, and have always had to work hard for a livelihood." "So much the better for you now," replied his friend; "for in this new country, and these hard times, you cannot find the support of a large family an easy matter." "That is true; but I have never regretted coming to this country. The liberty of worshipping God according to the dictates of conscience, is one of the richest blessings, and more than compensates for the trial of leaving my native land." "Then you experienced the rigours of intolerance there, in some measure, did you?" "Oh yes; my forefathers adhered to the Protestant faith through the reign of Mary, and were often in great danger from the bitter hatred of the Papists. I sometimes wonder that they did not forfeit their lives in those days of persecution." "I can relate to you one interesting fact," interrupted Uncle Benjamin, addressing himself to the guest. "Our ancestors possessed an English Bible, which they valued highly, of course; but there was danger of losing it, through the craftiness and hostility of the Papal powers. They held the Protestant Bible in absolute contempt. So, to conceal their Bible, at the same time they could enjoy the reading of it, they 'fastened it open with tapes under and within the cover of a joint-stool.' When our great-grandfather desired to read it to his family, according to his daily custom, 'he placed the joint-stool on his knees, and then turned over the leaves under the tapes.' While he was reading, one of the children was stationed at the door to give the alarm if he should see 'the apparitor coming, who was an officer of the spiritual court.' If the officer was seen approaching, the stool was immediately set down upon its feet, and the Bible in this way was concealed from view. For a considerable time they were obliged to read the Scriptures in this secret manner." "But your father was not thus persecuted, was he?" inquired the friend. "He was not persecuted to such a degree," answered Uncle Benjamin, "though he had some experience of this kind; and even brother Josias and myself did not escape. Our father's family continued in the Church of England till about the end of Charles the Second's reign, when Josias and I joined the Nonconformists, and subjected ourselves to much contempt." "And that is the reason I am in this country now," said Mr. Franklin. "We enjoyed few privileges, and frequently our religious meetings were disturbed, as they were forbidden by law. On this account some of my acquaintances resolved to remove to this country, and I decided to join them." "How long ago was that?" "It was about 1685, so that you will perceive I am one of the old settlers of America. I have been here long enough to witness many changes, and have no desire to return to my native country. My children can scarcely appreciate how much they enjoy, in comparison with the experience of their ancestors." Benjamin had often heard the last remark, as a reminder of his obligations to be good and useful. Indeed, this whole tale of persecution he had listened to over and over, and had heard his Uncle Benjamin tell the story of the Bible and stool a number of times. He had come to the conclusion that he was faring better than his father did, although he did not think his own lot remarkably flattering. This conversation at the dinner-table was a specimen of what frequently occurred there in the way of remark. Mr. Franklin was gratified to have some intelligent friend at his table with him, that they might converse upon some useful topics, for the benefit of his children. When he had no guest at his table, he would call the attention of his children to some subject calculated to improve their minds, thinking, at the same time, that it would serve to draw off their attention from their humble fare. Children are apt to find fault with the food set before them, and perhaps the reader himself has more than once fretted over an unpalatable dish, and murmured for something else. Sometimes they beg for an article of food that is not on the table, declining to eat what is furnished for the family. It was not so at Mr. Franklin's table. He did not allow one of his children to complain of the food, however simple it might be; and his principal method of calling off their attention from the quality of their victuals was, as we have said, to converse upon some sensible theme. Their attention being directed to other things, they were seldom troubled about their food, and became almost indifferent to what was placed on the table. Benjamin said, in his manhood, on referring to this subject: "I am so unobservant of it, that to this day I can scarcely tell, a few hours after dinner, of what dishes it consisted. This has been a great convenience to me in travelling, where my companions have been sometimes very unhappy for the want of a suitable gratification of their more delicate, because better instructed tastes and appetites." The guests of Mr. Franklin being usually intelligent, their conversation was instructive to the children, who acquired thereby many valuable items of information. The condition and prospects of the country, the oppressive measures of the English government, and the means of future prosperity, were among the topics which they heard discussed. Although it seems like a small, unimportant influence to bring to bear upon tender childhood, yet it left its mark upon their characters. They had more interest in the public questions of the day, and more general intelligence in consequence. It is related of the Washburne family, of which four or five brothers occupy posts of political distinction in the United States, that in their early life their father's house was open to ministers, and was sometimes called "the minister's hotel." Mr. Washburne was a great friend of this class, and enjoyed their society much. At all times nearly, some one of the ministerial fraternity would be stopping there. His sons were thus brought into their society, and they listened to long discussions upon subjects of a scientific, political, and religious character, though public measures received a large share of attention. The boys acquired some valuable information by listening to their remarks, and this created a desire to read and learn more; and so they were started off in a career that bids fair to reflect honour both upon themselves and their country. Their early advantages were few, but the conversation of educated men, upon important subjects, laid the foundation of their eminence in public life. "You must give heed to little things," Mr. Franklin would frequently say to his sons, when they appeared to think that he was too particular about some things, such as behaviour at the table, "although nothing can really be considered small that is important. It is of far more consequence how you behave, than what you wear." Sometimes, if the meal was unusually plain (and it was never extravagant), he would say, "Many people are too particular about their victuals. They destroy their health by eating too much and too rich food. Plain, simple, wholesome fare is all that nature requires, and young persons who are brought up in this way will be best off in the end." Such kind of remarks frequently greeted the ears of young Benjamin; so that, as we have already seen, he grew up without caring much about the kind of food which he ate. Perhaps here is to be found the origin of those rigidly temperate principles in both eating and drinking, for which he was distinguished all through his life. In his manhood, he wrote and talked upon the subject, and reduced his principles to practice. When he worked as a printer in England, his fellow-labourers were hard drinkers of strong beer, really believing that it was necessary to make them competent to endure fatigue. They were astonished to see a youth like Benjamin able to excel the smartest of them in the printing-office, while he drank only cold water, and they sneeringly called him "the Water-American." The temperate habits which Benjamin formed in his youth were the more remarkable, because there were no temperance societies at that time, and it was generally supposed to be necessary to use intoxicating drinks. The evils of intemperance were not viewed with so much abhorrence as they are now, and the project of removing them from society was not entertained for a moment. Reformatory movements, in this respect, did not commence until nearly one hundred years after the time referred to. Yet Benjamin was fully persuaded in his youth that he ought to be temperate in all things. Probably there was not one of his associates who believed as he did on the subject. But he began early to think for himself, and this, with the excellent discipline of his wise and sagacious father, caused him to live in advance of those around him. It is not probable that he adopted the principle of total abstinence, and abstained entirely from the use of intoxicating drinks; but he was not in the habit of using it as a daily, indispensable beverage. That the practice of Benjamin's father, to allow no finding fault with the food at the table, and to lead the way in profitable conversation, was a good one, we think no one can deny. It was very different, however, from much of the table-talk that is heard in families. Conversation is frequently brisk and lively, but it often runs in this way:-- "I don't want any of that, I don't like it," exclaimed Henry. "I should think you might have a better dinner than this." "What would you have if you could get it,--roast chicken and plum pudding?" inquires his mother, laughing, instead of reproving him for his error. "I would have something I can eat. You know I don't like that, and never did." "Well, it does boys good, sometimes, to eat what they don't like, especially such particular ones as you are," says his father. "I shan't eat what I don't like, at any rate," continues Henry, "I shall go hungry first." "There, now," added his father, "let me hear no more complaint about your food. You are scarcely ever suited with your victuals." "May I have some ----?" calling for some article not on the table. "If you will hold your tongue, and get it yourself, you can have it." "And let me have some, too!" shouts James, a younger brother; "I don't like this, neither. May I have some, father?" "And I too," said Jane, setting up her plea. "I must have some if they do." In this way the table-talk proceeds, until fretting, scolding, crying, make up the sum total of the conversation, and family joys are embittered for the remainder of the day. Finding fault with food is the occasion of all the unhappiness. Let the reader ask himself how much he has contributed to make conversation at the table proper and instructive. Has he thought more of the quality of his food than of anything else at the family board? If the review of the past reveals an error in this respect, let him learn a valuable lesson from this part of Benjamin Franklin's life. Though it may seem to be an unimportant matter, accept the testimony of Benjamin himself, and believe that it leaves its impress upon the future character. CHAPTER VII. CHOOSING A TRADE. "You will have to be a tallow-chandler, after all, when your brother gets married and goes away," said one of Benjamin's associates to him. He had heard that an older son of Mr. Franklin, who worked at the business with his father, was about to be married, and would remove to Rhode Island, and set up business for himself. "Not I," replied Benjamin. "I shall work at it no longer than I am obliged to do." "That may be, and you be obliged to work at it all your life. It will be, as your father says, till you are twenty-one years old." "I know that; but my father does not desire to have me work in his shop against my wishes--only till I can find some other suitable employment. I would rather go to sea than anything." "Are your parents not willing that you should go to sea?" "No; they won't hear a word about it. I have talked with them till it is of no use. They seem to think that I should be shipwrecked, or that something else would happen, to prevent my return." "Then, if you can't go to sea, and you won't be a tallow-chandler, what can you do?" "I hardly know myself; but almost anything is preferable to this greasy business. If people had no more light than the candles I should make, unless I was obliged, they would have a pretty dark time of it." "I don't think it is a very disagreeable business," continued his companion. "It is quite easy work, certainly,--much more to my liking than sawing wood, and some other things I could name." "It may be easy," replied Benjamin; "but it is dirty and simple. It requires no ingenuity to do all that I do. Almost any simpleton could cut wicks and fill candle-moulds. A fellow who can't do it couldn't tell which side his bread is buttered. _I_ prefer to do something that requires thought and ingenuity." "There is something in that; but I guess it will take all your ingenuity to work yourself out of the tallow-chandler's business," responded his friend, rather dryly. This conversation occurred one day in the shop, when Mr. Franklin was out. But just at this point he returned, and soon after the young visitor left. Benjamin was not acquainted with all his father's plans, and he had actually proceeded further than he was aware of towards introducing him into another calling, as the following conversation with Mrs. F., on the previous evening, will show-- "I have resolved to find some other employment for Benjamin at once," said he; "as John is to be married so soon, he will be able to render me but little more assistance, and I must have some one to take his place." "Are you satisfied," inquired Mrs. Franklin, "that Benjamin cannot be prevailed upon to take the place of John in your shop?" "Oh, yes! he is so dissatisfied with the business, that I fear he will yet go to sea, unless his attention is soon turned to some other pursuit. Then, if he has a taste for any other honourable pursuit, I am willing that he should follow it. He would not accomplish much at candle-making with his present feelings." "Have you anything in view for him to do?" asked Mrs. F. "Not positively. I want to learn, if I can, whether he has taste and tact for any particular business. If he has, he will accomplish more in that. I don't believe in compelling a boy to follow a pursuit for which he has no relish, unless it is where nothing else offers." "I think it is very necessary for boys to have a definite trade," said Mrs. F.; "they are more likely to succeed than those who are changing often from one thing to another. 'A rolling stone gathers no moss,' is an old saying." "That is the principal reason for my plan to introduce him into some other business soon. No one feels the importance of this more than I do, and I have pretty thoroughly imbued the mind of Benjamin with the same views. I think he has a desire to follow a definite calling, though now his taste seems to draw him towards a seafaring life." Benjamin could have appreciated this last remark, if it had been uttered in his hearing. For he had listened to so much counsel upon this point, that he had no desire to run from one thing to another. And he continued to cherish this feeling. When he became a man, he wrote the following maxims, among the many of which he was the author:-- "He that hath a trade hath an estate." "He that hath a calling hath an office of honour." Here he taught the same lesson that he received from the lips of his father and mother when he was young. A trade is the assurance of a livelihood, however hard the times may be. As a general rule, they who follow trades secure a living, when they who have none come to want and suffer. But to return. Mr. Franklin rather surprised Benjamin by saying, after his associate left the shop, "I have decided on finding some other business for you immediately, if possible. I hope to find some opening for your learning an agreeable trade." "Where shall you go to find one?" inquired Benjamin, scarcely expecting to have his wishes gratified so early. "Have you any particular trade in view?" "No; I want to consult your tastes about the matter first; and I propose to go to-morrow with you, to see what we can find." "And I go with you, did you say?" "Yes; I wish to have you witness some things to which I shall call your attention, and decide for yourself what calling to follow." "Where will you go?" inquired Benjamin, deeply interested in the plan, as well he might be. "I shall not go out of town. Boston furnishes good examples of the different trades, and we shall not be under the necessity of extending our researches beyond its limits. So to-morrow I think we will start." Benjamin was delighted with the prospect of being delivered soon from the tallow-chandler's shop, and he anticipated the morrow with considerable impatience. He rejoiced when the light of the next morning came in at his chamber window, and brighter and earlier he was up to await his father's bidding. Suitable preparations were made, and directly after breakfast they set forth upon their important errand. The first shop they visited was that of a joiner, where he saw the plane and hammer used to advantage. He had witnessed such labour before, and also seen other employments to which his father called his attention on that day; but he never observed these different trades with the object which now brought him to the shops. Having spent some time at the joiner's bench, he next went to a turner's place of business, where he saw different articles turned to order, in so rapid a manner as to surprise him. He was more interested in the turning-lathe, and its rapid movement, than he was in the use of joiner's tools. Passing through a prominent street, after leaving the turner's, they came to an unfinished structure, on which bricklayers were employed. Here another trade was on exhibition, and Benjamin's attention was called to it, and the various kind of labour which this class of toilers were obliged to perform were explained to him. In this way they visited other work-shops, until they had seen the practical operations of the different trades, and Benjamin understood what kind of toil each required. One of the last shops they visited was that of Samuel Franklin, a son of Uncle Benjamin, and, of course, a cousin of Benjamin. He learned the trade of cutler in London, and had just come over and established himself in Boston. The business of a cutler is to make knives and other cutting instruments, in some respects a very interesting and attractive trade. Benjamin was evidently more pleased with this kind of business than any he had seen on that day. Whether it grew out of boyish love for jack-knives, or was the consequence of closely observing the ingenious modes of manufacturing cutlery, we need not say. It is enough to know that he was partially captivated by the trade, and before they reached home his father was well satisfied which trade he would select, though he had not questioned him at all on this point. "What trade have you decided to follow, Benjamin?" inquired his mother, as they sat at the tea-table; and she let fall a most loving smile upon her boy. "I think any of them are better than making candles," he replied, "although I like Samuel's trade the best of all." "That is just what I expected," said his father, laughingly. "I saw that you fell in love with his work, and I think myself that it is a very pleasant and promising business." "So you will decide to take that trade, will you?" said his mother. "In preference to all the trades I have seen yet," said Benjamin. "He is after a pocket knife," interrupted John, who sat at the table, speaking in a vein of pleasantry. "I see clearly what has taken _his_ eye." "I suppose John will never care more about a knife, now he is going to have a wife," added Mr. Franklin, addressing his remark to Benjamin, in order to help him out of the predicament into which John's remark had placed him. "But did you not like the brazier's business?" "Yes, sir; I liked it very well, but not so well as I do the cutler's trade. If I can have my choice I shall choose that, and will begin to-morrow, if you are willing." "I shall make no objection, if that is your decision," replied his father. "I want you should weigh the matter carefully, however, and not be hasty in choosing." "It remains to be seen whether Samuel will take him as an apprentice," said Mrs. Franklin. "Perhaps he may not want one. He has just commenced, and cannot be doing much business yet." "Father can easily learn that," said Benjamin. "He can see cousin Samuel to-morrow, and decide the matter at once." "I will see him to-morrow," said his father, "and arrange for you to go into his shop if possible." On the following day, Mr. Franklin called upon Samuel, his nephew, and made known the wishes of Benjamin. Although it was a new and unexpected subject, yet he received it favourably, and finally decided that Benjamin might come immediately, and try his hand at this new business. He thought it was best for both parties that no definite agreement or bargain should be made until Benjamin had tried the work, to which his father assented. Accordingly, Benjamin entered upon his new trade immediately, and was much pleased with it. It was so different from the work of candle-making, and required so much more thought and ingenuity, that he was prepared to pronounce it "first rate." It was with a light and cheerful heart that he went to each day's task. Mr. Franklin acted wisely in consulting the inclination of his son about a trade. A boy may have more qualifications for one pursuit than another; and this will generally be made manifest in the bent of his mind. He will exhibit a degree of tact for one calling, while he may be a blunderer at almost anything else. This characteristic is more remarkable with some boys than with others, and a disregard of it often entails unhappiness upon a whole family. When Handel, the distinguished musician, was a child, his father strictly forbade his listening to a note of music, or indulging his talent for the art. Although he exhibited remarkable musical abilities, his father paid no regard to the fact, but was determined to rear him to the profession of law. He ordered all musical instruments to be carried out of the house, and made it as difficult as possible for his son to gratify his taste for sweet sounds. But through the assistance of a servant, the boy obtained an instrument, which he kept in the garret; and there, when opportunity offered, with the strings of his "clavichord" so covered with pieces of cloth as to deaden the sound, he practised music until he became a proficient in harmony. It was not, however, until his father took him on a visit to see an elder brother, who was in the family of the Prince of Saxe-Weisenfels, that he became acquainted with the progress he had made in his loved art. While there he happened to go into the royal chapel just as the service was closing, when he glided up to the organ, unperceived, and commenced playing. The Prince was on the point of retiring; but he stopped, and inquired who was playing. He was told that it was young Handel, only seven years old; whereupon the Prince ordered the boy and his father to be summoned into his presence. The result of the interview was, that the Prince arranged for Handel to be placed for tuition under the organist of Halle Cathedral, where he soon became renowned. Posterity has not failed to condemn the unwise discipline of his father, in disregarding his inclination for a given pursuit. When Sir Joshua Reynolds was a boy, he was inclined to embrace every opportunity to gratify his taste for drawing. His father had no sympathy with him in thus spending his time, and he sought to repress his aspirations of this kind. One day he discovered that Joshua had disfigured his exercise-book with a number of well-executed drawings; but, instead of encouraging his talents in this line, he sharply rebuked him, and wrote underneath the sketches, "_Done by Joshua out of pure idleness._" His father was anxious that he should become a physician, and therefore he looked with no favour upon his propensity for drawing. But for the irrepressible power of genius, his unwise father would have deprived the world of one of its most gifted painters. The father of John Smeaton pursued a like censurable course in the discipline of his son. He frowned upon those early developments of genius that foreshadowed the renowned engineer that he became. When only four or five years of age, he was often seen dividing circles and squares. He rejected the toys that other children used, preferring tools with which he could construct machines. When only six or seven years of age, he was discovered on the roof of the barn, much to the consternation of his father and mother, fixing up a windmill of his own construction. Soon afterwards having seen some men repairing a pump, he procured from them a piece of bored pipe, he made one of his own, with which he could raise water. At fourteen years of age he made an engine to turn rose-work, and many were his presents of boxes of wood and ivory turned by himself. He made all his tools for working wood, ivory, and metals. He also invented a lathe for cutting a perpetual screw in brass. And yet his father was determined to make a lawyer of him, and thus spoil the mechanic. He actually disregarded all these proofs of mechanical genius, and sent him to London to be educated for the bar; and it was not until his father began to see the impossibility of making a good attorney of him, that he consented to let him follow the profession which the bent of his genius plainly marked out. The father of Benjamin Franklin acted more wisely in the first place, and resolved to educate him in that pursuit for which nature had best qualified him. CHAPTER VIII. THE PRINTER-BOY. After Benjamin had worked at cutlery a suitable time, his father went to close the bargain, and make out the papers for his apprenticeship. But, to his surprise, his nephew demanded such conditions that Mr. Franklin could not think of accepting his proposition; and the result was, that he took Benjamin away, much to his disappointment. The boy submitted to his father's decision, however, with true filial obedience, evidently believing that he had good reasons for taking such a stand. Now he was neither a tallow-chandler nor a cutler, though not destined to be long without employment. Just before this juncture, as if Providence ordered events on Benjamin's account, his brother James returned from England, where he learned the printer's trade. He brought with him a good press, and type, in order to establish himself in Boston. "How would you like to learn the printer's trade with your brother James?" inquired Mr. Franklin of Benjamin. "I have been thinking that it was a good thing you did not continue the cutlery business, because you have superior qualifications for this." "What qualifications have I for this that I have not for the cutler's trade?" asked Benjamin. "You are a good reader, and have an intellectual turn, being fond of books, and such things belonging to mental improvement as the trade of printer offers." "I think I should like the business very well," added Benjamin. "Perhaps I should have a better opportunity to read than I should with cousin Samuel." "Of course you would. For the very matter you may be required to put into type may be as interesting and profitable as anything you could find in a book. All that you read in books went through the printer's hand first." "I had not thought of that before. I think I should like the business better than almost anything I know of. How long will it take to learn the trade?" "It will take some time," answered Mr. Franklin. "You are now twelve years of age, and you can certainly acquire the best knowledge of the business by the time you are twenty-one years old." "That is a long time," said Benjamin; "but I shall do what you think best." "I want _you_ should think it is best, too," said his father. "If you have no inclination to be a printer, I do not wish to have you undertake it. I have no confidence that you will succeed in any business for which you have no taste." "Well, I think better of this business now than I do of any other," replied Benjamin, "and I should like to try it." "I will speak with James about it," said his father, "and see what arrangements can be made. The prospects of the business are not very flattering at present, but I think the day is coming when it will thrive." Mr. Franklin lost no time in consulting James, who favoured the plan without any reserve. He proposed to take Benjamin as an apprentice, to serve until he was twenty-one years of age, having only his board and clothes until the last year, when he would receive journeyman's wages. This was a good opportunity on the whole, for printing was in its infancy in America at that time. It is probable that not more than six or eight persons had been in the business in Boston before James Franklin commenced, in the year 1717. The demand for printing must have been very small indeed. When Mr. Franklin first made known to Benjamin the conditions on which James would receive him into the printing-office, and that he would be expected to sign the indenture, and leave his father's roof for such a boarding-place as his brother might provide, he hesitated about taking the step. He stated his objections frankly and fully to his father, who removed them without much difficulty, so that the writings were drawn up, and Benjamin placed his signature to them and was henceforth a "Boston printer's boy." He had not laboured long at the business before he was quite fascinated with it. He liked it better even than he expected. He exhibited, too, a good degree of tact for it, and his progress in learning the art was rapid. His brother was highly gratified with his close attention to his business, and commended him for the use he made of his leisure moments in reading. He was introduced now to another class of acquaintances, so that his opportunities for getting books to read were more favourable. The printing-office was frequented by booksellers' apprentices, whose employers necessarily wanted jobs of printing done. Through them Benjamin was made acquainted with the limited stock of books the market afforded. "I will lend you that book to-night," said one of these apprentices to him, "if you will return it clean in the morning," alluding to a certain volume which Benjamin was looking over in the book-store. "I should be glad to read it," answered Benjamin; "I think I can read it through before I go to bed, and so return it in the morning when I go to the office." "You won't have much time left for sleep, if you read that book through before you go to bed," said the apprentice. "Perhaps not; but I can afford to make a short night's rest of it, if I can have the reading of this book. I shall not mind that, and I can return it without a blemish." "The book is for sale," continued the apprentice, "and we might have a call for it to-morrow, or I would let you keep it longer. If you do not read it all to-night, and we do not sell it to-morrow, you can take it home with you again to-morrow night. I frequently read a volume through, a little at a time, before we have a chance to sell it." "You may be sure of having this in the morning, safe and sound," said Benjamin, as he left the store, thanking his friend for the kind favour. He went home, and sat up most of the night to read the book, being more deeply interested in its contents than he was in pleasant dreams. A short nap, after the volume was finished, was all that time could afford him; and the bookseller got his book, and the printing-office its apprentice, in good season. This was but a single instance of the favours he received in this way from his new acquaintances in the book business. Many nights he stole from sleep, that he might read volumes which he must return in the morning. In this way his mind was much improved, so that he began to be noticed in the office as a boy of great promise. One day Mr. Matthew Adams, a merchant of rank and influence, who had been attracted by Benjamin's appearance, said to him: "Do you find time to read any, with all the work you have to perform?" "Yes, sir," replied Benjamin; "I read in the evenings, and occasionally find a little time during the day." "It is an excellent plan for boys to improve their minds," said Mr. Adams; "you will never regret spending your time in this way. I should be glad to show you my library, and to lend you any books you may be interested to read." "That is what I should like," said Benjamin, evidently delighted with this unexpected offer; "I find it difficult to get all the books I want." "It would afford me great pleasure to assist you what little I can in this respect," repeated Mr. Adams. "Boys who are not privileged to go to school need such help, and I am glad to see that you are disposed to accept of it." Benjamin thanked him for his kindness, and assured him that he should embrace the first opportunity to call at his house. He redeemed his promise at his earliest convenience, and Mr. Adams received him with genuine cordiality. He showed him his library, and allowed him to select any book he preferred to carry home, and invited him to come as often as he pleased for others. This was a brimful cup of kindness to Benjamin, and the reader may be sure that he thought highly of Mr. Adams. Nor was he backward in availing himself of the privilege offered, but went often to gratify his thirst for knowledge. The reader can scarcely appreciate the value of this privilege to Benjamin, unless he understands that books were far from being abundant then. The bookstores, instead of being furnished with thousands of volumes to suit every taste in the reading world, offered only a meagre collection of volumes, such as would hardly be noticed at the present time. There were no large publishing houses, manufacturing many books in a year, and scattering them over the land, as is the case to-day. Neither were there any libraries at that time. The idea of a collection of books to lend for the public good had not entered the minds of men,--a striking contrast with this feature of society now, when a city like Boston opens its splendid Public Library of seventy-five thousand volumes, free to all her citizens, and smaller towns and villages throughout the land furnish reading matter for old and young in similar proportion; whilst private libraries of five, ten, twenty, and thirty thousand volumes are not unusual. Now, the trouble with boys is not how they can possibly get books to read, but what they shall select from the vast number that load the shelves of libraries and bookstores. The habit of reading which Benjamin had thus early formed served to make him punctual. In order to command the more time, he was promptly at his work, and efficiently discharged every duty. He was seldom, if ever, caught in tardiness. It was this well-formed habit of punctuality that made him so reliable in the printing-office. His brother knew that he would be there at such a time, and that he would remain just so many hours. This fact won his confidence, as it does the confidence of every one. There is no quality that does more to gain a good name for an individual, and inspire the confidence of his fellow-men, than this one of punctuality. It is so generally found in company with other excellent traits of character, that it seems to be taken for granted, usually, that the punctual person is worthy in other respects. This quality contributed to the renown and influence of Lord Brougham, of whom it is said, that, when he was in the zenith of his glory, presiding in the House of Lords and the Court of Chancery, he found time to manage eight or ten public associations,--one of which was the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,--and he was a pattern of punctuality in every place, being always in the chair when the hour for meeting arrived. CHAPTER IX. FIRST LITERARY ENTERPRISE. "What have you there?" inquired James, one day, looking over Benjamin's shoulder at some composition which he held in his hand. "Ay! poetry, is it? Then you are a poet, are you? Let me read it." Benjamin rather hesitated to exhibit the first attempts of his muse to fly, but James was determined to read it, and so he gave it up to him, saying, "I was only seeing what I could do." The fact was, Benjamin had been reading poetry, and, having a little of its spirit in his own nature, he was tempted to try his ability at writing some. "That is really good," said James, after he had read it; "not quite equal to Virgil or Homer, but very good for a printer-boy to write. Have you any other pieces?" "Two or three more," answered Benjamin, somewhat encouraged by his brother's commendation; "but they are not worth reading." "Produce them," said James, "and I will tell you what they are worth." Whereupon Benjamin took two or three more from his pockets, which James read with evident satisfaction. "I tell you what it is, Benjamin," said James after having read them all, "you can write something worth printing if you try; and if you will undertake it, you may print and sell a sheet in the streets. I have no doubt that it would sell well." "I will see what I can do," replied Benjamin, "though I suspect my poetry won't read very well in print." Benjamin was not long in producing two street ballads, better, perhaps, than anything he had written before, but still susceptible of very great improvement. One was entitled "The Lighthouse Tragedy," and was founded on the shipwreck of Captain Worthilake and his two daughters. The other was a sailor's song, on the capture of the famous "Teach," or "Bluebeard," the pirate. James read them with approbation. "Now," said he, "you shall put them into type, and sell them about the town, if you are willing. I have no doubt that a good number of them may be disposed of." "How many copies of them would you print?" inquired Benjamin. "We can print a few to begin with, and let the type remain standing until we see how they go. Then we shall run no risk." "Shall I do it immediately?" "As soon as you can," answered James. "The quicker the better." Benjamin was not long in printing the two ballads, and having them ready for sale. Under the direction of his brother, he went forth, in due time, to offer them about the town. Whether he cried them about the streets, as the newsboys do the daily papers now, we have no means of knowing. But he met with very good success, particularly in the sale of the first, "The Lighthouse Tragedy." That commemorated an event of recent occurrence, and which excited much public feeling and sympathy at the time, so that people were quite prepared to purchase. It sold even beyond his expectations, and his success inflated his vanity somewhat. It caused him to believe, almost, that he was a genuine poet, and that distinction and a fortune were before him. If he had not been confronted by his father on the subject, it is possible that the speculation might have proved a serious injury to him. But his father learned of his enterprise, and called him to an account. Perhaps he stepped into his shop, as he was selling them about town, and gave him a copy. At any rate, his father learned the fact, and the following interview will show what he thought of it. "I am ashamed to see you engaged in such a business, Benjamin," said he. "Why so, father?" "Because it is not an honourable business. You are not a poet, and can write nothing worthy of being printed." "James approved of the pieces," said Benjamin, "and proposed that I should print and sell them." "James is not a judge of poetry," replied his father. "It is wretched stuff, and I am ashamed that you are known as the author. Look here, let me show you wherein it is defective;" and here Mr. Franklin began to read it over aloud, and to criticise it. He was a man of sound sense, and competent to expose the faults of such a composition. He proceeded with his criticisms, without sparing the young author's feelings at all, until Benjamin himself began to be sorry that he had undertaken the enterprise. "There, I want you should promise me," said his father, "that you will never deal in such wares again, and that you will stick to your business of setting up type." "Perhaps I may improve by practice," said Benjamin, "so that I may yet be able to write something worthy of being read. You couldn't expect me to write very well at first." "But you are not a poet," continued Mr. Franklin. "It is not in you, and, even if it was, I should not advise you to write it; for poets are generally beggars,--poor, shiftless members of society." "That is news to me," responded Benjamin. "How does it happen, then, that some of their works are so popular?" "Because a true poet can write something worthy of being read, while a mere verse-maker, like yourself, writes only doggerel, that is not worth the paper on which it is printed. Now I advise you to let verse-making alone, and attend closely to your business, both for your own sake and your brother's." Mr. Franklin was rather severe upon Benjamin, although what he said of his verses was true. Still, it was a commendable effort in the boy to try to improve his mind. Some of the best poets who have lived wrote mere doggerel when they began. Many of our best prose-writers, too, were exceedingly faulty writers at first. It is a noble effort of a boy to try to put his thoughts into writing. If he does not succeed in the first instance, by patience, energy, and perseverance he may triumph at last. Benjamin might not have acted wisely in selling his verses about town, but his brother, so much older and more experienced than himself, should bear the censure of that, since it was done by his direction. The decided opposition that Mr. Franklin showed to verse-making put a damper upon Benjamin's poetical aspirations. The air-castle that his youthful imagination had built, in consequence of the rapid sale of his literary wares, tumbled to ruin at once. He went back to the office and his work quite crest-fallen. "What has happened now?" inquired James, noticing that Benjamin looked somewhat less smiling. "Father doesn't think much of my printing and selling verses of my own," replied Benjamin. "He has been giving me a real lecture, so that I am almost ashamed of myself." "How is that," said James, "does he dislike your pieces?" "Yes; and he will not allow that they have any merit. He read them over in his way, and counted faults enough to show that there is very little poetry in me. A beggar and a poet mean about the same thing to him." "He ought to remember that you are young," answered James, "and may improve wonderfully in future. You can't expect to write either prose or poetry well without beginning and trying." "All the trying in the world can do nothing for me, I should judge from father's talk," added Benjamin, rather seriously. Perhaps it was a good thing for Benjamin to meet with this obstacle in his path to success. According to his own confession, his vanity was inflated by the sale of his ballads, and he might have been puffed up to his future injury, had not his father thus unceremoniously taken the wind out of his sails. There was little danger now, however. After such a severe handling, he was not likely to overrate his poetical talents. It had the effect also to turn his attention to prose writing, which is more substantial and remunerative than poetry, and in this he became distinguished, as we shall see hereafter. The practice of writing down one's thoughts, called in our schools "composition," is excellent, and ought not to be so generally neglected by the young as it is. It proved a valuable exercise to Benjamin, even before he became renowned in the service of his country. In several instances, while he was yet a youth, it enabled him to secure business, when otherwise he might have been in extreme want. It gave him the ability to conduct his brother's paper, when only sixteen years of age, at a time when the government of the Province incarcerated James, so that the paper would have been crushed but for the ability of Benjamin. When he first commenced business in Philadelphia, also, it enabled him to produce articles for the "Pennsylvania Gazette," which attracted general notice, and opened the way for his becoming both proprietor and editor of the same. And a little later he was able to write a pamphlet on the "_Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency_," proposing a measure that was carried through the legislature, because the opponents of it had no writer in their ranks competent to answer it. These are only a few examples of the many advantages he derived from early training himself to write, even before he had passed the dew of his youth. In age he referred to this practice of his boyhood with much pleasure, and regarded it as one of the fortunate exercises that contributed to his eminent success. Many such facts as the following might be cited upon this subject. A farmer's son began, at fourteen years of age, to write something every day, after his work was done, in a blank-book which he kept for the purpose. He persevered in the practice for several years, and acquired a facility in composition before he thought of having a liberal education. The consequence was, that his friends became earnest to have him educated, and he was sent to college, where he ranked high as a writer; and he is now about entering the ministry, under very flattering circumstances. Few young men have more ease and power of writing at the commencement of their ministerial work; and it all results from his early self-discipline in the exercise of composition. CHAPTER X. THE DISPUTE. Benjamin was intimate, at this time, with a youth by the name of John Collins. He was intelligent, sprightly, and fond of books, so that he was a very agreeable companion. They differed somewhat in their opinions upon various subjects, and frequently found themselves engaged in earnest disputation. When other boys were accustomed to spend their time in foolish talking and jesting, Benjamin and John were warmly discussing some question of importance, well suited to improve the mind. One day their conversation related to the education of the sexes. "It would be a waste of money," said John, "to attempt to educate girls as thoroughly as boys are educated; for the female sex are inferior to the male in intellectual endowment." "Pshaw!" exclaimed Benjamin; "you know better than that. The girls are not so simple as you think they are. I believe that women are not a whit inferior to men in their mental qualities." "I should like to know where you discover the evidence of it?" replied John. "There is no proof of it in the works they have written." "That may be true, and still they stand upon an equality in respect to intellect. For not half so much is done to educate them as there is to educate the male sex. How can you tell whether they are mentally inferior or not, until they are permitted to enjoy equal advantages?" "As we tell many other things," answered John. "Women do not need so high mental endowments as men, since they are not required to lead off in the different branches of business, or to prosecute the sciences. I can see no wisdom in bestowing talents upon them which they never use, and it is often said that 'nothing is made in vain.'" "Well, I must go," said Benjamin, "but I think you have a weak cause to defend. If I had the time I could make out a case." "A poor one, I guess," quickly added John. "We will see, the next time we meet, who can make out a case." "It will be some time before we meet again," responded Benjamin, "and our ardour will be cooled before that time, I am thinking. But it will do us no harm to discuss the subject." "If we keep our temper," said John, tacking his sentence to the last word of Benjamin's reply. And so saying, they parted. After Benjamin had revolved the subject still more in his mind, he became anxious to commit his argument to writing. Accordingly, with pen and paper in hand, he sat down to frame the best argument he could in favour of educating the female sex. He wrote it in the form of a letter, addressed to his friend Collins, and, after having completed, he copied it in a fair hand, and sent it to him. This brought back a long reply, which made it necessary for Benjamin to pen an answer. In this way the correspondence continued, until several letters had passed between them, and each one had gained the victory in his own estimation. One day Benjamin's father met with these letters accidentally, and he read them over, and was somewhat impressed with their character. "What are these, Benjamin," he inquired, at the same time holding up the letters. Benjamin smiled, and rather hesitated to reply. "So it seems you have been engaged in a controversy with John," continued Mr. Franklin. "You have both done very well, though I think there is some chance of improvement yet." "Have you read them all?" inquired Benjamin. "I have, and must say that, in some respects, John has the advantage of you." "In what has he the advantage?" asked Benjamin, with some anxiety. "Well, John writes in a more finished style than you do," answered Mr. Franklin. "His expressions are more elegant, and there is more method and perspicuity in his composition." "I rather think you are prejudiced," said Benjamin, with a smile. "_I_ rather think not," answered his father. "You have the advantage of John in correct spelling, and in pointing your sentences, which is the consequence of working in the printing-office. But I can convince you that less method and clearness characterize your letters than his." "I am ready to be convinced," added Benjamin. "I hardly expect I have attained perfection in writing yet." His father then proceeded to read from the letters of each, with the design of showing that John's writing was more perspicuous, and that there was more method in his argument. Nor was it a very difficult task. "I am convinced," said Benjamin, before his father had read all he intended to read. "I can make improvement in those points without much trouble. There is certainly a good chance for it." "That is what I want you should see," rejoined his father, "I am really pleased with your letters, for they show me that you have talents to improve. My only object in calling your attention to these defects is to aid you in cultivating your mental powers." This kind, paternal criticism was a very happy thing for Benjamin. It had the effect to make him more careful in his compositions, and to beget within him both a desire and resolve to improve. Not long after, he met with an old volume of the Spectator, in a bookstore; and knowing that it would be a good model by which to form the style, he determined to purchase it. He bought it at a low price, and began to study it with reference to improving the style of his composition. The method which he adopted to discipline himself, by the aid of this work, is proof of his patience, perseverance, and desire to excel. In the first place, he read it over and over, until he became very well acquainted with its contents. Then he took some of the papers it contained, and made short hints of the sentiments of each sentence, and laid them by for a few days; and then, without referring to the book, he proceeded to put those thoughts into sentences, and thus went through each paper,--a long and laborious work. When he had completed a paper in this way, he carefully compared his Spectator with the original, and was able thereby to discover and correct many errors in his style. He found that he was very deficient in the command of language. "If you had not discouraged me in writing poetry," said he to his father, "I should have found it of much service now." "How so?" inquired Mr. Franklin. "If I had continued to write poetry, I should have been obliged to select words that would rhyme, and this would have made me familiar with a larger number of words, and the choicest ones too. I am greatly troubled now to find words to express my thoughts." "I should have had no objections to your writing poetry with such an object in view; but to print and sell it about town was carrying the thing a little too far," replied Mr. Franklin. "It is not too late to begin now. I rather think you have discovered an important defect in your writing. John evidently has a better command of language than you have, hence his style is more polished. But you are at work, now, in the right way to improve. Perseverance will accomplish the thing." "I am going to do this," said Benjamin; "I shall take some of the tales in the book and put them into verse, and then, after a while, change them back again." "That will be a good exercise," answered his father, much pleased with his son's desire to improve. "If your patience holds out, you will be amply rewarded, in the end, for all your labour." This last purpose, Benjamin executed with much zeal, and thus divided his time between putting tales into poetry, and then turning them into prose. He also jumbled his collection of hints into confusion, and so let them lie for some weeks, when he would again reduce them to order, and write out the sentences to the end of the subject. For a printer-boy to accomplish so much, when he must work through the day in the office, seemed hardly possible. But, at this period, Benjamin allowed no moments to run to waste. He always kept a book by him in the office, and every spare moment was employed over its pages. In the morning, before he went to work, he found some time for reading and study. He was an early riser, not, perhaps, because he had no inclination to lie in bed, but because he had more to improve his mind. He gained time enough in the morning, by this early rising, to acquire more knowledge than some youths and young men do by constantly going to school. In the evening, he found still more time for mental improvement, extending his studies often far into the night. It was his opinion that people generally consume more time than is necessary in sleep, and one of his maxims, penned in early manhood, was founded on that opinion. The maxim is, "The sleeping fox catches no poultry." It is not strange that a boy who subjected himself to such close discipline for a series of years should write some of the best maxims upon this subject when he became a man. Take the following, in addition to those cited in a former chapter:-- "There are no gains without pains; then help hands, for I have no lands." "Industry pays debts, while despair increaseth them." "Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day." "Leisure is time for doing something useful." "A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things." "Fly pleasures, and they will follow you. The diligent spinner has a large shift, and, now I have a sheep and a cow, every one bids me good-morrow." "Be ashamed to catch yourself idle." "Handle your tools without mittens; remember that the cat in gloves catches no mice." "There is much to be done, and perhaps you are weak-handed: but stick to it steadily, and you will see great effects, for constant dropping wears away stones; and by diligence and patience the mouse ate in two the cable; and little strokes fell great oaks." "Early to bed, and early to rise Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." Here is the genuine gold of thought,--whole volumes of counsel worked down into single flashing lines of truth,--just such utterances as we might expect from the lips of one who was early taught to walk in the ways of wisdom. All along in the future of Benjamin's life, we shall see these maxims illustrated, proving that they are living and bright realities. In order to prosecute his purposes, Benjamin took a step, at this period, for which he censured himself long after. Being away from his father's house, in a boarding-place provided by his brother, he violated the Sabbath day by devoting its sacred hours to mental improvement. At home, his parents had ever required that he should attend public worship; but now he neglected the house of God, that he might command the more time for study. It was a grave breach of a divine commandment, and a disregard of parental authority, which he afterwards deeply regretted. At the time, he was obliged to hold long parleys with conscience, which told him that he ought still to visit the sanctuary, and devote Sabbath hours to sacred duties. Yet his great thirst for knowledge overcame his regard for holy time. It must appear quite evident to the reader by this time, that Benjamin derived much benefit from his conversation with John Collins upon a useful topic. A large majority of boys, of their age, spend their leisure moments in vain and useless talking. They think not of self-improvement, and scarcely desire to be benefited in this way. The most unmeaning and thoughtless words escape from their lips, and a sound, sensible, valuable conversation they seldom, if ever, attempt. What an excellent example is that of young Franklin and Collins, discussing a question of importance, instead of wasting their breath in meaningless chatter! It stimulated the former to consult the best models of style in composition, and was the real occasion of his adopting a most critical and thorough plan of self-culture. All this the consequence of conversing properly, instead of spending leisure moments in boyish antics, or uttering nonsense! The reader need not infer that violation of the Sabbath, and disregard of parental counsels, are less heinous sins than some would grant, since Benjamin was guilty of both, and yet he did not go to ruin. For ten boys who do the same things that he did are ruined thereby, where one is saved. The father of Walter Scott forbade his reading fictitious works, yet he concealed them in a sly place, and read them when his father's eye was not upon him; and they served to stimulate his mind to pursue a most brilliant literary career. In like manner, Pope, the distinguished poet, strolled into the theatre in his boyhood, when he was away from his parents at school, and there the first aspiration of his soul for that sphere of mental effort in which he became distinguished, was begotten. But these examples cannot be cited in favour of novel-reading and theatre-going; for they are exceptions to a general rule. The great mass of the youth who allow themselves to be fascinated by the novel and theatre make shipwreck of their hopes. CHAPTER XI. PLAIN FARE. "How much will you allow me a week if I will board myself?" inquired Benjamin of James. "It costs you now more than you need to pay." James was still boarding Benjamin in a family near by, being himself yet unmarried. "Then you think I am paying more a week for your board than it is worth?" replied his brother. "No more than you will be obliged to pay in any other family, but more than I shall ask you," answered Benjamin. "Then you think of opening a boarding-house for the special accommodation of Benjamin Franklin?" which was treating his request rather lightly. "I propose to board myself," said Benjamin. "I do not eat meat of any kind, as you know, so that I can do it very easily, and I will agree to do it, if you will pay me half the money weekly which you pay for my board." "Agreed," replied James. "The bargain is made. When will you begin?" "To-morrow," was Benjamin's laconic reply. Benjamin had been reading a work on "vegetable diet," by one Tryon, and it was this which induced him to discard meat as an article of food. Mr. Tryon, in his work, gave directions for cooking vegetables, and such dishes as a vegetarian might use, so that the matter of boarding was made quite simple. Benjamin really thought that this mode of living was best for health and strength, though his chief object in proposing to board himself was to obtain money to purchase books. He had been trying a vegetable diet for some time in the family where he and his brother had boarded, and had often been both ridiculed and censured for his oddity. Perhaps he wanted to get away where he could eat as he pleased, with no one to say, "Why do ye so?" But most of all he wanted to command more money, that he might gratify his thirst for knowledge. James was very willing to accept the proposition, as it would bring a little more money into his pocket. He was an avaricious and penurious young man, who thought mainly of making money in his business, and it was of little consequence to him whether he made it out of his brother or some one else. "How much do you make by boarding yourself, Ben?" inquired James, some weeks after the experiment was commenced. "I save just half of the money you pay me," answered Benjamin, "so that it costs me just one quarter as much as you paid for my board." "You understand economy, I must confess," said his brother. "However, I have no fault to find if you are satisfied." "The money I save is not the best part of it," continued Benjamin. "I save about a half-hour every noon for reading. After I have eaten my meal, I usually read as long as that before you return from dinner." "Not a very sumptuous meal I reckon," said James dryly; "sawdust-pudding, perhaps, with cold-water sauce!" "Nothing so difficult to procure as that," responded Benjamin. "A biscuit or a slice of bread, with a tart or a few raisins, and a glass of water, make a good dinner for me; and then my head is all the lighter for study." "I should think you might have a light head with such living," added James, "and your body will be as light before many weeks I prophesy." "I will risk it. I am on a study now that requires a clear head, and I am determined to master it." "What is that?" "It is Cocker's Arithmetic." "Begin to wish you knew something about arithmetic by this time," added James sarcastically. "Making up for misspent time, I see!" Here was a fling at Benjamin's dislike of arithmetic when he was sent to school. We have seen that he accomplished nothing in figures, either at the public school or when he was under Mr. Brownwell's tuition. Liking some other studies better, he neglected this, and now, as is generally the case, he regretted his error, and applied himself to acquire that which he might have acquired before. It was a difficult task for him, but his patience and perseverance, together with his economy of time, and temperance in eating and drinking, enabled him to accomplish his object. Then he read a work on Navigation, and made himself particularly familiar with the geometry which it contained. "Locke on the Understanding," and "The Art of Thinking," were two other works that he read closely while he was living on a vegetable diet. All these works were difficult to be mastered by a boy not yet fourteen years of age. Yet he was not discouraged by this fact; it rather seemed to arouse him to greater efforts. "You calculate time as closely as a miser does his money, Ben," said James. "As little as I have for myself requires that I should calculate closely," was his reply. "Time is money to you, or else you would allow me a little more to myself; and it is more than money to me." "How so?" inquired James. "It enables me to acquire knowledge, which I cannot buy with money. Unless I was saving of my time, I should not be able to read or study at all, having to work so constantly." Perhaps, at this time, Benjamin laid the foundation for that economy which distinguished him in later life, and about which he often wrote. Among his wise sayings touching this subject are the following:-- "If you would be wealthy, think of saving, as well as of getting." "What maintains one vice would bring up two children." "Many a little makes a mickle." "A small leak will sink a ship." "At a great pennyworth pause awhile." "Silks and satins, scarlet and velvets, put out the kitchen fire." "Always taking out of the meal-tub, and never putting in, soon comes to the bottom." "For age and want save while you may,-- No morning sun lasts a whole day." "It is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel." "A penny saved is a penny earned." "A penny saved is twopence clear; A pin a day is a groat a year." "He that wastes idly a groat's worth of his time per day, one day with another, wastes the privilege of using one hundred pounds each day." To a young tradesman he wrote, in the year 1748:-- "Remember that time is money. He that can earn ten shilling a day by his labour, and goes abroad or sits idle one half that day, though he spend but sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon that the only expense; he has really spent, or rather thrown away, five shillings besides.... "In short, the way to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, _industry_ and _frugality_; that is, waste neither _time_ nor _money_, but make the best use of both. Without industry and frugality nothing will do, and with them everything. He that gets all he can honestly, and saves all he gets (necessary expenses excepted), will certainly become _rich_,--if that Being who governs the world, to whom all should look for a blessing on their honest endeavours, doth not, in his wise providence, otherwise determine." In these excellent sayings, time and money are spoken of together, because time is money; and Franklin was never more economical of one than of the other. All that he says of frugality in respect to property applies equally to time, and _vice versâ_. In his boyhood, when he adopted a vegetable diet, he had no money to save, so that the most of his economy related to time. It being to him as valuable as gold, he was prompted to husband it as well. To some observers he might have appeared to be penurious, but those who knew him saw that he reduced another of his own maxims to practice: "We must save, that we may share." He never sought to save time or money that he might hoard the more of worldly goods to enjoy in a selfish way. He was ever generous and liberal, as we shall see hereafter. The superficial observer might suppose that a niggardly spirit prompted him to board himself,--that he adopted a vegetable diet for the sake of mere lucre. But nothing could be wider from the truth than such a view. We cannot discover the least desire to _hoard_ the money he saved. He laid it out in books, and such things as aided him in self-improvement. He believed in temperate eating, as we have already said, and the following maxims of his show the same thing:-- "Who dainties love, shall beggars prove." "Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them." "Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessaries." He saw that he could never possess the books he needed, or command the time, if his appetite for luxuries was gratified. In his circumstances, the most marked self-denial was necessary, to gain his object. At the same time, he believed it would make him more healthy to be abstemious. There was not an iota of stinginess in his habitual economy. Economy of time or money is praiseworthy only when it is done to command the means of being useful,--which was true of Franklin. When it is practised to gratify a sordid love of money, it is ignoble and sinful. About this time, Benjamin and John Collins had another interview,--differing somewhat from the one already described, as the following dialogue will show:-- "What book is this, Ben?" inquired John, taking up one from the table. "It is an old English Grammar which I came across the other day," answered Benjamin. "It has two chapters, near the close, on Rhetoric and Logic, that are valuable." "Valuable to you, perhaps, but not to me," said John. "What shall I ever want of Rhetoric or Logic?" "Everybody ought to know something about them," answered Benjamin. "They have already helped me, in connection with the works of Shaftesbury, to understand some things about religion better. I have believed some doctrines just because my parents taught me so." "Then you do not believe all that you have been taught about religion, if I understand you?" "No, I am free to say that I do not. There is neither reason nor wisdom in portions of the creed of the Church." "Why, Ben, you surprise me. You are getting to be quite infidel for a boy. It won't do for you to read Logic and Shaftesbury any more, if you are so easily upset by them." "Made to understand better by them what is right and what is wrong," answered Benjamin. "The fact is, very few persons think for themselves. They are religious because they are so instructed. They embrace the religion of their parents without asking themselves what is true or false." "There is not much danger that you will do that," said John. "Present appearances rather indicate that the religious opinions of your father will be blown sky-high,"--though John did not mean quite so much as his language denotes. "You do not understand me. I respect my parents and their religious opinions, though I doubt some of the doctrines they have taught, and which I never carefully examined until recently." "I must go," said John; "at another time, I will hear more;"--and he hurried away to his business, which was waiting for him. Benjamin had read carefully the works of Collins and Shaftesbury, which were well suited to unsettle his religious belief. At the time of this interview, he was really a doubter, though not avowedly opposed to religion. The fact shows the necessity of using care in selecting books to be read, and the danger of tampering with those that speak lightly of the Gospel. Even a mind as strong as that of Benjamin was warped by the sophistries of such a book, and it was some years before he recovered wholly from the sad effects of such reading. His early religious culture, however, and his disposition and ability to perceive the truth, finally saved him from the abyss of infidelity, as will appear more evident in the pages that follow. CHAPTER XII. THE NEWSPAPER. On the seventeenth day of January, 1721, James Franklin began to issue a newspaper, called "THE NEW ENGLAND COURANT." It was the third one at the time in the whole country. The first paper--"THE BOSTON NEWSLETTER"--was established in 1704, two years before the birth of Benjamin. It was only a half-sheet of paper, about the size of an eight by twelve inch pane of glass, "in two pages folio, with two columns on each page." Consequently, it could not have contained more printed matter than is now compressed into half a page of one of the Boston dailies. Yet it was considered a very important undertaking for the times. When James Franklin proposed to start the third paper in America, some of his friends thought it was a wild project, and endeavoured to dissuade him from it. They saw nothing but ruin before him, and used every persuasion to lead him to abandon the enterprise. They thought that two newspapers, such as would now excite a smile by their inferior size, were quite enough for the country. Take this fact, in connection with the present abundance of papers, and the contrast presents a striking view of the progress of America since that day. At that time there was not a daily paper in the land. Now there are eight in the city of Boston alone, having an aggregate daily circulation of about _one hundred and twenty-five thousand_, which would amount to nearly FORTY MILLION sheets in a year,--more than enough to furnish every man, woman, and child in the country with one sheet each. All this from the daily press of Boston, where, one hundred and forty years ago, it was thought that a third weekly newspaper, scarcely large enough to wrap a baker's loaf in, could not be supported! Bind them into volumes, containing one hundred sheets each, and we have an enormous library of daily newspapers, numbering _four hundred thousand volumes_, the annual production of the Boston daily press in 1860! And this only the aggregate of eight different papers, while Boston alone now has _one hundred and forty_ papers and periodicals of all sorts, and the State of Massachusetts nearly _three hundred_! How marvellous the change since Franklin was a poor printer-boy! But look at these eight daily papers of Boston again. Suppose they measure a yard each in width, upon an average, when opened;--here we have one hundred and twenty-five thousand yards of newspapers emanating daily from only eight presses of Franklin's native city; which is equal to _seventy-one miles_ per day, and _four hundred and twenty-six_ miles per week, and _twenty-two thousand one hundred and fifty-two_ miles in a year! This is truly surprising. Almost paper enough from the eight daily presses of Boston alone, every year, to reach around the earth! Or, suppose we weigh these papers. If ten of them weigh a single pound, then each day's issue weighs _twelve thousand five hundred pounds_, each week's issue amounts to _seventy-five thousand pounds_, which swells the annual aggregate to about _four million pounds_. Load this yearly production upon waggons, one ton on each, and we have _two thousand and two horse loads of newspapers_ from these eight presses in a year! Again, we say, how marvellous the change! If eight daily papers of Boston throw off this vast amount of reading-matter in a year, what immense quantities are supplied by all the presses in the land! Could the actual statistics be laid before us in round numbers, doubtless the most credulous even would be amazed at the result. But to return. James decided to issue his paper, notwithstanding the advice of some of his friends to the contrary, and he thus opened the subject to Benjamin:-- "I have resolved to issue a paper, and it will require our united exertions to make it go. No doubt I shall meet with opposition, and perhaps shall fail in the attempt, but I have determined to fail _trying_." "What particular service can I render?" inquired Benjamin. "Aside from your usual work of type-setting, you are qualified to look after the composition and spelling of the articles in each number, and a part of your work shall be to deliver the paper to subscribers from week to week." "And be collector, too, I suppose," added Benjamin, rather fancying the idea of issuing a paper from the office. "As you like about that," answered his brother, "though it may be convenient, often, to have you render such a service." "I suppose you don't mean to make me editor also?" he added, rather jestingly; probably not dreaming that he should ever conduct the publication. "I think not at present," was his brother's reply. "Printer, news-carrier, and collector, will be as much honour as you can withstand at once;" and he had as little idea of the part Benjamin would play in the work as the boy had himself. Accordingly the paper was issued at the appointed time, creating quite a stir in the community, and provoking remarks _pro_ and _con_ concerning its appearance, character, and prospects. Agreeably to the arrangement, Benjamin delivered the numbers to subscribers, and perhaps he sold the paper about the streets, thus acting as one of the first newsboys on this western continent. Among the friends of James Franklin, and the patrons of his paper, were several men who possessed considerable talent for writing, and they were accustomed to assemble at the printing-office, and discuss questions connected with the circulation of the paper. Benjamin's ears were usually open to their conversation,--and he heard the merits of different articles set forth, and learned that certain ones were quite popular, and elicited favourable remarks from readers generally. This excited his ambition, and he earnestly desired to try his own ability in writing for the paper. He feared, however, that his composition would not be regarded favourably, if it were known who was the author; so he hit upon this expedient. He resolved to write an anonymous article, in his very best style, and get it into his brother's hand so as not to awaken his suspicion. Accordingly, the article was prepared, and at night it was tucked under the printing-office door, where James found it in the morning. As usual, several of his writers came in about their usual time, and Benjamin had the happiness of hearing the following discussion:-- "Here is a good article, that I found under the door this morning," said James, at the same time holding it up. "Who is the author of it?" inquired one. "It is anonymous," replied James, "and I have not the least idea who wrote it." "What is the subject?" asked another; and the subject was announced. "Let us hear it read," proposed a third. "You read it aloud to us, James." So James proceeded to read the article aloud, while all listened with deep interest. All the while Benjamin was busily employed at his work, though his ears were never more willing to hear. You may be sure that he felt rather queerly while his composition was undergoing this test, and a close observer might have observed a sly, comical twinkle of his eye. The reading went on without one of the company dreaming that the author stood at their elbow. "Capital!" exclaimed one, as the last line was read. "Who can the author be?" "As a general thing," said James, "I shall not insert articles from persons unknown to me, but this is so good that I shall publish it." "By all means," said one of the company. "We shall soon find out the author; it is a difficult matter to keep such things secret for a long time." "The author is evidently a person of ability," added another; "every sentence in that article is charged with thought. I should judge that he wanted only culture to make him a writer of the first class." "Publishing the article will be as likely as anything to bring out the author," said James. It was decided to print the article, all having approved of the same, much to the satisfaction of Benjamin, who awaited the decision with some anxiety. Now he scarcely knew how to act in regard to the piece, whether to father it at once, or still conceal its parentage. On the whole, however, he decided to withhold its authorship for the present, and try his hand again in the same way. Much encouraged by the success of his first effort, Benjamin was prepared to produce even a better article on the second trial, which was discussed and approved in the same way as the first. Thus he wrote, and put under the door at night, a number of articles, all of which were pronounced good by James and his friends. It was a time of much interest and excitement to Benjamin, since he was the "unknown character" so much extolled by the patrons of the "Courant." To hear his own articles remarked upon and praised, when no one dreamed that a boy like himself could be the author, was well suited to stir up his feelings, if not to inflate his vanity. Many persons in like circumstances would be allured into indiscretions and improprieties. But Benjamin wisely kept his own secrets, while he industriously continued to set up types, fearing that disclosure at the present time might knock all his plans into "pie." There is no doubt that this was one of the incidents of Benjamin's boyhood that decided his future eminent career. It was a good thing to bring out his talents as a writer thus early, and it evidently fostered his love of an exercise that was of the first importance in the improvement of his mind. From the time that he wrote the first article which he put under the door of the printing-office, he did not cease to write more or less for the public eye. He had written before, as we have seen, but his father had rather put a damper on his composing for the public to read, and, besides, the newspaper was a channel of communicating with readers altogether new to him. It was well suited to awaken deep interest in his heart, and to incite him to put forth his noblest efforts. The great English statesman, CANNING, was sent to school at Eton, at twelve years of age, where he originated a mimic House of Commons among his schoolmates. Here they established a boy periodical, called the "Microcosm." It was a weekly publication, and issued from Windsor. It was conducted "after the plan of the 'Spectator,' the design being to treat the characteristics of the boys at Eton as Addison and his friends had done those of general society." In this paper several members of the school figured with credit to themselves, though no one was more earnest to sustain it than young Canning. It became one of the prominent influences that decided his future course, bringing out his talents, and stimulating his mind to labour in this honourable way. It also exerted a decided influence upon the character of another boy, named Frere, who afterwards shone as a writer in the pages of the "Anti-Jacobin." At the present day, in many seminaries and village lyceums, several literary enterprises are sustained, to the no small advantage of the young who become personally interested in it. Every youth who desires to cultivate his mental faculties ought to hail such enterprises with joy, and pledge his noblest efforts to sustain them. It may be that it is discouragingly difficult for him to write at first; but let him persevere, with patience and firm resolve, and he will prove to himself that "practice makes perfect." There is no better exercise for his mind than this, and none better adapted to inspire him with a dauntless resolve to acquire knowledge. [Illustration: The Mysterious Contributor.--See page 123.] CHAPTER XIII. THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG. Benjamin was so highly gratified with the favourable remarks he heard about his articles, and especially that different persons, in guessing who the author might be, usually guessed some writer of distinction, that he could keep the secret no longer. He was eager to make the fact known, that the much talked of essays emanated from his own pen; and soon "the cat was let out of the bag." Having a good opportunity, in reply to some remark of James about "the last article found under the door," he said, "I know who the author is." "You know?" exclaimed James with surprise. "Why have you not disclosed it before?" "Because I thought it was not wise. It is not best to tell all we know always." "But you have heard us discuss this matter over and over, and take measures to discover the author, and yet you have never intimated that you knew anything about it." "Well, the author did not wish to be known, until the right time came, and that is a good reason for keeping the matter secret, I think." "Will you tell me who the author is now?" asked James, impatient to obtain the long-sought information. "Perhaps I will, if you are very anxious to know." "You know that I am. Who is it?" "It is Benjamin Franklin." "What!" exclaimed James, astonished almost beyond measure by the disclosure; "do you mean to say that you wrote those articles?" "Certainly I do." "But it is not your handwriting." "I disguised my hand in order to conceal the authorship." "What could possibly be your object in doing so?" "That the articles might be fairly examined. If I had proposed to write an article for your paper, you would have said that I, a printer-boy, could write nothing worthy of print." Here the conversation dropped, and James appeared to be abstracted in thought. He said but little about the matter to Benjamin, neither commending nor censuring, until his literary friends came in again. "I have discovered the author of those articles," said James. "You have? who can it be?" one asked. "No one that you have dreamed of," answered James. "Do tell us who it is, and put an end to our anxiety," said one of the number, who could hardly wait for the desired information. "There he is," replied James, pointing to Benjamin, who was setting up types a little more briskly than usual. The whole company were amazed. "Can it be?" cried out one; "you are joking." Now Benjamin had to speak for himself; for they all turned to him with their inquiries, as if they thought there must be some mistake or deception about the matter. But he found little difficulty in convincing them that he was the real author of the pieces; whereupon they commended him in a manner that was rather perilous to one who had the smallest share of pride in his heart. From that time Benjamin was a favourite with the literary visitors at the office. They showed him much more attention than they did James, and said so much in his praise, as a youth of unusual promise, that James became jealous and irritable. He was naturally passionate and tyrannical, and this sudden and unexpected exaltation of Benjamin developed his overbearing spirit. He began to find fault seriously and unreasonably with him, and a disposition to oppress him was soon apparent. He went so far as to beat him severely with a rod, on several occasions, reconciling the matter with his conscience by saying that he was master, and Benjamin was his apprentice. His whole conduct towards his younger brother was unjust and cruel, and the latter became restive and discontented under it. He made known his grievances to his father, who censured James for his conduct, and took the part of Benjamin. But the best efforts of his father to reconcile matters proved abortive, because James's manifest opposition was so aroused against his brother, on account of his sudden rise to comparative distinction. Other causes might have operated to awaken James's hostility, but this was evidently a prominent one. Benjamin was so dissatisfied with his treatment that he resolved to leave his brother as soon as possible. He was indentured to him, as we have seen, so that it was difficult for him to get away. Being bound to him until he became twenty-one years of age, the law held him firmly there, notwithstanding the injustice he experienced. Still, for the present, he laboured on in the office, and the paper continued to be issued. We are reminded that the printing-office has furnished many eminent scholars to the world. Young men have there come in contact with printed matter that has aroused their intellects to action, and caused them to press onward, with new resolves, in paths of usefulness and renown. In the case of Benjamin, the circumstance of his connection with the office just at the time a new paper was established called out a certain kind of talent he possessed, and thus helped to make him what he became. Success depends in a great measure in early directing the young in the path to which their natural endowments point. Thus Lord Nelson, who distinguished himself in the service of his country, was early placed in just those circumstances that appealed to his fortitude and other heroic attributes. That he possessed by nature remarkable courage and determination, in connection with other qualities that usually accompany these, is evident from an incident of his childhood. One day he strayed from home with a cow-boy in search of birds' nests, and being missed at dinner-time, and inquiries made for him, the startling suspicion was awakened that he had been carried off by gipsies. The alarm of his parents was great, and a careful search was instituted, when he was found sitting on the banks of a stream which he could not cross, unconcerned and happy. "I wonder, child," said his grandmother, when he was brought back in safety to the family, "that hunger and fear did not drive you home." "Fear!" exclaimed the heroic lad, "I never saw fear,--what is it?" He was taken by his uncle into the naval service while he was yet a boy, where the scenes of every day were suited to develop and strengthen the heroic qualities of his nature. He became known to the world, not merely for his victories at Trafalgar and on the Nile, but for other essential service rendered to his native land. The same was true of Buxton, Wilberforce, Pascal, Handel, Canova, Dr. Chalmers, and many others. Providence opened before them the path to which their native qualities directed. We have spoken of the advantage of occasionally writing compositions, as Benjamin was wont to write, and another fact illustrating this point has just come to our notice. It is an incident belonging to the history of the Boston Young Men's Temperance Society. In addition to its being a temperance organization, it was sustained for mutual mental improvement. With other exercises, the members read lectures of their own preparing at the meetings,--a very important and valuable arrangement. One evening a member delivered a lecture upon the character and objects of the society, which was listened to by a young man who dropped into the hall for the first time. He was so well pleased with the design of the association, as set forth in the lecture, that he joined it at the close of the exercises. He began at once to fulfil the requirements of the society in writing compositions, and they were so well written that the author of the aforesaid lecture said to him one evening-- "Why do you not write something for the press? If I possessed your ability I should do it." The young man received the compliment with becoming modesty, expressing some lack of confidence in his abilities; but it set him to thinking. The result was that he prepared a short article for a Boston paper, which was accepted; and the way was thereby opened to his becoming a constant contributor to its columns. The end is not yet, though he is now the author of the popular "Optic Library." Thus so small a matter as writing a brief article for a newspaper may herald a career of literary fame. CHAPTER XIV. THE ARREST. "Have you heard what they are doing in the Assembly?" asked Benjamin one afternoon, as he entered the office under considerable excitement, addressing his inquiry to James. "Doing?" answered James; "doing their business, I suppose;"--a reply that did not indicate precisely his knowledge of the legislative doings, since he had heard of the business before them, and was somewhat troubled by it. "They are certainly going to arrest you for libel, and I heard a gentleman say, in the street, that they would show you no favour;" and Benjamin made this revelation with considerable warmth of feeling. The idea of his brother's arrest and imprisonment excited him in no small degree. On the same day the following order was passed in the General Court:-- "IN COUNCIL, Jan. 14, 1722. "Whereas the paper, called the New England Courant, of this day's date, contains many passages in which the Holy Scriptures are perverted, and the Civil Government, Ministers, and People of this Province highly reflected on, _Ordered_, That William Tailer, Samuel Sewell, and Penn Townsend, Esqrs., with such as the Honourable House of Representatives shall join, be a committee to consider and report what is proper for the Court to do thereon." The House of Representatives concurred, and the committee reported:-- "That James Franklin, the printer and publisher thereof (the Courant), be strictly forbidden by this Court to print or publish the New England Courant, or any other pamphlet or paper of the like nature, except it be first supervised by the Secretary of this Province; and the Justices of his Majesty's Sessions of the Peace for the County of Suffolk, at their next adjournment, be directed to take sufficient bonds of the said Franklin for twelve months' time." The result was, that James was arrested and confined four weeks in the "stone gaol," from which he was released by his voluntary pledge to regard the honour of the Court. Benjamin was arrested, also; but was discharged on the ground that he acted as an apprentice, and was obliged to do the bidding of his master. It appears that there was considerable dissatisfaction in the Province with the British government, under which the people lived. The Courant espoused the cause of the dissatisfied party, and, perhaps unwisely, attacked the government and its officers, together with the ministers of the Gospel, whose sympathies seemed to be with the dominant party. It was a time of considerable excitement, so that a little firebrand thrown into the community was sure to make a great fire. But the immediate cause of his arrest was the appearance of the following article in his paper, which was a slur upon the government for tardiness in fitting out a ship to cruise after a pirate seen off Block Island. The article purported to be written by a correspondent in Newport, R. I., and read thus:-- "We are advised from Boston, that the government of the Massachusetts are fitting out a ship to go after the pirates, to be commanded by Captain Peter Papillon, and _'tis thought he will sail some time this month, wind and weather permitting_." This well-pointed censure, in connection with the many flings and attacks that had preceded it, aroused the General Court to act in their defence without delay. The club under whose auspices the Courant was conducted, assembled at the office as soon as they knew the decision of the Court, to consider what should be done. "It is certain," said one, "that you cannot continue to issue the paper against the action of the Court." "Not in his own name," suggested another. "It may still be published in the name of another person, and thus the legislative order will be evaded." "How will it do to issue it in Benjamin's name?" inquired James. "That cannot be done, for he is only an apprentice, as could be very readily proved," was the reply. "I can easily meet that difficulty," answered James, who was usually ready for a shrewd evasion in such a case. "Pray, tell us how," asked one of the number, who was disposed to think that the days of the Courant were numbered. "By changing the name?" "No, I would not change the name. I will return his indenture, with his discharge upon the back of it, and he can show it in case of necessity. We can understand the matter between us, while he will be his own man whenever any trouble may arise about his apprenticeship." All agreed that this plan would work well, and it was accordingly adopted. "Benjamin Franklin, publisher and proprietor," said one of the club, rising from his seat and patting Benjamin on the shoulder. "What do you think of that, my son? Rather a young fellow to undertake such an enterprise, but a match, I guess, for the General Court of the Province." Benjamin was quite unprepared to reply to the merriment of the club on the occasion over his unexpected introduction to an office of which he did not dream in the morning. He was now to appear before the public in quite another relation than that of apprentice,--probably the youngest conductor of a newspaper who ever lived, for he was only sixteen years of age. Henceforth the paper appeared in the name of Benjamin Franklin, occasioning, by all the circumstances, no little excitement in the town. James was conveyed to prison, and during his confinement, Benjamin had the whole management of the paper, in which he took occasion to speak very plainly and boldly against the government. Notwithstanding the difficulty that existed between him and his brother, his heart was stirred with resentment against the Court for sending him to jail, and he espoused his cause with as much sympathy and good-will, apparently, as he could have done if no difference had disturbed their intercourse. This was honourable in Benjamin, and showed that he possessed a true brother's heart. For three years the paper was published in his name, although he did not remain with James so long. We have referred to the time of Benjamin's boyhood as a period of public excitement and disturbance. Great alarm was frequently occasioned, for some time before and some time after his birth, by the depredations of the Indians. The French were hostile to Great Britain; so they sought to stir up, and ally themselves with, the savages, in making inroads upon the Colonies. The consequence was, "wars and rumours of wars," with actual massacres and bloodshed. Benjamin's ears, in his early life, were often saluted with the harrowing tales of slaughter and conflagration, an experience that may have qualified him, in a measure, to act the prominent part he did in achieving the independence of his country, half a century thereafter. Rev. Dr. Willard, who baptized him, was driven from the town of Groton by the Indians in 1675. Later still, only three years before the birth of Benjamin, the town of Deerfield was attacked and burned by these savage tribes, instigated and led on by the French,--and "upwards of forty persons were slain, and more than a hundred were made prisoners." "When the sun was an hour high, the work was finished, and the enemy took their departure, leaving the snow reddened with blood, and the deserted village enveloped in flames." Only two or three years after his birth, the famous attack upon Haverhill was made, when the Indians massacred men, women, and children indiscriminately, a few only escaping their terrible vengeance. The stories of such dreadful cruelties and sufferings were fresh in Benjamin's boyhood, and their effect upon the youthful mind was heightened by the frequent reports of outbreaks and anticipated Indian attacks from different quarters. Thus born and reared in troublous times, our hero was prepared to work out his destiny in the most perilous period of American history. A single item published in the Courant about this time, will show the young reader that Boston and its environs of that early day did not much resemble the same city now. The item is the following:-- "It is thought that not less than twenty bears have been killed in about a week's time within two miles of Boston. Two have been killed below the Castle, as they were swimming from one island to another, and one attempted to board a boat out in the bay, but the men defended themselves so well with the boat-hook and oars, that they put out her eyes, and then killed her. On Tuesday last two were killed at Dorchester, one of which weighed sixty pounds a quarter. We hear from Providence that the bears appear to be very thick in those parts." CHAPTER XV. THE RUNAWAY. Not long after James was released from prison, a fresh difficulty arose between Benjamin and himself. In the quarrel they seemed to forget that they were brothers, who ought to be united by strong ties of affection. James continued to be passionate and domineering, treating his brother with harshness, sometimes even beating him, notwithstanding he was the nominal publisher and editor of a paper. Benjamin thought he was too old to be treated thus--whipped like a little boy--and the result was that he asserted his freedom. "I am my own man from this time," he cried, holding up his indenture which his brother returned to him, as we saw in a former chapter, in order to evade the officers of justice. "These papers make me free, and I shall take advantage of them to leave you," and he fairly shook them in James's face. "You know that I never gave them up because I relinquished the bargain we had made," said James. "If you use them to assert your freedom, you will be guilty of a base act." "I _shall_ so use the papers," replied Benjamin defiantly. "I have borne such treatment long enough, and I shall submit no longer." "We shall see about that," continued James. "Father will have a word to say about it, you will find." "Yes, and he will probably say that you have abused me, and that you ought to control your temper and treat me better," responded Benjamin. "He always has decided in my favour, and I have no fears about his decision now." It was not fair in Benjamin to take this advantage of his brother, and he knew it, but his resentment triumphed over his regard for right at the time. James returned his indenture only that he might be able to publish the paper unmolested. It was a deceitful arrangement in the first place, and Benjamin's use of the papers to assert his liberty was no more unfair and sinful than was James's device to make him the proprietor of the paper, and thus evade the law. James was paid in his own coin. He laid a plan to cheat the government, and he got cheated himself. He was snared in the work of his own hands. This, however, did not justify Benjamin in his course, as he afterwards saw, and frankly confessed. Benjamin persisted in asserting his freedom, and James appealed to his father. After the latter had examined the affair, all the while knowing that James was passionate and overbearing, he decided against Benjamin. The advantage which the latter took of James to gain his freedom probably influenced Mr. Franklin to decide in favour of the former. This was unexpected by Benjamin, and was not received with a very good grace. It did not change his determination, however, and he was still resolved to be free. He refused to labour any more for his brother, and went forth to look for employment elsewhere. There were a number of other printers in the town, to whom he applied for work; but he found, to his surprise, that his brother had anticipated him, and been round to persuade them not to hire him. "He has violated a solemn contract," said he to one, "and he will violate any contract he will make with you. Besides, if you refuse to hire him, he will be obliged to return and labour for me." The printers all sympathized with James, and accordingly refused to give Benjamin work. He found himself in a very unpleasant situation on that account, without the means of earning his bread, and, in one sense, without a home, since he had disregarded his father's counsel in not returning to his brother. He learned, also, that some good people considered him no better than an infidel. "Nothing less than the loosest sceptic," said one good man. "He hates the truth with all his heart, as much that he writes plainly shows. His influence in the community is very bad, and it is growing worse and worse." Good people thus misjudged Benjamin. Some went so far as to call him an "atheist." His attacks upon the clergy and government, in his paper, created so much excitement, that he was understood to mean worse than he did. All these things served to wean Benjamin from Boston, and he decided on seeking his fortune elsewhere. He embraced the first opportunity to confer with his old friend, John Collins, on the subject. "John, I am going to New York," he said. "To New York?" exclaimed John. "What has started you off there?" "Enough to start anybody. I have been banged about long enough, and now can get no work at all; so I must go or starve." "How so?" inquired John, "I don't understand you?" "The case is just this," said Benjamin. "James has treated me very harshly for a long time, and I have submitted. But I had a good opportunity to make myself free, and I have improved it. When James was put into prison for libel, he returned me my indenture with a discharge written on the back, to show in case the government interfered with my publishing the paper. He did not mean, of course, that I should be released from my obligations to him; but he has treated me so unmercifully lately that I have taken advantage of the paper, and broken my engagement with him." "You have got round him this time, certainly," said John. "How does he feel about it?" "He has appealed to father, and father has decided against me, and advised me to go back; but I am not at all disposed to do it." "I would work in some other printing-office," added John, "before I would go to New York." "But I can get work nowhere else. I have been to every office, and they all refuse to employ me, because my brother went to them before me, and told his story, and made them promise not to hire me." "I suppose he thought by so doing to compel you to come back to him," suggested John. "I suppose so; but he will find himself mistaken. I shall go to New York as soon as I can get away." "What does your father say about your going off so far?" "I have said nothing to him about it, and do not intend to do so. He would stop my going at once if he knew it." "How can you get away without letting him know it?" "That remains to be seen," answered Benjamin. "I shall want some of your help about it, I guess." "I am at your service," said John, "though it seems very little that I can do to hasten your flight;" but he had hardly uttered the last sentence before a new thought flashed upon his mind, and he added with great earnestness, "Yes, I can, too; I have seen the captain of that New York sloop in the harbour, and I can make a bargain with him to take you there." "But he will want to know who I am, and will refuse to take me when he finds that I am a runaway." "I can manage that, if you will leave it to me," answered John. "I will pledge you that he will never know that your name is Franklin." "I agree, then, to commit myself to your care. See that you manage the affair well, for to New York I must go." They parted; and John hurried away to see the aforesaid captain. "Can you take a friend of mine to New York?" he asked. "That depends on circumstances," answered the captain. "Who is your friend?"--a very natural inquiry,--precisely such a one as Benjamin thought would be made. "He is a young man about my age, a printer, and he is going to New York to get work," replied John. "Why don't he get work in Boston?" inquired the captain. John saw that there was no evading the captain's questions, and so he suddenly resolved to fabricate a story, in other words, to tell a base lie. "Well," said John, "if I must tell you the whole story, the case is this. He is a young fellow who has been flirting with a girl, who wants to marry him, and now her parents are determined that he shall marry her, and he is determined that he will not, and he proposes to remove secretly to New York. He would have come to see you himself, but it is not safe for him to appear out so publicly, and therefore he sent me to do the business." A youth who can fabricate a falsehood so unblushingly as John did this is a candidate for ruin. The reader will not be surprised to learn, before the whole story is told, that he became a miserable, wicked man. This single lie proved that he was destitute of moral principle, and would do almost anything to carry his project. For some unaccountable reason, the captain was taken with this device, and consented to carry Benjamin to New York. He arranged to receive him clandestinely, and to have him on his way before any suspicion of his plans was awakened. John hastened to inform Benjamin of the success of his enterprise, and to congratulate him upon his fair prospect of getting away. "Money is the next thing," said Benjamin. "I can't go without money. I must sell my books for something, though I dislike to part with them." "They will sell quick enough," said John, "and will bring you a very pretty sum to start with." Benjamin lost no time in disposing of his little library for what it would bring, and he managed to get his clothes together without exciting suspicion; and, with the assistance of John, he boarded the sloop privately just before she sailed. "Good luck to you, Ben," said John, as they shook hands. "Good bye," answered Benjamin with a heavy heart, just beginning to feel that he was going away from home. "See that you tell no tales out of school." Thus they parted; and the sloop sailed for New York, where she arrived in three days. Benjamin did not know a person in that city, nor had he a single letter of recommendation to any one, and the money in his pocket was but a trifle. It was in October, 1723, that he arrived in New York. Think of a lad seventeen years of age running away from home, entering a large city without a solitary acquaintance, and possessing scarcely money enough to pay for a week's board! He must have carried some sad, lonely feelings in his heart along those strange streets, and possibly his conscience sorely upbraided him for his course. Benjamin behaved very unwisely and wickedly in this affair. Although his brother was severely harsh in his treatment of him, it was not sufficient reason for his running away from home, and he was thoroughly convinced of this at an early day. Such an act is one of the most flagrant sins that a youth can commit, although circumstances may render it less guilty in some cases than in others. In the case of Benjamin, the unkind treatment which he received at the hand of his brother mitigated his sin, though it by no means excused it. There is not a more unpleasant occurrence in the whole life of Benjamin Franklin than this quarrel with his brother. We charge the difficulty mainly upon James, of course; but this does not blot out the unpleasantness of the affair. A quarrel between brothers is always painful in the extreme, and is discreditable to all parties concerned. Dr. Watts has very beautifully written, for the admonition of little children, what older ones may well ponder:-- "Whatever brawls disturb the street, There should be peace at home: Where sisters dwell and brothers meet, Quarrels should never come. "Birds in their little nests agree; And 'tis a shameful sight, When children of one family Fall out, and chide, and fight. "Hard names, at first, and threat'ning words, That are but noisy breath, May grow to clubs and naked swords, To murder and to death." At this crisis of Benjamin's life, it seemed as if he was on the highway to ruin. There is scarcely one similar case in ten, where the runaway escapes the vortex of degradation. Benjamin would not have been an exception, but for his early religious culture and the grace of God. The case of William Hutton, who was the son of very poor parents, is not altogether unlike that of Benjamin Franklin. He was bound to his uncle for a series of years, but was treated by him so harshly that he ran away, at seventeen years of age. The record is, that "on the 12th day of July, 1741, the ill-treatment he received from his uncle, in the shape of a brutal flogging, with a birch-broom handle of white hazel, which almost killed him, caused him to run away." A dark prospect was before him, since "he had only twopence in his pocket, a spacious world before him, and no plan of operation." Yet he afterwards became an author of some celebrity, and a most exemplary and esteemed man. He lived to the age of ninety, his last days being gladdened by the reflection of having lived a useful life, and the consciousness of sharing the confidence of his fellow-men. CHAPTER XVI. ANOTHER TRIP AND ITS TRIALS. On arriving at New York, Benjamin applied to a well known printer, Mr. William Bradford, for work. "Where are you from?" he inquired. "From Boston," was Benjamin's reply. "Used to the printing business?" "Yes, that is my trade. I have worked at it several years." "I am sorry I cannot employ you. Just now my business is small, and I have all the help I need." "What do you think of the prospect of getting work at some other office in the town?" inquired Benjamin. "Not very flattering, I am sorry to say. Dull times, my son, very dull indeed. But I can tell you where you can find employment, I think. My son carries on the printing business in Philadelphia, and one of his men died the other day. I think he would be glad to employ you." "How far is it to Philadelphia?" "It is a hundred miles," replied Mr. Bradford, "a much shorter distance than you have already travelled." [Illustration: Franklin saving the Dutchman.--See page 149.] Benjamin looked somewhat disappointed when he found that Philadelphia was a hundred miles farther; still, he was after work, and he was determined to find it; so he made inquiries about the mode of conveyance, and left Mr. Bradford, thanking him for his kindness. Immediately he engaged a passage in a boat to Amboy, and made arrangements for his chest to be carried round by sea. He was less disheartened, probably, on account of the assurance of Mr. Bradford that his son would employ him. If he could procure work by travelling a hundred miles more, he would cheerfully do it, although a journey of a hundred miles then was about equal to one thousand now. At the appointed time Benjamin went aboard, and the boat started. She had not proceeded far when a squall struck her, tore her rotten sails to pieces, and drove her upon Long Island. Before this, however, a drunken Dutchman, who was also a passenger, fell overboard, and would have lost his life but for the timely assistance of our printer-boy. Springing to the side of the boat, Benjamin reached over and seized him by the hair of his head as he rose, and drew him on board. "He may thank you for saving his life," exclaimed one of the boatmen. "He is too drunk for that," answered Benjamin. "It will sober him a little, however, I think. Halloo, here, you Dutchman!" (turning to the drunken man) "how do you like diving?" The Dutchman mumbled over something, and pulling a book out of his pocket, asked Benjamin to dry it for him, which he promised to do. Soon the poor, miserable fellow was fast asleep, in spite of the wet and danger, and Benjamin examined the drenched volume, which proved to be Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, in Dutch, a favourite book of his a few years before. It was a very good companion for even a drunken Dutchman to have; but Benjamin could not but think that its contents were not so familiar to the unfortunate possessor as the bottle. On approaching Long Island they found that there was no place to land, and the beach was very stony; so "they dropped anchor, and swung out their cable towards the shore." Some men came down to the shore and hallooed to them, and they returned the shout. Seeing some small boats lying along the shore, they cried out as loudly as possible, "A boat! a boat!" and made signs to them to come to their assistance; but the wind was so boisterous that neither party could understand the other. After several fruitless attempts on both sides to be heard, and night coming on, the men on the shore went home, and left Benjamin and the boatmen to their perils. "There is only one thing to be done," said the captain, "when we get into such a predicament." "What is that?" asked Benjamin. "To do nothing but wait patiently till the wind abates," answered the captain, rather coolly. "Then let us turn in with the Dutchman to sleep," said one of the boatmen. "It isn't best for him to have all the good things." All agreed to this, and soon they were crowded into the hatches, Benjamin among the number. But the spray broke over the head of the boat so much that the water leaked through upon them, until they were about as wet as the Dutchman. This was hard fare for Benjamin, who had been accustomed to a comfortable bed and regular sleep. It was impossible for him to rest in such a plight, and he had all the more time _to think_. He thought of home, and the friends he had left behind, of the comfortable quarters he had exchanged for his present wet and perilous berth, and he began to feel that he had _paid too dear for his whistle_. Runaways usually feel thus sooner or later, since few of them ever realize their anticipations. The cold, dreary night wore away slowly, and the wind continued to howl, and the breakers to dash and roar, until after the dawn of the following morning. Benjamin was never more rejoiced to see daylight appear than he was after that dismal and perilous night. It was the more pleasant to him because the wind began to abate, and there was a fairer prospect of reaching their place of destination. As soon as the tumult of the wind and waves had subsided, they weighed anchor, and steered for Amboy, where they arrived just before night, "having been thirty hours on the water without victuals, or any drink but a bottle of filthy rum." In the evening Benjamin found himself feverish, having taken a severe cold by the exposure of the previous night. With a hot head and a heavy heart he retired to rest, first, however, drinking largely of cold water, because he had somewhere read that cold water was good for fever. This was one of the advantages he derived from his early habit of reading. But for his taste for reading, which led him to spend his leisure moments in poring over books, he might never have known this important fact, which perhaps saved him a fit of sickness. Availing himself of this knowledge, he drank freely of water before he retired, and the consequence was, that he sweat most of the night, and arose the next morning comparatively well. So much advantage from loving books! Boys never have occasion to deplore the habit of reading, provided their books are well chosen. They usually find that they are thrice paid for all the time spent in this way. Sooner or later they begin to reap the benefits of so wise a course. A few years since, a young man was travelling in the State of Maine, procuring subscribers to a newspaper. On passing a certain farm, he observed some bricks of a peculiar colour, and he traced them to their clay-bed, and satisfied himself that the material could be applied to a more valuable purpose than that of making bricks. He at once purchased the farm for three hundred pounds, and, on his return to Boston, sold one half of it for eight hundred pounds. The secret of his success lay in a bit of knowledge he acquired at school. He had given some attention to geology and chemistry, and the little knowledge he had gleaned therefrom enabled him to discover the nature of the clay on the farm. Thus, even a little knowledge gleaned from a book in a single leisure half-hour, will sometimes prove the key to a valuable treasure; much more valuable than the farm which the young man purchased. For this pecuniary benefit is, after all, the least important advantage derived from reading. The discipline of the mind and heart, and the refined and elevated pleasure which it secures, are far more desirable than any pecuniary good it bestows. A little reading, also, sometimes gives an impulse to the mind in the direction of learning and renown. It was the reading of Echard's Roman History, which Gibbon met with while on a visit to Wiltshire, that opened before him the historic path to distinction. Let the reader consider these things. Never say, as hundred's of boys do, "I hate books, and wish that I was not obliged to go to school. There is no use in reading and studying so much; we shall get along just as well without it." This class of boys usually will have to regret, under mortifying circumstances, in later life, that they wasted their early opportunities to acquire knowledge. Sir Walter Scott, in his boyhood, joined in the tirade of idlers against books; but in manhood he said: "If it should ever fall to the lot of youth to peruse these pages, let such readers remember that it is with the deepest regret that I recollect, in my manhood, the opportunities of learning which I neglected in my youth; that through every part of my literary career I have felt pinched and hampered by my own ignorance; and I would at this moment give half the reputation I have had the good fortune to acquire, if by so doing I could rest the remaining part upon a sound foundation of learning and science." But we have lost sight of Benjamin. We left him at the tavern in Amboy, after having passed the night in a cold-water sweat, ready for another start on his journey. Burlington was fifty miles from Amboy, and there was no public conveyance, so that he was obliged to go on foot, expecting to find a boat there bound for Philadelphia. It was raining hard, and yet he started upon the journey, and trudged on through the storm and the mud, eager to see Burlington. He was thoroughly drenched before he had travelled five miles, and, in this condition, he walked on rapidly till noon, when he came to a "poor inn," and stopped. Being wet and tired, he resolved to remain there until the next day. The innkeeper's suspicions were awakened by Benjamin's appearance, and he questioned him rather closely. "Where are you from, my lad?" "From Boston, sir." "Hey! and away off here so far? quite a youngster for such a trip. What's your name?" "My name is Benjamin Franklin, and I am going to Philadelphia after work." "No work in Boston I 'spose, hey? How long since you left home?" "About a week. I did not expect to go farther than New York when I started, but I could get no work there." "No work, hey? what sort of work are you after that you find it so scarce?" "I am a printer by trade, and I hope to get into a printing-office in Philadelphia." "Wall, you are a pretty young one to go so far; I would hardly be willing that a son of mine should make such a trip alone, printer or no printer." Benjamin saw that he was suspected of being a runaway, and he felt very uncomfortable. He managed, however, to answer all questions without satisfying the curiosity of the family. He ate and slept there, and on the following morning proceeded on his journey, and by night was within eight or ten miles of Burlington. Here he stopped at an inn kept by one Dr. Brown, "an ambulating quack doctor." He was a very social and observing man, and soon discovered that Benjamin was a youth of unusual intelligence for one of his age. He conversed with him freely about Boston and other places, and gave a particular account of some foreign countries which he had visited. In this way he made Benjamin's brief stay with him very pleasant, and they became friends for life, meeting many times thereafter on friendly terms. The next morning he reluctantly bade the doctor good bye, and proceeded to Burlington, where he expected to find a boat. In the suburbs of the town he bought some gingerbread of an old woman who kept a shop, and walked on, eating it as he went. To his great disappointment, on reaching the wharf, he found the boat had gone, and there would not be another until Tuesday. It was now Saturday, and his money would not hold out if he should get boarded at a public-house till then. What should he do? After some reflection, he determined to go back to the old lady of whom he bought his gingerbread, as he liked her appearance very well, and ask her advice. So back he went. "Ah! back again?" said she, as he entered her shop. "Want more gingerbread I 'spose?" "No," answered Benjamin. "I was going to take the boat to Philadelphia, but it has gone, and there is not another to go until Tuesday." "Dear me!" exclaimed the kind-hearted woman; "if that ain't too bad. What kin ye du?" "That is what I want to ask you. Is there any other conveyance to Philadelphia?" "No, and all ye has to du is to make the best on't." "And what is that? That is just what I want to know,--the best thing for me to do in such a case." "What ye goin' to Philadelphy for?" inquired the old lady. "I am going after work. I am a printer, and want to find work in a printing-office." "A printer," exclaimed the woman, who had probably never seen one before. "Dear me, yer fortin is made to set up business in this ere town. There is nothing of the like here." "I have nothing to set up the business with here," replied Benjamin. "I would as lief work here as in Philadelphia, if the way was open." The woman did not know what was necessary in setting up a printing establishment. That types and a press were indispensable articles in such business she did not dream. She thought, doubtless, that he carried all necessary fixtures with him in his pockets. "Well, then, I'll lodge ye till Tuesday for ----" (naming the sum). "I will stay with you, then, and make the best of it," he replied. He found himself in very good quarters, and his host proved herself to be very kind and hospitable. He took dinner with her, and remained about the shop until towards night, when he walked forth to view the place. In his walk he came round to the river, and as he approached it, he discovered a boat with several people in it, and he hailed them. "Whither bound?" "To Philadelphia." "Can you take me in? I was too late for the boat to-day." "As well as not," a voice replied; and the boat was turned to receive its additional passenger. There was no wind, so that they were obliged to depend on rowing for progress. Benjamin now found a rare opportunity to exercise the skill at rowing which he cultivated in Boston. He was so elated with the prospect of proceeding on his way to Philadelphia, that he thought neither of the fatigue of rowing, nor of the wonder of the old lady in the shop at the unexpected disappearance of her boarder. He did not mean to treat her disrespectfully, for he considered her a very clever woman, but the boat could not wait for him to return and pay her his compliments. Whether she ever learned what became of him, or that he grew up to be Dr. Franklin, the great philosopher, we have no means of knowing. Doubtless she concluded that she had not entertained an "angel unawares," but had rather aided an undeserving fellow in pursuing a vicious course,--which was not true. The boat went on. Benjamin rowed with strong resolution, taking his turn with others, until midnight, when one of the company said: "We must have passed the city. It can't be that we have been so long getting to it." "That is impossible," said another. "We must have seen it, if we had passed it." "Well, I shall row no more," added the first speaker. "I know that Philadelphia is not so far off as this." "Let us put for the shore," said a third person, "and find out where we are, if possible." "Agreed," replied several voices; and so saying they rowed toward the shore, and entered a small creek, where they landed near an old fence, the rails of which furnished them with fuel for a fire. They were very chilly, it being a frosty night of October, and they found the fire very grateful. They remained there till daylight, when one of the company knew that the place was "Cooper's Creek," a few miles above the "City of Brotherly Love." Immediately they made preparations to continue their journey, which had not been altogether unpleasant, and they were soon in full view of the city, where they arrived between eight and nine o'clock on Sunday morning. They landed at Market Street Wharf. Taking out his money, which consisted of one unbroken dollar, and a shilling in copper coin, he offered the latter to the boatmen for his passage. "Not a cent, my good fellow," said one of them, "you worked your passage, and did it well, too." "But you _must_ take it," responded Benjamin. "You are quite welcome to all the rowing I have done. I am glad enough to get here by rowing and paying my passage too. But for your coming along to take me in, I should have been obliged to stay in Burlington until next Tuesday;" and he fairly forced the shilling into their hands. This manifested a spirit of generosity, for which Benjamin was always distinguished. He was no mean, niggardly fellow, not he. Although he was in a stranger city, and had but a single dollar left on which to live until he could earn something by daily toil, yet he cheerfully gave the change for his passage. He felt grateful to them for taking him in, and he gave expression to his gratitude in this generous way. It was noble, too, in the boatman to refuse to take the shilling. It was only on his insisting upon their receiving it, that they consented to take it. A kind-hearted, generous set of fellows were in that boat, and Benjamin was not inferior to one of them in that respect. Bidding them good morning, he walked up Market Street, where he met a boy eating some bread. "Where did you get your bread, boy?" he inquired. "Over to the baker's, there," he replied, pointing to a shop that was near by. Benjamin was very tired and hungry, having eaten nothing since he dined with the old shopwoman in Burlington, on the day before; and, for this reason, the boy's bread was very tempting. Besides, he had made many a meal of dry bread when he boarded himself in Boston; and now it was not hard at all for him to breakfast on unbuttered bread, minus both tea and coffee. He hastened to the bakery, and found it open. "Have you biscuit?" he inquired, meaning such as he was accustomed to eat in Boston. "We make nothing of the kind," answered the proprietor. "You may give me a three-penny loaf, then." "We have none." Benjamin began to think that he should have to go hungry still, since he did not know the names or prices of the kinds of bread made in Philadelphia. But in a moment he recovered himself, and said: "Then give me three-pennyworth of any sort." [Illustration: Miss Read's first Glimpse of her future Husband.--See page 162.] To his surprise the baker gave him three great puffy rolls, enough to satisfy half a dozen hungry persons. He looked at it, scarcely knowing at first what he could do with so much, but, as "necessity is the mother of invention," he soon discovered a way of disposing of it. He put a roll under each arm, and taking a third in his hand he proceeded to eat it, as he continued his way up Market Street. Let the reader stop here, and take a view of Benjamin Franklin, the runaway youth, as he made his first appearance in the city of Philadelphia. See him trudging up Market Street with his worn, dirty clothes (his best suit having been sent round by sea), his pockets stuffed out with shirts and stockings, and a "puffy roll" under each arm, and a third in his hand of which he is eating! A comical appearance certainly! It is not very probable that this runaway Benjamin will ever become "Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of France," or surprise the world by his philosophical discoveries! There is much more probability that he will live in some obscure printing-office, and die, "unknown, unhonoured, and unsung." Who wonders that a young lady, Miss Read, who was standing in the door of her father's residence as Benjamin passed, thought he made a very awkward and ridiculous appearance? She little thought she was taking a bird's-eye view of her future husband, as the youth with the rolls of bread under his arm proved to be. But just then he cared more for bread than he did for her; some years after, the case was reversed, and he cared more for her than he did for bread. Turning down Chestnut Street he continued to walk until he came round to the wharf where he landed. Being thirsty, he went to the boat for water, where he found the woman and child who came down the river with them on the previous night, waiting to go further. "Are you hungry?" he inquired of the child, who looked wistfully at his bread. "We are both very hungry," answered the woman, speaking for herself and child. "I have satisfied my hunger," said Benjamin, "and you may have the rest of my bread if you would like it," at the same time passing both rolls to her. "You are very kind indeed," responded the woman. "I thank you much for it;"--all of which was as good pay for the bread as Benjamin wanted. This was another instance of the generosity for which he was distinguished throughout his whole life. An American statesman said of him, in a eulogy delivered in Boston: "No form of personal suffering or social evil escaped his attention, or appealed in vain for such relief or remedy as his prudence could suggest, or his purse supply. From that day of his early youth, when, a wanderer from his home and friends in a strange place, he was seen sharing his rolls with a poor woman and child, to the last act of his public life, when he signed that well known memorial to Congress, a spirit of earnest and practical benevolence runs like a golden thread along his whole career." He then walked up the street again, and found well-dressed people going to church. Joining in the current, notwithstanding his appearance, he went with them into the large Quaker meeting-house that stood near the market. He took his seat, and waited for the services to begin, either not knowing what Quakers did at meeting, or else being ignorant that he was among this sect. As nothing was said, and he was weary and exhausted with the labours and watchings of the previous night, he became drowsy, and soon dropped into a sweet sleep. His nap might have proved a very unfortunate event for him, but for the kindness of a wide-awake Quaker. For he did not wake up when the meeting closed, and the congregation might have dispersed, and the sexton locked him in, without disturbing his slumbers. But the kind-hearted Quaker moved his spirit by giving him a gentle rap on the shoulder. He started up, somewhat surprised that the service was over, and passed out with the crowd. Soon after, meeting a fine-looking young Quaker, who carried his heart in his face, Benjamin inquired, "Can you tell me where a stranger can get a night's lodging?" "Here," answered the Quaker, "is a house where they receive strangers" (pointing to the sign of the Three Mariners near which they stood), "but it is not a reputable one; if thee will walk with me I will show thee a better one." "I will be obliged to you for doing so," answered Benjamin. "I was never in Philadelphia before, and am not acquainted with one person here." The Quaker conducted him to Water Street, and showed him the Crooked Billet,--a house where he might be accommodated. Benjamin thanked him for his kindness, entered the house, and called for dinner and a room. While sitting at the dinner-table, his host asked, "Where are you from?" "I am from Boston?" "Boston!" exclaimed the host, with some surprise. "How long since you left home?" This question being answered, he continued, "Have you friends in Philadelphia?" "None at all. I do not know a single person here." "What did you come here for?" "I came to get work in a printing-office. I am a printer by trade." "How old are you?" "I am seventeen years old, sir," replied Benjamin, just beginning to perceive that the man suspected him of being a runaway. "And came all the way from Boston alone?" "Yes, sir!" Benjamin closed the conversation as soon as he could conveniently, after perceiving that his appearance had excited suspicions, and went to his room, where he lay down and slept till six o'clock in the evening, when he was called to supper. He went to bed again very early, and was soon locked in the embrace of "nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." CHAPTER XVII. GETTING WORK. After a good night's sleep, Benjamin arose and dressed himself as neatly as he could with his old clothes, and repaired to Andrew Bradford's printing-office. "Ah! then you have arrived," said an old gentleman, rising to salute him as he entered. "I reached here first." "Oh, it is Mr. Bradford!" exclaimed Benjamin, surprised at meeting the old printer whom he saw in New York, and who directed him to his son, Andrew Bradford, of Philadelphia. "I did not expect to meet you here." "I suppose not. I started off unexpectedly, and came all the way on horseback. But I am glad that you have reached here safely. This is a young man from Boston" (addressing his son and introducing Benjamin), "after work in a printing-office, and I directed him to you. Franklin is your name, I believe." "Yes, sir! Benjamin Franklin." Mr. Bradford received him very cordially, and being about to eat breakfast, he said: "Come, it is my breakfast hour, and you shall be welcome to the table. We can talk this matter over at the table;"--and Benjamin accepted the invitation. "I told this young man," said the old printer from New York, "that one of your men died a short time since, and you would want a printer to take his place." "That is true," replied Mr. Andrew Bradford. "I did want another hand to take his place, but I hired one only a few days since. I am sorry to disappoint this youth who has come so far for work." "Is there another printing-office here?" asked Benjamin. "Yes; a man by the name of Keimer has just commenced the business, and I think he would be glad to employ you." "I must get work somewhere," added Benjamin, "for I have spent nearly all my money in getting here." "If he will not employ you," added Mr. Bradford, kindly, "you may lodge at my house, and I will give you a little work from time to time until business is better." "That will be a great favour to me," answered Benjamin, "for which I shall be very thankful;" and he really felt more grateful to Mr. Bradford for the offer than his words indicated. "I will go with you to see Mr. Keimer," said old Mr. Bradford from New York. "Perhaps I can be of some service to you in securing a place." Benjamin began to think he had fallen into very obliging hands; so he followed their advice, and went with his aged friend to see the newly-established printer. On arriving at the office, they met Mr. Keimer, and old Mr. Bradford introduced their business by saying: "Neighbour, I have brought to see you a young man of your business; perhaps you may want such a one." "That depends on his qualifications," answered Mr. Keimer. "How long have you worked at the business?" he inquired, turning to Benjamin. "Several years, sir." "Do you understand all parts of it so that you can go on with it?" "I think I do; you can try me and satisfy yourself." "Take this composing-stick and let me see whether you are competent or not," said Keimer. Benjamin proceeded to exhibit his skill at the work, and very soon satisfied Keimer that he had told the truth. "Very well done," said Keimer. "I will employ you as soon as I have sufficient work to warrant such a step. At present I have nothing for you to do." Here Benjamin saw the advantage of having attended to his business closely, so as to learn thoroughly the work he was to do. Some boys perform their work in just a passable way, not caring particularly whether it is well done, if they can only "pass muster." But not so with Benjamin. He sought to understand the business to which he attended, and to do as well as possible the work he undertook. The consequence was that he was a thorough workman, and in five minutes he was able to satisfy Keimer of the fact. This was greatly in his favour; and such a young man is never long out of business. Turning to Bradford, Keimer said, supposing him to be a Philadelphian who wished him well in his new enterprise: "What do you think of my prospects here, sir? Do you think I shall succeed in my business?" "That will depend upon your own exertions and business talents," was Bradford's reply. "I shall do all in my power to draw the business of the town," added Keimer; "and I think I can do it." "But how can you expect to get all the business when there is another printer here, who has been established some time?" Keimer answered this last inquiry by disclosing his plans, as Bradford quietly drew him out on every point, until he learned how he was calculating to command all the business, and run his son out. Nor did Keimer dream that he was conversing with the father of the other printer whom he designed to deprive of his livelihood. All the while Benjamin stood and listened to their conversation, perceiving that Mr. Bradford was shrewdly learning Keimer's plans for his son's benefit. "Did you not know that man?" inquired Benjamin, after Bradford left, leaving him in the office. "No; but I thought that he was one of the town's people who wished me well in my business, and therefore came in to introduce you." "It is not so," replied Benjamin. "That was the father of Andrew Bradford, your neighbour, the printer. He carries on printing in New York." "It can't be!" exclaimed Keimer, astonished at this bit of news, and startled at the thought of having made known his plans to a competitor. "It _can_ be," replied Benjamin. "He is certainly Bradford, the New York printer, and father of Andrew Bradford, the printer of this town." "How happened it that he should come here with you?" "I can tell you in few words," said Benjamin; and he went on and told him of his going to New York, and how he happened to come to Philadelphia, and meet Mr. Bradford there, and finally how he found his way to Keimer's office. "It will learn me a good lesson," said Keimer. "When I divulge secrets to another man whom I don't know, I shall not be in my right mind." Benjamin spent a short time in looking over Keimer's office, and found that his press was old and damaged, and his fount of English types nearly worn out. Possessing much more ingenuity than Keimer, and understanding a printing-press much better, he went to work, and in a short time put it into decent order for service. Keimer was composing an Elegy on Aquila Rose, an excellent young man who worked for Bradford, and who had recently died; and he agreed to send for Benjamin to print it off when it was ready. With this arrangement, Benjamin returned to Mr. Bradford to eat and lodge. A few days after he received a message from Keimer that the Elegy was ready to be printed. From that time Keimer provided him with work. "You must have another boarding-place," said Keimer to him one day. Benjamin was still boarding at Bradford's, and this was not agreeable to Keimer. "Just as you please," answered Benjamin; "I am satisfied to board there or go elsewhere." "I can get you boarded with an acquaintance of mine, I think, where you will find it very pleasant. I am confident that you will like it better there than at Mr. Bradford's." "I will go there, if you think it is best," added Benjamin. "My chest has arrived, and I can look a little more respectable now than I could before." The result was, that he went to board at Mr. Read's, the father of the young lady who stood in the door when he passed on the aforesaid Sunday morning with a roll of bread under each arm. His appearance was much improved by this time, so that even Miss Read saw that he was an intelligent promising young man. We learn one or two things about Benjamin from the foregoing, which the reader may ponder with benefit to himself. In the first place, he must have been very observing. He understood the construction of a printing-press so well, that he could put an old one into running order, youth as he was, when its proprietor was unable to do it. This is more remarkable, because he was not obliged to study the mechanism of a printing-press in order to work it. Doubtless many a person operates this and other machines without giving any particular attention to their structure. But a class of minds are never satisfied until they understand whatever commands their attention. They are inquisitive to learn the philosophy of things. It was so with Benjamin, and this characteristic proved a valuable element of his success. It was the secret of his inventions and discoveries thereafter. It was so with Stephenson, of whom we have spoken before. As soon as he was appointed plugman of an engine, at seventeen years of age, he began to study its construction. In his leisure hours, he took it to pieces and put it together again several times, in order to understand it. So of William Hutton, whose name is mentioned in another place. Encouraged by a couplet which he read in Dyce's Spelling-book-- "Despair of nothing that you would attain, Unwearied diligence your end will gain," he sought to master everything that he undertook. One day he borrowed a dulcimer, and made one by it. With no other tools than the hammer-key, and pliers of the stocking-frame for hammer and pincers, his pocket-knife, and a one-pronged fork that served as spring, awl, and gimlet, he made a capital dulcimer, which he sold for sixteen shillings. Here were both observation and perseverance, though not more finely developed than they were in the character of young Benjamin Franklin. Another important truth is learned from the foregoing, namely, that Benjamin was not proud. A sight of him passing up Market Street, with three large rolls of bread, is proof of this; or his appearance in the street and Quaker church in his everyday garb, because his best suit was "coming round by sea," is equally significant. How many boys of his age would have stayed away from church until the "best clothes" arrived! How many would seek for some concealment of their poverty, if possible, in similar circumstances! But these were small matters to Benjamin, in comparison with finding employment and earning a livelihood. He had a destiny to work out, and in working that he must do as he could, and not always as he would. He cared not for the laughs and jeers of those who could dress better and live more sumptuously than himself, since it was absolutely necessary for him to dress as he did, in order to "make his ends meet." He might have followed the example of some young men, and run into debt, in order to "cut a dash;" but he believed then, as he wrote afterwards, that "lying rides on debt's back," and that it is "better to go to bed supperless than to rise in debt;" or, as he expressed himself in other maxims, "Those have a short Lent who owe money to be paid at Easter," and "It is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel." CHAPTER XVIII. NEWS FROM HOME, AND RETURN. Hitherto Benjamin had lived contentedly in Philadelphia, striving to forget Boston and old familiar scenes as much as possible. No one at home knew of his whereabouts, except his old friend Collins, who kept the secret well. One day, however, a letter came to his address, and the superscription looked so familiar that Benjamin's hand fairly trembled as he broke the seal. It proved to be from his brother-in-law, Robert Homes, "master of a sloop that traded between Boston and Delaware." He came to Newcastle, it seems, about forty miles from Philadelphia, and, hearing of Benjamin's place of residence, he sat down and wrote him a letter, telling him of the deep sorrow into which his departure had plunged his parents, who still were wholly ignorant of his fate, and exhorting him to return home to his friends, who would welcome him kindly. The letter was a strong appeal to his feelings. Benjamin sat down and replied to the letter, stating his reasons in full for leaving Boston, giving an account of his present circumstances and prospects, and closing by expressing kind feelings for all the loved ones at home, but declining to return. Not many days after Benjamin wrote and sent his letter, an unusual scene transpired at the office. He was at work near the window, when, on looking out, he saw Governor Keith approaching. "The Governor is coming in," said he to Keimer. Keimer looked out of the window, and saw that it was so, whereupon he hurried down to the door, not a little excited by the thought of waiting upon the Governor, supposing, of course, that he was coming in to see him. "Does Benjamin Franklin work for you?" inquired the Governor. "He does," answered Keimer, both astonished and perplexed by the inquiry. What he could want of him he could not imagine. "Can I see him?" asked the Governor. "Certainly; walk in." The Governor and Colonel French, who was with him, were ushered into the presence of Benjamin. "I am happy to make the acquaintance of a young man of your abilities," he said to him. "I regret that you did not report yourself to me long ago." Benjamin was too much astonished at the unexpected interview to be able to reply; and the Governor went on to say, that "he called to invite him to an interview at the tavern." Benjamin was more perplexed than ever, and Keimer stared with amazement. But after some hesitation, arising from sudden surprise, Benjamin consented to go with the Governor, and was soon seated with him and Colonel French in a room of the tavern at the corner of Third Street. "I called to see you," said the Governor, "respecting the printing business in this town. I understand that you are well acquainted with it in all its branches, and, from my knowledge of your abilities, I think you would succeed admirably in setting up the business for yourself. Our printers here are ignorant and inefficient, and we must have more competent men to do the government work." How the Governor knew so much about his qualifications for the business, Benjamin could not divine. He replied, however, "I have nothing to commence business with, and it will require some capital. My father might assist me if he were disposed; but I have no reason to think that he would." "I will write to him upon the subject," said the Governor, "and perhaps he may be persuaded. I can show him the advantages of such an enterprise to yourself and the public, so that he cannot doubt the practicability of the thing." "There are two printers here already," continued Benjamin; "and a third one would hardly be supported." "A third one, who understands the business as you do," responded the Governor, "would command the chief business of the town in a short time. I will pledge you all the public printing of the government." "And I will pledge the same for the government of Delaware," said Colonel French of Newcastle. "There can be no doubt on this point," continued Governor Keith. "You had better decide to return to Boston by the first vessel, and take a letter from me to your father." "I will so decide at once, if such is your judgment in the matter," replied Benjamin. "Then it is understood," added his Excellency, "that you will repair to Boston in the first vessel that sails. In the mean time, you must continue to work for Mr. Keimer, keeping the object of this interview a profound secret." Having made this arrangement, they separated, and Benjamin returned to the printing-office, scarcely knowing how he should evade the anticipated inquisitiveness of Keimer respecting the interview; but he succeeded in keeping the secret. His mind, however, laboured much upon the question, how Governor Keith should know anything about him, a poor obscure printer-boy. It was not until he returned to Boston that this mystery was solved. Then he learned that Keith was present at Newcastle when his brother-in-law received his (Benjamin's) letter, and Captain Homes read it aloud to him. "How old is he?" asked the Governor. "Seventeen," replied Captain Homes. "Only seventeen! I am surprised that a youth of that age should write so well. He must be an uncommon boy." Captain Homes assured him that he was a very competent youth, and possessed abilities that qualified him for almost any place. Here was the secret of Keith's interest in the printer-boy, but of which the latter knew nothing until he met his brother-in-law in Boston. Before an opportunity offered for Benjamin to go to Boston, Governor Keith frequently sent for him to dine with him, on which occasions he conversed with him in a very friendly and familiar way. It was quite unusual for a boy of seventeen years to become the frequent guest of a Governor, and no wonder he was almost bewildered by the unexpected attention. Some would have become vain and proud in consequence of such attentions; but Benjamin bore the honours meekly. About the last of April, 1724, a small vessel offered for Boston. Benjamin made arrangements to go, took leave of Keimer as if going to visit his friends, and, with Keith's letter to his father, sailed. The vessel had a boisterous time at sea, but after a fortnight's voyage she entered Boston harbour. Benjamin had been absent seven months, and his parents had not heard a word from him. His brother-in-law had not returned from Newcastle, nor written to them about his knowledge of Benjamin. The reader may well imagine, then, that he took them all by surprise. His poor mother had laid his absence to heart so much, that it had worn upon her, and his return was to her almost like life from the dead. She was overjoyed, and no language could express her delight as she looked into the face of her long-lost Benjamin. His father was not less rejoiced, although he had a different way of showing it. Indeed, all the family, except his brother James, gave him a most cordial and affectionate welcome. He did not return ragged and penniless, as runaways generally do, but he was clad in a new and handsome suit, carried a watch in his pocket, and had about five pounds sterling in silver in his purse. He never looked half so genteel and neat in his life, and certainly never commanded so much money at one time before. Before his brother James heard of his arrival, Benjamin hastened to the printing-office, and startled him by suddenly standing before him. James stopped his work, saluted him in rather a reserved manner, and, after surveying him from head to foot, turned to his work again. It was rather a cold reception on the whole, but not altogether unexpected to Benjamin. A brother who had driven him away by his harsh treatment could hardly be expected to welcome him back with a very warm heart. The journeymen were delighted to see him, and they were very inquisitive. "Where have you been, Ben?" asked one. "To Philadelphia," he answered. "What kind of a place is it?" "It is one of the finest places I ever saw. I like it better than Boston." "Going back?" inquired a second person. "Yes; and very soon, too," he replied. "That is the place for the printing business." "What kind of money do you have there?" inquired Another. There was no established currency in the country at that time, and his interrogator wanted to know what they used in Philadelphia. Instead of replying directly, Benjamin drew the silver from his pocket, and spread it out before them. It was quite a curiosity to them, as they used only paper money in Boston; and, besides, it caused them to think that their old associate had fallen upon lucky days. "You made a lucky hit, Ben, this time," said one. "Heavy stuff to carry about," suggested a second. "A man would want a wheelbarrow if he had much of it." "Perhaps you would accept of the wheelbarrow and silver together, rather than have neither," responded Benjamin. By this time Benjamin's watch was discovered, and there was a general desire to see it; so he laid it down before them, while his brother appeared "grum and sullen." "That is a convenient companion," said Benjamin, as he laid it down. "And you can afford to have such things," added one of the number, "because you save your money, and don't spend it for pleasure, drink, and luxuries." "Ben has fared so well," said one, "that it belongs to him to treat the company." As we have said before, the use of intoxicating drinks was general at that time, and when old friends met, it was common to signalize the occasion by the use of such beverage. Had Benjamin lived at this day, with his temperate habits, he would have refused to pander to their appetite for strong drink, and suggested some other kind of treat. But, living as he did when there were no temperance societies, and no alarm at the growing evils of intoxication, he accepted the proposal in his accustomed generous way. "There is a dollar," said he, throwing out a dollar in silver, "take that, and drink what you please for old acquaintance sake." Then, pocketing his watch and money, he took his leave. His brother was greatly incensed at this visit, and regarded it in the light of an insult. His mother endeavoured to bring him to terms of reconciliation with Benjamin, but in vain. "You are brothers," said she, "and you ought to behave towards each other as brothers. It is very painful to me to think of your hostility to Benjamin, and I do hope that you will forget the past, and be true to each other in future." "Never," replied James. "He insulted me so directly before my workmen the other day, that I shall not forget nor forgive it." James was mistaken in his view of Benjamin's intention. The latter did not mean to insult him at the office. He would have been glad of a cordial welcome from James, and his feelings were such that he would have rejoicingly blotted out the recollection of his former ill-treatment, had James met him as a brother. Benjamin took the first opportunity to make known to his father the object and circumstances of his visit home, and to hand him the Governor's letter, which he received with manifest surprise, though he evidently doubted whether it was genuine. For several days he entered into no conversation about the matter, as he did not exactly know what to make of it. Just then Captain Homes returned, and Mr. Franklin showed him the letter of Governor Keith, and inquired if he knew the man. "I have met him," replied Captain Homes, "and was pleased with his appearance. I think it would be well for Benjamin to follow his advice." "He cannot be a man of much discretion," continued Mr. Franklin, "to think of setting up a boy in business who lacks three years of arriving at his majority. The project does not strike me favourably at all." "He was much taken with Benjamin's abilities," added Captain Homes, "by a letter which I received from him at Newcastle, and which I read to him, as he was present when I received it." "His letters may be well enough, for aught I know; but a youth of his age, though his abilities be good, has not sufficient judgment to conduct business for himself. I shall not give my consent to such a wild scheme." Mr. Franklin replied to Governor Keith's letter, and thanked him kindly for the patronage he offered his son, but declining to set up a youth in a business of so much importance. [Illustration: Anecdote of Dr. Mather and Franklin--Humility "beaten in!"--See page 186.] "I am rejoiced," said he to Benjamin, just before the latter started to go back, "that you have conducted yourself so well as to secure the esteem of Sir William Keith. Your appearance, too, shows that you have been industrious and economical, all of which pleases me very much. I should advise you to go back, and think no more of going into business for yourself until you are of age. By industry, economy, and perseverance you will be able to command the means of establishing business then. As yet you are too young. I should be glad to have you remain here with your brother, if he could be reconciled to you; but as it is, you shall have my approbation and blessing in returning to Philadelphia." It was during this visit to Boston that he called upon the celebrated Dr. Increase Mather, to whose preaching he had been accustomed to listen. The Doctor received him kindly, and introduced him into his library, where they chatted in a familiar way for some time. When Benjamin rose to go out, "Come this way," said the Doctor, "I will show you a nearer passage out,"--pointing him to a narrow passage, with a beam crossing it over head. They were still talking, the Doctor following behind, and Benjamin partly turned around toward him. "_Stoop! stoop!_" shouted the Doctor. Benjamin did not understand what he meant, until his head struck against the beam with considerable force. "There," said the Doctor, laughing, "you are young, and have the world before you; stoop as you go through it, and you may miss many hard thumps." Nearly seventy years after, the recipient of this counsel wrote:-- "This advice, thus beaten into my head, has frequently been of use to me; and I often think of it, when I see pride mortified, and misfortunes brought upon people by their carrying their heads too high." Benjamin's old companion, Collins, was delighted with his account of Philadelphia, and resolved to accompany him thither on his return. He was a clerk in the post-office; but he gave up his situation for the more alluring prospects of a residence in Pennsylvania. He started two or three days before Benjamin, as he wanted to stop and make a visit in Rhode Island, having previously gathered up his books, "which were a pretty collection in mathematics and philosophy," and packed them to go, with Benjamin's baggage, around by sea to New York, where they would meet. CHAPTER XIX. BACK AGAIN. On his return, Benjamin sailed in a sloop to New York, where he had arranged to meet Collins. They put in at Newport on business, where he had a good opportunity to visit his brother John, who had been married and settled there some years. He received a very hearty and affectionate welcome from his brother, who was always kind and true to him. His stay was short, as he must go when the sloop did, but he made the most of it, and enjoyed himself much during the short time. Just before he left Newport, a friend of his brother, a Mr. Vernon, requested him to collect a debt for him in Pennsylvania, of about thirty-five pounds currency, and use the money as he pleased until he should call for it. Accordingly, he gave Benjamin an order to receive it. At Newport they took in a number of passengers, among whom was a Quaker lady and her servants, and two young women. Benjamin was very attentive in assisting the Quaker lady about her baggage, for which she was very thankful. He soon became acquainted with the two young women, and they laughed and chatted together. They were handsomely attired, appeared intelligent, and were extremely sociable. The motherly Quaker lady saw that there was a growing familiarity between them, and she called Benjamin aside, feeling for him somewhat as she would for a son, and said: "Young man, I am concerned for thee, as thou hast no friend with thee, and seems not to know much of the world, or of the snares youth is exposed to; depend upon it, these are very bad women; I can see it by all their actions; and if thou art not upon thy guard, they will draw thee into some danger; they are strangers to thee, and I advise thee, in a friendly concern for thy welfare, to have no acquaintance with them." "Indeed," said Benjamin, with much surprise, "I see nothing out of the way in them. They are intelligent and social; and I am rather surprised at your suspicions." "But I have heard them say enough to convince me that my suspicions are well founded," replied the old lady; and she repeated to him some of their conversation which she had overheard. "You are right, then," quickly answered Benjamin, after listening to her. "I am much obliged to you for your advice, and I will heed it." Just before they arrived at New York, the young women invited him to call at their residence, naming the street and number, but he did not accept their invitation. The next day the captain missed a silver spoon and other things from the cabin, and suspecting the two girls, had their residence searched, where the missing articles were found, in consequence of which the artful thieves were punished. Benjamin always felt thankful to the old lady for her timely warning, and considered that following her advice probably saved him from trouble and ruin. Collins had been in New York several days when Benjamin arrived. The latter was astounded to find him intoxicated when they met. "Can it be," he exclaimed to Collins, "that you are intemperate?" "I intemperate!" retorted Collins, disposed to resent the accusation. "Do you call me drunk?" "No, you are not exactly drunk; but then you are disguised with liquor, and I am utterly astonished. Once you was as temperate and industrious as any young man in Boston, and far more respected than most of them. How did it happen that you formed this evil habit?" Collins saw that he could not deceive Benjamin; so he made a clean breast of the matter, and confessed to have formed intemperate habits soon after Benjamin first left Boston. He said that his appetite for brandy was strong, and that he had been intoxicated every day since his arrival in New York. "I have lost all my money," he said, "and have nothing to pay my bills." "Lost your money!" exclaimed Benjamin. "How did you lose that?" "I lost it by gaming," he replied. "What! a gambler, too?" "Yes, if you will have it so," answered Collins, somewhat coolly; "and you must lend me money to pay my bills." "If I had known this," continued Benjamin, "I would not have persuaded you to leave Boston. And here let me tell you, that it is impossible for you to find a situation unless you reform." "Perhaps so," answered Collins; "but that is not the question now that interests me. I want to know whether you will lend me money to pay my bills here and go on my journey?" "I must, for aught I see," replied Benjamin. "I should not leave you here without money and friends, of course, for that would be cruel. But you must try to reform." Collins was a very clever young man, as we have seen, possessing marked mathematical talents, and he might have become one of the first scholars of his day, had he enjoyed the advantages of a course of study. Some of the clergymen of Boston showed him much attention on account of his abilities and love of books. But strong drink blasted his hopes. In New York, Benjamin received a message from Governor Burnet, inviting him to call at his house. This was quite as unexpected as the visit of Governor Keith, and he began to think that governors had a passionate regard for him. He found, however, that the Governor had learned from the captain of the sloop, that he had a young man on board who brought with him a large number of books from Boston. This interested the Governor, and was the occasion of his sending the aforesaid invitation to Benjamin. He accepted the invitation, and would have taken Collins with him if the latter had been sober. Governor Burnet received him with much cordiality, showed him his large library, and conversed freely about books and authors for some time. It was an agreeable interview to Benjamin, the more so because it was the second time that a Governor had sought him out, and showed him attention. They proceeded to Philadelphia. On the way Benjamin collected Vernon's debt, which proved fortunate, since otherwise his money would not have carried him through, from having had the bills of two to pay. A good trip brought them safely to their place of destination, and Collins boarded with Benjamin, at the latter's expense, waiting for an opening in some counting-room. The reader may be curious to learn the fate of Collins, and we will briefly record it here. He tried to secure a situation, but his dram-drinking habits frustrated his exertions. Every few days he went to Benjamin for money, knowing that he had that of Vernon, always promising to pay as soon as he found business. Benjamin, in the kindness of his heart, lent him little by little, until he was troubled to know what he should do if Vernon should call for the money. Sometimes he lectured Collins severely for his habits, until their friendship was essentially modified. One day they were in a boat with other young men, on the Delaware, when Collins refused to row. "We shall not row you," said Benjamin. "You _will_ row me, or stay all night on the water, just as you please," retorted Collins. "We can stay as long as you can," continued Benjamin. "I shall not row you." "Come, Ben, let us row," said one of the young men. "If he don't want to row let him sit still." "Row him, if you wish to," replied Benjamin, "I shall not." "Yes, you will," shouted Collins, starting from his seat. "I will be rowed home, and you shall help do it, or I will throw you overboard;" and he hurried to execute his threat. But, as he came up and struck at him, Benjamin clapped his head under his thighs, and rising, threw him head over heels into the river. He knew that Collins was a good swimmer, so that he had no fears about his drowning. "Will you row now?" he inquired, as Collins swam towards the boat. "Not a stroke," he answered, angrily; whereupon they sent the boat forward out of his reach, with one or two strokes of the oar. Again and again they allowed him to approach the boat, when they repeated the question: "Will you promise to row?" and as often received an emphatic "No" for a reply. At length, perceiving that he was quite exhausted, they drew him in without extorting from him a promise to row. This scene closed the intimate relations of Benjamin and Collins. They scarcely spoke together civilly afterward. Collins sailed for Barbadoes within a few weeks after, and he was never heard from again. He probably died there, a miserable sot, and Benjamin lost all the money he lent him. In later life, Benjamin Franklin referred to this event, and spoke of himself as having received retribution for his influence over Collins. For, when they were so intimate in Boston, Benjamin corrupted his religious opinions by advocating doubts about the reality of religion, until Collins became a thorough sceptic. Until that time he was industrious, temperate, and honest. But having lost his respect for religion, he was left without restraint, and went rapidly to ruin. Benjamin was the greatest sufferer by his fall, and thus was rebuked for influencing him to treat religion with contempt. Benjamin immediately sought an interview with Governor Keith, and told him the result of his visit home, and gave his father's reasons for declining to assist him. "But since he will not set you up," said the Governor, "I will do it myself. Give me an inventory of the things necessary to be had from England, and I will send for them. You shall repay me when you are able; I am resolved to have a good printer here, and I am sure you must succeed." This was said with such apparent cordiality that Benjamin did not doubt that he meant just what he affirmed, so he yielded to his suggestion to make out an inventory of necessary articles. In the meantime he went to work for Keimer. CHAPTER XX. A LITERARY GAME. At this point it is necessary to speak of Benjamin's associates. He was not long in finding new acquaintances in Philadelphia. His industry and general good habits won the respect and confidence of all who came in contact with him. Among those who particularly pleased him were three young men, Charles Osborne, Joseph Watson, and James Ralph, all lovers of reading. Their literary tendencies no doubt attracted Benjamin, and caused him to value their companionship more highly. The first two were clerks of Charles Brockden, an eminent conveyancer of the town, and the other was a merchant's clerk. Watson was a pious young man of sterling integrity, while the others were more lax in their religious opinions and principles. All were sensible young men, much above the average of this class in intellectual endowments. Osborne and Ralph were imaginative and poetical, and frequently tried their talents at verse-making. Much of their leisure time was spent together, reading to each other, and discussing what they read. Even their Sundays were often wickedly devoted to such intellectual pastime on the banks of the Schuylkill, whither they strolled, instead of visiting the house of God--all except Watson, who had too much religious principle thus to desecrate the Sabbath. "You overrate your talent for poetry," said Osborne to Ralph, at one of their interviews. "You will never make a poet, if you live to be as old as Methuselah." "Much obliged for your compliment," answered Ralph; "but it does not alter my own opinion. All poets have their faults when they begin. It is practice that makes perfect." "It will take something more than practice to make a poet of you," continued Osborne. "That piece which you have just read has no poetry about it. Besides, if you should become a poet, it will not bring you a fortune, as you seem to think." "Perhaps not; but I am confident that a poet may easily win both popularity and a livelihood. At any rate, I am determined to try it, in spite of your decidedly poor opinion of my abilities." "Well, I advise you to stick to the business to which you were bred," added Osborne, "if you would keep out of the poor-house. A good clerk is better than a bad poet"--and he cast a particularly roguish glance at Ralph as he said it. "You need not set yourself up for a critic," said Benjamin to Osborne, after hearing these remarks. "I think more of Ralph as a poet than I do of you as a critic. You are not willing to grant that his productions have any merit at all; but I think they have. Moreover, it is a good practice for him to write poetry, to improve himself in the use of language." "Fiddlestick!" retorted Osborne; "it is wasting his time, that might be profitably employed in reading." "Not half so much as your empty criticisms are wasting your breath," said Benjamin, with a smile. "But, look here, I will tell you what we better do. At our next meeting each one of us shall bring a piece of poetry, of our own making, and we will compare notes, and criticise each other." "I will agree to that," replied Ralph. "And so will I," added Osborne, "provided you will decide upon the subject now, so that all shall have fair play." "We will do that, of course," answered Benjamin. "Have you a subject to suggest?" "None, unless it is a paraphrase of the eighteenth Psalm, which describes the descent of the Deity." "A capital subject," said Benjamin; "what do you say to taking that, Ralph?" "I am satisfied with it," replied Ralph; "and more, too,--I rather like it." Thus it was agreed that each one should write a poetical paraphrase of the eighteenth Psalm for their next meeting, and with this understanding they separated. Just before the time of their next meeting, Ralph called upon Benjamin with his piece, and asked him to examine it. "I have been so busy," said Benjamin, "that I have not been able to write anything, and I shall be obliged to appear unprepared. But I should like to read yours;" and he proceeded to examine it. "That is excellent," said he, after reading it. "You have not written anything that is equal to this." "But," said Ralph, "Osborne never will allow the least merit in anything of mine, but makes a thousand criticisms, out of mere envy. He will do so with that piece, I have no doubt." "If he does, it will prove that he is prejudiced against you, or is no judge of poetry," replied Benjamin. "I have a plan to test him," continued Ralph. "He is not so jealous of you; I wish, therefore, you would take this piece and produce it as yours. I will make some excuse and have nothing. We shall then hear what he will say to it." "I will do it," answered Benjamin, who was well convinced that Osborne was prejudiced against Ralph; "but I must transcribe it, so that it will appear in my own handwriting." "Certainly; and be careful that you don't let the secret out." They met at the appointed time. Watson was the first to read his performance. Osborne came next, and his piece was much better than Watson's. Ralph noticed two or three blemishes, but pointed out many beauties in it. "I have nothing to read," said Ralph, whose turn came next in order. "I will try to do my part next time." "Poets ought to be ready at any time," remarked Osborne jestingly. "Well, then, Ben, let us have yours." "I rather think I must be excused," answered Benjamin, feigning an unwillingness to read. "No excuse for you," said Osborne. "You have it written, for I saw it in your hand." "That is true," replied Benjamin; "but after such fine productions as we have heard, there is little encouragement for me to read this. I think I must correct it and dress it up a little before I read it." "Not a word of it," said Ralph. "There is no excuse for any one who is prepared." So, after much urging, Benjamin proceeded to read the verses, with seeming diffidence, all listening with rapt attention. "You must read that again," said Osborne, when the first reading was finished; which Benjamin consented to do. "You surprise me, Ben," said Osborne, after the piece was read the second time. "You are a genuine poet. I had no idea that you could write like that." "Nor I," added Watson. "It is better than half the poetry that is printed. If we had not given out the subject, I should have charged you with stealing it." "What do _you_ say, Ralph?" inquired Osborne. "You are a poet, and ought to be a judge of such matters." "I don't think it is entirely faultless," responded Ralph. "You have commended it full as highly as it will bear, in my estimation." "Well done!" exclaimed Osborne. "Your opinion of that piece proves that you are destitute of poetical taste, as I have told you before." Ralph and Benjamin saw that Osborne was fairly caught, and they hardly dared to exchange glances, lest they should betray themselves. They succeeded, however, in controlling themselves, and allowed Osborne to express himself most emphatically. Ralph walked home with Osborne, and their conversation was upon Benjamin's poetry. "Who would have imagined," said Osborne, "that Franklin was capable of such a performance,--such painting, such force, such fire! In common conversation he seems to have no choice of words; he hesitates and blunders; and yet, how he writes!" "Possibly he may not have written it," suggested Ralph. "That is the 'unkindest cut of all,'" retorted Osborne, "to charge him of plagiarism. Franklin would not descend to so mean a thing." They parted for that night; but Ralph embraced the first opportunity to call on Benjamin, and have a sort of rejoicing over the success of their enterprise. They laughed to their hearts' content, and discussed the point of revealing the secret. They agreed that the real author of the article should be known at their next meeting. Accordingly, the affair was so managed as to bring the facts of the case before their companions at their next gathering. Osborne was utterly confounded when the revelation was made, and knew not what to say for himself. Watson shook his whole frame with convulsive laughter at poor Osborne's expense, and Benjamin joined him with a keen relish. Never was a fellow in more mortifying predicament than this would-be critic, since it was now so manifest that he had been influenced by blind prejudice in his criticisms upon Ralph's poetry. It was certain now that he had given it his most emphatic indorsement. While Osborne was brought to confusion and suffered deservedly, the trick played upon him is not one which can be approved by right-thinking persons. Deceit is never commendable. A few years after, Watson died in Benjamin's arms, much lamented by all his companions, who regarded him as "the best of their set." Osborne removed to the West Indies, where he became an eminent lawyer, but was early cut off by death. Of the others we shall have occasion to speak hereafter. It is quite evident that this literary way of spending their leisure time was of great advantage to this group of youths. Doubtless it led to the cultivation of that taste which most of them who lived exhibited for literature and science in after life. It is certainly an example of the wise use of spare moments which the young may safely imitate. CHAPTER XXI. GOING TO ENGLAND. At the earliest opportunity, Benjamin presented the Governor with an inventory of the articles necessary in setting up the printing business. "And what will be the probable expense of all these?" inquired the Governor. "About one hundred pounds sterling, as nearly as I can estimate," he replied. "But would it not prove an advantage for you to be there yourself, to select the types, and see that everything is good?" "I suppose it would, though such a thing as going to England is scarcely possible with me." "That remains to be seen," continued Governor Keith. "Another advantage of your being there is, that you could form acquaintances, and establish correspondence in the bookselling and stationery line." "That would certainly be an advantage," replied Benjamin. "Then get yourself ready to go in the Annis," said the Governor. The Annis was the annual ship that sailed between Philadelphia and London, and the only one, at that time, which performed this voyage. Instead of there being scores of vessels sailing between these two ports, as now, there was only this solitary one, going and returning once a year. "It is not necessary to prepare immediately," answered Benjamin, "since it is several months before the Annis will sail." "True; I only meant that you should be in readiness when the ship sails. It will be necessary for you still to keep the matter secret while you continue to work for Keimer." Keimer, for whom Benjamin worked, was a singular man in some respects, and liked to draw him into discussions upon religious subjects. At one time he thought seriously of originating a new sect, and proposed to Benjamin to join him, as his masterly powers of argumentation would confound opponents. He wore his beard long, because it is somewhere said in the Mosaic Law, "_Thou shalt not mar the corners of thy beard._" Also, he kept the seventh, instead of the first day of the week, as a Sabbath. Benjamin opposed him on these points, and their discussions were frequent and warm. Keimer often exhorted him to embrace his own peculiar views on these subjects. Finally, Benjamin replied, "I will do it, provided you will join me in not eating animal food, and I will adhere to them as long as you will stick to a vegetable diet." Benjamin was here aiming at some diversion, since Keimer was a great eater, and thought much of a savoury dish. Benjamin wanted to starve him a little, as he thought some of his preaching and practice did not correspond. "I should die," said Keimer, "if I adopt such a diet; my constitution will not bear it." "Nonsense!" answered Benjamin. "You will be better than you are now. So much animal food is bad for any one." "What is there left to eat when meat is taken away?" inquired Keimer. "Little or nothing, I should think." "I will pledge myself to furnish recipes for forty palatable dishes," answered Benjamin, "and not one of them shall smell of the flesh-pots of Egypt." "Who will prepare them? I am sure no woman in this town can do it." "Each dish is so simple that any woman can easily prepare it," added Benjamin. Keimer finally accepted the proposition. He was to become a vegetarian, and Benjamin was to embrace formally the long-beard doctrine, and observe the seventh day for a Sabbath. A woman was engaged to prepare their food and bring it to them, and Benjamin furnished her with a list of forty dishes, "in which there entered neither fish, flesh, nor fowl." For about three months Keimer adhered to this way of living, though it was very trying to him all the while. Benjamin was often diverted to see his manifest longings for fowl and flesh, and expected that he would soon let him off from keeping the seventh day and advocating long beards. At the end of three months, Keimer declared that he could hold out no longer, and the agreement was broken. It was a happy day for him; and to show his gladness, he ordered a roast pig, and invited Benjamin and two ladies to dine with him. But the pig being set upon the table before his guests arrived, the temptation was so great that he could not resist, and he devoured the whole of it before they came, thus proving that he was a greater pig than the one he swallowed. It should be remarked here, that for some time Benjamin had not followed the vegetable diet which he adopted in Boston. The circumstances and reason of his leaving are thus given by himself:-- "In my first voyage from Boston to Philadelphia, being becalmed off Block Island, our crew employed themselves in catching cod, and hauled up a great number. Till then, I had stuck to my resolution to eat nothing that had had life; and on this occasion I considered, according to my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had nor could do us any injury that might justify this massacre. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had been formerly a great lover of fish, and when it came out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanced some time between principle and inclination, till recollecting that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then, thought I, 'If you eat one another, I don't see why we may not eat you.' So I dined upon cod very heartily, and have since continued to eat as other people; returning only now and then to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a _reasonable creature_, since it enables one to find or make a _reason_ for everything one has a mind to do." The time was now approaching for the Annis to sail, and Benjamin began to realize the trial of leaving his friends. A new tie now bound him to Philadelphia. A mutual affection existed between Miss Read and himself, and it had ripened into sincere and ardent love. He desired a formal engagement with her before his departure, but her mother interposed. "Both of you are too young," said she,--"only eighteen! You cannot tell what changes may occur before you are old enough to be married." "But that need not have anything to do with an engagement," said Benjamin. "We only pledge ourselves to marry each other at some future time." "And why do you deem such a pledge necessary?" asked the good mother. "Simply because 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,'" replied Benjamin, with his face all wreathed with smiles. "But I have not quite satisfied myself that it is best to give up my daughter to a printer," added Mrs. Read. "How so?" asked Benjamin, with some anxiety. "Because," she replied, "there are already several printing-offices in the country, and I doubt whether another can be supported." "If I cannot support her by the printing business," answered Benjamin, "then I will do it some other way." "I have no doubt of your good intentions; but you may not realize the fulfilment of all your hopes. I think you had better leave the matter as it is until you return from England, and see how you are prospered." The old lady won the day, and the young couple agreed to proceed no further at present. The above reference to the fact that only four or five printing-offices existed in America at that time, may serve to exhibit its rapid growth. For in 1840, there were _one thousand five hundred and fifty-seven_ of them, and now probably there are twice that number. "I am going to England with you, Benjamin," said Ralph one day, as they met. "Don't you believe it?" "It is almost too good news to believe," replied Benjamin. "But I should be glad of your company, I assure you." "It is true," continued Ralph. "I was not jesting when I told you, the other day, that I meant to go if I could." "Then you are really in earnest? You mean to go?" "To be sure I do. I have fully decided to go." Benjamin did not ask him what he was going for; but, from some remarks he heard him make previously, he inferred that he was going out to establish a correspondence, and obtain goods to sell on commission. Nor did he learn to the contrary until after they arrived in London, when Ralph informed him that he did not intend to return,--that he had experienced some trouble with his wife's relations, and he was going away to escape from it, leaving his wife and child to be cared for by her friends. As the time of their departure drew near, Benjamin called upon the Governor for letters of introduction and credit, which he had promised, but they were not ready. He called again, and they were still unwritten. At last, just as he was leaving, he called at his door, and his secretary, Dr. Baird, came out, and said: "The Governor is engaged upon important business now, but he will be at Newcastle before the Annis reaches there, and will deliver the letters to you there." As soon as they reached Newcastle, Benjamin went to the Governor's lodgings for the letters, but was told by his secretary that he was engaged, and should be under the necessity of sending the letters to him on board the ship, before she weighed anchor. Benjamin was somewhat puzzled by this unexpected turn of affairs, but still he did not dream of deception or dishonesty. He returned to the vessel, and awaited her departure. Soon after her canvas was flung to the breeze, he went to the captain and inquired for the letters. "I understand," said he, "that Colonel French brought letters on board from the Governor. I suppose some of them are directed to my care." "Yes," replied the captain, "Colonel French brought a parcel of letters on board, and they were all put into the bag with others, so that I cannot tell whether any of them are for you or not. But you shall have an opportunity, before we reach England, of looking them over for yourself." "I thank you," answered Benjamin; "that will be all that is necessary;" and he yielded himself up to enjoyment for the remainder of the voyage, without the least suspicion of disappointment and trouble. When they entered the English Channel, the captain, true to his promise, allowed Benjamin to examine the bag of letters. He found several on which his name was written, as under his care, and some others he judged, from the handwriting, came from the Governor. One of them was addressed to Baskett, the King's printer, and another to a stationer, and these two, Benjamin was confident, were for him to take. In all he took seven or eight from the bag. They arrived in London on the 24th of December, 1724, when Benjamin lacked about a month of being nineteen years old. Soon after he landed, he called upon the stationer to whom one of the letters was directed: "A letter, sir, from Governor Keith, of Pennsylvania, America!" "I don't know such a person," replied the stationer, at the same time receiving the letter. "O, this is from Riddlesden!" said he, on opening it. "I have lately found him to be a complete rascal, and I will have nothing to do with him, nor receive any letters from him;" and he handed back the letter to Benjamin, turned upon his heel, and left to wait upon a customer. Benjamin was astonished and mortified. He had not the least suspicion that he was bearing any other than the Governor's letter, and he was almost bewildered for a moment. The thought flashed into his mind that the Governor had deceived him. In a few moments his thoughts brought together the acts of the Governor in the matter, and now he could see clearly evidence of insincerity and duplicity. He immediately sought out Mr. Denham, a merchant, who came over in the Annis with him, and gave him a history of the affair. "Governor Keith is a notorious deceiver," said Mr. Denham. "I do not think he wrote a single letter for you, nor intended to do it. He has been deceiving you from beginning to end." "He pretended to have many acquaintances here," added Benjamin, "to whom he promised to give me letters of credit, and I supposed that they would render me valuable assistance." "Letters of credit!" exclaimed Denham. "It is a ludicrous idea. How could he write letters of credit, when he has no credit of his own to give? No one who knows him has the least confidence in his character. There is no dependence to be placed upon him in anything. He is entirely irresponsible." "What, then, shall I do?" asked Benjamin with evident concern. "Here I am among strangers without the means of returning, and what shall I do?" "I advise you to get employment in a printing-office here for the present. Among the printers here you will improve yourself, and, when you return to America, you will set up to greater advantage." There was no alternative left for Benjamin but to find work where he could, and make the best of it. Again he had "paid too dear for the whistle," and must suffer for it. He took lodgings with Ralph in Little Britain, at three shillings and sixpence a week, and very soon obtained work at Palmer's famous printing-house in Bartholomew Close, where he laboured nearly a year. Ralph was not so successful in getting a situation. He made application here and there, but in vain; and, after several weeks of fruitless attempts at securing a place, he decided to leave London, and teach a country school. Previously, however, in company with Benjamin, he spent much time at plays and public amusements. This was rather strange, since neither of them had been wont to waste their time and money in this way; and years after, Benjamin spoke of it as a great error of his life, which he deeply regretted. But Ralph's departure put an end to this objectionable pleasure-seeking, and Benjamin returned to his studious habits when out of the office. At this time, the ability to compose which he had carefully nurtured proved of great assistance to him. He was employed in the printing of Wollaston's "Religion of Nature," when he took exceptions to some of his reasoning, and wrote a dissertation thereon, and printed it, with the title, "A DISSERTATION ON LIBERTY AND NECESSITY, PLEASURE AND PAIN." This pamphlet fell into the hands of one Lyons, a surgeon, author of a book entitled "The Infallibility of Human Judgment," and he was so much pleased with it, that he sought out the author, and showed him marked attention. He introduced him to Dr. Mandeville, author of the "Fable of the Bees," and to Dr. Pemberton, who promised to take him to see Sir Isaac Newton. Sir Hans Sloane invited him to his house in Bloomsbury Square, and showed him all his curiosities. In this way, the small pamphlet which he wrote introduced him to distinguished men, which was of much advantage to him. While he lodged in Little Britain, he made the acquaintance of a bookseller, by the name of Wilcox, who had a very large collection of secondhand books. Benjamin wanted to gain access to them, but he could not command the means to purchase; so he hit upon this plan: he proposed to Wilcox to pay him a certain sum per book for as many as he might choose to take out, read, and return, and Wilcox accepted his offer. In this transaction was involved the principle of the modern circulating library. It was the first instance of lending books on record, and for that reason becomes an interesting fact. It was another of the influences that served to send him forward in a career of honour and fame. When he first entered the printing-house in London, he did press-work. There were fifty workmen in the establishment, and all of them but Benjamin were great beer-drinkers; yet he could lift more, and endure more fatigue, than any of them. His companion at the press was a notorious drinker, and consumed daily "a pint of beer before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his food, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint in the afternoon about six o'clock, and another when he had done his day's work,"--in all six pints per day. They had an alehouse boy always in attendance upon the workmen. "A detestable habit," said Benjamin to his fellow-pressman, "and a very expensive one, too." "I couldn't endure the wear and tear of this hard work without it," replied the toper. "You could accomplish more work, and perform it better, by drinking nothing but cold water," rejoined Benjamin. "There is nothing like it to make one strong and healthy." "Fudge! It may do for a Water-American like you, but Englishmen would become as weak as babes without it." "That is false," said Benjamin. "With all your drinking _strong_ beer in this establishment, you are the weakest set of workmen I ever saw. I have seen _you_ tug away to carry a single form of type up and down stairs, when I always carry two. Your beer may be _strong_, but it makes you _weak_." "You Americans are odd fellows, I confess," added the beer-swigger; "and you stick to your opinions like a tick." "But look here, my good fellow," continued Benjamin. "Do you not see that the bodily strength afforded by beer can be only in proportion to the grain or flour of the barley dissolved in the water of which it is made? There must be more flour in a pennyworth of bread than there is in a whole quart of beer; therefore, if you eat that with a pint of water, it will give you more strength than two or three pints of beer. Is it not so?" The man was obliged to acknowledge that it appeared to be so. Benjamin continued: "You see that I am supplied with a large porringer of hot water-gruel, sprinkled with pepper, crumbled with bread, and a bit of butter in it, for just the price of a pint of beer, three-halfpence. Now, honestly, is not this much better for me, and for you, than the same amount of beer?" Thus Benjamin thorned his companions with arguments against the prevailing habit of beer-drinking. Gradually he acquired an influence over many of them, by precept and example, and finally they abandoned their old habit, and followed his better way of living. He wrought a thorough reformation in the printing-office; and the fact shows what one young man can do in a good cause, if he will but set his face resolutely in that direction. Benjamin possessed the firmness, independence, and moral courage to carry out his principles,--just the thing which many a youth of his age lack, and consequently make shipwreck of their hopes. The only amusement which Benjamin seems to have enjoyed as much as he did literary recreation, was swimming. From his boyhood he delighted to be in the water, performing wonderful feats, and trying his skill in various ways. At one time he let up his kite, and, taking the string in his hand, lay upon his back on the top of the water, when the kite drew him a mile in a very agreeable manner. At another time he lay floating upon his back and slept for an hour by the watch. The skill which he had thus acquired in the art of swimming won him a reputation in England. On several occasions he exhibited his remarkable attainments of this kind, and the result was that he was applied to by Sir William Wyndham to teach his two sons to swim. Some advised him to open a swimming-school, and make it his profession; but he very wisely concluded to leave the water to the fish, and confine himself to the land. Benjamin had been in London nearly eighteen months, when Mr. Denham, the merchant of whom we have spoken, proposed to him to return to Philadelphia, and act in the capacity of bookkeeper for him, and offered him fifty pounds a year, with the promise to promote him, and finally establish him in business. Benjamin had a high respect for Mr. Denham, and the new field of labour appeared to him inviting, so that he accepted the proposition with little hesitation, and made preparations to leave England, quitting for ever, as he thought, the art of printing, which he had thoroughly learned. Forty years after Benjamin worked in Palmer's printing-office, he visited England in the service of his country, widely known as a sagacious statesman and profound philosopher. He took occasion to visit the old office where he once laboured with the beer-drinkers, and, stepping up to the press on which he worked month after month, he said: "Come, my friends, we will drink together. It is now forty years since I worked, like you, at this press, as a journeyman printer." With these words, he sent out for a gallon of porter, and they drank together according to the custom of the times. That press, on which he worked in London, is now in the Patent-office at Washington. CHAPTER XXII. FAREWELL TO ENGLAND. On the 23rd day of July, 1726, Benjamin sailed for Philadelphia, in company with Mr. Denham. After a successful and rather pleasant voyage of nearly three months, they reached Philadelphia, much to the satisfaction of Benjamin, who always enjoyed his stay there. He was now twenty years of age. "Ah! is it you, Benjamin? I am glad to see you back again," said Keimer, as his old journeyman made his appearance; and he shook his hand as if his heart was in it. "I began to think you had forsaken us." "Not yet," replied Benjamin. "I think too much of Philadelphia to forsake it yet." "Want work at your old business, I suppose?" added Keimer. "I have a plenty of it. You see I have improved things since you were here; my shop is well supplied with stationery, plenty of new types, and a good business!" "I see that you have made considerable advance," replied Benjamin. "I am glad that you prosper." "And I shall be glad to employ you, as none of my men are complete masters of the business." "But I have relinquished my old trade," answered Benjamin. "I----" "Given up the printing business!" interrupted Keimer. "Why is that?" "I have made arrangements with Mr. Denham to keep his books, and serve him generally in the capacity of clerk." "I am sorry for that, and I think you will be eventually. It is a very uncertain business." "Well, I have undertaken it for better or worse," said Benjamin, as he rose to leave the shop. As he was going down the street, who should he meet but Governor Keith, who had been removed from his office, and was now only a common citizen. The ex-Governor appeared both surprised and ashamed at seeing him, and passed by him without speaking. Benjamin was quite ashamed to meet Miss Read, since he had not been true to his promise. Though he had been absent eighteen months, he had written her but a single letter, and that was penned soon after his arrival in London, to inform her that he should not return at present. His long absence and silence convinced her that he had ceased to regard her with affection; in consequence of which, at the earnest persuasion of her parents, she married a potter by the name of Rogers. He turned out to be a miserable fellow, and she lived with him only a short time. He incurred heavy debts; ran away to the West Indies to escape from his creditors, and there died. Miss Read (she refused to bear the name of Rogers) was disconsolate and sad, and Benjamin pitied her sincerely, inasmuch as he considered himself to blame in the matter. He was not disposed to shield himself from the censure of the family, had they been disposed to administer any; but the old lady took all the blame upon herself, because she prevented an engagement, and persuaded her daughter to marry Rogers. These circumstances rendered his meeting with Miss Read less unpleasant, so far as his own want of fidelity was concerned. His intimacy with the family was renewed, and they frequently invited him there to tea, and often sought his advice on business of importance. Mr. Denham opened a store in Water Street, and Benjamin entered upon his new business with high hopes. He made rapid progress in acquiring knowledge of traffic, and soon became expert in keeping accounts and selling goods. But in February, 1727, when Benjamin was twenty-one years of age, both he and his employer were prostrated by sickness. Benjamin's disease was pleurisy, and his life was despaired of, though he unexpectedly recovered. Mr. Denham lingered along for some time, and died. His decease was the occasion of closing the store and throwing Benjamin out of business. It was a sad disappointment, but not wholly unlike the previous checkered experience of his life. He had become used to "ups and downs." As a token of his confidence and esteem, Mr. Denham left a small legacy to Benjamin,--a fact that speaks well for the young man's faithfulness. And here it should be said, that, whatever faults the hero of our story had, he always served his employers with such ability and fidelity as won their approbation and confidence. Unlike many youth, who care not for their employers' interests if they but receive their wages and keep their places, he ever did the best he could for those who employed him. He proved himself trustworthy and efficient; and here is found one secret of his success. In his disappointment, Benjamin sought the advice of his brother-in-law, Captain Homes, who happened to be in Philadelphia at the time. "I advise you to return to your old business," said he. "I suppose you can readily get work here, can you not?" "All I want," Benjamin answered. "Keimer was very anxious to employ me when I returned from England, and I dare say that he would hire me now." "Then I would close a bargain with him at once, were I in your place. I think you will succeed better at your trade than in any other business, and perhaps the way will soon be prepared for you to open a printing-office of your own." This advice was followed without delay, and Keimer was eager to employ him. At the outset, he offered him extra wages to take the entire management of his printing-office, so that he (Keimer) might attend more closely to his stationer's shop. The offer was accepted, and Benjamin commenced his duties immediately. He soon found, however, that Keimer's design in offering him so large wages was, that the hands he already employed might be improved under his experience, when it would not be necessary for him to hire so competent a person. The facts show us that good workmen can command employment and high wages, when poor ones are obliged to beg their bread. Among Keimer's workmen was an Oxford student, whose time he had bought for four years. He was about eighteen years of age, smart and intelligent. Benjamin very naturally became interested in him, as it was quite unusual to find an Oxford scholar acting in the capacity of a bought servant; and he received from him the following brief account of his life. He "was born in Gloucester, educated at a grammar-school, and had been distinguished among the scholars for some apparent superiority in performing his part when they exhibited plays; belonged to the Wits' Club there, and had written some pieces in prose and verse, which were printed in the Gloucester newspapers. Thence was sent to Oxford, where he continued about a year, but not well satisfied; wishing, of all things, to see London, and become a player. At length, receiving his quarterly allowance of fifteen guineas, instead of discharging his debts, he went out of town, hid his gown in a furze-bush, and walked to London; where, having no friend to advise him, he fell into bad company, soon spent his guineas, found no means of being introduced among the players, grew necessitous, pawned his clothes, and wanted bread. Walking the street, very hungry, not knowing what to do with himself, a crimp's bill was put into his hand, offering immediate entertainment and encouragement to such as would bind themselves to work in America. He went directly, signed the indentures, was put into the ship, and came over; never writing a line to his friends, to acquaint them what was become of him." Such a case has several important lessons for the young. In the first place, it shows the danger that attends theatrical performances. Youth often wonder that good people object to them; but here they may see one reason of their opposition. It was at the school in Oxford that he imbibed a love for the stage. There he participated in dramatic plays, which caused him to run away, and seek a residence in London, where he was ruined. There are hundreds of similar examples, and these cause good people to condemn theatrical amusements. It is said that when Lord Jeffrey was a youth, at the college in Glasgow, he was instrumental in originating a dramatic performance. The play was selected, and a room of the college designated as a fitting theatre, when the authorities interfered, and forbade them to perform the play. Their interference aroused the ire of Jeffrey, who, in his "Notes on Lectures," denounced their conduct as "the meanest, most illiberal, and despicable." Many youth cherish similar feelings towards those who condemn such performances; and, if one of the number shall read these pages, we would point him to the sad end of the Oxford student. This case also illustrates the sad consequences of keeping bad company, as well as the perils of the city. He associated with the vicious in London, and became really a vagabond in consequence. As the workmen improved under Benjamin's supervision, Keimer evidently began to think of discharging him, or cutting down his wages. On paying his second quarter's wages, he told him that he could not continue to pay him so much. He became less civil, frequently found fault, and plainly tried to make Benjamin's stay uncomfortable so that he would leave. At length a rare opportunity offered for him to make trouble. An unusual noise in the street one day caused Benjamin to put his head out of the window to see what was the matter. Keimer happened to be in the street, and seeing him, he cried out, "Put your head in, and attend to your business;" and added some reproachful words which all in the street heard. Then, hastening up into the office, he continued his insulting language. "Men who work for me must give better heed to their business," said he. "If they care more for a noise in the street than for their work, it is time they left." "I am ready to leave any time you please," retorted Benjamin, who was considerably nettled by such treatment. "I am not dependent on you for a living, and I shall not be treated in this way long, I assure you." "That, indeed!" exclaimed Keimer. "You would not stay another hour if it were not for our agreement, in accordance with which I now warn you that, at the end of a quarter's time, I shall hire you no more." "You need not regret that you cannot send me away to-day," answered Benjamin. "I shall work no longer for a man who will treat me thus;" and, taking his hat, he left. As he passed down, he requested Meredith, one of the hands, to bring some things which he left behind to his lodgings. In the evening Meredith went to see Benjamin, carrying the articles referred to. "What shall you do now?" Meredith inquired. "I shall return to Boston forthwith." "I wouldn't do that. You can do much better here than you can there." "What can I do here now?" "Set up business for yourself." "I have no money to do it with." "My father has," said Meredith; "and I will go into company with you if he will furnish the means. I am not acquainted with the business, and you are; so I will furnish the capital, and you shall manage the concern, and we will share the profits equally." "Your father will never do it," suggested Benjamin. "I am confident that he will," replied Meredith. "He has a high opinion of you, and he wants a good opportunity to set me up. I will ask him, at any rate." "I would like such an enterprise myself," added Benjamin; "but can we succeed against Keimer? He will now do all he can to crush me." "He will be crushed himself before long," answered Meredith. "I happen to know that he is in debt for all the property in his hands. He keeps his shop miserably, too; often sells without profit in order to raise money; and trusts people without keeping accounts. He will fail as surely as he keeps on in this way." "I will agree to your plan if you can make it work," said Benjamin. "See your father immediately, and let me know the result." Accordingly, Meredith saw his father, and he was ready to furnish the necessary capital, because of his high regard for Benjamin. "I am the more ready to do this," said he to Benjamin, afterwards, "because of your good influence over my son. You have prevailed upon him to leave off drinking to excess, and I hope he will be persuaded, by your more intimate connection in business, to reform entirely." It was settled that they should set up business as soon as they could procure the necessary articles from England. CHAPTER XXIII. SETTING UP BUSINESS. Agreeably to the arrangement with Meredith, Benjamin made out an inventory of articles, which were immediately ordered from England. In the mean time he expected to find work at Bradford's printing-office, but was disappointed. It was only a few days, however, before he received a very civil message from Keimer, in which he said, "that old friends should not part for a few words, the effect of sudden passion," and urged him to return. The fact was, he had a prospect of being employed to print some paper-money in New Jersey, which would require cuts and various types that Benjamin only could supply, and, therefore, he wanted to re-engage him. Benjamin was not quite inclined to accept the proposition at first, but Meredith urged him to do it, on the ground that he himself would become better acquainted with the business in consequence; he, therefore, agreed to return. It was several months before the new types arrived from London, and Benjamin continued in Keimer's service. Most of the time he spent with his employer at Burlington, executing the paper-money, and there made many friends, among whom was Judge Allen, the Secretary of the Province, several members of the Assembly, and the Surveyor-General, all of whom were of service to him when he set up business for himself. They were much pleased with Benjamin's intelligence and fidelity, so that they frequently invited him to their houses, while the ignorance and rudeness of Keimer so disgusted them, that they took little notice of him. "You are completely master of your business," said the Surveyor-General to him; "and success is before you." "I have improved my opportunities," modestly replied Benjamin, "to become as well acquainted with my business as I could. This half way of doing things I do not like." "I commenced business in a very humble way," continued the Surveyor-General, "without expecting to ever possess such an estate as I do now." "What was your business?" "I wheeled clay for the brick-makers, and had not the opportunity of going to school at all in my boyhood. I did not learn to write until I became of age. I acquired my knowledge of surveying when I carried a chain for surveyors, who were pleased with my desire to learn the business, and assisted me. By constant industry and close application, with a good deal of perseverance, I have succeeded in reaching the place where you now see me." "That is all the way any one can work his way up to an honourable position," said Benjamin. "True, very true, and I am glad to see that you understand it. I am confident that you will beat this man Keimer at the business, and make a fortune in it at Philadelphia, if you go on as you have begun." This example of industry and perseverance was encouraging to Benjamin in his circumstances. It was exactly suited to confirm him in his very proper views of industry and fidelity. Meredith and Benjamin settled with Keimer and left him just before their types arrived, without letting him into the secret of their plans. The first intimation he had of their intentions was the opening of their printing-office near the market. Many people were taken by surprise, and most of them predicted a failure, since there were two printers established there already. Not long after they commenced, an elderly man, whose name was Samuel Mickle, happened to be passing just as Benjamin came out of his office. "Are you the young man," said Mickle, "who has lately opened a new printing-house?" "I am, sir." "I am sorry for you," said he, "for it is an expensive undertaking, and you are throwing away your money." "How so?" "Because Philadelphia is degenerating, and half the people are now bankrupt, or nearly so, and how can they support so many printers?" "But the appearance of Philadelphia," replied Benjamin, "indicates thrift. See how many buildings are going up, and how rents are rising every month. This does not look like going backward." "These are among the very things that will ruin us," responded Mickle. "They are not evidence of prosperity, but of extravagance, that will bring disaster sooner or later." In this strain, Mickle, who was one of those eccentric and unhappy men who always look upon the dark side of things, went on, until Benjamin really began to feel dismayed. But on the whole, he believed that the evidence of his own senses was to the contrary, and so he soon forgot the interview. Mickle continued to live there some years, refusing to buy a house because the town was going to ruin, and at last he purchased one for five times what he could have had it for at the time he talked to Benjamin. In their printing-office, Franklin suspended the following lines, which he composed:-- "All ye who come this curious art to see, To handle anything must careful be; Lest by a slight touch, ere you are aware, You may do mischief which you can't repair, Lo! this advice we give to every stranger! Look on and welcome, but to touch there's danger." This singular notice attracted some attention, and elicited remarks from different visitors. In order to win the confidence of the public, and secure their patronage, Benjamin resolved at the outset to exhibit to all beholders several qualities which guarantee success; namely, industry, economy, integrity, and close application to his business. All of them had become habits with him, and hence it was easy for him to conduct in this manner. In respect to industry, he laboured incessantly. Even some of his hours that ought to have been devoted to sleep were spent in his office at hard work. Mention being made of the new printing-house at the "Merchants' Every-night Club," "It will prove a failure," said one. "Of course it will," added another. "Two such young fellows cannot get business enough to support them, with two established printers here." This was the general opinion. But Dr. Baird, who was present, said: "It will prove a success, for the industry of that Franklin is superior to anything I ever saw of the kind. I see him still at work when I go home from club, and he is at work again before his neighbours are out of bed." This remark was appreciated by the members, and soon after one of them offered to supply the young printers with stationery, if they desired to open a shop. It was his experience, doubtless, that caused him, years afterwards, to give the following advice to a "young tradesman:"-- "The most trifling actions that affect a man's credit are to be regarded. The sound of your hammer at five in the morning, or nine at night, heard by a creditor, makes him easy six months longer; but if he sees you at a billiard-table, or hears your voice at a tavern, when you should be at work, he sends for his money the next day; demands it, before he can receive it, in a lump." He also wrote: "He that idly loses five shillings' worth of time loses five shillings, and might as prudently throw five shillings into the sea." One fine morning, after Meredith and Franklin opened a stationer's shop and bookstore, a lounger stepped in, and, after looking over the articles, inquired of the boy in attendance the price of a certain book. "One dollar," was the answer. "One dollar," said the lounger, "can't you take less than that?" "No indeed; one dollar is the price." After waiting some time he asked: "Is Mr. Franklin at home?" "Yes, he is in the printing-office." "I want to see him," said the lounger. The shop-boy soon informed Franklin (as we will henceforth call him) that a gentleman was waiting to see him in the shop. "Mr. Franklin, what is the lowest you can take for this book?" he asked, as Franklin came in. At the same time he held up the book at which he had been looking. "One dollar and a quarter," was the reply. "One dollar and a quarter! Why, your young man asked but a dollar." "True," said Franklin, "and I could have better afforded to take a dollar then, than to have been taken out of the office." The lounger looked surprised, and rather concluded that Franklin was jesting, he said, "Come, now, tell me the lowest you can take for it." "One dollar and a half." "A dollar and a half? Why, you offered it yourself for one dollar and a quarter?" "Yes," answered Franklin, "and I had better have taken that price then, than a dollar and a half now." The lounger paid the price, and went out of the shop, feeling the severity of the rebuke. Such was the value he attached to his time. Franklin always ascribed his industrious habits to the frequent counsels of his father on the subject, which were generally closed by repeating the text of Scripture, "Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men,"--a prophecy that was singularly fulfilled in his own case, as we shall see hereafter, for he had the honour of standing before _five_ kings, and even dined with the King of Denmark. His economy was equal to his industry. He arrayed himself in the plainest manner, although he aimed to look neat and tidy. His board was simple and cheap, and everything about his business was graduated on the most economical principles. In order to save expense, and at the same time show the public that he was not proud, and above his business, he wheeled home the paper which he bought. This single act had its influence in gaining the public confidence. For when a young man gets above his business, he is quite sure to have a fall. Since Franklin's day, in the city of Richmond, a young man went to the market to purchase a turkey. He looked around for some one to carry it home for him, being too proud to do it himself, and finding no one, he began to fret and swear, much to the annoyance of bystanders. A gentleman stepped up to him and said, "That is in my way, and I will take your turkey home for you." When they came to the house, the young fop asked, "What shall I pay you?" "O, nothing at all," replied the gentleman, "it was all in the way, and it was no trouble to me." As he passed on, the young man turned to a person near by, and inquired, "Who is that polite old gentleman who brought home my turkey for me?" "O," replied he, "that was Judge Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States." "Why did _he_ bring home my turkey?" "He did it to give you a rebuke, and teach you to attend to your own business," was the answer. How contemptible does such a character appear in contrast with Franklin! It is not strange that the public withhold their confidence from the fop, and bestow it upon the industrious. Judge Marshall was a great man, and great men never get above their business. Franklin became a great man, and one reason of it was, that he never became too proud to wait upon himself. After he married Miss Read, and commenced housekeeping, he still adhered to the same principle of economy. Instead of doing as many young men do at this era of life, living beyond their income, he continued frugal. He said of himself and wife, "We kept no idle servants, our table was plain and simple, our furniture of the cheapest. For instance, my breakfast was for a long time bread and milk (no tea), and I ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer, with a pewter spoon." Thus he reduced to practice the couplet which he wrote:-- "Vessels large may venture more, But little boats should keep near shore." And qualified himself to pen such maxims as the following:-- "It is easier to suppress the first desire, than to satisfy all that follow it." "It is as truly folly for the poor to ape the rich, as for the frog to swell in order to equal the ox." "Pride breakfasts with plenty, dines with poverty, and sups with infamy." His integrity in transacting business was no less marked. Strict honesty characterized all his dealings with men. An exalted idea of justice pervaded his soul. His word of honour was as good as his note of hand. Even his disposition to castigate and censure in his writings, so manifest in Boston at seventeen years of age, and which his father rebuked, was overcome. After he set up a paper in Philadelphia, a gentleman handed him an article for its columns. "I am very busy now," said Franklin, "and you will confer a favour by leaving it for my perusal at my leisure." "That I will do," replied the writer "and call again to-morrow." The next day the author called. "What is your opinion of my article?" he asked. "Why, sir, I am sorry to say that I cannot publish it," answered Franklin. "Why not? What is the matter with it?" "It is highly scurrilous and defamatory," replied Franklin. "But being at a loss on account of my poverty, whether to reject it or not, I thought I would put it to this issue. At night, when my work was done, I bought a twopenny loaf, on which I supped heartily, and then, wrapping myself in my great coat, slept very soundly on the floor until morning, when another loaf and mug of water afforded a pleasant breakfast. Now, sir, since I can live very comfortably in this manner, why should I prostitute my press to personal hatred or party passion for a more luxurious living?" Some writer has said that this incident of Franklin's early life is akin to Socrates's reply to King Archelaus, who pressed him to give up preaching in the dirty streets of Athens, and come and live with him in his costly palace: "_Meal, please your Majesty, is a halfpenny a peck at Athens, and water I get for nothing._" Their business prospered well; but Meredith's intemperate habits were so strong, that he was frequently seen intoxicated in the streets, which occasioned much gossip about town concerning the prospects of their success. To add to their embarrassment, Meredith's father was unable to meet the last payment of a hundred pounds upon the printing-house, and they were sued. But William Coleman and Robert Grace, two of Franklin's companions, came to his assistance. "We will lend you the means to take the business into your own hands," said Coleman. "It is much to your discredit to be connected with Meredith, who is seen reeling through the streets so often." "But I cannot honourably propose a dissolution of partnership," replied Franklin, "while there is any prospect that the Merediths will fulfil their part of the contract, because I feel myself under great obligations for what they have done." "They will not be able to fulfil the contract," said Grace; "that is out of the question." "That is my opinion," responded Franklin; "still, I must wait and see what they do. If they fail to meet their obligations, then I shall feel at liberty to act otherwise." The matter was left here for some weeks, when Franklin said to Meredith, meaning to sound him on the matter of dissolving the partnership: "Perhaps your father is dissatisfied with the part you have undertaken in this affair of ours, and is unwilling to advance for you and I what he would for you alone. If that is the case, tell me, and I will resign the whole to you, and go about my business." [Illustration: "Sawdust Pudding"--Anecdote of Franklin's Independence.--See page 242.] "No," he answered, "my father has really been disappointed, and is really unable; and I am unwilling to distress him further. I see this is a business I am unfit for. I was bred a farmer; and it was folly in me to come to town, and put myself, at thirty years of age, an apprentice to learn a new trade. Many of our Welsh people (he was a Welshman) are going to settle in North Carolina, where land is cheap. I am inclined to go with them, and follow my old employment; you may find friends to assist you. If you will take the debts of the company upon you, return to my father the hundred pounds he has advanced, pay my little personal debts, and give me thirty pounds and a new saddle, I will relinquish the partnership, and leave the whole in your hands." Franklin accepted this proposition, and, with the aid of his two friends, was soon established in business alone. His patronage increased rapidly, and he was able to pay off his debts. In a very short time he commanded the chief printing business of the town, and Keimer sold out, and removed to Barbadoes. The _Pennsylvania Gazette_, which he commenced printing before Meredith left him, won the public favour, and became a source of profit. As an example of his resolution and firmness, and his economy and prudence, it is said that certain subscribers to his paper were incensed at an article that appeared in its columns, and they threatened to "stop their patronage;" whereupon Franklin invited them to dine with him, and, having set before them a coarse meal mixture, from which his guests drew back, he remarked: "Gentlemen, a man who can subsist on _sawdust pudding_ need call no man _patron_." Here, in early life, our hero laid the foundation of his fortune; and the reader need not be at a loss to discover the secret of his success. He made himself by the sterling elements of character which he cultivated. CHAPTER XXIV. THE JUNTO. Soon after Franklin returned from England, he was instrumental in forming his literary associates into a club for mutual improvement, called the "JUNTO," which met every Friday evening. This club continued nearly forty years, and Franklin said of it, "It was the best school of philosophy, morality, and politics, that then existed in the Province; for our queries, which were read the week preceding their discussion, put us upon reading with attention on the several subjects, that we might speak more to the purpose; and here, too, we acquired better habits of conversation, everything being studied in our rules which might prevent our disgusting each other." "I have a proposition to submit," said Franklin, at one of their meetings, "and it is this. We frequently have occasion to refer to our books, in our discussions, and I propose that we bring our books together in this room, and form a library; each having the privilege of using the books of the other." "I like the plan much," said Parsons, one of the members. "Nobody but Franklin would have thought of it." "I think that every member must subscribe to this measure," said Coleman. "I hope it will be done at once." And thus it went round the room, each one expressing his approval of the plan. The consequence was, that one end of the room was filled with volumes; and the plan proved profitable to all. At that time, books were very scarce. "There was not a good bookseller's shop in any of the Colonies to the southward of Boston." The readers of Pennsylvania usually sent to England for their books, which was both troublesome and expensive. The members of the "JUNTO" derived so much benefit from the plan of bringing their books together, that Franklin conceived the idea of establishing a library, and formed his plan, which was successful. He found fifty persons in town, mostly young tradesmen, who were willing to pay down forty shillings each, and ten shillings per annum; and with these the library was commenced. This was the first library ever established in this country, and it now numbers more than sixty thousand volumes. Since that day libraries have multiplied rapidly. The following are some of the questions for the "JUNTO," and they show that it was really a thorough and valuable organization. "Have you met with anything, in the author you last read, remarkable, or suitable to be communicated to the Junto? particularly in history, morality, poetry, physics, travels, mechanic arts, or other parts of knowledge." "Hath any citizen failed in business, and what have you heard of the cause?" "Have you lately heard of any citizen's thriving well, and by what means?" "Do you know of a fellow-citizen who has lately done a worthy action, deserving praise and imitation; or who has lately committed an error, proper for us to be warned against and avoid?" "What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately observed or heard?--of imprudence?--of passion?--or of any other vice or folly?" "What happy effects of temperance?--of prudence?--of moderation?--or of any other virtue?" "Do you think of anything at present in which the Junto may be serviceable to _mankind_, to their country, to their friends, or to themselves?" "Hath any deserving stranger arrived in town since last meeting, that you have heard of?--and what have you heard or observed of his character or merits?--and whether, think you, it lies in the power of the Junto to oblige him, or encourage him as he deserves?" "Do you know of any deserving young beginner lately set up, whom it lies in the power of the Junto any way to encourage?" "Have you lately observed any defect in the laws of your country, of which it would be proper to move the Legislature for an amendment? or do you know of any beneficial law that is wanting?" "Is there any man whose friendship you want, and which the Junto, or any of them, can procure for you?" This is a sample of the questions asked at their meetings, and answered. It is not difficult to see the mind of Franklin in these inquiries, and many of them were evidently suggested by his own experience. Some of the questions discussed by the members of the Junto were as follows:-- "Is _sound_ an entity or body?" "How may the phenomena of vapours be explained?" "Can any one particular form of government suit all mankind?" "Is the emission of paper money safe?" "How may smoky chimneys be best cured?" "Which is least criminal,--a _bad_ action joined with a _good_ intention, or a _good_ action with a _bad_ intention?" There have been improvements in almost everything in modern times, but we doubt if there has been much improvement upon the "JUNTO" in literary organizations for the young. It is not surprising, that, of the original twelve members (the number was limited to twelve), two became surveyors-general; one the inventor of a quadrant; one a distinguished mechanic and influential man; and one "a merchant of great note and a provincial judge;" and all but one or two, respectable and honoured men. At this time, Franklin had commenced the study of the languages, employing only such leisure moments as he had to master them. It was a great undertaking, but his application and perseverance were equal to the task. He began with French, and was soon able to read books in that language. Then he took Italian. A friend, who was studying it also, tempted him to play chess. He played a little, and finding that it consumed time, he refused to play any more, unless on the condition that "the victor in every game should have a right to impose a task, either of parts of the grammar to be got by heart, or in translations, which task the vanquished was to perform upon honour before the next meeting." In this way, he learned the Italian language. Subsequently he acquired sufficient knowledge of Spanish to enable him to read books in that tongue. He studied Latin a year in Boston, before he was ten years old, but since that time he had neglected it. His acquaintance now with other languages revived his taste for the Latin, however, so that he mastered that. Surely here is literary work enough for a youth who is earning a livelihood by hard labour, having only snatches of time to devote to reading and study. There is no work of his whole life that is more replete with interest than this; for it shows that he possessed indomitable energy and force of character, together with other valuable traits. He proved that it was possible for him to be a scholar while he was a printer. The "Junto" appears to have been copied in England, half a century after this period. When the celebrated Canning was in his youth, being educated at Oxford, a debating society was organized, limited to the number of six, who met every Thursday evening at the rooms of the members. At each meeting, before they separated, the subject for the next meeting was voted and recorded. Here Canning and Jenkinson (who became Earl of Liverpool) made their first speeches, and here they received impulses that helped them on to fame. Franklin began to think more of religion, and to raise some queries respecting his former doubts, soon after he came back from England. The two young men whose religious sentiments he corrupted and unsettled turned out badly, and cheated him out of a sum of money, and this led him to inquire if it was not because they ignored religious principle. He witnessed other conduct among those who talked lightly of religion, which caused him to inquire, whether, after all, his parents were not in the right. He stayed away from meeting, and devoted the Sabbath to study, which had a very bad look. Yet, he said, "I never was without some religious principle. I never doubted the existence of a Deity; that He made the world and governed it by his providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crimes will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter." He also subscribed something for the support of the only Presbyterian meeting in Philadelphia, and advocated the importance of sustaining public worship. The minister called upon him, and counselled him to attend church, just when he was beginning to think better of it, and it had the effect to bring him out occasionally. Once he went five Sabbaths in succession. But the preacher was dull and uninteresting, so that Franklin was not well pleased; still he continued to attend occasionally, until, one Sabbath, the preacher took the following text: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, or of good report, if there be any virtue, or any praise, think on these things." The minister was usually doctrinal in his style of preaching, but now Franklin thought he would have something practical. Consequently he was sadly disappointed when he found that the discourse embraced only the following points:--1. Keeping holy the Sabbath-day. 2. Being diligent in reading the Scriptures. 3. Attending duly public worship. 4. Partaking of the Sacrament. 5. Paying a due respect to God's ministers. Franklin thought that these subjects, though very good, did not belong to such a text, and he was so dissatisfied with the sermon, that he ceased attending. Conscience, however, did not slumber. He saw and felt that he was wrong, and, in order to make himself better, he began to lead a self-righteous life. He imposed religious duties upon himself. He returned to the use of a form of prayer which he prepared some time before, when his thoughts were dwelling upon religious things. In that prayer, under the head of "Thanks," occurs the following:-- "For the common benefits of air and light, for useful fire and delicious water,--Good God, I thank Thee! "For knowledge and literature, and every useful art; for my friends and their prosperity, and for the fewness of my enemies,--Good God, I thank Thee! "For all thy innumerable benefits; for life, and reason, and the use of speech; for health, and joy, and every pleasant hour,--My good God, I thank Thee!" He made a little book, in which he wrote down certain virtues that he ought to cultivate, and prepared a table for the same. The following were the virtues:-- "1. Temperance.--Eat not to dulness; drink not to elevation. "2. Silence.--Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. "3. Order.--Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. "4. Resolution.--Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. "5. Frugality.--Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; that is, waste nothing. "6. Industry.--Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. "7. Sincerity.--Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly. "8. Justice.--Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty. "9. Moderation.--Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. "10. Cleanliness.--Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation. "11. Tranquillity.--Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents, common or unavoidable. "12. Chastity. "13. Humility.--Imitate Jesus Christ and Socrates." These are very good so far as they go, and they show that he studied to form a high character, although he had not yet attained to the height of the true Christian. CHAPTER XXV. CONCLUSION. We have followed the subject of this volume from the time he paid _too dear for his whistle_, to the period when he was well established in business. We have seen what his character was as a PRINTER-BOY, and hence his promise of success. He was not perfect by any means; on the other hand, he had marked failings. Yet, underneath the whole, we have discovered certain qualities that are indispensable to eminence in one's vocation. And now it remains to see, briefly, whether the principle we advocate was true in his case, namely, "that the boy is father of the man." To do this, we shall pass over a series of years, and take a succinct view of his position and influence in middle and advanced life. It should be recorded first, however, that the difficulty between himself and his brother James was adjusted, ten years after his first visit to Boston. James had removed and settled in Newport, where he was fast declining in health, and Benjamin went thither to see him. Their past differences were forgotten, and their interview was signalized by mutual forgiveness. It was then that Benjamin promised to take his brother's little son, ten years old, after the father was no more, and bring him up to the printing business. This pledge he fulfilled, doing even more for the lad than he promised, for he sent him to school two or three years before he took him into the office, and finally he established him in business. This, certainly, was a happy termination of a quarrel that was creditable to neither party. The result was decisive evidence that both parties deplored their conduct towards each other. While he was yet a young man, he was promoted to different posts of distinction. He filled various offices in Philadelphia, and served the State of Pennsylvania in several public ways, in all of which he did himself honour. He devoted a portion of his time to philosophical studies, in which he earned a world-wide fame. His mind was ever busy in projects to benefit society, and no work was too humble for him to do for the good of others. At one time he is found inventing a stove for domestic use, called afterward the Franklin stove, with which Governor Thomas was so well pleased, that he offered him a patent for the sole vending of them for a series of years; but Franklin refused it, on the ground, "_that, as we enjoy great advantages from the invention of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve_ _others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously_." This was another instance of his remarkable generosity, and it reminds us of that incident of his life in France, when an English clergyman asked him for pecuniary assistance. He gave him liberally, remarking, "Some time or other you may have an opportunity of assisting with an equal sum a stranger who has equal need of it. Do so. By that means you may discharge any obligation you may suppose yourself under to me. _Enjoin him to do the same on occasion._ By pursuing such a practice, much good may be done with little money. Let kind offices go round. Mankind are all of a family." At another time he is engaged in improving the lamps that light the city, and devising ways of cleaning the streets. Then, again, he is originating a system of volunteer militia for the defence of his country. Extinguishing fires, also, is a subject that commands his thoughts, and he organized the first fire company in the land. Again, the education of youth demands his time, and he labours to introduce a system of schools, and finally founds a University. Thus the humblest acts of a good citizen were performed in connection with the nobler deeds of the philosopher and statesman. The following is a brief synopsis of the offices he filled, and the honours he won:-- HE WAS LEGISLATOR FOR PENNSYLVANIA IN 1732, WHEN ONLY TWENTY-SIX YEARS OF AGE. HE FOUNDED THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. DEPUTY POSTMASTER-GENERAL IN 1752. INVENTOR OF LIGHTNING-RODS. WAS ELECTED A FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. ORIGINATOR OF THE VOLUNTEER MILITIA. COLONEL OF MILITIA. MINISTER TO THE COURT OF ENGLAND IN 1764. MEMBER OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS IN 1775. MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY TO FRANCE IN 1776. CONCLUDED FIRST TREATY FOR AMERICA IN 1778. RECEIVED THE DEGREE OF LL.D. FROM OXFORD UNIVERSITY. MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY TO FRANCE IN 1778. ONE OF FIVE TO DRAFT THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. HELPED TO FRAME THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. A LEADER IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. CALLED THE "NESTOR OF AMERICA" BY THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF FRANCE. ADMITTED TO THE HIGHEST LITERARY ASSEMBLIES OF EUROPE. LIKE WASHINGTON, "FIRST IN WAR, FIRST IN PEACE, AND FIRST IN THE HEARTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN." HONOURED AS A GREAT PHILOSOPHER, SAGACIOUS STATESMAN, AND SINCERE PHILANTHROPIST. In reading the history of the United States, no name is more conspicuous than that of Franklin. His agency is everywhere seen and acknowledged in laying the foundation of her institutions, and achieving her glories. The memory of no patriot and philosopher has been more dear to generations that have come and gone since his day. Abroad, as well as at home, he was honoured. At one time, in France, "prints, medallion portraits, and busts of Franklin were multiplied throughout France; and rings, bracelets, canes, and snuff-boxes, bearing his likeness, were worn or carried quite generally." In England, and other parts of Europe, similar homage was paid to his greatness. Since that period his statue has been erected in the halls of learning and legislation, literary societies have adopted his name to give them pre-eminence, and numerous towns have been called after him. The author's native place was named in honour of Franklin, who afterwards presented the town with a valuable library that is still in existence. On being informed by a friend that this town had adopted his name, he inquired what sort of a present would be acceptable to the inhabitants as an acknowledgment of their respect and homage. The friend suggested that a _bell_ might prove a timely gift, as they were erecting a new house of worship. But Franklin thought otherwise, and decided to present a library. He jocosely remarked, in the letter which accompanied the books, that he "_supposed a town that would adopt his name must be more fond of sense than sound_." It would multiply the pages of this volume beyond its designed limits to enumerate all the public posts of honour that Franklin adorned, and all the marks of respect that have been paid to his memory. This brief reference to the more prominent of these is sufficient to afford the reader a view of the REMARKABLE MAN, and to illustrate the force of energy, industry, integrity, and perseverance, in human destiny. Washington wrote to him: "If to be venerated for benevolence, if to be admired for talents, if to be esteemed for patriotism, if to be beloved for philanthropy, can gratify the human mind, you must have the pleasing consolation to know that you have not lived in vain. And I flatter myself that it will not be ranked among the least grateful occurrences of your life to be assured that, so long as I retain my memory, you will be recollected with respect, veneration, and affection, by your sincere friend, George Washington." Congress was in session when Franklin died, and when his death was announced, on motion of Madison, it was resolved that a badge of mourning be worn for one month, "as a mark of veneration due to the memory of a citizen whose native genius was not more an ornament to human nature than his various exertions of it have been precious to science, to freedom, and to his country." In France, Condorcet eulogized him in the Academy of Science, and Mirabeau in the National Assembly. The latter said: "Antiquity would have erected altars to this great and powerful genius." When Rachel was dying, she named her infant son "Ben-oni," which means, "son of my sorrow," because he was the occasion of her sufferings and death. But Jacob, his father, called him "Benjamin," which signifies "the son of a right hand." There was a time when Franklin's mother, weeping over her runaway boy, would have called him "Ben-oni," and it might have appeared to observers that he would turn out to be such. But the excellent lessons of his early home, and the good traits of character which he nurtured, caused him to become a true Benjamin to his parents,--"a son of their right hand." With a warm, filial heart, he sought to minister to their wants in their declining years, and, as we have seen, offered the last and highest tribute of affection in his power, when they were laid in the dust. In his riper years, Franklin sincerely regretted the doubts of his youth and early manhood respecting religion. The sentiments that were poured into his young mind by fond, parental lips, he came to respect and cherish. He went to the house of God on the Sabbath with great constancy; and, if recollecting the sin of his youth, he wrote to his daughter, "_Go constantly to church, whoever preaches._" His own experience taught him that it was dangerous and wicked to forsake the sanctuary. He became interested in every good work. His influence and his purse were offered to sustain Christianity. He appreciated every benevolent enterprise, and bade them God-speed. On one occasion the celebrated Whitefield preached in behalf of an orphan asylum, which he proposed to erect in Georgia. Franklin was not in full sympathy with the plan, because he thought it should be erected in Pennsylvania, and the orphans brought there. Still, he listened to the eminent preacher unprejudiced, and when the collection was taken, at the close of the meeting, he emptied his pockets of all the money he had, which consisted of "a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold." He sympathized deeply with the poor and needy, and espoused the cause of the oppressed in every land. He was the first President of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, and both his hand and heart were pledged to the cause of freedom. One of his biographers, summing up his character in these particulars, says: "He was bold, consistent, active, and greatly in advance of his age. From his Quaker brethren in Philadelphia he contracted all their zeal in behalf of humanity, although in his mind it put on the aspect of plain, practical beneficence. He was ever foremost in all humane enterprises. He was never misled, through sympathy with a majority, into the support of measures which, though popular, were inconsistent with a high-toned Christian morality. He was the champion of the Indians when to advocate their cause was to displease many. He was one of the earliest opponents of the slave-trade and slavery. He omitted no opportunity to protest against war and its iniquity, and he branded as piracy the custom of privateering, however sanctioned by international usages. As a statesman and philosopher his name is imperishable. As an active benefactor of his race, he is entitled to its lasting gratitude. As one of the founders of the American Union, he must ever be held in honourable remembrance by all who prize American institutions. As the zealous foe to oppression in all its forms, he merits the thankful regard of good men of all ages and climes." He carried his reverence for God and his regard for Christianity into the high places of authority. He proposed the first Day of Fasting and Prayer ever observed in Pennsylvania, and wrote the proclamation for the Secretary of State. When the convention to frame the Constitution of the United States met in Philadelphia, in 1787, he introduced a motion into that body for daily prayers, which, strange to say, was rejected. In support of his motion, he made the following memorable address, which fairly illustrates his usual disposition to recognize God in all human affairs:-- "In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for Divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard; and they were graciously answered. All of us, who were engaged in the struggle, must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favour. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend, or do we imagine we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, _that God governs in the affairs of men_. And, if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can arise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that, 'except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe, that, without his concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel; we shall be divided by our little, partial, local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a by-word down to future ages. And, what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing government by human wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest. I therefore beg leave to move, that henceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business; and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service." His confidence in the Christian religion, and his regard for purity of conduct, did not diminish as he drew near the grave. On the other hand, he bore earnest testimony to the faith of his fathers until the close of his life, and, ere he died, renewed his vindication of the Scriptures, in the following circumstances. A young man called to see him, as he lay upon his death-bed, scarcely able to articulate. Dr. Franklin welcomed him with a benignant look, which he was wont to cast upon the young, and imparted some good advice to him. "What is your opinion with regard to the truth of the Scriptures?" inquired the young man, who was somewhat sceptical. Franklin replied, although in a very feeble state, "Young man, my advice to you is, that you cultivate an acquaintance with, and a firm belief in, the Holy Scriptures; this is your certain interest." THE END. London: Thomas Harrild, Printer. [Transcriber's Notes: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other inconsistencies. The transcriber noted the following issues and made changes as indicated to the text to correct obvious errors: 1. p. ix, Cricticisms --> Criticisms 2. p. 65, bread his buttered. --> bread is buttered. 3. p. 86, in print. --> in print." 4. p. 88, sell them. --> sell them." 5. p. 119, Who can the author --> "Who can the author 6. p. 136, thaI --> that 7. p. 144, start with. --> start with." 8. p. 155, sir," --> sir." 9. p. 209, "The old lady --> The old lady 10. p. 240, "The next day --> The next day 11. p. 257, Philantroprist --> Philanthropist 12. p. 264, your certain interest. --> your certain interest." End of Transcriber's Notes] 
20203	----	[Illustration: FRANKLIN ARMS] [Illustration: FRANKLIN SEAL] [Illustration: Franklin at the Court of Louis XVI "He was therefore, feasted and invited to all the court parties. At these he sometimes met the old Duchess of Bourbon, who, being a chess player of about his force, they very generally played together. Happening once to put her king into prize, the Doctor took it. 'Ah,' says she, 'we do not take kings so.' 'We do in America,' said the Doctor."--Thomas Jefferson.] AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WITH ILLUSTRATIONS _by_ E. BOYD SMITH EDITED _by_ FRANK WOODWORTH PINE [Illustration: Printers Mark] _New York_ HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1916 Copyright, 1916, BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY June, 1922 THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS RAHWAY, N. J. CONTENTS PAGE Introduction vii The Autobiography I. Ancestry and Early Life in Boston 3 II. Beginning Life as a Printer 21 III. Arrival in Philadelphia 41 IV. First Visit to Boston 55 V. Early Friends in Philadelphia 69 VI. First Visit to London 77 VII. Beginning Business in Philadelphia 99 VIII. Business Success and First Public Service 126 IX. Plan for Attaining Moral Perfection 146 X. _Poor Richard's Almanac_ and Other Activities 169 XI. Interest in Public Affairs 188 XII. Defense of the Province 201 XIII. Public Services and Duties 217 XIV. Albany Plan of Union 241 XV. Quarrels with the Proprietary Governors 246 XVI. Braddock's Expedition 253 XVII. Franklin's Defense of the Frontier 274 XVIII. Scientific Experiments 289 XIX. Agent of Pennsylvania in London 296 Appendix Electrical Kite 327 The Way to Wealth 331 The Whistle 336 A Letter to Samuel Mather 34O Bibliography 343 ILLUSTRATIONS Franklin at the Court of Louis XVI _Frontispiece_ "He was therefore, feasted and invited to all the court parties. At these he sometimes met the old Duchess of Bourbon, who, being a chess player of about his force, they very generally played together. Happening once to put her king into prize, the Doctor took it. 'Ah,' says she, 'we do not take kings so.' 'We do in America,' said the Doctor."--Thomas Jefferson. PAGE Portrait of Franklin vii Pages 1 and 4 of _The Pennsylvania Gazette_, Number XL, the first number after Franklin took control xxi First page of _The New England Courant_ of December 4-11, 1721 33 "I was employed to carry the papers thro' the streets to the customers" 36 "She, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance" 48 "I took to working at press" 88 "I see him still at work when I go home from club" 120 Two pages from _Poor Richard's Almanac_ for 1736 171 "I regularly took my turn of duty there as a common soldier" 204 "In the evening, hearing a great noise among them, the commissioners walk'd out to see what was the matter" 224 "Our axes ... were immediately set to work to cut down trees" 278 "We now appeared very wide, and so far from each other in our opinions as to discourage all hope of agreement" 318 "You will find it stream out plentifully from the key on the approach of your knuckle" 328 Father Abraham in his study 330 The end papers show, at the front, the Franklin arms and the Franklin seal; at the back, the medal given by the Boston public schools from the fund left by Franklin for that purpose as provided in the following extract from his will: "I was born in Boston, New England, and owe my first instructions in literature to the free grammar-schools established there. I therefore give one hundred pounds sterling to my executors, to be by them ... paid over to the managers or directors of the free schools in my native town of Boston, to be by them ... put out to interest, and so continued at interest forever, which interest annually shall be laid out in silver medals, and given as honorary rewards annually by the directors of the said free schools belonging to the said town, in such manner as to the discretion of the selectmen of the said town shall seem meet." [Illustration: B. Franklin From an engraving by J. Thomson from the original picture by J. A. Duplessis] [Illustration: B. Franklin's signature] INTRODUCTION We Americans devour eagerly any piece of writing that purports to tell us the secret of success in life; yet how often we are disappointed to find nothing but commonplace statements, or receipts that we know by heart but never follow. Most of the life stories of our famous and successful men fail to inspire because they lack the human element that makes the record real and brings the story within our grasp. While we are searching far and near for some Aladdin's Lamp to give coveted fortune, there is ready at our hand if we will only reach out and take it, like the charm in Milton's _Comus_, "Unknown, and like esteemed, and the dull swain Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon;" the interesting, human, and vividly told story of one of the wisest and most useful lives in our own history, and perhaps in any history. In Franklin's _Autobiography_ is offered not so much a ready-made formula for success, as the companionship of a real flesh and blood man of extraordinary mind and quality, whose daily walk and conversation will help us to meet our own difficulties, much as does the example of a wise and strong friend. While we are fascinated by the story, we absorb the human experience through which a strong and helpful character is building. The thing that makes Franklin's _Autobiography_ different from every other life story of a great and successful man is just this human aspect of the account. Franklin told the story of his life, as he himself says, for the benefit of his posterity. He wanted to help them by the relation of his own rise from obscurity and poverty to eminence and wealth. He is not unmindful of the importance of his public services and their recognition, yet his accounts of these achievements are given only as a part of the story, and the vanity displayed is incidental and in keeping with the honesty of the recital. There is nothing of the impossible in the method and practice of Franklin as he sets them forth. The youth who reads the fascinating story is astonished to find that Franklin in his early years struggled with the same everyday passions and difficulties that he himself experiences, and he loses the sense of discouragement that comes from a realization of his own shortcomings and inability to attain. There are other reasons why the _Autobiography_ should be an intimate friend of American young people. Here they may establish a close relationship with one of the foremost Americans as well as one of the wisest men of his age. The life of Benjamin Franklin is of importance to every American primarily because of the part he played in securing the independence of the United States and in establishing it as a nation. Franklin shares with Washington the honors of the Revolution, and of the events leading to the birth of the new nation. While Washington was the animating spirit of the struggle in the colonies, Franklin was its ablest champion abroad. To Franklin's cogent reasoning and keen satire, we owe the clear and forcible presentation of the American case in England and France; while to his personality and diplomacy as well as to his facile pen, we are indebted for the foreign alliance and the funds without which Washington's work must have failed. His patience, fortitude, and practical wisdom, coupled with self-sacrificing devotion to the cause of his country, are hardly less noticeable than similar qualities displayed by Washington. In fact, Franklin as a public man was much like Washington, especially in the entire disinterestedness of his public service. Franklin is also interesting to us because by his life and teachings he has done more than any other American to advance the material prosperity of his countrymen. It is said that his widely and faithfully read maxims made Philadelphia and Pennsylvania wealthy, while Poor Richard's pithy sayings, translated into many languages, have had a world-wide influence. Franklin is a good type of our American manhood. Although not the wealthiest or the most powerful, he is undoubtedly, in the versatility of his genius and achievements, the greatest of our self-made men. The simple yet graphic story in the _Autobiography_ of his steady rise from humble boyhood in a tallow-chandler shop, by industry, economy, and perseverance in self-improvement, to eminence, is the most remarkable of all the remarkable histories of our self-made men. It is in itself a wonderful illustration of the results possible to be attained in a land of unequaled opportunity by following Franklin's maxims. Franklin's fame, however, was not confined to his own country. Although he lived in a century notable for the rapid evolution of scientific and political thought and activity, yet no less a keen judge and critic than Lord Jeffrey, the famous editor of the _Edinburgh Review_, a century ago said that "in one point of view the name of Franklin must be considered as standing higher than any of the others which illustrated the eighteenth century. Distinguished as a statesman, he was equally great as a philosopher, thus uniting in himself a rare degree of excellence in both these pursuits, to excel in either of which is deemed the highest praise." Franklin has indeed been aptly called "many-sided." He was eminent in science and public service, in diplomacy and in literature. He was the Edison of his day, turning his scientific discoveries to the benefit of his fellow-men. He perceived the identity of lightning and electricity and set up the lightning rod. He invented the Franklin stove, still widely used, and refused to patent it. He possessed a masterly shrewdness in business and practical affairs. Carlyle called him the father of all the Yankees. He founded a fire company, assisted in founding a hospital, and improved the cleaning and lighting of streets. He developed journalism, established the American Philosophical Society, the public library in Philadelphia, and the University of Pennsylvania. He organized a postal system for the colonies, which was the basis of the present United States Post Office. Bancroft, the eminent historian, called him "the greatest diplomatist of his century." He perfected the Albany Plan of Union for the colonies. He is the only statesman who signed the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance with France, the Treaty of Peace with England, and the Constitution. As a writer, he has produced, in his _Autobiography_ and in _Poor Richard's Almanac_, two works that are not surpassed by similar writing. He received honorary degrees from Harvard and Yale, from Oxford and St. Andrews, and was made a fellow of the Royal Society, which awarded him the Copley gold medal for improving natural knowledge. He was one of the eight foreign associates of the French Academy of Science. The careful study of the _Autobiography_ is also valuable because of the style in which it is written. If Robert Louis Stevenson is right in believing that his remarkable style was acquired by imitation then the youth who would gain the power to express his ideas clearly, forcibly, and interestingly cannot do better than to study Franklin's method. Franklin's fame in the scientific world was due almost as much to his modest, simple, and sincere manner of presenting his discoveries and to the precision and clearness of the style in which he described his experiments, as to the results he was able to announce. Sir Humphry Davy, the celebrated English chemist, himself an excellent literary critic as well as a great scientist, said: "A singular felicity guided all Franklin's researches, and by very small means he established very grand truths. The style and manner of his publication on electricity are almost as worthy of admiration as the doctrine it contains." Franklin's place in literature is hard to determine because he was not primarily a literary man. His aim in his writings as in his life work was to be helpful to his fellow-men. For him writing was never an end in itself, but always a means to an end. Yet his success as a scientist, a statesman, and a diplomat, as well as socially, was in no little part due to his ability as a writer. "His letters charmed all, and made his correspondence eagerly sought. His political arguments were the joy of his party and the dread of his opponents. His scientific discoveries were explained in language at once so simple and so clear that plow-boy and exquisite could follow his thought or his experiment to its conclusion."[1] [1] _The Many-Sided Franklin._ Paul L. Ford. As far as American literature is concerned, Franklin has no contemporaries. Before the _Autobiography_ only one literary work of importance had been produced in this country--Cotton Mather's _Magnalia_, a church history of New England in a ponderous, stiff style. Franklin was the first American author to gain a wide and permanent reputation in Europe. The _Autobiography_, _Poor Richard_, _Father Abraham's Speech_ or _The Way to Wealth_, as well as some of the _Bagatelles_, are as widely known abroad as any American writings. Franklin must also be classed as the first American humorist. English literature of the eighteenth century was characterized by the development of prose. Periodical literature reached its perfection early in the century in _The Tatler_ and _The Spectator_ of Addison and Steele. Pamphleteers flourished throughout the period. The homelier prose of Bunyan and Defoe gradually gave place to the more elegant and artificial language of Samuel Johnson, who set the standard for prose writing from 1745 onward. This century saw the beginnings of the modern novel, in Fielding's _Tom Jones_, Richardson's _Clarissa Harlowe_, Sterne's _Tristram Shandy_, and Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_. Gibbon wrote _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, Hume his _History of England_, and Adam Smith the _Wealth of Nations_. In the simplicity and vigor of his style Franklin more nearly resembles the earlier group of writers. In his first essays he was not an inferior imitator of Addison. In his numerous parables, moral allegories, and apologues he showed Bunyan's influence. But Franklin was essentially a journalist. In his swift, terse style, he is most like Defoe, who was the first great English journalist and master of the newspaper narrative. The style of both writers is marked by homely, vigorous expression, satire, burlesque, repartee. Here the comparison must end. Defoe and his contemporaries were authors. Their vocation was writing and their success rests on the imaginative or creative power they displayed. To authorship Franklin laid no claim. He wrote no work of the imagination. He developed only incidentally a style in many respects as remarkable as that of his English contemporaries. He wrote the best autobiography in existence, one of the most widely known collections of maxims, and an unsurpassed series of political and social satires, because he was a man of unusual scope of power and usefulness, who knew how to tell his fellow-men the secrets of that power and that usefulness. The Story of the Autobiography The account of how Franklin's _Autobiography_ came to be written and of the adventures of the original manuscript forms in itself an interesting story. The _Autobiography_ is Franklin's longest work, and yet it is only a fragment. The first part, written as a letter to his son, William Franklin, was not intended for publication; and the composition is more informal and the narrative more personal than in the second part, from 1730 on, which was written with a view to publication. The entire manuscript shows little evidence of revision. In fact, the expression is so homely and natural that his grandson, William Temple Franklin, in editing the work changed some of the phrases because he thought them inelegant and vulgar. Franklin began the story of his life while on a visit to his friend, Bishop Shipley, at Twyford, in Hampshire, southern England, in 1771. He took the manuscript, completed to 1731, with him when he returned to Philadelphia in 1775. It was left there with his other papers when he went to France in the following year, and disappeared during the confusion incident to the Revolution. Twenty-three pages of closely written manuscript fell into the hands of Abel James, an old friend, who sent a copy to Franklin at Passy, near Paris, urging him to complete the story. Franklin took up the work at Passy in 1784 and carried the narrative forward a few months. He changed the plan to meet his new purpose of writing to benefit the young reader. His work was soon interrupted and was not resumed until 1788, when he was at home in Philadelphia. He was now old, infirm, and suffering, and was still engaged in public service. Under these discouraging conditions the work progressed slowly. It finally stopped when the narrative reached the year 1757. Copies of the manuscript were sent to friends of Franklin in England and France, among others to Monsieur Le Veillard at Paris. The first edition of the _Autobiography_ was published in French at Paris in 1791. It was clumsily and carelessly translated, and was imperfect and unfinished. Where the translator got the manuscript is not known. Le Veillard disclaimed any knowledge of the publication. From this faulty French edition many others were printed, some in Germany, two in England, and another in France, so great was the demand for the work. In the meantime the original manuscript of the _Autobiography_ had started on a varied and adventurous career. It was left by Franklin with his other works to his grandson, William Temple Franklin, whom Franklin designated as his literary executor. When Temple Franklin came to publish his grandfather's works in 1817, he sent the original manuscript of the _Autobiography_ to the daughter of Le Veillard in exchange for her father's copy, probably thinking the clearer transcript would make better printer's copy. The original manuscript thus found its way to the Le Veillard family and connections, where it remained until sold in 1867 to Mr. John Bigelow, United States Minister to France. By him it was later sold to Mr. E. Dwight Church of New York, and passed with the rest of Mr. Church's library into the possession of Mr. Henry E. Huntington. The original manuscript of Franklin's _Autobiography_ now rests in the vault in Mr. Huntington's residence at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street, New York City. When Mr. Bigelow came to examine his purchase, he was astonished to find that what people had been reading for years as the authentic _Life of Benjamin Franklin by Himself_, was only a garbled and incomplete version of the real _Autobiography_. Temple Franklin had taken unwarranted liberties with the original. Mr. Bigelow says he found more than twelve hundred changes in the text. In 1868, therefore, Mr. Bigelow published the standard edition of Franklin's _Autobiography_. It corrected errors in the previous editions and was the first English edition to contain the short fourth part, comprising the last few pages of the manuscript, written during the last year of Franklin's life. Mr. Bigelow republished the _Autobiography_, with additional interesting matter, in three volumes in 1875, in 1905, and in 1910. The text in this volume is that of Mr. Bigelow's editions.[2] [2] For the division into chapters and the chapter titles, however, the present editor is responsible. The _Autobiography_ has been reprinted in the United States many scores of times and translated into all the languages of Europe. It has never lost its popularity and is still in constant demand at circulating libraries. The reason for this popularity is not far to seek. For in this work Franklin told in a remarkable manner the story of a remarkable life. He displayed hard common sense and a practical knowledge of the art of living. He selected and arranged his material, perhaps unconsciously, with the unerring instinct of the journalist for the best effects. His success is not a little due to his plain, clear, vigorous English. He used short sentences and words, homely expressions, apt illustrations, and pointed allusions. Franklin had a most interesting, varied, and unusual life. He was one of the greatest conversationalists of his time. His book is the record of that unusual life told in Franklin's own unexcelled conversational style. It is said that the best parts of Boswell's famous biography of Samuel Johnson are those parts where Boswell permits Johnson to tell his own story. In the _Autobiography_ a no less remarkable man and talker than Samuel Johnson is telling his own story throughout. F. W. P. The Gilman Country School, Baltimore, September, 1916. [Illustration: Pages 1 and 4 of The Pennsylvania Gazette, the first number after Franklin took control. Reduced nearly one-half. Reproduced from a copy at the New York Public Library.] [Transcriber's note: Transcription of these pages are given at the end of the text.] AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN I ANCESTRY AND EARLY YOUTH IN BOSTON Twyford,[3] _at the Bishop of St. Asaph's_, 1771. Dear son: I have ever had pleasure in obtaining any little anecdotes of my ancestors. You may remember the inquiries I made among the remains of my relations when you were with me in England, and the journey I undertook for that purpose. Imagining it may be equally agreeable to you to know the circumstances of my life, many of which you are yet unacquainted with, and expecting the enjoyment of a week's uninterrupted leisure in my present country retirement, I sit down to write them for you. To which I have besides some other inducements. Having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and bred, to a state of affluence and some degree of reputation in the world, and having gone so far through life with a considerable share of felicity, the conducing means I made use of, which with the blessing of God so well succeeded, my posterity may like to know, as they may find some of them suitable to their own situations, and therefore fit to be imitated. [3] A small village not far from Winchester in Hampshire, southern England. Here was the country seat of the Bishop of St. Asaph, Dr. Jonathan Shipley, the "good Bishop," as Dr. Franklin used to style him. Their relations were intimate and confidential. In his pulpit, and in the House of Lords, as well as in society, the bishop always opposed the harsh measures of the Crown toward the Colonies.--Bigelow. That felicity, when I reflected on it, has induced me sometimes to say, that were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults of the first. So I might, besides correcting the faults, change some sinister accidents and events of it for others more favourable. But though this were denied, I should still accept the offer. Since such a repetition is not to be expected, the next thing most like living one's life over again seems to be a recollection of that life, and to make that recollection as durable as possible by putting it down in writing. Hereby, too, I shall indulge the inclination so natural in old men, to be talking of themselves and their own past actions; and I shall indulge it without being tiresome to others, who, through respect to age, might conceive themselves obliged to give me a hearing, since this may be read or not as anyone pleases. And, lastly (I may as well confess it, since my denial of it will be believed by nobody), perhaps I shall a good deal gratify my own _vanity_.[4] Indeed, I scarce ever heard or saw the introductory words, "_Without vanity I may say_," etc., but some vain thing immediately followed. Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others that are within his sphere of action; and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life. [4] In this connection Woodrow Wilson says, "And yet the surprising and delightful thing about this book (the _Autobiography_) is that, take it all in all, it has not the low tone of conceit, but is a staunch man's sober and unaffected assessment of himself and the circumstances of his career." Gibbon and Hume, the great British historians, who were contemporaries of Franklin, express in their autobiographies the same feeling about the propriety of just self-praise. And now I speak of thanking God, I desire with all humility to acknowledge that I owe the mentioned happiness of my past life to His kind providence, which lead me to the means I used and gave them success. My belief of this induces me to _hope_, though I must not _presume_, that the same goodness will still be exercised toward me, in continuing that happiness, or enabling me to bear a fatal reverse, which I may experience as others have done; the complexion of my future fortune being known to Him only in whose power it is to bless to us even our afflictions. The notes one of my uncles (who had the same kind of curiosity in collecting family anecdotes) once put into my hands, furnished me with several particulars relating to our ancestors. From these notes I learned that the family had lived in the same village, Ecton, in Northamptonshire,[5] for three hundred years, and how much longer he knew not (perhaps from the time when the name of Franklin, that before was the name of an order of people,[6] was assumed by them as a surname when others took surnames all over the kingdom), on a freehold of about thirty acres, aided by the smith's business, which had continued in the family till his time, the eldest son being always bred to that business; a custom which he and my father followed as to their eldest sons. When I searched the registers at Ecton, I found an account of their births, marriages and burials from the year 1555 only, there being no registers kept in that parish at any time preceding. By that register I perceived that I was the youngest son of the youngest son for five generations back. My grandfather Thomas, who was born in 1598, lived at Ecton till he grew too old to follow business longer, when he went to live with his son John, a dyer at Banbury, in Oxfordshire, with whom my father served an apprenticeship. There my grandfather died and lies buried. We saw his gravestone in 1758. His eldest son Thomas lived in the house at Ecton, and left it with the land to his only child, a daughter, who, with her husband, one Fisher, of Wellingborough, sold it to Mr. Isted, now lord of the manor there. My grandfather had four sons that grew up, viz.: Thomas, John, Benjamin and Josiah. I will give you what account I can of them at this distance from my papers, and if these are not lost in my absence, you will among them find many more particulars. [5] See _Introduction_. [6] A small landowner. Thomas was bred a smith under his father; but, being ingenious, and encouraged in learning (as all my brothers were) by an Esquire Palmer, then the principal gentleman in that parish, he qualified himself for the business of scrivener; became a considerable man in the county; was a chief mover of all public-spirited undertakings for the county or town of Northampton, and his own village, of which many instances were related of him; and much taken notice of and patronized by the then Lord Halifax. He died in 1702, January 6, old style,[7] just four years to a day before I was born. The account we received of his life and character from some old people at Ecton, I remember, struck you as something extraordinary, from its similarity to what you knew of mine. "Had he died on the same day," you said, "one might have supposed a transmigration." [7] January 17, new style. This change in the calendar was made in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, and adopted in England in 1752. Every year whose number in the common reckoning since Christ is not divisible by 4, as well as every year whose number is divisible by 100 but not by 400, shall have 365 days, and all other years shall have 366 days. In the eighteenth century there was a difference of eleven days between the old and the new style of reckoning, which the English Parliament canceled by making the 3rd of September, 1752, the 14th. The Julian calendar, or "old style," is still retained in Russia and Greece, whose dates consequently are now 13 days behind those of other Christian countries. John was bred a dyer, I believe of woollens, Benjamin was bred a silk dyer, serving an apprenticeship at London. He was an ingenious man. I remember him well, for when I was a boy he came over to my father in Boston, and lived in the house with us some years. He lived to a great age. His grandson, Samuel Franklin, now lives in Boston. He left behind him two quarto volumes, MS., of his own poetry, consisting of little occasional pieces addressed to his friends and relations, of which the following, sent to me, is a specimen.[8] He had formed a short-hand of his own, which he taught me, but, never practising it, I have now forgot it. I was named after this uncle, there being a particular affection between him and my father. He was very pious, a great attender of sermons of the best preachers, which he took down in his short-hand, and had with him many volumes of them. He was also much of a politician; too much, perhaps, for his station. There fell lately into my hands, in London, a collection he had made of all the principal pamphlets relating to public affairs, from 1641 to 1717; many of the volumes are wanting as appears by the numbering, but there still remain eight volumes in folio, and twenty-four in quarto and in octavo. A dealer in old books met with them, and knowing me by my sometimes buying of him, he brought them to me. It seems my uncle must have left them here when he went to America, which was about fifty years since. There are many of his notes in the margins. [8] The specimen is not in the manuscript of the _Autobiography_. This obscure family of ours was early in the Reformation, and continued Protestants through the reign of Queen Mary, when they were sometimes in danger of trouble on account of their zeal against popery. They had got an English Bible, and to conceal and secure it, it was fastened open with tapes under and within the cover of a joint-stool. When my great-great-grandfather read it to his family, he turned up the joint-stool upon his knees, turning over the leaves then under the tapes. One of the children stood at the door to give notice if he saw the apparitor coming, who was an officer of the spiritual court. In that case the stool was turned down again upon its feet, when the Bible remained concealed under it as before. This anecdote I had from my uncle Benjamin. The family continued all of the Church of England till about the end of Charles the Second's reign, when some of the ministers that had been outed for non-conformity, holding conventicles[9] in Northamptonshire, Benjamin and Josiah adhered to them, and so continued all their lives: the rest of the family remained with the Episcopal Church. [9] Secret gatherings of dissenters from the established Church. [Illustration: Birthplace of Franklin. Milk Street, Boston.] Josiah, my father, married young, and carried his wife with three children into New England, about 1682. The conventicles having been forbidden by law, and frequently disturbed, induced some considerable men of his acquaintance to remove to that country, and he was prevailed with to accompany them thither, where they expected to enjoy their mode of religion with freedom. By the same wife he had four children more born there, and by a second wife ten more, in all seventeen; of which I remember thirteen sitting at one time at his table, who all grew up to be men and women, and married; I was the youngest son, and the youngest child but two, and was born in Boston, New England.[10] My mother, the second wife, was Abiah Folger, daughter of Peter Folger, one of the first settlers of New England, of whom honorable mention is made by Cotton Mather,[11] in his church history of that country, entitled _Magnalia Christi Americana_, as "_a godly, learned Englishman_," if I remember the words rightly. I have heard that he wrote sundry small occasional pieces, but only one of them was printed, which I saw now many years since. It was written in 1675, in the home-spun verse of that time and people, and addressed to those then concerned in the government there. It was in favour of liberty of conscience, and in behalf of the Baptists, Quakers, and other sectaries that had been under persecution, ascribing the Indian wars, and other distresses that had befallen the country, to that persecution, as so many judgments of God to punish so heinous an offense, and exhorting a repeal of those uncharitable laws. The whole appeared to me as written with a good deal of decent plainness and manly freedom. The six concluding lines I remember, though I have forgotten the two first of the stanza; but the purport of them was, that his censures proceeded from good-will, and, therefore, he would be known to be the author. "Because to be a libeller (says he) I hate it with my heart; From Sherburne town,[12] where now I dwell My name I do put here; Without offense your real friend, It is Peter Folgier." [10] Franklin was born on Sunday, January 6, old style, 1706, in a house on Milk Street, opposite the Old South Meeting House, where he was baptized on the day of his birth, during a snowstorm. The house where he was born was burned in 1810.--Griffin. [11] Cotton Mather (1663-1728), clergyman, author, and scholar. Pastor of the North Church, Boston. He took an active part in the persecution of witchcraft. [12] Nantucket. My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades. I was put to the grammar-school at eight years of age, my father intending to devote me, as the tithe[13] of his sons, to the service of the Church. My early readiness in learning to read (which must have been very early, as I do not remember when I could not read), and the opinion of all his friends, that I should certainly make a good scholar, encouraged him in this purpose of his. My uncle Benjamin, too, approved of it, and proposed to give me all his short-hand volumes of sermons, I suppose as a stock to set up with, if I would learn his character.[14] I continued, however, at the grammar-school not quite one year, though in that time I had risen gradually from the middle of the class of that year to be the head of it, and farther was removed into the next class above it, in order to go with that into the third at the end of the year. But my father, in the meantime, from a view of the expense of a college education, which having so large a family he could not well afford, and the mean living many so educated were afterwards able to obtain--reasons that he gave to his friends in my hearing--altered his first intention, took me from the grammar-school, and sent me to a school for writing and arithmetic, kept by a then famous man, Mr. George Brownell, very successful in his profession generally, and that by mild, encouraging methods. Under him I acquired fair writing pretty soon, but I failed in the arithmetic, and made no progress in it. At ten years old I was taken home to assist my father in his business, which was that of a tallow-chandler and sope-boiler; a business he was not bred to, but had assumed on his arrival in New England, and on finding his dyeing trade would not maintain his family, being in little request. Accordingly, I was employed in cutting wick for the candles, filling the dipping mould and the moulds for cast candles, attending the shop, going of errands, etc. [13] Tenth. [14] System of short-hand. I disliked the trade, and had a strong inclination for the sea, but my father declared against it; however, living near the water, I was much in and about it, learnt early to swim well, and to manage boats; and when in a boat or canoe with other boys, I was commonly allowed to govern, especially in any case of difficulty; and upon other occasions I was generally a leader among the boys, and sometimes led them into scrapes, of which I will mention one instance, as it shows an early projecting public spirit, tho' not then justly conducted. There was a salt-marsh that bounded part of the mill-pond, on the edge of which, at high water, we used to stand to fish for minnows. By much trampling, we had made it a mere quagmire. My proposal was to build a wharf there fit for us to stand upon, and I showed my comrades a large heap of stones, which were intended for a new house near the marsh, and which would very well suit our purpose. Accordingly, in the evening, when the workmen were gone, I assembled a number of my playfellows, and working with them diligently like so many emmets, sometimes two or three to a stone, we brought them all away and built our little wharf. The next morning the workmen were surprised at missing the stones, which were found in our wharf. Inquiry was made after the removers; we were discovered and complained of; several of us were corrected by our fathers; and, though I pleaded the usefulness of the work, mine convinced me that nothing was useful which was not honest. I think you may like to know something of his person and character. He had an excellent constitution of body, was of middle stature, but well set, and very strong; he was ingenious, could draw prettily, was skilled a little in music, and had a clear, pleasing voice, so that when he played psalm tunes on his violin and sung withal, as he sometimes did in an evening after the business of the day was over, it was extremely agreeable to hear. He had a mechanical genius too, and, on occasion, was very handy in the use of other tradesmen's tools; but his great excellence lay in a sound understanding and solid judgment in prudential matters, both in private and publick affairs. In the latter, indeed, he was never employed, the numerous family he had to educate and the straitness of his circumstances keeping him close to his trade; but I remember well his being frequently visited by leading people, who consulted him for his opinion in affairs of the town or of the church he belonged to, and showed a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice: he was also much consulted by private persons about their affairs when any difficulty occurred, and frequently chosen an arbitrator between contending parties. At his table he liked to have, as often as he could, some sensible friend or neighbor to converse with, and always took care to start some ingenious or useful topic for discourse, which might tend to improve the minds of his children. By this means he turned our attention to what was good, just, and prudent in the conduct of life; and little or no notice was ever taken of what related to the victuals on the table, whether it was well or ill dressed, in or out of season, of good or bad flavor, preferable or inferior to this or that other thing of the kind, so that I was bro't up in such a perfect inattention to those matters as to be quite indifferent what kind of food was set before me, and so unobservant of it, that to this day if I am asked I can scarce tell a few hours after dinner what I dined upon. This has been a convenience to me in traveling, where my companions have been sometimes very unhappy for want of a suitable gratification of their more delicate, because better instructed, tastes and appetites. My mother had likewise an excellent constitution: she suckled all her ten children. I never knew either my father or mother to have any sickness but that of which they dy'd, he at 89, and she at 85 years of age. They lie buried together at Boston, where I some years since placed a marble over their grave,[15] with this inscription: Josiah Franklin, and Abiah his wife, lie here interred. They lived lovingly together in wedlock fifty-five years. Without an estate, or any gainful employment, By constant labor and industry, with God's blessing, They maintained a large family comfortably, and brought up thirteen children and seven grandchildren reputably. From this instance, reader, Be encouraged to diligence in thy calling, And distrust not Providence. He was a pious and prudent man; She, a discreet and virtuous woman. Their youngest son, In filial regard to their memory, Places this stone. J. F. born 1655, died 1744, �tat 89. A. F. born 1667, died 1752,----85. [15] This marble having decayed, the citizens of Boston in 1827 erected in its place a granite obelisk, twenty-one feet high, bearing the original inscription quoted in the text and another explaining the erection of the monument. By my rambling digressions I perceive myself to be grown old. I us'd to write more methodically. But one does not dress for private company as for a publick ball. 'Tis perhaps only negligence. To return: I continued thus employed in my father's business for two years, that is, till I was twelve years old; and my brother John, who was bred to that business, having left my father, married, and set up for himself at Rhode Island, there was all appearance that I was destined to supply his place, and become a tallow-chandler. But my dislike to the trade continuing, my father was under apprehensions that if he did not find one for me more agreeable, I should break away and get to sea, as his son Josiah had done, to his great vexation. He therefore sometimes took me to walk with him, and see joiners, bricklayers, turners, braziers, etc., at their work, that he might observe my inclination, and endeavor to fix it on some trade or other on land. It has ever since been a pleasure to me to see good workmen handle their tools; and it has been useful to me, having learnt so much by it as to be able to do little jobs myself in my house when a workman could not readily be got, and to construct little machines for my experiments, while the intention of making the experiment was fresh and warm in my mind. My father at last fixed upon the cutler's trade, and my uncle Benjamin's son Samuel, who was bred to that business in London, being about that time established in Boston, I was sent to be with him some time on liking. But his expectations of a fee with me displeasing my father, I was taken home again. II BEGINNING LIFE AS A PRINTER From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the _Pilgrim's Progress_, my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate little volumes. I afterward sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's _Historical Collections_; they were small chapmen's books,[16] and cheap, 40 or 50 in all. My father's little library consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read, and have since often regretted that, at a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way, since it was now resolved I should not be a clergyman. Plutarch's _Lives_ there was in which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book of DeFoe's, called an _Essay on Projects_, and another of Dr. Mather's, called _Essays to do Good_, which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events of my life. [16] Small books, sold by chapmen or peddlers. This bookish inclination at length determined my father to make me a printer, though he had already one son (James) of that profession. In 1717 my brother James returned from England with a press and letters to set up his business in Boston. I liked it much better than that of my father, but still had a hankering for the sea. To prevent the apprehended effect of such an inclination, my father was impatient to have me bound to my brother. I stood out some time, but at last was persuaded, and signed the indentures when I was yet but twelve years old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I was twenty-one years of age, only I was to be allowed journeyman's wages during the last year. In a little time I made great proficiency in the business, and became a useful hand to my brother. I now had access to better books. An acquaintance with the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening and to be returned early in the morning, lest it should be missed or wanted. And after some time an ingenious tradesman, Mr. Matthew Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, and who frequented our printing-house, took notice of me, invited me to his library, and very kindly lent me such books as I chose to read. I now took a fancy to poetry, and made some little pieces; my brother, thinking it might turn to account, encouraged me, and put me on composing occasional ballads. One was called _The Lighthouse Tragedy_, and contained an account of the drowning of Captain Worthilake, with his two daughters: the other was a sailor's song, on the taking of _Teach_ (or Blackbeard) the pirate. They were wretched stuff, in the Grub-street-ballad style;[17] and when they were printed he sent me about the town to sell them. The first sold wonderfully, the event being recent, having made a great noise. This flattered my vanity; but my father discouraged me by ridiculing my performances, and telling me verse-makers were generally beggars. So I escaped being a poet, most probably a very bad one; but as prose writing has been of great use to me in the course of my life, and was a principal means of my advancement, I shall tell you how, in such a situation, I acquired what little ability I have in that way. [17] Grub-street: famous in English literature as the home of poor writers. There was another bookish lad in the town, John Collins by name, with whom I was intimately acquainted. We sometimes disputed, and very fond we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting one another, which disputatious turn, by the way, is apt to become a very bad habit, making people often extremely disagreeable in company by the contradiction that is necessary to bring it into practice; and thence, besides souring and spoiling the conversation, is productive of disgusts and, perhaps enmities where you may have occasion for friendship. I had caught it by reading my father's books of dispute about religion. Persons of good sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it, except lawyers, university men, and men of all sorts that have been bred at Edinborough. A question was once, somehow or other, started between Collins and me, of the propriety of educating the female sex in learning, and their abilities for study. He was of opinion that it was improper, and that they were naturally unequal to it. I took the contrary side, perhaps a little for dispute's sake. He was naturally more eloquent, had a ready plenty of words, and sometimes, as I thought, bore me down more by his fluency than by the strength of his reasons. As we parted without settling the point, and were not to see one another again for some time, I sat down to put my arguments in writing, which I copied fair and sent to him. He answered, and I replied. Three or four letters of a side had passed, when my father happened to find my papers and read them. Without entering into the discussion, he took occasion to talk to me about the manner of my writing; observed that, though I had the advantage of my antagonist in correct spelling and pointing (which I ow'd to the printing-house), I fell far short in elegance of expression, in method and in perspicuity, of which he convinced me by several instances. I saw the justice of his remarks, and thence grew more attentive to the manner in writing, and determined to endeavor at improvement. About this time I met with an odd volume of the _Spectator_.[18] It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, try'd to compleat the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my _Spectator_ with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses; since the continual occasion for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and compleat the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method of the language, and this encouraged me to think I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely ambitious. My time for these exercises and for reading was at night, after work or before it began in the morning, or on Sundays, when I contrived to be in the printing-house alone, evading as much as I could the common attendance on public worship which my father used to exact of me when I was under his care, and which indeed I still thought a duty, thought I could not, as it seemed to me, afford time to practise it. [18] A daily London journal, comprising satirical essays on social subjects, published by Addison and Steele in 1711-1712. The _Spectator_ and its predecessor, the _Tatler_ (1709), marked the beginning of periodical literature. When about 16 years of age I happened to meet with a book, written by one Tryon, recommending a vegetable diet. I determined to go into it. My brother, being yet unmarried, did not keep house, but boarded himself and his apprentices in another family. My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chid for my singularity. I made myself acquainted with Tryon's manner of preparing some of his dishes, such as boiling potatoes or rice, making hasty pudding, and a few others, and then proposed to my brother, that if he would give me, weekly, half the money he paid for my board, I would board myself. He instantly agreed to it, and I presently found that I could save half what he paid me. This was an additional fund for buying books. But I had another advantage in it. My brother and the rest going from the printing-house to their meals, I remained there alone, and, dispatching presently my light repast, which often was no more than a bisket or a slice of bread, a handful of raisins or a tart from the pastry-cook's, and a glass of water, had the rest of the time till their return for study, in which I made the greater progress, from that greater clearness of head and quicker apprehension which usually attend temperance in eating and drinking. And now it was that, being on some occasion made asham'd of my ignorance in figures, which I had twice failed in learning when at school, I took Cocker's book of Arithmetick, and went through the whole by myself with great ease. I also read Seller's and Shermy's books of Navigation, and became acquainted with the little geometry they contain; but never proceeded far in that science. And I read about this time Locke _On Human Understanding_,[19] and the _Art of Thinking_, by Messrs. du Port Royal.[20] [19] John Locke (1632-1704), a celebrated English philosopher, founder of the so-called "common-sense" school of philosophers. He drew up a constitution for the colonists of Carolina. [20] A noted society of scholarly and devout men occupying the abbey of Port Royal near Paris, who published learned works, among them the one here referred to, better known as the _Port Royal Logic_. While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an English grammar (I think it was Greenwood's), at the end of which there were two little sketches of the arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter finishing with a specimen of a dispute in the Socratic[21] method; and soon after I procur'd Xenophon's Memorable Things of Socrates, wherein there are many instances of the same method. I was charm'd with it, adopted it, dropt my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer and doubter. And being then, from reading Shaftesbury and Collins, become a real doubter in many points of our religious doctrine, I found this method safest for myself and very embarrassing to those against whom I used it; therefore I took a delight in it, practis'd it continually, and grew very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions, the consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved. I continu'd this method some few years, but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence; never using, when I advanced anything that may possibly be disputed, the words _certainly_, _undoubtedly_, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so; it appears to me, or _I should think it so or so_, for such and such reasons; or _I imagine it to be so_; or _it is so, if I am not mistaken_. This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions, and persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time engaged in promoting; and, as the chief ends of conversation are to _inform_ or to be _informed_, to _please_ or to _persuade_, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat everyone of those purposes for which speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving information or pleasure. For, if you would inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid attention. If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error. And by such a manner, you can seldom hope to recommend yourself in _pleasing_ your hearers, or to persuade those whose concurrence you desire. Pope[22] says, judiciously: _"Men should be taught as if you taught them not, And things unknown propos'd as things forgot;"_ farther recommending to us "To speak, tho' sure, with seeming diffidence." And he might have coupled with this line that which he has coupled with another, I think, less properly, "For want of modesty is want of sense." If you ask, Why less properly? I must repeat the lines, "Immodest words admit of no defense, For want of modesty is want of sense." Now, is not _want of sense_ (where a man is so unfortunate as to want it) some apology for his _want of modesty_? and would not the lines stand more justly thus? "Immodest words admit _but_ this defense, That want of modesty is want of sense." This, however, I should submit to better judgments. [21] Socrates confuted his opponents in argument by asking questions so skillfully devised that the answers would confirm the questioner's position or show the error of the opponent. [22] Alexander Pope (1688-1744), the greatest English poet of the first half of the eighteenth century. My brother had, in 1720 or 1721, begun to print a newspaper. It was the second that appeared in America,[23] and was called the New England Courant. The only one before it was the Boston News-Letter. I remember his being dissuaded by some of his friends from the undertaking, as not likely to succeed, one newspaper being, in their judgment, enough for America. At this time (1771) there are not less than five-and-twenty. He went on, however, with the undertaking, and after having worked in composing the types and printing off the sheets, I was employed to carry the papers thro' the streets to the customers. [23] Franklin's memory does not serve him correctly here. The _Courant_ was really the fifth newspaper established in America, although generally called the fourth, because the first, _Public Occurrences_, published in Boston in 1690, was suppressed after the first issue. Following is the order in which the other four papers were published: _Boston News Letter_, 1704; _Boston Gazette_, December 21, 1719; _The American Weekly Mercury_, Philadelphia, December 22, 1719; _The New England Courant_, 1721. [Illustration: First page of The New England Courant of Dec. 4-11, 1721. Reduced about one-third. From a copy in the Library of the Massachusetts Historical Society.] [Transcriber's note: Transcription given at the end of the text.] He had some ingenious men among his friends, who amus'd themselves by writing little pieces for this paper, which gain'd it credit and made it more in demand, and these gentlemen often visited us. Hearing their conversations, and their accounts of the approbation their papers were received with, I was excited to try my hand among them; but, being still a boy, and suspecting that my brother would object to printing anything of mine in his paper if he knew it to be mine, I contrived to disguise my hand, and, writing an anonymous paper, I put it in at night under the door of the printing-house. It was found in the morning, and communicated to his writing friends when they call'd in as usual. They read it, commented on it in my hearing, and I had the exquisite pleasure of finding it met with their approbation, and that, in their different guesses at the author, none were named but men of some character among us for learning and ingenuity. I suppose now that I was rather lucky in my judges, and that perhaps they were not really so very good ones as I then esteem'd them. Encourag'd, however, by this, I wrote and conveyed in the same way to the press several more papers which were equally approv'd; and I kept my secret till my small fund of sense for such performances was pretty well exhausted, and then I discovered[24] it, when I began to be considered a little more by my brother's acquaintance, and in a manner that did not quite please him, as he thought, probably with reason, that it tended to make me too vain. And, perhaps, this might be one occasion of the differences that we began to have about this time. Though a brother, he considered himself as my master, and me as his apprentice, and, accordingly, expected the same services from me as he would from another, while I thought he demean'd me too much in some he requir'd of me, who from a brother expected more indulgence. Our disputes were often brought before our father, and I fancy I was either generally in the right, or else a better pleader, because the judgment was generally in my favor. But my brother was passionate, and had often beaten me, which I took extreamly amiss; and, thinking my apprenticeship very tedious, I was continually wishing for some opportunity of shortening it, which at length offered in a manner unexpected. [24] Disclosed. [Illustration: "I was employed to carry the papers thro' the streets to the customers"] One of the pieces in our newspaper on some political point, which I have now forgotten, gave offense to the Assembly. He was taken up, censur'd, and imprison'd for a month, by the speaker's warrant, I suppose, because he would not discover his author. I too was taken up and examin'd before the council; but, tho' I did not give them any satisfaction, they contented themselves with admonishing me, and dismissed me, considering me, perhaps, as an apprentice, who was bound to keep his master's secrets. During my brother's confinement, which I resented a good deal, notwithstanding our private differences, I had the management of the paper; and I made bold to give our rulers some rubs in it, which my brother took very kindly, while others began to consider me in an unfavorable light, as a young genius that had a turn for libeling and satyr. My brother's discharge was accompany'd with an order of the House (a very odd one), that "_James Franklin should no longer print the paper called the New England Courant_." There was a consultation held in our printing-house among his friends, what he should do in this case. Some proposed to evade the order by changing the name of the paper; but my brother, seeing inconveniences in that, it was finally concluded on as a better way, to let it be printed for the future under the name of Benjamin Franklin; and to avoid the censure of the Assembly, that might fall on him as still printing it by his apprentice, the contrivance was that my old indenture should be return'd to me, with a full discharge on the back of it, to be shown on occasion, but to secure to him the benefit of my service, I was to sign new indentures for the remainder of the term, which were to be kept private. A very flimsy scheme it was; however, it was immediately executed, and the paper went on accordingly, under my name for several months. At length, a fresh difference arising between my brother and me, I took upon me to assert my freedom, presuming that he would not venture to produce the new indentures. It was not fair in me to take this advantage, and this I therefore reckon one of the first errata of my life; but the unfairness of it weighed little with me, when under the impressions of resentment for the blows his passion too often urged him to bestow upon me, though he was otherwise not an ill-natur'd man: perhaps I was too saucy and provoking. When he found I would leave him, he took care to prevent my getting employment in any other printing-house of the town, by going round and speaking to every master, who accordingly refus'd to give me work. I then thought of going to New York, as the nearest place where there was a printer; and I was rather inclin'd to leave Boston when I reflected that I had already made myself a little obnoxious to the governing party, and, from the arbitrary proceedings of the Assembly in my brother's case, it was likely I might, if I stay'd, soon bring myself into scrapes; and farther, that my indiscreet disputations about religion began to make me pointed at with horror by good people as an infidel or atheist. I determin'd on the point, but my father now siding with my brother, I was sensible that, if I attempted to go openly, means would be used to prevent me. My friend Collins, therefore, undertook to manage a little for me. He agreed with the captain of a New York sloop for my passage, under the notion of my being a young acquaintance of his. So I sold some of my books to raise a little money, was taken on board privately, and as we had a fair wind, in three days I found myself in New York, near 300 miles from home, a boy of but 17, without the least recommendation to, or knowledge of, any person in the place, and with very little money in my pocket. [Illustration: Sailboat] III ARRIVAL IN PHILADELPHIA My inclinations for the sea were by this time worne out, or I might now have gratify'd them. But, having a trade, and supposing myself a pretty good workman, I offer'd my service to the printer in the place, old Mr. William Bradford, who had been the first printer in Pennsylvania, but removed from thence upon the quarrel of George Keith. He could give me no employment, having little to do, and help enough already; but says he, "My son at Philadelphia has lately lost his principal hand, Aquilla Rose, by death; if you go thither, I believe he may employ you." Philadelphia was a hundred miles further; I set out, however, in a boat for Amboy, leaving my chest and things to follow me round by sea. In crossing the bay, we met with a squall that tore our rotten sails to pieces, prevented our getting into the Kill,[25] and drove us upon Long Island. In our way, a drunken Dutchman, who was a passenger too, fell overboard; when he was sinking, I reached through the water to his shock pate, and drew him up, so that we got him in again. His ducking sobered him a little, and he went to sleep, taking first out of his pocket a book, which he desir'd I would dry for him. It proved to be my old favorite author, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, in Dutch, finely printed on good paper, with copper cuts, a dress better than I had ever seen it wear in its own language. I have since found that it has been translated into most of the languages of Europe, and suppose it has been more generally read than any other book, except perhaps the Bible. Honest John was the first that I know of who mix'd narration and dialogue; a method of writing very engaging to the reader, who in the most interesting parts finds himself, as it were, brought into the company and present at the discourse. De Foe in his Cruso, his Moll Flanders, Religious Courtship, Family Instructor, and other pieces, has imitated it with success; and Richardson[26] has done the same in his Pamela, etc. [25] Kill van Kull, the channel separating Staten Island from New Jersey on the north. [26] Samuel Richardson, the father of the English novel, wrote _Pamela_, _Clarissa Harlowe_, and the _History of Sir Charles Grandison_, novels published in the form of letters. When we drew near the island, we found it was at a place where there could be no landing, there being a great surff on the stony beach. So we dropt anchor, and swung round towards the shore. Some people came down to the water edge and hallow'd to us, as we did to them; but the wind was so high, and the surff so loud, that we could not hear so as to understand each other. There were canoes on the shore, and we made signs, and hallow'd that they should fetch us; but they either did not understand us, or thought it impracticable, so they went away, and night coming on, we had no remedy but to wait till the wind should abate; and, in the meantime, the boatman and I concluded to sleep, if we could; and so crowded into the scuttle, with the Dutchman, who was still wet, and the spray beating over the head of our boat, leak'd thro' to us, so that we were soon almost as wet as he. In this manner we lay all night, with very little rest; but, the wind abating the next day, we made a shift to reach Amboy before night, having been thirty hours on the water, without victuals, or any drink but a bottle of filthy rum, and the water we sail'd on being salt. In the evening I found myself very feverish, and went in to bed; but, having read somewhere that cold water drank plentifully was good for a fever, I follow'd the prescription, sweat plentifully most of the night, my fever left me, and in the morning, crossing the ferry, I proceeded on my journey on foot, having fifty miles to Burlington, where I was told I should find boats that would carry me the rest of the way to Philadelphia. [Illustration: It rained very hard all the day] It rained very hard all the day; I was thoroughly soak'd, and by noon a good deal tired; so I stopt at a poor inn, where I staid all night, beginning now to wish that I had never left home. I cut so miserable a figure, too, that I found, by the questions ask'd me, I was suspected to be some runaway servant, and in danger of being taken up on that suspicion. However, I proceeded the next day, and got in the evening to an inn, within eight or ten miles of Burlington, kept by one Dr. Brown. He entered into conversation with me while I took some refreshment, and, finding I had read a little, became very sociable and friendly. Our acquaintance continu'd as long as he liv'd. He had been, I imagine, an itinerant doctor, for there was no town in England, or country in Europe, of which he could not give a very particular account. He had some letters, and was ingenious, but much of an unbeliever, and wickedly undertook, some years after, to travesty the Bible in doggrel verse, as Cotton had done Virgil. By this means he set many of the facts in a very ridiculous light, and might have hurt weak minds if his work had been published; but it never was. At his house I lay that night, and the next morning reach'd Burlington, but had the mortification to find that the regular boats were gone a little before my coming, and no other expected to go before Tuesday, this being Saturday; wherefore I returned to an old woman in the town, of whom I had bought gingerbread to eat on the water, and ask'd her advice. She invited me to lodge at her house till a passage by water should offer; and being tired with my foot traveling, I accepted the invitation. She understanding I was a printer, would have had me stay at that town and follow my business, being ignorant of the stock necessary to begin with. She was very hospitable, gave me a dinner of ox-cheek with great good will, accepting only of a pot of ale in return; and I thought myself fixed till Tuesday should come. However, walking in the evening by the side of the river, a boat came by, which I found was going towards Philadelphia, with several people in her. They took me in, and, as there was no wind, we row'd all the way; and about midnight, not having yet seen the city, some of the company were confident we must have passed it, and would row no farther; the others knew not where we were; so we put toward the shore, got into a creek, landed near an old fence, with the rails of which we made a fire, the night being cold, in October, and there we remained till daylight. Then one of the company knew the place to be Cooper's Creek, a little above Philadelphia, which we saw as soon as we got out of the creek, and arriv'd there about eight or nine o'clock on the Sunday morning, and landed at the Market-street wharf. I have been the more particular in this description of my journey, and shall be so of my first entry into that city, that you may in your mind compare such unlikely beginnings with the figure I have since made there. I was in my working dress, my best clothes being to come round by sea. I was dirty from my journey; my pockets were stuff'd out with shirts and stockings, and I knew no soul nor where to look for lodging. I was fatigued with traveling, rowing, and want of rest, I was very hungry; and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar, and about a shilling in copper. The latter I gave the people of the boat for my passage, who at first refus'd it, on account of my rowing; but I insisted on their taking it. A man being sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps thro' fear of being thought to have but little. Then I walked up the street, gazing about till near the market-house I met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, and, inquiring where he got it, I went immediately to the baker's he directed me to, in Second-street, and ask'd for bisket, intending such as we had in Boston; but they, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia. Then I asked for a three-penny loaf, and was told they had none such. So not considering or knowing the difference of money, and the greater cheapness nor the names of his bread, I bade him give me three-penny worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I was surpris'd at the quantity, but took it, and, having no room in my pockets, walk'd off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other. Thus I went up Market-street as far as Fourth-street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future wife's father; when she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut-street and part of Walnut-street, eating my roll all the way, and, coming round, found myself again at Market-street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for a draught of the river water; and, being filled with one of my rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther. [Illustration: "She, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance"] Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this time had many clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way. I joined them, and thereby was led into the great meeting-house of the Quakers near the market. I sat down among them, and, after looking round awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy thro' labour and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continu'd so till the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough to rouse me. This was, therefore, the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia. Walking down again toward the river, and, looking in the faces of people, I met a young Quaker man, whose countenance I lik'd, and, accosting him, requested he would tell me where a stranger could get lodging. We were then near the sign of the Three Mariners. "Here," says he, "is one place that entertains strangers, but it is not a reputable house; if thee wilt walk with me, I'll show thee a better." He brought me to the Crooked Billet in Water-street. Here I got a dinner; and, while I was eating it, several sly questions were asked me, as it seemed to be suspected from my youth and appearance, that I might be some runaway. After dinner, my sleepiness return'd, and being shown to a bed, I lay down without undressing, and slept till six in the evening, was call'd to supper, went to bed again very early, and slept soundly till next morning. Then I made myself as tidy as I could, and went to Andrew Bradford the printer's. I found in the shop the old man his father, whom I had seen at New York, and who, traveling on horseback, had got to Philadelphia before me. He introduc'd me to his son, who receiv'd me civilly, gave me a breakfast, but told me he did not at present want a hand, being lately suppli'd with one; but there was another printer in town, lately set up, one Keimer, who, perhaps, might employ me; if not, I should be welcome to lodge at his house, and he would give me a little work to do now and then till fuller business should offer. The old gentleman said he would go with me to the new printer; and when we found him, "Neighbour," says Bradford, "I have brought to see you a young man of your business; perhaps you may want such a one." He ask'd me a few questions, put a composing stick in my hand to see how I work'd, and then said he would employ me soon, though he had just then nothing for me to do; and, taking old Bradford, whom he had never seen before, to be one of the town's people that had a good will for him, enter'd into a conversation on his present undertaking and prospects; while Bradford, not discovering that he was the other printer's father, on Keimer's saying he expected soon to get the greatest part of the business into his own hands, drew him on by artful questions, and starting little doubts, to explain all his views, what interest he reli'd on, and in what manner he intended to proceed. I, who stood by and heard all, saw immediately that one of them was a crafty old sophister, and the other a mere novice. Bradford left me with Keimer, who was greatly surpris'd when I told him who the old man was. Keimer's printing-house, I found, consisted of an old shatter'd press, and one small, worn-out font of English, which he was then using himself, composing an Elegy on Aquilla Rose, before mentioned, an ingenious young man, of excellent character, much respected in the town, clerk of the Assembly, and a pretty poet. Keimer made verses too, but very indifferently. He could not be said to write them, for his manner was to compose them in the types directly out of his head. So there being no copy,[27] but one pair of cases, and the Elegy likely to require all the letter, no one could help him. I endeavour'd to put his press (which he had not yet us'd, and of which he understood nothing) into order fit to be work'd with; and, promising to come and print off his Elegy as soon as he should have got it ready, I return'd to Bradford's, who gave me a little job to do for the present, and there I lodged and dieted. A few days after, Keimer sent for me to print off the Elegy. And now he had got another pair of cases,[28] and a pamphlet to reprint, on which he set me to work. These two printers I found poorly qualified for their business. Bradford had not been bred to it, and was very illiterate; and Keimer, tho' something of a scholar, was a mere compositor, knowing nothing of presswork. He had been one of the French prophets,[29] and could act their enthusiastic agitations. At this time he did not profess any particular religion, but something of all on occasion; was very ignorant of the world, and had, as I afterward found, a good deal of the knave in his composition. He did not like my lodging at Bradford's while I work'd with him. He had a house, indeed, but without furniture, so he could not lodge me; but he got me a lodging at Mr. Read's before mentioned, who was the owner of his house; and, my chest and clothes being come by this time, I made rather a more respectable appearance in the eyes of Miss Read than I had done when she first happen'd to see me eating my roll in the street. [27] Manuscript. [28] The frames for holding type are in two sections, the upper for capitals and the lower for small letters. [29] Protestants of the South of France, who became fanatical under the persecutions of Louis XIV, and thought they had the gift of prophecy. They had as mottoes "No Taxes" and "Liberty of Conscience." I began now to have some acquaintance among the young people of the town, that were lovers of reading, with whom I spent my evenings very pleasantly; and gaining money by my industry and frugality, I lived very agreeably, forgetting Boston as much as I could, and not desiring that any there should know where I resided, except my friend Collins, who was in my secret, and kept it when I wrote to him. At length, an incident happened that sent me back again much sooner than I had intended. I had a brother-in-law, Robert Holmes, master of a sloop that traded between Boston and Delaware. He being at Newcastle, forty miles below Philadelphia, heard there of me, and wrote me a letter mentioning the concern of my friends in Boston at my abrupt departure, assuring me of their good will to me, and that everything would be accommodated to my mind if I would return, to which he exhorted me very earnestly. I wrote an answer to his letter, thank'd him for his advice, but stated my reasons for quitting Boston fully and in such a light as to convince him I was not so wrong as he had apprehended. IV FIRST VISIT TO BOSTON Sir William Keith, governor of the province, was then at Newcastle, and Captain Holmes, happening to be in company with him when my letter came to hand, spoke to him of me, and show'd him the letter. The governor read it, and seem'd surpris'd when he was told my age. He said I appear'd a young man of promising parts, and therefore should be encouraged; the printers at Philadelphia were wretched ones; and, if I would set up there, he made no doubt I should succeed; for his part, he would procure me the public business, and do me every other service in his power. This my brother-in-law afterwards told me in Boston, but I knew as yet nothing of it; when, one day, Keimer and I being at work together near the window, we saw the governor and another gentleman (which proved to be Colonel French, of Newcastle), finely dress'd, come directly across the street to our house, and heard them at the door. Keimer ran down immediately, thinking it a visit to him; but the governor inquir'd for me, came up, and with a condescension and politeness I had been quite unus'd to, made me many compliments, desired to be acquainted with me, blam'd me kindly for not having made myself known to him when I first came to the place, and would have me away with him to the tavern, where he was going with Colonel French to taste, as he said, some excellent Madeira. I was not a little surprised, and Keimer star'd like a pig poison'd.[30] I went, however, with the governor and Colonel French to a tavern, at the corner of Third-street, and over the Madeira he propos'd my setting up my business, laid before me the probabilities of success, and both he and Colonel French assur'd me I should have their interest and influence in procuring the public business of both governments.[31] On my doubting whether my father would assist me in it, Sir William said he would give me a letter to him, in which he would state the advantages, and he did not doubt of prevailing with him. So it was concluded I should return to Boston in the first vessel, with the governor's letter recommending me to my father. In the meantime the intention was to be kept a secret, and I went on working with Keimer as usual, the governor sending for me now and then to dine with him, a very great honour I thought it, and conversing with me in the most affable, familiar, and friendly manner imaginable. [30] Temple Franklin considered this specific figure vulgar and changed it to "stared with astonishment." [31] Pennsylvania and Delaware. About the end of April, 1724, a little vessel offer'd for Boston. I took leave of Keimer as going to see my friends. The governor gave me an ample letter, saying many flattering things of me to my father, and strongly recommending the project of my setting up at Philadelphia as a thing that must make my fortune. We struck on a shoal in going down the bay, and sprung a leak; we had a blustering time at sea, and were oblig'd to pump almost continually, at which I took my turn. We arriv'd safe, however, at Boston in about a fortnight. I had been absent seven months, and my friends had heard nothing of me; for my br. Holmes was not yet return'd, and had not written about me. My unexpected appearance surpris'd the family; all were, however, very glad to see me, and made me welcome, except my brother. I went to see him at his printing-house. I was better dress'd than ever while in his service, having a genteel new suit from head to foot, a watch, and my pockets lin'd with near five pounds sterling in silver. He receiv'd me not very frankly, look'd me all over, and turn'd to his work again. [Illustration: The journeymen were inquisitive] The journeymen were inquisitive where I had been, what sort of a country it was, and how I lik'd it. I prais'd it much, and the happy life I led in it, expressing strongly my intention of returning to it; and, one of them asking what kind of money we had there, I produc'd a handful of silver, and spread it before them, which was a kind of raree-show[32] they had not been us'd to, paper being the money of Boston.[33] Then I took an opportunity of letting them see my watch; and, lastly (my brother still grum and sullen), I gave them a piece of eight[34] to drink, and took my leave. This visit of mine offended him extreamly; for, when my mother some time after spoke to him of a reconciliation, and of her wishes to see us on good terms together, and that we might live for the future as brothers, he said I had insulted him in such a manner before his people that he could never forget or forgive it. In this, however, he was mistaken. [32] A peep-show in a box. [33] There were no mints in the colonies, so the metal money was of foreign coinage and not nearly so common as paper money, which was printed in large quantities in America, even in small denominations. [34] Spanish dollar about equivalent to our dollar. My father received the governor's letter with some apparent surprise, but said little of it to me for some days, when Capt. Holmes returning he show'd it to him, asked him if he knew Keith, and what kind of man he was; adding his opinion that he must be of small discretion to think of setting a boy up in business who wanted yet three years of being at man's estate. Holmes said what he could in favour of the project, but my father was clear in the impropriety of it, and at last, gave a flat denial to it. Then he wrote a civil letter to Sir William, thanking him for the patronage he had so kindly offered me, but declining to assist me as yet in setting up, I being, in his opinion, too young to be trusted with the management of a business so important, and for which the preparation must be so expensive. My friend and companion Collins, who was a clerk in the post-office, pleas'd with the account I gave him of my new country, determined to go thither also; and, while I waited for my father's determination, he set out before me by land to Rhode Island, leaving his books, which were a pretty collection of mathematicks and natural philosophy, to come with mine and me to New York, where he propos'd to wait for me. My father, tho' he did not approve Sir William's proposition, was yet pleas'd that I had been able to obtain so advantageous a character from a person of such note where I had resided, and that I had been so industrious and careful as to equip myself so handsomely in so short a time; therefore, seeing no prospect of an accommodation between my brother and me, he gave his consent to my returning again to Philadelphia, advis'd me to behave respectfully to the people there, endeavour to obtain the general esteem, and avoid lampooning and libeling, to which he thought I had too much inclination; telling me, that by steady industry and a prudent parsimony I might save enough by the time I was one-and-twenty to set me up; and that, if I came near the matter, he would help me out with the rest. This was all I could obtain, except some small gifts as tokens of his and my mother's love, when I embark'd again for New York, now with their approbation and their blessing. The sloop putting in at Newport, Rhode Island, I visited my brother John, who had been married and settled there some years. He received me very affectionately, for he always lov'd me. A friend of his, one Vernon, having some money due to him in Pennsylvania, about thirty-five pounds currency, desired I would receive it for him, and keep it till I had his directions what to remit it in. Accordingly, he gave me an order. This afterwards occasion'd me a good deal of uneasiness. At Newport we took in a number of passengers for New York, among which were two young women, companions, and a grave, sensible, matronlike Quaker woman, with her attendants. I had shown an obliging readiness to do her some little services, which impress'd her I suppose with a degree of good will toward me; therefore, when she saw a daily growing familiarity between me and the two young women, which they appear'd to encourage, she took me aside, and said, "Young man, I am concern'd for thee, as thou hast no friend with thee, and seems not to know much of the world, or of the snares youth is expos'd to; depend upon it, those are very bad women; I can see it in all their actions; and if thee art not upon thy guard, they will draw thee into some danger; they are strangers to thee, and I advise thee, in a friendly concern for thy welfare, to have no acquaintance with them." As I seem'd at first not to think so ill of them as she did, she mentioned some things she had observ'd and heard that had escap'd my notice, but now convinc'd me she was right. I thank'd her for her kind advice, and promis'd to follow it. When we arriv'd at New York, they told me where they liv'd, and invited me to come and see them; but I avoided it, and it was well I did; for the next day the captain miss'd a silver spoon and some other things, that had been taken out of his cabin, and, knowing that these were a couple of strumpets, he got a warrant to search their lodgings, found the stolen goods, and had the thieves punish'd. So, tho' we had escap'd a sunken rock, which we scrap'd upon in the passage, I thought this escape of rather more importance to me. At New York I found my friend Collins, who had arriv'd there some time before me. We had been intimate from children, and had read the same books together; but he had the advantage of more time for reading and studying, and a wonderful genius for mathematical learning, in which he far outstript me. While I liv'd in Boston, most of my hours of leisure for conversation were spent with him, and he continu'd a sober as well as an industrious lad; was much respected for his learning by several of the clergy and other gentlemen, and seemed to promise making a good figure in life. But, during my absence, he had acquir'd a habit of sotting with brandy; and I found by his own account, and what I heard from others, that he had been drunk every day since his arrival at New York, and behav'd very oddly. He had gam'd, too, and lost his money, so that I was oblig'd to discharge his lodgings, and defray his expenses to and at Philadelphia, which prov'd extremely inconvenient to me. The then governor of New York, Burnet (son of Bishop Burnet), hearing from the captain that a young man, one of his passengers, had a great many books, desir'd he would bring me to see him. I waited upon him accordingly, and should have taken Collins with me but that he was not sober. The gov'r. treated me with great civility, show'd me his library, which was a very large one, and we had a good deal of conversation about books and authors. This was the second governor who had done me the honour to take notice of me; which, to a poor boy like me, was very pleasing. We proceeded to Philadelphia. I received on the way Vernon's money, without which we could hardly have finish'd our journey. Collins wished to be employ'd in some counting-house; but, whether they discover'd his dramming by his breath, or by his behaviour, tho' he had some recommendations, he met with no success in any application, and continu'd lodging and boarding at the same house with me, and at my expense. Knowing I had that money of Vernon's, he was continually borrowing of me, still promising repayment as soon as he should be in business. At length he had got so much of it that I was distress'd to think what I should do in case of being call'd on to remit it. His drinking continu'd, about which we sometimes quarrel'd; for, when a little intoxicated, he was very fractious. Once, in a boat on the Delaware with some other young men, he refused to row in his turn. "I will be row'd home," says he. "We will not row you," says I. "You must, or stay all night on the water," says he, "just as you please." The others said, "Let us row; what signifies it?" But, my mind being soured with his other conduct, I continu'd to refuse. So he swore he would make me row, or throw me overboard; and coming along, stepping on the thwarts, toward me, when he came up and struck at me, I clapped my hand under his crutch, and, rising, pitched him head-foremost into the river. I knew he was a good swimmer, and so was under little concern about him; but before he could get round to lay hold of the boat, we had with a few strokes pull'd her out of his reach; and ever when he drew near the boat, we ask'd if he would row, striking a few strokes to slide her away from him. He was ready to die with vexation, and obstinately would not promise to row. However, seeing him at last beginning to tire, we lifted him in and brought him home dripping wet in the evening. We hardly exchang'd a civil word afterwards, and a West India captain, who had a commission to procure a tutor for the sons of a gentleman at Barbados, happening to meet with him, agreed to carry him thither. He left me then, promising to remit me the first money he should receive in order to discharge the debt; but I never heard of him after. The breaking into this money of Vernon's was one of the first great errata of my life; and this affair show'd that my father was not much out in his judgment when he suppos'd me too young to manage business of importance. But Sir William, on reading his letter, said he was too prudent. There was great difference in persons; and discretion did not always accompany years, nor was youth always without it. "And since he will not set you up," says he, "I will do it myself. Give me an inventory of the things necessary to be had from England, and I will send for them. You shall repay me when you are able; I am resolv'd to have a good printer here, and I am sure you must succeed." This was spoken with such an appearance of cordiality, that I had not the least doubt of his meaning what he said. I had hitherto kept the proposition of my setting up, a secret in Philadelphia, and I still kept it. Had it been known that I depended on the governor, probably some friend, that knew him better, would have advis'd me not to rely on him, as I afterwards heard it as his known character to be liberal of promises which he never meant to keep. Yet, unsolicited as he was by me, how could I think his generous offers insincere? I believ'd him one of the best men in the world. I presented him an inventory of a little print'-house, amounting by my computation to about one hundred pounds sterling. He lik'd it, but ask'd me if my being on the spot in England to chuse the types, and see that everything was good of the kind, might not be of some advantage. "Then," says he, "when there, you may make acquaintances, and establish correspondences in the bookselling and stationery way." I agreed that this might be advantageous. "Then," says he, "get yourself ready to go with Annis;" which was the annual ship, and the only one at that time usually passing between London and Philadelphia. But it would be some months before Annis sail'd, so I continued working with Keimer, fretting about the money Collins had got from me, and in daily apprehensions of being call'd upon by Vernon, which, however, did not happen for some years after. I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalm'd off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion I consider'd, with my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had, or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and, when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanc'd some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, "If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you." So I din'd upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing is it to be a _reasonable creature_, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do. V EARLY FRIENDS IN PHILADELPHIA Keimer and I liv'd on a pretty good familiar footing, and agreed tolerably well, for he suspected nothing of my setting up. He retained a great deal of his old enthusiasms and lov'd argumentation. We therefore had many disputations. I used to work him so with my Socratic method, and had trepann'd him so often by questions apparently so distant from any point we had in hand, and yet by degrees led to the point, and brought him into difficulties and contradictions, that at last he grew ridiculously cautious, and would hardly answer me the most common question, without asking first, "_What do you intend to infer from that_?" However, it gave him so high an opinion of my abilities in the confuting way, that he seriously proposed my being his colleague in a project he had of setting up a new sect. He was to preach the doctrines, and I was to confound all opponents. When he came to explain with me upon the doctrines, I found several conundrums which I objected to, unless I might have my way a little too, and introduce some of mine. Keimer wore his beard at full length, because somewhere in the Mosaic law it is said, "_Thou shalt not mar the corners of thy beard_." He likewise kept the Seventh day, Sabbath; and these two points were essentials with him. I dislik'd both; but agreed to admit them upon condition of his adopting the doctrine of using no animal food. "I doubt," said he, "my constitution will not bear that." I assur'd him it would, and that he would be the better for it. He was usually a great glutton, and I promised myself some diversion in half starving him. He agreed to try the practice, if I would keep him company. I did so, and we held it for three months. We had our victuals dress'd, and brought to us regularly by a woman in the neighborhood, who had from me a list of forty dishes, to be prepar'd for us at different times, in all which there was neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, and the whim suited me the better at this time from the cheapness of it, not costing us above eighteenpence sterling each per week. I have since kept several Lents most strictly, leaving the common diet for that, and that for the common, abruptly, without the least inconvenience, so that I think there is little in the advice of making those changes by easy gradations. I went on pleasantly, but poor Keimer suffered grievously, tired of the project, long'd for the flesh-pots of Egypt, and order'd a roast pig. He invited me and two women friends to dine with him; but, it being brought too soon upon table, he could not resist the temptation, and ate the whole before we came. I had made some courtship during this time to Miss Read. I had a great respect and affection for her, and had some reason to believe she had the same for me; but, as I was about to take a long voyage, and we were both very young, only a little above eighteen, it was thought most prudent by her mother to prevent our going too far at present, as a marriage, if it was to take place, would be more convenient after my return, when I should be, as I expected, set up in my business. Perhaps, too, she thought my expectations not so well founded as I imagined them to be. My chief acquaintances at this time were Charles Osborne, Joseph Watson, and James Ralph, all lovers of reading. The two first were clerks to an eminent scrivener or conveyancer in the town, Charles Brockden; the other was clerk to a merchant. Watson was a pious, sensible young man, of great integrity; the others rather more lax in their principles of religion, particularly Ralph, who, as well as Collins, had been unsettled by me, for which they both made me suffer. Osborne was sensible, candid, frank; sincere and affectionate to his friends; but, in literary matters, too fond of criticizing. Ralph was ingenious, genteel in his manners, and extremely eloquent; I think I never knew a prettier talker. Both of them were great admirers of poetry, and began to try their hands in little pieces. Many pleasant walks we four had together on Sundays into the woods, near Schuylkill, where we read to one another, and conferr'd on what we read. [Illustration: "Many pleasant walks we four had together"] Ralph was inclin'd to pursue the study of poetry, not doubting but he might become eminent in it, and make his fortune by it, alleging that the best poets must, when they first began to write, make as many faults as he did. Osborne dissuaded him, assur'd him he had no genius for poetry, and advis'd him to think of nothing beyond the business he was bred to; that, in the mercantile way, tho' he had no stock, he might, by his diligence and punctuality, recommend himself to employment as a factor, and in time acquire wherewith to trade on his own account. I approv'd the amusing one's self with poetry now and then, so far as to improve one's language, but no farther. On this it was propos'd that we should each of us, at our next meeting, produce a piece of our own composing, in order to improve by our mutual observations, criticisms, and corrections. As language and expression were what we had in view, we excluded all considerations of invention by agreeing that the task should be a version of the eighteenth Psalm, which describes the descent of a Deity. When the time of our meeting drew nigh, Ralph called on me first, and let me know his piece was ready. I told him I had been busy, and, having little inclination, had done nothing. He then show'd me his piece for my opinion, and I much approv'd it, as it appear'd to me to have great merit. "Now," says he, "Osborne never will allow the least merit in anything of mine, but makes 1000 criticisms out of mere envy. He is not so jealous of you; I wish, therefore, you would take this piece, and produce it as yours; I will pretend not to have had time, and so produce nothing. We shall then see what he will say to it." It was agreed, and I immediately transcrib'd it, that it might appear in my own hand. We met; Watson's performance was read; there were some beauties in it, but many defects. Osborne's was read; it was much better; Ralph did it justice; remarked some faults, but applauded the beauties. He himself had nothing to produce. I was backward; seemed desirous of being excused; had not had sufficient time to correct, etc.; but no excuse could be admitted; produce I must. It was read and repeated; Watson and Osborne gave up the contest, and join'd in applauding it. Ralph only made some criticisms, and propos'd some amendments; but I defended my text. Osborne was against Ralph, and told him he was no better a critic than poet, so he dropt the argument. As they two went home together, Osborne expressed himself still more strongly in favor of what he thought my production; having restrain'd himself before, as he said, lest I should think it flattery. "But who would have imagin'd," said he, "that Franklin had been capable of such a performance; such painting, such force, such fire! He has even improv'd the original. In his common conversation he seems to have no choice of words; he hesitates and blunders; and yet, good God! how he writes!" When we next met, Ralph discovered the trick we had plaid him, and Osborne was a little laughed at. This transaction fixed Ralph in his resolution of becoming a poet. I did all I could to dissuade him from it, but he continued scribbling verses till _Pope_ cured him.[35] He became, however, a pretty good prose writer. More of him hereafter. But, as I may not have occasion again to mention the other two, I shall just remark here, that Watson died in my arms a few years after, much lamented, being the best of our set. Osborne went to the West Indies, where he became an eminent lawyer and made money, but died young. He and I had made a serious agreement, that the one who happen'd first to die should, if possible, make a friendly visit to the other, and acquaint him how he found things in that separate state. But he never fulfill'd his promise. [35] "In one of the later editions of the _Dunciad_ occur the following lines: 'Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls, And makes night hideous--answer him, ye owls.' To this the poet adds the following note: 'James Ralph, a name inserted after the first editions, not known till he writ a swearing-piece called _Sawney_, very abusive of Dr. Swift, Mr. Gay, and myself.'" VI FIRST VISIT TO LONDON The governor, seeming to like my company, had me frequently to his house, and his setting me up was always mention'd as a fixed thing. I was to take with me letters recommendatory to a number of his friends, besides the letter of credit to furnish me with the necessary money for purchasing the press and types, paper, etc. For these letters I was appointed to call at different times, when they were to be ready; but a future time was still named. Thus he went on till the ship, whose departure too had been several times postponed, was on the point of sailing. Then, when I call'd to take my leave and receive the letters, his secretary, Dr. Bard, came out to me and said the governor was extremely busy in writing, but would be down at Newcastle, before the ship, and there the letters would be delivered to me. Ralph, though married, and having one child, had determined to accompany me in this voyage. It was thought he intended to establish a correspondence, and obtain goods to sell on commission; but I found afterwards, that, thro' some discontent with his wife's relations, he purposed to leave her on their hands, and never return again. Having taken leave of my friends, and interchang'd some promises with Miss Read, I left Philadelphia in the ship, which anchor'd at Newcastle. The governor was there; but when I went to his lodging, the secretary came to me from him with the civillest message in the world, that he could not then see me, being engaged in business of the utmost importance, but should send the letters to me on board, wished me heartily a good voyage and a speedy return, etc. I returned on board a little puzzled, but still not doubting. Mr. Andrew Hamilton, a famous lawyer of Philadelphia, had taken passage in the same ship for himself and son, and with Mr. Denham, a Quaker merchant, and Messrs. Onion and Russel, masters of an iron work in Maryland, had engaged the great cabin; so that Ralph and I were forced to take up with a berth in the steerage, and none on board knowing us, were considered as ordinary persons. But Mr. Hamilton and his son (it was James, since governor) return'd from Newcastle to Philadelphia, the father being recall'd by a great fee to plead for a seized ship; and, just before we sail'd, Colonel French coming on board, and showing me great respect, I was more taken notice of, and, with my friend Ralph, invited by the other gentlemen to come into the cabin, there being now room. Accordingly, we remov'd thither. Understanding that Colonel French had brought on board the governor's despatches, I ask'd the captain for those letters that were to be under my care. He said all were put into the bag together and he could not then come at them; but, before we landed in England, I should have an opportunity of picking them out; so I was satisfied for the present, and we proceeded on our voyage. We had a sociable company in the cabin, and lived uncommonly well, having the addition of all Mr. Hamilton's stores, who had laid in plentifully. In this passage Mr. Denham contracted a friendship for me that continued during his life. The voyage was otherwise not a pleasant one, as we had a great deal of bad weather. When we came into the Channel, the captain kept his word with me, and gave me an opportunity of examining the bag for the governor's letters. I found none upon which my name was put as under my care. I picked out six or seven, that, by the handwriting, I thought might be the promised letters, especially as one of them was directed to Basket, the king's printer, and another to some stationer. We arriv'd in London the 24th of December, 1724. I waited upon the stationer, who came first in my way, delivering the letter as from Governor Keith. "I don't know such a person," says he; but, opening the letter, "O! this is from Riddlesden. I have lately found him to be a compleat rascal, and I will have nothing to do with him, nor receive any letters from him." So, putting the letter into my hand, he turn'd on his heel and left me to serve some customer. I was surprized to find these were not the governor's letters; and, after recollecting and comparing circumstances, I began to doubt his sincerity. I found my friend Denham, and opened the whole affair to him. He let me into Keith's character; told me there was not the least probability that he had written any letters for me; that no one, who knew him, had the smallest dependence on him; and he laught at the notion of the governor's giving me a letter of credit, having, as he said, no credit to give. On my expressing some concern about what I should do, he advised me to endeavour getting some employment in the way of my business. "Among the printers here," said he, "you will improve yourself, and when you return to America, you will set up to greater advantage." [Illustration: "So, putting the letter into my hand"] We both of us happen'd to know, as well as the stationer, that Riddlesden, the attorney, was a very knave. He had half ruin'd Miss Read's father by persuading him to be bound for him. By this letter it appear'd there was a secret scheme on foot to the prejudice of Hamilton (suppos'd to be then coming over with us); and that Keith was concerned in it with Riddlesden. Denham, who was a friend of Hamilton's, thought he ought to be acquainted with it; so, when he arriv'd in England, which was soon after, partly from resentment and ill-will to Keith and Riddlesden, and partly from good-will to him, I waited on him, and gave him the letter. He thank'd me cordially, the information being of importance to him; and from that time he became my friend, greatly to my advantage afterwards on many occasions. But what shall we think of a governor's playing such pitiful tricks, and imposing so grossly on a poor ignorant boy! It was a habit he had acquired. He wish'd to please everybody; and, having little to give, he gave expectations. He was otherwise an ingenious, sensible man, a pretty good writer, and a good governor for the people, tho' not for his constituents, the proprietaries, whose instructions he sometimes disregarded. Several of our best laws were of his planning and passed during his administration. Ralph and I were inseparable companions. We took lodgings together in Little Britain[36] at three shillings and sixpence a week--as much as we could then afford. He found some relations, but they were poor, and unable to assist him. He now let me know his intentions of remaining in London, and that he never meant to return to Philadelphia. He had brought no money with him, the whole he could muster having been expended in paying his passage. I had fifteen pistoles;[37] so he borrowed occasionally of me to subsist, while he was looking out for business. He first endeavoured to get into the play-house, believing himself qualify'd for an actor; but Wilkes,[38] to whom he apply'd, advis'd him candidly not to think of that employment, as it was impossible he should succeed in it. Then he propos'd to Roberts, a publisher in Paternoster Row,[39] to write for him a weekly paper like the Spectator, on certain conditions, which Roberts did not approve. Then he endeavoured to get employment as a hackney writer, to copy for the stationers and lawyers about the Temple,[40] but could find no vacancy. [36] One of the oldest parts of London, north of St. Paul's Cathedral, called "Little Britain" because the Dukes of Brittany used to live there. See the essay entitled "Little Britain" in Washington Irving's _Sketch Book_. [37] A gold coin worth about four dollars in our money. [38] A popular comedian, manager of Drury Lane Theater. [39] Street north of St. Paul's, occupied by publishing houses. [40] Law schools and lawyers' residences situated southwest of St. Paul's, between Fleet Street and the Thames. I immediately got into work at Palmer's, then a famous printing-house in Bartholomew Close, and here I continu'd near a year. I was pretty diligent, but spent with Ralph a good deal of my earnings in going to plays and other places of amusement. We had together consumed all my pistoles, and now just rubbed on from hand to mouth. He seem'd quite to forget his wife and child, and I, by degrees, my engagements with Miss Read, to whom I never wrote more than one letter, and that was to let her know I was not likely soon to return. This was another of the great errata of my life, which I should wish to correct if I were to live it over again. In fact, by our expenses, I was constantly kept unable to pay my passage. At Palmer's I was employed in composing for the second edition of Wollaston's "Religion of Nature." Some of his reasonings not appearing to me well founded, I wrote a little metaphysical piece in which I made remarks on them. It was entitled "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain." I inscribed it to my friend Ralph; I printed a small number. It occasion'd my being more consider'd by Mr. Palmer as a young man of some ingenuity, tho' he seriously expostulated with me upon the principles of my pamphlet, which to him appear'd abominable. My printing this pamphlet was another erratum. While I lodg'd in Little Britain, I made an acquaintance with one Wilcox, a bookseller, whose shop was at the next door. He had an immense collection of second-hand books. Circulating libraries were not then in use; but we agreed that, on certain reasonable terms, which I have now forgotten, I might take, read, and return any of his books. This I esteem'd a great advantage, and I made as much use of it as I could. My pamphlet by some means falling into the hands of one Lyons, a surgeon, author of a book entitled "The Infallibility of Human Judgment," it occasioned an acquaintance between us. He took great notice of me, called on me often to converse on those subjects, carried me to the Horns, a pale alehouse in----Lane, Cheapside, and introduced me to Dr. Mandeville, author of the "Fable of the Bees," who had a club there, of which he was the soul, being a most facetious, entertaining companion. Lyons, too, introduced me to Dr. Pemberton, at Batson's Coffee-house, who promis'd to give me an opportunity, sometime or other, of seeing Sir Isaac Newton, of which I was extreamly desirous; but this never happened. I had brought over a few curiosities, among which the principal was a purse made of the asbestos, which purifies by fire. Sir Hans Sloane heard of it, came to see me, and invited me to his house in Bloomsbury Square, where he show'd me all his curiosities, and persuaded me to let him add that to the number, for which he paid me handsomely. In our house there lodg'd a young woman, a milliner, who, I think, had a shop in the Cloisters. She had been genteelly bred, was sensible and lively, and of most pleasing conversation. Ralph read plays to her in the evenings, they grew intimate, she took another lodging, and he followed her. They liv'd together some time; but, he being still out of business, and her income not sufficient to maintain them with her child, he took a resolution of going from London, to try for a country school, which he thought himself well qualified to undertake, as he wrote an excellent hand, and was a master of arithmetic and accounts. This, however, he deemed a business below him, and confident of future better fortune, when he should be unwilling to have it known that he once was so meanly employed, he changed his name, and did me the honour to assume mine; for I soon after had a letter from him, acquainting me that he was settled in a small village (in Berkshire, I think it was, where he taught reading and writing to ten or a dozen boys, at sixpence each per week), recommending Mrs. T---- to my care, and desiring me to write to him, directing for Mr. Franklin, schoolmaster, at such a place. He continued to write frequently, sending me large specimens of an epic poem which he was then composing, and desiring my remarks and corrections. These I gave him from time to time, but endeavour'd rather to discourage his proceeding. One of Young's Satires[41] was then just published. I copy'd and sent him a great part of it, which set in a strong light the folly of pursuing the Muses with any hope of advancement by them. All was in vain; sheets of the poem continued to come by every post. In the meantime, Mrs. T----, having on his account lost her friends and business, was often in distresses, and us'd to send for me and borrow what I could spare to help her out of them. I grew fond of her company, and, being at that time under no religious restraint, and presuming upon my importance to her, I attempted familiarities (another erratum) which she repuls'd with a proper resentment, and acquainted him with my behaviour. This made a breach between us; and, when he returned again to London, he let me know he thought I had cancell'd all the obligations he had been under to me. So I found I was never to expect his repaying me what I lent to him or advanc'd for him. This, however, was not then of much consequence, as he was totally unable; and in the loss of his friendship I found myself relieved from a burthen. I now began to think of getting a little money beforehand, and, expecting better work, I left Palmer's to work at Watts's, near Lincoln's Inn Fields, a still greater printing-house.[42] Here I continued all the rest of my stay in London. [41] Edward Young (1681-1765), an English poet. See his satires, Vol. III, Epist. ii, page 70. [42] The printing press at which Franklin worked is preserved in the Patent Office at Washington. At my first admission into this printing-house I took to working at press, imagining I felt a want of the bodily exercise I had been us'd to in America, where presswork is mix'd with composing. I drank only water; the other workmen, near fifty in number, were great guzzlers of beer. On occasion, I carried up and down stairs a large form of types in each hand, when others carried but one in both hands. They wondered to see, from this and several instances, that the _Water-American_, as they called me, was _stronger_ than themselves, who drank _strong_ beer! We had an alehouse boy who attended always in the house to supply the workmen. My companion at the press drank every day a pint before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and cheese, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint in the afternoon about six o'clock, and another when he had done his day's work. I thought it a detestable custom; but it was necessary, he suppos'd, to drink _strong_ beer, that he might be _strong_ to labour. I endeavoured to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer could only be in proportion to the grain or flour of the barley dissolved in the water of which it was made; that there was more flour in a pennyworth of bread; and therefore, if he would eat that with a pint of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer. He drank on, however, and had four or five shillings to pay out of his wages every Saturday night for that muddling liquor; an expense I was free from. And thus these poor devils keep themselves always under. [Illustration: "I took to working at press"] Watts, after some weeks, desiring to have me in the composing-room,[43] I left the pressmen; a new bien venu or sum for drink, being five shillings, was demanded of me by the compositors. I thought it an imposition, as I had paid below; the master thought so too, and forbade my paying it. I stood out two or three weeks, was accordingly considered as an excommunicate, and had so many little pieces of private mischief done me, by mixing my sorts, transposing my pages, breaking my matter, etc., etc., if I were ever so little out of the room, and all ascribed to the chappel ghost, which they said ever haunted those not regularly admitted, that, notwithstanding the master's protection, I found myself oblig'd to comply and pay the money, convinc'd of the folly of being on ill terms with those one is to live with continually. [43] Franklin now left the work of operating the printing presses, which was largely a matter of manual labor, and began setting type, which required more skill and intelligence. I was now on a fair footing with them, and soon acquir'd considerable influence. I propos'd some reasonable alterations in their chappel laws,[44] and carried them against all opposition. From my example, a great part of them left their muddling breakfast of beer, and bread, and cheese, finding they could with me be supply'd from a neighbouring house with a large porringer of hot water-gruel, sprinkled with pepper, crumb'd with bread, and a bit of butter in it, for the price of a pint of beer, viz., three half-pence. This was a more comfortable as well as cheaper breakfast, and keep their heads clearer. Those who continued sotting with beer all day, were often, by not paying, out of credit at the alehouse, and us'd to make interest with me to get beer; their _light_, as they phrased it, _being out_. I watch'd the pay-table on Saturday night, and collected what I stood engag'd for them, having to pay sometimes near thirty shillings a week on their accounts. This, and my being esteem'd a pretty good _riggite_, that is, a jocular verbal satirist, supported my consequence in the society. My constant attendance (I never making a St. Monday)[45] recommended me to the master; and my uncommon quickness at composing occasioned my being put upon all work of dispatch, which was generally better paid. So I went on now very agreeably. [44] A printing house is called a chapel because Caxton, the first English printer, did his printing in a chapel connected with Westminster Abbey. [45] A holiday taken to prolong the dissipation of Saturday's wages. My lodging in Little Britain being too remote, I found another in Duke-street, opposite to the Romish Chapel. It was two pair of stairs backwards, at an Italian warehouse. A widow lady kept the house; she had a daughter, and a maid servant, and a journeyman who attended the warehouse, but lodg'd abroad. After sending to inquire my character at the house where I last lodg'd she agreed to take me in at the same rate, 3s. 6d. per week; cheaper, as she said, from the protection she expected in having a man lodge in the house. She was a widow, an elderly woman; had been bred a Protestant, being a clergyman's daughter, but was converted to the Catholic religion by her husband, whose memory she much revered; had lived much among people of distinction, and knew a thousand anecdotes of them as far back as the times of Charles the Second. She was lame in her knees with the gout, and, therefore, seldom stirred out of her room, so sometimes wanted company; and hers was so highly amusing to me, that I was sure to spend an evening with her whenever she desired it. Our supper was only half an anchovy each, on a very little strip of bread and butter, and half a pint of ale between us; but the entertainment was in her conversation. My always keeping good hours, and giving little trouble in the family, made her unwilling to part with me, so that, when I talk'd of a lodging I had heard of, nearer my business, for two shillings a week, which, intent as I now was on saving money, made some difference, she bid me not think of it, for she would abate me two shillings a week for the future; so I remained with her at one shilling and sixpence as long as I staid in London. In a garret of her house there lived a maiden lady of seventy, in the most retired manner, of whom my landlady gave me this account: that she was a Roman Catholic, had been sent abroad when young, and lodg'd in a nunnery with an intent of becoming a nun; but, the country not agreeing with her, she returned to England, where, there being no nunnery, she had vow'd to lead the life of a nun, as near as might be done in those circumstances. Accordingly, she had given all her estate to charitable uses, reserving only twelve pounds a year to live on, and out of this sum she still gave a great deal in charity, living herself on water-gruel only, and using no fire but to boil it. She had lived many years in that garret, being permitted to remain there gratis by successive Catholic tenants of the house below, as they deemed it a blessing to have her there. A priest visited her to confess her every day. "I have ask'd her," says my landlady, "how she, as she liv'd, could possibly find so much employment for a confessor?" "Oh," said she, "it is impossible to avoid _vain thoughts_." I was permitted once to visit her. She was cheerful and polite, and convers'd pleasantly. The room was clean, but had no other furniture than a matras, a table with a crucifix and book, a stool which she gave me to sit on, and a picture over the chimney of Saint Veronica displaying her handkerchief, with the miraculous figure of Christ's bleeding face on it,[46] which she explained to me with great seriousness. She look'd pale, but was never sick; and I give it as another instance on how small an income, life and health may be supported. At Watts's printing-house I contracted an acquaintance with an ingenious young man, one Wygate, who, having wealthy relations, had been better educated than most printers; was a tolerable Latinist, spoke French, and lov'd reading. I taught him and a friend of his to swim at twice going into the river, and they soon became good swimmers. They introduc'd me to some gentlemen from the country, who went to Chelsea by water to see the College and Don Saltero's curiosities.[47] In our return, at the request of the company, whose curiosity Wygate had excited, I stripped and leaped into the river, and swam from near Chelsea to Blackfriar's,[48] performing on the way many feats of activity, both upon and under water, that surpris'd and pleas'd those to whom they were novelties. [46] The story is that she met Christ on His way to crucifixion and offered Him her handkerchief to wipe the blood from His face, after which the handkerchief always bore the image of Christ's bleeding face. [47] James Salter, a former servant of Hans Sloane, lived in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. "His house, a barber-shop, was known as 'Don Saltero's Coffee-House.' The curiosities were in glass cases and constituted an amazing and motley collection--a petrified crab from China, a 'lignified hog,' Job's tears, Madagascar lances, William the Conqueror's flaming sword, and Henry the Eighth's coat of mail."--Smyth. [48] About three miles. I had from a child been ever delighted with this exercise, had studied and practis'd all Thevenot's motions and positions, added some of my own, aiming at the graceful and easy as well as the useful. All these I took this occasion of exhibiting to the company, and was much flatter'd by their admiration; and Wygate, who was desirous of becoming a master, grew more and more attach'd to me on that account, as well as from the similarity of our studies. He at length proposed to me traveling all over Europe together, supporting ourselves everywhere by working at our business. I was once inclined to it; but, mentioning it to my good friend Mr. Denham, with whom I often spent an hour when I had leisure, he dissuaded me from it, advising me to think only of returning to Pennsylvania, which he was now about to do. I must record one trait of this good man's character. He had formerly been in business at Bristol, but failed in debt to a number of people, compounded and went to America. There, by a close application to business as a merchant, he acquired a plentiful fortune in a few years. Returning to England in the ship with me, he invited his old creditors to an entertainment, at which he thank'd them for the easy composition they had favoured him with, and, when they expected nothing but the treat, every man at the first remove found under his plate an order on a banker for the full amount of the unpaid remainder with interest. He now told me he was about to return to Philadelphia, and should carry over a great quantity of goods in order to open a store there. He propos'd to take me over as his clerk, to keep his books, in which he would instruct me, copy his letters, and attend the store. He added, that, as soon as I should be acquainted with mercantile business, he would promote me by sending me with a cargo of flour and bread, etc., to the West Indies, and procure me commissions from others which would be profitable; and, if I manag'd well, would establish me handsomely. The thing pleas'd me; for I was grown tired of London, remembered with pleasure the happy months I had spent in Pennsylvania, and wish'd again to see it; therefore I immediately agreed on the terms of fifty pounds a year,[49] Pennsylvania money; less, indeed, than my present gettings as a compositor, but affording a better prospect. [49] About $167. I now took leave of printing, as I thought, forever, and was daily employed in my new business, going about with Mr. Denham among the tradesmen to purchase various articles, and seeing them pack'd up, doing errands, calling upon workmen to dispatch, etc.; and, when all was on board, I had a few days' leisure. On one of these days, I was, to my surprise, sent for by a great man I knew only by name, a Sir William Wyndham, and I waited upon him. He had heard by some means or other of my swimming from Chelsea to Blackfriars, and of my teaching Wygate and another young man to swim in a few hours. He had two sons, about to set out on their travels; he wish'd to have them first taught swimming, and proposed to gratify me handsomely if I would teach them. They were not yet come to town, and my stay was uncertain, so I could not undertake it; but, from this incident, I thought it likely that, if I were to remain in England and open a swimming-school, I might get a good deal of money; and it struck me so strongly, that, had the overture been sooner made me, probably I should not so soon have returned to America. After many years, you and I had something of more importance to do with one of these sons of Sir William Wyndham, become Earl of Egremont, which I shall mention in its place. Thus I spent about eighteen months in London; most part of the time I work'd hard at my business, and spent but little upon myself except in seeing plays and in books. My friend Ralph had kept me poor; he owed me about twenty-seven pounds, which I was now never likely to receive; a great sum out of my small earnings! I lov'd him, notwithstanding, for he had many amiable qualities. I had by no means improv'd my fortune; but I had picked up some very ingenious acquaintance, whose conversation was of great advantage to me; and I had read considerably. VII BEGINNING BUSINESS IN PHILADELPHIA We sail'd from Gravesend on the 23rd of July, 1726. For the incidents of the voyage, I refer you to my Journal, where you will find them all minutely related. Perhaps the most important part of that journal is the _plan_[50] to be found in it, which I formed at sea, for regulating my future conduct in life. It is the more remarkable, as being formed when I was so young, and yet being pretty faithfully adhered to quite thro' to old age. [50] "Not found in the manuscript journal, which was left among Franklin's papers."--Bigelow. We landed in Philadelphia on the 11th of October, where I found sundry alterations. Keith was no longer governor, being superseded by Major Gordon. I met him walking the streets as a common citizen. He seem'd a little asham'd at seeing me, but pass'd without saying anything. I should have been as much asham'd at seeing Miss Read, had not her friends, despairing with reason of my return after the receipt of my letter, persuaded her to marry another, one Rogers, a potter, which was done in my absence. With him, however, she was never happy, and soon parted from him, refusing to cohabit with him or bear his name, it being now said that he had another wife. He was a worthless fellow, tho' an excellent workman, which was the temptation to her friends. He got into debt, ran away in 1727 or 1728, went to the West Indies, and died there. Keimer had got a better house, a shop well supply'd with stationery, plenty of new types, a number of hands, tho' none good, and seem'd to have a great deal of business. Mr. Denham took a store in Water-street, where we open'd our goods; I attended the business diligently, studied accounts, and grew, in a little time, expert at selling. We lodg'd and boarded together; he counsell'd me as a father, having a sincere regard for me. I respected and loved him, and we might have gone on together very happy; but, in the beginning of February, 1726/7, when I had just pass'd my twenty-first year, we both were taken ill. My distemper was a pleurisy, which very nearly carried me off. I suffered a good deal, gave up the point in my own mind, and was rather disappointed when I found myself recovering, regretting, in some degree, that I must now, some time or other, have all that disagreeable work to do over again. I forget what his distemper was; it held him a long time, and at length carried him off. He left me a small legacy in a nuncupative will, as a token of his kindness for me, and he left me once more to the wide world; for the store was taken into the care of his executors, and my employment under him ended. [Illustration: "Mr. Denham took a store in Water-street"] My brother-in-law, Holmes, being now at Philadelphia, advised my return to my business; and Keimer tempted me, with an offer of large wages by the year, to come and take the management of his printing-house, that he might better attend his stationer's shop. I had heard a bad character of him in London from his wife and her friends, and was not fond of having any more to do with him. I tri'd for farther employment as a merchant's clerk; but, not readily meeting with any, I clos'd again with Keimer. I found in his house these hands: Hugh Meredith, a Welsh Pennsylvanian, thirty years of age, bred to country work; honest, sensible, had a great deal of solid observation, was something of a reader, but given to drink. Stephen Potts, a young countryman of full age, bred to the same, of uncommon natural parts, and great wit and humor, but a little idle. These he had agreed with at extream low wages per week to be rais'd a shilling every three months, as they would deserve by improving in their business; and the expectation of these high wages, to come on hereafter, was what he had drawn them in with. Meredith was to work at press, Potts at book-binding, which he, by agreement, was to teach them, though he knew neither one nor t'other. John----, a wild Irishman, brought up to no business, whose service, for four years, Keimer had purchased from the captain of a ship; he, too, was to be made a pressman. George Webb, an Oxford scholar, whose time for four years he had likewise bought, intending him for a compositor, of whom more presently; and David Harry, a country boy, whom he had taken apprentice. I soon perceiv'd that the intention of engaging me at wages so much higher than he had been us'd to give, was, to have these raw, cheap hands form'd thro' me; and, as soon as I had instructed them, then they being all articled to him, he should be able to do without me. I went on, however, very chearfully, put his printing-house in order, which had been in great confusion, and brought his hands by degrees to mind their business and to do it better. It was an odd thing to find an Oxford scholar in the situation of a bought servant. He was not more than eighteen years of age, and gave me this account of himself; that he was born in Gloucester, educated at a grammar-school there, had been distinguish'd among the scholars for some apparent superiority in performing his part, when they exhibited plays; belong'd to the Witty Club there, and had written some pieces in prose and verse, which were printed in the Gloucester newspapers; thence he was sent to Oxford; where he continued about a year, but not well satisfi'd, wishing of all things to see London, and become a player. At length, receiving his quarterly allowance of fifteen guineas, instead of discharging his debts he walk'd out of town, hid his gown in a furze bush, and footed it to London, where, having no friend to advise him, he fell into bad company, soon spent his guineas, found no means of being introduc'd among the players, grew necessitous, pawn'd his cloaths, and wanted bread. Walking the street very hungry, and not knowing what to do with himself, a crimp's bill[51] was put into his hand, offering immediate entertainment and encouragement to such as would bind themselves to serve in America. He went directly, sign'd the indentures, was put into the ship, and came over, never writing a line to acquaint his friends what was become of him. He was lively, witty, good-natur'd, and a pleasant companion, but idle, thoughtless, and imprudent to the last degree. [51] A crimp was the agent of a shipping company. Crimps were sometimes employed to decoy men into such service as is here mentioned. John, the Irishman, soon ran away; with the rest I began to live very agreeably, for they all respected me the more, as they found Keimer incapable of instructing them, and that from me they learned something daily. We never worked on Saturday, that being Keimer's Sabbath, so I had two days for reading. My acquaintance with ingenious people in the town increased. Keimer himself treated me with great civility and apparent regard, and nothing now made me uneasy but my debt to Vernon, which I was yet unable to pay, being hitherto but a poor æconomist. He, however, kindly made no demand of it. Our printing-house often wanted sorts, and there was no letter-founder in America; I had seen types cast at James's in London, but without much attention to the manner; however, I now contrived a mould, made use of the letters we had as puncheons, struck the mattrices in lead, and thus supply'd in a pretty tolerable way all deficiencies. I also engrav'd several things on occasion; I made the ink; I was warehouseman, and everything, and, in short, quite a fac-totum. But, however serviceable I might be, I found that my services became every day of less importance, as the other hands improv'd in the business; and, when Keimer paid my second quarter's wages, he let me know that he felt them too heavy, and thought I should make an abatement. He grew by degrees less civil, put on more of the master, frequently found fault, was captious, and seem'd ready for an outbreaking. I went on, nevertheless, with a good deal of patience, thinking that his encumber'd circumstances were partly the cause. At length a trifle snapt our connections; for, a great noise happening near the court-house, I put my head out of the window to see what was the matter. Keimer, being in the street, look'd up and saw me, call'd out to me in a loud voice and angry tone to mind my business, adding some reproachful words, that nettled me the more for their publicity, all the neighbours who were looking out on the same occasion being witnesses how I was treated. He came up immediately into the printing-house, continu'd the quarrel, high words pass'd on both sides, he gave me the quarter's warning we had stipulated, expressing a wish that he had not been oblig'd to so long a warning. I told him his wish was unnecessary, for I would leave him that instant; and so, taking my hat, walk'd out of doors, desiring Meredith, whom I saw below, to take care of some things I left, and bring them to my lodgings. Meredith came accordingly in the evening, when we talked my affair over. He had conceiv'd a great regard for me, and was very unwilling that I should leave the house while he remain'd in it. He dissuaded me from returning to my native country, which I began to think of; he reminded me that Keimer was in debt for all he possess'd; that his creditors began to be uneasy; that he kept his shop miserably, sold often without profit for ready money, and often trusted without keeping accounts; that he must therefore fail, which would make a vacancy I might profit of. I objected my want of money. He then let me know that his father had a high opinion of me, and, from some discourse that had pass'd between them, he was sure would advance money to set us up, if I would enter into partnership with him. "My time," says he, "will be out with Keimer in the spring; by that time we may have our press and types in from London. I am sensible I am no workman; if you like it, your skill in the business shall be set against the stock I furnish, and we will share the profits equally." The proposal was agreeable, and I consented; his father was in town and approv'd of it; the more as he saw I had great influence with his son, had prevailed on him to abstain long from dram-drinking, and he hop'd might break him of that wretched habit entirely, when we came to be so closely connected. I gave an inventory to the father, who carry'd it to a merchant; the things were sent for, the secret was to be kept till they should arrive, and in the meantime I was to get work, if I could, at the other printing-house. But I found no vacancy there, and so remained idle a few days, when Keimer, on a prospect of being employ'd to print some paper money in New Jersey, which would require cuts and various types that I only could supply, and apprehending Bradford might engage me and get the jobb from him, sent me a very civil message, that old friends should not part for a few words, the effect of sudden passion, and wishing me to return. Meredith persuaded me to comply, as it would give more opportunity for his improvement under my daily instructions; so I return'd, and we went on more smoothly than for some time before. The New Jersey jobb was obtained, I contriv'd a copperplate press for it, the first that had been seen in the country; I cut several ornaments and checks for the bills. We went together to Burlington, where I executed the whole to satisfaction; and he received so large a sum for the work as to be enabled thereby to keep his head much longer above water. At Burlington I made an acquaintance with many principal people of the province. Several of them had been appointed by the Assembly a committee to attend the press, and take care that no more bills were printed than the law directed. They were therefore, by turns, constantly with us, and generally he who attended, brought with him a friend or two for company. My mind having been much more improv'd by reading than Keimer's, I suppose it was for that reason my conversation seem'd to be more valu'd. They had me to their houses, introduced me to their friends, and show'd me much civility; while he, tho' the master, was a little neglected. In truth, he was an odd fish; ignorant of common life, fond of rudely opposing receiv'd opinions, slovenly to extream dirtiness, enthusiastic in some points of religion, and a little knavish withal. We continu'd there near three months; and by that time I could reckon among my acquired friends, Judge Allen, Samuel Bustill, the secretary of the Province, Isaac Pearson, Joseph Cooper, and several of the Smiths, members of Assembly, and Isaac Decow, the surveyor-general. The latter was a shrewd, sagacious old man, who told me that he began for himself, when young, by wheeling clay for brick-makers, learned to write after he was of age, carri'd the chain for surveyors, who taught him surveying, and he had now by his industry, acquir'd a good estate; and says he, "I foresee that you will soon work this man out of his business, and make a fortune in it at Philadelphia." He had not then the least intimation of my intention to set up there or anywhere. These friends were afterwards of great use to me, as I occasionally was to some of them. They all continued their regard for me as long as they lived. Before I enter upon my public appearance in business, it may be well to let you know the then state of my mind with regard to my principles and morals, that you may see how far those influenc'd the future events of my life. My parents had early given me religious impressions, and brought me through my childhood piously in the Dissenting way. But I was scarce fifteen, when, after doubting by turns of several points, as I found them disputed in the different books I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself. Some books against Deism[52] fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's Lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist. My arguments perverted some others, particularly Collins and Ralph; but, each of them having afterwards wrong'd me greatly without the least compunction, and recollecting Keith's conduct towards me (who was another free-thinker), and my own towards Vernon and Miss Read, which at times gave me great trouble, I began to suspect that this doctrine, tho' it might be true, was not very useful. My London pamphlet, which had for its motto these lines of Dryden:[53] "Whatever is, is right. Though purblind man Sees but a part o' the chain, the nearest link: His eyes not carrying to the equal beam, That poises all above;" and from the attributes of God, his infinite wisdom, goodness and power, concluded that nothing could possibly be wrong in the world, and that vice and virtue were empty distinctions, no such things existing, appear'd now not so clever a performance as I once thought it; and I doubted whether some error had not insinuated itself unperceiv'd into my argument, so as to infect all that follow'd, as is common in metaphysical reasonings. [52] The creed of an eighteenth century theological sect which, while believing in God, refused to credit the possibility of miracles and to acknowledge the validity of revelation. [53] A great English poet, dramatist, and critic (1631-1700). The lines are inaccurately quoted from Dryden's OEdipus, Act III, Scene I, line 293. I grew convinc'd that _truth_, _sincerity_ and _integrity_ in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life; and I form'd written resolutions, which still remain in my journal book, to practice them ever while I lived. Revelation had indeed no weight with me, as such; but I entertain'd an opinion that, though certain actions might not be bad _because_ they were forbidden by it, or good _because_ it commanded them, yet probably these actions might be forbidden _because_ they were bad for us, or commanded _because_ they were beneficial to us, in their own natures, all the circumstances of things considered. And this persuasion, with the kind hand of Providence, or some guardian angel, or accidental favourable circumstances and situations, or all together, preserved me, thro' this dangerous time of youth, and the hazardous situations I was sometimes in among strangers, remote from the eye and advice of my father, without any willful gross immorality or injustice, that might have been expected from my want of religion. I say willful, because the instances I have mentioned had something of _necessity_ in them, from my youth, inexperience, and the knavery of others. I had therefore a tolerable character to begin the world with; I valued it properly, and determin'd to preserve it. We had not been long return'd to Philadelphia before the new types arriv'd from London. We settled with Keimer, and left him by his consent before he heard of it. We found a house to hire near the market, and took it. To lessen the rent, which was then but twenty-four pounds a year, tho' I have since known it to let for seventy, we took in Thomas Godfrey, a glazier, and his family, who were to pay a considerable part of it to us, and we to board with them. We had scarce opened our letters and put our press in order, before George House, an acquaintance of mine, brought a countryman to us, whom he had met in the street inquiring for a printer. All our cash was now expended in the variety of particulars we had been obliged to procure, and this countryman's five shillings, being our first-fruits, and coming so seasonably, gave me more pleasure than any crown I have since earned; and the gratitude I felt toward House has made me often more ready than perhaps I should otherwise have been to assist young beginners. There are croakers in every country, always boding its ruin. Such a one then lived in Philadelphia; a person of note, an elderly man, with a wise look and a very grave manner of speaking; his name was Samuel Mickle. This gentleman, a stranger to me, stopt one day at my door, and asked me if I was the young man who had lately opened a new printing-house. Being answered in the affirmative, he said he was sorry for me, because it was an expensive undertaking, and the expense would be lost; for Philadelphia was a sinking place, the people already half-bankrupts, or near being so; all appearances to the contrary, such as new buildings and the rise of rents, being to his certain knowledge fallacious; for they were, in fact, among the things that would soon ruin us. And he gave me such a detail of misfortunes now existing, or that were soon to exist, that he left me half melancholy. Had I known him before I engaged in this business, probably I never should have done it. This man continued to live in this decaying place, and to declaim in the same strain, refusing for many years to buy a house there, because all was going to destruction; and at last I had the pleasure of seeing him give five times as much for one as he might have bought it for when he first began his croaking. I should have mentioned before, that, in the autumn of the preceding year, I had form'd most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement, which was called the Junto;[54] we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discuss'd by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased. Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute, or desire of victory; and, to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties. [54] A Spanish term meaning a combination for political intrigue; here a club or society. The first members were Joseph Breintnal, a copyer of deeds for the scriveners, a good-natur'd, friendly middle-ag'd man, a great lover of poetry, reading all he could meet with, and writing some that was tolerable; very ingenious in many little Nicknackeries, and of sensible conversation. Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught mathematician, great in his way, and afterward inventor of what is now called Hadley's Quadrant. But he knew little out of his way, and was not a pleasing companion; as, like most great mathematicians I have met with, he expected universal precision in everything said, or was forever denying or distinguishing upon trifles, to the disturbance of all conversation. He soon left us. Nicholas Scull, a surveyor, afterwards surveyor-general, who lov'd books, and sometimes made a few verses. William Parsons, bred a shoemaker, but, loving reading, had acquir'd a considerable share of mathematics, which he first studied with a view to astrology, that he afterwards laught at it. He also became surveyor-general. William Maugridge, a joiner, a most exquisite mechanic, and a solid, sensible man. Hugh Meredith, Stephen Potts, and George Webb I have characteriz'd before. Robert Grace, a young gentleman of some fortune, generous, lively, and witty; a lover of punning and of his friends. And William Coleman, then a merchant's clerk, about my age, who had the coolest, clearest head, the best heart, and the exactest morals of almost any man I ever met with. He became afterwards a merchant of great note, and one of our provincial judges. Our friendship continued without interruption to his death, upwards of forty years; and the club continued almost as long, and was the best school of philosophy, morality, and politics that then existed in the province; for our queries, which were read the week preceding their discussion, put us upon reading with attention upon the several subjects, that we might speak more to the purpose; and here, too, we acquired better habits of conversation, everything being studied in our rules which might prevent our disgusting each other. From hence the long continuance of the club, which I shall have frequent occasion to speak further of hereafter. But my giving this account of it here is to show something of the interest I had, everyone of these exerting themselves in recommending business to us. Breintnal particularly procur'd us from the Quakers the printing forty sheets of their history, the rest being to be done by Keimer; and upon this we work'd exceedingly hard, for the price was low. It was a folio, pro patria size, in pica, with long primer notes.[55] I compos'd of it a sheet a day, and Meredith worked it off at press; it was often eleven at night, and sometimes later, before I had finished my distribution for the next day's work, for the little jobbs sent in by our other friends now and then put us back. But so determin'd I was to continue doing a sheet a day of the folio, that one night, when, having impos'd[56] my forms, I thought my day's work over, one of them by accident was broken, and two pages reduced to pi,[57] I immediately distribut'd and composed it over again before I went to bed; and this industry, visible to our neighbors, began to give us character and credit; particularly, I was told, that mention being made of the new printing-office at the merchants' Every-night club, the general opinion was that it must fail, there being already two printers in the place, Keimer and Bradford; but Dr. Baird (whom you and I saw many years after at his native place, St. Andrew's in Scotland) gave a contrary opinion: "For the industry of that Franklin," says he, "is superior to anything I ever saw of the kind; I see him still at work when I go home from club, and he is at work again before his neighbors are out of bed." This struck the rest, and we soon after had offers from one of them to supply us with stationery; but as yet we did not chuse to engage in shop business. [55] A sheet 8-1/2 by 13-1/2 inches, having the words _pro patria_ in translucent letters in the body of the paper. Pica--a size of type; as, A B C D: Long Primer--a smaller size of type; as, A B C D. [56] To arrange and lock up pages or columns of type in a rectangular iron frame, ready for printing. [57] Reduced to complete disorder. I mention this industry the more particularly and the more freely, tho' it seems to be talking in my own praise, that those of my posterity, who shall read it, may know the use of that virtue, when they see its effects in my favour throughout this relation. George Webb, who had found a female friend that lent him wherewith to purchase his time of Keimer, now came to offer himself as a journeyman to us. We could not then employ him; but I foolishly let him know as a secret that I soon intended to begin a newspaper, and might then have work for him. My hopes of success, as I told him, were founded on this, that the then only newspaper, printed by Bradford, was a paltry thing, wretchedly manag'd, no way entertaining, and yet was profitable to him; I therefore thought a good paper would scarcely fail of good encouragement. I requested Webb not to mention it; but he told it to Keimer, who immediately, to be beforehand with me, published proposals for printing one himself, on which Webb was to be employ'd. I resented this; and, to counteract them, as I could not yet begin our paper, I wrote several pieces of entertainment for Bradford's paper, under the title of the Busy Body, which Breintnal continu'd some months. By this means the attention of the publick was fixed on that paper, and Keimer's proposals, which we burlesqu'd and ridicul'd, were disregarded. He began his paper, however, and, after carrying it on three quarters of a year, with at most only ninety subscribers, he offered it to me for a trifle; and I, having been ready some time to go on with it, took it in hand directly; and it prov'd in a few years extremely profitable to me. I perceive that I am apt to speak in the singular number, though our partnership still continu'd; the reason may be that, in fact, the whole management of the business lay upon me. Meredith was no compositor, a poor pressman, and seldom sober. My friends lamented my connection with him, but I was to make the best of it. [Illustration: "I see him still at work when I go home from club"] Our first papers made a quite different appearance from any before in the province; a better type, and better printed; but some spirited remarks of my writing, on the dispute then going on between Governor Burnet and the Massachusetts Assembly, struck the principal people, occasioned the paper and the manager of it to be much talk'd of, and in a few weeks brought them all to be our subscribers. Their example was follow'd by many, and our number went on growing continually. This was one of the first good effects of my having learnt a little to scribble; another was, that the leading men, seeing a newspaper now in the hands of one who could also handle a pen, thought it convenient to oblige and encourage me. Bradford still printed the votes, and laws, and other publick business. He had printed an address of the House to the governor, in a coarse, blundering manner; we reprinted it elegantly and correctly, and sent one to every member. They were sensible of the difference: it strengthened the hands of our friends in the House, and they voted us their printers for the year ensuing. Among my friends in the House I must not forget Mr. Hamilton, before mentioned, who was then returned from England, and had a seat in it. He interested himself for me strongly in that instance, as he did in many others afterward, continuing his patronage till his death.[58] [58] I got his son once £500.--_Marg. note_. Mr. Vernon, about this time, put me in mind of the debt I ow'd him, but did not press me. I wrote him an ingenuous letter of acknowledgment, crav'd his forbearance a little longer, which he allow'd me, and as soon as I was able, I paid the principal with interest, and many thanks; so that erratum was in some degree corrected. But now another difficulty came upon me which I had never the least reason to expect. Mr. Meredith's father, who was to have paid for our printing-house, according to the expectations given me, was able to advance only one hundred pounds currency, which had been paid; and a hundred more was due to the merchant, who grew impatient, and su'd us all. We gave bail, but saw that, if the money could not be rais'd in time, the suit must soon come to a judgment and execution, and our hopeful prospects must, with us, be ruined, as the press and letters must be sold for payment, perhaps at half price. In this distress two true friends, whose kindness I have never forgotten, nor ever shall forget while I can remember any thing, came to me separately, unknown to each other, and, without any application from me, offering each of them to advance me all the money that should be necessary to enable me to take the whole business upon myself, if that should be practicable; but they did not like my continuing the partnership with Meredith, who, as they said, was often seen drunk in the streets, and playing at low games in alehouses, much to our discredit. These two friends were William Coleman and Robert Grace. I told them I could not propose a separation while any prospect remain'd of the Meredith's fulfilling their part of our agreement, because I thought myself under great obligations to them for what they had done, and would do if they could; but, if they finally fail'd in their performance, and our partnership must be dissolv'd, I should then think myself at liberty to accept the assistance of my friends. Thus the matter rested for some time, when I said to my partner, "Perhaps your father is dissatisfied at the part you have undertaken in this affair of ours, and is unwilling to advance for you and me what he would for you alone. If that is the case, tell me, and I will resign the whole to you, and go about my business." "No," said he, "my father has really been disappointed, and is really unable; and I am unwilling to distress him farther. I see this is a business I am not fit for. I was bred a farmer, and it was a folly in me to come to town, and put myself, at thirty years of age, an apprentice to learn a new trade. Many of our Welsh people are going to settle in North Carolina, where land is cheap. I am inclin'd to go with them, and follow my old employment. You may find friends to assist you. If you will take the debts of the company upon you; return to my father the hundred pounds he has advanced; pay my little personal debts, and give me thirty pounds and a new saddle, I will relinquish the partnership, and leave the whole in your hands." I agreed to this proposal: it was drawn up in writing, sign'd, and seal'd immediately. I gave him what he demanded, and he went soon after to Carolina, from whence he sent me next year two long letters, containing the best account that had been given of that country, the climate, the soil, husbandry, etc., for in those matters he was very judicious. I printed them in the papers, and they gave great satisfaction to the publick. As soon as he was gone, I recurr'd to my two friends; and because I would not give an unkind preference to either, I took half of what each had offered and I wanted of one, and half of the other; paid off the company's debts, and went on with the business in my own name, advertising that the partnership was dissolved. I think this was in or about the year 1729. VIII BUSINESS SUCCESS AND FIRST PUBLIC SERVICE About this time there was a cry among the people for more paper money, only fifteen thousand pounds being extant in the province, and that soon to be sunk.[59] The wealthy inhabitants oppos'd any addition, being against all paper currency, from an apprehension that it would depreciate, as it had done in New England, to the prejudice of all creditors. We had discuss'd this point in our Junto, where I was on the side of an addition, being persuaded that the first small sum struck in 1723 had done much good by increasing the trade, employment, and number of inhabitants in the province, since I now saw all the old houses inhabited, and many new ones building: whereas I remembered well, that when I first walk'd about the streets of Philadelphia, eating my roll, I saw most of the houses in Walnut Street, between Second and Front streets,[60] with bills on their doors, "To be let"; and many likewise in Chestnut-street and other streets, which made me then think the inhabitants of the city were deserting it one after another. [59] Recalled to be redeemed. [60] This part of Philadelphia is now the center of the wholesale business district. Our debates possess'd me so fully of the subject, that I wrote and printed an anonymous pamphlet on it, entitled "_The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency_." It was well receiv'd by the common people in general; but the rich men dislik'd it, for it increas'd and strengthen'd the clamor for more money, and they happening to have no writers among them that were able to answer it, their opposition slacken'd, and the point was carried by a majority in the House. My friends there, who conceiv'd I had been of some service, thought fit to reward me by employing me in printing the money; a very profitable jobb and a great help to me. This was another advantage gain'd by my being able to write. The utility of this currency became by time and experience so evident as never afterwards to be much disputed; so that it grew soon to fifty-five thousand pounds, and in 1739 to eighty thousand pounds, since which it arose during war to upwards of three hundred and fifty thousand pounds, trade, building, and inhabitants all the while increasing, tho' I now think there are limits beyond which the quantity may be hurtful.[61] [61] Paper money is a promise to pay its face value in gold or silver. When a state or nation issues more such promises than there is a likelihood of its being able to redeem, the paper representing the promises depreciates in value. Before the success of the Colonies in the Revolution was assured, it took hundreds of dollars of their paper money to buy a pair of boots. I soon after obtain'd, thro' my friend Hamilton, the printing of the Newcastle paper money, another profitable jobb as I then thought it; small things appearing great to those in small circumstances; and these, to me, were really great advantages, as they were great encouragements. He procured for me, also, the printing of the laws and votes of that government, which continu'd in my hands as long as I follow'd the business. I now open'd a little stationer's shop. I had in it blanks of all sorts, the correctest that ever appear'd among us, being assisted in that by my friend Breintnal. I had also paper, parchment, chapmen's books, etc. One Whitemash, a compositor I had known in London, an excellent workman, now came to me, and work'd with me constantly and diligently; and I took an apprentice, the son of Aquilla Rose. [Illustration: "I sometimes brought home the paper I purchas'd at the stores thro' the streets on a wheelbarrow"] I began now gradually to pay off the debt I was under for the printing-house. In order to secure my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care not only to be in _reality_ industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to the contrary. I drest plainly; I was seen at no places of idle diversion. I never went out a fishing or shooting; a book, indeed, sometimes debauch'd me from my work, but that was seldom, snug, and gave no scandal; and, to show that I was not above my business, I sometimes brought home the paper I purchas'd at the stores thro' the streets on a wheelbarrow. Thus being esteem'd an industrious, thriving young man, and paying duly for what I bought, the merchants who imported stationery solicited my custom; others proposed supplying me with books, and I went on swimmingly. In the meantime, Keimer's credit and business declining daily, he was at last forc'd to sell his printing-house to satisfy his creditors. He went to Barbadoes, and there lived some years in very poor circumstances. His apprentice, David Harry, whom I had instructed while I work'd with him, set up in his place at Philadelphia, having bought his materials. I was at first apprehensive of a powerful rival in Harry, as his friends were very able, and had a good deal of interest. I therefore propos'd a partnership to him, which he, fortunately for me, rejected with scorn. He was very proud, dress'd like a gentleman, liv'd expensively, took much diversion and pleasure abroad, ran in debt, and neglected his business; upon which, all business left him; and, finding nothing to do, he followed Keimer to Barbadoes, taking the printing-house with him. There this apprentice employ'd his former master as a journeyman; they quarrell'd often; Harry went continually behindhand, and at length was forc'd to sell his types and return to his country work in Pennsylvania. The person that bought them employ'd Keimer to use them, but in a few years he died. There remained now no competitor with me at Philadelphia but the old one, Bradford; who was rich and easy, did a little printing now and then by straggling hands, but was not very anxious about the business. However, as he kept the post-office, it was imagined he had better opportunities of obtaining news; his paper was thought a better distributer of advertisements than mine, and therefore had many more, which was a profitable thing to him, and a disadvantage to me; for, tho' I did indeed receive and send papers by the post, yet the publick opinion was otherwise, for what I did send was by bribing the riders, who took them privately, Bradford being unkind enough to forbid it, which occasion'd some resentment on my part; and I thought so meanly of him for it, that, when I afterward came into his situation, I took care never to imitate it. I had hitherto continu'd to board with Godfrey, who lived in part of my house with his wife and children, and had one side of the shop for his glazier's business, tho' he worked little, being always absorbed in his mathematics. Mrs. Godfrey projected a match for me with a relation's daughter, took opportunities of bringing us often together, till a serious courtship on my part ensu'd, the girl being in herself very deserving. The old folks encourag'd me by continual invitations to supper, and by leaving us together, till at length it was time to explain. Mrs. Godfrey manag'd our little treaty. I let her know that I expected as much money with their daughter as would pay off my remaining debt for the printing-house, which I believe was not then above a hundred pounds. She brought me word they had no such sum to spare; I said they might mortgage their house in the loan-office. The answer to this, after some days, was, that they did not approve the match; that, on inquiry of Bradford, they had been informed the printing business was not a profitable one; the types would soon be worn out, and more wanted; that S. Keimer and D. Harry had failed one after the other, and I should probably soon follow them; and, therefore, I was forbidden the house, and the daughter shut up. Whether this was a real change of sentiment or only artifice, on a supposition of our being too far engaged in affection to retract, and therefore that we should steal a marriage, which would leave them at liberty to give or withhold what they pleas'd, I know not; but I suspected the latter, resented it, and went no more. Mrs. Godfrey brought me afterward some more favorable accounts of their disposition, and would have drawn me on again; but I declared absolutely my resolution to have nothing more to do with that family. This was resented by the Godfreys; we differed, and they removed, leaving me the whole house, and I resolved to take no more inmates. But this affair having turned my thoughts to marriage, I look'd round me and made overtures of acquaintance in other places; but soon found that, the business of a printer being generally thought a poor one, I was not to expect money with a wife, unless with such a one as I should not otherwise think agreeable. A friendly correspondence as neighbours and old acquaintances had continued between me and Mrs. Read's family, who all had a regard for me from the time of my first lodging in their house. I was often invited there and consulted in their affairs, wherein I sometimes was of service. I piti'd poor Miss Read's unfortunate situation, who was generally dejected, seldom chearful, and avoided company. I considered my giddiness and inconstancy when in London as in a great degree the cause of her unhappiness, tho' the mother was good enough to think the fault more her own than mine, as she had prevented our marrying before I went thither, and persuaded the other match in my absence. Our mutual affection was revived, but there were now great objections to our union. The match was indeed looked upon as invalid, a preceding wife being said to be living in England; but this could not easily be prov'd, because of the distance; and, tho' there was a report of his death, it was not certain. Then, tho' it should be true, he had left many debts, which his successor might be call'd upon to pay. We ventured, however, over all these difficulties, and I took her to wife, September 1st, 1730. None of the inconveniences happened that we had apprehended; she proved a good and faithful helpmate,[62] assisted me much by attending the shop; we throve together, and have ever mutually endeavour'd to make each other happy. Thus I corrected that great _erratum_ as well as I could. [62] Mrs. Franklin survived her marriage over forty years. Franklin's correspondence abounds with evidence that their union was a happy one. "We are grown old together, and if she has any faults, I am so used to them that I don't perceive them." The following is a stanza from one of Franklin's own songs written for the Junto: "Of their Chloes and Phyllises poets may prate, I sing my plain country Joan, These twelve years my wife, still the joy of my life, Blest day that I made her my own." About this time, our club meeting, not at a tavern, but in a little room of Mr. Grace's, set apart for that purpose, a proposition was made by me, that, since our books were often referr'd to in our disquisitions upon the queries, it might be convenient to us to have them altogether where we met, that upon occasion they might be consulted; and by thus clubbing our books to a common library, we should, while we lik'd to keep them together, have each of us the advantage of using the books of all the other members, which would be nearly as beneficial as if each owned the whole. It was lik'd and agreed to, and we fill'd one end of the room with such books as we could best spare. The number was not so great as we expected; and tho' they had been of great use, yet some inconveniences occurring for want of due care of them, the collection, after about a year, was separated, and each took his books home again. And now I set on foot my first project of a public nature, that for a subscription library. I drew up the proposals, got them put into form by our great scrivener, Brockden, and, by the help of my friends in the Junto, procured fifty subscribers of forty shillings each to begin with, and ten shillings a year for fifty years, the term our company was to continue. We afterwards obtain'd a charter, the company being increased to one hundred: this was the mother of all the North American subscription libraries, now so numerous. It is become a great thing itself, and continually increasing. These libraries have improved the general conversation of the Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and perhaps have contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the colonies in defense of their privileges.[63] _Mem°._ Thus far was written with the intention express'd in the beginning and therefore contains several little family anecdotes of no importance to others. What follows was written many years after in compliance with the advice contain'd in these letters, and accordingly intended for the public. The affairs of the Revolution occasion'd the interruption.[64] [63] Here the first part of the _Autobiography_, written at Twyford in 1771, ends. The second part, which follows, was written at Passy in 1784. [64] After this memorandum, Franklin inserted letters from Abel James and Benjamin Vaughan, urging him to continue his _Autobiography_. [_Continuation of the Account of my Life, begun at Passy, near Paris, 1784._] It is some time since I receiv'd the above letters, but I have been too busy till now to think of complying with the request they contain. It might, too, be much better done if I were at home among my papers, which would aid my memory, and help to ascertain dates; but my return being uncertain, and having just now a little leisure, I will endeavour to recollect and write what I can; if I live to get home, it may there be corrected and improv'd. Not having any copy here of what is already written, I know not whether an account is given of the means I used to establish the Philadelphia public library, which, from a small beginning, is now become so considerable, though I remember to have come down to near the time of that transaction (1730). I will therefore begin here with an account of it, which may be struck out if found to have been already given. At the time I establish'd myself in Pennsylvania, there was not a good bookseller's shop in any of the colonies to the southward of Boston. In New York and Philad'a the printers were indeed stationers; they sold only paper, etc., almanacs, ballads, and a few common school-books. Those who lov'd reading were obliged to send for their books from England; the members of the Junto had each a few. We had left the alehouse, where we first met, and hired a room to hold our club in. I propos'd that we should all of us bring our books to that room, where they would not only be ready to consult in our conferences, but become a common benefit, each of us being at liberty to borrow such as he wish'd to read at home. This was accordingly done, and for some time contented us. Finding the advantage of this little collection, I propos'd to render the benefit from books more common, by commencing a public subscription library. I drew a sketch of the plan and rules that would be necessary, and got a skilful conveyancer, Mr. Charles Brockden, to put the whole in form of articles of agreement to be subscribed, by which each subscriber engag'd to pay a certain sum down for the first purchase of books, and an annual contribution for increasing them. So few were the readers at that time in Philadelphia, and the majority of us so poor, that I was not able, with great industry, to find more than fifty persons, mostly young tradesmen, willing to pay down for this purpose forty shillings each, and ten shillings per annum. On this little fund we began. The books were imported; the library was opened one day in the week for lending to the subscribers, on their promissory notes to pay double the value if not duly returned. The institution soon manifested its utility, was imitated by other towns, and in other provinces. The libraries were augmented by donations; reading became fashionable; and our people, having no publick amusements to divert their attention from study, became better acquainted with books, and in a few years were observ'd by strangers to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same rank generally are in other countries. When we were about to sign the above mentioned articles, which were to be binding on us, our heirs, etc., for fifty years, Mr. Brockden, the scrivener, said to us, "You are young men, but it is scarcely probable that any of you will live to see the expiration of the term fix'd in the instrument." A number of us, however, are yet living; but the instrument was after a few years rendered null by a charter that incorporated and gave perpetuity to the company. The objections and reluctances I met with in soliciting the subscriptions, made me soon feel the impropriety of presenting one's self as the proposer of any useful project, that might be suppos'd to raise one's reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's neighbours, when one has need of their assistance to accomplish that project. I therefore put myself as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a _number of friends_, who had requested me to go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading. In this way my affair went on more smoothly, and I ever after practis'd it on such occasions; and, from my frequent successes, can heartily recommend it. The present little sacrifice of your vanity will afterwards be amply repaid. If it remains a while uncertain to whom the merit belongs, someone more vain than yourself will be encouraged to claim it, and then even envy will be disposed to do you justice by plucking those assumed feathers, and restoring them to their right owner. This library afforded me the means of improvement by constant study, for which I set apart an hour or two each day, and thus repair'd in some degree the loss of the learned education my father once intended for me. Reading was the only amusement I allow'd myself. I spent no time in taverns, games, or frolicks of any kind; and my industry in my business continu'd as indefatigable as it was necessary. I was indebted for my printing-house; I had a young family coming on to be educated, and I had to contend with for business two printers, who were established in the place before me. My circumstances, however, grew daily easier. My original habits of frugality continuing, and my father having, among his instructions to me when a boy, frequently repeated a proverb of Solomon, "Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men," I from thence considered industry as a means of obtaining wealth and distinction, which encourag'd me, tho' I did not think that I should ever literally _stand before kings_, which, however, has since happened; for I have stood before _five_, and even had the honor of sitting down with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner. We have an English proverb that says, "_He that would thrive, must ask his wife_." It was lucky for me that I had one as much dispos'd to industry and frugality as myself. She assisted me chearfully in my business, folding and stitching pamphlets, tending shop, purchasing old linen rags for the paper-makers, etc., etc. We kept no idle servants, our table was plain and simple, our furniture of the cheapest. For instance, my breakfast was a long time break and milk (no tea), and I ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer, with a pewter spoon. But mark how luxury will enter families, and make a progress, in spite of principle: being call'd one morning to breakfast, I found it in a China bowl, with a spoon of silver! They had been bought for me without my knowledge by my wife, and had cost her the enormous sum of three-and-twenty shillings, for which she had no other excuse or apology to make, but that she thought _her_ husband deserv'd a silver spoon and China bowl as well as any of his neighbors. This was the first appearance of plate and China in our house, which afterward, in a course of years, as our wealth increas'd, augmented gradually to several hundred pounds in value. I had been religiously educated as a Presbyterian; and though some of the dogmas of that persuasion, such as the _eternal decrees of God_, _election_, _reprobation_, _etc._, appeared to me unintelligible, others doubtful, and I early absented myself from the public assemblies of the sect, Sunday being my studying day, I never was without some religious principles. I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that he made the world, and govern'd it by his Providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter. These I esteem'd the essentials of every religion; and, being to be found in all the religions we had in our country, I respected them all, tho' with different degrees of respect, as I found them more or less mix'd with other articles, which, without any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality, serv'd principally to divide us, and make us unfriendly to one another. This respect to all, with an opinion that the worst had some good effects, induc'd me to avoid all discourse that might tend to lessen the good opinion another might have of his own religion; and as our province increas'd in people, and new places of worship were continually wanted, and generally erected by voluntary contribution, my mite for such purpose, whatever might be the sect, was never refused. Tho' I seldom attended any public worship, I had still an opinion of its propriety, and of its utility when rightly conducted, and I regularly paid my annual subscription for the support of the only Presbyterian minister or meeting we had in Philadelphia. He us'd to visit me sometimes as a friend, and admonished me to attend his administrations, and I was now and then prevail'd on to do so, once for five Sundays successively. Had he been in my opinion a good preacher, perhaps I might have continued,[65] notwithstanding the occasion I had for the Sunday's leisure in my course of study; but his discourses were chiefly either polemic arguments, or explications of the peculiar doctrines of our sect, and were all to me very dry, uninteresting, and unedifying, since not a single moral principle was inculcated or enforc'd, their aim seeming to be rather to make us Presbyterians than good citizens. [65] Franklin expressed a different view about the duty of attending church later. At length he took for his text that verse of the fourth chapter of Philippians, "_Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, or of good report, if there be any virtue, or any praise, think on these things._" And I imagin'd, in a sermon on such a text, we could not miss of having some morality. But he confin'd himself to five points only, as meant by the apostle, viz.: 1. Keeping holy the Sabbath day. 2. Being diligent in reading the holy Scriptures. 3. Attending duly the publick worship. 4. Partaking of the Sacrament. 5. Paying a due respect to God's ministers. These might be all good things; but, as they were not the kind of good things that I expected from that text, I despaired of ever meeting with them from any other, was disgusted, and attended his preaching no more. I had some years before compos'd a little Liturgy, or form of prayer, for my own private use (viz., in 1728), entitled, _Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion_. I return'd to the use of this, and went no more to the public assemblies. My conduct might be blameable, but I leave it, without attempting further to excuse it; my present purpose being to relate facts, and not to make apologies for them. IX PLAN FOR ATTAINING MORAL PERFECTION It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wish'd to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined.[66] While my care was employ'd in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent our slipping; and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. For this purpose I therefore contrived the following method. [66] Compare Philippians iv, 8. In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition. I propos'd to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annex'd to each, than a few names with more ideas; and I included under thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occurr'd to me as necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which fully express'd the extent I gave to its meaning. These names of virtues, with their precepts, were: 1. Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. 2. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. 3. Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. 4. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. 5. Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; _i. e._, waste nothing. 6. INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. 7. Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly. 8. Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty. 9. Moderation. Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. 10. Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation. 11. Tranquillity. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable. 12. Chastity. 13. Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates. My intention being to acquire the _habitude_ of all these virtues, I judg'd it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time; and, when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, till I should have gone thro' the thirteen; and, as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arrang'd them with that view, as they stand above. Temperance first, as it tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head, which is so necessary where constant vigilance was to be kept up, and guard maintained against the unremitting attraction of ancient habits, and the force of perpetual temptations. This being acquir'd and establish'd, Silence would be more easy; and my desire being to gain knowledge at the same time that I improv'd in virtue, and considering that in conversation it was obtain'd rather by the use of the ears than of the tongue, and therefore wishing to break a habit I was getting into of prattling, punning, and joking, which only made me acceptable to trifling company, I gave _Silence_ the second place. This and the next, _Order_, I expected would allow me more time for attending to my project and my studies. _Resolution_, once become habitual, would keep me firm in my endeavours to obtain all the subsequent virtues; _Frugality_ and Industry freeing me from my remaining debt, and producing affluence and independence, would make more easy the practice of Sincerity and Justice, etc., etc. Conceiving then, that, agreeably to the advice of Pythagoras[67] in his Golden Verses, daily examination would be necessary, I contrived the following method for conducting that examination. I made a little book, in which I allotted a page for each of the virtues.[68] I rul'd each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns, one for each day of the week, marking each column with a letter for the day. I cross'd these columns with thirteen red lines, marking the beginning of each line with the first letter of one of the virtues, on which line, and in its proper column, I might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue upon that day. [67] A famous Greek philosopher, who lived about 582-500 B. C. The _Golden Verses_ here ascribed to him are probably of later origin. "The time which he recommends for this work is about even or bed-time, that we may conclude the action of the day with the judgment of conscience, making the examination of our conversation an evening song to God." [68] This "little book" is dated July 1, 1733.--W. T. F. _Form of the pages._ TEMPERANCE. EAT NOT TO DULLNESS. DRINK NOT TO ELEVATION. +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | TEMPERANCE. | +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | EAT NOT TO DULLNESS. | | DRINK NOT TO ELEVATION. | +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | | S. | M. | T. | W. | T. | F. | S. | +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | T. | | | | | | | | +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | S. | * | * | | * | | * | | +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | O. | ** | * | * | | * | * | * | +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | R. | | | * | | | * | | +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | F. | | * | | | * | | | +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | I. | | | * | | | | | +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | S. | | | | | | | | +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | J. | | | | | | | | +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | M. | | | | | | | | +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | C. | | | | | | | | +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | T. | | | | | | | | +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | C. | | | | | | | | +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ I determined to give a week's strict attention to each of the virtues successively. Thus, in the first week, my great guard was to avoid every the least offense against _Temperance_, leaving the other virtues to their ordinary chance, only marking every evening the faults of the day. Thus, if in the first week I could keep my first line, marked T, clear of spots, I suppos'd the habit of that virtue so much strengthen'd, and its opposite weaken'd, that I might venture extending my attention to include the next, and for the following week keep both lines clear of spots. Proceeding thus to the last, I could go thro' a course compleat in thirteen weeks, and four courses in a year. And like him who, having a garden to weed, does not attempt to eradicate all the bad herbs at once, which would exceed his reach and his strength, but works on one of the beds at a time, and, having accomplish'd the first, proceeds to a second, so I should have, I hoped, the encouraging pleasure of seeing on my pages the progress I made in virtue, by clearing successively my lines of their spots, till in the end, by a number of courses, I should be happy in viewing a clean book, after a thirteen weeks' daily examination. This my little book had for its motto these lines from Addison's _Cato_: "Here will I hold. If there's a power above us (And that there is, all nature cries aloud Thro' all her works), He must delight in virtue; And that which he delights in must be happy." Another from Cicero, "O vitæ Philosophia dux! O virtutum indagatrix expultrixque vitiorum! Unus dies, bene et ex præceptis tuis actus, peccanti immortalitati est anteponendus."[69] [69] "O philosophy, guide of life! O searcher out of virtue and exterminator of vice! One day spent well and in accordance with thy precepts is worth an immortality of sin."--_Tusculan Inquiries_, Book V. Another from the Proverbs of Solomon, speaking of wisdom or virtue: "Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." iii. 16, 17. And conceiving God to be the fountain of wisdom, I thought it right and necessary to solicit his assistance for obtaining it; to this end I formed the following little prayer, which was prefix'd to my tables of examination, for daily use. "_O powerful Goodness! bountiful Father! merciful Guide! Increase in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen my resolutions to perform what that wisdom dictates. Accept my kind offices to thy other children as the only return in my power for thy continual favours to me_." I used also sometimes a little prayer which I took from Thomson's Poems, viz.: "Father of light and life, thou Good Supreme! O teach me what is good; teach me Thyself! Save me from folly, vanity, and vice, From every low pursuit; and fill my soul With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure; Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss!" The precept of _Order_ requiring that _every part of my business should have its allotted time_, one page in my little book contain'd the following scheme of employment for the twenty-four hours of a natural day. { 5} Rise, wash, and address { 6} _Powerful Goodness_! The Morning. { } Contrive day's _Question._ What good { } business, and take the shall I do this day? { } resolution of the day; { 7} prosecute the present { } study, and breakfast. 8} 9} Work. 10} 11} Noon. {12} Read, or overlook my { 1} accounts, and dine. 2} 3} Work. 4} 5} Evening. { 6} Put things in their _Question._ What good { 7} places. Supper. Music have I done to-day? { 8} or diversion, or conversation. { 9} Examination of { } the day. Night. {10} Sleep. {11} {12} { 1} { 2} { 3} { 4} I enter'd upon the execution of this plan for self-examination, and continu'd it with occasional intermissions for some time. I was surpris'd to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined; but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish. To avoid the trouble of renewing now and then my little book, which, by scraping out the marks on the paper of old faults to make room for new ones in a new course, became full of holes, I transferr'd my tables and precepts to the ivory leaves of a memorandum book, on which the lines were drawn with red ink, that made a durable stain, and on those lines I mark'd my faults with a black-lead pencil, which marks I could easily wipe out with a wet sponge. After a while I went thro' one course only in a year, and afterward only one in several years, till at length I omitted them entirely, being employ'd in voyages and business abroad, with a multiplicity of affairs that interfered; but I always carried my little book with me. My scheme of Order gave me the most trouble;[70] and I found that, tho' it might be practicable where a man's business was such as to leave him the disposition of his time, that of a journeyman printer, for instance, it was not possible to be exactly observed by a master, who must mix with the world, and often receive people of business at their own hours. _Order_, too, with regard to places for things, papers, etc., I found extreamly difficult to acquire. I had not been early accustomed to it, and, having an exceeding good memory, I was not so sensible of the inconvenience attending want of method. This article, therefore, cost me so much painful attention, and my faults in it vexed me so much, and I made so little progress in amendment, and had such frequent relapses, that I was almost ready to give up the attempt, and content myself with a faulty character in that respect, like the man who, in buying an ax of a smith, my neighbour, desired to have the whole of its surface as bright as the edge. The smith consented to grind it bright for him if he would turn the wheel; he turn'd, while the smith press'd the broad face of the ax hard and heavily on the stone, which made the turning of it very fatiguing. The man came every now and then from the wheel to see how the work went on, and at length would take his ax as it was, without farther grinding. "No," said the smith, "turn on, turn on; we shall have it bright by-and-by; as yet, it is only speckled." "Yes," says the man, "_but I think I like a speckled ax best_." And I believe this may have been the case with many, who, having, for want of some such means as I employ'd, found the difficulty of obtaining good and breaking bad habits in other points of vice and virtue, have given up the struggle, and concluded that "_a speckled ax was best_"; for something, that pretended to be reason, was every now and then suggesting to me that such extream nicety as I exacted of myself might be a kind of foppery in morals, which, if it were known, would make me ridiculous; that a perfect character might be attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated; and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his friends in countenance. [Illustration: "The smith consented to grind it bright for him if he would turn the wheel"] [70] Professor McMaster tells us that when Franklin was American Agent in France, his lack of business order was a source of annoyance to his colleagues and friends. "Strangers who came to see him were amazed to behold papers of the greatest importance scattered in the most careless way over the table and floor." In truth, I found myself incorrigible with respect to Order; and now I am grown old, and my memory bad, I feel very sensibly the want of it. But, on the whole, tho' I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it; as those who aim at perfect writing by imitating the engraved copies, tho' they never reach the wish'd-for excellence of those copies, their hand is mended by the endeavour, and is tolerable while it continues fair and legible. It may be well my posterity should be informed that to this little artifice, with the blessing of God, their ancestor ow'd the constant felicity of his life, down to his 79th year, in which this is written. What reverses may attend the remainder is in the hand of Providence; but, if they arrive, the reflection on past happiness enjoy'd ought to help his bearing them with more resignation. To Temperance he ascribes his long-continued health, and what is still left to him of a good constitution; to Industry and Frugality, the early easiness of his circumstances and acquisition of his fortune, with all that knowledge that enabled him to be a useful citizen, and obtained for him some degree of reputation among the learned; to Sincerity and Justice, the confidence of his country, and the honorable employs it conferred upon him; and to the joint influence of the whole mass of the virtues,[71] even in the imperfect state he was able to acquire them, all that evenness of temper, and that cheerfulness in conversation, which makes his company still sought for, and agreeable even to his younger acquaintance. I hope, therefore, that some of my descendants may follow the example and reap the benefit. [71] While there can be no question that Franklin's moral improvement and happiness were due to the practice of these virtues, yet most people will agree that we shall have to go back of his plan for the impelling motive to a virtuous life. Franklin's own suggestion that the scheme smacks of "foppery in morals" seems justified. Woodrow Wilson well puts it: "Men do not take fire from such thoughts, unless something deeper, which is missing here, shine through them. What may have seemed to the eighteenth century a system of morals seems to us nothing more vital than a collection of the precepts of good sense and sound conduct. What redeems it from pettiness in this book is the scope of power and of usefulness to be seen in Franklin himself, who set these standards up in all seriousness and candor for his own life." See _Galatians_, chapter V, for the Christian plan of moral perfection. It will be remark'd that, tho' my scheme was not wholly without religion, there was in it no mark of any of the distinguishing tenets of any particular sect. I had purposely avoided them; for, being fully persuaded of the utility and excellency of my method, and that it might be serviceable to people in all religions, and intending some time or other to publish it, I would not have anything in it that should prejudice anyone, of any sect, against it. I purposed writing a little comment on each virtue, in which I would have shown the advantages of possessing it, and the mischiefs attending its opposite vice; and I should have called my book The Art of Virtue,[72] because it would have shown the means and manner of obtaining virtue, which would have distinguished it from the mere exhortation to be good, that does not instruct and indicate the means, but is like the apostle's man of verbal charity, who only without showing to the naked and hungry how or where they might get clothes or victuals, exhorted them to be fed and clothed.--James ii. 15, 16. [72] Nothing so likely to make a man's fortune as virtue.--_Marg. note_. But it so happened that my intention of writing and publishing this comment was never fulfilled. I did, indeed, from time to time, put down short hints of the sentiments, reasonings, etc., to be made use of in it, some of which I have still by me; but the necessary close attention to private business in the earlier part of my life, and public business since, have occasioned my postponing it; for, it being connected in my mind with _a great and extensive project_, that required the whole man to execute, and which an unforeseen succession of employs prevented my attending to, it has hitherto remain'd unfinish'd. In this piece it was my design to explain and enforce this doctrine, that vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful, the nature of man alone considered; that it was, therefore, everyone's interest to be virtuous who wish'd to be happy even in this world; and I should, from this circumstance (there being always in the world a number of rich merchants, nobility, states, and princes, who have need of honest instruments for the management of their affairs, and such being so rare), have endeavoured to convince young persons that no qualities were so likely to make a poor man's fortune as those of probity and integrity. My list of virtues contain'd at first but twelve; but a Quaker friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud; that my pride show'd itself frequently in conversation; that I was not content with being in the right when discussing any point, but was overbearing, and rather insolent, of which he convinc'd me by mentioning several instances; I determined endeavouring to cure myself, if I could, of this vice or folly among the rest, and I added _Humility_ to my list, giving an extensive meaning to the word. I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the _reality_ of this virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the _appearance_ of it. I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradiction to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbid myself, agreeably to the old laws of our Junto, the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fix'd opinion, such as _certainly, undoubtedly_, etc., and I adopted, instead of them, _I conceive, I apprehend_, or _I imagine_ a thing to be so or so; or it _so appears to me at present_. When another asserted something that I thought an error, I deny'd myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing immediately some absurdity in his proposition; and in answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there _appear'd_ or _seem'd_ to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engag'd in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I propos'd my opinions procur'd them a readier reception and less contradiction; I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevail'd with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right. And this mode, which I at first put on with some violence to natural inclination, became at length so easy, and so habitual to me, that perhaps for these fifty years past no one has ever heard a dogmatical expression escape me. And to this habit (after my character of integrity) I think it principally owing that I had early so much weight with my fellow-citizens when I proposed new institutions, or alterations in the old, and so much influence in public councils when I became a member; for I was but a bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my choice of words, hardly correct in language, and yet I generally carried my points. In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as _pride_. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility. [Thus far written at Passy, 1784.] [_"I am now about to write at home, August, 1788, but cannot have the help expected from my papers, many of them being lost in the war. I have, however, found the following."_][73] [73] This is a marginal memorandum.--B. Having mentioned _a great and extensive project_ which I had conceiv'd, it seems proper that some account should be here given of that project and its object. Its first rise in my mind appears in the following little paper, accidentally preserv'd, viz.: _Observations_ on my reading history, in Library, May 19th, 1731. "That the great affairs of the world, the wars, revolutions, etc., are carried on and effected by parties. "That the view of these parties is their present general interest, or what they take to be such. "That the different views of these different parties occasion all confusion. "That while a party is carrying on a general design, each man has his particular private interest in view. "That as soon as a party has gain'd its general point, each member becomes intent upon his particular interest; which, thwarting others, breaks that party into divisions, and occasions more confusion. "That few in public affairs act from a mere view of the good of their country, whatever they may pretend; and, tho' their actings bring real good to their country, yet men primarily considered that their own and their country's interest was united, and did not act from a principle of benevolence. "That fewer still, in public affairs, act with a view to the good of mankind. "There seems to me at present to be great occasion for raising a United Party for Virtue, by forming the virtuous and good men of all nations into a regular body, to be govern'd by suitable good and wise rules, which good and wise men may probably be more unanimous in their obedience to, than common people are to common laws. "I at present think that whoever attempts this aright, and is well qualified, cannot fail of pleasing God, and of meeting with success. B. F." Revolving this project in my mind, as to be undertaken hereafter, when my circumstances should afford me the necessary leisure, I put down from time to time, on pieces of paper, such thoughts as occurr'd to me respecting it. Most of these are lost; but I find one purporting to be the substance of an intended creed, containing, as I thought, the essentials of every known religion, and being free of everything that might shock the professors of any religion. It is express'd in these words, viz.: "That there is one God, who made all things. "That he governs the world by his providence. "That he ought to be worshiped by adoration, prayer, and thanksgiving. "But that the most acceptable service of God is doing good to man. "That the soul is immortal. "And that God will certainly reward virtue and punish vice, either here or hereafter." My ideas at that time were, that the sect should be begun and spread at first among young and single men only; that each person to be initiated should not only declare his assent to such creed, but should have exercised himself with the thirteen weeks' examination and practice of the virtues, as in the beforemention'd model; that the existence of such a society should be kept a secret, till it was become considerable, to prevent solicitations for the admission of improper persons, but that the members should each of them search among his acquaintance for ingenuous, well-disposed youths, to whom, with prudent caution, the scheme should be gradually communicated; that the members should engage to afford their advice, assistance, and support to each other in promoting one another's interests, business, and advancement in life; that, for distinction, we should be call'd _The Society of the Free and Easy_: free, as being, by the general practice and habit of the virtues, free from the dominion of vice; and particularly by the practice of industry and frugality, free from debt, which exposes a man to confinement, and a species of slavery to his creditors. This is as much as I can now recollect of the project, except that I communicated it in part to two young men, who adopted it with some enthusiasm; but my then narrow circumstances, and the necessity I was under of sticking close to my business, occasioned my postponing the further prosecution of it at that time; and my multifarious occupations, public and private, induc'd me to continue postponing, so that it has been omitted till I have no longer strength or activity left sufficient for such an enterprise; though I am still of opinion that it was a practicable scheme, and might have been very useful, by forming a great number of good citizens; and I was not discourag'd by the seeming magnitude of the undertaking, as I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan, and, cutting off all amusements or other employments that would divert his attention, makes the execution of that same plan his sole study and business. X POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC AND OTHER ACTIVITIES In 1732 I first publish'd my Almanack, under the name of _Richard Saunders_; it was continu'd by me about twenty-five years, commonly call'd _Poor Richard's Almanac_.[74] I endeavour'd to make it both entertaining and useful, and it accordingly came to be in such demand, that I reap'd considerable profit from it, vending annually near ten thousand. And observing that it was generally read, scarce any neighborhood in the province being without it, I consider'd it as a proper vehicle for conveying instruction among the common people, who bought scarcely any other books; I therefore filled all the little spaces that occurr'd between the remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality, as the means of procuring wealth, and thereby securing virtue; it being more difficult for a man in want, to act always honestly, as, to use here one of those proverbs, _it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright_. [74] The almanac at that time was a kind of periodical as well as a guide to natural phenomena and the weather. Franklin took his title from _Poor Robin_, a famous English almanac, and from Richard Saunders, a well-known almanac publisher. For the maxims of Poor Richard, see pages 331-335. These proverbs, which contained the wisdom of many ages and nations, I assembled and form'd into a connected discourse prefix'd to the Almanack of 1757, as the harangue of a wise old man to the people attending an auction. The bringing all these scatter'd councils thus into a focus enabled them to make greater impression. The piece, being universally approved, was copied in all the newspapers of the Continent; reprinted in Britain on a broadside, to be stuck up in houses; two translations were made of it in French, and great numbers bought by the clergy and gentry, to distribute gratis among their poor parishioners and tenants. In Pennsylvania, as it discouraged useless expense in foreign superfluities, some thought it had its share of influence in producing that growing plenty of money which was observable for several years after its publication. Two pages from _Poor Richard's Almanac_ for 1736. Size of original. Reproduced from a copy at the New York Public Library. _IV Mon._ June hath xxx days. Things that are bitter, bitterrer than Gall Physicians say are always physical: Now Women's Tongues if into Powder beaten, May in a Potion or a Pill be eaten, And as there's nought more bitter, I do muse, That Women's Tongues in Physick they ne'er use. My self and others who lead restless Lives, Would spare that bitter Member of our Wives. 1 3 _fine weather_, 4 Le 4 36 8 Moon set 10 12 aft 2 4 Ascension Day 5 19 4 35 8 _He that can have_ 3 5 Mars Sat. Ven. _Sudden_ 6 Vi 4 35 8 _Patience, can_ 4 6 _showers_ 6h 19 4 35 8 _have what he_ 5 7 _of Rain_. 7 Li 4 35 8 First Quarter. 6 C Eraudi 8 19 4 35 8 _will._ 7 2 Trine Mars Merc. _thunder_, 9 Sc 4 35 8 Le. Vi. Li. 8 3 _perhaps hail._ 10 17 4 35 8 Sun ent. Cn. today 9 4 7* rise 2 15 10 Sa 4 34 8 making longest 10 5 _very hot_, 11 13 4 34 8 day 14 h. 51 m. 11 6 St. Barnabas. 12 26 4 34 8 Full Moon 12 day, 12 7 _then rain_. 1 Cp 4 34 8 at 1 morn. 13 C Whitsunday. 2 20 4 35 8 Moon rise 8 20 aft. 14 2 2h Aq 4 35 8 _Now I've a sheep_ 15 3 K. Geo. II. procl 3 15 4 35 8 _and a cow, every_ 16 4 ff. Sun Sat. _wind, rain_, 4 27 4 35 8 _body bids me good_ 17 5 Sxtil Sat. Merc. _hail and_ 5 Pi 4 35 8 _morrow._ 18 6 _thunder_ 6 21 4 35 8 Moon rise 11 10 af. 19 7 Day shorter 2 m. 6h Ar 4 35 8 20 C Trinity Sund. 7 15 4 36 8 Last Quarter 21 2 _If we have rain about_ 8 27 4 36 8 _God helps them_ 22 3 _the Change_, 9 Ta 4 36 8 _that help themselves_ 23 4 _Let not my reader_ 10 22 4 36 8 24 5 St. John Bap. 10 Gm 4 36 8 Moon rise 2 morn. 25 6 7* rise 1 8 11 18 4 37 8 _Why does the_ 26 7 vc Sun Jup. _think it_ 12 Cn 4 37 8 _blind man's wife_ 27 C _strange._ 1 16 4 38 8 New moon 27 day, 28 2 Sxtil Sat. Mars _hail and_ 2 Le 4 38 8 near noon. 29 3 St. Peter & Paul 2h 15 4 39 8 _paint herself._ 30 4 Square Mars Ven. _rain_. 3 Vi 4 40 8 Moon sets 9 30 _V Mon._ July hath xxxi days. Who can charge _Ebrio_ with Thirst of Wealth? See he consumes his Money, Time and Health, In drunken Frolicks which will all confound, Neglects his Farm, forgets to till his Ground, His Stock grows less that might be kept with ease; In nought but Guts and Debts he finds Encrease. In Town reels as if he'd shove down each Wall, Yet Walls must stand, poor Soul, or he must fall. 1 5 Day short 11 mi. 4 15 4 40 8 _None preaches_ 2 6 7* rise 12 32 5 Li 4 41 8 _better than the_ 3 7 _windy weather._ 6 15 4 41 8 _ant, and she says_ 4 C 2 Sund. p Trinit 6h Sc 4 42 8 First Quarter. 5 2 Vc Jup. Ven. _now_ 7 14 4 43 8 _nothing._ 6 3 _pleasant weather_ 8 27 4 44 8 Moon sets 12 30 m 7 4 _some days_ 9 Sa 4 45 8 _The absent are_ 8 5 _together,_ 10 23 4 48 8 _never without_ 9 6 _but inclines to_ 10 Cp 4 47 8 _fault, nor the_ 10 7 _falling_ 11 18 4 48 8 _present without_ 11 C 3 Sund. p. Trin. 12 Aq 4 49 8 Full moon 11 day, 12 2 Sxtil Sat. Merc. weather. 1 13 4 50 8 2 afternoon. 13 3 Dog-days begin 2 25 4 50 8 sun in Leo 14 4 Days 14h. 20 m 2h Pi 4 51 8 Moon rise 8 35 aft. 15 5 St. _Swithin_. 3 19 4 52 8 _excuse._ 16 6 Le 1 Li 4 Ar 4 53 8 17 7 conj. Sun Merc. _rain_ 5 13 4 54 8 _Gifts burst_ 18 C 7* rise 11 40 6 25 4 55 8 _rocks_ 19 2 _hail or rain,_ 6h Ta 4 56 8 Last Quarter. 20 3 Sxtil Sun Sat. thunder. 7 19 4 57 8 Moon rise 11 52 af 21 4 7* rise 11 18 8 Gm 4 57 8 _If wind blows on_ 22 5 _then high_ 9 14 4 58 8 _you thro' a hole,_ 23 6 _wind._ 10 27 4 59 8 _Make your will_ 24 7 opp. Sun Jupiter 10 Cn 4 59 8 _and take care of_ 25 C St. James. 11 25 5 0 7 _your soul._ 26 2 _hail_ 12 Le 5 1 7 New moon 26 day, 27 3 Moon near cor Leo 1 24 5 2 7 near 8 aftern 28 4 opp. Jup. Ven. _a clear_ 2 Vi 5 3 7 Moon sets 8 aftern 29 5 _air; and fine_ 2h 24 5 4 7 _The rotten Apple_ 30 6 _weather_ 3 Li 5 5 7 _spoils his_ 31 7 7* rise 10 40 4 23 5 6 7 _Companion._ [Transcriber's note: Zodiac signs, aspects and symbols of the planets have been replaced by their names and/or by their standard abbreviations. Ar=Aries, Ta=Taurus, Gm=Gemini, Cn=Cancer, Le=Leo, Vi=Virgo, Li=Libra, Sc=Scorpio, Sa=Sagittarius, Cp=Capricorn, Aq=Aqua, Pi=Pisces, Oppos=Opposition, Trine=Trine, Squr=Square, Conj=Conjunction, Sxtil=Sextile, Qucnx= Quincunx. Merc=Mercury, Ven=Venus, Mars=Mars, Jup=Jupiter, Sat=Saturn Ura=Uranus, Nep=Neptune, Plu=Pluto.] I considered my newspaper, also, as another means of communicating instruction, and in that view frequently reprinted in it extracts from the Spectator, and other moral writers; and sometimes publish'd little pieces of my own, which had been first composed for reading in our Junto. Of these are a Socratic dialogue, tending to prove that, whatever might be his parts and abilities, a vicious man could not properly be called a man of sense; and a discourse on self-denial, showing that virtue was not secure till its practice became a habitude, and was free from the opposition of contrary inclinations. These may be found in the papers about the beginning of 1735.[75] [75] June 23 and July 7, 1730.--Smyth. In the conduct of my newspaper, I carefully excluded all libeling and personal abuse, which is of late years become so disgraceful to our country. Whenever I was solicited to insert anything of that kind, and the writers pleaded, as they generally did, the liberty of the press, and that a newspaper was like a stage-coach, in which anyone who would pay had a right to a place, my answer was, that I would print the piece separately if desired, and the author might have as many copies as he pleased to distribute himself, but that I would not take upon me to spread his detraction; and that, having contracted with my subscribers to furnish them with what might be either useful or entertaining, I could not fill their papers with private altercation, in which they had no concern, without doing them manifest injustice. Now, many of our printers make no scruple of gratifying the malice of individuals by false accusations of the fairest characters among ourselves, augmenting animosity even to the producing of duels; and are, moreover, so indiscreet as to print scurrilous reflections on the government of neighboring states, and even on the conduct of our best national allies, which may be attended with the most pernicious consequences. These things I mention as a caution to young printers, and that they may be encouraged not to pollute their presses and disgrace their profession by such infamous practices, but refuse steadily, as they may see by my example that such a course of conduct will not, on the whole, be injurious to their interests. In 1733 I sent one of my journeymen to Charleston, South Carolina, where a printer was wanting. I furnish'd him with a press and letters, on an agreement of partnership, by which I was to receive one-third of the profits of the business, paying one-third of the expense. He was a man of learning, and honest but ignorant in matters of account; and, tho' he sometimes made me remittances, I could get no account from him, nor any satisfactory state of our partnership while he lived. On his decease, the business was continued by his widow, who, being born and bred in Holland, where, as I have been inform'd, the knowledge of accounts makes a part of female education, she not only sent me as clear a state as she could find of the transactions past, but continued to account with the greatest regularity and exactness every quarter afterwards, and managed the business with such success, that she not only brought up reputably a family of children, but, at the expiration of the term, was able to purchase of me the printing-house, and establish her son in it. I mention this affair chiefly for the sake of recommending that branch of education for our young females, as likely to be of more use to them and their children, in case of widowhood, than either music or dancing, by preserving them from losses by imposition of crafty men, and enabling them to continue, perhaps, a profitable mercantile house, with establish'd correspondence, till a son is grown up fit to undertake and go on with it, to the lasting advantage and enriching of the family. About the year 1734 there arrived among us from Ireland a young Presbyterian preacher, named Hemphill, who delivered with a good voice, and apparently extempore, most excellent discourses, which drew together considerable numbers of different persuasions, who join'd in admiring them. Among the rest, I became one of his constant hearers, his sermons pleasing me, as they had little of the dogmatical kind, but inculcated strongly the practice of virtue, or what in the religious stile are called good works. Those, however, of our congregation, who considered themselves as orthodox Presbyterians, disapprov'd his doctrine, and were join'd by most of the old clergy, who arraign'd him of heterodoxy before the synod, in order to have him silenc'd. I became his zealous partisan, and contributed all I could to raise a party in his favour, and we combated for him awhile with some hopes of success. There was much scribbling pro and con upon the occasion; and finding that, tho' an elegant preacher, he was but a poor writer, I lent him my pen and wrote for him two or three pamphlets, and one piece in the Gazette of April, 1735. Those pamphlets, as is generally the case with controversial writings, tho' eagerly read at the time, were soon out of vogue, and I question whether a single copy of them now exists.[76] [76] See "A List of Books written by, or relating to Benjamin Franklin," by Paul Leicester Ford. 1889. p. 15.--Smyth. During the contest an unlucky occurrence hurt his cause exceedingly. One of our adversaries having heard him preach a sermon that was much admired, thought he had somewhere read the sermon before, or at least a part of it. On search, he found that part quoted at length, in one of the British Reviews, from a discourse of Dr. Foster's.[77] This detection gave many of our party disgust, who accordingly abandoned his cause, and occasion'd our more speedy discomfiture in the synod. I stuck by him, however, as I rather approv'd his giving us good sermons composed by others, than bad ones of his own manufacture, tho' the latter was the practice of our common teachers. He afterward acknowledg'd to me that none of those he preach'd were his own; adding, that his memory was such as enabled him to retain and repeat any sermon after one reading only. On our defeat, he left us in search elsewhere of better fortune, and I quitted the congregation, never joining it after, tho' I continu'd many years my subscription for the support of its ministers. [77] Dr. James Foster (1697-1753):-- "Let modest Foster, if he will excel Ten metropolitans in preaching well." --Pope (Epilogue to the Satires, I, 132). "Those who had not heard Farinelli sing and Foster preach were not qualified to appear in genteel company," Hawkins. "History of Music."--Smyth. I had begun in 1733 to study languages; I soon made myself so much a master of the French as to be able to read the books with ease. I then undertook the Italian. An acquaintance, who was also learning it, us'd often to tempt me to play chess with him. Finding this took up too much of the time I had to spare for study, I at length refus'd to play any more, unless on this condition, that the victor in every game should have a right to impose a task, either in parts of the grammar to be got by heart, or in translations, etc., which tasks the vanquish'd was to perform upon honour, before our next meeting. As we play'd pretty equally, we thus beat one another into that language. I afterwards with a little painstaking, acquir'd as much of the Spanish as to read their books also. I have already mention'd that I had only one year's instruction in a Latin school, and that when very young, after which I neglected that language entirely. But, when I had attained an acquaintance with the French, Italian, and Spanish, I was surpris'd to find, on looking over a Latin Testament, that I understood so much more of that language than I had imagined, which encouraged me to apply myself again to the study of it, and I met with more success, as those preceding languages had greatly smooth'd my way. From these circumstances, I have thought that there is some inconsistency in our common mode of teaching languages. We are told that it is proper to begin first with the Latin, and, having acquir'd that, it will be more easy to attain those modern languages which are deriv'd from it; and yet we do not begin with the Greek, in order more easily to acquire the Latin. It is true that, if you can clamber and get to the top of a staircase without using the steps, you will more easily gain them in descending; but certainly, if you begin with the lowest you will with more ease ascend to the top; and I would therefore offer it to the consideration of those who superintend the education of our youth, whether, since many of those who begin with the Latin quit the same after spending some years without having made any great proficiency, and what they have learnt becomes almost useless, so that their time has been lost, it would not have been better to have begun with the French, proceeding to the Italian, etc.; for, tho', after spending the same time, they should quit the study of languages and never arrive at the Latin, they would, however, have acquired another tongue or two, that, being in modern use, might be serviceable to them in common life.[78] [78] "The authority of Franklin, the most eminently practical man of his age, in favor of reserving the study of the dead languages until the mind has reached a certain maturity, is confirmed by the confession of one of the most eminent scholars of any age. "'Our seminaries of learning,' says Gibbon, 'do not exactly correspond with the precept of a Spartan king, that the child should be instructed in the arts which will be useful to the man; since a finished scholar may emerge from the head of Westminster or Eton, in total ignorance of the business and conversation of English gentlemen in the latter end of the eighteenth century. But these schools may assume the merit of teaching all that they pretend to teach, the Latin and Greek languages.'"--Bigelow. After ten years' absence from Boston, and having become easy in my circumstances, I made a journey thither to visit my relations, which I could not sooner well afford. In returning, I call'd at Newport to see my brother, then settled there with his printing-house. Our former differences were forgotten, and our meeting was very cordial and affectionate. He was fast declining in his health, and requested of me that, in case of his death, which he apprehended not far distant, I would take home his son, then but ten years of age, and bring him up to the printing business. This I accordingly perform'd, sending him a few years to school before I took him into the office. His mother carried on the business till he was grown up, when I assisted him with an assortment of new types, those of his father being in a manner worn out. Thus it was that I made my brother ample amends for the service I had depriv'd him of by leaving him so early. [Illustration: "Our former differences were forgotten, and our meeting was very cordial and affectionate"] In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the small-pox, taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen. Our club, the Junto, was found so useful, and afforded such satisfaction to the members, that several were desirous of introducing their friends, which could not well be done without exceeding what we had settled as a convenient number, viz., twelve. We had from the beginning made it a rule to keep our institution a secret, which was pretty well observ'd; the intention was to avoid applications of improper persons for admittance, some of whom, perhaps, we might find it difficult to refuse. I was one of those who were against any addition to our number, but, instead of it, made in writing a proposal, that every member separately should endeavour to form a subordinate club, with the same rules respecting queries, etc., and without informing them of the connection with the Junto. The advantages proposed were, the improvement of so many more young citizens by the use of our institutions; our better acquaintance with the general sentiments of the inhabitants on any occasion, as the Junto member might propose what queries we should desire, and was to report to the Junto what pass'd in his separate club; the promotion of our particular interests in business by more extensive recommendation, and the increase of our influence in public affairs, and our power of doing good by spreading thro' the several clubs the sentiments of the Junto. The project was approv'd, and every member undertook to form his club, but they did not all succeed. Five or six only were compleated, which were called by different names, as the Vine, the Union, the Band, etc. They were useful to themselves, and afforded us a good deal of amusement, information, and instruction, besides answering, in some considerable degree, our views of influencing the public opinion on particular occasions, of which I shall give some instances in course of time as they happened. My first promotion was my being chosen, in 1736, clerk of the General Assembly. The choice was made that year without opposition; but the year following, when I was again propos'd (the choice, like that of the members, being annual), a new member made a long speech against me, in order to favour some other candidate. I was, however, chosen, which was the more agreeable to me, as, besides the pay for the immediate service as clerk, the place gave me a better opportunity of keeping up an interest among the members, which secur'd to me the business of printing the votes, laws, paper money, and other occasional jobbs for the public, that, on the whole, were very profitable. I therefore did not like the opposition of this new member, who was a gentleman of fortune and education, with talents that were likely to give him, in time, great influence in the House, which, indeed, afterwards happened. I did not, however, aim at gaining his favour by paying any servile respect to him, but, after some time, took this other method. Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he would do me the favour of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I return'd it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favour. When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death. This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says, _"He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged."_ And it shows how much more profitable it is prudently to remove, than to resent, return, and continue inimical proceedings. In 1737, Colonel Spotswood, late governor of Virginia, and then postmaster-general, being dissatisfied with the conduct of his deputy at Philadelphia, respecting some negligence in rendering, and inexactitude of his accounts, took from him the commission and offered it to me. I accepted it readily, and found it of great advantage; for, tho' the salary was small, it facilitated the correspondence that improv'd my newspaper, increas'd the number demanded, as well as the advertisements to be inserted, so that it came to afford me a considerable income. My old competitor's newspaper declin'd proportionately, and I was satisfy'd without retaliating his refusal, while postmaster, to permit my papers being carried by the riders. Thus he suffer'd greatly from his neglect in due accounting; and I mention it as a lesson to those young men who may be employ'd in managing affairs for others, that they should always render accounts, and make remittances, with great clearness and punctuality. The character of observing such a conduct is the most powerful of all recommendations to new employments and increase of business. XI INTEREST IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS I began now to turn my thoughts a little to public affairs, beginning, however, with small matters. The city watch was one of the first things that I conceiv'd to want regulation. It was managed by the constables of the respective wards in turn; the constable warned a number of housekeepers to attend him for the night. Those who chose never to attend, paid him six shillings a year to be excus'd, which was suppos'd to be for hiring substitutes, but was, in reality, much more than was necessary for that purpose, and made the constableship a place of profit; and the constable, for a little drink, often got such ragamuffins about him as a watch, that respectable housekeepers did not choose to mix with. Walking the rounds, too, was often neglected, and most of the nights spent in tippling. I thereupon wrote a paper to be read in Junto, representing these irregularities, but insisting more particularly on the inequality of this six-shilling tax of the constables, respecting the circumstances of those who paid it, since a poor widow housekeeper, all whose property to be guarded by the watch did not perhaps exceed the value of fifty pounds, paid as much as the wealthiest merchant, who had thousands of pounds' worth of goods in his stores. On the whole, I proposed as a more effectual watch, the hiring of proper men to serve constantly in that business; and as a more equitable way of supporting the charge, the levying a tax that should be proportion'd to the property. This idea, being approv'd by the Junto, was communicated to the other clubs, but as arising in each of them; and though the plan was not immediately carried into execution, yet, by preparing the minds of people for the change, it paved the way for the law obtained a few years after, when the members of our clubs were grown into more influence. About this time I wrote a paper (first to be read in Junto, but it was afterward publish'd) on the different accidents and carelessnesses by which houses were set on fire, with cautions against them, and means proposed of avoiding them. This was much spoken of as a useful piece, and gave rise to a project, which soon followed it, of forming a company for the more ready extinguishing of fires, and mutual assistance in removing and securing of goods when in danger. Associates in this scheme were presently found, amounting to thirty. Our articles of agreement oblig'd every member to keep always in good order, and fit for use, a certain number of leather buckets, with strong bags and baskets (for packing and transporting of goods), which were to be brought to every fire; and we agreed to meet once a month and spend a social evening together, in discoursing and communicating such ideas as occurred to us upon the subjects of fires, as might be useful in our conduct on such occasions. The utility of this institution soon appeared, and many more desiring to be admitted than we thought convenient for one company, they were advised to form another, which was accordingly done; and this went on, one new company being formed after another, till they became so numerous as to include most of the inhabitants who were men of property; and now, at the time of my writing this, tho' upward of fifty years since its establishment, that which I first formed, called the Union Fire Company, still subsists and flourishes, tho' the first members are all deceas'd but myself and one, who is older by a year than I am. The small fines that have been paid by members for absence at the monthly meetings have been apply'd to the purchase of fire-engines, ladders, fire-hooks, and other useful implements for each company, so that I question whether there is a city in the world better provided with the means of putting a stop to beginning conflagrations; and, in fact, since these institutions, the city has never lost by fire more than one or two houses at a time, and the flames have often been extinguished before the house in which they began has been half consumed. [Illustration: "the flames have often been extinguished"] In 1739 arrived among us from Ireland the Reverend Mr. Whitefield,[79] who had made himself remarkable there as an itinerant preacher. He was at first permitted to preach in some of our churches; but the clergy, taking a dislike to him, soon refus'd him their pulpits, and he was oblig'd to preach in the fields. The multitudes of all sects and denominations that attended his sermons were enormous, and it was matter of speculation to me, who was one of the number, to observe the extraordinary influence of his oratory on his hearers, and how much they admir'd and respected him, notwithstanding his common abuse of them, by assuring them they were naturally _half beasts and half devils_. It was wonderful to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants. From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seem'd as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk thro' the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street. [79] George Whitefield, pronounced Hwit'field (1714-1770), a celebrated English clergyman and pulpit orator, one of the founders of Methodism. And it being found inconvenient to assemble in the open air, subject to its inclemencies, the building of a house to meet in was no sooner propos'd, and persons appointed to receive contributions, but sufficient sums were soon receiv'd to procure the ground and erect the building, which was one hundred feet long and seventy broad, about the size of Westminster Hall;[80] and the work was carried on with such spirit as to be finished in a much shorter time than could have been expected. Both house and ground were vested in trustees, expressly for the use of any preacher of any religious persuasion who might desire to say something to the people at Philadelphia; the design in building not being to accommodate any particular sect, but the inhabitants in general; so that even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service. [80] A part of the palace of Westminster, now forming the vestibule to the Houses of Parliament in London. Mr. Whitefield, in leaving us, went preaching all the way thro' the colonies to Georgia. The settlement of that province had lately been begun, but, instead of being made with hardy, industrious husbandmen, accustomed to labour, the only people fit for such an enterprise, it was with families of broken shop-keepers and other insolvent debtors, many of indolent and idle habits, taken out of the jails, who, being set down in the woods, unqualified for clearing land, and unable to endure the hardships of a new settlement, perished in numbers, leaving many helpless children unprovided for. The sight of their miserable situation inspir'd the benevolent heart of Mr. Whitefield with the idea of building an Orphan House there, in which they might be supported and educated. Returning northward, he preach'd up this charity, and made large collections, for his eloquence had a wonderful power over the hearts and purses of his hearers, of which I myself was an instance. I did not disapprove of the design, but, as Georgia was then destitute of materials and workmen, and it was proposed to send them from Philadelphia at a great expense, I thought it would have been better to have built the house here, and brought the children to it. This I advis'd; but he was resolute in his first project, rejected my counsel, and I therefore refus'd to contribute. I happened soon after to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the coppers. Another stroke of his oratory made me asham'd of that, and determin'd me to give the silver; and he finish'd so admirably, that I empty'd my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all. At this sermon there was also one of our club, who, being of my sentiments respecting the building in Georgia, and suspecting a collection might be intended, had, by precaution, emptied his pockets before he came from home. Towards the conclusion of the discourse, however, he felt a strong desire to give, and apply'd to a neighbour who stood near him, to borrow some money for the purpose. The application was unfortunately [made] to perhaps the only man in the company who had the firmness not to be affected by the preacher. His answer was, "_At any other time, Friend Hopkinson, I would lend to thee freely; but not now, for thee seems to be out of thy right senses._" Some of Mr. Whitefield's enemies affected to suppose that he would apply these collections to his own private emolument; but I, who was intimately acquainted with him (being employed in printing his Sermons and Journals, etc.), never had the least suspicion of his integrity, but am to this day decidedly of opinion that he was in all his conduct a perfectly _honest man_; and methinks my testimony in his favour ought to have the more weight, as we had no religious connection. He us'd, indeed, sometimes to pray for my conversion, but never had the satisfaction of believing that his prayers were heard. Ours was a mere civil friendship, sincere on both sides, and lasted to his death. The following instance will show something of the terms on which we stood. Upon one of his arrivals from England at Boston, he wrote to me that he should come soon to Philadelphia, but knew not where he could lodge when there, as he understood his old friend and host, Mr. Benezet was removed to Germantown. My answer was, "You know my house; if you can make shift with its scanty accommodations, you will be most heartily welcome." He reply'd, that if I made that kind offer for Christ's sake, I should not miss of a reward. And I returned, "_Don't let me be mistaken; it was not for Christ's sake, but for your sake._" One of our common acquaintance jocosely remark'd, that, knowing it to be the custom of the saints, when they received any favour, to shift the burden of the obligation from off their own shoulders, and place it in heaven, I had contriv'd to fix it on earth. The last time I saw Mr. Whitefield was in London, when he consulted me about his Orphan House concern, and his purpose of appropriating it to the establishment of a college. He had a loud and clear voice, and articulated his words and sentences so perfectly, that he might be heard and understood at a great distance, especially as his auditories, however numerous, observ'd the most exact silence. He preach'd one evening from the top of the Courthouse steps, which are in the middle of Market-street, and on the west side of Second-street, which crosses it at right angles. Both streets were fill'd with his hearers to a considerable distance. Being among the hindmost in Market-street, I had the curiosity to learn how far he could be heard, by retiring backwards down the street towards the river; and I found his voice distinct till I came near Front-street, when some noise in that street obscur'd it. Imagining then a semicircle, of which my distance should be the radius, and that it were fill'd with auditors, to each of whom I allow'd two square feet, I computed that he might well be heard by more than thirty thousand. This reconcil'd me to the newspaper accounts of his having preach'd to twenty-five thousand people in the fields, and to the ancient histories of generals haranguing whole armies, of which I had sometimes doubted. By hearing him often, I came to distinguish easily between sermons newly compos'd, and those which he had often preach'd in the course of his travels. His delivery of the latter was so improv'd by frequent repetitions that every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly well turn'd and well plac'd, that, without being interested in the subject, one could not help being pleas'd with the discourse; a pleasure of much the same kind with that receiv'd from an excellent piece of musick. This is an advantage itinerant preachers have over those who are stationary, as the latter cannot well improve their delivery of a sermon by so many rehearsals. His writing and printing from time to time gave great advantage to his enemies; unguarded expressions, and even erroneous opinions, delivered in preaching, might have been afterwards explain'd or qualifi'd by supposing others that might have accompani'd them, or they might have been deny'd; but _litera scripta manet_. Critics attack'd his writings violently, and with so much appearance of reason as to diminish the number of his votaries and prevent their increase; so that I am of opinion if he had never written anything, he would have left behind him a much more numerous and important sect, and his reputation might in that case have been still growing, even after his death, as there being nothing of his writing on which to found a censure and give him a lower character, his proselytes would be left at liberty to feign for him as great a variety of excellences as their enthusiastic admiration might wish him to have possessed. My business was now continually augmenting, and my circumstances growing daily easier, my newspaper having become very profitable, as being for a time almost the only one in this and the neighbouring provinces. I experienced, too, the truth of the observation, "_that after getting the first hundred pound, it is more easy to get the second_," money itself being of a prolific nature. The partnership at Carolina having succeeded, I was encourag'd to engage in others, and to promote several of my workmen, who had behaved well, by establishing them with printing-houses in different colonies, on the same terms with that in Carolina. Most of them did well, being enabled at the end of our term, six years, to purchase the types of me and go on working for themselves, by which means several families were raised. Partnerships often finish in quarrels; but I was happy in this, that mine were all carried on and ended amicably, owing, I think, a good deal to the precaution of having very explicitly settled, in our articles, everything to be done by or expected from each partner, so that there was nothing to dispute, which precaution I would therefore recommend to all who enter into partnerships; for, whatever esteem partners may have for, and confidence in each other at the time of the contract, little jealousies and disgusts may arise, with ideas of inequality in the care and burden of the business, etc., which are attended often with breach of friendship and of the connection, perhaps with lawsuits and other disagreeable consequences. XII DEFENSE OF THE PROVINCE I had, on the whole, abundant reason to be satisfied with my being established in Pennsylvania. There were, however, two, things that I regretted, there being no provision for defense, nor for a compleat education of youth; no militia, nor any college. I therefore, in 1743, drew up a proposal for establishing an academy; and at that time, thinking the Reverend Mr. Peters, who was out of employ, a fit person to superintend such an institution, I communicated the project to him; but he, having more profitable views in the service of the proprietaries, which succeeded, declin'd the undertaking; and, not knowing another at that time suitable for such a trust, I let the scheme lie awhile dormant. I succeeded better the next year, 1744, in proposing and establishing a Philosophical Society. The paper I wrote for that purpose will be found among my writings, when collected. With respect to defense, Spain having been several years at war against Great Britain, and being at length join'd by France, which brought us into great danger; and the laboured and long-continued endeavour of our governor, Thomas, to prevail with our Quaker Assembly to pass a militia law, and make other provisions for the security of the province, having proved abortive, I determined to try what might be done by a voluntary association of the people. To promote this, I first wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled Plain Truth, in which I stated our defenceless situation in strong lights, with the necessity of union and discipline for our defense, and promis'd to propose in a few days an association, to be generally signed for that purpose. The pamphlet had a sudden and surprising effect. I was call'd upon for the instrument of association, and having settled the draft of it with a few friends, I appointed a meeting of the citizens in the large building before mentioned. The house was pretty full; I had prepared a number of printed copies, and provided pens and ink dispers'd all over the room. I harangued them a little on the subject, read the paper, and explained it, and then distributed the copies, which were eagerly signed, not the least objection being made. When the company separated, and the papers were collected, we found above twelve hundred hands; and, other copies being dispersed in the country, the subscribers amounted at length to upward of ten thousand. These all furnished themselves as soon as they could with arms, formed themselves into companies and regiments, chose their own officers, and met every week to be instructed in the manual exercise, and other parts of military discipline. The women, by subscriptions among themselves, provided silk colours, which they presented to the companies, painted with different devices and mottos, which I supplied. [Illustration: One of the flags of the Pennsylvania Association, 1747. Designed by Franklin and made by the women of Philadelphia.] The officers of the companies composing the Philadelphia regiment, being met, chose me for their colonel; but, conceiving myself unfit, I declin'd that station, and recommended Mr. Lawrence, a fine person, and man of influence, who was accordingly appointed. I then propos'd a lottery to defray the expense of building a battery below the town, and furnishing it with cannon. It filled expeditiously, and the battery was soon erected, the merlons being fram'd of logs and fill'd with earth. We bought some old cannon from Boston, but, these not being sufficient, we wrote to England for more, soliciting, at the same time, our proprietaries for some assistance, tho' without much expectation of obtaining it. Meanwhile, Colonel Lawrence, William Allen, Abram Taylor, Esqr., and myself were sent to New York by the associators, commission'd to borrow some cannon of Governor Clinton. He at first refus'd us peremptorily; but at dinner with his council, where there was great drinking of Madeira wine, as the custom of that place then was, he softened by degrees, and said he would lend us six. After a few more bumpers he advanc'd to ten; and at length he very good-naturedly conceded eighteen. They were fine cannon, eighteen-pounders, with their carriages, which we soon transported and mounted on our battery, where the associators kept a nightly guard while the war lasted, and among the rest I regularly took my turn of duty there as a common soldier. [Illustration: "I regularly took my turn of duty there as a common soldier"] My activity in these operations was agreeable to the governor and council; they took me into confidence, and I was consulted by them in every measure wherein their concurrence was thought useful to the association. Calling in the aid of religion, I propos'd to them the proclaiming a fast, to promote reformation, and implore the blessing of Heaven on our undertaking. They embrac'd the motion; but, as it was the first fast ever thought of in the province, the secretary had no precedent from which to draw the proclamation. My education in New England, where a fast is proclaimed every year, was here of some advantage: I drew it in the accustomed stile, it was translated into German,[81] printed in both languages, and divulg'd thro' the province. This gave the clergy of the different sects an opportunity of influencing their congregations to join in the association, and it would probably have been general among all but Quakers if the peace had not soon interven'd. [81] Wm. Penn's agents sought recruits for the colony of Pennsylvania in the low countries of Germany, and there are still in eastern Pennsylvania many Germans, inaccurately called Pennsylvania Dutch. Many of them use a Germanized English. It was thought by some of my friends that, by my activity in these affairs, I should offend that sect, and thereby lose my interest in the Assembly of the province, where they formed a great majority. A young gentleman who had likewise some friends in the House, and wished to succeed me as their clerk, acquainted me that it was decided to displace me at the next election; and he, therefore, in good will, advis'd me to resign, as more consistent with my honour than being turn'd out. My answer to him was, that I had read or heard of some public man who made it a rule never to ask for an office, and never to refuse one when offer'd to him. "I approve," says I, "of his rule, and will practice it with a small addition; I shall never _ask_, never _refuse_, nor ever _resign_ an office. If they will have my office of clerk to dispose of to another, they shall take it from me. I will not, by giving it up, lose my right of some time or other making reprisals on my adversaries." I heard, however, no more of this; I was chosen again unanimously as usual at the next election. Possibly, as they dislik'd my late intimacy with the members of council, who had join'd the governors in all the disputes about military preparations, with which the House had long been harass'd, they might have been pleas'd if I would voluntarily have left them; but they did not care to displace me on account merely of my zeal for the association, and they could not well give another reason. Indeed I had some cause to believe that the defense of the country was not disagreeable to any of them, provided they were not requir'd to assist in it. And I found that a much greater number of them than I could have imagined, tho' against offensive war, were clearly for the defensive. Many pamphlets _pro and con_ were publish'd on the subject, and some by good Quakers, in favour of defense, which I believe convinc'd most of their younger people. A transaction in our fire company gave me some insight into their prevailing sentiments. It had been propos'd that we should encourage the scheme for building a battery by laying out the present stock, then about sixty pounds, in tickets of the lottery. By our rules, no money could be dispos'd of till the next meeting after the proposal. The company consisted of thirty members, of which twenty-two were Quakers, and eight only of other persuasions. We eight punctually attended the meeting; but, tho' we thought that some of the Quakers would join us, we were by no means sure of a majority. Only one Quaker, Mr. James Morris, appear'd to oppose the measure. He expressed much sorrow that it had ever been propos'd, as he said _Friends_ were all against it, and it would create such discord as might break up the company. We told him that we saw no reason for that; we were the minority, and if _Friends_ were against the measure, and outvoted us, we must and should, agreeably to the usage of all societies, submit. When the hour for business arriv'd it was mov'd to put the vote; he allow'd we might then do it by the rules, but, as he could assure us that a number of members intended to be present for the purpose of opposing it, it would be but candid to allow a little time for their appearing. While we were disputing this, a waiter came to tell me two gentlemen below desir'd to speak with me. I went down, and found they were two of our Quaker members. They told me there were eight of them assembled at a tavern just by; that they were determin'd to come and vote with us if there should be occasion, which they hop'd would not be the case, and desir'd we would not call for their assistance if we could do without it, as their voting for such a measure might embroil them with their elders and friends. Being thus secure of a majority, I went up, and after a little seeming hesitation, agreed to a delay of another hour. This Mr. Morris allow'd to be extreamly fair. Not one of his opposing friends appear'd, at which he express'd great surprize; and, at the expiration of the hour, we carri'd the resolution eight to one; and as, of the twenty-two Quakers, eight were ready to vote with us, and thirteen, by their absence, manifested that they were not inclin'd to oppose the measure, I afterward estimated the proportion of Quakers sincerely against defense as one to twenty-one only; for these were all regular members of that society, and in good reputation among them, and had due notice of what was propos'd at that meeting. The honorable and learned Mr. Logan, who had always been of that sect, was one who wrote an address to them, declaring his approbation of defensive war, and supporting his opinion by many strong arguments. He put into my hands sixty pounds to be laid out in lottery tickets for the battery, with directions to apply what prizes might be drawn wholly to that service. He told me the following anecdote of his old master, William Penn, respecting defense. He came over from England, when a young man, with that proprietary, and as his secretary. It was war-time, and their ship was chas'd by an armed vessel, suppos'd to be an enemy. Their captain prepar'd for defense; but told William Penn, and his company of Quakers, that he did not expect their assistance, and they might retire into the cabin, which they did, except James Logan,[82] who chose to stay upon deck, and was quarter'd to a gun. The suppos'd enemy prov'd a friend, so there was no fighting; but when the secretary went down to communicate the intelligence, William Penn rebuk'd him severely for staying upon deck, and undertaking to assist in defending the vessel, contrary to the principles of _Friends_, especially as it had not been required by the captain. This reproof, being before all the company, piqu'd the secretary, who answer'd, _"I being thy servant, why did thee not order me to come down? But thee was willing enough that I should stay and help to fight the ship when thee thought there was danger."_ [82] James Logan (1674-1751) came to America with William Penn in 1699, and was the business agent for the Penn family. He bequeathed his valuable library, preserved at his country seat, "Senton", to the city of Philadelphia.--Smyth. My being many years in the Assembly, the majority of which were constantly Quakers, gave me frequent opportunities of seeing the embarrassment given them by their principle against war, whenever application was made to them, by order of the crown, to grant aids for military purposes. They were unwilling to offend government, on the one hand, by a direct refusal; and their friends, the body of the Quakers, on the other, by compliance contrary to their principles; hence a variety of evasions to avoid complying, and modes of disguising the compliance when it became unavoidable. The common mode at last was, to grant money under the phrase of its being "_for the king's use_," and never to inquire how it was applied. But, if the demand was not directly from the crown, that phrase was found not so proper, and some other was to be invented. As, when powder was wanting (I think it was for the garrison at Louisburg), and the government of New England solicited a grant of some from Pennsylvania, which was much urg'd on the House by Governor Thomas, they could not grant money to buy powder, because that was an ingredient of war; but they voted an aid to New England of three thousand pounds, to be put into the hands of the governor, and appropriated it for the purchasing of bread, flour, wheat or _other grain_. Some of the council, desirous of giving the House still further embarrassment, advis'd the governor not to accept provision, as not being the thing he had demanded; but he repli'd, "I shall take the money, for I understand very well their meaning; other grain is gunpowder," which he accordingly bought, and they never objected to it.[83] [83] See the votes.--_Marg. note_. It was in allusion to this fact that, when in our fire company we feared the success of our proposal in favour of the lottery, and I had said to my friend Mr. Syng, one of our members, "If we fail, let us move the purchase of a fire-engine with the money; the Quakers can have no objection to that; and then, if you nominate me and I you as a committee for that purpose, we will buy a great gun, which is certainly a _fire-engine_." "I see," says he, "you have improv'd by being so long in the Assembly; your equivocal project would be just a match for their wheat or _other grain_." These embarrassments that the Quakers suffer'd from having establish'd and published it as one of their principles that no kind of war was lawful, and which, being once published, they could not afterwards, however they might change their minds, easily get rid of, reminds me of what I think a more prudent conduct in another sect among us, that of the Dunkers. I was acquainted with one of its founders, Michael Welfare, soon after it appear'd. He complain'd to me that they were grievously calumniated by the zealots of other persuasions, and charg'd with abominable principles and practices to which they were utter strangers. I told him this had always been the case with new sects, and that, to put a stop to such abuse, I imagin'd it might be well to publish the articles of their belief, and the rules of their discipline. He said that it had been propos'd among them, but not agreed to, for this reason: "When we were first drawn together as a society," says he, "it had pleased God to enlighten our minds so far as to see that some doctrines, which we once esteemed truths, were errors; and that others, which we had esteemed errors, were real truths. From time to time He has been pleased to afford us farther light, and our principles have been improving, and our errors diminishing. Now we are not sure that we are arrived at the end of this progression, and at the perfection of spiritual or theological knowledge; and we fear that, if we should once print our confession of faith, we should feel ourselves as if bound and confin'd by it, and perhaps be unwilling to receive further improvement, and our successors still more so, as conceiving what we their elders and founders had done, to be something sacred, never to be departed from." This modesty in a sect is perhaps a singular instance in the history of mankind, every other sect supposing itself in possession of all truth, and that those who differ are so far in the wrong; like a man traveling in foggy weather, those at some distance before him on the road he sees wrapped up in the fog, as well as those behind him, and also the people in the fields on each side, but near him all appears clear, tho' in truth he is as much in the fog as any of them. To avoid this kind of embarrassment, the Quakers have of late years been gradually declining the public service in the Assembly and in the magistracy, choosing rather to quit their power than their principle. In order of time, I should have mentioned before, that having, in 1742, invented an open stove[84] for the better warming of rooms, and at the same time saving fuel, as the fresh air admitted was warmed in entering, I made a present of the model to Mr. Robert Grace, one of my early friends, who, having an iron-furnace,[85] found the casting of the plates for these stoves a profitable thing, as they were growing in demand. To promote that demand, I wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled "_An Account of the new-invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces; wherein their Construction and Manner of Operation is particularly explained; their Advantages above every other Method of warming Rooms demonstrated; and all Objections that have been raised against the Use of them answered and obviated_," etc. This pamphlet had a good effect. Gov'r. Thomas was so pleas'd with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declin'd it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., _That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously._ [84] The Franklin stove is still in use. [85] Warwick Furnace, Chester County, Pennsylvania, across the Schuylkill River from Pottstown. An ironmonger in London however, assuming a good deal of my pamphlet, and working it up into his own, and making some small changes in the machine, which rather hurt its operation, got a patent for it there, and made, as I was told, a little fortune by it. And this is not the only instance of patents taken out for my inventions by others, tho' not always with the same success, which I never contested, as having no desire of profiting by patents myself, and hating disputes. The use of these fireplaces in very many houses, both of this and the neighbouring colonies, has been, and is, a great saving of wood to the inhabitants. XIII PUBLIC SERVICES AND DUTIES (1749-1753) Peace being concluded, and the association business therefore at an end, I turn'd my thoughts again to the affair of establishing an academy. The first step I took was to associate in the design a number of active friends, of whom the Junto furnished a good part; the next was to write and publish a pamphlet, entitled _Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania_. This I distributed among the principal inhabitants gratis; and as soon as I could suppose their minds a little prepared by the perusal of it, I set on foot a subscription for opening and supporting an academy; it was to be paid in quotas yearly for five years; by so dividing it, I judg'd the subscription might be larger, and I believe it was so, amounting to no less, if I remember right, than five thousand pounds. In the introduction to these proposals, I stated their publication, not as an act of mine, but of some _publick-spirited gentlemen_, avoiding as much as I could, according to my usual rule, the presenting myself to the publick as the author of any scheme for their benefit. The subscribers, to carry the project into immediate execution, chose out of their number twenty-four trustees, and appointed Mr. Francis,[86] then attorney-general, and myself to draw up constitutions for the government of the academy; which being done and signed, a house was hired, masters engag'd, and the schools opened, I think, in the same year, 1749. [86] Tench Francis, uncle of Sir Philip Francis, emigrated from England to Maryland, and became attorney for Lord Baltimore. He removed to Philadelphia and was attorney-general of Pennsylvania from 1741 to 1755. He died in Philadelphia August 16, 1758.--Smyth. The scholars increasing fast, the house was soon found too small, and we were looking out for a piece of ground, properly situated, with intention to build, when Providence threw into our way a large house ready built, which, with a few alterations, might well serve our purpose. This was the building before mentioned, erected by the hearers of Mr. Whitefield, and was obtained for us in the following manner. It is to be noted that the contributions to this building being made by people of different sects, care was taken in the nomination of trustees, in whom the building and ground was to be vested, that a predominancy should not be given to any sect, lest in time that predominancy might be a means of appropriating the whole to the use of such sect, contrary to the original intention. It was therefore that one of each sect was appointed, viz., one Church-of-England man, one Presbyterian, one Baptist, one Moravian, etc., those, in case of vacancy by death, were to fill it by election from among the contributors. The Moravian happen'd not to please his colleagues, and on his death they resolved to have no other of that sect. The difficulty then was, how to avoid having two of some other sect, by means of the new choice. Several persons were named, and for that reason not agreed to. At length one mention'd me, with the observation that I was merely an honest man, and of no sect at all, which prevailed with them to chuse me. The enthusiasm which existed when the house was built had long since abat'd, and its trustees had not been able to procure fresh contributions for paying the ground-rent, and discharging some other debts the building had occasion'd, which embarrass'd them greatly. Being now a member of both sets of trustees, that for the building and that for the academy, I had a good opportunity of negotiating with both, and brought them finally to an agreement, by which the trustees for the building were to cede it to those of the academy, the latter undertaking to discharge the debt, to keep forever open in the building a large hall for occasional preachers, according to the original intention, and maintain a free-school for the instruction of poor children. Writings were accordingly drawn, and on paying the debts the trustees of the academy were put in possession of the premises; and by dividing the great and lofty hall into stories, and different rooms above and below for the several schools, and purchasing some additional ground, the whole was soon made fit for our purpose, and the scholars remov'd into the building. The care and trouble of agreeing with the workmen, purchasing materials, and superintending the work, fell upon me; and I went thro' it the more cheerfully, as it did not then interfere with my private business, having the year before taken a very able, industrious, and honest partner, Mr. David Hall, with whose character I was well acquainted, as he had work'd for me four years. He took off my hands all care of the printing-office, paying me punctually my share of the profits. The partnership continued eighteen years, successfully for us both. The trustees of the academy, after a while, were incorporated by a charter from the governor; their funds were increas'd by contributions in Britain and grants of land from the proprietaries, to which the Assembly has since made considerable addition; and thus was established the present University of Philadelphia.[87] I have been continued one of its trustees from the beginning, now near forty years, and have had the very great pleasure of seeing a number of the youth who have receiv'd their education in it, distinguish'd by their improv'd abilities, serviceable in public stations, and ornaments to their country. [87] Later called the University of Pennsylvania. When I disengaged myself, as above mentioned, from private business, I flatter'd myself that, by the sufficient tho' moderate fortune I had acquir'd, I had secured leisure during the rest of my life for philosophical studies and amusements. I purchased all Dr. Spence's apparatus, who had come from England to lecture here, and I proceeded in my electrical experiments with great alacrity; but the publick, now considering me as a man of leisure, laid hold of me for their purposes, every part of our civil government, and almost at the same time, imposing some duty upon me. The governor put me into the commission of the peace; the corporation of the city chose me of the common council, and soon after an alderman; and the citizens at large chose me a burgess to represent them in Assembly. This latter station was the more agreeable to me, as I was at length tired with sitting there to hear debates, in which, as clerk, I could take no part, and which were often so unentertaining that I was induc'd to amuse myself with making magic squares or circles, or anything to avoid weariness; and I conceiv'd my becoming a member would enlarge my power of doing good. I would not, however, insinuate that my ambition was not flatter'd by all these promotions; it certainly was; for, considering my low beginning, they were great things to me; and they were still more pleasing, as being so many spontaneous testimonies of the public good opinion, and by me entirely unsolicited. The office of justice of the peace I try'd a little, by attending a few courts, and sitting on the bench to hear causes; but finding that more knowledge of the common law than I possess'd was necessary to act in that station with credit, I gradually withdrew from it, excusing myself by my being oblig'd to attend the higher duties of a legislator in the Assembly. My election to this trust was repeated every year for ten years, without my ever asking any elector for his vote, or signifying, either directly or indirectly, any desire of being chosen. On taking my seat in the House, my son was appointed their clerk. The year following, a treaty being to be held with the Indians at Carlisle, the governor sent a message to the House, proposing that they should nominate some of their members, to be join'd with some members of council, as commissioners for that purpose.[88] The House named the speaker (Mr. Norris) and myself; and, being commission'd, we went to Carlisle, and met the Indians accordingly. [88] See the votes to have this more correctly.--_Marg. note._ As those people are extreamly apt to get drunk, and, when so, are very quarrelsome and disorderly, we strictly forbade the selling any liquor to them; and when they complain'd of this restriction, we told them that if they would continue sober during the treaty, we would give them plenty of rum when business was over. They promis'd this, and they kept their promise, because they could get no liquor, and the treaty was conducted very orderly, and concluded to mutual satisfaction. They then claim'd and received the rum; this was in the afternoon: they were near one hundred men, women, and children, and were lodg'd in temporary cabins, built in the form of a square, just without the town. In the evening, hearing a great noise among them, the commissioners walk'd out to see what was the matter. We found they had made a great bonfire in the middle of the square; they were all drunk, men and women, quarreling and fighting. Their dark-colour'd bodies, half naked, seen only by the gloomy light of the bonfire, running after and beating one another with firebrands, accompanied by their horrid yellings, form'd a scene the most resembling our ideas of hell that could well be imagin'd; there was no appeasing the tumult, and we retired to our lodging. At midnight a number of them came thundering at our door, demanding more rum, of which we took no notice. The next day, sensible they had misbehav'd in giving us that disturbance, they sent three of their old counselors to make their apology. The orator acknowledg'd the fault, but laid it upon the rum; and then endeavoured to excuse the rum by saying, "_The Great Spirit, who made all things, made everything for some use, and whatever use he design'd anything for, that use it should always be put to. Now, when_ _he made rum, he said, 'Let this be for the Indians to get drunk with,' and it must be so._" And, indeed, if it be the design of Providence to extirpate these savages in order to make room for cultivators of the earth, it seems not improbable that rum may be the appointed means. It has already annihilated all the tribes who formerly inhabited the sea-coast. [Illustration: "In the evening, hearing a great noise among them, the commissioners walk'd out to see what was the matter"] In 1751, Dr. Thomas Bond, a particular friend of mine, conceived the idea of establishing a hospital in Philadelphia (a very beneficent design, which has been ascrib'd to me, but was originally his), for the reception and cure of poor sick persons, whether inhabitants of the province or strangers. He was zealous and active in endeavouring to procure subscriptions for it, but the proposal being a novelty in America, and at first not well understood, he met but with small success. At length he came to me with the compliment that he found there was no such thing as carrying a public-spirited project through without my being concern'd in it. "For," says he, "I am often ask'd by those to whom I propose subscribing, Have you consulted Franklin upon this business? And what does he think of it? And when I tell them that I have not (supposing it rather out of your line), they do not subscribe, but say they will consider of it." I enquired into the nature and probable utility of his scheme, and receiving from him a very satisfactory explanation, I not only subscrib'd to it myself, but engag'd heartily in the design of procuring subscriptions from others. Previously, however, to the solicitation, I endeavoured to prepare the minds of the people by writing on the subject in the newspapers, which was my usual custom in such cases, but which he had omitted. The subscriptions afterwards were more free and generous; but, beginning to flag, I saw they would be insufficient without some assistance from the Assembly, and therefore propos'd to petition for it, which was done. The country members did not at first relish the project; they objected that it could only be serviceable to the city, and therefore the citizens alone should be at the expense of it; and they doubted whether the citizens themselves generally approv'd of it. My allegation on the contrary, that it met with such approbation as to leave no doubt of our being able to raise two thousand pounds by voluntary donations, they considered as a most extravagant supposition, and utterly impossible. On this I form'd my plan; and, asking leave to bring in a bill for incorporating the contributors according to the prayer of their petition, and granting them a blank sum of money, which leave was obtained chiefly on the consideration that the House could throw the bill out if they did not like it, I drew it so as to make the important clause a conditional one, viz., "And be it enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that when the said contributors shall have met and chosen their managers and treasurer, _and shall have raised by their contributions a capital stock of----value_ (the yearly interest of which is to be applied to the accommodating of the sick poor in the said hospital, free of charge for diet, attendance, advice, and medicines), _and shall make the same appear to the satisfaction of the speaker of the Assembly for the time being_, that _then_ it shall and may be lawful for the said speaker, and he is hereby required, to sign an order on the provincial treasurer for the payment of two thousand pounds, in two yearly payments, to the treasurer of the said hospital, to be applied to the founding, building, and finishing of the same." This condition carried the bill through; for the members, who had oppos'd the grant, and now conceiv'd they might have the credit of being charitable without the expense, agreed to its passage; and then, in soliciting subscriptions among the people, we urg'd the conditional promise of the law as an additional motive to give, since every man's donation would be doubled; thus the clause work'd both ways. The subscriptions accordingly soon exceeded the requisite sum, and we claim'd and receiv'd the public gift, which enabled us to carry the design into execution. A convenient and handsome building was soon erected; the institution has by constant experience been found useful, and flourishes to this day; and I do not remember any of my political manoeuvers, the success of which gave me at the time more pleasure, or wherein, after thinking of it, I more easily excus'd myself for having made some use of cunning. It was about this time that another projector, the Rev. Gilbert Tennent[89], came to me with a request that I would assist him in procuring a subscription for erecting a new meeting-house. It was to be for the use of a congregation he had gathered among the Presbyterians, who were originally disciples of Mr. Whitefield. Unwilling to make myself disagreeable to my fellow-citizens by too frequently soliciting their contributions, I absolutely refus'd. He then desired I would furnish him with a list of the names of persons I knew by experience to be generous and public-spirited. I thought it would be unbecoming in me, after their kind compliance with my solicitations, to mark them out to be worried by other beggars, and therefore refus'd also to give such a list. He then desir'd I would at least give him my advice. "That I will readily do," said I; "and, in the first place, I advise you to apply to all those whom you know will give something; next, to those whom you are uncertain whether they will give anything or not, and show them the list of those who have given; and, lastly, do not neglect those who you are sure will give nothing, for in some of them you may be mistaken." He laugh'd and thank'd me, and said he would take my advice. He did so, for he ask'd of _everybody_, and he obtain'd a much larger sum than he expected, with which he erected the capacious and very elegant meeting-house that stands in Arch-street. [89] Gilbert Tennent (1703-1764) came to America with his father, Rev. William Tennent, and taught for a time in the "Log College," from which sprang the College of New Jersey.--Smyth. Our city, tho' laid out with a beautiful regularity, the streets large, straight, and crossing each other at right angles, had the disgrace of suffering those streets to remain long unpav'd, and in wet weather the wheels of heavy carriages plough'd them into a quagmire, so that it was difficult to cross them; and in dry weather the dust was offensive. I had liv'd near what was call'd the Jersey Market, and saw with pain the inhabitants wading in mud while purchasing their provisions. A strip of ground down the middle of that market was at length pav'd with brick, so that, being once in the market, they had firm footing, but were often over shoes in dirt to get there. By talking and writing on the subject, I was at length instrumental in getting the street pav'd with stone between the market and the brick'd foot-pavement, that was on each side next the houses. This, for some time, gave an easy access to the market dry-shod; but, the rest of the street not being pav'd, whenever a carriage came out of the mud upon this pavement, it shook off and left its dirt upon it, and it was soon cover'd with mire, which was not remov'd, the city as yet having no scavengers. After some inquiry, I found a poor, industrious man, who was willing to undertake keeping the pavement clean, by sweeping it twice a week, carrying off the dirt from before all the neighbours' doors, for the sum of sixpence per month, to be paid by each house. I then wrote and printed a paper setting forth the advantages to the neighbourhood that might be obtain'd by this small expense; the greater ease in keeping our houses clean, so much dirt not being brought in by people's feet; the benefit to the shops by more custom, etc., etc., as buyers could more easily get at them; and by not having, in windy weather, the dust blown in upon their goods, etc., etc. I sent one of these papers to each house, and in a day or two went round to see who would subscribe an agreement to pay these sixpences; it was unanimously sign'd, and for a time well executed. All the inhabitants of the city were delighted with the cleanliness of the pavement that surrounded the market, it being a convenience to all, and this rais'd a general desire to have all the streets paved, and made the people more willing to submit to a tax for that purpose. After some time I drew a bill for paving the city, and brought it into the Assembly. It was just before I went to England, in 1757, and did not pass till I was gone,[90] and then with an alteration in the mode of assessment, which I thought not for the better, but with an additional provision for lighting as well as paving the streets, which was a great improvement. It was by a private person, the late Mr. John Clifton, his giving a sample of the utility of lamps, by placing one at his door, that the people were first impress'd with the idea of enlighting all the city. The honour of this public benefit has also been ascrib'd to me, but it belongs truly to that gentleman. I did but follow his example, and have only some merit to claim respecting the form of our lamps, as differing from the globe lamps we were at first supply'd with from London. Those we found inconvenient in these respects: they admitted no air below; the smoke, therefore, did not readily go out above, but circulated in the globe, lodg'd on its inside, and soon obstructed the light they were intended to afford; giving, besides, the daily trouble of wiping them clean; and an accidental stroke on one of them would demolish it, and render it totally useless. I therefore suggested the composing them of four flat panes, with a long funnel above to draw up the smoke, and crevices admitting air below, to facilitate the ascent of the smoke; by this means they were kept clean, and did not grow dark in a few hours, as the London lamps do, but continu'd bright till morning, and an accidental stroke would generally break but a single pane, easily repair'd. I have sometimes wonder'd that the Londoners did not, from the effect holes in the bottom of the globe lamps us'd at Vauxhall[91] have in keeping them clean, learn to have such holes in their street lamps. But, these holes being made for another purpose, viz., to communicate flame more suddenly to the wick by a little flax hanging down thro' them, the other use, of letting in air, seems not to have been thought of; and therefore, after the lamps have been lit a few hours, the streets of London are very poorly illuminated. [90] See votes. [91] Vauxhall Gardens, once a popular and fashionable London resort, situated on the Thames above Lambeth. The Gardens were closed in 1859, but they will always be remembered because of Sir Roger de Coverley's visit to them in the _Spectator_ and from the descriptions in Smollett's _Humphry Clinker_ and Thackeray's _Vanity Fair_. The mention of these improvements puts me in mind of one I propos'd, when in London, to Dr. Fothergill, who was among the best men I have known, and a great promoter of useful projects. I had observ'd that the streets, when dry, were never swept, and the light dust carried away; but it was suffer'd to accumulate till wet weather reduc'd it to mud, and then, after lying some days so deep on the pavement that there was no crossing but in paths kept clean by poor people with brooms, it was with great labour rak'd together and thrown up into carts open above, the sides of which suffered some of the slush at every jolt on the pavement to shake out and fall, sometimes to the annoyance of foot-passengers. The reason given for not sweeping the dusty streets was that the dust would fly into the windows of shops and houses. [Illustration: "a poor woman sweeping my pavement with a birch broom"] An accidental occurrence had instructed me how much sweeping might be done in a little time. I found at my door in Craven-street,[92] one morning, a poor woman sweeping my pavement with a birch broom; she appeared very pale and feeble, as just come out of a fit of sickness. I ask'd who employ'd her to sweep there; she said, "Nobody, but I am very poor and in distress, and I sweeps before gentle-folkses doors, and hopes they will give me something." I bid her sweep the whole street clean, and I would give her a shilling; this was at nine o'clock; at 12 she came for the shilling. From the slowness I saw at first in her working, I could scarce believe that the work was done so soon, and sent my servant to examine it, who reported that the whole street was swept perfectly clean, and all the dust plac'd in the gutter, which was in the middle; and the next rain wash'd it quite away, so that the pavement and even the kennel were perfectly clean. [92] A short street near Charing Cross, London. I then judg'd that, if that feeble woman could sweep such a street in three hours, a strong, active man might have done it in half the time. And here let me remark the convenience of having but one gutter in such a narrow street, running down its middle, instead of two, one on each side, near the footway; for where all the rain that falls on a street runs from the sides and meets in the middle, it forms there a current strong enough to wash away all the mud it meets with; but when divided into two channels, it is often too weak to cleanse either, and only makes the mud it finds more fluid, so that the wheels of carriages and feet of horses throw and dash it upon the foot-pavement, which is thereby rendered foul and slippery, and sometimes splash it upon those who are walking. My proposal, communicated to the good doctor, was as follows: "For the more effectual cleaning and keeping clean the streets of London and Westminster, it is proposed that the several watchmen be contracted with to have the dust swept up in dry seasons, and the mud rak'd up at other times, each in the several streets and lanes of his round; that they be furnish'd with brooms and other proper instruments for these purposes, to be kept at their respective stands, ready to furnish the poor people they may employ in the service. "That in the dry summer months the dust be all swept up into heaps at proper distances, before the shops and windows of houses are usually opened, when the scavengers, with close-covered carts, shall also carry it all away. "That the mud, when rak'd up, be not left in heaps to be spread abroad again by the wheels of carriages and trampling of horses, but that the scavengers be provided with bodies of carts, not plac'd high upon wheels, but low upon sliders, with lattice bottoms, which, being cover'd with straw, will retain the mud thrown into them, and permit the water to drain from it, whereby it will become much lighter, water making the greatest part of its weight; these bodies of carts to be plac'd at convenient distances, and the mud brought to them in wheelbarrows; they remaining where plac'd till the mud is drain'd, and then horses brought to draw them away." I have since had doubts of the practicability of the latter part of this proposal, on account of the narrowness of some streets, and the difficulty of placing the draining-sleds so as not to encumber too much the passage; but I am still of opinion that the former, requiring the dust to be swept up and carry'd away before the shops are open, is very practicable in the summer, when the days are long; for, in walking thro' the Strand and Fleet-street one morning at seven o'clock, I observ'd there was not one shop open, tho' it had been daylight and the sun up above three hours; the inhabitants of London chusing voluntarily to live much by candle-light, and sleep by sunshine, and yet often complain, a little absurdly, of the duty on candles, and the high price of tallow. Some may think these trifling matters not worth minding or relating; but when they consider that tho' dust blown into the eyes of a single person, or into a single shop on a windy day, is but of small importance, yet the great number of the instances in a populous city, and its frequent repetitions give it weight and consequence, perhaps they will not censure very severely those who bestow some attention to affairs of this seemingly low nature. Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day. Thus, if you teach a poor young man to shave himself, and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas. The money may be soon spent, the regret only remaining of having foolishly consumed it; but in the other case, he escapes the frequent vexation of waiting for barbers, and of their sometimes dirty fingers, offensive breaths, and dull razors; he shaves when most convenient to him, and enjoys daily the pleasure of its being done with a good instrument. With these sentiments I have hazarded the few preceding pages, hoping they may afford hints which some time or other may be useful to a city I love, having lived many years in it very happily, and perhaps to some of our towns in America. Having been for some time employed by the postmaster-general of America as his comptroller in regulating several offices, and bringing the officers to account, I was, upon his death in 1753, appointed, jointly with Mr. William Hunter, to succeed him, by a commission from the postmaster-general in England. The American office never had hitherto paid anything to that of Britain. We were to have six hundred pounds a year between us, if we could make that sum out of the profits of the office. To do this, a variety of improvements were necessary; some of these were inevitably at first expensive, so that in the first four years the office became above nine hundred pounds in debt to us. But it soon after began to repay us; and before I was displac'd by a freak of the ministers, of which I shall speak hereafter, we had brought it to yield _three times_ as much clear revenue to the crown as the post-office of Ireland. Since that imprudent transaction, they have receiv'd from it--not one farthing! The business of the post-office occasion'd my taking a journey this year to New England, where the College of Cambridge, of their own motion, presented me with the degree of Master of Arts. Yale College, in Connecticut, had before made me a similar compliment. Thus, without studying in any college, I came to partake of their honours. They were conferr'd in consideration of my improvements and discoveries in the electric branch of natural philosophy. XIV ALBANY PLAN OF UNION In 1754, war with France being again apprehended, a congress of commissioners from the different colonies was, by an order of the Lords of Trade, to be assembled at Albany, there to confer with the chiefs of the Six Nations concerning the means of defending both their country and ours. Governor Hamilton, having receiv'd this order, acquainted the House with it, requesting they would furnish proper presents for the Indians, to be given on this occasion; and naming the speaker (Mr. Norris) and myself to join Mr. Thomas Penn and Mr. Secretary Peters as commissioners to act for Pennsylvania. The House approv'd the nomination, and provided the goods for the present, and tho' they did not much like treating out of the provinces; and we met the other commissioners at Albany about the middle of June. In our way thither, I projected and drew a plan for the union of all the colonies under one government, so far as might be necessary for defense, and other important general purposes. As we pass'd thro' New York, I had there shown my project to Mr. James Alexander and Mr. Kennedy, two gentlemen of great knowledge in public affairs, and, being fortified by their approbation, I ventur'd to lay it before the Congress. It then appeared that several of the commissioners had form'd plans of the same kind. A previous question was first taken, whether a union should be established, which pass'd in the affirmative unanimously. A committee was then appointed, one member from each colony, to consider the several plans and report. Mine happen'd to be preferr'd, and, with a few amendments, was accordingly reported. [Illustration: JOIN, or DIE.] By this plan the general government was to be administered by a president-general, appointed and supported by the crown, and a grand council was to be chosen by the representatives of the people of the several colonies, met in their respective assemblies. The debates upon it in Congress went on daily, hand in hand with the Indian business. Many objections and difficulties were started, but at length they were all overcome, and the plan was unanimously agreed to, and copies ordered to be transmitted to the Board of Trade and to the assemblies of the several provinces. Its fate was singular; the assemblies did not adopt it, as they all thought there was too much _prerogative_ in it, and in England it was judg'd to have too much of the _democratic_. The Board of Trade therefore did not approve of it, nor recommend it for the approbation of his majesty; but another scheme was form'd, supposed to answer the same purpose better, whereby the governors of the provinces, with some members of their respective councils, were to meet and order the raising of troops, building of forts, etc., and to draw on the treasury of Great Britain for the expense, which was afterwards to be refunded by an act of Parliament laying a tax on America. My plan, with my reasons in support of it, is to be found among my political papers that are printed. Being the winter following in Boston, I had much conversation with Governor Shirley upon both the plans. Part of what passed between us on the occasion may also be seen among those papers. The different and contrary reasons of dislike to my plan makes me suspect that it was really the true medium; and I am still of opinion it would have been happy for both sides the water if it had been adopted. The colonies, so united, would have been sufficiently strong to have defended themselves; there would then have been no need of troops from England; of course, the subsequent pretence for taxing America, and the bloody contest it occasioned, would have been avoided. But such mistakes are not new; history is full of the errors of states and princes. "Look round the habitable world, how few Know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue!" Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom _adopted from previous wisdom, but forc'd by the occasion_. The Governor of Pennsylvania, in sending it down to the Assembly, expressed his approbation of the plan, "as appearing to him to be drawn up with great clearness and strength of judgment, and therefore recommended it as well worthy of their closest and most serious attention." The House, however, by the management of a certain member, took it up when I happen'd to be absent, which I thought not very fair, and reprobated it without paying any attention to it at all, to my no small mortification. XV QUARRELS WITH THE PROPRIETARY GOVERNORS In my journey to Boston this year, I met at New York with our new governor, Mr. Morris, just arriv'd there from England, with whom I had been before intimately acquainted. He brought a commission to supersede Mr. Hamilton, who, tir'd with the disputes his proprietary instructions subjected him to, had resign'd. Mr. Morris ask'd me if I thought he must expect as uncomfortable an administration. I said, "No; you may, on the contrary, have a very comfortable one, if you will only take care not to enter into any dispute with the Assembly." "My dear friend," says he, pleasantly, "how can you advise my avoiding disputes? You know I love disputing; it is one of my greatest pleasures; however, to show the regard I have for your counsel, I promise you I will, if possible, avoid them." He had some reason for loving to dispute, being eloquent, an acute sophister, and, therefore, generally successful in argumentative conversation. He had been brought up to it from a boy, his father, as I have heard, accustoming his children to dispute with one another for his diversion, while sitting at table after dinner; but I think the practice was not wise; for, in the course of my observation, these disputing, contradicting, and confuting people are generally unfortunate in their affairs. They get victory sometimes, but they never get good will, which would be of more use to them. We parted, he going to Philadelphia, and I to Boston. In returning, I met at New York with the votes of the Assembly, by which it appear'd that, notwithstanding his promise to me, he and the House were already in high contention; and it was a continual battle between them as long as he retain'd the government. I had my share of it; for, as soon as I got back to my seat in the Assembly, I was put on every committee for answering his speeches and messages, and by the committees always desired to make the drafts. Our answers, as well as his messages, were often tart, and sometimes indecently abusive; and, as he knew I wrote for the Assembly, one might have imagined that, when we met, we could hardly avoid cutting throats; but he was so good-natur'd a man that no personal difference between him and me was occasion'd by the contest, and we often din'd together. [Illustration: "One afternoon, in the height of this public quarrel, we met in the street"] One afternoon, in the height of this public quarrel, we met in the street. "Franklin," says he, "you must go home with me and spend the evening; I am to have some company that you will like;" and, taking me by the arm, he led me to his house. In gay conversation over our wine, after supper, he told us, jokingly, that he much admir'd the idea of Sancho Panza,[93] who, when it was proposed to give him a government, requested it might be a government of _blacks_, as then, if he could not agree with his people, he might sell them. One of his friends, who sat next to me, says, "Franklin, why do you continue to side with these damn'd Quakers? Had not you better sell them? The proprietor would give you a good price." "The governor," says I, "has not yet _blacked_ them enough." He, indeed, had laboured hard to blacken the Assembly in all his messages, but they wip'd off his colouring as fast as he laid it on, and plac'd it, in return, thick upon his own face; so that, finding he was likely to be negrofied himself, he, as well as Mr. Hamilton, grew tir'd of the contest, and quitted the government. These public quarrels[94] were all at bottom owing to the proprietaries, our hereditary governors, who, when any expense was to be incurred for the defense of their province, with incredible meanness instructed their deputies to pass no act for levying the necessary taxes, unless their vast estates were in the same act expressly excused; and they had even taken bonds of these deputies to observe such instructions. The Assemblies for three years held out against this injustice, tho' constrained to bend at last. At length Captain Denny, who was Governor Morris's successor, ventured to disobey those instructions; how that was brought about I shall show hereafter. [93] The "round, selfish, and self-important" squire of Don Quixote in Cervantes' romance of that name. [94] My acts in Morris's time, military, etc.--_Marg. note_. But I am got forward too fast with my story: there are still some transactions to be mention'd that happened during the administration of Governor Morris. War being in a manner commenced with France, the government of Massachusetts Bay projected an attack upon Crown Point,[95] and sent Mr. Quincy to Pennsylvania, and Mr. Pownall, afterward Governor Pownall, to New York, to solicit assistance. As I was in the Assembly, knew its temper, and was Mr. Quincy's countryman, he appli'd to me for my influence and assistance. I dictated his address to them, which was well received. They voted an aid of ten thousand pounds, to be laid out in provisions. But the governor refusing his assent to their bill (which included this with other sums granted for the use of the crown), unless a clause were inserted exempting the proprietary estate from bearing any part of the tax that would be necessary, the Assembly, tho' very desirous of making their grant to New England effectual, were at a loss how to accomplish it. Mr. Quincy labored hard with the governor to obtain his assent, but he was obstinate. [95] On Lake Champlain, ninety miles north of Albany. It was captured by the French in 1731, attacked by the English in 1755 and 1756, and abandoned by the French in 1759. It was finally captured from the English by the Americans in 1775. I then suggested a method of doing the business without the governor, by orders on the trustees of the Loan office, which, by law, the Assembly had the right of drawing. There was, indeed, little or no money at that time in the office, and therefore I propos'd that the orders should be payable in a year, and to bear an interest of five per cent. With these orders I suppos'd the provisions might easily be purchas'd. The Assembly, with very little hesitation, adopted the proposal. The orders were immediately printed, and I was one of the committee directed to sign and dispose of them. The fund for paying them was the interest of all the paper currency then extant in the province upon loan, together with the revenue arising from the excise, which being known to be more than sufficient, they obtain'd instant credit, and were not only receiv'd in payment for the provisions, but many money'd people, who had cash lying by them, vested it in those orders, which they found advantageous, as they bore interest while upon hand, and might on any occasion be used as money; so that they were eagerly all bought up, and in a few weeks none of them were to be seen. Thus this important affair was by my means completed. Mr. Quincy return'd thanks to the Assembly in a handsome memorial, went home highly pleas'd with this success of his embassy, and ever after bore for me the most cordial and affectionate friendship. XVI BRADDOCK'S EXPEDITION The British government, not chusing to permit the union of the colonies as propos'd at Albany, and to trust that union with their defense, lest they should thereby grow too military, and feel their own strength, suspicions and jealousies at this time being entertain'd of them, sent over General Braddock with two regiments of regular English troops for that purpose. He landed at Alexandria, in Virginia, and thence march'd to Frederictown, in Maryland, where he halted for carriages. Our Assembly apprehending, from some information, that he had conceived violent prejudices against them, as averse to the service, wish'd me to wait upon him, not as from them, but as postmaster-general, under the guise of proposing to settle with him the mode of conducting with most celerity and certainty the despatches between him and the governors of the several provinces, with whom he must necessarily have continual correspondence, and of which they propos'd to pay the expense. My son accompanied me on this journey. We found the general at Frederictown, waiting impatiently for the return of those he had sent thro' the back parts of Maryland and Virginia to collect waggons. I stayed with him several days, din'd with him daily, and had full opportunity of removing all his prejudices, by the information of what the Assembly had before his arrival actually done, and were still willing to do, to facilitate his operations. When I was about to depart, the returns of waggons to be obtained were brought in, by which it appear'd that they amounted only to twenty-five, and not all of those were in serviceable condition. The general and all the officers were surpris'd, declar'd the expedition was then at an end, being impossible, and exclaim'd against the ministers for ignorantly landing them in a country destitute of the means of conveying their stores, baggage, etc., not less than one hundred and fifty waggons being necessary. I happen'd to say I thought it was pity they had not been landed rather in Pennsylvania, as in that country almost every farmer had his waggon. The general eagerly laid hold of my words, and said, "Then you, sir, who are a man of interest there, can probably procure them for us; and I beg you will undertake it." I ask'd what terms were to be offer'd the owners of the waggons, and I was desir'd to put on paper the terms that appeared to me necessary. This I did, and they were agreed to, and a commission and instructions accordingly prepar'd immediately. What those terms were will appear in the advertisement I publish'd as soon as I arriv'd at Lancaster, which being, from the great and sudden effect it produc'd, a piece of some curiosity, I shall insert it at length, as follows: "Advertisement. "Lancaster, _April_ 26, 1755. "Whereas, one hundred and fifty waggons, with four horses to each waggon, and fifteen hundred saddle or pack horses, are wanted for the service of his majesty's forces now about to rendezvous at Will's Creek, and his excellency General Braddock having been pleased to empower me to contract for the hire of the same, I hereby give notice that I shall attend for that purpose at Lancaster from this day to next Wednesday evening, and at York from next Thursday morning till Friday evening, where I shall be ready to agree for waggons and teams, or single horses, on the following terms, viz.: 1. That there shall be paid for each waggon, with four good horses and a driver, fifteen shillings per diem; and for each able horse with a pack-saddle, or other saddle and furniture, two shillings per diem; and for each able horse without a saddle, eighteen pence per diem. 2. That the pay commence from the time of their joining the forces at Will's Creek, which must be on or before the 20th of May ensuing, and that a reasonable allowance be paid over and above for the time necessary for their travelling to Will's Creek and home again after their discharge. 3. Each waggon and team, and every saddle or pack horse, is to be valued by indifferent persons chosen between me and the owner; and in case of the loss of any waggon, team, or other horse in the service, the price according to such valuation is to be allowed and paid. 4. Seven days' pay is to be advanced and paid in hand by me to the owner of each waggon and team, or horse, at the time of contracting, if required, and the remainder to be paid by General Braddock, or by the paymaster of the army, at the time of their discharge, or from time to time, as it shall be demanded. 5. No drivers of waggons, or persons taking care of the hired horses, are on any account to be called upon to do the duty of soldiers, or be otherwise employed than in conducting or taking care of their carriages or horses. 6. All oats, Indian corn, or other forage that waggons or horses bring to the camp, more than is necessary for the subsistence of the horses, is to be taken for the use of the army, and a reasonable price paid for the same. "Note.--My son, William Franklin, is empowered to enter into like contracts with any person in Cumberland county. "B. Franklin." _"To the inhabitants of the Counties of Lancaster, York, and Cumberland._ "Friends and Countrymen, "Being occasionally[96] at the camp at Frederic a few days since, I found the general and officers extremely exasperated on account of their not being supplied with horses and carriages, which had been expected from this province, as most able to furnish them; but, through the dissensions between our governor and Assembly, money had not been provided, nor any steps taken for that purpose. [96] By chance. "It was proposed to send an armed force immediately into these counties, to seize as many of the best carriages and horses as should be wanted, and compel as many persons into the service as would be necessary to drive and take care of them. "I apprehended that the progress of British soldiers through these counties on such an occasion, especially considering the temper they are in, and their resentment against us, would be attended with many and great inconveniences to the inhabitants, and therefore more willingly took the trouble of trying first what might be done by fair and equitable means. The people of these back counties have lately complained to the Assembly that a sufficient currency was wanting; you have an opportunity of receiving and dividing among you a very considerable sum; for, if the service of this expedition should continue, as it is more than probable it will, for one hundred and twenty days, the hire of these waggons and horses will amount to upward of thirty thousand pounds, which will be paid you in silver and gold of the king's money. "The service will be light and easy, for the army will scarce march above twelve miles per day, and the waggons and baggage-horses, as they carry those things that are absolutely necessary to the welfare of the army, must march with the army, and no faster; and are, for the army's sake, always placed where they can be most secure, whether in a march or in a camp. "If you are really, as I believe you are, good and loyal subjects to his majesty, you may now do a most acceptable service, and make it easy to yourselves; for three or four of such as cannot separately spare from the business of their plantations a waggon and four horses and a driver, may do it together, one furnishing the waggon, another one or two horses, and another the driver, and divide the pay proportionately between you; but if you do not this service to your king and country voluntarily, when such good pay and reasonable terms are offered to you, your loyalty will be strongly suspected. The king's business must be done; so many brave troops, come so far for your defense, must not stand idle through your backwardness to do what may be reasonably expected from you; waggons and horses must be had; violent measures will probably be used, and you will be left to seek for a recompense where you can find it, and your case, perhaps, be little pitied or regarded. "I have no particular interest in this affair, as, except the satisfaction of endeavouring to do good, I shall have only my labour for my pains. If this method of obtaining the waggons and horses is not likely to succeed, I am obliged to send word to the general in fourteen days; and I suppose Sir John St. Clair, the hussar, with a body of soldiers, will immediately enter the province for the purpose, which I shall be sorry to hear, because I am very sincerely and truly your friend and well-wisher, "B. Franklin." I received of the general about eight hundred pounds, to be disbursed in advance-money to the waggon owners, etc.; but that sum being insufficient, I advanc'd upward of two hundred pounds more, and in two weeks the one hundred and fifty waggons, with two hundred and fifty-nine carrying horses, were on their march for the camp. The advertisement promised payment according to the valuation, in case any waggon or horse should be lost. The owners, however, alleging they did not know General Braddock, or what dependence might be had on his promise, insisted on my bond for the performance, which I accordingly gave them. While I was at the camp, supping one evening with the officers of Colonel Dunbar's regiment, he represented to me his concern for the subalterns, who, he said, were generally not in affluence, and could ill afford, in this dear country, to lay in the stores that might be necessary in so long a march, thro' a wilderness, where nothing was to be purchas'd. I commiserated their case, and resolved to endeavour procuring them some relief. I said nothing, however, to him of my intention, but wrote the next morning to the committee of the Assembly, who had the disposition of some public money, warmly recommending the case of these officers to their consideration, and proposing that a present should be sent them of necessaries and refreshments. My son, who had some experience of a camp life, and of its wants, drew up a list for me, which I enclos'd in my letter. The committee approv'd, and used such diligence that, conducted by my son, the stores arrived at the camp as soon as the waggons. They consisted of twenty parcels, each containing 6 lbs. loaf sugar. 6 lbs. good Muscovado do. 1 lb. good green tea. 1 lb. good bohea do. 6 lbs. good ground coffee. 6 lbs. chocolate. 1-2 cwt. best white biscuit. 1-2 lb. pepper. 1 quart best white wine vinegar. 1 Gloucester cheese. 1 kegg containing 20 lbs. good butter. 2 doz. old Madeira wine. 2 gallons Jamaica spirits. 1 bottle flour of mustard. 2 well-cur'd hams. 1-2 dozen dry'd tongues. 6 lbs. rice. 6 lbs. raisins. These twenty parcels, well pack'd, were placed on as many horses, each parcel, with the horse, being intended as a present for one officer. They were very thankfully receiv'd, and the kindness acknowledg'd by letters to me from the colonels of both regiments, in the most grateful terms. The general, too, was highly satisfied with my conduct in procuring him the waggons, etc., and readily paid my account of disbursements, thanking me repeatedly, and requesting my farther assistance in sending provisions after him. I undertook this also, and was busily employ'd in it till we heard of his defeat, advancing for the service of my own money, upwards of one thousand pounds sterling, of which I sent him an account. It came to his hands, luckily for me, a few days before the battle, and he return'd me immediately an order on the paymaster for the round sum of one thousand pounds, leaving the remainder to the next account. I consider this payment as good luck, having never been able to obtain that remainder, of which more hereafter. This general was, I think, a brave man, and might probably have made a figure as a good officer in some European war. But he had too much self-confidence, too high an opinion of the validity of regular troops, and too mean a one of both Americans and Indians. George Croghan, our Indian interpreter, join'd him on his march with one hundred of those people, who might have been of great use to his army as guides, scouts, etc., if he had treated them kindly; but he slighted and neglected them, and they gradually left him. In conversation with him one day, he was giving me some account of his intended progress. "After taking Fort Duquesne,"[97] says he, "I am to proceed to Niagara; and, having taken that, to Frontenac,[98] if the season will allow time; and I suppose it will, for Duquesne can hardly detain me above three or four days; and then I see nothing that can obstruct my march to Niagara." Having before revolv'd in my mind the long line his army must make in their march by a very narrow road, to be cut for them thro' the woods and bushes, and also what I had read of a former defeat of fifteen hundred French, who invaded the Iroquois country, I had conceiv'd some doubts and some fears for the event of the campaign. But I ventur'd only to say, "To be sure, sir, if you arrive well before Duquesne, with these fine troops, so well provided with artillery, that place not yet completely fortified, and as we hear with no very strong garrison, can probably make but a short resistance. The only danger I apprehend of obstruction to your march is from ambuscades of Indians, who, by constant practice, are dexterous in laying and executing them; and the slender line, near four miles long, which your army must make, may expose it to be attack'd by surprise in its flanks, and to be cut like a thread into several pieces, which, from their distance, cannot come up in time to support each other." [97] Pittsburg. [98] Kingston, at the eastern end of Lake Ontario. He smil'd at my ignorance, and reply'd, "These savages may, indeed, be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia, but upon the king's regular and disciplin'd troops, sir, it is impossible they should make any impression." I was conscious of an impropriety in my disputing with a military man in matters of his profession, and said no more. The enemy, however, did not take the advantage of his army which I apprehended its long line of march expos'd it to, but let it advance without interruption till within nine miles of the place; and then, when more in a body (for it had just passed a river, where the front had halted till all were come over), and in a more open part of the woods than any it had pass'd, attack'd its advanced guard by heavy fire from behind trees and bushes, which was the first intelligence the general had of an enemy's being near him. This guard being disordered, the general hurried the troops up to their assistance, which was done in great confusion, thro' waggons, baggage, and cattle; and presently the fire came upon their flank: the officers, being on horseback, were more easily distinguish'd, pick'd out as marks, and fell very fast; and the soldiers were crowded together in a huddle, having or hearing no orders, and standing to be shot at till two-thirds of them were killed; and then, being seiz'd with a panick, the whole fled with precipitation. [Illustration: "The only danger I apprehend of obstruction to your march is from ambuscades of Indians"] The waggoners took each a horse out of his team and scamper'd; their example was immediately followed by others; so that all the waggons, provisions, artillery, and stores were left to the enemy. The general, being wounded, was brought off with difficulty; his secretary, Mr. Shirley, was killed by his side; and out of eighty-six officers, sixty-three were killed or wounded, and seven hundred and fourteen men killed out of eleven hundred. These eleven hundred had been picked men from the whole army; the rest had been left behind with Colonel Dunbar, who was to follow with the heavier part of the stores, provisions, and baggage. The flyers, not being pursu'd, arriv'd at Dunbar's camp, and the panick they brought with them instantly seiz'd him and all his people; and, tho' he had now above one thousand men, and the enemy who had beaten Braddock did not at most exceed four hundred Indians and French together, instead of proceeding, and endeavouring to recover some of the lost honour, he ordered all the stores, ammunition, etc., to be destroy'd, that he might have more horses to assist his flight towards the settlements, and less lumber to remove. He was there met with requests from the governors of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, that he would post his troops on the frontier, so as to afford some protection to the inhabitants; but he continued his hasty march thro' all the country, not thinking himself safe till he arrived at Philadelphia, where the inhabitants could protect him. This whole transaction gave us Americans the first suspicion that our exalted ideas of the prowess of British regulars had not been well founded.[99] [99] Other accounts of this expedition and defeat may be found in Fiske's _Washington and his Country_, or Lodge's _George Washington_, Vol. 1. In their first march, too, from their landing till they got beyond the settlements, they had plundered and stripped the inhabitants, totally ruining some poor families, besides insulting, abusing, and confining the people if they remonstrated. This was enough to put us out of conceit of such defenders, if we had really wanted any. How different was the conduct of our French friends in 1781, who, during a march thro' the most inhabited part of our country from Rhode Island to Virginia, near seven hundred miles, occasioned not the smallest complaint for the loss of a pig, a chicken, or even an apple. Captain Orme, who was one of the general's aids-de-camp, and, being grievously wounded, was brought off with him, and continu'd with him to his death, which happen'd in a few days, told me that he was totally silent all the first day, and at night only said, "_Who would have thought it?_" That he was silent again the following day, saying only at last, "_We shall better know how to deal with them another time_"; and dy'd in a few minutes after. The secretary's papers, with all the general's orders, instructions, and correspondence, falling into the enemy's hands, they selected and translated into French a number of the articles, which they printed, to prove the hostile intentions of the British court before the declaration of war. Among these I saw some letters of the general to the ministry, speaking highly of the great service I had rendered the army, and recommending me to their notice. David Hume,[100] too, who was some years after secretary to Lord Hertford, when minister in France, and afterward to General Conway, when secretary of state, told me he had seen among the papers in that office, letters from Braddock highly recommending me. But, the expedition having been unfortunate, my service, it seems, was not thought of much value, for those recommendations were never of any use to me. [100] A famous Scotch philosopher and historian (1711-1776). As to rewards from himself, I ask'd only one, which was, that he would give orders to his officers not to enlist any more of our bought servants, and that he would discharge such as had been already enlisted. This he readily granted, and several were accordingly return'd to their masters, on my application. Dunbar, when the command devolv'd on him, was not so generous. He being at Philadelphia, on his retreat, or rather flight, I apply'd to him for the discharge of the servants of three poor farmers of Lancaster county that he had enlisted, reminding him of the late general's orders on that head. He promised me that, if the masters would come to him at Trenton, where he should be in a few days on his march to New York, he would there deliver their men to them. They accordingly were at the expense and trouble of going to Trenton, and there he refus'd to perform his promise, to their great loss and disappointment. As soon as the loss of the waggons and horses was generally known, all the owners came upon me for the valuation which I had given bond to pay. Their demands gave me a great deal of trouble, my acquainting them that the money was ready in the paymaster's hands, but that orders for paying it must first be obtained from General Shirley,[101] and my assuring them that I had apply'd to that general by letter; but, he being at a distance, an answer could not soon be receiv'd, and they must have patience, all this was not sufficient to satisfy, and some began to sue me. General Shirley at length relieved me from this terrible situation by appointing commissioners to examine the claims, and ordering payment. They amounted to near twenty thousand pound, which to pay would have ruined me. [101] Governor of Massachusetts and commander of the British forces in America. Before we had the news of this defeat, the two Doctors Bond came to me with a subscription paper for raising money to defray the expense of a grand firework, which it was intended to exhibit at a rejoicing on receipt of the news of our taking Fort Duquesne. I looked grave, and said it would, I thought, be time enough to prepare for the rejoicing when we knew we should have occasion to rejoice. They seem'd surpris'd that I did not immediately comply with their proposal. "Why the d----l!" says one of them, "you surely don't suppose that the fort will not be taken?" "I don't know that it will not be taken, but I know that the events of war are subject to great uncertainty." I gave them the reasons of my doubting; the subscription was dropt, and the projectors thereby missed the mortification they would have undergone if the firework had been prepared. Dr. Bond, on some other occasion afterward, said that he did not like Franklin's forebodings. Governor Morris, who had continually worried the Assembly with message after message before the defeat of Braddock, to beat them into the making of acts to raise money for the defense of the province, without taxing, among others, the proprietary estates, and had rejected all their bills for not having such an exempting clause, now redoubled his attacks with more hope of success, the danger and necessity being greater. The Assembly, however, continu'd firm, believing they had justice on their side, and that it would be giving up an essential right if they suffered the governor to amend their money-bills. In one of the last, indeed, which was for granting fifty thousand pounds, his propos'd amendment was only of a single word. The bill express'd "that all estates, real and personal, were to be taxed, those of the proprietaries _not_ excepted." His amendment was, for _not_ read _only_: a small, but very material alteration. However, when the news of this disaster reached England, our friends there whom we had taken care to furnish with all the Assembly's answers to the governor's messages, rais'd a clamor against the proprietaries for their meanness and injustice in giving their governor such instructions; some going so far as to say that, by obstructing the defense of their province, they forfeited their right to it. They were intimidated by this, and sent orders to their receiver-general to add five thousand pounds of their money to whatever sum might be given by the Assembly for such purpose. This, being notified to the House, was accepted in lieu of their share of a general tax, and a new bill was form'd, with an exempting clause, which passed accordingly. By this act I was appointed one of the commissioners for disposing of the money, sixty thousand pounds. I had been active in modelling the bill and procuring its passage, and had, at the same time, drawn a bill for establishing and disciplining a voluntary militia, which I carried thro' the House without much difficulty, as care was taken in it to leave the Quakers at their liberty. To promote the association necessary to form the militia, I wrote a dialogue,[102] stating and answering all the objections I could think of to such a militia, which was printed, and had, as I thought, great effect. [102] This dialogue and the militia act are in the Gentleman's Magazine for February and March, 1756.--_Marg. note._ XVII FRANKLIN'S DEFENSE OF THE FRONTIER While the several companies in the city and country were forming, and learning their exercise, the governor prevail'd with me to take charge of our North-western frontier, which was infested by the enemy, and provide for the defense of the inhabitants by raising troops and building a line of forts. I undertook this military business, tho' I did not conceive myself well qualified for it. He gave me a commission with full powers, and a parcel of blank commissions for officers, to be given to whom I thought fit. I had but little difficulty in raising men, having soon five hundred and sixty under my command. My son, who had in the preceding war been an officer in the army rais'd against Canada, was my aid-de-camp, and of great use to me. The Indians had burned Gnadenhut,[103] a village settled by the Moravians, and massacred the inhabitants; but the place was thought a good situation for one of the forts. [103] Pronounced Gna´-den-hoot. In order to march thither, I assembled the companies at Bethlehem, the chief establishment of those people. I was surprised to find it in so good a posture of defense; the destruction of Gnadenhut had made them apprehend danger. The principal buildings were defended by a stockade; they had purchased a quantity of arms and ammunition from New York, and had even plac'd quantities of small paving stones between the windows of their high stone houses, for their women to throw down upon the heads of any Indians that should attempt to force into them. The armed brethren, too, kept watch, and reliev'd as methodically as in any garrison town. In conversation with the bishop, Spangenberg, I mention'd this my surprise; for, knowing they had obtained an act of Parliament exempting them from military duties in the colonies, I had suppos'd they were conscientiously scrupulous of bearing arms. He answer'd me that it was not one of their established principles, but that, at the time of their obtaining that act, it was thought to be a principle with many of their people. On this occasion, however, they, to their surprise, found it adopted by but a few. It seems they were either deceiv'd in themselves, or deceiv'd the Parliament; but common sense, aided by present danger, will sometimes be too strong for whimsical opinions. It was the beginning of January when we set out upon this business of building forts. I sent one detachment toward the Minisink, with instructions to erect one for the security of that upper part of the country, and another to the lower part, with similar instructions; and I concluded to go myself with the rest of my force to Gnadenhut, where a fort was tho't more immediately necessary. The Moravians procur'd me five waggons for our tools, stores, baggage, etc. Just before we left Bethlehem, eleven farmers, who had been driven from their plantations by the Indians, came to me requesting a supply of firearms, that they might go back and fetch off their cattle. I gave them each a gun with suitable ammunition. We had not march'd many miles before it began to rain, and it continued raining all day; there were no habitations on the road to shelter us, till we arriv'd near night at the house of a German, where, and in his barn, we were all huddled together, as wet as water could make us. It was well we were not attack'd in our march, for our arms were of the most ordinary sort, and our men could not keep their gun locks[104] dry. The Indians are dexterous in contrivances for that purpose, which we had not. They met that day the eleven poor farmers above mentioned, and killed ten of them. The one who escap'd inform'd that his and his companions' guns would not go off, the priming being wet with the rain. [104] Flint-lock guns, discharged by means of a spark struck from flint and steel into powder (priming) in an open pan. [Illustration: "We had not march'd many miles before it began to rain"] The next day being fair, we continu'd our march, and arriv'd at the desolated Gnadenhut. There was a saw-mill near, round which were left several piles of boards, with which we soon hutted ourselves; an operation the more necessary at that inclement season, as we had no tents. Our first work was to bury more effectually the dead we found there, who had been half interr'd by the country people. The next morning our fort was plann'd and mark'd out, the circumference measuring four hundred and fifty-five feet, which would require as many palisades to be made of trees, one with another, of a foot diameter each. Our axes, of which we had seventy, were immediately set to work to cut down trees, and, our men being dexterous in the use of them, great despatch was made. Seeing the trees fall so fast, I had the curiosity to look at my watch when two men began to cut at a pine; in six minutes they had it upon the ground, and I found it of fourteen inches diameter. Each pine made three palisades of eighteen feet long, pointed at one end. While these were preparing, our other men dug a trench all round, of three feet deep, in which the palisades were to be planted; and, our waggons, the bodies being taken off, and the fore and hind wheels separated by taking out the pin which united the two parts of the perch,[105] we had ten carriages, with two horses each, to bring the palisades from the woods to the spot. When they were set up, our carpenters built a stage [Illustration: "Our axes ... were immediately set to work to cut down trees"] of boards all round within, about six feet high, for the men to stand on when to fire thro' the loopholes. We had one swivel gun, which we mounted on one of the angles, and fir'd it as soon as fix'd, to let the Indians know, if any were within hearing, that we had such pieces; and thus our fort, if such a magnificent name may be given to so miserable a stockade, was finish'd in a week, though it rain'd so hard every other day that the men could not work. [105] Here the pole connecting the front and rear wheels of a wagon. This gave me occasion to observe, that, when men are employ'd, they are best content'd; for on the days they worked they were good-natur'd and cheerful, and, with the consciousness of having done a good day's work, they spent the evening jollily; but on our idle days they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with their pork, the bread, etc., and in continual ill-humour, which put me in mind of a sea-captain, whose rule it was to keep his men constantly at work; and, when his mate once told him that they had done everything, and there was nothing further to employ them about, _"Oh," says he, "make them scour the anchor."_ This kind of fort, however contemptible, is a sufficient defense against Indians, who have no cannon. Finding ourselves now posted securely, and having a place to retreat to on occasion, we ventur'd out in parties to scour the adjacent country. We met with no Indians, but we found the places on the neighbouring hills where they had lain to watch our proceedings. There was an art in their contrivance of those places that seems worth mention. It being winter, a fire was necessary for them; but a common fire on the surface of the ground would by its light have discover'd their position at a distance. They had therefore dug holes in the ground about three feet diameter, and somewhat deeper; we saw where they had with their hatchets cut off the charcoal from the sides of burnt logs lying in the woods. With these coals they had made small fires in the bottom of the holes, and we observ'd among the weeds and grass the prints of their bodies, made by their laying all round, with their legs hanging down in the holes to keep their feet warm, which, with them, is an essential point. This kind of fire, so manag'd, could not discover them, either by its light, flame, sparks, or even smoke: it appear'd that their number was not great, and it seems they saw we were too many to be attacked by them with prospect of advantage. We had for our chaplain a zealous Presbyterian minister, Mr. Beatty, who complained to me that the men did not generally attend his prayers and exhortations. When they enlisted, they were promised, besides pay and provisions, a gill of rum a day, which was punctually serv'd out to them, half in the morning, and the other half in the evening; and I observed they were as punctual in attending to receive it; upon which I said to Mr. Beatty, "It is, perhaps, below the dignity of your profession to act as steward of the rum, but if you were to deal it out and only just after prayers, you would have them all about you." He liked the tho't, undertook the office, and, with the help of a few hands to measure out the liquor, executed it to satisfaction, and never were prayers more generally and more punctually attended; so that I thought this method preferable to the punishment inflicted by some military laws for non-attendance on divine service. I had hardly finish'd this business, and got my fort well stor'd with provisions, when I receiv'd a letter from the governor, acquainting me that he had call'd the Assembly, and wished my attendance there, if the posture of affairs on the frontiers was such that my remaining there was no longer necessary. My friends, too, of the Assembly, pressing me by their letters to be, if possible, at the meeting, and my three intended forts being now compleated, and the inhabitants contented to remain on their farms under that protection, I resolved to return; the more willingly, as a New England officer, Colonel Clapham, experienced in Indian war, being on a visit to our establishment, consented to accept the command. I gave him a commission, and, parading the garrison, had it read before them, and introduc'd him to them as an officer who, from his skill in military affairs, was much more fit to command them than myself; and, giving them a little exhortation, took my leave. I was escorted as far as Bethlehem, where I rested a few days to recover from the fatigue I had undergone. The first night, being in a good bed, I could hardly sleep, it was so different from my hard lodging on the floor of our hut at Gnaden wrapt only in a blanket or two. While at Bethlehem, I inquir'd a little into the practice of the Moravians: some of them had accompanied me, and all were very kind to me. I found they work'd for a common stock, ate at common tables, and slept in common dormitories, great numbers together. In the dormitories I observed loopholes, at certain distances all along just under the ceiling, which I thought judiciously placed for change of air. I was at their church, where I was entertain'd with good musick, the organ being accompanied with violins, hautboys, flutes, clarinets, etc. I understood that their sermons were not usually preached to mixed congregations of men, women, and children, as is our common practice, but that they assembled sometimes the married men, at other times their wives, then the young men, the young women, and the little children, each division by itself. The sermon I heard was to the latter, who came in and were plac'd in rows on benches; the boys under the conduct of a young man, their tutor, and the girls conducted by a young woman. The discourse seem'd well adapted to their capacities, and was delivered in a pleasing, familiar manner, coaxing them, as it were, to be good. They behav'd very orderly, but looked pale and unhealthy, which made me suspect they were kept too much within doors, or not allow'd sufficient exercise. I inquir'd concerning the Moravian marriages, whether the report was true that they were by lot. I was told that lots were us'd only in particular cases; that generally, when a young man found himself dispos'd to marry, he inform'd the elders of his class, who consulted the elder ladies that govern'd the young women. As these elders of the different sexes were well acquainted with the tempers and dispositions of their respective pupils, they could best judge what matches were suitable, and their judgments were generally acquiesc'd in; but if, for example, it should happen that two or three young women were found to be equally proper for the young man, the lot was then recurred to. I objected, if the matches are not made by the mutual choice of the parties, some of them may chance to be very unhappy. "And so they may," answer'd my informer, "if you let the parties chuse for themselves;" which, indeed, I could not deny. Being returned to Philadelphia, I found the association went on swimmingly, the inhabitants that were not Quakers having pretty generally come into it, formed themselves into companies, and chose their captains, lieutenants, and ensigns, according to the new law. Dr. B. visited me, and gave me an account of the pains he had taken to spread a general good liking to the law, and ascribed much to those endeavours. I had had the vanity to ascribe all to my _Dialogue_; however, not knowing but that he might be in the right, I let him enjoy his opinion, which I take to be generally the best way in such cases. The officers, meeting, chose me to be colonel of the regiment, which I this time accepted. I forget how many companies we had, but we paraded about twelve hundred well-looking men, with a company of artillery, who had been furnished with six brass field-pieces, which they had become so expert in the use of as to fire twelve times in a minute. The first time I reviewed my regiment they accompanied me to my house, and would salute me with some rounds fired before my door, which shook down and broke several glasses of my electrical apparatus. And my new honour proved not much less brittle; for all our commissions were soon after broken by a repeal of the law in England. During this short time of my colonelship, being about to set out on a journey to Virginia, the officers of my regiment took it into their heads that it would be proper for them to escort me out of town, as far as the Lower Ferry. Just as I was getting on horseback they came to my door, between thirty and forty, mounted, and all in their uniforms. I had not been previously acquainted with the project, or I should have prevented it, being naturally averse to the assuming of state on any occasion; and I was a good deal chagrin'd at their appearance, as I could not avoid their accompanying me. What made it worse was, that, as soon as we began to move, they drew their swords and rode with them naked all the way. Somebody wrote an account of this to the proprietor, and it gave him great offense. No such honour had been paid him when in the province, nor to any of his governors; and he said it was only proper to princes of the blood royal, which may be true for aught I know, who was, and still am, ignorant of the etiquette in such cases. This silly affair, however, greatly increased his rancour against me, which was before not a little, on account of my conduct in the Assembly respecting the exemption of his estate from taxation, which I had always oppos'd very warmly, and not without severe reflections on his meanness and injustice of contending for it. He accused me to the ministry as being the great obstacle to the King's service, preventing, by my influence in the House, the proper form of the bills for raising money, and he instanced this parade with my officers as a proof of my having an intention to take the government of the province out of his hands by force. He also applied to Sir Everard Fawkener, the postmaster-general, to deprive me of my office; but it had no other effect than to procure from Sir Everard a gentle admonition. Notwithstanding the continual wrangle between the governor and the House, in which I, as a member, had so large a share, there still subsisted a civil intercourse between that gentleman and myself, and we never had any personal difference. I have sometimes since thought that his little or no resentment against me, for the answers it was known I drew up to his messages, might be the effect of professional habit, and that, being bred a lawyer, he might consider us both as merely advocates for contending clients in a suit, he for the proprietaries and I for the Assembly. He would, therefore, sometimes call in a friendly way to advise with me on difficult points, and sometimes, tho' not often, take my advice. We acted in concert to supply Braddock's army with provisions; and, when the shocking news arrived of his defeat, the governor sent in haste for me, to consult with him on measures for preventing the desertion of the back counties. I forget now the advice I gave; but I think it was, that Dunbar should be written to, and prevail'd with, if possible, to post his troops on the frontiers for their protection, till, by reinforcements from the colonies, he might be able to proceed on the expedition. And, after my return from the frontier, he would have had me undertake the conduct of such an expedition with provincial troops, for the reduction of Fort Duquesne, Dunbar and his men being otherwise employed; and he proposed to commission me as general. I had not so good an opinion of my military abilities as he profess'd to have, and I believe his professions must have exceeded his real sentiments; but probably he might think that my popularity would facilitate the raising of the men, and my influence in Assembly, the grant of money to pay them, and that, perhaps, without taxing the proprietary estate. Finding me not so forward to engage as he expected, the project was dropt, and he soon after left the government, being superseded by Captain Denny. XVIII SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS Before I proceed in relating the part I had in public affairs under this new governor's administration, it may not be amiss here to give some account of the rise and progress of my philosophical reputation. In 1746, being at Boston, I met there with a Dr. Spence, who was lately arrived from Scotland, and show'd me some electric experiments. They were imperfectly perform'd, as he was not very expert; but, being on a subject quite new to me, they equally surpris'd and pleased me. Soon after my return to Philadelphia, our library company receiv'd from Mr. P. Collinson, Fellow of the Royal Society[106] of London, a present of a glass tube, with some account of the use of it in making such experiments. I eagerly seized the opportunity of repeating what I had seen at Boston; and, by much practice, acquired great readiness in performing those, also, which we had an account of from England, adding a number of new ones. I say much practice, for my house was continually full, for some time, with people who came to see these new wonders. [106] The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge was founded in 1660 and holds the foremost place among English societies for the advancement of science. To divide a little this incumbrance among my friends, I caused a number of similar tubes to be blown at our glass-house, with which they furnish'd themselves, so that we had at length several performers. Among these, the principal was Mr. Kinnersley, an ingenious neighbour, who, being out of business, I encouraged to undertake showing the experiments for money, and drew up for him two lectures, in which the experiments were rang'd in such order, and accompanied with such explanations in such method, as that the foregoing should assist in comprehending the following. He procur'd an elegant apparatus for the purpose, in which all the little machines that I had roughly made for myself were nicely form'd by instrument-makers. His lectures were well attended, and gave great satisfaction; and after some time he went thro' the colonies, exhibiting them in every capital town, and pick'd up some money. In the West India islands, indeed, it was with difficulty the experiments could be made, from the general moisture of the air. Oblig'd as we were to Mr. Collinson for his present of the tube, etc., I thought it right he should be inform'd of our success in using it, and wrote him several letters containing accounts of our experiments. He got them read in the Royal Society, where they were not at first thought worth so much notice as to be printed in their Transactions. One paper, which I wrote for Mr. Kinnersley, on the sameness of lightning with electricity,[107] I sent to Dr. Mitchel, an acquaintance of mine, and one of the members also of that society, who wrote me word that it had been read, but was laughed at by the connoisseurs. The papers, however, being shown to Dr. Fothergill, he thought them of too much value to be stifled, and advis'd the printing of them. Mr. Collinson then gave them to _Cave_ for publication in his Gentleman's Magazine; but he chose to print them separately in a pamphlet, and Dr. Fothergill wrote the preface. Cave, it seems, judged rightly for his profit, for by the additions that arrived afterward, they swell'd to a quarto volume, which has had five editions, and cost him nothing for copy-money. [107] See page 327. It was, however, some time before those papers were much taken notice of in England. A copy of them happening to fall into the hands of the Count de Buffon,[108] a philosopher deservedly of great reputation in France, and, indeed, all over Europe, he prevailed with M. Dalibard[109] to translate them into French, and they were printed at Paris. The publication offended the Abbé Nollet, preceptor in Natural Philosophy to the royal family, and an able experimenter, who had form'd and publish'd a theory of electricity, which then had the general vogue. He could not at first believe that such a work came from America, and said it must have been fabricated by his enemies at Paris, to decry his system. Afterwards, having been assur'd that there really existed such a person as Franklin at Philadelphia, which he had doubted, he wrote and published a volume of Letters, chiefly address'd to me, defending his theory, and denying the verity of my experiments, and of the positions deduc'd from them. [108] A celebrated French naturalist (1707-1788). [109] Dalibard, who had translated Franklin's letters to Collinson into French, was the first to demonstrate, in a practical application of Franklin's experiment, that lightning and electricity are the same. "This was May 10th, 1752, one month before Franklin flew his famous kite at Philadelphia and proved the fact himself."--McMaster. I once purpos'd answering the abbé, and actually began the answer; but, on consideration that my writings contained a description of experiments which anyone might repeat and verify, and if not to be verifi'd, could not be defended; or of observations offer'd as conjectures, and not delivered dogmatically, therefore not laying me under any obligation to defend them; and reflecting that a dispute between two persons, writing in different languages, might be lengthened greatly by mistranslations, and thence misconceptions of one another's meaning, much of one of the abbé's letters being founded on an error in the translation, I concluded to let my papers shift for themselves, believing it was better to spend what time I could spare from public business in making new experiments, than in disputing about those already made. I therefore never answered M. Nollet, and the event gave me no cause to repent my silence; for my friend M. le Roy, of the Royal Academy of Sciences, took up my cause and refuted him; my book was translated into the Italian, German, and Latin languages; and the doctrine it contain'd was by degrees universally adopted by the philosophers of Europe, in preference to that of the abbé; so that he lived to see himself the last of his sect, except Monsieur B----, of Paris, his _élève_ and immediate disciple. What gave my book the more sudden and general celebrity, was the success of one of its proposed experiments, made by Messrs. Dalibard and De Lor at Marly, for drawing lightning from the clouds. This engag'd the public attention everywhere. M. de Lor, who had an apparatus for experimental philosophy, and lectur'd in that branch of science, undertook to repeat what he called the _Philadelphia Experiments_; and, after they were performed before the king and court, all the curious of Paris flocked to see them. I will not swell this narrative with an account of that capital experiment, nor of the infinite pleasure I receiv'd in the success of a similar one I made soon after with a kite at Philadelphia, as both are to be found in the histories of electricity. Dr. Wright, an English physician, when at Paris, wrote to a friend, who was of the Royal Society, an account of the high esteem my experiments were in among the learned abroad, and of their wonder that my writings had been so little noticed in England. The society, on this, resum'd the consideration of the letters that had been read to them; and the celebrated Dr. Watson drew up a summary account of them, and of all I had afterwards sent to England on the subject, which he accompanied with some praise of the writer. This summary was then printed in their Transactions; and some members of the society in London, particularly the very ingenious Mr. Canton, having verified the experiment of procuring lightning from the clouds by a pointed rod, and acquainting them with the success, they soon made me more than amends for the slight with which they had before treated me. Without my having made any application for that honour, they chose me a member, and voted that I should be excus'd the customary payments, which would have amounted to twenty-five guineas; and ever since have given me their Transactions gratis. They also presented me with the gold medal of Sir Godfrey Copley[110] for the year 1753, the delivery of which was accompanied by a very handsome speech of the president, Lord Macclesfield, wherein I was highly honoured. [110] An English baronet (died in 1709), donator of a fund of £100, "in trust for the Royal Society of London for improving natural knowledge." [Illustration: Gold medal of Sir Godfrey Copley.] XIX AGENT OF PENNSYLVANIA IN LONDON Our new governor, Captain Denny, brought over for me the before mentioned medal from the Royal Society, which he presented to me at an entertainment given him by the city. He accompanied it with very polite expressions of his esteem for me, having, as he said, been long acquainted with my character. After dinner, when the company, as was customary at that time, were engag'd in drinking, he took me aside into another room, and acquainted me that he had been advis'd by his friends in England to cultivate a friendship with me, as one who was capable of giving him the best advice, and of contributing most effectually to the making his administration easy; that he therefore desired of all things to have a good understanding with me, and he begged me to be assured of his readiness on all occasions to render me every service that might be in his power. He said much to me, also, of the proprietor's good disposition towards the province, and of the advantage it might be to us all, and to me in particular, if the opposition that had been so long continu'd to his measures was dropt, and harmony restor'd between him and the people; in effecting which, it was thought no one could be more serviceable than myself; and I might depend on adequate acknowledgments and recompenses, etc., etc. The drinkers, finding we did not return immediately to the table, sent us a decanter of Madeira, which the governor made liberal use of, and in proportion became more profuse of his solicitations and promises. My answers were to this purpose: that my circumstances, thanks to God, were such as to make proprietary favours unnecessary to me; and that, being a member of the Assembly, I could not possibly accept of any; that, however, I had no personal enmity to the proprietary, and that, whenever the public measures he propos'd should appear to be for the good of the people, no one should espouse and forward them more zealously than myself; my past opposition having been founded on this, that the measures which had been urged were evidently intended to serve the proprietary interest, with great prejudice to that of the people; that I was much obliged to him (the governor) for his professions of regard to me, and that he might rely on everything in my power to make his administration as easy as possible, hoping at the same time that he had not brought with him the same unfortunate instruction his predecessor had been hampered with. On this he did not then explain himself; but when he afterwards came to do business with the Assembly, they appear'd again, the disputes were renewed, and I was as active as ever in the opposition, being the penman, first, of the request to have a communication of the instructions, and then of the remarks upon them, which may be found in the votes of the time, and in the Historical Review I afterward publish'd. But between us personally no enmity arose; we were often together; he was a man of letters, had seen much of the world, and was very entertaining and pleasing in conversation. He gave me the first information that my old friend Jas. Ralph was still alive; that he was esteem'd one of the best political writers in England; had been employed in the dispute[111] between Prince Frederic and the king, and had obtain'd a pension of three hundred a year; that his reputation was indeed small as a poet, Pope having damned his poetry in the _Dunciad_,[112] but his prose was thought as good as any man's. [111] Quarrel between George II and his son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, who died before his father. [112] A satirical poem by Alexander Pope directed against various contemporary writers. The Assembly finally finding the proprietary obstinately persisted in manacling their deputies with instructions inconsistent not only with the privileges of the people, but with the service of the crown, resolv'd to petition the king against them, and appointed me their agent to go over to England, to present and support the petition. The House had sent up a bill to the governor, granting a sum of sixty thousand pounds for the king's use (ten thousand pounds of which was subjected to the orders of the then general, Lord Loudoun), which the governor absolutely refus'd to pass, in compliance with his instructions. I had agreed with Captain Morris, of the packet at New York, for my passage, and my stores were put on board, when Lord Loudoun arriv'd at Philadelphia, expressly, as he told me, to endeavour an accommodation between the governor and Assembly, that his majesty's service might not be obstructed by their dissensions. Accordingly, he desir'd the governor and myself to meet him, that he might hear what was to be said on both sides. We met and discussed the business. In behalf of the Assembly, I urged all the various arguments that may be found in the public papers of that time, which were of my writing, and are printed with the minutes of the Assembly; and the governor pleaded his instructions, the bond he had given to observe them, and his ruin if he disobey'd, yet seemed not unwilling to hazard himself if Lord Loudoun would advise it. This his lordship did not chuse to do, though I once thought I had nearly prevail'd with him to do it; but finally he rather chose to urge the compliance of the Assembly; and he entreated me to use my endeavours with them for that purpose, declaring that he would spare none of the king's troops for the defense of our frontiers, and that, if we did not continue to provide for that defense ourselves, they must remain expos'd to the enemy. I acquainted the House with what had pass'd, and, presenting them with a set of resolutions I had drawn up, declaring our rights, and that we did not relinquish our claim to those rights, but only suspended the exercise of them on this occasion thro' _force_, against which we protested, they at length agreed to drop that bill, and frame another conformable to the proprietary instructions. This of course the governor pass'd, and I was then at liberty to proceed on my voyage. But, in the meantime, the packet had sailed with my sea-stores, which was some loss to me, and my only recompense was his lordship's thanks for my service, all the credit of obtaining the accommodation falling to his share. He set out for New York before me; and, as the time for dispatching the packet-boats was at his disposition, and there were two then remaining there, one of which, he said, was to sail very soon, I requested to know the precise time, that I might not miss her by any delay of mine. His answer was, "I have given out that she is to sail on Saturday next; but I may let you know, _entre nous_, that if you are there by Monday morning, you will be in time, but do not delay longer." By some accidental hindrance at a ferry, it was Monday noon before I arrived, and I was much afraid she might have sailed, as the wind was fair; but I was soon made easy by the information that she was still in the harbor, and would not move till the next day. One would imagine that I was now on the very point of departing for Europe. I thought so; but I was not then so well acquainted with his lordship's character, of which _indecision_ was one of the strongest features. I shall give some instances. It was about the beginning of April that I came to New York, and I think it was near the end of June before we sail'd. There were then two of the packet-boats, which had been long in port, but were detained for the general's letters, which were always to be ready to-morrow. Another packet arriv'd; she too was detain'd; and, before we sail'd, a fourth was expected. Ours was the first to be dispatch'd, as having been there longest. Passengers were engaged in all, and some extremely impatient to be gone, and the merchants uneasy about their letters, and the orders they had given for insurance (it being war time) for fall goods; but their anxiety avail'd nothing; his lordship's letters were not ready; and yet whoever waited on him found him always at his desk, pen in hand, and concluded he must needs write abundantly. Going myself one morning to pay my respects, I found in his antechamber one Innis, a messenger of Philadelphia, who had come from thence express with a packet from Governor Denny for the general. He delivered to me some letters from my friends there, which occasion'd my inquiring when he was to return, and where he lodg'd, that I might send some letters by him. He told me he was order'd to call to-morrow at nine for the general's answer to the governor, and should set off immediately. I put my letters into his hands the same day. A fortnight after I met him again in the same place. "So, you are soon return'd, Innis?" "_Return'd_! no, I am not _gone_ yet." "How so?" "I have called here by order every morning these two weeks past for his lordship's letter, and it is not yet ready." "Is it possible, when he is so great a writer? for I see him constantly at his escritoire." "Yes," says Innis, "but he is like St. George on the signs, _always on horseback, and never rides on_." This observation of the messenger was, it seems, well founded; for, when in England, I understood that Mr. Pitt[113] gave it as one reason for removing this general, and sending Generals Amherst and Wolfe, _that the minister never heard from him, and could not know what he was doing_. [113] William Pitt, first Earl of Chatham (1708-1778), a great English statesman and orator. Under his able administration, England won Canada from France. He was a friend of America at the time of our Revolution. This daily expectation of sailing, and all the three packets going down to Sandy Hook, to join the fleet there, the passengers thought it best to be on board, lest by a sudden order the ships should sail, and they be left behind. There, if I remember right, we were about six weeks, consuming our sea-stores, and oblig'd to procure more. At length the fleet sail'd, the general and all his army on board, bound to Louisburg, with the intent to besiege and take that fortress; all the packet-boats in company ordered to attend the general's ship, ready to receive his dispatches when they should be ready. We were out five days before we got a letter with leave to part, and then our ship quitted the fleet and steered for England. The other two packets he still detained, carried them with him to Halifax, where he stayed some time to exercise the men in sham attacks upon sham forts, then altered his mind as to besieging Louisburg, and returned to New York, with all his troops, together with the two packets above mentioned, and all their passengers! During his absence the French and savages had taken Fort George, on the frontier of that province, and the savages had massacred many of the garrison after capitulation. I saw afterwards in London Captain Bonnell, who commanded one of those packets. He told me that, when he had been detain'd a month, he acquainted his lordship that his ship was grown foul, to a degree that must necessarily hinder her fast sailing, a point of consequence for a packet-boat, and requested an allowance of time to heave her down and clean her bottom. He was asked how long time that would require. He answered, three days. The general replied, "If you can do it in one day, I give leave; otherwise not; for you must certainly sail the day after to-morrow." So he never obtain'd leave, though detained afterwards from day to day during full three months. I saw also in London one of Bonnell's passengers, who was so enrag'd against his lordship for deceiving and detaining him so long at New York, and then carrying him to Halifax and back again, that he swore he would sue him for damages. Whether he did or not, I never heard; but, as he represented the injury to his affairs, it was very considerable. On the whole, I wonder'd much how such a man came to be intrusted[114] with so important a business as the conduct of a great army; but, having since seen more of the great world, and the means of obtaining, and motives for giving places, my wonder is diminished. General Shirley, on whom the command of the army devolved upon the death of Braddock, would, in my opinion, if continued in place, have made a much better campaign than that of Loudoun in 1757, which was frivolous, expensive, and disgraceful to our nation beyond conception; for, tho' Shirley was not a bred soldier, he was sensible and sagacious in himself, and attentive to good advice from others, capable of forming judicious plans, and quick and active in carrying them into execution. Loudoun, instead of defending the colonies with his great army, left them totally expos'd while he paraded idly at Halifax, by which means Fort George was lost, besides, he derang'd all our mercantile operations, and distress'd our trade, by a long embargo on the exportation of provisions, on pretence of keeping supplies from being obtain'd by the enemy, but in reality for beating down their price in favour of the contractors, in whose profits, it was said, perhaps from suspicion only, he had a share. And, when at length the embargo was taken off, by neglecting to send notice of it to Charlestown, the Carolina fleet was detain'd near three months longer, whereby their bottoms were so much damaged by the worm that a great part of them foundered in their passage home. [114] This relation illustrates the corruption that characterized English public life in the eighteenth century. (See page 308). It was gradually overcome in the early part of the next century. Shirley was, I believe, sincerely glad of being relieved from so burdensome a charge as the conduct of an army must be to a man unacquainted with military business. I was at the entertainment given by the city of New York to Lord Loudoun, on his taking upon him the command. Shirley, tho' thereby superseded, was present also. There was a great company of officers, citizens, and strangers, and, some chairs having been borrowed in the neighborhood, there was one among them very low, which fell to the lot of Mr. Shirley. Perceiving it as I sat by him, I said, "They have given you, sir, too low a seat." "No matter," says he, "Mr. Franklin, I find _a low seat_ the easiest." While I was, as afore mention'd, detain'd at New York, I receiv'd all the accounts of the provisions, etc., that I had furnish'd to Braddock, some of which accounts could not sooner be obtain'd from the different persons I had employ'd to assist in the business. I presented them to Lord Loudoun, desiring to be paid the balance. He caus'd them to be regularly examined by the proper officer, who, after comparing every article with its voucher, certified them to be right; and the balance due for which his lordship promis'd to give me an order on the paymaster. This was, however, put off from time to time; and tho' I call'd often for it by appointment, I did not get it. At length, just before my departure, he told me he had, on better consideration, concluded not to mix his accounts with those of his predecessors. "And you," says he, "when in England, have only to exhibit your accounts at the treasury, and you will be paid immediately." I mention'd, but without effect, the great and unexpected expense I had been put to by being detain'd so long at New York, as a reason for my desiring to be presently paid; and on my observing that it was not right I should be put to any further trouble or delay in obtaining the money I had advanc'd, as I charged no commission for my service, "O, Sir," says he, "you must not think of persuading us that you are no gainer; we understand better those affairs, and know that every one concerned in supplying the army finds means, in the doing it, to fill his own pockets." I assur'd him that was not my case, and that I had not pocketed a farthing; but he appear'd clearly not to believe me; and, indeed, I have since learnt that immense fortunes are often made in such employments. As to my balance, I am not paid it to this day, of which more hereafter. Our captain of the paquet had boasted much, before we sailed, of the swiftness of his ship; unfortunately, when we came to sea, she proved the dullest of ninety-six sail, to his no small mortification. After many conjectures respecting the cause, when we were near another ship almost as dull as ours, which, however, gain'd upon us, the captain ordered all hands to come aft, and stand as near the ensign staff as possible. We were, passengers included, about forty persons. While we stood there, the ship mended her pace, and soon left her neighbour far behind, which prov'd clearly what our captain suspected, that she was loaded too much by the head. The casks of water, it seems, had been all plac'd forward; these he therefore order'd to be mov'd further aft, on which the ship recover'd her character, and proved the best sailer in the fleet. The captain said she had once gone at the rate of thirteen knots, which is accounted thirteen miles per hour. We had on board, as a passenger, Captain Kennedy, of the Navy, who contended that it was impossible, and that no ship ever sailed so fast, and that there must have been some error in the division of the log-line, or some mistake in heaving the log.[115] A wager ensu'd between the two captains, to be decided when there should be sufficient wind. Kennedy thereupon examin'd rigorously the log-line, and, being satisfi'd with that, he determin'd to throw the log himself. Accordingly some days after, when the wind blew very fair and fresh, and the captain of the paquet, Lutwidge, said he believ'd she then went at the rate of thirteen knots, Kennedy made the experiment, and own'd his wager lost. [115] A piece of wood shaped and weighted so as to keep it stable when in the water. To this is attached a line knotted at regular distances. By these devices it is possible to tell the speed of a ship. The above fact I give for the sake of the following observation. It has been remark'd, as an imperfection in the art of ship-building, that it can never be known, till she is tried, whether a new ship will or will not be a good sailer; for that the model of a good-sailing ship has been exactly follow'd in a new one, which has prov'd, on the contrary, remarkably dull. I apprehend that this may partly be occasion'd by the different opinions of seamen respecting the modes of lading, rigging, and sailing of a ship; each has his system; and the same vessel, laden by the judgment and orders of one captain, shall sail better or worse than when by the orders of another. Besides, it scarce ever happens that a ship is form'd, fitted for the sea, and sail'd by the same person. One man builds the hull, another rigs her, a third lades and sails her. No one of these has the advantage of knowing all the ideas and experience of the others, and, therefore, cannot draw just conclusions from a combination of the whole. Even in the simple operation of sailing when at sea, I have often observ'd different judgments in the officers who commanded the successive watches, the wind being the same. One would have the sails trimm'd sharper or flatter than another, so that they seem'd to have no certain rule to govern by. Yet I think a set of experiments might be instituted; first, to determine the most proper form of the hull for swift sailing; next, the best dimensions and properest place for the masts; then the form and quantity of sails, and their position, as the wind may be; and, lastly, the disposition of the lading. This is an age of experiments, and I think a set accurately made and combin'd would be of great use. I am persuaded, therefore, that ere long some ingenious philosopher will undertake it, to whom I wish success. [Illustration: Sailing ship] We were several times chas'd in our passage, but out-sail'd every thing, and in thirty days had soundings. We had a good observation, and the captain judg'd himself so near our port, Falmouth, that, if we made a good run in the night, we might be off the mouth of that harbor in the morning, and by running in the night might escape the notice of the enemy's privateers, who often cruis'd near the entrance of the channel. Accordingly, all the sail was set that we could possibly make, and the wind being very fresh and fair, we went right before it, and made great way. The captain, after his observation, shap'd his course, as he thought, so as to pass wide of the Scilly Isles; but it seems there is sometimes a strong indraught setting up St. George's Channel, which deceives seamen and caused the loss of Sir Cloudesley Shovel's squadron. This indraught was probably the cause of what happened to us. We had a watchman plac'd in the bow, to whom they often called, "_Look well out before there_," and he as often answered, "_Ay, ay_"; but perhaps had his eyes shut, and was half asleep at the time, they sometimes answering, as is said, mechanically; for he did not see a light just before us, which had been hid by the studding-sails from the man at the helm, and from the rest of the watch, but by an accidental yaw of the ship was discover'd, and occasion'd a great alarm, we being very near it, the light appearing to me as big as a cartwheel. It was midnight, and our captain fast asleep; but Captain Kennedy, jumping upon deck, and seeing the danger, ordered the ship to wear round, all sails standing; an operation dangerous to the masts, but it carried us clear, and we escaped shipwreck, for we were running right upon the rocks on which the lighthouse was erected. This deliverance impressed me strongly with the utility of lighthouses, and made me resolve to encourage the building more of them in America if I should live to return there. In the morning it was found by the soundings, etc., that we were near our port, but a thick fog hid the land from our sight. About nine o'clock the fog began to rise, and seem'd to be lifted up from the water like the curtain at a play-house, discovering underneath, the town of Falmouth, the vessels in its harbor, and the fields that surrounded it. This was a most pleasing spectacle to those who had been so long without any other prospects than the uniform view of a vacant ocean, and it gave us the more pleasure as we were now free from the anxieties which the state of war occasion'd. I set out immediately, with my son, for London, and we only stopt a little by the way to view Stonehenge[116] on Salisbury Plain, and Lord Pembroke's house and gardens, with his very curious antiquities at Wilton. We arrived in London the 27th of July, 1757.[117] [116] A celebrated prehistoric ruin, probably of a temple built by the early Britons, near Salisbury, England. It consists of inner and outer circles of enormous stones, some of which are connected by stone slabs. [117] "Here terminates the _Autobiography_, as published by Wm. Temple Franklin and his successors. What follows was written in the last year of Dr. Franklin's life, and was never before printed in English."--Mr. Bigelow's note in his edition of 1868. As soon as I was settled in a lodging Mr. Charles had provided for me, I went to visit Dr. Fothergill, to whom I was strongly recommended, and whose counsel respecting my proceedings I was advis'd to obtain. He was against an immediate complaint to government, and thought the proprietaries should first be personally appli'd to, who might possibly be induc'd by the interposition and persuasion of some private friends, to accommodate matters amicably. I then waited on my old friend and correspondent, Mr. Peter Collinson, who told me that John Hanbury, the great Virginia merchant, had requested to be informed when I should arrive, that he might carry me to Lord Granville's,[118] who was then President of the Council and wished to see me as soon as possible. I agreed to go with him the next morning. Accordingly Mr. Hanbury called for me and took me in his carriage to that nobleman's, who receiv'd me with great civility; and after some questions respecting the present state of affairs in America and discourse thereupon, he said to me: "You Americans have wrong ideas of the nature of your constitution; you contend that the king's instructions to his governors are not laws, and think yourselves at liberty to regard or disregard them at your own discretion. But those instructions are not like the pocket instructions given to a minister going abroad, for regulating his conduct in some trifling point of ceremony. They are first drawn up by judges learned in the laws; they are then considered, debated, and perhaps amended in Council, after which they are signed by the king. They are then, so far as they relate to you, the _law of the land_, for the king is the Legislator of the Colonies,"[119] I told his lordship this was new doctrine to me. I had always understood from our charters that our laws were to be made by our Assemblies, to be presented indeed to the king for his royal assent, but that being once given the king could not repeal or alter them. And as the Assemblies could not make permanent laws without his assent, so neither could he make a law for them without theirs. He assur'd me I was totally mistaken. I did not think so, however, and his lordship's conversation having a little alarm'd me as to what might be the sentiments of the court concerning us, I wrote it down as soon as I return'd to my lodgings. I recollected that about 20 years before, a clause in a bill brought into Parliament by the ministry had propos'd to make the king's instructions laws in the colonies, but the clause was thrown out by the Commons, for which we adored them as our friends and friends of liberty, till by their conduct towards us in 1765 it seem'd that they had refus'd that point of sovereignty to the king only that they might reserve it for themselves. [118] George Granville or Grenville (1712-1770). As English premier from 1763 to 1765, he introduced the direct taxation of the American Colonies and has sometimes been called the immediate cause of the Revolution. [119] This whole passage shows how hopelessly divergent were the English and American views on the relations between the mother country and her colonies. Grenville here made clear that the Americans were to have no voice in making or amending their laws. Parliament and the king were to have absolute power over the colonies. No wonder Franklin was alarmed by this new doctrine. With his keen insight into human nature and his consequent knowledge of American character, he foresaw the inevitable result of such an attitude on the part of England. This conversation with Grenville makes these last pages of the _Autobiography_ one of its most important parts. After some days, Dr. Fothergill having spoken to the proprietaries, they agreed to a meeting with me at Mr. T. Penn's house in Spring Garden. The conversation at first consisted of mutual declarations of disposition to reasonable accommodations, but I suppose each party had its own ideas of what should be meant by _reasonable_. We then went into consideration of our several points of complaint, which I enumerated. The proprietaries justify'd their conduct as well as they could, and I the Assembly's. We now appeared very wide, and so far from each other in our opinions as to discourage all hope of agreement. However, it was concluded that I should give them the heads of our complaints in writing, and they promis'd then to consider them. I did so soon after, but they put the paper into the hands of their solicitor, Ferdinand John Paris, who managed for them all their law business in their great suit with the neighbouring proprietary of Maryland, Lord Baltimore, which had subsisted 70 years, and wrote for them all their papers and messages in their dispute with the Assembly. He was a proud, angry man, and as I had occasionally in the answers of the Assembly treated his papers with some severity, they being really weak in point of argument and haughty in expression, he had conceived a mortal enmity to me, which discovering itself whenever we met, I declin'd the proprietary's proposal that he and I should discuss the heads of complaint between our two selves, and refus'd treating with anyone but them. They then by his advice put the paper into the hands of the Attorney and Solicitor-General for their opinion and counsel upon it, where it lay unanswered a year wanting eight days, during which time I made frequent demands of an answer from the proprietaries, but without obtaining any other than that they had not yet received the opinion of the Attorney and Solicitor-General. What it was when they did receive it I never learnt, for they did not communicate it to me, but sent a long message to the Assembly drawn and signed by Paris, reciting my paper, complaining of its want of formality, as a rudeness on my part, and giving a flimsy justification of their conduct, adding that they should be willing to accommodate matters if the Assembly would send out _some person of candour_ to treat with them for that purpose, intimating thereby that I was not such. [Illustration: "We now appeared very wide, and so far from each other in our opinions as to discourage all hope of agreement"] The want of formality or rudeness was, probably, my not having address'd the paper to them with their assum'd titles of True and Absolute Proprietaries of the Province of Pennsylvania, which I omitted as not thinking it necessary in a paper, the intention of which was only to reduce to a certainty by writing, what in conversation I had delivered _viva voce_. But during this delay, the Assembly having prevailed with Gov'r Denny to pass an act taxing the proprietary estate in common with the estates of the people, which was the grand point in dispute, they omitted answering the message. When this act however came over, the proprietaries, counselled by Paris, determined to oppose its receiving the royal assent. Accordingly they petitioned the king in Council, and a hearing was appointed in which two lawyers were employ'd by them against the act, and two by me in support of it. They alledg'd that the act was intended to load the proprietary estate in order to spare those of the people, and that if it were suffer'd to continue in force, and the proprietaries, who were in odium with the people, left to their mercy in proportioning the taxes, they would inevitably be ruined. We reply'd that the act had no such intention, and would have no such effect. That the assessors were honest and discreet men under an oath to assess fairly and equitably, and that any advantage each of them might expect in lessening his own tax by augmenting that of the proprietaries was too trifling to induce them to perjure themselves. This is the purport of what I remember as urged by both sides, except that we insisted strongly on the mischievous consequences that must attend a repeal, for that the money, £100,000, being printed and given to the king's use, expended in his service, and now spread among the people, the repeal would strike it dead in their hands to the ruin of many, and the total discouragement of future grants, and the selfishness of the proprietors in soliciting such a general catastrophe, merely from a groundless fear of their estate being taxed too highly, was insisted on in the strongest terms. On this, Lord Mansfield, one of the counsel, rose, and beckoning me took me into the clerk's chamber, while the lawyers were pleading, and asked me if I was really of opinion that no injury would be done the proprietary estate in the execution of the act. I said certainly. "Then," says he, "you can have little objection to enter into an engagement to assure that point." I answer'd, "None at all." He then call'd in Paris, and after some discourse, his lordship's proposition was accepted on both sides; a paper to the purpose was drawn up by the Clerk of the Council, which I sign'd with Mr. Charles, who was also an Agent of the Province for their ordinary affairs, when Lord Mansfield returned to the Council Chamber, where finally the law was allowed to pass. Some changes were however recommended and we also engaged they should be made by a subsequent law, but the Assembly did not think them necessary; for one year's tax having been levied by the act before the order of Council arrived, they appointed a committee to examine the proceedings of the assessors, and on this committee they put several particular friends of the proprietaries. After a full enquiry, they unanimously sign'd a report that they found the tax had been assess'd with perfect equity. The Assembly looked into my entering into the first part of the engagement, as an essential service to the Province, since it secured the credit of the paper money then spread over all the country. They gave me their thanks in form when I return'd. But the proprietaries were enraged at Governor Denny for having pass'd the act, and turn'd him out with threats of suing him for breach of instructions which he had given bond to observe. He, however, having done it at the instance of the General, and for His Majesty's service, and having some powerful interest at court, despis'd the threats and they were never put in execution.... [unfinished] [Illustration: Medal with inscription: BENJ. FRANLIN NATUS BOSTON XVII, JAN. MDCCVI.] APPENDIX ELECTRICAL KITE To Peter Collinson [Philadelphia], Oct. 19, 1752. Sir, As frequent mention is made in public papers from Europe of the success of the _Philadelphia_ experiment for drawing the electric fire from clouds by means of pointed rods of iron erected on high buildings, &c., it may be agreeable to the curious to be informed, that the same experiment has succeeded in _Philadelphia_, though made in a different and more easy manner, which is as follows: Make a small cross of two light strips of cedar, the arms so long as to reach to the four corners of a large, thin silk handkerchief when extended; tie the corners of the handkerchief to the extremities of the cross, so you have the body of a kite; which being properly accommodated with a tail, loop, and string, will rise in the air, like those made of paper; but this being of silk, is fitter to bear the wet and wind of a thunder-gust without tearing. To the top of the upright stick of the cross is to be fixed a very sharp-pointed wire, rising a foot or more above the wood. To the end of the twine, next the hand, is to be tied a silk ribbon, and where the silk and twine join, a key may be fastened. This kite is to be raised when a thunder-gust appears to be coming on, and the person who holds the string must stand within a door or window, or under some cover, so that the silk ribbon may not be wet; and care must be taken that the twine does not touch the frame of the door or window. As soon as any of the thunder clouds come over the kite, the pointed wire will draw the electric fire from them, and the kite, with all the twine will be electrified, and the loose filaments of the twine will stand out every way and be attracted by an approaching finger. And when the rain has wet the kite and twine, so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the key on the approach of your knuckle. At this key the phial may be charged; and from electric fire thus obtained, spirits may be kindled, and all the electric experiments be performed, which are usually done by the help of a rubbed glass globe or tube, and thereby the sameness of the electric matter with that of lightning completely demonstrated. B. Franklin. [Illustration: "You will find it stream out plentifully from the key on the approach of your knuckle"] [Illustration: Father _Abraham_ in his STUDY with the following text: The Shade of Him who Counsel can bestow, Still pleas'd to teach, and yet not proud to know; Unbias'd or by Favour or by Spite; Nor dully prepossess'd, nor blindly right; Thô learn'd, well-bred; and, thô well-bred, sincere; Modestly bold, and humanely severe; Who to a Friend his Faults can sweetly show. And gladly praise the Merit of a Foe. Here, there he sits, his chearful Aid to lend; A firm, unshaken, uncorrupted Friend, Averse alike to flatter or offend. _Printed by_ Benjamin Mecom, _at the_ New Printing-Office, (_near the_ Town-House, _in_ Boston) _where_ BOOKS _are Sold, and_ PRINTING-WORK _done, Cheap_. He's rarely _warm_ in Censure or in Praise: _Good-Nature, Wit_, and _Judgment_ round him wait; And thus he sits _inthron'd_ in _Classick-State_: To Failings mild, but zealous for Desert; The clearest Head, and the sincerest Heart. Few Men deserve our _Passion_ either Ways.] From "Father Abraham's Speech," 1760. Reproduced from a copy at the New York Public Library. THE WAY TO WEALTH (From "Father Abraham's Speech," forming the preface to Poor _Richard's Almanac_ for 1758.) It would be thought a hard Government that should tax its People one-tenth Part of their _Time_, to be employed in its Service. But _Idleness_ taxes many of us much more, if we reckon all that is spent in absolute _Sloth_, or doing of nothing, with that which is spent in idle Employments or Amusements, that amount to nothing. _Sloth_, by bringing on Diseases, absolutely shortens Life. _Sloth, like Rust, consumes faster than Labor wears; while the used key is always bright, as Poor Richard says. But dost thou love Life, then do not squander Time, for that's the stuff Life is made of, as Poor Richard_ says. How much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep, forgetting that _The sleeping Fox catches no Poultry_, and that _There will be sleeping enough in the Grave_, as _Poor Richard_ says. _If Time be of all Things the most precious, wasting Time must be, as Poor Richard_ says, _the_ _greatest Prodigality_; since, as he elsewhere tells us, _Lost Time is never found again; and what we call Time enough, always proves little enough_: Let us then up and be doing, and doing to the Purpose; so by Diligence shall we do more with less Perplexity. _Sloth makes all Things difficult, but Industry all easy_, as _Poor Richard_ says; and _He that riseth late must trot all Day, and shall scarce overtake his Business at Night; while Laziness travels so slowly, that Poverty soon overtakes him_, as we read in _Poor Richard_, who adds, _Drive thy Business, let not that drive thee_; and _Early to Bed, and early to rise, makes a Man healthy, wealthy, and wise._ _Industry need not wish, and he that lives upon Hope will die fasting._ _There are no Gains without Pains._ _He that hath a Trade hath an Estate; and he that hath a Calling, hath an Office of Profit and Honor_; but then the _Trade_ must be worked at, and the _Calling_ well followed, or neither the _Estate_ nor the _Office_ will enable us to pay our Taxes. What though you have found no Treasure, nor has any rich Relation left you a Legacy, _Diligence is the Mother of Good-luck_, as _Poor Richard_ says, _and God gives all Things to Industry_. _One To-day is worth two To-morrows_, and farther, _Have you somewhat to do To-morrow, do it To-day_. If you were a Servant, would you not be ashamed that a good Master should catch you idle? Are you then your own Master, _be ashamed to catch yourself idle_. Stick to it steadily; and you will see great Effects, for _Constant Dropping wears away Stones_, and by _Diligence and Patience the Mouse ate in two the Cable_; and _Little Strokes fell great Oaks_. Methinks I hear some of you say, _Must a Man afford himself no Leisure_? I will tell thee, my friend, what _Poor Richard_ says, _Employ thy Time well, if thou meanest to gain Leisure; and, since thou art not sure of a Minute, throw not away an Hour_. Leisure, is Time for doing something useful; this Leisure the diligent Man will obtain, but the lazy Man never; so that, as _Poor Richard_ says, _A Life of Leisure and a Life of Laziness are two things_. _Keep thy Shop, and thy Shop will keep thee_; and again, _If you would have your business done, go; if not, send._ If you would have a faithful Servant, and one that you like, serve yourself. _A little Neglect may breed great Mischief:_ adding, _for want of a Nail the Shoe was lost; for want of a Shoe the Horse was lost; and for want of a Horse the Rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the Enemy; all for the want of Care about a Horse-shoe Nail_. So much for Industry, my Friends, and Attention to one's own Business; but to these we must add _Frugality_. _What maintains one Vice, would bring up two Children_. You may think perhaps, that a _little_ Tea, or a _little_ Punch now and then, Diet a _little_ more costly, Clothes a _little_ finer, and a _little_ Entertainment now and then, can be no _great_ Matter; but remember what _Poor Richard_ says, _Many a Little makes a Mickle._ _Beware of little expenses; A small Leak will sink a great Ship_; and again, _Who Dainties love, shall Beggars prove_; and moreover, _Fools make Feasts, and wise Men eat them._ Buy what thou hast no Need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy Necessaries. If you would know the Value of Money, go and try to borrow some; for, he that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing. The second Vice is Lying, the first is running in Debt. _Lying rides upon Debt's Back_. Poverty often deprives a Man of all Spirit and Virtue: '_Tis hard for an empty Bag to stand upright_. And now to conclude, _Experience keeps a dear School, but Fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that_; for it is true, _we may give Advice, but we cannot give Conduct_, as _Poor Richard_ says: However, remember this, _They that won't be counseled, can't be helped_, as _Poor Richard_ says: and farther, That _if you will not hear Reason, she'll surely rap your Knuckles_. THE WHISTLE To Madame Brillon Passy, November 10, 1779. I am charmed with your description of Paradise, and with your plan of living there; and I approve much of your conclusion, that, in the meantime, we should draw all the good we can from this world. In my opinion, we might all draw more good from it than we do, and suffer less evil, if we would take care not to give too much for whistles. For to me it seems, that most of the unhappy people we meet with, are become so by neglect of that caution. You ask what I mean? You love stories, and will excuse my telling one of myself. When I was a child of seven year old, my friends, on a holiday, filled my pocket with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children; and being charmed with the sound of a _whistle_, that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered and gave all my money for one. I then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my _whistle_, but disturbing all the family. My brothers, and sisters, and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth; put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money; and laughed at me so much for my folly, that I cried with vexation; and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the _whistle_ gave me pleasure. This, however, was afterwards of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind; so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, _Don't give too much for the whistle_; and I saved my money. As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, who _gave too much for the whistle_. When I saw one too ambitious of court favor, sacrificing his time in attendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends, to attain it, I have said to myself, _This man gives too much for his whistle_. When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly employing himself in political bustles, neglecting his own affairs, and ruining them by neglect, _He pays, indeed_, said I, _too much for his whistle_. If I knew a miser who gave up every kind of comfortable living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship, for the sake of accumulating wealth, _Poor man_, said I, _you pay too much for your whistle_. When I met with a man of pleasure, sacrificing every laudable improvement of the mind, or of his fortune, to mere corporeal sensations, and ruining his health in their pursuit, _Mistaken man_, said I, _you are providing pain for yourself, instead of pleasure; you give too much for your whistle_. If I see one fond of appearance, or fine clothes, fine houses, fine furniture, fine equipages, all above his fortune, for which he contracts debts, and ends his career in a prison, _Alas_! say I, _he has paid dear, very dear, for his whistle_. When I see a beautiful, sweet-tempered girl married to an ill-natured brute of a husband, _What a pity_, say I, _that she should pay so much for a whistle_! In short, I conceive that great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimates they have made of the value of things, and by their _giving too much for their whistles_. Yet I ought to have charity for these unhappy people, when I consider, that, with all this wisdom of which I am boasting, there are certain things in the world so tempting, for example, the apples of King John, which happily are not to be bought; for if they were put to sale by auction, I might very easily be led to ruin myself in the purchase, and find that I had once more given too much for the _whistle_. Adieu, my dear friend, and believe me ever yours very sincerely and with unalterable affection, B. Franklin. A LETTER TO SAMUEL MATHER Passy, May 12, 1784. Revd Sir, It is now more than 60 years since I left Boston, but I remember well both your father and grandfather, having heard them both in the pulpit, and seen them in their houses. The last time I saw your father was in the beginning of 1724, when I visited him after my first trip to Pennsylvania. He received me in his library, and on my taking leave showed me a shorter way out of the house through a narrow passage, which was crossed by a beam overhead. We were still talking as I withdrew, he accompanying me behind, and I turning partly towards him, when he said hastily, "_Stoop, stoop!_" I did not understand him, till I felt my head hit against the beam. He was a man that never missed any occasion of giving instruction, and upon this he said to me, "_You are young, and have the world before you; stoop as you go through it, and you will miss many hard thumps_." This advice, thus beat into my head, has frequently been of use to me; and I often think of it, when I see pride mortified, and misfortunes brought upon people by their carrying their heads too high. B. Franklin. THE END BIBLIOGRAPHY The last and most complete edition of Franklin's works is that by the late Professor Albert H. Smyth, published in ten volumes by the Macmillan Company, New York, under the title, _The Writings of Benjamin Franklin_. The other standard edition is the _Works of Benjamin Franklin_ by John Bigelow (New York, 1887). Mr. Bigelow's first edition of the _Autobiography_ in one volume was published by the J. B. Lippincott Company of Philadelphia in 1868. The life of Franklin as a writer is well treated by J. B. McMaster in a volume of _The American Men of Letters Series_; his life as a statesman and diplomat, by J. T. Morse, _American Statesmen Series_, one volume; Houghton, Mifflin Company publish both books. A more exhaustive account of the life and times of Franklin may be found in James Parton's _Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin_ (2 vols., New York, 1864). Paul Leicester Ford's _The Many-Sided Franklin_ is a most chatty and readable book, replete with anecdotes and excellently and fully illustrated. An excellent criticism by Woodrow Wilson introduces an edition of the _Autobiography_ in _The Century Classics_ (Century Co., New York, 1901). Interesting magazine articles are those of E. E. Hale, _Christian Examiner_, lxxi, 447; W. P. Trent, _McClure's Magazine_, viii, 273; John Hay, _The Century Magazine_, lxxi, 447. See also the histories of American literature by C. F. Richardson, Moses Coit Tyler, Brander Matthews, John Nichol, and Barrett Wendell, as well as the various encyclopedias. An excellent bibliography of Franklin is that of Paul Leicester Ford, entitled _A List of Books Written by, or Relating to Benjamin Franklin_ (New York, 1889). The following list of Franklin's works contains the more interesting publications, together with the dates of first issue. _1722. Dogood Papers._ Letters in the style of Addison's _Spectator_, contributed to James Franklin's newspaper and signed "Silence Dogood." _1729. The Busybody._ A series of essays published in Bradford's Philadelphia _Weekly Mercury_, six of which only are ascribed to Franklin. They are essays on morality, philosophy and politics, similar to the _Dogood Papers_. _1729. A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency._ _1732. to 1757. Prefaces to Poor Richard's Almanac._ Among these are _Hints for those that would be Rich_, 1737; and _Plan for saving one hundred thousand pounds to New Jersey, 1756_. 1_743. A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge Among the British Plantations in America._ "This paper appears to contain the first suggestion, in any public form, for an _American Philosophical Society_." Sparks. _1744. An Account of the New Invented Pennsylvania Fire-Places._ _1749. Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania._ Contains the plan for the school which later became the University of Pennsylvania. _1752. Electrical Kite._ A description of the famous kite experiment, first written in a letter to Peter Collinson, dated Oct. 19, 1752, which was published later in the same year in _The Gentleman's Magazine_. _1754. Plan of Union._ A plan for the union of the colonies presented to the colonial convention at Albany. _1755. A Dialogue Between X, Y and Z._ An appeal to enlist in the provincial army for the defense of Pennsylvania. _1758. Father Abraham's Speech._ Published as a preface to Poor Richard's Almanac and gathering into one writing the maxims of Poor Richard, which had already appeared in previous numbers of the Almanac. _The Speech_ was afterwards published in pamphlet form as the _Way to Wealth_. _1760. Of the Means of disposing the Enemy to Peace._ A satirical plea for the prosecution of the war against France. _1760. The Interest of Great Britain Considered, with regard to her Colonies, and the Acquisitions of Canada and Guadaloupe._ _1764. Cool Thoughts on the Present Situation of our Public Affairs._ A pamphlet favoring a Royal Government for Pennsylvania in exchange for that of the Proprietors. _1766. The Examination of Doctor Benjamin Franklin, etc., in The British House of Commons, Relative to The Repeal of The American Stamp Act._ _1773. Rules by which A Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One._ Some twenty satirical rules embodying the line of conduct England was pursuing with America. _1773. An Edict of The King of Prussia._ A satire in which the King of Prussia was made to treat England as England was treating America because England was originally settled by Germans. _1777. Comparison of Great Britain and the United States in Regard to the Basis of Credit in The Two Countries._ One of several similar pamphlets written to effect loans for the American cause. _1782. On the Theory of the Earth._ The best of Franklin's papers on geology. _1782. Letter purporting to emanate from a petty German Prince and to be addressed to his officer in Command in America._ _1785. On the Causes and Cure of Smoky Chimneys._ _1786. Retort Courteous._ _Sending Felons to America._ Answers to the British clamor for the payment of American debts. 1789. _Address to the Public from the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting Abolition of Slavery._ 1789. _An Account of the Supremest Court of Judicature in Pennsylvania, viz. The Court of the Press._ 1790. _Martin's Account of his Consulship._ A parody of a pro-slavery speech in Congress. 1791. _Autobiography._ The first edition. 1818. _Bagatelles._ The Bagatelles were first published in 1818 in William Temple Franklin's edition of his grandfather's works. The following are the most famous of these essays and the dates when they were written: 1774? _A Parable Against Persecution._ Franklin called this the LI Chapter of Genesis. 1774? _A Parable on Brotherly Love._ 1778. _The Ephemera, an Emblem of Human Life._ A new rendition of an earlier essay on Human Vanity. 1779. _The Story of the Whistle._ 1779? _The Levee._ 1779? _Proposed New Version of the Bible._ Part of the first chapter of _Job_ modernized. (1779. Published) _The Morals of Chess._ 1780? _The Handsome and Deformed Leg._ 1780. _Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout._ (Published in 1802.) 1802. _A Petition of the Left Hand._ 1806. _The Art of Procuring Pleasant Dreams._ [Illustration: MEDAL GIVEN BY THE BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS FROM THE FRANKLIN FUND] [Transcriptions of newspaper pages] [Page 1 of _The Pennsylvania Gazette_,]. Numb. XL. THE Pennsylvania _GAZETTE_. Containing the freshest Advices Foreign and Domestick. From Thursday, September 25. to Thursday, October 2. 1729. _The_ Pennsylvania Gazette _being now to be carry'd on by other Hands, the Reader may expect some Account of the Method we design to proceed in._ _Upon a View of Chambers's great Dictionaries, from whence were taken the Materials of the_ Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences, _which usually made the First Part of this Paper, we find that besides their containing many Things abstruse or insignificant to us, it will probably be fifty Years before the Whole can be gone thro' in this Manner of Publication. There are likewise in those Books continual References from Things under one Letter of the Alphabet to those under another, which relate to the same Subject, and are necessary to explain and compleat it; those are taken in their Turn may perhaps be Ten Years distant; and since it is likely that they who desire to acquaint themselves with any particular Art or Science, would gladly have the whole before them in a much less Time, we believe our Readers will not think such a Method of communicating Knowledge to be a proper One._ _However, tho' we do not intend to continue the Publication of those Dictionaries in a regular Alphabetical Method, as has hitherto been done; yet as several Things exhibited from them in the Course of these Papers, have been entertaining to such of the Curious, who never had and cannot have the Advantage of good Libraries; and as there are many Things still behind, which being in this Manner made generally known, may perhaps become of considerable Use, by giving such Hints to the excellent natural Genius's of our Country, as may contribute either to the Improvement of our present Manufactures, or towards the Invention of new Ones; we propose from Time to Time to communicate such particular Parts as appear to be of the most general Consequence._ _As to the_ Religious Courtship, _Part of which has been retal'd to the Publick in these Papers, the Reader may be inform'd, that the whole Book will probably in a little Time be printed and bound up by it-self; and those who approve of it, will doubtless be better pleas'd to have it entire, than in this broken interrupted Manner._ _There are many who have long desired to see a good News-Paper in_ Pennsylvania; _and we hope those Gentlemen who are able, will contribute towards the making This such. We ask Assistance, because we are fully sensible, that to publish a good New-Paper is not so easy an Undertaking as many People imagine it to be. The Author of a Gazette (in the Opinion of the Learned) ought to be qualified with an extensive Acquaintance with Languages, a great Easiness and Command of Writing and Relating Things cleanly and intelligibly, and in few Words; he should be able to speak of War both by Land and Sea; be well acquainted with Geography, with the History of the Time, with the several Interests of Princes and States, the Secrets of Courts, and the Manners and Customs of all Nations. Men thus accomplish'd are very rare in this remote Part of the World; and it would be well if the Writer of these Papers could make up among his Friends what is wanting in himself._ _Upon the Whole, we may assure the Publick, that as far as the Encouragement we meet with will enable us, no Care and Pains shall be omitted, that may make the_ Pennsylvania Gazette _as agreeable and useful an Entertainment as the Nature of the Thing will allow._ The Following is the last Message sent by his Excellency Governor _Burnet_, to the House of Representatives in _Boston_. _Gentlemen of the House of Representatives,_ It is not with so vain a Hope as to convince you, that I take the Trouble to answer your Messages, but, if possible, to open the Eyes of the deluded People whom you represent, and whom you are at so much Pains to keep in Ignorance of the true State of their Affairs. I need not go further for an undeniable Proof of this Endeavour to blind them, than your ordering the Letter of Messieurs _Wilks_ and _Belcher_ of the 7th of _June_ last to your Speaker to be published. This Letter is said (in _Page_ 1. of your Votes) _to inclose a Copy of the Report of the Lords of the Committee of His Majesty's Privy Council, with his Majesty's Approbation and Orders thereon in Council_; Yet these Gentlemen had at the same time the unparallell'd Presumption to write to the Speaker in this Manner; _You'll observe by the Conclusion, what is proposed to be the Consequence of your not complying with his Majesty's Instruction (the whole Matter to be laid_ [Page 4 of _The Pennsylvania Gazette_.] *terfeited but those of 13 _d_. And it is remarkable that all Attempts of this Kind upon the Paper Money of this and the neighbouring Provinces, have been detected and met with ill Success. _Custom-House, Philadelphia_, Entred Inwards. Sloop Hope, Elias Naudain, from Boston. Sloop Dove, John Howel, from Antigua. Brigt, Pennswood, Thomas Braly, from Madera. _Entred Outwards._ Scooner John, Thomas Wright, to Boston. Brigt. Richard and William, W. Mayle, for Lisbon. Ship Diligence, James Bayley, for Maryland _Cleared for Departure._ Ship London Hope, Thomas Annis, for London. Ship John and Anna, James Sherley, for Plymouth. Advertisements. To be Sold by _Edward Shippen_, choice Hard Soap, very Reasonable. Run away on the 25th of _September_ past, from _Rice Prichard_ of _Whiteland_ in _Chester_ County, a Servant Man named _John Cresswel_, of a middle Stature and ruddy Countenance, his Hair inclining to Red: He had on when he went away, a little white short Wig, an old Hat, Drugget Wastcoat, the Body lined with Linnen; coarse Linnen Breeches, grey woollen Stockings, and round toe'd Shoes. Whoever shall secure the said Servant so that his Master may have him again, shall have _Three Pounds_ Reward, and reasonable Charges paid, by _Rice Prichard._ Run away on the 10th of _September_ past, from _William Dewees_ of _Germantown_ Township, in _Philadelphia_ County, a Servant Man named _Mekbizedarh Arnold_, of a middle Stature and reddish curled Hair: He had on when he went away, a good Felt Hat, a dark Cinnamon-colour'd Coat, black Drugget Jacket, mouse-colour'd drugget Breeches, grey Stockings, and new Shoes. Whoever secures the said Runaway, so that his Master may have him again, shall have _Twenty Shillings_ Reward, and reasonable Charges paid, by me _William Dewees._ _Lately Re-printed and Sold at the New Printing-Office near the Market._ The _PSALMS_ of _David_, Imitated in the Language of the _New Testament_, and apply'd to the Christian State and Worship By _I. Watts_, V D M The Seventh Edition. N. B. _This Work has met with such a general good Reception and Esteem among the Protestant Dissenters in_ Great Britain, &c. _whether_ Presbyterians, Independents, _or_ Baptists, _that Six large Impressions before This have been sold off in a very short Time._ _The chief Design of this excellent Performance (as the Author acquaints us in his Advertisement to the Reader) is "to improve_ Psalmody _or_ Religious Singing," _and so encourage and assist the frequent Practice of it in publick Assemblies and private Families with more Honour and Delight; yet the Reading of it may also entertain the Parlour and the Closet with devout Pleasure and holy Meditations. Therefore he would request his Readers, at proper Seasons, to peruse it thro', and among 340 sacred Hymns they may find out several that suit their own Case and Temper, or the Circumstances of their Families or Friends, they may teach their Children such as are proper for their Age and by treasuring them in their Memory they may be furnish'd for pious Retirement, or may entertain their Friends with holy Melody._ Lately Imported from _London_, by _Johu Le_, and are to be sold by him at the lowest Prices, either by Wholesale or Retale, at his Shop in _Market Street_, over against the _Presbyterian_ Meeting-House, these Goods following, _viz._ Callicoes, divers Sorts. Hollands, and several sorts of Sheeting Linnen. Several sorts of Diapers and Table-Cloths. Several sorts of Cambricks. Mantua Silks, and Grassets. Beryllan, and plain Callimanco. Tamie yard-wide. Men's dyed shammie Gloves. Women's _Ditto_, Lamb. Stitching Silk, Thread and Silk. Twist for Women. Silk and Ribbands. Double Thread Stockings. Men's white shammie Gloves. Silk Handkerchiefs, & other sorts of Handkerchiefs. Men's glaz'd Gloves, Topp'd. Men's Shoe-Buckles, Bath-metal. Masks for Women. Several sorts of Penknives. Plain metal Buttons for Men's Coats and Jackets. Ivory Case-Knives, and several sorts of Pocket-Knives. Dowlasses several sorts. Huckabags, and Russia Linnen. Oznaburghs. Several sorts of Looking Glasses. Garlicks and brown Holland. Bag-Holland _Ditto_. Several sorts of Druggets. Fine Kerseys. Superfine double-mill'd Drab. Broad-Cloths. London Shalloons. Fine and coarse Hats. Men and Women's _English_ Shoes. Stockings, several sorts, for Men, Women and Children. Several sorts of Caps. Women's Bonnets. Several sorts of Horn and Ivory Combs. Gun-powder, Shot, and Flints. Bibles of several sorts. Testaments, Psalters and Primers. Large Paper Books, and small ones, with Pocket-Books, and other Stationary Ware. Several sorts of Checquer'd Linnen. Flannels and Duroys. Scots-Snuff. _To be LET by the above Person. One Half of the House he now possesseth._ Enquire of him and know further. Bibles, Testaments, Psalters, Psalm-Books, Accompt-Books, Bills of Lading bound and unbound, Common Blank Bonds for Money, Bonds with Judgment, Counterbonds, Arbitration Bonds, Arbitration Bonds with Umpirage, Bail Bonds, Counterbonds to save Bail harmless, Bills of Sale, Powers of Attorney, Writs, Summons, Apprentices Indentures, Servants Indentures, Penal Bills, Promisory Notes, &c. all the Blanks in the most authentick Forms, and correctly printed; may be had At the Publishers of this Paper, who perform all above sorts of Printing at reasonable Rates. Very good Live-Geese Feathers to be sold at _Evan Powel's_ in Chesnut-street, next Door but one to _Andrew Hamilton_, Esq; _Just Published:_ Titan Leeds's Almanack, for the Year, 1730 in his usual plain Method; being far preferable to any yet published in _America_ To be Sold by _David Harry_ at the late Printing Office of _Samuel Keimer_, at Three Shillings and nine-pence per Dozen. N. B. _As this Almanack for its Worth has met with universal Reception, it has raised the Price of the Copy to 25l. a year, for which Reason the Printer cannot afford them under the above-mentioned Price: But gives this Friendly Caution to the Publick, That when they buy Almanacks for 3s. a Dozen they must not expect Titan Leeds's, or any so valuable._ _Speedily will be Published:_ Godfrey's Almanack, for the Year 1730. Containing the Lunations, Eclipses, Judgment of the Weather, the Spring Tides, _Moon's Rising and Setting_, Sun's Rising and Setting, Length of Days, Seven Stars Rising, Southing and Setting, Time of High-Water, Fairs, Courts, and observable Days. Fitted to the Latitude of 40 Degrees, and a Meridian of Five Hours West from London. _Beautifully Printed in Red and Black, on One Side of a large Demi Sheet of Paper, after the London Mariner_. To be Sold by the Printers hereof, at the New Printing-Office near the Market, for 3 _s._ per Dozen. _Philadelphia_: Printed by _B. Franklin_ and _H. Meredith_, at the New Printing-Office near the Market, where Advertisements are taken in, and all Persons may be supplied with this Paper, at _Ten Shillings_ a Year. [First page of _The New England Courant_.] [N^{o} 19 THE New-England Courant. From MONDAY December 4. to MONDAY December 11. 1721. _On_ SYLVIA _the Fair_. A Jingle. A Swarm of Sparks, young, gay, and bold, Lov'd _Sylvia_ long, but she was cold; In'trest and Pride the Nymph control'd, So they in vain their Passion told. At last came Dalman, he was old; Nay, he was ugly, but had Gold. He came, and saw, and took the Hold, While t'other Beaux their Loss Condol'd. Some say, she's Wed; I say, she's sold. _The Letter against Inoculating the Small Pox, (Sign'd Absinthium) giving an Account of the Number of Persons who have dy'd under that Operation, will be Inserted in our next._ FOREIGN AFFAIRS. _Ispahan, March 6._ The Conspiracy form'd by the Grand Vizir last January was Twelvemonth, with design to make himself King of Persia, was seasonably discover'd, and himself and Accomplices secured; since which the State hath enjoy'd its former Tranquility, and a new Vizir is appointed in his room, The old one's Eyes being both put out, he is kept alive (but in Prison) to make him discover all his Riches; which must be immensely great, since they found in one of his Chests four hundred thousand Persian Ducats, beside Foreign Coin, and in another Place abundance of Jewels, Gold and Silver; and so in proportion among several of his Accomplices; by the help of which Treasure they hoped to compass their Ends. _Tripoli, July 12._ As soon as our Squadron fitted out against the Famous Baffaw Gianur, Cogia, appear'd off Dasna and Bengan, with two thousand five hundred Moorish Horse, and a thousand Foot, and skirmish'd a little with his Squadron, he abandon'd both those Places, and fled to the Island of Serby in the Territories of Tunis; But the Bey of that Place having deny'd him Shelter, he sail'd farther away, in a French Barque, we know not whether; and his own Galleys and Barques, are gone after him, so that we are now entirely rid of that troublesome Guest. Our Rovers keep all in Port, for Fear of the Malteze. _Cadiz, Aug. 12._ The Flota is expected Home from the West-Indies before the End of this Month. Thirteen Pieces of Cannon and two Mortars were lately sent from hence to Ceuta. The three Spanish Men of War of 50 to 60 Guns each, which carried the Spanish Cardinals to Italy, are now at Alicant: It is said they are to join the Dutch Vice-Admiral, who is now in this Bay with four Ships of his Squadron of 50 Guns each, and cruize against the Algerines. Wheat and Barley being very cheap in these Parts, great Quantities have been sent lately to the Canaries, where for some Time past the Inhabitants have been in great Want of Corn. On the 9th Instant died Mr. Charles, His Britannick Majesty's Consul at St. Lucas. _Berne, Aug. 20._ The Deputies of this Canton who went to the Diet at Frawenfeldt, are now assembled at Baden with those of Zurich and Glaris, to regulate certain Affairs relating to the Town and County of Baden, which formerly belonged to the Eight Eldest Cantons, but in the last Swiss War was given up to Zurich and Berne in Propriety, with a Reservation to the Canton of Glaris (which is mostly Protestant) of the Share it had before in the Sovereignty of that District. The three Deputies of Zurich, Lucern &c Ury, who were commissioned by the late General Dyet to go to Wilchingen, to try to compose the Differences which have been long standing between the Inhabitants of that Place and the Canton of Schafhuysen whose Subjects they are, have offered those Inhabitonts a full Pardon for all past Misbehavior, and the Maintenance of their Privileges for the future, provided they forthwith return to their Duty; but it is advised that those of Wilchingen persist hitherto in this Disobedience. _Schaffhausen Sept. 1._ They write from Italy, that the Plague is no longer observ'd at Marseilles, Aix, & several other Places; and that at Toulon it is very much decreas'd: But alas! how should it be otherwise, when the Distemper hath hardly any Objects left to work upon? At Arles it is likewise abated, we fear for the same Reason. Mean while, it spreads in the Gevaudan; and two large Villages in the Neighbourhood of Frejus were attack'd the beginning of this Month. The French Court hath prohibited all communication with the Gevaudan upon severe Penalties. The Plague is certainly got into the small Town of Marvegue in that District, which Town is shut in by eight hundred Men. Letters from Geneva say, the two Battalions employ'd in surrounding La Canourgue, are infected; and that Maages is very much suspected. The Marquis de Quelus had retired to a Castle near Avignon; but the Sickness being got among his Domesticks, he was fled farther away. _Paris, Sept. 5._ The District over which the Duke of Berwick is to have the Command, extends to the Borders of the Bourbonnois; and the Court puts a great Confidence in the Care of that General to hinder the Infection from spreading. The Marquis de Verceil is actually drawing Lines to shut in the Gevaudan; and twelve Regiments of Foot, and as many of Dragoons, are marching to reinforce the Troops already posted on that side. The Plague seems to have almost spent itself in Provence. Tho' it is yet a great way off of us, Men talk nevertheless of laying up Magazines of all sort of Provisions here, and of making twenty thousand Beds, to be set up in the Hospitals and Tennis-Courts. _Hague, Sept. 9._ The Deputies of our Admiralties had, last Saturday, an extraordinary Conference with those of the States General, upon the spreading of a Report, that ten or twelve Persons died daily at a certain Place in Normandy, which was therefore suspected to have received the Contagion; But upon the matter, it doth not appear there was the least Foundation for such a Report; tho' it is too plain the Distemper gains ground space in the Southern Parts of France. We can by no means penetrate into the Designs of the Czar; who, notwithstanding 'tis confidently written that the Peace between him and Sweden is as good as concluded, hath a Fleet of thirty Men of War and two hundred Galleys at Sea near Aland. However, an Express gone by from Stockholm, doth not confirm. [End of trancriptions.] 
26442	----	TRUE TO HIS HOME A TALE OF THE BOYHOOD OF FRANKLIN Books by Hezekiah Butterworth. =Each, 12mo, cloth, $1.50.= =The Log School-House on the Columbia.= With 13 full-page Illustrations by J. CARTER BEARD, E. J. AUSTEN, and Others. "This book will charm all who turn its pages. There are few books of popular information concerning the pioneers of the great Northwest, and this one is worthy of sincere praise."--_Seattle Post-Intelligencer._ =In the Boyhood of Lincoln.= _A Story of the Black Hawk War and the Tunker Schoolmaster._ With 12 full-page Illustrations and colored Frontispiece. "The author presents facts in a most attractive framework of fiction, and imbues the whole with his peculiar humor. The illustrations are numerous and of more than usual excellence."--_New Haven Palladium._ =The Boys of Greenway Court.= _A Story of the Early Years of Washington._ With 10 full-page Illustrations by H. WINTHROP PEIRCE. "Skillfully combining fact and fiction, he has given us a story historically instructive and at the same time entertaining."--_Boston Transcript._ =The Patriot Schoolmaster;= _Or, The Adventures of the Two Boston Cannon, the "Adams" and the "Hancock."_ A Tale of the Minute Men and the Sons of Liberty. With Illustrations by H. WINTHROP PEIRCE. The true spirit of the leaders in our War for Independence is pictured in this dramatic story. It includes the Boston Tea Party and Bunker Hill; and Adams, Hancock, Revere, and the boys who bearded General Gage, are living characters in this romance of American patriotism. =The Knight of Liberty.= _A Tale of the Fortunes of Lafayette._ With 6 full-page Illustrations. "No better reading for the young man can be imagined than this fascinating narrative of a noble figure on the canvas of time."--_Boston Traveller._ * * * * * New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. [Illustration: LITTLE BEN'S ADVENTURE AS A POET. (See page 113.)] TRUE TO HIS HOME A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin BY HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH AUTHOR OF THE WAMPUM BELT, IN THE BOYHOOD OF LINCOLN, ETC. The noblest question in the world is, What good may I do in it? POOR RICHARD _ILLUSTRATED BY H. WINTHROP PEIRCE_ [Illustration] NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1897 COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. PREFACE. THIS volume is an historical fiction, but the plan of it was suggested by biography, and is made to include the most interesting and picturesque episodes in the home side of the life of Benjamin Franklin, so as to form a connected narrative or picture of his public life. I have written no book with a deeper sympathy with my subject, for, although fiction, the story very truthfully shows that the good intentions of a life which has seemed to fail do not die, but live in others whom they inspire. Uncle Benjamin Franklin, "the poet," who was something of a philosopher, and whose visions all seemed to end in disappointment, deeply influenced his nephew and godson, Benjamin Franklin, whom he morally educated to become what he himself had failed to be. The conduct of Josiah Franklin, the father of Benjamin Franklin, in comforting his poor old brother in England by naming his fifteenth child for him, and making him his godfather, is a touching instance of family affection, to the memory of which the statesman was always true. Uncle Benjamin Franklin had a library of pamphlets that was very dear to him, for in the margins of the leaves he had placed the choicest thoughts of his life amid great political events. He was very poor, and he sold his library in his old age; we may reasonably suppose that he parted with it among other effects to get money to come to America, that he might give his influence to "Little Ben," after his brother had remembered him in his desolation by giving his name to the boy. The finding of these pamphlets in London fifty years after the old man was compelled to sell them was regarded by Benjamin Franklin as one of the most singular events of his remarkable life. Mr. Parton, in his Life of Franklin, thus alludes to the circumstance: A strange occurrence brought to the mind of Franklin, in 1771, a vivid recollection of his childhood. A dealer in old books, whose shop he sometimes visited, called his attention one day to a collection of pamphlets, bound in thirty volumes, dating from the Restoration to 1715. The dealer offered them to Franklin, as he said, because many of the subjects of the pamphlets were such as usually interested him. Upon examining the collection, he found that one of the blank leaves of each volume contained a catalogue of its contents, and the price each pamphlet had cost; there were notes and comments also in the margin of several of the pieces. A closer scrutiny revealed that the handwriting was that of his Uncle Benjamin, the rhyming friend and counselor of his childhood. Other circumstances combined with this surprising fact to prove that the collection had been made by his uncle, who had probably sold it when he emigrated to America, fifty-six years before. Franklin bought the volumes, and gave an account of the circumstance to his Uncle Benjamin's son, who still lived and flourished in Boston. "The oddity is," he wrote, "that the bookseller, who could suspect nothing of any relation between me and the collector, should happen to make me the offer of them." It may please the reader to know that "Mr. Calamity" was suggested by a real character, and that the incidents in the life of "Jenny," Franklin's favorite sister, are true in spirit and largely in detail. It would have been more artistic to have had Franklin discover Uncle Benjamin's "pamphlets" later in life, but this would have been, while allowable, unhistoric fiction. Says one of the greatest critics ever born in America, in speaking of the humble birth of Franklin: That little baby, humbly cradled, has turned out to be the greatest man that America ever bore in her bosom or set eyes upon. Beyond all question, as I think, Benjamin Franklin had the largest mind that has shone on this side of the sea, widest in its comprehension, most deep-looking, thoughtful, far-seeing, the most original and creative child of the New World. For the last four generations no man has shed such copious good influence on America, nor added so much new truth to popular knowledge; none has so skillfully organized its ideals into institutions; none has so powerfully and wisely directed the nation's conduct and advanced its welfare in so many respects. No man has so strong a hold on the habits or the manners of the people. "The principal question in life is, What good can I do in the world?" says Franklin. He learned to ask this question in his home in "beloved Boston." It was his purpose to answer this all-important question after the lessons that he had received in his early home, to which his heart remained true through all his marvelous career. This is the seventh volume of the Creators of Liberty Series of books of historical fiction, based for the most part on real events, in the purpose of presenting biography in picture. The former volumes of this series of books have been very kindly received by the public, and none of them more generously than the last volume, The Wampum Belt. For this the writer is very grateful, for he is a thorough believer in story-telling education, on the Pestalozzi and Froebel principle that "life must be taught from life," or from the highest ideals of beneficent character. H. B. 28 WORCESTER STREET, BOSTON, MASS., _June, 1897_. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I.--THE FIRST DAY 1 II.--UNCLE BENJAMIN, THE POET 10 III.--BENJAMIN AND BENJAMIN 18 IV.--FRANKLIN'S STORY OF A HOLIDAY IN CHILDHOOD 24 V.--THE BOY FRANKLIN'S KITE 28 VI.--LITTLE BEN'S GUINEA PIG 34 VII.--UNCLE TOM, WHO ROSE IN THE WORLD 39 VIII.--LITTLE BEN SHOWS HIS HANDWRITING TO THE FAMILY 46 IX.--UNCLE BENJAMIN'S SECRET 50 X.--THE STONE WHARF, AND LADY WIGGLEWORTH, WHO FELL ASLEEP IN CHURCH 56 XI.--JENNY 70 XII.--A CHIME OF BELLS IN NOTTINGHAM 74 XIII.--THE ELDER FRANKLIN'S STORIES 78 XIV.--THE TREASURE-FINDER 83 XV.--"HAVE I A CHANCE?" 92 XVI.--"A BOOK THAT INFLUENCED THE CHARACTER OF A MAN WHO LED HIS AGE" 99 XVII.--BENJAMIN LOOKS FOR A PLACE WHEREIN TO START IN LIFE 102 XVIII.--LITTLE BEN'S ADVENTURE AS A POET 111 XIX.--LEAVES BOSTON 132 XX.--LAUGHED AT AGAIN 138 XXI.--LONDON AND A LONG SWIM 148 XXII.--A PENNY ROLL WITH HONOR.--JENNY'S SPINNING-WHEEL 160 XXIII.--MR. CALAMITY 168 XXIV.--FRANKLIN'S STRUGGLES WITH FRANKLIN 174 XXV.--THE MAGICAL BOTTLE 179 XXVI.--THE ELECTRIFIED VIAL AND THE QUESTIONS IT RAISED 186 XXVII.--THE GREAT DISCOVERY 192 XXVIII.--HOME-COMING IN DISGUISE 200 XXIX.--"THOSE PAMPHLETS" 209 XXX.--A STRANGE DISCOVERY 213 XXXI.--OLD HUMPHREY'S STRANGE STORY 220 XXXII.--THE EAGLE THAT CAUGHT THE CAT.--DR. FRANKLIN'S ENGLISH FABLE.--THE DOCTOR'S SQUIRRELS 225 XXXIII.--OLD MR. CALAMITY AGAIN 230 XXXIV.--OLD MR. CALAMITY AND THE TEARING DOWN OF THE KING'S ARMS 242 XXXV.--JENNY AGAIN 250 XXXVI.--THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.--A MYSTERY 257 XXXVII.--ANOTHER SIGNATURE.--THE STORY OF AUVERGNE SANS TACHE 267 XXXVIII.--FRANKLIN SIGNS THE TREATY OF PEACE.--HOW GEORGE III RECEIVES THE NEWS 281 XXXIX.--THE TALE OF AN OLD VELVET COAT 287 XL.--IN SERVICE AGAIN 293 XLI.--JANE'S LAST VISIT 299 XLII.--FOR THE LAST TIME 307 XLIII.--A LESSON AFTER SCHOOL 311 APPENDIX.--FRANKLIN'S FAMOUS PROVERB STORY OF THE OLD AUCTIONEER 314 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FACING PAGE Little Ben's adventure as a poet _Frontispiece_ Uncle Benjamin's secret 52 "Are you going to swim back to London?" 156 A strange discovery 215 The destruction of the royal arms 247 Franklin's last days 295 TRUE TO HIS HOME. CHAPTER I. THE FIRST DAY. IT was the Sunday morning of the 6th of January, 1706 (January 17th, old style), when a baby first saw the light in a poor tallow chandler's house on Milk Street, nearly opposite the Old South Church, Boston. The little stranger came into a large and growing family, of whom at a later period he might sometimes have seen thirteen children sit down at the table to very hard and simple fare. "A baby is nothing new in this family," said Josiah Franklin, the father. "This is the fifteenth. Let me take it over to the church and have it christened this very day. There should be no time lost in christening. What say you, friends all? It is a likely boy, and it is best to start him right in life at once." "People do not often have their children christened in church on the day of birth," said a lusty neighbor, "though if a child seems likely to die it might be christened on the day of its birth at home." "This child does not seem likely to die," said the happy tallow chandler. "I will go and see the parson, and if he does not object I will give the child to the Lord on this January day, and if he should come to anything he will have occasion to remember that I thought of the highest duty that I owed him when he first opened his eyes to the light." The smiling and enthusiastic tallow chandler went to see the parson, and then returned to his home. "Abiah," he said to his wife, "I am going to have the child christened. What shall his name be?" Josiah Franklin, the chandler, who had emigrated to Boston town that he might enjoy religious freedom, had left a brother in England, who was an honest, kindly, large-hearted man, and "a poet." "How would Benjamin do?" he continued; "brother's name. Benjamin is a family name, and a good one. Benjamin of old, into whose sack Joseph put the silver cup, was a right kind of a man. What do you say, Abiah Folger?" "Benjamin is a good name, and a name lasts for life. But your brother Benjamin has not succeeded very well in his many undertakings." "No, but in all his losses he has never lost his good name. His honor has shown over all. 'A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver or gold.' A man may get riches and yet be poor. It is he that seeks the welfare of others more than wealth for himself that lives for the things that are best." "Josiah, this is no common boy--look at his head. We can not do for him as our neighbors do for their children. But we can give him a name to honor, and that will be an example to him. How would Folger do--Folger Franklin? Father Folger was a poet like your brother Benjamin, and he did well in life. That would unite the names of the two families." John Folger, of Norwich, England, with his son Peter, came to this country in the year 1635 on the same ship that bore the family of Rev. Hugh Peters. This clergyman, who is known as a "regicide," or king murderer, and who suffered a most terrible death in London on the accession of Charles II, succeeded Roger Williams in the church at Salem. He flourished during the times of Cromwell, but was sentenced to be hanged, cut down alive, and tortured, his body to be quartered, and his head exposed among the malefactors, on account of having consented to the execution of Charles I. Among Hugh Peters's household was one Mary Morrell, a white slave, or purchased serving maid. She was a very bright and beautiful girl. The passengers had small comforts on board the ship. The passage was a long one, and the time passed heavily. Now the passengers who were most interesting to each other became intimate, and young Peter Folger and beautiful Mary Morrell of the Peterses became very interesting to each other and very social. Peter Folger began to ask himself the question, "If the fair maid would marry me, could I not purchase her freedom?" He seems somehow to have found out that the latter could be done, and so Peter offered himself to the attractive servant of the Peterses. The two were betrothed amid the Atlantic winds and the rolling seas, and the roaring ocean could have little troubled them then, so happy were their anticipations of their life in the New World. Peter purchased Mary's freedom of the Peterses, and so he bought the grandmother of that Benjamin Franklin who was to "snatch the thunderbolts from heaven and the scepter from tyrants," to sign the Declaration of Independence which brought forth a new order of government for mankind, and to form a treaty of peace with England which was to make America free. Peter Folger and his bride first settled in Watertown, Mass., where the young immigrant became a very useful citizen. He studied the Indian tongue. About 1660 the family removed to Martha's Vineyard with Thomas Mayhew, of colonial fame, where Peter was employed as a school teacher and a land surveyor, and he assisted Mr. Mayhew in his work among the Indians. He went to Nantucket as a surveyor about 1662, and was induced to remove there as an interpreter and as land surveyor. He was assigned by the proprietors a place known as Roger's Field, and later as Jethro Folger's Lane, now a portion of the Maddequet Road. Their tenth child was Abiah, born August 15, 1667. She was the second wife of Josiah Franklin, tallow chandler, of the sign of the Blue Ball, Boston, and the mother of the boy whom she would like to have inherit so inspiring a name. Peter Folger, the Quaker poet of the island of Nantucket, was a most worthy man. He lived at the beginning of the dark times of persecution, when Baptists and Quakers were in danger of being publicly whipped, branded, and deported or banished into the wilderness. Stories of the cruelty that followed these people filled the colonies, and caused the Quaker's heart to bleed and burn. He wrote a poem entitled A Looking-glass for the Times, in which he called upon New England to pause in her sins of intoleration and persecution, and threatened the judgments foretold in the Bible upon those who do injustice to God's children. "Abiah," said the proud father, "I admire the character of your father. It stood for justice and human rights. But, wife, listen: "Brother Benjamin has lost all of his ten children but one. I pity him. Wife, listen: Brother Benjamin is poor through no fault of his, but because he gave himself and all that he was to his family. "Listen: It would touch his heart to learn that I had named this boy for him. It would show the old man that I had not forgotten him, but still thought of him. "I can not do much for the boy, but I can give Brother Benjamin a home with me, and, as he is a great reader, he can instruct the boy by wise precept and a good example. If the boy will only follow brother's principles, he may make the name of Benjamin live. "And once more: if we name the boy Benjamin, it will make Brother Benjamin feel that he has not lost all, but that he will have another chance in the world. How glad that would make the poor old man! I would like to name him as the boy's godfather. I do pity him, don't you? You have the heart of Peter Folger." There was a silence. "Abiah, what now shall the boy's name be?" "Benjamin." "You have chosen that name out of your heart. May that name bring you joy! It ought to do so, since you have given up your own wish and breathed it out of your heart and conscience. To give up is to gain." He took up the child. "Then we will give that name to him now, and I will take the child and go to the church, and I will name Brother Benjamin as his godfather." "It is a very cold day for the little one." "And a healthy one on which to start out in the world. There is nothing like starting right and with a good name, which may the Lord help this child to honor! And, Abiah, that He will." He wrapped the babe up warmly, and looked him full in the face. Josiah Franklin was a genial, provident, hard-sensed man. He probably had no prophetic visions; no thought that the little one given him on this frosty January morning in the breezy town of Boston by the sea would command senates, lead courts, and sign a declaration of peace that would make possible a new order of government in the world, could have entered his mind. If the boy should become a good man, with a little poetic imagination like his Uncle Benjamin, the home poet, he would be content. He opened the door of his one room on the lower floor of his house and went out into the cold with the child in his arms. In a short time he returned and laid little Benjamin in the arms of his mother. "I hope the child's life will hold out as it has begun," he added. "_Benjamin Franklin, day one; started right. May Heaven help him to get used to the world!_" As poor as the tallow chandler was, he was hospitable on that day. He did not hold the birth of the little one--which really was an event of greater importance to the world than the birth of a king--as anything more than the simple growth of an honest family, who had left the crowded towns and a smithy in old England to enjoy freedom of faith and conscience and the opportunities of the New World. He wished to live where he might be free to enjoy his own opinions and to promote a colony where all men should have these privileges. The house in which Franklin was born is described as follows: Its front upon the street was rudely clapboarded, and the sides and rear were protected from the inclemencies of a New England climate by large, rough shingles. In height the house was about three stories; in front, the second story and attic projected somewhat into the street, over the principal story on the ground floor. On the lower floor of the main house there was one room only. This, which probably served the Franklins as a parlor and sitting-room, and also for the family eating-room, was about twenty feet square, and had two windows on the street; and it had also one on the passageway, so as to give the inmates a good view of Washington Street. In the center of the southerly side of the room was one of those noted large fireplaces, situated in a most capacious chimney; on the left of this was a spacious closet. On the ground floor, connected with the sitting-room through the entry, was the kitchen. The second story originally contained but one chamber, and in this the windows, door, fireplace, and closet were similar in number and position to those in the parlor beneath it. The attic was also originally one unplastered room, and had a window in front on the street, and two common attic windows, one on each side of the roof, near the back part of it. Soon after this unprophetic event Josiah Franklin and Abiah his wife went to live at the sign of the Blue Ball, on what was then the southeast corner of Hanover and Union Streets. The site of the birth of Franklin was long made notable as the office of the Boston Post, a political paper whose humor was once proverbial. The site is still visited by strangers, and bears the record of the event which was to contribute so powerful an influence to the scientific and political history of the world. Wendell Phillips used to say that there were two kinds of people in the world--one who went ahead and did something, and another, who showed how that thing ought to have been done in some other way. The boy belonged to the former class. But I doubt if any reader of this volume was ever born to so hard an estate as this boy. Let us follow him into the story land of childhood. In Germany every child passes through fairyland, but there was no such land in Josiah Franklin's tallow shop, except when the busy man sometimes played the violin in the inner room and sang psalms to the music, usually in a very solemn tone. There were not many homes in Boston at this period that had even so near an approach to fairyland as a violin. Those were hard times for children, and especially for those with lively imaginations, which gift little Benjamin had in no common degree. There were Indians in those times, and supposed ghosts and witches, but no passing clouds bore angels' chariots; there were no brownies among the wild rose bushes and the ferns. There was one good children's story in every home--that of "Joseph" in the Bible, still, as always, the best family story in all the world. CHAPTER II. UNCLE BENJAMIN, THE POET. MRS. FRANKLIN has said that she could hardly remember the time in her son's childhood when he could not read. He emerged almost from babyhood a reader, and soon began to "devour"--to use the word then applied to his habit--all the books that fell within his reach. When about four years old he became much interested in stories told him by his father of his Uncle Benjamin, the poet, who lived in England, and for whom he had been named, and who, it was hoped, would come to the new country and be his godfather. The family at the Blue Ball was quick to notice the tendencies of their children in early life. Little Benjamin Franklin developed a curious liking for a trumpet and a gun. He liked to march about to noise, and this noise he was pleased to make himself--to blow his own trumpet. The family wrote to Uncle Benjamin, the poet, then in England, in regard to this unpromising trait, and the good man returned the following letter in reply: _To my Namesake, on hearing of his Inclination to Martial Affairs. July 7, 1710._ "Believe me, Ben, it is a dangerous trade; The sword has many marred as well as made; By it do many fall, not many rise-- Makes many poor, few rich, not many wise; Fills towns with ruin, fields with blood beside; 'Tis sloth's maintainer, and the shield of pride; Fair cities, rich to-day in plenty flow, War fills with want to-morrow, and with woe; Ruined estates, victims of vice, broken limbs, and scars Are the effects of desolating wars." One evening, as the tallow chandler was hurrying hither and thither in his apron and paper cap, the door opened with a sharp ring of the bell fastened by a string upon it. The paper cap bobbed up. "Hoi, what now?" said the tallow chandler. "A letter from England, sirrah. The Lively Nancy has come in. There it is." The tallow chandler held the letter up to the fire, for it had been a _melting_ day, as certain days on which the melting of tallow for the molds were called. He read "Benjamin Franklin," and said: "That's curious--that's Brother Ben's writing. I would know that the world over." He put the letter in his pocket. He saw Dame Franklin looking through the transom over the door, and shook his head. He sat down with his large family to a meal of bread and milk, and then took the letter from his pocket and read it over to himself. "Ben," said he, "this is for you. I am going to read it. As I do so, you repeat after me the first letter of the first and of every line. Are you ready? Now. "'_Be to thy parents an obedient son._'" "B," said little Ben. "'_Each day let duty constantly be done._'" "E," the boy continued. "'_Never give way to sloth, or lust, or pride._'" "N, father." "'_Just free to be from thousand ills beside._'" "J, father." "'_Above all ills be sure avoid the shelf._'" "A, father." "'_Man's danger lies in Satan, sin, and self._'" "M, father." "'_In virtue, learning, wisdom, progress make._'" "I, father." "'_Ne'er shrink at suffering for thy Saviour's sake._'" "N, father. I know what that spells." "What?" "Benjamin." "'_Fraud and all falsehood in thy dealings flee._'" "F," said the boy. "'_Religious always in thy station be._'" "R, father." "'_Adore the Maker of thy inward heart._'" "A, father." "'_Now's the accepted time, give him thy heart._'" "N, father; and now I can guess the rest." "'_Keep a good conscience, 'tis a constant friend._'" "K, father." "'_Like judge and witness this thy acts attend._'" "L." "'_In heart with bended knee alone adore._'" "I." "'_None but the Three in One forever more._'" "N." "And to whom are all these things written?" "'To BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,' sir." "Well, my boy, if you will only follow the advice of your Uncle Benjamin, the poet, you never will need any more instruction.--Wife, hear this: Brother Ben writes that he is coming to America as soon as he can settle his affairs, and when he arrives I will give over the training of little Ben to him. He is his godfather, and he takes a great interest in a boy that he has never seen. Sometimes people are drawn toward each other before they meet--there's a kind of sympathy in this world that is felt in ways unseen and that is prophetic. Your father was a poet, and Uncle Ben, he is one, after a fashion. I wonder what little Ben will be!" He put on his paper cap and opened the door into the molding-room. The fire was dying out on the hearth, and the candles in the molds were cooling and hardening. He opened the weather door, causing the bell attached to it to ring. He stood looking out on the bowery street of Boston town. On the hill rose the North Church in the shadows near the sea. A horn rent the still air. A stage coach from Salem came rolling in and stopped at the Boston Stone, not far away. A little girl tripped down the street. "A pound of candles, sir." "Hoi, yes, yes," and he took some candles out of a mold and laid them in the scales. The girl courtesied, and the tallow chandler closed the door with a ting-a-ling. Then Josiah sat down with his family and played the violin. He loved his brother Benjamin, and the thought of his coming made him a happy man. One day the old man came. Soon after there happened a great event in the family. It was a windy night. The ocean was dashing and foaming along the sea wall on the beach where Long Wharf, Lewis Wharf, and Rowe's Wharf now are. The stars shone brightly, and clouds flew scudding over the moon. Abiah Franklin opened the weather door and looked out. She returned to her great chair slowly with a cloud in her face. "It is a bad night for those on the sea," she said. "It is now nine years since Josiah went away. Where he found an ocean grave we shall never know. It is hard," she added, "to have hope leave you in this way. It is one long torture to live in suspense. There hasn't been a day since the first year after Josiah left us that my ear has not waited to hear a knock on the door on a night like this. "Josiah, you may say that I have faith in the impossible, but I sometimes believe that I shall hear that knock yet. There is one Scripture that comforts me when I think that; it is, 'Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass.'" Josiah Franklin sat silent. It was now indeed nine years since his son Josiah had left home against his will and gone to sea--"run away to sea," as his departure was called. It was a kind of mental distemper in old New England times for a boy "to run away and go to sea." There had been fearful storms on the coast. Abiah Franklin was a silent woman when the winds bended the trees and the waves broke loudly on the shore. She thought then; she inwardly prayed, but she said little of the storm that was in her heart. "I shall never see Josiah again," at last said Josiah Franklin. "It is a pity; it is hard on me that the son who bears my name should leave me, to become a wanderer. Boys will do such things. I may have made his home too strict for him; if so, may the Lord forgive me. I have meant to do my best for all my children.--Ben, let Josiah be a warning to you; you have been having the boy fever to go to sea. Hear the winds blow and the sea dash! Josiah must have longed to be back by the fire on nights like these." Josiah went to the window and tapped upon the pane. He did that often when his mind was troubled. To tap upon the pane eased his heartache. It was an old New England way. Josiah took his violin, tuned it, and began to play while the family listened by the fading coals. "I thought I heard something," said Abiah between one of the tunes. "What was it, Abiah?" asked her husband. "It sounded like a step." "That's nothing strange." "It sounded familiar," she said. "Steps are peculiar." "Oh, I know of whom you are thinking," said Josiah. "May the Lord comfort you, for the winds and waves do not to-night." He played again. His wife grew restless. "Josiah," said she when he ceased playing, "you may say that I have fancies, but I thought I saw a face pass the window." "That is likely, Abiah." "But this one had a short chin and a long nose." She choked, and her eyes were wet. There came a rap upon the door. It was a strong hand that made it; there was a heart in the sound. "I'll open the door, Josiah," said Abiah. She removed the wooden bar with a trembling hand, and lifted the latch. A tall, rugged form stood before her. She started back. "Mother, don't you know me?" "Yes, Josiah, I knew that you were coming to-night." She gazed into his eyes silently. "Who told you, mother?" "My soul." "Well, I've come back like the prodigal son. Let me give you a smack. You'll take me in--but how about father? I thought I heard him playing the violin." "Josiah, that is your voice!" exclaimed Josiah the elder. "Now my cup of joy is full and running over. Josiah, come in out of the storm." Josiah Franklin rushed to the door and locked his son in his arms, but there was probably but little sentiment in the response. "Now I _know_ the parable of the prodigal son," said he. "I had only read it before. Come in! come in! There are brothers and sisters here whom you have never seen. Now we are all here." Uncle Benjamin wrote a poem to celebrate young Josiah's return. It was read in the family, with disheartening results. Sailor Josiah said that he "never cared much for poetry." The poem may be found in the large biographies of Franklin. CHAPTER III. BENJAMIN AND BENJAMIN. AN old man sat by an open fire in a strange-looking room with a little boy on his knee. Beside him was a middle-aged man, the father of the boy. "Brother Josiah," said the old man, "I have had a hard, disappointed life, but I have done the best that I could, and there has nothing happened since my own children died and my hair turned gray that has made me so happy as that letter that you sent to me in England in which you told me that you had named this boy for me." "It makes me happy to see you here by my fire to-night, with the boy in your lap," said the father. "Benjamin and Benjamin! My heart has been true to you in all your troubles and losses, and I would have helped you had I been able. How did you get up the resolution to cross the sea in your old age?" "Brother Josiah, it was because my own son is here, and he was all that I had left of my own family. But that was not all. In one sense my own life has failed; I have come down to old age with empty hands. When your letter came saying that you had named this boy for me, and had made me his godfather, I saw that you pitied me, and that you had a place for me in your heart. I thought of all the years that we had passed together when we were young; of the farm and forge in Ecton; of Banbury; of the chimes of Nottingham; of all that we were to each other then. "I was all alone in London, and there my heart turned to you as it did when we were boys. That gave me resolution to cross the sea, Brother Josiah, although my hair is white and my veins are thin. "But that was not all, brother; he is a poor man indeed who gives up hope. When a man loses hope for himself, he wishes to live in another. The ancients used to pray that their sons might be nobler than themselves. When I read your letter that said that you had named this boy for me and had made me his godfather, you can not tell how life revived in me--it was like seeing a rainbow after a storm. I said to myself that I had another hope in this world; that I would live in the boy. I have come over to America to live in this boy. "O brother, I never thought that I would see an hour like this! I am poor, but I am happy. I am happy because you loved me after I became poor and friendless. That was your opportunity to show what your heart was. I am happy because you trusted me and gave my name to this boy. "Brother Josiah, I have come over to America to return your love, in teaching this boy how to live and how to fulfill the best that is in him. A boy with your heart can succeed in life, even if he have but common gifts. The best thing that can be said of any man is that he is true-hearted. Brother, you have been true-hearted to me, and the boy inherits your nature, and I am going to be true-hearted to him and to do all I can to make his life a blessing to you and the world. We do no self-sacrificing thing without fruit." The old man put his arm about the boy, and said: "Ben, little Ben, I loved you before I saw you, and I love you more than ever now. I have come across the ocean in my old age to be with you. I want you to like me, Ben." "I do, uncle," said little Ben. "I would rather be with you than with any one. I am glad that you have come." "That makes me happy, that makes my old heart happy. I did everything a man could do for his wife and children and for everybody. I was left alone in London, poor; I seemed to be a forsaken man, but this makes up for all." "Benjamin and Benjamin!" said the younger brother, touching the strings of the violin that he held on his lap--"Benjamin and Benjamin! Brother Benjamin, how did you get the money to cross the ocean?" "I sold my goods and my pamphlets. _They_ were my life; I had put my life into them. But I sold them, for what were they if I could have the chance to live another life in little Ben?" "What were your pamphlets?" asked little Ben. "They were my life, and I sold them for you, that I might make your life a blessing to your father, who has been a true brother to me. I will tell you the whole story of the pamphlets some day." "Uncle, I love you more than ever before, because you sold the treasures for me. I wish that I might grow up and help folks, so that my name might honor yours. "You can make it that, my boy. If you will let me teach you, you may make it that. There can nothing stand before a will that wills to do good. It is the heart that has power, my boy. My life will not have been lost if I can live in you." "I have not much time for educating my children," said the younger brother. "I am going to give over the training of the boy to you. True education begins with the heart first, so as to make right ideas fixed in the mind and right habits, in the conduct. It may be little that I can send him to school, but it is what you can do for him that will give him a start in life. I want you to see that he starts right in life. I leave his training to you. I have a dozen mouths to feed, and small time for anything but toil." He tuned his violin and played an old English air. There were candle molds in the room, long rows of candle wicks, great kettles, a gun, a Bible, some old books, and a fireplace with a great crane, hooks, and andirons. Little Benjamin looked up into the old man's face and laid his hand on his shoulder. "I am glad father did not forget you," said he. The old man's lip quivered. "He has been a true brother to me. Always remember that, boy, as long as you live. It is such memories as that that teach. His heart is true to me now as when we used to leave the forge and roam the woods of Banbury together in springtime, when the skylark rose out of the meadows and the hedgerows bloomed. It is good for families to be so true to each other. If one member of a family lacks anything, it is good for another to make up for it. Yes, boy, your father has a good heart, else you would not now be in my arms." "Why do you cry, papa?" said the boy, for his father's eyes were filled with tears which coursed down his cheeks. Something that aged Benjamin had said about the forge, the nightingale, or the thorn had touched his heart. "We can never be young again, brother," said Josiah Franklin. "I shall never see the thorn bloom or hear the nightingale sing as I once did. No, no, no; but I am glad that I have brought you and Ben together. That would have pleased our old mother's heart, long dead and gone to the violets and primroses. Do you suppose the dead know? I sometimes think they do, and that it makes them happy to see things like these. I will talk with the parson about these things some day." The younger brother smiled through his tears and straightened himself up, as though he felt that he had yielded to weakness, for he was a plain, hard-working man. Suddenly he said: "Brother, you remember Uncle Tom?" "Yes, yes; he set the chimes of Nottingham ringing in the air. I can hear them ringing now in my memory. Brother, I think little Ben favors Uncle Tom." "Who was Uncle Tom?" asked the boy. "They used to say that he was a wizard. I will tell you all about him some day. Let us listen now to your father's violin." The house was still, save that the sea winds stirred the crisp autumn leaves in the great trees near and the nine o'clock bell fell solemnly on the air. A watchman went by, saying, "All is well!" Yes, all is well in hearts like these--hearts that can pity, love, forbear, and feel. CHAPTER IV. FRANKLIN'S STORY OF A HOLIDAY IN CHILDHOOD. AS barren as was the early Puritan town in things that please the fancy of the child, Josiah Franklin's home was a cheerful one. It kept holidays, when the violin was played, and some pennies were bestowed upon the many children. Let us enter the house by the candle-room door. The opening of the door rings a bell. There is an odor of tallow everywhere. One side is hung with wickings, to be cut and trimmed. When the tallow is boiling the room is very hot, close, and the atmosphere oily. There is a soap kettle in the room. The odor of the lye is more agreeable than that of the melted tallow. Little Ben is here, short, stout, rosy-faced, with a great head. Where he goes the other children go; what he does, they do. Already a little world has begun to follow him. Look at him as he runs around among the candle molds, talking like a philosopher. Does he seem likely to stand in the French court amid the splendors of the palace of Versailles, the most popular and conspicuous person among all the jeweled multitude who fill the mirrored, the golden, the blazing halls except the king himself? Does he look as though he would one day ask the French king for an army to help establish the independence of his country, and that the throne would bow to him? Homely as was that home, the fancy of Franklin after he became great always loved to return to it. In his advanced years he wished to prepare a little story or parable that would show that people spend too much time and money on things that could be more cheaply purchased or that they could well do without. He wrote out an anecdote of his childhood that illustrated in a clear way, like so many flashes, how the resources of life may be wasted. The story has been printed, we may safely say, a thousand times. Few stories have ever had a wider circulation or been more often quoted. It has in it a picture of his old home, and as such we must give it here. Here is the parable again, as in the original: "When I was a child, at seven years old, my friends, on a holiday, filled my pockets with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children, and, being charmed with the sound of a _whistle_ that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered him all my money for one. I then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my _whistle_, but disturbing all the family. My brothers and sisters and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth. This put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money; and they laughed at me so much for my folly that I cried with vexation, and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the _whistle_ gave me pleasure. "This, however, was afterward of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind; so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, _Don't give too much for the whistle_, and so I saved my money. "As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, who _gave too much for the whistle_. "When I saw any one too ambitious of court favor, sacrificing his time in attendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends, to attain it, I have said to myself, _This man gave too much for his whistle._ "When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly employing himself in political bustles, neglecting his own affairs, and ruining them by neglect, _He pays, indeed_, says I, _too much for this whistle._ "If I knew a miser who gave up every kind of comfortable living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow-citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship for the sake of accumulating wealth, _Poor man_, says I, _you do, indeed, pay too much for your whistle._ "When I meet a man of pleasure, sacrificing every laudable improvement of mind, or of his fortune, to mere corporeal sensations, _Mistaken man_, says I, _you are providing pain for yourself instead of pleasure; you give too much for your whistle._ "If I see one fond of fine clothes, fine furniture, fine equipages, all above his fortune, for which he contracts debts, and ends his career in prison, _Alas!_ says I, _he has paid dear, very dear, for his whistle._ "When I see a beautiful, sweet-tempered girl married to an ill-natured brute of a husband, _What a pity it is_, says I, _that she had paid so much for a whistle!_ "In short, I conceived that great part of the miseries of mankind were brought upon them by the false estimates they had made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their _whistle_." CHAPTER V. THE BOY FRANKLIN'S KITE. LITTLE Ben now began to lead the sports of the boys. As there came to Froebel an inspiration to found a system of education in which the playground should be made a means of forming character when life was in the clay, so to young Franklin came a desire to make sports and pastimes useful. This caused him to build the little wharf in the soft marsh whence the boys might catch minnows and sail their boats. Boys of nearly all countries and ages have found delight in flying kites. A light frame of wood, covered with paper, held by a long string, and raised by propelling it against the air, has always peculiar attractions for the young. To see an object rise from the earth by a law of Nature which seems to overcome gravitation to the sky while the string is yet in the hand, gives a boy a sense of power which excites his imagination and thrills his blood. In Franklin's time the boy who could fly his kite the highest, or who could make his kite appear to be the most picturesque in the far-away blue sky, was regarded as a leader among his fellows, and young Franklin, as we may infer, made his kite fly very high. But he was not content with the altitude to which he could raise his kite or its beauty in the sky. His inquiry was, What can the kite be made to teach that is useful? What can it be made to _do_? What good can it accomplish? Ben was an expert swimmer. After he had mastered the art of overcoming the water, he sought how to make swimming safe and easy; and when he had learned this himself, he taught other boys how to swim safely and easily. One day he was flying his kite on the shore. His imagination had wings as well as the kite, and he followed it with the eye of fancy as it drifted along the sky pulling at his fingers. It was a warm day, and the cool harbor rippled near, and he began to feel a desire to plunge into the water, but he did not like to pull down his kite. He threw off his clothes and dropped into the cool water, still holding his kite string, which was probably fastened to a short stick in his hand. He turned on his back in the water and floated, looking up to the kite in the blue, sunny sky. But something, was happening. The kite, like a sail in a boat, was bearing him along. He was the boat, the kite high in the sky was the sail, between the two was a single string. He could sail himself on the water by a kite in the sky! So he drifted along, near the Mystic River probably, on that warm pleasant day. The sense of the power that he gained by thus obeying a law of Nature filled him with delight. He could not have then dreamed that the simple discovery would lead up to another which would enable man to see how to control one of the greatest forces in the universe. He saw simply that he could make the air _work_ for him, and he probably dreamed that sometime and somewhere the same principle would enable an inventor to show the world how to navigate the air. The kite now became to him something more than a plaything--a wonder. It caused his fancy to soar, and little Ben was always happy when his fancy was on the wing. There was a man named Jamie who liked to loiter around the Blue Ball. He was a Scotchman, and full of humor. "An' wot you been doin' now?" said Jamie the Scotchman, as the boy returned to the Blue Ball with his big kite and wet hair. "Kite-flying and swimming don't go together." "Ah, sirrah, don't you think that any more! Kite-flying and floating on one's back in the water do go together. I've been making a boat of myself, and the sail was in the sky." "Sho! How did that come about?" "I floated on my back and held the kite string in my hand, and the kite drew me along." "It did, hey? Well, it might do that with a little shaver like you. What made you think of that, I would like to know? You're always thinkin' out somethin' new. You'll get into difficulties some day, like the dog that saw the moon in the well and leaped down to fetch it up; he gave one howl, only one, once for all, and then they fetched _him_ up; he had nothing more to say. So it will be with you if you go kiting about after such things, flyin' kites for boat sails." "But, Jamie, I think that I am the first boy that ever sailed on the water without a boat--now don't you?" "Well, I don't know. There's nothin' new under the sun. People like you that are always inquirin' out the whys and wherefores of things commonly get into trouble. Ben, wot will ever become of you, I wonder?" "Archimedes made water run uphill." "He did, hey? So he did, as I remember to have read. But he lost his life broodin' over a lot of figers that he was drawin' on the sand--angles and triangles an' things. The Roman soldier cut him down when he was dreamin', and they let his tomb all grow up to briers. Do you think, Ben, that you will ever make the river run uphill? Perhaps you'll turn the water up to the sky on a kite string, and then we can have rain in plantin' time. Who knows?" He added thoughtfully: "I wouldn't wonder, Ben, if you invented somethin' if you live. But the prospect isn't very encouragin' of your ever doin' anything alarmin'." "Did you ever hear what Archimedes exclaimed when he discovered the law that a body plunged in water loses as much of its weight as is equal to the weight of an equal volume of the fluid, and applied it to the alloy in the king's crown?" "No. Wot did he exclaim?" "_Eureka! Eureka!_" "Wot did he do that for?" "It means, 'I have found it.'" "Maybe you'll find out something sometime, Ben. You all run to dreams about such things, and some boys turn their dreams into facts, as architects build their imaginations and make money. But the fifteenth child of a tallow chandler, who was the son of a blacksmith and of a woman whose mother was bought and sold, a boy whose wits are off kite-flyin' instead of wick-cuttin' and tallow-moldin', has no great chance in the future, so it looks to me. But one can't always tell. I don't think that you'll never get to be an Archimedes and cry out 'Eureka!' But you've got imagination enough to hitch the world to a kite and send it off among the planets and shootin' stars, no one knows where. I never did see any little shaver that had so much kite-flyin' in his head as you." "Archimedes said that if he only had a lever long enough he would move the world." "He did, hey? Well, little Ben Franklin, you just put up your kite and attend to the candle molds, and let swimmin' in the air all go. Whatever may happen on this planet, _you'll_ never be likely to move the world with a kite, of all things, nor with anything else, for that matter. So it looks to me, and I'm generally pretty far-sighted. It takes practical people to do practical things. Still, the old Bible does say that 'where there is no vision the people perish.' Well, I don't know--as I said, we can not always tell--David slew a giant with a pebble stone, and you may come to somethin' by some accident or other. I'm sure I wish you well. It may be that your uncle Benjamin, the poet, will train you when he comes to understand you, but his thoughts run to kite-flyin' and such things, and he never has amounted to anything at all, I'm told. You was named after him, and rightly, I guess. He would like to have been a Socrates. But the tape measure wouldn't fit his head." He saw a shade in the boy's face, and added: "_He's_ going to live here, they say. Then there will be two of you, and you could fly kites and make up poetry together, if it were not for a dozen mouths to feed, which matters generally tend to bring one down from the sky." An older son of Josiah Franklin appeared. "James," said Jamie, "here's your brother Ben; he's been sailin' with the sail in the sky. He ought to be keerful of his talents. There's no knowin' what they may lead up to. When a person gets started in such ways as these there's no knowin' how far he may go." Brother James opened the weather door at the Blue Ball. The bell tinkled and Ben followed him in, and the two sat down to bowls of bread, sweet apples, and milk. "What have you been doing, Ben?" asked Brother James. Little Ben did not answer. He got up from the table and went away downhearted, with his face in his jacket sleeve. It hurt him to be laughed at, but his imagination was a comforting companion to him in hours like these. He could go kite-flying in his mind, and no one could see the flight. "One can not make an eagle run around a barnyard like a hen," said a sage observer of life. There was the blood of noble purposes in little Ben Franklin's vein, if his ancestors were blacksmiths and his grandmother had been a white slave whose services were bought and sold. He had begun kite-flying; he will fly a kite again one day. CHAPTER VI. LITTLE BEN'S GUINEA PIG. BEN loved little animals. He not only liked to have them about him, but it gave him great joy to protect them. One of his pets was a guinea pig. "There are few traits of character that speak better for the future of a boy than that which seeks to protect the helpless and overlooked in the brute creation," said Uncle Benjamin to Abiah Franklin one day. "There are not many animals that have so many enemies as a guinea pig. Cats, dogs, and even the hens run after the harmless little thing. I wonder that this one should be alive now. He would have been dead but for Ben." Abiah had been spinning. It was a windy day, and the winds, too, had been spinning as it were around the house. She had stopped to rest in her work. But the winds had not stopped, but kept up a sound like that of the wheel. "You are always saying good things about little Ben," said Abiah. "What is it that you see in him that is different from other boys?" "_Personality_," said Uncle Ben. "Look at him now, out in the yard. He has been protecting the pigeon boxes from the wind, and after them the rabbit warren. He is always seeking to make life more comfortable for everybody and everything. Now, Abiah, a heart that seeks the good of others will never want for a friend and a home. This _personality_ will make for him many friends and some enemies in the future. The power of life lies in the heart." The weather door opened, and little Ben came into the room and asked for a cooky out of the earthen jar. "Where's your guinea pig, my boy?" asked Uncle Benjamin. "I only see him now and then." "Why do you call him a guinea pig, uncle?" asked little Ben. "He did not come from Guinea, and he is not a pig. He came from South America, where it is warm, and he is a covey; he is not a bit of a rabbit, and not a pig." "Where do you keep him?" asked Uncle Benjamin. "I keep him where he is warm, uncle. It makes my heart all shrink up to see the little thing shiver when the wind strikes him. It is cruel to bring such animals into a climate like this." "There are tens of thousands of guinea pigs, or coveys, in the land where they are found. Yes, millions, I am told. One guinea pig don't count for much." "But, uncle, one feels the cold wind as much as another would--as much as each of all the millions would." "But, Ben, you have not answered my question. Where is the little covey now?" Little Ben colored red, and looked suspiciously toward the door of the room in which his father was at work. He presently saw his father's paper hat through the light over the door, and said: "Let me tell you some other time, uncle. They will laugh at me if I tell you now." "Benjamin," said his mother, "we are going to have a family gathering this year on the anniversary of the day when your father landed here in 1685. The family are all coming home, and the two Folger girls--the schoolmarms--will be here from Nantucket. You will have to take the guinea-pig box out of your room under the eaves. The Folger girls are very particular. What would your aunts Hannah and Patience Folger, the schoolmarms, say if they were to find your room a sty for a guinea pig?" "My little covey, mother," said Ben. "I'll put the cage into the shop. No, he would be killed there. I'll put him where he will not offend my aunts, mother." Abiah Folger began to spin again, and the wheel and the wind united did indeed make a lonely atmosphere. Uncle Benjamin punched the fire, which roared at times lustily under the great shelf where were a row of pewter platters. Little Ben drew near the fire. Suddenly Uncle Ben started. "Oh, my eyes! what is that, Ben?" Ben looked about. "I don't see anything, uncle." "Your coat sleeve keeps jumping. I have seen it four or five times. What is the matter there?" Uncle Ben put the tongs in the chimney nook, and said: "There is a bunch on your arm, Ben." "No, no, no, uncle." "There is, and it moves about." "I have no wound, or boil, nor anything, uncle." "There it goes again, or else my head is wrong. There! there! Abiah, stop spinning a minute and come here." The wheel stopped. Abiah, with a troubled look, came to the hearth and leaned over it with one hand against the shelf. "What has he been doing now?" she asked in a troubled tone. "Look at his arm there! It bulges out." Uncle Ben put out his hand to touch the protrusion. He laid his finger on the place carefully, when suddenly the bunch was gone, and just then appeared a little head outside the sleeve. "I told you that there was something there! I knew that there was all the time." There was--it was the little covey or guinea pig. "What did I tell you before Ben came in?" said Uncle Benjamin. Little Ben did not know what his uncle had said to his mother before he opened the door; but he heard him say now mysteriously: "It is a cold day for shelterless things. That little bunch on his arm illustrates what I mean by personality. There are more guinea pigs than one in this cold world." Abiah went to her wheel in silence, and it began to buzz again. Little Ben went into the room where his father was at work. The wheel stopped. "I do love that boy," said Abiah, "notwithstanding all the fault they find with him." "So do I, Abiah. I'm glad that you made him my godson. All people are common in this world except those who have personality. He had a great-uncle that was just like him, and, Abiah, he became a friend of Lord Halifax." "I am afraid that poor little Ben, after all his care of the guinea pig, will never commend himself to Lord Halifax. But we can not tell." "No, Abiah, we can not tell, but stranger things have happened, and such things begin in that way." CHAPTER VII. UNCLE TOM, WHO ROSE IN THE WORLD. LITTLE Ben had some reasons to dread the visits of his two stately aunts from Nantucket, the schoolmarms, whom his mother called "the girls." But one November day, as he came home after the arrival of the stage from Salem, he was met at the door by his uncle with the question: "Who do you think has come?" "I don't know, uncle. Josiah?" "No." "Brother John from Rhode Island? Esther and Martha from school? Zachary from Annapolis?" "Not right yet." "Esther and Martha from school at Nantucket?" "Yes; and your Aunt Hannah and Aunt Prudence have come with them, with bandboxes, caps, snuffboxes, and all. They came on the sloop. It is a time for little boys to be quiet now, and to keep guinea pigs and such things well out of sight." "How long are _they_ going to stay, uncle?" By "they" he referred to his aunts. "A week or more, I guess. This will be your still week." "But I can not keep still, uncle; I am a boy." Little Benjamin went into the home room and there met his stately aunts, the school teachers. There was a great fire in the room, and the pewter platters shone there like silver. His aunts received him kindly, but in a very condescending way. They had not yet discovered any "personality" in the short, little boy of the numerous family. The aunts delighted in imparting moral instruction, and they saw in little Ben, as they thought, a useful opportunity for such culture. That night the family, with the aunts from Nantucket, sat down by the great fire under the shining platters to hear Uncle Benjamin relate a marvelous story. Every family has one wonder story, and this was the one wonder story of the Franklin side of the family. Uncle Benjamin wished the two "aunts" to hear this story "on his side of the house." "There was only one of our family in England who ever became great, and that was my Uncle Thomas," he began. "Only think of that, little Ben," said Aunt Hannah Folger, "only one." "Only one," said Aunt Prudence Folger, "and may you become like him." "He was born a smith, and so he was bred, for it was the custom of our family that the eldest son should be a smith--a Franklin." "Sit very still, my little boy," said the two aunts, "and you shall be told what happened. He was a smith." "There was a man in our town," continued Uncle Ben, "whose name was Palmer, and he became an esquire." "Maybe that _you_ will become an esquire," said Aunt Esther to Ben. "He became an esquire," said Aunt Prudence. "Sit very still, and you shall hear." "This man liked to encourage people; he used to say good things of them so as to help them grow. If one encourage the good things which one finds in people it helps them. It is a good thing to say good words." "If you do not say too many," said Josiah Franklin. "I sometimes think we do to little Ben." "Well, this Esquire Palmer told Uncle Tom one day that he would make a good lawyer. Tom was very much surprised, and said, 'I am poor; if I had any one to help me I would study for the bar.' 'I will help you,' said Esquire Palmer. So Uncle Tom dropped the hammer and went to school." "And _you_ may one day leave the candle shop and go to school," said Aunt Esther, moralizing. "I hope so," said little Ben humbly. "Not but that the candle shop is a very useful place," said the other aunt. "Uncle Tom read law, and began to practice it in the town and county of Northampton. He was public-spirited, and he became a leader in all the enterprises of the county, and people looked up to him as a great man. Everything that he touched improved." "Just think of that," said Aunt Esther to Ben. "Everything that he touched improved. That is the way to make success for yourself--help others." "May you profit by his example, Ben," said Aunt Prudence, bobbing her cap border. "He made everything better--the church, the town, the public ways, the societies, the homes. He was a just man, and he used to say that what the world wanted was _justice_. Everybody found him a friend, except he who was unjust. And at last Lord Halifax saw how useful he had become, and he honored him with his friendship. When he died, which was some fourteen years ago, all the people felt that they had lost a friend." The two aunts bowed over in reverence for such a character. Aunt Esther did more than this. She put her finger slowly and impressively on little Ben's arm, and said: "It may be that you will grow up and be like him." "Or like Father Folger," added Aunt Prudence, who wished to remind Uncle Benjamin that the Folgers too had a family history. Little Ben was really impressed by the homely story which he now heard a second time. It presented a looking-glass to him, and he saw himself in it. He looked up to his Uncle Ben with an earnest face, and said: "I would like to help folks, too; why can I not, if Uncle Tom did?" "A very proper remark," said Aunt Esther. "Very," said Aunt Prudence. "Good intentions are all right," said Josiah Franklin. "They do to sail away with, but where will one land if he has not got the steering gear? That is a good story, Brother Ben. Encourage little Ben here all you can; it may be that you might have become a man like Uncle Tom if you had had some esquire to encourage you." The aunts sat still and thought of this suggestion. Then Josiah played on his violin, and the two aunts told tales of the work of _their_ good father among the Indians of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. A baby lay in Abiah Franklin's arms sleeping while these family stories were related. It was a girl, and they had named her Jane, and called her "Jenny." Amid the story-telling Jenny awoke, and put out her arms to Ben. "The baby takes to Ben," said the mother. "The first person that she seemed to notice was Ben, and she can hardly keep her little eyes off of him." Ben took little Jenny into his arms. As Uncle Benjamin grew older the library of pamphlets that he had sold and on whose margins he had written the best thoughts of his life haunted him. He would sometimes be heard to exclaim: "Those pamphlets! those pamphlets!" "Why do you think so much of the lost pamphlets, uncle?" said little Ben. "Hoi, Ben, hoi! 'tis on your account, Ben. I want you to have them, Ben, and read them when you are old; and I want my son Samuel to have them, although his mind does not turn to philosophy as yours does. It tore my heart to part with them, but I did it for you. One must save or be a slave. You see what it is to be poor. But it is all right, Ben, as the book of Job tells us; all things that happen to a man with good intentions are for his best good." It was Uncle Benjamin's purpose to mold the character of his little godson. He had the Froebel ideas, although he lived before the time of the great apostle of soul education. "The first thing for a boy like you, Ben, is to have a definite purpose, and the next is to have fixed habits to carry forward that purpose, to make life automatic." "What do you mean by _automatic_, uncle?" "Your heart beats itself, does it not? You do not make it beat. Your muscles do their work without any thought on your part; so the stomach assimilates its food. The first thing in education, more than cultivation of memory or reason, is to teach one to do right, right all the time, because it is just as the heart beats and the muscles or the stomach do their work. I want so to mold you that justice shall be the law of your life--so that to do right all the time will be a part of your nature. This is the first principle of home education." Little Ben only in part comprehended this simple philosophy. "But, uncle," said he, "what should be my purpose in life?" "You have the nature of your great-uncle Tom--you love to be doing things to help others, just as he did. The purpose of your life should be to improve things. Genius creates things, but benevolence improves things. You will understand what I mean some day, when you shall grow up and go to England and hear the chimes of Northampton ring." Uncle Benjamin liked to take little Ben out to sea. They journeyed so far that they sometimes lost sight of the State House, the lions and unicorns, and the window from which new kings and royal governors had been proclaimed. These excursions were the times that Uncle Ben sought to mold the will of little Ben after the purpose that he saw in him. He told him the stories of life that educate the imagination, that help to make fixed habit. "If I only had those pamphlets," he said on these excursions, "what a help they would be to us! You will never forget those pamphlets, will you, Ben?" CHAPTER VIII. LITTLE BEN SHOWS HIS HANDWRITING TO THE FAMILY. MR. GEORGE BROWNELL kept a writing school, and little Ben was sent to him to learn to write his name and to "do sums." Franklin did indeed learn to write his name--very neatly and with the customary flourish. In this respect he greatly pleased the genial old master. "That handwriting," he said, "is fit to put before a king. Maybe it will be some day, who knows? But, Ben," he added, "I am sorry to say it, although you write your name so well, you are a dunce at doing your sums. Now, if I were in your place I would make up for that." In picturing these encouraging schooldays in after years, Benjamin Franklin kindly says of the old pedagogue: "He was a skillful master, and successful in his profession, employing the mildest and most encouraging methods. Under him I learned to write a good hand pretty soon, but he could not teach me arithmetic." One afternoon, toward evening, after good Master Brownell had encouraged him by speaking well of his copy book, he came home with a light heart. He found his Uncle Benjamin, and his cousin, Samuel Franklin, Uncle Benjamin's son, at the candle shop. "Uncle Benjamin," he said, "I have something to show you; I have brought home my copy book. Master Brownell says it is done pretty well, but that I ought to do my sums better, and that I 'must make up for that.'" "He is right, little Ben. We have to try to make up for our defects all our lives. Let me look at the book. Now that is what I call right good writing." "Do you see anything peculiar about it?" asked Ben. "Master Brownell said that it was good enough to set before a king, and that it might be, some day." Little Ben's big brothers, who had come in, laughed, and slapped their hands on their knees. Josiah Franklin left his tallow boiling, and said: "Let me see it, Ben." He mounted his spectacles and held up the copy book, turning his eyes upon the boy's signature. "That flourish to your name does look curious. It is all tied up, and seems to come to a conclusion, as though your mind had carried out its original intention. There is character in the flourish. Ben, you have done well. But you must make up for your sums.--Brother Ben, that is a good hand, but I guess the sun will go around and around the world many times before kings ever set their eyes on it. But it will tell for sure. The good Book says, 'Seest thou a man diligent in his business----' Well, you all know the rest. I repeat that text often, so that my boys can hear." Samuel Franklin, Uncle Ben's son, examined the copy book. "Samuel," said Uncle Ben, "I used to write a hand something like that. I wish that I had my pamphlets; I would show you my hand at the time of the Restoration. I used to write political proverbs in my pamphlets in that way. "I want you," he continued, "to honor that handwriting, and do your master credit. The master has tried to do well by you. I hope that handwriting may be used for the benefit of others; live for influences, not for wealth or fame. My life will not fail if I can live in you and Samuel here. Remember that everything that you do for others will send you up the ladder of life, and I will go with you, even if the daisies do then blow over me. "Ben, you and Samuel should be friends, and, if you should do well in life, and he should do the same--which Heaven grant that he may!--I want you sometimes to meet by the gate post and think of me. "If you are ever tempted to step downward, think of me, Ben; think of me, Samuel. Meet sometimes at the gate post, and remember all these things. You will be older some day, and I will be gone." The old man held up the copy book again. "'Fit to set before kings,'" he repeated. "That was a great compliment." Little Jane, the baby, seeing the people all pleased, held out her hands to Ben. "Jenny shall see it," said Ben. He took the copy book and held it up before her eyes. She laughed with the rest. That signature was to remap the world. It was to be set to four documents that changed the history of mankind. Reader, would you like to see how a copy of it looked? We may fancy that the curious flourish first saw the light in Mr. Brownell's school. [Illustration: Handwritten: Philad Oct 9 1755 Your most hum Serv^t B Franklin] CHAPTER IX. UNCLE BENJAMIN'S SECRET. LITTLE Ben was fond of making toy boats and ships and sailing them. He sometimes took them to the pond on the Common, and sometimes to wharves at low tide. One day, as he was going out of the door of the sign of the Blue Ball, boat in hand, Uncle Benjamin followed him. The old man with white hair watched the boy fondly day by day, and he found in him many new things that made him proud to have him bear his name. "Ben," he called after him, "may I go too?" "Yes, yes, Uncle Benjamin. I am going down beside Long Wharf. Let us take Baby Jane, and I will leave the boat behind. The baby likes to go out with us." The old man's heart was glad to feel the heart that was in the voice. Little Ben took Baby Jane from his mother's arms, and they went toward the sea, where were small crafts, and sat down on board of one of the safely anchored boats. It was a sunny day, with a light breeze, and the harbor lay before them bright, calm, and fair. "Ben, let us talk together a little. I am an old man; I do not know how many years or even days more I may have to spend with you. I hope many, for I have always loved to live, and, since I have come to know you and to give my heart to you, life is dearer to me than ever. I have a secret which I wish to tell you. "Ben, as I have said, I have found in you _personality_. You do not fully know what that means now. Think of it fifty years from now, then you will know. You just now gave up your boat-sailing for me and the baby. You like to help others to be more comfortable and happy, and that is the way to grow. That is the law of life, and the purpose of life is to grow. You may not understand what I mean now; think of what I say fifty years from now. "Ben, I have faith in you. I want that you should always remember me as one who saw what was in you and believed in you." "Is that the secret that you wanted to tell me, uncle?" asked little Ben. "No, no, no, Ben; I am a poor man after a hard life. You do pity me, don't you? Where are my ten children now, except one? Go ask the English graveyard. My wife is gone. I am almost alone in the world. All bright things seemed to be going out in my life when you came into it bearing my name. I like to tell you this again and again. Oh, little Ben, you do not know how I love you! To be with you is to be happy. [Illustration: UNCLE BENJAMIN'S SECRET.] "One after one my ten children went away to their long rest where the English violets come and go. Two after one they went, three after two, and four after three. I lost my property, and Samuel went to America, and I was told that Brother Josiah had named you for me and made me your godfather. Then, as there was nothing but graves left for me in old England, I wished to come to America too. "Ben, Ben, you have heard all this before, but, listen, I must tell you more. I wanted to cross the ocean, but I had little money for such a removal, and I used to walk about London with empty hands and wish for £100, and my wishes brought me nothing but sorrow, and I would go to my poor lodgings and weep. Oh, you can not tell how I used to feel! "I had a few things left--they were as dear to me as my own heart. I am coming to the secret now, Ben. You are asking in your mind what those things were that I sold; they were the things most precious of all to me, and among them were--were my pamphlets." The old man bowed over, and his lip quivered. "What were your pamphlets, uncle? You said that you would explain to me what they were." "Ben, there are some things that we come to possess that are a part of ourselves. Our heart goes into them--our blood--our life--our hope. It was so with my pamphlets, Ben. This is the secret I have to tell. "I loved the cause of the Commonwealth--Cromwell's days. In the last days of the Commonwealth, when I had but little money to spare, I used to buy pamphlets on the times. When I had read a pamphlet, thoughts would come to me. I did not seem to think them; they came to me, and I used to note these thoughts down on the margins of the leaves in the pamphlets. Those thoughts were more to me than anything that I ever had in life." "I would have felt so too, uncle." "Years passed, and I had a little library of pamphlets, the margins filled with my own thoughts. Poetry is the soul's vision, and I wrote my poetry on those pamphlets. Ben, oh, my pamphlets! my pamphlets! They were my soul; all the best of me went into them. "Well, Ben, times changed. King Charles returned, and the Commonwealth vanished, but I still added to my pamphlets for years and years. Then I heard of you. I always loved Brother Josiah, and my son was on this side of the water, and the longing grew to sail for America, where my heart then was, as I have told you." "I see how you felt, uncle." "I dreamed how to get the money; I prayed for the money. One day a London bookseller said to me: 'You have been collecting pamphlets. Have you one entitled Human Freedom'? I answered that I had, but that it was covered with notes. He asked me to let him come to my lodgings and read it. He came and looked over all my pamphlets, and told me that a part of the collection had become rare and valuable; that they might have a value in legal cases that would arise owing to the change in the times. He offered to buy them. I refused to sell them, on account of what I had written on the margins of the leaves. What I wrote were my revelations. "He went away. Then my loneliness increased, and my longing to come to America. I could sell my valuables, and among them the pamphlets, and this would give me money wherewith to make the great change." "You sold them, uncle?" "When I thought of Brother Josiah, I was tempted to do it. But I at first said 'No.' When I heard that my son was making a home for himself here, I again was tempted to do it. But I said, 'No.' I could not sell myself. "Then there came a letter from Brother Josiah. It said: 'I have another son. We have named him Benjamin, after you. We have named you as his godfather.' "Then I sat down on the side of the bed in my room, and the tears fell. "'_We have named him Benjamin_'--how those words went to my heart!" "It was the first time that you ever heard of me, wasn't it, uncle?" "Yes, yes; it makes me happy to hear you say that. And you will never forget me, will you, Ben?" "Never, uncle, if I live to be eighty years old! But, uncle, you sold the pamphlets!" "Yes. When I read your name in Josiah's letter I felt a weight lifted from my mind. I said to myself that I would part with myself--that is, the pamphlets--for you." "Did you sell them for me, uncle?" "Yes, I sold them for you, Benjamin." "What was the man's name that bought them, uncle?" "I hoped that you would ask me that. His name was Axel. Repeat it, Ben." "Axel." "It is a hard name to forget." "I shall never forget it, uncle." "Ben, you may go to London sometime." "We are all poor now." "But you have _personality_, and people who look out for others are needed by others for many things. Maybe they will sometime send you there." "Who, uncle?" "Oh, I don't know. But if ever you should go to London, go to all the old bookstores, and what name will you look for?" "Axel, uncle." "Ben, those are not books; they are myself. I sold myself when I sold them--I sold myself for you. Axel, Ben, Axel." Little Ben repeated "Axel," and wondered if he would ever see London or meet with his uncle in those pamphlets which the latter claimed to be his other self. "Axel," he repeated, pinching Baby Jane's cheek. Baby Jane laughed in the sunlight on the blue sea when she saw the excitement in Ben's face. The tide was coming in, the boat was rocking, and Ben said: "We must go home now, for Jenny's sake." CHAPTER X. THE STONE WHARF, AND LADY WIGGLEWORTH, WHO FELL ASLEEP IN CHURCH. Did little Ben's trumpet and gun indicate that he would become a statesman whose cause would employ armies? We do not know. The free will of a boy on the playground is likely to present a picture of his leading traits of character. In old New England days there was a custom of testing a child's character in a novel way. A bottle, a coin, and a Bible were laid on the floor at some distance apart to tempt the notice of the little one when he first began to creep. It was supposed that the one of the three objects that he crept toward and seized upon was prophetic of his future character--that the three objects represented worldly pleasure, the seeking for wealth, and the spiritual life. Franklin's love for public improvements was certainly indicated in his early years. He liked the water and boats, and he saw how convenient a little wharf near his house would be; so he planned to build one, and laid his plans before his companions. "We will build it of stone," he said. "There are plenty of stones near the wharf." "But the workmen there would not let us have them," said a companion. "We will take them after they have gone from their work. We can build the wharf in a single evening. The workmen may scold, but they will not scold the stone landing out of the water again." One early twilight of a long day the boys assembled at the place chosen by young Franklin for his wharf, and began to work like beavers, and before the deep shadows of night they had removed the stones to the water and builded quite a little wharf or landing. "We can catch minnows and sail our boats from here now," said young Franklin as he looked with pride on the triumphs of his plan. "All the boys will be free to use this landing," he thought. "Won't it make the people wonder!" It did. The next morning the weather door of the thrifty tallow chandler opened with a ring. "Josiah Franklin, where is that boy of yours?" asked a magistrate. The paper cap bobbed up, and the man at the molds bent his head forward with wondering eyes. "Which boy?" "Ben, the one that is always leading other boys round." "I dunno. He's making a boat--or was.--Benjamin!" he called; "I say, Benjamin!" The door of the living room opened, and little Ben appeared. "Here's a man who has come to see you. What have you been doing now?" "Boy," said the man--he spoke the word so loudly that the little boy felt that it raised him almost to the dignity of a man. "What, sir?" gasped Ben, very intelligent as to what would follow. "Did you put those stones into the water?" "Yes, sir." "What did you do that for?" "To make a wharf, sir." "'To make a wharf, sir!' Didn't you have the sense to know that those stones were building stones and belonged to the workmen?" "No, sir; I didn't know that they belonged to any one. I thought that they belonged to everybody." "You did, you little rascal! Then why did you wait to have the workmen go away before you put them into the water?" "The workmen would have hindered us, sir. They don't think that improvements can be made by little shavers like us. I wanted to surprise them, sir--to show them what we could do, sir." "Benjamin Franklin," said Josiah, "come here, and I will show you what I can do.--Stranger, the boy's godfather has come to live with us and to take charge of him, and he does need a godfather, if ever a stripling did." Josiah Franklin laid his hand on the boy, and the workman went away. The father removed the boy's jacket, and showed him what he could do, the memory of which was not a short one. "I did not mean any harm, father," young Benjamin said over and over. "It was a mistake." "My boy," said the tallow chandler, softening, "never make a second mistake. There are some people who learn wisdom from their first mistakes by never making second mistakes. May you be one of them." "I shall never do anything that I don't think is honest, father. I thought stones and rocks belonged to the people." "But there are many things that belong to the people in this world that you have no right to use, my son. When you want to make any more public improvements, first come and talk with me about them, or go to your Uncle Ben, into whose charge I am going to put you--and no small job he will have of it, in my thinking!" Benjamin Franklin said, when he was growing old and was writing his own life, that his father _convinced_ him at the time of this event that "that which is not honest could not be useful." We can see in fancy his father with a primitive switch thus _convincing_ him. He never forgot the moral lesson. Where was Jamie the Scotchman during this convincing episode? When he heard that the little wharf-builder, bursting with desire for public improvement, had fallen into disgrace, he came upon him slyly: "So you've been building a wharf for the boys of the town. When one begins so soon in life to improve the town, there can be no telling what he will do when he grows up. Perhaps you will become one of the great benefactors of Boston yet. Who knows?" "We can't tell," said the future projector of Franklin Park, philosophically. "No, that is a fact, bubby. Take your finger out of your mouth and go to cutting candle wicks. It must make a family proud to have in it such a promising one as you! You'll be apt to set something ablaze some day if you keep on as you've begun." He did. Jamie the Scotchman went out, causing the bell on the door to ring. He whistled lustily as he went down the street. Little Benjamin sat cutting wicks for the candle molds and wondering at the ways of the world. He had not intended to do wrong. He may have thought that the stones, although put aside by the workmen, were common property. He had made a mistake. But how are mistakes to be avoided in life? He would ask his Uncle Benjamin, the poet, when he should meet him. It was well, indeed, never to make a _second_ mistake, but better not to make any mistake at all. Uncle Benjamin was wise, and could write poetry. He would ask him. Besides Jamie the Scotchman, who spent much time at the Blue Ball, little Benjamin's brother James seems to have looked upon him as one whose activities of mind were too obvious, and needed to be suppressed. The evening that followed the disgrace of little Ben was a serious one in the Franklin family. Uncle Ben had "gone to meeting" in the Old South Church. The shop, with its molded candles, dipped candles, ingot bars of soap, pewter molds, and kettles, was not an unpleasant place in the evening, and old sea captains used to drop in to talk with Josiah, and sometimes the leading members of the Old South Church came to discuss church affairs, which were really town affairs, for the church governed the town. On this particular night little Ben sat in the corner of the shop very quietly, holding little Jane as usual. The time had come for a perfect calm in his life, and he himself was well aware how becoming was silence in his case. Among those who used to come to the shop evenings to talk with Josiah and Uncle Ben, the poet, was one Captain Holmes. He came to-night, stamping his feet at the door, causing the bell to ring very violently and the faces of some of the Franklin children to appear in the window framed over the shop door. How comical they looked! "Where's Ben to-night?" asked Captain Holmes. Little Ben's heart thumped. He thought the captain meant _him_. "He's gone to meetin'," said Josiah. "Come, sit down. Ben will be at home early." Little Ben's heart did not beat so fast now. "Where's that boy o' yourn?" asked the captain. Ben's heart began to beat again. "There, in the corner," said Josiah, with a doubtful look in his face. "He'll be given to making public improvements when he grows up," said the captain. "But I hope that he will not take other people's property to do it. If there is any type of man for whom I have no use it is he who does good with what belongs to others." The door between the shop and the living room opened, and the grieved, patient face of Abiah appeared. "Good evening, Captain Holmes," said Abiah. "I heard what you said--how could I help it?--and it hurt me. No descendant of Peter Folger will ever desire to use other people's property for his own advantage. Ben won't." "That's right, my good woman, stand up for your own. Every drop of an English exile's blood is better than its weight in gold." "Ben is a boy," said Abiah. "If he makes an error, it will be followed by a contrite heart." Little Ben could hear no more. He flew, as it were, up to the garret chamber and laid down on the trestle bed. A pet squirrel came to comfort him or to get some corn. He folded the squirrel in his bosom. Ting-a-ling! It was Uncle Ben, the poet, whose name he had disgraced. He could endure no more; he began to sob, and so went to sleep, his little squirrel pitying him, perhaps. There was another heart that pitied the boy. It was Uncle Ben's. Poor Uncle Ben! He sleeps now at the side of the Franklin monument in the Granary burying ground, and we like to cast a kindly glance that way as we pass the Park Street Church on Tremont Street, on the west side. It is a good thing to have good parents, and also to have a good uncle with a poetic mind and a loving heart. There was one trait in little Benjamin's character that Josiah Franklin saw with his keen eye to business, and it gave him hope. He was diligent. One of Josiah Franklin's favorite texts of Scripture was, "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men." This text he used to often repeat, or a part of it, and little Ben must have thought that it applied to him. Hints of hope, not detraction, build a boy. Jamie the Scotchman had little expectation that puttering Ben would ever "stand before kings." Not he. He had not that kind of vision. "Ah, boy, I could tell you a whole history of diligent boys who not only came to stand before kings, but who overturned thrones; and he who discrowns a king is greater than a king," said he one day. "Think what you might become." "Maybe I will." "Will what?" "Be some one in the world." "Sorry a boy you would make to 'stand before kings,' and I don't think you'll ever be likely to take off the crown from anybody. So your poor old father might as well leave that text out of the Scriptures. There are no pebbles in your sling of life. If there were, wonders would never cease. You are just your Uncle Ben over again. I'm sorry for ye, and for all." Little Ben looked sorry too, and he wondered if there really were in the text something prophetic for him, or if Jamie the Scotchman were the true seer. But many poor boys had come to stand before kings, and some such boys had left tyrants without a crown. Jamie the Scotchman thought that he had the gift of "second sight," as a consciousness of future events was called, but he usually saw shadows. He liked to talk to himself, walking with his hands behind him. After his dire prophecy concerning the future of little Ben he walked down to Long Wharf with Uncle Benjamin, talking to himself for the latter to hear. "Ye can't always tell," said he; "I didn't speak out of the true inward spirit when I said those things. It hurt the little shaver to tell him there was no future in him; I could see it did. The boy has a curious way of saying wise things; such words fly out of his mouth like swallows from a cave. If I were to take up a dead brand in the blacksmith's shop and he was around, as he commonly is, he would say, 'The more you handle a burned stick the smuttier you become'; or if I were to pick up a horseshoe there, and say, 'For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,' he would answer, 'And for want of a shoe the horse was lost.' Then, after a time, he would add, 'For want of a horse the rider was lost,' and so on. His mind works in that way. Maybe he'll become a philosopher. Philosophers stand before kings. I now have the true inner sight and open vision. I can see a streak of light in that curious gift of his. But blood tells, and his folks on his father's side were blacksmiths over in England, and philosophers don't come from the forge more'n eagles do from the hen yard. "I said what I did to stimulate him. It cut the little shaver to the quick, didn't it? Now he wouldn't have been so cut if there had been nothing there. The Lord forgive me if I did wrong!" He walked down the wharf to the end. Beyond lay the blue harbor and the green islands. The town had only some ten thousand inhabitants then, but several great ships lay in the harbor under the three hills, two of which now are gone. The harbor was girded with oaks and pines. Here and there a giant elm, still the glory of New England, lifted its bowery top like a cathedral amid towns of trees. Sea birds screamed low over the waters, and ospreys wheeled high in the air. Jamie the Scotchman had not many things to occupy his thoughts, so he sat down to wonder as to what that curious Franklin boy might become. A new thought struck him. "He has French blood in him--the old family name used to be Franklein," he said to himself. "Now what does that signify? French blood is gentle; it likes to be free. I don't see that it might not be a good thing to have; the French like to find out things and give away to others what they discover." A shell fell into the water before him from high in the air. The water spouted up, causing an osprey to swoop down, but to rise again. Jamie the Scotchman turned his head. "You, Ben? You follow me 'round everywhere. What makes ye, when I treat ye so?" "If a boy didn't hope for anything he would never have the heartache." "True, true, my boy; and what of that?" "I would rather expect something and have the heartache." "No one ever misses his expectations who looks for the heartache in this world. But what queer turns your mind does take, and what curious questions you do ask! Let us return to the Blue Ball." They did, through winding streets, one or more of which were said to follow the wanderings of William Blackstone's cow from the Common. Boston still follows the same interesting animal. There were windmills on the hills and tidemills near the water. There was a ferryboat between Boston and Charlestown, and on the now Chelsea side was the great Rumney Marsh. On the Common, which was a pasture, was a branching elm, a place of executions. Near it was a pond into which had been cast the Wishing Stone around which, it was reported, that if one went three times at night and repeated the Lord's Prayer _backward_ at each circuit one might have whatever he wished for. Near the pond and the great tree were the Charles River marshes. Such was Boston in 1715-'20. Little Ben went to the South Church on Sundays, and the tithingman was there. The latter sat in the gallery among the children with his long rod, called the tithing stick, with which he used to touch or correct any boy or girl who whispered in meeting, who fell asleep, or who misbehaved. Little Ben must have looked from the family pew in awe at the tithingman. The old-time ministers pictured the Lord himself as being a kind of a tithingman, sitting up in heaven and watching out for the unwary. Good Josiah Franklin governed the conduct of the children in his own pew. You may be sure that none of them whispered there or fell asleep or misbehaved. The tithingman, who was a church constable, was annually elected to keep peace and order in the church. In England he collected tithes, or a tenth part of the parish income, which the people were supposed, after the Mosaic command, to offer to the church. He sometimes wore a peculiar dress; he was usually a very solemn-looking man, the good man of whom all the children, and some of the old women, stood in terror. A crafty man was the tithingman in the pursuit of his duties. He was on the watch all the time, and, as suspicion breeds suspicion, so the children were on the watch for him. The sermons were long, the hourglass was sometimes twice turned during the service, and the children often kept themselves awake by looking out for the tithingman, who was watching out for them. This was hardly the modern idea of heart culture and spiritual development, but the old Puritan churches made strong men who faced their age with iron purposes. We said that the tithingman was sometimes a terror to old women. Why was he so? It was sweet for certain good old people to sleep in church, and his duties extended to all sleepers, young and old. But he did not smite the good old ladies with a stick. In some churches, possibly in this one, he carefully tickled their noses with a feather. This led to a gentle awakening, very charitable and kindly. It is a warm summer day. Josiah Franklin's pew is crowded, and little Ben has gone to the gallery to sit among the boys. Uncle Ben, the poet, is there, for he sees that the family pew is full. How can little Ben help whispering now, when the venerable poet is by his side and will not harshly reprove him, and when so many little things are happening that tempt him to share his thoughts with his amiable godfather? But he restrained himself long and well. In her high-backed pew, provided with the luxury of the cushion, sat fine old Lady Wiggleworth, all in silks, satins, and plumes. Little Ben, looking over the gallery rail, saw that my lady's plumes nodded, and he gently touched Uncle Ben and pointed down. Suddenly there came a tap of the tithing stick on his head, and he was in disgrace. He looked very solemn now; so did Uncle Ben. It was a solemn time after one had been touched by the tithing rod. But the tithingman had seen Lady Wiggleworth's nodding plumes. Could it be possible that this woman, who was received at the Province House, had lost her moral and physical control? If such a thing had happened, he must yet do his duty. He would have done that had the queen been there. The law of Heaven makes no exception, nor did he. He tiptoed down the stair and stood before the old lady's pew. All her plumes were nodding, something like the picture of a far ship in a rolling sea. My lady was asleep. The tithingman's heart beat high, but his resolution did not falter. If it had, it would soon have been restored, for my lady began to snore. Gently, very gently, the tithingman took from his side pocket a feather. He touched with it gently, very gently, a sensitive part of the oblivious old lady's nose. She partly awoke and brushed her nose with her hand. But her head turned to the other side of her shoulders, and she relapsed into slumber again. The sermon was still beating the sounding-board, and a more vigorous duty devolved upon the tithingman. He pushed the feather up my lady's nose, where the membrane was more sensitive and more quickly communicated with the brain. He did this vigorously and more vigorously. It was an obstinate case. "Scat!" The tithingman jumped. My lady opened her eyes. The sermon was still beating the sounding-board, but she was not then aware that she, too, had spoken in meeting. There were some queer church customs in the days of Boston town. CHAPTER XI. JENNY. JENNY FRANKLIN, the "pet and beauty of the family," Benjamin's favorite sister, was born in 1712, and was six years younger than he. "My little Jenny," said Josiah, "has the Franklin heart." Little Ben found that heart in her baby days, and it was true to him to the end. Uncle Benjamin had entertained such large hopes of the future of little Ben since the boy first sent to him a piece of poetry to England, that he wrote of him: "For if the bud bear grain, what will the top?" and again: "When flowers are beautiful before they're blown, What rarities will afterward be shown! If trees good fruit un'noculated bear, You may be sure't will afterward be rare. If fruits are sweet before they've time to yellow, How luscious will they be when they are mellow!" He also saw great promise in bright little Jenny, who had heart full of sympathy and affection. Jenny, Ben, and Uncle Benjamin became one in heart and companionship. Beacon Hill was a lovely spot in summer in old Boston days. Below it was the Common, with great trees and winding ways. It commanded a view of the wide harbor and far blue sea. It looked over a curve of the river Charles, and the bright shallow inlet or pond, where the Boston and Maine depot now stands, that was filled up from the earth of the fine old hillside. The latter place may have been the scene of Ben's bridge, which he built in the night in a forbidden way. The place is not certainly known. Uncle Benjamin, one Sunday after church, took Ben and little Jenny, who was a girl then, to the top of the hill. It was a showery afternoon in summer--now bright, now overcast--and all the birds were singing on the Common between the showers. In one of the shining hours between the showers they sat down under an ancient forest tree, and little Jenny rested her arms on one of the knees of Uncle Benjamin, and Ben leaned on the other. The old man looked down on the harbor, which was full of ships, and said: "I wish I had my sermons that I left behind. I would read one of them to you now." "I would rather hear you talk," said Ben, with conscientious frankness. "So would I," said Jenny, who thought that Ben was a philosopher even at this early age, and who echoed nearly everything that he said. "Look over the harbor," said the old man. "There are more and more ships coming in every year. This is going to be a great city, and America will become a great country. Ben, I hope there will never be any wars on this side of the water. War is sloth's maintainer, and the shield of pride; it makes many poor and few rich, and fewer wise.[A] Ben, this is going to be a great country, and I want you to be true to the new country." "I will always be true to my country," said Ben. "And I will be true to my home," said little Jenny. "So you will, so you will, my darling little pet; I can see that," said Uncle Benjamin. Ben was so pleased at his echo that he put his arm around his sister's neck and kissed her many times. The old man's heart was touched at the scene. He thought of his lost children, who were sleeping under the cover of the violets now. "It is going to rain again," he said. "The robins are all singing, and we will have to go home. But, children, I want to leave a lesson in your minds. Listen to Uncle Ben, whose heart is glad to see you so loving toward each other and me. "_More than wealth, more than fame, more than anything, is the power of the human heart, and that power is developed by seeking the good of others._ Live for influences that multiply, and for the things that live. Now what did I say, Ben?" "You said that more than wealth, more than fame, more than anything, was the power of the human heart, and that that power was developed in seeking the good of others." "That's right, my man.--Now, Jenny, what did I say?" "I couldn't repeat all those big words, uncle." "Well, you lovely little _creeter_, you; you do not need to repeat it; you know the lesson already; it was born in you; you have the Franklin heart!" "Beloved Boston," Franklin used to say when he became old. What wonder, when it was associated with memories like these! FOOTNOTE: [A] The old man's own words to Benjamin on war. CHAPTER XII. A CHIME OF BELLS IN NOTTINGHAM. SOME time after Uncle Benjamin, who became familiarly known as Uncle Ben, had revealed to little Ben his heart's secret, and how that he had for his sake sold his library of pamphlets, which was his other self, the two again went down to the wharves to see the ships that had come in. They again seated themselves in an anchored boat. "Ben," said Uncle Benjamin, "I have something more on my mind. I did not tell you all when we talked here before. You will never forget what I told you--will you?" "Never, uncle, if I live to be old. My heart will always be true to you." "So it will, so it will, Ben. So it will. I want to tell you something more about your Great-uncle Thomas. You favor him. Did any one ever tell you that the people used to think him to be a wizard?" "No, no, uncle. You yourself said that once. What is a wizard?" "It is a man who can do strange things, no one can tell how. They come to him." "But what made them think him a wizard?" "Oh, people used to be ignorant and superstitious, like Reuben of the Mill, your father's old friend and mine. There was an inn called the World's End, at Ecton, near an old farm and forge. The people used to gather there and tell stories about witches and wizards that would have made your flesh creep, and left you afraid to go to bed, even with a guinea pig in your room. "Your Great-uncle Thomas was always inventing things to benefit the people. At last he invented a way by which it might rain and rain, and there might be freshets and freshets, and yet their meadows would not be overflown. The water would all run off from the meadows like rain from a duck's back. He made a kind of drain that ran sideways. Now the pious Brownites thought that this was flying in the face of Providence, and people began to talk mysteriously about him at the World's End. "But it was not that which I have heavy on my mind or light on my mind, for it is a happy thought. There are not many romantic things in our family history. The Franklins were men of the farm, forge, and fire. But there was one thing in our history that was poetry. It was this--listen now. "What was the name of that man to whom I sold the pamphlets?" he asked in an aside. "Axel." "That is right--always remember that name--Axel. "Now listen to that other thing. Your uncle, or great-uncle Thomas, started a subscription for a chime of bells. The family all loved music--that is what makes your father play the violin. Your Great-uncle Thomas loved music in the air. You may be able to buy a spinet for Jenny some day. "Now your Great-uncle Thomas's soul is, as it were, in those chimes of Nottingham. I pray that you may go to England some day before you die and hear the chimes of Nottingham. You will hear a part of your own family's soul, my boy. It is the things that men do that live. If you ever find the pamphlets, which are myself--myself that is gone--you will read in them my thoughts on the Toleration Act, and on Liberty, and on the soul, and the rights of man. What was the man's name?" "Axel." "Right." Little Jenny, who loved to follow little Ben, had come down to the wharf to hear "Uncle Benjamin talk." She had joined them in the boat on the sunny water. She had become deeply interested in Uncle Tom and the chimes of Nottingham. "Uncle Ben," she asked, "was Uncle Tom ever laughed at?" "Yes, yes; the old neighbors who would hang about the smithy used to laugh at him. They thought him visionary. Why did you ask me that?" "What makes people who come to the shop laugh at Ben? It hurts me. I think Ben is real good. He is good to me, and I am always going to be good to him. I like Ben better than _almost_ anybody." "A beneficent purpose is at first ridiculed," said Uncle Benjamin. Little Ben seemed to comprehend the meaning of this principle, but the "big words" were lost on Jenny. "He whose good purpose is laughed at," said Uncle Benjamin, "will be likely to live to laugh at those who laughed at him if he so desired; but, hark! a generous man does not laugh at any one's right intentions. Ben, never stop to answer back when they laugh at you. Life is too short. It robs the future to seek revenge." Uncle Benjamin was right. Did little Ben heed the admonition of his uncle on this bright day in Boston, to follow beneficence with a ready step, and not to stop to "answer back"? Was little Jenny's heart comforted in after years in finding Ben, who was so good to her now, _commended_? We are to follow a family history, and we shall see. As the three went back to the Blue Ball, Ben, holding his uncle by the one hand and Jane by the other, said: "I do like to hear Jane speak well of me, and stand up for me. I care more for that than _almost_ any other thing." "Well, live that she may always speak well of you," said Uncle Benjamin; "so that she may speak well of you when you two shall meet for the last time." "Uncle," said Jenny, "why do you always have something solemn to say? Ben isn't solemn, is he?" "No, my girl, your brother Ben is a very lively boy. You will have to hold him back some day, I fear." "No, no, uncle, I shall always push him on. He likes to go ahead. I like to see him go--don't you?" CHAPTER XIII. THE ELDER FRANKLIN'S STORIES. PETER FOLGER, Quaker, the grandfather of Benjamin Franklin, was one of those noblemen of Nature whose heart beat for humanity. He had been associated in the work of Thomas Mayhew, the Indian Apostle, who was the son of Thomas Mayhew, Governor of Martha's Vineyard. The younger Mayhew gathered an Indian church of some hundred or more members, and the Indians so much loved him that they remained true to him and their church during Philip's war. What stories Abiah Franklin could have told, and doubtless did tell, of her old home at Nantucket!--stories of the true hearts of the pioneers, of people who loved others more than themselves, and not like the sea-rovers who at this time were making material for the Pirate's Own Book. Josiah, too, had his stories of Old England and the conventicles, heroic tales of the beginning of the long struggle for freedom of opinion. Hard and rough were the stories of the Commonwealth, of Cromwell, Pym, and Sir Henry Vane, the younger. There was one very pleasing old tale that haunted Boston at this time, of the Hebrew parable order, or after the manner of the German legend. Such stories were rare in those days of pirates, Indians, and ghosts, the latter of whom were supposed to make their homes in their graves and to come forth in their graveclothes, and to set the hearts of unquiet souls to beating, and like feet to flying with electrical swiftness before the days of electricity. Governor Winthrop--the same who got lost in the Mystic woods, and came at night to an Indian hut in a tree and climbed into it, and was ordered out of it at a later hour when the squaw came home--took a very charitable view of life. He liked to reform wrongdoers by changing their hearts. Out of his large love for every one came this story of old Boston days. We will listen to it by the Franklin fire in the candle shop. It was an early winter tale, and it will be a good warm place to hear it there. "It is a cold night," said Josiah, "and Heaven pity those without fuel on a night like this! There are not overmany like Governor Winthrop in the world." Abiah drew her chair up nearer to the great fire, for it made one chilly to hear the beginning of that story, but the end of it made the heart warm. "It was in the early days of the colony," said Josiah, "and the woods in the winter were bare, and the fields were cold. There was a lack of wood on the Mystic near the town. "A poor man lived there on the salt marsh with his family. He had had a hard time to raise enough for their support. A snowstorm came, and his fuel was spent, his hearth was cold, and there was nothing to burn. "The great house of the Governor rose over the ice-bordered marshes. Near it were long sheds, and under them high piles of wood brought from the hills. "The poor man had no wood, but after a little time smoke was seen coming out of his chimney. "There came one day a man to the Governor, and said: "'Pardon me, Governor, I am loath in my heart to accuse any one, but in the interest of justice I have something which I must tell you.' "'Speak on, neighbor.' "'Some one has been stealing your wood.' "'It is a hard winter for the poor. Who has done this?' "'The man who lives on the marsh.' "'His crop was not large this year.' "'No, it failed.' "'He has a wife and children.' "'True, Governor.' "'He has always borne a good reputation.' "'True, Governor, and that makes the case more difficult.' "'Neighbor, don't speak of this thing to others, but send that man to me.' "The man on the marsh came to the Governor's. His face was as white as snow. How he had suffered! "'Neighbor,' said the Governor, 'this is a cold winter.' "'It is, your Honor.' "'I hope that your family are comfortable.' "'No, your Honor; they have sometimes gone to bed supperless and cold.' "'It hurts my conscience to know that. Have you any fuel?' "'None, your Honor. My children have kept their bed for warmth.' "'But I have a good woodpile. See the shed: there is more wood there than I can burn. I ought not to sit down by a comfortable fire night after night, while my neighbor's family is cold.' "'I am glad that you are so well provided for, for you are a good man, and have a heart to feel for those in need.' "'Neighbor, there is my woodpile. It is yours as well as mine. I would not feel warm if I were to sit down by my fire and remember that you and your wife and your children were cold. When you need any fuel, come to my woodpile and take all the wood that you want.' "The man on the marsh went away, his head hanging down. I believe that there came into his heart the powerful resolution that he would never steal again, and we have no record that he ever did. The Governor's hope for him had made him another man. "He came for the wood in his necessity one day. The Governor looked at him pleasantly. "'Why did you not come to me before?'" Josiah Franklin looked around on the group at the fireside, and opened the family Bible. "Do you think that the Governor did right, Brother Ben?" "Well, it isn't altogether clear to me." "What do you think, Abiah?" "Father would have done as he did. He hindered no one, but helped every one. He saw life on that side." "Well, little Ben, what have you to say?" "The Governor looked upon the heart, didn't he? He felt for the man. Would it not be better for all to look that way? The worth of life depends upon those we help, lift, and make, not in those we destroy. I like the old Governor, I do, and I am sorry that there are not many more like him. That seems like a Luke story, father. Read a story from Luke." Josiah read a story from Luke. There followed a long prayer, as usual. Then the children kissed their mother and Jenny and crept up to their chamber. The nine-o'clock bell had rung, and the streets were still. The watchman with his lantern went by, saying, "Nine o'clock, and all is well!" None of the family heard him say, "Ten o'clock, and all is well!" They were in slumberland after their hard, homely toil, and some of them may have been dreaming of the good old Governor, who followed literally the words of the Master who taught on the Mount of Beatitudes. CHAPTER XIV. THE TREASURE-FINDER. LITTLE Benjamin once had the boy fever to go to sea. This fever was a kind of nervous epidemic among the boys of the time, a disease of the imagination as it were. Many boys had it in Boston; they disappeared, and the town crier called out something like this: "Hear ye! Hear ye! Boy lost--lost--lost! Who returns him will be rewarded." He rang the bell as he cried. The crier's was the first bell that was rung in Boston. But why did boys have this peculiar fever in Boston and other New England towns at this time? It was largely owing to the stories that were told them. Few things affect the imagination of a boy like a story. De Foe's Robinson Crusoe was the live story of the times. Sindbad the sailor was not unknown. Old sailors used to meet by the Town Pump and spin wonderful "yarns," as story-telling of the sea was then described. But there was one house in Boston that in itself was a story. It was made of brick, and rose over the town, at the North End, in the "Faire Green Lane," now decaying Chatham Street. In it lived Sir William Phips, or Phipps, the first provincial Governor under the charter which he himself had brought from England. Sir William had been born poor, in Maine, and had made his great fortune by an adventure on the sea. The story of Sindbad the Sailor was hardly more than a match for his, with its realities. He was one of a family of twenty-six children; he had been taught to read and write when nearly grown up; had come to Boston as an adventurer, and had found a friend in a comely and sympathetic widow, who helped to educate him, and to whom he used to say: "All in good time we will come to live in the brick house in the Faire Green Lane." A Boston boy like young Franklin, among the pots and kettles of life, could not help recalling what this poor sailor lad had done for himself when he saw the brick house looming over the bowery lane. The candle shop at the Blue Ball, that general place for story-telling by winter fires, when it was warm there and the winds were cold outside, often heard this story, and such stories as the Winthrop Silver Cup, which may still be seen; of lively Anne Pollard, who was the first to leap on shore here from the first boat load of pioneers as it came near the shore at the North End, when the hills were covered with blueberries; of old "sea dogs" and wonderful ships, like Sir Francis Drake and the Golden Hynde, or "Sir Francis and his shipload of gold," which ship returned to England one day with chests of gold, but not with Sir Francis, whose body had been left in many fathoms of sea! Ben listened to these tales with wonder, with Jenny by his side, leaning on him. What was the story of Sir William Phipps, that so haunted the minds of Boston boys and caused their pulses to beat and the sea fever to rise? It was known in England as well as in America; it was a wonder tale over the sea, for it was associated with titled names. Uncle Ben knew it well, and told it picturesquely, with much moralizing. Let us suppose it to be a cold winter's night, when the winds are abroad and the clouds fly over the moon. Josiah Franklin has played his violin, the family have sung "Martyrs"; the fire is falling down, and "people are going to meetin'," as a running of sparks among the soot was called, when such a thing happened in the back of the chimney. Little Ben's imagination is hungry, and he asks for the twice-told tale of Sir William. He would be another Sir William himself some day. By the dying coals Uncle Ben tells the story. What a story it was! No wonder that it made an inexperienced boy want to go to sea, and especially such boys as led an uneventful life in the ropewalk or in the candle shop! Uncle Ben first told the incident of Sir William's promise to the widow who took him to her home when he was poor, that she should live in the brick house; and then he pictured the young sailor's wonderful voyages to fulfill this promise. He called the sailor the "Treasure-finder." Let us snuggle down by the fire on this cold night in Boston town, beside little Ben and Jenny, and listen to the story. Uncle Ben, mayhap, shakes his snuffbox, and says: "That boy dreamed dreams in the daytime, but he was an honest man." Uncle Ben rang these words like a bell in his story. "He was an honest man; but a man in this world must save or be a slave, and young William's mind went sailing far away from the New England coast, and a-sailing went he. What did he find? Wonders! Listen, and I will tell you. "William Phips, or Phipps, went to the Spanish Main, and he began to hear a very marvelous story there. The sailors loitering in the ports loved to tell the legend of a certain Spanish treasure ship that had gone down in a storm, and they imagined themselves finding it and becoming rich. The legend seized upon the fancy of William the sailor and entered his dreams. It was only a vague fancy at first, but in the twilight of one burning day a cool island of palms appeared, and as it faded away a sailor who stood watching it said to him: "'There is a sunken reef off this coast somewhere; we are steering for it, and I have been told that it was on that reef that the Spanish treasure ship went down. They say that ship had millions of gold on board. I wonder if anybody will ever find her?' "William, the sailor, started. Why might not he find her?--William was an honest man. "It was early evening at sea. The shadows of night fell on the Bahama Islands. The sea and the heavens seemed to mingle. The stars were in the water; the heavens were there. A stranger on the planet could not have told which was the sea and which was the sky. "The sails were limp. There was a silence around. The ship seemed to move through some region of space. William Phipps sat by himself on the deck and dreamed. Many people dream, but it is of no use to dream unless you _do_. "He seemed to see her again who had been the good angel of his life; he saw the gabled house in the bowery lane, and two faces looking out of the same window over Boston town.--William was honest. "He dreamed that he himself was the captain of a ship. He saw himself in England, in the presence of the king. He is master of an expedition now, in his sea dream. He finds the sunken treasure ship. He is made rich by it, and he returns to Boston and buys the gabled house in the cool green lane by the sea. An honest man was Sir William. He was not _Sir_ William then. "He returned to Boston with his dream. William stayed in port for a time, and then prepared for a long voyage; but before he went away he obtained a promise from the widow that if she ever married any one it should be himself. There was nothing wrong in that. "The ship owners saw that he had honor, and that they could trust him. He was advanced in the service, and he learned how to command a ship. "He returned and married the widow, and went forth again to try to reap the harvest of the sea for her, carrying with him his dreams.--He was an honest man. "William Phipps, the sailor, heard more and more in regard to the sunken treasure ship, and he went to England and applied to the king for ships and men to go in search of this mine of gold in the sea. "Gold was then the royal want, and King James's heart was made right glad to hear the bold adventurer's story. The king put at his command ships and men, and young William Phipps--now Commander Phipps--went to the white reef in the blue Bahama Sea and searched the long sea wall for treasures faithfully, but in vain. He was compelled to return to England as empty-handed as when he went out. "He heard of the great admiral, the Duke of Albemarle, and was introduced to him by William Penn. The duke heard his story, and furnished him with the means to continue the search for the golden ship in the coral reef. "Ideals change into realities and will is way. Commander William bethought him of a new plan of gaining the needed intelligence. Might not some very old person know the place where the ship was wrecked? The thought was light. He found an old Indian on a near island who remembered the wreck, and who said he could pilot him to the very spot where the ship had gone down. "Captain William's heart was light again. With the Indian on board he drifted to the rippling waters over the reef. "Below was a coral world in a sea as clear as the sky. Out of it flying-fish leaped, and through it dolphins swam in pairs, and over it sargasso drifted like cloud shadows. "Captain William looked down. Was it over these placid waters that the storm had made wreckage many years ago? Was it here that the exultant Spanish sailors had felt the shock that turned joy into terror, and sent the ship reeling down, with the spoils of Indian caciques, or of Incarial temples, or of Andean treasures? "The old Indian pointed to a sunken, ribbed wall in the clear sea. The hearts of the sailors thrilled as they stood there under the fiery noonday sky. "Down went the divers--down! "Up came one presently with the news--'The wreck is there; we have found it!' "'Search!' cried Captain William, with a glad wife and a gable house in Boston town before his eyes. 'Down!' "Another diver came up bringing a bag. It looked like a salt bag. "An officer took an axe and severed the bag. The salt flew; the sailors threw up their hands with a cry--out of the bag poured a glittering stream of gold! "Captain William reeled. His visions were now taking solid forms; they had created for him a new world. "'Down! down!' he commanded. "They broke open a bag which was like a crystal sack. It was full of treasure, and in its folds was a goblet of gold. "They shouted over the treasure and held up the golden cup to the balmy air. It had doubtless belonged to a Spanish don. "More salt bags of gold! The deck was covered with gold! It is related that one of the officers of the ship went mad at the sight. But Captain William did not go mad as he surveyed the work of the men in the vanishing twilight. He had been there in spirit before; he had expected something, and he was on familiar ground when he had found it. He had been a prophetic soul. "He carried home the treasure to England, and, soul of honor that he was, he delivered every dollar's worth of it to the duke. His name filled England; and his honesty was a national surprise, though why it should have been we can not say. But didn't I tell you he was an honest man? "The duke was made happy, and began to cast about how to bestow upon him a fitting reward. "'What can I do for you?' asked his Highness. "I have a wife in Boston town, over the sea. She is a good woman. Her faith in me made me all I am. She is the world to me, for she believed in me when no one else did.' "'You are a fortunate man. We will send her the goblet of gold, and it shall be called the Albemarle Cup.' "The imagination of Captain William Phipps must have kindled and glowed as he received the 'dead don's cup,' which in itself was a fortune. "'And to you, for your honor and honesty, shall be given an ample fortune, and there shall be bestowed upon you the honor of knighthood. You shall be able to present to your good wife, whose faith has been so well bestowed, the Albemarle Cup, in the name of the Duke of Albemarle and of Sir William Phipps!' "Captain William Phipps returned to Boston a baronet, with the Albemarle Cup. The widow that he had won was Lady Phipps. New England never had a wonder tale like that. "The Albemarle Cup! The fame of it filled Boston town. There it stood in massive gold, in Lady Phipps's simple parlor, among humbler decorations. How strange it looked to her as she saw it! Then must have arisen before her the boy from the Maine woods, one of twenty-six school-denied children; the ungainly young sailor with his hot temper and scars; the dreamer of golden dreams; the captain, the fortune-finder, the knight. Another link was soon added to this marvelous chain of events. The house of gables in the green lane was offered for sale. Sir William purchased it, and the Albemarle Cup was taken into it, amid furnishings worthy of a knight and lady. "The two looked out of the upper window over Boston town.--He was an honest man. "After this many-time repeated declaration that Sir William was an honest man," he added: "A man must get a living somehow--he must get a living somehow; either he must save or be a slave." Little Ben thought that he would like to earn a living in some such way as that. The brick house in the "Faire Green Lane" meant much to him after stories like those. He surely was almost as poor as Sir William was at his age. Could he turn his own dreams into gold, or into that which is better than gold? "Jenny," he said, "I would like to be able to give a brick house in the Faire Green Lane to father and mother, and to you. Maybe I will some day. I will be true to my home!" CHAPTER XV. "HAVE I A CHANCE?" BLESSED is he who lends good books to young people. There was such a man in Boston town named Adams, one hundred and ninety years ago. His influence still lives, for he lent such books to young Benjamin Franklin. The boy was slowly learning what noble minds had done in the world; how they became immortal by leaving their thought and works behind them. His constant question was, What have I the chance or the opportunity to do? What can I do that will benefit others? It was a November evening. The days were short; the night came on at six o'clock. These were the dark days of the year. "There is to be a candle-light meeting in the South Church, and I must go," said Uncle Benjamin. "It will be pretty cold there to-night, Ben; you had better get the foot stove." The foot stove was a tin or brass box in a wooden frame with a handle. It was filled with live coals, and was carried to the church by a handle, as one would carry a dinner pail. Little Benjamin brought the stove out of a cupboard to the hearth, took out of it a pan, which he filled with hard coals and replaced it. "Ben," said Uncle Ben, "you had better go along with us and carry the stove." "I will go, too," said Josiah Franklin. "There is to be a lecture to-night on the book of Job. I always thought that that book is the greatest poem in all the world. Job arrived at a conclusion, and one that will stand. He tells us, since we can not know the first cause and the end, that we must be always ignorant of the deepest things of life, but that we must do just right in everything; and if we do that, everything which happens to us will be for our best good, and the very best thing that could happen whether we gain or lose, have or want. I may be a poor man, with my tallow dips, but I have always been determined to do just right. It may be that I will be blessed in my children--who knows? and then men may say of me, 'There was a man!'" "'And he dwelt in the land of Uz'" said Uncle Ben. "Wait for me a few minutes while I get ready," said Josiah Franklin. "I will have to shave." The prospect of a lecture in the old South Church on the philosophical patriarch who dwelt in the land of Uz, and led his flocks, and saw the planets come and go in their eternal march, on the open plains or through the branches of pastoral palms, was a very agreeable one to little Ben. He thought. "Uncle Benjamin," he said, "a man who writes a book like Job leaves his thoughts behind him. He does not die like other men; his life goes on." "Yes, that is what some people call an objective life. I call it a _projective_ life. A man who builds men, or things, for the use of men, lives in the things he builds. He has immortality in this world. A man who builds a house leaves his thought in the form of the house he builds. If he make a road, he lives in the road; if he invent a useful thing, he lives in the invention. A man may live in a ship that he has caused to be constructed, or his mind may see the form of a church, a hall, or a temple, and he may so build after what he sees that he makes his thoughts creative, and he lives on in the things that he creates after he dies. It was so with the builders of cities, of the Pyramids. So Romulus--if there were such a man--lives in Rome, and Columbus in the lands that he discovered. The Pilgrim Fathers will always live in New England. Those who do things and make things leave behind them a life outside of themselves. I call such works a man's projected life." Little Ben sat swinging the foot stove. "He lives the longest in this world who invents the most useful things for others," continued Uncle Benjamin. "The thoughts of Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton changed the world. Those men can never die." Little Ben swung the stove in his hand. Suddenly he looked up, and we fancy him to have said: "Uncle Benjamin, have _I_ a chance?" Jamie the Scotchman came into the house, jingling the door bell as he shut the door. "Philosophizing?" said he. "Little Ben here is inquiring in regard to his chance of doing something in the world--of living so as to leave his thoughts in creative forms behind. What do you think about it, Jamie?" "Well, I don't know; it is a pretty hard case. Drumsticks will make a noise, so any man may make himself heard if he will. Certain it is Ben has no gifts; at least, I have never discerned any. There are no Attic bees buzzing around him, none that I have seen, unless there be such things up in the attic, which would not be likely in a new house like this." Uncle Ben pitied the little boy, whose feelings he saw were hurt. "Jamie, I have read much, and have made some observation, and life tells me that character, industry, and a determined purpose will do much for a man that has no special gifts. The Scriptures do not say that a man of gifts shall stand before kings, but that the man 'diligent in his business' shall do so. Ben here can rise with the best of the world, and if he has thoughts, he can project them. It is thinking that makes men work. He thinks.--Ben, you can do anything that any one else of your opportunities has ever done. There--I hate to see the boy discouraged." "The fifteenth child among seventeen children would not seem likely to have a very broad outlook," said Jamie, "but it is good to encourage him; it is good to encourage anybody. He is one of the human family, like all the rest of us.--Are you going to the lecture? I will go along with you." Josiah Franklin was now ready to go, and the party started. Josiah carried a lantern, and little Benjamin the foot stove with the coals. As they walked along they met other people with lanterns and foot stoves. Uncle Benjamin felt hurt at what Jamie had said, so he proceeded to encourage the boy as they went along. "If you could invent a stove that would warm the whole church, you would have a _projected_ life, for example," said he. "Have I a chance?" asked again the future inventor of the Franklin stove. "Or if you could print something original that might live; or found a society to study science--something might come out of that; or could make some scheme for a better government of the people in these parts; but that would be too great for you. There I go!" Uncle Benjamin stumbled. Little Ben helped him up. They came to the South Church, where many lanterns, foot stoves, and tallow dips were gathered, and shadowy forms were moving to and fro. Little Ben set down the stove in the pew. The lecture began. He heard the minister read the sublime passage of the ancient poem beginning, "Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said." He heard about the "morning stars singing together," the "sweet influences of Pleiades," and the question, "Canst thou bind the sea?" The boy asked, "Have I a chance? have I a chance?" The discouraging words of Jamie the Scotchman hung over his mind like a cloud. The influence of the coals led Josiah Franklin to slumberland after his hard day's work. Little Ben saw his father nod and nod. But Uncle Benjamin was in the Orient with the minister, having a hard experience for the good of life with the patriarch Job. "Have I a chance?" The boy shed tears. If he had not gifts, he knew that he had personality, but there was something stirring within him that led his thoughts to seek the good of others. The nine-o'clock bell rang. The lecture was over. "Good--wasn't it?" said Jamie the Scotchman as they went out of the church and looked down to the harbor glimmering under the moon and stars, and added: "Ben, you will be sure to have one thing to spur you on to lead that 'projected life' your Uncle Benjamin tells about." "What is that, sir?" "A hard time, like Job--a mighty hard time." "The true way to knowledge," said Uncle Benjamin encouragingly. Uncle Benjamin felt a hand in his great mitten. It was little Ben's. The confidence touched his heart. "Ben, you are as likely to have a projected life as anybody. A man rises by overcoming his defects. Strength comes in that way." Little Ben went through the jingling door with a heart now heavy, now light. He set down the lantern, and climbed up to his bed under the roof. He was soon in bed, the question, "Have I a chance?" still haunting him. In summer there would be the sound of the wings of the swallows or purple swifts in the chimney at night as they became displaced from their nests. He would start up to listen to the whirring wings, then sink into slumber, to awake a blithe, light-hearted boy again. All was silent now. He could not sleep. His fancy was too wide awake. Was Uncle Benjamin right, or Jamie the Scotchman? Had he a chance? CHAPTER XVI. "A BOOK THAT INFLUENCED THE CHARACTER OF A MAN WHO LED HIS AGE." "YOU must read good books," said Benjamin Franklin's godfather. "How sorry I am that I had to sell my pamphlets!" Books have stamped their character on young men at the susceptible age and the turning points of life. But their influence for good or evil comes to receptive characters. "He is a genius," says Emerson, "who gives me back my own thoughts." The gospel says, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." Abraham Lincoln would walk twenty miles to borrow a law book, and would sit down on a log by the wayside to study it on his return from such a journey. Horace Greeley says that when he was a boy he would go reading to a woodpile. "I would take a pine knot," he said, "put it on the back log, pile my books around me, and lie down and read all through the long winter evenings." He read the kind of books for which his soul hungered. He read to find in books what he himself wished to be. A true artist sees and hears only what he wishes to see and hear. An active, earnest, resolute soul reads only that which helps him fulfill the haunting purpose of his life. Almost every great man's books that were his companions in early years were pictures of what he most wished to be and to do. How many men have had their spiritual life quickened by a hymn! How many by a single poem! Homer and Ossian filled the imagination of Napoleon. Plutarch's Lives has helped form the characters of a thousand heroes, and Emerson placed Plutarch next to the Bible in the rank of beneficent influences. We would say to every boy, Read Plutarch; read the best books first. A few books well read would be an education. Let a boy read the Bible, Josephus, Plutarch's Lives, Rawlinson's, Hallam's Macaulay's, Bancroft's, and Prescott's histories, Shakespeare, Tennyson, and Longfellow, and he would have a basis of knowledge of such substantial worth and moral and literary standard as to cause his intelligence to be respected everywhere and to become a power. Yet all these books could be purchased for twenty-five dollars, and the time that many waste in unprofitable reading for three years would be sufficient to master them. "I am a part of all that I have met," says Tennyson, and a man becomes a part of all the books that color his mind and character. Ask a company of people what books they most sought in childhood, and you may have a mental photograph of each. Benjamin Franklin says that his opinions and character were so greatly influenced by his reading Cotton Mather's Essays to do Good, that he owed to that book his rise in life. A boy, he says, should read that book with pen and note-book in hand. Benjamin Franklin declared that it was in this book that he found the statements of the purposes in life that met his own views. "To do good," he said, was the true aim of existence, and the resolution became fixed in his soul to seek to make his life as beneficent as possible to all men. How to help somebody and to improve something became the dreams of his days and nights. "A high aim is curative," says Emerson. Franklin had some evil tendencies of nature and habit, but his purpose to live for the welfare of everybody and everything overcame them all in the end, and made him honestly confess his faults and try to make amends for his lapses. To do good was an impelling purpose that led him to the building of the little wharf, where boys might have firm footing whence to sail their boats, and it continued through many wiser experiences up to the magic bottle, in which was stored the revelation of that agent of the earth and skies that would prove the most beneficent of all new discoveries. The book confirmed all that Uncle Benjamin had said. In it he saw what he should struggle to be: he put his resolution into this vision, and so took the first step on the ladder of life which was to give him a large view of human affairs. He turned from the candle molds to Cotton Mather's strong pages, which few boys would care to read now, and from them, a little later, to Addison, and from both to talk with Jenny about what he would like to do and to become, and, like William Phips to the widow, he promised Jenny that they, too, should one day live in some "Faire Green Lane in Boston town." He would be true to his home--he and Jenny. CHAPTER XVII. BENJAMIN LOOKS FOR A PLACE WHEREIN TO START IN LIFE. BESIDES his instruction from encouraging Mr. Brownell and his Uncle Benjamin, little Benjamin Franklin had spent one year at school and several years of self-instruction under helps. His father needed him in the candle shop, and he could not give him a larger education with so many mouths to feed. Young Ben did not like his occupation in the candle shop. He worked with his hands while his heart was absent, and his imagination was even farther away. He had a brother John who had helped his father when a boy, who married and moved to Rhode Island to follow there his father's trade as a candle and soap maker. John's removal doubled the usefulness of little Ben among the candle molds and soap kettles. He saw how this kind of work would increase as he grew older; he longed for a different occupation, something that would satisfy his mental faculties and give him intellectual opportunities, and his dreams went sailing to the seas and lands where his brother Josiah had been. There were palms in his fancy, gayly plumed birds, tropical waters, and a free life under vertical suns--India, the Spanish Main, the ports of the Mediterranean. He talked so much of going to sea that his father saw that his shop was not the place for this large-brained boy with an inventive faculty. "Ben," said Josiah Franklin one day, "this is no place for you--you are not balanced like other boys; your head is canted the _other_ way. You'll be running off to sea some day, just as Josiah did. Come, let us go out into the town, and I will try to find another place for you. You will have to become an apprentice boy." "Anything, father, but this dull work. I seem here to be giving all my time to nothing. Soap and candles are good and useful things, but people can make them who can do nothing else. I want a place that will give me a chance to work with my head. What is my head for?" "I don't know, Ben; it will take time to answer that. You do seem to have good faculties, if you _are_ my son. I would be glad to have you do the very best that you are capable of doing, and Heaven knows that I would give you an education if I were able. Come, let us go." They went out into the streets of Boston town. The place then contained something more than two thousand houses, most of them built of timber and covered with cedar shingles; a few of them were stately edifices of brick and tiles. It had seven churches, and they were near the sign of the Blue Ball: King's Chapel, Brattle Street, the Old Quaker, the New North, the New South, the New Brick, and Christ Church. There was a free writing school on Cornhill, a school at the South End, and another writing school on Love Lane. Ben Franklin could not enter these simple school doors for the want of means. To gain the Franklin Medal, provided by legacy of Benjamin Franklin, is now the high ambition of every Boston Latin schoolboy. There were fortifications on Fort Hill and a powder house on the Common. There were inns, taverns, and ordinaries everywhere. Boston was a town of inns with queer names; Long Wharf was the seaway to the ships. Chatham Street now was then a fair green lane; Salem Street was a place of property people or people of "quality." In King's Chapel was a state pew for the royal Governors. On the pulpit stood an hourglass in a frame of brass. The pillars were hung with escutcheons of the king. Ben may have passed the old Latin School which at first was established at a place just east of King's Chapel. If so, he must have wished to be entered there as a pupil again. The school has distributed his medals now for several generations. He may have passed the old inns like the Blue Anchor Tavern, or the Royal Exchange, or the fire of 1711 may have wiped out some of these old historic buildings, and new ones to take their places may have been rising or have been but recently completed. The old Corner Bookstore was there, for it was built directly after the fire of 1711. It is the oldest brick building now standing in the city, and one of the few on which little Ben's eyes could have rested. A new town arose after the fire. Josiah Franklin and little Ben visited the workshops of carpenters, turners, glaziers, and others, but, although they had a good time together in the study, the kind father could not find a place that suited his son. Ben did not like to be apprenticed to any of the tradesmen that he met. He had a brother James, of a bright mind but of no very amiable disposition, who was a printer. He had been to London to improve his trade, and on his return he became the one printer in the town. One evening, between the violin and the Bible, Josiah Franklin suddenly said: "Ben, you look here!" "What, father?" asked the boy, starting. "It all comes to me what you ought to do. You should become a printer." "That I would like, father." "Then the way is clear--let me apprentice you to James." "Would he have me, father? We do not always get on well together. I want to learn the printer's trade; that would help me on to an education." Josiah Franklin was now a happier man. Ben would have no more desire to go to sea. If he could become anything out of the ordinary, the printer's trade would be the open way. He went to his son James and presented the matter. As a result, they drew up an indenture. This indenture, which may be found in Franklin's principal biographies, was a very queer document, but follows the usual form of the times of George I. It was severe--a form by which a lad was practically sold into slavery, and yet it contained the demands that develop right conduct in life. Ben was not constituted to be an apprentice boy under these sharp conditions even to his own brother. But all began well. His mother, who worried lest he should follow the example of his brother Josiah, now had heart content. His father secured an apprentice, and probably had drawn up for him a like form of indenture. Benjamin, too, was happy now. He saw that his new way of life led to somewhere--where? He would do his best to make it lead to the best in life. He started with a high resolve, which we are sorry he did not always fulfill in the letter, though the spirit of it never was lost. His successor in the tallow shop does not seem to have been more happy than he. His name was Tinsley. There appeared in the New England Courant of 1722 the following queer advertisement, which we copy because it affords a picture of the times: Ran away from his Master, Mr. Josiah Franklin, of Boston, Tallow-Chandler, on the first of this instant July, an Irish Man-servant, named William Tinsley, about 20 Years of Age, of a middle Stature, black Hair, lately cut off, somewhat fresh-coloured Countenance, a large lower Lip, of a mean Aspect, large Legs, and heavy in his Going. He had on, when he went away, a felt Hat, a white knit Cap, striped with red and blue, white Shirt, and neck-cloth, a brown coloured Jacket, almost new, a frieze Coat, of a dark Colour, grey yarn Stockings, leather Breeches, trimmed with black, and round to'd Shoes. Whoever shall apprehend the said runaway Servant, and him safely convey to his above said Master, at the blue Ball, in Union street, Boston, shall have forty Shillings Reward, and all necessary Charges paid. As this advertisement was continued for three successive weeks, we are at liberty to conclude that William Tinsley was not "apprehended." Let the reader be glad that he did not live in those days. The best of all ages is now. "And so you have begun life as a printer?" said Uncle Benjamin. "A printer's trade is one after my own heart. It develops thought. If I could have only kept my pamphlets until now, you would have printed the notes that I made. One of them says that what people want is not favors or patronage of any kind, but _justice_. Remember that, Ben. What the world wants is justice. You may become a printer in your own right some day." "I want to become one, uncle. That is just what is in my heart. I can see success in my mind." "But you can do it if you will. Everything goes down before 'I will!' The Alps fell before Hannibal. Have a deaf ear, Ben, toward all who say 'You _can't_!' Such men don't count with those in the march; they are stragglers. Don't you be laughed down by anybody. Hold your head high; there is just as much royal blood in your veins as there is in any king on earth. There is no royal blood but that which springs from true worth. I put that down in my documents years ago. "Life is too short to stop to quarrel with any one by the way. If a man calls you a fool, you need not come out under your own signature and deny it. Your life should do that. I am quoting from my pamphlets again. "If you meet old Mr. Calamity in your way, the kind of man who tells you that you have no ground of expectation, and that everything in the world is going to ruin, just whistle, and luck will come to you, my boy. I only wish that I had my documents--my pamphlets, I mean. I would have left them to you in my will. In the present state of society one must save or be a slave--that also I wrote down in my documents. It is a pity that it is so, but it is. Save what you can while you are young, and it will give your mind leisure to work when you are older. _That_ was in my pamphlets. I hope that I may live to see you the best printer in the colonies." The boy absorbed the spirit of these proverbial sayings. They were to his liking and bent of mind. But there came into his young face a shadow. "Uncle Ben, I know what you say is true. I have listened to you; now I would like you to hear me. You saw the boys going to the Latin School this morning?" "Yes, Ben." "I can not go there." "O Ben! that is hard," said Jenny, who was by his side. "But you can go to school, Ben," said Uncle Benjamin. "Where, uncle?" "To life--and graduate there as well as any of them." "I would like to study Latin." "Well, what is to hinder you, Ben? One only needs to learn the alphabet to learn all that can be known through books. You know _that_ now." "I would like to learn French. Other boys can; I can not." "The time will come when you can. The gates open before a purpose. You can study French later in life, and, it may be, make as good use of French as any of them." "Why can not I do as other boys?" "You can, Ben. You can so live that the Boston Latin School to which you can not go now will honor you some day." "I would be sorry to see another boy feel as I have felt when I have seen the boys going to that school with happy faces to learn the things that I want to know. But father has done the best that he can for me." "Yes, Ben, he has, and you only need to do the best that you can for yourself to graduate at the head of all in the school of life. I know how to feel for you, Ben. I have stood in shoes like yours many times. When you have done as I have told you, then think of me. The world may soon forget me. I want you so to live that it will not as soon forget you." The cloud passed from the boy's face. Hope came to him, and he was merry again. He locked Jenny in his arms, whirled her around, and said: "I am glad to hear the bells ring for other boys, even if I must go to my trade." "I like the spirit of what you say," said Uncle Benjamin. "You have the blood of Peter Folger and of your Great-uncle Tom in your veins. Peter gave his heart to the needs of the Indians, and to toleration; your Great-uncle Tom started the subscription for the bells of Nottingham, and became a magistrate, and a just one. You may not be able to answer the bell of the Latin School, but if you are only true to the best that is in you, little Ben, you may make bells ring for joy. I can hear them now in my mind's ear. Don't laugh at your old uncle; you can do it, little Ben--can't he Jenny?" "He just can--I can help him. Ben can do anything--he may make the Latin School bell ring for others yet--like Uncle Tom. He is the boy to do it, and I am the sister to help him to do it--ain't I, Uncle Benjamin?" CHAPTER XVIII. LITTLE BEN'S ADVENTURES AS A POET. THAT was a charmed life that little Ben Franklin led in the early days of his apprenticeship. He always thought of provincial Boston as his "beloved city." When he grew old, the Boston of his boyhood was to him a delightful dream. He and his father were on excellent terms with each other. His father, though a very grave, pious man, whose delight was to go to the Old South Church with his large family, allowed little Ben to crack his jokes on him. He was accustomed to say long graces at meals, at which the food was not overmuch, and the hungry children many. One day, after he had salted down a large quantity of meat in a barrel, he was surprised to hear Ben ask: "Father, why don't you say grace over it now?" "What do you mean, Ben?" "Wouldn't it be saving of time to say grace now over the whole barrel of provisions, and then you could omit it at meals?" But the strong member of the Old South Church had no such ideas of religious economy as revealed his son's mathematical mind. The Franklin family must have presented a lively appearance at church in old Dr. Joseph Sewell's day. They heard some sound preaching there, and Dr. Sewell lived as he preached. He was offered the presidency of Harvard College, but honors were as bubbles to him, and he refused it for a position of less money and fame, but of more direct spiritual influence, and better in accord with the modest views of his ability. He began to preach in the Old South Church when Ben was seven years of age; he preached a sermon there on his eightieth birthday. These were fine old times in Boston town. Some linen spinners came over from Londonderry, in Ireland, and they established a spinning school. They also brought with them the potato, which soon became a great luxury. Josiah Franklin probably pastured his cows on the Common, and little Ben may often have sat down under the old elm by the frog pond and looked over the Charles River marshes, which were then where the Public Garden now is. But the delight of the boy's life was still Uncle Benjamin, the poet. The two read and roamed together. Now Ben had a poetic vein in him, a small one probably inherited from his grandfather Folger, and it began to be active at this time. There were terrible stories of pirates in the air. They kindled the boy's lively imagination; they represented the large subject of retributive justice, and he resolved to devote his poetic sense to one of these alarming characters. There was a dreadful pirate by the name of Edward Teach, but commonly called "Blackbeard." He was born in Bristol, England. He became the terror of the Atlantic coast, and had many adventures off the Carolinas. He was at length captured and executed. One day little Ben came to his brother James with a paper. "James, I have been writing something, and I have come to read it to you." "What?" "Poetry." "Like Uncle Ben's?" "No; it is on Blackbeard." James thought that a very interesting subject, and prepared to listen to his poet brother. Little Ben unfolded the paper and began to read his lines, which were indeed heroic. "Come, all you jolly sailors, You all so stout and brave!" "Good!" said James. "That starts off fine." Ben continued: "Come, hearken and I'll tell you What happened on the wave." "Better yet--I like that. Why, Uncle Ben could not excel that. What next?" "Oh, 'tis of that bloody Blackbeard I'm going now to tell, And as how, by gallant Maynard, He soon was sent to _hell_, With a down, down, down, derry down!" James lifted his hands at this refrain after the old English ballad style. "Ben, I'll tell you what we'll do. I'll print the verses for you, and you shall sell them on the street." The poet Arion at his coronation at Corinth could not have felt prouder than little Ben at that hour. He would be both a poet and bookseller, and his brother would be his publisher. He may have cried on Boston street: "Blackboard--broadside!" or something like that. It would have been honorable advertising. His success as a poet was instantaneous. His poem sold well. Compliments fell upon him like a sun shower. He wrote another poem of like value, and it sold "prodigiously." He thought indeed he was a great poet, and had started out on Shakespeare's primrose way to fame and glory. Alas! how many under like circumstances have been deceived. He lived to call his ballads "wretched stuff." How many who thought they were poets have lived to take the same view of their work! His second poem was called the Light-House Tragedy. It related to a recent event, and set the whole town to talking, and the admiration for the young poet was doubled. In the midst of the great sale of his poems by himself, and of all the flatteries of the town, he went for approval to his father. The result was unexpected; the rain of sunshine changed into a winter storm indeed. "Father, you have heard that I have become a poet?" "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Josiah, in his paper cap and leather breeches. "Like your Uncle Ben, my boy, and he amounted to nothing at all as a poet. A poet--my stars!" "I thought that you looked upon Uncle Ben as the best man in all the world. The people love him. When he enters the Old South Church there is silence." "That is all very true, my boy, but he lives between the heavens and the earth, and can not get up to the one or down to the other. Poets are beggars, in some way or other. They live in garrets among the mice and bats. Their country is the imagination, and that is the next door to nowhere. You a poet! What puckers my face up--_so_?" "But my poetry sells, father," looking into his father's droll face, his heart sinking. "Your poetry! It sells, my boy, because you are a little shaver and appear to be smart, and also because your rhymes refer to events in which everybody is interested. But, my son, your poetry, as you call it, has no merit in itself. It is full of all kinds of errors. It is style that makes a poem live; yours has no style." "But, father, many people do not think so." "But they will. You will think so some day." "But isn't there something good in it?" "Nothing, Ben. You never was born to be a poet. You have the ability to earn a living, same as I have done. Poets don't have that kind of ability; they beg. There are not many men who can earn a living by selling their fancies, which is mostly moonshine." This was unsympathetic. Ben looked at the soap kettles and candle molds and wondered if these things had not blinded his father's poetic perceptions. There was no Vale of Tempe here. But Josiah Franklin had hard common sense. Little Ben's dreams of poetic fame came down from the skies at one arrow. That was a bitter hour. "If I can not be a poet," he thought, "I can still be useful," and he reverted from heroic ballads to stern old Cotton Mather's Essays to do Good. The fated poet is always left a like resource. Yet many people who have not become poets, but who have risen to be eminent men, have had poetic dreams in early life; they have had the poetic mind. A little poetry in one's composition is no common gift; it is a stamp of superiority in some direction. Josiah Franklin was a wise man, but his views of poetry as such were of a low standard. Poetry is the highest expression of life, the noblest exercise of the spiritual faculties. So poor little Ben had soared to be laughed at again. But there was something out of the common stirring in him, and he would fly again some day. The victories of the vanquished are the brightest of all. Franklin, after having been thus given over to the waste barrel by his father, now resolved to acquire a strong, correct, and impressive prose style of writing. He found Addison's Spectator one of the best of all examples of literary style, and he began to make it a study. In works of the imagination he read De Foe and Bunyan. This good resolution was his second step up on the ladder of life. Others were contributing to his brother James's paper, why should not he? But James, after the going out of the poetic meteor, might not be willing to consider his plain prose. Benjamin Franklin has now written an article in plain prose, which he wishes to appear in his brother's paper. If it were accepted, he would have to put it into type himself, and probably to deliver the paper to its patrons. He is sixteen years old. He has become a vegetarian, and lives by himself, and seeks pleasure chiefly in books. It is night. There are but few lamps in the Boston streets. With a manuscript hidden in his pocket Benjamin walks slyly toward the office of James Franklin, Printer, where all is dark and still. He looks around, tucks his manuscript suddenly under the office door, turns and runs. Oh, how he does glide away! Is he a genius or a fool? He wonders what his brother will say of the manuscript, when he reads it in the morning. In the morning he went to his work. Some friends of James came into the office. "I have found something here this morning," said James, "that I think is good. It was tucked under the door. It seems to me uncommonly good. You must read it." He handed it to one of his friends. "That is the best article I have read for a long time," said one of the callers. "There is force in it. It goes like a song that whistles. It carries you. I advise you to use it. Everybody would read that and like it. I wonder who wrote it? You should find out. A person who can write like that should never be idle. He was born to write." James handed it to another caller. "There are brains in that ink. The piece flows out of life. Who do you think wrote it?" "I have no idea," said James.--"Here, Ben, set it up. Here's nuts for you. If I knew who wrote it I would ask the writer to send in other articles." Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography and Charles Dickens's novels have had a sale equaled by a few books in the world. The two authors began their literary life in a like manner, by tucking their manuscripts under the editor's door at night and running away. They both came to wonder at themselves at finding themselves suddenly people of interest. Still, we could hardly say to the literary candidate, "Fling your article into the editor's room at night and run," though modesty, silence, and prudence are commendable in a beginner, and qualities that win. What pen name did Ben Franklin sign to this interesting article? It was one that implies his purpose in life; you may read his biography in it--SILENCE DOGOOD. The day after the name of Silence Dogood had attracted the attention of Boston town, Benjamin said to Jane, his sympathetic little sister: "Jenny, let's go to walk this evening upon Beacon Hill. I have something to tell you." They went out in the early twilight together, up the brow of the hill which the early settlers seem to have found a blackberry pasture, to the tree where they had gone with Uncle Benjamin on the showery, shining midsummer Sunday. "Can you repeat what Uncle Benjamin said to us here, two years ago?" asked Ben. "No; it was too long. You repeat it to me again and I will learn it." "He said, 'More than wealth, or fame, or anything, is the power of the human heart, and that that power is developed in seeking the good of others.' Jenny, what did father say when he read the piece by Silence Dogood in the Courant?" "He clapped his hand on his leather breeches so that they rattled; he did, Ben, and he exclaimed, 'That is a good one!' and he read the piece to mother, and she asked him who he supposed wrote it, and she shook her head, and he said, 'I wish that I knew.'" "Would you like to know who wrote it, Jenny?" "Yes. Do you know?" "_I_ wrote it. Jenny, you must not tell. I am writing another piece. James does not know. I tucked the manuscript under the door. I am going to put another one under the door at night." "O Ben, Ben, you will be a great man yet, and I hope that I will live to see it. But why did you take the name of _Silence Dogood_?" "That carries out Uncle Ben's idea. It stands for seeking the good of others quietly. That name is what I would like to be." "It is what you will be, Ben. Uncle would say that the Franklin heart is in that name. If you should ever become a big man, Ben, and I should come to see you when we are old, I will say, 'Silence Dogood, more than wealth, more than fame, and more than anything else, is the power of the human heart.' There, I have quoted it correctly now. Maybe the day will come. Maybe we will live to be old, and you will write things that everybody will read, and I will take care of father and mother while you go out into the world." "Wherever I may go, and whatever I may become or fail to be, my heart will always be true to you, Jenny." "And I will do all I can for father and mother; I will be your heart to them, so that you may give your time to your pen. Every one in a family should seek to do for the family what others lack or are not able to do. You can write; I can not, but, Ben, I can love." She walked about the wild rose bushes, where the red-winged blackbirds were singing. "O Ben," she continued, "I am so glad that you wrote that piece, and that father liked it so well! I would not have been more glad had you received a present from a king. Maybe you will receive a present from a king some day, if you write as well as that." "You will keep the secret, Jenny?" "Yes, Ben, I will look for the paper to-morrow. How glad Uncle Ben would be if he knew it. Why, Ben, that name, Silence Dogood, is a piece in itself. It is a picture of your heart. You are just like Uncle Ben, Silence Dogood." The name of Silence Dogood became famous in Boston town. Jenny obtained Ben's permission to tell Uncle Benjamin the great secret, and Uncle Benjamin's heart was so delighted that he went to his room and told the secret "to the Lord." The three hearts were now very, very happy for a time. Jenny was growing up a beautiful girl, and her thoughts were much given to her hard-working parents and to laughed-at, laughing little Ben. When Uncle Benjamin had heard of Ben's failure as a poet and success as Silence Dogood, he took him down to Long Wharf again. "I am an old man," he said. "But here I have a lesson for you. If you are conscious that you have any gift, even in small degree, never let the world laugh it away. See 'that no man take thy crown,' the Scripture says. Every one who has contributed anything to the progress of the world has been laughed at. Stick a pin in thee, Ben. "Now, Ben, you may not have the poet's imagination or art, but if you have the poetical mind do not be laughed out of an attempt to express it. You may not become a poet; I do not think that you ever will. Perhaps you will write proverbs, and proverbs are a kind of poems. I am going to reprove Brother Josiah for what he has said. He has given over your education to me, and it is my duty to develop you after your own gifts. "Let us go back to the shop. I want to have a talk with Josiah; but, before we leave, I have a short word to say to you. "Hoi, Ben, hoi!--I don't know what makes me repeat these words; they are not swear words, Ben, but they come to me when my feelings are awakened. "It is hard, hard for one to see what he wants to be and to be kept back. I wanted to be a philosopher and a poet. Don't you laugh, Ben. I did; I wanted to be both, and I was so poor that I was obliged to write my thoughts on the margin of the leaves of my pamphlets, which I sold to come to teach you. Ben, Ben, listen: I can never be a philosopher or a poet, but you may. Don't laugh, Ben. Don't let any one laugh you out of your best ideas, Ben. You may. The world will never read what I wrote. They may read what you will write, and if you follow my ideas and they are read, you will be content. Hoi, Ben, hoi!" They went to the candle shop. "Josiah, you do wrong to try to suppress Ben's gift at rhyme. A man without poetry in his soul amounts to no more than a chopping block. The world just hammers itself on him, and that is all. You would not make Ben a dunce!" "No, brother, no; but a goose is not a nightingale, and the world will not stop to listen if she mounts a tree and attempts to sing." "No, Brother Josiah, but a goose that would like to sing like a nightingale would be no common goose; she would find better pasture than other geese. Small gifts are to be prized. 'A little diamond is worth a mountain of glass,' as the proverb says." "Well, if you must write poetry, don't publish it until it is called for." "Well, Brother Josiah, your advice will do for me, for I am an old man; but I must teach Ben never to be laughed out of any good idea that may come to him. Is not that right, brother?" "Yes, Uncle Ben. But you can't make a hen soar to the skies like an eagle. If you are not a poet, you have a perfect character, and that is why I leave the training of Ben to you. If you can make a man of him, the world will be better for him; and if you can make something else of him besides a poet out of his poetical gift, I shall be very glad. Your poetry has not helped you in life, has it, Benjamin?" "I don't know. You think it is that that has made me a burden to you." Josiah looked his brother in the face. "A burden? No, brother. One of the greatest joys of my life was to have you come here, and it will be the greatest blessing to my life if you can make the life of little Ben a blessing to the world. I am not much of a musician, but I like to sound the fiddle, and if you have any poetic light, let it shine--but as a tallow dip, like my fiddling. You are right, brother, in teaching little Ben never to be laughed down. I don't blame any one for crying his goods if he has anything to sell. But if he has not, he had better be content to warm his hands by his own fire." "Brother Josiah, listen to me. Little Ben here has something to sell.--Hoi, Ben, hoi! you listen.--There have thoughts come to me that I know did not rise out of the dust. I have been too poor to publish them. You may laugh at me, and call me a poor philosopher and say that my philosophy has kept me poor. But Benjamin here is going to give my thoughts to the world, and the things that I put into my pamphlets are going to live. It was not you that gave Ben to me: it was Heaven. A veil hangs over us in this world, and if a man does good in his heart, the hand behind that veil moves all the events of his life for good. "Don't laugh at us, Josiah; we are weaving together thoughts that will feed the world. That we are.--Hoi, Ben, hoi!" "Well, Brother, your faith makes you a happy old man. I hope that you will be able to make something of Ben, and that he may do credit to your good name. It may be so. Faith sees. "I love to see you go into the South Church, Brother. As soon as your face appears all the people look very happy, and sit still. The children all sit still. The tithingman stands still; he has nothing to do for a time. "It is something, Brother Ben, to be able to cast such an influence as that--something that money can not buy. I am sorry if I have hurt your feelings. Heaven be praised for such men as you are, Brother Ben! I hope that I may live to see all that you see by faith. I think I may, Brother Ben. 'Men do not gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles,' but they do gather grapes of grapes and figs of figs. I hope that Ben will be the book of your life, and make up for the pamphlets. It would be a good book for men to read." "Hoi, Ben, hoi!" said the old man, "I can see that it will." One Sunday, after church, in summer, Uncle Ben the poet and Silence Dogood went down on Long Wharf to enjoy the breezes from the sea. Uncle Ben was glad to learn more of the literary successes of Silence Dogood. "To fail in poetry is to succeed in prose," said the fine old man. "But much that we call prose is poetry; rhymes are only childish jingles. The greatest poetry in the world is written without rhyme. It is the magic spirit and the magic words that make true poetry. The book of Job, in my opinion, is the greatest poetry ever written. Poetry is not made, it exists; and one who is prepared to receive it catches it as it flows. Ben, you are going to succeed in prose. You are going to become a ready writer. Study Addison more and more." "Uncle Ben, do you not think that it is the hardest thing in life for one to be told that he can not do what he most wants to do?" "Yes, Ben, that is the hardest thing in life. It is a cruel thing to crush any one in his highest hope and expectation." "Was Solomon a poet? Are the Proverbs poetry?" "Yes, yes. The book of Proverbs is a thousand poems." "Then, Uncle Ben, I may be a poet yet. That kind of little poems come to me." "Ha! ha! ha!" A voice rang out behind them. It was Jamie the Scotchman. "Well, Ben, it is good to fly high. I infer that you expect to become a proverb poet, after the manner of Solomon. The people here will all be quoting you some day. It may be that you will be quoted in England and France. Ha! ha! ha! What good times," he added, "you two have together--dreaming! Well, it costs nothing to dream. There is no toll demanded of him who travels in the clouds. Move along, young Solomon, and let me sit down on the sea wall beside you. When you write a book of proverb poetry I hope I'll be living to read it. One don't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear--there's a proverb for you!--nor gather wisdom except by experience--there's another; and some folks do not get wisdom even from experience." He looked suspiciously toward Uncle Ben. "Experience keeps a dear school," said Uncle Ben in a kindly way. "And some people can learn of no other," added Silence Dogood. "And some folks not even there," said Jamie the Scotchman. The loons came semicircling along the sea wall, their necks aslant, and uttering cries in a mocking tone. "Well, I declare, it makes the loons laugh--and no wonder!" said Jamie the Scotchman. He lighted his pipe, whose bowl was a piece of corncob, and whiffed away in silence for a time, holding up one knee in his clasped hands. Silence Dogood surveyed his surroundings, which were ship cargoes. "The empty bags do not stand up," he said. "Well, what do you infer from that?" asked Jamie. Silence Dogood did not answer, but the thought in his mind was evident. It was simply this: that, come what would in life, he would not fail. He put his hand on Uncle Benjamin's shoulder, for who does not long to reach out his hand toward the fire in the cold, and to touch the form that entemples the most sympathetic heart? He dreamed there on the sea wall, where the loons seemed to laugh, and his dreams came true. Every attainment in life is first a dream. Silence Dogood, dream on! Add intelligence to intelligence, virtue to virtue, benevolence to benevolence, faith to faith, for so ascends the ladder of life. Uncle Benjamin was right. Let no man be laughed out of ideals that are true, because they do not reach their development at once. Many young people stand in the situation in which we find young Franklin now. Many older people do in their early work. England laughed at Boswell, but he came to be held as the prince of biographers, and his methods as the true manner of picturing life and making the past live in letters. People with a purpose who have been laughed at are many in the history of the world. From Romulus and the builders of the walls of Jerusalem to Columbus, ridicule makes a long record, and the world does not seem to grow wiser by its mistakes. Even Edison, in our own day, was ridiculed, when a youth, for his abstractions, and his efforts were ignored by scientists. Two generations ago a jeering company of people, uttering comical jests under the cover of their hands, went down to a place on the banks of the Hudson to see, as they said, "a crazy man attempt to move a boat by steam." They returned with large eyes and free lips. _That boat moved._ In the early part of the century a young Scotchman named Carlyle laid before the greatest of English scholars and critics a manuscript entitled Sartor Resartus. The great critic read the manuscript and pronounced it "the stupidest stuff that he ever set eyes on." He laughed at a manuscript that became one of the literary masterpieces of the century. A like experience had Milton, when he once said that he would write a poem that should be the glory of his country. A young graduate named Longfellow wrote poems that came to him amid the woods and fields, and published them in newspapers and magazines, and gathered them into a book. The book fell into the hands of one then held to be supreme as a literary judge--Edgar Allen Poe. It was laughed at in ink that made the literary world laugh. The poet Longfellow's bust now holds an ideal place in Westminster Abbey, between the memorials of Dryden and Chaucer, and at the foot of the tombs of England's kings. Keats was laughed at; Wordsworth was deemed a fool. A number of disdainful doctors met on October 16, 1846, in the amphitheater of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, to see a young medical student try to demonstrate that a patient upon whom a surgical operation was to be performed could be rendered insensible to pain. The sufferer was brought into the clear light. The young student touched his face with an unknown liquid whose strange odor filled the room. He was in oblivion. The knives cut and the blood flowed, and he knew it not. Pain was thus banished from the room of surgery. That young medical student and dentist was Dr. W. T. G. Morton, whose monument may be seen in the Boston Public Garden, and in whose honor the semicentennial of the discovery of anæsthesia has but recently been celebrated. "So, with a few romantic boys and crazy girls you expect to see the world converted," said a wise New York journal less than a century ago, as the first missionaries began to sail away. But the song still arose over the sea-- "In the desert let me labor, On the mountain let me till"-- until there came a missionary jubilee, whose anthems were repeated from land to land until they encircled the earth. When Browning first published Sordello, the poem met with common ridicule. Even Alfred Tennyson is said to have remarked that "there were but two lines in it that he could understand, and they were both untrue." The first line of the poem was, "Who will, _may_ hear Sordello's story told"; and the last line of the poem was, "Who would, _has_ heard Sordello's story told." Yet the poem is ranked now among the intellectual achievements of the century in the analysis of one of the deeper problems of life. Samuel F. B. Morse was laughed at. McCormick, whose invention reaps the fields of the world, was ridiculed by the London Times, "the Thunderer." "If that crazy Wheelwright calls again, do not admit him," said a British consul to his servant, of one who wished to make new ports and a new commerce for South America, and whose plans are about to harness the Andes with railways. William Wheelwright's memory lives in grateful statues now. Columbus was not only laughed at by the Council of Salamanca, but was jeered at by the children in the streets, as he journeyed from town to town holding his orphan boy by the hand. He wandered in the visions of God and the stars, and he came to say, after the shouts of homage that greeted him as the viceroy of isles, "God made me the messenger of the new heavens and new earth, and told me where to find them!" Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, presents a picture of the unfortunate condition of many lives of whom the world expected nothing, and for whom it had only the smile of incredulity when in them the Godlike purpose appeared. He says: "Hannibal had but one eye; Appius Claudius and Timoleon were blind, as were John, King of Bohemia, and Tiresais the prophet. Homer was blind; yet who, saith Tully, made more accurate, lively, or better descriptions with both his eyes! Democritus was blind, yet, as Laertius writes of him, he saw more than all Greece besides. . . . �sop was crooked, Socrates purblind, Democritus withered, Seneca lean and harsh, ugly to behold; yet show me so many flourishing wits, such divine spirits. Horace, a little, blear-eyed, contemptible fellow, yet who so sententious and wise? Marcilius Ficinus, Faber Stapulensis, a couple of dwarfs; Melanchthon, a short, hard-favored man, yet of incomparable parts of all three; Galba the emperor was crook-backed; Epictetus, lame; the great Alexander a little man of stature; Augustus Cæsar, of the same pitch; Agesilaus, _despicabili forma_, one of the most deformed princes that Egypt ever had, was yet, in wisdom and knowledge, far beyond his predecessors." Why do I call your attention to these struggles in this place in association of an incident of a failure in life that was ridiculed? It has been my lot, in a somewhat active life in the city of Boston for twenty-five years, to meet every day an inspiring name that all the world knows, and that stands for what right resolution, the overcoming of besetting sins in youth, and persevering energy may accomplish against the ridicule of the world. There have been many books written having that name as a title--FRANKLIN. I have almost daily passed the solemn, pyramidal monument in the old Granary Burying Ground, between the Tremont Building and Park Street Church, that bears the names of the Franklin family, in which the parents have found eternal honor by the achievements of their son. As I pass the Boston City Hall there appears the Franklin statue. As I face the Old South Church and its ancient neighborhood I am in the place of the traditions of the birth of Benjamin Franklin and of his baptism. It may be that I will return by the way of Franklin Street, or visit the Franklin School, or go to the Mechanics' Building, where I may see the primitive printing press at which Franklin worked, and which was buried in the earth at Newport, Rhode Island, at the time of the Revolutionary War. If I go to the Public Library, I may find there two original portraits of Franklin and a Franklin gallery, and a picture of him once owned by Thomas Jefferson. If I go to the Memorial Hall at Harvard College, I will there see another portrait of the philosopher in the grand gallery of noble men. Or I may go to Boston's wide pleasure ground, the Franklin Park, by an electric car made possible by the discoveries of Franklin. Nearly all of Franklin's early efforts were laughed at, but he would not be laughed down. Time is the friend of every true purpose. Boys with a purpose, face the future, do good in silence, and trust. You will find some Uncle Benjamin and sister Jenny to hold you by the hand. Be in dead earnest, and face the future, and forward march! The captains of industry and the leaders of every achievement say, "Guide right! Turn to the right, and advance!" CHAPTER XIX. LEAVES BOSTON. THESE were fine old times, but they were English times; English ideas ruled Boston town. There was little liberty of opinion or of the press in those days. The Franklins belonged to a few families who hoped to find in the province freedom of thought. James Franklin was a testy man, but he breathed free air, and one day in his paper, the Courant, he published the following simple sentences, the like of which any one might print anywhere in the civilized world to-day: "If Almighty God will have Canada subdued without the assistance of those miserable Savages, in whom we have too much confidence, we shall be glad that there will be no sacrifices offered up to the Devil upon the occasion; God alone will have all the glory." What had he done? He had protested against the use of Indians in the war then being waged against Canada. He was arrested on a charge that the article in which this paragraph appeared, and some like articles, "contained reflections of a very high nature." He was sentenced to a month's imprisonment and forbidden to publish the paper. So James went to jail, and he left the management of the paper to Benjamin. This incident gives us a remarkable view of the times. But Boston was only following the English law and custom. The printing office was now carried on in Benjamin's name. Little Ben grew and flourished, until his popularity excited the envy of his brother. One day they quarreled, and James, almost in the spirit of Cain, struck his bright, enterprising apprentice. Benjamin had a proud heart. He would not stand a blow from James without a protest. What was he to do? He resolved to leave the office of his brother James forever. He did so, and tried to secure work elsewhere. His brother's influence prevented him from doing this. His resentment against his brother grew more bitter, and blinded him to all besides. This was conduct unworthy of a young philosopher. In his resentment he does not seem to have regarded the feelings of his good father, or the heart of his mother that would ache and find relief in tears at night, nor even of Jenny, whom he loved. He took a sloop for New York, and bade good-by to no one. The sail dipped down the harbor, and the three hills of Boston faded from his view. He was now on the ocean, and out in the world alone. We are sorry to say that he faced life with such a deep resentment toward his brother in his heart. He afterward came to regard his going away in this manner as one of the mistakes of his life which he would wish to correct. His better heart came back again, true to his home. He was not popular in Boston in his last days there. New influences had come into his life. He had loved argument and disputation, and there is a subtile manner of discussion called the "Socratic method," which he had found in Xenophon, in which one confuses an opponent by asking questions and never making direct assertions himself, but using the subjunctive mood. It is an art of entanglement. The boy had delighted in "twisting people all up," and making them contradict themselves after a perversion of the manner described by Xenophon in his Life of Socrates. As religion and politics formed the principal subjects of these discussions, and he liked to take the unpopular view in order to throw his mental antagonist, he had fallen into disfavor, to which disesteem his brother's charges against him had added. These things made Jenny's heart ache, but she never ceased to believe in Ben. Few boys ever left the city in provincial times with less promise of any great future, so far as public opinion is concerned. But, notwithstanding these errors of judgment, he still carried with him a purpose of being a benefactor, and his dream was to help the world. The star of this purpose ever shone before him in the deserts of his wanderings. But how was he to succeed, after thus following his own personal feeling in matters like these? By correcting his own errors as soon as he saw them, and never repeating them again. This he did; he openly acknowledged his faults, and tried to make amends for them. He who confesses his errors, and seeks to retrieve them, has a heart and purpose that the public will love. But it is a higher and nobler life not to fall into such errors. This was about the year 1723. A curious incident happened on the voyage to New York. Young Franklin had become a vegetarian--that is, he had been convinced that it was wrong to kill animals for food, and wrong to eat flesh of any kind. The ship became becalmed, and the sailors betook themselves to fishing. Franklin loved to argue still, notwithstanding his unhappy experiences. "Fishing is murder," said he. "Why should these inhabitants of the sea be deprived of their lives and opportunities of enjoyment? They have never done any one harm, and they live the lives for which Nature made them. They have the same right to liberty that they have to life." This indicated a true heart. But when the steward began to cook the fish that the sailors had caught, the frying of them did have a savory smell. Young Franklin now began to be tempted from theory by appetite. How could he get over his principles and share the meal with the sailors? The cook seized a large fish to prepare it for the frying-pan. As he cut off its head and opened him he found in him a little fish. "So you eat fish," said Franklin, addressing the prize; "then why may I not eat _you_?" He did so, and from this time left off his vegetarian habits, which habits, like his aspiration to be a poet, did credit to his heart. His argument in this case had no force. The fish had not a moral nature, and because an animal or reptile without such a nature should eat other animals or reptiles would furnish no reason why a being governed by laws outside of himself should do the same. October found him in New York, a Dutch town of less than ten thousand inhabitants. He was about eighteen years of age. New York then had little in common with the city of to-day. Its streets were marked by gable ends and cobble stones. Franklin applied for work to a printer there, and the latter commended him to go to Philadelphia. He followed the advice, going by sea, friendless and forlorn, with only a few shillings in his pocket. He helped row the boat across the Delaware. He offered the boatman his fare. "No," said the boatman, "I ought to take nothing; you helped row." Franklin had just one silver dollar and a shilling in copper coin. He insisted that the ferryman should take the coin. He said of this liberal sense of honor afterward that one is "sometimes more generous when he has little money than when he has plenty." Philadelphia, the city of Penn, now rose before him, and he entered it a friendless lad, whom none knew and few could have noticed. Would any one then have dreamed that he would one day become the governor of the province? Benjamin Franklin had now found the world indeed, and his brother James had lost the greatest apprentice that the world ever had. Both were blind. Each had needed that early training that develops the spiritual powers, and makes it a delight to say "No" to all the lower passions of human nature. Josiah and Abiah Franklin had had great hopes of little Ben. The boy had a large brain and a tender heart. From their point of view they had trained him well. They had sent him to the Old South Church and had made him the subject of their daily prayers. In fact, these good people had done their best to make him a "steady boy," according to their light. The education of the inner life was like a sealed book to them. But they were yet people upon whom a larger light was breaking. The poor old soap and candle maker went on with his business at the Blue Ball with a heavy heart. "Gone, gone," said Jamie the Scotchman. "He'll find proverbs enough on his way of life. This is a hard world, but he has a heart to return to the right. I pity good Abiah Franklin, but we often have to trust where we can not see." CHAPTER XX. LAUGHED AT AGAIN. FRANKLIN'S first day in Philadelphia is well known to the world. He has related it in Addisonian English, and it has been read almost as widely as the adventures of Robinson Crusoe or Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. We must give a part of the narrative here in his own language, for a merry girl is about to laugh at the Boston boy as she sees him pass, and he will cause this lovely girl to laugh with him many times in his rising career and in different spirit from that on the occasion when she first beheld him, the awkward and comical-looking boy wandering he knew not where on the street. Let us follow him through his own narrative until he meets the eyes of Deborah Read, a fair lass of eighteen. On his arrival at Philadelphia, he tells us, he was in his working dress; his best clothes were to come by sea. He was covered with dirt; his pockets were filled with shirts and stockings. He was unacquainted with a single soul in the place, and knew not where to seek for a lodging. Fatigued with walking, rowing, and having passed the night without sleep, he was extremely hungry, and all his money consisted of a Dutch dollar and about a shilling's worth of coppers, which latter he gave to the boatman for his passage. He walked toward the top of the street, looking eagerly on both sides, till he came to Market Street, where he met with a child with a loaf of bread. Often he had made his dinner on dry bread. He inquired of the child where he had bought the bread, and went straight to the baker's shop which the latter pointed out to him. He asked for some biscuits, expecting to find such as they had in Boston; but they made, it seems, none of that sort in Philadelphia. He then asked for a threepenny loaf. They made no loaves of that price. Finding himself ignorant of the prices as well as of the different kinds of bread, he desired the baker to let him have threepenny worth of bread of some kind or other. The baker gave him three large rolls. He was surprised at receiving so much; he took them, however, and having no room in his pockets, he walked on with a roll under each arm, eating the third. In this manner he went through Market Street to Fourth Street, and passed the house of Mr. Read, the father of his future wife. The girl was standing at the door, observed him, and thought with reason that he made a very singular and grotesque appearance, and laughed merrily. We repeat the many-times-told tale in nearly his own words. So here we find our young adventurer laughed at again. We can fancy the young girl standing on her father's doorsteps on that mellow autumn day. There comes up the street a lad with two rolls of bread under his arm, and eating a third roll, his pockets full of the simpler necessities of clothing, which must have made him look like a ragman; everything about him was queer and seemingly wrong. She may have seen that he was just from the boat, and a traveler, but when did ever a traveler look so entirely out of his senses as this one did? Never mind, Ben Franklin. You will one day stand in Versailles in the velvet robes of state, and the French king will give you his portrait framed in four hundred and eight diamonds. "I then turned the corner," he continues, "and went through Chestnut Street, eating my roll all the way; and having made this round, I found myself again on Market Street Wharf, near the boat in which I arrived. I stepped into it to take a draught of river water, and finding myself satisfied with my first roll, I gave the other two to a woman and her child who had come down the river with us in the boat and was waiting to continue her journey. Thus refreshed, I regained the street, which was now full of well-dressed people, all going the same way. I joined them, and was thus led to a large Quakers' meeting-house near the market-place. I sat down with the rest, and, after looking round me for some time, hearing nothing said, and being drowsy from my last night's labor and want of rest, I fell into a sound sleep. In this state I continued till the assembly dispersed, when one of the congregation had the goodness to wake me. This was consequently the first house I entered or in which I slept at Philadelphia. "I began again to walk along the streets by the riverside, and, looking attentively in the face of every one I met with, I at length perceived a young Quaker whose countenance pleased me. I accosted him, and begged him to inform me where a stranger might find a lodging. We were then near the sign of the Three Mariners. 'They receive travelers here,' said he, 'but it is not a house that bears a good character. If you will go with me I will show you a better one.' He conducted me to the Crooked Billet, in Water Street. There I ordered something for dinner, and during my meal a number of curious questions were put to me, my youth and appearance exciting the suspicion of my being a young runaway. After dinner my drowsiness returned, and I threw myself upon a bed without taking off my clothes, and slept till six o'clock in the evening, when I was called to supper. I afterward went to bed at a very early hour, and did not awake till the next morning. "As soon as I got up I put myself in as decent a trim as I could, and went to the house of Andrew Bradford, the printer. I found his father in the shop, whom I had seen at New York. Having traveled on horseback, he had arrived at Philadelphia before me. He introduced me to his son, who received me with civility and gave me some breakfast, but told me he had no occasion at present for a journeyman, having lately procured one. He added that there was another printer newly settled in the town, of the name of Keimer, who might perhaps employ me, and that in case of refusal I should be welcome to lodge at his house. He would give me a little work now and then till something better should be found. "The old man offered to introduce me to the new printer. When we were at his house, 'Neighbor,' said he, 'I bring you a young man in the printing business; perhaps you may have need of his services.' "Keimer asked me some questions, put a composing stick in my hand to see how I could work, and then said that at present he had nothing for me to do, but that he should soon be able to employ me. At the same time taking old Bradford for an inhabitant of the town well disposed toward him, he communicated his project to him and the prospect he had of success. Bradford was careful not to discover that he was the father of the other printer; and from what Keimer had said, that he hoped shortly to be in possession of the greater part of the business of the town, led him, by artful questions and by starting some difficulties, to disclose all his views, what his hopes were founded upon, and how he intended to proceed. I was present and heard it all. I instantly saw that one of the two was a cunning old fox and the other a perfect novice. Bradford left me with Keimer, who was strangely surprised when I informed him who the old man was. "I found Keimer's printing materials to consist of an old, damaged press and a small font of worn-out English letters, with which he himself was at work upon an elegy upon Aquilla Rose, an ingenious young man and of excellent character, highly esteemed in the town, Secretary to the Assembly and a very tolerable poet. Keimer also made verses, but they were indifferent ones. He could not be said to write in verse, for his method was to set the lines as they followed from his muse; and as he worked without copy, had but one set of letter cases, and as the elegy would occupy all his types, it was impossible for any one to assist him. I endeavored to put his press in order, which he had not yet used, and of which indeed he understood nothing; and, having promised to come and work off his elegy as soon as it should be ready, I returned to the house of Bradford, who gave me some trifles to do for the present, for which I had my board and lodging. "In a few days Keimer sent for me to print off his elegy. He had now procured another set of letter cases, and had a pamphlet to reprint, upon which he set me to work. "The two Philadelphia printers appeared destitute of every qualification necessary in their profession. Bradford had not been brought up to it, and was very illiterate. Keimer, though he understood a little of the business, was merely a compositor, and wholly incapable of working at press. He had been one of the French prophets, and knew how to imitate their supernatural agitations. At the time of our first acquaintance he professed no particular religion, but a little of all upon occasion. He was totally ignorant of the world, and a great knave at heart, as I had afterward an opportunity of experiencing. "Keimer could not endure that, working with him, I should lodge at Bradford's. He had indeed a house, but it was unfurnished, so that he could not take me in. He procured me a lodging at Mr. Read's, his landlord, whom I have already mentioned. My trunk and effects being now arrived, I thought of making, in the eyes of Miss Read, a more respectable appearance than when chance exhibited me to her view, eating my roll and wandering in the streets. "From this period I began to contract acquaintance with such young people as were fond of reading, and spent my evenings with them agreeably, while at the same time I gained money by my industry, and, thanks to my frugality, lived contentedly. I thus forgot Boston as much as possible, and wished every one to be ignorant of the place of my residence, except my friend Collins, to whom I wrote, and who kept my secret. "An accident, however, happened which sent me home much sooner than I proposed. I had a brother-in-law, of the name of Robert Holmes, master of a trading sloop from Boston to Delaware. Being at Newcastle, forty miles below Philadelphia, he heard of me, and wrote to inform me of the chagrin which my sudden departure from Boston had occasioned my parents, and of the affection which they still entertained for me, assuring me that, if I would return, everything should be adjusted to my satisfaction; and he was very pressing in his entreaties. I answered his letter, thanked him for his advice, and explained the reasons which had induced me to quit Boston with such force and clearness that he was convinced I had been less to blame than he had imagined. "Sir William Keith, Governor of the province, was at Newcastle at the time. Captain Holmes, being by chance in his company when he received my letter, took occasion to speak of me and showed it to him. The Governor read it, and appeared surprised when he learned of my age. He thought me, he said, a young man of very promising talents, and that of consequence I ought to be encouraged; that there were at Philadelphia none but very ignorant printers, and that if I were to set up for myself he had no doubt of my success; that, for his own part, he would procure me all the public business, and would render me every other service in his power. My brother-in-law related all this to me afterward at Boston, but I knew nothing of it at the time. When, one day, Keimer and I being at work together near the window, we saw the Governor and another gentleman, Colonel French, of Newcastle, handsomely dressed, cross the street and make directly for our house. We heard them at the door, and Keimer, believing it to be a visit to himself, went immediately down; but the Governor inquired for me, came upstairs, and, with a condescension and politeness to which I had not at all been accustomed, paid me many compliments, desired to be acquainted with me, obligingly reproached me for not having made myself known to him on my arrival in the town, and wished me to accompany him to a tavern, where he and Colonel French were going to have some excellent Madeira wine. "I was, I confess, somewhat surprised, and Keimer appeared thunderstruck. I went, however, with the Governor and the colonel to a tavern at the corner of Third Street, where he proposed to me to establish a printing house. He set forth the probabilities of success, and himself and Colonel French assured me that I should have their protection and influence in obtaining the printing of the public papers of both governments; and as I appeared to doubt whether my father would assist me in this enterprise, Sir William said that he would give me a letter to him, in which he would represent the advantages of the scheme in a light which he had no doubt would determine him. It was thus concluded that I should return to Boston by the first vessel with the letter of recommendation from the Governor to my father. Meanwhile the project was to be kept secret, and I continued to work for Keimer as before. "The Governor sent every now and then to invite me to dine with him. I considered this a very great honor, and I was the more sensible of it as he conversed with me in the most affable, familiar, and friendly manner imaginable. "Toward the end of April, 1724, a small vessel was ready to sail for Boston. I took leave of Keimer upon the pretext of going to see my parents. The Governor gave me a long letter, in which he said many flattering things of me to my father, and strongly recommended the project of my settling at Philadelphia as a thing which could not fail to make my fortune." What is there prophetic of a great life in this homely narrative? Read over again the incident of the three rolls, one of which he ate, and two of which he gave to the poor woman and her child who needed them more than he. All his money on that day was one silver dollar. In that incident we see the heart and the persistent purpose to do good. He had made mistakes, but the resolution that he had made on reading Cotton Mather's meaty book was unshaken. He would correct his errors and yield to his better nature, and this purpose to help others would grow, and so he would overcome evil with good. He who helps one helps two. The poor woman may never have been heard of in public, except in this story, but that act of sharing the rolls, with one for the little child, made Ben Franklin a larger man. "The purpose of life is to grow." Benjamin Franklin is now a seed in the wind, but he is a good seed in the wind--good at heart, with a right purpose. The stream of life is turned aside, but it will flow true again toward the great ocean of that which is broadest and best. For this little Jenny at home is hoping, and Abiah Franklin praying, and Josiah Franklin keeping silence in regard to his family affairs. These were hard days for Uncle Benjamin and his philosophy, and for Jenny and her human faith. CHAPTER XXI. LONDON AND A LONG SWIM. WHAT kind of a man was Governor Sir William Keith? There are not many such, but one such may be found in almost every large community. He desired popularity, and he loved to please every one. He was constantly promising what he was not able to fulfill. He had a lively imagination, and he liked to think what he would do if he could for every bright person he met; and these things which he would like to do he promised, and his promises often ended in disappointment. It delighted him to see faces light up with hope. Did he intend to deceive? No. He had a heart to bless the whole world. He was for a time a very popular Governor, but he who had given away expectations that but disappointed so many hearts was at last disappointed in all his expectations. He was greatly pleased with young Benjamin Franklin when he first met him, just as he had been with many other promising young men. He liked a young man who had the hope of the future in his face. This young printer who had entertained Boston under the name of Silence Dogood won his heart on a further acquaintance, and so he used to invite him to his home. He there showed him how essential a good printer would be to the province; how such a young man as he would make a fortune; and he urged him to go back to his father in Boston and borrow money for such an enterprise. He gave him a long letter of commendation to his father, a droll missive indeed to carry to clear-sighted, long-headed Josiah Franklin. With this grand letter and twenty-five pounds in silver in his pocket and a gold watch besides, and his vision full of rainbows, he returned to the Puritan town. He went to the printing office, which was again under the charge of his brother James. He was finely dressed, and as he had come back with such flattering prospects he had a grain of vanity. He entered James's office. The latter looked at him with wide eyes, then turned from him coldly. But Silence Dogood was not to be chilled. The printers flocked around him with wonder, as though he had been a returning Sindbad, and he began to relate to them his adventures in Philadelphia. James heard him with envy, doubtful of the land "where rocs flew away with elephants." But when Benjamin showed the men his watch, and finally shared with them a silver dollar in hospitalities, he fancied that his brother had come there to insult him, and he felt more bitterly toward him than ever before. Benjamin had much to learn in life. He and his brother, notwithstanding their good Quaker-born mother, had not learned the secret of the harmony of Abraham and Lot. But one of these lessons of life our elated printer was to learn, and at once. He returned to his home at the Blue Ball. His parents had not heard from him since he went away some seven months before, and they, though grieved at his conduct, received him joyfully. There was always an open door in Abiah Folger's heart. The Quaker blood of good Peter Folger never ceased to course warm in her veins. Ben told his marvelous story. After the literary adventures of Silence Dogood in Boston, his parents could believe much, but when he came to tell of his intimacy with Sir William Keith, Governor of the Province of Pennsylvania, successor to the great William Penn, they knew not what to think. Either Sir William must be a singular man, or they must have underrated the ability of young Silence Dogood. "This is great news indeed. But what proof do you bring of your good fortune, my son?" asked the level-headed Josiah, lifting his spectacles upon his forehead and giving his son a searching look. Young Benjamin took from his pocket the letter of Sir William and laid it before his father. It indeed had the vice-royal seal of the province. His father put down his spectacles from his forehead, and his wife Abiah drew up her chair beside him, and he read the letter to himself and then reviewed it aloud. The letter told him what a wonderfully promising young man Benjamin was; how well he was adapted to become the printer of the province, and how he only needed a loan wherewith to begin business to make a fortune. Josiah Franklin could not doubt the genuineness of the letter. He sat thinking, drumming on a soap shelf. "But why, my boy, if you are so able and so much needed does not Governor Keith lend you the money himself?" Ben sat silent. Not all the arts of the Socratic method could suggest any answer to this question. "I am glad that you have an influential patron," said Josiah, "but to a man of hard sense it would seem very strange that he should not advance the money himself to help one so likely to become so useful to the province to begin business. People are seldom offered something for nothing in this world, and why this man has made himself your patron I can not see, even through my spectacles." "He wishes, father, to make me a printer for the advancement of the province." "Then why, my son, should not a governor of a rich province himself provide you with means to become a printer for the advancement of the province?" Socrates himself could not have answered this question. "Did you tell him that your father was an honest, hard-working soap boiler and candle maker?" "No," said the young man. "Benjamin, I have a large family, and I am unable to lend you the money that the Governor requests. But even if I had the money I should hesitate to let you have it for such a purpose. You are too young to start in business, and your character is not settled. That troubles me, Ben. Your character is not settled. You have made some bad mistakes already. You went away without bidding your mother good-by, and now return to me with a letter from the Governor of Pennsylvania who asks me to loan you money to set you up in business, because you are so agreeable and promising. O Ben, Ben, did you not think that I had more sense than that?" Josiah lifted his spectacles up to his forehead, and looked his finely dressed son fully in the face. The pride of the latter began to shrink. He saw himself as he was. But Abiah pleaded for her large-brained boy--Abiah, whose heart was always open, in whom lived Peter Folger still. Jenny had but one thing to say. It was, "Ben, don't go back, don't go back." "I will tell you what I will do," said Josiah. "I will write a letter to Governor Keith, telling him the plain truth of my circumstances. That is just right. If when you are twenty years of age you will have saved a part of the money to begin business, I will do what I can for you." With this letter Silence Dogood returned to Philadelphia in humiliation. We think it was this Silence Dogood who wrote the oft-quoted proverb, "A good kick out of doors is worth all the rich uncles in the world." Young Franklin presented his father's letter to Governor Keith. "Your father is too prudent," said the latter. "He says that you are too young and unsettled for business. Some people are thirty years old at eighteen. It is not years that are to be considered in this case, but fitness for work. I will start you in business myself." Silence Dogood rejoiced. Here was a man who was "better than a father"--the "best man in all the world," he thought. "Make out an inventory of the things that you need to begin the business of a printer, and I will send to London for them." Benjamin did so, an inventory to the amount of one hundred pounds. He brought it to the Governor, who greatly surprised him by a suggestion. "Perhaps," said Sir William, "you would like to go to London and get the machinery yourself. I would give you a letter of credit." Was it raining gold? "I would like to go to London," answered the young printer. "Then I will provide for your journey. You shall go with Captain Annis." This captain sailed yearly from Philadelphia to London. Waiting the sailing of the ship months passed away. Governor Keith entertained the young printer at his home. The sailing time came. Franklin went to the office of the Governor to receive the letter of credit and promised letters of introduction. "All in good time, my boy," said the Governor's clerk, "but the Governor is busy and can not see you now. If you will call on Wednesday you will receive the letters." Young Franklin called at the office on the day appointed. "All in good time, my boy," said the clerk. "The Governor has not had time to fix them up and get them ready. They will be sent to you on board the ship with the Governor's mail." So Franklin went on board the ship. As the Governor's mail came on board he asked the captain to let him see the letters, but the latter told him that he must wait until the ship got under way. Out at sea the Governor's letters were shown to him. There were several directed to people "in the care of Benjamin Franklin." He supposed these contained notes of introduction and the letter of credit, so he passed happily over the sea. He reached London December 24, 1724. He rushed into the grand old city bearing the letters directed in his care. He took the one deemed most important to the office of the gentleman to whom it was directed. "This letter is from Governor Keith, of the Province of Pennsylvania," said Franklin. "I know of no such person," said the man. The latter opened the letter. "Oh, I see," said he, "it is from one Riddleson. I have found him out to be a rascal, an exile, and refuse to entertain any communication from him." Franklin's face fell. His heart turned heavy. He went out wondering. "Was his father's advice sound, after all?" The rest of the letters that had been directed in his care were not written by Governor Keith, but by people in the province to their friends, of which he had been made a postboy. There were in the mail no letters of introduction from Governor Keith to any one, and no letter of credit. He found himself alone in London, that great wilderness of homes. Of Keith's conduct he thus speaks in his autobiography: "What shall we think of a Governor playing such pitiful tricks, and imposing so grossly upon a poor ignorant boy? It was a habit he had acquired; he wished to please everybody, and having little to give, he gave expectations. He was otherwise an ingenuous, sensible man, a pretty good writer, and a good Governor for the people, though not for his constituents, the Proprietaries, whose instructions he sometimes disregarded. Several of our best laws were of his planning, and passed during his administration." He found work as a journeyman printer in London, and we are sorry to say lived like most journeymen printers there. But Silence Dogood had to make himself useful even among these unsettled people. He instituted new ways of business and life of advantage to journeymen printers, and so kept the chain of his purpose lengthening. There was a series of curious incidents that happened during the last part of this year of residence in London that came near changing his career. It was in 1726; he was about twenty years old. He had always loved the water, to be on it and in it, and he became an expert swimmer when he was a lad in Boston town. He had led a temperate life among the London apprentices, and had kept his physical strength unimpaired. He drank water while they drank beer. They laughed at him, but he was able to carry up stairs a heavier case of type than any of them. They called him the "American water-drinker," but there came a day when he performed a feat that became the admiration of the young London printers. He loved companionship, and had many intimate friends, and among them there was one Wygate, who went swimming with him, probably in the Thames, and whom he taught to swim in two lessons. One day Wygate invited him to go into the country with him and some of his friends. They had a merry time and returned by water. After they had embarked from Chelsea, a suburb which was then some four and a half miles from St. Paul's Cathedral, Wygate said to him: [Illustration: "ARE YOU GOING TO SWIM BACK TO LONDON?"] "Franklin, you are a water boy; let us see how well you can swim." Franklin knew his strength and skill. He took off his clothing and leaped into the river, and probably performed all the old feats that one can do in the water. His dexterity delighted the party, but it soon won their applause. He swam a mile. "Come on board!" shouted they. "Are you going to swim back to London?" "Yes," came a voice as if from a fish in the bright, sunny water. He swam two miles. The wonder of the party grew. Three miles. They cheered. Four miles to Blackfriars Bridge. Such a thing had never been known among the apprentice lads. The swim brought young Franklin immediate fame among these apprentices, and it spread and filled London. Sir William Wyndham, once Chancellor of the Exchequer, heard of this exploit, and desired to see him. He had two sons who were about to travel, to whom he wished Franklin to teach swimming. But the two boys were detained in another place, and Franklin never met them. It was proposed to Franklin that he open a swimming school. But while he was favorable to such agreeable employment, there occurred one of those incidents that seem providential. He met one day at this shifting period Mr. Denham, the upright merchant, whose integrity came to honor his profession and Philadelphia. This man had failed in business at Bristol, and had left England under a cloud. But he had an honest soul and purpose, and he resolved to pay every dollar that he owed. To this end he put all the energies of his life into his business. He went to America to make a fortune, and he made it. He then returned to Bristol, which he had left in sorrow and humiliation. He gave a banquet, and invited to it all the merchants and people whom he owed. They responded to the unexpected invitation, and wondered what would happen. When they had seated themselves at the table, and the time to serve the meal came, the dinner plates were lifted, and each one found before him the full amount of the money due to him. The banquet of honor made the name of the merchant famous. Mr. Denham was a friend to men in need of good influences. He saw Franklin's need of advice, and he said to him: "My young friend, you should return to Philadelphia. It is the place of opportunity." "But I have not the means." "I have the means for you. I am about to return to America with a cargo of merchandise. You must go back with me. Your place in life is there." Should he go? It was early summer. He went out on London Bridge one night. It grew dark late. But at last there gleamed in the dark water the lights of London like stars. Many voices filled the air as the boats passed by. The nine o'clock bells rang. It may be that he heard the Bow bells ring, the bells that said, "Come back! come back! come back!" to young Dick Whittington when he was running away from his place in life. If so, he must have been reminded of all that this man accomplished by heeding the voice of the bells, and of how King Henry had said, after all his benefactions, "Did ever a prince have such a subject?" He must have thought of Uncle Tom and the bells of Nottingham on this clear night of lovely airs and out-of-door merriments. Over the great city towered St. Paul's under the rising moon. Afar was the Abbey, with the dust of kings. Then he thought of Uncle Benjamin's pamphlets. It seemed useless for one to look for books in this great city of London. Franklin never saw ghosts, except such as arise out of conscience into the eye of the mind. But the old man's form and his counsels now came into the view of the imagination. His old Boston home came back to his dreams; Jenny came back to him, and the face of the young woman whom he had learned to love in Philadelphia. He resolved to return. America was his land, and he must build with her builders. He sailed for America with his good adviser, the honest merchant, July 21, 1726, and left noblemen's sons to learn to swim in the manner that he himself had mastered the water. Did he ever see Governor Keith again? Yes. After his return to Philadelphia he met there upon the street one who was becoming a discredited man. The latter recognized him, but his face turned into confusion. He did not bow; nor did Franklin. It was Governor Keith. This Governor Please-Everybody died in London after years of poverty, at the age of eighty. Silence Dogood may have thought of his father's raised spectacles when he met Sir William that day on the street, and when they did not wish to recognize each other, or of Jenny's words, "Ben, don't go back." He had learned some hard lessons from the book of life, and he would henceforth be true to the most unselfish counsels on earth--the heart and voice of home. CHAPTER XXII. A PENNY ROLL WITH HONOR.--JENNY'S SPINNING-WHEEL. BENJAMIN became a printer again. By the influence of friends he opened in Philadelphia an office in part his own. Benjamin Franklin had no Froebel education. The great apostle of the education of the spiritual faculties had not yet appeared, and even Pestalozzi, the founder of common schools for character education, could not have been known to him. But when a boy he had grasped the idea that was to be evolved by these two philosophers, that the end of education is character, and that right habits become fixed or automatic, thus virtue must be added to virtue, intelligence to intelligence, benevolence to benevolence, faith to faith. One day, when he was very poor, there came into his printing office a bustling man. "See here, my boy, I have a piece for you; there's ginger in it, and it will make a stir. You will get well paid for giving it to the public; all Philadelphia will read it." "I am glad to get something to give the paper life," said Franklin. "I will read the article as soon as I have time to spare." "I will call to-morrow," said the man. "It is running water that makes things grow. That article will prove very interesting reading to many people, and it will do them good. It is a needed rebuke. You'll say so when you read it." Franklin at this time did a great part of the work in the office himself, and he was very busy that day. At last he found time to take up the article. He hoped to find it one that would add to the circulation of the paper. He found that it was written in a revengeful spirit, that it was full of detraction and ridicule, that it would answer no good purpose, that it would awaken animosities and engender bitter feelings and strife. But if used it would be read, laughed at, increase the sale of the paper, and secure him the reputation of publishing a _smart_ paper. Should he publish an article whose influence would be harmful to the public for the sake of money and notoriety? He here began in himself as an editor that process of moral education which tends to make fixed habits of thought, judgment, and life. He resolved _not_ to print the article. But the author of it would laugh at him--might call him puritanic; would probably say that he did not know when he was "well off"; that he stood in his own light; that he had not the courage to rebuke private evils. The young printer had the courage to rebuke wrong, but this article was a sting--a revengeful attempt to make one a laughing stock. It had no good motive. But it haunted him. He turned the question of his duty over and over in his mind. Night came, and he had not the money to purchase a supper or to secure a bed. Should he not print the lively article, and make for himself better fare on the morrow? No. Manhood is more than money, worth more than wealth. He went to the baker's and bought a twopenny roll; he ate it in his office, and then lay down on the floor of his office and went to sleep. The boy's sleep was sweet. He had decided the matter in his own heart, and had given himself a first lesson in what we would to-day call the new education. In this case it was an editorial education. It was a lovely winter morning. There was joy in all Nature; the air was clear and keen; the Schuylkill rippled bright in the glory of the sun. He rose before the sun, and went to his work with a clear conscience, but probably dreading the anger of the patron when he should give him his decision. When the baker's shop opened he may have bought another twopenny roll. He certainly sat down and ate one, with a dipper of water. In the later hours of the morning the door opened, and the patron came in with a beaming face. "Have you read it?" "Yes, I have read the article, sir." "Won't that be a good one? What did you think of it?" "That I ought not to use it." "Why?" asked the man, greatly astonished. "I can not be sure that it would not do injustice to the person whom you have attacked. There are always two sides to a case. I myself would not like to be publicly ridiculed in that manner. Detraction leads to detraction, and hatred begets hate." "But you must have money, my Boston lad. Have you thought of that?" was the suggestion. Franklin drew himself up in the strength and resolution of young manhood, and made the following answer, which we give, as we think, almost in his very words: "I am sorry to say, sir, that I think the article is scurrilous and defamatory. But I have been at a loss, on account of my poverty, whether to reject it or not. I therefore put it to this issue. At night, when my work was done, I bought a twopenny loaf, on which I supped heartily, and then wrapping myself in my greatcoat slept very soundly on the floor until morning, when another loaf and a mug of water afforded a pleasant breakfast. Now, sir, since I can live very comfortably in this manner, why should I prostitute my press to personal hatred or party passion for a more luxurious living?" This experience may be regarded as temporizing, but it was inward education in the right direction, a step that led upward. It shows the trend of the way, the end of which is the "path of the just, that leads more and more unto the perfect day." A young man who was willing to eat a twopenny roll and to sleep on the floor of his pressroom for a principle, had in him the power that lifts life, and that sustains it when lifted. He who puts self under himself for the sake of justice has in him the gravitation of the skies. Uncle Ben's counsels were beginning to live in him. Jenny's girl's faith was budding in his heart, and it would one day bloom. He was turning to the right now, and he would advance. There are periods in some people's lives when they do not write often to their best friends; such a one had just passed with Ben. During the Governor Keith misadventures he had not written home often, as the reader may well imagine. But now that he had come back to Philadelphia and was prosperous, the memory of loving Jenny began to steal back into his heart. He had heard that Jenny, now at sweet sixteen, was famous for her beauty. He may have been jealous of her, we do not know; but he was apprehensive that she might become vain, and he regarded modesty, even at his early age of twenty-one or twenty-two, as a thing very becoming a blooming girl. One day he wrote to her, "Jenny, I am going to send you a present by the next ship to Boston town." The promise filled the girl's heart with delight. Her faith in him had never failed, nor had her love for him changed. What would the present be? She went to her mother to help her solve this riddle. "Perhaps it will be a ring," she said. "I would rather have that from Ben than any other thing." "But he would not send a ring by ship," said her mother, "but by the post chaise." "True, mother; it can not be that. It may be a spinet. I think it is a spinet. He knows how we have delighted in father's violin. He might like to send me a harp, but what is a spinet but a harp in a box?" "I think it may be that, Jenny. He would send a spinet by ship, and he knows how much we all love music." "Yes, and he must see how many girls are adding the music of the spinet to their accomplishments." "Wouldn't a spinet be rather out of place in a candle shop?" asked the mother. "Not out of place in the parlor of a candle shop," said Jenny with dignity. "Do you think that you could learn to play the spinet, Jenny?" "I would, if Ben were to send me one. I have been true to Ben all along. I have never given him up. He may get out of place in life, but he is sure to get back again. A true heart always does. I am sure that it is a spinet that he will send. I dreamed," she added, "that I heard a humming sound in the air something like a harp. I dreamed it in the morning, and morning dreams come true." "A humming sound," said Josiah Franklin, who had come within hearing; "there are some things besides spinets that make humming sounds, and Ben must know how poor we are. I am glad that his heart is turning home again, after his _scattering_ adventures with the Governor. It is not every one who goes to sea without a rudder that gets back to port again." Jenny dreamed daily of the coming ship and present. The ship came in, and one evening at dark an old sailor knocked at the door. He presently came in and announced that they had a "boxed-up" thing for one Jane Franklin on board the ship. Should he send it by the cartman to the house? "Yes, yes!" cried Jenny. "Now I know it is a spinet I heard humming--I told you about it, mother." The girl awaited the arrival of the gift with a flushed cheek and a beating heart. It came at last, and was brought in by candlelight. It was indeed a "boxed-up" thing. The family gathered around it--the father and mother, the boys and the girls. Josiah Franklin broke open the box with his great claw hammer, which might have pleased an Ajax. "O Jenny!" he exclaimed, "that will make a humming indeed. Ben has not lost his wits yet--or he has found them again." "What is it? What is it, father?" "The most sensible thing in all the world. See there, it is a spinning-wheel!" Jane's heart sank within her. Her dreams vanished into the air--the delights of the return of Sindbad the Sailor were not to be hers yet. The boys giggled. She covered her face with her hands to hide her confusion and to gain heart. "I don't care," she said at last, choking. "I think Ben is real good, and I will _forgive him_. I can spin. The wheel is a beauty." The gift was accompanied by a letter. In it Benjamin told her that he had heard that she had been much praised for her beauty, but that it was industry and modesty that most merited commendation in a young girl. The counsel was as homely as much of that that Uncle Benjamin used to give little Benjamin, but she choked down her feelings. "Benjamin was thinking of you as well as of me when he sent me that present," she said to her mother. "I will make music with the wheel, and the humming will make us all happy. I think that Ben is real good--and a spinet would have been out of place here. I will write him a beautiful letter in return, and will not tell him how I had hoped for a spinet. It is all better as it is. That is best which will do the most good." If Franklin sent a practical spinning-wheel to Jenny when she was a girl, with much advice in which there was no poetry, such a sense of homely duties soon passed away. He came to send her beautiful presents of fabrics, "black and purple gowns," wearing apparel of elegant texture, and ribbons. When he became rich it was his delight to make happy the home of Jane Mecom--his poetic, true-hearted sister "Jenny," whose heart had beat to his in every step of his advancing life. She became the mother of a large family of children, and when one of them ran away and went to sea she took all the blame of it to herself, and thought that if she had made his home pleasanter for him he would not have left it. In her self-blame she wrote to her brother to confess how she had failed in her duty toward the boy. Franklin read her heart, and wrote to her that the boy was wholly to blame, which could hardly have been comforting. Jenny would rather have been to blame herself. There was but little wrong in this world in her eyes, except herself. She saw the world through her own heart. CHAPTER XXIII. MR. CALAMITY. THERE was a fine, busy old gentleman that young Franklin met about the time that he opened his printing office, whose course it will be interesting to follow. Almost every young man sometimes meets a man of this type and character. He is certain to be found, as are any of the deterrent people in the Pilgrim's Progress. He is the man in whose eyes there is ruin lurking in every form of prosperity, who sees only the dark side of things--to whom, as we now say, everything "is going to the dogs." We will call him Mr. Calamity, for that name represents what he had come to be as a prophet.[B] One day young Franklin heard behind him the tap, tap, tap of a cane. It was a time when Philadelphia was beginning to rise, and promised unparalleled prosperity. The cane stopped with a heavy sound. "What--what is this I hear?" said Mr. Calamity. "You are starting a printing office, they say. I am sorry, sorry." "Why are you sorry, sir?" asked the young printer. "Oh, you are a smart, capable young man, one who in the right place would succeed in life. I hate to see you throw yourself away." "But is not this the right place?" "What, Philadelphia?" "Yes, it is growing." "That shows how people are deceived. Haven't you any eyes?" "Yes, yes." "But what were they made for? Can't you see what is coming?" "A great prosperity, sir." "Oh, my young man, how you are deceived, and how feather-headed people have deceived you! Don't you know that this show of prosperity is all delusion; that people of level heads are calling in their bills, and that this is a hard time for creditors? The age of finery has gone, and the age of rags has come. Rags, sir, rags!" "No, sir, no. I thought the people were getting out of debt. See how many people are building." "They are building to be ready for the crash--they do not know what else to do with their money; calamity is coming." "But how do you know, sir?" "Know? It requires but little wit to know. I can feel it in my head. The times are not what they used to be. William Penn is dead, and none of his descendants are equal to him. Look at the Quakers, see how worldly they are becoming! Most people are living beyond their means! Property," he added, "is all on the decline. In a few years you will see people moving away from here. You will hear that the Proprietors have failed. Young man, don't go into business here. Let me tell you a secret, though I hate to do it, as your heart is bent upon setting up the printing business here; listen to me now--the whole province is going to fail. Before us is bankruptcy. Do you hear it--that awful, awful word _bankruptcy_? The Governor himself, in my opinion, is on the way to bankruptcy now. The town will have to all go out of business, and then there will be bats and owls in the garrets, and the wharves will rot. I sometimes think that I will have to quit my country." "Do other folks think as you do?" "Ay, ay, don't they? All that have any heads with eyes. Some folks have eyes for the present, some for the past, and some for the future. I am one of those that have eyes for the future. I expect to see grass growing in the streets before I die, and I shall not have to live long to pluck buttercups under the King's Arms. I pity young chickens like you that will have no place to run to." "But, sir," said young Franklin, "suppose things do take another turn. The young settlers are all building; the old people are enlarging their estates. It is easy to borrow money, and it looks to me that we will have here twice as many people in another generation as we have now. If the city should grow, what an opening there is for a printer! I shall take the risk." "Risk--risk? Jump off a ship on the high sea with an iron ball on your feet! Go down, and stick there. Business, I tell you, is going to die here, and who would want to read what a stripling like you would write outside of business? You would print that this one had failed, that that one had failed, and one don't collect bills handy from people who have failed. I tell you that the whole province is about to fail, and Philadelphia is going to ruin, and I advise you to turn right about and pack up, and go to some other place. There will never be any chance for you here." Tap, tap, tap, went his cane, and he moved away. Young Franklin started to go to his work with a heavy heart. The cane stopped. Old Mr. Calamity looked around. "I've warned you," said he with a flourish of the cane. "I tell you, I tell you everything is going back to the wilderness, and I pity you, but not half so much as you will pity yourself if you embark in the printing business, and print failures for nothing, to fail yourself some day. This is the age of rags, rags!" Tap, tap, tap, went on the cane, and the old gentleman chuckled. Young Franklin went on in his business. What was he to do? He saw everything with hopeful eyes. But he was young. His heart told him to go on in his undertaking, and he went on. He had been laughed at in Boston, and old Mr. Calamity had risen up here to laugh at him again. He knew not how it was, but it was in him to become a printer. As the young waterfowl knows the water as soon as it toddles from his nest, so young Franklin from his boyhood saw his life in this new element; the press was to be the source of America's rise, power, and glory, the throne of the republic; it was to make and mold and fulfill by its influence public opinion; the same public opinion was to rule America, and the young printer of Philadelphia was to lead the way now, and to reap the fruits of his spiritual resolution after he was seventy years of age. He saw it, he felt it, he knew his own mind. So he left behind old Mr. Calamity for the present, but he was soon to meet him again. He had now taken a third step on the ladder of life. His business should be built upon honor. The next time that he met Mr. Calamity, the old gentleman gave him a view of the prospects of a printer. "If you think that you are going to get your foot on the ladder of life by becoming a printer, you will find that you have mistaken your calling. None of the great men of old were printers, were they? Homer was no printer, was he?" "I have never heard that he was." "Nor did you hear of any one who ever printed the Iliad or the Odyssey. No printer was ever heard of among the immortals. A printer just prints--that is all. Solomon never printed anything, did he?" "I never read that he did, sir." "Nor Shakespeare?" "I never heard that he did, sir." "A printer has no chance to rise; he just builds the ark for Noah to sail in, and is left behind himself." "I hope to print some of my own thoughts, sir." "You do? Ha! ha! ha! Who do you think is going to read them? Your own thoughts--that does give me a stitch in the side, and makes me laugh so loud and swing my cane so high that it sets the cats and dogs to running. See them go over the garden fence! I shall watch your course, and when you begin to scatter your ideas about in the world, I hope I will be living to gather some of them up. I hope they will never lead a revolution!" Franklin's "�a Ira" were the words that led the French Revolution. FOOTNOTE: [B] The old gentleman who suggests this character was named Mickle or Mikle. CHAPTER XXIV. FRANKLIN'S STRUGGLES WITH FRANKLIN. AT the age of fifteen Franklin had avowed himself a deist, or theist, which must have grieved his parents, who were people of positive Christian faith. He loved to argue, and when he had learned the Socratic art of asking questions so as to lead one to confuse himself, and of answering questions in the subjunctive mood, he sought nothing more than disputations in the stanch Puritan town. His intimate friends were deists, but they came to early failure through want of faith or any positive moral conviction. Governor Keith was a deist. The reader may ask what we mean by a deist here. A deist or theist in Franklin's time was one who believed in a God, but questioned the Christian faith and system. He was not an atheist. He held that a personal governing power directed all things after his own will and purpose. Under the providence of this Being things came and went, and man could not know how or why, but could simply believe that all that was was for the good of all. At the age of twenty-two young Franklin began to see that life without faith had no meaning, but was failure. In the omnipotence of spiritual life and power the soul must share or die. Negations or denials did not satisfy him. This was a positive world, governed by spiritual law. To disobey these laws was loss and death. He had been doing wrong. He had done wrong in yielding to his personal feelings in leaving home in the manner which he did. He had committed acts of social wrong. He had followed at times the law of the lower nature instead of the higher. He had become intimate with two friends who had led him into unworthy conduct, and over whom his own influence had not been good. He saw that the true value of life lies in its influence. There were things in his life that tended to ruin influence. There were no harvests to be expected from the barren rocks of negation and denials of faith in the highest good. Sin gives one nothing that one can keep. He must change his life, he must obey perfectly the spiritual laws of his being. He saw it, and resolved to begin. Now began a struggle between Benjamin Franklin the natural man and Benjamin Franklin the spiritual man that lasted for life. It became his purpose to gain the spiritual mastery, and to obey the laws of regeneration and eternal life. Here are his first resolutions: "Those who write of the art of poetry teach us that, if we would write what may be worth reading, we ought always, before we begin to form a regular plan and design of our piece; otherwise we shall be in danger of incongruity. I am apt to think it is the same as to life. I have never fixed a regular design in life, by which means it has been a confused variety of different scenes. I am now entering upon a new life; let me, therefore, make some resolutions, and form some scheme of action, that henceforth I may live in all respects like a rational creature. "1. It is necessary for me to be extremely frugal for some time, till I have paid what I owe. "2. To endeavor to speak truth in every instance, to give nobody expectations that are not likely to be answered, but aim at sincerity in every word and action; the most amiable excellence in a rational being. "3. To apply myself industriously to whatever business I take in hand, and not divert my mind from my business by any foolish project of growing suddenly rich; for industry and patience are the surest means of plenty. "4. I resolve to speak ill of no man whatever, not even in a matter of truth; but rather by some means excuse the faults I hear charged upon others, and, upon proper occasions, speak all the good I know of everybody." But there must be a personal God, since he himself had personality, and he must seek a union of soul with his will beyond these mere moral resolutions. At the age of twenty-two he composed a litany after the manner of the Episcopal Church, but adapted to his own conditions. In this he prays for help in the points where he had found himself to be morally and spiritually weak. These petitions and resolutions show his inward struggles. They reveal his ideals, and to fulfill these ideals became the end of his life. For the acts of wrong which he had done in his period of adventures, and the unworthy life that he had then led, he tried to make reparation. The spiritual purpose of Benjamin Franklin had obtained the mastery over the natural man. Honor was his star, and more spiritual light was his desire and quest. He married Miss Read, the young woman who had laughed at him when he had entered Philadelphia eating his penny roll, with two rolls of bread under his arm, and his superfluous clothing sticking out of his pocket. He had neglected her during his adventures abroad, but she forgave him, and he had become in high moral resolution another man now. As a printer in Philadelphia his paper voiced the public mind and heart on all which were then most worthy. To publish a paper that advocates the best sentiments of a virtuous people is the shortest way to influence in the world. Franklin found it so. The people sought in him the representative, and from the printing office he was passed by natural and easy stages to the halls of legislation. So these resolutions to master himself may be regarded as another step on the ladder of life. To benefit the world by inventions is a good thing, but to lift it by an example of self-control and an unselfish life is a nobler thing, and on this plane we find young Franklin standing now. Franklin is the master of Franklin, and the influence of Silence Dogood through the press is filling the province of Pennsylvania. The paper which he established in Philadelphia was called the Pennsylvania Gazette. In connection with this he began to publish a very popular annual called Poor Richard's Almanac, about which we will tell you in another chapter. Right doing is the way to advancement--Franklin had this resolution; a newspaper that voices the people is a way to advancement--such a one Franklin had founded; and good humor is a way to advancement, and of this Franklin found an expression in Poor Richard's Almanac which has not yet ceased to be quoted in the world. It was the means of conveying Silence Dogood's special messages to every one. It made the whole world happier. Franklin, on account of the wise sayings in the almanac, himself came to be called "Poor Richard." CHAPTER XXV. THE MAGICAL BOTTLE. FRANKLIN is now a man of character, benevolence, wisdom, and humor. He is a printer, a publisher, a man whose thoughts are influencing public opinion. He is a very prosperous man; he is making money and reputation, but it is not the gaining of either of these that is true success, but of right influence. It is not the answer to the question, What are you worth? or What is your popularity? but What is your influence? that determines the value of a man. He had founded life on right principles, and he had well learned the trade in his youth that leads a poor young man of right principles and nobility to success. He took the right guideboard, and the "Please-everybody" Governor did him a good service when he showed him that to become a printer in Philadelphia would bring him influence, fame, and fortune. People who are well meaning, beyond the ability to fulfill their intentions, sometimes reveal to others what may be of most use to them. It was not altogether an unfortunate day when the wandering printer boy met Governor Keith. In the midst of his prosperity Silence Dogood was constantly seeking out inventions to help people. When he was about thirty-four years of age, in the Poor Richard days, he saw that the forests were disappearing, and that there would be a need for the people to practice economy in the use of fuel. The fireplaces in the chimneys were great consumers of wood, and in many of them, to use the housewife's phrase, "the heat all went up the chimney." But that was not all; many of the chimneys of the good people smoked, and in making a fire rooms would be filled with smoke, or, to use again the housewife's term, "the smoke would all come out into the room." When this was so the people would all flee to cold rooms with smarting eyes. New houses in which chimneys smoked were sometimes taken down or altered to make room for new chimneys that would draw. Franklin sought to bring relief to this sorry condition of affairs. He invented the Franklin stove, from which the heat would go out into the room, and not "up the chimbly," to use a provincial word. This cheerful stove became a great comfort to the province, and to foreign countries as well. It saved fuel, and brought the heat of the fire into the room. He long afterward began to study chimneys, and after much experiment found that those that smoked need not be taken down, but that only a draught was needed to cause the smoke to rise in rarefied air. The name of the Franklin stove added very greatly to Poor Richard's wisdom, in making for Franklin an American reputation, which also extended to Europe. His fame arose along original ways. Surely no one ever walked in such ways before. He formed a club called the Junto, which became very prosperous, and gave strength to his local reputation. He also began a society for the study of universal knowledge, which was called the Philosophical Society. A man can do the most when he is doing the most. One thing leads to another; one thing feeds another, and one does not suffer in health or nerves from the many things that one loves to do. It is disinclination or friction that wears one down. People who have been very busy in what they most loved to do have usually lived to be old, and come down to old age in the full exercise of their powers. While Franklin was thus seeking how he could make himself useful to every one in many ways--for a purpose of usefulness finds many paths--his attention was called to a very curious discovery that had been made in the Dutch city of Leyden, in November, 1745. It was an electrical bottle called the Leyden jar. Nature herself had been discharging on a stupendous scale her own Leyden jars through all generations, but no one seems to have understood these phenomena until this memorable year brought forth the magical little bottle which was a flashlight in the long darkness of time. The Greeks had found that amber when rubbed would attract certain light substances, and the ancient philosophers and doctors had discovered the value of an electric shock from a torpedo in rheumatic complaints; that sparks would follow the rubbing of the fur of animals in cold air had also been noticed, but of magnetism, and of electricity, which is a current of magnetism, the world was ignorant, except as to some of its more common and obvious effects. In 1600 Dr. Gilbert, of England, discovered that many other substances besides amber could be made to develop an attractive power. He also discovered that there are many substances that can not be electrically excited. In 1650 Otto von Guericke, the inventor of the air-pump, made a machine which looked like a little grindstone--a wheel of sulphur mounted on a turning axle, which being used with friction produced powerful electrical sparks and lights. He found by experiments with this machine that bodies thus exerted by friction may impart electricity to other bodies, and that bodies so electrified may repel as well as attract. Sir Isaac Newton made an electrical machine of glass, and Stephen Gray, in 1720, said that if a large amount of electricity could be _stored_, great results might be expected from it. Charles François Dufay detected that there were two kinds of electricity, which he called "vitreous" and "resinous." A great discovery was coming. The first beams of a new planet were rising. How did there come into existence the "magical bottle" known as the Leyden jar? At Leyden three philosophers were experimenting in electricity. "We can produce electrical effects," said one. "If we could accumulate and retain electricity we would have power." They electrified a cannon suspended by silk cords. A few minutes after ceasing to turn the handle of the electrical machine which supplied the cannon with fluid, the charge was gone. "If we could surround an electrified body with a nonconducting substance," said Professor Musschenbroek, "we could imprison it; we could accumulate and store it." He added: "Glass is a nonconductor of electricity, and water is a good conductor. If I could charge with electricity water in a bottle, I could possess it and control it like other natural powers." He attempted to do this. He suspended a wire from a charged cannon to the water in a bottle, but for a time no result followed. One day, however, Mr. Cuneus, one of the scientists, while engaged in this experiment, chanced to touch the conductor with one hand and the electrified bottle with the other. It was a mere accident. He leaped in terror. What had happened? He had received an electric shock. What did it mean? A revolution in the use of one of the greatest of the occult forces of Nature. Terror was followed by amazement. Mr. Cuneus told Professor Musschenbroek what had happened. The professor repeated the experiment, with the same result. If electricity could be secured, accumulated, and discharged, what might not follow as the results of further experiments? It was several days before the professor recovered from the shock. "I would not take a second shock," he said, "for the kingdom of France!" Thus the Leyden jar came into use. The news of the experiment flew over Germany and Europe. Scientific people everywhere went to making Leyden jars and imprisoning electricity. Society took up the invention as a wonder toy. Gunpowder was discharged from the point of the finger by persons charged on an insulating stool. Electrical kisses passed from bold lips to lips in social circles. Even timid people mounted up on cakes of resin that their friends might see their hair stand on end. Sir William Watson, of London, completed the electrical fountain by coating the bottle in and out with tinfoil. The great news reached America. Franklin heard of it; no ears were more alert than his to profit by suggestions like this. Mr. Peter Collinson, of London, sent to him an account of Professor Musschenbroek's magical bottle. He told his friends of the Junto Club of the invention, and set them all to rubbing electric substances for sparks. He had invented many useful things. A new force had fallen under the control of man. He must investigate it; he must experiment with it; he too must have a magical bottle. "I never," he wrote in 1747, "was before engaged in any study that so totally engrossed my attention and time as this has lately done; for what with making experiments when I can be alone, and repeating them to my friends and acquaintances who from the novelty of the thing come continually in crowds to see them, I have during some months past had little leisure for anything else." What was magnetism? What was electricity? What secrets of Nature might the magical bottle reveal? To what use might the new power which might be stored and imprisoned be put? Silence Dogood, ponder night and day over the curious toy. The world waits for you to speak, for Nature is about to reveal one of her greatest secrets to you--you who gave two penny rolls to the poor woman and child on the street, after Deborah Read, your wife now, had had her good laugh. Your good wife will laugh again some day, when you have further poked around among electrical tubes and bottles, and have brought your benevolent mind to bear upon some of the secrets contained in the magical bottle. You have added virtue to virtue; you are adding intelligence to intelligence; such things grow. Discoveries come to those who are prepared to receive them. CHAPTER XXVI. THE ELECTRIFIED VIAL AND THE QUESTIONS IT RAISED. THERE came from Europe to America at this time some electrical tubes, which being rubbed produced surprising results. To the curious they were toys, but to Franklin they were prophecies. There were three Philadelphians who joined with Franklin in the study of the effects that could be produced by these tubes and the Leyden vial. Franklin's son William was verging on manhood. He was beyond the years that we find him experimenting with his father in the old pictures. He became the last royal Governor of New Jersey some years afterward, and a Tory, and his politics at that period was a sore grief to his father's heart. But he was a bright, free-hearted boy now, nearly twenty, and his father loved him, and the two were harmonious and were companions for each other. Franklin, we may suppose, interested the boy in the bristling tubes and the magical bottle. The stored electricity in the latter was like the imprisoned genii of the Arabian Nights. Let the fairy loose, he suddenly mingled with native elements, and one could not gather him again. But another could be gathered. The Philadelphia philosophers wondered greatly at the new effects that Franklin was able to produce from the tubes and the bottle. Did not the genii in the vial hold the secret of the earth, and might not the earth itself be a magnet, and might not magnetism fill interstellar space? The wonder grew, and its suggestions. One of the Philadelphia philosophers, Philip Sing, invented an electrical machine. A like machine had been made in Europe, but of this Mr. Sing did not know. The Philadelphia philosophers discovered the power of metallic points to draw off electricity. "Electricity is not created by friction," observed one of these men. "It is only collected by it." "And all our experiments show," argued Franklin, "that electricity is positive and negative." During the winter of 1746-'47 these men devoted as much of their time as they could spare to electrical experiments. "William," said one of the philosophers to the son of Franklin one day, "you have brought your friends here to see the vial genii; he is a lively imp. Let me show you some new things which I found he can do." He brought out a bottle of spirits and poured the liquid into a plate. "Stand up on the insulating stool, my boy, and let me electrify you, and see if the imp loves liquor." The lively lad obeyed. He pointed his finger down to the liquor in the plate. It burst into flame, startling the audience. "Now," said another of the philosophers, "let me ask you to give me a magic torch." He presented to his finger a candle with an alcoholic wick. The candle was at once lighted, emitting sparks as it began to burn. "Hoi, hoi!" said the philosopher to the young visitors, "what do you think of a young man whose touch is fire? We have a Faust among us, sure!" "Now, girls, which of you would like to try an experiment?" we may suppose Father Franklin to say, in the spirit of Poor Richard. William stepped down, and an adventurous girl took his place on the experimental stool. "You have all heard of the electric kiss," said Poor Richard. "Let this young lady give you one. I will prepare her for it." He did. Another girl stepped up to receive it. She expected to receive a spark from her friend's lips; but instead of a spark she received a shock that caused her to leap and to bend double, and to utter a piercing cry. "I don't think that the kissing of young men and young women in public is altogether in good taste," said the philosophers, "but if any of you young men want to salute this lively young lady in that way, there will be in this case no objections." But none of the young men cared to be thrown into convulsions by the innocent-looking lass, who seemed to feel no discomfort. Experiments like these filled the city and province with amazement. The philosopher made a spider of burned cork that would _run_, and cause other people to run who had not learned the wherefore of the curious experiment. The wonderful Leyden vial became Franklin's companion. He liked ever to be experimenting in what the new force would do. What next? what next? How like lightning was this electricity! How could he increase electrical force? He says at the end of a long narrative: "We made what we called an _electrical battery_, consisting of eleven panes of large sash-glass, armed with thin leaden plates pasted on each side, placed vertically, and supported at two inches distance on silk cords, with thick hooks of leaden wire, one from each side, standing upright, distant from each other, and convenient communications of wire and chain, from the giving side of one pane to the receiving side of the other, that so the whole might be charged together." Franklin at this time was a stanch royalist. He made a figure of George II, with a crown, and so arranged it that the powerful electrical force might be stored in the _crown_. "God bless him!" said the philosopher. A young man seeing that the crown was very attractive, attempted to remove it. It was a thing that the philosopher had expected. The youth touched the crown. He reeled, and started back with a stroke that filled him with amazement. "So be it with all of King George's enemies!" said the philosophers. "Never attempt to discrown the king." "God bless him!" said Franklin. His son always continued to say this, but Franklin himself came to see that he who discrowns kings may be greater than kings, and that it became the duty of a people to discrown tyrannical kings, and to make a king of the popular will. Franklin now resolved to give up his business affairs to others, to refuse political office, and to devote himself to science. The latter resolution he did not keep. He went to live on a retired spot on the Delaware, where he had a large garden, and could be left to his experiments and thoughts upon them. With him went the magical bottle and his interesting son William. The power of metallic points to draw off lightning now filled his mind. "Could the lightning be controlled?" he began to ask. "Could the power of the thunderbolt be disarmed?" Every element can be made to obey its own laws. Water will bear up iron if the iron be hollow. But deeply and more deeply must the thoughts engage the mind of the philosopher. "Is lightning electricity? Does electricity fill all space?" He wrote two philosophical papers at this critical period of his life, when he sought to give up money-making and political life for the study of that science which would be most useful to man. He who gives up gains. He who is willing to deny himself the most shall have the most. He that loseth his life shall save it. He who seeketh the good of others shall find it in himself. One of these papers was entitled "Opinions and Conjectures concerning the Properties and Effects of the Electrical Matter, and the Means of preserving Ships and Buildings from Lightning, arising from Experiments and Observations at Philadelphia in 1749." In this treatise, which at last made his fame, he shows the similarity of electricity to lightning, and gives a description of an experiment in which a little lightning-rod had drawn away electricity from an artificial storm cloud. He says: "If these things are so, may not the knowledge of this power of points be of use to mankind in preserving houses, churches, ships, etc., from the stroke of lightning, by directing us to fix on the highest part of those edifices upright rods of iron made sharp as a needle, and gilt to prevent rusting, and from the foot of those rods a wire down the outside of the building into the ground, or down round one of the shrouds of a ship, and down her side till it reaches the water? Would not these pointed rods probably draw the electrical fire silently out of a cloud before it came nigh enough to strike, and thereby secure us from that most sudden and terrible mischief?" A great discovery was at hand. CHAPTER XXVII. THE GREAT DISCOVERY. IT was a June day, 1752--one of the longest days of the year. Benjamin Franklin was then forty-six years of age. The house garden was full of bloom; the trees were in leafage, and there was the music of blooms in the hives of the bees. Beyond the orchards and great trees the majestic Delaware rolled in purple splendor, dotted with slanting sails. Nature was at the full tide of the year. The river winds swept over the meadows in green waves, where the bobolinks toppled in the joy of their songs. It had been a hot morning, and billowy clouds began to rise in the still heat on the verge of the sky. Benjamin Franklin sat amid the vines and roses of his door. "William," he said to his son, "I am expecting a shower to-day. I have long been looking for one. I want you to remain with me and witness an experiment that I am about to make." Silence Dogood, or Father Franklin, then brought a kite out to the green lawn. The kite had a very long hempen string, and to the end of it, which he held in his hand, he began to attach some silk and a key. "When I was a boy," said Franklin, "and lived in the town of Boston by the marshes, I made a curious experiment with a kite. I let it tow me along the water where I went swimming. I have always liked flying kites. I hope that this one will bring me good luck should a shower come." "What do you expect to do with it, father?" "If the cloud comes up with thunder, and lightning be electricity, I am going to try to secure a spark from the sky." The air was still. The cloud was growing into mountain-like peaks. The robins and thrushes were singing lustily in the trees, as before a shower. The men in the cornfields and gardens paused in their work. Presently a low sound of thunder rolled along the sky. The cloud now loomed high and darkened in the still, hot air. "It is coming," said Franklin, "and the cloud will be a thunder gust. It is early in the season for such a cloud as that. See how black it grows!" The kite was made of a large silk handkerchief fastened to a perpendicular stick, on the top of which was a piece of sharpened iron wire. The philosopher examined it carefully. "What if you should receive a spark from the cloud, father?" asked the young man. "I would then say lightning was electricity, and that it could be controlled, and that human life might be protected from the thunderbolt." "But would not that thwart the providence of God?" "No, it would merely cause a force of Nature to obey its own laws so as to protect life instead of destroying it." The sky darkened. The sun went out. The sea birds flew inland and screamed. The field birds stood panting on the shrubs with drooping wings. A rattling thunder peal crossed the sky. The wind began to rise, and to cause the early blasted young fruit to fall in the orchards. The waves on the Delaware curled white. "Let us go to the cattle-shed," said Father Franklin. "I have been laughed at all my life, and do not care to have my neighbors tell the story of my experiment to others if I should fail." The two went together to the cattle-shed on the green meadow. The wind was roaring in the distance. The poultry were running home, and the cattle were seeking the shelter of the trees. The cloud was now overhead. Dark sheets of rain in the horizon looked like walls of carbon reared against the sky. The lightning was sharp and frequent. There came a vivid flash followed by a peal of thunder that shook the hills. "The cloud is overhead now," said Franklin. He ran out into the green meadow and threw the kite against the wind. It rose rapidly and was soon in the sky, drifting in the clouds that seemed full of the vengeful fluid. At the termination of the hempen cord dangled the key, and the silk end was wound around the philosopher's hand. The young man took charge of a Leyden jar which he had brought to the shed, in which to collect electricity from the clouds, should the experiment prove successful. The cloud came on in its fury. The rain began to fall. Franklin and his son stood under the shed. The air seemed electrified, but no electricity appeared in the hempen string. Franklin presented his knuckle to the key, but received no spark. What was that? The hempen string began to bristle like the hair of one electrified. Was it the wind? Was it electricity? Benjamin Franklin now touched the key with thrilling emotion, while his son looked on with an excited face. It was a moment of destiny not only to the two experimenters in the dashing rain, but to the world. If Franklin should receive a spark from the key, it would change the currents of the world's events. Flash! It came clear and sharp. The heavens had responded to law--to the command of the human will guided by law. Again, another spark. The boy touches the key. He, too, is given the evidence that has been given to his father. The two looked at each other. "Lightning is electricity," said Silence Dogood. "It can be drawn away from points of danger; no one need be struck by lightning if he will protect himself." "God himself," once said a writer, "could not strike one by lightning if one were insulated, without violating his own laws." And now came the consummation of one of the grandest experiments of time. He charged the Leyden jar from the clouds. "Stand back!" He touched his hand boldly to the magical bottle. A shock thrilled him. His dreams had come true. He had conquered one of the most potent elements on earth. The storm passed, the clouds broke, the wind swept by, and the birds sang again over the bending clover. Night serene with stars came on. That was probably the happiest day in all Franklin's eventful life. Like the patriarch of old, "his children were about him." He shared his triumph with the son whom he loved. But--he sent a paper on the results of his observation in electricity to the Royal Society at London, in which he announced his discovery that lightning was electricity. The society did not deem it worth publishing; it was a neglected manuscript, and as for his theory in regard to the electric fluid and universality, that, we are told by Franklin's biographers, "was laughed at." But his views had set all Europe to experimenting. Scientists everywhere were proving that his theories were true. France had become very much excited over the discovery, and was already hailing the philosopher's name with shouts of admiration. Franklin's fame filled Europe, and the greatest of British societies began to honor him. It was Doctor Franklin now!--The honorary degree came to him from many institutions.--Doctor from England, Doctor from France, Doctor from American colleges. The boy who had shared his penny rolls with the poor woman and her child sat down to hear the world praising him. The facts that lightning was electricity or electricity was lightning, that it was positive and negative, that it could be controlled, that life could be made safe in the thunder gust, were but the beginning of a series of triumphs that have come to make messengers of the lightning, and brought the nations of the world in daily communication with each other. But the wizardlike Edison has shown that the influences direct and indirect of that June day of 1752 may have yet only begun. What magnetism and its currents are to reveal in another century we can not tell; it fills us with silence and awe to read the prophecies of the scientists of to-day. The electrical mystery is not only moving us and all things; we are burning it, we are making it medicine, health, life. What may it not some day reveal in regard to a spiritual body or the human soul? The centuries to come can only reveal what will be the end of Franklin's discovery that lightning might be controlled to become the protector and the servant of man. Even his imagination could hardly have forecast the achievements which the imp of the magical bottle would one day accomplish in this blind world. It is not that lightning is electricity, but that electricity is subject to laws, that has made the fiery substance the wonder-worker of the age. If Uncle Ben, the poet, could have seen this day, how would his heart have rejoiced! Jane Mecom--Jenny--heard of the fame of her brother by every paper brought by the post. She delighted to tell her old mother the weekly news about Benjamin. One day, when he had received honors from one of the great scientific societies, Abiah said to her daughter: "You helped Ben in his early days--I can see now that you did." "How, mother?" "By believing in him when hardly any one else did. We build up people by believing in them. My dim eyes see it all now. I love to think of the past," she continued, "when you and Ben were so happy together--the days of Uncle Benjamin. I love to think of the old family Thanksgivings. What wonderful days were those when the old clock-cleaner came! How he took the dumb, dusty clock to pieces, and laid it out on the table! How Ben would say, 'you can never make that clock tick again!' and you, Jenny, whose faith never failed, would answer, 'Yes, Ben, he can!' How the old man would break open a walnut and extract the oil from the meat, and apply it with a feather to the little axles of the wheels, and then put the works together, and the clock would go better than before! Do you remember it, Jane? How, then, your wondering eyes would look upon the clock miracle and delight in your faith, and say, 'I told you so, Ben.' How he would kiss you in your happiness that your prophecy had come true. He had said 'No' that you might say 'Yes.'" "Do you think that his thoughts turn home, mother?" There was a whir of wings in the chimney. "More to a true nature than a noisy applause of the crowd is the simple faith of one honest heart," said Abiah Folger in return. "In the silence and desolation of life, which may come to all, such sympathy is the only fountain to which one can turn. Our best thoughts fly homeward like swallows to old chimneys, where they last year brooded over their young, and center in the true hearts left at the fireside. Every true heart is true to his home, and to the graves of those with whom it shared the years when life lay fair before it. Yes, Jane, he thinks of you." She was right. Jenny had helped her brother by believing in him when he most needed such faith. There is some good angel, some Jenny, who comes into every one's life. Happy is he who feels the heart touch of such an one, and yields to such unselfish spiritual visions. To do this is to be led by a gentle hand into the best that there is in life. In sacred hours the voices of these home angels come back to the silent chambers of the heart. We then see that our best hopes were in them, and wish that we could retune the broken chords of the past. The home voice is always true, and we find it so at last. Franklin had little of his sister's sentiment, but when he thought of the old days, and of the simple hearts that were true to him there, he would say, "Beloved Boston." His heart was in the words. Boston was the town of Jenny. CHAPTER XXVIII. HOME-COMING IN DISGUISE. THERE is a very delightful fiction, which may have blossomed from fact, which used to be found in schoolbooks, under the title of "The Story of Franklin's Return to his Mother after a Long Absence." It would have been quite like him to have returned to Boston in the guise of a stranger. Some one has said that he had a joke for everything, and that he would have put one into the Declaration of Independence had he been able. The tendency to make proverbs that Franklin showed in his early years grew, and if he were not indeed as wise as King Solomon, no one since the days of that Oriental monarch has made and "sought out" so many proverbs and given them to the world. The maxims of Poor Richard, which were at first given to the world through an almanac, spread everywhere. They were current in most Boston homes; they came back to the ears of Jamie the Scotchman--back, we say, for some of them were the echoes of Silence Dogood's life in the Puritan province. Poor Richard's Almanac was a lively and curious miscellany, and its coming was an event in America. Franklin put the wisdom that he gained by experience into it. In the following resolution was the purpose of his life at this time: "I wished to live," he says, "without committing any fault at any time, and to conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into." "But--but," he says, "I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined; but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish." In the spirit of this effort to correct life and to learn wisdom from experience, he gave Poor Richard's Almanac annually to the world. Like some of the proverbs of Solomon, it taught the people life as he himself learned it. For years Franklin lived in Poor Richard, and it was his pulse beat, his open heart, that gave the annual its power. All the sayings of Poor Richard were not original with Franklin. When a critical proverb, or a line from one of the poets, would express his idea or conviction better than he could himself, he used it. For example, he borrowed some beautiful lines from Pope, who in turn had received the leading thought from a satire of Horace. While Franklin was learning wisdom from life, and expressing it through Poor Richard, he was studying French, Italian, and Spanish, and making himself the master of philosophy. "He who would thrive must rise at five," he makes Poor Richard say. He himself rose at five in the morning, and began the day with a bath and a prayer. Intelligence to intelligence! Such was his life when Poor Richard was evolved. Who was Poor Richard, whose influence came to lead the thought of the time? Poor Richard was a comic almanac, or a character assumed by Benjamin Franklin, for the purpose of expressing his views of life. Having established a paper, Franklin saw the need of an annual and of an almanac, and he chose to combine the two, and to make the pamphlet a medium of hard sense in a rough, keen, droll way. He introduces himself in this curious annual as "Richard Saunders," "Poor Richard." He has an industrious wife named Bridget. He publishes his almanac to earn a little money to meet his pressing wants. "The plain truth of the matter is," says this pretended almanac maker, "I am excessive poor, and my wife, good woman, is, I tell her, excessive proud; she cannot bear, she says, to sit spinning in her gown of tow, while I do nothing but gaze at the stars; and has threatened more than once to burn all my books and rattling-traps (as she calls my instruments) if I do not make some profitable use of them for the good of my family. The printer has offer'd me some considerable share of the profits, and I have thus began to comply with my dame's desire." This Titian Leeds was a pen name for his rival publisher, who also issued an almanac. The two had begun life in Philadelphia together as printers. The way in which he refers to his rival in his new almanac, as a man about to die to fulfill the predictions of astrology, was so comical as to excite a lively interest. Would he die? If not, what would the _next_ almanac say of him? Mr. Leeds (Keimer) had a reputation of a knowledge of astronomy and astrology. In what way could Franklin have introduced a character to the public in the spirit of good-natured rivalry that would have awakened a more genuine curiosity? The next year Poor Richard announced that his almanac had proved a success, and told the public the news that they were waiting for and much desired to hear: his wife Bridget had profited by it. She was now able to have a dinner-pot of her own, and something to put into it. But how about Titian Leeds, who was to die after the astrological prediction? The people awaited the news of the fate of this poor man, as we await the tidings of the end of a piece of statesmanship. He thus answers, "I can not say positively whether he is dead or alive," but as the author of the rival almanac had spoken very disrespectfully of him, and as Mr. Leeds when living was a gentleman, he concludes that Mr. Leeds must be dead. In these comic annuals there is not only the almanacs and the play upon Titian Leeds, but a large amount of rude wisdom in the form of proverbs, aphorisms, and verses, most of which is original, but a part of which, as we have said, is apt quotation. The proverbs were everywhere quoted, and became a part of the national education. They became popular in France, and filled nearly all Europe. They are still quoted. Let us give you some of them: "Who has deceived thee so oft as thyself?" "Fly pleasures, and they will follow thee." "Let thy child's first lesson be obedience, and the second will be what thou wilt." "Industry need not wish." "In things of moment, on thyself depend, Nor trust too far thy servant or thy friend; With private views, thy friend may promise fair, And servants very seldom prove sincere." Besides these quaint sayings, which became a part of the proverbial wisdom of the world, Franklin had a comical remark for every occasion, as, when a boy, he advised his father to say grace over the whole pork barrel, and so save time at the table. He once admonished Jenny in regard to her spelling, and that after she was advanced in life, by telling her that the true way to spell wife was _yf_. After the treaty of peace with England, he thought it only a courtesy that America should return deported people to their native shores. Once in Paris, on receiving a cake labeled _Le digne Franklin_, which excited the jealousy of Lee and Dean, he said that the present was meant for Lee-Dean-Franklin, that being the pronunciation of the French label. Every event had a comical side for him. Let us bring prosperous Benjamin Franklin back to Boston to see his widowed mother again, after the old story-book manner. She is nearly blind now, and we may suppose Jamie the Scotchman to be halting and old. He comes into the town in the stagecoach at night. Boston has grown. The grand old Province House rises above it, the Indian vane turning hither and thither in the wind. The old town pump gleams under a lantern, as does the spring in Spring Lane, which fountain may have led to the settlement of the town. On a hill a beacon gleams over the sea. He passes the stocks and the whipping-post in the shadows. There is a light in the window of the Blue Ball. He sees it. It is very bright. Is his mother at work now that she is nearly blind? He dismounts. He passes close to the old window. His father is not in the room; he never will be there again. But an aged man is there. Who is he? The man is reading--what? The most popular pamphlet or little book that ever appeared in the colonies; a droll story. He knocks at the door. The old man rises and opens the door; the bell is gone. "Abiah, there's a stranger here." "Ask him who he is." "Say that he used to work here many years ago, and that he knew Josiah Franklin well, and was acquainted with Ben." "Tell him to come in," said the bent old woman with white hair. The stranger entered, and avoided questions by asking them. "What are you reading to-night, my good friend?" he asked. "The Old Auctioneer," answered the aged man. "Have you read it?" "Yes; it is on the taxes." "So it is--I've read it twice over. I'm now reading it to Abiah. Let me tell you a secret--her son wrote it. My opinion is that it is the smartest piece of work that ever saw the light on this side of the water. What's yourn?" "There's sense in it." "What did he say his name was?" asked Abiah. "Have you ever read any of Poor Richard's maxims?" asked the stranger quickly. "Yes, yes; we have taken the Almanac for years. Ben publishes it." "What did he say?" asked Abiah. "I can not hear as well as I once could.--Stranger, I heard you when you spoke loud at the door." "Repeat some of 'Poor Richard's' sayings," said the stranger. "You may well say 'repeat,'" said the old man. "I used to hear Ben Franklin say things like that when he was a 'prentice lad." "Like what, my friend?" "Like 'The noblest question in the world is what good may I do in it?' There! Like 'None preaches better than the ant, and she says nothing.' There!" "I see, I see, my good friend, you seem to have confidence in Poor Richard?" "Sir, I taught him much of his wisdom--he and I used to be great friends. I always knew that he had a star in his soul that would shine--I foresaw it all. I have the gift of second sight. I am a Scotchman." "And you prophesied good things to him when he was a boy?" "Yes, yes, or, if I did not, I only spoke in a discouraging way to encourage him. He and I were chums; we used to sit on Long Wharf together and _prognosticate_ together. That was a kind of Harvard College to us. Uncle Ben was living then." "Maybe the stranger would like you to read The Old Auctioneer," said Abiah to the Scotchman. "My boy wrote that--he told you. My boy has good sense--Jamie here will tell you so. I'm older now than I was." "Yes, yes, read, and let me rest. When the bell rings for nine I will go to the inn." "Maybe we can keep you here. We'll talk it over later. I want to hear Ben's piece. I'm his mother, and they tell me it is interesting to people who are no relation to him.--Jamie, you read the piece, and then we will talk over the past. It seems like meeting Ben again to hear his pieces read." Jamie the Scotchman read, and while he did so Abiah, wrinkled and old, looked often toward the stranger out of her dim eyes, while she listened to her son's always popular story of The Old Auctioneer. "That is a very good piece," said Abiah Franklin; "and now, stranger, let me say that your voice sounds familiar, and I want you to tell me in a good strong tone who you be. I didn't hear you give any name." "Is it almost nine?" asked the stranger. Jamie opened the door. A bell smote the still air, a silverlike bell. It spoke nine times. "I never heard that bell before," said the stranger. Suddenly music flooded the air; it seemed descending; there were many bells--and they were singing. "The Old North chimes," said the Scotchman; "they have just been put up. I wish Ben could hear them; I sort of carry him in my heart." "Don't speak! It is beautiful," said the stranger. "Hear what they are saying." "O Jamie, Jamie, _father_ used to play that tune on his violin." "_Father!_" The old woman started. "Ben, Ben, how could you! Come here; my eyes are failing me, Ben, but my heart will never fail me.--Jamie, prepare for him his old room, and leave us to talk together!" "I will go out to Mrs. Mecom's, and tell her that Benjamin has come home." "Yes, yes, go and call Jenny." They talked together long: of Josiah, now gone; of Uncle Benjamin, long dead; and of Parson Sewell, and the deacons of the South Church, who had passed away. The door opened. Jenny again stood before him. She led on a boy by the hand, and said to her portly brother: "This, Benjamin, is Benjamin." They talked together until the tears came. He heard the whir of the swallows' wings in the chimney. "The swallows come back," he said, "but they will never come again. It fills my heart with tenderness to hear these old home sounds." "No, _they_ will never come back from the mosses and ferns under the elms," said his mother. "The orioles come, the orchards bloom, and summer lights up the hills, and the leaves fall, but they will know no more changes or seasons. And I am going after their feet into the silence, Ben; I have almost got through. You have been a true son in the main, and Jenny has never stepped aside from the way. Always be good to Jenny." "Jenny, always be true to mother, and I will be as true to you." "Brother, I shall always be true to my home." CHAPTER XXIX. "THOSE PAMPHLETS." BENJAMIN FRANKLIN loved to meet Samuel Franklin, Uncle Benjamin's son, who also had caught the gentle philosopher's spirit, and was making good his father's intention. Samuel was a thrifty man in a growing town. "It is the joy of my life to find you so prosperous," said Franklin, "for it would have made your father's heart happy could he have known that one day I would find you so. Samuel, your father was a good man. I shall never cease to be grateful for his influence over me when I was a boy. He was my schoolmaster." "Yes, my father was a good man, and I never saw it as I do now. I was not all to him that I ought to have been. He was a poor man; he lived as it were on ideas, and people were accustomed to look upon him as a man who had failed in life." "He will never fail while you are a man of right influence," said Franklin. "He lives in you." "I feel his influence more and more every day," said Samuel. "Samuel Franklin, I do. Success does not consist in popularity or money-making. Right influence is success in life. I have been an unworthy godson of your father, but I am more than ever determined to carry out the principles that he taught me; they are the only things that will stand in life; as for the rest, the grave swallows all. Your father's life shall never be a failure if my life can bring to it honor. "Samuel, I have not always done my best, but I resolve more and more to be worthy of the love of all men when I think of what a character your father developed. He thought of himself last. He did not die poor. His hands were empty, but not his heart, and there sleeps no richer man in the Granary burying ground than he. "Samuel, he parted with his library containing the notes of his best thoughts in life in his efforts to come to America to give me the true lessons in life because I bore his name. It was a brotherly thought indeed that led my father who loved him to name me for him." "You speak of his library--his collection of religious books and pamphlets, which he wrote over with his own ideas; you have touched a tender spot in my heart. He wanted that I should have those pamphlets, and that I should try to recover them through some London agent. You are going to London. Do you think that they could be recovered after so many years?" "Samuel, there is a strange thing that I have observed. It is this: When a man looks earnestly for a thing that some one has desired him to have, his mind is curiously influenced and has strange directions. It is like blindfolded children playing hot and cold. There is some strange instinct in one who seeks a hidden object for his own or others' good that leads his feet into mysterious ways. I have much faith in that hidden law. Samuel, I may be able to find those pamphlets; I thought of them when I was in London. If I do, I will buy them at whatever cost, and will bring them to you, and may both of us try to honor the name of that loving, forgiving, noble man until we see each other again. It may be that when I shall come here another time, if I do, I will bring with me the pamphlets." "If you were to find them, I would indeed believe in a special Providence." The two parted. Poor Uncle Benjamin had sold his books for money, but was his life a failure, or was he never living more nobly than now? Franklin went to the Granary burying ground, where the old man slept. Great elms stood before the place. He thought of what his parents had been, how they had struggled and toiled, and how glad they were that Uncle Benjamin had come to them for his sake. He resolved to erect a monument there. He recalled Uncle Benjamin's teaching, that a man rises by overcoming his defects, and so gains strength. He had tried to profit by the old man's lesson in answer to his own question, "Have I a chance?" He had not only struggled to make strong his conscious weaknesses of character, but those of his mental power as well. His old pedagogue, Mr. Brownell, had been unable to teach him mathematics. In this branch of elementary studies he had proved a failure and a dunce. But he had struggled against this defect of Nature, as against all others, with success. He was going to London as the agent of the colonies. He would carry back to England those principles that the old man had taught him, and would live them there. His Uncle Benjamin had written those principles in his "pamphlets," and again in his own life. Would he ever see these documents which had in fact been his schoolbooks, but which had come to him without the letter, because the old man had been too poor to keep the books? CHAPTER XXX. A STRANGE DISCOVERY. FRANKLIN went to London. Franklin loved old bookstores. There were many in London, moldy and musty, in obscure corners, some of them in cellars and in narrow passageways, just off thronging streets. One day, when he was sixty years of age, just fifty years after his association with Uncle Benjamin, he wandered out into the byways of the old London bookstores. It was early spring; the winter fogs of London had disappeared, the squares were turning green, the hedgerows blooming, the birds were singing on the thorns. Such a sunny, blue morning might have called him into the country, but he turned instead into the flowerless ways of the book stalls. He wandered about for a time and found nothing. Then he thought of old Humphrey, of whom he had bought books perhaps out of pity. There was something about this man that held him; he seemed somehow like a link of the unknown past. He compelled him to buy books that he did not want or need. "This is a fine spring morning," said old Humphrey, as he saw the portly form of Franklin enter the door. "I have been thinking of you much of late. I do not seem to be able to have put you out of my mind; and why should I, a fine gentleman like you, and uncommonly civil. I have something that I have been allotting on showing you. It is very curious; it is a library of thirty-six volumes of pamphlets, and it minds me that a more interesting collection of pamphlets was never made. I read them myself in lonesome days when there is no trade. Let me show you one of the volumes." "No, never mind, my friend. I could not buy the whole library, however interesting it might be. I will look for something smaller. This is a very old bookstore." "Ay, it is that. It has been kept here ever since the times of the Restoration, and before. My wife's father used to keep it when he was an old man and I was a boy. And now I am an old man. I must show you one of those books or pamphlets. They are all written over." Benjamin Franklin sat down on a stool in the light, and took up an odd volume of the Canterbury Tales. Old Humphrey lighted a candle and went into a dark recess. He presently returned, bringing one of the thirty-six volumes of pamphlets. "My American friend, if one liked old things, and the comments of one dead and gone, this library of pamphlets would be food for thought. Just look at this volume!" He struck the book against a shelf to remove the dust, and handed it to Franklin. The latter adjusted his spectacles to the light, and turned over the volume. "As you say," he said to old Humphrey, "it is all written over." [Illustration: A STRANGE DISCOVERY.] "And uncommonly interesting comments they are. That library of pamphlets and comments, in my opinion, is as valuable as Pepys's Diary. Old Humphrey had struck the right chord. In Pepys's Diary, which was kept for nine years during the gay and exciting period of the reign of Charles II, one lives, as it were, amid the old court scenes. Franklin turned over the leaves of the volume. "It is a curious book," said he. The light was poor, and he took the book to the door. Above the tall houses of the narrow street was a rift of sunny blue sky. "There is something in the handwriting that looks familiar," said he. "It seems as though I had seen that writing somewhere before. Where did you find these books?" "They came to me from my wife's father, who kept the storeway until he was nigh upon ninety years old. He set great store by these books, which led me to read them. "When Pepys's Diary was printed I was reminded of them, and read them over again, the comments and all. The person who made those notes had a very interesting mind. I think him to have been a philosopher." The ink on the margin of the volume was fading, and Franklin strained his eyes to read the comments. Suddenly he turned and came into the store and sat down. "Father Humphrey, bring me another volume." Father Humphrey lighted the candle again and went into the same dark and tomblike recess, and brought out two more volumes, striking them against the corners of shelves to remove from them the dust and mold. He noticed that his patron seemed overcome. Franklin was not an emotional man, but his lip quivered. "You think that the book is interesting?" He lifted his face and seemed lost in thought. "Ecton--Ecton--Ecton," he said. "Uncle Tom lived there--Uncle Tom, who started the subscription for the chime of bells." He had found the word "Ecton" in the pamphlets, and he again began to turn the leaves. "Squire Isted," he said, "Squire Isted." He had found the name of Squire Isted on one of the leaves. He had heard the name in his youth. "The World's End," he said. He stood up and turned round and round. "How queer he acts!" thought Father Humphrey. "I thought him a very calm man. What is it about the World's End?" he asked. "Oh, it is the name of an old tavern that I have found here. I had some great-uncles that used to have a farm and forge near an inn of that name. That was very long ago, before I was born. Old names seem to me like voices of the past." He put his spectacles to his eyes and held the book again up to the light. He presently said: "Luke Fuller--that is an old English name; there was such a one who was ousted for nonconformity in the days of the Conventicles." He turned round and lifted his face and stood still, like a statue. Was he going mad? Poor old Father Humphrey began to look toward the door to see if there were clear way of escape for him should the strange man become violent. Presently he said: "Earls--Barton," and lifted his brows. Then he said: "Mears--Ashby," and lifted his brows higher. "What, sir, is it about Earls--Barton, and Mears--Ashby?" asked the timid Father Humphrey. "Oh, you are _here_. I've heard of these places before--it was many years ago. Some folks came over to America from there." He turned to the book again. "An Essay on the Toleration Act," said he. "Banbury," he continued. He dropped the book by his side, and lifted his brows again. Poor Father Humphrey now thought that his customer had indeed gone daft, and was beginning to repeat an old nursery rhyme that that name suggested. The book went up to the light again. Old Humphrey, frightened, passed him and went to the door, so that he might run if his strange visitor should be incited to do him harm. Suddenly a very alarming expression came over the book-finder's face. What would he do next, this calm, grand old man, who was going out of his senses in this unfortunate place? He dropped the book by his side again, and said, as in the voice of another, a long-gone voice: "Reuben of the Mill--Reuben of the Mill!" Poor Father Humphrey thought he was summoning the ghost of some strange being from the recesses of the cellar. He began to walk away, when the supposed mind-shattered American seemed to be returning to himself, and said in a very calm and dignified manner: "Father Humphrey, you must think that I have been acting strangely. There are some notes here that recall old names and places. They carried my thoughts away back to the past." The timid man came into the shop hopeful of a bargain. "It is a useful book, I should think," said Franklin, as if holding himself in restraint. He took the two other volumes that Father Humphrey had brought him and began to look them over. "Father Humphrey, what do you want for the whole library of the pamphlets?" "I do not exactly know what price to fix upon them. They might be valuable to an antiquarian some day, perhaps to some solicitor, or to a library. I would be glad to sell them to you, for somehow--and I speak out of my heart, and use no trade language--somehow I want you to buy them. Would five pounds be too much for the thirty volumes?" "No, no. There are but few that would want them or give them room. I will pay you five pounds for them. I will take one volume away, but for the present you shall keep the others for me." He left the store. It was a bright day. Happy faces passed him, but he saw them not. He walked, indeed, the streets of London, but it was the Boston of his childhood that was with him now. He wondered at what he had found--he wondered if there were mysterious influences behind life; for he was certain that these pamphlets were those that his godfather Uncle Benjamin had so valued as a part of himself, and that the notes on the margin of the leaves were in the handwriting of the same kind-hearted man whose influence had so molded his young life. He went to his apartments, and sat down at his table and read the pamphlet and the notes. He found in the notes the very thoughts and the same expressions of thought that he had received from Uncle Benjamin in his childhood. What a life had been his, and how much he owed to this honest, pure-minded old man! He started up. "I must go back to Father Humphrey," he said, "and find of whom he obtained these books. If these are Uncle Benjamin's pamphlets, this is the strangest incident in all my life; it would look as though there was a finger of Providence in it. I must go back--I must go back." CHAPTER XXXI. OLD HUMPHREY'S STRANGE STORY. IN his usual serene manner--for he very rarely became excited, notwithstanding that his conduct and his absentmindedness had surprised old Humphrey--Mr. Franklin made his way again to the bookstore in the alley. Old Humphrey welcomed him with-- "Well, I am glad to see you again, my American patron. Did you find the volume interesting?" "Yes, Father Humphrey, that was an interesting book, and there were some very curious comments in it. The notes on the Conventicles and the Toleration Act greatly interested me. The man who was the compiler of that book of pamphlets seems to have been a poet, and to have had relatives who were advocates of justice. I was struck by many wise comments that I found in it written in a peculiar hand. Father Humphrey, who do you suppose made those notes? Where did you find those pamphlets? How did they come to you?" "Well, that would be hard to say. Those volumes of pamphlets have been in the store many years, and I have often tried to find a purchaser for them. They must have come down from the times of the Restoration. I wouldn't wonder if they were as old as Cromwell's day. There is much about Banbury in them, and old Lord Halifax." "Old Lord Halifax!" said Franklin in surprise, walking about with a far-away look in his face again and his hands behind him. "I did not find that name in the volume that I took home. I had an uncle who received favors from old Lord Halifax." "You did, hey? Where did he live?" "In Ecton, or in Nottingham." "Now, that is curious. It may be that he made the library of pamphlets." "No, no; if he had, he would never have sold them. He was a well-to-do man. But you have not answered my questions as to how the library of pamphlets came to you." "I can't. I found them here when I took charge of the store. My wife's father, as I said, used to keep the store. He died suddenly in old age, and left the store to my wife. He had made a better living than I out of my business. So I took the store. I found the books here. I do not know where my father-in-law obtained them. It was his business to buy rare books, and then find a way to some antiquarian of means who might want them. The owner's name was not left in these books. I have looked for it many times. But there are names of Nottingham people there, and when old Lord Halifax used to visit London I tried to interest him in them, but he did not care to buy them." "Father Humphrey, what was your wife's father's name?" "His name was Axel, sir. He was a good man, sir. He attended the conventicles, sir, and became a Brownite, sir, and----" Was the American gentleman going daft again? He stopped at the name of _Axel_, and lifted his brows. He turned around, and bowed over with a look of intense interest. "Did you say Axel, Father Humphrey?" "Axel, your honor. Axel. I once heard him say that several of these pamphlets were suppressed after the Restoration, and that they were rare and valuable. I heard him say that they would be useful to a historian, sir." "I will pay you for the books, and you may hold them in trust for me. They will be sent for some day, or it may be that I will call for them myself. My uncle owned those books. It would have been the dearest thing of his life could the old man have seen what has now happened. Father Humphrey, one's heart's desires bring about strange things. They shape events after a man is dead. It seems to me as though I had been directed here. Father Humphrey, what do you think of such things?" "Well, I don't know. From the time that I first saw you my mind was turned to the pamphlets. I don't know why. Perhaps the owner's thought, or desires, or prayers led me. It is all very strange." "Yes, it is very strange," said Franklin, again walking to and fro with his hands behind him. "I wish that all good men's works could be fulfilled in this way." "How do you know that they are not?" "Let us hope that they are." "This is all very strange." "Very strange, very strange. It is the greatest of blessings in life to have had good ancestors. Uncle Ben was a good old man. I owe much to him, and now I seem to have met with him again--Uncle Benjamin, my father's favorite brother, who used to carry me sailing and made the boat a schoolroom for me in the harbor of Boston town." He added to himself in an absent way: "Samuel Franklin and I have promised to live so as to honor the character of this old man. I have a great task before me, and I can not tell what the issue will be, but I will hold these pamphlets and keep them until I can look into Samuel's face and say, 'England has done justice to America, and your father's influence has advanced the cause of human rights in the world.'" Would that day ever come? He went to Ecton, in Nottinghamshire, with his son, and there heard the chimes in the steeple that had been placed there by Thomas Franklin's influence. He visited the graves of his ancestors and the homes of many poor people who bore the Franklin name. He found three letters that his Uncle Benjamin had written home. He read in them the names of himself and Jenny. How his heart must have turned home on that visit! A biographer of Franklin tells his story in a beautiful simplicity that leaves no call for fictitious enlargement. He says: "Franklin discovered a cousin, a happy and venerable old maid; 'a good, clever woman,' he wrote, 'but poor, though vastly contented with her situation, and very cheerful'--a genuine Franklin, evidently. She gave him some of his Uncle Benjamin's old letters to read, with their pious rhymings and acrostics, in which occurred allusions to himself and his sister Jane when they were children. Continuing their journey, father and son reached Ecton, where so many successive Franklins had plied the blacksmith's hammer. They found that the farm of thirty acres had been sold to strangers. The old stone cottage of their ancestors was used for a school, but was still called the Franklin House. Many relations and connections they hunted up, most of them old and poor, but endowed with the inestimable Franklinian gift of making the best of their lot. They copied tombstones; they examined the parish register; they heard the chime of bells play which Uncle Thomas had caused to be purchased for the quaint old Ecton church seventy years before; and examined other evidences of his worth and public spirit." CHAPTER XXXII. THE EAGLE THAT CAUGHT THE CAT.--DR. FRANKLIN'S ENGLISH FABLE.--THE DOCTOR'S SQUIRRELS. WHEN Dr. Franklin was abroad the first time after the misadventure with Governor Keith, and was an agent of the colonies, his fame as a scientist gave him a place in the highest intellectual circles of England, and among his friends were several clergymen of the English Church and certain noblemen of eminent force and character. When in 1775, while he was again the colonial agent, the events in America became exciting, his position as the representative American in England compelled him to face the rising tide against his country. He was now sixty-nine years of age. He was personally popular, although the king came to regard him with disfavor, and once called him that "insidious man." But he never failed, at any cost of personal reputation, to defend the American cause. His good humor never forsook him, and the droll, quaint wisdom that had appeared in Poor Richard was turned to good account in the advocacy of the rights of the American colonies. One evening he dined at the house of a nobleman. It was in the year of the Concord fight, when political events in America were hurrying and were exciting all minds in both countries. They talked of literature at the party, but the political situation was uppermost in the minds of all. A gentleman was present whose literary mind made him very interesting to such circles. "The art of the illustration of the principles of life in fable," he said, "is exhausted. �sop, La Fontaine, Gay, and others have left nothing further to be produced in parable teaching." The view was entertaining. He added: "There is not left a bird, animal, or fish that could be made the subject of any original fable." Dr. Franklin seemed to be very thoughtful for a time. "What is your opinion, doctor?" asked the literary gentleman. "You are wrong, sir. The opportunity to produce fables is limitless. Almost every event offers the fabric of a fable." "Could you write a fable on any of the events of the present time?" asked the lord curiously. "If you will order pen and ink and paper, I will give you a picture of the times in fable. A fable comes to me now." The lord ordered the writing material. What new animals or birds had taken possession of Franklin's fancy? No new animals or birds, but old ones in new relations. Franklin wrote out his fable and proceeded to read it. It was a short one, but the effect was direct and surprising. The lord's face must have changed when he listened to it, for it was a time when such things struck to the heart. The fable not only showed Dr. Franklin's invention, but his courage. It was as follows: "Once upon a time an eagle, scaling round a farmer's barn and espying a hare, darted down upon him like a sunbeam, seized him in his claws, and remounted with him to the air. He soon found that he had a creature of more courage and strength than a hare, for which, notwithstanding the keenness of his eyesight, he had mistaken a cat. "The snarling and scrambling of his prey were very inconvenient, and, what was worse, she had disengaged herself from his talons, grasped his body with her four limbs, so as to stop his breath, and seized fast hold of his throat with her teeth. "'Pray,' said the eagle, 'let go your hold, and I will release you.' "'Very fine,' said the cat; 'I have no fancy to fall from this height and be crushed to death. You have taken me up, and you shall stoop and let me down.' The eagle thought it necessary to stoop accordingly." The eagle, of course, represented England, and the cat America. Dr. Franklin was a lover of little children and animals--among pet animals, of the American squirrel. When he returned to England the second time as an agent of the colonies, he wished to make some presents to his English friends who had families. He liked not only to please children, but to give them those things which would delight them. So he took over to England for presents a cage full of pranky little squirrels. Among the families of children whom he loved was Dr. Shipley's, the bishop, who had a delightful little daughter, and to her the great Dr. Franklin, who was believed to command the visible heavens, made a present of a cunning American squirrel. The girl came to love the pet. It was a truly American squirrel; it sought liberty. Franklin called it Mungo. The girl seems to have given the little creature his will, and let him sometimes go free among the oaks and hedgerows of the fair, green land. But one day it was caught by a dog or cat, or some other animal, and killed. His liberty proved his ruin. Poor Mungo! There was sorrow in the bishop's home over the loss of the pet, and the poor little girl sought consolation from the philosopher. But, philosopher that he was, he could not recall to life the little martyr to liberty. So he did about all that can be done in like cases: he wrote for her an epitaph for her pet, setting forth its misfortunes, and giving it a charitable history, which must have been very consoling. He did not indulge in any frivolous rhymes, but used the stately rhythms that befit a very solemn event. There is a perfect picture of the mother heart of Franklin in this little story. The world has ever asked why this man was so liked. The answer may be read here: A sympathy, guided by principle, that often found expression in humor. As in the case of good old Sam Adams, the children followed him. Blessed are those whom mothers and children love. It is the heart that has power. A touch of sympathy outlives tales of achievements of power, as in the story of Ulysses's dog. It is he who sympathizes the most with mankind that longest lives in human affections. A man's character may be known by the poet that the man seeks as his interpreter. Franklin's favorite poet as he grew old was Cowper. In all his duties of life he never lost that heart charm, the _grandfather_ charm; it was active now when children still made his old age happy. How queerly he must have looked in England with his cage of little squirrels and the children following him in some good bishop's garden! CHAPTER XXXIII. OLD MR. CALAMITY AGAIN. FRANKLIN'S paper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, which appeared in the year 1729, at first published by Franklin and Meredith, and always very neatly printed, had grown, and its income became large. It did much of the thinking for the province. But Franklin made it what it was by his energy, perseverance, and faith. He returned to America, and the paper voiced his opinions. In the period of his early struggle, he was wheeling some printing paper in a wheelbarrow along the streets toward his office when he heard the tap, tap, tap of an old man's cane. He looked around. It was the cane of old Mr. Calamity. This man had advised him not to begin publishing. "Young man----" "Good morning, sir. I hope it finds you well." "It must be hard times when an editor has to carry his printing paper in a wheelbarrow." "The oracle said, 'Leave no stone unturned if you would find success.'" "Well, my young friend, if there is anybody that obeys the oracle in Pennsylvania it is you. You dress plainly; you do not indulge in many luxuries; you attend the societies and clubs that seek information; you ought to succeed, but you won't." The old man lifted his cane and brought it down on the flagging stones with a pump. "You won't, _now_!" He stood still for a moment to add to the impression of his words. "What is this I hear? The province is about to issue paper money? What did I tell you long ago? This is an age of rags. Paper money is rags. Governor Keith's affairs have all gone to ruin; it is unfortunate that he went away. And you are going to print the paper money for the province, are you? Listen to me: in a few years it will not be worth the paper it is printed on, and you will be glad to follow the example of Governor Keith, and get out of Philadelphia. The times are hard, but they are going to be harder. What hope is there for such a man as you?" Franklin set down his wheelbarrow. "My good sir, I am doing honest work. It will tell--I have confidence that it will tell." "Tell! Tell who?" "The world." "The world! The owls have not yet ceased to hoot in woods around Philadelphia, and he has a small world that is bounded by the hoot of an owl." "My father used to say that he who is diligent in his business shall stand before kings," quoting the Scripture. "Well, you may be as honest and as diligent in your business as you will, it is a small chance that you will ever have of standing before kings. What are you standing before now?--a wheelbarrow. That is as far as you have got. A promising young man it must be to stand before a wheelbarrow and talk about standing before kings!" "But, sir, I ought not to be standing before a wheelbarrow. I ought to be going on and coining time." "Well, go right along; you are on the way to Poverty Corner, and you will not need any guide post to find it; take up the handles of the wheelbarrow and go right on. Maybe the king will send a coach for you some day." He did--more than one king did. Franklin took the handles of the wheelbarrow, wondering which was the true prophet, his father's Scripture or cautious old Mr. Calamity. As he went on he heard the tap, tap, tap of the cane behind him, and a low laugh at times and the word "kings." He came to the office, and taking a huge bundle of printing paper on his shoulder went in. The cane passed, tap, tap, tapping. It had an ominous sound. But after the tap, tap, tap of the cane had gone, Franklin could still hear his old father's words in his spiritual memory, and he believed that they were true. We must continue the story of Mr. Calamity, so as to picture events from a Tory point of view. The incident of the wheelbarrow would long cause him to reproach the name of Franklin. The Pennsylvania Gazette not only grew and became a source of large revenue, so that Franklin had no more need to wheel to his office printing paper with his own hands, but it crowned with honor the work of which he was never ashamed. The printing of the paper money of the province added to his name, the success that multiplies success began its rounds with the years, and middle life found him a rich man, and his late return from England a man with the lever of power that molds opinion. Poor old Mr. Calamity must have viewed this growth and prosperity with eyes askance. His cane tapped more rapidly yearly as it passed the great newspaper office, notwithstanding that it bore more and more the weight of years. Benjamin Franklin was a magnanimous man. He never wasted time in seeking the injury of any who ridiculed and belittled him. He had the largest charity for the mistakes in judgment that men make, and the opportunities of life were too precious for him to waste any time in beating the air where nothing was to be gained. Help the man who some time sought to injure you, and the day may come when he will help you, and such Peter-like experiences are among life's richest harvests. The true friendship gained by forgiveness has a breadth and depth of life that bring one of the highest joys of heaven to the soul. "I will study many things, for I must be proficient in something," said the poet Longfellow when young. Franklin studied everything--languages, literature, science, and art. His middle life was filled with studies; all life to him was a schoolroom. His studies in middle life bore fruit after he was threescore and ten years of age. They helped to make his paper powerful. Franklin's success greatly troubled poor old Mr. Calamity. After the printer made the great discovery that electricity was lightning, the old man opposed the use of lightning-rods. "What will that man Franklin do next?" he said. "He would oppose the Lord of the heavens from thundering and lightning--he would defy Providence and Omnipotent Power. Why, the next thing he may deny the authority of King George himself, who is divinely appointed. He is a dangerous man, the most dangerous man in all the colony." Old Mr. Calamity warned the people against the innovations of this dangerous man. One day, as he was resting under the great trees on the Schuylkill, there was brought to him grievous news. A clerk in the Pennsylvania Assembly came up to him and asked: "Do you know what has been done? The Assembly has appointed Franklin as agent to London; he is to go as the agent of all the colonies." "Sho! What do the colonies want of an agent in London? Don't the king know how to govern his colonies? And if we need an agent abroad, why should we send a printer and a lightning-rod man? Clerk, sit down! That man Franklin is a dangerous leader. 'An agent of the colonies in London!' Why, I have seen him carrying printing paper in a wheelbarrow. A curious man that to send to the court of England's sovereign, whose arms are the lion and the unicorn." "But there is a movement in England to tax the colonies." "And why shouldn't there be? If the king thinks it is advisable to tax the colonies for their own support, why should not his ministers be instructed to do so? The king is a power divinely ordained; the king can do no wrong. We ought to be willing to be taxed by such a virtuous and gracious sovereign. Taxation is a blessing; it makes us realize our privileges. Oh, that Franklin! that Franklin! there is something peculiarsome about him; but the end of that man is to fall. First carrying about printing paper in a wheelbarrow, then trifling with the lightning in a thunderstorm, and now going to the court of England as a representative of the colonies. The world never saw such an amazing spectacle as that in all its history. Do you know what the king may yet be compelled to do? He may yet have to punish his American colonies. Clouds are gathering--I can see. Well, let Franklin go, and take his wheelbarrow with him! What times these are!" Franklin was sent to England again greatly to the discomfort of Mr. Calamity. The English Parliament passed an act called the Stamp Act, taxing the colonies by placing a stamp on all paper to be used in legal transactions. It was passed against the consent of the colonies, who were allowed to have no representatives in the foreign government, and the measure filled the colonies with indignation. There were not many in America like Mr. Calamity who believed the doctrine that the king could do no wrong. King George III approved of the Stamp Act, not only as a means of revenue, but as an assertion of royal authority. The colonies were opposed to the use of the stamped paper. Were they to submit to be governed by the will of a foreign power without any voice in the measures of the government imposed upon them? Were their lives and property at the command of a despotism, without any source of appeal to justice? The indignation grew. The spirit of resistance to the arbitrary act of tyranny was everywhere to be met and seen. From the time of his arrival in London, in 1764, at the age of fifty-nine, Franklin gave all his energies for a long time to opposing the Stamp Act, and, after it had passed, to securing its repeal. He was, as it were, America in London. The Stamp Act, largely through his influence, was at last repealed, and joy filled America. Processions were formed in honor of the king, and bonfires blazed on the hills. In Boston the debtors were set free from jail, that all might unite in the jubilee. Franklin's name filled the air. Old Mr. Calamity heard of it amid the ringing of bells. "Franklin, Franklin," he said on the occasion, turning around in vexation and taking a pinch of snuff, "why, I have seen him carrying printing paper in a wheelbarrow!" Philadelphia had a day of jubilee in honor of the repeal of the Stamp Act, and Mr. Calamity with cane and snuffbox wandered out to see the sights. The streets were in holiday attire, bells were ringing, and here and there a shout for Franklin went up from an exulting crowd. As often as the prudent old gentleman heard that name he turned around, pounding his cane and taking a pinch of snuff. He went down to a favorite grove on the banks of the Schuylkill. He found it spread with tables and hung with banners. "Sir," he said to a local officer, "is there to be a banquet here?" "Yes, your Honor, _the_ banquet is to be here. Have you not heard?" "What is the banquet to be for?" "In honor of Franklin, sir." Mr. Calamity turned round on his cane and took out his snuffbox. There was an outburst of music, a great shout, and a hurrying of people toward the green grove. Something loomed in air. The old gentleman, putting his hand over his eye as a shade, looked up in great surprise. "What--what is that?" What indeed! "A boat sailing in the air?" He added, "Franklin must have invented that!" "No," said the official, "that is the great barge." "What is it for?" "It will exhibit itself shortly," said the official. It came on, covered with banners that waved in the river winds. The old man read the inscription upon it--"_Franklin_." "I told you so," he said. "It will thunder soon," said the official. "Don't you see it is armed with guns?" The barge stopped at the entrance of the grove. A discharge of cannon followed from the boat, which was forty feet long. A great shout followed the salute. The whole city seemed cheering. The name that filled the air was "_Franklin_." Mr. Calamity turned around and around, planting his cane down in a manner that left a circle, and then taking out of his pocket his snuffbox. He saw a boy cheering. "Boy!" "Sir?" "What are _you_ shouting for?" "For the Stamp Act, sir!" "That is right, my boy." "No, for Franklin!" "For Franklin? Why, I have seen him carrying a lot of printing paper through the streets in a wheelbarrow! May time be gracious to me, so that I may see him hanged! Boy, see here----" But the banners were moving into the green grove, and the boy had gone after them. Benjamin Franklin returned to Philadelphia the most popular man in the colonies, and was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress. "Only Heaven can save us now," said troubled Mr. Calamity. "There's treason in the air!" The old gentleman was not a bad man; he saw life on the side of shadow, and had become blind to the sunny side of life. He was one of those natures that are never able to come out of the past. The people amid the rising prosperity ceased to believe in old Mr. Calamity as a prophet. He felt this loss of faith in him. He assumed the character of the silent wise man at times. He would pass people whom he had warned of the coming doom, shaking his head, and then turning around would strike his cane heavily on the pavement, which would cause the one he had left behind to look back. He would then lift his cane as though it were the rod of a magician. "Old Mr. Calamity is coming," said a Philadelphia schoolboy to another, one new school day in autumn. "See, he is watching Franklin, and is trying to avoid meeting him." Their teacher came along the street. "Why, boys, are you watching the old gentleman?" "He is trying to avoid meeting Mr. Franklin, sir." "Calamity comes to avoid Industry," said the teacher, as he saw the two men. Franklin was the picture of thrift, and his very gait was full of purpose and energy. "I speak in parable," said the teacher, "but that old gentleman is always in a state of alarm, and he seems to find satisfaction in predicting evil, and especially of Mr. Franklin. The time was when the young printer avoided him--he was startled, I fancy, whenever he heard the cane on the pavement; he must have felt the force of the suggestion that Calamity was after him. Now he has become prosperous, and the condition is changed. Calamity flees from him. See, my boys, the two men." They stopped on the street. Mr. Calamity passed them on the opposite side, and Mr. Franklin came after him, walking briskly. The latter stopped at the door of his office, but the old gentleman hurried on. When he reached the corner of the street he planted his cane down on the pavement and looked around. He saw the popular printer standing before his office door on the street. The two looked at each other. The old man evidently felt uncomfortable. He turned the corner, out of sight, when an extraordinary movement appeared. Mr. Calamity reached back his long, ruffled arm, and his cane, in view of the philosopher, the teacher, and the boys, and shook the cane mysteriously as though he were writing in the air. He may have had in mind some figure of the ancient prophets. Up and down went the cane, around and around, with curves of awful import. It looked to those on the street he had left as though the sharp angle of the house on the corner had suddenly struck out a living arm in silent warning. The arm and cane disappeared. A head in a wide-rimmed hat looked around the angle as if to see the effect of the writing in the air. Then the arm and cane appeared again as before. It was like the last remnant of a cloud when the body has passed. The teacher saw the meaning of the movement. "Boys," said he, "if you should ever be pursued by Mr. Calamity in any form, remember the arm and cane. See Franklin laugh! Industry in the end laughs at Calamity, and Diligence makes the men who 'stand before kings.' It is the law of life. Detraction is powerless before will and work, and as a rule whatever any one dreams that he may do, he will do." The boys had received an object lesson, and would long carry in their minds the picture of the mysterious arm and cane. In a right intention one is master of the ideal of life. If circumstances favor, he becomes conscious that life is no longer master of him, but that he is the master of life. This sense of power and freedom is noble; in vain does the shadow of Calamity intrude upon it; the visions of youth become a part of creations of the world; the dream of the architect is a mansion now; of the scientist, a road, a railway over rivers and mountains; of the orator and poet, thoughts that live. Even the young gardner finds his dreams projected into his farm. So ideals become realities, and thoughts become seeds that multiply. Mr. Calamity may shake his cane, but it will be behind a corner. Happy is he who makes facts of his thoughts that were true to life! CHAPTER XXXIV. OLD MR. CALAMITY AND THE TEARING DOWN OF THE KING'S ARMS. OUR gentlemanly friend Mr. Calamity was now very, very old, long past the milestone of eighty. As Philadelphia grew, the streets lengthening, the fine houses rising higher and higher, he began to doubt that he was a prophet, and he shunned Benjamin Franklin when the latter was in the country. One day, long before the Stamp Act, he passed the Gazette office, when the prosperous editor appeared. "It's coming," said he, tap, tapping on. "What did I tell you?" "What is coming?" asked our vigorous king of prosperity. "War!" He became greatly excited. "Indians! they're coming with the tommyhawk and scalping knife, and we'll need to be thankful if they leave us our heads." There were indeed Indian troubles and dire events at that time, but not near Philadelphia. Time passed. He was a Tory, and he heard of Concord and Lexington, and he ceased to read the paper that Franklin printed, and his cane flew scatteringly as it passed the office door. To him that door was treason. One evening he lifted his cane as he was passing. "The king will take the puny colonies in his mighty arms and dash them against the high rock of the sea. He will dash them in pieces 'like a potter's vessel.' What are we to the throne of England!" He heard of Bunker Hill, and his old heart beat free again. "What did I tell you?" he said. "King George took the rebels in his arms and beat them against Bunker Hill. He'll plant his mighty heel on Philadelphia some day, and may it fall on the head of Benjamin Franklin, for of all rebels he is the most dangerous. Oh, that Franklin! He is now advocating the independence of the colonies!" The Provincial Congress began to assemble, and cavalcades went out to meet the members as they approached the city on horseback. The Virginia delegation were so escorted into the city with triumph. The delegates were now assembling to declare the colony free. Independence was in the air. Terrible days were these to Mr. Calamity. As often as he heard the word "independence" on the street his cane would fly up, and after this spasm his snuffbox would come out of his pocket for refreshment. His snuffbox was silver, and on it in gold were the king's arms. He was a generous man despite his fears. He was particularly generous with his snuff. He liked to pass it around on the street, for he thereby displayed the king's arms on his snuffbox. When the Massachusetts delegates came, the city was filled with joy. But Samuel Adams was the soul of the movement for independence, and after his arrival independence was more and more discussed, which kept poor old Mr. Calamity's cane continually flying. But his feelings were terribly wounded daily by another event of common occurrence. As he passed the snuffbox to the Continentals he met, and showed the royal arms upon it, they turned away from him; they would not take snuff from the royal snuffbox. These were ominous times indeed. The province of Pennsylvania had decreed that no one should hold any office derived from the authority of the king. For a considerable period there was no government in Pennsylvania, no authority to punish a crime or collect a debt, but all things went on orderly, peacefully, and well. Old Mr. Calamity used to sit under the great elm tree at Shakamaxon in the long summer days and extend his silver snuffbox to people as they passed. The tree was full of singing birds; flowers bloomed by the way, and the river was bright; but to him the glory of the world had fled, for the people no longer would take snuff from the box with the royal arms. One day a lady passed who belonged to the days of the Penns and the Proprietors. "Madam Bond," said he, "comfort me." A patriot passed. The old man held out the snuffbox. The man hesitated and started back. "The royal arms will have to go," said the patriot. "Where from?" said the old man excited. "From everywhere. We are about to decree a new world." "They will never take these golden arms from that snuffbox. Sir, do you know that box was given to the Proprietor by Queen Charlotte herself?" "Well, the golden arms will have to come off it; they will have to come down everywhere. No--I thank you," he continued. "I can not ever take snuff again out of a snuffbox like that." Poor old Mr. Calamity turned to the lady. "What am I to do? Where am I to go? You do pity me, don't you?" A little girl passed near. He held out the box. The girl ran. The poor old man began to tremble. "I have trembling fits sometimes," said he. "Take a pinch of snuff with me; it will steady me. Take a pinch of snuff for Queen Charlotte's sake." He shook like the leaves of the elm tree in the summer wind. Dame Bond hesitated. He trembled more violently. "Do you hesitate to honor the name of Queen Charlotte?" he said. The woman took a pinch of snuff in memory of the days gone. He grew calmer. "That strengthens me," he said. "What am I to do? The things that I see daily tear me all to pieces. It broke my heart to see that child run away. I can not cross the sea, and if they were to tear down the king's arms from the State House I would die. I would tremble until I grew cold and my breath left me. You do pity me, don't you? I sometimes grow cold now when I tremble." It was June. A bugle rang out in the street. "What is that?" he asked of a volunteer who passed by. "It is the summons." "For what?" "For the assembling of the people." "In God's name, for what? Is a royal messenger coming?" "No. They are going to tear down the king's arms from all the buildings at six, and are going to pile them up on tar barrels and make a bonfire of them when the sun goes down. The flame will ascend to heaven. That will be the end of the reign of King George III in this province forever!" The old man trembled again. "I am cold," he said.--"Dame Bond, take another pinch of snuff out of the silver box with the golden arms--it helps me." Dame Bond once more paid her respects to Queen Charlotte. "Before God, you do not tell me, sir, that they are going to take down the king's arms from the State House?" "The king's arms are to be torn down from all the buildings, my aged friend; from the inns, the shops, the houses, the State House, and all." "Dame Bond, my limbs fail. I shall never go home again. Tell the family as you pass that I shall not return to tea with them. Let me pass the evening here, where Penn made his treaty with the Indians. To-night is the last of Pennsylvania. I never wish to see another morning." [Illustration: THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ROYAL ARMS.] At seven o'clock in the long, fiery day the great bell rang. The bugle sounded again. People ran hither and thither. A rocket flared across the sky, and a great cry went up: "Down with the arms!" A procession headed with soldiers passed through the streets of the city bearing with them a glittering sign. Military music filled the air. The old man's daughter Mercy came to see him under the tree and to persuade him to go home with her. "Mercy--daughter--what are they carrying away?" "The king's arms from the State House; that is all, father." "All! all! Say you rather that it is the world!" The roseate light faded from the high hills and the waters. The sea birds screamed, and cool breezes made the multitudinous leaves of the tree to quiver. "Mercy--daughter--and what was that?" "They are lighting a bonfire, father." "What for?" "To burn the king's arms." "What will we do without a king?" "They will have a Congress." A great shout went up on a near hill. "But, Mercy--daughter--a Congress is men. A Congress is not a power ordained. Oh, that I should ever live to see a day like this! 'Twas Franklin did it. I can see it all--it was he; it was the printer boy from Boston." Darkness fell. It was nine o'clock now. There was a discharge of firearms, and a great flame mounted up from the pile on the hill, and put out the stars and filled the heavens. "Father, let us go home." "No, let me stay here under the tree." "Why, father?" "The palsy is coming upon me--I can feel it coming, and here I would die." "Oh, father, return with me, for my sake!" "Well, help me, then." She lifted him, and they went back slowly to the street. The city was deserted. The people were out to the hill. There was a crackling of dry boards in the bonfire, and the flame grew redder and redder, higher and higher. They came to the State House. The old man looked up. The face of the house was bare; the king's arms were gone. He sank down on the step of an empty house and began to tremble. He took out his silver snuffbox and held it shaking. "For Queen Charlotte's sake, daughter," he said. She touched the box, to please him. "Gone," he said; "the king's arms are gone, and I have no wish to survive them. I feel the chill coming on--'tis the last time. Take the silver box, daughter; for my sake hide it, and always be true to the king's arms upon it. As for me, I shall never see the morning!" He lay there in the moonlight, his eyes fixed on the State House where the king's arms had been. The people came shouting back, bearing torches that were going out. Houses were being illuminated. He ceased to tremble. They sent for a medical man and for his near kin. These people were among the multitude. They came late and found him lying in the moonlight white and cold. The bells are ringing. Independence is declared. The king's rule in the province is gone forever. Benjamin Franklin's name commands the respect of lovers of liberty throughout the world. He is fulfilling the vision of Uncle Benjamin, the poet. He has added virtue to virtue, intelligence to intelligence, benevolence to benevolence, faith to faith. So the ladder of success ascends. Like his great-uncle Tom, his influence has caused the bells to ring; it will do so again. Franklin heard of his great popularity in America while in England. "Now I will call for the pamphlets," he said. He again walked alone in his room. He faced the future. "Not yet, not yet," he added, referring to the pamphlets. "The struggle for liberty has only begun. I will order the pamphlets when the colonies are free. The hopes in them will then be fulfilled, and not until then." CHAPTER XXXV. JENNY AGAIN. FRANKLIN was suddenly recalled to America. He stood at Samuel Franklin's door. Samuel Franklin was an old man now. "I have come to Boston once more," said Benjamin Franklin. "I would go to my parents' graves and the grave of Uncle Ben. But they are in the enemy's camp now. Samuel, I found your father's pamphlets in London." "Is it possible? Where are they now?" "I will return them to you when the colonies shall be free. The reading of them shall be a holiday in our old lives." "I may never live to see that day. Benjamin, I am an old man. I want that you should will those pamphlets to my family." The old men went out and stood by the gate late in the evening. The moon was rising over the harbor; it was a warm, still night. Sentries were pacing to and fro, for Boston was surrounded by sixteen thousand hostile men in arms. The nine o'clock bell rang. "I must go back to the camp," said Franklin, for he had met Samuel within the American lines. "Cousin Benjamin, these are perilous times," said Samuel. "Justice is what the world needs. Make those pamphlets live, and return them with father's name honored in yours to my family." "I will do so or perish. I am in dead earnest." He ascended the hill and looked down on the British camps in Boston town. Franklin had been sent to Cambridge as a commissioner to Washington's army at this time. It was October, 1775. He longed to see his sister Jane--"Jenny"--once more. His sister was now past sixty years of age. Foreseeing the siege of Boston, he had written to her to come to Philadelphia and to make her home with him. But she was unwilling to remove from her own city and old home, though she was forced to find shelter within the lines of the American army. One night, after her removal from Boston, there came a gentle knock at the door of her room. She opened it guardedly, and looked earnestly into the face of the stranger. "Jenny!" "My own brother!--do I indeed see you alive? Let me put my hand into yours once more." He drew her to him. "Jenny, I have longed for this hour." "But what brings you here at this time? You did not come wholly to see me? Sit down, and let us bring up all the past again." He sat down beside her, holding her hand. "Jenny, you ask what brings me here. Do you remember Uncle Ben?" "Whose name you bear? Never shall I forget him. The memory of a great man grows as years increase." "Jenny, I've heard the bells in Ecton ring, and I found in Nottinghamshire letters from Uncle Benjamin, and they coupled your name when you was a girl with mine when I was a boy; do you remember what he said to us on that showery summer day when all the birds were singing?" "Yes, Ben--I must call you 'Ben'--he said that 'more than wealth, more than fame, more than anything, was the power of the human heart, and that that power grows by seeking the good of others.'" "What he said was true, but that was not all he said." "He told you to be true to your country--to live for the things that live." "Jenny, that is why I am here. He told you to be true to your home. You have been that, Jenny. You took care of father when he was sick for the last time, and you anticipated all his wants. I love you for that, Jenny." "But it made me happy to do it, and the memory of it makes me happy now." "And mother, you were her life in her old age. They are gone, both gone, but your heart made them happy when their steps were retreating. O Jenny, Jenny, your hair is turning gray, and mine is gray already. You have fulfilled Uncle Benjamin's charge under the trees. You have been true to your home." "I only wish that I could have done more for our folks; and you, Ben--I can see you now as you were on that summer day--you have been true to your country." "Jenny, do you remember the old writing-school master, George Brownell? You do? Well, I have a great secret for you. I used to tell my affairs to you many years ago. I am in favor of the _independence_ of the colonies; and when Congress shall so declare, I shall put my name, that the old schoolmaster taught me to write, to the Declaration." "Ben, it may cost you your life!" "Then I will leave Uncle Ben's name in mine to the martyrs' list. I must be true to my country as you have been to your family--I must live for the things that live. I am Uncle Ben's pamphlet, Jenny. I know not what may befall me. This may be the last time that I shall ever visit Boston town--my beloved Boston--but I have found power with men by seeking their good, and my prayer is that I may one day meet you again, and have you say to me that I have honored Uncle Ben's name. I would rather have that praise from you than from any other person in the world: 'More than wealth, more than fame, more than anything, is the power of the human heart.'" It was night. The camp of Washington was glimmering far away. Boston Neck was barricaded. There was a ship in the mouth of the Charles. A cannon boomed on Charlestown's hills. "Jenny, I must go. When shall we meet again? Not until I have put Uncle Ben's name to the declaration of American liberty and independence is won. I must prepare the minds of the people to resolve to become an independent nation. My sister, my own true sister, what events may pass before we shall see each other again! When you were younger I made you a present of a spinning-wheel; later I sent you finery. I wish to leave you now this watch. The hours of the struggle for human liberty are at hand. Count the hours!" They parted at the gate. The leaves were falling. It was the evening of the year. He looked back when he had taken a few steps. He was nearly seventy years of age. Yet his great work of life was before him--it was yet to do, while white-haired Jenny should count the hours on the clock of time. Sam Adams had grasped the idea that the appeal to arms must end in the independence of the colonies. Franklin saw the rising star of the destiny of the union of the colonies to secure justice from the crown. He left Boston to give his whole soul to this great end. The next day they went out to Tuft's Hill and looked down on the encamped town, the war ships, and the sea. It was an Indian summer. The trees were scarlet, the orchards were laden with fruit, and the fields were yellow with corn. Over the blue sea rose the Castle, now gone. The smoke from many British camps curled up in the still, sunny air. The Providence House Indian (now at the farm of the late Major Ben Perley Poore) gleamed over the roofs of the State House and its viceregal signs, which are now as then. Boston was three hills then, and the whole of the town did not appear as clearly from the hills on the west--the Sunset Hills--as now. "Jenny, liberty is the right of mankind, and the cause of liberty is the cause of mankind," said Franklin. "Why should England hold provinces in America to whom she will allow no voice in her councils, whose people she may tax and condemn to prisons and death at the will of the king? I have told you my heart. America has the right of freedom, and the colonies must be free!" They walked along the cool hill ways, and he looked longingly back at the glimmering town. "Beloved Boston!" he said. "So thou wilt ever be to me!" He turned to his sister: "I used to tell my day dreams to you--they have come true, in part. I have been thinking again. If the colonies could be made free, and I were to be left a rich man, I would like to make a gift to the schools of Boston, whose influence would live as long as they shall last. Sister, I was too poor in my boyhood to answer the call of the school bells. I would like to endow the schools there with a fund for gifts or medals that would make every boy happy who prepares himself well for the work of life, be he rich or poor. I would like also to establish there a fund to help young apprentices, and to open public places of education and enjoyment which would be free to all people." "You are Silence Dogood still," said Mrs. Mecom. "Day dreams in your life change into realities. I believe that all you now have in your heart to do will be done. Benjamin, these are great dreams." "It may be that I will be sent abroad again." "Benjamin, we may be very old when we meet again. But the colonies will be made free, and you will live to give a medal to the schools of Boston town. I must prophesy for you now, for Uncle Benjamin is gone. I began life with you--you carried me in your arms and led me by the hand. We used to sit by the east windows together; may we some day sit down together by the windows of the west and review the book of life, and close the covers. We may then read in spirit the pamphlets of Uncle Ben." There was a thunder of guns at the Castle. War ships were coming into the harbor from the bay. Franklin beheld them with indignation. "The people must not only have justice," he said, "they must have liberty." They returned by the Cambridge road under the bowery elms. It would be a long time before they would see each other again. In such beneficent thoughts of Boston the Franklin medal had its origin. It was coined out of his heart, that echoed wherever it went or was destined to go, "Beloved Boston!" CHAPTER XXXVI. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.--A MYSTERY. THE fame of Benjamin Franklin now filled America. On the continent of Europe he was held to be the first citizen of America. In France he was ranked among the sages and philosophers of antiquity, and his name associated with the greatest benefactors of the human race. It was his electrical discovery that gave him this solid and universal fame, but his Poor Richard's proverbs, which had several times been translated into French, were greatly quoted on the continent of Europe, and made his popularity as unique as it was general. The old Boston schoolmaster who probably taught little Ben to flourish with his pen could have little dreamed of the documents of state to which this curious characteristic of the pen would be attached. Four of these documents were papers that led the age, and became the charters of human freedom and progress and began a new order of government in the world. They were the Declaration of Independence, the Alliance with France, the Treaty of Peace with England, and the draft of the Constitution of the United States. In his service as agent of the colonies and as a member of the Continental Congress his mind clearly saw how valuable to the American cause an alliance with France and other Continental powers would be. While in Europe as an agent of the colonies he gave his energy and experience to assisting a secret committee to negotiate foreign aid in the war. It was a time of invisible ink, and Franklin instructed this committee how to use it. He saw that Europe must be engaged in the struggle to make the triumph of liberty in America complete and permanent. It was 1776. Franklin was now seventy years old and was in America. The colonies had resolved to be free. A committee had been chosen by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to prepare a draft for a formal Declaration of Independence, a paper whose principles were destined to emancipate not only the united colonies but the world. The committee consisted of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman. Mr. Jefferson was appointed by this committee to write the Declaration, and he made it a voice of humanity in the language of the sages. He put his own glorious thoughts of liberty into it, and he made these thoughts trumpet tones, and they, like the old Liberty Bell, have never ceased to ring in the events of the world. When Jefferson had written the inspired document he showed it to Franklin and Adams, and asked them if they had any suggestions to offer or changes to make. Franklin saw how grandly and adequately Jefferson had done the work. He had no suggestion of moment to offer. But the composition was criticised in Congress, which brought out Franklin's wit, as the following story told by an eye-witness will show: "When the Declaration of Independence was under the consideration of Congress, there were two or three unlucky expressions in it which gave offense to some members. The words 'Scotch and other foreign auxiliaries' excited the ire of a gentleman or two of that country. Severe strictures on the conduct of the British king in negativing our repeated repeals of the law which permitted the importation of slaves were disapproved by some Southern gentlemen, whose reflections were not yet matured to the full abhorrence of that traffic. Although the offensive expressions were immediately yielded, these gentlemen continued their depredations on other parts of the instrument. I was sitting by Dr. Franklin, who perceived that I was not insensible to ('_that I was writhing under_,' he says elsewhere) these mutilations. "'I have made it a rule,' said he, 'whenever in my power, to avoid becoming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body. I took my lesson from an incident which I will relate to you. When I was a journeyman printer, one of my companions, an apprenticed hatter, having served out his time, was about to open shop for himself. His first concern was to have a handsome signboard, with a proper inscription. He composed it in these words, _John Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells Hats for ready Money_, with a figure of a hat subjoined. But he thought he would submit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to thought the word _hatter_ tautologous, because followed by the words _makes hats_, which showed he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word _makes_ might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats; if good and to their mind they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third said he thought the words _for ready money_ were useless, as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit. Every one who purchased expected to pay. They were parted with; and the inscription now stood, 'John Thompson sells hats.' '_Sells_ hats?' says his next friend; 'why, nobody will expect you to give them away. What, then, is the use of that word?' It was stricken out, and _hats_ followed, the rather as there was one painted on the board. So his inscription was reduced ultimately to _John Thompson_, with the figure of a hat subjoined.'" "We must all hang together," said Mr. Hancock, when the draft had been accepted and was ready to be signed. "Or else we shall hang separately," Franklin is reported to have answered. John Hancock, President of the Congress, put his name to the document in such a bold hand that "the King of England might have read it without spectacles." Franklin set his signature with its looped flourish among the immortals. In the same memorable month of July Congress appointed Franklin, Jefferson, and Adams to prepare a national seal. The plan submitted by Franklin for the great seal of the United States was poetic and noble. It is thus described: "Pharaoh sitting in an open chariot, a crown on his head and a sword in his hand, passing through the divided waters of the Red Sea in pursuit of the Israelites. Rays from a pillar of fire in the cloud, expressive of the Divine presence and command, beaming on Moses, who stands on the shore, and, extending his hand over the sea, causes it to overflow Pharaoh. Motto: 'Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.'" This device was rejected by Congress, which decided upon a more simple allegory, and the motto _E Pluribus Unum_. It was a time of rejoicing in Philadelphia now, and of the great events Jefferson was the voice and Franklin was the soul. The citizens, as we have shown, tore down all the king's arms and royal devices from the government houses, courtrooms, shops, and taverns. They made a huge pile of tar barrels and placed these royal signs upon them. On a fiery July night they put the torch to the pile, and the flames curled up, and the black smoke rose in a high column under the moon and stars, and the last vestige of royalty disappeared in the bonfire. Franklin heard the Liberty Bell ring out on the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by Congress. He saw the bonfire rise in the night of these eventful days, and heard the shouts of the people. He had set his hand to the Declaration. He desired next to set it to a treaty of alliance with France. Would this follow? A very strange thing had happened in the colonies some seven months or more before--in November, 1775. A paper was presented to Congress, coming from a mysterious source, that stated that a stranger had arrived in Philadelphia who brought an important message from a foreign power, and who wished to meet a committee of Congress in secret and to make a confidential communication. Congress was curious, but it at first took no official notice of the communication. But, like the Cumæan sibyl to Tarquin, the message came again. It was not received, but it made an unofficial impression. It was repeated. Who was this mysterious stranger? Whence came he, and what had he to offer? The curiosity grew, and Congress appointed a committee consisting of John Jay, Dr. Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson to meet the foreigner and to receive his proposition. The committee appointed an hour to meet the secret messenger, and a place, which was one of the rooms of Carpenters' Hall. At the time appointed they went to the place and waited the coming of the unknown ambassador. There entered the room an elderly man of dignified appearance and military bearing. He was lame; he may have been at some time wounded. He spoke with a French accent. It was plainly to be seen that he was a French military officer. Why had he come here? Where had he been hiding? The committee received him cautiously and inquired in regard to the nature of his mission. "His Most Christian Majesty the King of France," said he, "has heard of your struggle for a defense of your rights and for liberty. He has desired me to meet you as his representative, and to express to you his respect and sympathy, and to say to you in secrecy that should the time come when you needed aid, his assistance would not be withheld." This was news of moment. The committee expressed their gratitude and satisfaction, and said: "Will you give us the evidence of your authority that we may present it to Congress?" His answer was strange. "Gentlemen," said he, drawing his hand across his throat, "I shall take care of my head." "But," said one of the committee, "in an event of such importance we desire to secure the friendly opinion of Congress." "Gentlemen," making the same gesture, "I shall take care of my head." He then said impressively: "If you want arms, you may have them; if you want ammunition, you may have it; if you want money, you may have it. Gentlemen, I shall take care of my head." He went out and disappeared from public view. He is such a mysterious character in our history as to recall the man with the Iron Mask. Did he come from the King of France? None knew, or could ever tell. Diplomacy employed secret messengers at this time. It was full of suggestions, intrigues, and mysteries. But there was one thing that this lame but courtly French officer did: he made an impression on the minds of the committee that the colonies had a friend in his "Most Christian Majesty the King of France," and from him they might hope for aid and for an alliance in their struggle for independence. Here was topic indeed for the secret committee. On the 26th of September, 1776, Congress elected three ambassadors to represent the American cause in the court of France; they were Silas Deane, Arthur Lee, and Benjamin Franklin. Before leaving the country Franklin collected all the money that he could command, some four thousand pounds, and lent it to Congress. Taking with him his two grandsons, he arrived at Nantes on the 7th of December of that year, and he received in that city the first of the many ovations that his long presence in France was destined to inspire. He went to Paris, and took up his residence at Passy, a village some two miles from the city, on a high hill overlooking the city and the Seine. It was a lovely place even in Franklin's day. Here have lived men of royal endowments--Rossini, Bellini, Lamartine, Grisi. The arrival of Franklin there, where he lived many years, made the place famous. For Franklin, as a wonder-worker of science and as an apostle of human liberty, was looked upon more as a god than a man in France--a Plato, a Cato, a Socrates, with the demeanor of a Procion. His one hope now was that he would be able to set the signature which he had left on the Declaration of Independence on a Treaty of Alliance between the States of America and his Most Christian Majesty the King of France. Will he, O shade of the old schoolmaster of Boston town? Jamie the Scotchman, the type of the man who ridicules and belittles one, but claims the credit of his success when that one is successful, was very old now. Fine old Mr. Calamity, who could only see things in the light of the past, would prophesy no more. A young man with a purpose is almost certain to meet men like these in his struggles. Not all are able to pass such people in the Franklin spirit. He heard what such men had to say, tried to profit by their criticism, but wasted no time or energy in dispute or retaliation. The seedtime of life is too short, and its hours are too few, to spend in baffling detraction. Time makes changes pleasantly, and tells the truth concerning all men. A high purpose seeking fulfillment under humble circumstances is sure to be laughed at. It is that which stands alone that looks queer. After Samuel Adams, Franklin was among the first of those leaders whose heart sought the independence of the colonies. The resolution for independence, passed on July 4, 1776, set ringing the Liberty Bell on the State House of Philadelphia. Couriers rode with the great news of the century and of the ages to Boston, which filled the old town with joy. They brought a copy of the Declaration with them, and a day was appointed for the reading of it from the front window of the State House, under the shadow of the king's arms, the classic inscription, and the lion and the unicorn. Old, tottering Jamie the Scotchman was among those who heard the great news with an enkindled heart. He, who had so laughed at little Ben's attempts for the public welfare, now claimed more and more to have been the greatest friend of the statesman's youth. It was the delight of his ninety or more years to make this claim wherever he went, and when the courier brought the news of the Declaration, we may see him going to Jane Mecom's house. "You all know what a friend I was to that boy, and how I encouraged him, a little roughly it may be, but I always meant well. Jane, on the day the Declaration is read in public I want you to let me go with you to hear it." They go together; she a lusty woman in full years, and he who had long outlived his generation. The street in front of the old State House is filled with people. The balcony window is thrown up, and out of the Council Chamber, now popularly known as the Sam Adams room, there appears the representative of Sam Adams and of five members of the Boston schools who had signed the Declaration. The officers of the State are there, and over the street shines the spire of the South Church and gleams the Province House Indian. The children are there; aged idlers who loitered about the town pump; the women patriots from Spring Lane. The New England flag, of blue ground with the cross of St. George on a white field, floats high over all. A voice rends the clear air. It read: "When in the course of human events," and it marches on in stately tones above the silence of the people. At the words "all men are created free and equal," the name of Franklin breaks upon the stillness. Jamie the Scotchman joins in the rising applause, and he proudly turns to Jane Mecom and says: "Only to think what a friend I was to him, too!" They return by the Granary burying ground. A tall, gray monument holds their attention. It is one that the people loved to visit then, and that touches the heart to-day. At the foot of the epitaph they read again, as they had done many times before: _"Their youngest son,_ _in filial regard to their memory,_ _places this stone."_ "His heart was true to the old folks," said Jamie. It was the monument that Benjamin Franklin had erected to his parents. CHAPTER XXXVII. ANOTHER SIGNATURE.--THE STORY OF AUVERGNE SANS TACHE. SOME years ago I stood on the battlements of Metz, once a French but now a German town. Below the town, with its grand esplanade, on which is a heroic statue of Marshal Ney, rolls the narrow Moselle, and around it are the remains of fortifications that are old in legend, song, and story. It was here, near one of these old halls, that a young Frenchman saw, as it were, a vision, and the impression of that hour was never lost, but became a turning point in American history. There had come a report to the English court that Washington had been driven across the Jerseys, and that the American cause was lost. There was given at this time a military banquet at Metz. The Duke of Gloucester, brother of George III, was present, and among the French officers there was a marquis, lately married, who was a favorite of the French court. He had been brought up in one of the heroic provinces of Auvergne, and he had been associated with the heroes of Gatinais, whose motto was _Auvergne sans tache_. The Auvergnese were a pastoral people, distinguished for their courage and honor. In this mountainous district was the native place of many eminent men, among them Polignac. The young French marquis who was conspicuous at the banquet on this occasion was named Lafayette. The Duke of Gloucester was in high spirits over his cups on this festal night. "Our arms are triumphant in America!" he exclaimed. "Washington is retreating across the Jerseys." A shout went up with glittering wine-cups: "So ever flee the enemies of George III!" "Washington!" The name rang in the young French officer's ears. He had in his veins the blood of the mountaineers, and he loved liberty and the spirit of the motto _Auvergne sans tache_. He may never have heard the name of Washington before, or, if he had, only as of an officer who had given Braddock unwelcome advice. But he knew the American cause to be that of liberty, and Washington to be the leader of that cause. And Washington "was retreating across the Jerseys." Where were the Jerseys? He may never have heard of the country before. He went out into the air under the moon and stars. There came to him a vision of liberty and a sense of his duty to the cause. The face of America, as it were, appeared to him. "When first I saw the face of America, I loved her," he said many years afterward to the American Congress. Washington was driven back in the cause of liberty. Lafayette resolved to cross the seas and to offer Washington his sword. He felt that liberty called him--liberty for America, which might mean liberty for France and for all mankind. About this time Benjamin Franklin began to receive letters from this young officer, filled with the fiery spirit of the mountaineers. The officer desired a commission to go to America and enter the army. But it was a time of disaster, and faith in the American cause was very low. The marquis resolved to go to America at his own expense. He sailed for that country in May, 1777. He landed off the coast of the Carolinas in June, and made his memorable ride across the country to Philadelphia in that month. Baron de Kalb accompanied him. On landing on the shores of the Carolinas, he and Baron de Kalb knelt down on the sand, at night under the stars, and in the name of God dedicated their swords to liberty. The departure of these two officers for America filled all France with delight. Lafayette had seen that it would be so; that his going would awaken an enthusiasm in the circles of the court and among the people favorable to America; that it would aid the American envoys in their mission. It was the mountain grenadiers that made the final charges at the siege of Yorktown under the inspiring motto of _Auvergne sans tache_ (Auvergne without a stain). Franklin now dwelt at beautiful Passy on the hill, and his residence there was more like a princely court than the house of an ambassador. He gave his heart and life and influence to seeking an alliance between France and the States. The court was favorable to the alliance, but the times and the constitution of the kingdom made the king slow, cautious, and diplomatic. The American cause wavered. The triumphs of Lord Howe filled England with rejoicing and Passy with alarm. In the midst of the depression at Passy there came a messenger from Massachusetts who brought to Franklin the news of Burgoyne's surrender. When Dr. Franklin was told that this messenger was in the courtyard of Passy, he rushed out to meet him. "Sir, is Philadelphia taken?" "Yes, sir." Franklin clasped his hands. "But, sir, I have other news. Burgoyne and his army are prisoners of war!" Great was the rejoicing at Passy and in Paris. The way to an alliance appeared now to open to the envoys. "O Mr. Austin," Dr. Franklin used to say to the young messenger from Massachusetts, "you brought us glorious news!" The tidings was followed by other news in Passy. December 17, 1777, was a great and joyful day there. A minister came to the envoys there to announce that the French Government was ready to conclude an agreement with the United States, and to make a formal treaty of alliance to help them in the cause of independence. The cause was won, but the treaty was yet delayed. There were articles in it that led to long debates. But in these promising days Franklin was a happy man. He dressed simply, and he lived humbly for an envoy, though his living cost him some thirteen thousand dollars a year. He did not conform to French fashions, nor did the French expect them from a philosopher. He did not even wear a wig, which most men wore upon state occasions. Instead of a wig he wore a fur cap, and one of his portraits so represents him. While the negotiations were going on, a large cake was sent one day to the apartment where the envoys were assembled. It bore the inscription _Le digne Franklin_ (the worthy Franklin). On reading the inscription, Mr. Silas Deane, one of the ambassadors, said, "As usual, Franklin, we have to thank you for our share in gifts like these." "Not at all," said Franklin. "This cake is designed for all three of us. Don't you see?--Le (Lee) Digne (Deane) Franklin." He could afford to be generous and in good humor. February 6, 1778, was one of the most glorious of all in Franklin's life. That day the treaties were completed and put upon the tables to sign. The boy of the old Boston writing school did honor to his schoolmaster again. He put his name now after the conditions of the alliance between France and the United States of America. The treaty was celebrated in great pomp at the court. The event was to be publicly announced on March 20, 1778. On that day the envoys were to be presented to the king amid feasts and rejoicings. Would Franklin wear a wig on that great occasion? His locks were gray and thin, for he was seventy-two years old, and his fur cap would not be becoming amid the splendors of Versailles. He ordered one. The hairdresser came with it. He could not fit it upon the philosopher's great head. "It is too small," said Franklin. "Monsieur, it is impossible." "No, monsieur," said the perruquier, "it is not that the wig is too small; it is that your head is too large!" What did Franklin need of a wig? He dressed for the occasion in a plain suit of black velvet, with snowy ruffles and silver buckles. When the chamberlain saw him coming, he hesitated to admit him. Admit a man to the royal presence in his own head alone? But he allowed the philosopher to go on in his velvet, ruffles, and silver buckles, and his independent appearance filled the court with delight. There was another paper that he must now have begun to see in his clear visions. The treaty of alliance would lead to the triumph of the American cause. That end must be followed by a treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States. Would he sign that treaty some day and again honor the old Boston schoolmaster? We shall see. But how did young Lafayette meet his duties in the dark days of America--he whose motto was "Auvergne without a stain?" The day of his test came again at a banquet. It was at York. Let us picture this pivotal scene of his life and of American history. After the triumphs of Gates at Saratoga, Washington became unpopular, and Congress appointed a Board of War, whose object it became to place Lafayette at the head of the Northern army, and thus give him a chance to supersede his chief. The young Frenchman was loyal to Washington, and the motto _Auvergne sans tache_ governed his life. Let us suppose him to meet his trusty old friend Baron de Kalb, the German temperance general, at this critical hour. "Baron de Kalb, we stood together side by side at Metz, and we knelt down together that midsummer night when we first landed on Carolina's sands, and then we rode together across the provinces. These are events that I shall ever love to recall. To-night we stand together again in brotherhood of soul. Baron, the times are dark and grow more perilous, and it may be I now confide in thee for the last time." "Yes, Lafayette," answered De Kalb, "I myself feel 'tis so. You may live and rise, but I may fall. But wherever I may go I shall draw this sword that I consecrated with thine to liberty. It may be ours to meet by chance again, but, Lafayette, we shall never be as we are now. Thou well hast said the hour is dark. Open thy soul, then, Lafayette, to me." "Baron, it burns my brain and shrinks my heart to say that the hour is dark not only for the cause but for our chief, for Washington. In halls of state, in popular applause, the rising star is Gates. Factions arise, cabals combine, and this new Board of War has sent for me. In some provincial room that flattery decorates they are to make for me a feast. What means the feast? 'Tis this: to offer me the Northern field. And why? To separate my sword from Washington. 'If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off!' I'm loyal to the cause, and must obey this new-made Board of War; but on that night, if so it be that I have the opportunity, I shall arise, and, against all flatteries, take my stand. I then and there will proclaim in clear-cut words my loyalty to Washington. He is the cause; in him it stands or falls; to gain a world for self, my heart could never be untrue to him. Day after day, month after month, year after year, he leads the imperiled way, yet holds his faith in God and man. The hireling Hessians roll their drums through ports and towns; the wily Indian joins the invader; his army is famine-smitten and thinned with fever, and drill in rags, while Congress meets in secret halls but to impede his plans and criticise; and while he holds the scales and looks toward the end, and makes retreat best serve the cause, what rivals rise! See brilliant Gates appear! Does he not know this rivalry and hear the plaudits that surround the name of Saratoga? I've shared my thoughts with Washington, young as I am, and he has honored me with his esteem. I have heard him say: 'O Lafayette, I stand alone in all the world! I dream no dreams of high ambition. I love the farm more than the field--my country home more than the halls of state I serve. In a cause like this I hold that it is not unsubstantial victories but generalship that wins.' "One day he spoke like this: 'Marquis, I stood one winter night upon a rocking boat and crossed the Delaware. It was a bitter night; no stars were in the sky; the lanterns' rays scarce fell upon the waters; the oars rose and fell, though they were frozen, for they were plied by strong and grizzly fishermen; the snow fell pitiless, with hail and sleet and rain. The night was wind, and darkness was the air. The army followed me, where I could not see. Our lips were silent. These stout and giant men, from Cape Ann and from wintry wharfages of Marblehead, knew their duty well, and safe we crossed the tide.' In that lone boat, amid the freezing sleet and darkness deep, the new flag of the nation's hope marched in darkness. "Baron de Kalb, there is a spirit whose pinions float upon the wings of time. She comes to me in dreams and visions in such hours as these. I saw her on the fortress walls of Metz; I knew her meaning and her mission saw. Where liberty is, there is my country, and all I am I again offer to her cause. Hear me this hour; the presence of that spirit falls on me now as at Metz. I go to the feast that is waiting for me; there my soul must be true and speak the truth, and for the truth there is no judgment day. At Metz I left myself for liberty; at York I shall be as true to honor. I hold unsullied fame to be more than titles--_Auvergne sans tache_. My resolution makes my vision clear. Baron de Kalb, mark you my words in this prophetic hour: the character of Washington will free one day the world, and lead the Aryan race and liberty and peace. It is not his genius--minds as great have been; it is not his heart--there have been hearts as large; it is not his sword, for swords have been as brave, but it is himself that makes sure the cause. He shall win liberty, and give to men their birthright and to toil a field of hope; to industry the wealth that it creates, and to the toiler his dues. So liberty to brotherhood shall lead, and brotherhood to peace, and brotherhood and peace shall bring to unity all human families, and men shall live no more in petty strife for gain, but for the souls of men. The destinies then, as in Virgil's eye, shall spin life's web, and to their spindles say, 'Thus go forever and forever on!' He is the leader appointed by Heaven for sublime events. I am sent to him as a knight of God. I go to York. I was true at Metz to liberty, and in the council hall I shall be true, whatever is offered me, to Washington, our Washington beloved! to the world's great commoner! Farewell." The feast for Lafayette was spread at York in a blazing hall; red wine filled the crystal cups. Silken banners waved and disclosed the magic name of "Lafayette." The Board of War was there, proud Gates, and the men of state. The _Fleur de lis_ was there and blew across the national banners. Lafayette came. A shout arose as he appeared. The Board of War was merry, and the wine was spilled and toasts were drunk to all the heroes of the war except Washington. The name of Lafayette was hailed with adulation; then all was still. The grand commissioner had waved his hand. He bowed, and gave to Lafayette a sealed paper; he raised his cup, and rose and bowed, and said, "Now drink ye all to him, our honored guest, commander of the Army of the North." The oak room rang with cheers; the glasses clinked and gleamed. The board and guests sat down. There, tall and grand above the council, towered the form of Lafayette. He stood there silent, then raised a crystal cup, and said: "I thank you, friends, and I would that I were worthier of your applause. You have honored many worthy names, but there is one name that you have omitted in your many toasts, and that one name to me stands above all the other heroes of the world! _I_ drink to him!" He lifted high the cup, and said, "I pledge my honor, my sword, and all I am to Washington!" He stood in silence; no other cup with his was raised. He left the hall, and walked that night the square of York beneath the moon and stars as he had done at Metz. He poured forth his soul, thinking again the thoughts of Metz, and making again the high resolves that he had made on Carolina's sands with Baron de Kalb: "O Liberty! the star of hope that lights each noble cause, uniting in one will the hearts of men, and massing in one force the wills of men. The stars obey the sun; the earth, the stars; the nations, those who rise o'er vain ambitions and become the cause. Thou gavest Rome the earth and Greece the sea; thou sweepest down the Alps, and made the marbles bloom like roses, for thy heroes' monuments! I hear thy voice, and I obey, as all the true have bowed who more than self have loved mankind!" The coming of Franklin to Passy and the going of Lafayette from Metz were among the great influences of the age of liberty. Count Rochambeau followed Lafayette after the alliance, and brought over with him among his regiments the grenadiers of Auvergne--_Auvergne sans tache_, which motto they honored at Yorktown. Jenny's heart beat with joy as she heard of the coming of Lafayette. In these years of the great struggle for human liberty she looked at the watch and counted the hours. Franklin had long been the hope of the country. America looked to him to secure the help of France in the long struggle for liberty. Into this hope humble Jane Mecom entered with a sister's confidence and pride. She awaited the news from Philadelphia, which was the seat of government, with the deepest concern. The nation's affairs were her family affairs. She heard it said daily that if Franklin secured the aid of the French arms, the cause of liberty in America would be won. It was the kindly hand that led her when a girl that was now moving behind these great events. One July day, at the full tide of the year, she was standing in the bowery yard of her simple home, thinking of her brother and the hope of the people in him. She moved, as under a spell of thought, out of the gate and toward Beacon Hill. She met Jamie the Scotchman on her way. "An' do you think that he will be able to do it?" said Jamie. By "it" he meant the alliance of France with the colonies. "Surely it is a big job to undertake, but if he should succeed, Jane, I want you always to remember what a friend I was to him. Where are you going, Jane?" "To the old tree on Beacon Hill, where Uncle Ben used to talk to me in childhood." "May I go with you, Jane? They say that a fleet has been sighted off Narragansett Bay. We shall know when the post comes in." "Yes, Jamie, come with me. I love to talk of old times with you." "And what a friend I was to _him_." It was a fiery day. Cumulus clouds were piling up in the fervid heats. The Hancock House gardens, where now the State House is, were fragrant with flowers, and the Common below was a sea of shining leaves. A boom shook the air. "What was that, Jane?" "It came from the Castle." "Perhaps there is news." Another boom echoed from the Dorchester Hills, and a puff of smoke rose from the Castle. "There is news, Jamie; the Castle is firing a salute." "I think the French fleet has arrived; if so, _his_ work is behind it, and I always was such a friend to him, too!" The Castle thundered. There was news. A magistrate came riding over the hills on horseback, going to the house of John Hancock. "Hey!" cried Jamie, "an' what is the news?" "The French fleet has arrived at Newport. Count Rochambeau is landing there. Hurrah! this country is free!" Jane sat down under the old tree, as she had done when a girl in Uncle Benjamin's day. She saw the flag of the Stripes and Stars leap, as it were, into the air over the Hancock gardens. She had always revered John Hancock since he had heroically written to Washington at the time of the siege, "Burn Boston, if there is need, and leave John Hancock a beggar!" Who was that hurrying up from the broad path of the Common toward the Hancock mansion? Jane rose up and looked. It was Samuel Adams, the so-called "last of the Puritans," a man who had almost forgotten his own existence in his efforts to unite the colonies for the struggle for liberty, and who had said to an agent of General Gage who offered him bribes if he would make his peace with the king, "I have long ago made my peace with the King of kings, and no power on earth can make me recreant to my duties to my country." The Castle thundered on from the green isle in the harbor. People were hurrying to and fro and gathering about the grounds of the first President of the Provincial Congress. Business stopped. The hearts of the people were thrilled. The independence of the American colonies now seemed secure. There went up a great shout in front of the Hancock house. It was-- "Franklin! Rochambeau! Franklin!" Jamie the Scotchman echoed the cheer from his lusty lungs. "Franklin!" he cried, waving his hat, "Franklin now and forever!" His face beamed. "Only think, Jane, what a friend I used to be to him! What do you suppose gave his hand such power in these affairs of the nation?" "It was his heart, Jamie." "Yes, yes, Jane, that was it--it was the heart of Franklin--of Ben, and don't you never forget what a friend I used to be to him." The coming of Rochambeau, under the influence of the poor tallow chandler's son, was a re-enforcement that helped to gain the victory of liberty. When Cornwallis was taken, Jane Mecom heard the Castle thunder again over the sea; and when Rochambeau came to Boston to prepare for the re-embarkation of the French army, she saw her brother's hand behind all these events, and felt like one who in her girlhood had been taken into the counsels of the gods. Her simple family affairs had become those of the nation. She knew the springs of the nation's history, and she loved to recall the days when her brother was Silence Dogood, which he had never ceased to be. CHAPTER XXXVIII. FRANKLIN SIGNS THE TREATY OF PEACE.--HOW GEORGE III RECEIVES THE NEWS. THE surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown brought the war to an end. The courier from the army came flying into Philadelphia at night. The watchman called out, "Past twelve o'clock, and all is well!" "Past one o'clock, and all is well!" and "Past two o'clock, and Cornwallis is taken!" The people of the city were in the streets early that morning. Bells pealed; men saluted each other in the name of "Peace." Poor George III! He had stubbornly sought to subdue the colonies, and had honestly believed that he had been divinely appointed to rule them after his own will. No idea that he had ever been pigheaded and wrong had ever been driven into his dull brain. His view of his prerogative was that whatever he thought to be best was best, and they were ungrateful and stiff-necked people who took a different view, and that it was his bounden duty to punish such in his colonies for their obstinacy. It was November 25th in London--Sunday. A messenger came flying from the coast to Pall Mall. He was bearing exciting news. On he went through London until he reached the house of George Germain, Minister of American Affairs. The messenger handed to Lord George a dispatch. The minister glanced at it and read the fate of the New World, and must have stood as one dazed: "Cornwallis has surrendered!" Lord Walsingham, an under-Secretary of State, was at the house. To him he read the stunning dispatch. The two took a hackney coach and rode in haste to Lord Stormont's. "Mount the coach and go with us to Lord North's. Cornwallis is taken!" Lord Stormont mounted the coach, and the three rode to the office of the Secretary of State. The prime minister received the news, we are told, "as he would have taken a ball into his heart." "O God, it is all over!" he exclaimed, pacing up and down the room, and again and again, "O God, it is over!" The news was conveyed to the king that half of his empire was lost--that his hope of the New World was gone. How was the king affected? Says a writer of the times, who gives us a glance at this episode: "He dined on that day," he tells us, "at Lord George Germain's; and Lord Walsingham, who likewise dined there, was the only guest that had become acquainted with the fact. The party, nine in number, sat down to the table. Lord George appeared serious, though he manifested no discomposure. Before the dinner was finished one of his servants delivered him a letter, brought back by the messenger who had been dispatched to the king. Lord George opened and perused it; then looking at Lord Walsingham, to whom he exclusively directed his observation, 'The king writes,' said he, 'just as he always does, except that I observe he has omitted to note the hour and the minute of his writing with his usual precision.' This remark, though calculated to awaken some interest, excited no comment; and while the ladies, Lord George's three daughters, remained in the room, they repressed their curiosity. But they had no sooner withdrawn than Lord George, having acquainted them that from Paris information had just arrived of the old Count de Maurepas, first minister, lying at the point of death, 'It would grieve me,' said he, 'to finish my career, however far advanced in years, were I first minister of France, before I had witnessed the termination of this great contest between England and America.' 'He has survived to see that event,' replied Lord George, with some agitation. Utterly unsuspicious of the fact which had happened beyond the Atlantic, he conceived him to allude to the indecisive naval action fought at the mouth of the Chesapeake early in the preceding month of September between Admiral Graves and Count de Grasse, an engagement which in its results might prove most injurious to Lord Cornwallis. Under this impression, 'My meaning,' said he, 'is, that if I were the Count de Maurepas I should wish to live long enough to behold the final issue of the war in Virginia.' 'He has survived to witness it completely,' answered Lord George. 'The army has surrendered, and you may peruse the particulars of the capitulation in that paper,' taking at the same time one from his pocket, which he delivered into his hand, not without visible emotion. By his permission he read it aloud, while the company listened in profound silence. They then discussed its contents as affecting the ministry, the country, and the war. It must be confessed that they were calculated to diffuse a gloom over the most convivial society, and that they opened a wide field for political speculation. "After perusing the account of Lord Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown, it was impossible for all present not to feel a lively curiosity to know how the king had received the intelligence, as well as how he had expressed himself in his note to Lord George Germain, on the first communication of so painful an event. He gratified their wish by reading it to them, observing at the same time that it did the highest honor to his Majesty's fortitude, firmness, and consistency of character. The words made an impression on his memory, which the lapse of more than thirty years has not erased; and he here commemorates its tenor as serving to show how that prince felt and wrote under one of the most afflicting as well as humiliating occurrences of his reign. The billet ran nearly to this effect: "'I have received with sentiments of the deepest concern the communication which Lord George Germain has made me of the unfortunate result of the operations in Virginia. I particularly lament it on account of the consequences connected with it, and the difficulties which it may produce in carrying on the public business, or in repairing such a misfortune. But I trust that neither Lord George Germain, nor any member of the cabinet, will suppose that it makes the smallest alteration in those principles of my conduct which have directed me in past time, and which will always continue to animate me under every event in the prosecution of the present contest.' Not a sentiment of despondency or of despair was to be found in the letter, the very handwriting of which indicated composure of mind." Franklin was still envoy plenipotentiary at beautiful Passy. He received the thrilling news, and wondered what terms the English Government would now seek to make in the interests of peace. The king was shaken in mind and becoming blind. He was opposed to any negotiations for peace, and threatened to abdicate. He sank into a pitiable state of insanity some years after, was confined in a padded room, and even knew not when the battle of Waterloo was fought, and when his own son died he was not called to the funeral ceremonies. But negotiations were begun, or attempted, with Dr. Franklin at Paris. Passy was again the scene of great events. Mr. Adams, as a representative of the United States, arrived in Paris. Mr. Gay, another representative, was there; conference after conference was held with the English ambassador, and the final conference was held with the English ministers on November 29, 1782. On the 18th of January, 1782, at Versailles, the representatives of England, France, and Spain signed the preliminaries of peace, declaring hostilities suspended, in the presence of Mr. Adams and Dr. Franklin. These preliminaries were finally received as a definitive treaty of peace, and on Wednesday, September 3, 1783, this Treaty of Peace was signed in Paris. When the preliminary treaty was signed, Franklin rushed into the arms of the Duc de la Rochefoucault, exclaiming: "My friend, could I have hoped at my age to enjoy such happiness?" He was then seventy-six years old. So again the handwriting of the old Boston school appeared in the great events of nations. It was now set to peace. It would not seem likely that it would ever again adorn any like document. Franklin was old and gray. He had signed the Declaration, the Treaty of Alliance, and now the Treaty of Peace. He had done his work in writing well. It had ended well. Seventy-six years old; surely he would rest now at Passy, or return to some Philadelphia seclusion and await the change that must soon fall upon him. But this glorious old man has not yet finished the work begun by Silence Dogood. Those are always able to do the most who are doing many things. It is a period of young men now; it was a time of old men then. People sought wisdom from experience, not experiment. The peace is signed. The bells are ringing, and oppressed peoples everywhere rejoice. There is an iris on the cloud of humanity. The name of Franklin fills the world, and in most places is pronounced like a benediction. From a tallow-chandler's shop to palaces; from the companionship of Uncle Ben, the poet, to that of royal blood, people of highest rank, and the most noble and cultured of mankind; from being laughed at, to being looked upon with universal reverence, love, and awe. CHAPTER XXXIX. THE TALE OF AN OLD VELVET COAT. WHEN Franklin appeared to sign the Treaty of Peace between England and the United States, he surprised the ministers, envoys, and his own friends by wearing an old velvet coat. What did his appearance in this strange garment mean? We must tell you the story, for it is an illustration of his honorable pride and the sensitiveness of his character. There was a time when all England, except a few of his own friends, were laughing at Franklin. Why? Men who reach honorable success in life always pass through dark days--every sun and star is eclipsed some day--and Franklin had one day of eclipse that burned into his very soul, the memory of which haunted him as long as he lived. It was that day when he, after a summons, appeared before the Council of the Crown as the agent of the colonies, and was openly charged with dishonor. It is the day of the charge of dishonor that is the darkest of all life. To an honorable man it is the day of a false charge of dishonor that leaves the deepest sting in memory. "My life and honor both together run; Take honor from me, and my life is done." But how came Franklin, the agent of the colonies in London, to be called before the Privy Council and to be charged with dishonor? While he was in London and the colonies were filled with discontent and indignation at the severe measures of the crown, there came to him a member of Parliament who told him that these measures of which the colonies complained had been brought about by certain men in the colonies themselves; that the ministry had acted upon the advice of these men, and had thought that they were acting justly and wisely. Two of the men cited were Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver, both belonging to most respected and powerful families in the colonies. Franklin could not believe these statements against his countrymen, and asked for the proof. The member of Parliament brought to him a package of letters addressed to public men on public affairs, written by Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson and Mr. Oliver, which proved to him that the severe action of the ministry against Boston and the province had been brought about by Bostonians themselves. Franklin asked permission to send these letters to Boston in the interests of justice to the ministry. The request was granted. The letters were sent to Boston, and were read in private to the General Assembly of the province. As an agent of the colonies, Franklin could not have done less in the interests of justice, truth, and honorable dealing. But the use of these letters angered the ministry, and Franklin was called before the Privy Council to answer the charge of surreptitiously obtaining private correspondence and using it for purposes detrimental to the royal government. To persons whose whole purpose of life is to live honorably such days as these come and develop character. Every one has some lurking enemy eager to misinterpret him to his own advantage. The lark must fly to the open sky when he sees the serpent coiling among the roses, or he must fight and dare the odds. Woe be to the wrongdoer who triumphs in such a case as this! He may gain money and ease, and laugh at his adversary, but when a man has proved untrue to any man for the sake of his own advantage, it may be written of him, "He went out, and it was night." A short chapter of a part of a biography or history may be an injustice, and seem to show that there is no God in the government of the world, but a long chapter of full history reveals God on the high throne of his power, and justice as his strength and glory. The Roman emperors built grand monuments to atone for their injustice, cruelty, and vice-seeking lives, but these only blackened their names by recalling what they were, and defeated their builders' ends. In this world all long chapters of history read one way: that character is everything, and that time tells the truth about all things. Justice is the highest expectation of life; it is only wise so to live that one's "expectation may not be disappointed." The young man can not be too soon led to see that "he that is spiritual judgeth all things, and that no man judgeth him." It was the year 1773, when Franklin was sixty-eight years of age, that this dark and evil day came. A barrister named Wedderburn, young in years and new to the bar, a favorite of Lord North, and one who was regarded as "a wonderfully smart young man," was to present the case of the government against him. The case filled all England with intense interest. The most notable men of the kingdom arranged to be present at the hearing. Thirty-five members of the Privy Council were present, an unusual number at such an assembly. Lord North was there; the Archbishop of Canterbury; even Dr. Priestley was there. Dr. Franklin appeared on this memorable day in a velvet coat. He took a place in the room in a recess formed by a chimney, a retired place, where he stood motionless and silent. The coat was of Manchester velvet, and spotted. Wedderburn addressed the Council. He was witty, brilliant, careless of facts. His address on that occasion was the talk of all England in a few days, and it led him to a career of fame that would have been success had it had the right foundation. But nothing lasts that is not sincere. Everything in this world has to be readjusted that is not right. "How these letters," said he, "came into the possession of any one but the right owners is a mystery for Dr. Franklin to explain." He then spoke of Mr. Whatley, to whom the letters were first consigned, and proceeded thus: "He has forfeited all the respect of societies and of men. Into what companies will he hereafter go with an unembarrassed face, or the honest intrepidity of virtue? Men will watch him with a jealous eye; they will hide their papers from him, and lock up their escritoires. He will henceforth esteem it a libel to be called a _man of letters_; this man of _three_ letters. (_Fur_--a thief.)" The manner of the orator thrilled the august company. It is thus described by Jeremy Bentham: "I was not more astonished at the brilliancy of his lightning than astounded by the thunder that accompanied it. As he stood, the cushion lay on the council table before him; his station was between the seats of two of the members, on the side of the right hand of the lord president. I would not, for double the greatest fee the orator could on that occasion have received, been in the place of that cushion; the ear was stunned at every blow; he had been reading perhaps in that book in which the prince of Roman orators and rhetoric professors instructs his pupils about how to make impression. The table groaned under the assault. Alone, in the recess on the left hand of the president, stood Benjamin Franklin, in such position as not to be visible from the situation of the president, remaining the whole time like a rock, in the same posture, his head resting on his left hand; and in that attitude abiding the pelting of the pitiless storm." Franklin, the agent of the colonies, stood in his humble place, calm and undisturbed to all outward appearance, but he was cut to the quick as he heard this assembly of representative Englishmen laughing at his supposed dishonor. Says one of that day, "At the sallies of the orator's sarcastic wit all the members of the Council, the president himself not excepted, frequently laughed outright." Benjamin Franklin went home, and put away his spotted velvet coat. He might want it again. It would be a reminder to him--a lesson of life. He might wear it again some day. The next day, being Sunday, the eminent Dr. Priestley came to take breakfast with him. Dr. Franklin said: "Let me read the arraignment twice over. I have never before been so sensible of the power of a good conscience. If I had not considered the thing for which I have been so much insulted the best action of my life, and which I certainly should do again under like circumstances, I could not have supported myself." Franklin held an office under the crown. On Monday morning a letter was brought to him from the postmaster-general. It read: "The king finds it necessary to dismiss you from the office of deputy postmaster-general in America." Dismissed in disgrace at the age of sixty-eight! And England laughing. He had nothing left to comfort him now but his conscience--that was the everything. The old spotted velvet coat; he brought it out on the day of the treaty. It was some nine or more years old now. He stood like a culprit in it one day; it should adorn him now in the hour of his honor. He was facing eighty years. He prepared to leave France, where his career had been one of such honor and glory that his fame filled the world. The court made him a parting present. It was a portrait of the king set in a frame of _four hundred diamonds_! CHAPTER XL. IN SERVICE AGAIN. IT has been said that Franklin forgot to be old. Verging upon eighty, he had asked to be recalled from France, and he dreamed of quiet old age among his grandchildren on the banks of the Schuylkill, where so many happy years of his middle life had been spent. He was recalled from France, but, as we have before stated, this was an age in America when men sought the councils of wisdom and experience. Pennsylvania needed a President or Governor who could lay the foundations of early legislation with prudence, and she turned to the venerable Franklin to fill the chair of state. He was nominated for the office of President of Pennsylvania, and elected, and twice re-elected; and we find him now, over eighty years of age, in activities of young manhood, and bringing to the office the largest experience of any American. He was among the first of most eminent Americans to crown his life after the period of threescore and ten years with the results of the scholarship of usefulness. We have recently seen Gladstone, Tennyson, King William, Bismarck, Von Moltke, Whittier, Holmes, and many other men of the enlightened world, doing some of their strongest and most impressive work after seventy years of age, and some of these setting jewels in the crown of life when past eighty. We have seen Du Maurier producing his first great work of fiction at sixty, and many authors fulfilling the hopes of years at a like age. We have a beautiful pen picture of Franklin in these several years, in his youth's return when eighty years were past. It shows what is possible to a life of temperance and beneficence, and it is only such a life that can have an Indian summer, a youth in age. "Dr. Franklin's house," wrote a clergyman who visited him in his old age, "stands up a court, at some distance from the street. We found him in his garden, sitting upon a grass-plot, under a very large mulberry tree, with several other gentlemen and two or three ladies. When Mr. Gerry introduced me, he rose from his chair, took me by the hand, expressed his joy at seeing me, welcomed me to the city, and begged me to seat myself close to him. His voice was low, but his countenance open, frank, and pleasing. I delivered to him my letters. After he read them he took me again by the hand, and, with the usual compliments, introduced me to the other gentlemen. [Illustration: FRANKLIN'S LAST DAYS.] "Here we entered into a free conversation, and spent our time most agreeably until it was quite dark. The tea table was spread under the tree, and Mrs. Bache, who is the only daughter of the doctor and lives with him, served it out to the company. She had three of her children about her. They seemed to be excessively fond of their grandpa. The doctor showed me a curiosity he had just received, and with which he was much pleased. It was a snake with two heads, preserved in a large vial. It was taken near the confluence of the Schuylkill with the Delaware, about four miles from this city. It was about ten inches long, well proportioned, the heads perfect, and united to the body about one fourth of an inch below the extremities of the jaws. The snake was of a dark brown, approaching to black, and the back beautifully speckled with white. The belly was rather checkered with a reddish color and white. The doctor supposed it to be full grown, which I think is probable; and he thinks it must be a _sui generis_ of that class of animals. He grounds his opinion of its not being an extraordinary production, but a distinct genus, on the perfect form of the snake, the probability of its being of some age, and there having been found a snake entirely similar (of which the doctor has a drawing, which he showed us) near Lake Champlain in the time of the late war. He mentioned the situation of this snake if it was traveling among bushes, and one head should choose to go on one side of the stem of a bush and the other head should prefer the other side, and neither of the heads would consent to come back or give way to the other. He was then going to mention a humorous matter that had that day occurred in the convention in consequence of his comparing the snake to America, for he seemed to forget that everything in the convention was to be kept a profound secret. But this secrecy of convention matters was suggested to him, which stopped him and deprived me of the story he was going to tell. "After it was dark we went into his house, and he invited me into his library, which is likewise his study. It is a very large chamber and high studded. The walls are covered with bookshelves filled with books; besides, there are four large alcoves extending two thirds of the length of the chamber, filled in the same manner. I presume this is the largest and by far the best private library in America. "He seemed extremely fond, through the course of the visit, of dwelling on philosophical subjects, and particularly that of natural history, while the other gentlemen were swallowed up with politics. This was a favorable circumstance for me, for almost the whole of his conversation was addressed to me; and I was highly delighted with the extensive knowledge he appeared to have of every subject, the brightness of his memory, and the clearness and vivacity of all his mental faculties, notwithstanding his age. His manners are perfectly easy, and everything about him seems to diffuse an unrestrained freedom and happiness. He has an incessant vein of humor, accompanied with an uncommon vivacity, which seems as natural and involuntary as his breathing. He urged me to call on him again, but my short stay would not admit. We took our leave at ten, and I retired to my lodgings." The convention to frame a Constitution for the United States assembled at this time in Philadelphia. Dr. Franklin was elected to bring his ripe statesmanship into this great work. He was a poet in old age. When past eighty he fulfilled one of the hopes of Uncle Ben. When the Constitution had been adopted by a majority of the States, the event was celebrated by a grand festival in Philadelphia. There were a long procession of the trades, an oration, the booming of cannon, and the ringing of bells. Some twenty thousand people joined in the festivities. They wanted a poet for the joyful occasion. Poets were not many in those days. Who should appear? It was Silence Dogood, the Poor Richard of a generation gone. To the draft of the Constitution of the United States Benjamin Franklin placed his signature, and thus again honored his Boston writing-master of seventy years ago. But he gave to this august assembly an influence as noble as his signature to the document that it produced. Franklin had been skeptical in his youth, and a questioner of religious teachings in other periods of his life. Mature thought had convinced him of the glory of the Christian faith, of the doctrine of immortality and the power of prayer. The deliberations in the Constitutional Assembly were long, and they were sometimes bitter. In the midst of the debates, the divisions of opinion and delays, Dr. Franklin arose one day--it was the 28th of June, 1787--and moved "That henceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business; and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service." In an address supporting this resolution he said: "I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: _That_ GOD _governs in the affairs of men!_ And if a sparrow can not fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the Sacred Writings, that 'except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the building of Babel; we shall be divided by our partial local interests, our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to future ages. And, what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance despair of establishing government by human wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest." To consummate the American Government now only one thing was lacking--a power to interpret the meaning of the Constitution, and so to decide any disputes that should arise among the States. In Mr. Vernon's garden, after the controversy between the fishermen of Maryland and Virginia, a plan to settle such disputes was produced. It was a high court of final appeal. So rose the Supreme Court. And this court to decide questions of controversy arising among the States, we may hope, was the beginning of a like body, a Supreme Court of the nations of the world that shall settle the questions in dispute among nations, without an appeal to war or the shedding of human blood. These were glorious times, and although Dr. Franklin was not actively engaged in this last grand movement for the government of the people, he lived to give his influence to make George Washington President, and see the new order of a popular government inaugurated. He entered the doors of that golden age of liberty, equality, and progress, when the destinies might say to their spindles, "Thus go on forever!" CHAPTER XLI. JANE'S LAST VISIT. IT was midsummer. Benjamin Franklin, of fourscore years, President of Pennsylvania, had finished a long, three-story ell to his house on Market Street, and in this ell he had caused to be made a library which filled his heart with pride. He had invented a long arm with which to take down books from the high shelves of this library--an invention which came into use in other libraries in such a way as to make many librarians grateful to him. He was overburdened with care, and suffered from chronic disease. In his days of pain he had been comforted by letters from Jenny, now long past seventy years of age. She had written to him in regard to his sufferings such messages as these: "Oh, that after you have spent your whole life in the service of the public, and have attained so glorious a conclusion, as I thought, as would now permit you to come home and spend (as you say) the evening with your friends in ease and quiet, that now such a dreadful malady should attack you! My heart is ready to burst with grief at the thought. How many hours have I lain awake on nights thinking what excruciating pains you might then be encountering, while I, poor, useless, and worthless worm, was permitted to be at ease! Oh, that it was in my power to mitigate or alleviate the anguish I know you must endure!" When she heard of his arrival in Philadelphia she wrote: "I long so much to see you that I should immediately seek for some one that would accompany me, but my daughter is in a poor state of health and gone into the country to try to get a little better, and I am in a strait between two; but the comfortable reflection that you are at home among all your dear children, and no more seas to cross, will be constantly pleasing to me till I am permitted to enjoy the happiness of seeing and conversing with you." The tenderness and charity of Franklin for the many members of his own family still revealed his heart. "I tenderly love you," he wrote to Jane--Jenny--"for the care of our father in his sickness." One of his sisters, Mrs. Dowse, whose family had died, insisted upon living alone, on account of her love for the place that had been her home. Many other men would have compelled her removal, but there is nothing more beautiful in all Franklin's letters than the way that he advised Jenny how to treat this matter. He had been told that this venerable woman would have her own way. "As _having their own way_ is one of the greatest comforts of life to old people, I think their friends should endeavor to accommodate them in that as well as anything else. When they have long lived in a house, it becomes natural to them; they are almost as closely connected with it as the tortoise with his shell; they die if you tear them out. Old folks and old trees, if you remove them, 'tis ten to one that you kill them, so let our good old sister be no more importuned on that head; we are growing old fast ourselves, and shall expect the same kind of indulgences; if we give them, we shall have a right to receive them in our turn." Jane Mecom--the "Jenny" of Franklin's young life--had one great desire as the years went on: it was, to meet her brother once more and to review the past with him. "I will one day go to Philadelphia and give him a great surprise," the woman used to say. Let us picture such a day. Benjamin Franklin sat down in his new library. His books had been placed and his pictures hung. Among the pictures were two that were so choice that we may suppose them to be hung under coverings. One of them was the portrait of the King of France in its frame of four hundred brilliants, and the other was his own portrait with, perhaps, Turgot's famous inscription. It was near evening when he sat down and asked to be left alone. He opened his secretary, and took from it a letter from Washington. It read: "Amid the public gratulations on your safe return to America after a long absence, and many eminent services you have rendered it, for which as a benefited person I feel the obligation, permit an individual to join the public voice in expressing a sense of them, and to assure you that, as no one entertains more respect for your character, so no one can salute you with more sincerity or with greater pleasure than I do on the occasion." He took from his papers the resolution of the Assembly of Pennsylvania and began to read: "We are confident, sir, that we speak the sentiments of the whole country when we say that your services in the public councils and negotiations have not only merited the thanks of the present generation, but will be recorded in the pages of history to your immortal honor." He dropped the paper on the table beside the letter of Washington and sank into his armchair, for his pains were coming upon him again. He thought of the past--of old Boston, of Passy, of all his struggles--and he wished that he might feel again the sympathetic touch of the hand of his sister who had been so true to him, and who had loved him so long and well. It was near sunset of one of the longest days of the year when he heard a carriage stop before the door. "I can not see any one," he said. "I must have rest--I must have rest." There came a mechanical knock on his door. He did not respond. A servant's voice said outside, "There is a woman, master, that asks to see you." "I can not see any one," answered the tortured old man. "She is an old woman." "I could not see the queen." He heard an echo of the servant's voice in the hall. "He says that he could not see the queen." "Well, tell him that I am something more than that to him. He will see me, or else I will die at his door." There came a tap on the door, very gentle. "Who is there?" "It is Jane." "What Jane--who?" "She who folded the hands of your father for the last time. Open the door. There can be no No to me." The door opened. "Jenny!" "Ben--let all titles pass now--I have come to give you a surprise." The old woman sank into a chair. "I have come to visit you for the last time," she said, "and to number with you our mercies of life. Let me rest before I talk. You are in pain." "Jenny, my pains have gone. I had sat down in agony in this new room; my head ached as well as my body. I am happy now that you have come." She moved her chair to his, and he took her hand again, saying: "My sister's hand--your hand, Jenny, as when we were children. They are gone, all gone." He looked in her face. "Jenny, your hair is gray now, and mine is white. I have been reading over again this letter from Washington." "Read it to me while I rest, then we will talk of old times." He read the letter. "Here are the resolutions of the Assembly of Pennsylvania passed on my return." "Read them to me, brother, for I must rest longer before we talk of old times." He read the resolutions. "Jenny, let me uncover this. It is not vanity that makes me wish to do it now, but on account of what I wish to say." He uncovered the portrait of the French king. The last light of the sun fell into the room and upon the frame, causing the four hundred diamonds to gleam. "That was presented to me by the court of France." "I never saw anything so splendid, brother. But what is the other picture under the cover?" He drew away the screen. "It is my portrait, Jenny." "But, brother, what are those words written under it?" Franklin read, "_Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis._" "Brother, what does that mean?" "'He snatched the thunderbolts from heaven, and the scepter from the tyrants.'" "Who, brother?" * * * * * "Jenny, let us talk of these things no longer. Do you remember Uncle Ben?" "He has never died. He lives in you. You have lived out his life. You have lived, Ben, and I have loved. Brother, you have done well. He who does his best does well." "Jenny, can you repeat what Uncle Ben said under the tree on the showery day when the birds sang, nearly seventy years ago?" "Let us repeat it together, brother. You have made that lesson your life." "'More than wealth, more than fame, or any other thing, is the power of the human heart, and it is developed by seeking the good of others. Live for the things that live.'" "Jenny, my own true sister, I have something else to show you--something that I value more than a present from a throne. I have here some 'pamphlets,' into which Uncle Ben put his soul before he sought to impress the same thoughts upon me. I want you to have them now, to read them, and give them to his family." He went to his secretary and took from it the pamphlets. "Here are the thoughts of a man who told me when I was a poor boy in Boston town that I had a chance in the world. "He told me not to be laughed down. "He told me that diligence was power. "He told me that I would be helped in helping others. "He told me that justice was the need of mankind. "He told me that to have influence with men I must overcome my conscious defects. "He was poor, he was empty-handed, but Heaven gave to him the true vision of life. He committed that vision to me, and what he wished to be I have struggled to fulfill. These pamphlets are the picture of his mind, and that picture deserves to be hung in diamonds, and is more to me than the portrait of the king. Blessed be the memory of that old man, who taught my young life virtue, and gave it hope! "Jenny, I have tried to live well." "You have been 'Silence Dogood,' the idea that Uncle Benjamin printed on your mind." "Jenny, I have heard the church bells--Uncle Tom's bells--of Nottingham ring. I found Uncle Benjamin's letters there--those that he wrote to his old friends from America. He lovingly described you and me. What days those were! Father was true to his home when he invited Uncle Benjamin to America. You have been true to your home, and my heart has been, through your hands. Jenny, I have given my house in Boston to you." The old woman wept. "Jenny, you have loved, and your heart has been better than mine. Let me call the servants. These are hours when the soul is full--my soul is full. I ask for nothing more." CHAPTER XLII. FOR THE LAST TIME. SILENCE Dogood is an old man now--a very old man. He looks back on the spring and summer and autumn of life--it is now the time of the snow. But there are sunny days in winter, and they came to him, though on the trees hang the snow, and the nights are long and painful. What has Silence Dogood done in his eighty years now ending in calm, in dreams and silence? Let us look back over the past with him now. What a review it is! He had founded literary and scientific clubs in his early life that had made not idlers, but men. He had founded the first subscription library in America. It had multiplied, and in its many branches had become a national influence. He made a stove that was a family luxury, and showed how it might be enjoyed without a smoky chimney. He had shown that lightning was electricity and could be controlled, and had disarmed the thunder cloud by a simple rod. He had founded the High School in Pennsylvania. He had encouraged the raising of silk. He had helped found the Philadelphia Hospital, and had founded the American Philosophical Society. He had promoted the scheme for uniting the colonies. He had signed the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of the Alliance with France, the Treaty of Peace between England and the United States, and the draft of the Constitution of the United States. We may truly say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." But there remains yet one paper to sign. It is his will. The influence of that paper is felt in the world to-day, but nowhere more than in Boston. In this will he made provision for lending the interest of great bequests to poor citizens, he left the fund for the Franklin Silver Medal in Boston schools, and he sought to be a benefactor to the children of Boston after a hundred years. This will has the following words: "If this plan is executed, and succeeds as projected without interruption for one hundred years, the sum will then be one hundred and thirty-one thousand pounds, of which I would have the managers of the donation to the town of Boston then lay out, at their discretion, one hundred thousand pounds in public works, which may be judged of most general utility to the inhabitants, such as fortifications, bridges, aqueducts, public buildings, baths, pavements, or whatever may make living in the town more convenient to its people, and render it more agreeable to strangers resorting thither for health or a temporary residence. The remaining thirty-one thousand pounds I would have continued to be let out on interest, in the manner above directed, for another hundred years, as I hope it will have been found that the institution has had a good effect on the conduct of youth, and been of service to many worthy characters and useful citizens. At the end of this second term, if no unfortunate accident has prevented the operation, the sum will be four millions and sixty-one thousand pounds sterling; of which I leave one million sixty-one thousand pounds to the disposition of the inhabitants of the town of Boston, and three millions to the disposition of the government of the State, not presuming to carry my views farther." He put his signature to this last paper, and for the last time did honor to his old writing-master, George Brownell. He died looking upon a picture of Christ, and he was buried amid almost unexampled honors, France joining with the United States in his eulogies. But in a high sense he lives. There is one boy who has never ceased to attend the Boston Latin School, and will not for generations to come. It is Silence Dogood. Virtue to virtue, intelligence to intelligence, benevolence to benevolence, faith to faith! So ascend the feet of worth on the ladder of life; so reaches a high purpose a place beyond the derision of the world. The bells of the nation tolled when he died. "He was true to his country!" said all men; but aged Jenny, "He was true to his home!" The influence of Uncle Benjamin in his godson had lived, but it was not ended. * * * * * On September 17th, in the year 1856, the city of Boston stopped business to render homage to the memory of her greatest citizen. On that day was inaugurated the Franklin statue, by Horatio Greenough, that now stands in front of the City Hall. On that day the graves of Josiah and Abiah Franklin in the Granary burying ground were covered with evergreens and flowers, and we hope that the grave of Uncle Ben, the poet, which is near by, was not forgotten. The procession was one of the grandest that the city has ever seen, for it was not only great in numbers, but it blossomed with heart tributes. The trades were in it, the military, the schools. Orators, poets, artists, all contributed to the festival. Boston was covered with flags, and her halls were filled with joyous assemblages. There was one house that was ornamented by a motto from Franklin's private liturgy. It was: "Help me to be faithful to my country, Careful for its good, Valiant for its defense, And obedient to its laws." Conspicuous among the mottoes were: "Time is money," "Knowledge is power," "Worth makes the man," and, queerly enough, "_Don't give too much for the whistle_," the teaching of an experience one hundred and fifty years before. The bells rang, and the influence of the old man who slept beside the flower-crowned grave of Josiah Franklin and Abiah Franklin was in the joy; the chimes of Nottingham were ringing again. Good influences are seeds of immortal flowers, and no life fails that inspires another. Franklin Park, Boston, which will be one of the most beautiful in the world, will carry forward, in its forests, fountains, and flowers, these influences for generations to come. CHAPTER XLIII. A LESSON AFTER SCHOOL. IT was the day of the award of the Franklin medals in the old Boston Latin School, a day in June, and such a one as James Russell Lowell so picturesquely describes. We say "old" Boston Latin School, not meaning old Boston in England, but such an association would not be an untrue one; for the Boston Latin School in Boston, Massachusetts, which was founded under the influence of Governor John Winthrop and Rev. John Cotton, and that numbers five signers of the Declaration of Independence among its pupils, was really begun in Boston, England, in 1554, or in the days of Queen Mary. It has the most remarkable history of any school in America; it has been the Harrow of Harvard, and for five or more generations has sent into life many men whose character has shed luster upon their times. To gain the Franklin medal is the high aim of the Boston schoolboy. It is to associate one's name with a long line of illustrious men, among them John Collins Warren, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, Phillips Brooks, S. F. Smith, and many others. But one of the boys who had won the Franklin medal to-day had done so amid the ridicule of his people at home and after very hard work. Boston Latin boys are too well bred to laugh at the humble gifts of any one, but those of this period could hardly have failed to notice the natural stupidity and the strong, silent purpose and will of this lad. His name we will call Elwell--Frank Elwell. He came from a humble home, where he was not uncommonly taunted as being the "fool of the family." He first attracted attention at this school of brilliant pupils by a bold question which he asked his teacher one day that commanded instant respect. After hard study he had made a very poor recitation. He was reproved by his teacher, who was a submaster, but a kindly, sensitive, and sympathetic man. He lifted his eyes and looked into the teacher's face, and said: "Why do you reprove me? I am doing the best I can, sir." The teacher knew the words to be true. The boys that heard the question turned with a kind of chivalrous feeling toward their dull companion, who was doing his best against poverty, limited gifts, and many disadvantages in life. The old school of Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips, and Phillips Brooks is not wanting in true sympathy with any manly struggle in life. The teacher answered: "Master Elwell, I have done wrong in reproving you. He does well who does his best. You are doing well." Frank Elwell won the Franklin medal by doing his best. On the evening after his graduation he stood before his teacher and asked: "Master Lowell" (for so we will call the teacher, and use the old term in the vocative case), "Master Lowell, did you ever know any boy to struggle against defects like mine?" "Yes, my boy, I have." "Did he succeed in life?" "He did. He became the first citizen of Boston, and is so regarded still." "Who was it, sir?" "Look at your medal. It was Benjamin Franklin himself." Reader, Frank Elwell perhaps is _you_. "More than wealth, more than fame, more than any other thing, is the power of the human heart." Live for influences--live for the things that live, and let the best influences of the Peter Folgers and Benjamin Franklins of your family live on in you, and live after you. You will do well in life and will succeed in life if you do your best; and if your ideal seems to fail in you, it will not fail in the world, in whose harvest field no good intention perishes. Be true to those who have faith in you, and _to_ their faith in you, and help others by believing in the best that is in them. Those who have the most faith in you are your truest friends. An Uncle Benjamin and a Jenny are among the choicest characters that can enter the doors of life, and we will see it so at the end. Do good, and you can not fail. "Do thou thy work; it shall succeed In thine or in another's day, And if denied the visitor's meed, Thou shalt not miss the toiler's pay." APPENDIX. FRANKLIN'S FAMOUS PROVERB STORY OF THE OLD AUCTIONEER. "FRIENDS," said the old auctioneer, "the taxes are indeed very heavy. If those laid on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we might more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly; and from these taxes the commissioners can not ease or deliver us by allowing an abatement. However, let us hearken to good advice, and something may be done for us. God helps them that help themselves, as Poor Richard says. "I. It would be thought a hard government that would tax its people one tenth part of their time to be employed in its service; but idleness taxes many of us much more; sloth, by bringing on diseases, absolutely shortens life. Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears; while the used key is always bright, as Poor Richard says. But dost thou love life? then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of, as Poor Richard says. How much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep, forgetting that The sleeping fox catches no poultry, and that There will be sleeping enough in the grave? as Poor Richard says. "If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be, as Poor Richard says, the greatest prodigality, since, as he elsewhere tells us, Lost time is never found again, and what we call time enough always proves little enough. Let us, then, be up and doing, and doing to the purpose; so by diligence shall we do more with less perplexity. Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all ease; and He that riseth late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night; while Laziness travels so slowly that Poverty soon overtakes him. Drive thy business, let not that drive thee; and, Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise, as Poor Richard says. "So, what signifies wishing and hoping for better times? We make these times better if we bestir ourselves. Industry need not wish, and he that lives upon hopes will die fasting. There are no gains without pains; then help, hands, for I have no lands; or, if I have, they are smartly taxed. He that hath a trade hath an estate; and he that hath a calling hath an office of profit and honor, as Poor Richard says; but then the trade must be worked at, and the calling followed, or neither the estate nor the office will enable us to pay our taxes. If we are industrious we shall never starve; for, At the workingman's house Hunger looks in but dares not enter; for, Industry pays debts, while despair increases them. What though you have no treasure, nor has any rich relation left you a legacy; Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all things to industry. Then plow deep while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn to sell and to keep. Work while it is called to-day, for you know not how much you may be hindered to-morrow. One to-day is worth two to-morrows, as Poor Richard says; and further, Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day. If you were a servant, would you not be ashamed that a good master should catch you idle? Are you, then, your own master? Be ashamed to catch yourself idle, when there is so much to be done for yourself, your family, your country, your king. Handle your tools without mittens; remember that The cat in gloves catches no mice, as Poor Richard says. It is true there is much to be done, and perhaps you are weak-handed; but stick to it steadily, and you will see great effects; for, Constant dropping wears away stones, and By diligence and patience the mouse ate in two the cable; and Little strokes fell great oaks. "Methinks I hear some of you say, Must a man afford himself no leisure? I will tell thee, my friend, what Poor Richard says: Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure; and since thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour. Leisure is time for doing something useful; this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man never; for A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. Many, without labor, would live by their wits only, but they break for want of stock; whereas, industry gives comfort, and plenty, and respect. Fly pleasures, and they will follow you. The diligent spinner has a large shift; and now I have a sheep and a cow, every one bids me good-morrow. "II. But with our industry we must likewise be steady and careful, and oversee our own affairs with our own eyes, and not trust too much to others; for, as Poor Richard says: "I never saw an oft-removed tree, Nor yet an oft-removed family, That throve so well as those that settled be." And again, Three removes are as bad as a fire; and again, Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee; and again, If you would have your business, go; if not, send. And again, "He that by the plow would thrive, Himself must either hold or drive." And again, The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands; and again, "Want of care does us more damage than want of knowledge; and again, Not to oversee workmen is to leave them your purse open. Trusting too much to others' care is the ruin of many; for, In the affairs of this world men are saved not by faith but by the want of it; but a man's own care is profitable, for, If you would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve yourself. A little neglect may breed great mischief: for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the enemy--all for want of a little care about a horseshoe nail. "III. So much for industry, my friends, and attention to one's own business; but to these we must add frugality, if we would make our industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep his nose all his life to the grindstone, and die not worth a groat at last. A fat kitchen makes a lean will; and "Many estates are spent in the getting, Since women forsook spinning and knitting, And men for punch forsook hewing and splitting. If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as of getting." The Indies have not made Spain rich, because her outgoes are greater than her incomes. "Away, then, with your expensive follies, and you will not then have so much cause to complain of hard times, heavy taxes, and chargeable families; for "Women and wine, game and deceit, Make the wealth small and the want great." And, further, What maintains one vice would bring up two children. You may think, perhaps, that a little tea or a little punch now and then, diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer, and a little entertainment now and then, can be no great matter; but remember, Many a little makes a mickle. Beware of little expenses; A small leak will sink a great ship, as Poor Richard says; and again, Who dainties love shall beggars prove; and, moreover, Fools make feasts and wise men eat them. "Here you are all got together at this sale of fineries and knickknacks. You call them goods; but if you do not take care, they will prove evils to some of you. You expect they will be sold cheap, and perhaps they may for less than they cost; but if you have no occasion for them, they must be dear to you. Remember what Poor Richard says: Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessities. And again, At a great pennyworth pause awhile. He means that perhaps the cheapness is apparent only, and not real; or the bargain, by straitening thee in thy business, may do thee more harm than good; for in another place he says, Many have been ruined by buying good pennyworths. Again, It is foolish to lay out money in a purchase of repentance; and yet this folly is practiced every day at auctions for want of minding the almanac. Many, for the sake of finery on the back, have gone with a hungry belly and half starved their families. Silks and satins, scarlet and velvets, put out the kitchen fire, as Poor Richard says. "These are not the necessaries of life; they can scarcely be called the conveniences; and yet, only because they look pretty, how many want to have them! By these, and other extravagances, the genteel are reduced to poverty, and forced to borrow of those whom they formerly despised, but who through industry and frugality have maintained their standing; in which case it appears plainly that A plowman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees, as Poor Richard says. Perhaps they have a small estate left them which they knew not the getting of; they think, It is day, and it never will be night; that a little to be spent out of so much is not worth minding; but Always taking out of the meal-tub, and never putting in, soon comes to the bottom, as Poor Richard says; and then, When the well is dry, they know the worth of water. But this they might have known before, if they had taken his advice. If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some; for, He that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing, as Poor Richard says; and, indeed, so does he that lends to such people, when he goes to get it again. Poor Dick further advises, and says: "Fond pride of dress is sure a very curse; Ere fancy you consult, consult your purse." And again, Pride is as loud a beggar as Want, and a great deal more saucy. When you have bought one fine thing, you must buy ten more, that your appearance may be all of a piece; but Poor Dick says, It is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it. And it is as truly folly for the poor to ape the rich, as for the frog to swell in order to equal the ox. "Vessels large may venture more, But little boats should keep near shore." It is, however, a folly soon punished; for, as Poor Richard says, Pride that dines on vanity, sups on contempt. Pride breakfasted with Plenty, dined with Poverty, and supped with Infamy. And, after all, of what use is this pride of appearance, for which so much is risked, so much is suffered? It can not promote health, nor ease pain; it makes no increase of merit in the person; it creates envy; it hastens misfortune. "But what madness must it be to run in debt for these superfluities! We are offered by the terms of this sale six months' credit; and that, perhaps, has induced some of us to attend it, because we can not spare the ready money, and hope now to be fine without it. But, ah! think what you do when you run in debt: you give to another power over your liberty. If you can not pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your creditor; you will be in fear when you speak to him; you will make poor, pitiful, sneaking excuses, and, by degrees, come to lose your veracity, and sink into base, downright lying; for, The second vice is lying, the first is running in debt, as Poor Richard says; and again, to the same purpose, Lying rides upon Debt's back; whereas, a free-born Englishman ought not to be ashamed nor afraid to see or speak to any man living. But poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue. It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright. "What would you think of that prince, or of that government, who should issue an edict forbidding you to dress like a gentleman or gentlewoman on pain of imprisonment or servitude? Would you not say that you were free, have a right to dress as you please, and that such an edict would be a breach of your privileges, and such a government tyrannical? And yet you are about to put yourself under such tyranny when you run in debt for such dress. Your creditor has authority, at his pleasure, to deprive you of your liberty, by confining you in jail till you shall be able to pay him. When you have got your bargain you may perhaps think little of payment; but, as Poor Richard says, Creditors have better memories than debtors; creditors are a superstitious sect, great observers of set days and times. The day comes round before you are aware, and the demand is made before you are prepared to satisfy it; or, if you bear your debt in mind, the term, which at first seemed so long, will, as it lessens, appear extremely short. Time will seem to have added wings to his heels as well as his shoulders. Those have a short Lent who owe money to be paid at Easter. At present, perhaps, you may think yourselves in thriving circumstances, and that you can bear a little extravagance without injury; but "For age and want save while you may; No morning sun lasts a whole day." Gain may be temporary and uncertain, but ever, while you live, expense is constant and certain; and It is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel, as Poor Richard says; so, Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt. "Get what you can, and what you get, hold; 'Tis the stone that will turn all your lead into gold." And when you have got the philosopher's stone, surely you will no longer complain of bad times or the difficulty of paying taxes. "IV. This doctrine, my friends, is reason and wisdom; but, after all, do not depend too much upon your own industry and frugality and prudence, though excellent things; for they may all be blasted, without the blessing of Heaven; and, therefore, ask that blessing humbly, and be not uncharitable to those that at present seem to want it, but comfort and help them. Remember, Job suffered, and was afterward prosperous. "And now, to conclude, Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, as Poor Richard says, and scarce in that; for, it is true, we may give advice, but we can not give conduct. However, remember this: They that will not be counseled can not be helped; and further, that, If you will not hear Reason, she will surely rap your knuckles, as Poor Richard says." THE END. BOOKS BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD. _THE WINDFALL; or, After the Flood._ Illustrated by B. WEST CLINEDINST. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. The young hero and heroine of Mr. Stoddard's stirring tale of mining life and of adventures by field and flood, teach lessons of pluck and resourcefulness which will impart a special and permanent value to one of the best stories that this popular author has given us. _CHRIS, THE MODEL-MAKER._ A Story of New York. With 6 full-page Illustrations by B. WEST CLINEDINST. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. "The girls as well as boys will be certain to relish every line of it. It is full of lively and likely adventure, is wholesome in tone, and capitally illustrated."--_Philadelphia Press._ _ON THE OLD FRONTIER._ With 10 full-page Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. "A capital story of life in the middle of the last century. . . . The characters introduced really live and talk, and the story recommends itself not only to boys and girls but to their parents."--_New York Times._ _THE BATTLE OF NEW YORK._ With 11 full-page Illustrations and colored Frontispiece. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. "Young people who are interested in the ever-thrilling story of the great rebellion will find in this romance a wonderfully graphic picture of New York in war time."--_Boston Traveller._ _LITTLE SMOKE._ A Story of the Sioux Indians. With 12 full-page Illustrations by F. S. DELLENBAUGH, portraits of Sitting Bull, Red Cloud, and other chiefs, and 72 head and tail pieces representing the various implements and surroundings of Indian life. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. "It is not only a story of adventure, but the volume abounds in information concerning this most powerful of remaining Indian tribes. The work of the author has been well supplemented by the artist."--_Boston Traveller._ _CROWDED OUT O' CROFIELD._ The story of a country boy who fought his way to success in the great metropolis. With 23 Illustrations by C. T. HILL. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. "There are few writers who know how to meet the tastes and needs of boys better than does William O. Stoddard. This excellent story teaches boys to be men, not prigs or Indian hunters. If our boys would read more such books, and less of the blood-and-thunder order, it would be rare good fortune."--_Detroit Free Press._ * * * * * New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. GOOD BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS. _CHRISTINE'S CAREER._ A Story for Girls. By PAULINE KING. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, specially bound, $1.50. The heroine of Miss King's charming story shares artist life in rural France and in Paris before she returns to her native country, where her time is divided between New York and Boston and the seashore. The story is fresh and modern, relieved by incidents and constant humor, and the lessons which are suggested are most beneficial. _JOHN BOYD'S ADVENTURES._ By THOMAS W. KNOX, author of "The Boy Travelers," etc. With 12 full-page Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. "The hero is alternately merchant, sailor, man-o'-war's-man, privateer's-man, pirate, and Algerine slave. The bombardment of Tripoli is a brilliant chapter of a narrative of heroic deeds."--_Philadelphia Ledger._ _ALONG THE FLORIDA REEF._ By CHARLES F. HOLDER, joint author of "Elements of Zoölogy." With numerous Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. "The reader will be entertained with a series of adventures, but when he is done he will find that he has learned a good deal about dancing cranes, corals, waterspouts, sharks, talking fish, disappearing islands, hurricanes, turtles, and all sorts of wonders of the earth and sea and air."--_New York Sun._ _ENGLISHMAN'S HAVEN._ By W. J. GORDON, author of "The Captain-General," etc. With 8 full-page Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. "The story of Louisbourg, which because of its position and the consequences of its fall is justly held one of the most notable of the world's dead cities. The story is admirably told."--_Detroit Free Press._ _WE ALL._ A Story of Outdoor Life and Adventure in Arkansas. By OCTAVE THANET. With 12 full-page Illustrations by E. J. AUSTEN and others. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. "A story which every boy will read with unalloyed pleasure. . . . The adventures of the two cousins are full of exciting interest. The characters, both white and black, are sketched directly from Nature, for the author is thoroughly familiar with the customs and habits of the different types of Southerners that she has so effectively reproduced."--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._ _KING TOM AND THE RUNAWAYS._ By LOUIS PENDLETON. The experiences of two boys in the forests of Georgia. With 6 Illustrations by E. W. KEMBLE. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. "The doings of 'King' Tom, Albert, and the happy-go-lucky boy Jim on the swamp island, are as entertaining in their way as the old sagas embodied in Scandinavian story."--_Philadelphia Ledger._ * * * * * New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Page x, "ELECTRIFIELD" changed to "ELECTRIFIED" (THE ELECTRIFIED VIAL) Page 54, "brought" changed to "bought" (name that bought) Page 86, "waching" changed to "watching" (who stood watching) Page 142, "endeavered" chagned to "endeavored" (him. I endeavored) Page 148, "disapponitment" changed to "disappointment" (ended in disappointment) Page 253, "spinnnig" changed to "spinning" (of a spinning-wheel) Page 265, "longed" changed to "long" (had long outlived) Page 291, word "about" inserted into text (pupils about how to) 
38469	----	generously made available by the Google Books Library Project (http://books.google.com/) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 38469-h.htm or 38469-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38469/38469-h/38469-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38469/38469-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through the the Google Books Library Project. See http://books.google.com/books?vid=OD9TNvh1EQ0C&id Transcriber's note: The total number of questions at the end of each chapter does not necessarily correspond to the total number of paragraphs in the chapter. Text is missing from the printed book at the end of Paragraph 19 in Chapter X. [Illustration: Franklin taking home his paper.] [Illustration: Reconciliation of Franklin with his Brother.] THE LIFE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. ILLUSTRATED BY TALES, SKETCHES, AND ANECDOTES. ADAPTED TO THE USE OF SCHOOLS. WITH ENGRAVINGS. PHILADELPHIA: DESILVER, THOMAS & CO., No. 253 MARKET STREET. 1836. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1832, by SAMUEL G. GOODRICH, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. Transcriber's Notes: The total number of questions at the end of each chapter does not necessarily correspond to the total number of paragraphs in the chapter. Text is missing from the printed book at the end of Paragraph 19 in Chapter X. PREFACE. The following Preface to the Life of Columbus will explain the plan of the series, of which this is the third volume:-- "There is no kind of reading more attractive than biography, and, if properly treated, there is none more instructive. It appears, therefore, to be peculiarly fitted to the purposes of education; it readily excites the curiosity and awakens the interest of the pupil, and, while it stores his mind with facts, dates and events, displays to his view the workings of the human heart, and makes him better acquainted with himself and mankind. "In the selection of subjects for a biographical series of works for youth, the editor has been led, by two considerations, to prefer those which belong to our own country. In the first place, it is more particularly necessary that our youth should be made acquainted with the lives of those men who were associated with the history of their native land; and, in the second place, no country can afford happier subjects for biography than this. There are few such lives as those of Columbus, Washington, and Franklin, in the annals of any nation. "In the preparation of the work, the author has sought to adapt it to youth, by the use of a simple style, and by the introduction of many illustrative tales, sketches, anecdotes and adventures. Questions for examining the pupils are printed in the pages, which may be used, or not, at the choice of the Teacher." The Life of Columbus and the Life of Washington, on a plan similar to this, have been already published; and other volumes, containing the lives of celebrated Indian Chiefs, celebrated American Statesmen, &c., will appear hereafter, if those already in progress should meet with success. CONTENTS. Page CHAPTER I. Birth of Franklin. Early Education. Anecdote. Choice of a Trade. He is placed with a Cutler. His Fondness for Reading. Bound Apprentice to his Brother. Makes a Couple of Ballads. His Friend Collins. Reads the Spectator. 11 CHAPTER II. Franklin gives up eating Meat. His Economy of Time. Studies Arithmetic. James Franklin establishes a Newspaper. Benjamin writes for it. His Brother is imprisoned. Benjamin manages the Paper. Leaves his Brother. Goes to New York. Sails thence for Philadelphia. Anecdote of the Dutchman. 19 CHAPTER III. His Journey. His Dinner with the old Gingerbread Woman. Arrives in Philadelphia. Anecdote of the Rolls. Attends the Meeting House of the Quakers. Suspected of being a Runaway. Employed by Keimer. Noticed by Governor Keith. Visit to Boston. Return. 27 CHAPTER IV. Finds his Friend Collins in New York. Visit to the Governor. Promises from Governor Keith. Project of a new religious Sect. Anecdote of Keimer and the roast Pig. His principal Acquaintance. A literary Trick. Prepares to go to London. The Governor's Deception. Arrival in London. 35 CHAPTER V. Troubled by his Friend Ralph. Obtains Employment. Ralph turns Schoolmaster, and begins an Epic Poem. Franklin teaches some of his Friends to swim. Anecdote of Mr. Denham. Return to Philadelphia. Story of George Webb. Franklin quarrels with Keimer. Returns to work for him. Employed at Burlington. Leaves Keimer. 43 CHAPTER VI. The Junto. A new Paper started by Keimer. Franklin purchases it. Difficulties in their Business. A Dissolution of the Partnership. Franklin assisted by his Friends. David Harry. Match-making. Marriage with Miss Read. 50 CHAPTER VII. Library of the Junto. A public Library established. Franklin studies. His Frugality. Anecdote of the Bowl and Spoon. His Scheme of arriving at Moral Perfection. Table of Precepts. Franklin's Remarks upon it. Poor Richard's Almanac. 57 CHAPTER VIII. Management of his Newspaper. Study of the Languages. Chess-playing. The Preacher Hemphill. Stealing Sermons. Visit to Boston. Visits his Brother James at Newport. Usefulness of the Junto. Formation of new Clubs. Franklin chosen Clerk of the General Assembly. Anecdote. 65 CHAPTER IX. Reform of the City Watch. Fire Companies. Rev. Mr. Whitefield. Effects of his Preaching. His Project of building an Orphan House in Georgia. Anecdotes. Franklin's Opinion of him. Franklin's Prosperity. Military Defence of the Province. Formation of Companies. 72 CHAPTER X. Anecdote. William Penn. Education of Youth. Subscription for an Academy. Franklin overloaded with public Offices. Member of the Assembly. Treaty with the Indians at Carlisle. Public Hospital. Anecdote. 82 CHAPTER XI. Spence's Experiments in Electricity. Franklin repeats them. Makes important Discoveries. Letters to Collinson. Experiment with the Kite. Publication of his Letters. Anecdote of the Abbé Nollet. Fame of Franklin. Elected a Member of the Royal Society. 90 CHAPTER XII. Appointed Postmaster-General. Journey to New England. Receives Degrees from two Colleges. Story of the Visit to his Mother. 97 CHAPTER XIII. Congress at Albany. Plan for a Union of the Colonies. Arrival of General Braddock. Franklin sent to him by the Assembly. Want of Wagons. Franklin undertakes to procure them. His Advertisement. Anecdote of Braddock. Battle with the Indians. Retreat. 105 CHAPTER XIV. Settlement for the Loss of Wagons. Anecdote. Preparations for Defence. Franklin appointed to a military Command. Assembles the Troops at Bethlehem. Farmers killed by Indians. Building Forts. Extracts from Franklin's Journal. Indian Cunning. Anecdotes of the Moravians. 113 CHAPTER XV. Disputes with the Proprietaries. Franklin sent by the Assembly to London. Appointed general Agent for the Colonies. University Honors. The Armonica. Murder of the friendly Indians. 124 CHAPTER XVI. Franklin appointed Agent at the Court of Great Britain. Visits Germany and France. Returns to Philadelphia. Appointed Delegate to Congress. Interview with Lord Howe. Sent as Ambassador to France. Asks to be recalled. Chosen President of the Supreme Council of Philadelphia. Death. Character. 130 ESSAYS OF DR. FRANKLIN. The Whistle. 136 Handsome and Deformed Leg. 138 Advice to a young Tradesman. 142 Necessary Hints to those that would be rich. 145 Paper, a Poem. 146 On the art of Swimming. 149 Preliminary Address to the Pennsylvania Almanac, entitled, "Poor Richard's Almanac, for the year 1758." 153 Observations on War. 167 The Way to make Money plenty in every Man's Pocket. 169 Morals of Chess. 171 Conversation of a Company of Ephemeræ. 177 LIFE OF FRANKLIN. CHAPTER I. _Birth of Franklin. Early Education. Anecdote. Choice of a Trade. He is placed with a Cutler. His Fondness for Reading. Bound Apprentice to his Brother. Makes a couple of Ballads. His Friend Collins. Reads the Spectator._ 1. Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, New England, on the seventeenth of January, 1706. He was the youngest son in a family of seventeen children. His elder brothers were, at an early age, put apprentices to different trades; for their father was a man of honest industry, but with little or no property, and unable to support the expense of keeping them long at school. 2. Benjamin, however, was intended for the church, and at eight years of age was put to a grammar school. His readiness in learning, and his attention to study, confirmed the first intention of his parents. The plan also met with the approbation of his uncle Benjamin, who promised to give him some volumes of sermons that he had taken down in short hand, from the lips of the most eminent preachers of the day. 3. He continued at the grammar school, however, only about a year, though he had risen to the head of his class, and promised to be a very fine scholar. His father was burthened with a numerous family, and could not carry him through a course of college education. He accordingly changed his first purpose, and sent Benjamin to a school for writing and arithmetic, kept by Mr. George Brownwell. 4. This master was quite skilful in his profession, being mild and kind to his scholars, but very successful in teaching them. Benjamin learned to write a good hand in a short time, but he could not manage arithmetic so easily. At ten years of age he was taken from school to help his father in the business of a tallow-chandler; and was employed in cutting the wick for the candles, going errands, and tending the shop. 5. Benjamin disliked the trade, and had a strong inclination to go to sea; but his father opposed his wishes in this respect, and determined to keep him at home. The house in which he lived happened to be near the water, and Benjamin was always playing with boats, and swimming. When sailing with other boys, he was usually the leader, and he confesses that he sometimes led them into difficulties. 6. There was a salt marsh which bounded part of the mill-pond, on the edge of which the boys used to stand to fish for minnows. They had trampled it so much, however, as to make it a mere quagmire. Franklin proposed to his friends to build a wharf there, for them to stand upon; and showed them a large heap of stones, which were intended for a new house near the marsh, and would answer their purpose exactly. 7. Accordingly, that evening, when the workmen were gone home, he assembled a number of his playfellows, and they worked diligently, like so many emmets, sometimes two or three to a stone, till they had brought them all to make their little wharf. On the next morning, the workmen were surprised on missing the stones. The authors of the removal were detected, complained of, and punished by their parents. Franklin attempted to show the usefulness of their work; but his father took that occasion to convince him, that _that which was not truly honest could not be truly useful_. 8. Benjamin continued employed in the business of his father about two years, that is, till he was twelve years old. His brother John, who had also been brought up to the trade, had left his father, married, and set up for himself in Rhode Island. There was now every appearance that Benjamin was destined to become a tallow-chandler. As his dislike to the trade continued, his father was afraid that, if he did not put Benjamin to one that was more agreeable, he would run away, and go to sea, as an elder brother of his had done. In consequence of this apprehension, he used to take him to walk, to see joiners, bricklayers, turners and braziers at their work, that he might observe his inclination, and fix it on some trade or profession that would keep him on land. 9. His father at length determined on the cutler's trade, and placed him for some days on trial with his cousin Samuel, who was bred to that trade in London, and had just established himself in Boston. It was then usual to ask a sum of money for receiving an apprentice, and the cutler charged so much for taking Benjamin, that his father was displeased, and put him to his old business again. 10. From his infancy Benjamin had been passionately fond of reading; and all the money that he could get was laid out in purchasing books. He was very fond of voyages and travels. The dangers and adventures of sailors in the different parts of the world, and stories of the strange people and customs they met with, he would always read with delight. 11. The first books that he was able to buy were the works of a famous old English writer, named John Bunyan. These he afterwards sold, in order to purchase some volumes of Historical Collections. His father's library consisted principally of works on divinity, most of which he read at an early age. Beside these, there was a book by De Foe, the author of Robinson Crusoe; and another called _An Essay to do Good_, by Dr. Mather, an old New England divine. 12. This fondness for books at length determined his father to bring him up as a printer, though he had already one son in that employment. In 1717, this son returned from England with a press and letters to set up his business in Boston. Benjamin liked this trade much better than that of his father, but still had a desire to go to sea. To prevent this step, his father was impatient to have him bound apprentice to his brother, and at length persuaded him to consent to it. 13. He was to serve as apprentice till he was twenty-one years of age, and during the last year was to be allowed the wages of a journeyman. In a little time, he made great progress in the business, and became quite useful. He was now able to obtain better books. An acquaintance with the apprentices of the booksellers sometimes enabled him to borrow a small one, which he was careful to return clean and in good season. He often sat up in his chamber the greater part of the night, to read a book that he was obliged to return in the morning. [Illustration: Franklin reading at night.] 14. After some time, an ingenious and sensible merchant, Mr. Matthew Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, took notice of Franklin at the printing office, and invited him to see his library. He very kindly offered to lend him any work that he might like to read. 15. He now took a strong inclination for poetry, and wrote some little pieces. His brother supposed that he might use this talent to advantage, and encouraged him to cultivate it. About this time, he produced two ballads. One was called the Light-House Tragedy, and contained an account of the shipwreck of Captain Worthilake, with his two daughters; the other was a sailor's song, on the taking of the famous Blackbeard, the pirate. 16. They were written in the doggerel street-ballad style, and when they were printed, his brother sent Benjamin about the town to sell them. The first sold very rapidly, as the event on which it was founded had recently occurred, and made a great deal of noise. This success flattered his vanity very much, but his father discouraged him by criticising his ballads, and telling him that verse-makers were generally beggars. 17. This prevented him from giving any further attention to poetry, and led him to devote more time and care to prose compositions. He was at this time intimately acquainted with another lad very fond of books, named John Collins. They sometimes discussed different questions together, and had become very apt to indulge in arguments and disputes. 18. A question was once started between them, on the propriety of educating the female sex in learned studies, and their abilities for these studies. As they parted without settling the point, and were not to see one another again for a long time, Franklin sat down to put his arguments in writing. He then made a fair copy of them, and sent it to Collins. 19. Three or four letters passed between them on the subject, when the father of Franklin happened to find the papers, and read them. Without entering into the subject in dispute, he took occasion to talk to him about his manner of writing. He marked the defects in his expressions, and in the arrangement of his sentences, but gave him the credit of spelling and pointing with great correctness. This he had learned in the printing office, but he had never before been taught any thing about manner and style. 20. About this time, he met with an odd volume of the Spectator, a very famous work, published by several English wits in the year 1711. He bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. This book was now his continual study, and he himself tried to write as much as possible in its very pleasant and popular style. The improvement which he made was encouraging, and led him to hope he might some day become a good English writer; a distinction of which he was very ambitious. * * * * * 1. Where was Franklin born? When? 2. For what profession did his parents intend to educate him? 3. What induced his father to change his intention? 4. To what trade was Benjamin put, and when? 6. Relate the anecdote about Franklin and his companions. 7. What maxim did his father teach him in consequence of this adventure? 8. What were his father's fears in relation to his new occupation? 9. On what trade did his father finally determine? 10. Describe his early fondness for reading, and the books of which he was most fond. 11. What books did he first buy? 12. What induced his father to bring up Benjamin as a printer? To whom was he bound apprentice? 13. How did he succeed in his new trade? 14. What advantages did it afford him for pursuing his studies? 15. Relate the account of his first attempts in poetry. 16. How did his ballads succeed? 17. How did his father discourage his new taste? 18. What was the subject of his discussion with his friend Collins? 19. What praise and advice did his father give him on this occasion? 20. With what book was Franklin at this time so much pleased? Did he attempt to imitate it? CHAPTER II. _Franklin gives up eating Meat. His Economy of Time. Studies Arithmetic. James Franklin establishes a Newspaper. Benjamin writes for it. His Brother is imprisoned. Benjamin manages the Paper. Leaves his Brother. Goes to New York. Sails thence for Philadelphia. Anecdote of the Dutchman._ 1. When about sixteen years of age, Franklin happened to meet with a book that recommended a vegetable diet. He determined to adopt it. His brother, being unmarried, did not keep house, but boarded himself and his apprentices in another family. By refusing to eat meat, Franklin occasioned a good deal of inconvenience; and he was frequently chid for his singularity. He accordingly learned the manner of boiling potatoes and rice, and of making hasty-pudding, and then proposed to his brother, if he would give him, weekly, half the money he paid for his board, to board himself. His brother instantly agreed to it, and Franklin soon found that he could save half of what he received. 2. This was a new fund for buying books. But this was not the only advantage. When his brother and the apprentices had gone to their meals, he was left in the printing office alone. He immediately despatched his slight repast, which was often no more than a biscuit, or a slice of bread and a handful of raisins, or a tart from the pastry cook's, and a glass of water, and had the rest of the time till their return for study. By being thus economical of his time, he was able to make considerable progress in his books. 3. He now began to feel the want of a knowledge of figures, and was once very much mortified by his ignorance of them. As he had entirely failed of learning them at school, he took Cocker's Arithmetic, and went through the whole of it by himself with the greatest ease. The mortification he had met with induced him to make great exertions; and we can succeed in any thing to which we give our earnest attention. 4. While he was intent on improving his language and style, Franklin met with an English grammar, at the end of which were two little sketches on the arts of rhetoric and logic. The latter of these finished with a dispute in the manner of Socrates, a very famous philosopher of Greece. Franklin was charmed with this modest and artful manner, and cured himself of the tricks of contradiction and too much positiveness. These habits are very disagreeable, and no one should allow himself to fall into them. 5. "In fact, if you wish to instruct others," says Franklin, "a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may occasion opposition, and prevent a candid attention. If you desire improvement from others, you should not at the same time express yourself fixed in your present opinions. Modest and sensible men, who do not love disputation, will leave you undisturbed in the possession of your errors. In adopting such a manner, you can seldom expect to please your hearers, or obtain the concurrence you desire." 6. In the year 1720, or '21, James Franklin began to print a newspaper. It was the second that appeared in America, and was called the _New England Courant_. The only one before it was the _Boston News Letter_. Some of his friends endeavored to dissuade him from the undertaking. They thought it would not succeed, as, in their opinion, one newspaper was sufficient for all America. There are now in the United States alone, over eight hundred newspapers. 7. The undertaking, however, went on. Benjamin assisted in setting the types, helped to print off the sheets, and was then employed in carrying the papers to the subscribers. Several men of information and talents wrote little pieces for the paper, which were amusing, and gained considerable credit. These gentlemen often visited the printing office. 8. Hearing their conversations, and their accounts of the praise their pieces received from the public, Benjamin was excited to try his fortune among them. He was afraid, however, as he was still a boy, his brother would object to print any thing of his composition in the paper. It was necessary, therefore, to disguise his hand-writing, and to send his piece to the office in such a way that it should not be known from whom it came. 9. When his friends came in, James showed them the communication from an unknown writer. They read it, praised it, and made several guesses as to the author. In these guesses none were named but men of some character for talents and learning. They never once suspected it was written by the little printer's boy who stood at their elbows, chuckling in silence over the secret. 10. Encouraged by the success of this attempt, he continued to write, and send other pieces in the same way to the press. He kept his secret as long as he saw fit, and then confessed himself the author of the writings they had been so long guessing about. Benjamin now began to be more noticed by his brother's acquaintance, which made him a little vain, and led to some serious difficulties. 11. His brother, notwithstanding the relationship between them, considered himself as master, and Benjamin as his apprentice, and accordingly expected the same services from him that he would from another. In some of these services the young printer felt himself degraded, and thought that he should receive greater indulgence. His brother was passionate, and frequently beat him; and, finding the apprenticeship exceedingly tedious, Benjamin was looking forward for an opportunity to shorten it. This at length happened in a very unexpected manner. 12. One of the pieces in the paper, on some political subject, gave offence to the Assembly, one of the most important branches of the government of Massachusetts. James Franklin was taken up, censured, and imprisoned for a month, because he would not discover the author. Benjamin was also called up and examined before the council; but, considering him as an apprentice, who was bound to keep his master's secret, they dismissed him without punishment. 13. During his brother's confinement, Benjamin had the management of the paper, and indulged in very smart remarks upon the government. This pleased his brother, though it made others look upon him in an unfavorable light, as a youth who had a turn for satire and libeling. The discharge of the imprisoned printer was accompanied with an order that "James Franklin should no longer print the newspaper called the New England Courant." 14. On a consultation held at the printing office, it was proposed, to change the name of the paper, and in this manner elude the order of the council. As there were many difficulties in the way of this project, it was determined to let the paper for the future be printed in the name of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 15. When apprentices are bound out, it is usual to have certain agreements drawn up between them and their masters, sealed and signed according to certain forms required by law. These papers are called indentures. James was afraid that the censure of the Assembly would fall on him, as still printing the paper by his apprentice, and contrived that his old indenture should be returned to Benjamin, with a discharge on the back of it. 16. This was to be shown only in case of necessity; and in order to secure his services for the remainder of the time, it was agreed that Benjamin should sign new indentures. These were to be kept private. This was a very flimsy scheme, but the paper continued to be printed in this manner for several months. At length fresh difficulties arose, and Benjamin determined to take advantage of his discharge; thinking that his brother would be afraid to produce the new indentures. It was unfair to take this advantage, but he was urged to it by very unkind and even cruel treatment. 17. When his brother found out his intentions, he went round to every master printer in town to prevent his getting employment. In consequence of this, he concluded to remove to New York; that being the nearest place where there was another printer. His father opposed his removal, and took side with his brother in the dispute. Benjamin sold his books to furnish the means of paying his passage, went privately on board of a sloop, had a fair wind, and in three days found himself in New York, three hundred miles from home, at the age of seventeen. There was no one in the place whom he knew; he was without any recommendations, and had very little money in his pocket. 18. By this time he had entirely lost all his love for the sea, or he might have been induced to gratify it. Having another profession, and considering himself a good workman, he offered his services to a printer of the place, old Mr. W. Bradford. This man had been the first printer in Pennsylvania, and had removed from there in consequence of a quarrel with the governor, General Keith. 19. He had a sufficient number of workmen, and little to do, and could give Franklin no employment. But he said, "My son, at Philadelphia, has lately lost his principal hand, Aquila Rose, by death, and if you go thither, I believe he may employ you." 20. Philadelphia was one hundred miles farther, but Franklin concluded to go there. In crossing the bay, a squall struck the little vessel he was in, and tore her rotten sails to pieces. She was driven upon Long Island. 21. On the way, a drunken Dutchman, who was a passenger in the boat, tumbled overboard. As he was sinking, Franklin reached out and caught him by a very bushy head of hair, and drew him up again. This sobered him a little, and he went to sleep, having first taken a book out of his pocket, which he desired Franklin to dry for him. It proved to be a Dutch copy of his old favorite book, _Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress_, and he carefully complied with the wish of the sleepy owner. * * * * * 1. What induced Franklin to adopt a vegetable diet? What arrangement did he make with his brother on this account? 2. What advantage resulted from this? Describe Benjamin's economy of time. 3. How did he learn arithmetic? 4. With what treatise was Franklin so much pleased? Of what disagreeable habits did it cure him? 5. What advice does he give on the manner of conversation? 6. Who printed the second newspaper in New England? What was it called? 7. How was Benjamin connected with it? 8. What first induced him to write for it? Describe his first attempt. 9. How was his communication received? 10. What was the consequence of his success? 11. What were the difficulties between the brothers? 12. What happened at this time to James Franklin? 13. How did Benjamin conduct the paper? What was the order of the council? 14. How was it evaded? 15. What is the custom in binding out apprentices? How was Benjamin discharged from his indentures? 16. What unfair advantage did he take of this discharge? 17. What course did his brother pursue on this occasion? His father? Benjamin? 18. To whom did he apply for employment? 19. With what success? 20. Where did he determine to go? 21. What is the anecdote of the Dutchman? CHAPTER III. _His Journey. His Dinner with the old Gingerbread Woman. Arrives in Philadelphia. Anecdote of the Rolls. Attends the Meeting House of the Quakers. Suspected of being a Runaway. Employed by Keimer. Noticed by Governor Keith. Visit to Boston. Return._ 1. On approaching the island, the crew found themselves in a place where there could be no landing, as it was a stony beach, and a violent surf was rolling. They cast anchor, and remained in that situation through the night. As the spray dashed over the boat, they were all, in a very short time, as wet as the unfortunate Dutchman. The wind went down on the next morning, and they were able to reach Amboy before night; having been thirty hours on the water, without victuals, or any drink but a bottle of dirty rum. 2. In the evening, Franklin found himself feverish, and went to bed. As he drank plentifully of cold water, his fever left him, and in the morning he proceeded on his journey. After crossing the ferry, he travelled on foot, notwithstanding a violent rain, till noon. Being now thoroughly soaked and tired, he stopped at a poor inn, where he spent the remainder of the day, and all night. 3. He now began to wish that he had never left home. His prospect of procuring employment, even when he should arrive at Philadelphia, was uncertain. He thought of the distress his sudden disappearance must have occasioned to his parents. Besides all this, he made such a sorry figure that he was suspected of being a runaway servant, and in danger of being taken up on that suspicion. 4. On the next day, however, he continued his journey, and arrived that night at an inn, within eight or ten miles of Burlington. The next morning he reached Burlington, where he expected to find boats to sail immediately for Philadelphia. It was Saturday, and he had the mortification to find that the regular boats had just gone, and that no others were expected to sail before Tuesday. 5. Franklin returned to the shop of an old woman, of whom he had bought some gingerbread to eat on his passage, and asked her where he had better go to find lodgings. She proposed to lodge him in her own house, till a passage, by some other boat, offered itself. He accepted the invitation, and dined with the old woman that day on ox-cheek. All that she would take in return was a pot of ale. 6. Franklin had supposed himself fixed till the next Tuesday, but as he was walking, in the evening, by the side of the river, a boat passed by, with several people, going to Philadelphia. They took him in, and proceeded on their voyage. The weather was very calm, without a breath of wind stirring. They were obliged to row all the way. Reaching Philadelphia about eight or nine o'clock on Sunday morning, they landed at Market street wharf. 7. Our young traveller had sent his best clothes by another conveyance from New York, and he was in his old working dress. His pockets were stuffed out with shirts and stockings, and he knew not where to look for lodgings. He was tired with walking, rowing, and want of sleep, and was, besides, very hungry. His whole stock of cash was a single silver dollar and about a shilling in copper coin. The copper he gave to the boatmen for his passage. 8. As he walked along the street, gazing at the new things he saw, and wondering what would be the end of his trouble, he met a boy with some bread. Inquiring where he had bought it, Franklin went immediately to the place where he was directed, and asked for three-pence worth of bread. He received three large puffy rolls, and, having no room in his pockets, walked off, with a roll under each arm, and eating the third. [Illustration: Franklin walking in the streets of Philadelphia.] 9. In this manner he walked up Market street, as far as Fourth street, passing by the house of Mr. Read, whose daughter he afterwards married. This young lady was standing at the door as he went by, and probably thought he made rather an awkward appearance. After walking about the streets some time, eating his roll, he found himself again in the neighborhood of the wharf where he had landed. He went on board of the boat, and gave his two remaining rolls to a woman and child that had been his fellow-passengers down the river. 10. He again walked up the street, which was, by that time, filled with a large number of neat, well-dressed people, who were all walking the same way. He joined them, and was led into the great meeting house of the Quakers, near the market. Sitting down among them, he looked round awhile, and, as nothing was said, fell fast asleep from drowsiness. His nap continued till the meeting broke up, when some one was kind enough to awake him. 11. He then walked down towards the river, and meeting a young Quaker, whose countenance pleased him, he asked where a stranger could get lodgings. They were then near a house with the sign of the Three Mariners. "Here," said the Quaker, "is a house where they receive strangers, but it is not a reputable one; if thou wilt walk with me, I'll show thee a better." He conducted Franklin to the Crooked Billet, in Water street. 12. There he dined, and during the dinner several questions were put to him, by persons who supposed him to be a runaway. On the next morning, he dressed himself as neatly as he could, and went to see Andrew Bradford, the printer. Here he found the old gentleman, whom he had met in New York, and who, travelling on horseback, had got to Philadelphia before him. 13. Mr. Bradford received him very kindly, but, as he was not at that time in want of a hand, could only recommend him to a printer, who had lately set up in town, by the name of Keimer. This man had then nothing for him to do, but promised him employment soon. Meanwhile, he was invited to lodge with Mr. Bradford, and to assist when there was any extra work in the printing office. 14. Franklin soon found that neither of the printers knew any thing about their business. Keimer was, before long, able to give him constant employment. He did not like, however, that any one should live with his rival, Bradford, while he worked for him. Lodgings were, therefore, procured for Franklin, with Mr. Read, whose house he had passed on his first arrival, while eating his roll. 15. He had now made some acquaintances about town, and passed his time very pleasantly. By industry and frugality he gained money, and gave up all thoughts of returning to Boston. The governor of the province, Sir William Keith, had accidentally become acquainted with him, and was desirous that he should set up in business for himself, in Philadelphia. He promised to procure for him the public printing of the government, and to assist him, as much as possible, by his influence and patronage. 16. It was concluded that Franklin should return to Boston, with a letter from the governor, to prevail upon his father to assist him in the establishment. Towards the end of April, in 1724, he left Philadelphia for this purpose. 17. He sailed in a little vessel that was bound for Boston, and, in about a fortnight, was safe in his father's house. His sudden appearance surprised the family very much, but they were all delighted to see him, and treated him with great kindness. 18. Soon after his arrival, he paid a visit to his brother, at the printing office. He had on a new suit of clothes, wore a watch, and had about five pounds, in silver, in his pockets. Feeling rather elated by the success he had met with, he made quite a display of all his good fortune before his brother's apprentices and journeymen, and ended by giving them a dollar to drink his health with. This visit offended his brother very much, for he thought it was intended to mortify him. 19. The letter of the governor was without any effect. His father was very glad that Benjamin had been able to gain the confidence of so eminent a man, but would not consent to his request. He wrote a civil letter, thanking Sir William for his promise of patronage, but saying, that his son was altogether too young to be intrusted with the management of so important and expensive an undertaking. 20. Franklin gave so pleasant an account of Philadelphia, that his old friend Collins determined to go on and try his fortune there. Seeing no prospect of restoring harmony between the two brothers, his father consented that Benjamin should return to Philadelphia. He advised him to steady industry and frugality, and promised to assist in setting him up in business, when he should reach the age of twenty-one. With the approbation and blessing of his parents to follow him, he embarked for New York, on the way to his future home. * * * * * 1. What was the situation of the crew on the water? 2. How did Franklin pursue his journey? 3. What were his fears? 5. Describe the treatment Franklin received from the old woman. 6. How did he get to Philadelphia? 7. Describe his appearance on his first arrival there. 10. Relate his adventure in the meeting house. 11. Where did he first lodge in Philadelphia? 13. Where did he obtain employment? 15. How did Franklin succeed, and how did he pass his time? What was the promise of Sir William Keith? 16. Why did Franklin go to Boston? 18. Describe his visit to his brother. 19. How did his father receive the governor's letter? 20. What were his advice and promise to Benjamin? CHAPTER IV. _Finds his Friend Collins in New York. Visit to the Governor. Promises from Governor Keith. Project of a new religious Sect. Anecdote of Keimer and the roast Pig. His principal Acquaintance. A literary Trick. Prepares to go to London. The Governor's Deception. Arrival in London._ 1. At New York Franklin found his friend Collins, who had arrived there some time before him. They had been intimate from childhood, and he had been sober and industrious. But during Franklin's absence in Philadelphia, Collins had fallen into bad habits, and become a drunkard. He gamed, and lost his money, and borrowed of his friend, to pay his expenses on the road. 2. The governor of New York, hearing from the captain that one of his passengers had a great many books on board, requested that he might be brought to see him. Franklin, accordingly, waited upon him. He was received with great civility. The governor showed him his library, which was a considerable one, and they had a good deal of conversation about books and authors. This attention was very pleasing to Franklin. 3. When they arrived at Philadelphia, Collins continued to drink, and was, consequently, unable to procure any business. He continued to borrow money of Franklin, and finally quarrelled with him, and went to the West Indies. Franklin never heard of him afterwards. 4. Sir William Keith received the young printer, on his return, with a great show of kindness, and large promises. "Since your father will not set you up," he said to him, "I will do it myself. Give me a list of the things necessary to be had from England, and I will send for them. You shall repay me when you are able. I am resolved to have a good printer here, and I am sure you must succeed." This was spoken with an air of perfect sincerity, and Franklin had not the least doubt but that he meant what he said. 5. He accordingly made a list of all the articles that would be wanted for a printing house, the cost of which was about one hundred pounds. The governor liked it, and asked whether it would not be well for him to go to England himself, in order to select the types, and see that every thing was of the best kind. "When there," he added, "you may make acquaintance, and establish correspondence in the bookselling and stationery way." 6. Franklin thought that it might be advantageous. "Then," said he, "get yourself ready to go in the Annis," which was the annual ship, and at that time the only one passing between London and Philadelphia. But, as it would be some months before the Annis sailed, Franklin continued to work with Keimer. 7. They agreed together very well, and lived on quite a familiar footing. Franklin used sometimes to argue with his master, and would most frequently beat him. This gave him so great an idea of Franklin's ability in disputation, that he proposed to him to become his assistant in a new religious sect which he proposed to establish. One was to preach the doctrines, and the other to confound all opponents. 8. When they came to explain with each other upon their doctrines, Keimer was desirous of introducing certain customs, which did not entirely meet the wishes of his colleague. Among other things, he wore his beard at full length; because, somewhere in the Mosaic law, it is said, "Thou shalt not mar the corners of thy beard." He likewise kept the seventh day sabbath, instead of the first; and both of these points he considered essential. 9. Franklin disliked both, but agreed to them on condition of his adopting the doctrine not to use animal food. Keimer was a great eater, and was not much pleased with the idea of being starved; but he consented to try the practice a few weeks, and see how it agreed with his constitution. 10. They held to this plan for three months. Their provisions were purchased, cooked, and brought to them regularly by a woman in the neighborhood, who prepared, at different times, forty dishes, in which there were neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. Franklin went on well enough, but poor Keimer suffered grievously, grew tired of the project, and ordered a roast pig. He invited some friends to dine with him upon the occasion, but the pig being brought too soon upon the table, he could not resist the temptation, but ate the whole before his company came. 11. During this time, Franklin had contracted an affection for Miss Read, and believed that she was not altogether indifferent in her feelings towards him. As he was about to take a long voyage, however, and as they were both very young, her mother thought it most prudent to defer the matter till his return from England. 12. His chief acquaintance, at this period, were Charles Osborne, Joseph Watson, and James Ralph, all lovers of reading. In one of their meetings, it was proposed that at a certain time each of them should produce a piece of his own composition, in order to improve, by mutual observations and corrections. They agreed that this task should be to turn the eighteenth psalm into verse. 13. When the time of the meeting drew nigh, Ralph called upon Franklin, and told him that his piece was ready. "Now," said he, "Osborne never will allow the least merit in any thing of mine, but makes a thousand criticisms, out of mere envy. I wish, therefore, you would take this piece and produce it as yours; we shall then hear what he will say to it." 14. It was agreed. At the meeting, Watson's performance was read first; there were some beauties in it and many defects. Osborne's piece was then read, and was much better. Ralph had nothing to produce. It was now Franklin's turn. He was backward, wished to be excused, but no excuse would be received. The piece he brought with him was read, and repeated. Osborne was delighted with it, and praised it in the highest terms. 15. As he was returning home with Ralph, he expressed himself still more strongly. "Who would have imagined," said he, "that Franklin was capable of such a performance! such painting, such force, such fire! He has even improved on the original. In common conversation he seems to have no choice of words; he hesitates and blunders; and yet how he writes!" When they next met, the trick was discovered, and Osborne was laughed at for praising Ralph, by mistake. 16. The governor sent for Franklin frequently to his house, and always spoke of setting him up in business, as a settled thing. He was to be furnished with letters to the governor's friends in England, and with an order for the money to purchase a press, types, and paper. For these letters he was to call at a certain time, when they would be ready. They were delayed, however, again and again, till the ship was on the point of sailing. 17. When Franklin went to take leave, and receive the letters, the secretary came out and said, that the governor was very busy on business of importance, but that he would send the letters on board, wishing him a good voyage and a speedy return. 18. Understanding that despatches had been brought on board, from the governor, Franklin asked the captain for the letters that were to be under his care. The captain told him that they had all been put into the bag together, and he could not then come at them; but that before they landed in England, he should have an opportunity of picking them out. This satisfied him for the present, and he thought nothing more of it during the voyage. 19. When they arrived in the Channel, the captain kept his word, and permitted him to examine the bag, for the governor's letters. He found some upon which his name was put, and picked out six or seven, which he thought might be the promised letters. One of these was addressed to Basket, the king's printer, and another to some stationer. 20. They reached London on the twenty-fourth of December, 1724. Franklin waited upon the stationer, who came first in his way, and delivered the letter as from Governor Keith. "I don't know such a person," said he; but opening the letter--"O! this is from Riddlesden; I have lately found him to be a complete rascal, and I will have nothing to do with him, nor receive any letters from him." Returning the letter, he turned upon his heel and went to wait upon some customer. 21. It turned out that the governor had sent no letters by Franklin, but had completely deceived him. With no intention of giving him any assistance, he had blinded him with brilliant promises and false hopes. But Franklin was able to assist himself. He determined to procure employment among the printers in London, and acquire a thorough knowledge of his profession before he returned to America. * * * * * 1. What happened to his friend Collins? 2. What attention did Franklin receive from the governor of New York? 4. What was Sir William Keith's conduct? 5. What was the proposed visit to England? 7. What started the scheme of a new sect? 8. Why did it fail? 10. Relate the anecdote of Keimer and the roast pig. 12. Who were his chief acquaintance at this period? What was the task proposed among them? 14. What was the trick played upon Osborne? 17. What was the conduct of the governor? 18. Did Franklin receive the letters promised by the governor? 20. What was the fate of Franklin's first letter of introduction? 21. What course did Franklin determine to pursue? [Illustration: Franklin delivering his letter to the Stationer in London.] CHAPTER V. _Troubled by his Friend Ralph. Obtains Employment. Ralph turns Schoolmaster, and begins an Epic Poem. Franklin teaches some of his Friends to swim. Anecdote of Mr. Denham. Return to Philadelphia. Story of George Webb. Franklin quarrels with Keimer. Returns to work for him. Employed at Burlington. Leaves Keimer._ 1. His friend Ralph had accompanied Franklin to London, and they were now inseparable companions. They took lodgings together, at three shillings and sixpence a week. Ralph appears to have been a conceited and helpless character, and made several attempts to get in the way of procuring a livelihood. But all his plans were unsuccessful. 2. Franklin immediately procured employment at an extensive printing house, where he remained nearly a year. He was diligent in work, but his shiftless companion consumed a good share of his earnings. His engagements with Miss Read he was thoughtless and heartless enough to forget, and never wrote to her but once during his absence. This conduct he afterwards considered among the greatest faults of his life. 3. Ralph finally determined to leave London, and take a school in the country. As he was very vain, and confident of rising to literary eminence, he was rather ashamed of what he was silly enough to consider a mean occupation. He accordingly changed his name, and took that of his companion; desiring him to address his letters to "Mr. Franklin, school-master." 4. Ralph continued to write, and, from time to time, troubled his friend with long extracts from an epic poem, which he was then composing, requesting his remarks and corrections. Franklin endeavored to discourage him from this undertaking, but in vain. Sheet after sheet continued to come by every post. Some difficulties at length broke out between the two friends, and Franklin was fortunately relieved of a burdensome dependent. 5. He now began to think of laying up a little money; and, in expectation of better employment, entered a still larger printing house, near Lincoln's Inn Fields. His new employer was named Watts. At this place he became acquainted with a man by the name of Wygate, who had been well educated, read French and Latin, and loved reading. 6. This man and a friend of his were desirous of learning to swim. Franklin had been an expert swimmer from his childhood, and was very fond of displaying his feats of activity in the water. He taught them to swim, after twice going into the river, and they soon became quite skilful. Wygate soon became attached to Franklin, and, at length, proposed that they should travel all over Europe together, supporting themselves on the way by working at their trade. Franklin was inclined to this plan, but was dissuaded from it by his friend, Mr. Denham, who advised him to think of returning to Philadelphia. 7. Mr. Denham was an excellent man, and very kindly disposed towards Franklin. He had formerly been in business in Bristol, a city of England, but failing, and making a settlement with his creditors, he went to America. He had obtained a discharge from all his debts, by giving up all his property. By great industry and economy, he was able to acquire a large fortune, in a few years. 8. He had returned to England, in the same ship with Franklin, and immediately visited his old place of business. While here, he invited all his old creditors to an entertainment. He then thanked them for the easy settlement they had favored him with; and, when they expected nothing but the dinner, every man found, under his plate, an order on the banker, for the full amount of the unpaid remainder, with interest. 9. Mr. Denham was now about to return to Philadelphia, and proposed to take Franklin over as his clerk. He promised him, as soon as he became acquainted with mercantile business, to promote him, and finally establish him in some profitable situation. The plan pleased Franklin, for he had become heartily tired of London, and was anxious to return home. A satisfactory arrangement was made, and Franklin took leave of printing, as he thought, forever. 10. He had thus spent about eighteen months in London, and, during this time, had increased his knowledge, though he had not improved his fortune. They sailed from Gravesend, near the mouth of the river Thames, on the 23d of July, and arrived in Philadelphia early in October. Franklin here found several alterations. Keith was no longer governor, and his place had been supplied by Major Gordon. Miss Read, despairing of his return, had been persuaded by her friends to marry a man by the name of Rogers, a worthless fellow, who left her, and ran away to the West Indies. 11. Mr. Denham took a store, and Franklin attended diligently to the business. Affairs were going on prosperously, when they were both taken violently ill, in the beginning of the year 1727. Mr. Denham died, after a long sickness, and Franklin was again thrown upon the world. He tried for some time to obtain a situation as a merchant's clerk, but, failing in this attempt, he again made an engagement with his old master, Keimer. 12. Keimer was anxious to obtain Franklin's services, as most of his hands were ignorant and needed his instruction. Among these workmen was George Webb, who had been an Oxford scholar, and whose story was an uncommon instance of opportunities neglected and thrown away. 13. He was about eighteen years of age. His birthplace was Gloucester, in England, where he was educated at a grammar school, and had been distinguished when they exhibited plays. From here, he was sent to Oxford, where he continued about a year, but not contentedly; wishing, of all things, to see London, and become a player. 14. At length, receiving his quarterly allowance of fifteen guineas, instead of discharging his debts, he went out of town, hid his gown in a bush, and walked to London. When here, having no friend to advise him, he fell into bad company, soon spent his guineas, found no means of being introduced among the players, grew poor, pawned his clothes, and wanted bread. 15. Walking about the streets, very hungry, and not knowing what to do, a bill was put into his hands, offering immediate entertainment and encouragement to such as would bind themselves to serve in America. He went directly to sign the indentures, was put into the ship, and sailed without writing a line to his friends, to tell them what had become of him. As a companion, he was lively, witty, and good-natured; but idle, thoughtless, and imprudent to the last degree. 16. After continuing a while with Keimer, Franklin found that his services became every day of less importance. At length a trifle snapped their connection. A great noise happening near the printing office, Franklin put his head out of the window to see what was the matter. Keimer, being in the street, looked up, and called out to him, in a loud and angry tone, to mind his business. A number of neighbors, who were standing by, saw the insolent manner in which he was treated, and it vexed him exceedingly. An open quarrel ensued, and Franklin left the printing house. 17. Keimer was very desirous of persuading him to return; and, as it was for the interest of both that harmony should be restored, the quarrel was soon forgotten. A job was now obtained in New Jersey, to print some paper money. Franklin contrived a copperplate press for the purpose, the first that had been seen in the country; he also cut several ornaments and checks for the bills. 18. To execute this job, Franklin and his employer went to Burlington. They performed it to the satisfaction of the government, and received a large compensation. During his short residence here, Franklin made many acquaintance and friends. One of them was Isaac Decon, the surveyor-general, a shrewd, sagacious old man, who began, when young, by wheeling clay for the brick-makers. He learned to write after he was twenty-one years of age, afterwards learned surveying, and had now acquired, by his industry, a considerable property. 19. What had chiefly induced Franklin to return to Keimer, after his quarrel, was the persuasion of a fellow-workman, by the name of Meredith. The father of this young man had promised to advance money to establish him in business, in the ensuing spring, and he was desirous to set Franklin's skill against his own capital, and form a copartnership. The proposal was a fair one, and acceptable upon both sides. 20. A short time after their return from Burlington, the types that Meredith had ordered arrived from London. They settled with Keimer, and left him, by his consent, before he knew any thing about their project. * * * * * 2. Where did Franklin procure employment? 3. What was the course of his friend Ralph? 5. What new friend did Franklin make? 6. What proposition did he make to Franklin? Why was not the plan carried into execution? 7. Who was Mr. Denham? 8. Describe his honorable conduct towards his old creditors. 9. What proposal did he make to Franklin? 10. How long was Franklin in London? What changes had taken place during his absence? 11. How was Franklin again thrown upon the world? What employment did he obtain? 12. Who was George Webb? 13, 14, 15. What was his story? 16. How did Franklin quarrel with Keimer? 17. Who contrived the first copperplate press ever seen in this country? 18. For what purpose did Franklin visit Burlington? 19. What induced Franklin to return to Keimer, after the separation? What was the proposal of Meredith? 20. When did they leave Keimer? CHAPTER VI. _The Junto. A new Paper started by Keimer. Franklin purchases it. Difficulties in their Business. A Dissolution of the Partnership. Franklin assisted by his Friends. David Harry. Match-making. Marriage with Miss Read._ 1. In the autumn of the preceding year, Franklin had formed, among his acquaintance, a small club for mutual improvement, which they termed the Junto. They met on Friday evenings. The rules required that each member, in his turn, should produce one or more questions on any point of politics, morals or natural philosophy, to be discussed by the company, and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing on any subject he pleased. 2. This club answered many good purposes for a great length of time. It introduced better habits of conversation, and drew attention to the most interesting subjects of general inquiry. The members of the club now assisted in bringing business to the young printers. Their industry was unwearied, and soon began to be noticed by their neighbors. This gave them character and credit. 3. George Webb now came to offer them his services, as a journeyman. They were not then able to give him employment, but Franklin let him know, as a secret, that he soon intended to begin a newspaper, and would then probably have work for him. He told him his plan and expectations. His hopes of success were founded on this; that the only newspaper at that time printed there, by Bradford, was a miserable affair, badly managed, not entertaining, and yet profitable. 4. Franklin requested Webb not to mention the project; but he told it to Keimer, who immediately issued proposals for publishing one himself. This vexed Franklin, and, as he was at that time unable to commence his paper, he wrote several amusing pieces for Bradford, under the title of the Busy Body, which were continued by one of his friends for several months. By this means the attention of the public was fixed on that paper, and Keimer's proposals were neglected. He began his paper, however, and carried it on about nine months, with only ninety subscribers. At this time, he offered it, at a very low price, to Franklin, who purchased it, and in a few years made it very profitable. 5. The partnership still continued, though the whole management of the business was confided to Franklin. Meredith knew very little about setting types, or working at the press, and was seldom sober. The connection between them was to be regretted, on many accounts, but Meredith had established the business, and it was now necessary to make the best of it. 6. Their first papers made a better appearance than any that had been before printed in the province. The number of subscribers continually increased, and the leading men found it convenient to oblige and encourage the printers. Bradford still printed the votes, and laws, and public documents; but this business soon fell into the hands of Franklin. 7. A difficulty now occurred, which had been little expected. Mr. Meredith's father, who was to have paid for the printing house, was able to advance only one hundred pounds; and one hundred more were due to the merchant, who became impatient, and sued them all. They gave bail, but unless the money could have been raised in season, they must have sold their press and types, for payment. 8. In this distress, two friends came forward to Franklin, and offered to advance the money, if he would discontinue the partnership with Meredith. Each made the proposition separately, and without the knowledge of the other. These friends were William Coleman and Robert Grace. Franklin told them that he considered himself under obligations to the Merediths, and if they should be able to fulfil their part of the agreement, he could not think of proposing a separation. If they should finally fail in their performance, and the partnership should be dissolved, he would then think himself at liberty to accept the assistance of his friends. 9. Meredith finally proposed a dissolution of the partnership. Franklin consented, and the whole business was left in his hands. He then recurred to his friends, and took half of what he wanted from one, and half from the other. The separation was then publicly advertised, the old debts were paid off, and the business went on in the name of Franklin. This was in or about the year 1729. 10. He now obtained several jobs from the government, and was employed in printing the paper money. A stationer's shop was soon added to his establishment, and he began to pay off gradually the debt he was under for the printing house. In order to secure his character and credit as a trades-man, he was not only industrious and frugal in reality, but avoided any appearance to the contrary. He dressed plainly, and was seen at no places of amusement. To show that he was not above his business, he himself sometimes brought home, on a wheel-barrow, the paper he purchased at the stores. 11. Being thus considered an industrious and thriving young man, the merchants who imported stationery were desirous of his custom. Others proposed supplying him with books, and he went on prosperously. In the mean time, Keimer's business and credit declined daily, and he was at last obliged to sell his printing house, to satisfy his creditors. He went to Barbadoes, and there lived, some years, in great poverty. [Illustration: Franklin taking home his paper.] 12. An apprentice of Keimer's, David Harry, bought his materials, and set up, in his place, in Philadelphia. His friends were rich, and possessed considerable influence, and Franklin was afraid that he would find Harry a powerful rival. He, therefore, proposed a partnership, which was fortunately rejected. Harry was proud, dressed and lived expensively, neglected his business, and ran in debt. Losing credit, and finding nothing to do, he followed Keimer to Barbadoes, taking his printing materials with him. Here he employed his old master as a journeyman, and was at last obliged to sell his types and return to work in Philadelphia. 13. There now remained no other printer in the place but Bradford. He, however, was rich and easy, and was not anxious about doing much business. His situation as post-master, at that time, was supposed to give him some advantages in obtaining news, and distributing the papers; and he was, on that account, able to procure a great many more advertisements than Franklin. This was of great service to Bradford, and prevented his rival from gaining upon him so rapidly as he otherwise would have done. 14. Franklin had hitherto boarded with Mr. Godfrey, a glazier, who was very much distinguished for his knowledge of mathematics. The wife of Mr. Godfrey was desirous of making a match for the young printer, and fixed upon the daughter of a neighbor, as a suitable person. She contrived, in several ways, to bring them together, and at length Franklin made proposals of marriage. 15. Franklin appears to have been equally prudent and cautious in this affair, as in every thing else. He gave Mrs. Godfrey to understand, and carry to the parents, that he expected one hundred pounds with their daughter. She brought him word that they had no such sum to spare. Franklin sent back, in reply, that they might mortgage their house. 16. The answer to this, after a few days, was, that they did not approve the match; that, on inquiry of Mr. Bradford, they had been informed the printing business was not a profitable one; that Keimer and Harry had failed, and that he would probably soon follow them. The daughter was, accordingly, shut up, and Franklin was forbidden the house. 17. He suspected that this was merely a trick of the parents, to induce him to run away with the young lady, and leave them at liberty to make what terms they pleased. He immediately broke off the connection. The Godfreys were angry, quarrelled with him, and he left the house. 18. He had always continued on friendly terms with the family of the young lady to whom he had been engaged before his visit to London. Her unfortunate marriage made her very dejected and miserable. Franklin saw her, and could not help attributing her unhappiness, in a great measure, to his own misconduct. 19. Their mutual affection was revived, but there were now great objections to the union. Her former husband had not been heard of, and was supposed to be dead. All difficulties were finally surmounted, and he married Miss Read on the first of September, 1730. * * * * * 1. What was the Junto? What did the rules of this club require? 2. What good purposes did it answer? 3. What project did Franklin communicate to George Webb? 4. What was the consequence of this communication? What course did Franklin pursue? 6. How did the paper succeed under Franklin's management? 7. What difficulty arose at this time? 8. Who offered Franklin their assistance? 9. What did Meredith propose? How was Franklin relieved? 10. Describe the increase of his business, and his character and conduct as a tradesman. 11. What became of Keimer? 12. Who was David Harry? What became of him? 13. Who was now the only rival of Franklin? 14. Describe Mrs. Godfrey's desire of match-making. 15. Did Franklin show his usual prudence? 16. What was the result? 19. Whom did Franklin marry? When? CHAPTER VII. _Library of the Junto. A public Library established. Franklin studies. His Frugality. Anecdote of the Bowl and Spoon. His Scheme of arriving at Moral Perfection. Table of Precepts. Franklin's Remarks upon it. Poor Richard's Almanac._ 1. At the time Franklin first established himself in Pennsylvania, there was not a good bookseller's shop any where to the south of Boston. In New York and Philadelphia, the printers were stationers, but they kept only paper, almanacs, ballads, and a few common school books. Those who loved reading were obliged to send for their books from England. 2. The members of the Junto had, each of them, a few volumes. They had hired a room, in which to hold their meetings, and Franklin proposed that they should all bring their books to that room. In this manner they would not only be ready for them to consult and refer to, but would become a common benefit, by allowing each one to borrow such as he wished to read at home. 3. This was accordingly done, and for a while answered their purpose very well. Finding the advantage and convenience of this little collection, Franklin proposed to render the benefit more general, by commencing a public subscription library. He drew a sketch of the plan and rules that would be necessary, and had them put into the form of articles to be subscribed. By these articles, each subscriber agreed to pay a certain sum for the first purchase of the books, and a yearly contribution for increasing them. 4. The number of readers, at that time, in Philadelphia, was so small, that it was with great difficulty Franklin was able to procure fifty subscribers, willing to pay forty shillings to begin with, and ten shillings a year for a contribution. With this number the library was commenced. The books were imported, and lent out to subscribers. Great advantages were derived from the institution, and it was soon imitated in other places. 5. In this library, Franklin found means of continual improvement. He set apart an hour or two in each day for study, and in this way, in some degree, made up for the loss of a learned education. Reading was his only amusement. His attention to business was as strict as it was necessary. He was in debt for his printing house, and had an increasing family; with two rivals in his business, who had been established before him. Notwithstanding all this, however, he grew more easy in his circumstances every day. 6. His early habits of frugality continued. He often thought of the proverb of Solomon, which his father had impressed on him while a boy--"Seest thou a man diligent in his calling? he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men." Industry appeared a means of obtaining wealth and distinction, and the thought encouraged him to new exertions. We shall see, by and by, that little as his father expected it, the son really came to stand, with honor, in the presence of monarchs. 7. His wife was, fortunately, as well inclined to industry and frugality as he was himself. She assisted him in his business, folding and stitching pamphlets, tending shop, and purchasing old linen rags for the paper-makers. They kept no idle servants, their table was simply furnished, and their furniture was plain and cheap. 8. "My breakfast," says Franklin, "was for a long time bread and milk (no tea), and I ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer, with a pewter spoon: but mark how luxury will enter families, and make a progress in spite of principle; being called one morning to breakfast, I found it in a china bowl, with a spoon of silver. They had been bought for me, without my knowledge, by my wife, and had cost her the enormous sum of three and twenty shillings; for which she had no other excuse or apology to make, but that she thought her husband deserved a silver spoon and china bowl as well as any of his neighbors. This was the first appearance of plate and china in our house, which afterwards, in a course of years, as our wealth increased, augmented gradually to several hundred pounds in value." 9. It was about this time that Franklin formed the bold and difficult project of arriving at moral perfection. As he knew, or thought he knew, what was right and wrong, he did not see why he might not always do the one and avoid the other. For this purpose, he made a table of the different virtues, with certain rules and precepts annexed to them. Some of these were as follows: 1. _Temperance._--Eat not to dulness: drink not to elevation. 2. _Silence._--Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself: avoid trifling conversation. 3. _Order._--Let all your things have their places: let each part of your business have its time. 4. _Resolution._--Resolve to perform what you ought: perform, without fail, what you resolve. 5. _Frugality._--Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; that is, waste nothing. 6. _Industry._--Lose no time: be always employed in something useful: cut off all unnecessary actions. 7. _Sincerity._--Use no hurtful deceit: think innocently and justly: and if you speak, speak accordingly. 8. _Justice._--Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty. 9. _Moderation._--Avoid extremes: forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. 10. _Cleanliness._--Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation. 11. _Tranquility._--Be not disturbed at trifles, nor at accidents common or unavoidable. 10. To acquire a habit of practising these virtues, he determined to give a week's strict attention to each of them in succession. Thus, in the first week, he took care to avoid even the slightest offence against temperance, and strictly marked every fault in a little book he kept for that purpose. This book he continued to keep for a great number of years; till, in the pressure of public business, he was obliged to give it up entirely. 11. "It is well," he wrote in his old age, "my posterity should be informed that to this little artifice their ancestor owed the constant felicity of his life, down to his seventy-ninth year, in which this is written. What reverses may attend the remainder is in the hand of Providence: but if they arrive, the reflection on past happiness enjoyed ought to help his bearing them with more resignation." 12. "To _Temperance_ he ascribes his long continued health, and what is still left to him of a good constitution. To _Industry_ and _Frugality_, the early easiness of his circumstances, and acquisition of his fortune, with all that knowledge that enabled him to be an useful citizen, and obtained for him some degree of reputation among the learned. To _Sincerity_ and _Justice_, the confidence of his country, and the honorable employs it conferred upon him: and to the joint influence of the whole mass of the virtues, even in the imperfect state he was able to acquire them, all that evenness of temper and that cheerfulness in conversation, which makes his company still sought for, and agreeable even to his young acquaintance: I hope, therefore, that some of my descendants may follow the example, and reap the benefit." 13. In 1732, Franklin first published his almanac, under the name of Richard Saunders. It was continued by him about twenty-five years, and was commonly called Poor Richard's Almanac. He endeavored to make it both entertaining and useful, and it accordingly came to be in great demand. As it was generally read, and as the poor people bought hardly any other books, Franklin thought it would be a good means to circulate instruction among them. He, therefore, filled all the odd spaces with proverbs and wise sayings. 14. These proverbs contained the experience and wisdom of many nations and ages. In 1757, Franklin collected them into a discourse prefixed to the almanac for that year. In this discourse, he represented an old man talking to a number of people who were attending a sale at auction. The hour for the sale not having come, the company were conversing on the badness of the times. 15. One of them called out to a plain, clean old man, with white locks, "Pray, father Abraham, what think ye of the times? Won't these heavy taxes quite ruin the country? How shall we be ever able to pay them? What would you advise us to do?" Father Abraham stood up, and replied, "If you'd have my advice, I'll give it to you in short; 'for a word to the wise is enough; and many words won't fill a bushel,' as Poor Richard says." 16. The old man then went on to advise them to be industrious and economical; and, in the course of his advice, repeated all of the wise sayings of Poor Richard. In this manner they were all collected into a single paper, called The Way to Wealth. This piece was very much approved, copied into all the American newspapers, reprinted in Great Britain, and translated into the French language. Large numbers of it were, in this manner, distributed, and undoubtedly did a good deal of service. * * * * * 2. What plan did Franklin propose for the formation of a library? 3. How did it succeed? How did Franklin propose to extend its advantages? 4. How many subscribers were obtained? 5. Did Franklin still pursue his studies, and how? Did his early habits continue? What was the proverb so often repeated by his father? 7. What was the conduct of his wife? 8. Describe Franklin's breakfast, and give his humorous account of the first appearance of luxury in his house. 9. What was Franklin's favorite project at this time? Repeat the table of virtues, and the precepts annexed to them. 10. How did he attempt to acquire a habit of these virtues? 12. To what does Franklin ascribe his long continued health? the ease of his circumstances? the confidence and honor he received from his country? 13. When did he first publish his almanac? How long was it continued? How did he endeavor to make it useful? 14. What was prefixed to the almanac for 1757? 16. How was _The Way to Wealth_ approved? CHAPTER VIII. _Management of his Newspaper. Study of the Languages. Chess-playing. The Preacher Hemphill. Stealing Sermons. Visit to Boston. Visits his Brother James at Newport. Usefulness of the Junto. Formation of new Clubs. Franklin chosen Clerk of the General Assembly. Anecdote._ 1. Besides his almanac, Franklin considered his newspaper as a very valuable means of circulating instruction and good advice among the people. For this purpose he frequently reprinted in it extracts from the Spectator, a work written a good many years ago, by several distinguished English authors. It is a collection of pieces on moral and popular subjects, in a very pleasant style, and first published in single numbers of a few pages each. 2. In conducting his paper, Franklin was very careful to avoid all abuse of particular persons. Whenever he was requested to publish any thing of the kind, his answer was, that he would print the piece by itself, and give the author as many copies for his own use as he desired. He very wisely considered that his subscribers expected him to furnish them with useful and entertaining pieces, and not with abuse and violent discussions about things with which they had nothing to do. 3. In 1733, Franklin sent one of his apprentices to Charleston, South Carolina, where a printer was wanted. He furnished him with a press and types, and was to receive one third of the profits of the business. After the death of this man, who was very irregular in settling his affairs with Franklin, the business was continued by his widow. This woman had been born and educated in Holland, where females were taught a knowledge of accounts. She managed the establishment with a great deal of prudence and success, and was in time able to purchase the printing office, and establish her son in it. 4. In 1733, Franklin began the study of foreign languages. He soon obtained such a knowledge of the French, as to read books in that language with perfect ease. After this he undertook the Italian. An acquaintance, who was also learning it, often tempted him to play chess. Finding this took up too much time, Franklin refused to play any more, except upon one condition. This was, that whichever of them should beat, should have a right to impose a task upon the other; either of part of the grammar to be got by heart, or in translations. 5. These tasks they were bound in honor to perform before the next meeting. The two friends played with about equal skill and success, and in this way soon beat each other into a pretty good knowledge of the Italian. Franklin next undertook Spanish, and learned enough to read books in that language with considerable ease. 6. About the year 1734, a young preacher arrived in Philadelphia, by the name of Hemphill. He had a good voice, and delivered very excellent sermons. Large numbers were attracted by his eloquence, of different doctrines and belief. Among the rest, Franklin became a very constant hearer. He was pleased with his sermons, because they impressed the love and the practice of virtue and goodness, without quarrelling about hard questions of doctrinal religion. 7. Some of the congregation, however, disapproved of his preaching, and united with the old ministers to attempt to put him down. Franklin took sides with him very warmly, and did all he could to raise a party in his favor. He wrote two or three pamphlets in his defence. 8. During this contest the unlucky preacher hurt his own cause by a very unpardonable meanness. One of his enemies heard him preach a very eloquent sermon, and thought he had somewhere heard or read parts of it before. On looking into the matter, he found the preacher had stolen several passages from a discourse delivered by a celebrated English divine. This discovery induced many of his friends to desert him, and he was obliged to go in search of a congregation less inquisitive. 9. After ten years' absence from Boston, Franklin determined to make a journey there to visit his relations. He was now doing very good business, and was in quite easy circumstances. He had seen a good many changes in his fortunes, since he first ran away from his native place; and his industry and good sense were to bring about still greater changes. 10. In returning to Philadelphia, he stopped at Newport, to see his brother James, who was, at that time, settled there with his printing office. Their former differences were at once forgotten, and the meeting was very cordial and affectionate. James was at that time in very ill health, and in expectation of a speedy death. He, accordingly, requested Benjamin, when that event should happen, to take home his son, then but ten years of age, and bring him up to the printing business. 11. This he accordingly performed, sending him a few years to school before he took him into the office. When James died, his widow carried on the business till her son was grown up. At that time, Benjamin assisted them with an assortment of new types, and they were, in this manner, enabled to continue the establishment. [Illustration: Reconciliation of Franklin with his Brother.] 12. The club which Franklin had founded proved to be so useful, and afforded so much satisfaction to the members, that they proposed to introduce their friends, and increase their number. They had, from the beginning, determined to keep the _Junto_ a secret, and the secret was kept better than such things usually are. Franklin was of opinion that twelve members formed a club sufficiently large, and that it would be inconvenient to increase it. 13. Instead of adding to their number, he proposed that every member, separately, should endeavor to form another club, with the same rules and on the same plan, without informing them of the existence of the Junto. The project was approved, and every member undertook to form his club; but they did not all succeed. Five or six only were completed, which were called by different names, as the _Vine_, the _Union_, the _Band_. These clubs were useful, and afforded their members a good deal of amusement and information. 14. In 1736, Franklin was chosen clerk of the General Assembly. The choice was made that year without any opposition, but, on the next, a new member of that body made a long speech against him. This, however, did not prevent his second election. The place was one of some credit, and, by giving Franklin an opportunity to make friends among the members, enabled him to secure the business of printing the public laws, votes, and paper money. 15. The new member, who had opposed Franklin, was a man of education and talents, and it was desirable to gain his good opinion. Franklin was too proud to pay any servile respect to him, but was too prudent not to wish for his favor. After some time, with his usual shrewdness and knowledge of human nature, he hit upon the following expedient. 16. Having heard that this gentleman had in his library a very scarce and curious book, he wrote a note, requesting that he would do him the favor of lending it for a few days. The book was immediately sent, and in about a week was returned by the borrower, with a short note, expressive of his sincere thanks for the favor. 17. The next time they met in the house, the gentleman spoke to Franklin with a great deal of civility. He ever after manifested a readiness to serve him, and they became great friends. "This is another instance," observes Franklin, "of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says--'He that has done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.' And it shows how much more profitable it is prudently to remove than to resent, return, and continue inimical proceedings." 18. In 1737, Colonel Spotswood, at that time postmaster-general, being dissatisfied with his deputy at Philadelphia, took away his commission, and offered it to Franklin. He accepted it with readiness, and found it of great advantage. Though the salary was small, the office gave him the means of increasing the subscribers to his paper, and in this way increased his advertisements. His paper now began to afford him a very considerable income. * * * * * 1. How did he make his newspaper serviceable in circulating instruction? 2. What was he very careful to avoid? 3. Describe the conduct of the woman whose husband Franklin had established in business. 4. When did Franklin begin the study of foreign languages? What languages did he study? Relate the anecdote about chess-playing. 6. Who was Hemphill? 7. What did Franklin write in his behalf? 8. How did the preacher ruin his own cause? 9. How long had Franklin been absent from Boston when he determined to revisit it? 10. How was the interview between the brothers at Newport? What request did James make respecting his son? 11. How did Franklin comply with this request? 12. How did the Junto flourish? 13. What new clubs were formed? How? 14. To what office was Franklin elected in 1736? 16. How did Franklin conciliate a member who was opposed to him? 17. What is the old maxim quoted by Franklin? 18. To what office was Franklin appointed in 1737? CHAPTER IX. _Reform of the City Watch. Fire Companies. Rev. Mr. Whitefield. Effects of his Preaching. His Project of building an Orphan House in Georgia. Anecdotes. Franklin's Opinion of him. Franklin's Prosperity. Military Defence of the Province. Formation of Companies._ 1. Franklin now began to turn his attention to public affairs. One of his first efforts in this way was to reform the city watch. This was managed in the different wards by the constables, who assembled a certain number of housekeepers to attend them for the night. Those who did not choose to attend paid six shillings a year to be excused. This made the constableship an office of profit: for, instead of spending the money thus received in hiring other watchmen, it was spent in liquors, by which the constables were able to get a parcel of ragamuffins about them, instead of decent and orderly men. 2. These fellows seldom went the rounds of the watch, but spent most of the night in tippling. In the course of a few years, by the exertions of Franklin and his friends, an entire alteration was produced in the laws upon this subject. About the same time that he began to converse at the _Junto_ on the abuses of the watch, he wrote a paper on the different accidents by which houses were set on fire, and means proposed of avoiding them. 3. This gave rise to a project, which soon followed, of forming a company to assist, with readiness, at fires. Thirty persons were immediately found, willing to join in the scheme. Their articles of agreement obliged every member to keep, always in order and fit for use, a certain number of leathern buckets, with strong bags and baskets for packing and carrying goods, which were to be brought at every fire. They also held a monthly meeting, to converse upon the subject of fires, and communicate such ideas as might be useful in their conduct on such occasions. 4. This company proved so useful, that another was soon formed; and thus went on, one new company after another, till they included most of the inhabitants who were men of property. The club first formed was called the UNION FIRE COMPANY, and, we believe, still exists. These institutions have been exceedingly useful in extinguishing fires and preserving property. 5. In 1739, the Reverend Mr. Whitefield arrived in Philadelphia, from Ireland. This man had made himself very remarkable as a preacher, going about the country and discoursing, sometimes in churches, sometimes in the fields, to crowds of people, with great effect. He was, at first, permitted to preach in some of the churches in Philadelphia, but the clergy soon took a dislike to him, and refused him their pulpits. This obliged him again to discourse in the streets and open fields. 6. Large multitudes collected to hear his sermons. "It was wonderful," says Franklin, "to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants. From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seemed as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk through the town in an evening, without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street. And it being found inconvenient to assemble in the open air, subject to its inclemencies, the building of a house to meet in was no sooner proposed, and persons appointed to receive contributions, but sufficient sums were soon received to procure the ground and erect the building, which was one hundred feet long and seventy broad; and the work was carried on with such spirit, as to be finished in a much shorter time than could be expected." 7. On leaving Philadelphia, Mr. Whitefield went preaching all the way through the colonies to Georgia. The settlement of that province had then been recently commenced, and was made with people entirely unfit for such a service. They were unable to endure hardships, and perished in great numbers, leaving many helpless children, with nothing to feed or shelter them. 8. "The sight of their miserable situation," says Franklin, "inspired the benevolent heart of Mr. Whitefield with the idea of building an orphan house there, in which they might be supported and educated. Returning northward, he preached up this charity, and made large collections; for his eloquence had a wonderful power over the hearts and purses of his hearers, of which I myself was an instance. 9. "I did not disapprove of the design, but as Georgia was then destitute of materials and workmen, and it was proposed to send them from Philadelphia, at a great expense, I thought it would have been better to have built the house at Philadelphia, and brought the children to it. This I advised, but he was resolute in his first project, rejected my counsel, and I, therefore, refused to contribute. 10. "I happened, soon after, to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which, I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold; as he proceeded, I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably, that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all! 11. "At this sermon there was also one of our club, who, being of my sentiments respecting the building in Georgia, and suspecting a collection might be intended, had, by precaution, emptied his pockets before he came from home; towards the conclusion of the discourse, however, he felt a strong inclination to give, and applied to a neighbor who stood near him, to lend him some money for the purpose. The request was fortunately made to perhaps the only man in the company who had the firmness not to be affected by the preacher. His answer was, 'At any other time, friend Hopkinson, I would lend to thee freely; but not now, for thee seems to me to be out of thy right senses.' 12. "Some of Mr. Whitefield's enemies affected to suppose that he would apply these collections to his own private emolument; but I, who was intimately acquainted with him (being employed in printing his sermons, journals, &c.), never had the least suspicion of his integrity, but am to this day decidedly of opinion, that he was, in all his conduct, a perfectly honest man; and methinks my testimony in his favor ought to have the more weight, as we had no religious connection. Ours was a mere civil friendship, sincere on both sides, and lasted to his death. 13. "The last time I saw Mr. Whitefield was in London, when he consulted me about his orphan house concern, and his purpose of appropriating it to the establishment of a college. 14. "He had a loud and clear voice, and articulated his words so perfectly that he might be heard and understood at a great distance; especially as his auditories observed the most perfect silence. He preached one evening from the top of the court house steps, which are in the middle of Market street, and on the west side of Second street, which crosses it at right angles. Both streets were filled with hearers to a considerable distance; being among the hindmost in Market street, I had the curiosity to learn how far he could be heard, by retiring backwards down the street towards the river, and I found his voice distinct till I came near Front street, when some noise in that street obscured it. I computed that he might well be heard by more than thirty thousand. This reconciled me to the newspaper accounts of his having preached to 25,000 people in the fields, and to the history of generals haranguing whole armies, of which I had sometimes doubted." 15. Franklin's business was now constantly increasing, and his newspaper had become very profitable. He began to feel the truth of the old proverb, "that after getting the first hundred pounds, it is more easy to get the second." Those of his workmen who behaved well, he established in printing houses in different colonies, on easy terms. Most of them did well, and were able to repay him what he had advanced, and go on working for themselves. 16. At this period, there were no preparations for military defence in Pennsylvania. The inhabitants were mostly Quakers, and had neglected to take any suitable measures against the enemies to whom they might be exposed. There was also no college in the state, nor any proper provision for the complete education of youth. Franklin accordingly turned his attention to these very important subjects. 17. Spain had been several years at war with Great Britain, and had now been recently joined by France. From the French possessions in Canada, Pennsylvania was exposed to continual danger. The governor of the province had been some time trying to prevail upon the Quaker assembly to pass a militia law, and take other necessary steps for their security. He tried, however, in vain. 18. Franklin thought something might be done by a subscription among the people. To promote this plan, he wrote and published a pamphlet called PLAIN TRUTH. In this he stated their exposed and helpless situation, and represented the necessity of union for their defence. The pamphlet had a sudden and surprising effect. A meeting of the citizens was appointed, and attended by a considerable number. Proposals of the intended union had been printed, and distributed about the room, to be signed by those who approved them. When the company separated, the papers were collected and found to contain above twelve hundred signatures. 19. Other copies were scattered about the country, and the subscribers at length amounted to upwards of ten thousand. All these furnished themselves, as soon as they could, with arms, formed themselves into companies and regiments, chose their own officers, and met every week to be instructed in military exercises. The women made subscriptions among themselves, and provided silk colors, which they presented to the companies, painted with different ornaments and mottoes, supplied by Franklin. 20. The officers of the companies that formed the Philadelphia regiment chose Franklin for their colonel. Not considering himself fit for the office, he declined; and recommended that Mr. Lawrence, a man of influence and of a fine person, should be chosen in his place. This gentleman was accordingly elected. 21. Franklin now proposed a lottery, to pay the expenses of building a battery below the town, and of furnishing it with cannon. The lottery was rapidly filled, and the battery soon erected. They brought some old cannon from Boston, and these not proving sufficient, they sent to London for more. The associates kept a nightly guard at the battery, and Franklin regularly took his turn of duty, as a common soldier. 22. His activity in these measures was agreeable to the governor and council, and secured their favor. They took him into their confidence, and consulted him on all operations in respect to the military. Franklin took the opportunity to propose a public fast, to promote reformation, and implore the blessing of Heaven on their undertaking. They embraced the motion, but as this was the first fast ever thought of in the province, there was no form for the proclamation. Franklin drew it up in the style of the New England proclamation; it was translated into German, printed in both languages, and circulated through the province. This gave the clergy of the different sects an opportunity of influencing their hearers to join the association; and it would, probably, have been general among all but the Quakers, if it had not been for the news of peace. * * * * * 1. What reform did Franklin introduce, when he first turned his attention to public affairs? 2. On what subject did he write a paper for the Junto? 3. To what project did this give rise? How did it succeed? 4. Was it useful? What was it called? 5. What is stated of the Reverend Mr. Whitefield? 6. What does Franklin say of the change in the manners of the inhabitants? 7. Where did Mr. Whitefield go on leaving Philadelphia? 8. What charitable design did he form at this period? 9. What was Franklin's opinion upon the subject? 10. What anecdote does Franklin relate of the collection? 11. What anecdote of a member of the club? 12. What does Franklin say of Mr. Whitefield's character? 13. Where did Franklin see him for the last time? 14. What does he say of his eloquence? By how many did he compute that he might be heard at a time? 15. How were Franklin's affairs succeeding at this time? 16. To what very important subjects did Franklin now turn his attention? 17. How was Pennsylvania exposed to danger? What obstacle was there to the passage of a militia law? 18. What did Franklin write on the subject? What did he propose for their defence? 19. How many subscribers were obtained to these proposals? What measures did they take? 20. To what office was Franklin now chosen, and why did he decline? 21. By what means was the battery erected and furnished? 22. What did Franklin propose? How was the proclamation for fast drawn up and circulated? What news was brought at this time? CHAPTER X. _Anecdote. William Penn. Education of Youth. Subscription for an Academy. Franklin overloaded with public Offices. Member of the Assembly. Treaty with the Indians at Carlisle. Public Hospital. Anecdote._ 1. It was thought by some of the friends of Franklin, that he would offend the peace-loving sect of Quakers, by his activity in these warlike preparations. A young man, who had some friends in the assembly, and wished to succeed him as their clerk, told him, in a quiet way, that it was intended to displace him at the next election, and that, as a friend, he should advise him to resign. 2. The answer which Franklin made to this obliging young man was in the following words:--"I have heard or read of some public man, who made it a rule never to ask for an office, and never to refuse one when offered to him. I approve of this rule, and shall practise it with a small addition; I shall never _ask_, never _refuse_, nor ever RESIGN an office. If they will have my office of clerk to dispose of it to another, they shall take it from me. I will not give it up." At the next election, Franklin was unanimously elected clerk. 3. Notwithstanding the general sentiments of the Quakers, Franklin thought the military defence of the country not disagreeable to any of them. One of their number, the learned and honorable Mr. Logan, wrote an address to them, declaring his approbation of defensive war, and supporting his opinion by very strong arguments. This gentleman related an anecdote of his old master, William Penn, in respect to the subject of defence, which is quite amusing. 4. "He came over from England, when a young man, as secretary to this distinguished Quaker. It was war time, and their ship was chased by an armed vessel, supposed to be an enemy. Their captain prepared for defence, but told William Penn and his company of Quakers, that he did not expect their assistance, and they might retire into the cabin. They all retired except James Logan, who chose to stay upon deck, and was quartered to a gun. 5. "The supposed enemy proved a friend, so there was no fighting. When the secretary went to carry the information to his friends in the cabin, William Penn spoke to him in severe language for staying upon deck, and undertaking to assist in the defence of the vessel, contrary to the principles of the Friends. This reproof, being before all the company, vexed the secretary, who replied--'I being thy servant, why did thee not order me to come down; but thee was willing enough that I should stay and help to fight the ship, when thee thought there was danger.'" 6. Peace being concluded, and the business of defence at an end, Franklin next turned his thoughts to the affair of establishing an academy. The first step he took was to associate in the design a number of his active friends; the next was to write and publish a pamphlet, entitled "Proposals relating to the Education of Youth in Philadelphia." This he distributed among the principal inhabitants, and in a short time opened a subscription for supporting an academy. The subscribers were desirous of carrying the plan into immediate execution. The constitutions for the government of the academy were soon drawn up and signed, a house was hired, masters engaged, and the school opened. This was in the year 1749. 7. The scholars increased rapidly, the house was soon found too small, when accident threw in their way a large house, ready built, which, with a few alterations, would exactly answer their purpose. This was the building erected by the hearers of Mr. Whitefield. Some difficulty had been found by the trustees in paying the expenses of this church, and they were prevailed upon to give it up for the academy. It was soon made fit for that purpose, and the scholars were removed into the building. The whole care and trouble of superintending this work fell upon Franklin, who found sufficient leisure to attend to it, from having taken a very able and industrious partner in his printing business. 8. Franklin now thought that he should find leisure, during the rest of his life, to pursue his philosophical studies and amusements. He purchased all the instruments and apparatus of Dr. Spence, who had come from England to lecture on philosophy in Philadelphia. His intention was to proceed with diligence in his experiments in electricity. But the public now considered him a man of leisure, and laid hold of him for their purposes. 9. He seems to have been quite overloaded with offices. The governor made him a justice of the peace. The city corporation chose him a member of the common council, and shortly after alderman. The citizens elected him to represent them in the assembly, of which he had so long been clerk. All these offices were signs of the esteem and respect in which he was held among his fellow citizens. 10. Franklin tried the office of justice of the peace a little while, by attending a few courts, and sitting on the bench to hear causes. Finding, however, that it required more knowledge of the law than he possessed, he gradually withdrew from it; excusing himself by being obliged to attend his duties as member of the assembly. To this office he was chosen for ten years in succession, without ever asking any elector for his vote, or signifying, directly or indirectly, any desire of the honor. On taking his seat in the house, his son was appointed their clerk. 11. During the next year, a treaty was to be held with the Indians at Carlisle. The governor sent a message to the house, requesting that they should nominate some of their members, to be joined with some members of council, for that purpose. The house named the speaker, Mr. Norris, and Dr. Franklin; and being commissioned, they went to Carlisle to treat with the Indians. 12. As the Indians were very apt to drink to excess, and when drunk were very quarrelsome and disorderly, the commissioners strictly forbade the sale of any liquor to them. When they complained of this, they were told that, on condition of their remaining perfectly sober during the treaty, they should have plenty of rum when the business was over. They accordingly promised this, and kept their promise for the very best reason in the world--because they were unable to break it. The treaty was conducted with perfect order, and concluded to the satisfaction of both parties. 13. They then claimed and received the rum. This was in the afternoon. The Indians were about one hundred in number, men, women and children, and were lodged in cabins, built in the form of a square, just without the town. In the evening there was a great noise among them, and the commissioners walked out to see what was the matter. They found a great bonfire built in the middle of the square, and the men and women, in a state of intoxication, fighting and quarrelling around it. The tumult could not be stilled, and the commissioners retired to their lodgings. 14. At midnight, a number of the Indians came thundering at their door, demanding more rum; but the commissioners took no notice of them. The next day they were sensible of their misbehavior, and sent three of their old counsellors to make an excuse. The orator acknowledged the fault, but laid it upon the rum; and then endeavored to excuse the rum, by saying--"The Great Spirit, who made all things, made every thing for some use, and whatever use he designed any thing for, that use it should always be put to: now, when he made rum, he said, 'Let this be for the Indians to get drunk with,' and it must be so." It is a sad truth that among all savage nations, the introduction of spirituous liquor has been the most severe curse that ever fell upon them. 15. In 1751, Dr. Thomas Bond formed a plan to establish an hospital in Philadelphia, for the reception and cure of poor sick persons, whether inhabitants of the province or strangers. He was very active in endeavoring to procure subscriptions for it, but the proposal being new in America, and at first not well understood, he met with but little success. At length he came to Franklin with the compliment that there was no such a thing as carrying a public-spirited thing through, without his being concerned in it. "For," said he, "I am often asked by those to whom I propose subscribing, _Have you consulted Franklin on this business? And what does he think of it?_ And when I tell them I have not, they do not subscribe, but say, _they will consider it_." 16. Franklin inquired into the nature and probable usefulness of the scheme, and being satisfied in respect to it, not only subscribed himself, but was active in procuring subscriptions from others. Some aid was obtained from the assembly of the province. A convenient and handsome building was soon erected, the institution was found useful, and flourishes to the present day. 17. It was about this time that another projector, the Rev. Gilbert Tennent, came to Franklin with a request that he would assist him in procuring subscriptions to erect a new meeting-house. It was to be devoted to the use of a congregation he had gathered among the original disciples of Mr. Whitefield. Franklin was too wise to make himself disagreeable to his fellow citizens, by such frequent calls upon their generosity, and absolutely refused. The gentleman then desired he would furnish him with a list of the names of persons he knew by experience to be generous and public-spirited. This, also, was refused; for it was hard that their kind compliance with a request of charity should mark them out to be worried by all who chose to call upon them. 18. Franklin was then asked to give his advice. "That I will do," he replied; "and in the first place, I advise you to apply to all those who you know will give something; next, to those of whom you are uncertain whether they will give any thing or not, and show them the list of those who have given; and lastly, do not neglect those who you are sure will give nothing; for in some of them you may be mistaken." The clergyman laughed, and promised to take his advice. He did so, for he asked of _every body_, and soon obtained money enough to erect a spacious and elegant meeting house. 19. Franklin now exerted himself in several matters that, however small they may seem, affected the convenience and comfort of his fellow citizens in a great degree. This was in respect to cleaning, paving, and lighting the streets. By talking, and writing in the papers, he was able to introduce great changes in these matters, which were very important to the cleanliness and good appearance of the [text missing in printed book] * * * * * 1. What advice did Franklin receive at this time? 2. What answer did he return? What was the result of the election? 3. What did Franklin consider the opinion of Quakers on the subject of defence? 4. What anecdote is related of William Penn? 6. To what did Franklin turn his attention on the declaration of peace? In what year was the academy founded? 7. What building was taken for the school house? 8. To what pursuits did he now intend to devote himself? What did the public consider him? 9. What offices did he receive at this time? 10. Why did he retire from the office of justice of the peace? 11. Who were appointed to treat with the Indians? 12. What is related of the Indians? How was the treaty concluded? 13. What happened in the evening? 14. What course did they pursue the next day? How did the commissioners excuse themselves? 15. Who proposed the plan for the Philadelphia hospital? What compliment did he pay to Franklin? 16. Did Franklin approve of the scheme and assist in it? 17. What did Mr. Gilbert Tennent request of Franklin? How was his request treated? 18. What advice did Franklin give? 19. To what smaller matters of public interest did Franklin now attend? CHAPTER XI. _Spence's Experiments in Electricity. Franklin repeats them. Makes important Discoveries. Letters to Collinson. Experiment with the Kite. Publication of his Letters. Anecdote of the Abbé Nollet. Fame of Franklin. Elected a Member of the Royal Society._ 1. It was in the year 1746, that Franklin first attended to the branch of philosophy in which he afterwards became so distinguished. During that year he was in Boston, and there met with a Dr. Spence, who showed him some experiments in electricity. It was a subject altogether new to him, and, though the experiments were not very well performed, they surprised and pleased him. 2. If you take a stick of sealing-wax, or a glass tube, or a piece of amber which has been a long time untouched, and bring it near some small pieces of paper, chaff, or other light substance, it produces no impression upon them. But if you first rub lightly and briskly the wax, the tube, or the amber, with a piece of dry woollen cloth, or cat skin, and then bring it near any of these light substances, you will find that they fly to it, and remain upon it. The power which attracts these substances, and which is excited by the rubbing, is called _electricity_. 3. It is so called from a Greek word which signifies amber, the substance in which this power was first observed. Amber is a brittle mineral substance, of a yellow, and sometimes a reddish brown color. It is found in several countries in Europe, and has recently been found in the United States, at Cape Sable, in Maryland. This is the substance with which the first electrical experiment was performed, ages ago, by a Greek philosopher of the name of Thales. 4. Several centuries passed without any thing being known upon this subject, beyond the fact that these substances possessed this power. At length it began to attract the attention of modern philosophers. In 1742, several ingenious Germans engaged in the subject, and the results of their researches astonished all Europe. They obtained large apparatus, by means of which they were enabled to collect large quantities of the electric fluid, and produce several wonders which had been before unobserved. 5. These experiments excited the curiosity of other philosophers. Mr. Peter Collinson, fellow of the Royal Society of London, about the year 1745, sent to the library company of Philadelphia a glass tube, with some account of its use in making such experiments. Franklin eagerly seized the opportunity of repeating those which he had seen at Boston, and, by much practice, acquired great readiness in performing those of which they had an account from England. 6. He was soon enabled to make a number of important discoveries, and his house was, for some time, continually full of people who came to see the new wonders. His observations upon the subject were, from time to time, communicated to his friend Collinson, in a series of letters, the first of which is dated March 28, 1747. These were read before the Royal Society, where they were not at first thought worthy of much attention. 7. In the year 1749, Franklin first suggested the idea of explaining the sameness of electricity with lightning. A paper upon this subject, which he wrote for Mr. Kinnersly, was read before the members of the Royal Society, and excited a hearty laugh. But it was the lot of this neglected theory to be generally adopted by philosophers, and to bid fair to endure for ages. 8. It was in the same year, that Franklin started the plan of proving the truth of his doctrine, by actually drawing down the lightning, by means of sharp-pointed iron rods raised high into the clouds. It was not until the summer of 1752, that he was enabled to complete his grand discovery by actual experiment. 9. The plan which he had first proposed was, to erect a box on some high tower, or other elevated place, from which should rise a pointed iron rod. He thought that electrified clouds, passing over it, would impart a portion of their electricity, which would be made evident by presenting a key or the knuckle to it. There was at this time, in Philadelphia, no opportunity of trying an experiment of the kind. But while Franklin was waiting for the erection of a spire, it occurred to him that he might have a more ready access to the clouds by means of a common kite. 10. He prepared a kite by fastening two cross sticks to a silk handkerchief, which would not suffer from the rain so much as paper. To the upright stick he affixed an iron point. The string was, as usual, of hemp, excepting the lower end, which was made of silk, because this substance does not give a free passage to the electricity. 11. With this kite, on the appearance of a thunder storm, he went out into the commons with his son, to whom alone he had communicated his intentions. He placed himself under a shed to avoid the rain; his kite was raised--a thunder cloud passed over it, but no sign of electricity appeared. The experiment had almost been given up in despair, when he perceived, in the loose fibres of the string, evident appearances of electricity. By continued observation the fact was most clearly proved; and the honor of establishing the sameness of electricity and lightning was won by Franklin. 12. The letters which Franklin had sent to Mr. Collinson were published by that gentleman in a separate volume, under the title of "New Experiments and Observations on Electricity, made at Philadelphia, in America." They were read with great eagerness, and soon translated into different languages. A very incorrect French translation fell into the hands of the celebrated Buffon, who was much pleased with it, and performed the experiments with success. A more correct translation was undertaken at his request, and contributed much towards spreading a knowledge of Franklin's principles in France. His experiments were repeated by most of the distinguished philosophers throughout Europe. 13. By these experiments, the truth of Franklin's doctrine was established in the firmest manner. When it could no longer be doubted, some men were anxious to take away from its merit. It was considered at that time rather mortifying to the European philosophers, to admit that an American could make important discoveries which had escaped their notice. 14. The Abbé Nollet, preceptor in natural philosophy to the royal family of France, was exceedingly offended at the publication of Franklin's letters. He had himself written about electricity, and could not at first believe that such a work had really come from America. He said it must have been composed by his enemies in Paris, to oppose his system. Afterwards, having been assured that there really existed such a person as Franklin at Philadelphia, he published a volume of letters, in defence of his own ideas upon the subject, and denying the propositions of the American philosopher. 15. Franklin thought at one time of writing a letter in reply to the abbé, and actually began one. But on considering that any one might repeat his experiments, and ascertain for himself whether or not they were true, he concluded to let his papers shift for themselves; believing it was better to spend what time he could spare in making new experiments than in disputing about those already made. 16. The event gave him no cause to repent of his silence. His friend, Monsieur Le Roy, of the Royal Academy of Sciences, took up his cause, and refuted the abbé. Franklin's volume was translated into the Italian, German and Latin languages; and the doctrine it contained was, by degrees, generally adopted by the philosophers of Europe, in preference to that of Nollet. 17. What gave his book the more sudden and general celebrity was the success of one of its proposed experiments, made at Marly, for drawing lightning from the clouds. This engaged the public attention every where. The "Philadelphia experiments," as they were called, were performed before the king and court, and all the curious of Paris flocked to see them. 18. Dr. Wright, an English physician, was at Paris when they were the talk and wonder of the day. He wrote to a member of the Royal Society an account of the high esteem in which the experiments of Franklin were held by learned men abroad and of their surprise that his writings had been so little noticed in England. The society, on this, resumed the consideration of the letters that had been read to them, and a summary account of their doctrines was drawn up and published among their philosophical essays and transactions. 19. To make Franklin some amends for the slight with which they had before treated him, the society chose him a member, without his having made the usual application. They also presented him with the gold medal of Sir Godfrey Copley for the year 1753, the delivery of which was accompanied by a very complimentary speech from the president, Lord Macclesfield. * * * * * 1. When did Franklin first attend to electricity? 2. Relate the substance of the second paragraph. 3. From what is the word electricity derived? What is amber? Where is it found? 4. When was the subject first examined by modern philosophers? 5. What did Mr. Collinson send to Philadelphia? 7. When did Franklin first suggest that electricity and lightning were the same? 8. How did he propose to prove the truth of his doctrine? When did he prove it by actual experiment? 9. What plans had he at first proposed? What occurred to him afterwards? 10. How did he prepare the kite? 11. Relate the progress of the experiment. 12. Under what title were Franklin's letters on the subject printed? How were they received? By whose request was a correct French translation made? 13. What was the result of the establishment of Franklin's doctrine? 14. What was the conduct of the Abbé Nollet? 15. What course did Franklin pursue on the subject? 16. Did he regret his silence? State the substance of this paragraph. 17. What gave the book the more general celebrity? 18. Who was Dr. Wright? What communication did he make to the Royal Society? 19. What honors did the society confer upon him? CHAPTER XII. _Appointed Postmaster-General. Journey to New England. Receives Degrees from two Colleges. Story of the Visit to his Mother._ 1. Having been some time employed by the postmaster-general of America in regulating the several offices, and bringing the officers to account, upon his death, in 1753, Franklin was appointed, jointly with another gentleman, to succeed him. The American office had before this time never paid any thing to that of Great Britain; and the new postmasters were to have six hundred pounds between them, if they could make that sum out of the profits of the office. 2. To do this, a variety of improvements were necessary, some of which were at first very expensive; so that, for the first four years, the office became more than nine hundred pounds in debt to them. Afterwards they began to be repaid, and before Franklin was displaced, they had brought it to yield three times as much clear profit to the crown, as the post-office of Ireland. After Franklin's dismission, they never received a farthing from it. 3. The business of the post-office occasioned his taking a journey to New England, where the College of Cambridge presented him with the degree of Master of Arts. Yale College, in Connecticut, had before paid him a similar compliment. Thus, without studying in any college, he came to partake of their honors. They were conferred in consideration of his discoveries and improvements in natural philosophy. 4. It was either during this or his former journey that the story of the visit to his mother originated. He had been some years absent from his native city, and was at that period of life when the greatest and most rapid alteration is made in the human appearance. Franklin was sensible that his person had been so much changed that his mother would not know him, unless there were some instinct to point out, at a single glance, the child to its parent. 5. To discover the existence of this instinct by actual experiment, Franklin determined to introduce himself to his mother as a stranger, and to watch narrowly for the moment in which she should discover her son. On the afternoon of a sullen cold day, in the month of January, he knocked at his mother's door, and asked to speak with Mrs. Franklin. He found the old lady knitting before the parlor fire, introduced himself, by observing that he had been informed she entertained travellers, and requested a night's lodging. 6. She eyed him with coldness, and assured him that he had been misinformed--that she did not keep a tavern; though, to oblige some members of the legislature, she took a number of them into her family during the session; and at that time had four members of the council and six of the house of representatives who boarded with her. She added that all her beds were full, and went on knitting with a great deal of vehemence. 7. Franklin wrapped his coat around him, pretending to shiver with the cold, and observing that it was very chilly weather. It was, of course, nothing more than civil for the old lady to ask him to stop and warm himself. She pointed to a chair, and he drew himself up to the fire. 8. The entrance of her boarders prevented any further conversation. Coffee was soon served, and the stranger partook with the rest of the family. To the coffee, according to the custom of the times, succeeded a plate of apples, pipes, and a paper of tobacco. A pleasant circle of smokers was then formed about the fire. Agreeable conversation followed. Jokes were cracked, stories told, and Franklin was so sensible and entertaining as to attract the attention of the whole company. 9. In this manner the moments passed pleasantly and swiftly along, and it was eight o'clock before any of them expected it. This was the hour of supper, and Mrs. Franklin was always as punctual as the clock. Busied with family affairs, she supposed the stranger had quitted the house immediately after coffee. Imagine her surprise, when she saw him, with the utmost coolness and impudence, taking his seat with the family at the supper table! 10. Immediately after supper, she called an elderly gentleman, a member of the council, with whom she was in the habit of consulting, into another room; complained of the rudeness of the stranger, told the manner of his coming into the house, observed that he appeared like a foreigner, and she thought had something about him very suspicious. The old gentleman assured her that she need not be under any alarm, that the stranger was a man of education and agreeable manners, and was, probably, unaware of the lateness of the hour. He added, that it would be well to call him aside, and repeat to him that she was unable to give him lodgings. 11. She accordingly sent her maid to him, and then repeated the account of their situation, observed that it grew late, and gently hinted that he would do well to seek out other accommodations. The stranger replied that he should be very sorry to put her to any inconvenience, and would retire after smoking one more pipe with her boarders. He returned to the company, filled his pipe, and began talking as pleasantly and forcibly as ever. He recounted the hardships, and praised the piety and wisdom of their ancestors. 12. A gentleman present mentioned the subject of the day's debate in the house of representatives. A bill had been introduced to extend the powers of the royal governor. The stranger immediately entered upon the subject, supported the rights of the colonies with many arguments and much eloquence, and showed a great familiarity with the names of influential members of the house in the time of Governor Dudley. 13. The conversation was so animated and interesting that the clock struck eleven, unnoticed by the delighted circle. The patience of Mrs. Franklin was by this time completely exhausted. She now entered the room, and, before the whole company, addressed the stranger with much anger; told him plainly that she thought herself imposed upon; that she was a lone woman, but had friends who would protect her; and concluded by telling him to leave the house. Franklin made a slight apology, put on his great coat and hat, took a polite leave of the company, and approached the street door, lighted by the maid, and attended by the mistress. 14. While the company had been enjoying themselves within, a most tremendous snow storm had filled the streets, knee-deep; and no sooner had the maid lifted the latch, than a roaring wind forced open the door, put out the light, and almost filled the entry with drifted snow and hail. As soon as the candle was relighted, the stranger cast a mournful look on the lady of the mansion, and said--"My dear madam, if you turn me out of your house in this dreadful storm, I am a stranger in the town, and shall certainly perish in the streets. You look like a charitable lady; I should not think you could refuse shelter to a dog on such a night." 15. "Don't tell me of charity," said the offended matron; "charity begins at home. It is your own fault that you staid so long. In short, sir, I do not like your looks, or your conduct in thus forcing yourself upon my family, and I fear you have some bad designs." 16. The good lady had grown so angry as to raise her voice much above its ordinary pitch, and the noise drew all the company into the entry. They did not agree with Mrs. Franklin in respect to the stranger at all. He seemed to them to be a very honest, clever-looking fellow, and so far from wishing to turn him out of the house, there was not one of them but would have been glad to have him for a fellow-boarder. They thought him very sensible and pleasant, and could not account for their landlady's aversion. 17. At length, by their united interference, the stranger was permitted to remain in the house. There was no bed or part of a bed unoccupied, and he was obliged to sleep all night in an easy chair, before the parlor fire. Although her boarders appeared to have perfect confidence in his honesty, it was not so with Mrs. Franklin. She very carefully collected her silver spoons, pepper box and porringer from her closet, and, after securing the parlor door, by sticking a fork over the latch, carried them to her chamber. She charged the negro man to sleep with his clothes on--to take the great cleaver to bed with him, and to wake up and seize the vagrant at the first noise he made in plundering the house. The good lady then retired to bed with her maid, whom she compelled to sleep in the same room. 18. After a very restless night, Mrs. Franklin rose before the sun. She called her domestics, proceeded with them in a body to unfasten the parlor door. To her great astonishment, she found her guest quietly sleeping in his chair. She now began to feel sorry for her suspicions. Awaking him with a cheerful good morning, she inquired how he had rested, and invited him to partake of her breakfast, which was always served before that of the boarders. 19. "Pray, sir," said the old lady, as they were sipping their chocolate at the breakfast table, "as you appear to be a stranger here, to what distant country do you belong?" 20. Franklin put a little more sugar into his chocolate, and, helping himself to a slice of toast, replied, that he belonged to the city of Philadelphia. At the mention of this word, the old lady, for the first time, exhibited emotion. "Philadelphia?" said she--"if you live in Philadelphia, perhaps you know our Ben?" 21. "Who, madam?" replied Franklin, in the same cool and undisturbed manner that he had put on ever since he entered the house. "Why, Ben Franklin," said the mother; "my Ben--oh! he is the dearest child that ever blessed a mother!" 22. "What," said the stranger, "is Ben Franklin, the printer, your son? Why, he is my most intimate friend: he and I lodge in the same room." "O! Heaven forgive me!" exclaimed the old lady; "and have I suffered an acquaintance of my Benny to sleep on this hard chair, while I myself rested on a good bed!" 23. We can well imagine that the mother was very much astonished when she found that it was not an acquaintance of her son, but her son himself, whose countenance and person had been so much changed, that she had even been on the point of turning him out of doors! She was delighted to embrace him once more before she died, and was quite pleased that the members of the council had found him so agreeable a fellow as to insist that he should remain all night in the house. * * * * * 1. What appointment did Franklin receive at this time. 2. Was the post-office, under Franklin, a source of revenue to the crown? 3. What honors did Franklin receive from the colleges? 5. Why did Franklin introduce himself to his mother as a stranger? In what situation did he find her? 6. How did she receive him? 8. What was the evening custom at that time? CHAPTER XIII. _Congress at Albany. Plan for a Union of the Colonies. Arrival of General Braddock. Franklin sent to him by the Assembly. Want of Wagons. Franklin undertakes to procure them. His Advertisement. Anecdote of Braddock. Battle with the Indians. Retreat._ 1. In 1754, there was again a prospect of war with France. A congress of commissioners from the different colonies was ordered to be assembled at Albany, to confer with the chiefs of the Six Nations of Indians, in respect to the defence of the country. The governor of Pennsylvania communicated this order to the assembly, and nominated Franklin, with Mr. Norris, Mr. Penn, and Mr. Peters, to act as commissioners. Presents were provided for the Indians, and they all met at Albany about the middle of June. 2. On his way thither, Franklin projected and drew up a plan for the union of all the colonies under one government, so far as might be necessary for defence and other important services. This plan was shown to two or three of his friends, and, having met with their approbation, was submitted to congress. It then appeared that several of the commissioners had formed projects of the same kind. A committee was appointed to consider the several plans, and report. That proposed by Franklin was finally adopted with a few alterations: copies of it were sent to the British government and to the assemblies of the several provinces. 3. The British government were unwilling to permit the union proposed at Albany, from a fear that the colonies would become too military and feel their own strength. They accordingly sent over General Braddock, with two regiments of regular English troops, for the purpose of protecting them. This officer, with his forces, landed at Alexandria, and marched thence to Fredericktown in Maryland, where he halted for carriages. Franklin was sent by the assembly to wait upon him at this place, in order to arrange some matters which had occurred to excite serious misunderstanding. 4. His son accompanied him upon this journey. They found the general at Fredericktown, waiting, impatiently, for the return of those whom he had sent through the back parts of Maryland and Virginia to collect wagons. Franklin staid with him several days, dined with him daily, and had full opportunity of removing his prejudices. When he was about to depart, it had been ascertained that only twenty-five wagons could be procured, and not all of them fit for use. 5. The general and all the officers were very much surprised, and declared that the expedition was entirely at an end. They exclaimed bitterly against their government for sending them into a country destitute of the means of carrying their stores and baggage, for which no less than one hundred and fifty wagons were necessary. Franklin remarked that it was a pity they had not been landed in Pennsylvania, as in that country almost every farmer had his wagon. The general caught at his words, and eagerly said--"Then you, sir, who are a man of interest there, can possibly procure them for us; and I beg you will undertake it." 6. Franklin asked what terms were to be offered to the owners of the wagons; and he was desired to put on paper the terms that appeared to him necessary. This he did; and they were accepted. He soon after published an advertisement, offering to contract for certain wagons and horses, on specified terms; and to this added an address to the inhabitants of the counties of York, Lancaster and Cumberland. The address was in the following words: 7. "_Friends and Countrymen_,--Being occasionally at the camp at Frederick, a few days since, I found the general and officers exceedingly exasperated on account of their not being supplied with horses and carriages, which had been expected from this province, as most able to furnish them; but, through the dissensions between our governor and assembly, money had not been provided, nor any steps taken for that purpose. 8. "It was proposed to send an armed force immediately into these counties, to seize as many of the best carriages and horses as should be wanted, and compel as many persons into the service, as would be necessary to drive and take care of them. * * * * * 9. "If you are really, as I believe you are, good and loyal subjects to his majesty, you may now do a most acceptable service, and make it easy to yourselves; for three or four of such as cannot separately spare, from the business of their plantations, a wagon and four horses and a driver, may do it together; one furnishing the wagon, another one or two horses, and another the driver, and divide the pay proportionably between you. 10. "But if you do not this service to your king and country voluntarily, when such good pay and reasonable terms are offered to you, your loyalty will be strongly suspected. The king's business must be done. So many brave troops, come so far for your defence, must not stand idle through your backwardness to do what may be reasonably expected from you. Wagons and horses must be had; violent measures will probably be used; and you will be left to seek for recompense where you can find it, and your case, perhaps, be little pitied or regarded. 11. "I have no particular interest in this affair, as (except the satisfaction of endeavoring to do good) I shall have only my labor for my pains. If this method of obtaining the wagons and horses is not likely to succeed, I am obliged to send word to the general in fourteen days; and I suppose Sir John St. Clair, the hussar, with a body of soldiers, will immediately enter the province for the purpose; which I shall be very sorry to hear, because I am, very sincerely and truly, "Your friend and well-wisher, "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * 12. Eight hundred pounds were furnished by the general, to be paid out as advance money to the owners of the wagons and horses. This sum not being large enough, Franklin advanced upwards of two hundred pounds more. In two weeks, the one hundred and fifty wagons, with two hundred and fifty-nine carrying horses, were on their way to the camp. The advertisement promised payment in case any wagons or horses should be lost; and as the owners knew nothing about the dependence to be placed on General Braddock, they insisted on Franklin's bond for the performance. This he accordingly gave them. 13. General Braddock was a brave man, but had too much self-confidence, too high an opinion of the power of regular troops, and too mean an idea of both Americans and Indians. About one hundred Indians joined him on his march, who might have been of great use to him as guides and scouts, if he had treated them kindly. He neglected and slighted them, however, and they gradually left him. 14. In conversation one day with Franklin, he gave an account of his intended progress. "After taking Fort Duquesne," said he, "I am to proceed to Niagara; and, having taken that, to Frontenac, if the season will allow time, and I suppose it will; for Duquesne can hardly detain me above three or four days; and then I see nothing that can obstruct my march to Niagara." 15. Franklin knew something about marches through the woods, and the tricks of the Indians, and entertained serious doubts in respect to the success of the campaign. He only ventured, however, to say--"To be sure, sir, if you arrive well before Duquesne with the fine troops, so well provided with artillery, the fort, though completely fortified, and assisted with a very strong garrison, can probably make but a short resistance. The only danger I apprehend of obstruction to your march, is from the ambuscades of the Indians, who, by constant practice, are dexterous in laying and executing them; and the slender line, near four miles long, which your army must make, may expose it to be attacked by surprise in its flanks, and to be cut like a thread into several pieces, which, from their distance, cannot come up in time to support each other." 16. Braddock smiled at his ignorance, and replied--"These savages may, indeed, be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia; but upon the king's regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible they should make any impression." 17. The enemy did not take that advantage of the army under Braddock which Franklin anticipated. They suffered it to approach without interruption till within nine miles of Fort Duquesne. The troops had just crossed a river, were in a more open part of the woods than any they passed, and moving forward in a compact form. Their advanced guard was suddenly attacked by a heavy fire from behind trees and bushes. This was the first intelligence which the general had of the approach of an enemy. 18. The guard being disordered, the general hurried the troops up to their assistance. This was done in great confusion, through wagons, baggage, and cattle. They were now attacked also from behind. The officers were on horseback, and easily distinguished and picked out as marks by the enemy. The soldiers were thrown together in great disorder, having or hearing no orders, and standing to be shot at, till two thirds of them were killed; then, being seized with a panic, the remainder fled in precipitation. 19. The wagoners took each a horse out of his team, and scampered. Their example was immediately followed by others, so that all the wagons, provisions, artillery and stores were left to the enemy. The general, being wounded, was brought off with difficulty; out of eighty-six officers, sixty-three were killed or wounded; and seven hundred and fourteen men killed, of eleven hundred. 20. These men had been picked from the whole army; the rest had been left behind with Colonel Dunbar, who was to follow with the heavier parts of the baggage. The fugitives arrived at Dunbar's camp, and communicated their own panic to him and all his people. Though he had now above a thousand men, he determined not to meddle with the enemy, but to make the best of his way to the settlements. Notwithstanding requests from the governor of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, that he would post his troops on the frontiers to protect the inhabitants, he continued his hasty and disgraceful march till he had arrived at snug quarters in Philadelphia. * * * * * 1. Why were commissioners from the colonies ordered to assemble at Albany? Who were sent from Pennsylvania? 2. What plan did Franklin draw up? 3. Why did the British government disapprove of the proposed union? What course did they pursue? Why was Franklin sent to Fredericktown? 5. What impeded the progress of the expedition? How did General Braddock obviate this difficulty? 6. What step did Franklin take to procure the wagons? 12. How much was furnished by the British general to be paid in advance to the owners of the wagons and horses? How much did Franklin furnish? 13. What was the character of General Braddock? How did he treat the Indians who joined him on his march? 14. What were the general's plans? 15. What did Franklin tell him? 16. What was Braddock's reply? 17. Where were the British troops first attacked? 18. What was the progress of the battle? 19. What became of the wagons and artillery? 20. Where did the fugitives resort? What was Colonel Dunbar's conduct? CHAPTER XIV. _Settlement for the Loss of Wagons. Anecdote. Preparations for Defence. Franklin appointed to a military Command. Assembles the Troops at Bethlehem. Farmers killed by Indians. Building Forts. Extracts from Franklin's Journal. Indian Cunning. Anecdotes of the Moravians._ 1. As soon as the loss of the wagons and horses was generally known, all the owners came upon Franklin for the valuation which he had given bond to pay. Their demands troubled him exceedingly. He informed them that the money was ready in the paymaster's hands, but the order for paying it must first be obtained from General Shirley; that he had applied for it; and they must have patience till he could receive it. All this, however, was not sufficient, and some began to sue him. General Shirley at length released him from this disagreeable situation, by appointing commissioners to examine the claims, and order payment. They amounted to nearly twenty thousand pounds. 2. Before receiving news of the defeat, two gentlemen came to Franklin with a subscription paper for raising money to pay the expense of a grand firework, which it was intended to exhibit on receiving the news of taking Fort Duquesne. Franklin told them gravely, that he thought it would be time enough to prepare for rejoicing when they knew they should have occasion to rejoice. They seemed surprised that he did not immediately comply with their proposal. "Why," said one of them, "you surely do not suppose that the fort will not be taken?" "I don't know," replied Franklin, "that it will not be taken; but I know that the events of war are subject to great uncertainty." The plan was fortunately abandoned. 3. The assembly now laid a tax, to raise money for the defence of the province, and Franklin was appointed one of the commissioners to dispose of it. He had also carried a bill through the house for establishing and disciplining a voluntary militia. To promote the association necessary to form the militia, he wrote a dialogue upon the subject, which was extensively circulated, and thought to have great effect. 4. While the several companies in the city and country were forming, and learning their exercise, the governor prevailed upon Franklin to take charge of the north-western frontier, which was infested by the enemy, and provide for the defence of the inhabitants, by raising troops, and building a line of forts. Franklin did not think himself very well qualified for the military, but was willing to be of all the service in his power. He received a commission from the governor, with full authority, and a parcel of blank commissions for officers, to be given to whom he thought fit. Five hundred and sixty men were soon raised and placed under his command. 5. The place first selected for a fort was Gnadenhutten, a village settled by the Moravians, and which had recently been the scene of terrible destruction and death. In order to march thither, Franklin assembled the companies at Bethlehem, the chief establishment of those people. He was surprised to find this place in a good state of defence. The destruction of Gnadenhutten had made them apprehensive of danger. 6. They had purchased a quantity of arms and ammunition from New York, and had even placed quantities of small paving stones between the windows of their high houses, to be thrown down upon the heads of any Indians that should attempt to force into them. The armed brethren kept watch, and relieved each other as regularly as in any garrison town. 7. In conversation with their bishop, Spangenberg, Franklin mentioned his surprise; for, knowing they had obtained an act of parliament excusing them from military duties in the colonies, he supposed they had motives of conscience which forbade their bearing arms. The bishop answered--"That it was not one of their established principles; but that at the time of their obtaining that act it was thought to be a principle with many of their people. On this occasion, however, to their surprise they found it adopted but by a few." A strong sense of danger very soon overcomes such notions. 8. It was the beginning of January when they set out upon the business of building forts. One detachment was sent towards the Minisink, with directions to erect one for the upper part of the country, and another to the lower part, with similar directions. Franklin went in person, with the remaining troops, to Gnadenhutten, where a force was thought more immediately necessary. The Moravians procured him five wagons for their tools, stores, and baggage. 9. Just before they left Bethlehem, eleven farmers, who had been driven from their homes by the Indians, came to Franklin, requesting a supply of fire-arms, that they might go back and bring off their cattle. He gave them each a gun with suitable ammunition. 10. They had not marched many miles when it began to rain, and it continued raining all day. There were no habitations on the road to shelter them, till they reached, about night, the house of a German. Here, in the barn and shed, they were all huddled together as wet as water could make them. It was well for them that they were not attacked upon the march, for their arms were of the poorest sort, and it was impossible to keep the locks of their guns dry. The poor farmers, before mentioned, suffered on this account. They met with the Indians, and, the primings being wet with rain, their guns would not go off, so that only one of them escaped with his life. 11. The next day was fair. The companies continued their march, and arrived at the desolate Gnadenhutten. There was a mill in the neighborhood, round which several pine boards had been left. With these they soon built themselves huts. Their next work was to bury the dead they found there. On the following morning their fort was planned and marked out, with a circumference measuring four hundred and fifty-five feet. Their axes, of which they had seventy, were immediately set to work to cut down trees for palisades; and, as the men were very skilful in the use of them, they made great despatch. 12. Seeing the trees fall so fast, Franklin had the curiosity to look at his watch when two men began to cut at a pine. In six minutes they had it upon the ground, and it was fourteen inches in diameter. Each pine made three palisades of eighteen feet long, pointed at one end. While these were preparing, other men dug a trench all round, of three feet deep, in which the palisades were to be planted. When these were set up, the carpenters built within them a platform of boards all round, about six feet high, for the men to stand on and fire through the loopholes. They had one swivel gun, which they mounted, and fired as soon as it was fixed, that the Indians might know they had such pieces. Thus their fort, such as it was, was finished in a week, though it rained so hard every other day that the men were almost unable to work. 13. "This gave me occasion to observe," says Franklin, "that when men are employed they are best contented. For on the days they worked they were good-natured and cheerful, and, with the consciousness of having done a good day's work, they spent the evening jollily. But, on our idle days, they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with the pork and the bread, and were continually in bad humor; which put me in mind of a sea captain, whose rule it was to keep his men constantly at work; and when his mate once told him that they had done every thing, and there was nothing further to employ them about, 'O,' said he, '_make them scour the anchor_.'" 14. "This kind of fort," he continues, "however contemptible, is a sufficient defence against Indians who have no cannon. Finding ourselves now posted securely, and having a place to retreat to on occasion, we ventured out in parties to scour the adjacent country. We met with no Indians, but we found the places, on the neighboring hills, where they had lain to watch our proceedings. There was an art in their contrivance of those places that seems worth mentioning. 15. "It being winter, a fire was necessary for them; but a common fire, on the surface of the ground, would, by its light, have discovered their position at a distance; they had, therefore, dug holes in the ground about three feet in diameter, and somewhat deeper; we found where they had, with their hatchets, cut off the charcoal from the side of burnt logs lying in the woods. With these coals they had made small fires in the bottom of the holes, and we observed, among the weeds and grass, the prints of their bodies, made by their lying all round, with their legs hanging down in the holes, to keep their feet warm; which, with them, is an essential point. This kind of fire, so managed, could not discover them either by its light, flame, sparks, or even smoke; it appeared that the number was not great, and it seems they saw we were too many to be attacked by them with prospect of advantage. 16. "We had for our chaplain a zealous Presbyterian minister, Mr. Beatty, who complained to me that the men did not generally attend his prayers and exhortations. When they enlisted they were promised, besides pay and provisions, a gill of rum a day, which was punctually served out to them, half in the morning and half in the evening, and I observed they were punctual in attending to receive it. 17. "Upon which I said to Mr. Beatty, 'It is perhaps below the dignity of your profession to act as steward of the rum; but if you were to distribute it out only just after prayers, you would have them all about you.' He liked the thought, undertook the task, and, with the help of a few hands to measure out the liquor, executed it to satisfaction; and never were prayers more generally and more punctually attended. So that I think this method preferable to the punishment inflicted by some military laws for non-attendance on divine service. 18. "I had hardly finished this business, and got my fort well stored with provisions, when I received a letter from the governor, acquainting me that he had called the assembly, and wished my attendance there, if the posture of affairs on the frontiers was such that my remaining there was no longer necessary. My friends, too, of the assembly pressing me by their letters to be, if possible, at the meeting, and my three intended forts being now completed, and the inhabitants contented to remain on their farms under that protection, I resolved to return; the more willingly, as a New-England officer, Colonel Clapham, experienced in Indian war, being on a visit to our establishment, consented to accept the command. 19. "I gave him a commission, and, parading the garrison, had it read before them, and introduced him to them as an officer, who, from his skill in military affairs, was much more fit to command them than myself; and giving them a little exhortation, took my leave. I was escorted as far as Bethlehem, where I rested a few days to recover from the fatigue I had undergone. The first night, lying on a good bed, I could hardly sleep, it was so different from my hard lodging on the floor of a hut at Gnadenhutten, with only a blanket or two. 20. "While at Bethlehem, I inquired a little into the practices of the Moravians; some of them had accompanied me, and all were very kind to me. I found they worked for a common stock, ate at common tables, and slept in common dormitories, great numbers together. In the dormitories I observed loop-holes at certain distances, all along just under the ceiling, which I thought judiciously placed for change of air. I went to their church, where I was entertained with good music, the organ being accompanied with violins, hautboys, flutes, and clarionets. 21. "I understood their sermons were not usually preached to mixed congregations of men, women and children, as is our common practice; but that they assembled sometimes the married men, at other times their wives, then the young men, the young women, and the little children; each division by itself. The sermon I heard was to the latter, who came in and were placed in rows on benches, the boys under the conduct of a young man, their tutor; and the girls conducted by a young woman. The discourse seemed well adapted to their capacities, and was delivered in a pleasing, familiar manner, coaxing them, as it were, to be good. They behaved very orderly, but looked pale and unhealthy, which made me suspect they were kept too much within doors, or not allowed sufficient exercise. 22. "I inquired concerning the Moravian marriages, whether the report was true that they were by lot. I was told that lots were used only in particular cases, that generally, when a young man found himself disposed to marry, he informed the elders of his class, who consulted the elder ladies that governed the young women. As these elders of the different sexes were well acquainted with the tempers and dispositions of their respective pupils, they could best judge what matches were suitable, and their judgments were generally acquiesced in. 23. "But if, for example, it should happen that two or three young women were found to be equally proper for the young man, the lot was then recurred to. I objected, if the matches are not made by the mutual choice of the parties, some of them may chance to be very unhappy. 'And so they may,' answered my informer, 'if you let the parties choose for themselves.' Which, indeed, I could not deny." * * * * * 1. To what embarrassment was Franklin now exposed? How was he relieved? 2. Relate the anecdote in respect to the subscription for fire-works. 3. What tax was now laid by the assembly? What bill did Franklin carry through the house? 4. What charge was now committed to Franklin? How many men were placed under his command? 5. What place was selected for a fort? By whom was Gnadenhutten settled? 6. What measures had the inhabitants of Bethlehem taken for defence? 7. What was the conversation of Franklin with the bishop Spangenberg? 8. Where were the forts built? 9. Relate the substance of the ninth and tenth paragraphs. 11. What was done on arriving at Gnadenhutten? 12. How was the fort constructed? How long did it take to build it? 13. What remarks does Franklin make about keeping employed? 14. What does Franklin say of the fort? 15. How did they manage to conceal their fires? 18. Why did Franklin leave the fort? Who succeeded him? 20. What does Franklin say of the practice of the Moravians? Of their dormitories? Of their church? 21. What is said of their congregation? 22. How are the Moravian marriages conducted? 23. What did Franklin suggest on this subject? What was the reply? CHAPTER XV. _Disputes with the Proprietaries. Franklin sent by the Assembly to London. Appointed general Agent for the Colonies. University Honors. The Armonica. Murder of the friendly Indians._ 1. Soon after his return to Philadelphia, Franklin was appointed by the assembly upon a very important mission. From the earliest establishment of Pennsylvania, there seems to have been a spirit of dispute among its inhabitants. During the lifetime of William Penn, the constitution had been three times altered. After this time quarrels were continually arising between the proprietaries or their governors and the assembly. 2. The proprietaries were the descendants of those to whom the lands were originally granted by the king. They claimed particular privileges for their estates; and among other things that they should be free from taxes. To this the assembly would by no means consent. This subject of dispute interfered in almost every question, and prevented the passage of the most necessary laws. 3. The assembly at length resolved to appeal to the king against the unjust claims of the proprietaries, and appointed Franklin as their agent, to go over to England and present their petition. After some delay and detention by the governor, under the pretence of bringing about an accommodation, Franklin sailed from New York towards the end of June, and arrived in London on the twenty-seventh of July, 1757. 4. According to the instructions which he had received from the legislature, Franklin had a meeting with the proprietaries who then resided in England, and endeavored to prevail on them to give up their pretensions. Finding it impossible to derive any satisfaction from them, he laid his petition before the council. During this time, the governor of Pennsylvania had consented to a law imposing a tax, in which no distinction was made in favor of the estates of the Penn family. 5. Alarmed at this intelligence, and by Franklin's exertions, they used their utmost endeavors to prevent this law from receiving the royal approbation. They represented it as highly unjust, designed to throw the burden of supporting government upon them, and tending to produce the most ruinous consequences to them and their posterity. 6. The cause was very fully examined before the king's privy council. The Penn family here found some very earnest advocates, while those were not wanting ready to espouse the side of the people. After some time spent in debate, a proposal was made that Franklin should solemnly engage that the tax should be so made, that the proprietary estates should pay no more than a fair proportion. This he agreed to perform, and the Penn family withdrew their opposition to the passage of the law. 7. After this business was thus happily concluded, Franklin remained at the court of Great Britain, as agent for the province of Pennsylvania. The extensive knowledge which he possessed of the situation of the colonies, and the regard which he had always shown for their interests, occasioned his appointment to the same office by the colonies of Massachusetts, Maryland and Georgia. His conduct in this situation increased the reputation and esteem in which he was held among his countrymen. 8. Franklin was now in the midst of those friends whom he had acquired by his fame as a philosopher. He was very much sought after by them. Honors from learned societies and colleges were continually heaped upon him. The university of St. Andrew's, in Scotland, conferred on him the degree of doctor of laws. Its example was followed by the universities of Edinburgh and Oxford. His correspondence was sought by the most distinguished philosophers of Europe. 9. Although Franklin was now principally occupied with political pursuits, he found time for his favorite studies. He extended his researches in electricity, and in other interesting subjects of natural philosophy. 10. The tone produced by rubbing the brim of a drinking-glass with a wet finger is familiar to every one. An Irish gentleman, by the name of Puckeridge, by placing on a table a number of glasses of different sizes, and tuning them by partly filling them with water, endeavored to form an instrument upon which he could play tunes. He died before he had completed his invention. Some improvements were afterwards made upon his plan. The sweetness of the tones induced Franklin to try a number of experiments, and he at length formed the instrument which he has called the Armonica. 11. In the summer of 1762 he returned to America. He received the thanks of the assembly of Pennsylvania, "as well for the faithful discharge of his duty to that province in particular, as for the many and important services done to America in general, during his residence in Great Britain." A compensation of five thousand pounds, Pennsylvania currency, was decreed him for his services during six years. 12. During his absence, Franklin had been annually elected member of the assembly. On his return to Philadelphia, he again took his seat in that body, and continued steadily to protect the rights and interests of the people. 13. In December, 1762, great alarm was excited in the province by the following circumstance. Several Indians resided in the county of Lancaster, who had always conducted themselves as friends to the white men. A number of inhabitants upon the frontiers, who had been irritated by repeated injuries, determined to seek revenge on all the Indians who fell in their way. 14. About a hundred and twenty persons assembled, and proceeded on horseback to the settlements of the defenceless Indians. These were now reduced in number to about twenty. They had received information of the intended attack, but did not believe it. As the white people had always been their friends, they feared no danger from them. When the party arrived at the Indian settlement, they found only some women and children and a few old men. The rest were absent at work. The wretches murdered all whom they found, and among others the chief Shahehas, who had been always distinguished for his friendship to the whites. 15. The remainder of these unfortunate Indians, who, by their absence, had escaped the massacre, were conducted to Lancaster, and lodged in the jail as a place of security. Large rewards were offered by the governor for the discovery of the murderers. But notwithstanding this, a party of the same men marched to Lancaster, broke open the jail, and inhumanly butchered the innocent Indians who had been placed there for protection. 16. Another proclamation was issued by the governor, but in vain. A party even marched down to Philadelphia, for the purpose of murdering some friendly Indians, who had been removed to the city for safety. The citizens armed to protect them. The Quakers, notwithstanding they are opposed to fighting even in their own defence, were most active upon the occasion. The rioters advanced to Germantown, and the governor fled for safety to the house of Dr. Franklin. It was by his assistance and influence that the disturbance was quelled, and the rioters prevailed upon to return to their homes. * * * * * 2. Who were the proprietaries? What did they claim? How did the assembly treat their claim? 3. What course did the assembly pursue? Why was Franklin sent to England? When did he arrive in London? 4. What course did Franklin pursue in respect to the petition? What law had been passed in Pennsylvania? 5. How did the Penn family represent this law? 6. Where was the cause examined? How was it settled? 7. In what capacity did Franklin remain in London after the conclusion of this business? 8. How was Franklin received? What honors were conferred upon him? 9. How was Franklin chiefly occupied at this time? 10. What was the musical instrument which Franklin formed? 11. When did he return to America? How was he received by the assembly? What compensation did they allow him? 13. What alarm was excited in the province in 1762? 14. Relate the substance of this paragraph. 15. What became of the remaining Indians? 16. Was the governor's proclamation of any effect? How were the rioters persuaded to return home? CHAPTER XVI. _Franklin reappointed Agent at the Court of Great Britain. Visits Germany and France. Returns to Philadelphia. Appointed Delegate to Congress. Interview with Lord Howe. Sent as Ambassador to France. Asks to be recalled. Chosen President of the Supreme Council of Philadelphia. Death. Character._ 1. The disputes between the proprietaries and the assembly, which had for a long time subsided, again revived. At the election for a new assembly in 1764, the friends of the proprietaries made great exertions to keep out all those of the opposite party. They obtained a small majority in the city of Philadelphia, and Franklin lost the seat which he had now held for fourteen years. 2. On the meeting of the assembly, it appeared that there was still a majority of Franklin's friends. He was again appointed agent of the provinces at the court of Great Britain. His enemies were sadly vexed at this appointment, and made a solemn protest against it, which they wished to have entered upon the journals. This, however, was refused, and it was consequently published in the newspapers. It drew from him a spirited reply. 3. The opposition to his reappointment seems to have greatly affected his feelings, as it came from men with whom he had long been connected, both in public and private life. In his last publication, he took a pathetic leave of Pennsylvania. "I am now," he says, "to take leave (perhaps a last leave) of the country I love, and in which I have spent the greatest part of my life. _Esto perpetua!_[1] I wish every kind of prosperity to my friends, and I forgive my enemies." [1] May it exist for ever! 4. During his residence in England, he consulted, with unremitting industry, the best interests of his native country. He was every where received with respect, on account of his reputation as a writer and philosopher. In 1766 he made a visit to Holland and Germany, and received the greatest marks of attention from men of science. In the following year he travelled into France, where he was received with much kindness and favor. He became acquainted with a number of literary men, and was introduced to the king, Louis XV. 5. Difficulties had now commenced between Great Britain and her provinces in America. Franklin was unwearied in his efforts to bring about a reconciliation. He had frequent interviews with Lord Howe and Lord Chatham, and other distinguished English statesmen, who entertained for him the highest respect and esteem. Most of the time during his present residence in England was occupied in these vain efforts. The violent conduct of the parent state drove the colonies to war, and Franklin returned to America in the year 1775. 6. The day after his return he was elected, by the legislature of Pennsylvania, a delegate to congress. Not long after his election, a committee was appointed, consisting of Mr. Lynch, Mr. Harrison and himself, to visit the camp at Cambridge. They here united their efforts with those of the commander in chief, to convince the soldiers of the necessity of remaining in the field, and persevering in the cause of their country. 7. When Lord Howe came to America in 1776, with powers to effect an accommodation with the colonists, a correspondence on the subject took place between him and Dr. Franklin. John Adams, Edward Rutledge and Dr. Franklin were afterwards appointed to wait upon Lord Howe, and learn the extent of his powers. These were found to be confined to the liberty of granting pardons, on submission. The Americans, at that time, would not thank the king for a thousand pardons, and the interview terminated without effecting any thing towards a reconciliation. 8. Dr. Franklin was an earnest advocate for the entire separation of the colonies from Great Britain, and his writings upon the subject had great influence on the public mind. In 1776, he was president of a convention, which assembled for the purpose of establishing a new form of government for the state of Pennsylvania. In the latter part of this year, he was appointed to assist Mr. Silas Deane in managing the affairs of the colonies at the court of France. 9. No one could have rendered more service to the United States, in this situation, than Dr. Franklin. His character was much honored in France, and as a philosopher he was held in very high esteem. He was received with respect by all the celebrated literary men of the day; and this respect naturally extended itself to all classes. His political negotiations were of the greatest importance to his native country. 10. When the independence of the United States was acknowledged by Great Britain, Franklin became desirous of returning home. The infirmities of age and disease had fallen upon him, and the situation of his country rendered his services no longer indispensably necessary. He applied to congress to be recalled, and Mr. Jefferson was appointed to succeed him in 1785. In September of the same year, Franklin arrived in Philadelphia. He was shortly after chosen a member of the supreme council for the city, and was soon elected president of the same body. 11. For the next three years Franklin still devoted himself to public business, and to his political and philosophical studies. He retained his desire of being useful to the last of his life. In 1788, his increasing infirmities compelled him to retire from public office. His complaints continued, and he suffered very severely from his sickness. He still, however, remained good-natured and cheerful, was perfectly resigned to his situation, acknowledging the justice and kindness of that Being who had seen fit that he should be thus afflicted. 12. On the 17th of April, 1790, about eleven o'clock at night, Dr. Franklin quietly expired. He had reached an honored and a happy old age. From small beginnings, by a uniform course of prudence and honesty, he had raised himself to high station, wealth and distinction. 13. In considering the character of Franklin, we perceive that the most marked trait was his habit of economy. By economy we do not mean merely care in gaining and keeping of his money. We mean care of time, of labor; frugality, industry, system, method in all his business. To this we may add economy of his health; avoiding all excess and unnecessary exposure. 14. His cheerfulness and good nature were also remarkable. He was ever happy and entertaining. His anecdotes and jests were always to the point, and his manner of conversing and writing was at once pleasing and effective. 15. For his public services his country owes him her respect and gratitude; while his philosophical discoveries have excited the admiration of the world. His name will live with the names of the few great men who have conferred enduring benefits on mankind. The following epitaph on himself was written by him many years previous to his death: The Body of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Printer, [like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out, and stript of its lettering and gilding,] lies here food for worms; yet the work itself shall not be lost, for it will (as he believed) appear once more in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by THE AUTHOR. * * * * * 1. How did Franklin lose his seat in the assembly? 2. What appointment did he immediately receive? 3. How did the opposition to his reappointment affect him? 4. What was his reception in England? What countries did he visit in 1766? In 1767? 5. What were Franklin's efforts to bring about a reconciliation between Great Britain and the provinces? 6. What appointment did he receive on his return? What committee was chosen to visit the camp at Cambridge? 7. With what powers was Lord Howe invested? Who were appointed to wait on him? 8. Of what convention was Franklin the president in 1776? To what office was he appointed? 9. How was he esteemed in France? How were his political negotiations? 10. When did Franklin return to Philadelphia? What honor was immediately conferred on him? 11. When did he retire from public office? On what account? 12. When did Dr. Franklin die? 13. What was the marked trait in Franklin's character? 14. What other traits were conspicuous? ESSAYS OF DR. FRANKLIN We are acquainted with no writer who inculcates lessons of practical wisdom in a more agreeable and popular manner than Dr. Franklin. His writings abound with infinite good sense, and a singular shrewdness, not at all inconsistent with the highest integrity and purity. We have selected a few of his lighter essays as a sequel to the Biography; desirable, both as displaying somewhat of the character of their author, and conveying common sense maxims likely to be of much service to the young. THE WHISTLE. _A True Story--Written to his Nephew._ When I was a child, at seven years old, my friends, on a holyday, filled my pockets with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children; and being charmed with the sound of a _whistle_, that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered him all my money for one. I then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my _whistle_, but disturbing all the family. My brothers, and sisters, and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth. This put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money; and they laughed at me so much for my folly, that I cried with vexation; and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the _whistle_ gave me pleasure. This, however, was afterwards of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind; so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, _Don't give too much for the whistle_; and so I saved my money. As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, who _gave too much for their whistle_. When I saw any one too ambitious of court favor, sacrificing his time in attendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends, to attain it, I have said to myself, _This man gives too much for his whistle_. When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly employing himself in political bustles, neglecting his own affairs, and ruining them by that neglect, _He pays, indeed_, says I, _too much for his whistle_. If I knew a miser, who gave up every kind of comfortable living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship, for the sake of accumulating wealth, _Poor man_, says I, _you do indeed pay too much for your whistle_. When I meet a man of pleasure, sacrificing every laudable improvement of the mind, or of his fortune, to mere corporeal sensations, _Mistaken man_, says I, _you are providing pain for yourself instead of pleasure; you give too much for your whistle_. If I see one fond of fine clothes, fine furniture, fine equipages, all above his fortune, for which he contracts debts, and ends his career in prison, _Alas_, says I, _he has paid dear, very dear, for his whistle_. When I see a beautiful, sweet-tempered girl, married to an ill-natured brute of a husband, _What a pity it is_, says I, _that she has paid so much for a whistle_! In short, I conceived that great part of the miseries of mankind were brought upon them by the false estimates they had made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their _whistles_. HANDSOME AND DEFORMED LEG. There are two sorts of people in the world, who, with equal degrees of health and wealth, and the other comforts of life, become, the one happy, and the other miserable. This arises very much from the different views in which they consider things, persons, and events; and the effect of those different views upon their own minds. In whatever situation men can be placed, they may find conveniences and inconveniences: in whatever company, they may find persons and conversation more or less pleasing: at whatever table, they may meet with meats and drinks of better and worse taste, dishes better and worse dressed: in whatever climate, they will find good and bad weather: under whatever government, they may find good and bad laws, and good and bad administration of those laws: in whatever poem, or work of genius, they may see faults and beauties: in almost every face, and every person, they may discover fine features and defects, good and bad qualities. Under these circumstances, the two sorts of people above mentioned fix their attention; those who are disposed to be happy, on the conveniences of things, the pleasant parts of conversation, the well-dressed dishes, the goodness of the wines, the fine weather, &c., and enjoy all with cheerfulness. Those who are to be unhappy, think and speak only of the contrarieties. Hence they are continually discontented themselves, and, by their remarks, sour the pleasures of society; offend personally many people, and make themselves every where disagreeable. If this turn of mind was founded in nature, such unhappy persons would be the more to be pitied. But as the disposition to criticise, and to be disgusted, is, perhaps, taken up originally by imitation, and is, unawares, grown into a habit, which, though at present strong, may, nevertheless, be cured, when those who have it are convinced of its bad effect on their felicity; I hope this little admonition may be of service to them, and put them on changing a habit which, though in the exercise it is chiefly an act of imagination, yet has serious consequences in life, as it brings on real griefs and misfortunes. For, as many are offended by, and nobody loves, this sort of people, no one shows them more than the most common civility and respect, and scarcely that; and this frequently puts them out of humor, and draws them into disputes and contentions. If they aim at obtaining some advantage in rank or fortune, nobody wishes them success, or will stir a step or speak a word to favor their pretensions. If they incur public censure or disgrace, no one will defend or excuse, and many join to aggravate their misconduct, and render them completely odious. If these people will not change this bad habit, and condescend to be pleased with what is pleasing, without fretting themselves or others about the contrarieties, it is good for others to avoid an acquaintance with them, which is always disagreeable, and sometimes very inconvenient, especially when one finds one's self entangled in their quarrels. An old philosophical friend of mine was grown, from experience, very cautious in this particular, and carefully avoided any intimacy with such people. He had, like other philosophers, a thermometer to show him the heat of the weather; and a barometer to mark when it was likely to prove good or bad; but there being no instrument invented to discover, at first sight, this unpleasing disposition in a person, he, for that purpose, made use of his legs; one of which was remarkably handsome; the other, by some accident, crooked and deformed. If a stranger, at first interview, regarded his ugly leg more than his handsome one, he doubted him. If he spoke of it, and took no notice of the handsome leg, that was sufficient to determine my philosopher to have no further acquaintance with him. Every body has not this two-legged instrument; but every one, with a little attention, may observe signs of that carping, fault-finding disposition, and take the same resolution of avoiding the acquaintance of those infected with it. I therefore advise those critical, querulous, discontented, unhappy people, if they wish to be respected and beloved by others, and happy in themselves, they should _leave off looking at the ugly leg_. ADVICE TO A YOUNG TRADESMAN. _Written Anno 1748._ TO MY FRIEND, A. B. As you have desired it of me, I write the following hints, which have been of service to me, and may, if observed, be so to you. Remember that _time_ is money. He that can earn ten shillings a day by his labor, and goes abroad, or sits idle one half of that day, though he spends but six pence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon _that_ the only expense; he has really spent, or rather thrown away, five shillings besides. Remember that _credit_ is money. If a man lets his money lie in my hands after it is due, he gives me the interest, or so much as I can make of it during that time. This amounts to a considerable sum where a man has good and large credit, and makes good use of it. Remember that money is of a prolific, generating nature. Money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more, and so on. Five shillings turned is six; turned again is seven and three pence; and so on till it becomes a hundred pounds. The more there is of it, the more it produces every turning, so that the profits rise quicker and quicker. He that kills a breeding sow, destroys all her offspring to the thousandth generation. He that murders a crown, destroys all that it might have produced, even scores of pounds. Remember that six pounds a year is but a groat a day. For this little sum (which may be daily wasted either in time or expense, unperceived), a man of credit may, on his own security, have the constant possession and use of a hundred pounds. So much in stock, briskly turned by an industrious man, produces great advantage. Remember this saying, "The good paymaster is lord of another man's purse." He that is known to pay punctually and exactly to the time he promises, may at any time, and on any occasion, raise all the money his friends can spare. This is sometimes of great use. After industry and frugality, nothing contributes more to the raising of a young man in the world, than punctuality and justice in all his dealings: therefore never keep borrowed money an hour beyond the time you promised, lest a disappointment shut up your friend's purse for ever. The most trifling actions that affect a man's credit are to be regarded. The sound of your hammer at five in the morning, or nine at night, heard by a creditor, makes him easy six months longer; but if he sees you at a billiard-table, or hears your voice at a tavern, when you should be at work, he sends for his money the next day; demands it before he can receive it in a lump. It shows, besides, that you are mindful of what you owe; it makes you appear a careful as well as an honest man, and that still increases your credit. Beware of thinking all your own that you possess, and of living accordingly. It is a mistake that many people who have credit fall into. To prevent this, keep an exact account, for some time, both of your expenses and your income. If you take the pains at first to mention particulars, it will have this good effect; you will discover how wonderfully small, trifling expenses mount up to large sums, and will discern what might have been, and may for the future be saved, without occasioning any great inconvenience. In short, the way to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, _industry_ and _frugality_; that is, waste neither _time_ nor _money_, but make the best use of both. Without industry and frugality nothing will do, and with them every thing. He that gets all he can honestly, and saves all he gets (necessary expenses excepted), will certainly become _rich_--if that Being, who governs the world, to whom all should look for a blessing on their honest endeavors, doth not, in his wise providence, otherwise determine. AN OLD TRADESMAN. NECESSARY HINTS TO THOSE THAT WOULD BE RICH. _Written Anno 1786._ The use of money is all the advantage there is in having money. For six pounds a year you may have the use of one hundred pounds, provided you are a man of known prudence and honesty. He that spends a groat a day idly, spends idly above six pounds a year, which is the price for the use of one hundred pounds. He that wastes idly a groat's worth of his time per day, one day with another, wastes the privilege of using one hundred pounds each year. He that idly loses five shillings worth of time, loses five shillings, and might as prudently throw five shillings into the sea. He that loses five shillings, not only loses that sum, but all the advantages that might be made by turning it in dealing; which, by the time that a young man becomes old, will amount to a considerable sum of money. Again; he that sells upon credit, asks a price for what he sells equivalent to the principal and interest of his money for the time he is to be kept out of it; therefore, he that buys upon credit, pays interest for what he buys; and he that pays ready money, might let that money out to use; so that he that possesses any thing he has bought, pays interest for the use of it. Yet, in buying goods, it is best to pay ready money, because, he that sells upon credit, expects to lose five per cent. by bad debts; therefore he charges, on all he sells upon credit, an advance that shall make up that deficiency. Those who pay for what they buy upon credit, pay their share of this advance. He that pays ready money, escapes, or may escape, that charge. A penny saved is twopence clear; A pin a day's a groat a year. PAPER. A POEM. Some wits of old,--such wits of old there were,-- Whose hints showed meaning, whose allusions care, By one brave stroke to mark all human kind, Called clear blank paper every infant mind; When still, as opening sense her dictates wrote, Fair Virtue put a seal, or Vice a blot. The thought was happy, pertinent and true; Methinks a genius might the plan pursue. I (can you pardon my presumption?) I-- No wit, no genius, yet for once will try. Various the papers various wants produce, The wants of fashion, elegance and use. Men are as various; and if right I scan, Each sort of _paper_ represents some _man_. Pray note the fop--half powder and half lace-- Nice as a band-box were his dwelling-place: He's the _gilt-paper_, which apart you store, And lock from vulgar hands in the 'scrutoire. Mechanics, servants, farmers, and so forth, Are _copy-paper_, of inferior worth; Less prized, more useful, for your desk decreed, Free to all pens, and prompt at every need. The wretch whom av'rice bids to pinch and spare, Starve, cheat, and pilfer, to enrich an heir, Is coarse _brown-paper_; such as pedlers choose To wrap up wares, which better men will use. Take next the miser's contrast, who destroys Health, fame, and fortune, in a round of joys. Will any paper match him? Yes, throughout He's a true _sinking-paper_, past all doubt. The retail politician's anxious thought Deems _this_ side always right, and _that_ stark naught; He foams with censure; with applause he raves-- A dupe to rumors, and a tool of knaves; He'll want no type his weakness to proclaim, While such a thing as _fools-cap_ has a name. The hasty gentleman, whose blood runs high, Who picks a quarrel if you step awry, Who can't a jest, or hint, or look, endure: What's he? What? _Touch-paper_,--to be sure. What are our poets, take them as they fall, Good, bad, rich, poor, much read, not read at all? Them and their works in the same class you'll find They are the mere _waste-paper_ of mankind. Observe the maiden, innocently sweet; She's fair _white-paper_, an unsullied sheet; On which the happy man, whom Fate ordains, May write his _name_, and take her for his pains. One instance more, and only one I'll bring; 'Tis the _great man_ who scorns a little thing, Whose thoughts, whose deeds, whose maxims are his own, Formed on the feelings of his heart alone: True, genuine _royal-paper_ is his breast, Of all the kinds most precious, purest, best. ON THE ART OF SWIMMING. _In Answer to some Inquiries of M. Dubourg_[2] _on the Subject._ [2] Translator of Dr. Franklin's works into French. I am apprehensive that I shall not be able to find leisure for making all the disquisitions and experiments which would be desirable on this subject. I must, therefore, content myself with a few remarks. The specific gravity of some human bodies, in comparison to that of water, has been examined by M. Robinson, in our Philosophical Transactions, volume 50, page 30, for the year 1757. He asserts, that fat persons, with small bones, float most easily upon water. The diving bell is accurately described in our Transactions. When I was a boy, I made two oval pallets, each about ten inches long, and six broad, with a hole for the thumb, in order to retain it fast in the palm of my hand. They much resembled a painter's pallets. In swimming, I pushed the edges of these forward, and I struck the water with their flat surfaces as I drew them back: I remember I swam faster by means of these pallets, but they fatigued my wrists. I also fitted to the soles of my feet a kind of sandals; but I was not satisfied with them, because I observed that the stroke is partly given by the inside of the feet and the ankles, and not entirely with the soles of the feet. We have here waistcoats for swimming, which are made of double sail cloth, with small pieces of cork quilted in between them. I know by experience, that it is a great comfort to a swimmer who has a considerable distance to go, to turn himself sometimes on his back, and to vary in other respects the means of procuring a progressive motion. When he is seized with the cramp in the leg, the method of driving it away is to give to the parts affected a sudden, vigorous and violent shock; which he may do in the air as he swims on his back. During the great heats of summer, there is no danger in bathing, however warm we may be, in rivers which have been thoroughly warmed by the sun. But to throw one's self into cold spring water, when the body has been heated by exercise in the sun, is an imprudence which may prove fatal. I once knew an instance of four young men, who, having worked at harvest in the heat of the day, with a view of refreshing themselves, plunged into a spring of cold water; two died upon the spot, a third the next morning, and the fourth recovered with great difficulty. A copious draught of cold water, in similar circumstances, is frequently attended with the same effect in North America. The exercise of swimming is one of the most healthy and agreeable in the world. After having swam for an hour or two in the evening, one sleeps coolly the whole night, even during the most ardent heat of summer. Perhaps, the pores being cleansed, the insensible perspiration increases, and occasions this coolness. It is certain, that much swimming is the means of stopping a diarrhoea, and even of producing a constipation. With respect to those who do not know how to swim, or who are affected with a diarrhoea at a season which does not permit them to use that exercise, a warm bath, by cleansing and purifying the skin, is found very salutary, and often effects a radical cure. I speak from my own experience, frequently repeated, and that of others, to whom I have recommended this. You will not be displeased if I conclude these hasty remarks by informing you, that as the ordinary method of swimming is reduced to the act of rowing with the arms and legs, and is, consequently, a laborious and fatiguing operation when the space of water to be crossed is considerable; there is a method in which a swimmer may pass to great distances with much facility, by means of a sail. This discovery I fortunately made by accident, and in the following manner:-- When I was a boy, I amused myself one day with flying a paper kite; and approaching the back of a pond, which was near a mile broad, I tied the string to a stake, and the kite ascended to a very considerable height above the pond, while I was swimming. In a little time, being desirous of amusing myself with my kite and enjoying at the same time the pleasure of swimming, I returned, and loosing from the stake the string with the little stick which was fastened to it, went again into the water, where I found, that, lying on my back, and holding the stick in my hands, I was drawn along the surface of the water in a very agreeable manner. Having then engaged another boy to carry my clothes round the pond, to a place which I pointed out to him, on the other side, I began to cross the pond with my kite, which carried me quite over without the least fatigue, and with the greatest pleasure imaginable. I was only obliged occasionally to halt a little in my course, and resist its progress, when it appeared that, by following too quick, I lowered the kite too much; by doing which occasionally I made it rise again. I have never since that time practised this singular mode of swimming, though I think it not impossible to cross in this manner from Dover to Calais. The packet-boat, however, is still preferable. PRELIMINARY ADDRESS TO THE PENNSYLVANIA ALMANAC, ENTITLED, "POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC, FOR THE YEAR 1758." I have heard, that nothing gives an author so great pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by other learned authors. This pleasure I have seldom enjoyed; for though I have been, if I may say it without vanity, an eminent author (of almanacs) annually, now a full quarter of a century, my brother authors in the same way (for what reason I know not) have ever been very sparing in their applauses; and no other author has taken the least notice of me; so that, did not my writings produce me some solid pudding, the great deficiency of praise would have quite discouraged me. I concluded, at length, that the people were the best judges of my merit, for they buy my works; and besides, in my rambles, where I am not personally known, I have frequently heard one or other of my adages repeated, with "as poor Richard says," at the end on't. This gave me some satisfaction, as it showed not only that my instructions were regarded, but discovered likewise some respect for my authority; and I own, that to encourage the practice of remembering and repeating those wise sentences, I have sometimes quoted myself with great gravity. Judge, then, how much I have been gratified by an incident which I am going to relate to you. I stopped my horse lately where a great number of people were collected at an auction of merchants goods. The hour of sale not being come, they were conversing on the badness of the times; and one of the company called to a plain, clean, old man, with white locks, "Pray, father Abraham, what think ye of the times? Won't these heavy taxes quite ruin the country? How shall we ever be able to pay them? What would you advise us to?" Father Abraham stood up, and replied,--"If you have my advice, I'll give it to you in short; 'for a word to the wise is enough; and many words won't fill a bushel,' as poor Richard says." They joined in desiring him to speak his mind; and, gathering round him, he proceeded as follows: "Friends (says he) and neighbors, the taxes are indeed very heavy; and if those laid on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we might more easily discharge them: but we have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly: and from these taxes the commissioners cannot ease or deliver us, by allowing an abatement. However, let us hearken to good advice, and something may be done for us; 'God helps them that help themselves,' as poor Richard says in his Almanac. "It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part of their time, to be employed in its service; but idleness taxes many of us much more, if we reckon all that is spent in absolute sloth, or doing of nothing, with that which is spent in idle employments, or amusements that amount to nothing. Sloth, by bringing on diseases, absolutely shortens life. 'Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the key often used is always bright,' as poor Richard says. 'But dost thou love life? then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of,' as poor Richard says. How much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep! forgetting that 'the sleeping fox catches no poultry, and that there will be sleeping enough in the grave,' as poor Richard says. 'If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be (as poor Richard says) the greatest prodigality;' since, as he elsewhere tells us, 'Lost time is never found again; and what we call time enough, always proves little enough.' Let us then up and be doing, and doing to the purpose: so by diligence shall we do more with less perplexity. 'Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all easy,' as poor Richard says; and 'He that riseth late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night; while laziness travels so slowly, that poverty soon overtakes him,' as we read in poor Richard; who adds, 'Drive thy business, let not that drive thee;' and, 'Early to bed, and early to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.' "So what signifies wishing and hoping for better times? We make these times better if we bestir ourselves. 'Industry needs not wish,' as poor Richard says; 'He that lives upon hope will die fasting.' 'There are no gains without pains; then help, hands, for I have no lands: or if I have, they are smartly taxed;' and (as poor Richard likewise observes) 'He that hath a trade hath an estate, and he that hath a calling hath an office of profit and honor;' but then the trade must be worked at, and the calling well followed, or neither the estate nor the office will enable us to pay our taxes. If we are industrious, we shall never starve; for, as poor Richard says, 'At the working-man's house hunger looks in, but dares not enter.' Nor will the bailiff or the constable enter; for, 'Industry pays debts, but despair increaseth them,' says poor Richard. What though you have found no treasure, nor has any rich relation left you a legacy? 'Diligence is the mother of good luck,' as poor Richard says: and 'God gives all things to industry: then plough deep while sluggards sleep, and you will have corn to sell and to keep,' says poor Dick. Work while it is called to-day; for you know not how much you may be hindered to-morrow; which makes poor Richard say, 'One to-day is worth two to-morrows;' and, further, 'Have you somewhat to do to-morrow, do it to-day.' 'If you were a servant, would you not be ashamed that a good master should catch you idle? Are you then your own master? be ashamed to catch yourself idle,' as poor Dick says. When there is so much to be done for yourself, your family, and your gracious king, be up by peep of day: 'Let not the sun look down, and say, Inglorious here he lies!' Handle your tools without mittens; remember, that 'the cat in gloves catches no mice,' as poor Richard says. It is true, there is much to be done, and perhaps you are weak-handed; but stick to it steadily, and you will see great effects; for continual dropping wears away stones, and by diligence and patience the mouse ate into the cable; and 'light strokes fell great oaks,' as poor Richard says in his Almanac, the year I cannot just now remember. "Methinks I hear some of you say, 'Must a man afford himself no leisure?'--I will tell thee, my friend, what poor Richard says; 'Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure; and since thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour.' Leisure is time for doing something useful; this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man never; so that, as poor Richard says, 'A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things.' Do you imagine that sloth will afford you more comfort than labor? No; for, as poor Richard says, 'Troubles spring from idleness, and grievous toils from needless ease: many without labor would live by their own wits only; but they break for want of stock.' Whereas industry gives comfort, and plenty, and respect. 'Fly pleasures, and they'll follow you; the diligent spinner has a large shift; and now I have a sheep and a cow, every body bids me good-morrow;' all which is well said by poor Richard. "But with our industry, we must likewise be steady, and settled, and careful, and oversee our own affairs with our own eyes, and not trust too much to others; for, as poor Richard says, 'I never saw an oft-removed tree, Nor yet an oft-removed family, That throve so well as one that settled be.' "And again, 'Three removes are as bad as a fire:' and again, 'Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee:' and again, 'If you would have your business done, go; if not, send.' And again, 'He that by the plough would thrive, Himself must either hold or drive.' "And again, 'The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands;' and again, 'Want of care does us more damage than want of knowledge;' and again, 'Not to oversee workmen is to leave them your purse open.' Trusting too much to others' care is the ruin of many; for, as the Almanac says, 'In the affairs of the world, men are saved not by faith, but by the want of it; but a man's own care is profitable; for,' saith poor Dick, 'Learning is to the studious and riches to the careful, as well as power to the bold, and heaven to the virtuous.' And, further, 'If you would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve yourself.' And again, he adviseth to circumspection and care, even in the smallest matters, because sometimes, 'A little neglect may breed great mischief;' adding, 'For want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost:' being overtaken and slain by the enemy, all for want of care about a horse-shoe nail. "So much for industry, my friends, and attention to one's own business; but to these we must add frugality, if we would make our industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, 'keep his nose all his life to the grindstone, and die not worth a groat at last.' 'A fat kitchen makes a lean will,' as poor Richard says; and, 'Many estates are spent in the getting; Since women for tea forsook spinning and knitting, And men for punch forsook hewing and splitting.' "'If you would be wealthy (says he, in another Almanac), think of saving, as well as of getting; the Indies have not made Spain rich, because her outgoes are greater than her incomes.' "Away then with your expensive follies, and you will not have much cause to complain of hard times, heavy taxes, and chargeable families; for, as poor Dick says, 'Women and wine, game and deceit, Make the wealth small, and the want great. "And, further, 'What maintains one vice, would bring up two children.' You may think, perhaps, that a little tea, or a little punch now and then, diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer, and a little entertainment now and then, can be no great matter; but remember what poor Richard says--'Many a little makes a mickle;' and further, 'Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship;' and again, 'Who dainties love shall beggars prove;' and moreover, 'Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them.' "Here you are all got together at this sale of fineries and nick-nacks. You call them _goods_; but if you do not take care, they will prove _evils_ to some of you. You expect they will be sold cheap, and perhaps they may for less than they cost; but if you have no occasion for them, they must be dear to you. Remember what poor Richard says--'Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessaries.' And again, 'At a great pennyworth pause awhile.' He means, that perhaps the cheapness is apparent only, or not real; or the bargain, by straitening thee in thy business, may do thee more harm than good. For in another place he says, 'Many have been ruined by buying good pennyworths.' Again, as poor Richard says, 'It is foolish to lay out money in a purchase of repentance:' and yet this folly is practised every day at auctions, for want of minding the Almanac. 'Wise men (as poor Dick says) learn by others' harms, fools scarcely by their own; but _Felix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum_.' Many a one, for the sake of finery on the back, have gone with a hungry belly, and half starved their families: 'Silk and satins, scarlet and velvets (as poor Richard says), put out the kitchen fire.' These are not the necessaries of life; they can scarcely be called the conveniences; and yet only because they look pretty, how many want to have them! The artificial wants of mankind thus become more numerous than the natural; and as poor Dick says, 'For one poor person there are a hundred indigent.' By these and other extravagances the genteel are reduced to poverty, and forced to borrow of those whom they formerly despised, but who, through industry and frugality, have maintained their standing; in which case it appears plainly, 'A ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees,' as poor Richard says. Perhaps they have had a small estate left them, which they knew not the getting of; they think 'It is day, and will never be night; that a little to be spent out of so much, is not worth minding.' 'A child and a fool (as poor Richard says) imagine twenty shillings and twenty years can never be spent; but always be taking out of the meal-tub, and never putting in, soon comes to the bottom:' then, as poor Dick says, 'When the well is dry, they know the worth of water.' But this they might have known before, if they had taken his advice: 'if you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some; for he that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing; and, indeed, so does he that lends to such people, when he goes to get it in again.' Poor Dick further advises, and says, 'Fond pride of dress is sure a very curse: Ere fancy you consult, consult your purse.' And again, 'Pride is as loud a beggar as Want, and a great deal more saucy.' When you have bought one fine thing, you must buy ten more, that your appearance may be all of a piece; but poor Dick says, 'It is easier to suppress the first desire, than to satisfy all that follow it.' And it is as truly folly for the poor to ape the rich, as the frog to swell in order to equal the ox. 'Vessels large may venture more, But little boats should keep near shore.' 'Tis, however, a folly soon punished; for 'Pride that dines on vanity, sups on contempt,' as poor Richard says. And in another place, 'Pride breakfasted with Plenty, dined with Poverty, and supped with Infamy.' And, after all, of what use is this pride of appearance, for which so much is risked, so much is suffered? It cannot promote health, or ease pain; it makes no increase of merit in the person; it hastens misfortune. What is a butterfly? At best, He's but a caterpillar drest; The gaudy fop's his picture just, as poor Richard says. "But what madness must it be to run in debt for these superfluities! We are offered, by the terms of this sale, six months' credit, and that perhaps has induced some of us to attend it, because we cannot spare the ready money, and hope now to be fine without it. But, ah! think what you do when you run in debt. You give to another power over your liberty. If you cannot pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your creditor: you will be in fear when you speak to him; you will make poor, pitiful, sneaking excuses, and by degrees come to lose your veracity, and sink into base, downright lying; for, as poor Richard says, 'The second vice is lying; the first is running in debt.' And again, to the same purpose, 'Lying rides upon debt's back;' whereas a free-born Englishman ought not to be ashamed nor afraid to speak to any man living.--But poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue: 'It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright,' as poor Richard truly says. What would you think of that prince, or that government, who would issue an edict, forbidding you to dress like a gentleman or gentlewoman, on pain of imprisonment or servitude? Would you not say, that you were free, have a right to dress as you please, and that such an edict would be a breach of your privileges, and such a government tyrannical? And yet you are about to put yourself under that tyranny when you run in debt for such dress! Your creditor has authority, at his pleasure, to deprive you of your liberty, by confining you in jail for life, or by selling you for a servant, if you should not be able to pay him. When you have got your bargain, you may, perhaps, think little of payment; but 'Creditors (poor Richard tells us) have better memories than debtors;' and in another place he says, 'Creditors are a superstitious sect, great observers of set days and times.' The day comes round before you are aware, and the demand is made before you are prepared to satisfy it; or, if you bear your debt in mind, the term which at first seemed so long, will, as it lessens, appear extremely short. Time will seem to have added wings to his heels as well as at his shoulders. 'Those have a short Lent (saith poor Richard) who owe money to be paid at Easter.' Then since, as he says, 'The borrower is a slave to the lender, and the debtor to the creditor,' disdain the chain, preserve your freedom, and maintain your independency: be industrious and free; be frugal and free. At present, perhaps, you may think yourselves in thriving circumstances, and that you can bear a little extravagance without injury; but 'For age and want save while you may, No morning sun lasts a whole day,' as poor Richard says. Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but ever, while you live, expense is constant and certain: and 'It is easier to build two chimneys, than to keep one in fuel,' as poor Richard says. So 'Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt.' 'Get what you can, and what you get hold, 'Tis the stone that will turn all your lead into gold,' as poor Richard says. And when you have got the philosopher's stone, sure you will no longer complain of bad times, or the difficulty of paying taxes. "This doctrine, my friends, is reason and wisdom; but, after all, do not depend too much upon your own industry, and frugality, and prudence, though excellent things; for they may be blasted, without the blessing of Heaven: and therefore ask that blessing humbly, and be not uncharitable to those that at present seem to want it, but comfort and help them. Remember Job suffered, and was afterwards prosperous. "And now, to conclude, 'Experience keeps a dear school; but fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that; for it is true, we may give advice, but we cannot give conduct,' as poor Richard says. However, remember this, 'They that will not be counseled cannot be helped,' as poor Richard says; and further, that 'If you will not hear Reason, she will surely rap your knuckles.'" Thus the old gentleman ended his harangue. The people heard it, and approved the doctrine, and immediately practised the contrary, just as if it had been a common sermon; for the auction opened, and they began to buy extravagantly, notwithstanding all his cautions, and their own fear of taxes. I found the good man had thoroughly studied my Almanacs, and digested all I had dropped on those topics, during the course of twenty-five years. The frequent mention he made of me, must have tired every one else; but my vanity was wonderfully delighted with it, though I was conscious that not a tenth part of the wisdom was my own, which he ascribed to me, but rather the gleanings that I had made of the sense of all ages and nations. However, I resolved to be the better for the echo of it; and though I had at first determined to buy stuff for a new coat, I went away, resolved to wear my old one a little longer. Reader, if thou wilt do the same, thy profit will be as great as mine. I am, as ever, thine to serve thee, RICHARD SAUNDERS. OBSERVATIONS ON WAR. By the original laws of nations, war and extirpation were the punishment of injury. Humanizing by degrees, it admitted slavery instead of death; a further step was the exchange of prisoners instead of slavery; another, to respect more the property of private persons under conquest, and be content with acquired dominion. Why should not this law of nations go on improving? Ages have intervened between its several steps; but as knowledge of late increases rapidly, why should not those steps be quickened? Why should it not be agreed to, as the future law of nations, that in any war hereafter, the following description of men should be undisturbed, have the protection of both sides, and be permitted to follow their employments in security? viz. 1. Cultivators of the earth, because they labor for the subsistence of mankind. 2. Fishermen, for the same reason. 3. Merchants and traders in unarmed ships, who accommodate different nations by communicating and exchanging the necessaries and conveniences of life. 4. Artists and mechanics, inhabiting and working in open towns. It is hardly necessary to add that the hospitals of enemies should be unmolested; they ought to be assisted. It is for the interest of humanity in general, that the occasions of war, and the inducements to it, should be diminished. If rapine be abolished, one of the encouragements to war is taken away; and peace, therefore, more likely to continue and be lasting. The practice of robbing merchants on the high seas--a remnant of the ancient piracy--though it may be accidentally beneficial to particular persons, is far from being profitable to all engaged in it, or to the nation that authorizes it. In the beginning of a war, some rich ships are surprised and taken. This encourages the first adventurers to fit out more armed vessels; and many others to do the same. But the enemy at the same time become more careful, arm their merchant ships better, and render them not so easy to be taken; they go also more under the protection of convoys. Thus, while the privateers to take them are multiplied, the vessels subjected to be taken and the chances of profit are diminished; so that many cruises are made wherein the expenses overgo the gains; and, as is the case in other lotteries, though particulars have got prizes, the mass of adventurers are losers, the whole expense of fitting out all the privateers during a war being much greater than the whole amount of goods taken. Then there is the national loss of all the labor of so many men during the time they have been employed in robbing; who, besides, spend what they get in riot, drunkenness, and debauchery; lose their habits of industry; are rarely fit for any sober business after a peace, and serve only to increase the number of highwaymen and house-breakers. Even the undertakers who have been fortunate are, by sudden wealth, led into expensive living, the habit of which continues when the means of supporting it cease, and finally ruins them; a just punishment for their having wantonly and unfeelingly ruined many honest, innocent traders and their families, whose substance was employed in serving the common interests of mankind. THE WAY TO MAKE MONEY PLENTY IN EVERY MAN'S POCKET. At this time, when the general complaint is that--"money is scarce," it will be an act of kindness to inform the moneyless how they may reinforce their pockets. I will acquaint them with the true secret of money-catching, the certain way to fill empty purses, and how to keep them always full. Two simple rules, well observed, will do the business. First, Let honesty and industry be thy constant companions; and, Secondly, Spend one penny less than thy clear gains. Then shall thy hide-bound pocket soon begin to thrive, and will never again cry with the empty belly-ache; neither will creditors insult thee, nor want oppress, nor hunger bite, nor nakedness freeze thee. The whole hemisphere will shine brighter, and pleasure spring up in every corner of thy heart. Now, therefore, embrace these rules and be happy. Banish the bleak winds of sorrow from thy mind, and live independent. Then shalt thou be a man, and not hide thy face at the approach of the rich, nor suffer the pain of feeling little when the sons of fortune walk at thy right hand; for independency, whether with little or much, is good fortune, and placeth thee on even ground with the proudest of the golden fleece. Oh, then, be wise, and let industry walk with thee in the morning, and attend thee until thou reachest the evening hour for rest. Let honesty be as the breath of thy soul, and never forget to have a penny, when all thy expenses are enumerated and paid; then shalt thou reach the point of happiness, and independence shall be thy shield and buckler, thy helmet and crown; then shall thy soul walk upright, nor stoop to the silken wretch because he hath riches, nor pocket an abuse because the hand which offers it wears a ring set with diamonds. MORALS OF CHESS. Playing at chess is the most ancient and universal game known among men; for its original is beyond the memory of history, and it has, for numberless ages, been the amusement of all the civilized nations of Asia--the Persians, the Indians, and the Chinese. Europe has had it above a thousand years; the Spaniards have spread it over their parts of America, and it begins to make its appearance in these States. It is so interesting in itself as not to need the view of gain to induce engaging in it; and thence it is never played for money. Those, therefore, who have leisure for such diversions, cannot find one that is more innocent; and the following piece, written with a view to correct (among a few young friends) some little improprieties in the practice of it, shows, at the same time, that it may, in its effects on the mind, be not merely innocent, but advantageous, to the vanquished as well as the victor. The game of chess is not merely an idle amusement. Several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired or strengthened by it, so as to become habits ready on all occasions. For life is a kind of chess, in which we have points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree, the effects of prudence or the want of it. By playing at chess, then, we learn, I. _Foresight_, which looks a little into futurity, considers the consequences that may attend an action: for it is continually occurring to the player, "If I move this piece, what will be the advantage of my new situation? What use can my adversary make of it to annoy me? What other moves can I make to support it, and to defend myself from his attacks?" II. _Circumspection_, which surveys the whole chessboard, or scene of action, the relations of the several pieces and situation, the dangers they are respectively exposed to, the several possibilities of their aiding each other, the probabilities that the adversary may take this or that move, and attack this or the other piece, and what different means can be used to avoid his stroke, or turn its consequences against him. III. _Caution_, not to make your moves too hastily. This habit is best acquired by observing strictly the laws of the game, such as, "If you touch a piece, you must move it somewhere; if you set it down, you must let it stand:" and it is therefore best that these rules should be observed; as the game thereby becomes more the image of human life, and particularly of war: in which, if you have incautiously put yourself into a bad and dangerous position, you cannot obtain your enemy's leave to withdraw your troops, and place them more securely, but you must abide all the consequences of your rashness. And, lastly, we learn by chess the habit of _not being discouraged by present bad appearances in the state of our affairs_, the habit of _hoping for a favorable change_, and that of _persevering in the search of resources_. The game is so full of events, there is such a variety of turns in it, the fortune of it is so subject to sudden vicissitudes, and one so frequently, after long contemplation, discovers the means of extricating one's self from a supposed insurmountable difficulty, that one is encouraged to continue the contest to the last, in hope of victory by our own skill, or at least of giving a stale mate, by the negligence of our adversary. And whoever considers, what in chess he often sees instances of,--that particular pieces of success are apt to produce presumption, and its consequent inattention, by which the loss may be recovered,--will learn not to be too much discouraged by the present success of his adversary, nor to despair of final good fortune, upon every little check he receives in the pursuit of it. That we may, therefore, be induced more frequently to choose this beneficial amusement, in preference to others, which are not attended with the same advantages, every circumstance which may increase the pleasure of it should be regarded; and every action or word that is unfair, disrespectful, or that in any way may give uneasiness, should be avoided, as contrary to the immediate intention of both the players, which is to pass the time agreeably. Therefore, first, If it is agreed to play according to the strictest rules, then those rules are to be exactly observed by both parties, and should not be insisted on for one side, while deviated from by the other--for this is not equitable. Secondly, If it is agreed not to observe the rules exactly, but one party demands indulgences, he should, then, be as willing to allow them to the other. Thirdly, No false move should ever be made to extricate yourself out of a difficulty, or to gain an advantage. There can be no pleasure in playing with a person once detected in such unfair practices. Fourthly, If your adversary is long in playing, you ought not to hurry him, or to express any uneasiness at his delay. You should not sing, nor whistle, nor look at your watch, nor take up a book to read, nor make a tapping with your feet on the floor, or with your fingers on the table, nor do any thing that may disturb his attention. For all these things displease; and they do not show your skill in playing, but your craftiness or your rudeness. Fifthly, You ought not to endeavor to amuse and deceive your adversary, by pretending to have made bad moves, and saying that you have now lost the game, in order to make him secure and careless, and inattentive to your schemes; for this is fraud and deceit, not skill in the game. Sixthly, You must not, when you have gained a victory, use any triumphing or insulting expression, nor show too much pleasure; but endeavor to console your adversary, and make him less dissatisfied with himself, by every kind of civil expression that may be used with truth; such as, "You understand the game better then I, but you are a little inattentive;" or, "You play too fast;" or, "You had the best of the game, but something happened to divert your thoughts, and that turned it in my favor." Seventhly, If you are a spectator while others play, observe the most perfect silence. For if you give advice, you offend both parties; him against whom you give it, because it may cause the loss of his game; and him in whose favor you gave it, because, though it be good, and he follows it, he loses the pleasure he might have had, if you had permitted him to think until it had occurred to himself. Even after a move, or moves, you must not, by replacing the pieces, show how it might have been placed better; for that displeases, and may occasion disputes and doubts about their true situation. All talking to the players lessens or diverts their attention, and is therefore unpleasing. Nor should you give the least hint to either party, by any kind of noise or motion. If you do, you are unworthy to be a spectator. If you have a mind to exercise or show your judgment, do it in playing your own game, when you have an opportunity, not in criticising, or meddling with, or counseling the play of others. Lastly, If the game is not to be played rigorously, according to the rules above-mentioned, then moderate your desire of victory over your adversary, and be pleased with one over yourself. Snatch not eagerly at every advantage offered by his unskilfulness or inattention; but point out to him kindly, that by such a move he places or leaves a piece in danger and unsupported; that by another he will put his king in a perilous situation, &c. By this generous civility (so opposite to the unfairness above forbidden), you may, indeed, happen to lose the game to your own opponent, but you will win what is better, his esteem, his respect, and his affection; together with the silent approbation and good-will of impartial spectators. CONVERSATION OF A COMPANY OF EPHEMERÆ; WITH THE SOLILOQUY OF ONE ADVANCED IN AGE. TO MADAME BRILLIANT. You may remember, my dear friend, that when we lately spent that happy day, in the delightful garden and sweet society of the _Moulin Joly_, I stopped a little in one of our walks, and staid some time behind the company. We had been shown numberless skeletons of a kind of little fly, called an ephemera, whose successive generations, we were told, were bred and expired within the day. I happened to see a living company of them on a leaf, who appeared to be engaged in conversation. You know I understand all the inferior animal tongues; my too great application to the study of them is the best excuse I can give for the little progress I have made in your charming language. I listened through curiosity to the discourse of these little creatures; but as they, in their national vivacity, spoke three or four together, I could make but little of their conversation. I found, however, by some broken expressions that I heard now and then, they were disputing warmly on the merit of two foreign musicians, one a _cousin_, the other a _moscheto_: in which dispute they spent their time, seeming as regardless of the shortness of their life as if they had been sure of living a month. Happy people, thought I; you live certainly under a wise, just, and mild government, since you have no public grievances to complain of, nor any other subject of contention but the perfections or imperfections of foreign music. I turned my head from them to an old gray-headed one, who was single on another leaf, and talking to himself. Being amused with his soliloquy, I put it down in writing, in hopes it will likewise amuse her to whom I am so much indebted for the most pleasing of all amusements, her delicious company and heavenly harmony. "It was," says he, "the opinion of learned philosophers of our race, who lived and flourished long before my time, that this vast world, the _Moulin Joly_, could not itself subsist more than eighteen hours: and I think there was some foundation for that opinion; since, by the apparent motion of the great luminary, that gives life to all nature, and which in my time has evidently declined considerably towards the ocean at the end of the earth, it must then finish its course, be extinguished in the waters that surround us, and leave the world in cold and darkness, necessarily producing universal death and destruction. I have lived seven of those hours; a great age, being no less than 420 minutes of time! How very few of us continue so long! I have seen generations born, flourish and expire. My present friends are children and grand-children of the friends of my youth, who are now, alas, no more! And I must soon follow them; for by the common course of nature, though still in health, I cannot expect to live above seven or eight minutes longer. What now avails all my toil and labor, in amassing the honey dew on this leaf, which I cannot live to enjoy? What my political struggles I have been engaged in, for the good of my compatriot inhabitants of this bush, or my philosophical studies, for the benefit of our race in general; for in politics (what can laws do without morals?) our present race of ephemeræ will in a course of minutes become corrupt like those of other and older bushes, and consequently as wretched! And in philosophy how small our progress! Alas! art is long, and life is short! My friends would comfort me with the idea of a name, they say, I shall leave behind me; and they tell me I have lived long enough to nature and to glory. But what will fame be to an ephemera who no longer exists? and what will become of all history in the eighteenth hour, when the world itself, even the whole _Moulin Joly_, shall come to its end, and be buried in a universal ruin?" To me, after all my eager pursuits, no solid pleasures now remain, but the reflection of a long life spent in meaning well, the sensible conversation of a few good lady ephemeræ, and now and then a kind smile and a tune from the ever amiable Brilliant B. FRANKLIN. 
30406	----	_AMERICAN PIONEERS AND PATRIOTS._ BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. A PICTURE OF THE STRUGGLES OF OUR INFANT NATION, ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO. BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT. "Print me as I am."--CROMWELL. ILLUSTRATED. NEW YORK: DODD, MEAD & COMPANY. 751 BROADWAY. COPYRIGHT, DODD, MEAD & COMPANY. 1876 PREFACE. Next to George Washington, we must write, upon the Catalogue of American Patriots, the name of Benjamin Franklin. He had so many virtues that there is no need of exaggerating them; so few imperfections that they need not be concealed. The writer has endeavored to give a perfectly accurate view of his character, and of that great struggle, in which he took so conspicuous a part, which secured the Independence of the United States. Probably there can no where be found, within the same limits, so vivid a picture of Life in America, one hundred years ago, as the career of Franklin presents. This volume is the twelfth of the Library Series of Pioneers and Patriots. The series presents a graphic history of our country from its discovery. 1. _Christopher Columbus_ reveals to us the West Indies, and gives a narrative of wonders unsurpassed in fact or fable. 2. _De Soto_ conducts us to Florida, and leads us through scenes of romance, crime, blood and woe--through many Indian tribes, across the continent, to the Mississippi, where he finds his melancholy grave. 3. _La Salle_, and his heroic companions, traversed thousands of miles of majestic lakes and unknown rivers, and introduces us to innumerable barbaric tribes. There is no other writer, who, from his own personal observation, can give one so vivid an idea of Life in the Indian village and wigwam. 4. _Miles Standish_ was the Captain of the Pilgrims. He conducts us in the May Flower, across the Atlantic, lands us at Plymouth, and tells the never to be forgotten story of the heroism of our fathers in laying the foundations of this great republic. 5. _Captain Kidd_, and the Buccaneers, reveal to us the awful condition of North and South America, when there was no protecting law here, and when pirates swept sea and land, inflicting atrocities, the narrative of which causes the ear which hears it to tingle. 6. _Peter Stuyvesant_ takes us by the hand, and introduces us to the Dutch settlement at the mouth of the Hudson, conveys us, in his schooner, up the solitary river, along whose forest-covered banks Indian villages were scattered; and reveals to us all the struggles, by which the Dutch New Amsterdam was converted into the English New York. 7. _Benjamin Franklin_ should chronologically take his place here. There is probably not, in the compass of all literature, a biography more full of entertainment and valuable thought, than a truthful sketch of the career of Benjamin Franklin. He leads us to Philadelphia, one hundred and fifty years ago, and makes us perfectly familiar with life there and then. He conducts us across the Atlantic to the Court of St. James, and the Court of Versailles. There is no writer, French or English, who has given such vivid sketches of the scenes which were witnessed there, as came from the pen of Benjamin Franklin. For half a century Franklin moved amid the most stupendous events, a graphic history of which his pen has recorded. 8. _George Washington_ has no superior. Humanity is proud of his name. He seems to have approached as near perfection as any man who ever lived. In his wonderful career we became familiar with all the struggles of the American Revolution. With a feeble soldiery, collected from a population of less than three millions of people, he baffled all the efforts of the fleets and armies of Great Britain, the most powerful empire upon this globe. 9. _Daniel Boone_ was the Cowper of the wilderness; a solitary man loving the silent companionship of the woods. He leads us across the Alleghanies to the fields of Kentucky, before any white man's foot had traversed those magnificent realms. No tale of romance could ever surpass his adventures with the Indians. 10. _Kit Carson_ was the child of the wilderness. He was by nature a gentleman, and one of the most lovable of men. His weird-like life passed rapidly away, before the introduction of railroads and steamboats. His strange, heroic adventures are ever read with astonishment, and they invariably secure for him the respect and affection of all who become familiar with his name. 11. _Paul Jones_ was one of the purest patriots, and perhaps the most heroic naval hero, to whom any country has given birth. He has been so traduced, by the Tory press of Great Britain, that even the Americans have not yet done him full justice. This narrative of his astonishing achievements will, it is hoped, give him rank, in the opinion of every reader, with Washington, Franklin, Jefferson and Lafayette. 12. _David Crockett_ was a unique man. There is no one like him. Under no institutions but ours could such a character be formed. From a log hut, more comfortless than the wigwam of the savage, and without being able either to read or write, he enters legislative halls, takes his seat in Congress, and makes the tour of our great cities, attracting crowds to hear him speak. His life is a wild romance of undoubted truth. Such is the character of this little library of twelve volumes. The writer, who has now entered the evening of life, affectionately commends them to the young men of America, upon whose footsteps their morning sun is now rising. The life of each one, if prolonged to three score years and ten, will surely prove a stormy scene. But it may end in a serene and tranquil evening, ushering in the glories of an immortal day. JOHN S. C. ABBOTT. FAIR HAVEN, CONN. As this is not improbably the last book I shall write, it may not be improper for me to state that, at the age of twenty-four, I commenced the career of an author, by writing "The Mother At Home." I have now attained the age of three score years and ten. In the meantime I have written fifty-four volumes of History or Biography. In every one it has been my endeavor to make the inhabitants of this sad world more brotherly,--better and happier. The long series is probably closed with the biography of Benjamin Franklin. Every page has been penned under this impression. A theme more full of instruction and interest could not be chosen. And now, in my declining years, as I feel that the battle has been fought and, I hope, the victory won, it is an unspeakable comfort for me to reflect, that, in all these fifty-four volumes, there is not one line which, "dying, I could wish to blot." CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. _Parentage and Early Life._ PAGE The parentage of Franklin--His parents emigrate to America--Character of his father--Abiah Folger, his mother--Birth and baptism--Influence of his Uncle Strong--Of the Whistle--Childish exploits--Uncongenial employment--Skill in swimming--Early reading--Boston at that time--An indentured apprentice--Form of Indenture--Enters a printing office--Fondness for reading--Anecdotes--Habits of study--Fondness for argument--Adopts a vegetable diet--The two creeds. 11 CHAPTER II. _Developments of Character._ Views of the Sabbath--Writings of Collins and Shaftsbury--The creed of Collins--Franklin at sixteen--The Courant--Denunciations of the paper--Franklin's mode of acquiring the art of composition--His success as a writer--The Editor prosecuted--Benjamin becomes Editor and Publisher--Jealousy of his brother--The runaway apprentice--The voyage to New York--Great disappointment--Eventful Journey to Philadelphia--Gloomy prospects--The dawn of brighter days. 31 CHAPTER III. _Excursion to England._ Attention to dress--Receives a visit from Gov. Keith--His visit to Boston--Collins returns to Philadelphia with him--Sir William Keith's aid--Excursions on the Sabbath--Difficulty with Collins--Spending Mr. Vernon's money--His three friends--Engagement with Deborah Read--Voyage to England--Keith's deceit--Ralph--Franklin enters a printing house in London. 52 CHAPTER IV. _Mental and Moral Conflicts._ Faithfulness to work--Neglect of Deborah Read--Treatise on Liberty and Necessity--Skill in swimming--Return to America--Marriage of Miss Read--Severe sickness--Death of Mr. Denham--Returns to Keimer's employ--The Junto--His Epitaph--Reformation of his treatise on Liberty and Necessity--Franklin's creed. 75 CHAPTER V. _The Dawn of Prosperity._ Franklin takes a house--His first job--His industry--Plans a Newspaper--Enters the list as a writer--Advocates a Paper currency--Purchases Keimer's paper--Character of Meredith--Struggles of the firm--Unexpected assistance--Dissolves partnership with Meredith--Franklin's energetic conduct--His courtship, and marriage--Character of Mrs. Franklin--Increase of luxury--Plans for a library--Prosperity of Pennsylvania--Customs in Philadelphia--Style of dress in 1726--Franklin's social position in Philadelphia--His success--A hard student. 101 CHAPTER VI. _Religious and Philosophic Views._ Studious habits--New religion--Personal habits--Church of the Free and Easy--His many accomplishments--The career of Hemphall--Birth and Death of Franklin's son--The Ministry of Whitefield--Remarkable friendship between the philosopher and the preacher--Prosperity of Franklin--His convivial habits--The defense of Philadelphia--Birth of a daughter--The Philadelphia Academy. 126 CHAPTER VII. _The Tradesman becomes a Philosopher._ Franklin appointed Indian commissioner--Effects of Rum--Indian logic--Accumulating honors--Benevolent enterprises--Franklin's counsel to Tennent--Efforts for city improvement--Anecdotes--Franklin appointed postmaster--Rumors of War--England enlists the Six Nations in her cause--Franklin plans a Confederacy of States--Plans rejected--Electrical experiments--Franklin's increase of income--Fearful experiments--The kite--New honors--Views of the French philosopher--Franklin's Religious views--His counsel to a young pleader--Post-office Reforms. 147 CHAPTER VIII. _The Rising Storms of War._ Aristocracy--Anecdote--Conflicting laws of Nations--Franklin's scheme of colonization--Proposal of the British Court--The foresight of Franklin--Braddock's campaign--Remonstrances of Franklin and Washington--Franklin's interviews with Braddock--Franklin's efficiency--Confidence of Braddock--The conflict with the Proprietaries--The non-resistant Quakers--Fate of the Moravian villages--The winter campaign--The camp of Gaudenhutton--Anecdote--Renewal of the strife with the Proprietaries--Franklin recalled to assist the Assembly--Destruction of the Fort--Claim of the Proprietaries--The great controversy. 168 CHAPTER IX. _Franklin's Mission to England._ New marks of respect--Lord Loudoun--Gov. Denny and Franklin--Visit the Indians--Franklin commissioner to England--His constant good nature--Loudoun's delays--Wise action of an English captain--The voyagers land at Falmouth--Journey to London--Franklin's style of living in London--His electrical experiments--He teaches the Cambridge professor--Complimentary action of St. Andrews--Gov. Denny displaced, and dark clouds arising--Franklin's successful diplomacy--His son appointed Governor of New Jersey--Great opposition--The homeward voyage--Savage horrors--Retaliating cruelties--Franklin's efforts in behalf of the Moravian Indians. 190 CHAPTER X. _Franklin's Second Mission to England._ Fiendish conduct of John Penn--Petition to the crown--Debt of England--Two causes of conflict--Franklin sent to England--His embarkation--Wise counsel to his daughter--The stamp act--American resolves--Edmund Burke--Examination of Franklin--Words of Lord Chatham--Dangers to English operatives--Repeal of the stamp act--Joy in America--Ross Mackay--New taxes levied--Character of George III--Accumulation of honors to Franklin--Warlike preparations--Human conscientiousness--Unpopularity of William Franklin--Marriage of Sarah Franklin--Franklin's varied investigations--Efforts to civilize the Sandwich Islands. 215 CHAPTER XI. _The Intolerance of King and Court._ Parties in England--Franklin the favorite of the opposition--Plans of the Tories--Christian III--Letter of Franklin--Dr. Priestley--Parisian courtesy--Louis XV--Visit to Ireland--Attempted alteration of the Prayer Book--Letter to his son--Astounding letters from America--Words of John Adams--Petition of the Assembly--Violent conspiracy against Franklin--His bearing in the court-room--Wedderburn's infamous charges--Letter of Franklin--Bitter words of Dr. Johnson--Morals of English lords--Commercial value of the Colonies--Dangers threatening Franklin. 240 CHAPTER XII. _The Bloodhounds of War Unleashed._ The mission of Josiah Quincy--Love of England by the Americans--Petition to the king--Sickness and death of Mrs. Franklin--Lord Chatham--His speech in favor of the colonists--Lord Howe--His interview with Franklin--Firmness of Franklin--His indignation--His mirth--Franklin's fable--He embarks for Philadelphia--Feeble condition of the colonies--England's expressions of contempt--Franklin's reception at Philadelphia--His letter to Edmund Burke--Post-office arrangements--Defection and conduct of William Franklin--His arrest. 265 CHAPTER XIII. _Progress of the War, both of Diplomacy and the Sword._ Letter of Henry Laurens--Franklin visits the army before Boston--Letter of Mrs. Adams--Burning of Falmouth--Franklin's journey to Montreal--The Declaration of Independence--Anecdote of the Hatter--Framing the Constitution--Lord Howe's Declaration--Franklin's reply--The Conference--Encouraging letter from France--Franklin's embassy to France--The two parties in France--The voyage--The reception in France. 292 CHAPTER XIV. _The Struggles of Diplomacy._ Anecdote of Gibbon--John Adams--Residence at Passy--Lafayette introduced--Cruise of the Reprisal--Paul Jones--Capture of Burgoyne--Alliance with France--Anecdote of the Cake--Excitement in England--Franklin's introduction to the king--Joy in America--Extraordinary letter of Count Wissenstein--The reply--Injustice to Paul Jones--French troops in America--Character of John Adams--Franklin's mature views of human nature--Anecdote of the Angel--Capture of Cornwallis--Its effect in England--Prejudices of Mr. Jay--Testimony of Dr. Sparks--Jealousy of Franklin--Shrewd diplomatic act--The treaty signed. 322 CHAPTER XV. _Life's Closing Scenes._ Advice to Thomas Paine--Scenes at Passy--Journey to the Coast--Return to America--Elected Governor of Pennsylvania--Attends the Constitutional Convention--Proposes prayers--Remarkable speech--Letter to Dr. Stiles--Christ on the Cross--Last sickness and death. 356 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. CHAPTER I. _Parentage and Early Life._ The parentage of Franklin--His parents emigrate to America--Character of his father--Abiah Folger, his mother--Birth and baptism--Influence of his Uncle Strong--Of the Whistle--Childish exploits--Uncongenial employment--Skill in swimming.--Early reading--Boston at that time--An indentured apprentice--Form of Indenture--Enters a printing office--Fondness for reading--Anecdotes--Habits of study--Fondness for argument--Adopts a vegetable diet--The two creeds. About the year 1685, Josiah Franklin, with his wife and three children, emigrated from Banbury, England, to seek his fortune in this new world. He was in all respects a very worthy man, intelligent, industrious, and influenced to conduct by high moral and religious principles. Several of Josiah Franklin's neighbors accompanied him in his removal. Boston was then a straggling village, of five or six thousand inhabitants. In front spread out its magnificent bay, with its beautiful islands. In the rear the primeval forest extended, almost unbroken, through unexplored wilds to the Pacific. His trade was that of a dyer. Finding, however, but little employment in that business, he set up as a tallow chandler and soap boiler. Four years of life's usual joys and sorrows passed away when Mrs. Franklin died, leaving six children. The eldest was but eleven years of age. This motherless little family needed a maternal guardian. Within the year, Mr. Franklin married Abiah Folger, of Nantucket. She was the youngest daughter of Peter Folger, a man illustrious for many virtues, and of whom it has been well said, that "he was worthy to be the grandfather of Benjamin Franklin." She proved to be a noble woman, and was all that either husband or children could wish for. Ten children were the fruit of this union. Benjamin was born on the sixth of January, (O. S.) 1706. He was born in the morning of a Sabbath day. His father then resided directly opposite the Old South Church, in Milk street. The same day, the babe, whose renown it was then little imagined would subsequently fill the civilized world, was wrapped in blankets, and carried by his father across the street through the wintry air, to the Old South Church, where he was baptized by the Rev. Dr. Willard. He was named Benjamin, after a much beloved uncle then residing in England. This uncle was a man of some property, of decided literary tastes, and of the simple, fervent piety, which characterized the best people of those days. He took an ever increasing interest in Benjamin. He eventually came over to this country, and exerted a powerful influence in moulding the character of his nephew, whose brilliant intellect he appreciated. Soon after the birth of Benjamin, his father removed to a humble but comfortable dwelling at the corner of Hanover and Union streets. Here he passed the remainder of his days. When Franklin had attained the age of five years, a terrible conflagration took place, since known as the Great Boston Fire. Just as the cold blasts of winter began to sweep the streets, this great calamity occurred. The whole heart of the thriving little town was laid in ashes. Over a hundred families found themselves in destitution in the streets. An incident took place when Franklin was about seven years of age, which left so indelible an impression upon his mind, that it cannot be omitted in any faithful record of his life. He gave the following account of the event in his autobiography, written after the lapse of sixty-six years: "My friends, on a holiday, filled my pockets with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children; and being charmed with the sound of a whistle that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily gave all my money for one. I then came home and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my whistle, but disturbing all the family. My brothers and sisters and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me that I had given four times as much for it as it was worth; put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money; and laughed at me so much for my folly, that I cried with vexation; and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure." This story, as published by Franklin, with his keen practical reflections, has become as a household word in all the families of England and America; and has been translated into nearly all the languages of modern Europe. From early childhood Franklin was celebrated for his physical beauty, his athletic vigor and his imperturbable good nature. His companions invariably recognized him as their natural leader. He was in no respect what would be called a religious boy, but in many things he had a high sense of honor. There was a marsh, flooded at high tides, where the boys used to fish for minnows. Much trampling had converted the spot into a quagmire. A man was about to build a house near by, and had carted a large quantity of stones for the cellar. Franklin called the boys together and suggested that they should go in the evening, take those stones, and build a wharf upon which they could stand with dry feet. It was done. And under the skilful engineering of the youthful Franklin, it was quite scientifically done. Complaints and detection followed. Josiah Franklin severely reproved Benjamin for the dishonest act, but it does not appear that the conscience of the precocious boy was much troubled. He argued very forcibly that the utility of the measure proved its necessity. At the age of eight years, Benjamin entered the Boston Grammar School. His progress was very rapid, and at the close of the year he was at the head of his class. The father had hoped to give his promising boy a liberal education; but his large family and straitened circumstances rendered it necessary for him to abandon the plan. At the age of ten years his school life was completed, and he was taken into his father's shop to run of errands, and to attend to the details of candle-making, cutting wicks, filling moulds, and waiting upon customers. He could write a good hand, could read fluently, could express himself with ease on paper, but in all arithmetical studies was very backward. There is scarcely any sport which has such a charm for boys as swimming. Franklin excelled all his companions. It is reported that his skill was wonderful; and that at any time between his twelfth and sixtieth year, he could with ease have swum across the Hellespont. In his earliest years, in all his amusements and employments, his inventive genius was at work in searching out expedients. To facilitate rapidity in swimming he formed two oval pallets, much resembling those used by painters, about ten inches long, and six broad. A hole was cut for the thumb and they were bound fast to the palm of the hand. Sandals of a somewhat similar construction were bound to the soles of the feet. With these appliances Franklin found that he could swim more rapidly, but his wrists soon became greatly fatigued. The sandals also he found of little avail, as in swimming, the propelling stroke is partly given by the inside of the feet and ankles, and not entirely by the soles of the feet. In the vicinity of Boston there was a pond a mile wide. Franklin made a large paper kite, and when the wind blew strongly across the pond, he raised it, and entering the water and throwing himself upon his back was borne rapidly to the opposite shore. "The motion," he says, "was exceedingly agreeable." A boy carried his clothes around. Subsequently he wrote to M. Dubourg, "I have never since that time practiced this singular mode of swimming; though I think it not impossible to cross in this manner from Dover to Calais. The packet boat, however, is still preferable."[1] [Footnote 1: Sparks' Life and Works of Franklin, Vol. 6, p. 291.] The taste for reading of this wonderful boy was insatiable. He had access, comparatively, to few books, but those he devoured with the utmost eagerness. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress was, so to speak, his first love. Having read and re-read it until his whole spirit was incorporated with its nature, he sold the volume and purchased Burton's Historical Collections. This consisted of quite a series of anecdotes and adventures, written in an attractive style, and published at a low price. In those early years he read another book which exerted a powerful influence in the formation of his character. When eighty years of age he alludes as follows to this work in a letter to Mr. Samuel Mather, who was son of the author, Cotton Mather, "When I was a boy I met with a book entitled 'Essays to do Good,' which I think was written by your father. It had been so little regarded by a former possessor that several leaves of it were torn out; but the remainder gave me such a turn of thinking, as to have an influence on my conduct through life; for I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good, than on any other kind of a reputation; and if I have been, as you seem to think, a useful citizen, the public owe the advantage of it to that book."[2] [Footnote 2: This volume has been republished by the Mass. S. S. Society.] When Franklin was twelve years of age, the population of Boston had increased to about ten thousand. An incident is recorded of Franklin at this time, which strikingly illustrates the peculiarity of his mental structure and the want of reverence with which he gradually accustomed himself to regard religious things. His father's habit, in the long graces which preceded each meal, rather wearied the temper of his son. The precocious young skeptic, with characteristic irreverence, ventured to say, "I think, father, that if you were to say grace over the whole cask, once for all, it would save time."[3] [Footnote 3: Works of Dr. Franklin by W. Temple Franklin. Vol. I, p. 447.] This was the remark of a boy but twelve years of age. Though it does not indicate a very devout spirit, it certainly gives evidence of an intellect of unusual acuteness. Franklin ever spoke of his boyhood as the very happy period of a remarkably happy life. His peculiar temperament enabled him to be happy under circumstances in which others would have been very miserable. His affections in after years ever yearned toward Boston; he was accustomed to speak of it as "that beloved place." In one of his letters to John Lathrop he wrote, "The Boston manner, the turn of phrase, and even tone of voice and accent in pronunciation, all please and seem to revive and refresh me." For two years Benjamin continued to assist his father in the business of soap and candle making. He was continually looking for an opportunity to escape the drudgery of that employment and enter upon some more congenial business. Like most adventurous boys, he thought much of the romance of a sea-life. An elder brother had run away, had gone to sea, and for years had not been heard from. Benjamin's father became very anxious as he witnessed the discontent of his son. This anxiety was increased when an elder brother married, removed to Rhode Island, and set up a soap and candle establishment for himself. This seemed to Benjamin to rivet the chains which bound him at home. Apparently his father could not spare him from the business. Thus he seemed doomed to spend the remainder of his days in employment which proved to him increasingly uncongenial. The judicious father, apprehensive that his son might be lured secretly to embark for some distant voyage, visited with his son all the varied workshops of Boston, that he might select that trade which to him would seem most desirable. Benjamin examined all these workshops with intensest interest. He selected the employment of a cutler, and entered upon the business for a few days; but at that time a boy who was about to learn a trade was apprenticed to a master. As a premium for learning the business he usually had to pay about one hundred dollars. Then after a series of years, during which he worked for nothing, he was entitled for a time to receive journeyman's wages. But his father, Josiah Franklin, was unable to settle satisfactorily the terms of indenture, and the cutlery trade was given up. We have mentioned that Franklin was one of a large family of children. By the two marriages of his father, there were sixteen sons and daughters around the family hearth. One of the sons, James, had been sent to London to learn the trade of a printer. He returned to Boston and set up business on his own account, when Benjamin was eleven years of age. It was decided to bind Benjamin to this business. Reluctantly Benjamin consented to place himself in such subordination to his brother. He was, however, bound to him for a period of nine years, from twelve to twenty-one. During the last year he was to receive a journeyman's wages. The following extract from this form of indenture of apprenticeship, which was in common use in the reign of George the First, will be read with interest. "He shall neither buy nor sell without his master's license. Taverns, inns, or ale-houses he shall not haunt. At cards, dice, tables, or any other unlawful game he shall not play. Matrimony he shall not contract; nor from the service of his said master day nor night absent himself, but in all things, as an honest and faithful apprentice, shall and will demean and behave himself towards his said master and all his, during said term. And the said James Franklin, the master, for and in consideration of the sum of ten pounds of lawful British money to him in hand paid by the said Josiah Franklin, the father, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, the said apprentice in the art of a printer which he now useth, shall teach and instruct or cause to be taught and instructed the best way and manner that he can, finding and allowing unto the said apprentice, meat, drink, washing, lodging and all other necessaries during the said term." Benjamin devoted himself with great assiduity to learn the trade of a printer. The office in which he worked, stood at the corner of Franklin avenue and Court street. For three years, Franklin was thus employed, apparently never seeking recreation, and never having a moment of leisure save such as he could rescue from sleep or from his meals. There were at that time several bookstores in Boston. The eminent men of that province had brought with them to the New World, literary and scientific tastes of a high order. Even then the axe of the settler had been heard but at a short distance in the primeval forests, which still encircled all the large towns. Bears were not unfrequently shot from Long Wharf, as they swam from island to island, or endeavored to cross the solitary bay. It is said that at that time twenty bears were often shot in a week. Benjamin Franklin, inspired by his love of reading, cultivated friendly relations with the clerks in the bookstores. From them he borrowed interesting volumes, which he took home in the evening with the utmost care, and having spent most of the night in reading, would return them at an early hour in the morning, before the master of the shop had time to miss them. Something in the demeanor of Franklin attracted the attention of a merchant in Boston by the name of Matthew Adams. He invited him to his library and loaned him books. The lad's Uncle Benjamin, in England, who was very fond of composing rhymes which he called poetry, sent many of his effusions to his favorite nephew, and opened quite a brisk correspondence with him. Thus Benjamin soon became a fluent rhymester, and wrote sundry ballads which were sold in the streets and became quite popular. There was a great demand at that time for narratives of the exploits of pirates, the doom of murderers, and wild love adventures. It is said that one of the Boston publishers, in the sale of ballads alone, found a very lucrative business. Benjamin, who found it very easy to write doggerel verse, wrote one ballad called "The Light-house Tragedy." It was a graphic, and what would be called at the present day, a sensational account of a shipwreck, in which the captain and his two daughters perished. He wrote another which was still more captivating, and which in all its main features was historically true. It was an account of the world-renowned pirate, Edward Teach, usually called Blackbeard. The reader will find a minute narrative of the career of that monster in the volume of this series of Pioneers and Patriots entitled "Captain Kidd; or the early American Buccaneers." One stanza has descended to us which it is said composed a portion of this ballad, and which is certainly a fair specimen of the popular style then in vogue. "Come all you jolly sailors You all so stout and brave, Come hearken and I'll tell you, What happened on the wave. Oh 'tis of that bloody Blackbeard I'm going now for to tell And as how by gallant Maynard He soon was sent to Hell. With a down, down, derry down." This was indeed wretched stuff, as Franklin afterwards admitted; but it is to be remembered he was then but a boy of fifteen. Having composed the ballad and set in type and printed it, he was then sent to hawk it through the streets. This was certainly a remarkable achievement for a lad of his years. The eagerness with which both of the ballads were seized by the public must have greatly gratified the self-esteem of the young writer. Addison was a bungler in talk, but every sentence from his pen was elegant. He once said, "I carry no loose change in my pocket, but I can draw for a thousand pounds." Burke said of Goldsmith, "He writes like an angel, but he talks like poor Poll." Franklin was by no means a bungler in his speech, but he was not fluent. He hesitated, and was at a loss for words, but whatever he wrote had a wonderful flow of harmony. The right word was always in the right place. Doubtless had he devoted as much attention to the acquirement of conversational ease, as he did to skill in writing, he would have been as successful in the one art as in the other. From early life it was his great ambition to be not merely a fine but a forcible writer. He did not seek splendor of diction, but that perspicuity, that transparency of expression which would convey the thought most directly to the mind. An odd volume of the Spectator fell in his way. He was charmed with the style. Selecting some interesting incident, he would read it with the closest care; he would then close the book, endeavoring to retain the thought only without regard to the expression. Then with pen, in hand, he would sit down and relate the anecdote or the incident in the most forceful and graphic words his vocabulary would afford. This he would correct and re-correct, minutely attending to the capitals and the punctuation until he had made it in all respects as perfect as it was in his power. He then compared his narrative with that in the Spectator. Of course he usually found many faults which he had committed, but occasionally he could not but admit he had improved upon his original. This encouraged him with the hope that by long continued practice, he might become an able writer of the English language. This practice he continued for months, varying it in many ways. He continued to rhyme, though he admitted that there was little poetry in his verse. The exercise, however, he thought useful in giving him a mastery of language. Though Franklin wrote ballads, he seemed to be mainly interested in reading books of the most elevated and instructive character. Locke's "Essay on the Human Understanding," he studied thoroughly. "The Art of Thinking," by the Messrs. de Port Royal, engrossed all his energies. But perhaps there was no book, at that time, which produced so deep and abiding impression on his mind as the "Memorabilia of Socrates," by Xenophon. Franklin was fond of arguing; he was naturally disputatious. With his keen intellect, he was pretty sure to come off as victor, at least in his own judgment, in discussions with his associates. But the Socratic method of argumentation, so different from that in which he had been accustomed to indulge, at once secured his approval and admiration. Socrates was never guilty of the discourtesy of assailing an opponent with flat contradiction or positive assertion. With a politeness which never failed him, and a modesty of demeanor which won the regard of all others, he would lead his fellow disputant, by a series of questions, to assent to the views which he advocated. Franklin immediately commenced practicing upon this newly discovered art. He was remarkably successful, and became one of the most agreeable and beloved of companions. But ere long he became satisfied of the folly of these disputations, in which each party struggles, not for truth, but for victory. It is simply an exercise of intellectual gladiatorship, in which the man who has the most skill and muscle discomfits his antagonist. Jefferson warned his nephew to avoid disputation. He says, "I have never known, during my long life, any persons' engage in a dispute in which they did not separate, each more firmly convinced than before of the correctness of his own views." Franklin enjoyed marvellous health. His digestive powers were perfect. He could live upon any thing and almost upon nothing without experiencing any inconvenience. A book advocating purely vegetable diet accidentally fell into his hands. It urged the pecuniary economy and the saving of time in adopting a vegetarian diet. Eagerly he adopted the views presented. He could safely do so, had the author advocated raw onions and carrots. The stomach of Franklin would have received them and assimilated them without any remonstrance. He succeeded in inducing his brother to relinquish one half of his board and allow him to board himself. Benjamin found that in this way, he saved much time and much money. A handful of raisins, a roll of bread, and a glass of water afforded him a dinner. This he could dispose of in from five to ten minutes, and have the remainder of the dinner hour for reading. The hours of the night were his own. He often sat up late and rose early, his soul all absorbed in intellectual vigils. There are two platforms of morality, in some respects inseparably blended, in others quite distinctly separated from each other. The one of these platforms constitutes the low standard of mere worldly morality. It says, You must not kill, you must not steal, you must not lie, you must not slander your neighbor, you must not cheat him in a bargain. But there is another platform which not only includes all this, but which introduces principles of an infinitely higher grade. It is the platform enforced by Jesus Christ as essential to a life which shall be pleasing to our Heavenly Father. Our Saviour says, You must love God in whom you live and move and have your being: you must daily pray to him with gratitude for the favors you receive. In the great conflict, raging here below, between sin and holiness, your whole heart must yearn with the desire that God's "kingdom may come and that His will may be done on earth as in Heaven." Imitating the example of your Saviour, who was God manifest in the flesh that by His life He might show men how to live, you must do everything in your power to lead your neighbors and friends to love God, to avoid everything in thought, word, or deed, which you think will be displeasing to Him; and you must do all in your power to prepare your heart for that world of purity and love where the spirits of the just are made perfect. No one can be blind to the fact that these principles are infinitely above the principles of mere worldly morality. They are not a substitute for those principles, but an addition to them. At the age of sixteen, Franklin was disposed to adopt the lower of these creeds as his rule of life; at times affirming that it was superior to the teachings of Jesus Christ; while again there would be the very clear and inconsistent avowal that, in this wicked world, something more was needed than teachings which he could plainly see seldom, if ever influenced a lost and degraded man, to be changed from a Saul of Tarsus to a Paul the Apostle. No one can understand the peculiar religious and moral character of Benjamin Franklin, without bearing in mind these distinctions. CHAPTER II. _Developments of Character._ Views of the Sabbath--Writings of Collins and Shaftsbury--The creed of Collins--Franklin at sixteen--The Courant--Denunciations of the paper--Franklin's mode of acquiring the art of composition--His success as a writer--The Editor prosecuted--Benjamin becomes Editor and Publisher--Jealousy of his brother--The runaway apprentice--The voyage to New York--Great disappointment--Eventful Journey to Philadelphia--Gloomy prospects--The dawn of brighter days. Franklin was never scrupulous in the observance of the Sabbath. Still, though he but occasionally attended church, he at times very earnestly urged that duty upon his young friends. It is not probable that the preaching he heard in those days, was calculated to interest him. While a child under the parental roof, he ordinarily accompanied his parents, and seemed to regard it as his duty to do so. He now, however, with an increasing sense of independence, very much preferred to spend his precious hours in his chamber, reading books which engrossed his most intense interest. Unfortunately many treatises fell into his hands in which unchristian sentiments were conveyed to his mind, by men of the highest intellectual character, and whose writings were invested with the most fascinating charms of eloquence. Robert Boyle, an Irish nobleman of wealth and fervent piety, had established at Oxford a lectureship, the object of which was to prove the truth of the Christian religion. These lectures had found their way in tracts to the little library of Franklin's father. When but fifteen years of age the boy read them, with a far keener relish than most school-boys now read the flashy novels of the day. In order to refute the arguments of the deists, the lecturers were bound to produce those arguments fairly and forcibly. But to this young boy's piercing mind, the arguments against Christianity seemed stronger than those which were brought forward to refute them. Thus the lad became, not a positive unbeliever, but an honest doubter. He now sought earnestly for other works upon that all-important subject. The two most important, influential and popular writers of that day were perhaps Anthony Collins and the Earl of Shaftsbury. These were both men of fortune, of polished education, and of great rhetorical and argumentative skill. Their influence over young minds was greatly increased by the courtesy and candor which pervaded all their writings. They ever wrote like gentlemen addressing gentlemen; and the views they urged were presented with the modesty of men who were earnestly seeking for the truth. The main attack of both of these men was directed against the miracles of the Bible. It was very evident that, the Divine authority of the Bible being overthrown, the whole structure of the Christian religion and morality must pass away. Mr. Parton, in his admirable Life of Franklin, says, "Any one who will turn over an edition of Shaftsbury, and try to read it with the mind of this merry and receptive printer's boy, will perceive how entirely captivating it must have been to him. The raillery that was always the raillery of a gentleman; the irony so delicate as really to deceive some men who passed for acute; the fine urbanity that pervades even the passages called severe; the genuine reverence of the author for virtue; the spectacle revealed of a man uniting in himself all that is good in sense, with all that is agreeable in the man of the world,--how pleasing it must all have been to our inky apprentice as he munched his noon-day crust." The practical creed of Collins and Shaftsbury, so far as it can be gleaned from the obscurity of their brilliant pages, consisted in the entire renunciation of all that is deemed the spirituality of the Christian creed, and the simple enforcement of the ordinary principles of morality in man's intercourse with his brother man. In substance they said, "Be truthful and honest. Do not openly oppose the institutions of Christianity, for that will render you obnoxious to your neighbors. Conform to the ordinary usages of the society in the midst of which you move; and as to creeds, let them alone as unworthy of a moment's thought." Franklin, at sixteen years of age, became a thorough convert to these views. He was virtually without any God. He had no rule of life but his own instincts; but those instincts were of a high order, emboldening his character and restraining him from all vulgar vice. Thus he wandered for many years; though there are many indications of an occasionally troubled mind, and though he at times struggled with great eagerness to obtain a higher state of moral perfection, he certainly never developed the character of a warm-hearted and devoted follower of Jesus.[4] [Footnote 4: "For some years he wandered in heathenish darkness. He forsook the safe and good though narrow way of his forefathers, and of his father and mother, and his gentle Uncle Benjamin, without finding better and larger ways of his own. He was in danger of becoming a castaway or a commonplace successful man of the world. He found in due time, after many trials, and much suffering and many grievous errors, that the soul of a man does not thrive upon negations, and that, in very truth a man must _believe_ in order that he may be saved."--_Parton's Life of Franklin, Vol. I, p. 71._] James Franklin was prosperous in his business. On the 17th of August, 1721, he issued the first number of a newspaper entitled "The New England Courant." Benjamin set the type, struck off the impression of two or three hundred, with a hand-press, and then traversed the streets, carrying the diminutive sheet to the homes of the subscribers. The Courant soon attracted attention. A knot of sparkling writers began to contribute to its columns, and while the paper was with increasing eagerness sought for, a clamor was soon raised against it. It was denounced as radical in its political tendencies, and as speaking contemptuously of the institutions of religion. Cotton Mather, even, launched one of his thunderbolts against it. He wrote, "We find a notorious, scandalous paper called 'The Courant' full freighted with nonsense, unmanliness, raillery, profaneness, immorality, arrogance, calumnies, lies, contradictions and what not, all tending to quarrels and divisions, and to debauch and corrupt the mind and manners of New England." Increase Mather also denounced the paper, in terms still more emphatic. At this time a strong antipathy was springing up between James, and his apprentice brother. James assumed the airs of a master, and was arrogant and domineering, at times in his anger proceeding even to blows. Benjamin was opinionated, headstrong and very unwilling to yield to another's guidance. As Benjamin compared his own compositions with those which were sent to the Courant, he was convinced that he could write as well, if not better, than others. He, therefore, one evening prepared an article, before he was sixteen years of age, which, with the greatest care, was written in pure Addisonian diction. Disguising his hand, he slipped this at night under the door of the printing office. The next morning several contributors were chatting together in the editorial office, as Benjamin stood at the printing case setting his types. The anonymous article was read and freely commented upon. The young writer was delighted in finding it highly commended, and in their guesses for the author, the names of the most distinguished men in Boston were mentioned. The singular nom de plume he assumed was "Silence Dogood." Over that signature he wrote many articles before it was ascertained that he was the author. These articles attracted so much attention that young Benjamin could not refrain from claiming their paternity. This led his brother and others to regard him with far more respect than heretofore. But the Courant, while popular with the masses, became unpopular with the governmental authorities and with the religious community. As a slap in the face of the government, a fictitious letter was written, professedly from Newport, stating that a piratic ship had appeared off the coast, plundering, burning, and destroying. It was then stated that the government of Massachusetts was fitting out an armed vessel to attack the pirate, and that, wind and weather permitting, the vessel would sail from Boston sometime during the month. This reflection upon the dilatoriness of government gave great offence. The members of the Council summoned Franklin before them to answer for the libel. He admitted that he was the publisher of the paper, but refused to give the name of the writer. The Council decided that the paragraph was a high affront to the government, and ordered his imprisonment in the Boston jail. Here he was incarcerated for a week. Crushed by his misfortunes he wrote a very humble letter stating that his close confinement endangered his life, and begging that he might enjoy the liberty of the jail-yard. His request was granted, and for three weeks more he remained a prisoner, though with daily permission to leave his cell. During this time Benjamin conducted the paper, editing it, setting the type, printing the sheets and distributing the copies to the subscribers. He was still but a boy of sixteen. James was eventually released from prison, but the general character of the Courant remained unchanged. Unworthy professors of Christianity were incessantly assailed. The virtues of true Christians--of the multitudes of the disciples of Jesus, who were mothers in Israel, or who were Israelites indeed in whom there was no guile, were forgotten; while every mean and contemptible act of hypocrites and apostates was proclaimed with trumpet resonance. At length the Council declared in reference to a peculiarly obnoxious copy of the paper, that the Courant of that date contained many passages perverting the Holy Scriptures, and slandering the civil government, the ministers, and the good people of the land. A committee of three was appointed to report upon the matter. After two days they brought in the following decision: "We are humbly of opinion that the tendency of said paper, is to mock religion and bring it into contempt; that the Holy Scriptures are therein profanely abused; that the revered and faithful ministers of the Gospel are ignominiously reflected on; and that His Majesty's government is affronted; and the peace and good order of His Majesty's subjects of this province disturbed by this said Courant." The committee, therefore, proposed that James Franklin should be strictly forbidden to print or publish the Courant, or any other paper of the like nature, unless it were supervised by the secretary of the province. James Franklin and his friends, after this decision, met in the office of the Courant, and adroitly decided to evade the mandate by canceling the indentures of apprenticeship of Benjamin, and constituting him the editor and publisher of the journal. This precocious lad prepared his inaugural. It contained the following sentiments: "Long has the press groaned in bringing forth a hateful brood of pamphlets, malicious scribbles, and billingsgate ribaldry. No generous and impartial person then can blame the present undertaking which is designed purely for the diversion and merriment of the reader. Pieces of pleasantry and mirth have a secret charm in them to allay the heats and tumults of our spirits, and to make a man forget his restless resentment. The main design of this weekly paper will be to entertain the town with the most comical and diverting incidents of human life, which in so large a place as Boston will not fail of a universal exemplification. Nor shall we be wanting to fill up these papers with a grateful interspersion of more serious morals which may be drawn from the most ludicrous and odd parts of life." It cannot be denied that Franklin aimed his keen shafts at many of the best of men who were consecrating all their energies to the promotion of the physical, moral, and religious welfare of their fellow creatures. He had a keen eye to search out their frailties; and though he seldom if ever, dipped his pen in gall, he did at times succeed in making them the song of the drunkard, and in turning against them the derision of all the lewd fellows of the baser sort. Benjamin, elated by flattery and success, admits that at seventeen years of age he became in his treatment of his brother "saucy and provoking." James was increasingly jealous and exacting. At length a very violent quarrel arose between them. The elder brother even undertook to chastise his younger brother, whom he still affected to regard as his apprentice. The canceling of the terms of indenture, he regarded as a secret act, intended merely to outwit his opponent. Franklin, burning with indignation, resolved no longer to continue in his brother's employment, and went to several other printers in Boston, hoping to enter into a new engagement. But his brother had preceded him, giving his own version of the story, and even declaring his brilliant brother to be an infidel and an atheist. Benjamin resolved to run away; for he still felt the binding obligation of his apprenticeship, while he tried to satisfy his mind that the unjust conduct of James entitled him to violate the obligation. There was a vessel about to sail for New York. He sold some of his books to pay his passage; and going on board secretly at night, he solicited the captain to aid him in concealing him, with the _false_ statement that he had become involved in a love adventure with a young girl; that she had subsequently proved to be a bad character; that her friends insisted on his marrying her; and that his only refuge was to be found in flight. His passage to New York was swift and pleasant. It is said that having adopted the vegetarian diet, he doubted our right to deprive an animal of life for our own gratification in eating. The sloop was one day becalmed off Block Island. The crew found it splendid fishing ground; the deck was soon covered with cod and haddock. Franklin denounced catching the fishes, as murderous, as no one could affirm that these fishes, so happy in the water, had ever conferred any injury upon their captors. But Benjamin was blessed with a voracious appetite. The frying pan was busy, and the odor from the fresh fish was exceedingly alluring. As he watched a sailor cutting open a fish, he observed in its stomach a smaller fish, which the cod had evidently eaten. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "if you can eat one another, I surely have a right to eat you." All his scruples vanished. He sat down with the rest to the sumptuous repast, and never after seemed to have any hesitancy in gratifying his appetite. Benjamin tells this story in his autobiography, and shrewdly adds, quoting from some one else, "So convenient a thing it is to be a _reasonable_ creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do." It was in the beautiful month of October, 1723, when Benjamin landed on the wharves of New York. He was not quite eighteen years of age; had but little money in his purse; and was without any letter of recommendation or any acquaintance in the town. The place consisted of but seven or eight thousand inhabitants. The streets were the crooked lanes which we still find in the vicinity of the Battery. Some of the most important were uncomfortably paved with cobble stones. Most of the inhabitants were Dutch, reading and speaking only the Dutch language. There was at that time indeed, but little encouragement for an English printer. There was but one bookstore then in New York; and but one printing office, which was conducted by William Bradford. The runaway apprentice could find no employment. But William Bradford had a son in Philadelphia who was also a printer. He said to Benjamin, "He may employ you, as he has recently lost an apprentice by death." Leaving his chest of clothes to go round by sea to Philadelphia, Benjamin took passage in a small dilapidated shore boat which crept along the coast to Amboy. A drunken Dutchman was his only fellow passenger. The gloom of the primeval forest overshadowed Governor's Island: not a single cabin as yet had been reared in its solitudes. A squall struck the boat, split its sail, and pitched the Dutchman overboard. Franklin caught him by the hair and saved him from drowning. The sudden tempest increased into a storm, and the boat was driven fiercely before the gale. The surf dashed so violently upon the shore that they could not venture to land. Night approached. Exhausted, drenched and hungry, they cast anchor near the Long Island shore, where a bend in the land afforded them slight protection while still they were in great danger. There were one or two log cabins in the vicinity. Several of the men came to the shore, but could afford them no relief. They had no provision on board excepting a single bottle of bad rum. All night long the tempest beat upon them. In the morning the wind had so far lulled that they were enabled to repair their sail, and to work their way on to Amboy. It was late in the afternoon when they reached the port. For thirty hours they had been without food or water. Such were the perils of a passage from New York to Philadelphia in the year 1723. Franklin, in the enjoyment of magnificent health, slept quietly that night in an humble inn, and awoke in the morning with all his accustomed vigor. There were still fifty miles of land travel before him, ere he could cross the forest covered plains of New Jersey to Burlington, on the banks of the Delaware, which were seventeen miles above Philadelphia. There was neither railroad, stage-coach nor cart to convey him through the wilderness. Indeed it was thirty-three years after this before the first line of stages across New Jersey was established. There was a rude path, probably following an ancient Indian trail, along which our solitary adventurer trudged on foot. It rained; but still Benjamin found it necessary, having so slender a purse, to press on regardless of discomfort. Early in the afternoon he came to a hamlet, by the roadside, where he found himself so exhausted by the unaccustomed toil of walking, and by exposure to the rain and the miry roads, that he felt it necessary to remain until the next morning. The aspect he presented was shabby and dilapidated in the extreme; for he was in his working dress, which by the wear and tear of travel had become greatly soiled and tattered. He was not a little mortified to find that the inhabitants of the cabin, while they treated him kindly, evidently regarded him with suspicion as a runaway apprentice. In the gloom of that night, poor Benjamin bitterly repented the step he had taken, and earnestly wished himself back again in the home which he had forsaken. Clouds and darkness had gathered around his path and he could see but little bright beyond. Early the next morning he resumed his travels, pressing vigorously along all day. When the shades of night enveloped him he had reached a point within ten miles of Burlington. He passed the night comfortably in a settler's cabin, and early the next morning pressed on to the little village of Burlington, from which he was informed that a boat started every Saturday, to descend the still silent and almost unfrequented shores of the Delaware to Philadelphia. Much to his disappointment he reached Burlington just after the regular Saturday boat had gone, and was informed that there was no other boat to leave until the next Tuesday. He made his united breakfast and dinner upon gingerbread, which he bought in the street of an old woman. Burlington was on the east side of the river, Philadelphia was on the west. There was no road between the two places, the communication being by the river only. It seemed impossible for Benjamin to toil that distance through the pathless, tangled forest. He had but five shillings in his pocket. With the utmost economy that would not defray his expenses at Burlington, for three days, and leave a sufficient sum to pay his passage down the river. In his distress and perplexity, our young philosopher, whose renown for wisdom subsequently filled all Christian lands, turned back to the poor, aged woman of whom he had bought his gingerbread and solicited her advice. The good old soul, not insensible to the charms of the frank and manly looking boy, with motherly tenderness insisted on his going to her own humble home. Gladly he accepted the invitation. The dinner consisted of what is called ox-cheek; Franklin contributed a pot of beer. Walking out early in the evening upon the banks of the river, he found, to his great joy, a chance boat had come along, bound to Philadelphia and containing many passengers. Eagerly Franklin joined them, and bidding adieu to his kind entertainer, was soon drifting slowly down the stream. The night was dark, there was no wind, and no cheerful gleam from the white man's cabin or the Indian's wigwam met the eye. It was necessary to resort to rowing. At length, a little after midnight, several of the passengers insisted that they must have passed Philadelphia without seeing it, and refused to row any farther. They therefore ran the boat into a little creek, built a rousing fire, for the night was damp and chill, and ranging themselves around its genial warmth awaited the dawn of the morning. The light revealed to them Philadelphia but a few miles below them. It was Sunday morning. At nine o'clock the boat was made fast at Market street wharf, and Franklin, with one silver dollar and one shilling in copper coin in his pocket, stepped on shore. All his copper coin he paid for his passage. Such was the introduction of the future Governor of Pennsylvania to the realm over which he was eventually to preside as Governor, and of which he became its most illustrious citizen. He was unquestionably dressed in the peculiar and picturesque costume of the times. He wore knee breeches of buckskin, and a voluminous overcoat, lined with pockets of astonishing capacity, which pockets were crammed with shirts and stockings. A low, battered, broad-brimmed hat covered his clustering ringlets. His coarse woolen stockings displayed to advantage the admirably moulded calves of his legs. Every article of this costume was draggled, shabby, soiled, and much of it tattered. With an indescribable feeling of loneliness, exhausted with the toilsome and sleepless night, and with the cravings of hunger, he sauntered up into the town. Coming across a baker's shop, he stepped in, and called for three pennyworth of bread. In Philadelphia, food was abundant and bread was cheap. To his surprise three long rolls were given to him. He took one under each arm, and in his hunger the homeless boy walked along devouring the other. Philadelphia was then a village widely spread out, with surrounding vegetable gardens, and containing a population of about seven thousand inhabitants. Benjamin walked listlessly along as far as Fourth street. He chanced to pass the house of a Mr. Read, whose very pretty daughter, Deborah, was standing at the front door. She was eighteen years of age, and was much amused at the comical appearance which the young man presented as he passed by. [Illustration] It is not easy to imagine in these days, the state of society in these early settlements, hewn out from the forests on the river's banks, and with the unexplored wilderness spreading out to unimagined regions in the interior. At night, even from the houses of the village, the howling of the wolves could be heard as they rushed after their prey. Bears and deers were shot in abundance. And Indian bands, painted and plumed, were ever swarming through the streets. Franklin walked along, devouring his rolls, and returned to the river for a drink of water. Such was his first breakfast in Philadelphia. In the boat was a poor woman with her child. Franklin gave to her the two remaining rolls, which he could not conveniently carry about with him. Not knowing what to do, and led by curiosity to explore the town, he returned to Market street, then one of the chief avenues of the city. It was a little after ten o'clock in the morning. The street was crowded with well-dressed people, pressing along to church. There was one important edifice called the "Great Meeting House" of the Quakers. It stood at the corner of Second and Market streets. Franklin joined the crowd, and took his seat with the vast assembly. He soon fell soundly asleep. The hour passed away. The congregation dispersed, and Benjamin was left still asleep. Some one then kindly awoke the tired traveler, and he again stepped out into the streets so lonely, where there was not an individual whom he knew, and where almost without money he could find no refuge which he could call a home. As he walked toward the river, he met a young Quaker whose countenance pleased him. Of him he inquired where he could find a respectable and comfortable lodging. The friendly Quaker led him to a tavern, near Chestnut street, called the "Crooked Billet." Franklin ordered a frugal dinner, threw himself upon the bed, and slept till supper time, and immediately after supper went to bed and slept soundly till the morning. He had now been from home eleven days. His money was nearly expended. His clothes were worn; and almost the only hope remaining was the very visionary one that Mr. Bradford's son might possibly have some employment for him. Early in the morning he carefully brushed his travel-worn clothes, his shoes, his hat, and making himself as respectable in appearance as possible, went to the house of the printer, Andrew Bradford. To his surprise and gratification he found the father there, who had just arrived, having traveled from New York to Philadelphia on horseback. Benjamin met with a courteous reception, was invited to breakfast. He was, however, greatly disappointed in being informed that Andrew Bradford had just engaged another apprentice to take the place of the one who was lost. Mr. Bradford, however, stated that there was a man, by the name of Keimer, who had recently commenced the printing business in the town, and might have employment for him. The old gentleman kindly offered to go to the office with Benjamin, and introduce him to Keimer. They found Keimer a very eccentric looking individual, in a small office, with an old dilapidated press, and with a few worn-out types. He asked the young man a few questions, put a composing stick into his hands, and professed himself satisfied with his work. He then told Franklin that he could find no work for him immediately, but he thought ere long he could employ him. It seems, however, that at once Benjamin went to work, repairing the dilapidated old press, while he continued to board at Mr. Bradford's, paying for his board by the work which he performed. CHAPTER III. _Excursion to England._ Attention to dress--Receives a visit from Gov. Keith--His visit to Boston--Collins returns to Philadelphia with him--Sir William Keith's aid--Excursions on the Sabbath--Difficulty with Collins--Spending Mr. Vernon's money--His three friends--Engagement with Deborah Read--Voyage to England--Keith's deceit--Ralph--Franklin enters a printing house in London. The eccentric Keimer soon found that Franklin was a workman whose services would be invaluable to him. He had no home of his own, but became very unwilling that Benjamin, while in his employ, should board in the family of a rival printer. He therefore made arrangements for him to board at Mr. Read's, whose pretty daughter, Deborah, had made herself merry but a few days before in view of his uncouth appearance. Fortunately for the young man, who was never regardless of the advantages of a genteel dress, his chest had arrived bringing his clothing. He was thus able to present himself before the young lady in attractive costume. And his address was always that of an accomplished gentleman. As we have mentioned, he was ever in his youth, middle life, and old age, remarkable for his personal beauty. Bright and sunny days now dawned upon Franklin. His employer appreciated his varied and wonderful merits. He received good wages. The family in which he resided was highly attractive, and he there found a home congenial with his pure and refined tastes. Several months passed away before he heard from the friends he had left in Boston. The tyranny of his brother had so greatly offended him, that for a time he endeavored to exclude from his mind all thoughts of his home. He heard, however, that one of his sisters had married Captain Robert Holmes, the captain of a vessel sailing between Boston and the ports on the Delaware. In those piratical days, when the master of a ship was compelled to sail with guns loaded to the muzzle, and with sharpened sabres, he was deemed a personage of great importance. No weak or ordinary man could discharge the responsibilities of such a post. Captain Holmes, influenced by the love of his wife, wrote to Benjamin informing him of the grief his departure had caused the family, entreating him to return, and assuring him that all the past should be forgotten. Benjamin, in his reply, wrote with such precision and force of logic, that Captain Holmes became satisfied that he was by no means so much in the wrong as he had supposed. It so chanced that when the captain received this letter, he was in company with Sir William Keith, then the Governor of Pennsylvania. He read the letter to the Governor. Sir William was charmed with its literary and rhetorical ability; and could scarcely believe that the writer was but eighteen years of age. "The Philadelphia printers," said he, "are wretched ones. Keimer is a compound of fool and rogue. But this young man is manifestly of great promise and ought to be encouraged." One day Benjamin and his master were working together, when they saw two well-dressed gentlemen approaching. They proved to be the Governor of Pennsylvania, Sir William Keith, and Franklin's brother-in-law, Captain Holmes, whom he probably had never before seen. Keimer ran down stairs to meet them, supposing, of course, that he must be the man who was entitled to the honor of their visit. To his surprise they inquired for his apprentice, and went up the stairs to the printing office to see him. Benjamin was quite overwhelmed by the honors with which he was greeted. The Governor paid him many compliments, expressed an earnest desire to make his acquaintance, and politely censured him for not calling at the gubernatorial mansion upon his arrival in Philadelphia. The interview was terminated by taking Franklin with them to a neighboring tavern to dine. There the three met upon apparently perfect social equality, and very freely discussed many important matters as they drank their wine. The Governor, a very plausible, unreliable man, ever lavish of promises without performance, proposed that Franklin, aided by funds from his father, should open a printing office for himself. He promised to exert his influence to secure for his young protegé the public printing of both the provinces of Pennsylvania and Delaware. When Franklin suggested that he feared his father would be either unable or unwilling to furnish the needed funds, the Governor promised to write to him with his own hand, explaining the advantages of the scheme. During the protracted interview, it was decided that Benjamin should return to Boston by the first vessel. He was to take with him Sir William's letter, and thus aided, endeavor to win over his father to their plans. A week or two elapsed before there was a vessel ready to sail for Boston. At that time the social rank of a printer was decidedly above that of other mechanic arts. There was something sacred attached to the employment, and it was regarded as near akin to the learned professions. Franklin was frequently invited to dine with the Governor. His perfect self-possession, his careful dress and polished address, united with his wonderful conversational powers, rendered him a great favorite with all the distinguished guests whom he was accustomed to meet at the table of the Governor. The latter part of April, 1724, Franklin, then eighteen years of age, took passage in a small vessel for Boston. His friends in Philadelphia generally understood that he was going home merely to visit his friends. It was deemed expedient to throw the veil of great secrecy over the enterprise in which he was contemplating to engage. The voyage was exceedingly tempestuous. The vessel sprang a leak. For some time passengers and crew worked at the pumps night and day. But after being buffeted by winds and waves for fourteen dreary days, the little vessel cast anchor in the harbor of Boston. Franklin had then been absent from home seven months. His sudden appearance was a great surprise to all the members of the numerous family. It is not surprising that the young man, elated by his brilliant prospects, assumed rather lordly airs. His dress was new and quite elegant. He had purchased a handsome watch, which he was not reluctant to display. He had in his pocket twenty-five dollars of silver coin. Franklin's brother James, from whom he had run away, was greatly annoyed by the airs of superiority assumed by his old apprentice. With a cold and almost scornful eye, he scanned his person from head to foot, scarcely offering his hand in greeting, and soon coldly and silently returned to his work. But the imperial young man was not thus to be put down. His former acquaintances gathered eagerly around him and listened with intensest interest to the narrative of his adventures. In glowing terms, Benjamin described his new home in Philadelphia, drew out from his pocket handfuls of silver which he exhibited to them, and with quite lordly dignity gave his former fellow-journeymen money to go to the ale-house for a treat. The candid reader will make some allowances for the conduct of Benjamin, when he remembers that but a few months before, he had run away to escape the cudgel of his brother. He will also feel inclined to make some allowance for James, when informed that he was in adversity, and struggling severely with pecuniary embarrassment. The Courant, deprived of the graphic pen of Franklin, was rapidly losing its subscribers, and soon became extinct. Benjamin's father Josiah, who needed in his own business every dollar of the funds he could raise, silently and almost without remark, read the letter of Sir William Keith, and listened attentively to the glowing descriptions of his son. Soon after Captain Holmes arrived. The judicious father conversed fully with him, and expressed his opinion that Sir William Keith must be a man of but little discretion to think of setting up independently, in very responsible business, a young man of but eighteen years of age. Though Captain Holmes earnestly advocated the views of the Governor, Josiah Franklin, after mature deliberation, decisively declined furnishing the necessary funds. "Benjamin," said he, "is too young to undertake an enterprise so important. I am much gratified that he has been able to secure the approbation of the Governor of Pennsylvania, and that by his industry and fidelity he has been able to attain prosperity so remarkable. If he will return to Philadelphia and work diligently until he is twenty-one, carefully laying up his surplus earnings, I will then do everything in my power to aid him." The cautious Christian father then gave his son some very salutary advice. He entreated him to be more careful in throwing out his arrows of satire, and to cease presenting, in the aspect of the ridiculous, so many subjects which religious men regarded with veneration. He wrote a very courteous letter to Sir William Keith, thanking him for his kindness to his son, and stating his reasons for declining the proposed aid. Indeed, Josiah Franklin was intellectually, morally, and in all sound judgment, immeasurably the superior of the fickle and shallow royal Governor. Sixty years after this visit of Franklin to his paternal home, he wrote a letter to the son of the Rev. Cotton Mather, from which we make the following pleasing extract: "The last time I saw your father was in the beginning of 1724, when I visited him after my first trip to Pennsylvania. He received me in his library; and on my taking leave showed me a shorter way out of the house through a narrow passage which was crossed by a beam overhead. We were still talking as I withdrew, he accompanying me behind, and I, turning partly toward him, when he said hastily, _stoop, stoop!_ I did not understand him till I felt my head hit against the beam. He was a man that never missed any occasion of giving instruction; and upon this he said to me 'You are young and have the world before you. Stoop as you go through it, and you will miss many hard thumps.' This advice, thus beat into my head, has frequently been of use to me. And I often think of it when I see pride mortified and misfortunes brought upon people by their carrying their heads too high." There was in Boston a young man by the name of Collins, a reckless, dissipated spendthrift, of very considerable personal attractions. He had been quite an intimate friend of Franklin; and was so pleased with his descriptions of Philadelphia that he decided to remove there. This proved one of the calamities of Franklin's life. Franklin eventually embarked, in a sloop, for his return. It touched at Newport. His brother John lived there, pursuing the trade of a candle-maker. Benjamin was received by him with great cordiality. At Newport, among the other passengers, two young girls were taken on board for New York. They were showy, voluble, gaudily dressed. All their arts were exerted to secure intimate association with Franklin. A venerable Quaker lady on board called the inexperienced young man aside, and with motherly tenderness warned him against their wiles. Though he doubted the necessity of this caution, he was put upon his guard. When the girls left at New York, he declined their pressing invitation for him to visit them at their home, and he learned from the captain that they had undoubtedly stolen from him a silver spoon, an article then not often seen in common life, and highly prized. They were charged with the crime, convicted, and it is said that they were publicly whipped in the market place. Upon Franklin's arrival at New York, Collins, the playmate of his childhood, was one of the first to meet him. In his earlier days he had been sober, industrious, and was highly esteemed for his mental powers and attainments. But he had become intemperate and a gambler, and was every day intoxicated. Reduced almost to beggary, Franklin felt compelled to furnish him with money to save him from starvation. Penniless he had come on board the boat at New York, and Franklin paid his passage to Philadelphia. William Burnett was then Governor of New York. He was very fond of books and had collected a large library. Franklin also had the same taste and had a large number of books which he was conveying to Philadelphia. The captain informed the Governor that he had a young man on board fond of books, and of superior literary attainments. The Governor begged the captain to bring young Franklin to see him. "I waited upon him," wrote Franklin, "and would have taken Collins with me had he been sober. The Governor received me with great civility; and we had a good deal of conversation relative to books and authors. This was the second Governor who had done me the honor to take notice of me, and to a poor boy like me it was very pleasing." Upon reaching Philadelphia, Franklin presented the letter of his father to Sir William Keith. The Governor, upon reading the letter, said, "Your father is too prudent. There is a great difference in persons. Discretion does not always accompany years; nor is youth always without it. But since he will not set you up, I will do it myself. Give me an inventory of the things necessary to be had from England, and I will send for them. You shall repay me when you are able. I am resolved to have a good printer here and I am sure you must succeed." Franklin supposed of course, that he could rely upon the word of the Governor. He drew up an inventory of goods to the amount of about five hundred dollars. The strange Governor, who found it very easy to talk, ran his eye over the list and as if money were a consideration of no moment to him, and suggested that Franklin should go to London in person. Greatly elated at this idea, young Franklin eagerly embraced it, and the Governor directed him to be ready to embark in the London Hope, a ship which sailed regularly between London and Philadelphia, leaving each port once a year. Several months would elapse before the ship would sail. Sir William enjoined it upon Franklin to keep their plans in the utmost secrecy. Consequently, Franklin continued to work for Keimer, not giving him the slightest intimation that measures were in progress for the establishment in Philadelphia, of a printing house which would entirely overshadow his own. This secrecy which was practiced also prevented any one from informing Franklin of the Governor's real character, as a vain, unreliable, gasconading boaster. Six months passed away. They were with Franklin happy months. He was in perfect health, greatly enjoyed his own physical and intellectual attributes, was much caressed, and was engaged in lucrative employment. He was highly convivial in his tastes, very fond of social pleasures, of the wine cup and of the song: and on Sundays in particular, the enchanting forests of the Schuylkill resounded with the songs and the shouts of the merry bacchanals, led by Franklin, who was ever recognized as their chief. There probably never was a young man more skillful than Benjamin Franklin in plucking the rose and avoiding the thorn. In all his festivities he was the thoughtful philosopher. Never did he drink to excess; no money was squandered at the gaming table. Carefully he avoided all views which he deemed vulgar and degrading; and he made it the general rule of his life, to avoid everything which would bring pain to his body, or remorse to his soul. Still man is born to mourn. Even Franklin could not escape the general lot. The drunken Collins became his constant scourge. Franklin felt constrained to lend his old friend money. He had been entrusted by a family friend, a Mr. Vernon, to collect a debt of about fifty dollars. This money he was to retain till called for. But to meet his own expenses and those of his spendthrift companion, he began to draw upon it, until it all disappeared. He was then troubled with the apprehension that the money might be demanded. Bitter were the quarrels which arose between him and John Collins. His standard of morality which was perhaps not less elevated than that which the majority of imperfect professing Christians practice, was certainly below that which the religion of Jesus Christ enjoins. Had he been a true Christian according to the doctrines and precepts of Jesus, he would have escaped these accumulating sorrows. [Illustration] This breaking in upon his friend Vernon's money, and spending it, he pronounces in his autobiography, to have been the _first great error_ of his life. Though it so chanced that the money was not required until Franklin was able to pay it, yet for several months he was in the endurance of intense mental anxiety and constant self-reproach. At length, Collins and Franklin became so antagonistic to each other as to proceed to violence. They were on a pleasure party in a boat down the river. Collins, as usual, was intoxicated. The wrath of the muscular Benjamin was so aroused, by some act of abuse, that he seized the fellow by the collar and pitched him overboard. Collins was a good swimmer. They therefore kept him in the water till he was nearly drowned. When pretty thoroughly humbled, and upon his most solemn promise of good behavior, he was again taken on board. Seldom after this was a word exchanged between them. Collins, deeply indebted to Franklin, accepted of some business offer at Barbadoes. He sailed for that island, and was never heard of more. Almost every young man has a few particular friends. The three most intimate companions of Benjamin Franklin were young men of his own rank and age, of very dissimilar characters, but having a common taste for business. They were all clerks. One of these, Joseph Watson, was, according to Franklin's description, "a pious, sensible young man of great integrity." It would seem that they were all persons of very estimable character, though some of them had imbibed Franklin's skeptical opinions. They spent many of their Sabbaths, wandering on the banks of the romantic Schuylkill, reading to each other their compositions in prose and verse. James Ralph, who was very emphatic in his deistical views, in his enthusiasm, decided to devote himself to the art of rhyming. The sensible Franklin tried to dissuade him from his folly, but in vain. On one occasion they all agreed to attempt a version of the Eighteenth Psalm. This sublime production of an inspired pen contains, in fifty verses, imagery as grand and sentiments as beautiful, as perhaps can anywhere else be found, within the same compass, in any language. It certainly speaks well for the intellectual acumen of these young men, and for their devotional instincts, that they should have selected so noble a theme. As their main object was to improve themselves in the command of language, and in the power of expression, they could not have chosen a subject more appropriate, than the Psalmist's description of the descent of God to earth. "He bowed the heavens also and came down; and darkness was under his feet. And He rode upon a cherub and did fly; Yea he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place. His pavilion round about him were dark waters, thick clouds of the skies. At the brightness which was before him his thick clouds passed. Hail stones and coals of fire."[5] [Footnote 5: The intelligent reader will recall the glowing version of this Psalm, by Steinhold. "The Lord descended from above, And bowed the heavens most high; And underneath his feet he cast The darkness of the sky. On cherub and on cherubim, Full royally he rode; And on the wings of mighty winds, Came flying all abroad."] Joseph Watson died quite young, in the arms of Franklin. Charles Osborne acquired money and reputation, as a lawyer. Removing to the West Indies, he died, in the prime of life. Franklin and Osborne entered into the agreement, which has so often been made, that whichever should first die, should, if possible, return to the other and reveal to him the secrets of the spirit land. It is hardly necessary to say that Franklin watched long in vain, for a visit from his departed companion. Two months before Franklin sailed for London, Mr. Read, with whom he boarded, died. With the father, mother, and very pretty and amiable daughter, Deborah, Franklin had found a happy home. A strong affection apparently sprang up between the two young people. She was seventeen years of age, and Franklin eighteen. Their union would be eminently fitting, as in fortune and position in society, they were on the same level. Franklin, enjoying the patronage of the governor, and with, as he supposed, very brilliant prospects before him, entered into an engagement with Deborah, and was anxious to be married before he embarked for England, designing to leave his young bride at home with her mother. But Mrs. Read, in consideration of their youth, urged that the nuptials should be postponed until after his return. Sir William Keith continued to invite Franklin to his house, and lavished commendation and promises upon him. Still he continually postponed giving him any letters of credit with which he could purchase types, paper and press. Though, as the hour for sailing approached, Franklin called again and again to obtain the needful documents, he was continually met with apologies. At length, the day for the ship to weigh anchor arrived. It was about the 5th of November, 1724. At that late hour the private secretary of the Governor called upon Franklin and informed him that Sir William would meet him at Newcastle, where the vessel was to cast anchor, and would then and there, deliver to him all the important documents. Franklin went on board. The ship dropped down the broad and beautiful Delaware, whose banks were brilliant with foliage in their richest autumnal brilliance, about thirty-two miles below Philadelphia, to Newcastle. To the great disappointment of Franklin, the Governor still did not appear. He however sent his secretary, with a profusion of excuses, and professing to be pressed with business of the utmost importance, promised to send the letters to the captain before the vessel would be permitted to sail. Franklin, naturally buoyant and hopeful, did not even then, consider it possible that the Governor was intending to deceive him. Neither was it possible to conceive of any motive which would induce Sir William to betray him by so deceptive a game. At length a bag from the Governor, apparently filled with letters and dispatches, was brought on board, and again the vessel unfurled her sails. Franklin, with some solicitude, asked for those which were directed to him. But Captain Annis, all engrossed with the cares of embarkation, said that he was too busy to examine the bag at that time, but that they would, at their leisure, on the voyage select the letters. On the 10th of November, 1724, the good ship, the London Hope, pushed out from the Delaware upon the broad Atlantic. We know not whether Franklin was surprised to find on board, as one of the passengers, his poetical deistical friend James Ralph. This young man, who had renounced Christianity, in the adoption of principles, which he professed to believe conducive to the formation of a much higher moral character, had deliberately abandoned his wife and child to seek his fortune in London. He had deceived them by the most false representation. Carefully he concealed from Franklin, his unprincipled conduct and visionary schemes. The voyage was long and rough, as the vessel did not reach London until the twenty-fourth of November. On the passage he very carefully, with the captain, examined the letter-bag. But no letter was found addressed to him. There were several, however, addressed to other persons, with Franklin's name upon the envelope as if they were in his care. As one of these was addressed to the king's printer and another to a stationer in London, the sanguine young man through all the dreary and protracted voyage, clung to the hope that all was right. Upon arriving in London, Franklin hastened first to the stationer's and presented him with the letter, saying to him, "Here is a letter from Governor Keith, of Pennsylvania." The stationer looked up with surprise and said: "Governor Keith! I do not know of any such person." Then breaking the seal, and looking at the signature, he said very contemptuously, "Riddlesden. I have lately found him to be a complete rascal. I will have nothing to do with him, nor receive any letters from him."[6] [Footnote 6: We both of us happen to know, as well as the stationer, that Riddlesden, the attorney, was a very knave. He had half ruined Miss Read's father by persuading him to be bound for him. By his letter it appeared there was a secret scheme on foot to the prejudice of Mr. Hamilton; that Keith was concerned in it with Riddlesden.--Works of Franklin, by Sparks, Vol. i, p. 55.] So saying he thrust the letter back into Franklin's hand, and turned away to serve a customer. Franklin was almost stunned with this intelligence. He immediately conferred with a Mr. Denham, a judicious friend whose acquaintance he had made on board the ship. They ascertained that the infamous Governor, from motives which it is difficult to comprehend, had not furnished Franklin with a single document. There was not a bill of credit or a single letter of introduction, commending the young adventurer to people in London. Denham then told him that no one who knew Keith had the slightest confidence in his promises. That the idea that he would furnish him with any letters of credit was preposterous, since Sir William had no credit with any body. And thus Franklin found himself with his companion James Ralph, alone in the great world of London, without any letters of introduction, without any prospect of employment, and almost without money. The virtues of Franklin had exerted a restraining influence upon the unprincipled Ralph, and Franklin had not as yet become acquainted with the true basis of his character. The two young men met together to consult in this dilemma and to examine their finances. It appeared that Ralph had scarcely one penny in his pocket. He had intended to be a hanger-on upon Franklin, in whose ability to take care of himself and others he had the greatest confidence. Franklin's purse contained about fifty dollars. Again he returned to consult with Mr. Denham. He very wisely advised Franklin to seek employment in some of the printing offices in London. He encouraged him with the thought that thus with a few months' labor, he might not only pay his expenses, but also lay up a sufficient sum to defray his passage home. Franklin gradually perceived to his dismay, what an old man of the sea he had got upon his shoulders in the person of James Ralph. The following is his calm comment upon the atrocious conduct of Keith: "What shall we think," he writes, "of a governor playing such pitiful tricks, and imposing so grossly upon a poor ignorant boy? It was a habit he had acquired; he wished to please every body, and having little to give, he gave expectations. He was otherwise an ingenuous, sensible man, a pretty good writer, and a good governor for the people, though not for his constituents the proprietaries. Several of our best laws were of his planning, and passed during his administration." The entire absence of anger in this statement, has won for Franklin great commendation. With his dependent protegé Ralph, he took humble lodgings in Little Britain street. Ralph had remarkable powers of conversation, with much more than ordinary literary talent, and could, whenever he wished, make himself very agreeable and almost fascinating as a companion. But he was quite a child as to all ability to take care of himself. Franklin really loved him at that time. He was a very handsome young man, graceful in his demeanor; and those who listened to his eloquent harangues would imagine that he was destined to attain to greatness. Franklin immediately applied for work at the great printing establishment of Palmer in Bartholomew Close. Fifty journeymen were here employed. He promptly entered into a contract with the proprieter for the remuneration of about six dollars a week. Ralph, characteristically hurried to the theatre to enter upon the profession of a play-actor. Being disappointed in that attempt, his next plan was to edit a newspaper to be called the Spectator. Not being able to find a publisher, he then went the rounds of the law offices, in search of copying, but not even this, could he obtain. In the meantime they were both supported by the purse of Franklin. With fifty dollars in his pocket, and earning six dollars a week, he felt quite easy in his circumstances, and was quite generous in his expenditure for their mutual enjoyment. CHAPTER IV. _Mental and Moral Conflicts._ Faithfulness to work--Neglect of Deborah Read--Treatise on Liberty and Necessity--Skill in swimming--Return to America--Marriage of Miss Read--Severe sickness--Death of Mr. Denham--Returns to Keimer's employ--The Junto--His Epitaph--Reformation of his treatise on Liberty and Necessity--Franklin's creed. Franklin and Ralph were essentially congenial in their tastes. Neither of them were religiously inclined in the ordinary acceptation of those words. But the thoughtful philosophy of Franklin has by many been regarded as the development of an instinctively religious character. They were both exceedingly fond of amusement and especially of pleasure excursions on the Sabbath. Very seldom, did either the intellect or the heart lure them to listen to such teachings as they would hear from the pulpit. It certainly would have been better for them both, had they been church-going young men. There was no pulpit in all London from which they would not hear the reiterated counsel, Cease to do evil; learn to do well. Franklin was faithful in the highest degree to his employer. Weary with the day's toil, which with his active mind was highly intellectual as well as mechanical, he almost invariably in the evening sought recreation with Ralph in the theatre. It is safe to infer that the best productions of our best dramatists, were those which would most interest the mind of our young philosopher. Ralph was daily gaining an increasing influence over his mind. It is said that we are prone to love more ardently those upon whom we confer favors than those from whom we receive them. To these two young men the pleasures of London seemed inexhaustible. Franklin began to forget his old home and his friends. He began to think that London was a very pleasant place of residence, and that it was doubtful whether he should ever return to America again. He had constant employment, the prospect of an increasing income, and with his economical habits he had ample funds to relieve himself from all pecuniary embarrassment. With his friend Ralph, he was leading a very jovial life, free from all care. His love for Deborah Read began to vanish away. He thought very seldom of her: seldom could he find time to write to her; and ere long his letters ceased altogether; and she was cruelly left to the uncertainty of whether he was alive or dead. Ralph had entirely forgotten his wife and child, and Franklin had equally forgotten his affianced. In subsequent years the memory of this desertion seems to have weighed heavily on him. He wrote in his advanced life in reference to his treatment of Deborah, "This was another of the great errors of my life; which I could wish to correct were I to live it over again." For nearly a year, Franklin thus continued in the employment of Mr. Palmer, receiving good wages and spending them freely. A very highly esteemed clergyman of the Church of England named Wollaston, had written a book entitled, "The Religion of Nature Delineated." It was a work which obtained much celebrity in those days and was published by Mr. Palmer. It was of the general character of Butler's Analogy, and was intended to prove that the morality enjoined by Jesus Christ, was founded in the very nature of man; and that the principles of that morality were immutable, even though deists should succeed in destroying the public faith in the divine authority of Christianity. It was eminently an amiable book, written with great charity and candor, and without any dogmatic assumptions. It chanced to fall to Franklin to set up the type. As was customary with him, he made himself thoroughly acquainted with the treatise of which he thus became the compositor. His mind was in such a state in reference to the claims of that Christianity which certainly did not commend the mode of life he was living, that it excited not only antagonistic but even angry emotions. So thoroughly were his feelings aroused, that he wrote and published a pamphlet of thirty-two pages, in refutation of the theory of Mr. Wollaston. Franklin dedicated his work, which was entitled "A dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain," to James Ralph. Fortunately, the treatise has descended to us unmutilated. He commences with the observation: "I have here given you my present thoughts upon the general state of things in the universe." The production was certainly a very able one to come from the pen of a young printer of but nineteen years. Mr. Palmer, while recognizing its ability, pronounced its principles to be atrocious and demoralizing. The production of such a work, literary, philosophical and religious, by probably the youngest companion of the journeymen printers, caused them all to open their eyes with astonishment, and he was regarded at once as a great man among them.[7] [Footnote 7: In this extraordinary document our young deist writes, "There is said to be a first mover, who is called God, who is all wise, all good, all powerful. If he is all good, whatsoever he doeth must be good. If he is all wise, whatever he doeth must be wise. That there are things to which we give the name of _Evil_, is not to be denied--such as theft, murder, etc. But these are not in reality evils. To suppose anything to exist or to be done contrary to the will of the Almighty is to suppose him not Almighty. There is nothing done but God either does or permits. Though a creature may do many actions, which, by his fellow creatures, will be named evil, yet he can not act what will be in itself displeasing to God. "We will sum up the argument thus, When the Creator first designed the universe, either it was his will that all should exist and be in the manner they are at this time, or it was his will that they should be otherwise. To say it was His will things should be otherwise, is to say that somewhat hath contradicted His will; which is impossible. Therefore we must allow that all things exist now in a manner agreeable to His will; and, in consequence of that, all are equally good and therefore equally esteemed by Him. No condition of life or being is better or preferable to another." This whole treatise may be found in the appendix to the first volume of Parton's Life of Franklin.] The deists of London, who had united in a club of merry free-thinkers, holding their meetings at an ale-house, sought out Franklin and drew him into their convivial gatherings. These men had no common principle of belief; they were united only in the negative principle of unbelief in the Christian religion. Ralph had formed a connection with a young milliner, by whom, through his many fascinations, he was mainly supported. Franklin, with his increasing expenditures, was now disposed to shake off Ralph, as he needed all his money for his own convivial enjoyments. Ralph went into the country and opened a school, where he utterly failed. The unhappy milliner, ruined in character, and with a little child, wrote to Franklin imploring aid. Her letters touched his kindly heart. He could never see sorrow without wishing to relieve it. He furnished her with money, in small sums, to the amount of one hundred and thirty dollars; and worst of all, we regret to say that he commenced treating her with such familiarity, that she, still faithful to Ralph, repulsed him indignantly.[8] [Footnote 8: Franklin writes in his autobiography, "I grew fond of her company, and being at that time under no religious restraint, and taking advantage of my importance to her, I attempted to take some liberties with her, another _erratum_, which she repulsed with a proper degree of resentment. She wrote to Ralph and acquainted him with my conduct. This occasioned a breach between us; and when he returned to London, he let me know he considered all the obligations he had been under to me as annulled."--Works of Franklin, Vol. i, p. 59.] Franklin does not conceal these _foibles_, as he regarded them, these _sins_ as Christianity pronounces them. He declares this simply to have been another of the great errors of his youth. She informed Ralph of his conduct. He was enraged, broke off all further communication with Franklin, and thirty-five years passed away before they met again. Ralph, goaded to desperation, gained a wretched living in various literary adventures; writing for any body, on any side, and for any price. Indeed he eventually gained quite an ephemeral reputation. He could express himself with vivacity, and several quite prominent politicians sought the aid of his pen. Franklin, thus relieved from the support of Ralph, soon after entered a more extensive printing house, at Lincoln's Inn Fields. Though he was exceedingly fond of a sparkling glass of wine in his convivial hours, he was too much of a philosopher to stupefy his brain in guzzling beer. His habitual daily beverage was cold water. "My companion at the press," he wrote, "drank every day a pint before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and cheese, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, and another when he had done his day's work. I thought it a detestable custom. But it was necessary, he supposed, to drink strong beer that he might be strong to labor. I endeavored to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer could only be in proportion to the grain or the barley dissolved in the water of which it was made; that there was more flour in a pennyworth of bread, and, therefore, if he could eat that with a pint of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer. He drank on, however, and had four or five shillings to pay, out of his wages, every Saturday night, for that vile liquor; an expense I was free from; and thus these poor devils keep themselves always under." Again Franklin wrote in characteristic phrase, in reference to the influence of his example over some of his companions, "From my example, a great many of them left their muddling breakfast of bread, beer and cheese, finding they could, with me, be supplied from a neighboring house, with a large porringer of hot water gruel, sprinkled with pepper, crumbled with bread and a bit of butter in it, for the price of a pint of beer,--three half-pence. This was a more comfortable, as well as a cheaper breakfast, and kept their heads clearer. Those who continued sotting with their beer all day, were often, by not paying, out of credit at the ale-house; and used to make interest with me to get beer; their _light_ as they phrased it being out. I watched the pay table on Saturday night, and collected what I stood engaged for them, having to pay sometimes on their account." Franklin's skill in swimming, as we have mentioned was very remarkable. At one time he swam from London to Chelsea, a distance of four miles. Several of his companions he taught to swim in two lessons. His celebrity was such that he was urged to open a swimming school.[9] The life of self-indulgence he was now living in London, was not such as even his loose religious principles could approve. He had abandoned the faith of his fathers, and had adopted, for his rule of conduct, the principle, that it was right to yield to any indulgences to which his passions incited him. He became tired of London, and probably found it necessary to break away from the influences and associates with which he had surrounded himself. [Footnote 9: "On one of these days I was, to my surprise, sent for by a great man I knew only by name, Sir William Wyndham. He had heard of my swimming from Chelsea to Blackfriars and of my teaching Wygate and another young man to swim in a few hours. He had two sons about to set out on their travels. He wished to have them first taught swimming, and proposed to gratify me handsomely if I would teach them. They were not yet come to town, and my stay was uncertain, so I could not undertake it. But from the incident I thought it likely that if I were to remain in England and opened a swimming-school I might get a good deal of money. And it struck me so strongly that had the overture been made me sooner, probably I should not so soon have returned to America."--Autobiography, Vol. I. p. 66.] Mr. Denham, his companion of voyage, had decided to return to Philadelphia, and open an extensive store. He offered Franklin two hundred and fifty dollars a year as book-keeper. Though this was less than the sum Franklin was then earning, as compositor, there were prospects of his advancement. This consideration, in addition to his desire to escape from London, led him to accept the offer. He was now twenty years of age. It does not appear that he had thus far formed any deliberate plan for his life's work. He floated along as the current of events drifted him. On the twenty-first of July, 1726, Franklin embarked on board the ship Berkshire for Philadelphia. He had been absent from America but little more than a year and a half. During this time he had not increased his fortune, for he had spent his money as fast as he had earned it. After a voyage of eighty days, the ship cast anchor before Philadelphia. At that time ships were often from three to seven months effecting the passage across the Atlantic. As usual Franklin kept a diary punctually during his long voyage. Its pages were replete with pithy remarks of wit and wisdom. He was very fond of a game of checkers, and in that amusement beguiled many weary hours. We find the following striking comments upon the diversion in his journal: "It is a game I much delight in. But it requires a clear head and undisturbed. The persons playing, if they would play well, ought not much to regard the _consequences_ of the game; for that diverts and withdraws the mind from the game itself, and makes the player liable to make many false, open moves. I will venture to lay it down for an infallible rule that if two persons equal in judgment, play for a considerable sum, he that loves money most, shall lose. His anxiety for the success of the game confounds him. Courage is almost as requisite for the good conduct of this game as in a real battle; for if the player imagines himself opposed by one that is much his superior in skill, his mind is so intent on the defensive part, that an advantage passes unobserved." The Governor of the Isle of Wight had died, leaving the reputation of having been one of the most consummate scoundrels who ever exercised despotic power. Franklin, in his treatise upon "Liberty and Necessity," written but a few months before, had assumed that there was no such thing as good and evil; that God ordered and controlled every event; and that consequently every event was in accordance with His will, and alike pleasing in His sight. But now we find the following record in his journal, which most readers will recognize as inconsistent with the young philosopher's theological opinions. He writes: "At the death of this governor, it appeared that he was a great villain, and a great politician. There was no crime so damnable, which he would stick at in the execution of his designs. And yet he had the art of covering all so thick, that with almost all men in general, while he lived he passed for a saint. In short, I believe it is impossible for a man, though he has all the cunning of a devil, to live and die a villain, and yet conceal it so well as to carry the name of an honest fellow to the grave with him, but some one by some accident or other, shall discover him. Truth and sincerity have a certain distinguishing, native lustre about them, which cannot be perfectly counterfeited. They are like fire and flame that cannot be painted." We should infer, from some intimations in Franklin's diary, that he was troubled by some qualms of conscience, in view of his abandonment of Miss Read, and his irregular life in London. He has left a paper in which he stated that he had never formed any regular plan for the control of his conduct: that he was now about to enter on a new life; and that he was resolved that henceforth he would speak the truth, be industrious in his business, and speak ill of no man. These were rather meagre resolutions for a young man under these circumstances to adopt. Soon after landing at Philadelphia, Franklin chanced to meet Sir William Keith in the streets. The governor seemed much embarrassed, and passed by without speaking. It does not appear that the acquaintance was ever resumed. The governor lived nearly twenty-five years afterward, a dishonored and ruined man, and died in the extreme of poverty. Poor Miss Read, heart-broken, and deeming herself forever abandoned, yielded to the importunities of her friends and married a mechanic by the name of Rogers. He proved to be a thoroughly worthless fellow. His unconcealed profligacy, and unfaithfulness to his wife, compelled her, after a few months of wretchedness, to return to her mother, and to resume her maiden name. The profligate husband fled from his creditors to the West Indies. Rumors soon reached Philadelphia of his death, leaving probably another wife. Franklin entered upon his duties as clerk of Mr. Denham, with his accustomed energy and skill. He carried into his new vocation, all his intellectual sagacity, and speedily won not only the confidence but the affection of his employer. He lived with Mr. Denham, and being always disposed to look upon the bright side of everything, even of his own imperfections, notwithstanding his infidelity to Miss Read, he seems to have been a very happy and even jovial young man. Four months after Franklin had entered upon his mercantile career, both Mr. Denham and Franklin were seized with the pleurisy. Mr. Denham died. Franklin, though brought near to the grave, recovered. He writes: "I suffered a great deal; gave up the point in my own mind; and was at the time rather disappointed when I found myself recovering; regretting in some degree that I must now, sometime or other, have all that disagreeable work to do over again." The death of Mr. Denham broke up the establishment, and Franklin was thrown out of employment. Keimer, in whose service he had formerly been engaged, again made him an offer to superintend a printing office. Franklin accepted the proposition. There were five inefficient hands, whom Franklin was expected to transform into accomplished printers. With these, and a few others, he organized a literary club, called the "Junto; or the Leathern Apron Club," as nearly every member was a mechanic. The club met every Friday evening, and the wine cup, to stimulate conviviality, passed freely among them. There were twenty-four questions, which were every evening read, to which answers were to be returned by any one who could answer them. Between each question, it was expected that each member would fill, and empty, his glass. One would think that the wine must have been very weak, or the heads of these young men very strong, to enable them to quaff twenty-four glasses unharmed. We give a few of the questions as specimens of their general character. 1. "Have you met with anything in the author you last read? 3. "Has any citizen in your knowledge failed, and have you heard the cause? 7. "What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately observed? 12. "Has any deserving stranger arrived in town since your last meeting? 16. "Has anybody attacked your reputation lately? 23. "Is there any difficulty which you would gladly have discussed at this time?" Debates, declamation, and the reading of essays added to the entertainment of these gatherings. Stories were told, and bacchanal songs sung. No man could tell a better story, and few men could sing a better song than Benjamin Franklin. No one was deemed a suitable member of the club, who would not contribute his full quota to the entertainment or instruction. The questions proposed by Franklin for discussion, developed the elevated intellectual region his thoughts were accustomed to range. We give a few as specimens. "Can any one particular form of government suit all mankind? "Should it be the aim of philosophy to eradicate the passions? "Is perfection attainable in this life? "What general conduct of life is most suitable for men in such circumstances as most of the members of the Junto are?" The Junto was limited to twelve members. It soon became so popular that applications for admission became very frequent. Six months passed rapidly away, when Keimer, who was an exceedingly immoral and worthless man, and was fast going to ruin, in some fit of drunkenness, or ungovernable irritation, entered the office, and assailed Franklin with such abuse, that he took his hat, and repaired to his lodgings, resolved never to return. Franklin was twenty-one years of age. He had laid up no money. He was still but a journeyman printer. The draft which he had received from Mr. Vernon for fifty dollars had not yet been paid. He was exceedingly mortified when he allowed himself to reflect upon this delinquency which certainly approached dishonesty. In this emergence he conferred with a fellow journeyman by the name of Hugh Meredith, whose father was a gentleman of considerable property. Meredith proposed that they should enter into partnership, he furnishing the funds, and Franklin the business capacity. At that time Franklin, remembering his narrow escape from the grave by the pleurisy, wrote his own epitaph which has been greatly celebrated. It has generally been admired; but some of more sensitive minds perceive in it a tone which is somewhat repulsive. "The Body of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, _Printer_, (Like the cover of an old book, Its contents torn out, And stripped of its lettering and gilding,) Lies here, food for worms. Yet the work itself shall not be lost, For it will, as he believed, appear once more, In a new And more beautiful edition, Corrected and amended By THE AUTHOR." The excellencies of Franklin did not run in the line of exquisite sensibilities. At the early age of fifteen he began to cast off the restraints of the religion of his father and mother. Nearly all his associates were what were called Free-thinkers. He could not be blind to their moral imperfections. Mr. Parton writes, "His old friend Collins, he remembered, was a Free-thinker, and Collins had gone astray. Ralph was a Free-thinker, and Ralph was a great sinner. Keith was a Free-thinker, and Keith was the greatest liar in Pennsylvania. Benjamin Franklin was a Free-thinker, and how shamefully he had behaved to Ralph's mistress, to Mr. Vernon and Miss Read, whose young life had been blighted through him."[10] [Footnote 10: Parton's Life of Franklin, Vol. I, p. 168.] Franklin's creed thus far, consisted only of negations. He had no belief; he had only unbelief. Indeed he seems to have become quite ashamed of his treatise upon Liberty and Necessity, published in London, and felt constrained to write a refutation of it.[11] As this strange young man in his discontent looked over the religions of the world, he could find no one that met his views. He therefore deliberately and thoughtfully sat down to form a religion of his own. Many such persons have appeared in the lapse of the ages, and almost invariably they have announced their creeds with the words, "Thus saith the Lord." But our young printer of twenty-two years, made no profession whatever, of any divine aid. He simply said, "Thus saith my thoughts." One would think he could not have much confidence in those thoughts, when it is remembered that at this time he was writing a refutation of the opinions, which he had published in London but a few months before. [Footnote 11: "My arguments perverted some others, especially Collins and Ralph. But each of these having wronged me greatly without the least compunction; and recollecting Keith's conduct towards me, who was another Free-thinker, and my own towards Vernon and Miss Read, which at times gave me great trouble, I began to suspect that this doctrine, though it might be true, was not very useful. My London pamphlet, printed in 1725, and which had for its motto, "'Whatever is is right,' and which from the attributes of God, His infinite wisdom, goodness and power, concluded that nothing could possibly be wrong in the world, and that vice and virtue were empty distinctions, no such things existing, appeared now not so clever a performance, as I once thought it; and I doubted whether some error had not insinuated itself unperceived into my argument." In the year 1779, Dr. Franklin wrote to Dr. Benjamin Vaughn respecting this pamphlet. "There were only one hundred copies printed, of which I gave a few to friends. Afterwards, disliking the piece, I burnt the rest, except one copy. I was not nineteen years of age when it was written. In 1730, I wrote a piece on the other side of the question, which began with laying for its foundation that almost all men, in all ages and countries, have at times made use of prayer. "Thence I reasoned that if all things are ordained, prayer must be among the rest ordained; but as prayer can procure no change in things that are ordained, praying must then be useless and an absurdity. God would, therefore, not ordain praying if everything else was ordained. But praying exists, therefore all other things are not ordained. This manuscript was never printed. The great uncertainty I found in metaphysical reasoning disgusted me, and I quitted that kind of reading and study for others more satisfactory."--Autobiography, p. 76.] The book which Franklin thus prepared was entitled "Articles of Belief, and Acts of Religion." His simple creed was that there was one Supreme God who had created many minor gods; that the supreme God was so great that he did not desire the worship of man but was far above it. The minor gods are perhaps immortal, and perhaps after the ages lapse they are changed, others supplying their place. Each of these subordinate gods has created for himself a sun with its planetary system, over which he presides and from the inhabitants of which he expects adoration. He writes, "It is that particular wise and good God, who is the author and owner of our system that I propose for the object of my praise and adoration. It is to be inferred that this God is not above caring for us, is pleased with our praise, and offended when we slight him." He then prepares an invocation to this god of our solar system. It is founded on the style of the Psalms, but is immeasurably inferior to most of those sublime utterances of the Psalmist of Israel. And still the sentiments breathed were ennobling in their character; they proved that Franklin was vastly superior to the thoughtless, reckless deists who surrounded him, and that his soul was reaching forth and yearning for higher and holier attainments. In this invocation, the whole of which we cannot quote, he writes, "O Creator! O Father! I believe that thou art good; and that thou art pleased with the pleasure of thy children. Praised be thy name forever. By thy power thou hast made the glorious sun with his attending worlds. By thy wisdom thou hast formed all things. Thy wisdom, thy power, and thy goodness are everywhere clearly seen. Thou abhorrest in thy creatures treachery and deceit, malice, revenge, intemperance, and every other hurtful vice. But thou art a lover of justice and sincerity, of friendship and benevolence, and every virtue. Thou art my friend, my father, and my benefactor. Praised be thy name; O God, forever. Amen." The prayer which followed, doubtless giving utterance to his most inward feelings, is beautiful. "Inasmuch," he wrote, "as by reason of our ignorance, we cannot be certain that many things, which we often hear mentioned in the petitions of men to the Deity, would prove real goods if they were in our possession, and as I have reason to hope and believe that the goodness of my Heavenly Father will not withhold from me a suitable share of temporal blessings, if by a virtuous and holy life I conciliate his favor and kindness; therefore I presume not to ask such things; but rather humbly and with a sincere heart, express my earnest desire that he would graciously assist my continual endeavors and resolutions of eschewing vice and embracing virtue, which kind of supplication will at the same time remind me in a solemn manner of my extensive duty." He then added the supplication that he might be preserved from atheism, impiety and profaneness; that he might be loyal to his prince; that he might be gracious to those below him; that he might refrain from calumny and detraction; that he might be sincere in friendship, just in his dealings, grateful to his benefactors, patient in affliction; that he might have tenderness for the weak, and that, rejoicing in the good of others, he might become truly virtuous and magnanimous. It is very evident that some unexplained circumstances had called the attention of Franklin very earnestly to the subject of religion. He wrote very much upon that theme, and published a new version of the Lord's Prayer, and a lecture upon Providence and Predestination. He, however, admits that he very seldom attended any public worship, adding, "I had still an opinion of its propriety and its utility, when rightly conducted; and I regularly paid my annual subscription for the support of the only Presbyterian minister." Rumors soon reached Franklin's good father of Boston, of his son's free-thinking, and he wrote to his son in much alarm. In Franklin's reply, he said, "All that should be expected from me, is to keep my mind open to conviction; to hear patiently and examine attentively whatever is offered me for that end. And if after all I continue in the same errors, I believe your usual charity will induce you rather to pity and excuse, than to blame me. In the meantime, your care and concern for me, is what I am very thankful for. My mother grieves that one of her sons is an Arian, and another an Arminian. What an Arminian or an Arian is, I cannot say that I very well know. The truth is, I make such distinctions very little my study. I think vital religion has always suffered when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue. And the Scriptures assure me that at the last day we shall not be examined what we thought but what we did." Franklin, having no revealed religion to guide him, and having no foundation for his faith, but the ever-changing vagaries of his own fantastic imagination, could have no belief to-day, of which he had any certainty that he would hold the same to-morrow. He was continually abandoning one after another of the articles of his fantastical creed, and adopting others in their place. At length he settled down upon the following simple belief, which with very considerable tenacity, but without any attempt to promulgate it, he adhered to for many years. It consisted of the six following articles which we give in briefest language. 1. "There is one God. 2. "He governs the world. 3. "He ought to be worshipped. 4. "Doing good is the service most acceptable to him. 5. "Man is immortal. 6. "In the future world the souls of men will be dealt with justly." It is very evident that Franklin had no great confidence in his theological opinions. He studiously avoided all writing upon the subject, and as far as possible all conversation. Still, with his keen sense of humor, he could not refrain from occasionally plunging a pretty sharp dagger's thrust into the palpable imperfections of the various and contending sects. There was very little moral power, in the creed he professed, to arrest young men, of glowing passions, and exposed to the most difficult temptations, in their downward career. No voice of Franklin was heard with potency calling upon those who were thronging the broad road. In a lecture upon Providence, to his companions of the Junto, which was subsequently published, and which reflects some considerable honor upon the earnestness of his thoughts, he wrote, "I am especially discouraged when I reflect that you are all my intimate pot-companions, who have heard me say a thousand silly things in conversation, and therefore have not that laudable partiality and veneration for whatever I shall deliver that good people have for their spiritual guides; that you have no reverence for my habit, nor for the sanctity of my countenance; that you do not believe me inspired, nor divinely assisted; and therefore will think yourself at liberty to assert, or dissert, approve or disapprove of anything I advance, canvassing and sifting it as the private opinion of one of your acquaintance." Though it was Franklin's assumption that his religion was one of works and not of faith, still it must be admitted that his life was very inconsistent with those principles of purity, moral loveliness and good report which the Gospel enjoins. With his remarkable honesty of mind, in strains which we are constrained, though with regret to record, he writes, "That hard-to-be governed passion of youth had hurried me frequently into intrigues with low women that fell in my way, which were attended with some expense and great inconvenience, besides a continual risk to my health by distemper, which of all things I dreaded, though by great luck I escaped it." Mr. Parton writes, "It was perhaps owing to his frequent delinquencies in this way, that his liturgy contains no allusion to a vice, which is of all others the most alluring to a youth of Franklin's temperament. He was too sincere and logical a man to go before his God and ask assistance against a fault which he had not fully resolved to overcome, and that immediately. About a year after the date of his liturgy was born his illegitimate son William Franklin, who became Governor of New Jersey. If laws were as easily executed as enacted, Benjamin Franklin would have received, upon this occasion, twenty-one lashings at the public whipping-post of Philadelphia." CHAPTER V. _The Dawn of Prosperity._ Franklin takes a house--His first job--His industry--Plans a Newspaper--Enters the list as a writer--Advocates a Paper currency--Purchases Keimer's paper--Character of Meredith--Struggles of the firm--Unexpected assistance--Dissolves partnership with Meredith--Franklin's energetic conduct--His courtship, and marriage--Character of Mrs. Franklin--Increase of luxury--Plans for a library--Prosperity of Pennsylvania--Customs in Philadelphia--Style of dress in 1726--Franklin's social position in Philadelphia--His success--A hard student. Franklin had now reached the end of life as an apprentice and a journeyman. With his friend Meredith he hired a house in the lower part of Market street, at the rent of about one hundred and twenty dollars a year. A large portion of this house he prudently re-let to another mechanic who was a member of the Junto. It would seem that Meredith was disappointed in the amount of money he expected to raise. Consequently after utterly exhausting their stock of cash, they still found it necessary to run deeply into debt for those appurtenances of a printing office which were absolutely necessary. Just as they got ready for work, quite to their delight, a countryman came in introduced by one of the Junto, George House, who wanted a five shilling job executed. "This man's five shillings," writes Franklin, "being our first fruits, and coming so seasonably, gave me more pleasure than any crown I have since earned. And from the gratitude I felt toward House, has made me often more ready, than perhaps I otherwise should have been, to assist young beginners." The two young men devoted themselves to their work, with assiduity which was a sure precursor of success. Often Franklin was found diligently employed until eleven o'clock at night. His industry and energy soon attracted attention. A gentleman living near the office said to some of his friends: "The industry of that Franklin is superior to anything I ever saw of the kind. I see him still at work when I go home from the club, and he is at work again before his neighbors are out of bed." This statement produced such an impression upon a merchant who was present, that he called upon the young men and offered to supply them with stationery on credit. Franklin's literary taste, and his remarkable success as a writer, led him ever to cherish, as a darling project, the idea of the establishing of a newspaper. In a few months he had quite deliberately formed his plan; but in some way Keimer got wind of it, and immediately issued a prospectus for the establishment of a paper of his own. Though he was totally unqualified for the task of editorship, yet his project was quite hurtful to the plans of Franklin. Very much annoyed by the treachery which had revealed his plans to Keimer, and perceiving that his paper was unpopular and heavy, Franklin very wisely decided to establish his own reputation as a vivacious writer, before entering upon the important undertaking of issuing a journal in his own name. There was a small paper then published in the city called "The Mercury." He commenced writing a series of very witty and satirical articles over the signature of "Busy Body." The first number contained the following sentences as intimations of what was to come. "It is probable that I may displease a great number of your readers who will not very well like to pay ten shillings a year for being told of their faults, but as most people delight in censure when they themselves are not the object of it, if any are offended at my publicly exposing their private vices, I promise they shall have the satisfaction in a very little time, in seeing their good friends and neighbors in the same circumstances." These sparkling contributions of Franklin attracted much attention, and created for him a growing literary reputation. The subject of paper money which agitated our country, was then being discussed in Pennsylvania with intense interest. Franklin wrote a carefully studied pamphlet entitled "A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency." This treatise, written by a young printer of but twenty-three years, upon one of the most difficult questions of finance, displayed great ability. Warmly he advocated a paper currency. His arguments, however, were such as would not now probably exert much influence upon the public mind. The main proposition he endeavored to sustain was, that there was not a sufficiency of gold and silver in Pennsylvania, for carrying on the trade of the province. He therefore argued that all branches of industry must languish unless the currency were increased by an issue of paper.[12] [Footnote 12: This pamphlet may be found in Sparks' "Works of Franklin," Vol. ii, p. 253.] It has been suggested that Franklin might have been unconsciously influenced in his views, by the fact that he had been very successful in printing paper money, and that he anticipated still more employment in that line. It is certain that Franklin's pamphlet exerted a powerful influence at the time, and a new issue of paper currency was ordered. Franklin thought that the effect was highly conducive to the prosperity of the province, and he never swerved from the views which he had so earnestly and successfully urged in his pamphlet. Franklin's sun was rapidly rising. Keimer's was as rapidly sinking. After publishing thirty-nine numbers of the "Universal Instructor" and the subscription list having dwindled to ninety, he gladly sold the paper for a trifle to Franklin and Meredith. The genius of Franklin was immediately displayed in the improved literary character of the paper, and in its mechanical execution. The name was changed to the "Pennsylvania Gazette." The first number issued by him was on Oct. 2, 1729. The subject of religion was almost entirely ignored. Franklin seems to have become weary of the darkness and the fogs through which his unillumined mind had been so long painfully floundering, without coming to any results upon which he could place reliance. Christianity he generally treated with respect, though he could not refrain from occasionally giving a sly thrust at those imperfections of Christians which were so palpable to his observant mind. And though he never assailed that which was not inherently bad, it cannot be denied that occasionally his keen sarcasms brought Christianity itself into reproach, as if it were a religion which produced no better fruits, perhaps not so good, as no religion at all. The business of this young firm of Franklin and Meredith, viewed in the light of the grand printing enterprises of the present day, was indeed trivial. The two young men did all the work themselves without even a boy to help them. In fact Meredith, who at the best was a poor workman, and who fell into intemperate habits, neglected his business, frequented the ale-houses, and left all responsibility resting upon the efficient shoulders of his partner. Franklin, who endeavored to be perfect in every thing he undertook, printed his paper so admirably that it is said that there is probably not a journal now in Philadelphia which is issued in better style than "The Pennsylvania Gazette" of 1729. For seven years Franklin had been embarrassed by the thought of the fifty dollars which he had received from Mr. Vernon, and which had not yet been repaid. Mr. Vernon wrote him a very gentle intimation, stating that it would be very convenient for him to receive the money. Franklin returned a contrite and magnanimous letter. He made no attempt to extenuate his fault, promised immediately to strain every nerve to meet the debt, and in a few months paid the whole, principal and interest. Still the infant firm was struggling with adversity. The partners had commenced operations with scarcely any capital excepting promises. Their outfit cost about a thousand dollars. Mr. Meredith had been unfortunate in business, and found himself unable to pay the second instalment promised of five hundred dollars. The stationers who furnished paper began to be uneasy, for they could not but see that Meredith was fast going to ruin. Franklin was seldom in the habit of dwelling upon his misfortunes. In these dark hours he wrote, "In this distress two true friends whose kindness I have never forgotten, nor ever shall forget while I can remember anything, came to me separately, unknown to each other, and without any application from me, offered each of them to advance me all the money that should be necessary to take the whole business upon myself; but they did not like my continuing in partnership with Meredith, who, as they said, was often seen drunk in the street, playing at low games in ale-houses, much to our discredit." Franklin generously was very reluctant to throw aside Meredith. Dissolute as the young man had become, he could not forget that he was the son of a man who had been his friend; but after carefully pondering the question and seeing ruin stare him in the face, he said one day to Meredith, "Perhaps your father is dissatisfied at the part you have undertaken in this affair of ours; and is unwilling to advance for you and me, what he would for you. If that is the case tell me, and I will resign the whole to you and go about my business." Meredith replied, "My father has really been disappointed, and is really unable. I am unwilling to distress him further. I see this is a business I am unfit for. I was bred a farmer and it was folly in me to come to town, and put myself at thirty years of age an apprentice to learn a new trade. Many of our Welsh people are going to settle in North Carolina where land is cheap. I am inclined to go with them, and follow my old employment. If you will take the debts of the company upon you, return to my father the hundred pounds he has advanced, pay my little personal debts, and give me thirty pounds and a new saddle, I will relinquish the partnership, and leave the whole in your hands." These were hard terms; but there was no other way in which Franklin could escape from the embarrassments of this untoward partnership. He accepted the proposal at once; borrowed the needful money of his friends; and became his own sole partner. True prosperity now began to attend his indomitable industry, frugality, and wisdom. The advance of the young man was necessarily slow, but it was sure. Well aware that his reputation with the community would be invaluable to him, he not only endeavored to be industrious, but to let it be seen by his neighbors that he left no stone unturned to accomplish his purposes. He would trundle, through the streets of Philadelphia, in a wheel-barrow, the paper which he purchased, by no means seeking by-streets where his more fashionable companions would not see him. He dressed with the utmost simplicity, but always in clean garments, well cut, and which presented his admirable form to great advantage. Never did he allow himself to sink to the vulgarity of a slatternly appearance. He was ever ready, when engaged in the most busy employments of his office, to receive without a blush, any guests, however high, who might chance to call. The tranquil months glided on. Franklin was prospered in business, paid his debts, and began to accumulate a little property. Our young philosopher was never an impassioned lover. As he would contemplate, in his increasing prosperity, removing to another more commodious office, so he now thought, having reached the age of twenty-four, that it might be expedient for him to have a home of his own, and a wife to take care of his domestic affairs. He had let a portion of the house which he used for his printing office, to a mechanic of the Junto by the name of Godfrey. He conferred with Mrs. Godfrey upon the subject. She had a relative, a very pretty girl, Miss Godfrey, whom she highly recommended and brought, as it were by accident, to take tea with Franklin. She was graceful, amiable, and a child of parents well to do in the world. Franklin was a remarkably handsome and fascinating young man. The courtship proceeded successfully and rapidly. The reader will be interested in seeing Franklin's own account of this affair. He writes, in his Autobiography: "Mrs. Godfrey projected a match with a relation's daughter, took opportunities of bringing us often together, till a serious courtship on my part ensued; the girl being, in herself, very deserving. The old folks encouraged me by continual invitations to supper, and by leaving us together, till at length it was time to explain. Mrs. Godfrey managed our little treaty. I let her know I expected as much money with their daughter as would pay off my remaining debt for the printing house; which I believe was not then above a hundred pounds. She brought me word they had no such sum to spare; I said they might mortgage their house in the loan-office. The answer to this, after some days, was, that they did not approve the match; that, on inquiry of Mr. Bradford, they had been informed the printing business was not a profitable one, the types would soon be worn out, and more wanted; that Keimer and David Harvy had failed one after the other, and I should probably soon follow them; and therefore I was forbidden the house, and the daughter was shut up." Occasionally Franklin had gone to the home of Mrs. Read, the mother of the unhappy Deborah. His conscience reproached him for his conduct to that good girl. She was always dejected and solitary, and with a broken heart clung to her mother, her only friend. It is doubtful whether she were ever legally married to Rogers. It was rumored that at the time of their marriage, he was the husband of one, if not more wives. If legally married, there was another serious obstacle in her path. Rogers had run away to the West Indies. Rumor alone had announced his death. He might be still living. Franklin's sympathy gradually became excited in her behalf. And at length he proposed that, regardless of all the risks, they should be married. It seems that he had announced to her very distinctly that he had a living child, and very honorably he had decided that that child of dishonor was to be taken home and trained as his own. These were sad nuptials. The world-weary wife knew not but that she had another husband still living, and a stigma, indelible, rested upon Franklin. The marriage took place on the first of September, 1730. It subsequently appears that Rogers, the potter, was really dead. The child was taken home and reared with all possible tenderness and care. It is a little remarkable that nothing is known of what became of the mother of that child. The boy grew up to manhood, espoused the Tory cause, when the Tories were hunting his father to hang him, and by his ungrateful, rebellious conduct, pierced his heart with a thousand empoisoned daggers. Mrs. Franklin proved in all respects an excellent woman, and an admirable wife for her calm, philosophic and unimpassioned husband. Franklin never had a journeyman in his office who performed his functions more entirely to his satisfaction, than his wife discharged her responsible duties. She was always amiable, industrious and thrifty. There was a little shop attached to the printing office which Mrs. Franklin tended. She also aided her husband in folding and distributing the papers, and with a mother's love trained, in the rudiments of education, the child whose mother was lost. Franklin, in his characteristic, kindly appreciation of the services of all who were faithful in his employ, speaks in the following commendatory terms of the industrial excellencies of his wife. When far away dazzled by the splendors, and bewildered by the flattery of European courts, he wrote to her, "It was a comfort to me to recollect that I had once been clothed, from head to foot, in woolen and linen of my wife's manufacture, and that I never was prouder of any dress in my life." In Franklin's Autobiography, as published by Sparks, we read, "We have an English proverb that says, 'He that would thrive, must ask his wife.' It was lucky for me that I had one as much disposed to industry and frugality as myself. She assisted me cheerfully in my business, folding and stitching pamphlets, tending shop, purchasing old linen rags, for the paper-makers, etc. We kept no idle servants; our table was plain and simple, our furniture of the cheapest. For instance, my breakfast was, for a long time, bread and milk, (no tea) and I ate it out of a two-penny earthern porringer, with a pewter-spoon. "But mark how luxury will enter families, and make a progress in spite of principle. Being called one morning to breakfast, I found it in a china bowl, with a spoon of silver. They had been bought for me without my knowledge, by my wife, and had cost her the enormous sum of three and twenty shillings; for which she had no other excuse or apology to make, but that she thought her husband deserved a silver spoon and china bowl, as well as any of his neighbors. This was the first appearance of plate or china in our house; which afterward, in a course of years, as our wealth increased, augmented gradually to several hundred pounds in value."[13] [Footnote 13: Life of Franklin, by Sparks, p. 102.] While thus engaged he conceived the idea of establishing a public subscription library. His knowledge of human nature taught him that if he presented the enterprise as his own, feelings of jealousy might be excited, and it might be imagined that he was influenced by personal ambition. He therefore said that a number of gentlemen had adopted the plan, and had requested him to visit the lovers of books and of reading, and solicit their subscriptions. Each subscriber was to contribute two pounds to start the enterprise, and to pay a yearly assessment of ten shillings. By the arduous labors of five months, Franklin obtained fifty names. With this the enterprise commenced. Such was the origin of the Philadelphia Library, now one of the most important institutions of the kind in our land. In the year 1861, seventy thousand volumes were reported as on its shelves. Philadelphia contained a population of nearly ten thousand people. Pennsylvania was decidedly the central point for European emigration. Its climate was delightful; its soil fertile; and William Penn's humane policy with the Indians had secured for the colony peace and friendship with the native inhabitants for more than fifty years. The white man, on this continent, has told his own story. The Indians have had no historians. But nothing is more clear than that in almost every instance they were goaded to war by the unendurable wrongs which were inflicted upon them.[14] Until Braddock's dreadful defeat, Pennsylvania had scarcely known a single alarm. In the summer of 1749, twelve thousand Germans landed at Philadelphia. This was the average number for many years. The policy of William Penn had been to establish upon the banks of the Delaware, an extended and beautiful village, where every house should have its lawn and its garden for vegetables and flowers. In the year 1732, when Franklin was twenty-six years of age, the dwellings of this village were mostly of brick or stone, and were spread along the banks of the river for the distance of a mile, with streets running back into the interior to the distance of about half a mile. [Footnote 14: "No other British colony admits of the evidence of an Indian against a white man; nor are the complaints of Indians against white men duly regarded in other colonies; whereby these poor people endure the most cruel treatment from the very worst of our own people, without hope of redress. And all the Indian wars in our colonies were occasioned by such means." Importance of the British Plantations in America to these Kingdoms, London. 1731.] The prosperity of Philadelphia, indeed of Pennsylvania, was remarkable. Provisions and the most delicious fruits were in great abundance. Even the pigs were fattened upon the most luscious peaches. Each family in the city kept its cow, which grazed upon the common lands on the outskirts of the town. The Philadelphia of that period was a green village, beautifully shaded by trees, and presenting to every visitor an aspect of rare attractions. Professor Peter Kalm, who published an exceedingly interesting account of his travels in North America between the years 1748 and 1751, writes, "There were fine orchards all about the city. The country people in Sweden and Finland guard their turnips more carefully than the people here do the most exquisite fruits. A Philadelphian has so much liberty and abundance that he lives in his house like a king." The Quakers, or as they prefer to be called, the Friends, at that time composed about one-third of the population of Philadelphia, and one-half of the State of Pennsylvania. They were a remarkably intelligent, industrious and worthy people. Probably a better and more thrifty community was never colonized on this globe. The state of society has greatly changed since that day, and customs, which were then deemed essential, have since become obsolete. For instance, the whipping-post, the pillory, and the stocks, were prominent in the market-place and were in frequent use. There was a public whipper, who, for his repulsive services, received a salary of fifty dollars a year. Until as late as 1760, women were frequently publicly whipped. It is said that a whipping occurred on an average, twice a month. The dress of gentlemen was gaudy and extravagant, unsurpassed by that of French or British courtiers. Immense wigs, with their profusion of waves or curls, were in use by the gentry. Very tight knee-breeches were worn, with silk stockings, and shoes embellished with immense silver buckles, highly polished. Their coats were richly embroidered, often of silk velvet, and their full flow reached below the knees. Ruffled shirts and ruffled wrist-bands of linen, of snowy whiteness, added to the beauty of the dress. A jewelled scabbard containing a polished sword hung by the side. A three-cornered hat completed this showy attire. There is not a Rocky Mountain Indian in his most gorgeous war-dress of paint and plumes, who would attract more attention walking down Broadway, than would Benjamin Franklin as he was painted in 1726. His portrait was taken when he was in London, working as a journeyman printer. Contrary to the general impression, Franklin was then, and through all his life, fully conscious of the advantages which dress confers. When surrounded by the homage of the court of Versailles, there was no courtier in those magnificent saloons more attentive to his attire than was Benjamin Franklin. His keen sagacity taught him the advantage of appearing in a dress entirely different from that of the splendid assembly around him, and thus he attracted universal observation. But never did he appear in the presence of these lords and ladies but in a costly garb to which he had devoted much attention. [Illustration] Mr. Parton, speaking of the portrait which Franklin then had painted in London, says, "The fair, full, smiling face of Franklin is surrounded in this picture by a vast and stiff horse-hair wig; and his well-developed figure shows imposingly in a voluminous and decorated coat that reaches nearly to his heels. Under his left arm he carries his cocked hat. His manly bosom heaves under snowy ruffles, and his extensive wrist-bands are exposed to view by the shortness of his coat sleeves." Between the years 1740 and 1775, while abundance reigned in Pennsylvania, and there was peace in all her borders, a more happy and prosperous population could not perhaps be found on this globe. In every home there was comfort. The people generally were highly moral, and knowledge was extensively diffused. Americans, who visited Europe, were deeply impressed by the contrast. In the Old World they saw everywhere indications of poverty and suffering. Franklin wrote, after a tour in Great Britain in 1772, "Had I never been in the American colonies, but were to form my judgment of civil society by what I have lately seen, I should never advise a nation of savages to admit of civilization. For, I assure you, that in the possession and enjoyment of the various comforts of life, compared with these people, every Indian is a gentleman; and the effect of this kind of civil society seems to be the depressing multitudes below the savage state, that a few may be raised above it." Yet let it not be supposed that the effects of the fall were not visible here, or that man's inhumanity to man had ceased. There were bickerings, and heart burnings, and intense political struggles, in which the strong endeavored to extend their power, and the weak endeavored to throw off the shackles with which they were bound. William Penn complains of the ambitious politicians who he said thought--"nothing taller than themselves but the trees." John Adams denounced in severest terms the tricks of the petty politicians; and speaking of the more ambitious ones who sought the positions of governor or custom-house officers, he writes: "These seekers are actuated by a more ravenous sort of ambition and avarice." For twenty years Franklin continued a prosperous but uneventful life, as an active business man in Philadelphia. His integrity, his sagacity, and his prosperity, rapidly increased the esteem in which he was held. But still he was engaged in business as a printer and a shop-keeper, which would not now give him admission into what he called the higher circles of society. He not only edited, printed and published his newspaper, but he also kept books for sale and a small quantity of stationery, and also was a binder of books. He made and sold ink; was an extensive dealer in rags; and soap and feathers could be purchased at his shop. We find in his advertisements the announcement of coffee and other groceries for sale. And still his printing office gradually became the nucleus for the gathering of the most intelligent and influential men. If any important project was on foot, it was deemed essential to consult Benjamin Franklin. His Gazette proved a great success, and was incomparably the ablest paper published in the colonies.[15] [Footnote 15: Life and Works of John Adams, Vol. ii, p. 165.] Franklin's editorials were very sparkling, and are considered as among the most brilliant of his intellectual efforts. He was almost invariably good natured, and the design of all he wrote, was to promote integrity and kindly feeling. He would write an article, as if from a correspondent, which would give him an opportunity to return an amusing article in the next number. A complete file of the paper is preserved in the Philadelphia Library. In 1732, Franklin issued the first number of the Almanac, called Poor Richard, which subsequently attained such wide renown. The popularity of the work was astonishing; for twenty-five years it averaged ten thousand copies a year. This was a wonderful sale in those times. Everybody was quoting the pithy sayings of Poor Richard.[16] [Footnote 16: "And now after the lapse of one hundred and thirty years, we find persons willing to give twenty-five dollars for a single number, and several hundred dollars for a complete set. Nay, the reading matter of several of the numbers, has been republished within these few years, and that republication already begins to command the price of a rarity."--_Parton's Life of Franklin_, Vol. i, p. 231.] Franklin was an extensive reader. He had a memory almost miraculous; and his mind was so constituted, that it eagerly grasped and retained any sharp or witty sayings. Thus, though many of the maxims of Poor Richard originated with him, others were gleaned from the witticisms of past ages, upon which Franklin placed the imprint of his own peculiar genius. I give a few of those renowned maxims which soon became as household words, in every shop and dwelling of our land. "There is no little enemy." "Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead." "He is no clown who drives the plough, but he that does clownish things." "Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it." "The noblest question in the world is, 'what good may I do in it.'" "Keep your eye wide open before marriage; half shut afterward." Franklin was not a poet. He could scheme easily, but even his rhymes were poor. His sense of delicacy was quite obtuse, but perhaps not more so, than we ought to expect from the unrefined times in which he lived.[17] [Footnote 17: "Poor Richard, at this day, would be reckoned an indecent production. All great humorists were all indecent, before Charles Dickens. They used certain words which are now never pronounced by polite persons, and are never printed by respectable printers; and they referred freely to certain subjects which are familiar to every living creature, but which it is now agreed among civilized beings, shall not be topics of conversation. In this respect Poor Richard was no worse, and not much better than other colonial periodicals, some of which contain things incredibly obscene, as much so as the strongest passages of Sterne, Smollet and De Foe."--_Parton._] The increasing circulation of the Pennsylvania Gazette, the extensive sale of Poor Richard, and the success of many of the small books which Franklin published, soon placed the finances of Franklin in a very flourishing condition. This enabled him to send for every important work published in England. As he was never an hour in idleness, and seldom entered any place of popular amusement, he found time to study all these solid and useful works. The superior powers with which God had endowed him, enabled him to glean from their pages, and store up in his memory, all that was most valuable. By these indefatigable studies, he was rapidly becoming one of the most learned of men, and was preparing himself for that brilliant career, in which, as a statesman and a philosopher, he stood in the first ranks of those who had been deemed the great men of earth. His first entrance to public life was as Clerk to the General Assembly, which was then the Legislature of the Pennsylvania Colony. This was an office of but little emolument or honor. His first election was unanimous. The second year, though successful, he was opposed by an influential member. Franklin, who wished to have every one his friend, was anxious to conciliate him. He accomplished his purpose shrewdly--perhaps cunningly, is not too strong a word to use. Having heard that the gentleman had a very rare and valuable book in his library, he wrote him a very polite and flattering letter, soliciting the loan of it. No man could pen such an epistle more adroitly than Franklin. After a few days he returned the book with one of his most exquisite notes of thanks. The gentleman was caught in the trap. Charmed with the urbanity Franklin displayed in the correspondence, the next time he met the philosopher, he grasped him cordially by the hand. Though he had never spoken to him before, he invited him to his house. Franklin, commenting upon this adventure, writes, "He ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death. This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says 'He that hath once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged,' and it shows how much more profitable it is prudently to remove than to resent, return, and continue inimical proceedings." There was something in this transaction, an apparent want of sincerity, an approach to trickery, which will impress many readers painfully. It was a shrewd manoeuvre, skillfully contrived, and successfully executed. The perfect sincerity of a friendly and magnanimous mind is the safest guide in all the emergencies of life. CHAPTER VI. _Religious and Philosophic Views._ Studious habits--New religion--Personal habits--Church of the Free and Easy--His many accomplishments--The career of Hemphall--Birth and Death of Franklin's son--The Ministry of Whitefield--Remarkable friendship between the philosopher and the preacher--Prosperity of Franklin--His convivial habits--The defense of Philadelphia--Birth of a daughter--The Philadelphia Academy. Franklin was a perservering and laborious student, for whatever he read he studied. With increasing intellectual tastes, he found time every day to devote many hours to his books. His reading was of the most elevated and instructive kind. It consisted almost exclusively of scientific treatises, and of history, biography, voyages and travels. His mind was still struggling and floundering in the midst of religious and philosophical speculations. He seems, from some unexplained reason, to have been very unwilling to accept the religion of Jesus Christ; and yet he was inspired undeniably by a very noble desire to be a good man, to attain a high position in morality. Earnestly he endeavored to frame for himself some scheme which would enable him to accomplish that purpose. At this time he wrote, "Few in public affairs act from a mere view of the good of their country, whatever they may pretend. Fewer still in public affairs act with a view to the good of mankind. There seems to me, at present, great occasion to raise a 'United Party for Virtue,' by forming the virtuous and good of all nations into a regular body, to be governed by suitable good and wise rules, which good and wise men may probably be more unanimous in their obedience to, than common people are to common laws. I at present, think, that whoever attempts this aright, and is well qualified, cannot fail of pleasing God, and of meeting with success." Influenced by these exalted motives, he concentrated all the energies of his well informed mind to the organization of a new religion. To this church he gave the name of "The Society of the Free and Easy." The members were to be Free from vice, and consequently, Easy in mind. The first article of his creed was that he would have no creed. And yet this religion, which drew an antagonistic distinction between faith and works, denouncing all faith at the same time announced that its fundamental and absolutely essential faith was that piety consisted in cherishing the ordinarily recognized virtues. These were Temperance, Silence, Order, Resolution, Frugality, Industry, Sincerity, Justice, Moderation, Cleanliness, Tranquillity, Charity and Humility. His ritual consisted in devoting one week to the cultivation of each of these virtues. He had no Sabbath, no preached Gospel, no Sacraments. But his creed, with its corresponding practice, certainly exerted a very powerful influence, and in many respects beneficial, upon his own mind. With his list of virtues before him, this remarkable young man commenced the effort vigorously to attain perfection. The Christian reader will not be at all surprised to read from Franklin's pen the following account of the result: "I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined. But I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish. After a while I went through one course only in a year, and afterwards only one in several years; till at length I omitted them entirely, being employed in voyages and business abroad, with a multiplicity of affairs that interfered." Franklin was a very proud man. He could not but be conscious of his great superiority over most of those with whom he associated. He avows that the virtue of humility he never could attain. The semblance of that virtue he could easily assume, but he says that the pride of his heart was such that had he attained it, he would have been proud of his humility. He adopted the following as the ordinary routine of life. He rose at five, very carefully performed his ablutions, and then offered a brief prayer to a being whom he called "Powerful Goodness." Why he should have preferred that address to the more simple one of "Our Heavenly Father," we know not. He then laid out the business of the day, and for a short time directed his mind to the especial virtue which he intended that day and week to cherish.[18] [Footnote 18: "It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time. As I knew, or thought I knew what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found that I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined."--Autobiography, p. 105.] In the freshness of all his morning energies he devoted himself to his books for an hour and a half. This brought him to breakfast-time. At eight o'clock he commenced work in his shop, to which he devoted himself assiduously until twelve. An hour was then allowed for dinner and rest. At one he returned to the arduous labors of his shop, labors which engrossed all his energies, and continued the employment until six. His day's hard work was then ordinarily closed. He took his supper, received his friends, or more commonly read and studied until ten o'clock at night, when almost invariably he retired to his bed. His mind still for a time continued much interested in his plan for the church of the Free and Easy. We find among his papers that he decided that candidates for admission should, after a careful examination, to ascertain that their creed was, to have no creed, and that their faith was, to abjure all faith, be subject to a probation of thirteen weeks. It seems that no candidate ever applied for admission. There were no apostles to wander abroad proclaiming the new gospel. Increasing business absorbed Franklin's time, and the new church was forgotten. The sole motive which Franklin urged to inspire to action, was self-interest. "You should be honest," he would say, "because it is politic. You abstain from vice for the same reason that you should not drink poison, for it will hurt you." In the enforcement of these views he writes, "It was my design to explain and enforce this doctrine, _that vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful_. It was, therefore, every one's interest to be virtuous who wished to be happy in this world. And I should from this circumstance (there being always in the world a number of rich merchants, nobility, states and princes, who have need of honest instruments for the management of their affairs, and such being so rare) have endeavored to convince young persons that no qualities are so likely to make a poor man's fortune as those of probity and integrity." It may be doubted whether such considerations ever made a truly good man. Virtue must be loved for its own sake. Vice must be deserted for its inherent baseness, even though it may bring a great reward. Franklin, in the prosecution of his studies, devoted himself to French, Spanish, Italian, and even to Latin. In all these he became a proficient. His mind was wonderfully prompt in the acquisition of knowledge. He could hardly have devoted himself more assiduously and successfully to these studies, had some good angel whispered in the ear of the young printer the astounding intelligence, "You are yet to be the ambassador of the United States to European courts. You are to appear in those glittering assemblages as the equal of the highest noble; and are to enjoy the hospitalities of kings and queens. Familiarity with these languages, and the intellectual culture you are thus acquiring will be of more value to you than mines of gold." This remarkable man prized all branches of knowledge; and seemed to excel in all. He devoted much attention to music. With much skill he played upon the harp, the guitar, the violin, and the violincello. In the year 1734, a young preacher by the name of Hemphall came to Philadelphia from England. He was deemed by the orthodox clergy, very heterodox in his opinions. Probably suspicions of his orthodoxy were enhanced from the fact that he brought high testimonials of eloquence from several of the most prominent deists and free-thinkers in England. He was very fluent, at times very eloquent, and Franklin was charmed with the man and his doctrines. Boldly denouncing all creeds, and all religious faith, he announced it as _his_ creed and _his_ faith that piety consists in conduct alone. Crowds flocked to hear him. One day, after preaching a very eloquent sermon, some one discovered that he had stolen that sermon from Dr. James Foster, the most popular preacher in London. An investigation took place, in which he was compelled to acknowledge that he had stolen every one of his sermons. Franklin writes, "This detection gave many of our party disgust, who accordingly abandoned his cause, and occasioned our more speedy discomfiture in the synod. I stuck by him, however. I rather approved his giving us good sermons composed by others, than bad ones of his own, though the latter was the practice of our common teachers." Had the young man said frankly, "I am rehearsing to you the most eloquent sermons of the most eloquent English divines," no one could have found any fault. But for him to assume that the sermons were his own, and that he personally was entitled to the credit of whatever power they exhibited, was certainly practicing deception. It was a gross violation of Franklin's cardinal virtue of sincerity. It was unworthy of Franklin, in his charitable regard for the offender, to gloss over the real criminality of the offence. A year after Franklin's marriage, a son was born to him, to whom he gave the name of Francis Folger Franklin. All accounts agree in describing the child as endowed with remarkable beauty and intelligence. Probably Franklin never loved any being as he loved that child. In the year 1736, when this wonderful boy was but four years of age, he was seized with the small-pox and died. Even the philosophic Franklin was almost crushed by the terrible calamity. The cheering views of the Christian faith could not sustain him. He had no vivid conception of his cherub boy an angel in Heaven awaiting his father's arrival. He could only say that "I am _inclined to believe_ that my child has not passed away into utter annihilation; but who knows? Many of the wisest and best on earth utterly discard the idea of a future existence. They deem the thought the conceit of ignorance and fanaticism." We read the following epitaph on his little grave-stone with much sympathy for the bereaved father. He could only write Francis F. Son of Benjamin and Deborah Franklin. Deceased November 12, 1736, Aged four years, one month and one day. The delight of all who knew him. In the year 1739, Rev. George Whitefield arrived in Philadelphia. It is remarkable that a warm friendship should have sprung up between men so very diverse in character. But Franklin could not be insensible to the wonderful power of this preacher, in promoting public morals, and in transforming the worst of men into valuable citizens, faithfully performing all the duties of life. It is surprising that this effect of the Gospel did not teach him that Christianity is the "wisdom of God, and the power of God to salvation." _Love_ was emphatically the message which Whitefield, with tearful eyes and throbbing heart, proclaimed to the wicked and the sorrowing. "God so _loved the world_, that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but should have everlasting life." Christ "came not into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved." Such were the themes which this apostolic preacher unfolded, and which moved human hearts, in these new colonies as seventeen hundred years ago they were moved by the preaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, and his disciple Paul, upon the plains of Asia. Whitefield taught that _belief_ controlled conduct. As a man sincerely believes so will he act. Franklin, with his accustomed candor, in his Autobiography, wrote in the following terms, the effects of the preaching of this remarkable reformer: "The multitudes of all sects and denominations that attended his sermons were enormous. It was wonderful to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants. From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seemed as if all the world were growing religious; so that one could not walk through the town, in an evening, without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street. "Mr. Whitefield, on leaving us, went preaching all the way through the colonies to Georgia. The settlement of that province had been lately begun; but instead of being made with hardy, industrious husbandmen, accustomed to labor, the only people fit for such an enterprise, it was with families of broken shop-keepers, and other insolvent debtors; many of indolent and idle habits, taken out of the jails who, being set down in the woods, unqualified for clearing land, and unable to endure the hardships of a new settlement, perished in numbers, leaving many helpless children unprovided for. "The sight of their miserable situation inspired the benevolent heart of Mr. Whitefield with the idea of building an Orphan House there in which they might be supported and educated. Returning northward, he preached up this charity, and made large collections. "I did not disapprove of the design; but as Georgia was then destitute of materials and workmen, and it was proposed to send them from Philadelphia at a great expense, I thought it would have been better to have built the house at Philadelphia, and brought the children to it. This I advised. But he was resolute in his first project, rejected my counsel, and I therefore refused to contribute. "I happened soon after to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold, (about twenty-five dollars). As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper; another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably that I emptied my pockets wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all. "Some of Mr. Whitefield's enemies affected to suppose that he would apply these collections to his own private emolument. But I, who was intimately acquainted with him, being employed in printing his sermons and journals, never had the least suspicion of his integrity; but am to this day decidedly of the opinion, that he was in all his conduct a perfectly honest man; and methinks my testimony ought have the more weight, as we had no religious connection. He used, indeed, sometimes to pray for my conversion, but never had the satisfaction of believing that his prayers were heard. Ours was a friendship sincere on both sides, and lasted to his death."[19] [Footnote 19: "Autobiography of Franklin," as given by Sparks, p. 139.] At one time Franklin wrote to Whitefield, in Boston, inviting him, as he was about to come to Philadelphia, to make his house his home. The devout preacher replied, "If you make this offer for Christ's sake you will not lose your reward." Promptly the philosopher rejected any such motive, and rejoined, "Do not be mistaken. It was not for Christ's sake I invited you, but for your own sake." In all the numerous letters, essays, and philosophical and religious disquisitions of Franklin, we seldom, I think, find a sentiment indicative of any high appreciation of the character of Jesus Christ; or the debt of gratitude we owe to him, either for his teaching or for his example. As Franklin discarded all idea of the Atonement, he of course could not express any gratitude for that which is, to the Christian, the crowning act even of divine love. This Saviour, to millions who cannot be counted, has proved, even if the comfort be a delusion, in temptation, disappointment, and death, more precious than it is in the power of words to declare. One article from Franklin's newspaper, published in the year 1740, gives an idea of the extraordinary interest which the preaching of Whitefield excited. "On Thursday last the Reverend Mr. Whitefield left this city, and was accompanied to Chester by about one hundred and fifty horse; and preached there to about seven thousand people. On Friday he preached twice at Willings Town to about five thousand. On Saturday, at Newcastle, to about two thousand five hundred; and the same evening at Christiana Bridge to about three thousand; on Sunday at White Clay Creek, he preached twice, resting about half an hour between the sermons, to eight thousand, of whom three thousand, it is computed, came on horseback. It rained most of the time, and yet they stood in the open air." The keenness of the scrutiny with which Franklin watched all the operations of nature, led him to the discovery of the before unknown fact that the fierce north-east storms which sweep our Atlantic coast invariably begin in the south-west, and move backwards, diminishing in violence as they go. He also, about this time, invented the Franklin stove, which in the day when wood was the only fuel consumed has invested so many firesides with a rare aspect of cheerfulness. He wrote a very ingenious pamphlet, elucidating the philosophy of house-warming. There is great moral power in prosperity, when wisely accepted and enjoyed. Franklin was now a prosperous man. His income was constantly increasing. His virtues, and they were great ones, proved in all respects promotive of his worldly welfare. His journal was the leading paper, certainly in all that region, and had not its superior in any of the colonies. His renowned almanac, Poor Richard, attained an unexampled sale. The work executed in his printing office was so excellent as to bring in to him many orders even from the other provinces. The various books and pamphlets he had published had all been successful. Philadelphia had already become the chief town of the Colonies. Notwithstanding Franklin's devotion to books, to business, and to philosophical research, he is represented to have been at this time, a jovial man, very fond of convivial gatherings. He could not only write a good song, but he could sing it, to the acceptance of his companions. One of these songs entitled "The Old Man's Wish" he says he sang over a thousand times. We give the concluding stanza, illustrative of its general character. "With a courage undaunted, may I face the last day, And when I am gone may the better sort say,-- In the morning when sober, in the evening when mellow, He has gone and not left behind him his fellow, For he governed his passions with absolute sway." There was, as usual, war in Europe. Enormous armies were burning cities and villages, drenching the trampled harvest fields with blood, and filling the humble hamlets of the poor with misery. There was every reason to fear that these awful storms, raised by the passions of depraved men, would reach the peaceful shores of the Delaware. Philadelphia was entirely undefended. It is said that there was not an available cannon in Pennsylvania. A well-armed privateer could at any hour, seize and sack the city. Quaker influence so far prevailed that the legislature could not be induced to raise a battery, or purchase a gun. Franklin wrote a very powerful pamphlet, called Plain Truth, urging the necessity of adopting some measures of defence. He showed how the colony could, at any time, be ravaged by a few vessels from any European nation then in conflict with England. I give a few extracts from this admirable pamphlet: "On the first alarm, terror will spread over all. Many will seek safety by flight. Those that are reputed rich will flee, through fear of torture to make them produce more than they are able. The man that has a wife and children, will find them hanging on his neck, beseeching him to quit the city, and save his life. All will run into confusion, amid cries and lamentations, and the hurry and disorder of departures. The few that remain, will be unable to resist. "Sacking the city will be the first; and burning it, in all probability, the last act of the enemy. This I believe will be the case, if you have timely notice. But what must be your condition, if suddenly surprised without previous alarm, perhaps in the night. Confined to your houses, you will have nothing to trust but the enemy's mercy. Your best fortune will be to fall under the power of commanders of king's ships, able to control the mariners, and not into the hands of licentious privateers. "Who can without the utmost horror, conceive the miseries of the latter when your persons, fortunes, wives and daughters, shall be subject to the wanton and unbridled rage, rapine, and lust, of negroes, mulattoes, and others, the vilest and most abandoned of mankind?" This warning effectually roused the community. A public meeting was summoned, in the immense building erected to accommodate the crowds who flocked to hear Whitefield. Here Franklin harangued the multitude. An Association of Defence was organized. Ten thousand persons enrolled their names. In a few days nearly every man in the province, who was not a Quaker, had joined some military organization. Each man purchased for himself a weapon, and was learning how to use it. Eighty companies were organized and disciplined. The companies in Philadelphia united in a regiment, and chose Franklin their colonel. Wisely he declined the office, "conceiving myself unfit," he says. A battery was thrown up below the town. Some cannon were sent for from Boston. Several eighteen-pounders were obtained in New York, and more were ordered from London. In manning the battery, Franklin took his turn of duty as a common soldier. There was not a little opposition to these measures, but still the strong current of popular opinion was in their favor. Even the young Quakers, though anxious to avoid wounding the feelings of their parents, secretly gave their influence to these preparations of defence. The peace of Aix la Chapelle in 1748, terminated these alarms. But the wisdom and energy which Franklin had displayed, caused him to be regarded as the most prominent man in Pennsylvania. The masses of the people regarded him with singular homage and confidence. In 1744, Franklin had a daughter born, to whom he gave the name of Sarah. His motherless son William, who was destined to give his father great trouble, was growing up, stout, idle, and intractable. Early in the war he had run away, and enlisted on board a privateer. With much difficulty his father rescued him from these engagements. Franklin was evidently embarrassed to know what to do with the boy. He allowed him, when but sixteen years of age, to enlist as a soldier in an expedition against Canada. About this time Franklin wrote to his sister Jane, whose son had also run away to enlist as a privateer. He wished to console her by the assurance that it was not in consequence of unkind treatment, that the boys were induced thus to act. He wrote: "When boys see prizes brought in, and quantities of money shared among the men, and their gay living, it fills their heads with notions that half distract them; and puts them quite out of conceit with trades and the dull ways of getting money by working. My only son left my house unknown to us all, and got on board a privateer, from whence I fetched him. No one imagined it was hard usage at home that made him do this. Every one that knows me thinks I am too indulgent a parent, as well as master." The father of Benjamin Franklin died in Boston, at the great age of eighty-nine years. He had secured, in a very high degree, the respect of the people, not only by his irreproachable morals, but by his unfeigned piety. The Boston News Letter, of January 17, 1745, in the following brief obituary, chronicles his death: "Last night died Mr. Josiah Franklin, tallow chandler, and soap maker. By the force of steady temperance he had made a constitution, none of the strongest, last with comfort to the age of eighty-nine years. And by an entire dependence on his Redeemer, and a constant course of the strictest piety and virtue, he was enabled to die as he lived, with cheerfulness and peace, leaving a numerous posterity the honor of being descended from a person who, through a long life, supported the character of an honest man." In the year 1743 Franklin drew up a plan for an Academy in Philadelphia. In consequence of the troubled times the tract was not published until the year 1749. It was entitled, "Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania." The suggestions he presented indicated a wide acquaintance with the writings of the most eminent philosophers. He marked out minutely, and with great wisdom, the course of study to be pursued. It is pleasant to read the following statement, in this programme. Urging the study of History, he writes, "History will also afford frequent opportunities of showing the necessity of a _public religion_, from its usefulness to the public; the advantages of a religious character among private persons; the mischiefs of superstition and the excellency of the _Christian religion_ above all others, ancient and modern." Perhaps this tribute to the excellence of Christianity ought in some degree to modify the impression left upon the mind, by Franklin's studious avoidal, in all his writings, of any allusion to the name of Jesus Christ its founder. Twenty-five thousand dollars were speedily raised for this institution. All the religious sects harmoniously united. One individual from each sect was appointed, to form the corporate body intrusted with the funds. But almost the entire care and trouble of rearing the building, and organizing the institution fell upon Franklin. He was found to be fully adequate to all these responsibilities. CHAPTER VII. _The Tradesman becomes a Philosopher._ Franklin appointed Indian commissioner--Effects of Rum--Indian logic--Accumulating honors--Benevolent enterprises--Franklin's counsel to Tennent--Efforts for city improvement--Anecdotes--Franklin appointed postmaster--Rumors of War--England enlists the Six Nations in her cause--Franklin plans a Confederacy of States--Plans rejected--Electrical experiments--Franklin's increase of income--Fearful experiments--The kite--New honors--Views of the French philosopher--Franklin's Religious views--His counsel to a young pleader--Post-office Reforms. In the year 1740, Franklin, then forty-four years of age, was appointed on a commission to form a treaty with the Indians at Carlisle. Franklin, knowing the frenzy to which the savages were plunged by intoxication, promised them that, if they would keep entirely sober until the treaty was concluded, they should then have an ample supply of rum. The agreement was made and faithfully kept. "They then," writes Franklin, "claimed and received the rum. This was in the afternoon. They were near one hundred men, women and children, and were lodged in temporary cabins, built in the form of a square, just without the town. In the evening, hearing a great noise among them, the commissioners walked to see what was the matter. "We found that they had made a great bonfire in the middle of the square; that they were all drunk, men and women quarreling and fighting. Their dark-colored bodies, half-naked, seen only by the gloomy light of the bonfire, running after and beating one another with firebrands, accompanied by their horrid yellings, formed a scene the most resembling our ideas of hell, that could well be imagined. There was no appeasing the tumult, and we returned to our lodgings. At midnight a number of them came thundering at our door demanding more rum, of which we took no notice. "The next morning they all seemed very much ashamed of the disgraceful orgies in which they had indulged. There was a law written in their own hearts, which told them that they had done wrong. Three chiefs were appointed to call upon the commissioners with an humble apology. With downcast looks they confessed their fault, and then with logic which more intelligent men sometimes use, endeavored to throw the blame upon God. In remarkable speech one of them said, "'The Great Spirit, who made all things, made everything for some use. Whatever use he designed anything for, that use it should be always put to. Now, when he made rum, he said, "Let this be for the Indians to get drunk with! and it must be so."'" The Governor at this time appointed Franklin a Justice of Peace. Franklin says he was much flattered by these accumulating honors. Soon he was elected to a seat, as one of the Legislators in the Assembly. Mainly through his influence, a hospital for the sick was established in Philadelphia. Though the measure encountered much opposition, he carried it; and the institution proved of incalculable benefit. The Rev. Gilbert Tennent solicited Franklin's aid in raising money for building a Meeting House. As Franklin had been so continually engaged in asking for money for various objects of benevolence, he was afraid he should become obnoxious to his fellow-citizens, and declined. Mr. Tennent then requested him to give him a list of the names of those influential persons upon whom it would be well for him to call. Every Christian minister who reads this, will appreciate the nature of his embarrassment. Franklin says that he thought it would be unbecoming in him, after having emptied the purses of his friends, to send other beggars to them, with renewed importunities. This request he therefore declined. Mr. Tennent then urged him to give him some advice. Franklin replied, "That I will willingly do. In the first place, I advise you to apply to all those who you know will do something; next, to those who you are uncertain whether they will give anything or not, and show them the list of those who have given; and lastly, do not neglect those who you are sure will give nothing, for in some of them you may be mistaken." Mr. Tennent laughed heartily, and declared that he would rigorously follow out this advice. He did so. His success was wonderful; a much larger sum was raised than he had anticipated, and soon a capacious and beautiful Meeting House rose in Arch street. The streets of Philadelphia, though laid out with great regularity, were unpaved, and in wet weather were almost impassable quagmires. Franklin, by talking with his friends, and by urging the subject in his paper, at length succeeded in having a sidewalk paved with stone, upon one of the most important streets. It gave great satisfaction, but the rest of the street not being paved, the mud was thrown by passing carriages upon it, and as the city employed no street cleaners, the sidewalk soon ceased to afford a clean passage to pedestrians. Franklin found an industrious man who was willing to sweep the pavement twice a week, carrying off the dirt from before all the doors, for the sum of sixpence a month, to be paid by each house. The philosophic Franklin then, having started this enterprise, printed on a sheet of paper the great advantages of keeping the sidewalk clean, and sent one of these papers to each house. He urged that much of the soiling of the interior of the houses would thus be avoided, that an attractive sidewalk would lure passengers to the shops; and that, in windy weather, their goods would be preserved from the dust. After a few days he called, in person, at each house and shop to see who would subscribe sixpence a month. It was a great success. The cleanliness of the pavement in the important streets surrounding the market, greatly delighted the people, and prepared the way for carrying a bill which Franklin presented to the Assembly for paving and lighting all the important streets of the city. A gentleman, by the name of John Clifton, had placed a lamp before his door. This suggested the idea. Lamps were sent for from London. Globes were furnished. They were expensive. The smoke circulated in the globe and obstructed the light. They had to be wiped clean each day. An accidental stroke demolished the whole globe. Franklin suggested four flat panes. One might be broken, and easily replaced. Crevices were left below to admit a current of air, and a funnel to draw off the smoke. Thus for a long time the glass remained undimmed. Wherever Franklin went, he carried with him this spirit of improvement. When in London, he found the streets wretchedly dirty. One morning he found a poor woman at his door in Craven street, sweeping the sidewalk with a wretched broom. Her pallid and exhausted appearance touched the sympathies of Franklin. He asked who employed her. She replied: "Nobody. I am poor and in distress. I sweeps before gentlefolks's doors, and hopes they will give me something." Franklin immediately engaged her to sweep the whole street. It was nine o'clock in the morning. She was so languid and debilitated that he thought it would take her nearly all day. But in three hours she came for her shilling. Franklin thought she could not have done her work faithfully. He sent his servant to examine. He reported that the work was thoroughly done. A new problem rose before Franklin: If this feeble woman could in so short a time sweep such a street, a strong man, with a suitable broom, could certainly do it in half of the time. He therefore drew up a plan for cleaning the streets of London and Westminster, which was placed in the hands of one of the most influential of the public-spirited men of London. Franklin apologizes for speaking in his autobiography of such trifles. Very truly, he says, "Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day. Thus if you teach a poor young man to shave himself and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas. This sum may be soon spent, the regret only remaining of having foolishly consumed it. But in the other case, he escapes the frequent vexation of waiting for barbers, and of their sometimes dirty fingers, offensive breath, and dull razors. He shaves when most convenient to him, and enjoys daily the pleasure of its being done with a good instrument." Nearly all the important offices in the colonies were filled by appointments from the British Crown. For some time, Franklin had been employed as an assistant to the Postmaster General, in simplifying and bringing regularity into his accounts. Upon the death of the American Postmaster, Franklin, in 1753, was appointed jointly with Sir William Hunter to succeed him. The appointment was made by the Postmaster General in England. The post-office department had scarcely been self-supporting. It had never paid anything to the crown. The salary offered to the two postmasters was three thousand dollars a year each, if they could save that sum from the profits of the office. Franklin writes, "To do this a variety of improvements was necessary. Some of these were inevitably, at first, expensive; so that in the first four years, the office became above nine hundred pounds in debt to us. But it soon after began to repay us. And before I was displaced by a freak of the ministers, of which I shall hereafter speak, we had brought it to yield three times as much clear revenue to the crown as the post-office of Ireland. Since that imprudent transaction, they have received from it not one farthing." Again there were menaces of war, insane and demoniac, to fill the world with tears and woe. As we read the record of these horrid outrages which through all the centuries have desolated this globe, it would seem that there must be a vein of insanity as well as of depravity, in the heart of fallen man. England and France were again marshaling their armies, and accumulating their fleets, for the terrible conflict. It was certain that France, in Canada, and England, in her colonies, could not live in peace here, while the volcanic throes of war were shaking the island of Great Britain, and the Continent of Europe. In the heart of New York, then almost an unbroken wilderness, there were six exceedingly fierce and war-like tribes called the Six Nations. Like the wolves they delighted in war. The greatness of a man depended on the number of scalps with which he could fringe his dress. These savage warriors were ready and eager to engage as the allies of those who would pay them the highest price. Mercy was an attribute of which they knew not even the name. It was not doubted that France would immediately send her emissaries from Canada to enlist these savages on her side. Awful would be the woes with which these demoniac men could sweep our defenceless frontiers; with the tomahawk and the scalping knife, exterminating families, burning villages, and loading their pack-horses with plunder. To forestall the French, and to turn these woes from our own frontier to the humble homes of the Canadian emigrants, the English government appointed a commissioner to visit the chiefs of these tribes in the year 1754. The all important council was to be held in Albany. Governor Hamilton appointed four commissioners, of whom Franklin was one, to act in behalf of Pennsylvania. They were furnished with rich gifts with which to purchase the favor of the Indians. It was a long and tedious journey from Philadelphia to Albany. Franklin, on this journey, was deeply impressed with the importance of a union of the colonies for self-defence. He therefore drew up a plan for such union. Several gentlemen of the highest intelligence in New York, having examined it, gave it their cordial approval. He accordingly laid it before Congress. There were several other persons in other colonies who were impressed as deeply as Franklin with a sense of the importance of such a confederacy, and they also sent in their suggestions. Congress appointed a committee of one from each province, to consider the several plans. The committee approved of Franklin's plan, and reported accordingly. While the commissioners were conferring with the Indians in Albany, Congress was engaged in discussing the plans of a confederacy. Franklin's plan was finally rejected. It did not meet the views either of the Assembly, or of the British Court. And here we see, perhaps the germs of the great conflict which soon culminated in the cruel war of the Revolution. The Assembly objected to the plan as too aristocratic, conferring too much power upon the crown. The court emphatically rejected it as too democratic, investing the people with too much power. Franklin ever affirmed that his plan was the true medium. Even the royalist governor of Pennsylvania warmly commended the compromise he urged. In visiting Boston he was shown an electric tube, recently sent from England. With this tube some very surprising electrical experiments were performed, ushering in a new science, of which then but very little was known. Franklin became intensely interested in the subject. Upon his return to Philadelphia, he devoted himself, with great assiduity, to experimenting with electric tubes. At this time he wrote to a friend, "I never was before engaged in any study that so totally engrossed my attention and my time, as this has lately done; for what with making experiments when I can be alone, and repeating them to my friends and acquaintances, who, from the novelty of the thing, come continually in crowds to see them, I have little leisure for anything else." This was during the winter of 1746-7. Franklin suggested that the electricity was collected, not created by friction. He also propounded the theory of positive and negative electricity. He was, at this time, comparatively a wealthy man, and consequently could afford to devote his time to philosophical investigation. It is estimated that his income, from his estates, amounted to about seven hundred pounds a year; this was equal to about six or seven thousand dollars at the present time. Mr. Parton writes, "Besides this independence, Franklin was the holder of two offices, worth together perhaps one hundred and fifty pounds a year. His business, then more flourishing than ever, produced an annual profit, as before computed, of two thousand pounds; bringing up his income to the troublesome and absurd amount of nearly three thousand pounds; three times the revenue of a colonial governor." Under these prosperous circumstances, Franklin withdrew from active business, became a silent partner in the firm, and devoted nearly all his time to the new science. He wrote, in the autumn of 1748, to his friend Cadwallader Colden of New York, "I have removed to a more quiet part of the town, where I am settling my old accounts, and hope soon to be quite master of my own time, and no longer, as the song has it, 'at every one's call but my own.' "Thus you see I am in a fair way of having no other tasks than such as I shall like to give myself, and of enjoying what I look upon as a great happiness, leisure to read, study, make experiments, and converse at large with such ingenious and worthy men, as are pleased to honor me with their friendship or acquaintance, on such points as may produce something for the common benefit of mankind, uninterrupted by the cares and fatigues of business." He wrote a treatise upon thundergusts, which displayed wonderful sagacity, and which arrested the attention of nearly all the philosophers in Europe and America. The all-important topics of this exceedingly important document, were the power of points to draw off electricity, and also the similarity of electricity and lightning. He therefore urged that metallic rods might be attached to buildings and ships, which, pushing their needle points above roofs and masts, might draw the electric fire harmlessly from the clouds. He confesses that he cannot imagine why the points should possess this curious power, but urges that facts seem to demonstrate it. One day, for the entertainment of his friends, he had made arrangements to kill a turkey with an electric shock. Two large jars were heavily charged. Incautiously manipulating, he took the shock himself. In the following language, he describes the effect: "The flash was very great, and the crack was as loud as a pistol; yet my senses being instantly gone, I neither saw the one nor heard the other; nor did I feel the stroke on my hand, though I afterwards found it raised a round swelling where the fire entered, as big as half a pistol bullet. "I then felt what I know not well how to describe, a universal blow throughout my whole body from head to foot, which seemed within as well as without; after which the first thing I took notice of was a violent, quick shaking of my body, which gradually remitting, my sense as gradually returned, and then, I thought the bottle must be discharged, but could not conceive how, till at last I perceived the chain in my hand, and recollected what I had been about to do. "That part of my hand and fingers which held the chain, was left white as though the blood had been driven out; and remained so eight or ten minutes after, feeling like dead flesh; and I had numbness in my arms and the back of my neck which continued to the next morning, but wore off." Franklin was much mortified at his awkwardness in this experiment. He declared it to be a notorious blunder, and compared it with the folly of the Irishman, who wishing to steal some gun-powder, bored a hole through the cask with red hot iron. But notwithstanding this warning, not long afterwards, in endeavoring to give a shock to a paralytic patient, he received the whole charge himself, and was knocked flat and senseless on the floor. In the spring of 1752, Franklin tried his world renowned experiment with the kite. A June thunder cloud was rising in all its majesty. Franklin, accompanied by his son, repaired to a field secretly, being afraid of the ridicule of the people. Here he raised the kite, made of a large silk handkerchief. The top of the perpendicular stick was pointed with a sharp metallic rod. The string was hemp with the exception of the part held in the hand, which was silk; at the end of the hempen string a common key was suspended. With intense anxiety and no slight apprehension of danger, he held the line. Soon he observed the fibres of the hempen string to rise and separate themselves, as was the case of the hair on the head, when any one was placed on an insulating stool. He applied his knuckle to the key, and received an unmistakable spark. As the story is generally told, with occasionally slight contradictions, he applied his knuckle again and again to the key with a similar result. He charged a Leyden jar with the fluid and both he and his son took a shock. He then drew in his kite, packed up his apparatus and returned to his laboratory probably the most exultant and happy man in this wide world. Most of the English and many of the French philosophers were very unwilling to believe that an obscure American, in what they deemed the savage and uncultivated wilds of the New World, was outstripping them in philosophical research. They were unwilling to acknowledge the reality of his experiments; but in France, where an American would receive more impartial treatment, three of the most eminent philosophers, Count de Buffon, M. Dalibard and M. de Lor, at different places, raised the apparatus Franklin had recommended to draw electricity from the clouds. Their success was unmistakable; the results of these experiments were proclaimed throughout Europe. Franklin had now obtained renown. No one could deny that he merited a high position among the most eminent philosophers. The experiments he had suggested were tried by scientists in the philosophical circles of every country in Europe. Both Yale and Harvard, in this country, conferred upon him the honorary degree of Master of Arts, and the Royal Society, in Europe, by a unanimous vote, elected him a member, remitting the usual initiation fee of five guineas, and the annual charge of two and a half guineas. The next year this Society conferred upon him the Copley medal. For seven years Franklin continued to devote himself almost exclusively to this science, and he became, without doubt, the most accomplished electrician in the world. At the same time his mind was ever active in devising new schemes for the welfare of humanity. The most trivial events would often suggest to him measures conducive to the most beneficial results. It is said that Franklin saw one day in a ditch the fragments of a basket of yellow willow, in which some foreign commodity had been imported to this country. One of the twigs had sprouted. He planted it; and it became the parent of all the yellow willows in our country. Franklin was best loved where he was best known. And this was right; for he was ever conferring deeds of kindness upon his neighbors. His religious views excited sorrow among his Christian friends. Others, composing perhaps a majority, cared nothing about what he believed. In conversation he ever frankly avowed himself a deist, though generally he made no attempt to convert others to his views. It is not improbable that he was in some degree influenced by the beneficial effect produced upon the popular mind by the preaching of his friend Mr. Whitefield. The writer was once, in Paris, conversing with one of the most illustrious of the French philosophers. He said to the philosopher, "I am much interested to ascertain the views of gentlemen of your intellectual position respecting the Christian religion." He with perfect frankness replied, "I think that there are no men of high culture in France, with a few exceptions, who believe in the divine origin of Christianity. But there is no philanthropist who will say so. We have been taught, by the horrors of the French Revolution, that the masses of the people can only be restrained from violence by the superstitious restraints which Christianity presents. We therefore think that every man, who is a gentleman, will do what he can to sustain the church and the clergy. Men of culture and refinement, are governed by principles of honor, and they do not need the superstitious motives of Christianity to influence them." I may remark, in passing, that this gentlemanly philosopher had abandoned his own wife, and was then living with the wife of another man. It is not improbable that Franklin, as he looked upon the tumultuous and passion-tossed young men of Philadelphia, did not deem it expedient to say to them, "The Bible is a fable. The Sabbath is no more sacred than any other day. The church is merely a human club without any divine authority. Marriage is an institution which is not founded upon any decree which God has issued, but one of the expediency of which each individual must judge for himself. The Sacraments of Baptism, and the Lord's Supper, are mere human contrivances. The preaching of the Gospel had better be laid aside for literary and scientific disquisitions." With the eye of a benevolent philosopher, Franklin, as we have seen, had watched the effect of the preaching of Mr. Whitefield, and had candidly acknowledged its power in reforming society. It is improbable that, in his heart, he felt that the preaching of pure deism could ever secure such results. In 1753 he wrote to Mr. Whitefield, in reply to a communication from him upon the Christian faith: "The faith you mention certainly has its use in the world. I do not desire to see it diminished, nor would I endeavor to lessen it in any man." Franklin had resolved to decline all office, that he might devote himself to his studies. But his reputation for wisdom was such, that he found it very difficult to persevere in this plan. Menaces of war were continually arising. The majority of the members, in the Assembly, were Quakers. It was a small body consisting of but forty delegates. The Quakers opposed every measure for public defence. Franklin, as we have mentioned, became a Justice of the Peace. Soon after he was an Alderman, and then he took his seat in the General Assembly. "I was a bad speaker," he writes, "never eloquent; subject to much hesitation in the choice of words; and yet I generally carried my point." He adds, in language which every young man should treasure up in his memory, "I retained the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence; never using, when I advanced anything that might possibly be disputed, the words, _certainly_, _undoubtedly_, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather, I _conceive_, or _apprehend_ a thing to be so and so. _It appears to me_, or, _I should not think it so for such and such reasons_, or, _I imagine it to be so_, or, _It is so if I am not mistaken_. This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions; and to persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time proposing." When Franklin assumed the charge of the post-office, the department was in a feeble and peculiar condition. As late as the year 1757, the mail-bag in Virginia was passed from planter to planter. Each one was required to forward it promptly, under the penalty of forfeiting a hogshead of tobacco. Every man took, from the bag, what belonged to his family, and sent on the rest. The line of post-offices then extended from Boston, Mass., to Charleston, S. C. It was twenty years after this, before any governmental mail penetrated the interior. In the year 1753, Franklin visited every post-office excepting that of Charleston. His wisdom introduced reforms, some of which have continued to the present day. A newspaper was charged nine pence a year, for a distance of fifty miles, and eighteen pence for one hundred miles or more. In the large towns a penny post was established, and all letters left remaining in the office were advertised. A mail was conveyed from Philadelphia to New York once a week in summer, and once in two weeks in winter. Franklin started a mail to leave each of these cities three times a week in summer, and twice in winter. It generally required six weeks to obtain an answer from a letter sent to Boston. Most of the roads, into the interior, consisted of narrow passages, cut through the forest, called Bridle Paths, because the pack horses were led through them, in single file by the bridle. CHAPTER VIII. _The Rising Storms of War._ Aristocracy--Anecdote--Conflicting laws of Nations--Franklin's scheme of colonization--Proposal of the British Court--The foresight of Franklin--Braddock's campaign--Remonstrances of Franklin and Washington--Franklin's interviews with Braddock--Franklin's efficiency--Confidence of Braddock--The conflict with the Proprietaries--The non-resistant Quakers--Fate of the Moravian villages--The winter campaign--The camp of Gaudenhutton--Anecdote--Renewal of the strife with the Proprietaries--Franklin recalled to assist the Assembly--Destruction of the Fort--Claim of the Proprietaries--The great controversy. With increasing wealth the spirit of aristocratic exclusiveness gained strength in the higher circles of Philadelphia. Some of the more opulent families planned for a series of dancing entertainments during the winter. It was proposed among other rules that no mechanic, or mechanic's wife or daughter, should be invited. The rules were shown to Franklin. He glanced his eye over them and pithily remarked, "Why these rules would exclude God Almighty!" "How so?" inquired the manager. "Because," Franklin replied, "the Almighty, as all know, is the greatest mechanic in the universe. In six days he made all things." The obnoxious article was stricken out. The following incident, narrated by Franklin, illustrates a very important principle in political economy, which those are apt to ignore, who denounce all the elegancies and luxuries of life. Mrs. Franklin received some small favor from the captain of a little coaster, which ran between Cape May and Philadelphia. He declined to receive any remuneration for his trifling services. Mrs. Franklin, learning that he had a pretty daughter, sent her a new-fashioned Philadelphia cap or bonnet. Three years after, the captain called again at the house of Mr. Franklin. A very plain but intelligent farmer accompanied him. The captain expressed his thanks to Mrs. Franklin for the gift she had sent his daughter, and rather discourteously added, "But it proved a dear cap to our congregation. When my daughter appeared with it at meeting, it was so much admired that all the girls resolved to get such caps from Philadelphia. And my wife and I computed that the whole could not have cost less than a hundred pounds." The farmer, with far higher intelligence, said, "This is true; but you do not tell the whole story. I think the cap was nevertheless an advantage to us. It was the first thing that put our girls upon knitting worsted mittens, for sale at Philadelphia, that they might have wherewithal to buy caps and ribbons there. And you know that that industry has continued and is likely to continue and increase, to a much greater value, and answer better purposes." "Thus by a profitable exchange, the industrious girls at Cape May had pretty bonnets, and the girls at Philadelphia had warm mittens." For seventy-five years it had been the constant design of the British government to drive the French from North America. England claimed the whole country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, because her ships had first sailed along the Atlantic coast. It was one of the recognized laws of nations that a newly discovered region belonged to the nation who had first raised upon it its flag. France, admitting the claim of England to the Atlantic coast, asserted her right to the great valleys of the interior, those of the Ohio and the Mississippi, because her boatmen had first discovered those magnificent rivers, had explored them throughout, and had established upon them her trading and military posts. It was a recognized law of nations, that the power which discovered, explored, and took possession of a new river, was the rightful possessor of the valley which that river watered. Thus the conflict of claims originated. To add to the intensity of the insane strife, which caused an amount of blood and misery which no tongue can tell, religious bitterness was aroused, and the French Roman Catholic was arrayed against the British Protestant. Three wars, bloody and woful, had already ravaged this continent. We have before alluded to the menace of a new war in the year 1754, and to Franklin's mission to Albany to enlist the chiefs of the Six Nations to become allies of the English. We have also alluded to the plan, which Franklin drew up on this journey, for the union of the colonies, and which was rejected. The wisdom of this plan was, however, subsequently developed by the fact that it was remarkably like that by which eventually the colonies were bound together as a nation. Assuming that the English were right in their claim for the whole continent, Franklin urged the eminently wise measure of establishing strong colonies, in villages of a hundred families each, on the luxuriant banks of the western rivers. But the haughty British government would receive no instructions from American provincials. Governor Shirley, of Boston, showed Mr. Franklin a plan, drawn up in England, for conducting the war. It developed consummate ignorance of the difficulties of carrying on war in the pathless wilderness; and also a great disregard of the political rights of the American citizens. According to this document, the British court was to originate and execute all the measures for the conduct of the war; and the British Parliament was to assess whatever tax it deemed expedient upon the American people to defray the expenses. The Americans were to have no representation in Parliament, and no voice whatever in deciding upon the sum which they were to pay. Franklin examined the document carefully, and returned it with his written objections. In this remarkable paper, he anticipated the arguments which our most distinguished statesmen and logicians urged against the Stamp Act--against Taxation without Representation. A brief extract from this important paper, will give the reader some idea of its character: "The colonists are Englishmen. The accident of living in a colony deprives them of no right secured by Magna Charta. The people in the colonies, who are to feel the immediate mischiefs of invasion and conquest by an enemy, in the loss of their estates, lives and liberties, are likely to be better judges of the quantity of forces necessary to be raised and maintained, and supported, and of their own ability to bear the expense, than the Parliament of England, at so great a distance. Compelling the colonists to pay money without their consent, would be rather like raising contributions in an enemy's country, than taxing of Englishmen for their own public benefit. It would be treating them as a conquered people, and not as true British subjects." At length the brave, but self-conceited and haughty General Braddock came with his army of British Regulars. Frenchmen, Indians, and Americans, he alike regarded with contempt. His troops were rendezvoused at Fredericktown, in Maryland. A bridle path led through the wilderness to this place, from Philadelphia, a distance of a hundred and twenty miles. Intelligent American gentlemen were much alarmed, by the reckless and perilous measures which the ignorant British general declared his intention to pursue. He became very angry with Pennsylvanians, because they were so unwilling to fall in with his plans. It was said that, in his anger, he manifested more desire to ravage Pennsylvania than to defeat the French. The Assembly at Philadelphia appointed a commission, consisting of Benjamin Franklin and his son, a resolute, insubordinate man of thirty years, and of the Governors of New York and Massachusetts, to visit the arrogant British officer, and to endeavor, in some way, to influence him to wiser measures. It was the middle of April, a beautiful season in that climate, of swelling buds, and opening leaves. Each of the four gentlemen was attended by servants, as was customary in those days. They were all finely mounted. Joyfully they rode along, seeking entertainment each night at the residence of some planter. A courier was always sent forward to announce their coming, and the planter, accompanied by one or two of his servants, would generally ride forward a few miles to meet them, and escort them to his hospitable home. Franklin was received by Gen. Braddock with the condescension with which, in that day, English gentlemen were ever accustomed to regard Americans of whatever name or note. The little army, which was to march upon Fort Duquesne, was to traverse the dreary and pathless ridges and ravines of the Alleghany mountains, and force their way through a tangled wilderness, for a distance of several hundred miles. During all this march they were hourly exposed to be attacked by an overpowering force of French and Indians. The French could easily descend to the Ohio, in their boats from Canada, and nearly all the Indians of this vast interior, were in alliance with them. Braddock insisted upon encumbering his march with heavily laden wagons, which were to penetrate savage regions through which he must, every mile, construct his road. There was a young American in the camp by the name of George Washington. He was a man of the highest rank, and of commanding influence, having obtained much experience in Indian warfare. Modestly, but warmly, he remonstrated against this folly. He not only feared, but was fully assured that such a measure would lead to the inevitable destruction of the army. He urged that pack horses only should be employed, and as few of them as possible; and that thus they should hurry along as rapidly and in as compact a mass as they could. But Braddock was inexorable. He demanded his two hundred and fifty wagons, and a large train of pack horses, to be laden with sumptuous provisions for his officers. The farmers of Maryland and Virginia were reluctant to expose the few wagons and teams they had, to such inevitable destruction. Neither had they any confidence that the British Government would ever remunerate them in case of their loss. Four-wheeled vehicles were very scarce in the colonies. There were many people who had never seen one. The general, after exhausting all his efforts, could obtain but twenty-four. One day as he was giving vent to his indignation, Franklin suggested that it would probably be much more easy to obtain wagons in the more densely settled parts of Pennsylvania. Braddock immediately urged him to undertake the enterprise. Unwisely, we think, he consented. With his son he hastened to Pennsylvania, and selected Lancaster, York, and Carlisle as his centres of operation. Whatever Franklin undertook, he was pretty sure to accomplish. In twenty days he obtained one hundred and fifty four-horse wagons, and two hundred and fifty-nine pack-horses. He did not accomplish this feat however, until he had exhausted all the money which Braddock had furnished him, had spent over a thousand dollars of his own money, and had given bonds for the safe return of horses and wagons, whose money value was estimated at one hundred thousand dollars. Braddock was lavish in his compliments. Franklin dined with him daily. The idea seemed never to have entered Braddock's mind that British Regulars, under his command, could ever be seriously annoyed by bands of French and Indians. He said one day, "After taking Fort Duquesne, I shall go to Niagara. Having taken that, if the season will permit, I shall proceed to Fort Frontenac. Fort Duquesne can hardly detain me more than three or four days." Franklin, who was well aware that Braddock was entering upon a far more formidable campaign than he anticipated, ventured very modestly to suggest, "To be sure, sir, if you arrive well before Duquesne with the fine troops so well provided with artillery, the fort, though completely fortified, and assisted with a very strong garrison, can probably make but a short resistance. The only danger I apprehend of obstruction to your march, is of ambuscades of the Indians, who, by constant practice, are dexterous in laying and executing them. And the slender line, near four miles long, which your army must make, may expose it to be attacked by surprise in its flanks, and to be cut like a thread into several pieces, which, from their distance, cannot come up in time to support each other." Braddock smiled derisively, at this ignorance of a benighted American. "These savages may indeed," he said, "be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia. But upon the king's regular and disciplined troops, it is impossible that they should make any impression." Colonel Washington regarded the wagons, and the long array of pack-horses, as so many nuisances, arresting the rapidity of their march, and inviting attacks which it would be impossible to repel. At length the army was in motion. The progress was very slow. Franklin was continually forwarding supplies; and even advanced between six and seven thousand dollars, from his own purse, to expedite purchases. A part of this he never received back. The attack upon Braddock's army, and its terrible defeat soon came. A minute account of the conflict is given in the Life of George Washington, one of the volumes of this series. The teamsters cut the traces of their horses, mounted the swiftest, and, in the frenzy of their panic, rushed for home. The other horses and the wagons, with their abounding supplies, were left to magnify the triumph of the exultant Indians. Disastrous as was the campaign, Franklin obtained much credit for the efficient services he had rendered. War, with all its horrors, had now penetrated the beautiful region of Pennsylvania, which had enjoyed eighty years of peace, through the Christian philanthropy of William Penn. Nearly all of the Indians, beyond the mountains, were allies of the French. The news of Braddock's defeat reached Philadelphia about the middle of July, 1755. Immediately a violent conflict arose between the royalist governor Morris, and the Colonial Assembly. The Legislative body voted liberal taxes for the public defence. But very justly it was enacted that these taxes should be assessed impartially upon all estates alike, upon those of the wealthy Proprietaries, as well as upon the few hundred acres which were owned by the humble farmers. The Proprietaries, consisting of two of the sons of William Penn, revolted against this. The Governor, appointed by them, as their agent of course, united with them in opposition. For many weeks the conflict between the Assembly and the Governor as agent of the Proprietaries, raged fiercely. Under these circumstances no military supplies could be voted, and the peril of the community was very great. Franklin warmly espoused and eloquently advocated the claim of the Assembly. During the months of July and August, the Indians, satiated with the vast plunder of Braddock's camp, made no attempt to cross the Alleghanies, in predatory excursions against the more settled portions of Pennsylvania. But September and October ushered in scenes of horror and carnage, too awful to be depicted. Villages were laid in ashes, cottages were burned, families tomahawked and scalped, women and children carried into captivity, and many poor creatures perished at the stake, in the endurance of all the tortures which savage ingenuity could devise. And still the Quakers, adhering to their principle of non-resistance, refused to contribute any money, or in any way to unite in any military organization for self-defence. But in candor it must be admitted, that had the principles of the Quakers been adopted by the British court, this whole disastrous war might have been avoided. It was a war of invasion commenced by the English. They were determined, by force of arms, to drive the French out of the magnificent valleys beyond the mountains. In the conflict which ensued, both parties enlisted all the savages they could, as allies. Will not England at the judgment be held responsible for this war and its woes? To rouse the Quakers to a sense of shame, the bodies of a whole murdered family, mutilated and gory, were brought to Philadelphia and paraded through all its streets, in an open wagon. In November, as the Indians, often led by French officers, were sweeping the frontier in all directions, killing, burning, destroying, the antagonistic parties in the Assembly, for a time laid aside their quarrels, and with the exception of the Quakers, adopted vigorous military measures. The Quakers were generally the most opulent people in the State. It is not strange that the common people should be reluctant to volunteer to defend the property of the Quakers, since they refused either to shoulder a musket, or to contribute a dollar. The pen of Franklin rendered wonderful service in this crisis. With his accustomed toleration, he could make allowance for the frailties of conscience-bound men. He wrote a very witty pamphlet which was very widely read, and produced a powerful impression. Its character may be inferred from the following brief quotation: "'For my part,' says A., 'I am no coward; but hang me if I fight to save the Quakers.' "'That is to say,' B. replied, 'you will not pump the sinking ship, because it will save the rats as well as yourselves.'" The dialogue ends with the following admirable words: "O! my friends, the glory of serving and saving others is superior to the advantage of being served and secured. Let us resolutely and generously unite in our country's cause, in which to die is the sweetest of all deaths; and may the God of armies bless our honest endeavors." The colonists of Pennsylvania now generally rushed to arms. There were, on the frontiers, several flourishing Moravian villages. They were occupied by a peculiarly industrious and religious people. The traveller through their quiet streets heard, morning and evening, the voice of prayer ascending from many firesides, and the melody of Christian hymns. Guadenhutton, perhaps the most flourishing of them, was attacked by the Indians, burned, and the inhabitants all massacred or carried into captivity. Terrible was the panic in the other villages. They were liable at any day, to experience the same fate. Under these circumstances the Governor raised five hundred and forty volunteers, and placed them under the command of Franklin, with the title of General. He was to lead them, as rapidly as possible, to Northampton county, for the protection of these people. His son, William, was his aid-de-camp. He proved an efficient and valiant soldier. It was the middle of December when this heroic little band commenced its march. Snow whitened the hills. Wintry gales swept the bleak plains, and moaned through the forests. The roads were almost impassable. Fierce storms often entirely arrested their march. The wilderness was very thinly inhabited. It required the toil of a month, for Franklin to force his way through these many obstructions to the base of his operations, though it was distant not more than ninety miles. The troops moved very cautiously to guard against ambush. The philosopher, Franklin, though he had never received a military education, and was quite inexperienced in military affairs, was the last man to be drawn into such a net as that in which the army of Braddock was destroyed. Franklin, as a philosopher, could appreciate the powerful influence of religious motives upon the mind. Rev. Mr. Beatty was his chaplain, whose worth of character Franklin appreciated. Before commencing their march, all the troops were assembled for a religious service. After an earnest exhortation to fidelity and duty, a fervent prayer was offered. The march was conducted with great regularity. First, scouts advanced in a semi-circular line, ranging the woods. Then came the advanced guard, at a few hundred paces behind. The centre followed, with all the wagons and baggage. Then came the rear guard, with scouts on each flank, and spies on every hill. Upon reaching Guadenhutton, an awful scene of desolation and carnage met the eye. The once happy village presented now but a revolting expanse of blackened ruins. The mangled bodies of the dead strewed the ground, mutilated alike by the savages and the howling wolves. Franklin ordered huts immediately to be reared to protect his troops from the inclemency of the weather. No man knew better than he, how to make them comfortable and cheerful with the least expense. A fort was promptly constructed, which he called Fort Allen, and which could easily repel any attack the Indians might make, unless they approached with formidable French artillery. There were many indications that the Indians, in large numbers, were hovering around, watching all their movements. But the sagacity of Franklin baffled them. They kept concealed without any attack. The savages were very cautious men; they would seldom engage in a battle, unless they were sure of victory. A trifling incident occurred at this time, worthy of record as illustrative of the shrewdness of General Franklin. The chaplain complained that the men were remiss in attending prayers. Franklin suggested that though it might not be exactly consistent with the dignity of the chaplain to become himself the steward of the rum, still, if he would order it to be distributed immediately after prayers, he would probably have all the men gathering around him. "He liked the thought," Franklin wrote, "under took the task, and with the help of a few hands to measure out the liquor, executed it to satisfaction. Never were prayers more generally and more punctually attended. So that I think this method preferable to the punishment inflicted by some military laws for non-attendance on divine worship." Bitter quarrels were renewed in the Assembly. The presence of Franklin was indispensable to allay the strife. Governor Morris wrote entreating him immediately to return to Philadelphia. It so happened at this time, that Col. Clapham, a New England soldier of experience and high repute, visited the camp at Guadenhutton. Franklin placed him in command, and warmly commending him to the confidence of the troops, hurried home. He reached Philadelphia on the 10th of February, 1756, after two months' service in the field. Universal applause greeted him. Several military companies, in Philadelphia, united in a regiment of about twelve hundred men. Franklin was promptly elected their colonel, which office he accepted. In tracing the disasters of war, it is interesting to observe how many of those disasters are owing to unpardonable folly. Some months after Franklin's departure, on a cold, bleak day in November, a large part of the garrison, unmindful of danger, were skating, like school-boys on the Lehigh river. The vigilant Indians saw their opportunity. Like howling wolves they made a rush upon the fort, entered its open gates, and killed or captured all its inmates. The skaters fled into the woods. They were pursued. Some were killed or captured. Some perished miserably of cold and starvation. Probably a few escaped. The triumphant savages, having plundered the fort and the dwellings of all their contents, applied the torch, and again Guadenhutton was reduced to a pile of ashes. The controversy which arose between the Governor and the Assembly became acrimonious in the extreme. The principles there contended for, involved the very existence of anything like American liberty. For fifteen years the pen and voice of Franklin were influential in this controversy. He probably did more than any other man to prepare the colonists to resist the despotism of the British court, and to proclaim their independence. On the 5th of January, 1681, King Charles the Second had conferred upon William Penn twenty-six million acres of the "best land in the universe." This land was in the New World, and received the name of Pennsylvania. In return for this grant, Penn agreed to pay annually, at Windsor Castle, two beaver skins, and one-fifth of the gold and silver which the province might yield. He also promised to govern the province in conformity with the laws of England. He could treat with the savages, appoint ordinary magistrates, and pardon petty crimes. But he could lay no tax, and impose no law without consent of the freemen of the province, represented in the Assembly. Of this whole wide realm, Penn was the absolute proprietor. He refused to sell a single acre, absolutely, but in all the sales reserved for himself what may be called a ground-rent. Immense tracts were sold at forty shillings, about ten dollars, for one hundred acres, reserving a rent of one shilling for each hundred acres. He also reserved, entirely to himself, various portions of the territory which promised to become the site of important cities and villages. All these rights descended to the heirs of William Penn. Seventy-four years passed away, when the estate thus founded, was estimated to be worth ten millions sterling, and popular belief affirmed that it produced a revenue of one hundred thousand pounds. Penn, when he died, bequeathed the province to his three sons, John, Thomas, and Richard. To John he gave a double part, or one-half of Pennsylvania. John died and left his half to Thomas, who thus became proprietor of three-fourths of the province, while Richard held one-fourth. Thus there were but two proprietors, Thomas and Richard Penn. They were both weak men; resided in England, were thoroughly imbued with Tory principles, and, in the consciousness of their vast estates, assumed to be lords and princes. They ruled their province by a deputy-governor. His position was indeed no sinecure. The two proprietaries, who appointed him, could at any time deprive him of office. The Assembly could refuse to vote his salary, and if he displeased the king of England, he might lose, not only his office, but his head. The controversy which had arisen, in consequence of these involvements between the proprietaries and the people, engrossed universal attention. During the four years between 1754 and 1758, the ravaged colony of Pennsylvania had raised the sum of two hundred and eighteen thousand pounds sterling, (over a million of dollars,) for defending its borders. And still the two lordly proprietaries demanded that their vast possessions should be entirely exempt from taxation. To an earnest remonstrance of the Assembly, they returned an insulting answer, in which they said, "We are no more bound to pay taxes than any other chief governor of the King's colonies. Your agitation of this matter is a new trick to secure your re-election. We advise you to show us the respect due to the rank which the crown has been pleased to bestow upon us. The people of Pennsylvania, in ordinary times, are so lightly taxed, that they hardly know that they are taxed. What fools you are to be agitating this dangerous topic of American taxation. It is beneath the dignity of the Assembly to make trouble about such small sums of money. We do not deny that you have been at some expense in pacifying the Indians, but that is no affair of ours. We already give the province a larger sum per annum, than our share of the taxes would amount to. One of us, for example, sent over four hundred pounds' worth of cannon, for the defence of our city of Philadelphia." Such was their answer. It was conveyed in sixteen sentences which were numbered and which were very similar to the ones we have given. The communication excited great displeasure. It was considered alike false and insolent. Even the tranquil mind of Franklin was fired with indignation. He replied to the document with a power of eloquence and logic which carried the convictions of nearly all the colonists. CHAPTER IX. _Franklin's Mission to England._ New marks of respect--Lord Loudoun--Gov. Denny and Franklin--Visit the Indians--Franklin commissioner to England--His constant good nature--Loudoun's delays--Wise action of an English captain--The voyagers land at Falmouth--Journey to London--Franklin's style of living in London--His electrical experiments--He teaches the Cambridge professor--Complimentary action of St. Andrews--Gov. Denny displaced, and dark clouds arising--Franklin's successful diplomacy--His son appointed Governor of New Jersey--Great opposition--The homeward voyage--Savage horrors--Retaliating cruelties--Franklin's efforts in behalf of the Moravian Indians. The general impression, produced throughout the colonies, by the controversy with the proprietaries, was that they were very weak men. Indeed it does not appear that they were much regarded even in London. A gentleman, writing from that city, said, "They are hardly to be found in the herd of gentry; not in court, not in office, not in parliament." In March, Franklin left his home for a post-office tour. Some forty of the officers of his regiment, well mounted, and in rich uniform, without Franklin's knowledge, came to his door, to escort him out of the village. Franklin says, "I had not previously been made acquainted with their project, or I should have prevented it, being naturally averse to the assuming of state on any occasion." The proprietaries in London heard an account of this affair. They were very much displeased, saying they had never been thus honored, and that princes of the blood alone were entitled to such distinction. The war was still raging. Large bodies of troops were crossing the ocean to be united with the colonial forces. Lord Loudoun was appointed by the court commander-in-chief for America. He was an exceedingly weak and inefficient man; scarcely a soldier in the ranks could be found more incompetent for the situation. Governor Morris, of Pennsylvania, worn out with his unavailing conflicts with the Assembly, was withdrawn, and the proprietaries sent out Captain William Denny as their obsequious servant in his stead. The Philadelphians, hoping to conciliate him, received him cordially, and with a public entertainment. William Franklin wrote: "Change of devils, according to the Scotch proverb, is blithesome." At the close of the feast, when most of the party were making themselves merry over their wine, Governor Denny took Franklin aside into an adjoining room, and endeavored, by the most abounding flattery, and by the bribe of rich promises, to induce him to espouse the cause of the proprietaries. But he soon learned that Franklin could not be influenced by any of his bribes. There was but a brief lull in the storm. Governor Denny had no power of his own. He could only obey the peremptory instructions he had received. These instructions were irreconcilably hostile to the resolves of the Assembly. Franklin was the all-powerful leader of the popular party. There was something in his imperturbable good nature which it is difficult to explain. No scenes of woe seemed to depress his cheerful spirits. No atrocities of oppression could excite his indignation. He could thrust his keen dagger points into the vitals of his antagonist, with a smile upon his face and jokes upon his lips which would convulse both friend and foe with laughter. He was the most unrelenting antagonist of Governor Denny in the Assembly, and yet he was the only man who remained on good terms with the governor, visiting him, and dining with him. Governor Denny was a gentleman, and well educated, and few men could appear to better advantage in the saloons of fashion. But he was trammeled beyond all independent action, by the instructions he had received from the proprietaries. He was right in heart, was in sympathy with Franklin, and with reluctance endeavored to enforce the arbitrary measures with which he was entrusted. Franklin was one of the most companionable of men. His wonderful powers of conversation, his sweetness of temper, and his entire ignoring of all aristocratic assumption, made him one of the most fascinating of guests in every circle. He charmed alike the rich and the poor, the learned and the ignorant. In November, 1756, he accompanied Governor Denny to the frontier to confer with the chiefs of several Indian tribes. The savages, to say the least, were as punctilious in the observance of the laws of honor, in securing the safety of the ambassadors on such an occasion, as were the English. The governor and the philosopher rode side by side on horseback, accompanied by only a few body servants. The governor, familiar with the clubs and the wits of England, entertained Franklin, in the highest degree, with the literary gossip of London, and probably excited in his mind an intense desire to visit those scenes, which he himself was so calculated to enjoy and to embellish. On the journey he wrote the following comic letter to his wife. He had been disappointed in not receiving a line from her by a certain messenger. "I had a good mind not to write to you by this opportunity, but I never can be ill-natured enough even when there is most occasion. I think I won't tell you that we are well, and that we expect to return about the middle of the week, nor will I send you a word of news; that's poz. My duty to mother, love to the children, and to Miss Betsy and Gracie. I am your _loving_ husband. "P. S. I have _scratched out the loving words_, being writ in haste by mistake, when I forgot I was angry." Gov. Denny, unable to accomplish his purposes with the Assembly, resolved to make a final appeal to the king. The House promptly decided to imitate his example. Its Speaker, Mr. Norris, and Benjamin Franklin, were appointed commissioners. The Speaker declined the office, and Franklin was left as sole commissioner. He probably was not at all reluctant to be introduced to the statesmen, the philosophers, and the fashionable circles of the Old World. To defray his expenses the Assembly voted a sum of nearly eight thousand dollars. He had also wealth of his own. By correspondence, he was quite intimately acquainted with very many of the scientific men of England and France. It was very certain that he would have the _entrée_ to any circle which he might wish to honor with his presence. It was at that time a very serious affair to cross the Atlantic. The ocean swarmed with pirates, privateers, and men-of-war. On the fourth of April, 1757, Franklin, with his son William, set out from Philadelphia. His cheerfulness of spirits did not forsake him as he left a home where he had been remarkably happy for twenty-six years. The family he left behind him consisted of his wife, his wife's aged mother, his daughter Sarah, a beautiful child of twelve years, one or two nieces, and an old nurse of the family. Franklin had written to the governor to ascertain the precise time when the packet would sail. The reply he received from him was, "I have given out that the ship is to sail on Saturday next. But I may let you know _entre nous_ that if you are there by Monday morning you will be in time; but do not delay any longer." Franklin was accompanied by a number of his friends as far as Trenton, where they spent a very joyful evening together. At one of the ferries on this road, they were delayed by obstructions so that they could not reach the Hudson River until noon of Monday. Franklin feared that the ship might sail without him; but upon reaching the river he was relieved by seeing the vessel still in the stream. Eleven weeks passed before Lord Loudoun would issue his permission for the ship to sail. Every day this most dilatory and incompetent of men announced that the packet would sail to-morrow. And thus the weeks rolled on while Franklin was waiting, but we do not hear a single word of impatience or remonstrance from his lips. His philosophy taught him to be happy under all circumstances. With a smiling face he called upon Lord Loudoun and dined with him. He endeavored, but in vain, to obtain a settlement of his claims for supplies furnished to Braddock's army. He found much in the society of New York to entertain him. And more than all, and above all, he was doing everything that could be done for the accomplishment of his mission. Why, then, should he worry? "New York," he records, "was growing immensely rich by money brought into it from all quarters for the pay and subsistence of the troops." Franklin was remarkably gallant in his intercourse with ladies. He kept up quite a brisk correspondence with several of the most brilliant ladies of the day. No man could more prettily pay a compliment. To his lively and beautiful friend Miss Ray he wrote upon his departure, "Present my best compliments to all that love me; I should have said all that love you, but that would be giving you too much trouble." At length Lord Loudoun granted permission for the packet to drop down to the Lower Bay, where a large fleet of ninety vessels was assembled, fitted out for an attack upon the French at Louisburg. Franklin and his friends went on board, as it was announced that the vessel would certainly sail "to-morrow." For six weeks longer the packet rode there at anchor. Franklin and his companions had for the third time consumed all the provisions they had laid in store for the voyage. Still we hear not a murmur from our imperturbable philosopher. At length the signal for sailing was given. The whole squadron put to sea, and the London packet, with all the rest, was swept forward toward Louisburg. After a voyage of five days, a letter was placed in the hands of the captain, authorizing him to quit the fleet and steer for England. The days and nights of a long voyage came and went, when the packet at midnight in a gale of wind, and enveloped in fogs, was approaching Falmouth. A light-house, upon some rocks, had not been visible. Suddenly the lifting of the fog revealed the light-house and the craggy shore, over which the surf was fearfully breaking, at the distance of but a few rods. A captain of the Royal Navy, who chanced to be near the helmsman, sprang to the helm, called upon the sailors instantly to wear ship, and thus, at the risk of snapping every mast, saved the vessel and the crew from otherwise immediate and certain destruction. There was not, at that time, a single light-house on the North American coast. The event impressed the mind of Franklin deeply, and he resolved that upon his return, light-houses should be constructed. About nine o'clock the next morning the fog was slowly dispersed, and Falmouth, with its extended tower, its battlemented castles, and the forests of masts, was opened before the weary voyagers. It was Sunday morning and the bells were ringing for church. The vessel glided into the harbor, and joyfully the passengers landed. Franklin writes, "The bell ringing for church, we went thither immediately, and with hearts full of gratitude returned sincere thanks to God far the mercies we had received." We know not whether this devout act was suggested by Franklin, or whether he courteously fell in with the arrangement proposed, perhaps, by some religious companion. It is, however, certain that the sentence which next followed, in his letter, came gushing from his own mind. "Were I a Roman Catholic, perhaps I should, on this occasion, vow to build a chapel to some saint. But as I am not, if I were to vow at all it should be to build a _light-house_." It required a journey of two hundred and fifty miles to reach London. Franklin and his son _posted_ to London, which was the most rapid mode of traveling in those days. They seem to have enjoyed the journey in the highest degree, through blooming, beautiful, highly cultivated England. Almost every thing in the charming landscape, appeared different from the rude settlements which were springing up amid the primeval forests of the New World. They visited the Cathedral at Salisbury, Stonehenge, Wilton Hall, the palatial mansion of the Earl of Pembroke. England was in her loveliest attire. Perhaps there could not then be found, upon this globe, a more lovely drive, than that through luxuriant Devonshire, and over the Hampshire Downs. Peter Collinson, a gentleman of great wealth, first received the travelers to his own hospitable mansion. Here Franklin was the object of marked attentions from the most distinguished scientists of England. Other gentlemen of high distinction honored themselves by honoring him. Franklin visited the old printing house, where he had worked forty years before, and treated the workmen with that beer, which he had formerly so efficiently denounced in that same place. Soon he took lodgings with a very agreeable landlady, Mrs. Stevenson, No. 7, Craven street, Strand. He adopted, not an ostentatious, but a very genteel style of living. Both he and his son had brought with them each a body servant from America. He set up a modest carriage, that he might worthily present himself at the doors of cabinet ministers and members of parliament. The Proprietaries received him very coldly, almost insolently. They were haughty, reserved and totally uninfluenced by his arguments. He presented to them a brief memorandum, which very lucidly explained the views of the Assembly. It was as follows, 1. "The Royal Charter gives the Assembly the power to make laws; the proprietary instructions deprive it of that power. 2. The Royal Charter confers on the Assembly the right to grant or withhold supplies; the instructions neutralize that right. 3. The exemption of the proprietary estate from taxation is unjust. 4. The proprietaries are besought to consider these grievances seriously and redress them, that harmony may be restored." The Penn brothers denounced this brief document, as vague, and disrespectful. It was evident that Franklin had nothing to hope from them. He therefore directed all his energies to win to his side the Lords of Trade, and the members of the King's Council, to whom the final decision must be referred. Twelve months elapsed, during which nothing was accomplished. But we hear not a murmur from his lips. He was not only contented but jovial. For two whole years he remained in England, apparently accomplishing nothing. These hours of leisure he devoted to the enjoyment of fashionable, intellectual and scientific society. No man could be a more welcome guest, in such elevated circles, for no man could enjoy more richly the charms of such society, or could contribute more liberally to its fascination. Electricity was still a very popular branch of natural science. The brilliant experiments Franklin performed, lured many to his apartments. His machine was the largest which had been made, and would emit a spark nine inches in length. He had invented, or greatly improved, a new musical machine of glass goblets, called the Armonica. It was listened to with much admiration, as it gave forth the sweetest tones. He played upon this instrument with great effect. The theatre was to Franklin an inexhaustible source of enjoyment. Garrick was then in the meridian of his fame. He loved a good dinner, and could, without inconvenience, empty the second bottle of claret. He wrote to a friend, "I find that I love company, chat, a laugh, a glass, and even a song as well as ever." At one time he took quite an extensive tour through England, visiting the University at Cambridge. He was received with the most flattering attentions from the chancellor and others of the prominent members of the faculty. Indeed every summer, during his stay in England, Franklin and his son spent a few weeks visiting the most attractive scenes of the beautiful island. Wherever he went, he left an impression behind him, which greatly increased his reputation. At Cambridge he visited the chemical laboratory, with the distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Dr. Hadley. Franklin suggested that temperature could be astonishingly reduced by evaporation. It was entirely a new idea to the Professor. They both with others repaired to Franklin's room. He had ether there, and a thermometer. To the astonishment of the Professor of Chemistry in Cambridge University, the printer from Philadelphia showed him that by dipping the ball into the ether, and then blowing upon it with bellows to increase the evaporation, the mercury rapidly sunk twenty-five degrees below the freezing point. Ice was formed a quarter of an inch thick, all around the ball. Thus, surrounded by the professors of one of the most distinguished universities of Europe, Benjamin Franklin was the teacher of the teachers. The father and the son visited the villages where their ancestors had lived. They sought out poor relations, and examined the tombstones. In the spring of 1769, they spent six weeks in Scotland. The University of St. Andrews conferred upon Franklin the honorary title of doctor, by which he has since been generally known. Other universities received him with great distinction. The corporation of Edinburgh voted him the freedom of the city. All the saloons of fashion were not only open to receive him, but his presence, at every brilliant entertainment, was eagerly sought. The most distinguished men of letters crowded around him. Hume, Robertson and Lord Kames became his intimate friends. These were honors sufficient to turn the head of almost any man. But Franklin, who allowed no adversity to annoy him, could not be unduly elated by any prosperity or flattery. "On the whole," writes Franklin, "I must say, that the time we spent there (Scotland) was six weeks of the _densest_ happiness I have met with in any part of my life." Still it is evident that occasionally he felt some slight yearnings for the joys of that home, over which his highly esteemed wife presided with such economy and skill. He wrote to her, "The regard and friendship I meet with from persons of worth, and the conversation of ingenuous men give me no small pleasure. But at this time of life, domestic comforts afford the most solid satisfaction;[20] and my uneasiness at being absent from my family and longing desire to be with them, make me often sigh, in the midst of cheerful company." [Footnote 20: Franklin was then 53 years of age.] An English gentleman, Mr. Strahan, wrote to Mrs. Franklin, urging her to come over to England and join her husband. In this letter he said, "I never saw a man who was, in every respect, so perfectly agreeable to me. Some are amiable in one view, some in another; he in all." Three years thus passed away. It must not be supposed that the patriotic and faithful Franklin lost any opportunity whatever, to urge the all important cause with which he was entrusted. His philosophy taught him that when he absolutely could not do any thing but _wait_, it was best to wait in the most agreeable and profitable manner. It was one of his strong desires, which he was compelled to abandon, to convert the proprietary province of Pennsylvania into a royal province. After Franklin left Philadelphia, the strife between the Assembly, and Governor Denny, as the representative of the proprietaries, became more violent than ever. The governor, worn out by the ceaseless struggle, yielded in some points. This offended the proprietaries. Indignantly they dismissed him and appointed, in his place, Mr. James Hamilton, a more obsequious servant. By the royal charter it was provided that all laws, passed by the Assembly and signed by the governor, should be sent to the king, for his approval. One of the bills which the governor, compelled as it were by the peril of public affairs, had signed, allowed the Assembly to raise a sum of about five hundred thousand dollars, to be raised by a _tax on all estates_. This was a dangerous precedent. The aristocratic court of England repealed it, as an encroachment upon the rights of the privileged classes. It was a severe blow to the Assembly. The speaker wrote to Franklin: "We are among rocks and sands, in a stormy season. It depends upon you to do every thing in your power in the present crisis. It is too late for us to give you any assistance." When Franklin received the crushing report against the Assembly he was just setting off for a pleasant June excursion in Ireland. Immediately he unpacked his saddle-bags, and consecrated all his energies to avert the impending evils. He enlisted the sympathies of Lord Mansfield, and accomplished the astonishing feat in diplomacy, of inducing the British Lords of Commission to reverse their decision, and to vote that the act of the Assembly should stand unrepealed. His business detained Franklin in London all summer. In the autumn he took a tour into the west of England and Wales. The gales of winter were now sweeping the Atlantic. No man in his senses would expose himself to a winter passage across the ocean, unless it was absolutely necessary. Indeed it would appear that Franklin was so happy in England, that he was not very impatient to see his home again. Though he had been absent three years from his wife and child, still two years more elapsed before he embarked for his native land. On the 25th of October George II. died. His grandson, a stupid, stubborn fanatically conscientious young man ascended the throne, with the title of George III. It would be difficult to compute the multitudes in Europe, Asia and America, whom his arrogance and ambition caused to perish on the battle field. During these two years there was nothing of very special moment which occurred in the life of Franklin. Able as he was as a statesman, science was the favorite object of his pursuit. He wrote several very strong pamphlets upon the political agitations of those tumultuous days, when all nations seem to have been roused to cutting each other's throats. He continued to occupy a prominent position wherever he was, and devoted much time in collecting his thoughts upon a treatise to be designated "The Art of Virtue." The treatise, however, was never written. His influential and wealthy friend, Mr. Strahan, was anxious to unite their two families by the marriage of his worthy and prosperous son to Mr. Franklin's beautiful daughter, Sarah. But the plan failed. Franklin also made an effort to marry his only son William, who, it will be remembered, was not born in wedlock, to a very lovely English lady, Miss Stephenson. But this young man, who, renouncing revealed religion, was a law unto himself, had already become a father without being a husband. Miss Stephenson had probably learned this fact and, greatly to the disappointment of Franklin, declined the alliance. The unhappy boy, the dishonored son of a dishonored father, was born about the year 1760. Nothing is known of what became of the discarded mother. He received the name of William Temple Franklin. Benjamin Franklin, as in duty bound, recognized him as his grandson, and received him warmly to his house and his heart. The reader will hereafter become better acquainted with the character and career of this young man. In the spring of 1762, Franklin commenced preparations for his return home. He did not reach Philadelphia until late in the autumn. Upon his departure from England, the University of Oxford conferred upon him the distinction of an honorary degree. William Franklin, though devoid of moral principle, was a man of highly respectable abilities, of pleasing manners, and was an entertaining companion. Lord Bute, who was in power, was the warm friend of Dr. Franklin. He therefore caused his son William to be appointed governor of New Jersey. It is positively asserted that Franklin did not solicit the favor. Indeed it was not a very desirable office. Its emoluments amounted to but about three thousand dollars a year. The governorship of the colonies was generally conferred upon the needy sons of the British aristocracy. So many of them had developed characters weak and unworthy, that they were not regarded with much esteem. William Franklin was married on the 2d of September, 1762, to Miss Elizabeth Downes. The announcement of the marriage in London, and of his appointment to the governorship of New Jersey, created some sensation. Mr. John Penn, son of one of the proprietaries, and who was soon to become governor of Pennsylvania, affected great indignation in view of the fact that William Franklin was to be a brother governor. He wrote to Lord Stirling, "It is no less amazing than true, that Mr. William Franklin, son of Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia, is appointed to be governor of the province of New Jersey. I make no doubt that the people of New Jersey will make some remonstrances at this indignity put upon them. You are full as well acquainted with the character and principles of this person as myself, and are as able to judge of the impropriety of such an appointment. What a dishonor and a disgrace it must be to a country to have such a man at the head of it, and to sit down contented. I should hope that some effort will be made before our Jersey friends would put up with such an insult. If any _gentleman_ had been appointed, it would have been a different case. But I cannot look upon the person in question in that light by any means. I may perhaps be too strong in my expressions, but I am so extremely astonished and enraged at it, that I am hardly able to contain myself at the thought of it." Franklin sailed from Portsmouth the latter part of August. Quite a fleet of American merchantmen sailed together. The weather during a voyage of nine weeks, was most of the time delightful. Often the vessels glided along so gently over a waveless sea, that the passengers could visit, and exchange invitations for dinner parties. On the first of November, Franklin reached his home. He had been absent nearly six years. All were well. His daughter, whom he had left a child of twelve, was now a remarkably beautiful and accomplished maiden of eighteen. Franklin was received not only with affection, but with enthusiasm. The Assembly voted him fifteen thousand dollars for his services in England. His son William, with his bride, did not arrive until the next February. Franklin accompanied him to New Jersey. The people there gave the governor a very kind greeting. He took up his residence in Burlington, within fifteen miles of the home of his father. Franklin had attained the age of fifty-seven. He was in perfect health, had an ample fortune, and excelled most men in his dignified bearing and his attractive features. Probably there never was a more happy man. He had leisure to devote himself to his beloved sciences. It was his dream, his castle in the air, to withdraw from political life, and devote the remainder of his days to philosophical research. In the year 1763 terminated the seven years' war. There was peace in Europe, peace on the ocean, but not peace along the blood crimsoned frontiers of the wilderness of America. England and France had been hurling savage warriors by tens of thousands against each other, and against the helpless emigrants in their defenceless villages and their lonely cabins. The belligerent powers of Europe, in their ambitious struggles, cared very little for the savages of North America. Like the hungry wolf they had lapped blood. Plunder had become as attractive to them as to the privateersman and the pirate. During the summer of 1763, the western regions of Pennsylvania were fearfully ravaged by these fierce bands. Thousands of settlers were driven from their homes, their buildings laid in ashes, and their farms utterly desolated. In all the churches contributions were raised, in behalf of the victims of this insane and utterly needless war. Christ Church alone raised between three and four thousand dollars; and sent a missionary to expend the sum among these starving, woe-stricken families. The missionary reported seven hundred and fifty farms in Pennsylvania alone, utterly abandoned. Two hundred and fifty women and children, destitute and despairing, had fled to Fort Pitt for protection. In the midst of these awful scenes, Governor Hamilton resigned, and the weak, haughty John Penn arriving, took his place. The Assembly, as usual, gave him a courteous reception, wishing, if possible, to avert a quarrel. There were many fanatics in those days. Some of these assumed that God was displeased, because the heathen Indians had not been entirely exterminated. The savages had perpetrated such horrors, that by them no distinction was made between those friendly to the English, and those hostile. The very name of Indian was loathed. In the vicinity of Lancaster, there was the feeble remnant of a once powerful tribe. The philanthropy of William Penn had won them to love the English. No one of them had ever been known to lift his hand against a white man. There were but twenty remaining, seven men, five women and eight children. They were an industrious, peaceful, harmless people, having adopted English names, English customs and the Christian religion. A vagabond party of Scotch-Irish, from Paxton, set out, in the morning of the 14th of December, for their destruction. They were well mounted and well armed. It so happened that there were but six Indians at home. They made no defence. Parents and children knelt, as in prayer, and silently received the death blow. Every head was cleft by the hatchet. These poor creatures were very affectionate, and had greatly endeared themselves to their neighbors. This deed of infamous assassination roused the indignation of many of the most worthy people in the province. But there were thousands of the baser sort, who deemed it no crime to kill an Indian, any more than a wolf or a bear. Franklin wrote, to the people of Pennsylvania, a noble letter of indignant remonstrance, denouncing the deed as atrocious murder. Vividly he pictured the scene of the assassination, and gave the names, ages and characters of the victims. A hundred and forty Moravian Indians, the firm and unsuspected friends of the English, terrified by this massacre, fled to Philadelphia for protection. The letter of Franklin had excited much sympathy in their behalf. The people rallied for their protection. The Paxton murderers, several hundred in number, pursued the fugitives, avowing their determination to put every one to death. The imbecile governor was at his wits' end. Franklin was summoned. He, at once, proclaimed his house headquarters; rallied a regiment of a thousand men, and made efficient arrangements to give the murderers a warm reception. The Paxton band reached Germantown. Franklin, anxious to avoid bloodshed, rode out with three aids, to confer with the leaders. He writes, "The fighting face we had put on, and the reasonings we used with the insurgents, having turned them back, and restored quiet to the city, I became a less man than ever; for I had, by this transaction, made myself many enemies among the populace." CHAPTER X. _Franklin's Second Mission to England._ Fiendish conduct of John Penn--Petition to the crown--Debt of England--Two causes of conflict--Franklin sent to England--His embarkation--Wise counsel to his daughter--The stamp act--American resolves--Edmund Burke--Examination of Franklin--Words of Lord Chatham--Dangers to English operatives--Repeal of the stamp act--Joy in America--Ross Mackay--New taxes levied--Character of George III--Accumulation of honors to Franklin--Warlike preparations--Human conscientiousness--Unpopularity of William Franklin--Marriage of Sarah Franklin--Franklin's varied investigations--Efforts to civilize the Sandwich Islands. It is scarcely too severe to say that Governor John Penn was both knave and fool. To ingratiate himself with the vile Paxton men and their partisans, he issued a proclamation, offering for every captive male Indian, of any hostile tribe, one hundred and fifty dollars, for every female, one hundred and thirty-eight dollars. For the scalp of a male, the bounty was one hundred and thirty-eight dollars; for the scalp of a female fifty dollars. Of course it would be impossible, when the scalps were brought in to decide whether they were stripped from friendly or hostile heads. Curiously two political parties were thus organized. The governor, intensely inimical to Franklin, led all the loose fellows who approved of the massacre of the friendly Indians. Franklin was supported by the humane portion of the community, who regarded that massacre with horror. There was much bitterness engendered. Franklin was assailed and calumniated as one of the worst of men. He, as usual, wrote a pamphlet, which was read far and wide. Earnestly he urged that the crown, as it had a right to do, should, by purchase, take possession of the province and convert its government into that of a royal colony. It should be remembered that this was several years before the troubles of the revolution arose. The people were in heart true Englishmen. Fond of their nationality, sincere patriotism glowed in all bosoms. They ever spoke of England as "home." When the Assembly met again three thousand citizens, influenced mainly by Franklin's pamphlet, sent in a petition that the province might revert to the crown. The Penns succeeded in presenting a counter petition signed by three hundred. The British cabinet, in its insatiable thirst for universal conquest, or impelled by necessity to repel the encroachments of other nations, equally wicked and equally grasping, had been by fleet and army, fighting all over the world. After spending every dollar which the most cruel taxation could extort from the laboring and impoverished masses, the government had incurred the enormous debt of seventy-three millions sterling. This amounted to over three hundred and sixty-five millions of our money. The government decided to tax the Americans to help pay the interest on this vast sum. But the colonies were already taxed almost beyond endurance, to carry on the terrible war against the French and Indians. This war was not one of their own choosing. It had been forced upon them by the British Cabinet, in its resolve to drive the French off the continent of North America. The Americans were allowed no representation in Parliament. They were to be taxed according to the caprice of the government. Franklin, with patriotic foresight, vehemently, and with resistless force of logic, resisted the outrage. It will be perceived that there were now two quite distinct sources of controversy. First came the conflict with the proprietaries, and then rose the still more important strife with the cabinet of Great Britain, to repel the principle of taxation without representation. This principle once admitted, the crown could tax the Americans to any amount whatever it pleased. Many unreflecting people could not appreciate these disastrous results. Thus all the partisans of the Penns, and all the office holders of the crown and their friends, and there were many such, became not only opposed to Franklin, but implacable in their hostility. The majority of the Assembly was with him. He was chosen Speaker, and then was elected to go again to England, to carry with him to the British Court the remonstrances of the people against "taxation without representation," and their earnest petition to be delivered from the tyranny of the Penns. More unwelcome messages to the British Court and aristocracy, he could not well convey. It was certain that the Penns and their powerful coadjutors, would set many influences in array against him. Mr. Dickinson, in the Assembly, remonstrating against this appointment, declared that there was no man in Pennsylvania who was more the object of popular dislike than Benjamin Franklin. But two years had elapsed since Franklin's return to America, after an absence from his home of six years. He still remembered fondly the "dense happiness" which he had enjoyed in the brilliant circles abroad. This, added to an intensity of patriotism, which rendered him second to none but Washington, among the heroes of the Revolution, induced him promptly to accept the all important mission. He allowed but twelve days to prepare for his embarkation. The treasury was empty, and money for his expenses had to be raised by a loan. A packet ship, bound for London was riding at Chester, fifteen miles below the city. Three hundred of the citizens of Philadelphia, on horseback, escorted Franklin to the ship. He seldom attended church, though he always encouraged his wife and daughter to do so. It was genteel; it was politic. A family could scarcely command the respect of the community, which, in the midst of a religious people, should be living without any apparent object of worship. The preacher of Christ Church, which the family attended, was a partisan of the Penns. Sometimes he "meddled with politics." Franklin in his parting letter, from on shipboard, wrote to his daughter: "Go constantly to church, whoever preaches. The active devotion in the common prayer-book, is your principal business there, and if properly attended to, will do more towards amending the heart, than sermons generally can do. For they were composed by men of much greater piety and wisdom, than our common composers of sermons can pretend to be. Therefore I wish that you would never miss the prayer days. Yet I do not mean you should despise sermons, even of the preachers you dislike; for the discourse is often much better than the man, as sweet and clear waters come through very dirty earth." The voyage was stormy; it lasted thirty days. On the evening of the tenth of December, 1764, he again took up his residence in the house of Mrs. Stephenson and her daughter, where he was received with delight. He found several other agents of the colonies in London, who had also been sent to remonstrate against the despotic measures which the British Cabinet threatened, of taxing the Americans at its pleasure, without allowing them to have any voice in deciding upon the sums which they should pay. Grenville was prime minister. He was about to introduce the Stamp Act, as an initiatory measure. It imposed but a trivial tax, in itself of but little importance, but was intended as an experiment, to ascertain whether the Americans would submit to the principle. This fact being once established, the government could then proceed to demand money at its pleasure. Franklin opposed the tax with all his energies. He declared it, in his own forceful language, to be the "mother of mischiefs." With four other colonial agents, he held an interview with Lord Grenville. The usual arguments were employed on both sides. Lord Grenville was courteous, but very decided. The Americans he declared must help England pay the interest on her debt, and the parliament of Great Britain alone could decide how large an amount of money the Americans should pay. The bill was introduced to parliament, and passed by a large majority. The king signed it in a scrawling hand, which some think indicated the insanity he was beginning to develop. The trivial sum expected to be raised by the Stamp Act amounted to scarcely one hundred thousand pounds a year. It was thought that the Americans would not venture upon any decisive opposition to England for such a trifle. Franklin wrote to a friend: "I took every step in my power, to prevent the passing of the Stamp Act. But the tide was too strong against us. The nation was provoked by American claims of legislative independence; and all parties joined in resolving, by this act, to settle the point." Thus Franklin entirely failed in arresting the passing of the Stamp Act. He was also equally unsuccessful in his endeavor to promote a change of government, from the proprietary to the royal. And still his mission proved a success. By conversations, pamphlets and articles in the newspapers, he raised throughout the country such an opposition to the measure that parliament was compelled to repeal it. The tidings of the passage of the Stamp Act was received in intelligent America, with universal expressions of displeasure, and with resolves to oppose its operation in every possible way. It is remarked of a celebrated theological professor, that he once said to his pupils, "When you go to the city to preach, take your best coat; when to the country, take your best sermon." The lords and gentry of England were astonished at the intelligence displayed in the opposition, by the rural population of America. They fancied the colonists to be an ignorant, ragged people, living in log cabins, scattered through the wilderness, and, in social position, two or three degrees below European and Irish peasantry. Great was their surprise to hear from all the colonies, and from the remotest districts in each colony, the voice of intelligent and dignified rebuke. The Act was to go into execution on the first of November, 1765. Before that time, Franklin had spread, through all the mechanical, mercantile and commercial classes, the conviction that they would suffer ten-fold more, by the interruptions of trade which the Stamp Act would introduce, than government could hope to gain by the measure. He spread abroad the intelligence which came by every fresh arrival, that the Americans were resolving, with wonderful unanimity, that they would consume no more English manufactures, that they would purchase no more British goods, and that, as far as possible, in food, clothing, and household furniture, they would depend upon their own productions. They had even passed resolves to eat no more lamb, that their flocks might so increase that they should have wool enough to manufacture their own clothing. England had thus far furnished nearly all the supplies for the rapidly increasing colonies, already numbering a population of between two and three millions. The sudden cessation of this trade was felt in nearly every warehouse of industry. No more orders came. Goods accumulated without purchasers. Violent opposition arose, and vast meetings were held in the manufacturing districts, to remonstrate against the measures of the government. Edmund Burke, a host in himself, headed the opposition in parliament. Burke and Franklin were intimate friends, and the renowned orator obtained from the renowned philosopher, many of those arguments and captivating illustrations, which, uttered on the floor of parliament, astonished England, and reaching our shores, electrified America. The state of affairs became alarming. In some places the stamps were destroyed, in others, no one could be found who would venture upon the obnoxious task of offering to sell them. The parliament resolved itself into a committee of the whole house, and spent six weeks in hearing testimony respecting the operation of the act in America. The hall was crowded with eager listeners. The industrial prosperity of the nation seemed at stake. Franklin was the principal witness. His testimony overshadowed all the rest. The record of it was read with admiration. Seldom has a man been placed in a more embarrassing situation, and never has one, under such circumstances, acquitted himself more triumphantly. He was examined and cross-examined, before this vast and imposing assemblage, by the shrewdest lawyers of the crown. Every attempt was made to throw him into embarrassment, to trip him in his speech. But never for a moment did Franklin lose his self-possession. Never for an instant, did he hesitate in his reply. In the judgment of all his friends, not a mistake did he make. His mind seemed to be omnisciently furnished, with all the needful statistics for as rigorous an examination as any mortal was ever exposed to. Burke wrote to a friend, "that Franklin, as he stood before the bar of parliament, presented such an aspect of dignity and intellectual superiority, as to remind him of a schoolmaster questioned by school boys." Rev. George Whitefield wrote, "Our worthy friend, Dr. Franklin, has gained immortal honor, by his behavior at the bar of the house. The answer was always found equal, if not superior to the questioner. He stood unappalled, gave pleasure to his friends, and did honor to his country." After great agitation and many and stormy debates, the haughty government was compelled to yield to the demands of the industrial classes. Indeed, with those in England, who cried most loudly for the repeal of the stamp act, there were comparatively few who were influenced by any sympathy for the Americans, or by any appreciation of the justice of their cause. The loss of the American trade was impoverishing them. Selfish considerations alone,--their own personal interests--moved them to action. There were individuals, in and out of Parliament, who recognized the rights of Englishmen, and regarding the Americans as Englishmen, and America as a portion of the British empire, were in heart and with all their energies, in sympathy with the Americans in their struggle for their rights. When the despotism of the British court led that court to the infamous measure of sending fleets and armies, to compel the Americans to submission, and the feeble colonists, less than three millions in number, performing the boldest and most heroic deeds ever yet recorded in history, grasped their arms in self-defence, thus to wage war against the most powerful naval and military empire upon this globe, Lord Chatham, with moral courage rarely surpassed, boldly exclaimed in the House of Lords, "Were I an American, as I am an Englishman, I would never lay down my arms, never, _never_, NEVER." In all England, there was no man more determined in his resolve to bring the Americans to servile obedience, than the stubborn king, George III. The repeal gave him intense offence. The equally unprincipled, but more intelligent, ministers were compelled to the measure, as they saw clearly that England was menaced with civil war, which would array the industrial classes generally against the aristocracy. In such a conflict it was far from improbable that the aristocracy would be brought to grief. Horace Walpole wrote, "It was the clamor of trade, of merchants, and of manufacturing towns, that had borne down all opposition. A general insurrection was apprehended, as the immediate consequence of upholding the bill. The revolt of America, and the destruction of trade, was the prospect in future." Still the question of the repeal was carried in the House but by a majority of one hundred and eight votes. Of course Franklin now solicited permission to return home. The Assembly, instead of granting his request, elected him agent for another year. It does not appear that Franklin was disappointed. The report of his splendid and triumphant examination, before the Commons, and the republication of many of his pamphlets, had raised him to the highest position of popularity. The Americans, throughout all the provinces, received tidings of the Repeal with unbounded delight. Bells were rung, bon-fires blazed, cannon were fired. "I never heard so much noise in my life," wrote Sally to her "honored papa." "The very children seemed distracted." The Tory party in England developed no little malignity in their anger, in view of the discomfiture of their plans. The bigoted Tory, Dr. Johnson, wrote to Bishop White of Pennsylvania, that if he had been Prime Minister, instead of repealing the act, he would have sent a man-of-war, and laid one or more of our largest cities in ashes.[21] [Footnote 21: Wilson's Life of Bishop White, p. 89.] The king felt personally aggrieved. His denunciations of those who favored the Repeal were so indecent, that some of his most influential friends ventured to intimate to him that it was highly impolitic. Indeed, as the previous narrative has shown, many who were in entire sympathy with the king, and who were bitterly opposed to any concession to the Americans, felt compelled to vote for the Repeal. To propitiate the unrelenting and half-crazed monarch, with his obdurate court, a Declaratory Act, as it was called, was passed, which affirmed the _absolute supremacy_ of Parliament over the colonies. We hear very much of the corruption of our own Congress. It is said that votes are sometimes bought and sold. Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, who was a member of Parliament during all this period, declares, in his intensely interesting and undoubtedly honest Memoir, that under the ministry of Lord Bute, Ross Mackay was employed by him as "corrupter-general" whose mission it was to carry important measures of government by bribery. Wraxall writes that Ross Mackay said to him, at a dinner party given by Lord Besborough, as the illustrious guests were sipping their wine, "The peace of 1763 was carried through and approved by a pecuniary dispensation. Nothing else could have surmounted the difficulty. I was myself the channel through which the money passed. With my own hand I secured above one hundred and twenty votes on that most important question to ministers. Eighty thousand pounds were set apart for the purpose. Forty members of the House of Commons received from me a thousand pounds each. To eighty others I paid five hundred pounds a-piece." The unrelenting king was still determined that the Americans, unrepresented in Parliament, should still pay into his treasury whatever sums of money he might exact. Calling to his aid courtiers more shrewd than himself, they devised a very cunning act, to attain that object in a way which would hardly be likely to excite opposition. They laid a tax, insignificant really in its amount, upon paper, paint, glass, and tea. This tax was to be collected at the custom-houses in the few ports of entry in the colonies. The whole amount thus raised would not exceed forty thousand pounds. It was thought that the Americans would never make opposition to so trivial a payment. But it established a principle that England could tax the colonies without allowing those colonies any representation in Parliament. If the Court had a right thus to demand forty thousand pounds, they had a right to demand so many millions, should it seem expedient to king and cabinet so to do. The great blunder which the court committed, was in not appreciating the wide-spread intelligence of the American people. In New England particularly, and throughout the colonies generally, there was scarcely a farmer who did not perceive the trick, and despise it. They deemed it an insult to their intelligence. Instantly there arose, throughout all the provinces, the most determined opposition to the measure. It was in fact merely a renewal of the Stamp Act, under slightly modified forms. If they admitted the justice of this act, it was only declaring that they had acted with unpardonable folly, in opposing the tax under the previous form. Dr. Franklin, with honest shrewdness, not with trickery or with cunning, but with a sincere and penetrating mind, eagerly scrutinized all the measures of the Court. George III. was a gentleman. He was irreproachable in all his domestic relations. He was, in a sense, conscientious; for certainly he was not disposed to do anything which he thought to be wrong. Conscientious men have burned their fellow-Christians at the stake. It is said that George the Third was a Christian. He certainly was a full believer in the religion of Jesus Christ; and earnestly advocated the support and extension of that religion. God makes great allowance for the frailties of his fallen children. It requires the wisdom of omniscience to decide how much wickedness there may be in the heart, consistently with piety. No man is perfect. During the reign of George III., terrible wars were waged throughout all the world, mainly incited by the British Court. Millions perished. The moans of widows and orphans ascended from every hand. This wicked Christian king sent his navy and his army to burn down our cities and villages, and to shoot husbands, fathers, and sons, until he could compel America to submit to his despotism. The population of England being exhausted by those wide spread wars, he hired, of the petty princes of Europe, innocent peasantry, to abandon their homes in Germany, to burn and destroy the homes of Americans. Finding that not sufficient, he sent his agents through the wilderness to rouse, by bribes, savage men, who knew no better, to ravage our frontiers, to burn the cabins of lonely farmers, to tomahawk and scalp their wives and children. Such a man may be a good Christian. God, who can read the secrets of the heart, and who is infinite in his love and charity, alone can decide. But if we imagine that man, George Guelph, at the bar of judgment, and thronging up as witnesses against him, the millions whose earthly homes he converted into abodes of misery and despair, it is difficult to imagine in our frail natures, how our Heavenly Father, who loves all his children alike, and who, as revealed in the person of Jesus, could weep over the woes of humanity, could look with a loving smile upon him and say, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." Franklin of course continued in as determined an opposition to the new tax as to the old one. He wrote, "I have some little property in America. I will freely spend nineteen shillings in the pound to defend my right of giving or refusing the other shilling. And after all, if I cannot defend that right, I can retire cheerfully with my little family into the boundless woods of America, which are sure to afford freedom and subsistence to any man who can bait a hook or pull a trigger." The ability which Franklin had displayed as the agent of Pennsylvania before the court of St. James, gave him, as we have said, a high reputation in all the colonies. In the spring of 1768 he was highly gratified by the intelligence that he was appointed, by the young colony of Georgia, its London agent. The next year New Jersey conferred the same honor upon him, and the year after, he was appointed agent of his native province of Massachusetts. These several appointments detained him ten years in England. During all this time he did not visit home. The equanimity of his joyful spirit seems never to have been disturbed. His pen describes only pleasant scenes. No murmurs are recorded, no yearnings of home-sickness. But month after month the animosity of the British Court towards the Americans was increasing. The king grew more and more fixed in his purpose, to compel the liberty-loving Americans to submission. Hostile movements were multiplied to indicate that if the opposition to his measures was continued, English fleets and armies would soon commence operations. Several thousand troops were landed in Boston. Fourteen men-of-war were anchored before the town, with the cannon of their broad-sides loaded and primed, ready, at the slightest provocation to lay the whole town in ashes. Protected by this terrible menace, two British regiments paraded the streets, with their muskets charged, with gleaming sabres and bayonets, with formidable artillery prepared to vomit forth the most horrible discharges of grape shot, with haughty English officers well mounted, and soldiers and officers alike in imposing uniforms. This invincible band of highly disciplined soldiers, as a peace measure, took possession of the Common, the State House, the Court House and Faneuil Hall. Even now, after the lapse of more than a hundred years, it makes the blood of an American boil to contemplate this insult. Who can imagine the feelings of exasperation that must have glowed in the bosoms of our patriotic fathers! Franklin, in England, was treated with ever increasing disrespect. Lord Hillsborough, then in charge of American affairs, told him peremptorily, even insolently, that America could expect no favors while he himself was in power, and that he was determined to persevere with firmness in the policy which the king was pursuing. The king was so shielded by his ministers that Franklin knew but little about him. Even at this time he wrote, "I can scarcely conceive a king of better dispositions, of more exemplary virtues, or more truly desirous of promoting the welfare of his subjects." Franklin never had occasion to speak differently of his domestic virtues. Nay, it is more than probable that the king daily, in prayer, looked to God for guidance, and that he thought that he was doing that which was promotive of the interests of England. Alas for man! He can perpetrate the most atrocious crimes, honestly believing that he is doing God's will. He can burn aged women under the charge of their being witches. He can torture, in the infliction of unutterable anguish, his brother man--mothers and daughters, under the charge of heresy. He can hurl hundreds of thousands of men against each other in most horrible and woe-inflicting wars, while falling upon his knees and praying to God to bless his murderous armies. Franklin had with him his grandson, William Temple Franklin, the dishonored son of William Franklin, then Governor of New Jersey. He was a bright and promising boy, and developed an estimable character, under the guidance of his grandfather, who loved him. William Franklin in New Jersey was, however, becoming increasingly the scourge of his father. It would seem that Providence was thus, in some measure, punishing Franklin for his sin. The governor, appointed by the Court of England to his office, which he highly prized, and which he feared to lose, was siding with the Court. He perceived that the storm of political agitation was increasing in severity. He felt that the power of the colonies was as nothing compared with the power of the British government. Gradually he became one of the most violent of the Tories. The moderation of Franklin, and his extraordinarily charitable disposition, led him to refrain from all denunciations of his ungrateful son, or even reproaches, until his conduct became absolutely infamous. In 1773, he wrote, in reference to the course which the governor was pursuing, "I only wish you to act uprightly and steadily, avoiding that duplicity which, in Hutchinson, adds contempt to indignation. If you can promote the prosperity of your people, and leave them happier than you found them, whatever your political principles are, your memory will be honored." While Franklin was absent, a young merchant of Philadelphia, Richard Bache, offered his hand to Franklin's only daughter, from whom the father had been absent nearly all of her life. Sarah was then twenty-three years of age, so beautiful as to become quite a celebrity, and she was highly accomplished. Mr. Bache was not successful in business, and the young couple resided under the roof of Mrs. Franklin for eight years. The husband, with an increasing family, appealed to his illustrious father-in-law, to obtain for him a governmental appointment. Franklin wrote to his daughter, "I am of opinion, that almost any profession a man has been educated in, is preferable to an office held at pleasure, as rendering him more independent, more a free man, and less subject to the caprices of his superiors. I think that in keeping a store, if it be where you dwell, you can be serviceable to him, as your mother was to me; for you are not deficient in capacity, and I hope you are not too proud. You might easily learn accounts; and you can copy letters, or write them very well on occasion. By industry and frugality you may get forward in the world, being both of you very young. And then what we may leave you at our death, will be a pretty addition, though of itself far from sufficient to maintain and bring up a family." Franklin gave his son-in-law about a thousand dollars to assist him in the purchase of a stock of merchandise. The children, born to this happy couple, were intelligent and beautiful, and they greatly contributed to the happiness of their grandmother, who cherished them with a grandmother's most tender love. In the year 1862, there were one hundred and ten surviving descendants of Richard Bache and Sarah Franklin. Ten of these were serving in the Union army perilling their lives to maintain that national fabric, which their illustrious ancestor had done so much to establish. Franklin was by no means a man of one idea. His comprehensive mind seemed to grasp all questions of statesmanship, of philanthropy, of philosophy. During the ten years of his residence in England he visited the hospitals, carefully examined their management, and transmitted to his home the result of his observations. This was probably the origin of the celebrity which the medical schools of Philadelphia have attained. He visited the silk manufactories, and urged the adoption of that branch of industry, as peculiarly adapted to our climate and people. Ere long he had the pleasure of presenting to the queen a piece of American silk, which she accepted and wore as a dress. As silk was an article not produced in England, the government was not offended by the introduction of that branch of industry. For Hartford college he procured a telescope, which cost about five hundred dollars. This was, in those days, an important event. The renowned Captain Cook returned from his first voyage around the world. The narrative of his adventures, in the discovery of new islands, and new races of men, excited almost every mind in England and America. Franklin was prominent in the movement, to raise seventy-five thousand dollars, to fit out an expedition to send to those benighted islanders the fowls, the quadrupeds and the seeds of Europe. He wrote, in an admirable strain, "Many voyages have been undertaken with views of profit or of plunder, or to gratify resentment. But a voyage is now proposed to visit a distant people on the other side of the globe, not to cheat them, not to rob them: not to seize their lands or to enslave their persons, but merely to do them good, and make them, as far as in our power lies, to live as comfortable as ourselves." There can be no national prosperity without virtue. There can not be a happy people who do not "do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God." It was a noble enterprise to send to those naked savages corn and hoes, with horses, pigs and poultry. But the Christian conscience awoke to the conviction that something more than this was necessary. They sent, to the dreary huts of the Pacific, ambassadors of the religion of Jesus, to gather the children in schools, to establish the sanctity of the family relation, and to proclaim to all, the glad tidings of that divine Saviour, who has come to earth "to seek and to save the lost." CHAPTER XI. _The Intolerance of King and Court._ Parties in England--Franklin the favorite of the opposition--Plans of the Tories--Christian III--Letter of Franklin--Dr. Priestley--Parisian courtesy--Louis XV--Visit to Ireland--Attempted alteration of the Prayer Book--Letter to his son--Astounding letters from America--Words of John Adams--Petition of the Assembly--Violent conspiracy against Franklin--His bearing in the court-room--Wedderburn's infamous charges--Letter of Franklin--Bitter words of Dr. Johnson--Morals of English lords--Commercial value of the Colonies--Dangers threatening Franklin. Wherever there is a government there must be an opposition. Those who are out of office wish to eject those in office, that they may take their places. There was a pretty strong party in what was called the Opposition. But it was composed of persons animated by very different motives. The first consisted of those intelligent, high minded, virtuous statesmen, who were indignant in view of the wrong which the haughty, unprincipled Tory government was inflicting upon the American people. The second gathered those who were in trade. They cared nothing for the Americans. They cared nothing for government right or wrong. They wished to sell their hats, their cutlery, and their cotton and woolen goods to the Americans. This they could not do while government was despotically enforcing the Stamp Act or the Revenue Bill. Then came a third class, who had no goods to sell, and no conscience to guide to action. They were merely ambitious politicians. They wished to thrust the Tories out of office simply that they might rush into the occupancy of all the places of honor, emolument or power. Franklin was in high favor with the opposition. He furnished their orators in Parliament with arguments, with illustrations, with accurate statistical information. Many of the most telling passages in parliamentary speeches, were placed on the lips of the speakers by Benjamin Franklin. He wrote pamphlets of marvellous popular power, which were read in all the workshops, and greatly increased the number and the intelligence of the foes of the government measures. Thus Franklin became the favorite of the popular party. They lavished all honors upon him. In the same measure he became obnoxious to the haughty, aristocratic Tory government. Its ranks were filled with the lords, the governmental officials, and all their dependents. This made a party very powerful in numbers, and still more powerful in wealth and influence. They were watching for opportunities to traduce Franklin, to ruin his reputation, and if possible, to bring him into contempt. This will explain the honors which were conferred upon him by one party, and the indignities to which he was subjected from the other. At times, the Tories would make efforts by flattery, by offers of position, of emolument, by various occult forms of bribery, to draw Franklin to their side. He might very easily have attained almost any amount of wealth and high official dignity. The king of Denmark, Christian VII., was brother-in-law of George III. He visited England; a mere boy in years, and still more a weak boy in insipidity of character. A large dinner-party was given in his honor at the Royal Palace. Franklin was one of the guests. In some way unexplained, he impressed the boy-king with a sense of his inherent and peculiar greatness. Christian invited a select circle of but sixteen men to dine with him. Among those thus carefully selected, Franklin was honored with an invitation. Though sixty-seven years of age he still enjoyed in the highest degree, convivial scenes. He could tell stories, and sing songs which gave delight to all. It was his boast that he could empty his two bottles of wine, and still retain entire sobriety. He wrote to Hugh Roberts, "I wish you would continue to meet the Junto. It wants but about two years of forty since it was established. We loved, and still love one another; we have grown grey together, and yet it is too early to part. Let us sit till the evening of life is spent; the last hours are always the most joyous. When we can stay no longer, it is time enough to bid each other good night, separate, and go quietly to bed." Franklin was the last person to find any enjoyment in the society of vulgar and dissolute men. In those days, it was scarcely a reproach for a young lord to be carried home from a festivity in deadly intoxication. Witticisms were admitted into such circles which respectable men would not tolerate now. Franklin's most intimate friends in London were found among Unitarian clergymen, and those philosophers who were in sympathy with him in his rejection of the Christian religion. Dr. Richard Price, and Dr. Joseph Priestly, men both eminent for intellectual ability and virtues, were his bosom friends. Dr. Priestly, who had many conversations with Franklin upon religious topics, deeply deplored the looseness of his views. Though Dr. Priestly rejected the divinity of Christ, he still firmly adhered to the belief that Christianity was of divine origin. In his autobiography, Dr. Priestly writes: "It is much to be lamented that a man of Dr. Franklin's generally good character and great influence, should have been an unbeliever in Christianity, and also have done so much as he did to make others unbelievers. To me, however, he acknowledged that he had not given so much attention as he ought to have done to the evidences of Christianity; and he desired me to recommend him a few treatises on the subject, such as I thought most deserving his notice." Priestly did so; but Franklin, all absorbed in his social festivities, his scientific researches, and his intense patriotic labors, could find no time to devote to that subject--the immortal destiny of man,--which is infinitely more important to each individual than all others combined.[22] It was indeed a sad circle of unbelievers, into whose intimacy Franklin was thrown. Dr. Priestly writes, "In Paris, in 1774, all the philosophical persons to whom I was introduced, were unbelievers in Christianity, and even professed atheists. I was told by some of them, that I was the only person they had ever met, of whose understanding they had any opinion, who professed to believe in Christianity. But I soon found they did not really know what Christianity was." [Footnote 22: Mr. Parton, in his excellent Life of Franklin, one of the best biographies which was ever written, objects to this withholding of the Christian name from Dr. Franklin. He writes, "I do not understand what Dr. Priestly meant, by saying that Franklin was an unbeliever in Christianity, since he himself was open to the same charge from nine-tenths of the inhabitants of christendom. Perhaps, if the two men were now alive, we might express the theological difference between them by saying that Priestly was a Unitarian of the Channing school, and Franklin of that of Theodore Parker." Again he writes, "I have ventured to call Franklin the consummate Christian of his time. Indeed I know not who, of any time, has exhibited more of the Spirit of Christ."--_Parton's Franklin Vol. 1. p. 546. Vol. 2. p. 646._] It was Franklin's practice to spend a part of every summer in traveling. In 1767, accompanied by Sir John Pringle, he visited Paris. With Franklin, one of the first of earthly virtues was courtesy. He was charmed with the politeness of the French people. Even the most humble of the working classes, were gentlemanly; and from the highest to the lowest, he, simply as a stranger, was treated with consideration which surprised him. He writes, "The civilities we everywhere receive, give us the strongest impressions of the French politeness. It seems to be a point settled here universally, that strangers are to be treated with respect; and one has just the same deference shown one here, by being a stranger, as in England, by being a lady." Two dozen bottles of port-wine were given them at Bordeaux. These, as the law required, were seized by the custom-house officers, as they entered Paris by the Porte St. Denis; but as soon as it was ascertained that they were strangers, the wine was remitted. There was a magnificent illumination of the Church of Notre Dame, in honor of the deceased Dauphiness. Thousands could not obtain admission. An officer, learning merely that they were strangers, took them in charge, conducted them through the vast edifice, and showed them every thing. Franklin and his companion had the honor of a presentation to the king, Louis XV., at Versailles. This monarch was as vile a man as ever occupied a throne. But he had the virtue of courtesy, which Franklin placed at the head of religious principle. The philosopher simply records, "The king spoke to both of us very graciously and very cheerfully. He is a handsome man, has a very lively look, and appears younger than he is." In 1772, Franklin visited Ireland. He was treated there with great honor; but the poverty of the Irish peasantry overwhelmed his benevolent heart with astonishment and dismay. He writes, "I thought often of the happiness of New England, where every man is a free-holder, has a vote in public affairs, lives in a tidy, warm house, has plenty of good food and fuel, with whole clothes from head to foot, the manufacture perhaps of his own family. Long may they continue in this situation." In the year 1773, Franklin spent several weeks in the beautiful mansion of his friend, Lord Despencer. We read with astonishment, that Franklin, who openly renounced all belief in the divine origin of Christianity, should have undertaken, with Lord Despencer, an abbreviation of the prayer-book of the Church of England. It is surprising, that he could have thought it possible, that the eminent Christians, clergy and laity of that church, would accept at the hands of a deist, their form of worship. But Franklin was faithful in the abbreviation, not to make the slightest change in the evangelical character of that admirable work, which through ages has guided the devotion of millions. The abbreviated service, cut down one-half, attracted no attention, and scarcely a copy was sold. At this time, Franklin's reputation was in its meridian altitude. There was scarcely a man in Europe or America, more prominent. Every learned body in Europe, of any importance, had elected him a member. Splendid editions of his works were published in London; and three editions were issued from the press in Paris. In France, Franklin met with no insults, with no opposition. All alike smiled upon him, and the voices of commendation alone fell upon his ear. Returning to England, his reputation there, as a man of high moral worth, and of almost the highest intellectual attainments, and a man honored in the most remarkable degree with all the highest offices which his countrymen could confer upon him, swept contumely from his path, and even his enemies were ashamed to manifest their hostility. From London he wrote to his son, "As to my situation here, nothing can be more agreeable. Learned and ingenious foreigners that come to England, almost all make a point of visiting me; for my reputation is still higher abroad, than here. Several of the foreign ambassadors have assiduously cultivated my acquaintance, treating me as one of their corps, partly, I believe, from the desire they have from time to time, of hearing something of American affairs; an object become of importance in foreign courts, who begin to hope Britain's alarming power will be diminished by the defection of her colonies."[23] [Footnote 23: "For dinner parties Franklin was in such demand that, during the London season, he sometimes dined out six days in the week for several weeks together. He also confesses that occasionally he drank more wine than became a philosopher. It would indeed have been extremely difficult to avoid it, in that soaking age, when a man's force was reckoned by the number of bottles he could empty."--_Parton's Life of Franklin_, Vol. i, p. 540. As an illustration of the state of the times, I give the following verse from one of the songs which Franklin wrote, and which he was accustomed to sing with great applause. At the meetings of the Junto, all the club joined in the chorus, "Fair Venus calls; her voice obey In beauty's arms spend night and day. The joys of love all joys excel, And loving's certainly doing well. _Chorus._ Oh! no! Not so! For honest souls still know Friends and the bottle still bear the bell." "It is well," Mr. Parton writes, "for us, in these days, to consider the spectacle of this large, robust soul, sporting in this simple, homely way. This superb Franklin of ours, who spent some evenings in mere jollity, passed nearly all his days in labor most fruitful of benefit to his country."--_Life of Franklin_, Vol. i, p. 262.] In the latter part of the year 1772, Franklin, in his ever courteous, but decisive language, was conversing with an influential member of Parliament, respecting the violent proceedings of the ministry, in quartering troops upon the citizens of Boston. The member, in reply, said, "You are deceived in supposing these measures to originate with the ministry. The sending out of the troops, and all the hostile measures, of which you complain, have not only been suggested, but solicited, by prominent men of your own country. They have urged that troops should be sent, and that fleets should enter your harbors, declaring that in no other way, than by this menace of power, can the turbulent Americans be brought to see their guilt and danger, and return to obedience." Franklin expressed his doubts of this statement. "I will bring you proof," the gentleman replied. A few days after, he visited Franklin, and brought with him a packet of letters, written by persons of high official station in the colonies, and native born Americans. The signatures of these letters were effaced; but the letters themselves were presented, and Franklin was confidentially informed of their writers. They were addressed to Mr. William Whately, an influential member of Parliament, who had recently died. Franklin read them with astonishment and indignation. He found the representation of the gentleman entirely true. Six of the letters were written by Thomas Hutchinson, Governor of Massachusetts. He was a native of the colony he governed, a graduate of Harvard, and in his religious position a Puritan. Four were written by Andrew Oliver, Lieutenant-governor, and also a native of Massachusetts. The rest were written by custom-house officers and other servants of the Crown. The openly avowed design of these letters was, that they should be exhibited to the Ministry, to excite them to prompt, vigorous and hostile measures. They teemed with misrepresentations, and often with downright falsehoods. The perusal of these infamous productions elicited from Franklin first a burst of indignation. The second effect was greatly to mitigate his resentment against the British government. The ministry, it seemed, were acting in accordance with solicitations received from Americans, native born, and occupying the highest posts of honor and influence. The gentleman who obtained these letters and showed them to Franklin, was very unwilling to have his agency in the affair made public. After much solicitation, he consented to have Franklin send the letters to America, though he would not give permission to have any copies taken. It was his hope, that the letters would calm the rising animosity in America, by showing that the British ministry was pursuing a course of menace, which many of the most distinguished Americans declared to be essential, to save the country from anarchy and ruin. Franklin's object was to cause these traitorous office-holders to be ejected from their positions of influence, that others, more patriotic, might occupy the stations which they disgraced. On the 2d of December, 1772, Franklin inclosed the letters in an official package, directed to Thomas Cushing. He wrote, "I am not at liberty to make the letters public. I can only allow them to be seen by yourself, by the other gentlemen of the Committee of Correspondence, by Messrs. Bowdoin and Pitts of the Council, and Drs. Chauncy, Cooper, and Winthrop, and a few such other gentlemen as you may think fit to show them to. After being some months in your possession, you are requested to return them to me." The reading of the letters created intense anger and disgust. John Adams, after perusing them, recorded in his diary, alluding to Hutchinson, "Cool, thinking deliberate villain, malicious and vindictive." He carried the documents around to read to all his male and female friends, and was not sparing in his vehement comments. Again he wrote, "Bone of our bone; born and educated among us! Mr. Hancock is deeply affected; is determined, in conjunction with Major Hawley, to watch the vile serpent, and his deputy, Brattle. The subtlety of this serpent is equal to that of the old one." For two months the letters were privately yet extensively circulated. Hutchinson himself soon found out the storm which was gathering against him. The hand-writing of all the writers was known. In June, the Massachusetts Assembly met. In secret session the letters were read. Soon some copies were printed. It was said that some one had obtained, from England, copies of the letters from which the printed impressions were taken. But the mystery of their publication was never solved. The Assembly sent a petition to the king of England, imploring that Thomas Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver, should be removed from their posts, and that such good men as the king might select, should be placed in their stead. The petition, eminently respectful, but drawn up in very forcible language, expressive of the ruinous consequences caused by the measures which these officials had recommended, was transmitted to Franklin, the latter part of the summer of 1773. He immediately forwarded it to Lord Dartmouth. With it he sent a very polite and conciliatory letter, in which he declared, that the Americans were very desirous of being on good terms with the mother country, that their resentment against the government was greatly abated, by finding that Americans had urged the obnoxious measures which had been adopted; and that the present was a very favorable time to introduce cordial, friendly relations between the king and the colonists. Lord Dartmouth returned a very polite reply, laid the all-important petition aside, and for five months never alluded to it, by word or letter. In the meantime, some of the printed copies reached London. The Tories thought that perhaps the long sought opportunity had come when they might pounce upon Franklin, and at least greatly impair his influence. Franklin had nothing to conceal. He had received the letters from a friend, who authorized him to send them to America, that their contents might be made known there. In all this he had done absolutely nothing, which any one could pronounce to be wrong. But the Court, being determined to stir up strife, began to demand who it was that had obtained and delivered up the letters. Franklin was absent from London. He soon heard tidings of the great commotion that was excited, and that two gentlemen, who had nothing to do with the matter, were each accused of having dishonorably obtained the letters. This led to a duel. Franklin immediately wrote, "I think it incumbent for me to declare that I alone am the person who obtained and transmitted to Boston, the letters in question." The Court decided to summon Franklin to meet the "Committee for Plantation Affairs," to explain the reasons for the petition against Hutchinson and Oliver. To the surprise of Franklin, it appeared that they were organizing quite a formidable trial; and very able counsel was appointed to defend the culprits. Thus Franklin, who simply presented the petition of the Assembly, was forced into the obnoxious position of a prosecutor. The array against him was so strong, that it became necessary for him also to have counsel. It was manifest to all the friends of Franklin, that the British Court was rousing all its energies to crush him. The meeting was held on the 11th of January, 1773. Four of the Cabinet ministers were present, and several Lords of the Privy Council. They addressed Franklin as a culprit, who had brought slanderous charges against his majesty's faithful officers in the colonies. He was treated not only with disrespect but with absolute insolence. But nothing could disturb his equanimity. Not for one moment did he lose serenity of mind. There was an adjournment, to meet on the 29th of the month. In the meantime one of the court party, who had received many favors from Franklin, commenced a chancery suit against him, accusing him of stealing the letters, and being by trade a printer, of having secretly published them, and sold immense numbers, the profits of which he had placed in his own pocket. All this Franklin denied on oath. The charge was so absurd, and so manifestly malignant, that his foes withdrew the suit. Franklin was however assured that the Court was clamoring for his punishment and disgrace. All London was agitated by the commotion which these extraordinary events created. At the appointed day, the Council again met. The assembly was held in a large apartment in the drawing-room style. At one end was the entrance door; at the other the fire-place, with recesses on each side of the chimney. A broad table extended from the fire-place to the door. The Privy Council, thirty-five in number, sat at this table. They were inveterate Tories, resolved to bring the Americans down upon their knees, and, as a preliminary step, to inflict indelible disgrace upon Franklin. Lord North, the implacable Prime Minister was there. The Archbishop of Canterbury was present. As Franklin cast his eye along the line of these haughty nobles, he could not see the face of a friend. The remainder of the room was crowded with spectators. From them many a sympathizing glance fell upon him. Priestly and Burke gave him their silent but cordial sympathy. There were also quite a number of Americans and prominent members of the opposition, whose presence was a support to Franklin, during the ordeal through which he was to pass. He stood at the edge of the recess formed by the chimney, with one elbow resting upon the mantel, and his cheek upon his hand. He was motionless as a statue, and had composed his features into such calm and serene rigidity, that not the movement of a muscle could be detected. As usual, he was dressed simply, but with great elegance. A large flowing wig, with abundant curls, such as were used by elderly gentlemen at that day, covered his head. His costume, which was admirably fitted to a form as perfect as Grecian sculptor ever chiseled, was of rich figured silk velvet. In all that room, there was not an individual, who in physical beauty, was the peer of Franklin. In all that room there was not another, who in intellectual greatness could have met the trial so grandly. It will be remembered that the Assembly of Massachusetts had petitioned for the removal of an obnoxious governor and lieutenant governor. Franklin, as the agent in London of that colony, had presented the petition to the crown. He was now summoned to appear before the privy council, to bring forward and substantiate charges against these officers. The council had appointed a lawyer to defend Hutchinson and Oliver. His name was Wedderburn. He had already obtained celebrity for the savage skill with which he could browbeat a witness, and for his wonderful command of the vocabulary of vituperation and abuse. Before commencing the examination, he addressed the assembly in a long speech. After eulogizing Governor Hutchinson, as one of the best and most loyal of the officers of the crown, who merited the gratitude of king and court, he turned upon Franklin, and assailed him with a storm of vituperative epithets, such as never before, and never since, has fallen upon the head of a man. The council were in sympathy with the speaker. Often his malignant thrusts would elicit from those lords a general shout of derisive laughter. Such was the treatment which one of the most illustrious and honored of American citizens received from the privy council of king George III., when he appeared before that council as a friendly ambassador from his native land, seeking only conciliation and peace. Wedderburn accused Franklin of stealing private letters, of misrepresenting their contents, that he might excite hostility against the loyal officers of the king. He accused him of doing this that he might eject them from office, so as to obtain the positions for himself and his friends. Still more, he accused him of having in an unexampled spirit of meanness, availed himself of his skill as a printer, to publish these letters, and that he sold them far and wide, that he might enrich himself. Charges better calculated to ruin a man, in the view of these proud lords, can scarcely be conceived. It is doubtful whether there were another man in the world, who could have received them so calmly, and in the end could have so magnificently triumphed over them. During all this really terrific assailment, Franklin stood with his head resting on his left hand, apparently unmoved. At the close, he declined answering any questions. The committee of the council reported on that same day, "the lords of the committee, do agree humbly to report as their opinion to your majesty, that the said petition is founded upon resolution's, formed upon false and erroneous allegations, and that the same is false, vexatious and scandalous; and calculated only for the seditious purposes of keeping up a spirit of clamor and discontent in said province." The king accepted the report, and acted accordingly. Franklin went home alone. We know not why his friends thus apparently deserted him. The next morning, which was Sunday, Priestly breakfasted at Franklin's table. He represents him as saying that he could not have borne the insults heaped upon him by the privy council, but for the consciousness, that he had done only that which was right. On Monday morning Franklin received a laconic letter from the Postmaster General, informing him that the king had found it necessary to dismiss him from the office of deputy Postmaster General in America. This outrage, inflicted by the privy council of Great Britain, upon a friendly ambassador from her colonies, who had visited her court with the desire to promote union and harmony, was one of the most atrocious acts ever perpetrated by men above the rank of vagabonds in their drunken carousals. Franklin, in transmitting an account to Massachusetts, writes in a noble strain: "What I feel on my own account, is half lost in what I feel for the public. When I see that all petitions and complaints of grievances, are so odious to government, that even the mere pipe which conveys them, becomes obnoxious, I am at a loss to know how peace and union are to be maintained, and restored between the different parts of the empire. Grievances cannot be redressed, unless they are known. And they cannot be known, but through complaints and petitions. If these are deemed affronts, and the messengers punished as offenders, who will henceforth send petitions? and who will deliver them?" The speech of Wedderburn gave great delight to all the Tory party. It was derisively said, "that the lords of the council, went to their chamber, as to a bull-baiting, and hounded on the Solicitor General with loud applause and laughter." Mr. Fox, writing of the assault said, "All men tossed up their hats and clapped their hands, in boundless delight." When the tidings of the affair reached America, it added intensity to the animosity, then rapidly increasing, against the British government. The dismissal of Franklin from the post-office, was deemed equivalent to the seizure, by the crown, of that important branch of the government. None but the creatures of the Ministry were to be postmasters. Consequently patriotic Americans could no longer entrust their letters to the mail. Private arrangements were immediately made for the conveyance of letters; and with so much efficiency, that the general office, which had heretofore contributed fifteen thousand dollars annually to the public treasury, never after paid into it one farthing.[24] [Footnote 24: It may be worthy of record, that Wedderburn became the hero of the clubs and the favorite of the Tory party. Wealth and honors were lavished upon him. He rose to the dignity of an earl and lord chancellor, and yet we do not find, in any of the annals of those days, that he is spoken of otherwise than as a shallow, unprincipled man. When his death, after a few hours' illness, was announced to the king, he scornfully said, "He has not left a worse man behind him."] The spirit of the Tories may be inferred from that of one of the most applauded and influential of their leaders. Dr. Samuel Johnson, who wrote the notorious "Taxation no Tyranny," said, "The Americans are a race of convicts. They ought to be thankful for any thing we can give them. I am willing to love all mankind except an American." Boswell in quoting one of his insane tirades writes, "His inflammable corruption, bursting into horrid fire, he breathed out threatenings and slaughter, calling them rascals, robbers, pirates, and exclaiming that he would burn and destroy them." It was a day of vicious indulgence, of dissipation in every form, when it was fashionable to be godless, and to sneer at all the restraints of the Christian religion. Volumes might be filled with accounts of the atrocities perpetrated by drunken lords at the gaming table and in midnight revel through the streets. Such men of influence and rank as Fox, Lord Derby, the Duke of Ancaster, inflamed with wine, could set the police at defiance. They were constantly engaged in orgies which would disgrace the most degraded wretches, in the vilest haunts of infamy in our cities. Instead of gambling for copper, they gambled for gold. Horace Walpole testifies that at one of the most fashionable clubs, at Almack's, they played only for rouleaux of two hundred and fifty dollars each. There were often fifty thousand dollars in specie on the gaming tables, around which these bloated inebriates were gathered. It is said that Lord Holland paid the gambling debts of his two sons to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars. The trade of the colonies had become of immense value to the mother country. It amounted to six and a half millions sterling a year. Philadelphia numbered forty thousand inhabitants. Charleston, South Carolina, had become one of the most beautiful and healthy cities in America. The harbor was crowded with shipping, the streets were lined with mansions of great architectural beauty. Gorgeous equipages were seen, almost rivaling the display in French and English capitals. But there were many Tories in Charleston, as malignant in their opposition to the popular cause in America, as any of the aristocrats to be found in London. The unpardonable insult which Franklin had received, closed his official labors in London. His personal friends and the Opposition rallied more affectionately than ever around him. But he ceased to appear at court and was seldom present at the dinner-parties of the ministers. Still he was constantly and efficiently employed in behalf of his country. The leaders of the opposition were in constant conference with him. He wrote many pamphlets and published articles in the journals, which exerted an extended and powerful influence. He wrote to his friends at home, in October, 1774, "My situation here is thought, by many, to be a little hazardous; for if by some accident the troops and people of New England should come to blows, I should probably be taken up; the ministerial people, affecting everywhere to represent me as the cause of all the misunderstanding. And I have been frequently cautioned to secure all my papers, and by some advised to withdraw. But I venture to stay, in compliance with the wish of others, till the result of the Congress arrives, since they suppose my being here might, on that occasion, be of use. And I confide in my innocence, that the worst that can happen to me will be an imprisonment upon suspicion; though that is a thing I should much desire to avoid, as it may be expensive and vexatious, as well as dangerous to my health." CHAPTER XII. _The Bloodhounds of War Unleashed._ The mission of Josiah Quincy--Love of England by the Americans--Petition to the king--Sickness and death of Mrs. Franklin--Lord Chatham--His speech in favor of the colonists--Lord Howe--His interview with Franklin--Firmness of Franklin--His indignation--His mirth--Franklin's fable--He embarks for Philadelphia--Feeble condition of the colonies--England's expressions of contempt--Franklin's reception at Philadelphia--His letter to Edmund Burke--Post-office arrangements--Defection and conduct of William Franklin--His arrest. Young Josiah Quincy, of Boston, one of the noblest of patriots, who was dying of consumption, visited London, with instructions to confer with Franklin upon the posture of affairs. He wrote home, in the most commendatory terms, of the zeal and sagacity with which Franklin was devoting himself to the interests of his country. Tory spies were watching his every movement, and listening to catch every word which fell from his lips. Lord Hillsborough, in a debate in the House of Lords, said, "There are two men, walking in the streets of London, who ought to be in Newgate or at Tyburn." The duke of Richmond demanded their names, saying that if such were the fact the ministry were severely to be blamed. Hillsborough declined to give their names; but it was generally known that he referred to Dr. Franklin and Josiah Quincy. The policy of Franklin was clearly defined, and unchanging. He said virtually, to his countrymen, "Perform no political act against the government, utter no menace, and do no act of violence whatever. But firmly and perseveringly unite in consuming no English goods. There is nothing in this which any one will pronounce to be, in the slightest degree, illegal. The sudden and total loss of the trade with America, will, in one year, create such a clamor, from the capitalists and industrial classes of England, Ireland and Scotland, that the despotic government will be compelled to retrace its steps." Even at this time the Americans had no desire to break loose from the government of Great Britain. England was emphatically their home. Englishmen were their brothers. In England their fathers were gathered to the grave. The Americans did not assume a new name. They still called themselves Englishmen. They were proud to be members of the majestic kingdom, which then stood at the head of the world. Congress met. Its members, perhaps without exception, were yearning for reconciliation with the mother-country, and for sincere and cordial friendship. It was resolved to make another solemn appeal to the king, whom they had ever been accustomed to revere, and, in a fraternal spirit, to address their brethren, the people of England, whom they wished to regard with all the respect due to elder brothers. The intelligence of Christendom has applauded the dignity and the pathos of these documents. The appeal fell upon the profane, gambling, wine-bloated aristocrats of the court, as if it had been addressed to the marble statuary in the British Museum. Nay worse. Those statues would have listened in respectful silence. No contemptuous laughter, and no oaths of menace, would have burst from their marble lips. The following brief extract will show the spirit which pervaded these noble documents. It is one of the closing sentences of the address to the king: "Permit us then, most gracious sovereign, in the name of all your faithful people in America, with the utmost humility to implore you, for the honor of Almighty God, whose pure religion our enemies are undermining; for the glory which can be advanced only by rendering your subjects happy and keeping them united; for the interests of your family, depending on an adherence to the principle that enthroned it; for the safety and welfare of your kingdom and dominions, threatened with unavoidable dangers, and distresses; that your majesty, as the loving father of your whole people, connected by the same bands of law, loyalty, faith and blood, though dwelling in various countries, will not suffer the transcendent relation, formed by these ties, to be further violated, in uncertain expectation of effects which, if attained, never can compensate for the calamities through which they must be gained." This petition was sent to Franklin, and the other colony agents, to be presented by them to the king. They were instructed also to publish both the Petition and the Address, in the newspapers, and to give them as wide a circulation as possible. Dr. Franklin, with two other agents, Arthur Lee and Mr. Bollan, presented to Lord Dartmouth the petition to be handed by him to the king. They were soon informed that the king received it graciously, and would submit the consideration of it to Parliament. It was thought not respectful to the king to publish it before he had presented it to that body. But as usual, the infatuation of both king and court was such, that everything that came from the Americans was treated with neglect, if not with contempt. The all-important petition was buried in a pile of documents upon all conceivable subjects, and not one word was said to commend it to the consideration of either house. For three days it remained unnoticed. Dr. Franklin, then, with his two companions, solicited permission to be heard at the bar of the house. Their request was refused. This brought the question into debate. The House of Commons was at that time but a reflected image of the House of Lords. It was composed almost exclusively, of the younger sons of the nobles, and such other obsequious servants of the aristocracy, as they, with their vast wealth and patronage, saw fit to have elected. There was an immense Tory majority in the House. They assailed the petition with vulgarity of abuse, which could scarcely be exceeded; and then dismissed it from further consideration. Noble lords made themselves merry in depicting the alacrity with which a whole army of Americans would disperse at the very sound of a British cannon. While these disastrous events were taking place in England--events, sure to usher in a cruel and bloody war, bearing on its wings terror and conflagration, tears and blood, a domestic tragedy was taking place in the far distant home of Franklin on the banks of the Delaware. Mrs. Franklin had been separated from her husband for nearly ten years. She was a cheerful, motherly woman, ever blessing her home with smiles and with kindly words; and in the society of her daughter and her grandchildren, she found a constant joy. The lapse of three-score years and ten, had not brought their usual infirmities. Though yearning intensely for the return of her husband, she did not allow the separation seriously to mar her happiness. Every spring she was confident that he would return the next autumn, and then bore her disappointment bravely in the assurance that she should see him the coming spring. In December, 1774, she was suddenly stricken down by a paralytic stroke. Five days of unconscious slumber passed away, when she fell into that deep and dreamless sleep, which has no earthly waking. Her funeral was attended by a large concourse of citizens, with every testimonial of respect. Some of Franklin's oldest friends bore the coffin to the churchyard, where the remains of the affectionate wife and mother who had so nobly fulfilled life's duties, were placed by the side of her father, her mother, and her infant son. Feelingly does Mr. Parton write, "It is mournful to think that for so many years, she should have been deprived of her husband's society. The very qualities which made her so good a wife, rendered it possible for him to remain absent from his affairs." Franklin, all unconscious of the calamity which had darkened his home, and weary of the conflict with the British court, was eagerly making preparations to return to Philadelphia. The aged, illustrious, eloquent Earl of Chatham, one of the noblest of England's all grasping and ambitious sons, sought an interview with Franklin. He utterly condemned the policy of the British cabinet. His sympathies were, not only from principles of policy, but from convictions of justice, cordially with the Americans. He felt sure that unless the court should retrace its steps, war would ensue, and American Independence would follow, and that England, with the loss of her colonies, would find mercantile impoverishment and political weakness. In the course of conversation, he implied that America might be even then, contemplating independence. Franklin, in his account of the interview writes, "I assured him that having more than once traveled almost from one end of the continent to the other, and kept a great variety of company, eating, drinking and conversing with them freely, I had never heard in any conversation from any person, drunk or sober, the least expression of a wish for a separation, or a hint that such a thing would be advantageous to America." In a subsequent interview, the Earl of Chatham, alluding to the conduct of Congress, in drawing up the petition and address, said, "They have acted with so much temper, moderation and wisdom, that I think it the most honorable assembly of statesmen since those of the Greeks and Romans, of the most virtuous times." In a subsequent interview, Dr. Franklin expressed, to the earl, his apprehension that the continuance of the British army in Boston, which was the source of constant irritation to the people, might eventually lead to a quarrel, perhaps between a drunken porter and a soldier, and that thus tumult and bloodshed might be introduced, leading to consequences which no one could foresee. Lord Chatham felt the force of these remarks, which soon received their striking illustration, in what was called the Boston Massacre. He therefore declared his intention of repairing to the House of Lords, to introduce a resolve for the immediate withdrawal of the troops from Boston. The tidings were soon noised abroad that the eloquent earl, then probably the most illustrious man in England, was to make a speech in favor of America. The eventful day arrived. The hall was crowded. Dr. Franklin had a special invitation from the earl to be present. The friends of America were there, few in numbers, and the enemies in all their strength. Lord Chatham made a speech, which in logical power and glowing eloquence, has perhaps never been surpassed. Franklin had impressed him with the conviction that the determination of the Americans to defend their rights was such, that if, with fleet and army, the government were to ravage all the coast and burn all the cities, the Americans would retreat back into the forests, in the maintenance of their liberty. Full of this idea, Lord Chatham exclaimed, with prophetic power, "We shall be forced ultimately to retract. Let us retract while we can, not when we must. I say we must necessarily undo these violent oppressive acts. You will repeal them. I pledge myself for it. I stake my reputation on it. I will consent to be taken for an idiot, if they are not finally repealed." Franklin writes, "All availed no more than the whistling of the wind. The motion was rejected. Sixteen Scotch peers and twenty-four bishops, with all the lords in possession or expectation of places, when they vote together unanimously for ministerial measures, as they generally do, make a dead majority, that renders all debate ridiculous in itself, since it can answer no end." Though the speech produced no impression upon the obdurate House of Lords, it had a very powerful effect upon the public mind. It was read in America, in collegiate halls, in the work-shop and at the farmer's fireside, with delight which cannot be described. A few days after the speech, Dr. Franklin, writing to Lord Stanhope, said, "Dr. Franklin is filled with admiration of that truly great man. He has seen, in the course of life, sometimes eloquence without wisdom, and often wisdom without eloquence; in the present instance he sees both united, and both he thinks in the highest degree possible." Slowly the ministry were awaking to the conviction that American affairs, if not settled, might yet cause them much trouble. In various underhand ways, they approached Franklin. It was generally understood that every man had his price; that the influence of one man could be bought for a few hundred pounds; that another would require a lucrative and honorable office. Though the reputation of Franklin was such, that it was a delicate matter to approach him with bribes, still some of them now commenced a course of flattery, endeavoring to secure his coöperation. It was thought that his influence with his countrymen was so great, that they would accede to any terms he should recommend. Lord Howe called upon Franklin, and, in the name of Lord North and Lord Dartmouth, the two most influential members of the ministry, informed him that they sincerely sought reconciliation, and that they were prepared to listen favorably, to any reasonable propositions he might offer. Lord Howe was the friend of Franklin and of America. These unexpected and joyful tidings affected Franklin so deeply, that he could not conceal the tears which rolled down his cheeks. Lord Howe then added that he was instructed to say, that the service he would thus render both England and America, would be of priceless value, and that though the ministers could not think of influencing him by any selfish motives, he might expect, in return, _any reward which it was in the power of government to bestow_. "This," said Franklin, "was what the French vulgarly called _spitting in the soup_." But again there was a meeting of Parliament. Again it became evident that the ministry would accede to no terms, which did not secure the entire subjugation of America. Lord Chatham made a renewed attempt to conciliate. His propositions were rejected with scorn. In the meantime Dr. Franklin had presented some Hints, drawn up in the most liberal spirit of compromise, but which still maintained the American principle, that the colonists could not be taxed at the pleasure of the court, without having any voice themselves in the amount which they were to pay. Soon after this, Mr. Barclay called upon Franklin in the name of the government, and after a long, and to Franklin, disgusting diplomatic harangue, ventured to say to him, that if he would only comply with the wishes of the ministry, he might expect almost any reward he could wish for. Even the imperturbable spirit of Franklin was roused. He replied, "The ministry, I am sure, would rather give me a place in a cart to Tyburn, than any other place whatever. I sincerely wish to be serviceable; and I need no other inducement that I might be so." In another interview, which soon followed, it appeared that the government refused to concede a single point which the Americans deemed essential. They refused to withdraw the troops; refused to allow the colonial governors to appoint the collectors of the customs; persisted in building fortresses to hold the people in subjection; and adhered to the claim of Parliament to legislate for the colonies. Franklin said, "While Parliament claims the power of altering our constitution at pleasure, there can be no agreement. We are rendered unsafe in every privilege, and are secure in nothing." Mr. Barclay insolently replied, "It would be well for the Americans to come to an agreement with the court of Great Britain. They ought not to forget how easy a thing it will be for the British men-of-war to lay all their seaport towns in ashes." "I grew warm," writes Franklin; "said that the chief part of my little property consisted of houses in those towns; that they might make bon-fires of them whenever they pleased; that the fear of losing them would never alter my resolution to resist to the last, such claims of Parliament; and that it behoved this country to take care what mischief it did us; for that sooner or later it would certainly be obliged to make good all damages, with interest." Still again these corrupt men, who are selling themselves and buying others, approached Franklin with attempts to bribe him. "They could not comprehend that any man could be above the reach of such influences. It was contemplated sending Lord Howe to America as a Commissioner. He applied to Franklin to go with him as friend, assistant or secretary. Lord Howe said to Franklin, that he could not think of undertaking the mission without him; that if he effected any thing valuable, it must be owing to the advice Franklin would afford him; and that he should make no scruple of giving him the full honor of it. He assured him that the ministry did not expect his assistance without a proper consideration; that they wished to make generous and ample appointments for those who aided them, and also would give them the promise of subsequent more ample rewards. "And," said he, with marked emphasis, "that the ministry may have an opportunity of showing their good disposition toward yourself, will you give me leave, Mr. Franklin, to procure for you, previously, some mark of it; suppose the payment here, of the arrears of your salary as agent for New England, which, I understand, they have stopped for some time past." It will be remembered that Lord Howe was sincerely the friend of America, and that he anxiously desired to see friendly relations restored. Franklin therefore restrained his displeasure, and courteously replied, "My Lord, I shall deem it a great honor to be, in any shape, joined with your lordship in so good a work. But if you hope service from any influence I may be supposed to have, drop all thoughts of procuring me any previous favors from ministers. My accepting them would destroy the very influence you propose to make use of. They would be considered as so many bribes to betray the interests of my country. Only let me see the propositions and I shall not hesitate for a moment." Repeated interviews ensued, between Franklin and both the friends and the enemies of the Americans. There were interminable conferences. But the court was implacable in its resolve, to maintain a supreme and exclusive control over the colonies. Every hour of Franklin's time was engrossed. Merchants and manufacturers, Tories and the opposition, lords temporal, and lords spiritual, all called upon him with their several plans. There were many Americans in London, including a large number of Quakers. These crowded the apartment of Franklin. The negotiations were terminated by a debate in the House of Lords, in which the Americans were assailed in the vilest language of insult and abuse which can be coined. Franklin was present. He writes, "We were treated with the utmost contempt, as the lowest of mankind, and almost of a different species from the English of Britain. Particularly American honesty was abused by some of the lords, who asserted that we were all knaves, and wanted only, by this dispute, to avoid paying our debts." Franklin returned to his home, with feelings of indignation, which his calm spirit had rarely before experienced. He resolved no longer to have any thing to do with the hostile governing powers of England. He had loved the British empire. He felt proud of its renown, and that America was but part and parcel of its greatness. But there was no longer hope, that there could be any escape from the awful appeal to arms. Though that measure would be fraught with inconceivable woes for his countrymen, he was assured that they would never submit. They would now march to independence though the path led through scenes of conflagration, blood and unutterable woe. His experience placed him in advance of all his countrymen. Franklin immediately commenced packing his trunks. Astonishing, almost incredible as it may appear, the evidence seems conclusive that through all these trying scenes, Franklin was a cheerful, it is hardly too strong a word to use, a _jovial_ man. It has been well said, that to be angry is to punish one's self for the sins of another. Our philosopher had no idea of making himself unhappy, because British lords behaved like knaves. He continued to be one of the most entertaining of companions. A cloudless sun seemed to shine wherever he moved. He made witty speeches. He wrote the most amusing articles for the journals, and the invariable gayety of his mind caused his society to be eagerly sought for. One evening he attended quite a brilliant party at a nobleman's house, who was a friend to America. The conversation chanced to turn upon Esop's fables. It was said that that mine of illustration was exhausted. Franklin, after a moment's thought, remarked, that many new fables could be invented, as instructive as any of those of Esop, Gay, or La Fontaine. Can you think of one now, asked a lord. "I think so," said Franklin, "if you will furnish me with pencil and paper." He immediately sat down, surrounded by the gay assembly, and wrote, as rapidly as his pencil could move, "THE EAGLE AND THE CAT." "Once upon a time an eagle, scaling round a farmer's barn, and espying a hare, darted down upon him like a sunbeam, seized him in his claws, and remounted with him into the air. He soon found that he had a creature of more courage and strength than the hare; for which he had mistaken a cat. The snarling and scrambling of his prey were very inconvenient. And what was worse, she had disengaged herself from his talons, grasped his body with her four limbs, so as to stop his breath, and seized fast hold of his throat, with her teeth. "'Pray,' said the eagle, 'let go your hold, and I will release you.' "'Very fine,' said the cat. 'But I have no fancy to fall from this height, and to be crushed to death. You have taken me up, and you shall stoop and let me down.' "The eagle thought it necessary to stoop accordingly." This admirable fable was read to the company; and, as all were in sympathy with America, it was received with great applause. Little, however, did any of them then imagine, how invincible was the animal the British government was about to clutch in its talons, supposing it to be a defenseless hare. Franklin spent his last day in London with Dr. Priestly. The Doctor bears glowing testimony to his admirable character. Many thought Dr. Franklin heartless, since, in view of all the horrors of a civil war, his hilarity was never interrupted. Priestly, alluding to this charge against Franklin, says, that they spent the day looking over the American papers, and extracting from them passages to be published in England. "In reading them," he writes, "Franklin was frequently not able to proceed for the tears literally running down his cheeks." Upon his departure, he surrendered his agency to Arthur Lee. It was the 21st of March, 1775, when Franklin embarked at Portsmouth, in a Pennsylvania packet. Franklin was apprehensive until the last moment, that he would not be permitted to depart; that the court, which had repeatedly denounced him as a traitor, would arrest him on some frivolous charge. On the voyage he wrote a minute narrative of his diplomatic career, occupying two hundred and fifty pages of foolscap. This important document was given to his son William Franklin, who was daily becoming a more inveterate Tory, endeavoring to ingratiate himself into favor with the court, from which he had received the appointment of governor. Franklin also sent a copy to Mr. Jefferson, perhaps apprehensive that his son might not deal fairly with a document which so terribly condemned the British government. The Governor subsequently published the narrative. But there is reason to suppose that he suppressed those passages, which revealed most clearly the atrocious conduct of the British cabinet. Jefferson wrote some years later, alluding to this document: "I remember that Lord North's answers were dry, unyielding, in the spirit of unconditional submission, and betrayed an absolute indifference to the occurrence of a rupture. And he said to the mediators distinctly, at last, that _a rebellion was not to be deprecated on the part of Great Britain; that the confiscations it would produce, would provide for many of their friends_." The idea that the feeble Americans, scattered along a coast more than a thousand miles in extent, without a fortress, a vessel of war, or a regiment of regular troops, could withstand the fleets and armies of Great Britain, was never entertained for a moment. Indeed, as we now contemplate the fearful odds, it causes one's heart to throb, and we cannot but be amazed at the courage which our patriotic fathers displayed. It was a common boast in England, that one regiment of British regulars could march from Boston to Charleston, and sweep all opposition before them. A band of ten wolves can put a flock of ten thousand sheep to flight. It was quite a pleasant thought, to the haughty court, that one or two ships of war, and two or three regiments could be sent across the Atlantic, seize and hang Washington, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and others of our leading patriots, and confiscate the property of hundreds of others, for the enrichment of the favorites of the crown. [Illustration] "There will be no fighting;" these deluded men said, "it will be a mere holiday excursion. The turbulent and foolhardy Americans will be brought to their senses, and, like whipped spaniels, will fawn upon the hand which has chastised them." The voyage across the Atlantic occupied six weeks. In the evening twilight of the 5th of May, the ship dropped anchor in the Delaware, opposite Philadelphia. Franklin landed, and walked alone through the darkened streets towards his home. It is difficult to imagine the emotions with which his heart must have been agitated in that hour. Ten years had elapsed since he left his home. In the meantime his wife had reared another dwelling, in Market street, and there she had died. He had left his daughter Sarah, a child of twelve years. He was to find her a matron surrounded by her babes. Cordially Franklin was welcomed home. The whole country resounded with the praises he so richly merited. The morning after his arrival he was unanimously chosen by the Assembly, then in session, as a member of the Continental Congress, which was to meet on the 10th of the month, in that city. Sixteen days before Franklin's arrival the memorable conflicts of Lexington and Concord had taken place. Probably never were men more astounded, than were the members of the British cabinet, in learning that the British regulars had been defeated, routed and put to precipitate flight by American farmers with their fowling-pieces. In this heroic conflict, whose echoes reverberated around the world, the Americans lost in killed and wounded eighty-three. The British lost two hundred and seventy-three. Franklin wrote to his friend Edmund Burke, "Gen. Gage's troops made a most vigorous retreat--twenty miles in three hours--scarce to be paralleled in history. The feeble Americans, who pelted them all the way, could scarce keep up with them." On the 10th of May Congress met. There were still two parties, one in favor of renewed attempts at conciliation, before drawing the sword and throwing away the scabbard; the other felt that the powers of conciliation were exhausted, and that nothing now remained, but the arbitrament of war. George Washington was chosen, by the Assembly, Commander-in-Chief of the American forces. On the 17th of June the battle of Bunker Hill was fought. Mr. John Dickinson trembled in view of his great wealth. His wife entreated him to withdraw from the conflict. Piteously she urged the considerations, that he would be hung, his wife left a widow, and his children beggared and rendered infamous. He succeeded in passing a resolution in favor of a second petition to the king, which he drew up, and which the Tory Governor Richard Penn was to present. John Adams, who was weary of having his country continue in the attitude of a suppliant kneeling at the foot of the throne, opposed this petition, as a "measure of imbecility." One of the first acts of Congress was to organize a system for the safe conveyance of letters, which could no longer be trusted in the hands of the agents of the British Court. Franklin was appointed Postmaster General. He had attained the age of sixty nine years. Notwithstanding his gravity of character and his great wisdom, he had unfortunately become an inveterate joker. He could not refrain from inserting, even in his most serious and earnest documents, some witticism, which men of the intensity of soul of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, felt to be out of place. Still the wisdom of his counsels invariably commanded respect. Upon learning of the burning of Charleston, he wrote to Dr. Priestly,[25] "England has begun to burn our seaport towns, secure, I suppose, that we shall never be able to return the outrage in kind. She may, doubtless, destroy them all. But if she wishes to recover our commerce, are these the probable means? She must certainly be distracted; for no tradesman, out of Bedlam, ever thought of increasing the number of his customers by knocking them in the head; or of enabling them to pay their debts by burning their houses." [Footnote 25: "And here perhaps we have one of the reasons why Dr. Franklin, who was universally confessed to be the ablest pen in America, was not always asked to write the great documents of the Revolution. He would have put a joke into the Declaration of Independence, if it had fallen to him to write it. At this time he was a humorist of fifty years standing, and had become fixed in the habit of illustrating great truths by grotesque and familiar similes. His jokes, the circulating medium of Congress, were as helpful to the cause, as Jay's conscience or Adams' fire; they restored good humor, and relieved the tedium of delay, but were out of place in formal, exact and authoritative papers."--_Parton's Franklin_, Vol. 2. p. 85.] One of Franklin's jokes, in Congress, is very characteristic of the man. It was urged that the Episcopal clergy should be directed to refrain from praying for the king. Franklin quenched the injudicious movement with a witticism. "The measure is quite unnecessary," said he. "The Episcopal clergy, to my certain knowledge, have been constantly praying, these twenty years, that 'God would give to the king and council wisdom.' And we all know that not the least notice has been taken of that prayer. So it's plain that those gentlemen have no interest in the court of Heaven." If we sow the wind we must reap the whirlwind. Terrible was the mortification and mental suffering which Franklin endured from the governor of New Jersey. He had lived down the prejudices connected with his birth and had become an influential and popular man. He, with increasing tenacity adhered to the British Government, and became even the malignant opponent of the Americans. He pronounced the idea of their successfully resisting the power of Great Britain, as utterly absurd. His measures became so atrocious, as to excite the indignation of the people of New Jersey. The Assembly finally arrested him and sent him, under guard, to Burlington. As he continued contumacious and menacing, Congress ordered him to be removed to Connecticut. The Constitutional Gazette of July 13th, 1776, contains the following allusion to this affair: "Day before yesterday Governor Franklin, of New Jersey, passed through Hartford, on his way to Governor Trumbull. Mr. Franklin is a noted Tory and ministerial tool, and has been exceedingly busy in perplexing the cause of liberty, and in serving the designs of the British king and his ministers. "He is son to Dr. Benjamin Franklin, the genius of the day, and the great patron of American liberty. If his excellency escapes the vengeance of the people, due to the enormity of his crimes, his redemption will flow, not from his personal merit, but from the high esteem and veneration which the country entertains for his honored father." His family was left in deep affliction. Franklin sent them both sympathy and money. The captive governor resided at Middletown on parole. Here the infatuated man gathered around him a band of Tories, many of whom were rich, and held convivial meetings exceedingly exasperating, when British armies were threatening the people with conflagration and carnage. Inflamed with wine, these bacchanals sang treasonable songs, the whole company joining in chorus, with uproar which drew large groups around the house. The Tories professed utterly to despise the patriots, and doubted not that their leaders would all soon be hung. One midnight the governor, with his boon companions, having indulged in the wildest of their orgies, sallied into the streets, with such uproar as to make night hideous. The watch found it needful to interfere. The drunken governor called one of them a damned villain and threatened to flog him. A report of these proceedings was sent to Congress. Soon after it was ascertained that he was an active agent for the British ministry. He was then confined in Litchfield jail, and deprived of pen, ink and paper. For two years he suffered this well-merited imprisonment. Mrs. governor Franklin never saw her husband again. Grief-stricken, she fell sick, and died in New York in July, 1778. After an imprisonment of two years and four months, William Franklin was exchanged, and he took refuge within the British lines at New York. He received a pension from the British government, lived hilariously, and devoted his energies to a vigorous prosecution of the war against his countrymen. Franklin felt deeply this defection of his son. After the lapse of nine years he wrote, "Nothing has ever affected me with such keen sensations, as to find myself deserted in my old age by my only son; and not only deserted but to find him taking up arms in a cause wherein my good fame, fortune and life were at stake."[26] [Footnote 26: Upon the overthrow of the royalist cause, Governor Franklin with other Tories went to England. Government gave him outright eighteen hundred pounds, and settled upon him a pension of eight hundred pounds a year. After the lapse of ten years he sought reconciliation with his father. He lived to the age of eighty-two and died in London, in 1813.] CHAPTER XIII. _Progress of the War, both of Diplomacy and the Sword._ Letter of Henry Laurens--Franklin visits the army before Boston--Letter of Mrs. Adams--Burning of Falmouth--Franklin's journey to Montreal--The Declaration of Independence--Anecdote of the Hatter--Framing the Constitution--Lord Howe's Declaration--Franklin's reply--The Conference--Encouraging letter from France--Franklin's embassy to France--The two parties in France--The voyage--The reception in France. The spirit which, almost to that hour, had animated the people of America,--the most illustrious statesmen and common people, was attachment to Old England. Their intense desire to maintain friendly relations with the mother country, their "home," their revered and beloved home, may be inferred from the following extract from a letter, which one of the noblest of South Carolinians, Hon. Henry Laurens, wrote to his son John. It bears the date of 1776. He writes, alluding to the separation from England, then beginning to be contemplated: "I can not rejoice in the downfall of an old friend, of a parent from whose nurturing breasts I have drawn my support and strength. Every evil which befalls old England grieves me. Would to God she had listened, in time, to the cries of her children. If my own interests, if my own rights alone had been concerned, I would most freely have given the whole to the demands and disposal of her ministers, in preference to a separation. But the rights of posterity were involved in the question. I happened to stand as one of their representatives, and dared not betray their trust." Washington, Adams, Jay, would have made almost any conceivable sacrifice of their personal interest, if they could have averted the calamity of a separation from the home of their ancestors. But the conduct of the British Cabinet was not only despotic, in the highest degree, but it was insolent and contemptuous beyond all endurance. It seemed to be generally assumed that a man, if born on the majestic continent of North America, instead of being born on their little island, must be an inferior being. They regarded Americans as slave-holders were accustomed to regard the negro. Almost every interview resolved itself into an insult. Courteous intercourse was impossible. Affection gave place to detestation. On the 13th of September, 1775, Congress assembled in Philadelphia. Lexington, Bunker Hill, and other hostile acts of our implacable foes, had thrown the whole country into the most intense agitation. Military companies were every where being organized. Musket manufactories and powder mills were reared. Ladies were busy scraping lint, and preparing bandages. And what was the cause of all this commotion, which converted America, for seven years, into an Aceldama of blood and woe? It was that haughty, insolent men in England, claimed the right to impose taxes, to whatever amount they pleased, upon their brother men in America. They did not blush to say, "It is the prerogative of us Englishmen to demand of you Americans such sums of money as we want. Unless, like obsequious slaves, you pay the money, without murmuring, we will burn your cities and deluge your whole land in blood." Washington was assembling quite an army of American troops around Boston, holding the foe in close siege there. Franklin was sent, by Congress, as one of a committee of three, to confer with Washington upon raising and supplying the American army. Amidst all these terrific excitements and perils this wonderful man could not refrain from giving expression to his sense of the ludicrous. The day before leaving Philadelphia, he wrote to Dr. Priestly the following humorous summary of the result of the British operations thus far. "Britain at the expense of three millions, has killed one hundred and fifty Yankees this campaign, which is twenty thousand pounds a head. And, at Bunker Hill, she gained a mile of ground, half of which she lost again by our taking post on Ploughed Hill. During the same time sixty thousand children have been born in America. From these data, Dr. Price's mathematical head will easily calculate the time and expense necessary to kill us all, and conquer our whole territory." It required a journey of thirteen days, for the Commissioners to pass from Philadelphia to Cambridge. On the 4th of October they reached the camp. Mrs. John Adams, who was equal to her husband in patriotism, in intellectual ability and in self-denial, writes, "I had the pleasure of dining with Dr. Franklin, and of admiring him whose character, from infancy, I had been taught to venerate. I found him social, but not talkative; and when he spoke, something useful dropped from his tongue. He was grave, yet pleasant and affable. You know I make some pretensions to physiognomy, and I thought that I could read in his countenance, the virtues of his heart; and with that is blended every virtue of a Christian." The conference lasted four days, and resulted in the adoption of very important measures. While in the camp, news came of the burning of Portland, then Falmouth. It was a deed which would have disgraced American savages. The town was entirely defenceless. It held out no menace whatever to the foe. The cold blasts of a Maine winter were at hand. A British man-of-war entered the harbor, and giving but a few hours notice, that the sick and the dying might be removed, and that the women and children might escape from shot and shell, to the frozen fields, one hundred and thirty humble, peaceful homes were laid in ashes. The cruel flames consumed nearly all their household furniture, their clothing and the frugal food they had laid in store for their long and dreary winter. A few houses escaped the shells. Marines were landed to apply the torch to them, that the destruction might be complete. There were several vessels in the harbor. The freezing, starving, homeless wives and daughters who had not strength to toil through the wilderness to seek distant cabins of refuge, might perhaps escape in them. To prevent this they were burned to the water's edge. It was an infernal deed. It struck to the very heart of America. Even now, after a lapse of one hundred years, no American can read an account of this outrage without the flushed cheek and the moistened eye which indignation creates. Mrs. Adams wrote, "I could not join to-day in the petitions of our worthy pastor for a reconciliation between our no longer parent, but tyrant state, and these colonies. Let us separate. They are no longer worthy to be our brethren. Let us renounce them, and instead of supplications, as formerly for their prosperity and happiness, let us beseech the Almighty to blast their councils and bring to naught all their devices." Though Franklin was the sweetest tempered of men, he returned to Philadelphia with his spirit greatly embittered against the demoniac foes of his country. For some time no jokes escaped his lips or pen. In December, Arnold, then a patriot and a brave soldier, had made an unsuccessful attack upon Quebec. He had retired to Montreal. Franklin was again appointed one of these commissioners, to visit Arnold and advise respecting Canadian affairs. Most of the Canadians were Catholics. One of the commissioners was Charles Carroll of Carollton. He had a brother John, a Catholic priest, a man of high culture, of irreproachable character and a sincere patriot. He was perfectly familiar with the French language. By the solicitation of Congress he was induced to accompany his brother on this mission. It was hoped that he would be able to exert a powerful influence over the Canadian clergy. Franklin and John Carroll became intimate and loving friends. It speaks well for both, that the free-thinking philosopher, and the Catholic priest could so recognize each other's virtues, as to forget their speculative differences in mutual regard. There was before the commissioners, a very laborious journey of five hundred miles, much of it leading through an almost unexplored wilderness. It shows great zeal in Franklin, that at the age of seventy, he was willing to encounter such exposure. Late in March, the commissioners left Philadelphia. In two days they reached New York. They found the place deserted of its inhabitants. It was held but by a few soldiers, as it was hourly expected that the British, from their fleet and batteries, would open upon it a terrific bombardment. How little can we imagine the sufferings which must ensue, when thousands of families are driven, in terror, from their homes, from all their means of support, to go they know not where, and to live they know not how. A few sad days were passed in the ruined town, and on the 2d of April the party embarked, at five in the afternoon, in a packet for Albany. At seven o'clock in the morning of the 4th day, after an eventful voyage, in which they narrowly escaped shipwreck from a gale in the Highlands, they landed at Albany, where they were hospitably entertained by General Schuyler. After a brief rest, on the 9th, they set out for Saratoga, which was distant about thirty-two miles. They were conveyed over an exceedingly rough road of rocks, and corduroy and mire, in a large, heavy, country wagon. From this place, Franklin wrote, "I begin to apprehend that I have undertaken a fatigue which, at my time of life, may prove too much for me." After a short tarry at the country seat of General Sullivan at Saratoga, the party moved on toward Lake George. In those northern latitudes the ground was still covered with snow, and the lake was filled with floating ice. Two days of very exhausting travel brought them to the southern shore of the beautiful but then dreary lake. Here they took a large boat, thirty-six feet long, and eight broad. It was what was called a bateau, which was flat-bottomed, and was but one foot in depth. There was one mast, and a blanket sail, which was available when the wind was directly aft. There was no cabin. A mere awning sheltered partially from wind and rain. Thus they crept across the lake, through masses of ice, a distance of thirty-six miles, in thirty-six hours. There was a neck of land, four miles in breadth, which separated Lake George from Lake Champlain. The heavy boat, placed on wheels, was dragged across by six yoke of oxen. A delay of five days was thus caused, before they were ready to embark on the latter lake. The navigation of this small sheet of water, surrounded by the primeval forest, and with scarcely the cabin of a white man to be seen, must have been romantic indeed. They sailed when the wind favored, and rowed when it was adverse. At night they ran ashore, built their camp fire, which illumined lake and forest, boiled their coffee, cooked their viands, and, some under the awning, and some under the shelter of a hastily constructed camp, slept sweetly. The ice greatly impeded their progress. In three and a half days, they reached St. John's, near the upper end of the lake. The toilsome journey of another day, brought them to Montreal. None of the commissioners were accustomed to thus roughing it. All were greatly exhausted. A council of war was convened. Canada was clearly lost to the Americans. It was at once decided that nothing remained but to withdraw the troops. Early in June, Franklin reached Philadelphia, from his toilsome journey. He had been absent about ten weeks. The doom of the proprietary government over Pennsylvania, was now sealed. Congress had voted that all authority derived from the king of England, was extinct. A conference of delegates was appointed to organize a new government for the province. Franklin was, of course, one of these delegates. A committee had been appointed, by Congress, to draw up a Declaration of Independence. The committee consisted of Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Livingston, and Sherman. The immortal document, as all the world knows, came from the pen of Jefferson. It was offered to Congress for acceptance. Many frivolous objections were, of course, presented. One man thought this phrase a little too severe. Another thought that a little too lenient. Franklin sat by the side of Jefferson, as the admirable document was subjected to this assailment. Turning to him he said, in one of the most characteristic and popular of all his utterances, "When I was a journeyman printer, one of my companions, an apprenticed hatter, was about to open a shop for himself. His first concern was to have a handsome sign-board, with a proper inscription. He composed it in these words, "John Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells Hats for ready Money." But he thought he would submit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to, thought the word _hatter_ tautologous; because followed by the words _makes hats_, which showed that he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word _makes_, might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats; if good, and to their mind, they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third said he thought the words, for _ready money_, were useless; as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit. Every one who purchased, expected to pay. They were parted with. The inscription now stood, "John Thompson sells hats." "_Sells_ hats," says his next friend. "Why nobody will expect you to give them away. What then is the use of that word?" It was stricken out, and _hats_ followed, the rather as there was one painted on the board. So his inscription was reduced ultimately to _John Thompson_, with the figure of a hat subjoined." It will be remembered the readiness with which Dr. Franklin, on the spur of the moment, threw off the admirable fable of the Eagle and the Hare. It is altogether probable that, in the inexhaustible resources of his genius, he improvised this anecdote to meet the exigencies of the occasion. When the Hessian troops, whom England had hired of a German prince, arrived, intelligent men in this country pitied rather than blamed those simple hearted peasants, who had no animosity whatever, against the Americans. They had been compelled, by their feudal lord, who was really their slave master, to leave their lowly homes on the Rhine, to unite with English regulars and painted savages, in burning the homes and butchering the people struggling for existence in the wilderness of the New World. Again the all availing pen of Franklin was called into requisition. By direction of Congress he drew up a friendly address to these unfortunate men, offering every German, who would abandon the ignominious service to which his prince had sold him, a tract of rich land sufficient for an ample farm. The address was translated into German. Various were the devices adopted, to give the document circulation in the Hessian camp. It doubtless exerted a powerful influence, in disarming these highly disciplined troops of all animosity. The effect was perhaps seen in the spectacle witnessed a few weeks afterwards, when nine hundred of these soldiers were led through the streets of Philadelphia, prisoners of war. It is not improbable that many of them were more than willing to throw down their arms. On the 20th of July, 1776, Franklin was chosen by the Convention, one of nine delegates to represent Pennsylvania in the national Congress. One of the great difficulties to be surmounted, in a union of the States, was to give the great States, like New York and Pennsylvania, their own preponderance in the confederacy, while the minor states, like New Jersey and Delaware, should not be shorn of their influence. The difficulty was finally obviated by the present admirable arrangement, by which each State, great or small, has two representatives in the Senate, while their representation in the House depends upon the number of the population. Franklin excelled in the art of "putting things." He silenced the demand of the smaller States, to be, in all respects, on an equality with the larger, by saying, "Let the smaller colonies give equal money and men, and then have an equal vote. But if they have an equal vote, without bearing equal burdens, a confederation, upon such iniquitous principles, will never last long." The convention, to form a constitution for the State of Pennsylvania, met at Philadelphia on the 16th of July, 1776. Franklin was unanimously chosen President. No pen can describe the intensity of his labors. All appreciated his consummate wisdom, and yielded readily to his suggestions. Troops were hurrying to and fro. One hundred and twenty British war vessels were in New York harbor. No one knew upon what seaport the thunderbolts of this formidable armament would be hurled. The Americans had been defeated on Long Island in August, 1776, and had almost miraculously escaped with their field pieces and stores, across the East River to New York. This brilliant retreat was deemed, by the Americans, almost equivalent to a victory. Lord Howe, the old friend of Franklin and a humane and respected Englishman, who was sincerely desirous of peace with the Colonies, was appointed Admiral of the king's naval forces. He accepted the appointment, with the hope that, by the aid of Franklin, reconciliation might be effected. Still he was an Englishman and could not conceive that Americans had any rights which the English government was bound to respect. The degree of his infatuation may be inferred from the fact that, as soon as he reached our shores, he published a Declaration, which he circulated far and wide, stating that if the Americans would only give up the conflict and return to implicit submission, the British Government would forgive their sins, pardon the guilty ones, with a few exceptions, and receive them again to favor. The weak man seemed really to think, that this was an extraordinary act of clemency on the part of the English Court. The reply, which Franklin drew up, to the Declaration, was grand. And it was the more grand when we reflect that it was addressed to a man who was supported by an army, of we know not how many thousand British regulars, and by a fleet of one hundred and twenty war vessels, many of which were of gigantic armament. Admiral Howe had written a courteous private letter to Dr. Franklin, in which he enclosed the Declaration. Congress gave Franklin permission to reply. He wrote, "My lord; the official despatches to which you refer me, contain nothing more than offers of pardon upon submission. Directing pardon to be offered to the colonies, who are the very parties injured, expresses indeed that opinion of our ignorance, baseness, and insensibility which your uninformed and proud nation has long been pleased to entertain of us. It is impossible that we should think of submission to a government that has, with the most wanton barbarity and cruelty, burnt our defenseless towns, in the midst of winter, excited the savages to massacre our farmers, and our slaves to murder their masters, and is, even now, bringing foreign mercenaries to deluge our settlements with blood." I have not space to copy the remainder of this admirable letter. It was delivered to Lord Howe, on board his flag ship in New York harbor, ten days after its date. As he read it his countenance expressed surprise, and almost his only remark was, "My old friend has expressed himself very warmly." A few weeks later this good natured but weak man paroled General Sullivan, who was a prisoner of war, and sent him to Philadelphia, with a message to Congress which Lord Howe cautiously declined to put upon paper. General Sullivan reduced the message to writing and presented it to Congress. It was in substance as follows: "The government of England cannot admit that Congress is a legitimate body, to be recognized by any diplomatic relations whatever. It is but a tumultous assembly of men who have treasonably conspired against their lawful sovereign. Still the government is willing that Lord Howe should confer with some of the members of congress, as private gentlemen, to see if some terms of accommodation cannot be arranged." After much and earnest discussion, in which a great diversity of opinion prevailed, it was voted that General Sullivan should inform Admiral Howe, that a committee of three would be sent to ascertain whether he "has any authority to treat with persons, _authorized by Congress_ for that purpose." Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Edward Rutledge composed this committee. An antique house, nearly a hundred years old, formerly the abode of wealth and splendor, which stood in a green lawn, but a few rods from the beach on the western shore of Staten Island, was chosen as the place for the conference. A two days' journey conveyed the committee to Amboy, opposite the house. Adams traveled on horseback: Franklin and Rutledge in a two wheel chaise. Admiral Howe sent a boat, under the protection of a flag of truce, with an officer, who stated that he was to be left behind as a hostage for their safe return. Promptly they declined manifesting any such distrust of the honor of Admiral Howe, and took the hostage back in the boat with them. The barge, propelled by lusty rowers, soon reached the Staten Island shore. A large apartment of the old stone house had been richly decorated with moss and branches in honor of the occasion. A regiment of Hessians was posted at that spot. The colonel drew them up in two lines and through this lane of soldiers the commissioners advanced from the beach to the house. When Admiral Howe saw that the officer he had sent as a hostage had been returned, he said, "Gentlemen, you pay me a high compliment." Cordially the kind-hearted admiral received his guests, and invited them to an ample collation of cold ham, tongues, mutton and wine. Mr. Henry Strachey, secretary of Lord Howe, wrote a very full report of the interview, which accords entirely with the narrative which John Adams presented to Congress. In as sincere and friendly words as human lips could pronounce, the Admiral assured the American gentlemen of his earnest desire to promote reconciliation between the colonists and the mother country. He alluded to the fact that in England he had been regarded as the friend of America, and to the honor Massachusetts had conferred upon his family by rearing a monument to his brother, who had fallen at Ticonderoga. Franklin well knew that Howe was regarded as the friend of America. "I assure you, gentlemen," said Lord Howe, "that I esteem that honor to my family, above all things in this world. Such is my gratitude and affection to this country, on that account, that I feel for America as for a brother. And if America should fall, I should feel and lament it like the loss of a brother." The reply of Franklin to these sincere words, seems a little discourteous. Assuming an air of great indifference and confidence, as though the fall of America was an idea not to be thought of, he bowed, and with one of his blandest smiles said, "I assure you, my lord, that we will do everything in our power to save your lordship from that mortification." The admiral was feeling too deeply for jokes. He was wounded by the rebuke apparently contained in the reply of his old friend. But it must not be forgotten that Franklin, the sweetest tempered of men, had not yet recovered from the indignation caused by the barbarities inflicted by the British government upon the families of Falmouth. Every day was bringing tidings of the atrocities which England, through its savage allies, was perpetrating on the frontiers, burning the cabins of lonely farmers, and tomahawking and scalping women and children. And he was constrained to look upon Lord Howe as the agent of that government, commissioned to bear to the patriots of America only the insulting messages, that the king and his ministers would graciously pardon them the crime of attempting to resist their despotism, if they would ask forgiveness, and in future submit uncomplainingly to the requirements of the crown. Thus, while the kind-hearted admiral, with a bosom glowing with brotherly sympathy, was acting upon the assumption that the Americans should cherish undying emotions of gratitude to the king, that he was so ready to forgive their disobedience to his commands, Franklin and his companions, found it difficult to restrain their emotions of indignation, in view of the truly diabolical course pursued by the British government. The court, in their judgment, merited the execrations not only of Americans but of all humanity. Lord Howe very emphatically wished the commissioners to understand that he met them merely as private individuals, and that he could not, in the slightest degree, recognize any authority in Congress. Franklin coldly replied, "Your lordship may consider us in any view you may think proper. We, on our part, are at liberty to consider ourselves in our real character." John Adams replied with warmth, characteristic of his impetuous nature, "Your lordship may consider _me_ in what light you please. Indeed I should be willing to consider myself, for a few moments, in any character which would be agreeable to your lordship, _except that of a British subject_." As the conversation was continued, Franklin said, "We have been deputed, by Congress, simply to inquire of your lordship what proposition you have to offer _for the consideration of Congress_. British troops have ravaged our country and burnt our towns. We cannot again be happy under the government of Great Britain. All former attachments are obliterated. America can never return to the domination of Great Britain." Mr. Adams added, "My lord, it is not in our power to treat otherwise than as _independent states_. For my part, I avow my determination never to depart from the idea of _independency_." Mr Rutledge gave emphasis to these decisive words by saying, "With regard to the people consenting to come again under the English government, _it is impossible_. I can answer for South Carolina. The royal government there was very oppressive. At last we took the government into our own hands. The people are now settled, and happy, under that government. They would not now return to the king's government even if Congress should desire it." Here the conference ended, by Lord Howe's stating, that, as they insisted upon _independence_, no accommodation was possible. Lord Howe courteously accompanied the American gentlemen to the barge, and they were rowed over to the New Jersey shore. In the report they made to Congress they stated, that the commission of Lord Howe only conferred upon him authority to grant pardon to the Americans, with a few exceptions, upon their entire submission to the king. It required, in those days, a long time to cross the Atlantic. Seldom could an answer be obtained to a letter in less than four or five months. To the usual delays and perils attached to the navigation of that stormy sea, there was now to be added the danger of capture from the swarm of British cruisers. Congress had several agents on the continent. But months passed away, during which no letters were received from them. This painful suspense was relieved, in September, 1776, by a long letter to Dr. Franklin, from a French gentleman, Dr. Dubourg. He was one of the prominent philosophers of Paris, and, by the request of Count du Buffon, had translated into French, Franklin's treatise upon electricity. This letter was very cautiously written. It covered many sheets of paper. The all important substance of the letter was almost concealed from view by the mass of verbiage in which it was enveloped. But a careful reading indicated that the French ministry and the nation were in sympathy with the Americans; that while the ministry wished to avoid war with England they would gladly, if it could be done secretly, send the Americans money and powder, cannon and muskets, and that many French generals of note were eager to join the American army, and confer upon it the benefit of their experience. This news sent a thrill of joy through hearts which recent reverses had rendered somewhat desponding. It was decided immediately to send an embassy of highest character to France. Three were to be chosen by ballot. On the first ballot Dr. Franklin was unanimously elected. He was seventy years old. And yet probably there was not another man in America so well qualified to fill that difficult, delicate and responsible post. Franklin, in the saloons of diplomacy, was fully the peer of Washington on the field of war. When the result of the ballot was announced Franklin turned to Dr. Rush, who was at his side, and said, "I am old and good for nothing. But as the store-keepers say of their remnants of cloth, 'I am but a fag end, and you may have me for what you please.'" Thomas Jefferson, then thirty-three years of age, and as pure a patriot as ever lived, was next chosen. He was already renowned in France as the writer of the Declaration of Independence. Silas Deane, a native of Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale, then one of the agents in Europe, was the third. It required no little courage to cross the ocean, swept by the fleets of Great Britain. Had Franklin or Jefferson fallen into the hands of the British government, it is certain that they would have suffered severe imprisonment; it is by no means improbable that they would have been promptly hung as traitors. It was a noble sacrifice for country which led Franklin, having numbered his three-score years and ten, to incur these perils.[27] [Footnote 27: In the year 1780, Mr. Henry Laurens, formerly President of Congress, was sent as ambassador to Holland. The ship was captured off Newfoundland, after a chase of five hours. The unfortunate man was thrown into the Tower, where he was imprisoned fifteen months, "where" he wrote to Mr. Burke, "I suffered under a degree of rigor, almost if not altogether unexampled in modern British history."] Jefferson was compelled to decline the mission, as his wife, whom he loved with devotion rarely equalled, and perhaps never surpassed, was sick and dying. Arthur Lee, then in Europe, was elected in his stead. He was a querulous, ill-natured man, ever in a broil. A more unsuitable man for the office could scarcely have been found. There were two parties in France who favored the Americans. One consisted of enthusiastic young men, who were enamored with the idea of republican liberty. They were weary of Bourbon despotism. The character of Louis XV., as vile a king as ever sat upon a throne, was loathsome to them. They had read Jefferson's "Declaration," with delight; and had engraven its immortal principles upon their hearts. The Marquis de Lafayette was perhaps the most prominent member of this party. France hated England. That haughty government had long been the most unpopular on the globe. England had made great conquests from France, and was rich, intelligent and powerful beyond any other nation. Prosperity had given her arrogance, and she had placed her heel upon her humiliated neighbors. There was not a court in Europe which would not have rejoiced to see England humbled. The despotic court of France, and the most haughty nobles, were ready to encounter any perils which held out a reasonable hope that England might be weakened. Thus the sympathies of all France were united in favor of America. And now the hour had come. By aiding the Americans, who had boldly declared their independence, they might not only deprive England of those colonies whose trade was already invaluable to England, and which were rapidly increasing in population, wealth and power, but also they might awaken such gratitude in the bosoms of Americans, that the trade of the new nation would be mainly transferred to France. Thus the court and the nobles, intent upon this object, did not hesitate to aid in the establishment of those principles of liberty, fraternity and equality in America, which eventually whelmed in ruin the palaces and the castles of France. It was deemed important to conceal, as long as possible, from the British government the sympathy and aid which France was about to manifest for the Americans. Arthur Lee reported that an agent of the French government had promised to send from Holland, two thousand pounds worth of military stores. They were to be forwarded to one of the French West India islands, ostensibly for the service of those islands. The governor was, however, instructed to surrender them to a secret agent of the American Congress. The plan failed. I have not space to record all the various stratagems which were devised to aid the Americans, while the movement was carefully concealed from the vigilant eyes of the English. Franklin, with nobility of soul which should command the love of every American, as one of his last deeds before he left his country perhaps never to return, collected all the money he could command, about twelve thousand dollars, and loaned it to the government, whose treasury was utterly impoverished. In those dark days, even that small sum was of essential aid. In one of the last of Franklin's letters, before he sailed, he wrote, "As to our public affairs, I hope our people will keep up their courage. I have no doubt of their finally succeeding by the blessing of God; nor have I any doubt that so good a cause will fail of that blessing. It is computed that we have already taken a million sterling from the enemy. They must soon be sick of their piratical project." Franklin embarked in the Reprisal, a rapid sailing sloop of war of sixteen guns. He took with him his grandson, William Temple Franklin, son of the Tory governor, then a very handsome boy of eighteen, and Benjamin Franklin Bache, eldest son of his daughter, a lad of seven years. William Temple Franklin adhered firmly to the political views of his grandfather. Dr. Franklin intended to place Benjamin in a school in Paris. Tory spies were watching every movement of Congress. This mission to France was kept a profound secret. Had the British government known that Benjamin Franklin was about to cross the ocean, almost every ship in the British navy would have been sent in chase of him. On the 26th of October, 1776, he left Philadelphia, every precaution having been adopted to keep his departure a secret. The vessel was at anchor at Marcus Hook, in the Delaware, three miles beyond Chester. Fierce gales drove them rapidly across the Atlantic. Captain Wickes had received instructions to avoid fighting, if possible. He was to devote all his energies to transporting his precious passenger as rapidly as possible, from shore to shore. They were often chased by cruisers. The vessel was small, and Franklin, in his old age, was sadly cramped by his narrow accommodations. He says that of all his eight voyages this was the most distressing. When near the coast of France they captured an English brig, with a cargo of lumber and wine. On the afternoon of the same day, they took another brig, loaded with brandy and flax seed. England was almost delirious with rage, in finding that the Americans were bearing away their prizes from the channel itself, thus bidding proud defiance to those frigates and fortresses of Great Britain which had overawed the world. On the 29th of November the Reprisal cast anchor in Quiberon Bay. Franklin there obtained a post chaise to convey him to Nantes. He writes, "The carriage was a miserable one, with tired horses, the evening dark, scarce a traveller but ourselves on the road. And to make it more _comfortable_, the driver stopped near a wood we were to pass through, to tell us that a gang of eighteen robbers infested that wood, who, but two weeks ago, had robbed and murdered some travellers on that very spot." Though absolutely no one in Europe knew that Franklin was expected, his fame had preceded him. The scientists of France were eager to render him their homage. French statesmen had learned, at the Court of St. James, to respect his grandeur of character, and his diplomatic abilities. He was a very handsome man, with a genial smile, which won love at sight. The invariable remark of every one, who chanced to meet him for five minutes was, "What a delightful man." Franklin had none of the brusqueness which characterizes John Bull. He was always a gentleman, scrupulously attentive to his rich, elegant, yet simple dress. He manifested his knowledge of human nature, in carefully preserving his national garb,--the old continental costume. Thus wherever he appeared he attracted attention. No man was ever more courteous. The French Court, at that time, was bound by the shackles of etiquette, to an almost inconceivable degree. But Franklin was never embarrassed. He needed no one to teach him etiquette. Instinct taught him what to do, so that, in the bearing of a well bred gentleman, he was a model man, even in the court where Louis XIV. and Louis XV. had reigned with omnipotent sway. The most beautiful duchess, radiant in her courtly costume, and glittering with jewels, felt proud of being seated on the sofa by the side of this true gentleman, whose dress, simple as it was, was in harmony with her own. The popular impression is entirely an erroneous one, that there was anything rustic, anything which reminded one of the work shop or the _blouse_, in the demeanor of Benjamin Franklin, as he moved, unembarrassed, in the highest circles of fashion then known in the world. Franklin was received to the hospitalities of a French gentleman of wealth and distinction, by the name of Gruel. His elegant apartments were always crowded with visitors, eager to manifest their respect for the trans-Atlantic philosopher. Horace Walpole, a warm friend of the Americans, wrote, "An account came that Dr. Franklin, at the age of 72, or 74, and, at the risk of his head, had bravely embarked, on board an American frigate, and, with two prizes taken on the way, had landed, at Nantes, in France, and was to be at Paris on the 14th, where the highest admiration and expectation of him were raised." Upon his arrival Mr. Deane exultingly wrote, "Here is the hero and philosopher, and patriot, all united in this celebrated American, who, at the age of seventy four, risks all dangers for his country." CHAPTER XIV. _The Struggles of Diplomacy._ Anecdote of Gibbon--John Adams--Residence at Passy--Lafayette introduced--Cruise of the Reprisal--Paul Jones--Capture of Burgoyne--Alliance with France--Anecdote of the Cake--Excitement in England--Franklin's introduction to the king--Joy in America--Extraordinary letter of Count Wissenstein--The reply--Injustice to Paul Jones--French troops in America--Character of John Adams--Franklin's mature views of human nature--Anecdote of the Angel--Capture of Cornwallis--Its effect in England--Prejudices of Mr. Jay--Testimony of Dr. Sparks--Jealousy of Franklin--Shrewd diplomatic act--The treaty signed. In the journey from Nantes to Paris, a curious incident occurred, which is well worth recording. It so admirably illustrates the character of two distinguished men, as to bear internal evidence of its truthfulness. At one of the inns, at which Franklin stopped, he was informed that Mr. Gibbon, the illustrious author of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," was also tarrying. Mr. Gibbon was an Englishman. He was a deist, being in entire sympathy with Franklin in his views of Christianity. He was also a man of letters. Mr. Franklin addressed a very polite note to Mr. Gibbon, sending his compliments, and soliciting the pleasure of spending the evening with him. Mr. Gibbon, who was never renowned for amiability of character, replied, in substance, we have not his exact words, "Notwithstanding my regard for Dr. Franklin, as a man and a philosopher, I cannot reconcile it with my duty to my king, to have any conversation with a revolted subject." Franklin responded to this by writing, "Though Mr. Gibbon's principles have compelled him to withhold the pleasure of his conversation, Dr. Franklin has still such a respect for the character of Mr. Gibbon, as a gentleman and a historian, that when, in the course of his writing the history of the 'Decline and Fall of Empires,' the decline and fall of the British Empire shall come to be his subject, as will probably soon be the case, Dr. Franklin would be happy to furnish him with ample materials, which are in his possession."[28] [Footnote 28: This anecdote has had a wide circulation in the newspapers. Mr. William Cobbett inserts it in his "Works," with the following comment, characteristic of the spirit of most of the higher class of Englishmen, in those days: "Whether this anecdote record a truth or not I shall not pretend to say. But it must be confessed, that the expressions imputed to the two personages were strictly in character. In Gibbon, we see the faithful subject, and the man of candor and honor. In Franklin the treacherous and malicious old Zanga, of Boston."--_Works of William Cobbett. Vol. vii, p. 244._] Gibbon was a Tory. He supported Lord North in all his measures. The government rewarded him with a pension of eight hundred pounds a year. This was equivalent to considerable more than four thousand dollars at the present time. Franklin was received, in Paris, by the whole population, court and _canaille_, with enthusiasm which that excitable capital had rarely witnessed. The most humble of the population were familiar with the pithy sayings of Poor Richard. The _savants_ admitted their obligations to him, for the solution of some of the most difficult problems of philosophy. The fashionable world were delighted with his urbanity; and in his society found rare and unequalled pleasure. The republicans regarded him as the personification of a free government; and even the nobles and the ministry were cheered by the hope that, with his aid, haughty England could be weakened and humbled, and that thus a new era of commercial prosperity was about to dawn upon France. John Adams was not popular in Paris. He was a man of great abilities, of irreproachable character, and was animated by as pure principles of patriotism as ever glowed in a human bosom. But he was a genuine Puritan, inheriting the virtues and the foibles of the best of that class. Though not wanting in magnanimity, he could not fail from being disturbed, by the caresses with which Franklin was ever greeted, contrasted with the cold and respectful courtesy with which he was received. It was always the same, in the Court, in the saloons, and on the Boulevards. In Mr. Adams' diary, written some years later, we find the following insertion, which, in some degree, reveals his feelings. He is recording a conversation with the French minister. "All religions," said Marbois, "are tolerated in America. The ambassadors have a right, in all the courts of Europe, to a chapel in their own way. But Mr. Franklin never had any." "No," said I laughing, "because Mr. Franklin has no----" I was going to say what I did not say, and will not say here. I stopped short, and laughed. "No," said M. Marbois. "Mr. Franklin adores only great Nature; which has interested a great many people of both sexes in his favor." "Yes," said I laughing, "all the atheists, deists and libertines, as well as the philosophers and ladies are in his train."[29] [Footnote 29: Works of John Adams, Vol. III, p. 220.] The English lords were exasperated by the reception France had given Franklin. They fully comprehended its significance. France was in sympathy with the Americans, in their heroic endeavor to escape from the despotism of the British crown. Thus the traffic which had enriched England, would be transferred to France. Even the Earl of Chatham said, in one of the most eloquent of his speeches, "France, my lords, has insulted you. She has encouraged and sustained America. And whether America be wrong or right, the dignity of this country ought to spurn at the officiousness of the French interference. The ministers and ambassadors of those who are called rebels, are in Paris. In Paris they transact the reciprocal business of America and France. Can there be a more mortifying insult? Can even our ministers sustain a more humiliating disgrace? Do they dare to resent it?" Franklin was assailed in England, in innumerable pamphlets of abuse. The sin of his youth still pursued him. Many an envenomed arrow pierced his heart.[30] [Footnote 30: This is a delicate subject, but it must not be ignored. Mr. Parton writes,--"One penny-a-liner informed the public that Dr. Franklin had a son, who, though illegitimate, was a much more honest man than his father. As to the mother of that son, nothing was known of her, except that her seducer let her die in the streets." There was no end to those attacks. They were attended by every exaggeration of malignity which hatred could engender. It is certain that Franklin would have been saved from these woes could he, as a young man, have embraced the _faith_ of the religion of Jesus, and developed that _faith_ in his _practice_.] But it must not be forgotten that there were many of the noblest men in England, who were the warm friends of Franklin, and who cordially espoused the American cause. Among these were Fox, Burke, Rockingham, Shelburne, Chatham, Priestley and Price. Many beautiful villages surrounded Paris. One of the most lovely, embowered in foliage, was Passy. It is now included within the city walls. It was then but two miles from the centre of the city. A munificent friend of America, M. de Chaumont, invited Franklin to the hospitality of one of his sumptuous mansions in that place. Franklin accepted the invitation, assuring him that at the close of the war, Congress would insist upon granting him a tract of land, in recognition of his kindness to America in the hour of need. Early in the year 1777, Franklin took up his residence at Passy, and there he continued to reside while he remained in France. He lived liberally, had an ample retinue of servants, and entertained his guests with elegance. His annual expenditures were about thirteen thousand dollars. This sum would then purchase twice the amount of conveniences and luxuries which could be purchased by the same sum at the present day. He had his own servants, and commanded a handsome carriage with two horses. Mrs. Adams writes, "With seven servants, and hiring a charwoman upon occasion of company, we may possibly keep house. With less we should be hooted at as ridiculous, and could not entertain any company." Though Franklin took every thing by the smooth handle, he did not, on that account, intermit any intensity of labor to accomplish his purposes. There were then three American envoys in Paris, Franklin, Deane, and Lee. Five days after the arrival of Franklin, they, on the 28th of December, 1777, held their first interview with the French Minister, Count de Vergennes. They were received with all that cordiality and courtesy which are marked characteristics of the French people. But still the commissioners were embarrassed. The prospects of America were doubtful. General Burgoyne was on the eve of sailing for America with a formidable fleet, and an army of eight or ten thousand highly disciplined troops. In the course of the conversation, the minister said that France was not yet ready to enter into open collision with England, and to declare war. "But," said he, "if a _couple of millions_ of francs, to be repaid without interest after the war, will be of use to you, they are at your service. Only do not say that you had it from _us_." This was indeed, under the doubtful circumstances, a very generous offer. It was at this dark hour that the noble Lafayette decided to consecrate his fortune, and to peril his life, for the cause of American freedom. It was proclaimed that Burgoyne's expedition was fitted out to rouse the slaves to insurrection, and to lay the mansions of the planters in ashes. Arthur Lee was very much alarmed. These splendid estates were generally situated in romantic spots, upon the banks of the navigable rivers, where the dwellings, often quite magnificent, could easily be demolished by shot and shell thrown from any frigate. The Reprisal, Captain Wickes, was the first American vessel of war which ventured into European waters. The channel swarmed with British vessels. The Reprisal took prize after prize, and conveyed them into Nantes. As France was not at war with England, Count de Vergennes was compelled to order the Reprisal, with her prizes, to leave the harbor. Captain Wickes took some of the Nantes merchants on board his vessel, and, just outside the port, sold the prizes to them. The French merchants then returned, with their property, into the harbor. Captain Wickes soon united with him the Lexington of fourteen guns, and a cutter, the Dolphin, of ten guns. With this little fleet the hero sailed completely around Ireland, capturing or destroying sixteen prizes. The British were astounded at this audacity. Merchants and under-writers were quite terror-stricken. They had never dreamed that the despised Americans could strike _them_ any blows. And when, soon after, Paul Jones, one of the noblest of all naval heroes, appeared in their waters, it is not too much to say that _consternation_ pervaded the coasts of both England and Ireland.[31] [Footnote 31: The wonderful achievements of this patriot are fully recorded in one of the volumes of this series.] It requires many and aggravated wrongs to rouse a naturally amiable man to the highest pitch of indignation. But when thus roused, he is ready for any vigor of action. Franklin's blood was up. England was bribing slaves to murder their masters; was rousing the savages to massacre the families of poor, hard-working frontiersmen; was wantonly bombarding defenceless seaports, and with inhumanity, rarely known in civilized warfare, was laying villages in ashes, consigning women and children to beggary and starvation. In the prison hulks of New York, our most illustrious men were in the endurance, as prisoners of war, of woes unsurpassed by Algerine barbarism. Many of our common sailors, England was compelling, by the terrors of the lash, to man her ships, and to fight their own countrymen. Maddened by these atrocities, Mr. Franklin wrote to his English friend, David Hartley, a member of Parliament, a letter, which all the few friends of America in England, read with great satisfaction, and which must have produced a very powerful moral impression in France. It is too long to be inserted here. In conclusion he said to his friend, "In reviewing what I have written, I found too much warmth in it, and was about to strike out some parts. Yet I let them go, as it will afford you this one reflection, "'If a man naturally cool, and rendered still cooler by old age, is so warmed by our treatment of his country, how much must those people in general be exasperated against us. And why are we making inveterate enemies, by our barbarity, not only of the present inhabitants of a great country, but of their infinitely more numerous posterity; who will, in future ages, detest the name of Englishman, as much as the children in Holland now do those of Alva and Spaniard.'" William Temple Franklin inherited the attractions of person, and the fascination of manners, so conspicuous in his grandfather. He was a great favorite in the social circles of the gay metropolis. Dark days came, with tidings of discomfiture. Franklin devoted twelve hours out of the twenty-four, to the arduous duties of his mission. Philadelphia fell. "Well, Doctor," said an Englishman in Paris, with the customary courtesy of his nation, "Howe has taken Philadelphia." "I beg your pardon," Franklin replied, "Philadelphia has taken Howe." The result proved that Franklin's joke was almost a reality. Burgoyne surrendered. His whole army was taken captive. Massachusetts immediately sent John Loring Austin to convey the rapturous tidings to Franklin. This great success would doubtless encourage France to open action. No tongue can tell the emotions excited in the bosoms of Franklin, Lee and Deane, as Austin entered their presence at Passy, with the announcement, "_General Burgoyne and his whole army are prisoners of war._" There were no shoutings, no rushing into each other's arms. But tears filled their eyes. They felt assured that France would come openly to their aid, and that the independence of their country was no longer doubtful. Silently they returned to Franklin's spacious apartment, where they spent the whole day in reading the enrapturing dispatches, and in preparing for immediate alliance with France. France made no attempt to conceal its joy. A treaty of alliance was soon formed. Nobly the Count de Vergennes said, "We wish to take no advantage of your situation. We desire no terms which you may hereafter regret having made; but would enter into arrangements of mutual interest, which may last as long as human institutions endure." England was now greatly alarmed from fear that the trade of the colonies might be transferred to France. Envoys were sent to Passy to offer the American ambassadors everything they had demanded at the commencement of the conflict. But it was too late. America now demanded _Independence_, and would accept nothing less. A large cake was one day sent to the ambassador's apartment, at Passy, with the inscription "Le Digne Franklin," the worthy Franklin. Mr. Lee said, "Well, Doctor, we have to thank you for our accommodations, and to appropriate your present to our use." "Not at all," said Franklin. "This cake is for all the Commissioners. The French, not being able to write good English, do not spell our names correctly. The meaning doubtless is Lee, Deane, Franklin." The memorable treaty was signed on the 5th of February, 1778. It was stated that the object of the treaty was to establish the independence of the United States, and that neither party should conclude either truce or peace with England, without the consent of the other. Tidings of the treaty, which for a short time was kept secret, had been whispered in England, causing intense excitement. On the 17th of February, 1778, the House of Parliament was crowded. Lord North, amid breathless silence, presented a "Conciliation Bill," granting everything which Franklin had demanded. Fox, who was in the Opposition, arose and announced the treaty. "The astonishment," writes Walpole, "was totally indescribable." Soon the fact of the treaty of alliance, was formally announced in France. The American envoys were invited to an audience with the king. Franklin was richly dressed. His hair was carefully arranged by a French perruquier. He wore an admirably fitting suit of plain, black, silk velvet. Ruffles of elaborate embroidery and snowy whiteness adorned his wrists and bosom. White silk stockings aided in displaying the perfect proportions of his frame. Large silver buckles were on his shoes. No one could accuse him of failing in due respect for the king, by appearing in his presence in slatternly dress. His costume was superb, and was such as was then worn, on important occasions, by American gentlemen of the highest rank. The audience took place at Versailles, on the morning of the 20th of March. Each of the American envoys rode in his own carriage, attended by the usual retinue of servants. On the way they were cheered with the utmost enthusiasm by the crowd. The king, Louis XVI., received them with extreme courtesy, and the queen, Marie Antoinette, was marked in her attentions to Franklin. The British ambassador, Lord Stormont, was so enraged, that, regardless of all the claims of courtesy, he immediately returned to England, without even taking leave of the king. Who can describe the exultation, the rapture, the tears, with which these tidings were received by the patriots of America. On the 6th of May, George Washington drew up his little band at Valley Forge, to announce the great event, and to offer to God prayers and thanksgivings. The tone of the English was immediately changed. They abandoned threats and tried the effect of entreaties. Several emissaries, from the government, approached Dr. Franklin, all bearing in substance the same message. They said, "We cannot endure the thought that our beloved colonists should enter into alliance with our hereditary natural enemy, France. Can you, who are Protestants, consent to unite with a nation of Roman Catholics? If you will remain firm in your adhesion to England, we will grant you all you ever wished for, and even more. But do not forsake your mother country to swell the pride and power of perfidious France." But all these efforts were unavailing. The colonists began to despise England. They had no wish for war with their unnatural parent, and they knew that their independence was assured; and that no efforts which England could possibly make, could now prevent it. All alike felt disposed to spurn the bribes which England so lavishly offered. A very extraordinary letter was sent to Dr. Franklin, which was signed, Charles de Wissenstein. Franklin, who was accustomed to sifting evidence, became satisfied that the message came from king George III. himself. The letter declared that the perfidious French would certainly deceive the Americans with false promises, and defraud them. After making the most liberal offers of popular rights, if the Americans would continue to remain colonists under the British crown, the document presented the following extraordinary promise to those American patriots whom England had denounced as traitors, and doomed to be hung. It was deemed a bribe which human virtue could not resist. "As it is unreasonable that their (the American patriots) services to their country should deprive them of those advantages which their talents would otherwise have gained them, the following persons shall have offices or pensions for life, at their option, namely, Franklin, Washington, Adams, Hancock, etc. In case his Majesty, or his successors, should ever create American peers, then those persons, or their descendants, shall be among the first created if they choose it." Franklin, after conference with his colleagues, replied to the letter. His soul was all on fire with the insults our country had received, and the wrongs she had endured. He wrote as if personally addressing the king. We can only give the concluding paragraph. After stating that the independence of America was secured, that all attempts of England to prevent it would be impotent, and that consequently it was quite a matter of indifference to the Americans whether England acknowledged it or not, he wrote,[32] "This proposition, of delivering ourselves bound and gagged, ready for hanging, without even a right to complain, and without a friend to be found afterward among all mankind, you would have us embrace upon the faith of an Act of Parliament. Good God! an act of your Parliament. This demonstrates that you do not yet know us; and that you fancy that we do not know you. But it is not merely this flimsy faith that we are to act upon. You offer us hope, the hope of PLACES, PENSIONS and PEERAGES. "These, judging from yourselves, you think are motives irresistible. This offer to corrupt us, sir, is with me, your credential; and convinces me that you are not a private volunteer in your application. It bears the stamp of British Court character. It is even the signature of your king. But think, for a moment, in what light it must be viewed in America. "By PLACES, you mean places among us; for you take care, by a special article, to secure your own to yourselves. We must then pay the salaries in order to enrich ourselves with those places. But you will give us PENSIONS, probably to be paid too out of your expected American revenue, and which none of us can accept without deserving, and perhaps obtaining, _suspension_. "PEERAGES! Alas! in our long observation of the vast servile majority of your peers, voting constantly for every measure proposed by a minister, however weak or wicked, leaves us small respect for that title. We consider it as a sort of tar-and-feather honor, or a mixture of foulness and folly, which every man among us, who should accept it from your king, would be obliged to renounce, or exchange for that confessed by the mobs of their own country, or wear it with everlasting infamy."[33] [Footnote 32: In reference to the promises contained in the letter, Franklin referred to a book which it was said George III. had carefully studied, called _Arcana Imperii_. A prince, to appease a revolt, had promised indemnity to the revolters. The question was submitted to the keepers of the king's conscience, whether he were bound to keep his promises. The reply was, "No! It was right to make the promises, because the revolt could not otherwise be suppressed. It would be wrong to keep them, because revolters ought to be punished."] [Footnote 33: Sparks' Franklin, Vol. iii, p. 278.] In the spring of 1778, Paul Jones entered upon his brilliant career, bidding defiance, with his infant fleet, to all the naval power of Great Britain, agitating entire England with the terror of his name. Franklin was his affectionate friend, and, in all his many trials, he leaned upon Franklin for sympathy. So tremendously was he maligned by the English press, that American historians, unconsciously thus influenced, have never done him justice. As a patriot, and a noble man, he deserves to take rank with his friends, Washington and Franklin. In 1779, Lafayette, returning to France, from America, brought the news that Franklin was appointed by Congress as sole plenipotentiary of the new nation of the United States, to the generous kingdom, which had acknowledged our independence, and whose fleets and armies were now united with ours. All France rejoiced. With great eclat the new ambassadors were presented to the king. No man of force of character can escape having enemies. Franklin had many and bitter ones. A cabal plotted the removal of his excellent grandson, William Temple Franklin. It gives us an insight to the heart of this venerable septuagenarian to read from his pen, "It is enough that I have lost my son. Would they add my _grandson_. An old man of seventy, I undertook a winter voyage, at the command of Congress, with no other attendant to take care of me. I am continued here, in a foreign country, where, if I am sick, his filial attention comforts me. And if I die, I have a child to close my eyes and take care of my remains. His dutiful behavior toward me, and his diligence and fidelity in business, are both pleasing and useful to me. His conduct, as my private secretary, has been unexceptionable; and I am confident the Congress will never think of separating us." Franklin's great endeavor now was to obtain money. Without it we could have neither fleet nor army. The treasury of France was empty, almost to bankruptcy. Never did he struggle against greater obstacles than during the next three years. It has been truly said, that Franklin, without intending it, helped to bleed the French monarchy to death. In addition to the employment of both army and navy, the French government conferred upon Congress, in gifts or loans, the sum of twenty-six million francs. The French troops were received in America with boundless enthusiasm. Their discipline was admirable. Their respect for the rights of property was such, that not a barn, orchard or hen-roost was robbed. John Adams was sent to join Franklin, to aid him in framing terms of peace, whenever England should be disposed to make such advances. He was a man of great abilities, of irreproachable integrity, but he had inherited, from his English ancestry, not only repulsive brusqueness, but also a prejudice against the French, which nothing could remove. His want of courtesy; his unconcealed assumption that France was acting out of unmitigated selfishness, and that consequently the Americans owed the French no debt of gratitude, often caused Franklin much embarrassment. This blunt man, at one time wrote so uncourteous, not to say insulting a letter, to M. de Vergennes, that the French minister declined having any more correspondence with him. Both Franklin and Congress condemned the incivility of Mr. Adams. He only escaped a motion of censure from the full conviction of Congress of the purity of his patriotism, and of his intentions.[34] [Footnote 34: Mr. Jefferson, after an intimacy of seven months with John Adams, in Paris, wrote of him: "He is vain, irritable, and a bad calculator of the force and probable effect of the motives which govern men. This is all the ill which can possibly be said of him. He is as disinterested as the Being who made him."] Franklin had been requested to forward the correspondence to Congress. As in duty bound, he did so; accompanying it with a magnanimous letter. Mr. Adams was very angry. Every impartial reader will admit that, in this embarrassing affair, Franklin conducted with delicacy and discretion. The British troops in America were still conducting like savages. Congress requested Franklin to prepare a school-book, with thirty-five prints, each depicting one or more of the acts of English brutality. The object was to impress the minds of children with a deep sense of the insatiable and bloody malice with which the English had pursued the Americans. The plan was never executed. In the year 1781, Franklin, then seventy-five years of age, and having been engaged in public service for fifty years, wrote to Congress, begging permission to retire from his responsible office. Congress could not spare his services. They gave him an additional appointment. He was commissioned to unite with Adams and Jay, in those negotiations for peace which, it was evident, must soon take place. Franklin loved the French, he could smile at their foibles, in dressing their hair so that they could not wear a hat, but were compelled to carry it under their arms; also in filling their noses with tobacco. "These," said he, "are mere follies. There is nothing wanting, in the character of a Frenchman, that belongs to that of an agreeable and worthy man." It may perhaps be mentioned, as a defect in the character of Franklin, that when in France he could see nothing but the beautiful. His eye was turned from every revolting spectacle. In the society of elegantly dressed, highly educated, refined French ladies,--at dinner parties, glittering with gold and silver plate,--in social intercourse with men whose philosophical attainments were of the highest order, and whose politeness of speech and bearing rendered them delightful companions, Franklin found his time and thoughts engrossed. In all his voluminous writings we find no allusion to those tremendous wrongs, which Louis XIV. and Louis XV. had entailed upon the people,--wrongs which soon convulsed society with the volcanic throes of the French revolution. Jefferson, who succeeded Franklin, was cast in a different mould. He saw and fully comprehended the misery under which the millions of the French peasantry were groaning. And this led him to the conviction, that no people could be safe, unless the government were placed in their own hands. Still Franklin, like his brother deists, Hume and Voltaire, seeing how impotent were all the motives they could urge to make man virtuous, became thoroughly disgusted with human nature. He even went beyond Paul in his description of the hopeless depravity of man. The idea of reclaiming him by his philosophy was abandoned entirely. And yet he was not prepared to embrace that gospel, which the experience of ages has proved to be the "wisdom of God and the power of God unto salvation." "He enlarges," writes Mr. Parton, "upon this theme, in his most delightful manner, in another letter to Dr. Priestley." In this letter he says in his usual jocular strain, that the more he studies the moral part of nature the more he is disgusted; that he finds men very badly constructed; that they are more prone to do evil than to do good; that they take great pleasure in killing one another, and that he doubts whether the species is worth preserving. He intimates that every attempt to save their souls is "an idle amusement." "As you grow older," he writes, "you may perhaps repent of having murdered, in mephitic air, so many honest, harmless mice, and wish that, to prevent mischief, you had used boys and girls instead of them." In this singular letter he represents a young angel having been sent to this world, under the guidance of an old courier spirit. They arrive over the seas of Martinico, in the midst of the horrible fight between the fleets of Rodney and De Grasse. "When," he writes, "through the clouds of smoke, he (the young angel) saw the fire of the guns, the decks covered with mangled limbs and bodies, dead or dying; the ships sinking, burning, or blown into the air; and the quantity of pain, misery and destruction the crews, yet alive, were with so much eagerness dealing round to one another, he turned angrily to his guide and said, "'You blundering blockhead; you are ignorant of your business. You undertook to conduct me to the earth; and you have brought me into hell.' "'No sir,' said the guide, 'I have made no such mistake. This is really the earth, and these are men. Devils never treat one another in this cruel manner. They have more sense, and more of what men (vainly) call humanity.'" It was after the study of human nature, under the most favorable of possible circumstances, for more than three-quarters of a century, that this philosopher wrote these terrible comments upon our fallen race. The latter part of October, 1781, Lord Cornwallis surrendered his whole army, of over seven thousand men, at Yorktown. The French fleet cut off his escape by sea. Seven thousand French soldiers, united with five thousand American troops, prevented any retreat by land. The Americans had thus captured two British armies. It was in vain for England to think of sending a third. The conflict was virtually decided. "The Prime Minister," Lord North, it is said, "received the tidings as he would have taken a ball in his breast. He threw his arms apart. He paced wildly up and down the room, exclaiming, from time to time, 'Oh God! it is all over.'" All England now was clamoring against the war. Thousands of persons had perished in the campaigns, and financial embarrassments had come to nearly all her institutions of industry. The English government made vigorous endeavors, offering great bribes, to induce the American envoys at Paris to abandon their French allies, and make a separate peace. Franklin wrote to Mr. Hartley, through whom he received these proposals, "I believe there is not a man in America, a few _English Tories_ excepted, that would not spurn the thought of deserting a noble and generous friend, for the sake of a truce with an unjust and cruel enemy." British diplomacy tried all its arts of intrigue to separate America from France in the negotiations for peace, but all in vain. The British minister, Mr. Grenville, in an interview with Mr. Franklin, ridiculed the idea that America owed France any gratitude, urging that France sought only her own selfish interests. "I told him," Franklin writes, "that I was so strongly impressed with the kind assistance afforded us by France, in our distress, and the generous and noble manner in which it was granted, without exacting or stipulating for a single privilege, or particular advantage to herself in our commerce or otherwise, that I could never suffer myself to think of such reasonings for lessening the obligation." On the 28th of February, 1782, General Conway, one of the leaders of the Opposition, the same who had moved the repeal of the stamp act, seventeen years before, presented a resolution in the House of Commons that, "THE REDUCTION OF THE COLONIES BY FORCE OF ARMS IS IMPRACTICABLE." A violent, even fierce debate ensued, which was continued until one o'clock in the morning. Then the cry of _question_ became general. The vote was carried by a majority of nineteen. This terminated the American war. The people of England had decided against it. "Acclamations," writes Wraxall, "pierced the roof, and might have been heard in Westminster Hall." This great victory was followed by another resolve. It was an address to George III. soliciting him to "Stop the prosecution of any further hostilities against the revolted colonies, for the purpose of reducing them to obedience by force." Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, these votes were immediately communicated to the king, who was in a pitiable condition, aged, nearly blind, half crazed, and stubborn even to insanity, in his determination to subjugate the Americans. The poor old man, in his rage, threatened to abandon England, to renounce the crown, and to cloister himself in his estate of Hanover. He was however compelled to yield, to dismiss his Tory ministers and to accept a whig cabinet. Edmund Burke wrote a warm, congratulatory letter to Franklin.[35] [Footnote 35: Edmund Burke wrote to Dr. Franklin that "The motion was the _declaration_ of two hundred and thirty four members; but it was the _opinion_, he thought, of the whole house."] And now the final struggle arose respecting the terms of peace. The three great questions discussed, as diplomatic arrangements, were gradually and very cautiously entered into, were: 1. What shall be the boundaries of the United States. 2. Shall the Americans be allowed to fish on the great banks. 3. What provision shall be made for the Tories in America, whose estates have been confiscated? There were many preliminary meetings, private, semi-official, and official. There was a general impression that Franklin was the man whose opinion would entirely control that of his countrymen. He was approached in every way, and the utmost endeavors were made to induce the American Commissioners to enter into a private treaty, without consulting the French ministry. A full account of the diplomatic conflict which ensued, would fill a volume. On one occasion the British minister, Mr. Grenville, said, "In case England grants America Independence." The French minister, M. de Vergennes, smiled and said, "America has already won her Independence. She does not ask it of you. There is Dr. Franklin; he will answer you on that point." "To be sure," Franklin said, "we do not consider it necessary to bargain for that which is our own. We have bought our Independence at the expense of much blood and treasure, and are in full possession of it." Many of these preliminary interviews took place in Paris. The amount of money and blood which the pugnacious government of England had expended in totally needless wars, can not be computed. The misery with which those wars had deluged this unhappy globe, God only can comprehend. Mr. Richard Oswald, a retired London merchant, of vast wealth, was sent, by Lord Shelburne, prime minister, as a confidential messenger, to sound Dr. Franklin. He was frank in the extreme. "Peace," said he, "is absolutely necessary for England. The nation has been foolishly involved in four wars, and can no longer raise money to carry them on. If continued, it will be absolutely necessary to stop the payment of interest money on the public debt." Mr. Adams and Mr. Jay were soon associated with Dr. Franklin in these negotiations. Mr. Jay was in entire sympathy with Mr. Adams in his antipathy to the French. They both assumed that France was meanly seeking only her own interests, making use of America simply as an instrument for the accomplishment of her selfish purposes.[36] [Footnote 36: Mr. Adams wrote, in his diary, November, 1782, "Mr. Jay don't like any Frenchman. The Marquis de la Fayette is clever, but he is a Frenchman."] Dr. Jared Sparks, after carefully examining, in the Office of Foreign Affairs in London, the correspondence of the French ministers with the American envoys, during the whole war, writes, "After examining the subject, with all the care and accuracy which these means of information have enabled me to give to it, I am prepared to express my belief, most fully, that Mr. Jay was mistaken, both in regard to the aims of the French court and the plans pursued by them to gain their supposed ends."[37] [Footnote 37: Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, V. viii, p. 209.] Mr. Jay was so insanely suspicious of the French, that he was afraid that the French ministry would send spies, to pick the locks in his lodgings, and steal his important papers. He therefore always carried them about his person. He also believed that Count de Vergennes had actually proposed to the British minister, that they should unite their armies, seize the United States, and divide America between them. Such were the colleagues united with Franklin, in the negotiations for peace. It required all his consummate wisdom to be able to guide affairs wisely under such difficult circumstances. It may be doubted whether there was another man in America, who could have surmounted the obstacles over which he triumphed. Both of Franklin's colleagues regarded him with suspicion. They believed that he had been won over to such sympathy with the French, that he would be willing to sacrifice the interests of his own country to please them. They wrote letters home severely denouncing him; and they seemed to stand more in fear of France than of England. "Dr. Franklin," wrote Mr. Adams, "is very staunch against the Tories; more decided, a great deal, upon that point, than Mr. Jay or myself." The British ministers insisted that the confiscated estates of the American Tories should be restored to them, and all their losses reimbursed. Franklin silenced the demand by drawing from his pocket the following articles, which he proposed should be added to the treaty, "It is agreed that his Britannic Majesty will earnestly recommend it to his Parliament, to provide for and make a compensation to the merchants and shop-keepers of Boston, whose goods and merchandise were seized and taken out of their stores, ware-houses and shops, by order of General Gage, and others of his commanding officers there; and also to the inhabitants of Philadelphia for the goods taken away by his army there; and to make compensation also for the tobacco, rice, indigo and negroes seized and carried off by his armies, under Generals Arnold, Cornwallis and others, from the States of Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia, and for all the vessels and cargoes belonging to the inhabitants of the said United States, which were stopped, seized or taken, either in the ports or on the seas, by his governors or by his ships of war, before the declaration of war against the United States. And it is further agreed that his Britannic Majesty will also earnestly recommend it to his Parliament to make compensation for all the towns, villages and farms, burnt and destroyed by his troops, or adherents in these United States." The three British commissioners were confounded by these counter demands, and said not another word about reimbursing the American Tories. On the 30th of November, 1782, the preliminaries were signed, subject to the assent of the French ministers, who were also to submit their preliminaries to the American envoys. By these articles: 1. The boundaries were established. 2. The Americans could fish on the banks of Newfoundland, and cure their fish on the unsettled shores of Nova Scotia and Labrador. 3. Congress was to recommend to the several States, to restore the confiscated property of real British subjects. 4. Private debts were to be paid. 5. There were to be no more confiscations or prosecutions, on either side, for acts during the war. 6. The British troops were to be withdrawn. 7. The navigation of the Mississippi was declared to be free. 8. And any place captured, after the signing of these articles, was to be restored. On the 13th of January, Count de Vergennes, and the British minister Mr. Fitzherbert, signed their preliminaries in the presence of Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams. Not till then did the English order hostilities to be suspended, and declare the senseless war to be at an end. There was universal satisfaction in America. With the exception of the king and a few of his ministers, there was general satisfaction in England. It is true that the national pride was sorely humiliated. But after all these woes which England had inflicted upon America, her own statesmen, with almost undivided voice, declared that the interests of both nations were alike promoted, by having a few feeble colonies elevated into the rich and flourishing republic of the United States. Thus the war of the American revolution must be pronounced to have been, on the part of England, which forced it, one of the most disastrous and senseless of those blunders which have ever accompanied the progress of our race.[38] [Footnote 38: Contemplate the still greater blunder of our civil war. It was forced upon the nation by the slave traders, that they might _perpetuate slavery_. And now after the infliction of woes which no finite imagination can gauge, these very slave-holders declare with one voice, that nothing would induce them to _reinstate the execrable institution_. How much misery would have been averted, and what a comparative paradise would our southern country now have been, if before, instead of after the war, the oppressed had been allowed to go free!] CHAPTER XV. _Life's Closing Scenes._ Advice to Thomas Paine--Scenes at Passy--Journey to the Coast--Return to America--Elected Governor of Pennsylvania--Attends the Constitutional Convention--Proposes prayers--Remarkable speech--Letter to Dr. Stiles--Christ on the Cross--Last sickness and death. About this time some one, knowing Dr. Franklin's deistical views, presented, for his opinion, a treatise denouncing the idea, that there was any God, who manifested any interest in the affairs of men, that there was any _Particular Providence_. Though Franklin did not accept the idea, that Jesus Christ was a divine messenger, and that the Bible was a supernatural revelation of God's will, he certainly did not, in his latter years, deny that there was a God, who superintended the affairs of this world, and whom it was proper to worship. It is generally supposed that Thomas Paine was the author of this treatise, and that it was a portion of his Age of Reason. Franklin, in his memorable reply, wrote, "I have read your manuscript with some attention. By the argument it contains against a particular Providence, though you allow a _general_ Providence, you strike at the foundations of all religion. For without the belief of a providence that takes cognizance of, guards and guides and may favor particular persons, there is no motive to worship a deity, to fear his displeasure or to pray for his protection. I will not enter into any discussion of your principles, though you seem to desire it. At present I shall only give you my opinion that, though your reasonings are subtile, and may prevail with some readers, you will not succeed so as to change the general sentiments of mankind on that subject; and the consequence of printing this piece will be, a great deal of odium drawn upon yourself; mischief to you and no benefit to others. He that spits against the wind, spits in his own face. "I would advise you, therefore, not to attempt unchaining the tiger, but to burn this piece before it is seen by any other person; whereby you will save yourself a great deal of mortification, by the enemies it may raise against you, and perhaps a good deal of regret and repentance. If men are so wicked _with religion_, what would they be if _without it_." Franklin testifies to the remarkable courtesy which characterized all the movements of the French minister, during these protracted and delicate negotiations. The definitive treaty was signed on the 3d of September, 1783. It was unanimously ratified by Congress on the 14th of January, 1784. The king of England gave it his signature on the 9th of April. Thus two years and three months passed between the beginning of negotiations and the conclusion of the treaty of peace. At the termination of the war crowds of Englishmen flocked to Paris. Franklin was then recognized as incomparably the most illustrious man on the continent of Europe. His apartments were ever thronged with men of highest note from all the nations. He was then seventy-eight years of age, suffering severely from the gout and the gravel. He often received his guests in his bed chamber, sitting in his night gown, wrapped in flannels, and reclining on a pillow. Yet his mind retained all its brilliance. All who saw him were charmed. Mr. Baynes wrote, "Of all the celebrated persons whom, in my life, I have chanced to see, Dr. Franklin, both from his appearance and his conversation, seemed to me the most remarkable. His venerable, patriarchal appearance, the simplicity of his manner and language, and the novelty of his observations impressed me as one of the most extraordinary men that ever existed." At this time he wrote several essays, which are esteemed among the best of his writings. He was awaiting permission from Congress to return to America. His son, the governor, who was receiving a pension of eight hundred pounds from the British Government, came over from England to his illustrious father, soliciting reconciliation. This was after the separation of many years. Franklin responded kindly, though he said that nothing had ever wounded him so keenly as to find himself deserted in his old age, by his only son; and to see him taking up arms against a cause, upon which he had staked life, fortune and honor. A year passed before Franklin was recalled. He was then so feeble that he could not walk, and could only ride in a litter. Mr. Jefferson succeeded him. Upon his arrival in Paris, the Count de Vergennes said, "You replace Dr. Franklin, I understand." "No!" Mr. Jefferson replied, "I _succeed_ him. No man can _replace_ him." Franklin's infirmities were such that he could not call upon the king or the minister for an audience of leave. He, however, wrote to Count de Vergennes a very grateful and affectionate letter, in which he said, "May I beg the favor of you, sir, to express respectfully for me, to his majesty, the deep sense I have of all the inestimable benefits his goodness has conferred on my country; a sentiment that it will be the business of the little remainder of the life now left me, to impress equally on the minds of all my countrymen. My sincere prayers are that God may shower down his blessings on the king, the queen, their children and all the royal family, to the latest generations." The reply was equally cordial and affectionate. As a parting gift the king sent Franklin his portrait, decorated with four hundred and eight diamonds. Its estimated value was ten thousand dollars. On the 12th of July, 1785, Franklin, accompanied by many admiring friends in carriages, commenced his slow journey in a litter, from Passy to Havre. It was four o'clock in the afternoon. The litter was borne by two mules. The first night they stopped at St. Germain. Thence the journey was continued at the rate of about eighteen miles a day. The motion of the litter did not seriously incommode him. The cardinal of Rochefoucald, archbishop of Rouen, insisted upon his accepting the hospitality of his mansion at Gaillon. It was a superb chateau, commanding a magnificent prospect, with galleries crowded with paintings and the most valuable works of art. "The cardinal," writes Franklin, "is much respected, and beloved by the people of this country; bearing in all respects, a most excellent character." Though entreated to prolong his visit, Franklin resumed his journey at an early hour the next morning. At Rouen he was again received with the most flattering attentions. The _elite_ of the city gave a very brilliant supper in his honor. Thus journeying in a truly triumphant march, Franklin reached Havre on the 18th of July. After a delay of three days he crossed the channel to Southampton. His old friends came in crowds, and from great distances, to see him. Even the British government had the courtesy to send an order exempting his effects from custom-house duties. It will be remembered that Franklin was a remarkable swimmer. There are some human bodies much more buoyant than others. He records the singular fact that, taking a warm, salt water bath here, he fell asleep floating on his back, and did not awake for an hour. "This," he writes, "is a thing which I never did before, and would hardly have thought possible." On the 28th of July, 1785, the ship spread her sails. The voyage lasted seven weeks. This extraordinary man, then seventy-nine years of age, wrote, on the passage, three essays, which are estimated among the most useful and able of any which emanated from his pen. On the 13th of September the ship entered Delaware Bay, and the next morning cast anchor opposite Philadelphia. He wrote, "My son-in-law came with a boat for us. We landed at Market street wharf, where we were received by a crowd of people with huzzahs, and accompanied with acclamations, quite to my door. Found my family well. God be praised and thanked for all his mercies." The Assembly was in session, and immediately voted him a congratulatory address. Washington also wrote to him a letter of cordial welcome. The long sea voyage proved very beneficial to his health. He was immediately elected to the Supreme Executive, and was chosen chairman of that body. It is evident that he was gratified by this token of popular regard. He wrote to a friend, "I had not firmness enough to resist the unanimous desire of my country folk; and I find myself harnessed again in their service for another year. They engrossed the prime of my life. They have eaten my flesh and seem resolved now to pick my bones." Soon after he was elected President, or as we should now say, Governor of Pennsylvania. The vote rested with the Executive Council and the Assembly, seventy-seven in all. He received seventy-six votes. Notwithstanding the ravages of war, peace came with her usual blessings in her hand. The Tory journals of England, were presenting deplorable views of the ruin of the country since deprived of the beneficial government of the British cabinet. Franklin wrote to his old friend, David Hartley, "Your newspapers are filled with accounts of distresses and miseries, that these states are plunged into, since their separation from Britain. You may believe me when I tell you that there is no truth in those accounts. I find all property in land and houses, augmented vastly in value; that of houses in town at least four-fold. The crops have been plentiful; and yet the produce sells high, to the great profit of the farmer. Working people have plenty of employ, and high pay for their labor." There were many imperfections attending the old Confederacy. In the year 1787, a convention met in Philadelphia, to frame a new constitution. There was strong opposition to this movement. Washington and Franklin were both delegates. Washington took the chair. The good nature and wisdom of Franklin ruled the house. The convention met in the State House. Franklin, eighty-one years of age, was regularly in his seat, five hours a day, for four months. He was thoroughly democratic in his views, and opposed every measure which had any tendency to extend aristocratic privilege. He had seen that the British government was in the hands of the nobles. And silent, as prudence rendered it necessary for him to be, in reference to the arbitrary government of France, he could not but see that the peasantry were subject to the most intolerable abuses. This led him to detest a monarchy, and to do every thing in his power to place the government of this country in the hands of the people. Much time was occupied in deciding upon the terms of union between the smaller and the larger States. It will be remembered that this was the subject of very excited debates in the convention of 1776. The discussion was earnest, often acrimonious. Such bitterness of feeling was engendered that, for some time it was feared that no union could be effected. It is evident that Franklin, as he approached the grave, became more devout, and that he lost all confidence in the powers of philosophical speculations to reform or regenerate fallen man. He saw that the interposition of a divine power was needed to allay the intense excitement in the convention, and to lead the impassioned members to act under the conviction that they were responsible to God. On the 28th of June, this venerable, patriarchal man offered the following memorable resolve: "Resolved, That henceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in the Assembly every morning before we proceed to business; and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service." The speech which accompanied this motion will forever be conspicuous in our annals. He said: "Mr. President! The small progress we have made, after four or five weeks close attendence and continual reasonings with each other; our different sentiments on almost every question, is, methinks, a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human understanding. "In this situation of this Assembly groping, as it were, in the dark, to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not yet hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understandings? "In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers, in this room, for divine protection! Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us, who were engaged in the struggle, must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting, in peace, on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? "I have lived, sir, a long time. And the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth; _That God governs in the affairs of men_. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the Sacred Writings, that 'except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this. And I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building, no better than the building of Babel." It is almost incomprehensible that, under the influence of such an appeal, the great majority of the Assembly should have voted against seeking divine aid. In a note appended to this speech, Franklin writes, "The convention, except three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary."[39] [Footnote 39: Mr. Parton undoubtedly suggested the true reason for this strange refusal to seek divine guidance. He writes, "I think it not improbable that the cause of this opposition to a proposal so seldom negatived in the United States, was the prevalence in the Convention of the French tone of feeling with regard to religious observances. If so, it was the more remarkable to see the aged Franklin, who was a deist at fifteen, and had just returned from France, coming back to the sentiments of his ancestors."--_Parton's Franklin_ Vol. 2, p. 575.] The convention came to a triumphant close, early in September, 1787. Behind the speaker's chair there was a picture of the Rising Sun. While the members were signing, Franklin turned to Mr. Madison, and said, "I have often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at the picture behind the President, without being able to tell whether the sun were rising or setting. But now at length, I have the happiness to know that it is a rising, not a setting sun." Washington was universally revered. Franklin was both revered and loved. It was almost the universal feeling that, next to Washington, our nation was indebted to Franklin for its Independence. Franklin occupied, in the arduous field of diplomacy, the position which Washington occupied at the head of our armies. It was certain that Franklin had, at one period of his life, entirely renounced his belief in Christianity, as a divine revelation. His Christian friends, numbering hundreds, encouraged by some of the utterances of his old age, were anxious to know if he had returned to the faith of his fathers. Dr. Ezra Stiles, President of Yale College, was a friend of Franklin's of many years standing. When the revered patriot had reached his eighty-fifth year, Dr. Stiles wrote, soliciting his portrait for the college library. In this letter, he says, "I wish to know the opinion of my venerable friend, concerning Jesus of Nazareth. He will not impute this to impertinence; or improper curiosity in one, who, for so many years, has continued to love, esteem and reverence his abilities and literary character, with an ardor and affection bordering on adoration." What Dr. Stiles, and the community in general, wished to know was, whether Dr. Franklin recognized the Divine, supernatural origin of Christianity. Franklin evaded the question. This evasion of course indicates that he did not recognize, in the religion of Jesus, the authority of, "Thus saith the Lord." But he wished to avoid wounding the feelings of his Christian friends by this avowal. He wrote, "This is my creed. I believe in God, the Creator of the Universe; that he governs it by his Providence; that he ought to be worshiped; that the most acceptable service we render to him, is doing good to his other children; that the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life, respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do, in whatever sect I meet with them. "As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw, or is like to see. But I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it. And I think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. "I see however no harm in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and observed; especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of this world, with any peculiar marks of his displeasure. I shall only add respecting myself, that, having experienced the goodness of that Being, in conducting me prosperously through a long life, I have no doubt of its continuance in the next, though without the smallest conceit of meriting such goodness." He then adds the following suggestive postscript. "I confide that you will not expose me to criticism and censures, by publishing any part of this communication to you. I have ever let others enjoy their religious sentiments, without reflecting on them, for those that appeared to me unsupportable, or even absurd. All sects here, and we have a great variety, have experienced my good will, in assisting them with subscriptions for the building their new places of worship. And, as I have never opposed any of their doctrines, I hope to go out of the world in peace with them all." Much of his time, in these hours of sickness, he employed in writing his Autobiography. The sufferings he endured were at times very severe. But when he spoke of his approaching departure, it was with composure. At one time, when his daughter expressed the wish that he might yet live many years, he replied "I hope not." A clerical friend visited him, just as one of his paroxysms of pain came on. As his friend in consequence was about to retire, he said, "Oh no; don't go away. These pains will soon be over. They are for my good. And besides, what are the pains of a moment in comparison with the pleasures of eternity." There was, in one of the chambers of his house, a very beautiful painting of Christ on the Cross. He requested his nurse, a very worthy woman, of the Friends' persuasion, to bring it down, and place it directly before him. The Rev. David Ritter, a great admirer of Franklin, called to see him. He had, however, but a few moments before, breathed his last. Sarah Humphries, the nurse, invited David into the chamber, to view the remains. Mr. Ritter expressed surprise in seeing the picture of the Saviour on the cross occupying so conspicuous a position, saying, "You know, Sarah, that many people think that Dr. Franklin was not after this sort." "Yes," she replied, "but thee knows, David, that many make a great fuss about religion, who have very little. And many, who say but little, have a good deal. He was never satisfied, if a day passed away unless he had done some one a service.[40] Benjamin Franklin was one of that sort. I will tell thee how the picture came here. Many weeks ago, as he lay, he beckoned me to him, and told me of this picture, up stairs, and begged I would bring it to him. I brought it. His face brightened up, as he looked at it, and he said, "'Ay Sarah; there is a picture worth looking at. That is the picture of him who came into the world to teach men to love one another.'" "After looking at it wistfully for some time, he said, 'Sarah, set this picture up over the mantel-piece, right before me as I lie. I like to look at it.' "When I fixed it up he looked at it very much; and indeed died with his eyes fixed upon it." [Footnote 40: This reminds us of the exclamation of the Emperor Titus, who, at the close of a day in which he could not perceive that he had done any good, exclaimed, sadly, "Perdidi Diem." _I have lost a day._ Beautifully has the sentiment been expressed in the words, which it would be well for all to treasure up, "Count that day lost, whose low descending sun, Views at thy hand no worthy action done."] However deeply Franklin, in these dying hours may have pondered the sublimities of Immortality--the Resurrection--the Judgment Throne--the Final Verdict--Heaven--Hell,--he was very reticent respecting those themes. We certainly see none of the triumph of Paul, and of thousands of others, who have in varied language, expressed the sentiment that, "Jesus can make a dying bed Feel soft as downy pillows are." A few hours before his death, as some one urged him to change his position, that he might breathe easier he replied, "a dying man can do nothing easy." These were his last words. He then sank into a lethargy, from which he passed into that sleep which has no earthly waking. It was eleven o'clock at night, April 17, 1790. He had lived eighty-four years, three months and eleven days. But no candid and charitable reader can peruse this narrative, without the admission that Benjamin Franklin, notwithstanding his imperfections, was one of the wisest and best of all the fallen children of Adam. From his dying hour to the present day his memory has been justly cherished with reverence and affection, throughout the civilized world. And there is no fear that this verdict will ever be reversed. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Minor changes have been made to correct obvious typesetters' errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent. 
36338	----	for Project Gutenberg. [Transcriber's Note: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other inconsistencies. Text that has been changed to correct an obvious error is noted at the end of this ebook. Also, many occurrences of mismatched single and double quotes remain as they were in the original.] [Illustration: Benjamin Franklin I am, Yours, B Franklin New-York, Harper & Brothers.] MEMOIRS OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN; WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. WITH HIS MOST INTERESTING ESSAYS, LETTERS, AND MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS; FAMILIAR, MORAL, POLITICAL, ECONOMICAL, AND PHILOSOPHICAL. SELECTED WITH CARE FROM ALL HIS PUBLISHED PRODUCTIONS, AND COMPRISING WHATEVER IS MOST ENTERTAINING AND VALUABLE TO THE GENERAL READER. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE. PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT. It would be difficult, and perhaps impossible, to gather from the history and labours of any individual mind, a summary of practical wisdom as rich in varied instruction as the memoirs and writings presented in these volumes will be found to afford. If, on account of the most distinguished public services, the name of Franklin has become inseparably associated with his country's glory, the works which he has left behind him no less justly entitle him to be considered as the benefactor not only of his own country, but of mankind for all coming time. So admirable, indeed, are these productions, that they can only cease being read when the love of beauty and of simplicity, of moral power and of truth, has no longer a place in the hearts of men. "This self-taught American," to quote from the Edinburgh Review of 1806, "is the most rational, perhaps, of all philosophers. He never loses sight of common sense in any of his speculations. No individual, perhaps, ever possessed a juster understanding, or was so seldom obstructed in the use of it by indolence, enthusiasm, or authority. * * * * There are not many among the thoroughbred scholars and philosophers of Europe who can lay claim to distinction in more than one or two departments of science and literature. The uneducated tradesman of America has left writings which call for our attention in natural philosophy, in politics, in political economy, and in general literature and morality." And again: "Nothing can be more perfectly and beautifully adapted to its object than most of the moral compositions of Dr. Franklin. The tone of familiarity, of good-will, and harmless jocularity; the plain and pointed illustrations; the short sentences, made up of short words; and the strong sense, clear information, and obvious conviction of the author himself, make most of his moral exhortations perfect models of popular eloquence, and often the finest specimens of a style which has been too little cultivated in his native country. "The most remarkable thing, however, in these, and indeed in the whole of his physical speculations, is the unparalleled simplicity and facility with which the reader is conducted from one stage of the inquiry to another. The author never appears for a moment to labour or be at a loss. The most ingenious and profound explanations are suggested, as if they were the most natural and obvious way of accounting for the phenomena; and the author seems to value himself so little on his most important discoveries, that it is necessary to compare him with others before we can form a just notion of his merits." While to every age these volumes cannot fail of being deeply interesting, to the young more especially they may be made of invaluable use. What an animating example do they present of the power of industry, and of frugality and temperance, of moral rectitude, and unremitting perseverance, to overcome every difficulty! And what youth, fired with the generous love of knowledge, and an ardent desire of honourable distinction, need ever despair of success after reading the memoirs of Benjamin Franklin; who, from the humble station of a printer's apprentice, without fortune or other extraneous aid, through a manly confidence in his own powers, elevated himself to the highest stations of honour and usefulness. It is from these and other considerations scarcely less interesting, that the publishers feel great confidence and pleasure in presenting this work to the public favour. Great care has been taken in selecting the matter of which these volumes are composed; and, it is believed, that they will be found to comprise nearly all that is most entertaining and useful to the general reader, in the writings of Franklin. H. & B. _New-York, Sept., 1839_. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. PART I. Page Life of Dr. Franklin, written by himself 13 PART II. Letter from Mr. Abel James 91 Letter from Mr. Benjamin Vaughan 92 Continuation of Life, begun at Passy, near Paris, 1784 98 Memorandum 115 PART III. Life of Franklin, continued by Dr. Stuber 191 Extracts from Franklin's Will 227 WRITINGS OF FRANKLIN. The Examination of Dr. Franklin before the British House of Commons, relative to the Repeal of the American Stamp-act 237 Narrative of the Massacre of Friendly Indians in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 1764 264 Introduction to Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania 282 Dr. Franklin's Motion for Prayers in the Convention at Philadelphia, 1787, to revise the then existing Articles of Confederation 286 MEMOIRS OF FRANKLIN. PART I. _To William Franklin, Esq., Governor of New-Jersey_ Twyford, at the Bishop of St. Asaph's,[1] 1771. DEAR SON,--I have ever had a pleasure in obtaining any little anecdotes of my ancestors. You may remember the inquiries I made among the remains of my relations when you were with me in England, and the journey I undertook for that purpose. Imagining it may be equally agreeable to you to learn the circumstances of _my_ life, many of which you are unacquainted with, and expecting the enjoyment of a few weeks' uninterrupted leisure, I sit down to write them. Besides, there are some other inducements that excite me to this undertaking. From the poverty and obscurity in which I was born, and in which I passed my earliest years, I have raised myself to a state of affluence and some degree of celebrity in the world. As constant good fortune has accompanied me even to an advanced period of life, my posterity will perhaps be desirous of learning the means which I employed, and which, thanks to Providence, so well succeeded with me. They may also deem them fit to be imitated, should any of them find themselves in similar circumstances. This good fortune, when I reflect on it, which is frequently the case, has induced me sometimes to say, that if it were left to my choice, I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first. So would I also wish to change some incidents of it for others more favourable. Notwithstanding, if this condition was denied, I should still accept the offer of recommencing the same life. But as this repetition is not to be expected, that which resembles most living one's life over again, seems to be to recall all the circumstances of it; and, to render this remembrance more durable, to record them in writing. In thus employing myself I shall yield to the inclination so natural to old men, of talking of themselves and their own actions; and I shall indulge it without being tiresome to those who, from respect to my age, might conceive themselves obliged to listen to me, since they will be always free to read me or not. And lastly (I may as well confess it, as the denial of it would be believed by nobody), I shall perhaps not a little gratify my own _vanity_. Indeed, I never heard or saw the introductory words "_Without vanity_ I may say," &c., but some vain thing immediately followed. Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter, wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others who are within his sphere of action: and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life. And now I speak of thanking God, I desire with all humility to acknowledge that I attribute the mentioned happiness of my past life to his divine providence, which led me to the means I used and gave the success. My belief of this induces me to _hope_, though I must not _presume_, that the same goodness will still be exercised towards me, in continuing that happiness or enabling me to bear a fatal reverse, which I may experience as others have done; the complexion of my future fortune being known to him only, in whose power it is to bless us, even in our afflictions. Some notes, one of my uncles (who had the same curiosity in collecting family anecdotes) once put into my hands, furnished me with several particulars relative to our ancestors. From these notes I learned that they lived in the same village, Ecton, in Northamptonshire, on a freehold of about thirty acres, for at least three hundred years, and how much longer could not be ascertained.[2] This small estate would not have sufficed for their maintenance without the business of a smith, which had continued in the family down to my uncle's time, the eldest son being always brought up to that employment; a custom which he and my father followed with regard to their eldest sons. When I searched the registers at _Ecton_, I found an account of their marriages and burials from the year 1555 only, as the registers kept did not commence previous thereto. I however learned from it that I was the youngest son of the youngest son for five generations back. My grandfather Thomas, who was born 1598, lived at Ecton till he was too old to continue his business, when he retired to Banbury in Oxfordshire, to the house of his son John, with whom my father served an apprenticeship. There my uncle died and lies buried. We saw his gravestone in 1758. His eldest son Thomas lived in the house at Ecton, and left it with the land to his only daughter, who, with her husband, one Fisher, of Wellingborough, sold it to Mr. Isted, now lord of the manor there. My grandfather had four sons, who grew up: viz., Thomas, John, Benjamin, and Josiah. Being at a distance from my papers, I will give you what account I can of them from memory: and if my papers are not lost in my absence, you will find among them many more particulars.[3] Thomas, my eldest uncle, was bred a smith under his father; but, being ingenious, and encouraged in learning (as all my brothers were) by an Esquire Palmer, then the principal inhabitant of that parish, he qualified himself for the bar, and became a considerable man in the county; was chief mover of all public-spirited enterprises for the county or town of Northampton, as well as of his own village, of which many instances were related of him: and he was much taken notice of, and patronised by Lord Halifax. He died in 1702, the 6th of January; four years to a day before I was born. The recital which some elderly persons made to us of his character, I remember, struck you as something extraordinary, from its similarity with what you knew of me. "Had he died," said you, "four years later, on the same day, one might have supposed a transmigration." John, my next uncle, was bred a dyer, I believe of wool. Benjamin was bred a silk dyer, serving an apprenticeship in London. He was an ingenious man. I remember, when I was a boy, he came to my father's in Boston, and resided in the house with us for several years. There was always a particular affection between my father and him, and I was his godson. He lived to a great age. He left behind him two quarto volumes of manuscript, of his own poetry, consisting of fugitive pieces addressed to his friends. He had invented a shorthand of his own, which he taught me, but, not having practised it, I have now forgotten it. He was very pious, and an assiduous attendant at the sermons of the best preachers, which he reduced to writing according to his method, and had thus collected several volumes of them. He was also a good deal of a politician; too much so, perhaps, for his station. There fell lately into my hands in London, a collection he made of all the principal political pamphlets relating to public affairs, from the year 1641 to 1717; many of the volumes are wanting, as appears by their numbering, but there still remain eight volumes in folio, and twenty in quarto and in octavo. A dealer in old books had met with them, and knowing me by name, having bought books of him, he brought them to me. It would appear that my uncle must have left them here when he went to America, which was about fifty years ago. I found several of his notes in the margins. His grandson, Samuel Franklin, is still living in Boston. Our humble family early embraced the reformed religion. Our forefathers continued Protestants through the reign of Mary, when they were sometimes in danger of persecution on account of their zeal against popery. They had an English Bible, and to conceal it, and place it in safety, it was fastened open with tapes under and within the cover of a joint-stool. When my great-grandfather wished to read it to his family, he placed the joint-stool on his knees, and then turned over the leaves under the tapes. One of the children stood at the door to give notice if he saw the apparitor coming, who was an officer of the spiritual court. In that case the stool was turned down again upon its feet, when the Bible remained concealed under it as before. This anecdote I had from uncle Benjamin. The family continued all of the Church of England till about the end of Charles the Second's reign, when some of the ministers that had been outed for their nonconformity holding conventicles in Northamptonshire, my uncle Benjamin and father Josiah adhered to them, and so continued all their lives: the rest of the family remained with the Episcopal church. My father married young, and carried his wife with three children to New-England, about 1682. The conventicles being at that time forbidden by law, and frequently disturbed in their meetings, some considerable men of his acquaintance determined to go to that country, and he was prevailed with to accompany them thither, where they expected to enjoy the exercise of their religion with freedom. By the same wife my father had four children more born there, and by a second wife ten others, in all seventeen; of which I remember to have seen thirteen sitting together at his table, who all grew up to years of maturity, and were married; I was the youngest son, and the youngest of all except two daughters. I was born in Boston, in New-England. My mother, the second wife of my father, was Abiah Folger, daughter of Peter Folger, one of the first settlers of New-England, of whom honourable mention is made by Cotton Mather, in his ecclesiastical history of the country, entitled _Magnalia Christi Americana_, as "a goodly and learned Englishman," if I remember the words rightly. I was informed he wrote several small occasional works, but only one of them was printed, which I remember to have seen several years since. It was written in 1675. It was in familiar verse, according to the taste of the times and people, and addressed to the government there. It asserts the liberty of conscience, in behalf of the Anabaptists, the Quakers, and other sectarians that had been persecuted. He attributes to this persecution the Indian wars, and other calamities that had befallen the country; regarding them as so many judgments of God, to punish so heinous an offence, so contrary to charity. This piece appeared to me as written with manly freedom and a pleasing simplicity. The last six lines I remember, but have forgotten the preceding ones of the stanza; the purpose of them was, that his censures proceeded from good-will, and, therefore, he would be known to be the author. "Because to be a libeller (said he) I hate it with my heart; From Sherburne[4] town, where now I dwell, My name I do put here; Without offence your real friend, It is Peter Folgier." My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades. I was put to the grammar-school at eight years of age; my father intended to devote me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the church. My early readiness in learning to read (which must have been very early, and I do not remember when I could not read), and the opinion of all my friends, that I should certainly make a good scholar, encouraged him in this purpose of his. My uncle Benjamin, too, approved of it, and proposed to give me his shorthand volumes of sermons to set up with, if I would learn shorthand. I continued, however, at the grammar-school rather less than a year, though in that time I had risen gradually from the middle of the class of that year to be at the head of the same class, and was removed into the next class, whence I was to be placed in the third at the end of the year. But my father, burdened with a numerous family, was unable, without inconvenience, to support the expense of a college education; considering, moreover, as he said to one of his friends in my presence, the little encouragement that line of life afforded to those educated for it, he gave up his first intentions, took me from the grammar-school, and sent me to a school for writing and arithmetic, kept by a then famous man, Mr. George Brownwell. He was a skilful master, and successful in his profession, employing the mildest and most encouraging methods. Under him I learned to write a good hand pretty soon, but failed entirely in arithmetic. At ten years old I was taken to help my father in his business of a tallow-chandler and soap-boiler, a business to which he was not bred, but had assumed on his arrival in New-England, because he found that his dying trade, being in little request, would not maintain his family. Accordingly, I was employed in cutting the wick for the candles, filling the moulds for cast candles, attending the shop, going of errands, &c. I disliked the trade, and had a strong inclination to go to sea, but my father declared against it; but, residing near the water, I was much in it and on it. I learned to swim well, and to manage boats; and when embarked with other boys, I was commonly allowed to govern, especially in any case of difficulty; and upon other occasions I was generally the leader among the boys, and sometimes led them into scrapes, of which I will mention an instance, as it shows an early projecting public spirit, though not then justly conducted. There was a salt-marsh which bounded part of the millpond, on the edge of which, at high water, we used to stand to fish for minnows; by much trampling, we had made it a mere quagmire. My proposal was to build a wharf there for us to stand upon, and I showed my comrades a large heap of stones, which were intended for a new house near the marsh, and which would very well suit our purpose. Accordingly, in the evening, when the workmen were gone home, I assembled a number of my playfellows, and we worked diligently like so many emmets, sometimes two or three to a stone, till we had brought them all to make our little wharf. The next morning the workmen were surprised on missing the stones which formed our wharf; inquiry was made after the authors of this transfer; we were discovered, complained of, and corrected by our fathers; and though I demonstrated the utility of our work, mine convinced me that _that which was not truly honest could not be truly useful_. I suppose you may like to know what kind of a man my father was. He had an excellent constitution, was of a middle stature, well set, and very strong: he could draw prettily, was a little skilled in music; his voice was sonorous and agreeable, so that when he played on his violin and sung withal, as he was accustomed to do after the business of the day was over, it was extremely agreeable to hear. He had some knowledge of mechanics, and, on occasion, was very handy with other tradesmen's tools; but his great excellence was his sound understanding and solid judgment in prudential matters, both in private and public affairs. It is true, he was never employed in the latter, the numerous family he had to educate and the strictness of his circumstances keeping him close to his trade: but I remember well his being frequently visited by leading men, who consulted him for his opinion in public affairs, and those of the church he belonged to, and who showed great respect for his judgment and advice: he was also much consulted by private persons about their affairs when any difficulty occurred, and frequently chosen an arbitrator between contending parties. At his table he liked to have, as often as he could, some sensible friend or neighbour to converse with, and always took care to start some ingenious or useful topic for discourse, which might tend to improve the minds of his children. By this means he turned our attention to what was good, just, and prudent in the conduct of life; and little or no notice was ever taken of what related to the victuals on the table, whether it was well or ill dressed, in or out of season, of good or bad flavour, preferable or inferior to this or that other thing of the kind, so that I was brought up in such a perfect inattention to those matters as to be quite indifferent as to what kind of food was set before me. Indeed, I am so unobservant of it, that to this day I can scarce tell a few hours after dinner of what dishes it consisted. This has been a great convenience to me in travelling, where my companions have been sometimes very unhappy for want of a suitable gratification of their more delicate, because better instructed, tastes and appetites. My mother had likewise an excellent constitution: she suckled all her ten children. I never knew either my father or mother to have any sickness but that of which they died, he at 89, and she at 85 years of age. They lie buried together at Boston, where I some years since placed a marble over their grave with this inscription: JOSIAH FRANKLIN, and ABIAH, his wife, lie here interred. They lived lovingly together in wedlock fifty-five years. And without an estate, or any gainful employment, By constant labour and honest industry, maintained a large family comfortably, and brought up thirteen children and seven grandchildren respectably. From this instance, reader, Be encouraged to diligence in thy calling, And distrust not Providence. He was a pious and prudent man; She a discreet and virtuous woman. Their youngest son, In filial regard to their memory, Places this stone. J. F. born 1655, died 1744, �tas 89. A. F. ---- 1667, ---- 1752, ---- 85. By my rambling digressions, I perceive myself to be grown old. I used to write more methodically. But one does not dress for private company as for a public ball. Perhaps it is only negligence. To return: I continued thus employed in my father's business for two years, that is, till I was twelve years old; and my brother John, who was bred to that business, having left my father, married and set up for himself at Rhode Island, there was every appearance that I was destined to supply his place, and become a tallow-chandler. But my dislike to the trade continuing, my father had apprehensions that if he did not put me to one more agreeable, I should break loose and go to sea, as my brother Josiah had done to his great vexation. In consequence, he took me to walk with him, and see joiners, bricklayers, turners, braziers, &c., at their work, that he might observe my inclination, and endeavour to fix it on some trade or profession that would keep me on land. It has ever since been a pleasure to me to see good workmen handle their tools; and it has been often useful to me to have learned so much by it as to be able to do some trifling jobs in the house when a workman was not at hand, and to construct little machines for my experiments, at the moment when the intention of making them was warm in my mind. My father determined at last for the cutlers' trade, and placed me for some days on trial with Samuel, son to my uncle Benjamin, who was bred to that trade in London, and had just established himself in Boston. But the sum he exacted as a fee for my apprenticeship displeased my father, and I was taken home again. From my infancy I was passionately fond of reading, and all the money that came into my hands was laid out in the purchasing of books. I was very fond of voyages. My first acquisition was _Bunyan's_ works in separate little volumes. I afterward sold them to enable me to buy _R. Burton's Historical Collections_; they were small chapmen's books, and cheap, 40 volumes in all. My father's little library consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read. I have often regretted that, at a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen into my way, since it was resolved I should not be bred to divinity; there was among them Plutarch's Lives, which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book of _De Foe's_, called an _Essay on Projects_, and another of _Dr. Mather's_, called an _Essay to do good_, which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events of my life. This bookish inclination at length determined my father to make me a printer, though he had already one son (James) of that profession. In 1717 my brother James returned from England with a press and letters to set up his business in Boston. I liked it much better than that of my father, but still had a hankering for the sea. To prevent the apprehended effect of such an inclination, my father was impatient to have me bound to my brother. I stood out some time, but at last was persuaded, and signed the indentures when I was yet but twelve years old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I was twenty-one years of age, only I was to be allowed journeyman's wages during the last year. In a little time I made a great progress in the business, and became a useful hand to my brother. I had now access to better books. An acquaintance with the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my chamber the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening to be returned in the morning, lest it should be found missing. After some time a merchant, an ingenious, sensible man, Mr. Matthew Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, frequented our printing-office, took notice of me, and invited me to see his library, and very kindly proposed to lend me such books as I chose to read. I now took a strong inclination for poetry, and wrote some little pieces; my brother, supposing it might turn to account, encouraged me, and induced me to compose two occasional ballads. One was called the _Lighthouse Tragedy_, and contained an account of the shipwreck of Captain Worthilake, with his two daughters: the other was a sailor's song, on the taking of the famous _Teach_ (or Blackbeard) the pirate. They were wretched stuff, in street-ballad style; and when they were printed, my brother sent me about the town to sell them. The first sold prodigiously, the event being recent, and having made a great noise. This success flattered my vanity; but my father discouraged me, by criticising my performances, and telling me verse-makers were generally beggars. Thus I escaped being a poet, and probably a very bad one: but as prose writing has been of great use to me in the course of my life, and was a principal means of my advancement, I shall tell you how, in such a situation, I acquired what little ability I may be supposed to have in that way. There was another bookish lad in the town, John Collins by name, with whom I was intimately acquainted. We sometimes disputed, and very fond we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting one another, which disputatious turn, by-the-way, is apt to become a very bad habit, making people often extremely disagreeable in company, by the contradiction that is necessary to bring it into practice; and thence, besides souring and spoiling the conversation, it is productive of disgusts and, perhaps, enmities with those who may have occasion for friendship. I had caught this by reading my father's books of disputes on religion. Persons of good sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it, except lawyers, university men, and, generally, men of all sorts who have been bred at Edinburgh. A question was once some how or other started, between Collins and me, on the propriety of educating the female sex in learning, and their abilities for study. He was of opinion that it was improper, and that they were naturally unequal to it. I took the contrary side, perhaps for dispute' sake. He was naturally more eloquent, having a greater plenty of words; and sometimes, as I thought, I was vanquished more by his fluency than by the strength of his reasons. As we parted without settling the point, and were not to see one another again for some time, I sat down to put my arguments in writing, which I copied fair and sent to him. He answered, and I replied. Three or four letters on a side had passed, when my father happened to find my papers and read them. Without entering into the subject in dispute, he took occasion to talk to me about my manner of writing; observed that, though I had the advantage of my antagonist in correct spelling and pointing (which he attributed to the printing-house), I fell far short in elegance of expression, in method, and perspicuity, of which he convinced me by several instances. I saw the justice of his remarks, and thence grew more attentive to my manner of writing, and determined to endeavour to improve my style. About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With that view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiments in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length and as fully as it had been expressed before in any suitable words that should occur to me. Then I compared my Spectator with an original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses; since the continual search for words of the same import, but of different lengths, to suit the measure, or of different sounds for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales in the Spectator, and turned them into verse: and after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collection of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavoured to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and complete the subject. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of the thoughts. By comparing my work with the original, I discovered many faults and corrected them; but I sometimes had the pleasure to fancy that, in particulars of small consequence, I had been fortunate enough to improve the method or the language, and this encouraged me to think that I might in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely ambitious. The time I allotted for writing exercises and for reading was at night, or before work began in the morning, or on Sunday, when I contrived to be in the printing-house, avoiding as much as I could the constant attendance at public worship which my father used to exact from me when I was under his care, and which I still continued to consider as a duty, though I could not afford time to practise it. When about sixteen years of age I happened to meet with another book, written by one Tryon, recommending a vegetable diet. I determined to go into it. My brother, being yet unmarried, did not keep house, but boarded himself and his apprentices in another family. My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconvenience, and I was frequently chid for my singularity. I made myself acquainted with Tryon's manner of preparing some of his dishes, such as boiling potatoes or rice, making hasty pudding, and a few others, and then proposed to my brother if he would give me, weekly, half the money he paid for my board, I would board myself. He instantly agreed to it, and I presently found that I could save half what he paid me. This was an additional fund for buying of books. But I had another advantage in it. My brother and the rest going from the printing-office to their meals, I remained there alone; and despatching presently my light repast, which was often no more than a biscuit, or a slice of bread and a handful of raisins, a tart from the pastry-cook's, and a glass of water, I had the rest of the time till their return for study, in which I made the greater progress, from that clearness of head and quick apprehension which generally attends temperance in eating and drinking. Now it was that, being on some occasion made ashamed of my ignorance in figures, which I had twice failed learning when at school, I took _Cocker's_ book on arithmetic, and went through the whole by myself with the greatest ease. I also read _Sellers_ and _Sturny's_ book on navigation, which made me acquainted with the little geometry it contained; but I never proceeded far in that science. I read about this time _Locke on the Human Understanding_, and the _Art of Thinking_, by Messrs. du Port Royal. While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an English grammar (I think it was Greenwood's) having at the end of it two little sketches on the arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter finishing with a dispute in the Socratic method; and soon after I procured Xenophon's _Memorable Things of Socrates_, wherein there are many examples of the same method. I was charmed by it, adopted it, dropped my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer; and being then, from reading _Shaftesbury_ and _Collins_, made a doubter, as I already was in many points of our religious doctrines, I found this method the safest for myself and very embarrassing to those against whom I used it; therefore I took delight in it, practised it continually, and grew very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions, the consequences of which they did not foresee; entangling them in difficulties, out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved. I continued this method some few years, but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence; never using, when I advanced anything that might possibly be disputed, the word _certainly_, _undoubtedly_, or any other that gave the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather said, I _conceive_ or _apprehend_ a thing to be so and so; it _appears to me_, or I should not think it is so, for such and such reasons; or I _imagine it to be so_; or _it is so, if I am not mistaken_. This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions, and persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time engaged in promoting; and, as the chief ends of conversation are to _inform_ or to be _informed_, to _please_ or to _persuade_, I wish well-meaning and sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat most of those purposes for which speech was given to us. In fact, if you wish to instruct others, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may occasion opposition and prevent a candid attention. If you desire improvement from others, you should not, at the same time, express yourself fixed in your present opinions; modest and sensible men, who do not love disputations, will leave you undisturbed in the possession of your errors. In adopting such a manner, you can seldom expect to please your hearers, or obtain the concurrence you desire. Pope judiciously observes, "Men must be taught as if you taught them not, And things unknown proposed as things forgot." He also recommends it to us, "To speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence." And he might have joined with this line that which he has coupled with another, I think, less properly. "For want of modesty is want of sense." If you ask why less properly, I must repeat the lines, "Immodest words admit of _no defence_, For want of modesty is want of sense." Now is not the _want of sense_ (where a man is so unfortunate as to want it) some apology for his _want of modesty_? and would not the lines stand more justly thus? "Immodest words admit _but this defence_, That _want of modesty_ is want of sense." This, however, I should submit to better judgments. My brother had, in 1720 or 21, began to print a newspaper. It was the second that appeared in America, and was called the _New-England Courant_. The only one before it was the _Boston News-Letter_. I remember his being dissuaded by some of his friends from the undertaking, as not likely to succeed, one newspaper being, in their judgment, enough for America. At this time (1771) there are not less than _five-and-twenty_.[5] He went on, however, with the undertaking; I was employed to carry the papers to the customers, after having worked in composing the types and printing off the sheets. He had some ingenious men among his friends, who amused themselves by writing little pieces for his paper, which gained it credit and made it more in demand, and these gentlemen often visited us. Hearing their conversations and their accounts of the approbation their papers were received with, I was excited to try my hand among them; but being still a boy, and suspecting that my brother would object to printing anything of mine in his paper if he knew it to be mine, I contrived to disguise my hand, and, writing an anonymous paper, I put it at night under the door of the printing-house. It was found in the morning, and committed to his writing friends when they called in as usual. They read it, commented on it in my hearing, and I had the exquisite pleasure of finding it had met with their approbation, and that, in their different guesses at the author, none were named but men of some character among us for learning and ingenuity. I suppose that I was rather lucky in my judges, and they were not really so very good as I then believed them to be. Encouraged, however, by this attempt, I wrote and sent in the same way to the press several other pieces that were equally approved; and I kept my secret till all my fund of sense for such performances was exhausted, and then discovered it, when I began to be considered with a little more attention by my brother's acquaintance. However, that did not quite please him, as he thought it tended to make me too vain. This might be one occasion of the differences we began to have about this time. Though a brother, he considered himself as my master, and me as his apprentice, and, accordingly, expected the same services from me as he would from another, while I thought he degraded me too much in some he required of me, who from a brother required more indulgence. Our disputes were often brought before our father, and I fancy I was either generally in the right, or else a better pleader, because the judgment was generally in my favour. But my brother was passionate, and had often beaten me, which I took extremely amiss; and thinking my apprenticeship very tedious, I was continually wishing for some opportunity of shortening it, which at length offered in a manner unexpected. Perhaps the harsh and tyrannical treatment of me might be a means of impressing me with the aversion to arbitrary power that has stuck to me through my whole life. One of the pieces in our newspaper on some political point, which I have now forgotten, gave offence to the Assembly. He was taken up, censured, and imprisoned for a month, by the speaker's warrant, I suppose, because he would not discover the author. I, too, was taken up and examined before the council: but though I did not give them any satisfaction, they contented themselves with admonishing me, and dismissed me, considering me, perhaps, as an apprentice, who was bound to keep his master's secrets. During my brother's confinement, which I resented a good deal notwithstanding our differences, I had the management of the paper; and I made bold to give our rulers some rubs in it, which my brother took very kindly, while others began to consider me in an unfavourable light, as a youth that had a turn for libelling and satire. My brother's discharge was accompanied with an order (and a very odd one), that "James Franklin should no longer print the newspaper called the New-England Courant." On a consultation held in our printing-office among his friends, what he should do in this conjuncture, it was proposed to elude the order by changing the name of the paper; but my brother, seeing inconveniences in this, came to a conclusion, as a better way, to let the paper in future be printed in the name of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: and in order to avoid the censure of the Assembly, that might fall on him as still printing it by his apprentice, he contrived and consented that my old indenture should be returned to me, with a discharge on the back of it, to show in case of necessity; and, in order to secure to him the benefit of my service, I should sign new indentures for the remainder of my time, which was to be kept private. A very flimsy scheme it was; however, it was immediately executed, and the paper was printed, accordingly, under my name for several months. At length, a fresh difference arising between my brother and me, I took upon me to assert my freedom, presuming that he would not venture to produce the new indentures. It was not fair in me to take this advantage, and this I therefore reckon as one of the first errata of my life; but the unfairness of it weighed little with me, when under the impression of resentment for the blows his passion too often urged him to bestow upon me; though he was otherwise not an ill-natured man: perhaps I was too saucy and provoking. When he found I would leave him, he took care to prevent my getting employment in any other printing-house in town, by going round and speaking to every master, who accordingly refused to give me work. I then thought of going to New-York, as the nearest place where there was a printer; and I was rather inclined to leave Boston, when I reflected that I had already made myself a little obnoxious to the governing party, and, from the arbitrary proceedings of the Assembly in my brother's case, it was likely I might, if I stayed, soon bring myself into scrapes; and farther, that my indiscreet disputations about religion began to make me pointed at with horror by good people, as an infidel or atheist. I concluded, therefore, to remove to New-York; but my father now siding with my brother, I was sensible, that if I attempted to go openly, means would be used to prevent me. My friend Collins, therefore, undertook to manage my flight. He agreed with the captain of a New-York sloop to take me. I sold my books to raise a little money, was taken on board the sloop privately, had a fair wind, and in three days found myself at New-York, near three hundred miles from my home, at the age of seventeen, without the least recommendation or knowledge of any person in the place, and very little money in my pocket. The inclination I had felt for the sea was by this time done away, or I might now have gratified it. But having another profession, and conceiving myself a pretty good workman, I offered my services to a printer of the place, old Mr W. Bradford, who had been the first printer in Pennsylvania, but had removed thence, in consequence of a quarrel with the governor, General Keith. He could give me no employment, having little to do, and hands enough already. But he said, "My son, at Philadelphia, has lately lost his principal hand, Aquilla Rose, by death; if you go thither, I believe he may employ you." Philadelphia was one hundred miles farther; I set out, however, in a boat for Amboy, leaving my chest and things to follow me round by sea. In crossing the bay we met with a squall that tore our rotten sails to pieces, prevented our getting into the kill, and drove us upon Long Island. In our way, a drunken Dutchman, who was a passenger too, fell overboard; when he was sinking, I reached through the water to his shock pate, and drew him up, so that we got him in again. His ducking sobered him a little, and he went to sleep, taking first out of his pocket a book which he desired I would dry for him. It proved to be my old favourite author, _Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress_, in Dutch, finely printed on good paper, copper cuts, a dress better than I had ever seen it wear in its own language. I have since found that it has been translated into most of the languages of Europe, and suppose it has been more generally read than any other book, except perhaps the Bible. Honest John was the first that I know of who mixed narration and dialogue; a method of writing very engaging to the reader, who, in the most interesting parts, finds himself, as it were, admitted into the company and present at the conversation. _De Foe_ has imitated him successfully in his Robinson Crusoe, in his Moll Flanders, and other pieces; and _Richardson_ has done the same in his Pamela, &c. On approaching the island, we found it was in a place where there could be no landing, there being a great surf on the stony beach. So we dropped anchor, and swung out our cable towards the shore. Some people came down to the shore and hallooed to us, as we did to them, but the wind was so high and the surf so loud that we could not understand each other. There were some small boats near the shore, and we made signs, and called to them to fetch us; but they either did not comprehend us, or it was impracticable, so they went off. Night approaching, we had no remedy but to have patience till the wind abated, and, in the mean time, the boatmen and myself concluded to sleep if we could; and so we crowded into the hatches, where we joined the Dutchman, who was still wet, and the spray breaking over the head of our boat, leaked through to us, so that we were soon almost as wet as he. In this manner we lay all night with very little rest; but the wind abating the next day, we made a shift to reach Amboy before night, having been thirty hours on the water, without victuals, or any drink but a bottle of filthy rum, the water we sailed on being salt. In the evening I found myself very feverish, and went to bed; but having read somewhere that cold water drank plentifully was good for a fever, I followed the prescription, and sweat plentifully most of the night: my fever left me, and in the morning crossing the ferry, I proceeded on my journey on foot, having fifty miles to Burlington, where I was told I should find boats that would carry me the rest of the way to Philadelphia. It rained very hard all the day; I was thoroughly soaked, and by noon a good deal tired, so I stopped at a poor inn, where I stayed all night, beginning now to wish I had never left home. I made so miserable a figure too, that I found, by the questions asked me, I was suspected to be some runaway indentured servant, and in danger of being taken up on that suspicion. However, I proceeded next day, and got in the evening to an inn within eight or ten miles of Burlington, kept by one Dr. Brown. He entered into conversation with me while I took some refreshment, and, finding I had read a little, became very obliging and friendly. Our acquaintance continued all the rest of his life. He had been, I imagine, an ambulatory quack doctor, for there was no town in England, or any country in Europe, of which he could not give a very particular account. He had some letters, and was ingenious; but he was an infidel, and wickedly undertook, some years after, to turn the Bible into doggerel verse, as Cotton had formerly done with Virgil. By this means he set many facts in a ridiculous light, and might have done mischief with weak minds if his work had been published; but it never was. At his house I lay that night, and arrived the next morning at Burlington, but had the mortification to find that the regular boats had gone a little before, and no other expected to go before Tuesday, this being Saturday. Wherefore I returned to an old woman in the town, of whom I had bought some gingerbread to eat on the water, and asked her advice; she proposed to lodge me till a passage by some other boat occurred. I accepted her offer, being much fatigued by travelling on foot. Understanding I was a printer, she would have had me remain in that town and follow my business, being ignorant what stock was necessary to begin with. She was very hospitable, gave me a dinner of ox-cheek with a great good-will, accepting only of a pot of ale in return; and I thought myself fixed till Tuesday should come. However, walking in the evening by the side of the river, a boat came by which I found was going towards Philadelphia, with several people in her. They took me in, and as there was no wind, we rowed all the way; and about midnight, not having yet seen the city, some of the company were confident we must have passed it, and would row no farther: the others knew not where we were, so we put towards the shore, got into a creek, landed near an old fence, with the rails of which we made a fire, the night being cold, in October, and there we remained till daylight. Then one of the company knew the place to be Cooper's Creek, a little above Philadelphia, which we saw as soon as we got out of the creek, and arrived there about eight or nine o'clock, on the Sunday morning, and landed at Market-street wharf. I have been the more particular in this description of my journey, and shall be so of my first entry into that city, that you may in your mind compare such unlikely beginnings with the figure I have since made there. I was in my working dress, my best clothes coming round by sea. I was dirty, from my being so long in the boat; my pockets were stuffed out with shirts and stockings, and I knew no one, nor where to look for lodging. Fatigued with walking, rowing, and the want of sleep, I was very hungry; and my whole stock of cash consisted in a single dollar, and about a shilling in copper coin, which I gave to the boatmen for my passage. At first they refused it on account of my having rowed, but I insisted on their taking it. Man is sometimes more generous when he has little money than when he has plenty; perhaps to prevent his being thought to have but little. I walked towards the top of the street, gazing about, still in Market-street, where I met a boy with bread. I had often made a meal of dry bread, and inquiring where he had bought it, I went immediately to the baker's he directed me to. I asked for biscuits, meaning such as we had at Boston: that sort, it seems, was not made in Philadelphia. I then asked for a threepenny loaf, and was told they had none. Not knowing the different prices, nor the names of the different sorts of bread, I told him to give me threepenny worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I was surprised at the quantity, but took it, and having no room in my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other. Thus I went up Market-street as far as Fourth-street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future wife's father; when she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut-street and part of Walnut-street, eating my roll all the way, and, coming round, found myself again at Market-street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for a draught of the river water; and, being filled with one of my rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther. Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this time had many clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way: I joined them, and thereby was led into the great meeting-house of the Quakers near the market. I sat down among them, and after looking round awhile, and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy, through labour and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so till the meeting broke up, when some one was kind enough to rouse me. This, therefore, was the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia. I then walked down towards the river, and looking in the faces of every one, I met a young Quaker man whose countenance pleased me, and, accosting him, requested he would tell me where a stranger could get a lodging. We were then near the sign of the Three Mariners. "Here," said he, "is a house where they receive strangers, but it is not a reputable one; if thou wilt walk with me, I'll show thee a better one;" and he conducted me to the Crooked Billet in Water-street. There I got a dinner; and, while I was eating, several questions were asked me, as from my youth and appearance I was suspected of being a runaway. After dinner, my host having shown me to a bed, I lay myself on it, without undressing, and slept till six in the evening, when I was called to supper. I went to bed again very early, and slept very soundly till next morning. Then I dressed myself as neat as I could, and went to Andrew Bradford, the printer's. I found in the shop the old man, his father, whom I had seen at New-York, and who, travelling on horseback, had got to Philadelphia before me. He introduced me to his son, who received me civilly, gave me a breakfast, and told me he did not at present want a hand, being lately supplied with one: but there was another printer in town lately set up, one Keimer, who perhaps might employ me; if not, I should be welcome to lodge at his house, and he would give me a little work to do now and then, till fuller business should offer. The old gentleman said he would go with me to the new printer; and when we found him, "Neighbour," said Bradford, "I have brought to see you a young man of your business; perhaps you may want such a one." He asked me a few questions, put a composing stick in my hand to see how I worked, and then said he would employ me soon, though he had just then nothing for me to do; and taking old Bradford, whom he had never seen before, to be one of the town's people that had a good will for him, entered into conversation on his present undertaking and prospects; while Bradford (not discovering that he was the other printer's father), on Keimer's saying he expected soon to get the greatest part of the business into his own hands, drew him on by artful questions, and starting little doubts, to explain all his views, what influence he relied on, and in what manner he intended to proceed. I, who stood by and heard all, saw immediately that one was a crafty old sophister, and the other a true novice. Bradford left me with Keimer, who was greatly surprised when I told him who the old man was. The printing-house, I found, consisted of an old damaged press, and a small worn-out fount of English types which he was using himself, composing an elegy on Aquilla Rose, before mentioned; an ingenious young man, of excellent character, much respected in the town, secretary to the Assembly, and a pretty poet. Keimer made verses too, but very indifferently. He could not be said to _write_ them, for his method was to _compose_ them in the types directly out of his head; there being no copy, but one pair of cases, and the elegy probably requiring all the letter, no one could help him. I endeavoured to put his press (which he had not yet used, and of which he understood nothing) into order to be worked with; and, promising to come and print off his elegy as soon as he should have got it ready, I returned to Bradford's, who gave me a little job to do for the present, and there I lodged and dieted. A few days after Keimer sent for me to print off the elegy. And now he had got another pair of cases, and a pamphlet to reprint, on which he set me to work. These two printers I found poorly qualified for their business. Bradford had been bred to it, and was very illiterate; and Keimer, though something of a scholar, was a mere compositor, knowing nothing of presswork. He had been one of the French prophets, and could act their enthusiastic agitations. At this time he did not profess any particular religion, but something of all on occasion; was very ignorant of the world, and had, as I afterward found, a good deal of the knave in his composition. He did not like my lodging at Bradford's while I worked with him. He had a house, indeed, but without furniture, so he could not lodge me; but he got me a lodging at Mr. Read's, before mentioned, who was the owner of his house; and my chest of clothes being come by this time, I made rather a more respectable appearance in the eyes of Miss Read than I had done when she first happened to see me eating my roll in the street. I began now to have some acquaintance among the young people of the town that were lovers of reading, with whom I spent my evenings very pleasantly, and gained money by my industry and frugality. I lived very contented, and forgot Boston as much as I could, and did not wish it should be known where I resided, except to my friend Collins, who was in the secret, and kept it faithfully. At length, however, an incident happened that occasioned my return home much sooner than I had intended. I had a brother-in-law, Robert Holmes, master of a sloop that traded between Boston and Delaware. He being at Newcastle, forty miles below Philadelphia, and hearing of me, wrote me a letter, mentioning the grief of my relations and friends in Boston at my abrupt departure, assuring me of their good-will towards me, and that everything would be accommodated to my mind if I would return, to which he entreated me earnestly. I wrote an answer to his letter, thanking him for his advice, but stated my reasons for quitting Boston so fully, and in such a light, as to convince him that I was not so much in the wrong as he had apprehended. Sir William Keith, governor of the province, was then at Newcastle, and Captain Holmes happening to be in company with him when my letter came to hand, spoke to him of me, and showed him the letter. The governor read it, and seemed surprised when he was told my age. He said I appeared a young man of promising parts, and, therefore, should be encouraged: the printers at Philadelphia were wretched ones, and if I would set up there, he made no doubt I should succeed; for his part, he would procure me the public business, and do me every other service in his power. This my brother-in-law Holmes afterward told me in Boston, but I knew as yet nothing of it; when one day, Keimer and I being at work together near the window, we saw the governor and another gentleman (who proved to be Colonel French, of Newcastle, in the province of Delaware), finely dressed, come directly across the street to our house, and heard them at the door. Keimer ran down immediately, thinking it a visit to him; but the governor inquired for me, came up, and, with a condescension and politeness I had been quite unused to, made me many compliments, desired to be acquainted with me, blamed me kindly for not having made myself known to him when I first came to the place, and would have me away with him to the tavern, where he was going with Colonel French to taste, as he said, some excellent Madeira. I was not a little surprised, and Keimer stared with astonishment. I went, however, with the governor and Colonel French to a tavern at the corner of Third-street, and over the Madeira he proposed my setting up my business. He stated the probabilities of my success, and both he and Colonel French assured me I should have their interest and influence to obtain for me the public business of both governments. And as I expressed doubts that my father would assist me in it, Sir William said he would give me a letter to him, in which he would set forth the advantages, and he did not doubt he should determine him to comply. So it was concluded I should return to Boston by the first vessel, with the governor's letter to my father. In the mean time it was to be kept a secret, and I went on working with Keimer as usual. The governor sent for me now and then to dine with him, which I considered a great honour, more particularly as he conversed with me in the most affable, familiar, and friendly manner. About the end of April, 1724, a little vessel offered for Boston. I took leave of Keimer as going to see my friends. The governor gave me an ample letter, saying many flattering things of me to my father, and strongly recommending the project of my setting up at Philadelphia, as a thing that would make my fortune. We struck on a shoal in going down the bay, and sprung a leak; we had a blustering time at sea, and were obliged to pump almost continually, at which I took my turn. We arrived safe, however, at Boston, in about a fortnight. I had been absent seven months, and my friends had heard nothing of me; for my brother Holmes was not yet returned, and had not written about me. My unexpected appearance surprised the family; all were, however, very glad to see me, and made me welcome, except my brother: I went to see him at his printing-house. I was better dressed than ever while in his service, having a genteel new suit from head to foot, a watch, and my pockets lined with near five pounds sterling in silver. He received me not very frankly, looked me all over, and turned to his work again. The journeymen were inquisitive where I had been, what sort of a country it was, and how I liked it. I praised it much, and the happy life I led in it, expressing strongly my intention of returning to it; and one of them asking what kind of money we had there, I produced a handful of silver and spread it before them, which was a kind of _raree-show_ they had not been used to, paper being the money of Boston. Then I took an opportunity of letting them see my watch; and, lastly (my brother still grum and sullen), gave them a dollar to drink and took my leave. This visit of mine offended him extremely. For when my mother some time after spoke to him of a reconciliation, and of her wish to see us on good terms together, and that we might live for the future as brothers, he said I had insulted him in such a manner before his people, that he could never forget or forgive it. In this, however, he was mistaken. My father received the governor's letter with some surprise, but said little of it to me for some time. Captain Holmes returning, he showed it to him, and asked him if he knew Sir William Keith, and what kind of a man he was; adding, that he must be of small discretion to think of setting a youth up in business who wanted three years to arrive at man's estate. Holmes said what he could in favour of the project, but my father was decidedly against it, and at last gave a flat denial. He wrote a civil letter to Sir William, thanking him for the patronage he had so kindly offered me, and declining to assist me as yet in setting up, I being, in his opinion, too young to be trusted with the management of an undertaking so important, and for which the preparation required a considerable expenditure. My old companion, Collins, who was a clerk in the postoffice, pleased with the account I gave him of my new country, determined to go thither also; and while I waited for my father's determination, he set out before me by land to Rhode Island, leaving his books, which were a pretty collection of mathematics and natural philosophy, to come with mine and me to New-York, where he proposed to wait for me. My father, though he did not approve Sir William's proposition, was yet pleased that I had been able to obtain so advantageous a character from a person of such note where I had resided, and that I had been so industrious and careful as to equip myself so handsomely in so short a time; therefore, seeing no prospect of an accommodation between my brother and me, he gave his consent to my returning again to Philadelphia, advised me to behave respectfully to the people there, endeavour to obtain the general esteem, and avoid lampooning and libelling, to which he thought I had too much inclination: telling me, that by steady industry and prudent parsimony, I might save enough by the time I was one-and-twenty to set me up; and that, if I came near the matter, he would help me out with the rest. This was all I could obtain, except some small gifts, as tokens of his and my mother's love, when I embarked again for New-York, now with their approbation and their blessing. The sloop putting in at Newport, Rhode Island, I visited my brother John, who had been married and settled there some years. He received me very affectionately, for he always loved me. A friend of his, one Vernon, having some money due him in Pennsylvania (about thirty-five pounds currency), desired I would recover it for him, and keep it till I had his directions what to employ it in. Accordingly, he gave me an order to receive it. This business afterward occasioned me a good deal of uneasiness. At Newport we took in a number of passengers, among which were two young women travelling together, and a sensible, matron-like Quaker lady, with her servants. I had shown an obliging disposition to render her some little services, which probably impressed her with sentiments of good-will towards me; for, when she witnessed the daily growing familiarity between the young women and myself, which they appeared to encourage, she took me aside and said, "Young man, I am concerned for thee, as thou hast no friend with thee, and seemest not to know much of the world, or of the snares youth is exposed to: depend upon it, these are very bad women. I can see it by all their actions; and if thou art not upon thy guard, they will draw thee into some danger: they are strangers to thee, and I advise thee, in a friendly concern for thy welfare, to have no acquaintance with them." As I seemed at first not to think so ill of them as she did, she mentioned some things she had observed and heard that had escaped my notice, but now convinced me she was right. I thanked her for her kind advice, and promised to follow it. When we arrived at New-York, they told me where they lived, and invited me to come and see them, but I avoided it, and it was well I did; for the next day the captain missed a silver spoon, and some other things that had been taken out of his cabin; and knowing that these were women of bad character, he got a warrant to search their lodgings, found the stolen goods, and had the thieves punished. So, though we had escaped a sunken rock, which we scraped upon in the passage, I thought this escape of rather more importance to me. At New-York I found my friend Collins, who had arrived there some time before me. We had been intimate from children, and had read the same books together: but he had the advantage of more time for reading and studying, and a wonderful genius for mathematical learning, in which he far outstripped me. While I lived in Boston, most of my hours of leisure for conversation were spent with him, and he continued a sober as well as industrious lad; was much respected for his learning by several of the clergy and other gentlemen, and seemed to promise making a good figure in life. But during my absence he had acquired a habit of drinking brandy, and I found by his own account, as well as that of others, that he had been drunk every day since his arrival at New-York, and behaved himself in a very extravagant manner. He had gamed too, and lost his money, so that I was obliged to discharge his lodgings, and defray his expenses on the road and at Philadelphia, which proved a great burden to me. The then governor of New-York, Burnet (son of Bishop Burnet), hearing from the captain that one of the passengers had a great many books on board, desired him to bring me to see him. I waited on him, and should have taken Collins with me had he been sober. The governor received me with great civility, showed me his library, which was a considerable one, and we had a good deal of conversation relative to books and authors. This was the second governor who had done me the honour to take notice of me; and, for a poor boy like me, was very pleasing. We proceeded to Philadelphia. I received on the way Vernon's money, without which we could hardly have finished our journey. Collins wished to be employed in some counting-house; but whether they discovered his dram-drinking by his breath or by his behaviour, though he had some recommendations, he met with no success in any application, and continued lodging and boarding at the same house with me and at my expense. Knowing that I had that money of Vernon's, he was continually borrowing of me, still promising repayment as soon as he should be in business. At length he had got so much of it that I was distressed to think what I should do in case of being called on to remit it. His drinking continued, about which we sometimes quarrelled; for, when a little intoxicated, he was very irritable. Once, in a boat on the Delaware, with some other young men, he refused to row in his turn: "I will be rowed home," said he. "We will not row you," said I. "You must," said he, "or stay all night on the water, just as you please." The others said, "Let us row, what signifies it?" But my mind being soured with his other conduct, I continued to refuse. So he swore he would make me row, or throw me overboard; and coming along, stepping on the thwarts towards me, when he came up and struck at me, I clapped my hand under his thighs, and rising, pitched him head foremost into the river. I knew he was a good swimmer, and so was under little concern about him; but, before he could get round to lay hold of the boat, we had, with a few strokes, pulled her out of his reach; and whenever he drew near the boat, we asked him if he would row, striking a few strokes to slide her away from him. He was ready to stifle with vexation, and obstinately would not promise to row. Finding him at last beginning to tire, we drew him into the boat, and brought him home dripping wet. We hardly exchanged a civil word after this adventure. At length a West India captain, who had a commission to procure a preceptor for the sons of a gentleman at Barbadoes, met with him, and proposed to carry him thither to fill that situation. He accepted, and promised to remit me what he owed me out of the first money he should receive; but I never heard of him after. The violation of my trust respecting Vernon's money was one of the first great errata of my life; and this showed that my father was not much out in his judgment when he considered me as too young to manage business. But Sir William, on reading his letter, said he was too prudent; that there was a great difference in persons; and discretion did hot always accompany years, nor was youth always without it. "But, since he will not set you up, I will do it myself. Give me an inventory of the things necessary to be had from England, and I will send for them. You shall repay me when you are able; I am resolved to have a good printer here, and I am sure you must succeed." This was spoken with such an appearance of cordiality, that I had not the least doubt of his meaning what he said. I had hitherto kept the proposition of my setting up a secret in Philadelphia, and I still kept it. Had it been known that I depended on the governor, probably some friend that knew him better would have advised me not to rely on him; as I afterward heard it as his known character, to be liberal of promises which he never meant to keep; yet, unsolicited as he was by me, how could I think his generous offers insincere? I believed him one of the best men in the world. I presented him an inventory of a little printing-house, amounting by my computation to about one hundred pounds sterling. He liked it, but asked me if my being on the spot in England to choose the types, and see that everything was good of the kind, might not be of some advantage; "then," said he, "when there, you may make acquaintance, and establish correspondences in the bookselling and stationary way." I agreed that this might be advantageous. "Then," said he, "get yourself ready to go with the Annis;" which was the annual ship, and the only one at that time usually passing between London and Philadelphia. But as it would be some months before the Annis sailed, I continued working with Keimer, fretting extremely about the money Collins had got from me, and in great apprehensions of being called upon for it by Vernon; this, however, did not happen for some years after. I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston to Philadelphia, being becalmed off Block Island, our crew employed themselves in catching cod, and hauled up a great number. Till then I had stuck to my resolution to eat nothing that had had life; and on this occasion I considered, according to my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had nor could do us any injury that might justify this massacre. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had been formerly a great lover of fish, and when it came out of the frying-pan it smelled admirably well. I balanced some time between principle and inclination, till, recollecting that when fish were opened I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then, thought I, "if you eat one another, I don't see why we may not eat you." So I dined upon cod very heartily, and have since continued to eat as other people; returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a _reasonable creature_, since _it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do_. Keimer and I lived on a pretty good, familiar footing, and agreed tolerably well; for he suspected nothing of my setting up. He retained a great deal of his old enthusiasm, and loved argumentation. We therefore had many disputations. I used to work him so with my Socratic method, and had trepanned him so often by questions apparently so distant from any point we had in hand, yet by degrees leading to the point, and bringing him into difficulties and contradictions, that at last he grew ridiculously cautious, and would hardly answer me the most common questions, without asking first "_What do you intend to infer from that?_" However, it gave him so high an opinion of my abilities in the confuting way, that he seriously proposed my being his colleague in a project he had of setting up a new sect. He was to preach the doctrines, and I was to confound all opponents. When he came to explain with me upon the doctrines, I found several conundrums which I objected to, unless I might have my way a little too, and introduce some of mine. Keimer wore his beard at full length, because somewhere in the Mosaic law it is said, "_Thou shalt not mar the corners of thy beard_." He likewise kept the seventh-day Sabbath; and these two points were essential with him. I disliked both; but agreed to them on condition of his adopting the doctrine of not using animal food. I doubt, said he, my constitution will not bear it. I assured him it would, and that he would be the better for it. He was usually a great eater, and I wished to give myself some diversion in half starving him. He consented to try the practice if I would keep him company: I did so, and we held it for three months. Our provisions were purchased, cooked, and brought to us regularly by a woman in the neighbourhood, who had from me a list of forty dishes, which she prepared for us at different times, in which there entered neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. This whim suited me the better at this time, from the cheapness of it, not costing us above eighteen pence sterling each per week. I have since kept several Lents most strictly, leaving the common diet for that, and that for the common, abruptly, without the least inconvenience. So that I think there is little in the advice of making those changes by easy gradations. I went on pleasantly, but poor Keimer suffered grievously, grew tired of the project, longed for the fleshpots of Egypt, and ordered a roast pig. He invited me and two women friends to dine with him; but it being brought too soon upon table, he could not resist the temptation, and ate the whole before we came. I had made some courtship during this time to Miss Read; I had a great respect and affection for her, and had some reasons to believe she had the same for me; but as I was about to take a long voyage, and we were both very young (only a little above eighteen), it was thought most prudent by her mother to prevent our going too far at present; as a marriage, if it was to take place, would be more convenient after my return, when I should be, as I hoped, set up in my business. Perhaps, too, she thought my expectations not so well founded as I imagined them to be. My chief acquaintances at this time were Charles Osborne, Joseph Watson, and James Ralph; all lovers of reading. The first two were clerks to an eminent scrivener or conveyancer in the town (Charles Brockden), the other was a clerk to a merchant. Watson was a pious, sensible young man of great integrity: the others rather more lax in their principles of religion, particularly Ralph, who, as well as Collins, had been unsettled by me, for which they both made me suffer. Osborne was sensible, candid, frank, sincere, and affectionate to his friends; but in literary matters too fond of criticism. Ralph was ingenuous, genteel in his manners, and extremely eloquent; I think I never knew a prettier talker. Both were great admirers of poetry, and began to try their hands in little pieces. Many pleasant walks we have had together on Sundays in the woods on the banks of the Schuylkill, where we read to one another, and conferred on what we had read. Ralph was inclined to give himself up entirely to poetry, not doubting but he might make great proficiency in it, and even make his fortune by it. He pretended that the greatest poets must, when they first began to write, have committed as many faults as he did. Osborne endeavoured to dissuade him, assured him he had no genius for poetry, and advised him to think of nothing beyond the business he was bred to; "that in the mercantile way, though he had no stock, he might, by his diligence and punctuality, recommend himself to employment as a factor, and in time acquire wherewith to trade on his own account." I approved, for my part, the amusing one's self with poetry now and then, so far as to improve one's language, but no farther. On this it was proposed that we should each of us, at our next meeting, produce a piece of our own composing, in order to improve by our mutual observations, criticisms, and corrections. As language and expression was what we had in view, we excluded all considerations of invention, by agreeing that the task should be a version of the eighteenth Psalm, which describes the descent of a deity. When the time of our meeting drew nigh, Ralph called on me first, and let me know his piece was ready: I told him I had been busy, and, having little inclination, had done nothing. He then showed me his piece for my opinion, and I much approved it, as it appeared to me to have great merit. "Now," said he, "Osborne never will allow the least merit in anything of mine, but makes a thousand criticisms out of mere envy: he is not so jealous of you; I wish, therefore, you would take this piece and produce it as yours: I will pretend not to have had time, and so produce nothing; we shall then hear what he will say to it." It was agreed, and I immediately transcribed it, that it might appear in my own hand. We met: Watson's performance was read; there were some beauties in it, but many defects. Osborne's was read; it was much better. Ralph did it justice, remarked some faults, but applauded the beauties. He himself had nothing to produce. I was backward, seemed desirous of being excused, had not had sufficient time to correct, &c., but no excuse could be admitted; produce I must. It was read and repeated: Watson and Osborne gave up the contest, and joined in applauding it. Ralph only made some criticisms and proposed some amendments; but I defended my text. Osborne was severe against Ralph, and told me he was no better able to criticise than to compose verses. As these two were returning home, Osborne expressed himself still more strongly in favour of what he thought my production; having before refrained, as he said, lest I should think he meant to flatter me. "But who would have imagined," said he, "that Franklin was capable of such a performance; such painting, such force, such fire! He has even improved on the original. In common conversation he seems to have no choice of words; he hesitates and blunders; and yet, good God, how he writes!" When we next met, Ralph discovered the trick we had played, and Osborne was laughed at. This transaction fixed Ralph in his resolution of becoming a poet. I did all I could to dissuade him from it, but he continued scribbling verses till Pope cured him.[6] He became, however, a pretty good prose writer. More of him hereafter. But as I may not have occasion to mention the other two, I shall just remark here that Watson died in my arms a few years after, much lamented, being the best of our set. Osborne went to the West Indies, where he became an eminent lawyer, and made money. He and I had made a serious agreement, that the one who happened first to die should, if possible, make a friendly visit to the other, and acquaint him how he found things in that separate state. But he never fulfilled his promise. The governor, seeming to like my company, had me frequently at his house, and his setting me up was always mentioned as a fixed thing. I was to take with me letters recommendatory to a number of his friends, besides the letter of credit to furnish me with the necessary money for purchasing the press, types, paper, &c. For these letters I was appointed to call at different times, when they were to be ready, but a future time was still named. Thus we went on till the ship (whose departure, too, had been several times postponed) was on the point of sailing. Then, when I called to take my leave and receive the letters, his secretary, Dr. Baird, came out to me and said the governor was extremely busy in writing, but would be down at Newcastle before the ship, and then the letters would be delivered to me. Ralph, though married, and having one child, had determined to accompany me in this voyage. It was thought he intended to establish a correspondence and obtain goods to sell on commission; but I found after, that, having some cause of discontent with his wife's relations, he proposed to leave her on their hands and never return to America. Having taken leave of my friends and exchanged promises with Miss Read, I quitted Philadelphia in the ship, which anchored at Newcastle. The governor was there, but when I went to his lodging, his secretary came to me from him with expressions of the greatest regret that he could not then see me, being engaged in business of importance; but that he would send the letters to me on board, wishing me heartily a good voyage and a speedy return, &c. I returned on board a little puzzled, but still not doubting. Mr. Andrew Hamilton, a celebrated lawyer of Philadelphia, had taken his passage in the same ship for himself and son, with Mr. Denham, a Quaker merchant, and Messrs. Oniam and Russel (masters of an iron work in Maryland), who had engaged the great cabin; so that Ralph and I were forced to take up with a birth in the steerage, and, none on board knowing us, were considered as ordinary persons. But Mr. Hamilton and his son (it was James, since governor) returned from Newcastle to Philadelphia, the father being recalled by a great fee to plead for a seized ship. And just before we sailed, Colonel French coming on board, and showing me great respect, I was more taken notice of; and, with my friend Ralph, invited by the other gentlemen to come into the cabin, there being now room; accordingly, we removed thither. Understanding that Colonel French had brought on board the governor's despatches, I asked the captain for those letters that were to be under my care; he said all were put into the bag together, and he could not then come at them, but before we landed in England I should have an opportunity of picking them out; so I was satisfied for the present, and we proceeded on our voyage. We had a sociable company in the cabin, and lived uncommonly well, having the addition of all Mr. Hamilton's stores, who had laid in plentifully. In this passage Mr. Denham contracted a friendship for me, that continued during his life. The voyage was otherwise not a pleasant one, as we had a great deal of bad weather. When we came into the Channel, the captain kept his word with me, and gave me an opportunity of examining the bag for the governor's letters; I found some upon which my name was put, as under my care: I picked out six or seven, that by the handwriting I thought might be the promised letters, especially as one of them was addressed to Basket, the king's printer, and another to some stationer. We arrived in London the 24th December, 1724. I waited upon the stationer, who came first in my way, delivering the letter as from Governor Keith. "I don't know such a person," said he: but opening the letter, "Oh! this is from Riddlesden. I have lately found him to be a complete rascal, and I will have nothing to do with him, nor receive any letters from him." So, putting the letter into my hand, he turned on his heel and left me to serve some customer. I was surprised to find these were not the governor's letters; and, after recollecting and comparing circumstances, I began to doubt his sincerity. I found my friend Denham, and opened the whole affair to him. He let me into Keith's character; told me there was not the least probability that he had written any letters for me; that no one who knew him had the smallest dependance on him; and he laughed at the idea of the governor's giving me a letter of credit, having, as he said, no credit to give. On my expressing some concern about what I should do, he advised me to endeavour to get some employment in the way of my business. Among the printers here, said he, you will improve yourself, and when you return to America you will set up to greater advantage. We both of us happened to know, as well as the stationer, that Riddlesden, the attorney, was a very knave; he had half ruined Miss Read's father, by persuading him to be bound for him. By his letter it appeared there was a secret scheme on foot to the prejudice of Mr. Hamilton (supposed to be then coming over with us); that Keith was concerned in it, with Riddlesden. Denham, who was a friend of Hamilton's, thought he ought to be acquainted with it; so, when he arrived in England, which was soon after, partly from resentment and ill will to Keith and Riddlesden, and partly from good will to him, I waited on him and gave him the letter. He thanked me cordially, the information being of importance to him; and from that time he became my friend, greatly to my advantage afterward on many occasions. But what shall we think of a governor playing such pitiful tricks, and imposing so grossly upon a poor ignorant boy! It was a habit he had acquired; he wished to please everybody, and having little to give, he gave expectations. He was otherwise an ingenious, sensible man, a pretty good writer, and a good governor for the people, though not for his constituents the proprietaries, whose instructions he sometimes disregarded: several of our best laws were of his planning, and passed during his administration. Ralph and I were inseparable companions. We took lodgings together in Little Britain, at 3s. 6d. per week; as much as we could then afford. He found some relations, but they were poor, and unable to assist him. He now let me know his intentions of remaining in London, and that he never meant to return to Philadelphia. He had brought no money with him, the whole he could muster having been expended in paying his passage. I had fifteen pistoles; so he borrowed occasionally of me to subsist, while he was looking out for business. He first endeavoured to get into the playhouse, believing himself qualified for an actor; but Wilkes to whom he applied, advised him candidly not to think of that employment, as it was impossible he should succeed in it. Then he proposed to Roberts, a publisher in Paternoster Row, to write for him a weekly paper like the Spectator, on certain conditions; which Roberts did not approve. Then he endeavoured to get employment as a hackney-writer, to copy for the stationers and lawyers about the Temple; but could not find a vacancy. For myself, I immediately got into work at Palmer's, a famous printing-house in Bartholomew Close, where I continued near a year. I was pretty diligent, but I spent with Ralph a good deal of my earnings, at plays and public amusements; we had nearly consumed all my pistoles, and now just rubbed on from hand to mouth. He seemed quite to have forgotten his wife and child; and I, by degrees, my engagements with Miss Read, to whom I never wrote more than one letter, and that was to let her know I was not likely soon to return. This was another of the great _errata_ of my life which I could wish to correct if I were to live it over again In fact, by our expenses I was constantly kept unable to pay my passage. At Palmer's I was employed in composing for the second edition of Woollaston's Religion of Nature. Some of his reasonings not appearing to me well-founded, I wrote a little metaphysical piece, in which I made remarks on them. It was entitled, "_A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain_." I inscribed it to my friend Ralph; I printed a small number. It occasioned my being more considered by Mr. Palmer as a young man of some ingenuity, though he seriously expostulated with me upon the principles of my pamphlet, which to him appeared abominable. My printing this pamphlet was another _erratum_. While I lodged in _Little Britain_, I made acquaintance with one Wilcox, a bookseller, whose shop was next door. He had an immense collection of second-hand books. Circulating libraries were not then in use, but we agreed that on certain reasonable terms (which I have now forgotten), I might take, read, and return any of his books; this I esteemed a great advantage, and I made as much use of it as I could. My pamphlet by some means falling into the hands of one Lyons, a surgeon, author of a book entitled "_The Infallibility of Human Judgment_," it occasioned an acquaintance between us; he took great notice of me, called on me often to converse on those subjects, carried me to the Horns, a pale alehouse in ---- lane, Cheapside, and introduced me to Dr. Mandeville, author of the Fable of the Bees, who had a club there, of which he was the soul, being a most facetious, entertaining companion. Lyons, too, introduced me to Dr. Pemberton,[7] at Baston's Coffee-house, who promised to give me an opportunity, some time or other, of seeing Sir Isaac Newton, of which I was extremely desirous; but this never happened. I had brought over a few curiosities, among which the principal was a purse made of the _asbestos_, which purifies by fire. Sir Hans Sloane heard of it, came to see me, invited me to his house in Bloomsbury Square, showed me all his curiosities, and persuaded me to add that to the number; for which he paid me handsomely. At my first admission into the printing-house I took to working at press, imagining I felt a want of the bodily exercise I had been used to in America, where presswork is mixed with the composing. I drank only water; the other workmen, near fifty in number, were great drinkers of beer. On occasion, I carried up and down stairs a large form of types in each hand, when others carried but one in both hands; they wondered to see, from this and several instances, that the _Water American_, as they called me, was _stronger_ than themselves who drank _strong_ beer! We had an alehouse-boy, who attended always in the house to supply the workmen. My companion at the press drank every day a pint before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and cheese, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner; a pint in the afternoon about six o'clock, and another when he had done his day's work. I thought it a detestable custom; but it was necessary, he supposed, to drink _strong_ beer, that he might be _strong_ to labour. I endeavoured to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer could only be in proportion to the grain or flour of the barley dissolved in the water of which it was made; that there was more flour in a pennyworth of bread, and, therefore, if he could eat that with a pint of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer. He drank on, however, and had four or five shillings to pay out of his wages every Saturday night for that vile liquor: an expense I was free from; and thus these poor devils keep themselves always under. Watts, after some weeks, desiring to have me in the composing-room, I left the pressmen; a new _bien venu_ for drink (being five shillings) was demanded of me by the compositors. I thought it an imposition, as I had paid one to the pressmen; the master thought so too, and forbade my paying it. I stood out two or three weeks, was accordingly considered as an excommunicate, and had so many little pieces of private malice practised on me, by mixing my sorts, transposing and breaking my matter, &c., &c., if ever I stepped out of the room, and all ascribed to the _chapel ghost_, which they said ever haunted those not regularly admitted, that, notwithstanding the master's protection, I found myself obliged to comply and pay the money, convinced of the folly of being on ill terms with those one is to live with continually. I was now on a fair footing with them, and soon acquired considerable influence. I proposed some reasonable alterations in their _chapel_[8] laws, and carried them against all opposition. From my example a great many of them left their muddling breakfast of beer, bread and cheese, finding they could with me be supplied from a neighbouring house with a large porringer of hot water-gruel, sprinkled with pepper, crumbled with bread, and a bit of butter in it, for the price of a pint of beer, viz., three halfpence. This was a more comfortable as well as a cheaper breakfast, and kept their heads clearer. Those who continued sotting with their beer all day, were often, by not paying, out of credit at the alehouse, and used to make interest with me to get beer, their _light_, as they phrased it, _being out_. I watched the pay-table on Saturday night, and collected what I stood engaged for them, having to pay sometimes near thirty shillings a week on their accounts. This, and my being esteemed a pretty good _rig-ite_, that is, a jocular verbal satirist, supported my consequence in the society. My constant attendance (I never making a _St. Monday_) recommended me to the master; and my uncommon quickness at composing occasioned my being put upon work of despatch, which was generally better paid; so I went on now very agreeably. My lodgings in Little Britain being too remote, I found another in Duke-street, opposite to the Romish Chapel. It was up three flights of stairs backward, at an Italian warehouse. A widow lady kept the house; she had a daughter, and a maidservant, and a journeyman who attended the warehouse, but lodged abroad. After sending to inquire my character at the house where I last lodged, she agreed to take me in at the same rate, 3_s._ 6_d._ per week; cheaper, as she said, from the protection she expected in having a man to lodge in the house. She was a widow, an elderly woman; had been bred a Protestant, being a clergyman's daughter, but was converted to the Catholic religion by her husband, whose memory she much revered; had lived much among people of distinction, and knew a thousand anecdotes of them, as far back as Charles the Second. She was lame in her knees with the gout, and therefore seldom stirred out of her room, so she sometimes wanted company; and hers was so highly amusing to me, that I was sure to spend an evening with her whenever she desired it. Our supper was only half an anchovy each, on a very little slice of bread and butter, and half a pint of ale between us; but the entertainment was in her conversation. My always keeping good hours, and giving little trouble in the family, made her unwilling to part with me; so that, when I talked of a lodging I had heard of nearer my business, for 2_s._ a week, which, intent as I was on saving money, made some difference, she bid me not think of it, for she would abate me 2_s._ a week for the future; so I remained with her at 1_s._ 6_d._ as long as I stayed in London. In a garret of her house there lived a maiden lady of seventy, in the most retired manner, of whom my landlady gave me this account: that she was a Roman Catholic, had been sent abroad when young, and lodged in a nunnery with an intent of becoming a nun; but, the country not agreeing with her, she returned to England, where, there being no nunnery, she had vowed to lead the life of a nun as near as might be done in those circumstances. Accordingly, she had given all her estate to charitable purposes, reserving only twelve pounds a year to live on, and out of this sum she still gave a part in charity, living herself on water-gruel only, and using no fire but to boil it. She had lived many years in that garret, being permitted to remain there gratis by successive Catholic tenants of the house below, as they deemed it a blessing to have her there. A priest visited her to confess her every day: "from this I asked her," said my landlady, "how she, as she lived, could possibly find so much employment for a confessor." "Oh," said she, "it is impossible to avoid _vain thoughts_." I was permitted once to visit her; she was cheerful and polite, and conversed pleasantly. The room was clean, but had no other furniture than a mattress, a table with a crucifix, and a book, a stool which she gave me to sit on, and a picture over the chimney of _St. Veronica_ displaying her handkerchief, with the miraculous figure of Christ's bleeding face on it, which she explained to me with great seriousness. She looked pale, but was never sick, and I give it as another instance on how small an income life and health may be supported. At Watts's printing-house I contracted an acquaintance with an ingenious man, one Wygate, who, having wealthy relations, had been better educated than most printers; was a tolerable Latinist, spoke French, and loved reading. I taught him and a friend of his to swim at twice going into the river, and they soon became good swimmers. They introduced me to some gentlemen from the country, who went to Chelsea by water, to see the college and Don Saltero's curiosities. In our return, at the request of the company, whose curiosity Wygate had excited, I stripped and leaped into the river, and swam from near Chelsea to Blackfriars; performing in the way many feats of activity both upon and under the water, that surprised and pleased those to whom they were novelties. I had from a child been delighted with this exercise, had studied and practised Thevenot's motions and positions, added some of mine own, aiming at the graceful and easy as well as the useful. All these I took this occasion of exhibiting to the company, and was much flattered by their admiration; and Wygate, who was desirous of becoming a master, grew more and more attached to me on that account, as well as from the similarity of our studies. He at length proposed to me travelling all over Europe together, supporting ourselves everywhere by working at our business. I was once inclined to it; but mentioning it to my good friend Mr. Denham, with whom I often spent an hour when I had leisure, he dissuaded me from it, advising me to think only of returning to Pennsylvania, which he was now about to do. I must record one trait of this good man's character: he had formerly been in business at Bristol, but failed in debt to a number of people, compounded and went to America; there, by a close application to business as a merchant, he acquired a plentiful fortune in a few years. Returning to England in the ship with me, he invited his old creditors to an entertainment, at which he thanked them for the easy composition they had favoured him with, and when they expected nothing but the treat, every man at the first remove found under his plate an order on a banker for the full amount of the unpaid remainder, with interest. He now told me he was about to return to Philadelphia, and should carry over a great quantity of goods in order to open a store there. He proposed to take me over as his clerk, to keep his books (in which he would instruct me), copy his letters, and attend the store; he added, that, as soon as I should be acquainted with mercantile business, he would promote me, by sending me with a cargo of flour and bread, &c., to the West Indies, and procure me commissions from others which would be profitable; and, if I managed well, would establish me handsomely. The thing pleased me, for I was grown tired of London; remembered with pleasure the happy months I had spent in Pennsylvania, and wished again to see it; therefore I immediately agreed on the terms of fifty pounds a year, Pennsylvania money; less, indeed, than my present gettings as a compositor, but affording better prospects. I now took leave of printing, as I thought, for ever, and was daily employed in my new business: going about with Mr. Denham among the tradesmen, to purchase various articles and see them packed up, delivering messages, calling upon workmen to despatch, &c.; and, when all was on board, I had a few days' leisure. On one of these days I was, to my surprise, sent for by a great man, I knew only by name (Sir William Wyndham), and I waited upon him; he had heard, by some means or other, of my swimming from Chelsea to Blackfriars, and of my teaching Wygate and another young man to swim in a few hours: he had two sons, about to set out on their travels; he wished to have them first taught swimming, and proposed to gratify me handsomely if I would teach them. They were not yet come to town, and my stay was uncertain, so I could not undertake it; but from the incident I thought it likely, that if I were to remain in England and open a swimming school, I might get a good deal of money; and it struck me so strongly, that, had the overture been made me sooner, probably I should not so soon have returned to America. Many years after, you and I had something of more importance to do with one of those sons of Sir William Wyndham, become Earl of Egremont, which I shall mention in its place. Thus I passed about eighteen months in London, most part of the time I worked hard at my business, and spent but little upon myself, except in seeing plays and in books. My friend Ralph had kept me poor; he owed me about twenty-seven pounds, which I was now never likely to receive; a great sum out of my small earnings! I loved him, notwithstanding, for he had many amiable qualities. I had improved my knowledge, however, though I had by no means improved my fortune; but I had made some very ingenious acquaintance, whose conversation was of great advantage to me, and I had read considerably. We sailed from Gravesend on the 23d of July, 1726. For the incidents of the voyage I refer you to my journal, where you will find them all minutely related. Perhaps the most important part of that journal is the _plan_ to be found in it, which I formed at sea, for regulating the future conduct of my life. It is the more remarkable as being formed when I was so young, and yet being pretty faithfully adhered to quite through to old age. We landed at Philadelphia the 11th of October, where I found sundry alterations. Keith was no longer governor, being superseded by Major Gordon; I met him walking the streets as a common citizen; he seemed a little ashamed at seeing me, and passed without saying anything. I should have been as much ashamed at seeing Miss Read, had not her friends, despairing with reason of my return after the receipt of my letter, persuaded her to marry another, one Rogers, a potter, which was done in my absence. With him, however, she was never happy, and soon parted from him, refusing to cohabit with him or bear his name, it being now said he had another wife. He was a worthless fellow, though an excellent workman, which was the temptation to her friends; he got into debt, ran away in 1727 or 1728, went to the West Indies, and died there. Keimer had got a better house, a shop well supplied with stationary, plenty of new types, and a number of hands, though none good, and seemed to have a great deal of business. Mr. Denham took a store in Water-street, where we opened our goods; I attended the business diligently, studied accounts, and grew in a little time expert at selling. We lodged and boarded together; he counselled me as a father, having a sincere regard for me: I respected and loved him, and we might have gone on together very happily, but in the beginning of February, 1727, when I had just passed my twenty-first year, we both were taken ill. My distemper was a pleurisy, which very nearly carried me off; I suffered a good deal, gave up the point in my own mind, and was at the time rather disappointed when I found myself recovering; regretting in some degree that I must now, some time or other, have all that disagreeable work to go over again. I forget what Mr. Denham's distemper was; it held him a long time, and at length carried him off. He left me a small legacy in a nuncupative will, as a token of his kindness to me, and he left me once more to the wide world, for the store was taken into the care of his executors, and my employment under him ended. My brother-in-law, Holmes, being now at Philadelphia, advised my return to my business; and Keimer tempted me with an offer of large wages by the year, to come and take the management of his printing-house, that he might better attend to his stationer's shop. I had heard a bad character of him in London from his wife and her friends, and was not for having any more to do with him. I wished for employment as a merchant's clerk, but not meeting with any, I closed again with Keimer. I found in his house these hands: Hugh Meredith, a Welsh Pennsylvanian, thirty years of age, bred to country work; he was honest, sensible, a man of experience, and fond of reading, but addicted to drinking. Stephen Potts, a young countryman of full age, bred to the same, of uncommon natural parts, and great wit and humour, but a little idle. These he had agreed with at extreme low wages per week, to be raised a shilling every three months as they should deserve by improving in their business; and the expectation of these high wages to come on hereafter was what he had drawn them in with. Meredith was to work at press, Potts at bookbinding, which he, by agreement, was to teach them, though he knew neither one nor the other. John Savage, an Irishman, brought up to no business, whose service for four years Keimer had purchased from the captain of a ship; he too was to be made a pressman. George Webb, an Oxford scholar, whose time for four years he had likewise bought, intending him for a compositor (of whom more presently), and David Harry, a country boy, whom he had taken apprentice. I soon perceived that the intention of engaging me, at wages so much higher than he had been used to give, was to have these raw, cheap hands formed through me; and, as soon as I had instructed them (they being all articled to him), he should be able to do without me. I went, however, very cheerfully, put his printing-house in order, which had been in great confusion, and brought his hands by degrees to mind their business, and to do it better. It was an odd thing to find an Oxford scholar in the situation of a bought servant; he was not more than eighteen years of age; he gave me this account of himself: that he was born in Gloucester, educated at a grammar-school, and had been distinguished among the scholars for some apparent superiority in performing his part when they exhibited plays; belonged to the Wit's club there, and had written some pieces in prose and verse, which were printed in the Gloucester newspapers; thence was sent to Oxford; there he continued about a year, but not well satisfied, wishing of all things to see London and become a player. At length, receiving his quarterly allowance of fifteen guineas instead of discharging his debts he went out of town, hid his gown in a furz bush, and walked to London, where, having no friend to advise him, he fell into bad company, soon spent his guineas, found no means of being introduced among the players, grew necessitous, pawned his clothes, and wanted bread. Walking the street, very hungry, and not knowing what to do with himself, a crimp's bill was put into his hand, offering immediate entertainment and encouragement to such as would bind themselves to serve in America; he went directly, signed the indentures, was put into the ship, and came over, never writing a line to his friends to acquaint them what was become of him. He was lively, witty, good-natured, and a pleasant companion; but idle, thoughtless, and imprudent to the last degree. John, the Irishman, soon ran away; with the rest I began to live very agreeably, for they all respected me the more, as they found Keimer incapable of instructing them, and that from me they learned something daily. My acquaintance with ingenious people in the town increased. We never worked on Saturday, that being Keimer's Sabbath, so that I had two days for reading. Keimer himself treated me with great civility and apparent regard, and nothing now made me uneasy but my debt to Vernon, which I was yet unable to pay, being hitherto but a poor economist; he, however, kindly made no demand of it. Our printing-house often wanted sorts, and there was no letter foundry in America. I had seen types cast at James's in London, but without much attention to the manner; however, I now contrived a mould, and made use of the letters we had as puncheons, struck the matrices in lead, and thus supplied, in a pretty tolerable way, all deficiencies. I also engraved several things on occasion; made the ink; I was warehouse-man, and, in short, quite a _factotum_. But, however serviceable I might be, I found that my services became every day of less importance, as the other hands improved in their business; and when Keimer paid me a second quarter's wages, he let me know that he felt them too heavy, and thought I should make an abatement. He grew by degrees less civil, put on more the airs of master, frequently found fault, was captious, and seemed ready for an outbreaking. I went on, nevertheless, with a good deal of patience, thinking that his encumbered circumstances were partly the cause. At length a trifle snapped our connexion; for a great noise happening near the courthouse, I put my head out of the window to see what was the matter. Keimer, being in the street, looked up and saw me; called out to me in a loud voice and an angry tone, to mind my business; adding some reproachful words, that nettled me the more for their publicity; all the neighbours, who were looking out on the same occasion, being witnesses how I was treated. He came up immediately into the printing-house; continued the quarrel; high words passed on both sides; he gave me the quarter's warning we had stipulated, expressing a wish that he had not been obliged to so long a warning. I told him his wish was unnecessary, for I would leave him that instant; and so, taking my hat, walked out of doors, desiring Meredith, whom I saw below, to take care of some things I left and bring them to my lodgings. Meredith came accordingly in the evening, when we talked my affair over. He had conceived a great regard for me, and was very unwilling that I should leave the house while he remained in it. He dissuaded me from returning to my native country, which I began to think of; he reminded me that Keimer was in debt for all he possessed; that his creditors began to be uneasy; that he kept his shop miserably, sold often without a profit for ready money, and often trusted without keeping accounts that he must therefore fail, which would make a vacancy I might profit of. I objected my want of money. He then let me know that his father had a high opinion of me, and, from some discourse that had passed between them, he was sure he would advance money to set me up, if I would enter into partnership with him. My time, said he, will be out with Keimer in the spring; by that time we may have our press and types in from London. I am sensible I am no workman: if you like it, your skill in the business shall be set against the stock I furnish, and we will share the profits equally. The proposal was agreeable to me, and I consented; his father was in town and approved of it; the more, he said, as I had great influence with his son; had prevailed on him to abstain long from dram-drinking, and he hoped might break him of that wretched habit entirely when we came to be so closely connected. I gave an inventory to the father, who carried it to a merchant: the things were sent for, the secret was to be kept till they should arrive, and in the mean time I was to get work, if I could, at the other printing-house. But I found no vacancy there, and so remained idle a few days, when Keimer, on a prospect of being employed to print some paper money in New-Jersey, which would require cuts and various types that I only could supply, and apprehending Bradford might engage me and get the job from him, sent me a very civil message, that old friends should not part for a few words, the effect of sudden passion, and wishing me to return. Meredith persuaded me to comply, as it would give more opportunity for his improvement under my daily instructions; so I returned, and we went on more smoothly than for some time before. The New-Jersey job was obtained; I contrived a copperplate press for it, the first that had been seen in the country; I cut several ornaments and checks for the bills. We went together to Burlington, where I executed the whole to satisfaction; and he received so large a sum for the work as to be enabled thereby to keep himself longer from ruin. At Burlington I made an acquaintance with many principal people of the province. Several of them had been appointed by the Assembly a committee to attend the press, and take care that no more bills were printed than the law directed. They were, therefore, by turns, constantly with us, and generally he who attended brought with him a friend or two for company. My mind having been much more improved by reading than Keimer's, I suppose it was for that reason my conversation seemed to be more valued. They had me to their houses, introduced me to their friends, and showed me much civility; while he, though the master, was a little neglected. In truth, he was an odd creature; ignorant of common life, fond of rudely opposing received opinions; slovenly to extreme dirtiness; enthusiastic in some points of religion, and a little knavish withal. We continued there near three months, and by that time I could reckon among my acquired friends Judge Allen, Samuel Bustill, the secretary of the province, Isaac Pearson, Joseph Cooper, and several of the Smiths, members of Assembly, and Isaac Decow, the surveyor-general. The latter was a shrewd, sagacious old man, who told me that he began for himself, when young, by wheeling clay for the brickmakers, learned to write after he was of age, carried the chain for surveyors, who taught him surveying, and he had now, by his industry, acquired a good estate; and, said he, I foresee you will soon work this man out of his business, and make a fortune in it at Philadelphia. He had then not the least intimation of my intention to set up there or anywhere. These friends were afterward of great use to me, as I occasionally was to some of them. They all continued their regard for me as long as they lived. Before I enter upon my public appearance in business, it may be well to let you know the then state of my mind with regard to my principles and morals, that you may see how far those influenced the future events of my life. My parents had early given me religious impressions, and brought me through my childhood piously in the dissenting way. But I was scarce fifteen, when, after doubting by turns several points, as I found them disputed in the different books I read, I began to doubt of the revelation itself. Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of the sermons which had been preached at Boyle's Lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutation; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist. My arguments perverted some others, particularly Collins and Ralph: but each of these having wronged me greatly without the least compunction; and recollecting Keith's conduct towards me (who was another freethinker), and my own towards Vernon and Miss Read, which at times gave me great trouble, I began to suspect that this doctrine, though it might be true, was not very useful. My London pamphlet (printed in 1725)--which had for its motto these lines of Dryden: "Whatever is, is right. Though purblind man Sees but a part o' the chain, the nearest link, His eye not carrying to that equal beam That poises all above--" and which, from the attributes of God, his infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, concluded that nothing could possibly be wrong in the world; and that vice and virtue were empty distinctions, no such things existing--appeared now not so clever a performance as I once thought it; and I doubted whether some error had not insinuated itself unperceived into my argument, so as to infect all that followed, as is common in metaphysical reasonings. I grew convinced that _truth_, _sincerity_, and _integrity_, in dealings between man and man, were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life; and I formed written resolutions (which still remain in my journal-book) to practise them ever while I lived. Revelation had indeed no weight with me as such; but I entertained an opinion that, though certain actions might not be bad _because_ they were forbidden by it, or good _because_ it commanded them, yet probably those actions might be forbidden _because_ they were bad for us, or commanded _because_ they were beneficial to us, in their own natures, all the circumstances of things considered. And this persuasion, with the kind hand of Providence, or some guardian angel, or accidental favourable circumstances and situations, or all together, preserved me through the dangerous time of youth and the hazardous situations I was sometimes in among strangers, remote from the eye and advice of my father, free from any _wilful_ gross immorality or injustice that might have been expected from my want of religion; I say _wilful_, because the instances I have mentioned had something of _necessity_ in them, from my youth, inexperience, and the knavery of others: I had, therefore, a tolerable character to begin the world with; I valued it properly, and determined to preserve it. We had not been long returned to Philadelphia before the new types arrived from London. We settled with Keimer, and left him by his consent before he heard of it. We found a house to hire near the market, and took it. To lessen the rent (which was then but twenty-four pounds a year, though I have since known it to let for seventy), we took in Thomas Godfrey, a glazier, and his family, who were to pay a considerable part of it to us, and we to board with them. We had scarce opened our letters and put our press in order, before George House, an acquaintance of mine, brought a countryman to us, whom he had met in the street inquiring for a printer. All our cash was now expended in the variety of particulars we had been obliged to procure, and this countryman's five shillings, being our first fruits, and coming so seasonably, gave me more pleasure than any crown I have since earned; and, from the gratitude I felt towards House, has made me often more ready than perhaps I otherwise should have been, to assist young beginners. There are croakers in every country always boding its ruin. Such a one there lived in Philadelphia, a person of note, an elderly man, with a wise look and a very grave manner of speaking; his name was Samuel Mickle. This gentleman, a stranger to me, stopped me one day at my door, and asked me if I was the young man who had lately opened a new printing-house. Being answered in the affirmative, he said he was sorry for me, because it was an expensive undertaking, and the expense would be lost, for Philadelphia was a sinking place; the people already half bankrupts, or near being so; all the appearances of the country, such as new buildings and the rise of rents, being to his certain knowledge fallacious; for they were, in fact, among the things that would ruin us. Then he gave me such a detail of misfortunes now existing, or that were soon to exist, that he left me half melancholy. Had I known him before I engaged in this business, probably I never should have done it. This person continued to live in this _decaying place_, and to declaim in the same strain, refusing for many years to buy a house there, because all was going to destruction; and at last I had the pleasure of seeing him give five times as much for one as he might have bought it for when he first began croaking. I should have mentioned before, that in the autumn of the preceding year I had formed most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club for mutual improvement, which we called the JUNTO; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member in his turn should produce one or more queries on any point of morals, politics, or natural philosophy, to be discussed by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased. Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute or desire of victory; and to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions or direct contradiction were after some time made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties. The first members were Joseph Brientnal, a copier of deeds for the scriveners; a good-natured, friendly, middle-aged man, a great lover of poetry, reading all he could meet with, and writing some that was tolerable; very ingenious in making little knickknackeries, and of sensible conversation. Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught mathematician, great in his way, and afterward inventor of what is now called _Hadley's Quadrant_. But he knew little out of his way, and was not a pleasing companion; as, like most great mathematicians I have met with, he expected universal precision in everything said, or was for ever denying or distinguishing upon trifles, to the disturbance of all conversation; he soon left us. Nicholas Scull, a surveyor, afterward surveyor-general, who loved books, and sometimes made a few verses. William Parsons, bred a shoemaker, but loving reading, had acquired a considerable share of mathematics, which he first studied with a view to astrology, and afterward laughed at it; he also became surveyor-general. William Maugridge, joiner, but a most exquisite mechanic, and a solid, sensible man. Hugh Meredith, Stephen Potts, and George Webb, I have characterized before. Robert Grace, a young gentleman of some fortune, generous, lively, and witty; a lover of punning and of his friends. Lastly, William Coleman, then a merchant's clerk, about my age, who had the coolest, clearest head, the best heart, and the exactest morals of almost any man I ever met with. He became afterward a merchant of great note, and one of our provincial judges. Our friendship continued without interruption to his death, upward of forty years; and the club continued almost as long, and was the best school of philosophy, morality, and politics that then existed in the province; for our queries (which were read the week preceding their discussion) put us upon reading with attention on the several subjects, that we might speak more to the purpose: and here, too, we acquired better habits of conversation, everything being studied in our rules which might prevent our disgusting each other; hence the long continuance of the club, which I shall have frequent occasion to speak farther of hereafter. But my giving this account of it here is to show something of the interest I had, every one of these exerting themselves in recommending business to us. Brientnal particularly procured us from the Quakers the printing of forty sheets of their history, the rest being to be done by Keimer; and upon these we worked exceeding hard, for the price was low. It was a folio, _pro patria_ size, in pica, with long-primer notes. I composed a sheet a day, and Meredith worked it off at press; it was often eleven at night, and sometimes later, before I had finished my distribution for the next day's work, for the little jobs sent in by our other friends now and then put us back. But so determined I was to continue doing a sheet a day of the folio, that one night, when, having imposed my forms, I thought my day's work over, one of them by accident was broken, and two pages reduced to _pi_, I immediately distributed and composed it over again before I went to bed; and this industry, visible to our neighbours, began to give us character and credit; particularly, I was told, that mention being made of the new printing-office at the merchants' every-night club, the general opinion was that it must fail, there being already two printers in the place, Keimer and Bradford; but Dr. Baird (whom you and I saw many years after at his native place, St. Andrew's in Scotland), gave a contrary opinion: "For the industry of that Franklin," said he, "is superior to anything I ever saw of the kind; I see him still at work when I go home from the club, and he is at work again before his neighbours are out of bed." This struck the rest, and we soon after had offers from one of them to supply us with stationary; but, as yet, we did not choose to engage in shop business. I mention this industry the more particularly and the more freely, though it seems to be talking in my own praise, that those of my posterity who shall read it may know the use of that virtue, when they see its effects in my favour throughout this relation. George Webb, who had found a female friend that lent him wherewith to purchase his time of Keimer, now came to offer himself as a journeyman to us. We could not then employ him; but I foolishly let him know, as a secret, that I soon intended to begin a newspaper, and might then have work for him. My hopes of success, as I told him, were founded on this, that the then only newspaper printed by Bradford, was a paltry thing, wretchedly managed, no way entertaining, and yet was profitable to him; I therefore freely thought a good paper would scarcely fail of good encouragement. I requested Webb not to mention it, but he told it to Keimer, who immediately, to be beforehand with me, published proposals for one himself, on which Webb was to be employed. I was vexed at this, and to counteract them, not being able to commence our paper, I wrote several amusing pieces for Bradford's paper, under the title of the BUSYBODY, which Brientnal continued some months. By this means the attention of the public was fixed on that paper, and Keimer's proposals, which we burlesqued and ridiculed, were disregarded. He began his paper, however, and before carrying it on three quarters of a year, with at most only ninety subscribers, he offered it me for a trifle; and I having been ready some time to go on with it, took it in hand directly, and it proved in a few years extremely profitable to me. I perceive that I am apt to speak in the singular number, though our partnership still continued; it may be that, in fact, the whole management of the business lay upon me. Meredith was no compositor, a poor pressman, and seldom sober. My friends lamented my connexion with him, but I was to make the best of it. Our first papers made quite a different appearance from any before printed in the province; a better type, and better printed; but some remarks of my writing on the dispute then going on between Governor Burnet and the Massachusetts Assembly, struck the principal people, occasioned the paper and the manager of it to be much talked of, and in a few weeks brought them all to be our subscribers. Their example was followed by many, and our number went on growing continually. This was one of the first good effects of my having learned a little to scribble; another was, that the leading men, seeing a newspaper now in the hands of those who could also handle a pen, thought it convenient to oblige and encourage me. Bradford still printed the votes, and laws, and other public business. He had printed an address of the house to the governor in a coarse, blundering manner; we reprinted it elegantly and correctly, and sent one to every member. They were sensible of the difference; it strengthened the hands of our friends in the house; and they voted us their printers for the year ensuing. Among my friends in the house I must not forget Mr. Hamilton, before mentioned, who was then returned from England, and had a seat in it. He interested himself for me strongly in that instance, as he did in many others afterward, continuing his patronage till his death.[9] Mr. Vernon, about this time, put me in mind of the debt I owed him, but did not press me. I wrote him an ingenuous letter of acknowledgment, craving his forbearance a little longer, which he allowed me; as soon as I was able, I paid the principal with the interest, and many thanks: so that _erratum_ was in some degree corrected. But now another difficulty came upon me which I had never the least reason to expect. Mr. Meredith's father, who was to have paid for our printing-house, according to the expectations given me, was able to advance only one hundred pounds currency, which had been paid; and a hundred more was due to the merchant, who grew impatient, and sued us all. We gave bail, but saw that, if the money could not be raised in time, the suit must soon come to a judgment and execution, and our hopeful prospects must with us be ruined, as the press and letters must be sold for payment, perhaps at half price. In this distress two true friends, whose kindness I have never forgotten, nor ever shall forget while I can remember anything, came to me separately, unknown to each other, and without any application from me, offered each of them to advance me all the money that should be necessary to enable me to take the whole business upon myself, if that should be practicable; but they did not like my continuing the partnership with Meredith, who, as they said, was often seen drunk in the street, playing at low games in alehouses much to our discredit; these two friends were _William Coleman_ and _Robert Grace_. I told them I could not propose a separation while any prospect remained of the Merediths fulfilling their part of our agreement, because I thought my self under great obligations to them for what they had done and would do if they could: but if they finally failed in their performance, and our partnership must be dissolved, I should then think myself at liberty to accept the assistance of my friends: thus the matter rested for some time; when I said to my partner, perhaps your father is dissatisfied at the part you have undertaken in this affair of ours, and is unwilling to advance for you and me what he would for you? If that is the case, tell me, and I will resign the whole to you, and go about my business. No, said he, my father has really been disappointed, and is really unable; and I am unwilling to distress him farther. I see this is a business I am not fit for. I was bred a farmer, and it was a folly in me to come to town and put myself, at thirty years of age, an apprentice to learn a new trade. Many of our Welsh people are going to settle in North Carolina, where land is cheap. I am inclined to go with them, and follow my old employment: you may find friends to assist you: if you will take the debts of the company upon you, return to my father the hundred pounds he has advanced, pay my little personal debts, and give me thirty pounds and a new saddle, I will relinquish the partnership, and leave the whole in your hands. I agreed to this proposal; it was drawn up in writing, signed and sealed immediately. I gave him what he demanded, and he went soon after to Carolina; whence he sent me, next year, two long letters, containing the best account that had been given of that country, the climate, the soil, husbandry, &c., for in those matters he was very judicious: I printed them in the papers, and they gave great satisfaction to the public. As soon as he was gone I recurred to my two friends; and because I would not give an unkind preference to either, I took half what each had offered, and I wanted, of one, and half of the other; paid off the company's debts, and went on with the business in my own name, advertising that the partnership was dissolved. I think this was in or about the year 1729. About this time there was a cry among the people for more paper money; only fifteen thousand pounds being extant in the province, and that soon to be sunk. The wealthy inhabitants opposed any addition, being against all currency, from the apprehension that it would depreciate, as it had done in New-England, to the injury of all creditors. We had discussed this point in our junto, where I was on the side of an addition; being persuaded that the first small sum, struck in 1723, had done much good by increasing the trade, employment, and number of inhabitants in the province; since I now saw all the old houses inhabited, and many new ones building; whereas I remembered well, when I first walked about the streets of Philadelphia (eating my roll), I saw many of the houses in Walnut-street, between Second and Front streets, with bills on their doors "_to be let_;" and many, likewise, in Chestnut-street and other streets which made me think the inhabitants of the city were one after another deserting it. Our debates possessed me so fully of the subject, that I wrote and printed an anonymous pamphlet on it, entitled, "_The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency_." It was well received by the common people in general, but the rich men disliked it, for it increased and strengthened the clamour for more money; and they happening to have no writers among them that were able to answer it, their opposition slackened, and the point was carried by a majority in the house. My friends there, who considered I had been of some service, thought fit to reward me by employing me in printing the money; a very profitable job, and a great help to me; this was another advantage gained by my being able to write. The utility of this currency became by time and experience so evident, that the principles upon which it was founded were never afterward much disputed; so that it grew soon to fifty-five thousand pounds; and in 1739, to eighty thousand pounds, trade, building, and inhabitants all the while increasing: though I now think there are limits beyond which the quantity may be hurtful. I soon after obtained, through my friend Hamilton, the printing of the Newcastle paper money, another profitable job, as I then thought it, small things appearing great to those in small circumstances: and these to me were really great advantages, as they were great encouragements. Mr. Hamilton procured me also the printing of the laws and votes of that government, which continued in my hands as long as I followed the business. I now opened a small stationer's shop: I had in it blanks of all kinds, the correctest that ever appeared among us. I was assisted in that by my friend Breintnal: I had also paper, parchment, chapmen's books, &c. One Whitemash, a compositor I had known in London, an excellent workman, now came to me, and worked with me constantly and diligently; and I took an apprentice, the son of Aquilla Rose. I began now gradually to pay off the debt I was under for the printing-house. In order to secure my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care not only to be in _reality_ industrious and frugal, but to avoid the appearances to the contrary. I dressed plain, and was seen at no places of idle diversion: I never went out a fishing or shooting: a book, indeed, sometimes debauched me from my work, but that was seldom, was private, and gave no scandal: and to show that I was not above my business, I sometimes brought home the paper I purchased at the stores through the streets on a wheelbarrow. Thus, being esteemed an industrious, thriving young man, and paying duly for what I bought, the merchants who imported stationary solicited my custom; others proposed supplying me with books, and I went on prosperously. In the mean time Keimer's credit and business declining daily, he was at last forced to sell his printing-house to satisfy his creditors. He went to Barbadoes, and there lived some years in very poor circumstances. His apprentice, David Harry, whom I had instructed while I worked with him, set up in his place at Philadelphia, having bought his materials. I was at first apprehensive of a powerful rival in Harry, as his friends were very able, and had a good deal of interest: I therefore proposed a partnership to him, which he, fortunately for me, rejected with scorn. He was very proud, dressed like a gentleman, lived expensively, took much diversion and pleasure abroad, ran in debt, and neglected his business; upon which, all business left him; and, finding nothing to do, he followed Keimer to Barbadoes, taking the printing-house with him. There this apprentice employed his former master as a journeyman; they quarrelled often, and Harry went continually behindhand, and at length was obliged to sell his types and return to country-work in Pennsylvania. The person who bought them employed Keimer to use them, but a few years after he died. There remained now no other printer in Philadelphia but the old Bradford; but he was rich and easy, did a little in the business by straggling hands, but was not anxious about it: however, as he held the postoffice, it was imagined he had better opportunities of obtaining news, his paper was thought a better distributor of advertisements than mine, and therefore had many more; which was a profitable thing to him, and a disadvantage to me. For though I did indeed receive and send papers by the post, yet the public opinion was otherwise; for what I did send was by bribing the riders, who took them privately; Bradford being unkind enough to forbid it, which occasioned some resentment on my part, and I thought so meanly of the practice, that, when I afterward came into his situation, I took care never to imitate it. I had hitherto continued to board with Godfrey, who lived in part of my house with his wife and children, and had one side of the shop for his glazier's business, though he worked little, being always absorbed in his mathematics. Mrs. Godfrey projected a match for me with a relation's daughter, took opportunities of bringing us often together, till a serious courtship on my part ensued, the girl being in herself very deserving. The old folks encouraged me by continual invitations to supper, and by leaving us together, till at length it was time to explain. Mrs. Godfrey managed our little treaty. I let her know that I expected as much money with their daughter as would pay off my remaining debt for the printing-house; which I believe was not then above a hundred pounds. She brought me word they had no such sum to spare: I said they might mortgage their house in the loan office. The answer to this after some days was, that they did not approve the match; that, on inquiry of Bradford, they had been informed the printing business was not a profitable one; the types would soon be worn out, and more wanted; that Keimer and David Harry had failed one after the other, and I should probably soon follow them; and, therefore, I was forbidden the house, and the daughter shut up. Whether this was a real change of sentiment, or only artifice on a supposition of our being too far engaged in affection to retract, and therefore that we should steal a marriage, which would leave them at liberty to give or withhold what they pleased, I know not. But I suspected the motive, resented it, and went no more. Mrs. Godfrey brought me afterward some more favourable accounts of their disposition, and would have drawn me on again; but I declared absolutely my resolution to have nothing more to do with that family. This was resented by the Godfreys; we differed, and they removed, leaving me the whole house, and I resolved to take no more inmates. But this affair having turned my thoughts to marriage, I looked round me and made overtures of acquaintance in other places; but soon found that the business of a printer being generally thought a poor one, I was not to expect money with a wife, unless with such a one as I should not otherwise think agreeable. A friendly correspondence, as neighbours, had continued between me and Miss Read's family, who all had a regard for me from the time of my first lodging in their house. I was often invited there, and consulted in their affairs, wherein I sometimes was of service. I pitied poor Miss Read's unfortunate situation, who was generally dejected, seldom cheerful, and avoided company: I considered my giddiness and inconstancy when in London, as in a great degree the cause of her unhappiness, though the mother was good enough to think the fault more her own than mine, as she had prevented our marrying before I went thither, and persuaded the other match in my absence. Our mutual affection was revived, but there was now great objections to our union; that match was indeed looked upon as invalid, a preceding wife being said to be living in England; but this could not easily be proved, because of the distance, &c., and though there was a report of his death, it was not certain. Then, though it should be true, he had left many debts which his successor might be called upon to pay: we ventured, however, over all these difficulties, and I took her to wife, Sept. 1, 1730. None of the inconveniences happened that we had apprehended; she proved a good and faithful helpmate, assisted me much by attending to the shop; we throve together, and ever mutually endeavoured to make each other happy. Thus I corrected that great _erratum_ as well as I could. About this time our club, meeting, not at a tavern, but in a little room of Mr. Grace's set apart for that purpose, a proposition was made by me, that, since our books were often referred to in our disquisitions upon the queries, it might be convenient to us to have them all together when we met, that, upon occasion, they might be consulted; and by thus clubbing our books to a common library, we should, while we liked to keep them together, have each of us the advantage of using the books of all the other members, which would be nearly as beneficial as if each owned the whole. It was liked and agreed to, and we filled one end of the room with such books as we could best spare. The number was not so great as we expected; and though they had been of great use, yet some inconveniences occurring for want of due care of them, the collection, after about a year, was separated, and each took his books home again. And now I set on foot my first project of a public nature, that for a subscription library; I drew up the proposals, got them put into form by our great scrivener, Brockden, and, by the help of my friends in the junto, procured fifty subscribers of forty shillings each to begin with, and ten shillings a year for fifty years, the term our company was to continue. We afterward obtained a charter, the company being increased to one hundred; this was the mother of all the North American subscription libraries, now so numerous. It is become a great thing itself, and continually goes on increasing: these libraries have improved the general conversation of the Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and perhaps have contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the colonies in defence of their privileges. [Thus far was written with the intention expressed in the beginning; and, getting abroad, it excited great interest on account of its simplicity and candour; and induced many applications for a continuance. What follows was written many years after, in compliance with the advice contained in the letters that follow, and has, therefore, less of a family picture and more of a public character. The American revolution occasioned the interruption.] FOOTNOTES: [1] Dr. Shipley. [2] Perhaps from the time when the name of FRANKLIN, which before was the name of an order of people, was assumed by them for a _surname_, when others took surnames all over the kingdom. As a proof that Franklin was anciently the common name of an order or rank in England, see Judge Fortescue, _De laudibus Legum Angliæ_, written about the year 1412, in which is the following passage, to show that good juries might easily be formed in any part of England: "Regio etiam illa, ita respersa refertaque est _possessoribus terrarum_ et agrorum, quod in ea, villula tam parva reperiri non poterit, in qua non est _miles_, _armiger_, vel pater-familias, qualis ibidem _Frankleri_ vulgariter nuncupatur, magnis ditatus possessionibus, nec non libere tenentes et alii _valecti_ plurimi, suis patrimoniis sufficientes, ad faciendum juratam, in forma prænotata. "Moreover, the same country is so filled and replenished with landed menne, that therein so small a thorpe cannot be found wherein dweleth not a knight, an esquire, or such a householder as is there commonly called a _Franklin_, enriched with great possessions; and also other freeholders and many yeomen, able for their livelihoodes to make a jury in form aforementioned."--_Old Translation._ Chaucer, too, calls his country-gentleman a _Franklin_; and after describing his good housekeeping, thus characterizes him: "This worthy Franklin bore a purse of silk Fix'd to his girdle, white as morning milk; Knight of the shire, first justice at th' assize, To help the poor, the doubtful to advise. In all employments, generous, just he proved, Renown'd for courtesy, by all beloved." [3] _Copy of an original letter, found among Dr. Franklin's papers, from Josiah to B. Franklin._ Boston, May 26, 1739. LOVING SON,--As to the original of our name there is various opinions; some say that it came from a sort of title of which a book, that you bought when here, gives a lively account. Some think we are of a French extract, which was formerly called Franks; some of a free line; a line free from that vassalage which was common to subjects in days of old; some from a bird of long red legs. Your uncle Benjamin made inquiry of one skilled in heraldry, who told him there is two coats of armour, one belonging to the Franklins of the north, and one to the Franklins of the west. However, our circumstances have been such as that it hath hardly been worth while to concern ourselves much about these things, any farther than to tickle the fancy a little. The first that I can give account of is my great grandfather, as it was a custom in those days among young men too many times to goe to seek their fortune, and in his travels he went upon liking to a taylor; but he kept such a stingy house, that he left him and travelled farther, and came to a smith's house, and coming on a fasting day, being in popish times, he did not like there the first day; the next morning the servant was called up at five in the morning, but after a little time came a good toast and good beer, and he found good housekeeping there; he served and learned the trade of a smith. In Queen Mary's days, either his wife, or my grandmother by father's side, informed my father that they kept their Bible fastened under the top of a joint-stool that they might turn up the book and read in the Bible; that, when anybody came to the dore, they turned up the stool for fear of the apparitor; for if it was discovered they would be in hazard of their lives. My grandfather was a smith also, and settled at Ecton, in Northamptonshire, and he was imprisoned a year and a day on suspicion of his being the author of some poetry that touched the character of some great man. He had only one son and one daughter; my grandfather's name was Henry, my father's name was Thomas, my mother's name was Jane. My father was born at Ecton or Eton, Northamptonshire, on the 18th of October, 1598; married to Miss Jane White, niece to Coll White, of Banbury, and died in the 84th year of his age. There was nine children of us who were happy in our parents, who took great care by their instructions and pious example to breed us up in a religious way. My eldest brother had but one child, which was married to one Mr. Fisher, at Wallingborough, in Northamptonshire. The town was lately burned down, and whether she was a sufferer or not I cannot tell, or whether she be living or not. Her father died worth fifteen hundred pounds, but what her circumstances are now I know not. She hath no child. If you by the freedom of your office, makes it more likely to convey a letter to her, it would be acceptable to me. There is also children of brother John and sister Morris, but I hear no thing from them, and they write not to me, so that I know not where to find them. I have been again to about seeing ... but have missed of being informed. We received yours, and are glad to hear poor Jammy is recovered so well. Son John received the letter, but is so busy just now that he cannot write you an answer, but will do the best he can. Now with hearty love to, and prayer for you all, I rest your affectionate father, JOSIAH FRANKLIN. [4] Sherburne, in the island of Nantucket. [5] The number in 1817 exceeds 400 [6] "Silence, ye wolves, while _Ralph_ to Cynthia howls, And makes night hideous: answer him, ye owls!" POPE'S _Dunciad_, b. iii., v. 165. [7] F. R. S., author of "A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy," and "A Treatise on Chymistry;" died in 1771. [8] A printing-house is always called a _chapel_ by the workmen, because printing was first carried on in England in an ancient chapel, and the title has been preserved by tradition. The _bien venu_ among the printers, answers to the terms _entrance_ and _footing_ among mechanics; thus a journeyman, on entering a printing-house, was accustomed to pay one or more gallons of beer _for the good of the chapel_; this custom was falling into disuse thirty years ago; it is very properly rejected entirely in the United States. [9] I afterward obtained for his son _five hundred pounds_. PART II. _From Mr. Abel James (received in Paris)._ "MY DEAR AND HONOURED FRIEND, "I have often been desirous of writing to thee, but could not be reconciled to the thought that the letter might fall into the hands of the British, lest some printer or busybody should publish some part of the contents, and give our friend pain and myself censure. "Some time since there fell into my hands, to my great joy, about twenty-three sheets in thy own handwriting, containing an account of the parentage and life of thyself, directed to thy son, ending in the year 1730, with which there were notes, likewise in thy writing; a copy of which I enclose, in hopes it may be a means, if thou continued it up to a later period, that the first and latter part may be put together; and if it is not yet continued, I hope thee will not delay it. Life is uncertain, as the preacher tells us; and what will the world say, if kind, humane, and benevolent Ben Franklin should leave his friends and the world deprived of so pleasing and profitable a work; a work which would be useful and entertaining not only to a few, but to millions? The influence writings under that class have on the minds of youth is very great, and has nowhere appeared to me so plain as in our public friend's journals. It almost insensibly leads the youth into the resolution of endeavouring to become as good and eminent as the journalist. Should thine, for instance, when published (and I think they could not fail of it), lead the youth to equal the industry and temperance of thy early youth, what a blessing with that class would such a work be! I know of no character living, nor many of them put together, who has so much in his power as thyself to promote a greater spirit of industry and early attention to business, frugality, and temperance, with the American youth. Not that I think the work would have no other merit and use in the world; far from it: but the first is of such vast importance, that I know nothing that can equal it." The foregoing letter, and the minutes accompanying it, being shown to a friend, I received from him the following: _From Mr. Benjamin Vaughan._ "Paris, January 31, 1783. "MY DEAREST SIR, "When I had read over your sheets of minutes of the principal incidents of your life, recovered for you by your Quaker acquaintance, I told you I would send you a letter expressing my reasons why I thought it would be useful to complete and publish it as he desired. Various concerns have, for some time past, prevented this letter being written, and I do not know whether it was worth any expectation; happening to be at leisure, however, at present, I shall, by writing, at least interest and instruct myself; but as the terms I am inclined to use may tend to offend a person of your manners, I shall only tell you how I would address any other person who was as good and as great as yourself, but less diffident. I would say to him, sir, I solicit the history of your life, from the following motives: "Your history is so remarkable, that, if you do not give it, somebody else will most certainly give it; and perhaps so as nearly to do as much harm as your own management of the thing might do good. "It will, morever, present a table of the internal circumstances of your country, which will very much tend to invite to it settlers of virtuous and manly minds. And, considering the eagerness with which such information is sought by them, and the extent of your reputation, I do not know of a more efficacious advertisement than your biography would give. "All that has happened to you is also connected with the detail of the manners and situation of a _rising_ people; and in this respect I do not think that the writings of Cæsar and Tacitus can be more interesting to a true judge of human nature and society. "But these, sir, are small reasons, in my opinion, compared with the chance which your life will give for the forming of future great men; and, in conjunction with your _Art of Virtue_ (which you design to publish), of improving the features of private character, and, consequently, of aiding all happiness, both public and domestic. "The two works I allude to, sir, will, in particular, give a noble rule and example of _self-education_. School and other education constantly proceed upon false principles, and show a clumsy apparatus pointed at a false mark; but your apparatus is simple, and the mark a true one; and while parents and young persons are left destitute of other just means of estimating and becoming prepared for a reasonable course in life, your discovery, that the thing is in many a man's private power, will be invaluable! "Influence upon the private character, late in life, is not only an influence late in life, but a weak influence. It is in _youth_ that we plant our chief habits and prejudices; it is in youth that we take our party as to profession, pursuits, and matrimony. In youth, therefore, the turn is given; in youth the education even of the next generation is given; in youth the private and public character is determined; and the term of life extending but from youth to age, life ought to begin well from youth; and more especially _before_ we take our party as to our principal objects. "But your biography will not merely teach self-education, but the education of _a wise man_; and the wisest man will receive lights and improve his progress by seeing detailed the conduct of another wise man. And why are weaker men to be deprived of such helps, when we see our race has been blundering on in the dark, almost without a guide in this particular, from the farthest trace of time? Show then, sir, how much is to be done, _both to sons and fathers_; and invite all wise men to become like yourself, and other men to become wise. "When we see how cruel statesmen and warriors can be to the human race, and how absurd distinguished men can be to their acquaintance, it will be instructive to observe the instances multiply of pacific, acquiescing manners; and to find how compatible it is to be great and _domestic_; enviable and yet _good-humoured_. "The little private incidents which you will also have to relate, will have considerable use, as we want, above all things, _rules of prudence in ordinary affairs_; and it will be curious to see how you have acted in these. It will be so far a sort of key to life, and explain many things that all men ought to have once explained to them, to give them a chance of becoming wise by foresight. "The nearest thing to having experience of one's own, is to have other people's affairs brought before us in a shape that is interesting; this is sure to happen from your pen. Your affairs and management will have an air of simplicity or importance that will not fail to strike; and I am convinced you have conducted them with as much originality as if you had been conducting discussions in politics or philosophy; and what more worthy of experiments and system (its importance and its errors considered) than human life! "Some men have been virtuous blindly, others have speculated fantastically, and others have been shrewd to bad purposes; but you, sir, I am sure, will give, under your hand, nothing but what is at the same moment wise, practical, and good. "Your account of yourself (for I suppose the parallel I am drawing for Dr. Franklin will hold not only in point of character, but of private history) will show that you are ashamed of no origin; a thing the more important as you prove how little necessary all origin is to happiness, virtue, or greatness. "As no end, likewise, happens without a means, so we shall find, sir, that even you yourself framed a plan by which you became considerable; but, at the same time, we may see that, though the event is flattering, the means are as simple as wisdom could make them; that is, depending upon nature, virtue, thought, and habit. "Another thing demonstrated will be the propriety of every man's waiting for his time for appearing upon the stage of the world. Our sensations being very much fixed to the moment, we are apt to forget that more moments are to follow the first, and, consequently, that man should arrange his conduct so as to suit the _whole_ of a life. Your attribution appears to have been applied to your _life_, and the passing moments of it have been enlivened with content and enjoyment, instead of being tormented with foolish impatience or regrets. Such a conduct is easy for those who make virtue and themselves their standard, and who try to keep themselves in countenance by examples of other truly great men, of whom patience is so often the characteristic. "Your Quaker correspondent, sir (for here again I will suppose the subject of my letter to resemble Dr. Franklin), praised your frugality, diligence, and temperance, which he considered as a pattern for all youth: but it is singular that he should have forgotten your modesty and your disinterestedness, without which you never could have waited for your advancement, or found your situation in the mean time comfortable; which is a strong lesson to show the poverty of glory, and the importance of regulating our minds. "If this correspondent had known the nature of your reputation as well as I do, he would have said, your former writings and measures would secure attention to your Biography and Art of Virtue; and your Biography and Art of Virtue, in return, would secure attention to them. This is an advantage attendant upon a various character, and which brings all that belongs to it into greater play; and it is the more useful, as, perhaps, more persons are at a loss for the _means_ of improving their minds and characters than they are for the time or the inclination to do it. "But there is one concluding reflection, sir, that will show the use of your life as a mere piece of biography. This style of writing seems a little gone out of vogue, and yet it is a very useful one; and your specimen of it may be particularly serviceable, as it will make a subject of comparison with the lives of various public cutthroats and intriguers, and with absurd monastic self-tormentors or vain literary triflers. If it encourages more writings of the same kind with your own, and induces more men to spend lives fit to be written, it will be worth all Plutarch's Lives put together. "But being tired of figuring to myself a character of which every figure suits only one man in the world, without giving him the praise of it, I shall end my letter, my dear Dr. Franklin, with a personal application to your proper self. "I am earnestly desirous, then, my dear sir, that you should let the world into the traits of your genuine character, as civil broils may otherwise tend to disguise or traduce it. Considering your great age, the caution of your character, and your peculiar style of thinking, it is not likely that any one besides yourself can be sufficiently master of the facts of your life or the intentions of your mind. "Besides all this, the immense revolution of the present period will necessarily turn our attention towards the author of it; and when virtuous principles have been pretended in it, it will be highly important to show that such have really influenced; and, as your own character will be the principal one to receive a scrutiny, it is proper (even for its effects upon your vast and rising country, as well as upon England and upon Europe) that it should stand respectable and eternal. For the furtherance of human happiness, I have always maintained that it is necessary to prove that man is not even at present a vicious and detestable animal; and still more to prove that good management may greatly amend him; and it is for much the same reason that I am anxious to see the opinion established, that there are fair characters among the individuals of the race; for the moment that all men, without exception, shall be conceived abandoned, good people will cease efforts deemed to be hopeless, and, perhaps, think of taking their share in the scramble of life, or, at least, of making it comfortable principally for themselves. "Take then, my dear sir, this work most speedily into hand: show yourself good as you are good; temperate as you are temperate; and, above all things, prove yourself as one who, from your infancy, have loved justice, liberty, and concord, in a way that has made it natural and consistent for you to act as we have seen you act in the last seventeen years of your life. Let Englishmen be made not only to respect, but even to love you. When they think well of individuals in your native country, they will go nearer to thinking well of your country; and when your countrymen see themselves thought well of by Englishmen, they will go nearer to thinking well of England. Extend your views even farther; do not stop at those who speak the English tongue, but, after having settled so many points in nature and politics, think of bettering the whole race of men. "As I have not read any part of the life in question, but know only the character that lived it, I write somewhat at hazard. I am sure, however, that the life, and the treatise I allude to (on the _Art of Virtue_), will necessarily fulfil the chief of my expectations; and still more so if you take up the measure of suiting these performances to the several views above stated. Should they even prove unsuccessful in all that a sanguine admirer of yours hopes from them, you will at least have framed pieces to interest the human mind; and whoever gives a feeling of pleasure that is innocent to man, has added so much to the fair side of a life otherwise too much darkened by anxiety and too much injured by pain. "In the hope, therefore, that you will listen to the prayer addressed to you in this letter, I beg to subscribe myself, my dear sir, &c., &c., "BENJ. VAUGHAN." * * * * * CONTINUATION, _Begun at Passy, near Paris, 1784._ It is some time since I received the above letters, but I have been too busy till now to think of complying with the request they contain. It might, too, be much better done if I were at home among my papers, which would aid my memory, and help to ascertain dates; but my return being uncertain, and having just now a little leisure, I will endeavour to recollect and write what I can: if I live to get home, it may there be corrected and improved. Not having any copy here of what is already written, I know not whether an account is given of the means I used to establish the Philadelphia public library, which, from a small beginning, is now become so considerable, though I remember to have come down near the time of that transaction (1730). I will, therefore, begin here with an account of it, which may be struck out if found to have been already given. At the time I established myself in Pennsylvania, there was not a good bookseller's shop in any of the colonies to the southward of Boston. In New-York and Philadelphia the printers were, indeed, stationers, but they sold only paper, &c., almanacs, ballads, and a few common schoolbooks. Those who loved reading were obliged to send for their books from England: the members of the Junto had each a few. We had left the alehouse where we first met, and hired a room to hold our club in. I proposed that we should all of us bring our books to that room, where they would not only be ready to consult in our conferences, but become a common benefit, each of us being at liberty to borrow such as he wished to read at home. This was accordingly done, and for some time contented us: finding the advantage of this little collection, I proposed to render the benefit from the books more common, by commencing a public subscription library. I drew a sketch of the plan and rules that would be necessary, and got a skilful conveyancer, Mr. Charles Brockden, to put the whole in form of articles of agreement to be subscribed; by which each subscriber engaged to pay a certain sum down for the first purchase of the books, and an annual contribution for increasing them. So few were the readers at that time in Philadelphia, and the majority of us so poor, that I was not able, with great industry, to find more than fifty persons (mostly young tradesmen) willing to pay down for this purpose forty shillings each, and ten shillings per annum; with this little fund we began. The books were imported; the library was open one day in the week for lending them to subscribers, on their promissory notes to pay double the value if not duly returned. The institution soon manifested its utility; was imitated by other towns and in other provinces. The libraries were augmented by donations; reading became fashionable; and our people, having no public amusements to divert their attention from study, became better acquainted with books, and in a few years were observed by strangers to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same rank generally are in other countries. When we were about to sign the above-mentioned articles, which were to be binding on us, our heirs, &c., for fifty years, Mr. Brockden, the scrivener, said to us: "You are young men, but it is scarce probable that any of you will live to see the expiration of the term fixed in the instrument." A number of us, however, are yet living; but the instrument was, after a few years, rendered null by a charter that incorporated and gave perpetuity to the company. The objections and reluctances I met with in soliciting the subscriptions, made me soon feel the impropriety of presenting one's self as the proposer of any useful project that might be supposed to raise one's reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's neighbours, when one has need of their assistance to accomplish that project. I therefore put myself as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a _number of friends_, who had requested me to go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading. In this way my affairs went on more smoothly, and I ever after practised it on such occasions, and from my frequent successes can heartily recommend it. The present little sacrifice of your vanity will afterward be amply repaid. If it remains a while uncertain to whom the merit belongs, some one more vain than yourself will be encouraged to claim it, and then even envy will be disposed to do you justice, by plucking those assumed feathers and restoring them to their right owner. This library afforded me the means of improvement by constant study, for which I set apart an hour or two each day; and thus I repaired, in some degree, the loss of the learned education my father once intended for me. Reading was the only amusement I allowed myself. I spent no time in taverns, games, or frolics of any kind, and my industry in my business continued as indefatigable as it was necessary. I was indebted for my printing-house, I had a young family coming on to be educated, and I had two competitors to contend with for business who were established in the place before me. My circumstances, however, grew daily easier. My original habits of frugality continuing, and my father having, among his instructions to me when a boy, frequently repeated a Proverb of Solomon, "_seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men_," I thence considered industry as a means of obtaining wealth and distinction, which encouraged me; though I did not think that I should ever literally stand before kings, which, however, has since happened; for I have stood before five, and even had the honour of sitting down with one (the king of Denmark) to dinner. We have an English proverb that says, "He that would thrive Must ask his wife." It was lucky for me that I had one as much disposed to industry and frugality as myself. She assisted me cheerfully in my business, folding and stitching pamphlets, tending shop, purchasing old linen rags for the paper-makers, &c. We kept no idle servants; our table was plain and simple, our furniture of the cheapest. For instance, my breakfast was, for a long time, bread and milk (no tea), and I ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer, with a pewter spoon: but mark how luxury will enter families, and make a progress in spite of principle; being called one morning to breakfast, I found it in a china bowl, with a spoon of silver. They had been bought for me without my knowledge by my wife, and had cost her the enormous sum of three-and-twenty shillings; for which she had no other excuse or apology to make, but that she thought _her_ husband deserved a silver spoon and china bowl as well as any of his neighbours. This was the first appearance of plate and china in our house, which afterward, in a course of years, as our wealth increased, augmented gradually to several hundred pounds in value. I had been religiously educated as a Presbyterian; but though some of the dogmas of that persuasion appeared unintelligible, and I early absented myself from their public assemblies (Sunday being my studying day), I never was without some religious principles: I never doubted, for instance, the existence of a Deity; that he made the world, and governed it by his providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crimes will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter. These I esteemed the essentials of every religion; and being to be found in all the religions we had in our country, I respected them all, though with different degrees of respect, as I found them more or less mixed with other articles, which, without any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality, served principally to divide us, and make us unfriendly to one another. This respect to all, with an opinion that the worst had some effects, induced me to avoid all discourse that might tend to lessen the good opinion another might have of his own religion; and as our province increased in people, and new places of worship were continually wanted and generally erected by voluntary contribution, my mite for such purpose, whatever might be the sect, was never refused. Though I seldom attended any public worship, I had still an opinion of its propriety and of its utility when rightly conducted, and I regularly paid my annual subscription for the support of the only Presbyterian minister or meeting we had in Philadelphia. He used to visit me sometimes as a friend, and admonish me to attend his administrations; and I was now and then prevailed on to do so; once for five Sundays successively. Had he been in my opinion a good preacher, perhaps I might have continued, notwithstanding the occasion I had for the Sunday's leisure in my course of study: but his discourses were chiefly either polemic arguments, or explications of the peculiar doctrines of our sect, and were all to me very dry, uninteresting, and unedifying, since not a single moral principle was inculcated or enforced. I had some years before composed a little liturgy or form of prayer for my own private use (viz., in 1728), entitled _Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion_. I returned to the use of this, and went no more to the public assemblies. My conduct might be blameable, but I leave it without attempting farther to excuse it; my present purpose being to relate facts, and not to make apologies for them. It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at _moral perfection_; I wished to live without committing any fault at any time, and to conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not _always_ do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined: while my attention was taken up, and care employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction, that it was our interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent our slipping; and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependance on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. For this purpose I therefore tried the following method. In the various enumerations of the _moral virtues_ I had met with in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. _Temperance_, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking; while by others it was extended to mean the moderating of every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition. I proposed to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annexed to each, than a few names with more ideas; and I included, under thirteen names of virtues, all that at that time occurred to me as necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which fully expressed the extent I gave to its meaning. These names of _virtues_, with their precepts, were, 1. TEMPERANCE.--Eat not to dulness: drink not to elevation. 2. SILENCE.--Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself: avoid trifling conversation. 3. ORDER.--Let all your things have their places: let each part of your business have its time. 4. RESOLUTION.--Resolve to perform what you ought: perform without fail what you resolve. 5. FRUGALITY.--Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e., waste nothing. 6. INDUSTRY.--Lose no time: be always employed in something useful: cut off all unnecessary actions. 7. SINCERITY.--Use no hurtful deceit: think innocently and justly: and, if you speak, speak accordingly. 8. JUSTICE.--Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty. 9. MODERATION.--Avoid extremes: forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. 10. CLEANLINESS.--Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation. 11. TRANQUILLITY.--Be not disturbed at trifles, nor at accidents common or unavoidable. 12. CHASTITY. 13. HUMILITY. My intention being to acquire the _habitude_ of all these virtues, I judged it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on _one_ of them at a time; and when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another; and so on till I should have gone through the thirteen: and as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arranged them with that view as they stand above. _Temperance_ first, as it tends to promote that coolness and clearness of head which is so necessary where constant vigilance was to be kept up, and a guard maintained against the unremitting attraction of ancient habits and the force of perpetual temptations. This being acquired and established, _Silence_ would be more easy; and my desire being to gain knowledge at the same time that I improved in virtue; and considering that in conversation it was obtained rather by the use of the ear than of the tongue, and, therefore, wishing to break a habit I was getting into of _prattling_, _punning_, and _jesting_ (which only made me acceptable to trifling company), I gave _Silence_ the second place. This and the next, _Order_, I expected would allow me more time for attending to my project and my studies _Resolution_, once become habitual, would keep me firm in my endeavours to obtain all the subsequent virtues. _Frugality_ and _Industry_, relieving me from my restraining debt, and producing affluence and independence, would make more easy the practice of _Sincerity_ and _Justice_, &c., &c. Conceiving then, that, agreeably to the advice of Pythagoras in his Golden Verses, daily examination would be necessary, I contrived the following method for conducting that examination. I made a little book, in which I allotted a page for each of the virtues. I ruled each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns, one for each day of the week, marking each column with a letter for the day. I crossed these columns with thirteen red lines, marking the beginning of each line with the first letter of one of the virtues; on which line, and in its proper column, I might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue upon that day.[10] _Form of the pages._ TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dulness: drink not to elevation. +------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ | | Sun. | M. | T. | W. | Th. | F. | S. | +------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ | Tem. | | | | | | | | +------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ | Sil. | * | * | | * | | * | | +------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ | Ord. | * | * | * | | * | * | * | +------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ | Res. | | * | | | | * | | +------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ | Fru. | * | | | | | * | | +------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ | Ind. | | | * | | | | | +------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ | Sinc.| | | | | | | | +------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ | Jus. | | | | | | | | +------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ | Mod. | | | | | | | | +------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ | Clea.| | | | | | | | +------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ | Tran.| | | | | | | | +------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ | Chas.| | | | | | | | +------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ | Hum. | | | | | | | | +------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ I determined to give a week's strict attention to each of the virtues successively. Thus, in the first week, my great guard was to every the least offence against _Temperance_; leaving the other virtues to their ordinary chance, only marking every evening the faults of the day. Thus, if in the first week I could keep my first line marked T. clear of spots, I supposed the habit of that virtue so much strengthened, and its opposite weakened, that I might venture extending my attention to include the next, and for the following week keep both lines clear of spots. Proceeding thus to the last, I could get through a course complete in thirteen weeks, and four courses in a year. And like him who, having a garden to weed, does not attempt to eradicate all the bad herbs at once (which would exceed his reach and his strength), but works on one of the beds at a time, and having accomplished the first, proceeds to a second, so I should have (I hoped) the encouraging pleasure of seeing on my pages the progress made in virtue, by clearing successively my lines of their spots, till, in the end, by a number of courses, I should be happy in viewing a clean book, after a thirteen week's daily examination. This my little book had for its motto these lines from Addison's Cato: "Here will I hold; if there's a power above us (And that there is, all nature cries aloud Through all her works), he must delight in virtue; And that which he delights in must be happy." Another from Cicero: O vitæ philosophia dux! O virtutum indagatrix et expultrixque vitiorum! Unus dies bene, et ex præceptis tuis actus, peccanti immortalitati est anteponendus." "Oh Philosophy, guide of life! Diligent inquirer after virtue, and banisher of vice! A single day well spent, and as thy precepts direct, is to be preferred to an eternity of sin." Another from the Proverbs of Solomon, speaking of wisdom or virtue: "Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." And conceiving God to be the fountain of wisdom, I thought it right and necessary to solicit his assistance for obtaining it; to this end I formed the following little prayer, which was prefixed to my tables of examination, for daily use. "O powerful Goodness! bountiful Father! merciful Guide! Increase me in that wisdom which discovers my truest interest: Strengthen my resolution to perform what that wisdom dictates! Accept my kind offices to thy other children as the only return in my power for thy continual favours to me." I used also, sometimes, a little prayer which I took from Thomson's Poems, viz., "Father of light and life, thou God supreme! Oh teach me what is good; teach me thyself! Save me from folly, vanity, and vice, From every low pursuit; and fill my soul With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure; Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss!" The precept of _Order_, requiring that _every part of my business should have its allotted time_, one page in my little book contained the following scheme of employment for the twenty-four hours of a natural day. SCHEME. Hours. _Morning._ { } Rise, wash, and address _Powerful The Question { 5} Goodness_! Contrive day's business, and What good shall { 6} take the resolution of the day; prosecute I do this day? { 7} the present study, and breakfast. 8} 9} Work. 10} 11} _Noon._ {12} Read, or look over my accounts, and { 1} dine. { 2} _Afternoon._ { 3} Work. { 4} { 5} _Evening._ { 6} The Question, { 7} Put things in their places. Supper, What good have { 8} music, or diversion, or conversation. I done to-day? { 9} Examination of the day. {10} {11} {12} _Night._ { 1} Sleep. { 2} { 3} { 4} I entered upon the execution of this plan for self-examination, and continued it, with occasional intermissions, for some time. I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined; but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish. To avoid the trouble of renewing now and then my little book, which, by scraping out the marks on the paper of old faults to make room for new ones in a new course, became full of holes, I transferred my tables and precepts to the ivory leaves of a memorandum book, on which the lines were drawn with red ink, that made a durable stain; and on those lines I marked my faults with a black lead pencil; which marks I could easily wipe out with a wet sponge. After a while I went through one course only in a year; and afterward only one in several years; till at length I omitted them entirely, being employed in voyages and business abroad, with a multiplicity of affairs that interfered; but I always carried my little book with me. My scheme of _Order_ gave me the most trouble; and I found that though it might be practicable where a man's business was such as to leave him the disposition of his time, that of a journeyman-printer, for instance, it was not possible to be exactly observed by a master, who must mix with the world, and often receive people of business at their own hours. Order, too, with regard to places for things, papers, &c., I found it extremely difficult to acquire. I had not been early accustomed to _method_, and having an exceeding good memory, I was not so sensible of the inconvenience attending want of method. This article, therefore, cost me much painful attention, and my faults in it vexed me so much, and I made so little progress in amendment, and had such frequent relapses, that I was almost ready to give up the attempt, and content myself with a faulty character in that respect. Like the man who, in buying an axe of a smith my neighbour, desired to have the whole of its surface as bright as the edge, the smith consented to grind it bright for him if he would turn the wheel: he turned while the smith pressed the broad face of the axe hard and heavily on the stone, which made the turning of it very fatiguing. The man came every now and then from the wheel to see how the work went on; and at length would take his axe as it was, without farther grinding. "No," said the smith, "turn on, we shall have it bright by-and-by; as yet 'tis only speckled." "Yes," said the man, "but _I think I like a speckled axe best_." And I believe this may have been the case with many, who having, for the want of some such means as I employed, found the difficulty of obtaining good and breaking bad habits in other points of vice and virtue, have given up the struggle, and concluded that "_a speckled axe was best_." For something that pretended to be reason was every now and then suggesting to me, that such extreme nicety as I exacted of myself, might be a kind of foppery in morals, which, if it were known, would make me ridiculous; that a perfect character might be attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated; and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his friends in countenance. In truth, I found myself incorrigible with respect to _Order_; and, now I am grown old and my memory bad, I feel very sensibly the want of it. But, on the whole, though I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it; as those who aim at perfect writing by imitating the engraved copies, though they may never reach the wished-for excellence of those copies, their hand is mended by the endeavour, and is tolerable while it continues fair and legible. It may be well my posterity should be informed, that to this little artifice, with the blessing of God, their ancestor owed the constant felicity of his life down to the 79th year, in which this is written. What reverses may attend the remainder is in the hand of Providence: but if they arrive, the reflection on past happiness enjoyed ought to help his bearing them with more resignation. To _temperance_ he ascribes his long-continued health, and what is still left to him of a good constitution. To _industry and frugality_, the early easiness of his circumstances and acquisition of his fortune, with all that knowledge that enabled him to be a useful citizen and obtained for him some degree of reputation among the learned. To _sincerity_ and _justice_, the confidence of his country, and the honourable employs it conferred upon him: and to the joint influence of the whole mass of the virtues, even in the imperfect state he was able to acquire them, all that evenness of temper and that cheerfulness in conversation which makes his company still sought for, and agreeable even to his young acquaintance: I hope, therefore, that some of my descendants may follow the example and reap the benefit. It will be remarked that, though my scheme was not wholly without religion, there was in it no mark of any of the distinguishing tenets of any particular sect; I had purposely avoided them; for being fully persuaded of the utility and excellence of my method, and that it might be serviceable to people in all religions, and intending some time or other to publish it, I would not have anything in it that would prejudice any one of any sect against it. I proposed writing a little comment on each virtue, in which I would have shown the advantages of possessing it, and the mischiefs attending its opposite vice; I should have called my book _The Art of Virtue_, because it would have shown the means and manner of obtaining virtue, which would have distinguished it from the mere exhortation to be good, that does not instruct and indicate the means; but is like the apostle's man of verbal charity, who, without showing to the naked and hungry how or where they might get clothes or victuals, only exhorted them to be fed and clothed James ii., 15, 16. But it so happened that my intention of writing and publishing this comment was never fulfilled. I had, indeed, from time to time, put down short hints of the sentiments, reasonings, &c., to be made use of in it, some of which I have still by me: but the necessary close attention to private business in the earlier part of life, and public business since, have occasioned my postponing it. For it being connected in my mind with _a great and extensive project_, that required the whole man to execute, and which an unforeseen succession of employs prevented my attending to, it has hitherto remained unfinished. In this piece it was my design to explain and enforce this doctrine, _that vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful_; the nature of man alone considered: that it was, therefore, every one's interest to be virtuous, who wished to be happy even in this world: and I should, from this circumstance (there being always in the world a number of rich merchants, nobility, states, and princes who have need of honest instruments for the management of their affairs, and such being so rare), have endeavoured to convince young persons, that no qualities are so likely to make a poor man's fortune as those of _probity_ and _integrity_. My list of virtues contained at first but twelve: but a Quaker friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud; that my pride showed itself frequently in conversation; that I was not content with being in the right when discussing any point, but was overbearing, and rather insolent (of which he convinced me by mentioning several instances), I determined to endeavour to cure myself, if I could, of this vice or folly among the rest; and I added _humility_ to my list, giving an extensive meaning to the word. I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the _reality_ of this virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of it. I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradiction to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of mine own. I even forbid myself, agreeably to the old laws of our junto, the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion; such as _certainly_, _undoubtedly_, &c., and I adopted, instead of them, _I conceive_, _I apprehend_, or _I imagine_ a thing to be so or so; or it so _appears to me at present_. When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing immediately some absurdity in his proposition; and in answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there _appeared_, or _seemed to me_, some difference, &c. I soon found the advantage of this change in my manners; the conversations I engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed my opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction; I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right. And this mode, which I at first put on with some violence to natural inclination, became at length easy, and so habitual to me, that perhaps for the fifty years past no one has ever heard a dogmatical expression escape me. And to this habit (after my character of integrity) I think it principally owing that I had early so much weight with my fellow-citizens when I proposed new institutions or alterations in the old, and so much influence in public councils when I became a member: for I was but a bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my choice of words, hardly correct in language, and yet I generally carried my point. In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as _pride_; disguise it, struggle with it, stifle it, mortify it as much as you please, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it perhaps often in this history. For even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be _proud_ of my _humility_. [Here concludes what was written at Passy, near Paris.] * * * * * MEMORANDUM. _I am now about to write at home (Philadelphia), August, 1788, but cannot have the help expected from my papers, many of them being lost in the war. I have, however, found the following_: Having mentioned a _great and extensive project_ which I had conceived, it seems proper that some account should be here given of that project and its object. Its first rise in my mind appears in the above-mentioned little paper, accidentally preserved, viz.: OBSERVATIONS on my reading history, in library, May 9, 1731. "That the great affairs of the world, the wars, revolutions, &c., are carried on and effected by parties. "That the view of these parties is their present general interest; or what they take to be such. "That the different views of these different parties occasion all confusion. "That while a party is carrying on a general design, each man has his particular private interest in view. "That, as soon as a party has gained its general point, each member becomes intent upon his particular interest, which, thwarting others, breaks that party into divisions and occasions more confusion. "That few in public affairs act from a mere view of the good of their country, whatever they may pretend; and though their actings bring real good to their country, yet men primarily considered that their own and their country's interest were united, and so did not act from a principle of benevolence. "That fewer still, in public affairs, act with a view to the good of mankind. "There seems to me at present to be great occasion for raising a _United Party for Virtue_, by forming the virtuous and good men of all nations into a regular body, to be governed by suitable good and wise rules, which good and wise men may probably be more unanimous in their obedience to than common people are to common laws. "I at present think, that whoever attempts this aright, and is well qualified, cannot fail of pleasing God and of meeting with success. B. F." Revolving this project in my mind as to be undertaken hereafter, when my circumstances should afford me the necessary leisure, I put down from time to time, on pieces of paper, such thoughts as occurred to me respecting it. Most of these are lost, but I find one purporting to be the substance of an intended creed, containing, as I thought, the essentials of every known religion, and being free of everything that might shock the professors of any religion. It is expressed in these words: viz., "That there is one God, who made all things. "That he governs the world by his providence. "That he ought to be worshipped by adoration, prayer, and thanksgiving. "But that the most acceptable service to God is doing good to man. "That the soul is immortal. "And that God will certainly reward virtue and punish vice, either here or hereafter." My ideas at that time were, that the sect should be begun and spread at first among young and single men only; that each person to be initiated should not only declare his assent to such creed, but should have exercised himself with the thirteen weeks' examination and practice of the virtues, as in the before-mentioned model; that the existence of such a society should be kept a secret till it was become considerable, to prevent solicitations for the admission of improper persons; but that the members should, each of them, search among his acquaintance for ingenious, well-disposed youths, to whom, with prudent caution, the scheme should be gradually communicated. That the members should engage to afford their advice, assistance, and support to each other in promoting one another's interest, business, and advancement in life: that, for distinction, we should be called THE SOCIETY OF THE FREE AND EASY. Free, as being, by the general practice and habits of the virtues, free from the dominion of vice; and particularly by the practice of industry and frugality, free from debt, which exposes a man to constraint, and a species of slavery to his creditors. This is as much as I can now recollect of the project, except that I communicated it in part to two young men, who adopted it with enthusiasm: but my then narrow circumstances, and the necessity I was under of sticking close to my business, occasioned my postponing the farther prosecution of it at that time, and my multifarious occupations, public and private, induced me to continue postponing, so that it has been omitted, till I have no longer strength or activity left sufficient for such an enterprise. Though I am still of opinion it was a practicable scheme, and might have been very useful, by forming a great number of good citizens: and I was not discouraged by the seeming magnitude of the undertaking, as I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan; and, cutting off all amusements or other employments that would divert his attention, makes the connexion of that same plan his sole study and business. In 1732 I first published my Almanac under the name of _Richard Saunders_; it was continued by me about twenty-five years, and commonly called _Poor Richard's Almanac_. I endeavoured to make it both entertaining and useful, and it accordingly came to be in such demand that I reaped considerable profit from it, vending annually near ten thousand. And observing that it was generally read (scarce any neighbourhood in the province being without it), I considered it as a proper vehicle for conveying instruction among the common people, who bought scarcely any other books. I therefore filled all the little spaces that occurred between the remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality as the means of procuring wealth, and thereby securing virtue; it being more difficult for a man in want to act always honestly, as (to use here one of those proverbs) "_it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright_." These proverbs, which contained the wisdom of many ages and nations, I assembled and formed into a connected discourse, prefixed to the Almanac of 1757 as the harangue of a wise old man to the people attending an auction: the bringing all these scattered counsels thus into a focus, enabled them to make greater impression. The piece, being universally approved, was copied in all the newspapers of the American Continent; reprinted in Britain on a large sheet of paper, to be stuck up in houses; two translations were made of it in French, and great numbers bought by the clergy and gentry to distribute gratis among their poor parishioners and tenants. In Pennsylvania, as it discouraged useless expense in foreign superfluities, some thought it had its share of influence in producing that growing plenty of money which was observable for several years after its publication. I considered my newspaper also another means of communicating instruction, and in that view frequently reprinted in it extracts from the Spectator and other moral writers; and sometimes published little pieces of mine own, which had been first composed for reading in our _Junto_. Of these are a Socratic dialogue, tending to prove that, whatever might be his parts and abilities, a vicious man could not properly be called a man of sense; and a discourse on self-denial, showing that virtue was not secure till its practice became a _habitude_, and was free from the opposition of contrary inclinations: these may be found in the papers about the beginning of 1735. In the conduct of my newspaper I carefully excluded all libelling and personal abuse, which is of late years become so disgraceful to our country. Whenever I was solicited to insert anything of that kind, and the writers pleaded (as they generally did) the liberty of the press, and that a newspaper was like a stagecoach, in which any one who would pay had a right to a place, my answer was, that I would print the piece separately if desired, and the author might have as many copies as he pleased to distribute himself, but that I would not take upon me to spread his detraction; and that, having contracted with my subscribers to furnish them with what might be either useful or entertaining, I could not fill their papers with private altercation, in which they had no concern, without doing them manifest injustice. Now, many of our printers make no scruple of gratifying the malice of individuals by false accusations of the fairest characters among ourselves, augmenting animosity even to the producing of duels; and are, moreover, so indiscreet as to print scurrilous reflections on the government of neighbouring states, and even on the conduct of our best national allies, which may be attended with the most pernicious consequences. These things I mention as a caution to young printers, and that they may be encouraged not to pollute the presses and disgrace their profession by such infamous practices, but refuse steadily, as they may see by my example that such a course of conduct will not, on the whole, be injurious to their interests. In 1733 I sent one of my journeymen to Charleston, South Carolina, where a printer was wanting. I furnished him with a press and letters, on an agreement of partnership, by which I was to receive one third of the profits of the business, paying one third of the expense. He was a man of learning, but ignorant in matters of account; and, though he sometimes made me remittances, I could get no account from him, nor any satisfactory state of our partnership while he lived. On his decease the business was continued by his widow, who, being born and bred in Holland, where (as I have been informed) the knowledge of accounts makes a part of female education, she not only sent me as clear a statement as she could find of the transactions past, but continued to account with the greatest regularity and exactness every quarter afterward; and managed the business with such success, that she not only reputably brought up a family of children, but, at the expiration of the term, was able to purchase of me the printing-house and establish her son in it. I mention this affair chiefly for the sake of recommending that branch of education for our young women, as likely to be of more use to them and their children in case of widowhood than either music or dancing; by preserving them from losses by imposition of crafty men, and enabling them to continue, perhaps, a profitable mercantile house, with established correspondence, till a son is grown up fit to undertake and go on with it, to the lasting advantage and enriching of the family. I had begun in 1733 to study languages; I soon made myself so much master of the French as to be able to read the books in that language with ease. I then undertook the Italian: an acquaintance, who was also learning it, used often to tempt me to play chess with him: finding this took up too much of the time I had to spare for study, I at length refused to play any more, unless on this condition, that the victor in every game should have a right to impose a task, either of parts of the grammar to be got by heart, or in translations, &c., which tasks the vanquished was to perform upon honour before our next meeting: as we played pretty equally, we thus beat one another into that language. I afterward, with a little painstaking, acquired as much of the Spanish as to read their books also. I have already mentioned that I had only one year's instruction in a Latin school, and that when very young, after which I neglected that language entirely. But when I had attained an acquaintance with the French, Italian, and Spanish, I was surprised to find, on looking over a Latin Testament, that I understood more of that language than I had imagined, which encouraged me to apply myself again to the study of it; and I met with the more success, as those preceding languages had greatly smoothed my way. From these circumstances, I have thought there was some inconsistency in our common mode of teaching languages. We are told that it is proper to begin first with the Latin, and, having acquired that, it will be more easy to attain those modern languages which are derived from it; and yet we do not begin with the Greek in order more easily to acquire the Latin. It is true, that if we can clamber and get to the top of a staircase without using the steps, we shall more easily gain them in descending; but certainly, if we begin with the lowest, we shall with more ease ascend to the top; and I would therefore offer it to the consideration of those who superintend the education of our youth, whether--since many of those who begin with the Latin, quit the same after spending some years without having made any great proficiency and what they have learned becomes almost useless, so that their time has been lost--it would not have been better to have begun with the French, proceeding to the Italian and Latin. For though, after spending the same time, they should quit the study of languages and never arrive at the Latin, they would, however, have acquired another tongue or two, that, being in modern use, might be serviceable to them in common life. After ten years' absence from Boston, and having become easy in my circumstances, I made a journey thither to visit my relations, which I could not sooner afford. In returning, I called at Newport to see my brother James, then settled there with his printing-house: our former differences were forgotten, and our meeting was very cordial and affectionate: he was fast declining in health, and requested of me that, in case of his death, which he apprehended not far distant, I would take home his son, then but ten years of age, and bring him up to the printing business. This I accordingly performed, sending him a few years to school before I took him into the office. His mother carried on the business till he was grown up, when I assisted him with an assortment of new types, those of his father being in a manner worn out. Thus it was that I made my brother ample amends for the service I had deprived him of by leaving him so early. In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the smallpox, taken in the common way. I long regretted him bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and, therefore, that the safer should be chosen. Our club, the _Junto_, was found so useful, and afforded such satisfaction to the members, that some were desirous of introducing their friends, which could not well be done without exceeding what we had settled as a convenient number, viz., twelve. We had, from the beginning, made it a rule to keep our institution a secret, which was pretty well observed; the intention was to avoid applications of improper persons for admittance, some of whom, perhaps, we might find it difficult to refuse. I was one of those who were against any addition to our number; but, instead of it, made in writing a proposal, that every member, separately, should endeavour to form a subordinate club, with the same rules respecting queries, &c., and without informing them of the connexion with the _Junto_. The advantages proposed were the improvement of so many more young citizens by the use of our institutions; our better acquaintance with the general sentiments of the inhabitants on any occasion, as the junto member might propose what queries we should desire, and was to report to the _Junto_ what passed in his separate club: the promotion of our particular interests in business by more extensive recommendation, and the increase of our influence in public affairs, and our power of doing good by spreading through the several clubs the sentiments of the _Junto_. The project was approved, and every member undertook to form his club: but they did not all succeed. Five or six only were completed, which were called by different names, as the _Vine_, the _Union_, the _Band_, &c.; they were useful to themselves, and afforded us a good deal of amusement, information, and instruction, besides answering, in some degree, our views of influencing the public on particular occasions; of which I shall give some instances in course of time as they happened. My first promotion was my being chosen, in 1736, clerk of the General Assembly. The choice was made that year without opposition; but the year following, when I was again proposed (the choice, like that of the members, being annual), a new member made a long speech against me, in order to favour some other candidate. I was, however, chosen, which was the more agreeable to me, as, besides the pay for the immediate service of clerk, the place gave me a better opportunity of keeping up an interest among the members, which secured to me the business of printing the votes, laws, paper money, and other occasional jobs for the public, that, on the whole, were very profitable. I therefore did not like the opposition of this new member, who was a gentleman of fortune and education, with talents that were likely to give him, in time, great influence in the house, which, indeed, afterward happened. I did not, however, aim at gaining his favour by paying any servile respect to him, but after some time took this other method. Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting that he would do me the favour of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately; and I returned it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favour. When we next met in the house, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death. This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says, "_He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged_." And it shows how much more profitable it is prudently to remove, than to resent, return, and continue inimical proceedings. In 1737, Colonel Spotswood, late governor of Virginia, and then postmaster-general, being dissatisfied with his deputy at Philadelphia respecting some negligence in rendering, and want of exactness in framing, his accounts, took from him his commission and offered it to me. I accepted it readily, and found it of great advantage; for, though the salary was small, it facilitated the correspondence that improved my newspaper, increased the number demanded, as well as the advertisements to be inserted, so that it came to afford me a considerable income. My old competitor's newspaper declined proportionally, and I was satisfied, without retaliating his refusal, while postmaster, to permit my papers being carried by the riders. Thus he suffered greatly from his neglect in due accounting; and I mention it as a lesson to those young men who may be employed in managing affairs for others, that they should always render accounts and make remittances with great clearness and punctuality. The character of observing such a conduct is the most powerful of recommendations to new employments and increase of business. I began now to turn my thoughts to public affairs, beginning, however, with small matters. The city watch was one of the first things that I conceived to want regulation. It was managed by the constables of the respective wards in turn; the constable summoned a number of housekeepers to attend him for the night. Those who chose never to attend, paid him six shillings a year to be excused, which was supposed to go to hiring substitutes, but was, in reality, more than was necessary for that purpose, and made the constableship a place of profit; and the constable, for a little drink, often got such ragamuffins about him as a watch that respectable housekeepers did not choose to mix with. Walking the rounds, too, was often neglected, and most of the nights spent in tippling: I thereupon wrote a paper, to be read in Junto, representing these irregularities, but insisting more particularly on the inequality of this six-shilling tax of the constables, respecting the circumstances of those who paid it, since a poor widow housekeeper, all whose property to be guarded by the watch did not perhaps exceed the value of fifty pounds, paid as much as the wealthiest merchant who had thousands of pounds worth of goods in his stores. On the whole, I proposed, as a more effectual watch, the hiring of proper men to serve constantly in the business; and, as a more equitable way of supporting the charge, the levying of a tax that should be proportioned to the property. This idea, being approved by the Junto, was communicated to the other clubs, but as originating in each of them; and though the plan was not immediately carried into execution, yet, by preparing the minds of the people for the change, it paved the way for the law, obtained a few years after, when the members of our clubs were grown into more influence. About this time I wrote a paper (first to be read in the Junto, but it was afterward published) on the different accidents and carelessnesses by which houses were set on fire, with cautions against them, and means proposed of avoiding them. This was spoken of as a useful piece, and gave rise to a project, which soon followed it, of forming a company for the more ready extinguishing of fires, and mutual assistance in removing and securing of goods when in danger. Associates in this scheme were presently found amounting to thirty. Our articles of agreement obliged every member to keep always in good order and fit for use a certain number of leathern buckets, with strong bags and baskets (for packing and transporting goods), which were to be brought to every fire; and we agreed about once a month to spend a social evening together in discoursing and communicating such ideas as occurred to us upon the subject of fires as might be useful in our conduct on such occasions. The utility of this institution soon appeared; and many more desiring to be admitted than we thought convenient for one company, they were advised to form another, which was accordingly done; and thus went on one new company after another, till they became so numerous as to include most of the inhabitants who were men of property; and now, at the time of my writing this (though upward of fifty years since its establishment), that which I first formed, called the UNION FIRE COMPANY, still subsists; though the first members are all deceased but one, who is older by a year than I am. The fines that have been paid by members for absence at the monthly meetings have been applied to the purchase of fire-engines, ladders, fire-hooks, and other useful implements for each company; so that I question whether there is a city in the world better provided with the means of putting a stop to beginning conflagrations; and, in fact, since these institutions, the city has never lost by fire more than one or two houses at a time, and the flames have often been extinguished before the house in which they began has been half consumed. In 1739 arrived among us from Ireland the Reverend Mr. Whitefield, who had made himself remarkable there as an itinerant preacher. He was at first permitted to preach in some of our churches; but the clergy, taking a dislike to him, soon refused him their pulpits, and he was obliged to preach in the fields. The multitude of all sects and denominations that attended his sermons were enormous, and it was a matter of speculation to me (who was one of the number) to observe the extraordinary influence of his oratory on his hearers, and how much they admired and respected him. It was wonderful to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants. From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seemed as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk through the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street. And it being found inconvenient to assemble in the open air, subject to its inclemencies, the building of a house to meet in was no sooner proposed, and persons appointed to receive contributions, than sufficient sums were soon received to procure the ground and erect the building, which was one hundred feet long and seventy broad; and the work was carried with such spirit as to be finished in a much shorter time than could have been expected. Both house and ground were vested in trustees, expressly for the use of _any preacher of any religious persuasion_ who might desire to say something to the people at Philadelphia. The design in building not being to accommodate any particular sect, but the inhabitants in general. Mr. Whitefield, on leaving us, went preaching all the way through the colonies to Georgia. The settlement of that province had lately been begun; but, instead of being made with hardy, industrious husbandmen, accustomed to labour, the only people fit for such an enterprise, it was with families of broken shopkeepers and other insolvent debtors; many of indolent and idle habits, taken out of the jails, who, being set down in the woods, unqualified for clearing land, and unable to endure the hardships of a new settlement, perished in numbers, leaving many helpless children unprovided for. The sight of their miserable situation inspired the benevolent heart of Mr. Whitefield with the idea of building an orphan-house there, in which they might be supported and educated. Returning northward, he preached up this charity and made large collections, for his eloquence had a wonderful power over the hearts and purses of his hearers, of which I myself was an instance. I did not disapprove of the design, but as Georgia was then destitute of materials and workmen, and it was proposed to send them from Philadelphia at a great expense, I thought it would have been better to build the house at Philadelphia, and bring the children to it. This I advised; but he was resolute in his first project, rejected my counsel, and I therefore refused to contribute. I happened soon after to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me: I had in my pocket a handful of copper-money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold; as he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably, that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all! At this sermon there was also one of our club, who, being of my sentiments respecting the building in Georgia, and suspecting a collection might be intended, had, by precaution, emptied his pockets before he came from home; towards the conclusion of the discourse, however, he felt a strong inclination to give, and applied to a neighbour who stood near him to lend him some money for the purpose. The request was fortunately made to perhaps the only man in the company who had the firmness not to be affected by the preacher. His answer was, "_At any other time, friend Hopkinson, I would lend to thee freely; but not now, for thee seems to me to be out of thy right senses_." Some of Mr. Whitefield's enemies affected to suppose that he would apply these collections to his own private emolument; but I, who was intimately acquainted with him (being employed in printing his sermons, journals, &c.), never had the least suspicion of his integrity, but am to this day decidedly of opinion that he was in all his conduct a perfectly _honest man_; and methinks my testimony in his favour ought to have the more weight, as we had no religious connexion. He used, indeed, sometimes to pray for my conversion, but never had the satisfaction of believing that his prayers were heard. Ours was a mere civil friendship, sincere on both sides, and lasted to his death. The last time I saw Mr. Whitefield was in London, when he consulted me about his orphan-house concern, and his purpose of appropriating it to the establishment of a college. He had a loud and clear voice, and articulated his words so perfectly that he might be heard and understood at a great distance, especially as his auditors observed the most perfect silence. He preached one evening from the top of the courthouse steps, which are in the middle of Market-street, and on the west side of Second-street, which crosses it at right angles. Both streets were filled with his hearers to a considerable distance: being among the hindmost in Market-street, I had the curiosity to learn how far he could be heard, by retiring backward down the street towards the river, and I found his voice distinct till I came near Front-street, when some noise in that street obscured it. Imagining then a semicircle, of which my distance should be the radius, and that it was filled with auditors, to each of whom I allowed two square feet, I computed that he might well be heard by more than thirty thousand. This reconciled me to the newspaper accounts of his having preached to 25,000 people in the fields, and to the history of generals haranguing whole armies, of which I had sometimes doubted. By hearing him often I came to distinguish easily between sermons newly composed and those which he had often preached in the course of his travels. His delivery of the latter was so improved by frequent repetition, that every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly well-turned and well-placed, that, without being interested in the subject, one could not help being pleased with the discourse; a pleasure of much the same kind with that received from an excellent piece of music. This is an advantage itinerant preachers have over those who are stationary, as the latter cannot well improve their delivery of a sermon by so many rehearsals. His writing and printing from time to time gave great advantage to his enemies; unguarded expressions, and even erroneous opinions delivered in preaching, might have been afterward explained or qualified, by supposing others that might have accompanied them, or they might have been denied; but _litera scripta manet_--what is written remains: critics attacked his writings violently, and with so much appearance of reason as to diminish the number of his votaries and prevent their increase. So that I am satisfied that if he had never written anything, he would have left behind him a much more numerous and important sect; and his reputation might in that case have been still growing, even after his death; as there being nothing of his writing on which to found a censure and give him a lower character, his proselytes would be left at liberty to attribute to him as great a variety of excellences as their enthusiastic admiration might wish him to have possessed. My business was now constantly augmenting, and my circumstances growing daily easier, my newspaper having become very profitable, as being for a time almost the only one in this and the neighbouring provinces. I experienced, too, the truth of the observation, "_that after getting the first hundred pounds it is more easy to get the second_;" money itself being of a prolific nature. The partnership at Carolina having succeeded, I was encouraged to engage in others, and to promote several of my workmen who had behaved well, by establishing them with printing-houses in different colonies, on the same terms with that in Carolina. Most of them did well, being enabled at the end of our term (six years) to purchase the types of me and go on working for themselves, by which means several families were raised. Partnerships often finish in quarrels; but I was happy in this, that mine were all carried on and ended amicably; owing, I think, a good deal to the precaution of having very explicitly settled in our articles everything to be done by, or expected from, each partner, so that there was nothing to dispute, which precaution I would therefore recommend to all who enter into partnership; for whatever esteem partners may have for, and confidence in, each other at the time of the contract, little jealousies and disgusts may arise, with ideas of inequality in the care and burden, business, &c., which are attended often with breach of friendship and of the connexion; perhaps with lawsuits and other disagreeable consequences. I had, on the whole, abundant reason to be satisfied with my being established in Pennsylvania; there were, however, some things that I regretted, there being no provision for defence nor for a complete education of youth; no militia, nor any college: I therefore, in 1743, drew up a proposal for establishing an academy; and at that time, thinking the Rev. Richard Peters, who was out of employ, a fit person to superintend such an institution, I communicated the project to him; but he, having more profitable views in the service of the proprietors, which succeeded, declined the undertaking: and not knowing another at that time suitable for such a trust, I let the scheme lie a while dormant. I succeeded better the next year, 1744, in proposing and establishing a _Philosophical Society_. The paper I wrote for that purpose will be found among my writings, if not lost with many others. With respect to defence, Spain having been several years at war against Great Britain, and being at length joined by France, which brought us into great danger; and the laboured and long-continued endeavour of our governor, Thomas, to prevail with our Quaker assembly to pass a militia law, and make other provisions for the security of the province, having proved abortive, I proposed to try what might be done by a voluntary subscription of the people: to promote this, I first wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled PLAIN TRUTH, in which I stated our helpless situation in strong lights, with the necessity of a union and discipline for our defence, and promised to propose in a few days an association, to be generally signed for that purpose. The pamphlet had a sudden and surprising effect. I was called upon for the instrument of association; having settled the draught of it with a few friends, I appointed a meeting of the citizens in the large building before-mentioned. The house was pretty full; I had prepared a number of printed copies, and provided pens and ink dispersed all over the room. I harangued them a little on the subject, read the paper, explained it, and then distributed the copies, which were eagerly signed, not the least objection being made. When the company separated and the papers were collected, we found above twelve hundred signatures; and other copies being dispersed in the country, the subscribers amounted at length to upward of ten thousand. These all furnished themselves, as soon as they could, with arms, formed themselves into companies and regiments, chose their own officers, and met every week to be instructed in the manual exercise and other parts of military discipline. The women, by subscriptions among themselves, provided silk collours, which they presented to the companies, painted with different devices and mottoes, which I supplied. The officers of the companies composing the Philadelphia regiment, being met, chose me for their colonel; but, conceiving myself unfit, I declined that station, and recommended Mr. Lawrence, a fine person and a man of influence, who was accordingly appointed. I then proposed a lottery to defray the expense of building a battery below the town, and furnished with cannon: it filled expeditiously, and the battery was soon erected, the merlons being framed of logs and filled with earth. We bought some old cannon from Boston; but these not being sufficient, we wrote to London for more, soliciting, at the same time, our proprietaries for some assistance, though without much expectation of obtaining it. Meanwhile, Colonel Lawrence, ---- Allen, Abraham Taylor, Esquires, and myself, were sent to New-York by the associators, commissioned to borrow some cannon of Governor Clinton. He at first refused us peremptorily; but at a dinner with his council, where there was great drinking of Madeira wine, as the custom of that place then was, he softened by degrees, and said he would lend us six. After a few more bumpers he advanced to ten; and at length he very good-naturedly conceded eighteen. They were fine cannon, 18 pounders, with their carriages, which were soon transported and mounted on our batteries, where the associators kept a nightly guard while the war lasted: and, among the rest, I regularly took my turn of duty there as a common soldier. My activity in these operations was agreeable to the governor and council; they took me into confidence, and I was consulted by them in every measure where their concurrence was thought useful to the association. Calling in the aid of religion, I proposed to them the proclaiming a fast, to promote reformation and implore the blessing of Heaven on our undertaking. They embraced the motion; but as it was the first fast ever thought of in the province, the secretary had no precedent from which to draw the proclamation. My education in New-England, where a fast is proclaimed every year, was here of some advantage: I drew it in the accustomed style; it was translated into German, printed in both languages, and circulated through the province. This gave the clergy of the different sects an opportunity of influencing their congregations to join in the association, and it would probably have been general among all but the Quakers if the peace had not soon intervened. In order of time, I should have mentioned before, that having, in 1742, invented an open stove for the better warming of rooms, and, at the same time, saving fuel, as the fresh air admitted was warmed in entering, I made a present of the model to Mr. Robert Grace, one of my early friends, who, having an iron furnace, found the casting of the plates for these stoves a profitable thing, as they were growing in demand. To promote that demand, I wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled, "_An Account of the new-invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces; wherein their construction and manner of operation is particularly explained, their advantages above every method of warming rooms demonstrated, and all objections that have been raised against the use of them answered and obviated_," &c. This pamphlet had a good effect. Governor Thomas was so pleased with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declined it, from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., _That as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously_. An ironmonger in London, however, assuming a good deal of my pamphlet, and working it up into his own, and making some small change in the machine, which rather hurt its operation, got a patent for it there, and made, as I was told, a little fortune by it. And this is not the only instance of patents taken out of my inventions by others, though not always with the same success; which I never contested, as having no desire of profiting by patents myself, and hating disputes. The use of these fireplaces in very many houses, both here in Pennsylvania and the neighbouring states, has been, and is, a great saving of wood to the inhabitants. Peace being concluded, and the association business therefore at an end, I turned my thoughts again to the affair of establishing an academy. The first step I took was to associate in the design a number of active friends, of whom the Junto furnished a good part: the next was to write and publish a pamphlet, entitled, "_Proposals relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania_." This I distributed among the principal inhabitants gratis: and as soon as I could suppose their minds a little prepared by the perusal of it, I set on foot a subscription for opening and supporting an academy; it was to be paid in quotas yearly for five years; by so dividing it, I judged the subscription might be larger; and I believe it was so, amounting to no less, if I remember right, than five thousand pounds. In the introduction to these proposals, I stated their publication not as an act of mine, but of some _public-spirited gentleman_; avoiding as much as I could, according to my usual rule, the presenting myself to the public as the author of any scheme for their benefit. The subscribers, to carry the project into immediate execution, chose out of their number twenty-four trustees, and appointed Mr. Francis, then attorney-general, and myself, to draw up constitutions for the government of the academy; which being done and signed, a house was hired, masters engaged, and the schools opened; I think in the same year, 1749. The scholars increasing fast, the house was soon found too small, and we were looking out for a piece of ground, properly situated, with intent to build, when accident threw into our way a large house ready built, which, with a few alterations, might well serve our purpose: this was the building before mentioned, erected by the hearers of Mr. Whitefield, and was obtained for us in the following manner. It is to be noted, that the contributions to this building being made by people of different sects, care was taken in the nomination of trustees, in whom the building and ground were to be vested, that a predominance should not be given to any sect, lest in time that predominance might be a means of appropriating the whole to the use of such sect, contrary to the original intention; it was for this reason that one of each sect was appointed; viz., one Church of England man, one Presbyterian, one Baptist, one Moravian, &c., who, in case of vacancy by death, were to fill it by election among the contributors. The Moravian happened not to please his colleagues, and on his death they resolved to have no other of that sect; the difficulty then was, how to avoid having two of some other sect, by means of the new choice. Several persons were named, and for that reason not agreed to: at length one mentioned me, with the observation that I was merely an honest man, and of _no sect_ at all, which prevailed with them to choose me. The enthusiasm which existed when the house was built had long since abated, and its trustees had not been able to procure fresh contributions for paying the ground rent and discharging some other debts the building had occasioned, which embarrassed them greatly. Being now a member of both boards of trustees, that for the building and that for the academy, I had a good opportunity of negotiating with both and brought them finally to an agreement, by which the trustees for the building were to cede it to those of the academy; the latter undertaking to discharge the debt, to keep for ever open in the building a large hall for occasional preachers, according to the original intention, and maintain a free school for the instruction of poor children. Writings were accordingly drawn; and on paying the debts, the trustees of the academy were put in possession of the premises; and by dividing the great and lofty hall into stories, and different rooms above and below for the several schools, and purchasing some additional ground, the whole was soon made fit for our purpose, and the scholars removed into the building. The whole care and trouble of agreeing with the workmen, purchasing materials, and superintending the work, fell upon me, and I went through it the more cheerfully, as it did not then interfere with my private business, having the year before taken a very able, industrious, and honest partner, Mr. David Hall, with whose character I was well acquainted, as he had worked for me four years; he took off my hands all care of the printing-office, paying me punctually my share of the profits. This partnership continued eighteen years, successfully for us both. The trustees of the academy, after a while, were incorporated by a charter from the governor; their funds were increased by contributions in Britain, and grants of land from the proprietors, to which the Assembly has since made considerable addition; and thus was established the present University of Philadelphia. I have been continued one of its trustees from the beginning (now near forty years), and have had the very great pleasure of seeing a number of the youth who have received their education in it distinguished by their improved abilities, serviceable in public stations, and ornaments to their country. When I was disengaged myself, as above mentioned, from private business, I flattered myself that, by the sufficient though moderate fortune I had acquired, I had found leisure during the rest of my life for philosophical studies and amusements. I purchased all Dr. Spence's apparatus, who had come from England to lecture in Philadelphia, and I proceeded in my electrical experiments with great alacrity; but the public, now considering me as a man of leisure, laid hold of me for their purposes; every part of our civil government, and almost at the same time, imposing some duty upon me. The governor put me into the commission of the peace; the corporation of the city chose me one of the common council, and soon after alderman; and the citizens at large elected me a burgess to represent them in Assembly; this latter station was the more agreeable to me, as I grew at length tired with sitting there to hear the debates, in which, as clerk, I could take no part, and which were often so uninteresting that I was induced to amuse myself with making magic squares or circles, or anything to avoid weariness; and I conceived my becoming a member would enlarge my power of doing good. I would not, however, insinuate that my ambition was not flattered by all these promotions: it certainly was; for, considering my low beginning, they were great things to me: and they were still more pleasing, as being so many spontaneous testimonies of the public good opinion, and by me entirely unsolicited. The office of justice of the peace I tried a little, by attending a few courts and sitting on the bench to hear causes; but finding that more knowledge of the common law than I possessed was necessary to act in that station with credit, I gradually withdrew from it, excusing myself by my being obliged to attend the higher duties of a legislator in the Assembly. My election to this trust was repeated every year for ten years, without my ever asking any elector for his vote, or signifying either directly or indirectly any desire of being chosen. On taking my seat in the house, my son was appointed their clerk. The year following, a treaty being to be held with the Indians at Carlisle, the governor sent a message to the house, proposing that they should nominate some of their members, to be joined with some members of council, as commissioners for that purpose. The house named the speaker (Mr. Norris) and myself; and, being commissioned, we went to Carlisle and met the Indians accordingly. As those people are extremely apt to get drunk, and, when so, are very quarrelsome and disorderly, we strictly forbade the selling any liquor to them; and when they complained of this restriction, we told them that, if they would continue sober during the treaty, we would give them plenty of rum when the business was over. They promised this, and they kept their promise, because they could get no rum; and the treaty was conducted very orderly, and concluded to mutual satisfaction. They then claimed and received the rum; this was in the afternoon; they were near one hundred men, women, and children, and were lodged in temporary cabins, built in the form of a square, just without the town. In the evening, hearing a great noise among them, the commissioners walked to see what was the matter; we found they had made a great bonfire in the middle of the square: they were all drunk, men and women, quarrelling and fighting. Their dark-coloured bodies, half naked, seen only by the gloomy light of the bonfire, running after and beating one another with firebrands, accompanied by their horrid yellings, formed a scene the most diabolical that could well be imagined; there was no appeasing the tumult, and we retired to our lodging. At midnight a number of them came thundering at our door, demanding more rum, of which we took no notice. The next day, sensible they had misbehaved in giving us that disturbance, they sent three of their old counsellors to make their apology. The orator acknowledged the fault, but laid it upon the rum; and then endeavoured to excuse the rum by saying, "_The Great Spirit, who made all things, made everything for some use, and whatever use he designed anything for, that use it should always be put to_: now, when he made rum, he said, 'LET THIS BE FOR THE INDIANS TO GET DRUNK WITH;' and it must be so." And, indeed, if it be the design of Providence to extirpate these savages, in order to make room for the cultivators of the earth, it seems not impossible that rum may be the appointed means. It has already annihilated all the tribes who formerly inhabited the seacoast. In 1751, Dr. Thomas Bond, a particular friend of mine, conceived the idea of establishing a hospital in Philadelphia (a very beneficent design, which has been ascribed to me, but was originally and truly his) for the reception and cure of poor sick persons, whether inhabitants of the province or strangers. He was zealous and active in endeavouring to procure subscriptions for it; but the proposal being a novelty in America, and, at first, not well understood, he met with but little success. At length he came to me with the compliment, that he found there was no such a thing as carrying a public-spirited project through without my being concerned in it. "For," said he, "I am often asked by those to whom I propose subscribing, _Have you consulted Franklin on this business? And what does he think of it?_ And when I tell them that I have not (supposing it rather out of your line), they do not subscribe, but say, _they will consider it_." I inquired into the nature and probable utility of the scheme, and, receiving from him a very satisfactory explanation, I not only subscribed to it myself, but engaged heartily in the design of procuring subscriptions from others: previous, however, to the solicitation, I endeavoured to prepare the minds of the people, by writing on the subject in the newspapers, which was my usual custom in such cases, but which Dr. Bond had omitted. The subscriptions afterward were more free and generous; but, beginning to flag, I saw they would be insufficient without assistance from the Assembly, and therefore proposed to petition for it, which was done. The country members did not at first relish the project: they objected that it could only be serviceable to the city, and, therefore, the citizens alone should be at the expense of it; and they doubted whether the citizens themselves generally approved of it. My allegation, on the contrary, that it met with such approbation as to leave no doubt of our being able to raise two thousand pounds by voluntary donations, they considered as a most extravagant supposition, and utterly impossible. On this I formed my plan; and asking leave to bring in a bill for incorporating the contributors according to the prayer of their petition, and granting them a blank sum of money, which leave was obtained chiefly on the consideration that the house could throw the bill out if they did not like it, I drew it so as to make the important clause a conditional one, viz.: "And be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that when the said contributors shall have met and chosen their managers and treasurer, and shall have raised by their contributions a capital stock of two thousand pounds value (the yearly interest of which is to be applied to the accommodation of the sick poor in the said hospital, and of charge for diet, attendance, advice, and medicines), and _shall make the same appear to the satisfaction of the Speaker of the Assembly for the time being_, that then it shall and may be lawful for the said speaker, and he is hereby required to sign an order on the provincial treasurer, for the payment of two thousand pounds, in two yearly payments, to the treasurer of the said hospital, to be applied to the founding, building, and finishing of the same." This condition carried the bill through; for the members who had opposed the grant, and now conceived they might have the credit of being charitable without the expense, agreed to its passage; and then, in soliciting subscriptions among the people, we urged the conditional promise of the law as an additional motive to give, since every man's donation would be doubled: thus the clause worked both ways. The subscriptions accordingly soon exceeded the requisite sum, and we claimed and received the public gift, which enabled us to carry the design into execution. A convenient and handsome building was soon erected; the institution has, by constant experience, been found useful, and flourishes to this day; and I do not remember any of my political manoeuvres, the success of which, at the time, gave me more pleasure, or wherein, after thinking of it, I more easily excused myself for having made some use of cunning. It was about this time that another projector, the Rev. Gilbert Tennent, came to me with a request that I would assist him in procuring a subscription for erecting a new meeting-house. It was to be for the use of a congregation he had gathered among the Presbyterians, who were originally disciples of Mr. Whitefield. Unwilling to make myself disagreeable to my fellow-citizens by too frequently soliciting their contributions, I absolutely refused. He then desired I would furnish him with a list of the names of persons I knew by experience to be generous and public spirited. I thought it would be unbecoming in me, after their kind compliance with my solicitation, to mark them out to be worried by other beggars, and therefore refused to give such a list. He then desired I would at least give him my advice. That I will do, said I; and, in the first place, I advise you to apply to all those who you know will give something; next, to those who you are uncertain whether they will give anything or not, and show them the list of those who have given; and, lastly, do not neglect those who you are sure will give nothing, for in some of them you may be mistaken. He laughed and thanked me, and said he would take my advice. He did so, for he asked _everybody_, and he obtained a much larger sum than he expected, with which he erected the capacious and elegant meeting-house that stands in Arch-street. Our city, though laid out with a beautiful regularity, the streets large, straight, and crossing each other at right angles, had the disgrace of suffering those streets to remain long unpaved, and in wet weather the wheels of heavy carriages ploughed them into a quagmire, so that it was difficult to cross them; and in dry weather the dust was offensive. I had lived near what was called the Jersey market, and saw, with pain, the inhabitants wading in mud while purchasing their provisions. A strip of ground down the middle of that market was at length paved with brick, so that, being once in the market, they had firm footing, but were often over their shoes in dirt to get there. By talking and writing on the subject, I was at length instrumental in getting the streets paved with stone between the market and the brick foot-pavement that was on the side next the houses. This for some time gave an easy access to the market dry shod; but the rest of the street not being paved, whenever a carriage came out of the mud upon this pavement, it shook off and left its dirt upon it, and it was soon covered with mire, which was not removed, the city as yet having no scavengers. After some inquiry I found a poor industrious man who was willing to undertake keeping the pavement clean, by sweeping it twice a week, carrying off the dirt from before all the neighbours' doors, for the sum of sixpence per month, to be paid by each house. I then wrote and printed a paper, setting forth the advantages to the neighbourhood that might be obtained from this small expense; the greater ease in keeping our houses clean, so much dirt not being brought in by people's feet; the benefit to the shops by more custom, as buyers could more easily get at them; and by not having, in windy weather, the dust blown in upon their goods, &c. I sent one of these papers to each house, and in a day or two went round to see who would subscribe to an agreement to pay these sixpences; it was unanimously signed, and, for a time, well executed. All the inhabitants of the city were delighted with the cleanliness of the pavement that surrounded the market, it being a convenience to all, and this raised a general desire to have all the streets paved, and made the people more willing to submit to a tax for that purpose. After some time I drew a bill for paving the city and brought it into the Assembly. It was just before I went to England, in 1757, and did not pass till I was gone, and then with an alteration in the mode of assessment, which I thought not for the better; but with an additional provision for lighting as well as paving the streets, which was a great improvement. It was by a private person, the late Mr. John Clifton, giving a sample of the utility of lamps, by placing one at his door, that the people were first impressed with the idea of lighting all the city. The honour of this public benefit has also been ascribed to me, but it belongs truly to that gentleman. I did but follow his example, and have only some merit to claim respecting the form of our lamps, as differing from the globe lamps we were at first supplied with from London. They were found inconvenient in these respects: they admitted no air below; the smoke, therefore, did not readily go out above, but circulated in the globe, lodged on its inside, and soon obstructed the light they were intended to afford; giving, besides, the daily trouble of wiping them clean: and an accidental stroke on one of them would demolish it, and render it totally useless. I therefore suggested the composing them of four flat panes, with a long funnel above to draw up the smoke, and crevices admitting air below to facilitate the ascent of the smoke; by this means they were kept clean, and did not grow dark in a few hours, as the London lamps do, but continued bright till morning; and an accidental stroke would generally break but a single pane, easily repaired. I have sometimes wondered that the Londoners did not, from the effect holes in the bottom of the globe-lamps used at Vauxhall have in keeping them clean, learn to have such holes in their street-lamps. But these holes being made for another purpose, viz., to communicate flame more suddenly to the wick by a little flax hanging down through them, the other use of letting in air seems not to have been thought of: and, therefore, after the lamps have been lit a few hours, the streets of London are very poorly illuminated. The mention of these improvements puts me in mind of one I proposed, when in London, to Dr. Fothergill,[11] who was among the best men I have known, and a great promoter of useful projects. I had observed that the streets, when dry, were never swept, and the light dust carried away; but it was suffered to accumulate till wet weather reduced it to mud; and then, after lying some days so deep on the pavement that there was no crossing but in paths kept clean by poor people with brooms, it was with great labour raked together and thrown up into carts open above, the sides of which suffered some of the slush at every jolt on the pavement to shake out and fall; sometimes to the annoyance of foot-passengers. The reason given for not sweeping the dusty streets was, that the dust would fly into the windows of shops and houses. An accidental occurrence had instructed me how much sweeping might be done in a little time; I found at my door in Craven-street one morning a poor woman sweeping my pavement with a birch broom; she appeared very pale and feeble, as just come out of a fit of sickness. I asked who employed her to sweep there; she said, "Nobody; but I am poor and in distress, and I sweep before gentlefolkses doors, and hopes they will give me something." I bid her sweep the whole street clean, and I would give her a shilling; this was at nine o'clock; at noon she came for the shilling. From the slowness I saw at first in her working, I could scarcely believe that the work was done so soon, and sent my servant to examine it, who reported that the whole street was swept perfectly clean, and all the dust placed in the gutter which was in the middle; and the next rain washed it quite away, so that the pavement and even the kennel were perfectly clean. I then judged that if that feeble woman could sweep such a street in three hours, a strong, active man might have done it in half the time. And here let me remark the convenience of having but one gutter in such a narrow street, running down its middle, instead of two, one on each side, near the footway. For where all the rain that falls on a street runs from the sides and meets in the middle, it forms there a current strong enough to wash away all the mud it meets with: but when divided into two channels, it is often too weak to cleanse either, and only makes the mud it finds more fluid, so that the wheels of carriages and feet of horses throw and dash it upon the foot pavement (which is thereby rendered foul and slippery), and sometimes splash it upon those who are walking. Some may think these trifling matters, not worth minding or relating; but when they consider that though dust blown into the eyes of a single person or into a single shop in a windy day is but of small importance, yet the great number of the instances in a populous city, and its frequent repetition, gives it weight and consequence, perhaps they will not censure very severely those who bestow some attention to affairs of this seemingly low nature. Human felicity is produced, not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day. Thus, if you teach a poor young man to shave himself and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas. This sum may be soon spent, the regret only remaining of having foolishly consumed it: but, in the other case, he escapes the frequent vexation of waiting for barbers, and of their sometimes dirty fingers, offensive breaths, and dull razors: he shaves when most convenient to him, and enjoys daily the pleasure of its being done with a good instrument. With these sentiments I have hazarded the few preceding pages, hoping they may afford hints which some time or other may be useful to a city I love (having lived many years in it very happily), and perhaps to some of our towns in America. Having been some time employed by the postmaster-general of America as his comptroller in regulating the several offices and bringing the officers to account, I was, upon his death in 1753, appointed jointly with Mr. William Hu---- to succeed him, by a commission from the postmaster-general in England. The American office had hitherto never paid anything to that of Britain; we were to have £600 a year between us, if we could make that sum out of the profits of the office. To do this, a variety of improvements were necessary; some of these were inevitably at first expensive; so that, in the first four years, the office became above £900 in debt to us. But it soon after began to repay us; and, before I was displaced by a freak of the ministers (of which I shall speak hereafter), we had brought it to yield _three times_ as much clear revenue to the crown as the postoffice of Ireland. Since that imprudent transaction, they have received from it--not one farthing! The business of the postoffice occasioned my taking a journey this year to New-England, where the college of Cambridge, of their own motion, presented me with the degree of Master of Arts. Yale College, in Connecticut, had before made me a similar compliment. Thus, without studying in any college, I am to partake of their honours. They were conferred in consideration of my improvements and discoveries in the electric branch of Natural Philosophy. In 1754, war with France being again apprehended, a congress of commissioners from the different colonies was, by an order of the lords of trade, to be assembled at Albany, there to confer with the chiefs of the Six Nations concerning the means of defending both their country and ours. Governor Hamilton having received this order, acquainted the house with it, requesting they would furnish proper presents for the Indians, to be given on this occasion; and naming the speaker (Mr. Norris) and myself, to join Mr. John Penn and Mr. Secretary Peters, as commissioners to act for Pennsylvania. The house approved the nomination, and provided the goods for the presents, though they did not much like treating out of the province; and we met the other commissioners at Albany about the middle of June. In our way thither I projected and drew up a plan for the union of all the colonies under one government, so far as might be necessary for defence and other important general purposes. As we passed through New-York, I had there shown my project to Mr. James Alexander and Mr. Kennedy, two gentlemen of great knowledge in public affairs, and being fortified by their approbation, I ventured to lay it before the Congress. It then appeared that several of the commissioners had formed plans of the same kind. A previous question was first taken, whether a union should be established, which passed in the affirmative unanimously. A committee was then appointed, one member from each colony, to consider the several plans and report. Mine happened to be preferred, and, with a few amendments, was accordingly reported. By this plan the general government was to be administered by a president-general, appointed and supported by the crown; and a grand council, to be chosen by the representatives of the people of the several colonies, met in their respective assemblies. The debates upon it in Congress went on daily, hand in hand with the Indian business. Many objections and difficulties were started, but at length they were all overcome, and the plan was unanimously agreed to, and copies ordered to be transmitted to the board of trade and to the assemblies of the several provinces. Its fate was singular: the assemblies did not adopt it, as they all thought there was too much _prerogative_ in it, and in England it was judged to have too much of the _democratic_; the board of trade did not approve of it, nor recommend it for the approbation of his majesty: but another scheme was formed, supposed to answer the same purpose better, whereby the governors of the provinces, with some members of their respective councils, were to meet and order the raising of troops, building of forts, &c., and to draw on the treasury of Great Britain for the expense, which was afterward to be refunded by an act of Parliament laying a tax on America. My plan, with my reasons in support of it, is to be found among my political papers that were printed. Being the winter following in Boston, I had much conversation with Governor Shirley upon both the plans. Part of what passed between us on this occasion may also be seen among those papers. The different and contrary reasons of dislike to my plan makes me suspect that it was really the true medium, and I am still of opinion it would have been happy for both sides if it had been adopted. The colonies, so united, would have been sufficiently strong to defend themselves: there would then have been no need of troops from England, of course the subsequent pretext for taxing America; and the bloody contest it occasioned would have been avoided: but such mistakes are not new: history is full of the errors of states and princes. "Look, round the habitable world, how few Know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue!" Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are, therefore, seldom _adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion_. The governor of Pennsylvania, in sending it down to the Assembly, expressed his approbation of the plan "as appearing to him to be drawn up with great clearness and strength of judgment, and therefore recommended it as well worthy their closest and most serious attention." The house, however, by the management of a certain member, took it up when I happened to be absent (which I thought not very fair), and reprobated it without paying any attention to it at all, to my no small mortification. In my journey to Boston this year, I met at New-York with our new governor, Mr. Morris, just arrived there from England, with whom I had been before intimately acquainted. He brought a commission to supersede Mr. Hamilton, who, tired with the disputes his proprietary instructions subjected him to, had resigned. Mr. Morris asked me if I thought he must expect as uncomfortable an administration. I said "No; you may, on the contrary, have a very comfortable one, if you will only take care not to enter into any dispute with the Assembly." "My dear friend," said he, pleasantly, "how can you advise my avoiding disputes? You know I love disputing; it is one of my greatest pleasures; however, to show the regard I have for your counsel, I promise you I will, if possible, avoid them." He had some reason for loving to dispute, being eloquent, an acute sophister, and, therefore, generally successful in argumentative conversation. He had been brought up to it from a boy, his father, as I have heard, accustoming his children to dispute with one another for his diversion, while sitting at table after dinner; but I think the practice was not wise; for, in the course of my observation, those disputing, contradicting, and confuting people are generally unfortunate in their affairs. They get victory sometimes, but they never get good-will, which would be of more use to them. We parted, he going to Philadelphia and I to Boston. In returning, I met at New-York with the votes of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, by which it appeared that, notwithstanding his promise to me, he and the house were already in high contention; and it was a continual battle between them as long as he retained the government. I had my share of it; for, as soon as I got back to my seat in the Assembly, I was put on every committee for answering his speeches and messages, and by the committees always desired to make the draughts. Our answers, as well as his messages, were often tart, and sometimes indecently abusive; and as he knew I wrote for the Assembly, one might have imagined that, when we met, we could hardly avoid cutting throats. But he was so good-natured a man, that no personal difference between him and me was occasioned by the contest, and we often dined together. One afternoon, in the height of this public quarrel, we met in the street; "Franklin," said he, "you must go home with me and spend the evening; I am to have some company that you will like;" and, taking me by the arm, led me to his house. In gay conversation after supper, he told us jokingly that he much admired the idea of Sancho Panza, who, when it was proposed to give him a government, requested it might be a government of blacks; as then, if he could not agree with his people, he might sell them. One of his friends, who sat next to me, said, "Franklin, why do you continue to side with those Quakers? had you not better sell them? the proprietor would give you a good price." "The governor," said I, "has not yet _blacked_ them enough." He, indeed, had laboured hard to blacken the Assembly in all his messages, but they wiped off his colouring as fast as he laid it on, and placed it in return thick upon his own face; so that, finding he was likely to be _negrofied_ himself, he, as well as Mr. Hamilton, grew tired of the contest and quitted the government. These public quarrels were all at bottom owing to the proprietaries our hereditary governors; who, when any expense was to be incurred for the defence of their province, with incredible meanness, instructed their deputies to pass no act for levying the necessary taxes, unless their vast estates were in the same act expressly exonerated; and they had even taken the bonds of these deputies to observe such instructions. The assemblies for three years held out against this injustice, though constrained to bend at last. At length Captain Denny, who was governor Morris's successor, ventured to disobey those instructions; how that was brought about I shall show hereafter. But I am got forward too fast with my story: there are still some transactions to be mentioned that happened during the administration of Governor Morris. War being in a manner commenced with France, the government of Massachusetts Bay projected an attack upon Crown Point, and sent Mr. Quincy to Pennsylvania, and Mr. Pownal (afterward Governor Pownal) to New-York, to solicit assistance. As I was in the Assembly, knew its temper, and was Mr. Quincy's countryman, he applied to me for my influence and assistance: I dictated his address to them, which was well received. They voted an aid of ten thousand pounds, to be laid out in provisions. But the governor refusing his assent to their bill (which included this with other sums granted for the use of the crown) unless a clause were inserted exempting the proprietary estate from bearing any part of the tax that would be necessary, the Assembly, though very desirous of making their grant to New-England, were at a loss how to accomplish it. Mr. Quincy laboured hard with the governor to obtain his assent, but he was obstinate. I then suggested a method of doing the business without the governor, by orders on the trustees of the loan-office, which, by law, the Assembly had the right of drawing. There was, indeed, little or no money at the time in the office, and therefore I proposed that the orders should be payable in a year, and to bear an interest of five per cent.: with these orders I supposed the provisions might easily be purchased. The Assembly, with very little hesitation, adopted the proposal; the orders were immediately printed, and I was one of the committee directed to sign and dispose of them. The fund for paying them was the interest of all the paper currency then extant in the province upon loan, together with the revenue arising from the excise, which, being known to be more than sufficient, they obtained credit, and were not only taken in payment for the provisions, but many moneyed people who had cash lying by them vested it in those orders, which they found advantageous, as they bore interest while upon hand, and might on any occasion be used as money; so that they were eagerly all bought up, and in a few weeks none of them were to be seen. Thus this important affair was by my means completed. Mr. Quincy returned thanks to the Assembly in a handsome memorial, went home highly pleased with the success of his embassy, and ever after bore for me the most cordial and affectionate friendship. The British government, not choosing to permit the union of the colonies as proposed at Albany, and to trust that union with their defence, lest they should thereby grow too military and feel their own strength (suspicion and jealousies at this time being entertained of them), sent over General Braddock with two regiments of regular English troops for that purpose. He landed at Alexandria, in Virginia, and thence marched to Fredericktown, in Maryland, where he halted for carriages. Our Assembly, apprehending from some information that he had received violent prejudices against them as averse to the service, wished me to wait upon him, not as from them, but as postmaster-general, under the guise of proposing to settle with him the mode of conducting, with the greatest celerity and certainty, the despatches between him and the governors of the several provinces, with whom he must necessarily have continual correspondence, and of which they proposed to pay the expense. My son accompanied me on this journey. We found the general at Fredericktown, waiting impatiently for the return of those whom we had sent through the back parts of Maryland and Virginia to collect wagons. I stayed with him several days, dined with him daily, and had full opportunities of removing his prejudices, by the information of what the Assembly had, before his arrival, actually done, and were still willing to do, to facilitate his operations. When I was about to depart, the returns of wagons to be obtained were brought in, by which it appeared that they amounted only to twenty-five, and not all of those were in serviceable condition. The general and the officers were surprised; declared the expedition was then at an end, being impossible; and exclaimed against the ministers for ignorantly sending them into a country destitute of the means of conveying their stores, baggage, &c., not less than one hundred and fifty wagons being necessary. I happened to say, I thought it was a pity they had not been landed in Pennsylvania, as in that country almost every farmer had his wagon. The general eagerly laid hold of my words, and said, "Then you, sir, who are a man of interest there, can probably procure them for us, and I beg you will undertake it." I asked what terms were to be offered the owners of the wagons; and I was desired to put on paper the terms that appeared to me necessary. This I did, and they were agreed to; and a commission and instructions accordingly prepared immediately. What those terms were will appear in the advertisement I published soon as I arrived at Lancaster; which being, from the great and sudden effect it produced, a piece of some curiosity, I shall insert it at length, as follows: "ADVERTISEMENT. "Lancaster, April 26th, 1753. "Whereas, one hundred and fifty wagons, with four horses to each wagon, and fifteen hundred saddle or packhorses, are wanted for the service of his majesty's forces, now about to rendezvous at Will's Creek; and his excellency General Braddock, having been pleased to empower me to contract for the hire of the same, I hereby give notice, that I shall attend for that purpose at Lancaster from this day to next Wednesday evening, and at York from next Thursday morning till Friday evening, where I shall be ready to agree for wagons and teams, or single horses, on the following terms, viz.: 1. That there shall be paid for each wagon, with four good horses and a driver, fifteen shillings per diem. And for each able horse, with a packsaddle or other saddle and furniture, two shillings per diem. And for each able horse without a saddle, eighteen pence per diem. 2. That the pay commence from the time of their joining the forces at Will's Creek (which must be on or before the 20th of May ensuing), and that a reasonable allowance be paid over and above for the time necessary for their travelling to Will's Creek and home again after their discharge. 3. Each wagon and team, and every saddle or packhorse, is to be valued by indifferent persons, chosen between me and the owner; and in case of the loss of any wagon, team, or other horse in the service, the price, according to such valuation, is to be allowed and paid. 4. Seven days' pay is to be advanced and paid in hand by me to the owner of each wagon and team, or horse, at the time of contracting, if required; and the remainder to be paid by General Braddock, or by the paymaster of the army, at the time of their discharge; or from time to time, as it shall be demanded. 5. No drivers of wagons or persons taking care of the hired horses are, on any account, to be called upon to do the duty of soldiers, or be otherwise employed than in conducting or taking care of their carriages or horses. 6. All oats, Indian corn, or other forage that wagons or horses bring to the camp, more than is necessary for the subsistence of the horses, is to be taken for the use of the army, and a reasonable price paid for the same. "_Note._--My son, William Franklin, is empowered to enter into like contracts with any person in Cumberland county. "B. FRANKLIN." I received of the general about eight hundred pounds, to be disbursed in advance-money to the wagon owners, &c.; but that sum being insufficient, I advanced upward of two hundred pounds more; and in two weeks, the one hundred and fifty wagons, with two hundred and fifty-nine carrying horses, were on their march for the camp. The advertisement promised payment according to the valuation, in case any wagons or horses should be lost. The owners, however, alleging they did not know General Braddock, or what dependance might be had on his promise, insisted on my bond for the performance, which I accordingly gave them. While I was at the camp, supping one evening with the officers of Colonel Dunbar's regiment, he represented to me his concern for the subalterns, who, he said, were generally not in affluence, and could ill afford, in this dear country, to lay in the stores that might be necessary in so long a march through a wilderness where nothing was to be purchased. I commiserated their case, and resolved to endeavour procuring them some relief. I said nothing, however, to him of my intention, but wrote the next morning to the committee of Assembly, who had the disposition of some public money, warmly recommending the case of these officers to their consideration, and proposing that a present should be sent them of necessaries and refreshments. My son, who had some experience of a camp life and of its wants, drew up a list for me, which I enclosed in my letter. The committee approved, and used such diligence that, conducted by my son, the stores arrived at the camp as soon as the wagons. They consisted of twenty parcels, each containing 6 lbs. Loaf Sugar, 6 do. Muscovado do., 1 do. Green Tea, 1 do. Bohea do., 6 do. Ground Coffee, 6 do. Chocolate, 1-2 chest best white Biscuit, 1-2 lb. Pepper, 1 quart white Vinegar, 1 Gloucester Cheese, 1 keg containing 20 lbs. good Butter, 2 doz. old Madeira Wine, 2 gallons Jamaica Spirits, 1 bottle Flour of Mustard, 2 well-cured Hams, 1-2 dozen dried Tongues, 6 lbs. Rice, 6 do. Raisins. These parcels, well packed, were placed on as many horses, each parcel, with the horse, being intended as a present for one officer. They were very thankfully received, and the kindness acknowledged by letters to me from the colonels of both regiments, in the most grateful terms. The general, too, was highly satisfied with my conduct in procuring him the wagons, &c., &c., and readily paid my account of disbursements; thanking me repeatedly, and requesting my farther assistance in sending provisions after him. I undertook this also, and was busily employed in it till we heard of his defeat; advancing for the service, of my own money, upward of one thousand pounds sterling, of which I sent him an account. It came to his hands, luckily for me, a few days before the battle, and he returned me immediately an order on the paymaster for the round sum of one thousand pounds, leaving the remainder to the next account. I consider this payment as good luck, having never been able to obtain that remainder, of which more hereafter. This general was, I think, a brave man, and might probably have made a figure as a good officer in some European war; but he had too much self-confidence, too high an opinion of the validity of regular troops, and too mean a one of both Americans and Indians. George Croghan, our Indian interpreter, joined him on his march with one hundred of those people, who might have been of great use to his army as guides, scouts, &c., if he had treated them kindly; but he slighted and neglected them, and they gradually left him. In conversation with him one day, he was giving me some account of his intended progress. "After taking Fort Duquesne," said he, "I am to proceed to Niagara; and having taken that, to Frontenac, if the season will allow time, and I suppose it will; for Duquesne can hardly detain me above three or four days; and then I see nothing that can obstruct my march to Niagara." Having before revolved in my mind the long line his army must make in their march by a very narrow road, to be cut for them through the woods and bushes; and also what I had read of a former defeat of fifteen hundred French who invaded the Illinois country, I had conceived some doubts and some fears for the event of the campaign. But I ventured only to say, "To be sure, sir, if you arrive well before Duquesne, with the fine troops so well provided with artillery, the fort, though completely fortified, and assisted with a very strong garrison, can probably make but a short resistance. The only danger I apprehend of obstruction to your march is from the ambuscades of the Indians, who, by constant practice, are dexterous in laying and executing them: and the slender line, near four miles long, which your army must make, may expose it to be attacked by surprise in its flanks, and to be cut like a thread into several pieces, which, from their distance, cannot come up in time to support each other." He smiled at my ignorance, and replied, "These savages may indeed be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia; but upon the king's regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible they should make any impression." I was conscious of an impropriety in my disputing with a military man in matters of his profession, and said no more. The enemy, however, did not take the advantage of his army which I apprehend its long line of march exposed it to, but let it advance without interruption till within nine miles of the place; and then, when more in a body (for it had just passed a river, where the front had halted till all were come over), and in a more open part of the woods than any it had passed, attacked its advanced guard by a heavy fire from behind trees and bushes; which was the first intelligence the general had of an enemy's being near him. This guard being disordered, the general hurried the troops up to their assistance, which was done in great confusion, through wagons, baggage, and cattle; and presently the fire came upon their flank: the officers, being on horseback, were more easily distinguished, picked out as marks, and fell very fast; and the soldiers were crowded together in a huddle, having or hearing no orders, and standing to be shot at till two thirds of them were killed; and then, being seized with a panic, the remainder fled with precipitation. The wagoners took each a horse out of his team and scampered; their example was immediately followed by others; so that all the wagons, provisions, artillery, and stores were left to the enemy. The general, being wounded, was brought off with difficulty; his secretary, Mr. Shirley, was killed by his side; and out of eighty-six officers, sixty-three were killed or wounded, and seven hundred and fourteen men killed out of eleven hundred. These eleven hundred had been picked men from the whole army; the rest had been left behind with Colonel Dunbar, who was to follow with the heavier part of the stores, provisions, and baggage. The fliers, not being pursued, arrived at Dunbar's camp, and the panic they brought with them instantly seized him and all his people. And though he had now above one thousand men, and the enemy who had beaten Braddock did not at most exceed four hundred Indians and French together, instead of proceeding and endeavouring to recover some of the lost honour, he ordered all the stores, ammunition, &c., to be destroyed, that he might have more horses to assist his flight towards the settlements, and less lumber to remove. He was there met with requests from the Governor of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, that he would post his troops on the frontiers, so as to afford some protection to the inhabitants; but he continued his hasty march through all the country, not thinking himself safe till he arrived at Philadelphia, where the inhabitants could protect him. This whole transaction gave us Americans the first suspicion that our exalted ideas of the prowess of British regular troops had not been well founded. In their first march, too, from their landing till they got beyond the settlements, they had plundered and stripped the inhabitants, totally ruining some poor families, besides insulting, abusing, and confining the people if they remonstrated. This was enough to put us out of conceit of such defenders, if we had really wanted any. How different was the conduct of our French friends in 1781, who, during a march through the most inhabited part of our country, from Rhode Island to Virginia, near seven hundred miles, occasioned not the smallest complaint for the loss of a pig, a chicken, or even an apple! Captain Orme, who was one of the general's aidsdecamp, and being grievously wounded, was brought off with him, and continued with him to his death, which happened in a few days, told me he was totally silent all the first day, and at night only said, "_Who would have thought it?_" That he was silent again the following day, saying only at last, "_We shall better know how to deal with them another time_;" and died in a few minutes after. The secretary's papers, with all the general's orders, instructions, and correspondence, falling into the enemy's hands, they selected and translated into French a number of the articles, which they printed, to prove the hostile intentions of the British court before the declaration of war. Among these I saw some letters of the general to the ministry, speaking highly of the great service I had rendered the army, and recommending me to their notice. David Hume, who was some years after secretary to Lord Hertford when minister in France, and afterward to General Conway when secretary of state, told me he had seen among the papers in that office letters from Braddock highly recommending me. But the expedition having been unfortunate, my service, it seems, was not thought of much value, for those recommendations were never of any use to me. As to rewards from himself, I asked only one, which was, that he would give orders to his officers not to enlist any more of our bought servants, and that he would discharge such as had been already enlisted. This he readily granted, and several were accordingly returned to their masters on my application. Dunbar, when the command devolved on him, was not so generous. He being at Philadelphia on his retreat, or, rather, flight, I applied to him for the discharge of the servants of three poor farmers of Lancaster county that he had enlisted, reminding him of the late general's orders on that head. He promised me that, if the masters would come to him at Trenton, where he should be in a few days on his march to New-York, he would there deliver their men to them. They accordingly were at the expense and trouble of going to Trenton, and there he refused to perform his promise, to their great loss and disappointment. As soon as the loss of the wagons and horses was generally known, all the owners came upon me for the valuation which I had given bond to pay. Their demands gave me a great deal of trouble: I acquainted them that the money was ready in the paymaster's hands, but the order for paying it must first be obtained from General Shirley, and that I had applied for it; but he being at a distance, an answer could not soon be received, and they must have patience. All this, however, was not sufficient to satisfy, and some began to sue me: General Shirley at length relieved me from this terrible situation, by appointing commissioners to examine the claims, and ordering payment. They amounted to near twenty thousand pounds, which to pay would have ruined me. Before we had the news of this defeat, the two Doctors Bond came to me with a subscription-paper for raising money to defray the expense of a grand fireworks, which it was intended to exhibit at a rejoicing on receiving the news of our taking Fort Duquesne. I looked grave, and said, "It would, I thought, be time enough to prepare the rejoicing when we knew we should have occasion to rejoice." They seemed surprised that I did not immediately comply with their proposal. "Why the d--l," said one of them, "you surely don't suppose that the fort will not be taken?" "I don't know that it will not be taken; but I know that the events of war are subject to great uncertainty." I gave them the reasons of my doubting: the subscription was dropped, and the projectors thereby missed the mortification they would have undergone if the fireworks had been prepared. Dr. Bond, on some other occasion afterward, said that he did not like Franklin's forebodings. Governor Morris, who had continually worried the Assembly with message after message, before the defeat of Braddock, to beat them into the making of acts to raise money for the defence of the province, without taxing, among others, the proprietary estates, and had rejected all their bills for not having such an exempting clause, now redoubled his attacks with more hope of success, the danger and necessity being greater. The Assembly, however, continued firm, believing they had justice on their side, and that it would be giving up an essential right if they suffered the governor to amend their money-bills. In one of the last, indeed, which was for granting fifty thousand pounds, his proposed amendment was only of a single word: the bill expressed "that all estates, real and personal, were to be taxed; those of the proprietaries _not_ excepted." His amendment was, for _not_ read _only_. A small but very material alteration! However, when the news of the disaster reached England, our friends there, whom we had taken care to furnish will all the Assembly's answers to the governor's messages, raised a clamour against the proprietaries for their meanness and injustice in giving their governor such instructions; some going so far as to say that, by obstructing the defence of their province, they forfeited their right to it. They were intimidated by this, sent orders to their receiver-general to add five thousand pounds of their money to whatever sum might be given by the Assembly for such purpose. This being testified to the house, was accepted in lieu of their share of a general tax, and a new bill was formed, with an exempting clause, which passed accordingly. By this act I was appointed one of the commissioners for disposing of the money, sixty thousand pounds. I had been active in modelling the bill and procuring its passage, and had, at the same time, drawn one for establishing and disciplining a voluntary militia, which I carried through the house without much difficulty, as care was taken in it to leave the Quakers at liberty. To promote the association necessary to form the militia, I wrote a dialogue stating and answering all the objections I could think of to such a militia, which was printed, and had, as I thought great effect. While the several companies in the city and country were forming and learning their exercise, the governor prevailed with me to take charge of our northwestern frontier, which was infested by the enemy, and provide for the defence of the inhabitants by raising troops and building a line of forts. I undertook this military business, though I did not conceive myself well qualified for it. He gave me a commission, with full powers, and a parcel of blank commissions for officers, to be given to whom I thought fit. I had but little difficulty in raising men, having soon five hundred and sixty under my command. My son, who had in the preceding war been an officer in the army raised against Canada, was my aiddecamp, and of great use to me. The Indians had burned Gnadenhutten, a village settled by the Moravians, and massacred the inhabitants; but the place was thought a good situation for one of the forts. In order to march thither, I assembled the companies at Bethlehem, the chief establishment of those people; I was surprised to find it in so good a posture of defence; the destruction of Gnadenhutten had made them apprehend danger. The principal buildings were defended by a stockade; they had purchased a quantity of arms and ammunition from New-York, and had even placed quantities of small paving stones between the windows of their high stone houses, for their women to throw them down upon the heads of any Indians that should attempt to force into them. The armed brethren, too, kept watch, and relieved each other on guard as methodically as in any garrison town. In conversation with the bishop, Spangenberg, I mentioned my surprise; for, knowing that they had obtained an act of parliament exempting them from military duties in the colonies, I had supposed they were conscientiously scrupulous of bearing arms. He answered me, "That it was not one of their established principles; but that, at the time of their obtaining that act, it was thought to be a principle with many of their people. On this occasion, however, they, to their surprise, found it adopted by but a few." It seems they were either deceived in themselves or deceived the parliament; but common sense, aided by present danger, will sometimes be too strong for whimsical opinions. It was the beginning of January when we set out upon this business of building forts; I sent one detachment towards the Minisink, with instructions to erect one for the security of that upper part of the country, and another to the lower part with similar instructions; and I concluded to go myself with the rest of my force to Gnadenhutten, where a fort was thought more immediately necessary. The Moravians procured me five wagons for our tools, stores, baggage, &c. Just before we left Bethlehem, eleven farmers, who had been driven from their plantations by the Indians, came to me requesting a supply of firearms, that they might go back and bring off their cattle. I gave them each a gun with suitable ammunition. We had not marched many miles before it began to rain, and it continued raining all day; there were no habitations on the road to shelter us till we arrived near night at the house of a German, where, and in his barn, we were all huddled together as wet as water could make us. It was well we were not attacked in our march, for our arms were of the most ordinary sort, and our men could not keep the locks of their guns dry. The Indians are dexterous in contrivances for that purpose, which we had not. They met that day the eleven poor farmers above mentioned, and killed ten of them; the one that escaped informed us that his and his companions' guns would not go off, the priming being wet with the rain. The next day, being fair, we continued our march, and arrived at the desolate Gnadenhutten; there was a mill near, round which were left several pine boards, with which we soon hutted ourselves; an operation the more necessary at that inclement season, as we had no tents. Our first work was to bury more effectually the dead we found there, who had been half interred by the country people; the next morning our fort was planned and marked out, the circumference measuring four hundred and fifty-five feet, which would require as many palisades to be made, one with another, of a foot diameter each. Our axes, of which we had seventy, were immediately set to work to cut down trees; and our men being dexterous in the use of them, great despatch was made. Seeing the trees fall so fast, I had the curiosity to look at my watch when two men began to cut a pine; in six minutes they had it upon the ground, and I found it of fourteen inches diameter: each pine made three palisades of eighteen feet long, pointed at one end. While these were preparing our other men dug a trench all round of three feet deep, in which the palisades were to be planted; and the bodies being taken off our wagons, and the fore and hind wheels separated by taking out the pin which united the two parts of the perch, we had ten carriages, with two horses each, to bring the palisades from the woods to the spot. When they were set up, our carpenters built a platform of boards all round within, about six feet high, for the men to stand on when to fire through the loopholes. We had one swivel gun, which we mounted on one of the angles, and fired it as soon as fixed, to let the Indians know, if any were within hearing, that we had such pieces; and thus our fort (if that name may be given to so miserable a stockade) was finished in a week, though it rained so hard every other day that the men could not well work. This gave me occasion to observe, that when men are employed they are best contented, for on the days they worked they were good-natured and cheerful, and with the consciousness of having done a good day's work they spent the evening jollily; but on our idle days they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with the pork, the bread, &c., and we were continually in bad humour, which put me in mind of a sea-captain, whose rule it was to keep his men constantly at work; and when his mate once told him that they had done everything, and there was nothing farther to employ them about, "_Oh_," said he, "_make them scour the anchor_." This kind of fort, however contemptible, is a sufficient defence against Indians who had no cannon. Finding ourselves now posted securely, and having a place to retreat to on occasion, we ventured out in parties to scour the adjacent country. We met with no Indians, but we found the places on the neighbouring hills where they had lain to watch our proceedings. There was an art in their contrivance of those places that seems worth mentioning. It being winter, a fire was necessary for them; but a common fire on the surface of the ground would, by its light, have discovered their position at a distance; they had therefore dug holes in the ground, about three feet in diameter and somewhat deeper; we found where they had, with their hatchets, cut off the charcoal from the sides of burnt logs lying in the woods. With these coals they had made small fires in the bottom of the holes, and we observed among the weeds and grass the prints of their bodies, made by their lying all round with their legs hanging down in the holes to keep their feet warm, which with them is an essential point. This kind of fire, so managed, could not discover them either by its light, flame, sparks, or even smoke; it appeared that the number was not great, and it seems they saw we were too many to be attacked by them with prospect of advantage. I had hardly got my fort well stored with provisions when I received a letter from the governor acquainting me that he had called the Assembly, and wished my attendance there, if the posture of affairs on the frontiers was such that my remaining there was no longer necessary. My friends, too, of the Assembly, pressing me by their letters to be, if possible, at the meeting; and my three intended forts being now completed, and the inhabitants contented to remain on their farms under that protection, I resolved to return, the more willingly, as a New-England officer, Colonel Clapham, experienced in Indian war, being on a visit to our establishment, consented to accept the command. I gave him a commission, and, parading the garrison, had it read before them, and introduced him to them as an officer who, from his skill in military affairs, was much more fit to command them than myself, and, giving them a little exhortation, took my leave. I was escorted as far as Bethlehem, where I rested a few days to recover from the fatigue I had undergone. The first night, lying in a good bed, I could hardly sleep, it was so different from my hard lodging on the floor of a hut at Gnadenhutten, with only a blanket or two. While at Bethlehem I inquired a little into the practices of the Moravians; some of them had accompanied me, and all were very kind to me. I found they worked for a common stock, ate at common tables, and slept in common dormitories, great numbers together. In the dormitories I observed loopholes at certain distances all along just under the ceiling, which I thought judiciously placed for change of air. I went to their church, where I was entertained with good music, the organ being accompanied with violins, haut-boys, flutes, clarinets, &c. I understood their sermons were not usually preached to mixed congregations of men, women, and children, as is our common practice, but that they assembled sometimes the married men, at other times their wives, then the young men, the young women, and the little children, each division by itself. The sermon I heard was to the latter, who came in and were placed in rows on benches, the boys under the conduct of a young man, their tutor, and the girls conducted by a young woman. The discourse seemed well adapted to their capacities, and was delivered in a pleasing, familiar manner, coaxing them, as it were, to be good. They behaved very orderly, but looked pale and unhealthy, which made me suspect they were kept too much within doors, or not allowed sufficient exercise. I inquired concerning the Moravian marriages, whether the report was true that they were by lot; I was told that lots were used only in particular cases: that generally, when a young man found himself disposed to marry, he informed the elders of his class, who consulted the elder ladies that governed the young women. As these elders of the different sexes were well acquainted with the tempers and dispositions of their respective pupils, they could best judge what matches were suitable, and their judgments were generally acquiesced in. But if, for example, it should happen that two or three young women were found to be equally proper for the young man, the lot was then recurred to. I objected, if the matches are not made by the mutual choice of the parties, some of them may chance to be very unhappy. "And so they may," answered my informer, "if you let the parties choose for themselves:" which, indeed, I could not deny. Being returned to Philadelphia, I found the association went on with great success, the inhabitants that were not Quakers having pretty generally come into it, formed themselves into companies, and chose their captains, lieutenants, and ensigns, according to the new law. Dr. Bond visited me, and gave me an account of the pains he had taken to spread a general good-liking to the law, and ascribed much to those endeavours. I had the vanity to ascribe all to my dialogue; however, not knowing but that he might be in the right, I let him enjoy his opinion, which I take to be generally the best way in such cases. The officers meeting, chose me to be colonel of the regiment, which I this time accepted. I forget how many companies we had, but we paraded about twelve hundred well-looking men, with a company of artillery, who had been furnished with six brass field-pieces, which they had become so expert in the use of as to fire twelve times in a minute. The first time I reviewed my regiment, they accompanied me to my house, and would salute me with some rounds fired before my door, which shook down and broke several glasses of my electrical apparatus. And my new honour proved not much less brittle; for all our commissions were soon after broken by a repeal of the law in England. During this short time of my colonelship, being about to set out on a journey to Virginia, the officers of my regiment took it into their heads that it would be proper for them to escort me out of town as far as the lower ferry; just as I was getting on horseback they came to my door, between thirty and forty, mounted, and all in their uniforms. I had not been previously acquainted with their project, or I should have prevented it, being naturally averse to the assuming of state on any occasion; and I was a good deal chagrined at their appearance, as I could not avoid their accompanying me. What made it worse was, that, as soon as we began to move, they drew their swords and rode with them naked all the way. Somebody wrote an account of this to the proprietor, and it gave him great offence. No such honour had been paid him when in the province, nor to any of his governors; and he said it was only proper to princes of the blood royal, which may be true for aught I know, who was and still am ignorant of the etiquette in such cases. This silly affair, however, greatly increased his rancour against me, which was before considerable, on account of my conduct in the Assembly respecting the exemption of his estate from taxation, which I had always opposed very warmly, and not without severe reflections on the meanness and injustice in contending for it. He accused me to the ministry as being the great obstacle to the king's service, preventing, by my influence in the house, the proper form of the bills for raising money; and he instanced the parade with my officers as a proof of my having an intention to take the government of the province out of his hands by force. He also applied to Sir Everard Faukener, the postmaster-general, to deprive me of my office; but it had no other effect than to procure from Sir Everard a gentle admonition. Notwithstanding the continual wrangle between the governor and the house, in which I, as a member, had so large a share, there still subsisted a civil intercourse between that gentleman and myself, and we never had any personal difference. I have sometimes since thought, that his little or no resentment against me, for the answers it was known I drew up to his messages, might be the effect of professional habit, and that, being bred a lawyer, he might consider us both as merely advocates for contending clients in a suit; he for the proprietaries, and I for the Assembly: he would, therefore, sometimes call in a friendly way to advise with me on difficult points; and sometimes, though not often, take my advice. We acted in concert to supply Braddock's army with provisions; and when the shocking news arrived of his defeat, the governor sent in haste for me, to consult with him on measures for preventing the desertion of the back counties. I forget now the advice I gave, but I think it was that Dunbar should be written to, and prevailed with, if possible, to post his troops on the frontiers for their protection, until, by re-enforcements from the colonies, he might be able to proceed in the expedition: and, after my return from the frontier, he would have had me undertake the conduct of such an expedition with provincial troops, for the reduction of Fort Duquesne (Dunbar and his men being otherwise employed); and he proposed to commission me as a general. I had not so good an opinion of my military abilities as he professed to have, and I believe his professions must have exceeded his real sentiments: but probably he might think that my popularity would facilitate the business with the men, and influence in the Assembly the grant of money to pay for it; and that, perhaps, without taxing the proprietary. Finding me not so forward to engage as he expected, the project was dropped; and he soon after left the government, being superseded by Captain Denny. Before I proceed in relating the part I had in public affairs under this new governor's administration, it may not be amiss to give here some account of the rise and progress of my philosophical reputation. In 1746, being at Boston, I met there with a Dr. Spence, who was lately arrived from Scotland, and showed me some electric experiments. They were imperfectly performed, as he was not very expert; but, being on a subject quite new to me, they equally surprised and pleased me. Soon after my return to Philadelphia, our library company received from Mr. Peter Collinson, F.R.S., of London, a present of a glass tube, with some account of the use of it in making such experiments. I eagerly seized the opportunity of repeating what I had seen at Boston; and, by much practice, acquired great readiness in performing those also which we had an account of from England, adding a number of new ones. I say much practice, for my house was constantly full for some time with persons who came to see these new wonders. To divide a little this encumbrance among my friends, I caused a number of similar tubes to be blown in our glasshouse, with which they furnished themselves, so that we had at length several performers. Among these the principal was Mr. Kinnersly, an ingenious neighbour, who, being out of business, I encouraged to undertake showing the experiments for money, and drew up for him two lectures, in which the experiments were ranged in such order, and accompanied with explanations in such method, as that the foregoing should assist in comprehending the following. He procured an elegant apparatus for the purpose, in which all the little machines that I had roughly made for myself were neatly formed by instrument-makers. His lectures were well-attended and gave great satisfaction; and, after some time, he went through the colonies, exhibiting them in every capital town, and picked up some money. In the West India islands, indeed, it was with difficulty the experiments could be made, from the general moisture of the air. Obliged as we were to Mr. Collinson for the present of the tube, &c., I thought it right he should be informed of our success in using it, and wrote him several letters containing accounts of our experiments. He got them read in the Royal Society, where they were not at first thought worth so much notice as to be printed in their transactions. One paper which I wrote for Mr. Kinnersly, on the sameness of lightning with electricity, I sent to Mr. Mitchel, an acquaintance of mine, and one of the members also of that society; who wrote me word that it had been read, but was laughed at by the connoisseurs. The papers, however, being shown to Dr. Fothergill, he thought them of too much value to be stifled, and advised the printing of them. Mr. Collinson then gave them to _Cave_ for publication in his _Gentleman's Magazine_; but he chose to print them separately in a pamphlet, and Dr. Fothergill wrote the preface. _Cave_, it seems, judged rightly for his profession; for, by the additions that arrived afterward, they swelled to a quarto volume; which has had five editions, and cost him nothing for copy-money. It was, however, some time before those papers were much taken notice of in England. A copy of them happening to fall into the hands of the Count de Buffon (a philosopher deservedly of great reputation in France, and, indeed, all over Europe), he prevailed with Monsieur Dubourg to translate them into French; and they were printed at Paris. The publication offended the Abbé Nollet, preceptor in Natural Philosophy to the royal family, and an able experimenter, who had formed and published a theory of electricity, which then had the general vogue. He could not at first believe that such a work came from America, and said it must have been fabricated by his enemies at Paris, to oppose his system. Afterward, having been assured that there really existed such a person as Franklin at Philadelphia (which he had doubted), he wrote and published a volume of letters, chiefly addressed to me, defending his theory, and denying the verity of my experiments, and of the positions deduced from them. I once purposed answering the abbé, and actually began the answer; but, on consideration that my writings contained a description of experiments which any one might repeat and verify, and, if not to be verified, could not be defended; or of observations offered as _conjectures_, and not delivered dogmatically, therefore not laying me under any obligation to defend them; and reflecting that a dispute between two persons, written in different languages, might be lengthened greatly by mistranslations, and thence misconceptions of another's meaning, much of one of the abbé's letters being founded on an error in the translation, I concluded to let my papers shift for themselves, believing it was better to spend what time I could spare from public business in making new experiments than in disputing about those already made. I therefore never answered Monsieur Nollet, and the event gave me no cause to repent my silence; for my friend, Monsieur Le Roy, of the Royal Academy of Sciences, took up my cause and refuted him: my book was translated into the Italian, German, and Latin languages; and the doctrine it contained was, by degrees, generally adopted by the philosophers of Europe, in preference to that of the abbé; so that he lived to see himself the last of his sect, except Monsieur B----, of Paris, his _eléve_ and immediate disciple. What gave my book the more sudden and general celebrity, was the success of one of its proposed experiments, made by Messieurs Dalibard and Delor, at Marly, for drawing lightning from the clouds. This engaged the public attention everywhere. Monsieur Delor, who had an apparatus for experimental philosophy, and lectured in that branch of science, undertook to repeat what he called the _Philadelphia experiments_; and after they were performed before the king and court, all the curious of Paris flocked to see them. I will not swell this narrative with an account of that capital experiment, nor of the infinite pleasure I received in the success of a similar one I made soon after with a kite at Philadelphia, as both are to be found in the histories of electricity. Dr. Wright, an English physician, when at Paris, wrote to a friend, who was of the Royal Society, an account of the high esteem my experiments were in among the learned abroad, and of their wonder that my writings had been so little noticed in England. The society, on this, resumed the consideration of the letters that had been read to them, and the celebrated Dr. Watson drew up a summary account of them, and of all I had afterward sent to England on the subject, which he accompanied with some praise of the writer. This summary was then printed in their transactions: and some members of the society in London, particularly the very ingenious Mr. Canton, having verified the experiment of procuring lightning from the clouds by a pointed rod, and acquainted them with the success, they soon made me more than amends for the slight with which they had before treated me. Without my having made any application for that honour, they chose me a member; and voted that I should be excused the customary payments, which would have amounted to twenty-five guineas; and ever since have given me their transactions gratis.[12] They also presented me with the gold medal of Sir Godfrey Copley, for the year 1753, the delivery of which was accompanied by a very handsome speech of the president, Lord Macclesfield, wherein I was highly honoured. Our new governor, Captain Denny, brought over for me the before-mentioned medal from the Royal Society, which he presented to me at an entertainment given him by the city. He accompanied it with very polite expressions of his esteem for me, having, as he said, been long acquainted with my character. After dinner, when the company, as was customary at that time, were engaged in drinking, he took me aside into another room, and acquainted me that he had been advised by his friends in England to cultivate a friendship with me, as one who was capable of giving him the best advice, and of contributing most effectually to render his administration easy. That he therefore desired of all things to have a good understanding with me, and he begged me to be assured of his readiness on all occasions to render me any service that might be in his power. He said much to me also of the proprietors' good disposition towards the province, and of the advantage it would be to us all, and to me in particular, if the opposition that had been so long continued to his measures was dropped, and harmony restored between him and the people, in effecting which it was thought no one could be more serviceable than myself; and I might depend on adequate acknowledgments and recompenses, &c. The drinkers, finding we did not return immediately to the table, sent us a decanter of Madeira, which the governor made liberal use of, and, in proportion, became more profuse of his solicitations and promises. My answers were to this purpose; that my circumstances, thanks to God, were such as to make proprietary favours unnecessary to me; and that, being a member of the Assembly, I could not possibly accept of any; that, however, I had no personal enmity to the proprietary, and that, whenever the public measures he proposed should appear to be for the good of the people, no one would espouse and forward them more zealously than myself; my past opposition had been founded on this, that the measures which had been urged were evidently intended to serve the proprietary interest with great prejudice to that of the people. That I was much obliged to him (the governor) for his profession of regard to me, and that he might rely on everything in my power to render his administration as easy as possible, hoping, at the same time, that he had not brought the same unfortunate instructions his predecessors had been hampered with. On this he did not then explain himself; but when he afterward came to do business with the Assembly, they appeared again; the disputes were renewed, and I was as active as ever in the opposition, being the penman, first of the request to have a communication of the instructions, and then of the remarks upon them, which may be found in the Votes of the Times, and in the HISTORICAL REVIEW I afterward published: but between us personally no enmity arose; we were often together; he was a man of letters, and had seen much of the world, and was entertaining and pleasing in conversation. He gave me information that my old friend Ralph was still alive, that he was esteemed one of the best political writers in England; had been employed in the dispute between Prince Frederic and the king, and had obtained a pension of three hundred pounds a year; that his reputation was indeed small as a poet, but his prose was thought as good as any man's. The Assembly finally finding the proprietary obstinately persisted in shackling the deputies with instructions, inconsistent not only with the privileges of the people, but with the service of the crown, resolved to petition the king against them, and appointed me their agent to go over to England to present and support the petition. The house had sent up a bill to the governor, granting a sum of sixty thousand pounds for the king's use (ten thousand pounds of which was subjected to the orders of the then general, Lord Loudon), which the governor, in compliance with his instructions, absolutely refused to pass. I had agreed with Captain Morris, of the packet at New-York, for my passage, and my stores were put on board; when Lord Loudon arrived at Philadelphia, expressly, as he told me, to endeavour an accommodation between the governor and Assembly, that his majesty's service might not be obstructed by their dissensions. Accordingly, he desired the governor and myself to meet him, that he might hear what was to be said on both sides. We met and discussed the business: in behalf of the Assembly, I urged the various arguments that may be found in the public papers of that time, which were of my writing, and are printed with the minutes of the Assembly; and the governor pleaded his instructions, the bond he had given to observe them, and his ruin if he disobeyed; yet seemed not unwilling to hazard himself if Lord Loudon would advise it. This his lordship did not choose to do, though I once thought I had nearly prevailed with him to do it; but finally he rather chose to urge the compliance of the Assembly; and he entreated me to use my endeavours with them for that purpose, declaring that he would spare none of the king's troops for the defence of our frontiers, and that, if we did not continue to provide for that defence ourselves, they must remain exposed to the enemy. I acquainted the house with what had passed, and presenting them with a set of resolutions I had drawn up, declaring our rights, that we did not relinquish our claim to those rights, but only suspended the exercise of them on this occasion, through _force_, against which we protested, they at length agreed to drop the bill, and frame another conformably to the proprietary instructions; this, of course, the governor passed, and I was then at liberty to proceed on my voyage. But, in the mean time, the packet had sailed with my sea stores, which was some loss to me, and my only recompense was his lordship's thanks for my service, all the credit of obtaining the accommodation falling to his share. He set out for New-York before me; and as the time for despatching the packet-boats was in his disposition, and there were two then remaining there, one of which, he said, was to sail very soon, I requested to know the precise time, that I might not miss her by any delay of mine. The answer was, "I have given out that she is to sail on Saturday next; but I may let you know, _entre nous_, that if you are there by Monday morning, you will be in time, but do not delay longer!" By some accidental hinderance at a ferry, it was Monday noon before I arrived, and I was much afraid she might have sailed, as the wind was fair; but I was soon made easy by the information that she was still in the harbour, and would not move till next day. One would imagine that I was now on the very point of departing for Europe; I thought so, but I was not then so well acquainted with his lordship's character, of which _indecision_ was one of the strongest features: I shall give some instances. It was about the beginning of April that I came to New-York, and I think it was near the end of June before we sailed. There were then two of the packet-boats which had been long in readiness, but were detained for the general's letters, which were always to be ready _to-morrow_. Another packet arrived; she too was detained, and before we sailed a fourth was expected. Ours was the first to be despatched, as having been there longest. Passengers were engaged for all, and some extremely impatient to be gone, and the merchants uneasy about their letters, and for the orders they had given for ensurance (it being war-time) and for autumnal goods; but their anxiety availed nothing; his lordship's letters were not ready: and yet, whoever waited on him found him always at his desk, pen in hand, and concluded he must needs write abundantly. Going myself one morning to pay my respects, I found in his antechamber one Innis, a messenger of Philadelphia, who had come thence express, with a packet from Governor Denny for the general. He delivered to me some letters from my friends there, which occasioned my inquiring when he was to return, and where he lodged, that I might send some letters by him. He told me he was ordered to call to-morrow at nine for the general's answer to the governor, and should set off immediately; I put my letters into his hands the same day. A fortnight after I met him again in the same place. "So you are soon returned, Innis!" "Returned; no, I am not gone yet." "How so?" "I have called here this and every morning these two weeks past for his lordship's letters, and they are not yet ready." "Is it possible, when he is so great a writer; for I see him constantly at his escritoir." "Yes," said Innis, "but he is like St. George on the signs; _always on horseback but never rides on_." This observation of the messenger was, it seems, well founded; for, when in England, I understood that Mr. Pitt (afterward Lord Chatham) gave it as one reason for removing this general and sending Generals Amherst and Wolf, _that the minister never heard from him, and could not know what he was doing_. This daily expectation of sailing, and all the three packets going down to Sandy Hook to join the fleet there, the passengers thought it best to be on board, lest, by a sudden order, the ships should sail and they be left behind. There, if I remember, we were about six weeks, consuming our sea stores and obliged to procure more. At length the fleet sailed, the general and all his army on board bound to Louisburg, with intent to besiege and take that fortress; all the packet-boats in company ordered to attend the general's ship, ready to receive his despatches when they should be ready. We were out five days before we got a letter with leave to part, and then our ship quitted the fleet and steered for England. The other two packets he still detained, carried them with him to Halifax, where he stayed some time to exercise his men in sham attacks upon sham forts; then altered his mind as to besieging Louisburg, and returned to New-York with all his troops, together with the two packets above mentioned, and all their passengers! During his absence the French and savages had taken Fort George, on the frontier of that province, and the Indians had massacred many of the garrison after capitulation. I saw afterward in London Captain Bound, who commanded one of those packets; he told me that when he had been detained a month, he acquainted his lordship that his ship was grown foul to a degree that must necessarily hinder her fast sailing (a point of consequence for a packet-boat), and requested an allowance of time to heave her down and clean her bottom. His lordship asked how long a time that would require. He answered, Three days. The general replied, "If you can do it in one day, I give leave, otherwise not; for you must certainly sail the day after to-morrow." So he never obtained leave, though detained afterward from day to day during full three months. I saw also in London one of Bonell's passengers, who was so enraged against his lordship for deceiving and detaining him so long at New-York, and then carrying him to Halifax and back again, that he swore he would sue him for damages. Whether he did or not I never heard; but, as he represented it, the injury to his affairs was very considerable. On the whole, I wondered much how such a man came to be intrusted with so important a business as the conduct of a great army: but having since seen more of the great world, and the means of obtaining, and motives for giving places and employments, my wonder is diminished. General Shirley, on whom the command of the army devolved upon the death of Braddock, would, in my opinion, if continued in place, have made a much better campaign than that of Loudon in 1756, which was frivolous, expensive, and disgraceful to our nation beyond conception. For though Shirley was not bred a soldier, he was sensible and sagacious in himself, and attentive to good advice from others, capable of forming judicious plans, and quick and active in carrying them into execution. Loudon, instead of defending the colonies with his great army, left them totally exposed, while he paraded idly at Halifax, by which means Fort George was lost; besides, he deranged all our mercantile operations, and distressed our trade by a long embargo on the exportation of provisions, on pretence of keeping supplies from being obtained by the enemy, but in reality for beating down their price in favour of the contractors, in whose profits, it was said (perhaps from suspicion only), he had a share; and when at length the embargo was taken off, neglected to send notice of it to Charleston, where the Carolina fleet was detained near three months, and whereby their bottoms were so much damaged by the worm that a great part of them foundered in their passage home. Shirley was, I believe, sincerely glad of being relieved from so burdensome a charge as the conduct of an army must be to a man unacquainted with military business. I was at the entertainment given by the city of New-York to Lord Loudon, on his taking upon him the command. Shirley, though thereby superseded, was present also. There was a great company of officers, citizens, and strangers; and some chairs having been borrowed in the neighbourhood, there was one among them very low, which fell to the lot of Mr. Shirley. I sat by him, and perceiving it, I said, they have given you a very low seat. "No matter, Mr. Franklin," said he, "I find a _low seat_ the easiest." While I was, as before mentioned, detained at New-York, I received all the accounts of the provisions, &c., that I had furnished to Braddock, some of which accounts could not sooner be obtained from the different persons I had employed to assist in the business; I presented them to Lord Loudon, desiring to be paid the balance. He caused them to be examined by the proper officer, who, after comparing every article with its voucher, certified them to be right; and his lordship promised to give me an order on the paymaster for the balance due to me. This was, however, put off from time to time; and though I called often for it by appointment, I did not get it. At length, just before my departure, he told me he had, on better consideration, concluded not to mix his accounts with those of his predecessors. "And you," said he, "when in England, have only to exhibit your accounts to the treasury, and you will be paid immediately." I mentioned, but without effect, a great and unexpected expense I had been put to by being detained so long at New-York, as a reason for my desiring to be presently paid; and on my observing that it was not right I should be put to any farther trouble or delay in obtaining the money I had advanced, as I charged no commission for my service, "Oh," said he, "you must not think of persuading us that you are no gainer: we understand better those matters, and know that every one concerned in supplying the army, finds means, in the doing it, to fill his own pockets." I assured him that was not my case, and that I had not pocketed a farthing; but he appeared clearly not to believe me; and, indeed, I afterward learned, that immense fortunes are often made in such employments: as to my balance, I am not paid it to this day, of which more hereafter. Our captain of the packet boasted much before we sailed of the swiftness of his ship; unfortunately, when we came to sea, she proved the dullest of ninety-six sail, to his no small mortification. After many conjectures respecting the cause, when we were near another ship, almost as dull as ours, which, however, gained upon us, the captain ordered all hands to come aft, and stand as near the ensign staff as possible. We were, passengers included, about forty persons; while we stood there, the ship mended her pace, and soon left her neighbour far behind, which proved clearly what our captain suspected, that she was loaded too much by the head. The casks of water, it seems, had been placed forward; these he therefore ordered to be moved farther aft, on which the ship recovered her character, and proved the best sailer in the fleet. The captain said she had once gone at the rate of thirteen knots, which is accounted thirteen miles per hour. We had on board, as a passenger, Captain Archibald Kennedy, of the royal navy, afterward Earl of Cassilis, who contended that it was impossible, and that no ship ever sailed so fast, and that there must have been some error in the division of the logline, or some mistake in heaving the log. A wager ensued between the two captains, to be decided when there should be sufficient wind: Kennedy therefore examined the logline, and, being satisfied with it, he determined to throw the log himself. Some days after, when the wind was very fair and fresh, and the captain of the packet (Lutwidge) said he believed she then went at the rate of thirteen knots, Kennedy made the experiment, and owned his wager lost. The foregoing fact I give for the sake of the following observation: it has been remarked, as an imperfection in the art of shipbuilding, that it can never be known till she is tried whether a new ship will or will not be a good sailer; for that the model of a good sailing ship has been exactly followed in a new one, which has been proved, on the contrary, remarkably dull. I apprehend that this may partly be occasioned by the different opinions of seamen respecting the modes of loading, rigging, and sailing of a ship; each has his method; and the same vessel, laden by the method and orders of one captain, shall sail worse than when by the orders of another. Besides, it scarce ever happens that a ship is formed, fitted for the sea, and sailed by the same person; one man builds the hull, another rigs her, a third loads and sails her. No one of these has the advantage of knowing all the ideas and experience of the others, and, therefore, cannot draw just conclusions from a combination of the whole. Even in the simple operation of sailing when at sea, I have often observed different judgments in the officers who commanded the successive watches, the wind being the same. One would have the sails trimmed sharper than another, so that they seemed to have no certain rule to govern by. Yet I think a set of experiments might be instituted, first, to determine the most proper form of the hull for swift sailing; next, the best dimensions and most proper place for the masts; then the form and quantity of sails, and their position as the winds may be; and, lastly, the disposition of the lading. This is an age of experiments, and I think a set accurately made and combined would be of great use. We were several times chased in our passage, but outsailed everything; and in thirty days had soundings. We had a good observation, and the captain judged himself so near our port (Falmouth), that if we made a good run in the night, we might be off the mouth of that harbour in the morning; and, by running in the night, might escape the notice of the enemy's privateers, who often cruised near the entrance of the channel. Accordingly all sail was set that we could possibly carry, and the wind being very fresh and fair, we stood right before it, and made great way. The captain, after his observation, shaped his course, as he thought, so as to pass wide of the Scilly rocks; but it seems there is sometimes a strong current setting up St. George's Channel, which formerly caused the loss of Sir Cloudesley Shovel's Squadron (in 1707): this was probably also the cause of what happened to us. We had a watchman placed in the bow, to whom they often called, "_Look well out before there_;" and he as often answered, "_Ay, ay_;" but perhaps had his eyes shut, and was half asleep at the time; they sometimes answering, as is said, mechanically: for he did not see a light just before us, which had been hid by the studding sails from the man at the helm and from the rest of the watch, but by an accidental yaw of the ship was discovered, and occasioned a great alarm, we being very near it; the light appearing to me as large as a cart wheel. It was midnight, and our captain fast asleep; but Captain Kennedy, jumping upon deck and seeing the danger, ordered the ship to wear round, all sails standing; an operation dangerous to the masts, but it carried us clear, and we avoided shipwreck, for we were running fast on the rocks on which the light was erected. This deliverance impressed me strong with the utility of light-houses, and made me resolve to encourage the building some of them in America, if I should live to return thither. In the morning it was found by our soundings, &c., that we were near our port, but a thick fog hid the land from our sight. About nine o'clock the fog began to rise, and seemed to be lifted up from the water like the curtain of a theatre, discovering underneath the town of Falmouth, the vessels in the harbour, and the fields that surround it. This was a pleasing spectacle to those who had been long without any other prospect than the uniform view of a vacant ocean! and it gave us the more pleasure, as we were now free from the anxieties which had arisen.[13] I set out immediately, with my son,[14] for London, and we only stopped a little by the way to view Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain; and Lord Pembroke's house and gardens, with the very curious antiquities at Wilton. We arrived in London, July 27th, 1757. [Conclusion of Memoirs written by himself.] FOOTNOTES: [10] This little book is dated _Sunday_, 1st _July_, 1773, and is in the possession of Mr. W. T. Franklin: a copy was also in the possession of the late B. T. Bache. [11] Fothergill (John), F.R.S., an eminent physician, born in 1712, at Carr End, in Yorkshire, of Quaker parents, died in 1780. [12] Dr. Franklin gives a farther account of his election in the following extract of a letter to his son, Governor Franklin. "London, Dec. 19, 1767. "We have had an ugly affair at the Royal Society lately. One Dacosti, a Jew, who, as our clerk, was intrusted with collecting our moneys, has been so unfaithful as to embezzle near thirteen hundred pounds in four years. Being one of the council this year as well as the last, I have been employed all the last week in attending the inquiry into, and unravelling his accounts, in order to come at a full knowledge of his frauds. His securities are bound in one thousand pounds to the society, which they will pay, but we are like to lose the rest. He had this year received twenty-six admission payments of twenty-five guineas each, which he did not bring to account. "While attending this affair, I had an opportunity of looking over the old council books and journals of the society; and having a curiosity to see how I came in (of which I had never been informed), I looked back for the minutes relating to it. You must know it is not usual to admit persons that have not requested to be admitted; and a recommendatory certificate in favour of the candidate, signed by at least three of the members is by our rule to be presented to the society, expressing that he is desirous of that honour, and is so and so qualified. As I had never asked or expected the honour, I was, as I said before, curious to see how the business was managed. I found that the certificate, worded very advantageously for me, was signed by Lord Macclesfield, then president, Lord Parker, and Lord Willoughby; that the election was by a unanimous vote; and the honour being voluntarily conferred by the society unsolicited by me, it was thought wrong to demand or receive the usual fees or composition; so that my name was entered on the list with a vote of council _that I was not to pay anything_. And, accordingly, nothing has ever been demanded of me. Those who are admitted in the common way pay five guineas as admission fees, and two guineas and a half yearly contribution, or twenty five guineas down in lieu of it. In my case a substantial favour accompanied the honour." [13] In a letter from Dr. Franklin to his wife, dated at Falmouth, the 17th July, 1757, after giving her a similar account of his voyage, escape, and landing, he adds, "The bell ringing for church, we went thither immediately, and, with hearts full of gratitude, returned sincere thanks to God for the mercies we had received." [14] William Franklin, afterward governor of New-Jersey. PART III. [_Continuation by Dr. Stuber._[15]] Dr. Franklin having mentioned his electrical discoveries only in a very transient manner in the preceding memoirs, some farther account of them cannot fail to be interesting. He engaged in a course of electrical experiments with all the ardour and thirst for discovery which characterized the philosophers of that day. Of all the branches of experimental philosophy, electricity had been least explored. The attractive power of amber is mentioned by Theophrastus and Pliny, and from them by later naturalists. In the year 1600, Gilbert, an English physician, enlarged considerably the catalogue of substances which have the property of attracting light bodies. Boyle, Otto Guericke, a burgomaster of Magdeburg, celebrated as the inventor of the airpump, Dr. Wall, and Sir Isaac Newton, added some facts. Guericke first observed the repulsive power of electricity, and the light and noise produced by it. In 1709, Hawkesbec communicated some important observations and experiments to the world. For several years electricity was entirely neglected, until Mr. Grey applied himself to it, in 1728, with great assiduity. He and his friend Mr. Wheeler made a great variety of experiments; in which they demonstrated that electricity may be communicated from one body to another, even without being in contact, and in this way may be conducted to a great distance. Mr. Grey afterward found that, by suspending rods of iron by silk or hair lines, and bringing an excited tube under them, sparks might be drawn, and a light perceived at the extremities in the dark. M. du Faye, intendant of the French king's gardens, made a number of experiments, which added not a little to the science. He made the discovery of two kinds of electricity, which he called _vitreous_ and _resinous_; the former produced by rubbing glass, the latter from excited sulphur, sealing-wax, &c. But this idea he afterward gave up as erroneous. Between the year 1739 and 1742, Desauguliers made a number of experiments, but added little of importance. He first used the terms _conductors and electrics per se_. In 1742, several ingenious Germans engaged in this subject; of these the principal were, Professor Boze, of Wittemberg, Professor Winkler, of Leipsic, Gordon, a Scotch Benedictine monk, professor of philosophy at Erfurt, and Dr. Ludolf, of Berlin. The result of their researches astonished the philosophers of Europe. Their apparatus was large, and by means of it they were enabled to collect large quantities of the electric fluid, and thus to produce phenomena which had been hitherto unobserved. They killed small birds, and set spirits on fire. Their experiments excited the curiosity of other philosophers. Collinson, about the year 1745, sent to the Library Company of Philadelphia an account of these experiments, together with a tube, and directions how to use it. Franklin, with some of his friends, immediately engaged in a course of experiments, the result of which is well known. He was enabled to make a number of important discoveries, and to propose theories to account for various phenomena; which have been universally adopted, and which bid fair to endure for ages. His observations he communicated in a series of letters, to his friend Collinson, the first of which is dated March 28, 1747. In these he shows the power of points in draining and throwing off the electrical matter, which had hitherto escaped the notice of electricians. He also made the grand discovery of a _plus_ and _minus_, or of a _positive_ and _negative_ state of electricity. We give him the honour of this without hesitation, although the English have claimed it for their countryman, Dr. Watson. Watson's paper is dated January 21, 1748; Franklin's July 11, 1747; several months prior. Shortly after, Franklin, from his principles of the plus and minus state, explained, in a satisfactory manner, the phenomena of the Leyden vial, first observed by Mr. Cuneus, or by Professor Muschenbroeck, of Leyden, which had much perplexed philosophers. He showed clearly that the bottle, when charged, contained no more electricity than before, but that as much was taken from one side as was thrown on the other; and that, to discharge it, nothing was necessary but to produce a communication between the two sides by which the equilibrium might be restored, and that then no signs of electricity would remain. He afterward demonstrated, by experiments, that the electricity did not reside in the coating, as had been supposed, but in the pores of the glass itself. After a vial was charged, he removed the coating, and found that, upon applying a new coating, the shock might still be received. In the year 1749, he first suggested his idea of explaining the phenomena of thunder-gusts, and of the aurora borealis, upon electrical principles. He points out many particulars in which lightning and electricity agree: and he adduces many facts, and reasonings from facts, in support of his positions. In the same year he conceived the astonishingly bold and grand idea of ascertaining the truth of his doctrine by actually drawing down the lightning, by means of sharp-pointed iron rods raised into the region of the clouds. Even in this uncertain state, his passion to be useful to mankind displays itself in a powerful manner. Admitting the identity of electricity and lightning, and knowing the power of points in repelling bodies charged with electricity, and in conducting their fire silently and imperceptibly, he suggested the idea of securing houses, ships, &c., from being damaged by lightning, by erecting pointed rods, that should rise some feet above the most elevated part, and descend some feet into the ground or the water. The effect of these, he concluded, would be either to prevent a stroke by repelling the cloud beyond the striking distance, or by drawing off the electrical fire which it contained; or, if they could not effect this, they would at least conduct the electric matter to the earth, without injury to the building. It was not until the summer of 1752 that he was enabled to complete his grand and unparalleled discovery by experiment. The plan which he had originally proposed was to erect on some high tower or other elevated place a sentry-box, from which should rise a pointed iron rod, insulated by being fixed in a cake of resin. Electrified clouds passing over this would, he conceived, impart to it a portion of their electricity, which would be rendered evident to the senses by sparks being emitted when a key, the knuckle, or other conductor was presented to it. Philadelphia at this time afforded no opportunity of trying an experiment of this kind. While Franklin was waiting for the erection of a spire, it occurred to him that he might have more ready access to the region of clouds by means of a common kite. He prepared one by fastening two cross sticks to a silk handkerchief, which would not suffer so much from the rain as paper. To the upright stick was affixed an iron point. The string was, as usual, of hemp, except the lower end, which was silk. Where the hempen string terminated a key was fastened. With this apparatus, on the appearance of a thunder-gust approaching, he went out into the commons, accompanied by his son, to whom alone he communicated his intentions, well knowing the ridicule which, too generally for the interest of science, awaits unsuccessful experiments in philosophy. He placed himself under a shade to avoid the rain; his kite was raised; a thunder-cloud passed over it; no sign of electricity appeared. He almost despaired of success, when, suddenly, he observed the loose fibres of his string to move towards an erect position. He now presented his knuckle to the key, and received a strong spark. How exquisite must his sensations have been at this moment! On this experiment depended the fate of his theory. If he succeeded, his name would rank high among those who had improved science; if he failed, he must inevitably be subjected to the derision of mankind, or, what is worse, their pity, as a well-meaning man, but a weak, silly projector. The anxiety with which he looked for the result of his experiment may be easily conceived. Doubts and despair had begun to prevail, when the fact was ascertained in so clear a manner, that even the most incredulous could no longer withhold their assent. Repeated sparks were drawn from the key, a vial was charged, a shock given, and all the experiments made which are usually performed with electricity. About a month before this period, some ingenious Frenchman had completed the discovery in the manner originally proposed by Dr. Franklin. The letters which he sent to Mr. Collinson, it is said, were refused a place in the Transactions of the Royal Society of London. However this may be, Collinson published them in a separate volume, under the title of "New Experiments and Observations on Electricity, made at Philadelphia, in America." They were read with avidity, and soon translated into different languages. A very incorrect French translation fell into the hands of the celebrated Buffon, who, notwithstanding the disadvantages under which the work laboured, was much pleased with it, and repeated the experiments with success. He prevailed on his friend, M. D'Alibard, to give his countrymen a more correct translation of the works of the American electrician. This contributed much towards spreading a knowledge of Franklin's principles in France. The king, Louis XV., hearing of these experiments, expressed a wish to be a spectator of them. A course of experiments was given at the seat of the Duc D'Ayen, at St. Germain, by M. de Lor. The applauses which the king bestowed upon Franklin excited in Buffon, D'Alibard, and De Lor, an earnest desire of ascertaining the truth of his theory of thunder-gust. Buffon erected his apparatus on the tower of Monthar, M. D'Alibard at Mary-la-ville, and De Lor at his house in the _Estrapade_ at Paris, some of the highest ground in that capital. D'Alibard's machine first showed signs of electricity. On the 10th of May, 1752, a thunder-cloud passed it, in the absence of M'Alibard, and a number of sparks were drawn from it by Coiffier, a joiner, with whom D'Alibard had left directions how to proceed, and by M. Raulet the prior of Mary-la-ville. An account of this experiment was given to the Royal Academy of Sciences, by M. D'Alibard, in a memoir, dated May 13, 1752. On the 18th of May, M. de Lor proved equally successful with the apparatus erected at his own house. These philosophers soon excited those of other parts of Europe to repeat the experiment, among whom none signalized themselves more than Father Beccaria, of Turin, to whose observations science is much indebted. Even the cold regions of Russia were penetrated by the ardour for discovery. Professor Richman bade fair to add much to the stock of knowledge on this subject, when an unfortunate flash from his conductor put a period to his existence. The friends of science will long remember with regret the amiable martyr to electricity. By these experiments Franklin's theory was established in the most convincing manner. When the truth of it could no longer be doubted, envy and vanity endeavoured to detract from its merit. That an American, an inhabitant of the obscure city of Philadelphia, the name of which was hardly known, should be able to make discoveries and to frame theories which had escaped the notice of the enlightened philosophers of Europe, was too mortifying to be admitted. He must certainly have taken the idea from some one else. An American, a being of an inferior order, make discoveries! Impossible. It was said that the Abbé Nollet, 1748, had suggested the idea of the similarity of lightning and electricity in his _Leçons de Physique_. It is true that the abbé mentions the idea, but he throws it out as a bare conjecture, and proposes no mode of ascertaining the truth of it. He himself acknowledges that Franklin first entertained the bold thought of bringing lightning from the heavens, by means of pointed rods fixed in the air. The similarity of lightning and electricity is so strong, that we need not be surprised at notice being taken of it as soon as electrical phenomena became familiar. We find it mentioned by Dr. Wall and Mr. Grey, while the science was in its infancy. But the honor of forming a regular theory of thunder-gusts, of suggesting a mode of determining the truth of it by experiments, and of putting these experiments in practice, and thus establishing the theory upon a firm and solid basis, is incontestibly due to Franklin. D'Alibard, who made the first experiments in France, says that he only followed the tract which Franklin had pointed out. It has been of late asserted, that the honour of completing the experiment with the electrical kite does not belong to Franklin. Some late English paragraphs have attributed it to some Frenchman, whose name they do not mention: and the Abbé Bertholon gives it to M. de Romas, assessor to the presideal of Nerac: the English paragraphs probably refer to the same person. But a very slight attention will convince us of the injustice of this procedure: Dr. Franklin's experiment was made in June, 1752, and his letter, giving an account of it, is dated October 19, 1752. M. de Romas made his first attempt on the 14th of May, 1753, but was not successful until the 7th of June, a year after Franklin had completed the discovery, and when it was known to all the philosophers in Europe. Besides these great principles, Franklin's letters on electricity contain a number of facts and hints which have contributed greatly towards reducing this branch of knowledge to a science. His friend, Mr. Kinnersley, communicated to him a discovery of the different kinds of electricity, excited by rubbing glass and sulphur. This, we have said, was first observed by M. du Faye, but it was for many years neglected. The philosophers were disposed to account for the phenomena rather from a difference in the quantity of electricity collected, and even Du Faye himself seems at last to have adopted this doctrine. Franklin at first entertained the same idea; but, upon repeating the experiment, he perceived that Mr. Kinnersley was right; and that the _vitreous_ and _resinous_ electricity of Du Faye were nothing more than the _positive_ and _negative_ states which he had before observed; and that the glass globe charged _positively_, or increased the quantity of electricity on the prime conductor, while the globe of sulphur diminishes its natural quantity, or charged _negatively_. These experiments and observations opened a new field for investigation, upon which electricians entered with avidity, and their labours have added much to the stock of our knowledge. In September, 1752, Franklin entered upon a course of experiments to determine the state of electricity in the clouds. From a number of experiments he formed this conclusion: "That the clouds of a thunder-gust are most commonly in a negative state of electricity, but sometimes in a positive state;" and from this it follows, as a necessary consequence, "that, for the most part, in thunder-strokes, it is the earth that strikes into the clouds, and not the clouds that strike into the earth." The letter containing these observations is dated in September, 1753; and yet the discovery of ascending thunder has been said to be of a modern date, and has been attributed to the Abbé Bertholon, who published his memoir on the subject in 1776. Franklin's letters have been translated into most of the European languages and into Latin. In proportion as they have become known, his principles have been adopted. Some opposition was made to his theories, particularly by the Abbé Nollet, who was, however, feebly supported, while the first philosophers in Europe stepped forth in defence of Franklin's principles, among whom D'Alibard and Beccaria were the most distinguished. The opposition has gradually ceased, and the Franklinian system is now universally adopted where science flourishes. The important practical use which Franklin made of his discoveries, the securing of houses from injury by lightning, has been already mentioned. Pointed conductors are now very common in America; but prejudice has hitherto prevented their general introduction into Europe, notwithstanding the most undoubted proofs of their utility have been given. But mankind can with difficulty be brought to lay aside established practices, or to adopt new ones. And perhaps we have more reason to be surprised that a practice, however rational, which was proposed about forty years ago, should in that time have been adopted in so many places, than that it has not universally prevailed. It is only by degrees that the great body of mankind can be led into new practices, however salutary their tendency. It is now nearly eighty years since inoculation was introduced into Europe and America; and it is so far from being general at present, that it will require one or two centuries to render it so. The disputes between the proprietaries and the people of the province continued in full force, although a war was raging on the frontiers. Not even the sense of danger was sufficient to reconcile, for ever so short a time, their jarring interests. The Assembly still insisted upon the justice of taxing the proprietary estates; but the governors constantly refused their assent to this measure, without which no bill could pass into a law. Enraged at the obstinacy, and what they conceived to be the unjust proceedings of their opponents, the Assembly at length determined to apply to the mother country for relief. A petition was addressed to the king in council, stating the inconveniences under which the inhabitants laboured, from the attention of the proprietaries to their private interest, to the neglect of the general welfare of the community, and praying for redress. Franklin was appointed to present this address, as agent for the province of Pennsylvania, and departed from America in June, 1757. In conformity to the instructions which he had received from the legislature, he held a conference with the proprietaries who then resided in England, and endeavoured to prevail upon them to give up the long-contested point. Finding that they would hearken to no terms of accommodation, he laid his petition before the council. During this time Governor Denny assented to a law imposing a tax, in which no discrimination was made in favour of the estates of the Penn family. They, alarmed at this intelligence and Franklin's exertions, used their utmost endeavours to prevent the royal sanction being given to this law, which they represented as highly iniquitous, designed to throw the burden of supporting government upon them, and calculated to produce the most ruinous consequences to them and their posterity. The cause was amply discussed before the privy council. The Penns found here some strenuous advocates; nor were there wanting some who warmly espoused the side of the people. After some time spent in debate, a proposal was made that Franklin should solemnly engage that the assessment of the tax should be so made as that the proprietary estates should pay no more than a due proportion. This he agreed to perform, the Penn family withdrew their opposition, and tranquillity was thus once more restored to the province. The mode in which this dispute was terminated is a striking proof of the high opinion entertained of Franklin's integrity and honour, even by those who considered him as inimical to their views. Nor was their confidence ill-founded. The assessment was made upon the strictest principle of equity; and the proprietary estates bore only a proportionable share of the expenses of supporting government. After the completion of this important business, Franklin remained at the court of Great Britain as agent for the province of Pennsylvania. The extensive knowledge which he possessed of the situation of the colonies, and the regard which he always manifested for their interests, occasioned his appointment to the same office by the colonies of Massachusetts, Maryland, and Georgia. His conduct, in this situation, was such as rendered him still more dear to his countrymen. He had now an opportunity of indulging in the society of those friends whom his merits had procured him while at a distance. The regard which they had entertained for him was rather increased by a personal acquaintance. The opposition which had been made to his discoveries in philosophy gradually ceased, and the rewards of literary merit were abundantly conferred upon him. The Royal Society of London, which had at first refused his performances admission into its transactions, now thought it an honour to rank him among its fellows. Other societies of Europe were equally ambitious of calling him a member. The University of St. Andrew, in Scotland, conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. Its example was followed by the Universities of Edinburgh and Oxford. His correspondence was sought for by the most eminent philosophers of Europe. His letters to these abound with true science, delivered in the most simple, unadorned manner. The province of Canada was at this time in the possession of the French, who had originally settled it. The trade with the Indians, for which its situation was very convenient, was exceedingly lucrative. The French traders here found a market for their commodities, and received in return large quantities of rich furs, which they disposed of at a high price in Europe. While the possession of this country was highly advantageous to France, it was a grievous inconvenience to the inhabitants of the British colonies. The Indians were almost generally desirous to cultivate the friendship of the French, by whom they were abundantly supplied with arms and ammunition. Whenever a war happened, the Indians were ready to fall upon the frontiers; and this they frequently did, even when Great Britain and France were at peace. From these considerations, it appeared to be the interest of Great Britain to gain the possession of Canada. But the importance of such an acquisition was not well understood in England. Franklin about this time published his Canada pamphlet, in which he, in a very forcible manner, pointed out the advantages which would result from the conquest of this province. An expedition against it was planned, and the command given to General Wolfe. His success is well known. At the treaty in 1762, France ceded Canada to Great Britain; and by her cession of Louisiana, at the same time, relinquished all her possessions on the continent of America. Although Dr. Franklin was now principally occupied with political pursuits, he found time for philosophical studies. He extended his electrical researches, and made a variety of experiments, particularly on the tourmalin. The singular properties which this stone possesses, of being electrified on one side positively, and on the other negatively, by heat alone, without friction, had been but lately observed. Some experiments on the cold produced by evaporation, made by Dr. Cullen, had been communicated to Dr. Franklin by Professor Simpson, of Glasgow. These he repeated, and found that, by the evaporation of ether in the exhausted receiver of an airpump, so great a degree of cold was produced in a summer's day, that water was converted into ice. This discovery he applied to the solution of a number of phenomena, particularly a single fact, which philosophers had endeavoured in vain to account for, viz., that the temperature of the human body, when in health, never exceeds 96 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer, although the atmosphere which surrounds it may be heated to a much greater degree. This he attributed to the increased perspiration and consequent evaporation produced by the heat. In a letter to Mr. Small, of London, dated in May, 1760, Dr. Franklin makes a number of observations, tending to show that, in North America, northeast storms begin in the southwest parts. It appears, from actual observations, that a northeast storm, which extended a considerable distance, commenced at Philadelphia nearly four hours before it was felt at Boston. He endeavoured to account for this by supposing that, from heat, some rarefication takes place about the Gulf of Mexico; that the air farther north, being cooler, rushes in, and is succeeded by the cooler and denser air still farther north, and that thus a continued current is at length produced. The tone produced by rubbing the brim of a drinking-glass with a wet finger had been generally known. A Mr. Puckeridge, an Irishman, by placing on a table a number of glasses of different sizes, and tuning them, by partly filling them with water, endeavoured to form an instrument capable of playing tunes. He was prevented, by an untimely end, from bringing his invention to any degree of perfection. After his death some improvements were made upon his plan. The sweetness of the tones induced Dr. Franklin to make a variety of experiments; and he at length formed that elegant instrument which he has called the _Armonica_. In the summer of 1762 he returned to America. On his passage he observed the singular effect produced by the agitation of a vessel containing oil floating on water. The surface of the oil remains smooth and undisturbed, while the water is agitated with the utmost commotion. No satisfactory explanation of this appearance has, we believe, ever been given. Dr. Franklin received the thanks of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, "as well for the faithful discharge of his duty to that province in particular, as for the many and important services done to America in general during his residence in Great Britain." A compensation of 5000_l._, Pennsylvania currency, was also decreed him for his service during six years. During his absence he had been annually elected member of the Assembly. On his return to Pennsylvania he again took his seat in this body, and continued a steady defender of the liberties of the people. In December, 1762, a circumstance which caused great alarm in the province took place. A number of Indians had resided in the county of Lancaster, and conducted themselves uniformly as friends to the white inhabitants. Repeated depredations on the frontiers had exasperated the inhabitants to such a degree, that they determined on revenge upon every Indian. A number of persons, to the amount of about 120, principally inhabitants of Donegal and Peckstang, or Paxton, townships, in the county of York, assembled, and, mounted on horseback, proceeded to the settlement of these harmless and defenceless Indians, whose number had now been reduced to about twenty. The Indians received intelligence of the attack which was intended against them, but disbelieved it. Considering the white people as their friends, they apprehended no danger from them. When the party arrived at the Indian settlement, they found only some women and children, and a few old men, the rest being absent at work. They murdered all whom they found, and among others the chief Shaheas, who had been always distinguished for his friendship to the whites. This bloody deed excited much indignation in the well-disposed part of the community. The remainder of these unfortunate Indians, who, by absence, had escaped the massacre, were conducted to Lancaster, and lodged in the jail as a place of security. The governor issued a proclamation, expressing the strongest disapprobation of the action, offering a reward for the discovery of the perpetrators of the deed, and prohibiting all injuries to the peaceable Indians in future. But, notwithstanding this, a party of the same men shortly after marched to Lancaster, broke open the jail, and inhumanly butchered the innocent Indians who had been placed there for security. Another proclamation was issued, but it had no effect. A detachment marched down to Philadelphia for the express purpose of murdering some friendly Indians, who had been removed to the city for safety. A number of the citizens armed in their defence. The Quakers, whose principles are opposed to fighting, even in their own defence, were most active upon this occasion. The rioters came to Germantown. The governor fled for safety to the house of Dr. Franklin, who, with some others, advanced to meet the Paxton boys, as they were called, and had influence enough to prevail upon them to relinquish their undertaking and return to their homes. The disputes between the proprietaries and the Assembly, which for a time had subsided, were again revived. The proprietaries were dissatisfied with the concessions made in favour of the people, and made great struggles to recover the privilege of exempting their estates from taxation, which they had been induced to give up. In 1763 the Assembly passed a militia bill, to which the governor refused to give his assent, unless the Assembly would agree to certain amendments which he proposed. These consisted in increasing the fines, and, in some cases, substituting death for fines. He wished, too, that the officers should be appointed altogether by himself, and not be nominated by the people, as the bill had proposed. These amendments the Assembly considered as inconsistent with the spirit of liberty. They would not adopt them; the governor was obstinate, and the bill was lost. These, and various other circumstances, increased the uneasiness which subsisted between the proprietaries and the Assembly, to such a degree that, in 1764, a petition to the king was agreed to by the house, praying an alteration from a _proprietary_ to a _regal_ government. Great opposition was made to this measure, not only in the house, but in the public prints. A speech of Mr. Dickenson on the subject was published, with a preface by Dr. Smith, in which great pains were taken to show the impropriety and impolicy of this proceeding. A speech of Mr. Golloway, in reply to Mr. Dickenson, was published, accompanied with a preface by Dr. Franklin, in which he ably opposed the principles laid down in the preface to Mr. Dickenson's speech. This application to the throne produced no effect. The proprietary government was still continued. At the election for a new Assembly, in the fall of 1764, the friends of the proprietaries made great exertions to exclude those of the adverse party; and they obtained a small majority in the city of Philadelphia. Franklin now lost his seat in the house, which he had held for fourteen years. On the meeting of the Assembly it appeared that there was still a decided majority of Franklin's friends. He was immediately appointed provincial agent, to the great chagrin of his enemies, who made a solemn protest against this appointment: which was refused admission upon the minutes, as being unprecedented. It was, however, published in the papers, and produced a spirited reply from him, just before his departure for England. The disturbances produced in America by Mr. Grenville's stamp-act, and the opposition made to it, are well known. Under the Marquis of Rockingham's administration, it appeared expedient to endeavour to calm the minds of the colonists, and the repeal of the odious tax was contemplated. Among other means of collecting information on the disposition of the people to submit to it, Dr. Franklin was called to the bar of the House of Commons. The examination which he here underwent was published, and contains a striking proof of the extent and accuracy of his information, and the facility with which he communicated his sentiments. He represented facts in so strong a point of view, that the expediency of the act must have appeared clear to every unprejudiced mind. The act, after some opposition, was repealed, about a year after it was enacted, and before it had ever been carried into execution. In the year 1766, he made a visit to Holland and Germany, and received the greatest marks of attention from men of science. In his passage through Holland, he learned from the watermen the effect which a diminution of the quantity of water in canals has in impeding the progress of boats. Upon his return to England, he was led to make a number of experiments, all of which tended to confirm the observation. These, with an explanation of the phenomenon, he communicated in a letter to his friend, Sir John Pringle, which is among his philosophical pieces. In the following year he travelled into France, where he met with a no less favourable reception than he had experienced in Germany. He was introduced to a number of literary characters, and to the king, Louis XV. Several letters, written by Hutchinson, Oliver, and others, to persons in eminent stations in Great Britain, came into the hands of Dr. Franklin. These contained the most violent invectives against the leading characters of the State of Massachusetts, and strenuously advised the prosecution of vigorous measures to compel the people to obedience to the measures of the ministry. These he transmitted to the legislature, by whom they were published. Attested copies of them were sent to Great Britain, with an address, praying the king to discharge from office persons who had rendered themselves obnoxious to the people, and who had shown themselves so unfriendly to their interests. The publication of these letters produced a duel between Mr. Whately and Mr. Temple; each of whom was suspected of having been instrumental in procuring them. To prevent any farther disputes on this subject, Dr. Franklin, in one of the public papers, declared that he had sent them to America, but would give no information concerning the manner in which he had obtained them; nor was this ever discovered. Shortly after, the petition of the Massachusetts Assembly was taken up for examination before the privy council. Dr. Franklin attended as agent for the Assembly; and here a torrent of the most violent and unwarranted abuse was poured upon him by the solicitor-general, Wedderburne, who was engaged as counsel for Oliver and Hutchinson. The petition was declared to be scandalous and vexatious, and the prayer of it refused. Although the parliament of Great Britain had repealed the stamp-act, it was only upon the principle of expediency. They still insisted upon their right to tax the colonies; and, at the same time that the stamp-act was repealed, an act was passed declaring the right of parliament to bind the colonies in all cases whatever. This language was used even by most strenuous opposers of the stamp-act, and, among others, by Mr. Pitt. This right was never recognised by the colonists; but, as they flattered themselves that it would not be exercised, they were not very active in remonstrating against it. Had this pretended right been suffered to remain dormant, the colonists would cheerfully have furnished their quota of supplies, in the mode to which they had been accustomed; that is, by acts of their own assemblies, in consequence of requisitions from the secretary of state. If this practice had been pursued, such was the disposition of the colonies towards their mother country, that, notwithstanding the disadvantages under which they laboured, from restraints upon their trade, calculated solely for the benefit of the commercial and manufacturing interests of Great Britain, a separation of the two countries might have been a far distant event. The Americans, from their earliest infancy, were taught to venerate a people from whom they were descended; whose language, laws, and manners were the same as their own. They looked up to them as models of perfection; and, in their prejudiced minds, the most enlightened nations of Europe were considered as almost barbarians in comparison with Englishmen. The name of an Englishman conveyed to an American the idea of everything good and great. Such sentiments instilled into them in early life, what but a repetition of unjust treatment could have induced them to entertain the most distant thought of separation! The duties on glass, paper, leather, painters' colours, tea, &c., the disfranchisement of some of the colonies, the obstruction to the measures of the legislature in others by the king's governors, the contemptuous treatment of their humble remonstrances, stating their grievances, and praying a redress of them, and other violent and oppressive measures, at length excited an ardent spirit of opposition. Instead of endeavouring to allay this by a more lenient conduct, the ministry seemed resolutely bent upon reducing the colonies to the most slavish obedience to their decrees. But this only tended to aggravate. Vain were all the efforts made use of to prevail upon them to lay aside their designs, to convince them of the impossibility of carrying them into effect, and of the mischievous consequences which must ensue from the continuance of the attempt. They persevered with a degree of inflexibility scarcely paralleled. The advantages which Great Britain derived from her colonies was so great, that nothing but a degree of infatuation little short of madness could have produced a continuance of measures calculated to keep up a spirit of uneasiness, which might occasion the slightest wish for a separation. When we consider the great improvements in the science of government, the general diffusion of the principles of liberty among the people of Europe, the effects which these have already produced in France, and the probable consequences which will result from them elsewhere, all of which are the offspring of the American revolution, it cannot but appear strange that events of so great moment to the happiness of mankind should have been ultimately occasioned by the wickedness or ignorance of a British ministry. Dr. Franklin left nothing untried to prevail upon the ministry to consent to a change of measures. In private conversations, and in letters to persons in government, he continually expatiated upon the impolicy and injustice of their conduct towards America; and stated that, notwithstanding the attachment of the colonists to the mother country, a repetition of ill-treatment must ultimately alienate their affections. They listened not to his advice. They blindly persevered in their own schemes, and left to the colonists no alternative but opposition or unconditional submission. The latter accorded not with the principles of freedom which they had been taught to revere. To the former they were compelled, though reluctantly, to have recourse. Dr. Franklin finding all efforts to restore harmony between Great Britain and her colonies useless, returned to America in the year 1775, just after the commencement of hostilities. The day after his return, he was elected by the legislature of Pennsylvania a delegate to Congress. Not long after his election, a committee was appointed, consisting of Mr. Lynch, Mr. Harrison, and himself, to visit the camp at Cambridge, and, in conjunction with the commander-in-chief, to endeavour to convince the troops, whose term of enlistment was about to expire, of the necessity of their continuing in the field, and persevering in the cause of their country. In the fall of the same year he visited Canada, to endeavour to unite them in the common cause of liberty; but they could not be prevailed upon to oppose the measures of the British government. M. le Roy, in a letter annexed to Abbé Fauchett's eulogium of Dr. Franklin, states that the ill success of this negotiation was occasioned in a great degree by religious animosities, which subsisted between the Canadians and their neighbours, some of whom had, at different times, burned their chapels. When Lord Howe came to America in 1776, vested with power to treat with the colonists, a correspondence took place between him and Dr. Franklin on the subject of a reconciliation. Dr. Franklin was afterward appointed, together with John Adams and Edward Rutledge, to wait upon the commissioners, in order to learn the extent of their powers. These were found to be only to grant pardons upon submission. These were terms which could not be accepted, and the object of the commissioners could not be obtained. The momentous question of independence was shortly after brought into view, at a time when the fleets and armies which were sent to enforce obedience were truly formidable. With an army, numerous indeed, but ignorant of discipline, and entirely unskilled in the art of war, without money, without a fleet, without allies, and with nothing but the love of liberty to support them, the colonists determined to separate from a country from which they had experienced a repetition of injury and insult. In this question Dr. Franklin was decidedly in favour of the measure proposed, and had great influence in bringing others over to his sentiments. The public mind had been already prepared for this event by Mr. Paine's celebrated pamphlet, _Common Sense_. There is good reason to believe that Dr. Franklin had no inconsiderable share at least in furnishing materials for this work. In the convention which assembled at Philadelphia in 1776, for the purpose of establishing a new form of government for the State of Pennsylvania, Dr. Franklin was chosen president. The late constitution of this state, which was the result of their deliberations, may be considered as a digest of his principles of government. The single legislature and the plural executive seem to have been his favourite tenets. In the latter end of 1776, Dr. Franklin was appointed to assist at the negotiation which had been set on foot by Silas Deane, at the court of France. A conviction of the advantages of a commercial intercourse with America, and a desire of weakening the British empire by dismembering it, first induced the French court to listen to proposals of an alliance. But they showed rather a reluctance to the measure, which, by Dr. Franklin's address, and particularly by the success of the American arms against General Burgoyne, was at length overcome; and in February, 1778, a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, was concluded; in consequence of which, France became involved in the war with Great Britain. Perhaps no person could have been found more capable of rendering essential services to the United States at the court of France than Dr. Franklin. He was well known as a philosopher, and his character was held in the highest estimation. He was received with the greatest marks of respect by all the literary characters, and this respect was extended among all classes of men. His personal influence was hence very considerable. To the effects of this were added those of various performances which he published, tending to establish the credit and character of the United States. To his exertions in this way may, in no small degree, be ascribed the success of the loans negotiated in Holland and France, which greatly contributed to bringing the war to a happy conclusion. The repeated ill success of their arms, and more particularly the capture of Cornwallis and his army, at length convinced the British nation of the impossibility of reducing the Americans to subjection. The trading interest particularly became clamorous for peace. The ministry were unable longer to oppose their wishes. Provisional articles of peace were agreed to, and signed at Paris, on the 30th of November, 1782, by Dr. Franklin, Mr. Adams, Mr. Jay, and Mr. Laurens, on the part of the United States, and by Mr. Oswald on the part of Great Britain. These formed the basis of the definitive treaty, which was concluded the 3d of September, 1783, and signed by Dr. Franklin, Mr. Adams, and Mr. Jay on the one part, and by Mr. David Hartly on the other. On the 3rd of April, 1783, a treaty of Amity and Commerce between the United States and Sweden, was concluded at Paris by Dr. Franklin and the Count Von Krutz. A similar treaty with Prussia was concluded in 1785, not long before Dr. Franklin's departure from Europe. Dr. Franklin did not suffer his political pursuits to engross his whole attention. Some of his performances made their appearance in Paris. The objects of these were generally the promotion of industry and economy. In the year 1784, when animal magnetism made great noise in the world, particularly at Paris, it was thought a matter of such importance that the king appointed commissioners to examine into the foundation of this pretended science. Dr. Franklin was one of the number. After a fair and diligent examination, in the course of which Mesmer repeated a number of experiments, in the presence of the commissioners, some of which were tried upon themselves, they determined that it was a mere trick, intended to impose upon the ignorant and credulous. Mesmer was thus interrupted in his career to wealth and fame, and a most insolent attempt to impose upon the human understanding baffled. The important ends of Dr. Franklin's mission being completed by the establishment of American independence, and the infirmities of age and disease coming upon him, he became desirous of returning to his native country. Upon application to Congress to be recalled, Mr. Jefferson was appointed to succeed him in 1785. Some time in September of the same year Dr. Franklin arrived in Philadelphia. He was shortly after chosen a member of the supreme executive council for the city, and soon after was elected president of the same. When a convention was called to meet in Philadelphia, in 1787, for the purpose of giving more energy to the government of the union, by revising and amending the articles of confederation, Dr. Franklin was appointed a delegate from the State of Pennsylvania. He signed the constitution which they proposed for the union, and gave it the most unequivocal marks of his approbation. A society for political inquiries, of which Dr. Franklin was president, was established about this period. The meetings were held at his house. Two or three essays read in this society were published. It did not long continue. In the year 1787, two societies were established in Philadelphia, founded on the principles of the most liberal and refined humanity: _The Philadelphia Society for alleviating the miseries of public prisons: and the Pennsylvania Society for promoting the abolition of slavery, the relief of free negroes unlawfully held in bondage, and the improvement of the condition of the African race._ Of each of these Dr. Franklin was president. The labours of these bodies have been crowned with great success; and they continue to prosecute, with unwearied diligence, the laudable designs for which they were established. Dr. Franklin's increasing infirmities prevented his regular attendance at the council chamber, and in 1788 he retired wholly from public life. His constitution had been a remarkably good one. He had been little subject to disease, except an attack of the gout occasionally, until about the year 1781, when he was first attacked with symptoms of the calculous complaint, which continued during his life. During the intervals of pain from this grievous disease, he spent many cheerful hours, conversing in the most agreeable and instructive manner. His faculties were entirely unimpaired, even to the hour of his death. His name, as president of the abolition society, was signed to the memorial presented to the House of Representatives of the United States, on the 12th of February, 1789, praying them to exert the full extent of power vested in them by the constitution in discouraging the traffic in the human species. This was his last public act. In the debates to which this memorial gave rise, several attempts were made to justify the trade. In the Federal Gazette of March 25, there appeared an essay, signed Historicus, written by Dr. Franklin, in which he communicated a speech, said to have been delivered in the Divan of Algiers, in 1687, in opposition to the prayer of the petition of a sect called _Erika_, or purists, for the abolition of piracy and slavery. This pretended African speech was an excellent parody of one delivered by Mr. Jackson, of Georgia. All the arguments urged in favour of negro slavery are applied with equal force to justify the plundering and enslaving of Europeans. It affords, at the same time, a demonstration of the futility of the arguments in defence of the slave-trade, and of the strength of mind and ingenuity of the author, at his advanced period of life. It furnished, too, a no less convincing proof of his power of imitating the style of other times and nations than his celebrated parable against persecution. And as the latter led many persons to search the scriptures with a view to find it, so the former caused many persons to search the bookstores and libraries for the work from which it was said to be extracted. During the greatest part of his life Dr. Franklin had enjoyed an almost uninterrupted state of good health, and this he entirely attributed to his exemplary temperance. In the year 1735, indeed, he had been seized with a pleurisy, which ended in a suppuration of the left lobe of the lungs, so that he was almost suffocated by the quantity of matter thrown up. But from this, as well as from another attack of the same kind, he recovered so completely, that his breathing was not in the least affected. As he advanced in years, however, he became subject to fits of the gout, to which, in 1782, a nephritic cholic was superadded. From this time he was also affected with the stone as well as the gout; and for the last twelve months of his life these complaints almost entirely confined him to his bed. Notwithstanding his distressed situation, neither his mental faculties nor his natural cheerfulness ever forsook him. His memory was tenacious to the very last; and he seemed to be an exception to the general rule, that, at a certain period of life, the organs which are subservient to this faculty become callous; a remarkable instance of which is, that he learned to speak French after he had attained the age of seventy! In the beginning of April following, he was attacked with a fever and complaint of his breast, which terminated his existence. The following account of his last illness was written by his friend and physician, Dr. Jones. "The stone, with which he had been afflicted for several years, had for the last twelve months confined him chiefly to his bed; and during the extreme painful paroxysms, he was obliged to take large doses of laudanum to mitigate his tortures; still, in the intervals of pain, he not only amused himself with reading and conversing cheerfully with his family, and a few friends who visited him, but was often employed in doing business of a public as well as private nature, with various persons who waited on him for that purpose; and in every instance displayed not only that readiness and disposition of doing good which was the distinguishing characteristic of his life, but the fullest and clearest possession of his uncommon mental abilities, and not unfrequently indulged himself in those _jeux d'esprit_ and entertaining anecdotes which were the delight of all who heard him. "About sixteen days before his death, he was seized with a feverish indisposition, without any particular symptoms attending it, till the third or fourth day, when he complained of a pain in his left breast, which increased till it became extremely acute, attended with a cough and labourious breathing. During this state, when the severity of his pain sometimes drew forth a groan of complaint, he would observe, that he was afraid he did not bear them as he ought, acknowledged his grateful sense of the many blessings he had received from that Supreme Being who had raised him from small and low beginnings to such high rank and consideration among men, and made no doubt but his present afflictions were kindly intended to wean him from a world in which he was no longer fit to act the part assigned him. In this frame of body and mind he continued till five days before his death, when his pain and difficulty of breathing entirely left him, and his family were flattering themselves with the hopes of his recovery, when an imposthumation, which had formed itself in his lungs, suddenly burst, and discharged a great quantity of matter, which he continued to throw up while he had sufficient strength to do it; but as that failed, the organs of respiration became gradually oppressed, a calm lethargic state succeeded, and, on the 17th of April, 1790, about eleven o'clock at night, he quietly expired, closing a long and useful life of eighty-four years and three months."[16] The following account of his funeral, and the honours paid to his memory, is derived from an anonymous source, but is correct. "All that was mortal of this great man was interred on the 21st of April, in the cemetery of Christ Church, Philadelphia, in that part adjoining to Arch-street, N. W. corner, in order that, if a monument should be erected over his grave, it might be seen to more advantage. "Never was any funeral so numerously and so respectably attended in any part of the States of America. The concourse of people assembled upon this occasion was immense. All the bells in the city were muffled, and the very newspapers were published with black borders. The body was interred amid peals of artillery; and nothing was omitted that could display the veneration of the citizens for such an illustrious character. "The Congress ordered a general mourning for one month throughout America; the National Assembly of France paid the same compliment for three days; and the commons of Paris, as an extraordinary tribute of honour to his memory, assisted in a body at the funeral oration, delivered by the Abbé Fauchet, in the rotunda of the corn-market, which was hung with black, illuminated with chandeliers, and decorated with devices analogous to the occasion. "Dr. Smith, provost of the college of Philadelphia, and David Rittenhouse, one of its members, were selected by the Philosophical Society to prepare a eulogium to the memory of its founder; and the subscribers to the City Library, who had just erected a handsome building for containing their books, left a vacant niche for a statue of their benefactor. "This has since been placed there by the munificence of an estimable citizen of Philadelphia. It was imported from Italy; the name of the artist is Francis Lazzarini; it is composed of Carara marble, and cost 500 guineas. "It was the first piece of sculpture of that size which had been seen in America. Franklin is represented in a standing posture; one arm is supported by means of some books, in his right hand he holds an inverted sceptre, an emblem of anti-monarchical principles, and in his left a scroll of paper. He is dressed in a Roman toga. The resemblance is correct; the head is a copy from the excellent bust produced by the chisel of Houdon. The following inscription is engraven on the pedestal: THIS STATUE OF DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, WAS PRESENTED BY WILLIAM BINGHAM, ESQ., 1792. "Franklin's life," says the anonymous writer of the foregoing, "affords one of the finest moral lessons that can be offered up to the admiration, the applause, or the imitation of mankind. "As a man, we have beheld him practising and inculcating the virtues of frugality, temperance, and industry. "As a citizen, we have seen him repelling the efforts of tyranny, and ascertaining the liberty of his countrymen. "As a legislator, he affords a bright example of a genius soaring above corruption, and continually aiming at the happiness of his constituents. "As a politician, we survey him, on one hand, acquiring the aid of a powerful nation, by means of his skilful negotiations; and on the other, calling forth the common strength of a congress of republics, by fixing a central point to which they could all look up, and concentrating their common force for the purposes of union, harmony, legislation, and defence. "As a philosopher, his labours and his discoveries are calculated to advance the interests of humanity: he might, indeed, have been justly termed the friend of man, the benefactor of the universe! "The pursuits and occupations of his early youth afford a most excellent and instructive example to the young; his middle life, to the adult; his advanced years, to the aged. From him the poor may learn to acquire wealth, and the rich to adapt it to the purposes of beneficence. "In regard to his character, he was rather sententious than fluent; more disposed to listen than to talk; a judicious rather than an imposing companion. He was what, perhaps, every able man is, impatient of interruption; for he used to mention the custom of the Indians with great applause, who, after listening with a profound attention to the observations of each other, preserve a respectful silence for some minutes before they begin their own reply. "He was polite in his manners, and never gave a pointed contradiction to the assertions of his friends or his antagonists, but treated every argument with great calmness, and conquered his adversaries rather by the force of reason than assertion." The advice of his death reached France at a period well adapted to excite great emotions; and in the National Assembly, 11th June, 1790, Mr. Mirabeau the elder addressed the assembly as follows: "FRANKLIN IS DEAD!" [A profound silence reigned throughout the hall.] "The genius which gave freedom to America and scattered torrents of light upon Europe, is returned to the bosom of the Divinity! "The sage whom two worlds claim; the man, disputed by the history of the sciences and the history of empires, holds, most undoubtedly, an elevated rank among the human species. "Political cabinets have but too long notified the death of those who were never great but in their funeral orations; the etiquette of courts has but too long sanctioned hypocritical grief. Nations ought only to mourn for their benefactors; the representatives of free men ought never to recommend any other than the heroes of humanity to their homage. "The Congress hath ordered a general mourning for one month throughout the fourteen confederated states, on account of the death of Franklin; and America hath thus acquitted her tribute of admiration in behalf of one of the fathers of her constitution. "Would it not be worthy of you, fellow-legislators, to unite yourselves in this religious act, to participate in this homage rendered in the face of the universe to the rights of man, and to the philosopher who has so eminently propagated the conquest of them throughout the world? "Antiquity would have elevated altars to that mortal who, for the advantage of the human race, embracing both heaven and earth in his vast and extensive mind, knew how to subdue thunder and tyranny! "Enlightened and free, Europe at least owes its remembrance and its regret to one of the greatest men who has ever served the cause of philosophy and of liberty. "I propose that a decree do now pass, enacting that the National Assembly shall wear mourning during three days for Benjamin Franklin." MM. de la Rochefoucault and Lafayette immediately rose in order to second this motion. The assembly adopted it, at first by acclamation; and afterward decreed, by a large majority, amid the plaudits of all the spectators, that on Monday 14th of June, it should go into mourning for three days; that the discourse of M. Mirabeau should be printed; and that the president should write a letter of condolence upon the occasion to the Congress of America.[17] The following character of Dr. Franklin, by one of his intimate friends, is so ably and accurately drawn, that we cannot refrain adding it to the foregoing. "There is in the character of every distinguished person something to admire and something to imitate. The incidents that have marked the life of a great man always excite curiosity and often afford improvement. If there be talents which we can never expect to equal, if there be a series of good fortune which we can never expect to enjoy, we still need not lose the labour of our biographical inquiries. We may probably become acquainted with habits which it may be prudent to adopt, and discover virtues which we cannot fail to applaud. It will be easy for the reader to make a full application of these remarks in his contemplations upon the late celebrated DR. FRANKLIN. By his death one of the best lights of the world may be said to be extinguished. I shall not attempt any historical details of the life of this illustrious patriot and philosopher, as I have nothing farther in view than to make a few comments upon the most striking traits of his character. "Original genius was peculiarly his attribute. The native faculties of his mind qualified him to penetrate into every science: and his unremitted diligence left no field of knowledge unexplored. There were no limits to his curiosity. His inquiries were spread over the whole face of nature. But the study of man seemed to be his highest delight: and if his genius had any special bias, it lay in discovering those things that made men wiser and happier. As truth was the sole object of his researches, he was, of course, no sectary: and as reason was his guide, he embraced no system which that did not authorize. In short, he laid the whole volume of nature open before him, and diligently and faithfully perused it. "Nor were his political attainments less conspicuous than his philosophical. The ancients usually ranked good fortune among those circumstances of life which indicate merit. In this view Dr. Franklin is almost unrivalled, having seldom undertaken more than he accomplished. The world are too well acquainted with the events of his political career to require, at this time, a particular enumeration of them. It may be presumed the historians of the American revolution will exhibit them in proper colours. "If Dr. Franklin did not aspire after the splendour of eloquence, it was only because the demonstrative plainness of his manner was superior to it. Though he neither loved political debate nor excelled in it, he still preserved much influence in public assemblies, and discovered an aptitude in his remarks on all occasions. He was not fond of taking a leading part in such investigations as could never terminate in any degree of certainty. To come forward in questions which, in their nature, are indefinite, and in their issue problematical, does not comport with the caution of a man who has taught himself to look, for demonstration. He reserved his observations for those cases which science could enlighten and common sense approve. The simplicity of his style was well adapted to the clearness of his understanding. His conceptions were so bright and perfect, that he did not choose to involve them in a cloud of expressions. If he used metaphors, it was to illustrate, and not to embellish the truth. A man possessing such a lively imagery of ideas should never affect the arts of a vain rhetorician, whose excellence consists only in a beautiful arrangement of words. "But whatever claims to eminence Dr. Franklin may have as a politician or a scholar, there is no point of light in which his character shines with more lustre than when we view him as a man or a citizen. He was eminently great in common things. Perhaps no man ever existed whose life can, with more justice, be denominated useful. Nothing ever passed through his hands without receiving improvement, and no person ever went into his company without gaining wisdom. His sagacity was so sharp and his science so various, that, whatever might be the profession or occupation of those with whom he conversed, he could meet every one upon his own ground. He could enliven every conversation with an anecdote, and conclude it with a moral. "The whole tenour of his life was a perpetual lecture against the idle, the extravagant, and the proud. It was his principal aim to inspire mankind with a love of industry, temperance, and frugality, and to inculcate such duties as promote the important interests of humanity. He never wasted a moment of time, or lavished a farthing of money in folly or dissipation. Such expenses as the dignity of his station required he readily sustained, limiting them by the strictest rules of propriety. Many public institutions experienced his well-timed liberality, and he manifested a sensibility of heart by numerous acts of private charity. "By a judicious division of time, Dr. Franklin acquired the art of doing everything to advantage, and his amusements were of such a nature as could never militate with the main objects of his pursuit. In whatever situation he was placed by chance or design, he extracted something useful for himself or others. His life was remarkably full of incident. Every circumstance of it turned to some valuable account. The maxims which his discerning mind has formed apply to innumerable cases and characters. Those who move in the lowest, equally with those who move in the most elevated rank in society, may be guided by his instructions. In the private deportment of his life, he in many respects has furnished a most excellent model. His manners were easy and accommodating, and his address winning and respectful. All who knew him speak of him as a most agreeable man, and all who have heard of him applaud him as a very useful one. A man so wise and so amiable could not but have many admirers and many friends." * * * * * The following are extracts from the will and codicil of Dr. Franklin: * * * * * "With regard to my books, those I had in France and those I left in Philadelphia being now assembled together here, and a catalogue made of them, it is my intention to dispose of the same as follows: My 'History of the Academy of Sciences,' in sixty or seventy volumes quarto, I give to the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, of which I have the honour to be president. My collection in folio, of 'Les Arts et les Metiers' [Arts and Trade], I give to the American Philosophical Society, established in New-England, of which I am a member. My quarto edition of the same, 'Arts et Metiers', I give to the Library Company of Philadelphia. Such and so many of my books as I shall mark on the said catalogue with the name of my grandson Benjamin Franklin Bache, I do hereby give to him: and such and so many of my books as I shall mark on the said catalogue with the name of my grandson William Bache, I do hereby give to him: and such as shall be marked with the name of Jonathan Williams, I hereby give to my cousin of that name. The residue and remainder of all my books, manuscripts, and papers, I do give to my grandson William Temple Franklin. My share in the Library Company of Philadelphia I give to my grandson Benjamin Franklin Bache, confiding that he will permit his brothers and sisters to share in the use of it. "I was born in Boston, New-England, and owe my first instructions in literature to the free grammar-schools established there. I therefore give one hundred pounds sterling to my executors, to be by them, the survivers or surviver of them, paid over to the managers or directors of the freeschools in my native town of Boston, to be by them, or those persons or person who shall have the superintendance and management of the said schools, put out to interest, and so continued at interest for ever; which interest annually shall be laid out in silver medals, and given as honorary rewards annually by the directors of the said freeschools, for the encouragement of scholarship in the said schools, belonging to the said town, in such manner as to the discretion of the selectmen of the said town shall seem meet. Out of the salary that may remain due to me as president of the state, I do give the sum of two thousand pounds to my executors, to be by them, the survivers or surviver of them, paid over to such person or persons as the legislature of this state, by an act of Assembly, shall appoint to receive the same, in trust, to be employed for making the Schuylkill navigable. * * * * * "During the number of years I was in business as a stationer, printer, and postmaster, a great many small sums became due to me, for books, advertisements, postage of letters, and other matters, which were not collected, when, in 1757, I was sent by the Assembly to England as their agent, and by subsequent appointments continued there till 1775; when, on my return, I was immediately engaged in the affairs of Congress, and sent to France in 1776, where I remained nine years, not returning till 1785; and the said debts not being demanded in such a length of time, have become in a manner obsolete, yet are nevertheless justly due. These, as they are stated in my great folio leger E, I bequeath to the contributors of the Pennsylvania Hospital, hoping that those debtors, and the descendants of such as are deceased, who now, as I find, make some difficulty of satisfying such antiquated demands as just debts, may, however, be induced to pay or give them as charity to that excellent institution. I am sensible that much must inevitably be lost, but I hope something considerable may be received. It is possible, too, that some of the parties charged may have existing old unsettled accounts against me: in which case the managers of the said hospital will allow and deduct the amount, or pay the balances, if they find it against me. * * * * * "I request my friends, Henry Hill, Esq., John Jay, Esq., Francis Hopkinson, Esq., and Mr. Edward Duffield, of Benfield, in Philadelphia county, to be the executors of this my last will and testament, and I hereby nominate and appoint them for that purpose. "I would have my body buried with as little expense or ceremony as may be. * * * * * "Philadelphia, July 17, 1788." CODICIL. "I, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, in the foregoing or annexed last will and testament named, having farther considered the same, do think proper to make and publish the following codicil or addition thereto: "It having long been a fixed political opinion of mine, that in a democratical state there ought to be no offices of profit, for the reasons I had given in an article of my drawing in our constitution, it was my intention, when I accepted the office of president, to devote the appointed salary to some public uses: accordingly, I had, before I made my will in July last, given large sums of it to colleges, schools, building of churches, &c.; and in that will I bequeathed two thousand pounds more to the state, for the purpose of making the Schuylkill navigable; but understanding since that such a sum will do but little towards accomplishing such a work, and that the project is not likely to be undertaken for many years to come; and having entertained another idea, that I hope may be more extensively useful, I do hereby revoke and annul that bequest, and direct that the certificates I have for what remains due to me of that salary be sold towards raising the sum of two thousand pounds sterling, to be disposed of as I am now about to order. "It has been an opinion, that he who receives an estate from his ancestors is under some kind of obligation to transmit the same to his posterity. This obligation does not lie on me, who never inherited a shilling from any ancestor or relation. I shall, however, if it is not diminished by some accident before my death, leave a considerable estate among my descendants and relations. The above observation is made merely as some apology to my family for my making bequests that do not appear to have any immediate relation to their advantage. "I was born in Boston, New-England, and owe my first instructions in literature to the free grammar-schools established there. I have, therefore, already considered those schools in my will. But I am also under obligations to the state of Massachusetts for having, unasked, appointed me formerly their agent in England, with a handsome salary, which continued some years; and although I accidentally lost in their service, by transmitting Governor Hutchinson's letters, much more than the amount of what they gave me, I do not think that ought in the least to diminish my gratitude. I have considered that among artisans, good apprentices are most likely to make good citizens; and having myself been bred to a manual art, printing, in my native town, and afterward assisted to set up my business in Philadelphia by kind loans of money from two friends there, which was the foundation of my fortune, and of all the utility in life that may be ascribed to me, I wish to be useful, even after my death, if possible, in forming and advancing other young men, that may be serviceable to their country in both these towns. To this end I devote two thousand pounds sterling, which I give, one thousand thereof to the inhabitants of the town of Boston, in Massachusetts, and the other thousand to the inhabitants of the city of Philadelphia, in trust, to and for the uses, intents, and purposes herein after mentioned and declared. The said sum of one thousand pounds sterling, if accepted by the inhabitants of the town of Boston, shall be managed under the direction of the selectmen, united with the ministers of the oldest Episcopalian, Congregational, and Presbyterian churches in that town, who are to let out the same upon interest at five per cent. per annum, to such young married artificers, under the age of twenty-five years, as have served an apprenticeship in the said town, and faithfully fulfilled the duties required in their indentures, so as to obtain a good moral character from at least two respectable citizens, who are willing to become their sureties in a bond, with the applicants, for the repayment of the money so lent, with interest, according to the terms hereinafter prescribed; all which bonds are to be taken for Spanish milled dollars, or the value thereof in current gold coin: and the managers shall keep a bound book or books, wherein shall be entered the names of those who shall apply for and receive the benefit of this institution, and of their sureties, together with the sums lent, the dates, and other necessary and proper records respecting the business and concerns of this institution: and as these loans are intended to assist young married artificers in setting up their business, they are to be proportioned by the discretion of the managers, so as not to exceed sixty pounds sterling to one person, nor to be less than fifteen pounds. And if the number of appliers so entitled should be so large as that the sum will not suffice to afford to each as much as might otherwise not be improper, the proportion to each shall be diminished, so as to afford every one some assistance. These aids may, therefore, be small at first; but as the capital increases by the accumulated interest, they will be more ample. And in order to serve as many as possible in their turn, as well as to make the repayment of the principal borrowed more easy, each borrower shall be obliged to pay, with the yearly interest, one tenth part of the principal; which sums of principal and interest so paid in shall be again let out to fresh borrowers. And as it is presumed that there will always be found in Boston virtuous and benevolent citizens willing to bestow a part of their time in doing good to the rising generation, by superintending and managing this institution gratis, it is hoped that no part of the money will at any time be dead or diverted to other purposes, but be continually augmenting by the interest, in which case there may, in time, be more than the occasion in Boston shall require: and then some may be spared to the neighbouring or other towns in the said state of Massachusetts, which may desire to have it, such towns engaging to pay punctually the interest, and the proportions of the principal annually to the inhabitants of the town of Boston. If this plan is executed, and succeeds, as is projected, without interruption for one hundred years, the sum will then be one hundred and thirty-one thousand pounds, of which I would have the managers of the donation to the town of Boston then lay out, at their discretion, one hundred thousand pounds in public works, which may be judged of most general utility to the inhabitants, such as fortifications, bridges, aqueducts, public buildings, baths, pavements, or whatever may make living in the town more convenient to its people, and render it more agreeable to strangers resorting thither for health or a temporary residence. The remaining thirty-one thousand pounds I would have continued to be let out on interest, in the manner above directed, for another hundred years; as I hope it will have been found that the institution has had a good effect on the conduct of youth, and been of service to many worthy characters and useful citizens. At the end of this second term, if no unfortunate accident has prevented the operation, the sum will be four millions and sixty-one thousand pounds sterling, of which I leave one million and sixty-one thousand pounds to the disposition and management of the inhabitants of the town of Boston, and three millions to the disposition of the government of the state, not presuming to carry my views farther. "All the directions herein given respecting the disposition and management of the donation to the inhabitants of Boston, I would have observed respecting that to the inhabitants of Philadelphia; only, as Philadelphia is incorporated, I request the corporation of that city to undertake the management agreeably to the said directions, and I do hereby vest them with full and ample powers for that purpose. And having considered that the covering its ground-plat with buildings and pavements, which carry off most of the rain, and prevent its soaking into the earth, and renewing and purifying the springs, whence the water of the wells must gradually grow worse, and, in time, be unfit for use, as I find has happened in all old cities, I recommend that, at the end of the first hundred years, if not done before, the corporation of the city employ a part of the hundred thousand pounds in bringing by pipes the water of Wissahiccon Creek into the town, so as to supply the inhabitants, which I apprehend may be done without great difficulty, the level of that creek being much above that of the city, and may be made higher by a dam. I also recommend making the Schuylkill completely navigable. At the end of the second hundred years, I would have the disposition of the four millions and sixty-one thousand pounds divided between the inhabitants of the city of Philadelphia and the government of Pennsylvania, in the same manner as herein directed with respect to that of the inhabitants of Boston and the government of Massachusetts. It is my desire that this institution should take place and begin to operate within one year after my decease; for which purpose due notice should be publicly given previous to the expiration of that year, that those for whose benefit this establishment is intended may make their respective applications; and I hereby direct my executor, the survivers or surviver of them, within six months after my decease, to pay over the said sum of two thousand pounds sterling to such persons as shall be duly appointed by the selectmen of Boston and the corporation of Philadelphia to receive and take charge of their respective sums of one thousand pounds each for the purposes aforesaid. Considering the accidents to which all human affairs and projects are subject in such a length of time, I have, perhaps, too much flattered myself with a vain fancy that these dispositions, if carried into execution, will be continued without interruption, and have the effects proposed; I hope, however, that if the inhabitants of the two cities should not think fit to undertake the execution, they will at least accept the offer of these donations as a mark of my good-will, a token of my gratitude, and a testimony of my earnest desire to be useful to them even after my departure. I wish, indeed, that they may both undertake to endeavour the execution of the project, because I think that, though unforeseen difficulties may arise, expedients will be found to remove them, and the scheme be found practicable. If one of them accepts the money with the conditions and the other refuses, my will then is that both sums be given to the inhabitants of the city accepting, the whole to be applied to the same purpose and under the same regulations directed for the separate parts; and if both refuse, the money remains, of course, in the mass of my estate, and it is to be disposed of therewith, according to my will made the seventeenth day of July, 1788. I wish to be buried by the side of my wife, if it may be, and that a marble stone, to be made by Chambers, six feet long, four feet wide, plain, with only a small moulding round the upper edge, and this inscription, Benjamin} and } Franklin, Deborah } 178-, be placed over us both. "My fine crabtree walking-stick, with a gold head, curiously wrought in the form of the Cap of Liberty, I give to my friend and the friend of mankind, General Washington. If it were a sceptre, he has merited it, and would become it. It was a present to me from that excellent woman Madame de Forbach, the Dowager Duchess of Deux Ponts, connected with some verses which should go with it. * * * * * "Philadelphia, 23d June, 1789." The following epitaph was written by Dr. Franklin for himself when he was only _twenty-three years of age_, as appears by the original (with various corrections), found among his papers, and from which this is a faithful copy: [_Epitaph, written 1728._] "THE BODY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, PRINTER, (like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out, and stripped of its lettering and gilding), lies here food for worms; yet the work itself shall not be lost, for it will (as he believed) appear once more in a new and more elegant edition, revised and corrected by THE AUTHOR." FOOTNOTES: [15] Dr. Stuber was born in Philadelphia, of German parents. He was sent at an early age to the university, where his genius, diligence, and amiable temper soon acquired him the particular notice and favour of those under whose immediate direction he was placed. After passing through the common course of study in a much shorter time than usual, he left the university at the age of sixteen, with great reputation. Not long after, he entered on the study of physic; and the zeal with which he pursued it, and the advances he made, gave his friends reason to form the most flattering prospects of his future eminence and usefulness in the profession. As Dr. Stuber's circumstances were very moderate, he did not think this pursuit well calculated to answer them. He therefore relinquished it after he had obtained a degree in the profession, and qualified himself to practice with credit and success, and immediately entered on the study of the law. While in the pursuit of the last-mentioned object, he was prevented, by a premature death, from reaping the fruit of those talents with which he was endowed, and of a youth spent in the ardent and successful pursuit of useful and elegant literature. [16] Three days previous to his decease, he desired his daughter, Mrs. Sarah Bache, to have his bed made, "_in order that he might die in a decent manner_," as was his expression: an idea probably suggested by an acquaintance with the custom of the ancients. Mrs. Bache having replied that she hoped he would recover, and live many years longer, he instantly rejoined, "_I hope not_." [17] The Congress of the United States thus expressed their sentiments in return. RESOLVED, _by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled_, That the President of the United States be requested to cause to be communicated to the National Assembly of France, the peculiar sensibility of Congress to the tribute paid to the memory of Benjamin Franklin by the enlightened and free representatives of a great nation, in their decree of the eleventh June, one thousand seven hundred and ninety. Signed, FRED. AUG. MUHLENBERG, _Speaker of the House of Representatives_. JOHN ADAMS, _Vice-President of the United States and President of the Senate_. Approved, March the 2d, 1791. Signed, GEORGE WASHINGTON, _President of the United States_. WRITINGS OF FRANKLIN. _The Examination of Dr. Franklin before the British House of Commons, relative to the Repeal of the American Stamp-act._[18] 1766, Feb. 3. Benjamin Franklin, Esq., and a number of other persons, were "ordered to attend the committee of the whole House of Commons, to whom it was referred to consider farther the several papers relative to America, which were presented to the House by Mr. Secretary Conway, &c." _Q._ What is your name and place of abode? _A._ Franklin, of Philadelphia. _Q._ Do the Americans pay any considerable taxes among themselves? _A._ Certainly, many, and very heavy taxes. _Q._ What are the present taxes in Pennsylvania, laid by the laws of the colony? _A._ There are taxes on all estates, real and personal; a poll tax; a tax on all offices, professions, trades, and businesses, according to their profits; an excise on all wine, rum, and other spirits; and a duty of ten pounds per head on all negroes imported, with some other duties. _Q._ For what purposes are those taxes laid? _A._ For the support of the civil and military establishments of the country, and to discharge the heavy debt contracted in the last war. _Q._ How long are those taxes to continue? _A._ Those for discharging the debt are to continue till 1772, and longer if the debt should not be then all discharged. The others must always continue. _Q._ Was it not expected that the debt would have been sooner discharged? _A._ It was, when the peace was made with France and Spain. But a fresh war breaking out with the Indians, a fresh load of debt was incurred; and the taxes, of course, continued longer by a new law. _Q._ Are not all the people very able to pay those taxes? _A._ No. The frontier counties all along the continent having been frequently ravaged by the enemy, and greatly impoverished, are able to pay very little tax. And therefore, in consideration of their distresses, our late tax laws do expressly favour those counties, excusing the sufferers; and I suppose the same is done in other governments. _Q._ Are not you concerned in the management of the _postoffice_ in America? _A._ Yes. I am deputy postmaster-general of North America. _Q._ Don't you think the distribution of stamps _by post_ to all the inhabitants very practicable, if there was no opposition? _A._ The posts only go along the seacoasts; they do not, except in a few instances, go back into the country; and if they did, sending for stamps by post would occasion an expense of postage, amounting, in many cases, to much more than that of the stamps themselves. * * * * _Q._ From the thinness of the back settlements, would not the stamp-act be extremely inconvenient to the inhabitants, if executed? _A._ To be sure it would; as many of the inhabitants could not get stamps when they had occasion for them, without taking long journeys, and spending perhaps three or four pounds, that the crown might get sixpence. _Q._ Are not the colonies, from their circumstances, very able to pay the stamp duty? _A._ In my opinion there is not gold and silver enough in the colonies to pay the stamp duty for one year. _Q._ Don't you know that the money arising from the stamps was all to be laid out in America? _A._ I know it is appropriated by the act to the American service; but it will be spent in the conquered colonies, where the soldiers are; not in the colonies that pay it. _Q._ Is there not a balance of trade due from the colonies where the troops are posted, that will bring back the money to the old colonies? _A._ I think not. I believe very little would come back. I know of no trade likely to bring it back. I think it would come from the colonies where it was spent directly to England; for I have always observed, that in every colony, the more plenty the means of remittance to England, the more goods are sent for and the more trade with England carried on. _Q._ What number of white inhabitants do you think there are in Pennsylvania? _A._ I suppose there may be about one hundred and sixty thousand? _Q._ What number of them are Quakers? _A._ Perhaps a third. _Q._ What number of Germans? _A._ Perhaps another third; but I cannot speak with certainty. _Q._ Have any number of the Germans seen service as soldiers in Europe? _A._ Yes, many of them, both in Europe and America. _Q._ Are they as much dissatisfied with the stamp duty as the English? _A._ Yes, and more; and with reason, as their stamps are, in many cases, to be double. _Q._ How many white men do you suppose there are in North America? _A._ About three hundred thousand, from sixteen to sixty years of age? _Q._ What may be the amount of one year's imports into Pennsylvania from Britain? _A._ I have been informed that our merchants compute the imports from Britain to be above £500,000. _Q._ What may be the amount of the produce of your province exported to Britain? _A._ It must be small, as we produce little that is wanted in Britain. I suppose it cannot exceed £40,000. _Q._ How, then, do you pay the balance? _A._ The balance is paid by our produce carried to the West Indies (and sold in our own islands, or to the French, Spaniards, Danes, and Dutch); by the same produce carried to other colonies in North America (as to New-England, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Carolina, and Georgia); by the same, carried to different parts of Europe (as Spain, Portugal, and Italy). In all which places we receive either money, bills of exchange, or commodities that suit for remittance to Britain; which, together with all the profits on the industry of our merchants and mariners, arising in those circuitous voyages, and the freights made by their ships, centre finally to Britain to discharge the balance, and pay for British manufactures continually used in the provinces, or sold to foreigners by our traders. _Q._ Have you heard of any difficulties lately laid on the Spanish trade? _A._ Yes, I have heard that it has been greatly obstructed by some new regulations, and by the English men-of-war and cutters stationed all along the coast in America. _Q._ Do you think it right that America should be protected by this country, and pay no part of the expense? _A._ That is not the case. The colonies raised, clothed, and paid, during the last war, near twenty-five thousand men, and spent many millions. _Q._ Were you not reimbursed by Parliament? _A._ We were only reimbursed what, in your opinion, we had advanced beyond our proportion, or beyond what might reasonably be expected from us; and it was a very small part of what we spent. Pennsylvania, in particular, disbursed about £500,000; and the reimbursements, in the whole, did not exceed £60,000. _Q._ You have said that you pay heavy taxes in Pennsylvania; what do they amount to in the pound? _A._ The tax on all estates, real and personal, is eighteen pence in the pound, fully rated; and the tax on the profits of trades and professions, with other taxes, do, I suppose, make full half a crown in the pound. _Q._ Do you know anything of the _rate of exchange_ in Pennsylvania, and whether it has fallen lately? _A._ It is commonly from one hundred and seventy to one hundred and seventy-five. I have heard that it has fallen lately from one hundred and seventy-five to one hundred and sixty-two and a half, owing, I suppose, to their lessening their orders for goods; and when their debts to this country are paid, I think the exchange will probably be at par. _Q._ Do not you think the people of America would submit to pay the stamp duty if it was moderated? _A._ No, never, unless compelled by force of arms. * * * * _Q._ What was the temper of America towards Great Britain _before the year_ 1763? _A._ The best in the world. They submitted willingly to the government of the crown, and paid in their courts obedience to acts of Parliament. Numerous as the people are in the several old provinces, they cost you nothing in forts, citadels, garrisons, or armies, to keep them in subjection. They were governed by this country at the expense only of a little pen, ink, and paper: they were led by a thread. They had not only a respect, but an affection for Great Britain; for its laws, its customs, and manners; and even a fondness for its fashions, that greatly increased the commerce. Natives of Britain were always treated with particular regard; to be an _Old England-man_ was, of itself, a character of some respect, and gave a kind of rank among us. _Q._ And what is their temper now? _A._ Oh, very much altered. _Q._ Did you ever hear the authority of Parliament to make laws for America questioned till lately? _A._ The authority of Parliament was allowed to be valid in all laws, except such as should lay internal taxes. It was never disputed in laying duties to regulate commerce. _Q._ In what proportion had population increased in America? _A._ I think the inhabitants of all the provinces together, taken at a medium, double in about twenty-five years. But their demand for British manufactures increases much faster; as the consumption is not merely in proportion to their numbers, but grows with the growing abilities of the same numbers to pay for them. In 1723, the whole importation from Britain to Pennsylvania was but about £15,000 sterling; it is now near half a million. _Q._ In what light did the people of America use to consider the Parliament of Great Britain? _A._ They considered the Parliament as the great bulwark and security of their liberties and privileges, and always spoke of it with the utmost respect and veneration. Arbitrary ministers, they thought, might possibly, at times, attempt to oppress them; but they relied on it that the Parliament, on application, would always give redress. They remembered, with gratitude, a strong instance of this, when a bill was brought into Parliament, with a clause to make royal instructions laws in the colonies, which the House of Commons would not pass, and it was thrown out. _Q._ And have they not still the same respect for Parliament? _A._ No, it is greatly lessened. _Q._ To what cause is that owing? _A._ To a concurrence of causes; the restraints lately laid on their trade, by which the bringing of foreign gold and silver into the colonies was prevented; the prohibition of making paper money among themselves,[19] and then demanding a new and heavy tax by stamps, taking away, at the same time, trials by juries, and refusing to receive and hear their humble petitions. _Q._ Don't you think they would submit to the stamp-act if it was modified, the obnoxious parts taken out, and the duty reduced to some particulars of small moment? _A._ No, they will never submit to it. _Q._ What do you think is the reason that the people in America increase faster than in England? _A._ Because they marry younger and more generally. _Q._ Why so? _A._ Because any young couple that are industrious may easily obtain land of their own, on which they can raise a family. _Q._ Are not the lower rank of people more at their ease in America than in England? _A._ They may be so if they are sober and diligent, as they are better paid for their labour. _Q._ What is your opinion of a future tax, imposed on the same principle with that of the stamp-act? How would the Americans receive it? _A._ Just as they do this. They would not pay it. _Q._ Have you not heard of the resolutions of this house and of the House of Lords, asserting the right of Parliament relating to America, including a power to tax the people there? _A._ Yes, I have heard of such resolutions. _Q._ What will be the opinion of the Americans on those resolutions? _A._ They will think them unconstitutional and unjust. _Q._ Was it an opinion in America before 1763, that the Parliament had no right to lay taxes and duties there? _A._ I never heard any objection to the right of laying duties to regulate commerce, but a right to lay internal taxes was never supposed to be in Parliament, as we are not represented there. _Q._ On what do you found your opinion, that the people in America made any such distinction? _A._ I know that whenever the subject has occurred in conversation where I have been present, it has appeared to be the opinion of every one, that we could not be taxed by a Parliament wherein we were not represented. But the payment of duties laid by an act of Parliament as regulations of commerce was never disputed. _Q._ But can you name any act of Assembly, or public act of any of your governments, that made such distinction? _A._ I do not know that there was any; I think there was never an occasion to make any such act, till now that you have attempted to tax us: _that_ has occasioned resolutions of Assembly declaring the distinction, in which I think every Assembly on the continent, and every member in every Assembly, have been unanimous. * * * * _Q._ You say the colonies have always submitted to external taxes, and object to the right of Parliament only, in laying internal taxes; now, can you show that there is any kind of _difference between the two taxes_ to the colony on which they may be laid? _A._ I think the difference is very great. An _external_ tax is a duty laid on commodities imported; that duty is added to the first cost and other charges on the commodity, and, when it is offered for sale, makes a part of the price. If the people do not like it at that price, they refuse it; they are not obliged to pay it. But an _internal_ tax is forced from the people without their consent, if not laid by their own representatives. The stamp-act says we shall have no commerce, make no exchange of property with each other, neither purchase nor grant, nor recover debts; we shall neither marry nor make our wills, unless we pay such and such sums; and thus it is intended to extort our money from us, or ruin us by the consequences of refusing to pay it. _Q._ But supposing the external tax or duty to be laid on the necessaries of life imported into your colony, will not that be the same thing in its effects as an internal tax? _A._ I do not know a single article imported into the _northern_ colonies but what they can either do without or make themselves. _Q._ Don't you think cloth from England absolutely necessary to them? _A._ No, by no means absolutely necessary; with industry and good management, they may well supply themselves with all they want. _Q._ Will it not take a long time to establish that manufacture among them; and must they not, in the mean while, suffer greatly? _A._ I think not. They have made a surprising progress already; and I am of opinion that, before their old clothes are worn out, they will have new ones of their own making. _Q._ Can they possibly find wool enough in North America? _A._ They have taken steps to increase the wool. They entered into general combinations to eat no more lamb; and very few lambs were killed last year. This course, persisted in, will soon make a prodigious difference in the quantity of wool. And the establishing of great manufactories, like those in the clothing towns here, is not necessary, as it is where the business is to be carried on for the purposes of trade. The people will all spin and work for themselves, in their own houses. _Q._ Can there be wool and manufacture enough in one or two years? _A._ In three years I think there may. _Q._ Does not the severity of the winter in the northern colonies occasion the wool to be of bad quality? _A._ No, the wool is very fine and good. * * * * _Q._ Considering the resolution of Parliament[20] _as to the right_, do you think, if the stamp-act is repealed, that the North Americans will be satisfied? _A._ I believe they will. _Q._ Why do you think so? A. I think the resolutions of _right_ will give them very little concern if they are never attempted to be carried into practice. The colonies will probably consider themselves in the same situation in that respect with Ireland: they know you claim the same right with regard to Ireland, but you never exercise it. And they may believe you never will exercise it in the colonies any more than in Ireland, unless on some very extraordinary occasion. _Q._ But who are to be the judges of that extraordinary occasion? Is not the Parliament? _A._ Though the Parliament may judge of the occasion, the people will think it can never exercise such right till representatives from the colonies are admitted into Parliament; and that, whenever the occasion arises, representatives _will_ be ordered. * * _Q._ Can anything less than a military force carry the stamp-act into execution? _A._ I do not see how a military force can be applied to that purpose. _Q._ Why may it not? _A._ Suppose a military force sent into America, they will find nobody in arms; what are they then to do? They cannot force a man to take stamps who chooses to do without them. They will not find a rebellion: they may indeed make one. _Q._ If the act is not repealed, what do you think will be the consequence? _A._ A total loss of the respect and affection the people of America bear to this country, and of all the commerce that depends on that respect and affection. _Q._ How can the commerce be affected? _A._ You will find that, if the act is not repealed, they will take very little of your manufactures in a short time. _Q._ Is it in their power to do without them? _A._ I think they may very well do without them. _Q._ Is it their interest not to take them? _A._ The goods they take from Britain are either necessaries, mere conveniences, or superfluities. The first, as cloth, &c., with a little industry they can make at home; the second they can do without till they are able to provide them among themselves; and the last, which are much the greatest part, they will strike off immediately. They are mere articles of fashion, purchased and consumed because the fashion in a respected country; but will now be detested and rejected. The people have already struck-off, by general agreement, the use of all goods fashionable in mournings, and many thousand pounds worth are sent back as unsaleable. _Q._ Is it their interest to make cloth at home? _A._ I think they may at present get it cheaper from Britain, I mean of the same fineness and neatness of workmanship; but when one considers other circumstances, the restraints on their trade, and the difficulty of making remittances, it is their interest to make everything. _Q._ Suppose an act of internal regulations connected with a tax, how would they receive it? _A._ I think it would be objected to. _Q._ Then no regulation with a tax would be submitted to? _A._ Their opinion is, that when aids to the crown are wanted, they are to be asked of the several assemblies, according to the old established usage; who will, as they always have done, grant them freely. And that their money ought not to be given away without their consent, by persons at a distance, unacquainted with their circumstances and abilities. The granting aids to the crown is the only means they have of recommending themselves to their sovereign; and they think it extremely hard and unjust that a body of men, in which they have no representatives, should make a merit to itself of giving and granting what is not their own, but theirs; and deprive them of a right they esteem of the utmost importance, as it is the security of all their other rights. _Q._ But is not the postoffice, which they have long received, a tax as well as a regulation? _A._ No; the money paid for the postage of a letter is not of the nature of a tax; it is merely a _quantum meruit_ for a service done: no person is compellable to pay the money if he does not choose to receive the service. A man may still, as before the act, send his letter by a servant, a special messenger, or a friend, if he thinks it cheaper and safer. _Q._ But do they not consider the regulations of the postoffice, by the act of last year, as a tax? _A._ By the regulations of last year, the rate of postage was generally abated near thirty per cent. through all America; they certainly cannot consider such abatement _as a tax_. _Q._ If an excise was laid by Parliament, which they might likewise avoid paying by not consuming the articles excised, would they then not object to it? _A._ They would certainly object to it, as an excise is unconnected with any service done, and is merely an aid, which they think ought to be asked of them and granted by them, if they are to pay it, and can be granted for them by no others whatsoever, whom they have not empowered for that purpose. _Q._ You say they do not object to the right of Parliament in laying duties on goods to be paid on their importation: now, is there any kind of difference between a duty on the _importation_ of goods and an excise on their _consumption_? _A._ Yes, a very material one: an excise, for the reasons I have just mentioned, they think you can have no right to lay within their country. But the _sea_ is yours: you maintain, by your fleets, the safety of navigation in it, and keep it clear of pirates: you may have, therefore, a natural and equitable right to some _toll_ or duty on merchandises carried through that part of your dominions, towards defraying the expense you are at in ships to maintain the safety of that carriage. _Q._ Does this reasoning hold in the case of a duty laid on the produce of their lands _exported_? And would they not then object to such a duty? _A._ If it tended to make the produce so much dearer abroad as to lessen the demand for it, to be sure they would object to such a duty: not to your right of laying it, but they would complain of it as a burden, and petition you to lighten it. * * * _Q._ Supposing the stamp-act continued and enforced, do you imagine that ill-humour will induce the Americans to give as much for worse manufactures of their own, and use them preferable to better of ours? _A._ Yes, I think so. People will pay as freely to gratify one passion as another, their resentment as their pride. _Q._ Would the people at Boston discontinue their trade? _A._ The merchants are a very small number compared with the body of the people, and must discontinue their trade if nobody will buy their goods. _Q._ What are the body of the people in the colonies? _A._ They are farmers, husbandmen, or planters. _Q._ Would they suffer the produce of their lands to rot? _A._ No; but they would not raise so much. They would manufacture more and plough less. _Q._ Would they live without the administration of justice in civil matters, and suffer all the inconveniences of such a situation for any considerable time, rather than take the stamps, supposing the stamps were protected by a sufficient force, where every one might have them? _A._ I think the supposition impracticable, that the stamps should be so protected as that every one might have them. The act requires sub-distributors to be appointed in every county town, district, and village, and they would be necessary. But the _principal_ distributors, who were to have had a considerable profit on the whole, have not thought it worth while to continue in the office; and I think it impossible to find sub-distributors fit to be trusted, who, for the trifling profit that must come to their share, would incur the odium and run the hazard that would attend it; and if they could be found, I think it impracticable to protect the stamps in so many distant and remote places. _Q._ But in places where they could be protected, would not the people use them rather than remain in such a situation, unable to obtain any right, or recover by law any debt? _A._ It is hard to say what they would do. I can only judge what other people will think and how they will act by what I feel within myself. I have a great many debts due to me in America, and I had rather they should remain unrecoverable by any law, than submit to the stamp-act. They will be debts of honour. It is my opinion, the people will either continue in that situation, or find some way to extricate themselves, perhaps by generally agreeing to proceed in the courts without stamps. _Q._ What do you think a sufficient military force to protect the distribution of the stamps in every part of America? _A._ A very great force, I can't say what, if the disposition of America is for a general resistance. _Q._ What is the number of men in America able to bear arms, or of disciplined militia? _A._ There are I suppose, at least.... [_Question objected to. He withdrew. Called in again._] _Q._ Is the American stamp-act an equal tax on the country? _A._ I think not. _Q._ Why so? _A._ The greatest part of the money must arise from lawsuits for the recovery of debts, and be paid by the lower sort of people, who were too poor easily to pay their debts. It is, therefore, a heavy tax on the poor, and a tax upon them for being poor. _Q._ But will not this increase of expense be a means Of lessening the number of lawsuits? _A._ I think not; for as the costs all fall upon the debtor, and are to be paid by him, they would be no discouragement to the creditor to bring his action. _Q._ Would it not have the effect of excessive usury? _A._ Yes; as an oppression of the debtor. * * * * _Q._ Are there any _slitting-mills_ in America? _A._ I think there are three, but I believe only one at present employed. I suppose they will all be set to work if the interruption of the trade continues. _Q._ Are there any _fulling-mills_ there? _A._ A great many. _Q._ Did you never hear that a great quantity of _stockings_ were contracted for, for the army, during the war, and manufactured in Philadelphia? _A._ I have heard so. _Q._ If the stamp-act should be repealed, would not the Americans think they could oblige the Parliament to repeal every external tax-law now in force? _A._ It is hard to answer questions of what people at such a distance will think. _Q._ But what do you imagine they will think were the motives of repealing the act? _A._ I suppose they will think that it was repealed from a conviction of its inexpediency; and they will rely upon it, that, while the same inexpediency subsists, you will never attempt to make such another. _Q._ What do you mean by its inexpediency? _A._ I mean its inexpediency on several accounts: the poverty and inability of those who were to pay the tax, the general discontent it has occasioned, and the impracticability of enforcing it. _Q._ If the act should be repealed, and the Legislature should show its resentment to the opposers of the stamp-act, would the colonies acquiesce in the authority of the Legislature? What is your opinion they would do? _A._ I don't doubt at all that, if the Legislature repeal the stamp-act, the colonies will acquiesce in the authority. _Q._ But if the Legislature should think fit to ascertain its right to lay taxes, by any act laying a small tax contrary to their opinion, would they submit to pay the tax? _A._ The proceedings of the people in America have been considered too much together. The proceedings of the assemblies have been very different from those of the mobs, and should be distinguished, as having no connexion with each other. The _assemblies_ have only peaceably resolved what they take to be their rights: they have taken no measures for opposition by force; they have not built a fort, raised a man, or provided a grain of ammunition, in order to such opposition. The ringleaders of riots, they think, ought to be punished: they would punish them themselves if they could. Every sober, sensible man would wish to see rioters punished, as otherwise peaceable people have no security of person or estate; but as to an internal tax, how small soever, laid by the Legislature here on the people there, while they have no representatives in this Legislature, I think it will never be submitted to: they will oppose it to the last: they do not consider it as at all necessary for you to raise money on them by your taxes; because they are, and always have been, ready to raise money by taxes among themselves, and to grant large sums, equal to their abilities, upon requisition from the crown. They have not only granted equal to their abilities, but, during all the last war, they granted far beyond their abilities, and beyond their proportion with this country (you yourselves being judges) to the amount of many hundred thousand pounds; and this they did freely and readily, only on a sort of promise from the secretary of state that it should be recommended to Parliament to make them compensation. It was accordingly recommended to Parliament in the most honourable manner for them. America has been greatly misrepresented and abused here, in papers, and pamphlets, and speeches, as ungrateful, and unreasonable, and unjust, in having put this nation to immense expense for their defence, and refusing to bear any part of that expense. The colonies raised, paid, and clothed near twenty-five thousand men during the last war; a number equal to those sent from Britain, and far beyond their proportion: they went deeply into debt in doing this, and all their taxes and estates are mortgaged, for many years to come, for discharging that debt. Government here was at that time very sensible of this. The colonies were recommended to Parliament. Every year the king sent down to the house a written message to this purpose, "That his majesty, being highly sensible of the zeal and vigour with which his faithful subjects in North America had exerted themselves in defence of his majesty's just rights and possessions, recommended it to the house to take the same into consideration, and enable him to give them a proper compensation." You will find those messages on your own journals every year of the war to the very last; and you did accordingly give £200,000 annually to the crown, to be distributed in such compensation to the colonies. This is the strongest of all proofs that the colonies, far from being unwilling to bear a share of the burden, did exceed their proportion; for if they had done less, or had only equalled their proportion, there would have been no room or reason for compensation. Indeed, the sums reimbursed them were by no means adequate to the expense they incurred beyond their proportion: but they never murmured at that; they esteemed their sovereign's approbation of their zeal and fidelity, and the approbation of this house, far beyond any other kind of compensation; therefore there was no occasion for this act to force money from a willing people: they had not refused giving money for the _purposes_ of the act, no requisition had been made, they were always willing and ready to do what could reasonably be expected from them, and in this light they wish to be considered. _Q._ But suppose Great Britain should be engaged in a _war in Europe_, would North America contribute to the support of it? _A._ I do think they would, as far as their circumstances would permit. They consider themselves as a part of the British empire, and as having one common interest with it: they may be looked on here as foreigners, but they do not consider themselves as such. They are zealous for the honour and prosperity of this nation; and, while they are well used, will always be ready to support it, as far as their little power goes. In 1739 they were called upon to assist in the expedition against Carthagena, and they sent three thousand men to join your army. It is true Carthagena is in America, but as remote from the northern colonies as if it had been in Europe. They make no distinction of wars as to their duty of assisting in them. I know the _last war_ is commonly spoken of here as entered into for the defence, or for the sake of the people in America. I think it is quite misunderstood. It began about the limits between Canada and Nova Scotia; about territories to which the _crown_ indeed laid claim, but which were not claimed by any British _colony_; none of the lands had been granted to any colonist; we had, therefore, no particular concern or interest in that dispute. As to the Ohio, the contest there began about your right of trading in the Indian country; a right you had by the treaty of Utrecht, which the French infringed; they seized the traders and their goods, which were your manufactures; they took a fort which a company of your merchants, and their factors and correspondents, had erected there, to secure that trade. Braddock was sent with an army to retake that fort (which was looked on here as another encroachment on the king's territory) and to protect your trade. It was not till after his defeat that the colonies were attacked.[21] They were before in perfect peace with both French and Indians; the troops were not, therefore, sent for their defence. The trade with the Indians, though carried on in America, is not an _American interest_. The people of America are chiefly farmers and planters; scarce anything that they raise or produce is an article of commerce with the Indians. The Indian trade is a _British interest_; it is carried on with British manufactures, for the profit of British merchants and manufacturers; therefore the war, as it commenced for the defence of territories of the crown (the property of no American) and for the defence of a trade purely British, was really a British war, and yet the people of America made no scruple of contributing their utmost towards carrying it on and bringing it to a happy conclusion. _Q._ Do you think, then, that the taking possession of the king's territorial rights, and _strengthening the frontiers_, is not an American interest? _A._ Not particularly, but conjointly a British and an American interest. _Q._ You will not deny that the preceding war, the _war with Spain_, was entered into for the sake of America; was it not _occasioned by captures made in the American seas_? _A._ Yes; captures of ships carrying on the British trade there with British manufactures. _Q._ Was not the _late war with_ the Indians, _since the peace with France_, a war for America only? _A._ Yes; it was more particularly for America than the former; but it was rather a consequence or remains of the former war, the Indians not having been thoroughly pacified; and the Americans bore by much the greatest share of the expense. It was put an end to by the army under General Bouquet; there were not above three hundred regulars in that army, and above one thousand Pennsylvanians. _Q._ Is it not necessary to send troops to America, to defend the Americans against the Indians? _A._ No, by no means; it never was necessary. They defended themselves when they were but a handful, and the Indians much more numerous. They continually gained ground, and have driven the Indians over the mountains, without any troops sent to their assistance from this country. And can it be thought necessary now to send troops for their defence from those diminished Indian tribes, when the colonies are become so populous and so strong? There is not the least occasion for it; they are very able to defend themselves. * * * _Q._ Do you think the assemblies have a right to levy money on the subject there, to grant _to the crown_? _A._ I certainly think so; they have always done it. _Q._ Are they acquainted with the declaration of rights? And do they know that, by that statute, money is not to be raised on the subject but by consent of Parliament? _A._ They are very well acquainted with it. _Q._ How, then, can they think they have a right to levy money for the crown, or for any other than local purposes? _A._ They understand that clause to relate to subjects only within the realm; that no money can be levied on them for the crown but by consent of Parliament. _The colonies_ are not supposed to be within the realm; they have assemblies of their own, which are their parliaments, and they are, in that respect, in the same situation with Ireland. When money is to be raised for the crown upon the subject in Ireland or in the colonies, the consent is given in the Parliament of Ireland or in the assemblies of the colonies. They think the Parliament of Great Britain cannot properly give that consent till it has representatives from America; for the petition of right expressly says, it is to be by _common consent in Parliament_; and the people of America have no representatives in Parliament to make a part of that common consent. _Q._ If the stamp-act should be repealed, and an act should pass ordering the assemblies of the colonies to indemnify the sufferers by the riots, would they do it? _A._ That is a question I cannot answer. _Q._ Suppose the king should require the colonies to grant a revenue, and the Parliament should be against their doing it, do they think they can grant a revenue to the king _without_ the consent of the Parliament of Great Britain? _A._ That is a deep question. As to my own opinion, I should think myself at liberty to do it, and should do it if I liked the occasion. _Q._ When money has been raised in the colonies upon requisition, has it not been granted to the king? _A._ Yes, always; but the requisitions have generally been for some service expressed, as to raise, clothe, and pay troops, and not for money only. _Q._ If the act should pass requiring the American assemblies to make compensation to the sufferers, and they should disobey it, and then the Parliament should, by another act, lay an internal tax, would they then obey it? _A._ The people will pay no internal tax; and I think an act to oblige the assemblies to make compensation is unnecessary; for I am of opinion that, as soon as the present heats are abated, they will take the matter into consideration, and, if it is right to be done, they will do it themselves. _Q._ Do not letters often come into the postoffices in America directed to some inland town where no post goes? _A._ Yes. _Q._ Can any private person take up those letters, and carry them as directed? _A._ Yes; any friend of the person may do it, paying the postage that has accrued. _Q._ But must not he pay an additional postage for the distance to such inland town? _A._ No. _Q._ Can the postmaster answer delivering the letter, without being paid such additional postage? _A._ Certainly he can demand nothing where he does no service. _Q._ Suppose a person, being far from home, finds a letter in a postoffice directed to him, and he lives in a place to which the post generally goes, and the letter is directed to that place, will the postmaster deliver him the letter without his paying the postage receivable at the place to which the letter is directed? _A._ Yes; the office cannot demand postage for a letter that it does not carry, or farther than it does carry it. _Q._ Are not ferrymen in America obliged, by act of Parliament, to carry over the posts without pay? _A._ Yes. _Q._ Is not this a tax on the ferrymen? _A._ They do not consider it as such, as they have an advantage from persons travelling with the post. _Q._ If the stamp-act should be repealed, and the crown should make a requisition to the colonies for a sum of money, would they grant it? _A._ I believe they would. _Q._ Why do you think so? _A._ I can speak for the colony I live in: I have it in _instruction_ from the Assembly to assure the ministry, that as they always had done, so they should always think it their duty to grant such aids to the crown as were suitable to their circumstances and abilities, whenever called upon for that purpose, in the usual constitutional manner; and I had the honour of communicating this instruction to that honourable gentleman then minister. _Q._ Would they do this for a British concern, as suppose a war in some part of Europe that did not affect them? _A._ Yes, for anything that concerned the general interest. They consider themselves as part of the whole. _Q._ What is the usual constitutional manner of calling on the colonies for aids? _A._ A letter from the secretary of state. _Q._ Is this all you mean; a letter from the secretary of state? _A._ I mean the usual way of requisition, in a circular letter from the secretary of state, by his majesty's command, reciting the occasion, and recommending it to the colonies to grant such aid as became their loyalty, and were suitable to their abilities. _Q._ Did the secretary of state ever write for _money_ for the crown? _A._ The requisitions have been to raise, clothe, and pay men, which cannot be done without money. _Q._ Would they grant money alone, if called on? _A._ In my opinion they would, money as well as men, when they have money, or can make it. _Q._ If the Parliament should repeal the stamp-act, will the Assembly of Pennsylvania rescind their resolutions? _A._ I think not. _Q._ Before there was any thought of the stamp-act, did they wish for a representation in Parliament? _A._ No. _Q._ Don't you know that there is, in the Pennsylvania charter, an express reservation of the right of Parliament to lay taxes there? _A._ I know there is a clause in the charter by which the king grants that he will levy no taxes on the inhabitants, unless it be with the consent of the Assembly or by act of Parliament. _Q._ How, then, could the Assembly of Pennsylvania assert, that laying a tax on them by the stamp-act was an infringement of their rights? _A._ They understand it thus: by the same charter, and otherwise, they are entitled to all the privileges and liberties of Englishmen; they find in the great charters, and the petition and declaration of rights, that one of the privileges of English subjects is, that they are not to be taxed but by their _common consent_; they have therefore relied upon it, from the first settlement of the province, that the Parliament never would nor could, by colour of that clause in the charter, assume a right of taxing them, _till_ it had qualified itself to exercise such right, by admitting representatives from the people to be taxed, who ought to make a part of that common consent. _Q._ Are there any words in the charter that justify that construction? _A._ The common rights of Englishmen, as declared by Magna Charta and the Petition of Right, all justify it. * * * * _Q._ Are all parts of the colonies equally able to pay taxes? _A._ No, certainly; the frontier parts, which have been ravaged by the enemy, are greatly disabled by that means; and, therefore, in such cases, are usually favoured in our tax-laws. _Q._ Can we, at this distance, be competent judges of what favours are necessary? _A._ The Parliament have supposed it, by claiming a right to make tax-laws for America; I think it impossible. _Q._ Would the repeal of the stamp-act be any discouragement of your manufactures? Will the people that have begun to manufacture decline it? _A._ Yes, I think they will; especially if, at the same time, the trade is open again, so that remittances can be easily made. I have known several instances that make it probable. In the war before last, tobacco being low, and making little remittance, the people of Virginia went generally into family manufactures. Afterward, when tobacco bore a better price, they returned to the use of British manufactures. So fulling-mills were very much disused in the last war in Pennsylvania, because bills were then plenty, and remittances could easily be made to Britain for English cloth and other goods. _Q._ If the stamp-act should be repealed, would it induce the assemblies of America to acknowledge the rights of Parliament to tax them, and would they erase their resolutions? _A._ No, never. _Q._ Are there no means of obliging them to erase those resolutions? _A._ None that I know of; they will never do it, unless compelled by force of arms. _Q._ Is there a power on earth that can force them to erase them? _A._ No power, how great soever, can force men to change their opinions. _Q._ Do they consider the postoffice as a tax or as a regulation? _A._ Not as a tax, but as a regulation and convenience; _every assembly_ encouraged it, and supported it in its infancy by grants of money, which they would not otherwise have done; and the people have always paid the postage. _Q._ When did you receive the instructions you mentioned? _A._ I brought them with me when I came to England, about fifteen months since. _Q._ When did you communicate that instruction to the minister? _A._ Soon after my arrival; while the stamping of America was under consideration, and _before_ the bill was brought in. _Q._ Would it be most for the interest of Great Britain to employ the hands of Virginia in tobacco or in manufactures? _A._ In tobacco, to be sure. _Q._ What used to be the pride of the Americans? _A._ To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain. _Q._ What is now their pride? _A._ To wear their old clothes over again, till they can make new ones. Feb. 13. Benjamin Franklin, Esq., having passed through his examination, was exempted from farther attendance. _He withdrew._ Feb. 24. The resolutions of the committee were reported by the chairman, Mr. Fuller, their _seventh_ and last resolution setting forth, "that it was their opinion that the House be moved, that leave be given to bring in a bill to repeal the stamp-act." A proposal for recommitting this resolution was negatived by 240 votes to 133.--_Journals of the House of Commons._ * * * * * _Narrative of the Massacre of Friendly Indians in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 1764._ THESE Indians were the remains of a tribe of the Six Nations, settled at Conestogo, and thence called Conestogo Indians. On the first arrival of the English in Pennsylvania, messengers from this tribe came to welcome them, with presents of venison, corn, and skins; and the whole tribe entered into a treaty of friendship with the first proprietor, William Penn, which was to last "as long as the sun should shine, or the waters run in the rivers." This treaty has been since frequently renewed, and the chain brightened, as they express it, from time to time. It has never been violated, on their part or ours, till now. As their lands by degrees were mostly purchased, and the settlements of the white people began to surround them, the proprietor assigned them lands on the manor of Conestogo, which they might not part with; there they have lived many years in friendship with their white neighbours, who loved them for their peaceable, inoffensive behaviour. It has always been observed, that Indians settled in the neighbourhood of white people do not increase, but diminish continually. This tribe accordingly went on diminishing, till there remained in their town on the manor but twenty persons, viz., seven men, five women, and eight children, boys and girls. Of these, Shehaes was a very old man, having assisted at the second treaty held with them, by Mr. Penn, in 1701, and ever since continued a faithful and affectionate friend to the English. He is said to have been an exceeding good man, considering his education, being naturally of a most kind, benevolent temper. Peggy was Shehaes's daughter; she worked for her aged father, continuing to live with him, though married, and attended him with filial duty and tenderness. John was another good old man; his son Harry helped to support him. George and Will Soc were two brothers, both young men. John Smith, a valuable young man of the Cayuga nation, who became acquainted with Peggy, Shehaes's daughter, some few years since, married and settled in that family. They had one child, about three years old. Betty, a harmless old woman; and her son Peter, a likely young lad. Sally, whose Indian name was Wyanjoy, a woman much esteemed by all that knew her, for her prudent and good behaviour in some very trying situations of life. She was a truly good and an amiable woman, had no children of her own; but, a distant relation dying, she had taken a child of that relation's to bring up as her own, and performed towards it all the duties of an affectionate parent. The reader will observe that many of their names are English. It is common with the Indians, that have an affection for the English, to give themselves and their children the names of such English persons as they particularly esteem. This little society continued the custom they had begun, when more numerous, of addressing every new governor and every descendant of the first proprietor, welcoming him to the province, assuring him of their fidelity, and praying a continuance of that favour and protection they had hitherto experienced. They had accordingly sent up an address of this kind to our present governor on his arrival; but the same was scarce delivered when the unfortunate catastrophe happened which we are about to relate. On Wednesday, the 14th of December, 1763, fifty-seven men from some of our frontier townships, who had projected the destruction of this little commonwealth, came, all well mounted, and armed with firelocks, hangers, and hatchets, having travelled through the country in the night, to Conestogo manor. There they surrounded the small village of Indian huts, and just at break of day broke into them all at once. Only three men, two women, and a young boy were found at home, the rest being out among the neighbouring white people, some to sell the baskets, brooms, and bowls they manufactured, and others on other occasions. These poor defenceless creatures were immediately fired upon, stabbed, and hatcheted to death! The good Shehaes, among the rest, cut to pieces in his bed. All of them were scalped and otherwise horribly mangled. Then their huts were set on fire, and most of them burned down. When the troop, pleased with their own conduct and bravery, but enraged that any of the poor Indians had escaped the massacre, rode off, and in small parties, by different roads, went home. The universal concern of the neighbouring white people on hearing of this event, and the lamentations of the younger Indians when they returned and saw the desolation, and the butchered, half-burned bodies of their murdered parents and other relations, cannot well be expressed. The magistrates of Lancaster sent out to collect the remaining Indians, brought them into the town for their better security against any farther attempt, and, it is said, condoled with them on the misfortune that had happened, took them by the hand, comforted, and promised them protection. They were all put into the workhouse, a strong building as the place of greatest safety. When the shocking news arrived in town, a proclamation was issued by the governor, detailing the particulars of this horrible outrage, and calling earnestly upon the people of the province to use all possible means to apprehend and bring to condign punishment its savage perpetrators. Notwithstanding this proclamation, those cruel men again assembled themselves, and, hearing that the remaining fourteen Indians were in the workhouse at Lancaster, they suddenly appeared in that town on the 27th of December. Fifty of them, armed as before, dismounting, went directly to the workhouse, and by violence broke open the door, and entered with the utmost fury in their countenances. When the poor wretches saw they had no protection nigh, nor could possibly escape, and being without the least weapon for defence, they divided into their little families, the children clinging to the parents; they fell on their knees, protested their innocence, declared their love to the English, and that, in their whole lives, they had never done them injury; and in this posture they all received the hatchet! Men, women, and little children were every one inhumanly murdered in cold blood! The barbarous men who committed the atrocious fact, in defiance of government, of all laws human and divine, and to the eternal disgrace of their country and colour, then mounted their horses, huzzaed in triumph, as if they had gained a victory, and rode off _unmolested_! The bodies of the murdered were then brought out and exposed in the street, till a hole could be made in the earth to receive and cover them. But the wickedness cannot be covered; the guilt will lie on the whole land, till justice is done on the murderers. The blood of the innocent will cry to Heaven for vengeance. It is said that Shehaes, being before told that it was to be feared some English might come from the frontier into the country and murder him and his people, he replied, "It is impossible; there are Indians, indeed, in the woods, who would kill me and mine, if they could get at us, for my friendship to the English; but the English will wrap me in their matchcoat and secure me from all danger." How unfortunately was he mistaken! Another proclamation has been issued, offering a great reward for apprehending the murderers. But these proclamations have as yet produced no discovery; the murderers having given out such threatenings against those that disapprove their proceedings, that the whole country seems to be in terror, and no one dares speak what he knows; even the letters from thence are unsigned, in which any dislike is expressed of the rioters. There are some (I am ashamed to hear it) who would extenuate the enormous wickedness of these actions, by saying, "The inhabitants of the frontiers are exasperated with the murder of their relations by the enemy Indians in the present war." It is possible; but, though this might justify their going out into the woods to seek for those enemies, and avenge upon them those murders, it can never justify their turning into the heart of the country to murder their friends. If an Indian injures me, does it follow that I may revenge that injury on all Indians? It is well known that Indians are of different tribes, nations, and languages, as well as the white people. In Europe, if the French, who are white people, should injure the Dutch, are they to revenge it on the English, because they too are white people? The only crime of these poor wretches seems to have been, that they had a reddish-brown skin and black hair; and some people of that sort, it seems, had murdered some of our relations. If it be right to kill men for such a reason, then, should any man with a freckled face and red hair kill a wife or child of mine, it would be right for me to revenge it by killing all the freckled, red-haired men, women, and children I could afterward anywhere meet with. But it seems these people think they have a better justification; nothing less than the Word of God. With the Scriptures in their hands and mouths, they can set at naught that express command, _Thou shalt do no murder_; and justify their wickedness by the command given Joshua to destroy the heathen. Horrid perversion of Scripture and of religion! To father the worst of crimes on the God of peace and love! Even the Jews, to whom that particular commission was directed, spared the Gibeonites on account of their faith once given. The faith of this government has been frequently given to those Indians, but that did not avail them with people who despise government. We pretend to be Christians, and, from the superior light we enjoy, ought to exceed heathens, Turks, Saracens, Moors, negroes, and Indians in the knowledge and practice of what is right. I will endeavour to show, by a few examples from books and history, the sense those people have had of such actions. Homer wrote his poem, called the _Odyssey_, some hundred years before the birth of Christ. He frequently speaks of what he calls not only the duties, but the sacred rites of hospitality, exercised towards strangers while in our house or territory, as including, besides all the common circumstances of entertainment, full safety and protection of person from all danger of life, from all injuries, and even insults. The rites of hospitality were called _sacred_, because the stranger, the poor, and the weak, when they applied for protection and relief, were, from the religion of those times, supposed to be sent by the Deity to try the goodness of men, and that he would avenge the injuries they might receive, where they ought to have been protected. These sentiments, therefore, influenced the manners of all ranks of people, even the meanest; for we find, that when Ulysses came as a poor stranger to the hut of Eumæus the swineherd, and his great dogs ran out to tear the ragged man, Eumæus drove them away with stones; and "'Unhappy stranger!' (thus the faithful swain Began, with accent gracious and humane), 'What sorrow had been mine, if at _my_ gate, Thy reverend age had met a shameless fate! But enter this my homely roof, and see Our woods not void of hospitality.' He said, and seconding the kind request, With friendly step precedes the unknown guest; A shaggy goat's soft hide beneath him spread, And with fresh rushes heaped an ample bed. Joy touched the hero's tender soul, to find So just reception from a heart so kind; And 'Oh, ye gods, with all your blessings grace' (He thus broke forth) 'this friend of human race!' The swain replied: 'It never was our guise To slight the poor, or aught humane despise. For Jove unfolds the hospitable door, 'Tis Jove that sends the strangers and the poor.'" These heathen people thought that, after a breach of the rites of hospitality, a curse from Heaven would attend them in everything they did, and even their honest industry in their callings would fail of success. Thus when Ulysses tells Eumæus, who doubted the truth of what he related, "If I deceive you in this, I should deserve death, and I consent that you should put me to death;" Eumæus rejects the proposal, as what would be attended with both infamy and misfortune, saying ironically, "Doubtless, oh guest, great laud and praise were mine, If, after social rites and gifts bestowed, I stained my hospitable hearth with blood. How would the gods my righteous toils succeed, And bless the hand that made a stranger bleed? No more." Even an open enemy, in the heat of battle, throwing down his arms, submitting to the foe, and asking life and protection, was supposed to acquire an immediate right to that protection. Thus one describes his being saved when his party was defeated: "We turned to flight; the gathering vengeance spread On all parts round, and heaps on heaps lie dead. The radiant helmet from my brows unlaced, And lo, on earth my shield and javelin cast, I meet the monarch with a suppliant's face, Approach his chariot, and his knees embrace. He heard, he saved, he placed me at his side; My state he pitied, and my tears he dried; Restrained the rage the vengeful foe expressed, And turned the deadly weapons from my breast. Pious to guard the hospitable rite, And fearing Jove, whom mercy's works delight." The suiters of Penelope are, by the same ancient poet, described as a set of lawless men, who were regardless of the sacred rites of hospitality. And, therefore, when the queen was informed they were slain, and that by Ulysses, she, not believing that Ulysses was returned, says, "Ah no! some god the suiters' deaths decreed, Some god descends, and by his hand they bleed; Blind, to contemn the stranger's righteous cause And violate all hospitable laws! ... The powers they defied; But Heaven is just, and by a god they died." Thus much for the sentiments of the ancient heathens. As for the Turks, it is recorded in the Life of Mohammed, the founder of their religion, that Khaled, one of his captains, having divided a number of prisoners between himself and those that were with him, he commanded the hands of his own prisoners to be tied behind them, and then, in a most cruel and brutal manner, put them to the sword; but he could not prevail on his men to massacre _their_ captives, because, in fight, they had laid down their arms, submitted, and demanded protection. Mohammed, when the account was brought to him, applauded the men for their humanity; but said to Khaled, with great indignation, "Oh Khaled, thou butcher, cease to molest me with thy wickedness. If thou possessedst a heap of gold as large as Mount Obod, and shouldst expend it all in God's cause, thy merit would not efface the guilt incurred by the murder of the meanest of these poor captives." Among the Arabs or Saracens, though it was lawful to put to death a prisoner taken in battle, if he had made himself obnoxious by his former wickedness, yet this could not be done after he had once eaten bread or drunk water while in their hands. Hence we read in the history of the wars of the Holy Land, that when the Franks had suffered a great defeat from Saladin, and among the prisoners were the King of Jerusalem, and Arnold, a famous Christian captain, who had been very cruel to the Saracens; these two being brought before the sultan, he placed the king on his right hand and Arnold on his left, and then presented the king with a cup of water, who immediately drank to Arnold; but when Arnold was about to receive the cup, the sultan interrupted, saying, "I will not suffer this wicked man to drink, as that, according to the laudable and generous custom of the Arabs, would secure him his life." That the same laudable and generous custom still prevails among the Mohammedans, appears from the account, but last year published, of his travels by Mr. Bell, of Antermony, who accompanied the Czar, Peter the Great, in his journey to Derbent, through Daggestan. "The religion of the Daggestans," says he, "is generally Mohammedan, some following the sect of Osman, others that of Haly. Their language, for the most part, is Turkish, or, rather, a dialect of the Arabic, though many of them speak also the Persian language. One article I cannot omit concerning their laws of hospitality, which is, if their greatest enemy comes under their roof for protection, the landlord, of what condition soever, is obliged to keep him safe from all manner of harm or violence during his abode with him, and even to conduct him safely through his territories to a place of security." From the Saracens this same custom obtained among the Moors of Africa; was by them brought into Spain, and there long sacredly observed. The Spanish historians record with applause one famous instance of it. While the Moors governed there, and the Spanish mixed with them, a Spanish cavalier, in a sudden quarrel, slew a young Moorish gentleman, and fled. His pursuers soon lost sight of him, for he had, unperceived, thrown himself over a garden wall. The owner, a Moor, happening to be in his garden, was addressed by the Spaniard on his knees, who acquainted him with his case, and implored concealment. "Eat this," said the Moor, giving him half a peach; "you now know that you may confide in my protection." He then locked him up in his garden apartment, telling him that, as soon as it was night, he would provide for his escape to a place of more safety. The Moor then went into his house, where he had scarce seated himself when a great crowd, with loud lamentations, came to the gate bringing the corpse of his son, that had just been killed by a Spaniard. When the first shock of surprise was a little over, he learned, from the description given, that the fatal deed was done by the person then in his power. He mentioned this to no one; but, as soon as it was dark, retired to his garden apartment, as if to grieve alone, giving orders that none should follow him. There accosting the Spaniard, he said, "Christian, the person you have killed is my son; his body is in my house. You ought to suffer; but you have eaten with me, and I have given you my faith, which must not be broken. Follow me." He then led the astonished Spaniard to his stables, mounted him on one of his fleetest horses, and said, "Fly far while the night can cover you. You will be safe in the morning. You are, indeed, guilty of my son's blood; but God is just and good, and I thank him that I am innocent of yours, and that my faith given is preserved." The Spaniards caught from the Moors this _punto_ of honour, the effects of which remain, in a degree, to this day. So that, when there is fear of a war about to break out between England and Spain, an English merchant there, who apprehends the confiscation of his goods as the goods of an enemy, thinks them safe if he can get a Spaniard to take charge of them; for the Spaniard secures them as his own, and faithfully redelivers them, or pays the value whenever the Englishman can safely demand it. Justice to that nation, though lately our enemies and hardly yet our cordial friends, obliges me, on this occasion, not to omit mentioning an instance of Spanish honour, which cannot but be still fresh in the memory of many yet living. In 1746, when we were in hot war with Spain, the Elizabeth, of London, Captain William Edwards, coming through the Gulf from Jamaica, richly laden, met with a most violent storm, in which the ship sprung a leak, that obliged them, for the saving of their lives, to run her into the Havana. The captain went on shore, directly waited on the governor, told the occasion of his putting in, and that he surrendered his ship as a prize, and himself and his men as prisoners of war, only requesting good quarter. "No, sir," replied the Spanish governor; "if we had taken you in fair war at sea, or approaching our coast with hostile intentions, your ship would then have been a prize, and your people prisoners. But when, distressed by a tempest, you come into our ports for the safety of your lives, we, though enemies, being men, are bound as such, by the laws of humanity, to afford relief to distressed men who ask it of us. We cannot, even against our enemies, take advantage of an act of God. You have leave, therefore, to unload the ship, if that be necessary to stop the leak; you may refit here, and traffic so far as shall be necessary to pay the charges; you may then depart, and I will give you a pass, to be in force till you are beyond Bermuda. If after that you are taken, you will then be a prize; but now you are only a stranger, and have a stranger's right to safety and protection." The ship accordingly departed and arrived safe in London. Will it be permitted me to adduce, on this occasion, an instance of the like honour in a poor, unenlightened African negro. I find it in Captain Seagrave's account of his Voyage to Guinea. He relates, that a New-England sloop, trading there in 1752, left their second mate, William Murray, sick on shore, and sailed without him. Murray was at the house of a black, named Cudjoe, with whom he had contracted an acquaintance during their trade. He recovered, and the sloop being gone, he continued with his black friend till some other opportunity should offer of his getting home. In the mean while, a Dutch ship came into the road, and some of the blacks, going on board her, were treacherously seized and carried off as slaves. Their relations and friends, transported with sudden rage, ran to the house of Cudjoe to take revenge by killing Murray. Cudjoe stopped them at the door, and demanded what they wanted. "The white men," said they, "have carried away our brothers and sons, and we will kill all white men; give us the white man you keep in your house, for we will kill him." "Nay," said Cudjoe, "the white men that carried away your brothers are bad men; kill them when you can catch them; but this white man is a good man, and you must not kill him." "But he is a white man," they cried; "the white men are all bad, and we will kill them all." "Nay," said he, "you must not kill a man that has done no harm, only for being white. This man is my friend, my house is his fort, and I am his soldier. I must fight for him. You must kill me before you can kill him. What good man will ever come again under my roof if I let my floor be stained with a good man's blood!" The negroes, seeing his resolution, and being convinced, by his discourse, that they were wrong, went away ashamed. In a few days Murray ventured abroad again with Cudjoe, when several of them took him by the hand, and told him they were glad they had not killed him; for, as he was a good (meaning an innocent) man, their God would have been angry, and would have spoiled their fishing. "I relate this," says Captain Seagrave, "to show that some among these dark people have a strong sense of justice and honour, and that even the most brutal among them are capable of feeling the force of reason, and of being influenced by a fear of God (if the knowledge of the true God could be introduced among them), since even the fear of a false God, when their rage subsided, was not without its good effect." Now I am about to mention something of Indians, I beg that I may not be understood as framing apologies for _all_ Indians. I am far from desiring to lessen the laudable spirit of resentment in my countrymen against those now at war with us, so far as it is justified by their perfidy and inhumanity. I would only observe, that the Six Nations, as a body, have kept faith with the English ever since we knew them, now near a hundred years; and that the governing part of those people have had notions of honour, whatever may be the case of the rum-debauched, trader-corrupted vagabonds and thieves on the Susquehanna and Ohio at present in arms against us. As a proof of that honour, I shall only mention one well-known recent fact. When six Catawba deputies, under the care of Colonel Bull, of Charlestown, went, by permission, into the Mohawk's country to sue for, and treat of peace for their nation, they soon found the Six Nations highly exasperated, and the peace at that time impracticable. They were therefore in fear of their own persons, and apprehended that they should be killed in their way back to New-York; which, being made known to the Mohawk chiefs by Colonel Bull, one of them, by order of the council, made this speech to the Catawbas: "Strangers and Enemies, "While you are in this country, blow away all fear out of your breasts; change the black streak of paint on your cheeks for a red one, and let your faces shine with bear's grease. You are safer here than if you were at home. The Six Nations will not defile their own land with the blood of men that come unarmed to ask for peace. We shall send a guard with you, to see you safe out of our territories. So far you shall have peace, but no farther. Get home to your own country, and there take care of yourselves, for there we intend to come and kill you." The Catawbas came away unhurt accordingly. It is also well known, that just before the late war broke out, when our traders first went among the Piankeshaw Indians, a tribe of the Twigtwees, they found the principle of giving protection to strangers in full force; for, the French coming with their Indians to the Piankeshaw town, and demanding that those traders and their goods should be delivered up, the Piankeshaws replied, the English were come there upon their invitation, and they could not do so base a thing. But the French insisting on it, the Piankeshaws took arms in defence of their guests, and a number of them, with their old chief, lost their lives in the cause; the French at last prevailing by superior force only. I will not dissemble that numberless stories have been raised and spread abroad, against not only the poor wretches that are murdered, but also against the hundred and forty Christianized Indians still threatened to be murdered; all which stories are well known, by those who know the Indians best, to be pure inventions, contrived by bad people, either to excite each other to join in the murder, or, since it was committed, to justify it, and believed only by the weak and credulous. I call thus publicly on the makers and venders of these accusations to produce their evidence. Let them satisfy the public that even Will Soc, the most obnoxious of all that tribe, was really guilty of those offences against us which they lay to his charge. But, if he was, ought he not to have been fairly tried? He lived under our laws, and was subject to them; he was in our hands, and might easily have been prosecuted; was it English justice to condemn and execute him unheard? Conscious of his own innocence, he did not endeavour to hide himself when the door of the workhouse, his sanctuary, was breaking open. "I will meet them," says he, "for they are my brothers." These brothers of his shot him down at the door, while the word "brothers" was between his teeth. But if Will Soc was a bad man, what had poor old Shehaes done? What could he or the other poor old men and women do? What had little boys and girls done! What could children of a year old, babes at the breast, what could they do, that they too must be shot and hatcheted? Horrid to relate! And in their parents' arms! This is done by no civilized nation in Europe. Do we come to America to learn and practise the manners of barbarians? But this, barbarians as they are, they practice against their enemies only, not against their friends. These poor people have been always our friends. Their fathers received ours, when strangers here, with kindness and hospitality. Behold the return we have made them! When we grew more numerous and powerful, they put themselves under our protection. See, in the mangled corpses of the last remains of the tribe, how effectually we have afforded it to them. Unhappy people! to have lived in such times and by such neighbours. We have seen that they would have been safer among the ancient heathens, with whom the rites of hospitality were sacred. They would have been considered as guests of the public, and the religion of the country would have operated in their favour. But our frontier people call themselves Christians! They would have been safer if they had submitted to the Turks; for ever since Mohammed's reproof to Khaled, even the cruel Turks never kill prisoners in cold blood. These were not even prisoners. But what is the example of Turks to Scripture Christians! They would have been safer, though they had been taken in actual war against the Saracens, if they had once drank water with them. These were not taken in war against us, and have drunk with us, and we with them, for fourscore years. But shall we compare Saracens to Christians? They would have been safer among the Moors in Spain, though they had been murderers of sons, if faith had once been pledged to them, and a promise of protection given. But these have had the faith of the English given to them many times by the government, and, in reliance on that faith, they lived among us, and gave us the opportunity of murdering them. However, what was honourable in Moors may not be a rule to us; for we are Christians! They would have been safer, it seems, among popish Spaniards, even if enemies, and delivered into their hands by a tempest. These were not enemies; they were born among us, and yet we have killed them all. But shall we imitate idolatrous papists, we that are enlightened Protestants? They would even have been safer among the negroes of Africa, where at least one manly soul would have been found, with sense, spirit, and humanity enough to stand in their defence. But shall white men and Christians act like a pagan negro? In short, it appears that they would have been safe in any part of the known world, except in the neighbourhood of the _Christian white savages_ of Peckstang and Donegall! Oh ye unhappy perpetrators of this horrid wickedness! reflect a moment on the mischief ye have done, the disgrace ye have brought on your country, on your religion and your Bible, on your families and children. Think on the destruction of your captivated countryfolks (now among the wild Indians), which probably may follow, in resentment of your barbarity! Think on the wrath of the United Five Nations, hitherto our friends, but now provoked by your murdering one of their tribes, in danger of becoming our bitter enemies. Think of the mild and good government you have so audaciously insulted; the laws of your king, your country, and your God, that you have broken; the infamous death that hangs over your heads; for justice, though slow, will come at last. All good people everywhere detest your actions. You have imbrued your hands in innocent blood; how will you make them clean? The dying shrieks and groans of the murdered will often sound in your ears. Their spectres will sometimes attend you, and affright even your innocent children. Fly where you will, your consciences will go with you. Talking in your sleep shall betray you; in the delirium of a fever you yourselves shall make your own wickedness known. One hundred and forty peaceable Indians yet remain in this government. They have, by Christian missionaries, been brought over to a liking, at least, of our religion; some of them lately left their nation, which is now at war with us, because they did not choose to join in their depredations; and to show their confidence in us, and to give us an equal confidence in them, they have brought and put into our hands their wives and children. Others have lived long among us in Northampton county, and most of their children have been born there. These are all now trembling for their lives. They have been hurried from place to place for safety, now concealed in corners, then sent out of the province, refused a passage through a neighbouring colony, and returned, not unkindly, perhaps, but disgracefully, on our hands. Oh Pennsylvania! Once renowned for kindness to strangers, shall the clamours of a few mean niggards about the expense of this public hospitality, an expense that will not cost the noisy wretches sixpence a piece (and what is the expense of the poor maintenance we afford them, compared to the expense they might occasion if in arms against us?), shall so senseless a clamour, I say, force you to turn out of your own doors these unhappy guests, who have offended their own countryfolks by their affection for you; who, confiding in your goodness, have put themselves under your protection? Those whom you have disarmed to satisfy groundless suspicions, will you leave them exposed to the armed madmen of your country? Unmanly men! who are not ashamed to come with weapons against the unarmed, to use the sword against women, and the bayonet against your children, and who have already given such bloody proofs of their inhumanity and cruelty. Let us rouse ourselves for shame, and redeem the honour of our province from the contempt of its neighbours; let all good men join heartily and unanimously in support of the laws, and in strengthening the hands of government, that justice may be done, the wicked punished, and the innocent protected; otherwise we can, as a people, expect no blessing from Heaven; there will be no security for our persons or properties; anarchy and confusion will prevail over all; and violence, without judgment, dispose of everything. * * * * * _Introduction to Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania._[22] To obtain an infinite variety of purposes by a few plain principles, is the characteristic of nature. As the eye is affected, so is the understanding; objects at a distance strike us according to their dimensions, or the quantity of light thrown upon them; near, according to their novelty or familiarity, as they are in motion or at rest. It is the same with actions. A battle is all motion, a hero all glare: while such images are before us, we can attend to nothing else. Solon and Lycurgus would make no figure in the same scene with the king of Prussia; and we are at present so lost in the military scramble on the continent next us, in which, it must be confessed, we are deeply interested, that we have scarce time to throw a glance towards America, where we have also much at stake, and where, if anywhere, our account must be made up at last. We love to stare more than to reflect; and to be indolently amused at our leisure rather than commit the smallest trespass on our patience by winding a painful, tedious maze, which would pay us in nothing but knowledge. But then, as there are some eyes which can find nothing marvellous but what is marvellously great, so there are others which are equally disposed to marvel at what is marvellously little, and who can derive as much entertainment from their microscope in examining a mite, as Dr. ---- in ascertaining the geography of the moon or measuring the tail of a comet. Let this serve as an excuse for the author of these sheets, if he needs any, for bestowing them on the transactions of a colony till of late hardly mentioned in our annals; in point of establishment one of the last upon the British list, and in point of rank one of the most subordinate; as being not only subject, in common with the rest, to the crown, but also to the claims of a proprietary, who thinks he does them honour enough in governing them by deputy; consequently so much farther removed from the royal eye, and so much the more exposed to the pressure of self-interested instructions. Considerable, however, as most of them for happiness of situation, fertility of soil, product of valuable commodities, number of inhabitants, shipping amount of exportations, latitude of rights and privileges, and every other requisite for the being and well-being of society, and more considerable than any of them all for the celerity of its growth, unassisted by any human help but the vigour and virtue of its own excellent constitution. A father and his family, the latter united by interest and affection, the former to be revered for the wisdom of his institutions and the indulgent use of his authority, was the form it was at first presented in. Those who were only ambitious of repose, found it here; and as none returned with an evil report of the land, numbers followed, all partook of the leaven they found; the community still wore the same equal face; nobody aspired, nobody was oppressed; industry was sure of profit, knowledge of esteem, and virtue of veneration. An assuming landlord, strongly disposed to convert free tenants into abject vassals, and to reap what he did not sow, countenanced and abetted by a few desperate and designing dependants on the one side, and on the other, all who have sense enough to know their rights and spirit enough to defend them, combined as one man against the said landlord and his encroachments, is the form it has since assumed. And surely, to a nation born to liberty like this, bound to leave it unimpaired, as they received it from their fathers, in perpetuity to their heirs, and interested in the conservation of it in every appendage of the British empire, the particulars of such a contest cannot be wholly indifferent. On the contrary, it is reasonable to think the first workings of power against liberty, and the natural efforts of unbiased men to secure themselves against the first approaches of oppression, must have a captivating power over every man of sensibility and discernment among us. Liberty, it seems, thrives best in the woods. America best cultivates what Germany brought forth. And were it not for certain ugly comparisons, hard to be suppressed, the pleasure arising from such a research would be without alloy. In the feuds of Florence, recorded by Machiavel, we find more to lament and less to praise. Scarce can we believe the first citizens of the ancient republics had such pretensions to consideration, though so highly celebrated in ancient story. And as to ourselves, we need no longer have recourse to the late glorious stand of the French parliaments to excite our emulation. It is a known custom among farmers to change their corn from season to season for the sake of filling the bushel; and in case the wisdom of the age should condescend to make the like experiment in another shape, from hence we may learn whither to repair for the proper species. It is not, however, to be presumed, that such as have long been accustomed to consider the colonies in general as only so many dependencies on the council-board, the board of trade, and the board of customs; or as a hotbed for causes, jobs, and other pecuniary emoluments, and as bound as effectually by instructions as by laws, can be prevailed upon to consider these patriot rustics with any degree of respect. Derision, on the contrary, must be the lot of him who imagines it in the power of the pen to set any lustre upon them; and indignation theirs for daring to assert and maintain the independence interwoven in their constitution, which now, it seems, is become an improper ingredient, and, therefore, to be excised away. But how contemptibly soever these gentlemen may talk of the colonies, how cheap soever they may hold their assemblies, or how insignificant the planters and traders who compose them, truth will be truth, and principle principle, notwithstanding. Courage, wisdom, integrity, and honour are not to be measured by the sphere assigned them to act in, but by the trials they undergo and the vouchers they furnish; and, if so manifested, need neither robes nor titles to set them off. * * * * * _Dr. Franklin's motion for Prayers in the Convention assembled at Philadelphia, 1787, to revise the then existing Articles of Confederation._ MR. PRESIDENT, THE small progress we have made after four or five weeks' close attendance and continual reasonings with each other, our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many _Noes_ as _Ayes_, is, methinks, a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human understanding. We indeed seem to _feel_ our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running all about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of government, and examined the different forms of those republics which, having been originally formed with the seeds of their own dissolution, now no longer exist; and we have viewed modern states all round Europe, but find none of their constitutions suitable to our circumstances. In this situation of this Assembly, groping, as it were, in the dark, to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for the Divine protection! Our prayers, sir, were heard; and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favour. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? or do we imagine we no longer need its assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time: and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, _That_ GOD _governs in the affairs of men_! And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the Sacred Writings, that "except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe, that without his concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the building of Babel: we shall be divided by our little partial local interests, our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to future ages. And, what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing government by human wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest. I therefore beg leave to move, That henceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business; and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service. [Note by Dr. Franklin.]--"_The Convention, except three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary!!_" * * * * * END OF VOL. I. FOOTNOTES: [18] The following appears to be the history of this celebrated Act: Until 1763, whenever Great Britain wanted supplies directly from the colonies, the secretary of state, in the king's name, sent them a letter of requisition, in which the occasion for the supplies was expressed; and the colonies returned a _free gift_, the mode of levying which _they_ wholly prescribed. At this period the chancellor of the exchequer (Mr. George Grenville) says to the House of Commons, "_We must call for money from the colonies in the way of a tax_;" and to the colony-agents, "_Write to your several colonies, and tell them, if they dislike a duty upon_ stamps, _and prefer any other method of raising the money themselves, I shall be content, provided the_ amount _be but raised_." "That is," observed the colonies, when commenting upon his terms, "if we will not tax ourselves _as we may be directed_, the Parliament will tax us." Dr. Franklin's instructions, spoken of above, related to this gracious option. As the colonies could not choose "_another_ tax" while they disclaimed _every_ tax, the Parliament passed the stamp-act. This act declared that the Americans should have no commerce, make no exchange of property with each other, neither purchase, nor grant, nor recover debts; they shall neither marry nor make their wills, unless they pay such and such sums in _specie_ for the stamps which must give validity to the proceedings. The operation of such a tax, its annual productiveness, on its introduction, was estimated by its proposer in the House of Commons at 100,000_l. sterling_. The colonies being already reduced to the necessity of having _paper_ money, by sending to Britain the specie they collected in foreign trade, in order to make up for the deficiency of their other returns for Britain's manufactures; there were doubts whether there could remain _specie_ sufficient to answer the tax. [19] Some of the colonies had been reduced to the necessity of bartering, from the want of a medium of traffic. [20] Afterward expressed in the Declaratory Act. [21] When this army was in the utmost distress from the want of wagons, &c., our author and his son voluntarily traversed the country, in order to collect a sufficient quantity; and effected their purpose, by pledging himself to the amount of many thousand pounds, for payment. It was but just before Dr. Franklin's last return from England to America that the accounts in this transaction were passed at the British treasury. [22] The publication of this work by Doctor Franklin was made in London during the war that begun in 1773. The introduction is a model of vivid style and sound wisdom. It is written as in London. * * * * * [Transcriber's Notes: The transcriber made these changes to the text to correct obvious errors: 1. p 35 obnoxions --> obnoxious 2. p. 53 expcetations --> expectations 3. p. 84 fifteeen --> fifteen 4. p. 105 6. Moderation. --> 9. Moderation. 5. p. 125 retailiating --> retaliating 6. p. 162 Virnia --> Virginia 7. p. 226 with with more lustre --> with more lustre 8. p. 250 obejct --> object 9. p. 275 aleak --> a leak 10. p. 280 perpretrators --> perpetrators 11. p. 285 dependancies --> dependencies 12. p. 287 succed --> succeed End of Transcriber's Notes] 
36376	----	HISTORICAL SERIES No. 14 THE LIFE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BY M. L. WEEMS STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK THE LIFE OF Benjamin Franklin WITH MANY CHOICE ANECDOTES AND ADMIRABLE SAYINGS OF THIS GREAT MAN NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED BY ANY OF HIS BIOGRAPHERS BY M. L. WEEMS AUTHOR OF "THE LIFE OF WASHINGTON" "Sage Franklin next arose in cheerful mien, And smil'd, unruffled, o'er the solemn scene; High on his locks of age a wreath was brac'd, Palm of all arts that e'er a mortal grac'd; Beneath him lay the sceptre kings had borne, And crowns and laurels from their temples torn." NEW YORK STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS 238 WILLIAM STREET _To the Reader_ We trust that you will be thoroughly satisfied with this book. During the long period of time that the publications of Street & Smith have been familiar to the reading classes (somewhat more than half a century) it has always been our aim to give to the public the very best literary products, regardless of the expenditure involved. Our books and periodicals are today read and re-read in a majority of the homes of America, while but few of our original competitors are even known by name to the present generation. No special credit is due for antiquity, but we hold it to be a self-evident fact that long experience, coupled with enterprise and the ability to maintain the front rank for so many years, proves our right to the title of leaders. We solicit your further valued patronage. STREET & SMITH. LIFE OF FRANKLIN. CHAPTER I. DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY; FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH, LONDON AND PARIS; GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA; AND MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY FROM THE UNITED STATES TO THE COURT OF FRANCE, was the son of an obscure tallow-chandler and soap-boiler, of Boston, where he was born on the 17th day of January, 1706. Some men carry letters of recommendation in their looks, and some in their names. 'Tis the lot but of few to inherit both of these advantages. The hero of this work was one of that favoured number. As to his physiognomy, there was in it such an air of wisdom and philanthropy, and consequently such an expression of majesty and sweetness, as charms, even in the commonest pictures of him. And for his name, every one acquainted with the old English history, must know, that Franklin stands for what we now mean by "Gentleman," or "CLEVER FELLOW." In the days of AULD LANG SYNE, their neighbours from the continent made a descent "_on the fast anchored isle_," and compelled the hardy, red-ochred natives to buckle to their yoke. Among the victors were some regiments of Franks, who distinguished themselves by their valor, and still more by their politeness to the vanquished, and especially to the females. By this amiable gallantry the Franks acquired such glory among the brave islanders, that whenever any of their own people achieved any thing uncommonly handsome, he was called, by way of compliment, FRANKLIN, _i.e._ a little Frank. As the living flame does not more naturally tend upwards than does every virtue to exalt its possessors, these little Franks were soon promoted to be great men, such as justices of the peace, knights of the shire, and other such names of high renown. Hence those pretty lines of the old poet Chaucer-- "This worthy Franklin wore a purse of silk Fix'd to his girdle, pure as morning milk; Knight of the shire; first justice of th' assize, To help the poor, the doubtful to advise. In all employments, gen'rous just he prov'd; Renown'd for courtesy; by all belov'd." But though, according to Dr. Franklin's own account of his family, whose pedigree he looked into with great diligence while he was in England, it appears that they were all of the "_well born_," or gentlemen in the best sense of the word; yet they did not deem it beneath them to continue the same useful courses which had at first conferred their titles. On the contrary, the doctor owns, and indeed glories in it, that for three hundred years the eldest son, or heir apparent in this family of old British gentlemen, was invariably brought up a blacksmith. Moreover, it appears from the same indubitable authority, that the blacksmith succession was most religiously continued in the family down to the days of the doctor's father. How it has gone on since that time I have never heard; but considering the salutary effects of such a fashion on the prosperity of a young republic, it were most devoutly to be wished that it is kept up: and that the family of one of the greatest men who ever lived in this or any other country, still display in their coat of arms, not the barren _gules_ and _garters_ of European folly, but those better ensigns of American wisdom--the SLEDGE-HAMMER and ANVIL. CHAPTER II. "Were I so tall to reach the pole, And grasp the ocean in my span, I must be measur'd by my soul; For 'tis the MIND that makes the man." From the best accounts which I have been able to pick up, it would appear that a passion for learning had a long run in the family of the Franklins. Of the doctor's three uncles, the elder, whose name was Thomas, though conscientiously brought up a blacksmith, and subsisting his family by the din and sweat of his anvil, was still a great reader. Instead of wasting his leisure hours, as too many of the trade do, in tippling and tobacco, he acquired enough of the law to render himself a very useful and leading man among the people of Northampton, where his forefathers had lived in great comfort for three hundred years, on thirty acres of land. His uncle Benjamin, too, another old _English gentleman_ of the right stamp, though a very hard-working man at the silk-dying trade, was equally devoted to the pleasures of the mind. He made it a rule whenever he lighted on a copy of verses that pleased him, to transcribe them into a large blank book which he kept for the purpose. In this way he collected two quarto volumes of poems, written in short hand of his own inventing. And, being a man of great piety, and fond of attending the best preachers, whose sermons he always took down, he collected in the course of his life, _eight_ volumes of sermons in _folio_, besides near _thirty_ in quarto and octavo, and all in the aforesaid short hand! Astonishing proof, what a banquet of elegant pleasures even a poor mechanic may enjoy, who begins early to read and think! 'Tis true, he was a long time about it. His piety afforded him a constant cheerfulness. And deriving from the same source a regular temperance, he attained to a great age. In his seventy-third year, still fresh and strong, he left his native country, and came over to America, to see his younger brother Josias, between whom and himself there had always subsisted a more than ordinary friendship. On his arrival in Boston, he was received with unbounded joy by Josias, who pressed him to spend the residue of his days in his family. To this proposition the old gentleman readily consented; and the more so as he was then a widower, and his children, all married off, had left him. He had the honor to give his name, and to stand godfather to our little hero, for whom, on account of his vivacity and fondness for learning, he conceived an extraordinary affection. And Ben always took a great delight in talking of this uncle. Nor was it to be wondered at; for he was an old man who wore his religion very much to win young people--a pleasant countenance--a sweet speech--and a fund of anecdotes always entertaining, and generally carrying some good moral in the tail of them. His grandfather before him must have been a man of rare humour, as appears from a world of droll stories which uncle Benjamin used to tell after him, and which his New England descendants to this day are wont to repeat with great glee. I must let the reader hear one or two of them. They will amuse him, by showing what strange things were done in days of yore by kings and priests in the land of our venerable forefathers. It was his grandfather's fortune to live in the reign of Queen Mary, whom her _friends_ called _holy_ Mary, but her enemies _bloody_ Mary. In the grand struggle for power between those humble followers of the cross, the catholics and the protestants, the former gained the victory, for which 'Te Deums' in abundance were sung throughout the land. And having been sadly rib-roasted by the protestants when in power, they determined, like good christians, now that the tables were turned, to try on them the virtues of fire and faggot. The Franklin family having ever been sturdy protestants, began now to be in great tribulation. "What shall we do to save our Bible?" was the question. After serious consultation in a family caucus, it was resolved to hide it in the close-stool; which was accordingly done, by fastening it, open, on the under side of the lid by twine threads drawn strongly across the leaves. When the grandfather read to the family, he turned up the aforesaid lid on his knees, passing the leaves of his Bible, as he read, from one side to the other. One of the children was carefully stationed at the door, to give notice if he saw the priest, or any of his frowning tribe, draw near. In that event, the lid with the Bible lashed beneath it, was instantly clapped down again on its old place. These things may appear strange to us, who live under a wise republic, which will not suffer the black gowns of one church to persecute those of another. But they were common in those dark and dismal days, when the clergy thought more of creeds than of Christ, and of learning Latin than of learning love. Queen Mary was one of this gnostic generation, (who place their religion in the _head_, though Christ places it in the HEART,) and finding it much easier to her _unloving_ spirit, to burn human beings called heretics, than to mortify her own lust of popularity, she suffered her catholic to fly upon and worry her protestant subjects at a shameful rate. Good old uncle Benjamin used to divert his friends with another story, which happened in the family of his own aunt, who kept an inn at Eaton, Northamptonshire. A most violent priest, of the name of Asquith, who thought, like Saul, that he should be doing "_God service_" by killing the heretics, had obtained letters patent from queen Mary against those people in the county of Warwick. On his way he called to dine at Eaton, where he was quickly waited on by the mayor, a strong catholic, to ask how the _good work went on_. Asquith, leaping to his saddle-bags, drew forth a little box, that contained his commission, which he flourished before the mayor, exclaiming with high glee, "_Aye! there's that that will scorch the rogues!_" Old Mrs. Franklin, under the rose a sturdy protestant, overhearing this, was exceedingly troubled; and watching her opportunity when the priest had stepped out with the mayor, slipped the commission out of the box, and put in its place a pack of cards, wrapped in the same paper. The priest returning in haste, and suspecting no trick, huddled up his box, and posted off for Coventry. A grand council of the saints was speedily convoked to meet him. He arose, and having with great vehemence delivered a set speech against the heretics, threw his commission on the table for the secretary to read aloud. With the eyes of the whole council on him, the eager secretary opened the package, when in place of the flaming commission, behold a pack of cards with the knave of clubs turned uppermost! A sudden stupefaction seized the spectators. In silence they stared at the priest and stared at one another. Some looking as though they suspected treachery: others as dreading a judgment in the case. Soon as the dumb-founded priest could recover speech, he swore by the HOLY MARY, that he once had a commission; that he had received it from the queen's own hand. And he also swore that he would get another commission. Accordingly he hurried back to London, and having procured another, set off again for Coventry. But alas! before he got down, poor queen Mary had turned the corner, and the protestants under Elizabeth got the rule again. Having nothing now to dread, our quizzing old hostess, Mrs. Franklin, came out with the knavish trick she had played the priest, which so pleased the protestants of Coventry that they presented her a piece of plate, that cost fifty pounds sterling, equal, as money now goes, to a thousand dollars. From an affair which soon after this took place there, it appears that Coventry, however famous for saints, had no great cause to brag of her poets.--When queen Elizabeth, to gratify her subjects, made the tour of her island, she passed through Coventry. The mayor, aldermen, and company hearing of her approach, went out in great state to meet her. The queen being notified that they wished to address her, made a full stop right opposite to a stage erected for the purpose, and covered with embroidered cloth, from which a ready orator, after much bowing and arms full extended, made this wondrous speech--"We men of Coventry are glad to see your royal highness--Lord how _fair_ you be!" To this the maiden queen, equal famed for fat and fun, rising in her carriage, and waving her lily white hand, made this prompt reply--"Our royal highness is glad to see you men of Coventry--Lord what FOOLS you be!" CHAPTER III. _Our hero, little Ben, coming on the carpet--Put to school very young--Learns prodigiously--Taken home and set to candle-making-- Curious capers, all proclaiming "the Achilles in petticoats."_ Dr. Franklin's father married early in his own country, and would probably have lived and died there, but for the persecutions against his friends the Presbyterians, which so disgusted him, that he came over to New England, and settled in Boston about the year 1682. He brought with him his English wife and three children. By the same wife he had four children more in America; and ten others afterwards by an American wife. The doctor speaks with pleasure of having seen thirteen sitting together very lovingly at his father's table, and all married. Our little hero, who was the fifteenth child, and last of the sons, was born at Boston the 17th day of January, 1706, old style. That famous Italian proverb, "_The Devil tempts every man, but the Idler tempts the Devil_," was a favourite canto with wise old Josias; for which reason, soon as their little lips could well lisp letters and syllables, he had them all to school. Nor was this the only instance with regard to them, wherein good Josias "_sham'd the Devil_;" for as soon as their education was finished, they were put to useful trades. Thus no leisure was allowed for bad company and habits. Little Ben, neatly clad and comb'd, was pack'd off to school with the rest; and as would seem, at a very early age, for he says himself that, "_he could not recollect any time in his life when he did not know how to read_," whence we may infer that he hardly ever knew any thing more of childhood than its innocency and playfulness. At the age of eight he was sent to a grammar school, where he made such a figure in learning, that his good old father set him down at once for the church, and used constantly to call him his "_little chaplain_." He was confirmed in this design, not only by the extraordinary readiness with which he learned, but also by the praises of his friends, who all agreed that he would certainly one day or other become a mighty scholar. His uncle Benjamin too, greatly approved the idea of making a preacher of him; and by way of encouragement, promised to him all his volumes of sermons, written, as before said, in his own short hand. This his rapid progress in learning he ascribed very much to an amiable teacher who used gentle means only, to encourage his scholars, and make them fond of their books. But in the midst of this gay career in his learning, when in the course of the first year only, he had risen from the middle of his class to the head of it; thence to the class immediately above it; and was rapidly overtaking the third class, he was taken from school! His father, having a large family, with but a small income, and thinking himself unable consistently with what he owed the rest of his children, to give him a collegiate education, took Ben home to assist him in his own humble occupation, which was that of a SOAP-BOILER and TALLOW-CHANDLER; a trade he had taken up of his own head after settling in Boston; his original one of a DYER being in too little request to maintain his family. I have never heard how Ben took this sudden reverse in his prospects. No doubt it put his little stock of philosophy to the stretch. To have seen himself, one day, on the high road to literary fame, flying from class to class, the admiration and envy of a numerous school; and the next day, to have found himself in a filthy soap-shop; clad in a greasy apron, twisting cotton wicks!--and in place of snuffing the sacred lamps of the Muses, to be bending over pots of fetid tallow, dipping and moulding candles for the dirty cook wenches! Oh, it must have seem'd a sad falling off! Indeed, it appears from his own account that he was so disgusted with it that he had serious thoughts of going to sea. But his father objecting to it, and Ben having virtue enough to be dutiful, the notion was given up for that time. But the ambition which had made him the first at his school, and which now would have hurried him to sea, was not to be extinguished. Though diverted from its favourite course, it still burned for distinction, and rendered him the leader of the juvenile band in every enterprize where danger was to be confronted, or glory to be won. In the neighbouring mill-pond, he was the foremost to lead the boys to plunge and swim; thus teaching them an early mastery over that dangerous element. And when the ticklish mill-boat was launching from the shore laden with his timid playmates, the paddle that served as rudder, was always put into his hands, as the fittest to steer her course over the dark waters of the pond. This ascendancy which nature had given him over the companions of his youth, was not always so well used as it might have been. He honestly confesses that, once at least, he made such an unlucky use of it as drew them into a scrape that cost them dear. Their favourite fishing shore on that pond was, it seems, very miry. To remedy so great an inconvenience he proposed to the boys to make a wharf. Their assent was quickly obtained: but what shall we make it of? was the question. Ben pointed their attention to a heap of stones, hard by, of which certain honest masons were building a house. The proposition was hailed by the boys, as a grand discovery; and soon as night had spread her dark curtains around them, they fell to work with the activity of young beavers, and by midnight had completed their wharf. The next morning the masons came to work, but, behold! not a stone was to be found! The young rogues, however, detected by the track of their feet in the mud, were quickly summoned before their parents, who not being so partial to Ben as they had been, chastised their folly with a severe flogging. Good old Josias pursued a different course with his son. To deter him from such an act in future, he endeavoured to reason him into a sense of its immorality. Ben, on the other hand, just fresh and confident from his school, took the field of argument against his father, and smartly attempted to defend what he had done, on the principle of its _utility_. But the old gentleman, who was a great adept in moral philosophy, calmly observed to him, that if one boy were to make use of this plea to take away his fellow's goods, another might; and thus contests would arise, filling the world with blood and murder without end. Convinced, in this simple way, of the fatal consequences of "_doing evil that good may come_," Ben let drop the weapons of his rebellion, and candidly agreed with his father that what was not _strictly honest_ could never be _truly useful_. This discovery he made at the tender age of _nine_. Some never make it in the course of their lives. The grand angler, Satan, throws out his bait of _immediate gain_; and they, like silly Jacks, snap at it at once; and in the moment of running off, fancy they have got a delicious morsel. But alas! the fatal hook soon convinces them of their mistake, though sometimes too late. And then the lamentation of the prophet serves as the epilogue of their tragedy--"_'Twas honey in the mouth, but gall in the bowels._" CHAPTER IV. _Picture of a wise father--To which is added a famous receipt for health and long life._ The reader must already have discovered that Ben was uncommonly blest in a father. Indeed from the portrait of him drawn by this grateful son, full fifty years afterwards, he must have been an enviable old man. As to his person, though that is but of minor consideration in a rational creature--I say, as to his person, it was of the right standard, _i.e._ medium size and finely formed--his complexion fair and ruddy--black, intelligent eyes--and an air uncommonly graceful and spirited. In respect of _mind_, which is the true jewel of our nature, he was a man of the purest piety and morals, and consequently cheerful and amiable in a high degree. Added to this, he possessed a considerable taste for the fine arts, particularly drawing and music; and having a voice remarkably sonorous and sweet, whenever he sung a hymn accompanied with his violin, which he usually did at the close of his day's labours, it was delightful to hear him. He possessed also an extraordinary sagacity in things relating both to public and private life, insomuch that not only individuals were constantly consulting him about their affairs, and calling him in as an arbiter in their disputes; but even the leading men of Boston would often come and ask his advice in their most important concerns, as well of the town as of the church. For his slender means he was a man of extraordinary hospitality, which caused his friends to wonder how he made out to entertain so many. But whenever this was mentioned to him, he used to laugh and say, that the world was good natured and gave him credit for much more than he deserved; for that, in fact, others entertained ten times as many as he did. By this, 'tis thought he alluded to the ostentatious practice common with some, of pointing their hungry visitant to their grand buildings, and boasting how many thousands this or that bauble cost; as if their ridiculous vanity would pass with them for a good dinner. For his part, he said, he preferred setting before his visitors a plenty of wholesome fare, with a hearty welcome. Though to do this he was fain to work hard, and content himself with a small house and plain furniture. But it was always his opinion that a little laid out in this way, went farther both with God and man too, than great treasures lavished on pride and ostentation. But though he delighted in hospitality as a great virtue, yet he always made choice of such friends at his table as were fond of rational conversation. And he took great care to introduce such topics as would, in a pleasant manner, lead to ideas useful to his family, both in temporal and eternal things. As to the dishes that were served up, he never talked of them; never discussed whether they were well or ill dressed; of a good or bad flavour, high seasoned or otherwise. For this manly kind of education at his table, Dr. Franklin always spoke as under great obligations to his father's judgment and taste. Thus accustomed, from infancy, to a generous inattention to the palate, he became so perfectly indifferent about what was set before him, that he hardly ever remembered, ten minutes after dinner, what he had dined on. In travelling, particularly, he found his account in this. For while those who had been more nice in their diet could enjoy nothing they met with; this one growling over the daintiest breakfast of new laid eggs and toast floated in butter, because his _coffee was not half strong enough!_--that wondering what people can mean by serving up a round of beef when they have _no mustard!_--and a third cursing like a trooper, though the finest rock-fish or sheep's-head be smoking on the table--because there is no _walnut pickle or ketchup!_ He for his part, happily engaged in a pleasant train of thinking or conversation, never attended to such trifles, but dined heartily on whatever was set before him. In short, there is no greater kindness that a young man can do himself than to learn the art of feasting on fish, flesh, or fowl as they come, without ever troubling his head about any other sauce than what the rich hand of nature has given; let him but bring to these dishes that good appetite which always springs from exercise and cheerfulness, and he will be an epicure indeed. He would often repeat in the company of young people, the following anecdote which he had picked up some where or other in his extensive reading. "A wealthy citizen of Athens, who had nearly ruined his constitution by gluttony and sloth, was advised by Hippocrates to visit a certain medicinal spring in Sparta; not that Hippocrates believed that spring to be better than some nearer home; but exercise was the object--" "_Visit the springs of Sparta_," said the great physician. As the young debauchee, pale and bloated, travelled among the simple and hardy Spartans, he called one day at the house of a countryman on the road to get something to eat. A young woman was just serving up dinner--a nice barn-door fowl boiled with a piece of fat bacon. "You have got rather a plain dinner there madam," growled the Athenian. "_Yes, sir_," replied the young woman blushing, "_but my husband will be here directly, and he always brings the sauce with him_." Presently the young husband stepped in, and after welcoming his guest, invited him to dinner. "I can't dream of dining, sir, _without sauce_," said the Athenian, "and your wife promised you would bring it." "_O, sir, my wife is a wit_," cried the Spartan; "_she only meant the good appetite which I always bring with me from the barn, where I have been threshing_." And here I beg leave to wind up this chapter with the following beautiful lines from Dryden, which I trust my young reader will commit to memory. They may save him many a sick stomach and headache, besides many a good dollar in doctor's fees. "The first physicians by debauch were made; Excess began and sloth sustains the trade. By chace, our long liv'd fathers earn'd their bread; Toil strung their nerves and purified their blood: But we, their sons, a pamper'd race of men, Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten. Better hunt in fields for health unbought, Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. The wise for health on exercise depend; God never made his works for man to mend." CHAPTER V. Ben continued with his father, assisting him in his humble toils, till his twelfth year; and had he possessed a mind less active might have remained a candle-maker all the days of his life. But born to diffuse a light beyond that of tallow or spermaceti, he could never reconcile himself to this inferior employment, and in spite of his wishes to conceal it from his father, discontent would still lower on his brow, and the half-suppressed sigh steal in secret from his bosom. With equal grief his father beheld the deep-seated disquietude of his son. He loved all his children; but he loved this young one above all the rest. Ben was the child of his old age. The smile that dimpled his tender cheeks reminded him of his mother when he first saw her, lovely in the rosy freshness of youth. And then his intellect was so far beyond his years; his questions so shrewd; so strong in reasoning; so witty in remark, that his father would often forget his violin of nights for the higher pleasure of holding an argument with him. This was a great trial to his sisters, who would often intreat their mother to make Ben hold his tongue, that their father might take down his fiddle, and play and sing hymns with them: for they took after him in his passion for music, and sung divinely. No wonder that such a child should be dear to such a father. Indeed old Josias' affection for Ben was so intimately interwoven with every fibre of his heart, that he could not bear the idea of separation from him; and various were the stratagems which he employed to keep this dear child at home. One while, to frighten his youthful fancy from the sea, for that was the old man's dread, he would paint the horrors of the watery world, where the maddening billows, lashed into mountains by the storm, would lift the trembling ship to the skies; then hurl her down, headlong plunging into the yawning gulphs, never to rise again. At another time he would describe the wearisomeness of beating the gloomy wave for joyless months, pent up in a small ship, with no prospects but barren sea and skies--no smells but tar and bilge water--no society but men of uncultivated minds, and their constant conversation nothing but ribaldry and oaths. And then again he would take him to visit the masons, coopers, joiners, and other mechanics, at work: in hopes that his genius might be caught, and a stop put to his passion for wandering. But greatly to his sorrow, none of these things held out the attractions that his son seemed to want. His visits among these tradesmen were not, however, without their advantage. He caught from them, as he somewhere says, such an insight into mechanic arts and the use of tools, as enabled him afterwards when there was no artist at hand, to make for himself suitable machines for the illustration of his philosophical experiments. But it was not long before this obstinate dislike of Ben's to all ordinary pursuits was found out; it was found out by his mother. "Bless me," said she one night to her husband, as he lay sleepless and sighing on his son's account, "why do we make ourselves so unhappy about Ben for fear he should go to _sea!_ let him but go to _school_, and I'll engage we hear no more about his running to sea. Don't you see the child is never happy but when he has a book in his hand? Other boys when they get a little money never think of any thing better to lay it out on than their backs or their bellies; but he, poor fellow, the moment that he gets a shilling, runs and gives it for a book; and then, you know, there is no getting him to his meals until he has read it through, and told us all about it." Good old Josias listened very devoutly to his wife, while she uttered this oration on his youngest son. Then with looks as of a heart suddenly relieved from a heavy burden, and his eyes lifted to heaven, he fervently exclaimed--"O that my son, even my little son Benjamin, may live before God, and that the days of his usefulness and glory may be many!" How far the effectual fervent prayer of this righteous father found acceptance in heaven, the reader will find perhaps by the time he has gone through our little book. CHAPTER VI. _Ben taken from school, turns his own teacher--History of the books which he first read--Is bound to the printing trade._ At a learned table in Paris, where Dr. Franklin happened to dine, it was asked by the abbé Raynal, _What description of men most deserves pity?_ Some mentioned one character, and some another. When it came to Franklin's turn, he replied, _A lonesome man in a rainy day, who does not know how to read._ As every thing is interesting that relates to one who made such a figure in the world, it may gratify our readers to be told what were the books that first regaled the youthful appetite of the great Dr. Franklin. The state of literature in Boston at that time, being like himself, only in its infancy, it is not to be supposed that Ben had any very great choice of books. Books, however, there always were in Boston.[1] Among these was Bunyan's Voyages, which appears to have been the first he ever read, and of which he speaks with great pleasure. But there is reason to fear that Bunyan did no good: for, as it was the reading of the life of Alexander the Great that first set Charles the Twelfth in such a fever to be running over the world killing every body he met; so, in all probability, it was Bunyan's Voyages that fired Ben's fancy with that passion for travelling, which gave his father so much uneasiness. Having read over old Bunyan so often as to have him almost by heart, Ben added a little boot, and made a _swap_ of him for _Burton's Historical Miscellanies_. This, consisting of forty or fifty volumes, held him a good long tug: for he had no time to read but on Sundays, and early in the morning or late at night. After this he fell upon his father's library. This being made up principally of old puritanical divinity, would to most boys have appeared like the pillars of Hercules to travellers of old--a bound not to be passed. But so keen was Ben's appetite for any thing in the shape of a book, that he fell upon it with his usual voracity, and soon devoured every thing in it, especially of the lighter sort. Seeing a little bundle of something crammed away very snugly upon an upper shelf, his curiosity led him to take it down: and lo! what should it be but "_Plutarch's Lives_." Ben was a stranger to the work; but the title alone was enough for him; he instantly gave it one reading; and then a second, and a third, and so on until he had almost committed it to memory; and to his dying day he never mentioned the name of Plutarch without acknowledging how much pleasure and profit he had derived from that divine old writer. And there was another book, by Defoe, a small affair, entitled "_An Essay on Projects_," to which he pays the very high compliment of saying, that "_from it he received impressions which influenced some of the principal events of his life_." [1] You never find presbyterians without books. Happy now to find that books had the charm to keep his darling boy at home, and thinking that if he were put into a printing office he would be sure to get books enough, his father determined to make a printer of him, though he already had a son in that business. Exactly to his wishes, that son, whose name was James, had just returned from London with a new press and types. Accordingly, without loss of time, Ben, now in his twelfth year, was bound apprentice to him. By the indentures Ben was to serve his brother till twenty-one, _i.e._ _nine_ full years, without receiving one penny of wages save for the last twelve months! How a man pretending to religion could reconcile it to himself to make so hard a bargain with a younger brother, is strange. But perhaps it was permitted of God, that Ben should learn his ideas of oppression, not from reading but from suffering. The deliverers of mankind have all been made perfect through suffering. And to the galling sense of this villanous oppression, which never ceased to rankle on the mind of Franklin, the American people owe much of that spirited resistance to British injustice, which eventuated in their liberties. But Master James had no great cause to boast of this selfish treatment of his younger brother Benjamin; for the old adage "foul play never thrives," was hardly ever more remarkably illustrated than in this affair, as the reader will in due season be brought to understand. CHAPTER VII. _Ben in clover--Turns a Rhymer--Makes a prodigious noise in Boston --Bit by the Poetic Tarantula--Luckily cured by his father._ Ben is now happy. He is placed by the side of the press, the very mint and coining place of his beloved _books_; and animated by that delight which he takes in his business, he makes a proficiency equally surprising and profitable to his brother. The field of his reading too is now greatly enlarged. From the booksellers' boys he makes shift, every now and then, to borrow a book, which he _never fails to return_ at the promised time: though to accomplish this he was often obliged to sit up till midnight, reading by his bed side, that he might be as good as his word. Such an extraordinary passion for learning soon commended him to the notice of his neighbours, among whom was an ingenious young man, a tradesman, named Matthew Adams, who invited him to his house, showed him all his books, and offered to lend him any that he wished to read. About this time, which was somewhere in his thirteenth year, Ben took it into his head that he could write poetry: and actually composed several little pieces. These, after some hesitation, he showed to his brother, who pronounced them _excellent_; and thinking that money might be made by Ben's poetry, pressed him to cultivate his _wonderful talent_, as he called it; and even gave him a couple of subjects to write on. The one, which was to be called the LIGHT-HOUSE TRAGEDY, was to narrate the late shipwreck of a sea captain and his two daughters: and the other was to be a sailor's song on the noted pirate Blackbeard, who had been recently killed on the coast of North Carolina, by Captain Maynard, of a British sloop of war. Ben accordingly fell to work, and after burning out several candles, for his brother could not afford to let him write poetry by daylight, he produced his two poems. His brother extolled them to the skies, and in all haste had them put to the type and struck off; to expedite matters, fast as the sheets could be snatched from the press, all hands were set to work, folding and stitching them ready for market; while nothing was to be heard throughout the office but constant calls on the boys at press--"_more sheets ho! more Light-house tragedy! more Blackbeard!_" But who can tell what Ben felt when he saw his brother and all his journeymen in such a bustle on his account--and when he saw, wherever he cast his eyes, the splendid trophies of his genius scattered on the floor and tables; some in common paper for the multitude; and others in snow-white foolscap, for presents to the GREAT PEOPLE, such as "HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR."--"The HON. THE SECRETARY OF STATE."--"The WORSHIPFUL THE MAYOR."--"The ALDERMEN, and GENTLEMEN OF THE COUNCIL."--"The reverend the _clergy_, &c." Ben could never tire of gazing at them; and as he gazed, his heart would leap for joy--"_O you precious little verses_," he would say to himself, "_Ye first warblings of my youthful harp! I'll soon have you abroad, delighting every company, and filling all mouths with my name!_" Accordingly, his _two poems_ being ready, Ben, who had been both poet and printer, with a basket full of each on his arm, set out in high spirits to sell them through the town, which he did by singing out as he went, after, the manner of the London cries-- "Choice Poetry! Choice Po-e-try! Come BUY my choice Po-e-try!" The people of Boston having never heard any such cry as that before, were prodigiously at a loss to know what he was selling. But still Ben went on singing out as before, "Choice Poetry! Choice Poetry! Come, buy my choice Poetry!" I wonder now, said one with a stare, if it is not _poultry_ that that little boy is singing out so stoutly yonder. O no, I guess not, said a second. Well then, cried a third, I vow but it must be _pastry_. At length Ben was called up and interrogated. "_Pray, my little man, and what's that that you are crying there so bravely?_" Ben told them it was poetry. "_O!--aye! poetry!_" said they; "_poetry! that's a sort of something or other in metre--like the old version, isn't it?_" "_O yes, to be sure_," said they all, "_it must be like the old version, if it is poetry_;" and thereupon they stared at him, marvelling hugely that a "_little curly headed boy like him should be selling such a wonderful thing_!" This made Ben hug himself still more on account of his poetry. I have never been able to get a sight of the ballad of the Light-house Tragedy, which must no doubt have been a great curiosity: but the sailor's song on Blackbeard runs thus-- "Come all you jolly Sailors, You all so stout and brave; Come hearken and I'll tell you What happen'd on the wave. Oh! 'tis of that bloody Blackbeard I'm going now for to tell; And as how by gallant Maynard He soon was sent to hell-- With a down, down, down derry down." The reader will, I suppose, agree with Ben in his criticism, many years afterwards, on this poetry, that it was "wretched stuff; mere blind men's ditties." But fortunately for Ben, the poor people of Boston were at that time no judges of poetry. The silver-tongued Watts had not, as yet, snatched the harp of Zion, and poured his divine songs over New-England. And having never been accustomed to any thing better than an old version of David's Psalms, running in this way-- "Ye monsters of the bubbling deep, Your Maker's praises spout! Up from your sands ye codlings peep, And wag your tails about."-- The people of Boston pronounced Ben's poetry _mighty fine_, and bought them up at a prodigious rate; especially the LIGHT-HOUSE TRAGEDY. A flood of success so sudden and unexpected, would in all probability have turned Ben's brain and run him stark mad with vanity, had not his wise old father timely stepped in and checked the rising fever. But highly as Ben honoured his father, and respected his judgment, he could hardly brook to hear him attack his beloved poetry, as he did, calling it "_mere Grub-street_." And he even held a stiff argument in defence of it. But on reading a volume of Pope, which his father, who well knew the force of contrast, put into his hand for that purpose, he never again opened his mouth in behalf of his "_blind men's ditties_." He used to laugh and say, that after reading Pope, he was so mortified with his _Light-house Tragedy, and Sailor's Song_, which he had once thought so fine, that he could not bear the sight of them, but constantly threw into the fire every copy that fell in his way. Thus was he timely saved, as he ingenuously confesses, from the very great misfortune of being, perhaps, a miserable jingler for life. But I cannot let fall the curtain on this curious chapter, without once more feasting my eyes on Ben, as, with a little basket on his arm, he trudged along the streets of Boston crying his poetry. Who that saw the youthful David coming up fresh from his father's sheep cots, with his locks wet with the dews of the morning, and his cheeks ruddy as the opening rose-buds, would have dreamed that this was he who should one day, single handed, meet the giant Goliah, in the war-darkened valley of Elah, and wipe off reproach from Israel. In like manner, who that saw this "_curly headed child_," at the tender age of thirteen, selling his "_blind men's ditties_," among the wonder-struck Jonathans and Jemimas of Boston, would have thought that this was he, who, single handed, was to meet the British ministry at the bar of their own house of Commons, and by the solar blaze of his wisdom, utterly disperse all their dark designs against their countrymen, thus gaining for himself a name lasting as time, and dear to liberty as the name of Washington. O you time-wasting, brain-starving young men, who can never be at ease unless you have a cigar or a plug of tobacco in your mouths, go on with your puffing and champing--go on with your filthy smoking, and your still more filthy spitting, keeping the cleanly house-wives in constant terror for their nicely waxed floors, and their shining carpets--go on I say; but remember it was not in this way that our little Ben became the GREAT DR. FRANKLIN. CHAPTER VIII. 'Tis the character of a great mind never to despair. Though glory may not be gained in one way, it may in another. As a river, if it meet a mountain in its course, does not halt and poison all the country by stagnation, but rolls its gathering forces around the obstacle, urging its precious tides and treasures through distant lands. So it was with the restless genius of young Franklin. Finding that nature had never cut him out for a poet, he determined to take revenge on her by making himself a good prose writer. As it is in this way that his pen has conferred great obligations on the world, it must be gratifying to learn by what means, humbly circumstanced as he was, he acquired that perspicuity and ease so remarkable in his writings. This information must be peculiarly acceptable to such youth as are apt to despair of becoming good writers, because they have never been taught the languages. Ben's example will soon convince them that Latin and Greek are not necessary to make English scholars. Let them but commence with _his_ passion for knowledge; with _his_ firm persuasion, that wisdom is the glory and happiness of man, and the work is more than half done. Honest Ben never courted a young man because he was rich, or the son of the rich--No. His favourites were of the youth fond of reading and of rational conversation, no matter how poor they were. "_Birds of a feather do not more naturally flock together_," than do young men of this high character. This was what first attracted to him that ingenious young carpenter, Matthew Adams: as also John Collins, the tanner's boy. These three spirited youth, after finding each other out, became as fond as brothers. And often as possible, when the labours of the day were ended, they would meet at a little school-house in the neighbourhood, and argue on some given subject till midnight. The advantages of this as a grand mean of exercising memory, strengthening the reasoning faculty, disciplining the thoughts, and improving a correct and graceful elocution, became daily more obvious and important in their view, and consequently increased their mutual attachment. But from his own observation of what passed in this curious little society, Ben cautions young men against that _war of words_, which the vain are too apt to fall into, and which tends not only to make them insupportably disagreeable through a disputatious spirit, but is apt also to betray into a fondness for _quizzing_, _i.e._ for asserting and supporting opinions which they do not themselves believe. He gives the following as a case in point. One night, Adams being absent, and only himself and Collins together in the old school-house, Ben observed that he thought it a great pity that the young ladies were not more attended to, as to the improvement of their minds by education. He said, that with their advantages of sweet voices and beautiful faces, they could give tenfold charms to wit and sensible conversation, making heavenly truths to appear, as he had somewhere read in his father's old Bible, "like apples of gold set in pictures of silver." Collins blowed upon the idea. He said, it was all _stuff_, and no pity at all, that the girls were so neglected in their education, as they were naturally incapable of it. And here he repeated, laughing, that infamous slur on the ladies, "Substance too soft a lasting mind to bear, And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair." At this, Ben, who was already getting to be a great admirer of the ladies, reddened up against Collins; and to it they fell, at once, in a stiff argument on the education of women--as whether they were capable of studying the sciences or not. Collins, as we have seen, led off against the ladies. Being much of an infidel, he took the Turkish ground altogether, and argued like one just soured and sullen from the seraglio. _Women study the sciences indeed!_ said he, with a sneer; _a pretty story truly! no sir, they have nothing to do with the sciences. They were not born for any such thing._ Ben wanted to know what they _were_ born for? Born for! retorted Collins, why to _dress_ and _dance_; to _sing_ and _play_; and, like pretty triflers, to divert the lords of the creation, after their toils and studies. This is all they were born for, or ever intended of nature, who has given them capacities for nothing higher. Sometimes, indeed, they look grave, and fall into such brown studies as would lead one to suppose they meant to go deep; but it is all _fudge_. They are only trying in this new character to play themselves off to a better effect on their lovers. And if you could but penetrate the bosoms of these fair Penserosoes; you would find that under all this affectation of study they were only fatiguing their childish brains about what dress they should wear to the next ball: or what coloured ribands would best suit their new lutestrings. To this Ben replied with warmth, that it was extremely unphilosophical in Mr. Collins to argue in that way against the MIND--that in fixing their destination he had by no means given them that high ground to which they were entitled. You say, sir, continued Ben, that the ladies were created to amuse the men by the charm of their vivacity and accomplishments. This to be sure was saying something. But you might, I think, have said a great deal more; at least the Bible says a great deal more for them. The Bible, sir, tells us that God created woman to be the helpmate of man. Now if man were devoid of reason he might be well enough matched by such a monkey-like helpmate as you have described woman. But, sir, since man is a noble God-like creature, endued with the sublime capacities of _reason_, how could woman ever make a helpmate to him, unless she were rational like himself, and thus capable of being the companion of his thoughts and conversation through all the pleasant fields of knowledge? Here Collins interrupted him, asking very sarcastically, if in this fine flourish in favour of the ladies he was really _in earnest_. Never more so in all my life, replied Ben, rather nettled. What, that the women are as capable of studying the sciences as the men? Yes, that the women are as capable of studying the sciences as the men. And pray, sir, continued Collins, tauntingly, do you know of any _young woman_ of your acquaintance that would make a Newton? And pray, sir, answered Ben, do you know any young man of your acquaintance that would? But these are no arguments, sir,--because it is not every young man or woman that can carry the science of astronomy so high as Newton, it does not follow that they are incapable of the science altogether. God sees fit in every age to appoint certain persons to kindle new lights among men.--And Newton was appointed greatly to enlarge our views of celestial objects. But we are not thence to infer that he was in all respects superior to other men, for we are told that in some instances he was far inferior to other men. Collins denied that Newton had ever shown himself, in any point of wit inferior to other men. No, indeed, replied Ben; well what do you think of that anecdote of him, lately published in the New England Courant from a London paper? And pray what is the anecdote? asked Collins. Why it is to this effect, said Ben.--Newton, mounted on the wings of astronomy, and gazing at the mighty orbs of fire above, had entirely forgotten the poor little fire that slumbered on his own hearth below, which presently forgot him, that is in plain English, went out. The frost piercing his nerves, called his thoughts home, when lo! in place of the spacious skies, the gorgeous antichamber of the Almighty, he found himself in his own little nut-shell apartment, cold and dark, comparatively, as the dwelling of the winter screech-owl. He rung the bell for his servant, who after making a rousing fire, went out again. But scarcely had the servant recovered his warm corner in the kitchen, before the vile bell, with a most furious ring, summoned him the second time. The servant flew into his master's presence. _Monster!_ cried Newton with a face inflamed as if it had been toasting at the tail of one of his comets, _did you mean to burn me alive? push back the fire! for God's sake push back the fire, or I shall be a cinder in an instant!_ Push back the fire! replied the servant with a growl, zounds, sir, I thought you might have had sense enough to push back your chair! Collins swore that it was only a libel against Sir Isaac. Ben contended that he had seen it in so many different publications, that he had no sort of doubt of its truth; especially as Sir Hans Sloan had backed it with another anecdote of Newton, in the same style; and to which he avers he was both eye and ear witness. And pray what has that butterfly philosopher to say against the immortal Newton? asked Collins, quite angrily. Why, replied Ben, it is this: Sloan, stepping in one day, to see Sir Isaac, was told by his servant that he was up in his study, but would be down immediately; _for there, sir, you see is his dinner, which I have just set on the table_.--It was a pheasant so neatly browned in the roasting, and withal so plump and inviting to the eye, that Sloan could not resist the temptation; but venturing on his great intimacy with the knight, sat down and picked the delicious bird to the bone; having desired the cook in all haste to clap another to the spit. Presently down came Sir Isaac--was very glad to see his friend Sloan--how had he been all this time? and how did he leave his good lady and family? you have not dined? No. Very glad of it indeed; very glad. Well then, come dine with me.--Turning to the table, he sees the dish empty, and his plate strewed with the bones of his favourite pheasant.--_Lord bless me!_ he exclaimed, clasping his forehead, and looking betwixt laughing and blushing, at Sloan--_what am I good for? I have dined, as you see, my dear friend, and yet I had entirely forgot it!_ I don't believe a syllable of it, said Collins; not one syllable of it, sir. No, replied Ben; nor one syllable, I suppose, of his famous courtship, when sitting by an elegant young lady, whom his friends wished him to make love to, he seized her lily white hand. But instead of pressing it with rapture to his bosom, he thrust it into the bowl of his pipe that he was smoking; thus making a tobacco stopper of one of the loveliest fingers in England; to the inexpressible mortification of the company, and to the most dismal scolding and screaming of the dear creature! 'Tis all a lie, sir, said Collins, getting quite mad, all a confounded lie. The immortal Newton, sir, was never capable of acting so much like a blockhead. But supposing all this slang to be true, what would you infer from it, against that prince of philosophy?--Why I would infer from it, replied Ben, that though a great man, he was but a man. And I would also infer from it in favour of my fair clients, that though they did not make Sir Isaac's discoveries in astronomy, they are yet very capable of comprehending them. And besides, I am astonished, Mr. Collins, how any gentleman that loves himself, as I know you do, can thus traduce the ladies. Don't you consider, sir, that in proportion as you lessen the dignity of the ladies, you lessen the dignity of your affections for them, and consequently, your own happiness in them, which must for ever keep pace with your ideas of their excellence.--This was certainly a home thrust; and most readers would suppose, that Ben was in a fair way to crow over his antagonist; but, Collins was a young man of too much pride and talents to give up so easily. A spirited retort, of course, was made; a rejoinder followed, and thus the controversy was kept up until the watchman bawling twelve o'clock, reminded our stripling orators that it was time for them to quit the old school-house; which with great reluctance they did, but without being any nearer the end of their argument than when they began. CHAPTER IX. The shades of midnight had parted our young combatants, and silent and alone, Ben had trotted home to his printing-office; but still in his restless thoughts the combat raged in all its fury: still burning for victory, where truth and the ladies were at stake, he fell to mustering his arguments again, which now at the drum-beat of recollection came crowding on him so thick and strong that he felt equally ashamed and astonished that he had not utterly crushed his antagonist at once. He could see no reason on earth why Collins had made a drawn battle of it, but by his vastly superior eloquence. To deprive him of this advantage, Ben determined to attack him with his pen. And to this he felt the greater inclination, as they were not to meet again for several nights. So, committing his thoughts to paper, and taking a fair copy, he sent it to him. Collins, who, "was not born in the woods to be scared by an owl," quickly answered, and Ben rejoined. In this way several vollies had passed on both sides, when good old Josias chanced to light upon them all; both the copies of Ben's letters to Collins, and the answers. He read them with a deep interest, and that very night sent for Ben that he might talk with him on their contents. "_So Ben!_" said he to him as he pressed his beloved hand, "_you have got into a paper war already, have you?_" Ben blushed. I don't mean to blame you, my son, continued the old gentleman. I don't blame you; on the contrary I am delighted to see you taking such pains to improve your mind. Go on, my dear boy, go on; for your mind is the only part that is worth your care: and the more you accustom yourself to find your happiness in _that_, the better. The body, as I have a thousand times told you, is but nicely organized earth, that in spite of the daintiest meats and clothes, will soon grow old and withered, and then die and rot back to earth again. But the MIND, Ben, is the HEAVENLY part, the IMMORTAL inhabitant, who, if early nursed with proper thoughts and affections, is capable of a feast that will endure for ever. This your little controversy with your friend Collins is praiseworthy, because it has a bearing on that grand point, the improvement of your mind. But let me suggest a hint or two, my son, for your better conduct of it. You have greatly the advantage of Mr. Collins in correctness of spelling and pointing; which you owe entirely to your profession as a printer; but then he is as far superior to you in other respects. He certainly has not so good a cause as you have, but, he manages it better. He clothes his ideas with such elegance of expression, and arranges his arguments with so much perspicuity and art, as will captivate all readers in his favour, and snatch the victory from you, notwithstanding your better cause. In confirmation of these remarks, the old gentleman drew from his pocket the letters of their correspondence, and read to him several passages, as strong cases in point. Ben sensibly felt the justice of these criticisms, and after thanking his father for his goodness in making them, assured him, that as he delighted above all things in reading books of a beautiful style, so he was resolved to spare no pains to acquire so divine an art. The next day, going into a fresh part of the town, with a paper to a new subscriber, he saw, on the side of the street, a little table spread out and covered with a parcel of toys, among which lay an odd volume, with a neat old woman sitting by. As he approached the table to look at the book, the old lady lifting on him a most pleasant countenance, said, "_well my little man do you ever dream dreams?_" Ben rather startled at so strange a salutation, replied, that he had _dream't_ in his time.--_Well_, continued the old woman, _and what do you think of dreams; do you put any faith in 'em?_ Why, no, madam, answered Ben; as I have seldom had dreams except after taking too hearty a supper, I have always looked on 'em as a mere matter of indigestion, and so have never troubled my head much about 'em. _Well now_, replied the old lady, laughing, _there's just the difference between you and me. I, for my part, always takes great notice of dreams, they generally turn out so true._ And now can you tell what a droll dream I had last night? Ben answered that he was no Daniel to interpret dreams. Well, said the old lady, I dreamed last night, that a little man just like you, came along here and bought that old book of me. Aye! why that's a droll dream sure enough, replied Ben; and pray, Madam, what do you ask for your old book? _Only four pence halfpenny_, said the old lady. Well, Madam, continued Ben, as your dreaming has generally, as you say, turned out true, it shall not be otherwise now; _there's your money_--so now as you have another reason for putting faith in dreams, you can dream again. As Ben took up his book to go away, the old lady said, stop a minute, my son, stop a minute. I have not told you the whole of my dream yet. Then looking very gravely at him, she said, But though my dream showed that the book was to be bought by a _little_ man, it did not say he was always to be little. No; for I saw, in my dream, that he grew up to be a GREAT man; the lightnings of heaven played around his head, and the shape of a kingly crown was beneath his feet. I heard his name as a pleasant sound from distant lands, and I saw it through clouds of smoke and flame, among the tall victor ships that strove in the last battle for the freedom of the seas. She uttered this with a raised voice and glowing cheek, as though the years to come, with all their mighty deeds, were passing before her. Ben was too young yet to suspect who this old woman was, though he felt as he had read the youthful Telemachus did, when the fire-eyed Minerva, in the shape of Mentor, roused his soul to virtue. Farewell, Madam, said Ben with a deep sigh, as he went away; you might have spared that part of your dream, for I am sure there is very little chance of its ever coming to pass. But though Ben went away to attend to his brother's business, yet the old woman's looks made such an impression on his mind, that he could not help going the next day to see her again; but she was not there any more. On leaving the old woman, he opened his book, when, behold, what should it be but an odd volume of the Spectator, a book which he had not seen before. The number which he chanced to open was the vision of Mirzah; which so caught his attention that he could not take it off until he had got through. What the people thought of him for reading in that manner as he walked along the street, he knew not; nor did he once think, he was so taken up with his book. He felt as though he would give the world to write in so enchanting a style; and to that end he carried his old volume constantly in his pocket, that by committing, as it were, to memory, those sweetly flowing lines, he might stand a chance to fall into the imitation of them. He took another curious method to catch Addison's charming style; he would select some favourite chapter out of the Spectator, make short summaries of the sense of each period, and put them for a few days aside; then without looking at the book, he would endeavour to restore the chapter to its first form, by expressing each thought at full length. These exercises soon convinced him that he greatly lacked a fund of words, and a facility of employing them; both of which he thought would have been abundantly supplied, had he but continued his old trade of _making verses_. The continual need of words of the same _meaning_, but of different _lengths_, for the _measure_; or of different sounds, for the _rhyme_, would have obliged him to seek a variety of _synonymes_. From this belief he took some of the papers and turned them into verse; and after he had sufficiently forgotten them, he again converted them into prose. On comparing _his_ Spectator with the original, he discovered many faults; but panting, as he did, for perfection in this noble art, nothing could discourage him. He bravely persevered in his experiments, and though he lamented that in most instances he still fell short of the charming original, yet in some he thought he had clearly improved the order and style. And when this happened, it gave him unspeakable satisfaction, as it sprung the dear hope that in time he should succeed in writing the English language in the same enchanting manner. CHAPTER X. About this time, which was somewhere in his sixteenth year, Ben lighted on a very curious work, by one _Tryon_, recommending vegetable diet altogether, and condemning "_animal food as a great crime_." He read it with all the avidity of a young and honest mind that wished to renounce error and embrace truth. "_From start to pole_," as the racers say, his conscience was under the lash, pointing at him as the dreadful SARCOPHAGIST, or MEAT-EATER alluded to by this severe writer. He could not, without horror reflect, that, young as he was, his stomach had yet been the grave of hundreds of lambs, pigs, birds, and other little animals, "_who had never injured him_." And when he extended the dismal idea over the vast surface of the globe, and saw the whole human race pursuing and butchering the poor brute creation, filling the sea and land with cries and blood and slaughter, he felt a depression of spirits with an anguish of mind that strongly tempted him, not only to detest man, but even to charge God himself with cruelty. But this distress did not continue long. Impatient of such wretchedness, he set all the powers of his mind to work, to discover designs in all this, worthy of the Creator. To his unspeakable satisfaction he soon made these important discoveries. 'Tis true, said he, man is constantly butchering the inferior creatures. And it is also true that they are constantly devouring one another. But after all, shocking as this may seem, it is but _dying_: it is but giving up life, or returning a something which was not their own; which for the honour of his goodness in their enjoyment, was only lent them for a season; and which, therefore, they ought not to think hard to return. Now certainly, continued Ben, all this is very clear and easy to be understood. Well then, since all life, whether of man or beast, or vegetables, is a kind loan of God, and to be taken back again, the question is whether the way in which we see it is taken back is not the _best way_. It is true, life being the season of enjoyment, is so dear to us that there is no way of giving it up which is not shocking. And this horror which we feel at the thought of having our own lives taken from us we extend to the brutes. We cannot help feeling shocked at the butcher killing a lamb, or one animal killing another. Nay, tell even a child who is looking with smiles on a good old family horse that has just brought a bag of flour from the mill, or a load of wood from the forest, that this his beloved horse will by and by be eaten up of the buzzards, and instantly his looks will manifest extreme distress. And if his mother, to whom he turns for contradiction of this horrid prophecy, should confirm it, he is struck dumb with horror, or bursts into strong cries as if his little heart would break at thought of the dismal end to which his horse is coming. These, though very amiable, are yet the amiable weaknesses of the child, which, it is the duty of man to overcome. This animal was created of his God for the double purpose of doing service to man, and of enjoying comfort himself. And when these are accomplished, and that life which was only lent him is recalled, is it not better that nature's scavengers, the buzzards, should take up his flesh and keep the elements sweet, than that it should lie on the fields to shock the sight and smell of all who pass by? The fact is, continued Ben, I see that all creatures that live, whether men or beasts, or vegetables, are doomed to die. Now were it not a greater happiness that this universal calamity, as it appears, should be converted into an universal blessing, and this _dying_ of all be made the _living_ of all? Well, through the admirable wisdom and goodness of the Creator, this is exactly the case. The vegetables all die to sustain animals; and animals, whether birds, beasts, or fishes, all die to sustain man, or one another. Now, is it not far better for them that they should be thus continually changing into each other's substance, and existing in the wholesome shapes of life and vigour, than to be scattered about dying and dead, shocking all eyes with their ghastly forms, and poisoning both sea and air with the stench of their corruption? This scrutiny into the economy of nature in this matter, gave him such an exalted sense of nature's Great Author, that in a letter to his father, to whom he made a point of writing every week for the benefit of his corrections, he says, though I was at first greatly angered with Tryon, yet afterwards I felt myself much obliged to him for giving me such a hard nut to crack, for I have picked out of it one of the sweetest kernels I ever tasted. In truth, father, continues he, although I do not make much noise or show about religion, yet I entertain a most adoring sense of the GREAT FIRST CAUSE; insomuch that I had rather cease to exist than cease to believe him ALL WISE AND BENEVOLENT. In the midst, however, of these pleasing speculations, another disquieting idea was suggested.--Is it not cruel, after giving life to take it away again so soon? The tender grass has hardly risen above the earth, in all its spring-tide green and sweetness, before its beauty is all cropped by the lamb; and the playful lamb, full dressed in his snow-white fleece, has scarcely tasted the sweets of existence, before he is caught up by the cruel wolf or more cruel man. And so with every bird and fish: this has scarcely learned to sing his song to the listening grove, or that to leap with transport from the limpid wave, before he is called to resign his life to man or some larger animal. This was a horrid thought, which, like a cloud, spread a deep gloom over Ben's mind. But his reflections, like the sunbeams, quickly pierced and dispersed them. These cavillers, said he, in another letter, are entirely wrong. They wish, it seems, _long life_ to the creatures; the Creator wishes them a _pleasant_ one. They would have but a few to exist in a _long_ time; _he_ a great many in a _short_ time. Now as youth is the season of gaiety and enjoyment, and all after is comparatively insipid, is it not better, before that pleasant state is ended in sorrow, the creature should pass away by a quick and generally easy fate, and appear again in some other shape? Surely if the grass could reason, it would prefer, while fresh and beautiful, to be cropped by the lamb and converted into his substance, than, by staying a little longer, to disfigure the fields with its faded foliage. And the lamb too, if he could but think and choose, would ask for _a short life and a merry one_, rather than, by staying a little longer, degenerate into a ragged old sheep, snorting with the rattles, and dying of the rot, or murrain. But though Ben, at the tender age of sixteen, and with no other aid than his own strong mind, could so easily quell this host of atheistical doubts, which Tryon had conjured up; yet he hesitated not to become his disciple in another tenet. Tryon asserted of animal food, that though it gave great strength to the body, yet it contributed sadly to grossness of blood and heaviness of mind; and hence he reasoned, that all who wish for cool heads and clear thoughts should make their diet principally of vegetables. Ben was struck with this as the perfection of reason, and entered so heartily into it as a rare help for acquiring knowledge, that he instantly resolved, fond as he was of flesh and fish, to give both up from that day, and never taste them again as long as he lived. This steady refusal of his to eat meat, was looked on as a very inconvenient singularity by his brother, who scolded him for it, and insisted he should give it up. Ben made no words with his brother on this account.--Knowing that avarice was his ruling passion, he threw out a bait to James which instantly caught, and without any disturbance produced the accommodation he wished. "Brother," said he to him one day as he scolded; "you give three shillings and six pence a week for my diet at this boarding-house; give me but _half_ that money and I'll diet myself without any farther trouble or expense to you." James immediately took him at his word and gave him in hand his week's ration, one shilling and nine pence, which after the Boston exchange, six shillings to the dollar, makes exactly thirty-seven and a half cents. Those who often give one dollar for a single dinner, and five dollars for a fourth of July dinner, would look very blue at an allowance of thirty-seven and a half cents for a whole week. But Ben so husbanded this little sum, that after defraying all the expenses of his table, he found himself at the end of the week, near twenty cents in pocket--thus expending not quite three cents a day! This was a joyful discovery to Ben--twenty cents a week, said he, and fifty-two weeks in the year; why, that is upwards of ten dollars in the twelve months! what a noble fund for books! Nor was this the only benefit he derived from it; for, while his brother and the journeymen were gone to the boarding-house to devour their pork and beef, which, with lounging and picking their teeth, generally took them an hour, he stayed at the printing-office; and after dispatching his frugal meal, of boiled potatoe, or rice; or a slice of bread with an apple; or bunch of raisins and a glass of water, he had the rest of the time for study. The pure fluids and bright spirits secreted from such simple diet, proved exceedingly favourable to that clearness and vigour of mind, and rapid growth in knowledge which his youthful soul delighted in. I cannot conclude this chapter without making a remark which the reader has perhaps anticipated--that it was by this simple regimen, vegetables and water, that the Jewish seer, the holy Daniel, while a youth, was of PROVIDENCE made fit for all the learning of the East; hence arose his bright visions into futurity, and his clear pointings to the far distant days of the Messiah, when the four great brass and iron monarchies of Media, Persia, Grecia, and Rome, being overthrown, Christ should set up his last golden monarchy of LOVE, which, though faint in the beginning as the first beam of the uncertain dawn, shall yet at length brighten all the skies, and chase the accursed clouds of sin and suffering from the abodes of man and beast. In like manner, it was on the simple regimen of vegetables and water, the easy purchase of three cents a day, that the same PROVIDENCE raised up our young countryman to guard the last spark of perfect liberty in the British colonies of North America. Yes, it was on three cents' worth of daily bread and water, that young Ben Franklin commenced his collection of that blaze of light, which early as 1754, showed the infant and unsuspecting colonies their RIGHTS and their DANGERS--and which afterwards, in 1764, blasted the treasonable stamp act--and finally, in '73 and '74, served as the famed star of the East, to guide Washington and his wise men of the revolution, to the cradle of liberty, struggling in the gripe of the British Herod, lord North. There rose the battle of God for an injured people; there spread the star-spangled banner of freedom; and there poured the blood of the brave, fighting for the rights of man under the last republic. O that God may long preserve this precious vine of his own right hand planting, for his own glory and the happiness of unborn millions! But the reader must not conclude that Ben, through life, tied himself up to a vegetable diet. No. Nature will have her way. And having designed man partly carnivorous, as his canine teeth, his lengthened bowels, and his flesh-pot appetites all evince, she will bring him back to the healthy mixture of animal food with vegetable, or punish his obstinacy with diarrhoea and debility. But she had no great difficulty in bringing Ben back to the use of animal food. According to his own account, no nosegay was ever more fragrant to his olfactories than was the smell of fresh fish in the frying pan. And as to his objection to such a savory diet on account of its stupifying effects on the brain, he easily got the better of that, when he reflected that the witty queen Elizabeth breakfasted on beef-stake; that sir Isaac Newton dined on pheasants; that Horace supped on fat bacon; and that Pope both breakfasted, dined, and supped on shrimps and oysters. And for the objection taken from the cruelty of killing innocent animals, for their flesh, he got over that by the following curious accident:--On his first voyage to New-York, the vessel halting on the coast for lack of breeze, the sailors all fell to fishing for cod, of which they presently took great numbers and very fine. Instead of being delighted at this sight, Ben appeared much hurt, and began to preach to the crew on their "injustice," as he called it, in thus taking away the lives of those poor little fish, who, "_had never injured them, nor ever could_." The sailors were utterly dum-founded at such queer logic as this. Taking their silence for conviction, Ben rose in his argument, and began to play the orator quite outrageously on the main deck. At length an old wag of a boatswain, who had at first been struck somewhat aback by the strangeness of this attack, took courage, and luffing up again, with a fine breeze of humour in his weather-beaten sail, called out to Ben, "_Well, but my young Master preacher, may not we deal by these same cod here, as they deal by their neighbours._" "To be sure," said Ben. "Well then, sir, see here," replied the boatswain, holding up a stout fish, "see here what a whaler I took just now out o' the belly of that cod!" Ben looking as if he had his doubts, the boatswain went on, "O sir, if you come to that, you shall have _proof_;" whereupon he laid hold of a large big-bellied cod that was just then flouncing on the deck, and ripping him open, in the presence of Ben and the crew, turned out several young cod from his maw. Here, Ben, well pleased with this discovery, cried out, Oho! villains! is that the game you play with one another under the water! Unnatural wretches! What! eat one another! Well then, if a cod can eat his own brother, I see no reason in nature why man may not eat him. With that he seized a stout young fish just fresh from his native brine, and frying him in all haste, made a very hearty meal. Ben never after this, made any more scruples about animal food, but ate fish, flesh, or fowl, as they came in his way, without asking any questions for conscience sake. CHAPTER XI. Except the ADMIRABLE CRICHTON, I have never heard of a genius that was fitted to shine in every art and science. Even Newton was dull in languages; and Pope used to say of himself, that "he had as leave hear the squeal of pigs in a gate, as hear the organ of Handel!" Neither was our Ben the "_omnis homo_" or "_Jack of all trades_." He never could bear the mathematics! and even arithmetic presented to him no attractions at all. Not that he was not capable of it; for, happening about this time, still in his sixteenth year, to be laughed at for his ignorance in the art of calculation, he went and got himself a copy of old Cocker's Arithmetic, one of the toughest in those days, and went through it by himself with great ease. The truth is, his mind was at this time entirely absorbed in the ambition to be a finished writer of the English language; such a one, if possible, as the SPECTATOR, whom he admired above all others. While labouring, as we have seen, to improve his style, he laid his hands on all the English Grammars he could hear of. Among the number was a treatise of that sort, an old shabby looking thing, which the owner, marking his curiosity in those matters, made him a present of. Ben hardly returned him a thankee, as doubting at first whether it was worth carrying home. But how great was his surprise, when coming towards the close of it, he found, crammed into a small chapter, a treatise on the art of disputation, after the manner of SOCRATES. The treatise was very short, but it was enough for Ben; it gave an outline, and that was all he wanted. As the little whortle-berry boy, on the sands of Cape May, grabbling for his breakfast in a turtle's nest, if he but reaches with his little hand but one egg, instantly laughs with joy, as well knowing that all the rest will follow, like beads on a string. So it was with the eager mind of Ben, when he first struck on this plan of Socratic disputation. In an instant his thoughts ran through all the threads and meshes of the wondrous net; and he could not help laughing in his sleeve, to think what a fine puzzling cap he should soon weave for the frightened heads of Collins, Adams, and all others who should pretend to dispute with him. But the use which he principally had in view to make of it, and which tickled his fancy most, was how completely he should now confound those ignorant and hypocritical ones in Boston, who were continually boring him about religion. Not that Ben ever took pleasure in confounding those who were honestly desirous of _showing their religion by their good works_; for such were always his ESTEEM and DELIGHT. But he could never away with those who neglected JUSTICE, MERCY, and TRUTH, and yet affected great familiarities with the Deity, from certain conceited wonders that Christ had wrought _in_ them. As no youth ever more heartily desired the happiness of man and beast than Ben did, so none ever more seriously resented that the religion of love and good works tending to this, should be usurped by a _harsh, barren puritanism, with her disfigured faces, whine and cant_. This appeared to him like Dagon overturning the Ark of God with a vengeance. Burning with zeal against such detestable phariseeism he rejoiced in his Socratic logic as a new kind of weapon, which he hoped to employ with good effect against it. He studied his Socrates day and night, and particularly his admirable argumentations given by Xenophon, in his book, entitled "MEMORABLE THINGS OF SOCRATES;" and in a little time came to wield his new artillery with great dexterity and success. But in all his rencontres with the _false_ christians, he adhered strictly to the spirit of Socrates, as being perfectly congenial to his own. Instead of blunt contradictions and positive assertions, he would put modest questions; and after obtaining of them concessions of which they did not foresee the _consequences_, he would involve them in difficulties and embarrassments, from which they could never extricate themselves. Had he possessed a vanity capable of being satisfied with the triumph of wit over dulness, he might long have crowed the master cock of this Socratic pit. But finding that his victories seldom produced any practical good; that they were acquired at a considerable expense of time, neglect of business, and injury of his temper, which was never formed for altercation with bigots, he abandoned it by degrees, retaining only the habit of expressing himself with a modest diffidence. And not only at that time, but ever afterwards through life, it was remarked of him, that in argument he rarely used the words _certainly_, _undoubtedly_, or any others that might convey the idea of being obstinately conceited of his own opinion. His ordinary phrases were--_I imagine_--_I suppose-_-or, _it appears to me, that such a thing is so and so_--or, _it is so, if I am not mistaken_. By such soothing arts he gradually conciliated the good will of his opponents, and almost always succeeded in bringing them over to his wishes. Hence he used to say, it was great pity that sensible and well-meaning persons should lessen their own usefulness by a positive and presumptuous way of talking, which only serves to provoke opposition from the passionate, and shyness from the prudent, who rather than get into a dispute with such self-conceited characters, will hold their peace, and let them go on in their errors. In short, if you wish to answer one of the noblest ends for which tongues were given to rational beings, which is to _inform_ or to be _informed_, to _please_ and to _persuade_ them, for heaven's sake, treat their opinions, even though erroneous, with great politeness. "Men must be taught as though you taught them not, And things unknown propos'd as things forgot," says Mr. Pope; and again "To speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence; For want of modesty is want of sense." CHAPTER XII. So late as 1720, there was but one newspaper in all North America, and even this by some was thought one too many so little reading was there among the people in those days. But believing that the reading appetite, weak as it was, ran more on newspapers than any thing else, James Franklin took it into his head to _start_ another paper. His friends all _vowed_ it would be the ruin of him; but James persevered, and a second newspaper, entitled "THE NEW ENGLAND COURANT," was published. What was the number of subscribers, after so long a lapse of time, is now unknown; but it was Ben's humble lot to furnish their papers after having assisted to compose and work them off. Among his friends, James had a number of literary characters, who, by way of amusement, used to write for his paper. These gentlemen frequently visited him at his office, merely for a little chat, and to tell how highly the public thought of their pieces Ben attended closely to their conversation, and happening to think they were no great wits, he determined to cut in and try his hand among them. But how to get his little adventures into the paper was the question, and a serious one too; for he knew very well that his brother, looking on him as hardly more than a child, would not dream of printing any thing that he knew had come from his pen. Stratagem of course must be resorted to. He took his time, and having written his piece pretty much to his mind, he copied it in a disguised hand, and when they were all gone to bed, slyly shoved it under the door of the office; where it was found next morning. In the course of the day, his friends dropping in as usual, James showed them the stranger paper; a caucus was held, and with aching heart Ben heard his piece read for their criticism. It was highly applauded: and to his greater joy still, among their various conjectures as to the author, not one was mentioned who did not hold a distinguished reputation for talents! Encouraged by such good success of this his first adventure, he wrote on, and sent to the press, in the same sly way, several other pieces, which were equally approved, keeping the secret till his slender stock of information was pretty completely exhausted, when he came out with the real author. His brother, on this discovery, began to entertain a little more respect for him, but still looked on and treated him as a common apprentice. Ben, on the other hand, thought that, as a brother, he had a right to greater indulgence, and sometimes complained of James as rather too rigorous. This difference in opinion rose to disputes, which were often brought before their father, who either from partiality to Ben, or his _better_ cause, generally gave it in his favour. James could not bear these awards of his father in favour of a younger brother, but would fly into a passion and treat him with abuse even to blows. Ben took this tyrannical behaviour of his brother in extremely ill part; and he somewhere says that it imprinted on his mind that deep-rooted aversion to arbitrary power, which he never lost, and which rendered him through life such a firm and unconquerable enemy of oppression. His apprenticeship became insupportable, and he sighed continually for an opportunity of shortening it, which at length unexpectedly offered. An article in his paper, on some political subject, giving great offence to the assembly, James was taken up; and because he would not discover the author, was ordered into confinement for a month. Ben also was had up and examined before the council, who, after reprimanding, dismissed him, probably because deeming him bound, as an apprentice, to keep his master's secrets. Notwithstanding their private quarrels, this imprisonment of his brother excited Ben's indignation against the assembly; and having now, during James' confinement, the sole direction of the paper, he boldly came out every week with some severe pasquinade against "_The little tyrants of Boston_." But though this served to gratify his own angry feelings, and to tickle James, as also to gain himself the character of a wonderful young man for satire; yet it answered no good end, but far contrariwise, proved a fatal blow to their newspaper; for at the expiration of the month, James's enlargement was accompanied with an order from the assembly, that "JAMES FRANKLIN SHOULD NO LONGER PRINT THE NEWSPAPER ENTITLED THE NEW ENGLAND COURANT." This was a terrible thunder-clap on poor James and his whole scribbling squad; and Ben could find no lightning rod to parry the bolt. A caucus, however, of all the friends was convoked at the printing-office, to devise ways and means of redress. One proposed this measure and another that; but the measure proposed by James himself was at length adopted. This was to carry on the newspaper under Ben's name. _But_, said some, _will not the assembly haul you over the coals for thus attempting to whip the d----l round the stump?_ No, replied James. Aye, how will you prevent it? Why, I'll give up Ben's indentures. So then you'll let Ben run free? No, nor that neither; for he shall sign a new contract. This was to be sure a very shallow arrangement. It was however carried into immediate execution, and the paper continued in consequence to make its appearance for some months in Ben's name. At length a new difference arising between the brothers, and Ben knowing that James would not dare to talk of his new _contract_, boldly asserted his freedom! His numerous admirers will here blush for poor Ben, and hide their reddening cheeks. But let them redden as they may, they will hardly ever equal that honest crimson which glows in the following lines from his _own pen_: "It was, no doubt, very dishonourable to avail myself of this advantage, and I reckon this as the _first_ error of my life. But, I was little capable of seeing it in its true light, embittered as my mind had been by the blows I had received. Exclusively of his passionate _treatment_ of me, my brother was by no means an ill tempered man. And even here, perhaps, my _manners_ had too much of impertinence not to afford it a very natural pretext." Go thy way, honest Ben. Such a confession of error will plead thy excuse with all who know their own infirmities, and remember what the greatest saints have done. Yes, when we remember what young Jacob did to his brother Esau, and how he came over him with his mess of pottage, robbing him of his birthright; and also what David did to Uriah, whom he robbed not only of his wife, but of his life also, we surely shall pity not only Ben, but every man his brother for their follies, and heartily rejoice that there is mercy with Christ to forgive _all_, on their repentance and amendment. CHAPTER XIII. Finding that to live with James in the pleasant relations of a brother and a freeman was a lost hope, Ben made up his mind to quit him and go on journey-work with some of the Boston printers. But James suspecting Ben's intentions, went around town to the printers, and made such a report of him, that not a man of them all would have any thing to say to him. The door of employment thus shut against him, and all New England furnishing no other printing office, Ben determined, in quest of one, to push off to New-York. He was farther confirmed in this resolution by a consciousness that his newspaper squibs in behalf of his brother, had made the governing party his mortal enemies. And he was also afraid that his bold and indiscreet argumentation against the gloomy puritans, had led those crabbed people to look on him as no better than a young atheist, whom it would be doing God service to worry as they would a wild cat. He felt indeed that it was high time to be off. To keep his intended flight from the knowledge of his father, his friend Collins engaged his passage with the captain of a New-York sloop, to whom he represented Ben as an amorous young blade, who wished to get away privately in consequence of an intrigue with a worthless hussy, whom her relations wanted to force upon him. Ben had no money. But he had money's worth. Having, for four years past, been carefully turning into books every penny he could spare, he had by this time made up a pretty little library. It went prodigiously against him to break in upon his books. But there was no help for it. So turning a parcel of them back again into money, he slipped privately on board of a sloop, which on the third day landed him safely in New-York, three hundred miles from home, only seventeen years old, without a single friend in the place, and but little money in his pocket. He immediately offered his services to a Mr. Bradford, the only printer in New-York. The old gentleman expressed his regret that he could give him no employment; but in a very encouraging manner advised him to go on to Philadelphia, where he had a son, a printer, who would probably do something for him. Philadelphia was a good hundred miles farther off; but Ben, nothing disheartened by that, instantly ran down to the wharf, and took his passage in an open boat for Amboy, leaving his trunk to follow him by sea. In crossing the bay, they were overtaken by a dreadful squall, during which a drunken Dutchman, a passenger, fell headlong into the raging waves. Being hissing hot and swollen with rum, he popped up like a dead catfish; but just as he was going down the second time, never to rise again, by a miracle of mercy, Ben caught him by the fore-top, and lugged him in, where he lay tumbled over on the bottom of the boat, fast asleep, and senseless as a corpse of the frightful storm which threatened every moment to bury them all in a watery grave. The violence of the wind presently drove them on the rocky coasts of Long Island; where, to prevent being dashed to pieces among the furious breakers, they cast anchor, and there during the rest of the day, and all night long, lay riding out the gale. Their little boat pitching bows under at every surge, while the water constantly flying over them in drenching showers, kept them as wet as drowned rats; and not only unable to get a wink of sleep, but also obliged to stir their stumps, baling the boat to keep her from sinking. The wind falling the next day, they reached Amboy about dark, after having passed thirty hours without a morsel of victuals, and with no other drink than a bottle of bad rum; the water upon which they had rowed, being as salt as brine. Ben went to bed with a high fever. Having somewhere read that cold water, plentifully drank, was good in such cases; he followed the prescription, which threw him into a profuse sweat, and the fever left him. The next day, feeble and alone, he set out, with fifty wearisome miles to walk before he could reach Burlington, whence he was told that a passage boat would take him to Philadelphia. To increase his depression, soon as he left the tavern, it set in to rain hard. But though wet to the skin, he pressed on by himself through the gloomy woods till noon, when feeling much fatigued, and the rain still pouring down, he stopped at a paltry tavern, where he passed the rest of the day and night. In this gloomy situation he began seriously to repent that he had ever left home; and the more, as from the wretched figure he made, every body was casting a suspicious eye upon him as a runaway servant. Indeed, from the many insulting questions put to him, he felt himself every moment in danger of being taken up as such, and then what would his father think on hearing that he was in jail as a runaway servant, four hundred miles from home! And what a triumph to his brother. After a very uneasy night, however, he rose and continued his journey till the evening, when he stopped about ten miles from Burlington, at a little tavern, kept by one Dr. Brown. While he was taking some refreshment, Brown came in, and being of a facetious turn, put a number of droll questions to him; to which Ben retorted in a style so superior to his youthful looks and shabby dress, that the Doctor became quite enamoured of him. He kept him up conversing until midnight; and next morning would not touch a penny of his money. This was a very seasonable liberality to poor Ben, for he had now very little more than a dollar in his pocket. On reaching Burlington, and buying some gingerbread for his passage, he hastened to the wharf. But alas! the boat had just sailed! This was on Saturday; and there would be no other boat until Tuesday. Having been much struck with the looks of the old woman, of whom he had just bought his cargo of gingerbread, he went back and asked her advice. Her behaviour proved that he had some skill in physiognomy. For the moment he told her of his sad disappointment and his doubts how he should act, she gave him the tender look of a mother, and told him he must stay with her till the next boat sailed. Pshaw! Don't mind these little disappointments, child, said she, seeing him uneasy; they are not worth your being troubled about. When I was young, I used to be troubled about them too. But now I see that it is all but vanity. So stay with me till the boat goes again; and rest yourself, for I am sure you must be mighty tired after such a terrible walk. The good old lady was very right; for what with his late loss of sleep, as also his fever and long walk in the rains, he was tired indeed; so he gladly consented to stay with her and rest himself. Having shown him a small room with a bed in it, for him to take a _nap, for she saw clear enough_, she said, that _he was a dying for sleep_, she turned with a mother's alacrity to get him something to eat. By and by she came again, and from a short but refreshing doze, waked him up to a dinner of hot beef-steaks, of which she pressed him to eat _heartily_, telling him that _gingerbread was fit only for children_. While he was eating, she chatted with him in the affectionate spirit of an aged relative; she asked him a world of questions, such as _how old_ he was--and what was his _name_--and whether his mother was alive--and how far he lived from Burlington? Ben told her every thing she asked him. He told her his name and age. He also told her that his mother was alive, and that he had left her only seven days ago in Boston, where she lived. The old lady could hardly believe him that he ever came from Boston. She lifted up her hands, and stared at him as though he had told her he had just dropped from the North Star. From BOSTON! said she with a scream, _now only to think of that! O dear, only to think of that!_ And then, O how she pitied his mother. _Poor dear soul!_ She, all the way yonder in Boston, and such a sweet looking, innocent child, wandering here at such a distance by himself: how could she stand it? Ben told her that it was a great affliction to be sure; but could not be helped. That his mother was a poor woman, with sixteen children, and that he the youngest boy of all, was obliged to leave her to seek his livelihood, which he hoped he should find in Philadelphia, at his trade, which was that of a printer. On hearing that he was a printer, she was quite delighted and pressed him to come and set up in Burlington, for that she would be _bound_ for it he would do mighty well there. Ben told her that it was a costly thing to set up printing; that it would take two hundred pounds, and he had not two hundred pence. Well then, said she, now that you have got no money, it will give me more pleasure to have you stay with me till you can get a good opportunity to go to Philadelphia. I feel for your poor mother, and I know it would give her such a pleasure if she knew you were here with me. Soon as Ben had enjoyed his beef-steaks, which he did in high style, having the double sauce of his own good appetite and her motherly welcome, he drew out his last dollar to pay the good old lady. But she told him to _put it up, put it up, for she would not take a penny of it_. Ben told her that he was young and able to work, and hoped to do well when he got into business, and therefore could not bear that she who was getting old and weak should entertain him for nothing. _Well_, said she, _never mind that, child, never mind that. I shall never miss what little I lay out in entertaining you while you stay with me. So put up your money._ However, while she was busied in putting away the dishes, he slipped out and got a pint of ale for her: and it was all that he could prevail on her to accept. From the pleasure with which Ben ever afterwards spoke of this good old woman, and her kindness to him, a poor strange boy, I am persuaded as indeed I have always been, that there is nothing on which men reflect with so much complacency as on doing or receiving offices of love from one another. Ben has not left us the name of this good old woman, nor the sect of christians to which she belonged. But it is probable she was a Quaker. Most of the people about Burlington in those days were Quakers. And besides such kindness as her's seems to be more after the spirit of that wise people, who instead of wrangling about _faith_, which even devils possess, give their chief care to that which is the _end_ of all faith, and which the poor devils know nothing about, viz, "_love_ and _good works_." CHAPTER XIV. Ben now sat himself down to stay with this good old woman till the following Tuesday; but still Philadelphia was constantly before him, and happening, in the impatience of his mind, to take a stroll along the river side, he saw a boat approaching with a number of passengers in it. _Where are you bound?_ said he. To PHILADELPHIA, was the reply. His heart leaped for joy. Can't you take a passenger aboard? I'll help you to row. O yes, answered they, and bore up to receive him. With all his heart he would have run back to his good old hostess to bid her farewell, and to thank her for her kindness to him, but the boat could not wait; and carrying, tortoise-like, his all upon his back, in he stepped and went on with them to Philadelphia, where, after a whole night of hard rowing, they arrived about eight o'clock next morning, which happened to be Sunday. Soon as the boat struck the place of landing, which was Market-street wharf, Ben put his hand into his pocket, and asked, what was the damage. The boatmen shook their heads, and said, _oh no; he had nothing to pay. They could never take pay from a young fellow of his spirit, who had so cheerfully assisted them to row all the way._ As his own stock now consisted of but one Dutch dollar, and about a shilling's worth in coppers, he would have been well content to accept his passage on their own friendly terms; but seeing one of their crew who appeared to be old, and rather poorly dressed, he hauled out his coppers and gave them all to him. Having shaken hands with these honest-hearted fellows, he leaped ashore and walked up Market-street in search of something to appease his appetite, which was now abundantly keen from twenty miles' rowing and a cold night's air. He had gone but a short distance before he met a child bearing in his arms that most welcome of all sights to a hungry man, a fine loaf of bread. Ben eagerly asked him where he had got it. The child, turning around, lifted his little arm and pointing up the street, with great simplicity and sweetness said, _don't you see that little house--that little white house, way up yonder?_ Ben said, yes. _Well then_, continued the child, _that's the baker's house; there's where my mammy sends me every morning to get bread for all we children._ Ben blessed his sweet lips of innocence, and hastening to the house, boldly called for _three pence_ worth of bread. The baker threw him down three large rolls. What, all this for three pence! asked Ben with surprise. Yes, all that for three pence, replied the baker with a fine yankee snap of the eye, all that for _only_ three pence! Then measuring Ben from head to foot, he said with a sly quizzing sort of air, and pray now my little man where may you have come from? Here Ben felt his old panic, on the runaway servant score, returning strong upon him again. However, putting on a bold face, he promptly answered that he was from Boston. Plague on it replied the man of dough, and why did'nt you tell me that at first; I might so easily have cabbaged you out of one whole penny; for you know you could not have got all that bread in YANKEE-TOWN for less than a good four-pence? Very cheap, said Ben, three large rolls for three-pence: _quite dog cheap!_ So taking them up, began to stow them away in his pockets; but soon found it impossible for lack of room--so placing a roll under each arm, and breaking the third, he began to eat as he walked along up Market-street. On the way he passed the house of that beautiful girl, Miss Deborah Read, who happening to be at the door, was so diverted at the droll figure he made, that she could not help laughing outright. And indeed no wonder. A stout fleshy boy, in his dirty working dress, and pockets all puckered out, with foul linen and stockings, and a loaf of bread under each arm, eating and gazing around him as he walked--no wonder she could not help laughing aloud at him as one of the greatest gawkies she had ever seen. Very little idea had she at that time that she was presently to be up to her eyes in love with this young gawky; and after many a deep sigh and heart-ache, was to marry him and to be made a great woman by him. And yet all this actually came to pass, as we shall presently see, and we hope greatly to the comfort of all virtuous young men, who though they may sometimes be laughed at for their oddities; yet if, like Franklin, they will but stick to the _main chance_, _i.e._ BUSINESS and EDUCATION, they will assuredly, like him, overcome at the last, and render themselves the admiration of those who once despised them. But our youthful hero is in too interesting a part of the play for us to lose a moment's sight of him; so after this short moral we turn our eyes on him again, as there, loaded with his bundles and his bread, and eating and gazing and turning the corners of the streets, he goes on without indeed knowing where he is going. At length, however, just as he had finished his first roll, his reverie was broken up by finding himself on Market-street wharf, and close to the very boat in which he had come from Burlington. The sight of the silver stream, as it whirled in dimpling eddies around the wharf, awakened his thirst; so stepping into the boat he took a hearty draught, which, to his unvitiated palate, tasted sweeter than ever did mint-sling to any young drunkard. Close by him in the boat sat a poor woman with a little ragged girl leaning on her lap. He asked her if she had breakfasted. With a sallow smile of hunger hoping relief, she replied _no_, for that she had nothing to eat. Upon this he gave her both his other loaves. At sight of this welcome supply of food, the poor woman and her child gave him a look which he never afterwards forgot. Having given, as we have seen, a tythe of his money in gratitude to the poor boatman, and two thirds of his bread in charity to this poor woman and her child, Ben skipped again upon the wharf, and with a heart light and gay with conscious duty, a second time took up Market-street, which was now getting to be full of well-dressed people all going the same way. He cut in, and following the line of march, was thus insensibly led to a large Quaker meeting-house. Sans ceremonie, he pushed in and sat down with the rest, and looking around him soon felt the _motions_, if not of a devout, yet of a pleasantly thoughtful spirit. It came to his recollection to have heard that people must go abroad to see strange things. And here it seemed to be verified. _What, no pulpit! Whoever saw a meeting-house before without a pulpit?_ He could not for his life conceive where the preacher was to stand. But his attention was quickly turned from the meeting-house to the congregation, whose appearance, particularly that of the young females, delighted him exceedingly. Such simplicity of dress with such an air of purity and neatness! He had never seen any thing like it before, and yet all admirably suited to the gentle harmony of their looks. And then their eyes! for meekness and sweetness of expression, they looked like dove's eyes. With a deep sigh he wished that his brother James and many others in Boston were but gentle and good as these people appeared to be. Young as he was, he thought the world would be a great deal the happier for it. As leaning back he indulged these soothing sentiments, without any sound of singing or preaching to disturb him, and tired nature's soft languors stealing over him too, he sunk insensibly into sleep. We are not informed that he was visited during his slumber, by any of those benevolent spirits who once descended in the dreams of the youthful patriarch, as he slept in the pleasant plains of Bethel. But he tells us himself, that he was visited by one of that benevolent sect in whose place of worship he had been overtaken by sleep. Waked by some hand on his shoulder that gently shook him, he opened his eyes, and lo! a female countenance about middle age and of enchanting sweetness, was smiling on him. Roused to a recollection of the impropriety he had been guilty of, he was too much confused to speak; but his reddened cheeks told her what he felt. But he had nothing to fear. Gently shaking her head, though without a frown, and with a voice of music, she said to him "_My son, thee ought not to sleep in meeting._" Then giving him the look of a mother as she went out, she bade him farewell. He followed her as well as he could, and left the meeting-house much mortified at having been caught asleep in it; but deriving at the same time great pleasure from this circumstance, because it had furnished opportunity to the good Quaker lady to give him that _motherly look_. He felt it sweetly melting along his soul as he walked. _O how different, thought he, that look from the looks which my brother and the council men of Boston gave me, though I was younger then and more an object of sympathy!_ As he walked along the street, looking attentively in the face of every one he met, he saw a young Quaker with a fine countenance, whom he begged to tell him where a stranger might find a lodging. With a look and voice of great sweetness, the young Quaker said, they receive travellers _here_, but it is not a house that bears a good character; if thee will go with me, I will show thee a better one. This was the _Crooked Billet_, in Water-street. Directly after dinner, his drowsiness returning, he went to bed and slept, without waking till next morning. Having put himself in as decent a trim as he could, he waited on Mr. Bradford, the printer, who received him with great civility, and invited him to breakfast, but told him he was sorry he had no occasion for a journeyman. There is, however, continued he in a cheering manner, there is another printer here, of the name of Keimer, to whom if you wish it, I will introduce you. Perhaps he may want your services. Ben gratefully accepting the offer, away they went to Mr Keimer's. But alas, poor man! both he and his office put together, made no more than a miserable burlesque on printing. Only one press, and that old and damaged! only one font of types, and that nearly worn out! and only one set of letter cases, and that occupied by himself! and consequently no room for a journeyman. Here was a sad prospect for poor Ben--four hundred miles from home--not a dollar in his pocket--and no appearance of any employment to get one.--But having, from his childhood, been accustomed to grapple with difficulties and to overcome them, Ben saw nothing here but another trial of his courage, and another opportunity for victory and triumph. As to Keimer, suspecting from his youthful appearance, that Ben could hardly understand any thing of the printing art, he slyly put a COMPOSING STICK into his hand. Ben saw his drift, and stepping to the letter cases, filled the stick with such celerity and taste as struck Keimer with surprise, not without shame, that one so inferior in years should be so far his superior in professional skill. To complete this favourable impression, Ben modestly proposed to repair his old press.--This offer being accepted, Ben instantly fell to work, and presently accomplished his undertaking in such a workman-like style, that Keimer could no longer restrain his feelings, but relaxing his rigid features into a smile of admiration, paid him several flattering compliments, and concluded with promising him, that though, for the present, he had no work on hand, yet he expected an abundance shortly, and then would _be sure_ to send for him. In a few days Keimer was as good as his word; for having procured another set of letter cases, with a small pamphlet to print, he sent in all haste for Ben, and set him to work. CHAPTER XV. As Keimer is to make a considerable figure in the early part of Ben's life, it may gratify the reader to be made acquainted with him. From the account given of him by Ben, who had the best opportunity to know, it appears that he possessed but little either of the amiable or estimable in his composition. A man he was of but slender talents--quite ignorant of the world--a wretched workman--and worse than all yet, utterly destitute of religion, and therefore very uneven and unhappy in his temper, and abundantly capable of playing the knave whenever he thought it for his interest. Among other evidences of his folly, he miserably envied his brother printer, Bradford, as if the Almighty was not rich enough to maintain them both. He could not endure, that while working with him, Ben should stay at Bradford's; so he took him away, and having no house of his own, he put him to board with Mr. Read, father of the young lady who of late had laughed so heartily at him for eating his rolls along the street. But Miss Deborah did not long continue in this wind. For on seeing the favourable change in his dress, and marking also the wittiness of his conversation, and above all, his close application to business, and the great respect paid him on that account by her father, she felt a wonderful change in his favour, and in place of her former sneers, conceived those tender sentiments for him, which, as we shall see hereafter, accompanied her through life. Ben now began to contract acquaintance with all such young persons in Philadelphia as were fond of reading, and spent his evenings with them very agreeably: at the same time he picked up money by his industry, and being quite frugal, lived so happy, that except for his parents, he seldom ever thought of Boston nor felt any wish to see it. An affair, however, turned up, which sent him home much sooner than he expected. His brother-in-law, a captain Holmes, of a trading sloop from Boston to Delaware, happening at Newcastle to hear that Ben was in Philadelphia, wrote to him that his father was all but distracted on account of his sudden elopement from home, and assured him that if he would but return, which he earnestly pressed him to do, every thing should be settled to his satisfaction. Ben immediately answered his letter, thanked him for his advice, and stated his reasons for quitting Boston, with a force and clearness that so highly delighted captain Holmes, that he showed it to all his acquaintance at Newcastle, and among the rest to sir William Keith, governor of the province, with whom he happened to dine. The governor read it, and appeared surprised when he learnt his age. "_Why, this must be a young man of extraordinary talents, captain Holmes_," said the governor, "_very extraordinary talents indeed, and ought to be encouraged; we have no printer in Philadelphia now worth a fig, and if this young man will but set up, there is no doubt of his success. For my part, I will give him all the public business, and render him every other service in my power._" One day as Keimer and Ben were at work near the window, they saw the governor and colonel French cross the street, and make directly for the printing-office. Keimer not doubting it was a visit to himself, hurried down stairs to meet them. The Governor taking no notice of Keimer, but eagerly inquiring for young Mr. FRANKLIN, came up stairs, and with a condescension to which Ben had not been accustomed, introduced himself to him--desired to become acquainted with him--and after obligingly reproaching him for not having made himself known when he first came to town, invited him to the tavern where he and colonel French were going to break a bottle of old Madeira. If Ben was surprised, old Keimer was thunderstruck. Ben went, however, with the governor and the colonel to the tavern, where, while the Madeira was circulating in cheerful bumpers, the governor proposed to him to set up a printing-office, stating at the same time the great chances of success, and promising that both himself and colonel French would use their influence in procuring for him the public printing of both governments. As Ben appeared to doubt whether his father would assist him in this enterprize, sir William said that he would give the old gentleman a letter, in which he would represent the advantages of the scheme in a light that would, he'd be bound, determine him in his favour. It was thus concluded that Ben should return to Boston by the first vessel, with the governor's letter to good old Josias: in the mean time Ben was to continue with Keimer, from whom this project was to be kept a secret. The governor sent every now and then to invite Ben to dine with him, which he considered as a very great honour, especially as his excellency always received and conversed with him in the most familiar manner. In April, 1724, Ben embarked for Boston, where, after a fortnight passage, he arrived in safety. Having been absent seven months from his relatives, who had never heard a syllable of him all that time, his sudden appearance threw the family into a scream of joy, and excepting his sour-faced brother James, the whole squad gave him a most hearty welcome. After much embracing and kissing, and some tears shed on both sides, as is usual at such meetings, Ben kindly inquired after his _brother James_, and went to see him at his printing-office, not without hopes of making a favourable impression on him by his dress, which was handsome far beyond what he had ever worn in his brother's service; a complete suit of broad cloth, branding new--an elegant silver watch and chain--and his purse crammed with nearly five pound sterling--all in silver dollars. But it would not all do to win over James. Nor indeed is it to be wondered at; for in losing Ben he had lost a most cheerful, obliging lad, whose rare genius and industry in writing, printing, and selling his pamphlets and papers, had brought a noble grist to his mill. Ben's parade therefore of his fine clothes, and watch, and silver dollars, only made things worse with James, serving but to make him the more sensible of his loss; so after eyeing him from head to foot with a dark side-long look, he turned again to his work without saying a syllable to him. The behaviour of his own journeymen contributed still the more to anger poor James: for instead of taking part with him in his prejudices against Ben, they all appeared quite delighted with him; and breaking off from their work and gathering around him, with looks full of curiosity, they asked him a world of questions. PHILADELPHIA! said they, O dear! have you been all the way there to Philadelphia! Ben said, yes. Why Philadelphia must be a _tarnal nation way off_! Four hundred miles, said Ben. At this they stared on him in silent wonder, for having been four hundred miles from Boston! And so they have got a printing-office in Philadelphia! Two or three of them, said Ben. O la! why that will starve us all here in Boston. Not at all, said Ben: their advertising "_lost pocket books_"--"_runaway servants_" and "_stray cows_" in Philadelphia, can no more starve you here in Boston, than the catfish of Delaware, by picking up a few soft-crabs there, can starve our catfish here in Boston harbour. The world's big enough for us all. Well, I wonder now if they have any such thing as _money_ in Philadelphia? Ben thrust his hand into his pocket, and brought up a whole fist full of dollars! The dazzling silver struck them all speechless--gaping and gazing at him and each other. Poor fellows, they had never, at once, seen so much of that precious metal in Boston, the money there being nothing but a poor paper proc. To keep up their stare, Ben drew his silver watch, which soon had to take the rounds among them, every one insisting to have _a look at it_. Then, to crown all, he gave them a shilling to drink his health; and after telling them what great things lay before them if they would but continue _industrious_ and _prudent_, and make themselves _masters of their trade_, he went back to the house. This visit to the office stung poor James to the quick; for when his mother spoke to him of a reconciliation with Ben, and said how happy she should be to see them like brothers again before she died, he flew into a passion and told her such a thing would never be, for that Ben had so insulted him before his men that he would never forgive nor forget it as long as he lived. But Ben had the satisfaction to live to see that James was no prophet. For when James, many years after this, fell behind hand and got quite low in the world, Ben lent him money, and was a steady friend to him and his family all the days of his life. CHAPTER XVI. But we have said nothing yet about the main object of Ben's sudden return to Boston, _i.e._ governor Keith's letter to his father, on the grand project of setting him up as a printer in Philadelphia. The reader has been told that all the family, his brother James excepted, were greatly rejoiced to see Ben again. But among them all there was none whose heart felt half such joy as did that of his father. He had always doted on this young son, as one whose rare genius and unconquerable industry, if but conducted by prudence, would assuredly, one day, lead him to greatness. His sudden elopement, as we have seen, had greatly distressed the old man, especially as he was under the impression that he was gone to sea. And when he remembered how few that go out at his young and inexperienced age, ever return better than blackguards and vagabonds, his heart sickened within him, and he was almost ready to wish he had never lived to feel the pangs of such bitter disappointment in a child so beloved. He counted the days of Ben's absence; by night his sleep departed from his eyes for thinking of his son; and all day long whenever he heard a rapping at the door, his heart would leap with expectation: "who knows," he would say to himself, "but this may be my child?" And although he would feel disappointed when he saw it was not Ben who rapped, yet he was afraid, at times, to see him lest he should see him covered with the marks of dishonour. Who can tell what this anxious father felt when he saw his son return as he did? Not in the mean apparel and sneaking looks of a drunkard, but in a dress far more genteel than he himself had ever been able to put on him; while his beloved cheeks were fresh with temperance, and his eyes bright with innocence and conscious well doing. Imagination dwells with pleasure on the tender scene that marked that meeting, where the withered cheeks of seventy and the florid bloom of seventeen met together in the eager embrace of parental affection and filial gratitude: "_God bless my son!_" the sobbing sire he sigh'd. "_God bless my sire!_" that pious son replied. Soon as the happy father could recover his articulation, with great tenderness he said, "but how, my beloved boy could you give me the pain to leave me as you did?" "Why you know, my dear father," replied Ben, "that I could not live with my brother; nor would he let me live with the other printers; and as I could not bear the thought of living on an aged father now that I was able to work for myself, I determined to leave Boston and seek my fortune abroad. And knowing that if I but hinted my intentions you would prevent me, I thought I would leave you as I did." "But why, my son, did you keep me so long unhappy about your fate, and not write to me sooner?" "I knew, father, what a deep interest you took in my welfare, and therefore I resolved never to write to you until by my own industry and economy I had got myself into such a state, that I could write to you with pleasure. This state I did not attain till lately. And just as I was a going to write to you, a strange affair took place that decided me to come and see you, rather than write to you." "Strange affair! what can that mean, my son?" "Why, sir, the governor of Pennsylvania, sir William Keith--I dare say, father, you have often heard of governor Keith?" "I may have heard of him, child--I'm not positive--but what of governor Keith?" "Why he has taken a wonderful liking to me, father!" "Aye! has he so?" said the old man, with joy sparkling in his eyes. "Well I pray God you may be grateful for such favours, my son, and make a good use of them!" "Yes, father, he has taken a great liking to me sure enough; he says I am the only one in Philadelphia who knows any thing about printing; and he says too, that if I will only come and set up in Philadelphia, he will make my fortune for me in a trice!!" Old Josias here shook his head; "No, no, Ben!" said he, "that will never do: that will never do: you are too young yet, child, for all that, a great deal too young." "So I told him, father, that I was too young. And I told him too that I was certain you would never give your consent to it." "You were right there, Ben; no indeed, I could never give my consent to it, that's certain." "So I told the governor, father; but still he would have it there was a fine opening in Philadelphia, and that I would fill it so exactly, that nothing could be wanting to insure your approbation but a clear understanding of it. And to that end he has written you a letter." "A letter, child! a letter from governor Keith to me!" "Yes, father, here it is." With great eagerness the old gentleman took it from Ben; and drawing his spectacles, read it over and over again with much eagerness. When he was done he lifted his eyes to heaven, while in the motion of his lips and change of countenance, Ben could clearly see that the soul of his father was breathing an ejaculation of praise to God on his account. Soon as his _Te Deum_ was finished, he turned to Ben with a countenance bright with holy joy, and said, "Ben, I've cause to be happy; my son, I've cause to be happy indeed. O how differently have things turned out with you! God's blessed name be praised for it, how differently have they turned out to what I dreaded! I was afraid you were gone a poor vagabond, on the seas; but instead of that you had fixed yourself in one of the finest cities in the country. I was afraid to see you; yes, my dear child, I was afraid to see you, lest I should see you clad in the mean garb of a poor sailor boy; but here I behold you clad in the dress of a gentleman! I trembled lest you had been degrading yourself into the low company of the profane and worthless; and lo! you have been all the time exalting yourself into the high society of great men and governors. And all this in so short a time, and in a way most honourable to yourself, and therefore most delightful to me, I mean by your virtues and your close attention to the duties of a most useful profession. Go on, my son, go on! and may God Almighty, who has given you wisdom to begin so glorious a course, grant you fortitude to persevere in it!" Ben thanked his father for the continuance of his love and solicitude for him; and he told him moreover, that one principal thing that had stirred him up to act as he had done, was the joy which he knew he should be giving him thereby; as also the great trouble which he knew a contrary conduct would have brought upon him. Here his father tenderly embraced him, and said, "Blessed be God for giving me such a son! I have always, Ben, fed myself with hopes of great things from you. And now I have the joy to say my hopes were not in vain. Yes, glory to God, I trust my precious hopes of you were not in vain." Then, after making a short pause, as from fullness of joy, he went on, "but as to this letter, my son; this same letter here from governor Keith; though nothing was ever more flattering to you, yet depend upon it, Ben, it will never do; at least not yet awhile.--The duties of the place are too numerous, child, and difficult for any but one who has had many more years of experience than you have had." "Well then, father, what's to be done, for I know that the governor is so very anxious to get me into this place, that he will hardly be said nay?" "Why, my dear boy, we must still decline it, for all that: not only because from your very unripe age and inexperience, it may involve you in ruin; but also because it actually is not in your power. It is true the governor, from his letter, appears to have the greatest friendship in the world for you; but yet, it is not to be expected that he would advance funds to set you up. O no, my dear boy, that's entirely out of the question. The governor, though perhaps rich, has no doubt too many poor friends and relations hanging on him, for you to expect any thing from that quarter. And as to myself, Ben, with all my love for you, it is not in my power to assist you in such an affair. My family you know, is very large, and the profits of my trade but small, insomuch that at the end of the year there is nothing left. And indeed I never can be sufficiently thankful to God for that health and blessing which enables me to feed and clothe them every year so plentifully." Seeing Ben look rather serious, the old gentleman, in a livelier tone, resumed his speech, "Yes, Ben, all this is very true; but yet let us not be disheartened. Although we have no funds now, yet a noble supply is at hand." "Where, father," said Ben, roused up, "where?" "Why, in your own virtues, Ben, in your own virtues, my boy--There are the noblest funds that God can bestow on a young man. All other funds may easily be drained by our vices and leave us poor indeed. But the virtues are fountains that never fail: they are indeed the true riches and honours, only by other names. Only persevere, my son, in the virtues, as you have already so bravely begun, and the grand object is gained. By the time you reach twenty-one, for every friend that you now have, you will have ten; and for every dollar an hundred; and with these you will make thousands more. Thus, under God, you will have the glory to be the artificer of your own fame and fortune: and that will bring ten thousand times more honour and happiness, to you, Ben, than all the money that governors and fathers could ever give you." Ben's countenance brightened as his father uttered this; then heaving a deep sigh, as of strong hope that such great things might one day be realized, he said, "Well father, God only knows what I am to come to; but this I know, that I feel in myself a determination to do my best." "I believe you do, my son, and I thank God most heartily that I have such good reason to believe you do. And when I consider, on the one hand, what a fine field for fame and fortune this new country presents to young men of talents and enterprise: and on the other hand, what wonders you, a poor unknown and unfriended boy have done in Philadelphia, in only six months, I feel transported at the thought of what you may yet attain before my gray hairs descend to the grave. Who knows, Ben, for God is good, my son, who knows but that a fate like that of young Joseph, whom his brethren drove into Egypt, may be in reserve for you? And who knows but that old Jacob's joys may be mine? that like him, after all my anxieties on your account, I may yet hear the name of my youngest son, my beloved Benjamin, coming up from the South, perfumed with praise for his great virtues and services to his country? Then when I hear the sound of his fame rising from that distant land, like the pleasant thunders of summer before refreshing showers, and remember how he used to stand a little prattling boy by my side, in his rosy cheeks and flaxen locks filling the candle moulds, or twisting the snow white cotton wicks with his tender fingers, O how will such remembrance lighten up the dark evening of my days, and cause my setting sun to go down in joy!" He spoke this in tones so melting, that Ben, who was sitting by his father's side, fell with his face on his bosom, without saying a word. The fond parent, hearing him sob, tenderly embraced him, and with a voice broken with sighs, went on, "Yes, my son, the measure of my joys will then be full. I shall have nothing to detain me any longer in this vale of troubles, but shall gladly breathe out my life in praise to God for this his last, his crowning act of goodness--for this his blessing me in my son." After a moment's pause, the feelings of both being too deliciously affected for speech, Ben gently raised his face from his father's bosom, and with his eyes yet red and wet with tears, tenderly looking at him, said, "I would to God, father, you would go and live in Philadelphia." "Why so, my son?" "Because, I don't want ever to part with you, father, and I am, you know, obliged to go back to Philadelphia immediately." "Not immediately, my son, I cannot let you go from me immediately." "Father, I would never go from you, if I could help it; but I must be doing something to make good your fond hopes of me; and I can't stay here." "Why not, my son?" "Father, I can't stay with those who hate me; and you know that brother James hates me very much." "O! he does not hate you, I hope, my son." "Yes, he does, father, indeed he does; because I only differed from him in opinion and ventured to reason with him, he kindled into passion and abused me even to _blows_, though I was in the right, as you told him afterwards. And because I told him I did not think he acted the part of a brother by me in wishing to make me a slave so many years, he went about town and set all the printers against me, and thus drove me away from home, and from you, my father, whom I so much love. And just now, when I went to his office to see him, instead of running to meet me and rejoicing to see me returned safe and sound and so well dressed and a plenty of money in my pocket, he would not even speak to me, but looked as dark and angry as though he would have torn me to pieces. And yet he can turn up his eyes, and make long prayers and graces, and talk a great deal about JESUS CHRIST!" The old man here shook his head with a deep groan, while Ben thus went on, "No, father, I can't stay here; I must be going back to Philadelphia and to my good friend governor Keith; for I long to be realizing all the great hopes that you have been forming of me. And should God but give me a good settlement in Philadelphia, then you will come and live with me. O say, my father, wont you come and live with me?" Ben spoke this, looking up to his father with that joy of filial love sparkling in his youthful eyes which made him look like all that we fancy of angels. The old man embraced him and said, "I will, my son, I will; but stay with me a little while, at the least three days, and then you may depart." Ben consenting to this, the old gentleman wrote a polite letter to governor Keith, thanking him very heartily for that he, so great a man, should have paid such attentions to his poor boy: but at the same time begged his pardon for declining to do any thing for him, not only because he had very little in his power to do; but also because he thought him too young to be intrusted with the conduct of an enterprise that required much more experience than he possessed. CHAPTER XVII. Of the three days which Ben, as we have seen above, had consented to stay at home, he spent the chiefest part with his father, in his old candle manufactory. 'Tis true, this happy sire, whose _natural_ affection for Ben as a _son_, was now exalted into the highest respect for him as a youth of _talents_ and _virtues_; and _perhaps_ too, looking up to him as a young mountain oak, whose towering arms would soon protect the parent tree, insisted that Ben should not stay in _that dirty place_, as he called it. But knowing that his father could not be spared from his daily labour, Ben insisted to be with him in the old shop, and to assist in his labours, reminding his father how sweetly the time passes away when at work and conversing with those we love. His father at length consented: and those three days, now spent with Ben, were the happiest days he had spent for a long time. His aged bosom was now relieved from his six months' load of fears and anxieties about this beloved child; nor only so, but this beloved child, shining in a light of his own virtues, was now with him, and as a volunteer of filial love was mingling in his toils--eagerly lending his youthful strength to assist him in packing and boxing his candles and soap; while his sensible conversation, heightened all the time by the charm of that voice and those eyes that had ever been so dear to him, touched his heart with a sweetness inexpressible, and made the happy hours fly away as on angels' wings. On the afternoon of the third day, as they were returning from dinner, walking down the garden, at the foot of which the factory stood, the old gentleman lifting his eyes to the sun, suddenly heaved a deep sigh and put on a melancholy look. "High, father!" said Ben, "I see no cloud over the sun that we should fear a change of weather." "No, Ben, there is no cloud over the sun, but still his beams throw a cloud over my spirits. They put me in mind that I shall walk here to-morrow, but with no son by my side!" The idea was mournful: and more so by the tender look and plaintive tones in which it was conveyed.--It wrung the heart of Ben, who in silence glanced his eyes on his father. It was that tender glance of sorrowing love which quickest reaches the heart and stirs up all its yearnings. The old gentleman felt the meaning of his son's looks. They seemed to say to him, "_O my father, must we part to-morrow?_" "Yes, Ben, we part to-morrow, and perhaps never to meet again!" After a short pause, with a sigh, he thus resumed his speech--"Then, O my son, what a wretch were man without religion? Yes, Ben, without the hopes of immortality, how much better he had never been born? Without these, his noblest capacities were but the greater curses. The more delightful his friendships the more dreadful the thought they may be extinguished for ever; and the gayer his prospects the deeper his gloom, that endless darkness may so quickly cover all. We were yesterday feeding fond hopes, my son; we were yesterday painting bright castles in the air: you were to be a great man and I a happy father. But alas! this is the last day, my child, that we may ever see each other again. And the sad reverse of all this may even now be at the door; when I, instead of hearing of my son's glory in Philadelphia, may hear that he is cold in his grave. And when you, returning--after years of virtuous toils, returning laden with riches and honours for your happy father to share in, may see nothing of that father but the tomb that covers his dust." Seeing the moisture in Ben's eyes, the old gentleman, with a voice rising to exultation, thus went on. "Yes, Ben, this may soon be the case with us, my child; the dark curtain of our separation soon may _drop_, and your cheeks or mine be flooded with sorrows. But thanks be to God, that curtain will rise again, and open to our view those scenes of happiness, one glance at which is sufficient to start the tear of transport into our eyes. Yes, Ben, religion assures us of all this; religion assures us that this life is but the morning of our existence--that there is a glorious eternity beyond--and that to the penitent, death is but the passage to that happy life where they shall soon meet again to part no more, but to congratulate their mutual felicities for ever. Then, O my son, lay hold of religion, and secure an interest in those blessed hopes that contribute so much to the virtues and the joys of life." "Father," said Ben with a sigh, "I know that many people here in Boston think I never had any religion; or, that if I had I have apostatized from it." "God forbid! But whence, my son, could these prejudices have arisen?" "Why, father, I have for some time past discovered that there is no effect without a cause. These prejudices have been the effect of my youthful _errors_. You remember father, the old story of the pork, don't you?" "No, child; what is it, for I have forgotten it?" "I thought so, father, I thought you had been so good as to forget it. But I have not, nor ever shall forget it." "What is it, Ben?" "Why, father, when our pork, one fall, lay salted and ready for the barrel, I begged you to say grace over it all at once; adding that it would _do as well_ and save _a great deal of time_." "Pshaw, Ben, such a trifle as that, and in a child too, cannot be remembered against you now." "Yes, father, I am afraid it is. All are not so loving, and so forgetful of my errors as you. It was at the time inserted in the Boston NEWS LETTER, and is now recollected to the discredit of my religion. And they have a prejudice against me on another account. While I lived with you, father, you always took me to meeting with you; but when I left you and went to live with my brother James, I often neglected going to meeting; preferring to stay at home and read my books." "I am sorry to hear that, Ben; very sorry that you could neglect the preachings of Christ." "Father, I never neglected them. I look on the preaching of Christ as the finest system of morality in the world; and his parables, such as "The Prodigal Son"--"The Good Samaritan"--"The Lost Sheep," &c. as models of divine goodness. And if I could only hear a preacher take these for his texts, and paint them in those rich colours they are capable of, I would never stay from meeting. But now, father, when I go, instead of those benevolent preachings and parables which Christ so delighted in, I hardly ever hear any thing but lean, chaffy discourses about the TRINITY, and BAPTISMS, and ELECTIONS, and REPROBATIONS, and FINAL PERSEVERANCES, and COVENANTS, and a thousand other such things which do not strike my fancy as religion at all, because not in the least calculated, as I think, to sweeten and ennoble men's natures, and make them love and do good to one another." "There is too much truth in your remark, Ben; and I have often been sorry that our preachers lay such stress on these things, and do not stick closer to the preachings of Christ." "Stick closer to them, father! O no, to do them justice, sir, we must not charge them with not _sticking to the text_, for they never take Christ for their text, but some dark passage out of the prophets or apostles, which will better suit their gloomy education. Or if they should, by some lucky hit, honour Christ for a text, they quickly give him the _go-by_ and lug in Calvin or some other angry doctor; and then in place of the soft showers of Gospel pity on sinners, we have nothing but the dreadful thunderings of eternal hate, with the unavailing screams of little children in hell not a span long! Now, father, as I do not look on such preaching as this to be any ways pleasing to the Deity or profitable to man, I choose to stay at home and read my books; and this is the reason, I suppose, why my brother James and the council-men here of Boston think that I have no religion." "Your strictures on some of our ministers, my son, are in rather a strong style: but still there is too much truth in them to be denied. However, as to what your brother James and the council think of you, it is of little consequence, provided you but possess true religion." "Aye, TRUE RELIGION, father, is another thing; and I should like to possess it. But as to such religion as theirs, I must confess, father, I never had and never wish to have it." "But what do you mean by _their_ religion, my son?" "Why, I mean, father, a religion of gloomy forms and notions, that have no tendency to make men good and happy, either in themselves or to others." "So then, my son, you make _man's happiness_ the end of religion." "Certainly I do, father." "Our catechisms, Ben, make _God's glory_ the end of religion." "That amounts to the same thing, father; as the framers of the catechisms, I suppose, placed God's glory in the happiness of man." "But why do you suppose that so readily, Ben?" "Because, father, all wise workmen place their glory in the perfection of their works. The gunsmith glories in his rifle, when she never misses her aim; the clockmaker glories in his clock when she tells the time exactly. They thus glory, because their works answer the ends for which they were made. Now God, who is wiser than all workmen, had, no doubt, his ends in making man. But certainly he could not have made him with a view of getting any thing from him, seeing man has nothing to give. And as God, from his own infinite riches, has a boundless power to give; and from his infinite benevolence, must have an equal delight in giving, I can see no end so likely for his making man as to make him happy. I think, father, all this looks quite reasonable." "Why, yes, to be sure, Ben, it does look very reasonable indeed." "Well then, father, since all wise workmen glory in their works when they answer the ends for which they designed them, God must glory in the happiness of man, that being the end for which he made him." "This seems, indeed, Ben, to be perfectly agreeable to reason." "Yes, sir, not only to _reason_, but to _nature_ too: for even nature, I think, father, in all her operations, clearly teaches that God must take an exceeding glory in our happiness; for what else could have led him to build for us such a noble world as this; adorned with so much beauty; stored with such treasures; peopled with so many fair creatures; and lighted up as it is with such gorgeous luminaries by day and by night?" "I am glad, my son, I touched on this subject of religion in the way I did; your mode of thinking and reasoning on it pleases me greatly. But now taking all this for granted, what is still your idea of the true religion?" "Why, father, if God thus places his glory in the happiness of man, does it not follow that the most acceptable thing that man can do for God, or in other words, that the true religion of man consists in his so living, as to attain the highest possible perfection and happiness of his nature, that being the chief end and glory of the Deity in creating him?" "Well, but how is this to be done?" "Certainly, father, by imitating the Deity." "By imitating him, child! but how are we to imitate him?" "In his goodness, father." "But why do you pitch on his GOODNESS rather than on any other of his attributes?" "Because, father, this seems, evidently, the prince of all his other attributes, and greater than all." "Take care child, that you do not blaspheme. How can one of God's attributes be greater than another, when all are infinite?" "Why, father, must not that which moves be greater than that which is moved?" "What am I to understand by that, Ben?" "I mean, father, that the power and wisdom of the Deity, though both unspeakably great, would probably stand still and do nothing for men, were they not moved to it by his goodness. His goodness then, which comes and puts his power and wisdom into motion, and thus fills heaven and earth with happiness, must be the greatest of all his attributes." "I don't know what to say to that, Ben; certainly his power and wisdom must be very great too." "Yes, father, they are very great indeed: but still they seem but subject to his _greater benevolence_ which enlists them in its service and constantly gives them its own delightful work to do. For example, father, the wisdom and power of the Deity can do any thing, but his benevolence takes care that they shall do nothing but for good. The power and wisdom of the Deity could have made changes both in the earth and heavens widely different from their present state. They could, for instance, have placed the sun a great deal farther off or a great deal nearer to us. But then in the first case we should have been frozen to icicles, and in the second scorched to cinders. The power of the Deity could have given a tenfold force to the winds, but then no tree could have stood on the land, and no ship could have sailed on the seas. The power of the Deity could also have made changes as great in all other parts of nature; it could have made every fish as monstrous as a whale, every bird dreadful as the condor, every beast as vast as the elephant, and every tree as big as a mountain. But then it must strike every one that these changes would all have been utterly for the worse, rendering these noble parts of nature comparatively useless to us.--I say the power of the Deity could have done all this, and might have so done but for his benevolence, which would not allow such discords, but has, on the contrary, established all things on a scale of the exactest harmony with the convenience and happiness of man. Now, for example, father, the sun, though placed at an enormous distance from us, is placed at the very distance he should be for all the important purposes of light and heat; so that the earth and waters, neither frozen nor burnt, enjoy the temperature fittest for life and vegetation. Now the meadows are covered with grass; the fields with corn; the trees with leaves and fruits; presenting a spectacle of universal beauty and plenty, feasting all senses and gladdening all hearts; while man, the favoured lord of all, looking around him amidst the mingled singing of birds and skipping of beasts and leaping of fishes, is struck with wonder at the beauteous scenery, and gratefully acknowledges that benevolence is the darling attribute of the Deity." "I thank God, my son, for giving you wisdom to reason in this way. But what is still your inference from all this, as to true religion?" "Why, my dear father, my inference is still in confirmation of my first answer to your question relative to the true religion, that it consists in our imitating the Deity in his goodness. Every wise parent, wishing to allure his children to any particular virtue, is careful to set them the fairest examples of the same, as knowing that example is more powerful than precept. Now since the Deity, throughout all his works, so invariably employs his great power and wisdom as the ministers of his benevolence to make his creatures happy, what can this be for but an example to us; teaching that if we wish to please him--the true end of all religion--we must imitate him in his moral goodness, which if we would but all do as steadily as he does, we should recall the golden age, and convert this world into Paradise. "All this looks very fair, Ben; but yet after all what are we to do without FAITH?" "Why, father, as to Faith, I cannot say; not knowing much about it. But this I can say, that I am afraid of any substitutes to the moral character of the Deity. In short, sir, I don't love the fig-leaf." "Fig-leaf! I don't understand you, child: what do you mean by the fig-leaf?" "Why, father, we read in the Bible that soon as Adam had lost that true image of the Deity, his MORAL GOODNESS, instead of striving to recover it again, he went and sewed fig-leaves together to cover himself with." "Stick to the point, child." "I am to the point, father. I mean to say that as Adam sought a vain fig-leaf covering, rather than the imitation of the Deity in moral goodness, so his posterity have ever since been fond of running after fig-leaf substitutes." "Aye! well I should be glad to hear you explain a little on that head, Ben." "Father, I don't pretend to explain a subject I don't understand, but I find in PLUTARCH'S LIVES and the HEATHEN ANTIQUITIES, which I read in your old divinity library, and which no doubt give a true account of religion among the ancients, that when they were troubled on account of their crimes, they do not seem once to have thought of conciliating the Deity by _reformation_, and by acts of benevolence and goodness to be like him. No, they appear to have been too much enamoured of lust, and pride, and revenge, to relish moral goodness; such lessons were too much against the grain. But still something must be done to appease the Deity. Well then, since they could not sum up courage enough to attempt it by imitating his goodness, they would try it by coaxing his vanity--they would build him grand temples; and make him mighty sacrifices; and rich offerings. This I am told, father, was _their_ fig-leaf." "Why this, I fear, Ben, is a true bill against the poor Heathens." "Well, I am sure, father, the Jews were equally fond of the fig-leaf; as their own countrymen, the Prophets, are constantly charging them. JUSTICE, MERCY, and TRUTH had, it seems, no charms for them. They must have fig-leaf substitutes, such as tythings of _mint_, _anise_, and _cummmin_, and making '_long prayers in the streets_,' and deep groanings with '_disfigured faces in the synagogues_.' If they but did all this, then surely they must be Abraham's children even though they devoured widows' houses." Here good old Josias groaned. "Yes, father," continued Ben, "and it were well if the rage for the fig-leaf stopped with the Jews and Heathens; but the Christians are just as fond of substitutes that may save them the labour of imitating the Deity in his moral goodness. It is true, the old Jewish hobbies, mint, anise, and cummin, are not the hobbies of Christians; but still, father, you are not to suppose that they are to be disheartened for all that. Oh no. They have got a hobby worth all of them put together--they have got FAITH." Here good old Josias began to darken; and looking at Ben with great solemnity, said, "I am afraid, my son, you do not treat this great article of our holy religion with sufficient reverence." "My dear father," replied Ben eagerly, "I mean not the least reflection on FAITH, but solely on those hypocrites who abuse it to countenance their vices and crimes." "O then, if that be your aim, go on, Ben, go on." "Well, sir, as I was saying, not only the Jews and Heathens, but the Christians also have their fig-leaf substitutes for _Moral Goodness_. Because Christ has said that so great is the DIVINE CLEMENCY, that if even the worst of men will but have faith in it so as to repent and amend their lives by the golden law of '_love and good works_,' they should be saved, many lazy Christians are fond of overlooking those excellent conditions 'LOVE AND GOOD WORKS,' which constitute the moral image of the Deity, and fix upon the word FAITH for their salvation." "Well, but child, do you make no account of faith?" "None, father, as a fig-leaf cloak of immorality." "But is not faith a great virtue in itself, and a qualification for heaven?" "I think not, sir; I look on faith but as a _mean_ to beget that _moral goodness_, which, to me, appears to be the only qualification for Heaven." "I am astonished, child, to hear you say that faith is not a virtue in itself." "Why, father, the Bible says for me in a thousand places. The Bible says that _faith without good works is dead_." "But does not the Bible, in a thousand places, say that without faith no man can please God?" "Yes, father, and for the best reason in the world; for who can ever hope to please the Deity without his moral image? and who would ever put himself to the trouble to cultivate the virtues which form that image, unless he had a belief that they were indispensible to the perfection and happiness of his nature?" "So then, you look on faith as no virtue in itself, and good for nothing unless it exalt men to the likeness of God?" "Yes, sir, as good for nothing unless it exalt us to the likeness of God--nay, as worse; as utterly vile and hypocritical." "And perhaps you view in the same light the IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS, and the Sacraments of BAPTISM and the LORD'S SUPPER." "Yes, father, faith, imputed righteousness, sacraments, prayers, sermons; all, all I consider as mere barren fig-leaves which will yield no good unless they ripen into the fruits of BENEVOLENCE and GOOD WORKS." "Well, Ben, 'tis well that you have taken a turn to the printing business; for I don't think, child, that if you had studied divinity, as your uncle Ben and myself once wished, you would ever have got a _licence_ to preach." "No, father, I know that well enough; I know that many who think themselves mighty good Christians, are for getting to heaven on easier terms than imitating the Deity in his moral goodness. To them, faith and imputed righteousness, and sacraments, and sour looks, are very convenient things. With a good stock of these they can easily manage matters so as to make a little morality go a great way. But I am thinking they will have to _back out_ of this error, otherwise they will make as bad a hand of their barren faith, as the poor Virginia negroes do of their boasted freedom." "God's mercy, child, what do you mean by that?" "Why, father, I am told that the Virginia negroes, like our faith-mongers, fond of ease and glad of soft substitutes to hard duties, are continually sighing for freedom; '_O if they had but freedom! if they had but freedom! how happy should they be! They should not then be obliged to work any more. Freedom would do every thing for them. Freedom would spread soft beds for them, and heap their tables with roast pigs, squealing out, 'come and eat me.' Freedom would give them fine jackets, and rivers of grog, and mountains of segars and tobacco, without their sweating for it_.' Well, by and by, they get their freedom; perhaps by running away from their masters. And now see what great things has freedom done for them. Why, as it is out of the question to think of _work_ now they are _free_, they must give themselves up like gentlemen, to visiting, sleeping, and pastime. In a little time the curses of hunger and nakedness drive them to stealing and house-breaking, for which their backs are ploughed up at whipping-posts, or their necks snapped under the gallows! and all this because they must needs live easier than by honest labour, which would have crowned their days with character and comfort. So, father, it is, most exactly so it is, with too many of our FAITH-MONGERS. They have not courage to practise those exalted virtues that would give them the moral likeness of the Deity. Oh no: they must get to heaven in some easier way. They have heard great things of faith. Faith, they are told, has done wonders for other people; why not for them? Accordingly they fall to work and after many a hard throe of fanaticism, they conceit they have got faith sure enough. And now they are happy. Like the poor Virginia negroes, they are clear of all _moral working now_: thank God they can get to heaven without it; yes, and may take some indulgences, by the way, into the bargain. If, as jovial fellows, they should waste their time and family substance in drinking rum and smoking tobacco, where's the harm, _an't they sound believers_? If they should, as _merchants_, sand their sugar, or water their molasses, what great matter is that? Don't they keep up family prayer? If, as men of HONOUR, they should accept a challenge, and receive a shot in a duel, what of that? They have only to send for a priest, and take the sacrament. Thus, father, as freedom has proved the ruin of many a lazy Virginian negro, so I am afraid that such faith as this has made many an hypocritical christian ten times more a child of the devil than he was before." Good old Josias, who, while Ben was speaking at this rate, had appeared much agitated, sometimes frowning, sometimes smiling, here replied, with a deep sigh, "Yes, Ben, this is all too true to be denied: and a sad thing it is that mankind should be so ready, as you observe, to go to heaven _in any other way_ than by imitating God in his _moral likeness_. But I rejoice in hope of you, my son, that painting this lamentable depravity in such strong colours as you do, you will ever act on wiser and more magnanimous principles." "Father, I don't affect to be better than other young men, yet I think I can safely say, that if I could get to heaven by playing the hypocrite I would not, while I have it in my choice to go thither by acquiring the virtues that would give me a resemblance to God. For to say nothing of the exceeding honour of acquiring even the _faintest resemblance_ of him, nor yet of the immense happiness which it must afford hereafter, I find that even here, and young as I am, the least step towards it, affords a greater pleasure than any thing else; indeed I find that there is so much more pleasure in getting knowledge to resemble the Creator, than in living in ignorance to resemble brutes; so much more pleasure in BENEVOLENCE and DOING GOOD to resemble him, than in _hate_ and _doing harm_ to resemble demons, that I hope I shall always have wisdom and fortitude sufficient even for my own sake, to spend my life in getting all the useful knowledge, and in doing all the little good I possibly can." "God Almighty confirm my son in the wise resolutions which his grace has enabled him thus early to form!" "Yes, father, and besides all this, when I look towards futurity; when I consider the nature of that felicity which exists in heaven; that it is a felicity flowing from the smiles of the Deity on those excellent spirits whom his own admonitions have adorned with the virtues that resemble himself; that the more perfect their virtues, the brighter will be his smiles upon them, with correspondent emanations of bliss that may, for aught we know, be for ever enlarged with their ever enlarging understandings and affections; I say, father, when I have it in my choice to attain to all this in a way so pleasant and honourable as that of imitating the Deity in WISDOM and GOODNESS, should I not be worse than mad to decline it on such terms, and prefer substitutes that would tolerate me in _ignorance_ and _vice_?" "Yes, child, I think you would be mad indeed." "Yes, father, especially when it is recollected, that if the ignorant and vicious could, with all their pains, find out substitutes that would serve as passports to heaven, they could not rationally expect a hearty welcome there. For as the Deity delights in the wise and good, because they resemble him in those qualities which render him so amiable and happy, and would render all his creatures so too; so he must proportionably abhor the STUPID and VICIOUS, because deformed with qualities diametrically opposite to his own, and tending to make both themselves and others most vile and miserable." "This is awfully true, Ben; for the Bible tells us, that the _wicked are an abomination to the Lord; but that the righteous are his delight_." "Yes, father, and this is the language not only of the BIBLE, which is, perhaps, the grand class book of the Deity, but it is also the language of his first or _horn_ book, I mean REASON, which teaches, that if '_there be a God, and that there is all nature cries aloud through all her works, he must delight in virtue_,' because most clearly conducive to the perfection of mankind; which must be the chief aim and glory of the Deity in creating them. And for the same reason he must abhor vice, because tending to the disgrace and destruction of his creatures. Hence, father, I think it follows as clearly as a demonstration in mathematics, that if it were possible for bad men, through _faith_, _imputed righteousness_, or any other leaf-covering, to get to Paradise, so far from meeting with any thing like cordiality from the Deity, they would be struck speechless at sight of their horrible dissimilarity to him. For while he delights above all things in giving life, and the duellist glories in destroying it; while he delights in heaping his creatures with good things, and the gambler triumphs in stripping them; while he delights in seeing love and smiles among brethren, and the slanderer in promoting strifes and hatreds; while he delights in exalting the intellectual and moral faculties to the highest degree of heavenly wisdom and virtue, and the drunkard delights in polluting and degrading both below the brutes; what cordiality can ever subsist between such opposite natures? Can infinite purity and benevolence behold such monsters with complacency, or could they in his presence otherwise than be filled with intolerable pain and anguish, and fly away as weak-eyed owls from the blaze of the meridian sun?" "Well, Ben, as I said before, I am richly rewarded for having drawn you into this conversation about religion; your language indeed is not always the language of the scriptures; neither do you rest your hopes, as I could have wished, on the _Redeemer_; but still your idea in placing our qualification for heaven in resembling God in _moral goodness_, is truly evangelical, and I hope you _will one day become_ a great christian." "I thank you, father, for your good wishes; but I am afraid I shall never be the christian you wish me to be." "What, not a christian!" "No, father, at least not in the _name_; but in the nature I hope to become a christian. And now, father, as we part to-morrow, and there is a strong presentiment on my mind that it may be a long time before we meet again, I beg you to believe of me that I shall never lose sight of my great obligations to an active pursuit of knowledge and usefulness. This, if persevered in, will give me some humble resemblance of the great Author of my being in loving and doing all the good I can to mankind. And then, if I live, I hope, my dear father, I shall give you the joy to see realized some of the fond expectations you have formed of me. And if I should die, I shall die in hope of meeting you in some better world, where you will no more be alarmed for my welfare, nor I grieved to see you conflicting with age and labour and sorrow: but where we may see in each other all that we can conceive of what we call ANGELS, and in scenes of undeserved splendour, dwell with those enlightened and benevolent spirits, whose conversation and perfect virtues, will for ever delight us. And where, to crown all, we shall perhaps, at times, be permitted to see that UNUTTERABLE BEING, whose disinterested goodness was the spring of all these felicities." Thus ended this curious dialogue, between one of the most amiable parents, and one of the most acute and sagacious youths that our country, or perhaps any other has ever produced. CHAPTER XVIII. The three days of Ben's promised stay with his father being expired, the next morning he embraced his parents and embarked a second time for Philadelphia, but with a much lighter heart than before, because he now left home with his parents' blessing, which they gave him the more willingly as from the dark _sanctified_ frown on poor James' brow they saw in him no disposition towards reconciliation. The vessel happening to touch at Newport, Ben gladly took that opportunity to visit his favourite brother John, who received him with great joy. John was always of the mind that Ben would one day or other become a great man; "_he was so vastly fond_," he said, "_of his book_." And when he saw the elegant size that Ben's person had now attained, and also his fine mind-illuminated face and manly wit, he was so proud of him that he could not rest until he had introduced him to all his friends. Among the rest was a gentleman of the name of Vernon, who was so pleased with Ben during an evening's visit at his brother's, that he gave him an order on a man in Pennsylvania for thirty pounds, which he begged he would collect for him. Ben readily accepted the order, not without being secretly pleased that nature had given him a face which this stranger had so readily credited with thirty pounds. Caressed by his brother John and by his brother John's friends, Ben often thought that if he were called on to point out the time in his whole life that had been spent more pleasantly than the rest, he would, without hesitation, pitch on this his three days' visit to Newport. But alas! he has soon brought to cry out with the poet, "The brightest things beneath the sky, Yield but a glimmering light; We should _suspect some danger nigh_, Where we possess _delight_." His thirty pound order from Vernon, was at first ranked among his dear honied delights enjoyed at Newport; but it soon presented, as we shall see, a roughsting. This however, was but a flea bite in comparison of that mortal wound he was within an ace of receiving from this same Newport trip. The story is this: Among a considerable cargo of live lumber which they took on board for Philadelphia, were three females, a couple of gay young damsels, and a grave old Quaker lady. Following the natural bent of his disposition, Ben paid great attention to the old Quaker. Fortunate was it for him that he did; for in consequence of it she took a motherly interest in his welfare that saved him from a very ugly scrape. Perceiving that he was getting rather too fond of the two young women above, she drew him aside one day, and with the looks and speech of a mother, said, "Young man, I am in pain for thee: thou hast no parent to watch over thy conduct, and thou seemest to be quite ignorant of the world and the snares to which youth is exposed. I pray thee rely upon what I tell thee.--These are women of bad character; I perceive it in all their actions. If thou dost not take care they will lead thee into danger!!" As he appeared at first not to think so ill of them as she did, the old lady related of them many things she had seen and heard, and which had escaped his attention, but which convinced him she was in the right. He thanked her for such good advice, and promised to follow it. On their arrival at New-York the girls told him where they lived, and invited him to come and see them. Their eyes kindled such a glow along his youthful veins that he was on the point of melting into consent. But the motherly advice of his old quaker friend happily coming to his aid, revived his wavering virtue, and fixed him in the resolution, though much against the grain, _not to go_. It was a most blessed thing for him that he did not; for the captain missing a silver spoon and some other things from the cabin, and knowing these women to be prostitutes, procured a search warrant, and finding his goods in their possession, had them brought to the whipping-post. As God would have it, Ben happened to fall in with the constable and crowd who were taking them to whip. He would fain have run off. But there was a drawing of sympathy towards them which he could not resist: so on he went with the rest. He said afterwards that it was well he did: for when he beheld these poor devils tied up to the stake, and also their sweet faces distorted with terror and pain, and heard their piteous screams under the strokes of the cowhide on their bleeding backs, he could not help melting into tears, at the same time saying to himself--"now had I but _yielded to the allurements of these poor creatures, and made myself an accessary to their crimes and sufferings, what would now be my feelings_!" From the happy escape which he had thus made through the seasonable advice of the good old quaker lady he learned that acts of this sort hold the first place on the list of charities: and entered it as a resolution on his journal that he would imitate it and do all in his power to open the eyes of all, but especially of the young, to a timely sense of the follies and dangers that beset them. How well he kept his promise, will, 'tis likely, gentle reader, be remembered by thousands when you and I are forgotten. CHAPTER XIX. On the arrival of the vessel at New-York, Ben went up to a tavern, and lo! who should he first cast his eyes on there, but his old friend Collins, of Boston! Collins had, it seems, been so charmed with Ben's account of Philadelphia, that he came to the determination to try his fortune there also; and learning that Ben was shortly to return by the way of New-York, he had jumped into the first vessel, and was there before him, waiting his arrival. Great was the joy of Ben at the sight of his friend Collins, for it drew after it a train of the most pleasant recollections.--But who can describe his feelings, when flying to embrace that long esteemed youth, he beheld him now risen from his chair equally eager for the embrace, but alas! only able to make a staggering step or two before down he came sprawling on the floor, drunk as a lord! To see a young man of his wit--his eloquence--his education--his hitherto unstained character and high promise, thus overwhelmed by a worse than brutal vice, would have been a sad sight to Ben, even though that young man had been an entire stranger. But oh! how tenfold sad to see such marks of ruinous dishonour on one so dear, and from whom he had expected so much. Ben had just returned from assisting to put poor Collins to bed, when the captain of the vessel which had brought him to New-York, stepped up and in a very respectful manner put a note into his hand.--Ben opened it, not without considerable agitation, and read as follows:-- "G. Burnet's compliments await young Mr. Franklin--and should be glad of half an hour's chat with him over a glass of wine." "G. Burnet!" said Ben, "who can that be?" "Why, 'tis the governor," replied the captain with a smile. "I have just been to see him, with some letters I brought for him from Boston. And when I told him what a world of books you have, he expressed a curiosity to see you, and begged I would return with you to his palace." Ben instantly set off with the captain, but not without a sigh as he cast a look back on the door of poor Collins' bed-room, to think what an honour that wretched young man had lost for the sake of two or three vile gulps of filthy grog. The governor's looks, at the approach of Ben, showed somewhat of disappointment. He had, it seems, expected considerable entertainment from Ben's conversation. But his fresh and ruddy countenance showed him so much younger than he had counted on, that he gave up all his promised entertainment as a lost hope. He received Ben, however, with great politeness, and after pressing on him a glass of wine, took him into an adjoining room, which was his library, consisting of a large and well-chosen collection. Seeing the pleasure which sparkled in Ben's eyes as he surveyed so many elegant authors, and thought of the rich stores of knowledge which they contained, the governor, with a smile of complacency, as on a young pupil of science, said to him, "Well, Mr. Franklin, I am told by the captain here, that you have a fine collection too." "Only a trunk full, sir," said Ben. "A trunk full!" replied the governor. "Why, what use can you have for so many books? Young people at your age have seldom read beyond the 10th chapter of Nehemiah." "I can't boast," replied Ben, "of having read any great deal beyond that myself; but still, I should be sorry if I could not get a trunk full of books to read every six months." At this, the governor regarding him with a look of surprise, said, "You must then, though so young, be a scholar; perhaps a teacher of the languages." "No sir," answered Ben, "I know no language but my own." "What, not Latin nor Greek!" "No sir, not a word of either." "Why, don't you think them necessary?" "I don't set myself up as a judge. But I should not suppose them necessary." "Aye! well, I should like to hear your reasons." "Why, sir, I am not competent to give reasons that may satisfy a gentleman of your learning, but the following are the reasons with which I satisfy myself. I look on languages, sir, merely as arbitrary sounds of characters, whereby men communicate their ideas to each other. Now, if I already possess a language which is capable of conveying more ideas than I shall ever acquire, were it not wiser in me to improve my time in getting _sense_ through that one language, than waste it in getting mere _sounds_ through fifty languages, even if I could learn as many?" Here the governor paused a moment, though not without a little red on his cheeks, for having only a minute before put Ben and the 10th chapter of Nehemiah so close together. However, catching a new idea, he took another start. "Well, but, my dear sir, you certainly differ from the learned world, which is, you know, decidedly in favour of the languages." "I would not wish wantonly to differ from the learned world," said Ben, "especially when they maintain opinions that seem to be founded on truth. But when this is not the case, to differ from them I have ever thought my duty; and especially since I studied Locke." "Locke!" cried the governor with surprise, "_you studied Locke!_" "Yes, sir, I studied Locke on the Understanding three years ago, when I was thirteen." "You amaze me, sir. You studied Locke on the Understanding at thirteen!" "Yes, sir, I did." "Well, and pray at what college did you study Locke at thirteen; for at Cambridge college in Old England, where I got my education, they never allowed the senior class to look at Locke till eighteen?" "Why, sir, it was my misfortune never to be at a college, nor even at a grammar school, except nine months when I was a child." Here the governor sprung from his seat, and staring at Ben, cried out, "the devil! well, and where--where did you get your education, pray?" "At home, sir, in a tallow chandler's shop." "In a tallow chandler's shop!" screamed the governor. "Yes, sir; my father was a poor old tallow chandler, with sixteen children, and I the youngest of all. At eight he put me to school, but finding he could not spare the money from the rest of the children to keep me there, he took me home into the shop, where I assisted him by twisting the candle wicks and filling the moulds all day, and at night I read by myself. At twelve, my father bound me to my brother, a printer, in Boston, and with him I worked hard all day at the press and cases, and again read by myself at night." Here the governor, spanking his hands together, put up a loud whistle, while his eye-balls, wild with surprise, rolled about in their sockets as if in a mighty mind to hop out. "Impossible, young man!" he exclaimed: "Impossible! you are only sounding my credulity. I can never believe one half of all this." Then turning to the captain, he said, "captain, you are an intelligent man, and from Boston; pray tell me can this young man here, be aiming at any thing but to quiz me?" "No, indeed, please your excellency," replied the captain, "Mr. Franklin is not quizzing you. He is saying what is really true, for I am acquainted with his father and family." The governor then turning to Ben said, more moderately, "Well, my dear wonderful boy, I ask your pardon for doubting your word; and now pray tell me, for I feel a stronger desire than ever to hear your objection to learning the dead languages." "Why, sir, I object to it principally on account of the shortness of human life. Taking them one with another, men do not live above forty years. Plutarch, indeed, puts it only thirty-three. But say forty. Well, of this full ten years are lost in childhood, before any boy thinks of a Latin grammar. This brings the forty down to thirty. Now of such a moment as this, to spend five or six years in learning the dead languages, especially when all the best books in those languages are translated into ours, and besides, we already have more books on every subject than such short-lived creatures can ever acquire, seems very preposterous." "Well, but what are you to do with their great poets, Virgil and Homer, for example; I suppose you would not think of translating Homer out of his rich native Greek into our poor homespun English, would you?" "Why not, sir?" "Why I should as soon think of transplanting a pine-apple from Jamaica to Boston." "Well, sir, a skilful gardener, with his hot-house, can give us nearly as fine a pine-apple as any in Jamaica. And so Mr. Pope, with his fine imagination, has given us Homer, in English, with more of his beauties than ordinary scholars would find in him after forty years' study of the Greek. And besides, sir, if Homer was not translated, I am far from thinking it would be worth spending five or six years to learn to read him in his own language." "You differ from the critics, Mr. Franklin; for the critics all tell us that his beauties are inimitable." "Yes, sir, and the naturalists tell us that the beauties of the basilisk are inimitable too." "The basilisk, sir! Homer compared with the basilisk! I really don't understand you, sir." "Why, I mean, sir, that as the basilisk is the more to be dreaded for the beautiful skin that covers his poison, so Homer for the bright colourings he throws over bad characters and passions. Now, as I don't think the beauties of poetry are comparable to those of philanthropy, nor a thousandth part so important to human happiness, I must confess I dread Homer, especially as the companion of youth. The humane and gentle virtues are certainly the greatest charms and sweeteners of life. And I suppose, sir, you would hardly think of sending your son to Achilles to learn these." "I agree he has too much revenge in his composition." "Yes, sir, and when painted in the colours which Homer's glowing fancy lends, what youth but must run the most imminent risk of catching a spark of bad fire from such a blaze as he throws on his pictures?" "Why this, though an uncommon view of the subject, is, I confess, an ingenious one, Mr. Franklin; but surely 'tis overstrained." "Not at all, sir; we are told from good authority, that it was the reading of Homer that first put it into the head of Alexander the great to become a HERO: and after him of Charles the 12th. What millions of human beings have been slaughtered by these two great butchers is not known; but still probably not a tythe of what have perished in duels between individuals from the pride and revenge nursed by reading Homer." "Well, sir," replied the governor, "I never heard the prince of bards treated in this way before. You must certainly be singular in your charges against Homer." "I ask your pardon, sir, I have the honour to think of Homer exactly as did the greatest philosopher of antiquity; I mean Plato, who strictly forbids the reading of Homer in his republic. And yet Plato was a heathen. I don't boast myself as a christian; and yet I am shocked at the inconsistency of our Latin and Greek teachers (generally christians and DIVINES too,) who can one day put Homer into the hands of their pupils, and in the midst of their recitations can stop them short to point out the _divine beauties_ and _sublimities_ which the poet gives to his hero, in the bloody work of slaughtering the poor Trojans; and the next day take them to church to hear a discourse from Christ on the blessedness of meekness and forgiveness. No wonder that hot-livered young men thus educated, should despise meekness and forgiveness, as mere cowards' virtues, and deem nothing so glorious as fighting duels, and blowing out brains." Here the governor came to a pause, like a gamester at his last trump. But perceiving Ben cast his eyes on a splendid copy of Pope's works, he suddenly seized that as a _fine_ opportunity to turn the conversation. So stepping up, he placed his hand on his shoulder, and in a very familiar manner said, "Well, Mr. Franklin, there's an author that I am sure you'll not quarrel with; an author that I think you'll pronounce _faultless_." "Why, sir," replied Ben, "I entertain a most exalted opinion of Pope; but still, sir, I think he is not without his faults." "It would puzzle you, I suspect, Mr. Franklin, as keen a critic as you are, to point out _one_." "Well, sir," answered Ben, hastily turning to the place, "what do you think of this famous couplet of Mr. Pope's-- "Immodest words admit of no defence, For want of decency is want of sense." "I see no fault there." "No, indeed!" replied Ben, "why now to my mind a man can ask no better excuse for any thing wrong he does, than his _want of sense_." "Well, sir," said the governor, sensibly staggered, "and how would you alter it?" "Why, sir, if I might presume to alter a line in this great Poet, I would do it in this way:-- "Immodest words admit but _this_ defence-- That want of decency is want of sense." Here the governor caught Ben in his arms as a delighted father would his son, calling out at the same time to the captain, "How greatly am I obliged to you, sir, for bringing me to an acquaintance with this charming boy? O! what a delightful thing it would be for us old fellows to converse with sprightful youth if they were but all like him!--But the d----l of it is, most parents are as blind as bats to the true glory and happiness of their children. Most parents never look higher for their sons than to see them delving like muckworms for money; or hopping about like jay-birds, in fine feathers. Hence their conversation is generally no better than froth and nonsense." After several other handsome compliments on Ben, and the captain expressing a wish to be going, the governor shook hands with Ben, begging at the same time that he would for ever consider him as one of his fastest friends, and also never came to New-York without coming to see him. CHAPTER XX. On returning to the tavern, he hastened into his chamber, where he found his drunken comrade, poor Collins, in a fine perspiration, and considerably sobered, owing to the refrigerating effects of a pint of strong sage tea, with a tea-spoonful of saltpetre, which Ben, before he set out to the governor's, had pressed on him as a remedy he had somewhere read, much in vogue among the London topers, to _cool off_ after a rum fever. Collins appeared still to have enough of brandy in him for a frolic; but when Ben came to tell him of the amiable governor Burnet, in whose company, at his own palace, he had spent a most delightful evening; and also to remind him of the golden opportunity he had lost, of forming an acquaintance with that noble gentleman, poor Collins wept bitterly. Ben was exceedingly affected to see him in tears, and endeavoured to comfort him. But he refused comfort. He said, "if this had been the _first time_, he should not himself think much of it; but he candidly confessed, that for a long time he had been guilty of it, though till of late he had always kept it to himself, drinking in his chamber. But now he felt at times," he said, "an awful apprehension that he was a _lost man_. His cravings for liquor were so strong on the one hand, and on the other his powers of resistance so feeble, that it put him fearfully in mind of the dismal state of a poor wretch, within the fatal attraction of a whirlpool, whose resistless suction, in spite of all his feeble efforts, was hurrying him down to sure and speedy destruction." Collins, who was exceedingly eloquent on every subject, but especially on one so nearly affecting himself, went on deploring his misfortune in strains so tender and pathetic, that Ben, whose eyes were fountains ever ready to flow at the voice of sorrow, could not refrain from weeping, which he did most unfeignedly for a long esteemed friend now going to ruin. He could bear, he said, to see the brightest plumed bird, charmed by the rattle-snake, descending into the horrid sepulchre of the monster's jaws. He could bear to see the richest laden Indiaman, dismasted and rudderless, drifting ashore on the merciless breakers; because made of dust, these things must at any rate return to dust, again. But to see an immortal mind stopped in her first soarings, entangled and limed in the filth of so brutal a vice as drunkenness--that was a sight he could not bear. And as a mother looking on her child that is filleted for the accursed Moloch, cannot otherwise than shed tears, so Ben, when he looked on poor Collins, could not but weep when he saw him the victim of destruction. However, as a good wit turns every thing to advantage, this sudden and distressing fall of poor Collins, set Ben to thinking: and the result of his thoughts noted down in his journal of that day, deserves the attention of all young men of this day; and even will as long as human nature endures. "Wit," says he, "in young men, is dangerous, because apt to breed vanity, which, when disappointed, brings them down, and by depriving them of _natural_ cheerfulness, drives them to the bottle for that which is _artificial_.--And learning also is dangerous, when it is aimed at as an _end_ and not a _mean_. A young man who aspires to be learned merely for _fame_, is in danger; for, familiarity breeding contempt, creates an uneasy void that drives him to the bottle. Hence so many learned men with red noses. But when a man from a benevolent heart, seeks learning for the sublime pleasure of imitating the Deity in _doing good_, he is always made so happy in the spirit and pursuit of this godlike object, that he needs not the stimulus of brandy." This one hint, if duly reflected on by young men, would render the name of Franklin dear to them for ever. CHAPTER XXI. The next day, when they came to settle with the tavern-keeper, and Ben with his usual alacrity had paraded his dollars for payment, poor Collins hung back, pale and dumb-founded, as a truant school-boy at the call to recitation. The truth is, the fumes of his brandy having driven all the wit out of his noddle, had puffed it up with such infinite vanity, that he must needs turn in, red faced and silly as he was, to gamble with the cool-headed water-drinking sharpers of New-York. The reader hardly need be informed, that poor Collins' pistareens, which he had scraped together for this expedition, were to these light-fingered gentlemen as a fry of young herrings to the hungry dog-fish. Ben was now placed in a most awkward predicament. To pay off Collins' scores at New-York, and also his expenses on the road to Philadelphia, would drain him to the last farthing. But how could he leave in distress a young friend with whom he had passed so many happy days and nights in the elegant pleasure of literature, and for whom he had contracted such an attachment! Ben could not bear the idea, especially as his young friend, if left in this sad condition, might be driven to despair; so drawing his purse he paid off Collins' bill, which, from the quantity of liquor he had drank, was swelled to a serious amount; and taking him by the arm, set out with a heart much heavier than his purse, which indeed was now so empty that had it not been replenished at Bristol by the thirty pounds for which, as we have seen, Vernon gave him an order on a gentleman living there, who readily paid it, would never have carried him and his drunken companion to Philadelphia. On their arrival Collins endeavoured to procure employment as a merchant's clerk, and paraded with great confidence his letters of recommendation. But his breath betrayed him. And the merchants would have nothing to say to him notwithstanding all his letters; he continued, therefore, to lodge and board with Ben at his expense. Nor was this all; for knowing that Ben had Vernon's money, he was continually craving loans of it, promising to pay as soon as he should get into business. By thus imposing on Ben's friendship, getting a little of him at one time, and a little at another, he had at last got so much of it, that when Ben, who had gone on _lending_ without taking note, came to count Vernon's money, he could hardly find a dollar to count! It is not easy to describe the agitation of Ben's mind on making this discovery; nor the alternate chill and fever, that discoloured his cheeks, as he reflected on his own egregious folly in this affair. "What demon," said he to himself, as he bit his lip, "could have put it into my head to tell Collins that I had Vernon's money! Didn't I know that a drunkard has no more reason in him than a hog; and can no better be satisfied, unless like him he is eternally pulling at his filthy swill? And have I indeed been all this time throwing away Vernon's money for brandy to addle the brain of this poor _self-made_ brute? Well then, I am served exactly as I deserve, for thus making myself a pander to his vices. But now that the money is all gone, and I without a shilling to replace it, what's to be done? Vernon will, no doubt, soon learn that I have collected his money; and will of course be daily expecting to hear from me. But what can I write? To tell him that I have collected his money, but lent it to a poor, pennyless sot, will sound like a pretty story, to a man of business! And if I don't write to him, what will he think of me, and what will become of that high opinion he had formed of me, on which it appeared he would have trusted me with thousands? So you see, I have got myself into a pretty hobble. And worse than all yet, how shall I ever again lift up my booby face to my affectionate brother John, after having thus basely stabbed him, through his friend, as also through the honour of our family! O my dear, dear old father; now I see your wisdom and my own folly! A thousand times did you tell me I was too young; too inexperienced yet, to undertake by myself.--But no. It would not all do. For the life of you, you could not lead or drive such divine counsel into this conceited noddle of mine. I despised it as the _weakness of old age_, and much too _slow_ for me. I wanted to save time, and get three or four years ahead of other young men; and that tempted me to disobedience. Well, I am justly punished for it! My bubble is broke. And now I see I shall be thrown back as long as if I had continued the apprentice of my brother James!!" O young men! young men! you that with segars in your mouths, and faces flushed with libations of whiskey, can fancy yourselves _clever fellows_, and boast the long list of your _dear friends_, O think of the curses that Ben bestowed on his dear friend Collins, for bringing him in such a scrape; and learn that an idle, drinking rascal has no friends. If you think otherwise, it is only a proof that you don't even yet understand the meaning of the word. FRIENDS indeed! you talk of friends! What, _you_, who instead of nobly pressing on for VIRTUE and KNOWLEDGE and WEALTH, to make yourselves an honour and blessing to your connexions, are constantly, by your drunken and gambling courses, making yourselves a disgrace and curse to them. And when, like that fool in the parable, your all is gone, then, instead of modestly going with him into the fields, to feed the swine, you have the impudence to quarter your rags and red noses on your _dear friends_, spunging and borrowing of them as long as they'll lend. And if at last, they should get wise enough to refuse such unconscionable leechers, as would suck every drop of their blood, instantly you can turn tail and abuse your _dear friends_ as though they were pick-pockets.--Witness now master Collins. Just as Ben was in the midst of his fever and pet, on discovering as aforesaid, the great injury which Collins had done him, who but that promising youth should come in, red faced and blowzy, and with extreme confidence, demand of him a couple of dollars. Ben, rather tartly, replied that he had no more to spare. "Pshaw," answered Collins, "'tis only a brace of dollars I want, just to treat an old Boston acquaintance I fell in with at the tavern, and you know Vernon tipt you 'the shiners' t'other day to the tune of a round hundred." "Yes," replied Ben, "but what with two dollars at one time, and two at another, you have taken nearly the whole." "Well, man, and what of that," rejoined Collins, swaggeringly; "suppose I had taken the _whole_; yes, and twice as much, sha'nt I get into fine business presently, some head clerk's place, or governor's secretary? And then you'll see how I'll tumble you in the _yellow boys_ hand over hand, and pay you off these little beggarly items all at a dash." "_Fair words, Mr. Collins_," answered Ben, "_butter no parsnips_. And you have been so long talking at this rate, and yet doing nothing, that I really am afraid----" "Afraid, the d----l," interrupted Collins, insultingly, "afraid of what? But see here, Mr. Franklin, I came to you, not to preach to me, but to lend me a couple of dollars. And now all that you have to do is just to tell me, at a word, whether you can lend them or not." "Well then, at a word, I cannot," said Ben. "Well then, you are an ungrateful fellow," retorted Collins. "Ungrateful?" asked Ben, utterly astonished. "Yes, an ungrateful fellow," replied Collins. "You dare not deny, sir, that it was I who first took you out of the tallow pots and grease of your old father's candle shop in Boston, and made a man of you. And now after all, when I only ask you to lend me a couple of shabby dollars to treat a friend, you can refuse me! Well, keep your dollars to yourself and be d----d for an ungrateful fellow as you are!" then wheeling on his heel he went off, blustering and swollen with passion, as though he had been most outrageously ill-treated. Soon as Ben had recovered himself a little from the stupefaction into which this tornado of Collins had thrown him, he clapped his hands, and rolling up his eyes like one devoutly given, exclaimed, "O Ulysses, well called wise! You, though a heathen, could lash your sailors to the mast to keep them from going ashore to be made hogs of at the _grog shops of Circe_, while I, the son of an old presbyterian christian, the son of his old age, and heir elect of all his wisdom, have been here now for weeks together, lending money to brutalize my own friend! Would to heaven, I had been but half as wise as you, I should not have been so shamefully fleeced, and now so grossly insulted by this young swine, Collins. But what brain of man could have suspected this of him? After taking him out of the stye of a jug tavern in New-York, where he was up to the back in dirt and debt--after paying all his expenses to Philadelphia, and here supporting him cheerfully, out of my hard and scanty earnings;--after submitting, for cheapness sake, to sleep in the same bed with him every night, scorched with his rum-fevered flesh, drenched in his nocturnal sweats, and poisoned with his filthy breath; and still worse, after lending him nearly the whole of Vernon's money, and thereby brought my own silly nose to the grindstone, perhaps for many a doleful year, I should now at last be requited with all this abuse: d--n--d for an _ungrateful fellow_!! Well, I don't know where all this is to end; but I will still hope for the best. I hope it will teach me this important lesson, never to have any thing to do with a _sot_ again, as long as I live. But stop, though I refused him money to get drunk with, I still feel a friendship for this wretched young man, this Collins; and will still work to support him, while he stays with me. It is likely that now, that he can get no more money from me, he will take his departure; and then, if my senses remain, I think I will for ever hereafter shun, as I would a beast, the young man who drinks _drams and grog_." From his going off in such a pet, Ben had supposed at first, that Collins would not return again. But having no money nor friends in Philadelphia, the poor fellow came back at night, to his old roosting place with Ben, by whom he was received with the same good humour as if nothing had happened. But though the injured may forgive, the injurer seldom does. Collins never looked straight at Ben after this. The recollection of the past kept him sore. And to be dependent on one whom, in the pride of former days, he had thought his inferior, rendered his condition so uneasy, that he longed for an opportunity to get out of it. Fortunately an opportunity soon offered. The captain of a trader to the West Indies, falling in with him one day at a tavern, where he was spouting away at a most elegant rate, was so charmed with his vivacity and wit, which most young fools, half shaved, are apt to figure in, that he offered him the place of a private tutor in a rich family in Jamaica. Dame fortune, in her best humour, with all her cogged dice in the bargain, could not, as Collins himself thought, have thrown him a luckier hit. Young black eyed creoles, with fourth proof spirit, in all its delicious modifications, of _slings, bumbo and punch_, dancing before his delighted fancy, in such mazes of pleasurable promise, that 'tis likely he would hardly have exchanged places with the grand Turk. With a countenance glowing with joy, he hastened to Ben to tell him the glorious news, and to take leave. After heartily congratulating him on his good fortune, Ben asked, if he would not want a little money to _fit him out_. Collins thanked him, but said that the captain, who had engaged him, was such a noble-hearted fellow, that he had, of his own accord, advanced him _three half joes_ to put him into what he called "_complete sailing trim_." Though Ben had of late been so scurvily treated by Collins, as to think it very desirable to be quit of him; yet, when the time came, he found it no such easy matter for the heart to dissolve the ties of a long and once pleasant friendship. He had passed with Collins many of his happiest hours, and these too, in the sweetest season of life, and amidst pleasures which best lift the soul from earth, and spring those unutterable hopes she delights in. How then, without tears, could he for the last time, feel the strong pressure of his hand, and catch the parting glance? On the other side, through watery eyes and broken accents, poor Collins sobbed out his last adieu, not without hearty thanks, for the many favors which Ben had done him, and solemn promises of speedily _writing to him, and remitting all his money_. Charity would fain believe, that he fully so intended; but alas! nor money, nor friend did Ben ever hear of afterwards. This elegant victim of rum, was no doubt presented by the captain to the wealthy family in Jamaica. And being introduced, under the genial influence perhaps of a cheerful glass, 'tis likely that with his advantages of education and eloquence, he made such a figure in the eyes of those wealthy and hospitable islanders, that they were in raptures with him, and fondly counted that they had got an elegant young schoolmaster who was to make scholars and wits of the whole family. Perhaps too, their darling hope, a blooming daughter, was seen to heave the tender sigh, as blushing she darted the side-long glance upon him. But alas! the next day sees the elegant young schoolmaster _dead drunk!_ and the amiable family all in the dumps again. 'Tis more than probable, that after having been alternately received and dismissed from a dozen wealthy families, he sunk at length, into tattered garments, and a grog-blossomed face; the mournful victim of intemperance. And now perhaps, after all the fair prospects of his youth, and all the fond hopes of his parents, poor Collins, untimely buried in a foreign church-yard, only serves for the pious to point their children to his early tomb and remind them how vain are talents and education without the restraints of religion. CHAPTER XXII. Soon as Ben reached Philadelphia, as aforesaid, he waited on the governor, who received him with joy, eagerly calling out, "_Well my dear boy, what success? What success?_" Ben, with a smile, drew his father's letter from his pocket. The governor snatched it, as if all impatient to see its contents, which he ran through with a devouring haste. When he was done, he shook his head and said, "it was to be sure a sensible letter, a vastly sensible letter; _but_--_but_,--it won't do," continued he to Ben, "no, it won't do; your father is too cautious, entirely too cautious, sir." Hereupon he fell into a brown study, with his eyes nailed to the ground, as in a profound reverie. After a moment's pause, he suddenly looked up, and with a countenance bright as with some happy thought, he cried out, "I've got it, my dear young friend, I've got it exactly. Zounds! what signifies making two bites at a cherry? _In for a penny, in for a pound_, is my way. Since your father will do nothing for you, I'll do it all myself. A printer I want, and a printer I'll have, that's a clear case: and I am sure you are the lad that will suit me to a fraction. So give me a list of the articles you want from England, and I will send for them by the very next ship, and set you up at once: and all I shall expect of you, is that you'll pay me when you are able!!" Seeing the tear swelling in Ben's eye, the governor took him by the hand, and in a softened tone said, "come, nothing of that my dear boy, nothing of that. A lad of your talents and merit, must not languish in the back ground for lack of a little money to bring you forward. So make me out, as I said, a list of such articles as you may want, and I'll send for them at once to London.--But stop! would it not be better for you to go to London, and choose these things yourself? you could then, you know, be sure to have them all of the best quality. And besides, you could form an acquaintance with _some clever fellows_ in the book selling and stationary line, whose friendship might be worth a Jew's eye to you, in your business here." Ben, hardly able now to speak, thanked the governor as well as he could for so generous an offer.--"Well then," continued the governor, "get yourself in readiness to go with the Annis." The reader will please to be informed, that the Annis was, at that time, (1722) the only regular trader between London and Philadelphia; and she made but one voyage in the year! Finding that the Annis was not to sail for several months yet, Ben prudently continued to do journey work for old Keimer; but often haunted with the ghost of Vernon's money which he had lent to Collins, and for fear of what would become of him if Vernon should be strict _to mark his iniquities_ in that mad affair. But happily for him, Vernon made no demand. It appeared afterwards that this worthy man had not forgotten his money. But learning from a variety of quarters, that Ben was a perfect non-descript of industry and frugality, he concluded that as the money was not paid, Ben was probably under the hatches. He therefore, generously, let the matter lie over till a distant day, when Ben, as we shall by and by see, paid him up fully, both principal and interest, and thus recovered the high ground he formerly held in his friendship. Thanks be to God, who has given to inflexible honesty and industry, such power over the "_heart strings_," as well as "_purse strings_," of mankind. CHAPTER XXIII. Ben was naturally comic in a high degree, and this pleasant vein, greatly improved by his present golden prospects, betrayed him into many a frolic with Keimer, to whom he had prudently attached himself as a journeyman, until the Annis should sail. The reader will excuse Ben for these frolics when he comes to learn what were their aims; as also what an insufferable old creature this Keimer was. Silly as a BOOBY, yet vain as a JAY, and garrulous as a PIE, he could never rest but when in a stiff argument, and acting the orator, at which he looked on Cicero himself as but a boy to him. Here was a fine target for Ben's SOCRATIC ARTILLERY, which he frequently played off on the old pomposo with great effect. By questions artfully put, he would obtain of him certain points, which Keimer readily granted, as seeing in them no sort of connexion with the matter in debate. But yet these points, when granted, like distant nets slyly hauling round a porpoise or sturgeon, would, by degrees, so completely circumvent the silly fish, that with all his flouncing and fury he could never extricate himself, but rather got more deeply entangled. Often caught in this way, he became at last so afraid of Ben's _questions_, that he would turn as mad when one of them was "_poked at him_," as a bull at sight of a scarlet cloak; and would not answer the simplest question without first asking, "_well, and what would you make of that?_" He came at length to form so exalted an opinion of Ben's talents for refutation, that he seriously proposed to him one day that they should turn out together and preach up a NEW RELIGION! Keimer was to preach and make the converts, and Ben to answer and put to silence the gainsayers. He said a _world of money_ might be made by it. On hearing the outlines of this new religion, Ben found great fault with it. This he did only that he might have another frolic with Keimer; but his frolics were praiseworthy, for they all "leaned to virtue's side." The truth is, he saw that Keimer was prodigiously a hypocrite. At every whip-stitch he could play the knave, and then for a pretence would read his Bible. But it was not the _moral part_ of the Bible, the sweet precepts and parables of the Gospel that he read. No verily. Food so angelic was not at all to the tooth of his childish fancy, which delighted in nothing but the _novel_ and _curious_. Like too many of the saints now-a-days, he would rather read about the WITCH OF ENDOR, than the GOOD SAMARITAN, and hear a sermon on the _brazen candlesticks_ than on the LOVE OF GOD. And then, O dear! who was Melchizedeck? Or where was the land of Nod? Or, was it in the shape of a _serpent or a monkey_ that the devil tempted Eve? As he was one day poring over the pentateuch as busy after some nice game of this sort as a terrier on the track of a weazle, he came to that famous text where Moses says, "_thou shall not mar the corners of thy beard_." Aye! this was the divinity for Keimer. It struck him like a new light from the clouds: then rolling his eyes as from an apparition, he exclaimed, "miserable man that I am! and was I indeed forbidden to mar even the corners of my beard, and have I been all this time shaving myself as smooth as an eunuch! Fire and brimstone, how have you been boiling up for me, and I knew it not! Hell, deepest hell is my portion, that's a clear case, unless I reform. And reform I will if I live. Yes, my poor naked chin, if ever I but get another crop upon thee and I suffer it to be touched by the ungodly steel, then let my right hand forget her cunning." From that day he became as shy of a razor as ever Samson was. His long black whiskers "_whistled in the wind_." And then to see how he would stand up before his glass and stroke them down, it would have reminded you of some ancient Druid, adjusting the _sacred Mistletoe_. Ben could not bear that sight. Such shameless neglect of angel morality, and yet such fidgetting about a goatish beard! "Heavens, sir," said he to Keimer, one day in the midst of a hot argument, "Who can think, with common sense, A smooth shaved face gives God offence? Or that a whisker hath a charm, Eternal justice to disarm?" He even proposed to him to get _shaved_. Keimer swore outright that he would never lose his beard. A stiff altercation ensued. But Keimer getting angry, Ben agreed at last to give up the beard. He said that, "as the beard at best was but an external, a mere excrescence, he would not insist on that as so very essential. But certainly sir," continued he, "there is one thing that is." Keimer wanted to know what that was. "Why sir," added Ben, "this turning out and preaching up a NEW RELIGION, is, without doubt, a very serious affair, and ought not to be undertaken too hastily. Much time, sir, in my opinion at least, should be spent in making preparation, in which, fasting should certainly have a large share." Keimer, who was a great glutton, said he could _never fast_. Ben then insisted that if they were not to fast altogether, they ought, at any rate, to abstain from animal food, and live as the saints of old did, on _vegetables_ and _water_. Keimer shook his head, and said that if he were to live on vegetables and water, he should soon die. Ben assured him that it was entirely a mistake. He had tried it often, he said, and could testify from his own experience that he was never more healthy and cheerful than when he lived on vegetables alone. "Die from feeding on vegetables, indeed! Why, sir, it contradicts reason; and contradicts all history, ancient and profane. There was Daniel, and his three young friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who fed on a vegetable diet, of choice; did they languish and die of it? or rather did they not display a rouge of health and fire of genius, far beyond those silly youths who crammed on all the luxuries of the royal table? And that amiable Italian nobleman, Lewis Cornaro, who says of bread, that it was such a dainty to his palate, that he was almost afraid, at times, it was too good for him to eat; did he languish and die of this simple fare? On the contrary, did he not out-live three generations of gratified epicures; and after all, go off in his second century, like a bird of Paradise, singing the praises of Temperance and Virtue? And pray, sir," continued Ben, "where's the wonder of all this? Must not the blood that is formed of vegetables be the purest in nature? And then, as the spirits depend on the blood, must not the spirits secreted from such blood be the purest too? And when this is the case with the blood and spirits, which are the very life of the man, must not that man enjoy the best chance for such healthy secretions and circulations as are most conducive to long and happy life?" While Ben argued at this rate, Keimer regarded him with a look which seemed to say, "Very true, sir; all this is very true; but still I cannot _go it_." Ben, still unwilling to give up his point, thought he would make one more push at him. "What a pity it is," said he with a sigh, "that the blessings of so sublime a religion should be all lost to the world, merely for lack of a little fortitude on the part of its propagators." This was touching him on the right string; for Keimer was a man of such vanity, that a little flattery would put him up to any thing. So after a few _hems_ and _ha's_, he said, he believed he would, at any rate, make a trial of this new regimen. Having thus carried his point, Ben immediately engaged a poor old woman of the neighbourhood to become their cook; and gave her off hand, written receipts for three and forty dishes; not one of which contained a single atom of fish, flesh, or fowl. For their first day's breakfast on the _new regimen_, the old woman treated them with a terrene of oatmeal gruel. Keimer was particularly fond of his breakfast, at which a nice beef-stake with onion sauce was a standing dish. It was as good as a farce to Ben, to see with what an eye Keimer regarded the terrene, when entering the room, in place of his stake, hot, smoking, and savory, he beheld this pale, meagre-looking slop. "What have you got there?" said he, with a visage grum, and scowling eye. "A dish of hasty pudding," replied Ben, with the smile of an innocent youth who had a keen appetite, with something good to satisfy it--"a dish of nice hasty pudding, sir, made of oats." "Of OATS!" retorted Keimer, with a voice raised to a scream. "Yes, sir, _oats_," rejoined Ben,--"_oats_, that precious grain which gives such elegance and fire to our noblest of quadrupeds, the horse." Keimer growled out, that he was no horse to eat oats. "No matter for that," replied Ben, "'tis equally good for men." Keimer denied that any human being ever eat oats. "Aye!" said Ben, "and pray what's become of the Scotch? Don't they live on oats; and yet, where will you find a people so 'bonny, blythe, and gay;' a nation of such wits and warriors." As there was no answering this, Keimer sat down to the terrene, and swallowed a few spoonfuls, but not without making as many wry faces as if it had been so much jalap; while Ben, all smile and chat, breakfasted most deliciously. At dinner, by Ben's order, the old woman paraded a trencher piled up with potatoes. Keimer's grumbling fit came on him again. "He saw clear enough," he said, "that he was to be poisoned." "Poh, cheer up, man," replied Ben; "this is your right preacher's bread." "Bread the d----l!" replied Keimer, snarling. "Yes, bread, sir," continued Ben, pleasantly; "the bread of _life_, sir; for where do you find such health and spirits, such bloom and beauty, as among the honest-hearted IRISH, and yet for their breakfast, dinner, and supper, the potato is their tetotum; the _first_, _second_, and _third_ course." In this way, Ben and his old woman went on with Keimer; daily ringing the changes on oat-meal gruel, roasted potatoes, boiled rice, and so on, through the whole family of roots and grains in all their various genders, moods, and tenses. Sometimes, like a restive mule, Keimer would kick up and show strong symptoms of flying the way. But then Ben would prick him up again with a touch of his ruling passion, vanity; "only think, Mr. Keimer," he would say, "only think what has been done by the founders of _new religions_: how they have enlightened the ignorant, polished the rude, civilized the savage, and made heroes of those who were little better than brutes. Think, sir, what Moses did among the stiff-necked Jews; what Mahomet did among the wild Arabs--and what you may do among these gentle drab-coated Pennsylvanians." This, like a spur in the flank of a jaded horse, gave Keimer a new start, and pushed him on afresh to his gruel breakfasts and potato dinners. Ben strove hard to keep him up to this gait. Often at table, and especially when he saw that Keimer was in good humour and fed kindly, he would give a loose to fancy, and paint the advantages of their new regimen in the most glowing colours. "Aye, sir," he would say, letting drop at the same time his spoon, as in an ecstasy of his subject, while his pudding on the platter cooled--"aye, sir, now we are beginning to live like men going a preaching indeed. Let your epicures gormandize their fowl, fish, and flesh, with draughts of intoxicating liquors. Such gross, inflammatory food may suit the brutal votaries of Mars and Venus. But our views, sir, are different altogether; we are going to teach wisdom and benevolence to mankind. This is a heavenly work, sir, and our minds ought to be heavenly. Now, as the mind depends greatly on the body, and the body on the food, we should certainly select that which is of the most pure and refining quality. And this, sir, is exactly the food to our purpose. This mild potato, or this gentle pudding, is the thing to insure the light stomach, the cool liver, the clear head, and, above all, those celestial passions which become a preacher that would moralize the world. And these celestial passions, sir, let me add, though I don't pretend to be a prophet, these celestial passions, sir, were you but to stick to this diet, would soon shine out in your countenance with such apostolic majesty and grace, as would strike all beholders with reverence, and enable you to carry the world before you." Such was the style of Ben's rhetoric with old Keimer. But it could not all do. For though these harangues would sometimes make him fancy himself as big as Zoroaster or Confucius, and talk as if he should soon have the whole country running after him, and worshipping him for the GREAT LAMA of the west; yet this divinity fit was too much against the grain to last long. Unfortunately for poor Keimer, the kitchen lay between him and his bishobprick: and both nature and habit had so wedded him to that swinish idol, that nothing could divorce him. So after having been led by Ben a "_very d----l of a life_," as he called it, "_for three months_," his flesh-pot appetites prevailed, and he swore, "_by his whiskers, he would suffer it no longer_." Accordingly he ordered a nice roast pig for dinner, and desired Ben to invite a young friend to dine with them. Ben did so: but neither himself nor his young friend were any thing the better for the pig. For before they could arrive, the pig being done, and his appetite beyond all restraint, Keimer had fallen on it and devoured the whole. And there he sat panting and torpid as an ANACONDA who had just swallowed a young buffaloe. But still his looks gave sign that the "_Ministers of Grace_" had not entirely deserted him, for at sight of Ben and his young friend, he blushed up to the eye lids, and in a glow of scarlet, which showed that he paid dear for his _whistle_, (gluttony) he apologized for disappointing them of their dinner. "Indeed, the smell of the pig," he said, "was so sweet, and the nicely browned skin so inviting, especially to him who had been _long starved_, that for the soul of him he could not resist the temptation to _taste it_--and then, O! if Lucifer himself had been at the door, he must have gone on, let what would have been the consequences." He said too, "that for his part he was glad it was a _pig_ and not a _hog_, for that he verily believed he should have bursted himself."--Then leaning back in his chair and pressing his swollen abdomen with his paws, he exclaimed with an awkward laugh, "_Well_, I don't believe I was ever cut out for a bishop!"--Here ended the farce: for Keimer never after this uttered another word about his NEW RELIGION. Ben used, laughing, to say that he drew Keimer into this scrape that he might enjoy the satisfaction of _starving him out of his gluttony_. And he did it also that he might save the more _for books and candles:_ their vegetable regimen costing him, in all, rather less than three cents a day! To those who can spend twenty times this sum on tobacco and whiskey alone, _three_ cents per day must appear a scurvy allowance, and of course poor Ben must be sadly pitied. But such philosophers should remember that all depends on our loves, whose property it is to make bitter things sweet, and heavy things light. For example: to lie out in the darksome swamp with no other canopy but the sky, and no bed but the cold ground, and his only music the midnight owl or screaming alligator, seems terrible to servile minds; but it was joy to Marion, whose "_whole soul_," as general Lee well observes, "_was devoted to liberty and country_." So, to shut himself up in a dirty printing-office, with no dinner but a bit of bread, no supper but an apple, must appear to every epicure as it did to Keimer, "_a mere d----l of a life_;" but it was joy to Ben, whose whole soul was on his _books_, as the sacred lamps that were to guide him to usefulness and glory. Happy he who early strikes into the path of _wisdom_, and bravely walks therein till habit sprinkles it with roses. He shall be led as a lamb among the green pastures along the water courses of pleasure, nor shall he ever experience the pang of those "Who see the right, and approve it too; Condemn the wrong--and yet the wrong pursue." CHAPTER XXIV. Ben, as we have seen, was never without a knot of choice spirits, like satellites, constantly revolving around him, and both receiving and reflecting light. By these satellites I mean young men of fine minds, and fond of books. He had at this time a _trio_ of such. The first was of the name of Osborne, the second Watson, and the third Ralph. As the two first were a good deal of the nature of wandering stars, which, though bright, soon disappear again, I shall let them pass away in silence. But the last, that's to say, Ralph, shone so long in the same sphere with Ben, both in America and Europe, that it will never do to let him go without giving the reader somewhat at least of a telescopic squint at him. James Ralph, then, was a young man of the first rate talents, ingenious at argument, of flowery fancy, most fascinating in his manners, and uncommonly eloquent. In short, he appears to have been built and equipped to run the voyage of life with as splendid success as any. But alas! as the seamen say of their ships, "_he took the wrong sheer_." Hence, while many a DULL GENIUS, with only a few plain-sailing virtues on board, such as honest industry, good humour, and prudence, have made fine weather through life, and come into port at last laden _up to the bends_ with riches and honours, this gallant PROA, this stately GONDOLA, the moment he was put to sea, was caught up in a Euroclydon of furious passions and appetites that shivered his character and peace, and made a wreck of him at the very outset. According to his own account, it appears that Ben was often haunted with fears that he himself had some hand in Ralph's disasters. Dr. Franklin was certainly one of the wisest of mankind. But with all his wisdom he was still but a man, and therefore liable to err. Solomon, we know, was fallible; what wonder then young Franklin? But here lies the difference between these two wise men, as to their errors. Solomon, according to scripture, was sometimes overcome of Satan, even in the bone and sinew of his strength; but the devil was too hard for Franklin only while he was in the _gristle_ of his youth. The case was thus: among the myriads of books which came to his eager tooth, there was a most unlucky one on deism, written, 'tis said, by Shaftesbury, a man admirably calculated to pervert the truth; or, as Milton says of one of his fallen spirits, to make "_the worse appear the better reason_." Mark now this imposing writer--he does not utter you a word against religion; not he indeed: no, not for the world. Why, sirs, he's the best friend of religion. He praises it up to the skies, as the sole glory of man, the strong pillar of his virtues, and the inexhaustible fountain of all his hopes. But then he cannot away with that false religion, that detestable superstition called christianity. And here, to set his readers against it, he gives them a most horrible catalogue of the cruelties and bloody persecutions it has always occasioned in the world; nay, he goes so far as to assert that christians are the _natural enemies of mankind_; "vainly conceiting themselves," says he, "to be the favourites of heaven, they look on the rest of the world but as 'heathen dogs' whom it is 'doing God service to kill,' and whose goods it is right to seize on, as spoil for the Lord's people! Who," he asks crowingly, "filled Asia with fire and sword in the bloody wars of the Crusades? The christians. Who depopulated the fine negro-coasts of Africa? The christians. Who extirpated many of the once glorious Indian nations of America? The christians; nay," continues he, "so keen are those christians for blood, that when they can't get their 'heathen dogs' to fall on, they fall on one another: witness the papist christians destroying the protestants, and the protestant christians destroying the papists. And still greater shame," says he, "to these sweet followers of the Lamb, these papist and protestant christians, when they can no longer worry each other, will worry those of their own party, as in numberless and shameful cases of the calvinists and arminians; nay, so prone are the christians to hate, that their greatest doctors even in their _pulpits_, instead of exhorting to piety and those godlike virtues, that make men honour and love one another, will fix on the vainest speculations; which, though not understood by one soul among them, yet serve abundantly to set them all by the ears; yes, they can hate one another: "For believing that there are three persons in the Godhead; or only one person. "For believing that there are children in hell not a span long; or for not believing it. "For believing that every body will be saved; or for believing that scarcely any body will be saved. "For baptizing in mill ponds; or only out of china bowls. "For taking the sacrament in both elements; or only in the bread. "For praying in Latin; or for praying only in English. "For praying with a book; or for praying without a book. "For praying standing; or for praying kneeling. "For reading the Bible by themselves; or for reading it only with a priest. "For wearing long beards; or for shaving their beards. "For preaching up predestination; or for preaching up free will. "Now," continues our writer, "barely to _hate_ one's neighbours for such notions as these, were enough, one would think, to make any common d----l blush; but these christians, as if to out-d----l Satan himself, can not only hate, but actually murder one another for these contradictory notions! yes; and oh, horrible to think! not only murder, but even glory in it: at every shower of cruel bullets on their flying victims; or at every plunge of the reeking spear into the bodies of shrieking mothers and infants, they can cheer each other to _the glorious spot_ with animating huzzas! and even when the infernal tragedy is closed, they can write congratulatory letters, and sing _Te Deums_, giving glory to God that the MONSTERS--the BEASTS--the HERETICS, are rooted out." Such was the prince of infidels. And it was the very argument to stagger Ben, even the dangerous argument of example, which young as he was, he had learned to consider as a short way of coming at men's real principles. "Example is a living law, whose sway Men more than all the living laws obey." Or as Hudibras has it, "Men oft prove it by their _practice_: No argument like matter of _fact_ is. And we are, best of all, led to Men's principles, by what they do." 'Tis true, that to tax the gospel with these accursed deeds of mad papists and protestants, is just about as good logic as to accuse our excellent civil code with all the crimes of gamblers and horse thieves--the very rascals it aims to hang. Or like charging the sun as the cause of _darkness_, which indeed it was given to dispel. But Ben was too young yet, to know everything. And besides, led altogether as he was by the strongest feelings of sympathy, it is not much to be wondered at, that this popular argument, "_the barbarities of christians_," should have excited so lasting prejudice against christianity. As some men of delicate natures who have taken an emetic, though in the best madeira, can never afterwards bear the smell of that generous liquor; so christianity, steeped in tears and blood, excited in Ben an aversion that stuck by him a long time. In short, Ben became an unbeliever. And, like Paul of Tarsus, during the reign of his unbelief, "_he thought verily he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, which things he also did_," arguing powerfully for _natural_ religion. How many converts he made to infidelity, I have never been able exactly to learn. But certain it is, he made two, viz. John Collins and James Ralph. As to Collins, we have seen already, that in converting him to scepticism, he soon _drew down an old house over his head_, his pupil quickly turning out a most impudent drunkard and swindler. And though he expected better luck from Ralph, yet he quickly discovered in him also certain very dismal symptoms of the cloven foot. Some short time before the sailing of the Annis, Ben, in the warmth of his heart, told Ralph of the immense affair which Sir William Keith had engaged him in, viz. to make him the KING'S PRINTER in Philadelphia. And also that he was about to sail in a few days on that very errand for London. Ralph suddenly turned serious; the next day he came and told Ben that he had made up his mind to go with him. "How can that be," said Ben, "seeing you have a young wife and child?" To this Ralph replied, with an oath, that "that should be no obstacle." "It was true," he said, "he had married the wench, but it was only for her money. But since the old rascal, her father, would not give it to him, he was determined to be revenged on him, by leaving his daughter and grandchild on his hands for life." Ben, though greatly shocked by this trait in his character, was yet so blindly partial to Ralph that he could not find in his heart to spurn him from his acquaintance. But for this, as he afterwards called it, _great error in his life_, he received a chastisement, which, though pretty severe, was not one stripe more than he richly deserved. CHAPTER XXV. The day at length arrives, the long wished day for the sailing of the Annis; and Ben gladly hails it as the fairest he had ever seen. All in the stream the ship she lies, Her topsails loosen'd from above, When Ben to DEBBY fondly flies To bid farewell to his TRUE LOVE. But brightly as shone the day, yet in this, as in all the past, he found a canker. If the season served his ambition, it crossed his love. The reader will please be reminded that the _Debby_, immortalized in the lines above, was the beautiful Miss Deborah Read, who had at first so heartily laughed at Ben for munching his roll along the street; but afterwards had fallen very much in love with him. And, on the other hand, living in her father's family, and daily a spectator of her prudence and sweetness of spirit, he had become equally partial to her; and had even asked her in marriage, before he set out for London. The old gentleman, her father, was quite keen for the match, it having always been his opinion, he said, that in choosing a husband for his daughter, it was better to get _a man without money, than money without a man_. But old Mrs. Read flatly refused her consent; or, at any rate, until his return, when, as she said, it would be full time enough for "_such young people to marry_." The truth is, the printing trade, then in its infancy in Pennsylvania, was of such little account that the old lady had her fears that her daughter would _starve_ if she married Ben. Having taken leave of his fair sweetheart, with many a vow of love and swift return, Ben, accompanied by Ralph, hastened on board the ship, which fell down the river for Newcastle. Immediately on his arrival at this place, he went on shore to see his dear friend the governor, who was come down to despatch the packet. The governor could not be seen! This was a sad shock to Ben, and would have been much more so, but for the attentions of the governor's secretary, Dr. Bar, who, with the finest smile imaginable, presented the "GOVERNOR'S _compliments to his young friend Mr. Franklin--was extremely sorry indeed he could not see him, owing to a press of business, among which was that of writing some letters for his own special service, which should be sent on board to him--but though his_ EXCELLENCY _could not enjoy the pleasure of seeing Mr. Franklin, yet he begged he would accept the assurances of his eternal friendship, with the best wishes for his prosperous voyage and speedy return; and above all, his earnest hopes that he would continue to improve his extraordinary talents_." Though this was to Ben somewhat like a sugar-plumb to a child after a dose of wormwood, yet could it not so entirely take off the bitter, but that he was at first prodigiously in a humour to break with the governor. His characteristic prudence, however, came to his aid; and fortunately recollecting that it was not a common man, but a GOVERNOR, he was dealing with, and that such great men have their ways of doing things quite different from little people, he smothered his resentment, and went peaceably on board the ship--not even yet suspecting any fraud on the part of the governor. When we consider how dear to the young and virtuous bosom is the glow of gratitude to benefactors, we cannot but mourn that governor Keith should so cruelly have chilled those joys in the bosom of our young countryman. But, though chilled for a moment, they were not extinct. The heavy heart which he at first felt on being denied the pleasure of seeing the governor, is already much relieved by his gracious message through the secretary, and afterwards so completely cured by the sublime and beautiful scenes around Newcastle, that he went back to the ship in good spirits again. On the return of the last boat, bringing the mail, he modestly asked the captain for the letters which the governor had addressed to his care. To this the rough son of Neptune replied, "_that they were all there_, he supposed, _higglety, pigglety, together in the letter bag, and that as the ship with a fine breeze was getting under weigh, he could not spare the time now to make a search for them, but that before they got to London he might overhaul the bag and take 'em out for himself_." Ben was perfectly satisfied with this answer. And charmed at thought of the great things awaiting him in London, he threw off his coat and bravely joined the crew in all their haste and bustle to weigh the anchor, and spread the sails before the freshening gale. But while the sailors, many of them at least, poor fellows, for lack of education, were straining at the clanking windlass, or creaking halyards, as void of thought as the timber-heads of the ship, the spirits of Ben were in a constant succession of pleasurable reflections on the magnificent scenes around him--the grand floating castle which bore him so high above the foaming billows--the rapid flight of the ship, as flying before the stormy winds she left the lessening shores behind her--the boundless fields of the blue rolling ocean, with all her porpoises gathering round in blackening shoals, bounding and blowing, as if to greet the monster vessel, and by their furious romps, adding to the crash and foam of the tempest. Though Ben was no poet, nor ever affected to be "_religious overmuch_," yet could he not behold such magnificent scenes without that adoring sense of eternal power and goodness which has been so elegantly expressed by the sweet voice of Zion:-- "Shout to the Lord, ye surging seas, In your eternal roar; Let wave to wave resound his praise, And shore reply to shore. "While monsters sporting on the flood In scaly silver shine, Speak terribly their Maker--God, And lash the foaming brine." CHAPTER XXVI. _Ben getting into trouble--finds out his old friend governor Keith to be a black sheep--and learns that a good trade and virtuous habits are the best wealth that a father can give his son._ "Who dares think one thing and another tell, My soul abhors him like the gates of hell." On the arrival of the ship in the Thames (or London river) the captain, like an honest fellow of his word, ordered the letter-bag on deck, and told Ben he was welcome now to overhaul it and pick out the governor's letters to him. After eagerly turning them all over and over again, not a single letter could he find that had his name on it, either directed to himself, or to his care. He picked out however a few that seemed to have some little squinting that way, one especially, that was directed to a PRINTER, and another to a BOOKSELLER. These he immediately carried to their respective owners. But in place of those smiles and prompt offers of money and merchandize, which his illustrious patron, governor Keith, had promised him, scarcely were his letters opened before they were nearly thrown back into his face, as coming from a couple of scoundrel debtors, who, instead of paying off their old scores, were now impudently asking for new credits. Here were strong symptoms of treachery on the part of the governor. And in spite of all his credulity, Ben was brought to his doubtings. In this dilemma he went back to a worthy Quaker of the name of Denham, with whom he had contracted a great friendship on ship-board, and told him the whole story from beginning to end. With all his professional gravity, Denham could not help smiling, as Ben related the history of his credulity: but when he came to tell of governor Keith's LETTERS of _Credit_, and the vast supplies of TYPES, and PAPER, and PRESSES, which they were instantly to procure him, he broke into a horse laugh. "He give thee letters of credit, friend Benjamin! Governor Keith give thee letters of credit! Why, man, he has not credit for himself, no not for a brass farthing, from any one who ever heard of him." Poor Ben was struck "all in a heap"--dumb as a codfish. He stood for all the world like a shipwrecked sailor boy, who, after dreaming of gold and diamond coasts, and black-eyed Polls, and whole seas of grog, and mountains of segars, wakes up all at once, and finds himself, like poor Robinson Crusoe, on a desolate island, with not even a scape-goat of hope before him. In silence he rolled his eyes in woeful cogitation--for three months he had been feasting on the smiles and promises of his illustrious friend, governor Keith--for three months had been anticipating his grand Printing Establishment, in Philadelphia, and his complete triumph over old Keimer and Bradford--for three months he had been drinking in streams of rapture from the love-beaming eyes of the beauteous Miss Read, shortly as his wife to rustle in silks and roll in her carriage--but dearer still than all, for three months he had been looking forward to the time, close at hand, when his infirm parents should come to enjoy with him, in Philadelphia, the welcome repose of their age, in an elegant retreat, purchased for them, by his own virtues. But lo! in a moment the whole goodly structure is dissipated in smoke, leaving him pennyless and friendless, in a strange country, three thousand miles from home, and at a long, long distance from all these dear objects! Denham saw in Ben's looks what was passing in his heart; but knowing that it is good for virtuous and heroic minds to bear the cross in their youth, he suffered him to go on, undisturbed, with his dismal cogitations. But a young man early trained in the school of wisdom is not long to be depressed. After relieving his bosom with a deep sigh; he turned to Denham and said, in a plaintive tone, "_but was it not cruel in governor Keith to deceive me so?_" "Yes, Benjamin," replied Denham, "'twas, to our view, very cruel in the governor of Pennsylvania thus to deceive an inexperienced lad as thou art." Here Ben turning on him his fine blue eyes, softened by misfortune, said again to Denham, "_well, and what would you advise me?_" "Advise thee, Benjamin," replied Denham, in a cheerful tone, "why, I would advise thee not to give thyself one moment's uneasiness about this affair. Thee remembers the story of Joseph, does thee not? how he was betrayed by his brethren into Egypt, not only a poor lad like thee, but indeed a slave too? And yet this event, though at the time highly disheartening, proved to him in the end, one of the happiest incidents of his life. So, by good management, Benjamin, this may prove to thee. Thou art young, very young yet, with a plenty of time before thee; and this is a great city for thy business. Now if thou wilt but seek employment with some printer of distinction, thou mayest make thyself more completely master of thy trade, and also gain friends, that may enable thee to settle so much more advantageously in Philadelphia, as to make it good for thee that governor Keith ever betrayed thee here. And this will be a triumph much to thine own honour, as also to the benefit of other youth, who shall ever hear of thy story." As when a sweet breeze of the ocean suddenly strikes a becalmed ship, that with flapping sails lay tossing on the sluggish flood, instantly the joy-wakened billows roll a brighter foam, and the hearts of the sailors spring forward with transport to their native shores. Thus exhilarating to Ben's soul was the counsel of his friend Denham. Without a moment's loss of time he went, as his friend Denham had advised, and sought business at the offices of two of the most eminent book-printers in London, Palmer and Watts. With the latter he spent most of his time during his stay in England. This Palmer was an amiable man, and in Ben's countenance, now mellowed more than ordinary, by his late disappointment, he saw a something that interested him greatly in his favour. He asked Ben in what part of London he had learned the art of printing. Ben told him he had never set a type in London. "Aye! where then," said Palmer; "in Paris?" Ben replied, that he was just from Pennsylvania, in North America; and that what little he knew of printing he had picked up there. Palmer, though, in other respects, amiable, was one of those thorough-gone COCKNEYS, who can't believe that any thing can be learned out of the sound of "_Bow-bell_." He stared at Ben on saying he had learned to print in North America, as would a French petit maitre at one who said he had learned to _dance among the Hottentots_. "I am afraid, sir," said he to Ben, "that I cannot employ you, as I really felt a wish to do; for though I now command fifty workmen, I want a _Gabber_, _i.e._ a man uncommonly quick, and of a satirical turn. And in neither of these characters, sir, will you, probably, suit me, sir--however, sir, as it is late now, and I have business out, if you will call in the morning, we will see about it." Next morning, before sunrise, Ben waited at Palmer's office, where numbers of his journeymen, having heard of the young North American printer, were assembled to see him work. Palmer was not yet up. An apprentice went to inform him that the young printer from North America, was come. Presently Mr. Palmer made his appearance, looking somewhat confused. "And so you are a buckskin, sir," said he, rather cavalierly. "Yes sir," replied Ben, "I am a buckskin." "Well sir, I am afraid you'll not make your fortune by that here in London," said Palmer. "No sir," answered Ben, "I find it is thought a misfortune here, to have been born in America. But I hope it was the will of heaven, and therefore must be right." "Aye!" replied Palmer, a little tauntingly; "and so you have _preaching_ there too!! But do the buckskins generally stir so early as this?" Ben replied, that the Pennsylvanians were getting to find out that it was _cheap burning sun-light_. Here Palmer and his cockneys stared at him, as country buckskins are wont to do at a monkey, or parrot, or any such creature that pretends to mimic man. "You talk of _sun-light_, sir," said the foreman to Ben: "can you tell the cause of that wide difference between the light of the sun in England and America?" Ben replied that he had never discovered that difference. "What! not that the sun shines brighter in London than in America--the sky clearer--the air purer--and the light a thousand times more vivid--and luminous--and cheering--and all that?" Ben said that he could not understand how that could be, seeing it was the same sun that gave light to both. "The same sun, sir! the same sun!" replied the cockney, rather nettled, "I am not positive of that sir. But admitting that it is the same sun, it does not follow that it gives the same light in America as in England. Every thing, you know, suffers by going to the _West_, as the great French philosophers have proved; then why not the sun?" Ben said he wondered the gentleman should talk of the sun going to the west. "What, the sun not go to the west!" retorted the cockney, quite angry, "a pretty story, indeed. You have eyes, sir; and don't these show you that the sun rises in the east and travels to the west?" "I thought, sir," replied Ben, modestly, "that your own great countryman, sir Isaac Newton, had satisfied every body that it is the earth that is thus continually travelling, and not the sun, which is stationary, and gives the same light to England and America." Palmer, who had much of the honest Englishman about him, equally surprised and pleased to see Ben thus chastise the pride and ignorance of his foreman, put a stop to the conversation by placing a composing stick in the hands of Ben, while the journeymen gathering around, marvelled hugely to see the young North American take _a composing stick in his hand_! Having spent a moment or two in running his eyes over the letter cases, to see if they were fixed as in the printing-offices in America, and glancing at his watch, Ben fell to work, and in less than four minutes finished the following-- "And Nathaniel said, can there any thing good come out of Nazareth?--Philip said, come and see." Palmer and his workmen were petrified. Near eighty letters set up in less than four minutes, and without a blunder? And then such a delicate stroke at their prejudice and nonsense! Ben was immediately employed. This was a fine introduction of Ben to the printing office, every person in which seemed to give him a hearty welcome; he wore his rare talents so modestly. It gave him also a noble opportunity to be useful, which he failed not to improve. Passing by one of the presses at which a small man, meagre and hollow-eyed, was labouring with unequal force, as appeared by his paleness and big-dropping sweat, Ben touched with pity, offered to give him "_a spell_." As the pressman and compositor, like the parson and the clerk, or the coffin-maker and the grave-digger are of entirely distinct trades in London, the little pressman was surprised that Ben, who was a compositor, should talk of giving him "_a spell_." However, Ben insisting, the little pressman gave way, when Ben seized the press, and possessing both a skill and spirit extraordinary, he handled it in such a workman-like style, that the men all declared they should have concluded he had done nothing but _press-work_ all his life. Palmer also, coming by at the time, mingled his applauses with the rest, saying that he had never seen a fairer impression; and, on Ben's requesting it, for _exercise_ and _health sake_, he permitted him to work some hours every day at press. On his entrance into Palmer's printing-office, Ben paid the customary _garnish_ or treat-money, for the journeymen to drink. This was on the first floor, among the pressmen. Presently Palmer wanted him up stairs, among the compositors. There also the journeymen called on him for _garnish_. Ben refused, looking upon it as altogether an unfair demand, and so Palmer himself, to whom it was referred, decided; insisting that Ben should _not pay_ it. But neither justice nor patronage could bear Ben out against the spite of the journeymen. For the moment his back was turned they would play him an endless variety of mischievous tricks, such as mixing his letters, transposing his pages, breaking down his matter, &c. &c. It was in vain he remonstrated against such injustice. They all with one accord excused themselves, laying all the blame on RALPH, for so they called a certain evil spirit who, they pretended, haunted the office and always tormented such as were not _regularly admitted_. Upon this Ben paid his garnish--_being fully convinced of the folly of not keeping up a good understanding with those among whom we are destined to live_. Ben had been at Palmer's office but a short time before he discovered that all his workmen, to the number of fifty, were terrible drinkers of porter, insomuch that they kept a stout boy all day long on the trot to serve them alone. Every man among them must have, viz. 1 A pint of porter before breakfast,--cost _d._1-1/2 1 A pint, with his bread and cheese, for breakfast, 1-1/2 1 A pint betwixt his breakfast and dinner, 1-1/2 1 A pint at his dinner, 1-1/2 1 A pint betwixt his dinner and night, 1-1/2 1 A pint after his day's work was done, 1-1/2 -- ----- 6 Total, three quarts!--equal to _nine pence sterling per day_! 9 A practice so fatal to the health and subsistence of those poor people and their families, pained Ben to the soul, and he instantly set himself to break it up. But they laughed him to scorn, boasting of their beloved porter, that it was "_meat and drink too_," and the only thing to give them _strength_ to work. Ben was not to be put out of heart by such an argument as this. He offered to prove to them that the strength they derived from the beer could only be in proportion to the barley dissolved in the water of which the beer was made--that there was a larger portion of flour in a penny loaf; and that if they ate this loaf and drank a pint of water with it, they would get more strength than from a pint of beer. But still they would not hearken to any thing said against their darling beer. Beer, they said, was "_the liquor of life_," and beer they must have, or _farewell strength_. "Why, gentlemen," replied Ben, "don't you see me with great ease carry up and down stairs, a large form of letters in each hand; while you, with _both_ hands, have much ado to carry one? And don't you perceive that these heavy weights which I bear produce no manner of change in my breathing, while you, with only half the weight, cannot mount the stairs without puffing and blowing most distressingly? Now is not this sufficient to prove that water, though apparently the weakest, is yet in reality the strongest liquor in nature, especially for the young and healthy?" But alas! on most of them, this excellent logic was all thrown away. "The ruling passion, be it what it will-- The ruling passion governs reason still." Though they could not deny a syllable of Ben's reasoning, being often heard to say that, "THE AMERICAN AQUATIC (or _water drinker_) as they called him, was much stronger than any of the beer drinkers," still they would drink. "But suppose," asked some of them, "we were to quit our beer with bread and cheese for breakfast, what substitute should we have?" "Why, use," said Ben, "the substitute that I do; which is a pint of nice oat-meal gruel brought to me from your beer-house, with a little butter, sugar and nutmeg, and a slice of dry toast. This, which is more palatable and still less costly than a pint of beer, makes a much better breakfast, and keeps the head clearer to boot. At dinner I take a cup of cold water, which is the wholesomest of all beverages, and requires nothing but a little use, to render it as pleasant. In this way, gentlemen, I save _nine_ pence sterling every day, making in the year nearly _three thousand pence_! an enormous sum, let me tell you, my friends, to a small family; and which would not only save parents the disgrace of being dunned for trifling debts, but also procure a thousand comforts for the children." Ben did not entirely lose his reward, several of his hearers affording him the unspeakable satisfaction of following his counsel. But the major part, "_poor devils_," as he emphatically styled them, "_went on to drink--thus continuing all their lives in a state of voluntary poverty and wretchedness!!_" Many of them, for lack of punctuality to pay the publican, would often have their porter stopped.--They would then apply to Ben to become security for them, _their light_, as they called it, _being out_. I never heard that he upbraided them with their folly; but readily gave his word to the publican, though it cost him the trouble of attending at the pay-table, every _Saturday night_, to take up the sums he had made himself accountable for. Thus, by virtue of the right education, _i.e._ a good trade, and early fondness for labour and books, did Ben rise, like a young swan of heaven, above the dark billows of adversity; and cover himself with glory in the eyes of these young Englishmen, who had at first been so prejudiced against him. And, better still, when night came, instead of sauntering with them to the filthy yet costly ale-houses and porter cellars, he hastened to his little chamber at his _frugal_ boarding-house, (only 1s. 6d. per week) there to enjoy the divine society of his books, which he obtained on _hire_ from a neighbouring book-store. And commanding, as he always did, through his steadiness and rapidity at work, all the _quick off-hand jobs_, generally the best paid, he might have made money and enjoyed great peace; but alas! there was a moth in his purse which kept him constantly poor; a canker in his peace which filled his life with vexation. That canker and that moth was his young friend Ralph, whom, as we have seen, he had made an infidel of in Philadelphia; and for which good office, Ralph, as we shall presently see, requited him as might have been expected. CHAPTER XXVII. "Who reasons wisely, is not therefore _wise_; His pride in reasoning, not in acting, lies." Some years ago a certain empiric whispered in the ear of a noble lord, in the British parliament, that he had made a wonderful discovery. "Aye," replied the nobleman, staring; "a wonderful discovery, say you!" "Yes, my lord, a wonderful discovery indeed! A discovery, my lord, beyond Gallileo, Friar Bacon, or even the great sir Isaac Newton himself." "The d----l! what, beyond sir Isaac?" "Yes, 'pon honour, my lord, beyond the great sir Isaac. 'Tis true his ATTRACTIONS and GRAVITATIONS and all that, are well enough; very clever things to be sure, my lord; but still nothing in comparison of this." "Zounds, man, what can it be?" "Why, my lord--please come a little this way--now, in confidence, my lord--I've been such a lucky dog as to discover the wondrous art of raising a breed of sheep _without wool_!" The nobleman, who, it is thought, was not very nearly related to Solomon, had like to have gone into fits. "What sir," asked he, with a countenance wild-staring with amazement, "a breed of sheep without wool! impossible!" "Pardon me, my lord, it is very possible, very true. I have indeed, my lord, discovered the adorable art of raising a breed of sheep without a lock of wool on their backs! not a lock, my lord, any more than there is here on the back of my hand." "Your fortune is made, sir," replied the nobleman, smacking his hands and lifting both them and his eyes to heaven as in ecstasy--"Your fortune is made for ever. Government, I am sure, sir, will not fail suitably to reward a discovery that will immortalize the British nation." Accordingly, a motion to that purpose was made in the _House of Lords_, and the empiric was within an ace of being created a peer of the realm; when, most unfortunately, the duke of Devonshire, a district famed for sheep, got up and begged a little patience of the house until it could be fully understood what great benefit the nation was to derive from a flock of sheep without wool. "Why, zounds! my lords," said the noble duke, "I thought all along that wool was the _main chance_ in a flock of sheep." A most learned discussion ensued. And it being made apparent to the noble lords, that wool is _actually_ the basis of broadcloths, flannels, and most other of the best British manufactures--and it being also made apparent to the noble lords, which was another great point gained, that two good things are better than one, _i.e._ that wool and mutton together, are better than mutton by itself, or wool by itself, the motion for a TITLE was unanimously scouted: and in place of a pension the rascal had like to have got a prison, for daring thus to trump up a vile discovery that would have robbed the world of one its greatest comforts. Just so, to my mind at least, it fares with all the boasted discoveries of our modern atheists. Admitting that these wonderful wizards could raise a nation of men and women without religion, as easily as this, their brother conjurer, could a breed of Merinos without wool--still we must ask _cui bono_? that is, what _good_ would it be to the world? Supposing they could away at a dash, with all sense of so glorious a being as God, and all comfort of so mighty a hope as heaven, what benefit would it bring to man or beast? But, God be praised, this dismal question about the consequence of discarding religion need not be asked at this time of day. These gentlemen without religion, like bell-wethers without wool, do so constantly betray their nakedness, I mean their want of morality, that the world, bad as it is, is getting ashamed of them. Here, for example, is master Ralph, who, for reasons abundantly convenient to himself, had accompanied Ben to London--Ben, as he himself confesses, had lent a liberal hand to make Ralph a sturdy infidel, that is, to free him from the restraints of the gospel. Now mark the precious fruits of this boasted freedom. Getting displeased with the parents of a poor girl, whom he had married, he determines to quit her for ever, as also a poor unoffending child he had by her, whom, by the ties of nature, he was bound to comfort and protect! Ben, though secretly abhorring this villany of Ralph, yet suffered himself to be so enamoured of his vivacity and wit, as to make him an inmate. "We were," says Ben, "_inseparable companions_." Very little cause had he, poor lad! as he himself owns afterwards, to boast of this connexion. But it was fine sport for Ralph; for having brought no money with him from America but what just sufficed to pay his passage, and knowing what a noble drudge Ben was, and also that he had with him fifteen pistoles, the fruits of his hard labours and savings in Philadelphia, he found it very convenient to hang upon him; not only boarding and lodging at his expense, and at his expense going to plays and concerts, but also frequently drawing on his dear yellow boys, the pistoles, for purposes of private pleasure. If the reader should ask, how Ralph, even as a man of honour, could reconcile it to himself, thus to devour his friend, let me, in turn, ask what business had Ben to furnish Ralph the very alphabet and syntax of this abominable lesson against himself? And, if that should not be thought quite to the point, let me ask again, where, taking the fear of God out of the heart, is the difference between a man and a beast? If man has reason, it is only to make him ten-fold more a beast. Ralph, it is true, did no work; but what of that? He wrote such charming poetry--and spouted such fine plays--and talked so eloquently with Ben of nights!--and sure this was a good offset against Ben's hard labours and pistoles. At any rate Ralph thought so. Nay, more; he thought, in return for these sublime entertainments, Ben ought to support not only him, but also his concubine. Accordingly he went and scraped acquaintance with a handsome young widow, a milliner, in the next street: and what with reading his fine poetry to her, and spouting his plays, he got so completely into her good graces, that she presently turned actress too; and in the "COMEDY OF ERRORS," or "ALL FOR LOVE," played her part so unluckily, that she was hissed from the stage, by all her virtuous acquaintance, and compelled to troop off with a big belly to another neighbourhood, where Ralph continued to visit her. The reader will hardly wonder, when told that Ralph and his fair milliner soon found the bottom of Ben's purse. He will rather wonder what sort of love-powder it was that Ben took of this young man that could, for such a length of time, so fatally have befooled him. But Ben was _first in the transgression_. Like Alexander the coppersmith, he had done Ralph "_much harm_," and "God, who is wiser than all, had ordained that he should be "_rewarded according to his works_. CHAPTER XXVIII. "Learn to be wise from others' ill, And you'll learn to do full well." As nothing is so repellant of base minds as poverty, soon as Ralph found that Ben's pistoles were all gone, and his finances reduced to the beggarly ebb of living _from hand to mouth_, he "_cleared out_," and betook himself into the country to teach _school_, whence he was continually writing fine poetical epistles to Ben, not forgetting in every postscript, to put him in mind of his dear Dulcinea, the fair milliner, and to commend her to his kindness. As to Ben, he still persevered, after Ralph's departure, in his good old habits of industry and economy--never indulging in tobacco or gin--never sauntering to taverns or play houses, nor at any time laying out his money but on books, which he always visited, as frugal lovers do their sweethearts, at night. But still it would not all do. He could lay up nothing. The daily postage of Ralph's long poetical epistles, with the unceasing application of the poor milliner, kept his purse continually in a galloping consumption. At length he obtained a release from this unpleasant situation, though in a way that he himself never could think of afterwards without a blush. After very frequent loans of money to her, she came, it seems, one night to his lodgings on the old errand--_to borrow half a guinea_! when Ben, who had been getting too fond of her, took this opportunity to offer freedoms which she highly resented. This Ben tells himself, with a candour that will for ever do him credit among those who know that the confession of folly is the first step on the way to wisdom. "Having, at that time," says he, "no ties of religion upon me, and taking advantage of her necessitous situation, I attempted liberties (_another great error of my life_,) which she repelled with _becoming indignation_. She informed Ralph; and the affair occasioned a breach between us. When he returned to London, he gave to understand that he considered all the obligations he owed me as annihilated by this proceeding; and that I was not to expect _one farthing of all the monies I had lent him_." Ben used to say, many years afterwards, that this conduct of his friend Ralph put him in mind of an anecdote he had some where heard, of good old Gilbert Tenant: the same that George Whitefield generally called HELL-FIRE TENANT. This eminent divine, believing _fear_ to be a much stronger motive with the multitude than _love_, constantly made a great run upon that passion in all his discourses. And Boanerges himself could hardly have held a candle to him in this way. Nature had given him a countenance which he could, at will, clothe with all the terrors of the tornado. And besides he had a talent for painting the scenes of dread perdition in such colours, that when aided by the lightning of his eyes, and the bursting thunders of his voice, it was enough to start the soul of lion-hearted innocence; what then of rabbit-livered guilt? The truth is, he wrought miracles in New-Jersey: casting out devils--the devils of drunkenness, gambling, and lust, out of many a wretch _possessed_. Among the thousands whom he thus frightened for their good, was a tame Indian of Woodbury, who generally went by the name of Indian-Dick. This poor savage, on hearing Mr. Tenant preach, was so terrified, that he fell down in the meeting house, and roared as if under the scalping knife. He lost his stomach: and even his beloved bottle was forgotten. Old Mr. Tenant went to see Dick, and rejoiced over him as a son in the gospel;--heartily thanking God for adding this INDIAN GEM to the crown of his glory. Not many days after this, the man of God took his journey through the south counties of New-Jersey, calling the poor clam-catchers of Cape May to repentance. As he returned and drew near to Woodbury, lo! a great multitude! He rejoiced in spirit, as hoping that it was a meeting of the people to hear the word of God: but the uproar bursting upon his ear, put him in doubt. "Surely," said he, "this is not the voice of praise; 'tis rather, I fear, the noise of drunkenness." And so it was indeed; for it being a day of election, the friends of the candidates had dealt out their brandy so liberally that the street was filled with sots of every degree, from the simple _stagger_ to the _dead drunk_. Among the rest, he beheld his Indian convert, poor Dick, under full sail in the street, reeling and hallooing, great as a sachem. Mr. Tenant strove hard to avoid him; but Dick, whose quick eye had caught the old pie-balled horse that Tenant rode on, instantly staggered towards him. Tenant put forth all his horsemanship to avoid the interview. He kicked old Pie-ball in one flank, and then in the other; pulled this rein and then that; laid on _here_ with his staff, and laid on _there_; but all would not do; unless he could at once ride down the drunken beasts, there was no way of getting clear of them. So that Dick, _half shaved_ as he was, soon got along side of old Pie-ball, whom he grappled by the rein with one hand, and stretching forth the other, bawled out, "_how do? how do, Mr. Tenant?_" Tenant could not look at him. Still, Dick, with his arm full extended, continued to bawl, "_how do, Mr. Tenant, how do?_" Finding that there was no getting clear of him, Mr. Tenant, red as crimson, lifted up his eyes on Dick, who still, bold as brandy, stammered out, "_High, Mr. Tenant! d-d-d-don't you know me, Mr. Tenant? Don't you know Indian Dick? Why, sure, Mr. Tenant, you are the man that converted me?_" _"I converted you!" replied Tenant, nearly fainting._ "_Yes_, roared Dick, _I'll be d-d-d-nd, Mr. Tenant, if you an't the very man that converted me_." "Poor fellow!" said Tenant, with a heavy sigh, "you look like one of my _handiworks_. Had God Almighty converted you, you would have looked like another guess sort of a creature." From Ben's constantly relating this story of old Tenant and Indian Dick, whenever he mentioned the aforesaid case of Ralph's baseness, many of his acquaintance were of opinion, that Ben thereby as good as acknowledged, that at the time he took Ralph in hand, he did not altogether understand the art of converting; or, that at any rate, it would have been much better for Ralph, if, as Mr, Tenant said of Indian Dick, _God Almighty had converted him_. He would hardly, for the sake of a harlot, have so basely treated his best friend and benefactor. CHAPTER XXIX. _Ben resolves to return to America.--Anecdote of a rare character._ "A wit's a feather, and a chief's a rod, An _honest_ man's the noblest work of God." Ben used, with singular pleasure, to relate the following story of his Quaker friend Denham. This excellent man had formerly been in business as a Bristol merchant; but failing, he compounded with his creditors and departed for America, where, by his extraordinary diligence and frugality, he acquired in a few years a considerable fortune. Returning to England, in the same ship with Ben, he invited all his old creditors to a dinner. After thanking them for their former kindness and assuring them that they should soon be paid, he begged them to take their seats at table. On turning up their plates, every man found his due, principal and interest, under his plate, in shining gold. This was the man after Ben's own heart. Though he never found in Denham any of those flashes of wit, or floods of eloquence, which used so to dazzle him in Ralph, yet he contracted such a friendship for him, on account of his honesty and Quaker-like meekness, that he would often steal an hour from his books at night, to go and chat with him. And on the other hand, Ben's steady and persevering industry, with his passion for knowledge, had so exalted him in Denham's esteem, that he was never better pleased than when his _young friend Franklin_, as he always called him, came to see him. One night Denham asked Ben how he would like a trip to America? "Nothing on earth would so please me," replied Ben, "if I could do it to advantage." "Well, friend Benjamin," said Denham, "I am just a-going to make up a large assortment of goods for a store in Philadelphia, and if fifty pounds sterling a year, and bed and board with myself, will satisfy thee, I shall be happy of thy services to go and live with me as my clerk." The memory of his dear Philadelphia, and the many happy days he had spent there, instantly sprung a something at his heart that reddened his cheeks with joy. But the saddening thought of his total unacquaintedness with commerce, soon turned them pale again. "I should be happy indeed to accompany you," replied he, with a deep sigh, "if I were but qualified to do you justice." "O! as to that, friend Benjamin, don't be uneasy," replied Denham: "If thou art not qualified _now_, thou soon wilt be. And then as soon as thou art fit; I'll send thee with a cargo of corn and flour to the West Indies, and put thee in a way wherein, with such talents and industry as thine, thee may soon make a fortune." Ben was highly delighted with this proposal, for though fifty pounds a year was not so much as he could earn at printing, yet the prospects in other respects were so much greater. Added to this, he was getting heartily tired of printing. He had tried it five years at Boston, three at Philadelphia, and now nearly two in London. At all these places he had worked without ceasing; had lived most sparingly; had left no stone unturned; and after all was now, in his twenty-first year, just as indigent as when he began! "Scurvy, starving business!" thought he to himself, "'tis high time to quit you! and God be thanked for this fair opportunity to do it; and now we will shake hands and part for ever." Taking leave now of the printing business, and as he believed and wished, _for ever_, he gave himself up entirely to his new occupation, constantly going from house to house with Denham, purchasing goods and packing them. When every thing was safe on board, he took a little leisure to visit his friends, and amuse himself. This was a rule which he observed through life--to do business first, and then enjoy pleasure without a sting. CHAPTER XXX. On the 23d of July, 1726, Ben, with his friend Denham, took leave of their London acquaintance, and embarked for America. As the ebbing current gently bore the vessel along down the amber coloured flood, Ben could not suppress his emotions, as he looked back on that mighty city, whose restless din was now gradually dying on his ear, as were its smoke-covered houses sinking from his view, perhaps for ever. And as he looked back, the secret sigh would arise, for the many toils and heart aches he had suffered there, and all to so little profit. But virtue, like the sun, though it may be overcast with clouds, will soon scatter those clouds, and spread a brighter ray after their transient showers. 'Tis true, eighteen months had been spent there, but they had not been _misspent_. He could look back upon them without shame or remorse. He had broken no midnight lamps--had knocked down no poor watchman--had contributed nothing to the idleness and misery of any family. On the contrary, he had the exceeding satisfaction to know, that he had left the largest printing-houses in London in mourning for his departure--that he had shown them the blessings of temperance, and had proselyted many of them from folly to wise and manly living. And though, when he looked at those eighteen months, he could not behold them, like eastern maidens, dowered with gold and diamonds, yet, better still, he could behold them like the "Wise Virgins," whose lamps he had diligently fed with the oil of wisdom, for some great marriage supper--perhaps that between LIBERTY and his COUNTRY. After a wearisome passage of near eleven weeks, the ship arrived at Philadelphia, where Ben met the perfidious Keith, walking the street alone, and shorn of all the short-lived splendours of his governorship. Ben's honest face struck the culprit pale and dumb. The reader hardly need be told, that Ben was too magnanimous to add to his confusion, by reproaching or even speaking to him. But as if to keep Ben from pride, Providence kindly threw into his way his old sweetheart, Miss Read. Here his confusion would have been equal to Keith's, had not that fair one furnished him with the sad charge against herself--of marrying during his absence. Her friends, after reading his letter to her, concluding that he would never return, had advised her to take a husband. But she soon separated from him, and even refused to bear his name; in consequence of learning that he had another wife. Denham and Ben took a store-house, and displayed their goods; which, having been well laid in, sold off very rapidly. This was in October, 1726. Early in the following February, when the utmost kindness on Denham's part, and an equal fidelity on Ben's, had rendered them mutually dear, as father and son; and when also, by their extraordinary success in trade, they had a fair prospect of speedily making their fortunes, behold! O, vanity of all worldly hopes! they were both taken down dangerously ill. Denham, for his part, actually made a die of it. And Ben was so far gone, at one time, that he concluded it was all over with him; which afforded a melancholy kind of pleasure, especially when he was told that his friend Denham, who lay in the next room, was dead. And when he reflected that now, since his good patron had left him, he should be turned out again upon the world, with the same hard struggles to encounter, and no prospect of ever being able to do any thing for his aged father, he felt a secret regret, that he was called back to life again. CHAPTER XXXI. Some people there are who tell us that every man is born for a particular walk in life, and that whether he will or not, in that walk he must go; and can no more quit it than the sun can quit his course through the skies. This is a very pleasing part of faith; and really there seems much ground for it. Certainly scripture, in many places, has a powerful squinting that way. And in the lives of many of our greatest men, we discover strong symptoms of it. The great Washington was, a dozen times and more within an ace of getting out of the only track that could have led him to the command of the American armies. But yet there seems to have been always some invisible hand to meet him at the threshold of his wanderings, and to push him back. Dr. Franklin also appears, on several occasions, to have been at the very point of breaking off from the printing business. But Heaven has decreed for him that walk in life, and in it he must move. And though blind at times, as Balaam's ass, he sought to turn out of the way, yet, crouch as he would, he still found at every turn a good angel to bring him back. First he was to have been a sailor out of Boston--then a swimming-master in London--then a merchant in America. But it would not all do. And though in this last brilliant affair, he seemed to have effected his escape, losing the black-fingered printer in the sprucely powdered merchant, yet, come back to the WORLD-ENLIGHTENING TYPES he must--for Denham dies, and with him all the grand castles which Ben had built in the air. Still averse to the printing business, he tries hard for another place _behind the counter_, but nobody will take him in. His money at length gone, and every avenue to honest bread hedged up against him, he is constrained to take refuge in his old trade. Keimer, his former employer, who well knew his worth, waited on him, and made liberal offers if he would take charge of his printing-office. It must have been a sore trial to Ben to come under authority of a man whose ignorance and hypocrisy he so heartily despised; and who, he well knew, had nothing else in view, but just to get him to instruct his numerous apprentices, and then pick a quarrel and pack him off. But bad as he hated Keimer's vices, he still worse hated idleness and dependence, and therefore he accepted his invitation. He found Keimer's office in the old way, _i.e._ quite out of order, and miserably destitute of letters. There being at that time no such thing in America, as a type-foundry, this defect appeared at first utterly incurable. But Ben soon found a remedy. Having once, while he lived in London, glanced his eye on the practice of this art, he thought he could imitate it. And, by casting in clay, he presently created a fine parcel of letters in lead, which served at least, to keep the press from stopping. He also, on occasion, engraved a variety of ornaments for printing--made ink--gave an eye to the shop, and, in short, was in all respects the factotum of the establishment. But useful as he made himself, he had the mortification to find that his services became every day of less importance to Keimer, in proportion as his apprentices improved; and when Keimer paid Ben his second quarter's wages, he did it very grumblingly, and gave him to understand, that they were too heavy. By degrees he became less civil; was constantly finding fault, and seemed always on the point of coming to an open rupture. Ben bore it all very patiently, conceiving that his ill humour was owing to the embarrassment of his affairs. At length, however, the old wretch insulted him so grossly, and that under circumstances of all others the most provoking to a man of honest pride, _i.e._ in the presence of neighbours, that Ben could bear it no longer; but, after upbraiding him for his ingratitude, took up his hat and left him, begging a young man of the office to take care of his trunk, and bring it to him at night. The name of this young man was Meredith, one of Keimer's apprentices. He had taken a great liking to Ben, because that while Keimer, ignorant and crabbed, taught him nothing, Ben was every day giving him some useful lesson in his trade, or some excellent hint in morals, conducive to the government and happiness of his life. In the evening he came and entreated Ben not to think of quitting the printing office while he continued in it. "My dear sir," said he to Ben, "I beg you will take no notice of what this Keimer does. The poor man is always, as you see, _half shaved_; and no wonder, for he is over head and ears in debt--often selling his goods at prime cost, for the sake of _cash_--constantly giving credit without taking any account; and therefore cannot help shortly coming out of the little end of the horn, which will leave a glorious opening for you to make your fortune." Ben replied that he had nothing to begin with. "O, as to that difficulty," answered Meredith, "we can easily get over it. My father has a very high opinion of you, and will, I am sure, readily advance money to set us up, provided you will but go into partnership with me. I am no workman, but you are. And so, if you like, I will find the capital and you the skill, and let's go halves in the profits. By spring we can have in from London, our press, types, and paper, and then, as my time with Keimer will be out, we can fall to work at once, and make our _jacks_." As this was an offer not to be met with every day, Ben readily agreed to it, as also did old Mr. Meredith. But the old gentleman had a better motive in view than the pecuniary profits. He had marked, with great pleasure, Ben's ascendancy over his son, whom he had already wonderfully checked in his passion for tobacco and brandy. And he fondly hoped, that by this connexion his son would be perfectly cured. With this hope, he desired Ben to make him out the list of a _complete_ printing-office, which he immediately took to his merchant, with orders to import it without loss of time. Keimer was to know nothing of all this; and Ben, in the interim, was to get work with Bradford. On application, Bradford had no room. Ben, therefore, had to rest on his oars. This, however, was but for a short season: for Keimer getting a hint that he should be employed to print some New-Jersey paper money, that would require engravings and types which he knew nobody in Philadelphia but Ben could make; and fearful that Bradford, by engaging Ben, might deprive him of the job, sent a very civil message to Ben, telling him that "_old friends ought not to part on account of a few hasty words dropt in a passion_," and concluding with a pressing invitation to come back. Ben went back; and Keimer met him with a most cordial welcome. Although there was nothing in this poor old man to excite his esteem, yet Ben could not help feeling happy to see smiles of joy brightening over his withered face; and he then felt, though not for the first time, that though learning is a pleasant thing, yet one touch of "_kindred sentiment warm at the heart_," outweighs, in pure delight, all the learning in the world. CHAPTER XXXII. Keimer presently obtained what he so ardently wished, the printing of the New-Jersey paper-money, and flew into the office with the news to Ben, who immediately set about constructing a copper-plate press, the first that had ever been seen in Philadelphia. He also engraved various ornaments and devices for the bills; and putting every thing in readiness for their paper-money coinage, he set out with Keimer for Burlington, where the New-Jersey legislature held their session. At the first sight of Ben's paper-money, every eye was struck with its beauty. "_Why this Keimer must be a very clever old fellow!_" was the cry. But others who were deeper in the secret, replied, "not so; young Franklin is the man." Hereupon great attention was paid to Ben. And he was sensibly taught, that though he had been grievously tried and held back in the world, yet he had much cause of gratitude. Presently another affair arose, furnishing him fresh matter of congratulation, that he had ever paid such attention to the improvement of his mind. Fearing that our Philadelphia printers might strike off _more money bills_ than they had been desired, the New-Jersey Assembly thought proper to send two or three commissioners to superintend the press. These gentlemen, all of the shrewd sort, and constantly with them while at work, soon found out the difference between the master and his young journeyman. Keimer, though a printer, had never been a reader. Ben had devoted all his leisure hours to reading. The one had ever courted pleasure in the furniture of his mind: the other, popularity in the decorations of his body. The shape of his whiskers; the cock of his hat; the cut of his coat, were great things with Keimer. Every trick at easy outside show was caught up by him. Among other dashes at popularity, he pretended to be a freemason, and was constantly grinning and making his signs. But it would not all do. The New-Jersey commissioners knew nothing of Jachin and Boaz. So that though, while Ben, stripped to the buff, was heaving at the press, old Keimer would stand by, stately as a prince at his levee, his attitude perpendicular as the _plummet_, and his feet perfectly on the _square_, with his gilt snuff-box nicely poised in his left hand, and his right, bespangled with rings, tastily carrying the fragrant Maccabau to his nostrils, courting the commissioners--yet, as before said, it would not all do. The commissioners wanted new ideas, and Keimer had none to give them. He had a pompous way of saying yes or no. And this was all they could get from him in answer to their questions. Presently they turned to Ben, whom by the by, they hardly thought it worth while to interrogate, considering the character of his master, and his own young and raw appearance. But in place of the old YES and NO of master Keimer, Ben gave them such answers to their questions, as at once surprised and delighted them. He was slow to speak, but when the commissioners, curious to explore his intellect, which had so unexpectedly startled them, purposely put a number of deep questions to him on the subject of their paper-money, such as its effects on agriculture and commerce, and the laws that should regulate its quantity, he answered all in his own peculiar way of sagacious brevity, that made them declare he must have studied nothing else all his life. The reports which these gentlemen made in his favour, produced their natural effect. Ben was invited every where, and treated with the most flattering attention; while Keimer, though his employer, was entirely neglected, or invited only as a compliment to Ben. Among the many wealthy and great ones, his admirers, was the inspector general, Isaac Deacon, a cunning old fox, and rich as a Jew. He could never rest without Ben at his house. "_Young man_," said he one day, as Ben was hard at work, "_I am mightily taken with you_, and let me tell you, I never look at you without thinking of myself, as I was at your time of life. Now, do you know what was my first employment, when I was a boy?" Ben replied that that was a question beyond his reach. "Well then, I will tell you, sir, if you can but believe me. I'll tell you. My first employment was to carry clay to the brick-makers!" "Impossible!" said Ben. "No, indeed, not impossible at all, but very certain. Yes, many a hot day have I carried the clay, and so daubed with it all over, that my own mother would hardly have told me from her house pig. Well, after that I became an underling to a surveyor, and dragged his chain many a day through the woods; and all the time did not know '_B from a bull's foot_.' But the surveyor was a good man, sir, and taught me to read and write. Ah! _them were dark times_, sir, _dark times_; all living here like Indians in the woods. A young man, printing his books and pictures like you, would have been looked on as a conjurer. And now let me tell you one thing. Don't you be discouraged, but keep up a good heart. A _little_, making every day, makes a great deal in a long life. And I am mistaken if you don't make a fortune, and come out a great man yet some of these days." CHAPTER XXXIII. Having finished printing the New-Jersey money, Ben, accompanied by Keimer, set out for Philadelphia, where he had scarcely arrived before in came Meredith, with a face of joy, and taking Ben aside, told him that their press and types were all come. Immediately the two friends went forth in search of a good house and stand, which they were so lucky as to find near the market, at twenty-four pounds _a year_! The fixing and putting all their things to rights, having consumed every penny of their money, our young beginners were at their wit's end what to be at. In this extremity, one of their acquaintance, a Mr. George House, brought them a countryman who wanted some advertisements for a cow he had lost. Ben soon had the old cow up for him in a "_staring_" shape, which so pleased the honest rustic, that he instantly counted them down their _five shillings_. Never did five shillings come more acceptably. The gratitude which Ben felt towards George House for this little kindness, fixed on him a determination from that day, "_never to miss an opportunity to lend a helping hand to young beginners_." His favourite young Hercules, the PRINTING-OFFICE, which had been so long labouring in his brain, being now happily brought to birth, Ben determined immediately to give it the countenance and support of another noble bantling of his own. I allude to his famous club, called the "Junto," a kind of Robinhood society, composed of young men desirous of improving themselves in knowledge and elocution, and who met one night every week, to discuss some interesting question in morals, politics, or philosophy. The members at first were but few; but Ben, now a complete master of his pen, made such a dash with their speeches in his _newspaper_, that the Junto soon got to be the talk of the town; and members were added to it daily. Ben was unanimously appointed moderator of the club; and in reward for the great pleasure and profit derived from this noble, mind-improving institution, the members all agreed to support his printing-office. This was of service; but its principal support was derived from a still higher source; I mean his own astonishing industry. No sooner was it known in town that Ben had set up a new paper and press, under the very nose of two others, Keimer's and Bradford's, than it became a matter of speculation whether it could possibly stand. The generality gave into the negative. But Dr. Bard, a shrewd old Scotchman, who well knew the effect of persevering industry on young men's fortunes, laughed heartily at the doubters. "_Stand_," said he, "_gentlemen_! Yes, take my word it _will stand_. The industry of that young Franklin will make any thing stand. I see him still at work when I return from my patients at midnight, and he is at it again in the morning before his neighbours are out of bed." Ben was fairly entitled to his praise. He generally composed and corrected ten to twelve thousand m's a day, though it constantly took him till near midnight. But so intent was he on finishing this incredible task, that when accident had deranged a good half of his hard day's work, he has been known to fall to work and set it up again before he went to bed. The reputation acquired by this industry, made such an impression in his favour, that the merchants, many of them, made him liberal offers of their stationary on _credit_. But, not wishing to have "_too many irons in the fire_," he declined their offers, which added to his reputation of an _industrious_ young man, that of an _upright_ and _cautious_ one. This is mentioned, not so much for praise of the _dead_, as for a _hint_ to the living. Business began now to make a flood-tide movement in the new printing-office, and Ben made such good use of it, and picked up money so fast, that he was in hopes he had nearly thrown all his troubles over the "_left shoulder_." But in this he was miserably mistaken; for presently, as if there was to be no end to troubles, there leaped out another, more alarming than all before. Old Meredith, finding that Ben had not cured his son of his drunken fits, _took a miff_, and all at once _backed out_ of his promise to pay for their press and printing materials! and the merchant who imported these costly articles, and who had for some time been expecting his money, commenced a suit, and threatened immediate execution! Poor Ben! Imagination sees him, at first, standing like a luckless merchant, who, after two noble ventures swallowed up, now beholds the breakers that are to swallow up his third, and _last_ hope--"Yes," thought he, "but a few short weeks and my press and type will be under the hammer; all my delightful hopes annihilated; and myself turned adrift on the wide world again!" At this perilous moment, when nothing but infamy and ruin stared him in the face, God was pleased to cause his OWN VIRTUES to leap forth like an armed Minerva, with shield and buckler for his defence. His INDUSTRY and PRUDENCE having, as aforesaid, been trumpeted through the town, the public feelings were greatly excited by his misfortunes. "_Shame_," _said they_, "_that such a young man should fall. As to that drunken fellow, that Meredith, no matter how soon he is stripped and sent to jail. But this Franklin must not fall for want of a little help. It were a disgrace to the town._" Accordingly several gentlemen, two at least are recorded, Coleman and Grace, without each other's knowledge, called on him, and tendered whatever sum he should want!--but hoping at the same time he would, if possible, get quit of Meredith, who only served to disgrace and injure him; being often seen at _taverns_ and _gambling tables_. A relief so unexpected, and in a manner too so flattering, produced on the mind of Ben, a satisfaction beyond expression. After making the best acknowledgments he could to such noble benefactors, he begged they would allow him a day or two to effect, if possible, an honourable separation from Meredith. Fortunately he found no difficulty in this: for Meredith, heartily sick of the business, readily agreed, for a small consideration, to give him up the printing-office to himself. Ben then called on his two friends, accepted the proffered supply, taking exactly one half from each for fear of offending either, and making full settlement with the Merediths, took the whole business into his own hands. Ben's extreme alarm from the danger of having his printing-office seized, and its fortunate rescue by the amiable Coleman and Grace, has been very briefly narrated. But transient as this event may seem in our narrative, it produced on his feelings a glow of gratitude which kings might envy; and it led to an _act_ which Angels would glory in. The reader shall hear all in good time. CHAPTER XXXIV. Having now got the printing-office in his own hands, Ben began to find the unspeakable advantage of his past labours to acquire ideas, and to convey them handsomely by his pen. The town and country getting at this time prodigiously excited about a PAPER CURRENCY, Ben came out with a most luminous pamphlet, on "THE ADVANTAGES and DISADVANTAGES of a PAPER CURRENCY." The pamphlet gave such satisfaction to the legislature, that they rewarded him with the _printing_ of all their money bills. His pamphlet producing the same effect on the legislature of Delaware, they rewarded him in the same way--as also did both these legislatures by throwing into his way several other jobs of public printing. Money now coming in, he went at once, and paid his good friends Coleman and Grace what they had so nobly lent him. With a light heart he then wiped off that old score of VERNON'S, which had given him so much uneasiness, but which now receipted in _full_, _principal_ and _interest_, made him feel himself the freest, and therefore the happiest man in Pennsylvania. Money still coming in, he fitted up a few shelves in the front room of his printing-office, where he spread out an assortment of Books, Blanks, Paper and Quills; but all in the small way--for he always thought, that though "Vessels large may venture more, Yet little boats should keep near shore." Like a ship that after long tacking against winds and tides, through dangerous straits and shallows, has at last got safely out on the main ocean flood, and at liberty to lay her own course; such was now the condition of Ben; who hereupon felt it his duty immediately to take on board those two grand guides and guardians of his voyage--RELIGION and a GOOD WIFE. As to religion--the grum looks and bitter sectarian animosities of the christians in those wretched days, had early made a deist of him; and he, in turn, had made deists of others, as Collins and Ralph. But on coming to test the thing by its fruits, he found that this new religion (deism) was not yet the religion he could admire. He found that poor Collins, with all his deism, was but a drunkard--Ralph, an ungrateful swindler--governor Keith, a great rascal--and even himself, though a prime deist, yet in his treatment of Miss Read, as culpable as any of them all. This led him to a train of thought which resulted in the conclusion, that though he could not conceive that _bad actions are bad, merely because revelation forbids them; nor good actions good, because revelation enjoins them_: yet he doubted not but the former were forbidden, because they are _hurtful_, and the latter enjoined because they are _beneficial_ to us--all things considered. On this grand principle then, the inseparable connexion between VICE and MISERY, and VIRTUE and HAPPINESS, he determined from that day to shun the one, and embrace the other; thus summing up his religion in those beautiful lines:-- "What CONSCIENCE dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do; This teach me more than HELL to shun, That more than HEAVEN pursue." So much for his religion. As to his wife, his behaviour in this respect seems to have shown that there was some substance in the religious ground he had taken. Having, at the time of his sad disappointment in London, and when he despaired of ever marrying her, neglected his old sweetheart Miss Read, he resolved, now that he was getting into better circumstances, to make her all the amends in his power. 'Tis true, her mother, who had prevented the marriage before he set off for England, and during his absence had prevailed on her to marry another lover, was most in fault, and actually acquitted him, laying the blame altogether at her own door.--But Ben never acquitted himself; he felt condemned, and would therefore accept no _absolution_ while he could make _reparation_. He renewed his visits to the family, who were rejoiced to see him. He saw his old sweetheart, Miss Read; but O how altered from her who, formerly bright with love and joy, used to fly to the door to welcome his coming! How altered from her, whose rosy cheeks crimsoned with blushes, he so fondly kissed at taking leave for England, with sweetest promises of speedy return and blissful marriage. Pale and wan were her looks, where she sat silent, and retired, and often deeply sighing, like one much troubled in mind, or crossed in hopeless love. She never reminded him of his "_troth and broken vows_." But such patient suffering served but the more to harrow up his feelings. Each stifled sigh sounded in his ear as a death bell; and each tender glance carried a point keener than the lightning's fork. In a word, his heart was completely torn, and he had wisdom to seek its only cure--_reconciliation with the injured_. 'Tis true, pride whispered that Miss Read, having treated him with great disrespect by marrying in his absence, ought to be _punished_. But how could he think of revenge on a poor girl, whom his own neglect had driven to that desperate act! Avarice, too, remonstrated against marrying a woman, whose last husband had left debts which he might be ruined to pay. But Ben felt resolved, that as he had rendered this dear woman unhappy, he would restore her peace, whatever might be the cost. As the coming forth of the sun after clouds, such was the shining of conscious virtue on Ben's face, after such noble resolving. As a flower after long mourning its absent sun, rejoices again in his returning beams; so the soul of Miss Read rejoiced in the smiles of her returning lover. The hearts of her aged parents revived with the cheerful rose once more blooming on her pallid cheek; and heaven itself shed choicest blessings on their happy union. No debts of the former husband were ever exhibited against them. No foe was permitted to triumph. And while old Keimer, after all his roguery, was fain to run away from his creditors to the West Indies, where he died in poverty--and while his successor, Harry, elated with a puff of prosperity, and affecting the FINE GENTLEMAN, soon came out at the little end of the horn, Ben and his lovely bride, going on in their virtuous toils, prospered together like twin trees planted by the rivers of water. Lured by her pleasant looks, the book-store, over which she presided, was constantly thronged; and equally pleased with the neatness and fidelity of his printing, Ben's press was always at work. Happy in the tender wish to please, "each was to the other a dearer self." And whether their duties called them to the kitchen, the book-store, or the printing-office, they still found, in their mutual love, that divine cordial which lightened every burden and sweetened every care. Their table, though frugal, was delicious, because seasoned with smiles of mutual fondness. And doubly welcome the return of night, where Hymen, unreproved, had lighted up his sacred torch; and where pressed to the soft bosom of his affectionate spouse, the happy husband could take his fill of pure connubial bliss, without remorse or dread of danger. Such were the benefits which Ben derived from his generous dealings with the afflicted Miss Read; and as a farther reward, it was in this self same year, that Ben was enabled to _incorporate_ his grand library-company. This first of social blessings, a PUBLIC LIBRARY, was set on foot by Franklin, about the year 1731. Fifty persons subscribed forty shillings each, and agreed to pay ten shillings annually. The number increased; and in 1742, the company was incorporated, by the name of "The Library Company of Philadelphia." It now contains eight thousand volumes on all subjects, a philosophical apparatus, and a good beginning towards a collection of natural and artificial curiosities. The company have lately built an elegant house in Fifth street, on the front of which is erected a marble statue of their founder, Benjamin Franklin.[2] [2] The gift of William Bingham, Esq. The beneficial influence of this institution was soon evident. The cheapness of terms rendered it accessible to every one. Hence a degree of information was extended among all classes of people, which is very unusual in other places. The example was soon followed. Libraries were established in various places, and they are now become very numerous in the United States, and particularly in Pennsylvania. It is to be hoped, that they will be _still more widely extended_, and that information will be every where increased. This will be the best security for our liberties. _A nation who has been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them, cannot be enslaved. It is in the regions of ignorance alone that tyranny reigns._ In 1732, Franklin began to publish POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC. The eloquent Charles Fox used to say, that had Doctor Franklin written nothing else, his "Poor Richard's Almanac" were alone sufficient to immortalize him. Instead of being taken up, as too many Almanacs are, with trifling stories and fool-born jests, it abounds with the finest maxims on Industry, Temperance, and Frugality, thrown together with astonishing conciseness, and written with that happy mixture _of gravity_ and gaiety that captivates every body, and never tires. It took a wonderful run. From 10 to 15,000 a year were generally sold in Pennsylvania. And to this Almanac, in a considerable measure, may be ascribed that wonderful start which Pennsylvania has taken of the middle and southern states in all the REPUBLICAN VIRTUES, of INDUSTRY and ECONOMY, which point the WAY to WEALTH. Even the finest girls there, worth their thousands, don't think it beneath them, to "_lay hold on the distaff_," like Solomon's accomplished daughter, to swell the riches of the family _wardrobe_ and to improve the _savoury dishes_ of their parents. A foppish young fortune-hunter from the south, ventured sometime ago to pay his respects to the beautiful Miss Dickenson, one of the first fortunes in the state. Instead of finding her, as he had expected, idly lolling in a room of state, and bedizened in ribbands and laces, like a fairy queen, he found her attired in that simple dress of exquisite neatness which best sets off the rosy freshness of youthful beauty; and he found her, too, busied in some piece of domestic industry. He blushed to find her "_at work_!" After a world of compliments, all tending to make her out far too _divine a creature_ for such disparaging employments, he gave her to understand that she should not thus demean herself if she were in Carolina. "_What!_" replied she, with sarcastic pleasantry, "_don't the young ladies with you, read_ POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC?" Thus was this little annual visitor of Doctor Franklin's, a general blessing to the Pennsylvanians, making them all fond of industry. And Jacob did not more naturally beget Joseph and his twelve brethren than does industry beget INNOCENCE, and HEALTH, and WEALTH, and CHEERFULNESS, and all that lovely train of virtues, which tend to make men happy by driving away their vices. For who, for example, will ever get drunk who has no _debts_ nor _duns_ nor vices of any sort to make him _uneasy_? And who will ever _sell his birthright_ of an _honest vote_ for an electioneering dinner and a drink of grog, when he has fatted calves and wine of his own at home? This is Pennsylvania all over. In the Almanac for the last year that doctor Franklin ever published, he compressed the choicest sentiments of all the preceding editions, and entitled it "THE WAY TO WEALTH." It is not easy to do justice to this little work. American writers need not eulogize it. The British, and even the French into whose language it was quickly translated, have paid it the most flattering attention. Doctor Knox gave it a place in his "ELEGANT EXTRACTS;" and Lewis XV. on hearing it read, was so charmed with the admirable sense and humour of Poor Richard, that he gave orders for a new frigate, just launching, to be named, in honour of this famous nosegay of Franklin's, LE BON HOMME RICHARD, or "POOR RICHARD." I have heard nothing of this frigate or of any exploits of her's, while she was a new ship, and in the French service. But this I know, that in her latter days she was covered over with glory. This was the ship on which that gallant Scot, Paul Jones, hoisted the American flag in the great war of the revolution. Though the Poor Richard mounted but 36 guns, and was old and crazy besides, yet her commander had the audacity to carry her alongside of the SERAPIS, a British 44, and a new ship. It is true, the Alliance, an American frigate of the smallest class, was in company with the POOR RICHARD; but as Jones and his officers all declare, rendered him no assistance whatever. But though thus basely deserted by her consort in the hour of conflict with a mightier foe, yet did not the POOR RICHARD despair, but bravely grappled with her enemy at once, and after one of the bloodiest contests recorded in history, gloriously succeeded in hauling down her colours. The Poor Richard, however, but barely survived this dreadful four hours' conflict with such a heavy adversary. For as if only waiting to see the modest stars of liberty waving where the proud jack of tyranny had waved before, she bowed her head beneath a mountainous billow and went down--the glorious tomb of many of her gallant crew, embalmed, for dear liberty's sake, in their own heart's blood. As the reader might think it hard, after so much said about it to whet his curiosity, if we did not give him a squint at this famous "POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC," we hasten now to do ourselves the pleasure to lay it before him, in the last and best form wherein doctor Franklin gave it to the public, and under the same title, viz. "THE WAY TO WEALTH," or "POOR RICHARD," _improved_--which runs thus:-- COURTEOUS READER, I have heard that nothing gives an author so great pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by others. Judge, then, how much I must have been gratified by an incident I am going to relate to you. I stopped my horse lately, where a great number of people were collected at an auction of merchant's goods. The hour of the sale not being come, they were conversing on the badness of the times; and one of the company called to a plain, clean old man, with white locks, "Pray, father Abraham, what think you of the times? Will not these _heavy taxes_, quite ruin the country? How shall we be ever able to pay them? What would you advise us to do?" Father Abraham stood up, and replied, "If you would have my advice, I will give it you in short; 'for a word to the wise is enough,' as poor Richard says." They joined in desiring him to speak his mind, and gathering round him, he proceeded as follows:-- Friends, said he, the taxes are, indeed, very heavy; and, if those laid on by the government, were the only ones we had to pay, we might more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our _idleness_, three times as much by our _pride_, and four times as much by our _folly_; and from these taxes the commissioners cannot ease or deliver us, by allowing an abatement. However let us hearken to good advice, and something may be done for us; "God helps them that help themselves," as poor Richard says. I. It will be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part of their time, to be employed in its service: but idleness taxes many of us much more; sloth, by bringing on diseases, absolutely shortens life. "Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labour wears, while the used key is always bright," as poor Richard says. "But dost thou love life, then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of," as poor Richard says. How much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep? forgetting that the sleeping fox catches no poultry, and that "there will be sleeping enough in the grave," as poor Richard says. "If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be," as poor Richard says, "the greatest prodigality;" since, as he elsewhere tells us, "lost time is never found again; and what we call time enough, always proves little enough;" let us then up and be doing, and doing to the purpose; so by diligence shall we do more with less perplexity. "Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all easy; and he that riseth late, must trot all day, and shall scarce over take his business at night; while laziness travels so slowly, that poverty soon overtakes him. Drive thy business, let not that drive thee; and early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise," as poor Richard says. So what signifies wishing and hoping for better times? we may make these times better, if we bestir ourselves. "Industry need not wish, and he that lives upon hope will die fasting. There are no gains without pains; then, help hands for I have no lands," or if I have they are smartly taxed. "He that hath a trade, hath an estate; and he that hath a calling, hath an office of profit and honour," as poor Richard says; but then the trade must be worked at, and the calling well followed, or neither the estate nor the office will enable us to pay our taxes. If we are industrious, we will never starve; for at the working man's house, "hunger looks in but dares not enter." Nor will the bailiff or the constable enter, for "industry pays debts, while despair increaseth them." What, though you have found no treasure, nor has any rich relation left you a legacy, "diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all things to industry. Then plough deep while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn to sell and to keep." "Work while it is called to-day, for you know not how much you may be hindered to-morrow. One to-day is worth two to-morrows," as poor Richard says; and farther, "never leave that till to-morrow, which you can do to-day." If you were a servant, would you not be ashamed that a good master should catch you idle? Are you then your own master? be ashamed to catch yourself idle when there is so much to be done for yourself, your family, your relations, and your country. Handle your tools without mittens: remember that "the cat in gloves catches no mice," as poor Richard says. It is true, there is much to be done, and, perhaps, you are weak-handed; but stick to it steadily, and you will see great effects; for "constant dropping wears away stones; and by diligence and patience the mouse ate in two the cable; and little strokes fell great oaks." Methinks I hear some of you say, "must a man afford himself no leisure?" I will tell thee, my friend, what poor Richard says; "employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure; and, since thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour. Leisure is time for doing something useful; this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man never; for, a life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. Many, without labour would live by their wits only, but they break for want of stock: whereas industry gives comfort, and plenty, and respect. Fly pleasures, and they will follow you. The diligent spinner has a large shift; and now I have a sheep and a cow, every body bids me good-morrow." II. But with our industry, we must likewise be steady, settled and careful, and oversee our own affairs with our own eyes, and not trust too much to others; for, as poor Richard says, "I never saw an oft removed tree, Nor yet an oft removed family, That throve so well as those that settled be." And again, "three removes are as bad as a fire;" and again, "keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee;" and again, "if you would have your business done, go; if not, send." And again, "He that by the plough would thrive, Himself must either hold or drive." And again, "the eye of a master will do more work than both his hands;" and again, "want of care does us more damage than want of knowledge:" and again, "not to oversee workmen is to leave them your purse open." Trusting too much to others' care is the ruin of many; for, "in the affairs of this world, men are saved, not by faith, but by the want of it; but a man's own care is profitable;" for, "if you would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve yourself. A little neglect may breed great mischief; for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the enemy: all for want of a little care about a horse-shoe nail." III. So much for industry, my friends, and attention to one's own business; but to these we must add frugality, if we would make our industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, "keep his nose all his life to the grindstone, and die not worth a groat at last. A fat kitchen makes a lean will;" and, "Many estates are spent in the getting, Since women for tea forsook spinning and knitting, And men for punch forsook hewing and splitting." If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as of getting. The Indies have not made Spain rich because her outgoes are greater than her incomes. Away then with your expensive follies, and you will not then have so much cause to complain of hard times, heavy taxes, and chargeable families; for, "Women and wine, game and deceit, Make the wealth small, and the want great." And farther, "what maintains one vice will bring up two children." You may think, perhaps, that a little tea, or a little punch now and then, diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer, and a little entertainment now and then, can be no great matter; but remember, "many a little makes a mickle." Beware of little expenses; "a small leak will sink a great ship," as poor Richard says; and again, "who dainties love, shall beggars prove;" and moreover, "fools make feasts, and wise men eat them." Here you are all got together to this sale of fineries and nicknacks. You call them _goods_, but if you do not take care they will prove _evils_ to some of you. You expect they will be sold cheap, and, perhaps, they may, for less than they cost; but, if you have no occasion for them, they must be dear to you. Remember what poor Richard says, "buy what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessaries." And again, "at a great pennyworth pause awhile;" he means that perhaps the cheapness is apparent only, and not real or the bargain, by straitening thee in thy business, may do thee more harm than good. For in another place he says, "many have been ruined by buying great pennyworths." Again, "it is foolish to lay out money in a purchase of repentance:" and yet this folly is practised every day at auctions, for want of minding the Almanac. Many a one, for the sake of finery on the back, have gone with a hungry belly, and half starved their families; "silks and sattins, scarlet and velvets, put out the kitchen fire," as poor Richard says. These are not the necessaries of life, they can scarcely be called the conveniences: and yet only because they look pretty, how many want to have them. By these, and other extravagances, the genteel are reduced to poverty, and forced to borrow of those whom they formerly despised, but who through industry and frugality have maintained their standing; in which case it appears plainly, that "a ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees," as poor Richard says. Perhaps they have had a small estate left them, which they knew not the getting of: they think "it is day, and will never be night;" that a little to be spent out of so much is not worth minding: but "always taking out of the meal-tub, and never putting in, soon comes to the bottom," as poor Richard says; and then, "when the well is dry, they know the worth of water." But this they might have known before, if they had taken his advice. "If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some; for he that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing," as poor Richard says; and, indeed, so does he that lends to such people, when he goes to get it again. Poor Dick farther advises, and says, "Fond pride of dress is sure a very curse, Ere fancy you consult, consult your purse." And again, "pride is as loud a beggar as want, and a great deal more saucy." When you have bought one fine thing, you must buy ten more, that your appearance may be all of a piece; but poor Dick says, "it is easier to suppress the first desire, than to satisfy all that follow it." And it is as truly folly for the poor to ape the rich, as for the frog to swell to equal the ox. "Vessels large, may venture more, But little boats should keep near shore." It is, however, a folly soon punished; for, as poor Richard says, "pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy." And, after all, of what use is this pride of appearance, for which so much is risked, so much is suffered? It cannot promote health, nor ease pain; it makes no increase of merit in the person, it creates envy, it hastens misfortune. But what madness must it be to run in debt for these superfluities? We are offered, by the terms of this sale, six months credit; and that, perhaps, has induced some of us to attend it, because we cannot spare the ready money, and hope now to be fine without it. But ah! think what you do when you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty. If you cannot pay at the time, you will be _ashamed to see your creditor_; you will _be in fear when you speak to him_; you will make _poor, pitiful, sneaking excuses_, and by degrees, come to _lose your veracity_, and sink into _base, downright lying_; for "the second vice is lying, the first is running in debt," as poor Richard says; and again, to the same purpose, "lying rides on debt's back;" whereas a free American ought not to be ashamed, nor afraid to see or speak to any man living. But poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue. "It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright." What would you think of that nation, or of that government, who should issue an edict, forbidding you to dress like a gentleman or gentlewoman, on pain of imprisonment or servitude? Would you not say that you were free; have a right to dress as you please, and that such an edict would be a breach of your privileges, and such a government tyrannical? And yet you are about to put yourself under that tyranny when you run into debt for such a dress! your creditor has authority, at his pleasure, to deprive you of your liberty, by confining you in jail for life, or by selling you for a servant, if you should not be able to pay him: when you have got your bargain, you may perhaps think little of payment; but as poor Richard says, "creditors have better memories than debtors; creditors are a superstitious set, great observers of set days and times." The day comes round before you are aware, and the demand is made before you are prepared to satisfy it; or, if you bear your debt in mind, the term, which, at first seemed so long, will, as it lessens, appear extremely short; time will seem to have added wings to his heels, as well as his shoulders. "Those have a short Lent, who owe money at Easter." At present, perhaps, you may think yourself in thriving circumstances, and that you can bear a little extravagance without injury; but, "For age and want save while you may, No morning suns last the whole day." Gain may be temporary and uncertain, but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain; and "it is easier to build two chimneys, than to keep one in fuel," as poor Richard says: so "rather go to bed supperless, than rise in debt." "Get what you can, and what you get, hold, 'Tis the stones that will turn lead into gold." And when you have got the philosopher's stone, sure you will no longer complain of bad times, or the difficulty of paying taxes. IV. This doctrine of my friend's is reason and wisdom; but after all, do not depend too much upon your own industry and frugality, and prudence, though excellent things; for they may all be blasted without the blessing of heaven; and therefore ask that blessing humbly, and be not uncharitable to those that at present seem to want it, but comfort and help them. Remember Job suffered, and was afterwards prosperous. And now to conclude, "experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other," as poor Richard says, and scarce in that; for it is true, "we may give advice, but we cannot give conduct;" however, remember this, "they that will not be counselled cannot be helped;" and farther, that "if you will not hear reason, she will surely wrap your knuckles," as poor Richard says. Thus the old gentleman ended his harangue. The people heard it and approved the doctrine, and immediately practised the contrary, just as if it had been a common sermon; for the auction opened, and they began to buy extravagantly. I found the good man had thoroughly studied my Almanacs, and digested all I had dropt on those topics during the course of twenty-five years. The frequent mention he made of me must have tired any one else; but my vanity was wonderfully delighted with it, though I was conscious, that not a tenth part of the wisdom was my own, which he ascribed to me; but rather the gleanings that I had made of the sense of all ages and nations. However I resolved to be the better for the echo of it; and though I had at first determined to buy stuff for a new coat, I went away, resolved to wear my old one a little longer. Reader, if thou wilt do the same, thy profit will be as great as mine. I am, as ever thine to serve thee. RICHARD SAUNDERS. CHAPTER XXXV. "_When poverty comes in at the door_," said a shrewd observer, "_love flies out at the window_." When foolish families, "_wasting their substance in riotous living_," have fairly run their estates through the girt, and brought a host of hungry sheriffs and constables to the door, seizing on all their trumpery of fine carpets and curtains, and side-boards, and looking-glasses for _auction_, oh what sudden palpitations and blank looks ensue! what bitter upbraidings between husbands and wives, parents and children! what lyings, and perjuries, and secret transfers of property to _cheat creditors_! with universal wreck of character, and conscience, and every thing else that can give dignity or pleasure to life! But while Franklin, by his famous Almanack "_poor Richard_," was generously striving to prevent all these curses of _sloth_ and _extravagance_, his wide spread newspapers were scattering thousands of the finest lectures on that _honest industry_ and _prudence_, which makes nations wealthy and glorious. And his lecturing, like one born to be the moralist of nations, was in that style of brevity, sprightliness, and nerve, that young and old, men, women, and children were never tired of reading. And to give more value to these beautiful little essays, they were always written under the smarting recollection of what himself had suffered, from the follies which he wished to guard others against. Witness first, his celebrated little story, entitled THE WHISTLE. A TRUE STORY. WRITTEN TO HIS NEPHEW. When I was a child, about seven years old, my friends, on a holiday, filled my pocket with coppers. I went directly to a shop, where they sold toys for children, and being charmed with the sound of a _whistle_, that I met by the way, in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered him all my money for it. I then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my _whistle_, but disturbing all the family. My brothers, and sisters, and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth. This put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest of my money; and they laughed at me so much for my folly, that I cried with vexation; and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the _whistle_ gave me pleasure. This, however, was afterwards of use to me. The impression continued on my mind; so that, often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, _don't give too much for the whistle_; and so I saved my money. As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many who _gave too much for the whistle_. When I saw any one too ambitious of court favours, sacrificing his time in attendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends, to attain it; I have said to myself, _this man gives too much for his whistle_. When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly employing himself in political bustles, neglecting his own affairs, and ruining them by that neglect; _he pays indeed_, says I, _too much for his whistle_. If I knew a miser, who gave up every kind of comfortable living; all the pleasures of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow-citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship, for the sake of accumulating wealth; _poor man_, says I, _you do, indeed, pay too much for your whistle_. When I meet a man of pleasure, sacrificing every laudable improvement of the mind, or of his fortune, to mere corporeal sensations--_Mistaken man_, says I, _you are providing pain for yourself, instead of pleasure. You give too much for your whistle._ If I see one fond of fine clothes, fine furniture, fine equipages, all above his fortune, for which he contracts debts, and ends his career in prison; _alas_, says I, _he has paid dear, very dear, for his whistle_. When I see a beautiful sweet-tempered girl, married to an ill-natured brute of a husband; _what a pity it is_, says I, _that she has paid so much for her whistle_. In short, I conceived, that great part of the miseries of mankind were brought upon them, by the false estimates they had made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their _whistle_. The following admirable satire against _prejudice_, can never be too often read by the ill-natured and hypochondrical. THE HANDSOME AND UGLY LEG. There are two sorts of people in the world, who, with equal advantages of life, become, the one happy, and the other miserable. This arises, very much, from the different views in which they consider things, and the effect of those different views upon their own minds. In every situation men can be placed, they may find conveniences and inconveniences; in every company, persons and conversation more or less pleasing; at every table, meats and drinks of better or worse taste; dishes better and worse dressed; in every climate, good and bad weather; and under every government, good and bad laws, and a good and bad administration of those laws; in every poem, faults and beauties; in almost every face, and every person, fine features and sad defects, good and bad qualities. Under these circumstances, the two classes above mentioned, fix their attention--those who are disposed to be _happy_, on the _conveniences_ of things, the _pleasant parts_ of conversation, the _well dressed_ dishes, the _goodness_ of the wine, the _fine weather_, &c. and enjoy all with _cheerfulness_. Those who are to be _unhappy_, think and speak only of the contraries. Hence they are continually discontented themselves, and, by their remarks, sour the pleasures of society, and make themselves every where disagreeable. Nobody loves this sort of people; no one shows them more than the commonest civility, and scarcely that; and this frequently puts them out of humour, and draws them into disputes. If they aim at obtaining any advantage in rank or fortune, nobody wishes them success, or will stir a step to favour their pretensions. If they incur public censure or disgrace, no one will defend or excuse, and many join to aggravate their misconduct, and render them completely odious. If these poor gentlemen will not change this bad habit, condescend to be pleased with what is pleasing, without fretting themselves and others about the contraries, it is good to avoid an acquaintance with them, which is always disagreeable, and sometimes very inconvenient, especially when one finds one's self entangled in their quarrels. An old philosophical friend of mine was grown, from experience, very cautious in this particular, and carefully avoided any intimacy with such people. He had, like other philosophers, a thermometer, to show him the heat of the weather, and a barometer, to mark when it was likely to prove good or bad; but there being no instrument invented to discover, at first sight, this unpleasing disposition in a person, he, for that purpose, made use of his legs, one of which was remarkably handsome; the other, by some accident, crooked and deformed. If a stranger, at the first interview, kept his eyes on his ugly leg more than the handsome one, he doubted him; if he spoke of it, and took no notice of the handsome leg, that was sufficient to determine my philosopher to have no further acquaintance with him. Every body has not this two-legged instrument; but every one, with a little attention, may observe signs of that carping, fault-finding disposition, and take the same resolution of avoiding the acquaintance of those infected with it. I therefore advise those critical, querulous, discontented, unhappy people, that if they wish to be respected and beloved by others, and happy in themselves, they should _leave off looking at the ugly leg_. "_A good wit will turn every thing to advantage_," says Shakespeare; and the following will show what a singular passion Dr. Franklin had to turn every little cross incident of his own life into pleasure and profit to others. He calls it STOOP, AND GO SAFE. _To the late Dr. Mather, of Boston._ REV. SIR, When I was a boy, I met with a book, entitled, "_Essays to do good_," which, I think, was written by your father. It had been so little regarded by a former possessor, that several leaves of it were torn out: but the remainder gave me such a turn for thinking, as to have an influence on my conduct through life; for I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good than any other kind of reputation; and if I have been, as you seem to think, a useful citizen, the public owes the advantage of it to that book. The last time I saw your father was in the beginning of 1724, when I visited him after my first trip to Pennsylvania. He received me in his library; and on my taking leave, showed me a shorter way out of the house, through a narrow passage, which was crossed by a beam over head. We were still talking, as I withdrew; he accompanying me behind, and I turning partly towards him, when he said hastily, "_stoop! stoop!_" I did not understand him, till I felt my head hit against the beam. He was a man, who never missed any occasion of giving instruction; and upon this he said to me, "_you are young, and have the world before you_. STOOP, _as you go through, and you will miss many hard thumps_." This advice, thus beat into my head, has frequently been of use to me; and I often think of it, when I see pride mortified, and misfortune brought upon people, by carrying their heads too high. I long much to see again my native place; and did hope to have been there in 1783; but could not obtain my dismission from employment here. And now I fear I shall never have that happiness. My best wishes, however, attend my dear country. It is now blessed with an excellent constitution. _May it last for ever!_ This powerful monarchy continues its friendship for the United States. It is a friendship of the utmost importance to our security; and should be carefully cultivated. Britain has not yet digested the loss of its dominion over us, and has still, at times, some flattering hopes of recovering it. Accidents may increase those hopes, and encourage dangerous attempts. A breach between us and France would infallibly bring the English again upon our backs: and yet, we have some wild beasts among our countrymen, who are endeavouring to weaken that connexion. Let us preserve our reputation, by performing our engagements; our credit, by fulfilling our contracts; and our friends, by gratitude and kindness: for we know not how soon we may again have occasion for all of them.--With great and sincere esteem, I have the honour to be--Reverend sir, Your most obedient and most humble servant, B. FRANKLIN. _Passy, May 12, 1784._ The witty little essay that follows, will show how very closely Dr. Franklin observed every thing around him, and what gross errors in education yet remain to be corrected. THE HUMOUROUS PETITION. I address myself to all the friends of youth, and conjure them to direct their compassionate regard to my unhappy fate, in order to remove the prejudices of which I am the victim. There are twin sisters of us, and the two eyes of man do not more resemble, nor are capable of being upon better terms with each other, than my sister and myself, were it not for the partiality of our parents, who make the most injurious distinctions between us. From my infancy I have been led to consider my sister as being of a more elevated rank. I was suffered to grow up without the least instruction, while nothing was spared in her education. She had masters to teach her writing, drawing, music, and other accomplishments, but if, by chance, I touched a pencil, a pen, or a needle, I was bitterly rebuked; and more than once, I have been beaten for being awkward, and wanting a graceful manner. It is true, my sister associated me with her upon some occasions; but she always made a point of taking the lead, calling upon me only from necessity, or to figure by her side. But conceive not, sirs, that my complaints are instigated merely by vanity--no, my uneasiness is occasioned by an object much more serious. It is the practice in our family, that the whole business of providing for its subsistence falls upon my sister and myself. If any indisposition should attack my sister--and I mention it in confidence, upon this occasion, that she is subject to the gout, the rheumatism, and cramp, without making mention of other accidents--what would be the fate of our poor family? Must not the regret of our parents be excessive, at having placed so great a distance between sisters who are so perfectly equal? Alas! we must perish from distress: for it would not be in my power even to scrawl a suppliant petition for relief, having been obliged to employ the hand of another in transcribing the request which I have now the honour to prefer to you. Condescend, sirs, to make my parents sensible of the injustice of an _exclusive tenderness_, and of the necessity of distributing their care and affection among all their children equally. I am, with profound respect, Sirs, Your obedient servant, THE LEFT HAND. The following essays strikingly illustrate the admirable wisdom and philanthropy of Dr. Franklin; and, if read _practically_, would, no doubt, greatly lessen the number both of PHYSICIANS and PATIENTS. THE ART OF PROCURING PLEASANT DREAMS. As a great part of our life is spent in sleep, during which we have sometimes pleasing, and sometimes painful dreams, it becomes of some consequence to obtain the one kind, and avoid the other; for whether real or imaginary, pain is pain, and pleasure is pleasure. If we can sleep without dreaming, it is well that painful dreams are avoided. If, while we sleep, we can have pleasing dreams, it is so much clear gain to the pleasures of life. To this end, it is, in the first place, necessary to be careful in preserving health--for, in sickness, the imagination is disturbed; and disagreeable, sometimes terrible ideas are apt to present themselves. But for health, our main dependence is on EXERCISE and TEMPERANCE. These render the appetite sharp, the digestion easy, the body lightsome, and the temper cheerful, with sweet sleep and pleasant dreams. While indolence and full feeding never fail to bring on loaded stomachs, with night-mares and horrors--we fall from precipices--are stung by serpents--assaulted by wild beasts--murderers--devils--with all the black train of unimaginable danger and wo. Temperance, then, is all-important to sweet sleep and pleasant dreaming. But a main point of temperance, is to _shun hearty suppers_, which are indeed not safe, even when dinner has been missed; what then must be the consequence of hearty suppers after full dinners? why only restless nights and frightful dreams; and sometimes _a stroke of the apoplexy_, after which they sleep till doomsday. The newspapers often relate instances of persons, who, after eating hearty suppers, are found dead in their beds next morning. Another grand mean of preserving health, is to admit a constant supply of _fresh air_ into your chamber. A more sad mistake was never committed than that of sleeping in tight rooms, and beds closely curtained. This has arisen from the dread of night air. But, after all the clamour and abuse that have been heaped on _night air_, it is very certain that no outward air, that may come in, is half so unwholesome as the air often breathed in a close chamber. As boiling water does not grow hotter by longer boiling, if the particles that receive greater heat can escape; so living bodies do not putrify, if the particles, as fast as they become putrid, can be thrown off. Nature expels them by the pores of the skin and lungs, and in a free open air they are carried off; but, in a _close room_, we receive them again and again, though they become more and more corrupt. A number of persons crowded into a small room, thus spoil the air in a few minutes, and even render it mortal, as in the black hole at Calcutta.[3] A single person is said to spoil a gallon of air per minute, and therefore requires a longer time to spoil a chamber full; but it is done, however, in proportion, and many putrid disorders hence have their origin. It is recorded of Methusalem, who, being the longest liver, may be supposed to have best preserved his health, that he slept always in the open air; for when he had lived five hundred years, an angel said to him, "_arise, Methusalem, and build thee an house, for thou shalt live yet five hundred years longer_." But Methusalem answered and said, "_If I am to live but five hundred years longer, it is not worth while to build me an house--I will sleep in the air, as I have been used to do._" Physicians, after having for ages contended that the sick should not be indulged with fresh air, have at length discovered that it may do them good. It is therefore to be hoped that it is not hurtful to those who are in health, and that we may be then cured of the _acrophobia_ that at present distresses weak minds, and makes them choose to be stifled and poisoned, rather than leave open the windows of a bed chamber, or put down the glass of a coach. [3] In India, where out of 140 poor British prisoners shut up in a close small room 120 of them perished in one night. Confined air, when saturated with perspirable matter,[4] will not receive more; and that matter must remain in our bodies, and occasions diseases; but it gives some previous notice of its being about to be hurtful, by producing certain uneasinesses which are difficult to describe, and few that feel know the cause. But we may recollect, that sometimes, on waking in the night, we have, if warmly covered, found it difficult to get asleep again. We turn often without finding repose in any position. This _fidgetiness_, to use a vulgar expression for the want of a better, is occasioned wholly by an uneasiness in the skin, owing to the retention of the perspirable matter, the bed-clothes having received their quantity, and, being saturated, refusing to take any more. [4] What physicians call the perspirable matter, is that vapour which passes off from our bodies, from the lungs, and through the pores of the skin. The quantity of this is said to be five-eighths of what we eat. When you are awakened by this uneasiness, and find you cannot easily sleep again, get out of bed, beat up and turn your pillow, shake the bed-clothes well, with at least twenty shakes, then throw the bed open, and leave it to cool; in the meanwhile, continuing undrest, walk about your chamber, till your skin has had time to discharge its load, which it will do sooner as the air may be drier and colder. When you begin to feel the cool air unpleasant, then return to your bed, and you will soon fall asleep, and your sleep will be sweet and pleasant. All the scenes presented by your fancy, will be of the pleasing kind. I am often as agreeably entertained with them, as by the scenery of an opera. If you happen to be too indolent to get out of bed, you may instead of it, lift up your bed-clothes so as to draw in a good deal of fresh air, and, by letting them fall, force it out again. This, repeated twenty times, will so clear them of the perspirable matter they have imbibed, as to permit your sleeping well for some time afterwards. But this latter method is not equal to the former. Those who do not love trouble, and can afford to have two beds, will find great luxury in rising, when they wake in a hot bed, and going into the cool one. Such shifting of beds, would be of great service to persons ill in a fever; as it refreshes and frequently procures sleep. A very large bed, that will admit a removal so distant from the first situation as to be cool and sweet, may in a degree answer the same end. These are the rules of the art. But though they will generally prove effectual in producing the end intended, there is a case in which the most punctual observance of them will be totally fruitless. This case is, when the person who desires to have pleasant dreams has not taken care to preserve, what is necessary above all things--A GOOD CONSCIENCE. ON THE ART OF SWIMMING. The exercise of swimming is one of the most healthy and agreeable in the world. After having swam for an hour or two in the evening, one sleeps coolly the whole night, even during the most ardent heat of summer. Perhaps the pores being cleansed, the insensible perspiration increases, and occasions this coolness. It is certain that much swimming is the means of stopping a diarrhoea and even of producing a constipation. With respect to those who do not know how to swim, or who are affected with a diarrhoea at the season which does not permit them to use that exercise, a warm bath, by cleansing and purifying the skin, is found very salutary, and often effects a radical cure. I speak from my own experience, frequently repeated, and that of others, to whom I have recommended this. You will not be displeased if I conclude these hasty remarks by informing you, that as the ordinary method of swimming is reduced to the act of rowing with the arms and legs, and is consequently a laborious and fatiguing operation, when the space of water to be crossed is considerable; there is a method in which a swimmer may pass a great distance with much facility, by means of a sail. This discovery I fortunately made by accident, and in the following manner. When I was a boy, I amused myself one day with flying a paper kite; and approaching the bank of a pond, which was near a mile broad, I tied the string to a stake, and the kite ascended to a very considerable height, above the pond, while I was swimming. In a little time, being desirous of amusing myself with my kite, and enjoying at the same time the pleasure of swimming, I returned, and loosing from the stake the string, with the little stick fastened to it, went again into the water, where I found, that, lying on my back, and holding the stick in my hands, I was drawn along the surface of the water in a very agreeable manner. Having then engaged another boy to carry my clothes round the pond to the other side, I began to cross the pond with my kite, which carried me quite over without the least fatigue, and with the greatest pleasure imaginable. I was only obliged occasionally to halt a little in my course, and resist its progress, when it appeared that, by following too quick, I lowered the kite too much, by doing which occasionally I made it rise again. I have never since that time practised this singular mode of swimming, though I think it not impossible to cross, in this manner, from Dover to Calais. The packet boat, however, is still preferable. NEW MODE OF BATHING. The cold bath has long been in vogue as a tonic, but the shock of the cold water has always appeared to me, generally speaking, as too violent, and I have found it much more agreeable to my constitution to bathe in another element--I mean cold air. With this view, I rise, early every morning and sit in my chamber, without any clothes whatever, half an hour or an hour, according to the season, either reading or writing, This practice is not the least painful, but, on the contrary, agreeable; and if I return to bed afterwards, before I dress myself, as sometimes happens, I make a supplement to my night's rest of one or two hours of the most pleasing sleep that can be imagined. I find no ill consequences whatever resulting from it, and that at least I do not injure my health, if it does not, in fact, contribute much to its preservation. I shall, therefore, call it for the future a _tonic air bath_. The common saying, "_lazy people take the most pains_," was never more clearly exemplified than in the following squib. STRENUOUS IDLENESS. Passing the Schuylkill, one day, he saw a man sitting on the bridge, very earnestly looking on the cork of his fishing line. "_What luck? What luck?_" cried the doctor. "_O none! none!_" answered our fishing hawk; "_none yet; I have not been here over a couple of hours or so_." The doctor pushed on. Near sun-down he returned. The man was still sitting and staring at his cork, like a spaniel at a dead set. "Well," said the doctor, "I hope you have had a fine haul among the fish." "Not a single one," replied the man. "_Not a single one!_" quoth the doctor, amazed. "No, not one, sir," answered the fisher, "not one; but I've had a most _glorious nibble_!" The following is a fine hint to such as have learned useful trades, but have not learned what is infinitely more valuable, I mean that divine philanthropy which alone can make their trades their delight, and thus strew life over with roses. THE SILVER HOOK. Doctor Franklin observing one day a hearty young fellow, whom he knew to be an extraordinary blacksmith, sitting on the wharf, bobbing for little mud-cats and eels, he called to him, "Ah Tom, what a pity 'tis you don't fish with a _silver_ hook." The young man replied, "he was not able to fish with a silver hook." Some days after this, the doctor passing that way, saw Tom out at the end of the wharf again, with his long pole bending over the flood. "What, Tom," cried the doctor, "have you not got the silver hook yet?" "God bless you, doctor," cried the blacksmith, "I'm hardly able to fish with an iron hook." "Poh! poh!" replied the doctor, "go home to your anvil; and you'll make silver enough in one day to buy more and better fish than you would catch here in a month." But few have it so much in their power to do good or evil as the PRINTERS. I know they all glory in Dr. Franklin as a FATHER, and are wont to name his name with _veneration_; happy would it be for this country if they would read the following with _imitation_. TRUE INDEPENDENCE. Soon after his establishment in Philadelphia, Franklin was offered a piece for publication in his newspaper. Being very busy, he begged the gentleman would leave it for consideration. The next day the author called and asked his opinion of it. "Why, sir," replied Franklin, "I am sorry to say that I think it highly scurrilous and defamatory. But being at a loss on account of my poverty whether to reject it or not, I thought I would put it to this issue--at night, when my work was done, I bought a two-penny loaf, on which with a mug of cold water I supped heartily, and then wrapping myself in my great coat, slept very soundly on the floor till morning; when another loaf and a mug of water afforded me a pleasant breakfast. Now, sir, since I can live very comfortably in this manner, why should I prostitute my press to personal hatred or party passion, for a more luxurious living?" One cannot read this anecdote of our American sage without thinking of Socrates' reply to King Archilaus, who had pressed him to give up preaching in the dirty streets of Athens, and come and live with him in his splendid courts--"_Meal, please your majesty, is a half penny a peck at Athens, and water I can get for nothing._" The letter ensuing was from Dr. Franklin to a friend of his, who having displeased some of his relatives by marrying very early, wrote to him for his opinion on that subject. Young bachelors would do well to read it once a month. ON EARLY MARRIAGES. DEAR JACK, From the marriages that have fallen under my observation, I am rather inclined to think that _early_ ones stand the best chance for happiness. The temper and habits of the young are not yet become so stiff and uncomplying, as when more advanced in life; they form more easily to each other, and hence, many occasions of disgust are removed. And if youth has less of that prudence which is necessary to manage a family, the parents and elder friends of young married persons are generally at hand to afford their advice, which amply supplies that defect. By early marriage youth is sooner formed to regular and useful life; and possibly some of those accidents or connexions that might have injured the constitution, or reputation, or both, are thereby happily prevented. Particular circumstances of particular persons, may sometimes make it prudent to delay entering into that state; but in general, when nature has rendered our bodies fit for it, the presumption is in nature's favour, that she has not judged amiss in making us _desire_ it. Late marriages are often attended too, with this inconvenience, that there is not the same chance that the parents shall live to see their offspring educated. "_Late children_," says the Spanish proverb, "_are early orphans_." A melancholy reflection to those whose case it may be! With us in America, marriages are generally in the morning of life; our children are educated and settled in the world by noon; and thus, our business done, we have an evening of cheerful leisure to ourselves. By these early marriages we are blessed with more children; and from the mode among us, founded in nature, of every mother suckling her own child, more of them are raised. Thence the swift progress of population among us, unparalleled in Europe. In fine, I am glad you are married, and congratulate you most cordially upon it. You are now in the way of becoming a useful citizen; and you have escaped the unnatural state of celibacy for life--the fate of many who never intended it, but who having too long postponed the change of their condition, find, at length, that it is too late to think of it, and so live all their lives in a situation that greatly lessens a man's value. An odd volume of a set of books bears not the value of its proportion to the set: what think you of the _half_ of a pair of scissors? it can't well cut anything; it may possibly serve to scrape a trencher. Pray make my best wishes acceptable to your bride. I am old and heavy, or I should ere this have presented them in person. I shall make but small use of the old man's privilege, that of giving _advice to younger friends_. Treat your wife always with respect; it will procure respect to you, not only from her, but from all that observe it. Never use a slighting expression to her even in _jest_; for slights in _jest_, after frequent bandyings, are apt to end in angry _earnest_. Be studious in your profession, and you will be learned. Be industrious and frugal, and you will be rich. Be sober and temperate, and you will be healthy. Be virtuous, and you will be happy. At least, you will, by such conduct, stand the best chance for such consequences. I pray God to bless you both! Your affectionate friend, B. FRANKLIN. As next to a GOOD WIFE, there is but "ONE THING" to be compared to a _handsome fortune_, we advise our young countrymen to read the following. It needs but be read to be valued, and it can hardly be read and valued enough by all who know the value of INDEPENDENCE. ADVICE TO A YOUNG TRADESMAN. Remember that time is money. He that can earn ten shillings a day, by his labour, and goes abroad, or sits idle one half of that day, though he spends but six-pence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon _that_ the only expense; he has really spent, or rather thrown away five shillings besides. Remember that _credit_ is money. If a man let his money lie in my hands, after it is due, he gives me the interest, or so much as I can make of it, during that time. This amounts to a considerable sum where a man has good and large credit, and makes good use of it. Remember that money is of a very breeding prolific nature. Money begets money; and its offspring can beget more: and so on. Five shillings turned is six. Turned again it is seven and three-pence; and so on, till it becomes hundreds and thousands of pounds. The more there is of it, the more it produces, every turning; so that the profits rise quicker and quicker. He, who kills a breeding sow, destroys all her offspring, to the thousandth generation. He, who murders a crown, destroys all that it might have produced; even scores of pounds. Remember that six pounds a year is but a groat a day. For this little sum, which may be daily wasted either in time or expense, unperceived, a man of credit may, on his own security, have the constant possession and use of an hundred pounds. So much in stock, briskly turned by an industrious man, produces great advantages. Remember this saying, "the good paymaster is lord of another man's purse." He who is known to pay punctually and exactly to the time he promises, may, at any time, and on any occasion, raise all the money his friends can spare. This is sometimes of great use. After industry and frugality, nothing contributes more to the raising of a young man in the world, than punctuality and justice in all his dealings. Therefore never keep borrowed money an hour beyond the time you promised, lest a disappointment shut up your friend's purse for ever. The most trifling actions, that affect a man's credit, are to be regarded. The sound of your hammer at five in the morning, or nine at night, heard by a creditor, makes him easy six months longer; but if he see you at a billiard table, or hears your voice at a tavern, when you should be at work, he sends for his money next day; and demands it before he can receive it in a lump. It shows, besides, that you are mindful of what you owe. It makes you appear a careful as well as an honest man; and that still increases your credit. Beware of thinking all your own, that you possess; and of living accordingly. It is a mistake that many people, who have credit, fall into. To prevent this, keep an exact account, for some time, both of your expenses and your income. If you take the pains at first to mention particulars, it will have this good effect:--you will discover how wonderfully small, trifling expenses mount up to large sums; and will soon discern, what might have been, and may for the future be saved, without occasioning any great inconvenience. Again: he, who sells upon credit, asks a price, for what he sells, equivalent to the principal and interest of his money, for the time he is to be kept out of it. Therefore, he who buys upon credit, pays interest for what he buys; and, he who pays ready money, might let that money out to use. So, that he who possesses any thing he has bought, pays interest for the use of it. Yet, in buying goods, it is best to pay ready money; because, he who sells upon credit, expects to lose five per cent, by bad debts. Therefore, he charges, on all he sells upon credit, an advance that shall make up that deficiency. Those who pay for what they buy upon credit, pay their share of this advance. He who pays ready money, escapes, or may escape that charge. A penny sav'd is two-pence clear, A pin a day's a groat a year. In short, the way to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words: _Industry_ and _Frugality_. Waste neither _time_ nor _money_; but make the best use of both. Without industry and frugality, nothing will do; but with them every thing. He who gets all he can, honestly, and saves all he gets, necessary expenses excepted, will certainly become _rich_; if that Being who governs the world, to whom all should look for a blessing on their honest endeavours, doth not, in his wise providence, otherwise determine. AN OLD TRADESMAN. Every reader will be diverted with the following. IDLE CURIOSITY CURED. On his first trip, by land, to see his father in Boston, he was worried almost to death by the abominable inquisitiveness of the New England tavern-keepers. Neither man nor beast could travel among them in comfort. No matter how wet or weary, how hungry or thirsty, the poor traveller might be, he was not to expect an atom of refreshment from these silly publicans until their most pestiferous curiosity was first gratified. And then Job himself could not stand such questions as they would goad him with; such as, _where he came from--and where he might be a-going--and what religion he might be of--and if he was a married man_--and so on. After having been prodigiously teazed in this way for several days, until at last the bare sight of a public house almost threw him into an ague, he determined to try the following remedy at the very next tavern. Soon as he alighted from his horse he desired the tavern keeper to collect his whole family, wife, children, and servants, every soul of them; for that he had something _vastly important_ to communicate. All being assembled and wondering what he had to say, he thus addressed them. "My name is Benjamin Franklin. I am a printer by trade. I live, when at home, in Philadelphia. In Boston I have a father, a good old man who taught me, when I was a little boy, to read my book and say my prayers. I have, ever since, thought it my duty to visit and pay my respects to such a father; and I am on that errand to Boston now. This is all that I can at present recollect of myself that I think worth telling you. But if you can think of any thing else that you wish to know about me, I beg you to out with it at once, that I may answer, and so give you opportunity to get me something to eat; for I long to be on my journey that I may return as soon as possible to my family and business, where I most of all delight to be." Forty thousand sermons against IDLE CURIOSITY could hardly have driven it so effectually out of New England as did this little squib of ridicule. The following jeu d'esprit is peculiarly in character with Dr. Franklin. It proves that his wit and his benevolence were equal to every emergence, and that if he carried the Old Testament language in his head, he carried the New Testament spirit in his heart. WIT AND PERSECUTION. The conversation turning, one day, on _persecution_, a doctor of divinity, distinguished for his wit, but, unfortunately, a little too much infected with that acrimony which is caught by reading books of religious controversy, took the part of persecution and contended that it was _sometimes_ right to employ it. Franklin said, he could not think of any case wherein _persecution_ was _admissible_ among rational creatures. It might be very excusable in _error_ to persecute, whose nature it was to see things wrong, and to get angry; but that for such a "_divinity as_ TRUTH," to persecute, was, in his opinion, a sin against the _Holy Ghost, never to be forgiven_. After using, in his facetious manner, a variety of arguments honourable to wit and philanthropy, and the clergyman still remaining unconvinced, Franklin called out to him with an air of great surprise, "Why, my dear sir, I am astonished that you plead thus for persecution when it is so diametrically opposite to your _Bible_." The clergyman replied, that he did not know what doctor Franklin meant. He thought, he said, he knew something of his _Bible_, but he did not recollect any chapter in point. "_No, sir!_" answered Franklin, still with the look and voice of surprise, "_not that memorable chapter concerning Abraham and the poor man! Pray, sir, favour us with your Bible a minute or two._" "With all my heart," replied the clergyman, "I should like to see that _memorable chapter_." The company manifested a solicitude for the issue of the pending controversy--the family Bible was brought and laid on the table by the side of doctor Franklin. "Well, reverend sir," said he, looking at the preacher, as he took up the Bible, "shall I read this chapter?" "Certainly," replied the divine, settling himself in his chair to listen.--The eyes of all were fixed on Franklin; when, opening the Bible and turning back the leaves as to find the place, he thus audibly began:-- The twenty-seventh chapter of the first book of Moses, commonly called the book of Genesis. 1. And it came to pass, after these things, that Abraham sat in the door of his tent, about the going down of the sun. 2. And behold a man, bowed with age, coming from the way of the wilderness, leaning on a staff. 3. And Abraham arose, and met him, and said unto him, turn in, I pray thee, and wash thy feet, and tarry all night, and thou shalt arise early in the morning and go on thy way. 4. But the man said, nay, for I will abide under this tree. 5. And Abraham pressed him greatly; so he turned, and they went into the tent; and Abraham baked unleavened bread, and they did eat. 6. And when Abraham saw that the man blessed not God, he said unto him, wherefore dost thou not worship the most high God, Creator of heaven and earth. 7. And the man answered and said, I do not worship thy God, neither do I call upon his name; for I have made to myself a God, which abideth always in mine house, and provideth me all things. 8. And Abraham's zeal was kindled against the man, and he arose and fell upon him, and drove him forth with blows into the wilderness. 9. And at midnight God called unto Abraham, saying, where is the stranger? 10. And Abraham answered, and said, Lord, he would not worship thee, neither would he call upon thy name, therefore have I driven him out from before my face into the wilderness. 11. And God said, have I borne with him these hundred and ninety and eight years, and nourished him and clothed him, notwithstanding his rebellion against me; and couldest not thou, that art thyself a sinner, bear with him one night? 12. And Abraham said, let not the anger of my Lord wax hot against his servant; lo, I have sinned: forgive me, I pray thee. 13. And he arose, and went forth into the wilderness, and sought diligently for the man and found him: 14. And returned with him to his tent; and when he had entreated him kindly, he sent him away in the morning with gifts. 15. And God spake again unto Abraham, saying, for this thy sin, shall thy seed be afflicted four hundred years in a strange land: 16. But for thy repentance, will I deliver them; and they shall come forth with power, and with gladness of heart, and with much substance. That witty but splenetic old bachelor, Dean Swift, used to say, that "there was no dispute which a man of a tolerably good head and heart might not easily avoid falling into, or honourably get out of; and, therefore, as none but fools and rascals fought duels, the sooner such beasts cut each other's throats, the better for the community." This, no doubt, is very true, but still it is too much like striking with a war club, or _tomahawk_, to be allowed among christians. The following _impromptu_ on duelling, by Dr. Franklin, claims a far higher admiration. It is an arrow pointed with the diamond of wit, dipt in the oil of kindness, that wounds but to heal. THE FOLLY OF DUELLING. This most pusillanimous practice was one day made the theme of conversation in a large party in London, where Doctor Franklin dined. The philosophers and divines of the company joined unanimously to execrate it; and so many sensible and severe things were said against it, that everybody seemed willing to give it up to its father, the devil, except a young officer, whose ugly distortions showed plainly enough that he did not at all relish their strictures. Soon as they were done, he called aloud, "well, gentlemen, you may preach as much as you please against duelling, but I'll never pocket an insult for all that. No, if any man affront me, I'll call him to an account, if I lose my life for it." The philosophers and divines looked at each other in silence, like fools who had shot their last bolt. Here Franklin took up the cudgels; and looking at the young officer with a smile, said, "This, sir, puts me in mind of an affair that lately happened in a Philadelphia coffee-house." The young fellow, rather pertly, said he should like to hear what had lately happened in a Philadelphia coffee-house. "Why, sir," continued the doctor, "two gentlemen were sitting together in the coffee-house, when one said to the other, for heaven's sake, sir, sit further off, and don't poison me; you smell as bad as a pole-cat." "Sir," resorted the other, "what do you mean? Draw, and defend yourself." "O, sir," quoth the first, "I'll meet you in a moment, if you insist on it; but let's see first how that's to _mend the matter_. If you kill me, I shall smell as bad as a pole-cat too. And if I kill you, you will _only smell ten times worse_." In short, that divine motto, "Homo sum, nil humani a me alienum puto." In English thus, _A man I am, in man I take a part, And good of man is ever next my heart._ has seldom been more justly applied than to Dr. Franklin. He seems to have been all eye, all ear, all touch, to every thing that affected human happiness. Did he, even at the early age of twenty-five, form an acquaintance with young persons fond of reading, but unable to purchase books? Instantly he suggested the plan for obviating that great, great misfortune, by founding a PUBLIC LIBRARY; whereby, at a _small expense_ in hand, and a much smaller paid annually, a subscriber might have his choice of books, on all subjects, whether of pleasure or profit. This Library, which was commenced in 1731, by Franklin and only thirty-seven members, and no more than one hundred volumes, consisting of much little parcels of books as each subscriber possessed, is now, 1820, enlarged to six hundred members, and upwards of twenty thousand volumes. The great advantages arising from this library became so sensibly felt that others were soon founded; and they have now kindled up their salutary lights not only in several parts of the city, but in almost every county in the state. From the choicest books on Religion, Morals, History, Voyages, Travels, &c. thus brought home to their fire-sides and constantly lying on their mantlepieces, the citizens derive advantages incalculable. Their idle hours, formerly so dangerous, were now innocently filled up; solitude was cheered with a succession of new ideas; company enlivened by witty conversation, and labour itself sweetened by the thought of a beloved book at night. With their taste thus exalted to _better pleasures_, the youth of all classes were saved from the brutalizing sensualities that destroy character and health. Having their understandings enlightened, they were led to greater virtues and usefulness. And being thus taught to enjoy life, they felt the strongest inducements to preserve it. Hence the astonishing prosperity of Philadelphia in industry and morals, population and wealth. The mother Library now displays its twenty thousand volumes, in an elegant building, on the corner of Fifth and Chestnut. In a niche on the wall above the door is a fine marble likeness of Dr. Franklin at full length, presented by William Bingham, Esq. Again:--Did Franklin catch a glimpse of those poor pusillanimous creatures, who rather than live nobly independent in the pure aired country, by cultivating their own sweet vegetables, and raising fat poultry, will run into the sickly towns to sell whiskey and apples in the summer, and take their chance to starve and freeze in the winter? Did he, I say, catch a glimpse of these poor spiritless creatures with their children, shivering over small fires kindled by a little "_charity wood_?" Instantly his bowels of compassion were stirred within him. Although he was no friend to such _lazy self-made paupers_, nor to the miserable policy that winks at them, yet it was impossible for him to remain unconcerned at their sufferings. In a letter to one of his friends, he says, "since we can get no more wood for the poor, we must try from that wood to get more warmth for them." He set himself to examine the principles of the stoves generally in use. His genius, as usual, discovered such room for amendment, that he soon came out with a stove, which to this day, in honour of him, is called "THE FRANKLIN STOVE," and wherein one cord of charity oak would afford as much heat and comfort to those poor people, as two cords in the old way! Did he hear the shrill midnight cry of FIRE! and mark the deep distress of the citizens, as with tearful eyes they beheld the flames swallowing up their pleasant habitations and furniture? Instantly he set himself to call up all the energies of the public against this dire calamity, and to point them to the only adequate remedy, MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANIES. "_Man_," said he, in his calls to the citizens through his popular newspaper, "_Man separate_ from man, is but a feeble creature; and like the filament of flax before the thread is formed, he is without strength, because without connexion. But UNION will make us strong, and _enable us to do all things essential to our safety. The houses burnt every year are, compared with all the houses in the city, but few. And were all the housekeepers in the city, joined for mutual security, to pay a certain sum; and were that sum put to interest, it would not only cover all the losses by fire, but would bring in every year, clear profit on his money to each subscriber._" Numbers of the citizens came into his scheme; and a large "_Mutual Insurance Company_," was immediately formed. The great benefits, foretold to flow from it, being soon realized, several others were presently set on foot: and now (in 1820,) there are, in Philadelphia, no fewer than forty engines, with eight thousand feet of hose, (strong leather pipes,) to convey the water from the pumps or hydrants to the engines; whereby in less than _two minutes_ they are in full play, pouring their watery cataracts on the flames. Hence, while for lack of one Franklin, one intelligent and public spirited philanthropist, many of our promising young towns are suddenly turned to ashes, and their hapless families, driven out naked into the weather; the favoured citizens of Philadelphia, guarded by forty engines, and hundreds of well trained young firemen, seldom suffer any thing beyond a momentary pang from this most alarming element! CHAPTER XXXVI. "_To him who hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance._" The life of Dr. Franklin appears to have been one continued exemplification of this most animating promise; for scarcely had he finished that noble work just mentioned, before he was called to another which acquired him a still higher reputation, I mean his wonderful discoveries in electricity, and his application of them to the preservation of human life and property. The manner in which this honour was conferred on Dr. Franklin, is enough to convince all honest minds that there is a kind Providence over the ways of men, that often turns their "_seeming evils into real good_." Among the many benefits which he derived from the dangerous scenes of London, where he was so severely tried, and where he so gloriously triumphed, was his acquaintance with a Mr. Collinson, of that city. This gentleman had a soul of uncommon sensibility to the charms of virtue. His first interview with Franklin, was in Watts's printing-office. The sight of a youthful stranger, not yet out of his teens, exhibiting such practical lessons of virtue to the deluded young PORTER DRINKERS of London, filled him with admiration of his character. On getting acquainted with him, he was in pleasing doubt, whether most to esteem his heart or admire his head. When Franklin left England, the generous Collinson accompanied him on board the ship, and at parting, the two friends exchanged _canes_, with promises of everlasting friendship and constant correspondence by letters. Soon as all London had become filled with the aforesaid rage for electricity, and electrical experiments, Collinson wrote the whole history of them to Franklin, with a compliment to his genius, and an earnest request that he would turn it to that subject, and accompanied all with the present of a small electrical instrument. Franklin's curiosity was excited. He immediately set to work; and presently made discoveries that far exceeded all that Collinson had promised himself. He discovered the power of metallic points to draw off the electrical matter--he discovered a _positive_ and a _negative_ state of electricity--he explained on electrical principles, the phenomena of the famous Leyden vial--he explained the phenomena of the aurora borealis, and of thunder-gusts--he showed the striking resemblance in many respects between electricity and lightning. 1st. In giving light. 2d. In colour of the light. 3d. In crooked direction. 4th. In swiftness of motion. 5th. In being conducted by metals. 6th. In cracking in exploding. 7th. In subsisting in water or ice. 8th. In rending the bodies it passeth through. 9th. In killing animals. 10th. In melting metals. 11th. Firing inflammable substances. 12th. Emitting a sulphurous smell. 13th. In being attracted by iron points. "We do not, indeed," says he, "know that this property is in lightning, but since electricity and lightning agree in so many other particulars, is it not probable that they agree also in this?" He resolved at any rate to make the experiment. But foreseeing what a blessing it would be to mankind, to disarm the lightnings of their power to harm, he did not in the pitiful spirit of ordinary inventors, cautiously conceal the dawnings of a discovery that promised so much glory to his name. On the contrary, and with a philanthropy that throws eternal loveliness over his character, he published his ideas, inviting all the philosophers to make experiments on this important subject, and even pointed the way, _i.e._ by insulated bars of iron raised to considerable heights in the air. Immediately, metallic bars, some of them forty feet high, were raised towards the heavens, by sundry philosophers, both in France and England. But God, as if pleased with such disinterested virtue, determined to reserve to Franklin the honour of confirming the truth of his own great theory. His plan to accomplish this, was in that simplicity which characterizes all his inventions. To a common kite, made of silk rather than paper, because of the rain, he fixed a slender iron point. The string which he chose for his kite was of silk, because of the fondness of lightning for silk; and for the same reason, at the lower end of the string he tied a key. With this simple preparation, he went out on the commons back of Philadelphia, as a thundergust was coming on, and raised his kite towards the clouds. The lightning soon found out his metallic rod, as it soared aloft on the wings of the kite, and greeted its polished point with a cordial kiss. With joy he beheld the loose fibres of his string raised by the fond salute of the celestial visitant. He hastened to clap his knuckle to the key, and behold, a smart spark! having repeated a second, and a third time, he charged a phial with this strange visitor from the clouds, and found that it exploded gunpowder, set spirits of wine on fire, and performed in all respects as the electrical fluid. It is not easy to express the pleasure which this clear confirmation of his theory must have given to our benevolent philosopher, who had already counted up some of the great services which he should thereby render to the world. He lost no time in communicating these discoveries to his friend Collinson in London, by whom they were read with unimaginable joy. Collinson instantly laid them before the Royal Society, not doubting but they would be printed among their papers, with the same enthusiasm which he had felt. But to his great mortification they were utterly rejected. Upon this, Collinson went in high dudgeon and printed them himself, which was looked on as a very desperate kind of undertaking, especially as he chose for his book, a title that seemed to carry a death warrant on its face, _viz._ "NEW EXPERIMENTS ON ELECTRICITY, MADE AT PHILADELPHIA, IN NORTH AMERICA." Some ventured however to read the EXPERIMENTS ON ELECTRICITY MADE IN NORTH AMERICA, though with pretty nearly such motives as usually lead people to see the learned pig, or to hear a woman preach. But the scoffers were soon turned into admirers. Discoveries so new and astonishing, presented in a manner so simple, struck every reader with admiration and pleasure. The book soon crossed the British channel, and was translated into most of the languages of Europe. A copy of it, though miserably translated, had the fortune to fall into the hands of the celebrated Buffon, who immediately repeated the experiments and with the most complete success. Lewis XV. hearing of these curious exhibitions, expressed a wish to be a spectator of them. A course of experiments was made before him and his court, to their exceeding surprise and diversion, by Buffon and De Lor. The history of electricity has not recorded those experiments. But it is probable, that they were not of so comic a character as the following, wherewith Dr. Franklin would sometimes astonish and delight his Philadelphia friends, during the intervals of his severer studies. I. In the presence of a large party at his house, he took up a pistol which he had beforehand charged with inflammable air, well stopped with a cork, and presented it to Miss Seaton, a celebrated belle in those days. She took it from the doctor, but could not help turning pale, as though some conjuration was brewing. "_Don't be afraid, madam_," said he, "_for I give you my word that there is not a grain of powder in it; and now turn it against any gentleman in the room that you are angry with._" With a sudden blush, she turned it towards a gentleman whom she soon after married. In the same instant, the doctor drew a charged rod near the mouth of the pistol, the electric spark rushed in, and set fire to the inflammable air; off went the pistol; out flew the cork, and striking her lover a smart shock in the face, fell down on the floor, to the exceeding terror at first, but afterwards, to the equal diversion of the young lady and the whole company. This he called THE MAGIC PISTOL. II. At another time, in a large party at his house, all eager, as usual, to see some of his ELECTRICAL CURIOSITIES, he took from the drawer a number of little dogs, made of the pith of elder, with straw for feet and tails, and set them on the table. All eyes were fixed on him. "_Well, Miss Eliza_," said he, addressing the elegant Miss E. Sitgreaves, "_can you set these little dogs a dancing?_" "_No indeed, I can't_," replied she. "_Well_," replied he, "_if I had such a pair of eyes as you have, I think I could do it._" She blushed. "_However, let us see_," continued he, "_if we can't do something._" He then took a large tumbler from the table, which he had previously charged with the electric fluid, and clapped the tumbler over the dogs; whereupon they instantly fell to skipping and jumping up the sides of the tumbler, as if they were half mad to get out of it. This he called "THE DANCING DOGS." III. During something like a _levee_, at his house, one night, a couple of ladies who had been at London and Paris, were speaking in rapturous terms of the splendours of those royal courts, and of the diamond stars which they had seen, glittering with more than solar lustre on the breasts of the Prince of Wales and the Dauphin. At length one of the fair orators, as if wrought up to a perfect adoration of the wondrous stars which she had been so elegantly depicting, turned to the doctor, and smartly asked him if he would not like mightily to have such a star. "_To be sure, madam_," replied he with his usual gallantry, "_and suppose we order one?_" She looked surprised. "_Boy_," continued he, "_bring me down one of my electrical jars, and put it on the sideboard._" While the servant was gone, the doctor took a plate of tin, and cutting it into a dozen angles, like a star, poised it on a wire projecting from his prime conductor. "_Well now, ladies, put out the candles, and you shall see a star not inferior to that of the prince of Wales._" The candles were put out, and a turn or two of the jar being made, the lightning flew to the plate of tin, and appeared at the extremities of its angles, in a blaze of light beautiful as the morning star. This he called "THE ELECTRIC STAR." IV. On his sideboard was placed an electrical jar, concealed behind a large picture of a man dressed in purple and fine linen. At a short distance stood a little brass pillar, in front of which was the picture of a poor man lying down ragged and wan as Lazarus. From the ceiling, and reaching down to the sideboard, was suspended by a fine thread, the picture of a boy, with a face benevolent and beautiful as a youthful cherub. "_Well, now, gentlemen, do you know who these are?--This is the proud, unfeeling Dives; that, the poor dying Lazarus; and here is a beautiful boy, that for humanity's sake, we will call the son of Dives. Now gentlemen, can any of you make this lovely child the minister of Dives' bounty to poor Lazarus?"_ They all confessed their inability; regarding him at the same time with an eye of expectation. Without being noticed by his company, he charged the jar behind the picture of Dives with electric fluid from his prime conductor. Instantly, the beauteous youth flew to it, and getting charged flew to the brass pillar behind Lazarus, which possessed no electricity, and imparted to it his whole load. He then flew back to the jar of Dives, and receiving a second supply, hastened to poor Lazarus and emptied himself again. And thus it went on to the astonishment of the spectators, alternately receiving and imparting until it had established a balance between them, and then, as if satisfied, it came to a pause. Seeing their surprise, the doctor thus went on. "Well, now, gentleman, here is a fine lesson for us all. This electric fluid, which you saw animating that youth, came down from heaven to teach us that men were as assuredly designed to be helpmates to men, as were the two eyes, the two feet, or the two hands, to assist one another. And if all who are overcharged with this world's riches would but imitate this good little electrical angel, and impart of their superabundance to the empty and the poor, they would, no doubt, even in this world, find a much higher pleasure than in hoarding it up for ungrateful heirs, or spending it on vanity." This he called "DIVES AND LAZARUS." But it were an endless task to enumerate all the rare and beautiful phenomena, wherewith he would surprise and delight the vast circles of friends and citizens, whose curiosity was so pressing, that, as he says, _it almost wore him out_. Sometimes, in order to show them the force of electricity he would turn his wires against a pack of cards, or a quire of paper, and the subtle fluid would instantly dart through, leaving a beautiful perforation like the puncture of a large needle. Sometimes, to show the wondrous qualities of electricity, he would let them see it darting, like a diamond bead, through a long cylinder of water, not hurt, like other fires, by that element. Sometimes he would place a young lady, generally the handsomest of the company, on his electrical stool; then by slily touching her dress with his magic wand, he would so fill her lovely frame with the electric fluid, that, on the approach of any young gentleman to kiss her, a spark from her ruby lips would suddenly drive him frightened and staggering back. This was called the "MAGIC KISS." Sometimes he would fix figures of horses cut in paper, on wires nicely poised, so as to move in circles round his prime conductor, then, from his magic wand, he would dash on them a stream of mimic lightning, which, potent as the whips and spurs of Newmarket, would set them all in full speed, bending and buckling with glorious emulation in the beautiful contest, to the great amusement of the spectators. The public named this the "ELECTRICAL HORSE RACE." Sometimes he would suspend, near the ceiling, a large flock of finely picked cotton, or place on a distant table, a paper of gunpowder; then from his wires, artfully directed, he would send a flash of lightning, instantly exploding the powder, and wrapping the cotton into a blaze. Sometimes he would take the model of a double-geared water mill, turning two pair of stones, and placing it near his prime conductor, direct a stream of electric fire against the large wheel, setting it in motion, and with it the whole machinery of his mill, to the equal surprise and pleasure of the beholders. Sometimes he would take the figures of the sun, moon, and earth, cut in papers, and fix them on wires, nicely balanced. Then, by the force of the electric fluid, he would set them a-going in most harmonious style--the earth revolving round her own axis; the moon round the earth; and both round the sun; all exactly according to the course which the hand of the Creator had prescribed to these mighty orbs. For the sake of those who have never considered this wonderful attraction of lightning to iron rods, I beg leave to relate the following very extraordinary and daring experiments of Dr. Franklin. In a large chamber, which he kept for his electrical apparatus and experiments, he suspended a number of bells, all connected by wires, and communicating, through the gable end of the house, with the large lightning rods that descended along the chimney to the ground. His aim in this contrivance was, that he might know whenever a lightning cloud passed over his house in the night; and also what freight of electrical fluid it carried about with it. For, as it seldom passes, without paying a loving visit to his rod, so it always told, with great honesty, the amount of its inflammable cargo, especially if it was ample; in which case, it was always sure to set the bells a ringing at a terrible rate. And besides these, he had numbers of men and women of the Lilliputian stature, cut in paper, and so artfully attached to the clappers, that as soon as the bells began to ring, the men and women began to dance also, and all of them more and more merrily, according as this extraordinary kind of music played up more briskly. But though, for the amusement of his friends, Franklin would sometimes set his bells and dolls to ringing and dancing, by his electricity, yet his main object was, to invite the lightnings to be the bell ringers, and dancing masters to his puppets, that, as before observed, he might become better acquainted with the nature of lightning, and thus extend his electrical experiments and knowledge. But it must be owned, that when the lightnings were drawn down for this purpose among the bells and wires of his chamber, the entertainment was almost too terrible to be agreeable to any but philosophers. The elegant J. Dickinson, Esq. informed me, that he was at Dr. Franklin's one evening, with a large party, when a dreadful cloud began to rise, with distant thunder and lightning. The ladies, panic struck, as usual, were all in a prodigious bustle for their bonnets, to get home. The doctor entreated them not to be frightened; for that they were in the safest house in Philadelphia; and indeed, jokingly offered to underwrite their lives at the low premium of a groat a head. When the storm was near its worst, he invited his company up into his large chamber. A glimmering light faintly showed them his electrical apparatus of globes, cylinders, bells, wires, and the Lord knows what, conveying to those of the superstitious sort, a strong idea of a magic cell, or a haunted castle, at least. Presently a dreadful clap of thunder shook the house over their heads, the chamber was filled with vivid lightnings, darting like fiery serpents, crackling and hissing along the wire all around them, while the strong smell of sulphur, together with the screams of the poor ladies, and the ringing of the bells, completed the terribleness of the scene, inspiring a fearful sense of the invisible world. "_But all these things, gentlemen_," he would say, smiling all the time on his crowding and gaping friends, as a parent on his children, whom he saw surprised at small matters, "_all these things are mere nothings; the childish sportings of an art but yet in its cradle_. ELECTRICITY, gentlemen, is of the terrible family of lightning, that most powerful of the works of God on this globe, and the chosen instrument of most of his operations here below. It is the electric fluid, (passing from a full cloud to an empty one,) that makes his voice, and that, as the scripture says, _a terrible voice_, even the THUNDER, to terrify the guilty, and to increase in the virtuous a becoming reverence of the Creator. For if the electric fluid passing from a small jar, cause so loud a crack, why should we wonder at the dreadful peals of thunder that are occasioned, when thousands and myriads of acres of clouds are throwing off their electric fluid in rivers of living fires, sufficient to blow up the globe itself, if the Almighty were but to let loose his hold on these furious agents. And this electric fluid is that same lightning which, as David says, _shines out from one end of Heaven to another_, and that so instantaneously, that were all the men, women, and children, on earth, joining hands, to form a ring round this great globe, an electric shock given to the first person in that ring, would so suddenly reach the last, that they themselves would probably be at a loss to determine which of them received it first. "Thus the electric fluid, in the form of lightning, serves also in the hand of heaven as the _red rod_ to restrain the vicious. Does the benevolent governor of the world seek to impress a salutary awe on the gambler, the drunkard, and such immoral characters, whose lives are in constant opposition to their own and the happiness of others? He but speaks to his ready ministers, the lightnings. Quickly, from the sultry cloud, coming up with muttering thunder, black and terrible as nature's approaching pall, the frightening flash bursts forth, rending the trees and houses over their heads; killing their flocks and herds; and filling the air with smoking sulphur, a strong memento of that dismal place to which their evil practices are leading them. And when, to unthinking mortals, he sees fit to read instruction on a wider scale, he only needs but beckon to the ELECTRIC FLUID. Straightway this subtle servant of his power rushes forth, clad in various forms of terror, sometimes as the roaring WHIRLWIND, unroofing the palaces of kings, and desolating the forests in its course. Sometimes with dreadful stride it rushes forth upon the 'howling wilderness of waves,' in shape of the funnelled water-spout, with hideous roar and foam, whirling the frightened billows to the clouds, or dashing them back with thundering crash into their dismal gulphs; while the hearts of the seamen, looking on, sink with terror at the sight, and even sharks and sea-monsters fly for refuge to their oozy caverns. "Sometimes, with the bolder aim of the earthquake, it strikes both sea and land at once, sending the frightened globe bellowing and trembling along her orbit, sadly pondering the coming day, when the measure of sin being filled up, she shall be wrapt in these _same electric fires_, perhaps, and lose her place for ever among the starry train." But though the experiments above mentioned are highly curious; and also Dr. Franklin's reflections on them abundantly philosophical and correct, for what I know, yet the world should learn that the gratification of public curiosity formed but a very small part of his many and grand discoveries in electricity. For soon as he had ascertained that lightning was the same thing with the electric fluid, and like it, so passionately fond of iron that it would forsake every thing else in its course, to run along upon that beloved metal, he conceived the plan of putting this discovery to those beneficent uses for which alone he thought the power of discovery was given to man, and which alone can consecrate it to the divine Giver. "_The_ GRAND _practical use_," says the learned Mr. Immison, who, though a Scotch monarchist himself, had the extraordinary virtue to be a profound admirer of our republican American,--"the grand practical use which Dr. Franklin made of this discovery was to secure houses and ships from being damaged by lightning; a thing of vast consequence in all parts of the world, but more especially in North America, where thunder gusts are more frequent and their effects, in that dry air, more dreadful than they are ever known to be with us. This great end he accomplished by the cheap, and seemingly trifling, apparatus of a pointed metallic rod, fixed higher than any part of the building, and communicating with the ground, or rather the nearest water. This rod the lightning is sure to seize upon preferably to any other part of the building, unless it be very large; in which case, rods may be erected at each extremity; by which means this dangerous power is safely conducted to the earth, and dissipated without doing any harm to the edifice." Had any thing more been necessary to convince the world of the value of lightning rods to buildings, it was abundantly furnished by several very terrible instances of destruction which took place about this time in several parts of America, for no other reason upon earth, as every one must admit who reads the account, but the want of lightning rods. There, for example, was the affair of the new church, in the town of Newberry, New-England. This stately building was adorned on its north end with an elegant steeple or tower of wood, running up in a fine square, seventy feet from the ground to the bell, and thence went off in a taper spire of wood, likewise seventy feet higher, to the weathercock. Near the bell was fixed an iron hammer to strike the hours; and from the tail of the hammer, a wire went down through a small gimblet hole in the floor that the bell stood upon, and through a second floor in like manner; then horizontally under the plaistered ceiling of that floor to a plaistered wall, then down that wall to a clock which stood about twenty feet below the bell. Now come, gentlemen, _you_ who have no faith in lightning rods--you who think it _blasphemy_ to talk of warding off GOD ALMIGHTY'S LIGHTNING!--as if it were not just as pleasing to him to see you warding off the lightning by steel rods, as warding off the ague and fever by jesuit's bark; come, I say, and see how very visibly he approbates our works of wisdom, which make us like himself. You have read the structure of this steeple--the top, a _seventy feet spire without any rod_--then a rod that went down zigzag, about thirty feet; then a plaistered brick and stone wall without any rod, to the ground. A dreadful cloud came over the steeple. At the first flash, away went the whole of the seventy foot wooden spire, scattered all over the church yard in splinters fit to boil the preacher's tea kettle. The lightning then found the iron wire which it instantly seized on, quitting all things else for that, and darting along with it in so close an embrace, as barely to widen a little the gimblet holes through which it passed. It then followed the wire in all its meanders, whether perpendicular or horizontal--never turning either to the right or to the left, to hurt the building, but passed through it the whole length of the wire, which was about thirty feet, as harmlessly as a lamb. But soon as its dear chain was ended, it assumed the furious lion again; attacking the building with the most destructive rage, dashing its foundation stones to a great distance, and in other respects damaging it dreadfully. Now what can be more reasonable than doctor Franklin's remarks on this very remarkable occurrence? "I. That lightning, in its passage through a building, will leave wood, brick, or stone, to pass as far as it can in metal; and not enter those again, till the metal conductor ceases. "II. The quantity of lightning that passed through this steeple must have been very great, by its effects on the lofty spire, &c., and yet great as this quantity was, it was conducted by a small wire without the least damage to the building as far as the wire extended. "III. Hence it seems probable, that if even such a small wire had been extended from the top of the steeple to the earth, before the storm, no damage would have been done by that stroke of lightning." A fate exactly similar to this attended the great Dutch church, of New York, in 1750. As far as the wire was extended, which was from the top of the steeple, to within a few feet of the earth, the lightning closely accompanied it, passing with it through small holes in the floors, without doing the least damage. But the instant it quitted the wire, it commenced its ravages on the building. The summer of 1760 was dreadfully hot in Pennsylvania; and the thunder gusts frequent and terrible. Several ships at the wharves were struck and greatly injured. One of them in particular, a very large ship, had her mainmast torn to pieces, and her captain and three seamen killed. Of houses, both in town and country, many were struck; and some of them, as barns with large quantities of hay, and warehouses with hemp, were set on fire and destroyed to the great detriment and terror, both of the unfortunate sufferers and their neighbours. These things, though melancholy in themselves, were not without their good effects. They served to place in the strongest point of view, the admirable efficacy of the newly invented lightening rods. For, while buildings destitute of them, were often struck, and sometimes with great loss of lives and property, those houses that had them, were hardly ever known to be hurt, though the neighbours who saw the dismal clouds when they bursted, with such hideous peals of thunder and streams of lightning, were sickened with horrid apprehension that all was lost. And even the house keepers themselves, when recovered from their terrors and faintings, would fly shrieking from chamber to chamber, amidst the clouds of sulphur to see who were _dead_. But behold, to the delicious wonder of themselves and congratulating friends, all were safe. But still the cry was, _certainly the house was struck! the house was surely struck! let us examine the conductors_. The conductors were resorted to and examined, and behold! the wondrous laws imposed of God on the most powerful of his creatures! The furious lightnings had fallen on the houses in torrents of fire, threatening a wide destruction. But the iron rods, faithful to their trust, had arrested the impending bolts, and borne them in safety to the ground. But it was found that the cataracts of lightning had proved too powerful for the rods; in some instances melting them in two at their slenderest parts, and in others entirely consuming them into smoke. But though these GUARDIAN RODS had perished in their conflict with the rude lightnings, yet they had succeeded in parrying the dreadful stroke with perfect safety to the buildings and their terrified inhabitants; thus impressing all men with joy and thankfulness, _that God had given such complete victory over one of the most terrible of all our natural enemies_. In short, to use the handsome language of president Adams, "nothing perhaps that ever occurred on earth, could have better tended to confer universal celebrity on man, than did these lightning rods of doctor Franklin's. The idea was certainly one of the most sublime ever suggested to the human imagination. That mortal man should thus be taught to disarm the clouds of heaven, and almost snatch from his hand '_the sceptre and the rod_!'" The ancients would, no doubt, have enrolled among their gods, the author of so wonderful an invention. Indeed the reputation which Franklin acquired by it, not only in America, but in Europe also, far transcended all conception. His _lightning rods_, or as the French called them, his "_paratonerres_," erected their heads, not only on the temples of God and the palaces of kings, but also on the masts of ships and the habitations of ordinary citizens. The sight of them every where reminded the gazing world of the name and character of their inventor, who was thought of by the multitude as some _great magician_ dwelling in the _fairy lands_ of North America, and to whom God had given controul over the elements of nature. And equally wonderful was the change produced by them in the state of general comfort. The millions, who had hitherto trembled at the cloud rising in the heat of summer, could now look on it with pleasing awe as it rose dark and solemn, with all its muttering thunders. And even amidst the mingled flash and crash of the earth shaking tornado, the very women and children, if they had but Franklin _paratonerres_ to their chimnies, would sit perfectly composed, silently adoring God for teaching such great salvation to men. But the pleasure which doctor Franklin found in these plaudits of an honest world was not without an alloy. Though the end of his labours had been to do good; yet he soon discovered that there were some who sickened at his success. Alas! "Among the sons of men, how few are known Who dare be just to merit, not their own." Certain invidious scribblers, in London and Paris, began to decry his well-earned glory, by pretending that it was all due to the Abbe Nollet, to doctor Gilbert, or some other wonderful Frenchman or Englishman, as the real father of electricity. Franklin took no notice of all this impotent malice; nor indeed was it necessary; for soon as it dared to present its brazen front in print, it was attacked by the first-rate philosophers of Europe, who nobly taking the part of Franklin, soon showed, to the general satisfaction, that whatever others may have dreamed about the late wonderful discoveries in electricity, they were all due, under God, to the great American philosopher, who for these, and many other important discoveries, had a good right to share with Newton in the following bold compliment. "Nature and nature's works lay hid in night, God said, let Franklin be, and all was light." CHAPTER XXXVII. A curious demonstration of Dr. Franklin's philosophy of lightning. About thirty-four years after this date, when Doctor Franklin, by his opposition to Lord North's measures, had become very unpopular, George III. was persuaded to pull down the _sharp points_ of that "HOARY REBEL," and set up the _blunts_ of an impudent quack, because, forsooth, he was a _loyal subject_! Scarcely were the _sharps_ taken down from the palace, to which, during thirty four years, they had been an excellent safeguard, before a dismal cloud rose upon the city, black as midnight, and when right over the palace discharged a cataract of electric fluid, with horrid glare and thunder, stunning all ears, blinding all eyes, and suffocating every sense with the smell of sulphur. The famous _blunt conductors_ presented no point to catch the bolt, which, dashing at the stately edifice, tore away all its gable end, marring the best apartments, and killing several of the king's servants. Shortly arrived the packet from New York, with news of a far more dreadful thunder-clap which had bursted on poor George in America--the capture of his grand Canada army! which Lord North had promised him should soon bring the rebels to their marrow bones. The next day the following pasquinade made its appearance in the newspapers: "While you, great George, intent to hunt, Your sharp Conductors change to blunt, The nation's out of joint; Franklin a wiser course pursues, And all your thunder fearless views, By sticking to the POINT." I cannot quit this subject without observing, that from Dr. Franklin's experiments it appears, that death by lightning, must be the easiest of all deaths. "In September, 1752," says he, "six young Germans, apparently doubting the truth of the reported force of electricity, came to me to see," as they said, "if there was _any thing in it_. Having desired them to stand up side by side, I laid one end of my discharging rod on the head of the first; this laid his hand on the head of the second, that on the head of the third, and so on to the last, who held in his hand the chain that was attached to the lightning globe. On being asked if they were ready, they answered _yes_, and boldly desired that I would give them a _thumper_; I then gave them a shock; whereat they all dropped down together. When they got up, they declared that they had not felt any stroke; and wondered how they came to fall. Nor did any of them _hear_ the crack, or _see_ the light of it." He tells another story equally curious. "A young woman, afflicted with symptoms of a palsy in the foot, came to receive an electrical shock. Heedlessly stooping too near the prime conductor, she received a smart stroke in the forehead, of which she fell like one perfectly lifeless on the floor. Instantly she got up again complaining of nothing, and wondering much why she fell, for that nothing of the sort had ever happened to her before." Nay, he also tells us of himself, that by accident, he received a shock which in an instant brought him to the floor, without giving him time to _see, hear, or feel any thing of the matter_! Hence he concludes, and I think with good reason, that all who dread the idea of pain in dying, would do well to pray, if it be God's will, to die of _coelataction_, as the ancients called it, or a _touch from heaven_. It is worthy of remark, that persons thus knocked down, do not _stagger_, or fall _lengthwise_, but as if deprived instantaneously of strength and firmness, they sink down at once, doubled or folded together, or as we say, "_all in a heap_." Dr. Franklin seldom suffered any thing to escape him. From the power of lightning to dissolve the hardest metals, he caught an idea favourable to cooking and matrimony. First, an old dunghill cock killed in the morning by a shock from his electrical jar, by dinner was become so tender that both the doctor and several of his literary friends pronounced it equal to a young pheasant. Second, an old bachelor thought to be far gone in a consumption, had hardly received more than a couple of dozen smart shocks of electricity, before he turned into courting with great spirit, and presently got himself a wife. If electrical jars could be had cheap, this discovery concerning the old dunghill cock might prove a good hint to those gentlemen in the _tavern-keeping_ line, who are so very frugal that they will not keep up a coop full of young poultry, fat and fine, and always ready for the traveller, but prefer giving him the pain, long after his arrival at their door, to hear the lean tenants of the dunghill flying and squalling from the pursuit of the barking dogs and noisy servants. And as to the experiment on the other kind of old CAPON, the grunting wheezing old bachelor, it clearly points to the wish often expressed by Dr. Franklin, viz. "_that the legislature would order an electrical machine, large enough to kill a turkey cock at least, to be placed in every parish, at the cost and for the benefit of all the old bachelors of the same_." CHAPTER XXXVIII. I have been told that Dr. Franklin on his death bed often returned thanks to God for having so kindly cast his lot of life in the very time when of all others he would have chosen to live for the great purposes of usefulness and pleasure. And so indeed it appears; for scarcely had he matured, as above, his most useful discoveries in electricity, before a new door was opened to him for another noble charity to his country. Some there are who for a good work begun by themselves will do every thing; but for the same work begun by others will do nothing; and yet will call themselves christians. Franklin lived to set the example of a better christianity. A notable instance of this occurred about this time, 1754. A Dr. Thomas Bond, having noticed a number of families so extremely poor, as to be in imminent danger not only of suffering grievously in case of sickness, but of actually perishing for want of wholesome food and medicine, generously undertook, by subscription, to build a hospital for these sufferers. Meeting with but little encouragement, and knowing Dr. Franklin's influence and public spirit, he applied to him for assistance. Perfectly indifferent who got the praise, provided he but shared the pleasure of founding so god-like an institution, Franklin entered very heartily into the plan with Dr. Bond, and inserted in his newspaper, a series of essays, "_on the great duty of charity to the sick and miserable_," which made such an impression on the public mind, that the noble sum of twelve thousand dollars was quickly subscribed. With this the trustees bought a lot, and finished one wing of their hospital, for immediate use. On the foundation stone is to be seen the following inscription by Dr. Franklin: "In the year of Christ MDCCLV, George the Second, _happily reigning_, (For he sought the HAPPINESS OF HIS PEOPLE,) Philadelphia _flourishing_, (For its inhabitants were _public spirited_,) This Building By the bounty of the Government And of many private persons Was piously founded For the relief of the _sick_ and _miserable_. MAY THE GOD OF MERCIES BLESS THE UNDERTAKING!" Never did benevolence put up an ejaculation more fervent. And never was one more signally answered. Indeed the blessings of heaven have been so signally showered on this excellent charity, that it now forms one of brightest ornaments of the fairest city in America, presenting to the delighted eye of humanity a noble front, of elevation and extent far beyond that of Solomon's temple, even a royal range of buildings, two and three stories high, two hundred and seventy-eight feet long, and forty wide, containing about one hundred and thirty spacious well-aired rooms, for the accommodation of the sick, wounded, and lunatic of every description; affectionately waited on by skilful physicians and active nurses; comforted by refreshing baths both hot and cold; and abundantly supplied with the best loaf bread, nice vegetables, fresh meats, soups, wines and medicines. And while other parts of the city have been very sickly; and especially in the summer of 1793, when no fewer than 4000 persons perished of the yellow fever, not a single case of disease occurred in this hospital. The destroying angel as he passed along, smelt the odour of that precious grace (charity) which embalmed the building, and let fall his avenging sword. Gentlemen travellers falling sick in Philadelphia, will please be informed of this famous hospital, that if they wish excellent physicians, experienced nurses, pleasant chambers, pure air, and sweet retirement, they may here have all those of the first quality at _half price_; and _even_ THAT a _donation_ to the _Institution_. CHAPTER XXXIX. Dr. Franklin, about this time, 1756, commenced his political career. When we see some peerless _Childers_, (whose figure almost proves the divinity of matter, and who in matchless speed leaves the stormy winds behind him,) bending under the weight of a miller's bag, or tugging at the hames of some drunken carman, how can we otherwise than mourn such a prostitution of excellences; so how can we but mourn, when we see such a man as Franklin, born for those divine arts which widen our empire over nature, and multiply a thousand-fold the comforts of life, wasting his precious time in combatting the unreasonable claims of selfish and wicked man? This, for a portion of his eventful life, was the sad destiny of Dr. Franklin. Scarcely had he passed his first forty years in his favourite philosophical labours, equally useful to the world, and delightful to himself, when he was at once stopped short--stopped by the voice of public gratitude. The wise and virtuous people of Pennsylvania, chiefly quakers, who estimate a man, not by the fineness of his coat, but the _usefulness_ of his life, were not to overlook such a man as Franklin. His astonishing industry, and his many valuable inventions, had long made him the favourite theme of their talk. But it was not for approbation so general and hearty, to be satisfied with _mere talk._ _What shall be done for the man whom the people delighteth to honour?_ was the question in every circle. _God, they said, has lighted up this candle for our use, it must not be hid under a bushel. Let it be placed on the great candlestick of the nation, the_ LEGISLATURE. So strong, indeed, was the public feeling in his favour, that from several of the wards, deputations were appointed to wait upon him, to beg he would serve the city as their representative in the house of burgesses. The sight of his name in the papers, as a candidate at the next election, to serve the city of Philadelphia, gave a general joy. Among his opponents were several of the wealthiest citizens, who had long served as representatives, and whose numerous friends could not bear the idea of their being turned out. Great exertions were made on both sides; and the polls were uncommonly crowded. But when the contest came to issue, it was found that the Philadelphia printer, and son of the good old psalm-singing Boston tallow-chandler, carried the day with great ease. _O ye simple ones, how long will you love simplicity!_ you, I mean, who can once a year look sweetly on your constituents, and once a year invite them to barbacues, and make them drunk with whiskey, thus ignobly begging those votes which you feel you have not the sense to deserve, O learn from this your great countryman, wherein consists the true art of electioneering; not in ignoble tricks like these, to court the little, but in high qualifications, like Dr. Franklin's, to be courted by the great. The exalted expectations formed of him by the public were not disappointed. Heartily a lover of man and the friend of equal rights, he had scarcely taken his seat in the legislature before he had to turn the torrent of his honest indignation against the _proprietaries_ and their creatures the _Governors_. The reader will please here be reminded that in the year 1680, that great GOOD man, William Penn, a quaker, was paid off a large claim against Charles II. of England, by a grant of lands in North America. To make the best of a bad bargain, honest William gathered together a caravan of his poor persecuted brethren, and taking ship came over to North America. The good angel that guided the steps of pious Jacob as he sojourned from Padan-aram to the land Uz, seeking a rest, guided Penn and his gentle followers to the mouth of the Delaware bay. He followed the stately flood in all its wanderings among the green marshes and forests of the new found world, until he reached the pleasant spot where now Philadelphia stands. The majestic grove that shaded the extended level on the western bank, bordered on the back by the beautiful serpentine river called by the natives, the SCHUYLKILL, struck his eye as a fine site for his future city. Abhorring the idea of killing his fellow men, the poor natives, and taking away their lands, he sent around among them the Calumet, or _pipe of peace_, inviting them to "A FRIENDLY TALK." Painted in red ochre, and decked in all the savage pomp of wild skins and feathers, the kings of the soil with all their simple tribes assembled themselves together. The meeting was in the summer of 1681, under the trees near the margin of the great river. The scene was lovely to the eye of humanity. The red and white men from different continents were seen to meet, not as enemies for mutual slaughter, but as brothers for loving commerce. The shores were covered with British merchandize. The eyes of the simple children of nature sparkled on those rich wares, the like of which they had never seen before. Penn gave them every thing. He gave them precious axes to master the forests; and still more magic guns to master the wolves and panthers. He gave them warm clothes for defence against the cold, and plough-shares and hoes for plentiful harvests. In return they gave him that large tract of land in their country, which, in honour of this good man, has been called Pennsylvania. Instantly the aged forests began to resound with the strokes of axes and the crash of falling trees. And the corner stone was laid of the new city, which, with great propriety, was named of Penn, PHILADELPHIA, or the city of _brotherly love_. Having thus laid, the foundation of this colony in JUSTICE to the poor natives, and in generosity to his own followers in the great cheapness of his lands, in perfect liberty of conscience, and in the exceeding moderation of his government, this wise statesman then looked to God for his blessings. Nor did he look in vain, The fame of "PENN COLONY" resounded throughout Great Britain. An immense emigration were quickly on their way to Pennsylvania. The young city grew apace, and farms and fair buildings in the country, spread in every direction with a rapidity unequalled in history. But alas! when honest William fell asleep, there rose after him a race of heirs "_who knew not Joseph_;" who not content, _like him_, with modest drab, and simple dinners, and aspiring to the true happiness of imitating God in godlike loves and deeds, basely prostituted their hearts to carnal lusts and pride. The worship of these gods, though contemptible, is costly; and to these _wet-quaker_ successors of the good William Penn, nothing promised such a swelling revenue as a bold rise in the price of their lands. And in this pitiful kind of management they soon gave the Pennsylvanians to understand that like Rehoboam of old, "_their little fingers were heavier than their father's loins_." I have not been able to procure any thing like certainty as to the sum that GOOD William Penn gave to the natives for the vast tract of land he purchased of them. But that he hardly gave at the rate of a _hatchet_ for what is now a noble farm, may be very fairly inferred. In 1754, which was seventy years later than the first purchase, the house of Penn bought of the Indians seven millions of acres lying within the ROYAL GRANT. And what do you suppose they gave for it? what do you suppose they gave for seven millions of acres of rich, heavy timbered Pennsylvania land? why not quite two thousand dollars! not _three cents_ the hundred acres! And what do you suppose they immediately asked for it? why _fifteen pounds ten shillings!_ near fifty thousand cents per hundred acres! And yet with such a bank of millions in hand they were not willing to bear their part of the taxes for public good!! Like the starched Pharisees of old, they could throw heavy weights on other men's shoulders, but not suffer a fly to light on theirs. They could smile when they saw the officer going round with his ink horn and pen, noting down the poor man's paddock, but if he but looked at their princely manors and parks they would make the whole colony ring with it. Grown beyond calculation rich by the sales and rents of their lands in America, they scorned the country of their illustrious predecessor, and went over to London, where they mimicked the pride and pageantry of princes. Thinking they did the obscure Pennsylvanians honour enough to govern them by _proxy_, they washed their hands of the poor colony government, and sent them over deputies. These, hirelings, to augment their salaries, soon commenced a course of oppressions on the people, whom they treated with great insolence. It were too great an honour to those wretches to set the people of the present day to reading their insolent messages to the legislature. They were always, however, very properly chastised by Dr. Franklin; sometimes in the columns of his own popular newspaper, and sometimes in the assembly. Not, indeed, by long and eloquent orations, for which he either had no talent, or declined it, preferring the pithy and pungent _anecdote_ or _story_, which was always so admirably appropriate, and withal so keen in wit and truth, that like a flash from his own lightning rods, it never failed to demolish the fairest fabric of sophistry, and cause even its greatest admirers to blush that they had been so fascinated by its false glare. In 1756, he was appointed deputy post-master general for the British colonies. It is asserted that in _his_ hands, the post-office in America yielded annually thrice as much as did that of Ireland. An extraordinary proof of our passion for reading and writing beyond the Irish. Perhaps it was owing to this that we saved our liberties, while they lost theirs. Several of the middle colonies suffering much at this time from Indian depredations on their frontiers, it was agreed among them to send commissioners to Albany to devise means for mutual defence. Dr. Franklin, commissioner on the part of Pennsylvania, had the honour to draw up a plan, which was thought excellent. Knowing the colonists to be the best marksmen in the world, and supposing it infinitely safer that the defence of their own firesides should be entrusted to them than to British hirelings, he had with his usual sagacity recommended that muskets and powder should be put into their hands. But when his plan was presented to the KING and COUNCIL for ratification, it was indignantly rejected. It was thought by some that hardly could Satan and his black janisaries have been more seriously offended, had a cargo of Bibles and hymn books been recommended for their pandemonium. The truth is, the British ministry had for a long time depressed the unfortunate Americans into mere _hewers of wood and drawers of water_, by making them bring all their rich produce of tobaccos, furs, &c. to English ports, and there give them the meanest prices; sometimes a penny, and even half a penny a pound for their brightest tobacco, which they would the next hour sell to the Dutch merchants for two shillings a pound. To preserve such a trade as this, as Lord Howe ingenuously confessed, from going into any other channel, was a grand object to the ministry. But this they could not long count on, if the Americans were furnished with muskets, cannon, and powder. They therefore, very prudently, determined to leave Dr. Franklin's _excellent marksmen_ out of the question, and confide to their own creatures the protection of a country whose trade could so _well repay them for it_. But their folly in preferring such troops was soon made evident, as Franklin had predicted. In the spring of 1755, two thousand veterans, the elite of the British military, were sent over to drive the French from the Ohio. One half that number of Virginia riflemen would have done the business completely. But such was the ministerial jealousy of the American riflemen, and so great their dread to embody and arm that kind of troops, that they permitted no more than three companies to join the army. And even these were so ludicrously scrimped up by governor Dinwiddie, in jackets scarcely reaching to their waists, that they became a mere laughing stock of the British army, who never called them by any other name than the "VIRGINIA SHORT RUMPS." Many believed that this was done purposely, that by being thus constantly laughed at, they might be _cowed_ thereby, and be led to think meanly of themselves, as quite an inferior sort of beings to the MIGHTY ENGLISH. But blessed be God whose providence always takes part with the oppressed. A few short weeks only elapsed when this motley army was led, by an incautious commander, into a fatal ambuscade of the French and Indians--general Braddock, at the head of his 2000 British veterans, and young George Washington at the head of his two hundred "_Virginia short rumps_." Then was displayed the soundness of Dr. Franklin's judgment, in the wide difference, as to _self-possession and hard fighting_, between these two kind of troops. The conceited Englishmen behaved no better than WILD TURKIES; while the despised "_Virginia short rumps_" fought like lions, and had the glory of saving the wreck of the British army. This sad defeat had like to have ruined doctor Franklin, by whose credit with the Pennsylvanians, colonel Dunbar of the rear guard of his army, had been furnished with fifty wagons, which were all burnt on the retreat. His escape from this danger was owing to the generosity of governor Shirley, who learning that Franklin had incurred this debt on account of the British government, undertook to discharge it. Seeing no end to the vexation and expense brought on the colony by those selfish beings, the PROPRIETARIES, the assembly came at length, to the resolution to petition the king to abolish the proprietary government, and take the colony under his own care. Doctor Franklin was appointed to the honour of presenting this petition to his majesty George II. and sailed for England, June, 1757. Learning at last that by obstinately contending for _too much_, they might possibly lose _all_, the proprietaries signified to doctor Franklin a willingness that their land should be _taxed_. After the completion of this important business, Franklin remained at the court of Great Britain as agent for the province of Pennsylvania. The extensive knowledge which he possessed of the situation of the colonies and the regard which he always manifested for their interests, occasioned his appointment to the same office by the colonies of Massachusetts, Maryland and Georgia. He had now an opportunity of visiting those illustrious Englishmen, whom his useful writings and discoveries had strongly bound to him, though they had never seen his face. The high opinion which they had formed of him at a distance, was greatly increased by a personal acquaintance. Such vastness of mind with such sweetness of spirit and simplicity of manners, formed a spectacle as rare as it was lovely. And as a proof that SUPERIOR SENSE and superior benevolence will always prevail against prejudice, he was now courted by those learned societies who formerly affected to deride his discoveries in philosophy and electricity. The Royal Society of London, which had at first refused his performances admission into its transactions, now deemed it an honour to class him among its fellows. The universities of St. Andrews, of Edinburgh, and Oxford, conferred on him the degree of doctor of laws; and the most distinguished philosophers of Europe sought his correspondence. In reading his letters to those great men, we are at a loss which most to admire, the majesty of his sense, or the simplicity of his style. While in England, which was from July, 1757, to July, '62, he suggested to the British ministry the duty of dispossessing the French of that great country on the north of our colonies called Canada. To this end, he published his famous _Canada pamphlet_, exhibiting in strong colours the many mischiefs and murders committed on his countrymen, even in times of peace, by the Indians in French pay. This little tract served to rouse the British nation to the pitch he desired. An army of English regulars and New-England militia were sent under the command of general Wolfe, who presently succeeded in driving the French out of a fine country, of which, by their cruelties, they had rendered themselves utterly unworthy. About this time the celebrated doctor Cullen, of Scotland, made some curious discoveries in the art of producing cold by evaporation. Hoping that the genius of Franklin might throw some lights on this dawning science, a friend of doctor Cullen's wrote a statement of the facts to Franklin. The American philosopher, though now immersed in political pursuits, took a little leisure to repeat doctor Cullen's experiments on cold, which he so improved as easily to produce ICE in the _dog days_. But it was one of those discoveries, which, as he says, he _never valued, because it was too expensive to be of general utility_. About the autumn of 1761, he rendered himself prodigiously popular among the ladies in London, by completing that sweet toned little instrument of music, the HARMONICA. I have been told that his fame at court on this account, so awakened the recollection of George III. that he caused it to be signified to Dr. Franklin, that he felt a disposition to "_do something for him_." Our philosopher replied, that he wanted nothing for himself, but--that, _he had a son in America_. The king took the hint, and immediately made out a commission of "_Governor of his colony of New Jersey, for his beloved subject, Temple Franklin, Esq._" On such small things are the fortunes of men sometimes founded! Doctor Franklin was now become so great a favourite that the people of all classes seemed to take a pride in talking of him, and his sayings, insomuch that not a word of the brilliant sort could fall from his lips but it was sure to be caught up instantly and re-echoed through every circle, from proud St. James to humble St. Giles. The following impromptu made a great noise in London about this time. One evening in a large party at his friend Vaughan's he was, laughingly, challenged by a very beautiful girl, a Miss Gun, to make her a couplet of verses _extempore_. Well, madam, replied he, with great gallantry, since every body is offering a tribute to your graces, let me tender the following: "Cupid now to ensure his fun, Quits his _bow_ and takes to _gun_." This handsome play on her name instantly suffused the cheeks of Miss Gun with celestial roses, making her look much more like an angel than before. I mention this merely to show what an extraordinary mind that man must have possessed, who with such equal ease, could play the _Newton_ or the _Chesterfield_, and charm alike the lightnings and the ladies. In the summer of 1762, he took leave of his friends in England to return to his native country. On his voyage he discovered in oil or grease thrown on the water, a property, which few people ever dreamt of. When we learn of _gold_ that it may by beating, be expanded into a leaf of such incredible fineness, that a guinea might in that way be made to cover Solomon's temple, or deck Noah's ark, we are filled with wonder of such a metal. Doctor Franklin tells us of equal wonders in oil. He informs us, that a wine glass full of pure oil poured on a mill pond, will presently spread over it, with a film inconceivably thinner than a cobweb, and so adhesive that the winds shall not excite it to mad-caps and breakers. Hence, he infers, that oil might be made a mean of saving ships during a violent storm at sea. In this voyage he made also another discovery, which ought to be known to all going by sea, viz. that if persons perishing of thirst on a voyage, would but bathe half a dozen times a day in the sea water, which they easily might, by using their empty water casks as bathing tubs, they would obtain great relief from their thirst, and live several days longer; thence enjoying a better chance for their lives, by getting into port, or falling in with some friendly sail. On his arrival in Philadelphia doctor Franklin was welcomed with marks of the most flattering respect by the citizens universally--handsome addresses and dinners were given him by literary societies and clubs--and the assembly, in the most public manner voted him their thanks for "the great honour and services he had rendered the country in general during his residence in England; and especially to the province of Pennsylvania." And they accompanied their thanks with a present of five thousand pounds. Ye blind parents who can think hard of laying out a few dollars for books and education of your children, O think of this, and learn a course of conduct more to your own credit and to their temporal and eternal welfare. In a few weeks after his return to Philadelphia there occurred in that neighbourhood an affair that serves to show the popularity of doctor Franklin in a very strong light. In consequence of a number of murders committed on the frontiers by some villanous Indians, about a hundred and twenty young men of Dauphin county, christians in _name_ but perfect savages in nature, bound themselves by a horrid oath to exterminate a little tribe of about twenty tame Indians, who lived very harmlessly among the whites in York county. Mounted on horses, and with rifles and tomahawks in their hands, they set off very deliberately on this hellish errand towards the settlements of the poor Indians. The old men, women, and children, in the cabins, soon fell weltering in their blood. The rest, who were at work, getting notice, fled to Lancaster, and were lodged in the jail as in a place of security. The blood thirsty whites broke open the jail and butchered every soul. All smeared with innocent blood, and furious as demons, they then pushed off for Philadelphia, to massacre the feeble remains of a friendly tribe who had fled into that city for protection. The governor issued his proclamation. The rioters paid no regard to it, but moved on rapidly, well armed, and determined to cut their way to the hated Indians over the bodies of all who should oppose them. They are now on this side of Germantown, only one hour's march from Philadelphia. The inhabitants are all in terror. The governor quits his palace, and for safety flies to the house of doctor Franklin. He, calm as he was wont to be amidst the lightnings as they darted around him on his rods, went out to meet the rioters. We sincerely regret that we cannot give the speech which he made on this memorable occasion. It must have been impressive in a most extraordinary degree; for on hearing it they instantly abandoned their hellish design and returned peaceably to their homes! CHAPTER XL. Had the fatal sisters, even now, put forth their shears and clipped his thread, yet would not the friend of man "_have fallen without his fame_." Admiring posterity would still have written on his tomb, _Here lies the GREAT FRANKLIN._ But though great now, he is destined to be much greater still. A crisis is approaching that is to call forth all his talents, and to convince even the most unthinking, that in the dark day of trouble the "_wise shall shine forth like the firmament_." By the crisis here mentioned, I mean the events leading to the American revolution. The British cabinet, as if entire strangers to that divine philosophy which commands its disciples to be "_no respecters of persons_," allowed themselves in the most fatal policy of sparing the British subjects in _England_ at the expense of the British subjects in _America_. After having drained much money from them in a variety of unconstitutional ways, they came at length to the resolution of taxing _the colonies without their consent_. This dark design was hinted in 1754, by the minister, to governor Shirley, of the Massachusetts-Bay colony. The governor, well knowing his extraordinary penetration and judgment, broke this ministerial plan to Dr. Franklin; requesting _his_ opinion of it. Dr. Franklin answered this question of the governor, by urging an "_immediate union of the colonies with great Britain, by allowing them representatives in parliament_," as the only thing that could prevent those ceaseless encroachments on the one side, and those bitter animosities on the other, which, _he feared_, would one day prove the ruin of both countries. As to the ministerial plan of taxing the colonies by act of parliament, where they have no representation, he assured the governor that it would prove utterly abominable. "His majesty, sir," said he to the governor, "has no subjects in all his wide dominions, who more heartily love him than do his American subjects. Nor do there exist on earth, the Englishmen who hold more dear the glory of old England than they do. But the same spirit of their gallant forefathers, which makes them ready to lay down their lives and fortunes, in a constitutional way, for their king and country, will for ever secure them from being slaves. We exult, sir, in the recollection, that of all the governments on earth, that of Great Britain has long been the _freest_; and that more blood has been shed for freedom's sake in England in one week, than on the whole continent for fifty years. Now, on the bright face of that government, the first and fairest feature is this: that no king can touch a penny belonging to the poorest subject, without his own consent, by his representative in parliament. For, if, say they, '_a king can at pleasure take our money, he can take every thing else; since with that he can easily hire soldiers to rob, and then murder us if we but open our lips against him_.' As Americans glory in being Englishmen on the western side of the Atlantic, they very naturally claim the common right of Englishmen, not to be taxed without their own consent, by their representatives in parliament. But the British ministry, though they obstinately refuse to the Americans the sacred rights of representation, yet as wickedly insist on the right of _taxation_; and accordingly have brought into parliament the famous _stamp act bill_, whereby no business that requires a record on paper, as _deeds_, _bonds_, _wills_, _marriages_, _&c._ can be legally done but on paper that has received the _royal stamp_. Now, sir, you well know that the same minister who proposes this most iniquitous and unconstitutional act, would not dare propose to any the most drunken tavern-keeper in England, a farthing tax on a pot of his ale without the consent of his representative in parliament; and yet, without being allowed a hearing in parliament, _three millions_ of free-born Americans, sons of Englishmen, are to be taxed at the pleasure of a distant minister! Not, honoured sir, that the Americans care a fig for the _pence_ imposed on this bit of stamp paper, but for the _principle_. For they well know that if parliament claim a _right_ to take from us a penny in the pound, there is no line drawn to bound that right; and what shall hinder their calling whenever they please for the other _nineteen shillings and eleven pence_? And besides, sir, where is the necessity for this _most degrading_ measure? Have not the Americans ever shown themselves the warmest friends of their king and country? Have they not, in all cases of danger, most readily voted both their men and money to the full extent of their means, and sometimes far beyond? "And in addition to all this, are they not daily paying large monies in secret taxes to Great Britain? "I. We are not _permitted to trade with foreign nations_! All the difference in the price of what we could buy cheaper from them, but must buy dearer from Britain, is a clear _tax_ to Britain. "II. We are obliged to _carry our produce to Britain_! All that it sells for less _there_ than it would in any other market, is a clear _tax_ to Britain. "III. All the manufactures that we could make, but are _forbidden_ and must buy of British merchants, is a clear _tax_ to Britain. "And what _freeborn_ Englishman can, without indignation, think of being so daringly defrauded of his _birthright_, that if he wants a pipe of good wine, he cannot go to the island of Madeira and get it on easy exchange for his bread stuff, and return at once to his home and business; but must go a thousand miles farther from his family, even to Great Britain, and there run the gauntlet, through so many ruinous charges, as to bring his wine up to almost double what it ought to have cost? And all this most flagrant injustice done to the whole people of the colonies, just to enrich half a dozen British merchants engaged in the Portugal wine trade! "A similar outrage on another of the dearest rights of Englishmen, _i.e._ '_to make the most that they honestly can of their property_,' is committed on the British subjects in America, for the sake of favouring a few hatters and nail makers in England. No country on the globe, furnishes better iron or better beaver than does North America. But the Americans must not make a hob-nail or a felt hat for themselves. No; they must send all their iron and fur to England for the hatters and nail makers _there_; who may give them their own price for the raw materials, and ask their own price for the manufactures. "All that a wise government wishes, is, that the people should be numerous and wealthy enough to _fight the battles_ of their country, and to _pay the taxes_. But they care not so much whether the fighting be done by John or Thomas, or the tax paid by William or Charles. "What imports it to the government, whether a merchant, a smith, or a hatter, grows rich in Old England or New England? And if, through increase of the people, _two_ smiths are wanted for _one_ employed before, why may not the _new_ smith be allowed to live and thrive in the _new_ country, as well as the _old_ in the _old_? In short, why should the countenance of a state be _partially_ afforded to its people, unless it be most in favour of those who have most merit?" The whig papers in London soon got this letter, and laid it before the public. Among a high-minded people like the British, who pride themselves in their love of liberty and their perfect scorn of _foul play_, such sentiments could not be read without the liveliest emotions. And though some, the ministerial junto for example, with the merchants and manufacturers, did not like such plain truths, yet the nation in general gave him great credit both for his singular honesty and abilities; and the name of Dr. Franklin became very dear to thousands of the most enlightened and virtuous patriots of Britain. But the pleasure of admiration was dashed with fear, that the minister would suffer no good to be done to the nation by all this divine counsel, merely because the giver was not an _Englishman_. The lights, however, which Dr. Franklin had thrown on this great subject, were pressed upon the minister with such courage by numbers of honest English writers, that he prudently delayed ordering the collection of the tax until he could get further information. It was not long before an opportunity was offered him to obtain this information in a way highly complimentary to Dr. Franklin, _i.e._ by summoning him, then in London as colony agent from Pennsylvania, February 2, 1766, _to appear before the Bar of the British House of Commons, to answer certain questions, &c._ The next day, accompanied by Mr. Strahan, afterwards member of parliament, with several illustrious Englishmen, his warm friends, he went to the house. The concourse was immense. _To see Dr. Franklin_--the American, whose philosophical discoveries and political writings had filled the world with his name, excited universal curiosity. The galleries were filled with ladies of the first distinction, and every seat below was occupied by the members from the house of lords. At ten o'clock he appeared at the bar before the eager waiting crowd. The profoundest silence ensued. All eyes were fixed on him; and, from their deep regard, it appeared, that though they beheld no stars nor garters glittering on his breast, no burning velvets nor flaming diamonds adorning his person, yet they were not disappointed. They beheld a spectacle still more interesting and novel.--The spectacle of a man whose simple dress evinced that he asked no aid of the tailor and silkworm to recommend him, but stood solely on the majesty of his mind. The hour for examination being come, and the attendant officer beckoning him thereto, he arose-- "And in his rising seemed a pillar of state--deep on his brow engraven deliberation sat and public care. His looks drew audience and attention still as night, or summer's noontide air." Who can paint the looks of the minister, as with darkly scowling eye-balls, he beheld this terror of aristocracy! or who can paint the NOBLE LORDLINGS, as lost in equal _stare_, they gazed and gazed at the wondrous American, forgetting the while, "_to quiz_," as they were wont, "_his homespun coat and simple shoe-strings_." But never did the mind-illumined looks of man shine more divinely bright than did those, that day, of the generous Barry, the godlike Chatham, and the high-minded Dunning, when they beheld the noble form of Franklin. Though born in North America, he shines before their eyes as a true born son of Britain--the luminous and brave interpreter of her SACRED CONSTITUTION, and the wise politician who seeks to exalt her glory, lasting as the skies, on the broad base of impartial justice to all her children. With eyes sparkling with esteem unutterable, they hail him as a brother; and breathe the ardent wish that in the impending examination he may succeed in diverting the minister from that unconstitutional course which may involve the ruin both of England and America. The moment for trial being come, and the minister giving the signal to begin, the speaker thus commenced:-- _Q._ What is your name and place of abode? _A._ Franklin, of Philadelphia. Here followed nearly _three hundred questions_ and _answers_, which were once read with exceeding interest by men, women, and children in America. But as they turn altogether on that great quarrel which the British ministry formerly excited in this country; and which God, to his endless glory, was pleased to put asleep in our favour near half a century ago, then let all these questions and answers lie asleep with it. However, it is but justice to Dr. Franklin to observe, that when we consider these questions, what a wide range they take both of the British and American _relations_ and _interests_--together with the _luminous_, prompt, and decisive manner in which they were solved, we are lost in astonishment at the extent of his information and the powers of his mind, and are almost tempted to believe that the _answers_, and not the _questions_ must have been studied with the nicest discrimination of circumstances. Charles Fox, an honest Englishman, and an excellent judge in these matters, being asked his opinion of Dr. Franklin and the _ministers_ in the late examination, replied, in his strong way, "_Dwarfs_, sir, mere _dwarfs in the hand of a giant_!" Edmund Burke used to say, that this examination of Dr. Franklin before the ministers, always put him in mind of a "_Master examined before a parcel of school-boys_." But though his abilities on this occasion excited the admiration of generous enemies, while his more partial friends set no bounds to their praise, yet it would appear from the following that all afforded _him_ but little pleasure. In a letter to a friend in Philadelphia, he has these remarkable words: "You have, no doubt, heard that I have been examined before the HOUSE OF COMMONS in this country. And it is probable you have also been told that I did not entirely disappoint the expectations of my friends, nor betray the cause of truth. This, to be sure, gives me some pleasure; and, indeed it is the only thing that does; for, as to any good being done by my honest statement to ministers, of what I firmly believe to be the best interests of the two countries, 'tis all, I fear, _a lost hope_. The people of this country are too proud, and too much despise the poor Americans, to allow them _the common rights of Englishmen_, that is, _a representation in parliament_. And until this be done, I apprehend that no taxes laid by parliament, will ever be collected, but such as must be stained with blood. How lamentable it is that two people, sprung from the same origin, speaking the same language, governed by the same laws, and worshipping at the same altar of God, and capable, by a wise use of the extraordinary means he has now put into their hands, of becoming the greatest nation on earth, should be stopped short and perhaps reduced to insignificance by a civil war, kindled by ministers obstinately contending for what they cannot but know to be utterly unconstitutional and eternally inadmissible among the _free-born sons of Englishmen_. But I suppose the repeal will not now be agreed to, from what I think a mistaken opinion, that the honour and dignity of government are better supported by persisting in a wrong measure, once entered into, than by rectifying an error as soon as it is discovered." Differently, however, from the apprehensions of Franklin, the stamp act was repealed, and even in the course of the same year! But though so little expected by him, yet was this event ascribed, in a great measure, to Dr. Franklin. His famous examination, printed in a shilling pamphlet, had been distributed by myriads throughout Britain and America. In America it served to brighten up the _old land marks_ of their rights as _free-born sons of Englishmen_, and to quicken their sensibilities to ministerial frauds. In England, it served to show the ignorance of the ministers; the impolicy of their measures towards America; and the utter inexpediency of the stamp act. The stamp act of course fell to the ground. The reader, if a good man, exults, no doubt, in this as a most fortunate event, and already hails this removal of strife, as a certain prelude to that return of love between the mother country and her colonies, which will make them both, glorious and happy. He may hope it, but alas! he is never to see the accomplishment of that good hope. Death is whetting his scythe; and civil wars and slaughters are now just as near at hand as though the stamp act had never been repealed. For a pamphlet in some popular style that should unrip the black budget of ministerial injustice and lay naked to view the causes of the coming war; that unnatural war that is to sever England and her colonies for ever! Brighter than a thousand sermons it would illustrate to politicians that "_the Lord is King_"--that the sole end of his government, is to _glorify himself in the happiness of his creatures_--that thereunto he hath _established his throne in justice_--the eternal justice of men "_doing unto others as they would that others should do unto them_," and that none, however great, shall ever violate this blessed order with impunity. The British ministry are destined to illustrate this. They are fond of power--to preserve this, they must continue in place--in order thereunto they must please the merchants and manufacturers--to accomplish this they must favour their trade and lighten their taxes. And how is this to be done? why, by a little peccadillo of INJUSTICE. They have only to sweat the "CONVICTS _on their American plantations_,"--the rascals live a great way off, and have no _representative_ in parliament to make a noise about it. Accordingly, soon as the Americans were supposed to have gotten a little over their fever about the stamp act, the minister, lord North, of famous memory, determined to try them again. However it was but a small affair now--only a _three penny excise_ on the pound of tea. When Dr. Franklin, our ARGUS, then in London, discovered the designs of minister North, he exerted himself to point that purblind gentleman to the horrible gulf that was yawning at his feet. He wrote letters to several members of parliament, his friends; and he published a number of luminous pieces in the patriotic gazettes, all admirably calculated to rouse the friends of the nation to a sense of the impending dangers. In three letters to the honourable Mr. W. Strahan, he has, in the extract, these remarkable words:-- "_London, November, 1768._ "DEAR SIR, "With respect to the present dispute between Great Britain and the colonies, there is nothing I wish for more than to see it amicably settled. But _Providence_ brings about its own ends by its own means; and if it intends the downfall of a nation, that nation will be so blinded by its pride and other passions as not to see its danger, or how its fall may be prevented. "The friends of the ministry say that this tax is but a _trifle_; granted. But who does not see what will be the consequence of submitting to it? Is it not the more dangerous for being a trifle? Is it not in this way that the devil himself most effectually works our ruin? If he can but prevail on a poor thoughtless youth to shake hands with innocence, and to _steal_, he is abundantly satisfied. To get the boy's _hand in_, is all he wants. And he would as leave the simpleton should begin with stealing a halter as a horse. For he well knows that if he but begins with the one he is sure to end with the other. Just so the minister, angling for American liberty, artfully covers his hook with this delicate bait. But the truth is, I have talked and written so much and so long on the subject of this unhappy quarrel, that my acquaintance are weary of hearing, and the public of reading, any more of it; which begins to make me weary of talking and writing; especially as I do not find that I have gained any point in either country, except that of rendering myself suspected, by my impartiality, in England of being too much an _American_, and in America of being too much an _Englishman_. However, as in reply to your polite question, "_what is to be_ done _to settle this alarming dispute?_" I have often told you what I think the minister _ought_ to do: I now go a step farther, and tell you what I fear he will do. "I apprehend he will, ere long, attempt to enforce this obnoxious tax, whatever may be the consequences.--I apprehend that in the mean time, the colonies will continue to be treated with contempt, and the redress of their grievances be neglected--that, this will inflame matters still more in that country--that, further rash measures there, may create more resentments here--that, their assemblies will be attempted to be dissolved--that, more troops will be sent to oppress them--that, to justify these measures of government, your newspapers will revile them as _miscreants_, _rogues_, _dastards_, and _rebels_--that, this will alienate the minds of the people here from them, and theirs from you--that, possibly too, some of their warm patriots may be distracted enough to do some _mad_ act which will cause them to be sent for hither--and that government may be indiscreet enough to hang them for it--that mutual provocations will thus go on to complete the separation, and instead of that cordial affection which so long existed, and which is so necessary to the glory and happiness of both countries, an implacable malice, dishonourable and destructive to both, may take place. I hope, however, that this may all prove _false prophecy_, and that you and I may live to see as sincere a friendship established between our countries, as has so many years subsisted between W. Strahan, Esq. and his truly affectionate old friend, "B. FRANKLIN." But notwithstanding his prayer to the contrary, every body recollects how, exactly as Dr. Franklin had predicted, the minister continued to blunder and blunder on with his face constantly towards war--how nothing was trumpeted by the ministerial party, like the ingratitude and baseness of the Americans--how _certain_ newspapers perpetually vilified them as _miscreants_, _rascals_ and _rebels_--how the public mind was so set against them that even the _shoe-blacks_, as Mr. Wilkes said, talked of the colonies as _their plantations_, and of the people there as if they had been their _overseers_ and _negroes_--how the minister determined at last, to enforce the _tea-tax_--how, on hearing the news of this, as of the stamp act, the yankees muffled their drums, and played the _dead march_--how they took the sacrament never to submit to it--how the minister, to test their valour, sent three ships laden with this three-penny tea--how the yankees, dressed like Mohawks, boarded their ships and destroyed their cargoes--how the minister, waxing more in wrath, sent more soldiers to quell the rebels--how the rebels insulted the soldiers--how the soldiers fired on the rebels--how the port of Boston was shut by royal proclamation--how, in spite of the royal proclamation, the colonies would trade with her and send monies to her relief--how the LORDS and COMMONS petitioned the king that, any rebel opposing the officers of his sacred majesty, should be instantly hung up without judge or jury--how the king _thanked_ his noble lords and commons, and was graciously pleased to decree that all rebels thus offending should be thus hung up without judge or jury--how that, notwithstanding this gracious decree, when his majesty's troops attempted to destroy the rebel stores at Concord, the rebels attacked and killed them, without any regard to his majesty's decree. This unpardonable sin against the "Lord's anointed," which happened on the 19th of April 1775, served as the double bolting and barring of the door against all hope of peace. Throughout America, it struck but one deep and awful sentiment, "_the sword is drawn, and we must now throw the scabbard away_." In May, the news got to England, where it excited emotions that beggar all description. They somewhat, however, resembled the effects of the trumpet of the great angel spoken of in the _Revelations_, that sounded "_wo! wo! wo! to the inhabitants_" of America, and proclaimed the pouring forth of _fire_ and sword. But, reserving this tragedy for the next chapter, we will conclude the present with the following anecdote. It will show at least, that doctor Franklin left no stone unturned to carry his point; and that where logic failed he had recourse to wit. THE CAT AND EAGLE. A FABLE, BY DOCTOR FRANKLIN. Lord Spencer was a great admirer of Dr. Franklin, and never missed sending him a card when he intended a quorum of learned ones at his table. The last time that our philosopher enjoyed this honour, was in 1775, just before he was driven from England by lord North. The conversation taking a turn on fables, lord Spencer observed, that it had certainly been a very lucky thing, especially for the YOUNG, that this mode of instruction had ever been hit on, as there was a something in it wonderfully calculated to touch a favourite string with them, _i.e._ novelty and surprise. They would listen, he said, to a fox, when they would not to a father, and they would be more apt to remember any thing good told them by an owl or a crow, than by an uncle or an aunt. But I am afraid, continued his lordship, that the age of fables is past. �sop and Phædrus among the ancients, and Fontaine and Gay among the moderns, have given us so many fine speeches from the birds and beasts, that I suspect their budgets are pretty nearly exhausted. The company concluded with his lordship, except Franklin, who was silent. "Well, doctor," said lord Spencer, "what is your opinion on this subject?" "Why, my lord," replied Franklin, "I cannot say that I have the honour to think with you in this affair. The birds and beasts have indeed said a great many wise things; but it is likely they will say a great many more yet before they are done. Nature, I am thinking, is not quite so easily exhausted as your lordship seems to imagine." Lord Spencer, evidently confused, but still with that countenance of pleasure which characterizes great souls, when they meet superior genius, exclaimed--"Well, doctor, suppose you give us a fable? I know you are good at an impromptu." The company all seconded the motion. Franklin thanked them for the compliment, but begged to be excused. They would hear no excuses. They knew, they said, he could _go it_, and insisted he should gratify them. Finding all resistance ineffectual, he drew his pencil, and after scribbling a few minutes, reached it to Spencer, saying--"Well, my lord, since, you will have it so, here's a something fresh from the brain, but I'm afraid you'll not find �sop in it." "Read it, doctor, read it!" was the cry of the noble lord and his friends. In a mood, spriteful and pleasant, Franklin thus began--"Once upon a time--hem!--as an Eagle in the full pride of his pinions, soared over a humble farm-yard, darting his fiery eyes around in search of a pig, a lamb, or some such pretty tit-bit, what should he behold but a plump young rabbit, as he thought, squatted among the weeds. Down at once upon him, he pounced like thunder, and bearing him aloft in his talons, thus chuckled to himself with joy--Zounds, what a lucky dog I am! such a nice rabbit here, this morning, for my breakfast! "His joy was but momentary; for the supposed rabbit happened to be a stout cat, who, spitting and squalling with rage, instantly stuck his teeth and nails, like any fury, into the eagle's thighs, making the blood and feathers fly at a dreadful rate. "HOLD! HOLD! _for mercy's sake, hold!_ cried the eagle, his wings shivering in the air with very torment. "Villain! retorted the cat, with a tiger-like growl, dare you talk of _mercy_ after treating me thus, who never injured you?" O, God bless you, Mr. CAT, is that you? rejoined the eagle, mighty complaisant; 'pon honour, I did not intend, sir. I thought it was only a rabbit I had got hold of--and you know we are all fond of rabbits. Do you suppose, my dear sir, that if I had but dreamt it was you, I would ever have touched the hair of your head? No, indeed: I am not such a fool as all that comes to. And now, my dear Mr. CAT, come let's be good friends again, and I'll let you go with all my heart. "Yes, you'll let me go, scoundrel, will you--here from the clouds--to break every bone in my skin!--No, villain, carry me back, and put me down exactly where you found me, or I'll tear the throat out of you in a moment. "Without a word of reply, the eagle stooped at once from his giddy height, and sailing humbly down, with great complaisance restored the cat to his simple farm-yard, there to sleep, or hunt his rats and mice at pleasure." A solemn silence ensued. At length, with a deep prophetic sigh, lord Spencer thus replied: "_Ah! Dr. Franklin I see the drift of your fable; and my fears have already made the application. God grant_, that Britain may not prove the eagle, and America the cat." This fable paraphrased in the WHIG papers of that day, concludes in this way: "Thus Britain thought in seventy-six, Her talons in a hare to fix; But in the scuffle it was found, The bird received a dangerous wound, Which, though pretending oft to hide, Still rankles in his Royal side." CHAPTER XLI. Doctor Franklin now began to find his situation in London extremely unpleasant. For twelve years, like heaven's own minister of peace, he had pressed the olive-branch on the British ministry; and yet after all, their war-hawks could hardly tolerate the sight of him. They even went so far as to call him "_the hoary headed villain, who first stirred up the Americans to rebellion_." As soon as he could obtain his passports he left England. His old friend, Strahan, advised him to continue in that country, for that America would soon be filled with tumult and bloodshed. He replied, "_No, sir, where liberty is, there is my country._" Unbounded was the joy of the Americans on the return of so great a patriot and statesman. The day following he was elected by the legislature of Pennsylvania, a member of Congress. The following letters, in extract, to his constant friend, and the friend of science and liberty, the celebrated doctor Priestley, will show how full his hands were "_Philadelphia, July 7, 1775._ "DEAR FRIEND, "Britain has begun to burn our sea port towns; _secure_, I suppose, _that we shall never be able to return the outrage in kind_. She may doubtless destroy them all. But is this the way to recover our friendship and trade? She must certainly be distracted; for no tradesman out of Bedlam ever thought of increasing the number of his customers by knocking them on the head; or of enabling them to pay their debts, by burning their houses. "My time was never more fully employed. I breakfast before six. At six I hasten to the COMMITTEE of SAFETY for putting the province in a state of defence. At nine I go to Congress, which sits till after four. It will scarcely be credited in Britain, that men can be as diligent with us, from zeal for the public good, as with you, for _thousands_ per annum. Such is the difference between uncorrupted new states, and corrupted old ones. "Great frugality and great industry are now become fashionable here: gentlemen, who used to entertain with two or three courses, pride themselves now in treating with simple beef and pudding. By these means, and the stoppage of our consumptive trade with Britain, we shall be better able to pay our voluntary taxes for the support of our troops. Our savings in the article of trade, amount to near five millions of sterling per annum.--Yours, most affectionately, "B. FRANKLIN." In another letter to the same, dated October 3d, he says: "Tell our dear good friend, doctor Price, who sometimes has his doubts and despondencies about our firmness, that America is determined and unanimous: a very few tories and placemen excepted, who will probably soon export themselves. Britain, at the expense of three millions has killed in this campaign, _one hundred and fifty yankees!_ which is 20,000 pounds sterling a head; and at Bunker's hill she gained half a mile of ground! During the same time she lost, at one place, near one thousand men, and we have had a good sixty thousand children born in America. From these data, with the help of his mathematical head, lord North will easily calculate the time and expense necessary to kill us all, and conquer our whole territory.-- "I am yours, B. FRANKLIN." In another letter to the same, and of the same date, he says: "Britain still goes on to goad and exasperate. She despises us too much; and seems to forget the Italian proverb, that '_there is no little enemy_.' I am persuaded the body of the British people are our friends; but your lying gazettes may soon make them our enemies--and I see clearly that we are on the high road to mutual enmity, hatred, and detestation. A _separation_ will of course be inevitable. It is a million of pities so fair a plan, as we have hitherto been engaged in for increasing _strength_ and _empire_ with PUBLIC FELICITY, should be destroyed by the mangling hands of a few blundering ministers. It will not be destroyed: GOD WILL PROTECT AND PROSPER IT: you will only exclude yourselves from any share of it. We hear that more ships and troops are coming out. We know you may do us a great deal of mischief, but we are determined to bear it patiently; but if you flatter yourselves with beating us into submission, you know neither the people nor the country. "I am ever your's, most affectionately, "B. FRANKLIN." This letter of Doctor Franklin's is the first thing I have seen that utters a whisper about INDEPENDENCE. It was, however, a _prophetical_ whisper, and soon found its accomplishment in the source that Franklin predicted--the BARBARITY OF BRITAIN. To see war waged against them by a power whom they had always gloried in as their MOTHER COUNTRY--to see it waged because as the _children of Englishmen_, they had only asked for the _common rights of Englishmen_--to see it waged with a savageness unknown among civilized nations, and all the powers of earth and hell, as it were, stirred up against them--the Indians with their bloody tomahawks and scalping knives--the negroes with their midnight hoes and axes--the merciless flames let loose on their midwinter towns--with prisons, chains, and starvation of their worthiest citizens. "_Such miserable specimens_," as Franklin termed them, "_of the British government_," produced every where in the colonies a disposition to _detest and avoid it as a complication of robbery, murder, famine, fire and pestilence_. On the 7th of June, resolutions respecting independence, were moved and seconded in Congress. Doctor Franklin threw all the weight of his wisdom and character into the scale in favour of independence. "INDEPENDENCE," said he, "_will cut the Gordian knot at once, and give us freedom_. "I. _Freedom from the oppressive kings, and endless wars, and mad politics, and forced religion of an unreasonable and cruel government._ "II. _Freedom to choose a fair, and cheap, and reasonable government of our own._ "III. _Freedom to live in friendship with all nations; and_ "IV. _Freedom to trade with all._" On the 4th of July, the _Independence_ of the United States was declared. Immediately on the finishing of this great work, doctor Franklin, with a committee of the first talents in Congress, prepared a number of very masterly addresses to the courts of Europe, informing what the United States had done; assigning their reasons for so doing; and tendering in the most affectionate terms, the friendship and trade of the young nation. The potentates of Europe were, generally, well pleased to hear that a new star had risen in the west, and talked freely of opening their treasures and presenting their gifts of friendship, &c. But the European power that seemed most to rejoice in this event was the French. In August, doctor Franklin was appointed by Congress to visit the French court, for the purpose of forming an alliance with that powerful people. It was his friend, Doctor B. Rush, who first announced to him the choice which Congress had made, adding, at the same time, his hearty congratulations on that account. "Why, doctor," replied he with a smile, "I am now, like an old broom, worn down to the stump in my country's service--near seventy years old. But such as I am, she must, I suppose, have the last of me." Like the brave Dutch republicans, each with his wallet of herrings on his back, when they went forth to negotiate with the proud Dons, so did doctor Franklin set out to court the great French nation, with no provisions for his journey, but a few hogsheads of tobacco. He was received in France, however, with a most hearty welcome, not only as an envoy from a brave people fighting for their rights, but also as the famed American philosopher, who by his _paratonerres_ (lightning rods) had disarmed the clouds of their lightnings, and who, it was hoped, would reduce the colossal power of Great Britain. He had not been long in Paris, before the attention of all the courts of Europe was attached to him, by a publication, wherein he demonstrated, that, _the young, healthy, and sturdy republic of America, with her simple manners, laborious habits, and millions of fresh land and produce, would be a much safer borrower of money, than the old, profligate, and debt-burthened government of Britain_. The Dutch and French courts, in particular, read his arguments with such attention, that they soon began to make him loans. To the French cabinet he pointed out, "THE INEVITABLE DESTRUCTION OF THEIR FLEETS, COLONIES, AND COMMERCE, IN CASE OF A RE-UNION OF BRITAIN AND AMERICA." There wanted but a grain to turn the trembling balance in favour of America. But it was the will of Heaven to withhold that grain a good long while. And Franklin had the mortification to find, that although the French were an exceedingly polite people; constantly eulogizing GENERAL WASHINGTON and THE BRAVE BOSTONIANS, on every little victory; and also for their tobacco, very thriftily smuggling all the fire arms and ammunition they could into the United States, yet they had no notion of coming out manfully at once upon the British lion, until they should first see the American Eagle lay the monster on his back. Dr. Franklin, of course, was permitted to rest on his oars, at Passy, in the neighbourhood of Paris, His characteristic philanthropy, however, could not allow him to be idle at a court, whose pride and extravagance were so horribly irreconcileable with his ideas of the true use of riches, _i.e._ INDEPENDENCE for ourselves, and BENEFICENCE to others. And he presently came out in the Paris Gazette with the following master piece of WIT and ECONOMICS. _To the Editors of the Paris Journal._ GENTLEMEN, I was the other evening in a grand company, where the new lamp of Messrs. Quinquet and Lange was introduced, and much admired for its splendour; but a general inquiry was made, whether the oil it consumed, was not in proportion to the light it afforded; in which case there would be no saving in the use of it. No one present could satisfy us on that point; which all agreed ought to be known, it being a very desirable thing to lessen, if possible, the expense of lighting our apartments, when every other article of family expense was so much augmented. I was pleased to see this general concern for economy; for I love economy exceedingly. I went home, and to bed, three or four hours after midnight, with my head full of the subject. An accidental sudden noise awaked me about six in the morning, when I was surprised to find my room filled with light; and I imagined, at first, that a number of these lamps had been brought into it; but rubbing my eyes, I perceived the light came in at my windows. I got up, and looked out to see what might be the occasion of it, when I saw the sun just rising above the horizon, whence he poured his rays plentifully into my chamber, my domestic having negligently omitted, the preceding evening, to close the shutters. I looked at my watch, which goes very well, and found that it was but six o'clock; and still thinking it something extraordinary that the sun should rise so early, I looked into the almanack; where I found it to be the hour given for its rising on that day. Your readers, who, with me, have never seen any signs of sunshine before noon, and seldom regard the astronomical part of the almanack, will be as much astonished as I was, when they hear of his rising so early; and especially when I assure them _that he gives light as soon as he rises_. I am certain of the fact. _I saw it with my own eyes._ And having repeated this observation the three following mornings, I found always precisely the same result. Yet so it happens, that when I speak of this discovery to others, I can easily perceive by their countenances, though they forbear expressing it in words, that they do not quite believe me. One, indeed, who is a learned natural philosopher, has assured me that I must certainly be mistaken as to the circumstance of the light coming into my room; for it being well known, as he says, that there could be no light abroad at that hour, it follows that none could enter from without; and that of consequence, my windows being accidentally left open, instead of _letting in the light_, had only served to _let out the darkness_. This event has given rise, in my mind, to several serious and important reflections. I considered that, if I had not been awakened so early in the morning, I should have slept six hours longer by the light of the sun, and in exchange have lived six hours the following night by candle-light; and the latter being a much more expensive light than the former, my love of economy induced me to muster up what little arithmetic I was master of, and to make some calculations, which I shall give you, after observing, that utility is, in my opinion, the test of value in matters of invention, and that a discovery which can be applied to no use, or is not good for something, is good for nothing. I took for the basis of my calculation, the supposition that there are 100,000 families in Paris; and that these families consume in the night half a pound of candles, per hour. I think this a moderate allowance, taking one family with another; for though I believe some consume less, I know that many consume a great deal more. Then, estimating seven hours per day, as the medium quantity between the time of the _sun's_ rising and _ours_, and there being seven hours, of course, per night, in which we burn candles, the account will stand thus: In 12 months there are nights 365; hours of each night in which we burn candles 7; multiplication gives for the total number of hours 2555. These multiplied by 100,000, the number of families in Paris, give 255,000,000 hours spent at Paris by candle-light, which, at half a pound of wax and tallow per hour, give 127,750,000 pounds, worth, at 3 livres the pound, 383,250,000 livres; upwards of THIRTY MILLIONS OF DOLLARS!!! An immense sum! that the city of Paris might save every year, by the economy of using _sunshine_ instead of candles.--If it should be said, that the people are very apt to be obstinately attached to old customs, and that it will be difficult to induce them to rise before noon, consequently my discovery can be of little use, I answer, we must not despair. I believe all, who have common sense, as soon as they have learnt, from this paper, that it is daylight when the sun rises, will contrive to rise with him; and to compel the rest, I would propose the following regulations: First. Let a tax be laid of a louis, (a guinea,) per window, on every window that is provided with shutters to keep out the light of the sun. Second. Let guards be placed in the shops of the wax and tallow-chandlers; and no family be permitted to be supplied with more than one pound of candles per week. Third. Let guards be posted, to stop all the coaches, &c. that would pass the streets after sunset, except those of physicians, surgeons, and midwives. Fourth. Every morning, as soon as the sun rises, let all the bells in the city be set ringing; and if that be not sufficient let cannon be fired in every street, to awake the sluggards effectually, and make them open their eyes to see their true interest. All the difficulty will be in the first two or three days: after which the reformation will be as natural and easy as the present irregularity. Oblige a man to rise at four in the morning, and, it is more than probable, he shall go willingly to bed at eight in the evening; and having had eight hours sleep, he will rise more willingly at four, in the morning following. For the great benefit of this discovery, thus freely communicated and bestowed by me, on the good city of Paris, I demand neither place, pension, exclusive privilege, nor any other reward whatever. I expect only to have the _honour_ of it. And yet I know there are little envious minds, who will, as usual, deny me this, and say that my invention was known to the ancients. I will not dispute that the ancients knew that the sun would rise at certain hours. They possibly had almanacks that predicted it; but it does not follow, thence, that they knew _that he gave light an soon as he rose. This is what I claim as my discovery._ If the ancients knew it, it must long since have been forgotten; for it certainly was unknown to the moderns, at least to the Parisians; which to prove, I need use but one plain simple argument. They are as well instructed and prudent a people as exist, any where in the world; all professing, like myself, to be lovers of economy; and, from the many heavy taxes required from them by the necessities of the state, have surely reason to be economical. I say it is impossible that so sensible a people, under such circumstances, should have lived so long by the _smoky, unwholesome and enormously expensive light of candles, if they had really known that they might have as much pure light of the sun for nothing_. I am, &c. An ABONNE. And now, as Dr. Franklin is permitted to breathe a little from his herculean toils, let us, good reader, breathe a little too, and amuse ourselves with the following anecdotes. Nothing can better illustrate the spirit, which Dr. Franklin carried with him to the court of Louis XVI., and the spirit he found there. On Dr. Franklin's arrival at Paris, as plenipotentiary from the United States, during the revolution, the king expressed a wish to see him immediately. As there was no going to the court of France in those days without permission of the wigmaker, a wigmaker of course was sent for. In an instant a richly dressed Monsieur, his arms folded in a prodigious muff of furs, and a long sword by his side, made his appearance. It was the king's WIGMAKER, with his servant in livery, a long sword by _his_ side too, and a load of sweet scented band-boxes, full of "_de wig_," as he said, "_de superb wig for de great docteer Franklin_." One of the wigs was tried on--a world _too small_! Band-box after band-box was tried; but all with the same ill success! The wigmaker fell into the most violent rage, to the extreme mortification of Dr. Franklin, that a gentleman so bedecked with silks and perfumes, should, notwithstanding, be such a child. Presently, however, as in all the transports of a _grand discovery_, the wigmaker cried out to Dr. Franklin, that he had just found out where the fault lay--"_not in his wig as too small; O no, by gar! his wig no too small; but de docteer's head too big; great deal too big._" Franklin, smiling, replied, that the fault could hardly lie _there_; for that his head was made of God Almighty himself, who was not subject to err. Upon this the wigmaker took in a little; but still contended that there must be something the matter with Dr. Franklin's head. It was at any rate, he said, _out of the fashion_. He begged Dr. Franklin would only please for remember, _dat his head had not de honeer_ to be made in PARREE. No, by gar! for if it had been made in PARREE, it no bin more dan _half such a head_. "_None of the French Noblesse_," he swore, "_had a head any ting_ like his. Not de great duke d'Orleans, nor de grand monarque himself had _half such a head as docteer Franklin_. And _he did not see_," he said, "_what business any body had wid a head more big dan de head of de grand monarque_." Pleased to see the poor wigmaker recover his good humour, Dr. Franklin could not find in his heart to put a check to his childish rant, but related one of his _fine anecdotes_, which struck the wigmaker with such an idea of his wit, that as he retired, which he did, bowing most profoundly, he shrugged his shoulders, and with a look most significantly arch, he said: "_Ah, docteer Frankline! docteer Frankline!_ I no wonder your head too big for my wig. By gar I 'fraid your head be too big for _all de French nationg_." THE BLUE YARN STOCKINGS. When Dr. Franklin was received at the French court as American minister, he felt some scruples of conscience in complying with their _fashions as to dress_. "He hoped," he said to the minister, "that as he was himself a very plain man, and represented a plain republican people, the king would indulge his desire to appear at court in his usual dress. Independent of this, the season of the year, he said, rendered the change from warm yarn stockings to fine silk, somewhat dangerous." The French minister made him a bow, but said, that THE FASHION was too sacred a thing for him to meddle with, but he would do himself the honour to mention it to his MAJESTY. The king smiled, and returned word that Dr. Franklin was welcome to appear at court in _any dress he pleased_. In spite of that delicate respect for strangers, for which the French are so remarkable, the courtiers could not help staring, at first, at Dr. Franklin's quaker-like dress, and especially his "BLUE YARN STOCKINGS." But it soon appeared as though he had been introduced upon this splendid theatre only to demonstrate that, great genius, like true beauty, "needs not the foreign aid of ornament." The court were so dazzled with the brilliancy of his mind that they never looked at his stockings. And while many other ministers who figured in all the gaudy fashions of the day are now forgotten, the name of Dr. Franklin is still mentioned in Paris with all the ardour of the most affectionate enthusiasm. CHAPTER XLII. Imagination can hardly conceive a succession of pleasures more elegant and refined than those which Dr. Franklin, now on the shady side of threescore and ten, continued daily to enjoy in the vicinity of Paris--his mornings constantly devoted to his beloved studies, and his evenings to the cheerful society of his friends--the greatest monarch of Europe heaping him with honours unasked, and the brightest WITS and BEAUTIES of his court vying with each other in their attentions to him. And thus as the golden hours rolled along, they still found him happy--gratefully contrasting his present glory with his humble origin, and thence breathing nothing but benevolence to man--firmly confiding in the care of Heaven--and fully persuaded that his smiles would yet descend upon his countrymen, now fighting the good fight of liberty and happiness. While waiting in strong hope of this most desirable of all events, he received, by express, December 1777, the welcome news that the battle had been joined in America, and that God had delivered a noble wing of the British army into the hands of the brave republicans at Saratoga. O ye, who, rejecting the philosophy of all embracing love, know no joys beyond what the miser feels when his own little heap increases, how faintly can you conceive what this great apostle of liberty enjoyed when he found that his countrymen still retained the fire of their gallant fathers, and were resolved to live free or press a glorious grave! He lost no time to improve this splendid victory to the good of his country. In several audiences with the king and his ministers, he clearly demonstrated that France in all her days of ancient danger had never known so dark a cloud impending over her as at this awful crisis. "If Great Britain," said he, "already so powerful were to subdue the revolted colonies and add all North America to her empire, she would in twenty years be strong enough to crush the power of France and not leave her an island or a ship on the ocean." As a sudden flash of lightning from the opening clouds before the burst of thunder and rain, such was the shock produced by this argument on the mind of every thinking man throughout France. The courtiers with all their talents for dissembling could not conceal their hostile feelings from the British minister resident among them. He marked it, not without sentiments of answering hostility, which he could no better conceal, and which, indeed, after the honest bluntness of his national character, he did not care to conceal. The increased attentions paid to Dr. Franklin, and the rejoicings in Paris on account of the American victories, were but illy calculated to soothe his displeasure. Bitter complaints were presently forwarded to his court--angry remonstrances to the French cabinet followed--and in a short time the embers of ancient hate were blown up to flames of fury so diabolical that nothing but war, with all its rivers of human blood could extinguish it. War, of course, was proclaimed--Paris was illuminated--and the thunder of the Royal cannon soon announced to the willing citizens that the die was cast, and that the Grand Monarque was become the Ally of the United States. "_While there is any thing to be done nothing is done_," said Cæsar. Franklin thought so too. He had succeeded in his efforts to persuade the warlike French to take part with his oppressed countrymen; but the Spaniards and the Dutch were still neutral. To rouse their hostile feelings against Great Britain, and to make them the hearty partisans of Washington, was his next study. The event quickly showed that he had studied human nature with success. He who had been the playmate of lightnings for the _glory of God_, found no difficulty in stirring up the _wrath of man to praise him_--by chastising the sons of violence. The tall black ships of war were soon seen to rush forth from the ports of Holland and Spain, laden with the implements of death, to arrest the mad ambition of Great Britain, and maintain the balance of power. How dearly ought the American people to prize their liberties, for which such bloody contribution was laid on the human race! Imagination glances with terror on that dismal war whose spread was over half the solid and half the watery globe. Its devouring fires burned from the dark wilds of North America to the distant isles of India; and the blood of its victims was mingled with the brine of every ocean. But, thanks to God, the conflict, though violent, was but short. And much of the honour of bringing it to a close is to be conceded to the instrumentality of Dr. Franklin. We have seen that in 1763, he was sent (of Heaven no doubt, for it was an act worthy of his all-benevolent character,) a preacher of righteousness, to the proud court of Britain. His luminous preachings, (through the press,) on the injustice and unconstitutionality of the ministerial taxing measures on the colonies, shed such light, that thousands of honest Englishmen set their faces against them, and also against the war to which they saw it was tending. These converts to justice, these doves of peace, were not sufficiently numerous to defeat the war-hawks of their bloody purposes. But when they found that the war into which they had plunged with such confidence, had not, instantly, as they expected, reduced the colonies to slavish submission; but that, instead thereof, one half Europe in favour of America, was in arms against them with a horrible destruction of lives and property which they had not counted on, and of which they saw no end, they seriously deplored their folly in not pursuing the counsel of doctor Franklin. The nation was still, however, dragged on in war, plunging like a stalled animal, deeper and deeper in disaster and distress, until the capture of lord Cornwallis and his army came like a thunder-bolt, inflicting on the war party a death blow, from which they never afterwards recovered. Dr. Franklin received this most welcome piece of news, the surrender of lord Cornwallis, by express from America. He had scarcely read the letters with the tear of joy swelling in his patriot eye, when Mr. Necker came in. Seeing the transport on his face, he eagerly asked what _good news_. "_Thank God_," replied Franklin, "_the storm is past. The paratonerres of divine justice have drawn off the lightning of British violence, and here, sir, is the rainbow of peace_," holding up the letter. What am I to understand by that, replied Necker. Why, sir, quoth Franklin, my lord Cornwallis and his army are prisoners of war to general Washington. Doctor Franklin's calculation, on the surrender of Cornwallis, _that the storm was past_, was very correct; for, although the thunders did not immediately cease, yet, after that event, they hardly amounted to any thing beyond a harmless rumbling, which presently subsided altogether, leaving a fine bright sky behind them. CHAPTER XLIII. The rest of the acts of doctor Franklin while he resided in France, and the many pleasures he enjoyed there, were first, the great pleasure of announcing to the French court, in 1781, as we have seen, the surrender of lord Cornwallis and his army to general Washington. Second, the still greater pleasure of learning in 1782, that the British ministry were strongly inclined to "A PEACE TALK." Third, 1783, the greatest pleasure of all, the pleasure of _burying the tomahawk_, by general peace. Thus after having lived to see completely verified all his awful predictions to the blind and obstinate British cabinet about the result of this disastrous war; with losses indeed, beyond his prediction--the loss of two thousand ships!--the loss of one hundred thousand lives!--the loss of seven hundred millions of dollars! and a loss still greater than all, the loss of the immense continent of North America, and the monopoly of its incalculable produce and trade, shortly to fly on wings of canvass to all parts of the globe. Having lived to see happily terminated, the grand struggle for American liberty, which even Englishmen have pronounced "_the last hope and probable refuge of mankind_," and having obtained leave from congress to return, he took a last farewell of his generous Parisian friends, and embarked for his native country. On the night of the 4th of September, the ship made the light-house at the mouth of the Delaware bay. On coming upon deck next morning, he beheld all in full view and close at hand the lovely shores of America, "_where his fathers had dwelt_." Who can paint the joy-brightened looks of our veteran patriot, when, after an absence of seven years, he beheld once more that beloved country for whose liberties and morals he had so long contended? Formerly, with an aching heart, he had beheld her as a dear mother, whose fame was tarnished, and her liberties half ravished by foreign lords. But now he greets her as free again, and freed, through heaven's blessing on her _own heroic virtue and valour_. Crowned thus with tenfold glory, he hails her with transport, as the grand nursery of civil and religious freedom, whose fair example of republican wisdom and moderation is, probably, destined of God to recommend the blessings of free government to all mankind. The next day in the afternoon he arrived at Philadelphia. It is not for me to describe what he felt in sailing along up these lovely shores, while the heaven within diffused a double brightness and beauty over all the fair and magnificent scenes around. Neither is it for me to delineate the numerous demonstrations of public joy, wherewith the citizens of Philadelphia welcomed the man whom they all delighted to honour. Suffice it to say, that he was landed amidst the firing of cannon--that he was crowded with congratulatory addresses--that he was invited to sumptuous banquets, &c. &c. &c. But though it was highly gratifying to others to see transcendent worth so duly noticed, yet to himself, who had been so long familiar with such honours, they appeared but as baubles that had lost their tinsel. But there were some pledges of respect offered him, which afforded a heartfelt satisfaction; I mean those numbers of pressing invitations to accept the presidencies of sundry noble institutions for public good, as I. A society for diffusing a knowledge of the best politics for our republic. II. A society for alleviating the miseries of public prisons. III. A society for abolishing the slave trade--the relief of free negroes unlawfully held in bondage--and for bettering the condition of the poor blacks. "It was because," said the trustees, "they well knew he had made it the sole scope of his greatly useful life to promote institutions for the happiness of mankind, that they now solicited the honour and benefit of his special care and guardianship." Though now almost worn out with the toils of fourscore years, and oftentimes grievously afflicted with his old complaint, the gravel, he yet accepted the proffered appointments with great pleasure, and attended to the duties of them with all the ardour of youth. Thus affording one more proof, "That, in the present as in all the past O SAVE MY COUNTRY, HEAVEN! was still his last." "But though the spirit was willing, the flesh was weak." His strength was so sensibly diminished that it could scarcely second his mind, which seemed as unimpaired as ever. But there was still one more service that his country looked to him for, before he went to rest; I mean that of aiding her councils in the grand convention that was about to sit in Philadelphia for the purpose of framing the present excellent constitution. He was called to this duty in 1787. The speech which he made in that convention has a high claim to our notice, not only because it was the last speech that Dr. Franklin ever made in public; but because nothing ever yet placed in a fairer light the charm of modesty in a great man; and also the force of temperance, exercise and cheerfulness, which could preserve the intellectual faculties in such vigour, to the astonishing age of EIGHTY-TWO!! _Final Speech of doctor Franklin in the Federal Convention.--George Washington, President._ MR. PRESIDENT, I do not entirely approve this constitution at present, but, sir, I am not sure I shall never approve it; for, having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information, to change opinions which I once thought right. It is, therefore, that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men, indeed, as well as most sects of religion, think themselves in possession of _all truth_, and that whenever others differ from them, it is so far error. Steele, a protestant, tells the pope, that "the only difference between our two churches, in their opinion of the certainty of their doctrines, is, the Romish church is _infallible_, and the church of England _never_ in the _wrong_." But though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility, as of that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain French lady, who, in a little dispute with her sister, said, "_I don't know how it happens, sister, but I meet with nobody but myself that is always in the right_." In these sentiments, sir, I agree to this constitution, with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing, if well administered; and I believe farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted, as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other. I doubt too, whether any other convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better constitution. For when you assemble a number of men, to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly, can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will confound our enemies, who are waiting with confidence, to hear that our councils are confounded, like those of the builders of Babel, and that our states are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting each other's throats. Thus I consent, sir, to this constitution, because I expect no better, and because I am not _sure that this is not the best_. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die. If every one of us, in returning to our constituents, were to report the objections he has had to it, and endeavour to gain partisans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and thereby lose all the great advantages resulting naturally in our favour among foreign nations, as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity. Much of the efficiency of any government, in procuring and securing happiness to the people, depends on the general opinion of the goodness of that government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its governors. I hope, therefore, that for our _own sakes_, as a part of the people, and for the sake of _our posterity_, we shall act heartily and unanimously, in recommending this constitution, wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts and endeavours to the means of having it well administered. On the whole, sir, I cannot help expressing a wish, that every member of the convention, who may still have objections, would, with me, on this occasion, doubt a little of his own infallibility, and making manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument. CHAPTER XLIV. "When ranting round in pleasure's ring, Religion may be blinded, Or if she give a random sting, 'Tis oft but little minded. "But when on life we're tempest driv'n, A conscience's but a canker; A correspondence fix'd with heaven, Is sure a noble anchor." The time is now at hand that Franklin must die. When that time approaches, or when only the chilling thought of it strikes the heart, how happy is he who in looking on the withered face or snowy locks of a dear friend, can enjoy the exulting hope that he is prepared for the awful change. This leads us to speak of doctor Franklin on a much higher subject than has yet engaged our attention. I mean his religion. I have met with nothing in the life of any great man in our country about which there has been such universal inquiry, as about the RELIGION OF DR. FRANKLIN. Some, who in despite of Christ and all his apostles, will "_judge their brother_;" and judge him too by the _letter_ which _killeth_, will not allow that Dr. Franklin had any religion at all, because, forsooth, he did not _believe_ and "_confess Christ before men_," in the manner they did. But others, construing the Gospel, as Christ himself commands, by "_the spirit_;" which teaches that, "_with the heart man believeth unto salvation, through love and good works_;" and that the right way of "_confessing Christ before men_" is by a _good life_.--These gentlemen tell us, that Dr. Franklin not only had religion, but had it in an eminent degree. Most people seem inclined to judge of Dr. Franklin by these latter commentators, and wind up with the words of our great moral poet. "For modes of faith, let graceless zealots fight; His can't be wrong, whose Life is in the right." For my part, after all that I have heard on this subject, and I have heard a great deal, I do not know that I have met with any thing that expresses my opinion of Dr. Franklin's religion more happily than the following laconic remark by one of our most distinguished senators, I mean the honourable Rufus King. Knowing that this gentleman was a compatriot of Dr. Franklin during the revolution, and also sat by his side, a member of the grand Convention in 1788, I took the greater pleasure in asking his opinion of that great man in respect of his RELIGION. "Why, sir," replied he, "my opinion of doctor Franklin has always been, that, although he was not, perhaps, quite so orthodox in some of his notions, he was _very much a Christian in his practice_. Nor is it indeed to be wondered at," continued this able critic, "that a man of doctor Franklin's extraordinary sagacity, born and brought up under the light of the Gospel, should have imbibed its spirit, and got his whole soul enriched, and as it were interlarded, with its benevolent affections." And I have since found from conversation with many of our most enlightened and evangelical divines, that they all agree, with Mr. King, that doctor Franklin's extraordinary benevolence and useful life were imbibed, even _unconsciously_, from the Gospel. For whence but from the luminous and sublime doctrines of that blessed book could he have gained such pure and worthy ideas of God--his glorious unity, and most adorable benevolence: always, himself, loving and doing good to his creatures; and constantly seeking such to worship him? Whence, we ask, could he have got all these exalted truths--truths, so honourable to the Deity--so consolatory to man--so auxiliary of human virtue and happiness--whence could he have got them, but from the light of the Gospel? Certainly, you will not say that he might have got them from the light of nature. For, look around you among all the mighty nations of antiquity. Look among the Egyptians--the Greeks--the Romans, to equal him? Two thousand years have rolled between them and us, and yet the immortal monuments of their arts--their poetry--their painting--their statuary--their architecture--their eloquence--all triumphant over the wreck of time, have come down to our days, boldly challenging the pride of modern genius to produce their parallels. Evidently then, they had among them prodigies of mind equal to our Franklin. And yet how has it yet come to pass, that, with all their astonishing talents, and the light of nature besides, they were so stupidly blind and ignorant of God, while he entertained such exalted ideas of him? That while they, like the modern idolaters of Juggernaut, were disgracing human reason by worshipping not only _four-footed beasts and creeping things_, but even thieves, murderers, &c. _deified_, doctor Franklin was elevating his devotions to the one all-perfect God, MOST GLORIOUS IN ALL MORAL EXCELLENCE. And how has it come to pass that while _they_, imitating their bloody idols, could take pleasure in _sacrificing their prisoners of war! beholding murderous fights of gladiators!_ and even giving up _their own children to be burnt alive!_ Franklin, by imitating the moral character of God, attained to all that gentle wisdom and affectionate goodness that we fancy when we think of an angel? To what, I ask, can we ascribe all this, but to the very rational cause assigned by Mr. King, viz. his having been _born and brought up in a land of Gospel light and love_? Indeed, who can read the life of doctor Franklin, attentively, without tracing in it, throughout, that true Christian charity which bound him, as by the heart-strings, to his fellow men--on every occasion going out of self to take an interest in them. "Rejoicing with them, when they acted wisely and attained to honour."--"Weeping with them when they acted foolishly and came to shame." Never meeting with any good fortune, through wise doings of his own, but he made it known to them for their encouragement in similar doings--never falling into misfortunes, by his own folly, but he was sure to publish that too, to deter others from falling into the like sufferings. Now what was it but this amiable _oneness of heart_, with his fellow men; this _sweet Christian sensibility_ to their interests and consequent generous delight in doing them good, that filled his life with such noble charities. "_Where love is_," said the great William Penn, "_there is no labour; or if there be, the labour is sweet._" And what was it but this, that bore him up so bravely under his many toils and hardships for his selfish brother James? What made him so liberal of his money and services to the base Collins and Ralph? What made him so patient and forgiving of the injuries done him by the worthless Keimer and Keith? What made him so importunate with his young acquaintance in London, to divert them from their brutalizing and fatal intemperance? What set him so vehemently against pride and extravagance, which besides starving all justice and hospitality among neighbours, tend to make them demons of fraud and cruelty to one another? What made him, through life, such a powerful orator for industry, frugality, and honesty, which multiplied riches and reciprocal esteem and usefulness among men, and would make them all loving and happy as brothers? In short, all those labours which doctor Franklin took under the sun--labours so various and unending, for public and private good, such as his fire-engines; his lightning rods; his public libraries; his free schools; his hospitals; his legacies for encouragement of learning, and helping hundreds of indigent young mechanics with money to carry on their trades after his death--whence originated all this, but from that love which is stronger than death, subduing all obstacles, and overleaping the narrow limits of this mortal life? What but the ingenuity of love, eager to swell the _widow's_ mite of charity into the _rich_ man's talent could have suggested the following curious method of making a little do a great deal of good? "Received of Benjamin Franklin, ten guineas, which I hereby promise, soon as I get out of my present embarrassments, to lend to some other honest and industrious man, as near as I can guess, he giving his obligation to act in the same way by the next needy honest man; so that by thus going around it may in time, though a small sum, do much good, unless stopped by a thief. "JAMES HOPEWELL. "_Passy, Aug. 10, 1773._" What but the noble spirit of that religion whose sole aim is to "_overcome evil with good_" could have dictated the following instructions to Paul Jones, and his squadron, who after scouring the British channel, was about to make a descent on their coasts. "As many of your officers and people have lately escaped from English prisons, you are to be _particularly attentive_ to their conduct towards the prisoners you take, lest resentment of the _more than barbarous_ usage which they have received from the English, should occasion a retaliation, and an imitation of what ought rather to be _detested and avoided for the sake of humanity and the honour of our country_. "B. FRANKLIN. "_To Commodore P. Jones._ "April 28, 1779." What but the spirit of that benevolent religion which is the firm patroness of all discoveries for human benefit, could have dictated the ensuing letter "to the commanders of American ships of war," in favour of captain Cook. "GENTLEMEN, "A ship having been fitted out from England, before the commencement of this war, to make discoveries of new countries in unknown seas, under the conduct of that celebrated navigator, captain Cook--an undertaking truly laudable in itself, as the increase of geographical knowledge facilitates the communication between distant nations, and the exchange of useful products and manufactures, and the extension of arts, whereby the common enjoyments of human life are multiplied and augmented, and science of other kinds increased, to the benefit of mankind in general. "This is, therefore, most earnestly to recommend to every one of you, that in case the said ship, which is now expected to be soon in the European seas, on her return, should happen to fall into your hands, you would not consider her as an enemy, but that you treat the said captain Cook and his people with all civility and kindness, affording them, as common friends to mankind, all the assistance in your power, which they may happen to stand in need of. "I have the honour to be, &c. "B. FRANKLIN, "Minister plenipotentiary from the United States to the court of France. "_Passy. near Paris, March 10, 1779._" The truly christian spirit of doctor Franklin, which dictated this passport for captain Cook, was so highly approved by the British government, that, when Cook's voyages in three splendid quarto volumes were printed, the lords of the admiralty sent doctor Franklin a copy accompanied with the elegant plates, and also a _gold medal_ of that illustrious navigator, with a polite letter from lord Howe, informing him that this compliment was made to doctor Franklin with the _king's express approbation_. * * * * * What but the religion that brings life and immortality to light "could have sprung those high hopes and rich consolations," which shine in the following letter from doctor Franklin to his niece, on the death of her father, his favourite brother John Franklin. "DEAR NIECE, "I condole with you. We have lost a most dear and valuable relation. But it is the will of God that these mortal bodies be laid aside, when the soul is to enter into real life. This is rather an embryo state--a preparation for living. A man is not completely born until he be dead. Why then should we grieve that a new child is born among the immortals--a new member added to their society? We are spirits. That bodies should be lent us, while they can afford us pleasure, assist us in acquiring knowledge, or doing good to our fellow creatures, is a kind and benevolent act of God. When they become unfit for these purposes, and afford us pain instead of pleasure, and answer none of the intentions for which they were given, it is equally kind and benevolent that a way is provided by which we may get rid of them. Death is that way. We ourselves in some cases, prudently choose a partial death. A mangled painful limb, which cannot be restored, we willingly cut off. He who plucks out a tooth parts with it freely, since the pain goes with it; and he who quits the whole body, parts at once with all pains, and possibilities of pains, it was capable of making him suffer. "Our friend and we were invited abroad on a grand party of pleasure, which is to last for ever. His chair was ready first, and he is gone before us. We could not all conveniently start together; and why should you and I be grieved at this, since we are soon to follow, and know where to find him? "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * What but that religion which teaches "the price of truth," could have made him so penitent for having said any thing, in his youthful days against revelation? And while the popular infidels of Europe, the Voltaires, and Humes, and Bolingbrokes were so fond of filling the world with their books against Christ, that they might, as one of them said, "_crush the wretch_," what but a hearty esteem of him could have led Franklin to write the following pious reproof of a gentleman, who having written a pamphlet against christianity, sent it to him, requesting his opinion of it. DR. FRANKLIN'S ANSWER. "SIR, "I have read your manuscript with some attention. By the argument it contains against a particular _providence_, though you allow a general _providence_, you strike at the foundation of all religion. For, without the belief of a _providence_, that takes cognizance of, guards, and guides, and may favour particular persons, there is no motive to worship a DEITY, to fear his displeasure, or to pray for his protection. I will not enter into any discussion of your principles, though you seem to desire it. At present I shall only give you my opinion, that though your reasonings are subtile, and may prevail with some readers, you will not succeed so as to change the general sentiments of mankind on that subject; and the consequence of printing this piece will be, a great deal of odium drawn upon yourself, mischief to you, and no benefit to others. He that spits against the wind, spits in his own face. But were you to succeed, do you imagine any good would be done by it? You yourself may find it easy to live a virtuous life, without the assistance afforded by religion; you having a clear perception of the disadvantages of vice, and possessing a strength of resolution sufficient to enable you to resist common temptations. But think how great a portion of mankind consists of weak and ignorant men and women, and of inexperienced inconsiderate youth of both sexes, who have need of the motives of religion to restrain them from vice, to support their virtue, and retain them in the practice of it till it becomes habitual, which is the great points of its security. And, perhaps, you are indebted to her original, that is, to your religious education, for the habits of virtue upon which you now justly value yourself. You might easily display your excellent talents of reasoning upon less hazardous objects, and thereby obtain a rank with our most distinguished authors. For among us it is not necessary, as among the Hottentots, that a youth, to be raised into the company of men, should prove his manhood by beating his mother. I would advise you, therefore, not to attempt _unchaining the tiger_, but to burn this piece before it is seen by any other person--whereby you will save yourself a great deal of mortification from the enemies it may raise against you, and, perhaps a good deal of regret and repentance. If men are so wicked _with_ religion, what would they be _without_ it? I intend this letter itself as a proof of my friendship, and therefore add no professions to it, but subscribe myself simply yours. "B. FRANKLIN." For the following, I owe many thanks to the honourable Mr. Rufus King. After having answered my question on that subject, as before stated, viz. that he considered Dr. Franklin "_very much a christian in practice_," he added with a fine smile, as if happy that he possessed an anecdote so honourable to the religious character of his illustrious friend, and the friend of mankind--"_now, sir, I'll tell you an anecdote of Dr. Franklin_." The CONVENTION of '88, of which Dr. Franklin and myself were members, had been engaged several weeks in framing the present CONSTITUTION, and had done nothing. Dr. Franklin came in one morning, and rising in his place, called the attention of the house.--"We have been here, Mr. Speaker," said he, (George Washington was in the chair,) "a long time, trying to act on this important subject, and have done nothing; and in place of a speedy and successful close of our business, we see nothing but dark clouds of difficulty and embarrassment gathering before us. It in high time for us, Mr. Speaker, to call in the direction of a wisdom above our own.--(The countenance of Washington caught a brightness at these words, as he leaned forward in deepest gaze on Dr. Franklin.) Yes, sir, it is high time for us to call in the direction of a wisdom above our own. Our fathers before us, the wise and good men of ancient times, acted in this way. Aware of the difficulties and perils that attend all human enterprize, they never engaged in any thing of importance without having implored the guidance and blessing of heaven. The scriptures are full of encouragements to such practice. They every where assert a _particular providence_ over all his works. They assure us that the very hairs of our head are all numbered; and that not even a sparrow but is continually under the eye of his parental care. This, Mr. Speaker, is the language of the gospel, which I _most implicitly believe_; and which promises the guidance of divine wisdom to _all who ask it_. We have not asked it; and that may be the reason why we have been so long in the dark. I therefore move, Mr. Speaker, that it be made a rule to open the business of this house, every morning, _with prayer_." The following also will show Dr. Franklin's firm belief in that very precious article of the religion of Christ--A PARTICULAR PROVIDENCE. To WILLIAM STRAHAN, Esq. London _France, August 19th, 1784._ DEAR OLD FRIEND, You "fairly acknowledge that the date war terminated quite contrary to your expectation." Your expectation was ill founded; for you would not believe your old friend, who told you repeatedly, that, by those measures, England would lose her colonies, as Epictetus warned in vain his master, that he would break his leg. You believed rather the tales you heard of our poltroonery, and impotence of body and mind. Don't you remember the story you told me of the Scotch sergeant, who met with a party of forty American soldiers, and, though alone, disarmed them all, and brought them in prisoners! A story almost as improbable as that of the Irishman, who pretended to have alone taken and brought in five of the enemy, by _surrounding_ them. And yet, my friend, sensible and judicious as you are, but partaking of the general infatuation, you seem to believe it. The word _general_ puts me in mind of a general, your general Clark, who had the folly to say, in my hearing, at sir John Pringle's, that with a thousand British grenadiers, he would undertake to go from one end of America to the other, and geld all the males. It is plain, he took us for a species of animals very little superior to brutes. The parliament, too, believed the stories of another foolish general, I forget his name, that the Yankees never _felt bold_. Yankee was understood to be a sort of Yahoo, and the parliament did not think the petitions of such creatures were fit to be received and read in so wise an assembly. What was the consequence of this monstrous pride and insolence! You first sent small armies to subdue us, believing them more than sufficient, but soon found yourselves obliged to send greater; these, whenever they ventured out of sight of their ships, were either obliged to scamper, or were beaten and taken prisoners. An American planter, who had never seen Europe, was chosen by us to command our troops, and continued during the whole war. This man sent home to you, one after another, five of your best generals, baffled, their heads bare of laurels, disgraced even in the opinion of their employers. Your contempt of our understandings, in comparison with your own, appeared to be not much better founded than that of our courage, if we may judge by this circumstance, that in whatever court of Europe a Yankee negotiator appeared, the wise British minister was routed,--put in a passion,--picked a quarrel with your friends,--and was sent home with a flea in his ear. But after all, my dear friend, do not imagine that I am vain enough to ascribe our success to any superiority in any of those points. I am too well acquainted with all the springs and levers of our machine, not to see that our human means were unequal to our undertaking, and that, if it had not been for the justice of our cause, and the consequent interposition of Providence, in which we had faith, we must have been ruined. If I had ever before been an Atheist, I should now have been convinced of the being and government of a Deity! It is HE who "abases the proud, and exalts the humble." May we never forget his goodness to us, and may our future conduct manifest our gratitude! B. FRANKLIN. Now, can any honest man, after this, entertain a doubt that Dr. Franklin was indeed, "_in practice very much a christian_." I am aware that some, good men have been offended, and I may add, grieved too, that Dr. Franklin should ever have spoken slightingly of _faith_, &c. But these gentlemen may rest assured, that Dr. Franklin did this only to keep people from laying such stress on _faith_, &c. as to neglect what is infinitely more important, even LOVE and GOOD WORKS. And in this grand view, do not the holy apostles, and even Christ himself treat these things in the same way? Every where speaking of "_faith_ and _baptism_ and _long prayers_," when attempted to be put in place of love and good works, as mere "_beggarly elements_," and even "_damning hypocrisies_." However, let honest men read the following letter on the subject, by Dr. Franklin himself. While it serves to remove their doubts and prejudices, it may go to prove that if he had errors in religion, they were not the errors of the heart, nor likely to do any harm in the world; but contrariwise, to make us all much better christians, and happier men, than we are. The letter is in answer to one from an illustrious foreigner; who, on a trip to Philadelphia, made Dr. Franklin a visit. The doctor, for some malady, advised him to try electricity; and actually gave him several shocks. He had not long been gone, before he wrote Dr. Franklin a most flattering account of the effects of his electricity--begged him to be assured he should never forget such KINDNESS--and concluded with praying that they might both have grace to live a life of FAITH, that if they were never to meet again in this world, they might at last meet in heaven. DR. FRANKLIN'S ANSWER. _Philadelphia, June 6, 1753._ SIR, I received your kind letter of the 2d instant, and am glad that you increase in strength; I hope you will continue mending till you recover your former health. As to the _kindness_ you mention, the only thanks I desire is, that you would always be equally ready to serve any other person that may need your assistance, and so let good offices go round, _for_ MANKIND ARE _all of a family_. For my own part, when I am employed in serving others, I do not look upon myself as conferring favours, but as paying debts. In my travels, and since my settlement, I have received much kindness from men, to whom I shall never have any opportunity of making the least direct return--and numberless mercies from God, who is infinitely above being benefitted by our services. The kindness from men, I can, therefore, only return on their fellow men, and I can only show my gratitude for those mercies from God, by a readiness to help his other children, and my brethren. For I do not think that thanks and compliments, though repeated weekly, can discharge our real obligations to each other, and much less those to our Creator. You will see in this, my notion of good works; that I am far from expecting, as you suppose, to _merit heaven_ by them. By heaven, we understand a state of happiness; infinite in degree, and eternal in duration. I can do nothing to deserve such REWARDS. He that, for giving a draught of water to a thirsty person, should expect to be paid with a good plantation, would be modest in his demands, compared with those who think they _deserve_ heaven for the little good they do on earth. Even the mixed imperfect pleasures we enjoy in this world, are rather from God's goodness, than our merit; how much more such happiness as heaven. For my part, I have not the vanity to think I deserve it, the folly to expect it, nor the ambition to desire it; but content myself in submitting to the will and disposal of that God who made me--who has hitherto preserved and blessed me--and in whose FATHERLY GOODNESS I may well confide, that he will never make me miserable--and that even the afflictions I may at any time suffer shall tend to my benefit. The faith you mention has, doubtless, its use in the world. I do not desire to see it diminished. But I wish it were more productive of _good works_ than I have generally seen it, I mean real good works; works of kindness, charity, mercy, and public spirit; not holiday keeping, sermon reading or hearing, performing church ceremonies, or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments, despised even by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity. The worship of God is a _duty_; the hearing and reading of sermons _may_ be useful; but if men rest in _hearing_ and _praying_, as _too many do_, it is as if a tree should value itself on being watered and putting forth leaves, though it never produced any fruit. Your great master thought much less of these outward appearances and professions than many of his modern disciples. He preferred the _doers_ of the word to the mere _hearers_; the son that _seemingly_ refused to obey his father, and yet _performed_ his commands, to him that _professed_ his readiness, but _neglected_ the work; the heretical but charitable Samaritan, to the uncharitable though orthodox priest and sanctified Levite: and those who gave food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, raiment to the naked, entertainment to the stranger, and relief to the sick, though they never heard of his name, he declares they shall in the last day be accepted, when those who cry Lord, Lord, who value themselves on their faith, though great enough to perform miracles, but have neglected good works, shall be rejected. He professed he came "_not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance_," which implied his modest opinion, that there were some in his time so _good_, that they needed not to hear even _him_ for improvement; but now-a-days, we have scarce a little parson that does not think it the duty of every man within his reach, to think _exactly_ as he does, and that all dissenters offend God. I wish to such more humility, and to you health and happiness, being Your friend and servant, B. FRANKLIN. What but the spirit of immortal love, which, not content with doing much good in life, fondly looks beyond, and feasts on the happiness that others are to derive from us long after we have ceased to live on earth; what, I ask, but that love, could have dictated DR. FRANKLIN'S WILL. _"When thou makest a feast, call not thy rich neighbours: lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee._ _"But when thou makest a feast, call the poor; and thou shalt be blessed. For they cannot recompense thee, for thou shall be recompensed at the resurrection of the just._ "LUKE, xiv." Sentiments divinely sublime!--Who, without emotions indescribable, can read them! And yet if they were lost from the Bible, they might be found again in the _Will_ of Benjamin Franklin. While many others "_rise early, and late take rest, and eat the bread of labour and care_," that they may "_die rich_"--leaving their massy treasures, some scanty legacies excepted, to corrupt a few proud relatives, doctor Franklin acted as though the above text, the _true sublime of wisdom and benevolence_, was before him. After having _bequeathed_ his books, a most voluminous and valuable collection, partly to his family, and partly to the Boston and Philadelphia philosophical societies; and, after having divided a handsome competence among his children, and grand children, he goes on as follows: "I. Having owed my first instructions in literature to the free grammar schools in Boston, I give one hundred pounds sterling to the free schools in that town, to be laid out in silver medals as honorary rewards for the encouragement of scholarship in those schools. "II. All the debts to my post-office establishment, which I held many years, I leave to the Philadelphia hospital. "III. Having always been of opinion, that in democratical governments, there ought to be no offices of _great_ profit, I have long determined to give a part of my public salary to public uses; and being chiefly indebted to Massachusetts, my _native_ state, and Pennsylvania, my _adopted_ state, for lucrative employments, I feel it my duty to remember them; and having from long observation, and my own early experience, discovered that the best objects for assistance are indigent young persons, and the best modes of assistance, a plain education, a good trade, and a little money to set them up; and having been set up in business, while a poor boy, in Philadelphia, by kind loans of money from two friends there, which was the foundation of my fortune and all the usefulness that the world ascribed to me, I feel a wish to be useful, after my death, to others, in the loans of money; I therefore devote, from the savings of my salaries, the following sums, to the following persons and uses: "1. To the inhabitants of Boston and Philadelphia, one thousand pounds sterling to each city, to be let out by the oldest divines of different churches, on a _five per cent. interest_ and good _security_, to indigent young tradesmen, not _bachelors_, (as they have not deserved much from their country and the feebler sex,) but married men." "2. No borrower to have more than sixty pounds sterling, nor less than fifteen." "3. And in order to serve as many as possible in their turn, as well as to make the payment of the principal borrowed more easy, each borrower shall be obliged to pay, with the yearly interest, one tenth part of the principal; which sums of principal and interest, so paid, shall be again lent out to fresh borrowers. "B. FRANKLIN." In a late Boston paper, the friends of humanity have read with much pleasure that doctor Franklin's legacy to the indigent young married tradesmen of that town, of $4444 44 cents, is now increased to $10,902 28 cents, after having been the means of setting up 206 poor young men, besides 75 others, who are now in the use of the capital. CHAPTER XLV. _The Death of Doctor Franklin._ One cannot read the biography of this great man without being put in mind of those sweet though simple strains of the bard of Zion. "Happy the man, whose tender care Relieves the poor distrest; When he's with troubles compass'd round, The Lord shall give him rest." "If, he in languishing estate, Oppress'd with sickness, lie, The Lord shall easy make his bed, And inward strength supply." The latter end of doctor Franklin affords glorious proof that nothing so softens the bed of sickness, and brightens the gloom of the grave, as a life spent in works of love to mankind. See George Washington, who by an active and disinterested benevolence, was called "THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY." See Martha Washington, who by domestic virtues, and extensive charities, obtained to herself the high character of "THE MOTHER TO THE POOR."--Both of these found the last bed spread as it were with roses; and the last enemy converted into a friend. Such is the lot of all who love; "not in _word, but in deed and in truth_." The friends of doctor Franklin never entered his chamber without being struck with this precious text, _"Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace."_ Though laid on the bed whence he is to rise no more, he shows no sign of dejection or defeat. On the contrary, he appears like an aged warrior reposing himself after glorious victory; while his looks beaming with benevolence, express an air pure and serene as the Heaven to which he is going. Death, which most sick people are so unwilling to mention, was to him a favourite topic, and the sublime conversations of Socrates on that great subject, were heard a second time, from the lips of our American Franklin, pregnant with "_immortality and eternal life_." No wonder then that with such views doctor Franklin should have been so cheerful on his dying bed; so self-possessed and calm, even under the tortures of the gravel, which was wearing him down to the grave. "_Don't go away_," said he to the Rev. Dr. Colline, of the Swedes' church, Philadelphia, who, as a friend, was much with him in his last illness, and at sight of his agonies and cold sweats under the fits of the gravel, would take up his hat to retire--"_O no! don't go away_," he would say, "_don't go away_. These pains will soon be over. They are for my good. And besides, what are the pains of a moment in comparison of the pleasures of eternity." Blest with an excellent constitution, well nursed by nature's three great physicians, _temperance_, _exercise_, and _cheerfulness_, he was hardly ever sick until after his seventy-sixth year. The gout and gravel then attacked him with great severity. He bore their excruciating tortures as became one who habitually felt that he was as he said, in the hands of an infinitely wise and benevolent being, who did all things right. His physician, the celebrated Dr. Jones, published the following account of his last illness. "The stone, had for the last twelve months confined him chiefly to his bed; and during the extreme painful paroxysms, he was obliged to take large doses of laudanum to mitigate his tortures--still in the intervals of pain, he not only amused himself with reading and conversing with his family, and his friends who visited him, but was often employed in doing business of a public as well as private nature, with various persons who waited on him for that purpose, and in every instance displayed, not only that readiness of doing good, which was the distinguishing characteristic of his life, but the fullest possession of his uncommon mental abilities; and not unfrequently indulged himself in those flashes of wit and entertaining anecdotes, which were the delight of all who heard him. "About sixteen days before his death, he was seized with a pain in his left breast, which increased till it became extremely acute, attended with a cough and laborious breathing. During this state, when the severity of his pains some times drew forth a groan, he would observe, that, _he was afraid he did not bear them as he ought--acknowledged his grateful sense of the many blessings he had received from the Supreme Being, who had raised him from small and low beginnings to such high rank and consideration among men--and made no doubt but his present afflictions were kindly intended to wean him from a world, in which he was no longer fit to act the part assigned him_. In this frame of body and mind he continued till five days before his death, when an imposthumation in his lungs, suddenly burst, and discharged a great quantity of matter, which he continued to throw up while he had strength, but, as that failed, the organs of respiration became gradually oppressed--a calm lethargic state succeeded--and, on the 7th of April, 1790, about eleven o'clock at night he quietly expired, closing a long and useful life of _eighty-four years and three months_." Come holy calm of the soul! Expressive silence come! and meditating the mighty talents of the dead, and their constant application to the _glory of the giver_, let us ascend with him on the wings of that blessed promise, "_Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord! even so saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labours and their works do follow them._" That Franklin is now enjoying that rest which "_remaineth_ _for the people of God_"--and that while many a blood-stained monster who made great noise in the world, is _followed_ by the cries of thousands of widows and orphans, Franklin dying in the Lord, and followed by the blessings of thousands, fed, clothed, educated, and enriched by his charities, is in GLORY, may be fairly inferred from the following most valuable anecdote of him. Naturalists tell us, that so great is the paternal care of God, that every climate affords the food and physic best suited to the necessaries of its population. What gratitude is due to that goodness, which foreseeing the dangers impending over this country from British injustice, sent us two such protectors as Franklin and Washington? The first, (the forerunner of the second,) like the lightning of Heaven, to expose the approaching tempest; and the second, like the rock of the ocean, to meet that tempest in all its fury, and dash it back on its proud assailants? And how astonishing too, and almost unexampled that goodness, which with talents of wisdom and fortitude to establish our republic, combined the cardinal virtues of _justice_, _industry_, and _economy_ that alone can render our republic immortal? Hoping that our _youth_ may be persuaded to love and imitate the virtues of the men whose great names they have been accustomed, from the cradle, to lisp with veneration, I have long coveted to set these virtues before them. The grey haired men of other days, have given me their aid. The following I obtained from the Rev. Dr. Helmuth, of the German church, Philadelphia. Hearing that this learned and pious divine possessed a valuable anecdote of doctor Franklin, I immediately waited on him. "Yes, sir," said he, "I have indeed a valuable anecdote of doctor Franklin, which I would tell you with great pleasure; but as I do not speak English very well, I wish you would call on David Ritter, at the sign of the _Golden Lamb_, in Front street; he will tell it to you better. I hastened to Mr Ritter, and told him my errand. He seemed mightily pleased at it, and said, "Yes, I will tell you all I know of it. You must understand then, sir, first of all, that I always had a prodigious opinion of doctor Franklin, as the _usefulest_ man we ever had among us, by a long way; and so hearing that he was sick, I thought I would go and see him. As I rapped at the door, who should come and open it but old Sarah Humphries. I was right glad to see her, for I had known her a long time. She was of the people called FRIENDS; and a mighty good sort of body she was too. The great people set a heap of store by her, for she was famous throughout the town for nursing and tending on the sick. Indeed, many of them, I believe, hardly thought they could sicken, and die right if they had not old Sarah Humphries with them. Soon as she saw me, she said, 'Well David, how dost?'" "'O, much after the old sort, Sarah,' said I; 'but that's neither here nor there; I am come to see doctor Franklin.' "'Well then,' said she, 'thou art too late, for he is _just dead_!' "'Alack a day,' said I, 'then a great man is gone.' "'Yes, indeed,' said she, 'and a _good_ one too; for it seemed as though he never thought the day went away as it ought, if he had not done somebody a service. However, David,' said she, 'he is not the worse off for all that now, where he is gone to: but come, as thee came to see Benjamin Franklin, thee shall see him yet.' And so she took me into his room. As we entered, she pointed to him, where he lay on his bed, and said, '_there_, did thee ever see any thing look so natural?' "And he did look natural indeed. His eyes were close--but that you saw he did not breathe, you would have thought he was in a sweet sleep, he looked so calm and happy. Observing that his face was fixed right towards the chimney, I cast my eyes that way, and behold! just above the mantle-piece was a noble picture! O it was a _noble picture_, sure enough! It was the picture of our Saviour on the cross. "I could not help calling out, 'Bless us all, Sarah!' said I, 'what's all this?' "'What dost mean, David,' said she, quite crusty. "'Why, how came this picture here, Sarah?' said I, 'you know that many people think he was not after this sort.' "'Yes,' said she, 'I know that too. But thee knows that many who makes a great fuss about religion have very little, while some who say but little about it have a good deal.' "'That's sometimes the case, I fear, Sarah,' said I. "'Well, and that was the case,' said she, 'with Benjamin Franklin. But be that as it may, David, since thee asks me about this great picture, I'll tell thee how it came here. Many weeks ago, as he lay, he beckoned me to him, and told me of this picture up stairs, and begged I would bring it to him. I brought it to him. His face brightened up as he looked at it; and he said, '_Aye, Sarah_,' said he, '_there's a picture worth looking at! that's the picture of him who came into the world to teach men to love one another!_' Then after looking wistfully at it for some time, he said, '_Sarah_,' said he, '_set this picture up over the mantlepiece, right before me as I lie; for I like to look at it_,' and when I had fixed it up, he looked at it, and looked at it very much; and indeed, as thee sees, he died with his eyes fixed on it.'" Happy Franklin! Thus doubly blest! Blest in life, by a diligent co-working with "THE GREAT SHEPHERD," in his precepts of perfect love.--Blest in death, with his closing eyes piously fixed upon him, and meekly bowing to the last summons in joyful hope that through the force of his divine precepts, the "wintry storms" of hate will one day pass away, and one "eternal spring of love and peace encircle all." Now Franklin in his lifetime had written for himself an _epitaph_, to be put upon his grave, that honest posterity might see that he was no _unbeliever_, as certain enemies had slandered him, but that he _firmly believed_ "_that his Redeemer liveth; and that in the latter day he shall stand upon the earth; and that though worms destroyed his body, yet in his flesh he should see God_." FRANKLIN'S EPITAPH. "THE BODY OF _BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, PRINTER_, LIKE THE COVER OF AN OLD BOOK, _its contents torn out, and stripped of its lettering and gilding, lies here food for worms_. Yet the work itself shall not be lost; for it will, as he believed, appear once more IN A NEW _and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended_ BY _THE AUTHOR_." This epitaph was never put upon his tomb. But the friend of man needs no stone of the valley to perpetuate his memory. It lives among the clouds of heaven. The lightnings, in their dreadful courses, bow to the genius of Franklin. His magic rods, pointed to the skies, still watch the irruptions of the FIERY METEORS. They seize them by their hissing heads as they dart forth from the dark chambers of the thunders; and cradled infants, half waked by the sudden glare, are seen to curl the cherub smile hard by the spot where the dismal bolts had fallen. THE END. 
40236	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 40236-h.htm or 40236-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40236/40236-h/40236-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40236/40236-h.zip) Transcriber's note: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other inconsistencies. Text that has been changed to correct an obvious error is noted at the end of this ebook. MEMOIRS OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN; WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. WITH HIS MOST INTERESTING ESSAYS, LETTERS, AND MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS; FAMILIAR, MORAL, POLITICAL, ECONOMICAL, AND PHILOSOPHICAL. SELECTED WITH CARE FROM ALL HIS PUBLISHED PRODUCTIONS, AND COMPRISING WHATEVER IS MOST ENTERTAINING AND VALUABLE TO THE GENERAL READER. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, Franklin Square. 1860. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1839, by Harper & Brothers, In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York. CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. ESSAYS. Page The Way to Wealth; as clearly shown in the practice of an old Pennsylvania Almanac, entitled, "Poor Richard Improved" 5 On True Happiness 14 Public Men 16 The Waste of Life 22 Self-denial not the Essence of Virtue 25 On the Usefulness of the Mathematics 27 The Art of procuring Pleasant Dreams 31 Advice to a young Tradesman 37 Rules of Health 39 The Ephemera; an Emblem of Human Life. To Madame Brillon, of Passy 40 The Whistle. To Madame Brillon 42 On Luxury, Idleness, and Industry 45 On Truth and Falsehood 50 Necessary Hints to those that would be Rich 53 The Way to make Money plenty in every Man's Pocket 54 The Handsome and Deformed Leg 55 On Human Vanity 58 On Smuggling, and its various Species 62 Remarks concerning the Savages of North America 66 On Freedom of Speech and the Press 71 On the Price of Corn and the Management of the Poor 82 Singular Custom among the Americans, entitled Whitewashing 86 On the Criminal Laws and the Practice of Privateering 94 Letter from Anthony Afterwit 102 LETTERS. To Mrs. Abiah Franklin 107 To Miss Jane Franklin 108 To the same 109 To Mr. George Whitefield 110 To Mrs. D. Franklin 112 To the same 113 To Mrs. Jane Mecom 114 To the same 115 To the same 116 To Miss Stevenson 119 To Lord Kames 120 To the same 121 To the same 128 To John Alleyne 130 To Governor Franklin 132 To Dr. Priestley 134 To the same 136 To Mr. Mather 137 To Mr. Strahan 138 To Dr. Priestley 138 To Mrs. Thompson 139 To Mr. Lith 142 Answer to a Letter from Brussels 144 To Dr. Price 151 To Dr. Priestley 152 To General Washington 154 To M. Court de Gebelin 156 To Francis Hopkinson 158 To Francis Hopkinson 159 To Samuel Huntingdon, President of Congress 160 To the Bishop of St. Asaph 162 To Miss Alexander 163 To Benjamin Vaughan 164 To Mrs. Hewson 166 To David Hartley 167 To Dr. Percival 168 To Sir Joseph Banks 169 To Robert Morris, Esq. 171 To Dr. Mather 172 To William Strahan, M.P. 174 To George Wheatley 178 To David Hartley 181 To the Bishop of St. Asaph 181 To Mrs. Hewson 184 To M. Veillard 185 To Mr. Jordain 187 To Miss Hubbard 189 To George Wheatley 190 To B. Vaughan 192 To the President of Congress 193 To Mrs. Green 196 To Dr. Price 197 To B. Vaughan 198 To Dr. Rush 199 To Miss Catharine Louisa Shipley 199 To * * * 200 Copy of the last Letter written by Dr. Franklin 201 PHILOSOPHICAL SUBJECTS. To the Abbé Soulavie.--Theory of the Earth 203 To Dr. John Pringle.--On the different Strata of the Earth 207 To Mr. Bowdoin.--Queries and Conjectures relating to Magnetism and the Theory of the Earth 208 To M. Dubourg.--On the Nature of Seacoal 211 Causes of Earthquakes 212 To David Rittenhouse.--New and Curious Theory of Light and Heat 224 Of Lightning; and the Methods now used in America for the securing Buildings and Persons from its mischievous Effects 227 To Peter Collinson.--Electrical Kite 231 Physical and Meteorological Observations, Conjectures, and Suppositions 232 To Dr. Perkins.--Water-spouts and Whirlwinds compared 240 To Alexander Small.--On the Northeast Storms in North America 254 To Dr. Lining.--On Cold produced by Evaporation 256 To Peter Franklin.--On the Saltness of Seawater 263 To Miss Stephenson.--Salt Water rendered fresh by Distillation.--Method of relieving Thirst by Seawater 264 To the same.--Tendency of Rivers to the Sea.--Effects of the Sun's Rays on Cloths of different Colours 266 To the same.--On the Effect of Air on the Barometer, and the Benefits derived from the Study of Insects 270 To Dr. Joseph Priestley.--Effect of Vegetation on Noxious Air 273 To Dr. John Pringle.--On the Difference of Navigation in Shoal and Deep Water 274 To Oliver Neale.--On the Art of Swimming 277 To Miss Stephenson.--Method of contracting Chimneys.--Modesty in Disputation 281 To M. Dubourg.--Observations on the prevailing Doctrines of Life and Death 282 Lord Brougham's Portrait of Dr. Franklin 285 WRITINGS OF FRANKLIN * * * * * ESSAYS, HUMOROUS, MORAL, ECONOMICAL, AND POLITICAL. * * * * * THE WAY TO WEALTH, _As dearly shown in the practice of an old Pennsylvania Almanac, entitled, "Poor Richard Improved."_ COURTEOUS READER, I have heard that nothing gives an author so great pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by others. Judge, then, how much I must have been gratified by an incident I am going to relate to you. I stopped my horse lately where a great number of people were collected at an auction of merchants' goods. The hour of the sale not being come, they were conversing on the badness of the times; and one of the company called to a plain, clean old man, with white locks, "Pray, Father Abraham, what think you of the times? Will not these heavy taxes quite ruin the country? How shall we ever be able to pay them? What would you advise us to?" Father Abraham stood up and replied, "If you would have my advice, I will give it you in short; for _A word to the wise is enough_, as Poor Richard says." They joined in desiring him to speak his mind; and, gathering round him, he proceeded as follows: "Friends," said he, "the taxes are indeed very heavy, and if those laid on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we might more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly; and from these taxes the commissioners cannot ease or deliver us, by allowing an abatement. However, let us hearken to good advice, and something may be done for us: _God helps them that help themselves_, as Poor Richard says. "I. It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part of their time, to be employed in its service; but idleness taxes many of us much more; sloth, by bringing on diseases, absolutely shortens life. _Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labour wears; while the used key is always bright_, as Poor Richard says. _But dost thou love life, then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of_, as Poor Richard says. How much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep? forgetting that _The sleeping fox catches no poultry_, and that _There will be sleeping enough in the grave_, as Poor Richard says. "_If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be_, as Poor Richard says, the _greatest prodigality_; since, as he elsewhere tells us, _Lost time is never found again; and what we call time enough, always proves little enough_. Let us, then, up and be doing, and doing to the purpose; so by diligence shall we do more with less perplexity. _Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all easy_; and _He that riseth late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night_; while _Laziness travels so slowly, that Poverty soon overtakes him_. _Drive thy business, let not that drive thee_; and _Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise_, as Poor Richard says. "So what signifies wishing and hoping for better times? We may make these times better if we bestir ourselves. _Industry need not wish, and he that lives upon hopes will die fasting_. _There are no gains without pains; then help, hands, for I have no lands_; or, if I have, they are smartly taxed. _He that hath a trade hath an estate; and he that hath a calling hath an office of profit and honour_, as Poor Richard says; but then the trade must be worked at, and the calling followed, or neither the estate nor the office will enable us to pay our taxes. If we are industrious, we shall never starve; for, _At the workingman's house hunger looks in, but dares not enter_. Nor will the bailiff or the constable enter; for _Industry pays debts, while despair increaseth them_. What though you have found no treasure, nor has any rich relation left you a legacy? _Diligence is the mother of luck, and God gives all things to industry. Then plough deep while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn to sell and to keep._ Work while it is called to-day, for you know not how much you may be hindered to-morrow. _One to-day is worth two to-morrows_, as Poor Richard says; and farther, _Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day_. If you were a servant, would you not be ashamed that a good master should catch you idle? Are you, then, your own master? Be ashamed to catch yourself idle when there is so much to be done for yourself, your family, and your country. Handle your tools without mittens; remember that _The cat in gloves catches no mice_, as Poor Richard says. It is true there is much to be done, and perhaps you are weak-handed; but stick to it steadily, and you will see great effects; for _Constant dropping wears away stones_; and _By diligence and patience the mouse ate in two the cable_; and _Little strokes fell great oaks_. "Methinks I hear some of you say, 'Must a man afford himself no leisure?' I will tell thee, my friend, what Poor Richard says: _Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure; and, since thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour_. Leisure is time for doing something useful; this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man never; for _A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. Many, without labour, would live by their wits only, but they break for want of stock_; whereas industry gives comfort, and plenty, and respect. _Fly pleasures, and they will follow you. The diligent spinner has a large shift; and now I have a sheep and a cow, everybody bids me good-morrow._ "II. But with our industry we must likewise be steady, settled, and careful, and oversee our own affairs with our own eyes, and not trust too much to others; for, as Poor Richard says, _I never saw an oft-removed tree, Nor yet an oft-removed family, That throve so well as those that settled be._ And again, _Three removes are as bad as a fire_; and again, _Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee_; and again, _If you would have your business done, go; if not, send_. And again, _He that by the plough would thrive, Himself must either hold or drive._ And again, _The eye of a master will do more work than both his hands_; and again, _Want of care does us more damage than want of knowledge_; and again, _Not to oversee workmen is to leave them your purse open_. Trusting too much to others' care is the ruin of many; _for in the affairs of this world men are saved, not by faith, but by the want of it_; but a man's own care is profitable; for, _If you would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve yourself. A little neglect may breed great mischief; for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the enemy; all for the want of a little care about a horseshoe nail._ "III. So much for industry, my friends, and attention to one's own business; but to these we must add frugality, if we would make our industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep his nose all his life to the grindstone, and die not worth a groat at last. _A fat kitchen makes a lean will_; and _Many estates are spent in the getting, Since women for tea forsook spinning and knitting, And men for punch forsook hewing and splitting._ _If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as of getting. The Indies have not made Spain rich, because her outgoes are greater than her incomes._ "Away, then, with your expensive follies, and you will not then have so much cause to complain of hard times, heavy taxes, and chargeable families. And farther, _What maintains one vice would bring up two children_. You may think, perhaps, that a little tea, or a little punch now and then, diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer, and a little entertainment now and then, can be no great matter; but remember, _Many a little makes a mickle_. Beware of little expenses; _A small leak will sink a great ship_, as Poor Richard says; and again, _Who dainties love, shall beggars prove_; and moreover, _Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them_. "Here you are all got together at this sale of fineries and knickknacks. You call them _goods_; but, if you do not take care, they will prove _evils_ to some of you. You expect they will be sold cheap, and perhaps they may for less than they cost; but, if you have no occasion for them, they must be dear to you. Remember what Poor Richard says: _Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessaries_. And again, _At a great pennyworth pause a while_. He means, that perhaps the cheapness is apparent only, and not real; or the bargain, by straitening thee in thy business, may do thee more harm than good. For in another place he says, _Many have been ruined by buying good pennyworths_. Again, _It is foolish to lay out money in a purchase of repentance_; and yet this folly is practised every day at auctions, for want of minding the Almanac. Many a one, for the sake of finery on the back, have gone with a hungry belly, and half starved their families. _Silks and satins, scarlet and velvets, put out the kitchen fire_, as Poor Richard says. "These are not the necessaries of life; they can scarcely be called the conveniences; and yet, only because they look pretty, how many want to have them! By these and other extravagances, the genteel are reduced to poverty, and forced to borrow of those whom they formerly despised, but who, through industry and frugality, have maintained their standing; in which case it appears plainly that _A ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees_, as Poor Richard says. Perhaps they have had a small estate left them, which they knew not the getting of; they think _It is day, and will never be night_; that a little to be spent out of so much is not worth minding; but _Always taking out of the mealtub and never putting in, soon comes to the bottom_, as Poor Richard says; and then, _When the well is dry, they know the worth of water_. But this they might have known before if they had taken his advice. _If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some; for he that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing_, as Poor Richard says; and indeed so does he that lends to such people, when he goes to get it in again. Poor Dick farther advises, and says, _Fond pride of dress is sure a very curse; Ere fancy you consult, consult your purse._ And again, _Pride is as loud a beggar as Want, and a great deal more saucy_. When you have bought one fine thing, you must buy ten more, that your appearance may be all of a piece; but Poor Dick says, _It is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it_. And it is as truly folly for the poor to ape the rich, as for the frog to swell in order to equal the ox. _Vessels large may venture more, But little boats should keep near shore._ It is, however, a folly soon punished; for, as Poor Richard says, _Pride that dines on vanity, sups on contempt. Pride breakfasted with Plenty, dined with Poverty, and supped with Infamy_. And, after all, of what use is this pride of appearance, for which so much is risked, so much is suffered? It cannot promote health nor ease pain; it makes no increase of merit in the person; it creates envy; it hastens misfortune. "But what madness must it be to _run in debt_ for these superfluities? We are offered, by the terms of this sale, six months' credit; and that, perhaps, has induced some of us to attend it, because we cannot spare the ready money, and hope now to be fine without it. But ah! think what you do when you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty. If you cannot pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your creditor; you will be in fear when you speak to him; you will make poor, pitiful, sneaking excuses, and, by degrees, come to lose your veracity, and sink into base, downright lying; for _The second vice is lying, the first is running in debt_, as Poor Richard says; and again, to the same purpose, _Lying rides upon Debt's back_, whereas a freeborn ought not to be ashamed nor afraid to see or speak to any man living. But poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue. _It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright._ "What would you think of that prince or of that government who should issue an edict forbidding you to dress like a gentleman or gentlewoman, on pain of imprisonment or servitude? Would you not say that you were free, have a right to dress as you please, and that such an edict would be a breach of your privileges, and such a government tyrannical? And yet you are about to put your self under such tyranny, when you run in debt for such dress! Your creditor has authority, at his pleasure, to deprive you of your liberty, by confining you in jail till you shall be able to pay him. When you have got your bargain, you may, perhaps, think little of payment; but, as Poor Richard says, _Creditors have better memories than debtors; creditors are a superstitious sect, great observers of set days and times_. The day comes round before you are aware, and the demand is made before you are prepared to satisfy it; or, if you bear your debt in mind, the term, which at first seemed so long, will, as it lessens, appear extremely short. Time will seem to have added wings to his heels as well as his shoulders. _Those have a short Lent who owe money to be paid at Easter_. At present, perhaps, you may think yourselves in thriving circumstances, and that you can bear a little extravagance without injury; but _For age and want save while you may; No morning sun lasts a whole day._ Gain may be temporary and uncertain, but ever, while you live, expense is constant and certain; and _It is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel_, as Poor Richard says; so, _Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt_. "IV. This doctrine, my friends, is reason and wisdom; but, after all, do not depend too much upon your own industry, and frugality, and prudence, though excellent things; for they may all be blasted, without the blessing of Heaven; and, therefore, ask that blessing humbly, and be not uncharitable to those that at present seem to want it, but comfort and help them. Remember, Job suffered, and was afterward prosperous. "And now, to conclude, _Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other_, as Poor Richard says, and scarce in that; for it is true, _We may give advice, but we cannot give conduct_. However, remember this, _They that will not be counselled cannot be helped_; and farther, that, _If you will not hear Reason, she will surely rap your knuckles_, as Poor Richard says." Thus the old gentleman ended his harangue. The people heard it, and approved the doctrine; and immediately practised the contrary, just as if it had been a common sermon; for the auction opened, and they began to buy extravagantly. I found the good man had thoroughly studied my Almanacs, and digested all I had dropped on these topics during the course of twenty-five years. The frequent mention he made of me must have tired any one else; but my vanity was wonderfully delighted with it, though I was conscious that not a tenth part of the wisdom was my own which he ascribed to me, but rather the gleanings that I had made of the sense of all ages and nations. However, I resolved to be the better for the echo of it; and, though I had at first determined to buy stuff for a new coat, I went away resolved to wear my old one a little longer. Reader, if thou wilt do the same, thy profit will be as great as mine. I am, as ever, thine to serve thee, RICHARD SAUNDERS. * * * * * ON TRUE HAPPINESS. The desire of happiness in general is so natural to us, that all the world are in pursuit of it; all have this one end in view, though they take such different methods to attain it, and are so much divided in their notions of it. Evil, as evil, can never be chosen; and, though evil is often the effect of our own choice, yet we never desire it, but under the appearance of an imaginary good. Many things we indulge ourselves in may be considered by us as evils, and yet be desirable; but then they are only considered as evils in their effects and consequences, not as evils at present, and attended with immediate misery. Reason represents things to us not only as they are at present, but as they are in their whole nature and tendency; passion only regards them in the former light. When this governs us, we are regardless of the future, and are only affected with the present. It is impossible ever to enjoy ourselves rightly, if our conduct be not such as to preserve the harmony and order of our faculties, and the original frame and constitution of our minds; all true happiness, as all that is truly beautiful, can only result from order. While there is a conflict between the two principles of passion and reason, we must be miserable in proportion to the struggle; and when the victory is gained, and reason so far subdued as seldom to trouble us with its remonstrances, the happiness we have then is not the happiness of our rational nature, but the happiness only of the inferior and sensual part of us, and, consequently, a very low and imperfect happiness to what the other would have afforded us. If we reflect upon any one passion and disposition of mind, abstract from virtue, we shall soon see the disconnexion between that and true, solid happiness. It is of the very essence, for instance, of envy to be uneasy and disquieted. Pride meets with provocations and disturbances upon almost every occasion. Covetousness is ever attended with solicitude and anxiety. Ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the good fortune to satisfy us; its appetite grows the keener by indulgence, and all we can gratify it with at present serves but the more to inflame its insatiable desires. The passions, by being too much conversant with earthly objects, can never fix in us a proper composure and acquiescence of mind. Nothing but an indifference to the things of this world, an entire submission to the will of Providence here, and a well-grounded expectation of happiness hereafter, can give us a true, satisfactory enjoyment of ourselves. Virtue is the best guard against the many unavoidable evils incident to us; nothing better alleviates the weight of the afflictions, or gives a truer relish of the blessings, of human life. What is without us has not the least connexion with happiness, only so far as the preservation of our lives and health depends upon it. Health of body, though so far necessary that we cannot be perfectly happy without it, is not sufficient to make us happy of itself. Happiness springs immediately from the mind; health is but to be considered as a condition or circumstance, without which this happiness cannot be tasted pure and unabated. Virtue is the best preservation of health, as it prescribes temperance, and such a regulation of our passions as is most conducive to the well-being of the animal economy; so that it is, at the same time, the only true happiness of the mind, and the best means of preserving the health of the body. If our desires are to the things of this world, they are never to be satisfied. If our great view is upon those of the next, the expectation of them is an infinitely higher satisfaction than the enjoyment of those of the present. There is no happiness, then, but in a virtuous and self-approving conduct. Unless our actions will bear the test of our sober judgments and reflections upon them, they are not the actions, and, consequently, not the happiness, of a rational being. * * * * * PUBLIC MEN The following is a dialogue between Socrates, the great Athenian philosopher, and one Glaucon, a private man, of mean abilities, but ambitious of being chosen a senator and of governing the republic; wherein Socrates in a pleasant manner convinces him of his incapacity for public affairs, by making him sensible of his ignorance of the interests of his country in their several branches, and entirely dissuades him from any attempt of that nature. There is also added, at the end, part of another dialogue the same Socrates had with one Charmidas, a worthy man, but too modest, wherein he endeavours to persuade him to put himself forward and undertake public business, as being very capable of it. The whole is taken from _Xenophon's Memorable Things of Socrates, Book Third_. "A certain man, whose name was Glaucon, the son of Ariston, had so fixed it in his mind to govern the republic, that he frequently presented himself before the people to discourse of affairs of state, though all the world laughed at him for it; nor was it in the power of his relations or friends to dissuade him from that design. But Socrates had a kindness for him, on account of Plato, his brother, and he only it was who made him change his resolution. He met him, and accosted him in so winning a manner, that he first obliged him to hearken to his discourse. He began with him thus: "'You have a mind, then, to govern the republic?' "'I have so,' answered Glaucon. "'You cannot,' replied Socrates, 'have a more noble design; for if you can accomplish it so as to become absolute, you will be able to serve your friends, you will raise your family, you will extend the bounds of your country, you will be known, not only in Athens, but through all Greece, and perhaps your renown will fly even to the barbarous nations, as did that of Themistocles. In short, wherever you come, you will have the respect and admiration of all the world.' "These words soothed Glaucon, and won him to give ear to Socrates, who went on in this manner: 'But it is certain, that if you desire to be honoured, you must be useful to the state.' "'Certainly,' said Glaucon. "'And in the name of all the gods,' replied Socrates, 'tell me, what is the first service that you intend to render the state?' "Glaucon was considering what to answer, when Socrates continued: 'If you design to make the fortune of one of your friends, you will endeavour to make him rich, and thus, perhaps, you will make it your business to enrich the republic?' "'I would,' answered Glaucon. "Socrates replied, 'Would not the way to enrich the republic be to increase its revenue?' "'It is very likely it would,' answered Glaucon. "'Tell me, then, in what consists the revenue of the state, and to how much it may amount? I presume you have particularly studied this matter, to the end that, if anything should be lost on one hand, you might know where to make it good on another; and that, if a fund should fail on a sudden, you might immediately be able to settle another in its place?' "'I protest,' answered Glaucon, 'I have never thought of this.' "'Tell me, at least, the expenses of the republic, for no doubt you intend to retrench the superfluous?' "'I never thought of this either,' said Glaucon. "'You were best, then, to put off to another time your design of enriching the republic, which you can never be able to do while you are ignorant both of its expenses and revenue.' "'There is another way to enrich a state,' said Glaucon, 'of which you take no notice; and that is, by the ruin [spoils] of its enemies.' "'You are in the right,' answered Socrates; 'but to this end it is necessary to be stronger than they, otherwise we shall run the hazard of losing what we have. He, therefore, who talks of undertaking a war, ought to know the strength on both sides, to the end that, if his party be the stronger, he may boldly advise for war, and that, if it be the weaker, he may dissuade the people from engaging themselves in so dangerous an enterprise.' "'All this is true.' "'Tell me, then,' continued Socrates,'how strong our forces are by sea and land, and how strong are our enemies.' "'Indeed,' said Glaucon, 'I cannot tell you on a sudden.' "'If you have a list of them in writing, pray show it me; I should be glad to hear it read.' "'I have it not yet.' "'I see, then,' said Socrates, 'that we shall not engage in war so soon; for the greatness of the undertaking will hinder you from maturely weighing all the consequences of it in the beginning of your government. But,' continued he, 'you have thought of the defence of the country; you know what garrisons are necessary, and what are not; you know what number of troops is sufficient in one, and not sufficient in another; you will cause the necessary garrisons to be re-enforced, and disband those that are useless?' "'I should be of opinion,' said Glaucon, 'to leave none of them on foot, because they ruin a country on pretence of defending it.' "'But,' Socrates objected, 'if all the garrisons were taken away, there would be nothing to hinder the first comer from carrying off what he pleased; but how come you to know that the garrisons behave themselves so ill? Have you been upon the place? Have you seen them?' "'Not at all; but I suspect it to be so.' "'When, therefore, we are certain of it,' said Socrates, 'and can speak upon better grounds than simple conjectures, we will propose this advice to the senate.' "'It may be well to do so,' said Glaucon. "'It comes into my mind, too,' continued Socrates, 'that you have never been at the mines of silver, to examine why they bring not in so much now as they did formerly.' "'You say true; I have never been there.' "'Indeed, they say the place is very unhealthy, and that may excuse you.' "'You rally me now,' said Glaucon. "Socrates added, 'But I believe you have at least observed how much corn our land produces, how long it will serve to supply our city, and how much more we shall want for the whole year; to the end you may not be surprised with a scarcity of bread, but may give timely orders for the necessary provisions.' "'There is a deal to do,' said Glaucon, 'if we must take care of all these things.' "'There is so,' replied Socrates; 'and it is even impossible to manage our own families well, unless we know all that is wanting, and take care to provide it. As you see, therefore, that our city is composed of above ten thousand families, and it being a difficult task to watch over them all at once, why did you not first try to retrieve your uncle's affairs, which are running to decay? and, after having given that proof of your industry, you might have taken a greater trust upon you. But now, when you find yourself incapable of aiding a private man, how can you think of behaving yourself so as to be useful to a whole people? Ought a man, who has not strength enought to carry a hundred pound weight, to undertake to carry a heavier burden?' "'I would have done good service to my uncle,' said Glaucon, 'if he would have taken my advice.' "'How,' replied Socrates, 'have you not hitherto been able to govern the mind of your uncle, and do you now believe yourself able to govern the minds of all the Athenians, and his among the rest? Take heed, my dear Glaucon, take heed lest too great a desire of power should render you despised; consider how dangerous it is to speak and entertain ourselves concerning things we do not understand; what a figure do those forward and rash people make in the world who do so; and judge yourself whether they acquire more esteem than blame, whether they are more admired than contemned. Think, on the contrary, with how much more honour a man is regarded who understands perfectly what he says and what he does, and then you will confess that renown and applause have always been the recompense of true merit, and shame the reward of ignorance and temerity. If, therefore, you would be honoured, endeavour to be a man of true merit; and if you enter upon the government of the republic with a mind more sagacious than usual, I shall not wonder if you succeed in all your designs.'" Thus Socrates put a stop to the disorderly ambition of this man; but, on an occasion quite contrary, he in the following manner exhorted Charmidas to take an employment. "He was a man of sense, and more deserving than most others in the same post; but, as he was of a modest disposition, he constantly declined, and made great difficulties of engaging himself in public business. Socrates therefore addressed himself to him in this manner: "'If you knew any man that could gain the prizes in the public games, and by that means render himself illustrious, and acquire glory to his country, what would you say of him if he refused to offer himself to the combat?' "'I would say,' answered Charmidas, 'that he was a mean-spirited, effeminate fellow.' "'And if a man were capable of governing a republic, of increasing its power by his advice, and of raising himself by this means to a high degree of honour, would you not brand him likewise with meanness of soul if he would not present himself to be employed?' "'Perhaps I might,' said Charmidas; 'but why do you ask me this question?' Socrates replied, 'Because you are capable of managing the affairs of the republic, and nevertheless you avoid doing so, though, in quality of a citizen, you are _obliged_ to take care of the commonwealth. Be no longer, then, thus negligent in this matter; consider your abilities and your duty with more attention, and let not slip the occasions of serving the republic, and of rendering it, if possible, more flourishing than it is. This will be a blessing whose influence will descend not only on the other citizens, but on your best friends and yourself.'" * * * * * THE WASTE OF LIFE. Anergus was a gentleman of a good estate; he was bred to no business, and could not contrive how to waste his hours agreeably; he had no relish for any of the proper works of life, nor any taste at all for the improvements of the mind; he spent, generally, ten hours of the four-and-twenty in his bed; he dozed away two or three more on his couch, and as many were dissolved in good liquor every evening, if he met with company of his own humour. Five or six of the rest he sauntered away with much indolence; the chief business of them was to contrive his meals, and to feed his fancy beforehand with the promise of a dinner and supper; not that he was so absolute a glutton or so entirely devoted to his appetite, but, chiefly because he knew not how to employ his thoughts better, he let them rove about the sustenance of his body. Thus he had made a shift to wear off ten years since the paternal estate fell into his hands; and yet, according to the abuse of words in our day, he was called a man of virtue, because he was scarce ever known to be quite drunken, nor was his nature much inclined to licentiousness. One evening, as he was musing alone, his thoughts happened to take a most unusual turn, for they cast a glance backward, and began to reflect on his manner of life. He bethought himself what a number of living beings had been made a sacrifice to support his carcass, and how much corn and wine had been mingled with those offerings. He had not quite lost all the arithmetic that he had learned when he was a boy, and he set himself to compute what he had devoured since he came to the age of man. "About a dozen of feathered creatures, small and great, have, one week with another," said he, "given up their lives to prolong mine, which in ten years amounts to at least six thousand. "Fifty sheep have been sacrificed in a year, with half a hecatomb of black cattle, that I might have the choicest part offered weekly upon my table. Thus a thousand beasts out of the flock and the herd have been slain in ten years' time to feed me, besides what the forest has supplied me with. Many hundreds of fishes have, in all their varieties, been robbed of life for my repast, and of the smaller fry as many thousands. "A measure of corn would hardly afford me fine flour enough for a month's provision, and this arises to above six score bushels; and many hogsheads of ale and wine, and other liquors, have passed through this body of mine, this wretched strainer of meat and drink. "And what have I done all this time for God or man? What a vast profusion of good things upon a useless life and a worthless liver! There is not the meanest creature among all these which I have devoured, but hath answered the end of its creation better than I. It was made to support human nature, and it hath done so. Every crab and oyster I have ate, and every grain of corn I have devoured, hath filled up its place in the rank of beings with more propriety and honour than I have done. Oh shameful waste of life and time!" In short, he carried on his moral reflections with so just and severe a force of reason, as constrained him to change his whole course of life, to break off his follies at once, and to apply himself to gain some useful knowledge, when he was more than thirty years of age. He lived many following years with the character of a worthy man and an excellent Christian; he performed the kind offices of a good neighbour at home, and made a shining figure as a patriot in the senate-house; he died with a peaceful conscience, and the tears of his country were dropped upon his tomb. The world, that knew the whole series of his life, stood amazed at the mighty change. They beheld him as a wonder of reformation, while he himself confessed and adored the Divine power and mercy, which had transformed him from a brute to a man. But this was a single instance; and we may almost venture to write MIRACLE upon it. Are there not numbers of both sexes among our young gentry, in this degenerate age, whose lives thus run to utter waste, without the least tendency to usefulness? When I meet with persons of such a worthless character as this, it brings to my mind some scraps of Horace: "Nos numerus sumus, et fruges consumere nati, . . . . . . . . Alcinoique . . . . . . . . . juventus, Cui pulchrum fuit in medios dormire dies," &c. PARAPHRASE. There are a number of us creep Into this world, to eat and sleep; And know no reason why they're born, But merely to consume the corn, Devour the cattle, fowl, and fish, And leave behind an empty dish. Though crows and ravens do the same, Unlucky birds of hateful name, Ravens or crows might fill their places, And swallow corn and eat carcáses, Then, if their tombstone, when they die, Be n't taught to flatter and to lie. There's nothing better will be said, Than that _they've eat up all their bread, Drunk all their drink, and gone to bed_. * * * * * SELF-DENIAL NOT THE ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. It is commonly asserted, that without self-denial there is no virtue, and that the greater the self-denial the greater the virtue. If it were said that he who cannot deny himself anything he inclines to, though he knows it will be to his hurt, has not the virtue of resolution or fortitude, it would be intelligible enough; but, as it stands, it seems obscure or erroneous. Let us consider some of the virtues singly. If a man has no inclination to wrong people in his dealings, if he feels no temptation to it, and, therefore, never does it, can it be said that he is not a just man? If he is a just man, has he not the virtue of justice? If to a certain man idle diversions have nothing in them that is tempting, and, therefore, he never relaxes his application to business for their sake, is he not an industrious man? Or has he not the virtue of industry? I might in like manner instance in all the rest of the virtues; but, to make the thing short, as it is certain that the more we strive against the temptation to any vice, and practise the contrary virtue, the weaker will that temptation be, and the stronger will be that habit, till at length the temptation has no force or entirely vanishes; does it follow from thence that, in our endeavours to overcome vice, we grow continually less and less virtuous, till at length we have no virtue at all? If self-denial be the essence of virtue, then it follows that the man who is naturally temperate, just, &c., is not virtuous; but that, in order to be virtuous, he must, in spite of his natural inclination, wrong his neighbours, and eat, and drink, &c., to excess. But perhaps it may be said, that by the word _virtue_ in the above assertion is meant merit; and so it should stand thus: Without self-denial there is no merit, and the greater the self-denial the greater the merit. The self-denial here meant must be when our inclinations are towards vice, or else it would still be nonsense. By merit is understood desert; and when we say a man merits, we mean that he deserves praise or reward. We do not pretend to merit anything of God, for he is above our services; and the benefits he confers on us are the effects of his goodness and bounty. All our merit, then, is with regard to one another, and from one to another. Taking, then, the assertion as it last stands, If a man does me a service from a natural benevolent inclination, does he deserve less of me than another, who does me the like kindness against his inclination? If I have two journeymen, one naturally industrious, the other idle, but both perform a day's work equally good, ought I to give the latter the most wages? Indeed, lazy workmen are commonly observed to be more extravagant in their demands than the industrious; for, if they have not more for their work, they cannot live as well. But though it be true to a proverb that lazy folks take the most pains, does it follow that they deserve the most money? If you were to employ servants in affairs of trust, would you not bid more for one you knew was naturally honest than for one naturally roguish, but who has lately acted honestly? For currents, whose natural channel is dammed up till the new course is by time worn sufficiently deep and become natural, are apt to break their banks. If one servant is more valuable than another, has he not more merit than the other? and yet this is not on account of superior self-denial. Is a patriot not praiseworthy if public spirit is natural to him? Is a pacing-horse less valuable for being a natural pacer? Nor, in my opinion, has any man less merit for having, in general, natural virtuous inclinations. The truth is, that temperance, justice, charity, &c., are virtues, whether practised with or against our inclinations; and the man who practises them merits our love and esteem; and self-denial is neither good nor bad but as it is applied. He that denies a vicious inclination, is virtuous in proportion to his resolution; but the most perfect virtue is above all temptation; such as the virtue of the saints in heaven; and he who does a foolish, indecent, or wicked thing, merely because it is contrary to his inclination (like some mad enthusiasts I have read of, who ran about naked, under the notion of taking up the cross), is not practising the reasonable science of virtue, but is a lunatic. * * * * * ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE MATHEMATICS. Mathematics originally signified any kind of discipline or learning, but now it is taken for that science which teaches or contemplates whatever is capable of being numbered or measured. That part of the mathematics which relates to numbers only, is called _arithmetic_; and that which is concerned about measure in general, whether length, breadth, motion, force, &c., is called _geometry_. As to the usefulness of arithmetic, it is well known that no business, commerce, trade, or employment whatsoever, even from the merchant to the shopkeeper, &c., can be managed and carried on without the assistance of numbers; for by these the trader computes the value of all sorts of goods that he dealeth in, does his business with ease and certainty, and informs himself how matters stand at any time with respect to men, money, and merchandise, to profit and loss, whether he goes forward or backward, grows richer or poorer. Neither is this science only useful to the merchant, but is reckoned the _primum mobile_ (or first mover) of all mundane affairs in general, and is useful for all sorts and degrees of men, from the highest to the lowest. As to the usefulness of geometry, it is as certain that no curious art or mechanic work can either be invented, improved, or performed without its assisting principles. It is owing to this that astronomers are put into a way of making their observations, coming at the knowledge of the extent of the heavens, the duration of time, the motions, magnitudes, and distances of the heavenly bodies, their situations, positions, risings, settings, aspects, and eclipses; also the measure of seasons, of years, and of ages. It is by the assistance of this science that geographers present to our view at once the magnitude and form of the whole earth, the vast extent of the seas, the divisions of empires, kingdoms, and provinces. It is by the help of geometry the ingenious mariner is instructed how to guide a ship through the vast ocean, from one part of the earth to another, the nearest and safest way, and in the shortest time. By help of this science the architects take their just measures for the structure of buildings, as private houses, churches, palaces, ships, fortifications, &c. By its help engineers conduct all their works, take the situation and plan of towns, forts, and castles, measure their distances from one another, and carry their measures into places that are only accessible to the eye. From hence also is deduced that admirable art of drawing sundials on any place, howsoever situate, and for any part of the world, to point out the exact time of the day, the sun's declination, altitude, amplitude, azimuth, and other astronomical matters. By geometry the surveyor is directed how to draw a map of any country, to divide his lands, and to lay down and plot any piece of ground, and thereby discover the area in acres, rods, and perches; the gauger is instructed how to find the capacities or solid contents of all kinds of vessels, in barrels, gallons, bushels, &c.; and the measurer is furnished with rules for finding the areas and contents of superfices and solids, and casting up all manner of workmanship. All these, and many more useful arts, too many to be enumerated here, wholly depend upon the aforesaid sciences, namely, arithmetic and geometry. This science is descended from the infancy of the world, the inventors of which were the first propagators of human kind, as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and divers others. There has not been any science so much esteemed and honoured as this of the mathematics, nor with so much industry and vigilance become the care of great men, and laboured in by the potentates of the world, namely, emperors, kings, princes, &c. _Mathematical demonstrations_ are a logic of as much or more use than that commonly learned at schools, serving to a just formation of the mind, enlarging its capacity, and strengthening it so as to render the same capable of exact reasoning, and discerning truth from falsehood in all occurrences, even subjects not mathematical. For which reason it is said the Egyptians, Persians, and Lacedæmonians seldom elected any new kings but such as had some knowledge in the mathematics; imagining those who had not men of imperfect judgments, and unfit to rule and govern. Though Plato's censure, that those who did not understand the 117th proposition of the 13th book of Euclid's Elements ought not to be ranked among rational creatures, was unreasonable and unjust, yet to give a man the character of universal learning, who is destitute of a competent knowledge in the mathematics, is no less so. The usefulness of some particular parts of the mathematics, in the common affairs of human life, has rendered some knowledge of them very necessary to a great part of mankind, and very convenient to all the rest, that are any way conversant beyond the limits of their own particular callings. Those whom necessity has obliged to get their bread by manual industry, where some degree of art is required to go along with it, and who have had some insight into these studies, have very often found advantages from them sufficient to reward the pains they were at in acquiring them. And whatever may have been imputed to some other studies, under the notion of insignificance and loss of time, yet these, I believe, never caused repentance in any, except it was for their remissness in the prosecution of them. Philosophers do generally affirm that human knowledge to be most excellent which is conversant among the most excellent things. What science, then, can there be more noble, more excellent, more useful for men, more admirably high and demonstrative, than this of the mathematics? I shall conclude with what Plato says, in the seventh book of his _Republic_, with regard to the excellence and usefulness of geometry, being to this purpose: "Dear friend--You see, then, that mathematics are necessary, because, by the exactness of the method, we get a habit of using our minds to the best advantage. And it is remarkable that, all men being capable by nature to reason and understand the sciences, the less acute, by studying this, though useless to them in every other respect, will gain this advantage, that their minds will be improved in reasoning aright; for no study employs it more, nor makes it susceptible of attention so much; and those who we find have a mind worth cultivating, ought to apply themselves to this study." * * * * * THE ART OF PROCURING PLEASANT DREAMS. _Inscribed to Miss * * * *, being written at her request_ As a great part of our life is spent in sleep, during which we have sometimes pleasant and some times painful dreams, it becomes of some consequence to obtain the one kind and avoid the other, for, whether real or imaginary, pain is pain and pleasure is pleasure. If we can sleep without dreaming, it is well that painful dreams are avoided. If, while we sleep, we can have any pleasing dreams, it is, as the French say, _autant de gagné_, so much added to the pleasure of life. To this end it is, in the first place, necessary to be careful in preserving health, by due exercise and great temperance; for in sickness the imagination is disturbed, and disagreeable, sometimes terrible, ideas are apt to present themselves. Exercise should precede meals, not immediately follow them; the first promotes, the latter, unless moderate, obstructs digestion. If, after exercise, we feed sparingly, the digestion will be easy and good, the body lightsome, the temper cheerful, and all the animal functions performed agreeably. Sleep, when it follows, will be natural and undisturbed; while indolence, with full feeding, occasions nightmares and horrors inexpressible; we fall from precipices, are assaulted by wild beasts, murderers, and demons, and experience every variety of distress. Observe, however, that the quantities of food and exercise are relative things; those who move much may, and, indeed, ought to, eat more; those who use little exercise should eat little. In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eat about twice as much as nature requires. Suppers are not bad if we have not dined; but restless nights naturally follow hearty suppers after full dinners. Indeed, as there is a difference in constitutions, some rest well after these meals; it costs them only a frightful dream and an apoplexy, after which they sleep till doomsday. Nothing is more common in the newspapers than instances of people who, after eating a hearty supper, are found dead abed in the morning. Another means of preserving health, to be attended to, is the having a constant supply of fresh air in your bedchamber. It has been a great mistake, the sleeping in rooms exactly closed, and in beds surrounded by curtains. No outward air that may come in to you is so unwholesome as the unchanged air, often breathed, of a close chamber. As boiling water does not grow hotter by longer boiling, if the particles that receive greater heat can escape, so living bodies do not putrefy if the particles, so fast as they become putrid, can be thrown off. Nature expels them by the pores of the skin and the lungs, and in a free, open air they are carried off; but in a close room we receive them again and again, though they become more and more corrupt. A number of persons crowded into a small room thus spoil the air in a few minutes and even render it mortal, as in the Black Hole at Calcutta. A single person is said to spoil only a gallon of air per minute, and therefore requires a longer time to spoil a bedchamber-full; but it is done, however, in proportion, and many putrid disorders hence have their origin. It is recorded of Methusalem, who, being the longest liver, may be supposed to have best preserved his health, that he slept always in the open air; for, when he had lived five hundred years, an angel said to him, "Arise, Methusalem, and build thee a house, for thou shalt live yet five hundred years longer." But Methusalem answered and said, "If I am to live but five hundred years longer, it is not worth while to build me a house; I will sleep in the air, as I have been used to do." Physicians, after having for ages contended that the sick should not be indulged with fresh air, have at length discovered that it may do them good. It is therefore to be hoped that they may in time discover likewise that it is not hurtful to those who are in health, and that we may then be cured of the _aerophoba_, that at present distresses weak minds, and makes them choose to be stifled and poisoned rather than leave open the window of a bedchamber or put down the glass of a coach. Confined air, when saturated with perspirable matter,[1] will not receive more; and that matter must remain in our bodies and occasion diseases; but it gives some previous notice of its being about to be hurtful, by producing certain uneasiness, slight indeed at first, such as with regard to the lungs is a trifling sensation, and to the pores of the skin a kind of restlessness, which is difficult to describe, and few that feel it know the cause of it. But we may recollect that sometimes, on waking in the night, we have, if warmly covered, found it difficult to get asleep again. We turn often, without finding repose in any position. This fidgetiness (to use a vulgar expression for want of a better) is occasioned wholly by an uneasiness in the skin, owing to the retention of the perspirable matter, the bedclothes having received their quantity, and, being saturated, refusing to take any more. To become sensible of this by an experiment, let a person keep his position in the bed, but throw off the bedclothes, and suffer fresh air to approach the part uncovered of his body; he will then feel that part suddenly refreshed; for the air will immediately relieve the skin, by receiving, licking up, and carrying off, the load of perspirable matter that incommoded it. For every portion of cool air that approaches the warm skin, in receiving its portion of that vapour, receives therewith a degree of heat that rarefies and renders it lighter, when it will be pushed away, with its burden, by cooler and, therefore, heavier fresh air, which for a moment supplies its place, and then, being likewise changed and warmed, gives way to a succeeding quantity. This is the order of nature, to prevent animals being infected by their own perspiration. He will now be sensible of the difference between the part exposed to the air and that which, remaining sunk in the bed, denies the air access; for this part now manifests its uneasiness more distinctly by the comparison, and the seat of the uneasiness is more plainly perceived than when the whole surface of the body was affected by it. [1] What physicians call perspirable matter is that vapour which passes off from our bodies, from the lungs, and through the pores of the skin. The quantity of this is said to be five eighths of what we eat.--AUTHOR. Here, then, is one great and general cause of unpleasing dreams. For when the body is uneasy, the mind will be disturbed by it, and disagreeable ideas of various kinds will in sleep be the natural consequences. The remedies, preventive and curative, follow: 1. By eating moderately (as before advised for health's sake), less perspirable matter is produced in a given time; hence the bedclothes receive it longer before they are saturated, and we may therefore sleep longer before we are made uneasy by their refusing to receive any more. 2. By using thinner and more porous bedclothes, which will suffer the perspirable matter more easily to pass through them, we are less incommoded, such being longer tolerable. 3. When you are awakened by this uneasiness, and find you cannot easily sleep again, get out of bed, beat up and turn your pillow, shake the bedclothes well, with at least twenty shakes, then throw the bed open and leave it to cool; in the mean while, continuing undressed, walk about your chamber till your skin has had time to discharge its load, which it will do sooner as the air may be drier and colder. When you begin to feel the cold air unpleasant, then return to your bed, and you will soon fall asleep, and your sleep will be sweet and pleasant. All the scenes presented to your fancy will be, too, of the pleasing kind. I am often as agreeably entertained with them as by the scenery of an opera. If you happen to be too indolent to get out of bed, you may, instead of it, lift up your bedclothes with one arm and leg, so as to draw in a good deal of fresh air, and, by letting them fall, force it out again. This, repeated twenty times, will so clear them of the perspirable matter they have imbibed, as to permit your sleeping well for some time afterward. But this latter method is not equal to the former. Those who do not love trouble, and can afford to have two beds, will find great luxury in rising, when they wake in a hot bed, and going into the cool one. Such shifting of beds would also be of great service to persons ill of a fever, as it refreshes and frequently procures sleep. A very large bed, that will admit a removal so distant from the first situation as to be cool and sweet, may in a degree answer the same end. One or two observations more will conclude this little piece. Care must be taken, when you lie down, to dispose your pillow so as to suit your manner of placing your head, and to be perfectly easy; then place your limbs so as not to bear inconveniently hard upon one another, as, for instance, the joints of your ancles; for, though a bad position may at first give but little pain and be hardly noticed, yet a continuance will render it less tolerable, and the uneasiness may come on while you are asleep, and disturb your imagination. These are the rules of the art. But, though they will generally prove effectual in producing the end intended, there is a case in which the most punctual observance of them will be totally fruitless. I need not mention the case to you, my dear friend, but my account of the art would be imperfect without it. The case is, when the person who desires to have pleasant dreams has not taken care to preserve, what is necessary above all things, A GOOD CONSCIENCE. * * * * * ADVICE TO A YOUNG TRADESMAN. TO MY FRIEND A. B. As you have desired it of me, I write the following hints, which have been of service to me, and may, if observed, be so to you. Remember that _time_ is money. He that can earn ten shillings a day by his labour, and goes abroad or sits idle one half of that day, though he spends but sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon _that_ the only expense; he has really spent, or, rather, thrown away, five shillings besides. Remember that _credit_ is money. If a man lets his money lie in my hands after it is due, he gives me the interest, or so much as I can make of it during that time. This amounts to a considerable sum where a man has good and large credit, and makes good use of it. Remember that money is of the prolific, generating nature. Money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more, and so on. Five shillings turned is six, turned again it is seven and threepence, and so on till it becomes a hundred pounds. The more there is of it, the more it produces every turning, so that the profits rise quicker and quicker. He that kills a breeding-sow, destroys all her offspring to the thousandth generation. He that murders a crown, destroys all that it might have produced, even scores of pounds. Remember that six pounds a year is but a groat a day. For this little sum (which may be daily wasted either in time or expense unperceived) a man of credit may, on his own security, have the constant possession and use of a hundred pounds. So much in stock, briskly turned by an industrious man, produces great advantage. Remember this saying, _The good paymaster is lord of another man's purse._ He that is known to pay punctually and exactly to the time he promises, may at any time, and on any occasion, raise all the money his friends can spare. This is sometimes of great use. After industry and frugality, nothing contributes more to the raising of a young man in the world than punctuality and justice in all his dealings; therefore never keep borrowed money an hour beyond the time you promised, lest a disappointment shut up your friend's purse for ever. The most trifling actions that affect a man's credit are to be regarded. The sound of your hammer at five in the morning or nine at night, heard by a creditor, makes him easy six months longer; but if he sees you at a billiard-table, or hears your voice at a tavern when you should be at work, he sends for his money the next day; demands it, before he can receive it, in a lump. It shows, besides, that you are mindful of what you owe; it makes you appear a careful as well as an honest man, and that still increases your credit. Beware of thinking all your own that you possess, and of living accordingly. It is a mistake that many people who have credit fall into. To prevent this, keep an exact account for some time both of your expenses and your income. If you take the pains at first to mention particulars, it will have this good effect: you will discover how wonderfully small, trifling expenses mount up to large sums, and will discern what might have been, and may, for the future, be saved, without occasioning any great inconvenience. In short, the way to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, _industry_ and _frugality_; that is, waste neither _time_ nor _money_, but make the best use of both. Without industry and frugality nothing will do, and with them everything. He that gets all he can honestly, and saves all he gets (necessary expenses excepted), will certainly become _rich_, if that Being who governs the world, to whom all should look for a blessing on their honest endeavours, doth not, in his wise providence, otherwise determine. AN OLD TRADESMAN. * * * * * RULES OF HEALTH. Eat and drink such an exact quantity as the constitution of thy body allows of, in reference to the services of the mind. They that study much ought not to eat so much as those that work hard, their digestion being not so good. The exact quantity and quality being found out, is to be kept to constantly. Excess in all other things whatever, as well as in meat and drink, is also to be avoided. Youth, age, and the sick require a different quantity. And so do those of contrary complexions; for that which is too much for a phlegmatic man is not sufficient for a choleric. The measure of food ought to be (as much as possibly may be) exactly proportionable to the quality and condition of the stomach, because the stomach digests it. That quantity that is sufficient, the stomach can perfectly concoct and digest, and it sufficeth the due nourishment of the body. A greater quantity of some things may be eaten than of others, some being of lighter digestion than others. The difficulty lies in finding out an exact measure; but eat for necessity, not pleasure; for lust knows not where necessity ends. Wouldst thou enjoy a long life, a healthy body, and a vigorous mind, and be acquainted also with the wonderful works of God, labour in the first place to bring thy appetite to reason. * * * * * THE EPHEMERA; AN EMBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE. TO MADAME BRILLON, OF PASSY. Written in 1778. You may remember, my dear friend, that when we lately spent that happy day in the delightful garden and sweet society of the Moulin Joly, I stopped a little in one of our walks, and stayed some time behind the company. We had been shown numberless skeletons of a kind of little fly, called an ephemera, whose successive generations, we were told, were bred and expired within the day. I happened to see a living company of them on a leaf, who appeared to be engaged in conversation. You know I understand all the inferior animal tongues. My too great application to the study of them is the best excuse I can give for the little progress I have made in your charming language. I listened, through curiosity, to the discourse of these little creatures; but as they, in their national vivacity, spoke three or four together, I could make but little of their conversation. I found, however, by some broken expressions that I heard now and then, they were disputing warmly on the merit of two foreign musicians, one a _cousin_, the other a _moscheto_; in which dispute they spent their time, seemingly as regardless of the shortness of life as if they had been sure of living a month. Happy people! thought I; you are certainly under a wise, just, and mild government, since you have no public grievances to complain of, nor any subject of contention but the perfections and imperfections of foreign music. I turned my head from them to an old gray-headed one, who was single on another leaf, and talking to himself. Being amused with his soliloquy, I put it down in writing, in hopes it will likewise amuse her to whom I am so much indebted for the most pleasing of all amusements, her delicious company and heavenly harmony. "It was," said he, "the opinion of learned philosophers of our race, who lived and flourished long before my time, that this vast world, the Moulin Joy, could not itself subsist more than eighteen hours; and I think there was some foundation for that opinion, since, by the apparent motion of the great luminary that gives life to all nature, and which in my time has evidently declined considerably towards the ocean at the end of our earth, it must then finish its course, be extinguished in the waters that surround us, and leave the world in cold and darkness, necessarily producing universal death and destruction. I have lived seven of those hours, a great age, being no less than four hundred and twenty minutes of time. How very few of us continue so long! I have seen generations born, flourish, and expire! My present friends are the children and grandchildren of the friends of my youth, who are now, alas, no more! And I must soon follow them; for, by the course of nature, though still in health, I cannot expect to live above seven or eight minutes longer. What now avails all my toil and labour in amassing honey-dew on this leaf, which I cannot live to enjoy? What the political struggles I have been engaged in for the good of my compatriot inhabitants of this bush, or my philosophical studies for the benefit of our race in general! for, in politics, what can laws do without morals? Our present race of ephemeræ will in a course of minutes become corrupt like those of other and older bushes, and, consequently, as wretched. And in philosophy how small our progress! Alas! art is long and life is short! My friends would comfort me with the idea of a name they say I shall leave behind me; and they tell me I have lived long enough to nature and to glory. But what will fame be to an ephemera who no longer exists? And what will become of all history in the eighteenth hour, when the world itself, even the whole Moulin Joly, shall come to its end and be buried in universal ruin?" To me, after all my eager pursuits, no solid pleasures now remain but the reflection of a long life spent in meaning well, the sensible conversation of a few good lady ephemeræ, and now and then a kind smile and a tune from the ever amiable _Brillante_. * * * * * THE WHISTLE. TO MADAME BRILLON. Passy, November 10, 1779. * * * * * I am charmed with your description of Paradise, and with your plan of living there; and I approve much of your conclusion, that, in the mean time, we should draw all the good we can from this world. In my opinion, we might all draw more good from it than we do, and suffer less evil, if we would take care not to give too much for _whistles_ For to me it seems that most of the unhappy people we meet with are become so by neglect of that caution. You ask what I mean? You love stories, and will excuse my telling one of myself. When I was a child of seven years old, my friends, on a holyday, filled my pocket with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children; and, being charmed with the sound of a _whistle_ that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered and gave all my money for one. I then came home and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my _whistle_, but disturbing all the family. My brothers, and sisters, and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth; put me in mind of what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money; and laughed at me so much for my folly, that I cried with vexation; and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the _whistle_ gave me pleasure. This, however, was afterward of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind; so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, _Don't give too much for the whistle_; and I saved my money. As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, who _gave too much for the whistle_. When I saw one too ambitious of court favour, sacrificing his time in attendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends, to attain it, I have said to myself, _This man gives too much for his whistle._ When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly employing himself in political bustles, neglecting his own affairs, and ruining them by that neglect, _He pays, indeed_, said I, _too much for his whistle._ If I knew a miser, who gave up every kind of comfortable living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow-citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship, for the sake of accumulating wealth, _Poor man_, said I, _you pay too much for your whistle._ When I met with a man of pleasure, sacrificing every laudable improvement of the mind or of his fortune to mere corporeal sensations, and ruining his health in their pursuit, _Mistaken man_, said I, _you are providing pain for yourself instead of pleasure; you give too much for your whistle._ If I see one fond of appearance, or fine clothes, fine houses, fine furniture, fine equipages, all above his fortune, for which he contracts debts and ends his days in prison, _Alas!_ say I, _he has paid dear, very dear, for his whistle._ When I see a beautiful, sweet-tempered girl married to an ill-natured brute of a husband, _What a pity_, say I, _that she should pay so much for a whistle!_ In short, I conceive that great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimates they have made of the value of things, and by their _giving too much for their whistles_. Yet I ought to have charity for these unhappy people, when I consider that, with all this wisdom of which I am boasting, there are certain things in the world so tempting, for example, the apples of King John, which, happily, are not to be bought; for if they were put to sale by auction, I might very easily be led to ruin myself in the purchase, and find that I had once more given too much for the _whistle_. Adieu, my dear friend, and believe me ever yours very sincerely and with unalterable affection, B. FRANKLIN. * * * * * ON LUXURY, IDLENESS, AND INDUSTRY.[2] [2] From a letter to Mr. Benjamin Vaughan, dated at Passy, July 26th, 1784. It is wonderful how preposterously the affairs of this world are managed. Naturally one would imagine that the interest of a few individuals should give way to general interest; but individuals manage their affairs with so much more application, industry, and address than the public do theirs, that general interest most commonly gives way to particular. We assemble parliaments and councils to have the benefit of their collected wisdom; but we necessarily have, at the same time, the inconvenience of their collected passions, prejudices, and private interests. By the help of these, artful men overpower their wisdom and dupe its possessors: and if we may judge by the acts, _arrêts_, and edicts, all the world over, for regulating commerce, an assembly of great men is the greatest fool upon earth. I have not yet, indeed, thought of a remedy for luxury. I am not sure that in a great state it is capable of a remedy, nor that the evil is in itself always so great as it is represented. Suppose we include in the definition of luxury all unnecessary expense, and then let us consider whether laws to prevent such expense are possible to be executed in a great country, and whether, if they could be executed, our people generally would be happier, or even richer. Is not the hope of being one day able to purchase and enjoy luxuries a great spur to labour and industry! May not luxury, therefore, produce more than it consumes, if without such a spur people would be, as they are naturally enough inclined to be, lazy and indolent? To this purpose I remember a circumstance. The skipper of a shallop, employed between Cape May and Philadelphia, had done us some small service, for which he refused to be paid. My wife, understanding that he had a daughter, sent her a new-fashioned cap. Three years after, this skipper being at my house with an old farmer of Cape May, his passenger, he mentioned the cap, and how much his daughter had been pleased with it. "But," said he, "it proved a dear cap to our congregation." "How so?" "When my daughter appeared with it at meeting, it was so much admired that all the girls resolved to get such caps from Philadelphia; and my wife and I computed that the whole could not have cost less than a hundred pounds." "True," said the farmer, "but you do not tell all the story. I think the cap was, nevertheless, an advantage to us, for it was the first thing that put our girls upon knitting worsted mittens for sale at Philadelphia, that they might have wherewithal to buy caps and ribands there; and you know that that industry has continued, and is likely to continue, and increase to a much greater value, and answer better purposes." Upon the whole, I was more reconciled to this little piece of luxury, since not only the girls were made happier by having fine caps, but the Philadelphians by the supply of warm mittens. In our commercial towns upon the seacoast fortunes will occasionally be made. Some of those who grow rich will be prudent, live within bounds, and preserve what they have gained for their posterity; others, fond of showing their wealth, will be extravagant and ruin themselves. Laws cannot prevent this; and perhaps it is not always an evil to the public. A shilling spent idly by a fool may be picked up by a wiser person, who knows better what to do with it. It is, therefore, not lost. A vain, silly fellow builds a fine house, furnishes it richly, lives in it expensively, and in a few years ruins himself; but the masons, carpenters, smiths, and other honest tradesmen have been by his employ assisted in maintaining and raising their families; the farmer has been paid for his labour, and encouraged, and the estate is now in better hands. In some cases, indeed, certain modes of luxury may be a public evil, in the same manner as it is a private one. If there be a nation, for instance, that exports its beef and linen to pay for the importation of claret and porter, while a great part of its people live upon potatoes and wear no shirts, wherein does it differ from the sot, who lets his family starve and sells his clothes to buy drink? Our American commerce is, I confess, a little in this way. We sell our victuals to the Islands for rum and sugar; the substantial necessaries of life for superfluities. But we have plenty, and live well, nevertheless, though, by being soberer, we might be richer. The vast quantity of forest-land we have yet to clear and put in order for cultivation, will for a long time keep the body of our nation laborious and frugal. Forming an opinion of our people and their manners by what is seen among the inhabitants of the seaports, is judging from an improper sample. The people of the trading towns may be rich and luxurious, while the country possesses all the virtues that tend to promote happiness and public prosperity. Those towns are not much regarded by the country; they are hardly considered as an essential part of the states; and the experience of the last war has shown, that their being in possession of the enemy did not necessarily draw on the subjection of the country, which bravely continued to maintain its freedom and independence notwithstanding. It has been computed by some political arithmetician, that if every man and woman would work for four hours every day on something useful, that labour would produce sufficient to procure all the necessaries of life, want and misery would be banished out of the world, and the rest of the twenty-four hours might be leisure and pleasure. What occasions, then, so much want and misery? It is the employment of men and women in works that produce neither the necessaries nor conveniences of life; who, with those who do nothing, consume necessaries raised by the laborious. To explain this. The first elements of wealth are obtained by labour, from the earth and waters. I have land and raise corn. With this, if I feed a family that does nothing, my corn will be consumed, and at the end of the year I shall be no richer than I was at the beginning. But if, while I feed them, I employ them, some in spinning, others in making bricks, &c., for building, the value of my corn will be arrested and remain with me, and at the end of the year we may all be better clothed and better lodged. And if, instead of employing a man I feed in making bricks, I employ him in fiddling for me, the corn he eats is gone, and no part of his manufacture remains to augment the wealth and convenience of the family; I shall, therefore, be the poorer for this fiddling man, unless the rest of my family work more or eat less, to make up the deficiency he occasions. Look round the world and see the millions employed in doing nothing, or in something that amounts to nothing, when the necessaries and conveniences of life are in question. What is the bulk of commerce, for which we fight and destroy each other, but the toil of millions for superfluities, to the great hazard and loss of many lives by the constant dangers of the sea? How much labour is spent in building and fitting great ships to go to China and Arabia for tea and coffee, to the West Indies for sugar, to America for tobacco? These things can not be called the necessaries of life, for our ancestors lived very comfortably without them. A question may be asked. Could all these people, now employed in raising, making, or carrying superfluities, be subsisted by raising necessaries? I think they might. The world is large, and a great part of it still uncultivated. Many hundred millions of acres in Asia, Africa, and America are still in a forest, and a great deal even in Europe. On a hundred acres of this forest a man might become a substantial farmer; and a hundred thousand men, employed in clearing each his hundred acres, would hardly brighten a spot big enough to be visible from the moon, unless with Herschel's telescope; so vast are the regions still in wood. It is, however, some comfort to reflect, that, upon the whole, the quantity of industry and prudence among mankind exceeds the quantity of idleness and folly. Hence the increase of good buildings, farms cultivated, and populous cities filled with wealth, all over Europe, which a few ages since were only to be found on the coast of the Mediterranean; and this, notwithstanding the mad wars continually raging, by which are often destroyed in one year the works of many years' peace. So that we may hope the luxury of a few merchants on the coast will not be the ruin of America. One reflection more, and I will end this long, rambling letter. Almost all the parts of our bodies require some expense. The feet demand shoes; the legs stockings; and the rest of the body clothing; and the belly a good deal of victuals. Our eyes, though exceedingly useful, ask, when reasonable, only the cheap assistance of spectacles, which could not much impair our finances. But the eyes of other people are the eyes that ruin us. If all but myself were blind, I should want neither fine clothes, fine houses, nor fine furniture. * * * * * ON TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD. Veritas luce clarior.[3] [3] Truth is brighter than light. A friend of mine was the other day cheapening some trifles at a shopkeeper's, and after a few words they agreed on a price. At the tying up of the parcels he had purchased, the mistress of the shop told him that people were growing very hard, for she actually lost by everything she sold. How, then, is it possible, said my friend, that you can keep on your business? Indeed, sir, answered she, I must of necessity shut my doors, had I not a very great trade. The reason, said my friend (with a sneer), is admirable. There are a great many retailers who falsely imagine that being _historical_ (the modern phrase for lying) is much for their advantage; and some of them have a saying, _that it is a pity lying is a sin, it is so useful in trade_; though if they would examine into the reason why a number of shopkeepers raise considerable estates, while others who have set out with better fortunes have become bankrupts, they would find that the former made up with truth, diligence, and probity, what they were deficient of in stock; while the latter have been found guilty of imposing on such customers as they found had no skill in the quality of their goods. The former character raises a credit which supplies the want of fortune, and their fair dealing brings them customers; whereas none will return to buy of him by whom he has been once imposed upon. If people in trade would judge rightly, we might buy blindfolded, and they would save, both to themselves and customers, the unpleasantness of _haggling_. Though there are numbers of shopkeepers who scorn the mean vice of lying, and whose word may very safely be relied on, yet there are too many who will endeavour, and backing their falsities with asseverations, pawn their salvation to raise their prices. As example works more than precept, and my sole view being the good and interest of my countrymen, whom I could wish to see without any vice or folly, I shall offer an example of the veneration bestowed on truth and abhorrence of falsehood among the ancients. Augustus, triumphing over Mark Antony and Cleopatra, among other captives who accompanied them, brought to Rome a priest of about sixty years old; the senate being informed that this man had never been detected in a falsehood, and was believed never to have told a lie, not only restored him to liberty, but made him a high priest, and caused a statue to be erected to his honour. The priest thus honoured was an Egyptian, and an enemy to Rome, but his virtue removed all obstacles. Pamphilius was a Roman citizen, whose body upon his death was forbidden sepulture, his estate was confiscated, his house razed, and his wife and children banished the Roman territories, wholly for his having been a notorious and inveterate liar. Could there be greater demonstrations of respect for truth than these of the Romans, who elevated an enemy to the greatest honours, and exposed the family of a citizen to the greatest contumely? There can be no excuse for lying, neither is there anything equally despicable and dangerous as a liar, no man being safe who associates with him; for _he who will lie will swear to it_, says the proverb; and such a one may endanger my life, turn my family out of doors, and ruin my reputation, whenever he shall find it his interest; and if a man will lie and swear to it in his shop to obtain a trifle, why should we doubt his doing so when he may hope to make a fortune by his perjury? The crime is in itself so mean, that to call a man a liar is esteemed everywhere an affront not to be forgiven. If any have lenity enough to allow the dealers an excuse for this bad practice, I believe they will allow none for the gentleman who is addicted to this vice; and must look upon him with contempt. That the world does so, is visible by the derision with which his name is treated whenever it is mentioned. The philosopher Epimenides gave the Rhodians this description of Truth. She is the companion of the gods, the joy of heaven, the light of the earth, the pedestal of justice, and the basis of good policy. Eschines told the same people, that truth was a virtue without which force was enfeebled, justice corrupted; humility became dissimulation, patience intolerable, chastity a dissembler, liberty lost, and pity superfluous. Pharmanes the philosopher told the Romans that truth was the centre on which all things rested: a chart to sail by, a remedy for all evils, and a light to the whole world. Anaxarchus, speaking of truth, said it was health incapable of sickness, life not subject to death, an elixir that healeth all, a sun not to be obscured, a moon without eclipse, an herb which never withereth, a gate that is never closed, and a path which never fatigues the traveller. But if we are blind to the beauties of truth, it is astonishing that we should not open our eyes to the inconvenience of falsity. A man given to romance must be always on his guard, for fear of contradicting and exposing himself to derision; for the most _historical_ would avoid the odious character, though it is impossible, with the utmost circumspection, to travel long on this route without detection, and shame and confusion follow. Whereas he who is a votary of truth never hesitates for an answer, has never to rack his invention to make the sequel quadrate with the beginning of his story, nor obliged to burden his memory with minute circumstances, since truth speaks easily what it recollects, and repeats openly and frequently without varying facts, which liars cannot always do, even though gifted with a good memory. * * * * * NECESSARY HINTS TO THOSE THAT WOULD BE RICH. Written Anno 1736. The use of money is all the advantage there is in having money. For six pounds a year you may have the use of one hundred pounds, provided you are a man of known prudence and honesty. He that spends a groat a day idly, spends idly above six pounds a year, which is the price for the use of one hundred pounds. He that wastes idly a groat's worth of his time per day, one day with another, wastes the privilege of using one hundred pounds each day. He that idly loses five shillings' worth of time, loses five shillings, and might as prudently throw five shillings into the sea. He that loses five shillings, not only loses that sum, but all the advantage that might be made by turning it in dealing, which, by the time that a young man becomes old, will amount to a considerable sum of money. Again: he that sells upon credit, asks a price for what he sells equivalent to the principal and interest of his money for the time he is to be kept out of it; therefore, he that buys upon credit pays interest for what he buys, and he that pays ready money might let that money out to use: so that he that possesses anything he bought, pays interest for the use of it. Yet, in buying goods, it is best to pay ready money, because he that sells upon credit expects to lose five per cent. by bad debts; therefore he charges, on all he sells upon credit, an advance that shall make up that deficiency. Those who pay for what they buy upon credit, pay their share of this advance. He that pays ready money escapes, or may escape, that charge. A penny saved is twopence clear, A pin a day's a groat a year. * * * * * THE WAY TO MAKE MONEY PLENTY IN EVERY MAN'S POCKET. At this time, when the general complaint is that "money is scarce," it will be an act of kindness to inform the moneyless how they may re-enforce their pockets. I will acquaint them with the true secret of money-catching, the certain way to fill empty purses, and how to keep them always full. Two simple rules, well observed, will do the business. First, let honesty and industry be thy constant companions; and, Secondly, spend one penny less than thy clear gains. Then shall thy hidebound pocket soon begin to thrive, and will never again cry with the empty bellyache: neither will creditors insult thee, nor want oppress, nor hunger bite, nor nakedness freeze thee. The whole hemisphere will shine brighter, and pleasure spring up in every corner of thy heart. Now, therefore, embrace these rules and be happy. Banish the bleak winds of sorrow from thy mind and live independent. Then shalt thou be a man and not hide thy face at the approach of the rich nor suffer the pain of feeling little when the sons of fortune walk at thy right hand: for independence, whether with little or much, is good fortune and placeth thee on even ground with the proudest of the golden fleece. Oh, then, be wise, and let industry walk with thee in the morning, and attend thee until thou reachest the evening hour for rest. Let honesty be as the breath of thy soul, and never forget to have a penny when all thy expenses are enumerated and paid: then shalt thou reach the point of happiness, and independence shall be thy shield and buckler, thy helmet and crown; then shall thy soul walk upright, nor stoop to the silken wretch because he hath riches, nor pocket an abuse because the hand which offers it wears a ring set with diamonds. * * * * * THE HANDSOME AND DEFORMED LEG. There are two sorts of people in the world, who, with equal degrees of health and wealth, and the other comforts of life, become, the one happy and the other miserable. This arises very much from the different views in which they consider things, persons, and events, and the effect of those different views upon their own minds. In whatever situation men can be placed, they may find conveniences and inconveniences; in whatever company, they may find persons and conversation more or less pleasing; at whatever table, they may meet with meats and drinks of better and worse taste, dishes better and worse dressed; in whatever climate, they will find good and bad weather; under whatever government, they may find good and bad laws, and good and bad administration of those laws; in whatever poem or work of genius, they may see faults and beauties; in almost every face and every person, they may discover fine features and defects, good and bad qualities. Under these circumstances, the two sorts of people above mentioned fix their attention, those who are disposed to be happy on the conveniences of things, the pleasant parts of conversation, the well-dressed dishes, the goodness of the wines, the fine weather, &c., and enjoy all with cheerfulness. Those who are to be unhappy, think and speak only of the contraries. Hence they are continually discontented themselves, and by their remarks sour the pleasures of society, offend personally many people, and make themselves everywhere disagreeable. If this turn of mind was founded in nature, such unhappy persons would be the more to be pitied. But as the disposition to criticise and to be disgusted is, perhaps, taken up originally by imitation, and is, unawares, grown into a habit, which, though at present strong, may nevertheless be cured; when those who have it are convinced of its bad effects on their felicity, I hope this little admonition may be of service to them, and put them on changing a habit which, though in the exercise it is chiefly an act of imagination, yet has serious consequences in life, as it brings on real griefs and misfortunes. For, as many are offended by, and nobody loves this sort of people, no one shows them more than the most common civility and respect, and scarcely that; and this frequently puts them out of humour, and draws them into disputes and contentions. If they aim at obtaining some advantage in rank or fortune, nobody wishes them success, or will stir a step or speak a word to favour their pretensions. If they incur public censure or disgrace, no one will defend or excuse, and many join to aggravate their misconduct, and render them completely odious. If these people will not change this bad habit, and condescend to be pleased with what is pleasing, without fretting themselves and others about the contraries, it is good for others to avoid an acquaintance with them, which is always disagreeable, and sometimes very inconvenient, especially when one finds one's self entangled in their quarrels. An old philosophical friend of mine was grown, from experience, very cautious in this particular, and carefully avoided any intimacy with such people. He had, like other philosophers, a thermometer to show him the heat of the weather, and a barometer to mark when it was likely to prove good or bad; but there being no instrument invented to discover, at first sight, this unpleasing disposition in a person, he for that purpose made use of his legs; one of which was remarkably handsome, the other, by some accident, crooked and deformed. If a stranger, at the first interview, regarded his ugly leg more than his handsome one, he doubted him. If he spoke of it, and took no notice of the handsome leg, that was sufficient to determine my philosopher to have no farther acquaintance with him. Everybody has not this two-legged instrument; but every one, with a little attention, may observe signs of that carping, fault-finding disposition, and take the same resolution of avoiding the acquaintance of those infected with it. I therefore advise those critical, querulous, discontented, unhappy people, that, if they wish to be respected and beloved by others and happy in themselves, they should _leave off looking at the ugly leg_. * * * * * ON HUMAN VANITY. Mr. Franklin, Meeting with the following curious little piece the other day, I send it to you to republish, as it is now in very few hands. There is something so elegant in the imagination, conveyed in so delicate a style, and accompanied with a moral so just and elevated, that it must yield great pleasure and instruction to every mind of real taste and virtue. _Cicero_, in the first of his Tusculan questions, finely exposes the vain judgment we are apt to form of human life compared with eternity. In illustrating this argument, he quotes a passage of natural history from Aristotle, concerning a species of insects on the banks of the river Hypanis, that never outlive the day in which they are born. To pursue the thought of this elegant writer, let us suppose one of the most robust of these _Hypanians_, so famed in history, was in a manner coeval with time itself; that he began to exist at break of day, and that, from the uncommon strength of his constitution, he has been able to show himself active in life, through the numberless minutes of ten or twelve hours. Through so long a series of seconds, he must have acquired vast wisdom in his way, from observation and experience. He looks upon his fellow-creatures who died about noon to be happily delivered from the many inconveniences of old age; and can, perhaps, recount to his great grandson a surprising tradition of actions before any records of their nation were extant. The young swarm of Hypanians, who may be advanced one hour in life, approach his person with respect, and listen to his improving discourse. Everything he says will seem wonderful to their short lived generation. The compass of a day will be esteemed the whole duration of time; and the first dawn of light will, in their chronology, be styled the great era of their creation. Let us now suppose this venerable insect, this _Nestor_ of _Hypania_, should, a little before his death, and about sunset, send for all his descendants, his friends and his acquaintances, out of the desire he may have to impart his last thoughts to them, and to admonish them with his departing breath. They meet, perhaps, under the spacious shelter of a mushroom, and the dying sage addresses himself to them after the following manner: "Friends and fellow-citizens! I perceive the longest life must, however, end: the period of mine is now at hand; neither do I repine at my fate, since my great age has become a burden to me, and there is nothing new to me under the sun: the changes and revolutions I have seen in my country, the manifold private misfortunes to which we are all liable, the fatal diseases incident to our race, have abundantly taught me this lesson, that no happiness can be secure and lasting which is placed in things that are out of our power. Great is the uncertainty of life! A whole brood of our infants have perished in a moment by a keen blast! Shoals of our straggling youth have been swept into the ocean by an unexpected breeze! What wasteful desolation have we not suffered from the deluge of a sudden shower! Our strongest holds are not proof against a storm of hail, and even a dark cloud damps the very stoutest heart. "I have lived in the first ages, and conversed with insects of a larger size and stronger make, and, I must add, of greater virtue than any can boast of in the present generation. I must conjure you to give yet further credit to my latest words, when I assure you that yonder sun, which now appears westward, beyond the water, and seems not to be far distant from the earth, in my remembrance stood in the middle of the sky, and shot his beams directly down upon us. The world was much more enlightened in those ages, and the air much warmer. Think it not dotage in me if I affirm that glorious being moves: I saw his first setting out in the east, and I began my race of life near the time when he began his immense career. He has for several ages advanced along the sky with vast heat and unparalleled brightness; but now, by his declination and a sensible decay, more especially of late, in his vigour, I foresee that all nature must fall in a little time, and that the creation will lie buried in darkness in less than a century of minutes. "Alas! my friends, how did I once flatter myself with the hopes of abiding here forever! how magnificent are the cells which I hollowed out for myself! what confidence did I repose in the firmness and spring of my joints, and in the strength of my pinions! _But I have lived long enough to nature, and even to glory._ Neither will any of you, whom I leave behind, have equal satisfaction in life, in the dark declining age which I see is already begun." Thus far this agreeable unknown writer--too agreeable, we may hope, to remain always concealed. The fine allusion to the character of _Julius Cæsar_, whose words he has put into the mouth of this illustrious son of _Hypanis_, is perfectly just and beautiful, and aptly points out the moral of this inimitable piece, the design of which would have been quite perverted, had a virtuous character, a _Cato_ or a _Cicero_, been made choice of to have been turned into ridicule. Had this _life of a day_ been represented as employed in the exercise of virtue, it would have an equal dignity with a life of any limited duration, and, according to the exalted sentiments of Tully, would have been preferable to an immortality filled with all the pleasures of sense, if void of those of a higher kind: but as the views of this vainglorious insect were confined within the narrow circle of his own existence, as he only boasts the magnificent cells he has built and the length of happiness he has enjoyed, he is the proper emblem of all such insects of the human race, whose ambition does not extend beyond the like narrow limits; and notwithstanding the splendour they appear in at present, they will no more deserve the regard of posterity than the butterflies of the last spring. In vain has history been taken up in describing the numerous swarms of this mischievous species which has infested the earth in the successive ages: now it is worth the inquiry of the virtuous, whether the _Rhine_ or the _Adige_ may not, perhaps, swarm with them at present, as much as the banks of the _Hypanis_; or whether that silver rivulet, the _Thames_, may not show a specious molehill, covered with inhabitants of the like dignity and importance. The busy race of beings attached to these fleeting enjoyments are indeed all of them engaged in the pursuit of happiness, and it is owing to their imperfect notions of it that they stop so far short in their pursuit. The present prospect of pleasure seems to bound their views, and the more distant scenes of happiness, when what they now propose shall be attained, do not strike their imagination. It is a great stupidity or thoughtlessness not to perceive that the happiness of rational creatures is inseparably connected with immortality. Creatures only endowed with sensation may in a low sense be reputed happy, so long as their sensations are pleasing; and if these pleasing sensations are commensurate with the time of their existence, this measure of happiness is complete. But such beings as are endowed with _thought_ and _reflection_ cannot be made happy by any limited term of happiness, how great soever its duration may be. The more exquisite and more valuable their enjoyments are, the more painful must be the thought that they are to have an end; and this pain of expectation must be continually increasing, the nearer the end approaches. And if these beings are themselves immortal, and yet insecure of the continuance of their happiness, the case is far worse, since an eternal void of delight, if not to say a state of misery, must succeed. It would be here of no moment, whether the time of their happiness were measured by _days_ or _hours_, by _months_ or _years_, or by _periods_ of the most immeasurable length: these swiftly-flowing streams bear no proportion to that ocean of infinity where they must finish their course. The longest duration of finite happiness avails nothing when it is past: nor can the memory of it have any other effect than to renew a perpetual pining after pleasures never to return; and since virtue is the only pledge and security of a happy immortality, the folly of sacrificing it to any temporal advantage, how important soever they may appear, must be infinitely great, and cannot but leave behind it an eternal regret. * * * * * ON SMUGGLING, AND ITS VARIOUS SPECIES. Sir,--There are many people that would be thought, and even think themselves, _honest_ men, who fail nevertheless in particular points of honesty; deviating from that character sometimes by the prevalence of mode or custom, and sometimes through mere inattention, so that their _honesty_ is partial only, and not _general_ or universal. Thus one who would scorn to overreach you in a bargain, shall make no scruple of tricking you a little now and then at cards: another, that plays with the utmost fairness, shall with great freedom cheat you in the sale of a horse. But there is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall, than that of defrauding government of its revenues by smuggling when they have an opportunity, or encouraging smugglers by buying their goods. I fell into these reflections the other day, on hearing two gentlemen of reputation discoursing about a small estate, which one of them was inclined to sell and the other to buy; when the seller, in recommending the place, remarked, that its situation was very advantageous on this account, that, being on the seacoast in a smuggling country, one had frequent opportunities of buying many of the expensive articles used in a family (such as tea, coffee, chocolate, brandy, wines, cambrics, Brussels laces, French silks, and all kinds of India goods) 20, 30, and, in some articles, 50 _per cent._ cheaper than they could be had in the more interior parts, of traders that paid duty. The other _honest_ gentleman allowed this to be an advantage, but insisted that the seller, in the advanced price he demanded on that account, rated the advantage much above its value. And neither of them seemed to think dealing with smugglers a practice that an _honest_ man (provided he got his goods cheap) had the least reason to be ashamed of. At a time when the load of our public debt, and the heavy expense of maintaining our fleets and armies to be ready for our defence on occasion, makes it necessary not only to continue old taxes, but often to look out for new ones, perhaps it may not be unuseful to state this matter in a light that few seem to have considered it in. The people of Great Britain, under the happy constitution of this country, have a privilege few other countries enjoy, that of choosing the third branch of the legislature, which branch has alone the power of regulating their taxes. Now, whenever the government finds it necessary for the common benefit, advantage, and safety of the nation, for the security of our liberties, property, religion, and everything that is dear to us, that certain sums shall be yearly raised by taxes, duties, &c., and paid into the public treasury, thence to be dispensed by government for those purposes, ought not every _honest man_ freely and willingly to pay his just proportion of this necessary expense? Can he possibly preserve a right to that character, if by fraud, stratagem, or contrivance, he avoids that payment in whole or in part? What should we think of a companion who, having supped with his friends at a tavern, and partaken equally of the joys of the evening with the rest of us, would nevertheless contrive by some artifice to shift his share of the reckoning upon others, in order to go off scot-free? If a man who practised this would, when detected, be deemed and called a scoundrel, what ought he to be called who can enjoy all the inestimable benefits of public society, and yet, by smuggling or dealing with smugglers, contrive to evade paying his just share of the expense, as settled by his own representatives in parliament, and wrongfully throw it upon his honest and, perhaps, much poorer neighbours? He will, perhaps, be ready to tell me that he does not wrong his neighbours; he scorns the imputation; he only cheats the king a little, who is very able to bear it. This, however, is a mistake. The public treasure is the treasure of the nation, to be applied to national purposes. And when a duty is laid for a particular public and necessary purpose, if, through smuggling, that duty falls short of raising the sum required, and other duties must therefore be laid to make up the deficiency, all the additional sum laid by the new duties and paid by other people, though it should amount to no more than a halfpenny or a farthing per head, is so much actually picked out of the pockets of those other people by the smugglers and their abettors and encouragers. Are they, then, any better or other than pickpockets? and what mean, low, rascally pickpockets must those be that can pick pockets for halfpence and for farthings? I would not, however, be supposed to allow, in what I have just said, that cheating the king is a less offence against honesty than cheating the public. The king and the public, in this case, are different names for the same thing; but if we consider the king distinctly it will not lessen the crime: it is no justification of a robbery, that the person robbed was rich and able to bear it. The king has as much right to justice as the meanest of his subjects; and as he is truly the common _father_ of his people, those that rob him fall under the Scripture we pronounced against the son _that robbeth his father and saith it is no sin_. Mean as this practice is, do we not daily see people of character and fortune engaged in it for trifling advantages to themselves? Is any lady ashamed to request of a gentleman of her acquaintance, that, when he returns from abroad, he would smuggle her home a piece of silk or lace from France or Flanders? Is any gentleman ashamed to undertake and execute the commission? Not in the least. They will talk of it freely, even before others whose pockets they are thus contriving to pick by this piece of knavery. Among other branches of the revenue, that of the post office is, by a late law, appropriated to the discharge of our public debt, to defray the expenses of the state. None but members of parliament and a few public officers have now a right to avoid, by a frank, the payment of postage. When any letter, not written by them or on their business, is franked by any of them, it is a hurt to the revenue, an injury which they must now take the pains to conceal by writing the whole superscription themselves. And yet such is our insensibility to justice in this particular, that nothing is more common than to see, even in a reputable company, a _very honest_ gentleman or lady declare his or her intention to cheat the nation of threepence by a frank, and, without blushing, apply to one of the very legislators themselves, with a modest request that he would be pleased to become an accomplice in the crime and assist in the perpetration. There are those who, by these practices, take a great deal in a year out of the public purse, and put the money into their own private pockets. If, passing through a room where public treasure is deposited, a man takes the opportunity of clandestinely pocketing and carrying off a guinea, is he not truly and properly a thief? And if another evades paying into the treasury a guinea he ought to pay in, and applies it to his own use, when he knows it belongs to the public as much as that which has been paid in, what difference is there in the nature of the crime or the baseness of committing it? * * * * * REMARKS CONCERNING THE SAVAGES OF NORTH AMERICA. Savages we call them, because their manners differ from ours, which we think the perfection of civility; they think the same of theirs. Perhaps, if we could examine the manners of different nations with impartiality, we should find no people so rude as to be without any rules of politeness, nor any so polite as not to have some remains of rudeness. The Indian men, when young, are hunters and warriors; when old, counsellors; for all their government is by the council or advice of the sages. There is no force, there are no prisons, no officers to compel obedience or inflict punishment. Hence they generally study oratory, the best speaker having the most influence. The Indian women till the ground, dress the food, nurse and bring up the children, and preserve and hand down to posterity the memory of public transactions. These employments of men and women are accounted natural and honourable. Having few artificial wants, they have abundance of leisure for improvement by conversation. Our laborious manner of life, compared with theirs, they esteem slavish and base; and the learning on which we value ourselves, they regard as frivolous and useless. An instance of this occurred at the treaty of Lancaster, in Pennsylvania, anno 1744, between the government of Virginia and the Six Nations. After the principal business was settled, the commissioners from Virginia acquainted the Indians, by a speech, that there was at Williamsburgh a college, with a fund for educating Indian youth; and that, if the chiefs of the Six Nations would send down half a dozen of their sons to that college, the government would take care that they should be well provided for, and instructed in all the learning of the white people. It is one of the Indian rules of politeness not to answer a public proposition the same day that it is made; they think it would be treating it as a light matter, and that they show it respect by taking time to consider it, as of a matter important. They therefore deferred their answer till the day following, when their speaker began by expressing their deep sense of the kindness of the Virginia government in making them that offer; "for we know," says he, "that you highly esteem the kind of learning taught in those colleges, and that the maintenance of our young men, while with you, would be very expensive to you. We are convinced, therefore, that you mean to do us good by your proposal; and we thank you heartily. But you, who are wise, must know that different nations have different conceptions of things; and you will therefore not take it amiss if our ideas of this kind of education happen not to be the same with yours. We have had some experience of it: several of our young people were formerly brought up at the colleges of the northern provinces; they were instructed in all your sciences; but when they came back to us, they were bad runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods, unable to bear either cold or hunger, knew neither how to build a cabin, take a deer, nor kill an enemy, spoke our language imperfectly, were therefore neither fit for hunters, warriors, nor counsellors; they were totally good for nothing. We are, however, not the less obliged by your kind offer, though we decline accepting it; and, to show our grateful sense of it, if the gentlemen of Virginia will send us a dozen of their sons, we will take great care of their education, instruct them in all we know, and make _men_ of them." Having frequent occasions to hold public councils, they have acquired great order and decency in conducting them. The old men sit in the foremost ranks, the warriors in the next, and the women and children in the hindmost. The business of the women is to take exact notice of what passes, imprint it in their memories, for they have no writing, and communicate it to their children. They are the records of the council, and they preserve the tradition of the stipulations in treaties a hundred years back; which, when we compare with our writings, we always find exact. He that would speak, rises. The rest observe a profound silence. When he has finished and sits down, they leave him five or six minutes to recollect, that, if he has omitted anything he intended to say, or has anything to add, he may rise again and deliver it. To interrupt another, even in common conversation, is reckoned highly indecent. How different this is from the conduct of a polite British House of Commons, where scarce a day passes without some confusion that makes the speaker hoarse in calling _to order_; and how different from the mode of conversation in many polite companies of Europe, where, if you do not deliver your sentence with great rapidity, you are cut off in the middle of it by the impatient loquacity of those you converse with, and never suffered to finish it! The politeness of these savages in conversation is indeed carried to excess, since it does not permit them to contradict or deny the truth of what is asserted in their presence. By this means they indeed avoid disputes, but then it becomes difficult to know their minds, or what impression you make upon them. The missionaries who have attempted to convert them to Christianity all complain of this as one of the great difficulties of their mission. The Indians hear with patience the truths of the gospel explained to them, and give their usual tokens of assent and approbation: you would think they were convinced. No such matter. It is mere civility. A Swedish minister, having assembled the chiefs of the Susquehanna Indians, made a sermon to them, acquainting them with the principal historical facts on which our religion is founded; such as the fall of our first parents by eating an apple; the coming of Christ to repair the mischief; his miracles and sufferings, &c. When he had finished, an Indian orator stood up to thank him. "What you have told us," says he, "is all very good. We are much obliged by your kindness in coming so far to tell us those things which you have heard from your mothers. In return, I will tell you some of those we have heard from ours. "In the beginning, our fathers had only the flesh of animals to subsist on, and if their hunting was unsuccessful, they were starving. Two of our young hunters, having killed a deer, made a fire in the woods to broil some parts of it. When they were about to satisfy their hunger, they beheld a beautiful young woman descend from the clouds, and seat herself on that hill which you see yonder among the Blue Mountains. They said to each other, it is a spirit that perhaps has smelt our broiling venison, and wishes to eat of it: let us offer some to her. They presented her with the tongue: she was pleased with the taste of it, and said, Your kindness shall be rewarded; come to this place after thirteen moons, and you shall find something that will be of great benefit in nourishing you and your children to the latest generations. They did so, and, to their surprise, found plants they had never seen before, but which, from that ancient time, have been constantly cultivated among us, to our great advantage. Where her right hand had touched the ground, they found maize; where her left hand had touched it, they found kidney-beans; and where she had sat on it, they found tobacco." The good missionary, disgusted with this idle tale, said, "What I delivered to you were sacred truths, but what you tell me is mere fable, fiction, and falsehood." The Indian, offended, replied, "My brother, it seems your friends have not done you justice in your education; they have not well instructed you in the rules of common civility. You saw that we, who understand and practise those rules, believed all your stories; why do you refuse to believe ours?" When any of them come into our towns, our people are apt to crowd around them, gaze upon them, and incommode them where they desire to be private; this they esteem great rudeness, and the effect of the want of instruction in the rules of civility and good manners. "We have," say they "as much curiosity as you; and when you come into our towns, we wish for opportunities of looking at you; but for this purpose, we hide ourselves behind bushes, where you are to pass, and never intrude ourselves into your company." Their manner of entering one another's villages has likewise its rules. It is reckoned uncivil in travelling strangers to enter a village abruptly, without giving notice of their approach. Therefore, as soon as they arrive within hearing, they stop and halloo, remaining there till invited to enter. Two old men usually come out to them and lead them in. There is in every village a vacant dwelling called the strangers' house. Here they are placed, while the old men go round from hut to hut, acquainting the inhabitants that strangers are arrived, who are probably hungry and weary; and every one sends them what he can spare of victuals, and skins to repose on. When the strangers are refreshed, pipes and tobacco are brought, and then, but not before, conversation begins, with inquiries who they are, whither bound, what news, &c, and it usually ends with offers of service if the strangers have occasion for guides, or any necessaries for continuing their journey; and nothing is exacted for the entertainment. * * * * * ON FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND THE PRESS. Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government: when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigour from a popular examination into the actions of the magistrates; this privilege, in all ages, has been, and always will be, abused. The best of men could not escape the censure and envy of the times they lived in. Yet this evil is not so great as it may appear at first sight. A magistrate who sincerely aims at the good of society will always have the inclinations of a great majority on his side, and an impartial posterity will not fail to render him justice. Those abuses of the freedom of speech are the exercises of liberty. They ought to be repressed; but to whom dare we commit the care of doing it? An evil magistrate, intrusted with power to _punish for words_, would be armed with a weapon the most destructive and terrible. Under pretence of pruning off the exuberant branches, he would be apt to destroy the tree. It is certain that he who robs another of his moral reputation, more richly merits a gibbet than if he had plundered him of his purse on the highway. _Augustus Cæsar_, under the specious pretext of preserving the character of the Romans from defamation, introduced the law whereby libelling was involved in the penalties of treason against the state. This law established his tyranny; and for one mischief which it prevented, ten thousand evils, horrible and afflicting, sprung up in its place. Thenceforward every person's life and fortune depended on the vile breath of informers. The construction of words being arbitrary, and left to the decision of the judges, no man could write or open his mouth without being in danger of forfeiting his head. One was put to death for inserting in his history the praises of Brutus. Another for styling Cassius the last of the Romans. Caligula valued himself for being a notable dancer; and to deny that he excelled in that manly accomplishment was high treason. This emperor raised his horse, the name of which was _Incitatus_, to the dignity of consul; and though history is silent, I do not question but it was a capital crime to show the least contempt for that high officer of state! Suppose, then, any one had called the prime minister a _stupid animal_, the emperor's council might argue that the malice of the libel was the more aggravated by its being true, and, consequently, more likely to excite the _family of this illustrious magistrate_ to a breach of the peace or to acts of revenge. Such a prosecution would to us appear ridiculous; yet, if we may rely upon tradition, there have been formerly proconsuls in America, though of more malicious dispositions, hardly superior in understanding to the consul _Incitatus_, and who would have thought themselves libelled to be called by their _proper names_. _Nero_ piqued himself on his fine voice and skill in music: no doubt a laudable ambition! He performed in public, and carried the prize of excellence. It was afterward resolved by all the judges as good law, that whosoever would _insinuate_ the least doubt of Nero's pre-eminence in the _noble art of fiddling_ ought to be deemed a traitor to the state. By the help of inferences and innuendoes, treasons multiplied in a prodigious manner. Grief was treason: a lady of noble birth was put to death for bewailing the death of her _murdered son_: silence was declared an _overt act_ to prove the treasonable purposes of the heart: looks were construed into treason: a serene, open aspect was an evidence that the person was pleased with the calamities that befel the emperor: a severe, thoughtful countenance was urged against the man that wore it as a proof of his plotting against the state: _dreams_ were often made capital offences. A new species of informers went about Rome, insinuating themselves into all companies to fish out their dreams, which the priests (oh nefarious wickedness!) interpreted into high treason. The Romans were so terrified by this strange method of juridical and penal process, that, far from discovering their dreams, they durst not own that they slept. In this terrible situation, when every one had so much cause to fear, even _fear_ itself was made a crime. Caligula, when he put his brother to death, gave it as a reason to the Senate that the youth was afraid of being murdered. To be eminent in any virtue, either civil or military, was the greatest crime a man could be guilty of. _O virtutes certissemum exitium._[4] [4] Oh virtue! the most certain ruin. These were some of the effects of the Roman law against libelling: those of the British kings that aimed at despotic power or the oppression of the subject, continually encouraged prosecutions for words. Henry VII., a prince mighty in politics, procured that act to be passed whereby the jurisdiction of the Star Chamber was confirmed and extended. Afterward Empson and Dudley, two voracious dogs of prey, under the protection of this high court, exercised the most merciless acts of oppression. The subjects were terrified from uttering their griefs while they saw the thunder of the Star Chamber pointed at their heads. This caution, however, could not prevent several dangerous tumults and insurrections; for when the tongues of the people are restrained, they commonly discharge their resentments by a more dangerous organ, and break out into open acts of violence. During the reign of Henry VIII., a high-spirited monarch! every light expression which happened to displease him was construed by his supple judges into a libel, and sometimes extended to high treason. When Queen Mary, of cruel memory, ascended the throne, the Parliament, in order to raise a _fence_ against the violent prosecutions for words, which had rendered the lives, liberties, and properties of all men precarious, and, perhaps, dreading the furious persecuting spirit of this princess, passed an act whereby it was declared, "That if a libeller doth go so high as to libel against king or queen by denunciation, the judges shall lay no greater fine on him than one hundred pounds, with two months' imprisonment, and no corporeal punishment: neither was this sentence to be passed on him except the accusation was fully proved by two witnesses, who were to produce a certificate of their good demeanour for the credit of their report." This act was confirmed by another, in the seventh year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth; only the penalties were heightened to two hundred pounds and three months' imprisonment. Notwithstanding she rarely punished invectives, though the malice of the papists was indefatigable in blackening the brightest characters with the most impudent falsehoods, she was often heard to applaud that rescript of _Theodosius_. If any person spoke ill of the emperor through a foolish rashness and inadvertence, it is to be despised; if out of madness, it deserves pity; if from malice and aversion, it calls for mercy. Her successor, King James I., was a prince of a quite different genius and disposition; he used to say, that while he had the power of making judges and bishops, _he could have what law and gospel he pleased_. Accordingly, he filled those places with such as prostituted their professions to his notions of prerogative. Among this number, and I hope it is no discredit to the profession of the law, its great oracle, _Sir Edward Coke_, appears. The Star Chamber, which in the time of Elizabeth had gained a good repute, became an intolerable grievance in the reign of this _learned monarch_. But it did not arrive at its meridian altitude till Charles I. began to wield the sceptre. As he had formed a design to lay aside parliaments and subvert the popular part of the constitution, he very well knew that the form of government could not be altered without laying a restraint on freedom of speech and the liberty of the press: therefore he issued his royal mandate, under the great seal of England, whereby he commanded his subjects, under pain of his displeasure, not to prescribe to him any time for parliaments. Lord Clarendon, upon this occasion, is pleased to write, "That all men took themselves to be prohibited, under the penalty of censure (the censure of the Star Chamber), which few men cared to incur, so much as to speak of parliaments, or so much as to mention that parliaments were again to be called." The king's ministers, to let the nation see they were absolutely determined to suppress all freedom of speech, caused a prosecution to be carried on by the attorney general against three members of the House of Commons, for words spoken in that house, Anno 1628. The members pleaded to the information, that expressions in parliament ought only to be examined and punished there. This notwithstanding, _they were all three condemned as disturbers of the state_; one of these gentlemen, Sir John Eliot, was fined two thousand pounds, and sentenced to lie in prison till it was paid. His lady was denied admittance to him, even during his sickness; consequently, his punishment comprehended an additional sentence of divorce. This patriot, having endured many years imprisonment, sunk under the oppression, and died in prison: this was such a wound to the authority and rights of Parliament that, even after the restoration, the judgment was revered by Parliament. That Englishmen of all ranks might be effectually intimidated from publishing their thoughts on any subject, except on the side of the court, his majesty's ministers caused an information, for several libels, to be exhibited in the Star Chamber against Messrs. _Prynn_, _Burton_, and _Bastwick_. They were each of them fined five thousand pounds, and adjudged to lose their ears on the pillory, to be branded on the cheeks with hot irons, and to suffer perpetual imprisonment! Thus these three gentlemen, each of worth and quality in their several professions, viz., divinity, law, and physic, were, for no other offence than writing on controverted points of church government, exposed on public scaffolds, and stigmatized and mutilated as common signal rogues or the most ordinary malefactors. Such corporeal punishments, inflicted with all the circumstances of cruelty and infamy, bound down all other gentlemen under a servile fear of like treatment; so that, for several years, no one durst publicly speak or write in defence of the liberties of the people; which the king's ministers, his privy council, and his judges, had trampled under their feet. The spirit of the administration looked hideous and dreadful; the hate and resentment which the people conceived against it, for a long time lay smothered in their breasts, where those passions festered and grew venomous, and at last discharged themselves by an armed and vindictive hand. King Charles II. aimed at the subversion of the government, but concealed his designs under a deep hypocrisy: a method which his predecessor, in the beginning of his reign, scorned to make use of. The father, who affected a high and rigid gravity, discountenanced all barefaced immorality. The son, of a gay, luxurious disposition, openly encouraged it: thus their inclinations being different, the restraint laid on some authors, and the encouragement given to others, were managed after a different manner. In this reign a licenser was appointed for the stage and the press; no plays were encouraged but what had a tendency to debase the minds of the people. The original design of comedy was perverted; it appeared in all the shocking circumstances of immodest _double entendre_, obscure description, and lewd representation. Religion was sneered out of countenance, and public spirit ridiculed as an awkward oldfashioned virtue; the fine gentleman of the comedy, though embroidered over with wit, was a consummate debauchee; and a fine lady, though set off with a brilliant imagination, was an impudent coquette. Satire, which in the hands of _Horace_, _Juvenal_, and _Boileau_, was pointed with a generous resentment against vice, now became the declared foe of virtue and innocence. As the city of London, in all ages, as well as the time we are now speaking of, was remarkable for its opposition to arbitrary power, the poets levelled all their artillery against the metropolis, in order to bring the citizens into contempt: an alderman was never introduced on the theatre but under the complicated character of a sneaking, canting hypocrite, a miser, and a cuckold; while the court-wits, with impunity, libelled the most valuable part of the nation. Other writers, of a different stamp, with great learning and gravity, endeavoured to prove to the English people that slavery was _jure divino_.[5] Thus the stage and the press, under the direction of a licenser, became battering engines against religion, virtue, and liberty. Those who had courage enough to write in their defence, were stigmatized as schismatics, and punished as disturbers of the government. [5] By divine right. But when the embargo on wit was taken off, _Sir Richard Steel_ and _Mr. Addison_ soon rescued the stage from the load of impurity it laboured under with an inimitable address, they strongly recommended to our imitation the most amiable, rational manly characters; and this with so much success that I cannot suppose there is any reader to-day conversant in the writings of those gentlemen, that can taste with any tolerable relish the comedies of the once admired _Shadwell_. Vice was obliged to retire and give place to virtue: this will always be the consequence when truth has fair play: falsehood only dreads the attack, and cries out for auxiliaries: the truth never fears the encounter: she scorns the aid of the secular arm, and triumphs by her natural strength. But, to resume the description of the reign of Charles II., the doctrine of servitude was chiefly managed by _Sir Roger Lestrange_. He had great advantages in the argument, being licenser for the press, and might have carried all before him without contradiction, if writings on the other side of the question had not been printed by stealth. The authors, whenever found, were prosecuted as seditious libellers; on all these occasions the king's counsel, particularly _Sawyer_ and _Finch_, appeared most obsequious to accomplish the ends of the court. During this _blessed_ management, the king had entered into a secret league with France to render himself absolute and enslave his subjects. This fact was discovered to the world by Dr. _Jonathan Swift_, to whom _Sir William Temple_ had intrusted the publication of his works. _Sidney_, the sworn foe of tyranny, was a gentleman of noble family, of sublime understanding and exalted courage. The ministry were resolved to remove so great an obstacle out of the way of their designs. He was prosecuted for high treason. The overt act charged in the indictment was a libel found in his private study. Mr. Finch, the king's own solicitor-general, urged with great vehemence to this effect, "that the _imagining_ the death of the king is _treason_, even while that imagination remains concealed in the mind, though the law cannot punish such secret treasonable thoughts till it arrives at the knowledge of them by some overt act. That the matter of the libel composed by Sidney was an _imagining how to compass the death of King Charles II._; and the writing of it was an overt act of treason, for that to write was to act. (_Scribere est agere._)" It seems that the king's counsel in this reign had not received the same directions as Queen Elizabeth had given hers; she told them they were to look upon themselves as not retained so much (_pro domina regina_, as _pro domina veritate_) for the power of the queen as for the power of truth. Mr. Sidney made a strong and legal defence. He insisted that all the words in the book contained no more than general speculations on the principles of government, free for any man to write down; especially since the same are written in the parliament rolls and in the statute laws. He argued on the injustice of applying by innuendoes, general assertions concerning principles of government, as overt acts to prove the writer was compassing the death of the king; for then no man could write of things done even by our ancestors, in defence of the constitution and freedom of England, without exposing himself to capital danger. He denied that _scribere est agere_, but allowed that writing and publishing is to act (_Scribere et publicare est agere_), and therefore he urged that, as his book had never been published nor imparted to any person, it could not be an overt act, within the statutes of treasons, even admitting that it contained treasonable positions; that, on the contrary, it was a _covert fact_, locked up in his private study, as much concealed from the knowledge of any man as if it were locked up in the author's mind. This was the substance of Mr. Sidney's defence: but neither law, nor reason, nor eloquence, nor innocence ever availed where _Jefferies_ sat as judge. Without troubling himself with any part of the defence, he declared in a rage, that Sidney's _known principles_ were a _sufficient_ proof of his intention to compass the death of the king. A packed jury therefore found him guilty of high treason: great applications were made for his pardon. He was executed as a traitor. This case is a pregnant instance of the danger that attends a law for punishing words, and of the little security the most valuable men have for their lives, in that society where a judge, by remote inferences and distant innuendoes, may construe the most innocent expressions into capital crimes. _Sidney_, the British _Brutus_, the warm, the steady friend of _liberty_; who, from an intrinsic love to mankind, left them that invaluable legacy, his immortal discourses on government, was for these very discourses murdered by the hands of lawless power. * * * * Upon the whole, to suppress inquiries into the administration is good policy in an arbitrary government; but a free constitution and freedom of speech have such reciprocal dependance on each other, that they cannot subsist without consisting together. * * * * * The following extracts of a letter, signed Columella, and addressed to the editors of the British Repository for select Papers on Agriculture, Arts, and Manufactures (see vol. i.), will prepare those who read it for the following paper: "GENTLEMEN,--There is now publishing in France a periodical work, called Ephemeridis du Citoyen,[6] in which several points, interesting to those concerned in agriculture, are from time to time discussed by some able hands. In looking over one of the volumes of this work a few days ago, I found a little piece written by one of our countrymen, and which our vigilant neighbours had taken from the London Chronicle in 1766. The author is a gentleman well known to every man of letters in Europe, and perhaps there is none in this age to whom mankind in general are more indebted. [6] Citizen's Journal. "That this piece may not be lost to our own country, I beg you will give it a place in your Repository: it was written in favour of the farmers, when they suffered so much abuse in our public papers, and were also plundered by the mob in many places." * * * * * _To Messieurs the Public._ ON THE PRICE OF CORN, AND THE MANAGEMENT OF THE POOR. I am one of that class of people that feeds you all, and at present abused by you all; in short, I am a _farmer_. By your newspapers we are told that God had sent a very short harvest to some other countries of Europe. I thought this might be in favour of Old England, and that now we should get a good price for our grain, which would bring millions among us, and make us flow in money: that, to be sure, is scarce enough. But the wisdom of government forbade the exportation. Well, says I, then we must be content with the market price at home. No, say my lords the mob, you sha'n't have that. Bring your corn to market if you dare; we'll sell it for you for less money, or take it for nothing. Being thus attacked by both ends _of the constitution_, the head and tail _of government_, what am I to do? Must I keep my corn in the barn, to feed and increase the breed of rats? Be it so; they cannot be less thankful than those I have been used to feed. Are we farmers the only people to be grudged the profits of our honest labour? And why? One of the late scribblers against us gives a bill of fare of the provisions at my daughter's wedding, and proclaims to all the world that we had the insolence to eat beef and pudding! Has he not read the precept in the good book, _thou shall not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn_; or does he think us less worthy of good living than our oxen? Oh, but the manufacturers! the manufacturers! they are to be favoured, and they must have bread at a cheap rate! Hark ye, Mr. Oaf: The farmers live splendidly, you say. And, pray, would you have them hoard the money they get? Their fine clothes and furniture, do they make themselves or for one another, and so keep the money among them? Or do they employ these your darling manufacturers, and so scatter it again all over the nation? The wool would produce me a better price if it were suffered to go to foreign markets; but that, Messieurs the Public, your laws will not permit. It must be kept all at home, that our _dear_ manufacturers may have it the cheaper. And then, having yourselves thus lessened our encouragement for raising sheep, you curse us for the scarcity of mutton! I have heard my grandfather say, that the farmers submitted to the prohibition on the exportation of wool, being made to expect and believe that, when the manufacturer bought his wool cheaper, they should also have their cloth cheaper. But the deuse a bit. It has been growing dearer and dearer from that day to this. How so? Why, truly, the cloth is exported: and that keeps up the price. Now if it be a good principle that the exportation of a commodity is to be restrained, that so our people at home may have it the cheaper, stick to that principle, and go thorough stitch with it. Prohibit the exportation of your cloth, your leather and shoes, your ironware, and your manufactures of all sorts, to make them all cheaper at home. And cheap enough they will be, I will warrant you, till people leave off making them. Some folks seem to think they ought never to be easy till England becomes another Lubberland, where it is fancied the streets are paved with penny-rolls, the houses tiled with pancakes, and chickens, ready roasted, cry, Come eat me. I say, when you are sure you have got a good principle, stick to it and carry it through. I hear it is said, that though it was _necessary and right_ for the ministry to advise a prohibition of the exportation of corn, yet it was _contrary to law_; and also, that though it was _contrary to law_ for the mob to obstruct wagons, yet it was _necessary and right_. Just the same thing to a tittle. Now they tell me an act of indemnity ought to pass in favour of the ministry, to secure them from the consequences of having acted illegally. If so, pass another in favour of the mob. Others say, some of the mob ought to be hanged, by way of example. If so--but to say no more than I have said before, _when you are sure that you have a good principle, go through with it_. You say poor labourers cannot afford to buy bread at a high price, unless they had higher wages. Possibly. But how shall we farmers be able to afford our labourers higher wages, if you will not allow us to get, when we might have it, a higher price for our corn? By all that I can learn, we should at least have had a guinea a quarter more if the exportation had been allowed. And this money England would have got from foreigners. But, it seems, we farmers must take so much less that the poor may have it so much cheaper. This operates, then, as a tax for the maintenance of the poor. A very good thing, you will say. But I ask, why a partial tax? why laid on us farmers only? If it be a good thing, pray, Messieurs the Public, take your share of it, by indemnifying us a little out of your public treasury. In doing a good thing there is both honour and pleasure; you are welcome to your share of both. For my own part, I am not so well satisfied of the goodness of this thing. I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy _in_ poverty, but leading or driving them _out_ of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and, of course, became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. There is no country in the world where so many provisions are established for them; so many hospitals to receive them when they are sick or lame, founded and maintained by voluntary charities; so many almshouses for the aged of both sexes, together with a solemn general law made by the rich to subject their estates to a heavy tax for the support of the poor. Under all these obligations, are our poor modest, humble, and thankful? And do they use their best endeavours to maintain themselves, and lighten our shoulders of this burden! On the contrary, I affirm that there is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent.[7] The day you passed that act you took away from before their eyes the greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality, and sobriety, by giving them a dependance on somewhat else than a careful accumulation during youth and health, for support in age or sickness. In short, you offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty. Repeal this law, and you will soon see a change in their manners; _Saint Monday_ and _Saint Tuesday_ will soon cease to be holydays. Six _days shalt thou labour_, though one of the old commandments, long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them. [7] England in 1766 Excuse me, Messieurs the Public, if upon this _interesting_ subject I put you to the trouble of reading a little of _my_ nonsense; I am sure I have lately read a great deal of _yours_, and therefore, from you (at least from those of you who are writers) I deserve a little indulgence. I am yours, &c. ARATOR. * * * * * SINGULAR CUSTOM AMONG THE AMERICANS, ENTITLED WHITEWASHING. DEAR SIR, My wish is to give you some account of the people of these new states; but I am far from being qualified for the purpose, having as yet seen but little more than the cities of New-York and Philadelphia. I have discovered but few national singularities among them. Their customs and manners are nearly the same with those of England, which they have long been used to copy. For, previous to the revolution, the Americans were from their infancy taught to look up to the English as patterns of perfection in all things. I have observed, however, one custom, which, for aught I know, is peculiar to this country. An account of it will serve to fill up the remainder of this sheet, and may afford you some amusement. When a young couple are about to enter into the matrimonial state, a never-failing article in the marriage treaty is, that the lady shall have and enjoy the free and unmolested exercise of the rights of _whitewashing_, with all its ceremonials, privileges, and appurtenances. A young woman would forego the most advantageous connexion, and even disappoint the warmest wish of her heart, rather than resign the invaluable right. You would wonder what this privilege of _whitewashing_ is: I will endeavour to give you some idea of the ceremony, as I have seen it performed. There is no season of the year in which the lady may not claim her privilege, if she pleases; but the latter end of May is most generally fixed upon for the purpose. The attentive husband may judge by certain prognostics when the storm is nigh at hand. When the lady is unusually fretful, finds fault with the servants, is discontented with the children, and complains much of the filthiness of everything about her, these are signs which ought not to be neglected; yet they are not decisive, as they sometimes come on and go off again without producing any farther effect. But if, when the husband rises in the morning, he should observe in the yard a wheelbarrow with a quantity of lime in it, or should see certain buckets with lime dissolved in water, there is then no time to be lost; he immediately locks up the apartment or closet where his papers or his private property is kept, and, putting the key in his pocket, betakes himself to flight, for a husband, however beloved, becomes a perfect nuisance during the season of female rage; his authority is superseded, his commission is suspended, and the very scullion who cleans the brasses in the kitchen becomes of more consideration and importance than him. He has nothing for it but to abdicate, and run from an evil which he can neither prevent nor mollify. The husband gone, the ceremony begins. The walls are in a few minutes stripped of their furniture: paintings, prints, and looking-glasses lie in a huddled heap about the floors; the curtains are torn from the testers, the beds crammed into the windows; chairs and tables, bedsteads and cradles, crowd the yard; and the garden fence bends beneath the weight of carpets, blankets, cloth cloaks, old coats, and ragged breeches. _Here_ may be seen the lumber of the kitchen, forming a dark and confused mass: for the foreground of the picture, grid irons and frying-pans, rusty shovels and broken tongs, spits and pots, joint-stools, and the fractured remains of rush-bottomed chairs. _There_ a closet has disgorged its bowels, cracked tumblers, broken wineglasses, vials of forgotten physic, papers of unknown powders, seeds, and dried herbs, handfuls of old corks, tops of teapots, and stoppers of departed decanters; from the raghole in the garret to the rathole in the cellar, no place escapes unrummaged. It would seem as if the day of general doom was come, and the utensils of the house were dragged forth to judgment. In this tempest the words of Lear naturally present themselves, and might, with some alteration, be made strictly applicable: "Let the great gods, That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads, Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch, That hast within thee undivulged crimes Unwhipp'd of justice! "Close pent-up guilt, Raise your concealing continents, and ask These dreadful summoners grace!" This ceremony completed and the house thoroughly evacuated, the next operation is to smear the walls and ceilings of every room and closet with brushes dipped in a solution of lime, called _white wash_; to pour buckets of water over every floor, and scratch all the partitions and wainscots with rough brushes wet with soapsuds and dipped in stonecutter's sand. The windows by no means escape the general deluge. A servant scrambles out upon the penthouse, at the risk of her neck, and with a mug in her hand and a bucket within reach, she dashes away innumerable gallons of water against the glass panes, to the great annoyance of the passengers in the street. I have been told that an action at law was once brought against one of these water nymphs, by a person who had a new suit of clothes spoiled by this operation; but, after long argument, it was determined by the whole court that the action would not lie, inasmuch as the defendant was in the exercise of a legal right, and not answerable for the consequences: and so the poor gentleman was doubly nonsuited, for he lost not only his suit of clothes, but his suit at law. These smearings and scratchings, washings and dashings, being duly performed, the next ceremonial is to cleanse and replace the distracted furniture. You may have seen a house-raising or a ship-launch, when all the hands within reach are collected together: recollect, if you can, the hurry, bustle, confusion, and noise of such a scene, and you will have some idea of this cleaning match. The misfortune is, that the sole object is to make things clean; it matters not how many useful, ornamental, or valuable articles are mutilated or suffer death under the operation; a mahogany chair and carved frame undergo the same discipline; they are to be made _clean_ at all events, but their preservation is not worthy of attention. For instance, a fine large engraving is laid flat on the floor, smaller prints are piled upon it, and the superincumbent weight cracks the glasses of the lower tier: but this is of no consequence. A valuable picture is placed leaning against the sharp corner of a table, others are made to lean against that, until the pressure of the whole forces the corner of the table through the canvass of the first. The frame and glass of a fine print are to be _cleaned_; the spirit and oil used on this occasion are suffered to leak through and spoil the engraving; no matter, if the glass is clean and the frame shine, it is sufficient; the rest is not worthy of consideration. An able arithmetician has made an accurate calculation, founded on long experience, and has discovered that the losses and destructions incident to two whitewashings are equal to one removal, and three removals equal to one fire. The cleaning frolic over, matters begin to resume their pristine appearance. The storm abates, and all would be well again; but it is impossible that so great a convulsion in so small a community should not produce some farther effects. For two or three weeks after the operation, the family are usually afflicted with sore throats or sore eyes, occasioned by the caustic quality of the lime, or with severe colds from the exhalations of wet floors or damp walls. I know a gentleman who was fond of accounting for everything in a philosophical way. He considers this, which I have called a custom, as a real periodical disease, peculiar to the climate. His train of reasoning is ingenious and whimsical, but I am not at leisure to give you a detail. The result was, that he found the distemper to be incurable; but, after much study, he conceived he had discovered a method to divert the evil he could not subdue. For this purpose he caused a small building, about twelve feet square, to be erected in his garden, and furnished with some ordinary chairs and tables, and a few prints of the cheapest sort were hung against the walls. His hope was, that when the whitewashing phrensy seized the females of his family, they might repair to this apartment, and scrub, and smear, and scour to their heart's content, and so spend the violence of the disease in this outpost, while he enjoyed himself in quiet at headquarters. But the experiment did not answer his expectation; it was impossible it should, since a principal part of the gratification consists in the lady's having an uncontrolled right to torment her husband at least once a year, and to turn him out of doors, and take the reins of government into her own hands. There is a much better contrivance than this of the philosopher, which is, to cover the walls of the house with paper; this is generally done, and though it cannot abolish, it at least shortens the period of female dominion. The paper is decorated with flowers of various fancies, and made so ornamental, that the women have admitted the fashion without perceiving the design. There is also another alleviation of the husband's distress; he generally has the privilege of a small room or closet for his books and papers, the key of which he is allowed to keep. This is considered as a privileged place, and stands like the land of Goshen amid the plagues of Egypt. But then he must be extremely cautious, and ever on his guard. For should he inadvertently go abroad and leave the key in his door, the housemaid, who is always on the watch for such an opportunity, immediately enters in triumph with buckets, brooms, and brushes; takes possession of the premises, and forthwith puts all his books and papers _to rights_, to his utter confusion and sometimes serious detriment. For instance: A gentleman was sued by the executors of a tradesman, on a charge found against him in the deceased's books to the amount of £30. The defendant was strongly impressed with an idea that he had discharged the debt and taken a receipt; but, as the transaction was of long standing, he knew not where to find the receipt. The suit went on in course, and the time approached when judgment would be obtained against him. He then sat seriously down to examine a large bundle of old papers, which he had untied and displayed on a table for that purpose. In the midst of his search he was suddenly called away on business of importance; he forgot to lock the door of his room. The housemaid, who had been long looking out for such an opportunity, immediately entered with the usual implements, and with great alacrity fell to cleaning the room and putting things to _rights_. The first object that struck her eye was the confused situation of the papers on the table; these were, without delay, bundled together like so many dirty knives and forks; but, in the action, a small piece of paper fell unnoticed on the floor, which happened to be the very receipt in question: as it had no very respectable appearance it was soon after swept out with the common dirt of the room, and carried in a rubbish-pan into the yard. The tradesman had neglected to enter the credit in his book; the defendant could find nothing to obviate the charge, and so judgment went against him for the debt and costs. A fortnight after the whole was settled and the money paid, one of the children found the receipt among the rubbish in the yard. There is also another custom peculiar to the city of Philadelphia, and nearly allied to the former. I mean that of washing the pavement before the doors every Saturday evening. I at first took this to be a regulation of the police, but, on a farther inquiry, find it is a religious rite preparatory to the Sabbath, and is, I believe, the only religious rite in which the numerous sectaries of this city perfectly agree. The ceremony begins about sunset, and continues till about ten or eleven at night. It is very difficult for a stranger to walk the streets on those evenings; he runs a continual risk of having a bucket of dirty water thrown against his legs; but a Philadelphian born is so much accustomed to the danger that he avoids it with surprising dexterity. It is from this circumstance that a Philadelphian may be known anywhere by his gait. The streets of New-York are paved with rough stones; these, indeed, are not washed, but the dirt is so thoroughly swept from before the doors that the stones stand up sharp and prominent, to the great inconvenience of those who are not accustomed to so rough a path. But habit reconciles everything. It is diverting enough to see a Philadelphian at New-York; he walks the streets with as much painful caution as if his toes were covered with corns, or his feet lamed with the gout: while a New-Yorker, as little approving the plain masonry of Philadelphia, shuffles along the pavement like a parrot on a mahogany table. It must be acknowledged that the ablutions I have mentioned are attended with no small inconvenience; but the women would not be induced, from any consideration, to resign their privilege. Notwithstanding this, I can give you the strongest assurances that the women of America make the most faithful wives and the most attentive mothers in the world; and I am sure you will join me in opinion, that if a married man is made miserable only _one_ week in a whole year, he will have no great cause to complain of the matrimonial bond. I am, &c. * * * * * ON THE CRIMINAL LAWS AND THE PRACTICE OF PRIVATEERING. _Letter to Benjamin Vaughan, Esq._ March 14, 1785. MY DEAR FRIEND Among the pamphlets you lately sent me was one entitled _Thoughts on Executive Justice_. In return for that, I send you a French one on the same subject, _Observations concernant l'Exécution de l'Article II. de la Déclaration sur le Vol_. They are both addressed to the judges, but written, as you will see, in a very different spirit. The English author is for hanging _all_ thieves. The Frenchman is for proportioning punishments to offences. If we really believe, as we profess to believe, that the law of Moses was the law of God, the dictate of Divine wisdom, infinitely superior to human, on what principle do we ordain death as the punishment of an offence which, according to that law, was only to be punished by a restitution of fourfold? To put a man to death for an offence which does not deserve death, is it not a murder? And as the French writer says, _Doit-on punir un délit contre la société par un crime contre la nature?_[8] [8] Ought we to punish a crime against society by a crime against nature? Superfluous property is the creature of society. Simple and mild laws were sufficient to guard the property that was merely necessary. The savage's bow, his hatchet, and his coat of skins, were sufficiently secured, without law, by the fear of personal resentment and retaliation. When, by virtue of the first laws, part of the society accumulated wealth and grew powerful, they enacted others more severe, and would protect their property at the expense of humanity. This was abusing their power and commencing a tyranny. If a savage, before he entered into society, had been told, "Your neighbour, by this means, may become owner of a hundred deer; but if your brother, or your son, or yourself, having no deer of your own, and being hungry, should kill one, an infamous death must be the consequence," he would probably have preferred his liberty, and his common right of killing any deer, to all the advantages of society that might be proposed to him. That it is better a hundred guilty persons should escape than that one innocent person should suffer, is a maxim that has been long and generally approved; never, that I know of, controverted. Even the sanguinary author of the _Thoughts_ agrees to it, adding well, "that the very thought of _injured_ innocence, and much more that of _suffering_ innocence, must awaken all our tenderest and most compassionate feelings, and, at the same time, raise our highest indignation against the instruments of it. But," he adds, "there is no danger of _either_ from a strict adherence to the laws." Really! is it then impossible to make an unjust law? and if the law itself be unjust, may it not be the very "instrument" which ought "to raise the author's and everybody's highest indignation?" I see in the last newspapers from London that a woman is capitally convicted at the Old Bailey for privately stealing out of a shop some gauze, value fourteen shillings and threepence. Is there any proportion between the injury done by a theft, value fourteen shillings and threepence, and the punishment of a human creature, by death, on a gibbet? Might not that woman, by her labour, have made the reparation ordained by God in paying fourfold? Is not all punishment inflicted beyond the merit of the offence, so much punishment of innocence? In this light, how vast is the annual quantity of not only _injured_, but _suffering_ innocence, in almost all the civilized states of Europe! But it seems to have been thought that this kind of innocence may be punished by way of _preventing crimes_. I have read, indeed, of a cruel Turk in Barbary, who, whenever he bought a new Christian slave, ordered him immediately to be hung up by the legs, and to receive a hundred blows of a cudgel on the soles of his feet, that the severe sense of punishment and fear of incurring it thereafter might prevent the faults that should merit it. Our author himself would hardly approve entirely of this Turk's conduct in the government of slaves; and yet he appears to recommend something like it for the government of English subjects, when he applauds the reply of Judge Burnet to the convict horsestealer; who, being asked what he had to say why judgment of death should not pass against him, and answering that it was hard to hang a man for _only_ stealing a horse, was told by the judge, "Man, thou art not to be hanged _only_ for stealing a horse, but that horses may not be stolen." The man's answer, if candidly examined, will, I imagine, appear reasonable, as being founded on the eternal principle of justice and equity, that punishments should be proportioned to offences; and the judge's reply brutal and unreasonable, though the writer "wishes all judges to carry it with them whenever they go the circuit, and to bear it in their minds, as containing a wise reason for all the penal statutes which they are called upon to put in execution. It at once illustrates," says he, "the true grounds and reasons of all capital punishments whatsoever, namely, that every man's property, as well as his life, may be held sacred and inviolate." Is there, then, no difference in value between property and life? If I think it right that the crime of murder should be punished with death, not only as an equal punishment of the crime, but to prevent other murders, does it follow that I must approve of inflicting the same punishment for a little invasion on my property by theft? If I am not myself so barbarous, so bloody-minded and revengeful, as to kill a fellow-creature for stealing from me fourteen shillings and threepence, how can I approve of a law that does it? Montesquieu, who was himself a judge, endeavours to impress other maxims. He must have known what humane judges feel on such occasions, and what the effects of those feelings; and, so far from thinking that severe and excessive punishments prevent crimes, he asserts, as quoted by our French writer, that "L'atrocité des loix en empêche l'exécution. "Lorsque la peine est sans mesure, on est souvent obligé de lui préférer l'impunité. "La cause de tous les relâchemens vient de l'impunité des crimes, et non de la modération des peines."[9] [9] The extreme severity of the laws prevents their execution. Where the punishment is excessive, it is frequently necessary to prefer impunity. It is the exemption from punishment, and not its moderation which is the cause of crime. It is said by those who know Europe generally that there are more thefts committed and punished annually in England than in all the other nations put together. If this be so, there must be a cause or causes for such depravity in our common people. May not one be the deficiency of justice and morality in our national government, manifested in our oppressive conduct to subjects, and unjust wars on our neighbours? View the long-persisted-in, unjust, monopolizing treatment of Ireland, at length acknowledged! View the plundering government exercised by our merchants in the Indies; the confiscating war made upon the American colonies; and, to say nothing of those upon France and Spain, view the late war upon Holland, which was seen by impartial Europe in no other light than that of a war of rapine and pillage; the hopes of an immense and easy prey being its only apparent, and probably its true and real motive and encouragement. Justice is as strictly due between neighbour nations as between neighbour citizens. A highwayman is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single; and a nation that makes an unjust war is only a great gang. After employing your people in robbing the Dutch, it is strange that, being put out of that employ by peace, they still continue robbing, and rob one another? _Piraterie_, as the French call it, or privateering, is the universal bent of the English nation, at home and abroad, wherever settled. No less than seven hundred privateers were, it is said, commissioned in the last war! These were fitted out by merchants, to prey upon other merchants who had never done them any injury. Is there probably any one of those privateering merchants of London, who were so ready to rob the merchants of Amsterdam, that would not as easily plunder another London merchant of the next street, if he could do it with the same impunity? The avidity, the _alieni appetens_[10] is the same; it is the fear of the gallows that makes the difference. How, then, can a nation, which among the honestest of its people has so many thieves by inclination, and whose government encouraged and commissioned no less than seven hundred gangs of robbers; how can such a nation have the face to condemn the crime in individuals, and hang up twenty of them in a morning! It naturally puts one in mind of a Newgate anecdote. One of the prisoners complained that in the night somebody had taken his buckles out of his shoes. "What the devil!" says another, "have we then _thieves_ among us? It must not be suffered. Let us search out the rogue and pump him to death." [10] Coveting what is the property of another. There is, however, one late instance of an English merchant who will not profit by such ill-gotten gain. He was, it seems, part owner of a ship, which the other owners thought fit to employ as a letter of marque, which took a number of French prizes. The booty being shared, he has now an agent here inquiring, by an advertisement in the Gazette, for those who have suffered the loss, in order to make them, as far as in him lies, restitution. This conscientious man is a Quaker. The Scotch Presbyterians were formerly as tender; for there is still extant an ordinance of the town-council of Edinburgh, made soon after the Reformation, "forbidding the purchase of prize goods, under pain of losing the freedom of the burgh for ever, with other punishment at the will of the magistrate; the practice of making prizes being contrary to good conscience, and the rule of treating Christian brethren as we would wish to be treated; and such goods _are not to be sold by any Godly man within this burgh_." The race of these Godly men in Scotland are probably extinct, or their principles abandoned, since, as far as that nation had a hand in promoting the war against the colonies, prizes and confiscations are believed to have been a considerable motive. It has been for some time a generally received opinion, that a military man is not to inquire whether a war be just or unjust; he is to execute his orders. All princes who are disposed to become tyrants must probably approve of this opinion, and be willing to establish it; but is it not a dangerous one? since, on that principle, if the tyrant commands his army to attack and destroy not only an unoffending neighbour nation, but even his own subjects, the army is bound to obey. A negro slave in our colonies, being commanded by his master to rob and murder a neighbour, or do any other immoral act, may refuse, and the magistrate will protect him in his refusal. The slavery, then, of a soldier is worse than that of a negro! A conscientious officer, if not restrained by the apprehension of its being imputed to another cause, may indeed resign rather than be employed in an unjust war; but the private men are slaves for life; and they are, perhaps, incapable of judging for themselves. We can only lament their fate, and still more that of a sailor, who is often dragged by force from his honest occupation, and compelled to imbrue his hands in perhaps innocent blood. But methinks it well behooves merchants (men more enlightened by their education, and perfectly free from any such force or obligation) to consider well of the justice of a war, before they voluntarily engage a gang of ruffians to attack their fellow-merchants of a neighbouring nation, to plunder them of their property, and perhaps ruin them and their families if they yield it, or to wound, maim, and murder them, if they endeavour to defend it. Yet these things are done by Christian merchants, whether a war be just or unjust; and it can hardly be just on both sides. They are done by English and American merchants, who nevertheless complain of private theft, and hang by dozens the thieves they have taught by their own example. It is high time, for the sake of humanity, that a stop were put to this enormity. The United States of America, though better situated than any European nation to make profit by privateering (most of the trade of Europe with the West Indies passing before their doors), are, as far as in them lies, endeavouring to abolish the practice, by offering, in all their treaties with other powers, an article, engaging solemnly that, in case of future war, no privateer shall be commissioned on either side; and that unarmed merchant ships on both sides shall pursue their voyages unmolested.[11] This will be a happy improvement of the law of nations. The humane and the just cannot but wish general success to the proposition. [11] This offer having been accepted by the late king of Prussia, a treaty of amity and commerce was concluded between that monarch and the United States, containing the following humane, philanthropic article, in the formation of which Dr. Franklin, as one of the American plenipotentiaries, was principally concerned, viz., "ART. XXIII. If war should arise between the two contracting parties, the merchants of either country then residing in the other shall be allowed to remain nine months to collect their debts and settle their affairs, and may depart freely, carrying off all their effects without molestation or hinderance; and all women and children, scholars of every faculty, cultivators of the earth, artisans, manufacturers, and fishermen, unarmed and inhabiting unfortified towns, villages, and places, and, in general, all others whose occupations are for the common subsistence and benefit of mankind, shall be allowed to continue their respective employments, and shall not be molested in their persons, nor shall their houses or goods be burned or otherwise destroyed, nor their fields wasted by the armed force of the enemy into whose power, by the events of war, they may happen to fall; but if anything is necessary to be taken from them for the use of such armed force, the same shall be paid for at a reasonable price. And all merchant and trading vessels employed in exchanging the products of different places, and thereby rendering the necessaries, conveniences, and comforts of human life more easy to be obtained, and more general, shall be allowed to pass free and unmolested; and neither of the contracting powers shall grant or issue any commission to any private armed vessels, empowering them to take or destroy such trading vessels or interrupt such commerce." With unchangeable esteem and affection, I am, my dear friend, Ever yours. * * * * * LETTER FROM ANTHONY AFTERWIT. MR. GAZETTEER, I am an honest tradesman, who never meant harm to anybody. My affairs went on smoothly while a bachelor; but of late I have met with some difficulties, of which I take the freedom to give you an account. About the time I first addressed my present spouse, her father gave out in speeches that, if she married a man he liked, he would give with her two hundred pounds in cash on the day of marriage. He never said so much to me, it is true; but he always received me very kindly at his house, and openly countenanced my courtship. I formed several fine schemes what to do with this same two hundred pounds, and in some measure neglected my business on that account; but, unluckily, it came to pass, that, when the old gentleman saw I was pretty well engaged, and that the match was too far gone to be easily broke off, he, without any reason given, grew very angry, forbid me the house, and told his daughter that if she married me he would not give her a farthing. However (as he thought), we were not to be disappointed in that manner, but, having stole a wedding, I took her home to my house, where we were not quite in so poor a condition as the couple described in the Scotch song, who had "Neither pot nor pan, But four bare legs together," for I had a house tolerably well furnished for a poor man before. No thanks to Dad, who, I understand, was very much pleased with his politic management; and I have since learned that there are other old curmudgeons (so called) besides him, who have this trick to marry their daughters, and yet keep what they might well spare till they can keep it no longer. But this by way of digression; a word to the wise is enough. I soon saw that with care and industry we might live tolerably easy and in credit with our neighbours; but my wife had a strong inclination to be a gentlewoman. In consequence of this, my oldfashioned looking-glass was one day broke, as she said, _no one could tell which way_. However, since we could not be without a glass in the room, "My dear," saith she, "we may as well buy a large fashionable one, that Mr. Such-a-one has to sell. It will cost but little more than a common glass, and will look much handsomer and more creditable." Accordingly, the glass was bought and hung against the wall; but in a week's time I was made sensible, by little and little, that _the table was by no means suitable to such a glass_; and, a more proper table being procured, some time after, my spouse, who was an excellent contriver, informed me where we might have very handsome chairs _in the way_; and thus, by degrees, I found all my old furniture stowed up in the garret, and everything below altered for the better. Had we stopped here, it might have done well enough. But my wife being entertained with tea by the good woman she visited, we could do no less than the like when they visited us; so we got a teatable, with all its appurtenances of China and silver. Then my spouse unfortunately overworked herself in washing the house, so that we could do no longer without a maid. Besides this, it happened frequently that when I came home at one, the dinner was but just put in the pot, and _my dear thought really it had been but eleven_. At other times, when I came at the same hour, _she wondered I would stay so long, for dinner was ready about one, and had waited for me these two hours_. These irregularities, occasioned by mistaking the time, convinced me that it was absolutely necessary _to buy a clock_, which my spouse observed was _a great ornament to the room_. And lastly, to my grief, she was troubled with some ailment or other, and _nothing did her so much good as riding, and these hackney-horses were such wretched ugly creatures that_--I bought a very fine pacing mare, which cost twenty pounds; and hereabouts affairs have stood for about a twelvemonth past. I could see all along that this did not at all suit with my circumstances, but had not resolution enough to help it, till lately, receiving a very severe dun, which mentioned the next court, I began in earnest to project relief. Last Monday, my dear went over the river to see a relation and stay a fortnight, because she could not bear the heat of the town air. In the interim I have taken my turn to make alterations; namely, I have turned away the maid, bag and baggage (for what should we do with a maid, who, besides our boy, have none but ourselves?) I have sold the pacing mare, and bought a good milch-cow with three pounds of the money. I have disposed of the table, and put a good spinning-wheel in its place, which, methinks, looks very pretty; nine empty canisters I have stuffed with flax, and with some of the money of the tea-furniture I have bought a set of knitting-needles, for, to tell you the truth, _I begin to want stockings_. The fine clock I have transformed into an hourglass, by which I have gained a good round sum; and one of the pieces of the old looking-glass, squared and framed, supplies the place of the great one, which I have conveyed into a closet, where it may possibly remain some years. In short, the face of things is quite changed, and methinks you would smile to see my hourglass hanging in the place of the clock. What a great ornament it is to the room! I have paid my debts, and find money in my pocket. I expect my dear home next Friday, and, as your paper is taken at the house where she is, I hope the reading of this will prepare her mind for the above surprising revolutions. If she can conform herself to this new manner of living, we shall be the happiest couple, perhaps, in the province, and, by the blessing of God, may soon be in thriving circumstances. I have reserved the great glass, because I know her heart is set upon it; I will allow her, when she comes in, to be taken suddenly ill with _the headache_, _the stomach-ache_, _fainting-fits_, or whatever other disorder she may think more proper, and she may retire to bed as soon as she pleases. But if I should not find her in perfect health, both of body and mind, the next morning, away goes the aforesaid great glass, with several other trinkets I have no occasion for, to the vendue, that very day; which is the irrevocable resolution Of, sir, her loving husband and Your very humble servant, ANTHONY AFTERWIT. P.S.--I would be glad to know how you approve my conduct. _Answer._--I don't love to concern myself in affairs between man and wife. LETTERS. "_Mrs. Abiah Franklin._ "Philadelphia, April (date uncertain). "HONOURED MOTHER, "We received your kind letter of the 2d instant, by which we are glad to hear you still enjoy such a measure of health, notwithstanding your great age. We read your writings very easily. I never met with a word in your letter but what I could easily understand, for, though the hand is not always the best, the sense makes everything plain. My leg, which you inquire after, is now quite well. I shall keep these servants: but the man not in my own house. I have hired him out to the man that takes care of my Dutch printing-office, who agrees to keep him in victuals and clothes, and to pay me a dollar a week for his work. The wife, since that affair, behaves exceeding well: but we conclude to sell them both the first good opportunity, for we do not like negro servants. We got again about half what we lost. "As to your grandchildren, Will is now 19 years of age, a tall, proper youth, and much of a beau. He acquired a habit of idleness on the expedition, but begins, of late, to apply himself to business, and, I hope, will become an industrious man. He imagined his father had got enough for him; but I have assured him that I intend to spend what little I have myself, if it please God that I live long enough, and he can see, by my going on, that I mean to be as good as my word. "Sally grows a fine girl, and is extremely industrious with her needle, and delights in her work. She is of a most affectionate temper, and perfectly dutiful and obliging to her parents and to all. Perhaps I flatter myself too much, but I have hope that she will prove an ingenious, sensible, notable, and worthy woman, like her aunt Jenny; she goes now to the dancing school. "For my own part, at present, I pass my time agreeably enough; I enjoy (through mercy) a tolerable share of health. I read a great deal, ride a little, do a little business for myself (now and then for others), retire when I can, and go into company when I please so; the years roll round, and the last will come, when I would rather have it said _he lived usefully_ than _he died rich_. "Cousins Josiah and Sally are well, and I believe will do well, for they are an industrious, loving young couple; but they want a little more stock to go on smoothly with their business. "My love to brother and sister Mecom and their children, and to all my relations in general. I am your dutiful son, "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Miss Jane Franklin._[12] [12] His sister married Mr. Edward Mecom, July 27, 1727. "Philadelphia, January 6, 1726-7. "DEAR SISTER, "I am highly pleased with the account Captain Freeman gives me of you. I always judged by your behaviour when a child, that you would make a good, agreeable woman, and you know you were ever my peculiar favourite. I have been thinking what would be a suitable present for me to make, and for you to receive, as I hear you are grown a celebrated beauty. I had almost determined on a teatable; but when I considered that the character of a good housewife was far preferable to that of being only a pretty gentlewoman, I concluded to send you a _spinning-wheel_, which I hope you will accept as a small token of my sincere love and affection. "Sister, farewell, and remember that modesty as it makes the most homely virgin amiable and charming, so the want of it infallibly renders the most perfect beauty disagreeable and odious. But when that brightest of female virtues shines among other perfections of body and mind in the same person, it makes the woman more lovely than an angel. Excuse this freedom, and use the same with me. I am, dear Jenny, your loving brother, "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * _To the same._ Philadelphia, July 28, 1743. "DEAREST SISTER JENNY, "I took your admonition very kindly, and was far from being offended at you for it. If I say anything about it to you, 'tis only to rectify some wrong opinions you seem to have entertained of me; and this I do only because they give you some uneasiness, which I am unwilling to be the cause of. You express yourself as if you thought I was against worshipping of God, and doubt that good works would merit heaven; which are both fancies of your own, I think, without foundation. I am so far from thinking that God is not to be worshipped, that I have composed and wrote a whole book of devotions for my own use, and I imagine there are few, if any, in the world so weak as to imagine that the little good we can do here can merit so vast a reward hereafter. "There are some things in your New-England doctrine and worship which I do not agree with: but I do not therefore condemn them, or desire to shake your belief or practice of them. We may dislike things that are nevertheless right in themselves: I would only have you make me the same allowance, and have a better opinion both of morality and your brother. Read the pages of Mr. Edwards's late book, entitled, 'Some Thoughts concerning the present Revival of Religion in New-England,' from 367 to 375; and when you judge of others, if you can perceive the fruit to be good, don't terrify yourself that the tree may be evil; but be assured it is not so, for you know who has said, 'Men do not gather grapes off thorns, and figs off thistles.' I have not time to add, but that I shall always be your affectionate brother, "B. FRANKLIN. "P.S.--It was not kind in you, when your sister commenced good works, to suppose she intended it a reproach to you. 'Twas very far from her thoughts." * * * * * "_To Mr. George Whitefield._ "Philadelphia, June 6, 1753. "SIR, "I received your kind letter of the 2d instant, and am glad to hear that you increase in strength; I hope you will continue mending till you recover your former health and firmness. Let me know whether you still use the cold bath, and what effect it has. "As to the kindness you mention, I wish it could have been of more service to you. But if it had, the only thanks I should desire is, that you would always be equally ready to serve any other person that may need your assistance, and so let good offices go round; for mankind are all of a family. "For my own part, when I am employed in serving others, I do not look upon myself as conferring favours, but as paying debts. In my travels and since my settlement, I have received much kindness from men to whom I shall never have an opportunity of making the least direct return, and numberless mercies from God, who is infinitely above being benefited by our services. Those kindnesses from men I can therefore only return on their fellow-men, and I can only show my gratitude for these mercies from God by a readiness to help his other children and my brethren. For I do not think that thanks and compliments, though repeated weekly, can discharge our real obligations to each other, and much less those to our Creator. You will see in this my notion of good works, that I am far from expecting to merit heaven by them. By heaven we understand a state of happiness infinite in degree and eternal in duration: I can do nothing to deserve such rewards. He that, for giving a draught of water to a thirsty person, should expect to be paid with a good plantation, would be modest in his demands compared with those who think they deserve heaven for the little good they do on earth. Even the mixed, imperfect pleasures we enjoy in this world are rather from God's goodness than our merit: how much more such happiness of heaven! For my part, I have not the vanity to think I deserve it, the folly to expect it, nor the ambition to desire it; but content myself in submitting to the will and disposal of that God who made me, who has hitherto preserved and blessed me, and in whose fatherly goodness I may well confide, that he will never make me miserable, and that even the afflictions I may at any time suffer shall tend to my benefit. * * * * "I wish you health and happiness. "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_To Mrs. D. Franklin._ "Guadenhathen, January 25, 1756. "MY DEAR CHILD, "This day week we arrived here; I wrote to you the same day, and once since. We all continue well, thanks be to God. We have been hindered with bad weather, yet our fort is in a good defensible condition, and we have every day more convenient living. Two more are to be built, one on each side of this, at about fifteen miles' distance. I hope both will be done in a week or ten days, and then I purpose to bend my course homeward. "We have enjoyed your roast beef, and this day began on the roast veal; all agree that they are both the best that ever were of the kind. Your citizens, that have their dinners hot and hot, know nothing of good eating; we find it in much greater perfection when the kitchen is fourscore miles from the dining-room. "The apples are extremely welcome, and do bravely to eat after our salt pork; the minced pies are not yet come to hand, but suppose we shall find them among the things expected up from Bethlehem on Tuesday; the capillaire is excellent, but none of us having taken cold as yet, we have only tasted it. "As to our lodging, 'tis on deal feather beds, in warm blankets, and much more comfortable than when we lodged at our inn the first night after we left home; for the woman being about to put very damp sheets on the bed, we desired her to air them first; half an hour afterward she told us the bed was ready and the sheets _well aired_. I got into bed, but jumped out immediately, finding them as cold as death, and partly frozen. She had _aired_ them indeed, but it was out upon the _hedge_. I was forced to wrap myself up in my greatcoat and woollen trousers; everything else about the bed was shockingly dirty. "As I hope in a little time to be with you and my family, and chat things over, I now only add that I am, dear Debby, your affectionate husband, "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_To the same._ "Easton, Saturday morning, November 13, 1756. "MY DEAR CHILD, "I wrote to you a few days since by a special messenger, and enclosed letters for all our wives and sweethearts, expecting to hear from you by his return, and to have the northern newspapers and English letters per the packet; but he is just now returned without a scrap for poor us. So I had a good mind not to write to you by this opportunity; but I never can be ill-natured enough, even when there is the most occasion. The messenger says he left the letters at your house, and saw you afterward at Mr. Dentie's, and told you when he would go, and that he lodged at Honey's, next door to you, and yet you did not write; so let Goody Smith give one more just judgment, and say what should be done to you; I think I won't tell you that we are well, nor that we expect to return about the middle of the week, nor will I send you a word of news; that's poz. My duty to mother, love to the children, and to Miss Betsey and Gracey, &c., &c. "B. FRANKLIN. "P.S.--I have _scratched out the loving words_, being written in haste by mistake, _when I forgot . was angry_." [Transcriber's Note: Unreadable word after "I forgot"] * * * * * "_Mrs. Jane Mecom, Boston._ New-York, April 19, 1757. "DEAR SISTER, "I wrote a few lines to you yesterday, but omitted to answer yours relating to sister Dowse. _As having their own way_ is one of the greatest comforts of life to old people, I think their friends should endeavour to accommodate them in that as well as anything else. When they have long lived in a house, it becomes natural to them; they are almost as closely connected with it as the tortoise with his shell: they die if you tear them out of it. Old folks and old trees, if you remove them, 'tis ten to one that you kill them, so let our good old sister be no more importuned on that head: we are growing old fast ourselves, and shall expect the same kind of indulgences; if we give them, we shall have a right to receive them in our turn. "And as to her few fine things, I think she is in the right not to sell them, and for the reason she gives, that they will fetch but little, when that little is spent, they would be of no farther use to her; but perhaps the expectation of possessing them at her death may make that person tender and careful of her, and helpful to her to the amount of ten times their value. If so, they are put to the best use they possibly can be. "I hope you visit sister as often as your affairs will permit, and afford her what assistance and comfort you can in her present situation. _Old age_, _infirmities_, and _poverty_ joined, are afflictions enough. The _neglect_ and _slights_ of friends and near relations should never be added; people in her circumstances are apt to suspect this sometimes without cause, _appearances_ should therefore be attended to in our conduct towards them as well as _relatives_. I write by this post to cousin William, to continue his care which I doubt not he will do. "We expect to sail in about a week, so that I can hardly hear from you again on this side the water; but let me have a line from you now and then while I am in London; I expect to stay there at least a twelvemonth. Direct your letters to be left for me at the Pennsylvania Coffee-house, in Birchin Lane, London. "B. FRANKLIN. "P.S., April 25.--We are still here, and perhaps may be here a week longer. Once more adieu, my dear sister." * * * * * _To the same._ Woodbridge, East New-Jersey, May 21, 1757. "DEAR SISTER, "I received your kind letter of the 9th instant, in which you acquainted me with some of your late troubles. These are troublesome times to us all; but perhaps you have heard more than you should. I am glad to hear that Peter is at a place where he has full employ. A trade is a valuable thing; but unless a habit of industry be acquired with it, it turns out of little use; if he gets THAT in his new place, it will be a happy exchange, and the occasion not an unfortunate one. "It is very agreeable to me to hear so good an account of your other children: in such a number, to have no bad ones is a great happiness. "The horse sold very low indeed. If I wanted one to-morrow, knowing his goodness, old as he is, I should freely give more than twice the money for him; but you did the best you could, and I will take of Benny no more than he produced. "I don't doubt but Benny will do very well when he gets to work: but I fear his things from England may be so long a coming as to occasion the loss of the rent. Would it not be better for you to move into the house? Perhaps not, if he is near being married. I know nothing of that affair but what you write me, except that I think Miss Betsey a very agreeable, sweet-tempered, good girl, who has had a housewifery education, and will make, to a good husband, a very good wife. Your sister and I have a great esteem for her, and if she will be kind enough to accept of our nephew, we think it will be his own fault if he is not as happy as the married state can make him. The family is a respectable one, but whether there be any fortune I know not; and as you do not inquire about this particular, I suppose you think with me, that where everything else desirable is to be met with, that is not very material. If she does not bring a fortune she will have to make one. Industry, frugality, and prudent economy in a wife, are to a tradesman, in their effects, a fortune; and a fortune sufficient for Benjamin, if his expectations are reasonable. We can only add, that if the young lady and her friends are willing, we give our consent heartily and our blessing. My love to brother and the children concludes with me. B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * _To the same_. "New-York, May 30, 1757 "DEAR SISTER, "I have before me yours of the 9th and 16th instant. I am glad you have resolved to visit sister Dowse oftener; it will be a great comfort to her to find she is not neglected by you, and your example may, perhaps, be followed by some other of her relations. "As Neddy is yet a young man, I hope he may get over the disorder he complains of, and in time wear it out. My love to him and his wife and the rest of your children. It gives me pleasure to hear that Eben is likely to get into business at his trade. If he will be industrious and frugal, 'tis ten to one but he gets rich, for he seems to have spirit and activity. "I am glad that Peter is acquainted with the crown soap business, so as to make what is good of the kind. I hope he will always take care to make it faithfully, never slight manufacture, or attempt to deceive by appearances. Then he may boldly put his name and mark, and in a little time it will acquire as good a character as that made by his late uncle, or any other person whatever. I believe his aunt at Philadelphia can help him to sell a good deal of it; and I doubt not of her doing everything in her power to promote his interest in that way. Let a box be sent to her (but not unless it be right good), and she will immediately return the ready money for it. It was beginning once to be in vogue in Philadelphia, but brother John sent me one box, an ordinary sort, which checked its progress. I would not have him put the Franklin arms on it; but the soapboiler's arms he has a right to use, if he thinks fit. The other would look too much like an attempt to counterfeit. In his advertisements he may value himself on serving his time with the original maker, but put his own mark or device on the papers, or anything he may be advised as proper; only on the soap, as it is called by the name of crown soap, it seems necessary to use a stamp of that sort, and perhaps no soapboiler in the king's dominions has a better right to the crown than himself. "Nobody has wrote a syllable to me concerning his making use of the hammer, or made the least complaint of him or you. I am sorry, however, he took it without leave. It was irregular, and if you had not approved of his doing it I should have thought it indiscreet. _Leave_, they say, is _light_, and it seems to me a piece of respect that was due to his aunt to ask it, and I can scarce think she would have refused him the favour. "I am glad to hear Jamey is so good and diligent a workman; if he ever sets up at the goldsmith's business, he must remember that there is one accomplishment without which he cannot possibly thrive in that trade (i. e., _to be perfectly honest_). It is a business that, though ever so uprightly managed, is always liable to suspicion; and if a man is once detected in the smallest fraud it soon becomes public, and every one is put upon their guard against him; no one will venture to try his hands, or trust him to make up their plate; so at once he is ruined. I hope my nephew will therefore establish a character as an _honest_ and faithful as well as _skilful_ workman, and then he need not fear employment. "And now, as to what you propose for Benny, I believe he may be, as you say, well enough qualified for it; and when he appears to be settled, if a vacancy should happen, it is very probable he may be thought of to supply it; but it is a rule with me not to remove any officer that behaves well, keeps regular accounts, and pays duly; and I think the rule is founded on reason and justice. I have not shown any backwardness to assist Benny, where it could be done without injuring another. But if my friends require of me to gratify not only their inclinations, but their resentments, they expect too much of me. Above all things, I dislike family quarrels; and when they happen among my relations, nothing gives me more pain. If I were to set myself up as a judge of those subsisting between you and brother's widow and children, how unqualified must I be, at this distance, to determine rightly, especially having heard but one side. They always treated me with friendly and affectionate regard; you have done the same. What can I say between you but that I wish you were reconciled, and that I will love that side best that is most ready to forgive and oblige the other. You will be angry with me here for putting you and them too much upon a footing, but I shall nevertheless be "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Miss Stevenson, Wanstead._ "Craven-street, May 16, 1760. "I send my good girl the books I mentioned to her last night. I beg her to accept of them as a small mark of my esteem and friendship. They are written in the familiar, easy manner for which the French are so remarkable; and afford a good deal of philosophic and practical knowledge, unembarassed with the dry mathematics used by more exact reasoners, but which is apt to discourage young beginners. "I would advise you to read with a pen in your hand, and enter in a little book short hints of what you find that is curious or that may be useful; for this will be the best method of imprinting such particulars in your memory, where they will be ready either for practice on some future occasion if they are matters of utility, or at least to adorn and improve your conversation if they are rather points of curiosity. And as many of the terms of science are such as you cannot have met with in your common reading, and may, therefore, be unacquainted with, I think it would be well for you to have a good dictionary at hand, to consult immediately when you meet with a word you do not comprehend the precise meaning of. This may at first seem troublesome and interrupting; but it is a trouble that will daily diminish, as you will daily find less and less occasion for your dictionary, as you become more acquainted with the terms; and in the mean time you will read with more satisfaction, because with more understanding. When any point occurs in which you would be glad to have farther information than your book affords you, I beg you would not in the least apprehend that I should think it a trouble to receive and answer your questions. It will be a pleasure, and no trouble. For though I may not be able, out of my own little stock of knowledge, to afford you what you require, I can easily direct you to the books where it may most readily be found. "Adieu, and believe me ever, my dear friend, "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Lord Kames._ "Portsmouth, August 17, 1761. "MY DEAR LORD, "I am now waiting here only for a wind to waft me to America, but cannot leave this happy island and my friends in it without extreme regret, though I am going to a country and a people that I love. I am going from the Old World to the New, and I fancy I feel like those who are leaving this world for the next; grief at the parting; fear of the passage; hope of the future: these different passions all affect their minds at once, and these have _tendered_ me down exceedingly. It is usual for the dying to beg forgiveness of their surviving friends if they have ever offended them. Can you, my lord, forgive my long silence, and my not acknowledging till now the favour you did me in sending me your excellent book? Can you make some allowance for a fault in others which you have never experienced in yourself; for the bad habit of postponing from day to day what one every day resolves to do to-morrow? A habit that grows upon us with years, and whose only excuse is we know not how to mend it. If you are disposed to favour me, you will also consider how much one's mind is taken up and distracted by the many little affairs one has to settle, before the undertaking such a voyage, after so long a residence in a country; and how little, in such a situation, one's mind is fitted for serious and attentive reading, which, with regard to the _Elements of Criticism_, I intended before I should write. I can now only confess and endeavour to amend. In packing up my books, I have reserved yours to read on the passage. I hope I shall therefore be able to write to you upon it soon after my arrival. At present I can only return my thanks, and say that the parts I have read gave me both pleasure and instruction; that I am convinced of your position, new as it was to me, that a good taste in the arts contributes to the improvement of morals; and that I have had the satisfaction of hearing the work universally commended by those who have read it. "And now, my dear sir, accept my sincere thanks for the kindness you have shown me, and my best wishes of happiness to you and yours. Wherever I am, I shall esteem the friendship you honour me with as one of the felicities of my life; I shall endeavour to cultivate it by a more punctual correspondence; and I hope frequently to hear of your welfare and prosperity. B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * _To the same._[13] [13] Lord Kames had written to Dr. Franklin as early as 1765, when the first advices reached England of the disorders occasioned by the attempts to carry the stamp-act into execution; and he had written a second letter to him on the same subject in the beginning of 1767. This is a copy of Dr. Franklin's answer to these letters. London, April 11, 1767. "MY DEAR LORD, I received your obliging favour of January the 19th. You have kindly relieved me from the pain I had long been under. You are goodness itself. I ought to have answered yours of December 25, 1765. I never received a letter that contained sentiments more suitable to my own. It found me under much agitation of mind on the very important subject it treated. It fortified me greatly in the judgment I was inclined to form (though contrary to the general vogue) on the then delicate and critical situation of affairs between Great Britain and the colonies, and on that weighty point, their _union_. You guessed aright in supposing that I would not be a _mute in that play_. I was extremely busy, attending members of both houses, informing, explaining, consulting, disputing, in a continual hurry from morning to night, till the affair was happily ended. During the course of its being called before the House of Commons I spoke my mind pretty freely. Enclosed I send you the imperfect account that was taken of that examination; you will there see how entirely we agree, except in a point of fact, of which you could not but be misinformed; the papers at that time being full of mistaken assertions, that the colonies had been the cause of the war, and had ungratefully refused to bear any part of the expense of it. I send it you now, because I apprehend some late accidents are likely to revive the contest between the two countries. I fear it will be a mischievous one. It becomes a matter of great importance, that clear ideas should be formed on solid principles, both in Britain and America, of the true political relation between them, and the mutual duties belonging to that relation. Till this is done they will be often jarring. I know none whose knowledge, sagacity, and impartiality qualify him so thoroughly for such a service as yours do you. I wish, therefore, you would consider it. You may thereby be the happy instrument of great good to the nation, and of preventing much mischief and bloodshed. I am fully persuaded with you, that a _consolidating union_, by a fair and equal representation of all the parts of this empire in Parliament, is the only firm basis on which its political grandeur and prosperity can be founded. Ireland once wished it, but now rejects it. The time has been when the colonies might have been pleased with it, they are now _indifferent_ about it, and if it is much longer delayed, they too will _refuse_ it. But the pride of this people cannot bear the thought of it, and therefore it will be delayed. Every man in England seems to consider himself as a piece of a sovereign over America; seems to jostle himself into the throne with the king, and talks of _our subjects in the colonies_. The Parliament cannot well and wisely make laws suited to the colonies, without being properly and truly informed of their circumstances, abilities, temper, &c. This it cannot be without representatives from thence; and yet it is fond of this power, and averse to the only means of acquiring the necessary knowledge for exercising it, which is desiring to be _omnipotent_ without being _omniscient_. "I have mentioned that the contest is likely to be revived. It is on this occasion: in the same session with the stamp-act, an act was passed to regulate the quartering of soldiers in America: when the bill was first brought in, it contained a clause empowering the officers to quarter their soldiers in private houses; this we warmly opposed, and got it omitted. The bill passed, however, with a clause that empty houses, barns, &c., should be hired for them; and that the respective provinces where they were should pay the expense, and furnish firing, bedding, drink, and some other articles to the soldiers, _gratis_. There is no way for any province to do this but by the Assembly's making a law to raise the money. Pennsylvania Assembly has made such a law; New-York Assembly has refused to do it; and now all the talk here is, of sending a force to compel them. "The reasons given by the Assembly to the governor for the refusal are, that they understand the act to mean the furnishing such things to soldiers only while on their march through the country, and not to great bodies of soldiers, to be fixed, as at present, in the province; the burden in the latter case being greater than the inhabitants can bear; that it would put it in the power of the captain-general to oppress the province at pleasure, &c. But there is supposed to be another reason at bottom, which they intimate, though they do not plainly express it, to wit, that it is of the nature of an _internal tax_ laid on them by Parliament, which has no right so to do. Their refusal is here called _rebellion_, and punishment is thought of. "Now, waving that point of right, and supposing the legislatures in America subordinate to the legislatures of Great Britain, one might conceive, I think, a power in the superior legislature to forbid the inferior legislatures making particular laws; but to enjoin it to make a particular law, contrary to its own judgment, seems improper; an assembly or parliament not being an _executive_ officer of government, whose duty it is, in law-making, to obey orders, but a _deliberative_ body, who are to consider what comes before them, its propriety, practicability, or possibility, and to determine accordingly; the very nature of a parliament seems to be destroyed by supposing it may be bound and compelled by a law of a superior parliament to make a law contrary to its own judgment. "Indeed, the act of Parliament in question has not, as in other acts, when a duty is enjoined, directed a penalty on neglect or refusal, and a mode of recovering that penalty. It seems, therefore, to the people in America as a requisition, which they are at liberty to comply with or not, as it may suit or not suit the different circumstances of the different provinces. Pennsylvania has, therefore, voluntarily complied. New-York, as I said before, has refused. The ministry that made the act, and all their adherents, call for vengeance. The present ministry are perplexed, and the measures they will finally take on the occasion are yet unknown. But sure I am that if _force_ is used great mischief will ensue, the affections of the people of America to this country will be alienated, your commerce will be diminished, and a total separation of interests be the final consequence. "It is a common but mistaken notion here, that the colonies were planted at the expense of Parliament, and that, therefore, the Parliament has a right to tax them, &c. The truth is, they were planted at the expense of private adventurers, who went over there to settle, with leave of the king, given by charter. On receiving this leave and those charters, the adventurers voluntarily engaged to remain the king's subjects, though in a foreign country; a country which had not been conquered by either king or parliament, but was possessed by a free people. "When our planters arrived, they purchased the lands of the natives, without putting king or parliament to any expense. Parliament had no hand in their settlement, was never so much as consulted about their constitution, and took no kind of notice of them till many years after they were established. I except only the two modern colonies, or, rather, attempts to make colonies (for they succeed but poorly, and, as yet, hardly deserve the name of colonies), I mean Georgia and Nova Scotia, which have hitherto been little better than parliamentary jobs. Thus all the colonies acknowledge the king as their sovereign; his governors there represent his person: laws are made by their assemblies or little parliaments, with the governor's assent, subject still to the king's pleasure to affirm or annul them. Suits arising in the colonies, and between colony and colony, are determined by the king in council. In this view they seem so many separate little states, subject to the same prince. The sovereignty of the king is therefore easily understood. But nothing is more common here than to talk of the _sovereignty_ of PARLIAMENT, and the sovereignty of this nation over the colonies; a kind of sovereignty, the idea of which is not so clear, nor does it clearly appear on what foundation it is established. On the other hand, it seems necessary, for the common good of the empire, that a power be lodged somewhere to regulate its general commerce; this can be placed nowhere so properly as in the Parliament of Great Britain; and, therefore, though that power has in some instances been executed with great partiality to Britain and prejudice to the colonies, they have nevertheless always submitted to it. Custom-houses are established in all of them, by virtue of laws made here, and the duties instantly paid, except by a few smugglers, such as are here and in all countries; but internal taxes laid on them by Parliament are still, and ever will be, objected to for the reason that you will see in the mentioned examination. "Upon the whole, I have lived so great a part of my life in Britain, and have formed so many friendships in it, that I love it, and sincerely wish it prosperity; and, therefore, wish to see that union on which alone I think it can be secured and established. As to America, the advantages of such a union to her are not so apparent. She may suffer at present under the arbitrary power of this country; she may suffer for a while in a separation from it; but these are temporary evils which she will outgrow. Scotland and Ireland are differently circumstanced. Confined by the sea, they can scarcely increase in numbers, wealth, and strength, so as to overbalance England. But America, an immense territory, favoured by nature with all advantages of climate, soils, great navigable rivers, lakes, &c., must become a great country, populous and mighty; and will, in a less time than is generally conceived, be able to shake off any shackles that may be imposed upon her, and, perhaps, place them on the imposers. In the mean time, every act of oppression will sour their tempers, lessen greatly, if not annihilate, the profits of your commerce with them, and hasten their final revolt; for the seeds of liberty are universally found there, and nothing can eradicate them. And yet there remains among that people so much respect, veneration, and affection for Britain, that, if cultivated prudently, with a kind usage and tenderness for their privileges, they might be easily governed still for ages, without force or any considerable expense. But I do not see here a sufficient quantity of the wisdom that is necessary to produce such a conduct, and I lament the want of it. "I borrowed at Millar's the new edition of your _Principles of Equity_, and have read with great pleasure the preliminary discourse on the principles of morality. I have never before met with anything so satisfactory on the subject. While reading it, I made a few remarks as I went along. They are not of much importance, but I send you the paper. "I know the lady you mention (Mrs. Montague), having, when in England before, met her once or twice at Lord Bath's. I remember I then entertained the same opinion of her that you express. On the strength of your recommendation, I purpose soon to wait on her. "This is unexpectedly grown a long letter. The visit to Scotland and the _Art of Virtue_ we will talk of hereafter. It is now time to say that I am, with increasing esteem and affection, "B. FRANKLIN."[14] [14] This letter was intercepted by the British ministry; Dr. F. had preserved a copy of it, which was afterward transmitted to Lord Kames; but the wisdom that composed and conveyed it was thrown away upon the men at that time in power. * * * * * "_Lord Kames._ "London, February 21, 1769. "MY DEAR FRIEND, "I received your excellent paper on the preferable use of oxen in agriculture, and have put it in the way of being communicated to the public here. I have observed in America that the farmers are more thriving in those parts of the country where horned cattle are used, than in those where the labour is done by horses. The latter are said to require twice the quantity of land to maintain them and, after all, are not good to eat--at least we don't think them so. Here is a waste of land that might afford subsistence for so many of the human species. Perhaps it was for this reason that the Hebrew lawgiver, having promised that the children of Israel should be as numerous as the sands of the sea, not only took care to secure the health of individuals by regulating their diet, that they might be better fitted for producing children, but also forbid their using horses, as those animals would lessen the quantity of subsistence for man. Thus we find, when they took any horses from their enemies, they destroyed them; and in the commandments, where the labour of the ox and ass is mentioned, and forbidden on the Sabbath, there is no mention of the horse, probably because they were to have none. And by the great armies suddenly raised in that small territory they inhabited, it appears to have been very full of people.[15] [15] There is not in the Jewish law any express prohibition against the use of horses: it is only enjoined that the kings should not multiply the breed, or carry on trade with Egypt for the purchase of horses.--Deut. xvii., 16. Solomon was the first of the kings of Judah who disregarded this ordinance. He had 40,000 stalls of horses which he brought out of Egypt.--1 Kings iv., 26, and x., 28. From this time downward horses were in constant use in the Jewish armies. It is true that the country, from its rocky surface and unfertile soil, was extremely unfit for the maintenance of those animals.--_Note by Lord Kames._ "Food is _always_ necessary to _all_, and much the greatest part of the labour of mankind is employed in raising provisions for the mouth. Is not this kind of labour, then, the fittest to be the standard by which to measure the values of all other labour, and, consequently, of all other things whose value depends on the labour of making or procuring them? may not even gold and silver be thus valued? If the labour of the farmer, in producing a bushel of wheat, be equal to the labour of the miner in producing an ounce of silver, will not the bushel of wheat just measure the value of the ounce of silver. The miner must eat; the farmer, indeed, can live without the ounce of silver, and so, perhaps, will have some advantage in settling the price. But these discussions I leave to you, as being more able to manage them: only, I will send you a little scrap I wrote some time since on the laws prohibiting foreign commodities. "I congratulate you on your election as president of your Edinburgh Society. I think I formerly took notice to you in conversation, that I thought there had been some similarity in our fortunes and the circumstances of our lives. This is a fresh instance, for by letters just received I find that I was about the same time chosen President of our American Philosophical Society, established at Philadelphia.[16] [16] The American Philosophical Society was instituted in 1769, and was formed by the union of two societies which had formerly subsisted at Philadelphia, whose views and objects were of a similar nature. Its members were classed in the following committees: 1. Geography, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Astronomy. 2. Medicine and Anatomy. 3. Natural History and Chymistry. 4. Trade and Commerce. 5. Mechanics and Architecture. 6. Husbandry and American Improvements. Several volumes have been published of the transactions of this American Society, in which are many papers by Dr. Franklin.--_Note by Lord Kames._ "I have sent by sea, to the care of Mr. Alexander a little box containing a few copies of the late edition of my books, for my friends in Scotland. One is directed for you, and one for your society, which I beg that you and they would accept as a small token of my respect. "With the sincerest esteem and regard, "B. FRANKLIN. "P.S.--I am sorry my letter of 1767, concerning the American disputes, miscarried. I now send you a copy of it from my book. The examination mentioned in it you have probably seen. Things daily wear a worse aspect, and tend more and more to a breach and final separation." * * * * * "_John Alleyne._ "Craven-street, August 9, 1768. "DEAR JACK, "You desire, you say, my impartial thoughts on the subject of an early marriage, by way of answer to the numberless objections that have been made by numerous persons to your own. You may remember, when you consulted me on the occasion, that I thought youth on both sides to be no objection. Indeed, from the marriages that have fallen under my observation, I am rather inclined to think that early ones stand the best chance of happiness. The temper and habits of the young are not yet become so stiff and uncomplying as when more advanced in life; they form more easily to each other, and hence many occasions of disgust are removed. And if youth has less of that prudence which is necessary to manage a family, yet the parents and elder friends of young married persons are generally at hand to afford their advice, which amply supplies that defect; and, by early marriage, youth is sooner formed to regular and useful life; and possibly some of those accidents or connexions, that might have injured the constitution or reputation, or both, are thereby happily prevented. Particular circumstances of particular persons may possibly, sometimes, make it prudent to delay entering into that state; but, in general, when nature has rendered our bodies fit for it, the presumption is in nature's favour, for she has not judged amiss in making us desire it. Late marriages are often attended, too, with this farther inconvenience, that there is not the same chance that the parents shall live to see their offspring educated. '_Late children_,' says the Spanish proverb, '_are early orphans_.' A melancholy reflection to those whose case it may be! With us in America marriages are generally in the morning of life; our children are therefore educated and settled in the world by noon; and thus, our business being done, we have an afternoon and evening of cheerful leisure to ourselves, such as our friend at present enjoys. By these early marriages we are blessed with more children; and from the mode among us, founded by nature, of every mother suckling and nursing her own child, more of them are raised. Thence the swift progress of population among us, unparalleled in Europe. In fine, I am glad you are married, and congratulate you most cordially upon it. You are now in the way of becoming a useful citizen; and you have escaped the unnatural state of celibacy for life--the fate of many here who never intended it, but who, having too long postponed the change of their condition, find at length that it is too late to think of it, and so live all their lives in a situation that greatly lessens a man's value. An odd volume of a set of books bears not the value of its proportion to the set: what think you of the odd half of a pair of scissors? it can't well cut anything; it may possibly serve to scrape a trencher. "Pray make my compliments and best wishes acceptable to your bride. I am old and heavy, or I should, ere this, have presented them in person. I shall make but small use of the old man's privilege, that of giving advice to younger friends. Treat your wife always with respect; it will procure respect to you, not only from her, but from all that observe it. Never use a slighting expression to her, even in jest; for slights in jest, after frequent bandyings, are apt to end in angry earnest. Be studious in your profession, and you will be learned. Be industrious and frugal, and you will be rich. Be sober and temperate, and you will be healthy. Be in general virtuous, and you will be happy. At least, you will, by such conduct, stand the best chance for such consequences. "I pray God to bless you both, being ever your affectionate friend, "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Governor Franklin._ "London, Dec. 19, 1767. "DEAR SIR, "The resolutions of the Boston people concerning trade make a great noise here. Parliament has not yet taken notice of them, but the newspapers are in full cry against America. Colonel Onslow told me at court last Sunday, that I could not conceive how much the friends of America were run upon and hurt by them, and how much the Grenvillians triumphed. I have just written a paper for next Thursday's Chronicle, to extenuate matters a little. "Mentioning Colonel Onslow reminds me of something that passed at the beginning of this session in the house between him and Mr. Grenville. The latter had been raving against America, as traitorous, rebellious, &c., when the former, who has always been its firm friend, stood up and gravely said, that in reading the Roman history, he found it was a custom among that wise and magnanimous people, whenever the senate was informed of any discontent in the provinces, to send two or three of their body into the discontented provinces to inquire into the grievances complained of, and report to the senate, that mild measures might be used to remedy what was amiss before any severe steps were taken to enforce obedience. That this example he thought worthy our imitation in the present state of our colonies, for he did so far agree with the honourable gentleman that spoke just before him as to allow there were great discontents among them. He should therefore beg leave to move, that two or three members of Parliament be appointed to go over to New-England on this service. And that it might not be supposed he was for imposing burdens on others that he would not be willing to bear himself, he did at the same time declare his own willingness, if the house should think fit to appoint them, to go over thither _with that honourable gentleman_. Upon this there was a great laugh, which continued some time, and was rather increased by Mr. Grenville's asking, 'Will the gentleman engage that I shall be safe there? Can I be assured that I shall be allowed to come back again to make the report?' As soon as the laugh was so far subsided as that Mr. Onslow could be heard again, he added, 'I cannot absolutely engage for the honourable gentleman's safe return; but if he goes thither upon this service, I am strongly of opinion the _event_ will contribute greatly to the future quiet of both countries.' On which the laugh was renewed and redoubled. "If our people should follow the Boston example in entering into resolutions of frugality and industry, full as necessary for us as for them, I hope they will, among other things, give this reason, that 'tis to enable them more speedily and effectually to discharge their debts to Great Britain; this will soften a little, and, at the same time, appear honourable, and like ourselves. Yours, &c., "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_To Dr. Priestley._ "Passy, June 7, 1782. "DEAR SIR, "I received your kind letter of the 7th April, also one of the 3d of May. I have always great pleasure in hearing from you, in learning that you are well, and that you continue your experiments. I should rejoice much if I could once more recover the leisure to search with you into the works of nature; I mean the inanimate or moral part of them: the more I discovered of the former, the more I admired them; the more I know of the latter, the more I am disgusted with them. Men I find to be a sort of beings very badly constructed, as they are generally more easily provoked than reconciled, more disposed to do mischief to each other than to make reparation, much more easily deceived than undeceived, and having more pride and even pleasure in killing than in begetting one another. * * * In what light we are viewed by superior beings, may be gathered from a piece of late West India news, which, possibly, has not yet reached you. A young angel being sent down to this world on some business for the first time, had an old courier-spirit assigned him as a guide; they arrived over the seas of Martinico, in the middle of the long day of obstinate fight between the fleets of Rodney and De Grasse. When through the clouds of smoke he saw the fire of the guns, the decks covered with mangled limbs, and bodies dead or dying, the ships sinking, burning, or blown into the air, and the quantity of pain, misery, and destruction, the crews yet alive were thus with so much eagerness dealing round to one another, he turned angrily to his guide, and said, you blundering blockhead, you are ignorant of your business; you undertook to conduct me to the earth, and you have brought me into hell! No, sir, says the guide, I have made no mistake; this is really the earth, and these are men. Devils never treat one another in this cruel manner; they have more sense, and more of what men (vainly) call humanity. "But to be serious, my dear old friend, I love you as much as ever, and I love all the honest souls that meet at the London Coffee-house. I only wonder how it happened that they and my other friends in England came to be such good creatures in the midst of so perverse a generation. I long to see them and you once more, and I labour for peace with more earnestness, that I may again be happy in your sweet society. * * * "Yesterday the _Count du Nord_[17] was at the Academy of Sciences, when sundry experiments were exhibited for his entertainment; among them, one by M. Lavoisier, to show that the strongest fire we yet know is made in charcoal blown upon with dephlogisticated air. In a heat so produced, he melted platina presently, the fire being much more powerful than that of the strongest burning mirror. Adieu, and believe me ever, yours most affectionately, [17] The Grand-duke of Russia, afterward the Emperor Paul I. B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * _To the same._ "London, September 19, 1772. "DEAR SIR, "In the affair of so much importance to you, wherein you ask my advice, I cannot, for want of sufficient premises, counsel you _what_ to determine; but, if you please, I will tell you _how_. When those difficult cases occur, they are difficult chiefly because, while we have them under consideration, all the reasons, _pro_ and _con_, are not present to the mind at the same time; but sometimes one set present themselves, and at other times another, the first being out of sight. Hence the various purposes or inclinations that alternately prevail, and the uncertainty that perplexes us. To get over this, my way is, to divide half a sheet of paper by a line into two columns, writing over the one _pro_ and over the other _con_: then, during three or four days' consideration, I put down under the different heads short hints of the different motives that at different times occur to me _for_ or _against_ the measure. When I have thus got them all together in one view, I endeavour to estimate their respective weights, and where I find two (one on each side), that seem equal, I strike them both out. If I find a reason _pro_ equal to some _two_ reasons _con_ I strike out the _three_. If I judge some _two_ reasons _con_ equal to some _three_ reasons _pro_, I strike out the _five_; and, thus proceeding, I find at length where the _balance_ lies; and if, after a day or two of farther consideration, nothing new that is of importance occurs on either side, I come to a determination accordingly. And though the weight of reasons cannot be taken with the precision of algebraic quantities, yet, when each is thus considered separately and comparatively, and the whole lies before me, I think I can judge better, and am less liable to make a rash step; and, in fact, I have found great advantage from this kind of equation, in what may be called moral or _prudential algebra_. "Wishing sincerely that you may determine for the best, I am ever, my dear friend, yours most affectionately, B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Mr. Mather, Boston._ "London, July, 4, 1773. "REVEREND SIR, "The remarks you have added on the late proceedings against America are very just and judicious; and I cannot see any impropriety in your making them, though a minister of the gospel. This kingdom is a good deal indebted for its liberties to the public spirit of its ancient clergy, who joined with the barons in obtaining Magna Charta, and joined heartily in forming the curses of excommunication against the infringers of it. There is no doubt but the claim of Parliament, of authority to make laws _binding on the colonies in all cases whatsoever_, includes an authority to change our religious constitution, and establish popery or Mohammedanism, if they please, in its stead; but, as you intimate, _power_ does not infer _right_; and as the _right_ is nothing and the _power_ (by our increase) continually diminishing, the one will soon be as insignificant as the _other_. You seem only to have made a small mistake in supposing they modestly avoided to declare they had a right, the words of the act being, 'that they have, and of _right_ ought to have, full power,' &c. "Your suspicion that sundry others besides Governor Bernard 'had written hither their opinions and councils, encouraging the late measures to the prejudice of our country, which have been too much needed and followed,' is, I apprehend, but too well founded. You call them 'traitorous individuals,' whence I collect that you suppose them of our own country. There was among the twelve apostles one traitor, who betrayed with a kiss. It should be no wonder, therefore, if among so many thousand true patriots as New-England contains, there should be found even twelve Judases ready to betray their country for a few paltry pieces of silver. Their _ends_, as well as their views, ought to be similar. But all the oppressions evidently work for our good. Providence seems by every means intent on making us a great people. May our virtues, public and private, grow with us and be durable, that liberty, civil and religious, may be secured to our posterity, and to all from every part of the Old World that take refuge among us. "With great esteem, and my best wishes for a long continuance of your usefulness, I am, reverend sir, your most obedient, humble servant, "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Mr. Strahan._ "Philadelphia, July 5, 1775. "You are a member of Parliament, and one of that majority which has doomed my country to destruction. You have begun to burn our towns and murder our people. Look upon your hands! they are stained with the blood of your relations! You and I were long friends: you are now my enemy, and--I am yours, B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Dr. Priestley._ "Philadelphia, October 3, 1775 "DEAR SIR, "I am bound to sail to-morrow for the camp,[18] and, having but just heard of this opportunity, can only write a line to say that I am well and hearty. Tell our dear good friend, Dr. Price, who sometimes has his doubts and despondencies about our firmness, that America is determined and unanimous; a very few tories and placemen excepted, who will probably soon export themselves. Britain, at the expense of three millions, has killed one hundred and fifty Yankees this campaign, which is 20,000_l._ a head; and at Bunker's Hill she gained a mile of ground, half of which she lost again by our taking post on Ploughed Hill. During the same time sixty thousand children have been born in America. From these _data_ his mathematical head will easily calculate the time and expense necessary to kill us all and conquer our whole territory. My sincere repects to * *, and to the club of honest whigs at * *. Adieu. [18] Dr. Franklin, Colonel Harrison, and Mr. Lynch, were at this time appointed by Congress (of which they were members) to confer on certain subjects with General Washington. The American army was then employed in blocking up General Howe in Boston; and it was during this visit that General Washington communicated the following memorable anecdote to Dr. Franklin, viz., "that there had been a time when his army had been so destitute of military stores as not to have powder enough in all its magazines to furnish more than five rounds per man for their small arms." Artillery were out of the question: they were fired now and then, only to show that they had them. Yet this secret was kept with so much address and good countenance from both armies, that General Washington was enabled effectually to continue the blockade. "I am ever yours most affectionately, "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Mrs. Thompson, at Lisle._ Paris, February 8, 1777. "You are too early, _hussy_, as well as too saucy, in calling me _rebel_; you should wait for the event, which will determine whether it is a _rebellion_ or only a _revolution_. Here the ladies are more civil; they call us _les insurgens_, a character that usually pleases them; and methinks all other women who smart, or have smarted, under the tyranny of a bad husband, ought to be fixed in _revolution_ principles, and act accordingly. "In my way to Canada last spring, I saw dear Mrs. Barrow at New-York. Mr. Barrow had been from her two or three months, to keep Governor Tryon and other tories company on board the Asia, one of the king's ships which lay in the harbour; and in all that time that naughty man had not ventured once on shore to see her. Our troops were then pouring into the town, and she was packing up to leave it; fearing, as she had a large house, they would incommode her by quartering officers in it. As she appeared in great perplexity, scarce knowing where to go, I persuaded her to stay; and I went to the general officers then commanding there, and recommended her to their protection; which they promised and performed. On my return from Canada, where I was a piece of a governor (and, I think, a very good one) for a fortnight, and might have been so till this time if your wicked army, enemies to all good government, had not come and driven me out, I found her still in quiet possession of her house. I inquired how our people had behaved to her; she spoke in high terms of the respectful attention they had paid her, and the quiet and security they had procured her. I said I was glad of it, and that, if they had used her ill, I would have turned tory. Then, said she (with that pleasing gayety so natural to her), _I wish they had_. For you must know she is a _toryess_ as well as you, and can as flippantly say _rebel_. I drank tea with her; we talked affectionately of you and our other friends the Wilkes, of whom she had received no late intelligence; what became of her since, I have not heard. The street she lived in was some months after chiefly burned down; but as the town was then, and ever since has been, in possession of the king's troops, I have had no opportunity of knowing whether she suffered any loss in the conflagration. I hope she did not, as if she did, I should wish I had not persuaded her to stay there. I am glad to learn from you, that that unhappy but deserving family, the W.'s, are getting into some business that may afford them subsistence. I pray that God will bless them, and that they may see happier days. Mr. Cheap's and Dr. H.'s good fortunes please me. Pray learn, if you have not already learned, like me, to be pleased with other people's pleasures, and happy with their happiness when none occur of your own; then, perhaps, you will not so soon be weary of the place you chance to be in, and so fond of rambling to get rid of your _ennui_. I fancy you have hit upon the right reason of your being weary of St. Omer's, viz., that you are out of temper, which is the effect of full living and idleness. A month in Bridewell, beating hemp, upon bread and water, would give you health and spirits, and subsequent cheerfulness and contentment with every other situation. I prescribe that regimen for you, my dear, in pure good-will, without a fee. And, let me tell you, if you do not get into temper, neither Brussels nor Lisle will suit you. I know nothing of the price of living in either of those places; but I am sure a single woman as you are might, with economy, upon two hundred pounds a year, maintain herself comfortably anywhere, and me into the bargain. Do not invite me in earnest, however, to come and live with you, for, being posted here, I ought not to comply, and I am not sure I should be able to refuse. Present my respects to Mrs. Payne and Mrs. Heathcoat; for, though I have not the honour of knowing them, yet as you say they are friends to the American cause, I am sure they must be women of good understanding. I know you wish you could see me, but as you can't, I will describe myself to you. Figure me in your mind as jolly as formerly, and as strong and hearty, only a few years older: very plainly dressed, wearing my thin gray straight hair, that peeps out under my only _coiffure_, a fine fur cap, which comes down my forhead almost to my spectacles. Think how this must appear among the powdered heads of Paris! I wish every lady and gentleman in France would only be so obliging as to follow my fashion, comb their own heads as I do mine, dismiss their _friseurs_, and pay me half the money they paid to them. You see the gentry might well afford this, and I could then enlist these friseurs, (who are at least 100,000), and with the money I would maintain them, make a visit with them to England, and dress the heads of your ministers and privy counsellors; which I conceive at present to be _un peu derangées_. Adieu! madcap, and believe me ever your affectionate friend and humble servant, "B. FRANKLIN. "P.S.--Don't be proud of this long letter. A fit of the gout, which has confined me five days, and made me refuse to see company, has given me little time to trifle; otherwise it would have been very short; visiters and business would have interrupted: and, perhaps, with Mrs. Barrow, you wish they had." * * * * * "_To Mr. Lith._ "Passy, near Paris, April 6, 1777. "SIR, "I have just been honoured with a letter from you, dated the 26th past, in which you express yourself as astonished, and appear to be angry that you have no answer to a letter you wrote me of the 11th of December, which you are sure was delivered to me. "In exculpation of myself, I assure you that I never received any letter from you of this date. And, indeed, being then but four days landed at Nantes, I think you could scarce have heard so soon of my being in Europe. "But I received one from you of the 8th of January, which I own I did not answer. It may displease you if I give you the reason; but as it may be of use to you in your future correspondences, I will hazard that for a gentleman to whom I feel myself obliged, as an American, on account of his good-will to our cause. "Whoever writes to a stranger should observe three points: 1. That what he proposes be practicable. 2. His propositions should be made in explicit terms, so as to be easily understood. 3. What he desires, should be in itself reasonable. Hereby he will give a favourable impression of his understanding, and create a desire of farther acquaintance. Now it happened that you were negligent in _all_ these points: for, first, you desired to have means procured for you of taking a voyage to America '_avec sureté_,[19] which is not possible, as the dangers of the sea subsist always, and at present there is the additional danger of being taken by the English. Then you desire that this may be '_sans trop grandes dépenses_,'[20] which is not intelligible enough to be answered, because, not knowing your ability of bearing expenses, one cannot judge what may be _trop grandes_. Lastly, you desire letters of address to the Congress and to General Washington, which it is not reasonable to ask of one who knows no more of you than that your name is LITH, and that you live at BAYREUTH. [19] With safety. [20] Without too great expense. "In your last, you also express yourself in vague terms when you desire to be informed whether you may expect '_d'étre reçu d'une maniére cenvenable_'[21] in our troops. As it is impossible to know what your ideas are of the _maniére convenable_, how can one answer this? And then you demand whether I will support you by my authority in giving you letters of recommendation. I doubt not your being a man of merit, and, knowing it yourself, you may forget that it is not known to everybody; but reflect a moment, sir, and you will be convinced, that if I were to practise giving letters of recommendation to persons whose character I knew no more than I do of yours, my recommendations would soon be of no authority at all. [21] To be received in a suitable manner. "I thank you, however, for your kind desire of being serviceable to my countrymen, and I wish, in return, that I could be of service to you in the scheme you have formed of going to America. But numbers of experienced officers here have offered to go over and join our army, and I could give them no encouragement, because I have no orders for that purpose, and I know it is extremely difficult to place them when they come there. I cannot but think, therefore, that it is best for you not to make so long, so expensive, and so hazardous a voyage, but to take the advice of your friends and _stay in Franconia_. I have the honour to be, sir, &c., "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * _Answer to a letter from Brussels._ "_Passy_, July 1, 1778. "SIR, "I received your letter dated at Brussels the 16th past. "My vanity might possibly be flattered by your expressions of compliment to my understanding, if your proposals did not more clearly manifest a mean opinion of it. "You conjure me, in the name of the omniscient and just God, before whom I must appear, and by my hopes of future fame, to consider if some expedient cannot be found to put a stop to the desolation of America, and prevent the miseries of a general war. As I am conscious of having taken every step in my power to prevent the breach, and no one to widen it, I can appear cheerfully before that God, fearing nothing from his justice in this particular, though I have much occasion for his mercy in many others. As to my future fame, I am content to rest it on my past and present conduct, without seeking an addition to it in the crooked, dark paths you propose to me, where I should most certainly lose it. This your solemn address would, therefore, have been more properly made to your sovereign and his venal parliament. He and they, who wickedly began and madly continue a war for the desolation of America, are accountable for the consequences. "You endeavour to impress me with a bad opinion of French faith; but the instances of their friendly endeavours to serve a race of weak princes, who by their own imprudence defeated every attempt to promote their interest, weigh but little with me when I consider the steady friendship of France to the thirteen United States of Switzerland, which has now continued inviolate two hundred years. You tell me that she will certainly cheat us, and that she despises us already. I do not believe that she will cheat us, and I am not certain that she despises us: but I see clearly that you are endeavouring to cheat us by your conciliatory bills; that you actually despised our understandings when you flattered yourselves those artifices would succeed; and that not only France, but all Europe, yourselves included, most certainly and for ever, would despise us if we were weak enough to accept your insidious propositions. "Our expectations of the future grandeur of America are not so magnificent, and, therefore, not so vain and visionary, as you represent them to be. The body of our people are not merchants, but humble husbandmen, who delight in the cultivation of their lands, which, from their fertility and the variety of our climates, are capable of furnishing all the necessaries of life without external commerce; and we have too much land to have the slightest temptation to extend our territory by conquest from peaceable neighbours, as well as too much justice to think of it. Our militia, you find by experience, are sufficient to defend our lands from invasion; and the commerce with us will be defended by all the nations who find an advantage in it. We therefore have not the occasion you imagine, of fleets or standing armies, but may leave those expensive machines to be maintained for the pomp of princes and the wealth of ancient states. We propose, if possible, to live in peace with all mankind; and, after you have been convinced, to your cost, that there is nothing to be got by attacking us, we have reason to hope that no other power will judge it prudent to quarrel with us, lest they divert us from our own quiet industry, and turn us into corsairs preying upon theirs. The weight, therefore, of an independent empire, which you seem certain of our inability to bear, will not be so great as you imagine. The expense of our civil government we have always borne, and can easily bear, because it is small. A virtuous and laborious people may be cheaply governed. Determining as we do to have no offices of profit, nor any sinecures or useless appointments, so common in ancient and corrupted states, we can govern ourselves a year for the sum you pay in a single department, or for what one jobbing contractor, by the favour of a minister, can cheat you out of in a single article. "You think we flatter ourselves, and are deceived into an opinion that England _must_ acknowledge our independence. We, on the other hand, think you flatter yourselves in imagining such an acknowledgment a vast boon which we strongly desire, and which you may gain some great advantage by granting or withholding. We have never asked it of you. We only tell you that you can have no treaty with us but as an independent state; and you may please yourselves and your children with the rattle of your right to govern us, as long as you have with that of your king being king of France, without giving us the least concern if you do not attempt to exercise it. That this pretended right is indisputable, as you say, we utterly deny. Your parliament never had a right to govern us, and your king has forfeited it by his bloody tyranny. But I thank you for letting me know a little of your mind, that even if the Parliament should acknowledge our independence, the act would not be binding to posterity, and that your nation would resume and prosecute the claim as soon as they found it convenient from the influence of your passions and your present malice against us. We suspected before that you would not be bound by your conciliatory acts longer than till they had served their purpose of inducing us to disband our forces; but we were not certain that you were knaves by principle, and that we ought not to have the least confidence in your offers, promises, or treaties, though confirmed by Parliament. I now indeed recollect my being informed, long since, when in England, that a certain very great personage, then young, studied much a certain book, entitled _Arcana imperii_ [_Secrets of governing_]. I had the curiosity to procure the book and read it. There are sensible and good things in it, but some bad ones; for, if I remember right, a particular king is applauded for his politically exciting a rebellion among his subjects at a time when they had not strength to support it, that he might, in subduing them, take away their privileges which were troublesome to him: and a question is formally stated and discussed, _Whether a prince, to appease a revolt, makes promises of indemnity to the revolters, is obliged to fulfil those promises?_ Honest and good men would say ay; but this politician says as you say, no. And he gives this pretty reason, that though it was right to make the promises, because otherwise the revolt would not be suppressed, yet it would be wrong to keep them, because revolters ought to be punished to deter future revolts. If these are the principles of your nation, no confidence can be placed in you; it is in vain to treat with you, and the wars can only end in being reduced to an utter inability of continuing them. "One main drift of your letter seems to be to impress me with an idea of your own impartiality, by just censures of your ministers and measures, and to draw from me propositions of peace, or approbations of those you have enclosed me, which you intimate may by your means be conveyed to the king directly, without the intervention of those ministers. Would you have me give them to, or drop them for a stranger I may find next Monday in the Church of Notre Dame, to be known by a rose in his hat? You yourself, sir, are quite unknown to me; you have not trusted me with your right name. Our taking the least step towards a treaty with England, through you, might, if you are an enemy, be made use of to ruin us with our new and good friends. I may be indiscreet enough in many things, but certainly, if I were disposed to make propositions (which I cannot do, having none committed to me to make), I should never think of delivering them to the Lord knows who, to be carried the Lord knows where, to serve no one knows what purposes. Being at this time one of the most remarkable figures in Paris, even my appearance in the Church of Notre Dame, where I cannot have any conceivable business, and especially being seen to leave or drop any letter to any person there would be a matter of some speculation, and might, from the suspicions it must naturally give, have very mischievous consequences to our credit here. The very proposing of a correspondence so to be managed, in a manner not necessary where _fair dealing_ is intended, gives just reason to suppose you intend the _contrary_. Besides, as your court has sent commissioners to treat with the Congress, with all the powers that would be given them by the crown under the act of Parliament, what _good purpose_ can be served by privately obtaining propositions from us? Before those commissioners went, we might have treated in virtue of our general powers (with the knowledge, advice, and approbation of our friends), upon any propositions made to us. But, under the present circumstances, for us to make propositions while a treaty is supposed to be actually on foot with the Congress, would be extremely improper, highly presumptuous with regard to our honourable constituents, and answer no good end whatever. "I write this letter to you, notwithstanding (which I think I can convey in a less mysterious manner; and guess it may come to your hands); I write it because I would let you know our sense of your procedure, which appears as insidious as that of your conciliatory bills. Your true way to obtain peace, if your ministers desire it, is to propose openly to the Congress fair and equal terms; and you may possibly come sooner to such a resolution, when you find that personal flatteries, general cajolings, and panegyrics on our _virtue_ and _wisdom_ are not likely to have the effect you seem to expect; the persuading us to act _basely_ and _foolishly_ in betraying our country and posterity into the hands of our most bitter enemies; giving up or selling of our arms and warlike stores, dismissing our ships of war and troops, and putting those enemies in possession of our forts and ports. This proposition of delivering ourselves, bound and gagged, ready for hanging, without even a right to complain, and without even a friend to be found afterward among all mankind, you would have us embrace on the faith of an act of Parliament! Good God! an act of your Parliament! This demonstrates that you do not yet know us, and that you fancy we do not know you: but it is not merely this flimsy faith that we are to act upon; you offer us _hope_, the hope of PLACES, PENSIONS, and PEERAGE. These, judging from yourselves, you think are motives irresistible. This offer to corrupt us, sir, is with me your credential, and convinces me that you are not a private volunteer in your application. It bears the stamp of British court intrigue, and the signature of your king. But think for a moment in what light it must be viewed in America. By places which cannot come among us, for you take care by a special article to keep them to yourselves. We must then pay the salaries in order to enrich ourselves with these places. But you will give us PENSIONS; probably to be paid, too, out of your expected American revenue; and which none of us can accept without deserving, and, perhaps, obtaining a _suspension_. PEERAGES! Alas! sir, our long observation of the vast servile majority of your peers, voting constantly for every measure proposed by a minister, however weak or wicked, leaves us small respect for them, and we consider it a sort of tar-and-feathered honour, or a mixture of foulness and folly; which every man among us who should accept from your king, would be obliged to renounce or exchange for that conferred by the mobs of their own country, or wear it with everlasting shame. "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Dr. Price, London._ "Passy, February 6, 1780. "DEAR SIR, "I received but very lately your kind favour of October 14. Dr. Ingenhausz, who brought it, having stayed long in Holland. I sent the enclosed directly to Mr. L. It gave me great pleasure to understand that you continue well. Your writings, after all the abuse you and they have met with, begin to make serious impressions on those who at first rejected the counsels you gave; and they will acquire new weight every day, and be in high esteem when the cavils against them are dead and forgotten. Please to present my affectionate respects to that honest, sensible, and intelligent society, who did me so long the honour of admitting me to share in their instructive conversations. I never think of the hours I so happily spent in that company, without regretting that they are never to be repeated; for I see no prospect of an end to this unhappy war in my time. Dr. Priestley, you tell me, continues his experiments with success. We make daily great improvements in _natural_--there is one I wish to see in _moral_ philosophy; the discovery of a plan that would induce and oblige nations to settle their disputes without first cutting one another's throats. When will human reason be sufficiently improved to see the advantage of this? When will men be convinced that even successful wars at length become misfortunes to those who unjustly commenced them, and who triumphed blindly in their success, not seeing all its consequences. Your great comfort and mine in this war is, that we honestly and faithfully did everything in our power to prevent it. Adieu, and believe me ever, my dear friend, yours, &c., "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Dr. Priestley._ "Passy, February 8, 1780. "DEAR SIR, "Your kind letter of September 27 came to hand but very lately, the bearer having stayed long in Holland. "I always rejoice to hear of your being still employed in experimental researches into nature, and of the success you meet with. The rapid progress _true_ science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon: it is impossible to imagine the height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the power of man over matter; we may perhaps learn to deprive large masses of their gravity, and give them absolute levity for the sake of easy transport. Agriculture may diminish its labour and double its produce; all diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured (not excepting even that of old age), and our lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian standard. Oh! that moral science were in as fair a way of improvement; that men would cease to be wolves to one another; and that human beings would at length learn what they now improperly call humanity! "I am glad that my little paper on the Aurora Borealis pleased. If it should occasion farther inquiry, and so produce a better hypothesis, it will not be wholly useless. "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * [Enclosed in the foregoing letter; being an answer to a separate paper received from Dr. Priestley] "I have considered the situation of that person very attentively; I think that, with a little help from the _Moral Algebra_, he might form a better judgment than any other person can form for him. But, since my opinion seems to be desired, I give it for continuing to the end of the term, under all the present disagreeable circumstances: the connexion will then die a natural death. No reason will be expected to be given for the separation, and, of course, no offence taken at reasons given; the friendship may still subsist, and, in some other way, be useful. The time diminishes daily, and is usefully employed. All human situations have their inconveniences; we _feel_ those that we find in the present, and we neither _feel_ nor _see_ those that exist in another. Hence we make frequent and troublesome changes without amendment, and often for the worse. In my youth, I was passenger in a little sloop descending the river Delaware. There being no wind, we were obliged, when the ebb was spent, to cast anchor and wait for the next. The heat of the sun on the vessel was excessive, the company strangers to me, and not very agreeable. Near the river-side I saw what I took to be a pleasant green meadow, in the middle of which was a large shady tree, where it struck my fancy I could sit and read (having a book in my pocket), and pass the time agreeably till the tide turned; I therefore prevailed with the captain to put me ashore. Being landed, I found the greatest part of my meadow was really a marsh, in crossing which, to come at my tree, I was up to my knees in mire: and I had not placed myself under its shade five minutes before the moschetoes in swarms found me out, attacked my legs, hands, and face, and made my reading and my rest impossible; so that I returned to the beach, and called for the boat to come and take me on board again, where I was obliged to bear the heat I had strove to quit, and also the laugh of the company. Similar cases in the affairs of life have since frequently fallen under my observation. "I have had thoughts of a college for him in America; I know no one who might be more useful to the public in the institution of youth. But there are possible unpleasantnesses in that situation: it cannot be obtained but by a too hazardous voyage at this time for a family: and the time for experiments would be all otherwise engaged. "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_To General Washington._ "Passy, March 5, 1780 "SIR, "I received but lately the letter your excellency did me the honour of writing to me in recommendation of the Marquis de Lafayette. His modesty detained it long in his own hands. We became acquainted, however, from the time of his arrival at Paris; and his zeal for the honour of our country, his activity in our affairs here, and his firm attachment to our cause and to you, impressed me with the same regard and esteem for him that your excellency's letter would have done had it been immediately delivered to me. "Should peace arrive after another campaign or two, and afford us a little leisure, I should be happy to see your excellency in Europe, and to accompany you, if my age and strength would permit, in visiting some of its most ancient and famous kingdoms. You would, on this side the sea, enjoy the great reputation you have acquired, pure and free from those little shades that the jealousy and envy of a man's countrymen and contemporaries are ever endeavouring to cast over living merit. Here you would know and enjoy what posterity will say of Washington. For a thousand leagues have nearly the same effect with a thousand years. The feeble voice of those grovelling passions cannot extend so far either in time or distance. At present I enjoy that pleasure for you, as I frequently hear the old generals of this martial country (who study the maps of America, and mark upon them all your operations) speak with sincere approbation and great applause of your conduct, and join in giving you the character of one of the greatest captains of the age. "I must soon quit the scene, but you may live to see our country flourish, as it will amazingly and rapidly after the war is over. Like a field of young Indian corn, which long fair weather and sunshine had enfeebled and discoloured, and which in that weak state, by a thunder-gust of violent wind, hail, and rain, seemed to be threatened with absolute destruction; yet the storm being past, it recovers fresh verdure, shoots up with double vigour, and delights the eye not of its owner only, but of every observing traveller. "The best wishes that can be formed for your health, honour, and happiness, ever attend you, from yours, &c., B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_To M. Court de Gebelin,[22] Paris._ [22] Antoine Court de Gebelin, born at Nismes in 1725, became a minister of a Protestant communion in the Cevennes, then at Lausanne: he quitted the clerical function for literature, at Paris, where he acquired so great a reputation as an antiquary and philosopher that he was appointed to attend one of the museums. His reputation suffered by his zeal in favour of animal magnetism. He died at Paris, May 13, 1784. His great work is entitled, "Monde Primitif, analysé et comparé avec le Monde Moderne," 9 tom. 4to. The excellence of his character may be appreciated from the fact, that, on quitting Switzerland, he voluntarily gave to his sister the principal part of his patrimony, reserving but little for himself, and relying for a maintenance upon the exercise of his talents. "Passy, May 7, 1781. "DEAR SIR, "I am glad the little book[23] proved acceptable. It does not appear to me intended for a grammar to teach the language. It is rather what we call in English a _spelling-book_, in which the only method observed is to arrange the words according to their number of syllables, placing those of one syllable together, and those of two syllables, and so on. And it is to be observed that _Sa ki ma_, for instance, is not three words, but one word of three syllables; and the reason that _hyphens_ are not placed between the syllables is, that the printer had not enough of them. [23] A Vocabulary of the Language of one of the Indian Tribes in North America. "As the Indians had no letters, they had no orthography. The Delaware language being differently spelt from the Virginian, may not always arise from a difference in the languages; for strangers who learn the language of an Indian nation, finding no orthography, are at liberty, in writing the language, to use such compositions of letters as they think will best produce the sounds of the words. I have observed that our Europeans of different nations, who learn the same Indian language, form each his own orthography according to the usual sounds given to the letters in his own language. Thus the same words of the Mohock language written by an English, a French, and a German interpreter, often differ very much in the spelling; and without knowing the usual powers of the letters in the language of the interpreter, one cannot come at the pronunciation of the Indian words. The spelling-book in question was, I think, written by a German. "You mention a Virginian Bible. Is it not the Bible of the Massachusetts language, translated by Elliot, and printed in New-England about the middle of the last century? I know this Bible, but have never heard of one in the Virginian language. Your observation of the similitude between many of the words and those of the ancient world, are indeed very curious. "This inscription, which you find to be Phoenician, is, I think, near _Taunton_ (not Jannston, as you write it). There is some account of it in the old Philosophical Transactions; I have never been at the place, but shall be glad to see your remarks on it. "The compass appears to have been long known in China before it was known in Europe; unless we suppose it known to Homer, who makes the prince that lent ships to Ulysses boast that they had a _spirit_ in them, by whose directions they could find their way in a cloudy day or the darkest night. If any Phoenicians arrived in America, I should rather think it was not by the accident of a storm, but in the course of their long and adventurous voyages; and that they coasted from Denmark and Norway, over to Greenland, and down southward by Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, &c., to New-England, as the Danes themselves certainly did some ages before Columbus. "Our new American society will be happy in the correspondence you mention; and when it is possible for me, I shall be glad to attend the meetings of your society,[24] which I am sure must be very instructive. [24] L'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Letters. "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_To Francis Hopkinson, Philadelphia._ "Passy, September 13, 1781. "DEAR SIR, "I have received your kind letter of July 17, with its duplicate, enclosing those for Messrs. Brandlight and Sons, which I have forwarded. I am sorry for the loss of the _squibs_. Everything of yours gives me pleasure. "As to the friends and enemies you just mention, I have hitherto, thanks to God, had plenty of the former kind; they have been my treasure; and it has, perhaps, been of no disadvantage to me that I have had a few of the latter. They serve to put us upon correcting the faults we have, and avoiding those we are in danger of having. They counter-act the mischief flattery might do us, and their malicious attacks make our friends more zealous in serving us and promoting our interest. At present I do not know of more than two such enemies that I enjoy, viz., *** and ***. I deserved the enmity of the latter, because I might have avoided it by paying him a compliment, which I neglected. That to the former I owe to the people of France, who happened to respect me too much and him too little; which I could bear, and he could not. They are unhappy that they cannot make everybody hate me as much as they do; and I should be so if my friends did not love me much more than those gentlemen can possibly love one another. "Enough of this subject. Let me know if you are in possession of my gimcrack instruments, and if you have made any new experiments. I lent, many years ago, a large glass globe, mounted, to Mr. Coombe, and an electric battery of bottles, which I remember; perhaps there were some other things. He may have had them so long as to think them his own. Pray ask him for them, and keep them for me, together with the rest. "You have a new crop of prose writers. I see in your papers many of their fictitious names, but nobody tells me the real. You will oblige me by a little of your literary history. Adieu, my dear friend, and believe me ever, yours affectionately, "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_To Francis Hopkinson._ "Paris, Dec 24, 1782. "I thank you for your ingenious paper in favour of the trees. I own I now wish we had two rows of them in every one of our streets. The comfortable shelter they would afford us when walking from our burning summer suns, and the greater coolness of our walls and pavements, would, I conceive, in the improved health of the inhabitants, amply compensate the loss of a house now and then by fire, if such should be the consequence; but a tree is soon felled, and, as axes are near at hand in every neighbourhood, may be down before the engines arrive. "You do well to avoid being concerned in the pieces of personal abuse, so scandalously common in our newspapers, that I am afraid to lend any of them here till I have examined and laid aside such as would disgrace us, and subject us among strangers to a reflection like that used by a gentleman in a coffee-house to two quarrellers, who, after a mutually free use of the words rogue, villain, rascal scoundrel, &c., seemed as if they would refer their dispute to him: 'I know nothing of you or your affairs,' said he; 'I only perceive _that you know one another_.' "The conductor of a newspaper should, methinks, consider himself as in some degree the guardian of his country's reputation, and refuse to insert such writings as may hurt it. If people will print their abuses of one another, let them do it in little pamphlets, and distribute them where they think proper. It is absurd to trouble all the world with them, and unjust to subscribers in distant places, to stuff their paper with matter so unprofitable and so disagreeable. With sincere esteem and affection, I am, my dear friend, ever yours, "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Samuel Huntingdon, President of Congress._ "Passy, March 12, 1781. SIR, I had the honour of receiving, on the 13th of last month, your excellency's letter of the 1st of January, together with the instructions of November 28th and December 27th, a copy of those to Colonel Laurens, and the letter to the king. I immediately drew up a memorial, enforcing as strongly as I could the request contained in that letter, and directed by the instructions, and delivered the same with the letter, which were both well received. * * * "I must now beg leave to say something relating to myself, a subject with which I have not often troubled the Congress. I have passed my seventy-fifth year, and I find that the long and severe fit of the gout which I had the last winter has shaken me exceedingly, and I am yet far from having recovered the bodily strength I before enjoyed. I do not know that my mental faculties are impaired. Perhaps I shall be the last to discover that; but I am sensible of great diminution in my activity, a quality I think particularly necessary in your minister at this court. I am afraid, therefore, that your affairs may some time or other suffer by my deficiency. I find also that the business is too heavy for me, and too confining. The constant attendance at home, which is necessary for receiving and accepting your bills of exchange (a matter foreign to my _ministerial functions_), to answer letters, and perform other parts of my employment, prevents my taking the air and exercise which my annual journeys formerly used to afford me, and which contributed much to the preservation of my health. There are many other little personal attentions which the infirmities of age render necessary to an old man's comfort, even in some degree to the continuance of his existence, and with which business often interferes. I have been engaged in public affairs, and enjoyed public confidence in some shape or other during the long term of fifty years, an honour sufficient to satisfy any reasonable ambition, and I have no other left but that of repose, which I hope the Congress will grant me by sending some person to supply my place. "At the same time, I beg they may be assured that it is not any the least doubt of their success in the glorious cause, nor any disgust received in their service, that induces me to decline it, but purely and simply the reasons above mentioned; and as I cannot at present undergo the fatigues of a sea voyage (the last having been almost too much for me), and would not again expose myself to the hazard of capture and imprisonment in this time of war, I purpose to remain here at least till the peace; perhaps it may be for the remainder of my life; and if any knowledge or experience I have acquired here may be thought of use to my successor, I shall freely communicate it, and assist him with any influence I may be supposed to have or counsel that may be desired of me." * * * * * "_To the Bishop of St. Asaph._[25] [25] Jonathan Shipley took his degrees at Christ Church, and in 1743 was made prebendary of Winchester. After travelling in 1745 with the Duke of Cumberland, he was promoted in 1749 to a canonry at Christ Church, became dean of Winchester in 1760, and 1769 bishop of St. Asaph. He was author of some elegant verses on the death of Queen Caroline, and published besides some poems and sermons, and died 1788. He was an ardent friend of American independence. "Passy, June 10, 1782. "I received and read the letter from my dear and much respected friend with infinite pleasure. After so long a silence, and the long continuance of its unfortunate causes, a line from you was a prognostic of happier times approaching, when we may converse and communicate freely, without danger from the malevolence of men enraged by the ill-success of their distracted projects. "I long with you for the return of peace, on the general principles of humanity. The hope of being able to pass a few more of my last days happily in the sweet conversations and company I once enjoyed at Twyford,[26] is a particular motive that adds strength to the general wish, and quickens my industry to procure that best of blessings. After much occasion to consider the folly and mischiefs of a state of warfare, and the little or no advantage obtained even by those nations who have conducted it with the most success, I have been apt to think that there has never been, nor ever will be, any such thing as a _good_ war or a _bad_ peace. [26] The country residence of the bishop. "You ask if I still relish my old studies? I relish them, but I cannot pursue them. My time is engrossed, unhappily, with other concerns. I requested from the Congress last year my discharge from this public station, that I might enjoy a little leisure in the evening of a long life of business; but it was refused me, and I have been obliged to drudge on a little longer. "You are happy, as your years come on, in having that dear and most amiable family about you. Four daughters! how rich! I have but one, and she necessarily detained from me at a thousand leagues' distance. I feel the want of that tender care of me which might be expected from a daughter, and would give the world for one. Your shades are all placed in a row over my fireplace, so that I not only have you always in my mind, but constantly before my eyes. "The cause of liberty and America has been greatly obliged to you. I hope you will live long to see that country flourish under its new constitution, which I am sure will give you great pleasure. Will you permit me to express another hope that, now your friends are in power, they will take the first opportunity of showing the sense they ought to have of your virtues and your merit? "Please to make my best respects acceptable to Mrs. Shipley, and embrace for me tenderly all our dear children. With the utmost esteem, respect, and veneration, I am ever, my dear friend, yours most affectionately, "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Miss Alexander._ "Passy, June 27, 1782. "I am not at all displeased that the thesis and dedication with which we were threatened are blown over, for I dislike much all sorts of mummery. The republic of letters has gained no reputation, whatever else it may have gained, by the commerce of dedications; I never made one, and never desired that one should be made to me. When I submitted to receive this, it was from the bad habit I have long had, of doing everything that ladies desire me to do: there is no refusing anything to Madame la Marck nor to you. "I have been to pay my respects to that amiable lady, not merely because it was a compliment due to her, but because I love her: which induces me to excuse her not letting me in; the same reason I should have for excusing your faults, if you had any. I have not seen your papa since the receipt of your pleasing letter, so could arrange nothing with him respecting the carriage. During seven or eight days I shall be very busy; after that, you shall hear from me, and the carriage shall be at your service. How could you think of writing to me about chimneys and fires in such weather as this! Now is the time for the frugal lady you mention to save her wood, obtain _plus de chaleur_, and lay it up against winter, as people do ice against summer. Frugality is an enriching virtue, a virtue I never could acquire in myself, but I was once lucky enough to find it in a wife, who thereby became a fortune to me. Do you possess it? If you do, and I were twenty years younger, I would give your father one thousand guineas for you. I know you would be worth more to me as a _menagére_. I am covetous, and love good bargains. Adieu, my dear friend, and believe me ever yours most affectionately, "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Benjamin Vaughan._ "Passy, July 10, 1782. "By the original law of nations, war and extirpation was the punishment of injury. Humanizing by degrees, it admitted slavery instead of death. A farther step was the exchange of prisoners instead of slavery. Another, to respect more the property of private persons under conquest, and to be content with acquired dominion. Why should not the law of nations go on improving? Ages have intervened between its several steps; but, as knowledge of late increases rapidly, why should not those steps be quickened? Why should it not be agreed to as the future law of nations, that in any war hereafter the following descriptions of men should be undisturbed, have the protection of both sides, and be permitted to follow their employments in surety; viz., "1. Cultivators of the earth, because they labour for the subsistence of mankind. "2. Fishermen, for the same reason. "3. Merchants and traders in unarmed ships, who accommodate different nations by communicating and exchanging the necessaries and conveniences of life. "4. Artists and mechanics, inhabiting and working in open towns. "It is hardly necessary to add, that the hospitals of enemies should be unmolested; they ought to be assisted. "In short, I would have nobody fought with but those who are paid for fighting. If obliged to take corn from the farmer, friend or enemy, I would pay him for it; the same for the fish or goods of the others. "This once established, that encouragement to war which arises from a spirit of rapine would be taken away, and peace, therefore, more likely to continue and be lasting. "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Mrs. Hewson._[27] [27] Widow of the eminent anatomist of that name, and formerly Miss Stevenson, to whom several of Dr. Franklin's letters on Philosophical subjects are addressed. "Passy, January 27, 1783. "The departure of my dearest friend,[28] which I learn from your last letter, greatly affects me. To meet with her once more in this life was one of the principal motives of my proposing to visit England again before my return to America. The last year carried off my friends Dr. Pringle and Dr. Fothergill, and Lord Kaimes and Lord Le Despencer; this has begun to take away the rest, and strikes the hardest. Thus the ties I had to that country, and, indeed, to the world in general, are loosened one by one, and I shall soon have no attachment left to make me unwilling to follow. [28] Refers to Mrs. Hewson's mother. "I intended writing when I sent the eleven books, but lost the time in looking for the first. I wrote with that, and hope it came to hand. I therein asked your counsel about my coming to England: on reflection, I think I can, from my knowledge of your prudence, foresee what it will be; viz., not to come too soon, lest it should seem braving and insulting some who ought to be respected. I shall therefore omit that journey till I am near going to America, and then just step over to take leave of my friends, and spend a few days with you. I purpose bringing[29] Ben with me, and perhaps may leave him under your care. [29] Benjamin Franklin Bache, a grandson of Dr. Franklin, by his daughter Sarah; he was the first editor of the AURORA at Philadelphia: died of yellow fever in September, 1798. "At length we are in peace, God be praised; and long, very long may it continue. All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones: when will mankind be convinced of this, and agree to settle their differences by arbitration? Were they to do it even by the cast of a die, it would be better than by fighting and destroying each other. "Spring is coming on, when travelling will be delightful. Can you not, when your children are all at school, make a little party and take a trip hither? I have now a large house, delightfully situated, in which I could accommodate you and two or three friends; and I am but half an hour's drive from Paris. "In looking forward, twenty five years seems a long period; but in looking back, how short! Could you imagine that 'tis now full a quarter of a century since we were first acquainted! it was in 1757. During the greatest part of the time I lived in the same house with my dear deceased friend your mother; of course you and I saw and conversed with each other much and often. It is to all our honours, that in all that time we never had among us the smallest misunderstanding. Our friendship has been all clear sunshine, without the least cloud in its hemisphere. Let me conclude by saying to you what I have had too frequent occasion to say to my other remaining old friends, _the fewer we become, the more let us love one another_. "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_To David Hartley._ "Passy, May 8, 1783. "DEAR FRIEND, "I send you enclosed the copies you desired of the papers I read to you yesterday.[30] I should be happy if I could see, before I die, the proposed improvement of the law of nations established. The miseries of mankind would be diminished by it, and the happiness of millions secured and promoted. If the practice of _privateering_ could be profitable to any civilized nation, it might be so to us Americans, since we are so situated on the globe as that the rich commerce of Europe with the West Indies, consisting of manufactures, sugars, &c., is obliged to pass before our doors, which enables us to make short and cheap cruises, while our own commerce is in such bulky, low-priced articles, as that ten of our ships taken by you are not equal in value to one of yours, and you must come far from home at a great expense to look for them. I hope, therefore, that this proposition, if made by us, will appear in its true light, as having humanity only for its motive. I do not wish to see a new Barbary rising in America, and our long-extended coast occupied by piratical states. I fear lest our privateering success in the last two wars should already have given our people too strong a relish for that most mischievous kind of gaming, mixed blood; and if a stop is not now put to the practice, mankind may hereafter be more plagued with American corsairs than they have been and are with the Turkish. Try, my friend, what you can do in procuring for your nation the glory of being, though the greatest naval power, the first who voluntarily relinquished the advantage that power seems to give them, of plundering others, and thereby impeding the mutual communications among men of the gifts of God, and rendering miserable multitudes of merchants and their families, artisans, and cultivators of the earth, the most peaceable and innocent part of the human species. [30] See the Proposition about Privateering, annexed to letter to R. Oswald. January 14, 1783. B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Dr. Percival._ "Passy, July 17, 1784. "DEAR SIR, "I received yesterday, by Mr. White, your kind letter of May 11th, with the most agreeable present of your new book. I read it all before I slept, which is a proof of the good effects your happy manner has of drawing your reader on, by mixing little anecdotes and historical facts with your instructions. Be pleased to accept my grateful acknowledgments for the pleasure it has afforded me. "It is astonishing that the murderous practice of duelling, which you so justly condemn, should continue so long in vogue. Formerly, when duels were used to determine lawsuits, from an opinion that Providence would in every instance favour truth and right with victory, they were excusable. At present they decide nothing. A man says something which another tells him is a lie. They fight; but, whichever is killed, the point in dispute remains unsettled. * * * How can such miserable sinners as we are entertain so much pride as to conceit that every offence against our imagined honour merits _death_? These petty princes, in their own opinion, would call that sovereign a tyrant who would put one of them to death for a little uncivil language, though pointed at his sacred person: yet every one of them makes himself judge in his own cause, condemns the offender without a jury, and undertakes himself to be the executioner. "With sincere and great esteem, I have the honour to be, sir, your most obedient and humble servant, B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Sir Joseph Banks._ "Passy, July 27, 1783. "DEAR SIR, "I received your very kind letter by Dr. Blagden, and esteem myself much honoured by your friendly remembrance. I have been too much and too closely engaged in public affairs since his being here to enjoy all the benefit of his conversation you were so good as to intend me. I hope soon to have more leisure, and to spend a part of it in those studies that are much more agreeable to me than political operations. "I join with you most cordially in rejoicing at the return of peace. I hope it will be lasting, and that mankind will at length, as they call themselves reasonable creatures, have reason and sense enough to settle their differences without cutting throats: for, in my opinion, _there never was a good war nor a bad peace_. What vast additions to the conveniences and comforts of living might mankind have acquired, if the money spent in wars had been employed in works of public utility. What an extension of agriculture even to the tops of our mountains; what rivers rendered navigable, or joined by canals; what bridges, aqueducts, new roads, and other public works, edifices and improvements, rendering England a complete paradise, might not have been obtained, by spending those millions in doing good which in the last war have been spent in doing mischief; in bringing misery into thousands of families, and destroying the lives of so many thousands of working people, who might have performed the useful labour! "I am pleased with the late astronomical discoveries made by our society. Furnished as all Europe now is with academies of science, with nice instruments and the spirit of experiment, the progress of human knowledge will be rapid, and discoveries made of which we have at present no conception. I begin to be almost sorry I was born so soon, since I cannot have the happiness of knowing what will be known one hundred years hence. "I wish continued success to the labours of the Royal Society, and that you may long adorn their chair; being, with the highest esteem, dear sir, &c. "B. FRANKLIN." "Dr. Blagden will acquaint you with the experiment of a vast globe sent up into the air, much talked of here, and which, if prosecuted, may furnish means of new knowledge." * * * * * "_Robert Morris, Esq._ (Superintendent of Finances, United States.) "Passy, Dec. 25, 1783. "The remissness of our people in paying taxes is highly blameable, the unwillingness to pay them is still more so. I see in some resolutions of town meetings a remonstrance against giving Congress a power to take, as they call it, _the people's money_ out of their pockets, though only to pay the interest and principal of debts duly contracted. They seem to mistake the point. Money justly due from the people is their creditor's money, and no longer the money of the people, who, if they withhold it, should be compelled to pay by some law. All property, indeed, except the savages' temporary cabin, his bow, his matchuat, and other little acquisitions absolutely necessary for his subsistence, seems to me to be the creature of public convention. Hence the public has the right of regulating descents, and all other conveyances of property, and even of limiting the quantity and the uses of it. All the property that is necessary to a man for the conservation of the individual and the propagation of the species, is his natural right, which none can justly deprive him of; but all property superfluous to such purposes is the property of the public, who, by their laws, have created it, and who may therefore, by other laws, dispose of it whenever the welfare of the public shall desire such disposition. He that does not like civil society on these terms, let him retire and live among savages. He can have no right to the benefits of society who will not pay his club towards the support of it. "The Marquis de Lafayette, who loves to be employed in our affairs, and is often very useful, has lately had several conversations with the ministers and persons concerned in forming new regulations respecting the commerce between our two countries, which are not yet concluded. I thought it therefore, well to communicate to him a copy of your letter which contains so many sensible and just observations on that subject. He will make a proper use of them, and perhaps they may have more weight, as appearing to come from a Frenchman, than they would have if it were known that they were the observations of an American. I perfectly agree with all the sentiments you have expressed on this occasion. "I am sorry, for the public's sake, that you are about to quit your office, but on personal considerations I shall congratulate you. For I cannot conceive of a more happy man than he who, having been long loaded with public cares, finds himself relieved from them, and enjoying private repose in the bosom of his friends and family. "With sincere regard and attachment, I am ever, dear sir, yours, &c., B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_To Dr. Mather, Boston._ "Passy, May 12, 1784. "REV. SIR, "I received your kind letter with your excellent advice to the people of the United States, which I read with great pleasure, and hope it will be duly regarded. Such writings, though they may be lightly passed over by many readers, yet if they make a deep impression on one active mind in a hundred, the effects may be considerable. Permit me to mention one little instance, which, though it relates to myself, will not be quite uninteresting to you. When I was a boy I met with a book entitled _Essays to do Good_, which I think was written by your father. It had been so little regarded by a former possessor, that several leaves of it were torn out: but the remainder gave me such a turn of thinking as to have an influence on my conduct through life; for I have always set a greater value on the character of a _doer of good_, than on any other kind of reputation; and if I have been, as you seem to think, a useful citizen, the public owes the advantage of it to that book. You mention your being in your 78th year: I am in my 79th; we are grown old together. It is now more than sixty years since I left Boston, but I remember well both your father and grandfather, having heard them both in the pulpit, and seen them in their houses. The last time I saw your father was in the beginning of 1724, when I visited him after my first trip to Pennsylvania. He received me in his library, and on my taking leave showed me a shorter way out of the house through a narrow passage, which crossed by a beam over head. We were still talking as I withdrew, he accompanying me behind, and I turning partly towards him, when he said hastily, _Stoop, stoop!_ I did not understand him till I felt my head hit against the beam. He was a man that never missed any occasion of giving instruction, and upon this he said to me, _You are young, and have the world before you_; STOOP _as you go through it, and you will miss many hard thumps_. This advice, thus beat into my head, has frequently been of use to me; and I often think of it when I see pride mortified, and misfortunes brought upon people by their carrying their heads too high. "I long much to see again my native place, and to lay my bones there. I left it in 1723; I visited it in 1733, 1743, 1753, and 1763. In 1773 I was in England; in 1775 I had a sight of it, but could not enter, it being in possession of the enemy. I did hope to have been there in 1783, but could not obtain my dismission from this employment here; and now I fear I shall never have that happiness. My best wishes, however, attend my dear country. _Esto perpetua_. It is now blessed with an excellent constitution; may it last for ever! * * * "With great and sincere esteem, I have the honour to be, &c., B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_To William Strahan, M. P._ "Passy, August 19, 1784. "DEAR FRIEND, "I received your kind letter of April 17. You will have the goodness to place my delay in answering to the account of indisposition and business, and excuse it. I have now that letter before me; and my grandson, whom you may formerly remember a little scholar at Mr. Elphinston's, purposing to set out in a day or two on a visit to his father in London, I sit down to scribble a little to you, first recommending him as a worthy young man to your civilities and counsels. "You press me much to come to England. I am not without strong inducements to do so; the fund of knowledge you promise to communicate to me is, in addition to them, no small one. At present it is impracticable. But when my grandson returns, come with him. We will talk the matter over, and perhaps you may take me back with you. I have a bed at your service, and will try to make your residence, while you can stay with us, as agreeable to you, if possible, as I am sure it will be to me. "You do not 'approve the annihilation of profitable places; for you do not see why a statesman who does his business well should not be paid for his labour as well as any other workman.' Agreed. But why more than any other workman? The less the salary the greater the honour. In so great a nation there are many rich enough to afford giving their time to the public; and there are, I make no doubt, many wise and able men who would take as much pleasure in governing for nothing, as they do in playing of chess for nothing. It would be one of the noblest amusements. That this opinion is not chimerical, the country I now live in affords a proof; its whole civil and criminal law administration being done for nothing, or, in some sense, for less than nothing, since the members of its judiciary parliaments buy their places, and do not make more than three per cent. for their money by their fees and emoluments, while the legal interest is five; so that, in fact, they give two per cent. to be allowed to govern, and all their time and trouble into the bargain. Thus _profit_, one motive for desiring place, being abolished, there remains only _ambition_; and that being in some degree balanced by _loss_, you may easily conceive that there will not be very violent factions and contentions for such places; nor much of the mischief to the country that attends your factions, which have often occasioned wars, and overloaded you with debts impayable. "I allow you all the force of your joke upon the vagrancy of our Congress. They have a right to sit _where_ they please, of which, perhaps, they have made too much use by shifting too often. But they have two other rights; those of sitting _when_ they please and as _long_ as they please, in which, methinks, they have the advantage of your Parliament; for they cannot be dissolved by the breath of a minister, or sent packing, as you were the other day, when it was your earnest desire to have remained longer together. "You 'fairly acknowledge that the late war terminated quite contrary to your expectation.' Your expectation was ill-founded; for you would not believe your old friend, who told you repeatedly, that by those measures England would lose her colonies, as Epictetus warned in vain his master that he would break his leg. You believed rather the tales you heard of our poltroonery and impotence of body and mind. Do you not remember the story you told me of the Scotch sergeant who met with a party of forty American soldiers, and, though alone, disarmed them all and brought them in prisoners? a story almost as improbable as that of an Irishman, who pretended to have alone taken and brought in five of the enemy by _surrounding_ them. And yet, my friend, sensible and judicious as you are, but partaking of the general infatuation, you seemed to believe it. The word _general_ puts me in mind of a general, your General Clarke, who had the folly to say in my hearing, at Sir John Pringle's, that with a thousand British grenadiers he would undertake to go from one end of America to the other, and geld all the males, partly by force and partly by a little coaxing. It is plain he took us for a species of animals very little superior to brutes. The Parliament, too, believed the stories of another foolish general, I forget his name, that the Yankees never _felt bold_. Yankee was understood to be a sort of Yahoo, and the Parliament did not think the petitions of such creatures were fit to be received and read in so wise an assembly. What was the consequence of this monstrous pride and insolence? You first sent small armies to subdue us, believing them more than sufficient, but soon found yourselves obliged to send greater; these, whenever they ventured to penetrate our country beyond the protection of their ships, were ether repulsed and obliged to scamper out, or were surrounded, beaten, and taken prisoners. An American planter, who had never seen Europe, was chosen by us to command our troops, and continued during the whole war. This man sent home to you, one after another, five of your best generals baffled, their heads bare of laurels, disgraced even in the opinion of their employers. Your contempt of our understandings, in comparison with your own, appeared to be much better founded than that of our courage, if we may judge by this circumstance, that in whatever court of Europe a Yankee negotiator appeared, the wise British minister was routed, put in a passion, picked a quarrel with your friends, and was sent home with a flea in his ear. But, after all, my dear friend, do not imagine that I am vain enough to ascribe our success to any superiority in any of those points. I am too well acquainted with all the springs and levers of our machine not to see that our human means were unequal to our undertaking, and that, if it had not been for the justice of our cause, and the consequent interposition of Providence, in which we had faith, we must have been ruined. If I had ever before been an Atheist, I should now have been convinced of the being and government of a Deity! It is he that abases the proud and favours the humble. May we never forget his goodness to us, and may our future conduct manifest our gratitude! "But let us leave these serious reflections and converse with our usual pleasantry. I remember your observing once to me, as we sat together in the House of Commons, that no two journeymen printers within your knowledge had met with such success in the world as ourselves. You were then at the head of your profession, and soon afterward became member of Parliament. I was an agent for a few provinces, and now act for them all. But we have risen by different modes. I, as a republican printer, always liked a form well _planed down_; being averse to those _overbearing_ letters that hold their heads so _high_ as to hinder their neighbours from appearing. You, as a monarchist, chose to work upon _crown_ paper, and found it profitable; while I worked upon _pro patria_ (often, indeed, called _foolscap_) with no less advantage. Both our _heaps hold out_ very well, and we seem likely to make a pretty good _day's work_ of it. With regard to public affairs (to continue in the same style), it seems to me that your _compositors_ in your _chapel_ do not _cast off their copy well_, nor perfectly understand _imposing_: their _forms_, too, are continually pestered by the _outs_ and _doubles_ that are not easy to be _corrected_. And I think they were wrong in laying aside some _faces_, and particularly certain _headpieces_, that would have been both useful and ornamental. But, courage! The business may still flourish with good management, and the master become as rich as any of the company. * * "I am ever, my dear friend, yours most affectionately, B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_George Wheatley._ "Passy, May 23, 1785. "DEAR OLD FRIEND, "I sent you a few lines the other day with the medallion, when I should have written more, but was prevented by the coming in of a _bavard_, who worried me till evening. I bore with him, and now you are to bear with me: for I shall probably _bavarder_ in answering your letter. "I am not acquainted with the saying of Alphonsus, which you allude to as a sanctification of your rigidity in refusing to allow me the plea of old age as an excuse for my want of exactness in correspondence. What was that saying? You do not, it seems, feel any occasion for such an excuse, though you are, as you say, rising 75. But I am rising (perhaps more properly falling) 80, and I leave the excuse with you till you arrive at that age; perhaps you may then be more sensible of its validity, and see fit to use it for yourself. "I must agree with you that the gout is bad, and that the stone is worse. I am happy in not having them both together, and I join in your prayer that you may live till you die without either. But I doubt the author of the epitaph you send me was a little mistaken, when he, speaking of the world, says that "'He ne'er cared a pin What they said or may say of the mortal within.' "It is so natural to wish to be well spoken of, whether alive or dead, that I imagine he could not be quite exempt from that desire; and that at least he wished to be thought a wit, or he would not have given himself the trouble of writing so good an epitaph to leave behind him. Was it not as worthy of his care that the world should say he was an honest and a good man? I like better the concluding sentiment in the old song, called the _Old Man's Wish_, wherein, after wishing for a warm house in a country town, an easy horse, some good authors, ingenious and cheerful companions, a pudding on Sundays, with stout ale and a bottle of Burgundy, &c., &c., in separate stanzas, each ending with this burden, "'May I govern my passons with absolute sway, Grow wiser and better as my strength wears away, Without gout or stone, by a gentle decay.' He adds, "'With a courage undaunted may I face my last day, And when I am gone may the better sort say, In the morning when sober, in the evening when mellow. He's gone, and has not left behind him his fellow. For he governed his passions,' &c. "But what signifies our wishing? Things happen, after all, as they will happen. I have sung that _wishing song_ a thousand times when I was young, and now find at fourscore that the three contraries have befallen me, being subject to the gout and the stone, and not being yet master of all my passions. Like the proud girl in my country, who wished and resolved not to marry a parson, nor a Presbyterian, nor an Irishman, and at last found herself married to an Irish Presbyterian parson. You see I have some reason to wish that, in a future state, I may not only be _as well as I was_, but a little better. And I hope it: for I too, with your poet, _trust in God_. And when I observe that there is great frugality as well as wisdom in his works, since he has been evidently sparing both of labour and materials; for, by the various wonderful inventions of propagation, he has provided for the continual peopling his world with plants and animals, without being at the trouble of repeated new creations; and by the natural reduction of compound substances to their original elements, capable of being employed in new compositions, he has prevented the necessity of creating new matter; for that the earth, water, air, and perhaps fire, which, being compounded from wood, do, when the wood is dissolved, return, and again become air, earth, fire, and water: I say, that when I see nothing annihilated, and not even a drop of water wasted, I cannot suspect the annihilation of souls, or believe that he will suffer the daily waste of millions of minds ready made that now exist, and put himself to the continual trouble of making new ones. Thus, finding myself to exist in the world, I believe I shall, in some shape or other, always exist: and with all the inconveniences human life is liable to, I shall not object to a new edition of mine; hoping, however, that the errata of the last may be corrected. * * * "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_David Hartley._ "Passy, July 5, 1785. "I cannot quit the coasts of Europe without taking leave of my ever dear friend Mr. Hartley. We were long fellow-labourers in the best of all works, the work of peace. I leave you still in the field, but, having finished my day's task, I am going home _to go to bed_. Wish me a good night's rest, as I do you a pleasant evening. Adieu! and believe me ever yours most affectionately, "B. FRANKLIN, "In his 80th year" * * * * * "_To the Bishop of St. Asaph._ "Philadelphia, Feb. 24, 1786. "DEAR FRIEND, "I received lately your kind letter of November 27. My reception here was, as you have heard, very honourable indeed; but I was betrayed by it, and by some remains of ambition, from which I had imagined myself free, to accept of the chair of government for the State of Pennsylvania, when the proper thing for me was repose and a private life. I hope, however, to be able to bear the fatigue for one year, and then retire. "I have much regretted our having so little opportunity for conversation when we last met.[31] You could have given me informations and counsels that I wanted, but we were scarce a minute together without being broken in upon. I am to thank you, however, for the pleasure I had, after our parting, in reading the new book[32] you gave me, which I think generally well written and likely to do good: though the reading time of most people is of late so taken up with newspapers and little periodical pamphlets, that few nowadays venture to attempt reading a quarto volume. I have admired to see that in the last century a folio, _Burton on Melancholy_, went through six editions in about forty years. We have, I believe, more readers now, but not of such large books. [31] At Southampton, previous to Dr. Franklin's embarking for the United States. [32] Paley's Moral Philosophy. "You seem desirous of knowing what progress we make here in improving our governments. We are, I think, in the right road of improvement, for we are making experiments. I do not oppose all that seem wrong, for the multitude are more effectually set right by experience, than kept from going wrong by reasoning with them. And I think we are daily more and more enlightened; so that I have no doubt of our obtaining, in a few years, as much public felicity as good government is capable of affording. * * * * "As to my domestic circumstances, of which you kindly desire to hear something, they are at present as happy as I could wish them. I am surrounded by my offspring, a dutiful and affectionate daughter in my house, with six grandchildren, the eldest of which you have seen, who is now at college in the next street, finishing the learned part of his education; the others promising both for parts and good dispositions. What their conduct may be when they grow up and enter the important scenes of life, I shall not live to _see_, and I cannot _foresee_. I therefore enjoy among them the present hour, and leave the future to Providence. "He that raises a large family does, indeed, while he lives to observe them, _stand_, as Watts says, _a broader mark for sorrow_; but then he stands a broader mark for pleasure too. When we launch our little fleet of barks into the ocean, bound to different ports, we hope for each a prosperous voyage; but contrary winds, hidden shoals, storms, and enemies, come in for a share in the disposition of events; and though these occasion a mixture of disappointment, yet, considering the risk where we can make no ensurance, we should think ourselves happy if some return with success. My son's son (Temple Franklin), whom you have also seen, having had a fine farm of 600 acres conveyed to him by his father when we were at Southampton, has dropped for the present his views of acting in the political line, and applies himself ardently to the study and practice of agriculture. This is much more agreeable to me, who esteem it the most useful, the most independent, and, therefore, the noblest of employments. His lands are on navigable water, communicating with the Delaware, and but about 16 miles from this city. He has associated to himself a very skilful English farmer, lately arrived here, who is to instruct him in the business, and partakes for a term of the profits; so that there is a great apparent probability of their success. You will kindly expect a word or two about myself. My health and spirits continue, thanks to God, as when you saw me. The only complaint I then had does not grow worse, and is tolerable. I still have enjoyment in the company of my friends; and, being easy in my circumstances, have many reasons to like living. But the course of nature must soon put a period to my present mode of existence. This I shall submit to with less regret, as having seen, during a long life, a good deal of this world, I feel a growing curiosity to be acquainted with some other; and can cheerfully, with filial confidence, resign my spirit to the conduct of that great and good Parent of mankind who created it, and who has so graciously protected and prospered me from my birth to the present hour. Wherever I am, I always hope to retain the pleasing remembrance of your friendship; being, with sincere and great esteem, my dear friend, yours most affectionately, "B. FRANKLIN. "We all join in respects to Mrs. Shipley." * * * * * "_Mrs. Hewson, London._ "Philadelphia, May 6, 1786. "MY DEAR FRIEND, "A long winter has passed, and I have not had the pleasure of a line from you, acquainting me with your and your childrens' welfare, since I left England. I suppose you have been in Yorkshire, out of the way and knowledge of opportunities, for I will not think you have forgotten me. To make me some amends, I received a few days past a large packet from Mr. Williams, dated September, 1776, near ten years since, containing three letters from you, one of December 12, 1775. This packet had been received by Mr. Bache after my departure for France, lay dormant among his papers during all my absence, and has just now broke out upon me _like words_ that had been, as somebody says, _congealed in Northern air_. Therein I find all the pleasing little family history of your children; how William had began to spell, overcoming by strength of memory all the difficulty occasioned by the common wretched alphabet, while you were convinced of the utility of our new one. How Tom, genius-like, struck out new paths, and, relinquishing the old names of the letters, called U _bell_ and P _bottle_. How Eliza began to grow jolly, that is, fat and handsome, resembling Aunt Rooke, whom I used to call _my lovely_. Together with all the _then_ news of Lady Blunt's having produced at length a boy; of Dolly's being well, and of poor good Catharine's decease. Of your affairs with Muir and Atkinson, and of their contract for feeding the fish in the Channel. Of the Vinys, and their jaunt to Cambridge in the long carriages. Of Dolly's journey to Wales with Mr. Scot. Of the Wilkeses, the Pearces, Elphinston, &c., &c. Concluding with a kind promise that, as soon as the ministry and Congress agreed to make peace, I should have you with me in America. That peace has been some time made, but, alas! the promise is not yet fulfilled. And why is it not fulfilled? "I have found my family here in health, good circumstances, and well respected by their fellow-citizens. The companions of my youth are indeed almost all departed, but I find an agreeable society among their children and grandchildren. I have public business enough to preserve me from _ennui_, and private amusement besides, in conversation, books, and my garden. Considering our well-furnished plentiful market as the best of gardens, I am turning mine, in the midst of which my house stands, into grassplats and gravel-walks, with trees and flowering shrubs. * * * "Temple has turned his thoughts to agriculture, which he pursues ardently, being in possession of a fine farm that his father lately conveyed to him. Ben is finishing his studies at college, and continues to behave as well as when you knew him, so that I still think he will make you a good son. His younger brothers and sisters are also all promising, appearing to have good tempers and dispositions, as well as good constitutions. As to myself, I think my general health and spirits rather better than when you saw me, and the particular malady I then complained of continues tolerable. With sincere and very great esteem, I am ever, my dear friend, yours most affectionately, "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_To M. Veillard._ "Philadelphia, April 15, 1787 "MY DEAR FRIEND, "I am quite of your opinion, that our independence is not quite complete till we have discharged our public debt. This state is not behindhand in its proportion, and those who are in arrear are actually employed in contriving means to discharge their respective balances; but they are not all equally diligent in the business, nor equally successful; the whole will, however, be paid, I am persuaded, in a few years. "The English have not yet delivered up the posts on our frontier agreeable to treaty; the pretence is, that our merchants here have not paid their debts. I was a little provoked when I first heard this, and I wrote some remarks upon it, which I send you: they have been written near a year, but I have not yet published them, being unwilling to encourage any of our people who may be able to pay in their neglect of that duty. The paper is therefore only for your amusement, and that of our excellent friend the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. "As to my malady, concerning which you so kindly inquire, I have never had the least doubt of its being the stone, and I am sensible that it has increased; but, on the whole, it does not give me more pain than when at Passy. People who live long, who will drink of the cup of life to the very bottom, must expect to meet with some of the usual dregs; and when I reflect on the number of terrible maladies human nature is subject to, I think myself favoured in having to my share only the stone and gout. "You were right in conjecturing that I wrote the remarks on the '_thoughts concerning executive justice_.' I have no copy of these remarks at hand, and forget how the saying was introduced, that it is better a thousand guilty persons should escape than one innocent suffer. Your criticisms thereon appear to be just, and I imagine you may have misapprehended my intention in mentioning it. I always thought with you, that the prejudice in Europe, which supposes a family dishonoured by the punishment of one of its members, was very absurd, it being, on the contrary, my opinion, that a rogue hanged out of a family does it more honour than ten that live in it. B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Mr. Jordain._ "Philadelphia, May 18, 1787. "DEAR SIR, "I received your very kind letter of February 27, together with the cask of porter you have been so good as to send me. We have here at present what the French call _une assemblée des notables_, a convention composed of some of the principal people from the several states of our confederation. They did me the honour of dining with me last Wednesday, when the cask was broached, and its contents met with the most cordial reception and universal approbation. In short, the company agreed unanimously that it was the best porter they had ever tasted. Accept my thanks, a poor return, but all I can make at present. "Your letter reminds me of many happy days we have passed together, and the dear friends with whom we passed them; some of whom, alas! have left us, and we must regret their loss, although our Hawkesworth[33] is become an adventurer in more happy regions; and our Stanley[34] gone, 'where only his own _harmony_ can be exceeded.' You give me joy in telling me that you are 'on the pinnacle of _content_.' Without it no situation can be happy; with it, any. One means of becoming content with one's situation is the comparing it with a worse Thus, when I consider how many terrible diseases the human body is liable to, I comfort myself that only three incurable ones have fallen to my share, the gout, the stone, and old age; and that these have not yet deprived me of my natural cheerfulness, my delight in books, and enjoyment of social conversation. [33] John Hawkesworth, LL.D., author of the Adventurer, and compiler of the account of the Discoveries made in the South Seas by Captain Cook. [34] John Stanley, an eminent musician and composer, though he became blind at the age of two years. "I am glad to hear that Mr. Fitzmaurice is married, and has an amiable lady and children. It is a better plan than that he once proposed, of getting Mrs. Wright to make him a waxwork wife to sit at the head of his table. For, after all, wedlock is the natural state of man. A bachelor is not a complete human being. He is like the odd half of a pair of scissors, which has not yet found its fellow, and, therefore, is not even half so useful as they might be together. "I hardly know which to admire most, the wonderful discoveries made by Herschel, or the indefatigable ingenuity by which he has been enabled to make them. Let us hope, my friend, that, when free from these bodily embarrassments, we may roam together through some of the systems he has explored, conducted by some of our old companions already acquainted with them. Hawkesworth will enliven our progress with his cheerful, sensible converse, and Stanley accompany the music of the spheres. "Mr. Watraaugh tells me, for I immediately inquired after her, that your daughter is alive and well. I remember her a most promising and beautiful child, and therefore do not wonder that she is grown, as he says, a fine woman. "God bless her and you, my dear friend, and everything that pertains to you, is the sincere prayer of yours most affectionately, "B. FRANKLIN, "In his 82d year." * * * * * "_To Miss Hubbard._ "I condole with you. We have lost a most dear and valuable relation. But it is the will of God and nature that these mortal bodies be laid aside, when the soul is to enter into real life. This is rather an embryo state, a preparation for living. A man is not completely born until he be dead. Why, then, should we grieve that a new child is born among the immortals, a new member added to their happy society? We are spirits. That bodies should be lent us while they can afford us pleasure, to assist us in acquiring knowledge, or doing good to our fellow-creatures, is a kind and benevolent act of God. When they become unfit for these purposes, and afford us pain instead of pleasure, instead of an aid become an encumbrance, and answer none of the intentions for which they were given, it is equally kind and benevolent that a way is provided by which we may get rid of them. Death is that way. We ourselves, in some cases, prudently choose a partial death. A mangled, painful limb, which cannot be restored, we willingly cut off. He who plucks out a tooth, parts with it freely, since the pain goes with it; and he who quits the whole body, parts at once with all pains, and possibilities of pains and diseases it was liable to, or capable of making him suffer. "Our friend and we were invited abroad on a party of pleasure which is to last for ever. His chair was ready first, and he is gone before us. We could not all conveniently start together; and why should you and I be grieved at this, since we are soon to follow, and know where to find him? "Adieu, B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_To George Wheatley._ "Philadelphia, May 18, 1787. "I received duly my good old friend's letter of the 19th of February. I thank you much for your notes on banks; they are just and solid, as far as I can judge of them. Our bank here has met with great opposition, partly from envy, and partly from those who wish an emission of more paper money, which they think the bank influence prevents. But it has stood all attacks, and went on well, notwithstanding the Assembly repealed its charter. A new Assembly has restored it, and the management is so prudent that I have no doubt of its continuing to go on well: the dividend has never been less than six per cent., nor will that be augmented for some time, as the surplus profit is reserved to face accidents. The dividend of eleven per cent., which was once made, was from a circumstance scarce unavoidable. A new company was proposed, and prevented only by admitting a number of new partners. As many of the first set were averse to this and chose to withdraw, it was necessary to settle their accounts; so all were adjusted, the profits shared that had been accumulated, and the new and old proprietors jointly began on a new and equal footing. Their notes are always instantly paid on demand, and pass on all occasions as readily as silver, because they will produce silver. "Your medallion is in good company; it is placed with those of Lord Chatham, Lord Camden. Marquis of Rockingham, Sir George Saville, and some others who honoured me with a show of friendly regard when in England. I believe I have thanked you for it, but I thank you again. "I believe with you, that if our plenipo. is desirous of concluding a treaty of commerce, he may need patience. If I were in his place and not otherwise instructed, I should be apt to say 'take your own time, gentlemen.' If the treaty cannot be made as much to your advantage as ours, don't make it. I am sure the want of it is not more to our disadvantage than to yours. Let the merchants on both sides treat with one another. _Laissez les faire._ "I have never considered attentively the Congress's scheme for coining, and I have it not now at hand, so that at present I can say nothing to it. The chief uses of coining seem to be the ascertaining the fineness of the metals, and saving the time that would otherwise be spent in weighing to ascertain the quantity. But the convenience of fixed values to pieces is so great as to force the currency of some whose stamp is worn off, that should have assured their fineness, and which are evidently not of half their due weight; the case at present with the sixpences in England, which, one with another, do not weigh threepence. "You are now 78, and I am 82; you tread fast upon my heels; but, though you have more strength and spirit, you cannot come up with me until I stop, which must now be soon; for I am grown so old as to have buried most of the friends of my youth; and I now often hear persons whom I knew when children, called _old_ Mr. Such-a-one, to distinguish them from their sons, now men grown and in business; so that, by living twelve years beyond David's period, I seem to have intruded myself into the company of posterity when I ought to have been abed and asleep. Yet, had I gone at seventy, it would have cut off twelve of the most active years of my life, employed, too, in matters of the greatest importance; but whether I have been doing good or mischief is for time to discover. I only know that I intended well, and I hope all will end well. "Be so good as to present my affectionate respects to Dr. Riley. I am under great obligations to him, and shall write to him shortly. It will be a pleasure to him to know that my malady does not grow sensibly worse, and that is a great point; for it has always been so tolerable as not to prevent my enjoying the pleasures of society, and being cheerful in conversation; I owe this in a great measure to his good counsels. "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_B. Vaughan._ "October 24, 1788. "Having now finished my term in the presidentship, and resolving to engage no more in public affairs, I hope to be a better correspondent for the little time I have to live. I am recovering from a long-continued gout, and am diligently employed in writing the History of my Life, to the doing of which the persuasions contained in your letter of January 31, 1783, have not a little contributed. I am now in the year 1756, just before I was sent to England. To shorten the work, as well as for other reasons, I omit all facts and transactions that may not have a tendency to benefit the young reader, by showing him from my example, and my success in emerging from poverty, and acquiring some degree of wealth, power, and reputation, the advantages of certain modes of conduct which I observed, and of avoiding the errors which were prejudicial to me. If a writer can judge properly of his own work, I fancy, on reading over what is already done, that the book may be found entertaining and useful, more so than I expected when I began it. If my present state of health continues, I hope to finish it this winter: when done, you shall have a manuscript copy of it, that I may obtain from your judgment and friendship such remarks as may contribute to its improvement. "The violence of our party debates about the new constitution seems much abated, indeed almost extinct, and we are getting fast into good order. I kept out of those disputes pretty well, having wrote only one piece, which I send you enclosed. "I regret the immense quantity of misery brought upon mankind by this Turkish war; and I am afraid the King of Sweden may burn his fingers by attacking Russia. When will princes learn arithmetic enough to calculate, if they want pieces of one another's territory, how much cheaper it would be to buy them than to make war for them, even though they were to give a hundred years' purchase; but if glory cannot be valued, and, therefore, the wars for it cannot be subject to arithmetical calculation, so as to show their advantages or disadvantages, at least wars for trade, which have gain for their object, may be proper subjects for such computation; and a trading nation, as well as a single trader, ought to calculate the probabilities of profit and loss before engaging in any considerable adventure. This, however, nations seldom do, and we have had frequent instances of their spending more money in wars for acquiring or securing branches of commerce, than a hundred years' profit, or the full enjoyment of them can compensate. * * "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_To the President of Congress._ "Philadelphia, Nov. 29, 1788. "SIR, "When I had the honour of being the minister of the United States at the court of France, Mr. Barclay arriving there, brought me the following resolution of Congress: "'Resolved, That a commissioner be appointed by Congress with full power and authority to liquidate and _finally to settle_ the accounts of all the servants of the United States who have been intrusted with the expenditure of public money in Europe, and to commence and prosecute such suits, causes, and actions as may be necessary for that purpose, or for the recovery of any property of the said United States in the hands of any person or persons whatsoever. "'That the said commissioner be authorized to appoint one or more clerks, with such allowance as he may think reasonable. "'That the said commissioner and clerks respectively take an oath, before some person duly authorized to administer an oath, faithfully to execute the trust reposed in them respectively. "'Congress proceeded to the election of a commissioner, and ballots being taken, Mr. T. Barclay was elected.' "In pursuance of this resolution, and as soon as Mr. Barclay was at leisure from more pressing business, I rendered to him all my accounts, which he examined and stated methodically. By his statements he found a balance due to me on the 4th May, 1785, of 7533 livres, 19 sols, 3 deniers, which I accordingly received of the Congress Bank; the difference between my statement and his being only seven sols, which by mistake I had overcharged, about threepence halfpenny sterling. "At my request, however, the accounts were left open for the consideration of Congress, and not finally settled, there being some articles on which I desired their judgment, and having some equitable demands, as I thought them, for extra services, which he had not conceived himself empowered to allow, and therefore I did not put them in my account. He transmitted the accounts to Congress, and had advice of their being received. On my arrival at Philadelphia, one of the first things I did was to despatch my grandson, W. T. Franklin, to New-York, to obtain a final settlement of those accounts, he having long acted as my secretary, and, being well acquainted with the transactions, was able to give an explanation of the articles that might seem to require explaining, if any such there were. He returned without effecting the settlement, being told that it would not be made till the arrival of some documents expected from France. What those documents were I have not been informed, nor can I readily conceive, as all the vouchers existing there had been examined by Mr. Barclay. And I having been immediately after my arrival engaged in public business of this state, I waited in expectation of hearing from Congress, in case any part of my accounts had been objected to. "It is now more than three years that those accounts have been before that honourable body, and to this day no notice of any such objection has been communicated to me. But reports have for some time past been circulated here, and propagated in newspapers, that I am greatly indebted to the United States for large sums that had been put into my hands, and that I avoid a settlement. "This, together with the little time one of my age may expect to live, makes it necessary for me to request earnestly, which I hereby do, that the Congress would be pleased, without farther delay, to examine those accounts, and if they find therein any article or articles which they do not understand or approve, that they would cause me to be acquainted with the same, that I may have an opportunity of offering such explanations or reasons in support of them as may be in my power, and then that the account may be finally closed. "I hope the Congress will soon be able to attend to this business for the satisfaction of the public, as well as in condescension to my request. In the mean time, if there be no impropriety in it, I would desire that this letter, together with another on the same subject, the copy of which is hereto annexed, be put upon their minutes. "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Mrs. Green._ "Philadelphia, March 2, 1789. "DEAR FRIEND, "Having now done with public affairs, which have hitherto taken up so much of my time, I shall endeavour to enjoy, during the small remainder of life that is left to me, some of the pleasures of conversing with my old friends by writing, since their distance prevents my hope of seeing them again. "I received one of the bags of sweet corn you was so good as to send me a long time since, but the other never came to hand; even the letter mentioning it, though dated December 10, 1787, has been above a year on its way, for I received it but about two weeks since from Baltimore, in Maryland. The corn I did receive was excellent, and gave me great pleasure. Accept my hearty thanks. "I am, as you suppose in the above-mentioned old letter, much pleased to hear that my young friend Ray is 'smart in the farming way,' and makes such substantial fences. I think agriculture the most honourable of all employments, being the most independent. The farmer has no need of popular favour, nor the favour of the great; the success of his crops depending only on the blessing of God upon his honest industry. I congratulate your good spouse, that he as well as myself is now free from public cares, and that he can bend his whole attention to his farming, which will afford him both profit and pleasure; a business which nobody knows better how to manage with advantage. I am too old to follow printing again myself, but, loving the business, I have brought up my grandson Benjamin to it, and have built and furnished a printing-house for him, which he now manages under my eye. I have great pleasure in the rest of my grandchildren, who are now in number eight, and all promising, the youngest only six months old, but shows signs of great good-nature. My friends here are numerous, and I enjoy as much of their conversation as I can reasonably wish; and I have as much health and cheerfulness as can well be expected at my age, now eighty-two. Hitherto this long life has been tolerably happy, so that, if I were allowed to live it over again, I should make no objection, only wishing for leave to do, what authors do in a second edition of their works, correct some of my errata. Among the felicities of my life I reckon your friendship, which I shall remember with pleasure as long as life lasts, being ever, my dear friend, yours most affectionately, "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Dr. Price._ "Philadelphia, May 31, 1789. "MY VERY DEAR FRIEND, "I lately received your kind letter, enclosing one from Miss Kitty Shipley, informing me of the good bishop's decease, which afflicted me greatly. My friends drop off one after another, when my age and infirmities prevent me making new ones, and if I still retain the necessary activity and ability, I hardly see among the existing generation where I could make them of equal goodness. So that, the longer I live, I must expect to be the more wretched. As we draw nearer the conclusion of life, nature furnishes us with more helps to wean us from it, among which one of the most powerful is the loss of such dear friends. "I send you with this the two volumes of our Transactions, as I forget whether you had the first before. If you had, you will please to give this to the French ambassador, requesting his conveyance of it to the good Duke de la Rochefoucauld. My best wishes attend you, being ever, with sincere and great esteem, my dear friend, yours most affectionately, B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_B. Vaughan._ "Philadelphia, June 3, 1789. "MY DEAREST FRIEND, "I received your kind letter of March 4, and wish I may be able to complete what you so earnestly desire, the Memoirs of my Life. But of late I am so interrupted by extreme pain, which obliges me to have recourse to opium, that between the effects of both I have but little time in which I can write anything. My grandson, however, is copying what is done, which will be sent to you for your opinion, by the next vessel; and not merely for your opinion, but for your advice; for I find it a difficult task to speak decently and properly of one's own conduct; and I feel the want of a judicious friend to encourage me in scratching out. "I have condoled sincerely with the bishop of St. Asaph's family. He was an excellent man. Losing our friends thus one by one is the tax we pay for long living; and it is indeed a heavy one! "I have not seen the King of Prussia's posthumous works; what you mention makes me desirous to have them. Please to mention it to your brother William, and that I request he would add them to the books I have desired him to buy for me. "Our new government is now in train, and seems to promise well. But events are in the hand of God! I am ever, my dear friend, yours most affectionately, B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * "_Dr. Rush._ "Philadelphia. [Without date, but supposed to be in 1789.] "MY DEAR FRIEND, "During our long acquaintance you have shown many instances of your regard for me, yet I must now desire you to add one more to the number, which is that if you publish your ingenious discourse on the _moral sense_, you will totally omit and suppress that extravagant encomium on your friend Franklin, which hurt me exceedingly in the unexpected hearing, and will mortify me beyond conception if it should appear from the press. "Confiding in your compliance with this earnest request, I am ever, my dear friend, yours most affectionately, B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * _To Miss Catharine Louisa Shipley._ "Philadelphia, April 27, 1789. "It is only a few days since the kind letter of my dear young friend, dated December 24, came to my hands. I had before, in the public papers, met with the afflicting news that letter contained. That excellent man has then left us! his departure is a loss, not to his family and friends only, but to his nation and to the world: for he was intent on doing good, had wisdom to devise the means, and talents to promote them. His sermon before the Society for Propagating the Gospel, and "_his speech intended to be spoken_," are proofs of his ability as well as his humanity. Had his counsels in those pieces been attended to by the ministers, how much bloodshed might have been prevented, and how much expense and disgrace to the nation avoided! "Your reflections on the constant calmness and composure attending his death are very sensible. Such instances seem to show that the good sometimes enjoy, in dying, a foretaste of the happy state they are about to enter. "According to the course of years, I should have quitted this world long before him: I shall, however, not be long in following. I am now in my eighty-fourth year, and the last year has considerably enfeebled me, so that I hardly expect to remain another. You will then, my dear friend, consider this as probably the last line to be received from me, and as a taking leave. "Present my best and most sincere respects to your good mother, and love to the rest of the family, to whom I wish all happiness; and believe me to be, while I _do_ live, yours most affectionately, "B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * _To_ * * *. (Withoute date.) "DEAR SIR, "I have read your manuscript with some attention. By the argument it contains against a particular Providence, though you allow a general Providence, you strike at the foundations of all religion. For without the belief of a Providence that takes cognizance of, guards and guides, and may favour particular persons, there is no motive to worship a Deity, to fear its displeasure, or to pray for its protection. I will not enter into any discussion of your principles, though you seem to desire it. At present I shall only give you my opinion, that though your reasonings are subtle, and may prevail with some readers, you will not succeed so as to change the general sentiments of mankind on that subject, and the consequence of printing this piece will be, a great deal of odium drawn upon yourself, mischief to you, and no benefit to others. He that spits against the wind, spits in his own face. But were you to succeed, do you imagine any good would be done by it? You yourself may find it easy to live a virtuous life without the assistance afforded by religion; you having a clear perception of the advantages of virtue and the disadvantages of vice, and possessing a strength of resolution sufficient to enable you to resist common temptations. But think how great a portion of mankind consists of weak and ignorant men and women, and of inexperienced, inconsiderate youth of both sexes, who have need of the motives of religion to restrain them from vice, to support their virtue, and retain them in the practice of it till it becomes _habitual_, which is the great point of its security. And perhaps you are indebted to her originally, that is, to your religious education, for the habits of virtue upon which you now justly value yourself. You might easily display your excellent talents of reasoning upon a less hazardous subject, and thereby obtain a rank with our most distinguished authors. For among us it is not necessary, as among the Hottentots, that a youth to be raised into the company of men should prove his manhood by beating his mother. I would advise you, therefore, not to attempt unchaining the tiger, but to burn this piece before it is seen by any other person, whereby you will save yourself a great deal of mortification from the enemies it may raise against you, and, perhaps, a great deal of regret and repentance. If men are so wicked _with religion_, what would they be if _without it_? I intend this letter itself as a _proof_ of my friendship, and, therefore, add no _professions_ to it; but subscribe simply yours, B. FRANKLIN." * * * * * _Copy of the last Letter written by Dr. Franklin._ "Philadelphia, April 8, 1790. "SIR, "I received your letter of the 31st of last past relating to encroachments made on the eastern limits of the United States by settlers under the British government, pretending that it is the _western_, and not the _eastern_ river of the Bay of Passamaquoddy which was designated by the name of St. Croix, in the treaty of peace with that nation; and requesting of me to communicate any facts which my memory or papers may enable me to recollect, and which may indicate the true river which the commissioners on both sides had in their view to establish as the boundary between the two nations. "Your letter found me under a severe fit of my malady, which prevented my answering it sooner, or attending, indeed, to any kind of business. I now can assure you that I am perfectly clear in the remembrance that the map we used in tracing the boundary was brought to the treaty by the commissioners from England, and that it was the same that was published by _Mitchell_ above twenty years before. Having a copy of that map by me in loose sheets, I send you that sheet which contains the Bay of Passamaquoddy, where you will see that part of the boundary traced. I remember, too, that in that part of the boundary we relied much on the opinion of Mr. Adams, who had been concerned in some former disputes concerning those territories. I think, therefore, that you may obtain still farther light from him. "That the map we used was Mitchell's map, Congress were acquainted at the time, by letter to their secretary for foreign affairs, which I suppose may be found upon their files. "I have the honour to be, with the greatest esteem and respect, sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, "B. FRANKLIN. "To Thomas Jefferson, } "Secretary of State of the United States."} PHILOSOPHICAL SUBJECTS. _To the Abbé Soulavie._[35] [35] Occasioned by his sending me some notes he had taken of what I had said to him in conversation on the Theory of the Earth. I wrote it to set him right in some points wherein he had mistaken my meaning.--B. F. _Theory of the Earth._--Read in the American Philosophical Society, November 22, 1782. Passy, September 22, 1782. I return the papers with some corrections. I did not find coal mines under the calcareous rocks in Derbyshire. I only remarked, that at the lowest part of that rocky mountain which was in sight, there were oyster shells mixed in the stone; and part of the high county of Derby being probably as much above the level of the sea as the coal mines of Whitehaven were below it, seemed a proof that there had been a great _boulversement_ in the surface of that island, some part of it having been depressed under the sea, and other parts, which had been under it, being raised above it. Such changes in the superficial parts of the globe seemed to me unlikely to happen if the earth were solid to the centre. I therefore imagined that the internal parts might be a fluid more dense, and of greater specific gravity than any of the solids we are acquainted with, which therefore might swim in or upon that fluid. Thus the surface of the globe would be a shell, capable of being broken or disordered by the violent movements of the fluid on which it rested. And as air has been compressed by art so as to be twice as dense as water, in which case, if such air and water could be contained in a strong glass vessel, the air would be seen to take the lowest place, and the water to float above and upon it; and as we know not yet the degree of density to which air may be compressed, and M. Amontons calculated that its density increasing as it approached the centre in the same proportion as above the surface, it would, at the depth of---- leagues, be heavier than gold; possibly the dense fluid occupying the internal parts of the globe might be air compressed. And as the force of expansion in dense air, when heated, is in proportion to its density, this central air might afford another agent to move the surface, as well as be of use in keeping alive the subterraneous fires; though, as you observe, the sudden rarefaction of water coming into contact without those fires, may also be an agent sufficiently strong for that purpose, when acting between the incumbent earth and the fluid on which it rests. If one might indulge imagination in supposing how such a globe was formed, I should conceive, that all the elements in separate particles being originally mixed in confusion, and occupying a great space, they would (as soon as the almighty fiat ordained gravity, or the mutual attraction of certain parts and the mutual repulsion of others, to exist) all move to their common centre: that the air, being a fluid whose parts repel each other, though drawn to the common centre by their gravity, would be densest towards the centre, and rarer as more remote; consequently, all matters lighter than the central parts of that air and immersed in it, would recede from the centre, and rise till they arrived at that region of the air which was of the same specific gravity with themselves, where they would rest; while other matter, mixed with the lighter air, would descend, and the two, meeting, would form the shell of the first earth, leaving the upper atmosphere nearly clear. The original movement of the parts towards their common centre would naturally form a whirl there, which would continue upon the turning of the new-formed globe upon its axis, and the greatest diameter of the shell would be in its equator. If by any accident afterward the axis should be changed, the dense internal fluid, by altering its form, must burst the shell and throw all its substance into the confusion in which we find it. I will not trouble you at present with my fancies concerning the manner of forming the rest of our system. Superior beings smile at our theories, and at our presumption in making them. I will just mention, that your observations on the ferruginous nature of the lava which is thrown out from the depths of our volcanoes, gave me great pleasure. It has long been a supposition of mine, that the iron contained in the surface of the globe has made it capable of becoming, as it is, a great magnet; that the fluid of magnetism perhaps exists in all space; so that there is a magnetical north and south of the universe, as well as of this globe, and that, if it were possible for a man to fly from star to star, he might govern his course by the compass; that it was by the power of this general magnetism this globe became a particular magnet. In soft or hot iron the fluid of magnetism is naturally diffused equally; when within the influence of the magnet it is drawn to one end of the iron, made denser there and rarer at the other. While the iron continues soft and hot, it is only a temporary magnet; if it cools or grows hard in that situation, it becomes a permanent one, the magnetic fluid not easily resuming its equilibrium. Perhaps it may be owing to the permanent magnetism of this globe, which it had not at first, that its axis is at present kept parallel to itself, and not liable to the changes it formerly suffered, which occasioned the rupture of its shell, the submersions and emersions of its lands, and the confusion of its seasons. The present polar and equatorial diameters differing from each other near ten leagues, it is easy to conceive, in case some power should shift the axis gradually, and place it in the present equator, and make the new equator pass through the present poles, what a sinking of the waters would happen in the equatorial regions, and what a rising in the present polar regions; so that vast tracts would be discovered that now are under water, and others covered that are now dry, the water rising and sinking in the different extremes near five leagues. Such an operation as this possibly occasioned much of Europe, and, among the rest, this mountain of Passy on which I live, and which is composed of limestone, rock, and seashells, to be abandoned by the sea, and to change its ancient climate, which seems to have been a hot one. The globe being now become a perfect magnet, we are, perhaps, safe from any change of its axis. But we are still subject to the accidents on the surface, which are occasioned by a wave in the internal ponderous fluid; and such a wave is producible by the sudden violent explosion you mention, happening from the junction of water and fire under the earth, which not only lifts the incumbent earth that is over the explosion, but, impressing with the same force the fluid under it, creates a wave that may run a thousand leagues, lifting, and thereby shaking, successively, all the countries under which it passes. I know not whether I have expressed myself so clearly as not to get out of your sight in these reveries. If they occasion any new inquiries, and produce a better hypothesis, they will not be quite useless. You see I have given a loose to imagination; but I approve much more your method of philosophizing, which proceeds upon actual observation, makes a collection of facts, and concludes no farther than those facts will warrant. In my present circumstances, that mode of studying the nature of the globe is out of my power, and therefore I have permitted myself to wander a little in the wilds of fancy. With great esteem, B. FRANKLIN. P.S.--I have heard that chymists can by their art decompose stone and wood, extracting a considerable quantity of water from the one and air from the other. It seems natural to conclude from this, that water and air were ingredients in their original composition; for men cannot make new matter of any kind. In the same manner, may we not suppose, that when we consume combustibles of all kinds, and produce heat or light, we do not create that heat or light, but decompose a substance which received it originally as a part of its composition? Heat may be thus considered as originally in a fluid state; but, attracted by organized bodies in their growth, becomes a part of the solid. Besides this, I can conceive, that in the first assemblage of the particles of which the earth is composed, each brought its portion of loose heat that had been connected with it, and the whole, when pressed together, produced the internal fire that still subsists. * * * * * _To Dr. John Pringle._ ON THE DIFFERENT STRATA OF THE EARTH. Craven-street, Jan. 6, 1758. I return you Mr. Mitchell's paper on the strata of the earth[36] with thanks. The reading of it, and the perusal of the draught that accompanies it, have reconciled me to those convulsions which all naturalists agree this globe has suffered. Had the different strata of clay, gravel, marble, coals, limestone, sand, minerals, &c., continued to lie level, one under the other, as they may be supposed to have done before those convulsions, we should have had the use only of a few of the uppermost of the strata, the others lying too deep and too difficult to be come at; but the shell of the earth being broke, and the fragments thrown into this oblique position, the disjointed ends of a great number of strata of different kinds are brought up to day, and a great variety of useful materials put into our power, which would otherwise have remained eternally concealed from us. So that what has been usually looked upon as a _ruin_ suffered by this part of the universe, was, in reality, only a preparation, or means of rendering the earth more fit for use, more capable of being to mankind a convenient and comfortable habitation. [36] The paper of Mr. Mitchell, here referred to, was published afterward in the Philosophical Transactions of London. B. FRANKLIN. * * * * * _To Mr. Bowdoin._ _Queries and Conjectures relating to Magnetism and the Theory of the Earth._--Read in the American Philosophical Society January 15, 1790. I received your favours by Messrs. Gore, Hilliard, and Lee, with whose conversation I was much pleased, and wished for more of it; but their stay with us was too short. Whenever you recommend any of your friends to me, you oblige me. I want to know whether your Philosophical Society received the second volume of our Transactions. I sent it, but never heard of its arriving. If it miscarried, I will send another. Has your Society among its books the French work _Sur les Arts et les Metiers_? It is voluminous, well executed, and may be useful in our country. I have bequeathed it them in my will; but if they have it already, I will substitute something else. Our ancient correspondence used to have something philosophical in it. As you are now free from public cares, and I expect to be so in a few months, why may we not resume that kind of correspondence? Our much regretted friend Winthrop once made me the compliment, that I was good at starting game for philosophers, let me try if I can start a little for you. Has the question, how came the earth by its magnetism, ever been considered? Is it likely that _iron ore_ immediately existed when this globe was at first formed; or may it not rather be supposed a gradual production of time? If the earth is at present magnetical, in virtue of the masses of iron ore contained in it, might not some ages pass before it had magnetic polarity? Since iron ore may exist without that polarity, and, by being placed in certain circumstances, may obtain it from an external cause, is it not possible that the earth received its magnetism from some such cause? In short, may not a magnetic power exist throughout our system, perhaps through all systems, so that if men could make a voyage in the starry regions, a compass might be of use? And may not such universal magnetism, with its uniform direction, be serviceable in keeping the diurnal revolution of a planet more steady to the same axis? Lastly, as the poles of magnets may be changed by the presence of stronger magnets, might not, in ancient times, the near passing of some large comet, of greater magnetic power than this globe of ours, have been a means of changing its poles, and thereby wrecking and deranging its surface, placing in different regions the effect of centrifugal force, so as to raise the waters of the sea in some, while they were depressed in others? Let me add another question or two, not relating indeed to magnetism, but, however, to the theory of the earth. Is not the finding of great quantities of shells and bones of animals (natural to hot climates) in the cold ones of our present world, some proof that its poles have been changed? Is not the supposition that the poles have been changed, the easiest way of accounting for the deluge, by getting rid of the old difficulty how to dispose of its waters after it was over! Since, if the poles were again to be changed, and placed in the present equator, the sea would fall there about fifteen miles in height, and rise as much in the present polar regions; and the effect would be proportionable if the new poles were placed anywhere between the present and the equator. Does not the apparent wreck of the surface of this globe, thrown up into long ridges of mountains, with strata in various positions, make it probable that its internal mass is a fluid, but a fluid so dense as to float the heaviest of our substances? Do we know the limit of condensation air is capable of? Supposing it to grow denser _within_ the surface in the same proportion nearly as it does _without_, at what depth may it be equal in density with gold? Can we easily conceive how the strata of the earth could have been so deranged, if it had not been a mere shell supported by a heavier fluid? Would not such a supposed internal fluid globe be immediately sensible of a change in the situation of the earth's axis, alter its form, and thereby burst the shell and throw up parts of it above the rest? As if we would alter the position of the fluid contained in the shell of an egg, and place its longest diameter where the shortest now is, the shell must break; but would be much harder to break if the whole internal substance were as solid and as hard as the shell. Might not a wave, by any means raised in this supposed internal ocean of extremely dense fluid, raise, in some degree as it passes, the present shell of incumbent earth, and break it in some places, as in earthquakes. And may not the progress of such wave, and the disorders it occasions among the solids of the shell, account for the rumbling sound being first heard at a distance, augmenting as it approaches, and gradually dying away as it proceeds? A circumstance observed by the inhabitants of South America, in their last great earthquake, that noise coming from a place some degrees north of Lima, and being traced by inquiry quite down to Buenos Ayres, proceeded regularly from north to south at the rate of ____ leagues per minute, as I was informed by a very ingenious Peruvian whom I met with at Paris. B. FRANKLIN. * * * * * _To M. Dubourg._ ON THE NATURE OF SEACOAL. I am persuaded, as well as you, that the seacoal has a vegetable origin, and that it has been formed near the surface of the earth; but, as preceding convulsions of nature had served to bring it very deep in many places, and covered it with many different strata, we are indebted to subsequent convulsions for having brought within our view the extremities of its veins, so as to lead us to penetrate the earth in search of it. I visited last summer a large coalmine at Whitehaven, in Cumberland; and in following the vein, and descending by degrees towards the sea, I penetrated below the ocean where the level of its surface was more than eight hundred fathoms above my head, and the miners assured me that their works extended some miles beyond the place where I then was, continually and gradually descending under the sea. The slate, which forms the roof of this coalmine, is impressed in many places with the figures of leaves and branches of fern, which undoubtedly grew at the surface when the slate was in the state of sand on the banks of the sea. Thus it appears that this vein of coal has suffered a prodigious settlement. B. FRANKLIN. * * * * * CAUSES OF EARTHQUAKES. The late earthquake felt here, and probably in all the neighbouring provinces, having made many people desirous to know what may be the natural cause of such violent concussions, we shall endeavour to gratify their curiosity by giving them the various opinions of the learned on that head. Here naturalists are divided. Some ascribe them to water, others to fire, and others to air, and all of them with some appearance of reason. To conceive which, it is to be observed that the earth everywhere abounds in huge subterraneous caverns, veins, and canals, particularly about the roots of mountains; that of these cavities, veins, &c., some are full of water, whence are composed gulfs, abysses, springs, rivulets; and others full of exhalations; and that some parts of the earth are replete with nitre, sulphur, bitumen, vitriol, &c. This premised, 1. The earth itself may sometimes be the cause of its own shaking; when the roots or basis of some large mass being dissolved, or worn away by a fluid underneath, it sinks into the same, and, with its weight, occasions a tremour of the adjacent parts, produces a noise, and frequently an inundation of water. 2. The subterraneous waters may occasion earthquakes by their overflowing, cutting out new courses, &c. Add that the water, being heated and rarefied by the subterraneous fires, may emit fumes, blasts, &c., which, by their action either on the water or immediately on the earth itself, may occasion great succussions. 3. The air may be the cause of earthquakes; for the air being a collection of fumes and vapours raised from the earth and water, if it be pent up in too narrow viscera of the earth, the subterraneous or its own native heat rarefying and expanding it, the force wherewith it endeavours to escape may shake the earth; hence there arises divers species of earthquakes, according to the different position, quantity, &c., of the imprisoned _aura_. Lastly, fire is a principal cause of earthquakes; both as it produces the aforesaid subterraneous _aura_ or vapours, and as this _aura_ or spirit, from the different matter and composition whereof arise sulphur, bitumen, and other inflammable matters, takes fire, either from other fire it meets withal, or from its collision against hard bodies, or its intermixture with other fluids; by which means, bursting out into a greater compass, the place becomes too narrow for it, so that, pressing against it on all sides, the adjoining parts are shaken, till, having made itself a passage, it spends itself in a volcano or burning mountain. But to come nearer to the point. Dr. Lister is of opinion that the material cause of thunder, lightning, and earthquakes, is one and the same, viz., the inflammable breath of the pyrites, which is a substantial sulphur, and takes fire of itself. The difference between these three terrible phenomena he takes only to consist in this: that the sulphur in the former is fired in the air, and in the latter under ground. Which is a notion Pliny had long before him: "_Quid enim_," says he, "_aliud est in terrâ tremor, quam in nube tonitru?_" For wherein does the trembling of the earth differ from that occasioned by thunder in the clouds? This he thinks abundantly indicated by the same sulphurous smell being found in anything burned with lightning, and in the waters, &c., cast up in earthquakes, and even in the air before and after them. Add that they agree in the manner of the noise which is carried on, as in a train fired; the one, rolling and rattling through the air, takes fire as the vapours chance to drive; as the other, fired under ground in like manner, moves with a desultory noise. Thunder, which is the effect of the trembling of the air, caused by the same vapours dispersed through it, has force enough to shake our houses; and why there may not be thunder and lightning under ground, in some vast repositories there, I see no reason; especially if we reflect that the matter which composes the noisy vapour above us is in much larger quantities under ground. That the earth abounds in cavities everybody allows; and that these subterraneous cavities are, at certain times and in certain seasons, full of inflammable vapours, the damps in mines sufficiently witness, which, fired, do everything as in an earthquake, save in a lesser degree. Add that the pyrites alone, of all the known minerals, yields this inflammable vapour, is highly probable; for that no mineral or ore whatsoever is sulphurous, but as it is wholly or in part a pyrites, and that there is but one species of brimstone which the pyrites naturally and only yields. The _sulphur vive_, or natural brimstone, which is found in and about the burning mountains, is certainly the effects of sublimation, and those great quantities of it said to be found about the skirts of volcanoes is only an argument of the long duration and vehemence of those fires. Possibly the pyrites of the volcanoes, or burning mountains, may be more sulphurous than ours; and, indeed, it is plain that some of ours in England are very lean, and hold but little sulphur; others again very much, which may be some reason why England is so little troubled with earthquakes, and Italy, and almost all round the Mediterranean Sea, so much; though another reason is, the paucity of pyrites in England. Comparing our earthquakes, thunder, and lightning, with theirs, it is observed that there it lightens almost daily, especially in summer-time, here seldom; there thunder and lightning is of long duration, here it is soon over; there the earthquakes are frequent, long, and terrible, with many paroxysms in a day, and that for many days; here very short, a few minutes, and scarce perceptible. To this purpose the subterraneous caverns in England are small and few compared to the vast vaults in those parts of the world; which is evident from the sudden disappearance of whole mountains and islands. Dr. Woodward gives us another theory of earthquakes. He endeavours to show that the subterraneous heat or fire (which is continually elevating water out of the abyss, to furnish the earth with rain, dew, springs, and rivers), being stopped in any part of the earth, and so diverted from its ordinary course by some accidental glut or obstruction in the pores or passages through which it used to ascend to the surface, becomes, by such means, preternaturally assembled in a greater quantity than usual into one place, and therefore causeth a great rarefaction and intumescence of the water of the abyss, putting it into great commotions and disorders, and at the same time making the like effort on the earth, which, being expanded upon the face of the abyss, occasions that agitation and concussion we call an earthquake. This effort in some earthquakes, he observes, is so vehement, that it splits and tears the earth, making cracks and chasms in it some miles in length, which open at the instant of the shock, and close again in the intervals between them; nay, it is sometimes so violent that it forces the superincumbent strata, breaks them all throughout, and thereby perfectly undermines and ruins the foundation of them; so that, these failing, the whole tract, as soon as the shock is over, sinks down into the abyss, and is swallowed up by it, the water thereof immediately rising up and forming a lake in the place where the said tract before was. That this effort being made in all directions indifferently, the fire, dilating and expanding on all hands, and endeavouring to get room and make its way through all obstacles, falls as foul on the waters of the abyss beneath as on the earth above, forcing it forth, which way soever it can find vent or passage, as well through its ordinary exits, wells, springs, and the outlets of rivers, as through the chasms then newly opened, through the _camini_ or spiracles of Ætna, or other neighbouring volcanoes, and those hiatuses at the bottom of the sea whereby the abyss below opens into it and communicates with it. That as the water resident in the abyss is, in all parts of it, stored with a considerable quantity of heat, and more especially in those where those extraordinary aggregations of this fire happen, so likewise is the water which is thus forced out of it, insomuch that, when thrown forth and mixed with the waters of wells, or springs of rivers and the sea, it renders them very sensibly hot. He adds, that though the abyss be liable to those commotions in all parts, yet the effects are nowhere very remarkable except in those countries which are mountainous, and, consequently, stony or cavernous underneath; and especially where the disposition of the strata is such that those caverns open the abyss, and so freely admit and entertain the fire which, assembling therein, is the cause of the shock; it naturally steering its course that way where it finds the readiest reception, which is towards those caverns. Besides, that those parts of the earth which abound with strata of stone or marble, making the strongest opposition to this effort, are the most furiously shattered, and suffer much more by it than those which consist of gravel, sand, and the like laxer matter, which more easily give way, and make not so great resistance. But, above all, those countries which yield great store of sulphur and nitre are by far the most injured by earthquakes; those minerals constituting in the earth a kind of natural gunpowder, which, taking fire upon this assemblage and approach of it, occasions that murmuring noise, that subterraneous thunder, which is heard rumbling in the bowels of the earth during earthquakes, and by the assistance of its explosive power renders the shock much greater, so as sometimes to make miserable havoc and destruction. And it is for this reason that Italy, Sicily, Anatolia, and some parts of Greece, have been so long and often alarmed and harassed by earthquakes; these countries being all mountainous and cavernous, abounding with stone and marble, and affording sulphur and nitre in great plenty. Farther, that Ætna, Vesuvius, Hecla, and the other volcanoes, are only so many spiracles, serving for the discharge of this subterraneous fire, when it is thus preternaturally assembled. That where there happens to be such a structure and conformation of the interior part of the earth, as that the fire may pass freely, and without impediment, from the caverns wherein it assembles unto those spiracles, it then readily gets out, from time to time, without shaking or disturbing the earth; but where such communication is wanting, or passage not sufficiently large and open, so that it cannot come at the spiracles, it heaves up and shocks the earth with greater or lesser impetuosity, according to the quantity of fire thus assembled, till it has made its way to the mouth of the volcano. That, therefore, there are scarce any countries much annoyed by earthquakes but have one of these fiery vents, which are constantly in flames when any earthquake happens, as disgorging that fire which, while underneath, was the cause of the disaster. Lastly, that were it not for these _diverticula_, it would rage in the bowels of the earth much more furiously, and make greater havoc than it doth. We have seen what fire and water may do, and that either of them are sufficient for all the phenomena of earthquakes; if they should both fail, we have a third agent scarce inferior to either of them; the reader must not be surprised when we tell him it is air. Monsieur Amontons, in his _Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences, An. 1703_, has an express discourse to prove, that on the foot of the new experiments of the weight and spring of the air, a moderate degree of heat may bring the air into a condition capable of causing earthquakes. It is shown that at the depth of 43,528 fathoms below the surface of the earth, air is only one fourth less heavy than mercury. Now this depth of 43,528 fathoms is only a seventy-fourth part of the semi-diameter of the earth. And the vast sphere beyond this depth, in diameter 6,451,538 fathoms, may probably be only filled with air, which will be here greatly condensed, and much heavier than the heaviest bodies we know in nature. But it is found by experiment that, the more air is compressed, the more does the same degree of heat increase its spring, and the more capable does it render it of a violent effect; and that, for instance, the degree of heat of boiling water increases the spring of the air above what it has in its natural state, in our climate, by a quantity equal to a third of the weight wherewith it is pressed. Whence we may conclude that a degree of heat, which on the surface of the earth will only have a moderate effect, may be capable of a very violent one below. And as we are assured that there are in nature degrees of heat much more considerable than boiling water, it is very possible there may be some whose violence, farther assisted by the exceeding weight of the air, may be more than sufficient to break and overturn this solid orb of 43,528 fathoms, whose weight, compared to that of the included air, would be but a trifle. Chymistry furnishes us a method of making artificial earthquakes which shall have all the great effects of natural ones; which, as it may illustrate the process of nature in the production of these terrible phenomena under ground, we shall here add. To twenty pounds of iron filings add as many of sulphur; mix, work, and temper the whole together with a little water, so as to form a mass half wet and half dry. This being buried three or four feet under ground, in six or seven hours time will have a prodigious effect; the earth will begin to tremble, crack, and smoke, and fire and flame burst through. Such is the effect even of the two cold bodies in cold ground; there only wants a sufficient quantity of this mixture to produce a true Ætna. If it were supposed to burst out under the sea, it would produce a spout; and if it were in the clouds, the effect would be thunder and lightning. An earthquake is defined to be a vehement shake or agitation of some considerable place, or part of the earth, from natural causes, attended with a huge noise like thunder, and frequently with an eruption of water, or fire, or smoke, or winds, &c. They are the greatest and most formidable phenomena of nature. Aristotle and Pliny distinguish two kinds, with respect to the manner of the shake, viz., a tremour and a pulsation; the first being horizontal, in alternate vibrations, compared to the shaking of a person in an ague; the second perpendicular, up and down, their motion resembling that of boiling. Agricola increases the number, and makes four kinds, which Albertus Magnus again reduces to three, viz., inclination, when the earth vibrates alternately from right to left, by which mountains have been sometimes brought to meet and clash against each other; pulsation, when it beats up and down, like an artery; and trembling, when it shakes and totters every way, like a flame. The Philosophical Transactions furnish us with abundance of histories of earthquakes, particularly one at Oxford in 1665, by Dr. Wallis and Mr. Boyle. Another at the same place in 1683, by Mr. Pigot. Another in Sicily, in 1692-3, by Mr. Hartop, Father Alessandro Burgos, and Vin. Bonajutus, which last is one of the most terrible ones in all history. It shook the whole island; and not only that, but Naples and Malta shared in the shock. It was of the second kind mentioned by Aristotle and Pliny, viz., a perpendicular pulsation or succussion. It was impossible, says the noble Bonajutus, for anybody in this country to keep on their legs on the dancing earth; nay, those that lay on the ground were tossed from side to side as on a rolling billow; high walls leaped from their foundations several paces. The mischief it did is amazing; almost all the buildings in the countries were thrown down. Fifty-four cities and towns, besides an incredible number of villages, were either destroyed or greatly damaged. We shall only instance the fate of Catania, one of the most famous, ancient, and flourishing cities in the kingdom, the residence of several monarchs, and a university. "This once famous, now unhappy Catania," to use words of Father Burgos, "had the greatest share in the tragedy. Father Antonio Serovita, being on his way thither, and at the distance of a few miles, observed a black cloud, like night, hovering over the city, and there arose from the mouth of Mongibello great spires of flame, which spread all around. The sea, all of a sudden, began to roar and rise in billows, and there was a blow, as if all the artillery in the world had been at once discharged. The birds flew about astonished, the cattle in the fields ran crying, &c. His and his companion's horse stopped short, trembling; so that they were forced to alight. They were no sooner off but they were lifted from the ground above two palms. When, casting his eyes towards Catania, he with amazement saw nothing but a thick cloud of dust in the air. This was the scene of their calamity; for of the magnificent Catania there is not the least footstep to be seen." Bonajutus assures us, that of 18,914 inhabitants, 18,000 perished therein. The same author, from a computation of the inhabitants before and after the earthquake, in the several cities and towns, finds that near 60,000 perished out of 254,900. Jamaica is remarkable for earthquakes. The inhabitants, Dr. Sloane informs us, expect one every year. The author gives the history of one in 1687; another horrible one, in 1692, is described by several anonymous authors. In two minutes' time it shook down and drowned nine tenths of the town of Port Royal. The houses sunk outright, thirty or forty fathoms deep. The earth, opening, swallowed up people, and they rose in other streets; some in the middle of the harbour, and yet were saved; though there were two thousand people lost, and one thousand acres of land sunk. All the houses were thrown down throughout the island. One Hopkins had his plantation removed half a mile from its place. Of all wells, from one fathom to six or seven, the water flew out at the top with a vehement motion. While the houses on the one side of the street were swallowed up, on the other they were thrown in heaps; and the sand in the street rose like waves in the sea, lifting up everybody that stood on it, and immediately dropping down into pits; and at the same instant, a flood of waters breaking in, rolled them over and over; some catching hold of beams and rafters, &c. Ships and sloops in the harbour were overset and lost; the Swan frigate particularly, by the motion of the sea and sinking of the wharf, was driven over the tops of many houses. It was attended with a hollow rumbling noise like that of thunder. In less than a minute three quarters of the houses, and the ground they stood on, with the inhabitants, were all sunk quite under water, and the little part left behind was no better than a heap of rubbish. The shake was so violent that it threw people down on their knees or their faces, as they were running about for shelter. The ground heaved and swelled like a rolling sea, and several houses, still standing, were shuffled and moved some yards out of their places. A whole street is said to be twice as broad now as before; and in many places the earth would crack, and open, and shut, quick and fast, of which openings two or three hundred might be seen at a time; in some whereof the people were swallowed up, others the closing earth caught by the middle and pressed to death, in others the heads only appeared. The larger openings swallowed up houses; and out of some would issue whole rivers of waters, spouted up a great height into the air, and threatening a deluge to that part the earthquake spared. The whole was attended with stenches and offensive smells, the noise of falling mountains at a distance, &c., and the sky in a minute's time was turned dull and reddish, like a glowing oven. Yet, as great a sufferer as Port Royal was, more houses were left standing therein than on the whole island besides. Scarce a planting-house or sugar-work was left standing in all Jamaica. A great part of them were swallowed up, houses, people, trees, and all at one gape; in lieu of which afterward appeared great pools of water, which, when dried up, left nothing but sand, without any mark that ever tree or plant had been thereon. Above twelve miles from the sea the earth gaped and spouted out, with a prodigious force, vast quantities of water into the air, yet the greatest violences were among the mountains and rocks; and it is a general opinion, that the nearer the mountains, the greater the shake, and that the cause thereof lay there. Most of the rivers were stopped up for twenty-four hours by the falling of the mountains, till, swelling up, they found themselves new tracts and channels, tearing up in their passage trees, &c. After the great shake, those people who escaped got on board ships in the harbour, where many continued above two months; the shakes all that time being so violent, and coming so thick, sometimes two or three in an hour, accompanied with frightful noises, like a ruffling wind, or a hollow, rumbling thunder, with brimstone blasts, that they durst not come ashore. The consequence of the earthquake was a general sickness, from the noisome vapours belched forth, which swept away above three thousand persons. After the detail of these horrible convulsions, the reader will have but little curiosity left for the less considerable phenomena of the earthquake at Lima in 1687, described by Father Alvarez de Toledo, wherein above five thousand persons were destroyed; this being of the vibratory kind, so that the bells in the church rung of themselves; or that at Batavia in 1699, by Witsen; that in the north of England in 1703, by Mr. Thoresby; or, lastly, those in New-England in 1663 and 1670, by Dr. Mather. * * * * * _To David Rittenhouse._ _New and curious Theory of Light and Heat._--Read in the American Philosophical Society, November 20, 1788. Universal space, as far as we know of it, seems to be filled with a subtile fluid, whose motion or vibration is called light. This fluid may possibly be the same with that which, being attracted by, and entering into other more solid matter, dilutes the substance by separating the constituent particles, and so rendering some solids fluid, and maintaining the fluidity of others; of which fluid, when our bodies are totally deprived, they are said to be frozen; when they have a proper quantity, they are in health, and fit to perform all their functions; it is then called natural heat; when too much, it is called fever; and when forced into the body in too great a quantity from without, it gives pain, by separating and destroying the flesh, and is then called burning, and the fluid so entering and acting is called fire. While organized bodies, animal or vegetable, are augmenting in growth, or are supplying their continual waste, is not this done by attracting and consolidating this fluid called fire, so as to form of it a part of their substance? And is it not a separation of the parts of such substance, which, dissolving its solid state, sets that subtile fluid at liberty, when it again makes its appearance as fire? For the power of man relative to matter seems limited to the separating or mixing the various kinds of it, or changing its form and appearance by different compositions of it; but does not extend to the making or creating new matter, or annihilating the old. Thus, if fire be an original element or kind of matter, its quantity is fixed and permanent in the universe. We cannot destroy any part of it, or make addition to it; we can only separate it from that which confines it, and so set it at liberty; as when we put wood in a situation to be burned, or transfer it from one solid to another, as when we make lime by burning stone, a part of the fire dislodged in the fuel being left in the stone. May not this fluid, when at liberty, be capable of penetrating and entering into all bodies, organized or not, quitting easily in totality those not organized, and quitting easily in part those which are; the part assumed and fixed remaining till the body is dissolved? Is it not this fluid which keeps asunder the particles of air, permitting them to approach, or separating them more in proportion as its quantity is diminished or augmented? Is it not the greater gravity of the particles of air which forces the particles of this fluid to mount with the matters to which it is attached, as smoke or vapour? Does it not seem to have a greater affinity with water, since it will quit a solid to unite with that fluid, and go off with it in vapour, leaving the solid cold to the touch, and the degree measurable by the thermometer? The vapour rises attached to this fluid, but at a certain height they separate, and the vapour descends in rain, retaining but little of it, in snow or hail less. What becomes of that fluid? Does it rise above our atmosphere, and mix with the universal mass of the same kind? Or does a spherical stratum of it, denser, as less mixed with air, attracted by this globe, and repelled or pushed up only to a certain height from its surface by the greater weight of air, remain there surrounding the globe, and proceeding with it round the sun? In such case, as there may be a continuity of communication of this fluid through the air quite down to the earth, is it not by the vibrations given to it by the sun that light appears to us? And may it not be that every one of the infinitely small vibrations, striking common matter with a certain force, enters its substance, is held there by attraction, and augmented by succeeding vibrations till the matter has received as much as their force can drive into it? Is it not thus that the surface of this globe is continually heated by such repeated vibrations in the day, and cooled by the escape of the heat when those vibrations are discontinued in the night, or intercepted and reflected by clouds? Is it not thus that fire is amassed, and makes the greatest part of the substance of combustible bodies? Perhaps, when this globe was first formed, and its original particles took their place at certain distances from the centre, in proportion to their greater or less gravity, the fluid fire, attracted towards that centre, might in great part be obliged, as lightest, to take place above the rest, and thus form the sphere of fire above supposed, which would afterward be continually diminishing by the substance it afforded to organized bodies, and the quantity restored to it again by the burning or other separating of the parts of those bodies? Is not the natural heat of animals thus produced, by separating in digestion the parts of food, and setting their fire at liberty? Is it not this sphere of fire which kindles the wandering globes that sometimes pass through it in our course round the sun, have their surface kindled by it, and burst when their included air is greatly rarefied by the heat on their burning surfaces? May it not have been from such considerations that the ancient philosophers supposed a sphere of fire to exist above the air of our atmosphere? B. FRANKLIN. * * * * * _Of Lightning; and the Methods now used in America for the securing Buildings and Persons from its mischievous Effects._ Experiments made in electricity first gave philosophers a suspicion that the matter of lightning was the same with the electric matter. Experiments afterward made on lightning obtained from the clouds by pointed rods, received into bottles, and subjected to every trial, have since proved this suspicion to be perfectly well founded; and that, whatever properties we find in electricity, are also the properties of lightning. This matter of lightning or of electricity is an extreme subtile fluid, penetrating other bodies, and subsisting in them, equally diffused. When, by any operation of art or nature, there happens to be a greater proportion of this fluid in one body than in another, the body which has most will communicate to that which has least, till the proportion becomes equal; provided the distance between them be not too great; or, if it is too great, till there be proper conductors to convey it from one to the other. If the communication be through the air without any conductor, a bright light is seen between the bodies, and a sound is heard. In our small experiments we call this light and sound the electric spark and snap; but in the great operations of nature the light is what we call _lightning_, and the sound (produced at the same time, though generally arriving later at our ears than the light does to our eyes) is, with its echoes, called _thunder_. If the communication of this fluid is by a conductor, it may be without either light or sound, the subtile fluid passing in the substance of the conductor. If the conductor be good and of sufficient bigness, the fluid passes through it without hurting it. If otherwise, it is damaged or destroyed. All metals and water are good conductors. Other bodies may become conductors by having some quantity of water in them, as wood and other materials used in building; but, not having much water in them, they are not good conductors, and, therefore, are often damaged in the operation. Glass, wax, silk, wool, hair, feathers, and even wood, perfectly dry, are non-conductors: that is, they resist instead of facilitating the passage of this subtile fluid. When this fluid has an opportunity of passing through two conductors, one good and sufficient, as of metal, the other not so good, it passes in the best, and will follow it in any direction. The distance at which a body charged with this fluid will discharge itself suddenly, striking through the air into another body that is not charged or not so highly charged, is different according to the quantity of the fluid, the dimensions and form of the bodies themselves, and the state of the air between them. This distance, whatever it happens to be, between any two bodies, is called the _striking distance_, as, till they come within that distance of each other, no stroke will be made. The clouds have often more of this fluid, in proportion, than the earth; in which case, as soon as they come near enough (that is, within the striking distance) or meet with a conductor, the fluid quits them and strikes into the earth. A cloud fully charged with this fluid, if so high as to be beyond the striking distance from the earth, passes quietly without making noise or giving light, unless it meets with other clouds that have less. Tall trees and lofty buildings, as the towers and spires of churches, become sometimes conductors between the clouds and the earth; but, not being good ones, that is, not conveying the fluid freely, they are often damaged. Buildings that have their roofs covered with lead or other metal, the spouts of metal continued from the roof into the ground to carry off the water, are never hurt by lightning as, whenever it falls on such a building, it passes in the metals and not in the walls. When other buildings happen to be within the striking distance from such clouds, the fluid passes in the walls, whether of wood, brick, or stone, quitting the walls only when it can find better conductors near them, as metal rods, bolts, and hinges of windows or doors, gilding on wainscot or frames of pictures, the silvering on the backs of looking-glasses, the wires for bells, and the bodies of animals, as containing watery fluids. And, in passing through the house, it follows the direction of these conductors, taking as many in its way as can assist it in its passage, whether in a straight or crooked line, leaping from one to the other, if not far distant from each other, only rending the wall in the spaces where these partial good conductors are too distant from each other. An iron rod being placed on the outside of a building, from the highest part continued down into the moist earth in any direction, straight or crooked, following the form of the roof or parts of the building, will receive the lightning at the upper end, attracting it so as to prevent its striking any other part, and affording it a good conveyance into the earth, will prevent its damaging any part of the building. A small quantity of metal is found able to conduct a great quantity of this fluid. A wire no bigger than a goosequill has been known to conduct (with safety to the building as far as the wire was continued) a quantity of lightning that did prodigious damage both above and below it; and probably larger rods are not necessary, though it is common in America to make them of half an inch, some of three quarters or an inch diameter. The rod may be fastened to the wall, chimney &c., with staples of iron. The lightning will not leave the rod (a good conductor) through those staples. It would rather, if any were in the walls, pass out of it into the rod, to get more readily by that conductor into the earth. If the building be very large and extensive, two or more rods may be placed at different parts, for greater security. Small ragged parts of clouds, suspended in the air between the great body of clouds and the earth (like leaf gold in electrical experiments) often serve as partial conductors for the lightning, which proceeds from one of them to another, and by their help comes within the striking distance to the earth or a building. It therefore strikes through those conductors a building that would otherwise be out of the striking distance. Long sharp points communicating with the earth, and presented to such parts of clouds, drawing silently from them the fluid they are charged with, they are then attracted to the cloud, and may leave the distance so great as to be beyond the reach of striking. It is therefore that we elevate the upper end of the rod six or eight feet above the highest part of the building, tapering it gradually to a fine sharp point, which is gilt to prevent its rusting. Thus the pointed rod either prevents the stroke from the cloud, or, if a stroke is made, conducts it to the earth with safety to the building. The lower end of the rod should enter the earth so deep as to come at the moist part, perhaps two or three feet; and if bent when under the surface so as to go in a horizontal line six or eight feet from the wall, and then bent again downward three or four feet, it will prevent damage to any of the stones of the foundation. A person apprehensive of danger from lightning, happening during the time of thunder to be in a house not so secured, will do well to avoid sitting near the chimney, near a looking-glass, or any gilt pictures or wainscot; the safest place is the middle of the room (so it be not under a metal lustre suspended by a chain), sitting on one chair and laying the feet up in another. It is still safer to bring two or three mattresses or beds into the middle of the room, and, folding them up double, place the chair upon them; for they not being so good conductors as the walls, the lightning will not choose an interrupted course through the air of the room and the bedding, when it can go through a continued better conductor, the wall. But where it can be had, a hammock or swinging bed, suspended by silk cords equally distant from the walls on every side, and from the ceiling and floor above and below, affords the safest situation a person can have in any room whatever; and what, indeed, may be deemed quite free from danger of any stroke by lightning. B. FRANKLIN. Paris, September, 1767. * * * * * _To Peter Collinson, London._ ELECTRICAL KITE. Philadelphia, October 16, 1752. As frequent mention is made in public papers from Europe of the success of the Philadelphia experiment for drawing the electric fire from clouds by means of pointed rods of iron erected on high buildings, &c., it may be agreeable to the curious to be informed that the same experiment has succeeded in Philadelphia, though made in a different and more easy manner, which is as follows: Make a small cross of two light strips of cedar, the arms so long as to reach to the four corners of a large thin silk handkerchief when extended; tie the corners of the handkerchief to the extremities of the cross, so you have the body of a kite, which, being properly accommodated with a tail, loop, and string, will rise in the air like those made of paper; but this, being of silk, is fitter to bear the wet and wind of a thunder-gust without tearing. To the top of the upright stick of the cross is to be fixed a very sharp-pointed wire, rising a foot or more above the wood. To the end of the twine next the hand is to be tied a silk riband, and where the silk and twine join, a key may be fastened. This kite is to be raised when a thunder-gust appears to be coming on, and the person who holds the string must stand within a door or window, or under some cover, so that the silk riband may not be wet; and care must be taken that the twine does not touch the frame of the door or window. As soon as any of the thunder-clouds come over the kite, the pointed wire will draw the electric fire from them, and the kite, with all the twine, will be electrified, and the loose filaments of the twine will stand out every way, and be attracted by an approaching finger. And when the rain has wetted the kite and twine, so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the key on the approach of your knuckle. At this key the vial may be charged; and from electric fire thus obtained, spirits may be kindled, and all the other electric experiments be performed, which are usually done by the help of a rubbed glass globe or tube, and thereby the sameness of the electric matter with that of lightning completely demonstrated. B. FRANKLIN. * * * * * _Physical and Meteorological Observations, Conjectures, and Suppositions._--Read at the Royal Society, June 3, 1756. The particles of air are kept at a distance from each other by their mutual repulsion * * * Whatever particles of other matter (not endued with that repellancy) are supported in air, must adhere to the particles of air, and be supported by them; for in the vacancies there is nothing they can rest on. Air and water mutually attract each other. Hence water will dissolve in air, as salt in water. The specific gravity of matter is not altered by dividing the matter, though the superfices be increased. Sixteen leaden bullets, of an ounce each, weigh as much in water as one of a pound, whose superfices is less. Therefore the supporting of salt in water is not owing to its superfices being increased. A lump of salt, though laid at rest at the bottom of a vessel of water, will dissolve therein, and its parts move every way, till equally diffused in the water; therefore there is a mutual attraction between water and salt. Every particle of water assumes as many of salt as can adhere to it; when more is added, it precipitates, and will not remain suspended. Water, in the same manner, will dissolve in air, every particle of air assuming one or more particles of water. When too much is added, it precipitates in rain. But there not being the same contiguity between the particles of air as of water, the solution of water in air is not carried on without a motion of the air so as to cause a fresh accession of dry particles. Part of a fluid, having more of what it dissolves, will communicate to other parts that have less. Thus very salt water, coming in contact with fresh, communicates its saltness till all is equal, and the sooner if there is a little motion of the water. * * * Air, suffering continual changes in the degrees of its heat, from various causes and circumstances, and, consequently, changes in its specific gravity, must therefore be in continual motion. A small quantity of fire mixed with water (or degree of heat therein) so weakens the cohesion of its particles, that those on the surface easily quit it and adhere to the particles of air. Air moderately heated will support a greater quantity of water invisibly than cold air; for its particles being by heat repelled to a greater distance from each other, thereby more easily keep the particles of water that are annexed to them from running into cohesions that would obstruct, refract, or reflect the light. Hence, when we breathe in warm air, though the same quantity of moisture may be taken up from the lungs as when we breathe in cold air, yet that moisture is not so visible. Water being extremely heated, _i. e._, to the degree of boiling, its particles, in quitting it, so repel each other as to take up vastly more space than before and by that repellancy support themselves, expelling the air from the space they occupy. That degree of heat being lessened, they again mutually attract, and having no air particles mixed to adhere to, by which they might be supported and kept at a distance, they instantly fall, coalesce, and become water again. The water commonly diffused in our atmosphere never receives such a degree of heat from the sun or other cause as water has when boiling; it is not, therefore, supported by such heat, but by adhering to air. * * * A particle of air loaded with adhering water or any other matter, is heavier than before, and would descend. The atmosphere supposed at rest, a loaded descending particle must act with a force on the particles it passes between or meets with sufficient to overcome, in some degree, their mutual repellancy, and push them nearer to each other. * * * Every particle of air, therefore, will bear any load inferior to the force of these repulsions. Hence the support of fogs, mists, clouds. Very warm air, clear, though supporting a very great quantity of moisture, will grow turbid and cloudy on the mixture of colder air, as foggy, turbid air will grow clear by warming. Thus the sun, shining on a morning fog, dissipates it; clouds are seen to waste in a sunshiny day. But cold condenses and renders visible the vapour: a tankard or decanter filled with cold water will condense the moisture of warm, clear air on its outside, where it becomes visible as dew, coalesces into drops, descends in little streams. The sun heats the air of our atmosphere most near the surface of the earth; for there, besides the direct rays, there are many reflections. Moreover, the earth itself, being heated, communicates of its heat to the neighbouring air. The higher regions, having only the direct rays of the sun passing through them, are comparatively very cold. Hence the cold air on the tops of mountains, and snow on some of them all the year, even in the torrid zone. Hence hail in summer. If the atmosphere were, all of it (both above and below), always of the same temper as to cold or heat, then the upper air would always be _rarer_ than the lower, because the pressure on it is less; consequently lighter, and, therefore, would keep its place. But the upper air may be more condensed by cold than the lower air by pressure; the lower more expanded by heat than the upper for want of pressure. In such case the upper air will become the heavier, the lower the lighter. The lower region of air being heated and expanded, heaves up and supports for some time the colder, heavier air above, and will continue to support it while the equilibrium is kept. Thus water is supported in an inverted open glass, while the equilibrium is maintained by the equal pressure upward of the air below; but the equilibrium by any means breaking, the water descends on the heavier side, and the air rises into its place. The lifted heavy cold air over a heated country becoming by any means unequally supported or unequal in its weight, the heaviest part descends first, and the rest follows impetuously. Hence gusts after heats, and hurricanes in hot climates. Hence the air of gusts and hurricanes is cold, though in hot climates and seasons; it coming from above. The cold air descending from above, as it penetrates our warm region full of watery particles, condenses them, renders them visible, forms a cloud thick and dark, overcasting sometimes, at once, large and extensive; sometimes, when seen at a distance, small at first, gradually increasing; the cold edge or surface of the cloud condensing the vapours next it, which form smaller clouds that join it, increase its bulk, it descends with the wind and its acquired weight, draws nearer the earth, grows denser with continual additions of water, and discharges heavy showers. Small black clouds thus appearing in a clear sky, in hot climates portend storms, and warn seamen to hand their sails. The earth turning on its axis in about twenty-four hours, the equatorial parts must move about fifteen miles in each minute; in northern and southern latitudes this motion is gradually less to the poles, and there nothing. If there was a general calm over the face of the globe, it must be by the air's moving in every part as fast as the earth or sea it covers. * * * The air under the equator and between the tropics being constantly heated and rarefied by the sun, rises. Its place is supplied by air from northern and southern latitudes, which, coming from parts wherein the earth and air had less motion, and not suddenly acquiring the quicker motion of the equatorial earth, appears an east wind blowing westward; the earth moving from west to east, and slipping under the air.[37] [37] See a paper on this subject, by the late ingenious Mr. Hadley, in the Philadelphia Transactions, wherein this hypothesis of explaining the tradewinds first appeared. Thus, when we ride in a calm, it seems a wind against us: if we ride with the wind, and faster, even that will seem a small wind against us. The air rarefied between the tropics, and rising, must flow in the higher region north and south. Before it rose it had acquired the greatest motion the earth's rotation could give it. It retains some degree of this motion, and descending in higher latitudes, where the earth's motion is less, will appear a westerly wind, yet tending towards the equatorial parts, to supply the vacancy occasioned by the air of the lower regions flowing thitherward. Hence our general cold winds are about northwest, our summer cold gusts the same. The air in sultry weather, though not cloudy, has a kind of haziness in it, which makes objects at a distance appear dull and indistinct. This haziness is occasioned by the great quantity of moisture equally diffused in that air. When, by the cold wind blowing down among it, it is condensed into clouds, and falls in rain, the air becomes purer and clearer. Hence, after gusts, distant objects appear distinct, their figures sharply terminated. Extreme cold winds congeal the surface of the earth by carrying off its fire. Warm winds afterward blowing over that frozen surface will be chilled by it. Could that frozen surface be turned under, and warmer turned up from beneath it, those warm winds would not be chilled so much. The surface of the earth is also sometimes much heated by the sun: and such heated surface, not being changed, heats the air that moves over it. Seas, lakes, and great bodies of water, agitated by the winds, continually change surfaces; the cold surface in winter is turned under by the rolling of the waves, and a warmer turned up; in summer the warm is turned under, and colder turned up. Hence the more equal temper of seawater, and the air over it. Hence, in winter, winds from the sea seem warm, winds from the land cold. In summer the contrary. Therefore the lakes northwest of us,[38] as they are not so much frozen, nor so apt to freeze as the earth, rather moderate than increase the coldness of our winter winds. [38] In Pennsylvania. The air over the sea being warmer, and, therefore, lighter in winter than the air over the frozen land, may be another cause of our general northwest winds, which blow off to sea at right angles from our North American coast. The warm, light sea-air rising, the heavy, cold land-air pressing into its place. Heavy fluids, descending, frequently form eddies or whirlpools, as is seen in a funnel, where the water acquires a circular motion, receding every way from a centre, and leaving a vacancy in the middle, greatest above, and lessening downward, like a speaking-trumpet, its big end upward. Air, descending or ascending, may form the same kind of eddies or whirlings, the parts of air acquiring a circular motion, and receding from the middle of the circle by a centrifugal force, and leaving there a vacancy; if descending, greatest above and lessening downward; if ascending, greatest below and lessening upward; like a speaking-trumpet standing its big end on the ground. When the air descends with a violence in some places, it may rise with equal violence in others, and form both kinds of whirlwinds. The air, in its whirling motion, receding every way from the centre or axis of the trumpet, leaves there a _vacuum_, which cannot be filled through the sides, the whirling air, as an arch, preventing; it must then press in at the open ends. The greatest pressure inward must be at the lower end, the greatest weight of the surrounding atmosphere being there. The air, entering, rises within, and carries up dust, leaves, and even heavier bodies that happen in its way, as the eddy or whirl passes over land. If it passes over water, the weight of the surrounding atmosphere forces up the water into the vacuity, part of which, by degrees, joins with the whirling air, and, adding weight and receiving accelerated motion, recedes farther from the centre or axis of the trump as the pressure lessens; and at last, as the trump widens, is broken into small particles, and so united with air as to be supported by it, and become black clouds at the top of the trump. Thus these eddies may be whirlwinds at land, water-spouts at sea. A body of water so raised may be suddenly let fall, when the motion, &c., has not strength to support it, or the whirling arch is broken so as to admit the air: falling in the sea, it is harmless unless ships happen under it; and if in the progressive motion of the whirl it has moved from the sea over the land, and then breaks, sudden, violent, and mischievous torrents are the consequences. * * * * * _To Dr. Perkins._ _Water-spouts and Whirlwinds compared._--Read at the Royal Society, June 24, 1753. Philadelphia, Feb. 4, 1753. I ought to have written to you long since, in answer to yours of October 16, concerning the water-spout; but business partly, and partly a desire of procuring farther information by inquiry among my seafaring acquaintance, induced me to postpone writing, from time to time, till I am almost ashamed to resume the subject, not knowing but you may have forgot what has been said upon it. Nothing certainly can be more improving to a searcher into nature than objections judiciously made to his opinion, taken up, perhaps, too hastily: for such objections oblige him to restudy the point, consider every circumstance carefully, compare facts, make experiments, weigh arguments, and be slow in drawing conclusions. And hence a sure advantage results; for he either confirms a truth before too slightly supported, or discovers an error, and receives instruction from the objector. In this view I consider the objections and remarks you sent me, and thank you for them sincerely; but, how much soever my inclinations lead me to philosophical inquiries, I am so engaged in business, public and private, that those more pleasing pursuits are frequently interrupted, and the chain of thought necessary to be closely continued in such disquisitions is so broken and disjointed, that it is with difficulty I satisfy myself in any of them; and I am now not much nearer a conclusion in this matter of the spout than when I first read your letter. Yet, hoping we may, in time, sift out the truth between us, I will send you my present thoughts, with some observations on your reasons on the accounts in the _Transactions_, and on other relations I have met with. Perhaps, while I am writing, some new light may strike me, for I shall now be obliged to consider the subject with a little more attention. I agree with you, that, by means of a vacuum in a whirlwind, water cannot be supposed to rise in large masses to the region of the clouds; for the pressure of the surrounding atmosphere could not force it up in a continued body or column to a much greater height than thirty feet. But if there really is a vacuum in the centre, or near the axis of whirlwinds, then, I think, water may rise in such vacuum to that height, or to a less height, as the vacuum may be less perfect. I had not read Stuart's account, in the _Transactions_, for many years before the receipt of your letter, and had quite forgot it; but now, on viewing his draughts and considering his descriptions, I think they seem to favour _my hypothesis_; for he describes and draws columns of water of various heights, terminating abruptly at the top, exactly as water would do when forced up by the pressure of the atmosphere into an exhausted tube. I must, however, no longer call it _my hypothesis_, since I find Stuart had the same thought, though somewhat obscurely expressed, where he says "he imagines this phenomenon may be solved by suction (improperly so called) or rather pulsion, as in the application of a cupping-glass to the flesh, the air being first voided by the kindled flax." In my paper, I supposed a whirlwind and a spout to be the same thing, and to proceed from the same cause; the only difference between them being that the one passes over the land, the other over water. I find also in the _Transactions_, that M. de la Pryme was of the same opinion; for he there describes two spouts, as he calls them, which were seen at different times, at Hatfield, in Yorkshire, whose appearances in the air were the same with those of the spouts at sea, and effects the same with those of real whirlwinds. Whirlwinds have generally a progressive as well as a circular motion; so had what is called the spout at Topsham, as described in the Philosophical Transactions, which also appears, by its effects described, to have been a real whirlwind. Water-spouts have, also, a progressive motion; this is sometimes greater and sometimes less; in some violent, in others barely perceivable. The whirlwind at Warrington continued long in Acrement Close. Whirlwinds generally arise after calms and great heats: the same is observed of water-spouts, which are, therefore, most frequent in the warm latitudes. The spout that happened in cold weather, in the Downs, described by Mr. Gordon in the _Transactions_, was, for that reason, thought extraordinary; but he remarks withal, that the weather, though cold when the spout appeared, was soon after much colder: as we find it commonly less warm after a whirlwind. You agree that the wind blows every way towards a whirlwind from a large space round. An intelligent whaleman of Nantucket informed me that three of their vessels, which were out in search of whales, happening to be becalmed, lay in sight of each other, at about a league distance, if I remember right, nearly forming a triangle: after some time, a water-spout appeared near the middle of the triangle, when a brisk breeze of wind sprung up, and every vessel made sail; and then it appeared to them all, by the setting of the sails and the course each vessel stood, that the spout was to the leeward of every one of them; and they all declared it to have been so when they happened afterward in company, and came to confer about it. So that in this particular, likewise, whirlwinds and water-spouts agree. But if that which appears a water-spout at sea does sometimes, in its progressive motion, meet with and pass over land, and there produce all the phenomena and effects of a whirlwind, it should thence seem still more evident that a whirlwind and a spout are the same. I send you, herewith, a letter from an ingenious physician of my acquaintance, which gives one instance of this, that fell within his observation. A fluid, moving from all points horizontally towards a centre, must, at that centre, either ascend or descend. Water being in a tub, if a hole be opened in the middle of the bottom, will flow from all sides to the centre, and there descend in a whirl. But air flowing on and near the surface of land or water, from all sides towards a centre, must at that centre ascend, the land or water hindering its descent. If these concentring currents of air be in the upper region, they may, indeed, descend in the spout or whirlwind; but then, when the united current reached the earth or water, it would spread, and, probably, blow every way from the centre. There may be whirlwinds of both kinds, but from the commonly observed effects I suspect the rising one to be the most common: when the upper air descends, it is, perhaps, in a greater body, extending wider, as in our thunder-gusts, and without much whirling; and, when air descends in a spout or whirlwind, I should rather expect it would press the roof of a house _inward_, or force _in_ the tiles, shingles, or thatch, force a boat down into the water, or a piece of timber into the earth, than that it would lift them up and carry them away. It has so happened that I have not met with any accounts of spouts that certainly descended; I suspect they are not frequent. Please to communicate those you mention. The apparent dropping of a pipe from the clouds towards the earth or sea, I will endeavour to explain hereafter. The augmentation of the cloud, which, as I am informed, is generally, if not always the case, during a spout, seems to show an ascent rather than a descent of the matter of which such cloud is composed; for a descending spout, one would expect, should diminish a cloud. I own, however, that cold air, descending, may, by condensing the vapours in a lower region, form and increase clouds; which, I think, is generally the case in our common thunder-gusts, and, therefore, do not lay great stress on this argument. Whirlwinds and spouts are not always, though most commonly, in the daytime. The terrible whirlwind which damaged a great part of Rome, June 11, 1749, happened in the night of that day. The same was supposed to have been first a spout, for it is said to be beyond doubt that it gathered in the neighbouring sea, as it could be tracked from Ostia to Rome. I find this in Père Boschovich's account of it, as abridged in the Monthly Review for December, 1750. In that account, the whirlwind is said to have appeared as a very black, long, and lofty cloud, discoverable, notwithstanding the darkness of the night, by its continually lightning or emitting flashes on all sides, pushing along with a surprising swiftness, and within three or four feet of the ground. Its general effects on houses were stripping off the roofs, blowing away chimneys, breaking doors and windows, _forcing up the floors, and unpaving the rooms_ (some of these effects seem to agree well with a supposed vacuum in the centre of the whirlwind), and the very rafters of the houses were broken and dispersed, and even hurled against houses at a considerable distance, &c. It seems, by an expression of Père Boschovich's, as if the wind blew from all sides towards the whirlwind; for, having carefully observed its effects, he concludes of all whirlwinds, "that their motion is circular, and their action attractive." He observes on a number of histories of whirlwinds, &c., "that a common effect of them is to carry up into the air tiles, stones, and animals themselves, which happen to be in their course, and all kinds of bodies unexceptionably, throwing them to a considerable distance with great impetuosity." Such effects seem to show a rising current of air. I will endeavour to explain my conceptions of this matter by figures, representing a plan and an elevation of a spout or whirlwind. I would only first beg to be allowed two or three positions mentioned in my former paper. 1. That the lower region of air is often more heated, and so more rarefied, than the upper; consequently, specifically lighter. The coldness of the upper region is manifested by the hail which sometimes falls from it in a hot day. 2. That heated air may be very moist, and yet the moisture so equally diffused and rarefied as not to be visible till colder air mixes with it, when it condenses and becomes visible. Thus our breath, invisible in summer, becomes visible in winter. Now let us suppose a tract of land or sea, of perhaps sixty miles square, unscreened by clouds and unfanned by winds during great part of a summer's day, or, it may be, for several days successively, till it is violently heated, together with the lower region of air in contact with it, so that the said lower air becomes specifically lighter than the superincumbent higher region of the atmosphere in which the clouds commonly float: let us suppose, also, that the air surrounding this tract has not been so much heated during those days, and, therefore, remains heavier. The consequence of this should be, as I conceive, that the heated lighter air, being pressed on all sides, must ascend, and the heavier descend; and as this rising cannot be in all parts, or the whole area of the tract at once, for that would leave too extensive a vacuum, the rising will begin precisely in that column that happens to be the lightest or most rarefied; and the warm air will flow horizontally from all points to this column, where the several currents meeting, and joining to rise, a whirl is naturally formed, in the same manner as a whirl is formed in the tub of water, by the descending fluid flowing from all sides of the tub to the hole in the centre. And as the several currents arrive at this central rising column with a considerable degree of horizontal motion, they cannot suddenly change it to a vertical motion; therefore, as they gradually, in approaching the whirl, decline from right curved or circular lines, so, having joined the whirl, they _ascend_ by a spiral motion, in the same manner as the water _descends_ spirally through the hole in the tub before mentioned. Lastly, as the lower air, and nearest the surface, is most rarefied by the heat of the sun, that air is most acted on by the pressure of the surrounding cold and heavy air, which is to take its place; consequently, its motion towards the whirl is swiftest, and so the force of the lower part of the whirl or trump strongest, and the centrifugal force of its particles greatest; and hence the vacuum round the axis of the whirl should be greatest near the earth or sea, and be gradually diminished as it approaches the region of the clouds, till it ends in a point, as at P, _Fig. 2. in the plate_, forming a long and sharp cone. In figure 1, which is a plan or groundplat of a whirlwind, the circle V represents the central vacuum. Between _a a a a_ and _b b b b_ I suppose a body of air, condensed strongly by the pressure of the currents moving towards it from all sides without, and by its centrifugal force from within, moving round with prodigious swiftness (having, as it were, the entire momenta of all the currents ----> ----> united in itself), and with a power equal to its swiftness and density. It is this whirling body of air between _a a a a_ and _b b b b_ that rises spirally; by its force it tears buildings to pieces, twists up great trees by the roots, &c., and, by its spiral motion, raises the fragments so high, till the pressure of the surrounding and approaching currents diminishing, can no longer confine them to the circle, or their own centrifugal force increasing, grows too strong for such pressure, when they fly off in tangent lines, as stones out of a sling, and fall on all sides and at great distances. If it happens at sea, the water under and between _a a a a_ and _b b b b_ will be violently agitated and driven about, and parts of it raised with the spiral current, and thrown about so as to form a bushlike appearance. This circle is of various diameters, sometimes very large. If the vacuum passes over water, the water may rise in it in a body or column to near the height of thirty-two feet. If it passes over houses, it may burst their windows or walls outward, pluck off the roofs, and pluck up the floors, by the sudden rarefaction of the air contained within such buildings; the outward pressure of the atmosphere being suddenly taken off; so the stopped bottle of air bursts under the exhausted receiver of the airpump. Fig. 2 is to represent the elevation of a water-spout, wherein I suppose P P P to be the cone, at first a vacuum, till W W, the rising column of water, has filled so much of it. S S S S, the spiral whirl of air, surrounding the vacuum, and continued higher in a close column after the vacuum ends in the point P, till it reaches the cool region of the air. B B, the bush described by Stuart, surrounding the foot of the column of water. Now I suppose this whirl of air will at first be as invisible as the air itself, though reaching, in reality, from the water to the region of cool air, in which our low summer thunder-clouds commonly float: but presently it will become visible at its extremities. _At its lower end_, by the agitation of the water under the whirling part of the circle, between P and S, forming Stuart's bush, and by the swelling and rising of the water in the beginning vacuum, which is at first a small, low, broad cone, whose top gradually rises and sharpens, as the force of the whirl increases. _At its upper end_ it becomes visible by the warm air brought up to the cooler region, where its moisture begins to be condensed into thick vapour by the cold, and is seen first at A, the highest part, which, being now cooled, condenses what rises next at B, which condenses that at C, and that condenses what is rising at D, the cold operating by the contact of the vapours faster in a right line downward than the vapours can climb in a spiral line upward; they climb, however, and as by continual addition they grow denser, and, consequently, their centrifugal force greater, and being risen above the concentrating currents that compose the whirl, fly off, spread, and form a cloud. It seems easy to conceive how, by this successive condensation from above, the spout appears to drop or descend from the cloud, though the materials of which it is composed are all the while ascending. The condensation of the moisture contained in so great a quantity of warm air as may be supposed to rise in a short time in this prodigiously rapid whirl, is perhaps sufficient to form a great extent of cloud, though the spout should be over land, as those at Hatfield; and if the land happens not to be very dusty, perhaps the lower part of the spout will scarce become visible at all; though the upper, or what is commonly called the descending part, be very distinctly seen. The same may happen at sea, in case the whirl is not violent enough to make a high vacuum, and raise the column, &c. In such case, the upper part A B C D only will be visible, and the bush, perhaps, below. But if the whirl be strong, and there be much dust on the land, and the column W W be raised from the water, then the lower part becomes visible and sometimes even united to the upper part. For the dust may be carried up in the spiral whirl till it reach the region where the vapour is condensed, and rise with that even to the clouds: and the friction of the whirling air on the sides of the column W W, may detach great quantities of its water, break it into drops, and carry them up in the spiral whirl, mixed with the air; the heavier drops may indeed fly off, and fall in a shower round the spout; but much of it will be broken into vapour, yet visible; and thus, in both cases, by dust at land and by water at sea, the whole tube may be darkened and rendered visible. As the whirl weakens, the tube may (in appearance) separate in the middle; the column of water subsiding, and the superior condensed part drawing up to the cloud. Yet still the tube or whirl of air may remain entire, the middle only becoming invisible, as not containing visible matter. Dr. Stuart says, "It was observable of all the spouts he saw, but more perceptible of the great one, that, towards the end, it began to appear like a hollow canal, only black in the borders, but white in the middle; and though at first it was altogether black and opaque, yet now one could very distinctly perceive the seawater to fly up along the middle of this canal, as smoke up a chimney." And Dr. Mather, describing a whirlwind, says, "A thick dark, small cloud arose, with a pillar of light in it, of about eight or ten feet diameter, and passed along the ground in a tract not wider than a street, horribly tearing up trees by the roots, blowing them up in the air life feathers, and throwing up stones of great weight to a considerable height in the air," &c. These accounts, the one of water-spouts, the other of a whirlwind, seem in this particular to agree; what one gentleman describes as a tube, black in the borders and white in the middle, the other calls a black cloud, with a pillar of light in it; the latter expression has only a little more of the _marvellous_, but the thing is the same; and it seems not very difficult to understand. When Dr. Stuart's spouts were full charged, that is, when the whirling pipe of air was filled between _a a a a_ and _b b b b_, fig. 1, with quantities of drops, and vapour torn off from the column W W, fig. 2, the whole was rendered so dark as that it could not be seen through, nor the spiral ascending motion discovered; but when the quantity ascending lessened, the pipe became more transparent, and the ascending motion visible. For, by inspection of the figure given in the opposite page, respecting a section of our spout, with the vacuum in the middle, it is plain that if we look at such a hollow pipe in the direction of the arrows, and suppose opaque particles to be equally mixed in the space between the two circular lines, both the part between the arrows _a_ and _b_, and that between the arrows _c_ and _d_, will appear much darker than that between _b_ and _c_, as there must be many more of those opaque particles in the line of vision across the sides than across the middle. It is thus that a hair in a microscope evidently appears to be a pipe, the sides showing darker than the middle. Dr. Mather's whirl was probably filled with dust, the sides were very dark, but the vacuum within rendering the middle more transparent, he calls it a pillar of light. [Illustration: Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3] It was in this more transparent part, between _b_ and _c_, that Stuart could see the spiral motion of the vapours, whose lines on the nearest and farthest side of the transparent part crossing each other, represented smoke ascending in a chimney; for the quantity being still too great in the line of sight through the sides of the tube, the motion could not be discovered there, and so they represented the solid sides of the chimney. When the vapours reach in the pipe from the clouds near to the earth, it is no wonder now to those who understand electricity, that flashes of lightning should descend by the spout, as in that of Rome. But you object, if water may be thus carried into the clouds, why have we not salt rains? The objection is strong and reasonable, and I know not whether I can answer it to your satisfaction. I never heard but of one salt rain, and that was where a spout passed pretty near a ship; so I suppose it to be only the drops thrown off from the spout by the centrifugal force (as the birds were at Hatfield), when they had been carried so high as to be above, or to be too strongly centrifugal for the pressure of the concurring winds surrounding it: and, indeed, I believe there can be no other kind of salt rain; for it has pleased the goodness of God so to order it, that the particles of air will not attract the particles of salt, though they strongly attract water. Hence, though all metals, even gold, may be united with air and rendered volatile, salt remains fixed in the fire, and no heat can force it up to any considerable height, or oblige the air to hold it. Hence, when salt rises, as it will a little way, into air with water, there is instantly a separation made; the particles of water adhere to the air, and the particles of salt fall down again, as if repelled and forced off from the water by some power in the air; or, as some metals, dissolved in a proper _menstruum_, will quit the solvent when other matter approaches, and adhere to that, so the water quits the salt and embraces the air; but air will not embrace the salt and quit the water, otherwise our rains would indeed be salt, and every tree and plant on the face of the earth be destroyed, with all the animals that depend on them for subsistence. He who hath proportioned and given proper quantities to all things, was not unmindful of this. Let us adore Him with praise and thanksgiving. By some accounts of seamen, it seems the column of water W W sometimes falls suddenly; and if it be, as some say, fifteen or twenty yards diameter, it must fall with great force, and they may well fear for their ships. By one account, in the _Transactions_, of a spout that fell at Colne, in Lancashire, one would think the column is sometimes lifted off from the water and carried over land, and there let fall in a body; but this, I suppose, happens rarely. Stuart describes his spouts as appearing no bigger than a mast, and sometimes less; but they were seen at a league and a half distance. I think I formerly read in Dampier, or some other voyager, that a spout, in its progressive motion, went over a ship becalmed on the coast of Guinea, and first threw her down on one side, carrying away her foremast, then suddenly whipped her up, and threw her down on the other side, carrying away her mizen-mast, and the whole was over in an instant. I suppose the first mischief was done by the foreside of the whirl, the latter by the hinderside, their motion being contrary. I suppose a whirlwind or spout may be stationary when the concurring winds are equal; but if unequal, the whirl acquires a progressive motion in the direction of the strongest pressure. When the wind that gives the progressive motion becomes stronger below than above, or above than below, the spout will be bent, and, the cause ceasing, straighten again. Your queries towards the end of your paper appear judicious and worth considering. At present I am not furnished with facts sufficient to make any pertinent answer to them, and this paper has already a sufficient quantity of conjecture. Your manner of accommodating the accounts to your hypothesis of descending spouts is, I own, in ingenious, and perhaps that hypothesis may be true. I will consider it farther, but, as yet, I am not satisfied with it, though hereafter I may be. Here you have my method of accounting for the principal phenomena, which I submit to your candid examination. And as I now seem to have almost written a book instead of a letter, you will think it high time I should conclude; which I beg leave to do, with assuring you that I am, &c., B. FRANKLIN. * * * * * _Alexander Small, London._ ON THE NORTHEAST STORMS IN NORTH AMERICA. May 12, 1760. Agreeable to your request, I send you my reasons for thinking that our northeast storms in North America begin first, in point of time, in the southwest parts; that is to say, the air in Georgia, the farthest of our colonies to the southwest, begins to move southwesterly before the air of Carolina, which is the next colony northeastward; the air of Carolina has the same motion before the air of Virginia, which lies still more northeastward; and so on northeasterly through Pennsylvania, New-York, New-England, &c., quite to Newfoundland. These northeast storms are generally very violent, continue sometimes two or three days, and often do considerable damage in the harbours along the coast. They are attended with thick clouds and rain. What first gave me this idea was the following circumstance. About twenty years ago, a few more or less, I cannot from my memory be certain, we were to have an eclipse of the moon at Philadelphia, on a Friday evening, about nine o'clock. I intended to observe it, but was prevented by a northeast storm, which came on about seven, with thick clouds as usual, that quite obscured the whole hemisphere. Yet when the post brought us the Boston newspaper, giving an account of the effects of the same storm in those parts, I found the beginning of the eclipse had been well observed there, though Boston lies N. E. of Philadelphia about four hundred miles. This puzzled me, because the storm began with us so soon as to prevent any observation; and being a northeast storm, I imagined it must have begun rather sooner in places farther to the northeastward than it did at Philadelphia. I therefore mentioned it in a letter to my brother, who lived at Boston; and he informed me the storm did not begin with them till near eleven o'clock, so that they had a good observation of the eclipse; and upon comparing all the other accounts I received from the several colonies of the time of beginning of the same storm, and, since that, of other storms of the same kind, I found the beginning to be always later the farther northeastward. I have not my notes with me here in England, and cannot, from memory, say the proportion of time to distance, but I think it is about an hour to every hundred miles. From thence I formed an idea of the cause of these storms, which I would explain by a familiar instance or two. Suppose a long canal of water stopped at the end by a gate. The water is quite at rest till the gate is open, then it begins to move out through the gate; the water next the gate is first in motion, and moves towards the gate; the water next to that first water moves next, and so on successively, till the water at the head of the canal is in motion, which is last of all. In this case all the water moves, indeed, towards the gate, but the successive times of beginning motion are the contrary way, viz., from the gate backward to the head of the canal. Again, suppose the air in a chamber at rest, no current through the room till you make a fire in the chimney. Immediately the air in the chimney, being rarefied by the fire, rises; the air next the chimney flows in to supply its place, moving towards the chimney; and, in consequence, the rest of the air successively, quite back to the door. Thus, to produce our northeast storms, I suppose some great heat and rarefaction of the air in or about the Gulf of Mexico; the air, thence rising, has its place supplied by the next more northern, cooler, and, therefore, denser and heavier air; that, being in motion, is followed by the next more northern air, &c., in a successive current, to which current our coast and inland ridge of mountains give the direction of northeast, as they lie N. E. and S. W. This I offer only as an hypothesis to account for this particular fact; and perhaps, on farther examination, a better and truer may be found. I do not suppose all storms generated in the same manner. Our northwest thunder-gusts in America, I know, are not; but of them I have written my opinion fully in a paper which you have seen. B. FRANKLIN. * * * * * _To Dr. Lining, at Charleston._ ON COLD PRODUCED BY EVAPORATION. New-York, April 14, 1757. It is a long time since I had the pleasure of a line from you; and, indeed, the troubles of our country, with the hurry of business I have been engaged in on that account, have made me so bad a correspondent, that I ought not to expect punctuality in others. But, being about to embark for England, I could not quit the continent without paying my respects to you, and, at the same time, taking leave to introduce to your acquaintance a gentleman of learning and merit, Colonel Henry Bouquet, who does me the favour to present you this letter, and with whom I am sure you will be much pleased. Professor Simpson, of Glasgow, lately communicated to me some curious experiments of a physician of his acquaintance, by which it appeared that an extraordinary degree of cold, even to freezing, might be produced by evaporation. I have not had leisure to repeat and examine more than the first and easiest of them, viz.: wet the ball of a thermometer by a feather dipped in spirits of wine which has been kept in the same room, and has, of course, the same degree of heat or cold. The mercury sinks presently three or four degrees, and the quicker if, during the evaporation, you blow on the ball with bellows; a second wetting and blowing, when the mercury is down, carries it yet lower. I think I did not get it lower than five or six degrees from where it naturally stood, which was at that time sixty. But it is said that a vessel of water, being placed in another somewhat larger, containing spirit, in such a manner that the vessel of water is surrounded with the spirit, and both placed under the receiver of an airpump; on exhausting the air, the spirit, evaporating, leaves such a degree of cold as to freeze the water, though the thermometer in the open air stands many degrees above the freezing point. I know not how this phenomena is to be accounted for, but it gives me occasion to mention some loose notions relating to heat and cold, which I have for some time entertained, but not yet reduced into any form. Allowing common fire, as well as electrical, to be a fluid capable of permeating other bodies and seeking an equilibrium, I imagine some bodies are better fitted by nature to be conductors of that fluid than others; and that, generally, those which are the best conductors of the electric fluid are also the best conductors of this; and _è contra_. Thus a body which is a good conductor of fire readily receives it into its substance, and conducts it through the whole to all the parts, as metals and water do; and if two bodies, both good conductors, one heated, the other in its common state, are brought into contact with each other, the body which has most fire readily communicates of it to that which had least, and that which had least readily receives it, till an equilibrium is produced. Thus, if you take a dollar between your fingers with one hand, and a piece of wood of the same dimensions with the other, and bring both at the same time to the flame of a candle, you will find yourself obliged to drop the dollar before you drop the wood, because it conducts the heat of the candle sooner to your flesh. Thus, if a silver teapot had a handle of the same metal, it would conduct the heat from the water to the hand, and become too hot to be used; we therefore give to a metal teapot a handle of wood, which is not so good a conductor as metal. But a China or stone teapot, being in some degree of the nature of glass, which is not a good conductor of heat, may have a handle of the same stuff. Thus, also, a damp, moist air shall make a man more sensible of cold, or chill him more than a dry air that is colder, because a moist air is fitter to receive and conduct away the heat of his body. This fluid, entering bodies in great quantity, first expands them, by separating their parts a little; afterward, by farther separating their parts, it renders solids fluid, and at length dissipates their parts in air. Take this fluid from melted lead or from water, the parts cohere again; the first grows solid, the latter becomes ice: and this is sooner done by the means of good conductors. Thus, if you take, as I have done, a square bar of lead, four inches long and one inch thick, together with three pieces of wood planed to the same dimensions, and lay them on a smooth board, fixed so as not to be easily separated or moved, and pour into the cavity they form as much melted lead as will fill it, you will see the melted lead chill and become firm on the side next the leaden bar some time before it chills on the other three sides in contact with the wooden bars, though, before the lead was poured in, they might all be supposed to have the same degree of heat or coldness, as they had been exposed in the same room to the same air. You will likewise observe, that the leaden bar, as it has cooled the melted lead more than the wooden bars have done, so it is itself more heated by the melted lead. There is a certain quantity of this fluid, called fire, in every living human body; which fluid being in due proportion, keeps the parts of the flesh and blood at such a just distance from each other, as that the flesh and nerves are supple, and the blood fit for circulation. If part of this due proportion of fire be conducted away, by means of a contact with other bodies, as air, water, or metals, the parts of our skin and flesh that come into such contact first draw more near together than is agreeable, and give that sensation which we call cold; and if too much be conveyed away, the body stiffens, the blood ceases to flow, and death ensues. On the other hand, if too much of this fluid be communicated to the flesh, the parts are separated too far, and pain ensues, as when they are separated by a pin or lancet. The sensation that the separation by fire occasions we call heat or burning. My desk on which I now write, and the lock of my desk, are both exposed to the same temperature of the air, and have, therefore, the same degree of heat or cold: yet if I lay my hand successively on the wood and on the metal, the latter feels much the coldest; not that it is really so, but, being a better conductor, it more readily than the wood takes away and draws into itself the fire that was in my skin. Accordingly, if I lay one hand part on the lock and part on the wood, and after it had laid on some time, I feel both parts with my other hand, I find the part that has been in contact with the lock very sensibly colder to the touch than the part that lay on the wood. How a living animal obtains its quantity of this fluid, called fire, is a curious question. I have shown that some bodies (as metals) have a power of attracting it stronger than others; and I have sometimes suspected that a living body had some power of attracting out of the air, or other bodies, the heat it wanted. Thus metals hammered, or repeatedly bent, grow hot in the bent or hammered part. But when I consider that air, in contact with the body, cools it; that the surrounding air is rather heated by its contact with the body; that every breath of cooler air drawn in carries off part of the body's heat when it passes out again; that, therefore, there must be in the body a fund for producing it, or otherwise the animal would soon grow cold; I have been rather inclined to think that the fluid _fire_, as well as the fluid _air_, is attracted by plants in their growth, and becomes consolidated with the other materials of which they are formed, and makes a great part of their substance; that, when they come to be digested, and to suffer in the vessels a kind of fermentation, part of the fire, as well as part of the air, recovers its fluid, active state again, and diffuses itself in the body, digesting and separating it; that the fire, so reproduced by digestion and separation, continually leaving the body, its place is supplied by fresh quantities, arising from the continual separation; that whatever quickens the motion of the fluids in an animal quickens the separation, and reproduces more of the fire, as exercise; that all the fire emitted by wood and other combustibles, when burning, existed in them before in a solid state, being only discovered when separating; that some fossils, as sulphur, seacoal, &c., contain a great deal of solid fire; and that, in short, what escapes and is dissipated in the burning of bodies, besides water and earth, is generally the air and fire that before made parts of the solid. Thus I imagine that animal heat arises by or from a kind of fermentation in the juices of the body, in the same manner as heat arises in the liquors preparing for distillation, wherein there is a separation of the spirituous from the watery and earthy parts. And it is remarkable, that the liquor in a distiller's vat, when in its best and highest state of fermentation, as I have been informed, has the same degree of heat with the human body: that is, about 94 or 96. Thus, as by a constant supply of fuel in a chimney you keep a warm room, so by a constant supply of food in the stomach you keep a warm body; only where little exercise is used the heat may possibly be conducted away too fast; in which case such materials are to be used for clothing and bedding, against the effects of an immediate contact of the air, as are in themselves bad conductors of heat, and, consequently, prevent its being communicated through their substance to the air. Hence what is called _warmth_ in wool, and its preference on that account to linen, wool not being so good a conductor; and hence all the natural coverings of animals to keep them warm are such as retain and confine the natural heat in the body by being bad conductors, such as wool, hair, feathers, and the silk by which the silkworm, in its tender embryo state, is first clothed. Clothing, thus considered, does not make a man warm by _giving_ warmth, but by _preventing_ the too quick dissipation of the heat produced in his body, and so occasioning an accumulation. There is another curious question I will just venture to touch upon, viz., Whence arises the sudden extraordinary degree of cold, perceptible on mixing some chymical liquors, and even on mixing salt and snow, where the composition appears colder than the coldest of the ingredients? I have never seen the chymical mixtures made, but salt and snow I have often mixed myself, and am fully satisfied that the composition feels much colder to the touch, and lowers the mercury in the thermometer more than either ingredient would do separately. I suppose, with others, that cold is nothing more than the absence of heat or fire. Now if the quantity of fire before contained or diffused in the snow and salt was expelled in the uniting of the two matters, it must be driven away either through the air or the vessel containing them. If it is driven off through the air, it must warm the air, and a thermometer held over the mixture, without touching it, would discover the heat by the raising of the mercury, as it must and always does in warm air. This, indeed, I have not tried, but I should guess it would rather be driven off through the vessel, especially if the vessel be metal, as being a better conductor than air; and so one should find the basin warmer after such mixture. But, on the contrary, the vessel grows cold, and even water, in which the vessel is sometimes placed for the experiment, freezes into hard ice on the basin. Now I know not how to account for this, otherwise than by supposing that the composition is a better conductor of fire than the ingredients separately, and, like the lock compared with the wood, has a stronger power of attracting fire, and does accordingly attract it suddenly from the fingers, or a thermometer put into it, from the basin that contains it, and from the water in contact with the outside of the basin; so that the fingers have the sensation of extreme cold by being deprived of much of their natural fire; the thermometer sinks by having part of its fire drawn out of the mercury; the basin grows colder to the touch, as, by having its fire drawn into the mixture, it is become more capable of drawing and receiving it from the hand; and, through the basin, the water loses its fire that kept it fluid; so it becomes ice. One would expect that, from all this attracted acquisition of fire to the composition, it should become warmer; and, in fact, the snow and salt dissolve at the same time into water, without freezing. B. FRANKLIN. * * * * * _Peter Franklin, Newport, Rhode Island._ ON THE SALTNESS OF SEAWATER. London, May 7, 1760. * * It has, indeed, as you observe, been the opinion of some very great naturalists, that the sea is salt only from the dissolution of mineral or rock-salt which its waters happen to meet with. But this opinion takes it for granted that all water was originally fresh, of which we can have no proof. I own I am inclined to a different opinion, and rather think all the water on this globe was originally salt, and that the fresh water we find in springs and rivers is the produce of distillation. The sun raises the vapours from the sea, which form clouds, and fall in rain upon the land, and springs and rivers are formed of that rain. As to the rock-salt found in mines, I conceive that, instead of communicating its saltness to the sea, it is itself drawn from the sea, and that, of course, the sea is now fresher than it was originally. This is only another effect of nature's distillery, and might be performed various ways. It is evident, from the quantities of seashells, and the bones and teeth of fishes found in high lands, that the sea has formerly covered them. Then either the sea has been higher than it now is, and has fallen away from those high lands, or they have been lower than they are, and were lifted up out of the water to their present height by some internal mighty force, such as we still feel some remains of when whole continents are moved by earthquakes In either case it may be supposed that large hollows, or valleys among hills, might be left filled with seawater, which, evaporating, and the fluid part drying away in a course of years, would leave the salt covering the bottom; and that salt, coming afterward to be covered with earth from the neighbouring hills, could only be found by digging through that earth. Or, as we know from their effects that there are deep, fiery caverns under the earth, and even under the sea, if at any time the sea leaks into any of them, the fluid parts of the water must evaporate from that heat, and pass off through some volcano, while the salt remains, and, by degrees and continual accretion, becomes a great mass. Thus the cavern may at length be filled, and the volcano connected with it cease burning, as many, it is said, have done; and future miners, penetrating such cavern, find what we call a salt-mine. This is a fancy I had on visiting the salt-mines at Northwich with my son. I send you a piece of the rock-salt which he brought up with him out of the mine. B. FRANKLIN. * * * * * _To Miss Stephenson._ SALT WATER RENDERED FRESH BY DISTILLATION.--METHOD OF RELIEVING THIRST BY SEAWATER. Craven-street, August 10, 1761. We are to set out this week for Holland, where we may possibly spend a month, but purpose to be at home again before the coronation. I could not go without taking leave of you by a line at least when I am so many letters in your debt. In yours of May 19, which I have before me, you speak of the ease with which salt water may be made fresh by distillation, supposing it to be, as I had said, that in evaporation the air would take up water, but not the salt that was mixed with it. It is true that distilled seawater will not be salt, but there are other disagreeable qualities that rise with the water, in distillation; which, indeed, several besides Dr. Hales have endeavoured by some means to prevent, but as yet their methods have not been brought much into use. I have a singular opinion on this subject, which I will venture to communicate to you, though I doubt you will rank it among my whims. It is certain that the skin has _imbibing_ as well as _discharging_ pores; witness the effects of a blistering-plaster, &c. I have read that a man, hired by a physician to stand, by way of experiment, in the open air naked during a moist night, weighed near three pounds heavier in the morning. I have often observed myself, that however thirsty I may have been before going into the water to swim, I am never long so in the water. These imbibing pores, however, are very fine; perhaps fine enough, in filtering, to separate salt from water; for though I have soaked (by swimming, when a boy) several hours in the day, for several days successively, in salt water, I never found my blood and juices salted by that means, so as to make me thirsty or feel a salt taste in my mouth; and it is remarkable that the flesh of seafish, though bred in salt water, is not salt. Hence I imagined that if people at sea, distressed by thirst, when their fresh water is unfortunately spent, would make bathing-tubs of their empty water-casks, and, filling them with seawater, sit in them an hour or two each day, they might be greatly relieved. Perhaps keeping their clothes constantly wet might have an almost equal effect; and this without danger of catching cold. Men do not catch cold by wet clothes at sea. Damp, but not wet linen, may possibly give colds; but no one catches cold by bathing, and no clothes can be wetter than water itself. Why damp clothes should then occasion colds, is a curious question, the discussion of which I reserve for a future letter or some future conversation. Adieu, my little philosopher. Present my respectful compliments to the good ladies your aunts, and to Miss Pitt, and believe me ever B. FRANKLIN. * * * * * _To the same._ TENDENCY OF RIVERS TO THE SEA.--EFFECTS OF THE SUN'S RAYS ON CLOTHES OF DIFFERENT COLOURS. September 20, 1761. MY DEAR FRIEND, It is, as you observed in our late conversation, a very general opinion, that _all rivers run into the sea_, or deposite their waters there. 'Tis a kind of audacity to call such general opinions in question, and may subject one to censure. But we must hazard something in what we think the cause of truth: and if we propose our objections modestly, we shall, though mistaken, deserve a censure less severe than when we are both mistaken and insolent. That some rivers run into the sea is beyond a doubt: such, for instance, are the Amazons, and, I think, the Oronoko and the Mississippi. The proof is, that their waters are fresh quite to the sea, and out to some distance from the land. Our question is, whether the fresh waters of those rivers, whose beds are filled with salt water to a considerable distance up from the sea (as the Thames, the Delaware, and the rivers that communicate with Chesapeake Bay in Virginia), do ever arrive at the sea? And as I suspect they do not, I am now to acquaint you with my reasons; or, if they are not allowed to be reasons, my conceptions at least of this matter. The common supply of rivers is from springs, which draw their origin from rain that has soaked into the earth. The union of a number of springs forms a river. The waters, as they run exposed to the sun, air, and wind, are continually evaporating. Hence, in travelling, one may often see where a river runs, by a long bluish mist over it, though we are at such a distance as not to see the river itself. The quantity of this evaporation is greater or less, in proportion to the surface exposed by the same quantity of water to those causes of evaporation. While the river runs in a narrow, confined channel in the upper hilly country, only a small surface is exposed; a greater as the river widens. Now if a river ends in a lake, as some do, whereby its waters are spread so wide as that the evaporation is equal to the sum of all its springs, that lake will never overflow; and if, instead of ending in a lake, it was drawn into greater length as a river, so as to expose a surface equal in the whole to that lake, the evaporation would be equal, and such river would end as a canal; when the ignorant might suppose, as they actually do in such cases, that the river loses itself by running under ground, whereas, in truth, it has run up into the air. Now, how many rivers that are open to the sea widen much before they arrive at it, not merely by the additional waters they receive, but by having their course stopped by the opposing flood-tide; by being turned back twice in twenty-four hours, and by finding broader beds in the low flat countries to dilate themselves in; hence the evaporation of the fresh water is proportionably increased, so that in some rivers it may equal the springs of supply. In such cases the salt water comes up the river, and meets the fresh in that part where, if there were a wall or bank of earth across, from side to side, the river would form a lake, fuller indeed at sometimes than at others, according to the seasons, but whose evaporation would, one time with another, be equal to its supply. When the communication between the two kinds of water is open, this supposed wall of separation may be conceived as a moveable one, which is not only pushed some miles higher up the river by every flood-tide from the sea, and carried down again as far by every tide of ebb, but which has even this space of vibration removed nearer to the sea in wet seasons, when the springs and brooks in the upper country are augmented by the falling rains, so as to swell the river, and farther from the sea in dry seasons. Within a few miles above and below this moveable line of separation, the different waters mix a little, partly by their motion to and fro, and partly from the greater gravity of the salt water, which inclines it to run under the fresh, while the fresh water, being lighter, runs over the salt. Cast your eye on the map of North America, and observe the Bay of Chesapeake, in Virginia, mentioned above; you will see, communicating with it by their mouths, the great rivers Susquehanna, Potomac, Rappahannoc, York, and James, besides a number of smaller streams, each as big as the Thames. It has been proposed by philosophical writers, that to compute how much water any river discharges into the sea in a given time, we should measure its depth and swiftness at any part above the tide: as for the Thames, at Kingston or Windsor. But can one imagine, that if all the water of those vast rivers went to the sea, it would not first have pushed the salt water out of that narrow-mouthed bay, and filled it with fresh? The Susquehanna alone would seem to be sufficient for this, if it were not for the loss by evaporation. And yet that bay is salt quite up to Annapolis. As to our other subject, the different degrees of heat imbibed from the sun's rays by cloths of different colours, since I cannot find the notes of my experiment to send you, I must give it as well as I can from memory. But first let me mention an experiment you may easily make yourself. Walk but a quarter of an hour in your garden when the sun shines, with a part of your dress white and a part black; then apply your hand to them alternately, and you will find a very great difference in their warmth. The black will be quite hot to the touch, the white still cool. Another. Try to fire the paper with a burning glass. If it is white, you will not easily burn it; but if you bring the focus to a black spot, or upon letters written or printed, the paper will immediately be on fire under the letters. Thus fullers and dyers find black cloths, of equal thickness with white ones, and hung out equally wet, dry in the sun much sooner than the white, being more readily heated by the sun's rays. It is the same before a fire, the heat of which sooner penetrates black stockings than white ones, and so is apt sooner to burn a man's shins. Also beer much sooner warms in a black mug set before the fire than in a white one, or a bright silver tankard. My experiment was this. I took a number of little pieces of broadcloth from a tailor's pattern card, of various colours. There were black, deep blue, lighter blue, green, purple, red, yellow, white, and other colours or shades of colours. I laid them all out upon the snow in a bright sunshiny morning. In a few hours (I cannot now be exact as to the time) the black, being warmed most by the sun, was sunk so low as to be below the stroke of the sun's rays; the dark blue almost as low, the lighter blue not quite so much as the dark, the other colours less as they were lighter, and the quite white remained on the surface of the snow, not having entered it at all. What signifies philosophy that does not apply to some use? May we not learn from hence that black clothes are not so fit to wear in a hot sunny climate or season as white ones; because in such clothes the body is more heated by the sun when we walk abroad, and are, at the same time, heated by the exercise, which double heat is apt to bring on putrid dangerous fevers? That soldiers and seamen, who must march and labour in the sun, should in the East or West Indies have a uniform of white? That summer hats for men or women should be white, as repelling that heat which gives headaches to many, and to some the fatal stroke that the French call the _coup de soleil_? That the ladies' summer hats, however, should be lined with black, as not reverberating on their faces those rays which are reflected upward from the earth or water? That the putting a white cap of paper or linen _within_ the crown of a black hat, as some do, will not keep out the heat, though it would if placed _without_? That fruit-walls, being blacked, may receive so much heat from the sun in the daytime as to continue warm in some degree through the night, and thereby preserve the fruit from frosts or forward its growth? with sundry other particulars of less or greater importance, that will occur from time to time to attentive minds. B. FRANKLIN. * * * * * _To the same._ ON THE EFFECT OF AIR ON THE BAROMETER. AND THE BENEFITS DERIVED FROM THE STUDY OF INSECTS. Craven-street, June 11, 1760. 'Tis a very sensible question you ask, how the air can affect the barometer, when its opening appears covered with wood? If, indeed, it was so closely covered as to admit of no communication of the outward air to the surface of the mercury, the change of weight in the air could not possibly affect it. But the least crevice is sufficient for the purpose; a pinhole will do the business. And if you could look behind the frame to which your barometer is fixed, you would certainly find some small opening. There are, indeed, some barometers in which the body of the mercury in the lower end is contained in a close leather bag, and so the air cannot come into immediate contact with the mercury; yet the same effect is produced. For the leather, being flexible, when, the bag is pressed by any additional weight of air, it contracts, and the mercury is forced up into the tube; when the air becomes lighter and its pressure less, the weight of the mercury prevails, and it descends again into the bag. Your observations on what you have lately read concerning insects is very just and solid. Superficial minds are apt to despise those who make that part of the creation their study as mere triflers; but certainly the world has been much obliged to them. Under the care and management of man, the labours of the little silkworm afford employment and subsistence to thousands of families, and become an immense article of commerce. The bee, too, yields us its delicious honey, and its wax useful to a multitude of purposes. Another insect, it is said, produces the cochineal, from whence we have our rich scarlet dye. The usefulness of the cantharides, or Spanish flies, in medicine, is known to all, and thousands owe their lives to that knowledge. By human industry and observation, other properties of other insects may possibly be hereafter discovered, and of equal utility. A thorough acquaintance with the nature of these little creatures may also enable mankind to prevent the increase of such as are noxious, or secure us against the mischiefs they occasion. These things doubtless your books make mention of: I can only add a particular late instance, which I had from a Swedish gentleman of good credit. In the green timber intended for shipbuilding at the king's yard in that country, a kind of worms was found, which every year became more numerous and more pernicious, so that the ships were greatly damaged before they came into use. The king sent Linnæus, the great naturalist, from Stockholm, to inquire into the affair, and see if the mischief was capable of any remedy. He found, on examination, that the worm was produced from a small egg, deposited in the little roughnesses on the surface of the wood, by a particular kind of fly or beetle; from whence the worm, as soon as it was hatched, began to eat into the substance of the wood, and, after some time, came out again a fly of the parent kind, and so the species increased. The season in which the fly laid its eggs Linnæus knew to be about a fortnight (I think) in the month of May, and at no other time in the year. He therefore advised, that some days before that season, all the green timber should be thrown into the water, and kept under water till the season was over. Which being done by the king's order, the flies, missing the usual nests, could not increase, and the species was either destroyed or went elsewhere: and the wood was effectually preserved, for after the first year it became too dry and hard for their purpose. There is, however, a prudent moderation to be used in studies of this kind. The knowledge of nature may be ornamental, and it may be useful; but if, to attain an eminence in that, we neglect the knowledge and practice of essential duties, we deserve reprehension. For there is no rank in natural knowledge of equal dignity and importance with that of being a good parent, a good child, a good husband or wife, a good neighbour or friend, a good subject or citizen, that is, in short, a good Christian. Nicholas Gimcrack, therefore, who neglected the care of his family to pursue butterflies, was a just object of ridicule, and we must give him up as fair game to the satirist. B. FRANKLIN. * * * * * _To Dr. Joseph Priestley._ EFFECT OF VEGETATION ON NOXIOUS AIR. * * That the vegetable creation should restore the air which is spoiled by the animal part of it, looks like a rational system, and seems to be of a piece with the rest. Thus fire purifies water all the world over. It purifies it by distillation, when it raises it in vapours, and lets it fall in rain; and farther still by filtration, when, keeping it fluid, it suffers that rain to percolate the earth. We knew before that putrid animal substances were converted into sweet vegetables when mixed with the earth and applied as manure; and now, it seems, that the same putrid substances, mixed with the air, have a similar effect. The strong, thriving state of your mint, in putrid air, seems to show that the air is mended by taking something from it, and not by adding to it. I hope this will give some check to the rage of destroying trees that grow near houses, which has accompanied our late improvements in gardening, from an opinion of their being unwholesome. I am certain, from long observation, that there is nothing unhealthy in the air of woods; for we Americans have everywhere our country habitations in the midst of woods, and no people on earth enjoy better health or are more prolific. B. FRANKLIN. * * * * * _To Dr. John Pringle._ ON THE DIFFERENCE OF NAVIGATION IN SHOAL AND DEEP WATER. Craven-street, May 10, 1768. You may remember, that when we were travelling together in Holland, you remarked that the trackschuyt in one of the stages went slower than usual, and inquired of the boatman what might be the reason; who answered, that it had been a dry season, and the water in the canal was low. On being asked if it was so low as that the boat touched the muddy bottom, he said no, not so low as that, but so low as to make it harder for the horse to draw the boat. We neither of us, at first, could conceive, that if there was water enough for the boat to swim clear of the bottom, its being deeper would make any difference; but as the man affirmed it seriously as a thing well known among them, and as the punctuality required in their stages was likely to make such difference, if any there were, more readily observed by them than by other watermen who did not pass so regularly and constantly backward and forward in the same track, I began to apprehend there might be something in it, and attempted to account for it from this consideration, that the boat, in proceeding along the canal, must in every boat's length of her course move out of her way a body of water equal in bulk to the room her bottom took up in the water; that the water so moved must pass on each side of her and under her bottom to get behind her; that if the passage under her bottom was straitened by the shallows, more of that water must pass by her sides, and with a swifter motion, which would retard her, as moving the contrary way; or, that the water becoming lower behind the boat than before, she was pressed back by the weight of its difference in height, and her motion retarded by having that weight constantly to overcome. But as it is often lost time to attempt accounting for uncertain facts, I determined to make an experiment of this when I should have convenient time and opportunity. After our return to England, as often as I happened to be on the Thames, I inquired of our watermen whether they were sensible of any difference in rowing over shallow or deep water. I found them all agreeing in the fact, that there was a very great difference, but they differed widely in expressing the quantity of the difference; some supposing it was equal to a mile in six, others to a mile in three, &c. As I did not recollect to have met with any mention of this matter in our philosophical books, and conceiving that if the difference should really be great, it might be an object of consideration in the many projects now on foot for digging new navigable canals in this island, I lately put my design of making the experiment in execution in the following manner. I provided a trough of planed boards fourteen feet long, six inches wide, and six inches deep in the clear, filled with water within half an inch of the edge, to represent a canal. I had a loose board, of nearly the same length and breadth, that, being put into the water, might be sunk to any depth, and fixed by little wedges where I would choose to have it stay, in order to make different depths of water, leaving the surface at the same height with regard to the sides of the trough. I had a little boat in form of a lighter or boat of burden, six inches long, two inches and a quarter wide, and one inch and a quarter deep. When swimming, it drew one inch water. To give motion to the boat, I fixed one end of a long silk thread to its bow, just even with the water's edge; the other end passed over a well-made brass pully, of about an inch diameter, turning freely on a small axis; and a shilling was the weight. Then placing the boat at one end of the trough, the weight would draw it through the water to the other. Not having a watch that shows seconds, in order to measure the time taken up by the boat in passing from end to end, I counted as fast as I could count to ten repeatedly, keeping an account of the number of tens on my fingers. And as much as possible to correct any little inequalities in my counting, I repeated the experiment a number of times at each depth of water, that I might take the medium. And the following are the results: Water 1-1/2 inches deep. 2 inches. 4-1/2 inches. 1st exp. 100 94 79 2d " 104 93 78 3d " 104 91 77 4th " 106 87 79 5th " 100 88 79 6th " 99 86 80 7th " 100 90 79 8th " 100 88 81 --- --- --- 813 717 632 --- --- --- Medium 101 Medium 89 Medium 79 I made many other experiments, but the above are those in which I was most exact; and they serve sufficiently to show that the difference is considerable. Between the deepest and shallowest it appears to be somewhat more than one fifth. So that, supposing large canals, and boats, and depths of water to bear the same proportions, and that four men or horses would draw a boat in deep water four leagues in four hours, it would require five to draw the same boat in the same time as far in shallow water, or four would require five hours. Whether this difference is of consequence enough to justify a greater expense in deepening canals, is a matter of calculation, which our ingenious engineers in that way will readily determine. B. FRANKLIN. * * * * * _To Oliver Neale._ ON THE ART OF SWIMMING. I cannot be of opinion with you, that it is too late in life for you to learn to swim. The river near the bottom of your garden affords a most convenient place for the purpose. And as your new employment requires your being often on the water, of which you have such a dread, I think you would do well to make the trial; nothing being so likely to remove those apprehensions as the consciousness of an ability to swim to the shore in case of an accident, or of supporting yourself in the water till a boat could come to take you up. I do not know how far corks or bladders may be useful in learning to swim, having never seen much trial of them. Possibly they may be of service in supporting the body while you are learning what is called the stroke, or that manner of drawing in and striking out the hands and feet that is necessary to produce progressive motion. But you will be no swimmer till you can place some confidence in the power of the water to support you; I would therefore advise the acquiring that confidence in the first place, especially as I have known several who, by a little of the practice necessary for that purpose, have insensibly acquired the stroke, taught, as it were, by nature. The practice I mean is this. Choosing a place where the water deepens gradually, walk coolly into it till it is up to your breast; then turn round, your face to the shore, and throw an egg into the water between you and the shore. It will sink to the bottom, and be easily seen there, as your water is clear. It must lie in water so deep as that you cannot reach it to take it up but by diving for it. To encourage yourself in order to do this, reflect that your progress will be from deeper to shallower water, and that at any time you may, by bringing your legs under you and standing on the bottom, raise your head far above the water. Then plunge under it with your eyes open, throwing yourself towards the egg, and endeavouring, by the action of your hands and feet against the water, to get forward till within reach of it. In this attempt you will find that the water buoys you up against your inclination; that it is not so easy a thing to sink as you imagined; that you cannot, but by active force, get down to the egg. Thus you feel the power of the water to support you, and learn to confide in that power; while your endeavours to overcome it and to reach the egg teach you the manner of acting on the water with your feet and hands, which action is afterward used in swimming to support your head higher above water, or to go forward through it. I would the more earnestly press you to the trial of this method, because, though I think I satisfied you that your body is lighter than water, and that you might float in it a long time, with your mouth free for breathing, if you would put yourself in a proper posture, and would be still and forbear struggling, yet, till you have obtained this experimental confidence in the water, I cannot depend on your having the necessary presence of mind to recollect that posture and directions I gave you relating to it. The surprise may put all out of your mind. For though we value ourselves on being reasonable, knowing creatures, reason and knowledge seem, on such occasions, to be of little use to us; and the brutes, to whom we allow scarce a glimmering of either, appear to have the advantage of us. I will, however, take this opportunity of repeating those particulars to you which I mentioned in our last conversation, as, by perusing them at your leisure, you may possibly imprint them so in your memory as, on occasion, to be of some use to you. 1. That though the legs, arms, and head of a human body, being solid parts, are specifically something heavier than fresh water, yet the trunk, particularly the upper part, from its hollowness, is so much lighter than water, as that the whole of the body, taken together, is too light to sink wholly under water, but some part will remain above until the lungs become filled with water, which happens from drawing water into them instead of air, when a person, in the fright, attempts breathing while the mouth and nostrils are under water. 2. That the legs and arms are specifically lighter than salt water, and will be supported by it, so that a human body would not sink in salt water, though the lungs were filled as above, but from the greater specific gravity of the head. 3. That, therefore, a person throwing himself on his back in salt water, and extending his arms, may easily lie so as to keep his mouth and nostrils free for breathing; and, by a small motion of his hands, may prevent turning if he should perceive any tendency to it. 4. That in fresh water, if a man throws himself on his back near the surface, he cannot long continue in that situation but by proper action of his hands on the water. If he uses no such action, the legs and lower part of the body will gradually sink till he comes into an upright position, in which he will continue suspended, the hollow of the breast keeping the head uppermost. 5. But if, in this erect position, the head is kept upright above the shoulders, as when we stand on the ground, the immersion will, by the weight of that part of the head that is out of water, reach above the mouth and nostrils, perhaps a little above the eyes, so that a man cannot long remain suspended in water with his head in that position. 6. The body continuing suspended as before, and upright, if the head be leaned quite back, so that the face look upward, all the back part of the head being then under water, and its weight, consequently, in a great measure supported by it, the face will remain above water quite free for breathing, will rise an inch higher every inspiration, and sink as much every expiration, but never so low that the water may come over the mouth. 7. If, therefore, a person unacquainted with swimming, and falling accidentally into the water, could have presence of mind sufficient to avoid struggling and plunging, and to let the body take this natural position, he might continue long safe from drowning till perhaps help would come. For as to the clothes, their additional weight, while immersed, is very inconsiderable, the water supporting it, though, when he comes out of the water, he would find them very heavy indeed. But, as I said before, I would not advise you or any one to depend on having this presence of mind on such an occasion, but learn fairly to swim, as I wish all men were taught to do in their youth; they would, on many occurrences, be the safer for having that skill, and on many more the happier, as freer from painful apprehensions of danger, to say nothing of the enjoyment in so delightful and wholesome an exercise. Soldiers particularly should, methinks, all be taught to swim; it might be of frequent use either in surprising an enemy or saving themselves. And if I had now boys to educate, I should prefer those schools (other things being equal) where an opportunity was afforded for acquiring so advantageous an art, which, once learned, is never forgotten. B. FRANKLIN. * * * * * _To Miss Stephenson._ METHOD OF CONTRACTING CHIMNEYS.--MODESTY IN DISPUTATION. Craven-street, Saturday evening, past 10. The question you ask me is a very sensible one, and I shall be glad if I can give you a satisfactory answer. There are two ways of contracting a chimney; one by contracting the opening _before_ the fire, the other by contracting the funnel _above_ the fire. If the funnel above the fire is left open in its full dimensions, and the opening before the fire is contracted, then the coals, I imagine, will burn faster, because more air is directed through the fire, and in a stronger stream; that air which before passed over it and on each side of it, now passing _through_ it. This is seen in narrow stove chimneys, when a _sacheverell_ or blower is used, which still more contracts the narrow opening. But if the funnel only _above_ the fire is contracted, then, as a less stream of air is passing up the chimney, less must pass through the fire, and, consequently, it should seem that the consuming of the coals would rather be checked than augmented by such contraction. And this will also be the case when both the opening _before_ the fire and the funnel _above_ the fire are contracted, provided the funnel above the fire is more contracted in proportion than the opening before the fire. So, you see, I think you had the best of the argument; and as you, notwithstanding, gave it up in complaisance to the company, I think you had also the best of the dispute. There are few, though convinced, that know how to give up even an error they have been once engaged in maintaining; there is, therefore, the more merit in dropping a contest where one thinks one's self right; it is at least respectful to those we converse with. And, indeed, all our knowledge is so imperfect, and we are, from a thousand causes, so perpetually subject to mistake and error, that positiveness can scarce ever become even the most knowing; and modesty in advancing any opinion, however plain and true we may suppose it, is always decent, and generally more likely to procure assent. Pope's rule, To speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence, is therefore a good one; and if I had ever seen in your conversation the least deviation from it, I should earnestly recommend it to your observation. I am, &c., B. FRANKLIN. * * * * * _To M. Dubourg._ OBSERVATIONS ON THE PREVAILING DOCTRINES OF LIFE AND DEATH. * * Your observations on the causes of death, and the experiments which you propose for recalling to life those who appear to be killed by lightning, demonstrate equally your sagacity and your humanity. It appears that the doctrines of life and death, in general, are yet but little understood. A toad buried in sand will live, it is said, till the sand becomes petrified: and then, being enclosed in the stone, it may still live for we know not how many ages. The facts which are cited in support of this opinion are too numerous and too circumstantial not to deserve a certain degree of credit. As we are accustomed to see all the animals with which we are acquainted eat and drink, it appears to us difficult to conceive how a toad can be supported in such a dungeon: but if we reflect that the necessity of nourishment, which animals experience in their ordinary state, proceeds from the continual waste of their substance by perspiration, it will appear less incredible that some animals, in a torpid state, perspiring less because they use no exercise, should have less need of aliment; and that others, which are covered with scales or shells which stop perspiration, such as land and sea turtles, serpents, and some species of fish, should be able to subsist a considerable time without any nourishment whatever. A plant, with its flowers, fades and dies immediately if exposed to the air without having its root immersed in a humid soil, from which it may draw a sufficient quantity of moisture to supply that which exhales from its substance and is carried off continually by the air. Perhaps, however, if it were buried in quicksilver, it might preserve, for a considerable space of time, its vegetable life, its smell, and colour. If this be the case, it might prove a commodious method of transporting from distant countries those delicate plants which are unable to sustain the inclemency of the weather at sea, and which require particular care and attention. I have seen an instance of common flies preserved in a manner somewhat similar. They had been drowned in Madeira wine, apparently about the time when it was bottled in Virginia to be sent hither (to London). At the opening of one of the bottles, at the house of a friend where I then was, three drowned flies fell into the first glass that was filled. Having heard it remarked that drowned flies were capable of being revived by the rays of the sun, I proposed making the experiment upon these: they were therefore exposed to the sun upon a sieve, which had been employed to strain them out of the wine. In less than three hours, two of them began by degrees to recover life. They commenced by some convulsive motions of the thighs, and at length they raised themselves upon their legs, wiped their eyes with their fore-feet, beat and brushed their wings with their hind-feet, and soon after began to fly, finding themselves in Old England, without knowing how they came thither. The third continued lifeless till sunset, when, losing all hopes of him, he was thrown away. I wish it were possible, from this instance, to invent a method of embalming drowned persons, in such a manner that they may be recalled to life at any period, however distant; for, having a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of America a hundred years hence, I should prefer to any ordinary death the being immersed in a cask of Madeira wine, with a few friends, till that time, to be then recalled to life by the solar warmth of my dear country! But since, in all probability, we live in an age too early and too near the infancy of science to hope to see such an art brought in our time to its perfection, I must, for the present, content myself with the treat which you are so kind as to promise me, of the resuscitation of a fowl or a turkey-cock. B. FRANKLIN. * * * * * LORD BROUGHAM'S PORTRAIT OF DR. FRANKLIN. The following admirable sketch of the character of Franklin is from a new work by Lord Brougham, recently published in London, entitled "Statesmen in the time of George III." It has not been published in this country: "One of the most remarkable men, certainly, of our times as a politician, or of any age as a philosopher, was Franklin, who also stands alone in combining together these two characters, the greatest that man can sustain, and in this, that having borne the first part in enlarging science by one of the greatest discoveries ever made, he bore the second part in founding one of the greatest empires. "In this truly great man everything seemed to concur that goes towards the constitution of exalted merit. First, he was the architect of his own fortune. Born in the humblest station, he raised himself, by his talents and his industry, first, to the place in society which may be attained with the help only of ordinary abilities, great application, and good luck; but next, to the loftier heights which a daring and happy genius alone can scale; and the poor printer's boy, who at one period of his life had no covering to shelter his head from the dews of night, rent in twain the proud dominion of England, and lived to be the ambassador of a commonwealth which he had formed, at the court of the haughty monarchs of France who had been his allies. "Then he had been tried by prosperity as well as adverse fortune, and had passed unhurt through the perils of both. No ordinary apprentice, no commonplace journeyman, ever laid the foundation of his independence in habits of industry and temperance more deep than he did, whose genius was afterward to rank him with the Galileos and the Newtons of the Old World. No patrician born to shine in courts, or assist at the councils of monarchs, ever bore his honours in a lofty station more easily, or was less spoiled by the enjoyment of them, than this common workman did when negotiating with royal representatives, or caressed by all the beauty and fashion of the most brilliant court in Europe. "Again, he was self-taught in all he knew. His hours of study were stolen from those of sleep and of meals, or gained by some ingenious contrivance for reading while the work of his daily calling went on. Assisted by none of the helps which affluence tenders to the studies of the rich, he had to supply the place of tutors by redoubled diligence, and of commentaries by repeated perusal. Nay, the possession of books was to be obtained by copying what the art he himself exercised furnished easily to others. "Next, the circumstances under which others succumb, he made to yield and bend to his own purposes; a successful leader of a revolt that ended in complete triumph, after appearing desperate for years; a great discoverer in philosophy, without the ordinary helps to knowledge; a writer famed for his chaste style, without a classical education; a skilful negotiator, though never bred to politics; ending as a favourite, nay, a pattern of fashion, when the guest of frivolous courts, the life which he had begun in garrets and in workshops. "Lastly, combinations of faculties, in others deemed impossible, appeared easy and natural in him. The philosopher, delighting in speculation, was also eminently a man of action. Ingenious reasoning, refined and subtile consultation, were in him combined with prompt resolution and inflexible firmness of purpose. To a lively fancy he joined a learned, a deep reflection; his original and inventive genius stooped to the convenient alliance of the most ordinary prudence in every-day affairs; the mind that soared above the clouds, and was conversant with the loftiest of human contemplations, disdained not to make proverbs and feign parables for the guidance of apprenticed youths and servile maidens; and the hands that sketched a free constitution for a whole continent, or drew down the lightning from heaven, easily and cheerfully lent themselves to simplify the apparatus by which truths were to be illustrated or discoveries pursued. "His discoveries were made with hardly any apparatus at all; and if, at any time, he had been led to employ instruments of a somewhat less ordinary description, he never seemed satisfied until he had, as it were, afterward translated the process, by resolving the problem with such simple machinery that you might say he had done it wholly unaided by apparatus. The experiments by which the identity of lightning and electricity was demonstrated, were made with a sheet of brown paper, a bit of twine, a silk thread, and an iron key. "Upon the integrity of this man, whether in public or in private life, there rests no stain. Strictly honest and even scrupulously punctual in all his dealings, he preserved in the highest fortune that regularity which he had practised as well as inculcated in the lowest. "In domestic life he was faultless, and in the intercourse of society delightful. There was a constant good humour and a playful wit, easy and of high relish, without any ambition to shine, the natural fruit of his lively fancy, his solid, natural good sense, and his cheerful temper, that gave his conversation an unspeakable charm, and alike suited every circle from the humblest to the most elevated. With all his strong opinions, so often solemnly declared, so imperishably recorded in his deeds, he retained a tolerance for those who differed with him which could not be surpassed in men whose principles hang so loosely about them as to be taken up for a convenient cloak, and laid down when found to impede their progress. In his family he was everything that worth, warm affections, and sound prudence could contribute, to make a man both useful and amiable, respected and beloved. "In religion he would be reckoned by many a latitudinarian, yet it is certain that his mind was imbued with a deep sense of the Divine perfections, a constant impression of our accountable nature; and a lively hope of future enjoyment. Accordingly, his deathbed, the test of both faith and works, was easy and placid, resigned and devout, and indicated at once an unflinching retrospect of the past, and a comfortable assurance of the future. "If we turn from the truly great man whom we have been contemplating to his celebrated contemporary in the Old World (Frederic the Great), who only affected the philosophy that Franklin possessed, and employed his talents for civil and military affairs in extinguishing that independence which Franklin's life was consecrated to establish, the contrast is marvellous indeed between the monarch and the printer." * * * * * Transcriber's note: The transcriber made these changes to the text to correct obvious errors: 1. p. 29 howsover --> howsoever 2. p. 98 impaartial --> impartial 3. p. 123 soilders --> soldiers 4. p. 129 Phladelphia -->Philadelphia 5. p. 146 virtuons --> virtuous 6. p. 179 sentment --> sentiment 7. p. 179 passons --> (left as published) 8. p. 183 vents --> events 9. p. 287 papar --> paper 
48136	----	TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE This is Volume 1 of a 3-volume set. The other two volumes are also accessible in Project Gutenberg using http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48137 and http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48138. Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources. More detail can be found at the end of the book. [Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, L.L.D. _Publish'd April 1, 1806; by Longman, Rees, Hurst, & Orme, Paternoster Row._] The WORKS Of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, L.L.D. VOL. 1. [Illustration: (Engraved by W. & G. Cooke.)] PRINTED, for Longman, Hurst, Rees, & Orme, Paternoster Row, London. THE COMPLETE WORKS, IN PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS, AND MORALS, OF THE LATE DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, NOW FIRST COLLECTED AND ARRANGED: WITH MEMOIRS OF HIS EARLY LIFE, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. London: PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD; AND LONGMAN, HURST, REES AND ORME, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1806. ADVERTISEMENT. _The works of Dr. Franklin have been often partially collected, never before brought together in one uniform publication._ _The first collection was made by Mr. Peter Collinson in the year 1751. It consisted of letters, communicated by the author to the editor, on one subject, electricity, and formed a pamphlet only, of which the price was half-a-crown. It was enlarged in 1752, by a second communication on the same subject, and in 1754, by a third, till, in 1766, by the addition of letters and papers on other philosophical subjects, it amounted to a quarto volume of 500 pages._ _Ten years after, in 1779, another collection was made, by a different editor, in one volume, printed both in quarto and octavo, of papers not contained in the preceding collection, under the title of Political, Miscellaneous, and Philosophical Pieces._ _In 1787, a third collection appeared in a thin octavo volume, entitled Philosophical and Miscellaneous Papers._ _And lastly, in 1793, a fourth was published, in two volumes, crown octavo, consisting of Memoirs of Dr. Franklin's Life, and Essays humourous, moral and literary, chiefly in the Manner of the Spectator._ _In the present volumes will be found all the different collections we have enumerated, together with the various papers of the same author, that have been published in separate pamphlets, or inserted in foreign collections of his works, or in the Transactions of our own or of foreign philosophical societies, or in our own or foreign newspapers and magazines, as far as discoverable by the editor, who has been assisted in the research by a gentleman in America. Among these papers some, we conceive, will be new to the English reader on this side of the Atlantic; particularly a series of essays entitled The Busy-Body, written, as Dr. Franklin tells us in his Life, when he was an assiduous imitator of Addison; and a pamphlet, entitled Plain Truth, with which he is said to have commenced his political career as a writer. We hoped to have been enabled to add, what would have been equally new, and still more acceptable, a genuine copy of the Life of our author, as written by himself; but in this hope we are disappointed, and we are in consequence obliged to content ourselves with a translation, which has been already before the public, from a copy in the French language, coming no farther down than the year 1731; and a continuation of his history from that period, by the late Dr. Stuber of Philadelphia._ _The character of Dr. Franklin, as a philosopher, a politician, and a moralist, is too well known to require illustration, and his writings, from their interesting nature, and the fascinating simplicity of their style, are too highly esteemed, for any apology to be necessary for so large a collection of them, unless it should be deemed necessary by the individual to whom Dr. Franklin in his will consigned his manuscripts: and to him our apology will consist in a reference to his own extraordinary conduct._ _In bequeathing his papers, it was no doubt the intention of the testator, that the world should have the chance of being benefited by their publication. It was so understood by the person in question, his grandson, who, accordingly, shortly after the death of his great relative, hastened to London, the best mart for literary property, employed an amanuensis for many months in copying, ransacked our public libraries that nothing might escape, and at length had so far prepared the works of Dr. Franklin for the press, that proposals were made by him to several of our principal booksellers for the sale of them. They were to form three quarto volumes, and were to contain all the writings, published and unpublished, of Franklin, with Memoirs of his Life, brought down by himself to the year 1757, and continued to his death by the legatee. They were to be published in three different languages, and the countries corresponding to those languages, France, Germany, and England, on the same day. The terms asked for the copyright of the English edition were high, amounting to several thousand pounds, which occasioned a little demur; but eventually they would no doubt have been obtained. Nothing more however was heard of the proposals or the work, in this its fair market. The proprietor, it seems, had found a bidder of a different description in some emissary of government, whose object was to withhold the manuscripts from the world, not to benefit it by their publication; and they thus either passed into other hands, or the person to whom they were bequeathed received a remuneration for suppressing them. This at least has been asserted, by a variety of persons, both in this country and America, of whom some were at the time intimate with the grandson, and not wholly unacquainted with the machinations of the ministry; and the silence, which has been observed for so many years respecting the publication, gives additional credibility to the report._ _What the manuscripts contained, that should have excited the jealousy of government, we are unable, as we have never seen them, positively to affirm; but, from the conspicuous part acted by the author in the American revolution and the wars connected with it, it is by no means difficult to guess; and of this we are sure, from his character, that no disposition of his writings could have been more contrary to his intentions or wishes._ _We have only to add, that in the present collection, which is probably all that will ever be published of the works of this extraordinary man, the papers are methodically arranged, the moral and philosophical ones according to their subjects, the political ones, as nearly as may be, according to their dates; that we have given, in notes, the authorities for ascribing the different pieces to Franklin; that where no title existed, to indicate the nature of a letter or paper, we have prefixed a title; and lastly, that we have compiled an index to the whole, which is placed at the beginning, instead of, as is usual, at the end of the work, to render the volumes more equal._ _April 7, 1806._ CONTENTS. VOL. I. _Page._ LIFE of Dr. FRANKLIN 1 LETTERS AND PAPERS ON ELECTRICITY. Introductory Letter. 169 Wonderful effect of points.--Positive and negative electricity.--Electrical kiss.--Counterfeit spider.--Simple and commodious electrical machine. 170 Observations on the Leyden bottle, with experiments proving the different electrical state of its different surfaces. 179 Further experiments confirming the preceding observations.--Leyden bottle analysed.--Electrical battery.--Magical Picture.--Electrical wheel or jack.--Electrical feast. 187 Observations and suppositions, towards forming a new hypothesis, for explaining the several phenomena of thunder-gusts. 203 Introductory letter to some additional papers. 216 Opinions and conjectures, concerning the properties and effects of the electrical matter, and the means of preserving buildings, ships, &c. from lightning, arising from experiments and observations made at Philadelphia, 1749.--Golden fish.--Extraction of effluvial virtues by electricity impracticable. 217 Additional experiments: proving that the Leyden bottle has no more electrical fire in it when charged, than before: nor less when discharged: that in discharging, the fire does not issue from the wire and the coating at the same time, as some have thought, but that the coating always receives what is discharged by the wire, or an equal quantity: the outer surface being always in a negative state of electricity, when the inner surface is in a positive state. 245 Accumulation of the electrical fire proved to be in the electrified glass.--Effect of lightning on the needle of compasses, explained.--Gunpowder fired by the electric flame. 247 Unlimited nature of the electric force. 250 The terms, electric per se, and non-electric, improper.--New relation between metals and water.--Effects of air in electrical experiments.--Experiment for discovering more of the qualities of the electric fluid. 252 Mistake, that only metals and water were conductors, rectified.--Supposition of a region of electric fire above our atmosphere.--Theorem concerning light.--Poke-weed a cure for cancers. 256 New experiments.--Paradoxes inferred from them.--Difference in the electricity of a globe of glass charged, and a globe of sulphur.--Difficulty of ascertaining which is positive and which negative. 261 Probable cause of the different attractions and repulsions of the two electrified globes mentioned in the two preceding letters. 264 Reasons for supposing, that the glass globe charges positively, and the sulphur negatively.--Hint respecting a leather globe for experiments when travelling. _ibid._ Electrical kite. 267 Hypothesis, of the sea being the grand source of lightning, retracted.--Positive, and sometimes negative, electricity of the clouds discovered.--New experiments and conjectures in support of this discovery.--Observations recommended for ascertaining the direction of the electric fluid.--Size of rods for conductors to buildings.--Appearance of a thunder-cloud described. 269 Additional proofs of the positive and negative state of electricity in the clouds.--New method of ascertaining it. 284 Electrical experiments, with an attempt to account for their several phenomena, &c. 286 Experiments made in pursuance of those made by Mr. Canton, dated December 6, 1753; with explanations, by Mr. Benjamin Franklin. 294 Turkey killed by electricity.--Effect of a shock on the operator in making the experiment. 299 Differences in the qualities of glass.--Account of Domien, an electrician and traveller.--Conjectures respecting the pores of glass.--Origin of the author's idea of drawing down lightning.--No satisfactory hypothesis respecting the manner in which clouds become electrified.--Six men knocked down at once by an electrical shock.--Reflections on the spirit of invention. 301 Beccaria's work on electricity.--Sentiments of Franklin on pointed rods, not fully understood in Europe.--Effect of lightning on the church of Newbury, in New England.--Remarks on the subject. 309 Notice of another packet of letters. 313 Extract of a letter from a gentleman in Boston, to Benjamin Franklin, Esq. concerning the crooked direction, and the source of lightning, and the swiftness of the electric fire. 314 Observations on the subjects of the preceding letter.--Reasons for supposing the sea to be the grand source of lightning.--Reasons for doubting this hypothesis.--Improvement in a globe for raising the electric fire. 320 Effect of lightning on captain Waddel's compass, and the Dutch church at New York. 324 Proposal of an experiment to measure the time taken up by an Electric spark, in moving through any given space. 327 Experiments on boiling water, and glass heated by boiling water.--Doctrine of repulsion in electrised bodies doubted.--Electricity of the atmosphere at different heights.--Electrical horse-race.--Electrical thermometer.--In what cases the electrical fire produces heat.--Wire lengthened by electricity.--Good effect of a rod on the house of Mr. West, of Philadelphia. 331 Answer to some of the foregoing subjects.--How long the Leyden bottle may be kept charged.--Heated glass rendered permeable by the electric fluid.--Electrical attraction and repulsion.--Reply to other subjects in the preceding paper.--Numerous ways of kindling fire.--Explosion of water.--Knobs and points. 343 Accounts from Carolina (mentioned in the foregoing letter) of the effects of lightning on two of the rods commonly affixed to houses there, for securing them against lightning. 361 Mr. William Maine's account of the effects of the lightning on his rod, dated at Indian Land, in South Carolina, Aug. 28, 1760. 362 On the electricity of the tourmalin. 369 New observation relating to electricity in the atmosphere. 373 Flash of lightning that struck St. Bride's steeple. 374 Best method of securing a powder magazine from lightning. 375 Of lightning, and the methods (now used in America) of securing buildings and persons from its mischievous effects. 377 St. Bride's steeple.--Utility of electrical conductors to Steeples.--Singular kind of glass tube. 382 Experiments, observations, and facts, tending to support the opinion of the utility of long pointed rods, for securing buildings from damage by strokes of lightning. 383 On the utility of electrical conductors. 400 On the effects of electricity in paralytic cases. 401 Electrical experiments on amber. 403 On the electricity of the fogs in Ireland. 405 Mode of ascertaining, whether the power, giving a shock to those who touch either the Surinam eel, or the torpedo, be electrical. 408 On the analogy between magnetism and electricity. 410 Concerning the mode of rendering meat tender by electricity. 413 Answer to some queries concerning the choice of glass for the Leyden experiment. 416 Concerning the Leyden bottle. 418 APPENDIX. No. 1. Account of experiments made in electricity at Marly. 420 A more particular account of the same, &c. 422 Letter of Mr. W. Watson, F. R. S. to the Royal Society, concerning the electrical experiments in England upon thunder-clouds. 427 No. 2. Remarks on the Abbé Nollet's Letters to Benjamin Franklin, Esq. of Philadelphia, on electricity. 430 LIST OF THE PLATES PLATE I. Electrical Experiments facing page 182 PLATE II. Electrical Air Thermometer 336 PLATE III. Cavendish Experiment 348 PLATE IV. Lightning Rod Experiments 388 _ERRATA._ _Page._ _Line._ 2 10: for true, read me. 5 5: for was born, read who was born. 20 1: for Tryon, read Tyron's. _ib._ 7 from the bottom: for put to blush, read put to the blush. _ib._ 4 from the bottom: for myself, read by myself. 15 4: for collection, read works. 21 9 from the bottom: for or, read nor. 25 4 from the bottom: for pasquenades, read pasquinades. 28 7: dele the. _ib._ 12: for printer, read a printer. 28 3 from the bottom: for my old favourite work, Bunyan's Voyages, read my old favourite Bunyan. 40 5: for money, read in money. 44 3: for Bernet, read Burnet. _ib._ 17: for unabled, read unable. 50 19: for ingenuous, read ingenious. 67 5: dele bridge. 80 3 from the bottom: for into, read into which. 235 21: substitute + for *. 264 2: for course read cause. LIFE OF _DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN._ _LIFE_ OF DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, &c. &c. MY DEAR SON, I have amused myself with collecting some little anecdotes of my family. You may remember the enquiries I made, when you were with me in England, among such of my relations as were then living; and the journey I undertook for that purpose. To be acquainted with the particulars of my parentage and life, many of which are unknown to you, I flatter myself will afford the same pleasure to you as to me. I shall relate them upon paper: it will be an agreeable employment of a week's uninterrupted leisure, which I promise myself during my present retirement in the country. There are also other motives which induce me to the undertaking. From the bosom of poverty and obscurity, in which I drew my first breath, and spent my earliest years, I have raised myself to a state of opulence and to some degree of celebrity in the world. A constant good fortune has attended me through every period of life to my present advanced age; and my descendants may be desirous of learning what were the means of which I made use, and which, thanks to the assisting hand of providence, have proved so eminently successful. They may also, should they ever be placed in a similar situation, derive some advantage from my narrative. When I reflect, as I frequently do, upon the felicity I have enjoyed, I sometimes say to myself, that, were the offer made me, I would engage to run again, from beginning to end, the same career of life. All I would ask, should be the privilege of an author, to correct, in a second edition, certain errors of the first. I could wish, likewise if it were in my power, to change some trivial incidents and events for others more favourable. Were this, however, denied me, still would I not decline the offer. But since a repetition of life cannot take place, there is nothing which, in my opinion, so nearly resembles it, as to call to mind all its circumstances, and, to render their remembrance more durable, commit them to writing. By thus employing myself, I shall yield to the inclination, so natural in old men, to talk of themselves and their exploits, and may freely follow my bent, without being tiresome to those who, from respect to my age, might think themselves obliged to listen to me; as they will be at liberty to read me or not as they please. In fine--and I may as well avow it, since nobody would believe me were I to deny it--I shall perhaps, by this employment, gratify my vanity. Scarcely indeed have I ever read or heard the introductory phrase, "_I may say without vanity_," but some striking and characteristic instance of vanity has immediately followed. The generality of men hate vanity in others, however strongly they may be tinctured with it themselves: for myself, I pay obeisance to it wherever I meet with it, persuaded that it is advantageous, as well to the individual whom it governs, as to those who are within the sphere of its influence. Of consequence, it would in many cases, not be wholly absurd, that a man should count his vanity among the other sweets of life, and give thanks to providence for the blessing. And here let me with all humility acknowledge, that to divine providence I am indebted for the felicity I have hitherto enjoyed. It is that power alone which has furnished me with the means I have employed, and that has crowned them with success. My faith in this respect leads me to hope, though I cannot count upon it, that the divine goodness will still be exercised towards me, either by prolonging the duration of my happiness to the close of life, or by giving me fortitude to support any melancholy reverse, which may happen to me, as to so many others. My future fortune is unknown but to Him in whose hand is our destiny, and who can make our very afflictions subservient to our benefit. One of my uncles, desirous, like myself, of collecting anecdotes of our family, gave me some notes, from which I have derived many particulars respecting our ancestors. From these I learn, that they had lived in the same village (Eaton in Northamptonshire,) upon a freehold of about thirty acres, for the space at least of three hundred years. How long they had resided there prior to that period, my uncle had been unable to discover; probably ever since the institution of surnames, when they took the appellation of Franklin, which had formerly been the name of a particular order of individuals.[1] This petty estate would not have sufficed for their subsistence, had they not added the trade of blacksmith, which was perpetuated in the family down to my uncle's time, the eldest son having been uniformly brought up to this employment: a custom which both he and my father observed with respect to their eldest sons. In the researches I made at Eaton, I found no account of their births, marriages, and deaths, earlier than the year 1555; the parish register not extending farther back than that period. This register informed me, that I was the youngest son of the youngest branch of the family, counting five generations. My grandfather, Thomas, who was born in 1598, lived at Eaton till he was too old to continue his trade, when he retired to Banbury in Oxfordshire, where his son John, who was a dyer, resided, and with whom my father was apprenticed. He died, and was buried there: we saw his monument in 1758. His eldest son lived in the family house at Eaton, which he bequeathed, with the land belonging to it, to his only daughter; who, in concert with her husband, Mr. Fisher of Wellingborough, afterwards sold it to Mr. Estead, the present proprietor. My grandfather had four surviving sons, Thomas, John, Benjamin, and Josias. I shall give you such particulars of them as my memory will furnish, not having my papers here, in which you will find a more minute account, if they are not lost during my absence. Thomas had learned the trade of a blacksmith under his father; but possessing a good natural understanding, he improved it by study, at the solicitation of a gentleman of the name of Palmer, who was at that time the principal inhabitant of the village, and who encouraged, in like manner, all my uncles to cultivate their minds. Thomas thus rendered himself competent to the functions of a country attorney; soon became an essential personage in the affairs of the village; and was one of the chief movers of every public enterprise, as well relative to the county as the town of Northampton. A variety of remarkable incidents were told us of him at Eaton. After enjoying the esteem and patronage of Lord Halifax, he died, January 6, 1702, precisely four years before I was born. The recital that was made us of his life and character, by some aged persons of the village, struck you, I remember, as extraordinary, from its analogy to what you knew of myself. "Had he died," said you, "just four years later, one might have supposed a transmigration of souls." John, to the best of my belief, was brought up to the trade of a wool-dyer. Benjamin served his apprenticeship in London to a silk-dyer. He was an industrious man: I remember him well; for, while I was a child, he joined my father at Boston, and lived for some years in the house with us. A particular affection had always subsisted between my father and him; and I was his godson. He arrived to a great age. He left behind him two quarto volumes of poems in manuscript, consisting of little fugitive pieces addressed to his friends. He had invented a short-hand, which he taught me, but having never made use of it, I have now forgotten it. He was a man of piety, and a constant attendant on the best preachers, whose sermons he took a pleasure in writing down according, to the expeditory method he had devised. Many volumes were thus collected by him. He was also extremely fond of politics, too much so, perhaps, for his situation. I lately found in London a collection which he had made of all the principal pamphlets relative to public affairs, from the year 1641 to 1717. Many volumes are wanting, as appears by the series of numbers; but there still remain eight in folio, and twenty-four in quarto and octavo. The collection had fallen into the hands of a second-hand bookseller, who, knowing me by having sold me some books, brought it to me. My uncle, it seems, had left it behind him on his departure for America, about fifty years ago. I found various notes of his writing in the margins. His grandson, Samuel, is now living at Boston. Our humble family had early embraced the Reformation. They remained faithfully attached during the reign of Queen Mary, when they were in danger of being molested on account of their zeal against popery. They had an English bible, and, to conceal it the more securely, they conceived the project of fastening it, open, with pack-threads across the leaves, on the inside of the lid of the close-stool. When my great-grandfather wished to read to his family, he reversed the lid of the close-stool upon his knees, and passed the leaves from one side to the other, which were held down on each by the pack-thread. One of the children was stationed at the door, to give notice if he saw the proctor (an officer of the spiritual court) make his appearance: in that case, the lid was restored to its place, with the Bible concealed under it as before. I had this anecdote from my uncle Benjamin. The whole family preserved its attachment to the Church of England till towards the close of the reign of Charles II. when certain ministers, who had been ejected as nonconformists, having held conventicles in Northamptonshire, they were joined by Benjamin and Josias, who adhered to them ever after. The rest of the family continued in the episcopal church. My father, Josias, married early in life. He went, with his wife and three children, to New England, about the year 1682. Conventicles being at that time prohibited by law, and frequently disturbed, some considerable persons of his acquaintance determined to go to America, where they hoped to enjoy the free exercise of their religion, and my father was prevailed on to accompany them. My father had also by the same wife, four children born in America, and ten others by a second wife, making in all seventeen. I remember to have seen thirteen seated together at his table, who all arrived to years of maturity, and were married. I was the last of the sons, and the youngest child, excepting two daughters. I was born at Boston in New England. My mother, the second wife, was Abiah Folger, daughter of Peter Folger, one of the first colonists of New England, of whom Cotton Mather makes honourable mention, in his Ecclesiastical History of that province, as "_a pious and learned Englishman_," if I rightly recollect his expressions. I have been told of his having written a variety of little pieces; but there appears to be only one in print, which I met with many years ago. It was published in the year 1675, and is in familiar verse, agreeably to the taste of the times and the country. The author addresses himself to the governors for the time being, speaks for liberty of conscience, and in favour of the anabaptists, quakers, and other sectaries, who had suffered persecution. To this persecution he attributes the war with the natives, and other calamities which afflicted the country, regarding them as the judgments of God in punishment of so odious an offence, and he exhorts the government to the repeal of laws so contrary to charity. The poem appeared to be written with a manly freedom and a pleasing simplicity. I recollect the six concluding lines, though I have forgotten the order of words of the two first; the sense of which was, that his censures were dictated by benevolence, and that, of consequence, he wished to be known as the author; because, said he, I hate from my very soul dissimulation: From Sherburn,[2] where I dwell, I therefore put my name, Your friend, who means you well, PETER FOLGER. My brothers were all put apprentices to different trades. With respect to myself, I was sent, at the age of eight years, to a grammar-school. My father destined me for the church, and already regarded me as the chaplain of the family. The promptitude with which from my infancy I had learned to read, for I do not remember to have been ever without this acquirement, and the encouragement of his friends, who assured him that I should one day certainly become a man of letters, confirmed him in this design. My uncle Benjamin approved also of the scheme, and promised to give me all his volumes of sermons, written, as I have said, in the short-hand of his invention, if I would take the pains to learn it. I remained, however, scarcely a year at the grammar-school, although, in this short interval, I had risen from the middle to the head of my class, from thence to the class immediately above, and was to pass, at the end of the year, to the one next in order. But my father, burdened with a numerous family, found that he was incapable, without subjecting himself to difficulties, of providing for the expences of a collegiate education; and considering besides, as I heard him say to his friends, that persons so educated were often poorly provided for, he renounced his first intentions, took me from the grammar-school, and sent me to a school for writing and arithmetic, kept by a Mr. George Brownwell, who was a skilful master, and succeeded very well in his profession by employing gentle means only, and such as were calculated to encourage his scholars. Under him I soon acquired an excellent hand; but I failed in arithmetic, and made therein no sort of progress. At ten years of age, I was called home to assist my father in his occupation, which was that of a soap-boiler and tallow-chandler; a business to which he had served no apprenticeship, but which he embraced on his arrival in New England, because he found his own, that of dyer, in too little request to enable him to maintain his family, I was accordingly employed in cutting the wicks, filling the moulds, taking care of the shop, carrying messages, &c. This business displeased me, and I felt a strong inclination for a sea life; but my father set his face against it. The vicinity of the water, however, gave me frequent opportunities, of venturing myself both upon and within it, and I soon acquired the art of swimming, and of managing a boat. When embarked with other children, the helm was commonly deputed to me, particularly on difficult occasions; and, in every other project, I was almost always the leader of the troop, whom I sometimes involved in embarrassments. I shall give an instance of this, which demonstrates an early disposition of mind for public enterprises, though the one in question was not conducted by justice. The mill-pond was terminated on one side by a marsh, upon the borders of which we were accustomed to take our stand, at high water, to angle for small fish. By dint of walking, we had converted the place into a perfect quagmire. My proposal was to erect a wharf that should afford us firm footing; and I pointed out to my companions a large heap of stones, intended for the building a new house near the marsh, and which were well adapted for our purpose. Accordingly, when the workmen retired in the evening, I assembled a number of my play-fellows, and by labouring diligently, like ants, sometimes four of us uniting our strength to carry a single stone, we removed them all, and constructed our little quay. The workmen were surprised the next morning at not finding their stones; which had been conveyed to our wharf. Enquiries were made respecting the authors of this conveyance; we were discovered; complaints were exhibited against us; and many of us underwent correction on the part of our parents; and though I strenuously defended the utility of the work, my father at length convinced me, that nothing which was not strictly honest could be useful. It will not, perhaps, be uninteresting to you to know what a sort of man my father was. He had an excellent constitution, was of a middle size, but well made and strong, and extremely active in whatever he undertook. He designed with a degree of neatness, and knew a little of music. His voice was sonorous and agreeable; so that when he sung a psalm or hymn, with the accompaniment of his violin, as was his frequent practice in an evening, when the labours of the day were finished, it was truly delightful to hear him. He was versed also in mechanics, and could, upon occasion, use the tools of a variety of trades. But his greatest excellence was a sound understanding and solid judgment, in matters of prudence, both in public and private life. In the former, indeed, he never engaged, because his numerous family, and the mediocrity of his fortune, kept him unremittingly employed in the duties of his profession. But I well remember, that the leading men of the place used frequently to come and ask his advice respecting the affairs of the town, or of the church to which he belonged, and that they paid much deference to his opinion. Individuals were also in the habit of consulting him in their private affairs, and he was often chosen arbiter between contending parties. He was fond of having at his table, as often as possible, some friends or well-informed neighbours, capable of rational conversation, and he was always careful to introduce useful or ingenious topics of discourse, which might tend to form the minds of his children. By this means he early attracted our attention to what was just, prudent, and beneficial in the conduct of life. He never talked of the meats which appeared upon the table, never discussed whether they were well or ill dressed, of a good or bad flavour, high-seasoned or otherwise, preferable or inferior to this or that dish of a similar kind. Thus accustomed, from my infancy, to the utmost inattention as to these objects, I have been perfectly regardless of what kind of food was before me; and I pay so little attention to it even now, that it would be a hard matter for me to recollect, a few hours after I had dined, of what my dinner had consisted. When travelling, I have particularly experienced the advantage of this habit; for it has often happened to me to be in company with persons, who, having a more delicate, because a more exercised taste, have suffered in many cases considerable inconvenience; while, as to myself, I have had nothing to desire. My mother was likewise possessed of an excellent constitution. She suckled all her ten children, and I never heard either her or my father complain of any other disorder than that of which they died: my father at the age of eighty-seven, and my mother at eighty-five. They are buried together at Boston, where, a few years ago, I placed a marble over their grave, with this inscription: "Here lie JOSIAS FRANKLIN and ABIAH his wife: They lived together with reciprocal affection for fifty-nine years; and without private fortune, without lucrative employment, by assiduous labour and honest industry, decently supported a numerous family, and educated with success, thirteen children, and seven grand children. Let this example, reader, encourage thee diligently to discharge the duties of thy calling, and to rely on the support of divine providence, He was pious and prudent, She discreet and virtuous. Their youngest son, from a sentiment of filial duty, consecrates this stone to their memory." I perceive, by my rambling digressions, that I am growing old. But we do not dress for a private company as for a formal ball. This deserves, perhaps, the name of negligence. To return. I thus continued employed in my father's trade for the space of two years; that is to say, till I arrived at twelve years of age. About this time my brother John, who had served his apprenticeship in London, having quitted my father, and being married and settled in business on his own account at Rhode Island, I was destined, to all appearance to supply his place, and be a candle-maker all my life: but my dislike of this occupation continuing, my father was apprehensive, that, if a more, agreeable one were not offered me, I might play the truant and escape to sea; as, to his extreme mortification, my brother Josias had done. He therefore took me sometimes to see masons, coopers, braziers, joiners, and other mechanics, employed at their work; in order to discover the bent of my inclination, and fix it if he could upon some occupation that might retain me on shore. I have since, in consequence of these visits, derived no small pleasure from seeing skilful workmen handle their tools; and it has proved of considerable benefit to have acquired thereby sufficient knowledge to be able to make little things for myself, when I have had no mechanic at hand, and to construct small machines for my experiments, while the idea I have conceived has been fresh and strongly impressed on my imagination. My father at length decided that I should be a cutler, and I was placed for some days upon trial with my cousin Samuel, son of my uncle Benjamin, who had learned this trade in London, and had established himself at Boston. But the premium he required for my apprenticeship displeasing my father, I was recalled home. From my earliest years I had been passionately fond of reading, and I laid out in books all the money I could procure. I was particularly pleased with accounts of voyages. My first acquisition was Bunyan's works in small separate volumes. These I afterwards sold in order to buy an historical collection by R. Burton, which consisted of small cheap volumes, amounting in all to about forty or fifty. My father's little library was principally made up of books of practical and polemical theology. I read the greatest part of them. I have since often regretted that at a time when I had so great a thirst for knowledge, more eligible books had not fallen into my hands, as it was then a point decided that I should not be educated for the church. There was also among my father's books, Plutarch's Lives, in which I read continually, and I still regard as advantageously employed the time devoted to them. I found besides a work of De Foe's, entitled an Essay on Projects, from which, perhaps, I derived impressions that have since influenced some of the principal events of my life. My inclination for books at last determined my father to make me a printer, though he had already a son in that profession. My brother had returned from England in 1717, with a press and types, in order to establish a printing-house at Boston. This business pleased me much better than that of my father, though I had still a predilection for the sea. To prevent the effects which might result from this inclination, my father was impatient to see me engaged with my brother. I held back for some time; at length, however, I suffered myself to be persuaded, and signed my indentures, being then only twelve years of age. It was agreed that I should serve as an apprentice to the age of twenty-one, and should receive journeyman's wages only during the last year. In a very short time I made great proficiency in this business, and became very serviceable to my brother. I had now an opportunity of procuring better books. The acquaintance I necessarily formed with booksellers' apprentices, enabled me to borrow a volume now and then, which I never failed to return punctually and without injury. How often has it happened to me to pass the greater part of the night in reading by my bed-side, when the book had been lent me in the evening, and was to be returned the next morning, lest it might be missed or wanted! At length, Mr. Matthew Adams, an ingenious tradesman, who had a handsome collection of books, and who frequented our printing-house, took notice of me. He invited me to see his library, and had the goodness to lend me any books I was desirous of reading. I then took a strange fancy for poetry, and composed several little pieces. My brother, thinking he might find his account in it, encouraged me, and engaged me to write two ballads. One, called the Light-house Tragedy, contained an account of the shipwreck of captain Worthilake and his two daughters; the other was a sailor's song on the capture of the noted pirate called _Teach_, or _Blackbeard_. They were wretched verses in point of style, mere blind-men's ditties. When printed, he dispatched me about the town to sell them. The first had a prodigious run, because the event was recent, and had made a great noise. My vanity was flattered by this success; but my father checked my exultation, by ridiculing my productions, and telling me that versifiers were always poor. I thus escaped the misfortune of being a very wretched poet. But as the faculty of writing prose has been of great service to me in the course of my life, and principally contributed to my advancement, I shall relate by what means, situated as I was, I acquired the small skill I may possess in that way. There was in the town another young man, a great lover of books, of the name of John Collins, with whom I was intimately connected. We frequently engaged in dispute, and were indeed so fond of argumentation, that nothing was so agreeable to us as a war of words. This contentious temper, I would observe by the bye, is in danger of becoming a very bad habit; and frequently renders a man's company insupportable, as being no otherwise capable of indulgence than by an indiscriminate contradiction. Independently of the acrimony and discord it introduces into conversation, it is often productive of dislike, and even hatred, between persons to whom friendship is indispensibly necessary. I acquired it by reading, while I lived with my father, books of religious controversy. I have since remarked, that men of sense seldom fall into this error: lawyers, fellows of universities, and persons of every profession educated at Edinburgh, excepted. Collins and I fell one day into an argument, relative to the education of women; namely, whether it was proper to instruct them in the sciences, and whether they were competent to the study. Collins supported the negative, and affirmed that the task was beyond their capacity. I maintained the opposite opinion, a little perhaps for the pleasure of disputing. He was naturally more eloquent than I; words flowed copiously from his lips; and frequently I thought myself vanquished, more by his volubility than by the force of his arguments. We separated without coming to an agreement upon this point, and as we were not to see each other again for some time, I committed my thoughts to paper, made a fair copy, and sent it him. He answered, and I replied. Three or four letters had been written by each, when my father chanced to light upon my papers and read them. Without entering into the merits of the cause, he embraced the opportunity of speaking to me upon my manner of writing. He observed, that though I had the advantage of my adversary in correct spelling and pointing, which I owed to my occupation, I was greatly his inferior in elegance of expression, in arrangement, and perspicuity. Of this he convinced me by several examples. I felt the justice of his remarks, became more attentive to language, and resolved to make every effort to improve my style. Amidst these resolves an odd volume of the Spectator fell into my hands. This was a publication I had never seen. I bought the volume, and read it again and again. I was enchanted with it, thought the style excellent, and wished it were in my power to imitate it. With this view I selected some of the papers, made short summaries of the sense of each period, and put them for a few days aside. I then, without looking at the book, endeavoured to restore the essays to their due form, and to express each thought at length, as it was in the original, employing the most appropriate words that occurred to my mind. I afterwards compared my Spectator with the original; I perceived some faults, which I corrected: but I found that I wanted a fund of words, if I may so express myself, and a facility of recollecting and employing them, which I thought I should by that time have acquired, had I continued to make verses. The continual need of words of the same meaning, but of different lengths for the measure, or of different sounds for the rhyme, would have obliged me to seek for a variety of synonymes, and have rendered me master of them. From this belief, I took some of the tales of the Spectator and turned them into verse; and after a time, when I had sufficiently forgotten them, I again converted them into prose. Sometimes also I mingled all my summaries together; and a few weeks after, endeavoured to arrange them in the best order, before I attempted to form the periods and complete the essays. This I did with a view of acquiring method in the arrangement of my thoughts. On comparing afterwards my performance with the original, many faults were apparent, which I corrected; but I had sometimes the satisfaction to think, that, in certain particulars of little importance, I had been fortunate enough to improve the order of thought or the style; and this encouraged me to hope that I should succeed, in time, in writing decently in the English language, which was one of the great objects of my ambition. The time which I devoted to these exercises, and to reading, was the evening after my day's labour was finished, the morning before it began, and Sundays when I could escape attending divine service. While I lived with my father, he had insisted on my punctual attendance on public worship, and I still indeed considered it as a duty, but a duty which I thought I had no time to practise. When about sixteen years of age, a work of Tyron's fell into my hands, in which he recommends vegetable diet. I determined to observe it. My brother being a bachelor, did not keep house, but boarded with his apprentices in a neighbouring family. My refusing to eat animal food was found inconvenient, and I was often scolded for my singularity. I attended to the mode in which Tryon prepared some of his dishes, particularly how to boil potatoes and rice, and make hasty puddings. I then said to my brother, that if he would allow me per week half what he paid for my board, I would undertake to maintain myself. The offer was instantly embraced, and I soon found that of what he gave me, I was able to save half. This was a new fund for the purchase of books; and other advantages resulted to me from the plan. When my brother and his workmen left the printing-house to go to dinner, I remained behind; and dispatching my frugal meal, which frequently consisted of a biscuit only, or a slice of bread and a bunch of raisins, or a bun from the pastry-cook's, with a glass of water, I had the rest of the time, till their return, for study; and my progress therein was proportioned to that clearness of ideas, and quickness of conception, which are the fruit of temperance in eating and drinking. It was about this period, that having one day been put to the blush for my ignorance in the art of calculation, which I had twice failed to learn while at school, I took Cocker's Treatise of Arithmetic, and went through it by myself with the utmost ease. I also read a book of navigation by Seller and Sturmy, and made myself master of the little geometry it contains, but I never proceeded far in this science. Nearly at the same time I read Locke on the Human Understanding, and the Art of Thinking, by Messrs. du Port Royal. While labouring to form and improve my style, I met with an English Grammar, which I believe was Greenwood's, having at the end of it two little essays on rhetoric and logic. In the latter I found a model of disputation, after the manner of Socrates. Shortly after I procured Xenophon's work, entitled Memorable Things of Socrates, in which are various examples of the same method. Charmed to a degree of enthusiasm with this mode of disputing, I adopted it, and renouncing blunt contradiction, and direct and positive argument, I assumed the character of an humble questioner. The perusal of Shaftsbury and Collins had made me a sceptic; and being previously so as to many doctrines of Christianity, I found Socrates's method to be both safest for myself, as well as the most embarrassing to those against whom I employed it. It soon afforded me singular pleasure; I incessantly practised it; and became very adroit in obtaining, even from persons of superior understanding, concessions of which they did not foresee the consequence. Thus I involved them in difficulties from which they were unable to extricate themselves, and sometimes obtained victories, which neither my cause nor my arguments merited. This method I continued to employ for some years; but I afterwards abandoned it by degrees, retaining only the habit of expressing myself with modest diffidence, and never making use, when I advanced any proposition which might be controverted, of the words _certainly_, _undoubtedly_, or any others that might give the appearance of being obstinately attached to my opinion. I rather said, I imagine, I suppose, or it appears to me, that such a thing is so or so, for such and such reasons; or it is so, if I am not mistaken. This habit has, I think, been of considerable advantage to me, when I have had occasion to impress my opinion on the minds of others, and persuade them to the adoption of the measures I have suggested. And since the chief ends of conversation are, to inform or be informed, to please or to persuade, I could wish that intelligent or well-meaning men would not themselves diminish the power they possess of being useful, by a positive and presumptuous manner of expressing themselves, which scarcely ever fails to disgust the hearer, and is only calculated to excite opposition, and defeat every purpose for which the faculty of speech has been bestowed on man. In short, if you wish to inform, a positive and dogmatical manner of advancing your opinion may provoke contradiction, and prevent your being heard with attention. On the other hand, if, with a desire of being informed, and of benefiting by the knowledge of others, you express yourselves as being strongly attached to your own opinions, modest and sensible men, who do not love disputation, will leave you in tranquil possession of your errors. By following such a method, you can rarely hope to please your auditors, conciliate their good-will, or work conviction on those whom you may be desirous of gaining over to your views. Pope judiciously observes, Men must be taught, as if you taught them not, And things unknown propos'd--as things forgot. And in the same poem he afterwards advises us To speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence. He might have added to these lines, one that he has coupled elsewhere, in my opinion, with less propriety. It is this: For want of modesty is want of sense. If you ask why I say with _less propriety_, I must give you the two lines together: Immodest words admit of _no defence_, For want of decency is want of sense. Now want of sense, when a man has the misfortune to be so circumstanced, is it not a kind of excuse for want of modesty? And would not the verses have been more accurate if they had been constructed thus: Immodest words admit _but this defence_, That want of decency is want of sense. But I leave the decision of this to better judges than myself. In 1720, or 1721, my brother began to print a new public paper. It was the second that made its appearance in America, and was entitled, "The New England Courant." The only one that existed before was the "Boston News Letter." Some of his friends, I remember, would have dissuaded him from this undertaking, as a thing that was not likely to succeed; a single newspaper being, in their opinion, sufficient for all America. At present, however, in 1771, there are no less than twenty-five. But he carried his project into execution, and I was employed in distributing the copies to his customers, after having assisted in composing and working them off. Among his friends he had a number of literary characters, who, as an amusement, wrote short essays for the paper, which gave it reputation and increased the sale. These gentlemen frequently came to our house. I heard the conversation that passed, and the accounts they gave of the favourable reception of their writings with the public. I was tempted to try my hand among them; but, being still a child as it were, I was fearful that my brother might be unwilling to print in his paper any performance of which he should know me to be the author. I therefore contrived to disguise my hand, and having written an anonymous piece, I placed it at night under the door of the printing-house, where it was found the next morning. My brother communicated it to his friends, when they came as usual to see him, who read it, commented upon it within my hearing, and I had the exquisite pleasure to find that it met with their approbation, and that in the various conjectures they made respecting the author, no one was mentioned who did not enjoy a high reputation in the country for talents and genius. I now supposed myself fortunate in my judges, and began to suspect that they were not such excellent writers as I had hitherto supposed them. Be this as it may, encouraged by this little adventure, I wrote, and sent to press in the same way, many other pieces, which were equally approved: keeping the secret till my slender stock of information and knowledge for such performances was pretty completely exhausted, when I made myself known. My brother, upon this discovery, began to entertain a little more respect for me; but he still regarded himself as my master, and treated me as an apprentice. He thought himself entitled to the same services from me, as from any other person. On the contrary, I conceived that in many instances, he was too rigorous, and that, on the part of a brother, I had a right to expect greater indulgence. Our disputes were frequently brought before my father; and either my brother was generally wrong, or I was the better pleader of the two, for judgment was commonly given in my favour. But my brother was passionate, and often had recourse to blows--a circumstance which I took in very ill part. This severe and tyrannical treatment contributed, I believe, to imprint on my mind that aversion to arbitrary power, which during my whole life I have ever preserved. My apprenticeship became insupportable to me, and I continually sighed for an opportunity of shortening it, which at length unexpectedly offered. An article inserted in our paper, upon some political subject which I have now forgotten, gave offence to the assembly. My brother was taken into custody, censured, and ordered into confinement for a month, because, as I presume, he would not discover the author. I was also taken up, and examined before the council; but though I gave them no satisfaction, they contented themselves with reprimanding, and then dismissed me; considering me probably as bound, in quality of apprentice, to keep my master's secrets. The imprisonment of my brother kindled my resentment, notwithstanding our private quarrels. During its continuance, the management of the paper was entrusted to me, and I was bold enough to insert some pasquinades against the governors, which highly pleased my brother, while others began to look upon me in an unfavourable point of view, considering me as a young wit inclined to satire and lampoon. My brother's enlargement was accompanied with an arbitrary order from the house of the assembly, "That James Franklin should no longer print the newspaper entitled 'The New England Courant.'" In this conjuncture, we held a consultation of our friends at the printing-house, in order to determine what was proper to be done. Some proposed to evade the order, by changing the title of the paper: but my brother, foreseeing inconveniences that would result from this step, thought it better that it should be in future printed in the name of Benjamin Franklin; and to avoid the censure of the assembly, who might charge him with still printing the paper himself under the name of his apprentice, it was resolved that my old indentures should be given up to me, with a full and entire discharge written on the back, in order to be produced upon an emergency; but that, to secure to my brother the benefit of my service, I should sign a new contract, which should be kept secret during the remainder of the term. This was a very shallow arrangement. It was, however, carried into immediate execution, and the paper continued, in consequence, to make its appearance for some months in my name. At length a new difference arising between my brother and me, I ventured to take advantage of my liberty, presuming that he would not dare to produce the new contract. It was undoubtedly dishonourable to avail myself of this circumstance, and I reckon this action as one of the first errors of my life; but I was little capable of estimating it at its true value, embittered as my mind had been by the recollection of the blows I had received. Exclusively of his passionate treatment of me, my brother was by no means a man of an ill temper, and perhaps my manners had too much impertinence not to afford it a very natural pretext. When he knew that it was my determination to quit him, he wished to prevent my finding employment elsewhere. He went to all the printing-houses in the town, and prejudiced the masters against me--who accordingly refused to employ me. The idea then suggested itself to me of going to New York, the nearest town in which there was a printing-office. Farther reflection confirmed me in the design of leaving Boston, where I had already rendered myself an object of suspicion to the governing party. It was probable, from the arbitrary proceedings of the assembly in the affair of my brother, that, by remaining, I should soon have been exposed to difficulties, which I had the greater reason to apprehend, as, from my indiscreet disputes upon the subject of religion, I began to be regarded by pious souls with horror, either as an apostate or an atheist. I came, therefore, to a resolution: but my father, in this instance siding with my brother, presumed that if I attempted to depart openly, measures would be taken to prevent me. My friend Collins undertook to favour my flight. He agreed for my passage with the captain of a New York sloop, to whom he represented me as a young man of his acquaintance, who had an affair with a girl of bad character, whose parents wished to compel me to marry her, and that of consequence I could neither make my appearance, nor go off publicly. I sold part of my books to procure a small sum of money, and went privately on board the sloop. By favour of a good wind, I found myself in three days at New York, nearly three hundred miles from my home, at the age only of seventeen years, without knowing an individual in the place, and with very little money in my pocket. The inclination I had felt for a sea-faring life had entirely subsided, or I should now have been able to gratify it; but having another trade, and believing myself to be a tolerable workman, I hesitated not to offer my services to old Mr. William Bradford, who had been the first printer in Pennsylvania, but had quitted that province on account of a quarrel with George Keith, the governor. He could not give me employment himself, having little to do, and already as many persons as he wanted; but he told me that his son, a printer at Philadelphia, had lately lost his principal workman, Aquilla Rose, who was dead, and that if I would go thither, he believed that he would engage me. Philadelphia was a hundred miles farther. I hesitated not to embark in a boat in order to repair, by the shortest cut of the sea, to Amboy, leaving my trunk and effects to come after me by the usual and more tedious conveyance. In crossing the bay we met with a squall, which shattered to pieces our rotten sails, prevented us from entering the Kill, and threw us upon Long Island. During the squall, a drunken Dutchman, who like myself was a passenger in the boat, fell into the sea. At the moment that he was sinking, I seized him by the fore-top, saved him, and drew him on board. This immersion sobered him a little, so that he fell asleep, after having taken from his pocket a volume, which he requested me to dry. This volume I found to be my old favourite Bunyan, in Dutch, a beautiful impression on fine paper, with copper-plate engravings--a dress in which I had never seen it in its original language. I have since learned that it has been translated into almost all the languages of Europe, and next to the Bible, I am persuaded, it is one of the books which has had the greatest spread. Honest John is the first, that I know of, who has mixed narrative and dialogue together; a mode of writing very engaging to the reader, who in the most interesting passages, finds himself admitted as it were into the company, and present at the conversation. De Foe has imitated it with success in his Robinson Crusoe, his Moll Flanders, and other works; as also Richardson in his Pamela, &c. In approaching the island, we found that we had made a part of the coast where it was not possible to land, on account of the strong breakers produced by the rocky shore. We cast anchor and veered the cable towards the shore. Some men, who stood upon the brink, halloed to us, while we did the same on our part; but the wind was so high, and the waves so noisy, that we could neither of us hear each other. There were some canoes upon the bank, and we called out to them, and made signs to prevail on them to come and take us up; but either they did not understand us, or they deemed our request impracticable, and withdrew. Night came on, and nothing remained for us but to wait quietly the subsiding of the wind; till when, we determined, that is, the pilot and I, to sleep if possible. For that purpose we went below the hatches along with the Dutchman, who was drenched with water. The sea broke over the boat, and reached us in our retreat, so that we were presently as completely drenched as he. We had very little repose during the whole night: but the wind abating the next day, we succeeded in reaching Amboy before it was dark, after having passed thirty hours without provisions, and with no other drink than a bottle of bad rum, the water upon which we rowed being salt. In the evening I went to bed with a very violent fever. I had somewhere read that cold water, drank plentifully, was a remedy in such cases. I followed the prescription, was in a profuse sweat for the greater part of the night, and the fever left me. The next day I crossed the river in a ferryboat, and continued my journey on foot. I had fifty miles to walk, in order to reach Burlington, where I was told I should find passage-boats that would convey me to Philadelphia. It rained hard the whole day, so that I was wet to the skin. Finding myself fatigued about noon, I stopped at a paltry inn, where I passed the rest of the day and the whole night, beginning to regret that I had quitted my home. I made besides so wretched a figure, that I was suspected to be some runaway servant. This I discovered by the questions that were asked me; and I felt that I was every moment in danger of being taken up as such. The next day, however, I continued my journey, and arrived in the evening at an inn, eight or ten miles from Burlington, that was kept by one Dr. Brown. This man entered into conversation with me while I took some refreshment, and perceiving that I had read a little, he expressed towards me considerable interest and friendship. Our acquaintance continued during the remainder of his life. I believe him to have been what is called an itinerant doctor; for there was no town in England, or indeed in Europe, of which he could not give a particular account. He was neither deficient in understanding or literature, but he was a sad infidel; and, some years after, wickedly undertook to travesty the Bible, in burlesque verse, as Cotton has travestied Virgil. He exhibited, by this means, many facts in a very ludicrous point of view, which would have given umbrage to weak minds, had his work been published, which it never was. I spent the night at his house, and reached Burlington the next morning. On my arrival, I had the mortification to learn that the ordinary passage-boats had sailed a little before. This was on a Saturday, and there would be no other boat till the Tuesday following. I returned to the house of an old woman in the town who had sold me some gingerbread to eat on my passage, and I asked her advice. She invited me to take up my abode with her till an opportunity offered for me to embark. Fatigued with having travelled so far on foot, I accepted her invitation. When she understood that I was a printer, she would have persuaded me to stay at Burlington, and set up my trade; but she was little aware of the capital that would be necessary for such a purpose! I was treated while at her house with true hospitality. She gave me with the utmost good-will, a dinner of beef-steaks, and would accept of nothing in return but a pint of ale. Here I imagined myself to be fixed till the Tuesday in the ensuing week; but walking out in the evening by the river side, I saw a boat with a number of persons in it approach. It was going to Philadelphia, and the company took me in. As there was no wind, we could only make way with our oars. About midnight, not perceiving the town, some of the company were of opinion that we must have passed it, and were unwilling to row any farther; the rest not knowing where we were, it was resolved that we should stop. We drew towards the shore, entered a creek, and landed near some old palisades, which served us for fire-wood, it being a cold night in October. Here we stayed till day, when one of the company found the place in which we were to be Cooper's creek, a little above Philadelphia; which in reality we perceived the moment we were out of the creek. We arrived on Sunday about eight or nine o'clock in the morning, and landed on Market-street wharf. I have entered into the particulars of my voyage, and shall in like manner describe my first entrance into this city, that you may be able to compare beginnings so little auspicious, with the figure I have since made. On my arrival at Philadelphia I was in my working dress, my best cloaths being to come by sea. I was covered with dirt; my pockets were filled with shirts and stockings; I was unacquainted with a single soul in the place, and knew not where to seek for a lodging. Fatigued with walking, rowing, and having passed the night without sleep, I was extremely hungry, and all my money consisted of a Dutch dollar, and about a shilling's worth of coppers, which I gave to the boatmen for my passage. As I had assisted them in rowing, they refused it at first; but I insisted on their taking it. A man is sometimes more generous when he has little, than when he has much money; probably because, in the first case, he is desirous of concealing his poverty. I walked towards the top of the street, looking eagerly on both sides, till I came to Market-street, where I met a child with a loaf of bread. Often had I made my dinner on dry bread. I enquired where he had bought it, and went straight to the baker's shop which he pointed out to me. I asked for some biscuits, expecting to find such as we had at Boston; but they made, it seems, none of that sort at Philadelphia. I then asked for a three-penny loaf; they made no loaves of that price. Finding myself ignorant of the prices, as well as of the different kinds of bread, I desired him to let me have three penny-worth of bread of some kind or other. He gave me three large rolls. I was surprised at receiving so much: I took them, however, and having no room in my pockets, I walked on with a roll under each arm, eating the third. In this manner I went through Market-street to Fourth-street, and passed the house of Mr. Read, the father of my future wife. She was standing at the door, observed me, and thought with reason, that I made a very singular and grotesque appearance. I then turned the corner, and went through Chesnut-street, eating my roll all the way; and having made this round, I found myself again on Market-street wharf, near the boat in which I arrived. I stepped into it to take a draught of the river water; and finding myself satisfied with my first roll, I gave the other two to a woman and her child, who had come down the river with us in the boat, and was waiting to continue her journey. Thus refreshed, I regained the street, which was now full of well-dressed people, all going the same way. I joined them, and was thus led to a large Quaker's meeting-house near the market-place. I sat down with the rest, and after looking round me for some time, hearing nothing said, and being drowsy from my last night's labour and want of rest, I fell into a sound sleep. In this state I continued till the assembly dispersed, when one of the congregation had the goodness to wake me. This was consequently the first house I entered, or in which I slept, at Philadelphia. I began again to walk along the street by the river side; and looking attentively in the face of every one I met, I at length perceived a young quaker whose countenance pleased me. I accosted him, and begged him to inform me where a stranger might find a lodging. We were then near the sign of the three Mariners. They receive travellers here, said he, but it is not a house that bears a good character; if you will go with me, I will shew you a better one. He conducted me to the Crooked-billet, in Water-street. There I ordered something for dinner, and during my meal a number of curious questions were put to me; my youth and appearance exciting the suspicion of my being a runaway. After dinner my drowsiness returned, and I threw myself upon a bed without taking off my cloaths, and slept till six o'clock in the evening, when I was called to supper. I afterwards went to bed at a very early hour, and did not awake till the next morning. As soon as I got up I put myself in as decent a trim as I could, and went to the house of Andrew Bradford the printer. I found his father in the shop, whom I had seen at New York. Having travelled on horseback, he had arrived at Philadelphia before me. He introduced me to his son, who received me with civility, and gave me some breakfast; but told me he had no occasion at present for a journeyman, having lately procured one. He added, that there was another printer newly settled in the town, of the name of Keimer, who might perhaps employ me; and that in case of refusal, I should be welcome to lodge at his house, and he would give me a little work now and then, till something better should offer. The old man offered to introduce me to the new printer. When we were at his house: "Neighbour," said he, "I bring you a young man in the printing business; perhaps you may have need of his services." Keimer asked me some questions, put a composing stick in my hand to see how I could work, and then said, that at present he had nothing for me to do, but that he should soon be able to employ me. At the same time taking old Bradford for an inhabitant of the town well-disposed towards him, he communicated his project to him, and the prospect he had of success. Bradford was careful not to discover that he was the father of the other printer; and from what Keimer had said, that he hoped shortly to be in possession of the greater part of the business of the town, led him by artful questions, and by starting some difficulties, to disclose all his views, what his hopes were founded upon, and how he intended to proceed. I was present, and heard it all. I instantly saw that one of the two was a cunning old fox, and the other a perfect novice. Bradford left me with Keimer, who was strangely surprised when I informed him who the old man was. I found Keimer's printing materials to consist of an old damaged press, and a small fount of worn-out English letters, with which he himself was at work upon an elegy on Aquila Rose, whom I have mentioned above, an ingenious young man, and of an excellent character, highly esteemed in the town, secretary to the assembly, and a very tolerable poet. Keimer also made verses, but they were indifferent ones. He could not be said to write in verse, for his method was to set the lines as they flowed from his muse; and as he worked without copy, had but one set of letter-cases, and the elegy would probably occupy all his types, it was impossible for any one to assist him. I endeavoured to put his press in order, which he had not yet used, and of which indeed he understood nothing: and having promised to come and work off his elegy as soon as it should be ready, I returned to the house of Bradford, who gave me some trifle to do for the present, for which I had my board and lodging. In a few days Keimer sent for me to print off his elegy. He had now procured another set of letter-cases, and had a pamphlet to re-print, upon which he set me to work. The two Philadelphia printers appeared destitute of every qualification necessary in their profession. Bradford had not been brought up to it, and was very illiterate. Keimer, though he understood a little of the business, was merely a compositor, and wholly incapable of working at the press. He had been one of the French prophets; and knew how to imitate their supernatural agitations. At the time of our first acquaintance he professed no particular religion, but a little of all upon occasion. He was totally ignorant of the world, and a great knave at heart, as I had afterwards, an opportunity of experiencing. Keimer could not endure that, working with him, I should lodge at Bradford's. He had indeed a house, but it was unfurnished; so that he could not take me in. He procured me a lodging at Mr. Read's, his landlord, whom I have already mentioned. My trunk and effects being now arrived, I thought of making, in the eyes of Miss Read, a more respectable appearance than when chance exhibited me to her view, eating my roll, and wandering in the streets. From this period I began to contract acquaintance with such young people of the town as were fond of reading, and spent my evenings with them agreeably, while at the same time I gained money by my industry, and, thanks to my frugality, lived contented. I thus forgot Boston as much as possible, and wished every one to be ignorant of the place of my residence, except my friend Collins, to whom I wrote, and who kept my secret. An incident however arrived, which sent me home much sooner than I had proposed. I had a brother-in-law, of the name of Robert Holmes, master of a trading sloop from Boston to Delaware. Being at Newcastle, forty miles below Philadelphia, he heard of me, and wrote to inform me of the chagrin which my sudden departure from Boston had occasioned my parents, and of the affection which they still entertained for me, assuring me that, if I would return, every thing should be adjusted to my satisfaction; and he was very pressing in his entreaties. I answered his letter, thanked him for his advice, and explained the reasons which had induced me to quit Boston, with such force and clearness, that he was convinced I had been less to blame than he had imagined. Sir William Keith, governor of the province, was at Newcastle at the time. Captain Holmes, being by chance in his company when he received my letter, took occasion to speak of me, and showed it him. The governor read it, and appeared surprised when he learned my age. He thought me, he said, a young man of very promising talents, and that, of consequence, I ought to be encouraged; that there were at Philadelphia none but very ignorant printers, and that if I were to set up for myself, he had no doubt of my success; that, for his own part, he would procure me all the public business, and would render me every other service in his power. My brother-in-law related all this to me afterwards at Boston; but I knew nothing of it at the time; when one day Keimer and I being at work together near the window, we saw the governor and another gentleman, colonel French, of Newcastle, handsomely dressed, cross the street, and make directly for our house. We heard them at the door, and Keimer believing it to be a visit to himself, went immediately down: but the governor enquired for me, came up stairs, and, with a condescension and politeness to which I had not at all been accustomed, paid me many compliments, desired to be acquainted with me, obligingly reproached me for not having made myself known to him on my arrival in the town, and wished me to accompany him to a tavern, where he and colonel French were going to taste some excellent Madeira wine. I was, I confess, somewhat surprised, and Keimer appeared thunderstruck. I went, however, with the governor and the colonel to a tavern at the corner of Third-street, where, while we were drinking the Madeira, he proposed to me to establish a printing-house. He set forth the probabilities of success, and himself, and colonel French assured me that I should have their protection and influence in obtaining the printing of the public papers of both governments; and as I appeared to doubt whether my father would assist me in this enterprize, Sir William said that he would give me a letter to him, in which he would represent the advantages of the scheme, in a light which he had no doubt would determine him. It was thus concluded that I should return to Boston by the first vessel, with the letter of recommendation, from the governor to my father. Meanwhile the project was to be kept secret, and I continued to work for Keimer as before. The governor sent every now and then to invite me to dine with him. I considered this as a very great honour; and I was the more sensible of it, as he conversed with me in the most affable, familiar, and friendly manner imaginable. Towards the end of April 1724, a small vessel was ready to sail for Boston. I took leave of Keimer, upon the pretext of going to see my parents. The governor gave me a long letter, in which he said many flattering things of me to my father; and strongly recommended the project of my settling at Philadelphia, as a thing which could not fail to make my fortune. Going down the bay we struck on a flat, and sprung a leak. The weather was very tempestuous, and we were obliged to pump without intermission; I took my turn. We arrived, however, safe and sound at Boston, after about a fortnight's passage. I had been absent about seven complete months, and my relations, during that interval, had received no intelligence of me; for my brother-in-law, Holmes, was not yet returned, and had not written about me. My unexpected appearance surprized the family; but they were all delighted at seeing me again, and, except my brother, welcomed me home. I went to him at the printing-house. I was better dressed than I had ever been while in his service: I had a complete suit of clothes, new and neat, a watch in my pocket, and my purse was furnished with nearly five pounds sterling in money. He gave me no very civil reception; and having eyed me from head to foot, resumed his work. The workmen asked me with eagerness where I had been, what sort of a country it was, and how I liked it. I spoke in the highest terms of Philadelphia, the happy life we led there, and expressed my intention of going back again. One of them asking what sort of money we had, I displayed before them a handful of silver, which I drew from my pocket. This was a curiosity to which they were not accustomed, paper being the current money at Boston. I failed not after this to let them see my watch; and at last, my brother continuing sullen and out of humour, I gave them a shilling to drink, and took my leave. This visit stung my brother to the soul; for when, shortly after, my mother spoke to him of a reconciliation, and a desire to see us upon good terms, he told her that I had so insulted him before his men, that he would never forget or forgive it: in this, however, he was mistaken. The governor's letter appeared to excite in my father some surprize; but he said little. After some days, captain Holmes being returned, he showed it him, asking him if he knew Keith, and what sort of a man he was: adding, that, in his opinion, it proved very little discernment to think of setting up a boy in business, who for three years to come would not be of an age to be ranked in the class of men. Holmes said every thing he could in favour of the scheme; but my father firmly maintained its absurdity, and at last gave a positive refusal. He wrote, however, a civil letter to Sir William, thanking him for the protection he had so obligingly offered me, but refusing to assist me for the present, because he thought me too young to be entrusted with the conduct of so important an enterprise, and which would require so considerable a sum of money. My old comrade Collins, who was a clerk in the post-office, charmed with the account I gave of my new residence, expressed a desire of going thither; and while I waited my father's determination, he set off before me by land for Rhode Island, leaving his books, which formed a handsome collection in mathematics and natural philosophy, to be conveyed with mine to New York, where he purposed to wait for me. My father, though he could not approve Sir William's proposal, was yet pleased that I had obtained so advantageous a recommendation as that of a person of his rank, and that my industry and economy had enabled me to equip myself so handsomely in so short a period. Seeing no appearance of accommodating matters between my brother and me, he consented to my return to Philadelphia, advised me to be civil to every body, to endeavour to obtain general esteem, and avoid satire and sarcasm, to which he thought I was too much inclined; adding, that with perseverance and prudent economy, I might, by the time I became of age, save enough to establish myself in business; and that if a small sum should then be wanting, he would undertake to supply it. This was all I could obtain from him, except some trifling presents, in token of friendship from him and my mother. I embarked once more for New York, furnished at this time with their approbation and blessing. The sloop having touched at Newport in Rhode Island, I paid a visit to my brother John, who had for some years been settled there, and was married. He had always been attached to me, and he received me with great affection. One of his friends, whose name was Vernon, having a debt of about thirty-six pounds due to him in Pennsylvania, begged me to receive it for him, and to keep the money till I should hear from him: accordingly he gave me an order for that purpose. This affair occasioned me, in the sequel, much uneasiness. At Newport we took on board a number of passengers; among whom were two young women, and a grave and sensible quaker lady with her servants. I had shown an obliging forwardness in rendering the quaker some trifling services, which led her, probably, to feel an interest in my welfare; for when she saw a familiarity take place, and every day increase, between the two young women and me, she took me aside and said: "Young man, I am in pain for thee. Thou hast no parent to watch over thy conduct, and thou seemest to be ignorant of the world, and the snares to which youth is exposed. Rely upon what I tell thee: those are women of bad characters; I perceive it in all their actions. If thou dost not take care, they will lead thee into danger. They are strangers to thee, and I advise thee, by the friendly interest I take in thy preservation, to form no connection with them." As I appeared at first not to think quite so ill of them as she did, she related many things she had seen and heard, which had escaped my attention, but which convinced me that she was in the right. I thanked her for her obliging advice, and promised to follow it. When we arrived at New York, they informed me where they lodged, and invited me to come and see them. I did not however go, and it was well I did not; for the next day, the captain missing a silver spoon and some other things which had been taken from the cabin, and knowing these women to be prostitutes, procured a search-warrant, found the stolen goods upon them, and had them punished. And thus, after having been saved from one rock concealed under water, upon which the vessel struck during our passage, I escaped another of a still more dangerous nature. At New York I found my friend Collins, who had arrived some time before. We had been intimate from our infancy, and had read the same books together; but he had the advantage of being able to devote more time to reading and study, and an astonishing disposition for mathematics, in which he left me far behind him. When at Boston, I had been accustomed to pass with him almost all my leisure hours. He was then a sober and industrious lad; his knowledge had gained him a very general esteem, and he seemed to promise to make an advantageous figure in society. But, during my absence, he had unfortunately addicted himself to brandy, and I learned, as well from himself as from the report of others, that every day since his arrival at New York he had been intoxicated, and had acted in a very extravagant manner. He had also played, and lost all his money; so that I was obliged to pay his expences at the inn, and to maintain him during the rest of his journey; a burthen that was very inconvenient to me. The governor of New York, whose name was Burnet, hearing the captain say, that a young man who was a passenger in his ship had a great number of books, begged him to bring me to his house. I accordingly went, and should have taken Collins with me, had he been sober. The governor treated me with great civility, shewed me his library, which was a very considerable one, and we talked for some time upon books and authors. This was the second governor who had honoured me with his attention, and to a poor boy, as I was then, these little adventures did not fail to be pleasing. We arrived at Philadelphia. On the way I received Vernon's money, without which we should have been unable to have finished our journey. Collins wished to get employment as a merchant's clerk, but either his breath or his countenance betrayed his bad habit; for, though he had recommendations he met with no success, and continued to lodge and eat with me, and at my expence. Knowing that I had Vernon's money, he was continually asking me to lend him some of it, promising to repay me as soon as he should get employment. At last he had drawn so much of this money, that I was extremely alarmed at what might become of me, should he fail to make good the deficiency. His habit of drinking did not at all diminish, and was a frequent source of discord between us; for when he had drank a little too much, he was very head-strong. Being one day in a boat together on the Delaware, with some other young persons, he refused to take his turn in rowing. You shall row for me, said he, till we get home.--No, I replied, we will not row for you.--You shall, said he, or remain upon the water all night. As you please.--Let us row, said the rest of the company; what signifies whether he assists or not. But, already angry with him for his conduct in other respects, I persisted in my refusal. He then swore that he would make me row, or would throw me out of the boat; and he made up to me. As soon as he was within my reach, I took him by the collar, gave him a violent thrust, and threw him head foremost into the river. I knew that he was a good swimmer, and was therefore under no apprehensions for his life. Before he could turn himself, we were able, by a few strokes of our oars, to place ourselves out of his reach; and whenever he touched the boat, we asked him if he would row striking his hands at the same time with the oars, to make him let go his hold. He was nearly suffocated with rage, but obstinately refused making any promise to row. Perceiving, at length, that his strength began to be exhausted, we took him into the boat, and conveyed him home in the evening completely drenched. The utmost coldness subsisted between us after this adventure. At last the captain of a West-India ship, who was commissioned to procure a tutor for the children of a gentleman at Barbadoes, meeting with Collins, offered him the place. He accepted it, and took his leave of me, promising to discharge the debt he owed me with the first money he should receive; but I have heard nothing of him since. The violation of the trust reposed in me by Vernon, was one of the first great errors of my life; and it proves that my father was not mistaken when he supposed me too young to be intrusted with the management of important affairs. But Sir William, upon reading his letter, thought him too prudent. There was a difference, he said, between individuals: years of maturity were not always accompanied with discretion, neither was youth in every instance devoid of it. Since your father, added he, will not set you up in business, I will do it myself. Make out a list of what will be wanted from England, and I will send for the articles. You shall repay me when you can. I am determined to have a good printer here, and I am sure you will succeed. This was said with so much seeming cordiality, that I suspected not for an instant the sincerity of the offer. I had hitherto kept the project, with which Sir William had inspired me, of settling in business, a secret at Philadelphia, and I still continued to do so. Had my reliance on the governor been known, some friend better acquainted with his character than myself, would doubtless have advised me not to trust him; for I afterwards learned he was universally known to be liberal of promises, which he had no intention to perform. But having never solicited him, how could I suppose his offers to be deceitful?--On the contrary, I believed him to be the best man in the world. I gave him an inventory of a small printing-office, the expence of which I had calculated at about a hundred pounds sterling. He expressed his approbation; but asked, if my presence in England, that I might choose the characters myself, and see that every article was good in its kind, would not be an advantage? You will also be able, said he, to form some acquaintance there, and establish a correspondence with stationers and booksellers. This I acknowledged was desirable. That being the case, added he, hold yourself in readiness to go with the Annis. This was the annual vessel, and the only one, at that time, which made regular voyages between the ports of London and Philadelphia. But the Annis was not to sail for some months. I therefore continued to work with Keimer, unhappy respecting the sum which Collins had drawn from me, and almost in continual agony at the thoughts of Vernon, who fortunately made no demand of his money till several years after. In the account of my first voyage from Boston to Philadelphia, I omitted, I believe, a trifling circumstance, which will not, perhaps, be out of place here. During a calm which stopped us above Block Island, the crew employed themselves in fishing for cod, of which they caught a great number. I had hitherto adhered to my resolution of not eating any thing that had possessed life; and I considered on this occasion, agreeably to the maxims of my master Tryon, the capture of every fish as a sort of murder, committed without provocation, since these animals had neither done, nor were capable of doing the smallest injury to any one that should justify the measure. This mode of reasoning I conceived to be unanswerable. Meanwhile, I had formerly been extremely fond of fish; and when one of these cod was taken out of the frying-pan, I thought its flavour delicious. I hesitated some time between principle and inclination, till at last recollecting, that when the cod had been opened, some small fish were found in its belly, I said to myself, if you eat one another, I see no reason why we may not eat you. I accordingly dined on the cod with no small degree of pleasure, and have since continued to eat like the rest of mankind, returning only occasionally to my vegetable plan. How convenient does it prove to be a _rational animal_, that knows how to find or invent a plausible pretext for whatever it has an inclination to do! I continued to live upon good terms with Keimer, who had not the smallest suspicion of my projected establishment. He still retained a portion of his former enthusiasm; and, being fond of argument, we frequently disputed together. I was so much in the habit of using my Socratic method, and had so frequently puzzled him by my questions, which appeared at first very distant from the point in debate, yet nevertheless led to it by degrees, involving him in difficulties and contradictions from which he was unable to extricate himself, that he became at last ridiculously cautious, and would scarcely answer the most plain and familiar question without previously asking me--What would you infer from that? Hence he formed so high an opinion of my talents for refutation, that he seriously proposed to me to become his colleague in the establishment of a new religious sect. He was to propagate the doctrine by preaching, and I to refute every opponent. When he explained to me his tenets, I found many absurdities which I refused to admit, unless he would agree in turn to adopt some of my opinions. Keimer wore his beard long, because Moses had somewhere said, "Thou shalt not mar the corners of thy beard." He likewise observed the Sabbath; and these were with him two very essential points. I disliked them both: but I consented to adopt them, provided he would agree to abstain from animal food. I doubt, said he, whether my constitution will be able to support it. I assured him on the contrary he would find himself the better for it. He was naturally a glutton, and I wished to amuse myself by starving him. He consented to make trial of this regimen, if I would bear him company; and in reality we continued it for three months. A woman in the neighbourhood prepared and brought us our victuals, to whom I gave a list of forty dishes; in the composition of which there were entered neither flesh nor fish. This fancy was the more agreeable to me as it turned to good account; for the whole expence of our living did not exceed for each eighteen pence a week. I have since that period observed several Lents with the greatest strictness, and have suddenly returned again to my ordinary diet, without experiencing the smallest inconvenience; which has led me to regard as of no importance the advice commonly given, of introducing gradually such alterations of regimen. I continued it cheerfully, but poor Keimer suffered terribly. Tired of the project, he sighed for the fleshpots of Egypt. At length he ordered a roast pig, and invited me and two of our female acquaintance to dine with him; but the pig being ready a little too soon, he could not resist the temptation, and eat it all up before we arrived. During the circumstances I have related, I had paid some attentions to Miss Read. I entertained for her the utmost esteem and affection; and I had reason to believe that these sentiments were mutual. But we were both young, scarcely more than eighteen years of age; and as I was on the point of undertaking a long voyage, her mother thought it prudent to prevent matters being carried top far for the present, judging that, if marriage was our object, there would be more propriety in it after my return, when, as at least I expected, I should be established in my business. Perhaps, also, she thought my expectations were not so well founded as I imagined. My most intimate acquaintance at this time were Charles Osborne, Joseph Watson, and James Ralph: young men who were all fond of reading. The two first were clerks to Mr. Charles Brockdon, one of the principal attornies in the town, and the other clerk to a merchant. Watson was an upright, pious, and sensible young man: the others were somewhat more loose in their principles of religion, particularly Ralph, whose faith, as well as that of Collins, I had contributed to shake; each of whom made me suffer a very adequate punishment. Osborne was sensible, and sincere and affectionate in his friendships, but too much inclined to the critic in matters of literature. Ralph was ingenious and shrewd, genteel in his address, and extremely eloquent. I do not remember to have met with a more agreeable speaker. They were both enamoured of the muses, and had already evinced their passion by some small poetical productions. It was a custom with us to take a charming walk on Sundays, in the woods that border the Skuylkil. Here we read together, and afterwards conversed on what we read. Ralph was disposed to give himself up entirely to poetry. He flattered himself that he should arrive at great eminence in the art, and even acquire a fortune. The sublimest poets, he pretended, when they first began to write, committed as many faults as himself. Osborne endeavoured to dissuade him, by assuring him that he had no genius for poetry, and advised him to stick to the trade in which he had been brought up. In the road of commerce, said he, you will be sure, by diligence and assiduity, though you have no capital, of so far succeeding as to be employed as a factor; and may thus, in time, acquire the means of setting up for yourself. I concurred in these sentiments, but at the same time expressed my approbation of amusing ourselves sometimes with poetry, with a view to improve our style. In consequence of this it was proposed, that, at our next meeting, each of us should bring a copy of verses of his own composition. Our object in this competition was to benefit each other by our mutual remarks, criticisms, and corrections; and as style and expression were all we had in view, we excluded every idea of invention, by agreeing that our task should be a version of the eighteenth psalm, in which is described the descent of the Deity. The time of our meeting drew near, when Ralph called upon me, and told me that his performance was ready. I informed him that I had been idle, and, not much liking the task, had done nothing. He shewed me his piece, and asked me what I thought of it. I expressed myself in terms of warm approbation; because it really appeared to have considerable merit. He then said, Osborne will never acknowledge the smallest degree of excellence in any production of mine. Envy alone dictates to him a thousand animadversions. Of you he is not so jealous: I wish, therefore, you would take the verses, and produce them as your own. I will pretend not to have had leisure to write any thing. We shall then see in what manner he will speak of them. I agreed to this little artifice, and immediately transcribed the verses to prevent all suspicion. We met. Watson's performance was the first that was read; it had some beauties, but many faults. We next read Osborne's, which was much better. Ralph did it justice, remarking a few imperfections, and applauding such parts as were excellent. He had himself nothing to show. It was now my turn. I made some difficulty; seemed as if I wished to be excused; pretended that I had had no time to make corrections, &c. No excuse, however, was admissible, and, the piece must be produced. It was read, and re-read. Watson and Osborne immediately resigned the palm, and united in applauding it. Ralph alone made a few remarks, and proposed some alterations; but I defended my text. Osborne agreed with me, and told Ralph that he was no more able to criticise than he was able to write. When Osborne was alone with me, he expressed himself still more strongly in favour of what he considered as my performance. He pretended that he had put some restraint upon himself before, apprehensive of my construing his commendation into flattery. But who would have supposed, said he, Franklin to be capable of such a composition? What painting--what energy--what fire! He has surpassed the original. In his common conversation he appears not to have a choice of words; he hesitates, and is at a loss--and yet, good God, how he writes! At our next meeting Ralph discovered the trick we had played Osborne, who was rallied without mercy. By this adventure Ralph was fixed in his determination of becoming a poet. I left nothing unattempted to divert him from his purpose; but he persevered, till at last the reading of Pope[3] effected his cure: he became, however, a very tolerable prose-writer. I shall speak more of him hereafter; but as I shall probably have no farther occasion to mention the other two, I ought to observe here that Watson died a few years after in my arms. He was greatly regretted, for he was the best of our society. Osborne went to the islands, where he gained considerable reputation as a barrister, and was getting money; but he died young. We had seriously engaged, that whoever died first should return (if possible) and pay a friendly visit to the survivor, to give him an account of the other world--but he has never fulfilled his engagement. The governor appeared to be fond of my company, and frequently invited me to his house. He always spoke of his intention of settling me in business, as a point that was decided. I was to take with me letters of recommendation to a number of his friends, and particularly a letter of credit, in order to obtain the necessary sum for the purchase of my press, types, and paper. He appointed various times for me to come for these letters, which would certainly be ready, and when I came, always put me off to another day. These successive delays continued till the vessel, whose departure had been several times deferred, was on the point of setting sail; when I again went to Sir William's house, to receive my letters and take leave of him. I saw his secretary, Dr. Bard, who told me that the governor was extremely busy writing, but that he would be down at Newcastle before the vessel, and that the letters would be delivered to me there. Ralph, though he was married and had a child, determined to accompany me in this voyage. His object was supposed to be the establishing a correspondence with some mercantile houses, in order to sell goods by commission; but I afterwards learned that, having reason to be dissatisfied with the parents of his wife, he proposed to himself to leave her on their hands, and never return to America again. Having taken leave of my friends, and interchanged promises of fidelity with Miss Read, I quitted Philadelphia. At Newcastle the vessel came to anchor. The governor was arrived, and I went to his lodgings. His secretary received me with great civility, told me on the part of the governor that he could not see me then, as he was engaged in affairs of the utmost importance, but that he would send the letters on board, and that he wished me, with all his heart, a good voyage, and speedy return. I returned, somewhat astonished, to the ship, but still without entertaining the slightest suspicion. Mr. Hamilton, a celebrated barrister of Philadelphia, had taken a passage to England for himself and his son, and, in conjunction with Mr. Denham, a quaker, and Messrs. Oniam and Russel, proprietors of a forge in Maryland, had agreed for the whole cabin, so that Ralph and I were obliged to take up our lodging with the crew. Being unknown to every body in the ship, we were looked upon as of the common order of people: but Mr. Hamilton and his son, (it was James, who was afterwards governor,) left us at Newcastle, and returned to Philadelphia, where he was recalled at a very great expence, to plead the cause of a vessel that had been seized; and just as we were about to sail, colonel French came on board, and shewed me many civilities. The passengers upon this paid me more attention, and I was invited, together with my friend Ralph, to occupy the place in the cabin which the return of the Mr. Hamiltons had made vacant; an offer which we very readily accepted. Having learned that the dispatches of the governor had been brought on board by colonel French, I asked the captain for the letters that were to be entrusted to my care. He told me that they were all put together in the bag, which he could not open at present; but before we reached England, he would give me an opportunity of taking them out. I was satisfied with this answer, and we pursued our voyage. The company in the cabin were all very sociable, and we were perfectly well off as to provisions, as we had the advantage of the whole of Mr. Hamilton's, who had laid in a very plentiful stock. During the passage, Mr. Denham contracted a friendship for me, which ended only with his life: in other respects the voyage was by no means an agreeable one, as we had much bad weather. When we arrived in the river, the captain was as good as his word, and allowed me to search in the bag for the governor's letters. I could not find a single one with my name written on it, as committed to my care; but I selected six or seven, which I judged from the direction to be those that were intended for me; particularly one to Mr. Basket the king's printer, and another to a stationer, who was the first person I called upon. I delivered him the letter as coming from governor Keith. "I have no acquaintance (said he) with any such person;" and opening the letter, "Oh, it is from Riddlesden!" he exclaimed. "I have lately discovered him to be a very arrant knave, and wish to have nothing to do either with him or his letters." He instantly put the letter into my hand, turned upon his heel, and left me, to serve some customers. I was astonished at finding these letters were not from the governor. Reflecting, and putting circumstances together, I then began to doubt his sincerity. I rejoined my friend Denham, and related the whole affair to him. He let me at once into Keith's character, told me there was not the least probability of his having written a single letter; that no one who knew him ever placed any reliance on him, and laughed at my credulity in supposing that the governor would give me a letter of credit, when he had no credit for himself. As I showed some uneasiness respecting what step I should take, he advised me to try to get employment in the house of some printer. You may there, said he, improve yourself in business, and you will be able to settle yourself the more advantageously when you return to America. We knew already as well as the stationer, attorney Riddlesden to be a knave. He had nearly ruined the father of Miss Read, by drawing him in to be his security. We learned from his letter, that he was secretly carrying on an intrigue, in concert with the governor, to the prejudice of Mr. Hamilton, who it was supposed would by this time be in Europe. Denham, who was Hamilton's friend, was of opinion that he ought to be made acquainted with it; and in reality, the instant he arrived in England, which was very soon after, I waited on him, and, as much from good-will to him, as from resentment against the governor, put the letter into his hands. He thanked me very sincerely, the information it contained being of consequence to him; and from that moment bestowed on me his friendship, which afterwards proved on many occasions serviceable to me. But what are we to think of a governor who could play so scurvy a trick, and thus grossly deceive a poor young lad, wholly destitute of experience? It was a practice with him. Wishing to please every body, and having little to bestow, he was lavish of promises. He was in other respects sensible and judicious, a very tolerable writer, and a good governor for the people; though not so for the proprietaries, whose instructions he frequently disregarded. Many of our best laws were his work, and established during his administration. Ralph and I were inseparable companions. We took a lodging together at three and sixpence a-week, which was as much as we could afford. He met with some relations in London, but they were poor, and not able to assist him. He now, for the first time, informed me of his intention to remain in England, and that he had no thoughts of ever returning to Philadelphia. He was totally without money; the little he had been able to raise having barely sufficed for his passage. I had still fifteen pistoles remaining; and to me he had from time to time recourse, while he tried to get employment. At first, believing himself possessed of talents for the stage, he thought of turning actor; but Wilkes, to whom he applied, frankly advised him to renounce the idea, as it was impossible he should succeed. He next proposed to Roberts, a bookseller in Paternoster-row, to write a weekly paper in the manner of the Spectator, upon terms to which Roberts would not listen. Lastly, he endeavoured to procure employment as a copyist, and applied to the lawyers and stationers about the Temple; but he could find no vacancy. As to myself, I immediately got engaged at Palmer's, at that time a noted printer in Bartholomew-close, with whom I continued nearly a year. I applied very assiduously to my work; but I expended with Ralph almost all that I earned. Plays, and other places of amusement which we frequented together, having exhausted my pistoles, we lived after this from hand to mouth. He appeared to have entirely forgotten his wife and child, as I also, by degrees, forgot my engagements with Miss Read, to whom I never wrote more than one letter, and that merely to inform her that I was not likely to return soon. This was another grand error of my life, which I should be desirous of correcting were I to begin my career again. I was employed at Palmer's on the second edition of Woolaston's Religion of Nature. Some of his arguments appearing to me not to be well-founded, I wrote a small metaphysical treatise, in which I animadverted on those passages. It was entitled a "Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain." I dedicated it to my friend Ralph, and printed a small number of copies. Palmer upon this treated me with more consideration, and regarded me as a young man of talents; though he seriously took me to task for the principles of my pamphlet, which he looked upon as abominable. The printing of this work was another error of my life. While I lodged in Little Britain I formed acquaintance with a bookseller of the name of Wilcox, whose shop was next door to me. Circulating libraries were not then in use. He had an immense collection of books of all sorts. We agreed that, for a reasonable retribution, of which I have now forgotten the price, I should have free access to his library, and take what books I pleased, which I was to return when I had read them. I considered this agreement as a very great advantage; and I derived from it as much benefit as was in my power. My pamphlet falling into the hands of a surgeon, of the name of Lyons, author of a book entitled, "Infallibility of Human Judgment," was the occasion of a considerable intimacy between us. He expressed great esteem for me, came frequently to see me, in order to converse upon metaphysical subjects, and introduced me to Dr. Mandeville, author of the Fable of the Bees, who had instituted a club at a tavern in Cheapside, of which he was the soul: he was a facetious and very amusing character. He also introduced me, at Batson's coffee-house, to Dr. Pemberton, who promised to give me an opportunity of seeing Sir Isaac Newton, which I very ardently desired; but he never kept his word. I had brought some curiosities with me from America; the principal of which was a purse made of the asbestos, which fire only purifies. Sir Hans Sloane hearing of it, called upon me, and invited me to his house in Bloomsbury-square, where, after showing me every thing that was curious, he prevailed on me to add this piece to his collection; for which he paid me very handsomely. There lodged in the same house with us a young woman, a milliner, who had a shop by the side of the Exchange. Lively and sensible, and having received an education somewhat above her rank, her conversation was very agreeable. Ralph read plays to her every evening. They became intimate. She took another lodging, and he followed her. They lived for some time together; but Ralph being without employment, she having a child, and the profits of her business not sufficing for the maintenance of three, he resolved to quit London, and try a country school. This was a plan in which he thought himself likely to succeed; as he wrote a fine hand, and was versed in arithmetic and accounts. But considering the office as beneath him, and expecting some day to make a better figure in the world, when he should be ashamed of its being known that he had exercised a profession so little honourable, he changed his name, and did me the honour to assume mine. He wrote to me soon after his departure, informing me that he was settled at a small village in Berkshire. In his letter he recommended Mrs. T***, the milliner, to my care, and requested an answer, directed to Mr. Franklin, school-master, at N***. He continued to write to me frequently, sending me large fragments of an epic poem he was composing, and which he begged of me to criticise and correct. I did so, but not without endeavouring to prevail on him to renounce this pursuit. Young had just published one of his Satires. I copied and sent him a great part of it; in which the author demonstrates the folly of cultivating the muses, from the hope, by their instrumentality, of rising in the world. It was all to no purpose; paper after paper of his poem continued to arrive every post. Meanwhile Mrs. T*** having lost, on his account, both her friends and her business, was frequently in distress. In this dilemma she had recourse to me; and to extricate her from difficulties, I lent her all the money I could spare. I felt a little too much fondness for her. Having at that time no ties of religion, and taking advantage of her necessitous situation, I attempted liberties, (another error of my life,) which she repelled with becoming indignation. She informed Ralph of my conduct; and the affair occasioned a breach between us. When he returned to London, he gave me to understand that he considered all the obligations he owed me as annihilated by this proceeding; whence I concluded that I was never to expect the payment of what money I had lent him, or advanced on his account. I was the less afflicted at this, as he was wholly unable to pay me; and as, by losing his friendship, I was relieved at the same time from a very heavy burden. I now began to think of laying by some money. The printing-house of Watts, near Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, being a still more considerable one than that in which I worked, it was probable I might find it more advantageous to be employed there. I offered myself, and was accepted; and in this house I continued during the remainder of my stay in London. On my entrance I worked at first as a pressman, conceiving that I had need of bodily exercise, to which I had been accustomed in America, where the printers work alternately as compositors and at the press. I drank nothing but water. The other workmen, to the number of about fifty, were great drinkers of beer. I carried occasionally a large form of letters in each hand, up and down stairs, while the rest employed both hands to carry one. They were surprised to see, by this and many other examples, that the _American Aquatic_, as they used to call me, was stronger than those who drank porter. The beer-boy had sufficient employment during the whole day in serving that house alone. My fellow pressman drank every day a pint of beer before breakfast, a pint with bread and cheese for breakfast, one between breakfast and dinner, one at dinner, one again about six o'clock in the afternoon, and another after he had finished his day's work. This custom appeared to me abominable; but he had need, he said, of all this beer, in order to acquire strength to work. I endeavoured to convince him that the bodily strength furnished by the beer, could only be in proportion to the solid part of the barley dissolved in the water of which the beer was composed; that there was a larger portion of flour in a penny loaf, and that consequently if he ate this loaf, and drank a pint of water with it, he would derive more strength from it than from a pint of beer. This reasoning, however, did not prevent him from drinking his accustomed quantity of beer, and paying every Saturday night a score of four or five shillings a-week for this cursed beverage; an expence from which I was wholly exempt. Thus do these poor devils continue all their lives in a state of voluntary wretchedness and poverty. At the end of a few weeks, Watts having occasion for me above stairs as a compositor, I quitted the press. The compositors demanded of me garnish money a-fresh. This I considered as an imposition, having already paid below. The master was of the same opinion, and desired me not to comply. I thus remained two or three weeks out of the fraternity. I was consequently looked upon as excommunicated; and whenever I was absent, no little trick that malice could suggest was left unpractised upon me. I found my letters mixed, my pages transposed, my matter broken, &c. &c. all which was attributed to the spirit that haunted the chapel,[4] and tormented those who were not regularly admitted. I was at last obliged to submit to pay, notwithstanding the protection of the master; convinced of the folly of not keeping up a good understanding with those among whom we are destined to live. After this I lived in the utmost harmony with my fellow-labourers, and soon acquired considerable influence among them. I proposed some alterations in the laws of the chapel, which I carried without opposition. My example prevailed with several of them to renounce their abominable practice of bread and cheese with beer; and they procured, like me, from a neighbouring house, a good basin of warm gruel, in which was a small slice of butter, with toasted bread and nutmeg. This was a much better breakfast, which did not cost more than a pint of beer, namely, three halfpence, and at the same time preserved the head clearer. Those who continued to gorge themselves with beer, often lost their credit with the publican, from neglecting to pay their score. They had then recourse to me, to become security for them; _their light_, as they used to call it, _being out_. I attended at the pay-table every Saturday evening, to take up the little sum which I had made myself answerable for; and which sometimes amounted to nearly thirty shillings a-week. This circumstance, added to my reputation of being a tolerable good _gabber_, or, in other words, skilful in the art of burlesque, kept up my importance in the chapel. I had besides recommended myself to the esteem of my master by my assiduous application to business, never observing Saint Monday. My extraordinary quickness in composing always procured me such work as was most urgent, and which is commonly best paid; and thus my time passed away in a very pleasant manner. My lodging in Little Britain being too far from the printing-house, I took another in Duke-street, opposite the Roman Catholic chapel. It was at the back of an Italian warehouse. The house was kept by a widow, who had a daughter, a servant, and a shop-boy; but the latter slept out of the house. After sending to the people with whom I lodged in Little Britain, to enquire into my character, she agreed to take me in at the same price, three and sixpence a-week; contenting herself, she said, with so little, because of the security she should derive, as they were all women, from having a man lodger in the house. She was a woman rather advanced in life, the daughter of a clergyman. She had been educated a Protestant; but her husband, whose memory she highly revered, had converted her to the Catholic religion. She had lived in habits of intimacy with persons of distinction; of whom she knew various anecdotes as far back as the time of Charles II. Being subject to fits of the gout, which often confined her to her room, she was sometimes disposed to see company. Hers was so amusing to me, that I was glad to pass the evening with her as often as she desired it. Our supper consisted only of half an anchovy a piece, upon a slice of bread and butter, with half a pint of ale between us. But the entertainment was in her conversation. The early hours I kept, and the little trouble I occasioned in the family, made her loth to part with me; and when I mentioned another lodging I had found, nearer the printing-house, at two shillings a week, which fell in with my plan of saving, she persuaded me to give it up, making herself an abatement of two shillings: and thus I continued to lodge with her, during the remainder of my abode in London, at eighteen pence a week. In a garret of the house there lived, in the most retired manner, a lady seventy years of age, of whom I received the following account from my landlady. She was a Roman Catholic. In her early years she had been sent to the continent, and entered a convent with the design of becoming a nun; but the climate not agreeing with her constitution, she was obliged to return to England, where, as there were no monasteries, she made a vow to lead a monastic life, in as rigid a manner as circumstances would permit. She accordingly disposed of all her property to be applied to charitable uses, reserving to herself only twelve pounds a year; and of this small pittance she gave a part to the poor, living on water gruel, and never making use of fire but to boil it. She had lived in this garret a great many years, without paying rent to the successive Catholic inhabitants that had kept the house; who indeed considered her abode with them as a blessing. A priest came every day to confess her. I have asked her, said my landlady, how, living as she did, she could find so much employment for a confessor? To which she answered, that it was impossible to avoid vain thoughts. I was once permitted to visit her. She was cheerful and polite, and her conversation agreeable. Her apartment was neat; but the whole furniture consisted of a mattress, a table, on which were a crucifix and a book, a chair, which she gave me to sit on, and over the mantle-piece a picture of St. Veronica displaying her handkerchief, on which was seen the miraculous impression of the face of Christ, which she explained to me with great gravity. Her countenance was pale, but she had never experienced sickness; and I may adduce her as another proof how little is sufficient to maintain life and health. At the printing house I contracted an intimacy with a sensible young man of the name of Wygate, who, as his parents were in good circumstances, had received a better education than is common among printers. He was a tolerable Latin scholar, spoke French fluently, and was fond of reading. I taught him, as well as a friend of his, to swim, by taking them twice only into the river; after which they stood in need of no farther assistance. We one day made a party to go by water to Chelsea, in order to see the College, and Don Soltero's curiosities. On our return, at the request of the company, whose curiosity Wygate had excited, I undressed myself, and leaped into the river. I swam from near Chelsea the whole way to Blackfriars, exhibiting, during my course, a variety of feats of activity and address, both upon the surface of the water, as well as under it. This sight occasioned much astonishment and pleasure to those to whom it was new. In my youth I took great delight in this exercise. I knew, and could execute, all the evolutions and positions of Thevenot; and I added to them some of my own invention, in which I endeavoured to unite gracefulness and utility. I took a pleasure in displaying them all on this occasion, and was highly flattered with the admiration they excited. Wygate, besides his being desirous of perfecting himself in this art, was the more attached to me from there being, in other respects, a conformity in our tastes and studies. He at length proposed to me to make the tour of Europe with him, maintaining ourselves at the same time by working at our profession. I was on the point of consenting, when I mentioned it to my friend Mr. Denham, with whom I was glad to pass an hour whenever I had leisure. He dissuaded me from the project, and advised me to think of returning to Philadelphia, which he was about to do himself. I must relate in this place a trait of this worthy man's character. He had formerly been in business at Bristol, but failing, he compounded with his creditors, and departed for America, where, by assiduous application as a merchant, he acquired in a few years a very considerable fortune. Returning to England in the same vessel with myself, as I have related above, he invited all his old creditors to a feast. When assembled, he thanked them for the readiness with which they had received his small composition; and, while they expected nothing more than a simple entertainment, each found under his plate, when it came to be removed, a draft upon a banker for the residue of his debt, with interest. He told me that it was his intention to carry back with him to Philadelphia a great quantity of goods, in order to open a store; and he offered to take me with him in the capacity of clerk, to keep his books, in which he would instruct me, copy letters, and superintend the store. He added, that as soon as I had acquired a knowledge of mercantile transactions, he would improve my situation, by sending me with a cargo of corn and flour to the American islands, and by procuring me other lucrative commissions; so that, with good management and economy, I might in time begin business with advantage for myself. I relished these proposals. London began to tire me; the agreeable hours I had passed at Philadelphia presented themselves to my mind, and I wished to see them revive. I consequently engaged myself to Mr. Denham, at a salary of fifty pounds a year. This was, indeed less than I earned as a compositor, but then I had a much fairer prospect. I took leave therefore, as I believed for ever, of printing, and gave myself up entirely to my new occupation, spending all my time either in going from house to house with Mr. Denham to purchase goods, or in packing them up, or in expediting the workmen, &c. &c. When every thing, however, was on board, I had at last a few days leisure. During this interval, I was one day sent for by a gentleman, whom I knew only by name. It was Sir William Wyndham. I went to his house. He had by some means heard of my performances between Chelsea and Blackfriars, and that I had taught the art of swimming to Wygate and another young man in the course of a few hours. His two sons were on the point of setting out on their travels; he was desirous that they should previously learn to swim, and offered me a very liberal reward if I would undertake to instruct them. They were not yet arrived in town, and the stay I should make was uncertain; I could not therefore accept his proposal. I was led, however, to suppose from this incident, that if I had wished to remain in London, and open a swimming school, I should perhaps have gained a great deal of money. This idea struck me so forcibly that, had the offer been made sooner, I should have dismissed the thought of returning as yet to America. Some years after, you and I had a more important business to settle with one of the sons of Sir William Wyndham, then Lord Egremont. But let us not anticipate events. I thus passed about eighteen months in London, working almost without intermission at my trade, avoiding all expence on my own account, except going now and then to the play, and purchasing a few books. But my friend Ralph kept me poor. He owed me about twenty-seven pounds, which was so much money lost; and when considered as taken from my little savings, was a very great sum. I had, notwithstanding this, a regard for him, as he possessed many amiable qualities. But though I had done nothing for myself in point of fortune, I had increased my stock of knowledge, either by the many excellent books I had read, or the conversation of learned and literary persons with whom I was acquainted. We sailed from Gravesend the 23d of July, 1726. For the incidents of my voyage I refer you to my Journal, where you will find all its circumstances minutely related. We landed at Philadelphia on the 11th of the following October. Keith had been deprived of his office of governor, and was succeeded by Major Gordon. I met him walking in the streets as a private individual. He appeared a little ashamed at seeing me, but passed on without saying any thing. I should have been equally ashamed myself at meeting Miss Read, had not her family, justly despairing of my return after reading my letter, advised her to give me up, and marry a potter, of the name of Rogers; to which she consented: but he never made her happy, and she soon separated from him, refusing to cohabit with him, or even bear his name, on account of a report which prevailed, of his having another wife. His skill in his profession had seduced Miss Read's parents; but he was as bad a subject as he was excellent as a workman. He involved himself in debt, and fled, in the year 1727 or 1728, to the West Indies, where he died. During my absence Keimer had taken a more considerable house, in which he kept a shop, that was well supplied with paper, and various other articles. He had procured some new types, and a number of workmen; among whom, however, there was not one who was good for any thing; and he appeared not to want business. Mr. Denham took a warehouse in Water-street, where we exhibited our commodities. I applied myself closely, studied accounts, and became in a short time very expert in trade. We lodged and ate together. He was sincerely attached to me, and acted towards me as if he had been my father. On my side, I respected and loved him. My situation was happy; but it was a happiness of no long duration. Early in February, 1727, when I entered into my twenty-second year, we were both taken ill. I was attacked with a pleurisy, which had nearly carried me off; I suffered terribly, and considered it as all over with me. I felt indeed a sort of disappointment when I found myself likely to recover, and regretted that I had still to experience, sooner or later, the same disagreeable scene again. I have forgotten what was Mr. Denham's disorder; but it was a tedious one, and he at last sunk under it. He left me a small legacy in his will, as a testimony of his friendship; and I was once more abandoned to myself in the wide world, the warehouse being confided to the care of testamentary executor, who dismissed me. My brother-in-law, Holmes, who happened to be at Philadelphia, advised me to return to my former profession; and Keimer offered me a very considerable salary if I would undertake the management of his printing-office, that he might devote himself entirely to the superintendence of his shop. His wife and relations in London had given me a bad character of him; and I was loth, for the present, to have any concern with him. I endeavoured to get employment as a clerk to a merchant; but not readily finding a situation, I was induced to accept Keimer's proposal. The following were the persons I found in his printing-house: Hugh Meredith, a Pennsylvanian, about thirty-five years of age. He had been brought up to husbandry, was honest, sensible, had some experience, and was fond of reading; but too much addicted to drinking. Stephen Potts, a young rustic, just broke from school, and of rustic education, with endowments rather above the common order, and a competent portion of understanding and gaiety; but a little idle. Keimer had engaged these two at very low wages, which he had promised to raise every three months a shilling a week, provided their improvement in the typographic art should merit it. This future increase of wages was the bait he had made use of to ensnare them. Meredith was to work at the press, and Potts to bind books, which he had engaged to teach them, though he understood neither himself. John Savage, an Irishman, who had been brought up to no trade, and whose service, for a period of four years, Keimer had purchased of the captain of a ship. He was also to be a pressman. George Webb, an Oxford scholar, whose time he had in like manner bought for four years, intending him for a compositor. I shall speak more of him presently. Lastly, David Harry, a country lad, who was apprenticed to him. I soon perceived that Keimer's intention, in engaging me at a price so much above what he was accustomed to give, was, that I might form all these raw journeymen and apprentices, who scarcely cost him any thing, and who, being indentured, would, as soon as they should be sufficiently instructed, enable him to do without me. I nevertheless adhered to my agreement. I put the office in order, which was in the utmost confusion, and brought his people by degrees, to pay attention to their work, and to execute it in a more masterly style. It was singular to see an Oxford scholar in the condition of a purchased servant. He was not more than eighteen years of age, and the following are the particulars he gave me of himself. Born at Gloucester, he had been educated at a grammar-school, and had distinguished himself among the scholars by his superior style of acting, when they represented dramatic performances. He was a member of a literary club in the town; and some pieces of his composition, in prose as well as in verse, had been inserted in the Gloucester papers. From hence he was sent to Oxford, where he remained about a year: but he was not contented, and wished above all things to see London, and become an actor. At length, having received fifteen guineas to pay his quarter's board, he decamped with the money, from Oxford, hid his gown in a hedge, and travelled to London. There, having no friend to direct him, he fell into bad company, soon squandered his fifteen guineas, could find no way of being introduced to the actors, became contemptible, pawned his cloaths, and was in want of bread. As he was walking along the streets, almost famished with hunger, and not knowing what to do, a recruiting-bill was put into his hand, which offered an immediate treat and bounty-money to whoever was disposed to serve in America. He instantly repaired to the house of rendezvous, inlisted himself, was put on board a ship and conveyed to America, without ever writing a line to inform his parents what was become of him. His mental vivacity, and good natural disposition, made him an excellent companion; but he was indolent, thoughtless, and to the last degree imprudent. John, the Irishman, soon ran away. I began to live very agreeably with the rest. They respected me, and the more so as they found Keimer incapable of instructing them, and as they learned something from me every day. We never worked on a Saturday, it being Keimer's Sabbath, so that I had two days a week for reading. I increased my acquaintance with persons of information and knowledge in the town. Keimer himself treated me with great civility, and apparent esteem; and I had nothing to give me uneasiness but my debt to Vernon, which I was unable to pay, my savings as yet being very little. He had the goodness, however, not to ask me for the money. Our press was frequently in want of the necessary quantity of letter, and there was no such trade as that of letter-founder in America. I had seen the practice of this art at the house of James, in London, but had at the time paid it very little attention; I however, contrived to fabricate a mould. I made use of such letters as we had for punches, founded new letters of lead in mattrices of clay, and thus supplied in a tolerable manner the wants that were most pressing. I also, upon occasion, engraved various ornaments, made ink, gave an eye to the shop--in short, I was in every respect the _factotum_. But useful as I made myself, I perceived that my services became every day of less importance, in proportion as the other men improved; and when Keimer paid me my second quarter's wages, he gave me to understand they were too heavy, and that he thought I ought to make an abatement. He became by degrees less civil, and assumed more the tone of master. He frequently found fault, was difficult to please, and seemed always on the point of coming to an open quarrel with me. I continued, however, to bear it patiently, conceiving that his ill humour was partly occasioned by the derangement and embarrassment of his affairs. At last a slight incident broke our connection. Hearing a noise in the neighbourhood, I put my head out at the window, to see what was the matter. Keimer being in the street, observed me, and in a loud and angry tone bid me to mind my work; adding some reproachful words, which piqued me the more, as they were uttered in the street; and the neighbours, whom the same noise attracted to the windows, were witnesses of the manner in which I was treated. He immediately came up to the printing-room, where he continued to exclaim against me. The quarrel became warm on both sides, and he gave me notice to quit him at the expiration of three months, as had been agreed upon between us; regretting that he was obliged to give me so long a term. I told him that his regret was superfluous, as I was ready to quit him instantly; and I took my hat and came out of the house, begging Meredith to take care of some things which I left, and bring them to my lodgings. Meredith came to me in the evening. We talked for some time upon the quarrel that had taken place. He had conceived a great veneration for me, and was sorry I should quit the house, while he remained in it. He dissuaded me from returning to my native country, as I began to think of doing. He reminded me that Keimer owed more than he possessed; that his creditors began to be alarmed; that he kept his shop in a wretched state, often selling things at prime cost for the sake of ready money, and continually giving credit without keeping any accounts; that of consequence he must very soon fail, which would occasion a vacancy from which I might derive advantage. I objected my want of money. Upon which he informed me that his father had a very high opinion of me, and, from a conversation that had passed between them, he was sure he would advance whatever might be necessary to establish us, if I was willing to enter into partnership with him. "My time with Keimer," added he, "will be at an end next spring. In the mean time we may send to London for our press and types. I know that I am no workman; but if you agree to the proposal, your skill in the business will be balanced by the capital I shall furnish, and we will share the profits equally." His proposal was reasonable, and I fell in with it. His father, who was then in town, approved of it. He knew that I had some ascendancy over his son, as I had been able to prevail on him to abstain for a long time from drinking brandy; and he hoped that, when more closely connected with him, I should cure him entirely of this unfortunate habit. I gave the father a list of what it would be necessary to import from London. He took it to a merchant, and the order was given. We agreed to keep the secret till the arrival of the materials, and I was in the mean time to procure work, if possible, in another printing-house; but there was no place vacant, and I remained idle. After some days, Keimer having the expectation of being employed to print some New Jersey money-bills, that would require types and engravings which I only could furnish, and fearful that Bradford, by engaging me, might deprive him of this undertaking, sent me a very civil message, telling me that old friends ought not to be disunited on account of a few words, which were the effect only of a momentary passion, and inviting me to return to him. Meredith persuaded me to comply with the invitation, particularly as it would afford him more opportunities of improving himself in the business, by means of my instructions. I did so; and we lived upon better terms than before our separation. He obtained the New Jersey business; and, in order to execute it, I constructed a copper-plate printing-press! the first that had been seen in the country. I engraved various ornaments and vignettes for the bills; and we repaired to Burlington together, where I executed the whole to the general satisfaction; and he received a sum of money for this work, which enabled him to keep his head above water for a considerable time longer. At Burlington I formed an acquaintance with the principal personages of the province; many of whom were commissioned by the assembly to superintend the press, and to see that no more bills were printed than the law had prescribed. Accordingly they were constantly with us, each in his turn; and he that came, commonly brought with him a friend or two to bear him company. My mind was more cultivated by reading than Keimer's; and it was for this reason, probably, that they set more value on my conversation. They took me to their houses, introduced me to their friends, and treated me with the greatest civility; while Keimer, though master, saw himself a little neglected. He was, in fact, a strange animal, ignorant of the common modes of life, apt to oppose with rudeness generally received opinions, an enthusiast in certain points of religion, disgustingly unclean in his person, and a little knavish withal. We remained there nearly three months, and at the expiration of this period I could include in the list of my friends, Judge Allen, Samuel Bustil, secretary of the province, Isaac Pearson, Joseph Cooper, several of the Smiths, all members of the assembly, and Isaac Decon, inspector-general. The last was a shrewd and subtle old man. He told me, that, when a boy, his first employment had been that of carrying clay to the brick-makers; that he did not learn to write till he was somewhat advanced in life; and that he was afterwards employed as an underling to a surveyor, who taught him his trade, and that by industry he had at last acquired a competent fortune. "I foresee," said he one day to me, "that you will soon supplant this man," speaking of Keimer, "and get a fortune in the business at Philadelphia." He was wholly ignorant at the time, of my intention of establishing myself there, or any where else. These friends were very serviceable to me in the end, as was I also, upon occasion, to some of them; and they have continued ever since their esteem for me. Before I relate the particulars of my entrance into business, it may be proper to inform you what was at that time the state of my mind as to moral principles, that you may see the degree of influence they had upon the subsequent events of my life. My parents had given me betimes religious impressions; and I received from my infancy a pious education in the principles of Calvinism. But scarcely was I arrived at fifteen years of age, when, after having doubted in turn of different tenets, according as I found them combated in the different books that I read, I began to doubt of revelation itself. Some volumes against deism fell into my hands. They were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's lecture. It happened that they produced on me an effect precisely the reverse of what was intended by the writers; for the arguments of the deists, which were cited in order to be refuted, appeared to me much more forcible than the refutation itself. In a word, I soon became a perfect deist. My arguments perverted some other young persons, particularly Collins and Ralph. But in the sequel, when I recollected that they had both used me extremely ill, without the smallest remorse; when I considered the behaviour of Keith, another free-thinker, and my own conduct towards Vernon and Miss Read, which at times gave me great uneasiness, I was led to suspect that this doctrine, though it might be true, was not very useful. I began to entertain a less favourable opinion of my London pamphlet to which I had prefixed as a motto, the following lines of Dryden: Whatever is--is right; though purblind man Sees but a part of the chain, the nearest link, His eyes not carrying to the equal beam That poises all above. And of which the object was to prove, from the attributes of God, his goodness, wisdom, and power, that there could be no such thing as evil in the world; that vice and virtue did not in reality exist, and were nothing more than vain distinctions. I no longer regarded it as so blameless a work as I had formerly imagined; and I suspected that some error must have imperceptibly glided into my argument, by which all the inferences I had drawn from it had been affected, as frequently happens in metaphysical reasonings. In a word, I was at last convinced that truth, probity, and sincerity in transactions between man and man, were of the utmost importance to the happiness of life; and I resolved from that moment, and wrote the resolution in my journal, to practise them as long as I lived. Revelation, indeed, as such, had no influence on my mind; but I was of opinion that, though certain actions could not be bad merely because revelation had prohibited them, or good because it enjoined them, yet it was probable that those actions were prohibited because they were bad for us, or enjoined because advantageous in their nature, all things considered. This persuasion, divine providence, or some guardian angel, and perhaps a concurrence of favourable circumstances co-operating, preserved me from all immorality, or gross and _voluntary_, injustice, to which my want of religion was calculated to expose me, in the dangerous period of youth, and in the hazardous situations in which I sometimes found myself, among strangers, and at a distance from the eye and admonitions of my father. I may say _voluntary_, because the errors into which I had fallen, had been in a manner the forced result either of my own inexperience, or the dishonesty of others. Thus, before I entered on my new career, I had imbibed solid principles, and a character of probity. I knew their value; and I made a solemn engagement with myself never to depart from them. I had not long returned from Burlington before our printing materials arrived from London. I settled my accounts with Keimer, and quitted him, with his own consent, before he had any knowledge of our plan. We found a house to let near the market. We took it; and to render the rent less burdensome, (it was then twenty-four pounds a year, but I have since known it let for seventy,) we admitted Thomas Godfrey, a glazier, with his family, who eased us of a considerable part of it; and with him we agreed to board. We had no sooner unpacked our letters, and put our press in order, than a person of my acquaintance, George House, brought us a countryman, whom he had met in the streets enquiring for a printer. Our money was almost exhausted by the number of things we had been obliged to procure. The five shillings we received from this countryman, the first fruits of our earnings, coming so seasonably, gave me more pleasure than any sum I have since gained; and the recollection of the gratitude I felt on this occasion to George House, has rendered me often more disposed, than perhaps I should otherwise have been, to encourage young beginners in trade. There are in every country morose beings, who are always prognosticating ruin. There was one of this stamp at Philadelphia. He was a man of fortune, declining in years, had an air of wisdom, and a very grave manner of speaking. His name was Samuel Mickle. I knew him not; but he stopped one day at my door, and asked me if I was the young man who had lately opened a new printing-house. Upon my answering in the affirmative, he said he was very sorry for me, as it was an expensive undertaking, and the money that had been laid out upon it would be lost, Philadelphia being a place falling into decay; its inhabitants having all, or nearly all of them, been obliged to call together their creditors. That he knew, from undoubted fact, the circumstances which might lead us to suppose the contrary, such as new buildings, and the advanced price of rent, to be deceitful appearances, which, in reality, contributed to hasten the general ruin; and he gave me so long a detail of misfortunes, actually existing, or which were soon to take place, that he left me almost in a state of despair. Had I known this man before I entered into trade, I should doubtless never have ventured. He continued, however, to live in this place of decay, and to declaim in the same style, refusing for many years to buy a house because all was going to wreck; and in the end I had the satisfaction to see him pay five times as much for one as it would have cost him had he purchased it when he first began his lamentations. I ought to have related, that, during the autumn of the preceding year, I had united the majority of well-informed persons of my acquaintance into a club, which we called by the name of the _Junto_, and the object of which was to improve our understandings. We met every Friday evening. The regulations I drew up, obliged every member to propose, in his turn, one or more questions upon some point of morality, politics, or philosophy, which were to be discussed by the society; and to read, once in three months, an essay of his own composition, on whatever subject he pleased. Our debates were under the direction of a president, and were to be dictated only by a sincere desire of truth; the pleasure of disputing, and the vanity of triumph having no share in the business; and in order to prevent undue warmth, every expression which implied obstinate adherence to an opinion, and all direct contradiction, were prohibited, under small pecuniary penalties. The first members of our club were Joseph Breintnal, whose occupation was that of a scrivener. He was a middle-aged man, of a good natural disposition, strongly attached to his friends, a great lover of poetry, reading every thing that came in his way, and writing tolerably well, ingenious in many little trifles, and of an agreeable conversation. Thomas Godfrey, a skilful, though self-taught mathematician, and who was afterwards the inventor of what now goes by the name of Hadley's quadrant; but he had little knowledge out of his own line, and was insupportable in company, always requiring, like the majority of mathematicians that had fallen in my way, an unusual precision in every thing that is said, continually contradicting, or making trifling distinctions; a sure way of defeating all the ends of conversation. He very soon left us. Nicholas Scull, a surveyor, and who became afterwards, surveyor-general. He was fond of books, and wrote verses. William Parsons, brought up to the trade of a shoe-maker, but who, having a taste for reading, had acquired a profound knowledge of mathematics. He first studied them with a view to astrology, and was, afterwards, the first to laugh at his folly. He also became surveyor-general. William Mawgridge, a joiner, and very excellent mechanic; and in other respects a man of solid understanding. Hugh Meredith, Stephen Potts, and George Webb, of whom I have already spoken. Robert Grace, a young man of fortune; generous, animated, and witty; fond of epigrams, but more fond of his friends. And lastly, William Coleman, at that time a merchant's clerk, and nearly of my own age. He had a cooler and clearer head, a better heart, and more scrupulous morals, than almost any other person I have ever met with. He became a very respectable merchant, and one of our provincial judges. Our friendship subsisted, without interruption, for more than forty years, till the period of his death; and the club continued to exist almost as long. This was the best school of politics and philosophy that then existed in the province; for our questions, which were read a week previous to their discussion, induced us to peruse attentively such books as were written upon the subjects proposed, that we might be able to speak upon them more pertinently. We thus acquired the habit of conversing more agreeably; every object being discussed conformably to our regulations, and in a manner to prevent mutual disgust. To this circumstance may be attributed the long duration of the club; which I shall have frequent occasion to mention as I proceed. I have introduced it here, as being one of the means on which I had to count for success in my business, every member exerting himself to procure work for us. Breintnal, among others, obtained for us, on the part of the Quakers, the printing of forty sheets of their history; of which the rest was to be done by Keimer. Our execution of this work was by no means masterly; as the price was very low. It was in folio, upon _pro patria_ paper, and in the _pica_ letter, with heavy notes in the smallest type. I composed a sheet a-day, and Meredith put it to the press. It was frequently eleven o'clock at night, sometimes later, before I had finished my distribution for the next day's task; for the little things which our friends occasionally sent us, kept us back in this work: but I was so determined to compose a sheet a-day, that one evening, when my form was imposed, and my day's work, as I thought, at an end, an accident having broken this form, and deranged two complete folio pages, I immediately distributed, and composed them anew before I went to bed. This unwearied industry, which was perceived by our neighbours, began to acquire us reputation and credit. I learned, among other things, that our new printing-house being the subject of conversation at a club of merchants, who met every evening, it was the general opinion that it would fail; there being already two printing-houses in the town, Keimer's and Bradford's. But Dr. Bard, whom you and I had occasion to see, many years after, at his native town of St. Andrew's, in Scotland, was of a different opinion. "The industry of this Franklin, (said he,) is superior to any thing of the kind I ever witnessed. I see him still at work when I return from the club at night, and he is at it again in the morning before his neighbours are out of bed." This account struck the rest of the assembly, and shortly after, one of its members came to our house, and offered to supply us with articles of stationary; but we wished not as yet to embarrass ourselves with keeping a shop. It is not for the sake of applause that I enter so freely into the particulars of my industry, but that such of my descendants as shall read these memoirs may know the use of this virtue, by seeing in the recital of my life the effects it operated in my favour. George Webb, having found a friend who lent him the necessary sum to buy out his time of Keimer, came one day to offer himself to us as a journeyman. We could not employ him immediately; but I foolishly told him, under the rose, that I intended shortly to publish a new periodical paper, and that we should then have work for him. My hopes of success, which I imparted to him, were founded on the circumstance, that the only paper we had in Philadelphia at that time, and which Bradford printed, was a paltry thing, miserably conducted, in no respect amusing, and which yet was profitable. I consequently supposed that a good work of this kind could not fail of success. Webb betrayed my secret to Keimer, who, to prevent me, immediately published the _prospectus_ of a paper that he intended to institute himself, and in which Webb was to be engaged. I was exasperated at this proceeding, and, with a view to counteract them, not being able at present to institute my own paper, I wrote some humourous pieces in Bradford's, under the title of the Busy Body[5]; and which was continued for several months by Breintnal. I hereby fixed the attention of the public upon Bradford's paper; and the _prospectus_ of Keimer, which we turned into ridicule, was treated with contempt. He began, notwithstanding, his paper; and after continuing it for nine months, having at most not more than ninety subscribers, he offered it me for a mere trifle. I had for some time been ready for such an engagement; I therefore instantly took it upon myself, and, in a few years, it proved extremely profitable to me. I perceive that I am apt to speak in the first person, though our partnership still continued. It is, perhaps, because, in fact, the whole business devolved upon me. Meredith was no compositor, and but an indifferent pressman; and it was rarely that he abstained from hard drinking. My friends were sorry to see me connected with him; but I contrived to derive from it the utmost advantage the case admitted. Our first number produced no other effect than any other paper which had appeared in the province, as to type and printing; but some remarks, in my peculiar style of writing, upon the dispute which then prevailed between governor Burnet and the Massachusetts assembly, struck some persons as above mediocrity, caused the paper and its editors to be talked of, and in a few weeks, induced them to become our subscribers. Many others followed their example; and our subscription continued to increase. This was one of the first good effects of the pains I had taken to learn to put my ideas on paper. I derived this farther advantage from it, that the leading men of the place, seeing in the author of this publication a man so well able to use his pen, thought it right to patronize and encourage me. The votes, laws, and other public pieces, were printed by Bradford. An address of the house of assembly to the governor had been executed by him in a very coarse and incorrect manner. We reprinted it with accuracy and neatness, and sent a copy to every member. They perceived the difference; and it so strengthened the influence of our friends in the assembly, that we were nominated its printer for the following year. Among these friends I ought not to forget one member in particular, Mr. Hamilton, whom I have mentioned in a former part of my narrative, and who was now returned from England. He warmly interested himself for me on this occasion, as he did likewise on many others afterwards; having continued his kindness to me till his death. About this period Mr. Vernon reminded me of the debt I owed him, but without pressing me for payment. I wrote a handsome letter on the occasion, begging him to wait a little longer, to which he consented; and as soon as I was able I paid him, principal and interest, with many expressions of gratitude; so that this error of my life was in a manner atoned for. But another trouble now happened to me, which I had not the smallest reason to expect. Meredith's father, who, according to our agreement, was to defray the whole expence of our printing materials, had only paid a hundred pounds. Another hundred was still due, and the merchant being tired of waiting, commenced a suit against us. We bailed the action, but with the melancholy prospect, that, if the money was not forthcoming at the time fixed, the affair would come to issue, judgment be put in execution, our delightful hopes be annihilated, and ourselves entirely ruined; as the type and press must be sold, perhaps, at half their value, to pay the debt. In this distress, two real friends, whose generous conduct I have never forgotten, and never shall forget while I retain the remembrance of any thing, came to me separately, without the knowledge of each other, and without my having applied to either of them. Each offered me whatever money might be necessary to take the business into my own hands, if the thing was practicable, as they did not like I should continue in partnership with Meredith, who, they said, was frequently seen drunk in the streets, and gambling at ale-houses, which very much injured our credit. These friends were William Coleman and Robert Grace. I told them, that while there remained any probability that the Merediths would fulfil their part of the compact, I could not propose a separation, as I conceived myself to be under obligations to them for what they had done already, and were still disposed to do, if they had the power; but, in the end, should they fail in their engagement, and our partnership be dissolved, I should then think myself at liberty to accept the kindness of my friends. Things remained for some time in this state. At last, I said one day to my partner, "Your father is, perhaps, dissatisfied with your having a share only in the business, and is unwilling to do for two, what he would do for you alone. Tell me frankly if that be the case, and I will resign the whole to you, and do for myself as well as I can."--"No, (said he,) my father has really been disappointed in his hopes; he is not able to pay, and I wish to put him to no farther inconvenience. I see that I am not at all calculated for a printer; I was educated as a farmer, and it was absurd in me to come here, at thirty years of age, and bind myself apprentice to a new trade. Many of my countrymen are going to settle in North Carolina, where the soil is exceedingly favourable. I am tempted to go with them, and to resume my former occupation. You will doubtless find friends who will assist you. If you will take upon yourself the debts of the partnership, return my father the hundred pounds he has advanced, pay my little personal debts, and give me thirty pounds and a new saddle, I will renounce the partnership, and consign over the whole stock to you." I accepted this proposal without hesitation. It was committed to paper, and signed and sealed without delay. I gave him what he demanded, and he departed soon after for Carolina, from whence he sent me, in the following year, two long letters, containing the best accounts that had yet been given of that country, as to climate, soil, agriculture, &c. for he was well versed in these matters. I published them in my newspaper, and they were received with great satisfaction. As soon as he was gone, I applied to my two friends, and not wishing to give a disobliging preference to either of them, I accepted from each, half what he had offered me, and which it was necessary I should have. I paid the partnership debts, and continued the business on my own account; taking care to inform the public, by advertisement, of the partnership being dissolved. This was, I think, in the year 1729, or thereabout. Nearly at the same period, the people demanded a new emission of paper money; the existing and only one that had taken place in the province, and which amounted to fifteen thousand pounds, being soon to expire. The wealthy inhabitants, prejudiced against every sort of paper currency, from the fear of its depreciation, of which there had been an instance in the province of New England, to the injury of its holders, strongly opposed the measure. We had discussed this affair in our Junto, in which I was on the side of the new emission; convinced that the first small sum, fabricated in 1723, had done much good in the province, by favouring commerce, industry, and population, since all the houses were now inhabited, and many others building; whereas I remembered to have seen, when I first paraded the streets of Philadelphia eating my roll, the majority of those in Walnut-street, Second-street, Fourth-street, as well as a great number in Chesnut and other streets, with papers on them signifying that they were to be let; which made me think at the time that the inhabitants of the town were deserting it one after another. Our debates made me so fully master of the subject, that I wrote and published an anonymous pamphlet, entitled, "An Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper currency." It was very well received by the lower and middling class of people; but it displeased the opulent, as it increased the clamour in favour of the new emission. Having, however, no writer among them capable of answering it, their opposition became less violent; and there being in the house of assembly a majority for the measure, it passed. The friends I had acquired in the house, persuaded that I had done the country essential service on this occasion, rewarded me by giving me the printing of the bills. It was a lucrative employment, and proved a very seasonable help to me; another advantage which I derived from having habituated myself to write. Time and experience so fully demonstrated the utility of paper currency, that it never after experienced any considerable opposition; so that it soon amounted to 55,000_l._ and in the year 1739, to 80,000_l._ It has since risen, during the last war, to 350,000_l._, trade, buildings and population, having in the interval continually increased: but I am now convinced that there are limits beyond which paper money would be prejudicial. I soon after obtained, by the influence of my friend Hamilton, the printing of the Newcastle paper money, another profitable work, as I then thought it, little things appearing great to persons of moderate fortune; and they were really great to me, as proving great encouragements. He also procured me the printing of the laws and votes of that government, which I retained as long as I continued in the business. I now opened a small stationer's shop. I kept bonds and agreements of all kinds, drawn up in a more accurate form than had yet been seen in that part of the world; a work in which I was assisted by my friend Breintnal. I had also paper, parchment, pasteboard, books, &c. One Whitemash, an excellent compositor, whom I had known in London, came to offer himself, I engaged him: and he continued constantly and diligently to work with me. I also took an apprentice, the son of Aquila Rose. I began to pay, by degrees, the debt I had contracted; and, in order to insure my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care not only to be _really_ industrious and frugal, but also to avoid every appearance of the contrary. I was plainly dressed, and never seen in any place of public amusement. I never went a fishing or hunting. A book, indeed, enticed me sometimes from my work, but it was seldom, by stealth, and occasioned no scandal; and to show that I did not think myself above my profession, I conveyed home, sometimes in a wheelbarrow, the paper I purchased at the warehouses. I thus obtained the reputation of being an industrious young man, and very punctual in his payments. The merchants who imported articles of stationary solicited my custom; others offered to furnish me with books, and my little trade went on prosperously. Meanwhile the credit and business of Keimer diminishing every day, he was at last forced to sell his stock to satisfy his creditors; and he betook himself to Barbadoes, where he lived for sometime in a very impoverished state. His apprentice, David Harry, whom I had instructed while I worked for Keimer, having bought his materials, succeeded him in the business. I was apprehensive, at first, of finding in Harry a powerful competitor, as he was allied to an opulent and respectable family; I therefore proposed a partnership, which, happily for me, he rejected with disdain. He was extremely proud, thought himself a fine gentleman, lived extravagantly, and pursued amusements which suffered him to be scarcely ever at home; of consequence he became in debt, neglected his business, and business neglected him. Finding in a short time nothing to do in the country, he followed Keimer to Barbadoes, carrying his printing materials with him. There the apprentice employed his old master as a journeyman. They were continually quarrelling; and Harry still getting in debt, was obliged at last to sell his press and types, and return to his old occupation of husbandry in Pennsylvania. The person who purchased them employed Keimer to manage the business; but he died a few years after. I had now at Philadelphia no competitor but Bradford, who, being in easy circumstances, did not engage in the printing of books, except now and then as workmen chanced to offer themselves; and was not anxious to extend his trade. He had, however, one advantage over me, as he had the direction of the post-office, and was of consequence supposed to have better opportunities of obtaining news. His paper was also supposed to be more advantageous to advertising customers; and in consequence of that supposition, his advertisements were much more numerous than mine: this was a source of great profit to him, and disadvantageous to me. It was to no purpose that I really procured other papers, and distributed my own, by means of the post; the public took for granted my inability in this respect; and I was indeed unable to conquer it in any other mode than by bribing the post-boys, who served me only by stealth, Bradford being so illiberal as to forbid them. This treatment of his excited my resentment; and my disgust was so rooted, that, when I afterwards succeeded him in the post-office, I took care to avoid copying his example. I had hitherto continued to board with Godfrey, who, with his wife and children, occupied part of my house, and half of the shop for his business; at which indeed he worked very little, being always absorbed by mathematics. Mrs. Godfrey formed a wish of marrying me to the daughter of one of her relations. She contrived various opportunities of bringing us together, till she saw that I was captivated; which was not difficult, the lady in question possessing great personal merit. The parents encouraged my addresses, by inviting me continually to supper, and leaving us together, till at last it was time to come to an explanation. Mrs. Godfrey undertook to negociate our little treaty. I gave her to understand, that I expected to receive with the young lady a sum of money that would enable me at least to discharge the remainder of the debt for my printing materials. It was then, I believe, not more than a hundred pounds. She brought me for answer, that they had no such sum at their disposal. I observed that it might easily be obtained, by a mortgage on their house. The reply to this was, after a few days interval, that they did not approve of the match; that they had consulted Bradford, and found that the business of a printer was not lucrative; that my letters would soon be worn out, and must be supplied with new ones; that Keimer and Harry had failed, and that, probably, I should do so too. Accordingly they forbade me the house, and the young lady was confined. I know not if they had really changed their minds, or if it was merely an artifice, supposing our affections to be too far engaged for us to desist, and that we should contrive to marry secretly, which would leave them at liberty to give or not as they pleased. But, suspecting this motive, I never went again to their house. Some time after, Mrs. Godfrey informed me that they were very favourably disposed towards me, and wished me to renew the acquaintance; but I declared a firm resolution never to have any thing more to do with the family. The Godfreys expressed some resentment at this: and as we could no longer agree, they changed their residence, leaving me in possession of the whole house. I then resolved to take no more lodgers. This affair having turned my thoughts to marriage, I looked around me, and made overtures of alliance in other quarters: but I soon found that the profession of a printer being generally looked upon as a poor trade, I could expect no money with a wife, at least, if I wished her to possess any other charm. Meanwhile, that passion of youth, so difficult to govern, had often drawn me into intrigues with despicable women who fell in my way; which were not unaccompanied with expence and inconvenience, besides the perpetual risk of injuring my health, and catching a disease which I dreaded above all things. But I was fortunate enough to escape this danger. As a neighbour and old acquaintance, I had kept up a friendly intimacy with the family of Miss Read. Her parents had retained an affection for me from the time of my lodging in their house. I was often invited thither; they consulted me about their affairs, and I had been sometimes serviceable to them. I was touched with the unhappy situation of their daughter, who was almost always melancholy, and continually seeking solitude. I regarded my forgetfulness and inconstancy, during my abode in London, as the principal cause of her misfortune, though her mother had the candour to attribute the fault to herself, rather than to me, because after having prevented our marriage previously to my departure, she had induced her to marry another in my absence. Our mutual affection revived; but there existed great obstacles to our union. Her marriage was considered, indeed, as not being valid, the man having, it was said, a former wife still living in England; but of this it was difficult to obtain a proof at so great a distance; and though a report prevailed of his being dead, yet we had no certainty of it; and supposing it to be true, he had left many debts, for the payment of which his successor might be sued. We ventured, nevertheless, in spite of all these difficulties; and I married her on the 1st of September, 1730. None of the inconveniences we had feared happened to us. She proved to me a good and faithful companion, and contributed essentially to the success of my shop. We prospered together, and it was our mutual study to render each other happy. Thus I corrected, as well as I could, this great error of my youth. Our club was not at that time established at a tavern. We held our meetings at the house of Mr. Grace, who appropriated a room to the purpose. Some member observed one day, that as our books were frequently quoted in the course of our discussions, it would be convenient to have them collected in the room in which we assembled, in order to be consulted upon occasion; and that, by thus forming a common library of our individual collections, each would have the advantage of using the books of all the other members, which would nearly be the same as if he possessed them all himself. The idea was approved, and we accordingly brought such books as we thought we could spare, which were placed at the end of the club-room. They amounted not to so many as we expected; and through we made considerable use of them, yet some inconveniences resulting, from want of care, it was agreed, after about a year, to discontinue the collection; and each took away such books as belonged to him. It was now that I first started the idea of establishing, by subscription, a public library, I drew up the proposals, had them ingrossed in form by Brockden the attorney, and my project succeeded, as will be seen in the sequel. [The life of Dr. Franklin, as written by himself, so far as it has yet been communicated to the world, breaks off in this place. We understand that it was continued by him somewhat farther, and we hope that the remainder will, at some future period, be communicated to the public. We have no hesitation in supposing that every reader will find himself greatly interested by the frank simplicity and the philosophical discernment by which these pages are so eminently characterized. We have therefore thought proper, in order as much as possible to relieve his regret, to subjoin the following continuation, by one of the Doctor's intimate friends. It is extracted from an American periodical publication, and was written by the late Dr. Stuber,[6] of Philadelphia.] The promotion of literature had been little attended to in Pennsylvania. Most of the inhabitants were too much immersed in business to think of scientific pursuits; and those few, whose inclinations led them to study, found it difficult to gratify them, from the want of libraries sufficiently large. In such circumstances, the establishment of a public library was an important event. This was first set on foot by Franklin, about the year 1731. Fifty persons subscribed forty shillings each, and agreed to pay ten shillings annually. The number increased; and in 1742, the company was incorporated by the name of "The Library Company of Philadelphia." Several other companies were formed in this city in imitation of it. These were all at length united with the Library Company of Philadelphia, which thus received a considerable accession of books and property. It now contains about eight thousand volumes on all subjects, a philosophical apparatus, and a well-chosen collection of natural and artificial curiosities. For its support the company now possesses landed property of considerable value. They have lately built an elegant house in Fifth-street, in the front of which will be erected a marble statue of their founder, Benjamin Franklin. This institution was greatly encouraged by the friends of literature in America and in Great Britain. The Penn family distinguished themselves by their donations. Amongst the earliest friends of this institution must be mentioned the late Peter Collinson, the friend and correspondent of Dr. Franklin. He not only made considerable presents himself, and obtained others from his friends, but voluntarily undertook to manage the business of the Company in London, recommending books, purchasing and shipping them. His extensive knowledge, and zeal for the promotion of science, enabled him to execute this important trust with the greatest advantage. He continued to perform these services for more than thirty years, and uniformly refused to accept of any compensation. During this time, he communicated to the directors every information relative to improvements and discoveries in the arts, agriculture, and philosophy. The beneficial influence of this institution was soon evident. The terms of subscription to it were so moderate that it was accessible to every one. Its advantages were not confined to the opulent. The citizens in the middle and lower walks of life were equally partakers of them. Hence a degree of information was extended amongst all classes of people. The example was soon followed. Libraries were established in various places, and they are now become very numerous in the United States, and particularly in Pennsylvania. It is to be hoped that they will be still more widely extended, and that information will be every where increased. This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well informed men, who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them, cannot be enslaved. It is in the regions of ignorance that tyranny reigns. It flies before the light of science. Let the citizens of America, then, encourage institutions calculated to diffuse knowledge amongst the people; and amongst these, public libraries are not the least important. In 1732, Franklin began to publish Poor Richard's Almanack. This was remarkable for the numerous and valuable concise maxims which it contained, all tending to exhort to industry and frugality. It was continued for many years. In the almanack for the last year, all the maxims were collected in an address to the reader, entitled, The Way to Wealth. This has been translated into various languages, and inserted in different publications. It has also been printed on a large sheet, and may be seen framed in many houses in this city. This address contains, perhaps, the best practical system of economy that ever has appeared. It is written in a manner intelligible to every one, and which cannot fail of convincing every reader of the justice and propriety of the remarks and advice which it contains. The demand for this almanack was so great, that ten thousand have been sold in one year; which must be considered as a very large number, especially when we reflect, that this country was, at that time, but thinly peopled. It cannot be doubted that the salutary maxims contained in these almanacks must have made a favourable impression upon many of the readers of them. It was not long before Franklin entered upon his political career. In the year 1736, he was appointed clerk to the general assembly of Pennsylvania, and was re-elected by succeeding assemblies for several years, until he was chosen a representative for the city of Philadelphia. Bradford, the printer, mentioned above, was possessed of some advantages over Franklin, by being post-master, thereby having an opportunity of circulating his paper more extensively, and thus rendering it a better vehicle for advertisements, &c. Franklin, in his turn, enjoyed these advantages, by being appointed post-master of Philadelphia in 1737. Bradford, while in office, had acted ungenerously towards Franklin, preventing as much as possible the circulation of his paper. He had now an opportunity of retaliating; but his nobleness of soul prevented him from making use of it. The police of Philadelphia had early appointed watchmen, whose duty it was to guard the citizens against the midnight robber, and to give an immediate alarm in case of fire. This duty is, perhaps, one of the most important that can be committed to any set of men. The regulations, however, were not sufficiently strict. Franklin saw the dangers arising from this cause, and suggested an alteration, so as to oblige the guardians of the night to be more watchful over the lives and property of the citizens. The propriety of this was immediately perceived, and a reform was effected. There is nothing more dangerous to growing cities than fires. Other causes operate slowly, and almost imperceptibly; but these in a moment render abortive the labours of ages. On this account there should be, in all cities, ample provisions to prevent fires from spreading. Franklin early saw the necessity of these; and, about the year 1728, formed the first fire company in this city. The example was soon followed by others; and there are now numerous fire companies in the city and liberties. To these may be attributed in a great degree the activity in extinguishing fires, for which the citizens of Philadelphia are distinguished, and the inconsiderable damage this city has sustained from this cause. Some time after, Franklin suggested the plan for an association for insuring houses from losses by fire, which was adopted; and the association continues to this day. The advantages experienced from it have been great. From the first settlement of Pennsylvania, a spirit of dispute appears to have prevailed among its inhabitants. During the life-time of William Penn, the constitution had been three times altered. After this period the history of Pennsylvania is little else than a recital of the quarrels between the proprietaries, or their governors, and the assembly. The proprietaries contended for the right of exempting their land from taxes; to which the assembly would by no means consent. This subject of dispute interfered in almost every question, and prevented the most salutary laws from being enacted. This at times subjected the people to great inconveniences. In the year 1774, during a war between France and Great Britain, some French and Indians had made inroads upon the frontier inhabitants of the province, who were unprovided for such an attack. It became necessary that the citizens should arm for their defence. Governor Thomas recommended to the assembly, who were then sitting, to pass a militia law. To this they would agree only upon condition, that he should give his assent to certain laws, which appeared to them calculated to promote the interests of the people. As he thought these laws would be injurious to the proprietaries, he refused his assent to them; and the assembly broke up without passing a militia bill. The situation of the province was at this time truly alarming: exposed to the continual inroad of an enemy, and destitute of every means of defence. At this crisis Franklin stepped forth, and proposed to a meeting of the citizens of Philadelphia, a plan of a voluntary association for the defence of the province. This was approved of, and signed by twelve hundred persons immediately. Copies were circulated without delay through the province; and in a short time the number of signatures amounted to ten thousand. Franklin was chosen colonel of the Philadelphia regiment; but he did not think proper to accept of the honour. Pursuits of a different nature now occupied the greatest part of his attention for some years. He engaged in a course of electrical experiments, with all the ardor and thirst for discovery which characterized the philosophers of that day. Of all the branches of experimental philosophy, electricity had been least explored. The attractive power of amber is mentioned by Theophrastus and Pliny, and from them, by later naturalists. In the year 1600, Gilbert, an English physician, enlarged considerably the catalogue of substances which have the property of attracting light bodies. Boyle, Otto Guericke, a burgomaster of Magdeburg, celebrated as the inventor of the air-pump, Dr. Wall, and Sir Isaac Newton added some facts. Guericke first observed the repulsive power of electricity, and the light and noise produced by it. In 1709, Hawkesbec communicated some important observations and experiments to the world. For several years electricity was entirely neglected, until Mr. Grey applied himself to it, in 1728, with great assiduity. He and his friend Mr. Wheeler, made a great variety of experiments, in which they demonstrated, that electricity may be communicated from one body to another, even without being in contact, and in this way may be conducted to a great distance. Mr. Grey afterwards found, that, by suspending rods of iron by silk or hair lines, and bringing an excited tube under them, sparks might be drawn, and a light perceived at the extremities in the dark. M. du Faye, intendant of the French king's gardens, made a number of experiments, which added not a little to the science. He made the discovery of two kinds of electricity, which he called _vitreous_ and _resinous_; the former produced by rubbing glass, the latter from excited sulphur, sealing-wax, &c. But this he afterwards gave up as erroneous. Between the years 1739 and 1742, Desaguliers made a number of experiments, but added little of importance. He first used the terms _conductors_ and _electrics per se_. In 1742, several ingenious Germans engaged in this subject, of these the principal were, professor Boze of Wittemberg, professor Winkler of Leipsic, Gordon, a Scotch Benedictine monk, professor of philosophy at Erfurt, and Dr. Ludolf, of Berlin. The result of their researches astonished the philosophers of Europe. Their apparatus was large, and by means of it they were enabled to collect large quantities of the electric fluid, and thus to produce phenomena which had been hitherto unobserved. They killed small birds, and set spirits on fire. Their experiments excited the curiosity of other philosophers. Collinson, about the year 1745, sent to the Library Company of Philadelphia, an account of these experiments, together with a tube, and directions how to use it. Franklin, with some of his friends, immediately engaged in a course of experiments, the result of which is well known. He was enabled to make a number of important discoveries, and to propose theories to account for various phenomena, which have been universally adopted, and which bid fair to endure for ages. His observations he communicated in a series of letters, to his friend Collinson, the first of which is dated March 28, 1747. In these he shews the power of points in drawing and throwing off the electrical matter, which had hitherto escaped the notice of electricians. He also made the grand discovery of a _plus_ and _minus_, or of a _positive_ and _negative_ state of electricity. We give him the honour of this, without hesitation; although the English have claimed it for their countryman, Dr. Watson. Watson's paper is dated January 21, 1748; Franklin's July 11, 1747: several months prior. Shortly after, Franklin, from his principles of the plus and minus state, explained, in a satisfactory manner, the phenomena of the Leyden phial, first observed by Mr. Cuneus, or by professor Muschenbroeck, of Leyden, which had much perplexed philosophers. He shewed clearly, that when charged, the bottle contained no more electricity than before, but that as much was taken from one side as was thrown on the other; and that, to discharge it, nothing was necessary but to produce a communication between the two sides, by which the equilibrium might be restored, and that then no signs of electricity would remain. He afterwards demonstrated, by experiments, that the electricity did not reside in the coating, as had been supposed, but in the pores of the glass itself. After a phial was charged, he removed the coating, and found that upon applying a new coating, the shock might still be received. In the year 1749, he first suggested his idea of explaining the phenomena of thunder-gusts, and of the aurora borealis, upon electrical principles. He points out many particulars in which lightning and electricity agree; and he adduces many facts, and reasonings from facts, in support of his positions. In the same year he conceived the astonishingly bold and grand idea of ascertaining the truth of his doctrine, by actually drawing down the lightning, by means of sharp-pointed iron rods, raised into the region of the clouds. Even in this uncertain state, his passion to be useful to mankind, displayed itself in a powerful manner. Admitting the identity of electricity and lightning, and knowing the power of points in repelling bodies charged with electricity, and in conducting their fire silently and imperceptibly, he suggested the idea of securing houses, ships, &c. from being damaged by lightning, by erecting pointed rods, that should rise some feet above the most elevated part, and descend some feet into the ground or the water. The effect of these, he concluded, would be either to present a stroke by repelling the cloud beyond the striking distance, or by drawing off the electrical fire which it contained; or, if they could not effect this, they would at least conduct the electric matter to the earth, without any injury to the building. It was not until the summer of 1752, that he was enabled to complete his grand and unparalleled discovery by experiment. The plan, which he had originally proposed, was, to erect on some high tower, or other elevated place, a centry-box, from which should rise a pointed iron rod, insulated by being fixed in a cake of resin. Electrified clouds passing over this, would, he conceived, impart to it a portion of their electricity, which would be rendered evident to the senses by sparks being emitted, when a key, the knuckle, or other conductor was presented to it. Philadelphia at this time afforded no opportunity of trying an experiment of this kind. While Franklin was waiting for the erection of a spire, it occurred to him that he might have more ready access to the region of clouds by means of a common kite. He prepared one by fastening two cross sticks to a silk handkerchief, which would not suffer so much from the rain as paper. To the upright stick was affixed an iron point. The string was, as usual, of hemp, except the lower end, which was silk. Where the hempen string terminated, a key was fastened. With this apparatus, on the appearance of a thunder-gust approaching, he went out into the commons, accompanied by his son, to whom alone he communicated his intentions, well knowing the ridicule which, too generally for the interest of science, awaits unsuccessful experiments in philosophy. He placed himself under a shade, to avoid the rain--his kite was raised--a thunder-cloud passed over it--no sign of electricity appeared. He almost despaired of success, when, suddenly, he observed the loose fibres of his string to move towards an erect position. He now presented his knuckle to the key, and received a strong spark. How exquisite must his sensations have been at this moment! On this experiment depended the fate of his theory. If he succeeded, his name would rank high among those who had improved science; if he failed, he must inevitably be subjected to the derision of mankind, or, what is worse, their pity, as a well-meaning man, but a weak, silly projector. The anxiety with which he looked for the result of his experiment, may be easily conceived. Doubts and despair had begun to prevail, when the fact was ascertained in so clear a manner, that even the most incredulous could no longer withhold their assent.--Repeated sparks were drawn from the key, a phial was charged, a shock given, and all the experiments made which are usually performed with electricity. About a month before this period, some ingenious Frenchman had completed the discovery in the manner originally proposed by Dr. Franklin. The letters which he sent to Mr. Collinson, it is said, were refused a place in the Transactions of the Royal Society of London. However this may be, Collinson published them in a separate volume, under the title of "New Experiments and Observations on Electricity, made at Philadelphia, in America." They were read with avidity, and soon translated into different languages. A very incorrect French translation fell into the hands of the celebrated Buffon, who, notwithstanding the disadvantages under which the work laboured, was much pleased with it, and repeated the experiments with success. He prevailed on his friend, M. D'Alibard, to give his countrymen a more correct translation of the works of the American electrician. This contributed much towards spreading a knowledge of Franklin's principles in France. The king, Louis XV., hearing of these experiments, expressed a wish to be a spectator of them. A course of experiments was given at the seat of the D'Ayen, at St. Germain, by M. de Lor. The applauses which the king bestowed upon Franklin, excited in Buffon, D'Alibard, and De Lor, an earnest desire of ascertaining the truth of his theory of thunder-gusts. Buffon erected his apparatus on the tower of Montbar, M. D'Alibard at Marly-la-ville, and De Lor at his house in the _Estrapade_ at Paris, some of the highest ground in that capital. D'Alibard's machine first shewed signs of electricity. On the 10th of May, 1752, a thunder cloud passed over it, in the absence of M. D'Alibard, and a number of sparks were drawn from it by Coiffier, joiner, with whom D'Alibard had left directions how to proceed, and by M. Raulet, the prior of Marly-la-ville. An account of this experiment was given to the Royal Academy of Sciences, by M. D'Alibard, in a Memoir dated May 13th, 1752. On the 18th of May, M. de Lor proved equally successful with the apparatus erected at his own house. These philosophers soon excited those of other parts of Europe to repeat the experiment; amongst whom, none signalised themselves more than Father Beccaria, of Turin, to whose observations science is much indebted. Even the cold regions of Russia were penetrated by the ardor for discovery. Professor Richman bade fair to add much to the stock of knowledge on this subject, when an unfortunate flash from his conductor, put a period to his existence. The friends of science will long remember with regret, the amiable martyr to electricity. By these experiments Franklin's theory was established in the most convincing manner. When the truth of it could no longer be doubted, envy and vanity endeavoured to detract from its merit. That an American, an inhabitant of the obscure city of Philadelphia, the name of which was hardly known, should be able to make discoveries, and to frame theories, which had escaped the notice of the enlightened philosophers of Europe, was too mortifying to be admitted. He must certainly have taken the idea from some one else. An American, a being of an inferior order, make discoveries!--Impossible. It was said, that the Abbé Nollet, 1748, had suggested the idea of the similarity of lightning and electricity in his _Leçons de Physique_. It is true that the Abbé mentions the idea, but he throws it out as a bare conjecture, and proposes no mode of ascertaining the truth of it. He himself acknowledges, that Franklin first entertained the bold thought of bringing lightning from the heavens, by means of pointed rods fixed in the air. The similarity of lightning and electricity is so strong, that we need not be surprised at notice being taken of it, as soon as electrical phenomena became familiar. We find it mentioned by Dr. Wall and Mr. Grey, while the science was in its infancy. But the honour of forming a regular theory of thunder-gusts, of suggesting a mode of determining the truth of it by experiments, and of putting these experiments in practice, and thus establishing the theory upon a firm and solid basis, is incontestibly due to Franklin. D'Alibard, who made the first experiments in France, says, that he only followed the tract which Franklin had pointed out. It has been of late asserted, that the honour of completing the experiment with the electrical kite, does not belong to Franklin. Some late English paragraphs have attributed it to some Frenchman, whose name they do not mention; and the Abbé Bertholon gives it to M. de Romas, assessor to the presideal of Nerac; the English paragraphs probably refer to the same person. But a very slight attention will convince us of the injustice of this procedure: Dr. Franklin's experiment was made in June 1752; and his letter, giving an account of it, is dated October 19, 1752. M. de Romas made his first attempt on the 14th of May, 1753, but was not successful until the 7th of June; a year after Franklin had completed the discovery, and when it was known to all the philosophers in Europe. Besides these great principles, Franklin's letters on electricity contain a number of facts and hints, which have contributed greatly towards reducing this branch of knowledge to a science. His friend Mr. Kinnersley communicated to him a discovery of the different kinds of electricity, excited by rubbing glass and sulphur. This, we have said, was first observed by M. Du Faye; but it was for many years neglected. The philosophers were disposed to account for the phenomena, rather from a difference in the quantity of electricity collected, and even Du Faye himself seems at last to have adopted this doctrine. Franklin at first entertained the same idea; but upon repeating the experiments, he perceived that Mr. Kinnersley was right; and that the _vitreous_ and _resinous_ electricity of du Faye were nothing more than the _positive_, and _negative_ states which he had before observed; and that the glass globe charged _positively_ or increased the quantity of electricity on the prime conductor, while the globe of sulphur diminished its natural quantity, or charged _negatively_. These experiments and observations opened a new field for investigation, upon which electricians entered with avidity; and their labours have added much to the stock of our knowledge. In September, 1752, Franklin entered upon a course of experiments, to determine the state of electricity in the clouds. From a number of experiments he formed this conclusion:--"That the clouds of a thunder-gust are most commonly in a negative state of electricity, but sometimes in a positive state;" and from this it follows, as a necessary consequence, "that, for the most part, in thunder-strokes, it is the earth that strikes into the clouds, and not the clouds that strike into the earth." The letter containing these observations is dated in September, 1753; and yet the discovery of ascending thunder has been said to be of a modern date, and has been attributed to the Abbé Bertholon, who published his memoir on the subject in 1776. Franklin's letters have been translated into most of the European languages, and into Latin. In proportion as they have become known, his principles have been adopted. Some opposition was made to his theories, particularly by the Abbé Nollet, who was, however, but feebly supported, while the first philosophers in Europe stepped forth in defence of Franklin's principles, amongst whom D'Alibard and Beccaria were the most distinguished. The opposition has gradually ceased, and the Franklinian system is now universally adopted, where science flourishes. The important practical use which Franklin made of his discoveries, the securing of houses from injury by lightning, has been already mentioned. Pointed conductors are now very common in America; but prejudice has hitherto prevented their general introduction into Europe, notwithstanding the most undoubted proofs of their utility have been given. But mankind can with difficulty be brought to lay aside practices, or to adopt new ones. And perhaps we have more reason, to be surprised, that a practice however rational, which was proposed about forty years ago, should in that time have been adopted in so many places, than that it has not universally prevailed. It is only by degrees that the great body of mankind can be led into new practices, however salutary their tendency. It is now nearly eighty years since inoculation was introduced into Europe and America; and it is so far from being general at present, that it will, require one or two centuries to render it so. In the year 1745, Franklin published an account of his new-invented Pennsylvania fire-places, in which he minutely and accurately states the advantages of different kinds of fire-places; and endeavours to show that the one which he describes is to be preferred to any other. This contrivance has given rise to the open stoves now in general use, which, however, differ from it in construction, particularly in not having an air-box at the back, through which a constant supply of air, warmed in its passage, is thrown into the room. The advantages of this are, that as a stream of warm air is continually flowing into the room, less fuel is necessary to preserve a proper temperature, and the room may be so tightened as that no air may enter through cracks--the consequence of which are colds, tooth-aches, &c. Although philosophy was a principal object of Franklin's pursuit for several years, he confined himself not to this. In the year 1747, he became a member of the general assembly of Pennsylvania, as a burgess for the city of Philadelphia. Warm disputes subsisted at this time between the assembly and the proprietaries; each contending for what they conceived to be their just rights. Franklin, a friend to the rights of man from his infancy, soon distinguished himself as a steady opponent of the unjust schemes of the proprietaries. He was soon looked up to as the head of the opposition; and to him have been attributed many of the spirited replies of the assembly, to the messages of the governors. His influence in the body was very great. This arose not from any superior powers of eloquence; he spoke but seldom, and he never was known to make any thing like an elaborate harangue. His speeches often consisted of a single sentence, or of a well-told story, the moral of which was always obviously to the point. He never attempted the flowery fields of oratory. His manner was plain and mild. His style in speaking was, like that of his writings, simple, unadorned, and remarkably concise. With this plain manner, and his penetrating and solid judgment, he was able to confound the most eloquent and subtle of his adversaries, to confirm the opinions of his friends, and to make converts of the unprejudiced who had opposed him. With a single observation, he has rendered of no avail an elegant and lengthy discourse, and determined the fate of a question of importance. But he was not contented with thus supporting the rights of the people. He wished to render them permanently secure, which can only be done by making their value properly known; and this must depend upon increasing and extending information to every class of men. We have already seen that he was the founder of the public library, which contributed greatly towards improving the minds of the citizens. But this was not sufficient. The schools then subsisting were in general of little utility. The teachers were men ill qualified for the important duty which they had undertaken; and, after all, nothing more could be obtained than the rudiments of a common English education. Franklin drew up a plan of an academy, to be erected in the city of Philadelphia, suited to "the state of an infant country;" but in this, as in all his plans, he confined not his views to the present time only. He looked forward to the period when an institution on an enlarged plan would become necessary. With this view, he considered his academy as "a foundation for posterity to erect a seminary of learning more extensive, and suitable to future circumstances." In pursuance of this plan, the constitutions were drawn up and signed on the 13th of November, 1749. In these, twenty-four of the most respectable citizens of Philadelphia were named as trustees. In the choice of these, and in the formation of his plan, Franklin is said to have consulted chiefly with Thomas Hopkinson, Esq; the Rev. Richard Peters, then secretary of the province, Tench Francis, Esq. attorney-general, and Dr. Phineas Bond. The following article shews a spirit of benevolence worthy of imitation; and, for the honour of our city, we hope that it continues to be in force. "In case of the disability of the _rector_, or any master (established on the foundation by receiving a certain salary) through sickness, or any other natural infirmity, whereby he may be reduced to poverty, the trustees shall have power to contribute to his support, in proportion to his distress and merit, and the stock in their hands." The last clause of the fundamental rules is expressed in language so tender and benevolent, so truly parental, that it will do everlasting honour to the hearts and heads of the founders. "It is hoped and expected that the trustees will make it their pleasure, and in some degree their business, to visit the academy often; to encourage and countenance the youth, to countenance and assist the masters, and, by all means in their power, advance the usefulness and reputation of the design; that they will look on the students as, in some measure, their own children, treat them with familiarity and affection; and when they have behaved well, gone through their studies, and are to enter the world, they shall zealously unite, and make all the interest that can be made to promote and establish them, whether in business, offices, marriages, or any other thing for their advantage, in preference to all other persons whatsoever, even of equal merit." The constitutions being signed and made public, with the names of the gentlemen proposing themselves as trustees and founders, the design was so well approved of by the public-spirited citizens of Philadelphia, that the sum of eight hundred pounds per annum, for five years, was in the course of a few weeks subscribed for carrying it into execution; and in the beginning of January following (viz. 1750) three of the schools were opened, namely, the Latin and Greek schools, the Mathematical school, and the English school. In pursuance of an article in the original plan, a school for educating sixty boys and thirty girls (in the charter since called the Charitable School) was opened; and amidst all the difficulties with which the trustees have struggled in respect to their funds, has still been continued full for the space of forty years; so that allowing three years education for each boy and girl admitted into it, which is the general rule, at least twelve hundred children have received in it the chief part of their education, who might otherwise, in a great measure, have been left without the means of instruction. And many of those who have been thus educated, are now to be found among the most useful and reputable citizens of this state. The institution, thus successfully begun, continued daily to flourish, to the great satisfaction of Dr. Franklin; who, notwithstanding the multiplicity of his other engagements and pursuits, at that busy stage of his life, was a constant attendant at the monthly visitations and examinations of the schools, and made it his particular study, by means of his extensive correspondence abroad, to advance the reputation of the seminary, and to draw students and scholars to it from different parts of America and the West Indies. Through the interposition of his benevolent and learned friend, Peter Collinson, of London, upon the application of the trustees, a charter of incorporation, dated July 13, 1753, was obtained from the honourable proprietors of Pennsylvania, Thomas Penn and Richard Penn, Esqrs. accompanied with a liberal benefaction of five hundred pounds sterling; and Dr. Franklin now began in good earnest to please himself with the hopes of a speedy accomplishment of his original design, viz. the establishment of a perfect institution, upon the plan of the European colleges and universities; for which his academy was intended as a nursery or foundation. To elucidate this fact, is a matter of considerable importance in respect to the memory and character of Dr. Franklin as a philosopher, and as the friend and patron of learning and science; for, notwithstanding what is expressly declared by him in the preamble to the constitutions, viz. that the academy was begun for "teaching the Latin and Greek languages, with all useful branches of the arts and sciences, suitable to the state of an infant country, and laying a foundation for posterity to erect a seminary of learning more extensive, and suitable to their future circumstances;" yet it has been suggested of late, as upon Dr. Franklin's authority, that the Latin and Greek, or the dead languages, are an incumbrance upon a scheme of liberal education, and that the engrafting or founding a college, or more extensive seminary, upon his academy, was without his approbation or agency, and gave him discontent. If the reverse of this does not already appear from what has been quoted above, the following letters will put the matter beyond dispute. They were written by him to a gentleman, who had at that time published the idea of a college, suited to the circumstances of a young country (meaning New-York) a copy of which having been sent to Dr. Franklin for his opinion, gave rise to that correspondence which terminated about a year afterwards, in erecting the college upon the foundation of the academy, and establishing that gentleman at the head of both, where he still continues, after a period of thirty-six years, to preside with distinguished reputation. From these letters also, the state of the academy, at that time, will be, seen. FOOTNOTES: [1] As a proof that Franklin was anciently the common name of an order or rank in England, see Judge Fortesque, _De laudibus legum Angliæ_, written about the year 1412, in which is the following passage, to shew that good juries might easily be formed in any part of England: "Regio etiam ilia, ita respersa refertaque est _posessoribus terrarum_ et agrorum, quod in ea, villula tam parva reperiri non poterit, in qua non est _miles_, _armiger_, vel pater-familias, qualis ibidem _franklin_ vulgariter nuncupatur, magnis ditatus possessionibus, nec non libere tenentes et alii _valecti_ plurimi, suis patrimoniis sufficientes, ad faciendum juratam, in forma prænotata." "Moreover, the same country is so filled and replenished with landed menne, that therein so small a thorpe cannot be found wherein dwelleth not a knight, an esquire, or such a householder as is there commonly called a _franklin_, enriched with great possessions; and also other freeholders and many yeomen, able for their livelihoods to make a jury in form aforementioned." OLD TRANSLATION. Chaucer too, calls his country gentleman a _franklin_; and, after describing his good housekeeping, thus characterizes him: This worthy franklin bore a purse of silk Fix'd to his girdle, white as morning milk; Knight of the shire, first justice at th' assize, To help the poor, the doubtful to advise. In all employments, generous, just he prov'd, Renown'd for courtesy, by all belov'd. [2] Town in the island of Nantucket. [3] Probably the Dunciad, where we find him thus immortalized by the author: Silence, ye wolves, while Ralph to Cynthia howls, And makes night hideous--answer him, ye owls! [4] Printing houses in general are thus denominated by the workmen: the _spirit_ they call by the name of _Ralph_. [5] A manuscript note in the file of the American Mercury, preserved in the Philadelphia library, says, that Franklin wrote the five first numbers, and part of the eighth. [6] Dr. Stuber was born in Philadelphia, of German parents. He was sent, at an early age, to the university, where his genius, diligence and amiable temper, soon acquired him the particular notice and favour of those under whose immediate direction he was placed. After passing through the common course of study, in a much shorter time than usual, he left the university, at the age of sixteen, with great reputation. Not long after, he entered on the study of physic; and the zeal with which he pursued it, and the advances he made, gave his friends reason to form the most flattering prospects of his future eminence and usefulness in the profession. As Dr. Stuber's circumstances were very moderate, he did not think this pursuit well calculated to improve them. He therefore relinquished it, after he had obtained a degree in the profession, and qualified himself to practise with credit and success; and immediately entered on the study of the law. While in pursuit of the last mentioned object, he was prevented by a premature death from reaping the fruit of those talents with which he was endowed, and of a youth spent in the ardent and successful pursuit of useful and elegant literature. "_Philad. April 19th, 1753._ "SIR, "I received your favour of the 11th instant, with your new[7] piece on _Education_, which I shall carefully peruse, and give you my sentiments of it, as you desire, by next post. "I believe the young gentlemen, your pupils, may be entertained and instructed here, in mathematics and philosophy, to satisfaction. Mr. Alison[8] (who was educated at Glasgow) has been long accustomed to teach the latter, and Mr. Grew[9] the former; and I think their pupils make great progress. Mr. Alison has the care of the Latin and Greek school, but as he has now three good assistants,[10] he can very well afford some hours every day for the instruction of those who are engaged in higher studies. The mathematical school is pretty well furnished with instruments. The English library is a good one; and we have belonging to it a middling apparatus for experimental philosophy, and propose speedily to complete it. The Loganian library, one of the best collections in America, will shortly be opened; so that neither books nor instruments will be wanting; and as we are determined always to give good salaries, we have reason to believe we may have always an opportunity of choosing good masters; upon which indeed, the success of the whole depends. We are obliged to you for your kind offers in this respect, and when you are settled in England, we may occasionally make use of your friendship and judgment.-- "If it suits your conveniency to visit Philadelphia before you return to Europe, I shall be extremely glad to see and converse with you here, as well as to correspond with you after your settlement in England; for an acquaintance and communication with men of learning, virtue, and public spirit, is one of my greatest enjoyments. "I do not know whether you ever happened to see the first proposals I made for erecting this academy. I send them inclosed. They had (however imperfect) the desired success, being followed by a subscription of four thousand pounds, towards carrying them into execution. And as we are fond of receiving advice, and are daily improving by experience, I am in hopes we shall, in a few years, see a _perfect institution_. "I am, very respectfully, &c. "B. FRANKLIN. "_Mr. W. Smith, Long-Island._" FOOTNOTES: [7] A general idea of the college of Mirania. [8] The Rev. and learned Mr. Francis Alison, afterwards D. D. and vice-provost of the college. [9] Mr. Theophilus Grew, afterwards professor of mathematics in the college. [10] Those assistants were at that time Mr. Charles Thomson, late secretary to congress, Mr. Paul Jackson, and Mr. Jacob Duche. "_Philad. May 3d, 1753._ "SIR, "Mr. Peters has just now been with me, and we have compared notes on your new piece. We find nothing in the scheme of education, however excellent, but what is, in our opinion, very practicable. The great difficulty will be to find the Aratus[11], and other suitable persons, to carry it into execution; but such may be had if proper encouragement be given. We have both received great pleasure in the perusal of it. For my part, I know not when I have read a piece that has more affected me--so noble and just are the sentiments, so warm and animated the language; yet as censure from your friends may be of more use, as well as more agreeable to you than praise, I ought to mention, that I wish you had omitted not only the quotation from the Review[12], which you are now justly dissatisfied with, but those expressions of resentment against your adversaries, in pages 65 and 79. In such cases, the noblest victory is obtained by neglect, and by shining on. "Mr. Allen has been out of town these ten days; but before he went he directed me to procure him six copies of your piece. Mr. Peters has taken ten. He proposed to have written to you; but omits it, as he expects so soon to have the pleasure of seeing you here. He desires me to present his affectionate compliments to you, and to assure you that you will be very welcome to him. I shall only say, that you may depend on my doing all in my power to make your visit to Philadelphia agreeable to you. "I am, &c. "B. FRANKLIN. "_Mr. Smith._" FOOTNOTES: [11] The name given to the principal or head of the ideal college, the system of education in which hath nevertheless been nearly realized, or followed as a model, in the college and academy of Philadelphia, and some other American seminaries, for many years past. [12] The quotation alluded to (from the London Monthly Review for 1749,) was judged to reflect too severely on the discipline and government of the English universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and was expunged from the following editions of this work. "_Philad. Nov. 27th, 1753._ "DEAR SIR, "Having written you fully, _via_ Bristol, I have now little to add. Matters relating to the academy remain in _statu quo_. The trustees would be glad to see a rector established there, but they dread entering into new engagements till they are got out of debt; and I have not yet got them wholly over to my opinion, that a good professor, or teacher of the higher branches of learning, would draw so many scholars as to pay great part, if not the whole of his salary. Thus, unless the proprietors (of the province) shall think fit to put the finishing hand to our institution, it must, I fear, wait some few years longer before it can arrive at that state of perfection, which to me it seems now capable of; and all the pleasure I promised myself in seeing you settled among us, vanishes into smoke. "But good Mr. Collinson writes me word, that no endeavours of his shall be wanting; and he hopes, with the archbishop's assistance, to be able to prevail with our proprietors[13]. I pray God grant them success. "My son presents his affectionate regards, with, dear Sir, "Your's, &c. "B. FRANKLIN. "P. S. I have not been favoured with a line from you since your arrival in England." FOOTNOTE: [13] Upon the application of archbishop Herring and P. Collinson, Esq. at Dr. Franklin's request, (aided by the letters of Mr. Allen and Mr. Peters,) the Hon. Thomas Penn, Esq. subscribed an annual sum, and afterwards gave at least 5000_l._ to the founding or engrafting the college upon the academy. "_Philad. April 18th, 1754._ "DEAR SIR, "I have had but one letter from you since your arrival in England, which was but a short one, _via_ Boston, dated October 18th, acquainting me that you had written largely by Captain Davis.--Davis was lost, and with him your letters, to my great disappointment.--Mesnard and Gibbon have since arrived here, and I hear nothing from you. My comfort is, an imagination that you only omit writing because you are coming, and propose to tell me every thing _viva voce_. So not knowing whether this letter will reach you, and hoping either to see or hear from you by the Myrtilla, Captain Budden's ship, which is daily expected, I only add, that I am, with great esteem and affection "Your's, &c. "B. FRANKLIN. "_Mr. Smith._" About a month after the date of this last letter, the gentleman to whom it was addressed arrived in Philadelphia, and was immediately placed at the head of the seminary; whereby Dr. Franklin and the other trustees were enabled to prosecute their plan, for perfecting the institution, and opening the college upon the large and liberal foundation on which it now stands; for which purpose they obtained their additional charter, dated May 27th, 1755. Thus far we thought it proper to exhibit in one view Dr. Franklin's services in the foundation and establishment of this seminary. He soon afterwards embarked for England, in the public service of his country; and having been generally employed abroad, in the like service, for the greatest part of the remainder of his life, (as will appear in our subsequent account of the same) he had but few opportunities of taking any further active part in the affairs of the seminary, until his final return in the year 1785, when he found its charters violated, and his ancient colleagues, the original founders, deprived of their trust, by an act of the legislature; and although his own name had been inserted amongst the new trustees, yet he declined to take his seat among them, or any concern in the management of their affairs, till the institution was restored by law to its original owners. He then assembled his old colleagues at his own house, and being chosen their president, all their future meetings were, at his request, held there, till within a few months of his death, when with reluctance, and at their desire, lest he might be too much injured by his attention to their business, he suffered them to meet at the college. Franklin not only gave birth to many useful institutions himself, but he was also instrumental in promoting those which had originated with other men. About the year 1752, an eminent physician of this city, Dr. Bond, considering the deplorable state of the poor when visited with disease, conceived the idea of establishing an hospital. Notwithstanding very great exertions on his part, he was able to interest few people so far in his benevolent plan, as to obtain subscriptions from them. Unwilling that his scheme should prove abortive, he sought the aid of Franklin, who readily engaged in the business, both by using his influence with his friends, and by stating the advantageous influence of the proposed institution in his paper. These efforts were attended with success. Considerable sums were subscribed; but they were still short of what was necessary. Franklin now made another exertion. He applied to the assembly; and, after some opposition, obtained leave to bring in a bill, specifying, that as soon as two thousand pounds were subscribed, the same sum should be drawn from the treasury by the speaker's warrant, to be applied to the purposes of the institution. The opposition, as the sum was granted upon a contingency which they supposed would never take place, were silent, and the bill passed. The friends of the plan now redoubled their efforts, to obtain subscriptions to the amount stated in the bill, and were soon successful. This was the foundation of the Pennsylvanian Hospital, which, with the Bettering-house, and Dispensary, bears ample testimony of the humanity of the citizens of Philadelphia. Dr. Franklin had conducted himself so well in the office of post-master, and had shown himself to be so well acquainted with the business of that department, that it was thought expedient to raise him to a more dignified station. In 1753 he was appointed deputy post-master general for the British colonies. The profits arising from the postage of letters formed no inconsiderable part of the revenue, which the crown of Great Britain derived from these colonies. In the hands of Franklin, it is said, that the post-office in America, yielded annually thrice as much as that of Ireland. The American colonies were much exposed to depredations on their frontiers, by the Indians; and more particularly whenever a war took place between France and England. The colonies, individually, were either too weak to take efficient measures for their own defence, or they were unwilling to take upon themselves the whole burden of erecting forts and maintaining garrisons, whilst their neighbours, who partook equally with themselves of the advantages, contributed nothing to the expence. Sometimes also the disputes, which subsisted between the governors and assemblies, prevented the adoption of means of defence; as we have seen was the case in Pennsylvania in 1745. To devise a plan of union between the colonies, to regulate this and other matters, appeared a desirable object. To accomplish this, in the year 1754, commissioners from New Hampshire, Massachussets, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, met at Albany. Dr. Franklin attended here, as a commissioner from Pennsylvania, and produced a plan, which, from the place of meeting, has been usually termed, "The Albany plan of Union." This proposed, that application should be made for an act of parliament, to establish in the colonies a general government, to be administered by a president-general, appointed by the crown, and by a grand council, consisting of members, chosen by the representatives of the different colonies; their number to be in direct proportion to the sums paid by each colony into the general treasury, with this restriction, that no colony should have more than seven, nor less than two representatives. The whole executive authority was committed to the president-general. The power of legislation was lodged in the grand council and president-general jointly; his consent being made necessary to passing a bill into a law. The power vested in the president and council was, to declare war and peace, and to conclude treaties with the Indian nations; to regulate trade with, and to make purchases of vacant lands from them, either in the name of the crown, or of the union; to settle new colonies, to make laws for governing these until they should be erected into separate governments; and to raise troops, build forts, and fit out armed vessels, and to use other means for the general defence; and, to effect these things, a power was given to make laws, laying such duties, imposts, or taxes, as they should find necessary, and as would be least burdensome to the people. All laws were to be sent to England for the king's approbation; and unless disapproved of within three years, were to remain in force. All officers in the land or sea service were to be nominated by the president-general, and approved of by the general council; civil officers were to be nominated by the council, and approved of by the president. Such are the outlines of the plan proposed, for the consideration of the congress, by Dr. Franklin. After several days' discussion, it was unanimously agreed to by the commissioners, a copy transmitted to each assembly, and one to the king's council. The fate of it was singular. It was disapproved of by the ministry of Great Britain, because it gave too much power to the representatives of the people; and it was rejected by every assembly, as giving to the president-general, the representative of the crown, an influence greater than appeared to them proper, in a plan of government intended for freemen. Perhaps this rejection, on both sides, is the strongest proof that could be adduced of the excellence of it, as suited to the situation of America and Great Britain at that time. It appears to have steered exactly in the middle between the opposite interests of both. Whether the adoption of this plan would have prevented the separation of America from Great Britain, is a question which might afford much room for speculation. It may be said, that, by enabling the colonies to defend themselves, it would have removed the pretext upon which the stamp-act, tea-act, and other acts of the British parliament, were passed; which excited a spirit of opposition, and laid the foundation for the separation of the two countries. But, on the other hand, it must be admitted, that the restriction laid by Great Britain upon our commerce, obliging us to sell our produce to her citizens only, and to take from them various articles, of which, as our manufactures were discouraged, we stood in need, at a price greater than that for which they could have been obtained from other nations, must inevitably produce dissatisfaction, even though no duties were imposed by the parliament; a circumstance which might still have taken place. Besides, as the president-general was to be appointed by the crown, he must, of necessity, be devoted to its views, and would, therefore, refuse his assent to any laws, however salutary to the community, which had the most remote tendency to injure the interests of his sovereign. Even should they receive his assent, the approbation of the king was to be necessary; who would indubitably, in every instance, prefer the advantage of his home dominions to that of his colonies. Hence would ensue perpetual disagreements between the council and the president-general, and thus, between the people of America and the crown of Great Britain:--While the colonies continued weak, they would be obliged to submit, and as soon as they acquired strength they would become more urgent in their demands, until, at length, they would shake off the yoke, and declare themselves independent. Whilst the French were in possession of Canada, their trade with the natives extended very far; even to the back of the British settlements. They were disposed, from time to time, to establish posts within the territory, which the English claimed as their own. Independent of the injury to the fur trade, which was considerable, the colonies suffered this further inconvenience, that the Indians were frequently instigated to commit depredations on their frontiers. In the year 1753, encroachments were made upon the boundaries of Virginia. Remonstrances had no effect. In the ensuing year, a body of men were sent out under the command of Mr. Washington, who, though a very young man, had, by his conduct in the preceding year, shewn himself worthy of such an important trust. Whilst marching to take possession of the post at the junction of the Allegany and Monongahela, he was informed that the French had already erected a fort there. A detachment of their men marched against him. He fortified himself as strongly as time and circumstances would admit. A superiority of numbers soon obliged him to surrender _Fort Necessity_. He obtained honourable terms for himself and men, and returned to Virginia. The government of Great Britain now thought it necessary to interfere. In the year 1755, General Braddock, with some regiments of regular troops, and provincial levies, was sent to dispossess the French of the posts upon which they had seized. After the men were all ready, a difficulty occurred, which had nearly prevented the expedition. This was the want of waggons. Franklin now stepped forward, and with the assistance of his son, in a little time procured a hundred and fifty. Braddock unfortunately fell into an ambuscade, and perished, with a number of his men. Washington, who had accompanied him as an aid-de-camp, and had warned him, in vain, of his danger, now displayed great military talents in effecting a retreat of the remains of the army, and in forming a junction with the rear, under colonel Dunbar, upon whom the chief command now devolved. With some difficulty they brought their little body to a place of safety; but they found it necessary to destroy their waggons and baggage, to prevent them falling into the hands of the enemy. For the waggons which he had furnished, Franklin had given bonds to a large amount. The owners declared their intention of obliging him to make a restitution of their property. Had they put their threats in execution, ruin must inevitably have been the consequence. Governor Shirley, finding that he had incurred these debts for the service of government, made arrangements to have them discharged, and released Franklin from his disagreeable situation. The alarm spread through the colonies, after the defeat of Braddock, was very great. Preparations to arm were every where made. In Pennsylvania, the prevalence of the Quaker interest prevented the adoption of any system of defence, which would compel the citizens to bear arms. Franklin introduced into the assembly a bill for organizing a militia, by which every man was allowed to take arms or not, as to him should appear fit. The Quakers, being thus left at liberty, suffered the bill to pass; for although their principles would not suffer them to fight, they had no objection to their neighbours fighting for them. In consequence of this act a very respectable militia was formed. The sense of impending danger infused a military spirit in all, whose religious tenets were not opposed to war. Franklin was appointed colonel of a regiment in Philadelphia, which consisted of 1200 men. The north-western frontier being invaded by the enemy, it became necessary to adopt measures for its defence. Franklin was directed by the governor to take charge of this. A power of raising men, and of appointing officers to command them, was vested in him. He soon levied a body of troops, with which he repaired to the place at which their presence was necessary. Here he built a fort, and placed a garrison in such a posture of defence, as would enable them to withstand the inroads, to which the inhabitants had previously been exposed. He remained here for some time, in order the more completely to discharge the trust committed to him. Some business of importance at length rendered his presence necessary in the assembly, and he returned to Philadelphia. The defence of her colonies was a great expence to Great Britain. The most effectual mode of lessening this was, to put arms into the hands of the inhabitants, and to teach them their use. But England wished not that the Americans should become acquainted with their own strength. She was apprehensive, that, as soon as this period arrived, they would no longer submit to that monopoly of their trade, which to them was highly injurious, but extremely advantageous to the mother-country. In comparison with the profits of this, the expence of maintaining armies and fleets to defend them was trifling. She fought to keep them dependent upon her for protection; the best plan which could be devised for retaining them in peaceable subjection. The least appearance of a military spirit was therefore to be guarded against, and, although a war then raged, the act for organizing a militia was disapproved of by the ministry. The regiments which had been formed under it were disbanded, and the defence of the province entrusted to regular troops. The disputes between the proprietaries and the people continued in full force, although a war was raging on the frontiers. Not even the sense of danger was sufficient to reconcile, for ever so short a time, their jarring interests. The assembly still insisted upon the justice of taxing the proprietary estates, but the governors constantly refused their assent to this measure, without which no bill could pass into a law. Enraged at the obstinacy, and what they conceived to be unjust proceedings of their opponents, the assembly at length determined to apply to the mother-country for relief. A petition was addressed to the king, in council, stating the inconveniencies under which the inhabitants laboured, from the attention of the proprietaries to their private interests, to the neglect of the general welfare of the community, and praying for redress. Franklin was appointed to present this address, as agent for the province of Pennsylvania, and departed from America in June, 1757. In conformity to the instructions which he had received from the legislature, he held a conference with the proprietaries who then resided in England, and endeavoured to prevail upon them to give up the long contested point. Finding that they would harken to no terms of accommodation, he laid his petition before the Council. During this time governor Denny assented to a law imposing a tax, in which no discrimination was made in favour of the estates of the Penn family. They, alarmed at this intelligence, and Franklin's exertions, used their utmost endeavours to prevent the royal sanction being given to this law, which they represented as highly iniquitous, designed to throw the burden of supporting government upon them, and calculated to produce the most ruinous consequences to them and their posterity. The cause was amply discussed before the privy Council. The Penns found here some strenuous advocates; nor were there wanting some who warmly espoused the side of the people. After some time spent in debate, a proposal was made, that Franklin should solemnly engage, that the assessment of the tax should be so made, as that the proprietary estates should pay no more than a due proportion. This he agreed to perform; the Penn family withdrew their opposition, and tranquillity was thus once more restored to the province. The mode in which this dispute was terminated is a striking proof of the high opinion entertained of Franklin's integrity and honour, even by those who considered him as inimical to their views. Nor was their confidence ill-founded. The assessment was made upon the strictest principles of equity; and the proprietary estates bore only a proportionable share of the expences of supporting government. After the completion of this important business, Franklin remained at the court of Great Britain, as agent for the province of Pennsylvania. The extensive knowledge which he possessed of the situation of the colonies, and the regard which he always manifested for their interests, occasioned his appointment to the same office by the colonies of Massachussets, Maryland, and Georgia. His conduct, in this situation, was such as rendered him still more dear to his countrymen. He had now an opportunity of indulging in the society of those friends, whom his merits had procured him while at a distance. The regard which they had entertained for him was rather increased by a personal acquaintance. The opposition which had been made to his discoveries in philosophy gradually ceased, and the rewards of literary merit were abundantly conferred upon him. The Royal Society of London, which had at first refused his performances admission into its transactions, now thought it an honour to rank him amongst its fellows. Other societies of Europe were equally ambitious of calling him a member. The university of St. Andrew's, in Scotland, conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. Its example was followed by the universities of Edinburgh and Oxford. His correspondence was sought for by the most eminent philosophers of Europe. His letters to these abound with true science, delivered in the most simple unadorned manner. The province of Canada was at this time in the possession of the French, who had originally settled it. The trade with the Indians, for which its situation was very convenient, was exceedingly lucrative. The French traders here found a market for their commodities, and received in return large quantities of rich furs, which they disposed of at a high price in Europe. Whilst the possession of this country was highly advantageous to France, it was a grievous inconvenience to the inhabitants of the British colonies. The Indians were almost generally desirous to cultivate the friendship of the French, by whom they were abundantly supplied with arms and ammunition. Whenever a war happened, the Indians were ready to fall upon the frontiers: and this they frequently did, even when Great Britain and France were at peace. From these considerations, it appeared to be the interest of Great Britain to gain the possession of Canada. But the importance of such an acquisition was not well understood in England. Franklin about this time published his Canada pamphlet, in which he, in a forcible manner, pointed out the advantages which would result from the conquest of this province. An expedition against it was planned, and the command given to General Wolfe. His success is well known. At the treaty in 1762, France ceded Canada to Great Britain, and by her cession of Louisiana, at the same time, relinquished all her possessions on the continent of America. Although Dr. Franklin was now principally occupied with political pursuits, he found time for philosophical studies. He extended his researches in electricity, and made a variety of experiments, particularly on the tourmalin. The singular properties which this stone possesses of being electrified on one side positively and on the other negatively, by heat alone, without friction, had been but lately observed. Some experiments on the cold produced by evaporation, made by Dr. Cullen, had been communicated to Dr. Franklin, by Professor Simpson, of Glasgow. These he repeated, and found, that, by the evaporation of æther in the exhausted receiver of an air-pump, so great a degree of cold was produced in a summer's day, that water was converted into ice. This discovery he applied to the solution of a number of phenomena, particularly a singular fact, which philosophers had endeavoured in vain to account for, viz. that the temperature of the human body, when in health, never exceeds 96 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer, though the atmosphere which surrounds it may be heated to a much greater degree. This he attributed to the increased perspiration, and consequent evaporation, produced by the heat. In a letter to Mr. Small, of London, dated in May, 1760, Dr. Franklin makes a number of observations, tending to show that, in North America, north-east storms begin in the south-west parts. It appears, from actual observations, that a north-east storm, which extended a considerable distance, commenced at Philadelphia near four hours before it was felt at Boston. He endeavoured to account for this, by supposing that, from heat, some rarefaction takes place about the gulph of Mexico, that the air further north rushes in, and is succeeded by the cooler and denser air still farther north, and that thus a continual current is at length produced. The tone produced by rubbing the brim of a drinking-glass with a wet finger, had been generally known. A Mr. Puckeridge, an Irishman, by placing on a table a number of glasses of different sizes, and tuning them by partly filling them with water, endeavoured to form an instrument capable of playing tunes. He was prevented by an untimely end, from bringing his invention to any degree of perfection. After his death some improvements were made upon his plan. The sweetness of the tones induced Dr. Franklin to make a variety of experiments; and he at length formed that elegant instrument which he has called the _Armonica_. In the summer of 1762, he returned to America. On his passage he observed the singular effect produced by the agitation of a vessel, containing oil, floating on water. The surface of the oil remains smooth and undisturbed, whilst the water is agitated with the utmost commotion. No satisfactory explanation of this appearance has, we believe, ever been given. Dr. Franklin received the thanks of the assembly of Pennsylvania, "as well for the faithful discharge of his duty to that province in particular, as for the many and important services done to America in general, during his residence in Great Britain." A compensation of 5000_l._, Pennsylvania currency, was also decreed him for his services during six years. During his absence he had been annually elected member of the assembly. On his return to Pennsylvania he again took his seat in this body, and continued a steady defender of the liberties of the people. In December 1762, a circumstance which caused great alarm in the province took place. A number of Indians had resided in the county of Lancaster, and conducted themselves uniformly as friends to the white inhabitants. Repeated depredations on the frontiers had exasperated the inhabitants to such a degree, that they determined on revenge upon every Indian. A number of persons, to the number of about 120, principally inhabitants of Donegal and Peckstang or Paxton township, in the county of York, assembled; and, mounted on horseback, proceeded to the settlement of these harmless and defenceless Indians, whose number had now been reduced to about twenty. The Indians had received intelligence of the attack which was intended against them, but disbelieved it. Considering the white people as their friends, they apprehended no danger from them. When the party arrived at the Indian settlement, they found only some women and children, and a few old men, the rest being absent at work. They murdered all whom they found, and amongst others the chief Shaheas, who had been always distinguished for his friendship to the whites. This bloody deed excited much indignation in the well-disposed part of the community. The remainder of these unfortunate Indians, who by absence, had escaped the massacre, were conducted to Lancaster, and lodged in the gaol as a place of security. The governor issued a proclamation expressing the strongest disapprobation of the action, offering a reward for the discovery of the perpetrators of the deed, and prohibiting all injuries to the peaceable Indians in future. But, notwithstanding this, a party of the same men shortly after marched to Lancaster, broke open the gaol, and inhumanly butchered the innocent Indians, who had been placed there for security. Another proclamation was issued, but it had no effect. A detachment marched down to Philadelphia, for the express purpose of murdering some friendly Indians, who had been removed to the city for safety. A number of the citizens armed in their defence. The quakers, whose principles are opposed to fighting, even in their own defence, were most active upon this occasion. The rioters came to Germantown. The governor fled for safety to the house of Dr. Franklin, who, with some others, advanced to meet the Paxton boys, as they were called, and had influence enough to prevail upon them to relinquish their undertaking, and return to their homes. The disputes between the proprietaries and the assembly, which, for a time, had subsided, were again revived. The proprietaries were dissatisfied with the concessions made in favour of the people, and made great struggles to recover the privilege of exempting their estates from taxation, which they had been induced to give up. In 1763, the assembly passed a militia-bill, to which the governor refused to give his assent, unless the assembly would agree to certain amendments which he proposed. These consisted in increasing the fines, and in some cases, substituting death for fines. He wished too, that the officers should be appointed altogether by himself, and not be nominated by the people, as the bill had proposed. These amendments the assembly considered as inconsistent with the spirit of liberty. They would not adopt them--the governor was obstinate, and the bill was lost. These, and various other circumstances, encreased the uneasiness which subsisted between the proprietaries and the assembly, to such a degree, that, in 1764, a petition to the king was agreed to by the house, praying an alteration from a _proprietary_ to a _regal_ government. Great opposition was made to this measure, not only in the house, but in the public prints. A speech of Mr. Dickenson on the subject was published, with a preface by Dr. Smith, in which great pains were taken to show the impropriety and impolicy of this proceeding. A speech of Mr. Galloway, in reply to Mr. Dickenson, was published, accompanied with a preface by Dr. Franklin, in which he ably opposed the principles laid down in the preface to Mr. Dickenson's speech. This application to the throne produced no effect. The proprietary government was still continued. At the election of a new assembly, in the fall of 1764, the friends of the proprietaries made great exertions to exclude those of the adverse party; and they obtained a small majority in the city of Philadelphia. Franklin now lost his seat in the house, which he had held for fourteen years. On the meeting of the assembly, it appeared there was still a decided majority of Franklin's friends. He was immediately appointed provincial agent, to the great chagrin of his enemies, who made a solemn protest against his appointment, which was refused admission upon the minutes, as being unprecedented. It was, however, published in the papers, and produced a spirited reply from him, just before his departure for England. The disturbances produced in America by Mr. Grenville's stamp-act, and the opposition made to it, are well known. Under the marquis of Rockingham's administration, it appeared expedient to endeavour to calm the minds of the colonists; and the repeal of the odious tax was contemplated. Amongst other means of collecting information on the disposition of the people to submit to it, Dr. Franklin was called to the bar of the house of commons. The examination which he underwent was published, and contains a striking account of the extent and accuracy of his information, and the facility with which he communicated his sentiments. He represented facts in so strong a point of view, that the inexpediency of the act must have appeared clear to every unprejudiced mind. The act, after some opposition, was repealed, about a year after it was enacted, and before it had ever been carried into execution. In the year 1766, he made a visit to Holland and Germany, and received the greatest marks of attention from men of science. In his passage through Holland he learned from the watermen the effect which a diminution of the quantity of water in canals has, in impeding the progress of boats. Upon his return to England, he was led to make a number of experiments, all of which tended to confirm the observation. These, with an explanation of the phenomenon, he communicated in a letter to his friend, Sir John Pringle, which will be found among his philosophical pieces. In the following year he travelled into France, where he met a no less favorable reception than he had experienced in Germany. He was introduced to a number of literary characters, and to the king, Louis XV. Several letters written by Hutchinson, Oliver, and others, to persons in eminent stations in Great Britain, came into the hands of Dr. Franklin. These contained the most violent invectives against the leading characters of the state of Massachussets, and strenuously advised the prosecution of vigorous measures, to compel the people to obedience to the measures of the ministry. These he transmitted to the legislature, by whom they were published. Attested copies of them were sent to Great Britain, with an address, praying the king to discharge from office persons who had rendered themselves so obnoxious to the people, and who had shown themselves so unfriendly to their interests. The publication of these letters produced a duel between Mr. Whately and Mr. Temple, each of whom was suspected of having been instrumental in procuring them. To prevent any farther disputes on this subject, Dr. Franklin, in one of the public papers, declared that he had sent them to America, but would give no information concerning the manner in which he had obtained them--nor was this ever discovered. Shortly after, the petition of the Massachussets assembly was taken up for examination, before the privy council. Dr. Franklin attended, as agent for the assembly; and here a torrent of the most violent and unwarranted abuse was poured upon him by the solicitor-general, Wedderburne, who was engaged as council for Oliver and Hutchinson. The petition was declared to be scandalous and vexatious, and the prayer of it refused. Although the parliament of Great Britain had repealed the stamp-act, it was only upon the principle of expediency. They still insisted upon their right to tax the colonies; and, at the same time that the stamp-act was repealed, an act was passed, declaring the right of parliament to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever. This language was used even by the most strenuous opposers of the stamp-act: and, amongst others, by Mr. Pitt. This right was never recognized by the colonists; but, as they flattered themselves that it would not be exercised, they were not very active in remonstrating against it. Had this pretended right been suffered to remain dormant, the colonists would cheerfully have furnished their quota of supplies, in the mode to which they had been accustomed; that is, by acts of their own assemblies, in consequence of requisitions from the secretary of state. If this practice had been pursued, such was the disposition of the colonies towards their mother-country, that, notwithstanding the disadvantages under which they laboured, from restraints upon their trade, calculated solely for the benefit of the commercial and manufacturing interests of Great Britain, a separation of the two countries might have been a far distant event. The Americans, from their earliest infancy, were taught to venerate a people from whom they were descended; whose language, laws, and manners, were the same as their own. They looked up to them as models of perfection; and, in their prejudiced minds, the most enlightened nations of Europe were considered as almost barbarians, in comparison with Englishmen. The name of an Englishman conveyed to an American the idea of every thing good and great. Such sentiments instilled into them in early life, what but a repetition of unjust treatment could have induced them to entertain the most distant thought of separation! The duties on glass, paper, leather, painters' colours, tea, &c. the disfranchisement of some of the colonies; the obstruction to the measures of the legislature in others, by the king's governors; the contemptuous treatment of their humble remonstrances, stating their grievances, and praying a redress of them, and other violent and oppressive measures, at length excited an ardent spirit of opposition. Instead of endeavouring to allay this by a more lenient conduct, the ministry seemed resolutely bent upon reducing the colonies to the most slavish obedience to their decrees. But this only tended to aggravate. Vain were all the efforts made use of to prevail upon them to lay aside their designs, to convince them of the impossibility of carrying them into effect, and of the mischievous consequences which must ensue from a continuance of the attempts. They persevered, with a degree of inflexibility scarcely paralleled. The advantages which Great Britain derived from her colonies were so great, that nothing but a degree of infatuation, little short of madness, could have produced a continuance of measures calculated to keep up a spirit of uneasiness, which might occasion the slightest wish for a separation. When we consider the great improvements in the science of government, the general diffusion of the principles of liberty amongst the people of Europe, the effects which these have already produced in France, and the probable consequences which will result from them elsewhere, all of which are the offspring of the American revolution, it cannot but appear strange, that events of so great moment to the happiness of mankind, should have been ultimately occasioned by the wickedness or ignorance of a British ministry. Dr. Franklin left nothing untried to prevail upon the ministry to consent to a change of measures. In private conversations, and in letters to persons in government, he continually expatiated upon the impolicy and injustice of their conduct towards America; and stated, that, notwithstanding the attachment of the colonists to the mother-country, a repetition of ill treatment must ultimately alienate their affections. They listened not to his advice. They blindly persevered in their own schemes, and left to the colonists no alternative, but opposition, or unconditional submission. The latter accorded not with the principles of freedom, which they had been taught to revere. To the former they were compelled, though reluctantly, to have recourse. Dr. Franklin, finding all efforts to restore harmony between Great Britain and her colonies useless, returned to America in the year 1775; just after the commencement of hostilities. The day after his return he was elected by the legislature of Pennsylvania a delegate to congress. Not long after his election a committee was appointed, consisting of Mr. Lynch, Mr. Harrison, and himself, to visit the camp at Cambridge, and, in conjunction with the commander in chief, to endeavour to convince the troops, whose term of enlistment was about to expire, of the necessity of their continuing in the field, and persevering in the cause of their country. In the fall of the same year he visited Canada, to endeavour to unite them in the common cause of liberty; but they could not be prevailed upon to oppose the measures of the British government. M. Le Roy, in a letter annexed to Abbé Fauchet's eulogium of Dr. Franklin, states, that the ill success of this negociation was occasioned, in a great degree, by religious animosities, which subsisted between the Canadians and their neighbours, some of whom had at different times burnt their chapels. When Lord Howe came to America, in 1776, vested with power to treat with the colonists, a correspondence took place between him and Dr. Franklin, on the subject of a reconciliation. Dr. Franklin was afterwards appointed, together with John Adams, and Edward Rutledge, to wait upon the commissioners, in order to learn the extent of their powers. These were found to be only to grant pardons upon submission. Such terms which could not be accepted; and the object of the commissioners was not obtained. The momentous question of independence was shortly after brought into view, at a time when the fleets and armies, which were sent to enforce obedience, were truly formidable. With an army, numerous indeed, but ignorant of discipline, and entirely unskilled in the art of war, without money, without a fleet, without allies, and with nothing but the love of liberty to support them, the colonists determined to separate from a country, from which they had experienced a repetition of injury and insult. In this question, Dr. Franklin was decidedly in favour of the measure proposed, and had great influence in bringing others to his sentiments. The public mind had been prepared for this event, by Mr. Paine's celebrated pamphlet, _Common Sense_. There is good reason to believe that Dr. Franklin had no inconsiderable share, at least, in furnishing materials for this work. In the convention which assembled at Philadelphia in 1776, for the purpose of establishing a new form of government for the state of Pennsylvania, Dr. Franklin was chosen president. The late constitution of this state, which was the result of their deliberations, may be considered as a digest of his principles of government. The single legislature, and the plural executive, seem to have been his favourite tenets. In the latter end of 1776, Dr. Franklin was appointed to assist in the negociation which had been set on foot by Silas Deane at the court of France. A conviction of the advantages of a commercial intercourse with America, and a desire of weakening the British empire by dismembering it, first induced the French court to listen to proposals of an alliance. But they shewed rather a reluctance to the measure, which, by Dr. Franklin's address, and particularly by the success of the American arms against general Burgoyne, was at length overcome; and in February, 1778, a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, was concluded; in consequence of which France became involved in the war with Great Britain. Perhaps no person could have been found more capable of rendering essential services to the United States at the court of France, than Dr. Franklin. He was well known as a philosopher, and his character was held in the highest estimation. He was received with the greatest marks of respect by all the literary characters; and this respect was extended amongst all classes of men. His personal influence was hence very considerable. To the effects of this were added those of various performances which he published, tending to establish the credit and character of the United States. To his exertions in this way, may, in no small degree, be ascribed the success of the loans negociated in Holland and France, which greatly contributed to bring the war to a conclusion. The repeated ill success of their arms, and more particularly the capture of Cornwallis and his army, at length convinced the British nation of the impossibility of reducing the Americans to subjection. The trading interest particularly became clamorous for peace. The ministry were unable longer to oppose their wishes. Provisional articles of peace were agreed to, and signed at Paris on the 30th of November, 1782, by Dr. Franklin, Mr. Adams, Mr. Jay, and Mr. Laurens, on the part of the United States; and by Mr. Oswald on the part of Great Britain. These formed the basis of the definitive treaty, which was concluded the 3d of September, 1783, and signed by Dr. Franklin, Mr. Adams, and Mr. Jay, on the one part, and by Mr. David Hartly on the other. On the third of April, 1783, a treaty of amity and commerce, between the United States and Sweden, was concluded at Paris, by Dr. Franklin and the Count Von Krutz. A similar treaty with Prussia was concluded in 1785, not long before Dr. Franklin's departure from Europe. Dr. Franklin did not suffer his political pursuits to engross his whole attention. Some of his performances made their appearance in Paris. The object of these was generally the promotion of industry and economy. In the year 1784, when animal magnetism made great noise in the world, particularly at Paris, it was thought a matter of such importance, that the king appointed commissioners to examine into the foundation of this pretended science. Dr. Franklin was one of the number. After a fair and diligent examination, in the course of which Mesmer repeated a number of experiments, in the presence of the commissioners, some of which were tried upon themselves, they determined that it was a mere trick, intended to impose upon the ignorant and credulous--Mesmer was thus interrupted in his career to wealth and fame, and a most insolent attempt to impose upon the human understanding baffled. The important ends of Dr. Franklin's mission being completed by the establishment of American independence, and the infirmities of age and disease coming upon him, he became desirous of returning to his native country. Upon application to congress to be recalled, Mr. Jefferson was appointed to succeed him in 1785. Some time in September of the same year Dr. Franklin arrived in Philadelphia. He was shortly after chosen member of the supreme executive council for the city; and soon after was elected president of the same. When a convention was called to meet in Philadelphia, in 1787, for the purpose of giving more energy to the government of the union, by revising and amending the articles of confederation, Dr. Franklin was appointed a delegate from the State of Pennsylvania. He signed the constitution which they proposed for the union, and gave it the most unequivocal marks of his approbation. A society for political enquiries, of which Dr. Franklin was president, was established about this period. The meetings were held at his house. Two or three essays read in this society were published. It did not long continue. In the year 1787, two societies were established in Philadelphia, founded on the principles of the most liberal and refined humanity--_The Philadelphia Society for alleviating the miseries of public prisons; and the Pennsylvania Society for promoting the abolition of slavery, the relief of free negroes unlawfully held in bondage, and the improvement of the condition of the African race._ Of each of these Dr. Franklin was president. The labours of these bodies have been crowned with great success; and they continue to prosecute, with unwearied diligence, the laudable designs for which they were established. Dr. Franklin's increasing infirmities prevented his regular attendance at the council-chamber; and, in 1788, he retired wholly from public life. His constitution had been a remarkably good one. He had been little subject to disease, except an attack of the gout occasionally, until about the year 1781, when he was first attacked with symptoms of the calculous complaint, which continued during his life. During the intervals of pain from this grievous disease, he spent many cheerful hours, conversing in the most agreeable and instructive manner. His faculties were entirely unimpaired, even to the hour of his death. His name, as president of the abolition society, was signed to the memorial presented to the house of representatives of the United States, on the 12th of February, 1789, praying them to exert the full extent of power vested in them by the constitution, in discouraging the traffic of the human species. This was his last public act. In the debates to which this memorial gave rise, several attempts were made to justify the trade. In the Federal Gazette of March 25th, there appeared an essay, signed Historicus, written by Dr. Franklin, in which he communicated a speech, said to have been delivered in the Divan of Algiers, in 1687, in opposition to the prayer of the petition of a sect called _Erika_, or purists, for the abolition of piracy and slavery. This pretended African speech was an excellent parody of one delivered by Mr. Jackson, of Georgia. All the arguments urged in favour of negro slavery, are applied with equal force to justify the plundering and enslaving of Europeans. It affords, at the same time, a demonstration of the futility of the arguments in defence of the slave trade, and of the strength of mind and ingenuity of the author, at his advanced period of life. It furnished too, a no less convincing proof of his power of imitating the style of other times and nations, than his celebrated parable against persecution. And as the latter led many persons to search the scriptures with a view to find, it, so the former caused many persons to search the book-stores and libraries, for the work from which it was said to be extracted. In the beginning of April following, he was attacked with a fever and complaint of his breast, which terminated his existence. The following account of his last illness was written by his friend and physician, Dr. Jones. "The stone, with which he had been afflicted for several years, had for the last twelve months confined him chiefly to his bed; and during the extremely painful paroxysms, he was obliged to take large doses of laudanum to mitigate his tortures--still, in the intervals of pain, he not only amused himself with reading and conversing cheerfully with his family, and a few friends who visited him, but was often employed in doing business of a public as well as private nature, with various persons who waited on him for that purpose; and in every instance displayed, not only that readiness and disposition of doing good, which was the distinguishing characteristic of his life, but the fullest and clearest possession of his uncommon mental abilities; and not unfrequently indulged himself in those _jeux d'esprit_ and entertaining anecdotes, which were the delight of all who heard him. "About sixteen days before his death, he was seized with a feverish indisposition, without any particular symptoms attending it, till the third or fourth day, when he complained of a pain in the left breast, which increased till it became extremely acute, attended with a cough and laborious breathing. During this state, when the severity of his pains sometimes drew forth a groan of complaint, he would observe--that he was afraid he did not hear it as he ought--acknowledged his grateful sense of the many blessings he had received from the Supreme Being, who had raised him from small and low beginnings to such high rank and consideration among men--and made no doubt but his present afflictions were kindly intended to wean him from a world, in which he was no longer fit to act the part assigned him. In this frame of body and mind he continued till five days before his death, when his pain and difficulty of breathing entirely left him, and his family were flattering themselves with the hopes of his recovery, when an imposthumation, which had formed itself in his lungs, suddenly burst and discharged a great quantity of matter, which he continued to throw up while he had sufficient strength to do it, but, as that failed, the organs of respiration became gradually oppressed--a calm lethargic state succeeded--and, on the 17th of April, 1790, about eleven o'clock at night, he quietly expired, closing a long and useful life of eighty-four years and three months." It may not be amiss to add to the above account, that Dr. Franklin, in the year 1735, had a severe pleurisy, which terminated in an abscess of the left lobe of his lungs, and he was then almost suffocated with the quantity and suddenness of the discharge. A second attack of a similar nature happened some years after this, from which he soon recovered, and did not appear to suffer any inconvenience in his respiration from these diseases. The following epitaph on himself, was written by him many years previous to his death:-- THE BODY OF _BENJAMIN FRANKLIN_, PRINTER. (LIKE THE COVER OF AN OLD BOOK, ITS CONTENTS TORN OUT, AND STRIPT OF ITS LETTERING AND GILDING) LIES HERE FOOD FOR WORMS; YET THE WORK ITSELF SHALL NOT BE LOST, FOR IT WILL (AS HE BELIEVED) APPEAR ONCE MORE IN A NEW AND MORE BEAUTIFUL EDITION CORRECTED AND AMENDED BY THE AUTHOR.[14] _EXTRACTS_ FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF DR. FRANKLIN. With regard to my books, those I had in France, and those I left in Philadelphia, being now assembled together here, and a catalogue made of them, it is my intention to dispose of the same as follows: My "History of the Academy of Sciences," in sixty or seventy volumes quarto, I give to the philosophical society of Philadelphia, of which I have the honour to be president. My collection in folio of "_Les Arts et les Metiers_," I give to the American philosophical society, established in New England, of which I am a member. My quarto edition of the same, "_Arts et Metiers_," I give to the library company of Philadelphia. Such and so many of my books as I shall mark, in the said catalogue, with the name of my grandson Benjamin Franklin Bache, I do hereby give to him: and such and so many of my books, as I shall mark in the said catalogue with the name of my grandson William Bache, I do hereby give to him: and such as shall be marked with the name of Jonathan Williams, I hereby give to my cousin of that name. The residue and remainder of all my books, manuscripts, and papers, I do give to my grandson William Temple Franklin. My share in the library company of Philadelphia I give to my grandson Benjamin Franklin Bache, confiding that he will permit his brothers and sisters to share in the use of it. I was born in Boston, New England, and owe my first instructions in literature to the free grammar-schools established there. I therefore give one hundred pounds sterling to my executors, to be by them, the survivors or survivor of them, paid over to the managers or directors of the free-schools in my native town of Boston, to be by them, or the person or persons who shall have the superintendance and management of the said schools, put out to interest, and so continued at interest for ever; which interest annually shall be laid out in silver medals, and given as honorary rewards annually by the directors of the said free-schools, for the encouragement of scholarship in the said schools, belonging to the said town, in such manner as to the discretion of the select men of the said town shall seem meet. Out of the salary that may remain due to me, as president of the state, I give the sum of two thousand pounds to my executors, to be by them, the survivors or survivor of them, paid over to such person or persons as the legislature of this state, by an act of assembly, shall appoint to receive the same, in trust, to be employed for making the Schuylkil navigable. During the number of years I was in business as a stationer, printer, and post-master, a great many small sums became due to me for books, advertisements, postage of letters, and other matters, which were not collected, when, in 1757, I was sent by the assembly to England as their agent--and, by subsequent appointments, continued there till 1775--when, on my return, I was immediately engaged in the affairs of congress, and sent to France in 1776, where I remained nine years, not returning till 1785; and the said debts not being demanded in such a length of time, are become in a manner obsolete, yet are nevertheless justly due.--These as they are stated in my great folio ledger, E, I bequeath to the contributors of the Pennsylvania hospital; hoping that those debtors, and the descendants of such as are deceased, who now, as I find, make some difficulty of satisfying such antiquated demands as just debts, may, however, be induced to pay or give them as charity to that excellent institution. I am sensible that much must inevitably be lost; but I hope something considerable may be recovered. It is possible too, that some of the parties charged may have existing old unsettled accounts against me: in which case the managers of the said hospital will allow and deduct the amount, or pay the balance, if they find it against me. I request my friends, Henry Hill, Esq. John Jay, Esq. Francis Hopkinson, Esq. and Mr. Edward Duffield, of Bonfield, in Philadelphia county, to be the executors of this my last will and testament, and I hereby nominate and appoint them for that purpose. I would have my body buried with as little expence or ceremony as may be. PHILADELPHIA, July 17, 1778. CODICIL. I BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, in the foregoing or annexed last will and testament, having further considered the same, do think proper to make and publish the following codicil, in addition thereto. It having long been a fixed and political opinion of mine, that in a democratical state, there ought to be no offices of profit, for the reasons I had given in an article of my drawing in our constitution, it was my intention, when I accepted the office of president, to devote the appointed salary to some public use; accordingly I had already, before I made my last will in July last, given large sums of it to colleges, schools, building of churches, &c.; and in that will I bequeathed two thousand pounds more to the state, for the purpose of making the Schuylkil navigable; but understanding since, that such a sum will do but little, towards accomplishing such a work, and that project is not likely to be undertaken for many years to come--and having entertained another idea, which I hope may be more extensively useful, I do hereby revoke and annul the bequest, and direct that the certificates I have of what remains due to me of that salary, be sold towards raising the sum of two thousand pounds sterling, to be disposed of as I am now about to order. It has been an opinion, that he who receives an estate from his ancestors, is under some obligation to transmit the same to posterity. This obligation lies not on me, who never inherited a shilling from any ancestor or relation. I shall, however, if it is not diminished by some accident before my death, leave a considerable estate among my descendants and relations. The above observation is made merely as some apology to my family, for my making bequests that do not appear to have any immediate relation to their advantage. I was born in Boston, New England, and owe my first instructions in literature to the free grammar schools established there. I have, therefore, considered those schools in my will. But I am also under obligations to the state of Massachussets, for having, unasked, appointed me formerly their agent, with a handsome salary, which continued some years; and although I accidentally lost in their service, by transmitting governor Hutchinson's letters, much more than the amount of what they gave me, I do not think that ought in the least to diminish my gratitude. I have considered that, among artisans, good apprentices are most likely to make good citizens, and having myself been bred to a manual art, printing, in my native town, and afterwards assisted to set up my business in Philadelphia by kind loans of money from two friends there, which was the foundation of my fortune, and of all the utility in life that may be ascribed to me--I wish to be useful even after my death, if possible, in forming and advancing other young men, that may be serviceable to their country in both these towns. To this end I devote two thousand pounds sterling, which I give, one thousand thereof to the inhabitants of the town of Boston, in Massachussets, and the other thousand to the inhabitants of the city of Philadelphia, in trust, to and for the uses, intents, and purposes, herein after mentioned and declared. The said sum of one thousand pounds sterling, if accepted by the inhabitants of the town of Boston, shall be managed under the direction of the select men, united with the ministers of the oldest episcopalian, congregational, and presbyterian churches in that town, who are to let out the same at five per cent. per annum, to such young married artificers, under the age of twenty-five years, as have served an apprenticeship in the said town, and faithfully fulfilled the duties required in their indentures, so as to obtain a good moral character from at least two respectable citizens, who are willing to become sureties in a bond, with the applicants, for the re-payment of the money so lent, with interest, according to the terms hereinafter prescribed; all which bonds are to be taken for Spanish milled dollars, or the value thereof in current gold coin: and the manager shall keep a bound book, or books, wherein shall be entered the names of those who shall apply for, and receive the benefit of this institution, and of their sureties, together with the sums lent, the dates, and other necessary and proper records, respecting the business and concerns of this institution: and as these loans are intended to assist young married artificers, in setting up their business, they are to be proportioned by the discretion of the managers, so as not to exceed sixty pounds sterling to one person, nor to be less than fifteen pounds. And if the number of appliers so entitled should be so large as that the sum will not suffice to afford to each as much as might otherwise not be improper, the proportion to each shall be diminished, so as to afford to every one some assistance. These aids may, therefore, be small at first, but as the capital increases by the accumulated interest, they will be more ample. And in order to serve as many as possible in their turn, as well as to make the re-payment of the principal borrowed more easy, each borrower shall be obliged to pay with the yearly interest, one tenth part of the principal; which sums of principal and interest so paid in, shall be again let out to fresh borrowers. And it is presumed, that there will be always found in Boston virtuous and benevolent citizens, willing to bestow a part of their time in doing good to the rising generation, by superintending and managing this institution gratis; it is hoped that no part of the money will at any time lie dead, or be diverted to other purposes, but be continually augmenting by the interest, in which case, there may in time be more than the occasion in Boston may require; and then some may be spared to the neighbouring or other towns, in the said state of Massachusetts, which may desire to have it, such towns engaging to pay punctually the interest, and the proportion of the principal annually to the inhabitants of the town of Boston. If this plan is executed, and succeeds, as projected, for one hundred years, the sum will then be one hundred and thirty thousand pounds, of which I would have the managers of the donation to the town of Boston then lay out, at their discretion, one hundred thousand pounds in public works, which may be judged of most general utility to the inhabitants; such as fortifications, bridges, aqueducts, public buildings, baths, pavements, or whatever may make living in the town more convenient to its people, and render it more agreeable to strangers resorting thither for health, or a temporary residence. The remaining thirty-one thousand pounds I would have continued to be let out to interest, in the manner above directed, for one hundred years; as I hope it will have been found that the institution has had a good effect on the conduct of youth, and been of service to many worthy characters and useful citizens. At the end of this second term, if no unfortunate accident has prevented the operation, the sum will be four millions and sixty-one thousand pounds sterling, of which I leave one million and sixty-one thousand pounds to the disposition and management of the inhabitants of the town of Boston, and the three millions to the disposition of the government of the state--not presuming to carry my views farther. All the directions herein given respecting the disposition and management of the donation to the inhabitants of Boston, I would have observed respecting that to the inhabitants of Philadelphia; only, as Philadelphia is incorporated, I request the corporation of that city to undertake the management, agreeable to the said directions: and I do hereby vest them with full and ample powers for that purpose. And having considered that the covering its ground-plat with buildings and pavements, which carry off most of the rain, and prevent its soaking into the earth, and renewing and purifying the springs, whence the water of the wells must gradually grow worse, and in time be unfit for use, as I find has happened in all old cities; I recommend, that, at the end of the first hundred years, if not done before, the corporation of the city employ a part of the hundred thousand pounds in bringing by pipes the water of Wissahickon-creek into the town, so as to supply the inhabitants, which I apprehend may be done without great difficulty, the level of that creek being much above that of the city, and may be made higher by a dam. I also recommend making the Schuylkil completely navigable. At the end of the second hundred years, I would have the disposition of the four millions and sixty-one thousand pounds divided between the inhabitants of the city of Philadelphia and the government of Pennsylvania, in the same manner as herein directed with respect to that of the inhabitants of Boston and the government of Massachusetts. It is my desire that this institution should take place, and begin to operate within one year after my decease, for which purpose due notice should be publicly given, previous to the expiration of that year, that those for whose benefit this establishment is intended may make their respective applications: and I hereby direct my executors, the survivor or survivors of them, within six months after my decease, to pay over the said sum of two thousand pounds sterling to such persons as shall be duly appointed by the select men of Boston, and the corporation of Philadelphia, to receive and take charge of their respective sums of one thousand pounds each, for the purposes aforesaid. Considering the accidents to which all human affairs and projects are subject in such a length of time, I have, perhaps, too much flattered myself with a vain fancy, that these dispositions, if carried into execution, will be continued without interruption, and have the effects proposed: I hope, however, that if the inhabitants of the two cities should not think fit to undertake the execution, they will at least accept the offer of these donations, as a mark of my good will, token of my gratitude, and testimony of my desire to be useful to them even after my departure. I wish, indeed, that they may both undertake to endeavour the execution of my project, because I think, that, though unforeseen difficulties may arise, expedients will be found to remove them, and the scheme be found practicable. If one of them accepts the money with the conditions, and the other refuses, my will then is, that both sums be given to the inhabitants of the city accepting; the whole to be applied to the same purposes, and under the same regulations directed for the separate parts; and, if both refuse, the money remains of course in the mass of my estate, and it is to be disposed of therewith, according to my will made the seventeenth day of July, 1788. My fine crab-tree walking-stick, with a gold head curiously wrought in the form of the cap of Liberty, I give to my friend, and the friend of mankind, General Washington. If it was a sceptre, he has merited it, and would become it. FOOTNOTE: [14] This epitaph first appeared in a Boston news-paper established and printed by Dr. Franklin. E. LETTERS AND PAPERS ON _ELECTRICITY_. _It may not be improper to present the reader with the following extract from the preface to the first edition of Dr. Franklin's papers on electricity, which, as we have stated in the advertisement, formed a pamphlet only._ _"The following observations and experiments were not drawn up with a view to their being made public, but were communicated at different times, and most of them in letters, written on various topics, as matters only of private amusement._ _"But some persons, to whom they were read, and who had themselves been conversant in electrical disquisitions, were of opinion, they contained so many curious and interesting particulars relative to this affair, that it would be doing a kind of injustice to the public, to confine them solely to the limits of a private acquaintance._ _"The editor was therefore prevailed upon to commit such extracts of letters and other detached pieces as were in his hands to the press, without waiting for the ingenious author's permission so to do; and this was done with the less hesitation, as it was apprehended the author's engagements in other affairs would scarce afford him leisure to give the public his reflections and experiments on the subject, finished with that care and precision, of which the treatise before us shows he is alike studious and capable."_ _With respect to the general merit and originality of the experiments and hypothesis of Dr. Franklin, as described and explained in these letters, the following is the testimony of one of the first natural philosophers of his age--the late Dr. Priestly, in his History of Electricity._ _"Nothing was ever written upon the subject of electricity which was more generally read and admired in all parts of Europe than these letters. There is hardly any European language into which they have not been translated; and, as if this were not sufficient to make them properly known, a translation of them has lately been made into Latin. It is not easy to say, whether we are most pleased with the simplicity and perspicuity with which these letters are written, the modesty with which the author proposes every hypothesis of his own, or the noble frankness with which he relates his mistakes, when they were corrected by subsequent experiments._ _"Though the English have not been backward in acknowledging the great merit of this philosopher, he has had the singular good fortune to be, perhaps, even more celebrated abroad than at home; so that, to form a just idea of the great and deserved reputation of Dr. Franklin, we must read the foreign publications on the subject of electricity; in many of which the terms_ Franklinism, Franklinist, _and the_ Franklinian system, _occur in almost every page. In consequence of this, Dr. Franklin's principles bid fair to be handed down to posterity as equally expressive of the true principles of electricity, as the Newtonian philosophy is of the true system of nature in general."_ _LETTERS AND PAPERS_ ON PHILOSOPHICAL SUBJECTS. _ELECTRICITY._ TO PETER COLLINSON, ESQ. F. R. S. LONDON. INTRODUCTORY LETTER. _Philadelphia, March 28, 1747._ SIR, Your kind present of an electric tube, with directions for using it, has put several of us[15] on making electrical experiments, in which we have observed some particular phenomena that we look upon to be new. I shall therefore communicate them to you in my next, though possibly they may not be new to you, as among the numbers daily employed in those experiments on your side the water, it is probable some one or other has hit on the same observations. For my own part, I never was before engaged in any study that so totally engrossed my attention and my time as this has lately done; for what with making experiments when I can be alone, and repeating them to my friends and acquaintance, who, from the novelty of the thing, come continually in crowds to see them, I have, during some months past, had little leisure for any thing else. I am, &c. B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTES: [15] i. e. of the _Library-Company_, an institution of the author's, founded 1730. To which company the present was made[16]. [16] Where notes occur without a signature, in the Philosophical, or other Papers, they are generally notes of the author.--EDITOR. TO PETER COLLINSON, ESQ. F. R. S. LONDON. _Wonderful Effect of Points.--Positive and negative Electricity.--Electrical Kiss.--Counterfeit Spider.--Simple and commodious electrical Machine._ _Philadelphia, July 11, 1747._ SIR, In my last I informed you that, in pursuing our electrical enquiries, we had observed some particular phenomena, which we looked upon to be new, and of which I promised to give you some account, though I apprehended they might not possibly be new to you, as so many hands are daily employed in electrical experiments on your side the water, some or other of which would probably hit on the same observations. The first is the wonderful effect of pointed bodies, both in _drawing off_ and _throwing off_ the electrical fire. For example, Place an iron shot of three or four inches diameter on the mouth of a clean dry glass bottle. By a fine silken thread from the cieling, right over the mouth of the bottle, suspend a small cork-ball, about the bigness of a marble; the thread of such a length, as that the cork-ball may rest against the side of the shot. Electrify the shot, and the ball will be repelled to the distance of four or five inches, more or less, according to the quantity of electricity.--When in this state, if you present to the shot the point of a long, slender, sharp bodkin, at six or eight inches distance, the repellency is instantly destroyed, and the cork flies to the shot. A blunt body must be brought within an inch, and draw a spark to produce the same effect. To prove that the electrical fire is _drawn off_ by the point, if you take the blade of the bodkin out of the wooden handle, and fix it in a stick of sealing-wax, and then present it at the distance aforesaid, or if you bring it very near, no such effect follows; but sliding one finger along the wax till you touch the blade, and the ball flies to the shot immediately.--If you present the point in the dark, you will see, sometimes at a foot distance and more, a light gather upon it, like that of a fire-fly, or glow-worm; the less sharp the point, the nearer you must bring it to observe the light; and at whatever distance you see the light, you may draw off the electrical fire, and destroy the repellency.--If a cork-ball so suspended be repelled by the tube, and a point be presented quick to it, though at a considerable distance, it is surprising to see how suddenly it flies back to the tube. Points of wood will do near as well as those of iron, provided the wood is not dry; for perfectly dry wood will no more conduct electricity than sealing-wax. To shew that points will _throw off_[17] as well as _draw off_ the electrical fire; lay a long sharp needle upon the shot, and you cannot electrise the shot so as to make it repel the cork-ball.--Or fix a needle to the end of a suspended gun-barrel, or iron-rod, so as to point beyond it like a little bayonet[18]; and while it remains there, the gun-barrel, or rod, cannot by applying the tube to the other end be electrised so as to give a spark, the fire continually running out silently at the point. In the dark you may see it make the same appearance as it does in the case before-mentioned. The repellency between the cork-ball and the shot is likewise destroyed. 1. By sifting fine sand on it; this does it gradually. 2. By breathing on it. 3. By making a smoke about it from burning wood[19]. 4. By candle-light, even though the candle is at a foot distance: these do it suddenly.--The light of a bright coal from a wood fire; and the light of a red-hot iron do it likewise; but not at so great a distance. Smoke from dry rosin dropt on hot iron, does not destroy the repellency; but is attracted by both shot and cork-ball, forming proportionable atmospheres round them, making them look beautifully, somewhat like some of the figures in Burnet's or Whiston's Theory of the Earth. _N.B._ This experiment should be made in a closet, where the air is very still, or it will be apt to fail. The light of the sun thrown strongly on both cork and shot by a looking-glass for a long time together, does not impair the repellency in the least. This difference between fire-light and sun-light is another thing that seems new and extraordinary to us[20]. We had for some time been of opinion, that the electrical fire was not created by friction, but collected, being really an element diffused among, and attracted by other matter, particularly by water and metals. We had even discovered and demonstrated its afflux to the electrical sphere, as well as its efflux, by means of little light windmill-wheels made of stiff paper vanes, fixed obliquely, and turning freely on fine wire axes. Also by little wheels of the same matter, but formed like water-wheels. Of the disposition and application of which wheels, and the various phenomena resulting, I could, if I had time, fill you a sheet[21]. The impossibility of electrising one's self (though standing on wax) by rubbing the tube, and drawing the fire from it; and the manner of doing it, by passing the tube near a person or thing standing on the floor, &c. had also occurred to us some months before Mr. Watson's ingenious _Sequel_ came to hand, and these were some of the new things I intended to have communicated to you.--But now I need only mention some particulars not hinted in that piece, with our reasonings thereupon: though perhaps the latter might well enough be spared. 1. A person standing on wax, and rubbing the tube, and another person on wax drawing the fire, they will both of them (provided they do not stand so as to touch one another) appear to be electrised, to a person standing on the floor; that is, he will perceive a spark on approaching each of them with his knuckle. 2. But if the persons on wax touch one another during the exciting of the tube, neither of them will appear to be electrised. 3. If they touch one another after exciting the tube, and drawing the fire as aforesaid, there will be a stronger spark between them than was between either of them and the person on the floor. 4. After such strong spark, neither of them discover any electricity. These appearances we attempt to account for thus: We suppose, as aforesaid, that electrical fire is a common element, of which every one of the three persons abovementioned has his equal share, before any operation is begun with the tube. _A_, who stands on wax and rubs the tube, collects the electrical fire from himself into the glass; and his communication with the common stock being cut off by the wax, his body is not again immediately supplied. _B_,(who stands on wax likewise) passing his knuckle along near the tube, receives the fire which was collected by the glass from _A_; and his communication with the common stock being likewise cut off, he retains the additional quantity received.--To _C_, standing on the floor, both appear to be electrised: for he having only the middle quantity of electrical fire, receives a spark upon approaching _B_, who has an over quantity; but gives one to _A_, who has an under quantity. If _A_ and _B_ approach to touch each other, the spark is stronger, because the difference between them is greater: After such touch there is no spark between either of them and _C_, because the electrical fire in all is reduced to the original equality. If they touch while electrising, the equality is never destroyed, the fire only circulating. Hence have arisen some new terms among us; we say _B_, (and bodies like circumstanced) is electrised _positively_; _A_, _negatively_. Or rather, _B_ is electrised _plus_; _A_, _minus_. And we daily in our experiments electrise bodies _plus_ or _minus_, as we think proper.--To electrise _plus_ or _minus_, no more needs to be known than this, that the parts of the tube or sphere that are rubbed, do, in the instant of the friction, attract the electrical fire, and therefore take it from the thing rubbing: the same parts immediately, as the friction upon them ceases, are disposed to give the fire they have received, to any body that has less. Thus you may circulate it, as Mr. Watson has shewn; you may also accumulate or subtract it, upon, or from any body, as you connect that body with the rubber or with the receiver, the communication with the common stock being cut off. We think that ingenious gentleman was deceived when he imagined (in his _Sequel_) that the electrical fire came down the wire from the cieling to the gun-barrel, thence to the sphere, and so electrised the machine and the man turning the wheel, &c. We suppose it was _driven off_, and not brought on through that wire; and that the machine and man, &c. were electrised _minus_; _i. e._ had less electrical fire in them than things in common. As the vessel is just upon sailing, I cannot give you so large an account of American electricity as I intended: I shall only mention a few particulars more.--We find granulated lead better to fill the phial with, than water, being easily warmed, and keeping warm and dry in damp air.--We fire spirits with the wire of the phial.--We light candles, just blown out, by drawing a spark among the smoke between the wire and snuffers.--We represent lightning, by passing the wire in the dark, over a china plate that has gilt flowers, or applying it to gilt frames of looking-glasses, &c.--We electrise a person twenty or more times running, with a touch of the finger on the wire, thus: He stands on wax. Give him the electrised bottle in his hand. Touch the wire with your finger, and then touch his hand or face; there are sparks every time[22].--We encrease the force of the electrical kiss vastly, thus: Let _A_ and _B_ stand on wax; or _A_ on wax, and _B_ on the floor; give one of them the electrised phial in hand; let the other take hold of the wire; there will be a small spark; but when their lips approach, they will be struck and shock'd. The same if another gentleman and lady, _C_ and _D_, standing also on wax, and joining hands with _A_ and _B_, salute or shake hands. We suspend by fine silk thread a counterfeit spider, made of a small piece of burnt cork, with legs of linnen thread, and a grain or two of lead stuck in him, to give him more weight. Upon the table, over which he hangs, we stick a wire upright, as high as the phial and wire, four or five inches from the spider: then we animate him, by setting the electrified phial at the same distance on the other side of him; he will immediately fly to the wire of the phial, bend his legs in touching it, then spring off, and fly to the wire in the table, thence again to the wire of the phial, playing with his legs against both, in a very entertaining manner, appearing perfectly alive to persons unacquainted. He will continue this motion an hour or more in dry weather.--We electrify, upon wax in the dark, a book that has a double line of gold round upon the covers, and then apply a knuckle to the gilding; the fire appears every where upon the gold like a flash of lightning: not upon the leather, nor, if you touch the leather instead of the gold. We rub our tubes with buckskin, and observe always to keep the same side to the tube, and never to sully the tube by handling; thus they work readily and easily, without the least fatigue, especially if kept in tight pasteboard cases, lined with flannel, and sitting close to the tube[23]. This I mention, because the European papers on electricity frequently speak of rubbing the tube as a fatiguing exercise. Our spheres are fixed on iron axes, which pass through them. At one end of the axis there is a small handle, with which you turn the sphere like a common grind-stone. This we find very commodious, as the machine takes up but little room, is portable, and may be enclosed in a tight box, when not in use. It is true, the sphere does not turn so swift as when the great wheel is used: but swiftness we think of little importance, since a few turns will charge the phial, &c. sufficiently[24]. I am, &c. B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTES: [17] This power of points to _throw off_ the electrical fire, was first communicated to me by my ingenious friend Mr. Thomas Hopkinson, since deceased, whose virtue and integrity, in every station of life, public and private, will ever make his memory dear to those who knew him, and knew how to value him. [18] This was Mr. Hopkinson's experiment, made with an expectation of drawing a more sharp and powerful spark from the point, as from a kind of focus, and he was surprised to find little or none. [19] We suppose every particle of sand, moisture, or smoke, being first attracted and then repelled, carries off with it a portion of the electrical fire; but that the same still subsists in those particles, till they communicate it to something else, and that it is never really destroyed. So when water is thrown on common fire, we do not imagine the element is thereby destroyed or annihilated, but only dispersed, each particle of water carrying off in vapour its portion of the fire, which it had attracted and attached to itself. [20] This different effect probably did not arise from any difference in the light, but rather from the particles separated from the candle, being first attracted and then repelled, carrying off the electric matter with them; and from the rarefying the air, between the glowing coal or red-hot iron, and the electrised shot, through which rarefied air the electric fluid could more readily pass. [21] These experiments with the wheels, were made and communicated to me by my worthy and ingenious friend Mr. Philip Syng; but we afterwards discovered that the motion of those wheels was not owing to any afflux or efflux of the electric fluid, but to various circumstances of attraction and repulsion. 1750. [22] By taking a spark from the wire, the electricity within the bottle is diminished; the outside of the bottle then draws some from the person holding it, and leaves him in the negative state. Then when his hand or face is touched, an equal quantity is restored to him from the person touching. [23] Our tubes are made here of green glass, 27 or 30 inches long, as big as can be grasped. [24] This simple easily-made machine was a contrivance of Mr. Syng's. TO PETER COLLINSON, ESQ. F. R. S. LONDON. _Observations on the Leyden Bottle, with Experiments proving the different electrical State of its different Surfaces._ _Philadelphia, Sept. 1, 1747._ SIR, The necessary trouble of copying long letters, which, perhaps, when they come to your hands, may contain nothing new, or worth your reading, (so quick is the progress made with you in electricity) half discourages me from writing any more on that subject. Yet I cannot forbear adding a few observations on M. Muschenbroek's wonderful bottle. 1. The non-electric contained in the bottle differs, when electrised, from a non-electric electrised out of the bottle, in this: that the electrical fire of the latter is accumulated _on its surface_, and forms an electrical atmosphere round it of considerable extent; but the electrical fire is crowded _into the substance_ of the former, the glass confining it[25]. 2. At the same time that the wire and the top of the bottle, &c. is electrised _positively_ or _plus_, the bottom of the bottle is electrised _negatively_ or _minus_, in exact proportion: _i. e._ whatever quantity of electrical fire is thrown in at the top, an equal quantity goes out of the bottom[26]. To understand this, suppose the common quantity of electricity in each part of the bottle, before the operation begins, is equal to 20; and at every stroke of the tube, suppose a quantity equal to 1 is thrown in; then, after the first stroke, the quantity contained in the wire and upper part of the bottle will be 21, in the bottom 19. After the second, the upper part will have 22, the lower 18, and so on, till, after 20 strokes, the upper part will have a quantity of electrical fire equal to 40, the lower part none: and then the operation ends: for no more can be thrown into the upper part, when no more can be driven out of the lower part. If you attempt to throw more in, it is spewed back through the wire, or flies out in loud cracks through the sides of the bottle. 3. The equilibrium cannot be restored in the bottle by _inward_ communication or contact of the parts; but it must be done by a communication formed _without_ the bottle, between the top and bottom, by some non-electric, touching or approaching both at the same time; in which case it is restored with a violence and quickness inexpressible; or, touching each alternately, in which case the equilibrium is restored by degrees. 4. As no more electrical fire can be thrown into the top of the bottle, when all is driven out of the bottom, so in a bottle not yet electrised, none can be thrown into the top, when none _can_ get out at the bottom; which happens either when the bottom is too thick, or when the bottle is placed on an electric _per se_. Again, when the bottle is electrised, but little of the electrical fire can be _drawn out_ from the top, by touching the wire, unless an equal quantity can at the same time _get in_ at the bottom[27]. Thus, place an electrised bottle on clean glass or dry wax, and you will not, by touching the wire, get out the fire from the top. Place it on a non-electric, and touch the wire, you will get it out in a short time; but soonest when you form a direct communication as above. So wonderfully are these two states of electricity, the _plus_ and _minus_, combined and balanced in this miraculous bottle! situated and related to each other in a manner that I can by no means comprehend! If it were possible that a bottle should in one part contain a quantity of air strongly comprest, and in another part a perfect vacuum, we know the equilibrium would be instantly restored _within_. But here we have a bottle containing at the same time a _plenum_ of electrical fire, and a _vacuum_ of the same fire; and yet the equilibrium cannot be restored between them but by a communication _without!_ though the _plenum_ presses violently to expand, and the hungry vacuum seems to attract as violently in order to be filled. 5. The shock to the nerves (or convulsion rather) is occasioned by the sudden passing of the fire through the body in its way from the top to the bottom of the bottle. The fire takes the shortest[28] course, as Mr. Watson justly observes: But it does not appear from experiment that in order for a person to be shocked, a communication with the floor is necessary: for he that holds the bottle with one hand, and touches the wire with the other, will be shocked as much, though his shoes be dry, or even standing on wax, as otherwise. And on the touch of the wire, (or of the gun-barrel, which is the same thing) the fire does not proceed from the touching finger to the wire, as is supposed, but from the wire to the finger, and passes through the body to the other hand, and so into the bottom of the bottle. _Experiments confirming the above._ EXPERIMENT I. Place an electrised phial on wax; a small cork-ball suspended by a dry silk thread held in your hand, and brought near to the wire, will first be attracted, and then repelled: when in this state of repellency, sink your hand, that the ball may be brought towards the bottom of the bottle; it will be there instantly and strongly attracted, till it has parted with its fire. If the bottle had a _positive_ electrical atmosphere, as well as the wire, an electrified cork would be repelled from one as well as from the other. [Illustration: (of the experiments below) _Plate I._ _Vol. I. page 182._ _Published as the Act directs, April 1, 1806, by Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme, Paternoster Row._] EXPERIMENT II. FIG. 1. From a bent wire (_a_) sticking in the table, let a small linen thread (_b_) hang down within half an inch of the electrised phial (_c_). Touch the wire or the phial repeatedly with your finger, and at every touch you will see the thread instantly attracted by the bottle. (This is best done by a vinegar cruet, or some such bellied-bottle). As soon as you draw any fire out from the upper part, by touching the wire, the lower part of the bottle draws an equal quantity in by the thread. EXPERIMENT III. FIG. 2. Fix a wire in the lead, with which the bottom of the bottle is armed (_d_) so as that bending upwards, its ring-end may be level with the top or ring-end of the wire in the cork (_e_) and at three or four inches distance. Then electrise the bottle, and place it on wax. If a cork suspended by a silk thread (_f_) hang between these two wires, it will play incessantly from one to the other, till the bottle is no longer electrised; that is, it fetches and carries fire from the top to the bottom[29] of the bottle, till the equilibrium is restored. EXPERIMENT IV. FIG. 3. Place an electrised phial on wax; take a wire (_g_) in form of a _C_, the ends at such a distance when bent, as that the upper may touch the wire of the bottle, when the lower touches the bottom: stick the outer part on a stick of sealing-wax (_h_), which will serve as a handle; then apply the lower end to the bottom of the bottle, and gradually bring the upper end near the wire in the cork. The consequence is, spark follows spark till the equilibrium is restored. Touch the top first, and on approaching the bottom, with the other end, you have a constant stream of fire from the wire entering the bottle. Touch the top and bottom together, and the equilibrium will instantly be restored, the crooked wire forming the communication. EXPERIMENT V. FIG. 4. Let a ring of thin lead, or paper, surround a bottle (_i_) even at some distance from or above the bottom. From that ring let a wire proceed up, till it touch the wire of the cork (_k_). A bottle so fixt cannot by any means be electrised: the equilibrium is never destroyed: for while the communication between the upper and lower parts of the bottle is continued by the outside wire, the fire only circulates: what is driven out at bottom, is constantly supplied from the top[30]. Hence a bottle cannot be electrised that is foul or moist on the outside, if such moisture continue up to the cork or wire. EXPERIMENT VI. Place a man on a cake of wax, and present him the wire of the electrified phial to touch, you standing on the floor, and holding it in your hand. As often as he touches it, he will be electrified _plus_; and any one standing on the floor may draw a spark from him. The fire in this experiment passes out of the wire into him; and at the same time out of your hand into the bottom of the bottle. EXPERIMENT VII. Give him the electrical phial to hold; and do you touch the wire; as often as you touch it he will be electrified _minus_, and may draw a spark from any one standing on the floor. The fire now passes from the wire to you, and from him into the bottom of the bottle. EXPERIMENT VIII. Lay two books on two glasses, back towards back, two or three inches distant. Set the electrified phial on one, and then touch the wire; that book will be electrified _minus_; the electrical fire being drawn out of it by the bottom of the bottle. Take off the bottle, and holding it in your hand, touch the other with the wire; that book will be electrified _plus_; the fire passing into it from the wire, and the bottle at the same time supplied from your hand. A suspended small cork-ball will play between these books till the equilibrium is restored. EXPERIMENT IX. When a body is electrised _plus_, it will repel a positively electrified feather or small cork-ball. When _minus_ (or when in the common state) it will attract them, but stronger when _minus_ than when in the common state, the difference being greater. EXPERIMENT X. Though, as in _Experiment_ VI, a man standing on wax may be electrised a number of times by repeatedly touching the wire of an electrised bottle (held in the hand of one standing on the floor) he receiving the fire from the wire each time: yet holding it in his own hand, and touching the wire, though he draws a strong spark, and is violently shocked, no electricity remains in him; the fire only passing through him, from the upper to the lower part of the bottle. Observe, before the shock, to let some one on the floor touch him to restore the equilibrium in his body; for in taking hold of the bottom of the bottle, he sometimes becomes a little electrised _minus_, which will continue after the shock, as would also any _plus_ electricity, which he might have given him before the shock. For restoring the equilibrium in the bottle, does not at all affect the electricity in the man through whom the fire passes; that electricity is neither increased nor diminished. EXPERIMENT XI. The passing of the electrical fire from the upper to the lower part[31] of the bottle, to restore the equilibrium, is rendered strongly visible by the following pretty experiment. Take a book whose covering is filletted with gold; bend a wire of eight or ten inches long, in the form of (_m_) Fig. 5; slip it on the end of the cover of the book, over the gold line, so as that the shoulder of it may press upon one end of the gold line, the ring up, but leaning towards the other end of the book. Lay the book on a glass or wax[32], and on the other end of the gold lines set the bottle electrised; then bend the springing wire, by pressing it with a stick of wax till its ring approaches the ring of the bottle wire, instantly there is a strong spark and stroke, and the whole line of gold, which completes the communication, between the top and bottom of the bottle, will appear a vivid flame, like the sharpest lightning. The closer the contact between the shoulder of the wire, and the gold at one end of the line, and between the bottom of the bottle and the gold at the other end, the better the experiment succeeds. The room should be darkened. If you would have the whole filletting round the cover appear in fire at once, let the bottle and wire touch the gold in the diagonally opposite corners. I am, &c. B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTES: [25] See this opinion rectified in § 16 and 17 of the next letter. The fire in the bottle was found by subsequent experiments not to be contained in the non-electric, but _in the glass_. 1748. [26] What is said here, and after, of the _top_ and _bottom_ of the bottle, is true of the _inside_ and _outside_ surfaces, and should have been so expressed. [27] See the preceding note, relating to _top_ and _bottom_. [28] Other circumstances being equal. [29] _i. e._ from the inside to the outside. [30] See the preceding note, relating to _top_ and _bottom_. [31] _i. e._ From the _inside_ to the _outside_. [32] Placing the book on glass or wax is not necessary to produce the appearance; it is only to show that the visible electricity is not brought up from the common stock in the earth. TO PETER COLLINSON, ESQ. F. R. S. LONDON. _Farther Experiments confirming the preceding Observations.--Leyden Bottle analysed.--Electrical Battery.--Magical Picture.--Electrical Wheel or Jack.--Electrical Feast._ _Philadelphia, 1748._ SIR, § 1. There will be the same explosion and shock if the electrified phial is held in one hand by the hook, and the coating touched with the other, as when held by the coating, and touched at the hook. 2. To take the charged phial safely by the hook, and not at the same time diminish its force, it must first be set down on an electric _per se_. 3. The phial will be electrified as strongly, if held by the hook, and the coating applied to the globe or tube; as when held by the coating, and the hook applied[33]. 4. But the _direction_ of the electrical fire being different in the charging, will also be different in the explosion. The bottle charged through the hook, will be discharged through the hook; the bottle charged through the coating, will be discharged through the coating, and not otherways; for the fire must come out the same way it went in. 5. To prove this, take two bottles that were equally charged through the hooks, one in each hand: bring their hooks near each other, and no spark or shock will follow; because each hook is disposed to give fire, and neither to receive it. Set one of the bottles down on glass, take it up by the hook, and apply its coating to the hook of the other; then there will be an explosion and shock, and both bottles will be discharged. 6. Vary the experiment, by charging two phials equally, one through the hook, the other through the coating: hold that by the coating which was charged through the hook; and that by the hook which was charged through the coating: apply the hook of the first to the coating of the other, and there will be no shock or spark. Set that down on glass which you held by the hook, take it up by the coating, and bring the two hooks together: a spark and shock will follow, and both phials be discharged. In this experiment the bottles are totally discharged, or the equilibrium within them restored. The _abounding_ of fire in one of the hooks (or rather in the internal surface of one bottle) being exactly equal to the _wanting_ of the other: and therefore, as each bottle has in itself the _abounding_ as well as the _wanting_, the wanting and abounding must be equal in each bottle. See § 8, 9, 10, 11. But if a man holds in his hands two bottles, one fully electrified, the other not at all, and brings their hooks together, he has but half a shock, and the bottles will both remain half electrified, the one being half discharged, and the other half charged. 7. Place two phials equally charged on a table at five or six inches distance. Let a cork-ball, suspended by a silk thread, hang between them. If the phials were both charged through their hooks, the cork, when it has been attracted and repelled by the one, will not be attracted, but equally repelled by the other. But if the phials were charged, the one through the hook, and the other[34] through the coating, the ball, when it is repelled from one hook, will be as strongly attracted by the other, and play vigorously between them, fetching the electric fluid from the one, and delivering it to the other, till both phials are nearly discharged. 8. When we use the terms of _charging_ and _discharging_ the phial, it is in compliance with custom, and for want of others more suitable. Since we are of opinion that there is really no more electrical fire in the phial after what is called its _charging_, than before, nor less after its _discharging_; excepting only the small spark that might be given to, and taken from the non-electric matter, if separated from the bottle, which spark may not be equal to a five hundredth part of what is called the explosion. For if, on the explosion, the electrical fire came out of the bottle by one part, and did not enter in again by another, then, if a man, standing on wax, and holding the bottle in one hand, takes the spark by touching the wire hook with the other, the bottle being thereby _discharged_, the man would be _charged_; or whatever fire was lost by one, would be found in the other, since there was no way for its escape: but the contrary is true. 9. Besides, the phial will not suffer what is called a _charging_, unless as much fire can go out of it one way, as is thrown in by another. A phial cannot be charged standing on wax or glass, or hanging on the prime conductor, unless a communication be formed between its coating and the floor. 10. But suspend two or more phials on the prime conductor, one hanging on the tail of the other; and a wire from the last to the floor, an equal number of turns of the wheel shall charge them all equally, and every one as much as one alone would have been. What is driven out at the tail of the first, serving to charge the second; what is driven out of the second charging the third; and so on. By this means a great number of bottles might be charged with the same labour, and equally high, with one alone; were it not that every bottle receives new fire, and loses its old with some reluctance, or rather gives some small resistance to the charging, which in a number of bottles becomes more equal to the charging power, and so repels the fire back again on the globe, sooner in proportion than a single bottle would do. 11. When a bottle is charged in the common way, its _inside_ and _outside_ surfaces stand ready, the one to give fire by the hook, the other to receive it by the coating; the one is full, and ready to throw out, the other empty and extremely hungry; yet as the first will not _give out_, unless the other can at the same instant _receive in_; so neither will the latter receive in, unless the first can at the same instant give out. When both can be done at once, it is done with inconceivable quickness and violence. 12. So a straight spring (though the comparison does not agree in every particular) when forcibly bent, must, to restore itself, contract that side which in the bending was extended, and extend that which was contracted; if either of these two operations be hindered, the other cannot be done. But the spring is not said to be _charged_ with elasticity when bent, and discharged when unbent; its quantity of elasticity is always the same. 13. Glass, in like manner, has, within its substance, always the same quantity of electrical fire, and that a very great quantity in proportion to the mass of glass, as shall be shewn hereafter. 14. This quantity, proportioned to the glass, it strongly and obstinately retains, and will have neither more nor less, though it will suffer a change to be made in its parts and situation; _i. e._ we may take away part of it from one of the sides, provided we throw an equal quantity into the other. 15. Yet when the situation of the electrical fire is thus altered in the glass; when some has been taken from one side, and some added to the other, it will not be at rest or in its natural state, till it is restored to its original equality. And this restitution cannot be made through the substance of the glass, but must be done by a non-electric communication formed without, from surface to surface. 16. Thus, the whole force of the bottle, and power of giving a shock, is in the GLASS ITSELF; the non-electrics in contact with the two surfaces, serving only to _give_ and _receive_ to and from the several parts of the glass; that is, to give on one side, and take away from the other. 17. This was discovered here in the following manner: Purposing to analyse the electrified bottle, in order to find wherein its strength lay, we placed it on glass, and drew out the cork and wire which for that purpose had been loosely put in. Then taking the bottle in one hand, and bringing a finger of the other near its mouth, a strong spark came from the water, and the shock was as violent as if the wire had remained in it, which shewed that the force did not lie in the wire. Then to find if it resided in the water, being crowded into and condensed in it, as confined by the glass, which had been our former opinion, we electrified the bottle again, and placing it on glass, drew out the wire and cork as before; then taking up the bottle, we decanted all its water into an empty bottle, which likewise stood on glass; and taking up that other bottle, we expected, if the force resided in the water, to find a shock from it; but there was none. We judged then that it must either be lost in decanting, or remain in the first bottle. The latter we found to be true; for that bottle on trial gave the shock, though filled up as it stood with fresh unelectrified water from a tea-pot.--To find, then, whether glass had this property merely as glass, or whether the form contributed any thing to it; we took a pane of sash-glass, and laying it on the hand, placed a plate of lead on its upper surface; then electrified that plate, and bringing a finger to it, there was a spark and shock. We then took two plates of lead of equal dimensions, but less than the glass by two inches every way, and electrified the glass between them, by electrifying the uppermost lead; then separated the glass from the lead, in doing which, what little fire might be in the lead was taken out, and the glass being touched in the electrified parts with a finger, afforded only very small pricking sparks, but a great number of them might be taken from different places. Then dextrously placing it again between the leaden plates, and compleating a circle between the two surfaces, a violent shock ensued.--Which demonstrated the power to reside in glass as glass, and that the non-electrics in contact served only, like the armature of a loadstone, to unite the force of the several parts, and bring them at once to any point desired: it being the property of a non-electric, that the whole body instantly receives or gives what electrical fire is given to or taken from any one of its parts. 18. Upon this we made what we called an _electrical-battery_, consisting of eleven panes of large sash-glass, armed with thin leaden plates, pasted on each side, placed vertically, and supported at two inches distance on silk cords, with thick hooks of leaden wire, one from each side, standing upright, distant from each other, and convenient communications of wire and chain, from the giving side of one pane, to the receiving side of the other; that so the whole might be charged together, and with the same labour as one single pane; and another contrivance to bring the giving sides, after charging, in contact with one long wire, and the receivers with another, which two long wires would give the force of all the plates of glass at once through the body of any animal forming the circle with them. The plates may also be discharged separately, or any number together that is required. But this machine is not much used, as not perfectly answering our intention with regard to the ease of charging, for the reason given, _Sec. 10._ We made also of large glass panes, magical pictures, and self-moving animated wheels, presently to be described. 19. I perceive by the ingenious Mr. Watson's last book, lately received, that Dr. Bevis had used, before we had, panes of glass to give a shock[35]; though, till that book came to hand, I thought to have communicated it to you as a novelty. The excuse for mentioning it here is, that we tried the experiment differently, drew different consequences from it (for Mr. Watson still seems to think the fire _accumulated on the non-electric_ that is in contact with the glass, p. 72) and, as far as we hitherto know, have carried it farther. 20. The magical picture[36] is made thus. Having a large metzotinto with a frame and glass, suppose of the KING (God preserve him) take out the print, and cut a pannel out of it near two inches distant from the frame all round. If the cut is through the picture it is not the worse. With thin paste, or gum-water, fix the border that is cut off on the inside the glass, pressing it smooth and close; then fill up the vacancy by gilding the glass well with leaf-gold, or brass. Gild likewise the inner edge of the back of the frame all round, except the top part, and form a communication between that gilding and the gilding behind the glass: then put in the board, and that side is finished. Turn up the glass, and gild the fore side exactly over the back gilding, and when it is dry, cover it, by pasting on the pannel of the picture that hath been cut out, observing to bring the correspondent parts of the border and picture together, by which the picture will appear of a piece, as at first, only part is behind the glass, and part before. Hold the picture horizontally by the top, and place a little moveable gilt crown on the king's head. If now the picture be moderately electrified, and another person take hold of the frame with one hand, so that his fingers touch its inside gilding, and with the other hand endeavour to take off the crown, he will receive a terrible blow, and fail in the attempt. If the picture were highly charged, the consequence might perhaps be as fatal[37] as that of high treason, for when the spark is taken through a quire of paper laid on the picture by means of a wire communication, it makes a fair hole through every sheet, that is, through forty-eight leaves, though a quire of paper is thought good armour against the push of a sword, or even against a pistol bullet, and the crack is exceeding loud. The operator, who holds the picture by the upper end, where the inside of the frame is not gilt, to prevent its falling, feels nothing of the shock, and may touch the face of the picture without danger, which he pretends is a test of his loyalty.--If a ring of persons take the shock among them, the experiment is called, _The Conspirators_. 21. On the principle, in _Sec. 7_, that hooks of bottles, differently charged, will attract and repel differently, is made an electrical wheel, that turns with considerable strength. A small upright shaft of wood passes at right angles through a thin round board, of about twelve inches diameter, and turns on a sharp point of iron, fixed in the lower end, while a strong wire in the upper end, passing through a small hole in a thin brass plate, keeps the shaft truly vertical. About thirty _radii_ of equal length, made of sash-glass, cut in narrow strips, issue horizontally from the circumference of the board, the ends most distant from the centre, being about four inches apart. On the end of every one, a brass thimble is fixed. If now the wire of a bottle electrified in the common way, be brought near the circumference of this wheel, it will attract the nearest thimble, and so put the wheel in motion; that thimble, in passing by, receives a spark and thereby being electrified is repelled, and so driven forwards; while a second being attracted, approaches the wire, receives a spark, and is driven after the first, and so on till the wheel has gone once round, when the thimbles before electrified approaching the wire, instead of being attracted as they were at first, are repelled, and the motion presently ceases.--But if another bottle, which had been charged through the coating, be placed near the same wheel, its wire will attract the thimble repelled by the first, and thereby double the force that carries the wheel round; and not only taking out the fire that had been communicated to the thimbles by the first bottle, but even robbing them of their natural quantity, instead of being repelled when they come again towards the first bottle, they are more strongly attracted, so that the wheel mends its pace, till it goes with great rapidity twelve or fifteen rounds in a minute, and with such strength, as that the weight of one hundred Spanish dollars with which we once loaded it, did not seem in the least to retard its motion.--This is called an electrical jack; and if a large fowl were spitted on the upright shaft, it would be carried round before a fire with a motion fit for roasting. 22. But this wheel, like those driven by wind, water, or weights, moves by a foreign force, to wit, that of the bottles. The self-moving wheel, though constructed on the same principles, appears more surprising. It is made of a thin round plate of window-glass, seventeen inches diameter, well gilt on both sides, all but two inches next the edge. Two small hemispheres of wood are then fixed with cement to the middle of the upper and under sides, centrally opposite, and in each of them a thick strong wire eight or ten inches long, which together make the axis of the wheel. It turns horizontally on a point at the lower end of its axis, which rests on a bit of brass cemented within a glass salt-cellar. The upper end of its axis passes through a hole in a thin brass plate cemented to a long strong piece of glass, which keeps it six or eight inches distant from any non-electric, and has a small ball of wax or metal on its top, to keep in the fire. In a circle on the table which supports the wheel, are fixed twelve small pillars of glass, at about four inches distance, with a thimble on the top of each. On the edge of the wheel is a small leaden bullet, communicating by a wire with the gilding of the _upper_ surface of the wheel; and about six inches from it is another bullet, communicating in like manner with the _under_ surface. When the wheel is to be charged by the upper surface, a communication must be made from the under surface to the table. When it is well charged it begins to move; the bullet nearest to a pillar moves towards the thimble on that pillar, and passing by electrifies it, and then pushes itself from it; the succeeding bullet, which communicates with the other surface of the glass, more strongly attracts that thimble, on account of its being before electrified by the other bullet; and thus the wheel encreases its motion till it comes to such a height as that the resistance of the air regulates it. It will go half an hour, and make one minute with another twenty turns in a minute, which is six hundred turns in the whole; the bullet of the upper surface giving in each turn twelve sparks to the thimbles, which makes seven thousand two hundred sparks: and the bullet of the under surface receiving as many from the thimbles; those bullets moving in the time near two thousand five hundred feet.--The thimbles are well fixed, and in so exact a circle, that the bullets may pass within a very small distance of each of them.--If instead of two bullets you put eight, four communicating with the upper surface, and four with the under surface, placed alternately, which eight, at about six inches distance, completes the circumference, the force and swiftness will be greatly increased, the wheel making fifty turns in a minute; but then it will not continue moving so long.--These wheels may be applied, perhaps, to the ringing of chimes,[38] and moving of light-made orreries. 23. A small wire bent circularly, with a loop at each end; let one end rest against the under surface of the wheel, and bring the other end near the upper surface, it will give a terrible crack, and the force will be discharged. 24. Every spark in that manner drawn from the surface of the wheel, makes a round hole in the gilding, tearing off a part of it in coming out; which shews that the fire is not accumulated on the gilding, but is in the glass itself. 25. The gilding being varnished over with turpentine varnish, the varnish, though dry and hard, is burnt by the spark drawn through it, and gives a strong smell and visible smoke. And when the spark is drawn thro' paper, all round the hole made by it, the paper will be blacked by the smoke, which sometimes penetrates several of the leaves. Part of the gilding torn off is also found forcibly driven into the hole made in the paper by the stroke. 26. It is amazing to observe in how small a portion of glass a great electrical force may lie. A thin glass bubble, about an inch diameter, weighing only six grains, being half filled with water, partly gilt on the outside, and furnished with a wire hook, gives, when electrified, as great a shock as a man can well bear. As the glass is thickest near the orifice, I suppose the lower half, which being gilt was electrified and gave the shock, did not exceed two grains; for it appeared, when broken, much thinner than the upper half.--If one of these thin bottles be electrified by the coating, and the spark taken out through the gilding, it will break the glass inwards, at the same time that it breaks the gilding outwards. 27. And allowing (for the reasons before given, § 8, 9, 10,) that there is no more electrical fire in a bottle after charging, than before, how great must be the quantity in this small portion of glass! It seems as if it were of its very substance and essence. Perhaps if that due quantity of electrical fire so obstinately retained by glass, could be separated from it, it would no longer be glass; it might lose its transparency, or its brittleness, or its elasticity.--Experiments may possibly be invented hereafter, to discover this. 27. We were surprised at the account given in Mr. Watson's book, of a shock communicated through a great space of dry ground, and suspect there must be some metalline quality in the gravel of that ground; having found that simple dry earth, rammed in a glass tube, open at both ends, and a wire hook inserted in the earth at each end, the earth and wires making part of a circuit, would not conduct the least perceptible shock, and indeed when one wire was electrified the other hardly shewed any signs of its being in connection with it[39]. Even a thoroughly wet packthread sometimes fails of conducting a shock, though it otherwise conducts electricity very well. A dry cake of ice, or an icicle held between two in a circle, likewise prevents the shock, which one would not expect, as water conducts it so perfectly well.--Gilding on a new book, though at first it conducts the shock extremely well, yet fails after ten or a dozen experiments, though it appears otherwise in all respects the same, which we cannot account for[40]. 28. There is one experiment more which surprises us, and is not hitherto satisfactorily accounted for; it is this: Place an iron shot on a glass stand, and let a ball of damp cork, suspended by a silk thread, hang in contact with the shot. Take a bottle in each hand, one that is electrified through the hook, the other through the coating: Apply the giving wire to the shot, which will electrify it _positively_, and the cork shall be repelled: then apply the requiring wire, which will take out the spark given by the other; when the cork will return to the shot: Apply the same again, and take out another spark, so will the shot be electrified _negatively_, and the cork in that case shall be repelled equally as before. Then apply the giving wire to the shot, and give the spark it wanted, so will the cork return: Give it another, which will be an addition to its natural quantity, so will the cork be repelled again: And so may the experiment be repeated as long as there is any charge in the bottles. Which shews that bodies, having less than the common quantity of electricity, repel each other, as well as those that have more. Chagrined a little that we have been hitherto able to produce nothing in this way of use to mankind; and the hot weather coming on, when electrical experiments are not so agreeable, it is proposed to put an end to them for this season, somewhat humorously, in a party of pleasure, on the banks of _Skuylkil_[41]. Spirits, at the same time, are to be fired by a spark sent from side to side through the river, without any other conductor than the water; an experiment which we some time since performed, to the amazement of many[42]. A turkey is to be killed for our dinner by the _electrical shock_, and roasted by the _electrical jack_, before a fire kindled by the _electrified bottle_: when the healths of all the famous electricians in England, Holland, France, and Germany are to be drank in _electrified bumpers_[43], under the discharge of guns from the _electrical battery_. FOOTNOTES: [33] This was a discovery of the very ingenious Mr. Kinnersley, and by him communicated to me. [34] To charge a bottle commodiously through the coating, place it on a glass stand; form a communication from the prime conductor to the coating, and another from the hook to the wall or floor. When it is charged, remove the latter communication before you take hold of the bottle, otherwise great part of the fire will escape by it. [35] I have since heard that Mr. Smeaton was the first who made use of panes of glass for that purpose. [36] Contrived by Mr. Kinnersley. [37] We have since found it fatal to small animals, though not to large ones. The biggest we have yet killed is a hen. 1750. [38] This was afterwards done with success by Mr. Kinnersley. [39] Probably the ground is never so dry. [40] We afterwards found that it failed after one stroke with a large bottle; and the continuity of the gold appearing broken, and many of its parts dissipated, the electricity could not pass the remaining parts without leaping from part to part through the air, which always resists the motion of this fluid, and was probably the cause of the gold's not conducting so well as before; the number of interruptions in the line of gold, making, when added together, a space larger, perhaps, than the striking distance. [41] The river that washes one side of Philadelphia, as the Delaware does the other; both are ornamented with the summer habitations of the citizens, and the agreeable mansions of the principal people of this colony. [42] As the possibility of this experiment has not been easily conceived, I shall here describe it.--Two iron rods, about three feet long, were planted just within the margin of the river, on the opposite sides. A thick piece of wire, with a small round knob at its end, was fixed on the top of one of the rods, bending downwards, so as to deliver commodiously the spark upon the surface of the spirit. A small wire fastened by one end to the handle of the spoon, containing the spirit, was carried a-cross the river, and supported in the air by the rope commonly used to hold by, in drawing the ferry-boats over. The other end of this wire was tied round the coating of the bottle; which being charged, the spark was delivered from the hook to the top of the rod standing in the water on that side. At the same instant the rod on the other side delivered a spark into the spoon, and fired the spirit; the electric fire returning to the coating of the bottle, through the handle of the spoon and the supported wire connected with them. That the electric fire thus actually passes through the water, has since been satisfactorily demonstrated to many by an experiment of Mr. Kinnersley's, performed in a trough of water about ten feet long. The hand being placed under water in the direction of the spark (which always takes the strait or shortest course, if sufficient, and other circumstances are equal) is struck and penetrated by it as it passes. TO PETER COLLINSON, ESQ. F. R. S. LONDON. _Observations and Suppositions, towards forming a new Hypothesis, for explaining the several Phenomena of Thunder-Gusts._[44] SIR, Non-electric bodies, that have electric fire thrown into them, will retain it till other electrics, that have less, approach; and then it is communicated by a snap, and becomes equally divided. 2. Electrical fire loves water, is strongly attracted by it, and they can subsist together. 3. Air is an electric _per se_, and when dry will not conduct the electrical fire; it will neither receive it, nor give it to other bodies: otherwise no body surrounded by air, could be electrified positively and negatively: for should it be attempted positively, the air would immediately take away the overplus; or negatively, the air would supply what was wanting. 4. Water being electrified, the vapours arising from it will be equally electrified; and floating in the air, in the form of clouds, or otherwise, will retain that quantity of electrical fire, till they meet with other clouds or bodies not so much electrified, and then will communicate as before-mentioned. 5. Every particle of matter electrified is repelled by every other particle equally electrified. Thus the stream of a fountain, naturally dense and continual, when electrified, will separate and spread in the form of a brush, every drop endeavouring to recede from every other drop. But on taking out the electrical fire they close again. 6. Water being strongly electrified (as well as when heated by common fire) rises in vapours more copiously; the attraction of cohesion among its particles being greatly weakened, by the opposite power of repulsion introduced with the electrical fire; and when any particle is by any means disengaged, it is immediately repelled, and so flies into the air. 7. Particles happening to be situated as _A_ and _B_, (FIG. VI. _representing the profile of a vessel of water_) are more easily disengaged than _C_ and _D_, as each is held by contact with three only, whereas _C_ and _D_ are each in contact with nine. When the surface of the water has the least motion, particles are continually pushed into the situation represented by _A_ and _B_. 8. Friction between a non-electric and an electric _per se_ will produce electrical fire; not by _creating_, but _collecting_ it: for it is equally diffused in our walls, floors, earth, and the whole mass of common matter. Thus the whirling glass globe, during its friction against the cushion, draws fire from the cushion, the cushion is supplied from the frame of the machine, that from the floor on which it stands. Cut off the communication by thick glass or wax, placed under the cushion, and no fire can be _produced_, because it cannot be _collected_. 9. The ocean is a compound of water, a non-electric, and salt an electric _per se_. 10. When there is a friction among the parts near its surface, the electrical fire is collected from the parts below. It is then plainly visible in the night; it appears in the stern and in the wake of every sailing vessel; every dash of an oar shews it, and every surf and spray: in storms the whole sea seems on fire.--The detached particles of water then repelled from the electrified surface, continually carry off the fire as it is collected; they rise and form clouds, and those clouds are highly electrified, and retain the fire till they have an opportunity of communicating it. 11. The particles of water, rising in vapours, attach themselves to particles of air. 12. The particles of air are said to be hard, round, separate and distant from each other; every particle strongly repelling every other particle, whereby they recede from each other, as far as common gravity will permit. 13. The space between any three particles, equally repelling each other, will be an equilateral triangle. 14. In air compressed, these triangles are smaller; in rarified air they are larger. 15. Common fire, joined with air, increases the repulsion, enlarges the triangles, and thereby makes the air specifically lighter. Such air, among denser air, will rise. 16. Common fire, as well as electrical fire, gives repulsion to the particles of water, and destroys their attraction of cohesion; hence common fire, as well as electrical fire, assists in raising vapours. 17. Particles of water, having no fire in them, mutually attract each other. Three particles of water then, being attached to the three particles of a triangle of air, would, by their mutual attraction operating against the air's repulsion, shorten the sides and lessen the triangle, whereby that portion of air made denser, would sink to the earth with its water, and not rise to the formation of a cloud. 18. But if every particle of water attaching itself to air brings with it a particle of common fire, the repulsion of the air being assisted and strengthened by the fire, more than obstructed by the mutual attraction of the particles of water, the triangle dilates, and that portion of air, becoming rarer and specifically lighter, rises. 19. If the particles of water bring electrical fire when they attach themselves to air, the repulsion between the particles of water electrified, joins with the natural repulsion of the air, to force its particles to a greater distance, whereby the triangles are dilated, and the air rises, carrying up with it the water. 20. If the particles of water bring with them portions of _both sorts_ of fire, the repulsion of the particles of air is still more strengthened and increased, and the triangles farther enlarged. 21. One particle of air may be surrounded by twelve particles of water of equal size with itself, all in contact with it; and by more added to those. 22. Particles of air, thus loaded, would be drawn nearer together by the mutual attraction of the particles of water, did not the fire, common or electrical, assist their repulsion. 23. If air, thus loaded, be compressed by adverse winds, or by being driven against mountains, &c. or condensed by taking away the fire that assisted it in expanding; the triangles contract, the air with its water will descend as a dew; or, if the water surrounding one particle of air comes in contact with the water surrounding another, they coalesce and form a drop, and we have rain. 24. The sun supplies (or seems to supply) common fire to vapours, whether raised from earth or sea. 25. Those vapours, which have both common and electrical fire in them, are better supported than those which have only common fire in them; for when vapours rise into the coldest region above the earth, the cold will not diminish the electrical fire, if it doth the common. 26. Hence clouds, formed by vapours, raised from fresh waters within land, from growing vegetables, moist earth, &c. more speedily and easily deposite their water, having but little electrical fire to repel and keep the particles separate. So that the greatest part of the water raised from the land, is let fall on the land again; and winds blowing from the land to the sea are dry; there being little use for rain on the sea, and to rob the land of its moisture, in order to rain on the sea, would not appear reasonable. 27. But clouds, formed by vapours raised from the sea, having both fires, and particularly a great quantity of the electrical, support their water strongly, raise it high, and being moved by winds, may bring it over the middle of the broadest continent from the middle of the widest ocean. 28. How these ocean clouds, so strongly supporting their water, are made to deposite it on the land where it is wanted, is next to be considered. 29. If they are driven by winds against mountains, those mountains being less electrified attract them, and on contact take away their electrical fire (and being cold, the common fire also;) hence the particles close towards the mountains and towards each other. If the air was not much loaded, it only falls in dews on the mountain tops and sides, forms springs, and descends to the vales in rivulets, which, united, make larger streams and rivers. If much loaded, the electrical fire is at once taken from the whole cloud; and, in leaving it, flashes brightly and cracks loudly; the particles instantly coalescing for want of that fire, and falling in a heavy shower. 30. When a ridge of mountains thus dams the clouds, and draws the electrical fire from the cloud first approaching it; that which next follows, when it comes near the first cloud, now deprived of its fire, flashes into it, and begins to deposite its own water; the first cloud again flashing into the mountains; the third approaching cloud, and all succeeding ones, acting in the same manner as far back as they extend, which may be over many hundred miles of country. 31. Hence the continual storms of rain, thunder, and lightning on the east side of the Andes, which running north and south, and being vastly high, intercept all the clouds brought against them from the Atlantic ocean by the trade winds, and oblige them to deposite their waters, by which the vast rivers Amazons, La Plata, and Oroonoko are formed, which return the water into the same sea, after having fertilized a country of very great extent. 32. If a country be plain, having no mountains to intercept the electrified clouds, yet it is not without means to make them deposite their water. For if an electrified cloud, coming from the sea, meets in the air a cloud raised from the land, and therefore not electrified; the first will flash its fire into the latter, and thereby both clouds shall be made suddenly to deposite water. 33. The electrified particles of the first cloud close when they lose their fire; the particles of the other clouds close in receiving it: in both, they have thereby an opportunity of coalescing into drops.--The concussion, or jerk given to the air, contributes also to shake down the water, not only from those two clouds, but from others near them. Hence the sudden fall of rain immediately after flashes of lightning. 34. To shew this by an easy experiment: Take two round pieces of pasteboard two inches diameter; from the centre and circumference of each of them suspend by fine silk threads eighteen inches long, seven small balls of wood, or seven peas equal in goodness: so will the balls appending to each pasteboard, form equal equilateral triangles, one ball being in the centre, and six at equal distances from that, and from each other; and thus they represent particles of air. Dip both sets in water, and some adhering to each ball, they will represent air loaded. Dexterously electrify one set, and its ball will repel each other to a greater distance, enlarging the triangles. Could the water supported by seven balls come into contact, it would form a drop or drops so heavy as to break the cohesion it had with the balls, and so fall. Let the two sets then represent two clouds, the one a sea cloud electrified, the other a land cloud. Bring them within the sphere of attraction, and they will draw towards each other, and you will see the separated balls close thus; the first electrified ball that comes near an unelectrified ball by attraction joins it, and gives it fire; instantly they separate, and each flies to another ball of its own party, one to give, the other to receive fire; and so it proceeds through both sets, but so quick as to be in a manner instantaneous. In the cohesion they shake off and drop their water, which represents rain. 35. Thus when sea and land clouds would pass at too great a distance for the flash, they are attracted towards each other till within that distance; for the sphere of electrical attraction is far beyond the distance of flashing. 36. When a great number of clouds from the sea meet a number of clouds raised from the land, the electrical flashes appear to strike in different parts; and as the clouds are jostled and mixed by the winds, or brought near by the electrical attraction, they continue to give and receive flash after flash, till the electrical fire is equally diffused. 37. When the gun-barrel, (in electrical experiments) has but little electrical fire in it, you must approach it very near with your knuckle before you can draw a spark. Give it more fire, and it will give a spark at a greater distance. Two gun-barrels united, and as highly electrified, will give a spark at a still greater distance. But if two gun-barrels electrified will strike at two inches distance, and make a loud snap, to what a great distance may 10,000 acres of electrified cloud strike and give its fire, and how loud must be that crack? 38. It is a common thing to see clouds at different heights passing different ways, which shews different currents of air one under the other. As the air between the tropics is rarefied by the sun, it rises, the denser northern and southern air pressing into its place. The air so rarefied and forced up, passes northward and southward, and must descend in the polar regions, if it has no opportunity before, that the circulation may be carried on. 39. As currents of air, with the clouds therein, pass different ways, it is easy to conceive how the clouds, passing over each other, may attract each other, and so come near enough for the electrical stroke. And also how electrical clouds may be carried within land very far from the sea, before they have an opportunity to strike. 40. When the air, with its vapours raised from the ocean between the tropics, comes to descend in the polar regions, and to be in contact with the vapours arising there, the electrical fire they brought begins to be communicated, and is seen in clear nights, being first visible where it is first in motion, that is, where the contact begins, or in the most northern part; from thence the streams of light seem to shoot southerly, even up to the zenith of northern countries. But though the light seems to shoot from the north southerly, the progress of the fire is really from the south northerly, its motion beginning in the north, being the reason that it is there seen first. For the electrical fire is never visible but when in motion, and leaping from body to body, or from particle to particle through the air. When it passes through dense bodies it is unseen. When a wire makes part of the circle, in the explosion of the electrical phial, the fire, though in great quantity, passes in the wire invisibly; but in passing along a chain, it becomes visible as it leaps from link to link. In passing along leaf gilding it is visible: for the leaf-gold is full of pores; hold a leaf to the light and it appears like a net, and the fire is seen in its leaping over the vacancies.--And as when a long canal filled with still water is opened at one end, in order to be discharged, the motion of the water begins first near the opened end, and proceeds towards the close end, though the water itself moves from the close towards the opened end: so the electrical fire discharged into the polar regions, perhaps from a thousand leagues length of vaporised air, appears first where it is first in motion, _i. e._ in the most northern part, and the appearance proceeds southward, though the fire really moves northward. This is supposed to account for the _aurora borealis_. 41. When there is great heat on the land, in a particular region (the sun having shone on it perhaps several days, while the surrounding countries have been screened by clouds) the lower air is rarefied and rises, the cooler denser air above descends; the clouds in that air meet from all sides, and join over the heated place; and if some are electrified, others not, lightning and thunder succeed, and showers fall. Hence thunder-gusts after heats, and cool air after gusts; the water and the clouds that bring it, coming from a higher and therefore a cooler region. 42. An electrical spark, drawn from an irregular body at some distance is scarcely ever strait, but shows crooked and waving in the air. So do the flashes of lightning; the clouds being very irregular bodies. 43. As electrified clouds pass over a country, high hills and high trees, lofty towers, spires, masts of ships, chimneys, &c. as so many prominencies and points, draw the electrical fire, and the whole cloud discharges there. 44. Dangerous, therefore, is it to take shelter under a tree, during a thunder-gust. It has been fatal to many, both men and beasts. 45. It is safer to be in the open field for another reason. When the cloaths are wet, if a flash in its way to the ground should strike your head, it may run in the water over the surface of your body; whereas, if your cloaths were dry, it would go through the body, because the blood and other humours, containing so much water, are more ready conductors. Hence a wet rat cannot be killed by the exploding electrical bottle, when a dry rat may[45]. 46. Common fire is in all bodies, more or less, as well as electrical fire. Perhaps they may be different modifications of the same element; or they may be different elements. The latter is by some suspected. 47. If they are different things, yet they may and do subsist together in the same body. 48. When electrical fire strikes through a body, it acts upon the common fire contained in it, and puts that fire in motion; and if there be a sufficient quantity of each kind of fire, the body will be inflamed. 49. When the quantity of common fire in the body is small, the quantity of the electrical fire (or the electrical stroke) should be greater: if the quantity of common fire be great, less electrical fire suffices to produce the effect. 50. Thus spirits must be heated before we can fire them by the electrical spark.[46] If they are much heated, a small spark will do; if not, the spark must be greater. 51. Till lately we could only fire warm vapours; but now we can burn hard dry rosin. And when we can procure greater electrical sparks, we may be able to fire not only unwarmed spirits, as lightning does, but even wood, by giving sufficient agitation to the common fire contained in it, as friction we know will do. 52. Sulphureous and inflammable vapours, arising from the earth, are easily kindled by lightning. Besides what arise from the earth, such vapours are sent out by stacks of moist hay, corn, or other vegetables, which heat and reek. Wood, rotting in old trees or buildings, does the same. Such are therefore easily and often fired. 53. Metals are often melted by lightning, though perhaps not from heat in the lightning, nor altogether from agitated fire in the metals.--For as whatever body can insinuate itself between the particles of metal, and overcome the attraction by which they cohere (as sundry menstrua can) will make the solid become a fluid, as well as fire, yet without heating it: so the electrical fire, or lightning, creating a violent repulsion between the particles of the metal it passes through, the metal is fused. 54. If you would, by a violent fire, melt off the end of a nail, which is half driven into a door, the heat given the whole nail, before a part would melt, must burn the board it sticks in; and the melted part would burn the floor it dropped on. But if a sword can be melted in the scabbard, and money in a man's pocket by lightning, without burning either, it must be a cold fusion[47]. 55. Lightning rends some bodies. The electrical spark will strike a hole through a quire of strong paper. 56. If the source of lightning, assigned in this paper, be the true one, there should be little thunder heard at sea far from land. And accordingly some old sea-captains, of whom enquiry has been made, do affirm, that the fact agrees perfectly with the hypothesis; for that in crossing the great ocean, they seldom meet with thunder till they come into soundings; and that the islands far from the continent have very little of it. And a curious observer, who lived thirteen years at Bermudas, says, there was less thunder there in that whole time than he has sometimes heard in a month at Carolina. FOOTNOTES: [43] An _electrified bumper_ is a small thin glass tumbler, nearly filled with wine, and electrified as the bottle. This when brought to the lips gives a shock, if the party be close shaved, and does not breath on the liquor.--April 29, 1749. [44] Thunder-gusts are sudden storms of thunder and lightning, which are frequently of short duration, but sometimes produce mischievous effects. [45] This was tried with a bottle, containing about a quart. It is since thought that one of the large glass jars, mentioned in these papers, might have killed him, though wet. [46] We have since fired spirits without heating them, when the weather is warm. A little, poured into the palm of the hand, will be warmed sufficiently by the hand, if the spirit be well rectified. Ether takes fire most readily. [47] These facts, though related in several accounts, are now doubted; since it has been observed that the parts of a bell-wire which fell on the floor, being broken and partly melted by lightning, did actually burn into the boards. (See Philosophical Transactions, Vol. LI. part I.) And Mr. Kinnersley has found that a fine iron wire, melted by Electricity, has had the same effect. TO PETER COLLINSON, ESQ. F. R. S. LONDON. _Introductory Letter to some additional Papers._ _Philadelphia, July 29, 1750._ SIR, As you first put us on electrical experiments, by sending to our Library Company a tube, with directions how to use it; and as our honorable Proprietary enabled us to carry those experiments to a greater height, by his generous present of a complete electrical apparatus; it is fit that both should know, from time to time, what progress we make. It was in this view I wrote and sent you my former papers on this subject, desiring, that as I had not the honour of a direct correspondence with that bountiful benefactor to our library, they might be communicated to him through your hands. In the same view I write and send you this additional paper. If it happens to bring you nothing new, (which may well be, considering the number of ingenious men in Europe, continually engaged in the same researches) at least it will shew, that the instruments put into our hands are not neglected; and that if no valuable discoveries are made by us, whatever the cause may be, it is not want of industry and application. I am, Sir, Your much obliged humble Servant, B. FRANKLIN. _Opinions and Conjectures, concerning the Properties and Effects of the electrical Matter, and the Means of preserving Buildings, Ships, &c. from Lightning, arising from Experiments and Observations made at Philadelphia, 1749.--Golden Fish.--Extraction of effluvial Virtues by Electricity impracticable._ § 1. The electrical matter consists of particles extremely subtile since it can permeate common matter, even the densest metals, with such ease and freedom as not to receive any perceptible resistance. 2. If any one should doubt whether the electrical matter passes through the substance of bodies, or only over and along their surfaces, a shock from an electrified large glass jar, taken through his own body, will probably convince him. 3. Electrical matter differs from common matter in this, that the parts of the latter mutually attract, those of the former mutually repel each other. Hence the appearing divergency in a stream of electrified effluvia. 4. But though the particles of electrical matter do repel each other, they are strongly attracted by all other matter[48]. 5. From these three things, the extreme subtilty of the electrical matter, the mutual repulsion of its parts, and the strong attraction between them and other matter, arise this effect, that, when a quantity of electrical matter is applied to a mass of common matter, of any bigness or length, within our observation (which hath not already got its quantity) it is immediately and equally diffused through the whole. 6. Thus, common matter is a kind of spunge to the electrical fluid. And as a spunge would receive no water, if the parts of water were not smaller than the pores of the spunge; and even then but slowly, if there were not a mutual attraction between those parts and the parts of the spunge; and would still imbibe it faster, if the mutual attraction among the parts of the water did not impede, some force being required to separate them; and fastest, if, instead of attraction, there were a mutual repulsion among those parts, which would act in conjunction with the attraction of the spunge: so is the case between the electrical and common matter. 7. But in common matter there is (generally) as much of the electrical as it will contain within its substance. If more is added, it lies without upon the surface, and forms what we call an electrical atmosphere; and then the body is said to be electrified. 8. It is supposed, that all kinds of common matter do not attract and retain the electrical, with equal strength and force, for reasons to be given hereafter. And that those called electrics _per se_, as glass, &c. attract and retain it strongest, and contain the greatest quantity. 9. We know that the electrical fluid is _in_ common matter, because we can pump it _out_ by the globe or tube. We know that common matter has near as much as it can contain, because, when we add a little more to any portion of it, the additional quantity does not enter, but forms an electrical atmosphere. And we know that common matter has not (generally) more than it can contain, otherwise all loose portions of it would repel each other, as they constantly do when they have electric atmospheres. 10. The beneficial uses of this electric fluid in the creation we are not yet well acquainted with, though doubtless such there are, and those very considerable; but we may see some pernicious consequences that would attend a much greater proportion of it. For, had this globe we live on, as much of it in proportion as we can give to a globe of iron, wood, or the like, the particles of dust and other light matters that get loose from it, would, by virtue of their separate electrical atmospheres, not only repel each other, but be repelled from the earth, and not easily be brought to unite with it again; whence our air would continually be more and more clogged with foreign matter, and grow unfit for respiration. This affords another occasion of adoring that wisdom which has made all things by weight and measure! 11. If a piece of common matter be supposed entirely free from electrical matter, and a single particle of the latter be brought nigh, it will be attracted, and enter the body, and take place in the centre, or where the attraction is every way equal. If more particles enter, they take their places where the balance is equal between the attraction of the common matter, and their own mutual repulsion. It is supposed they form triangles, whose sides shorten as their number encreases; till the common matter has drawn in so many, that its whole power of compressing those triangles by attraction, is equal to their whole power of expanding themselves by repulsion; and then will such piece of matter receive no more. 12. When part of this natural proportion of electrical fluid is taken out of a piece of common matter, the triangles formed by the remainder, are supposed to widen by the mutual repulsion of the parts, until they occupy the whole piece. 13. When the quantity of electrical fluid, taken from a piece of common matter, is restored again, it enters, the expanded triangles, being again compressed till there is room for the whole. 14. To explain this: take two apples, or two balls of wood or other matter, each having its own natural quantity of the electrical fluid. Suspend them by silk lines from the cieling. Apply the wire of a well-charged vial, held in your hand, to one of them (A) _Fig. 7_, and it will receive from the wire a quantity of the electrical fluid; but will not imbibe it, being already full. The fluid therefore will flow round its surface, and form an electrical atmosphere. Bring A into contact with B, and half the electrical fluid is communicated, so that each has now an electrical atmosphere, and therefore they repel each other. Take away these atmospheres, by touching the balls, and leave them in their natural state: then, having fixed a stick of sealing-wax to the middle of the vial to hold it by, apply the wire to A, at the same time the coating touches B. Thus will a quantity of the electrical fluid be drawn out of B, and thrown on A. So that A will have a redundance of this fluid, which forms an atmosphere round, and B an exactly equal deficiency. Now, bring these balls again into contact, and the electrical atmosphere will not be divided between A and B, into two smaller atmospheres as before; for B will drink up the whole atmosphere of A, and both will be found again in their natural state. 15. The form of the electrical atmosphere is that of the body it surrounds. This shape may be rendered visible in a still air, by raising a smoke from dry rosin dropt into a hot tea-spoon under the electrified body, which will be attracted, and spread itself equally on all sides, covering and concealing the body[49]. And this form it takes, because it is attracted by all parts of the surface of the body, though it cannot enter the substance already replete. Without this attraction, it would not remain round the body, but dissipate in the air. 16. The atmosphere of electrical particles surrounding an electrified sphere, is not more disposed to leave it, or more easily drawn off from any one part of the sphere than another, because it is equally attracted by every part. But that is not the case with bodies of any other figure. From a cube it is more easily drawn at the corners than at the plane sides, and so from the angles of a body of any other form, and still most easily from the angle that is most acute. Thus, if a body shaped as A, B, C, D, E, in Fig. 8. be electrified, or have an electrical atmosphere communicated to it, and we consider every side as a base on which the particles rest, and by which they are attracted, one may see, by imagining a line from A to F, and another from E to G, that the portion of the atmosphere included in F, A, E, G, has the line A, E, for its basis. So the portion of atmosphere included in H, A, B, I, has the line A B for its basis. And likewise the portion included in K, B, C, L, has B, C, to rest on; and so on the other side of the figure. Now if you would draw off this atmosphere with any blunt smooth body, and approach the middle of the side A, B, you must come very near, before the force of your attracter exceeds the force or power with which that side holds its atmosphere. But there is a small portion between I, B, K, that has less of the surface to rest on, and to be attracted by, than the neighbouring portions, while at the same time there is a mutual repulsion between its particles, and the particles of those portions, therefore here you can get it with more ease, or at a greater distance. Between F, A, H, there is a larger portion that has yet a less surface to rest on, and to attract it; here, therefore, you can get it away still more easily. But easiest of all between L, C, M, where the quantity is largest, and the surface to attract and keep it back the least. When you have drawn away one of these angular portions of the fluid, another succeeds in its place, from the nature of fluidity, and the mutual repulsion before-mentioned; and so the atmosphere continues flowing off at such angle, like a stream, till no more is remaining. The extremities of the portions of atmosphere over these angular parts, are likewise at a greater distance from the electrified body, as may be seen by the inspection of the above figure; the point of the atmosphere of the angle C, being much farther from C, than any other part of the atmosphere over the lines C, B, or B, A: and, besides the distance arising from the nature of the figure, where the attraction is less, the particles will naturally expand to a greater distance by their mutual repulsion. On these accounts we suppose electrified bodies discharge their atmospheres upon unelectrified bodies more easily, and at a greater distance from their angles and points than from their smooth sides.--Those points will also discharge into the air, when the body has too great an electrical atmosphere, without bringing any non-electric near, to receive what is thrown off: For the air, though an electric _per se_, yet has always more or less water and other non-electric matters mixed with it: and these attract and receive what is so discharged. 17. But points have a property, by which they _draw on_ as well as _throw off_ the electrical fluid, at greater distances than blunt bodies can. That is, as the pointed part of an electrified body will discharge the atmosphere of that body, or communicate it farthest to another body, so the point of an unelectrified body will draw off the electrical atmosphere from an electrified body, farther than a blunter part of the same unelectrified body will do. Thus, a pin held by the head, and the point presented to an electrified body, will draw off its atmosphere at a foot distance; where, if the head were presented instead of the point, no such effect would follow. To understand this, we may consider, that if a person standing on the floor would draw off the electrical atmosphere from an electrified body, an iron crow and a blunt knitting-needle held alternately in his hand, and presented for that purpose, do not draw with different forces in proportion to their different masses. For the man, and what he holds in his hand, be it large or small, are connected with the common mass of unelectrified matter; and the force with which he draws is the same in both cases, it consisting in the different proportion of electricity in the electrified body, and that common mass. But the force with which the electrified body retains its atmosphere by attracting it, is proportioned to the surface over which the particles are placed; _i. e._ four square inches of that surface retain their atmosphere with four times the force that one square inch retains its atmosphere. And as in plucking the hairs from the horse's tail, a degree of strength not sufficient to pull away a handful at once, could yet easily strip it hair by hair; so a blunt body presented cannot draw off a number of particles at once, but a pointed one, with no greater force, takes them away easily, particle by particle. 18. These explanations of the power and operation of points, when they first occurred to me, and while they first floated in my mind, appeared perfectly satisfactory; but now I have written them, and considered them more closely, I must own I have some doubts about them; yet, as I have at present nothing better to offer in their stead, I do not cross them out: for, even a bad solution read, and its faults discovered, has often given rise to a good one, in the mind of an ingenious reader. 19. Nor is it of much importance to us to know the manner in which nature executes her laws; it is enough if we know the laws themselves. It is of real use to know that china left in the air unsupported will fall and break; but _how_ it comes to fall and _why_ it breaks are matters of speculation. It is a pleasure indeed to know them, but we can preserve our china without it. 20. Thus in the present case, to know this power of points may possibly be of some use to mankind, though we should never be able to explain it. The following experiments, as well as those in my first paper, show this power. I have a large prime conductor, made of several thin sheets of clothier's pasteboard, formed into a tube, near ten feet long and a foot diameter. It is covered with Dutch embossed-paper, almost totally gilt. This large metallic surface supports a much greater electrical atmosphere than a rod of iron of 50 times the weight would do. It is suspended by silk lines, and when charged will strike, at near two inches distance, a pretty hard stroke, so as to make ones knuckle ach. Let a person standing on the floor present the point of a needle at 12 or more inches distance from it, and while the needle is so presented, the conductor cannot be charged, the point drawing off the fire as fast as it is thrown on by the electrical globe. Let it be charged, and then present the point at the same distance, and it will suddenly be discharged. In the dark you may see the light on the point, when the experiment is made. And if the person holding the point stands upon wax, he will be electrified by receiving the fire at that distance. Attempt to draw off the electricity with a blunt body, as a bolt of iron round at the end, and smooth (a silversmith's iron punch, inch thick, is what I use) and you must bring it within the distance of three inches before you can do it, and then it is done with a stroke and crack. As the pasteboard tube hangs loose on silk lines, when you approach it with the punch-iron, it likewise will move towards the punch, being attracted while it is charged; but if, at the same instant, a point be presented as before, it retires again, for the point discharges it. Take a pair of large brass scales, of two or more feet beam, the cords of the scales being silk. Suspend the beam by a pack-thread from the cieling, so that the bottom of the scales may be about a foot from the floor: the scales will move round in a circle by the untwisting of the pack-thread. Set the iron punch on the end upon the floor, in such a place as that the scales may pass over it in making their circle: then electrify one scale, by applying the wire of a charged phial to it. As they move round, you see that scale draw nigher to the floor, and dip more when it comes over the punch; and if that be placed at a proper distance, the scale will snap and discharge its fire into it. But if a needle be stuck on the end of the punch, its point upwards, the scale, instead of drawing nigh to the punch, and snapping, discharges its fire silently through the point, and rises higher from the punch. Nay, even if the needle be placed upon the floor near the punch, its point upwards, the end of the punch, though so much higher than the needle, will not attract the scale and receive its fire, for the needle will get it and convey it away, before it comes nigh enough for the punch to act. And this is constantly observable in these experiments, that the greater quantity of electricity on the pasteboard-tube, the farther it strikes or discharges its fire, and the point likewise will draw it off at a still greater distance. Now if the fire of electricity and that of lightning be the same, as I have endeavoured to shew at large, in a former paper, this pasteboard tube and these scales may represent electrified clouds. If a tube of only ten feet long will strike and discharge its fire on the punch at two or three inches distance, an electrified cloud of perhaps 10,000 acres may strike and discharge on the earth at a proportionably greater distance. The horizontal motion of the scales over the floor, may represent the motion of the clouds over the earth; and the erect iron punch, a hill or high building; and then we see how electrified clouds passing over hills or high buildings at too great a height to strike, may be attracted lower till within their striking distance. And lastly, if a needle fixed on the punch with its point upright, or even on the floor below the punch, will draw the fire from the scale silently at a much greater than the striking distance, and so prevent its descending towards the punch; or if in its course it would have come nigh enough to strike, yet being first deprived of its fire it cannot, and the punch is thereby secured from the stroke; I say, if these things are so, may not the knowledge of this power of points be of use to mankind, in preserving houses, churches, ships, &c. from the stroke of lightning, by directing us to fix on the highest parts of those edifices, upright rods of iron made sharp as a needle, and gilt to prevent rusting, and from the foot of those rods a wire down the outside of the building into the ground, or down round one of the shrouds of a ship, and down her side till it reaches the water? Would not these pointed rods probably draw the electrical fire silently out of a cloud before it came nigh enough to strike, and thereby secure us from that most sudden and terrible mischief? 21. To determine the question, whether the clouds that contain lightning are electrified or not, I would propose an experiment to be tried where it may be done conveniently. On the top of some high tower or steeple, place a kind of centry-box (as in FIG. 9) big enough to contain a man and an electrical stand. From the middle of the stand let an iron rod rise and pass bending out of the door, and then upright 20 or 30 feet, pointed very sharp at the end. If the electrical stand be kept clean and dry, a man standing on it, when such clouds are passing low, might be electrified and afford sparks, the rod drawing fire to him from a cloud. If any danger to the man should be apprehended (though I think there would be none) let him stand on the floor of his box, and now and then bring near to the rod the loop of a wire that has one end fastened to the leads, he holding it by a wax handle; so the sparks, if the rod is electrified, will strike from the rod to the wire, and not affect him. 22. Before I leave this subject of lightning, I may mention some other similarities between the effects of that, and those of electricity. Lightning has often been known to strike people blind. A pigeon that we struck dead to appearance by the electrical shock, recovering life, drooped about the yard several days, eat nothing, though crumbs were thrown to it, but declined and died. We did not think of its being deprived of sight; but afterwards a pullet, struck dead in like manner, being recovered by repeatedly blowing into its lungs, when set down on the floor, ran headlong against the wall, and on examination appeared perfectly blind. Hence we concluded that the pigeon also had been absolutely blinded by the shock. The biggest animal we have yet killed, or tried to kill, with the electrical stroke, was a well-grown pullet. 23. Reading in the ingenious Dr. Miles's account of the thunder-storm at Stretham, the effect of the lightning in stripping off all the paint that had covered a gilt moulding of a pannel of wainscot, without hurting the rest of the paint, I had a mind to lay a coat of paint over the filletting of gold on the cover of a book, and try the effect of a strong electrical flash sent through that gold from a charged sheet of glass. But having no paint at hand, I pasted a narrow strip of paper over it; and when dry, sent the flash through the gilding, by which the paper was torn off from end to end, with such force, that it was broke in several places, and in others brought away part of the grain of the Turky-leather in which it was bound; and convinced me, that had it been painted, the paint would have been stript off in the same manner with that on the wainscot at Stretham. 24. Lightning melts metals, and I hinted in my paper on that subject, that I suspected it to be a cold fusion; I do not mean a fusion by force of cold, but a fusion without heat[50]. We have also melted gold, silver, and copper, in small quantities, by the electrical flash. The manner is this: Take leaf-gold, leaf-silver, or leaf-gilt copper, commonly called leaf-brass, or Dutch gold; cut off from the leaf long narrow strips, the breadth of a straw. Place one of these strips between two strips of smooth glass that are about the width of your finger. If one strip of gold, the length of the leaf, be not long enough for the glass, add another to the end of it, so that you may have a little part hanging out loose at each end of the glass. Bind the pieces of glass together from end to end with strong silk thread; then place it so as to be part of an electrical circuit, (the ends of gold hanging out being of use to join with the other parts of the circuit) and send the flash through it, from a large electrified jar or sheet of glass. Then if your strips of glass remain whole, you will see that the gold is missing in several places, and instead of it a metallic stain on both the glasses; the stains on the upper and under glass exactly similar in the minutest stroke, as may be seen by holding them to the light; the metal appeared to have been not only melted, but even vitrified, or otherwise so driven into the pores of the glass, as to be protected by it from the action of the strongest _aqua fortis_, or _aqua regia_. I send you enclosed two little pieces of glass with these metallic stains upon them, which cannot be removed without taking part of the glass with them. Sometimes the stain spreads a little wider than the breadth of the leaf, and looks brighter at the edge, as by inspecting closely you may observe in these. Sometimes the glass breaks to pieces; once the upper glass broke into a thousand pieces, looking like coarse salt. The pieces I send you were stained with Dutch gold. True gold makes a darker stain, somewhat reddish; silver, a greenish stain. We once took two pieces of thick looking-glass, as broad as a Gunter's scale, and six inches long; and placing leaf-gold between them, put them between two smoothly-plained pieces of wood, and fixed them tight in a book-binder's small press; yet though they were so closely confined, the force of the electrical shock shivered the glass into many pieces. The gold was melted, and stained into the glass, as usual. The circumstances of the breaking of the glass differ much in making the experiment, and sometimes it does not break at all: but this is constant, that the stains in the upper and under pieces are exact counterparts of each other. And though I have taken up the pieces of glass between my fingers immediately after this melting, I never could perceive the least warmth in them. 25. In one of my former papers, I mentioned, that gilding on a book, though at first it communicated the shock perfectly well, yet failed after a few experiments, which we could not account for. We have since found that one strong shock breaks the continuity of the gold in the filletting, and makes it look rather like dust of gold, abundance of its parts being broken and driven off; and it will seldom conduct above one strong shock. Perhaps this may be the reason: When there is not a perfect continuity in the circuit, the fire must leap over the vacancies: there is a certain distance which it is able to leap over according to its strength; if a number of small vacancies, though each be very minute, taken together exceed that distance, it cannot leap over them, and so the shock is prevented. 26. From the before-mentioned law of electricity, that points as they are more or less acute, draw on and throw off the electrical fluid with more or less power, and at greater or less distances, and in larger or smaller quantities in the same time, we may see how to account for the situation of the leaf of gold suspended between two plates, the upper one continually electrified, the under one in a person's hand standing on the floor. When the upper plate is electrified, the leaf is attracted, and raised towards it, and would fly to that plate, were it not for its own points. The corner that happens to be uppermost when the leaf is rising, being a sharp point, from the extreme thinness of the gold, draws and receives at a distance a sufficient quantity of the electric fluid to give itself an electric atmosphere, by which its progress to the upper plate is stopped, and it begins to be repelled from that plate, and would be driven back to the under plate, but that its lowest corner is likewise a point, and throws off or discharges the overplus of the leaf's atmosphere, as fast as the upper corner draws it on. Were these two points perfectly equal in acuteness, the leaf would take place exactly in the middle space, for its weight is a trifle compared to the power acting on it: but it is generally nearest the unelectrified plate, because, when the leaf is offered to the electrified plate, at a distance, the sharpest point is commonly first affected and raised towards it; so _that_ point, from its greater acuteness, receiving the fluid faster than its opposite can discharge it at equal distances, it retires from the electrified plate, and draws nearer to the unelectrified plate, till it comes to a distance where the discharge can be exactly equal to the receipt, the latter being lessened, and the former encreased; and there it remains as long as the globe continues to supply fresh electrical matter. This will appear plain, when the difference of acuteness in the corners is made very great. Cut a piece of Dutch gold, (which is fittest for these experiments on account of its great strength) into the form of FIG. 10, the upper corner a right angle, the two next obtuse angles, and the lowest a very acute one; and bring this on your plate under the electrified plate, in such a manner as that the right-angled part may be first raised (which is done by covering the acute part with the hollow of your hand) and you will see this leaf take place much nearer to the upper than the under plate; because without being nearer, it cannot receive so fast at its right-angled point, as it can discharge at its acute one. Turn this leaf with the acute part uppermost, and then it takes place nearest the unelectrified plate; because, otherwise, it receives faster at its acute point, than it can discharge at its right-angled one. Thus the difference of distance is always proportioned to the difference of acuteness. Take care in cutting your leaf, to leave no little ragged particles on the edges, which sometimes form points where you would not have them. You may make this figure so acute below, and blunt above, as to need no under plate, it discharging fast enough into the air. When it is made narrower, as the figure between the pricked lines, we call it the _golden fish_, from its manner of acting. For if you take it by the tail, and hold it at a foot or greater horizontal distance from the prime conductor, it will, when let go, fly to it with a brisk but wavering motion, like that of an eel through the water; it will then take place under the prime conductor, at perhaps a quarter or half an inch distance, and keep a continual shaking of its tail like a fish, so that it seems animated. Turn its tail towards the prime conductor, and then it flies to your finger, and seems to nibble it. And if you hold a plate under it at six or eight inches distance, and cease turning the globe when the electrical atmosphere of the conductor grows small, it will descend to the plate and swim back again several times with the same fish-like motion, greatly to the entertainment of spectators. By a little practice in blunting or sharpening the heads or tails of these figures, you may make them take place as desired, nearer or farther from the electrified plate. 27. It is said in Section 8, of this paper, that all kinds of common matter are supposed not to attract the electrical fluid with equal strength; and that those called electrics _per se_, as glass, &c. attract and retain it strongest, and contain the greatest quantity. This latter position may seem a paradox to some, being contrary to the hitherto received opinion; and therefore I shall now endeavour to explain it. 28. In order to this, let it first be considered, _that we cannot by any means we are yet acquainted with, force the electrical fluid through glass_. I know it is commonly thought that it easily pervades glass; and the experiment of a feather suspended by a thread, in a bottle hermetically sealed, yet moved by bringing a rubbed tube near the outside of the bottle, is alleged to prove it. But, if the electrical fluid so easily pervades glass, how does the phial become _charged_ (as we term it) when we hold it in our hands? Would not the fire, thrown in by the wire, pass through to our hands, and so escape into the floor? Would not the bottle in that case be left just as we found it, uncharged, as we know a metal bottle so attempted to be charged would be? Indeed, if there be the least crack, the minutest solution of continuity in the glass, though it remains so tight that nothing else we know of will pass, yet the extremely subtile electric fluid flies through such a crack with the greatest freedom, and such a bottle we know can never be charged: what then makes the difference between such a bottle and one that is sound, but this, that the fluid can pass through the one, and not through the other[51]? 29. It is true, there is an experiment that at first sight would be apt to satisfy a slight observer, that the fire, thrown into the bottle by the wire, does really pass through the glass. It is this: place the bottle on a glass stand, under the prime conductor, suspend a bullet by a chain from the prime conductor, till it comes within a quarter of an inch right over the wire of the bottle; place your knuckle on the glass stand, at just the same distance from the coating of the bottle, as the bullet is from its wire. Now let the globe be turned, and you see a spark strike from the bullet to the wire of the bottle, and the same instant you see and feel an exactly equal spark striking from the coating on your knuckle, and so on, spark for spark. This looks as if the whole received by the bottle was again discharged from it. And yet the bottle by this means is charged[52]! And therefore the fire that thus leaves the bottle, though the same in quantity, cannot be the very same fire that entered at the wire, for if it were, the bottle would remain uncharged. 30. If the fire that so leaves the bottle be not the same that is thrown in through the wire, it must be fire that subsisted in the bottle (that is, in the glass of the bottle) before the operation began. 31. If so, there must be a great quantity in glass, because a great quantity is thus discharged, even from very thin glass. 32. That this electrical fluid or fire is strongly attracted by glass, we know from the quickness and violence with which it is resumed by the part that had been deprived of it, when there is an opportunity. And by this, that we cannot from a mass of glass, draw a quantity of electric fire, or electrify the whole mass _minus_, as we can a mass of metal. We cannot lessen or increase its whole quantity, for the quantity it has it holds; and it has as much as it can hold. Its pores are filled with it as full as the mutual repellency of the particles will admit; and what is already in, refuses, or strongly repels, any additional quantity. Nor have we any way of moving the electrical fluid in glass, but one; that is, by covering part of the two surfaces of thin glass with non-electrics, and then throwing an additional quantity of this fluid on one surface, which spreading in the non-electric, and being bound by it to that surface, acts by its repelling force on the particles of the electrical fluid contained in the other surface, and drives them out of the glass into the non-electric on that side from whence they are discharged, and then those added on the charged side can enter. But when this is done, there is no more in the glass, nor less than before, just as much having left it on one side as it received on the other. 33. I feel a want of terms here, and doubt much whether I shall be able to make this part intelligible. By the word _surface_, in this case, I do not mean mere length and breadth without thickness; but when I speak of the upper or under surface of a piece of glass, the outer or inner surface of the phial, I mean length, breadth, and half the thickness, and beg the favour of being so understood. Now I suppose, that glass in its first principles, and in the furnace, has no more of this electrical fluid than other common matter: that when it is blown, as it cools, and the particles of common fire leave it, its pores become a vacuum: that the component parts of glass are extremely small and fine, I guess from its never showing a rough face when it breaks, but always a polish; and from the smallness of its particles I suppose the pores between them must be exceedingly small, which is the reason that aqua-fortis, nor any other menstruum we have, can enter to separate them and dissolve the substance; nor is any fluid we know of, fine enough to enter, except common fire, and the electric fluid. Now the departing fire, leaving a vacuum, as aforesaid, between these pores, which air nor water are fine enough to enter and fill, the electric fluid (which is every where ready in what we call the non-electrics, and in the non-electric mixtures that are in the air) is attracted in; yet does not become fixed with the substance of the glass, but subsists there as water in a porous stone, retained only by the attraction of the fixed parts, itself still loose and a fluid. But I suppose farther, that in the cooling of the glass, its texture becomes closest in the middle, and forms a kind of partition, in which the pores are so narrow, that the particles of the electrical fluid, which enter both surfaces at the same time, cannot go through, or pass and repass from one surface to the other, and so mix together; yet, though the particles of electric fluid, imbibed by each surface, cannot themselves pass through to those of the other, their repellency can, and by this means they act on one another. The particles of the electric fluid have a mutual repellency, but by the power of attraction in the glass they are condensed or forced nearer to each other. When the glass has received, and, by its attraction, forced closer together so much of this electric fluid, as that the power of attracting and condensing in the one, is equal to the power of expansion in the other, it can imbibe no more, and that remains its constant whole quantity; but each surface would receive more, if the repellency of what is in the opposite surface did not resist its entrance. The quantities of this fluid in each surface being equal, their repelling action on each other is equal; and therefore those of one surface cannot drive out those of the other; but, if a greater quantity is forced into one surface than the glass would naturally draw in, this increases the repelling power on that side, and overpowering the attraction on the other, drives out part of the fluid that had been imbibed by that surface, if there be any non-electric ready to receive it: such there is in all cases where glass is electrified to give a shock. The surface that has been thus emptied, by having its electrical fluid driven out, resumes again an equal quantity with violence, as soon as the glass has an opportunity to discharge that over quantity more than it could retain by attraction in its other surface, by the additional repellency of which the vacuum had been occasioned. For experiments favouring (if I may not say confirming) this hypothesis, I must, to avoid repetition, beg leave to refer you back to what is said of the electrical phial in my former papers. 34. Let us now see how it will account for several other appearances.--Glass, a body extremely elastic, (and perhaps its elasticity may be owing in some degree to the subsisting of so great a quantity of this repelling fluid in its pores) must, when rubbed, have its rubbed surface somewhat stretched, or its solid parts drawn a little farther asunder, so that the vacancies in which the electrical fluid resides, become larger, affording room for more of that fluid, which is immediately attracted into it from the cushion or hand rubbing, they being supplied from the common stock. But the instant the parts of the glass so opened and filled, have passed the friction, they close again, and force the additional quantity out upon the surface, where it must rest till that part comes round to the cushion again, unless some non-electric (as the prime conductor, first presents to receive it[53]). But if the inside of the globe be lined with a non-electric, the additional repellency of the electrical fluid, thus collected by friction on the rubbed part of the globe's outer surface, drives an equal quantity out of the inner surface into that non-electric lining, which receiving it, and carrying it away from the rubbed part into the common mass, through the axis of the globe, and frame of the machine, the new collected electrical fluid can enter and remain in the outer surface, and none of it (or a very little) will be received by the prime conductor. As this charged part of the globe comes round to the cushion again, the outer surface delivers its overplus fire into the cushion, the opposite inner surface receiving at the same time an equal quantity from the floor. Every electrician knows that a globe wet within will afford little or no fire, but the reason has not before been attempted to be given, that I know of. 34. So if a tube lined with a non-electric be rubbed[54], little or no fire is obtained from it; what is collected from the hand, in the downward rubbing stroke, entering the pores of the glass, and driving an equal quantity out of the inner surface into the non-electric lining: and the hand in passing up to take a second stroke, takes out again what had been thrown into the outer surface, and then the inner surface receives back again what it had given to the non-electric lining. Thus the particles of electrical fluid belonging to the inside surface go in and out of their pores every stroke given to the tube. Put a wire into the tube, the inward end in contact with the non-electric lining, so it will represent the Leyden bottle. Let a second person touch the wire while you rub, and the fire driven out of the inward surface when you give the stroke, will pass through him into the common mass, and return through him when the inner surface resumes its quantity, and therefore this new kind of Leyden bottle cannot be so charged. But thus it may: after every stroke, before you pass your hand up to make another, let a second person apply his finger to the wire, take the spark, and then withdraw his finger; and so on till he has drawn a number of sparks; thus will the inner surface be exhausted, and the outer surface charged; then wrap a sheet of gilt paper close round the outer surface, and grasping it in your hand you may receive a shock by applying the finger of the other hand to the wire: for now the vacant pores in the inner surface resume their quantity, and the overcharged pores in the outer surface discharge that overplus; the equilibrium being restored through your body, which could not be restored through the glass[55]. If the tube be exhausted of air, a non-electric lining, in contact with the wire, is not necessary; for _in vacuo_ the electrical fire will fly freely from the inner surface, without a non-electric conductor: but air resists in motion; for being itself an electric _per se_, it does not attract it, having already its quantity. So the air never draws off an electric atmosphere from any body, but in proportion to the non-electrics mixed with it: it rather keeps such an atmosphere confined, which, from the mutual repulsion of its particles, tends to dissipation, and would immediately dissipate _in vacuo_.--And thus the experiment of the feather inclosed in a glass vessel hermetically sealed, but moving on the approach of the rubbed tube, is explained. When an additional quantity of the electrical fluid is applied to the side of the vessel by the atmosphere of the tube, a quantity is repelled and driven out of the inner surface of that side into the vessel, and there affects the feather, returning again into its pores, when the tube with its atmosphere is withdrawn; not that the particles of that atmosphere did themselves pass through the glass to the feather. And every other appearance I have yet seen, in which glass and electricity are concerned, are, I think, explained with equal ease by the same hypothesis. Yet, perhaps, it may not be a true one, and I shall be obliged to him that affords me a better. 35. Thus I take the difference between non-electrics, and glass, an electric _per se_, to consist in these two particulars. 1st, That a non-electric easily suffers a change in the quantity of the electric fluid it contains. You may lessen its whole quantity, by drawing out a part, which the whole body will again resume; but of glass you can only lessen the quantity contained in one of its surfaces; and not that, but by supplying an equal quantity at the same time to the other surface: so that the whole glass may always have the same quantity in the two surfaces, their two different quantities being added together. And this can only be done in glass that is thin; beyond a certain thickness we have yet no power that can make this change. And, 2dly, that the electric fire freely removes from place to place, in and through the substance of a non-electric, but not so through the substance of glass. If you offer a quantity to one end of a long rod of metal, it receives it, and when it enters, every particle that was before in the rod pushes its neighbour quite to the farther end, where the overplus is discharged; and this instantaneously where the rod is part of the circle in the experiment of the shock. But glass, from the smallness of its pores, or stronger attraction of what it contains, refuses to admit so free a motion: a glass rod will not conduct a shock, nor will the thinnest glass suffer any particle entering one of its surfaces to pass through to the other. 36. Hence we see the impossibility of success in the experiments proposed, to draw out the effluvial virtues of a non-electric, as cinnamon, for instance, and mixing them with the electric fluid, to convey them with that into the body, by including it in the globe, and then applying friction, &c. For though the effluvia of cinnamon, and the electric fluid should mix within the globe, they would never come out together through the pores of the glass, and so go to the prime conductor; for the electric fluid itself cannot come through; and the prime conductor is always supplied from the cushion, and that from the floor. And besides, when the globe is filled with cinnamon, or other non-electric, no electric fluid can be obtained from its outer surface, for the reason before-mentioned. I have tried another way, which I thought more likely to obtain a mixture of the electric and other effluvia together, if such a mixture had been possible. I placed a glass plate under my cushion, to cut off the communication between the cushion and floor; then brought a small chain from the cushion into a glass of oil of turpentine, and carried another chain from the oil of turpentine to the floor, taking care that the chain from the cushion to the glass, touched no part of the frame of the machine. Another chain was fixed to the prime conductor, and held in the hand of a person to be electrified. The ends of the two chains in the glass were near an inch distant from each other, the oil of turpentine between. Now the globe being turned could draw no fire from the floor through the machine, the communication that way being cut off by the thick glass plate under the cushion: it must then draw it through the chains whose ends were dipped in the oil of turpentine. And as the oil of turpentine, being an electric _per se_, would not conduct, what came up from the floor was obliged to jump from the end of one chain to the end of the other, through the substance of that oil, which we could see in large sparks, and so it had a fair opportunity of seizing some of the finest particles of the oil in its passage, and carrying them off with it: but no such effect followed, nor could I perceive the least difference in the smell of the electric effluvia thus collected, from what it has when collected otherwise, nor does it otherwise affect the body of a person electrised. I likewise put into a phial, instead of water, a strong purgative liquid, and then charged the phial, and took repeated shocks from it, in which case every particle of the electrical fluid must, before it went through my body, have first gone through the liquid when the phial is charging, and returned through it when discharging, yet no other effect followed than if it had been charged with water. I have also smelt the electric fire when drawn through gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, wood, and the human body, and could perceive no difference: the odour is always the same, where the spark does not burn what it strikes; and therefore I imagine it does not take that smell from any quality of the bodies it passes through. And indeed, as that smell so readily leaves the electric matter, and adheres to the knuckle receiving the sparks, and to other things; I suspect that it never was connected with it, but arises instantaneously from something in the air acted upon by it. For if it was fine enough to come with the electric fluid through the body of one person, why should it stop on the skin of another? But I shall never have done, if I tell you all my conjectures, thoughts, and imaginations on the nature and operations of this electric fluid, and relate the variety of little experiments we have tried. I have already made this paper too long, for which I must crave pardon, not having now time to abridge it. I shall only add, that as it has been observed here that spirits will fire by the electric spark in the summer time, without heating them, when Fahrenheit's thermometer is above 70; so when colder, if the operator puts a small flat bottle of spirits in his bosom, or a close pocket, with the spoon, some little time before he uses them, the heat of his body will communicate warmth more than sufficient for the purpose. ADDITIONAL EXPERIMENTS: _Proving that the Leyden Bottle has no more electrical Fire in it when charged, than before: nor less when discharged: that, in discharging, the Fire does not issue from the Wire and the Coating at the same Time, as some have thought, but that the Coating always receives what is discharged by the Wire, or an equal Quantity; the outer Surface being always in a negative State of Electricity, when the inner Surface is in a positive State._ Place a thick plate of glass under the rubbing cushion, to cut off the communication of electrical fire from the floor to the cushion; then if there be no fine points or hairy threads sticking out from the cushion, or from the parts of the machine opposite to the cushion, (of which you must be careful) you can get but a few sparks from the prime conductor, which are all the cushion will part with. Hang a phial then on the prime conductor, and it will not charge though you hold it by the coating.--But, Form a communication by a chain from the coating to the cushion, and the phial will charge. For the globe then draws the electric fire out of the outside surface of the phial and forces it through the prime conductor and wire of the phial into the inside surface. Thus the bottle is charged with its own fire, no other being to be had while the glass plate is under the cushion. Hang two cork balls by flaxen threads to the prime conductor; then touch the coating of the bottle, and they will be electrified and recede from each other. For just as much fire as you give the coating, so much is discharged through the wire upon the prime conductor, whence the cork balls receive an electrical atmosphere.--But, Take a wire bent in the form of a C, with a stick of wax fixed to the outside of the curve, to hold it by; and apply one end of this wire to the coating, and the other at the same time to the prime conductor, the phial will be discharged; and if the balls are not electrified before the discharge, neither will they appear to be so after the discharge, for they will not repel each other. If the phial really exploded at both ends, and discharged fire from both coating and wire, the balls would be _more_ electrified, and recede _farther_; for none of the fire can escape, the wax handle preventing. But if the fire with which the inside surface is surcharged be so much precisely as is wanted by the outside surface, it will pass round through the wire fixed to the wax handle, restore the equilibrium in the glass, and make no alteration in the state of the prime conductor. Accordingly we find, that if the prime conductor be electrified, and the cork balls in a state of repellency before the bottle is discharged, they continue so afterwards. If not, they are not electrified by that discharge. FOOTNOTES: [48] See the ingenious Essays on Electricity, in the Transactions, by Mr. Ellicot. [49] See page 173. [50] See note in page 214. [51] See the first sixteen Sections of the former paper, called _Farther Experiments_, &c. [52] See Sect. 10, of _Farther Experiments_, &c. [53] In the dark the electric fluid may be seen on the cushion in two semi-circles or half-moons, one on the fore-part, the other on the back part of the cushion, just where the globe and cushion separate. In the fore crescent the fire is passing out of the cushion into the glass; in the other it is leaving the glass, and returning into the back part of the cushion. When the prime conductor is applied to take it off the glass, the back crescent disappears. [54] Gilt paper, with the gilt face next the glass, does well [55] See _Further Experiments_, Sect. 15. TO PETER COLLINSON, ESQ. F. R. S. LONDON. _Accumulation of the electrical Fire proved to be in the electrified Glass.--Effect of Lightning on the Needle of Compasses, explained.--Gunpowder fired by the electric Flame._ _Philadelphia, July 27, 1750._ SIR, Mr. Watson, I believe, wrote his Observations on my last paper in haste, without having first well considered the experiments related §. 17[56], which still appear to me decisive in the question,--_Whether the accumulation of the electrical fire be in the electrified glass, or in the non-electric matter connected with the glass?_ and to demonstrate that it is really in the glass. As to the experiment that ingenious gentleman mentions, and which he thinks conclusive on the other side, I persuade myself he will change his opinion of it, when he considers, that as one person applying the wire of the charged bottle to warm spirits, in a spoon held by another person, both standing on the floor, will fire the spirits, and yet such firing will not determine whether the accumulation was in the glass or the non-electric; so the placing another person between them, standing on wax, with a bason in his hand, into which the water from the phial is poured, _while he at the instant of pouring_ presents a finger of his other hand to the spirits, does not at all alter the case; the stream from the phial, the side of the bason, with the arms and body of the person on the wax, being all together but as one long wire, reaching from the internal surface of the phial to the spirits. _June 29, 1751._ In Capt. Waddell's account of the effects of lightning on his ship, I could not but take notice of the large comazants (as he calls them) that settled on the spintles at the top-mast heads, and burnt like very large torches (before the stroke.) According to my opinion, the electrical fire was then drawing off, as by points, from the cloud; the largeness of the flame betokening the great quantity of electricity in the cloud: and had there been a good wire communication from the spintle heads to the sea, that could have conducted more freely than tarred ropes, or masts of turpentine wood, I imagine there would either have been no stroke, or, if a stroke, the wire would have conducted it all into the sea without damage to the ship. His compasses lost the virtue of the load-stone, or the poles were reversed; the north point turning to the south.--By electricity we have (_here_ at _Philadelphia_) frequently given polarity to needles, and reversed it at pleasure. Mr. Wilson, at London, tried it on too large masses, and with too small force. A shock from four large glass jars, sent through a fine sewing-needle, gives it polarity, and it will traverse when laid on water.--If the needle, when struck, lies east and west, the end entered by the electric blast points north.--If it lies north and south, the end that lay towards the north will continue to point north when placed on water, whether the fire entered at that end, or at the contrary end. The polarity given is strongest when the needle is struck lying north and south, weakest when lying east and west; perhaps if the force was still greater, the south end, entered by the fire (when the needle lies north and south) might become the north, otherwise it puzzles us to account for the inverting of compasses by lightning; since their needles must always be found in that situation, and by our little experiments, whether the blast entered the north and went out at the south end of the needle, or the contrary, still the end that lay to the north should continue to point north. In these experiments the ends of the needles are sometimes finely blued like a watch-spring by the electric flame.--This colour given by the flash from two jars only, will wipe off, but four jars fix it, and frequently melt the needles. I send you some that have had their heads and points melted off by our mimic lightning; and a pin that had its point melted off, and some part of its head and neck run. Sometimes the surface on the body of the needle is also run, and appears blistered when examined by a magnifying glass: the jars I make use off hold seven or eight gallons, and are coated and lined with tin foil; each of them takes a thousand turns[57] of a globe nine inches diameter to charge it. I send you two specimens of tin-foil melted between glass, by the force of two jars only. I have not heard that any of your European electricians have ever been able to fire gun-powder by the electric flame. We do it here in this manner:--A small cartridge is filled with dry powder, hard rammed, so as to bruise some of the grains; two pointed wires are then thrust in, one at each end, the points approaching each other in the middle of the cartridge till within the distance of half an inch; then, the cartridge being placed in the circuit, when the four jars are discharged, the electric flame leaping from the point of one wire to the point of the other, within the cartridge amongst the powder, _fires it_, and the explosion of the powder is at the same instant with the crack of the discharge. Your's, &c. B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTES: [56] See the paper entitled, _Farther Experiments, &c._ [57] The cushion being afterwards covered with a long flap of buckskin, which might cling to the globe; and care being taken to keep that flap of a due temperature, between too dry and too moist, we found so much more of the electric fluid was obtained, as that 150 turns were sufficient. 1753. TO C. C[58]. ESQ. AT NEW-YORK, COMMUNICATED TO MR. COLLINSON. _Unlimited Nature of the electric Force._ _Philadelphia, 1751._ SIR, I inclose you answers, such as my present hurry of business will permit me to make, to the principal queries contained in your's of the 28th instant, and beg leave to refer you to the latter piece in the printed collection of my papers, for farther explanation of the difference between what is called _electrics per se_, and _non-electrics_. When you have had time to read and consider these papers, I will endeavour to make any new experiments you shall propose, that you think may afford farther light or satisfaction to either of us; and shall be much obliged to you for such remarks, objections, &c. as may occur to you.--I forget whether I wrote to you that I have melted brass pins and steel needles, inverted the poles of the magnetic needle, given a magnetism and polarity to needles that had none, and fired dry gunpowder by the electric spark. I have five bottles that contain eight or nine gallons each, two of which charged are sufficient for those purposes: but I can charge and discharge them altogether. There are no bounds (but what expence and labour give) to the force man may raise and use in the electrical way: for bottle may be added to bottle _in infinitum_, and all united and discharged together as one, the force and effect proportioned to their number and size. The greatest known effects of common lightning may, I think, without much difficulty, be exceeded in this way, which a few years since could not have been believed, and even now may seem to many a little extravagant to suppose.--So we are got beyond the skill of Rabelais's devils of two years old, who, he humourously says, had only learnt to thunder and lighten a little round the head of a cabbage. I am, with sincere respect, Your most obliged humble servant, B. FRANKLIN. QUERIES AND ANSWERS REFERRED TO IN THE FOREGOING LETTER. _The Terms, electric per se, and non-electric, improper.--New Relation between Metals and Water.--Effects of Air in electrical Experiments.--Experiment for discovering more of the Qualities of the electric Fluid._ _Query_, Wherein consists the difference between an _electric_ and a _non-electric_ body? _Answer._ The terms electric _per se_, and non-electric, were first used to distinguish bodies, on a mistaken supposition that those called electrics _per se_, alone contained electric matter in their substance, which was capable of being excited by friction, and of being produced or drawn from them, and communicated to those called non-electrics, supposed to be destitute of it: for the glass, &c. being rubbed, discovered signs of having it, by snapping to the finger, attracting, repelling, &c. and could communicate those signs to metals and water.--Afterwards it was found, that rubbing of glass would not produce the electric matter, unless a communication was preserved between the rubber and the floor; and subsequent experiments proved that the electric matter was really drawn from those bodies that at first were thought to have none in them. Then it was doubted whether glass, and other bodies called _electrics per se_, had really any electric matter in them, since they apparently afforded none but what they first extracted from those which had been called non-electrics. But some of my experiments show, that glass contains it in great quantity, and I now suspect it to be pretty equally diffused in all the matter of this terraqueous globe. If so, the terms _electric per se_, and _non-electric_, should be laid aside as improper: and (the only difference being this, that some bodies will conduct electric matter, and others will not) the terms _conductor_ and _non-conductor_ may supply their place. If any portion of electric matter is applied to a piece of conducting matter, it penetrates and flows through it, or spreads equally on its surface; if applied to a piece of non-conducting matter, it will do neither. Perfect conductors of electric matter are only metals and water. Other bodies conducting only as they contain a mixture of those; without more or less of which they will not conduct at all[59]. This (by the way) shews a new relation between metals and water heretofore unknown. To illustrate this by a comparison, which, however, can only give a faint resemblance. Electric matter passes through conductors as water passes through a porous stone, or spreads on their surfaces as water spreads on a wet stone; but when applied to non-conductors, it is like water dropt on a greasy stone, it neither penetrates, passes through, nor spreads on the surface, but remains in drops where it falls. See farther on this head, in my last printed piece, entitled, _Opinions and Conjectures, &c._ 1749. _Query_, What are the effects of air in electrical experiments? _Answer._ All I have hitherto observed are these. Moist air receives and conducts the electrical matter in proportion to its moisture, quite dry air not at all: air is therefore to be classed with the non-conductors. Dry air assists in confining the electrical atmosphere to the body it surrounds, and prevents its dissipating: for in vacuo it quits easily, and points operate stronger, _i. e._ they throw off or attract the electrical matter more freely, and at greater distances; so that air intervening obstructs its passage from body to body in some degree. A clean electrical phial and wire, containing air instead of water, will not be charged nor give a shock, any more than if it was filled with powder of glass; but exhausted of air, it operates as well as if filled with water. Yet an electric atmosphere and air do not seem to exclude each other, for we breathe freely in such an atmosphere, and dry air will blow through it without displacing or driving it away. I question whether the strongest dry north-wester[60] would dissipate it. I once electrified a large cork-ball at the end of a silk thread three feet long, the other end of which I held in my fingers, and whirl'd it round, like a sling one hundred times, in the air, with the swiftest motion I could possibly give it, yet it retained its electric atmosphere, though it must have passed through eight hundred yards of air, allowing my arm in giving the motion to add a foot to the semi-diameter of the circle.--By quite dry air, I mean the dryest we have: for perhaps we never have any perfectly free from moisture. An electrical atmosphere raised round a thick wire, inserted in a phial of air, drives out none of the air, nor on withdrawing that atmosphere will any air rush in, as I have found by a curious experiment[61] accurately made, whence we concluded that the air's elasticity was not affected thereby. AN EXPERIMENT TOWARDS DISCOVERING MORE OF THE QUALITIES OF THE ELECTRIC FLUID. From the prime conductor, hang a bullet by a wire hook; under the bullet, at half an inch distance, place a bright piece of silver to receive the sparks; then let the wheel be turned, and in a few minutes, (if the repeated sparks continually strike in the same spot) the silver will receive a blue stain, nearly the colour of a watch spring. A bright piece of iron will also be spotted, but not with that colour; it rather seems corroded. On gold, brass, or tin, I have not perceived it makes any impression. But the spots on the silver or iron will be the same, whether the bullet be lead, brass, gold, or silver. On a silver bullet there will also appear a small spot, as well as on the plate below it. FOOTNOTES: [58] Cadwallader Colden, who was afterwards lieutenant-governor of New-York. _Editor._ [59] This proposition is since found to be too general; Mr. Wilson having discovered that melted wax and rosin will also conduct. [60] A cold dry wind of North America. [61] The experiment here mentioned was thus made. An empty phial was stopped with a cork. Through the cork passed a thick wire, as usual in the Leyden experiment, which wire almost reached the bottom. Through another part of the cork passed one leg of a small glass syphon, the other leg on the outside came down almost to the bottom of the phial. This phial was first held a short time in the hand, which, warming, and of course rarefying the air within, drove a small part of it out through the syphon. Then a little red ink in a tea-spoon was applied to the opening of the outer leg of the syphon; so that as the air within cooled, a little of the ink might rise in that leg. When the air within the bottle came to be of the same temperature of that without, the drop of red ink would rest in a certain part of the leg. But the warmth of a finger applied to the phial would cause that drop to descend, as the least outward coolness applied would make it ascend. When it had found its situation, and was at rest, the wire was electrified by a communication from the prime conductor. This was supposed to give an electric atmosphere to the wire within the bottle, which might likewise rarefy the included air, and of course depress the drop of ink in the syphon. But no such effect followed. TO C. C[62]. ESQ. AT NEW YORK. _Mistake, that only Metals and Water were Conductors, rectified.--Supposition of a Region of electric Fire above our Atmosphere.--Theorem concerning Light.--Poke-Weed a Cure for Cancers._ Read at the Royal Society, Nov. 11, 1756. _Philadelphia, April 23, 1752._ SIR, In considering your favour of the 16th past, I recollected my having wrote you answers to some queries concerning the difference between electrics _per se_, and non-electrics, and the effects of air in electrical experiments, which, I apprehend, you may not have received. The date I have forgotten. We have been used to call those bodies electrics _per se_, which would not conduct the electric fluid: We once imagined that only such bodies contained that fluid; afterwards that they had none of it, and only educed it from other bodies: but further experiments shewed our mistake. It is to be found in all matter we know of; and the distinctions of electrics _per se_, and non-electrics, should now be dropt as improper, and that of _conductors_ and _non-conductors_ assumed in its place, as I mentioned in those answers. I do not remember any experiment by which it appeared that high rectified spirit will not conduct; perhaps you have made such. This I know, that wax, rosin, brimstone, and even glass, commonly reputed electrics _per se_, will, when in a fluid state, conduct pretty well. Glass will do it when only red hot. So that my former position, that only metals and water were conductors, and other bodies more or less such, as they partook of metal or moisture, was too general. Your conception of the electric fluid, that it is incomparably more subtle than air, is undoubtedly just. It pervades dense matter with the greatest ease; but it does not seem to mix or incorporate willingly with mere air, as it does with other matter. It will not quit common matter to join with air. Air obstructs, in some degree, its motion. An electric atmosphere cannot be communicated at so great a distance, through intervening air, by far, as through a vacuum.--Who knows then, but there may be, as the ancients thought, a region of this fire above our atmosphere, prevented by our air, and its own too great distance for attraction, from joining our earth? Perhaps where the atmosphere is rarest, this fluid may be densest, and nearer the earth where the atmosphere grows denser, this fluid may be rarer; yet some of it be low enough to attach itself to our highest clouds, and thence they becoming electrified, may be attracted by, and descend towards the earth, and discharge their watry contents, together with that etherial fire. Perhaps the _auroræ boreales_ are currents of this fluid in its own region, above our atmosphere, becoming from their motion visible. There is no end to conjectures. As yet we are but novices in this branch of natural knowledge. You mention several differences of salts in electrical experiments. Were they all equally dry? Salt is apt to acquire moisture from a moist air, and some sorts more than others. When perfectly dried by lying before a fire, or on a stove, none that I have tried will conduct any better than so much glass. New flannel, if dry and warm, will draw the electric fluid from non-electrics, as well as that which has been worn. I wish you had the convenience of trying the experiments you seem to have such expectations from, upon various kinds of spirits, salts, earth, &c. Frequently, in a variety of experiments, though we miss what we expected to find, yet something valuable turns out, something surprising, and instructing, though unthought of. I thank you for communicating the illustration of the theorem concerning light. It is very curious. But I must own I am much in the _dark_ about _light_. I am not satisfied with the doctrine that supposes particles of matter called light, continually driven off from the sun's surface, with a swiftness so prodigious! Must not the smallest particle conceivable have, with such a motion, a force exceeding that of a twenty-four pounder, discharged from a cannon? Must not the Sun diminish exceedingly by such a waste of matter; and the planets, instead of drawing nearer to him, as some have feared, recede to greater distances through the lessened attraction. Yet these particles, with this amazing motion, will not drive before them, or remove, the least and lightest dust they meet with: And the Sun, for aught we know, continues of his antient dimensions, and his attendants move in their antient orbits. May not all the phenomena of light be more conveniently solved, by supposing universal space filled with a subtle elastic fluid, which, when at rest, is not visible, but whose vibrations affect that fine sense in the eye, as those of air do the grosser organs of the ear? We do not, in the case of sound, imagine that any sonorous particles are thrown off from a bell, for instance, and fly in strait lines to the ear; why must we believe that luminous particles leave the sun and proceed to the eye? Some diamonds, if rubbed, shine in the dark, without losing any part of their matter. I can make an electrical spark as big as the flame of a candle, much brighter, and, therefore, visible further; yet this is without fuel; and, I am persuaded, no part of the electric fluid flies off in such case to distant places, but all goes directly, and is to be found in the place to which I destine it. May not different degrees of the vibration of the above-mentioned universal medium, occasion the appearances of different colours? I think the electric fluid is always the same; yet I find that weaker and stronger sparks differ in apparent colour, some white, blue, purple, red; the strongest, white; weak ones red. Thus different degrees of vibration given to the air produce the seven, different sounds in music, analagous to the seven colours, yet the medium, air, is the same. If the Sun is not wasted by expence of light, I can easily conceive that he shall otherwise always retain the same quantity of matter; though we should suppose him made of sulphur constantly flaming. The action of fire only _separates_ the particles of matter, it does not _annihilate_ them. Water, by heat raised in vapour, returns to the earth in rain; and if we could collect all the particles of burning matter that go off in smoak, perhaps they might, with the ashes, weigh as much as the body before it was fired: and if we could put them into the same position with regard to each other, the mass would be the same as before, and might be burnt over again. The chymists have analysed sulphur, and find it composed, in certain proportions, of oil, salt, and earth; and having, by the analysis, discovered those proportions, they can, of those ingredients, make sulphur. So we have only to suppose, that the parts of the Sun's sulphur, separated by fire, rise into his atmosphere, and there being freed from the immediate action of the fire, they collect into cloudy masses, and growing, by degrees, too heavy to be longer supported, they descend to the Sun, and are burnt over again. Hence the spots appearing on his face, which are observed to diminish daily in size, their consuming edges being of particular brightness. It is well we are not, as poor Galileo was, subject to the inquisition for _philosophical heresy_. My whispers against the orthodox doctrine, in private letters, would be dangerous; but your writing and printing would be highly criminal. As it is, you must expect some censure, but one heretic will surely excuse another. I am heartily glad to hear more instances of the success of the poke-weed, in the cure of that horrible evil to the human body, a cancer. You will deserve highly of mankind for the communication. But I find in Boston they are at a loss to know the right plant, some asserting it is what they call _Mechoachan_, others other things. In one of their late papers it is publicly requested that a perfect description may be given of the plant, its places of growth, &c. I have mislaid the paper, or would send it to you. I thought you had described it pretty fully[63]. I am, Sir, &c. B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTES: [62] Cadwallader Colden. See note, page 250. _Editor._ [63] As the poke-weed, though out of place, is introduced here, we shall translate and insert two extracts of letters from Dr. Franklin to M. Dubourg, the French translator of his works, on the same subject. "LONDON, MARCH 27, 1773. "I apprehend that our poke-weed is what the botanists term _phytolacca_. This plant bears berries as large as peas; the skin is black, but it contains a crimson juice. It is this juice, thickened by evaporation in the sun, which was employed. It caused great pain, but some persons were said to have been cured. I am not quite certain of the facts; all that I know is, that Dr. Colden had a good opinion of the remedy." "LONDON, APRIL 23, 1773. "You will see by the annexed paper by Dr. Solander, that this herb, poke-weed, in which has been found a specific remedy for cancers, is the most common species of phytolacca. (Phytolacca decandra L.)" _Editor._ MR. E. KINNERSLEY, AT BOSTON, TO BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, ESQ. AT PHILADELPHIA. _New Experiments.--Paradoxes inferred from them.--Difference in the Electricity of a Globe of Glass charged, and a Globe of Sulphur.--Difficulty of ascertaining which is positive and which negative._ _Feb. 3, 1752._ SIR, I have the following experiments to communicate: I held in one hand a wire, which was fastened at the other end to the handle of a pump, in order to try whether the stroke from the prime conductor, through my arms, would be any greater than when conveyed only to the surface of the earth, but could discover no difference. I placed the needle of a compass on the point of a long pin, and holding it in the atmosphere of the prime conductor, at the distance of about three inches, found it to whirl round like the flyers of a jack, with great rapidity. I suspended with silk a cork ball, about the bigness of a pea, and presented to it rubbed amber, sealing-wax, and sulphur, by each of which it was strongly repelled; then I tried rubbed glass and china, and found that each of these would attract it, until it became electrified again, and then it would be repelled as at first; and while thus repelled by the rubbed glass or china, either of the others when rubbed would attract it. Then I electrified the ball, with the wire of a charged phial, and presented to it rubbed glass (the stopper of a decanter) and a china tea-cup, by which it was as strongly repelled as by the wire; but when I presented either of the other rubbed electrics, it would be strongly attracted, and when I electrified it by either of these, till it became repelled, it would be attracted by the wire of the phial, but be repelled by its coating. These experiments surprised me very much, and have induced me to infer the following paradoxes. 1. If a glass globe be placed at one end of a prime-conductor, and a sulphur one at the other end, both being equally in good order, and in equal motion, not a spark of fire can be obtained from the conductor; but one globe will draw out, as fast as the other gives in. 2. If a phial be suspended on the conductor, with a chain from its coating to the table, and only one of the globes be made use of at a time, 20 turns of the wheel, for instance, will charge it; after which, so many tarns of the other wheel will discharge it; and as many more will charge it again. 3. The globes being both in motion, each having a separate conductor, with a phial suspended on one of them, and the chain of it fastened to the other, the phial will become charged; one globe charging positively, the other negatively. 4. The phial being thus charged, hang it in like manner on the other conductor; set both wheels a going again, and the same number of turns that charged it before, will now discharge it; and the same number repeated, will charge it again. 5. When each globe communicates with the same prime conductor, having a chain hanging from it to the table, one of them, when in motion (but which I cannot say) will draw fire up through the cushion, and discharge it through the chain; the other will draw it up through the chain, and discharge it through the cushion. I should be glad if you would send to my house for my sulphur globe, and the cushion belonging to it, and make the trial; but must caution you not to use chalk on the cushion, some fine powdered sulphur will do better. If, as I expect, you should find the globes to charge the prime conductor differently, I hope you will be able to discover some method of determining which it is that charges positively. I am, &c. E. KINNERSLEY. TO MR. E. KINNERSLEY, AT BOSTON. _Probable Cause of the Different Attractions and Repulsions of the two electrified Globes mentioned in the two preceding Letters._ _Philadelphia, March 2, 1752._ SIR, I thank you for the experiments communicated. I sent immediately for your brimstone globe, in order to make the trials you desired, but found it wanted centres, which I have not time now to supply; but the first leisure I will get it fitted for use, try the experiments, and acquaint you with the result. In the mean time I suspect, that the different attractions and repulsions you observed, proceeded rather from the greater or smaller quantities of the fire you obtained from different bodies, than from its being of a different _kind_, or having a different _direction_. In haste, I am, &c. B. FRANKLIN. TO MR. E. KINNERSLEY, AT BOSTON. _Reasons for supposing, that the glass Globe charges positively, and the Sulphur negatively.--Hint respecting a leather Globe for Experiments when travelling._ _Philadelphia, March 16, 1752._ SIR, Having brought your brimstone globe to work, I tried one of the experiments you proposed, and was agreeably surprised to find, that the glass globe being at one end of the conductor, and the sulphur globe at the other end, both globes in motion, no spark could be obtained from the conductor, unless when one globe turned slower, or was not in so good order as the other; and then the spark was only in proportion to the difference, so that turning equally, or turning that slowest which worked best, would again bring the conductor to afford no spark. I found also, that the wire of a phial charged by the glass globe, attracted a cork ball that had touched the wire of a phial charged by the brimstone globe, and _vice versa_, so that the cork continued to play between the two phials, just as when one phial was charged through the wire, the other through the coating, by the glass globe alone. And two phials charged, the one by the brimstone globe, the other by the glass globe, would be both discharged by bringing their wires together, and shock the person holding the phials. From these experiments one may be certain that your 2d, 3d, and 4th proposed experiments, would succeed exactly as you suppose, though I have not tried them, wanting time. I imagine it is the glass globe that charges positively, and the sulphur negatively, for these reasons: 1. Though the sulphur globe seems to work equally well with the glass one, yet it can never occasion so large and distant a spark between my knuckle and the conductor, when the sulphur one is working, as when the glass one is used; which, I suppose, is occasioned by this, that bodies of a certain bigness cannot so easily part with a quantity of electrical fluid they have and hold attracted _within_ their substance, as they can receive an additional quantity _upon_ their surface by way of atmosphere. Therefore so much cannot be drawn _out_ of the conductor, as can be thrown _on_ it. 2. I observe that the stream or brush of fire, appearing at the end of a wire, connected with the conductor, is long, large, and much diverging, when the glass globe is used, and makes a snapping (or rattling) noise: but when the sulphur one is used, it is short, small, and makes a hissing noise; and just the reverse of both happens, when you hold the same wire in your hand, and the globes are worked alternately: the brush is large, long, diverging, and snapping (or rattling) when the sulphur globe is turned; short, small, and hissing, when the glass globe is turned.--When the brush is long, large, and much diverging, the body to which it joins seems to me to be throwing the fire out; and when the contrary appears, it seems to be drinking in. 3. I observe, that when I hold my knuckle before the sulphur globe, while turning, the stream of fire between my knuckle and the globe seems to spread on its surface, as if it flowed from the finger; on the glass globe it is otherwise. 4. The cool wind (or what was called so) that we used to feel as coming from an electrified point, is, I think, more sensible when the glass globe is used, than when the sulphur one.--But these are hasty thoughts. As to your fifth paradox, it must likewise be true, if the globes are alternately worked; but if worked together, the fire will neither come up nor go down by the chain, because one globe will drink it as fast as the other produces it. I should be glad to know, whether the effects would be contrary if the glass globe is solid, and the sulphur globe is hollow; but I have no means at present of trying. In your journeys, your glass globes meet with accidents, and sulphur ones are heavy and inconvenient.--_Query._ Would not a thin plane of brimstone, cast on a board, serve on occasion as a cushion, while a globe of leather stuffed (properly mounted) might receive the fire from the sulphur, and charge the conductor positively? Such a globe would be in no danger of breaking[64]. I think I can conceive how it may be done; but have not time to add more than that I am, Yours, &c. B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTE: [64] The discoveries of the late ingenious Mr. Symmer, on the positive and negative electricity produced by the mutual friction of white and black silk, &c. afford hints for farther improvements to be made with this view. [In Mr. Collinson's edition, several papers followed here, by the Abbé Mazeas, and others, upon the subject of Dr. Franklin's experiments, which, that the letters of our author might not be too much interrupted, we have thought proper to transfer to an Appendix. A subsequent paper by Mr. David Colden, entitled Remarks on the Abbé Nollet's Letters to Benjamin Franklin, esq. on Electricity, will be found transferred in the same manner.] TO PETER COLLINSON, ESQ. F. R. S. LONDON. _Electrical Kite._ _Philadelphia, Oct. 19, 1752._ SIR, As frequent mention is made in public papers from Europe of the success of the Philadelphia experiment for drawing the electric fire from clouds by means of pointed rods of iron erected on high buildings, &c. it may be agreeable to the curious to be informed that the same experiment has succeeded in Philadelphia, though made in a different and more easy manner, which is as follows: Make a small cross of two light strips of cedar, the arms so long as to reach to the four corners of a large thin silk handkerchief when extended; tie the corners of the handkerchief to the extremities of the cross, so you have the body of a kite; which being properly accommodated with a tail, loop, and string, will rise in the air, like those made of paper; but this being of silk is fitter to bear the wet and wind of a thunder-gust without tearing. To the top of the upright stick of the cross is to be fixed a very sharp pointed wire, rising a foot or more above the wood. To the end of the twine, next the hand, is to be tied a silk ribbon, and where the silk and twine join, a key may be fastened. This kite is to be raised when a thunder-gust appears to be coming on, and the person who holds the string must stand within a door or window, or under some cover, so that the silk ribbon may not be wet; and care must be taken that the twine does not touch the frame of the door or window. As soon as any of the thunder clouds come over the kite, the pointed wire will draw the electric fire from them, and the kite, with all the twine, will be electrified, and the loose filaments of the twine will stand out every way, and be attracted by an approaching finger. And when the rain has wetted the kite and twine, so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the key on the approach of your knuckle. At this key the phial may be charged; and from electric fire thus obtained, spirits may be kindled, and all the other electric experiments be performed, which are usually done by the help of a rubbed glass globe or tube, and thereby the sameness of the electric matter with that of lightning completely demonstrated. B. FRANKLIN. TO PETER COLLINSON, ESQ. F. R. S. LONDON. _Hypothesis, of the Sea being the grand Source of Lightning, retracted. Positive, and sometimes negative, Electricity of the Clouds discovered.--New Experiments and Conjectures in Support of this Discovery.--Observations recommended for ascertaining the Direction of the electric Fluid.--Size of Rods for Conductors to Buildings.--Appearance of a Thunder-Cloud described._ _Philadelphia, September, 1753._ SIR, In my former paper on this subject, written first in 1747, enlarged and sent to England in 1749, I considered the sea as the grand source of lightning, imagining its luminous appearance to be owing to electric fire, produced by friction between the particles of water and those of salt. Living far from the sea, I had then no opportunity of making experiments on the sea-water, and so embraced this opinion too hastily. For in 1750, and 1751, being occasionally on the sea-coast, I found, by experiments, that sea-water in a bottle, though at first it would by agitation appear luminous, yet in a few hours it lost that virtue: _hence and from this_, that I could not by agitating a solution of sea-salt in water produce any light, I first began to doubt of my former hypothesis, and to suspect that the luminous appearance in sea-water must be owing to some other principles. I then considered whether it were not possible, that the particles of air, being electrics _per se_, might, in hard gales of wind, by their friction against trees, hills, buildings, &c. as so many minute electric globes, rubbing against non-electric cushions, draw the electric fire from the earth, and that the rising vapours might receive that fire from the air, and by such means the clouds become electrified. If this were so, I imagined that by forcing a constant violent stream of air against my prime conductor, by bellows, I should electrify it _negatively_; the rubbing particles of air, drawing from it part of its natural quantity of the electric fluid. I accordingly made the experiment, but it did not succeed. In September 1752, I erected an iron rod to draw the lightning down into my house, in order to make some experiments on it, with two bells to give notice when the rod should be electrified: a contrivance obvious to every electrician. I found the bells rang sometimes when there was no lightning or thunder, but only a dark cloud over the rod; that sometimes after a flash of lightning they would suddenly stop; and at other times, when they had not rang before, they would, after a flash, suddenly begin to ring; that the electricity was sometimes very faint, so that when a small spark was obtained, another could not be got for some time after; at other times the sparks would follow extremely quick, and once I had a continual stream from bell to bell, the size of a crow-quill: even during the same gust there were considerable variations. In the winter following I conceived an experiment, to try whether the clouds were electrified _positively_ or _negatively_; but my pointed rod, with its apparatus, becoming out of order, I did not refit it till towards the spring, when I expected the warm weather would bring on more frequent thunder-clouds. The experiment was this: To take two phials; charge one of them with lightning from the iron rod, and give the other an equal charge by the electric glass globe, through the prime conductor: when charged, to place them on a table within three or four inches of each other, a small cork ball being suspended by a fine silk thread from the cieling, so as it might play between the wires. If both bottles then were electrified _positively_, the ball being attracted and repelled by one, must be also repelled by the other. If the one _positively_, and the other _negatively_; then the ball would be attracted and repelled alternately by each, and continue to play between them as long as any considerable charge remained. Being very intent on making this experiment, it was no small mortification to me, that I happened to be abroad during two of the greatest thunder-storms we had early in the spring, and though I had given orders in my family, that if the bells rang when I was from home, they should catch some of the lightning for me in electrical phials, and they did so, yet it was mostly dissipated before my return, and in some of the other gusts, the quantity of lightning I was able to obtain was so small, and the charge so weak, that I could not satisfy myself: yet I sometimes saw what heightened my suspicions, and inflamed my curiosity. At last, on the 12th of April, 1753, there being a smart gust of some continuance, I charged one phial pretty well with lightning, and the other equally, as near as I could judge, with electricity from my glass globe; and, having placed them properly, I beheld, with great surprize and pleasure, the cork ball play briskly between them; and was convinced that one bottle was electrised _negatively_. I repeated this experiment several times during the gust, and in eight succeeding gusts, always with the same success; and being of opinion (for reasons I formerly gave in my letter to Mr. Kinnersley, since printed in London) that the glass globe electrises _positively_, I concluded that the clouds are _always_ electrised _negatively_, or have always in them less than their natural quantity of the electric fluid. Yet notwithstanding so many experiments, it seems I concluded too soon; for at last, June the 6th, in a gust which continued from five o'clock, P. M. to seven, I met with one cloud that was electrised positively, though several that passed over my rod before, during the same gust, were in the negative state. This was thus discovered: I had another concurring experiment, which I often repeated, to prove the negative state of the clouds, viz. while the bells were ringing, I took the phial charged from the glass globe, and applied its wire to the erected rod, considering, that if the clouds were electrised _positively_, the rod which received its electricity from them must be so too; and then the additional _positive_ electricity of the phial would make the bells ring faster:--But, if the clouds were in a _negative_ state, they must exhaust the electric fluid from my rod, and bring that into the same negative state with themselves, and then the wire of a positively charged phial, supplying the rod with what it wanted (which it was obliged otherwise to draw from the earth by means of the pendulous brass ball playing between the two bells) the ringing would cease till the bottle was discharged. In this manner I quite discharged into the rod several phials that were charged from the glass globe, the electric fluid streaming from the wire to the rod, till the wire would receive no spark from the finger; and, during this supply to the rod from the phial, the bells stopped ringing; but by continuing the application of the phial wire to the rod, I exhausted the natural quantity from the inside surface of the same phials, or, as I call it, charged them _negatively_. At length, while I was charging a phial by my glass globe, to repeat this experiment, my bells, of themselves, stopped ringing, and, after some pause, began to ring again.--But now, when I approached the wire of the charged phial to the rod, instead of the usual stream that I expected from the wire to the rod, there was no spark; not even when I brought the wire and the rod to touch; yet the bells continued ringing vigorously, which proved to me, that the rod was then _positively_ electrified, as well as the wire of the phial, and equally so; and, consequently, that the particular cloud then over the rod was in the same positive state. This was near the end of the gust. But this was a single experiment, which, however, destroys my first too general conclusion, and reduces me to this: _That the clouds of a thunder-gust are most commonly in a negative state of electricity, but sometimes in a positive state._ The latter I believe is rare; for though I soon after the last experiment set out on a journey to Boston, and was from home most part of the summer, which prevented my making farther trials and observations; yet Mr. Kinnersley returning from the Islands just as I left home, pursued the experiments during my absence, and informs me that he always found the clouds in the _negative_ state. So that, for the most part, in thunder-strokes, _it is the earth that strikes into the clouds, and not the clouds that strike into the earth_. Those who are versed in electric experiments, will easily conceive, that the effects and appearances must be nearly the same in either case; the same explosion, and the same flash between one cloud and another, and between the clouds and mountains, &c. the same rending of trees, walls, &c. which the electric fluid meets with in its passage, and the same fatal shock to animal bodies; and that pointed rods fixed on buildings, or masts of ships, and communicating with the earth or sea, must be of the same service in restoring the equilibrium silently between the earth and clouds, or in conducting a flash or stroke, if one should be, so as to save harmless the house or vessel: for points have equal power to throw off, as to draw on the electric fire, and, rods will conduct up as well as down. But though the light gained from these experiments makes no alteration in the practice, it makes a considerable one in the theory. And now we as much need an hypothesis to explain by what means the clouds become negatively, as before to shew how they became positively electrified. I cannot forbear venturing some few conjectures on this occasion: they are what occur to me at present, and though future discoveries should prove them not wholly right, yet they may in the mean time be of some use, by stirring up the curious to make more experiments, and occasion more exact disquisitions. I conceive then, that this globe of earth and water, with its plants, animals, and buildings, have diffused throughout their substance, a quantity of the electric fluid, just as much as they can contain, which I call the _natural quantity_. That this natural quantity is not the same in all kinds of common matter under the same dimensions, nor in the same kind of common matter in all circumstances; but a solid foot, for instance, of one kind of common matter, may contain more of the electric fluid than a solid foot of some other kind of common matter; and a pound weight of the same kind of common matter may, when in a rarer state, contain more of the electric fluid than when in a denser state. For the electric fluid, being attracted by any portion of common matter, the parts of that fluid, (which have among themselves a mutual repulsion) are brought so near to each other by the attraction of the common matter that absorbs them, as that their repulsion is equal to the condensing power of attraction in common matter; and then such portion of common matter will absorb no more. Bodies of different kinds having thus attracted and absorbed what I call their _natural quantity, i. e._ just as much of the electric fluid as is suited to their circumstances of density, rarity, and power of attracting, do not then show any signs of electricity among each other. And if more electric fluid be added to one of these bodies, it does not enter, but spreads on the surface, forming an atmosphere; and then such body shews signs of electricity. I have in a former paper compared common matter to a spunge, and the electric fluid to water: I beg leave once more to make use of the same comparison, to illustrate farther my meaning in this particular. When a spunge is somewhat condensed by being squeezed between the fingers, it will not receive and retain so much water as when in its more loose and open state. If _more_ squeezed and condensed, some of the water will come out of its inner parts, and flow on the surface. If the pressure of the fingers be entirely removed, the spunge will not only resume what was lately forced out, but attract an additional quantity. As the spunge in its rarer state will _naturally_ attract and absorb _more_ water, and in its denser state will _naturally_ attract and absorb _less_ water; we may call the quantity it attacks and absorbs in either state, its _natural quantity_, the state being considered. Now what the spunge is to water, the same is water to the electric fluid. When a portion of water is in its common dense state, it can hold no more electric fluid than it has: if any be added, it spreads on the surface. When the same portion of water is rarefied into vapour, and forms a cloud, it is then capable of receiving and absorbing a much greater quantity; there is room for each particle to have an electric atmosphere. Thus water, in its rarefied state, or in the form of a cloud, will be in a negative state of electricity; it will have less than its _natural quantity_; that is, less than it is naturally capable of attracting and absorbing in that state. Such a cloud, then, coming so near the earth as to be within the striking distance, will receive from the earth a flash of the electric fluid; which flash, to supply a great extent of cloud, must sometimes contain a very great quantity of that fluid. Or such a cloud, passing over woods of tall trees, may from the points and sharp edges of their moist top leaves, receive silently some supply. A cloud being by any means supplied from the earth, may strike into other clouds that have not been supplied, or not so much supplied; and those to others, till an equilibrium is produced among all the clouds that are within striking distance of each other. The cloud thus supplied, having parted with much of what it first received, may require and receive a fresh supply from the earth, or from some other cloud, which by the wind is brought into such a situation as to receive it more readily from the earth. Hence repeated and continual strokes and flashes till the clouds have all got nearly their natural quantity as clouds, or till they have descended in showers, and are united again with this terraqueous globe, their original. Thus, thunder-clouds are generally in a negative state of electricity compared with the earth, agreeable to most of our experiments; yet as by one experiment we found a cloud electrised positively, I conjecture that, in that case, such cloud, after having received what was, in its rare state, only its _natural quantity_, became compressed by the driving winds, or some other means, so that part of what it had absorbed was forced out, and formed an electric atmosphere around it in its denser state. Hence it was capable of communicating positive electricity to my rod. To show that a body in different circumstances of dilatation and contraction is capable of receiving and retaining more or less of the electric fluid on its surface, I would relate the following experiment: I placed a clean wine glass on the floor, and on it a small silver can. In the can I put about three yards of brass chain; to one end of which I fastened a silk thread, which went right up to the cieling, where it passed over a pulley, and came down again to my hand, that I might at pleasure draw the chain up out of the can, extending it till within a foot of the cieling, and let it gradually sink into the can again.--From the cieling, by another thread of fine raw silk, I suspended a small light lock of cotton, so as that when it hung perpendicularly, it came in contact with the side of the can.--Then approaching the wire of a charged phial to the can, I gave it a spark, which flowed round in an electric atmosphere; and the lock of cotton was repelled from the side of the can to the distance of about nine or ten inches. The can would not then receive another spark from the wire of the phial; but as I gradually drew up the chain, the atmosphere of the can diminished by flowing over the rising chain, and the lock of cotton accordingly drew nearer and nearer to the can; and then, if I again brought the phial wire near the can, it would receive another spark, and the cotton fly off again to its first distance; and thus, as the chain was drawn higher, the can would receive more sparks; because the can and extended chain were capable of supporting a greater atmosphere than the can with the chain gathered up into its belly.--And that the atmosphere round the can was diminished by raising the chain, and increased again by lowering it, is not only agreeable to reason, since the atmosphere of the chain, must be drawn from that of the can, when it rose, and returned to it again when it fell; but was also evident to the eye, the lock of cotton always approaching the can when the chain was drawn up, and receding when it was let down again. Thus we see that increase of surface makes a body capable of receiving a greater electric atmosphere: but this experiment does not, I own, fully demonstrate my new hypothesis; for the brass and silver still continue in their solid state, and are not rarefied into vapour, as the water is in clouds. Perhaps some future experiments on vapourized water may set this matter in a clearer light. One seemingly material objection arises to the new hypothesis, and it is this: If water, in its rarefied state, as a cloud, requires, and will absorb more of the electric fluid than when in its dense state as water, why does it not acquire from the earth all it wants at the instant of its leaving the surface, while it is yet near, and but just rising in vapour? To this difficulty I own I cannot at present give a solution satisfactory to myself: I thought, however, that I ought to state it in its full force, as I have done, and submit the whole to examination. And I would beg leave to recommend it to the curious in this branch of natural philosophy, to repeat with care and accurate observation the experiments I have reported in this and former papers relating to _positive_ and _negative_ electricity, with such other relative ones as shall occur to them, that it may be certainly known whether the electricity communicated by a glass globe, be _really positive_. And also I would request all who may have an opportunity of observing the recent effects of lightning on buildings, trees, &c. that they would consider them particularly with a view to discover the direction. But in these examinations, this one thing is always to be understood, viz. that a stream of the electric fluid passing through wood, brick, metal, &c. while such fluid passes in _small quantity_, the mutually repulsive power of its parts is confined and overcome by the cohesion of the parts of the body it passes through, so as to prevent an explosion; but when the fluid comes in a quantity too great to be confined by such cohesion, it explodes, and rends or fuses the body that endeavoured to confine it. If it be wood, brick, stone, or the like, the splinters will fly off on that side where there is least resistance. And thus, when a hole is struck through pasteboard by the electrified jar, if the surfaces of the pasteboard are not confined or compressed, there will be a bur raised all round the hole on both sides the pasteboard; but if one side be confined, so that the bur cannot be raised on that side, it will be all raised on the other, which way soever the fluid was directed. For the bur round the outside of the hole, is the effect of the explosion every way from the centre of the stream, and not an effect of the direction. In every stroke of lightning, I am of opinion that the stream of the electric fluid, moving to restore the equilibrium between the cloud and the earth, does always previously find its passage, and mark out, as I may say, its own course, taking in its way all the conductors it can find, such as metals, damp walls, moist wood, &c. and will go considerably out of a direct course, for the sake of the assistance of good conductors; and that, in this course, it is actually moving, though silently and imperceptibly, before the explosion, in and among the conductors; which explosion happens only when the conductors cannot discharge it as fast as they receive it, by reason of their being incomplete, dis-united, too small, or not of the best materials for conducting. Metalline rods, therefore, of sufficient thickness, and extending from the highest part of an edifice to the ground, being of the best materials and complete conductors, will, I think, secure the building from damage, either by restoring the equilibrium so fast as to prevent a stroke, or by conducting it in the substance of the rod as far as the rod goes, so that there shall be no explosion but what is above its point, between that and the clouds. If it be asked, what thickness of a metalline rod may be supposed sufficient? In answer, I would remark, that five large glass jars, such as I have described in my former papers, discharge a very great quantity of electricity, which nevertheless will be all conducted round the corner of a book, by the fine filleting of gold on the cover, it following the gold the farthest way about, rather than take the shorter course through the cover, that not being so good a conductor. Now in this line of gold, the metal is so extremely thin as to be little more than the colour of gold, and on an octavo book is not in the whole an inch square, and therefore not the thirty-sixth part of a grain, according to M. Reaumur; yet it is sufficient to conduct the charge of five large jars, and how many more I know not. Now, I suppose a wire of a quarter of an inch diameter to contain about five thousand times as much metal as there is in that gold line, and if so, it will conduct the charge of twenty-five thousand such glass jars, which is a quantity, I imagine, far beyond what was ever contained in any one stroke of natural lightning. But a rod of half an inch diameter would conduct four times as much as one of a quarter. And with regard to conducting, though a certain thickness of metal be required to conduct a great quantity of electricity, and, at the same time, keep its own substance firm and unseparated; and a less quantity, as a very small wire for instance, will be destroyed by the explosion; yet such small wire will have answered the end of conducting that stroke, though it become incapable of conducting another. And considering the extreme rapidity with which the electric fluid moves without exploding, when it has a free passage, or compleat metal communication, I should think a vast quantity would be conducted in a short time, either to or from a cloud, to restore its equilibrium with the earth, by means of a very small wire; and therefore thick rods should seem not so necessary.--However, as the quantity of lightning discharged in one stroke, cannot well be measured, and, in different strokes, is certainly very various, in some much greater than others; and as iron (the best metal for the purpose, being least apt to fuse) is cheap, it may be well enough to provide a larger canal to guide that impetuous blast than we imagine necessary: for, though one middling wire may be sufficient, two or three can do no harm. And time, with careful observations well compared, will at length point out the proper size to greater certainty. Pointed rods erected on edifices may likewise often prevent a stroke, in the following manner: An eye so situated as to view horizontally the under side of a thunder-cloud, will see it very ragged, with a number of separate fragments, or petty clouds, one under another, the lowest sometimes not far from the earth. These, as so many stepping-stones, assist in conducting a stroke between the cloud and a building. To represent these by an experiment, take two or three locks of fine loose cotton, connect one of them with the prime conductor by a fine thread of two inches (which may be spun out of the same lock by the fingers) another to that, and the third to the second, by like threads.--Turn the globe and you will see these locks extend themselves towards the table (as the lower small clouds do towards the earth) being attracted by it: but on presenting a sharp point erect under the lowest, it will shrink up to the second, the second to the first, and all together to the prime conductor, where they will continue as long as the point continues under them. May not, in like manner, the small electrised clouds, whose equilibrium with the earth is soon restored by the point, rise up to the main body, and by that means occasion so large a vacancy, as that the grand cloud cannot strike in that place? These thoughts, my dear friend, are many of them crude and hasty; and if I were merely ambitious of acquiring some reputation in philosophy, I ought to keep them by me, till corrected and improved by time, and farther experience. But since even short hints and imperfect experiments in any new branch of science, being communicated, have oftentimes a good effect, in exciting the attention of the ingenious to the subject, and so become the occasion of more exact disquisition, and more compleat discoveries, you are at liberty to communicate this paper to whom you please; it being of more importance that knowledge should increase, than that your friend should be thought an accurate philosopher. B. FRANKLIN. TO PETER COLLINSON, ESQ. F. R. S. LONDON. _Additional Proofs of the positive and negative State of Electricity in the Clouds.--New Method of ascertaining it._ _Philadelphia, April 18, 1754._ SIR, Since September last, having been abroad on two long journeys, and otherwise much engaged, I have made but few observations on the _positive_ and _negative_ state of electricity in the clouds. But Mr. Kinnersley kept his rod and bells in good order, and has made many. Once this winter the bells rang a long time, during a fall of snow, though no thunder was heard, or lightning seen. Sometimes the flashes and cracks of the electric matter between bell and bell were so large and loud as to be heard all over the house: but by all his observations, the clouds were constantly in a negative state, till about six weeks ago, when he found them once to change in a few minutes from the negative to the positive. About a fortnight after that, he made another observation of the same kind; and last Monday afternoon, the wind blowing hard at S. E. and veering round to N. E. with many thick driving clouds, there were five or six successive changes from negative to positive, and from positive to negative, the bells stopping a minute or two between every change. Besides the methods mentioned in my paper of September last, of discovering the electrical state of the clouds, the following may be used. When your bells are ringing, pass a rubbed tube by the edge of the bell, connected with your pointed rod: if the cloud is then in a negative state, the ringing will stop; if in a positive state, it will continue, and perhaps be quicker. Or, suspend a very small cork-ball by a fine silk thread, so that it may hang close to the edge of the rod-bell: then whenever the bell is electrified, whether positively or negatively, the little ball will be repelled, and continue at some distance from the bell. Have ready a round-headed glass stopper of a decanter, rub it on your side till it is electrified, then present it to the cork-ball. If the electricity in the ball is positive, it will be repelled from the glass stopper as well as from the bell. If negative, it will fly to the stopper. B. FRANKLIN. ELECTRICAL EXPERIMENTS, _With an attempt to account for their several phænomena. Together with some observations on thunder-clouds, in further confirmation of Mr. Franklin's observations on the positive and negative electrical state of the clouds, by John Canton, M. A. and F. R. S._ _Dec. 6, 1753._ EXPERIMENT I. From the cieling, or any convenient part of a room, let two cork-balls, each about the bigness of a small pea, be suspended by linen threads of eight or nine inches in length, so as to be in contact with each other. Bring the excited glass tube under the balls, and they will be separated by it, when held at the distance of three or four feet; let it be brought nearer, and they will stand farther apart; entirely withdraw it, and they will immediately come together. This experiment may be made with very small brass balls hung by silver wire; and will succeed as well with sealing-wax made electrical, as with glass. EXPERIMENT II. If two cork-balls be suspended by dry silk threads, the excited tube must be brought within eighteen inches before they will repel each other; which they will continue to do, for some time, after the tube is taken away. As the balls in the first experiment are not insulated, they cannot properly be said to be electrified: but when they hang within the atmosphere of the excited tube, they may attract and condense the electrical fluid round about them, and be separated by the repulsion of its particles. It is conjectured also, that the balls at this time contain less than their common share of the electrical fluid, on account of the repelling power of that which surrounds them; though some, perhaps, is continually entering and passing through the threads. And if that be the case, the reason is plain why the balls hung by silk, in the second experiment, must be in a much more dense part of the atmosphere of the tube, before they will repel each other. At the approach of an excited stick of wax to the balls, in the first experiment, the electrical fire is supposed to come through the threads into the balls, and be condensed there, in its passage towards the wax; for, according to Mr. Franklin, excited glass _emits_ the electrical fluid, but excited wax _receives_ it. EXPERIMENT III. Let a tin tube, of four or five feet in length, and about two inches in diameter, be insulated by silk; and from one end of it let the cork-balls be suspended by linen threads. Electrify it, by bringing the excited glass tube near the other end, so as that the balls may stand an inch and an half, or two inches, apart: then, at the approach of the excited tube, they will, by degrees, lose their repelling power, and come into contact; and as the tube is brought still nearer, they will separate again to as great a distance as before: in the return of the tube they will approach each other till they touch, and then repel as at first. If the tin tube be electrified by wax, or the wire of a charged phial, the balls will be affected in the same manner at the approach of excited wax, or the wire of the phial. EXPERIMENT IV. Electrify the cork-balls as in the last experiment by glass, and at the approach of an excited stick of wax their repulsion will be increased. The effect will be the same, if the excited glass be brought towards them, when they have been electrified by wax. The bringing the excited glass to the end, or edge of the tin-tube, in the third experiment, is supposed to electrify it positively, or to add to the electrical fire it before contained; and therefore some will be running off through the balls, and they will repel each other. But at the approach of excited glass, which likewise _emits_ the electrical fluid, the discharge of it from the balls will be diminished; or part will be driven back, by a force acting in a contrary direction: and they will come nearer together. If the tube be held at such a distance from the balls, that the excess of the density of the fluid round about them, above the common quantity in air, be equal to the excess of the density of that within them, above the common quantity contained in cork; their repulsion will be quite destroyed. But if the tube be brought nearer; the fluid without being more dense than that within the balls, it will be attracted by them, and they will recede from each other again. When the apparatus has lost part of its natural share of this fluid, by the approach of excited wax to one end of it, or is electrified negatively; the electrical fire is attracted and imbibed by the balls to supply the deficiency; and that more plentifully at the approach of excited glass; or a body positively electrified, than before; whence the distance between the balls will be increased, as the fluid surrounding them is augmented. And in general, whether by the approach or recess of any body; if the difference between the density of the internal and external fluid be increased, or diminished; the repulsion of the balls will be increased, or diminished, accordingly. EXPERIMENT V. When the insulated tin tube is not electrified, bring the excited glass tube towards the middle of it, so as to be nearly at right angles with it, and the balls at the end will repel each other; and the more so, as the excited tube is brought nearer. When it has been held a few seconds, at the distance of about six inches, withdraw it, and the balls will approach each other till they touch; and then separating again, as the tube is moved farther off, will continue to repel when it is taken quite away. And this repulsion between the balls will be increased by the approach of excited glass, but diminished by excited wax; just as if the apparatus had been electrified by wax, after the manner described in the third experiment. EXPERIMENT VI. Insulate two tin tubes, distinguished by A and B, so as to be in a line with each other, and about half an inch apart; and at the remote end of each, let a pair of cork balls be suspended. Towards the middle of A, bring the excited glass tube, and holding it a short time, at the distance of a few inches, each pair of balls will be observed to separate: withdraw the tube, and the balls of A will come together, and then repel each other again; but those of B will hardly be affected. By the approach of the excited glass tube, held under the balls of A, their repulsion will be increased: but if the tube be brought, in the same manner, towards the balls of B, their repulsion will be diminished. In the fifth experiment, the common stock of electrical matter in the tin tube, is supposed to be attenuated about the middle, and to be condensed at the ends, by the repelling power of the atmosphere of the excited glass tube, when held near it. And perhaps the tin tube may lose some of its natural quantity of the electrical fluid, before it receives any from the glass; as that fluid will more readily run off from the ends and edges of it, than enter at the middle: and accordingly, when the glass tube is withdrawn, and the fluid is again equally diffused through the apparatus, it is found to be electrified negatively: for excited glass brought under the balls will increase their repulsion. In the sixth experiment, part of the fluid driven out of one tin tube enters the other; which is found to be electrified positively, by the decreasing of the repulsion of its balls, at the approach of excited glass. EXPERIMENT VII. Let the tin tube, with a pair of balls at one end, be placed three feet at least from any part of the room, and the air rendered very dry by means of a fire: electrify the apparatus to a considerable degree; then touch the tin tube with a finger, or any other conductor, and the balls will, notwithstanding, continue to repel each other; though not at so great a distance as before. The air surrounding the apparatus to the distance of two or three feet, is supposed to contain more or less of the electrical fire, than its common share, as the tin tube is electrified positively, or negatively; and when very dry, may not part with its overplus, or have its deficiency supplied so suddenly, as the tin; but may continue to be electrified, after that has been touched for a considerable time. EXPERIMENT VIII. Having made the Torricellian vacuum about five feet long, after the manner described in the _Philosophical Transactions_, vol. xlvii. p. 370, if the excited tube be brought within a small distance of it, a light will be seen through more than half its length; which soon vanishes, if the tube be not brought nearer; but will appear again, as that is moved farther off. This may be repeated several times, without exciting the tube afresh. This experiment may be considered as a kind of ocular demonstration of the truth of Mr. Franklin's hypothesis; that when the electrical fluid is condensed on one side of thin glass, it will be repelled from the other, if it meets with no resistance. According to which, at the approach of the excited tube, the fire is supposed to be repelled from the inside of the glass surrounding the vacuum, and to be carried off through the columns of mercury; but, as the tube is withdrawn, the fire is supposed to return. EXPERIMENT IX. Let an excited stick of wax, of two feet and an half in length, and about an inch in diameter, be held near its middle. Excite the glass tube, and draw it over one half of it; then, turning it a little about its axis, let the tube be excited again, and drawn over the same half; and let this operation be repeated several times: then will that half destroy the repelling power of balls electrified by glass, and the other half will increase it. By this experiment it appears, that wax also may be electrified positively and negatively. And it is probable, that all bodies whatsoever may have the quantity they contain of the electrical fluid, increased, or diminished. The clouds, I have observed, by a great number of experiments, to be some in a positive, and others in a negative state of electricity. For the cork balls, electrified by them, will sometimes close at the approach of excited glass; and at other times be separated to a greater distance. And this change I have known to happen five or six times in less than half an hour; the balls coming together each time and remaining in contact a few seconds, before they repel each other again. It may likewise easily be discovered, by a charged phial, whether the electrical fire be drawn out of the apparatus by a negative cloud, or forced into it by a positive one: and by which soever it be electrified, should that cloud either part with its overplus, or have its deficiency supplied suddenly, the apparatus will lose its electricity: which is frequently observed to be the case, immediately after a flash of lightning. Yet when the air is very dry, the apparatus will continue to be electrised for ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, after the clouds have passed the zenith; and sometimes till they appear more than half-way towards the horizon. Rain, especially when the drops are large, generally brings down the electrical fire: and hail, in summer, I believe never fails. When the apparatus was last electrified, it was by the fall of thawing snow, which happened so lately, as on the 12th of November; that being the twenty-sixth day, and sixty-first time it has been electrified, since it was first set up; which was about the middle of May. And as Fahrenheit's thermometer was but seven degrees above freezing, it is supposed the winter will not entirely put a stop to observations of this sort. At London, no more than two thunder-storms have happened during the whole summer; and the apparatus was sometimes so strongly electrified in one of them, that the bells, which have been frequently rung by the clouds, so loud as to be heard in every room of the house (the doors being open) were silenced by the almost constant stream of dense electrical fire, between each bell and the brass ball, which would not suffer it to strike. I shall conclude this paper, already too long, with the following queries: 1. May not air, suddenly rarefied, give electrical fire to, and air suddenly condensed, receive electrical fire from, clouds and vapours passing through it? 2. Is not the _aurora borealis_, the flashing of electrical fire from positive, towards negative clouds at a great distance, through the upper part of the atmosphere, where the resistance is least? EXPERIMENTS _Made in Pursuance of those made by Mr. Canton, dated December 6, 1753; with Explanations, by Mr. Benjamin Franklin._ Read at the Royal Society, Dec. 18, 1755. _Philadelphia, March 14, 1755._ PRINCIPLES. I. Electric atmospheres, that flow round non-electric bodies, being brought near each other, do not readily mix and unite into one atmosphere, but remain separate, and repel each other. This is plainly seen in suspended cork balls, and other bodies electrified. II. An electric atmosphere not only repels another electric atmosphere, but will also repel the electric matter contained in the substance of a body approaching it; and without joining or mixing with it, force it to other parts of the body that contained it. This is shewn by some of the following experiments. III. Bodies electrified negatively, or deprived of their natural quantity of electricity, repel each other, (or at least appear to do so, by a mutual receding) as well as those electrified positively, or which have electric atmospheres. This is shewn by applying the negatively charged wire of a phial to two cork balls, suspended by silk threads, and many other experiments. PREPARATION. Fix a tassel of fifteen or twenty threads, three inches long, at one end of a tin prime conductor (mine is about five feet long, and four inches diameter) supported by silk lines. Let the threads be a little damp, but not wet. EXPERIMENT I. _Pass an excited glass tube near the other end of the prime conductor, so as to give it some sparks, and the threads will diverge._ Because each thread, as well as the prime conductor, has acquired an electric atmosphere, which repels and is repelled by the atmospheres of the other threads: if those several atmospheres would readily mix, the threads might unite, and hang in the middle of one atmosphere, common to them all. _Rub the tube afresh, and approach the prime conductor therewith, crossways, near that end, but not nigh enough to give sparks; and the threads will diverge a little more._ Because the atmosphere of the prime conductor is pressed by the atmosphere of the excited tube, and driven towards the end where the threads are, by which each thread acquires more atmosphere. _Withdraw the tube, and they will close as much._ They close as much, and no more; because the atmosphere of the glass tube not having mixed with the atmosphere of the prime conductor, is withdrawn intire, having made no addition to, or diminution from it. _Bring the excited tube under the tuft of threads, and they will close a little._ They close, because the atmosphere of the glass tube repels their atmospheres, and drives part of them back on the prime conductor. _Withdraw it, and they will diverge as much._ For the portion of atmosphere which they had lost, returns to them again. EXPERIMENT II. _Excite the glass tube, and approach the prime conductor with it, holding it across, near the end opposite to that on which the threads hang, at the distance of five or six inches. Keep it there a few seconds, and the threads of the tassels will diverge. Withdraw it, and they will close._ They diverge, because they have received electric atmospheres from the electric matter before contained in the substance of the prime conductor; but which is now repelled and driven away, by the atmosphere of the glass tube, from the parts of the prime conductor opposite and nearest to that atmosphere, and forced out upon the surface of the prime conductor at its other end, and upon the threads hanging thereto. Were it any part of the atmosphere of the glass tube that flowed over and along the prime conductor to the threads, and gave them atmospheres (as is the case when a spark is given to the prime conductor from the glass tube) such part of the tube's atmosphere would have remained, and the threads continue to diverge; but they close on withdrawing the tube, because the tube takes with it _all its own atmosphere_, and the electric matter, which had been driven out of the substance of the prime conductor, and formed atmospheres round the threads, is thereby permitted to return to its place. _Take a spark from the prime conductor near the threads, when they are diverged as before, and they will close._ For by so doing you take away their atmospheres, composed of the electric matter driven out of the substance of the prime conductor, as aforesaid, by the repellency of the atmosphere of the glass tube. By taking this spark you rob the prime conductor of part of its natural quantity of the electric matter; which part so taken is not supplied by the glass tube, for when that is afterwards withdrawn, it takes with it its whole atmosphere, and leaves the prime conductor electrised negatively, as appears by the next operation. _Then withdraw the tube, and they will open again._ For now the electric matter in the prime conductor, returning to its equilibrium, or equal diffusion, in all parts of its substance, and the prime conductor having lost some of its natural quantity, the threads connected with it lose part of theirs, and so are electrised negatively, and therefore repel each other, by _Pr. III._ _Approach the prime conductor with the tube near the same place as at first, and they will close again._ Because the part of their natural quantity of electric fluid, which they had lost, is now restored to them again, by the repulsion of the glass tube forcing that fluid to them from other parts of the prime conductor; so they are now again in their natural state. _Withdraw it, and they will open again._ For what had been restored to them, is now taken from them again, flowing back into the prime conductor, and leaving them once more electrised negatively. _Bring the excited tube under the threads, and they will diverge more._ Because more of their natural quantity is driven from them into the prime conductor, and thereby their negative electricity increased. EXPERIMENT III. _The prime conductor not being electrified, bring the excited tube under the tassel, and the threads will diverge._ Part of their natural quantity is thereby driven out of them into the prime conductor, and they become negatively electrised, and therefore repel each other. _Keeping the tube in the same place with one hand, attempt to touch the threads with the finger of the other hand, and they will recede from the finger._ Because the finger being plunged into the atmosphere of the glass tube, as well as the threads, part of its natural quantity is driven back through the hand and body, by that atmosphere, and the finger becomes, as well as the threads, negatively electrised, and so repels, and is repelled by them. To confirm this, hold a slender light lock of cotton, two or three inches long, near a prime conductor, that is electrified by a glass globe, or tube. You will see the cotton stretch itself out towards the prime conductor. Attempt to touch it with the finger of the other hand, and it will be repelled by the finger. Approach it with a positively charged wire of a bottle, and it will fly to the wire. Bring it near a negatively charged wire of a bottle, it will recede from that wire in the same manner that it did from the finger; which demonstrates the finger to be negatively electrised, as well as the lock of cotton so situated. _Turkey killed by Electricity_.--_Effect of a Shock on the Operator in making the Experiment._ As Mr. Franklin, in a former letter to Mr. Collinson, mentioned his intending to try the power of a very strong electrical shock upon a turkey, that gentleman accordingly has been so very obliging as to send an account of it, which is to the following purpose. He made first several experiments on fowls, and found, that two large thin glass jars gilt, holding each about six gallons, were sufficient, when fully charged, to kill common hens outright; but the turkeys, though thrown into violent convulsions, and then lying as dead for some minutes, would recover in less than a quarter of an hour. However, having added three other such to the former two, though not fully charged, he killed a turkey of about ten pounds weight, and believes that they would have killed a much larger. He conceited, as himself says, that the birds killed in this manner eat uncommonly tender. In making these experiments, he found, that a man could, without great detriment, bear a much greater shock than he had imagined: for he inadvertently received the stroke of two of these jars through his arms and body, when they were very near fully charged. It seemed to him an universal blow throughout the body from head to foot, and was followed by a violent quick trembling in the trunk, which went off gradually, in a few seconds. It was some minutes before he could recollect his thoughts, so as to know what was the matter; for he did not see the flash, though his eye was on the spot of the prime conductor, from whence it struck the back of his hand; nor did he hear the crack, though the by-standers said it was a loud one; nor did he particularly feel the stroke on his hand, though he afterwards found it had raised a swelling there, of the bigness of half a pistol-bullet. His arms and the back of the neck felt somewhat numbed the remainder of the evening, and his breast was sore for a week after as if it had been bruised. From this experiment may be seen the danger, even under the greatest caution, to the operator, when making these experiments with large jars; for it is not to be doubted, but several of these fully charged would as certainly, by increasing them, in proportion to the size, kill a man, as they before did a turkey. _N. B._ The original of this letter, which was read at the Royal Society, has been mislaid. TO DR. L----[65], AT CHARLES TOWN, SOUTH CAROLINA. _Differences in the Qualities of Glass.--Account of Domien, an Electrician and Traveller.--Conjectures respecting the Pores of Glass.--Origin of the Author's Idea of drawing down Lightning.--No satisfactory Hypothesis respecting the Manner in which Clouds become electrified.--Six Men knocked down at once by an electrical Shock.--Reflections on the Spirit of Invention._ _Philadelphia, March 18, 1755._ SIR, I send you enclosed a paper containing some new experiments I have made, in pursuance of those by Mr. Canton that are printed with my last letters. I hope these, with my explanation of them, will afford you some entertainment[66]. In answer to your several enquiries. The tubes and globes we use here, are chiefly made here. The glass has a greenish cast, but is clear and hard, and, I think, better for electrical experiments than the white glass of London, which is not so hard. There are certainly great differences in glass. A white globe I had made here some years since, would never, by any means, be excited. Two of my friends tried it, as well as myself, without success. At length, putting it on an electric stand, a chain from the prime conductor being in contact with it, I found it had the properties of a non-electric; for I could draw sparks from any part of it, though it was very clean and dry. All I know of Domien, is, that by his own account he was a native of Transylvania, of Tartar descent, but a priest of the Greek church: he spoke and wrote Latin very readily and correctly. He set out from his own country with an intention of going round the world, as much as possible by land. He travelled through Germany, France, and Holland, to England. Resided some time at Oxford. From England he came to Maryland; thence went to New England; returned by land to Philadelphia; and from hence travelled through Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina to you. He thought it might be of service to him in his travels to know something of electricity. I taught him the use of the tube; how to charge the Leyden phial, and some other experiments. He wrote to me from Charles-Town, that he had lived eight hundred miles upon electricity, it had been meat, drink, and cloathing to him. His last letter to me was, I think, from Jamaica, desiring me to send the tubes you mention, to meet him at the Havannah, from whence he expected to get a passage to La Vera Cruz; designed travelling over land through Mexico to Acapulco; thence to get a passage to Manilla, and so through China, India, Persia, and Turkey, home to his own country; proposing to support himself chiefly by electricity. A strange project! But he was, as you observe, a very singular character. I was sorry the tubes did not get to the Havannah in time for him. If they are still in being, please to send for them, and accept of them. What became of him afterwards I have never heard. He promised to write to me as often as he could on his journey, and as soon as he should get home after finishing his tour. It is now seven years since he was here. If he is still in New Spain, as you imagine from that loose report, I suppose it must be that they confine him there, and prevent his writing: but I think it more likely that he may be dead. The questions you ask about the pores of glass, I cannot answer otherwise, than that I know nothing of their nature; and suppositions, however ingenious, are often mere mistakes. My hypothesis, that they were smaller near the middle of the glass, too small to admit the passage of electricity, which could pass through the surface till it came near the middle, was certainly wrong: For soon after I had written that letter, I did, in order to _confirm_ the hypothesis (which indeed I ought to have done before I wrote it) make an experiment. I ground away five-sixths of the thickness of the glass, from the side of one of my phials, expecting that the supposed denser part being so removed, the electric fluid might come through the remainder of the glass, which I had imagined more open; but I found myself mistaken. The bottle charged as well after the grinding as before. I am now, as much as ever, at a loss to know how or where the quantity of electric fluid, on the positive side of the glass, is disposed of. As to the difference of conductors, there is not only this, that some will conduct electricity in small quantities, and yet do not conduct it fast enough to produce the shock; but even among those that will conduct a shock, there are some that do it better than others. Mr. Kinnersley has found, by a very good experiment, that when the charge of a bottle hath an opportunity of passing two ways, _i. e._ straight through a trough of water ten feet long, and six inches square; or round about through twenty feet of wire, it passes through the wire, and not through the water, though that is the shortest course; the wire being the better conductor. When the wire is taken away, it passes through the water, as may be felt by a hand plunged in the water; but it cannot be felt in the water when the wire is used at the same time. Thus, though a small phial containing water will give a smart shock, one containing the same quantity of mercury will give one much stronger, the mercury being the better conductor; while one containing oil, only, will scarce give any shock at all. Your question, how I came first to think of proposing the experiment of drawing down the lightning, in order to ascertain its sameness with the electric fluid, I cannot answer better than by giving you an extract from the minutes I used to keep of the experiments I made, with memorandums of such as I purposed to make, the reasons for making them, and the observations that arose upon them, from which minutes my letters were afterwards drawn. By this extract you will see that the thought was not so much "an out-of-the-way one," but that it might have occurred to an electrician. "Nov. 7, 1749. Electrical fluid agrees with lightning in these particulars: 1. Giving light. 2. Colour of the light. 3. Crooked direction. 4. Swift motion. 5. Being conducted by metals. 6. Crack or noise in exploding. 7. Subsisting in water or ice. 8. Rending bodies it passes through. 9. Destroying animals. 10. Melting metals. 11. Firing inflammable substances. 12. Sulphureous smell.--The electric fluid is attracted by points.--We do not know whether this property is in lightning.--But since they agree in all the particulars wherein we can already compare them, is it not probable they agree likewise in this?--Let the experiment be made." I wish I could give you any satisfaction in the article of clouds. I am still at a loss about the manner in which they become charged with electricity; no hypothesis I have yet formed perfectly satisfying me. Some time since, I heated very hot a brass plate, two feet square, and placed it on an electric stand. From the plate a wire extended horizontally four or five feet, and, at the end of it, hung, by linen threads, a pair of cork balls. I then repeatedly sprinkled water over the plate, that it might be raised from it in vapour, hoping that if the vapour either carried off the electricity of the plate, or left behind it that of the water (one of which I supposed it must do, if, like the clouds, it became electrised itself, either positively or negatively) I should perceive and determine it by the separation of the balls, and by finding whether they were positive or negative; but no alteration was made at all, nor could I perceive that the steam was itself electrised, though I have still some suspicion that the steam was not fully examined, and I think the experiment should be repeated. Whether the first state of electrised clouds is positive or negative, if I could find the cause of that, I should be at no loss about the other, for either is easily deduced from the other, as one state is easily produced by the other. A strongly positive cloud may drive out of a neighbouring cloud much of its natural quantity of the electric fluid, and, passing by it, leave it in a negative state. In the same way, a strongly negative cloud may occasion a neighbouring cloud to draw into itself from others, an additional quantity, and, passing by it, leave it in a positive state. How these effects may be produced, you will easily conceive, on perusing and considering the experiments in the enclosed paper: and from them too it appears probable, that every change from positive to negative, and from negative to positive, that, during a thunder-gust, we see in the cork-balls annexed to the apparatus, is not owing to the presence of clouds in the same state, but often to the absence of positive or negative clouds, that, having just passed, leave the rod in the opposite state. The knocking down of the six men was performed with two of my large jars not fully charged. I laid one end of my discharging rod upon the head of the first; he laid his hand on the head of the second; the second his hand on the head of the third, and so to the last, who held, in his hand, the chain that was connected with the outside of the jars. When they were thus placed, I applied the other end of my rod to the prime conductor, and they all dropped together. When they got up, they all declared they had not felt any stroke, and wondered how they came to fall; nor did any of them either hear the crack, or see the light of it. You suppose it a dangerous experiment; but I had once suffered the same myself, receiving, by accident, an equal stroke through my head, that struck me down, without hurting me: and I had seen a young woman that was about to be electrified through the feet (for some indisposition) receive a greater charge through the head, by inadvertently stooping forward to look at the placing of her feet, till her forehead (as she was very tall) came too near my prime conductor: she dropped, but instantly got up again, complaining of nothing. A person so struck, sinks down doubled, or folded together as it were, the joints losing their strength and stiffness at once, so that he drops on the spot where he stood, instantly, and there is no previous staggering, nor does he ever fall lengthwise. Too great charge might, indeed, kill a man, but I have not yet seen any hurt done by it. It would certainly, as you observe, be the easiest of all deaths. The experiment you have heard so imperfect an account of, is merely this: I electrified a silver pint can, on an electric stand, and then lowered into it a cork ball, of about an inch diameter, hanging by a silk string, till the cork touched the bottom of the can. The cork was not attracted to the inside of the can as it would have been to the outside, and though it touched the bottom, yet, when drawn out, it was not found to be electrified by that touch, as it would have been by touching the outside. The fact is singular. You require the reason; I do not know it. Perhaps you may discover it, and then you will be so good as to communicate it to me[67]. I find a frank acknowledgment of one's ignorance is not only the easiest way to get rid of a difficulty, but the likeliest way to obtain information, and therefore I practise it: I think it an honest policy. Those who affect to be thought to know every thing, and so undertake to explain every thing, often remain long ignorant of many things that others could and would instruct them in, if they appeared less conceited. The treatment your friend has met with is so common, that no man who knows what the world is, and ever has been, should expect to escape it. There are every where a number of people, who, being totally destitute of any inventive faculty themselves, do not readily conceive that others may possess it: they think of inventions as of miracles; there might be such formerly, but they are ceased. With these, every one who offers a new invention is deemed a pretender: he had it from some other country, or from some book: a man of _their own acquaintance_; one who has no more sense than themselves, could not possibly, in their opinion, have been the inventor of any thing. They are confirmed, too, in these sentiments, by frequent instances of pretensions to invention, which vanity is daily producing. That vanity too, though an incitement to invention, is, at the same time, the pest of inventors. Jealousy and envy deny the merit or the novelty of your invention; but vanity, when the novelty and merit are established, claims it for its own. The smaller your invention is, the more mortification you receive in having the credit of it disputed with you by a rival, whom the jealousy and envy of others are ready to support against you, at least so far as to make the point doubtful. It is not in itself of importance enough for a dispute; no one would think your proofs and reasons worth their attention: and yet, if you do not dispute the point, and demonstrate your right, you not only lose the credit of being in that instance _ingenious_, but you suffer the disgrace of not being _ingenuous_; not only of being a plagiary, but of being a plagiary for trifles. Had the invention been greater it would have disgraced you less; for men have not so contemptible an idea of him that robs for gold on the highway, as of him that can pick pockets for half-pence and farthings. Thus, through envy, jealousy, and the vanity of competitors for fame, the origin of many of the most extraordinary inventions, though produced within but a few centuries past, is involved in doubt and uncertainty. We scarce know to whom we are indebted for the _compass_, and for _spectacles_, nor have even _paper_ and _printing_, that record every thing else, been able to preserve with certainty the name and reputation of their inventors. One would not, therefore, of all faculties, or qualities of the mind, wish, for a friend, or a child, that he should have that of invention. For his attempts to benefit mankind in that way, however well imagined, if they do not succeed, expose him, though very unjustly, to general ridicule and contempt; and, if they do succeed, to envy, robbery, and abuse. I am, &c. B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTES: [65] Dr. Lining.--EDITOR. [66] See page 286, for the paper here mentioned. [67] Mr. F. has since thought, that, possibly, the mutual repulsion of the inner opposite sides of the electrised can may prevent the accumulating an electric atmosphere upon them, and occasion it to stand chiefly on the outside. But recommends it to the farther examination of the curious. TO MONS. DALIBARD, AT PARIS, INCLOSED IN A LETTER TO MR. PETER COLLINSON, F. R. S. _Beccaria's Work on Electricity.--Sentiments of Franklin on pointed Rods, not fully understood in Europe.--Effect of Lightning on the Church of Newbury, in New England.--Remarks on the Subject._ Read at the Royal Society, Dec. 18, 1755. _Philadelphia, June 29, 1755._ SIR, You desire my opinion of Pere Beccaria's Italian book[68]. I have read it with much pleasure, and think it one of the best pieces on the subject that I have seen in any language. Yet as to the article of water-spouts, I am not at present of his sentiments; though I must own with you, that he has handled it very ingeniously. Mr. Collinson has my opinion of whirlwinds and water-spouts at large, written some time since. I know not whether they will be published; if not, I will get them transcribed for your perusal[69]. It does not appear to me that Pere Beccaria doubts of the _absolute impermeability of glass_ in the sense I meant it; for the instances he gives of holes made through glass by the electric stroke are such as we have all experienced, and only show that the electric fluid could not pass without making a hole. In the same manner we say, glass is impermeable to water, and yet a stream from a fire-engine will force through the strongest panes of a window. As to the effect of points in drawing the electric matter from clouds, and thereby securing buildings, &c. which, you say, he seems to doubt, I must own I think he only speaks modestly and judiciously. I find I have been but partly understood in that matter. I have mentioned it in several of my letters, and except once, always in the _alternative, viz_. that pointed rods erected on buildings, and communicating with the moist earth, would either _prevent_ a stroke, _or_, if not prevented, would _conduct_ it, so as that the building should suffer no damage. Yet whenever my opinion is examined in Europe, nothing is considered but the probability of those rods _preventing_ a stroke or explosion, which is only a _part_ of the use I proposed for them; and the other part, their conducting a stroke, which they may happen not to prevent, seems to be totally forgotten, though of equal importance and advantage. I thank you for communicating M. de Buffon's relation of the effect of lightning at Dijon, on the 7th of June last. In return, give me leave to relate an instance I lately saw of the same kind. Being in the town of Newbury in New England, in November last, I was shewn the effect of lightning on their church, which had been struck a few months before. The steeple was a square tower of wood, reaching seventy feet up from the ground to the place where the bell hung, over which rose a taper spire, of wood likewise, reaching seventy feet higher, to the vane of the weather-cock. Near the bell was fixed an iron hammer to strike the hours; and from the tail of the hammer a wire went down through a small gimlet-hole in the floor that the bell stood upon, and through a second floor in like manner; then horizontally under and near the plaistered cieling of that second floor, till it came near a plaistered wall; then down by the side of that wall to a clock, which stood about twenty feet below the bell. The wire was not bigger than a common knitting-needle. The spire was split all to pieces by the lightning, and the parts flung in all directions over the square in which the church stood, so that nothing remained above the bell. The lightning passed between the hammer and the clock in the above-mentioned wire, without hurting either of the floors, or having any effect upon them (except making the gimlet-holes, through which the wire passed, a little bigger,) and without hurting the plaistered wall, or any part of the building, so far as the aforesaid wire and the pendulum wire of the clock extended; which latter wire was about the thickness of a goose-quill. From the end of the pendulum, down quite to the ground, the building was exceedingly rent and damaged, and some stones in the foundation-wall torn out, and thrown to the distance of twenty or thirty feet. No part of the afore-mentioned long small wire, between the clock and the hammer, could be found, except about two inches that hung to the tail of the hammer, and about as much that was fastened to the clock; the rest being exploded, and its particles dissipated in smoke and air, as gunpowder is by common fire, and had only left a black smutty track on the plaistering, three or four inches broad, darkest in the middle, and fainter toward the edges, all along the cieling, under which it passed, and down the wall. These were the effects and appearances; on which I would only make the few following remarks, viz. 1. That lightning, in its passage through a building, will leave wood to pass as far as it can in metal, and not enter the wood again till the conductor of metal ceases. And the same I have observed in other instances, as to walls of brick or stone. 2. The quantity of lightning that passed through this steeple must have been very great, by its effects on the lofty spire above the bell, and on the square tower all below the end of the clock pendulum. 3. Great as this quantity was, it was conducted by a small wire and a clock pendulum, without the least damage to the building so far as they extended. 4. The pendulum rod being of a sufficient thickness, conducted the lightning without damage to itself; but the small wire was utterly destroyed. 5. Though the small wire was itself destroyed, yet it had conducted the lightning with safety to the building. 6. And from the whole it seems probable, that if even such a small wire had been extended from the spindle of the vane to the earth, before the storm, no damage would have been done to the steeple by that stroke of lightning, though the wire itself had been destroyed. FOOTNOTES: [68] This work is written conformable to Mr. Franklin's theory, upon artificial and natural electricity, which compose the two parts of it. It was printed in Italian, at Turin, in 4to. 1753; between the two parts is a letter to the Abbé Nollet, in defence of Mr. Franklin's system. _J. Bevis._ [69] These papers will be found in Vol II. _Editor._ TO PETER COLLINSON, ESQ. F. R. S. LONDON. _Notice of another Packet of Letters._ _Philadelphia, Nov. 23, 1753_. DEAR FRIEND. In my last, via Virginia, I promised to send you per next ship, a small philosophical packet: but now having got the materials (old letters and rough drafts) before me, I fear you will find it a great one. Nevertheless, as I am like to have a few days leisure before this ship sails, which I may not have again in a long time, I shall transcribe the whole, and send it; for you will be under no necessity of reading it all at once, but may take it a little at a time, now and then of a winter evening. When you happen to have nothing else to do (if that ever happens) it may afford you some amusement[70]. B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTES: [70] These letters and papers are a philosophical correspondence between Mr. Franklin and some of his American Friends[71]. Mr. Collinson communicated them to the Royal Society, where they were read at different meetings during the year 1756. But Mr. Franklin having particularly requested that they might not be printed, none of them were inserted in the transactions. Mr. F. had at that time an intention of revising them, and pursuing some of the enquiries farther; but finding that he is not like to have sufficient leisure, he has at length been induced, imperfect as they are, to permit their publication, as some of the hints they contain may possibly be useful to others in their philosophical researches. Note in Mr. Collinson's edition. [71] As some of these papers are upon subjects not immediately connected with electricity, we have taken such papers from the order in which they were placed by Mr. Collinson, and transferred them to other parts of the work. _Editor._ _Extract of a Letter from a Gentleman in Boston[72], to Benjamin Franklin, Esq. concerning the crooked Direction, and the Source of Lightning, and the Swiftness of the electric Fire._ _Boston, Dec. 21, 1751._ SIR, The experiments Mr. K. has exhibited here, have been greatly pleasing to all sorts of people that have seen them; and I hope, by the time he returns to Philadelphia, his tour this way will turn to good account. His experiments are very curious, and I think prove most effectually your doctrine of electricity; that it is a real element, annexed to, and diffused among all bodies we are acquainted with; that it differs in nothing from lightning, the effects of both being similar, and their properties, so far as they are known, the same, &c. The remarkable effect of lightning on iron, lately discovered, in giving it the magnetic virtue, and the same effect produced on small needles by the electrical fire, is a further and convincing proof that they are both the same element; but, which is very unaccountable, Mr. K. tells me, it is necessary to produce this effect, that the direction of the needle and the electric fire should be north and south; from either to the other, and that just so far as they deviate therefrom, the magnetic power in the needle is less, till their direction being at right angles with the north and south, the effect entirely ceases. We made at Faneuil Hall, where Mr. K----'s apparatus is, several experiments to give some small needles the magnetic virtue; previously examining, by putting them in water, on which they will be supported, whether or not they had any of that virtue; and I think we found all of them to have some small degree of it, their points turning to the north: we had nothing to do then but to invert the poles, which accordingly was done, by sending through them the charge of two large glass jars; the eye of the needle turning to the north, as the point before had done; that end of the needle which the fire is thrown upon, Mr. K. tells me always points to the north. The electrical fire passing through air has the same crooked direction as lightning[73]. This appearance I endeavour to account for thus: Air is an electric _per se_, therefore there must be a mutual repulsion betwixt air and the electrical fire. A column or cylinder of air, having the diameter of its base equal to the diameter of the electrical spark, intervenes that part of the body which the spark is taken from, and of the body it aims at. The spark acts upon this column, and is acted upon by it, more strongly than any other neighbouring portion of air. The column, being thus acted upon, becomes more dense, and, being more dense, repels the spark more strongly; its repellency being in proportion to its density: Having acquired, by being condensed, a degree of repellency greater than its natural, it turns the spark out of its strait course; the neighbouring air, which must be less dense, and therefore has a smaller degree of repellency, giving it a more ready passage. The spark, having taken a new direction, must now act on, or most strongly repel the column of air which lies in that direction, and consequently must condense that column in the same manner as the former, when the spark must again change its course, which course will be thus repeatedly changed, till the spark reaches the body that attracted it. To this account one objection occurs; that as air is very fluid and elastic, and so endeavours to diffuse itself equally, the supposed accumulated air within the column aforesaid, would be immediately diffused among the contiguous air, and circulate to fill the space it was driven from; and consequently that the said column, on the greater density of which the phenomenon is supposed to depend, would not repel the spark more strongly than the neighbouring air. This might be an objection, if the electrical fire was as sluggish and inactive as air. Air takes a sensible time to diffuse itself equally, as is manifest from winds which often blow for a considerable time together from the same point, and with a velocity even in the greatest storms, not exceeding, as it is said, sixty miles an hour: but the electric fire seems propagated instantaneously, taking up no perceptible time in going very great distances. It must then be an inconceivably short time in its progress from an electrified to an unelectrified body, which, in the present case, can be but a few inches apart: but this small portion of time is not sufficient for the elasticity of the air to exert itself, and therefore the column aforesaid must be in a denser state than its neighbouring air. About the velocity of the electric fire more is said below, which perhaps may more fully obviate this objection. But let us have recourse to experiments. Experiments will obviate all objections, or confound the hypothesis. The electric spark, if the foregoing be true, will pass through a vacuum in a right line. To try this, let a wire be fixed perpendicularly on the plate of an air pump, having a leaden ball on its upper end; let another wire, passing through the top of a receiver, have on each end a leaden ball; let the leaden balls within the receiver, when put on the air pump, be within two or three inches of each other: the receiver being exhausted, the spark given from a charged phial to the upper wire will pass through rarefied air, nearly approaching to a vacuum, to the lower wire, and I suppose in a right line, or nearly so; the small portion of air remaining in the receiver, which cannot be entirely exhausted, may possibly cause it to deviate a little, but perhaps not sensibly, from a right line. The spark also might be made to pass through air greatly condensed, which perhaps would give a still more crooked direction. I have not had opportunity to make any experiments of this sort, not knowing of an air-pump nearer than Cambridge, but you can easily make them. If these experiments answer, I think the crooked direction of lightning will be also accounted for. With respect to your letters on electricity, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *. Your hypothesis in particular for explaining the phenomena of lightning is very ingenious. That some clouds are highly charged with electrical fire, and that their communicating it to those that have less, to mountains and other eminencies, makes it visible and audible, when it is denominated lightning and thunder, is highly probable: but that the sea, which you suppose the grand source of it, can collect it, I think admits of a doubt: for though the sea be composed of salt and water, an electric _per se_ and non-electric, and though the friction of electrics _per se_ and non-electrics, will collect that fire, yet it is only under certain circumstances, which water will not admit. For it seems necessary, that the electrics _per se_ and non-electrics rubbing one another, should be of such substances as will not adhere to, or incorporate with each other. Thus a glass or sulphur sphere turned in water, and so a friction between them, will not collect any fire; nor, I suppose, would a sphere of salt revolving in water; the water adhering to, or incorporating with those electrics _per se_. But granting that the friction between salt and water would collect the electrical fire, that fire, being so extremely subtle and active, would be immediately communicated, either to those lower parts of the sea from which it was drawn, and so only perform quick revolutions; or be communicated to the adjacent islands or continent, and so be diffused instantaneously through the general mass of the earth. I say instantaneously, for the greatest distances we can conceive within the limits of our globe, even that of the two most opposite points, it will take no sensible time in passing through: and therefore it seems a little difficult to conceive how there can be any accumulation of the electrical fire upon the surface of the sea or how the vapours arising from the sea should have a greater share of that fire than other vapours. That the progress of the electrical fire is so amazingly swift, seems evident from an experiment you yourself (not out of choice) made, when two or three large glass jars were discharged through your body. You neither heard the crack, was sensible of the stroke, nor, which is more extraordinary, saw the light; which gave you just reason to conclude, that it was swifter than sound, than animal sensation, and even light itself. Now light (as astronomers have demonstrated) is about six minutes passing from the sun to the earth; a distance, they say, of more than eighty millions of miles. The greatest rectilinear distance within the compass of the earth is about eight thousand miles, equal to its diameter. Supposing then, that the velocity of the electric fire be the same as that of light, it will go through a space equal to the earth's diameter in about 2/60 of one second of a minute. It seems inconceivable then, that it should be accumulated upon the sea, in its present state, which, as it is a non-electric, must give the fire an instantaneous passage to the neighbouring shores, and they convey it to the general mass of the earth. But such accumulation seems still more inconceivable when the electrical fire has but a few feet depth of water to penetrate, to return to the place from whence it is supposed to be collected. Your thoughts upon these remarks I shall receive with a great deal of pleasure. I take notice that in the printed copies of your letters several things are wanting which are in the manuscript you sent me. I understand by your son, that you had writ, or was writing, a paper on the effect of the electrical fire on loadstones, needles, &c. which I would ask the favour of a copy of, as well as of any other papers on electricity, written since I had the manuscript, for which I repeat my obligations to you. I am, &c. J. B. FOOTNOTES: [72] Mr. Badouin. _Editor._ [73] This is most easily observed in large strong sparks taken at some inches distance. TO J. B. AT BOSTON. _Observations on the Subjects of the preceding Letter.--Reasons for supposing the Sea to be the grand source of Lightning.--Reasons for doubting this hypothesis.--Improvement in a Globe for raising the Electric Fire._ Read at the Royal Society, May 27, 1756. _Philadelphia, Jan. 24, 1752._ SIR, I am glad to learn, by your favour of the 21st past, that Mr. Kinnersley's lectures have been acceptable to the gentlemen of Boston, and are like to prove serviceable to himself. I thank you for the countenance and encouragement you have so kindly afforded my fellow-citizen. I send you enclosed an extract of a letter containing the substance of what I observed concerning the communication of magnetism to needles by electricity. The minutes I took at the time of the experiments are mislaid. I am very little acquainted with the nature of magnetism. Dr. Gawin Knight, inventor of the steel magnets, has wrote largely on that subject, but I have not yet had leisure to peruse his writings with the attention necessary to become master of his doctrine. Your explication of the crooked direction of lightning appears to me both ingenious and solid. When we can account as satisfactorily for the electrification of clouds, I think that branch of natural philosophy will be nearly complete. The air, undoubtedly, obstructs the motion of the electric fluid. Dry air prevents the dissipation of an electric atmosphere, the denser the more, as in cold weather. I question whether such an atmosphere can be retained by a body _in vacuo_. A common electrical phial requires a non-electric communication from the wire to every part of the charged glass; otherwise, being dry and clean, and filled with air only, it charges slowly, and discharges gradually, by sparks, without a shock: but, exhausted of air, the communication is so open and free between the inserted wire and surface of the glass, that it charges as readily, and shocks as smartly as if filled with water: and I doubt not, but that in the experiment you propose, the sparks would not only be near strait _in vacuo_, but strike at a greater distance than in the open air, though perhaps there would not be a loud explosion. As soon as I have a little leisure, I will make the experiment, and send you the result. My supposition, that the sea might possibly be the grand source of lightning, arose from the common observation of its luminous appearance in the night, on the least motion; an appearance never observed in fresh water. Then I knew that the electric fluid may be pumped up out of the earth, by the friction of a glass globe, on a non-electric cushion; and that, notwithstanding the surprising activity and swiftness of that fluid, and the non-electric communication between all parts of the cushion and the earth, yet quantities would be snatched up by the revolving surface of the globe, thrown on the prime conductor, and dissipated in air. How this was done, and why that subtle active spirit did not immediately return again from the globe, into some part or other of the cushion, and so into the earth, was difficult to conceive; but whether from its being opposed by a current setting upwards to the cushion, or from whatever other cause, that it did not so return was an evident fact. Then I considered the separate particles of water as so many hard spherules, capable of touching the salt only in points, and imagined a particle of salt could therefore no more be wet by a particle of water, than a globe by a cushion; that there might therefore be such a friction between these originally constituent particles of salt and water, as in a sea of globes and cushions; that each particle of water on the surface might obtain from the common mass, some particles of the universally diffused, much finer, and more subtle electric fluid, and forming to itself an atmosphere of those particles, be repelled from the then generally electrified surface of the sea, and fly away with them into the air. I thought too, that possibly the great mixture of particles electric _per se_, in the ocean water, might, in some degree, impede the swift motion and dissipation of the electric fluid, through it to the shores, &c.--But having since found, that salt in the water of an electric phial does not lessen the shock; and having endeavoured in vain to produce that luminous appearance from a mixture of salt and water agitated; and observed, that even the sea-water will not produce it after some hours standing in a bottle; I suspect it to proceed from some principle yet unknown to us (which I would gladly make some experiments to discover, if I lived near the sea) and I grow more doubtful of my former supposition, and more ready to allow weight to that objection (drawn from the activity of the electric fluid, and the readiness of water to conduct) which you have indeed stated with great strength and clearness. In the mean time, before we part with this hypothesis, let us think what to substitute in its place. I have sometimes queried whether the friction of the air, an electric _per se_, in violent winds, among trees, and against the surface of the earth, might not pump up, as so many glass globes, quantities of the electric fluid, which the rising vapours might receive from the air, and retain in the clouds they form? on which I should be glad to have your sentiments. An ingenious friend of mine supposes the land-clouds more likely to be electrified than the sea-clouds. I send his letter for your perusal, which please to return me. I have wrote nothing lately on electricity, nor observed any thing new that is material, my time being much taken up with other affairs. Yesterday I discharged four jars through a fine wire, tied up between two strips of glass: the wire was in part melted, and the rest broke into small pieces, from half an inch long, to half a quarter of an inch. My globe raises the electric fire with greater ease, in much greater quantities, by the means of a wire extended from the cushion, to the iron pin of a pump handle behind my house, which communicates by the pump spear with the water in the well. By this post I send to ****, who is curious in that way, some meteorological observations and conjectures, and desire him to communicate them to you, as they may afford you some amusement, and I know you will look over them with a candid eye. By throwing our occasional thoughts on paper, we more readily discover the defects of our opinions, or we digest them better and find new arguments to support them. This I sometimes practise: but such pieces are fit only to be seen by friends. I am, &c. B. FRANKLIN. FROM J. B. ESQ. OF BOSTON, TO BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, ESQ. AT PHILADELPHIA. _Effect of Lightning on Captain Waddel's Compass, and the Dutch Church at New York._ Read at the Royal Society, June 3, 1756. _Boston, March 2, 1752._ SIR, I have received your favour of the 24th of January past, inclosing an extract from your letter to Mr. Collinson, and ****'s letter to yourself, which I have read with a great deal of pleasure, and am much obliged to you for. Your extract confirms a correction Mr. Kinnersley made a few days ago, of a mistake I was under respecting the polarity given to needles by the electrical fire, "that the end which receives the fire always points north;" and, "that the needle being situated east and west, will not have a polar direction." You find, however, the polarity strongest when the needle is shocked lying north and south; weakest when lying east and west; which makes it probable that the communicated magnetism is less, as the needle varies from a north and south situation. As to the needle of Captain Waddel's compass, if its polarity was reversed by the lightning, the effect of lightning and electricity, in regard of that, seems dissimilar; for a magnetic needle in a north and south situation (as the compass needle was) instead of having its power reversed, or even diminished, would have it confirmed or increased by the electric fire. But perhaps the lightning communicated to some nails in the binnacle (where the compass is placed) the magnetic virtue, which might disturb the compass. This I have heard was the case; if so, the seeming dissimilarity vanishes: but this remarkable circumstance (if it took place) I should think would not be omitted in Captain Waddel's account. I am very much pleased that the explication I sent you, of the crooked direction of lightning, meets with your approbation. As to your supposition about the source of lightning, the luminous appearance of the sea in the night, and the similitude between the friction of the particles of salt and water, as you considered them in their original separate state, and the friction of the globe and cushion, very naturally led you to the ocean, as the grand source of lightning: but the activity of lightning, or the electric element, and the fitness of water to conduct it, together with the experiments you mention of salt and water, seem to make against it, and to prepare the way for some other hypothesis. Accordingly you propose a new one, which is very curious, and not so liable, I think, to objections as the former. But there is not as yet, I believe, a sufficient variety of experiments to establish any theory, though this seems the most hopeful of any I have heard of. The effect which the discharge of your four glass jars had upon a fine wire, tied between two strips of glass, puts me in mind of a very similar one of lightning, that I observed at New-York, October, 1750, a few days after I left Philadelphia. In company with a number of gentlemen, I went to take a view of the city from the Dutch church steeple, in which is a clock about twenty or twenty-five feet below the bell. From the clock went a wire through two floors, to the clock-hammer near the bell, the holes in the floor for the wire being perhaps about a quarter of an inch diameter. We were told, that in the spring of 1750, the lightning struck the clock hammer, and descended along the wire to the clock, melting in its way several spots of the wire, from three to nine inches long, through one-third of its substance, till coming within a few feet of the lower end, it melted the wire quite through, in several places, so that it fell down in several pieces; which spots and pieces we saw. When it got to the end of the wire, it flew off to the hinge of a door, shattered the door, and dissipated. In its passage through the holes of the floors it did not do the least damage, which evidences that wire is a good conductor of lightning (as it is of electricity) provided it be substantial enough, and might, in this case, had it been continued to the earth, have conducted it without damaging the building.[74] Your information about your globe's raising the electric fire in greater quantities, by means of a wire extended from the cushion to the earth, will enable me, I hope, to remedy a great inconvenience I have been under, to collect the fire with the electrifying glass I use, which is fixed in a very dry room, three stories from the ground. When you send your meteorological observations to ****, I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing them. I am, &c. J. B. FOOTNOTE: [74] The wire mentioned in this account was re-placed by a small brass chain. In the summer of 1763, the lightning again struck that steeple, and from the clock-hammer near the bell, it pursued the chain as it had before done the wire, went off to the same hinge, and again shattered the same door. In its passage through the same holes of the same floors, it did no damage to the floors, nor to the building during the whole extent of the chain. But the chain itself was destroyed, being partly scattered about in fragments of two or three links melted and stuck together, and partly blown up or reduced to smoke, and dissipated. [See an account of the same effect of lightning on a wire at Newbury, p. 311.] The steeple, when repaired, was guarded by an iron conductor, or rod, extending from the foot of the vane-spindle down the outside of the building, into the earth. The newspapers have mentioned, that in 1765, the lightning fell a third time on the same steeple, and was safely conducted by the rod; but the particulars are not come to hand. _Proposal of an Experiment to measure the Time taken up by an Electric Spark, in moving through any given Space. By J. A.[75] Esq. of New-York._ Read at the Royal Society, Dec 26, 1756. If I remember right, the Royal Society made one experiment to discover the velocity of the electric fire, by a wire of about four miles in length, supported by silk, and by turning it forwards and backwards in a field, so that the beginning and end of the wire were at only the distance of two people, the one holding the Leyden bottle and the beginning of the wire, and the other holding the end of the wire and touching the ring of the bottle; but by this experiment no discovery was made, except that the velocity was extremely quick. As water is a conductor as well as metals, it is to be considered whether the velocity of the electric fire might not be discovered by means of water; whether a river, or lake, or sea, may not be made part of the circuit through which the electric fire passes? instead of the circuit all of wire, as in the above experiment. Whether in a river, lake, or sea, the electric fire will not dissipate and not return to the bottle? or, will it proceed in strait lines through the water the shortest courses possible back to the bottle? If the last, then suppose one brook that falls into Delaware doth head very near to a brook that falls into Schuylkil, and let a wire be stretched and supported as before, from the head of the one brook to the head of the other, and let the one end communicate with the water, and let one person stand in the other brook, holding the Leyden bottle, and let another person hold that end of the wire not in the water, and touch the ring of the bottle.--If the electric fire will go as in the last question, then will it go down the one brook to Delaware or Schuylkill, and down one of them to their meeting, and up the other and the other brook; the time of its doing this may possibly be observable, and the further upwards the brooks are chosen, the more observable it would be. Should this be not observable, then suppose the two brooks falling into Sasquehana and Delaware, and proceeding as before, the electric fire may, by that means, make a circuit round the North Cape of Virginia, and go many hundreds of miles, and in doing that, it would seem it must take some observable time. If still no observable time is found in that experiment, then suppose the brooks falling the one into the Ohio, and the other into Sasquehana, or Potomack, in that the electric fire would have a circuit of some thousands of miles to go down Ohio to Mississippi, to the Bay of Mexico, round Florida, and round the South Cape of Virginia; which, I think, would give some observable time, and discover exactly the velocity. But if the electric fire dissipates, or weakens in the water, as I fear it does, these experiments will not answer. _Answer to the foregoing_. Read at the Royal Society, Dec. 25, 1756. Suppose a tube of any length open at both ends, and containing a moveable wire of just the same length, that fills its bore. If I attempt to introduce the end of another wire into the same tube, it must be done by pushing forward the wire it already contains; and the instant I press and move one end of that wire, the other end is also moved; and in introducing one inch of the same wire, I extrude, at the same time, an inch of the first, from the other end of the tube. If the tube be filled with water, and I inject an additional inch of water at one end, I force out an equal quantity at the other, in the very same instant. And the water forced out at one end of the tube is not the very same water that was forced in at the other end at the same time, it was only in motion at the same time. The long wire, made use of in the experiment to discover the velocity of the electric fluid, is itself filled with what we call its natural quantity of that fluid, before the hook of the Leyden bottle is applied to one end of it. The outside of the bottle being at the time of such application in contact with the other end of the wire, the whole quantity of electric fluid contained in the wire is, probably, put in motion at once. For at the instant the hook, connected with the inside of the bottle, _gives out_; the coating, or outside of the bottle, _draws in_ a portion of that fluid. If such long wire contains precisely the quantity that the outside of the bottle demands, the whole will move out of the wire to the outside of the bottle, and the over quantity which the inside of the bottle contained, being exactly equal, will flow into the wire, and remain there, in the place of the quantity the wire had just parted with to the outside of the bottle. But if the wire be so long as that one-tenth (suppose) of its natural quantity is sufficient to supply what the outside of the bottle demands, in such case the outside will only receive what is contained in one-tenth of the wire's length, from the end next to it; though the whole will move so as to make room at the other end for an equal quantity issuing, at the same time, from the inside of the bottle. So that this experiment only shews the extreme facility with which the electric fluid moves in metal; it can never determine the velocity. And, therefore, the proposed experiment (though well imagined, and very ingenious) of sending the spark round through a vast length of space, by the waters of Susquehannah, or Potowmack, and Ohio, would not afford the satisfaction desired, though we could be sure that the motion of the electric fluid would be in that tract, and not under ground in the wet earth by the shortest way. B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTE: [75] James Alexander. _Editor._ FROM MR. KINNERSLEY TO B. FRANKLIN, ESQ. _Experiments on boiling Water, and Glass heated by boiling Water.--Doctrine of Repulsion in electrised Bodies doubted.--Electricity of the Atmosphere at different Heights.--Electrical Horse-race.--Electrical Thermometer.--In what Cases the electrical Fire produces Heat.--Wire lengthened by Electricity.--Good Effect of a Rod on the House of Mr. West, of Philadelphia._ _Philadelphia, March 12, 1761._ SIR, Having lately made the following experiments, I very chearfully communicate them, in hopes of giving you some degree of pleasure, and exciting you to further explore your favorite, but not quite exhausted subject, _electricity_. I placed myself on an electric stand, and, being well electrised, threw my hat to an unelectrised person, at a considerable distance, on another stand, and found that the hat carried some of the electricity with it; for, upon going immediately to the person who received it, and holding a flaxen thread near him, I perceived he was electrised sufficiently to attract the thread. I then suspended, by silk, a broad plate of metal, and electrised some boiling water under it at about four feet distance, expecting that the vapour, which ascended plentifully to the plate, would, upon the principle of the foregoing experiment, carry up some of the electricity with it; but was at length fully convinced, by several repeated trials, that it left all its share thereof behind. This I know not how to account for; but does it not seem to corroborate your hypothesis, That the vapours of which the clouds are formed, leave their share of electricity behind, in the common stock, and ascend in the negative state? I put boiling water into a coated Florence flask, and found that the heat so enlarged the pores of the glass, that it could not be charged. The electricity passed through as readily, to all appearance, as through metal; the charge of a three-pint bottle went freely through, without injuring the flask in the least. When it became almost cold, I could charge it as usual. Would not this experiment convince the Abbé Nollet of his egregious mistake? For while the electricity went fairly through the glass, as he contends it always does, the glass could not be charged at all. I took a slender piece of cedar, about eighteen inches long, fixed a brass cap in the middle, thrust a pin horizontally and at right angles, through each end (the points in contrary directions) and hung it, nicely balanced, like the needle of a compass, on a pin, about six inches long, fixed in the centre of an electric stand. Then, electrising the stand, I had the pleasure of seeing what I expected; the wooden needle turned round, carrying the pins with their heads foremost. I then electrised the stand negatively, expecting the needle to turn the contrary way, but was extremely disappointed, for it went still the same way as before. When the stand was electrised positively, I suppose that the natural quantity of electricity in the air being increased on one side, by what issued from the points, the needle was attracted by the lesser quantity on the other side. When electrised negatively, I suppose that the natural quantity of electricity in the air was diminished near the points; in consequence whereof, the equilibrium being destroyed, the needle was attracted by the greater quantity on the opposite side. The doctrine of repulsion, in electrised bodies, I begin to be somewhat doubtful of. I think all the phenomena on which it is founded, may be well enough accounted for without it. Will not cork balls, electrised negatively, separate as far as when electrised positively? And may not their separation in both cases be accounted for upon the same principle, namely, the mutual attraction of the natural quantity in the air, and that which is denser or rarer in the cork balls? it being one of the established laws of this fluid, that quantities of different densities shall mutually attract each other, in order to restore the equilibrium. I can see no reason to conclude that the air has not its share of the common stock of electricity, as well as glass, and perhaps, all other electrics _per se_. For though the air will admit bodies to be electrised in it either positively or negatively, and will not readily carry off the redundancy in the one case, or supply the deficiency in the other, yet let a person in the negative state, out of doors in the dark, when the air is dry, hold, with his arm extended, a long sharp needle, pointing upwards, and he will soon be convinced that electricity may be drawn out of the air; not very plentifully, for, being a bad conductor, it seems loth to part with it, but yet some will evidently be collected. The air near the person's body, having less than its natural quantity, will have none to spare; but, his arm being extended, as above, some will be collected from the remoter air, and will appear luminous, as it converges to the point of the needle. Let a person electrised negatively present the point of a needle, horizontally, to a cork ball, suspended by silk, and the ball will be attracted towards the point, till it has parted with so much of its natural quantity of electricity as to be in the negative state in the same degree with the person who holds the needle; then it will recede from the point, being, as I suppose, attracted the contrary way by the electricity of greater density in the air behind it. But, as this opinion seems to deviate from electrical orthodoxy, I should be glad to see these phenomena better accounted for by your superior and more penetrating genius. Whether the electricity in the air, in clear dry weather, be of the same density at the height of two or three hundred yards, as near the surface of the earth, may be satisfactorily determined by your old experiment of the kite. The twine should have throughout a very small wire in it, and the ends of the wire, where the several lengths are united, ought to be tied down with a waxed thread, to prevent their acting in the manner of points. I have tried the experiment twice, when the air was as dry as we ever have it, and so clear that not a cloud could be seen, and found the twine each time in a small degree electrised positively. The kite had three metalline points fixed to it: one on the top, and one on each side. That the twine was electrised, appeared by the separating of two small cork balls, suspended on the twine by fine flaxen threads, just above where the silk was tied to it, and sheltered from the wind. That the twine was electrised positively, was proved, by applying to it the wire of a charged bottle, which caused the balls to separate further, without first coming nearer together. This experiment showed, that the electricity in the air, at those times, was denser above than below. But that cannot be always the case; for you know we have frequently found the thunder-clouds in the negative state, attracting electricity from the earth; which state, it is probable, they are always in when first formed, and till they have received a sufficient supply. How they come afterwards, towards the latter end of the gust, to be in the positive state, which is sometimes the case, is a subject for further enquiry. After the above experiments with the wooden needle, I formed a cross, of two pieces of wood, of equal length, intersecting each other at right angles in the middle, hung it horizontally upon a central pin, and set a light horse with his rider, upon each extremity; whereupon, the whole being nicely balanced, and each courser urged on by an electrised point of a pair of spurs, I was entertained with an electrical horse-race. I have contrived an electrical air thermometer, and made several experiments with it, that have afforded me much satisfaction and pleasure. It is extremely sensible of any alteration in the state of the included air, and fully determines that controverted point, Whether there be any heat in the electric fire? By the enclosed draught, and the following description, you will readily apprehend the construction of it. (See Plate II.) A B is a glass tube, about eleven inches long, and one inch diameter in the bore. It has a brass ferrule cemented on each end, with a top and bottom part, C and D, to be screwed on, air-tight, and taken off at pleasure. In the centre of the bottom part D, is a male screw, which goes into a brass nut, in the mahogany pedestal E. The wires F and G are for the electric fire to pass through, darting from one to the other. The wire G extends through the pedestal to H, and may be raised and lowered by means of a male screw on it. The wire F may be taken out, and the hook I be screwed into its place. K is a glass tube, with a small bore, open at both ends, cemented in the brass tube L which screws into the top part C. The lower end of the tube K is immersed in water, coloured with cochineal, at the bottom of the tube A B. (I used, at first, coloured spirits of wine, but in one experiment I made, it took fire.) On the top of the tube K is cemented, for ornament, a brass ferrule, with a head screwed on it, which has a small air-hole through its side, at _a_. The wire _b_, is a small round spring, that embraces the tube K, so as to stay wherever it is placed. The weight M is to keep strait whatever may be suspended in the tube A B, on the hook I. Air must be blown through the tube K, into the tube A B, till enough is intruded to raise, by its elastic force, a column of the coloured water in the tube K, up to _c_, or thereabouts; and then, the gage-wire _b_, being slipt down to the top of the column, the thermometer is ready for use. [Illustration: (of the experiment below) _Plate II._ _Vol. I. page 336._ _Published as the Act directs, April 1, 1806, by Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme, Paternoster Row._] I set the thermometer on an electric stand, with the chain N fixed to the prime conductor, and kept it well electrised a considerable time; but this produced no sensible effect; which shews, that the electric fire, when in a state of rest, has no more heat than the air, and other matter wherein it resides. When the wires F and G are in contact, a large charge of electricity sent through them, even that of my case of five and thirty bottles, containing above thirty square feet of coated glass, will produce no rarefaction of the air included in the tube A B; which shows that the wires are not heated by the fire's passing through them. When the wires are about two inches apart, the charge of a three pint bottle, darting from one to the other, rarefies the air very evidently; which shows, I think, that the electric fire must produce heat in itself, as well as in the air, by its rapid motion. The charge of one of my glass jars (which will contain about five gallons and a half, wine measure) darting from wire to wire, will, by the disturbance it gives the air, repelling it in all directions, raise the column in the tube K, up to _d_, or thereabouts; and the charge of the above-mentioned case of bottles will raise it to the top of the tube. Upon the air's coalescing, the column, by its gravity, instantly subsides, till it is in equilibrio with the rarefied air; it then gradually descends as the air cools, and settles where it stood before. By carefully observing at what height above the gage-wire _b_, the descending column first stops, the degree of rarefaction is discovered, which, in great explosions, is very considerable. I hung in the thermometer, successively, a strip of wet writing paper, a wet flaxen and woollen thread, a blade of green grass, a filament of green wood, a fine silver thread, a very small brass wire, and a strip of gilt paper; and found that the charge of the above-mentioned glass jar, passing through each of these, especially the last, produced heat enough to rarefy the air very perceptibly. I then suspended, out of the thermometer, a piece of small harpsichord wire, about twenty-four inches long, with a pound weight at the lower end, and sent the charge of the case of five and thirty bottles through it, whereby I discovered a new method of wire-drawing. The wire was red hot the whole length, well annealed, and above an inch longer than before. A second charge melted it; it parted near the middle, and measured, when the ends were put together, four inches longer than at first. This experiment, I remember, you proposed to me before you left Philadelphia; but I never tried it till now. That I might have no doubt of the wire's being _hot_ as well as red, I repeated the experiment on another piece of the same wire, encompassed with a goose-quill, filled with loose grains of gun-powder; which took fire as readily as if it had been touched with a red hot poker. Also tinder, tied to another piece of the wire, kindled by it. I tried a wire about three times as big, but could produce no such effects with that. Hence it appears that the electric fire, though it has no sensible heat when in a state of rest, will, by its violent motion, and the resistance it meets with, produce heat in other bodies when passing through them, provided they be small enough. A large quantity will pass through a large wire, without producing any sensible heat; when the same quantity passing through a very small one, being there confined to a narrower passage, the particles crowding closer together, and meeting with greater resistance, will make it red hot, and even melt it. Hence lightning does not melt metal by a cold fusion, as we formerly supposed; but, when it passes through the blade of a sword, if the quantity be not very great, it may heat the point so as to melt it, while the broadest and thickest part may not be sensibly warmer than before. And when trees or houses are set on fire by the dreadful quantity which a cloud, or the earth, sometimes discharges, must not the heat, by which the wood is first kindled, be generated by the lightning's violent motion, through the resisting combustible matter? If lightning, by its rapid motion, produces heat in _itself_; as well as in other bodies (and that it does I think is evident from some of the foregoing experiments made with the thermometer) then its sometimes singeing the hair of animals killed by it, may easily be accounted for. And the reason of its not always doing so, may, perhaps, be this: The quantity, though sufficient to kill a large animal, may sometimes not be great enough, or not have met with resistance enough, to become, by its motion, burning hot. We find that dwelling-houses, struck with lightning, are seldom set on fire by it; but when it passes through barns, with hay or straw in them, or store-houses, containing large quantities of hemp, or such like matter, they seldom, if ever, escape a conflagration; which may, perhaps, be owing to such combustibles being apt to kindle with a less degree of heat than is necessary to kindle wood. We had four houses in this city, and a vessel at one of the wharfs, struck and damaged by lightning last summer. One of the houses was struck twice in the same storm. But I have the pleasure to inform you, that your method of preventing such terrible disasters, has, by a fact which had like to have escaped our knowledge, given a very convincing proof of its great utility; and is now in higher repute with us than ever. Hearing, a few days ago, that Mr. William West, merchant in this city, suspected that the lightning in one of the thunder-storms last summer had passed through the iron conductor, which he had provided for the security of his house; I waited on him, to enquire what ground he might have for such suspicion. Mr. West informed me, that his family and neighbours were all stunned with a very terrible explosion, and that the flash and crack were seen and heard at the same instant. Whence he concluded, that the lightning must have been very near, and, as no house in the neighbourhood had suffered by it, that it must have passed through his conductor. Mr. White, his clerk, told me that he was sitting, at the time, by a window, about two feet distant from the conductor, leaning against the brick wall with which it was in contact; and that he felt a smart sensation, like an electric shock, in that part of his body which touched the wall. Mr. West further informed me, that a person of undoubted veracity assured him, that, being in the door of an opposite house, on the other side of Water-street (which you know is but narrow) he saw the lightning diffused over the pavement, which was then very wet with rain, to the distance of two or three yards from the foot of the conductor; and that another person of very good credit told him, that he being a few doors off on the other side of the street, saw the lightning above, darting in such direction that it appeared to him to be directly over that pointed rod. Upon receiving this information, and being desirous of further satisfaction, there being no traces of the lightning to be discovered in the conductor, as far as we could examine it below, I proposed to Mr. West our going to the top of the house, to examine the pointed rod, assuring him, that if the lightning had passed through it, the point must have been melted; and, to our great satisfaction, we found it so. This iron rod extended in height about nine feet and a half above a stack of chimneys to which it was fixed (though I suppose three or four feet would have been sufficient.) It was somewhat more than half an inch diameter in the thickest part, and tapering to the upper end. The conductor, from the lower end of it to the earth, consisted of square iron nail-rods, not much above a quarter of an inch thick, connected together by interlinking joints. It extended down the cedar roof to the eaves, and from thence down the wall of the house, four story and a half, to the pavement in Water-street, being fastened to the wall, in several places, by small iron hooks. The lower end was fixed to a ring, in the top of an iron stake that was drove about four or five feet into the ground. The above-mentioned iron rod had a hole in the top of it, about two inches deep, wherein was inserted a brass wire, about two lines thick, and, when first put there, about ten inches long, terminating in a very acute point; but now its whole length was no more than seven inches and a half, and the top very blunt. Some of the metal appears to be missing, the slenderest part of the wire being, as I suspect, consumed into smoke. But some of it, where the wire was a little thicker, being only melted by the lightning, sunk down, while in a fluid state, and formed a rough irregular cap, lower on one side than the other, round the upper end of what remained, and became intimately united therewith. This was all the damage that Mr. West sustained by a terrible stroke of lightning;--a most convincing proof of the great utility of this method of preventing its dreadful effects. Surely it will now be thought as expedient to provide conductors for the lightning, as for the rain. Mr. West was so good as to make me a present of the melted wire, which I keep as a great curiosity, and long for the pleasure of shewing it to you. In the mean time, I beg your acceptance of the best representation I can give of it, which you will find by the side of the thermometer, drawn in its full dimensions as it now appears. The dotted lines above are intended to shew the form of the wire before the lightning melted it. And now, Sir, I most heartily congratulate you on the pleasure you must have in finding your great and well-grounded expectations so far fulfilled. May this method of security from the destructive violence of one of the most awful powers of nature, meet with such further success, as to induce every good and grateful heart to bless God for the important discovery! May the benefit thereof be diffused over the whole globe! May it extend to the latest posterity of mankind, and make the name of FRANKLIN, like that of NEWTON, _immortal_. I am, Sir, with sincere respect, Your most obedient and most humble servant, EBEN. KINNERSLEY. TO MR. KINNERSLEY. _Answer to some of the foregoing Subjects.--How long the Leyden Bottle may be kept charged.--Heated Glass rendered permeable by the electric Fluid.--Electrical Attraction and Repulsion.--Reply to other Subjects in the preceding Paper.--Numerous Ways of kindling Fire.--Explosion of Water.--Knobs and Points._ _London, Feb. 20, 1762._ SIR, I received your ingenious letter of the 12th of March last, and thank you cordially for the account you give me of the new experiments you have lately made in electricity.--It is a subject that still affords me pleasure, though of late I have not much attended to it. Your second experiment, in which you attempted, without success, to communicate positive electricity by vapour ascending from electrised water, reminds me of one I formerly made, to try if negative electricity might be produced by evaporation only. I placed a large heated brass plate, containing four or five square feet on an electric stand; a rod of metal, about four feet long, with a bullet at its end, extended from the plate horizontally. A light lock of cotton, suspended a fine thread from the cieling, hung opposite to, and within an inch of the bullet. I then sprinkled the heated plate with water, which arose fast from it in vapour. If vapour should be disposed to carry off the electrical, as it does the common fire from bodies, I expected the plate would, by losing some of its natural quantity, become negatively electrised. But I could not perceive, by any motion in the cotton, that it was at all affected: nor by any separation of small cork-balls suspended from the plate, could it be observed that the plate was in any manner electrified. Mr. Canton here has also found, that two tea-cups, set on electric stands, and filled, one with boiling, the other with cold water, and equally electrified, continued equally so, notwithstanding the plentiful evaporation from the hot water. Your experiment and his agreeing, show another remarkable difference between electric and common fire. For the latter quits most readily the body that contains it, where water, or any other fluid, is evaporating from the surface of that body, and escapes with the vapour. Hence the method, long in use in the east, of cooling liquors, by wrapping the bottles round with a wet cloth, and exposing them to the wind. Dr. Cullen, of Edinburgh, has given some experiments of cooling by evaporation; and I was present at one made by Dr. Hadley, then professor of chemistry at Cambridge, when, by repeatedly wetting the ball of a thermometer with spirit, and quickening the evaporation by the blast of a bellows, the mercury fell from 65, the state of warmth in the common air, to 7, which is 22 degrees below freezing; and, accordingly, from some water mixed with the spirit, or from the breath of the assistants, or both, ice gathered in small spicula round the ball, to the thickness of near a quarter of an inch. To such a degree did the mercury lose the fire it before contained, which, as I imagine, took the opportunity of escaping, in company with the evaporating particles of the spirit, by adhering to those particles. Your experiment of the Florence flask, and boiling water, is very curious. I have repeated it, and found it to succeed as you describe it, in two flasks out of three. The third would not charge when filled with either hot or cold water. I repeated it, because I remembered I had once attempted to make an electric bottle of a Florence flask, filled with cold water, but could not charge it at all; which I then imputed to some imperceptible cracks in the small, extremely thin bubbles, of which that glass is full, and I concluded none of that kind would do. But you have shown me my mistake.--Mr. Wilson had formerly acquainted us, that red hot glass would conduct electricity; but that so small a degree of heat, as that communicated by boiling water, would so open the pores of extremely thin glass, as to suffer the electric fluid freely to pass, was not before known. Some experiments similar to yours, have, however, been made here, before the receipt of your letter, of which I shall now give you an account. I formerly had an opinion that a Leyden bottle, charged and then sealed hermetically, might retain its electricity for ever; but having afterwards some suspicion that possibly that subtle fluid might, by slow imperceptible degrees, soak through the glass, and in time escape, I requested some of my friends, who had conveniences for doing it, to make trial, whether, after some months, the charge of a bottle so sealed would be sensibly diminished. Being at Birmingham, in September, 1760, Mr. Bolton of that place opened a bottle that had been charged, and its long tube neck hermetically sealed in the January preceding. On breaking off the end of the neck, and introducing a wire into it, we found it possessed of a considerable quantity of electricity, which was discharged by a snap and spark. This bottle had lain near seven months on a shelf, in a closet, in contact with bodies that would undoubtedly have carried off all its electricity, if it could have come readily through the glass. Yet as the quantity manifested by the discharge was not apparently so great as might have been expected from a bottle of that size well charged, some doubt remained whether part had escaped while the neck was sealing, or had since, by degrees, soaked through the glass. But an experiment of Mr. Canton's, in which such a bottle was kept under water a week, without having its electricity in the least impaired, seems to show, that when the glass is cold, though extremely thin, the electric fluid is well retained by it. As that ingenious and accurate experimenter made a discovery, like yours, of the effect of heat in rendering thin glass permeable by that fluid, it is but doing him justice to give you his account of it, in his own words, extracted from his letter to me, in which he communicated it, dated Oct. 31, 1760, _viz_. "Having procured some thin glass balls, of about an inch and a half in diameter, with stems, or tubes, of eight or nine inches in length, I electrified them, some positively on the inside, and others negatively, after the manner of charging the Leyden bottle, and sealed them hermetically. Soon after I applied the naked balls to my electrometer, and could not discover the least sign of their being electrical, but holding them, before the fire, at the distance of six or eight inches, they became strongly electrical in a very short time, and more so when they were cooling. These balls will, every time they are heated, give the electrical fluid to, or take it from other bodies, according to the _plus_ or _minus_ state of it within them. Heating them frequently, I find will sensibly diminish their power; but keeping one of them under water a week did not appear in the least degree to impair it. That which I kept under water, was charged on the 22d of September last, was several times heated before it was kept in water, and has been heated frequently since, and yet it still retains its virtue to a very considerable degree. The breaking two of my balls accidentally gave me an opportunity of measuring their thickness, which I found to be between seven and eight parts in a thousand of an inch. A down feather, in a thin glass ball, hermetically sealed, will not be affected by the application of an excited tube, or the wire of a charged phial, unless the ball be considerably heated; and if a glass pane be heated till it begins to grow soft, and in that state be held between the wire of a charged phial, and the discharging wire, the course of the electrical fluid will not be through the glass, but on the surface, round by the edge of it." By this last experiment of Mr. Canton's, it appears, that though by a moderate heat, thin glass becomes, in some degree, a conductor of electricity, yet, when of the thickness of a common pane, it is not, though in a state near melting, so good a conductor as to pass the shock of a discharged bottle. There are other conductors which suffer the electric fluid to pass through them gradually, and yet will not conduct a shock. For instance, a quire of paper will conduct through its whole length, so as to electrify a person, who, standing on wax, presents the paper to an electrified prime conductor; but it will not conduct a shock even through its thickness only; hence the shock either fails, or passes by rending a hole in the paper. Thus a sieve will pass water gradually, but a stream from a fire engine would either be stopped by it, or tear a hole through it. It should seem, that to make glass permeable to the electric fluid, the heat should be proportioned to the thickness. You found the heat of boiling water, which is but 210, sufficient to render the extreme thin glass in a Florence flask permeable even to a shock.--Lord Charles Cavendish, by a very ingenious experiment, has found the heat of 400 requisite to render thicker glass permeable to the common current. "A glass tube, (See _Plate_ III.) of which the part C B was solid, had wire thrust in each end, reaching to B and C. "A small wire was tied on at D, reaching to the floor, in order to carry off any electricity that might run along upon the tube. "The bent part was placed in an iron pot, filled with iron filings; a thermometer was also put into the filings; a lamp was placed under the pot; and the whole was supported upon glass. "The wire A being electrified by a machine, before the heat was applied, the corks at E separated, at first upon the principle of the Leyden phial. "But after the part C B of the tube was heated to 600, the corks continued to separate, though you discharged the electricity by touching the wire at E, the electrical machine continuing in motion. "Upon letting the whole cool, the effect remained till the thermometer was sunk to 400." [Illustration: (of the experiment above) _Plate III._ _Vol. I. page 348._ ] It were to be wished, that this noble philosopher would communicate more of his experiments to the world, as he makes many, and with great accuracy. You know I have always looked upon and mentioned the equal repulsion in cases of positive and of negative electricity, as a phenomenon difficult to be explained. I have sometimes, too, been inclined, with you, to resolve all into attraction; but besides that attraction seems in itself as unintelligible as repulsion, there are some appearances of repulsion that I cannot so easily explain by attraction; this for one instance. When the pair of cork balls are suspended by flaxen threads, from the end of the prime conductor, if you bring a rubbed glass tube near the conductor, but without touching it, you see the balls separate, as being electrified positively; and yet you have communicated no electricity to the conductor, for, if you had, it would have remained there, after withdrawing the tube; but the closing of the balls immediately thereupon, shows that the conductor has no more left in it than its natural quantity. Then again approaching the conductor with the rubbed tube, if, while the balls are separated, you touch with a finger that end of the conductor to which they hang, they will come together again, as being, with that part of the conductor, brought to the same state with your finger, _i. e._ the natural state. But the other end of the conductor, near which the tube is held, is not in that state, but in the negative state, as appears on removing the tube; for then part of the natural quantity left at the end near the balls, leaving that end to supply what is wanting at the other, the whole conductor is found to be equally in the negative state. Does not this indicate that the electricity of the rubbed tube had repelled the electric fluid, which was diffused in the conductor while in its natural state, and forced it to quit the end to which the tube was brought near, accumulating itself on the end to which the balls were suspended? I own I find it difficult to account for its quitting that end, on the approach of the rubbed tube, but on the supposition of repulsion; for, while the conductor was in the same state with the air, _i. e._ the natural state, it does not seem to me easy to suppose, that an attraction should suddenly take place between the air and the natural quantity of the electric fluid in the conductor, so as to draw it to, and accumulate it on the end opposite to that approached by the tube; since bodies, possessing only their natural quantity of that fluid, are not usually seen to attract each other, or to affect mutually the quantities of electricity each contains. There are likewise appearances of repulsion in other parts of nature. Not to mention the violent force with which the particles of water, heated to a certain degree, separate from each other, or those of gunpowder, when touched with the smallest spark of fire, there is the seeming repulsion between the same poles of the magnet, a body containing a subtle moveable fluid in many respects analagous to the electric fluid. If two magnets are so suspended by strings, as that their poles of the same denomination are opposite to each other, they will separate, and continue so; or if you lay a magnetic steel bar on a smooth table, and approach it with another parallel to it, the poles of both in the same position, the first will recede from the second, so as to avoid the contact, and may thus be pushed (or at least appear to be pushed) off the table. Can this be ascribed to the attraction of any surrounding body or matter drawing them asunder, or drawing the one away from the other? If not, and repulsion exists in nature, and in magnetism, why may it not exist in electricity? We should not, indeed, multiply causes in philosophy without necessity; and the greater simplicity of your hypothesis would recommend it to me, if I could see that all appearances would be solved by it. But I find, or think I find, the two causes more convenient than one of them alone. Thus I might solve the circular motion of your horizontal stick, supported on a pivot, with two pins at their ends, pointing contrary ways, and moving in the same direction when electrified, whether positively or negatively: when positively, the air opposite to the points being electrised positively, repels the points; when negatively, the air opposite the points being also, by their means, electrised negatively, attraction takes place between the electricity in the air behind the heads of the pins, and the negative pins, and so they are, in this case, drawn in the same direction that in the other they were driven.--You see I am willing to meet you half way, a complaisance I have not met with in our brother Nollet, or any other hypothesis-maker, and therefore may value myself a little upon it, especially as they say I have some ability in defending even the wrong side of a question, when I think fit to take it in hand. What you give as an established law of the electric fluid, "That quantities of different densities mutually attract each other, in order to restore the equilibrium," is, I think, not well founded, or else not well expressed. Two large cork balls, suspended by silk strings, and both well and equally electrified, separate to a great distance. By bringing into contact with one of them another ball of the same size, suspended likewise by silk, you will take from it half its electricity. It will then, indeed, hang at a less distance from the other, but the full and the half quantities will not appear to attract each other, that is, the balls will not come together. Indeed, I do not know any proof we have, that one quantity of electric fluid is attracted by another quantity of that fluid, whatever difference there may be in their densities. And, supposing in nature, a mutual attraction between two parcels of any kind of matter, it would be strange if this attraction should subsist strongly while those parcels were unequal, and cease when more matter of the same kind was added to the smallest parcel, so as to make it equal to the biggest. By all the laws of attraction in matter, that we are acquainted with, the attraction is stronger in proportion to the increase of the masses, and never in proportion to the difference of the masses. I should rather think the law would be, "That the electric fluid is attracted strongly by all other matter that we know of, while the parts of that fluid mutually repel each other." Hence its being equally diffused (except in particular circumstances) throughout all other matter. But this you jokingly call "electrical orthodoxy." It is so with some at present, but not with all; and, perhaps, it may not always be orthodoxy with any body. Opinions are continually varying, where we cannot have mathematical evidence of the nature of things; and they must vary. Nor is that variation without its use, since it occasions a more thorough discussion, whereby error is often dissipated, true knowledge is encreased, and its principles become better understood and more firmly established. Air should have, as you observe, "its share of the common stock of electricity, as well as glass, and, perhaps, all other electrics _per se_." But I suppose, that, like them, it does not easily part with what it has, or receive more, unless when mixed with some non-electric, as moisture for instance, of which there is some in our driest air. This, however, is only a supposition; and your experiment of restoring electricity to a negatively electrised person, by extending his arm upwards into the air, with a needle between his fingers, on the point of which light may be seen in the night, is, indeed, a curious one. In this town the air is generally moister than with us, and here I have seen Mr. Canton electrify the air in one room positively, and in another, which communicated by a door, he has electrised the air negatively. The difference was easily discovered by his cork balls, as he passed out of one room into another.--Pere Beccaria, too, has a pretty experiment, which shows that air may be electrised. Suspending a pair of small light balls, by flaxen threads, to the end of his prime conductor, he turns his globe some time, electrising positively, the balls diverging and continuing separate all the time. Then he presents the point of a needle to his conductor, which gradually drawing off the electric fluid, the balls approach each other, and touch, before all is drawn from the conductor; opening again as more is drawn off, and separating nearly as wide as at first, when the conductor is reduced to the natural state. By this it appears, that when the balls came together, the air surrounding the balls was just as much electrised as the conductor at that time; and more than the conductor, when that was reduced to its natural state. For the balls, though in the natural state, will diverge, when the air that surrounds them is electrised _plus_ or _minus_, as well as when that is in its natural state and they are electrised _plus_ or _minus_ themselves. I foresee that you will apply this experiment to the support of your hypothesis, and I think you may make a good deal of it. It was a curious enquiry of yours, Whether the electricity of the air, in clear dry weather, be of the same density at the height of two or three hundred yards, as near the surface of the earth; and I am glad you made the experiment. Upon reflection, it should seem probable, that whether the general state of the atmosphere at any time be positive or negative, that part of it which is next the earth will be nearer the natural state, by having given to the earth in one case, or having received from it in the other. In electrising the air of a room, that which is nearest the walls, or floor, is least altered. There is only one small ambiguity in the experiment, which may be cleared by more trials; it arises from the supposition that bodies may be electrised positively by the friction of air blowing strongly on them, as it does on the kite and its string. If at some times the electricity appears to be negative, as that friction is the same, the effect must be from a negative state of the upper air. I am much pleased with your electrical thermometer, and the experiments you have made with it. I formerly satisfied myself by an experiment with my phial and syphon, that the elasticity of the air was not increased by the mere existence of an electric atmosphere within the phial; but I did not know, till you now inform me, that heat may be given to it by an electric explosion. The continuance of its rarefaction, for some time after the discharge of your glass jar and of your case of bottles, seem to make this clear. The other experiments on wet paper, wet thread, green grass, and green wood, are not so satisfactory; as possibly the reducing part of the moisture to vapour, by the electric fluid passing through it, might occasion some expansion which would be gradually reduced by the condensation of such vapour. The fine silver thread, the very small brass wire, and the strip of gilt paper, are also subject to a similar objection, as even metals, in such circumstances, are often partly reduced to smoke, particularly the gilding on paper. But your subsequent beautiful experiment on the wire, which you made hot by the electric explosion, and in that state fired gunpowder with it, puts it out of all question, that heat is produced by our artificial electricity, and that the melting of metals in that way, is not by what I formerly called a cold fusion. A late instance here, of the melting a bell-wire, in a house struck by lightning, and parts of the wire burning holes in the floor on which they fell, has proved the same with regard to the electricity of nature. I was too easily led into that error by accounts given, even in philosophical books, and from remote ages downwards, of melting money in purses, swords in scabbards, &c. without burning the inflammable matters that were so near those melted metals. But men are, in general, such careless observers, that a philosopher cannot be too much on his guard in crediting their relations of things extraordinary, and should never build an hypothesis on any thing but clear facts and experiments, or it will be in danger of soon falling, as this does, like a house of cards. How many ways there are of kindling fire, or producing heat in bodies! By the sun's rays, by collision, by friction, by hammering, by putrefaction, by fermentation, by mixtures of fluids, by mixtures of solids with fluids, and by electricity. And yet the fire when produced, though in different bodies it may differ in circumstances, as in colour, vehemence, &c. yet in the same bodies is generally the same. Does not this seem to indicate that the fire existed in the body, though in a quiescent state, before it was by any of these means excited, disengaged, and brought forth to action and to view? May it not constitute a part, and even a principal part, of the solid substance of bodies? If this should be the case, kindling fire in a body would be nothing more than developing this inflammable principle, and setting it at liberty to act in separating the parts of that body, which then exhibits the appearances of scorching, melting, burning, &c. When a man lights an hundred candles from the flame of one, without diminishing that flame, can it be properly said to have _communicated_ all that fire? When a single spark from a flint, applied to a magazine of gunpowder, is immediately attended with this consequence, that the whole is in flame, exploding with immense violence, could all this fire exist first in the spark? We cannot conceive it. And thus we seem led to this supposition, that there is fire enough in all bodies to singe, melt, or burn them, whenever it is, by any means, set at liberty, so that it may exert itself upon them, or be disengaged from them. This liberty seems to be afforded it by the passage of electricity through them, which we know can and does, of itself, separate the parts even of water; and perhaps the immediate appearances of fire are only the effects of such separations? If so, there would be no need of supposing that the electric fluid _heats itself_ by the swiftness of its motion, or heats bodies by the resistance it meets with in passing through them. They would only be heated in proportion as such separation could be more easily made. Thus a melting heat cannot be given to a large wire in the flame of a candle, though it may to a small one; and this not because the large wire resists _less_ that action of the flame which tends to separate its parts, but because it resists it _more_ than the smaller wire; or because the force being divided among more parts acts weaker on each. This reminds me, however, of a little experiment I have frequently made, that shows, at one operation, the different effects of the same quantity of electric fluid passing through different quantities of metal. A strip of tinfoil, three inches long, a quarter of an inch wide at one end, and tapering all the way to a sharp point at the other, fixed between two pieces of glass, and having the electricity of a large glass jar sent through it, will not be discomposed in the broadest part; towards the middle will appear melted in spots; where narrower, it will be quite melted; and about half an inch of it next the point will be reduced to smoke. You were not mistaken in supposing that your account of the effect of the pointed rod, in securing Mr. West's house from damage by a stroke of lightning, would give me great pleasure. I thank you for it most heartily, and for the pains you have taken in giving me so complete a description of its situation, form, and substance, with the draft of the melted point. There is one circumstance, viz. that the lightning was seen to diffuse itself from the foot of the rod over the wet pavement, which seems, I think, to indicate, that the earth under the pavement was very dry, and that the rod should have been sunk deeper, till it came to earth moister, and therefore apter to receive and dissipate the electric fluid. And although, in this instance, a conductor formed of nail rods, not much above a quarter of an inch thick, served well to convey the lightning, yet some accounts I have seen from Carolina, give reason to think, that larger may be sometimes necessary, at least for the security of the conductor itself, which, when too small, may be destroyed in executing its office, though it does, at the same time, preserve the house. Indeed, in the construction of an instrument so new, and of which we could have so little experience, it is rather lucky that we should at first be so near the truth as we seem to be, and commit so few errors. There is another reason for sinking deeper the lower end of the rod, and also for turning it outwards under ground to some distance from the foundation; it is this, that water dripping from the eaves falls near the foundation, and sometimes soaks down there in greater quantities, so as to come near the end of the rod, though the ground about it be drier. In such case, this water may be exploded, that is, blown into vapour, whereby a force is generated, that may damage the foundation. Water reduced to vapour, is said to occupy 14,000 times its former space. I have sent a charge through a small glass tube, that has borne it well while empty, but when filled first with water, was shattered to pieces and driven all about the room:--Finding no part of the water on the table, I suspected it to have been reduced to vapour; and was confirmed in that suspicion afterwards, when I had filled a like piece of tube with ink, and laid it on a sheet of clean paper, whereon, after the explosion, I could find neither any moisture nor any sully from the ink. This experiment of the explosion of water, which I believe was first made by that most ingenious electrician, father Beccaria, may account for what we sometimes see in a tree struck by lightning, when part of it is reduced to fine splinters like a broom; the sap vessels being so many tubes containing a watry fluid, which, when reduced to vapour, rends every tube lengthways. And perhaps it is this rarefaction of the fluids in animal bodies killed by lightning or electricity, that, by separating its fibres, renders the flesh so tender, and apt so much sooner to putrify. I think too, that much of the damage done by lightning to stone and brick-walls may sometimes be owing to the explosion of water, found, during showers, running or lodging in the joints or small cavities or cracks that happen to be in the walls. Here are some electricians that recommend knobs instead of points on the upper end of the rods, from a supposition that the points invite the stroke. It is true that points draw electricity at greater distances in the gradual silent way; but knobs will draw at the greatest distance a stroke. There is an experiment that will settle this. Take a crooked wire of the thickness of a quill, and of such a length as that one end of it being applied to the lower part of a charged bottle, the upper may be brought near the ball on the top of the wire that is in the bottle. Let one end of this wire be furnished with a knob, and the other may be gradually tapered to a fine point. When the point is presented to discharge the bottle, it must be brought much nearer before it will receive the stroke, than the knob requires to be. Points besides tend to repel the fragments of an electrised cloud, knobs draw them nearer. An experiment, which I believe I have shewn you, of cotton fleece hanging from an electrised body, shows this clearly when a point or a knob is presented under it. You seem to think highly of the importance of this discovery, as do many others on our side of the water. Here it is very little regarded; so little, that though it is now seven or eight years since it was made public, I have not heard of a single house as yet attempted to be secured by it. It is true the mischiefs done by lightning are not so frequent here as with us, and those who calculate chances may perhaps find that not one death (or the destruction of one house) in a hundred thousand happens from that cause, and that therefore it is scarce worth while to be at any expence to guard against it.--But in all countries there are particular situations of buildings more exposed than others to such accidents, and there are minds so strongly impressed with the apprehension of them, as to be very unhappy every time a little thunder is within their hearing;--it may therefore be well to render this little piece of new knowledge as general and as well understood as possible, since to make us _safe_ is not all its advantage, it is some to make us _easy_. And as the stroke it secures us from might have chanced perhaps but once in our lives, while it may relieve us a hundred times from those painful apprehensions, the latter may possibly on the whole contribute more to the happiness of mankind than the former. Your kind wishes and congratulations are very obliging. I return them cordially;--being, with great regard and esteem, My dear Sir, Your affectionate friend, And most obedient humble servant, B. FRANKLIN. _Accounts from Carolina (mentioned in the foregoing Letter) of the Effects of Lightning on two of the Rods commonly affixed to Houses there, for securing them against Lightning_. _Charlestown, Nov. 1, 1760._ "----It is some years since Mr. Raven's rod was struck by lightning. I hear an account of it was published at the time, but I cannot find it. According to the best information I can now get, he had fixed to the outside of his chimney a large iron rod, several feet in length, reaching above the chimney; and to the top of this rod the points were fixed. From the lower end of this rod, a small brass wire was continued down to the top of another iron rod driven into the earth. On the ground-floor in the chimney stood a gun, leaning against the back-wall, nearly opposite to where the brass wire came down on the outside. The lightning fell upon the points, did no damage to the rod they were fixed to; but the brass wire, all down till it came opposite to the top of the gun-barrel, was destroyed[76]. There the lightning made a hole through the wall or back of the chimney, to get to the gun-barrel[77], down which it seems to have passed, as, although it did not hurt the barrel, it damaged the butt of the stock, and blew up some bricks of the hearth. The brass wire below the hole in the wall remained good. No other damage, as I can learn, was done to the house. I am told the same house had formerly been struck by lightning, and much damaged, before these rods were invented."---- FOOTNOTES: [76] A proof that it was not of sufficient substance to conduct with safety to itself (though with safety _so far_ to the wall) so large a quantity of the electric fluid. [77] A more substantial conductor. _Mr. William Maine's Account of the Effects of the Lightning on his Rod, dated at Indian Land, in South Carolina, Aug. 28, 1760._ ----"I had a set of electrical points, consisting of three prongs, of large brass wire tipt with silver, and perfectly sharp, each about seven inches long; these were rivetted at equal distances into an iron nut about three quarters of an inch square, and opened at top equally to the distance of six or seven inches from point to point, in a regular triangle. This nut was screwed very tight on the top of an iron rod of above half an inch diameter, or the thickness of a common curtain-rod, composed of several joints, annexed by hooks turned at the ends of each joint, and the whole fixed to the chimney of my house by iron staples. The points were elevated (_a_) six or seven inches above the top of the chimney; and the lower joint sunk three feet in the earth, in a perpendicular direction. Thus stood the points on Tuesday last about five in the evening, when the lightning broke with a violent explosion on the chimney, cut the rod square off just under the nut, and I am persuaded, melted the points, nut, and top of the rod, entirely up; as after the most diligent search, nothing of either was found (_b_), and the top of the remaining rod was cased over with a congealed solder. The lightning ran down the rod, starting almost all the staples (_c_), and unhooking the joints without affecting the rod (_d_), except on the inside of each hook where the joints were coupled, the surface of which was melted (_e_), and left as cased over with solder.--No part of the chimney was damaged (_f_), only at the foundation (_g_), where it was shattered almost quite round, and several bricks were torn out (_h_). Considerable cavities were made in the earth quite round the foundation, but most within eight or nine inches of the rod. It also shattered the bottom weather-board (_i_) at one corner of the house, and made a large hole in the earth by the corner post. On the other side of the chimney, it ploughed up several furrows in the earth, some yards in length. It ran down the inside of the chimney (_k_), carrying only soot with it; and filled the whole house with its flash (_l_), smoke, and dust. It tore up the hearth in several places (_m_), and broke some pieces of china in the beaufet (_n_). A copper tea-kettle standing in the chimney was beat together, as if some great weight had fallen upon it (_o_); and three holes, each about half an inch diameter, melted through the bottom (_p_). What seems to me the most surprising is, that the hearth under the kettle was not hurt, yet the bottom of the kettle was drove inward, as if the lightning proceeded from under it upwards (_q_), and the cover was thrown to the middle of the floor (_r_). The fire dogs, an iron logger-head, an Indian pot, an earthen cup, and a cat, were all in the chimney at the time unhurt, though a great part of the hearth was torn up (_s_). My wife's sister, two children, and a negro wench, were all who happened to be in the house at the time: the first, and one child, sat within five feet of the chimney; and were so stunned, that they never saw the lightning nor heard the explosion; the wench, with the other child in her arms, sitting at a greater distance, was sensible of both; though every one was so stunned that they did not recover for some time; however it pleased God that no farther mischief ensued. The kitchen, at 90 feet distance, was full of negroes, who were all sensible of the shock; and some of them tell me, that they felt the rod about a minute after, when it was so hot that they could not bear it in hand." REMARKS BY BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. The foregoing very sensible and distinct account may afford a good deal of instruction relating to the nature and effects of lightning, and to the construction and use of this instrument for averting the mischiefs of it. Like other new instruments, this appears to have been at first in some respects imperfect; and we find that we are, in this as in others, to expect improvement from experience chiefly: but there seems to be nothing in the account, that should discourage us in the use of it; since at the same time that its imperfections are discovered, the means of removing them are pretty easily to be learnt from the circumstances of the account itself; and its utility upon the whole is manifest. One intention of the pointed rod, is, to _prevent_ a stroke of lightning. (_See pages_ 283, 310.) But to have a better chance of obtaining this end, the points should not be too near to the top of the chimney or highest part of the building to which they are affixed, but should be extended five or six feet above it; otherwise their operation in silently drawing off the fire (from such fragments of cloud as float in the air between the great body of cloud and the earth) will be prevented. For the experiment with the lock of cotton hanging below the electrified prime conductor shows, that a finger under it, being a blunt body, extends the cotton, drawing its lower part downwards; when a needle, with its point presented to the cotton, makes it fly up again to the prime conductor; and that this effect is strongest when as much of the needle as possible appears above the end of the finger; grows weaker as the needle is shortened between the finger and thumb; and is reduced to nothing when only a short part below the point appears above the finger. Now it seems the points of Mr. Maine's rod were elevated only (_a_) _six or seven inches above the top of the chimney_; which, considering the bulk of the chimney and the house, was too small an elevation. For the great body of matter near them would hinder their being easily brought into a negative state by the repulsive power of the electrised cloud, in which negative state it is that they attract most strongly and copiously the electric fluid from other bodies, and convey it into the earth. (_b_) _Nothing of the points, &c. could be found._ This is a common effect. (_See page_ 312.) Where the quantity of the electric fluid passing is too great for the conductor through which it passes, the metal is either melted, or reduced to smoke and dissipated; but where the conductor is sufficiently large, the fluid passes in it without hurting it. Thus these three wires were destroyed, while the rod to which they were fixed, being of greater substance, remained unhurt; its end only, to which they were joined, being a little melted, some of the melted part of the lower ends of those wires uniting with it, and appearing on it like solder. (_c_)(_d_)(_e_) As the several parts of the rod were connected only by the ends being bent round into hooks, the contact between hook and hook was much smaller than the rod; therefore the current through the metal being confined in those narrow passages, melted part of the metal, as appeared on examining the inside of each hook. Where metal is melted by lightning, some part of it is generally exploded; and these explosions in the joints appear to have been the cause of unhooking them; and, by that violent action, of starting also most of the staples. We learn from hence, that a rod in one continued piece is preferable to one composed of links or parts hooked together. (_f_) _No part of the chimney was damaged_: because the lightning passed in the rod. And this instance agrees with others in showing, that the second and principal intention of the rods is obtainable, viz. that of _conducting_ the lightning. In all the instances yet known of the lightning's falling on any house guarded by rods, it has pitched down upon the point of the rod, and has not fallen upon any other part of the house. Had the lightning fallen on this chimney, unfurnished with a rod, it would probably have rent it from top to bottom, as we see, by the effects of the lightning on the points and rod, that its quantity was very great; and we know that many chimneys have been so demolished. But _no part of this was damaged, only_ (_f_)(_g_)(_h_) _at the foundation, where it was shattered and several bricks torn out_. Here we learn the principal defect in fixing this rod. The lower joint being sunk but three feet into the earth, did not it seems go low enough to come at water, or a large body of earth so moist as to receive readily from its end the quantity it conducted. The electric fluid therefore, thus accumulated near the lower end of the rod, quitted it at the surface of the earth, dividing in search of other passages. Part of it tore up the surface in furrows, and made holes in it: part entered the bricks of the foundation, which being near the earth are generally moist, and, in exploding that moisture, shattered them. (_See page_ 358.) Part went through or under the foundation, and got under the hearth, blowing up great part of the bricks (_m_)(_s_), and producing the other effects (_o_)(_p_)(_q_)(_r_). The iron dogs, loggerhead and iron pot were not hurt, being of sufficient substance, and they probably protected the cat. The copper tea-kettle being thin suffered some damage. Perhaps, though found on a sound part of the hearth, it might at the time of the stroke have stood on the part blown up, which will account both for the bruising and melting. That _it ran down the inside of the chimney_ (_k_) I apprehend must be a mistake. Had it done so, I imagine it would have brought something more than soot with it; it would probably have ripped off the pargetting, and brought down fragments of plaster and bricks. The shake, from the explosion on the rod, was sufficient to shake down a good deal of loose soot. Lightning does not usually enter houses by the doors, windows, or chimneys, as open passages, in the manner that air enters them: its nature is, to be attracted by substances, that are conductors of electricity; it penetrates and passes _in_ them, and, if they are not good conductors as are neither wood, brick, stone nor plaster, it is apt to rend them in its passage. It would not easily pass through the air from a cloud to a building, were it not for the aid afforded it in its passage by intervening fragments of clouds below the main body, or by the falling rain. It is said that _the house was filled with its flash_ (_l_). Expressions like this are common in accounts of the effects of lightning, from which we are apt to understand that the lightning filled the house. Our language indeed seems to want a word to express the _light_ of lightning as distinct from the lightning itself. When a tree on a hill is struck by it, the lightning of that stroke exists only in a narrow vein between the cloud and tree, but its light fills a vast space many miles round; and people at the greatest distance from it are apt to say, "The lightning came into our rooms through our windows." As it is in itself extremely bright, it cannot, when so near as to strike a house, fail illuminating highly every room in it through the windows; and this I suppose to have been the case at Mr. Maine's; and that, except in and near the hearth, from the causes above-mentioned, it was not in any other part of the house; _the flash_ meaning no more than _the light_ of the lightning.--It is for want of considering this difference, that people suppose there is a kind of lightning not attended with thunder. In fact there is probably a loud explosion accompanying every flash of lightning, and at the same instant;--but as sound travels slower than light, we often hear the sound some seconds of time after having seen the light; and as sound does not travel so far as light, we sometimes see the light at a distance too great to hear the sound. (_n_) The _breaking some pieces of china in the beaufet_, may nevertheless seem to indicate that the lightning was there: but as there is no mention of its having hurt any part of the beaufet, or of the walls of the house, I should rather ascribe that effect to the concussion of the air, or shake of the house by the explosion. Thus, to me it appears, that the house and its inhabitants were saved by the rod, though the rod itself was unjointed by the stroke; and that, if it had been made of one piece, and sunk deeper in the earth, or had entered the earth at a greater distance from the foundation, the mentioned small damages (except the melting of the points) would not have happened. TO DR. H[78]. AT LONDON. _On the Electricity of the Tourmalin._ _Craven-street, June 7, 1759._ SIR, I now return the smallest of your two tourmalins, with hearty thanks for your kind present of the other, which, though I value highly for its rare and wonderful properties, I shall ever esteem it more for the friendship I am honoured with by the giver. I hear that the negative electricity of one side of the tourmalin, when heated, is absolutely denied (and all that has been related of it ascribed to prejudice in favour of a system) by some ingenious gentlemen abroad, who profess to have made the experiments on the stone with care and exactness. The experiments have succeeded differently with me; yet I would not call the accuracy of those gentlemen in question. Possibly the tourmalins they have tried were not properly cut; so that the positive and negative powers were obliquely placed, or in some manner whereby their effects were confused, or the negative parts more easily supplied by the positive. Perhaps the lapidaries who have hitherto cut these stones, had no regard to the situation of the two powers, but chose to make the faces of the stone where they could obtain the greatest breadth, or some other advantage in the form. If any of these stones, in their natural state, can be procured here, I think it would be right to endeavour finding, before they are cut, the two sides that contain the opposite powers, and make the faces there. Possibly, in that case, the effects might be stronger, and more distinct; for though both these stones that I have examined have evidently the two properties, yet, without the full heat given by boiling water, they are somewhat confused; the virtue seems strongest towards one end of the face; and in the middle, or near the other end, scarce discernible; and the negative, I think, always weaker than the positive. I have had the large one new cut, so as to make both sides alike, and find the change of form has made no change of power, but the properties of each side remain the same as I found them before. It is now set in a ring in such a manner as to turn on an axis, that I may conveniently, in making experiments, come at both side of the stone. The little rim of gold it is set in, has made no alteration in its effects. The warmth of my finger, when I wear it, is sufficient to give it some degree of electricity, so that it is always ready to attract light bodies. The following experiments have satisfied me that M. Æpinus's account of the positive and negative states of the opposite sides of the heated tourmalin is well founded. I heated the large stone in boiling water. As soon as it was dry, I brought it near a very small cork ball, that was suspended by a silk thread. The ball was attracted by one face of the stone, which I call A, and then repelled. The ball in that state was also repelled by the positively charged wire of a phial, and attracted by the other side of the stone, B. The stone being a-fresh heated, and the side B brought near the ball, it was first attracted, and presently after repelled by that side. In this second state it was repelled by the negatively charged wire of a phial. Therefore, if the principles now generally received, relating to positive and negative electricity, are true, the side A of the large stone, when the stone is heated in water, is in a positive state of electricity; and the side B, in a negative state. The same experiments being made with the small stone stuck by one edge on the end of a small glass tube, with sealing-wax, the same effects are produced. The flat side of the small stone gives the signs of positive electricity; the high side gives the signs of negative electricity. Again: I suspended the small stone by a silk thread. I heated it as it hung, in boiling water. I heated the large one in boiling water. Then I brought the large stone near to the suspended small one. Which immediately turned its flat side to the side B of the large stone, and would cling to it. I turned the ring, so as to present the side A of the large stone, to the flat side of the small one. The flat side was repelled, and the small stone, turning quick, applied its high side to the side A of the large one. This was precisely what ought to happen, on the supposition that the flat side of the small stone, when heated in water, is positive, and the high side negative; the side A of the large stone positive, and the side B negative. The effect was apparently the same as would have been produced, if one magnet had been suspended by a thread, and the different poles of another brought alternately near it. I find that the face A, of the large stone, being coated with leaf-gold (attached by the white of an egg, which will bear dipping in hot water) becomes quicker and stronger in its effect on the cork ball, repelling it the instant it comes in contact; which I suppose to be occasioned by the united force of different parts of the face, collected and acting together through the metal. I am, &c. B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTE: [78] Dr. Heberden. _Editor._ FROM PROFESSOR WINTHROP, TO B. FRANKLIN. _New Observation relating to Electricity in the Atmosphere._ _Cambridge, N. E. Sept. 29, 1762._ SIR, There is an observation relating to electricity in the atmosphere, which seemed new to me, though perhaps it will not to you: however, I will venture to mention it. I have some points on the top of my house, and the wire where it passes within-side the house is furnished with bells, according to your method, to give notice of the passage of the electric fluid. In summer, these bells, generally ring at the approach of a thunder-cloud; but cease soon after it begins to rain. In winter, they sometimes though not very often, ring while it is snowing; but never, that I remember, when it rains. But what was unexpected to me was, that, though the bells had not rung while it was snowing, yet, the next day, after it had done snowing, and the weather was cleared up, while the snow was driven about by a high wind at W. or N. W. the bells rung for several hours (though with little intermissions) as briskly as ever I knew them, and I drew considerable sparks from the wire. This phenomenon I never observed but twice; viz. on the 31st of January, 1760, and the 3d of March, 1762. I am, Sir, &c. FROM MR. A. S[79]. TO B. F. _Flash of Lightning that struck St. Bride's Steeple._ I have just recollected that in one of our great storms of lightning, I saw an appearance, which I never observed before, nor ever heard described. I am persuaded that I saw _the_ flash which struck St. Bride's steeple. Sitting at my window, and looking to the north, I saw what appeared to me a solid strait rod of fire, moving at a very sharp angle with the horizon. It appeared to my eye as about two inches diameter, and had nothing of the zig-zag lightning motion. I instantly told a person sitting with me, that some place must be struck at that instant. I was so much surprized at the vivid distinct appearance of the fire, that I did not hear the clap of thunder, which stunned every one besides. Considering how low it moved, I could not have thought it had gone so far, having St. Martin's, the New Church, and St. Clements's steeples in its way. It struck the steeple a good way from the top, and the first impression it made in the side is in the same direction I saw it move in. It was succeeded by two flashes, almost united, moving in a pointed direction. There were two distinct houses struck in Essex-street. I should have thought the rod would have fallen in Covent-Garden, it was so low. Perhaps the appearance is frequent, though never before seen by Your's, A. S. FOOTNOTE: [79] Mr. Alexander Small. _Editor._ TO MR. P. F[80]. NEWPORT. _Best Method of securing a Powder Magazine from Lightning._ ----You may acquaint the gentleman that desired you to enquire my opinion of the best method of securing a powder magazine from lightning, that I think they cannot do better than to erect a mast not far from it, which may reach fifteen or twenty feet above the top of it, with a thick iron rod in one piece fastened to it, pointed at the highest end, and reaching down through the earth till it comes to water. Iron is a cheap metal; but if it were dearer, as this is a public thing the expence is insignificant; therefore I would have the rod at least an inch thick, to allow for its gradually wasting by rust; it will last as long as the mast, and may be renewed with it. The sharp point for five or six inches should be gilt. But there is another circumstance of importance to the strength, goodness, and usefulness of the powder, which does not seem to have been enough attended to: I mean the keeping it perfectly dry. For want of a method of doing this, much is spoiled in damp magazines, and much so damaged as to become of little value.--If, instead of barrels it were kept in cases of bottles well corked; or in large tin canisters, with small covers shutting close by means of oiled paper between, or covering the joining on the canister; or if in barrels, then the barrels lined with thin sheet lead; no moisture in either of these methods could possibly enter the powder, since glass and metals are both impervious to water. By the latter of these means you see tea is brought dry and crisp from China to Europe, and thence to America, though it comes all the way by sea in the damp hold of a ship. And by this method, grain, meal, &c. if well dried before it is put up, may be kept for ages sound and good. There is another thing very proper to line small barrels with; it is what they call tin-foil, or leaf-tin, being tin milled between rollers till it becomes as thin as paper, and more pliant, at the same time that its texture is extremely close. It may be applied to the wood with common paste, made with boiling-water thickened with flour; and, so laid on; will lie very close and stick well: but I should prefer a hard sticky varnish for that purpose, made of linseed oil much boiled. The heads might be lined separately, the tin wrapping a little round their edges. The barrel, while the lining is laid on, should have the end hoops slack, so that the staves standing at a little distance from each other, may admit the head into its groove. The tin-foil should be plyed into the groove. Then, one head being put in, and that end hooped tight, the barrel would be fit to receive the powder, and when the other head is put in and the hoops drove up, the powder would be safe from moisture even if the barrel were kept under water. This tin-foil is but about eighteen pence sterling a pound, and is so extremely thin, that I imagine a pound of it would line three or four powder-barrels. I am, &c. B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTE: [80] Peter Franklin. _Editor._ _Of Lightning, and the Methods (now used in America) of securing Buildings and Persons from its mischievous Effects._ Experiments made in electricity first gave philosophers a suspicion, that the matter of lightning was the same with the electric matter. Experiments afterwards made on lightning obtained from the clouds by pointed rods, received into bottles, and subjected to every trial, have since proved this suspicion to be perfectly well founded; and that whatever properties we find in electricity, are also the properties of lightning. This matter of lightning, or of electricity, is an extreme subtile fluid, penetrating other bodies, and subsisting in them, equally diffused. When by any operation of art or nature, there happens to be a greater proportion of this fluid in one body than in another, the body which has most will communicate to that which has least, till the proportion becomes equal; provided the distance between them be not too great; or, if it is too great, till there be proper conductors to convey it from one to the other. If the communication be through the air without any conductor, a bright light is seen between the bodies, and a sound is heard. In our small experiments, we call this light and sound the electric spark and snap; but in the great operations of nature, the light is what we call _lightning_, and the sound (produced at the same time, though generally arriving later at our ears than the light does to our eyes) is, with its echoes, called _thunder_. If the communication of this fluid is by a conductor, it may be without either light or sound, the subtle fluid passing in the substance of the conductor. If the conductor be good and of sufficient bigness, the fluid passes through it without hurting it. If otherwise, it is damaged or destroyed. All metals, and water, are good conductors.--Other bodies may become conductors by having some quantity of water in them, as wood, and other materials used in building, but not having much water in them, they are not good conductors, and therefore are often damaged in the operation. Glass, wax, silk, wool, hair, feathers, and even wood, perfectly dry are non-conductors: that is, they resist instead of facilitating the passage of this subtle fluid. When this fluid has an opportunity of passing through two conductors, one good, and sufficient, as of metal, the other not so good, it passes in the best, and will follow it in any direction. The distance at which a body charged with this fluid will discharge itself suddenly, striking through the air into another body that is not charged, or not so highly charged, is different according to the quantity of the fluid, the dimensions and form of the bodies themselves, and the state of the air between them.--This distance, whatever it happens to be between any two bodies, is called their _striking distance_, as, till they come within that distance of each other, no stroke will be made. The clouds have often more of this fluid in proportion than the earth; in which case, as soon as they come near enough (that is, within the striking distance) or meet with a conductor, the fluid quits them and strikes into the earth. A cloud fully charged with this fluid, if so high as to be beyond the striking distance from the earth, passes quietly without making noise or giving light; unless it meets with other clouds that have less. Tall trees, and lofty buildings, as the towers and spires of churches, become sometimes conductors between the clouds and the earth; but not being good ones, that is, not conveying the fluid freely, they are often damaged. Buildings that have their roofs covered with lead, or other metal, and spouts of metal continued from the roof into the ground to carry off the water, are never hurt by lightning, as, whenever it falls on such a building, it passes in the metals and not in the walls. When other buildings happen to be within the striking distance from such clouds, the fluid passes in the walls whether of wood, brick or stone, quitting the walls only when it can find better conductors near them, as metal rods, bolts, and hinges of windows or doors, gilding on wainscot, or frames of pictures, the silvering on the backs of looking-glasses, the wires for bells, and the bodies of animals, as containing watery fluids. And in passing through the house it follows the direction of these conductors, taking as many in its way as can assist it in its passage, whether in a strait, or crooked line leaping from one to the other, if not far distant from each other, only rending the wall in the spaces where these partial good conductors are too distant from each other. An iron rod being placed on the outside of a building, from the highest part continued down into the moist earth, in any direction strait or crooked, following the form of the roof or other parts of the building, will receive the lightning at its upper end, attracting it so as to prevent its striking any other part; and, affording it a good conveyance into the earth, will prevent its damaging any part of the building. A small quantity of metal is found able to conduct a great quantity of this fluid. A wire no bigger than a goose-quill has been known to conduct (with safety to the building as far as the wire was continued) a quantity of lightning that did prodigious damage both above and below it; and probably larger rods are not necessary, though it is common in America, to make them of half an inch, some of three quarters, or an inch diameter. The rod may be fastened to the wall, chimney, &c. with staples of iron.--The lightning will not leave the rod (a good conductor) to pass into the wall (a bad conductor) through those staples.--It would rather, if any were in the wall, pass out of it into the rod to get more readily by that conductor into the earth. If the building be very large and extensive, two or more rods may be placed at different parts, for greater security. Small ragged parts of clouds, suspended in the air between the great body of clouds and the earth (like leaf gold in electrical experiments) often serve as partial conductors for the lightning, which proceeds from one of them to another, and by their help comes within the striking distance to the earth or a building. It therefore strikes through those conductors a building that would otherwise be out of the striking distance. Long sharp points communicating with the earth, and presented to such parts of clouds, drawing silently from them the fluid they are charged with, they are then attracted to the cloud, and may leave the distance so great as to be beyond the reach of striking. It is therefore that we elevate the upper end of the rod six or eight feet above the highest part of the building, tapering it gradually to a fine sharp point, which is gilt to prevent its rusting. Thus the pointed rod either prevents a stroke from the cloud, or, if a stroke is made, conducts it to the earth with safety to the building. The lower end of the rod should enter the earth so deep as to come at the moist part, perhaps two or three feet; and if bent when under the surface so as to go in a horizontal line six or eight feet from the wall, and then bent again downwards three or four feet, it will prevent damage to any of the stones of the foundation. A person apprehensive of danger from lightning, happening during the time of thunder to be in a house not so secured, will do well to avoid sitting near the chimney, near a looking glass, or any gilt pictures or wainscot; the safest place is in the middle of the room (so it be not under a metal lustre suspended by a chain) sitting in one chair and laying the feet up in another. It is still safer to bring two or three mattrasses or beds into the middle of the room, and, folding them up double, place the chair upon them; for they not being so good conductors as the walls, the lightning will not chuse an interrupted course through the air of the room and the bedding, when it can go through a continued better conductor, the wall. But where it can be had, a hammock or swinging bed, suspended by silk cords equally distant from the walls on every side, and from the cieling and floor above and below, affords the safest situation a person can have in any room whatever; and what indeed may be deemed quite free from danger of any stroke by lightning. B. FRANKLIN. _Paris, Sept. 1767._ FROM J. W.[81] ESQ. PROFESSOR OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY AT CAMBRIDGE, IN NEW ENGLAND, JAN. 6, 1768. _St. Bride's Steeple.--Utility of Electrical Conductors to Steeples.--Singular kind of Glass tube._ "**** I have read in the Philosophical Transactions the account of the effects of lightning on St. Bride's steeple. It is amazing to me, that after the full demonstration you had given, of the identity of lightning and of electricity, and the power of metalline conductors, they should ever think of repairing that steeple without such conductors. How astonishing is the force of prejudice even in an age of so much knowledge and free enquiry!" ANSWER TO THE ABOVE. **** It is perhaps not so extraordinary that unlearned men, such as commonly compose our church vestries, should not yet be acquainted with, and sensible of the benefits of metal conductors in averting the stroke of lightning, and preserving our houses from its violent effects, or that they should be still prejudiced against the use of such conductors, when we see how long even philosophers, men of extensive science and great ingenuity, can hold out against the evidence of new knowledge, that does not square with their preconceptions; and how long men can retain a practice that is conformable to their prejudices, and expect a benefit from such practice, though constant experience shows its inutility. A late piece of the Abbé Nollet, printed last year in the memoirs of the French Academy of Sciences, affords strong instances of this: for though the very relations he gives of the effects of lightning in several churches and other buildings show clearly, that it was conducted from one part to another by wires, gildings, and other pieces of metal that were _within_, or connected with the building, yet in the same paper he objects to the providing metalline conductors _without_ the building, as useless or dangerous.[82] He cautions people not to ring the church bells during a thunder-storm, lest the lightning, in its way to the earth, should be conducted down to them by the bell ropes,[83] which are but bad conductors; and yet is against fixing metal rods on the outside of the steeple, which are known to be much better conductors, and which it would certainly chuse to pass in, rather than in dry hemp. And though for a thousand years past bells have been solemnly consecrated by the Romish church[84], in expectation that the sound of such blessed bells would drive away those storms, and secure our buildings from the stroke of lightning; and during so long a period, it has not been found by experience, that places within the reach of such blessed sound, are safer than others where it is never heard; but that on the contrary, the lightning seems to strike steeples of choice, and that at the very time the bells are ringing[85]; yet still they continue to bless the new bells, and jangle the old ones whenever it thunders.--One would think it was now time to try some other trick;--and ours is recommended (whatever this able philosopher may have been told to the contrary) by more than twelve years experience, wherein, among the great number of houses furnished with iron rods in North America, not one so guarded has been materially hurt with lightning, and several have been evidently preserved by their means; while a number of houses, churches, barns, ships, &c. in different places, unprovided with rods, have been struck and greatly damaged, demolished or burnt. Probably the vestries of our English churches are not generally well acquainted with these facts; otherwise, since as good protestants they have no faith in the blessing of bells, they would be less excusable in not providing this other security for their respective churches, and for the good people that may happen to be assembled in them during a tempest, especially as those buildings, from their greater height, are more exposed to the stroke of lightning than our common dwellings. I have nothing new in the philosophical way to communicate to you, except what follows. When I was last year in Germany, I met with a singular kind of glass, being a tube about eight inches long, half an inch in diameter, with a hollow ball of near an inch diameter at one end, and one of an inch and half at the other, hermetically sealed, and half filled with water.--If one end is held in the hand, and the other a little elevated above the level, a constant succession of large bubbles proceeds from the end in the hand to the other end, making an appearance that puzzled me much, till I found that the space not filled with water was also free from air, and either filled with a subtle invisible vapour continually rising from the water, and extremely rarefiable by the least heat at one end, and condensable again by the least coolness at the other; or it is the very fluid of fire itself, which parting from the hand pervades the glass, and by its expansive force depresses the water till it can pass between it and the glass, and escape to the other end, where it gets through the glass again into the air. I am rather inclined to the first opinion, but doubtful between the two. An ingenious artist here, Mr. Nairne, mathematical instrument-maker, has made a number of them from mine, and improved them, for his are much more sensible than those I brought from Germany.--I bored a very small hole through the wainscot in the seat of my window, through which a little cold air constantly entered, while the air in the room was kept warmer by fires daily made in it, being winter time. I placed one of his glasses, with the elevated end against this hole; and the bubbles from the other end, which was in a warmer situation, were continually passing day and night, to the no small surprise of even philosophical spectators. Each bubble discharged is larger than that from which it proceeds, and yet that is not diminished; and by adding itself to the bubble at the other end, that bubble is not increased, which seems very paradoxical.--When the balls at each end are made large, and the connecting tube very small and bent at right angles, so that the balls, instead of being at the ends, are brought on the side of the tube, and the tube is held so as that the balls are above it, the water will be depressed in that which is held in the hand, and rise in the other as a jet or fountain; when it is all in the other, it begins to boil, as it were, by the vapour passing up through it; and the instant it begins to boil, a sudden coldness is felt in the ball held; a curious experiment, this, first observed and shown me by Mr. Nairne. There is something in it similar to the old observation, I think mentioned by Aristotle, that the bottom of a boiling pot is not warm; and perhaps it may help to explain that fact;--if indeed it be a fact.--When the water stands at an equal height in both these balls, and all at rest; if you wet one of the balls by means of a feather dipt in spirit, though that spirit is of the same temperament as to heat and cold with the water in the glasses, yet the cold occasioned by the evaporation of the spirit from the wetted ball will so condense the vapour over the water contained in that ball, as that the water of the other ball will be pressed up into it, followed by a succession of bubbles, till the spirit is all dried away. Perhaps the observations on these little instruments may suggest and be applied to some beneficial uses. It has been thought, that water reduced to vapour by heat was rarefied only fourteen thousand times, and on this principle our engines for raising water by fire are said to be constructed: but if the vapour so much rarefied from water is capable of being itself still farther rarefied to a boundless degree by the application of heat to the vessels or parts of vessels containing the vapour (as at first it is applied to those containing the water) perhaps a much greater power may be obtained, with little additional expence. Possibly too, the power of easily moving water from one end to the other of a moveable beam (suspended in the middle like a scale-beam) by a small degree of heat, may be applied advantageously to some other mechanical purposes.**** I am, &c. B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTES: [81] John Winthrop. _Editor._ [82] Notre curiosité pourroit peut-être s'applandir des recherches qu'elle nous a fait faire sur la nature du tonnerre, & sur la mécanisme de ses principaux effets, mais ce n'est point ce qu'il y a de plus important; il vaudroit bien mieux que nous puissions tronver quelque moyen de nous en garantir: on y a pensé; on s'est même flatté d'avoir fait cette grande découverte; mais malheureusement douze années d'épreuves & un peu de réflexion, nous apprennent qu'il ne faut pas compter sur les promesses qu'on nous a faites. Je l'ai dit, il y a long temps, and avec regret, toutes ces pointes de fer qu'on dresse en l'air, soit comme _électroscopes_, soit comme préservatifs,----sont plus propre à nous attirer le feu du tonnerre qu'à nous en préserver;----& je persiste â dire que le projet d'épuiser une nuée orageuse du feu dont elle est chargée, n'est pas celui d'un physicien,----. _Memoire sur les Effets du Tonnerre._ [83] Les cloches, en vertu de leur bénédiction, doivent écarter les orages & nous preserver des coups de foudre; mais l'église permet à la prudence humaine le choix des momens où il convient d'user de ce préservatif. Je ne sais si le son, considéré physiquement, est capable ou non de faire crever une nuée, & de causer l'épanchement de son feu vers les objets terrestres, mais il est certain & prouvé par l'expérience, que la tonnerre peut tomber sur un clocher, soit que l'on y sonne ou que l'on n'y sonne point; & si cela arrive dans le premier cas, les sonneurs sont en grand danger, parcequ'ils tiennent des cordes par lesquelles la commotion de la foudre peut se communiquer jusq'à eux: il est donc plus sage de laisser les cloches en repos quand l'orage est arrivé au-dessus de l'église. Ibid. [84] Suivant le rituel de Paris, lorsqu'on benit des cloches, on recite les oraisons suivantes: _Benedic, Domine ... quotiescumque sonuerit, procul recedat virtus insidiantium, umbra phantasmatis, incursio turbinum, percussio fulminum, læsio tonitruum, calamitas tempestatum, omnisque spiritus procellarum, &c._ _Deus, qui per beatum Moïsen, &c. ... procul pellentur insidiæ inimici, fragor grandinum, procella turbinum, impetus tempestatum, temperentur infesta tonitrua. &c._ _Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, &c. ... ut ante sonitum ejus effugentur ignita jacula inimici, percussio fulminum, impetus lapidum, læsio tempestatum, &c._ [85] En 1718. M. Deslandes fit savoir à l'Academie Royale des sciences, que la nuit du 14 ou 15 d'Avril de la mème année, le tonnerre étoit tombé sur vingtquatre églises, dequis Landernau jusqu'à Saint-Pol-de-Léon en Bretagne; que ces églises étoient précisément celles où l'on sonnoit, & que la foudre avoit épargné celles ou l'on ne sonnoit pas: que dans celle de Gouisnon, qui fut entièrement ruinée, le tonnerre tua deux personnes de quatre qui sonnoient, &c. _Hist. du l'Ac. R. des Sci. 1719._ _Experiments, Observations, and Facts, tending to support the Opinion of the Utility of long pointed Rods, for securing Buildings from Damage by Strokes of Lightning._ Read at the Committee appointed to consider the erecting Conductors to secure the Magazines at Purfleet, Aug. 27, 1772. EXPERIMENT I. The prime conductor of an electric machine, A. B. (_See Plate_ IV.) being supported about 10 inches and a half above the table by a wax-stand, and under it erected a _pointed wire_ 7 inches and a half high, and one-fifth of an inch thick, and tapering to a sharp point, and communicating with the table; when the _point_ (being uppermost) is _covered_ by the end of a finger, the conductor may be full charged, and the electrometer c[86], will rise to the height indicating a full charge: but the moment the point is _uncovered_, the ball of the electrometer drops, showing the prime conductor to be instantly discharged and nearly emptied of its electricity. Turn the wire its _blunt_ end upwards (which represents an unpointed bar) and no such effect follows, the electrometer remaining at its usual height when the prime conductor is charged. [Illustration: (of these experiments) _Plate IV._ _Vol. I. page 388._ _Published as the Act directs, April 1, 1806, by Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme, Paternoster Row._] OBSERVATION. _What_ quantity of lightning, a high pointed rod well communicating with the earth may be expected to discharge from the clouds silently in a short time, is yet unknown; but I have reason from a particular fact to think it may at some times be very great. In Philadelphia I had such a rod fixed to the top of my chimney, and extending about nine feet above it. From the foot of this rod, a wire (the thickness of a goose-quill) came through a covered glass tube in the roof, and down through the well of the stair-case; the lower end connected with the iron spear of a pump. On the stair-case opposite to my chamber-door, the wire was divided; the ends separated about six inches, a little bell on each end; [and] between the bells a little brass ball suspended by a silk thread, to play between and strike the bells when clouds passed with electricity in them. After having frequently drawn sparks and charged bottles from the bell of the upper wire, I was one night waked by loud cracks on the stair-case. Starting up and opening the door, I perceived that the brass ball, instead of vibrating as usual between the bells, was repelled and kept at a distance from both; while the fire passed sometimes in very large quick cracks from bell to bell; and sometimes in a continued dense white stream, seemingly as large as my finger, whereby the whole stair-case was enlightened as with sunshine, so that one might see to pick up a pin[87]. And from the apparent quantity thus discharged, I cannot but conceive that a _number_[88] of such conductors must considerably lessen that of any approaching cloud, before it comes so near as to deliver its contents in a general stroke:--An effect not to be expected from bars _unpointed_; if the above experiment with the blunt end of the wire is deemed pertinent to the case. EXPERIMENT II. The pointed wire under the prime conductor continuing of the same height, _pinch_ it between the thumb and finger near the top, so as _just to conceal_ the point; then turning the globe, the electrometer will rise and mark the full charge. Slip the fingers down so as to discover about half an inch of the wire, then another half inch, and then another; at every one of these motions _discovering more and more_ of the pointed wire; you will see the electrometer fall quick and proportionably, stopping when you stop. If you slip down the _whole distance_ at once, the ball falls instantly down to the stem. OBSERVATION. From this experiment it seems that a greater effect in drawing off the lightning from the clouds may be expected from _long_ pointed rods, than from _short_ ones; I mean from such as show the greatest length, _above the building_ they are fixed on. EXPERIMENT III. Instead of pinching the point between the thumb and finger, as in the last experiment, keep the thumb and finger each at _near an inch distance_ from it, but at the _same height_, the point between them. In this situation, though the point is fairly exposed to the prime conductor, it has little or no effect; the electrometer rises to the height of a full charge.--But the moment the fingers are _taken away_, the ball falls quick to the stem. OBSERVATION. To explain this, it is supposed, that one reason of the sudden effect produced by a long naked pointed wire is, that (by the repulsive power of the positive charge in the prime conductor) the natural quantity of electricity contained in the pointed wire is driven down into the earth, and the point of the wire made strongly _negative_; whence it attracts the electricity of the prime conductor more strongly than bodies in their natural state would do; the _small quantity of common matter_ in the point, not being able by its attractive force to retain its _natural quantity of the electric fluid_, against the force of that repulsion.--But the finger and thumb being substantial and blunt bodies, though as near the prime conductor, hold up better their _own_ natural quantity against the force of that repulsion; and so, continuing nearly in the natural state, they jointly operate on the electric fluid in the point, opposing its descent, and _aiding the point_ to retain it; contrary to the repelling power of the prime conductor, which would drive it down.--And this may also serve to explain the different powers of the point in the preceding experiment, on the slipping down the finger and thumb to different distances. Hence is collected, that a pointed rod erected _between two tall chimnies_, and very little higher (an instance of which I have seen) cannot have so good an effect, as if it had been erected on one of the chimneys, its whole length above it. EXPERIMENT IV. If, _instead_ of a long pointed wire, a _large solid body_ (to represent a building without a point) be brought under and as near the prime conductor, when charged; the ball of the electrometer will _fall_ a little; and on taking away the large body, will _rise again_. OBSERVATION. Its _rising again_ shows that the prime conductor lost little or none of its electric charge, as it had done through the point: the _falling_ of the ball while the large body was under the conductor therefore shows, that a quantity of its atmosphere was drawn from the end where the electrometer is placed to the part immediately over the large body, and there accumulated _ready_ to strike into it with its whole undiminished force, as soon as within the striking distance; and, were the prime conductor moveable like a _cloud_, it would approach the body by attraction till within that distance. The swift motion of clouds, as driven by the winds, probably prevents this happening so often as otherwise it might do: for, though parts of the cloud may stoop towards a building as they pass, in consequence of such attraction, yet they are carried forward beyond the striking distance before they could by their descending come within it. EXPERIMENT V. Attach a small light _lock of cotton_ to the underside of the prime conductor, so that it may hang down towards the pointed wire mentioned in the first experiment. _Cover_ the point with your finger, and the globe being turned, the cotton will extend itself, stretching down towards the finger, as at _a_; but on _uncovering_ the point, it instantly flies up to the prime conductor, as at _b_, and continues there as long as the point is uncovered. The moment you cover it again, the cotton flies down again, extending itself towards the finger; and the same happens in degree, if (instead of the finger) you use, uncovered, the _blunt_ end of the wire uppermost. OBSERVATION. To explain this, it is supposed that the cotton, by its connection with the prime conductor, receives from it a quantity of its electricity; which occasions its being attracted by the _finger_ that remains still in nearly its natural state. But when a _point_ is opposed to the cotton, its electricity is thereby taken from it, faster than it can at a distance be supplied with a fresh quantity from the conductor. Therefore being reduced _nearer_ to the natural state, it is attracted _up_ to the electrified prime conductor; _rather than down_, as before, to the finger. Supposing farther that the prime conductor represents a cloud charged with the electric fluid; the cotton, a ragged fragment of cloud (of which the underside of great thunder-clouds are seen to have many) the finger, a chimney or highest part of a building.--We then may conceive that when such a cloud passes over a _building_, some one of its ragged under-hanging fragments may be drawn down by the chimney or other high part of the edifice; creating thereby a _more easy communication_ between it and the great cloud.--But a _long pointed rod_ being presented to this fragment, may occasion its receding, like the cotton, up to the great cloud; and thereby _increase_, instead _of lessening_ the distance, so as often to make it greater than the striking distance. Turning the _blunt end of a wire_ uppermost (which represents the unpointed bar) it appears that the same good effect is not from that to be expected. A long pointed rod it is therefore imagined, may _prevent_ some strokes; as well as _conduct_ others that fall upon it, when a great body of cloud comes on so heavily that the above repelling operation on fragments cannot take place. EXPERIMENT VI. Opposite the side of the prime conductor place _separately_, isolated by wax stems, Mr. Canton's two boxes with pith balls suspended by fine linen threads. On each box, lay a wire six inches long and one-fifth of an inch thick, tapering to a sharp point; but so laid, as that four inches of the _pointed_ end of _one_ wire, and an equal length of the _blunt_ end of the _other_, may project beyond the ends of the boxes; and both at eighteen inches distance from the prime conductor. Then charging the prime conductor by a turn or two of the globe, the balls of each pair will separate; those of the box, whence the point projects most, _considerably_; the others _less_. Touch the prime conductor, and those of the box with the _blunt_ point will _collapse_, and join. Those connected with the _point_ will at the same time approach each other, _till_ within about an inch, and there _remain_. OBSERVATION. This seems a proof, that though the small sharpened part of the wire must have had a _less natural_ quantity in it before the operation, than the thick blunt part; yet a greater quantity was _driven down from it_ to the balls. Thence it is again inferred, that the pointed rod is rendered _more negative_: and farther, that if a _stroke must fall_ from the cloud over a building, furnished with such a rod, it is more likely to be drawn to that pointed rod, than to a blunt one; as being more strongly negative, and of course its attraction stronger. And it seems more eligible, that the lightning should fall on the point of the conductor (provided to convey it into the earth) than on any other part of the building, _thence_ to proceed to such conductor. Which end is also more likely to be obtained by the length and loftiness of the rod; as protecting more extensively the building under it. It has been _objected_, that erecting pointed rods upon _edifices_, is to _invite_ and draw the lightning into _them_; and therefore dangerous. Were such rods to be erected on buildings, _without continuing the communication_ quite down into the moist earth, this objection might then have weight; but when such compleat conductors are made, the lightning is invited not into the building, but into the _earth_, the situation it aims at, and which it always seizes every help to obtain, even from broken partial metalline conductors. It has also been suggested, that from such electric experiments _nothing certain can be concluded as to the great operations of nature_; since it is often seen, that experiments, which have succeeded in small, in large have failed. It is true that in mechanics this has sometimes happened. But when it is considered that we owe our first knowledge of the nature and operations of lightning, to observations on such small experiments; and that on carefully comparing the most accurate accounts of former facts, and the exactest relations of those that have occurred since, the effects have surprizingly agreed with the theory; it is humbly conceived that in natural philosophy, in this branch of it at least, the suggestion has not so much weight; and that the farther new experiments now adduced in recommendation of _long_ sharp-pointed rods, may have some claim to credit and consideration. It has been urged too, that though points may have considerable effects on a _small_ prime conductor at _small distances_; yet on _great_ clouds and at _great distances_, nothing is to be expected from them. To this it is answered, that in those _small_ experiments it is evident the points act at a greater than the _striking_ distance; and in the large way, their service is _only expected_ where there is _such_ nearness of the cloud, as to _endanger a stroke_; and there, it cannot be doubted the points must have some effect. And if the quantity discharged by a single pointed rod may be so considerable as I have shown it; the quantity discharged by a number will be proportionably greater. But this part of the theory does not depend alone on _small_ experiments. Since the practice of erecting pointed rods in America (now near twenty years) five of them have been struck by lightning, viz. Mr. Raven's and Mr. Maine's in South Carolina; Mr. Tucker's in Virginia; Mr. West's and Mr. Moulder's in Philadelphia. Possibly there may have been more that have not come to my knowledge. But in every one of these, the lightning did _not_ fall upon the _body of the house_, but precisely on the several _points_ of the rods; and, though the conductors were sometimes _not sufficiently large and complete_, was conveyed into the earth, without any material damage to the buildings. Facts then _in great_, as far as we have them authenticated, justify the opinion that is drawn from the experiments _in small_ as above related. It has also been objected, that unless we knew the quantity that might _possibly_ be discharged at one stroke from the clouds, we cannot be sure we have provided _sufficient_ conductors; and therefore cannot depend on their conveying away _all_ that may fall on their points. Indeed we have nothing to form a judgment by in this but past facts; and we know of no instance where a _compleat_ conductor to the moist earth _has_ been insufficient, if half an inch diameter. It is probable that many strokes of lightning have been conveyed through the common leaden pipes affixed to houses to carry down the water from the roof to the ground: and there is no account of such pipes being melted and destroyed, as must sometimes have happened if they had been insufficient. We can then only judge of the dimensions proper for a conductor of lightning, as we do of those proper for a _conductor of rain_, by past observation. And as we think a pipe of three inches bore sufficient to carry off the rain that falls on a square of 20 feet, because we never saw such a pipe glutted by any shower; so we may judge a conductor of an inch diameter, more than sufficient for any stroke of lightning that will fall on its point. It is true that if another deluge should happen wherein the windows of heaven are to be opened, such pipes may be unequal to the falling quantity; and if God for our sins should think fit to rain fire upon us, as upon some cities of old, it is not expected that our conductors of whatever size, should secure our houses against a miracle. Probably as water drawn up into the air and there forming clouds, is disposed to fall again in _rain_ by its natural gravity, as soon as a number of particles sufficient to make a drop can get together; so when the clouds are (by whatever means) over or under-charged [with the _electric fluid_] to a degree sufficient to attract them towards the earth, the equilibrium is restored, before the difference becomes great beyond that degree. Mr. Lane's _electrometer_, for limiting precisely the quantity of a shock that is to be administered in a medical view, may serve to make this more easily intelligible. The discharging knob does by a screw approach the conductor to the distance intended, but there remains fixed. Whatever power there may be in the glass globe to collect the fulminating fluid, and whatever capacity of receiving and accumulating it there may be in the bottle or glass jar; yet neither the accumulation or the discharge ever exceeds the destined quantity. Thus, were the _clouds_ always at a certain fixed distance from the earth, all discharges would be made when the quantity accumulated was equal to the distance: But there is a circumstance which by occasionally lessening the distance, lessens the discharge; to wit, the moveableness of the clouds, and their being drawn nearer to the earth by attraction when electrified; so that discharges are thereby rendered more frequent and of course less violent. Hence whatever the quantity may be in nature, and whatever the power in the clouds of collecting it; yet an accumulation and force beyond what mankind has hitherto been acquainted with is scarce to be expected[89]. B. F. _Aug. 27, 1772._ FOOTNOTES: [86] Mr. Henley's. [87] Mr. de Romas saw still greater quantities of lightning brought down by the wire of his kite. He had "explosions from it, the noise of which greatly resembled that of thunder, and were heard (from without) into the heart of the city, notwithstanding the various noises there. The fire seen at the instant of the explosion had the shape of a spindle eight inches long and five lines in diameter. Yet from the time of the explosion to the end of the experiment, no lightning was seen above, nor any thunder heard. At another time the streams of fire issuing from it were observed to be an inch thick and ten feet long."--_See Dr. Priestley's History of Electricity_, pages 134-6, _first edition_. [88] Twelve were proposed on and near the magazines at Purfleet. [89] It may be fit to mention here, that the immediate occasion of the dispute concerning the preference between pointed and blunt conductors of lightning, arose as follows:--A powder-mill having blown up at Brescia, in consequence of its being struck with lightning, the English board of ordnance applied to their painter, Mr. Wilson, then of some note as an electrician, for a method to prevent the like accident to their magazines at Purfleet. Mr. Wilson having advised a blunt conductor, and it being understood that Dr. Franklin's opinion, formed upon the spot, was for a pointed one; the matter was referred in 1772, to the Royal Society, and by them as usual, to a committee, who, after consultation, prescribed a method conformable to Dr. Franklin's theory. But a harmless stroke of lightning, having under particular circumstances, fallen upon one of the buildings and its apparatus in May 1777; the subject came again into violent agitation, and was again referred to the society, and by the society again referred to a new committee, which committee confirmed the decision of the first committee. B. V.[90] [90] Wherever this signature occurs, the note is taken from a volume of Dr. Franklin's writings, entitled Political, Miscellaneous, and Philosophical Pieces, printed for Johnson, 1779. The editor of that volume, though a young man at the time, had already evinced extraordinary talents, and was the friend and correspondent of our author. As he has chosen to withhold his name, we conceive ourselves not entitled to disclose it: but we shall take the freedom of an acquaintance to use the notes occasionally, deeming them in many instances valuable historical records. _Editor._ TO PROFESSOR LANDRIANI, OF ITALY. _On the Utility of Electrical Conductors._ _Philadelphia, Oct. 14, 1787._ SIR, I have received the excellent work, _Upon the Utility of electrical Conductors_, which you had the goodness to send me. I read it with great pleasure, and beg you to accept my sincere thanks for it. Upon my return to this country, I found the number of conductors much increased, many proofs of their efficacy in preserving buildings from lightning having demonstrated their utility. Among other instances, my own house was one day attacked by lightning, which occasioned the neighbours to run in to give assistance, in case of its being on fire. But no damage was done, and my family was only found a good deal frightened with the violence of the explosion. Last year, my house being enlarged, the conductor was obliged to be taken down. I found, upon examination, that the pointed termination of copper, which was originally nine inches long, and about one third of an inch in diameter in its thickest part, had been almost entirely melted; and that its connection with the rod of iron below was very slight. Thus, in the course of time, this invention has proved of use to the author of it, and has added this personal advantage to the pleasure he before received, from having been useful to others. Mr. Rittenhouse, our astronomer, has informed me, that having observed with his excellent telescope, many conductors that are within the field of his view, he has remarked in various instances, that the points were melted in like manner. There is no example of a house, provided with a perfect conductor, which has suffered any considerable damage; and even those which are without them have suffered little, since conductors have come common in this city. B. FRANKLIN. TO JOHN PRINGLE, M. D. AND F. R. S. _On the Effects of Electricity in paralytic Cases._ _Craven-street, Dec. 21, 1757._ SIR, In compliance with your request, I send you the following account of what I can at present recollect relating to the effects of electricity in paralytic cases, which have fallen under my observation. Some years since, when the news-papers made mention of great cures performed in Italy and Germany, by means of electricity, a number of paralytics were brought to me from different parts of Pensylvania, and the neighbouring provinces, to be electrised, which I did for them at their request. My method was, to place the patient first in a chair, on an electric stool, and draw a number of large strong sparks from all parts of the affected limb or side. Then I fully charged two six-gallon glass jars, each of which had about three square feet of surface coated; and I sent the united shock of these through the affected limb or limbs, repeating the stroke commonly three times each day. The first thing observed, was an immediate greater sensible warmth in the lame limbs that had received the stroke than in the others; and the next morning the patients usually related, that they had in the night felt a pricking sensation in the flesh of the paralytic limbs; and would sometimes show a number of small red spots, which they supposed were occasioned by those prickings. The limbs, too, were found more capable of voluntary motion, and seemed to receive strength. A man, for instance, who could not the first day lift the lame hand from off his knee, would the next day raise it four or five inches, the third day higher; and on the fifth day was able, but with a feeble languid motion, to take off his hat. These appearances gave great spirits to the patients, and made them hope a perfect cure; but I do not remember that I ever saw any amendment after the fifth day; which the patients perceiving, and finding the shocks pretty severe, they became discouraged, went home, and in a short time relapsed; so that I never knew any advantage from electricity in palsies that was permanent. And how far the apparent temporary advantage might arise from the exercise in the patients journey, and coming daily to my house, or from the spirits given by the hope of success, enabling them to exert more strength in moving their limbs, I will not pretend to say. Perhaps some permanent advantage might have been obtained, if the electric shocks had been accompanied with proper medicine and regimen, under the direction a skilful physician. It may be, too, that a few great strokes, as given in my method, may not be so proper as many small ones; since by the account from Scotland of a case, in which two hundred shocks from a phial were given daily, it seems, that a perfect cure has been made. As to any uncommon strength supposed to be in the machine used in that case, I imagine it could have no share in the effect produced; since the strength of the shock from charged glass, is in proportion to the quantity of surface of the glass coated; so that my shocks from those large jars, must have been much greater than any that could be received from a phial held in the hand. I am, with great respect, Sir, Your most obedient Servant, B. FRANKLIN. _Electrical Experiments on Amber._ _Saturday, July 3, 1762._ To try, at the request of a friend, whether amber finely powdered might be melted and run together again by means of the electric fluid, I took a piece of small glass tube, about two inches and a half long, the bore about one-twelfth of an inch diameter, the glass itself about the same thickness; I introduced into this tube some powder of amber, and with two pieces of wire nearly fitting the bore, one inserted at one end, the other at the other, I rammed the powder hard between them in the middle of the tube, where it stuck fast, and was in length about half an inch. Then leaving the wires in the tube, I made them part of the electric circuit, and discharged through them three rows of my case of bottles. The event was, that the glass was broke into very small pieces and those dispersed with violence in all directions. As I did not expect this, I had not, as in other experiments, laid thick paper over the glass to save my eyes, so several of the pieces struck my face smartly, and one of them cut my lip a little so as to make it bleed. I could find no part of the amber; but the table where the tube lay was stained very black in spots, such as might be made by a thick smoke forced on it by a blast, and the air was filled with a strong smell, somewhat like that from burnt gunpowder. Whence I imagined, that the amber was burnt, and had exploded as gunpowder would have done in the same circumstances. That I might better see the effect on the amber, I made the next experiment in a tube formed of a card rolled up and bound strongly with packthread. Its bore was about one-eighth of an inch diameter. I rammed powder of amber into this as I had done in the other, and as the quantity of amber was greater, I increased the quantity of electric fluid, by discharging through it at once five rows of my bottles. On opening the tube, I found that some of the powder had exploded, an impression was made on the tube, though it was not hurt, and most of the powder remaining was turned black, which I suppose might be by the smoke forced through it from the burned part: some of it was hard; but as it powdered again when pressed by the fingers, I suppose that hardness not to arise from melting any parts in it, but merely from my ramming the powder when I charged the tube. B. FRANKLIN. TO THOMAS RONAYNE, ESQ. AT CORKE[91]. _On the Electricity of the Fogs in Ireland._ _London, April 20, 1766._ SIR, I have received your very obliging and very ingenious letter by Captain Kearney. Your observations upon the electricity of fogs and the air in Ireland, and upon different circumstances of storms, appear to me very curious, and I thank you for them. There is not, in my opinion, any part of the earth whatever which is, or can be, naturally in a state of negative electricity: and though different circumstances may occasion an inequality in the distribution of the fluid, the equilibrium is immediately restored by means of its extreme subtilty, and of the excellent conductors with which the humid earth is amply provided. I am of opinion, however, that when a cloud, well charged positively, passes near the earth, it repels and forces down into the earth that natural portion of electricity, which exists near its surface, and in buildings, trees, &c. so as actually to reduce them to a negative state before it strikes them. I am of opinion too, that the negative state in which you have frequently found the balls, which are suspended from your apparatus, is not always occasioned by clouds in a negative state; but more commonly by clouds positively electrified, which have passed over them, and which in their passage have repelled and driven off a part of the electrical matter, which naturally existed in the apparatus; so that what remained after the passing of the clouds, diffusing itself uniformly through the apparatus, the whole became reduced to a negative state. If you have read my experiments made in continuation of those of Mr. Canton, you will readily understand this; but you may easily make a few experiments, which will clearly demonstrate it. Let a common glass be warmed before the fire that it may continue very dry for some time; set it upon a table, and place upon it the small box made use of by Mr. Canton, so that the balls may hang a little beyond the edge of the table. Rub another glass, which has previously been warmed in a similar manner, with a piece of black silk or a silk handkerchief, in order to electrify it. Hold then the glass above the little box, at about the distance of three or four inches from that part, which is most distant from the balls; and you will see the balls separate from each other; being positively electrified by the natural portion of electricity, which was in the box, and which is driven to the further part of it by the repulsive power of the atmosphere in the excited glass. Touch the box near the little balls (the excited glass continuing in the same state) and the balls will again unite; the quantity of electricity which had been driven to this part being drawn off by your finger. Withdraw then both your finger and the glass at the same instant, and the quantity of electricity which remained in the box, uniformly diffusing itself, the balls will again be separated; being now in a negative state. While things are in this situation, begin once more to excite your glass, and hold it above the box, but not too near, and you will find, that when brought within a certain distance, the balls will at first approach each other, being then in a natural state. In proportion as the glass is brought nearer, they, will again separate, being positive. When the glass is moved beyond them, and at some little farther distance, they will unite again, being in a natural state. When it is entirely removed, they will separate again, being then made negative. The excited glass in this experiment may represent a cloud positively charged, which you see is capable of producing in this manner all the different changes in the apparatus, without the least necessity for supposing any negative cloud. I am nevertheless fully convinced, that these are negative clouds; because they sometimes absorb, through the medium of the apparatus, the positive electricity of a large jar, the hundredth part of which the apparatus itself would have not been able to receive or contain at once. In fact, it is not difficult to conceive, that a large cloud, highly charged positively, may reduce smaller clouds to a negative state, when it passes above or near them, by forcing a part of their natural portion of the fluid either to their inferior surfaces, whence it may strike into the earth, or to the opposite side, whence it may strike into the adjacent clouds; so that when the large cloud has passed off to a distance, the small clouds shall remain in a negative state, exactly like the apparatus; the former (like the latter) being frequently insulated bodies, having communication neither with the earth nor with other clouds. Upon the same principle it may easily be conceived, in what manner a large negative cloud may render others positive. The experiment which you mention, of filing your glass, is analogous to one which I made in 1751, or 1752. I had supposed in my preceding letters, that the pores of glass were smaller in the interior parts than near the surface, and that on this account they prevented the passage of the electrical fluid. To prove whether this was actually the case or not, I ground one of my phials in a part where it was extremely thin, grinding it considerably beyond the middle, and very near to the opposite superficies, as I found, upon breaking it after the experiment. It was charged nevertheless after being ground, equally well as before, which convinced me, that my hypothesis on this subject was erroneous. It is difficult to conceive where the immense superfluous quantity of electricity on the charged side of a glass is deposited. I send you my paper concerning meteors, which was lately published here in the Philosophical Transactions, immediately after a paper by Mr. Hamilton on the same subject. I am, Sir, &c. B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTE: [91] This letter is translated from the French edition of Dr. Franklin's works, as are also all that follow, to the Appendix, the one to Miss Stephenson excepted. _Editor._ _Mode of ascertaining, whether the Power, giving a Shock to those who touch either the Surinam Eel, or the Torpedo, be electrical._ 1. Touch the fish with a stick of dry sealing-wax, or a glass rod, and observe if the shock be communicated by means of those bodies. Touch the same fish with an iron, or other metalline rod. If the shock be communicated by the latter body, and not by the others, it is probably not the mechanical effect, as has been supposed, of some muscular action in the fish, but of a subtile fluid, in this respect analogous at least to the electric fluid. 2. Observe farther, whether the shock can be conveyed without the metal being actually in contact with the fish, and if it can, whether, in the space between, any light appear, and a slight noise or crackling be heard. If so, these also are properties common to the electric fluid. 3. Lastly, touch the fish with the wire of a small Leyden bottle, and if the shock can be received across, observe whether the wire will attract and repel light bodies, and you feel a shock, while holding the bottle in one hand, and touching the wire with the other. If so, the fluid, capable of producing such effects seems to have all the known properties of the electric fluid. ADDITION, _12th August, 1772,_ _In Consequence of the Experiments and Discoveries made in France by Mr. Walsh, and communicated by him to Dr. Franklin._ Let several persons, standing on the floor, hold hands, and let one of them touch the fish, so as to receive a shock. If the shock be felt by all, place the fish flat on a plate of metal, and let one of the persons holding hands touch this plate, while the person farthest from the plate touches the upper part of the fish with a metal rod: then observe, if the force of the shock be the same as to all the persons forming the circle, or is stronger than before. Repeat this experiment with this difference: let two or three of the persons forming the circle, instead of holding by the hand, hold each an uncharged electrical bottle, so that the little balls at the end of the wires may touch, and observe, after the shock, if these wires will attract and repel light bodies, and if a ball of cork, suspended by a long silk string between the wires, a little distance from the bottles, will be alternately attracted and repelled by them. TO M. DUBOURG. _On the Analogy between Magnetism and Electricity._ _London, March 10, 1773._ SIR, As to the magnetism, which seems produced by electricity, my real opinion is, that these two powers of nature have no affinity with each other, and that the apparent production of magnetism is purely accidental. The matter may be explained thus: 1st, The earth is a great magnet. 2dly, There is a subtile fluid, called the magnetic fluid, which exists in all ferruginous bodies, equally attracted by all their parts, and equally diffused through their whole substance; at least where the equilibrium is not disturbed by a power superior to the attraction of the iron. 3dly, This natural quantity of the magnetic fluid, which is contained in a given piece of iron, may be put in motion so as to be more rarefied in one part and more condensed in another; but it cannot be withdrawn by any force that we are yet made acquainted with, so as to leave the whole in a negative state, at least relatively to its natural quantity; neither can it be introduced so as to put the iron into a positive state, or render it _plus_. In this respect, therefore magnetism differs from electricity. 4thly, A piece of soft iron allows the magnetic fluid which it contains to be put in motion by a moderate force, so that being placed in a line with the magnetic pole of the earth, it immediately acquires the properties of a magnet; its magnetic fluid being drawn or forced from one extremity to the other; and this effect continues as long as it remains in the same position, one of its extremities becoming positively magnetised, and the other negatively. This temporary magnetism ceases as soon as the iron is turned east and west, the fluid immediately diffusing itself equally through the whole iron, as in its natural state. 5thly, The magnetic fluid in hard iron, or steel, is put in motion with more difficulty, requiring a force greater than the earth to excite it; and when once it has been forced from one extremity of the steel to the other, it is not easy for it to return; and thus a bar of steel is converted into a permanent magnet. 6thly, A great heat, by expanding the substance of this steel, and increasing the distance between its particles, affords a passage to the electric fluid, which is thus again restored to its proper equilibrium; the bar appearing no longer to possess magnetic virtue. 7thly, A bar of steel which is not magnetic, being placed in the same position, relatively to the pole of the earth, which the magnetic needle assumes, and in this position being heated and suddenly cooled, becomes a permanent magnet. The reason is, that while the bar was hot, the magnetic fluid which it naturally contained was easily forced from one extremity to the other by the magnetic virtue of the earth; and that the hardness and condensation, produced by the sudden cooling of the bar, retained it in this state without permitting it to resume its original situation. 8thly, The violent vibrations of the particles of a steel bar, when forcibly struck in the same position, separate the particles in such a manner during their vibration, that they permit a portion of the magnetic fluid to pass, influenced by the natural magnetism of the earth; and it is afterwards so forcibly retained by the re-approach of the particles when the vibration ceases, that the bar becomes a permanent magnet. 9thly, An electric shock passing through a needle in a like position, and dilating it for an instant, renders it, for the same reason, a permanent magnet; that is, not by imparting magnetism to it, but by allowing its proper magnetic fluid to put itself in motion. 10thly, Thus, there is not in reality more magnetism in a given piece of steel after it is become magnetic, than existed in it before. The natural quantity is only displaced or repelled. Hence it follows, that a strong apparatus of magnets may charge millions of bars of steel, without communicating to them any part of its proper magnetism; only putting in motion the magnetism which already existed in these bars. I am chiefly indebted to that excellent philosopher of Petersburgh, Mr. Æpinus, for this hypothesis, which appears to me equally ingenious and solid. I say, _chiefly_, because, as it is many years since I read his book, which I have left in America, it may happen, that I may have added to or altered it in some respect; and if I have misrepresented any thing, the error ought to be charged to my account. If this hypothesis appears admissible, it will serve as an answer to the greater part of your questions. I have only one remark to add, which is, that however great the force is of magnetism employed, you can only convert a given portion of steel into a magnet of a force proportioned to its capacity of retaining its magnetic fluid in the new position in which it is placed, without letting it return. Now this power is different in different kinds of steel, but limited in all kinds whatever. B. FRANKLIN. TO MESSRS. DUBOURG AND D'ALIBARD[92]. _Concerning the Mode of rendering Meat tender by Electricity._ MY DEAR FRIENDS, My answer to your questions concerning the mode of rendering meat tender by electricity, can only be founded upon conjecture; for I have not experiments enough to warrant the facts. All that I can say at present is, that I think electricity might be employed for this purpose, and I shall state what follows as the observations or reasons, which make me presume so. It has been observed, that lightning, by rarefying and reducing into vapour the moisture contained in solid wood, in an oak, for instance, has forcibly separated its fibres, and broken it into small splinters; that by penetrating intimately the hardest metals, as iron, it has separated the parts in an instant, so as to convert a perfect solid into a state of fluidity: it is not then improbable, that the same subtile matter, passing through the bodies of animals with rapidity, should possess sufficient force to produce an effect nearly similar. The flesh of animals, fresh killed in the usual manner, is firm, hard, and not in a very eatable state, because the particles adhere too forcibly to each other. At a certain period, the cohesion is weakened and in its progress towards putrefaction, which tends to produce a total separation, the flesh becomes what we call tender, or is in that state most proper to be used as our food. It has frequently been remarked, that animals killed by lightning putrify immediately. This cannot be invariably the case, since a quantity of lightning sufficient to kill, may not be sufficient to tear and divide the fibres and particles of flesh, and reduce them to that tender state, which is the prelude to putrefaction. Hence it is, that some animals killed in this manner will keep longer than others. But the putrefaction sometimes proceeds with surprising celerity. A respectable person assured me, that he once knew a remarkable instance of this: A whole flock of sheep in Scotland, being closely assembled under a tree, were killed by a flash of lightning; and it being rather late in the evening, the proprietor, desirous of saving something, sent persons early the next morning to flay them; but the putrefaction was such, and the stench so abominable, that they had not the courage to execute their orders, and the bodies were accordingly buried in their skins. It is not unreasonable to presume, that between the period of their death and that of their putrefaction, a time intervened in which the flesh might be only tender, and only sufficiently so to be served at table. Add to this, that persons, who have eaten of fowls killed by our feeble imitation of lightning (electricity) and dressed immediately, have asserted, that the flesh was remarkably tender. The little utility of this practice has perhaps prevented its being much adopted. For though it sometimes happens, that a company unexpectedly arriving at a country-house, or an unusual conflux of travellers to an inn, may render it necessary, to kill a number of animals for immediate use; yet as travellers have commonly a good appetite, little attention has been paid to the trifling inconvenience of having their meat a little tough. As this kind of death is nevertheless more sudden, and consequently less severe, than any other, if this should operate as a motive with compassionate persons to employ it for animals sacrificed for their use, they may conduct the process thus: Having prepared a battery of six large glass jars (each from 20 to 24 pints) as for the Leyden experiment, and having established a communication, as usual, from the interior surface of each with the prime conductor, and having given them a full charge (which with a good machine may be executed in a few minutes, and may be estimated by an electrometer) a chain which communicates with the exterior of the jars must be wrapped round the thighs of the fowl; after which the operator, holding it by the wings, turned back and made to touch behind, must raise it so high that the head may receive the first shock from the prime conductor. The animal dies instantly. Let the head be immediately cut off to make it bleed, when it may be plucked and dressed immediately. This quantity of electricity is supposed sufficient for a turkey of ten pounds weight, and perhaps for a lamb. Experience alone will inform us of the requisite proportions for animals of different forms and ages. Probably not less will be required to render a small bird, which is very old, tender, than for a larger one, which is young. It is easy to furnish the requisite quantity of electricity, by employing a greater or less number of jars. As six jars, however, discharged at once, are capable of giving a very violent shock, the operator must be very circumspect, lest he should happen to make the experiment on his own flesh, instead of that of the fowl. B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTE: [92] This letter has no date, but the one to which it is an answer is dated May 1, 1773. _Editor._ TO M. DUBOURG. _In Answer to some Queries concerning the Choice of Glass for the Leyden Experiment._ _London, June 1, 1773._ SIR, I wish, with you, that some chemist (who should, if possible, be at the same time an electrician) would, in pursuance of the excellent hints contained in your letter, undertake to work upon glass with the view you have recommended. By means of a perfect knowledge of this substance, with respect to its electrical qualities, we might proceed with more certainty, as well in making our own experiments, as in repeating those, which have been made by others in different countries, which I believe have frequently been attended with different success on account of differences in the glass employed, thence occasioning frequent misunderstandings and contrariety of opinions. There is another circumstance much to be desired with respect to glass, and that is, that it should not be subject to break when highly charged in the Leyden experiment. I have known eight jars broken out of twenty, and at another time, twelve out of thirty-five. A similar loss would greatly discourage electricians desirous of accumulating a great power for certain experiments.--We have never been able hitherto to account for the cause of such misfortunes. The first idea which occurs is, that the positive electricity, being accumulated on one side of the glass, rushes violently through it, in order to supply the deficiency on the other side and to restore the equilibrium. This however I cannot conceive to be the true reason, when I consider, that a great number of jars being united, so as to be charged and discharged at the same time, the breaking of a single jar will discharge the whole; for, if the accident proceeded from the weakness of the glass, it is not probable, that eight of them should be precisely of the same degree of weakness, as to break every one at the same instant, it being more likely, that the weakest should break first, and, by breaking, secure the rest; and again, when it is necessary to produce a certain effect, by means of the whole charge passing through a determined circle (as, for instance, to melt a small wire) if the charge, instead of passing in this circle, rushed through the sides of the jars, the intended effect would not be produced; which, however, is contrary to fact. For these reasons, I suspect, that there is, in the substance of the glass, either some little globules of air, or some portions of unvitrified sand or salt, into which a quantity of the electric fluid may be forced during the charge, and there retained till the general discharge: and that the force being suddenly withdrawn, the elasticity of the fluid acts upon the glass in which it is inclosed, not being able to escape hastily without breaking the glass. I offer this only as a conjecture, which I leave to others to examine. The globe which I had that could not be excited, though it was from the same glass-house which furnished the other excellent globes in my possession, was not of the same frit. The glass which was usually manufactured there, was rather of the green kind, and chiefly intended for drinking-glasses and bottles; but the proprietors being desirous of attempting a trial of white glass, the globe in question was of this frit. The glass not being of a perfect white, the proprietors were dissatisfied with it, and abandoned their project. I suspected that too great a quantity of salt was admitted into the composition; but I am no judge of these matters. B. FRANKLIN. TO MISS STEPHENSON. _Concerning the Leyden Bottle._ _London, March 22, 1762._ I must retract the charge of idleness in your studies, when I find you have gone through the doubly difficult task of reading so big a book, on an abstruse subject, and in a foreign language. In answer to your question concerning the Leyden phial.--The hand that holds the bottle receives and conducts away the electric fluid that is driven out of the outside by the repulsive power of that which is forced into the inside of the bottle. As long as that power remains in the same situation, it must prevent the return of what it had expelled; though the hand would readily supply the quantity if it could be received. Your affectionate friend, B. FRANKLIN. APPENDIX. No. 1[93]. _The early_ LETTERS _of Dr. Franklin on Electricity having been translated into French, and printed at Paris; the Abbé Mazeas, in a Letter to Dr. Stephen Hales, dated St. Germain, May 20, 1752, gives the following Account (printed in the Philosophical Transactions) of the Experiment made at Marly, in Pursuance of that proposed by Mr. Franklin, Pages 227, 228._ SIR, The Philadelphian experiments, that Mr. Collinson, a member of the Royal Society, was so kind as to communicate to the public, having been universally admired in France, the king desired to see them performed. Wherefore the Duke D'Ayen offered his majesty his country-house at St. Germain, where M. de Lor, master of experimental philosophy, should put those of Philadelphia in execution. His majesty saw them with great satisfaction, and greatly applauded Messieurs Franklin and Collinson. These applauses of his majesty having excited in Messieurs de Buffon, D'Alibard, and de Lor, a desire of verifying the conjectures of Mr. Franklin, upon the analogy of thunder and electricity, they prepared themselves for making the experiment. M. D'Alibard chose for this purpose, a garden situated at Marly, where he placed upon an electrical body a pointed bar of iron, of forty feet high. On the 10th of May, twenty minutes past two in the afternoon, a stormy cloud having passed over the place where the bar stood, those that were appointed to observe it, drew near, and attracted from it sparks of fire, perceiving the same kind of commotions as in the common electrical experiments. M. de Lor, sensible of the good success of this experiment, resolved to repeat it at his house in the Estrapade, at Paris. He raised a bar of iron ninety-nine feet high, placed upon a cake of resin, two feet square, and three inches thick. On the 18th of May, between four and five in the afternoon, a stormy cloud having passed over the bar, where it remained half an hour, he drew sparks from the bar, like those from the gun barrel, when, in the electrical experiments, the globe is only rubbed by the cushion, and they produced the same noise, the same fire, and the same crackling. They drew the strongest sparks at the distance of nine lines, while the rain, mingled with a little hail, fell from the cloud, without either thunder or lightning; this cloud being, according to all appearance, only the consequence of a storm, which happened elsewhere. I am, with a profound respect, Your most humble and obedient servant, G. MAZEAS. FOOTNOTE: [93] See the paragraph between brackets, page 267. _A more particular Account of the Circumstances and Success of this extraordinary Experiment was laid before the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, three Days afterwards, in a Memorial by M. D'Alibard, viz._ EXTRAIT D'UN MEMOIRE DE M. D'ALIBARD, _Lû à l'Académie Royale des Sciences, le 13 Mai, 1752._ "En suivant la route que M. Franklin nous a tracée, j'ai obtenu une satisfaction complette. Voici les préparatifs, le procédé & le succès. "1º. J'ai fait faire à Marly-la-ville, située à six lieues de Paris au milieu d'une belle plaine dont le sol est fort élevé, une verge de fer ronde, d'environ un pouce de diametre, longue de 40 pieds, & fort pointue par son extrémité supérieure; pour lui ménager une pointe plus fine, je l'ai fait armer d'acier trempé & ensuite brunir, au défaut de dorure, pour la préserver de la rouille; outre cela, cette verge de fer est courbée vers son extrémité inférieure en deux coudes à angles aigus quoiqu'arrondis; le premier coude est éloigné de deux pieds du bout inférieur, & le second est en sens contraire à trois pieds du premier. "2º. J'ai fait planter dans un jardin trois grosses perches de 28 à 29 pieds, disposées en triangle, & éloignées les unes des autres d'environ huit pieds; deux de ces perches sont contre un mur, & la troisieme est au-dedans du jardin. Pour les affermir toutes ensemble, l'on à cloué sur chacune des entretoises à vingt pieds de hauteur; & comme le grand vent agitoit encore cette espéce d'édifice, l'on a attaché au haut de chaque perche de longs cordages, qui tenant lieu d'aubans, répondent par le bas à de bons piquets fortement enfoncés en terre à plus de 20 pieds des perches. "3º. J'ai fait construire entres les deux perches voisines du mur, & adosser contre ce mur une petite guerite de bois capable de contenir un homme & une table. "4º. J'ai fait placer au milieu de la guérite une petite table d'environ un demi-pied de hauteur; & sur cette table j'ai fait dresser & affermir un tabouret electrique. Ce tabouret n'est autre chose qu'une petite planche quarrée, portée sur trois bouteilles à vin; il n'est fait de cette matiere que pour suppléer au defaut d'un gâteau de résine qui me manquoit. "5º. Tout étant ainsi préparé, j'ai fait elever perpendiculairement la verge de fer au milieu des trois perches, & je l'ai affermie en l'attachant à chacune des perches avec de forts cordons de soie par deux endroits seulement. Les premiers liens sont au haut des perches, environ trois pouces au-dessous de leurs extrémités supérieures; les seconds vers la moitié de leur hauteur. Le bout inférieur de la verge de fer est solidement appuyé sur le milieu du tabouret electrique, où j'ai fait creuser un trou propre à le recevoir. "6º. Comme il étoit important de garantir de la pluie te tabouret & les cordons de soie, parce qu'ils laisseroient passer la matiére électrique s'ils etoient mouillés, j'ai pris les précautions necessaires pour en empêcher. C'est dans cette vue que j'ai mis mon tabouret sous la guérite, & que j'avois fait courber ma verge de fer à angles aigus; afin que l'eau qui pourroit couler le long de cette verge, ne pût arriver jusques sur le tabouret. C'est aussi dans le même dessein que j'ai fait clouer sur le haut & au milieu de mes perches, à trois pouces au-dessus des cordons de soie, des especes de boîtes formées de trois petites planches d'environ 15 pouces de long, qui couvrent par-dessus & par les côtes une pareille longueur des cordons de soie, sans leur toucher. "Il s'agissoit de faire, dans le tems de l'orage, deux observations sur cette verge de fer ainsi disposée; l'une étoit de remarquer à sa pointe une aigrette lumineuse, semblable à celle que l'on apperçoit à la pointe d'une aiguille, quand on l'oppose assez près d'un corps actuellement électrisé; l'autre étoit de tirer de la verge de fer des étincelles, comme on en tire du canon de fusil dans les expériences électriques; & afin de se garantir des piqûres de ces étincelles, j'avois attaché le tenon d'un fil d'archal au cordon d'une longue fiole pour lui servir de manche.... "Le Mercredi 10 Mai 1752, entre deux & trois heures après midi, le nommé Coiffier, ancien dragon, que j'avois chargé de faire les observations en mon absence, ayant entendu un coup de tonnerre assez fort, vole aussitôt à la machine, prend la fiole avec le fil d'archal, présente le tenon du fil à la verge, en voit sortir une petite étincelle brillante, & en entend le pétillement; il tire une seconde étincelle plus fort que la premiere & avec plus de bruit! il appelle ses voisins, & envoie chercher M. le Prieur. Celui-ci accourt de toutes ses forces; les paroissiens voyant la précipitation de leur curé, s'imaginent que le pauvre Coiffier a été tué du tonnerre; l'allarme se répand dans le village: la grêle qui survient n'empêche point le troupeau du suivre son pasteur. Cet honnête ecclésiastique arrive près de la machine, & voyant qu'il n'y avoit point de danger, met lui-même la main â l'oeuvre & tire de fortes étincelles. La nuée d'orage & de grêle ne fut pas plus d'un quart-d'heure à passer au zénith de notre machine, & l'on n'entendit que ce seul coup de tonnerre. Sitôt que le nuage fut passé, & qu'on ne tira plus d'étincelles de la verge de fer, M. le Prieur de Marly fit partir le sieur Coiffier lui-même, pour m'apporter la lettre suivante, qu'il m'ecrivit à la hâte." _Je vous annonce, Monsieur, ce que veus attendez: l'expérience est complette. Aujourd'hui à deux heures 20 minutes après midi, le tonnerre a grondé directement sur Marly; le coup a été assez fort. L'envie de vous obliger, & la curiosité m'ont tiré de mon fauteüil, où j'êtois occupé à lire: je suis allé chez Coiffier, qui déja m'avoit dépêché un enfant que j'ai rencontré en chemin, pour me prier de veenir; j'ai doublé le pas à travers un torrent de grêle. Arrivé à l'endroit où est placée la tringle coudée, j'ai présenté le fil d'archal, en evançant successivement vers la tringle, à un pouce & demi, ou environ; il est sorti de la tringle une petite colonne de fer bleuâtre sentant le soufre, qui venoit frapper avec une extrême vivacité le tenon du fil d'archal, & occasionnoit un bruit semblable à celui qu'on feroit en frappant sur la tringle avec une clef. J'ai répeté l'expérience au moins six fois dans l'espace d'environ quatre minutes, en présence de plusieurs personnes, & chaque expérience que j'ai faite a duré l'espace d'un pater & d'un_ ave. _J'ai voulu continuer; l'action du feu s'est ralentie peu à peu; j'ai approché plus près, & n'ai plus tiré que quelques étincelles, & enfin rien n'ai paru._ _Le coup de tonnerre qui a occasionné cet événement, n'a été suivi d'aucun autre; tout s'est terminé par une abondance de grêle. J'étois si occupé dans le moment de l'expérience de ce que voyois, qu'ayant été frappé au bras un peu au-dessus du coude, je ne puis dire si c'est en touchant au fil d'archal ou à la tringle: je ne me suis pas plaint du mal que m'avoit fait le coup dans le moment que je l'ai reçu; mais comme la douleur continuoit, de retour chez moi, j'ai découvert mon bras en présence de Coiffier, & nous avons apperçu une meurtrissure tournante autour du brass, semblable à celle que feroit un coup de fil d'archal, si j'en avois été frappé à nud. En revenant de chez Coiffier, j'ai recontré M. le Vicaire, M. de Milly, et le Maître d'école, à qui j'ai rapporté ce qui venoit d'arriver; ils se sont plaints tous les trois qu'ils sentoient une odeur de soufre qui les frappait davantage à mesure qu'ils s'approichient de moi: j'ai porté chez moi la même odeur, & mes domestiques s'en sont apperçus sans que je leur aye rien dit._ _Voilà, Monsieur, un récit fait à la hâte, mais naif & vrai que j'atteste, & vous pouvez assurer que je suis prêt à rendre témoignage de cet événement dans toutes les occasions. Coiffier a été le premier qui a fait l'expérience & l'a répétée, plusieurs fois; ce n'est qu'à l'occasion de ce qu'il a vu qu'il m'a envoyé prier de venir. S'il étoit besoin d'autres témoins que de lui & de moi, vous les trouveriez. Coiffier presse pour partir._ _Je suis avec une respectueuse considération, Monsieur, votre, &c. signé_ RAULET, _Prieur de Marly. 10 Mai, 1752._ "On voit, par le détail de cette lettre, que le fait est assez bien constaté pour ne laisser aucun doute à ce sujet. Le porteur m'a assuré de vive voix qu'il avoit tiré pendant près d'un quart-d'heure avant que M. le Prieur arrivât, en présence de cinq ou six personnes, des étincelles plus fortes & plus bruyantes que celles dont il est parlé dans la lettre. Ces premieres personnes arrivant successivement, n'osient approcher qu'à 10 ou 12 pas de la machine; & à cette distance, malgré le plein soleil, ils voyoient les étincelles & entendoient le bruit.... "Il résulte de toutes les expériences & observations que j'ai rapportées dans ce mémoire, & surtout de la dernière expérience faite à Marly-la-ville, que la matiere du tonnerre est incontestablement la même que celle de l'électricité. L'idée qu'en a eu M. Franklin cesse d'être une conjecture: la voilà devenue une réalité, & j'ose croire que plus on approfondira tout ce qu'il a publié sur l'électricité, plus on reconnoîtra combien la physique lui est redevable pour cette partie." _Letter of Mr. W. Watson, F. R. S. to the Royal Society, concerning the electrical Experiments in England upon Thunder-Clouds._ Read Dec. 1752. Trans. Vol. XLVII. GENTLEMEN, After the communications, which we have received from several of our correspondents in different parts of the continent, acquainting us with the success of their experiments last summer, in endeavouring to extract the electricity from the atmosphere during a thunder-storm, in consequence of Mr. Franklin's hypothesis, it may be thought extraordinary, that no accounts have been yet laid before you, of our success here from the same experiments. That no want of attention, therefore, may be attributed to those here, who have been hitherto conversant in these enquiries, I thought proper to apprise you, that, though several members of the Royal Society, as well as myself, did, upon the first advices from France, prepare and set up the necessary apparatus for this purpose, we were defeated in our expectations, from the uncommon coolness and dampness of the air here, during the whole summer. We had only at London one thunder-storm; viz. on July 20; and then the thunder was accompanied with rain; so that, by wetting the apparatus, the electricity was dissipated too soon to be perceived upon touching those parts of the apparatus, which served to conduct it. This, I say, in general prevented our verifying Mr. Franklin's hypothesis: but our worthy brother, Mr. Canton, was more fortunate. I take the liberty, therefore, of laying before you an extract of a letter, which I received from that gentleman, dated from Spital-square, July 21, 1752. "I had yesterday, about five in the afternoon, an opportunity of trying Mr. Franklin's experiment of extracting the electrical fire from the clouds; and succeeded, by means of a tin tube, between three and four feet in length, fixed to the top of a glass one, of about eighteen inches. To the upper end of the tin tube, which was not so high as a stack of chimnies on the same house, I fastened three needles with some wire; and to the lower end was soldered a tin cover to keep the rain from the glass tube, which was set upright in a block of wood. I attended this apparatus as soon after the thunder began as possible, but did not find it in the least electrified, till between the third and fourth clap; when, applying my knuckle to the edge of the cover, I felt and heard an electrical spark; and approaching it a second time, I received the spark at the distance of about half an inch, and saw it distinctly. This I repeated four or five times in the space of a minute, but the sparks grew weaker and weaker; and in less than two minutes the tin tube did not appear to be electrified at all. The rain continued during the thunder, but was considerably abated at the time of making the experiment." Thus far Mr. Canton. Mr. Wilson likewise of the Society, to whom we are much obliged for the trouble he has taken in these pursuits, had an opportunity of verifying Mr. Franklin's hypothesis. He informed me, by a letter from near Chelmsford, in Essex, dated August 12, 1752, that, on that day about noon, he perceived several electrical snaps, during, or rather at the end of a thunder-storm, from no other apparatus than an iron curtain rod, one end of which he put into the neck of a glass phial, and held this phial in his hand. To the other end of the iron he fastened three needles with some silk. This phial, supporting the rod, he held in one hand, and drew snaps from the rod with a finger of his other. This experiment was not made upon any eminence, but in the garden of a gentleman, at whose house he then was. Dr. Bevis observed, at Mr. Cave's, at St. John's Gate, nearly the same phenomena as Mr. Canton, of which an account has been already laid before the public. Trifling as the effects here mentioned are, when compared with those which we have received from Paris and Berlin, they are the only ones, that the last summer here has produced; and as they were made by persons worthy of credit, they tend to establish the authenticity of those transmitted from our correspondents. I flatter myself, that this short account of these matters will not be disagreeable to you; and am, With the most profound respect, Your most obedient, humble servant, W. WATSON. No. 2. _Remarks on the Abbé Nollet's Letters to Benjamin Franklin, Esq. of Philadelphia, on Electricity: by Mr. David Colden, of New York._ _Coldenham, in New York, Dec. 4, 1753._ SIR, In considering the Abbé Nollet's Letters to Mr. Franklin, I am obliged to pass by all the experiments which are made with, or in, bottles hermetically sealed, or exhausted of air; because, not being able to repeat the experiments, I could not second any thing which occurs to me thereon, by experimental proof. Wherefore, the first point wherein I can dare to give my opinion, is in the Abbé's 4th letter, p. 66, where he undertakes to prove, that the electric matter passes from one surface to another through the entire thickness of the glass: he takes Mr. Franklin's experiment of the magical picture, and writes thus of it. "When you electrise a pane of glass coated on both sides with metal, it is evident that whatever is placed on the side opposite to that which receives the electricity from the conductor, receives also an evident electrical virtue." Which Mr. Franklin says, is that equal quantity of electric matter, driven out of this side, by what is received from the conductor on the other side; and which will continue to give an electrical virtue to any thing in contact with it, till it is entirely discharged of its electrical fire. To which the Abbé thus objects; "Tell me (says he), I pray you, how much time is necessary for this pretended discharge? I can assure you, that after having maintained the electrisation for hours, this surface, which ought, as it seems to me, to be entirely discharged of its electrical matter, considering either the vast number of sparks that were drawn from it, or the time that this matter had been exposed to the action of the expulsive cause; this surface, I say, appeared rather better electrised thereby, and more proper to produce all the effects of an actual electric body." _P._ 68. The Abbé does not tell us what those effects were, all the effects I could never observe, and those that are to be observed can easily be accounted for, by supposing that side to be entirely destitute of electric matter. The most sensible effect of a body charged with electricity is, that when you present your finger to it, a spark will issue from it to your finger: now when a phial, prepared for the Leyden experiment, is hung to the gun-barrel or prime-conductor, and you turn the globe in order to charge it; as soon as the electric matter is excited, you can observe a spark to issue from the external surface of the phial to your finger, which, Mr. Franklin says, is the natural electric matter of the glass driven out by that received by the inner surface from the conductor. If it be only drawn out by sparks, a vast number of them may be drawn; but if you take hold of the external surface with your hand, the phial will soon receive all the electric matter it is capable of, and the outside will then be entirely destitute of its electric matter, and no spark can be drawn from it by the finger: here then is a want of that effect which all bodies, charged with electricity, have. Some of the effects of an electric body, which I suppose the Abbé has observed in the exterior surface of a charged phial, are that all light bodies are attracted by it. This is an effect which I have constantly observed, but do not think that it proceeds from an attractive quality in the exterior surface of the phial, but in those light bodies themselves, which seem to be attracted by the phial. It is a constant observation, that when one body has a greater charge of electric matter in it than another (that is in proportion to the quantity they will hold) this body will attract that which has less: now, I suppose, and it is a part of Mr. Franklin's system, that all those light bodies which appear to be attracted, have more electric matter in them than the external surface of the phial has, wherefore they endeavour to attract the phial to them, which is too heavy to be moved by the small degree of force they exert, and yet being greater than their own weight, moves them to the phial. The following experiment will help the imagination in conceiving this. Suspend a cork ball, or a feather, by a silk thread, and electrise it; then bring this ball nigh to any fixed body, and it will appear to be attracted by that body, for it will fly to it: now, by the consent of electricians, the attractive cause is in the ball itself, and not in the fixed body to which it flies: this is a similar case with the apparent attraction of light bodies, to the external surface of a charged phial. The Abbé says, _p._ 69, "that he can electrise a hundred men, standing on wax, if they hold hands, and if one of them touch one of these surfaces (the exterior) with the end of his finger:" this I know he can, while the phial is charging, but after the phial is charged I am as certain he cannot: that is, hang a phial, prepared for the Leyden experiment, to the conductor, and let a man, standing on the floor, touch the coating with his finger, while the globe is turned, till the electric matter spews out of the hook of the phial, or some part of the conductor, which I take to be the certainest sign that the phial has received all the electric matter it can: after this appears, let the man, who before stood on the floor, step on a cake of wax, where he may stand for hours, and the globe all that time turned; and yet have no appearance of being electrised. After the electric matter was spewed out as above from the hook of the phial prepared for the Leyden experiment, I hung another phial, in like manner prepared, to a hook fixed in the coating of the first, and held this other phial in my hand; now if there was any electric matter transmitted through the glass of the first phial, the second one would certainly receive and collect it; but having kept the phials in this situation for a considerable time, during which the globe was continually turned, I could not perceive that the second phial was in the least charged, for when I touched the hook with my finger, as in the Leyden experiment, I did not feel the least commotion, nor perceive any spark to issue from the hook. I likewise made the following experiment: having charged two phials (prepared for the Leyden experiment) through their hooks; two persons took each one of these phials in their hand; one held his phial by the coating, the other by the hook, which he could do by removing the communication from the bottom before he took hold of the hook. These persons placed themselves one on each side of me, while I stood on a cake of wax, and took hold of the hook of that phial which was held by its coating (upon which a spark issued, but the phial was not discharged, as I stood on wax) keeping hold of the hook, I touched the coating of the phial that was held by its hook with my other hand, upon which there was a large spark to be seen between my finger and the coating, and both phials were instantly discharged. If the Abbé's opinion be right, that the exterior surface, communicating with the coating, is charged, as well as the interior, communicating with the hook; how can I, who stand on wax, discharge both these phials, when it is well known I could not discharge one of them singly? Nay, suppose I have drawn the electric matter from both of them, what becomes of it? For I appear to have no additional quantity in me when the experiment is over, and I have not stirred off the wax: wherefore this experiment fully convinces me, that the exterior surface is not charged; and not only so, but that it wants as much electric matter as the inner has of excess: for by this supposition, which is a part of Mr. Franklin's system, the above experiment is easily accounted for, as follows: When I stand on wax, my body is not capable of receiving all the electric matter from the hook of one phial, which it is ready to give; neither can it give as much to the coating of the other phial as it is ready to take, when one is only applied to me: but when both are applied, the coating takes from me what the hook gives: thus I receive the fire from the first phial at B, the exterior surface of which is supplied from the hand at A: I give the fire to the second phial at C, whose interior surface is discharged by the hand at D. This discharge at D may be made evident by receiving that fire into the hook of a third phial, which is done thus: In place of taking the hook of the second phial in your hand, run the wire of a third phial, prepared as for the Leyden experiment, through it, and hold this third phial in your hand, the second one hanging to it, by the ends of the hooks run through each other: when the experiment is performed, this third phial receives the fire at D, and will be charged. [Illustration: (of the experiment above)] When this experiment is considered, I think, it must fully prove that the exterior surface of a charged phial wants electric matter, while the inner surface has an excess of it. One thing more worthy of notice in this experiment is, that I feel no commotion or shock in my arms, though so great a quantity of electric matter passes them instantaneously: I only feel a pricking in the ends of my fingers. This makes me think the Abbé has mistook, when he says, that there is no difference between the shock felt in performing the Leyden experiment, and the pricking felt on drawing simple sparks, except that of greater to less. In the last experiment, as much electric matter went through my arms, as would have given me a very sensible shock, had there been an immediate communication, by my arms, from the hook to the coating of the same phial; because when it was taken into a third phial, and that phial discharged singly through my arms, it gave me a sensible shock. If these experiments prove that the electric matter does not pass through the entire thickness of the glass, it is a necessary consequence that it must always come out where it entered. The next thing I meet with is in the Abbé's fifth letter, _p._ 88, where he differs from Mr. Franklin, who thinks that the whole power of giving a shock is in the glass itself, and not in the non-electrics in contact with it. The experiments which Mr. Franklin gave to prove this opinion, in his _Observations on the Leyden Bottle_, p. 179, convinced me that he was in the right; and what the Abbé has asserted, in contradiction thereto, has not made me think otherwise. The Abbé, perceiving, as I suppose, that the experiments, as Mr. Franklin had performed them, must prove his assertion, alters them without giving any reason for it, and makes them in a manner that proves nothing. Why will he have the phial, into which the, water is to be decanted from a charged phial, held in a man's hand? If the power of giving a shock is in the water contained in the phial, it should remain there though decanted into another phial, since no non-electric body touched it to take that power off. The phial being placed on wax is no objection, for it cannot take the power from the water, if it had any, but it is a necessary means to try the fact; whereas, that phial's being charged when held in a man's hand, only proves that water will conduct the electric matter. The Abbé owns, _p._ 94, that he had heard this remarked, but says, Why is not a conductor of electricity an electric subject? This is not the question; Mr. Franklin never said that water was not an electric subject; he said, that the power of giving a shock was in the glass, and not in the water; and this, his experiments fully prove; so fully, that it may appear impertinent to offer any more: yet as I do not know that the following has been taken notice of by any body before, my inserting of it in this place may be excused. It is this: Hang a phial, prepared for the Leyden experiment, to the conductor, by its hook, and charge it, which done, remove the communication from the bottom of the phial. Now the conductor shews evident signs of being electrised; for if a thread be tied round it, and its ends left about two inches long, they will extend themselves out like a pair of horns; but if you touch the conductor, a spark will issue from it, and the threads will fall, nor does the conductor shew the least sign of being electrised after this is done. I think that by this touch, I have taken out all the charge of electric matter that was in the conductor, the hook of the phial, and water or filings of iron contained in it; which is no more than we see all non-electric bodies will receive: yet the glass of the phial retains its power of giving a shock, as any one will find that pleases to try. This experiment fully evidences, that the water in the phial contains no more electric matter than it would do in an open bason, and has not any of that great quantity which produces the shock, and is only retained by the glass. If after the spark is drawn from the conductor, you touch the coating of the phial (which all this while is supposed to hang in the air, free from any non-electric body) the threads on the conductor will instantly start up, and shew that the conductor is electrised. It receives this electrisation from the inner surface of the phial, which, when the outer surface can receive what it wants from the hand applied to it, will give as much as the bodies in contact with it can receive, or if they be large enough, all that it has of excess. It is diverting to see how the threads will rise and fall by touching the coating and conductor of the phial alternately. May it not be that the difference between the charged side of the glass, and the outer or emptied side, being lessened by touching the hook or the conductor; the outer side can receive from the hand which touched it, and by its receiving, the inner side cannot retain so much; and for that reason so much as it cannot contain electrises the water, or filings and conductor: for it seems to be a rule, that the one side must be emptied in the same proportion that the other is filled: though this from experiment appears evident, yet it is still a mystery not to be accounted for. I am in many places of the Abbé's book surprised to find that experiments have succeeded so differently at Paris, from what they did with Mr. Franklin, and as I have always observed them to do. The Abbé, in making experiments to find the difference between the two surfaces of a charged glass, will not have the phial placed on wax: for, says he, don't you know that being placed on a body originally electric, it quickly loses its virtue? I cannot imagine what should have made the Abbé think so; it certainly is contradictory to the notions commonly received of electrics _per se_; and by experiment I find it entirely otherwise: for having several times left a charged phial, for that purpose, standing on wax for hours, I found it to retain as much of its charge as another that stood at the same time on a table. I left one standing on wax from ten o'clock at night till eight the next morning, when I found it to retain a sufficient quantity of its charge, to give me a sensible commotion in my arms, though the room in which the phial stood had been swept in that time, which must have raised much dust to facilitate the discharge of the phial. I find that a cork-ball suspended between two bottles, the one fully and the other but little charged, will not play between them, but is driven into a situation that makes a triangle with the hooks of the phials: though the Abbé has asserted the contrary of this, p. 101, in order to account for the playing of a cork-ball between the wire thrust into the phial, and one that rises up from its coating. The phial which is least charged must have more electric matter given to it, in proportion to its bulk, than the cork-ball receives from the hook of the full phial. The Abbé says, p. 103, "That a piece of metal leaf hung to a silk thread and electrised, will be repelled by the bottom of a charged phial held by its hook in the air:" this I find constantly otherwise, it is with me always first attracted and then repelled: it is necessary in charging the leaf to be careful, that it does not fly off to some non-electric body, and so discharge itself when you think it is charged; it is difficult to keep it from flying to your own wrist, or to some part of your body. The Abbé, p. 108, says, "that it is not impossible, as Mr. Franklin says it is, to charge a phial while there is a communication formed between its coating and its hook." I have always found it impossible to charge such a phial so as to give a shock: indeed, if it hang on the conductor without a communication from it, you may draw a spark from it as you may from any body that hangs there, but this is very different from being charged in such a manner as to give a shock. The Abbé, in order to account for the little quantity of electric matter that is to be found in the phial, says, "that it rather follows the metal than the glass, and that it is spewed out into the air from the coating of the phial." I wonder how it comes not to do so too, when it sifts through the glass, and charges the exterior surface, according to the Abbé's system! The Abbé's objections against Mr. Franklin's two last experiments, I think, have little weight in them: he seems, indeed, much at a loss what to say, wherefore he taxes Mr. Franklin with having concealed a material part of the experiment; a thing too mean for any gentleman to be charged with, who has not shown as great a partiality in relating experiments, as the Abbé has done. END OF VOLUME THE FIRST. J. CUNDEE, PRINTER, IVY-LANE. INDEX. A. _Accent_, or emphasis, wrong placing of, a fault in modern tunes, ii. 345. _Accidents_ at sea, how to guard against, ii. 172. _Adams_, Mr. Matthew, offers the use of his library to Franklin, i. 16. _Addison_, Franklin an assiduous imitator of, in his youth, i. 13. _Advice_ to youth in reading, ii. 378. to emigrants to America, iii. 398. to a crafty statesman, 430. to a young tradesman, 463. to a young married man, 477. to players at chess, 490. _Æpinus_, his hypothesis of magnetism, i. 412. _Agriculture_ takes place of manufactures till a country is fully settled, iii. 107. the great business of America, 393. _Air_, some of the properties of, ii. 226. its properties with respect to electricity, i. 204. properties of its particles, 205. ii. 1. its currents over the globe, i. 207. resists the electric fluid and confines it to bodies, 241. its effects in electrical experiments, 253. its elasticity not affected by electricity, 254. its friction against trees, 270, 323. has its share of electricity, 333. its electricity denser above than below, 335. in rooms, electrified positively and negatively, 353. attracts water, ii. 1. when saturated with water precipitates it, 2. dissolves water, and, when dry, oil, 4. why suffocating, when impregnated with oil or grease, _ibid._ supports water, 5, 46, 49. why less heated in the higher regions than near the earth's surface, 6. how it creates hurricanes, _ibid._ winds, 8. whirlwinds, 10. effects of heat upon, 50. its effects on the barometer, 92. condensed, supposed to form the centre of the earth, 119, 127. noxious, corrected by vegetation, 129. observations on the free use of, 213. rare, no bad conductor of sound, 337. fresh, beneficial effects of, in bed-rooms, iii. 495. _Air-thermometer_, electrical, experiments with, i. 336. _Albany_ plan of union, short account of, i. 127. its singular fate, 129. papers relating to, iii. 3. motives on which formed, 4. rejects partial unions, 6. its president and grand council, 9. election of members, 12. place of first meeting, 13. new election, _ibid._ proportion of members after three years, 15. meetings of the grand council and call, 16. allowance to members, 17. power of president and his duty, 18. treaties of peace and war, _ibid._ Indian trade and purchases, 19. new settlements, 21. military establishments, 23. laws and taxes, 24, 26. issuing of money, 25. appointment of officers, 27. rejected in England, 29. _Almanack._ _See Poor Richard._ _Alphabet_, a new one proposed, ii. 357. examples of writing in it, 360. correspondence on its merits, 361. _Amber_, electrical experiments on, i. 403. _America_, North, air of, drier than that of England and France, ii. 140. why marriages are more frequent there than in Europe, 385. why labour will long continue dear there, _ibid._ argument against the union of the colonies of, under one government, 401. state of toleration there, 457. reflections on the scheme of imposing taxes on, without its consent, iii. 30. thoughts on the representation of, in the British parliament, 37. interest of Great Britain with regard to, 39. forts in the back settlements of, no security against France, 99. wars carried on there against the French, not merely in the cause of the colonies, 105. preference of the colonies of, to the West Indian colonies, 113. great navigable rivers of, favourable to inland trade, 118. what commodities the inland parts of, are fitted to produce, 119. the productions of, do not interfere with those of Britain, 123. union of the colonies of, in a revolt against Britain, impossible but from grievous oppression, 132. reasons given for restraining paper-bills of credit there, 144. intended scheme of a bank there, described, 155. attempts of Franklin for conciliation of Britain with, 286. feeling of, as to Britain, in May 1775, 346. conciliation of Britain with, hopeless, 355. account of the first campaign of the British forces against, 357. application of, to foreign courts, for aid in its independence, 360. credit of, with that of Britain, in 1777, compared, 372. true description of the interest and policy of, 391. information to those emigrating thither, 398. terms on which land may be obtained for new settlements there, 409. _Americans_, their prejudices for whatever is English, i. 144. _Anchor_, a swimming one proposed, ii. 181, 185. _Ancients_, their experimental learning too often slighted, ii. 146. _Anecdote_ of Franklin's early spirit of enterprise, i. 11. of a Swedish clergyman among the Indians, iii. 386. of an Indian who went to church, 389. _Animal_ food, Franklin's abstinence from, i. 20. return to, 47. humorous instance of abstinence from, 49. heat, whence it arises, ii. 79, 125. magnetism, detected and exposed, i. 150. _Animalcules_, supposed to cause the luminous appearance of sea-water, ii. 89. _Animals_, how to kill them by electricity, i. 415. _Antifederalists_ of America, comparison of, to the ancient Jews, iii. 410. _Apprentices_ easier placed out in America than in Europe, iii. 407. indentures of, how made in America, 408. _Argumentation_, bad effects of, as a habit, i. 17. best method of, 22. _Armies_, best means of supporting them, ii. 400. _Armonica_, musical instrument so called, described, ii. 330. manner of playing on it, 334. _Asbestos_, specimen of, sold by Franklin to Sir Hans Sloane, i. 60. letter relating to it, iii. 513. _Astrology_, letter to the Busy-body on, iii. 448. _Atmosphere_ sometimes denser above than below, ii. 6. electrical, its properties, i. 294. _Aurora borealis_ explained, i. 212. conjectures respecting, 257, ii. 69. query concerning, i. 293. B. _Badoin_, Mr. letters from, i. 314, 324. _Ballads_, two, written by Franklin in his youth, i. 16. _Balls_ of fire in the air, remark concerning, ii. 337. _Barometer_, how acted on by air, ii. 92. _Barrels_ for gunpowder, new sort proposed, i. 376. _Bass_, unnecessary in some tunes, ii. 343. _Bathing_ relieves thirst, ii. 104. observations on, 211. _Battery_, electrical, its construction, i. 193. _Baxter_, Mr. observations on his enquiry into the nature of the soul, ii. 110. _Beccaria_, character of his book on electricity, i. 310. _Beer_, not conducive to bodily strength, i. 62. _Bells_, form in consecrating them at Paris, i. 384. _Belly-ache_, dry, lead a cause of, ii. 220. _Bermuda_, little thunder there, i. 216. _Bermudian_ sloops, advantages of their construction, ii. 173. _Bernoulli_, Mr. his plan for moving boats, ii. 179. _Bevis_, Dr. draws electricity from the clouds, i. 429. _Bible_, anecdote of its concealment in the reign of Mary, i. 7. travestied by Dr. Brown, 31. _Bills_ of mortality, reasonings, formed on those for capital cities, not applicable to the country, ii. 383. _Birth_, noble, no qualification in America, iii. 400. _Bishops_, none in America, and why, ii. 456, 458. _Black clothes_ heat more and dry sooner than white, ii. 108. not fit for hot climates, 109. _Blacksmith_, trade of, hereditary in Franklin's family, i. 4. _Blindness_ occasioned both by lightning and electricity, i. 228. _Boats_, difference of their sailing in shoal and deep water, ii. 160. management of, best understood by savages, 176. how rowed by the Chinese, 177. methods of moving them by machinery, _ibid._ improvement of Mr. Bernoulli's plan for moving them, 179. proposal for a new mode of moving them, _ibid._ double, advantage of, 173, 174. one built by Sir W. Petty, _ibid._ _Bodies_, electrified negatively, repel each other, ii. 294. effect of blunt, compared with pointed ones, i. 172, 223. _Body_, human, specifically lighter than water, ii. 208. political and human, compared, iii. 115. _Boerhaave_, his opinion of the propagation of heat, ii. 58. of steam from fermenting liquors, 59. _Boiling_ water, experiments with, i. 332, 344, 345. pot, bottom of, why cold, 387. _Bolton_, Mr. experiment by, i. 346. _Books_ read by Franklin in his youth, i. 15, 18, 20, 21. _Boston_, the birth-place of Franklin, i. 8. why quitted by him in his youth, 27, its inhabitants decrease, ii. 210. preface to proceedings of the town meeting of, iii. 317. _Boyle's_ lectures, effect of, on Franklin, i. 79. _Braddock_, general, defeat of, i. 131. _Bradford_, printer at Philadelphia, i. 34, 102. _Brass_, hot, yields unwholesome steams, ii. 249 _Brientnal_, Joseph, a member of the Junto club, i. 83. _Brimstone_, when fluid, will conduct electricity, i. 256. _Bristol waters_, an alledged fact concerning, ii. 95. _Britain_, incapacity of, to supply the colonies with manufactures, ii. 386. _British empire_, an union of several states, iii. 310. _Brown_, Dr. acquaintance of Franklin's, i. 30. travestied the bible, 31. _Bubbles_ on the surface of water, hypothesis respecting, ii. 48. _Buchan_, earl of, letter to, on the price of land for new settlements in America, iii. 409. _Buildings_, what kind safest from lightning, i. 379. _Bullion_, causes of its variation in price, iii. 153. _Bunyan's_ Voyages, a book early read by Franklin, i. 15, 28. _Bur_, cause of, round a hole struck through pasteboard, i. 280. _Burnet_, governor, his attention to Franklin in his youth, i. 44. _Busy-body_, essays under the title of, i. 86. iii. 422. C. _Cabinet-work_, veneered in England, shrinks and flies in America, ii. 140. _Cables_, why apt to part when weighing anchor in a swell, ii. 167. this defect of, remedied, 168. _Cabot_, Sebastian, his commission from Henry VII., iii. 348. _Calvinism_, Franklin educated in the principles of, i. 79. _Campaign_ in America, account of the first, iii. 357. _Canals_, observations on their depth, ii. 159. _Canada_, importance of, to England, i. 136. visited by Franklin, 147. its extent, iii. 20. pamphlet on the importance of, 89. easily peopled without draining Britain, 139. _Cancers_, specific for, i. 260, 261. _Candles_ lighted by electricity, i. 176. distance at which the flame of, may be seen, ii. 90. _Cann_, silver, a singular experiment on, i. 307. _Canoes_ of the American Indians, their advantages, ii. 176. _Canton_, Mr. John, experiments by, i. 286, 346. draws electricity from the clouds, 428. _Capitals_, their use in printing, ii. 352. _Caribbees_, possession of, only a temporary benefit, iii. 142. _Carolina_, South, see _Lightning_. _Cavendish_, lord Charles, his electrical experiments, i. 348. _Cayenne_ would be a great acquisition to Britain, iii. 140. _Centre_ of the earth, hypothesis concerning, ii. 119, 127. _Cessions_ from an enemy, on what grounds may be demanded, iii. 93. _Chapel_, nickname for a printing house, i. 63. _Character_, remarks on the delineation of, iii. 445. _Charcoal-fires_, hurtful, ii. 235. _Charging_ and discharging, in electricity, explained, i. 190. a number of bottles at once, how done, _ibid._ _Charters_ of the colonies could not be altered by parliament, iii. 332. _Chess_, morals of, iii. 488. not an idle amusement, _ibid._ teaches various virtues, 489. advice to those who play, 490. too intense an application to, injurious, 500. _Chimnies_, different kinds of, enumerated, ii. 228. inconvenience of the old-fashioned ones, 229. defect of more modern ones, 230. have not long been in use in England, 277. Staffordshire, described, 285. have a draft of air up and down, 289. may be used for keeping provisions in summer, 290. may be of use to miners, 291. funnels to, what the best, 292, 295. method of contracting them, 317. smoky. See _Smoky_. _China_, provision made there against famine, ii. 407. _Chinese_ wisely divide the holds of their vessels by partitions, ii. 171. how they row their boats, 177. their method of warming ground floors, 292. improvement in this method suggested, 293. their method of making large paper, 349. _Circle_, magical, account of, ii. 327, 328. _Cities_, spring water gradually deteriorates in, i. 163. do not supply themselves with inhabitants, ii. 384. _Clark_, Dr. of Boston, quoted, on the instigation of the American Indians against the English, iii. 95, 100, 102. _Clothes_, wet, may preserve from lightning, i. 213. will relieve thirst, ii. 104. do not give colds, _ibid._ imbibe heat according to their colour, 108. white, most suitable for hot climates, _ibid._ _Clothing_ does not give, but preserves, warmth, ii. 81. _Clouds_, at land and at sea, difference between, i. 207. formed at sea, how brought to rain on land, 208. driven against mountains, form springs and rivers, 209. passing different ways, accounted for, 211. electrical, attracted by trees, spires, &c. 213. manner in which they become electrised, 257, 305. are electrised sometimes negatively and sometimes positively, 274, 277, 284, 292. electricity drawn from them, at Marly, 420. by Mr. Cauton, 428. by Dr. Bevis, 429, by Mr. Wilson, _ibid._ how supported in air, ii. 5. how formed, 7. whether winds are generated or can be confined in them, 57. have little more solidity than fogs, _ibid._ _Club_, called the Junto, instituted by Franklin, i. 82. rules of, ii. 366, 369. questions discussed in, 369. _Coal_, sea, letter on the nature of, ii. 128. _Cold_, why seemingly greater in metals than in wood, ii. 56, 77. sensation of, how produced, 57. only the absence of heat, 81. produced by chemical mixtures, _ibid._ evaporation. See _Evaporation_. _Colden_, Mr. his remarks on Abbé Nollet's letters, i. 430. meteorological observations, ii. 51. observations on water-spouts, 53. _Colds_, causes of, ii. 214, 230. _Coleman_, William, a member of the Junto club, i. 84, 89. _Colica pictorum_, caused by lead, ii. 219. _Collins_, John, an early friend of Franklin's, i. 17, 27, 41, 43, 44. _Collinson_, Mr. some account of, iii. 514. _Colonial_ governments in America of three kinds, iii. 50. _Colonies_, the settlement of, does not diminish national numbers, ii. 391. their prosperity beneficial to the mother country, iii. 113. are intitled to distinct governments, 303. American, preferable to the West Indies, _ibid._ not dangerous to Britain, 132. aids to government, how given by, 225, 226. originally governed by the crown, independent of Parliament, 291. not settled at the expence of Britain, 348. _Colonists_ in America, double their number in 25 years, iii. 113. from Britain, their rights, 299. _Colours._ See _Clothes_. _Comazants_, or corposants, are electrical appearances, i. 248. _Commerce_, influence of, on the manners of a people, ii. 400. is best encouraged by being left free, 415. should not be prohibited in time of war, 417. by inland carriage, how supported, iii. 116. _Common-sense_, by Paine, Franklin supposed to have contributed to, i. 148. _Compass_, instances of its losing its virtue by lightning, i. 248. how to remedy the want of, at sea, ii. 191. _Conductors_ of lightning, very common in America, i. 113. first suggestion of the utility of, 227. construction of, 358. particulars relating to, 377. of electricity, difference in the action of, 200, 303. which the most perfect, 253, 256. and non-conductors, other terms substituted for, _ibid._ of common fire, their properties and differences, ii. 76, 77. experiments on, ii. 77. _Congress_, Franklin appointed a delegate to, i. 146. proposed overture from, in 1775, iii. 347. _Consecration_ of bells in France, form of, i. 384. _Conspirators_, electrical, meaning of the term, i. 196. _Controversy_, benefit of, iii. 92. _Conversation_, advantage of useful topics of, at dinner, i. 12. _Cook_, captain, circular letter concerning, iii. 515. copy of the voyages of, presented to Franklin, by the Admiralty, 517. Cookery, at sea, generally bad, ii. 194. _Copper_, manner of covering houses with, ii. 318, 320, 322. _Copper_ plate printing-press, the first in America, constructed by Franklin, i. 77. _Corn_, ill policy of laying restraints on the exportation of, ii. 413, 418. _Countries_, distant and unprovided, a plan for benefiting, ii. 403. _Creation_, conjectures as to, ii. 118. _Credit_, that of America and Britain in 1777, compared, iii. 372. depends on payment of loans, 373. industry and frugality, 374. public spirit, 375. income and security, 376. prospects of future ability, _ibid._ prudence, 377. character for honesty, 378. is money to a tradesman, 464. _Criminal_ laws, reflections on, ii. 439. _Crooked_ direction of lightning explained, i. 316. _Cutler_, circumstance that prevented Franklin's being apprenticed to one, i. 14. _Currents_ at sea, often not perceivable, ii. 185. _Cyder_, the best quencher of thirst, ii. 195. D. _Dalrymple_, Mr. scheme of a voyage under his command to benefit remote regions, ii. 403. _Damp_ air, why more chilling than dry air that is colder, ii. 56, 77. _Dampier_, account of a water-spout by, ii. 33. references to his voyage, on the subject of water-spouts, 58. _Dampness_ on walls, cause of, ii. 50. _Day-light_, proposal to use it instead of candle-light, iii. 470. _Deacon_, Isaac, from an underling to a surveyor, becomes inspector- general of America, i. 78. prognosticates the future eminence in life of Franklin, _ib._ _Death_ of Franklin, i. 153. letter from Dr. Price on, iii. 541. of relatives, reflections on, 507. _Deism_, effects on Franklin of books written against, i. 79. _Deluge_, accounted for, ii. 127. _Denham_, a quaker, a friend of Franklin's, i. 54. extraordinary trait of honesty of, to his creditors, 67. Franklin's engagement with, as a clerk, 68, 70. _Denmark_, the people of, not subject to colds, ii. 244. _Denny_, governor, remarks on his official conduct in Pensylvania, iii. 170. _Desaquiliers_, his experiment on the vapour of hot iron, ii. 249. _Dew_, how produced, i. 207. _Dialogue_, between Franklin and the gout, iii. 499. _Dickenson_, Mr. his remarks on the views of England in framing laws over the colonies, iii. 234. remarks on his conduct, 192. on his protest, 202. _Discontented_ dispositions satirized, iii. 485. _Discontents_ in America before 1768, causes of, iii. 225. _Dissentions_ between England and America, letter on, iii. 310. _Dissertation_, early one of Franklin's, that he repented having written, i. 58. _Disputation_, modesty in, recommended, i. 21. ii. 317. _Disputes_ between Franklin and his brother, to whom he was apprenticed, i. 24. _Domien_, a traveller, short account of, i. 302. _Drawling_, a defect in modern tunes, ii. 345. _Dreams_, art of procuring pleasant ones, iii. 493. _Dumas_, Monsieur, letter to, on the aid wanted by America in her struggle for independence, iii. 360. _Duna_ river, not to be confounded with the Dwina, iii. 119, note. _Dust_, how raised and carried up into the air, ii. 3. _Duties_, moral, the knowledge of, more important than the knowledge of nature, ii. 95. _Dutch_ iron stove, advantages and defects of, ii. 233. E. _Early_ impressions, lasting effect of, on the mind, iii. 478. _Earth_ will dissolve in air, ii. 2. dry, will not conduct electricity, i. 206. the, sometimes strikes lightning into the clouds, 274. grows no hotter under the summer sun, why, ii. 86. different strata of, 116. theory of, 117. _Earthquakes_, general good arising from, ii. 116. how occasioned, 120, 128. _Eaton_, in Northamptonshire, residence of Franklin's family, i. 3. _Ebb_ and flood, explanation of the terms, ii. 100. _Economical_ project, iii. 469. _Edinburgh_, an ordinance there against the purchase of prize-goods, ii. 447. _Education_ of women, controversy respecting, i. 17. _Eel_, electrical, of Surinam, i. 408, 409. _Effluvia_ of drugs, &c. will not pass through glass, i. 243. _Electrical_ air-thermometer described, i. 336, _et seq._ atmosphere, how produced, 221. how drawn off, 222. atmospheres repel each other, 294. repel electric matter in other bodies, _ib._ battery, its construction, 193. clouds, experiment regarding, 229. death, the easiest, 307. experiments, Franklin's eager pursuit of, 104. made in France, 109. various, 182, 229, 254, 255, 261, 271, 278, 286, 294, 307, 327, 337, 348, 371, 434. fire, not created by friction, but collected, 173. passes through water, 202. loves water and subsists in it, 203. diffused through all matter, 205 visible on the surface of the sea, _ibid._ its properties and uses, 214, _et seq._ produces common fire, 214, 238, 356. has the same crooked direction as lightning, 315. fluid, its beneficial uses, 219. is strongly attracted by glass, 236. manner of its acting through glass hermetically sealed, 241. a certain quantity of, in all kinds of matter, 275. nature of its explosion, 280. chooses the best conductor, 281, 378. force, may be unboundedly increased, 251. horse-race, 334. jack for roasting, 197. kiss, its force increased, 177. kite, described, 268. machine; simple and portable one, described, 178. matter, its properties, 217, 294. party of pleasure, 202. phial, or Leyden bottle, its phenomena explained, 179. shock, observations on, 182. effects of a strong one on the human body, 297, 306. spark, perforates a quire of paper, 195. wheel, its construction, 196. self-moving one, 198. _Electricity_, summary of its progress, i. 104. positive and negative, discovered, 106. distinguished, 175. in a tourmalin, 370. does not affect the elasticity of the air, 254. its similarity to lightning, 288. its effects on paralysis, 401. of fogs in Ireland, 405. supposed affinity between, and magnetism, 410. _Electrics per se_ and non-electrics, difference between, i. 242, 258. _Electrified_ bumpers described, i. 203. _Electrisation_, what constitutes the state of, i. 218. various appearances of, 175. variety of, 176. _Electrising_ one's self, manner of, i. 174. _Elocution_, how best taught, ii. 374. _Embassador_ from the United States to France, Franklin appointed to the office of, i. 148. _Emblematical_ design illustrative of the American troubles, iii. 371. _Emigrants_ to America, advice to, iii. 398. _Empire_, rules for reducing a great one, iii. 334. _England_, Franklin's first arrival in, i. 55. second arrival in, as agent for the province of Pensylvania, 134. third arrival in, as agent for the same province, 141. its air moister than that of America, ii. 140. decrease of population in, doubtful, 296. _English_, effect of the ancient manners of, ii. 399. language, innovations in, 351. _Enterprises_, public, Franklin's early disposition for, i. 10. _Ephemera_, an emblem of human life, iii. 508. _Epitaph_ on Franklin's parents, i. 13. on himself, 155. _Episcopalians_, conduct of the American legislature towards, ii. 455. _Errors_ of Franklin's early life, i. 45, 58, 61, 80, 97. _Ether_, what, ii. 59. _Evaporation_, cold produced by, i. 344, ii. 76, 83, 85. of rivers, effects of, 106. _Examination_ of Franklin before the house of commons, i. 142, iii. 245. before the privy council, 328. further particulars of, 551. _Exchange_, rate of, between Philadelphia and Britain, iii. 252. _Exercise_, should precede meals, iii. 493. _Experiments_, to show the electrical effect of points, i. 171, 172. to prove the electrical state of the Leyden phial, 182. of firing spirits by a spark sent through a river, 202. to show how thunder-storms produce rain, 209. on the clouds, proposed, 228. on drugs electrified, 243. on the elasticity of the air, 254. on the electric fluid, 255. by Mr. Kennersley, 261. on the electricity of the clouds, 271. for increasing electricity, 278. by Mr. Canton, 286. in pursuance of those of Mr. Canton, 294. on a silver cann, 307. on the velocity of the electric fluid, 327, 329, 330. for producing cold by evaporation, 344. on the different effects of electricity, 357. by lord Charles Cavendish, 348. on the tourmalin, 371. to show the utility of long pointed rods to houses, 389. on amber, 403 _et seq._ on the Leyden phial, 434. on different coloured cloths, ii. 108, 109. on the sailing of boats, 160. _Exportation_ of gold and silver, observations on, ii. 416. _Exports_ to North America and the West Indies, iii. 127, 128. to Pensylvania, 129, 250. from ditto, 250. _Eye_, retains the images of luminous objects, ii. 340. F. _Facts_, should be ascertained before we attempt to account for them, ii. 96. _Family_ of Franklin, account of, i. 5. _et seq._ _Famine_, how provided against in China, ii. 407. _Fanning_, how it cools, ii. 87. _Farmers_, remonstrance in behalf of, ii. 420. _Federal_ constitution, speech on, iii. 416. _Felons_, transportation of, to America, highly disagreeable to the inhabitants, iii. 235. _Fermenting_ liquors, their steam deleterious, ii. 59. Fire, not destroyed by water, but dispersed, i. 172. makes air specifically lighter, 206. exists in all bodies, 214. common and electrical, exist together, _ibid._ a region of, above our atmosphere, 257, ii. 124. many ways of kindling it, i. 356. exists in a solid or quiescent state in substances, _ibid._ ii. 80, 122. recovers its fluidity by combustion, _ibid._ is a fluid permeating all bodies, 76. conductors of, are also best conductors of the electric fluid, _ibid._ difference between, and electrical conductors, 77. how diffused through substances, 78. how generated in animated bodies, 79. theory of, 122. a fixed and permanent quantity of, in the universe, 123. its properties, 227. electrical, see _Electrical_. _Fire-companies_, numerous at Philadelphia, i. 103. _Fire-places_, Pensylvanian, account of, ii. 225. large and open, inconvenient, 228. hollow backed, by Gauger, 232. Staffordshire, 285. an ingenious one for serving two rooms, 296. _Fires_, at sea, how often produced, ii. 174. great and bright, damage the eyes and skin, 230. _Fisheries_, value of those of Newfoundland, iii. 452. _Flame_, preserves bodies from being consumed while surrounding them, ii. 310, 311. _Flaxseed_, amount of the exportation of from America to Ireland, iii. 270. _Flesh_, of animals, made tender by lightning and by electricity, i. 359, 414. _Flies_, drowned in America, brought to life in England, ii. 223. _Flood_ and ebb, explanation of the terms, ii. 100. _Florence_ flask, when filled with boiling water, not chargeable with electricity, i. 332, 345. _Fog_, great, in 1783, ii. 68. conjectures as to its cause, _ibid._ _Fogs_, how supported in air, ii. 5. electricity of, in Ireland, i. 405. _Folger_, family-name of Franklin's mother, i. 8. _Foreigners_, the importation of, not necessary to fill up occasional vacancies in population, ii. 390. _Forts_ in the back settlements, not approved of, iii. 99. _Foster_, judge, notes on his argument for the impress of seamen, ii. 437. _Foundering_ at sea, accidents that occasion it, ii. 169, 170. _Fountain_, when electrified, its stream separates, i. 206. _Fowls_, improperly treated at sea, ii. 193. _Fragments_, political, ii. 411. _France_, its air moister than that of America, ii. 140. effects of its military manners, 399. _Franklin_, derivation of the name, i. 4. genealogy of the family of, 5. _Franks_, the improper use of, reprobated, ii. 435. _Freezing_ to death in summer, possibility of, ii. 84. _French_ language, its general use, ii. 353. _Frontiers_, in America, the attack of, the common cause of the state, iii. 109. _Frugality_, advantages of, ii. 397. observance of, in America, iii. 374 _Fruit-walls_, blacking them recommended, ii. 110. _Fuel_, scarce in Philadelphia, ii. 225. _Fulling-mills_ in America, iii. 270. _Fusion_, cold, of metals, supposed, i. 215. proves a mistake, 339. error respecting it acknowledged, 355. G. _Galloway_, Mr, preface to his speech, iii. 163. _Garnish-money_, practice among printers of demanding it, i. 63. _Gauger_, M. his invention for fire-places, ii. 232. _Genealogy_ of the Franklin family, i. 5. _German_ stoves, advantages and disadvantages of, ii. 234. _Germany_, why the several states of, encourage foreign manufactures in preference to those of each other, iii. 118. note. _Gilding_, its properties as a conductor, i. 201. the effects of lightning and of electricity on, 229. fails as a conductor after a few shocks, 231. _Glass_, has always the same quantity of electrical fire, i. 191. possesses the whole power of giving a shock, 192, 247. in panes, when first used in an electrical experiment, 193, 194. great force in small portions of, 199. impermeable to the electric fluid, 234, 310. strongly attracts the electric fluid, 236. cannot be electrified negatively, _ibid._ its opposite surfaces, how affected, _ibid._ its component parts and pores extremely fine, 237. manner of its operation in producing electricity, _ibid._ its elasticity, to what owing, 239. thick, resists a change of the quantity of electricity of its different sides, 242. rod of, will not conduct a shock, _ibid._ when fluid, or red hot, will conduct electricity, 256. difference in its qualities, 301. error as to its pores, 302. will admit the electric fluid, when moderately heated, 345, 347. when cold retains the electric fluid, 346. experiments on warm and cold, 348. singular tube and ball of, 386. _Glasses_, musical, described, ii. 330, _et seq._ _God_, saying in America respecting, iii. 401. _Godfrey_, Thomas, a lodger with Franklin, i. 81. a member of the Junto, 83. inventor of Hadley's quadrant, _ibid._ wishes Franklin to marry a relation of his, 95. _Gold_ and silver, remarks on exportation of, ii. 416. _Golden_ fish, an electrical device, i. 233. _Government_, free, only destroyed by corruption of manners, ii. 397. _Gout_, dialogue with that disease, iii. 499. _Grace_, Robert, member of the Junto club, i. 84, 89. _Gratitude_ of America, letter on, iii. 239. _Greasing_ the bottoms of ships, gives them more swiftness, ii. 180. _Greece_, causes of its superiority over Persia, ii. 397. _Greek_ empire, the destruction of, dispersed manufacturers over Europe, iii. 122. _Green_ and red, relation between the colours of, ii. 341. _Greenlanders_, their boats best for rowing, ii. 176. _Guadaloupe_, its value to Britain over-rated, iii. 139. _Gulph-stream_, observations on, ii. 186. whalers frequent its edges, _ibid._ long unknown to any but the American fishermen, _ibid._ how generated, 187. its properties, _ibid._ tornadoes and water-spouts attending it, accounted for, 188. how to avoid it, 197. Nantucket whalers best acquainted with it, 198. thermometrical observations on, 199. journal of a voyage across, _ibid._ _Gunpowder_, fired by electricity, i. 250. magazines of, how to secure them from lightning, 375. proposal for keeping it dry, 376. H. _Habits_, effects of, on population, ii. 393. 394. _Hadley's_ quadrant, by whom invented, i. 83, 95. _Hail_, brings down electrical fire, i. 292. how formed, ii. 66. _Hamilton_, Mr. a friend of Franklin's, i. 54, 88. _Handel_, criticism on one of his compositions, ii. 345. _Harmony_, in music, what, ii. 339. _Harp_, effect of, on the ancient Scotch tunes, ii. 340. _Harry_, David, companion of Franklin's, i. 72, 93. _Hats_, summer, should be white, ii. 109. the manufacture of, in New England, in 1760, iii. 131. _Health_ of seamen, Captain Cook's method of preserving it recommended, ii. 190. _Heat_, produced by electricity and by lightning, i. 338, 339. better conducted by some substances than others, ii. 56, 58. how propagated, 58. the pain it occasions, how produced, 78. in animals, how generated, 79, 125. in fermentation, the same as that of the human body, 80. great, at Philadelphia, in 1750, 85. general theory of, 122. _Herrings_, shoals of, perceived by the smoothness of the sea, ii. 150. _Hints_ to those that would be rich, iii. 466. _Holmes_, Robert, brother-in-law to Franklin, i. 37, 71. _Honesty_, often a very partial principle of conduct, ii. 430. _Honours_, all descending ones absurd, iii. 550. _Hopkins_, governor, his report of the number of inhabitants in Rhode Island, iii. 129. _Horse-race_, electrical, i. 335. _Hospital_, one founded by the exertions of Franklin, i. 126. _Hospitals_, foundling, state of in England and France, iii. 544*, 548*. _Hospitality_, a virtue of barbarians, iii. 391. _Houses_, remarks on covering them with copper, ii. 318, 320. many in Russia covered with iron plates, 319. their construction in Paris renders them little liable to fires, 321. _Howe_, lord, letter from, to Franklin, iii. 365. Franklin's answer to, 367. _Hudson's_ river, winds there, ii. 52, 59. _Hunters_, require much land to subsist on, ii. 384. _Hurricanes_, how produced, ii. 7. why cold in hot climates, _ibid._ _Hutchinson_, governor, cause of the application for his removal, iii. 323. account of the letters of, 331, 551. _Hygrometer_, best substances for forming one, ii. 136. mahogany recommended for forming one, 141. I. J. _Jackson_, Mr. remarks on population by, ii. 392. _Jamaica_, its vacant lands not easily made sugar lands, iii. 140. _Javelle_, his machinery for moving boats, ii. 177. _Ice_ will not conduct an electric shock, i. 201. _Ice-islands_, dangerous to shipping, ii. 176. _Idleness_, the heaviest tax on mankind, ii. 411, iii. 454. encouraged by charity, ii. 422. reflections on, iii. 428. _Jefferson_, Mr. letter from, on the character of Franklin, iii. 545. _Jesuits_, hostility of the Indians in America excited by, iii. 95. _Ignorance_, a frank acknowledgment of, commendable, i. 308. _Imports_ into Pensylvania from Britain before 1766, iii. 250. _Impress_ of seamen, notes on Judge Foster's argument in favour of, ii. 437. _Inarticulation_ in modern singing, censured, ii. 348. _Increase_ of mankind, observations on, ii. 383, and _seq._ what prevented by, 386, 387. how promoted, 388, 389. further observations on, 393. _Indemnification_, just ground for requiring cessions from an enemy, iii. 93. _Independence_, soon acquired in America, iii. 402. _Indian trade_ and affairs, remarks on a plan for the future management of, iii. 216. spirituous liquors the great encouragement of, 219. the debts from, must be left to honour, 220. not an American but a British interest, 275. _Indians_, of North America, a number of, murdered, i. 139. often excited by the French against the English, iii. 95. list of fighting men in the different nations of, 221. difference of their warfare from that of Europeans, 100. remarks concerning, 383. their mode of life, 384. public councils, 385. politeness in conversation, 386. rules in visiting, 388. _Industry_, effects of Franklin's, i. 85. the cause of plenty, ii. 396. essential to the welfare of a people, 411. relaxed by cheapness of provisions, 415. a greater portion of, in every nation, than of idleness, 396, 429, iii. 396. its prevalence in America, iii. 373. _Inflammability_ of the surface of rivers, ii. 130. _Inland_ commerce, instances of, iii. 120. _Innovations_ in language and printing, ii. 351. _Inoculation_, letter on the deaths occasioned by, ii. 215. success of, in Philadelphia, 216, 217. _Insects_, utility of the study of, ii. 93. _Interrogation_, the mark of, how to be placed, ii. 356. _Invention_, the faculty of, its inconveniences, i. 308. _Inventions_, new, generally scouted, _ibid._ _Journal_ of a voyage, crossing the gulph-stream, ii. 199. from Philadelphia to France, 200, 201. from the channel to America, 202, _et seq._ _Iron_ contained in the globe, renders it a great magnet, ii. 119. query whether it existed at the creation, 126. hot, gives no bad smell, 247. yields no bad vapours, 248. rods, erected for experiments on the clouds, i. 270. conduct more lightning in proportion to their thickness, 282. _Islands_ far from a continent have little thunder, i. 216. _Italic_ types, use of, in printing, ii. 355. _Judges_, mode of their appointment in America, in 1768, iii. 23. _Junto._ See _Club_. K. _Keimer_, a connection of Franklin's, some account of, i. 35, 70, 93. _Keith_, sir William, Franklin patronized by, i. 39. deceived by, 54. character of, 57. _Kinnersley_, Mr. electrical experiments by, i. 261, _et seq._, 331. _Kiss_, electrical, i. 177. _Kite_ used to draw electricity from the clouds, i. 108. electrical, described, i. 268. _Knobs_, not so proper as points, for conducting lightning, i. 359. L. _Labour_, why it will long continue dear in America, ii. 385. its advantages, 427, 428. _Land_, terms on which it may be obtained in America, by settlers, iii. 409. _Landing_ in a surf, supposed practicable, how, ii. 154. tried without success, 155. _Language_, remarks on innovations in, ii. 351, _et seq._ _Laughers_, satyrized, iii. 425. _Law_, the old courts of, in the colonies, as ample in their powers, as those in England, iii. 304. _Law-expenses_, no discouragement to law-suits, iii. 270. _Law-stamps_, a tax on the poor, iii. 269. _Lead_, effects of, on the human constitution, ii. 219. _Leaks_ in ships, why water enters by them most rapidly at first, ii. 109. means to prevent their being fatal, 170. _Leather_ globe, proposed, instead of glass, for electrical experiments, i. 267. _Left_ hand, a petition from, iii. 483. _Leg_, handsome and deformed, humourous anecdote of, iii. 437. _Legal_ tender of paper-money, its advantages, iii. 150. further remarks on, 151. _Lending_ money, new mode of, iii. 463. _Letter-founding_ effected by Franklin in America, i. 74. _Leutmann_, J. G. extract from his vulcanus famulans, ii. 298. _Leyden_ bottle, its phenomena explained, i. 179. analysed, 192. experiment to prove its qualities, 245. when sealed hermetically, retains long its electricity, 345. _Liberty_ of the press, observations on, ii. 463. abused, 465. of the cudgel, should be allowed in return, 467. _Libraries_, public, the first in America set on foot by Franklin, i. 99. are now numerous in America, 100. advantages of, to liberty, 101. _Life_ and death, observations on the doctrines of, ii. 222. _Light_, difference between that from the sun and that from a fire in electrical experiments, i. 173. difficulties in the doctrines of, i. 253. queries concerning, _ibid._ visibility of its infinitely small particles computed, ii. 90. new theory of, 122. _Lighthouse-tragedy_, an early poem of Franklin's, i. 16. _Lightning_, represented by electricity, i. 176. drawn from the clouds, by a kite, 268. by an iron rod, _ibid._ reasons for proposing the experiment on, 304. its effects at Newbury, 310. will leave other substances, to pass through metals, 312. communicates magnetism to iron, 314. objections to the hypothesis of its being collected from the sea, 318, 323. effects of, on a wire at New York, 326. on Mr. West's pointed rod, 340, _et seq._ how it shivers trees, 359. effects of, on conductors in Carolina, 361, 362, 364. does not enter through openings, 368. should be distinguished from its light, 369. an explosion always accompanies it, _ibid._ observations on its effects on St. Bride's church, 374, 382. how to preserve buildings from, 377. personal danger from, how best avoided, 381. brought down by a pointed rod, in a large quantity, 389. how to prevent a stroke of, at sea, ii. 175. _Linnæus_, instance of public benefit arising from his knowledge of insects, ii. 94. _London_, atmosphere of, moister than that of the country, ii. 139. _Loyalty_ of America before the troubles, iii. 237. _Luxury_, beneficial when not too common, ii. 389. definition of, 395, 425. extinguishes families, 395. not to be extirpated by laws, 401. further observations on, 425. _Lying-to_, the only mode yet used for stopping a vessel at sea, ii. 181. M. _Maddeson_, Mr. death of, lamented, iii. 544*. _Magazine_ of powder, how to secure it from lightning, i. 375. _Magical_ circle of circles, ii. 327. picture, i. 195. square of squares, ii. 324. _Magnetism_, animal, detected and exposed, i. 150. given by electricity, 248, 314. and electricity, affinity between, 410. supposed to exist in all space, ii. 119, 126. conjectures as to its effects on the globe, 120. enquiry how it first came to exist, 126. _Mahogany_, expands and shrinks, according to climate, ii. 138. recommended for an hygrometer, 141. _Mandeville_, Franklin's acquaintance with, i. 39. _Manners_, effects of, on population, ii. 393, _et seq._ letter to the Busy-body on the want of, iii. 432. _Manufactures_, produce greater proportionate returns than raw materials, ii. 410. founded in the want of land for the poor, iii. 107. are with difficulty transplanted from one country to another, 121. hardly ever lost but by foreign conquest, 122. probability of their establishment in America, 260. want no encouragement from the government, if a country be ripe for them, 405. _Maritime_ observations, ii. 162. _Marly_, experiments made at, for drawing lightning from the clouds, i. 421. _Marriage_ of Franklin, i. 97. _Marriages_, where the greatest number take place, ii. 383. why frequent and early in America, 385. iii. 113, 403. early, letter on, iii. 475. _Maryland_, account of a whirlwind there, ii. 61. of paper bills formerly issued there, iii. 155. its conduct in a French war, previous to the American troubles, defended, 262. _Massachusets_ bay, petition of the inhabitants of, to the king, iii. 325. _Matter_, enquiry into the supposed vis inertiæ of, ii. 110. man can neither create nor annihilate it, 123. _Mawgridge_, William, member of the Junto club, i. 84. _Maxims_, prudential, from poor Richard's almanack, iii. 453. _Mazeas_, abbe, letter from, i. 420. _Meal_, grain, &c. manner of preserving them good for ages, i. 376. ii. 190. _Mechanics_, advantages of an early attention to, i. 14. _Mediocrity_, prevalence of, in America, iii. 399. _Melody_ in music, what, ii. 340. _Men_, six, struck down by an electric shock, i. 306. _Mercer_, Dr. letter from, on a water-spout, ii. 34. _Merchants_ and shopkeepers in America, iii. 394. _Meredith_, Hugh, companion of Franklin, short account of, i. 72, 76, 89. _Metalline_ rods, secure buildings from lightning, i. 281. either prevent or conduct a stroke, 310. _Metals_, melted by electricity and by lightning, i. 215, 229. when melted by electricity, stain glass, 232. polished, spotted by electrical sparks, 253. feel colder than wood, why, ii. 56. _Meteorological_ observations, ii. 1, 45, 66. _Methusalem_ slept always in the open air, iii. 495. _Mickle_, Samuel, a prognosticator of evil, i. 81. _Military_ manners, effects of, ii. 398, 399. power of the king, remarks on, iii. 307. _Militia_ bill, Franklin the author of one, i. 132. particular one, rejected by the governor of Pensylvania, 100. iii. 157. _Mines_, method of changing air in them, ii. 291. of rock salt, conjectures as to their formation, 92. _Mists_, how supported in air, ii. 5. _Modesty_ in disputation recommended, ii. 317. _Money_, how to make it plenty, iii. 467. new mode of lending, 468. _Moral_ principles, state of Franklin's mind respecting, on his entering into business, i. 79. _Morals_ of chess, iii. 488. _Motion_, the communication and effects of, ii. 7, 8. of vessels at sea, how to be stopped, 181. _Mountains_, use of, in producing rain and rivers, i. 208. why the summits of, are cold, ii. 6. conjecture how they became so high, 91. _Music_, harmony and melody of the old Scotish, ii. 338. modern, defects of, 343. _Musical_ glasses described, ii. 330. N. _Nantucket_ whalers best acquainted with the gulph-stream, ii. 198. _National_ wealth, data for reasoning on, ii. 408. three ways of acquiring, 410. _Navigation_, difference of, in shoal and deep water, ii. 158. observations on, 195, 196. from Newfoundland to New York, 197. inland, in America, iii. 118. _Needle_ of a compass, its polarity reversed by lightning, i. 248, 325. of wood, circular motion of, by electricity, 332, 351. _Needles_, magnetised by electricity, i. 148. and pins, melted by electricity, 249. _Negatively_ electrised bodies repel each other, i. 294. _Negroes_ bear heat better, and cold worse, than whites, ii. 86. _Newbury_, effects of a stroke of lightning there, i. 310. _New-England_, former flourishing state of, from the issue of paper money, iii. 145. circumstances which rendered the restriction of paper money there not injurious, 148. abolition of paper currency there, 263. _Newfoundland_ fisheries, more valuable than the mines of Peru, iii. 452. _Newspaper_, one sufficient for all America, in 1721, i. 23. instance of one set up by Franklin at Philadelphia, 86. _New-York_, effects of lightning there, i. 326. former flourishing state of, from the issue of paper-money, iii. 146. sentiments of the colonists on the act for abolishing the legislature of, 232. obtained in exchange for Surinam, 349. _Nollet_, Abbé, Franklin's theory of electricity opposed by, i. 113. remarks on his letters, 430. _Non-conductors_ of electricity, i. 378. _Non-electric_, its property in receiving or giving electrical fire, i. 193. _North-east_ storms in America, account of, ii. 68. _Nurses_, office at Paris for examining the health of, iii. 549*. O. _Oak_ best for flooring and stair-cases, ii. 321. _Ohio_, distance of its fort from the sea, iii. 119, note. _Oil_, effect of heat on, ii. 4. evaporates only in dry air, _ibid._ renders air unfit to take up water, _ibid._ curious instance of its effects on water in a lamp, 142. stilling of waves by means of, 144, 145, 148, 150, 151, 154. _Old_ man's wish, song so called quoted, iii. 546*. _Onslow_, Arthur, dedication of a work to, by Franklin, iii. 59. _Opinions_, vulgar ones too much slighted, ii. 146. regard to established ones, thought wisdom in a government, iii. 226. _Orthography_, a new mode of, ii. 359. _Osborne_, a friend of Franklin's, i. 50, 53 _Oversetting_ at sea, how it occurs, ii. 172. how to be prevented, _ibid._, 173. _Outriggers_ to boats, advantages of, ii. 173. P. _Packthread_, though wet, not a good conductor, i. 200. _Paine's_ Common Sense, Franklin supposed to have contributed to, i. 148. _Paper_, how to make large sheets, in the Chinese way, ii. 349. a poem, iii. 522. _Paper-credit_, cannot be circumscribed by law, ii. 418. _Paper-money_, pamphlet written by Franklin on, i. 91. American, remarks and facts relative to, iii. 144. advantages of, over gold and silver, iii. 152. _Papers_ on philosophical subjects, i. 169, _et seq._ ii. 1, _et seq._ on general politics, ii. 383, _et seq._ on American subjects, before the revolution, iii. 3, _et seq._ during the revolution, iii. 225, _et seq._ subsequent to the revolution, iii. 383, _et seq._ on moral subjects, iii. 421, _et seq._ _Parable_ against persecution, ii. 450. _Paradoxes_ inferred from some experiments, i. 262. _Paralysis_, effects of electricity on, i. 401. _Parliament_ of England, opinions in America, in 1766, concerning, iii. 254. _Parsons_, William, member of the Junto club, i. 83. _Parties_, their use in republics, iii. 396. _Party_ of pleasure, electrical, i. 202. _Passages_ to and from America, how to be shortened, ii. 138. why shorter from, than to, America, 189. _Passengers_ by sea, instructions to, ii. 192. _Patriotism_, spirit of, catching, iii. 90. _Peace_, the victorious party may insist on adequate securities in the terms of, iii. 96. _Penn_, governor, remarks on his administration, iii. 183. sold his legislative right in Pensylvania, but did not complete the bargain, 189. _Pensylvania_, Franklin appointed clerk to the general assembly of, i. 102. forms a plan of association for the defence of, 104. becomes a member of the general assembly of, 114. aggrievances of, iii. 50. infraction of its charter, 52. review of the constitution of, 59. former flourishing state of, from the issue of paper-money, 146. rate of exchange there, 154. letter on the militia bill of, 157. settled by English and Germans, 162. English and German, its provincial languages, _ib._ pecuniary bargains between the governors and assembly of, 165. taxes there, 246, 251. number of its inhabitants, 249. proportion of quakers, and of Germans, _ibid._ exports and imports, 250. assembly of, in 1766, how composed, 252. _Pensylvanian_ fire-places, account of, ii. 223. particularly described, 235. effects of, 239. manner of using them, 241. advantages of, 243. objections to, answered, 247. directions to bricklayers respecting, 251. _Peopling_ of countries, observations on, ii. 383, _et seq._ _Perkins_, Dr. letter from, on water-spouts, ii. 11. on shooting stars, 36. _Persecution_, parable against, ii. 450. of dissenters, letter on, 452. of quakers in New England, 454. _Perspirable_ matter, pernicious, if retained, ii. 50. _Perspiration_, necessary to be kept up, in hot climates, ii. 86. difference of, in persons when naked and clothed, 214. _Petition_ from the colonists of Massachusets bay, iii. 325. of the left hand, 483. _Petty_, sir William, a double vessel built by, ii. 174. _Philadelphia_, Franklin's first arrival at, i. 32. account of a seminary there, instituted by Franklin, 116 to 127. state of the public bank at, iii. 551*. _Phytolacca_, or poke weed, a specific for cancers, i. 261. _Picture_, magical, described, i. 195. _Plain_ truth, Franklin's first political pamphlet, iii. 524. _Plan_ for benefiting distant countries, ii. 403. for settling two western colonies, iii. 41. for the management of Indian affairs, remarks on, 216. for improving the condition of the free blacks, 519. _Planking_ of ships, improvement in, ii. 189. _Pleurisy_, Franklin attacked by, i. 71, 154. _Plus_ and minus electricity, in the Leyden bottle, i. 181. in other bodies, 185. _Pointed_ rods, secure buildings from lightning, i. 283, 381. experiments and observations on, 388. objections to, answered, 395, 396. _Points_, their effects, i. 170. property of, explained, 223. experiment showing the effect of, on the clouds, 283. mistake respecting, 310. _Poke-weed_, a cure for cancers, i. 260, 261. _Polarity_ given to needles by electricity, i. 248. _Poles_ of the earth, if changed, would produce a deluge, ii. 127. _Political_ fragments, ii. 411. _Polypus_, a nation compared to, ii. 391. _Poor_, remarks on the management of, ii. 418. the better provided for, the more idle, 422. _Poor_ Richard, maxims of, iii. 453. _Pope_, criticism on two of his lines, i. 23. _Population_, observations on, ii. 383. causes which diminish it, 386. occasional vacancies in, soon filled by natural generation, 390. rate of its increase in America, 385. iii. 113, 250, 254. why it increases faster there, than in England, iii. 255. _Positions_ concerning national wealth, ii. 408. _Positiveness_, impropriety of, ii. 318. _Postage_, not a tax, but payment for a service, iii. 265. state of, in America, in 1766, 279. _Post-master_, and deputy post-master general, Franklin appointed to the offices of, i. 102, 127. _Potts_, Stephen, a companion of Franklin's, i. 72, 84. _Poultry_, not good at sea, ii. 193. _Powder-magazines_, how secured from lightning, i. 375. _Power_ to move a heavy body, how to be augmented, ii. 191. _Pownall_, governor, memorial of, to the Duke of Cumberland, iii. 41. letter from, on an equal communication of rights to America, 243. constitution of the colonies by, 299. _Preface_ to Mr. Galloway's speech, iii. 163. to proceedings of the inhabitants of Boston, 317. _Presbyterianism_, established religion in New England, ii. 454. _Press_, account of the court of, ii. 463. liberty of, abused, 465. _Pressing_ of seamen, animadversions on, ii. 437. _Price_, Dr. letter from, on Franklin's death, iii. 541. _Priestley_, Dr. letter from, on Franklin's character, iii. 547. _Printers_ at Philadelphia before Franklin, i. 36. _Printing_, Franklin apprenticed to the business of, i. 15. works at it as a journeymen in England, 58, 62. in America, 35, 71. enters on the business of, as master, 78. observations on fashions in, ii. 355. _Prison_, society for relieving the misery of, i. 151. not known among the Indians of America, iii. 220. _Privateering_, reprobated, ii. 436. further observations on, 446. article to prevent it, recommended in national treaties, 448. inserted in a treaty between America and Prussia, 449. _Proas_, of the pacific ocean, safety of, ii. 173. flying, superior to any of our sailing boats, 176. _Produce_ of the inland parts of America, iii. 119. _Products_ of America, do not interfere with those of Britain, iii. 124. _Prose-writing_, method of acquiring excellence in, i. 18. _Protest_ against Franklin's appointment as colonial agent, remarks on, iii. 203. _Provisions_, cheapness of, encourages idleness, ii. 415. _Prussian_ edict, assuming claims over Britain, iii. 311. _Public_ services and functions of Franklin, i. 125. spirit, manifest in England, iii. 91. different opinion respecting it expressed, 375. _Punctuality_ of America in the payment of public debts, iii. 373. _Puckridge_, Mr. inventor of musical glasses, i. 136. Q. _Quaker-lady_, good advice of one to Franklin in his youth, i. 42. _Quakers_, persecution of, in New England, ii. 454. proportion of, in Pensylvania, iii. 249. _Quebec_, remarks on the enlargement of the province of, iii. 20, note. _Queries_ concerning light, i. 258. proposed at the Junto club, ii. 366. from Mr. Strahan, on the American disputes, iii. 287. _Questions_ discussed by the Junto club, ii. 369. R. _Rain_, how produced, i. 207. generally brings down electricity, 292. why never salt, ii. 32. different quantities of, falling at different heights, 133. _Ralph_, James, a friend of Franklin's, i. 50, 53, 54, 57, 60. _Rarefaction_ of the air, why greater in the upper regions, ii. 6. _Read_, maiden name of Franklin's wife, i. 33, 37, 49, 54, 59, 70, 96. _Reading_, Franklin's early passion for, i. 15, 16. how best taught, ii. 372. advice to youth respecting, 378. _Recluse_, a Roman Catholic one, in London, i. 65. _Red_ and green, relation between the colours of, ii. 341. _Regimen_, sudden alterations of, not prejudicial, i. 49. _Religious_ sect, new one, intended establishment of, i. 48. _Repellency_, electrical, how destroyed, i. 172. _Representation_, American, in the British parliament, thoughts on, iii. 37, 243. _Repulsion_, electrical, the doctrine of, doubted, i. 333. considerations in support of, 349. _Revelation_, doubted by Franklin in his youth, i. 79. _Rhode-Island_, purchased for a pair of spectacles, iii. 21. its population at three periods, iii. 129. _Rich_, hints to those that would be, iii. 466. _Ridicule_, delight of the prince of Condé in, iii. 424. _Rivers_, from the Andes, how formed, i. 209. motion of the tides in, explained, ii. 96, 102. do not run into the sea, 105. evaporate before they reach the sea, 106. inflammability of the surface of, 130. _Rods_, utility of long pointed ones, to secure buildings from lightning, i. 388. See farther. _Iron._ _Lightning._ _Metalline._ _Rome_, causes of its decline enquired into, ii. 398. political government of its provinces, iii. 136. _Rooms_, warm, advantages of, ii. 249. do not give colds, ibid. _Roots_, edible, might be dried and preserved for sea-store, ii. 190. _Rosin_, when fluid, will conduct electricity, i. 256. _Rousseau_, his opinion of tunes in parts, ii. 342. _Rowing_ of boats, Chinese method of, ii. 177. _Rowley_, Dr. Franklin's obligations to, iii. 555*. S. _Sailing_, observations on, ii. 163. _Sails_, proposed improvements in, ii. 164, 166. _Saint_ Bride's church, stroke of lightning on, i. 374. _Salt_, dry, will not conduct electricity, i. 258. rock, conjectures as to its origin, ii. 91. _Saltness_ of the sea-water considered, _ib._ _Savage_, John, a companion of Franklin's, i. 72. _Savages_ of North America, remarks on, iii. 383, _et seq._ _School_, sketch of one, for Philadelphia, ii. 370. _Scotch_ tunes, harmony of, and melody, ii. 338. _Screaming_, a defect in modern tunes, ii. 345. _Scull_, Nicholas, member of the Junto club, i. 83. _Sea_, electrical qualities of its component parts, i. 205. opinion, that it is the source of lightning, considered, 269, 321, 322. supposed cause of its luminous appearance, ii. 88. from what cause, salt, 91. has formerly covered the mountains, _ib._ _Sea-coal_, has a vegetable origin, ii. 128. prejudices against the use of, at Paris, 278. _Sea-water_, soon loses its luminous quality, i. 269. considerations on the distillation of, ii. 103. how to quench thirst with, 104. thermometrical observation on, 199, _et seq._ _Security_, a just ground to demand cessions from an enemy, iii. 93. _Separation_ of the colonies from Britain, probability of, in 1775, iii. 356. _Servants_ in England, the most barren parts of the people, ii. 395. _Settlements_, new, in America, letter concerning, iii. 409. _Settlers_ of British colonies, their rights, iii. 299. _Sheep_, a whole flock killed by lightning, i. 415. _Ships_, abandoned at sea, often saved, ii. 169. may be nicely balanced, 170. accidents to, at sea, how guarded against, 172. _Shirley_, governor, letters to, on the taxation of the colonies, iii. 30. on American representation in the British parliament, 37. _Shooting-stars_, letter on, ii. 36. _Shop-keepers_ in America, iii. 394. _Sides_ of vessels, the best construction of, ii. 172. _Silver_ cann, experiment with, i. 307. vessels, not so easily handled as glass, when filled with hot liquors, ii. 57. _Slavery_, society for the abolition of, i. 151. address to the public on the abolition of, iii. 517. _Slaves_, not profitable labourers, ii. 386. diminish population, ii. 387. _Slave-trade_, sentiment of a French moralist respecting, ii. 195. parody on the arguments in favour of, 450. _Sliding-plates_ for smoky chimnies described, ii. 287. _Slitting-mills_ in America, iii. 270. _Small_, Mr. Alexander, letter from, i. 374. _Smell_ of electricity, how produced, i. 244. _Smoke_, principle by which it ascends, ii. 257. stove that consumes it, 296. the burning of, useful in hot-houses, 316. _Smoky_ chimnies, observation on the causes and cure of, ii. 256. remedy for, if by want of air, 261, 262. if by too large openings in the room, 266, 268. if by too short a funnel, 269. if by overpowering each other, 270, 271. if by being overtopped, 271, 272. if by improper situation of a door, 273. if by smoke drawn down their funnels, 274, 275. if by strong winds, 275, 276. difficult sometimes to discover the cause of, 282. _Smuggling_, reflections on, ii. 430. encouragement of, not honest, 432. _Snow_, singular instance of its giving electricity, i. 373. _Soap-boiler_, part of Franklin's early life devoted to the business of, i. 10, 14. _Societies_, of which Franklin was president, i. 151. learned, of which he was a member, 135. _Socrates_, his mode of disputation, i. 21. _Songs_, ancient, give more pleasure than modern, ii. 342. modern, composed of all the defects of speech, 344. _Soul_, argument against the annihilation of, iii. 548*. _Sound_, best mediums for conveying, ii. 335. observations on, 336. queries concerning, 337. _Sounds_ just past, we have a perfect idea of their pitch, ii. 340. _Soup-dishes_ at sea, how to be made more convenient, ii. 195. _Spain_, what has thinned its population, ii. 390. _Specific_ weight, what, ii. 226. _Spectacles_, double, advantages of, iii. 544*, 551*. _Speech_, at Algiers, on slavery and piracy, ii. 450. of Mr. Galloway, preface to, iii. 163. last of Franklin, on the federal constitution, 416. _Spelling_, a new mode of, recommended, ii. 359. _Spheres_, electric, commodious ones, i. 178. _Spider_, artificial, described, i. 177. _Spirits_, fired without heating, i. 214, 245. linen wetted with, cooling in inflammations, ii. 87. should always be taken to sea in bottles, 175. _Spots_ in the sun, how formed, i. 260. _Squares_, magical square of, ii. 324. _Staffordshire_ chimney, description of, ii. 285. _Stamp-act_ in America stigmatized, iii. 228. letter on the repeal of, iii. 239. examination of Franklin on, 245. _Stars._ See _Shooting_. _State_, internal, of America, iii. 291. _Storms_, causes of, ii. 65. _Stove_, Dutch, its advantages and defects, ii. 233. German, ditto, 234. to draw downwards, by J. G. Leutmann, 298. for burning pit-coal and consuming its smoke, 301, 304, 308. _Strata_ of the earth, letter on, ii. 116. _Strahan_, Mr. queries by, on American politics, iii. 287. answer to the queries, 290. letter to, disclaiming his friendship, iii. 354. _Stuber_, Dr. continuator of Franklin's life, i. 98. _Studies_ of trifles, should be moderate, ii. 95. _Stuttering_, one of the affected beauties of modern tunes, ii. 245. _Sugar_, cruelties exercised in producing it, ii. 196. _Sulphur_ globe, its electricity different from that of the glass globe, i. 265. _Sun_, supplies vapour with fire, i. 207. why not wasted by expense of light, 259. effect of its rays on different coloured clothes, ii. 108. light of, proposed to be used instead of candlelight, iii. 470, 473. discovered to give light as soon as it rises, 471. _Surfaces_ of glass, different state of its opposite ones, when electrised, i. 191, 238. _Swimming_, skill of Franklin in, i. 66. art of, how to be acquired, ii. 206 how a person unacquainted with it may avoid sinking, 208. a delightful and wholesome exercise, ii. 209, 211. advantage of, to soldiers, 210. inventions to improve it, _ibid._ 212. medical effects of, _ibid._ T. _Tariffs_, not easily settled in Indian trade, iii. 218. _Tautology_, an affected beauty of modern songs, ii. 345. _Taxation_, American, letters to governor Shirley on, iii. 30. American, Dr. Franklin's examination on, iii. 246, 256. internal and external, distinguished, 259. on importation of goods and consumption, difference between, 266. _Tea-act_, the duty on, in America, how considered there, iii. 261, 317, 319. characterized by Mr. Burke, 319, _note_. _Teach_, or Blackbeard, name of a ballad written by Franklin in his youth, i. 16. _Thanks_ of the assembly of Pensylvania to Franklin, iii. 214. _Thanksgiving-days_ appointed in New England instead of fasts, iii. 392. _Theory_ of the earth, ii. 117. of light and heat, 122. _Thermometer_, not cooled by blowing on, when dry, ii. 87. electrical, described, and experiments with, ii. 336. _Thermometrical_ observations on the gulph-stream, ii. 199. on the warmth of sea-water, 200. _Thirst_, may be relieved by sea-water, how, ii. 105. _Thunder_ and lightning, how caused, i. 209. seldom heard far from land, 216. comparatively little at Bermuda, _ibid._ defined, 378. _Thunder-gusts_, what, i. 203. hypothesis to explain them, 203, _et seq._ _Tides_ in rivers, motion of, explained, ii. 96, 102. _Time_, occasional fragments of, how to be collected, ii. 412. is money to a tradesman, iii. 463. _Toads_ live long without nourishment, ii. 223. _Toleration_ in Old and New England compared, ii. 457. _Torpedo_, how to determine its electricity, i. 408, 409. _Tourmalin_, its singular electrical properties, i. 370. experiments on it, 371, 372. _Trade_, pleasure attending the first earnings in, i. 81. should be under no restrictions, ii. 415. exchanges in, may be advantageous to each party, 418. inland carriage no obstruction, to, iii. 116. great rivers in America, favourable to, 118. bills of credit, in lieu of money, the best medium of, 156. will find and make its own rates, 219. _Tradesman_, advice to a young one, iii. 463. _Transportation_ of felons to America, highly disagreeable to the inhabitants there, iii. 235. _Treaty_ between America and Prussia, humane article of, ii. 449. _Treasures_, hidden, search after, ridiculed, iii. 450. _Trees_, dangerous to be under, in thunder-storms, i. 213. the shivering of, by lightning, explained, 359. why cool in the sun, ii. 87. _Tubes_ of glass, electrical, manner of rubbing, i. 178. lined with a non-electric, experiment with, 240. exhausted, electric fire moves freely in, 241. _Tunes_, ancient Scotch, why give general pleasure, ii. 338. composed to the wire-harp, 341. in parts, Rousseau's opinion of, 342. modern, absurdities of, 344, _et seq._ _Turkey_ killed by electricity, i. 299. _Turks_, ceremony observed by, in visiting, iii. 436. V. U. _Vacuum_, Torricellian, experiment with, i. 291. electrical experiment in, 317. _Vapour_, electrical experiment on, i. 343. _Vapours_ from moist hay, &c. easily fired by lightning, i. 215. cause of their rising considered, ii. 46, 49. _Vanity_, observation on, i. 2. _Varnish_, dry, burnt by electric sparks, i. 199. _Vattel's_ Law of Nations, greatly consulted by the American congress, iii. 360. _Vegetable_ diet, observed by Franklin, i. 20. abandoned by Franklin, why, 47. _Vegetation_, effects of, on noxious air, ii. 129. _Velocity_ of the electric fire, i. 319. _Virtue_ in private life exemplified, iii. 427. _Vernon_, Mr. reposes a trust in Franklin, which he violates, i. 44. _Vis_ inertiæ of matter, observations on, ii. 110. _Visits_, unseasonable and importunate, letter on, iii. 432. _Unintelligibleness_, a fault of modern singing, ii. 345. _Union_, Albany plan of. See _Albany_. _Union_ of America with Britain, letter on, iii. 239. _United_ states of America, nature of the congress of, iii. 550*. _Voyage_, from Boston to New York, i. 27. from New York to Philadelphia, 28. from Newfoundland to New York, remarks on, ii. 197. crossing the gulph stream, journal of, 199. from Philadelphia to France, 200, 201. from the channel to America, 202. to benefit distant countries, proposed, 403. _Vulgar_ opinions, too much slighted, ii. 146. W. _Waggons_, number of, supplied by Franklin, on a military emergency, i. 131. _War_, civil, whether it strengthens a country considered, ii. 399. observations on, 435. laws of, gradually humanized, _ib._ humane article respecting, in a treaty between Prussia and America, ii. 449. French, of 1757, its origin, iii. 274. _Warm_ rooms do not make people tender, or give colds, ii. 249. _Washington_, early military talents of, i. 130. Franklin's bequest to, 164. _Water_, a perfect conductor of electricity, i. 201. strongly electrified, rises in vapour, 204. particles of, in rising, are attached to particles of air, 205. and air, attract each other, 206. exploded like gunpowder, by electricity, 358. expansion of, when reduced to vapour, _ib._ saturated with salt, precipitates the overplus, ii. 2. will dissolve in air, _ib._ expands when boiling, _ib._ how supported in air, 45. bubbles on the surface of, hypothesis respecting, 48. agitated, does not produce heat, 49, 96. supposed originally all salt, 91. fresh, produce of distillation only, _ib._ curious effects of oil on, 142. _Water-casks_, how to dispose of, in leaky vessels, ii. 170. _Water-spouts_, observations on, ii. 11. whether they descend or ascend, 14, 23, 38. various appearances of, 16. winds blow from all points towards them, 21. are whirlwinds at sea, _ib._ effect of one on the coast of Guinea, 33. account of one at Antigua, 34. various instances of, 38. Mr. Colden's observations on, 53. _Watson_, Mr. William, letter by, on thunder-clouds, i. 427. _Waves_, stilled by oil, ii. 144, 145, 148. greasy water, 146. _Wax_, when fluid will conduct electricity, i. 256. may be electrised positively and negatively, 291. _Wealth_, way to, iii. 453. national, positions to be examined concerning, ii. 408. but three ways of acquiring it, 410. _Webb_, George, a companion of Franklin's, i. 72, 84, 86. _Wedderburn_, Mr. remarks on his treatment of Franklin before the privy council, iii. 330, 332, notes; 550. _West_, Mr. his conductor struck by lightning, i. 340. _Western_ colonies, plan for settling them, iii. 41. _Whatley_, Mr. four letters to, iii. 543*. _Wheels_, electrical, described, i. 196. _Whirlwinds_, how formed, ii. 10. observations on, 20. a remarkable one at Rome, 24. account of one in Maryland, 61. _Whistle_, a story, iii. 480. _White_, fittest colour for clothes in hot climates, ii. 109. _Will_, extracts from Franklin's, i. 155. _Wilson_, Mr. draws electricity from the clouds, i. 429. _Wind_ generated by fermentation, ii. 59. _Winds_ explained, ii. 8, 9, 48. the explanation objected to, 50, 51. observations on, by Mr. Colden, 52. whether confined to, or generated in, clouds, 57. raise the surface of the sea above its level, 188. effect of, on sound, 337. _Winters_, hard, causes of, ii. 68. _Winthrop_, professor, letters from, i. 373, 382. _Wire_ conducts a great stroke of lightning, though destroyed itself, i. 282. _Wolfe_, general, i. 136. _Women_ of Paris, singular saying respecting, as mothers, iii. 548*. _Wood_, dry, will not conduct electricity, i. 172. why does not feel so cold as metals, ii. 56. _Woods_, not unhealthy to inhabit, ii. 130. _Woollen_, why warmer than linen, ii. 57, 81. _Words_, to modern songs, only a pretence for singing, ii. 348. _Wygate_, an acquaintance of Franklin's, i. 66. _Wyndham_, sir William, applies to Franklin to teach his sons swimming, i. 69. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources. For consistency and clarity, the pound abbreviation 'l.' has been italicized, so for example '123,321l.' has been replaced by '123,321_l._' in the etext. For consistency, the date and salutation at the beginning of each letter, and the closing and name at the end of each letter, have been put on separate lines (they were sometimes placed on the same line in the original printed text). A 'List of the Plates' has been created and added in front of the Errata. For consistency, all occurrences of 'Abbe' have been replaced by 'Abbé'. One occurrence of the oe ligature replaced by oe (l'oeuvre). Text omitted by the editor may be indicated by '***', '****' or '----'. All the changes noted in the Errata (pg xiv) have been applied to the text. Except for those changes noted below, misspelling in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained. For example, compleat; cieling; inclose; watry; spunge; negociate; Pensylvania; Massachussets; newspaper, news-paper; farther, further. In addition: Pg v. 'works af' replaced by 'works of'. Pg vi. 'side the' replaced by 'side of the'. Pg xiv. 'anology' replaced by 'analogy'. Pg xiv. Errata: '12 1:' replaced by '20 1:'. Pg xiv. Errata: '29 3:' replaced by '28 3:'. Pg xiv. Errata: '40 19:' replaced by '50 19:'. Pg 5. 'frandfather' replaced by 'grandfather'. Pg 48. 'oponent' replaced by 'opponent'. Pg 74. 'tolera-manner' replaced by 'tolerable manner'. Pg 102. 'over the the lives' replaced by 'over the lives'. Pg 110. 'Mary-la-ville' replaced by 'Marly-la-ville'. Pg 110. 'with a whom' replaced by 'with whom'. Pg 131. 'a juncion with' replaced by 'a junction with'. Pg 132. 'of governtment' replaced by 'of government'. Pg 133. 'was appehensive' replaced by 'was apprehensive'. Pg 139. 'in the goal' replaced by 'in the gaol'. Pg 140. 'A num-of' replaced by 'A number of'. Pg 142. 'be learned' replaced by 'he learned'. Pg 144. 'stampt-act' replaced by 'stamp-act'. Pg 170. 'in crouds' replaced by 'in crowds'. Pg 173. 'o bright' replaced by 'of a bright'. Pg 222. 'with mose ease' replaced by 'with more ease'. Pg 242. 'yerhaps' replaced by 'perhaps'. Pg 244. 'does nor burn' replaced by 'does not burn'. Pg 263. 'powdered sulpur' replaced by 'powdered sulphur'. Pg 305. 'satisfation' replaced by 'satisfaction'. Pg 310. 'appear to to me' replaced by 'appear to me'. Pg 318. The * * * asterisks denote text omitted by the Editor. Pg 356. 'and by electricty' replaced by 'and by electricity'. Pg 358. 'above a a quarter' replaced by 'above a quarter'. Pg 404. 'most of of the' replaced by 'most of the'. Pg 406. 'silk handkercheif' replaced by 'silk handkerchief'. Pg 418. 'and bottless' replaced by 'and bottles'. Pg 424. 'è celle que' replaced by 'à celle que'. Pg 424. 'piquûres' replaced by 'piqûres'. Pg 426. 'évenénement' replaced by 'événement'. Pg 440. 'and so dicharge' replaced by 'and so discharge'. Index Pg 4i. 'Animalcnles' replaced by 'Animalcules'. Index Pg 29i. 'relation batween' replaced by 'relation between'. The Index covers all three volumes and was originally printed at the end of Volume 1 only. It has been copied to the end of Volume 2 and 3 as a convenience for the reader. The Index had no page numbers in the original text; page numbers from 1i to 36i have been added for completeness. For clarity, some volume identifiers (i. or ii. or iii.) have been added, or removed, in the index. Only references within this volume have been hyperlinked. The Index has some references to page numbers with a *, eg 551*. These are valid references; the book printer inserted pages 543*-556* between pages 542 and 543 in Vol iii. 
21348	----	[Illustration: Benj. Franklin] American Statesmen Standard Library Edition [Illustration: _Independence Hall, Philadelphia, 1776_] BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BY JOHN T. MORSE, JR. [Illustration] BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1899 Copyright, 1898, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. _All rights reserved._ EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION The editor has often been asked: "Upon what principle have you constructed this series of lives of American statesmen?" The query has always been civil in form, while in substance it has often implied that the "principle," as to which inquiry is made, has been undiscoverable by the interrogator. Other queries, like pendants, have also come: Why have you not included A, or B, or C? The inference from these is that the querist conceives A, or B, or C to be statesmen certainly not less eminent than E, or F, or G, whose names he sees upon the list. Now there really has been a principle of selection; but it has not been a mathematical principle, whereby the several statesmen of the country have been brought to the measuring-pole, like horses, and those of a certain height have been accepted, and those not seeming to reach that height have been rejected. The principle has been to make such a list of men in public life that the aggregation of all their biographies would give, in this personal shape, the history and the picture of the growth and development of the United States from the beginning of that agitation which led to the Revolution until the completion of that solidarity which we believe has resulted from the civil war and the subsequent reconstruction. In illustration, let me speak of a few volumes. Patrick Henry was hardly a great statesman; but, apart from the prestige and romance which his eloquence has thrown about his memory, he furnished the best opportunity for drawing a picture of the South in the period preceding the Revolution, and for showing why and how the southern colonies, among whom Virginia was easily the leader, became sharers in the strife. Benton might possibly have been included upon his own merits. But if there were any doubt upon this point, or if including him would seem to have rendered it proper to include others equally eminent and yet omitted, the reply is that Benton serves the important purpose of giving the best available opportunity to sketch the character of the Southwest, and the political feeling and development in that section of the country. In like manner, Cass was hardly a great statesman, although very active and prominent for a long period. But the Northwest--or what used to be the Northwest not so very long ago--comes out of the wilderness and into the domain of civilization in the life of Cass. John Randolph, erratic and bizarre, was not justly entitled to rank among great statesmen. But the characteristics of Congress, as a body, can be brought into better relief in the narrative of his life than in that of any other person of his day. These characteristics were so striking, so essential to an understanding of the history of those times, and so utterly different from the habits and ways of our own era, that an opportunity to present them must have been forced if Randolph had not fortunately offered it. These four volumes are mentioned by way of illustration of the plan of the series in some of its less obvious purposes. By the light of the suggestions thus afforded, readers will probably see for themselves the motives which have led to the presence of other volumes. But one further statement should be made. It has been the editor's intention to deal with the advancement of the country. When the people have moved steadily along any road, the men who have led them on that road have been selected as subjects. When the people have refused to enter upon a road, or, having entered, have soon turned back from it, the leaders upon such inchoate or abandoned excursions have for the most part been rejected. Those who have been exponents of ideas and principles which have entered into the progress and have developed in a positive way the history of the nation have been chosen; those who have unfortunately linked themselves with rejected ideas and principles have themselves also been rejected. Calhoun has been made an exception to this rule, for reasons so obvious that they need not be rehearsed. A Series of Great Failures presents fine opportunities, which will some day attract some enterprising editor; but that is not the undertaking here in hand. If the men who guided and the men who failed to guide the movement and progress of the country were to stand side by side in this series its size would be increased by at least one third, but probably not so its value. Yet the failures have held out some temptations which it has been difficult to resist. For example, there was Governor Hutchinson, whose life has since been written by the same gentleman who in this series has admirably presented his great antagonist, Samuel Adams. There was much to be said in favor of setting the two portraits, done by the same hand, side by side. It must be remembered that the cause for the disaffected colonists is argued by the writers in this series in the old-fashioned way,--that is to say, upon the fundamental theory that Great Britain was foully wrong and her cis-Atlantic subjects nobly right. A life of Hutchinson would have furnished an opportunity for showing that, as an unmodified proposition, this is very far from being correct. The time has come when efforts to state the quarrel fairly for both parties are not altogether refused a hearing in the United States. Nevertheless the admission of Hutchinson for this purpose would have entailed too many consequences. The colonists _did_ secede and _did_ establish independence; their action and their success constitute the history of the country; and the leaders of their movement are the persons whose portraits are properly hung in this gallery. The obstructionists, leaders of the defeated party, who failed to control our national destiny, must find room elsewhere. In the same way, Stephen A. Douglas has been left outside the door. Able, distinguished, influential, it was yet his misfortune to represent ideas and policies which the people decisively condemned. Sufficient knowledge of these ideas and policies is obtained from the lives of those who opposed and triumphed over them. The history of non-success needs not the elaborate presentation of a biography of the defeated leader in a series of statesmen. The work of Douglas was discredited; it does not remain as an active surviving influence, or as an integral part amid our modern conditions. Andrew Johnson, also, furnished such an admirable opportunity for the discussion of the subject of reconstruction that some persons have thought that he should have found a place. But this was impossible unless he were absolutely necessary for this especial purpose; and fortunately he was not so, since the work could be done in the lives of Seward and Stevens and Sumner. Then, if one were willing to contribute to the immortality of a scoundrel, there was Aaron Burr; but large as was the part which he played for a while in American politics, and near as it came to being very much larger, the presence of his name would have been a degradation of the series. Moreover his career was strictly selfish and personal; he led no party, represented no idea, and left no permanent trace. There was also William H. Crawford, who narrowly missed being President, and who was a greater man than many of the Presidents; but he _did_ miss, and he died, and there was an end of him. There was Buchanan also; intellectually he had the making of a statesman; but his wrong-headed blundering is sufficiently depicted for the purposes of this series by the lives of those who foiled him. These names, again, are mentioned only as indications of the scheme, as explaining some exclusions. There are other exclusions, which have been made, not because the individuals were not men of note, but because it seemed that the story of their lives would fill no hiatus among the volumes of the completed series. The editor cannot expect every one to agree with him in the selection which he has made. We all have our favorites in past history as well as in modern politics, and few lists would precisely duplicate each other. So the only thing which would seriously afflict the editor with a sense of having made a bad blunder would be, if some one should detect a really gaping chasm, a neglect to treat somewhere among the lives some important item of our national history falling within the period which the series is designed to cover. The whole series naturally shapes itself, in a somewhat crude and rough way to be sure, yet by virtue of substantial lines of division, into a few sub-series or groups. The first of these belongs to the Revolutionary period, what may be called the destructive period, since it witnessed the destruction of the long-established political conditions. In this group we find the leaders of the disaffection and revolt: Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and George Washington. Washington, of course, might properly find a place also in the second group; but for the purposes of separation he is by preference placed in the first one, because the Revolution was to so great an extent his own personal achievement, his transcendent and crowning glory. The second group, constituting the constructive period, comprises the men who were foremost in framing the Constitution, and in organizing and giving coherence and life to the new government and to the nationality thereby created. This is introduced by John Adams. He, like Washington, might properly find a place in both the first and the second groups, but the distinction of the presidential office brings him with sufficient propriety into the second. The others in this group are Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, John Jay, and John Marshall. The third group follows the overthrow of Federalism with its theory of a strongly centralized government. This, of course, begins with Thomas Jefferson, who led and organized the new party of the democracy. He is followed by his political disciple, James Madison; by their secretary of the treasury, Albert Gallatin; and by James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and John Randolph. The two last named are hardly to be called Jeffersonians, but they mark the passage of the nation from the statesmanship of Jefferson to the widely different democracy of Jackson. The fourth group witnesses the absorption of the nation in questions of domestic policy. The crude and rough domination of Andrew Jackson opened a new order of things. Men's minds were busied with affairs at home, at first more especially with the tariff, then more and more exclusively with slavery. This group, besides Jackson, includes Martin Van Buren, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Thomas H. Benton, and Lewis Cass. The fifth and closing group is that of the civil war. This of course opens with Abraham Lincoln. The others are William H. Seward, as being a sort of prime minister throughout the period; Salmon P. Chase, in whose life can properly be discussed the financial policy and the principal legal matters; Charles Francis Adams, embodying the important topic of diplomatic relations; Charles Sumner, representing the advanced abolitionist element; and Thaddeus Stevens, who appears as a tribune, perhaps we may say the leader, in the popular branch of Congress. Almost inevitably the series begins with Benjamin Franklin, the first great American, the first man born on this side of the water who was "meant for the universe." His mere existence was a sort of omen. It was absurd to suppose that a people which could produce a man of that scope, in character and intellect, could long remain in a condition of political dependence. It would have been preposterous to have had Franklin die a colonist, and go down to posterity, not as an American, but as a colonial Englishman. He was a microcosm of the coming nation of the United States; all the better moral and intellectual qualities of our people existed in him, save only the dreamy philosophy of the famous New England school of thinkers. It is very interesting to see how slowly and reluctantly, yet how surely and decisively, he came to the point of resistance and independence. He was not like so many, who were unstable and shifting. There was no backward step, though there were many painful and unwilling forward ones in his progress. One feels almost as if an apology were needed for writing another life of a man so be-written. Yet there is some reason for doing so; the chapter concerning his services in France during the Revolution presents the true facts and the magnitude of his usefulness more carefully than, so far as I am aware, it has previously been done. As a promoter of the Revolution, Samuel Adams has easily the most conspicuous place. He was an agitator to the very centre of his marrow. He was the incarnation of New England; to know thoroughly his career is to know the Massachusetts of that day as an anatomist knows the human frame. The man of the town meeting did more to kindle the Revolution than any other one person. Many stood with him, but his life tells the story and presents the picture. The like service is done for Virginia by Patrick Henry; and the contrast between the two men is most striking and picturesque, yet not more so than the difference between the two sections of the country to which they respectively belonged. If John Adams had died before he was made President, he also would have been one of this group. But the lustre of his official position prevents our placing him in the earlier constellation. Yet, though not more prominent than many others, in fact hardly to be called prominent at all in the events which led up to the Revolution, he became a leader in the first Congress, and it is probable that no one contributed more than he did--possibly no one contributed so much--towards forcing the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Washington, though a member of Congress, was by no means conspicuous in the agitation which preceded the actual outbreak of hostilities. His entry in his uniform among his civilian comrades was indeed dramatic; but his important public career really began with his acceptance of the position of commander in chief. In this capacity he achieved the overthrow of the British supremacy, and brought to a successful close the period of destruction. This first group is a small one, for the first Congress brought no new men to the front. Indeed, that body lost its own prestige very soon after independence was declared; thereafter it was no stage on which new men could win distinction, or men already famous could add to their store; indeed, members were lucky if they escaped without diminution of their reputations, by very reason of being parts of so nerveless and useless a body. The fact is, that the civilians, after they had set the ball going, did little more. They contributed almost nothing to the Revolution in any practical way during its actual progress. Perhaps they could not; but certainly they did not. Washington and his officers and soldiers deserve all the credit for making independence a reality instead of an assertion. They were not very strenuously or generously backed by the mass of the people after the first fervor was over. The truth is that that grand event was the work of a small body of heroes, who presented freedom and nationality to the people of the thirteen colonies. John Adams and Congress said that the colonists were free, and there left the matter, _functi officio_. Washington and the troops took up the business, and actually made colonists into freemen. Those upon whom this dignity and advantage were conferred were, for the most part, content somewhat supinely to allow the new condition to be established for them. JOHN T. MORSE, JR. September, 1898. CONTENTS I. EARLY YEARS 1 II. A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA: CONCERNMENT IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS 17 III. REPRESENTATIVE OF PENNSYLVANIA IN ENGLAND: RETURN HOME 59 IV. LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA 86 V. SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND: I. 100 VI. SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND: II. 142 VII. SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND: III. THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS: THE PRIVY COUNCIL SCENE: RETURN HOME 177 VIII. SERVICES IN THE STATES 204 IX. MINISTER TO FRANCE: I. DEANE AND BEAUMARCHAIS: FOREIGN OFFICERS 220 X. MINISTER TO FRANCE: II. PRISONERS: TROUBLE WITH LEE AND OTHERS 248 XI. MINISTER TO FRANCE: III. TREATY WITH FRANCE: MORE QUARRELS 267 XII. FINANCIERING 304 XIII. HABITS OF LIFE AND OF BUSINESS: AN ADAMS INCIDENT 337 XIV. PEACE NEGOTIATIONS: LAST YEARS IN FRANCE 357 XV. AT HOME: PRESIDENT OF PENNSYLVANIA: THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION: DEATH 403 INDEX 429 ILLUSTRATIONS BENJAMIN FRANKLIN From the original by Jean Baptiste Greuze, in the Boston Public Library. It was painted for Benjamin Franklin as a gift to Richard Oswald, the English commissioner associated with him in the peace negotiations of 1782. Gardner Brewer of Boston bought the painting in 1872 and presented it to the Library. Autograph from the Declaration of Independence. The vignette of Independence Hall is after a drawing in the possession of the American Bank Note Co., Philadelphia. COUNT VERGENNES From the frontispiece to Doniol, "Histoire de la Participation de la France à l'Establissement des Etats-Unis d'Amérique," Paris, 1886, 5 vols., 4to. vol. i.; an engraving by Vangelisti, from the original painting by Antoine Francois Callet. Autograph from same book. LORD HILLSBOROUGH (Born Wills Hill; afterwards Marquis of Downshire) From a painting by J. Rising, owned by Lord Salisbury. Autograph from MS. collection in the New York Public Library, Lenox Building. PAUL JONES From the original portrait by C. W. Peale in Independence Hall. Autograph from MS. collection in Library of Boston Athenæum. SEA-FIGHT BETWEEN THE SERAPIS AND BON HOMME RICHARD Off Flamborough Head, September 3, 1779. Paul Jones's ship, in compliment to the author of "Poor Richard's Maxims," was named "Bon Homme Richard." Captain Pearson, who commanded the Serapis, was knighted for his heroic resistance. Paul Jones, tradition says, on hearing of the honor conferred on Pearson, good-naturedly observed, "If I ever meet him again, I'll make a lord of him." BENJAMIN FRANKLIN CHAPTER I EARLY YEARS It is a lamentable matter for any writer to find himself compelled to sketch, however briefly, the early years of Benjamin Franklin. That autobiography, in which the story of those years is so inimitably told, by its vividness, its simplicity, even by its straightforward vanity, and by the quaint charm of its old-fashioned but well-nigh faultless style, stands among the few masterpieces of English prose. It ought to have served for the perpetual protection of its subject as a copyright more sacred than any which rests upon mere statutory law. Such, however, has not been the case, and the narrative has been rehearsed over and over again till the American who is not familiar with it is indeed a curiosity. Yet no one of the subsequent narrators has justified his undertaking. Therefore because the tale has been told so often, and once has been told so well, and also in order that the stone which it is my lot to cast upon a cairn made up of so many failures may at least be only a small pebble, I shall get forward as speedily as possible to that point in Franklin's career where his important public services begin, at the same time commending every reader to turn again for further refreshment of his knowledge to those pages which might well have aroused the envy of Fielding and Defoe. Franklin came from typical English stock. For three hundred years, perhaps for many centuries more, his ancestors lived on a small freehold at Ecton in Northamptonshire, and so far back as record or tradition ran the eldest son in each generation had been bred a blacksmith. But after the strange British fashion there was intertwined with this singular fixedness of ideas a stubborn independence in thinking, courageously exercised in times of peril. The Franklins were among the early Protestants, and held their faith unshaken by the terrors of the reign of Bloody Mary. By the end of Charles the Second's time they were non-conformists and attendants on conventicles; and about 1682 Josiah Franklin, seeking the peaceful exercise of his creed, migrated to Boston, Massachusetts. His first wife bore him seven children, and died. Not satisfied, he took in second nuptials Abiah Folger, "daughter of Peter Folger, one of the first settlers of New England, of whom honorable mention is made by Cotton Mather," and justly, since in those dark days he was an active philanthropist towards the Indians, and an opponent of religious persecution.[1] This lady outdid her predecessor, contributing no less than ten children to expand the family circle. The eighth of this second brood was named Benjamin, in memory of his father's favorite brother. He was born in a house on Milk Street, opposite the Old South Church, January 6, old style, 17, new style, 1706. Mr. Parton says that probably Benjamin "derived from his mother the fashion of his body and the cast of his countenance. There are lineal descendants of Peter Folger who strikingly resemble Franklin in these particulars; one of whom, a banker of New Orleans, looks like a portrait of Dr. Franklin stepped out of its frame."[2] A more important inheritance was that of the humane and liberal traits of his mother's father. [Note 1: Parton's _Life of Franklin_, i. 27.] [Note 2: _Ibid._ i. 31.] In that young, scrambling village in the new country, where all material, human or otherwise, was roughly and promptly utilized, the unproductive period of boyhood was cut very short. Franklin's father speedily resolved to devote him, "as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the church," and so sent him to the grammar school. A droller misfit than Franklin in an orthodox New England pulpit of that era can hardly be imagined; but since he was only seven years old when his father endeavored to arrange his life's career, a misappreciation of his fitnesses was not surprising. The boy himself had the natural hankering of children bred in a seaboard town for the life of a sailor. It is amusing to fancy the discussions between this babe of seven years and his father, concerning his occupation in life. Certainly the babe had not altogether the worst of it, for when he was eight years old his father definitively gave up the notion of making him a preacher of the Gospel. At the ripe age of ten he was taken from school, and set to assist his father in the trade of tallow-chandler and soap-boiler. But dipping wicks and pouring grease pleased him hardly better than reconciling infant damnation and a red-hot hell with the loveliness of Christianity. The lad remained discontented. His chief taste seemed to be for reading, and great were the ingenuity and the self-sacrifice whereby he secured books and leisure to read them. The resultant of these several forces was at last a suggestion from his father that he should take up, as a sort of quasi-literary occupation, the trade of a printer. James Franklin, an older brother of Benjamin, was already of that calling. Benjamin stood out for some time, but at last reluctantly yielded, and in the maturity of his thirteenth year this child set his hand to an indenture of apprenticeship which formally bound him to his brother for the next nine years of his life. Handling the types aroused a boyish ambition to see himself in print. He scribbled some ballads, one about a shipwreck, another about the capture of a pirate; but he "escaped being a poet," as fortunately as he had escaped being a clergyman. James Franklin seems to have trained his junior with such fraternal cuffs and abuse as the elder brothers of English biography and literature appear usually to have bestowed on the younger. But this younger one got his revenges. James published the "New England Courant," and, inserting in it some objectionable matter, was forbidden to continue it. Thereupon he canceled the indenture of apprenticeship, and the newspaper was thereafter published by Benjamin Franklin. A secret renewal of the indenture was executed simultaneously. This "flimsy scheme" gave the boy his chance. Secure that the document would never be produced, he resolved to leave the printing-house. But the influence of James prevented his getting employment elsewhere in the town. Besides this, other matters also harassed him. It gives an idea of the scale of things in the little settlement, and of the serious way in which life was taken even at its outset, to hear that this 'prentice lad of seventeen years had already made himself "a little obnoxious to the governing party," so as to fear that he might soon "bring himself into scrapes." For the inherited habit of freedom in religious speculation had taken a new form in Franklin, who was already a free-thinker, and by his "indiscreet disputations about religion" had come to be "pointed at with horror by good people as an infidel and atheist"--compromising, even perilous, names to bear in that Puritan village. Various motives thus combined to induce migration. He stole away on board a sloop bound for New York, and after three days arrived there, in October, 1723. He had but a trifling sum of money, and he knew no one in the strange city. He sought occupation in his trade, but got nothing better than advice to move on to Philadelphia; and thither he went. The story of this journeying is delightfully told in the autobiography, with the famous little scene wherein he figures with a loaf under each arm and munching a third while he walks "up Market Street, as far as Fourth Street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future wife's father; when she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance." In Philadelphia Franklin soon found opportunity to earn a living at his trade. There were then only two printers in that town, ignorant men both, with scant capacity in the technique of their calling. His greater acquirements and ability, and superior knowledge of the craft, soon attracted attention. One day Sir William Keith, governor of the province, appeared at the printing-office, inquired for Franklin, and carried him off "to taste some excellent Madeira" with himself and Colonel French, while employer Keimer, bewildered at the compliment to his journeyman, "star'd like a pig poison'd." Over the genial glasses the governor proposed that Franklin should set up for himself, and promised his own influence to secure for him the public printing. Later he wrote a letter, intended to induce Franklin's father to advance the necessary funds. Equipped with this document, Franklin set out, in April, 1724, to seek his father's coöperation, and surprised his family by appearing unannounced among them, not at all in the classic garb of the prodigal son, but "having a genteel new suit from head to foot, a watch, and my pockets lin'd with near five pounds sterling in silver." But neither his prosperous appearance nor the flattering epistle of the great man could induce his hard-headed parent to favor a scheme "of setting a boy up in business, who wanted yet three years of being at man's estate." The independent old tallow-chandler only concluded that the distinguished baronet "must be of small discretion." So Franklin returned with "some small gifts as tokens" of parental love, much good advice as to "steady industry and prudent parsimony," but no cash in hand. The gallant governor, however, said: "Since he will not set you up, I will do it myself," and a plan was soon concocted whereby Franklin was to go to England and purchase a press and types with funds to be advanced by Sir William. Everything was arranged, only from day to day there was delay in the actual delivery to Franklin of the letters of introduction and credit. The governor was a very busy man. The day of sailing came, but the documents had not come, only a message from the governor that Franklin might feel easy at embarking, for that the papers should be sent on board at Newcastle, down the stream. Accordingly, at the last moment, a messenger came hurriedly on board and put the packet into the captain's hands. Afterward, when during the leisure hours of the voyage the letters were sorted, none was found for Franklin. His patron had simply broken an inconvenient promise. It was indeed a "pitiful trick" to "impose so grossly on a poor innocent boy." Yet Franklin, in his broad tolerance of all that is bad as well as good in human nature, spoke with good-tempered indifference, and with more of charity than of justice, concerning the deceiver. "It was a habit he had acquired. He wish'd to please everybody; and, having little to give, he gave expectations. He was otherwise an ingenious, sensible man, a pretty good writer, and a good governor for the people.... Several of our best laws were of his planning, and passed during his administration." None the less it turned out that this contemptible governor did Franklin a good turn in sending him to London, though the benefit came in a fashion not anticipated by either. For Franklin, not yet much wiser than the generality of mankind, had to go through his period of youthful folly, and it was good fortune for him that the worst portion of this period fell within the eighteen months which he passed in England. Had this part of his career been run in Philadelphia its unsavory aroma might have kept him long in ill odor among his fellow townsmen, then little tolerant of profligacy. But the "errata" of a journeyman printer in London were quite beyond the ken of provincial gossips. He easily gained employment in his trade, at wages which left him a little surplus beyond his maintenance. This surplus, during most of the time, he and his comrades squandered in the pleasures of the town. Yet in one matter his good sense showed itself, for he kept clear of drink; indeed, his real nature asserted itself even at this time, to such a degree that we find him waging a temperance crusade in his printing-house, and actually weaning some of his fellow compositors from their dearly loved "beer." One of these, David Hall, afterward became his able partner in the printing business in Philadelphia. Amid much bad companionship he fell in with some clever men. His friend James Ralph, though a despicable, bad fellow, had brains and some education. At this time, too, Franklin was in the proselyting stage of infidelity. He published "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain," and the pamphlet got him some little notoriety among the free-thinkers of London, and an introduction to some of them, but chiefly of the class who love to sit in taverns and blow clouds of words. Their society did him no good, and such effervescence was better blown off in London than in Philadelphia. But after the novelty of London life had worn off, it ceased to be to Franklin's taste. He began to reform somewhat, to retrench and lay by a little money; and after eighteen months he eagerly seized an opportunity which offered for returning home. This was opened to him by a Mr. Denham, a good man and prosperous merchant, then engaged in England in purchasing stock for his store in Philadelphia. Franklin was to be his managing and confidential clerk, with the prospect of rapid advancement. At the same time Sir William Wyndham, ex-chancellor of the exchequer, endeavored to persuade Franklin to open a swimming school in London. He promised very aristocratic patronage; and as an opening for money-getting this plan was perhaps the better. Franklin almost closed with the proposition. He seems, however, to have had a little touch of homesickness, a preference, if not quite a yearning, for the colonies, which sufficed to turn the scale. Such was his third escape; he might have passed his days in instructing the scions of British nobility in the art of swimming! He arrived at home, after a tedious voyage, October 11, 1726. But almost immediately fortune seemed to cross him, for Mr. Denham and he were both taken suddenly ill. Denham died; Franklin narrowly evaded death, and fancied himself somewhat disappointed at his recovery, "regretting in some degree that [he] must now sometime or other have all that disagreeable work to go over again." He seems to have become sufficiently interested in what was likely to follow his decease, in this world at least, to compose an epitaph which has become world-renowned, and has been often imitated:-- THE BODY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (LIKE THE COVER OF AN OLD BOOK, ITS CONTENTS TORN OUT, AND STRIPT OF ITS LETTERING AND GILDING,) LIES HERE, FOOD FOR WORMS, YET THE WORK ITSELF SHALL NOT BE LOST, FOR IT WILL, AS HE BELIEVED, APPEAR ONCE MORE, IN A NEW AND MORE BEAUTIFUL EDITION, CORRECTED AND AMENDED BY THE AUTHOR. But there was no use for this graveyard literature; Franklin got well, and recurred again to his proper trade. Being expert with the composing-stick, he was readily engaged at good wages by his old employer, Keimer. Franklin, however, soon suspected that this man's purpose was only to use him temporarily for instructing some green hands, and for organizing the printing-office. Naturally a quarrel soon occurred. But Franklin had proved his capacity, and forthwith the father of one Meredith, a fellow journeyman under Keimer, advanced sufficient money to set up the two as partners in the printing business. Franklin managed the office, showing admirable enterprise, skill, and industry. Meredith drank. This allotment of functions soon produced its natural result. Two friends of Franklin lent him what capital he needed; he bought out Meredith and had the whole business for himself. His zeal increased; he won good friends, gave general satisfaction, and absorbed all the best business in the province. At the time of the formation of the partnership the only newspaper of Pennsylvania was published by Bradford, a rival of Keimer in the printing business. It was "a paltry thing, wretchedly managed, no way entertaining, and yet was profitable to him." Franklin and Meredith resolved to start a competing sheet; but Keimer got wind of their plan, and at once "published proposals for printing one himself." He had got ahead of them, and they had to desist. But he was ignorant, shiftless, and incompetent, and after carrying on his enterprise for "three quarters of a year, with at most only ninety subscribers," he sold out his failure to Franklin and Meredith "for a trifle." To them, or rather to Franklin, "it prov'd in a few years extremely profitable." Its original name, "The Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences, and Pennsylvania Gazette," was reduced by the amputation of the first clause, and, relieved from the burden of its trailing title, it circulated actively throughout the province, and further. Number 40, Franklin's first number, appeared October 2, 1729. Bradford, who was postmaster, refused to allow his post-riders to carry any save his own newspaper. But Franklin, whose morality was nothing if not practical, fought the devil with fire, and bribed the riders so judiciously that his newspaper penetrated whithersoever they went. He says of it: "Our first papers made a quite different appearance from any before in the Province; a better type, and better printed; but some spirited remarks of my writing, on the dispute then going on between Governor Burnet and the Massachusetts Assembly, struck the principal people, occasioned the paper and the manager of it to be much talked of, and in a few weeks brought them all to be our subscribers." Later his articles in favor of the issue of a sum of paper currency were so largely instrumental in carrying that measure that the profitable job of printing the money became his reward. Thus advancing in prestige and prosperity, he was able to discharge by installments his indebtedness. "In order to secure," he says, "my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care to be not only in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to the contrary." A characteristic remark. With Franklin every virtue had its market value, and to neglect to get that value out of it was the part of folly. About this time the wife of a glazier, who occupied part of Franklin's house, began match-making in behalf of a "very deserving" girl; and Franklin, nothing loath, responded with "serious courtship." He intimated his willingness to accept the maiden's hand, provided that its fellow hand held a dowry, and he named an hundred pounds sterling as his lowest figure. The parents, on the other part, said that they had not so much ready money. Franklin civilly suggested that they could get it by mortgaging their house; they firmly declined. The negotiation thereupon was abandoned. "This affair," Franklin continues, "having turned my thoughts to marriage, I look'd round me and made overtures of acquaintance in other places; but soon found that, the business of a printer being generally thought a poor one, I was not to expect money with a wife, unless with such a one as I should not otherwise think agreeable." Finding such difficulties in the way of a financial alliance, Franklin appears to have bethought him of affection as a substitute for dollars; so he blew into the ashes of an old flame, and aroused some heat. Before going to England he had engaged himself to Miss Deborah Read; but in London he had pretty well forgotten her, and had written to her only a single letter. Many years afterward, writing to Catharine Ray in 1755, he said: "The cords of love and friendship ... in times past have drawn me ... back from England to Philadelphia." If the remark referred to an affection for Miss Read, it was probably no more trustworthy than are most such allegations made when lapsing years have given a fictitious coloring to a remote past. If indeed Franklin's profligacy and his readiness to marry any girl financially eligible were symptoms attendant upon his being in love, it somewhat taxes the imagination to fancy how he would have conducted himself had he not been the victim of romantic passion. Miss Read, meanwhile, apparently about as much in love as her lover, had wedded another man, "one Rogers, a potter," a good workman but worthless fellow, who soon took flight from his bride and his creditors. Her position had since become somewhat questionable; for there was a story that her husband had an earlier wife living, in which case of course her marriage with him was null. There was also a story that he was dead. But there was little evidence of the truth of either tale. Franklin, therefore, hardly knew what he was wedding, a maid, a widow, or another man's wife. Moreover the runaway husband "had left many debts, which his successor might be call'd upon to pay." Few men, even if warmly enamored, would have entered into the matrimonial contract under circumstances so discouraging; and there are no indications save the marriage itself that Franklin was deeply in love. Yet on September 1, 1730, the pair were wedded. Mrs. Franklin survived for forty years thereafter, and neither seems ever to have regretted the step. "None of the inconveniences happened that we had apprehended," wrote Franklin; "she proved a good and faithful helpmate; assisted me much by attending the shop; we throve together, and have ever mutually endeavored to make each other happy." A sensible, comfortable, satisfactory union it was, showing how much better is sense than sensibility as an ingredient in matrimony. Mrs. Franklin was a handsome woman, of comely figure, yet nevertheless an industrious and frugal one; later on in life Franklin boasted that he had "been clothed from head to foot in linen of [his] wife's manufacture." An early contribution of his own to the domestic _ménage_ was his illegitimate son, William, born soon after his wedding, of a mother of whom no record or tradition remains. It was an unconventional wedding gift to bring home to a bride; but Mrs. Franklin, with a breadth and liberality of mind akin to her husband's, readily took the babe not only to her home but really to her heart, and reared him as if he had been her own offspring. Mr. Parton thinks that Franklin gave this excellent wife no further cause for suspicion or jealousy. CHAPTER II A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA: CONCERNMENT IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS So has ended the first stage, in the benign presence of Hymen. The period of youth may be regarded as over; but the narrative thereof, briefly as it has been given, is not satisfactory. One longs to help out the outline with color, to get the expression as well as merely the features of the young man who is going to become one of the greatest men of the nation. Many a writer and speaker has done what he could in this task, for Franklin has been for a century a chief idol of the American people. The Boston boy, the boy printer, the runaway apprentice, the young journeyman, friendless and penniless in distant London, are pictures which have been made familiar to many generations of schoolboys; and the trifling anecdote of the bread rolls eaten in the streets of Philadelphia has for its only rival among American historical traditions the more doubtful story about George Washington, the cherry-tree, and the little hatchet. Yet, if plain truth is to be told, there was nothing unusual about this sunrise, no rare tints of divine augury; the luminary came up in every-day fashion. Franklin had done much reading; he had taken pains to cultivate a good style in writing English; he had practiced himself in dispute; he had adopted some odd notions, for example vegetarianism in diet; he had at times acquired some influence among his fellow journeymen, and had used it for good; he had occasionally fallen into the society of men of good social position; he had kept clear of the prevalent habit of excessive drinking; sometimes he had lived frugally and had laid up a little money; more often he had been wasteful; he had been very dissolute, and in sowing his wild oats he had gone down into the mud. His autobiography gives us a simple, vivid, strong picture, which we accept as correct, though in reading it one sees that the lapse of time since the occurrences narrated, together with his own success and distinction in life, have not been without their obvious effect. By the time he thought it worth while to write those pages, Franklin had been taught to think very well of himself and his career. For this reason he was, upon the one hand, somewhat indifferent as to setting down what smaller men would conceal, confident that his fame would not stagger beneath the burden of youthful wrong-doing; on the other hand, he deals rather gently, a little ideally, with himself, as old men are wont to acknowledge with condemnation tempered with mild forgiveness the foibles of their early days. It is evident that, as a young man, Franklin intermingled sense with folly, correct living with dissipation, in a manner that must have made it difficult for an observer to forecast the final outcome, and which makes it almost equally impossible now to form a satisfactory idea of him. He is not to be disposed of by placing him in any ready-made and familiar class. If he had turned out a bad man, there would have been abundance in his early life to point the moralist's warning tale; as he turned out a very reputable one, there is scarcely less abundance for panegyrists to expatiate upon. Certainly he was a man to attract some attention and to carry some weight, yet not more than many another of whom the world never hears. At the time of his marriage, however, he is upon the verge of development; a new period of his life is about to begin; what had been dangerous and evil in his ways disappears; the breadth, originality, and practical character of his mind are about to show themselves. He has settled to a steady occupation; he is industrious and thrifty; he has gathered much information, and may be regarded as a well-educated man; he writes a plain, forcible style; he has enterprise and shrewdness in matters of business, and good sense in all matters,--that is the chief point, his sound sense has got its full growth and vigor, and of sound sense no man ever had more. Very soon he not only prospers financially, but begins to secure at first that attention and soon afterward that influence which always follow close upon success in practical affairs. He becomes the public-spirited citizen; scheme after scheme of social and public improvement is suggested and carried forward by him, until he justly comes to be one of the foremost citizens of Philadelphia. The enumeration of what he did within a few years in this small new town and poor community will be found surprising and admirable. His first enterprise, of a quasi public nature, was the establishment of a library. There were to be fifty subscribers for fifty years, each paying an entrance fee of forty shillings and an annual due of ten shillings. He succeeded only with difficulty and delay, yet he did succeed, and the results were important. Later a charter was obtained, and the number of subscribers was doubled. "This," he says, "was the mother of all the North American subscription libraries, now so numerous.... These libraries have improved the general conversation of the Americans, made the common traders and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and perhaps have contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the colonies in defense of their privileges." "Reading became fashionable," he adds. But it was not difficult to cultivate the desire for reading; that lay close to the surface. The boon which Franklin conferred lay rather in setting the example of a scheme by which books could be cheaply obtained in satisfactory abundance. From the course of this business he drew one of those shrewd, practical conclusions which aided him so much in life. He says that he soon felt "the impropriety of presenting one's self as the proposer of any useful project that might be supposed to raise one's reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's neighbors, when one has need of their assistance to accomplish that project. I therefore put myself as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a _number of friends_, who had requested me to go about and propose it." This method he found so well suited to the production of results that he habitually followed it in his subsequent undertakings. It was sound policy; the self-abnegation helped success; the success secured personal prestige. It was soon observed that when "a number of friends" or "a few gentlemen" were represented by Franklin, their purpose was usually good and was pretty sure to be carried through. Hence came reputation and influence. In December, 1732, he says, "I first published my Almanack, under the name of _Richard Saunders_," price five pence, thereby falling in with a common custom among the colonial printers. Within the month three editions were sold; and it was continued for twenty-five years thereafter with an average sale of 10,000 copies annually, until "Poor Richard" became a _nom de plume_ as renowned as any in English literature. The publication ranks as one of the most influential in the world. Its "proverbial sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality as the means of procuring wealth and thereby securing virtue," were sown like seed all over the land. The almanac went year after year, for quarter of a century, into the house of nearly every shopkeeper, planter, and farmer in the American provinces. Its wit and humor, its practical tone, its shrewd maxims, its worldly honesty, its morality of common sense, its useful information, all chimed well with the national character. It formulated in homely phrase and with droll illustration what the colonists more vaguely knew, felt, and believed upon a thousand points of life and conduct. In so doing it greatly trained and invigorated the natural mental traits of the people. "Poor Richard" was the revered and popular schoolmaster of a young nation during its period of tutelage. His teachings are among the powerful forces which have gone to shaping the habits of Americans. His terse and picturesque bits of the wisdom and the virtue of this world are familiar in our mouths to-day; they moulded our great-grandparents and their children; they have informed our popular traditions; they still influence our actions, guide our ways of thinking, and establish our points of view, with the constant control of acquired habits which we little suspect. If we were accustomed still to read the literature of the almanac, we should be charmed with its humor. The world has not yet grown away from it, nor ever will. Addison and Steele had more polish but vastly less humor than Franklin. "Poor Richard" has found eternal life by passing into the daily speech of the people, while the "Spectator" is fast being crowded out of the hands of all save scholars in literature. At this period of his life he wrote many short fugitive pieces, which hold some of the rarest wit that an American library contains. Few people suspect that the ten serious and grave-looking octavos, imprinted "The Works of Benjamin Franklin," hide much of that delightful kind of wit that can never grow old, but is as charming to-day as when it came damp from the press a century and more ago. How much of "Poor Richard" was actually original is a sifting not worth while to make. Franklin said: "I was conscious that not a tenth part of the wisdom was my own which he ascribed to me, but rather the gleanings that I had made of the sense of all ages and nations." No profound wisdom is really new, but only the expression of it; and all that of "Poor Richard" had been fused in the crucible of Franklin's brain. But the famous almanac was not the only pulpit whence Franklin preached to the people. He had an excellent ideal of a newspaper. He got news into it, which was seldom done in those days, and which made it attractive; he got advertisements into it, which made it pay, and which also was a novel feature; indeed, Mr. Parton says that he "originated the modern system of business advertising;" he also discussed matters of public interest. Thus he anticipated the modern newspaper, but in some respects improved in advance upon that which he anticipated. He made his "Gazette" a vehicle for disseminating information and morality, and he carefully excluded from it "all libeling and personal abuse." The sheet in its every issue was doing the same sort of work as "Poor Richard." In a word, Franklin was a born teacher of men, and what he did in this way in these his earlier days gives him rank among the most distinguished moralists who have ever lived. What kind of morality he taught is well known. It was human; he kept it free from entangling alliances with any religious creed; its foundations lay in common sense, not in faith. His own nature in this respect is easy to understand but difficult to describe, since the words which must be used convey such different ideas to different persons. Thus, to say that he had the religious temperament, though he was skeptical as to all the divine and supernatural dogmas of the religions of mankind, will seem to many a self-contradiction, while to others it is entirely intelligible. In his boyhood one gets a flavor of irreverence which was slow in disappearing. When yet a mere child he suggested to his father the convenience of saying grace over the whole barrel of salt fish, in bulk, as the mercantile phrase would be. By the time that he was sixteen, Shaftesbury and Collins, efficiently aided by the pious writers who had endeavored to refute them, had made him "a real doubter in many points of our religious doctrine;" and while he was still his brother's apprentice in Boston, he fell into disrepute as a skeptic. Apparently he gathered momentum in moving along this line of thought, until in England his disbelief took on for a time an extreme and objectionable form. His opinions then were "that nothing could possibly be wrong in the world; and that vice and virtue were empty distinctions, no such things existing." But the pamphlet, already mentioned, in which he expressed these views, was the outburst of a youthful free-thinker not yet accustomed to his new ideas; not many years passed over his head before it "appear'd not so clever a performance as [he] once thought it;" and in his autobiography he enumerates it among the "errata" of his life. It was not so very long afterward that he busied himself in composing prayers, and even an entire litany, for his own use. No Christian could have found fault with the morals therein embodied; but Christ was entirely ignored. He even had the courage to draw up a new version of the Lord's Prayer; and he arranged a code of thirteen rules after the fashion of the Ten Commandments; of these the last one was: "Imitate Jesus and Socrates." Except during a short time just preceding and during his stay in London he seems never to have been an atheist; neither was he ever quite a Christian; but as between atheism and Christianity he was very much further removed from the former than from the latter. He used to call himself a deist, or theist; and said that a deist was as much like an atheist as chalk is like charcoal. The evidence is abundant that he settled down into a belief in a personal God, who was good, who concerned himself with the affairs of men, who was pleased with good acts and displeased with evil ones. He believed also in immortality and in rewards in a life to come. But he supported none of these beliefs upon the same basis on which Christians support them. Unlike the infidel school of that day he had no antipathy even to the mythological portions of the Christian religion, no desire to discredit it, nor ambition to distinguish himself in a crusade against it. On the contrary, he was always resolute to live well with it. His mind was too broad, his habit of thought too tolerant, to admit of his antagonizing so good a system of morals because it was intertwined with articles of faith which he did not believe. He went to church frequently, and always paid his contribution towards the expenses of the society; but he kept his commendation only for those practical sermons which showed men how to become virtuous. In like manner the instruction which he himself inculcated was strictly confined to those virtues which promote the welfare and happiness of the individual and of society. In fact, he recognized none other; that which did not advance these ends was but a spurious pretender to the title of virtue. One is tempted to make many quotations from Franklin's writings in this connection; but two or three must suffice. In 1743 he wrote to his sister:-- "There are some things in your New England doctrine and worship which I do not agree with; but I do not therefore condemn them, or desire to shake your belief or practice of them. We may dislike things that are nevertheless right in themselves. I would only have you make me the same allowance, and have a better opinion both of morality and your brother." In 1756 he wrote to a friend:-- "He that for giving a draught of water to a thirsty person should expect to be paid with a good plantation, would be modest in his demands compared with those who think they deserve Heaven for the little good they do on earth.... For my own part, I have not the vanity to think I deserve it, the folly to expect it, nor the ambition to desire it; but content myself in submitting to the will and disposal of that God who made me, who hitherto has preserved and blessed me, and in whose fatherly goodness I may well confide.... "The faith you mention has doubtless its use in the world; I do not desire it to be diminished, nor would I endeavor to lessen it in any man. But I wish it were more productive of good works than I have generally seen it. I mean real good works,--works of kindness, charity, mercy, and public spirit; not holiday-keeping, sermon reading or hearing, performing church ceremonies, or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments despised even by wise men and much less capable of pleasing the Deity. The worship of God is a duty, the hearing and reading of sermons may be useful; but if men rest in hearing and praying, as too many do, it is as if a tree should value itself in being watered and putting forth leaves, though it never produced any fruit." Throughout his life he may be said to have very slowly moved nearer and nearer to the Christian faith, until at last he came so near that many of those somewhat nondescript persons who call themselves "liberal Christians" might claim him as one of themselves. But if a belief in the divinity of Christ is necessary to make a "Christian," it does not appear that Franklin ever fully had the qualification. When he was an old man, in 1790, President Stiles of Yale College took the freedom of interrogating him as to his religious faith. It was the first time that any one had ever thus ventured. His reply[3] is interesting: "As to Jesus of Nazareth," he says, "I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw, or is like to see." But he thinks they have been corrupted. "I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequences, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and more observed; especially as I do not see that the Supreme takes it amiss by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure." His God was substantially the God of Christianity; but concerning Christ he was generally reticent and non-committal. [Note 3: _Works_, x. 192.] Whatever were his own opinions, which undoubtedly underwent some changes during his life, as is the case with most of us, he never introduced Christianity, as a faith, into any of his moral writings. A broad human creature, with a marvelous knowledge of mankind, with a tolerance as far-reaching as his knowledge, with a kindly liking for all men and women; withal a prudent, shrewd, cool-headed observer in affairs, he was content to insist that goodness and wisdom were valuable, as means, towards good repute and well-being, as ends. He urges upon his nephew, about to start in business as a goldsmith, "_perfect honesty_;" and the reason he gives for his emphasis is, that the business is peculiarly liable to suspicion, and if a man is "once detected in the smallest fraud ... at once he is ruined." The character of his argument was always simple. He usually began with some such axiom as the desirability of success in one's enterprises, or of health, or of comfort, or of ease of mind, or a sufficiency of money; and then he showed that some virtue, or collection of virtues, would promote this result. He advocated honesty upon the same principle upon which he advocated that women should learn to keep accounts, or that one should hold one's self in the background in the presentation of an enterprise such as his public library; that is to say, his advocacy of a cardinal virtue, of acquiring a piece of knowledge, or of adopting a certain method of procedure in business, ran upon the same line, namely, the practical usefulness of the virtue, the knowledge, or the method, for increasing the probability of a practical success in worldly affairs. Among the articles inculcating morality which he used to put into his newspaper was a Socratic Dialogue, "tending to prove that whatever might be his parts and abilities, a vicious man could not properly be called a man of sense." He was forever at this business; it was his nature to teach, to preach, to moralize. With creeds he had no concern, but took it as his function in life to instruct in what may be described as _useful morals_, the gospel of good sense, the excellence of common humanity. About the time in his career which we have now reached this tendency of his had an interesting development in its relationship to his own character. He "conceiv'd the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection." It is impossible to recite the details of his scheme, but the narration constitutes one of the most entertaining and characteristic parts of the autobiography. Such a plan could not long be confined in its operation to himself alone; the teacher must teach; accordingly he designed to write a book, to be called "The Art of Virtue," a title with which he was greatly pleased, as indicating that the book was to show "the means and manner of obtaining virtue" as contradistinguished from the "mere exhortation to be good, that does not instruct or indicate the means." A receipt book for virtues! Practical instructions for acquiring goodness! Nothing could have been more characteristic. One of his Busy-Body papers, February 18, 1728, begins with the statement that: "It is said that the Persians, in their ancient constitution, had public schools in which virtue was taught as a liberal art, or science;" and he goes on to laud the plan highly. Perhaps this was the origin of the idea which subsequently became such a favorite with him. It was his "design to explain and enforce this doctrine: that vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful, the nature of man alone considered; that it was therefore every one's interest to be virtuous who wished to be happy even in this world; and I should ... have endeavored to convince young persons that no qualities were so likely to make a poor man's fortune as those of probity and integrity." Long years afterward, in 1760, he wrote about it to Lord Kames:-- "Many people lead bad lives that would gladly lead good ones, but do not know _how_ to make the change.... To expect people to be good, to be just, to be temperate, etc., without _showing_ them _how_ they should _become_ so seems like the ineffectual charity mentioned by the apostle, which consists in saying to the hungry, the cold, and the naked, 'Be ye fed, be ye warmed, be ye clothed,' without showing them how they should get food, fire, or clothing.... To acquire those [virtues] that are wanting, and secure what we acquire, as well as those we have naturally, is the subject of _an art_. It is as properly an art as painting, navigation, or architecture. If a man would become a painter, navigator, or architect, it is not enough that he is _advised_ to be one, that he is _convinced_ by the arguments of his adviser that it would be for his advantage to be one, and that he resolves to be one; but he must also be taught the principles of the art, be shown all the methods of working, and how to acquire the habit of using properly all the instruments.... My 'Art of Virtue' has also its instruments, and teaches the manner of using them." He was then full of zeal to give this instruction. A year later he said: "You will not doubt my being serious in the intention of finishing my 'Art of Virtue.' It is not a mere ideal work. I planned it first in 1732.... The materials have been growing ever since. The form only is now to be given." He even says that "experiments" had been made "with success;" one wonders how; but he gives no explanation. Apparently Franklin never definitely abandoned this pet design; one catches glimpses of it as still alive in his mind, until it seems to fade away in the dim obscurity of extreme old age. He said of it that it was only part of "a great and extensive project that required the whole man to execute," and his countrymen never allowed Franklin such uninterrupted possession of himself. A matter more easy of accomplishment was the drawing up a creed which he thought to contain "the essentials of every known religion," and to be "free of everything that might shock the professors of any religion." He intended that this should serve as the basis of a sect, which should practice his rules for self-improvement. It was at first to consist of "young and single men only," and great caution was to be exercised in the admission of members. The association was to be called the "Society of the Free and Easy;" "free, as being, by the general practice and habit of the virtues, free from the dominion of vice; and particularly by the practice of industry and frugality free from debt, which exposes a man to confinement and a species of slavery to his creditors." It is hardly surprising to hear that this was one of the very few failures of Franklin's life. In 1788 he professed himself "still of the opinion that it was a practicable scheme." One hardly reads it without a smile nowadays, but it was not so out of keeping with the spirit and habits of those times. It indicates at least Franklin's appreciation of the power of fellowship, of association. No man knew better than he what stimulus comes from the sense of membership in a society, especially a secret society. He had a great fondness for organizing men into associations, and a singular aptitude for creating, conducting, and perpetuating such bodies. The Junto, a child of his active brain, became a power in local public affairs, though organized and conducted strictly as a "club of mutual improvement." He formed it among his "ingenious acquaintance" for the discussion of "queries on any point of morals, politics, or natural philosophy." He found his model, without doubt, in the "neighborhood benefit societies," established by Cotton Mather, during Franklin's boyhood, among the Boston churches, for mutual improvement among the members.[4] In time there came a great pressure for an increase of the number of members; but Franklin astutely substituted a plan whereby each member was to form a subordinate club, similar to the original, but having no knowledge of its connection with the Junto. Thus sprang into being five or six more, "The Vine, The Union, The Band," etc., "answering, in some considerable degree, our views of influencing the public opinion upon particular occasions." When Franklin became interested in any matter, he had but to introduce it before the Junto for discussion; straightway each member who belonged to any one of the other societies brought it up in that society. Thus through so many active-minded and disputatious young men interest in the subject speedily percolated through a community of no greater size than Philadelphia. Franklin was the tap-root of the whole growth, and sent his ideas circulating throughout all the widespreading branches. He tells us that in fact he often used this efficient machinery to much advantage in carrying through his public and quasi public measures. Thus he anticipated more powerful mechanisms of the like kind, such as the Jacobin Club; and he himself, under encouraging circumstances, might have wielded an immense power as the creator and occult, inspiring influence of some great political society. [Note 4: Parton's _Life of Franklin_, i. 47.] Besides his didactic newspaper, his almanac even more didactic, the Junto, the subscription library, the Society of the Free and Easy, his system of religion and morals, and his scheme for acquiring all the virtues, Franklin was engaged in many other matters. He learned French, Italian, and Spanish; and in so doing evolved some notions which are now beginning to find their way into the system of teaching languages in our schools and colleges. In 1736 he was chosen clerk to the General Assembly, and continued to be reëlected during the next fourteen years, until he was chosen a member of the legislature itself. In 1737 he was appointed postmaster of Philadelphia, an office which he found "of great advantage, for, tho' the salary was small, it facilitated the correspondence that improv'd my newspaper, increased the number demanded, as well as the advertisements to be inserted, so that it came to afford me a considerable income. My old competitor's newspaper declined proportionably, and I was satisfied without retaliating his refusal, while postmaster, to permit my papers being carried by the riders." Soon afterward he conferred a signal benefit on his countrymen by inventing an "open stove for the better warming of rooms, and at the same time saving fuel,"--the Franklin stove, or, as he called it, "the Pennsylvania fireplace." Mr. Parton warmly describes it as the beginning of "the American stove system, one of the wonders of the industrial world." Franklin refused to take out a patent for it, "from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz.: That as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously." This lofty sentiment, wherein the philanthropist got the better of the man of business, overshot its mark; an ironmonger of London, who did not combine philosophy and philanthropy with his trade, made "some small changes in the machine, which rather hurt its operation, got a patent for it there, and made a little fortune by it." A little later Franklin founded a philosophical society, not intended to devote its energies to abstractions, but rather to a study of nature, and the spread of new discoveries and useful knowledge in practical affairs, especially in the way of farming and agriculture. Franklin always had a fancy for agriculture, and conferred many a boon upon the tillers of the soil. A good story, which may be true, tells how he showed the fertilizing capacity of plaster of Paris. In a field by the roadside he wrote, with plaster, THIS HAS BEEN PLASTERED; and soon the brilliant green of the letters carried the lesson to every passer-by. In 1743 Franklin broached the idea of an academy; but the time had not quite come when the purse-strings of well-to-do Pennsylvanians could be loosened for this purpose, and he had no success. It was, however, a project about which he was much in earnest, and a few years later he returned to it with better auspices. He succeeded in getting it under weigh by means of private subscriptions. It soon vindicated its usefulness, drew funds and endowments from various sources, and became the University of Pennsylvania. Franklin tells an amusing story about his subsequent connection with it. Inasmuch as persons of several religious sects had contributed to the fund, it was arranged that the board of trustees should consist of one member from each sect. After a while the Moravian died; and his colleagues, having found him obnoxious to them, resolved not to have another of the same creed. Yet it was difficult to find any one who did not belong to, and therefore unduly strengthen, some sect already represented. Finally Franklin was mentioned as being "_merely an honest man_, and of no sect at all." The recommendation secured his election. It was always a great cause of his success and influence that nothing could be alleged against his correct and respectable exterior and prudent, moderate deportment. He now endeavored to reorganize the system, if system it can be called, of the night-watch in Philadelphia. His description of it is picturesque:-- "It was managed by the constables of the respective wards, in turn; the constable warned a number of housekeepers to attend him for the night. Those who chose never to attend paid him six shillings to be excus'd, which was supposed to be for hiring substitutes, but was, in reality, much more than was necessary for that purpose, and made the constableship a place of profit; and the constable, for a little drink, often got such ragamuffins about him as a watch, that respectable housekeepers did not choose to mix with. Walking the rounds, too, was often neglected, and most of the nights spent in tippling." But even Franklin's influence was overmatched by this task. An abuse, nourished by copious rum, strikes its roots deep, and many years elapsed before this one could be eradicated. In another enterprise Franklin shrewdly enlisted the boon-companion element on his side, with the result of immediate and brilliant success. He began as usual by reading a paper before the Junto, and through this intervention set the people thinking concerning the utter lack of any organization for extinguishing fires in the town. In consequence the Union Fire Company was soon established, the first thing of the kind in the city. Franklin continued a member of it for half a century. It was thoroughly equipped and efficiently conducted. An item in the terms of association was that the members should spend a social evening together once a month. The example was followed; other companies were formed, and fifty years later Franklin boasted that since that time the city had never "lost by fire more than one or two houses at a time; and the flames have often been extinguished before the house in which they began has been half consumed." About this time he became interested in the matter of the public defenses, and wrote a pamphlet, "Plain Truth," showing the helpless condition of Pennsylvania as against the French and their Indian allies. The result was that the people were alarmed and aroused. Even the Quakers winked at the godless doings of their fellow citizens, while the enrollment and drill of a volunteer force went forward, and funds were raised for building and arming a battery. Franklin suggested a lottery, to raise money, and went to New York to borrow guns. He was very active and very successful; and though the especial crisis fortunately passed away without use being made of these preparations, yet his energy and efficiency greatly enhanced his reputation in Pennsylvania. That Franklin had been prospering in his private business may be judged from the facts that in 1748 he took into partnership David Hall, who had been a fellow journeyman with him in London; and that his purpose was substantially to retire and get some "leisure ... for philosophical studies and amusements." He cherished the happy but foolish notion of becoming master of his own time. But his fellow citizens had purposes altogether inconsistent with those pleasing and comfortable plans which he sketched so cheerfully in a letter to his friend Colden in September, 1748. The Philadelphians, whom he had taught thrift, were not going to waste such material as he was. "The publick," he found, "now considering me as a man of leisure, laid hold of me for their purposes; every part of our civil government, and almost at the same time, imposing some duty upon me. The governor put me into the commission of the peace; the corporation of the city chose me of the common council, and soon after an alderman; and the citizens at large chose me a burgess to represent them in the Assembly." This last position pleased him best, and he turned himself chiefly to its duties, with the gratifying result, as he records, that the "trust was repeated every year for ten years, without my ever asking any elector for his vote, or signifying, either directly or indirectly, any desire of being chosen." The next year he was appointed a commissioner to treat with the Indians, in which business he had so much success as can ever attend upon engagements with savages. He gives an amusing account of the way in which all the Indian emissaries got drunk, and of their quaint apology: that the Great Spirit had made all things for some use; that "when he made rum, he said, 'Let this be for the Indians to get drunk with;' _and it must be so_." In 1751 he assisted Dr. Bond in the foundation of his hospital. The doctor at first tried to carry out his scheme alone, but could not. The tranquil vanity of Franklin's narration is too good to be lost: "At length he came to me, with the compliment that he found there was no such thing as carrying a public-spirited project through, without my being concerned in it. 'For,' says he, 'I am often asked by those to whom I propose subscribing. Have you consulted Franklin upon this business? and what does he think of it? And when I tell them that I have not (supposing it rather out of your line), they do not subscribe, but say they will consider of it.'" It is surprising that this artful and sugar-tongued doctor, who evidently could read his man, had not been more successful with his subscription list. With Franklin, at least, he was eminently successful, touching him with a consummate skill which brought prompt response and coöperation. The result was as usual. Franklin's hand knew the way to every Philadelphian merchant's pocket. Respected as he was, it may be doubted whether he was always sincerely welcomed as he used to move from door to door down those tranquil streets, with an irresistible subscription paper in his hand. In this case private subscriptions were eked out by public aid. The legislature was applied to for a grant. The country members objected, said that the benefit would be local, and doubted whether even the Philadelphians wanted it. Thereupon Franklin drew a bill, by which the State was to give £2000 upon condition that a like sum should be raised from private sources. This was soon done. Franklin regarded his device as a novelty and a ruse in legislation. He complacently says: "I do not remember any of my political manoeuvres, the success of which gave me at the time more pleasure, or wherein, after thinking of it, I more easily excused myself for having made some use of cunning." Simple times, in which such an act could be described as a "manoeuvre" and "cunning!" He further turned his attention to matters of local improvement. He got pavements laid; and even brought about the sweeping of the streets twice in each week. Lighting the streets came almost simultaneously; and in connection with this he showed his wonted ingenuity. Globes open only at the top had heretofore been used, and by reason of the lack of draft, they became obscured by smoke early in the evening. Franklin made them of four flat panes, with a smoke-funnel, and crevices to admit the air beneath. The Londoners had long had the method before their eyes, every evening, at Vauxhall; but had never got at the notion of transferring it to the open streets. For a long while Franklin was employed by the postmaster-general of the colonies as "his comptroller in regulating several offices and bringing the officers to account." In 1753 the incumbent died, and Franklin and Mr. William Hunter, jointly, were appointed his successors. They set to work to reform the entire postal service of the country. The first cost to themselves was considerable, the office falling more than £900 in debt to them during the first four years. But there-afterward the benefit of their measures was felt, and an office which had never before paid anything to that of Great Britain came, under their administration, "to yield three times as much clear revenue to the crown as the post-office of Ireland." Franklin narrates that in time he was displaced "by a freak of the ministers," and in happy phrase adds, "Since that imprudent transaction, they have received from it--not one farthing!" In this connection it may be worth while to quote Franklin's reply to a request to give a position to his nephew, a young man whom he liked well, and otherwise aided. "If a vacancy should happen, it is very probable he may be thought of to supply it; but it is a rule with me not to remove any officer that behaves well, keeps regular accounts, and pays duly; and I think the rule is founded on reason and justice." At this point in his autobiography he records, with just pride, that he received the degree of Master of Arts, first from Yale College and afterward from Harvard. "Thus, without studying in any college, I came to partake of their honors. They were conferred in consideration of my improvements and discoveries in the electric branch of natural philosophy." An interesting page in the autobiography concerns events in the year 1754. There were distinct foreshadowings of that war between England and France which soon afterward broke out, beginning upon this side of the water earlier than in Europe; and the lords of trade ordered a congress of commissioners from the several colonies to assemble at Albany for a conference with the chiefs of the Six Nations. They came together June 19, 1754. Franklin was a deputy from Pennsylvania; and on his way thither he "projected and drew a plan for the union of all the colonies under one government, so far as might be necessary for defense and other important general purposes." It was not altogether a new idea; in 1697 William Penn had suggested a commercial union and an annual congress. The journal of the congress shows that on June 24 it was unanimously voted that a union of the colonies was "absolutely necessary for their security and defense." The Massachusetts delegation alone had been authorized to consider the question of a union, and they had power to enter into a confederation "as well in time of peace as of war." Franklin had already been urging this policy by writings in the "Gazette," and now, when the ideas of the different commissioners were brought into comparison, his were deemed the best. His outline of a scheme, he says, "happen'd to be preferr'd," and, with a few amendments, was accordingly reported. It was a league rather than a union, somewhat resembling the arrangement which came into existence for the purposes of the Revolution. But it came to nothing; "its fate," Franklin said, "was singular." It was closely debated, article by article, and having at length been "pretty unanimously accepted, it came before the colonial assemblies for ratification." But they condemned it; "there was too much prerogative in it," they thought. On the other hand, the board of trade in England would not approve it because it had "too much of the democratic." All which led Franklin to "suspect that it was really the true medium." He himself acknowledged that one main advantage of it would be "that the colonies would, by this connection, learn to consider themselves, not as so many independent states, but as members of the same body; and thence be more ready to afford assistance and support to each other," etc. It was already the _national idea_ which lay, not quite formulated, yet distinct enough in his mind. It was hardly to be expected that the home government would fail to see this tendency, or that they would look upon it with favor. Franklin long afterward indulged in some speculations as to what might have been the consequences of an adoption of his scheme, namely: united colonies, strong enough to defend themselves against the Canadian French and their Indian allies; no need, therefore, of troops from England; no pretext, therefore, for taxing the provinces; no provocation, therefore, for rebellion. "But such mistakes are not new; history is full of the errors of states and princes.... The best public measures are seldom _adopted from previous wisdom but forc'd by the occasion_." But this sketch of what might have been sounds over-fanciful, and the English were probably right in thinking that a strong military union, with home taxation, involved more of danger than of safety for the future connection between the colonies and the mother country. There was much uneasiness, much planning, theorizing, and discussing going on at this time about the relationship between Great Britain and her American provinces; earlier stages of that talk which kept on growing louder, more eager, and more disputatious, until it was swallowed up in the roar of the revolutionary cannon. Among others, Shirley, governor of Massachusetts, concocted a scheme and showed it to Franklin. By this an assembly of the governors of all the colonies, attended by one or two members of their respective councils, was to have authority to take such measures as should seem needful for defense, with power to draw upon the English treasury to meet expenses, the amount of such drafts to be "re-imbursed by a tax laid on the colonies by act of Parliament." This alarming proposition at once drew forth three letters from Franklin, written in December, 1754, and afterward published in the "London Chronicle" in December, 1766. His position amounted to this: that the business of self-defense and the expense thereof were matters neither beyond the abilities of the colonies, nor outside their willingness, and should therefore be managed by them. Their loyalty could be trusted; their knowledge must be the best; on the other hand, governors were apt to be untrustworthy, self-seeking, and ignorant of provincial affairs. But the chief emphasis of his protest falls against taxation without representation. He says:-- "That it is supposed an undoubted right of Englishmen not to be taxed but by their own consent, given through their representatives. "That the colonists have no representative in Parliament. "That compelling the colonists to pay money without their consent would be rather like raising contributions in an enemy's country, than taxing of Englishmen for their own public benefit. "That it would be treating them as a conquered people, and not as true British subjects." And so on; traversing beforehand the same ground soon to be so thoroughly beaten over by the patriot writers and speakers of the colonies. In a very few years the line of argument became familiar, but for the present Franklin and a very few more were doing the work of suggestion and instruction for the people at large, teaching them by what logic their instinctive convictions could be maintained. He further ingeniously showed that the colonists were already heavily taxed in ways from which they could not escape. Taxes paid by British artificers came out of the colonial consumers, and the colonists were compelled to buy only from Britain those articles which they would otherwise be able to buy at much lower prices from other countries. Moreover, they were obliged to sell only in Great Britain, where heavy imposts served to curtail the net profits of the producer. Even such manufactures as could be carried on in the colonies were forbidden to them. He concluded:-- "These kinds of secondary taxes, however, we do not complain of, though we have no share in the laying or disposing of them; but to pay immediate, heavy taxes, in the laying, appropriation, and disposition of which we have no part, and which perhaps we may know to be as unnecessary as grievous, must seem hard measures to Englishmen, who cannot conceive that by hazarding their lives and fortunes in subduing and settling new countries, extending the dominion and increasing the commerce of the mother nation, they have forfeited the native rights of Britons, which they think ought rather to be given to them, as due to such merit, if they had been before in a state of slavery." A third letter discussed a proposition advanced by Shirley for giving the colonies representation in Parliament. Franklin was a little skeptical, and had no notion of being betrayed by a kiss. A real unification of the two communities lying upon either side of the Atlantic, and even a close approximation to proportionate representation, would constitute an excellent way out of the present difficulties. But he saw no encouragement to hope for this. In fact, the project of laying direct internal taxes upon the colonies by act of Parliament was taking firm root in the English mind, and colonial protests could not long stay the execution of the scheme. Even such grants of money as were made by some of the colonial legislatures were vetoed, on the ground that they were connected with encroachments, schemes for independence, and an assumption of the right to exercise control in the matter of the public finances.[5] The Penns rejoiced. Thomas Penn wrote, doubtless with a malicious chuckle: "If the several assemblies will not make provision for the general service, an act of Parliament may oblige them here." He evidently thought that it would be very wholesome if government should become incensed and severe with the recalcitrants. [Note 5: Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._ iv. 176.] During his discussion with Shirley, Franklin had been upon a visit to Boston. He "left New England," he says, "slowly, and with great reluctance;" for he loved the country and the people. He returned home to be swept into the hurly-burly of military affairs. War appropriations came hard from the legislature of the Quaker province; but the occasion was now at hand when come they must. In the autumn of 1755 £60,000 were voted, chiefly for defense, and Franklin was one of the committee in charge of the expenditure. The border was already unsafe, and formal hostilities on a large scale were close at hand. France and England must fight it out for the possession of the new continent, which, boundless as it then seemed, was yet not big enough to admit of their both dwelling in it. France had been steadily pressing upon the northern and western frontiers of the British colonies, and she now held Crown Point, Niagara, the fort on the present site of Pittsburg, and the whole valley of the Ohio River. It seemed that she would confine the English to the strip along the coast which they already occupied. It is true that she offered to relinquish the Ohio valley to the savages, to be a neutral belt between the European nations on either side of it. But the proposal could not be accepted; the French were much too clever in managing the Indians. Moreover, it was felt that they would never permanently desist from advancing. Then, too, the gallant Braddock was on his way across seas, with a little army of English regulars. Finally, the disproportion between the English and French in the New World was too great for the former to rest satisfied with a compromise. There were about 1,165,000 whites in the British provinces, and only about 80,000 French in Canada. The resources, also, of the former were in every respect vastly greater. These iron facts must tell; were already telling. Throughout this last deadly grapple, now at hand, the French were in desperate earnest. History records few struggles wherein the strength of a combatant was more utterly spent, with more entire devotion, than was the case with these Canadian-French provinces. Every man gave himself to the fight, so literally that no one was left to till the fields, and erelong famine began its hideous work among the scanty forces. The English and Americans, on the other hand, were far from conducting the struggle with the like temper as the French; yet with such enormous advantages as they possessed, if they could not conquer a satisfactory peace in course of time, they ought to be ashamed of themselves. So no composition could be arranged; the Seven Years' War began, and to open it with becoming éclat Braddock debarked, a gorgeous spectacle in red and gold. Yet still there had as yet been in Europe no declaration of hostilities between England and France; on the contrary, the government of the former country was giving very fair words to that of the latter; and in America the British professed only to intend "to repel encroachments."[6] [Note 6: Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._ iv. 182.] Franklin had to take his share of the disasters attendant upon the fatal campaign of Braddock. According to his notion that foolish officer and his two ill-behaved regiments should never, by good rights, have been sent to the provinces at all; for the colonists, being able and willing to do their own fighting, should have been allowed to undertake it. But eleven years before this time the Duke of Bedford had declared it a dangerous policy to enroll an army of 20,000 provincials to serve against Canada, "on account of the independence it might create in those provinces, when they should see within themselves so great an army, possessed of so great a country by right of conquest." This anxiety had been steadily gaining ground. The home government did not choose "to permit the union of the colonies, as proposed at Albany, and to trust that union with their defense, lest they should thereby grow too military and feel their own strength, suspicions and jealousies being at this time entertained of them." So it was because the shadow of the Revolutionary War already darkened the visions of English statesmen that the gallant array of soldiery, with the long train of American attendants, had to make that terrible march to failure and death. The Assembly of the Quaker province was sadly perturbed lest this arbitrary warrior, encamped hard by in Virginia, should "conceive violent prejudices against them, as averse to the service." In their alarm they had recourse to Franklin's shrewd wit and ready tongue. Accordingly, he visited Braddock under pretense of arranging for the transmission of mails during the campaign, stayed with him several days, and dined with him daily. There were some kinds of men, perhaps, whom Braddock appreciated better than he did Indians; nor is it a slight proof of Franklin's extraordinary capacity for getting on well with every variety of human being that he could make himself so welcome to this testy, opinionated military martinet, who in every particular of nature and of training was the precise contrary of the provincial civilian. Franklin's own good will to the cause, or his ill luck, led him into an engagement, made just before his departure, whereby he undertook to procure horses and wagons enough for the transportation of the ordnance and all the appurtenances of the camp. It was not a personal contract upon his part to furnish these; he was neither to make any money, nor to risk any; he was simply to render the gratuitous service of inducing the Pennsylvania farmers to let out their horses, wagons, and drivers to the general. It was a difficult task, in which the emissaries of Braddock had utterly failed in Virginia. But Franklin conceived the opportunities to be better in his own province, and entered on the business with vigor and skill. Throughout the farming region he sent advertisements and circulars, cleverly devised to elicit what he wanted, and so phrased as to save him harmless from personal responsibility for any payment. Seven days' pay was to be "advanced and paid in hand" by him, the remainder to be paid by General Braddock, or by the paymaster of the army. He said, in closing his appeal: "I have no particular interest in this affair, as, except the satisfaction of endeavoring to do good, I shall have only my labor for my pains." But he was not to get off so easily; for, he says, "the owners, ... alleging that they did not know General Braddock, or what dependence might be had on his promise, insisted on my bond for the performance, which I accordingly gave them." This was the more patriotic because Franklin was by no means dazzled by the pomp and parade of the doughty warrior, but on the contrary, reflecting on the probable character of the campaign, he had "conceived some doubts and some fears for the event." What happened every one knows. The losses of wagons and horses in the slaughter amounted to the doleful sum of £20,000; "which to pay would have ruined me," wrote Franklin. Nevertheless the demands began at once to pour in upon him, and suits were instituted. It was a grievous affair, and the end was by no means clear. It was easily possible that in place of his fortune, sacrificed in the public service, he might have only the sorry substitute of a claim against the government. But after many troubled weeks he was at length relieved of the heaviest portion of his burden, through General Shirley's appointment of a commission to audit and pay the claims for actual losses. Other sums due him, representing considerable advances which he had made at the outset in the business, and later for provisions, remained unpaid to the end of his days. The British government in time probably thought the Revolution as efficient as a statute of limitations for barring that account. At the moment, however, Franklin not only lost his money, but had to suffer the affront of being supposed even to be a gainer, and to have filled his own pockets. He indignantly denied that he had "pocketed a farthing;" but of course he was not believed. He adds, with delicious humor: "and, indeed, I have since learnt that immense fortunes are often made in such employments." Those, however, were simple, provincial days. In place of the money which he did not get, also of the further sum which he actually lost, he had to satisfy himself with the consolation derived from the approbation of the Pennsylvania Assembly, while also Braddock's dispatches gave him a good name with the officials in England, which was of some little service to him. A more comical result of the Braddock affair was that it made Franklin for a time a military man and a colonel. He had escaped being a clergyman and a poet, but he could not escape that common fate of Americans, the military title, the prevalence of which, it has been said, makes "the whole country seem a retreat of heroes." It befell Franklin in this wise: immediately after Braddock's defeat, in the panic which possessed the people and amid the reaction against professional soldiers, recourse was had to plain good sense, though unaccompanied by technical knowledge. No one, as all the province knew, had such sound sense as Franklin, who was accordingly deputed to go to the western frontier with a small volunteer force, there to build three forts for the protection of the outlying settlements. "I undertook," he says, "this military business, though I did not conceive myself well qualified for it." It was a service involving much difficulty and hardship, with some danger; General Braddock would have made a ridiculous failure of it; Franklin acquitted himself well. What he afterward wrote of General Shirley was true of himself: "For, tho' Shirley was not bred a soldier, he was sensible and sagacious in himself, and attentive to good advice from others, capable of forming judicious plans, and quick and active in carrying them into execution." In a word, Franklin's military career was as creditable as it was brief. He was called forward at the crisis of universal dismay; he gave his popular influence and cool head to a peculiar kind of service, of which he knew much by hearsay, if nothing by personal experience; he did his work well; and, much stranger to relate, he escaped the delusion that he was a soldier. So soon as he could do so, that is to say after a few weeks, he returned to his civil duties. But he had shown courage, intelligence, and patriotism in a high degree, and he had greatly increased the confidence reposed in him by his fellow citizens. Beyond those active military measures which the exigencies of the time made necessary, Franklin fell in with, if he did not originate, a plan designed to afford permanent protection in the future. This was to extend the colonies inland. His notions were broad, embracing much both in space and time. He thought "what a glorious thing it would be to settle in that fine country a large, strong body of religious, industrious people. What a security to the other colonies and advantage to Britain by increasing her people, territory, strength, and commerce." He foretold that "perhaps in less than another century" the Ohio valley might "become a populous and powerful dominion, and a great accession of power either to England or France." Having this scheme much at heart, he drew up a sort of prospectus "for settling two western colonies in North America;" "barrier colonies" they were called by Governor Pownall, who was warm in the same idea, and sent a plan of his own, together with Franklin's, to the home government. It is true that these new settlements, regarded strictly as bulwarks, would have been only a change of "barrier," an advancement of frontier; they themselves would become frontier instead of the present line, and would be equally subject to Indian and French assaults. Still the step was in the direction of growth and expansion; it was advancing and aggressive, and indicated an appreciation of the enormous motive power which lay in English colonization. Franklin pushed it earnestly, interested others in it, and seemed at one time on the point of securing the charters. But the conquest of Canada within a very short time rendered defensive colonization almost needless, and soon afterward the premonitions and actual outbreak of the Revolution put an end to all schemes in this shape. CHAPTER III REPRESENTATIVE OF PENNSYLVANIA IN ENGLAND: RETURN HOME It was not possible to make a world-wide reputation in the public affairs of the province of Pennsylvania; but so much fame as opportunity would admit of had by this time been won by Franklin. In respect of influence and prestige among his fellow colonists none other came near to him. Meanwhile among all his crowding occupations he had found time for those scientific researches towards which his heart always yearned. He had flown his famous kite; had entrapped the lightning of the clouds; had written treatises, which, having been collected into a volume, "were much taken notice of in England," made no small stir in France, and were "translated into the Italian, German, and Latin languages." A learned French abbé, "preceptor in natural philosophy to the royal family, and an able experimenter," at first controverted his discoveries and even questioned his existence. But after a little time this worthy scientist became "assur'd that there really existed such a person as Franklin at Philadelphia," while other distinguished scientific men of Europe united in the adoption of his theories. Kant called him the 'Prometheus of modern times.' Thus, in one way and another, his name had probably already come to be more widely known than that of any other living man who had been born on this side of the Atlantic. It might have been even much more famous, had he been more free to follow his own bent, a pleasure which he could only enjoy in a very limited degree. In 1753 he wrote: "I am so engaged in business, public and private, that those more pleasing pursuits [philosophical inquiries] are frequently interrupted, and the chain of thought necessary to be closely continued in such disquisitions is so broken and disjointed that it is with difficulty I satisfy myself in any of them." Similar complaints occur frequently, and it is certain that his extensive philosophical labors were all conducted in those mere cracks and crannies of leisure scantily interspersed amid the hours of a man apparently overwhelmed with the functions of active life. He was now selected by the Assembly to encounter the perils of crossing the Atlantic upon an important mission in behalf of his province. For a long while past the relationship between the Penns, unworthy sons of the great William, and now the proprietaries, on the one side, and their quasi subjects, the people of the province, upon the other, had been steadily becoming more and more strained, until something very like a crisis had been reached. As usual in English and Anglo-American communities, it was a quarrel over dollars, or rather over pounds sterling, a question of taxation, which was producing the alienation. At bottom, there was the trouble which always pertains to absenteeism; the proprietaries lived in England, and regarded their vast American estate, with about 200,000 white inhabitants, only as a source of revenue. That mercantile community, however, with the thrift of Quakers and the independent temper of Englishmen, had a shrewd appreciation of, and an obstinate respect for, its own interests. Hence the discussions, already of threatening proportions. The chief point in dispute was, whether or not the waste lands, still directly owned by the proprietaries, and other lands let by them at quit-rents, should be taxed in the same manner as like property of other owners. They refused to submit to such taxation; the Assembly of Burgesses insisted. In ordinary times the proprietaries prevailed; for the governor was their nominee and removable at their pleasure; they gave him general instructions to assent to no law taxing their holdings, and he naturally obeyed his masters. But since governors got their salaries only by virtue of a vote of the Assembly, it seems that they sometimes disregarded instructions, in the sacred cause of their own interests. After a while, therefore, the proprietaries, made shrewd by experience, devised the scheme of placing their unfortunate sub-rulers under bonds. This went far towards settling the matter. Yet in such a crisis and stress as were now present in the colony, when exceptionally large sums had to be raised, and great sacrifices and sufferings endured, and when little less than the actual existence of the province might be thought to be at stake, it certainly seemed that the rich and idle proprietaries might stand on the same footing with their poor and laboring subjects. They lived comfortably in England upon revenues estimated to amount to the then enormous sum of £20,000 sterling; while the colonists were struggling under unusual losses, as well as enormous expenses, growing out of the war and Indian ravages. At such a time their parsimony, their "incredible meanness," as Franklin called it, was cruel as well as stupid. At last the Assembly flatly refused to raise any money unless the proprietaries should be burdened like the rest. All should pay together, or all should go to destruction together. The Penns too stood obstinate, facing the not less resolute Assembly. It was indeed a deadlock! Yet the times were such that neither party could afford to maintain its ground indefinitely. So a temporary arrangement was made, whereby of £60,000 sterling to be raised the proprietaries agreed to contribute £5000, and the Assembly agreed to accept the same in lieu or commutation for their tax. But neither side abandoned its principle. Before long more money was needed, and the dispute was as fierce as ever. The burgesses now thought that it would be well to carry a statement of their case before the king in council and the lords of trade. In February, 1757, they named their speaker, Isaac Norris, and Franklin to be their emissaries "to represent in England the unhappy situation of the province," and to seek redress by an act of Parliament. Norris, an aged man, begged to be excused; Franklin accepted. His son was given leave of absence, in order to attend him as his secretary. During the prolonged and bitter controversies Franklin had been the most prominent member of the Assembly on the popular side. He had drawn many of the addresses, arguments, and other papers; and his familiarity with the business, therefore, no less than his good judgment, shrewdness, and tact united to point him out as the man for the very unpleasant and difficult errand. A portion of his business also was to endeavor to induce the king to resume the province of Pennsylvania as his own. A clause in the charter had reserved this right, which could be exercised on payment of a certain sum of money. The colonists now preferred to be an appanage of the crown rather than a fief of the Penns. Oddly enough, some of the provincial governors were suggesting the like measure concerning other provinces; but from widely different motives. The colonists thought a monarch better than private individuals, as a master; while the governors thought that only the royal authority could enforce their theory of colonial government. They angrily complained that the colonies would do nothing voluntarily; a most unjust charge, as was soon to be seen; for in the Seven Years' War the colonists did three quarters of all that was done. What the governors really meant was that the colonies would not raise money and turn it over to other persons to spend for them. It must be acknowledged that the prospects for the success of this mission were not good. Almost simultaneously with Franklin's appointment, the House of Commons resolved that "the claim of right in a colonial Assembly to raise and apply public money, by its own act alone, is derogatory to the crown, and to the rights of the people of Great Britain." This made Thomas Penn jubilant. "The people of Pennsylvania," he said, "will soon be convinced ... that they have not a right to the powers of government they claim."[7] [Note 7: Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._ iv. 255.] Franklin took his passage in a packet-ship, which was to sail from New York forthwith. But the vessel was subject to the orders of Lord Loudoun, newly appointed governor of the province of New York, and a sort of military over-lord over all the governors, assemblies, and people of the American provinces. His mission was to organize, to introduce system and submission, and above all else to overawe. But he was no man for the task; not because his lordship was not a dominant character, but because he was wholly unfit to transact business. Franklin tried some negotiations with him, and got no satisfaction or conclusion. The ship which waited upon the will of this noble procrastinator had a very doubtful future. Every day at nine o'clock his lordship seated himself at his desk, and stayed there writing industriously, hour after hour, upon his dispatches; every day he foretold with much accuracy and positiveness of manner that these would surely be ready, and the ship would inevitably sail, on the next day. Thus week after week glided by, and still he uttered the same prediction, "to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow." Yet in spite of this wonderful industry of the great man his letters never got written, so that, says Franklin, "it was about the beginning of April that I came to New York, and I think it was the end of June before we sail'd." Even then the letters were not ready, and for two days the vessel had to accompany his lordship's fleet on the way towards Louisburg, before she got leave to go upon her own proper voyage. It is entertaining to hear that this same lord, during his stay in America, detained other packets for other letters, until their bottoms got so foul and worm-eaten that they were unseaworthy. He was irreverently likened by those who waited on his pleasure to "St. George on the signs, always on horseback, and never rides on." He was at last removed by Mr. Pitt, because that energetic minister said "that he never heard from him, and could not know what was doing." Escaping at last from a detention more tedious, if less romantic, than any which ever befell Ulysses, Franklin steered for England. The vessel was "several times chas'd" by French cruisers, and later was actually within a few lengths of being wrecked on the Scilly rocks. Franklin wrote to his wife that if he were a Roman Catholic he should probably vow a chapel to some saint; but, as he was not, he should much like to vow a lighthouse. At length, however, he came safely into Falmouth, and on July 27, 1757, arrived in London. Immediately he was taken to see Lord Granville, president of the council; and his account of the interview is too striking not to be given entire. His lordship, he says, "received me with great civility; and after some questions respecting the present state of affairs in America and discourse thereupon, he said to me: 'You Americans have wrong ideas of the nature of your constitution; you contend that the king's instructions to his governors are not laws, and think yourselves at liberty to regard or disregard them at your own discretion. But these instructions are not like the pocket instructions given to a minister going abroad, for regulating his conduct on some trifling point of ceremony. They are first drawn up by judges learned in the laws; they are then considered, debated, and perhaps amended, in council, after which they are signed by the king. They are then, so far as they relate to you, the _law of the land_, for the king is the _legislator of the colonies_.' I told his lordship this was new doctrine to me. I had always understood from our charters that our laws were to be made by our assemblies, to be presented indeed to the king for his royal assent; but that being once given, the king could not repeal or alter them. And as the assemblies could not make permanent laws without his assent, so neither could he make a law for them without theirs. He assured me I was totally mistaken. I did not think so, however; and his lordship's conversation having somewhat alarmed me as to what might be the sentiments of the court concerning us, I wrote it down as soon as I returned to my lodgings."[8] [Note 8: _Works_, i. 295, 296; see also an account, substantially the same, in letter to Bowdoin, January 13, 1772.] Granville also defended the recent act of Parliament laying "grievous restrictions on the export of provisions from the British colonies," the intent being to distress the American possessions of France by famine. His lordship said: "America must not do anything to interfere with Great Britain in the European markets." Franklin replied: "If we plant and reap, and must not ship, your lordship should apply to Parliament for transports to bring us all back again." Next came an interview with the proprietaries. Each side declared itself disposed towards "reasonable accommodations;" but Franklin supposed that "each party had its own ideas of what should be meant by _reasonable_." Nothing came of all this palaver; which only meant that time was being wasted to no better purpose than to show that the two parties were "very wide, and so far from each other in [their] opinions as to discourage all hope of agreement." But this had long been evident. The lawyer of the proprietaries was then put forward. He was a "proud, angry man," with a "mortal enmity" toward Franklin; for the two had exchanged buffets more than once already, and the "proud angry man" had been hit hard. It had been his professional duty, as counsel for the Penns, to prepare many papers to be used by their governor in the course of their quarrels with the Assembly. It had usually fallen to Franklin's lot to draft the replies of the Assembly, and by Franklin's own admission these documents of his, like those which they answered, were "often tart and sometimes indecently abusive." Franklin now found his old antagonist so excited that it seemed best to refuse to have any direct dealings with him. The proprietaries then put their interests in charge of Attorney-General Pratt, afterwards Lord Camden, and the Solicitor-General Charles Yorke, afterward lord chancellor. These legal luminaries consumed "a year, wanting eight days" before they were in a condition to impart light; and during that period Franklin could of course achieve nothing with the proprietaries. After all, the proprietaries ignored and insulted him, and made further delay by sending a message to the Assembly of Pennsylvania, wherein they complained of Franklin's "rudeness," and professed themselves "willing to accommodate matters," if a "person of candour" should be sent to treat with them. The only reply to their message came in the pointed and intelligible shape of an act "taxing the proprietary estate in common with the estates of the people." Much disturbed, the proprietaries now obtained a hearing before the king in council. They requested his majesty to set aside this tax act, and several other acts which had been passed within two years by the Assembly. Of these other acts some were repealed, according to the prayer of the proprietaries; but more were allowed to stand. These were, however, of comparatively little consequence; the overshadowing grievance for the Penns lay in this taxation of their property. Concerning this it was urged by their counsel that the proprietaries were held in such odium by the people that, if left to the popular "mercy in apportioning the taxes, they would be ruined." The other side, of course, vehemently denied that there was the slightest ground for such a suspicion. In June, 1760, the board of trade rendered a report very unfavorable to the Assembly. Their language showed that they had been much affected by the appearance of popular encroachments, and by the allegations of an intention on the part of the colonists "to establish a democracy in place of his majesty's government." Their advice was to bring "the constitution back to its proper principles; to restore to the crown, in the person of the proprietaries, its just prerogative; to check the growing influence of assemblies, by distinguishing, what they are perpetually confounding, the executive from the legislative power." News of this alarming document reached Franklin just as he was about to start upon a trip through Ireland. It put an end to that pleasure; he had to set to work on the moment, with all the zeal and by all the means he could compass, to counteract this fulmination. Just how he achieved so difficult an end is not recorded; but it appears that he succeeded in securing a further hearing, in the progress of which Lord Mansfield "rose, and beckoning me, took me into the clerk's chambers, ... and asked me, if I was really of opinion that no injury would be done to the proprietary estate in the execution of the act. I said: Certainly. 'Then,' says he, 'you can have little objection to enter into an engagement to assure that point.' I answered: None at all." Thereupon a paper of this purport, binding personally upon Franklin and upon Mr. Charles, the resident agent of the province, was drawn up, and was duly executed by them both; and on August 28 the lords filed an amended report, in which they said that the act taxing the proprietary estates upon a common basis with those of other owners was "fundamentally wrong and unjust and ought to be repealed, _unless_ six certain amendments were made therein." These amendments were, in substance, the undertakings entered into in the bond of the colonial agents. Franklin soon afterward had occasion to review this whole business. He showed that of the six amendments, five were immaterial, since they only expressed with greater clearness the intent of the Assembly. He admitted that the sixth was of more consequence. It seems that £100,000 had been voted, appropriated, raised, and expended, chiefly for the defense of the colony. The manner of doing this was to issue paper money to this amount, to make it legal tender, and then to retire it by the proceeds of the tax levy. The proprietaries insisted that they could not be compelled to receive their rents in this money, and the lords now found for them. Franklin acknowledged that herein perhaps the lords were right and the Assembly wrong; but he added this scathing paragraph:-- "But if he cannot on these considerations quite excuse the Assembly, what will he think of those honourable proprietaries, who, when paper money was issued in their colony for the _common defense_ of their vast estates with those of the people, could nevertheless wish to be exempted from their share of the unavoidable disadvantages. Is there upon earth a man besides, with any conception of what is honest, with any notion of honor, with the least tincture in his veins of the gentleman, but would have blushed at the thought, but would have rejected with disdain such undue preference, if it had been offered him? Much less would he have struggled for it, moved heaven and earth to obtain it, resolved to ruin thousands of his tenants by a repeal of the act, rather than miss of it, and enforce it afterwards by an audaciously wicked instruction, forbidding aids to his king, and exposing the province to destruction, unless it was complied with. And yet, these are honourable men!" This was, however, altogether a subordinate issue. The struggle had really been conducted to determine whether the proprietary estate should be taxed like other estates, and the decision upheld such taxation. This was a complete triumph for the Assembly and their representative. "But let the proprietaries and their discreet deputies hereafter recollect and remember," said Franklin, "that the same august tribunal, which censured some of the modes and circumstances of that act, did at the same time establish and confirm the grand principle of the act, namely: 'That the proprietary estate ought, with other estates, to be taxed;' and thereby did, in effect, determine and pronounce that the opposition so long made in various shapes to that just principle, by the proprietaries, was 'fundamentally _wrong_ and _unjust_!'" It was a long while before the Assembly found leisure to attend to that engagement of their agents which stipulated for an investigation to see whether the proprietaries had not been unduly and excessively assessed. But at length, after having had the spur of reminder constantly applied to their laggard memories, they appointed a committee to inquire and report concerning the valuations made by the tax-gatherers. This committee reported that-- "there has not been any injustice done to the proprietaries, or attempts made to rate or assess any part of their estates higher than the estates of the like kind belonging to the inhabitants are rated and assessed; but, on the contrary, ... their estates are rated, in many instances, below others." So the matter ended. Franklin had been detained a little more than three years about this business. At its conclusion he anticipated a speedy return home; but he had to stay yet two years more to attend to sundry matters smaller in importance, but which were advanced almost as slowly. Partly such delay was because the aristocrats of the board of trade and the privy council had not the habits of business men, but consulted their own noble convenience in the transaction of affairs; and partly it was because procrastination was purposely employed by his opponents, who harassed him and blocked his path by every obstacle, direct and indirect, which they could put in his way. For they seemed to hope for some turn in affairs, some event, or some too rapid advance of the popular party in America, which should arouse the royal resentment against the colonists and so militate on their side. Delay was easily brought about by them. They had money, connections, influence, and that familiarity with men and ways which came from their residence in England; while Franklin, a stranger on an unpopular errand, representing before an aristocratic government a parcel of tradespeople and farmers who lived in a distant land and were charged with being both niggardly and disaffected, found that he could make only difficult and uncertain progress. He was like one who sails a race not only against hostile winds and tides, but also in strange waters where the shoals and rocks are unknown, and where invisible currents ceaselessly baffle his course. His lack of personal importance hampered him exasperatingly. Thus during his prolonged stay he repeatedly made every effort in his power to obtain an audience of William Pitt. But not even for once could he succeed. A provincial agent, engaged in a squabble about taxing proprietary lands, was too small a man upon too small a business to consume the precious time of the great prime minister, who was endeavoring to dominate the embroilments and intrigues of all Europe, to say nothing of the machinations of his opponents at home. So the subalterns of Mr. Pitt met Franklin, heard what he had to say, sifted it through the sieve of their own discretion, and bore to the ears of their principal only such compends as they thought worthy of attention. But the vexation of almost endless delay had its alleviations, apparently much more than enough to offset it. Early in September, 1757, that is to say some five or six weeks after his landing, Franklin was taken very ill of an intermittent fever, which lasted for eight weeks. During his convalescence he wrote to his wife that the agreeable conversation of men of learning, and the notice taken of him by persons of distinction, soothed him under this painful absence from family and friends; yet these solaces would not hold him there another week, were it not for duty to his country and the hope of being able to do it service. But after the early homesickness wore off, a great attachment for England took its place. He found himself a man of note among scientists there, who gave him a ready welcome and showed a courteous and flattering recognition of his high distinction in their pursuits. Thence it was easy to penetrate into the neighboring circle of literature, wherein he made warm personal friends, such as Lord Kames, David Hume, Dr. Robertson, and others. From time to time he was a guest at many a pleasant country seat, and at the universities. He found plenty of leisure, too, for travel, and explored the United Kingdom very thoroughly. When he went to Edinburgh he was presented with the freedom of the city; and the University of St. Andrews conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws; later, Oxford did the same. He even had time for a trip into the Low Countries. As months and finally years slipped away, with just enough of occupation of a dignified character to save him from an annoying sense of idleness, with abundant opportunities for social pleasure, and with a very gratifying deference shown towards himself, Franklin, who liked society and did not dislike flattery, began to think the mother country no such bad place. For an intellectual and social career London certainly had advantages over Philadelphia. Mr. Strahan, the well-known publisher of those days, whom Franklin used affectionately to call Straney, became his close friend, and was very insistent with him that he should leave the provinces and take up a permanent residence in England. He baited his hook with an offer of his son in marriage with Franklin's daughter Sarah. He had never seen Sarah, but he seems to have taken it for granted that any child of her father must be matrimonially satisfactory. Franklin wrote home to his wife that the young man was eligible, and that there were abundant funds in the Strahan treasury, but that he did not suppose that she would be able to overcome her terror of the ocean voyage. Indeed, this timidity on the part of his wife was more than once put forward by him as if it were really the feather which turned the scale in the choice of his future residence. Franklin himself also was trying his hand at match-making. He had taken a great fancy to a young lady by the name of Mary Stevenson, with whom, when distance prevented their meeting, he kept up a constant correspondence concerning points of physical science. He now became very pressing with his son William to wed this learned maiden; but the young man possibly did not hold a taste for science to be the most winning trait in woman; at any rate, having bestowed his affections elsewhere, he refused to transfer them. So Franklin was compelled to give up his scheme, though with an extreme reluctance, which he expressed to the rejected damsel with amusing openness. Had either of these matrimonial bonds been made fast, it is not improbable that Franklin would have lived out the rest of his life as a friend of the colonies in England. But his lot was otherwise cast; a second time he escaped, though narrowly, the prospect of dying an Englishman and the subject of a king. At the moment he was not altogether glad that matters worked thus. On August 17, 1762, he wrote from Portsmouth to Lord Kames:-- "I am now waiting here only for a wind to waft me to America; but cannot leave this happy island and my friends in it without extreme regret, though I am going to a country and a people that I love. I am going from the old world to the new; and I fancy I feel like those who are leaving this world for the next: grief at the parting; fear of the passage; hope of the future. These different passions all affect their minds at once; and these have _tendered_ me down exceedingly." And six days later, from the same place, he wrote to Strahan: "I cannot, I assure you, quit even this disagreeable place, without regret, as it carries me still farther from those I love, and from the opportunities of hearing of their welfare. The attraction of reason is at present for the other side of the water, but that of inclination will be for this side. You know which usually prevails. I shall probably make but this one vibration and settle here forever. Nothing will prevent it, if I can, as I hope I can, prevail with Mrs. F. to accompany me, especially if we have a peace." Apparently the Americans owe a great debt of gratitude to Mrs. Franklin's fearfulness of the untrustworthy Atlantic. Before dismissing this stay of Franklin in England a word should be said concerning his efforts for the retention of Canada by the British, as spoils of war. The fall of Quebec, in the autumn of 1759, practically concluded the struggle in America. The French were utterly spent; they had no food, no money; they had fought with desperate courage and heroic self-devotion; they could honestly say that they had stood grimly in the last trench, and had been slaughtered there until the starved and shattered remnant could not find it in their exhausted human nature longer to conduct a contest so thoroughly finished. In Europe, France was hardly less completely beaten. At the same time the singular position of affairs existed that the triumphant conqueror was even more resolutely bent upon immediate peace than were the conquered. George III., newly come to the throne, set himself towards this end with all the obstinacy of his resolute nature. It became a question of terms, and eager was the discussion thereof. The colonies were profoundly interested, for a question sharply argued was: whether England should retain Guadaloupe or Canada. She had conquered both, but it seemed to be admitted that she must restore one. It was even then a comical bit of political mathematics to establish anything like an equation between the two, nor could it possibly have been done with reference to intrinsic values. It was all very well to dilate upon the sugar crop of the island, its trade, its fertility, its harborage. Every one knew that Canada could outweigh all these things fifty times over. But into the Guadaloupe scale was dropped a weighty consideration, which was clearly stated in an anonymous pamphlet attributed to William Burke. This writer said:-- "If the people of our colonies find no check from Canada, they will extend themselves almost without bound into the inland parts. They will increase infinitely from all causes. What the consequence will be, to have a numerous, hardy, independent people, possessed of a strong country, communicating little or not at all with England, I leave to your own reflections. By eagerly grasping at extensive territory we may run the risk, and in no very distant period, of losing what we now possess. A neighbor that keeps us in some awe is not always the worst of neighbors. So that, far from sacrificing Guadaloupe to Canada, perhaps, if we might have Canada without any sacrifice at all, we ought not to desire it. There should be a balance of power in America.... The islands, from their weakness, can never revolt; but, if we acquire all Canada, we shall soon find North America itself too powerful and too populous to be governed by us at a distance." From many other quarters came the same warning predictions.[9] [Note 9: Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._ iv. 363-365.] Franklin watched the controversy with deep interest and no small anxiety. As the argument grew heated he could no longer hold his hand; he cast into the Canadian scale an able pamphlet, ingenuous in the main if not in all the details. It is not worth while to rehearse what he had to say upon mercantile points, or even concerning the future growth of a great American empire. What he had really to encounter was the argument that it was sound policy to leave Canada in possession of the French. Those who pretended to want Guadaloupe did not so much really want it as they did wish to have Canada remain French. To make good this latter point they had to show, first, that French ownership involved no serious danger to the English possessions; second, that it brought positive advantages. To the first proposition they said that the French had fully learned their lesson of inferiority, and that a few forts on the frontier would easily overawe the hostile Indians. To the second proposition, they elaborated the arguments of William Burke. Franklin replied that the war-parties of braves would easily pass by the forts in the forests, and after burning, pillaging, murdering, and scalping, would equally easily and safely return. Nothing save a Chinese wall the whole length of the western frontier would suffice for protection against savages. Then, with one of those happy illustrations of which he was a master, he said: "In short, long experience has taught our planters that they cannot rely upon forts as a security against Indians; the inhabitants of Hackney might as well rely upon the Tower of London, to secure them against highwaymen and house-breakers." The admirable simile could neither be answered nor forgotten. Concerning the positive desirability of leaving the French as masters of Canada to "check" the growth of the colonies, Franklin indignantly exclaimed: "It is a modest word, this '_check_' for massacring men, women, and children!" If Canada is to be "restored on this principle, ... will not this be telling the French in plain terms, that the horrid barbarisms they perpetrate with Indians on our colonists are agreeable to us; and that they need not apprehend the resentment of a government with whose views they so happily concur." But he had the audacity to say that he was abundantly certain that the mother country could never have any occasion to dread the power of the colonies. He said:-- "I shall next consider the other supposition, that their growth may render them _dangerous_. Of this, I own, I have not the least conception, when I consider that we have already _fourteen separate governments_ on the maritime coast of the continent; and, if we extend our settlements, shall probably have as many more behind them on the inland side." By reason of the different governors, laws, interests, religions, and manners of these, "their jealousy of each other is so great, that, however necessary a union of the colonies has long been, for their common defence and security against their enemies, and how sensible soever each colony has been of that necessity, yet they have never been able to effect such a union among themselves, nor even to agree in requesting the mother country to establish it for them." If they could not unite for self-defence against the French and the murderous savages, "can it reasonably be supposed there is any danger of their uniting against their own nation, which protects and encourages them, with which they have so many connexions and ties of blood, interest, and affection, and which, it is well known, they all love much more than they love one another? "In short there are so many causes that must operate to prevent it, that I will venture to say a union amongst them for such a purpose is not merely improbable, it is impossible. And if the union of the whole is impossible, the attempt of a part must be madness.... When I say such a union is impossible, I mean without the most grievous tyranny and oppression.... _The waves do not rise but when the winds blow_.... What such an administration as the Duke of Alva's in the Netherlands might produce, I know not; but this, I think, I have a right to deem impossible." We read these words, even subject to the mild saving of the final sentences, with some bewilderment. Did their shrewd and well-informed writer believe what he said? Was he casting this political horoscope in good faith? Or was he only uttering a prophecy which he desired, if possible, and for his own purposes to induce others to believe? If he was in earnest, Attorney-General Pratt was a better astrologer. "For all what you Americans say of your loyalty," he said to Franklin, "and notwithstanding your boasted affection, you will one day set up for independence." "No such idea," said Franklin, "is entertained by the Americans, or ever will be, unless you grossly abuse them." "Very true," said Pratt; "that I see will happen, and will produce the event."[10] Choiseul, the able French minister, expressed his wonder that the "great Pitt should be so attached to the acquisition of Canada," which, being in the hands of France, would keep the "colonies in that dependence which they will not fail to shake off the moment Canada shall be ceded."[11] Vergennes saw the same thing not less clearly; and so did many another. [Note 10: Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._ iv. 380.] [Note 11: _Ibid_. iv. 399.] If Franklin was really unable to foresee in this business those occurrences which others predicted with such confidence, at least he showed a grand conception of the future, and his vision took in more distant and greater facts and larger truths of statesmanship than were compassed by the British ministers. Witness what he wrote to Lord Kames:-- "I have long been of opinion that the foundations of the future grandeur and stability of the British empire lie in America.... I am therefore by no means for restoring Canada. If we keep it, all the country from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi will in another century be filled with British people. Britain itself will become vastly more populous by the immense increase to its commerce; the Atlantic sea will be covered with your trading ships; and your naval power, thence continually increasing, will extend your influence round the whole globe, and awe the world." Whatever regret Franklin may have felt at not being able to remain in England was probably greatly mitigated if not entirely dissipated by the cordial reception which he met with at home. On December 2, 1762, he wrote to Strahan that the reports of the diminution of his friends were all false; that ever since his arrival his house had been full of a succession of them from morning till night, congratulating him on his return. The Assembly honored him with a vote of thanks, and also voted him £3000 towards defraying his expenses. It was, of course, much less than he had expended during an absence of nearly six years; but it seems that he considered that, since much of his time had been passed in the enjoyment of an agreeable leisure, he should bear a corresponding part of the expense. While on the sea he had been chosen unanimously, as indeed had been done in each year of his absence, a member of that body; and he was told that, if he had not got so privately into town, he should have been met by an escort of 500 horsemen. All this must have been very gratifying. [Illustration: De Vergennes] A different kind of tribute, somewhat indirect, but none the less intelligible, was at the same time paid to him by the British government. In the autumn of 1762 his illegitimate son, William Franklin, was appointed governor of New Jersey. This act created a great storm of wrath from some of the provincial aristocratic party, and was vehemently railed at as an "indignity," a "dishonor and disgrace," an "insult." After all, it failed of its obvious purpose. The government shot brought down the wrong bird, common carrion, while the one aimed at never swerved in the slightest from his course. William, whom no one cared for in the least, became a confirmed royalist, and ultimately, as a Tory refugee, for years continued to absorb a pension for which he could return no adequate consideration. So far as Benjamin Franklin was concerned, he was at first much pleased; but his political views and course were not in the slightest degree affected. On the contrary, as the scheme developed, and the influence on the younger man became apparent, the final result was an alienation between father and son, which was only partially healed so late as 1784, just before the former returned from Europe for the last time. CHAPTER IV LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA When Franklin came home he was fifty-six years old. By nature he was physically indolent, and fifteen years ago he had given proof of his desire for the command of his own time by retiring from a lucrative business. But his forecasting of a tranquil, social career in Philadelphia, with science as his chief and agreeable occupation, was still to continue a day-dream, interrupted only by some thoughts of an English home. "Business, public and private, consumes all my time; I must return to England for repose. With such thoughts I flatter myself, and need some kind friend to put me often in mind that old trees cannot safely be transplanted." Thus he wrote to Mary Stevenson, the young lady whom he had hoped to have as a daughter-in-law. His first labor in the provinces came in the shape of a journey about the country to supervise and regulate the postal business. Upon this errand he went 1600 miles, which was no slight matter as travel was conducted in those days. He started in the spring of 1763, and did not get back until November. Upon his return he found himself at once immersed in public affairs. In October, 1763, Governor Hamilton was superseded by John Penn, nephew of the proprietary Thomas Penn. "Never," said Franklin, "did any administration open with a more promising prospect than this of Governor Penn. He assured the people in his first speeches of the proprietaries' paternal regard for them, and their sincere dispositions to do everything that might promote their happiness. As the proprietaries had been pleased to promote a son of the family to the government, it was thought not unlikely that there might be something in these professions; for that they would probably choose to have his administration made easy and agreeable, and to that end might think it prudent to withdraw those harsh, disagreeable, and unjust instructions, with which most of his predecessors had been hampered. The Assembly therefore believed fully and rejoiced sincerely. They showed the new governor every mark of respect and regard that was in their power. They readily and cheerfully went into everything he recommended to them." Moreover, the first event of public importance after Governor Penn's advent had, in its early stage, the effect of drawing him very closely to Franklin. Some of the settlers on the frontier, infuriated beyond the control of reason by the Indian marauding parties, gathered together for the purpose of slaughter. If they had directed their vengeance against the braves, and even all the occupants of the villages of the wilderness, they might have been excused though their vindictive rage led them to retaliate by the same barbarities which the red men had practiced towards the whites. Unfortunately, instead of courageously turning their faces towards the forests, they turned their backs in that direction, where only there was any enemy to be feared, and in a safe expedition they wreaked a deadly, senseless, cowardly, and brutal vengeance on an unoffending group of twenty old men, women, and children, living peacefully and harmlessly near Lancaster. The infamous story is familiar in the annals of Pennsylvania as the "Paxton massacre," because the "Paxton boys," the perpetrators, came from the Scotch-Irish settlement bearing that name. Franklin's indignation was great, and he expressed it forcibly in a pamphlet. But many, even of the class which should have felt with him, were in such a temper that they would condemn no act done against an Indian. Encouraged by the prevalence of this feeling, this same band, swelled to a numerous and really formidable force, had the audacity to start for Philadelphia itself, with the avowed purpose of massacring there a small body of civilized Christian Indians, who had fled thither for safety under the charge of their Moravian missionary, and against whom not a complaint could be made. Panic reigned in the City of Brotherly Love, little competent to cope with imminent violence. In the crisis citizens and governor could conceive no more hopeful scheme than an appeal to Franklin, which was made at once and urgently. The governor himself actually took up his residence in Franklin's house, and stayed there till the threat of trouble passed over, speaking, writing, and ordering only at Franklin's dictation,--a course which had in it more of sense than of dignity. The appeal was made in the right quarter. Already profoundly moved in this matter, Franklin was prompt and zealous to save his city from a shameful act, and the Indians from barbarous murder. His efforts soon gathered, and after a fashion organized, a body of defenders probably somewhat more numerous than the approaching mob. Yet a collision would have been most unfortunate, whatever the result; and to avert it Franklin took it upon him to go in person to meet the assailants. His courage, coolness, and address prevailed; he succeeded in satisfying the "Paxton boys" that they were so greatly outnumbered that, far from attacking others, they could only secure their own safety by instant dispersion. Thus by the resources and presence of mind of one man Philadelphia was saved from a day of which the bloody stain could never have been effaced from her good fame. But Franklin seemed for a while to reap more of hostility than of gratitude for his gallant and honorable conduct in this emergency. Governor Penn was an ignoble man, and after the danger was over he left the house, in which he had certainly played a rather ignominious part, with those feelings toward his host which a small soul inevitably cherishes toward a greater under such circumstances. Moreover, there were very many among the people who had more of sympathy with the "Paxton boys" than with the wise and humane man who had thwarted them. "For about forty-eight hours," Franklin wrote to one of his friends, "I was a very great man;" but after "the fighting face we put on" caused the insurgents to turn back, "I became a less man than ever; for I had, by this transaction, made myself many enemies among the populace," a fact of which the governor speedily took advantage. But without this episode enmity between Penn and Franklin was inevitable. They served masters whose ends were wide apart; upon the one side avaricious proprietaries of little foresight and judgment, upon the other side a people jealous of their rights and unwilling to leave to any one else the definition and interpretation of them. Soon it became known that the instructions of the new governor differed in no substantial particular from those of his predecessors. The procession of vetoes upon the acts of the Assembly resumed its familiar and hateful march. A militia bill was thus cut off, because, instead of leaving with the governor the nomination of regimental officers, it stipulated that the rank and file should name three persons for each position, and that the governor should choose one of these,--an arrangement bad in itself, but perhaps well suited to the habits and even the needs of the province at that time. A tax bill met the like fate, because it did not discriminate in favor of the located lands of the proprietaries by rating their best lands at no higher valuation than the worst lands of other persons. Soon it was generally felt that matters were as bad as ever, and with scantier chances of improvement. Then "all the old wounds broke out and bled afresh; all the old grievances, still unredressed, were recollected; despair succeeded of seeing any peace with a family that could make such returns to all overtures of kindness." The aggrieved party revived its scheme for a transfer of the government from the proprietaries to the crown, and Franklin threw himself into the discussion with more of zeal and ardor than he had often shown. While the debates upon this subject waxed hot in the Assembly, it was moved and carried that that body should adjourn for a few weeks, in order that members might consult their constituents and sound the public feeling. During this recess it may be conceived that neither side was slack in its efforts. Franklin for his share contributed a pamphlet, entitled "Cool Thoughts on the Present Situation of our Public Affairs." "Mischievous and distressing," he said, as the frequent disputes "have been found to both proprietaries and people, it does not appear that there is any prospect of their being extinguished, till either the proprietary purse is unable to support them, or the spirit of the people so broken that they shall be willing to submit to anything rather than continue them." With a happy combination of shrewdness and moderation he laid the blame upon the intrinsic nature of a proprietary government. "For though it is not unlikely that in these as well as in other disputes there are faults on both sides, every glowing coal being apt to inflame its opposite; yet I see no reason to suppose that all proprietary rulers are worse men than other rulers, nor that all people in proprietary governments are worse people than those in other governments. I suspect, therefore, that the cause is radical, interwoven in the constitution, and so become the very nature, of proprietary governments; and will therefore produce its effects as long as such governments continue." It indicated a broad and able mind, and one well under control, to assume as a basis this dispassionate assertion of a general principle, amid such personal heats as were then inflaming the passions of the whole community. His conclusion held one of his admirable similes which had the force of argument: "There seems to remain then but one remedy for our evils, a remedy approved by experience, and which has been tried with success by other provinces; I mean that of an immediate _Royal Government_, without the intervention of proprietary powers, which, like unnecessary springs and movements in a machine, are so apt to produce disorder." Further, he held out a bait to the crown:-- "The expression, _change of government_, seems indeed to be too extensive, and is apt to give the idea of a general and total change of our laws and constitution. It is rather and only a _change of governor_--that is, instead of self-interested proprietaries, a gracious king. His majesty, who has no views but for the good of the people, will thenceforth appoint the governor, who, unshackled by proprietary instructions, will be at liberty to join with the Assembly in enacting wholesome laws. At present, when the king desires supplies of his faithful subjects, and they are willing and desirous to grant them, the proprietaries intervene and say: 'Unless our private interests in certain particulars are served, _nothing shall be done_.' This insolent tribunal VETO has long encumbered our public affairs and been productive of many mischiefs." He then drew a petition "to the king's most excellent majesty in council," which humbly showed "That the government of this province by proprietaries has, by long experience, been found inconvenient, attended by many difficulties and obstructions to your majesty's service, arising from the intervention of proprietary private interests in public affairs, and disputes concerning those interests. That the said proprietary government is weak, unable to support its own authority, and maintain the common internal peace of the province; great riots have lately arisen therein.... And these evils are not likely to receive any remedy here, the continual disputes between the proprietaries and people, and their mutual jealousies and dislikes, preventing." Wherefore his majesty was asked to be "graciously pleased to resume the government of this province, ... permitting your dutiful subjects therein to enjoy, under your majesty's more immediate care and protection, the privileges that have been granted to them by and under your royal predecessors." The result of feeling the public pulse showed that it beat very high and strong for the proposed change. Accordingly the resolution to present the petition was now easily carried. But again the aged speaker, Norris, found himself called upon to do that for which he had not the nerve. He resigned the speakership; Franklin was chosen in his place and set the official signature to the document. Another paper by Franklin upon the same subject, and of considerable length, appeared in the shape of a preface to a speech delivered in the Assembly by Joseph Galloway in answer to a speech on the proprietary side by John Dickinson, which speech, also with a long preface, had been printed. In this pamphlet he reviewed all the recent history of the province. He devoted several pages to a startling exposition of the almost incredible usage which had long prevailed, whereby bills were left to accumulate on the governor's table, and then were finally signed by him in a batch, only upon condition that he should receive, or even sometimes upon his simultaneously receiving, a considerable _douceur_. Not only had this been connived at by the proprietaries, but sometimes these payments had been shared between the proprietaries and the governors. This topic Franklin finally dismissed with a few lines of admirable sarcasm: "Do not, my courteous reader, take pet at our proprietary constitution for these our bargain and sale proceedings in legislation. It is a happy country where justice, and what was your own before, can be had for ready money. It is another addition to the value of money, and, of course, another spur to industry. Every land is not so blessed." Many quotations from this able state paper have already been made in the preceding pages, though it is so brilliant a piece of work that to quote is only to mutilate. Its argument, denunciation, humor, and satire are interwoven in a masterly combination. The renowned "sketch in the lapidary style," prepared for the gravestone of Thomas and Richard Penn, with the introductory paragraphs, constitutes one of the finest assaults in political literature.[12] It is unfortunately impossible to give any adequate idea or even abstract of a document which covers so much ground and with such variety of treatment. It had of course a powerful effect in stimulating the public sentiment, and it was especially useful in supplying formidable arguments to those of the popular way of thinking; drawing their weapons from this armory, they felt themselves invincible. [Note 12: Franklin's animosity against the Penns was mitigated in later years. See Franklin's _Works_, viii. 273.] But it must not be supposed that all this while Franklin was treading the velvet path of universal popularity, amid the unanimous encouragement of his fellow citizens, and with only the frowns of the proprietary officials to disturb his serenity. By one means and another the proprietaries mustered a considerable party in the province, and the hatred of all these men was concentrated upon Franklin with extreme bitterness. He said that he was "as much the butt of party rage and malice," and was as much pelted with hostile prints and pamphlets, as if he were prime minister. Neither was the notion of a royal government looked upon with liking even by all those who were indignant against the present system. Moreover many persons still remained ill disposed towards him by reason of his opinions and behavior during the Paxton outbreak. The combination against him, made up of all these various elements, felt itself powerful enough for mischief, and found its opportunity in the election to the Assembly occurring in the autumn of 1764. The polls were opened on October 1, at nine o'clock in the morning. The throng was dense, and the column of voters could move but slowly. At three o'clock of the following morning, the voting having continued during the night, the friends of the "new ticket," that is to say of the new candidate, moved to close the polls. The friends of the "old ticket" opposed this motion and unfortunately prevailed. They had a "reserve of the aged and lame," who had shunned the crowd and were now brought in chairs and litters. Thus in three hours they increased their score by some two hundred votes. But the other side was not less enterprising, and devoting the same extension of time to scouring Germantown and other neighborhoods, they brought in near five hundred additional votes upon their side. It was apparently this strange blunder of the political managers for the "old ticket" party that was fatal to Franklin, for when the votes were all counted he was found to be beaten by a balance against him of twenty-five. He had therefore evidently had a majority at the hour when his friends prevented the closing of the polls. He "died like a philosopher. But Mr. Galloway _agonized in death_ like a Mortal Deist, who has no Hopes of a Future Existence."[13] [Note 13: Parton's _Life of Franklin_, i. 451, quoting _Life of Joseph Reed_, i. 37.] But the jubilation of the proprietary party over this signal victory was soon changed into mourning. For within a few days the new Assembly was in session, and at once took into consideration the appointment of Dr. Franklin as its agent to present to the king in council another petition for a royal government. The wrath of the other side blazed forth savagely. "No measure," their leader, Dickinson, said, was "so likely to inflame the resentments and embitter the discontents of the people." He "appealed to the heart of every member for the truth of the assertion that no man in Pennsylvania is at this time so much the object of public dislike as he that has been mentioned. To what a surprising height this dislike is carried among vast numbers" he did "not choose to repeat." He said that within a few hours of the nomination hundreds of the most reputable citizens had protested, and if time were given thousands "would crowd to present the like testimony against [him]. Why then should a majority of this House single out from the whole world the man most obnoxious to his country to represent his country, though he was at the last election turned out of the Assembly, where he had sat for fourteen years? Why should they exert their power in the most disgusting manner, and throw pain, terror, and displeasure into the breasts of their fellow citizens?" The excited orator then threw out a suggestion to which this vituperation had hardly paved a way of roses; he actually appealed to Franklin to emulate Aristides, and not be worse than "the dissolute Otho," and to this end urged that he should distinguish himself in the eyes of all good men by "voluntarily declining an office which he could not accept without alarming, offending, and disturbing his country." "Let him, from a private station, from a smaller sphere, diffuse, as I think he may, a beneficial light; but let him not be made to move and blaze like a comet, to terrify and to distress."[14] The popular majority in the Assembly withstood Mr. Dickinson's rhetoric, and, to quote the forcible language of Bancroft, "proceeded to an act which in its consequences was to influence the world." That is to say, they carried the appointment. Franklin likewise set aside Dickinson's seductive counsels, and accepted the position. [Note 14: Parton's _Life of Franklin_, i, 451, 452.] It is not in human nature to be so extravagantly abused in times of intense excitement, and wholly to hold one's peace. Even the cool temper of Dr. Franklin was incited to a retort; his defense was brief and dignified, in a very different tone from that of the aspersions to which it replied; and it carries that influence which always belongs to him who preserves moderation amid the passions of a fierce controversy.[15] [Note 15: See, for example, Franklin's _Works_, iii. 361, 362.] CHAPTER V SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND, I Franklin so hastened his preparations that he was ready to depart again for England in twelve days after his election. There was no money in the provincial treasury; but some of the well-to-do citizens, in expectation of reimbursement, raised by subscription £1100. He took only £500. A troop of three hundred mounted citizens escorted him from the city sixteen miles down the river to the ship, and "filled the sails with their good wishes." This parade, designed only as a friendly demonstration, was afterward made a charge against him, as an assumption of pomp and a display of popularity. If it had been deliberately planned, it would have been ill advised; but it took him by surprise, and he could not prevent it. The ship cast anchor in St. Helen's Road, Isle of Wight, on December 9, 1764. He forthwith hastened to London, and installed himself in the familiar rooms at No. 7 Craven Street, Strand. In Philadelphia, when the news came of the safe arrival of this "man the most obnoxious to his country," the citizens kept the bells ringing until midnight. So altogether the prospect now seemed agreeable in whatever direction Dr. Franklin chose to look. He was in quarters in which he was at least as much at home as he could feel in his house at Philadelphia; Mrs. Stevenson, his landlady, and her daughter Mary, whom he had sought to persuade his son to marry, upon the excellent ground of his own great affection for her, not only made him comfortable but saved him from homesickness; old and warm friends welcomed him; the pleasures of London society again spread their charms before him. Without the regrets and doubts which must have attended the real emigration which he had been half inclined to make, he seemed to be reaping all the gratification which that could have brought him. At the same time he had also the pride of receiving from the other side of the Atlantic glowing accounts of the esteem in which he was held by a controlling body of those who were still his fellow citizens there. But already there had shown itself above the horizon a cloud which rapidly rose, expanded, and obscured all this fair sky. Franklin came to England in the anticipation of a short stay, and with no purpose beyond the presentation and urging of the petition for the change of government. Somewhat less than ten months, he thought, would suffice to finish this business. In fact, he did not get home for ten years, and this especial errand, which had seemed all that he had to do, soon sank into such comparative insignificance that, though not actually forgotten, it could not secure attention. He conscientiously made repeated efforts to keep the petition in the memory of the English ministry, and to obtain action upon it; but his efforts were vain; that body was absorbed by other affairs in connection with the troublesome American colonies,--affairs which gave vastly more perplexity and called for much more attention than were becoming in the case of provinces that should have been submissive as well-behaved children. Franklin himself found his own functions correspondingly enlarged. Instead of remaining simply an agent charged with urging a petition which brought him in conflict only with private persons, like himself subjects of the king, he found his position rapidly change and develop until he became really the representative of a disaffected people maintaining a cause against the monarch and the government of the great British Empire. It was the "Stamp Act" which effected this transformation. Scarcely had the great war with France been brought to a close by the treaty of 1763, bringing such enormous advantages to the old British possessions in America, before it became apparent that among the fruits some were mingled that were neither sweet nor nourishing. The war had moved the colonies into a perilous foreground. Their interests had cost much in men and money, and had been worth all that they had cost, and more; the benefits conferred upon them had been immense, yet were recognized as not being in excess of their real importance, present and future. Worst of all, the magnitude of their financial resources had been made apparent; without a murmur, without visible injury to their prosperity, they had voluntarily raised large sums by taxation. Meanwhile the English treasury had been put to enormous charges, and the English people groaned beneath the unwonted tax burdens which they had to bear. The attention of British financiers, even before the war was over, was turned toward the colonies, as a field of which the productive capacity had never been developed. So soon as peace brought to the government leisure to adjust domestic matters in a thorough manner, the scheme for colonial taxation came to the front. "America ... became the great subject of consideration; ... and the minister who was charged with its government took the lead in public business."[16] This minister was at first Charles Townshend, than whom no man in England, it was supposed, knew more of the transatlantic possessions. His scheme involved a standing army of 25,000 men in the provinces, to be supported by taxes to be raised there. In order to obtain this revenue he first gave his care to the revision of the navigation act. Duties which had been so high that they had never been collected he now proposed to reduce and to enforce. This was designed to be only the first link in the chain, but before he could forge others he had to go out of office with the Bute ministry. The change in the cabinet, however, made no change in the colonial policy; that was not "the wish of this man or that man," but apparently of nearly all English statesmen. [Note 16: Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._ iv. 28.] So in March, 1763, George Grenville, in the treasury department, took up the plan which Townshend had laid down. Grenville was commercially minded, and his first efforts were in the direction of regulating the trade of the colonies so as to carry out with much more stringency and thoroughness than heretofore three principles: first, that England should be the only shop in which a colonist could purchase; second, that colonists should not make for themselves those articles which England had to sell to them; third, that the people of different colonies should not trade with each other even to the indirect or possible detriment of the trade of either with England. Severely as these restrictions bore upon the colonists, they were of that character, as relating to external trade, which no colonist denied to lie within the jurisdiction of Parliament. But they were not enough; they must be supplemented; and a stamp act was designed as the supplement. On March 9, 1764, Grenville stated his intention to introduce such a bill at the next session; he needed the interval for inquiries and preparation. It was no very novel idea. It "had been proposed to Sir Robert Walpole; it had been thought of by Pelham; it had been almost resolved upon in 1755; it had been pressed upon Pitt; it seems, beyond a doubt, to have been a part of the system adopted in the ministry of Bute, and it was sure of the support of Charles Townshend. Knox, the agent of Georgia, stood ready to defend it.... The agent of Massachusetts favored raising the wanted money in that way." Little opposition was anticipated in Parliament, and none from the king. In short, "everybody, who reasoned on the subject, decided for a stamp tax."[17] Never did any bill of any legislature seem to come into being with better auspices. Some among the colonial agents certainly expressed ill feeling towards it; but Grenville silenced them, telling them that he was acting "from a real regard and tenderness" towards the Americans. He said this in perfect good faith. His views both of the law and of the reasons for the law were intelligent and honest; he had carefully gathered information and sought advice; and he had a profound belief alike in the righteousness and the wisdom of the measure. [Note 17: Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._ iv. 155.] News of what was in preparation in England reached Pennsylvania in the summer of 1764, shortly before Franklin sailed. The Assembly debated concerning it; Franklin was prominent in condemning the scheme; and a resolution protesting against it was passed. It was made part of Franklin's duty in London to urge upon Grenville these views of Pennsylvania. But when he arrived he found that the grinding at the mills of government was going on much too evenly to be disturbed by the introduction of any such insignificant foreign substance as a colonial protest. Nevertheless he endeavored to do what he could. In company with three other colonial agents he had an interview with Grenville, February 2, 1765, in which he urged that taxation by act of Parliament was needless, inasmuch as any requisition for the service of the king always had found, and always would find, a prompt and liberal response on the part of the Assembly. Arguments, however, and protests struck ineffectually against the solid wall of Grenville's established purpose. He listened with a civil appearance of interest and dismissed his visitors and all memory of their arguments together. On the 13th of the same month he read the bill in Parliament; on the 27th it passed the Commons; on March 8, the Lords; and on March 22 it was signed by a royal commission; the insanity of the king saved him from placing his own signature to the ill-starred law. In July Franklin wrote to Charles Thomson:-- "Depend upon it, my good neighbor, I took every step in my power to prevent the passing of the Stamp Act. Nobody could be more concerned and interested than myself to oppose it sincerely and heartily. But the tide was too strong against us. The nation was provoked by American claims of independence, and all parties joined in resolving by this act to settle the point. We might as well have hindered the sun's setting. That we could not do. But since it is down, my friend, and it may be long before it rises again, let us make as good a night of it as we can. We can still light candles. Frugality and industry will go a great way towards indemnifying us. Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments. If we can get rid of the former, we may easily bear the latter." In such a temper was he at this time, and so remained until he got news of the first mutterings of the storm in the colonies. His words show a discouragement and despondency unusual with him; but what attracts remark is the philosophical purpose to make the best even of so bad a business, the hopeless absence of any suggestion of a further opposition, and that his only advice is patient endurance. Unquestionably he did conceive the matter to be for the time settled. The might of England was an awful fact, visible all around him; he felt the tremendous force of the great British people; and he saw their immense resources every day as he walked the streets of busy, prosperous London. As he recalled the infant towns and scattered villages of the colonies, how could he contemplate forcible resistance to an edict of Parliament and the king? Had Otis, Adams, Henry, Gadsden, and the rest seen with their bodily eyes what Franklin was seeing every day, their words might have been more tempered. Even a year later, in talk with a gentleman who said that so far back as 1741 he had expressed an opinion that the colonies "would one day release themselves from England," Franklin answered, "with his earnest, expressive, and intelligent face:" "Then you were mistaken; the Americans have too much love for their mother country;" and he added that "secession was impossible, for all the American towns of importance, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, were exposed to the English navy. Boston could be destroyed by bombardment." Near the same time he said to Ingersoll of Connecticut, who was about departing for the colonies: "Go home and tell your countrymen to get children as fast as they can." By no means without forebodings for the future, he was yet far from fancying that the time had come when physical resistance was feasible. It seemed still the day for arguments, not for menaces. To Franklin in this frame of mind, never doubting that the act would be enforced, there was brought a plausible message from Grenville. The minister desired "to make the execution of the act as little inconvenient and disagreeable to America as possible," and to this end he preferred to nominate as stamp distributers "discreet and reputable" residents in the province, rather than to send over strangers from Great Britain. Accordingly he solicited a nomination from Franklin of some "honest and responsible" man in Philadelphia. Franklin readily named a trustworthy merchant of his acquaintance, Mr. Hughes. The Stamp Act itself hardly turned out a greater blunder for Grenville than this well-meant suggestion was near turning out for Franklin. When the Philadelphians got news of the passage of the act, the preparations for its enforcement, the nomination of Mr. Hughes, and the fact that he had been suggested by Franklin, the whole city rose in a wild frenzy of rage. Never was such a sudden change of feeling. He who had been their trusted companion was now loudly reviled as a false and truckling traitor. He was said to have deserted his own, and to have gone over to the minister's side; to have approved the odious law, and to have asked that a position under it might be given to his friend. The mobs ranging the streets threatened to destroy the new house, in which he had left his wife and daughter. The latter was persuaded to seek safety in Burlington; but Mrs. Franklin, with admirable courage, stayed in the house till the danger was over. Some armed friends stood ready to assist if the crisis should come, but fortunately it passed by. All sorts of stories were spread concerning Franklin,--even that it was he who had "_planned_ the Stamp Act;" and that he was endeavoring also to get the Test Act introduced into the colonies! A caricature represented the devil whispering into his ear: "Ben, you shall be my agent throughout my dominions." Knowing Franklin's frame of mind, it is easy to fancy the surprise with which he learned of the spirit which had blazed forth in the colonies, and of the violent doings in many places; and we may imagine the pain and mortification with which he heard of the opinions expressed by his fellow citizens concerning his own action. He said little at the time, so far as we know; but many years afterwards he gave a narrative of his course in language which was almost apologetic and deprecatory. A pen in his fingers became a sympathetic instrument, and betrays sometimes what his moderate language does not distinctly state. The intense, bitter condemnation vented by his constituents, who so lately had been following his lead, but who now reviled a representative who had misrepresented them in so vital an affair, cut its way deep. The gap between him and them did indeed seem a wide one. In the colonies there was universal wrath, oftentimes swelling into fury; in some places mobs, much sacking of houses, hangings and burnings in effigy; compulsion put upon king's officers publicly to resign their offices; wild threats and violence; obstruction to the distribution of the stamped paper; open menaces of forcible resistance, even of secession and rebellion; a careful estimating of the available armed forces among the colonies; the proposal for a congress of colonies to promote community of action, to protest, and to consult for the common cause; disobedient resolutions by legislatures; a spreading of the spirit of colonial union by the general cry of "Join or die;" agreements not to import or use articles of English manufacture, with other sunderings of commercial relations. Far behind this mad procession, of which the more moderate divisions were marshaled by Otis, Sam Adams, and Gadsden, and soon also by John Adams and Patrick Henry, and by many other well-known "patriots," Franklin appeared to be a laggard in the rear distance, with disregarded arguments and protests, with words of moderation, even counsels of submission, nay, actually with a sort of connivance in the measure by the nomination of an official under it. Yet the intervening space was not so great as it appeared. There was nothing in the counsels of the reasonable and intelligent "patriots" which was repugnant to Franklin's opinions. So soon as he saw the ground upon which they had placed themselves, he made haste to come into position with them. It was fortunate indeed that the transient separation was closed again before it could lead to the calamity of his removal from his office. For no man or even combination of men, whom it was possible to send from the provinces, could have done them the services which Franklin was about to render. Besides the general power of his mind, he had peculiar fitnesses. He was widely known and very highly esteemed in England, where he moved in many circles. Among members of the nobility, among men high in office, among members of Parliament, among scientific men and literary men, among men of business and affairs, and among men who made a business of society, he was always welcome. In that city in which dinners constituted so important an element in life, even for the most serious purposes, he was the greatest of diners-out; while at the coffee-houses, clubs, and in the old-fashioned tavern circles no companion was more highly esteemed than he. He consorted not only with friends of the colonies, but was, and for a long time continued to be, on intimate terms of courteous intercourse also with those who were soon to be described as their enemies. Each and all, amid this various and extensive acquaintance, listened to him with a respect no tithe of which could have been commanded by any other American then living. The force of his intelligence, the scope of his understanding, the soundness of his judgment, had already been appreciated by men accustomed to study and to estimate the value of such traits. His knowledge of American affairs, of the trade and business of the provinces, of the characteristics of the people in different parts of the country, was very great, because of his habit of shrewd observation, of his taste for practical matters, and of his extensive travels and connections as postmaster. Add to this that he had a profound affection for the mother country, which was not only a tradition and a habit, but a warm and lively attachment nourished by delightful personal experience, by long residence and numerous friendships, by gratifying appreciation of and compliments to himself. No one could doubt his sincerity when he talked of his love for England as a real and influential sentiment. At the same time he was an American and a patriot. Though he had failed to anticipate the state of feeling which the Stamp Act begot, it was his only failure of this kind; generally he spoke the sentiments of the colonists with entire truth and sympathy. He was one who could combine force with moderation in the expression of his views, the force being all the greater for the moderation; he had an admirable head to conceive an argument, a tongue and pen to state it clearly and pointedly. He had presence of mind in conversation, was ready and quick at fence; he was widely learned; he was a sounder political economist than any member of the English government; above all, he had an unrivaled familiarity with the facts, the arguments, and the people on both sides of the controversy; he kept perfect control of his temper, without the least loss of earnestness; and had the rare faculty of being able to state his own side with plain force, and yet without giving offense. Such were his singular qualifications, which soon enabled him to perform the greatest act of his public life. Matters came by degrees into better shape for the colonies. In politics any statesman has but to propose a measure to find it opposed by those who oppose him. So what had seemed an universal willingness to levy internal taxes upon the colonies soon lost this aspect. No sooner did the news from the angry colonies bring the scheme into prominence than the assaults upon it became numerous, and enemies of Grenville became friends of America. Arguments so obvious and so strong as those against the measure were eagerly made the most of by the opponents of the men who were in office. Among these opponents was Pitt, that formidable man before whom all trembled. Gout had disabled him, but who could tell when he might get sufficient respite to return and deal havoc? Yet in spite of all that was said, the ministry seemed impregnable. Grenville was very able, always of a stubborn temper, and in this especial case convinced to the point of intensity that the right lay with him; moreover, he was complete master in Parliament, where his authority seemed still to increase steadily. No man was sanguine enough to see hope for the colonies, when suddenly an occurrence, which in this age could not appreciably affect the power of an English premier, snapped Grenville's sway in a few days. This was only the personal pique of the king, irritated by complaints made by the Duke of Bedford about the favorite, Bute. For such a cause George III. drove out of office, upon grounds of his own dislike, a prime minister and cabinet with whom he was in substantial accord upon the most important public matters then under consideration, and although it was almost impossible to patch together any tolerably congruous or competent body of successors. Pitt endeavored to form a cabinet, but was obliged, with chagrin, to confess his inability. At last the Duke of Cumberland succeeded in forming the so-called Rockingham Cabinet, a weak combination, but far less unfavorable than its predecessor towards America. The Marquis of Rockingham, as prime minister, had Edmund Burke as his private secretary; while General Conway, one of the very few who had opposed the Stamp Act, now actually received the southern department of state within which the colonies were included. Still there seemed little hope for any undoing of the past, which probably would never have been wrung from this or any British ministry so long as all the discontent was on the other side of three thousand miles of ocean. But this was ceasing to be the case. The American weapon of non-importation was proving most efficient. In the provinces the custom of wearing mourning was abandoned; no one killed or ate lamb, to the end that by the increase of sheep the supply of wool might be greater; homespun was now the only wear; no man would be seen clad in English cloth. In a word, throughout America there was established what would now be called a thorough and comprehensive "boycott" against all articles of English manufacture. So very soon the manufacturers of the mother country began to find themselves the only real victims of the Stamp Act. In America it was inflicting no harm, but rather was encouraging economy, enterprise, and domestic industry; while the sudden closing of so enormous a market brought loss and bankruptcy to many an English manufacturer and warehouseman. Shipping, too, was indirectly affected. An outcry for the change of a disastrous policy swelled rapidly in the manufacturing and trading towns; and erelong the battle of the colonists was being fought by allies upon English soil, who were stimulated by the potent impulse of self-preservation. These men cared nothing for the principle at stake, nothing for the colonists personally; but they cared for the business by which they sustained their own homes, and they were resolved that the destroying Stamp Act should be got out of their way. Such an influence was soon felt. Death also came in aid of the Americans, removing in good time the Duke of Cumberland, the merciless conqueror of Culloden, who now was all ready to fight it out with the colonies, and only thus lost the chance to do so. Beneath the pressure of these events concession began to be talked of, though at first of course its friends were few and its enemies many. Charles Townshend announced himself able to contemplate with equanimity the picture of the colonies relapsing "to their primitive deserts." But the trouble was that little deserts began to spot the face of England; and still the British merchant, who seldom speaks long in vain, was increasing his clamor, and did not fancy the prospect of rich trading fields reduced to desolation. In January, 1766, too, the dreaded voice of Pitt again made itself heard in St. Stephen's, sending forth an eloquent harangue for America: "The Americans are the sons, not the bastards, of England. As subjects they are entitled to the common right of representation, and cannot be bound to pay taxes without their consent. Taxation is no part of the governing power.[18] The taxes are a voluntary gift and grant by the Commons alone. In an American tax what do we do? We, your Majesty's Commons of Great Britain, give and grant to your Majesty--what? Our own property? No! we give and grant to your Majesty the property of your Majesty's commons in America. It is an absurdity in terms."[19] "The idea of a virtual representation of America in this House is the most contemptible that ever entered into the head of man." "I never shall own the justice of taxing America internally until she enjoys the right of representation." Not very many men in either house of Parliament would go the full logical length of Pitt's argument; but men who held views quite opposite to his as to the lawful authority of Parliament to lay this tax were beginning to feel that they must join him in getting it out of the way of domestic prosperity in England. It seemed to them a mistaken exercise of an unquestionable right. They were prepared to correct the mistake, which could be done without abandoning the right. [Note 18: Grenville had laid down the proposition that England was "the sovereign, the supreme legislative power over America," and that "taxation is a part of that sovereign power."] [Note 19: Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._ v. 385-387.] As this feeling visibly gained ground the ministry gathered courage to consider the expediency of introducing a bill to repeal the act. Could the king have had his way they would not have survived in office to do so. He would have had their ministerial heads off, as he had stricken those of their immediate predecessors. But efforts which he made to find successors for them were fruitless, and so they remained in places which no others could be induced to fill. Pitt was sounded, to see whether he would ally himself with them; but he would not. Had he been gained the fight would not have come simply upon the repeal of the act as unsatisfactory, but as being contrary to the constitution of England. The narrower battle-ground was selected by Rockingham. The immediate forerunner in Parliament of the repeal of the Stamp Act was significant. A resolution was introduced into the House of Lords, February 3, 1766, that the "king in Parliament has full power to bind the colonies and people of America in all cases whatsoever." The debate which followed showed what importance this American question had assumed in England; the expression of feeling was intense, the display of ability very great. Lord Camden and Lord Mansfield encountered each other; but the former, with the best of the argument, had much the worst of the division. One hundred and twenty-five peers voted for the resolution, only five against it. In the Commons, Pitt assailed the resolution, with no better success than had attended Camden. No one knew how many voted Nay, but it was "less than ten voices, some said five or four, some said but three."[20] Immediately after this assertion of a principle, the same Parliament prepared to set aside the only application of it which had ever been attempted. It was well understood that the repeal of the Stamp Act was close at hand. [Note 20: Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._ v. 417.] It was at this juncture that Franklin, who had been by no means idle during the long struggle, appeared as a witness in that examination which perhaps displayed his ability to better advantage than any other single act in his life. It was between February 3 and 13, 1766, that he and others were summoned to give testimony concerning the colonies at the bar of the House of Commons sitting in committee of the whole. The others have been forgotten, but his evidence never will be. The proceeding was striking; there were some of the cleverest and most experienced men in England to question him; no one of them singly was his match; but there were many of them, and they conducted an examination and a cross-examination both in one; that is to say, those who wished to turn a point against him might at any moment interpose with any question which might suddenly confuse or mislead him. But no man was ever better fitted than Franklin to play the part of a witness, and no record in politics or in law can compare with the report of his testimony. Some persons have endeavored to account for, which means of course to detract from, its extraordinary merit by saying that some of the questions and replies had been prearranged; but it does not appear that such prearrangement went further than that certain friendly interrogators had discussed the topics with him so as to be familiar with his views. Every lawyer does this with his witnesses. Nor can it be supposed that the admirable replies which he made to the enemies of America were otherwise than strictly impromptu. He had thorough knowledge of the subject; he was in perfect control of his head and his temper; his extraordinary faculty for clear and pithy statement never showed to better advantage; he was, as always, moderate and reasonable; but above all the wonderful element was the quick wit and ready skill with which he turned to his own service every query which was designed to embarrass him; and this he did not in the vulgar way of flippant retort or disingenuous twistings of words or facts, but with the same straightforward and tranquil simplicity of language with which he delivered evidence for the friendly examiners. Burke likened the proceeding to an examination of a master by a parcel of schoolboys. Franklin used to say, betwixt plaint and humor, that it always seemed to him that no one ever gave an abbreviation or an abstract of anything which he had written, without very nearly spoiling the original. This would be preëminently true of an abstract of this examination; abbreviation can be only mutilation. It ranged over a vast ground,--colonial history and politics, political economy, theories and practice in colonial trade, colonial commerce and industry, popular opinions and sentiment, and the probabilities of action in supposed cases. His answers made a great stir; they were universally admitted to have substantially advanced the day of repeal. They constituted the abundant armory to which the friends of the colonies resorted for weapons offensive and defensive, for facts and for ideas. He himself, with just complacency, remarked: "The then ministry was ready to hug me for the assistance I afforded them." The "Gentleman's Magazine" said:-- "From this examination of Dr. Franklin the reader may form a clearer and more comprehensive idea of the state and disposition in America, of the expediency or inexpediency of the measure in question, and of the character and conduct of the minister who proposed it, than from all that has been written upon the subject in newspapers and pamphlets, under the titles of essays, letters, speeches, and considerations, from the first moment of its becoming the subject of public attention until now. The questions in general are put with great subtlety and judgment, and they are answered with such deep and familiar knowledge of the subject, such precision and perspicuity, such temper and yet such spirit, as do the greatest honor to Dr. Franklin, and justify the general opinion of his character and abilities." Like praises descended from every quarter. One interesting fact clearly appears from this examination: that Franklin now fully understood the colonial sentiment, and was thoroughly in accord with it. Being asked whether the colonists "would submit to the Stamp Act, if it were modified, the obnoxious parts taken out, and the duty reduced to some particulars of small moment," he replied with brief decision: "No, they will never submit to it." As to how they would receive "a future tax imposed on the same principle," he said, with the same forcible brevity: "Just as they do this: they would not pay it." _Q._ "Can anything less than a military force carry the Stamp Act into execution? _A._ I do not see how a military force can be applied to that purpose. _Q._ Why may it not? _A._ Suppose a military force sent into America, they will find nobody in arms. What are they then to do? They cannot force a man to take stamps who chooses to do without them. They will not find a rebellion; they may indeed make one. _Q._ If the act is not repealed, what do you think will be the consequences? _A._ A total loss of the respect and affection the people of America bear to this country, and of all the commerce that depends on that respect and affection. _Q._ How can the commerce be affected? _A._ You will find that if the act is not repealed, they will take a very little of your manufactures in a short time. _Q._ Is it in their power to do without them? _A._ The goods they take from Britain are either necessaries, mere conveniences, or superfluities. The first, as cloth, etc., with a little industry they can make at home; the second they can do without until they are able to provide them among themselves; and the last, which are much the greatest part, they will strike off immediately." This view of the willingness and capacity of the colonists to forego English importations he elsewhere elaborated fully. The English merchants knew to their cost that he spoke the truth. With reference to the enforcement of claims in the courts, he was asked whether the people would not use the stamps "rather than remain ... unable to obtain any right or recover by law any debt?" He replied: "It is hard to say what they would do. I can only judge what other people will think, and how they will act, by what I feel within myself. I have a great many debts due to me in America, and I would rather they should remain unrecoverable by any law than submit to the Stamp Act." A few weeks later he wrote: "I have some little property in America. I will freely spend nineteen shillings in the pound to defend my right of giving or refusing the other shilling. And, after all, if I cannot defend that right, I can retire cheerfully with my family into the boundless woods of America, which are sure to afford freedom and subsistence to any man who can bait a hook or pull a trigger." The picture of Dr. Franklin, the philosopher, at the age of sixty-one, "cheerfully" sustaining his family in the wilderness by the winnings of his rod and his rifle stirs one's sense of humor; but the paragraph indicates that he was in strict harmony with his countrymen, who were expressing serious resolution with some rhetorical exaggeration, in the American fashion. The main argument of the colonies, that under the British constitution there could be no taxation without representation, was of course introduced into the examination; and Franklin seized the occasion to express his theory very ingeniously. Referring to the fact that, by the Declaration of Rights, no money could "be raised on the subject but by consent of Parliament," the subtle question was put: How the colonists could think that they themselves had a right to levy money for the crown? Franklin replied: "They understand that clause to relate only to subjects within the realm; that no money can be levied on _them_ for the crown but by consent of Parliament. The colonies are not supposed to be within the realm; they have assemblies of their own, which are their parliaments." This was a favorite theory with him, in expounding which he likened the colonies to Ireland, and to Scotland before the union. Many sentences to the same purport occur in his writings; for example: "These writers against the colonies all bewilder themselves by supposing the colonies _within_ the realm, which is not the case, nor ever was." "If an Englishman goes into a foreign country, he is subject to the laws and government he finds there. If he finds no government or laws there, he is subject there to none, till he and his companions, if he has any, make laws for themselves; and this was the case of the first settlers in America. Otherwise, if they carried the English laws and power of Parliament with them, what advantage could the Puritans propose to themselves by going?" "The colonists carried no law with them; they carried only a power of making laws, or adopting such parts of the English law or of any other law as they should think suitable to their circumstances."[21] Radical doctrines these, which he could not reasonably expect would find favor under any principles of government then known in the world. To the like effect were other assertions of his, made somewhat later: "In fact, the British Empire is not a single state; it comprehends many." "The sovereignty of the crown I understand. The sovereignty of the British legislature out of Britain I do not understand." "The king, and not the King, Lords, and Commons collectively, is their sovereign; and the king with their respective parliaments is their only legislator."[22] "The Parliament of Great Britain has not, never had, and of right never can have, without consent given either before or after, power to make laws of sufficient force to bind the subjects of America in any case whatever, and particularly in taxation." The singular phrase "the subjects of America" is worth noting. In 1769, still reiterating the same principle, he said: "We are free subjects of the king; and fellow subjects of one part of his dominions are not sovereigns over fellow subjects in any other part." [Note 21: To same purport, see also _Works_, iv. 300.] [Note 22: Concerning this theory, see Fiske's _The Beginnings of New England_, 266.] It is a singular fact that Franklin long cherished a personal regard towards the king, and a faith in his friendly and liberal purposes towards the colonies. Indignation against the Parliament was offset by confidence in George III. Even so late as the spring of 1769, he writes to a friend in America: "I hope nothing that has happened, or may happen, will diminish in the least our loyalty to our sovereign, or affection for this nation in general. I can scarcely conceive a king of better disposition, of more exemplary virtues, or more truly desirous of promoting the welfare of all his subjects. The experience we have had of the family in the two preceding mild reigns, and the good temper of our young princes, so far as can yet be discovered, promise us a continuance of this felicity." Of the British people too he thought kindly. But for the Parliament he could find no excuse. He admitted that it might be "decent" indeed to speak in the "public papers" of the "wisdom and the justice of Parliament;" nevertheless, the ascription of these qualities to the present Parliament certainly was not true, whatever might be the case as to any future one. The next year found him still counseling that the colonies should hold fast to their allegiance to their king, who had the best disposition towards them, and was their most efficient bulwark against "the arbitrary power of a corrupt Parliament." In the summer of 1773, he was seeking excuses for the king's adherence to the principle that Parliament could legally tax the colonies: "when one considers the king's situation," with all his ministers, advisers, judges, and the great majority of both houses holding this view, when "one reflects how necessary it is for him to be well with his Parliament," and that any action of his countenancing a doctrine contrary to that of both the Lords and the Commons "would hazard his embroiling himself with those powerful bodies," Franklin was of opinion that it seemed "hardly to be expected from him that he should take any step of that kind." But this was the last apology which he uttered for George III. He was about to reach the same estimation of that monarch which has been adopted by posterity. Only a very little later he writes: "Between you and me, the late measures have been, I suspect, very much the king's own, and he has in some cases a great share of what his friends call _firmness_." Thus tardily, reluctantly, and at first gently, the kindly philosopher began to admit to himself and others the truth as to his Majesty's disposition and character. Some persons in England, affected by the powerful argument of non-representation, proposed that the colonies should be represented in Parliament; and about the time of the Stamp Act the possibility of such an arrangement was seriously discussed. Franklin was willing to speak kindly of a plan which was logically unobjectionable, and which involved the admission that the existing condition was unjust; but he knew very well that it would never develop into a practicable solution of the problem, and in fact it soon dropped out of men's minds. January 6, 1766, he wrote that in his opinion the measure of an _Union_, as he shrewdly called it, was a wise one; "but," he said, "I doubt it will hardly be thought so here until it is too late to attempt it. The time has been when the colonies would have esteemed it a great advantage, as well as honor, to be permitted to send members to Parliament, and would have asked for that privilege if they could have had the least hopes of obtaining it. The time is now come when they are indifferent about it, and will probably not ask it, though they might accept it, if offered them; and the time will come when they will certainly refuse it. But if such an Union were now established (which methinks it highly imports this country to establish), it would probably subsist so long as Britain shall continue a nation. This people, however, is too proud, and too much despises the Americans to bear the thought of admitting them to such an equitable participation in the government of the whole."[23] [Note 23: To same purport, see letter to Evans, May 9, 1766, _Works_, iii. 464.] Haughty words these, though so tranquilly spoken, and which must have startled many a dignified Briton: behold! a mere colonist, the son of a tallow chandler, is actually declaring that those puny colonies of simple "farmers, husbandmen, and planters" were already "indifferent" about, and would soon feel in condition to "refuse," representation in such a body as the Parliament of England; also that it "highly imported" Great Britain to _seek_ amalgamation while yet it could be had! But Franklin meant what he said, and he repeated it more than once, very earnestly. He resented that temper, of which he saw so much on every side, and which he clearly described by saying that every individual in England felt himself to be "part of a sovereign over America." Men of a different habit of mind of course reiterated the shallow and threadbare nonsense about "virtual," or as it would be called nowadays constructive, representation of the colonies, likening them to Birmingham, Manchester, and other towns which sent no members to Parliament--as if problems in politics followed the rule of algebra, that negative quantities, multiplied, produce a positive quantity. But Franklin concerned himself little about this unreasonable reasoning, which indeed soon had an effect eminently disagreeable to the class of men who stupidly uttered it. For it was promptly replied that if there were such large bodies of unrepresented Englishmen, it betokened a wrong state of affairs in England also. If English freeholders have not the right of suffrage, said Franklin, "they are injured. Then rectify what is amiss among yourselves, and do not make it a justification of more wrong."[24] Thus that movement began which in time brought about parliamentary reform, another result of this American disturbance which was extremely distasteful to that stratum of English society which was most strenuous against the colonists. [Note 24: See also to same purport, _Works_, iv. 157.] Still another point which demanded elucidation was, why Parliament should not have the power to lay internal taxes just as much as to levy duties. Grenville said: "External and internal taxes are the same in effect, and only differ in name;" and the authority of Parliament to lay external taxes had never been called in question. Franklin's examiners tried him upon this matter: Can you show that there is any kind of difference between the two taxes, to the colony on which they are laid? He answered: "I think the difference is very great. An _external_ tax is a duty laid on commodities imported; that duty is added to the first cost and other charges on the commodity, and, when it is offered for sale, makes a part of the price. If the people do not like it at that price, they refuse it; they are not obliged to pay for it. But an _internal_ tax is forced from the people without their consent, if not laid by their own representatives. The Stamp Act says, we shall have no commerce, make no exchange of property with each other, neither purchase, nor grant, nor recover debts; we shall neither marry nor make our wills; unless we pay such and such sums." It was suggested that an external tax might be laid on the necessaries of life, which the people must have; but Franklin said that the colonies were, or very soon would be, in a position to produce for themselves all necessaries. He was then asked what was the difference "between a duty on the importation of goods and an excise on their consumption?" He replied that there was a very material one; the excise, for reasons given, seemed unlawful. "But the sea is yours; you maintain by your fleets the safety of navigation in it, and keep it clear of pirates; you may have, therefore, a natural and equitable right to some toll or duty on merchandises carried through that part of your dominions, towards defraying the expense you are at in ships to maintain the safety of that carriage." This was a rather narrow basis on which to build the broad and weighty superstructure of the British Custom House; but it was not to be expected that Franklin should supply any better arguments upon that side of the question. It was obvious that Grenville's proposition might lead to two conclusions. He said: External and internal taxation are in principle substantially identical; we have the right to the former; therefore we must have the right to the latter. It was a quick reply: Since you have not a right to the latter, you cannot have a right to the former. But Franklin, being a prudent man, kept within his intrenchments, and would not hazard increasing the opposition to the colonial claims by occupying this advanced ground. He hinted at it, nevertheless: "At present the colonists do not reason so; but in time they possibly may be convinced by these arguments;" and so they were. Franklin also in his examination, and at many other times and places, had something to say as to the willingness of the colonies to bear their full share of public burdens. He spoke with warmth and feeling, but with an entire absence of boastfulness or rodomontade. He achieved his purpose by simply recalling such facts as that the colonies in the late war had kept 25,000 troops in the field; that they had raised sums of money so large that even the English Parliament had seen that they were exceeding any reasonable estimate of their capacity, and had voted some partial restitution to them; and that they had received thanks, official and formal yet apparently sincere, for their zeal and their services. Few Englishmen knew these things. So, too, he said, the Americans would help the mother country in an European war, so far as they could; for they regarded themselves as a part of the empire, and really had an affection and loyalty towards England. *** On February 21, 1766, General Conway moved for leave to introduce into the House of Commons a bill to repeal the Stamp Act. The motion was carried. The next day the House divided upon the repealing bill: 275 for repeal, 167 against it. The minority were willing greatly to modify the act; but insisted upon its enforcement in some shape. The anxious merchants, who were gathered in throngs outside, and who really had brought about the repeal, burst into jubilant rejoicing. A few days later, March 4 and 5, the bill took its third reading by a vote of 250 yeas against 122 nays. In the House of Lords, upon the second reading, 73 peers voted for repeal, 61 against it. Thirty-three peers thereupon signed and recorded their protest. At the third reading no division was had, but a second protest, bearing 28 signatures, was entered. On March 18 the king, whose position had been a little enigmatical, but who at last had become settled in opposition to the bill, unwillingly placed his signature to it, and ever after regretted having done so. When the good news reached the provinces great indeed was the gladness of the people. They heeded little that simultaneously with the repeal a resolve had been carried through declaratory of the principle on which the Stamp Act had been based. The assertion of the right gave them at this moment "very little concern," since they hugged a triumphant belief that no further attempt would be made to carry that right into practice. The people of Philadelphia seemed firmly persuaded that the repeal was chiefly due to the unwearied personal exertions of their able agent. They could not recall their late distrust of him without shame, and now replaced it with boundless devotion. In the great procession which they made for the occasion "the sublime feature was a barge, forty feet long, named FRANKLIN, from which salutes were fired as it passed along the streets."[25] That autumn the old ticket triumphed again at the elections for members of the Assembly. Franklin's own pleasant way of celebrating the great event was by sending to his wife "a new gown," with the message, referring, of course, to the anti-importation league: that he did not send it sooner, because he knew that she would not like to be finer than her neighbors, unless in a gown of her own spinning. [Note 25: Parton's _Life of Franklin_, i. 481.] No American will find it difficult to conceive the utter ignorance concerning the colonies which then prevailed in England; about their trade, manufactures, cultivated products, natural resources, about the occupations, habits, manners, and ideas of their people, not much more was known than Americans now know concerning the boers of Cape Colony or the settlers of New Zealand. In his examination before the Commons, in many papers which he printed, by his correspondence, and by his conversation in all the various companies which he frequented, Franklin exerted himself with untiring industry to shed some rays into this darkness. At times the comical stories which he heard about his country touched his sense of humor, with the happy result that he would throw off some droll bit of writing for a newspaper, which would delight the friends of America and make its opponents feel very silly even while they could not help laughing at his wit. A good one of these was the paper in which he replied, among other things, to the absurd supposition that the Americans could not make their own cloth, because American sheep had little wool, and that little of poor quality: "Dear sir, do not let us suffer ourselves to be amused with such groundless objections. The very tails of the American sheep are so laden with wool that each has a little car or wagon on four little wheels to support and keep it from trailing on the ground. Would they caulk their ships, would they even litter their horses, with wool, if it were not both plenty and cheap? And what signifies the dearness of labor when an English shilling passes for five and twenty?" and so on. It is pleasant to think that then, as now, many a sober Britisher, with no idea that a satirical jest at his own expense was hidden away in this extravagance, took it all for genuine earnest, and was sadly puzzled at a condition of things so far removed from his own experience. Very droll is the account of how nearly a party of clever Englishmen were taken in by the paper which purported to advance the claim of the king of Prussia to hold England as a German province, and to levy taxes therein, supported by precisely the same chain of reasoning whereby Britain claimed the like right in respect of the American colonies. This keen and witty satire had a brilliant success, and while Franklin prudently kept his authorship a close secret, he was not a little pleased to see how well his dart flew. In one of his letters he says:-- "I was down at Lord le Despencer's when the post brought that day's papers. Mr. Whitehead was there, too, who runs early through all the papers, and tells the company what he finds remarkable.... We were chatting in the breakfast parlor, when he came running in to us, out of breath, with the paper in his hand. 'Here,' says he, 'here's news for ye! Here's the king of Prussia claiming a right to this kingdom!' All stared, and I as much as anybody; and he went on to read it. When he had read two or three paragraphs, a gentleman present said: 'Damn their impudence! I daresay we shall hear by the next post that he is upon his march with 100,000 men to back this.' Whitehead, who is very shrewd, soon after began to smoke it, and looking in my face said, 'I'll be hanged if this is not some of your American jokes upon us.'" Then, amid much laughter, it was admitted to be "a fair hit." Of a like nature was his paper setting out "Rules for reducing a great Empire to a small one," which prescribed with admirable satire such a course of procedure as English ministries had pursued towards the American provinces. Lord Mansfield honored it with his condemnation, saying that it was "very able and very artful indeed; and would do mischief by giving here a bad impression of the measures of government." Yet this English indifference to transatlantic facts could not always be met in a laughing mood. It was too serious, too unfortunate, too obstinately persisted in to excite only ridicule. It was deplorable, upon the very verge of war, and incredible too, after all the warnings that had been had, that there should be among Englishmen such an utter absence of any desire to get accurate knowledge. In 1773 Franklin wrote: "The great defect here is, in all sorts of people, a want of attention to what passes in such remote countries as America; an unwillingness to read anything about them, if it appears a little lengthy; and a disposition to postpone a consideration even of the things which they know they must at last consider." Such ignorance, fertilized by ill will, bore the only fruit which could grow in such soil: abuse and vilification. Yet all the while the upper classes in France, with their eyes well open to a condition of things which seemed to threaten England, were keen enough in their desire for knowledge, translating all Franklin's papers, and keeping up constant communication with him through their embassy. Patient in others of those faults of vehemence and prejudice which had no place in his own nature, Franklin endured long the English provocations and retorted only with a wit too perfect to be personal, with unanswerable arguments, and with simple recitals of facts. But we shall see, later on, that there came an occasion, just before his departure, when even his temper gave way. It was not surprising, for the blood-letting point had then been reached by both peoples. Franklin's famous examination and his other efforts in behalf of the colonies were appreciated by his countrymen outside of Pennsylvania. He was soon appointed agent also for New Jersey, Georgia, and Massachusetts. The last office was conferred upon him in the autumn of 1770, by no means without a struggle. Samuel Adams, a man as narrow as Franklin was broad, as violent as Franklin was calm, as bigoted a Puritan as Franklin was liberal a Free-thinker, felt towards Franklin that distrust and dislike which a limited but intense mind often cherishes towards an intellect whose vast scope and noble serenity it cannot comprehend. Adams accordingly strenuously opposed the appointment. It was plausibly suggested that Franklin already held other agencies, and that policy would advise "to enlarge the number of our friends." It was meanly added that he held an office under the crown, and that his son was a royal governor. Other ingenious, insidious, and personal objections were urged. Fortunately, however, it was in vain to array such points against Franklin's reputation. Samuel Cooper wrote to him that, though the House had certainly been much divided, "yet such was their opinion of your abilities and integrity, that a majority readily committed the affairs of the province at this critical season to your care." By reason of this combination of agencies, besides his own personal capacity and prestige, Franklin seemed to become in the eyes of the English the representative of all America. In spite of the unpopularity attaching to the American cause, the position was one of some dignity, greatly enhanced by the respect inspired by the ability with which Franklin filled it, ability which was recognized no less by the enemies than by the friends of the provinces. It was also a position of grave responsibility; and it ought to have been one of liberal emolument, but it was not. The sum of his four salaries should have been £1200; but only Pennsylvania and New Jersey actually paid him. Massachusetts would have paid, but the bills making the appropriations were obstinately vetoed by the royalist governor.[26] [Note 26: Franklin's _Works_, iv. 88.] Yet this matter of income was important to him, and it was at no slight personal sacrifice that he was now serving his country. He had a moderate competence, but his expenses were almost doubled by living thus apart from his family, while his affairs suffered by reason of his absence. For a while he was left unmolested in the post-mastership, and in view of all the circumstances it must be confessed that the ministry behaved very well to him in this particular. Rumors which occasionally reached his ears made him uncomfortably aware how precarious his tenure of this position really was. His prolonged absence certainly gave an abundantly fair pretext for his removal; still advantage was not taken of it. Some of his enemies, as he wrote in December, 1770, by plentiful abuse endeavored to provoke him to resign; but they found him sadly "deficient in that Christian virtue of resignation." It was not until 1774, after the episode of the Hutchinson letters and the famous hearing before the privy council, that he was actually displaced. If this forbearance of the ministry was attributable to magnanimity, it stands out in prominent inconsistence with the general course of official life in England at that time. Probably no great injustice would be done in suggesting a baser motive. The ministry doubtless aimed at one or both of two things: to keep a certain personal hold upon him, which might, insensibly to himself, mollify his actions; and to discredit him among his countrymen by precisely such fleers as had been cast against him in the Massachusetts Assembly. More than once they sought to seduce him by offers of office; it was said that he could have been an under-secretary of state, had he been willing to qualify himself for the position by modifying his views on colonial questions. More than once, too, gossip circulated in America that some such bargain had been struck, a slander which was cruel and ignoble indeed, when the opportunity and temptation may be said to have been present any and every day during many years without ever receiving even a moment of doubtful consideration. Yet for this the English ministry are believed not to have been wholly responsible, since some of these tales are supposed to have been the unworthy work of Arthur Lee of Virginia. This young man, a student at one of the Inns of Court in London, was appointed by the Massachusetts Assembly as a successor to fill Franklin's place whenever the latter should return to Pennsylvania. For at the time it was anticipated that this return would soon occur; but circumstances interfered and prolonged Franklin's usefulness abroad during several years more. The heir apparent, who was ambitious, could not brook the disappointment of this delay; and though kindly treated and highly praised by the unsuspicious Franklin, he gave nothing but malice in return. It is perhaps not fully proved, yet it is certainly well suspected by historians, that his desire to wreak injury upon Franklin became such a passion as caused him in certain instances to forget all principles of honor, to say nothing of honesty. CHAPTER VI SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND, II In order to continue the narrative of events with due regard to chronological order it is necessary to revert to the repeal of the Stamp Act. The repealing act was fully as unpopular in England as the repealed act had been in America. It was brought about by no sense of justice, by no good will toward the colonists, but solely by reason of the injury which the law was causing in England, and which was forced upon the reluctant consideration of Parliament by the urgent clamor of the suffering merchants; also perhaps in some degree by a disinclination to send an army across the Atlantic, and by the awkward difficulty suggested by Franklin when he said that if troops should be sent they would find no rebellion, no definite form of resistance, against which they could act. The repeal, therefore, though carried by a large majority, was by no means to be construed as an acknowledgment of error in an asserted principle, but only as an unavoidable admission of a mistake in the application of that principle. The repealing majority grew out of a strange coalition of men of the most opposite ways of thinking concerning the fundamental question. For example, Charles Townshend was a repealer, yet all England did not hold a man who was more wedded than was Townshend to the idea of levying internal taxes in the colonies by act of Parliament. The notion had been his own mischievous legacy to Grenville, but he now felt that it had been clumsily used by his legatee. Many men agreed with him, and the prevalence of this opinion was made obvious by the passage, almost simultaneously, of the resolution declaratory of the right of parliamentary taxation. But the solace of an empty assertion was wholly inadequate to heal the deep wound which English pride had received. The great nation had been fairly hounded into receding before the angry resistance of a parcel of provincials dwelling far away across the sea; the recession was not felt to be an act of magnanimity or generosity or even of justice, but only a bitter humiliation and indignity. Poor Grenville, the responsible adviser of the blundering and unfortunate measure, lost almost as much prestige as Franklin gained. It was hard luck for him; he was as honest in his convictions as Franklin was in the opposite faith, and he was a far abler minister than the successor charged to undo his work. But his knowledge of colonial facts was very insufficient, and the light in which he viewed them was hopelessly false. Franklin had a knowledge immeasurably greater, and was almost incapable of an error of judgment; of all the reputation which was won or lost in this famous contest he gathered the lion's share; he was the hero of the colonists; his ability was recognized impartially by both the contending parties in England, and he was marked as a great man by those astute French statesmen who were watching with delight the opening of this very promising rift in the British Empire. Anger, like water, subsides quickly after the tempest ceases. As each day in its flight carried the Stamp Act and the repeal more remotely into past history, the sanguine and peaceably minded began to hope that England and the colonies might yet live comfortably in union. It only seemed necessary that for a short time longer no fresh provocation should revive animosities which seemed composing themselves to slumber. The colonists tried to believe that England had learned wisdom; Englishmen were cautious about committing a second blunder. In such a time Franklin was the best man whom his countrymen could have had in England. His tranquil temperament, his warm regard for both sides, his wonderful capacity for living well with men who could by no means live well with each other, his social tact, and the respect which his abilities inspired, all combined to enable him now more than ever to fill admirably the position of colonial representative. The effect of such an influence is not to be seen in any single noteworthy occurrence, but is known by a thousand lesser indications, and it is unquestionable that no American representative even to this day has ever been held in Europe in such estimation as was accorded to Franklin at this time. He continued writing and instructing upon American topics, but to what has already been said concerning his services and opinions abroad, there is nothing of importance to be added occurring within two or three years after the repeal. While, however, he played the often thankless part of instructor to the English, he had the courage to assume the even less popular rôle of a moderator towards the colonists. He made it his task to soothe passion and to preach reason. He did not do this as a trimmer; never was one word of compromise uttered by him throughout all these alarming years. But he dreaded that weakness which is the inevitable reaction from excess; and he was supremely anxious to secure that trustworthy strength which is impossible without moderation. What he profoundly wished was that the "fatal period" of war and separation should be as much as possible "postponed, and that whenever this catastrophe shall happen it may appear to all mankind that the fault has not been ours." Yet he fell far short of the Christian principle of turning to the smiter the other cheek. He wished the colonists to keep a steady front face, and only besought them not to rush forward so foolishly fast as to topple over, of which ill-considered violence there was much danger. Of course the usual result of such efforts overtook him. He wrote somewhat sadly, in 1768: "Being born and bred in one of the countries, and having lived long and made many agreeable connections of friendship in the other, I wish all prosperity to both; but I have talked and written so much and so long on the subject, that my acquaintance are weary of hearing and the public of reading any more of it, which begins to make me weary of talking and writing; especially as I do not find that I have gained any point in either country, except that of rendering myself suspected by my impartiality;--in England of being too much an American, and in America of being too much an Englishman." More than once he repeated this last sentence with much feeling. But whatever there was of personal discouragement or despondency in this letter was only a temporary frame of mind. Dr. Franklin never really slackened his labors in a business which he had so much at heart as this of the relationship of the colonies to the mother country. Neither, it is safe to say, did he ever bore any one by what he wrote or by what he said, though his witty effusions in print were usually anonymous, and only some of his soberer and argumentative papers announced their paternity. The agony with which the repeal of the Stamp Act was effected racked too severely the feeble joints of the Rockingham ministry, and that ill-knit body soon began to drop to pieces. A new incumbent was sought for the department which included the colonies, but that position seemed to be shunned with a sort of terror; no one loved office enough to seek it in this niche; no one could expect comfort in a chamber haunted by such restless ghosts. Early in July, at the earnest solicitation of the king, Pitt endeavored not so much to form a new ministry as to revamp the existing one. He partially succeeded, but not without difficulty. The result seemed to promise well for the colonies, since the new cabinet contained their chief friends: Pitt himself, Shelburne, Camden, Conway, names all justly esteemed by America. Yet all these were fully offset by the audacious Charles Townshend, the originator and great apostle of the scheme of colonial taxation, whom Pitt, much against his will, had been obliged to place in the perilous post of chancellor of the exchequer. It was true that Lord Shelburne undertook the care of the colonies, and that no Englishman cherished better dispositions towards them; but he had to encounter two difficulties, neither of which could be overcome. The one was that Townshend's views were those which soon proved not only to be coincident with those of the king, but also to be popular in Parliament; the other was that, while he had the administration of colonial affairs, Townshend had the function of introducing schemes of taxation. So long as he remained in office he administered all the business of the colonies in the spirit of liberal reform. No reproach was ever brought against his justice, his generosity, his enlightened views of government. But unfortunately all that he had to do, being strictly in the way of _administration_, such as the restraining over-loyal governors, the amelioration of harsh legislation, and universal moderation in language and behavior, could avail comparatively little so long as Townshend, whom Pitt used to call "the incurable," could threaten and bring in obnoxious revenue measures. Shelburne had the backing of Pitt; but, by ill luck, so soon as the cabinet was formed, Pitt ceased to be Pitt, and became the Earl of Chatham; and with the loss of his own name he lost also more than half of his power. Moreover the increasing infirmities of his body robbed him of efficiency and impaired his judgment. He was utterly unable to keep in subordination his reckless chancellor of the exchequer, betwixt whom and himself no good will had ever existed. On the other hand, this irrepressible Townshend had a far better ally in George III., who sympathized in his purposes, gave him assistance which was none the less powerful for being indirect and occult, and who hated and ingeniously thwarted Shelburne. Moreover, as has been said, it was a popular delusion that Townshend had exceptionally full and accurate knowledge concerning American affairs. His self-confident air, making assurance of success, won for him one half of the battle by so sure a presage of victory. He lured the members of the House by showing them a considerable remission in their own taxes, provided they would stand by his scheme of replacing the deficit by an income from the colonies; and he boldly assured his delighted auditors that he knew "the mode by which a revenue could be drawn from America without offense." He was of the thoughtless class which learns no lesson. He still avowed himself "a firm advocate of the Stamp Act," and with cheerful scorn he "laughed at the absurd distinction between internal and external taxes." He did not expect, he merrily said, alluding to the distinction just conferred upon Chatham, to have _his_ statue erected in America. The reports of his speeches kept the colonial mind disquieted. The act requiring the provinces in which regiments were quartered to provide barracks and rations for the troops at the public expense was a further irritation. Shelburne sought to make the burden as easy as possible, but Townshend made Shelburne's duties as hard as possible. Of what use were the minister's liberality and moderation, when the chancellor of the exchequer evoked alarm and wrath by announcing insolently that he was for governing the Americans as subjects of Great Britain, and for restraining their trade and manufactures in subordination to those of the mother country! So the struggle went on within the ministry as well as without it; but the opponents of royal prejudice were heavily handicapped; for the king, though stupid in general, had some political skill and much authority. His ill-concealed personal hostility to his "enemy," as he called Shelburne, threatened like the little cloud in the colonial horizon. Nor was it long before Chatham, a dispirited wreck, withdrew himself entirely from all active participation in affairs, shut himself up at Hayes, and refused to be seen by any one who wished to talk on business. On May 13, 1767, colonial agents and merchants trading to America were refused admission to hear the debates in the House of Commons. Upon that day Townshend was to develop his scheme. By way, as it were, of striking a keynote, he proposed that the province of New York should be restrained from enacting any legislation until it should comply with the "billeting act," against which it had heretofore been recalcitrant. He then sketched a scheme for an American board of commissioners of customs. Finally he came to the welcome point of the precise taxes which he designed to levy: he proposed duties on wine, oil, and fruits, imported directly into the colonies from Spain and Portugal; also on glass, paper, lead, colors, and china, and three pence per pound on tea. The governors and chief justices, most of whom were already appointed by the king, but who got their pay by vote of the colonial assemblies, were hereafter to have fixed salaries, to be paid by the king from this American revenue. Two days later the resolutions were passed, directing the introduction of bills to carry out these several propositions, and a month later the bills themselves were passed. Meantime the cabinet was again getting very rickety, and many heads were busy with suggestions for patching it in one part or another. With Chatham in retreat and the king in the ascendant, it seemed that Townshend had the surest seat. But there is one risk against which even monarchs cannot insure their favorites, and that risk now fell out against Townshend. He died suddenly of a fever, in September, 1767. Lord North succeeded him, destined to do everything which his royal master desired him to do, and bitterly to repent it. A little later, in December, the king scored another success; Shelburne was superseded in the charge of the colonies by the Earl of Hillsborough, who reëntered the board of trade as first commissioner, and came into the cabinet with the new title of secretary of state for the colonies. Hillsborough was an Irish peer, with some little capacity for business, but of no more than moderate general ability. He also was supposed, altogether erroneously, to possess a little more knowledge, or, as it might have been better expressed, to be shackled with a little less ignorance, concerning colonial affairs than could be predicated of most of the noblemen who were eligible for public office. America had acquired so much importance that the reputation of familiarity with its condition was an excellent recommendation for preferment. Franklin wrote that this change in the ministry was "very sudden and unexpected;" and that "whether my Lord Hillsborough's administration will be more stable than others have been for a long time, is quite uncertain; but as his inclinations are rather favorable towards us (so far as he thinks consistent with what he supposes the unquestionable rights of Britain), I cannot but wish it may continue." It was Franklin's temperament to be hopeful, and he also purposely cultivated the wise habit of not courting ill fortune by anticipating it. In this especial instance, however, he soon found that his hopefulness was misplaced. Within six months he discovered that this new secretary looked upon the provincial agents "with an evil eye, as obstructors of ministerial measures," and would be well pleased to get rid of them as "unnecessary" impediments in the transaction of business. "In truth," he adds, "the nominations, particularly of Dr. Lee and myself, have not been at all agreeable to his lordship." It soon appeared that his lordship had the Irish quickness for taking a keen point of law; he broached the theory that no agent could lawfully be appointed by the mere resolution of an assembly, but that the appointment must be made by bill. The value of this theory is obvious when we reflect that a bill did not become law, and consequently an appointment could not be completed, save by the signature of the provincial governor. "This doctrine, if he could establish it," said Franklin, "would in a manner give to his lordship the power of appointing, or, at least, negativing any choice of the House of Representatives and Council, since it would be easy for him to instruct the governor not to assent to the appointment of such and such men, who are obnoxious to him; so that if the appointment is annual, every agent that valued his post must consider himself as holding it by the favor of his lordship;" whereof the consequences were easy to be seen. There was a lively brush between the noble secretary and Franklin, when the former first propounded this troublesome view. It was in January, 1771, that Franklin called upon his lordship-- "to pay my respects ... and to acquaint him with my appointment by the House of Representatives of Massachusetts Bay to be their agent here." But his lordship interrupted:-- "I must set you right there, Mr. Franklin; you are not agent. "Why, my lord? "You are not appointed. "I do not understand your lordship; I have the appointment in my pocket. "You are mistaken; I have later and better advices. I have a letter from Governor Hutchinson; he would not give his assent to the bill. "There was no bill, my lord; it was a vote of the House. "There was a bill presented to the governor for the purpose of appointing you and another, one Dr. Lee I think he is called, to which the governor refused his assent. "I cannot understand this, my lord; I think there must be some mistake in it. Is your lordship quite sure that you have such a letter? "I will convince you of it directly; Mr. Pownall will come in and satisfy you." So Mr. Pownall, invoked by the official bell, appeared upon the scene. But he could not play his part; he was obliged to say that there was no such letter. This was awkward; but Franklin was too civil or too prudent to triumph in the discomfiture of the other. He simply offered the "authentic copy of the vote of the House" appointing him, and asked if his lordship would "please to look at it." His lordship took the paper unwillingly, and then, without looking at it, said:-- "An information of this kind is not properly brought to me as secretary of state. The board of trade is the proper place. "I will leave the paper then with Mr. Pownall to be-- "(_Hastily._) To what end would you leave it with him? "To be entered on the minutes of the board, as usual. "(_Angrily._) It shall not be entered there. No such paper shall be entered there while I have anything to do with the business of that board. The House of Representatives has no right to appoint an agent. We shall take no notice of any agents but such as are appointed by acts of Assembly, to which the governor gives his assent. We have had confusion enough already. Here is one agent appointed by the Council, another by the House of Representatives.[27] Which of these is agent for the province? Who are we to hear in provincial affairs? An agent appointed by act of Assembly we can understand. No other will be attended to for the future, I can assure you. "I cannot conceive, my lord, why the consent of the governor should be thought necessary to the appointment of an agent for the people. It seems to me that-- "(_With a mixed look of anger and contempt._) I shall not enter into a dispute with _you_, Sir, upon this subject. "I beg your lordship's pardon; I do not mean to dispute with your lordship. I would only say that it appears to me that every body of men who cannot appear in person, where business relating to them may be transacted, should have a right to appear by an agent. The concurrence of the governor does not seem to be necessary. It is the business of the people that is to be done; he is not one of them; he is himself an agent. "(_Hastily._) Whose agent is he? "The king's, my lord. "No such matter. He is one of the corporation by the province charter. No agent can be appointed but by an act, nor any act pass without his assent. Besides, this proceeding is directly contrary to express instructions. "I did not know there had been such instructions. I am not concerned in any offense against them, and-- [Note 27: The agent for the Council, Mr. Bollan, acted in entire accord with Dr. Franklin; there was no inconsistency between the two offices, which were altogether distinct, neither any clashing between the incumbents, as might be inferred from Lord Hillsborough's language.] "Yes, your offering such a paper to be entered is an offense against them. No such appointment shall be entered. When I came into the administration of American affairs I found them in great disorder. By _my firmness_ they are now something mended; and while I have the honor to hold the seals I shall continue the same conduct, the same _firmness_. I think my duty to the master I serve, and to the government of this nation, requires it of me. If that conduct is not approved, _they_ may take that office from me when they please: I shall make them a bow and thank them; I shall resign with pleasure. That gentleman [Mr. Pownall] knows it; but while I continue in it I shall resolutely persevere in the same _firmness_." Speaking thus, his lordship seemed warm, and grew pale, as if "angry at something or somebody besides the agent, and of more consequence to himself." Franklin thereupon, taking back his credentials, said, speaking with an innuendo aimed at that which had not been expressed, but which lay plainly visible behind his lordship's pallor and excitement:-- "I beg your lordship's pardon for taking up so much of your lordship's time. It is, I believe, of no great importance whether the appointment is acknowledged or not, for I have not the least conception that an agent can, _at present_, be of any use to any of the colonies. I shall therefore give your lordship no further trouble." Therewith he made his exit, and went home to write the foregoing sketch of the scene. Certainly throughout so irritating an interview he had conducted himself with creditable self-restraint and moderation, yet with his closing sentence he had sent home a dart which rankled. He soon heard that his lordship "took great offense" at these last words, regarding them as "extremely rude and abusive," and as "equivalent to telling him to his face that the colonies could expect neither favor nor justice during his administration." "I find," adds Franklin, with placid satisfaction in the skill with which he had shot his bolt, "I find he did not mistake me." So Franklin retained the gratification which lies in having administered a stinging and appreciated retort; a somewhat empty and entirely personal gratification, it must be admitted. Hillsborough kept the substance of victory, inasmuch as he persisted in refusing to recognize Franklin as the agent of the Massachusetts Bay. Yet in this he did not annihilate, indeed very slightly curtailed, Franklin's usefulness. It merely signified that Franklin ceased to be an official conduit for petitions and like communications. His weight and influence, based upon his knowledge and prestige, remained unimpugned. In a word, it was of little consequence that the lord secretary would not acknowledge him as the representative of one province, so long as all England practically treated him as the representative of all America. From this time forth, of course, there was warfare between the secretary and the unacknowledged agent. Franklin began to entertain a "very mean opinion" of Hillsborough's "abilities and fitness for his station. His character is conceit, wrong-headedness, obstinacy, and passion. Those who speak most favorably of him allow all this; they only add that he is an honest man and means well. If that be true, as perhaps it may, I only wish him a better place, where only honesty and well-meaning are required, and where his other qualities can do no harm.... I hope, however, that our affairs will not much longer be perplexed and embarrassed by his perverse and senseless management." But for the present Franklin was of opinion that it would be well "to leave this omniscient, infallible minister to his own devices, and be no longer at the expense of sending any agent, whom he can displace by a repeal of the appointing act." Hillsborough's theory was adopted by the board of trade, and Franklin therefore remained practically stripped of the important agency for Massachusetts. He anticipated that this course would soon put an end to all the colonial agencies; but he said that the injury would be quite as great to the English government as to the colonies, for the agents had often saved the cabinet from introducing, through misinformation, "mistaken measures," which it would afterward have found to be "very inconvenient." He expressed his own opinion that when the colonies "came to be considered in the light of _distinct states_, as I conceive they really are, possibly their agents may be treated with more respect and considered more as public ministers." But this was a day-dream; the current was setting in quite the opposite direction. In point of fact, Massachusetts seems to have taken no detriment from this foolish and captious bit of chicanery. All the papers and arguments which she had occasion to have presented always found their way to their destination as well as they would have done if Franklin had been acknowledged as the quasi public minister, which he conceived to be his proper character. Franklin perfectly appreciated that Hillsborough retained his position by precarious tenure. He shrewdly suspected that if the war with Spain, which then seemed imminent, were to break out, Hillsborough would at once be removed. For in that case it would be the policy of the government to conciliate the colonies, at any cost, for the time being. This crisis passed by, fortunately for the secretary and unfortunately for the provinces. Yet still the inefficient and ill-friended minister remained very infirm in his seat. An excuse only was needed to displace him, and by a singular and unexpected chance Franklin furnished that excuse. It was the humble and discredited colonial agent who unwittingly but not unwillingly gave the jar which toppled the great earl into retirement. His fall when it came gave general satisfaction. His unfitness for his position had become too obvious to be denied; he had given offense in quarters where he should have made friends; he had irritated the king and provoked the cabinet. Franklin, with his observant sagacity, quickly divined that George III. was "tired" of Hillsborough and "of his administration, which had weakened the affection and respect of the colonies for a royal government;" and accordingly he "used proper means from time to time that his majesty should have due information and convincing proofs" of this effect of his lordship's colonial policy. It was, however, upon a comparatively trifling matter that Hillsborough finally lost his place. It has been already mentioned that many years before this time Franklin had urged the establishment of one or two frontier, or "barrier," provinces in the interior. He had never abandoned this scheme, and of late had been pushing it with some prospect of success; for among other encouraging features he astutely induced three privy councilors to become financially interested in the project. The original purpose of the petitioners had been to ask for only 2,500,000 acres of land; but Hillsborough bade them ask for "enough to make a province." This advice was grossly disingenuous; for Hillsborough himself afterward admitted that from the beginning he had intended to defeat the application, and had put the memorialists "upon asking so much with that very view, supposing it too much to be granted." But they, not suspecting, fell into the trap and increased their demand to 23,000,000 acres, certainly a sufficient quantity to call for serious consideration. When the petition came before the board of trade, Lord Hillsborough, who was president of the board, took upon himself the task of rendering a report. To the surprise of the petitioners, who had reason to suppose him well inclined, he replied adversely. The region was so far away, he said, that it would not "lie within the reach of the trade and commerce of this kingdom;" so far, also, as not to admit of "the exercise of that authority and jurisdiction ... necessary for the preservation of the colonies in due subordination to and dependence upon the mother country." The territory appeared, "upon the fullest evidence," to be "utterly inaccessible to shipping," and therefore the inhabitants would "probably be led to manufacture for themselves, ... a consequence ... to be carefully guarded against." Also part belonged to the Indians, who ought not to be disturbed, and settlements therein would of course lead to Indian wars and to "fighting for every inch of the ground." Further, the occupation of this tract "must draw and carry out a great number of people from Great Britain," who would soon become "a kind of separate and independent people, ... and set up for themselves," meeting their own wants and taking no "supplies from the mother country nor from the provinces" along the seaboard. At so great a distance from "the seat of government, courts, magistrates, etc.," the territory would "become a receptacle and kind of asylum for offenders," full of crime itself, and encouraging crime elsewhere. This disorderly population would soon "become formidable enough to oppose his majesty's authority, disturb government, and even give law to the other or first-settled part of the country, and thus throw everything into confusion." Such arguments were as feeble as they were bodeful. The only point which his lordship really scored was in reply to Franklin's theory of the protection against the Indians which these colonies would afford to those on the seaboard. Hillsborough well said that the new settlements themselves would stand most in need of protection. It was only advancing, not eliminating, a hostile frontier. Evidently it required no very able reasoning, coming from the president of the board, to persuade his subordinates; and this foolish report was readily adopted. But Franklin was not so easily beaten; the privy council furnished one more stage at which he could still make a fight. He drew up a reply to Lord Hillsborough's paper and submitted it to that body. It was a long and very carefully prepared document; it dealt in facts historical and statistical, in which the report was utterly deficient; it furnished evidence and illustration; in arguing upon probabilities it went far toward demolishing the theories advanced by the president of the board. The two briefs were laid before a tribunal in which three men sat who certainly ought not to have been sitting in this cause, since Franklin's interest was also their own; but probably this did not more than counterbalance the prestige of official position in the opposite scale. Certainly Franklin had followed his invariable custom of furnishing his friends with ample material to justify them in befriending him. In this respect he always gallantly stood by his own side. The allies whom at any time he sought he always abundantly supplied with plain facts and sound arguments, in which weapons he always placed his chief trust. So at present, whatever was the motive which induced privy councilors to open their ears to what Franklin had to say, after they had heard him they could not easily decide against him. Nor had those of them who were personally disinterested any great inducement to do so, since, though some of them may have disliked him, none of them had any great liking for his noble opponent. So they set aside the report of the board of trade.[28] [Note 28: A very interesting statement of these proceedings may be found in Franklin's _Works_, x. 346.] Upon this Lord Hillsborough fell into a hot rage, and sent in his resignation. It was generally understood that he had no notion that it would be accepted, or that he would be allowed to leave upon such a grievance. He fancied that he was establishing a dilemma which would impale Franklin. But he was in error; he himself was impaled. No one expostulated with him; he was left to exercise "the Christian virtue of resignation" without hindrance. Franklin said that the anticipation of precisely this result, so far from being an obstacle in the way of his own success, had been an additional incitement to the course taken by the council. So the earl, the enemy of America, went out; and the colonial agent had shown him the door, with all England looking on. It was a mortification which Hillsborough could never forgive, and upon four occasions, when Franklin made the conventional call to pay his respects, he did not find his lordship at home. At his fifth call he received from a lackey a very plain intimation that there was no chance that he ever would find the ex-secretary at home, and thereafter he desisted from the forms of civility. "I have never since," he said, "been nigh him, and we have only abused one another at a distance." Franklin had fully balanced one account at least. So far as the special matter in hand was concerned, the worsting of Hillsborough, though a gratification, did not result in the bettering of Franklin and his co-petitioners. April 6, 1773, he wrote: "The affair of the grant goes on but slowly. I do not yet clearly see land. I begin to be a little of the sailor's mind, when they were landing a cable out of a store into a ship, and one of 'em said: ''T is a long heavy cable, I wish we could see the end of it.' 'Damn me,' says another, 'if I believe it has any end; somebody has cut it off.'" A cable twisted of British red tape was indeed a coil without an end. In this case, before the patent was granted, Franklin had become so unpopular, and the Revolution so imminent, that the matter was dropped by a sort o£ universal consent. [Illustration: Hillsborough] Franklin rejoiced in this departure of Hillsborough as a good riddance of a man whom he thought to be as "double and deceitful" as any one he had ever met. It is possible that, as he had been instrumental in creating the vacancy, he may also have assisted in some small degree in disposing of the succession. One day he was complaining of Hillsborough to a "friend at court," when the friend replied that Hillsborough was wont to represent the Americans "as an unquiet people, not easily satisfied with any ministry; that, however, it was thought too much occasion had been given them to dislike the present;" and the question was asked whether, in case of Hillsborough's removal, Franklin "could name another likely to be more acceptable" to his countrymen. He at once suggested Lord Dartmouth. This was the appointment which was now made, in August, 1772, and the news of which gave much satisfaction to all the "friends of America." For Dartmouth was of kindly disposition, and when previously president of the board of trade had shown a liberal temper in provincial affairs. The relationship between Franklin and Lord Dartmouth opened auspiciously. Franklin waited upon him at his first levee, at the close of October, 1772, and was received "very obligingly." Further Franklin was at once recognized as agent for Massachusetts, with no renewal of the caviling as to the manner of his appointment, from which he hopefully augured that "business was getting into a better train." A month later he reported himself as being still "upon very good terms" with the new minister, who, he had "reason to think, meant well by the colonies." So Dartmouth did, undoubtedly, and if the best of intentions and of feelings could have availed much at this stage of affairs, Franklin and his lordship might have postponed the Revolution until the next generation. But it was too late to counteract the divergent movements of the two nations, and no better proof could be desired of the degree to which this divergence had arrived than the fact itself that the moderate Franklin and the well-disposed Dartmouth could not come into accord. Each people had declared its political faith, its fundamental theory; and the faith and theory of the one were fully and fairly adverse to those of the other; and the instant that the talk went deep enough, this irreconcilable difference was sure to be exposed. During the winter of 1772-73, following Lord Dartmouth's appointment, a lively dispute arose in Massachusetts between the Assembly and Governor Hutchinson. It was the old question, whether the English Parliament had control in matters of colonial taxation. The governor made speeches and said Yea, while the Assembly passed resolutions and said Nay. The early ships, arriving in England in the spring of 1773, brought news of this dispute, which seemed to have been indeed a hot one. The English ministry were not pleased; they wanted to keep their relationship with the colonies tranquil for a while, because there was a renewal of the danger of a war with Spain. Therefore they were vexed at the over-zeal of Hutchinson; and Lord Dartmouth frankly said so. Franklin called one day upon the secretary and found him much perplexed at the "difficulties" into which the governor had brought the ministers by his "imprudence." Parliament, his lordship said, could not "suffer such a declaration of the colonial Assembly, asserting its independence, to pass unnoticed." Franklin thought otherwise: "It is _words_ only," he said; "acts of Parliament are still submitted to there;" and so long as such was the case "Parliament would do well to turn a deaf ear....Force could do no good." Force, it was replied, might not be thought of, but rather an act to lay the colonies "under some inconveniences, till they rescind that declaration." Could they by no possibility be persuaded to withdraw it? Franklin was clearly of opinion that the resolve could only be withdrawn after the withdrawal of the speech which it answered, "an awkward operation, which perhaps the governor would hardly be directed to perform." As for an act establishing "inconveniences," probably it would only put the colonies, "as heretofore, on some method of incommoding this country till the act is repealed; and so we shall go on injuring and provoking each other instead of cultivating that good will and harmony so necessary to the general welfare." Divisions, his lordship admitted, "must weaken the whole; for we are yet _one empire_, whatever may be the opinions of the Massachusetts Assembly." But how to escape divisions was the conundrum. Could his lordship withhold from Parliament the irritating documents, though in fact they were already notorious, and "hazard the being called to account in some future session of Parliament for keeping back the communication of dispatches of such importance?" He appealed to Franklin for advice; but Franklin would undertake to give none, save that, in his opinion, if the dispatches should be laid before Parliament, it would be prudent to order them to lie on the table. For, he said, "were I as much an Englishman as I am an American, and ever so desirous of establishing the authority of Parliament, I protest to your lordship I cannot conceive of a single step the Parliament can take to increase it that will not tend to diminish it, and after abundance of mischief they must finally lose it." So whenever the crucial test was applied these two men found themselves utterly at variance, and the hopelessness of a peaceful conclusion would have been obvious, had not each shunned a prospect so painful. It must be confessed that, if Lord Dartmouth was so pathetically desirous to undo an irrevocable past, Dr. Franklin was no less anxious for the performance of a like miracle. Both the statesman and the philosopher would have appreciated better the uselessness of their efforts, had their feelings been less deeply engaged. Franklin's vain wish at this time was to move the peoples of England and America back to the days before the passage of the Stamp Act. "I have constantly given it as my opinion," he wrote, early in 1771, "that, if the colonies were restored to the state they were in before the Stamp Act, they would be satisfied and contend no farther." Two and a half years later, following the fable of the sibylline books, he expressed the more extreme opinion that "the letter of the two houses of the 29th of June, proposing as a satisfactory measure the restoring things to the state in which they were at the conclusion of the late war, is a fair and generous offer on our part, ... and more than Britain has a right to expect from us.... If she has any wisdom left, she will embrace it, and agree with us immediately." But the insuperable trouble was that, at the close of the last war and before the passage of the Stamp Act, the controversy upon the question of right had been unborn. Now, having come into being, this controversy could not be laid at rest by a mere waiver; it was of that nature that its resurrection would be sure and speedy. Anything else would have been, of course, the practical victory of the colonies and defeat of England; and the English could not admit that things had reached this pass as yet. If England should not renounce her right, the colonies would always remain uneasy beneath the unretracted assertion of it; if she should never again seek to exercise it, she would be really yielding. It was idle to talk of such a state of affairs; it could not be brought about, even if it were conceivable that each side could be induced to repeal all its acts and resolves touching the subject,--and even this preliminary step was what no reasonable man could anticipate. In a word, when Franklin longed for the restoration of the _status quo ante_ the Stamp Act, he longed for a chimera. A question had been raised, which was of that kind that it could not be compromised, or set aside, or ignored, or forgotten; it must be _settled_ by the recession or by the defeat of one contestant or the other. Nothing better than a brief period of restless and suspicious truce could be gained by an effort to restore the situation of a previous date, even were such restoration possible, since the intervening period and the memory of its undetermined dispute concerning a principle could not be annihilated. Still Franklin persistently refused to despair, so long as peace was still unbroken. Until blood had been shed, war _might_ be avoided. This was no lack of foresight; occasionally an expression escaped him which showed that he fully understood the drift of affairs and saw the final outcome of the opposing doctrines. In 1769 he said that matters were daily tending more and more "to a breach and final separation." In 1771 he thought that any one might "clearly see in the system of customs to be exacted in America by act of Parliament, the seeds sown of a total disunion of the countries, though as yet that event may be at a considerable distance." By 1774 he said, in an article written for an English newspaper, that certain "angry writers" on the English side were using "their utmost efforts to persuade us that this war with the colonies (for a war it will be) is a national cause, when in fact it is a ministerial one." But he very rarely spoke thus. It was at once his official duty as well as his strong personal wish to find some other exit from the public embarrassments than by this direful conclusion. Therefore, so long as war did not exist he refused to admit that it was inevitable, and he spared no effort to prevent it, leaving to fervid orators to declare the contrary and to welcome it; nor would he ever allow himself to be discouraged by any measure of apparent hopelessness. His great dread was that the colonies might go so fast and so far as to make matters incurable before thinking people were ready to recognize such a crisis as unavoidable. He seldom wrote home without some words counseling moderation. He wanted to see "much patience and the utmost discretion in our general conduct." It must not, however, be supposed that such language was used to cover any lukewarmness, or irresolution, or tendency towards halfway or temporizing measures. On the contrary, he was wholly and consistently the opposite of all this. His moderation was not at all akin to the moderation of Dickinson and such men, who were always wanting to add another to the long procession of petitions and protests. He only desired that the leading should be done by the wise men, so as not to have a Braddock's defeat in so grave and perilous an undertaking. He feared that a mob might make an irrevocable blunder, and the mischievous rabble create a condition of affairs which the real statesmen of the provinces could neither mend nor excuse. Certainly his anxiety was not without cause. He warned his country people that there was nothing which their enemies in England more wished than that, by insurrections, they would give a good pretense for establishing a large military force in the colonies. As between friends, he said, every affront is not worth a duel, so "between the governed and governing every mistake in government, every encroachment on right, is not worth a rebellion." So he thought that an "immediate rupture" was not in accordance with "general prudence," for by "a premature struggle," the colonies might "be crippled and kept down another age." No one, however, was more resolute than he that the mistakes and encroachments which had occurred should not be repeated. An assurance against such repetition, he tried to think, might be effected within a reasonably short time by two peaceful influences. One of these was a cessation of all colonial purchases of English commodities; the other was the rapid increase of the visible strength and resources of the colonies. He was urgent and frequent in reiterating his opinion of the great efficacy of the non-purchasing agreements. It is a little odd to find him actually declaring that, if the people would honestly persist in these engagements, he "should almost wish" the obnoxious act "never to be repealed;" for, besides industry and frugality, such a condition of things would promote a variety of domestic manufactures. In a word, this British oppression would bring about all those advantages for the infant nation, which, through the medium of the protective tariff, have since been purchased by Americans at a vast expense. Moreover, the money which used to be sent to England in payment for superfluous luxuries would be kept at home, to be there laid out in domestic improvements. Gold and silver, the scarcity of which caused great inconvenience in the colonies, would remain in the country. All these advantages would accrue from a course which at the same time must give rise in England itself to a pressure so extreme that Parliament could not long resist it. "The trading part of the nation, with the manufacturers, are become sensible how necessary it is for their welfare to be on good terms with us. The petitioners of Middlesex and of London have numbered among their grievances the _unconstitutional_ taxes on America; and similar petitions are expected from all quarters. So that I think we need only be quiet, and persevere in our schemes of frugality and industry, and the rest will do itself." But it was obvious that, if the measures were not now persisted in until they should have had their full effect, a like policy could never again be resorted to; and Franklin gave it as his belief that, "if we do persist another year, we shall never afterwards have occasion to use" the remedy. To him it seemed incredible that the people of America should not loyally persist in a policy of non-importation of English goods. Not only was the doing without these a benefit to domestic industries, but buying them was a direct aid and maintenance to the oppressor. He said: "If our people will, by consuming such commodities, purchase and pay for their fetters, who that sees them so shackled will think they deserve either redress or pity? Methinks that in drinking tea, a true American, reflecting that by every cup he contributed to the salaries, pensions, and rewards of the enemies and persecutors of his country, would be half choked at the thought, and find no quantity of sugar sufficient to make the nauseous draught go down."[29] [Note 29: See also letter to Marshall, April 22, 1771, _Works_, x. 315.] In this connection he was much "diverted" and gratified by the results of the Stamp Act, and especially of the act laying the duty on tea. The gross proceeds of the former statute, gathered in the West Indies and Canada, since substantially nothing was got in the other provinces, was £1500; while the expenditure had amounted to £12,000! The working of the Customs Act had been far worse. According to his statement, the unfortunate East India Company, in January, 1773, had at least £2,000,000, some said £4,000,000, worth of goods which had accumulated in their warehouses since the enactment, of which the chief part would, in the natural condition of business, have been absorbed by the colonies. The consequence was that the company's shares had fallen enormously in price, that it was hard pressed to make its payments, that its credit was so seriously impaired that the Bank of England would not help it, and that its dividends had been reduced below the point at and above which it was obliged to pay, and heretofore regularly had paid, £400,000 annually to the government. Many investors were painfully straitened, and not a few bankruptcies ensued. Besides the loss of this annual stipend the treasury was further the sufferer by the great expense which had been incurred in endeavoring to guard the American coast against smugglers; with the added vexation that these costly attempts had, after all, been fruitless. Fifteen hundred miles of shore line, occupied by people unanimously hostile to the king's revenue officers, presented a task much beyond the capabilities of the vessels which England could send thither. So the Dutch, the Danes, the Swedes, and the French soon established a thriving contraband trade; the American housewives were hardly interrupted in dispensing the favorite beverage; the English merchant's heavy loss became the foreign smuggler's aggravating gain; and the costly sacrifice of the East India Company fell short of effecting the punishment of the wicked Americans. Franklin could not "help smiling at these blunders." Englishmen would soon resent them, he said, would turn out the ministry that was responsible for them, and put in a very different set of men, who would undo the mischief. "If we continue firm and united, and resolutely persist in the non-consumption agreement, this adverse ministry cannot possibly stand another year. And surely the great body of our people, the farmers and artificers, will not find it hard to keep an agreement by which they both save and gain." Thus he continued to write so late as February, 1775, believing to the last in the efficacy of this policy. CHAPTER VII SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND, III THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS: THE PRIVY COUNCIL SCENE: RETURN HOME The famous episode of the Hutchinson letters, occurring near the close of Franklin's stay in England, must be narrated with a brevity more in accord with its real historical value than with its interest as a dramatic story. In conversation one day with an English gentleman, Franklin spoke with resentment of the sending troops to Boston and the other severe measures of the government. The other in reply engaged to convince him that these steps were taken upon the suggestion and advice of Americans. A few days later he made good his promise by producing certain letters, signed by Hutchinson, Oliver, and others, all natives of and residents and office-holders in America. The addresses had been cut from the letters; but in other respects they were unmutilated, and they were the original documents. They contained just such matter as the gentleman had described,--opinions and advice which would have commended themselves highly to a royalist, but which could have seemed to a patriot in the provinces only the most dangerous and abominable treason. Induced by obvious motives, Franklin begged leave to send these letters to Massachusetts, and finally obtained permission to do so, subject to the stipulation that they should not be printed nor copied, and should be circulated only among a few leading men. His purpose, he said, lay in his belief that when the "principal people" in Boston "saw the measures they complained of took their rise in a great degree from the representations and recommendations of their own countrymen, their resentment against Britain might abate, as mine has done, and a reconciliation be more easily obtained."[30] Franklin accordingly sent over the letters, together with strict injunctions in pursuance of his engagement to the giver of them: "In confidence of your following inviolably my engagement," etc., he wrote. But this solemn instruction was not complied with; the temptation was too great for the honor of some among the patriots, who resolved that the letters should be made public despite any pledge to the contrary, and resorted to a shallow artifice for achieving their end. A story was started that authenticated copies of the same papers had been received from England by somebody. There was a prudent abstention from any inquiry into the truth of this statement. "I know," said Franklin, "that could not be. It was an expedient to disengage the House." Dishonest as it obviously was, it was successful; members accepted it as a removal of the seal of secrecy; and the documents having thus found their way before the Assembly were ordered to be printed. That body, greatly incensed, immediately voted a petition to the king for the removal of the governor and lieutenant-governor, and sent it over to Franklin to be presented. [Note 30: The importance of establishing the fact that the government's course was instigated by Hutchinson is liable at the present day to be underrated. For his name has fallen into such extreme disrepute in America that to have been guided by his advice seems only an additional offense. But such was not the case; Hutchinson came of old and prominent Massachusetts stock; he was a descendant of Anne Hutchinson, of polemic fame, and when appointed to office he appeared a man of good standing and ability. The English government had a perfect right to rely upon the soundness of his statements and opinions. Thus it was really of great moment for Franklin to be able to convince the people of Massachusetts that the English measures were in strict conformity with Hutchinson's suggestions. It was an excuse for the English, as it also was the condemnation of Hutchinson, in colonial opinion.] The publication of these letters made no little stir. The writers were furious, and of course brought vehement charges of bad faith and dishonorable behavior. But they were at a loss to know upon whom to visit their wrath. For the person to whom they had written the letters was dead, and they knew no one else who had been concerned in the matter. The secret of the channel of conveyance had been rigidly kept. No one had the slightest idea by whom the letters had been transmitted to Massachusetts, nor by whom they had been received there. To this day it is not known by whom the letters were given to Franklin. July 25, 1773, he wrote to Mr. Cushing, the speaker of the Assembly, to whom he had inclosed the letters: "I observe that you mention that no person besides Dr. Cooper and one member of the committee knew they came from me. I did not accompany them with any request of being myself concealed; for, believing what I did to be in the way of my duty as agent, though I had no doubt of its giving offense, not only to the parties exposed but to administration here, I was regardless of the consequences. However, since the letters themselves are now copied and printed, contrary to the promise I made, I am glad my name has not been heard on the occasion; and, as I do not see how it could be of any use to the public, I now wish it may continue unknown; though I hardly expect it." Unfortunately it soon became of such use to two individuals in England that Franklin himself felt obliged to divulge it; otherwise it might have remained forever a mystery. Though the addresses had been cut from the letters, yet they had previously been shown to many persons in England, and it soon became known there that they had been written to Mr. William Whately, now dead, but who, when the letters were written, was a member of Parliament and private secretary to George Grenville, who was then in the cabinet. Amid the active surmises as to the next link in the chain suspicion naturally attached to Thomas Whately, brother and executor of the dead man, and in possession of his papers. This gentleman denied that he had ever, to his knowledge, had these letters in his hands. Suspicion next attached to Mr. Temple, "our friend," as Franklin described him. He had had access to the letters of William Whately for the purpose of getting from among them certain letters written by himself and his brother; he had lived in America, had been governor of New Hampshire, and later in letters to his friends there had announced the coming of the letters before they had actually arrived. The expression of suspicion towards Temple found its way into a newspaper, bolstered with an intimation that the information came from Thomas Whately. Temple at once made a demand upon Whately to exculpate him. This of course Whately could not do, since he had not inspected the letters taken by Temple, and so could not say of his knowledge that these were not among them. But instead of taking this perfectly safe ground, he published a card stating that Temple had had access to the letters of the deceased for a special purpose, and that Temple had solemnly averred to him, Whately, that he had neither removed nor copied any letters save those written by himself and his brother. This exoneration was far from satisfying Temple, who conceived that it rather injured than improved his position. Accordingly he challenged Whately and the two fought in Hyde Park ring. The story of the duel, which was mingled of comedy and tragedy, is vividly told by Mr. Parton. Whately was wounded twice, and at his request the fight then ceased. Temple was accused, but unfairly, of having thrust at him when he was down. But it was no conventional duel, or result of temporary hot blood. The contestants were profoundly angry with each other, and were bent on more serious results than curable wounds. It was understood that so soon as Whately should be well, the fight would be renewed. Thus matters stood when Franklin came up to London from a visit in the country, to be astonished by the news of what had occurred, and annoyed at the prospect of what was likely to occur. At once he inserted this letter:-- TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER:" _Sir_,--Finding that two gentlemen have been unfortunately engaged in a duel about a transaction and its circumstances of which both of them are totally ignorant and innocent, I think it incumbent upon me to declare (for the prevention of further mischief, as far as such a declaration may contribute to prevent it) that I alone am the person who obtained and transmitted to Boston the letters in question. Mr. Whately could not communicate them, because they were never in his possession; and for the same reason they could not be taken from him by Mr. Temple. They were not of the nature of _private_ letters between friends. They were written by public officers to persons in public stations on public affairs, and intended to procure public measures; they were therefore handed to other public persons, who might be influenced by them to produce those measures. Their tendency was to incense the mother country against her colonies, and, by the steps recommended, to widen the breach which they effected. The chief caution expressed with regard to privacy was, to keep their contents from the colony agents, who, the writers apprehended, might return them, or copies of them, to America. That apprehension was, it seems, well founded, for the first agent who laid his hands on them thought it his duty to transmit them to his constituents. B. FRANKLIN, _Agent for the House of Representatives of Massachusetts Bay_. CRAVEN STREET, _December 25, 1773_. The petition, forwarded by the House of Representatives of Massachusetts Bay, after they had read the famous letters, recited that the petitioners had "very lately had before them _certain papers_," and it was upon the strength of the contents of these papers that they humbly prayed that his majesty would be "pleased to remove from their posts in this government" Governor Hutchinson and Lieutenant-Governor Oliver. Immediately upon receipt of this petition Franklin transmitted it to Lord Dartmouth, with a very civil and conciliatory note, to which Lord Dartmouth replied in the same spirit. This took place in August, 1773; the duel followed in December, and in the interval Franklin had heard nothing from the petition. But when his foregoing letter was published and conned over it seemed that the auspicious moment for the ministry was now at hand, and that it had actually been furnished to them by the astute Franklin himself. There is no question that he had acted according to his conscience, and it seems now to be generally agreed that his conscience did not mislead him. But he had been placed in a difficult position, and it was easily possible to give a very bad coloring to his conduct. There was in this business an opportunity to bring into discredit the character of the representative man of America, the man foremost of Americans in the eyes of the world, the man most formidable to the ministerial party; such an opportunity was not to be lost.[31] [Note 31: It must be confessed that the question whether Franklin should have sent these letters to be seen by the leading men of Massachusetts involves points of some delicacy. The very elaborateness and vehemence of the exculpations put forth by American writers indicate a lurking feeling that the opposite side is at least plausible. I add my opinion decidedly upon Franklin's side, though I certainly see force in the contrary view. Yet before one feels fully satisfied he would wish to know from whom these letters came to Franklin's hands, the information then given him concerning them, and the authority which the giver might be supposed to have over them; in a word, all the attendant and qualifying circumstances and conversation upon which presumptions might have been properly founded by Franklin. Upon these essential matters there is absolutely no evidence. Franklin was bound to secrecy concerning them, at whatever cost to himself. But it is evident that Franklin never for an instant entertained the slightest doubt of the entire propriety of his action, and even in his own cause he was wont to be a fair-minded judge. One gets a glimpse of the other side in the _Diary and Letters of his Excellency Thomas Hutchinson_, _Esq._, etc., by Thomas Orlando Hutchinson, pp. 5, 82-93, 192, 356.] Franklin had anticipated that the "king would have considered this petition, as he had done the preceding one, in his cabinet, and have given an answer without a hearing." But on the afternoon of Saturday, January 8, 1774, he was surprised to receive notice of a hearing upon the petition before the Lords of the Committee for Plantation Affairs, at the Cockpit, on the Tuesday following, at noon. Late in the afternoon of Monday he got notice that Mr. Mauduit, agent for Hutchinson and Oliver, would be represented at the hearing on the following morning by counsel. A less sagacious man than Franklin would have scented trouble in the air. He tried to find Arthur Lee; but Lee was in Bath. He then sought advice from Mr. Bollan, a barrister, agent for the Council of Massachusetts Bay, and who also had been summoned. There was no time to instruct counsel, and Mr. Bollan advised to employ none; he had found "lawyers of little service in colony cases." "Those who are eminent and hope to rise in their profession are unwilling to offend the court, whose disposition on this occasion was well known." The next day at the hearing Mr. Bollan endeavored to speak; but, though he had been summoned, he was summarily silenced, on the ground that the colonial Council, whose agent he was, was not a party to the petition. Franklin then laid the petition and authenticated copies of the letters before the committee. Some objections to the receipt of copies instead of originals were raised by Mr. Wedderburn, solicitor-general and counsel for Hutchinson and Oliver. Franklin then spoke with admirable keenness and skill. He said that he had not conceived the matter to call for discussion by lawyers; but that it was a "question of civil or political prudence, whether, on the state of the fact that the governors had lost all trust and confidence with the people, and become universally obnoxious, it would be for the interest of his majesty's service to continue them in those stations in that province." Of this he conceived their lordships to be "perfect judges," not requiring "assistance from the arguments of counsel." Yet if counsel was to be heard he asked an adjournment to enable him to engage and instruct lawyers. Time was accordingly granted, until January 29. Wedderburn waived his objection to the copies, but both he and Lord Chief Justice De Grey intimated that inquiry would be made as to "how the Assembly came into possession of them, through whose hands and by what means they were procured, ... and to whom they were directed." This was all irrelevant to the real issue, which had been sharply defined by Franklin. The lord president, near whom Franklin stood, asked him whether he intended to answer such questions. "In that I shall take counsel," replied Franklin. The interval which elapsed before the day nominated could not have been very lightsome for the unfortunate agent for the Massachusetts Bay. Not only had he the task of selecting and instructing competent counsel, but even his self-possessed and composed nature must have been severely harassed by the rumors of which the air was full. He heard from all quarters that the ministry and courtiers were highly enraged against him; he was called an incendiary, and the newspapers teemed with invectives against him. He heard that he was to be apprehended and sent to Newgate, and that his papers were to be seized; that after he had been sufficiently blackened by the hearing he would be deprived of his place; with disheartening news also that the disposition of the petition had already been determined.[32] At the same time a subpoena was served upon him at the private suit of Whately, who was under personal obligations to him, but was also a banker to the government. Certainly the heavens threatened a cloudburst with appalling thunder and dangerous lightning. [Note 32: Franklin's _Works_, v. 297, 298.] Upon reflection Franklin was disposed to do without counsel, but Mr. Bollan now became strongly of the contrary opinion. So Mr. Dunning and Mr. John Lee were retained. The former had been solicitor-general, and was a man of mark and ability in the profession. When the hearing came on, the Cockpit presented such a spectacle that Franklin felt assured that the whole affair had been "preconcerted." The hostile courtiers had been "invited, as to an entertainment, and there never was such an appearance of privy councilors on any occasion, not less than thirty-five, besides an immense crowd of other auditors." Every one save the privy councilors had to stand from beginning to end of the proceedings. Franklin occupied a position beside the fireplace, where he stood throughout immovable as a statue, his features carefully composed so that not one trace of emotion was apparent upon them, showing a degree of self-control which was extraordinary even in one who was at once a man of the world and a philosopher, with sixty-eight years of experience in life. Mr. Dunning, with his voice unfortunately weakened by a cold, was not always audible and made little impression. Mr. Lee was uselessly feeble. Wedderburn, thus inefficiently opposed, and conscious of the full sympathy of the tribunal, poured forth a vile flood of personal invective. Throughout his life he approved himself a mean-spirited and ignoble man, despised by those who used and rewarded his able and debased services. On this occasion he eagerly took advantage of the protection afforded by his position and by Dr. Franklin's age to use language which, under such circumstances, was as cowardly as it was false. Nothing, he said, "will acquit Dr. Franklin of the charge of obtaining [the letters] by fraudulent or corrupt means, for the most malignant of purposes, unless he stole them from the person who stole them." "I hope, my lords, you will mark and brand the man, for the honor of this country, of Europe, and of mankind." "He has forfeited all the respect of societies and of men. Into what companies will he hereafter go with an unembarrassed face or the honest intrepidity of virtue? Men will watch him with a jealous eye; they will hide their papers from him, and lock up their escritoires. He will henceforth esteem it a libel to be called _a man of letters_, _homo_ TRIUM[33] _literarum_." "But he not only took away the letters from one brother, but kept himself concealed till he nearly occasioned the murder of the other. It is impossible to read his account, expressive of the coolest and most deliberate malice, without horror. Amidst these tragical events,--of one person nearly murdered, of another answerable for the issue, of a worthy governor hurt in his dearest interests, the fate of America in suspense,--here is a man who, with the utmost insensibility of remorse, stands up and avows himself the author of all. I can compare it only to Zanga, in Dr. Young's 'Revenge.' [Note 33: A play upon the Latin word, FUR, a thief.] 'Know then 't was--I; I forged the letter, I disposed the picture; I hated, I despised, and I destroy.' I ask, my lords, whether the revengeful temper attributed, by poetic fiction only, to the bloody African, is not surpassed by the coolness and apathy of the wily American." Such was the torrent of vilification which flowed from the lips of one of the meanest of England's lawyers, and the speaker was constantly encouraged by applause, and by various indications of gratification on the part of the tribunal before which he argued. Dr. Priestley, who was present, said that from the opening of the proceedings it was evident "that the real object of the court was to insult Dr. Franklin," an object in which their lordships were, of course, able to achieve a complete success. "No person belonging to the council behaved with decent gravity, except Lord North," who came late and remained standing behind a chair. It was a disgraceful scene, but not of long duration; apparently there was little else done save to hear the speeches of counsel. The report of the lords was dated on the same day, and was a severe censure upon the petition and the petitioners. More than this, their lordships went out of their way to inflict a wanton outrage upon Franklin. The question of who gave the letters to him was one which all concerned were extremely anxious to hear answered. But it was also a question which he could not lawfully be compelled to answer in these proceedings; it was wholly irrelevant; moreover it was involved in the cause then pending before the lord chancellor in which Franklin was respondent. Accordingly, by advice of counsel, advice unquestionably correct, he refused to divulge what their lordships were so curious to hear. Enraged, they said in their report that his "silence" was abundant support for the conclusion that the "charge of surreptitiously obtaining the letters was a true one," although they knew that in law and in fact his silence was wholly justifiable. Resolutely as Franklin sought at the time to repress any expression of his natural indignation, there is evidence enough of how deeply he felt this indignity. For example, there is the familiar story of his dress. He wore, at the Cockpit, "a full dress suit of spotted Manchester velvet." Many years afterward, when it befell him, as one of the ambassadors of his country, to sign the treaty of alliance with France, the first treaty ever made by the United States of America, and which practically insured the defeat of Great Britain in the pending war, it was observed by Dr. Bancroft that he was attired in this same suit. The signing was to have taken place on February 5, but was unexpectedly postponed to the next day, when again Franklin appeared in the same old suit and set his hand to the treaty. Dr. Bancroft says: "I once intimated to Dr. Franklin the suspicion which his wearing these clothes on that occasion had excited in my mind, when he smiled, without telling me whether it was well or ill founded." Having done this service, the suit was again laid away until it was brought forth to be worn at Paris at the signing of the treaty of peace with England, a circumstance the more noteworthy since at that time the French court was in mourning.[34] It appears that Franklin for a time entertained a purpose of drawing up an "answer to the abuses" cast at him upon this occasion. There was, however, no need for doing so, and his reason for not doing it is more eloquent on his behalf with posterity than any pamphlet could be. He said: "It was partly written, but the affairs of public importance I have been ever since engaged in prevented my finishing it. The injuries too that my country has suffered have absorbed private resentments, and made it appear trifling for an individual to trouble the world with his particular justification, when all his compatriots were stigmatized by the king and Parliament as being in every respect the worst of mankind." The proceedings at the Cockpit took place on a Saturday. On the following Monday morning Franklin got a "written notice from the secretary of the general post-office, that his majesty's postmaster-general _found it necessary_ to dismiss me from my office of deputy postmaster-general in North America." In other ways, too, the mischief done him by this public assault could not be concealed. It published to all the world the feeling of the court and the ministry toward him, and told Englishmen that it was no longer worth while to keep up appearances of courtesy and good will. [Note 34: Parton's _Life of Franklin_, ii. 508.] It put upon him a judicial stigma, which was ample excuse for the enemies of America henceforth to treat him as both dishonored and dishonorable. Hitherto his tact and his high character had preserved him in a great measure from the social annoyances and curtailments which he would naturally have suffered as the prominent representative of an unpopular cause. But it seemed now as if his judgment had once and fatally played him false, and certainly his good name and his prestige were given over to his enemies, who dealt cruelly with them. He felt that it was the end of his usefulness, also that his own self-respect and dignity must be carefully preserved; and he wrote to the Assembly of Massachusetts to say that it would be impossible for him longer to act as its agent. From that time he never attended the levee of a minister. The portcullis had dropped; the days of his service in England were over. The conclusion had come painfully, yet it was not without satisfaction that he saw himself free to return home. His affairs had suffered in his absence, and needed his attention now more than ever, since he was deprived of his income from the post-office. Moreover his efforts could no longer be cheered with hopes of success or even of achieving any substantial advantage for his countrymen. He was obliged to admit that the good disposition of Lord Dartmouth had had no practical results. "No single measure of his predecessor has since been even attempted to be changed, and, on the contrary, new ones have been continually added, further to exasperate these people, render them desperate, and drive them, if possible, into open rebellion." It had been a vexatious circumstance, too, that not long before this time he had received a rebuke from the Massachusetts Assembly for having been lax, as they fancied, in notifying them of some legislation of an injurious character, which was in preparation. "This censure," he said, "though grievous, does not so much surprise me, as I apprehended all along from the beginning that between the friends of an old agent, my predecessor, who thought himself hardly used in his dismission, and those of a young man impatient for the succession, my situation was not likely to be a very comfortable one, as my faults could scarce pass unobserved." This reference to the malicious and untrustworthy back-biter, Arthur Lee, might have been much more severe, and still amply deserved. The most important acts of his ignoble life, by which alone his memory is preserved, were the slanders which he set in circulation concerning Franklin. Yet Franklin, little suspicious and very magnanimous, praised him as a "gentleman of parts and ability," likely to serve the province with zeal and activity. Probably from this impure Lee fount, but possibly from some other source, there now came a renewal of the rumors that Franklin was to be gained over to the ministerial side by promotion to some office superior to that which he had held. The injurious story was told in Boston, where perhaps a few persons believed it to be true of a man who in fact could hardly have set upon his fealty a price so high that the British government would not gladly have paid it, and who heretofore had been, and at this very time again was, tempted by repeated solicitations and the intimations of grand rewards, only to change his mind--a matter so very easy in politics. Furthermore, beyond these assaults upon his fidelity, these insults of the privy council, Franklin had to contemplate the possibility of personal danger. He was a man of abundant courage, but courage does not make a prison or a gallows an agreeable object in one's horizon. The newspapers alleged that in his correspondence "treason" had been discovered. The ministry, as he was directly informed, thought no better of him than did the editors, regarding him as "the great fomenter of the opposition in America," the "great adversary to any accommodation." "It is given out," he wrote, "that copies of several letters of mine to you are sent over here to the ministers, and that their contents are treasonable, for which I should be prosecuted if copies could be made evidence." He was not conscious of any treasonable intention, but treason was a word to make a man anxious in those days, when uttered by the ministry and echoed by the court. Franklin was quite aware that, though ministers might offer him a tempting place by way of bribe, they would far rather give him "a place in a cart to Tyburn." His friends warned him that his situation was hazardous; that, "if by some accident the troops and the people of New England should come to blows," he would doubtless be seized; and they advised him to withdraw while yet he could do so. Hutchinson frankly avowed that, if his advice were taken, the withdrawal would not be permitted. "But," said Franklin, "I venture to stay," upon the chance of still being of use, "and I confide on my innocence that the worst which can happen to me will be an imprisonment upon suspicion; though that is a thing I should much desire to avoid, as it may be expensive and vexatious, as well as dangerous to my health." So spoke this imperturbable man, and calmly stayed at his post. He was still consulted by both sides in England. In the August following the scene in the privy council chamber, he called upon Lord Chatham and had a long and interesting interview. He then said that he attributed the late "wrong politics" to the departure from the old and true British principle, "whereby every province was well governed, being trusted in a great measure with the government of itself." When it was sought to take this privilege from the colonies, grave blunders had inevitably ensued; because, as he admirably expressed it, Parliament insisted upon being _omnipotent_ when it was not _omniscient_. In other words, the affairs of the unrepresented colonies were mismanaged through sheer ignorance. It is noteworthy that England has since recognized the necessity of precisely the principle indicated by Franklin for colonial government; all her great colonies are now "trusted in a great measure with the government" of themselves, and are consequently "well governed." Franklin further assured his lordship that in all his travels in the provinces he had never once heard independence hinted at as a desirable thing. This gave Chatham much pleasure; but perhaps neither of them at the moment reflected how many eventful years had elapsed since Franklin was last journeying in America. He further declared that the colonists were "even not against regulations of the general commerce by Parliament, provided such regulations were _bona fide_ for the benefit of the _whole empire_, not to the small advantage of one part to the great injury of another." This, by the way, was a good point, which he found very serviceable when people talked to him about the unity of the empire. A genuine unity was just the gospel which he liked to preach. "An equal dispensation," he said, "of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy, it being a matter of no moment to the state whether a subject grows rich and flourishing on the Thames or the Ohio, in Edinburgh or Dublin." But no living Englishman could accept this broad and liberal doctrine. The notion that the colonies were a dependency and should be tributary to the greater power was universal. It was admitted that they should not be oppressed; but it was believed that between oppression and that perfect unity which involved entire equality there was certainly a middle ground whereon the colonies might properly be established. Lord Chatham expressed in courteous compliments the gratification which this visit afforded him. Not long afterward he came gallantly to the defense of Franklin in the House of Lords. It was one day in February, 1775; Franklin was standing in full view, leaning on a rail; Lord Sandwich was speaking against a measure of conciliation or agreement just introduced by Chatham. He said that it deserved "only contempt," and "ought to be immediately rejected. I can never believe it to be the production of any British peer. It appears to me rather the work of some American. I fancy I have in my eye the person who drew it up, one of the bitterest and most mischievous enemies this country has ever known." Speaking thus, he looked full at Franklin, and drew upon him the general attention. But Chatham hastened to defend the defenseless one. "The plan is entirely my own," he said; "but if I were the first minister, and had the care of settling this momentous business, I should not be ashamed of calling to my assistance a person so perfectly acquainted with the whole of American affairs, one whom all Europe ranks with our Boyles and Newtons, as an honor not to the English nation only but to human nature." This was spirited and friendly; Franklin had a way of making warm and loyal friends. Most men would have rejoiced to be so abused by Sandwich in order to be so complimented by Chatham.[35] [Note 35: Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._ v. 220.] Yet, in spite of the high esteem in which so many Englishmen still held Franklin, an incident occurred at this time which showed very plainly that the term of his full usefulness was indeed over, though not altogether for the reasons which had led him to think so. The fact was that the proverbial last feather which breaks the back had been laid upon him. His endurance had been over-taxed, and he was at last in that temper and frame of mind in which the wisest men are liable to make grave mistakes. He was one day present at a debate in the House of Commons, and found himself, as he says, "much disgusted, from the ministerial side, by many base reflections on American courage, religion, understanding, etc., in which we were treated with the utmost contempt, as the lowest of mankind, and almost of a different species from the English of Britain; but particularly the American honesty was abused by some of the lords, who asserted that we were all knaves, etc." Franklin went home "somewhat irritated and heated," and before he had cooled he wrote a paper which he hastened to show to his friend Mr. Thomas Walpole, a member of the House of Commons. Mr. Walpole "looked at it and at me several times alternately, as if he apprehended me a little out of my senses." Nor would Mr. Walpole have been altogether without reason, if in fact he entertained such a suspicion. The paper was the memorial of Benjamin Franklin to the Earl of Dartmouth, secretary of state. In its first clause it demanded "reparation" for the injury done by the blockade of the port of Boston. Conventional forms of speech were observed, yet there was an atmosphere almost of injurious insolence, entirely foreign to all other productions of Franklin's brain and pen. Its second paragraph recited that the conquests made in the northeast from France, which included all those extensive fisheries which still survive as a bone of contention between the two countries, had been _jointly_ won by England and the American colonies, at their common cost, and by an army in which the provincial troops were nearly equal in numbers to the British. "It follows," the audacious memorialist said, "that the colonies have an equitable and just right to participate in the advantage of those fisheries," and the present English attempt to deprive the Massachusetts people of sharing in them was "an act highly unjust and injurious." He concluded: "I give notice that satisfaction will probably one day be demanded for all the injury that may be done and suffered in the execution of such act; and that the injustice of the proceeding is likely to give such umbrage to _all the colonies_ that in no future war, wherein other conquests may be meditated, either a man or a shilling will be obtained from any of them to aid such conquests, till full satisfaction be made as aforesaid." Here was indeed a fulmination to strike an Englishman breathless and dumb with amazement. It put the colonies in the position of a coequal or allied power, entitled to share with Britain the spoils of victory; even in the position of an independent power which could refuse the military allegiance of subjects. English judges would have found abundant treason in this insubordinate document. It may soothe common men to see the wise, the serene, the self-contained Dr. Franklin, the philosopher and diplomatist, for once lose his head in a gust of uncontrollable passion. Walpole, though a loyal Englishman, was fortunately his true friend, and wrote him, with a brevity more impressive than argument, that the memorial "might be attended with dangerous consequences to your person and contribute to exasperate the nation." He closed with the significant sentence: "I heartily wish you a prosperous voyage and long health." The significant words remind one of the woodcock's feather with which Wildrake warned the disguised monarch that no time was to be lost in fleeing from Woodstock. But if the hint was curt, it was no less wise. There was no doubt that it was full time for the sage to be exchanging his farewells, when such a point had been reached. The next day, as Franklin relates, Walpole called and said that "it was thought my having no instructions directing me to deliver such a protest would make it appear still more unjustifiable, and be deemed a national affront. I had no desire to make matters worse, and, being grown cooler, took the advice so kindly given me." The last business which Franklin had to transact on the eve of his departure came in the shape of one of those mysterious and obscure bits of negotiation which are at times undertaken by private persons who are very "near" to ministers, and who conduct their affairs with impressive secrecy. Just how much this approach amounted to it is difficult to say; no less a person than Lord Howe was concerned in it, and he was undoubtedly in direct communication with Lord North. But whether that potentate really anticipated any substantial good result may be doubted. Franklin himself has told the story with much particularity, and since it will neither bear curtailment nor admit of being related at length, and since the whole palaver accomplished absolutely nothing, the relation will be omitted here. In the course of it the efforts to bribe Franklin were renewed, and briefly rejected by him. Also he met, and established a very friendly personal relation with, Lord Howe, who afterward commanded the British fleet in American waters. Having discovered the emptiness of this business, Franklin at last completed his arrangements for his return home. He placed his agencies in the hands of Arthur Lee. His last day in London he passed with his stanch old friend. Dr. Priestley, and a large part of the time, says the doctor, "he was looking over a number of American newspapers, directing me what to extract from them for the English ones; and in reading them he was frequently not able to proceed for the tears literally running down his cheeks." Such was the depth of feeling in one often accounted callous, indifferent, or even untrustworthy in the matter of American relations with England. He felt some anxiety as to whether his departure might not be prevented by an arrest, and made his journey to Portsmouth with such speed and precautions as were possible.[36] But he was not interrupted, and sailed on some day near the middle of March, 1775. His departure marked an era in the relations of Great Britain with her American colonies. It signified that all hope of agreement, all possibility of reconciliation upon one side or of recession upon the other, were absolutely over. That Franklin gave up in despair the task of preventing a war meant that war was certain and imminent. He arrived in Philadelphia May 5, 1775. During his absence his wife had died, and his daughter had married a young man, Richard Bache, whom he had never yet seen. [Note 36: Parton's _Life of Franklin_, ii. 70.] CHAPTER VIII SERVICES IN THE STATES From the solitude of the ocean to the seething turmoil which Franklin found in the colonies must have been a startling transition. He had come home an old man, lacking but little of the allotted threescore years and ten. He had earned and desired repose, but never before had he encountered such exacting, important, and unremitting labor as immediately fell to his lot. Lexington and Concord fights had taken place a fortnight before he landed, and the news preceded him in Philadelphia by a few days only. Many feelings may be discerned in the brief note which he wrote on May 16 to Dr. Priestley:-- "DEAR FRIEND,--You will have heard, before this reaches you, of a march stolen by the regulars into the country by night, and of their _expedition_ back again. They retreated twenty miles in six hours. The governor had called the Assembly to propose Lord North's pacific plan, but before the time of their meeting began the cutting of throats. You know it was said he carried the sword in one hand and the olive branch in the other, and it seems he chose to give them a taste of the sword first." To another correspondent he said that "the feeble Americans, who pelted them all the way, could scarcely keep up with" the rapidly retreating redcoats. But the occurrence of bloodshed had an immense meaning for Franklin; it opened to his vision all the future: an irreconcilable struggle, and finally independence, with a bitter animosity long surviving. He could not address all those who had once been near and dear to him in England as he did the good Dr. Priestley. The letter to Strahan of July 5, 1775, is famous:-- "MR STRAHAN,--You are a member of Parliament, and one of that majority which has doomed my country to destruction. You have begun to burn our towns and murder our people. Look upon your hands; they are stained with the blood of your relations! You and I were long friends; you are now my enemy, and I am, "Yours, B. FRANKLIN." But strained as his relations with Strahan were for a while, it is agreeable to know that the estrangement between such old and close friends was not everlasting. To write at length concerning Franklin's services during his brief stay at home would involve giving a history of the whole affairs of the colonies at this time. But space presses, and this ground is familiar and has been traversed in other volumes in this series. It seems sufficient, therefore, rather to enumerate than to narrate his various engagements, and thus to reserve more room for less well-known matters. On the very day after his return, when he had scarce caught the breath of land, he was unanimously elected by the Assembly a delegate to the Provincial Congress. It was an emergency when the utmost must be made of time, brains, and men. By subsequent reëlections he continued to sit in that body until his departure for France. There was business enough before it: the organization of a government, of the army, of the finances; most difficult of all, the arrangement of a national policy, and the harmonizing of conflicting opinions among men of influence at home. In all that came before the Congress Franklin was obliged to take his full share. He seems to have been upon all the busy and important committees. There were more ardent spirits, greater propelling forces, than he was; but his wisdom was transcendent. Dickinson and his followers were bent upon sending one more petition to the king, a scheme which was ridiculed almost with anger by the more advanced and resolute party. But Franklin's counsel was to give way to their wishes, as being the best policy for bringing them later into full accord with the party which was for war. He had no hopes of any other good result from the proceeding; but it also chimed with his desire to put the English as much as possible in the wrong. In the like direction was a clause in his draft of a declaration, intended to be issued by Washington in the summer of 1775. To counteract the charge that the colonies refused to contribute to the cost of their own protection, he proposed that, if Great Britain would abolish her monopoly of the colonial trade, allowing free commerce between the colonies and all the rest of the world, they would pay into the English sinking fund £100,000 annually for one hundred years; which would be more than sufficient, if "faithfully and inviolably applied for that purpose, ... to extinguish all her present national debt." At the close of this document he administered a telling fillip in his humorous style to that numerous class who seek to control practical affairs by sentiment, and who now would have had their prattle about the "mother country" outweigh the whole accumulation of her very unmaternal oppression and injustice. Concerning the allegation of an unfilial ingratitude, he said: "There is much more reason for retorting that charge on Britain, who not only never contributes any aid, nor affords, by an exclusive commerce, any advantages to Saxony, _her_ mother country; but, no longer since than the last war, without the least provocation, subsidized the king of Prussia while he ravaged that _mother country_, and carried fire and sword into its capital.... An example we hope no provocation will induce us to imitate." Had this declaration ever been used, which it was not, the dignity of the grave general who commanded the American forces would have compelled him to cut off this closing snapper from the lash, amusing as it was. The witty notion had found a more appropriate place in the newspaper article which had dumfounded the guests at the English country house. Commenting upon this, Mr. Parton well says: "Here perhaps we have one of the reasons why Dr. Franklin, who was universally confessed to be the ablest pen in America, was not always asked to write the great documents of the Revolution. He would have put a joke into the Declaration of Independence, if it had fallen to him to write it.... His jokes, the circulating medium of Congress, were as helpful to the cause as Jay's conscience or Adams's fire; ... but they were out of place in formal, exact, and authoritative papers."[37] [Note 37: _Life of Franklin_, ii, 85.] A document which cost Dr. Franklin much more labor than this declaration was a plan for a union of the colonies, which he brought forward July 21, 1775. It was the "first sketch of a plan of confederation which is known to have been presented to Congress." No final action was ever taken upon it. It contained a provision that Ireland, the West India Islands, the Canadian possessions, and Florida might, upon application, be received into the confederation. Franklin's duties in Congress were ample to consume his time and strength; but they were far from being all that he had to do. Almost immediately after his return he was made chairman of a committee for organizing the postal service of the country. In execution of this duty he established in substance that system which has ever since prevailed; and he was then at once appointed postmaster-general, with a salary of £1000 per annum. When franking letters he amused himself by changing the formula, "Free: B. Franklin" into "B. Free, Franklin." He was next made chairman of the provincial committee of safety, a body which began its sittings at the comfortable, old-fashioned hour of six o'clock in the morning. Its duty was to call out and organize all the military resources of Pennsylvania, and generally to provide for the defenses of the province. It worked with much efficiency in its novel and difficult department. Among other things, Franklin devised and constructed some ingenious "marine _chevaux de frise_" for closing the river approaches to Philadelphia. In October, 1775, he was elected a member of the Assembly of the Province. But this did not add to his labors; for the oath of allegiance had not yet been dispensed with; he would not take it, and resigned his seat. In September, 1775, Franklin, Lynch of South Carolina, and Harrison of Virginia, as a committee of Congress, were dispatched to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to confer with Washington concerning military affairs. They rode from Philadelphia to the leaguer around Boston in thirteen days. Their business was achieved with no great difficulty; but they lingered a few days more in that interesting camp, and were absent six weeks. General Greene has recorded how he gazed upon Franklin, "that very great man, with silent admiration;" and Abigail Adams tells with what interest she met him whom "from infancy she had been taught to venerate," and how she read in his grave countenance "patriotism in its full lustre" and with it "blended every virtue of a Christian." The phrase was not well chosen to fall from the pen of Mrs. Adams, yet was literally true; Franklin had the virtues, though dissevered from the tenets which that worthy Puritan dame conceived essential to the make-up of a genuine Christian. The time came when her husband would not have let her speak thus in praise of Benjamin Franklin. In the spring of 1776 Congress was inconsiderate enough to impose upon Franklin a journey to Montreal, there to confer with General Arnold concerning affairs in Canada. It was a severe, even a cruel task to put upon a man of his age; but with his usual tranquil courage he accepted the mission. He met the ice in the rivers, and suffered much from fatigue and exposure; indeed, the carelessness of Congress was near depriving the country of a life which could not have been spared. On April 15 he wrote from Saratoga: "I begin to apprehend that I have undertaken a fatigue that at my time of life may prove too much for me; so I sit down to write to a few friends by way of farewell;" and still the real wilderness with all its hardships lay before him. After he had traversed it he had the poor reward of finding himself on a bootless errand. The Canadian enterprise had no possible future save failure and retreat. There was absolutely nothing which he could do in Canada; he was being wasted there, and resolved to get away as soon as he could. Accordingly he made his painful way homeward; but worn out as he was, he was given scant opportunity to recuperate from this perilous and mistaken journey. The times called upon every patriot to spend all he had of vigor, intellect, money, life itself, for the common cause, and Franklin was no niggard in the stress. In the spring of 1776 the convention charged to prepare a constitution for the independent State of Pennsylvania was elected. Franklin was a member, and when the convention came together he was chosen to preside over its deliberations. It sat from July 16 to September 28. The constitution which it presented to the people established a legislature of only one house, a feature which Franklin approved and defended. At the close of the deliberations thanks were unanimously voted to him for his services as presiding officer, and for his "able and disinterested advice." Yet in spite of abundant acts, like this, of real independence taking place upon all sides, profession of it inspired alarm in a large proportion of the people. Congress even declared formally that independence was not aimed at. Sam Adams, disgusted, talked of forming a New England confederacy, and Franklin approved the scheme and said that in such an event he would cast in his lot with the New Englanders. But the stream ran on in spite of some snags in the current. It was not much later that Franklin found himself one of the committee of five elected by ballot to frame a declaration of independence. Had he been called upon to write the document he would certainly have given something more terse and simple than that rotund and magniloquent instrument which Jefferson bequeathed to the unbounded admiration of American posterity. As it was, Franklin's recorded connection with the preparation of that famous paper is confined to the amusing tale about John Thompson, Hatter, wherewith he mitigated the miseries of Jefferson during the debate; and to his familiar bonmot in reply to Harrison's appeal for unanimity: "Yes, we must indeed all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." With this rather grim jest upon his lip, he set his signature to one of the greatest documents in the world's history. When it came to shaping the machinery of the confederation, the great difficulty, as is well known, lay in establishing a just proportion between the larger and the smaller States. Should they have equal weight in voting, or not? It was a question so vital and so hard to settle that the confederacy narrowly survived the strain. Franklin was decidedly in favor of making the voting value proportionate to the size, measured by population, of the several States. He said: Let the smaller colonies give equal money and men, and then let them have an equal vote. If they have an equal vote without bearing equal burdens, a confederation based on such iniquitous principles will not last long. To set out with an unequal representation is unreasonable. There is no danger that the larger States will absorb the smaller. The same apprehension was expressed when Scotland was united to England. It was then said that the whale had swallowed Jonah; but Lord Bute's administration came in, and then it was seen that Jonah had swallowed the whale. That Scotch favorite was the provocation for many witty sayings, but for none better than this. In July, 1776, Lord Howe arrived, in command of the English fleet. He immediately sought to open a friendly correspondence with Franklin. He had played a prominent part in those efforts at conciliation which had come to naught just before Franklin's departure from England; and he now renewed his generous attempt to act as a mediator. There is no doubt that this nobleman, as kindly as brave, would far rather have reconciled the Americans than have fought them. By permission of Congress Franklin replied by a long letter, not deficient in courtesy of language, but full of argument upon the American side, and in a tone which there was no misconceiving. Its closing paragraph was:-- "I consider this war against us, therefore, as both unjust and unwise; and I am persuaded that cool, dispassionate posterity will condemn to infamy those who advised it, and that even success will not save from some degree of dishonor those who voluntarily engaged to conduct it. I know your great motive in coming hither was the hope of being instrumental in a reconciliation; and I believe, when you find _that_ impossible on any terms given you to propose, you will relinquish so odious a command, and return to a more honorable private station." If the Englishman had been hot-tempered, this would probably have ended the correspondence; as it was, he only delayed for a while before writing civilly again. The battle of Long Island next occurred, and Lord Howe fancied that that disaster might bring the Americans to their senses. He paroled General Sullivan, and by him sent a message to Congress: That he and his brother had full powers to arrange an accommodation; that they could not at present treat with Congress as such, but would like to confer with some of its members as private gentlemen. After a long debate it was resolved to send a committee of Congress to meet the admiral and the general, and Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge were deputed. Lord Howe received them with much courtesy, and gave them a lunch before proceeding to business. But when luncheon was over and the substance of the errand was reached, it was very shortly disposed of. His lordship opened with a speech of elaborate civility, and concluded by saying that he felt for America as for a brother, and if America should fall he should feel and lament it like the loss of a brother. Franklin replied: "My lord, we will use our utmost endeavors to save your lordship that mortification." But Lord Howe did not relish this Yankee wit. He continued by a long, explanatory, conciliatory address. At its close there was necessarily brought up the question of the character in which the envoys came. His lordship thought that the idea of Congress might "easily be thrown out at present." Franklin adroitly settled it: "Your lordship may consider us in any view you think proper. We on our part are at liberty to consider ourselves in our real character. But there is really no necessity on this occasion to distinguish between members of Congress and individuals. The conversation may be held as among friends." Mr. Adams made one of those blunt and pugnacious remarks which, whenever addressed to Englishmen, are sure to endear the speaker to the American nation. Mr. Rutledge laid over it the courtesy of a gentleman; and then the conference came to the point. Lord Howe expressed his majesty's earnest desire for a permanent peace and for the happiness of his American subjects, his willingness for a reform and for a redress of grievances. But he admitted that the Declaration of Independence was an awkward obstacle. He asked: "Is there no way of treating _back_ of this step of independency?" Franklin replied at some length, closing with the words: "Forces have been sent out, and towns have been burnt. We cannot now expect happiness under the domination of Great Britain. All former attachments are obliterated. America cannot return to the domination of Great Britain, and I imagine that Great Britain means to rest it upon force." Adams said: "It is not in our power to treat otherwise than as independent States; and for my own part, I avow my determination never to depart from the idea of independency." Rutledge said: "With regard to the people consenting to come again under the English government, it is impossible. I can answer for South Carolina." Lord Howe replied: "If such are your sentiments, I can only regret that it is not in my power to bring about the accommodation I wish." Thus the fruitlessness of such efforts was made manifest; of all concerned, it is probable that the most amiable of Englishmen was the only one who was disappointed at the result. The Americans were by no means displeased at having another and conclusive proof to convince the doubting ones that reconciliation was an impossibility. Franklin's language was expressive of the way in which his mind had worked. Until it came to the "cutting of throats," he had never altogether and avowedly given up hopes that, from the reservoir of unknown things in the future, something might in time come forth that would bring about a reasonable accommodation. But the first bloodshed effected a change in his feelings as irrevocable as that which Hawthorne so subtly represents as having been worked in the nature of Donatello by a violent taking of life. "Bunker's Hill" excited him; the sack of Falmouth affected him with terrible intensity. When the foolish petition of the Dickinson party was sent to England, he wrote to Dr. Priestley that the colonies had given Britain one more chance of recovering their friendship, "which, however, I think she has not sense enough to embrace; and so I conclude she has lost them forever. She has begun to burn our seaport towns, secure, I suppose, that we shall never be able to return the outrage in kind.... If she wishes to have us subjects ... she is now giving us such miserable specimens of her government that we shall ever detest and avoid it, as a combination of robbery, murder, famine, fire, and pestilence." His humor could not be altogether repressed, but there were sternness and bitterness underlying it: "Tell our dear, good friend, Dr. Price, who sometimes has his doubts and despondencies about our firmness, that America is determined and unanimous; a very few Tories and placemen excepted, who will probably soon export themselves. Britain, at the expense of three millions, has killed one hundred and fifty Yankees, this campaign, which is twenty thousand pounds a head; and at Bunker's Hill she gained a mile of ground, half of which she lost again by our taking post at Ploughed Hill. During the same time 60,000 children have been born in America. From these data his mathematical head will easily calculate the time and expense necessary to kill us all, and conquer our whole territory." It was a comical way of expressing the real truth that Britain neither would nor could give enough either of men, or money, or time to accomplish the task she had undertaken. To another he wrote: "We hear that more ships and troops are coming out. We know that you may do us a great deal of mischief, and are determined to bear it patiently as long as we can. But if you flatter yourselves with beating us into submission, you know neither the people nor the country." Other men wrote ardent words and indulged in the rhetorical extravagance of intense excitement in those days; Franklin sometimes cloaked the intensity of his feeling in humor, at other times spoke with a grave and self-contained moderation which was within rather than without the facts and the truth. Everything which he said was true with precision to the letter. But his careful statement and measured profession indicate rather than belie the earnestness of his feeling, the strength of his conviction, and the fixedness of his resolution. Thus briefly must be dismissed the extensive and important toil of eighteen months, probably the busiest of Franklin's long and busy life. In September, 1776, he was elected envoy to France, and scant space is left for narrating the events of that interesting embassage. CHAPTER IX MINISTER TO FRANCE, I DEANE AND BEAUMARCHAIS: FOREIGN OFFICERS It is difficult to pass a satisfactory judgment upon the diplomacy of the American Revolution. If one takes its history in detail, it presents a disagreeable picture of importunate knocking at the closed doors of foreign courts, of incessant and almost shameless begging for money and for any and every kind of assets that could be made useful in war, of public bickering and private slandering among the envoys and agents themselves. If, on the other hand, its achievements are considered, it appears crowned with the distinction of substantial, repeated, sometimes brilliant successes. A like contrast is found in its _personnel_. Between Franklin and Arthur Lee a distance opens like that between the poles, in which stand such men as Jay and Adams near the one extreme, Izard, William Lee, and Thomas Morris near the other, with Deane, Laurens, Carmichael, Jonathan Williams, and a few more in the middle ground. Yet what could have been reasonably expected? Franklin had had some dealings with English statesmen upon what may be called international business, and had justly regarded himself in the light of a quasi foreign minister. But with this exception not one man in all the colonies had had the slightest experience in diplomatic affairs, or any personal knowledge of the requirements of a diplomatic office, or any opportunity to gain any ideas on the subject beyond such as a well-educated man could glean from reading the scant historical literature which existed in those days. It was difficult also for Congress to know how to judge and discriminate concerning the material which it found at its disposal. There had been nothing in the careers of the prominent patriots to indicate whether or not any especial one among them had a natural aptitude for diplomacy. The selection must be made with little knowledge of the duties of the position, and with no knowledge of the responsive characteristics of the man. It was only natural that many of the appointments thus blindly made should turn out ill. After they were made, and the appointees had successfully crossed the ocean through the dangerous gauntlet of the English cruisers, there arose to be answered in Europe the embarrassing question: What these self-styled representatives represented. Was it a nation, or only a parcel of rebels? Here was an unusual and vexatious problem, concerning which most of the cautious royal governments were in no hurry to commit themselves; and their reticence added greatly to the perplexities of the fledgling diplomats. Nearly all cabinets felt it a great temptation to assist the colonies of the domineering mistress of the seas to change themselves from her dependencies into her naval rivals. But the attempt and not the deed might prove confounding; neither could a wise monarch assume with entire complacency the position of an aider and an abettor of a rebellion on the part of subjects whose grievances appeared chiefly an antipathy to taxation. From the earliest moment France had been hopefully regarded by the colonists as probably their friend and possibly their ally. To France, therefore, the first American envoy was dispatched with promptitude, even before there was a declaration of independence or an assumption of nationality. Silas Deane was the man selected. He was the true Yankee jack-at-all-trades; he had been graduated at Yale College, then taught school, then practiced law, then engaged in trade, had been all the while advancing in prosperity and reputation, had been a member of the First and Second Congresses, had failed of reëlection to the Third, and was now without employment. Mr. Parton describes him as "of somewhat striking manners and good appearance, accustomed to live and entertain in liberal style, and fond of showy equipage and appointment." Perhaps his simple-minded fellow countrymen of the provinces fancied that such a man would make an imposing figure at an European court. He developed no other peculiar fitness for his position; he could not even speak French; and it proved an ill hour for himself in which he received this trying and difficult honor. By dint of native shrewdness, good luck, and falling among friends he made a fair beginning; but soon he floundered beyond his depth, committed some vexatious blunders, and in the course of conducting some important business at last found himself in a position where he had really done right but appeared to have done wrong, without being free to explain the truth. The result was that he was recalled upon a pretext which poorly concealed his disgrace, that he found even his reputation for financial honesty clouded, and that his prospects for the future were of the worst. He was not a man of sufficient mental calibre or moral strength to endure his unmerited sufferings with constancy. After prolonged disappointments in his attempts to set himself right in the opinion of the country, he became embittered, lost all judgment and patriotism, turned a renegade to the cause of America, which had wronged him indeed, but rather in ignorance than from malice, and died unreconciled, a broken and miserable exile. Such were the perils of the diplomatic service of the colonies in those days. Deane arrived in France in June, 1776. He had with him a little ready money for his immediate personal expenses, and some letters of introduction from Franklin. It was intended to keep him supplied with money by sending cargoes of tobacco, rice, and indigo consigned to him, the proceeds of which would be at his disposal for the public service. He was instructed to seek an interview with de Vergennes, the French minister for foreign affairs, and to endeavor with all possible prudence and delicacy to find out what signs of promise the disposition of the French government really held for the insurgents. He was also to ask for equipment for 25,000 troops, ammunition, and 200 pieces of field artillery, all to be paid for--when Congress should be able! In France he was to keep his mission cloaked in secure secrecy, appearing simply as a merchant conducting his own affairs; and he was to write home common business letters under the very harmless and unsuggestive name of Timothy Jones, adding the real dispatch in invisible ink. But these commonplace precautions were rendered of no avail through the treachery of Dr. Edward Bancroft, an American resident abroad, who had the confidence of Congress, but who "accepted the post of a paid American spy, to prepare himself for the more lucrative office of a double spy for the British ministers."[38] Deane, going somewhat beyond his instructions to correspond with Bancroft, told him everything. Bancroft is supposed to have passed the information along to the British ministry, and thus enabled them to interpose serious hindrances in the way of the ingenious devices of the Frenchmen. [Note 38: Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._ ix. 63.] Before the arrival of Deane the interests of the colonies had been already taken in hand and substantially advanced in France by one of the most extraordinary characters in history. Caron de Beaumarchais was a man whom no race save the French could produce, and whose traits, career, and success lie hopelessly beyond the comprehension of the Anglo-Saxon. Bred a watchmaker, he had the skill, when a mere youth, to invent a clever escapement balance for regulating watches; had he been able to insert it into his own brain he might have held more securely his elusive good fortunes. From being an ingenious inventor he became an adventurer general, watchmaker to the king, the king's mistresses, and the king's daughters, the lover, or rather the beloved, of the wife of the controller of the king's kitchen, then himself the controller, thence a courtier, and a favorite of the royal princesses. Through a clever use of his opportunities he was able to do a great favor to a rich banker, who in return gave him chances to amass a fortune, and lent him money to buy a patent of nobility. This connection ended in litigation, which was near ruining him; but he discovered corruption on the part of the judge, and thereupon wrote his Memorials, of which the wit, keenness, and vivacity made him famous. He then rendered a private, personal, and important service to Louis XV., and soon afterwards another to the young Louis XVI. His capacity for secret usefulness gave him further occupation and carried him much to London. There he wrote the "Barber of Seville," and there also he fell in with Arthur Lee and became indoctrinated with grand notions of the resources and value of the colonies, and of the ruin which their separation must inflict upon England. Furthermore, as a Frenchman he naturally consorted with members of the opposition party who took views very favorable to America. With such corroboration of Lee's statements, Beaumarchais, never moderate in any sentiment, leaped to the conclusion that the colonies "must be invincible," and that England was "upon the brink of ruin, if her neighbors and rivals were but in a state to think seriously of it." At once the lively and ambitious fancy of the impetuous Frenchman spread an extravagant panorama of the possibilities thus opened to England's "natural enemy." He became frenzied in the American cause. In long and ardent letters he opened upon King Louis and his ministers a rattling fire of arguments sound and unsound, statements true and untrue, inducements reasonable and unreasonable, forecastings probable and improbable, policies wise and unwise, all designed to show that it was the bounden duty of France to adopt the colonial cause. The king, with no very able brain at any time, was very young and wholly inexperienced. He gazed bewildered at the brilliant pageantry of Beaumarchais's wonderful and audacious statecraft, and sensibly sought the advice of his ministers. De Vergennes set out his views, in agreement with Beaumarchais. He declared that France now had her opportunity to reduce her dangerous rival to the place of a second-rate power. To this end it was desirable that the rebellion should endure at least one year. The sufferings of the colonists in that period would so embitter them that, even if they should finally be subdued, they would ever remain a restless, dangerous thorn in the side of England, a bond with a heavy penalty effectually binding her to keep the peace. To make sure that neither side should move for peace before this one valuable year of warfare should have been secured, it was the policy of France to maintain a pacific front towards Great Britain, thus relieving her from any fear that the colonies would obtain a French alliance, but clandestinely to furnish the insurgents with munitions of war and money sufficient to enable and encourage them to hold out. The wise Turgot, in a state paper marked by great ability, opposed French intervention, and proved his case. Colonial independence was sure to come, a little sooner or later. Yet the reduction of the colonies would be the best possible assurance that England would not break the peace with France, since the colonists, being mutinous and discontented, would give her concern enough. On the other hand, should England fail, as he anticipated that she would, in this war, she would hardly emerge from it in condition to undertake another with France. As for the colonies themselves, should they win, the character of the Americans gave augury of their wishing a solid government and therefore cultivating peace. He uttered an admirable dissertation upon the relations between colonies and a parent country, and upon the value of colonies in its bearing upon the present question. In conclusion he gravely referred to the alarming deficit in the French exchequer as the strongest of all arguments against incurring the heavy charge of a war not absolutely unavoidable. "For a necessary war resources could be found; but war ought to be shunned as the greatest of misfortunes, since it would render impossible, perhaps forever, a reform absolutely necessary to the prosperity of the state and the solace of the people." The king, to whom these wise words were addressed, lived to receive terrible proof of their truth. This good advice fell in well with the bent of Louis's mind. For, though no statesman, he had in this matter a sound instinct that an absolute monarch aiding rebels to erect a free republic was an anomaly, and a hazardous contradiction in the natural order of things. But de Vergennes was the coming man in France, and Turgot no longer had the influence or the popularity to which his ability entitled him. In May, 1776, on an ill day for the French monarchy, but a fair one for the American provinces, this able statesman was ousted from the cabinet. De Vergennes remained to wield entire control of the policy of the kingdom in this business, and his triumph was the great good fortune of the colonies. Yet his design was sufficiently cautious, and strictly limited to the advantage of his own country. France was not to be compromised, and an ingenious scheme was arranged. The firm of Roderigue Hortalez & Co. made sudden appearance in Paris. Beaumarchais alone conducted its affairs, the most extraordinary merchant surely who ever engaged in extensive commerce! The capital was secretly furnished by the Spanish and French governments; about $400,000 the firm had to start with, and later the French government contributed $200,000 more. De Vergennes was explicit in his language to Beaumarchais: to Englishmen and Americans alike the affair must be an "individual speculation." With the capital given him Beaumarchais must "found a great commercial establishment," and "at his own risk and peril" sell to the colonies military supplies. These would be sold to him from the French arsenals; but he "must pay for them." From the colonies he must "ask return in their staple products." Except that his silent partners might be lenient in demanding repayment Beaumarchais really was to be a merchant, engaged in an exceptionally hazardous trade. If he regarded himself in any other light he was soon painfully undeceived; for de Vergennes was in earnest. But for the immediate present, upon the moment when he had arranged these preliminaries, doubtless fancying the government at his back, this most energetic of men plunged into his work with all the ardor of his excitable nature. He flew hither and thither; got arms and munitions from the government; bought and loaded ships, and was soon conducting an enormous business. But it was by no means all smooth sailing for the vessels of Hortalez & Co.; for Deane arrived, not altogether opportunely, just as Beaumarchais was getting well under weigh. The two were soon brought together, and Deane was told all that was going on, save only the original connection of the French government, which it seems that he never knew. He in turn told all to Dr. Bancroft, and so unwittingly to the English government. Thereupon the watchful English cruisers effectually locked up the ships of Hortalez in the French harbors. Also Lord Stormont, the English ambassador, harassed the French government with ceaseless representations and complaints concerning these betrayed shipments of contraband cargoes. At the same time the news from America, coming chiefly through English channels, took on a very gloomy coloring, and lent a certain emphasis to these protests of the English minister. De Vergennes felt compelled to play out his neutral part even more in earnest than had been intended. He sent to the ports at which Hortalez & Co. had ships very stringent instructions to check unlawful trade, and the officials obeyed in good faith to the letter. Beaumarchais was seriously embarrassed at finding himself bearing in fact the mercantile character which he had supposed that he was only dramatically assuming. He had to load his cargoes and clear his ships as best he could, precisely like any ordinary dealer in contraband wares; there was no favoritism, no winking at his breaches of the law. The result was that it was a long while before he got any arms, ammunition, and clothing into an American port. Moreover, the ships from America which were to have brought him payment in the shape of tobacco and other American commodities failed to arrive; his royal copartners declined to make further advances; the ready money was gone, credit had been strained to the breaking point, and a real bankruptcy impended over the sham firm. Thus in the autumn and early winter of 1776 prospects in France wore no cheerful aspect for the colonies. It was at this juncture that Franklin arrived, and he came like a reviving breeze from the sea. Long and anxiously did Congress wait to get news from France; not many trustworthy ships were sent on so perilous a voyage, and of those that ventured it only a few got across an ocean "porcupined" with English warships. At last in September, 1776, Franklin received from Dr. Dubourg of Paris, a gentleman with whom his friendship dated back to his French trip in 1767, a long and cheering letter full of gratifying intelligence concerning the disposition of the court, and throwing out a number of such suggestions that the mere reading them was a stimulus to action. Congress was not backward to respond; it resolved at once to send a formal embassage. Franklin was chosen unanimously by the first ballot. "I am old and good for nothing," he whispered to Dr. Rush, "but, as the storekeepers say of their remnants of cloth, 'I am but a fag end and you may have me for what you please.'"[39] Thomas Jefferson and Deane were elected as colleagues; but Jefferson declined the service and Arthur Lee was put in his stead. The Reprisal, sloop of war, of sixteen guns, took Dr. Franklin and his grandson on board for the dangerous voyage. It was a very different risk from that which Messrs. Slidell and Mason took nearly a century later. They embarked on a British mail steamship, and were subject, as was proved, only to the ordinary perils of navigation. But had Franklin been caught in this little rebel craft, which had actually been captured from English owners and condemned as prize by rebel tribunals, and which now added the aggravating circumstance that she carried an armament sufficient to destroy a merchantman but not to encounter a frigate, he would have had before him at best a long imprisonment, at worst a trial for high treason and a halter. Horace Walpole gave the news that "Dr. Franklin, at the age of seventy-two or seventy-four, and at the risk of his head, had bravely embarked on board an American frigate." Several times he must have contemplated these pleasing prospects, for several times the small sloop was chased by English cruisers; but she was a swift sailer and escaped them all. Just before making port she captured two English brigs and carried them in as prizes. [Note 39: Parton's _Life of Franklin_, ii. 166.] The reference to Slidell and Mason, by the way, calls to mind the humorous but accurate manner in which Franklin described the difference between revolution and rebellion. Soon after landing from this hazardous voyage he wrote merrily to a lady friend: "You are too early, hussy, as well as too saucy, in calling me a _rebel_. You should wait for the event, which will determine whether it is a _rebellion_ or only a _revolution_. Here the ladies are more civil; they call us _les insurgens_, a character which usually pleases them." The voyage, though quick, was very rough, and Franklin, confined in a small cabin and "poorly nourished," since much of the meat was too tough for his old teeth, had a hard time of it; so that upon coming on shore he found himself "much fatigued and weakened," indeed, "almost demolished." He therefore rested several days at Nantes before going to Paris, where he arrived just before the close of the year. The excitement which his arrival in the French capital created was unmistakable evidence of the estimate set by Europe upon his abilities. Some persons in England endeavored to give to his voyage the color of a desertion from a cause of which he despaired. "The arch----, Dr. Franklin, has lately eloped under a cloak of plenipotentiary to Versailles," wrote Sir Grey Cooper. But Edmund Burke refused to believe that the man whom he had seen examined before the privy council was "going to conclude a long life, which has brightened every hour it has continued, with so foul and dishonorable a flight." Lord Rockingham said that the presence of Franklin in Paris much more than offset the victory of the English on Long Island, and their capture of New York. Lord Stormont, it is said, threatened to leave _sans prendre congé_, if the "chief of the American rebels" were allowed to come to Paris. The adroit de Vergennes replied that the government had already dispatched a courier to direct Franklin to remain at Nantes; but since they knew neither the time of his departure nor his route, the message might not reach him. Should he thus innocently arrive in Paris it would be scandalous, inhospitable, and contrary to the laws of nations to send him away.[40] [Note 40: Hale's _Franklin in France_, i. 73.] But while the English were angry, the French indulged in a _furore_ of welcome. They made feasts and hailed the American as the friend of human kind, as the "ideal of a patriarchal republic and of idyllic simplicity," as a sage of antiquity; and the exuberant classicism of the nation exhausted itself in glorifying him by comparisons with those great names of Greece and Rome which have become symbols for all private and public virtues. They admired him because he did not wear a wig; they lauded his spectacles; they were overcome with enthusiasm as they contemplated his great cap of martin fur, his scrupulously white linen, and the quaint simplicity of his brown Quaker raiment of colonial make. They noted with amazement that his "only defense" was a "walking-stick in his hand." The print-shops were soon full of countless representations of his noble face and venerable figure, set off by all these pleasing adjuncts. The people thronged the streets to see him pass, and respectfully made way for him. He seemed, as John Adams said later, to enjoy a reputation "more universal than that of Leibnitz or Newton, Frederick or Voltaire." So soon as all this uproar gave him time to look about him, he established himself at Passy, in a part of the Hôtel de Valentinois, which was kindly placed at his disposal by its owner, M. Ray de Chaumont. In this at that time retired suburb he hoped to be able to keep the inevitable but useless interruptions within endurable limits. Not improbably also he was further influenced, in accepting M. Chaumont's hospitality, by a motive of diplomatic prudence. His shrewdness and experience must soon have shown him that his presence in Paris, if not precisely distasteful to the French government, must at least in some degree compromise it, and might by any indiscretion on his part easily be made to annoy and vex the ministers. It therefore behooved him to make himself as little as possible conspicuous in any official or public way. A rebuke, a cold reception, might do serious harm; nor was it politic to bring perplexities to those whose friendship he sought. He could not avoid, nor had he any reason to do so, the social éclat with which he was greeted; but he must shun the ostentation of any relationship with men in office. This would be more easily accomplished by living in a quarter somewhat remote and suburban. His retirement, therefore, while little curtailing his intercourse with private society, evinced his good tact, and doubtless helped his good standing with the ministers. The police record reports that, if he saw them at all, it was secretly and under cover of night. He lived in comfortable style, but not showily, keeping a moderate retinue of servants for appearance as much as for use, and a carriage, which was indispensable to him. John Adams charged him with undue luxury and extravagance, but the accusation was ridiculous. Very exacting did the business of the American envoys soon become. On December 23, 1776, they wrote to acquaint the Count de Vergennes that they were "appointed and fully empowered by the Congress of the United States of America to propose and negotiate a treaty of amity and commerce between France and the United States;" and they requested an audience for the purpose of presenting their credentials to his excellency. Five days later the audience was given them. They explained the desire of the American colonies to enter into a treaty of alliance and of commerce. They said that the colonists were anxious to get their ships, now lying at the home wharves laden with tobacco and other products, out of the American harbors, and to give them a chance to run for France. But the English vessels hovered thick up and down the coasts, and the Americans, though able to take care of frigates, could not encounter ships of the line. Would not France lend eight ships of the line, equipped and manned, to let loose all this blockaded commerce which was ready to seek her ports and to fill the coffers of her merchants? Under all the circumstances this was certainly asking too much; and in due time the envoys were courteously told so, but were also offered a strictly secret loan of $400,000, to be repaid after the war, without interest. It appears that Franklin had substantially no concern in the quasi commercial transactions pending at the time of his arrival between Deane and Beaumarchais. Deane himself did not know and could not disclose the details of the relationship between Beaumarchais and the government, which indeed were not explored and made public until more than half a century had elapsed after their occurrence. Therefore Franklin saw nothing more than mercantile dealings in various stages of forwardness, whose extensive intricacies it did not seem worth while for him to unravel at a cost of much time and labor, which could be better expended in other occupations.[41] Deane held all the threads, and it seemed natural and proper to leave this business as his department. So Franklin never had more than a general knowledge concerning this imbroglio. This leaving all to Deane might have been well enough had not Deane had an implacable enemy in Arthur Lee, who, for that matter, resembled the devil in at least one particular, inasmuch as he was the foe of all mankind. Beaumarchais early in the proceedings had summarily dropped Lee from his confidence and instated Deane in the vacancy. This was sufficient to set Lee at once at traducing, an art in which long experience had cultivated natural aptitude. He saw great sums of money being used, and he was not told whence they came. But he guessed, and upon his guess he built up a theory of financial knavery. Deane had repeatedly assured Beaumarchais that he should receive the cargoes of American produce with promptitude,[42] and he did his best to make these promises good, writing urgent letters to Congress to hasten forward the colonial merchandise. But Arthur Lee mischievously and maliciously blocked these perfectly straightforward and absolutely necessary arrangements. For he had conceived the notion that Beaumarchais was an agent of the French court, that the supplies were free gifts from the French government, and that any payments for them to Hortalez & Co. would only go to fill the rascal purses of Deane and Beaumarchais, confederates in a scheme for swindling. He had no particle of evidence to sustain this notion, which was simply the subtle conception of his own bad mind; but he was not the less positive and persistent in asserting it in his letters to members of Congress. Such accounts sadly puzzled that body; and it may be imagined to what a further hopeless degree of bewilderment this gathering of American lawyers and tradesmen, planters and farmers, must have been reduced by the extraordinary letters of the wild and fanciful Beaumarchais. The natural consequence was that the easier course was pursued, and no merchandise was sent to Hortalez. If affairs had not soon taken a new turn in France this error might have had disastrous consequences for the colonies. In fact, it only ruined poor Deane. [Note 41: Franklin's _Works_, vi. 199, 205; viii. 153, 183; Hale's _Franklin in France_, i. 53.] [Note 42: Hale's _Franklin in France_, i. 45.] After this unfortunate man had been recalled, and while he was in great affliction at home because he could not get his reputation cleared from these Lee slanders, being utterly unable in America to produce even such accounts and evidence as might have been had in France, Franklin more than once volunteered to express kindly and emphatically his entire belief in Deane's integrity. So late as October, 1779, though admitting his lack of knowledge concerning an affair in which he had "never meddled," he still thought Deane "innocent." Finally in 1782, when Deane had become thoroughly demoralized by his hard fate, Franklin spoke of his fall not without a note of sympathy: "He resides at Ghent, is distressed both in mind and circumstances, raves and writes abundance, and I imagine it will end in his going over to join his friend Arnold in England. I had an exceedingly good opinion of him when he acted with me, and I believe he was then sincere and hearty in our cause. But he is changed, and his character ruined in his own country and in this, so that I see no other but England to which he can now retire. He says we owe him about £12,000 sterling."[43] But of this Franklin knew nothing, and proposed getting experts to examine the accounts. He did know very well, however, what it was to be accused by Arthur Lee, and would condemn no man upon that basis! [Note 43: See also letter to Morris, March 30, 1782, _Works_, vii. 419; also viii. 225. In 1835 sufficient evidence was discovered to induce Congress to pay to the heirs of this unfortunate man a part of the sum due to him. Parton's _Life of Franklin_, ii. 362.] Yet the matter annoyed him greatly. On June 12, 1781, he wrote acknowledging that he was absolutely in the dark about the whole business:-- "In 1776, being then in Congress, I received a letter from Mr. Lee, acquainting me that M. Beaumarchais had applied to him in London, informing him that 200,000 guineas had been put into his hands, and was at the disposal of the Congress; Mr. Lee added that it was agreed between them that he, M. Beaumarchais, should remit the same in arms, ammunition, etc., under the name of Hortalez & Co. Several cargoes were accordingly sent. Mr. Lee understood this to be a private aid from the government of France; but M. Beaumarchais has since demanded from Congress payment of a gross sum, as due to him, and has received a considerable part, but has rendered no particular account. I have, by order of Congress, desired him to produce his account, that we might know exactly what we owed, and for what; and he has several times promised it, but has not yet done it; and in his conversation he often mentions, as I am told, that we are greatly in his debt. These accounts in the air are unpleasant, and one is neither safe nor easy under them. I wish, therefore, you could help me to obtain a settlement of them. It has been said that Mr. Deane, unknown to his colleagues, wrote to Congress in favor of M. Beaumarchais's demand; on which Mr. Lee accuses him of having, to the prejudice of his constituents, negotiated a gift into a debt. At present all that transaction is in darkness;[44] and we know not whether the whole, or a part, or no part, of the supplies he furnished were at the expense of government, the reports we have had being so inconsistent and contradictory; nor, if we are in debt for them, or any part of them, whether it is the king or M. de Beaumarchais who is our creditor."[45] [Note 44: Light was first let in upon this darkness by Louis de Loménie, in his _Beaumarchais et Son Temps_; and the story as told by him may be read, in a spirited version, in Parton's _Life of Franklin_, chapters vii., viii.] [Note 45: Hale's _Franklin in France_, i. 53.] What chiefly irritated Congress against Deane and led to his recall was neither his dealings with Beaumarchais nor the slanders of Lee, but quite another matter, in which he certainly showed much lack of discretion. Cargoes of arms and munitions of war were very welcome in the States, but cargoes of French and other European officers were by no means so. Yet the inconsiderate Deane sent over these enthusiasts and adventurers in throngs. The outbreak of the rebellion seemed to arouse a spirit of martial pilgrimage in Europe, a sort of crusading ardor, which seized the Frenchmen especially, but also some few officers in other continental armies. These all flocked to Paris and told Deane that they were burning to give the insurgent States the invaluable assistance of their distinguished services. Deane was little accustomed to the highly appreciative rhetoric with which the true Frenchman frankly describes his own merit, and apparently accepted as correct the appraisal which these warriors made of themselves. Soon they alighted in swarms upon the American coast, besieged the doors of Congress, and mingled their importunities with all the other harassments of Washington. Each one of them had his letter from Deane, reciting the exaggerated estimate of his capacity, and worse still each one was armed with Deane's promise that he should hold in the American army a rank one grade higher than he had held in his home service. To keep these unauthorized pledges would have resulted in the resignation of all the good American officers, and in the utter disorganization of the army. So the inevitable outcome was that the disappointed adventurers became furious; that Congress, greatly annoyed, went to heavy expenses in sending them back again to Europe, and in giving some _douceurs_, which could be ill afforded by the giver and were quite insufficient to prevent the recipients from spreading at home their bitter grudge against the young republic. Altogether it was a bad business. No sooner was Franklin's foot on French soil than the same eager horde assailed him. But they found a respondent very different from Deane. Franklin had experience. He knew the world and men; and now his tranquil judgment and firmness saved him and the applicants alike from further blunders. His appreciation of these fiery and priceless gallants, who so dazzled the simple-minded Deane, is shown with charming humor in his effort to say a kindly word for his unfortunate colleague. He did not wonder, he said, that Deane,-- "being then a stranger to the people, and unacquainted with the language, was at first prevailed on to make some such agreements, when all were recommended, as they always are, as _officiers expérimentés, braves comme leurs épées, pleins de courage, de talent, et de zêle pour notre cause_, etc., etc.; in short, mere Cæsars, each of whom would have been an invaluable acquisition to America. You can have no conception how we are still besieged and worried on this head, our time cut to pieces by personal applications, besides those contained in dozens of letters by every post.... I hope therefore that favorable allowance will be made to my worthy colleague on account of his situation at the time, as he has long since corrected that mistake, and daily approves himself, to my certain knowledge, an able, faithful, active, and extremely useful servant of the public; a testimony I think it my duty of taking this occasion to make to his merit, unasked, as, considering my great age, I may probably not live to give it personally in Congress, and I perceive he has enemies." But however firmly and wisely Franklin stood out against the storm of importunities he could not for a long time moderate it. He continued to be "besieged and worried," and to have his time "cut to pieces;" till at last he wrote to a friend: "You can have no conception how I am harassed. All my friends are sought out and teased to tease me. Great officers of all ranks, in all departments, ladies great and small, besides professed solicitors, worry me from morning to night. The noise of every coach now that enters my court terrifies me. I am afraid to accept an invitation to dine abroad.... Luckily I do not often in my sleep dream of these vexatious situations, or I should be afraid of what are now my only hours of comfort.... For God's sake, my dear friend, let this, your twenty-third application, be your last." His plain-spoken replies, however harshly they may have struck upon Gallic sensitiveness, at least left no room for any one to misunderstand him. "I know that officers, going to America for employment, will probably be disappointed," he wrote; "that our armies are full; that there are a number of expectants unemployed and starving for want of subsistence; that my recommendation will not make vacancies, nor can it fill them to the prejudice of those who have a better claim." He also wrote to Washington, to whom the letter must have brought joyous relief, that he dissuaded every one from incurring the great expense and hazard of the long voyage, since there was already an over-supply of officers and the chance of employment was extremely slight.[46] [Note 46: As an example of the manner in which Franklin sometimes was driven to express himself, his letter to M. Lith is admirable. This gentleman had evidently irritated him somewhat, and Franklin demolished him with a reply in that plain, straightforward style of which he was a master, in which appeared no anger, but sarcasm of that severest kind which lies in a simple statement of facts. I regret that there is not space to transcribe it, but it may be read in his _Works_, vi. 85.] The severest dose which he administered must have made some of those excitable swords quiver in their scabbards. He drew up and used this "MODEL OF A LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION OF A PERSON YOU ARE UNACQUAINTED WITH "_Sir_,--The bearer of this, who is going to America, presses me to give him a letter of recommendation, though I know nothing of him, not even his name. This may seem extraordinary, but I assure you it is not uncommon here. Sometimes, indeed, one unknown person brings another equally unknown to recommend him; and sometimes they recommend one another! As to this gentleman, I must refer you to himself for his character and merits, with which he is certainly better acquainted than I can possibly be. I recommend him however to those civilities, which every stranger, of whom one knows no harm, has a right to; and I request you will do him all the good offices and show him all the favor, that, on further acquaintance, you shall find him to deserve. I have the honor to be, &c." It would be entertaining to know how many of these letters were delivered, and in what phrases of French courtesy gratitude was expressed for them. Sometimes, if any one persisted, in spite of discouragement, in making the journey at his own cost, and, being forewarned, also at his own risk of disappointment, Franklin gave him a letter strictly confined to the scope of a civil personal introduction. Possibly, now and again, some useful officer may have been thus deterred from crossing the water; but any such loss was compensated several hundredfold by shutting off the intolerable inundation of useless foreigners. Nor was Franklin wanting in discretion in the matter; for he commended Lafayette and Steuben by letters, which had real value from the fact of the extreme rarity of such a warranty from this source. Franklin was little given to political prophecy, but it is interesting to read a passage written shortly after his arrival, May 1, 1777:-- "All Europe is on our side of the question, as far as applause and good wishes can carry them. Those who live under arbitrary power do nevertheless approve of liberty, and wish for it; they almost despair of recovering it in Europe; they read the translations of our separate colony constitutions with rapture; and there are such numbers everywhere who talk of removing to America, with their families and fortunes, as soon as peace and our independence shall be established, that it is generally believed that we shall have a prodigious addition of strength, wealth, and arts from the emigration of Europe; and it is thought that to lessen or prevent such emigrations, the tyrannies established there must relax, and allow more liberty to their people. Hence it is a common observation here that our cause is the _cause of all mankind_, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own. It is a glorious task assigned us by Providence, which has, I trust, given us spirit and virtue equal to it, and will at last crown it with success." The statesmanship of the time-honored European school, ably practiced by de Vergennes, was short-sighted and blundering in comparison with this broad appreciation of the real vastness and far-reaching importance of that great struggle betwixt the Old and the New. CHAPTER X MINISTER TO FRANCE, II PRISONERS: TROUBLE WITH LEE AND OTHERS No sooner had the war taken on an assured character than many quick-eyed and adventurous Americans, and Franklin among the first, saw irresistible temptation and great opportunity in that enormous British commerce which whitened all the seas. The colonists of that day, being a seafaring people with mercantile instincts, were soon industriously engaged in the lucrative field of maritime captures. Franklin recommended the fortifying of three or four harbors into which prizes could be safely carried. Nothing else, he said, would give the new nation "greater weight and importance in the eyes of the commercial states." Privateering is not always described by such complimentary and dignified language, but the practical-minded rebel spoke well of that which it was so greatly to the advantage of his countrymen to do. After arriving in France he found himself in a position to advance this business very greatly. Conyngham, Wickes, with others only less famous, all active and gallant men as ever trod a deck, took the neighboring waters as their chosen scene of action, and very soon were stirring up a commotion such as Englishmen had never experienced before. They harried the high, and more especially the narrow, seas with a success at least equal to that of the Alabama, while some of them differed from Semmes and his compeers in being as anxious to fight as the Southern captains were to avoid fighting. Prize after prize they took and carried into port, or burned and sank; prisoners they had more than they knew what to do with; they frightened the underwriters so that in London the insurance against capture ran up to the ruinous premium of sixty per cent. The Lisbon and the Dutch packets fell victims, and insurance of boats plying between Dover and Calais went to ten per cent. Englishmen began to feel that England was blockaded! We are not so familiar as we ought to be with the interesting record of all these audacious and brilliant enterprises, conducted with dare-devil recklessness by men who would not improbably have been hanged both as pirates and as traitors, had fortune led to their capture at this moment of British rage and anxiety.[47] [Note 47: In fact, Conyngham, being at last captured, narrowly escaped this fate.] All this cruising was conducted under the auspices of Franklin. To him these gallant rovers looked for instructions and suggestions, for money and supplies. He had to issue commissions, to settle personal misunderstandings, to attend to questions of prize money, to soothe unpaid mutineers, to advise as to the purchase of ships, and as to the enterprises to be undertaken; in a word, he was the only _American government_ which these independent sailors knew. The tax thus laid upon him was severe, for he was absolutely without experience in such matters. There was one labor, however, in this connection, which properly fell within his department, and in this his privateersmen gave him abundant occupation. It was to stand between them and the just wrath and fatal interference of the French government. Crude as international law was in those days, it was far from being crude enough for the strictly illegitimate purposes of these vikings. What they expected was to buy, equip, man, and supply their vessels in French ports, to sail out on their prize-taking excursions, and, having captured their fill, to return to these same ports, and there to have their prizes condemned, to sell their booty, to refit and re-supply, and then to sally forth again. In short, an Englishman would have been puzzled to distinguish a difference between the warlike ports of America and the neutral ports of France, save as he saw that the latter, being nearer, were much the more injurious. But de Vergennes had no notion of being used for American purposes in this jeopardizing style. He did not mean to have a war with England, if he could avoid it; so he gave to the harbor masters orders which greatly annoyed and surprised the American captains, "extraordinary" orders, as these somewhat uninstructed sea-dogs described them in their complaining letters to Franklin. They thought it an outrage that the French minister should refuse to have English prizes condemned within French jurisdiction, and that he should not allow them to refit and to take on board cannon and ammunition at Nantes or Rochelle. They called upon Franklin to check these intolerable proceedings. Their audacious and boundless insolence is very entertaining to read, especially if, in connection therewith, we call to mind the history of the "Alabama outrages." Franklin knew, just as well as de Vergennes did, that the French ministry was all the time favoring the privateersmen and cruisers far beyond the law, and that it was ready to resort to as many devices as ingenuity could concoct for that purpose; also that the Americans by their behavior persistently violated all reason and neutral toleration. Nevertheless he stood gallantly by his own, and in one case after another he kept corresponding with de Vergennes under pretense of correcting misrepresentations, presenting requests, and arguing points, until, by the time thus gained, the end was achieved. The truth was that Franklin's duty was to get from France just as much aid, direct and indirect, as could be either begged or filched from her. Such orders could not be written down in plain words in his instructions, but none the less they lurked there not illegible to him among the lines. He obeyed them diligently. France was willing to go fully as far as she could with safety; his function was to push, to pull, to entice, even to mislead, in order to make her go farther. Perhaps it was a fair game; France had her interest to see Great Britain dismembered and weakened, but not herself to fight other people's battles; the colonies had their interest to get France into the fight if they possibly could. It was a strictly selfish interest, and was pursued almost shamelessly. The colonial policy and the details of its execution are defensible simply on the basis that nations in their dealings with each other are always utterly selfish and generally utterly unscrupulous. By and by, when it comes to the treating for peace between England and the colonies, we shall find de Vergennes much reviled because he pursued exclusively French interests; but it will be only fair to reflect that little more can be charged against him than that he was playing the game with cards drawn from the same pack which the Americans had used in these earlier days of the war. *** A matter which grew out of privateering gave Franklin much trouble. The American captains, who were cruising on the European side of the Atlantic prior to the treaty of alliance with France, had no place in which to deposit their prisoners. They could not often send them to the States, neither of course could they accumulate them on board their ships, nor yet store them, so to speak, in France and Spain; for undeveloped as were the rules of neutrality they at least forbade the use of neutral prisons for the keeping of English prisoners of war in time of peace. Meanwhile the colonial captives, in confinement just across the Channel, in the prisons at Plymouth and Portsmouth, were subjected to very harsh treatment; and others were even being sent to the fort of Senegal on the coast of Africa, and to the East Indies, whence they could not hope ever to regain their homes. Franklin immediately resolved, if possible, to utilize these assets in the shape of English sailors in the usual course of exchange. A letter was accordingly addressed by him to Lord Stormont, asking whether it would be worth while to approach the British court with an offer to exchange one hundred English prisoners in the hands of the captain of the Reprisal for a like number of American sailors from the English prisons. The note was a simple interrogatory in proper form of civility. No answer was received. After a while a second letter was prepared, less formal, more forcible in statement and argument, and in the appeal to good sense and decent good feeling. This elicited from his lordship a brief response: "The king's ambassador receives no applications from rebels, unless they come to implore his majesty's mercy." The commissioners indignantly rejoined: "In answer to a letter which concerns some of the most material interests of humanity, and of the two nations, Great Britain and the United States of America, now at war, we received the inclosed indecent paper, as coming from your lordship, which we return for your lordship's more mature consideration." The technical position of the English in this business was that the captured Americans were not prisoners of war, but traitors. Their practical position was that captains of American privateers, not finding it a physical possibility to keep their prisoners, would erelong be obliged to let them go without exchange. This anticipation turned out to be correct, and so far justified their refusal; for soon some five hundred English sailors got their freedom as a necessity, without any compensatory freeing of Americans. Each of them gave a solemn promise in writing to obtain the release of an American prisoner in return; but he had as much authority to hand over the Tower of London, and the British government was not so romantically chivalrous as to recognize pledges entered into by foremast hands. All sorts of stories continued to reach Franklin's ears as to the cruelty which his imprisoned countrymen had to endure. He heard that they were penniless and could get no petty comforts; that they suffered from cold and hunger, and were subjected to personal indignities; that they were not allowed to read a newspaper or to write a letter; that they were all committed by a magistrate on a charge of high treason, and were never allowed to forget their probable fate on the gibbet; that some of them, as has been said, were deported to distant and unwholesome English possessions. For the truth of these accounts it is not necessary to believe that the English government was intentionally brutal; but it was neglectful and indifferent, and those who had prisoners in charge felt assured that no sympathy for rebels would induce an investigation into peculations or unfeeling behavior. Moreover there was a deliberate design, by terror and discouragement, to break the spirit of the so-called traitors and persuade them to become real traitors by entering the English service. By all these tales Franklin's zeal in the matter of exchange was greatly stimulated. His humane soul revolted at keeping men who were not criminals locked up in wasting misery, when they might be set free upon terms of perfect equality between the contending parties. Throughout his correspondence on this subject there is a magnanimity, a humanity, a spirit of honesty and even of honor so extraordinary, or actually unique, in dealings between diplomats and nations, that the temptation is irresistible to give a fuller narrative than the intrinsic importance of the subject would warrant. For after all there were never many English prisoners in France to be exchanged; after a while they might be counted by hundreds, but perhaps they never rose to a total of one thousand. There was at this time in England a man to whose memory Americans ought to erect statues. This was David Hartley. He was a gentleman of the most liberal and generous sentiments, an old and valued friend of Franklin, member of Parliament for Hull, allied with the opposition in this matter of the American war, but personally on good terms with Lord North. He had not very great ability; he wrote long letters, somewhat surcharged with morality and good-feeling. One would expect to hear that he was on terms of admiring intimacy with his contemporary, the good Mrs. Barbauld. But he had those opportunities which come only to men whose excellence of character and purity of motive place them above suspicion,--opportunities which might have been shut off from an abler man, and which he now used with untiring zeal and much efficiency in behalf of the American prisoners. Lord North did not hesitate to permit him to correspond with Franklin, and he long acted as a medium of communication more serviceable than Lord Stormont had been. Furthermore Hartley served as almoner to the poor fellows, and pushed a private subscription in England to raise funds for securing to them reasonable comforts. There were responsive hearts and purses, even for rebels, among his majesty's subjects, and a considerable sum was collected. Franklin's first letter to Hartley on this subject, October 14, 1777, has something of bitterness in its tone, with much deep feeling for his countrymen, whose reputed woes he narrates. "I can assure you," he adds, "from my certain knowledge, that your people, prisoners in America, have been treated with great kindness, having had the same rations of wholesome provisions as our own troops," "comfortable lodgings" in healthy villages, with liberty "to walk and amuse themselves on their parole." "Where you have thought fit to employ contractors to supply your people, these contractors have been protected and aided in their operations. Some considerable act of kindness towards our people would take off the reproach of inhumanity in that respect from the nation and leave it where it ought with more certainty to lie, on the conductors of your war in America. This I hint to you out of some remaining good will to a nation I once loved sincerely. But as things are, and in my present temper of mind, not being over-fond of receiving obligations, I shall content myself with proposing that your government should allow us to send or employ a commissary to take some care of those unfortunate people. Perhaps on your representations this might be obtained in England, though it was refused most inhumanly at New York." In December following he had arranged with Major Thornton, "who appears a man of humanity," to visit the prisons and give relief to the prisoners, and he hopes that Thornton "may obtain permission for that purpose." "I have wished," he added, "that some voluntary act of compassion on the part of your government towards those in your power had appeared in abating the rigors of their confinement, and relieving their pressing necessities, as such generosity towards enemies has naturally an effect in softening and abating animosity in their compatriots, and disposing to reconciliation." Of such unconventional humanity was he! Hartley met Franklin's ardent appeals with responsive ardor. May 29, 1778, he writes that he will press the point of exchange as much as he can, "which in truth," he says, "I have done many times since I saw you; but official departments move slowly here. A promise of five months is yet unperformed." But a few days later, June 5, he is "authorized" to propose that Franklin should send to him "the number and rank of the prisoners, upon which an equal number shall be prepared upon this side for the exchange." Franklin at once demanded lists from his captains, and replied to Hartley: "We desire and expect that the number of ours shall be taken from Forton and Plymouth, in proportion to the number in each place, and to consist of those who have been longest in confinement." He then made this extraordinary suggestion: "If you think proper to clear all your prisoners at once, and give us all our people, we give you our solemn engagement, which we are sure will be punctually executed, to deliver to Lord Howe in America, or to his order, a number of your sailors equal to the surplus, as soon as the agreement arrives there." It is easy to fancy a British minister thrusting his tongue into his cheek as this simple-minded proposal of the plain-dealing colonist was read to him. The only occasion on which Franklin showed ignorance of diplomacy was in assuming, in this matter of the prisoners, that honesty and honor were bases of dealing between public officials in international matters. He suggested also retaining a distinction between sailors of the navy and of the commercial marine. After repeated applications to the Board of Admiralty, Hartley was only able to reply to all Franklin's proposals that no distinction could be made between the naval and merchant services, because all the Americans were "detained under commitments from some magistrate, as for high treason." July 13, 1778, Franklin remitted to Hartley the lists of English prisoners. September 14 he recurs again to the general release: "You have not mentioned whether the proposition of sending us the whole of those in your prisons was agreed to. If it is, you may rely on our sending immediately all that come to our hands for the future; or we will give you, [at] your option, an order for the balance to be delivered to your fleet in America. By putting a little confidence in one another, we may thus diminish the miseries of war." Five days later he took a still more romantic position: heretofore, he said, the American commissioners had encouraged and aided the American prisoners to try to escape; "but if the British government should honorably keep their agreement to make regular exchanges, we shall not think it consistent with the honor of the United States to encourage such escapes, or to give any assistance to such as shall escape." Yet at the same time he showed himself fully able to conduct business according to the usual commonplace method. This same letter closes with a threat under the _lex talionis_: "We have now obtained permission of this government to put all British prisoners, whether taken by continental frigates or by privateers, into the king's prisons; and we are determined to treat such prisoners precisely as our countrymen are treated in England, to give them the same allowance of provisions and accommodations, and no other." He was long obliged to reiterate the like menaces.[48] [Note 48: Hale's _Franklin in France_, i. 352.] October 20, 1778, he reverts to his favorite project: "I wish their lordships could have seen it well to exchange upon account; but though they may not think it safe trusting to us, we shall make no difficulty in trusting to them;" and he proposes that, if the English will "send us over 250 of our people, we will deliver all we have in France;" if these be less than two hundred and fifty, the English may take back the surplus Americans; but if these be more than two hundred and fifty, Franklin says that he will nevertheless deliver them all in expectation that he will receive back an equivalent for the surplus. "We would thus wish to commence, by this first advance, that mutual confidence which it would be for the good of mankind that nations should maintain honorably with each other, tho' engaged in war." November 19, 1778, nothing has been achieved, and he gets impatient: "I have heard nothing from you lately concerning the exchange of the prisoners. Is that affair dropt? Winter is coming on apace." January 25, 1779: "I a long time believed that your government were in earnest in agreeing to an exchange of prisoners. I begin now to think I was mistaken. It seems they cannot give up the pleasing idea of having at the end of the war 1000 Americans to hang for high treason." Poor Hartley had been working with all the energy of a good man in a good cause; but he was in the painful position of having no excuse to offer for the backwardness of his government. February 22, 1779, brought more reproaches from Franklin. Months had elapsed since he had heard that the cartel ship was prepared to cross the Channel, but she had never come. He feared that he had been "deceived or trifled with," and proposed sending Edward Bancroft on a special mission to England, if a safe conduct could be procured. At last, on March 30, Hartley had the pleasure of announcing that the exchange ship had "sailed the 25th instant from Plymouth." Franklin soon replied that the transaction was completed, and gave well-earned thanks to Hartley for his "unwearied pains in that affair." Thus after infinite difficulty the English government had been pushed into conformity with the ordinary customs of war among civilized nations. Yet subsequent exchanges seem to have been effected only after every possible obstacle had been contumaciously thrown in the way by the English and patiently removed by Franklin. The Americans were driven to various devices. The captains sometimes released their prisoners at sea upon the written parole of each either to secure the return of an American, or to surrender himself to Franklin in France. In November, 1781, Franklin had about five hundred of these documents, "not one of which," he says, "has been regarded, so little faith and honor remain in that corrupted nation." At last, after France and Spain had joined in the war, Franklin arranged that the American captors might lodge their prisoners in French and Spanish prisons. Under flags of truce two cargoes of English sailors were dispatched from Boston to England; but the English refused to reciprocate. "There is no getting anything from these barbarians," said Franklin, "by advances of civility or humanity." Then much trouble arose because the French borrowed from Franklin some English prisoners for exchange in Holland, and returned to him a like number a little too late for delivery on board the cartel ship, which had brought over one hundred Americans. Thereupon the Englishmen charged Franklin with "breach of faith," and with "deceiving the Board," and put a stop to further exchanging. This matter was, of course, set right in time. But the next point made by the admiralty was that they would make no exchanges with Franklin except for English sailors taken by American cruisers, thus excluding captives taken by the privateersmen. Franklin, much angered at the thwarting of his humane and reasonable scheme, said that they had "given up all pretensions to equity and honor." In his disappointment he went a little too far; if he had said "liberality and humanity" instead of "equity and honor" he would have kept within literal truth. To meet this last action on the part of England he suggested to Congress: "Whether it may not be well to set apart 500 or 600 English prisoners, and refuse them all exchange in America, but for our countrymen now confined in England?" Another thing which vexed him later was that the English government would not give the Americans an "equal allowance" with the French and Spanish prisoners. He suggested retaliation upon a certain number of English prisoners in America. He himself was constantly remitting money to be distributed to the American prisoners, at the rate of one shilling apiece each week. But he had the pain to hear that the wretched fellow, one Digges, to whom he sent the funds, embezzled much of them. "If such a fellow is not damned," he said, "it is not worth while to keep a devil." One prisoner of distinction, Colonel Laurens, captured on his way to France, complained that Franklin did not show sufficient zeal in his behalf. But he made the assertion in ignorance of Franklin's efforts, which for a long while Franklin had reason to believe had been successful in securing kind and liberal treatment for this captive. In all this business Franklin ought to have received efficient assistance from Thomas Morris, who held the position of commercial agent for the States at Nantes, and who might properly have extended his functions to include so much of the naval business as required personal attention at that port. But he turned out to be a drunken rascal, active only in mischief. Thereupon, early in 1777, Franklin employed a nephew of his own from Boston, Jonathan Williams, not to supersede Morris in the commercial department, but to take charge of the strictly naval affairs, which were construed to include all matters pertaining to warships, privateers, and prizes. This action became the source of much trouble. It was a case of nepotism, of course, which was unfortunate; yet there was an absolute necessity to engage some one for these duties, and there was scant opportunity for choice. During the year that Williams held the office there is no reason to believe that he did not prove himself both efficient and honest. Robert Morris, however, whose brother Thomas was, and who had obtained for him the commercial office, was much offended, and it was not until in the course of time he received masses of indisputable evidence of his brother's worthlessness, that he was placated. Then at length he wrote a frank, pathetic letter, in which he acknowledged that he had been misled by natural affection, and that his resentment had been a mistake. Arthur Lee also poured the destructive torrent of his malignant wrath over the ill-starred Williams. For William Lee pretended to find his province and his profits also trenched upon. The facts were that he was appointed to the commercial agency jointly with Thomas Morris; but shortly afterward he was promoted to the diplomatic service, and left Nantes for a permanent stay in Paris. He did not formally vacate his agency, but practically he abandoned it by rendering himself unable to attend to its duties. So even if by any construction he could have established a show of right to conduct the naval business, at least he never was on hand to do so. These considerations, however, did not in the least mitigate the rage of the Lee brethren, who now brought a great variety of charges. Franklin, they said, had no authority to make the appointment, and Williams was a knave engaged in a scandalous partnership with Deane to make money dishonestly out of the public business, especially the prizes. The quarrel continued unabated when John Adams arrived, in 1778, as joint commissioner with Franklin and Arthur Lee. At once the active Lee besieged the ear of the newcomer with all his criminations; and he must have found a ready listener, for so soon as the fourth day after his arrival Adams felt himself sufficiently informed to take what was practically judicial action in the matter. He declared upon Lee's side. The two then signed an order for Williams's dismissal, and presented it to Franklin. It was discourteous if not insulting behavior to an old man and the senior commissioner; but Franklin wisely said not a word, and added his signature to those of his colleagues. The rest of the story is the familiar one of many cases: the agent made repeated demands for the appointment of an accountant to examine his accounts, and Franklin often and very urgently preferred the same request. But the busy Congress would not bother itself ever so little with a matter no longer of any practical moment. Lee's charges remained unrefuted, though not a shadow of justifiable suspicion rested upon Franklin's unfortunate nephew. CHAPTER XI MINISTER TO FRANCE, III TREATY WITH FRANCE: MORE QUARRELS The enthusiastic reception of Franklin in France was responded to by him with a bearing so cheerful and words so encouraging that all the auguries for America seemed for a while of the best. For he was sanguine by nature, by resolution, and by policy; and his way of alluring good fortune was to welcome it in advance. But in fact there were clouds enough floating in the sky, and soon they expanded and obscured the transitory brightness. Communication between the two continents was extremely slow; throughout the war intervals occurred when for long and weary months no more trustworthy news reached Paris than the rumors which got their coloring by filtration through Great Britain. Thus in the dread year of 1777, there traveled across the Channel tales that Washington was conducting the remnant of his forces in a demoralized retreat; that Philadelphia had fallen before Howe; that Burgoyne, with a fine army, was moving to bisect the insurgent colonies from the north. It was very well for Franklin, when told that Howe had taken Philadelphia, to reply: "No, sir: Philadelphia has taken Howe." The jest may have relieved the stress of his mind, as President Lincoln used often to relieve his own over-taxed endurance in the same way. But the undeniable truth was that it looked much as if the affair, to use Franklin's words, would prove to be a "rebellion" and not a "revolution." Still, any misgivings which he may have inwardly felt found no expression, and to no one would he admit the possibility of such an ultimate outcome. Late in the autumn of this dismal year he wrote:-- "You desire to know my opinion of what will probably be the end of this war, and whether our new establishments will not be thereby again reduced to deserts. I do not, for my part, apprehend much danger of so great an evil to us. I think we shall be able, with a little help, to defend ourselves, our possessions, and our liberties so long that England will be ruined by persisting in the wicked attempt to destroy them.... And I sometimes flatter myself that, old as I am, I may possibly live to see my country settled in peace, when Britain shall make no more a formidable figure among the powers of Europe." But though Franklin might thus refuse to despair for his country, the French ministry were not to be blamed if they betrayed an increased reserve in their communications with men who might soon prove to be traitors instead of ambassadors, and if they were careful to stop short of actually bringing on a war with England. It was an anxious period for Franklin when the days wore slowly into months and the months lengthened almost into a year, during which he had no trustworthy information as to all the ominous news which the English papers and letters brought. In this crisis of military affairs the anxious envoys felt that the awful burden of their country's salvation not improbably rested upon them. If they could induce France to come to the rescue, all would be well; if they could not, the worst might be feared. Yet in this mortal jeopardy they saw France growing more guarded in her conduct, while in vain they asked themselves, in an agony, what influence it was possible for them to exert. At the close of November, 1777, they conferred upon the matter. Mr. Deane was in favor of demanding from the French court a direct answer to the question, whether or not France would come openly to the aid of the colonies; and he advised that de Vergennes should be distinctly told that, if France should decline, the colonies would be obliged to seek an accommodation with Great Britain. But Dr. Franklin strenuously opposed this course. The effect of such a declaration seemed to him too uncertain; France might take it as a menace; she might be induced by it to throw over the colonies altogether, in despair or anger. Neither would he admit that the case was in fact so desperate; the colonies might yet work out their own safety, with the advantage in that event of remaining more free from any European influence. The soundness of this latter argument was afterward abundantly shown by the history of the country during the first three administrations. Fortunately upon this occasion Lee sided with Franklin, and the untimely trial of French friendship was not made. Had it been, it would have been more likely to jeopardize forever than to precipitate the good fortune which, though still invisible, was close at hand. It was not until December 4, 1777, that there broke a great and sudden rift in the solid cloudiness. First there came a vague rumor of good news, no one at all knew what; then a post-chaise drove into Dr. Franklin's courtyard, and from it hastily alighted the young messenger, Jonathan Loring Austin, whom Congress had sent express from Philadelphia, and who had accomplished an extraordinarily rapid journey. The American group of envoys and agents were all there, gathered by the mysterious report which had reached them, and at the sound of the wheels they ran out into the courtyard and eagerly surrounded the chaise. "Sir," exclaimed Franklin, "is Philadelphia taken?" "Yes, sir," replied Austin; and Franklin clasped his hands and turned to reënter the house. But Austin cried that he bore greater news: that General Burgoyne and his whole army were prisoners of war! At the words the glorious sunshine burst forth. Beaumarchais, the ecstatic, sprang into his carriage and drove madly for the city to spread the story; but he upset his vehicle and dislocated his arm. The envoys hastily read and wrote; in a few hours Austin was again on the road, this time bound to de Vergennes at Versailles, to tell the great tidings. Soon all Paris got the news and burst into triumphant rejoicing over the disaster to England. Austin's next errand was a secret and singular one. Franklin managed throughout his residence in France to maintain a constant communication with the opposition party in England. He now thought it wise to enable them to obtain full information from an intelligent man who was not many weeks absent from the States. Accordingly he dispatched Austin, using extreme precautions of secrecy, making him "burn every letter which he had brought from his friends in America," but giving him in exchange two other letters, which certainly introduced him to strange society for an American "rebel" to frequent. During his visit he was "domesticated in the family of the Earl of Shelburne; placed under the particular protection of his chaplain, the celebrated Dr. Priestley; introduced" to George IV., then Prince of Wales, with whom was Charles Fox, and was "present at all the coteries of the opposition." Almost every evening he was invited to dinner-parties, at which the company was chiefly composed of members of Parliament, and they plied him with interrogations about his country and its affairs, so that, as he reported, "no question which you can conceive is omitted."[49] He answered well, and rendered service as good as it was singular, for which Franklin was probably the only American who could have furnished the opening. The adventure brings to mind some of the Jacobite tales of Sir Walter Scott's novels. [Note 49: Parton's _Life of Franklin_, ii. 307.] One half of the advantages accruing from "General Burgoyne's capitulation to Mr. Gates"--such was the Tory euphemism, somewhat ill considered, since it implied that the gallant British commander had capitulated to a civilian--was to be reaped in Europe. The excellent Hartley was already benevolently dreaming of effecting an accommodation between the two contestants; and seeing clearly that an alliance with France must be fatal to any such project, he closed a letter on February 3, 1778, to Franklin, by "subjoining one earnest caution and request: Let nothing ever persuade America to throw themselves into the arms of France. Times may mend. I hope they will. An American must always be a stranger in France; Great Britain may for ages to come be their home." This was as kindly in intention as it was bad in grammatical construction; but it was written from a point of view very different from that which an American could adopt. Franklin promptly replied: "When your nation is hiring all the cut-throats it can collect, of all countries and colors, to destroy us, it is hard to persuade us not to ask or accept aid from any power that may be prevailed with to grant it; and this only from the hope that, though you now thirst for our blood, and pursue us with fire and sword, you may in some future time treat us kindly. This is too much patience to be expected of us; indeed, I think it is not in human nature." A few days later he transposed Hartley's advice, not without irony: "Let nothing induce [the English Whigs] to join with the Tories in supporting and continuing this wicked war against the Whigs of America, whose assistance they may hereafter want to secure their own liberties, or whose country they may be glad to retire to for the enjoyment of them." Hartley must have had a marvelous good temper, if he read without resentment the very blunt and severe replies which Franklin a little mercilessly made to the other's ever temperate and amiable letters. Hartley's advice, if not acceptable, was at least timely. At the very moment when he warned America against taking refuge in the arms of France, the colonists were joyously springing into that international embrace. The victory at Saratoga had at last settled that matter. On December 6, 1777, two days after the news was received, M. Gérard called upon the envoys and said that the capacity of the colonies to maintain their independence could no longer be doubted, and that the French court would be pleased by a renewal of their proposals for an alliance. On December 8 a request for an alliance was placed by young Temple Franklin in the hands of de Vergennes. On December 12 the cabinet met; also Arthur Lee reports that the envoys went out to Versailles and concealed themselves at an appointed spot in the wood, whither soon came to them de Vergennes. In the talk that ensued he said to them everything which a liberal spirit of friendship could suggest, but nothing which was actually positive and binding. For it was necessary, as he explained, first to consult with Spain, whose concurrence was desired; this, however, could be safely counted upon, and a courier was to be dispatched at once to Madrid. But the return of this messenger was not awaited; for on December 17 the commissioners were formally notified that France would acknowledge the independence of the colonies, and would execute with them treaties of commerce and alliance immediately upon getting the Spanish reply. In return for her engagements France only asked that, in the probable event of a war ensuing between herself and England, the colonies would pledge themselves never to make peace save upon the terms of independence. On January 8, 1778, M. Gérard met the envoys after dark at Mr. Deane's quarters. He informed them that the government had resolved immediately to conclude with the colonies a treaty of amity and commerce; also another treaty, offensive and defensive, and guaranteeing independence, upon the conditions that the colonies would neither make a separate peace, nor one relinquishing their independence. The independence of the thirteen colonies being the king's sole purpose, no assistance would be extended for subduing Canada or the English West Indies. As it would probably not be agreeable to the colonies to have foreign troops in their country, the design was to furnish only naval aid. It would be left open for Spain to accede to the treaties at any time. Nothing could have been more agreeable and encouraging than these arrangements, by which France did all the giving and America all the receiving. A few days later Gérard said that the king would not only acknowledge, but would support American independence, and that the condition precluding the Americans from making a separate peace, if France should be drawn into the war, would be waived. On January 18 Gérard came to the envoys with drafts which he had prepared for the two treaties, and which he left for them to consider at their leisure. It took them much longer to consider than it had taken him to devise these documents. Lee said that the delay was all Franklin's fault; but at least Franklin illumined it by one of his _mots_. There was sent to the envoys a large cake inscribed: "Le digne Franklin." Deane said that, with thanks, they would appropriate it to their joint use; Franklin pleasantly replied that it was obviously intended for all three, only the French donor did not know how to spell "Lee, Deane, Franklin" correctly. But the uneasy jealousy of Lee suggested a counter-argument: "When they remember us," _i. e._, himself and Deane, he said, "they always put you first." Lee, who in his lifetime could never endure being second to Franklin, must be astounded indeed if, in another existence, he sees the place which judicial posterity has assigned to him! In their discussions concerning the treaty the commissioners fell into a contention over one article. Their secret instructions directed them to "press" for a stipulation that no export duties should be imposed by France upon molasses taken from the French West Indies into the States; but they were not to let the "fate of the treaty depend upon obtaining it." Of all merchandise imported into the States molasses was the most important to their general trade; it was the "basis on which a very great part of the American commerce rested."[50] In exchange for it they sent to the islands considerable quantities of pretty much all their products, and they distilled it in enormous quantities into rum. Every man who drank a glass of rum seemed to be advancing _pro tanto_ the national prosperity, and the zeal with which those godly forefathers of ours thus promoted the general welfare is feebly appreciated by their descendants. All this rum, said John Adams, has "injured our health and our morals;" but "the taste for rum will continue;" and upon this conviction the commissioners felt obliged to act. Accordingly they proposed that it should be "agreed and concluded that there shall never be any duty imposed on the exportation of molasses that may be taken by the subjects of the United States from the islands of America which belong or may hereafter appertain to his most Christian majesty." But Gérard said that this was "unequal," since the States made no balancing concession. It was not easy to suggest any "concession of equal importance on the part of the United States," and so "after long consideration Dr. Franklin proposed" this: "In compensation of the exemption stipulated in the preceding article, it is agreed and concluded that there shall never be any duties imposed on the exportation of any kind of merchandise, which the subjects of his most Christian majesty may take from the countries and possessions, present or future, of any of the thirteen United States, for the use of the islands which shall furnish molasses." [Note 50: _Diplomatic Correspondence of the Amer. Rev._ i. 156.] This pleased Lee as little as the other article had pleased Gérard; for it was "too extensive, and more than equivalent for molasses only." He was answered that "it was in reality nothing more than giving up what we could never make use of but to our own prejudice; for nothing was more evident than the bad policy of laying duties on our own exports." Franklin was of opinion that export duties were "a knavish attempt to get something for nothing;" that the inventor of them had the "genius of a pickpocket." Britain had lost her colonies by an export duty on tea. Moreover since the States produced no commodity which could not be procured elsewhere, to discourage consumption of their own and encourage the rivalship of others would be an "absolute folly" against which he would protest even if practiced by way of reprisal. Gérard finally said that he regarded these articles as "reciprocal and equal," that his majesty was "indifferent" about them, and that they might be retained or rejected together, but that one could not be kept without the other. Lee then yielded, and Gérard was notified that both articles would be inserted. He assented. Soon, however, William Lee and Izard, being informed of the arrangement, took Arthur Lee's original view and protested against it. Lee reports that this interference put Franklin "much out of humor," and that he said it would "appear an act of levity to renew the discussion of a thing we had agreed to." None the less, Lee now resumed his first position so firmly that Franklin and Deane in their turn agreed to omit both articles. But they stipulated that Lee should arrange the matter with Gérard, since, as they had just agreed in writing to retain both, they "could not with any consistency make a point of their being expunged," and they felt that the business of a change at this stage might be disagreeable. In fact Lee found it so. When he called on Gérard and requested the omission of both, Gérard replied that the king had already approved the treaty, that it was now engrossed on parchment, and that a new arrangement would entail "inconvenience and considerable delay." But finally, not without showing some irritation at the fickleness of the commissioners, he was brought to agree that Congress might ratify the treaty either with or without these articles, as it should see fit. This business cost Franklin, as an annoying incident, an encounter with Mr. Izard, and a tart correspondence ensued. On February 6 all was at length ready and the parties came together, M. Gérard for France and the envoys for the States, to execute these most important documents. Franklin wore the spotted velvet suit of privy council fame. They signed a treaty of amity and commerce, a treaty of alliance, and a secret article belonging with the latter providing that Spain might become a party to it--on the Spanish _mañana_. There was an express stipulation on the part of France that the whole should be kept secret until after ratification by Congress; for there was a singular apprehension that in the interval some accommodation might be brought about between the insurgent States and the mother country, which would leave France in a very embarrassing position if she should not be free to deny the existence of such treaties. It was undoubtedly a dread of some such occurrence which had induced the promptitude and the ever-increasing liberality in terms which France had shown from the moment when the news of Saratoga arrived. Nor perhaps was her anxiety so utterly absurd as it now seems. There was some foundation for Gibbon's epigrammatic statement that "the two greatest nations in Europe were fairly running a race for the favor of America." For the disaster to the army on the Hudson had had an effect in England even greater than it had had in France, and Burgoyne's capitulation to "Mr. Gates" had very nearly brought on a capitulation of Lord North's cabinet to the insurgent Congress. On February 17 that minister rose, and in a speech of two hours introduced two conciliatory bills. The one declared that Parliament had no intention of exercising the right of taxing the colonies in America. The other authorized sending to the States commissioners empowered to "treat with Congress, with provincial assemblies, or with Washington; to order a truce; to suspend all laws; to grant pardons and rewards; to restore the form of constitution as it stood before the troubles."[51] The prime minister substantially acknowledged that England's course toward her colonies had been one prolonged blunder, and now she was willing to concede every demand save actual independence. The war might be continued, as it was; but such a confession could never be retracted. "A dull melancholy silence for some time succeeded to this speech.... Astonishment, dejection, and fear overclouded the assembly." [Note 51: Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._ ix. 484.] But a fresh sensation was at hand. Horace and Thomas Walpole had obtained private information of what had taken place in France, but had cautiously held it in reserve, and arranged that only two hours before the meeting of the House of Commons on that eventful day the Duke of Grafton should tell it to Charles Fox. So now when North sat down Fox rose, indulged in a little sarcasm on the conversion of the ministry to the views of the opposition, and then asked his lordship "Whether a commercial treaty with France had not been signed by the American agents at Paris within the last ten days? 'If so,' he said, 'the administration is beaten by ten days, a situation so threatening that in such a time of danger the House must concur with the propositions, though probably now they would have no effect.' Lord North was thunderstruck and would not rise." But at last, warned that it would be "criminal and a matter of impeachment to withhold an answer," he admitted that he had heard a rumor of the signature of such a treaty.[52] So the bills were passed too late. [Note 52: Parton's _Life of Franklin_, ii. 309.] So soon as their passage was assured, Hartley, "acting on an understanding with Lord North,"[53] dispatched copies to Franklin. Franklin upon his part, also first having an understanding with de Vergennes, replied that, if peace with the States upon equal terms were really desired, the commissioners need not journey to America for it, for "if wise and honest men, such as Sir George Saville, the Bishop of St. Asaph, and yourself were to come over here immediately with powers to treat, you might not only obtain peace with America but prevent a war with France." About the same time also Hartley visited Franklin in person; but nothing came of their interview, of which no record is preserved. The two bills were passed, almost unanimously. But every one felt that their usefulness had been taken out of them by the other consequences of that event which had induced their introduction. News of them, however, was dispatched to America by a ship which followed close upon the frigate which carried the tidings of the French treaties. If the English ship should arrive first, something might be effected. But it did not, and probably nothing would have been gained if it had. Franklin truly said to Hartley: "All acts that suppose your future government of the colonies can be no longer significant;" and he described the acts as "two frivolous bills, which the present ministry, in their consternation, have thought fit to propose, with a view to support their public credit a little longer at home, and to amuse and divide, if possible, our people in America." But even for this purpose they came too late, and stirred no other response than a ripple of sarcastic triumph over such an act of humiliation, which was aggravated by being rejected almost without consideration by Congress. [Note 53: Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._ ix. 485; Hale's _Franklin in France_, i. 223.] So there was an end of conciliation. On March 23 the American envoys had the significant distinction of a presentation to the king, who is said to have addressed to them this gracious and royal sentence: "Gentlemen, I wish the Congress to be assured of my friendship. I beg leave also to observe that I am exceedingly satisfied, in particular, with your own conduct during your residence in my kingdom."[54] This personal compliment, if paid, was gratifying; for the anomalous and difficult position of the envoys had compelled them to govern themselves wholly by their own tact and judgment, with no aid from experience or precedents. [Note 54: Parton's _Life of Franklin_, ii. 312.] The presentation had been delayed by reason of Franklin having an attack of the gout, and the effort, when made, laid him up for some time afterward. It was on this occasion, especially, that he made himself conspicuous by wearing only the simple dress of a gentleman of the day instead of the costume of etiquette. Bancroft says that again he donned the suit of spotted Manchester velvet. He did not wear a sword, but made up for it by keeping on his spectacles; he had a round white hat under his arm, and no wig concealed his scanty gray hair. America has always rejoiced at this republican simplicity; but the fact seems to be that it was largely due to chance. Parton says that the doctor had ordered a wig, but when it came home it proved much too small for his great head, and there was no time to make another. Hawthorne also repeats the story that Franklin's court suit did not get home in time, and so he had to go in ordinary apparel; but it "took" so well that the shrewd doctor never explained the real reason. On March 13 the Marquis de Noailles, French ambassador at St. James's, formally announced to the English secretary of state the execution of the treaty of amity and commerce; and impudently added a hope that the English court would see therein "new proofs" of King Louis's "sincere disposition for peace;" and that his Britannic majesty, animated by the same sentiments, would equally avoid everything that might alter their good harmony; also that he would particularly take effective measures to prevent the commerce between his French majesty's subjects and the United States of North America from being interrupted. When this was communicated to Parliament Conway asked: "What else have we to do but to take up the idea that Franklin has thrown out with fairness and manliness?"[55] But Franklin's ideas had not now, any more than heretofore, the good fortune to be acceptable to English ministers. Indeed, the mere fact that a suggestion came from him was in itself unfortunate; for the king, whose influence was preponderant in this American business, had singled out Franklin among all the "rebels" as the object of extreme personal hatred.[56] Franklin certainly reciprocated the feeling with an intensity which John Adams soon afterward noted, apparently with some surprise. The only real reply to Noailles's message which commended itself to government was the instant recall of Lord Stormont, who left Paris on March 23, _sans prendre congé_, just as he had once before threatened to do. On the same day the French ambassador left London, accompanied, as Gibbon said, by "some slight expression of ill humor from John Bull." At the end of the month M. Gérard sailed for America, the first accredited minister to the new member of the sisterhood of civilized nations. A fortnight later the squadron of D'Estaing sailed from Toulon for American waters, and two weeks later the English fleet followed. [Note 55: The reference was to the suggestion made to Hartley for sending commissioners to Paris to treat for peace.] [Note 56: Franklin's _Works_, vi. 39, note.] Thus far the course of France throughout her relationship with the States had been that of a generous friend. She undoubtedly had been primarily instigated by enmity to England; and she had been for a while guarded and cautious; yet not unreasonably so; on the contrary, she had in many instances been sufficiently remiss in regarding her neutral obligations to give abundant cause for war, though England had not felt ready to declare it. At the first interview concerning the treaty of commerce de Vergennes had said that the French court desired to take no advantage of the condition of the States, and to exact no terms which they would afterward regret, but rather to make an arrangement so based upon the interest of both parties that it should last as long as human institutions should endure, so that mutual amity should subsist forever. M. Gérard reiterated the same sentiments. That this language was not mere French courtesy was proved by the fact that the treaties, when completed, were "founded on principles of equality and reciprocity, and for the most part were in conformity to the proposals of Congress."[57] Each party, under the customs laws of the other, was to be upon the footing of the most favored nation. The transfer of the valuable and growing trade of the States from England to France had been assiduously held out as a temptation to France to enter into these treaties; but no effort was made by France to gain from the needs of the Americans any exclusive privileges for herself. She was content to stipulate only that no other people should be granted preferences over her, leaving the States entirely unhampered for making subsequent arrangements with other nations. The light in which these dealings about the treaties made the French minister and the French court appear to Franklin should be remembered in the discussions which arose later concerning the treaty of peace.[58] [Note 57: Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._ ix. 481.] [Note 58: See Franklin's _Works_, vi. 133. At this time John Adams strongly entertained the same sentiments, though he afterward felt very differently about the sincerity of France. _Diplomatic Correspondence of American Revolution_, iv. 262, 292.] It may further be mentioned, by the way, that Franklin had the pleasure of seeing inserted his favorite principle: that free ships should make free goods, and free persons also, save only soldiers in actual service of an enemy. In passing, it is pleasant to preserve this, amid the abundant other testimony to Franklin's humane and advanced ideas as to the conduct of war between civilized nations.[59] The doctrine of free ships making free goods, though promulgated early in the century, was still making slow and difficult progress. Franklin accepted it with eagerness. He wrote that he was "not only for respecting the ships as the house of a friend, though containing the goods of an enemy, but I even wish that ... all those kinds of people who are employed in procuring subsistence for the species, or in exchanging the necessaries or conveniences of life, which are for the common benefit of mankind, such as husbandmen on their lands, fishermen in their barques, and traders in unarmed vessels, shall be permitted to prosecute their several innocent and useful employments without interruption or molestation, and nothing taken from them, even when wanted by an enemy, but on paying a fair price for the same." Also to the president of Congress he spoke of Russia's famous proposal for an "armed neutrality for protecting the liberty of commerce" as "the great public event" of the year in Europe. He proposed that Congress should order their cruisers "not to molest foreign ships, but to conform to the spirit of that treaty of neutrality." Congress promptly voted to request the admission of the States to the league, and John Adams took charge of this business during his mission to Holland. [Note 59: He was able to give a practical proof of his liberality by furnishing a passport to the packets carrying goods to the Moravian brethren in Labrador. Hale's _Franklin in France_, i. 245.] Events having thus established the indefinite continuance of the war, the good Hartley, profoundly disappointed, wrote a brief note invoking blessings on his "dear friend," and closing with the ominous words, "If tempestuous times should come, take care of your own safety; events are uncertain and men may be capricious." Franklin, however, declined to be alarmed. "I thank you," he said, "for your kind caution, but having nearly finished a long life, I set but little value on what remains of it. Like a draper, when one chaffers with him for a remnant, I am ready to say: 'As it is only the fag end, I will not differ with you about it; take it for what you please.' Perhaps the best use such an old fellow can be put to is to make a martyr of him." A few weeks after the conclusion of this diplomatic bond of friendship between the two peoples, Franklin, in the words of Mr. Bancroft, "placed the public opinion of philosophical France conspicuously on the side of America." Voltaire came back to Paris, after twenty-seven years of voluntary exile, and received such adoration that it almost seemed as if, for Frenchmen, he was taking the place of that God whom he had been declaring non-existent, but whom he believed it necessary for mankind to invent. Franklin had an interview with him, which presented a curious scene. The aged French philosopher, shriveled, bright-eyed, destructive-minded, received the aged American philosopher, portly, serene, the humanest of men, in theatrical French fashion, quoting a passage of English poetry, and uttering over the head of young Temple the appropriate benediction, "God and Liberty." This drama was enacted in private, but on April 29 occurred that public spectacle made familiar by countless engravings, decorating the walls of so many old-fashioned American "sitting-rooms" and "best parlors," when, upon the stage of the Academy of Sciences, before a numerous and distinguished audience, the two venerable sages met and saluted each other. "_Il faut s'embrasser à la Française_," shouted the enthusiastic crowd; so they fell into each other's arms, and kissed, after the continental mode. Great was the fervor aroused in the breasts of the classic people of France as they proudly saw upon their soil a new "Solon and Sophocles" in embrace. Who shall say that Franklin's personal prestige in Europe had not practical value for America? Silas Deane, recalled, accompanied Gérard to America. He carried with him a brief but generous letter from Franklin to the president of Congress.[60] At the same time Izard was writing home that Deane's misbehavior had long delayed the alliance with France, and he repeated what he had said in former letters, that "whatever good dispositions were shown by Mr. Lee, they were always opposed and overruled by the two oldest commissioners." The departure of the two gentlemen was kept a close secret at Paris, and at the request of de Vergennes especially a secret from Arthur Lee. For the French ministry were well assured that Lee's private secretary was a spy in British pay, and had he got possession of this important bit of news, it would not only have been untimely in a diplomatic way, but it might have given opportunity for British cruisers to waylay a vessel carrying such distinguished passengers. The precaution was justifiable, but it had ill consequences for Franklin, since it naturally incensed Lee to an extreme degree, and led to a very sharp correspondence, which still further aggravated the discomfort of the situation. The legitimate trials to which the aged doctor was subjected were numerous and severe enough, but the untiring and malicious enmity of Arthur Lee was an altogether illegitimate vexation. [Note 60: Franklin's _Works_, vi. 153.] Mr. Hale in his recent volumes upon Franklin truly says that "it is unnecessary to place vituperative adjectives to the credit [discredit?] of Arthur Lee;" and in fact to do so seems a work of supererogation, since there probably remain few such epithets in the English language which have not already been applied to him by one writer or another. Yet it is hard to hold one's hand, although humanity would perhaps induce us to pity rather than to revile a man cursed with so unhappy a temperament. But whatever may be said or left unsaid about him personally, the infinite disturbance which he caused cannot be wholly ignored. It was great enough to constitute an important element in history. Covered by the powerful authority of his influential and patriotic family at home, and screened by the profound ignorance of Congress concerning men and affairs abroad, Lee was able for a long time to run his mischievous career without discovery or interruption. He buzzed about Europe like an angry hornet, thrusting his venomous sting into every respectable and useful servant of his country, and irritating exceedingly the foreigners whom it was of the first importance to conciliate. Incredible as it seems, it is undoubtedly true that he did not hesitate to express in Paris his deep antipathy to France and Frenchmen; and it was only the low esteem in which he was held that prevented his singular behavior from doing irreparable injury to the colonial cause. The English newspapers tauntingly ridiculed his insignificance and incapacity; de Vergennes could not endure him, and scarcely treated him with civility. But his intense egotism prevented him from gathering wisdom from such harsh instruction, which only added gall to his native bitterness. He wreaked his revenge upon his colleagues, and towards Franklin he cherished an envious hatred which developed into a monomania. Perhaps Franklin was correct in charitably saying that at times he was "insane." He began by asserting that Franklin was old, idle, and useless, fit only to be shelved in some respectable sinecure mission; but he rapidly advanced from such moderate condemnation until he charged Franklin with being a party to the abstraction of his dispatches from a sealed parcel, which was rifled in some unexplained way on its passage home;[61] and finally he even reached the extremity of alleging financial dishonesty in the public business, and insinuated an opinion that the doctor's great rascality indicated an intention never again to revisit his native land. In all this malevolence he found an earnest colleague in the hot-blooded Izard, whose charges against Franklin were unmeasured. "His abilities," wrote this angry gentleman, "are great and his reputation high. Removed as he is at so considerable a distance from the observation of his constituents, if he is not guided by principles of virtue and honor, those abilities and that reputation may produce the most mischievous effects. In my conscience I declare to you that I believe him under no such restraint, and God knows that I speak the real, unprejudiced sentiments of my heart." Such fulminations, reaching the States out of what was then for them the obscurity of Europe, greatly perplexed the members of Congress; for they had very insufficient means for determining the value of the testimony given by these absent witnesses. [Note 61: Parton's _Franklin_, ii. 354.] It would serve no useful purpose to devote valuable space to narrating at length all the slander and malice of these restless men, all the correspondence, the quarrels, the explanations, and general trouble to which they gave rise. But the reader must exercise his imagination liberally in fancying these things, in order to appreciate to what incessant annoyance Franklin was subjected at a time when the inevitable anxieties and severe labors of his position were far beyond the strength of a man of his years. He showed wonderful patience and dignity, and though he sometimes let some asperity find expression in his replies, he never let them degenerate into retorts. Moreover, he replied as little as possible, for he truly said that he hated altercation; whereas Lee, who reveled in it, took as an aggravation of all his other injuries that his opponent was inclined to curtail the full luxury to be expected from a quarrel. Franklin also magnanimously refrained from arraigning Lee and Izard to Congress, either publicly or privately, a forbearance which these chivalrous gentlemen did not emulate. The memorial[62] of Arthur Lee, of May, 1779, addressed to Congress, contains criminations enough to furnish forth many impeachments. But Franklin would not condescend to allow his serenity to be disturbed by the news of these assaults. He felt "very easy," he said, about these efforts to injure him, trusting in the justice of the Congress to listen to no accusations without giving him an opportunity to reply.[63] Yet his position was not so absolutely secure and exalted but that he suffered some little injury at home. [Note 62: Franklin's _Works_, vi. 363.] [Note 63: To Richard Bache, Franklin's _Works_, vi. 414.] John Adams, going out to replace Silas Deane, crossed him on the passage, arriving at Bordeaux on March 31, 1778. This ardent New Englander, orderly, business-like, endowed with an insatiate industry, plunged headlong into the midst of affairs. With that happy self-confidence characteristic of our people, which leads every American to believe that he can at once and without training do anything whatsoever better than it can be done by any other living man no matter how well trained, Adams began immediately to act and to criticise. In a few hours he knew all about the discussions between the various envoys, quasi envoys, and agents, who were squabbling with each other to the scandal of Paris; in a few days he was ready to turn out Jonathan Williams, unseen and unheard. He was shocked at the confusion in which he saw all the papers of the embassy, and set vigorously about the task of sorting, labeling, docketing, and tying up letters and accounts; it was a task which Franklin unquestionably had neglected, and which required to be done. He was appalled at the "prodigious sums of money" which had been expended, at the further great sums which were still to be paid, and at the lack of any proper books of accounts, so that he could not learn "what the United States have received as an equivalent." He did not in direct words charge the other commissioners with culpable negligence; but it was an unavoidable inference from what he did say. Undoubtedly the fact was that the accounts were disgracefully muddled and insufficient; but the fault really lay with Congress, which had never permitted proper clerical assistance to be employed. Adams soon found this out, and appreciated that besides all the diplomatic affairs, which were their only proper concern, the commissioners were also transacting an enormous business, financial and commercial, involving innumerable payments great and small, loans, purchases, and correspondence, and that all was being conducted with scarcely any aid of clerks or accountants; whereas a mercantile firm engaged in affairs of like extent and moment would have had an extensive establishment with a numerous force of skilled employees. When Adams had been a little longer in Paris, he also began to see where and how "the prodigious sums" went,[64] and just what was the full scope of the functions of the commissioners; then the censoriousness evaporated out of his language. He admitted that the neglects of subordinate agents were such that it was impossible for the commissioners to learn the true state of their finances; and he joined in the demand, so often reiterated by Franklin, for the establishment of the usual and proper commercial agencies. The business of accepting and keeping the run of the bills drawn by Congress, and of teasing the French government for money to meet them at maturity, would still remain to be attended to by the ministers in person; but these things long experience might enable them to manage. [Note 64: _Diplomatic Corresp. of Amer. Rev_. iv. 249, 251.] No sooner had Adams scented the first whiff of the quarrel-laden atmosphere of the embassy than he expressed in his usual self-satisfied, impetuous, and defiant way his purpose to be rigidly impartial. But he was a natural fault-finder, and by no means a natural peacemaker; and his impartiality had no effect in assuaging the animosities which he found. However, amid all the discords of the embassy there was one note of harmony; and the bewildered Congress must have felt much satisfaction in finding that all the envoys were agreed that one representative at the French court would be vastly better as well as cheaper than the sort of caucus which now held its angry sessions there. At worst one man could not be forever at odds with himself. Adams, when he had finished the task of arranging the archives, found no other occupation; and he was scandalized at the extravagance of keeping three envoys. Lee, by the way, had constantly insinuated that Franklin was blamably lax, if not actually untrustworthy, in money matters, though all the while he and his friend Izard had been quite shameless in extorting from the doctor very large sums for their own expenses. When the figures came to be made up it appeared that Franklin had drawn less than either of his colleagues, and much less than the sum soon afterward established by Congress as the proper salary for the position.[65] The frugal-minded New Englander himself now acknowledged that he could "not find any article of expense which could be retrenched,"[66] and he honestly begged Congress to stop the triple outlay. [Note 65: _Diplomatic Corresp. of Amer. Rev._ iv. 246.] [Note 66: _Ibid._ 245.] Franklin, upon his part, wrote that in many ways the public business and the national prestige suffered much from the lack of unanimity among the envoys, and said: "In consideration of the whole, I wish Congress would separate us." Neither Adams nor Franklin wrote one word which either directly or indirectly had a personal bearing. Arthur Lee was more frank; in the days of Deane he had begun to write that to continue himself at Paris would "disconcert effectually the wicked measures" of Franklin, Deane, and Williams, and that it was "the one way of redressing" the "neglect, dissipation, and private schemes" prevalent in the department, and of "remedying the public evil." He said that the French court was the place of chief importance, calling for the ablest and most efficient man, to wit, himself. He suggested that Franklin might be sent to Vienna, a dignified retreat without labor. Izard and William Lee wrote letters of like purport; it was true that it was none of their affair, but they were wont to interfere in the business of the commissioners, as if the French mission were common property. Congress took so much of this advice as all their advisers were agreed upon; that is to say, it broke up the commission to France. But it did not appoint Arthur Lee to remain there; on the contrary, it nominated Franklin to be minister plenipotentiary at the French court, left Lee still accredited to Madrid, as he had been before, and gave Adams neither any place nor any instructions, so that he soon returned home. Gérard, at Philadelphia, claimed the credit of having defeated the machinations of the "dangerous and bad man," Lee, and congratulated de Vergennes on his relief from the burden.[67] Franklin's commission was brought over by Lafayette in February, 1779. Thus ended the Lee-Izard cabal against Franklin; it was not unlike the Gates-Conway cabal against Washington, save that it lasted longer and was more exasperating. The success of either would have been almost equally perilous to the popular cause; for the instatement of Lee as minister plenipotentiary at the French court would inevitably have led to a breach with France. The result was very gratifying to Franklin, since it showed that all the ill tales about him which had gone home had not ruined, though certainly they had seriously injured, his good repute among his countrymen. Moreover, he could truly say that the office "was not obtained by any solicitation or intrigue," or by "magnifying his own services, or diminishing those of others." But apart from the gratification and a slight access of personal dignity, the change made no difference in his duties; he still combined the functions of loan-agent, consul, naval director, and minister, as before. Nor was he even yet wholly rid of Arthur Lee. He had, however, the satisfaction of absolutely refusing to honor any more of Lee's or Izard's exorbitant drafts for their personal expenses. [Note 67: Parton's _Life of Franklin_, ii. 383.] Shortly after his appointment Franklin sent his grandson to Lee, with a note requesting Lee to send to him such papers belonging to the embassy as were in his possession. Lee insolently replied that he had "no papers belonging to the department of minister plenipotentiary at the court of Versailles;" that if Franklin referred to papers relating to transactions of the late joint commission, he had "yet to learn and could not conceive" by what reason or authority one commissioner was entitled to demand custody of them. Franklin replied temperately enough that many of them were essential to him for reference in conducting the public business, but said that he should be perfectly content to have copies. The captious Lee was still further irritated by this scheme for avoiding a quarrel, but had to accede to it. *** To John Paul Jones Franklin stood in the relation of a navy department. The daring exploits of that gallant mariner form a chapter too fascinating to be passed by without reluctance, but limitations of space are inexorable. His success and his immunity in his reckless feats seem marvelous. His chosen field was the narrow seas which surround Britain, which swarmed with British shipping, and were dominated by the redoubtable British navy as the streets of a city are kept in order by police. But the rover Jones, though always close to his majesty's coasts, was too much for all his majesty's admirals and captains. He harried these home waters and captured prizes till he became embarrassed by the extent of his own success; he landed at Whitehaven, spiked the guns of the fort, and fired the ships of the fleet in the harbor beneath the eyes of the astounded Englishmen, who thronged the shore and gazed bewildered upon the spectacle which American audacity displayed for them; he made incursions on the land; he threatened the port of Leith, and would undoubtedly have bombarded it, had not obstinate counter winds thwarted his plans; he kept the whole British shores in a state of feverish alarm; he was always ready to fight, and challenged the English warship, the Serapis, to come out and meet him; she came, and he captured her after fighting so desperately that his own ship, the famous Bon Homme Richard, named after Poor Richard, sank a few hours after the combat was over. [Illustration] All these glorious feats were rendered possible by Franklin, who found the money, consulted as to the operations, issued commissions, attended to purchases and repairs, to supplies and equipment, who composed quarrels, settled questions of authority, and interposed to protect vessels and commanders from the perils of the laws of neutrality. Jones had a great respect and admiration for him, and said to him once that his letters would make a coward brave. The projects of Jones were generally devised in consultations with Franklin, and were in the direct line of enterprises already suggested by Franklin, who had urged Congress to send out three frigates, disguised as merchantmen, which could make sudden descents upon the English coast, destroy, burn, gather plunder, and levy contributions, and be off before molestation was possible. "The burning or plundering of Liverpool or Glasgow," he wrote, "would do us more essential service than a million of treasure, and much blood spent on the continent;" and he was confident that it was "practicable with very little danger." This was not altogether in accord with his humane theory for the conduct of war; but so long as that theory was not adopted by one side, it could not of course be allowed to handicap the other. As if Franklin had not enough legitimate trouble in furthering these naval enterprises, an entirely undeserved vexation grew out of them for him. There was a French captain Landais, who entered the service of the States and was given the command of a ship in what was dignified by the name of Jones's "squadron." Of all the excitable Frenchmen who have ever lived none can have been more hot-headed than this remarkable man. During the engagement between the Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis, he sailed up and down beside the former and delivered broadsides into her until he was near disabling and sinking the ship of his own commander. The incomprehensible proceeding meant only that he was so wildly excited that he did not know at whom he was firing. Soon he quarreled with Jones; Franklin had to intervene; then Landais advanced all sorts of preposterous demands, which Franklin refused; thereupon he quarreled with Franklin; a very disagreeable correspondence ensued; Franklin finally had to displace Landais from command of his ship; Landais defied him and refused to surrender command. Then Lee decided to go home to the States in Landais's ship. When the two got together they stirred up a mutiny on board, and more trouble was made for Franklin. At last they got away, and Landais went crazy during the voyage, was deposed by his officers, and placed in confinement. If the ship had been lost, it would have been a more tolerable loss than many for which the ocean is accountable; but she was not, and Lee got safe ashore to continue his machinations at Philadelphia, and to publish an elaborate pamphlet against Franklin. All this story and the correspondence may be read at length in Mr. Hale's "Franklin in France." It is entertaining and shows vividly the misery to which Franklin was subjected in attending to affairs which were entirely outside of the proper scope of his office. "It is hard," said he, "that I, who give others no trouble with my quarrels, should be plagued with all the perversities of those who think fit to wrangle with one another." [Illustration] CHAPTER XII FINANCIERING Whether the financiering of the American Revolution is to be looked upon in a pathetic or in a comical light must depend upon the mood of the observer. The spectacle of a young people, with no accumulated capital, engaged in supporting the charge of a mortal struggle against all the vast resources of Britain, has in it something of pathos. But the methods to which this people resorted to raise funds were certainly of amusing simplicity. It was not until the appointment of Robert Morris, in 1781, that a treasury department came into existence and some slight pretense of system was introduced into the financial affairs of the confederation. During the years prior to that time Congress managed the business matters. But Congress neither had funds nor the power to obtain any. It had an unlimited power for contracting debts: absolutely no power for collecting money. It used the former power freely. When creditors wanted payment, requisitions were made upon the States for their respective quotas. But the States were found to be sadly irresponsive; probably the citizens really had not much ready money; certainly they had not enough to pay in taxes the cost of the war; no civilized state has been able to conduct a war, even a small one, in modern times without using the national credit. But the United States had absolutely no credit at all. It was well enough to exclaim "Millions for defense; but not one cent for tribute!" This was rhetoric, not business; and Congress soon found that the driblets which trickled tardily to them in response to their demands on the several States would hardly moisten the bottom of the great exchequer tank, which needed to be filled to the brim. Two methods of relief were then adopted, crude, simple, but likely for a time to be efficient; and provided only that within that time the war could be finished, all might go well. One of these methods was to issue irredeemable paper "money;" the other was to borrow real money abroad. The droll part was that both these transactions were audaciously entered upon by a body which had absolutely no revenues at all to pledge as security, which had not a dollar of property, nor authority to compel any living man to pay it a dollar. A more utterly irresponsible debtor than Congress never asked for a loan or offered a promissory note. For the security of a creditor there was only the moral probability that in case of success the people would be honest enough to pay their debts; and there was much danger that the jealousies between the States as to their proportionate quotas might stimulate reluctance and furnish excuses which might easily become serious in so unpleasant a matter as paying out hard cash. At home Congress could manage to make its paper money percolate among the people, and could pay a good many American creditors with it; but there were some who would not be thus satisfied, and few European creditors, of course, would meddle with such currency. So to pay these people who would have real money Congress solicited loans from other nations. It was like the financiering of a schoolboy, who issues his IOU's among his mates, and refers the exacting and business-like tradesman to his father. France was cast for the rôle of father to the congressional schoolboy for many wearisome years. The arrangement bore hard upon the American representatives, who, at European courts and upon European exchanges, had the embarrassing task of raising money. It was all very well to talk about negotiating a loan; the phrase had a Micawber-like sound as of real business; but in point of plain fact the thing to be done was to beg. Congress had a comparatively easy time of it; such burden and anxiety as lay upon that body were shared among many; and after all, the whole scope of its duty was little else than to vote requisitions upon the States, to order the printing of a fresh batch of bills, and to "resolve that the Treasury Board be directed to prepare bills of exchange of suitable denominations upon the Honorable Benjamin Franklin [or sometimes Jay, or Adams, or another], minister plenipotentiary at the court of Versailles, for---- thousand dollars _in specie_." Having done this, Congress had fulfilled its simple part, and serenely waited for something to turn up. The plan which seemed most effective was to send a representative accredited to some foreign government, and instructed to raise money at once. Without wasting time by waiting to see whether he arrived safely, or was received, or was successful in his negotiations, the next ship which followed him brought drafts and bills which he was expected to accept, and at maturity to pay. Having thus skillfully shifted the laboring oar into his hands Congress bestirred itself no further. Poor Jay, in Spain, had a terrible time of it in this way, and if ever a man was placed by his country in a painful and humiliating position, it was he. He faced it gallantly, but had to be carried through by Franklin. From first to last it was upon Franklin that the brunt fell; he had to keep the country from financial failure as Washington had to save it from military failure; he was the real financier of the Revolution; without him Robert Morris would have been helpless. Spain yielded but trifling sums in response to Jay's solicitations; Holland, which was tried by Adams, was even more tardy and unwilling, though towards the end some money was got there. Franklin alone, at Paris, could tap the rock and make the waters flow. So upon him Congress sent in an endless procession of drafts, and compelled him to pay all their foreign bills and indebtedness; he gathered and he disbursed; to him were referred all the drafts upon Jay and others, which they themselves could not pay, and he discharged them one and all. A heavier task never fell upon any man, nor one bringing less recognition; for money matters usually seem so dry and unintelligible that every one shirks informing himself about them. We read about the horrors of the winter camp at Valley Forge, and we shudder at all the details of the vivid picture. The anxiety, the toil, the humiliation, which Franklin endured for many winters and many summers in Paris, in sustaining the national credit, do not make a picture, do not furnish material for a readable chapter in history. Yet many a man would far rather have faced Washington's lot than Franklin's. I do not intend to tell this tale at length or minutely, for I could trust no reader to follow me in so tedious an enterprise; yet I must try to convey some notion of what this financiering really meant for Franklin, of how ably he performed it, of what it cost him in wear and tear of mind, of what toil it put upon him, and of what measure of gratitude was due to him for it. It may be worth mentioning by the way that he not only spent himself in efforts to induce others to lend, but he himself lent. Before he embarked for Philadelphia on his French mission, he gathered together all that he could raise in money, some £3000 to £4000, and paid it over as an unsecured loan for an indefinite period to the Continental Congress. It is not probable that from any records now existing the most patient accountant could elicit any statement, even approximating to accuracy, of the sums which Franklin received and paid out. But if such an account could be drawn up, it would only indicate some results in figures which would have little meaning for persons not familiar with the national debts, revenues, and outlays of those times, and certainly would not at all answer the purpose of showing what he really did. The only satisfactory method of giving any passably clear idea on the subject seems to be to furnish some extracts from his papers. The ship which brought Franklin also brought indigo to the value of £3000, which was to serve as long as it could for the expenses of the commissioners. For keeping them supplied with money later on, it was the intention of Congress to purchase cargoes of American products, such as tobacco, rice, indigo, etc., etc., and consign these to the commissioners, who, besides paying their personal bills, were sure to have abundant other means for using the proceeds. Unfortunately, however, it so happened that the resources presented by this scheme were already exhausted. In January, 1777, a loan of one million livres had been advanced on a pledge of fifty-six thousand hogsheads of tobacco to the Farmers General of the French revenue; and the rice and indigo had been in like manner mortgaged to Beaumarchais. Congressional jugglery could not quite compass the payment of different creditors with the same money, even supposing that the money came to hand. But it did not; for a long while no cargoes arrived; of those that were dispatched, some were run away with by dishonest ship-masters, some were lost at sea, others were captured by the English, so that Franklin sadly remarked that the chief result was that the enemy had been supplied with these articles for nothing. But he preserved his resolute cheerfulness. "The destroying of our ships by the English," he said, "is only like shaving our beards, that will grow again. Their loss of provinces is like the loss of a limb, which can never again be united to their body." When at last a cargo did arrive, Beaumarchais demanded it as his own, and Franklin at last yielded to his importunities and tears, though having no really sufficient knowledge of his right to it. Later a second vessel arrived, and Beaumarchais endeavored to pounce upon it by process of law. That one also Franklin let him have. Then no more came, and this promising resource seems never to have yielded one dollar for Franklin's use. Already so early as January 26, 1777, it was necessary to appeal to Thomas Morris, from whom remittances had been expected on account of sales made at Nantes: "You must be sensible how very unbecoming it is of the situation we are in to be dependent on the credit of others. We therefore desire that you will remit with all possible expedition the sum allotted by the Congress for our expenses." But the commissioners appealed in vain to this worthless drunkard. Strange to say, the instructions given by Congress to the commissioners at the time of Franklin's appointment said nothing about borrowing money. In view of what he had to do in this way it was a singular omission; but it was soon repaired by letters. In March, 1777, Franklin writes to Lee: "We are ordered to borrow £2,000,000 on interest;" also to "build six ships of war," presumably on credit. In this same month Franklin wrote a paper, which was widely circulated in Europe, in which he endeavored to show that the honesty, the industry, the resources, and the prospects of the United States were so excellent that it would really be safer to lend to them than to England. It was a skillful piece of work, and its arguments had evidently persuaded the writer himself; but they did not induce the money-lenders of the old countries to accept moral qualities and probabilities as collateral security. Fair success, however, was soon met with at the court of France, so that the commissioners had the pleasure of assuring Congress that they could safely be depended upon to meet the interest on a loan of $5,000,000, which by this aid Congress probably would be able to contract for. But that body had no idea of being content with this! March 17, 1778, Franklin writes to Lee that they have been drawn upon for 180,000 livres, to pay old indebtedness of the army in Canada; also that other bills have been drawn. The number and gross amount of these were not stated in the advices; but the commissioners were ordered to "accept them when they should appear." "I cannot conceive," said Franklin, "what encouragement the Congress could have had from any of us to draw on us for anything but that interest. I suppose their difficulties have compelled them to it. I see we shall be distressed here by these proceedings," etc., etc. Congress was composed of men far too shrewd to await "encouragement" to draw for money! July 22, 1778, he wrote to Lovell: "When we engaged to Congress to pay their bills for the interest of the sums they could borrow, we did not dream of their drawing on us for other occasions. We have already paid of Congress's drafts, to returned officers, 82,211 livres; and we know not how much more of that kind we have to pay, because the committee have never let us know the amount of those drafts, or their account of them never reached us, and they still continue coming in. And we are now surprised with drafts from Mr. B. for 100,000 more. If you reduce us to bankruptcy here by a non-payment of your drafts, consider the consequences. In my humble opinion no drafts should be made on us without first learning from us that we shall be able to answer them." Congress could not fairly exact great accuracy from the drawees of its bills, when it never took pains to give notice of the facts of the drawing, of the number of bills drawn, of dates, or amounts; in a word, really gave no basis for account-keeping or identification. No more helter-skelter way of conducting business has ever been seen since modern business methods were invented. The system, if system it may be called, would have been aggravating and confusing enough under any condition of attendant circumstances; but it so happened that all attendant circumstances tended to increase rather than to mitigate the difficulties created by the carelessness of Congress. One naturally fancies that a nation deals in few and large transactions, that these drafts may have been for inconveniently large sums, but that at least they probably were not numerous. The precise contrary was the case. The drafts were countless, and often were for very petty amounts, much as if a prosperous merchant were drawing cheques to pay his ordinary expenses. Further, the uncertainty of the passage across the Atlantic led to these bills appearing at all sorts of irregular times; seconds often came to hand before firsts, and thirds before either; the bills were often very old when presented. Knaves took advantage of these facts fraudulently to alter seconds and thirds into firsts, so that extreme care had to be taken to prevent constant duplication and even triplication of payments. It would have taken much of the time of an experienced banker's clerk to keep the bill and draft department in correct shape. It is not improbable that Congress lost a good deal of money by undetected rascalities, but if so the fault lay with that body itself, not with Franklin. Amid the harassments of these demands, Franklin was much vexed by the conduct of Arthur Lee and Izard in drawing money for their own expenses. In February, 1778, each insisted that he should be allowed a credit with the banker, M. Grand, to an amount of £2000, as each then expected to depart on a mission. Franklin reluctantly assented, and was then astonished and indignant to find that each at once drew out the full sum from the national account; yet neither went upon his journey. In January, 1779, Izard applied for more. Franklin's anger was stirred; Izard was a man of handsome private property, and was rendering no service in Paris; and his requirements seemed to Franklin eminently unpatriotic and exorbitant. He therefore refused the request, writing to Izard a letter which is worth quoting, both from the tone of its patriotic appeal and as a vivid sketch of the situation:-- "Your intimation that you expect more money from us obliges us to expose to you our circumstances. Upon the supposition that Congress had borrowed in America but $5,000,000, and relying on the remittances intended to be sent to us for answering other demands, we gave expectations that we should be able to pay here the interest of that sum as a means of supporting the credit of the currency. The Congress have borrowed near twice that sum, and are now actually drawing on us for the interest, the bills appearing here daily for acceptance. Their distress for money in America has been so great from the enormous expense of the war that they have also been induced to draw on us for very large sums to stop other pressing demands; and they have not been able to purchase remittances for us to the extent they proposed; and of what they have sent, much has been taken, or treacherously carried into England, only two small cargoes of tobacco having arrived, and they are long since mortgaged to the Farmers General, so that they produce us nothing, but leave us expenses to pay. "The continental vessels of war which come to France have likewise required great sums of us to furnish and refit them and supply the men with necessaries. The prisoners, too, who escape from England claim a very expensive assistance from us, and are much dissatisfied with the scanty allowance we are able to afford them. The interest bills above mentioned, of the drawing of which we have received notice, amount to $2,500,000, and we have not a fifth part of the sum in our banker's hands to answer them; and large orders to us from Congress for supplies of clothing, arms, and ammunition remain uncomplied with for want of money. "In this situation of our affairs, we hope you will not insist on our giving you a farther credit with our banker, with whom we are daily in danger of having no farther credit ourselves. It is not a year since you received from us the sum of 2000 guineas, which you thought necessary on account of your being to set out immediately for Florence. You have not incurred the expense of that journey. You are a gentleman of fortune. You did not come to France with any dependence on being maintained here with your family at the expense of the United States, in the time of their distress, and without rendering them the equivalent service they expected. "On all these considerations we should rather hope that you would be willing to reimburse us the sum we have advanced to you, if it may be done with any possible convenience to your affairs. Such a supply would at least enable us to relieve more liberally our unfortunate countrymen, who have long been prisoners, stripped of everything, of whom we daily expect to have nearly three hundred upon our hands by the exchange." At this same time Franklin wrote to Congress to explain how it had happened that so large a sum as £4000 had been allowed to these gentlemen; for he feared that this liberality might "subject the commissioners to censure." The explanation was so discreditable to Lee and Izard that it is charitable to think that there was some misunderstanding between the parties.[68] The matter naturally rankled, and in May Franklin wrote that there was much anger against him, that he was charged with "disobeying an order of Congress, and with cruelly attempting to distress gentlemen who were in the service of their country." [Note 68: See Franklin's _Works_, vi. 294.] "They have indeed," he said, "produced to me a resolve of Congress empowering them to draw ... for their expenses at foreign courts; and doubtless Congress, when that resolve was made, intended to enable us to pay those drafts; but as that has not been done, and the gentlemen (except Mr. Lee for a few weeks) have not incurred any expense at foreign courts, and, if they had, the 5500 guineas received by them in about nine months seemed an ample provision for it, ... I do not conceive that I disobeyed an order of Congress, and that if I did the circumstances will excuse it.... In short, the dreadful consequences of ruin to our public credit, both in America and Europe, that must attend the protesting a single Congress draft for interest, after our funds were out, would have weighed with me against the payment of more money to those gentlemen, if the demand had otherwise been well founded. I am, however, in the judgment of Congress, and if I have done amiss, must submit dutifully to their censure." Burgoyne's surrender had a market value; it was worth ready money in France and Spain. Upon the strength of it the former lent the States 3,000,000 livres; and the like amount was engaged for by Spain. But, says Bancroft, "when Arthur Lee, who was equally disesteemed in Versailles and Madrid, heard of the money expected of Spain, he talked and wrote so much about it that the Spanish government, who wished to avoid a rupture with England, took alarm, and receded from its intention."[69] [Note 69: Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._ ix. 480.] In February and March, 1779, came demands from the officers of the frigate Alliance for their pay; but Franklin was "neither furnished with money nor authority for such purposes." It seemed, however, too hard to tell these gallant fellows, whose perilous and useful service was in European waters, that they could not have a dollar until they should get safely back to the States; so Franklin agreed to pay for one suit of clothes for each of them. But he begged them to be as "frugal as possible," and not make themselves "expensively fine" from a notion that it was for the honor of the State, which could be better promoted in more sensible ways. May 26, 1779, he complains to the committee of foreign affairs that, whereas the commissioners had agreed to find in Paris means of paying interest on a loan of $5,000,000, that loan had been doubled, while, on the other hand, they had been "drained by a number of unforeseen expenses," including "orders and drafts" of Congress. "And now," he says, "the drafts of the treasurer of the loans coming very fast upon me, the anxiety I have suffered and the distress of mind lest I should not be able to pay them, have for a long time been very great indeed. To apply again to this court for money for a particular purpose, which they had already over and over again provided for and furnished us, was extremely awkward." One would think so, indeed! So he fell back on a "_general_ application" made some time before, and received naturally the general answer that France herself was being put to enormous expenses, which were aiding the States as efficiently as a direct loan of money could do. The most he could extort was the king's guaranty for the payment of the interest on $3,000,000, provided that sum could be raised in Holland. The embarrassing fact was that the plea of poverty advanced by the French government was perfectly valid. Turgot said so, and no man knew better than Turgot. He had lately told the king that even on a peace footing the annual expenditures exceeded the annual receipts of the exchequer by 20,000,000 livres; and he even talked seriously of an avowal of national bankruptcy. The events preceding the French Revolution soon proved that this great statesman did not exaggerate the ill condition of affairs. Yet instead of practicing rigid prudence and economy, France had actually gone into a costly war for the benefit of America. It was peculiarly disagreeable to be ceaselessly appealing for money to an impoverished friend. Another vexation was found in the way in which the agents of the various individual States soon began to scour Europe in quest of money. First they applied to Franklin, and "seemed to think it his duty as minister for the United States to support and enforce their particular demands." But the foreigners, probably not understanding these separate autonomies, did not relish these requisitions, and Franklin found that he could do nothing. On the contrary, he was hampered in effecting loans on the national credit; for these state agents, hurrying clamorously hither and thither, gave an impression of poverty and injured the reputation of the country, which, indeed, was already low enough upon the exchanges without any such gratuitous impairment. February 19, 1780, there was an application from John Paul Jones for money for repairs on his ships. Franklin approved keeping the vessels in serviceable condition, but added: "Let me repeat, for God's sake be sparing, unless you mean to make me a bankrupt, or have your drafts dishonored for want of money in my hands to pay them." May 31, 1780, he complains that he has been reproached by one of the congressional agents whose unauthorized drafts he had refused. He has been drawn upon by Congress, he says, for much more than the interest, which only he had agreed to furnish, and he has answered every demand, and supported their credit in Europe. "But if every agent of Congress in different parts of the world is permitted to run in debt, and draw upon me at pleasure to support his credit, under the idea of its being necessary to do so for the honor of Congress, the difficulty upon me will be too great, and I may in fine be obliged to protest the interest bills. I therefore beg that a stop may be put to such irregular proceedings." It was a reasonable prayer, but had no effect. Franklin continued to be regarded as paymaster-general for the States in Europe. We next hear of his troubles in paying the bills which Congress, according to its usual custom, was drawing upon Jay. They sent Jay to Spain, and told him to borrow money there; and as soon as they had got him fairly at sea, they began drawing drafts upon him. He soon found himself, as he said, in a "cruel situation," and the torture of mind which he endured and the responsibility which he assumed are well known. He courageously accepted the bills, trusting to Providence and to Franklin, who seemed the agent of Providence, to arrange for their payment. Franklin did not fail him. One of Jay's earliest letters to Franklin said: "I have no reason as yet to think a loan here will be practicable. Bills on me arrive daily. Be pleased to send me a credit for the residue of our salaries." Five days later: "Bills to the amount of $100,000 have arrived. A loan cannot be effected here." And so on. In April, 1781, his appeal became pathetic: "Our situation here is daily becoming more disagreeable from the want of our salaries; to be obliged to contract debts and live on credit is terrible. I have not to this day received a shilling from America, and we should indeed have been greatly distressed, had it not been for your good offices." An American minister without resources to pay his butcher and his grocer, his servant and his tailor, presented a spectacle which moved Franklin to great efforts! In plain truth, Jay and his secretary, Carmichael, were dependent upon Franklin for everything; they not only drew on him for their salaries to pay daily household expenses, but they sent him lists of the bills accepted by them for the "honor of Congress," and which they had no means of paying. It was fortunate that these two men were willing to incur such peril and anxiety in behalf of this same "honor of Congress," which otherwise would soon have been basely discredited; for that body itself was superbly indifferent on the subject, and did not pretend to keep faith even with its own agents. Thus matters continued to the end. Congress pledged itself not to draw bills, and immediately drew them in batches. Jay could report to Franklin only scant and reluctant promises won from the Spanish court; and small as these engagements were, they were ill kept. Perhaps they could not be kept; for, as Jay wrote, there was "little coin in Egypt," the country was really poor. So the end of it always was that Franklin remained as the only resource for payments, to be made week after week, of all sorts of sums ranging from little bills upon vessels up to great totals of $150,000 or $230,000 upon bankers' demands. Such was the burden of a song which had many more woeful stanzas than can be repeated here. By way of affording some sort of encouragement to the French court, Franklin now proposed that the United States government should furnish the French fleet and forces in the States with provisions, of which the cost could be offset, to the small extent that it would go, against French loans. It seemed a satisfactory arrangement, and France assented to it. At the same time he wrote to Adams that he had "long been humiliated with the idea of our running about from court to court begging for money and friendship, which are the more withheld the more eagerly they are solicited, and would perhaps have been offered if they had not been asked. The proverb says, God helps them that help themselves; and the world too, in this sense, is very godly." This was an idea to which he more than once recurred. In March, 1782, in the course of a long letter to Livingston, he said: "A small increase of industry in every American, male and female, with a small diminution of luxury, would produce a sum far superior to all we can hope to beg or borrow from all our friends in Europe." He reiterated the same views again in March, and again in December, and doubtless much oftener.[70] No man was more earnest in the doctrine that every individual American owed his strenuous and unremitting personal assistance to the cause. It was a practical as well as a noble patriotism which he felt, preached, and exemplified; and it was thoroughly characteristic of the man. [Note 70: Franklin's _Works_, vii. 404; viii. 236.] What was then the real financial capacity of the people, and whether they did their utmost in the way of raising money to support the Revolution, is a question about which it is easy to express an opinion, but difficult to prove its accuracy by convincing evidence. On the one hand, it is true that the strain was extreme and that much was done to meet it; on the other hand, it is no less true that even beneath this stress the national prosperity actually made a considerable advance during the war. The people as a whole gathered money rather than impoverished themselves. In the country at large the commercial instinct fully held its own in competition with the spirit of independence. There was not much forswearing of little luxuries. Franklin said that he learned by inquiry that of the interest money which was disbursed in Paris most was laid out for "superfluities, and more than half of it for tea." He computed that £500,000 were annually expended in the States for tea alone. This sum, "annually laid out in defending ourselves or annoying our enemies, would have great effect. With what face can we ask aids and subsidies from our friends, while we are wasting our own wealth in such prodigality?" Henry Laurens, dispatched as minister to the Hague in 1780, was captured on the voyage and carried into England. But this little incident mattered not at all to the Congress, which for a long while cheerfully drew a great number of bills upon the poor gentleman, who, held in the Tower of London as a traitor, was hardly in a position to negotiate large loans for his fellow "rebels." In October, 1780, these bills began to flutter down upon Franklin's desk, drawn by a sort of natural gravitation. He felt "obliged to accept them," and said that he should "with some difficulty be able to pay them, though these extra demands often embarrass me exceedingly." November 19, 1780, he wrote to de Vergennes announcing that Congress had notified him of drafts to the amount of about 1,400,000 livres (about $280,000). The reply was: "You can easily imagine my astonishment at your request of the necessary funds to meet these drafts, since you perfectly well know the extraordinary efforts which I have made thus far to assist you and support your credit, and especially since you cannot have forgotten the demands you lately made upon me. Nevertheless, sir, I am very desirous of assisting you out of the embarrassed situation in which these repeated drafts of Congress have placed you; and for this purpose I shall endeavor to procure for you, for the next year, the same aid that I have been able to furnish in the course of the present. I cannot but believe, sir, that Congress will faithfully abide by what it now promises you, that in future no drafts shall be made upon you unless the necessary funds are sent to meet them." Such a letter, though only gratitude could be felt for it, must have stung the sensitiveness of Franklin, who had already a great national pride. Nor was the pain likely to be assuaged by the conduct of Congress; for that body had not the slightest idea of keeping the promises upon which de Vergennes expressed a reliance perhaps greater than he really felt. It is not without annoyance, even now, that one reads that only two days after the French minister wrote this letter, Congress instructed Franklin to do some more begging for clothes, and for the aid of a fleet, and said: "With respect to the loan, we foresee that the sum which we ask will be greatly inadequate to our wants." December 2, 1780, Franklin acknowledges "favors," a conventional phrase which seems sarcastic. These tell him that Congress has resolved to draw on him "bills extraordinary, to the amount of near $300,000." These were doubtless what led to the foregoing correspondence with de Vergennes. In reply he says that he has already engaged himself for the bills drawn on Mr. Laurens, and adds: "You cannot conceive how much these things perplex and distress me; for the practice of this government being yearly to apportion the revenue to the several expected services, any after demands made, which the treasury is not furnished to supply, meet with great difficulty, and are very disagreeable to the ministers." A short fragment of a diary kept in 1781 gives a painful vision of the swarm of bills:-- "Jan. 6. Accepted a number of loan office bills this day, and every day of the past week. "Sunday, Jan. 7. Accepted a vast number of loan office bills. Some of the new drafts begin to appear. "Jan. 8. Accepted many bills. "Jan. 10th. Informed that my recall is to be moved for in Congress. "Jan. 12th. Sign acceptation [qu. "of"? mutilated] many bills. They come thick. "Jan. 15th. Accepted above 200 bills, some of the new. "Jan. 17th. Accepted many bills. "Jan. 22d. M. Grand informs me that Mr. Williams has drawn on me for 25,000 livres; ... I order payment of his drafts. "Jan. 24th. A great number of bills. "Jan. 26th. Accept bills." February 13 he writes a general begging and stimulating letter to de Vergennes. He says that the plain truth is that the present situation in the States "makes one of two things essential to us--a peace, or the most vigorous aid of our allies, particularly in the article of _money_.... The present conjuncture is critical; there is some danger lest the Congress should lose its influence over the people, if it is found unable to procure the aids that are wanted;" and in that case the opportunity for separation is gone, "perhaps for ages." A few days later he was "under the necessity of being importunate for an answer to the application lately made for stores and money." De Vergennes replied, in an interview, that Franklin must know that for France to lend the 25,000,000 livres asked for was "at present impracticable." Also his excellency mentioned other uncomfortable and distasteful facts, but concluded by saying that the king, as a "signal proof of his friendship," would make a free gift of 6,000,000 livres, in addition to 3,000,000 recently furnished for interest drafts. But the French court had at last so far lost confidence in Congress that in order to make sure that this money should be applied in aid of the army, and not be vaguely absorbed by committees, a stipulation was inserted that it should be paid only upon the order of General Washington. This was a trifle insulting to Congress, and made trouble; and it seems that ultimately the sum was intrusted to Franklin. Almost immediately afterward he extorted from Necker an agreement that the king of France would guaranty a loan of 10,000,000 livres, if it could be raised in Holland; and upon these terms he was able to raise this sum. Trouble enough the possession of it soon gave him; for the demands for it were numerous. Franklin needed it to keep himself solvent in Europe; Congress greedily sought it for America; William Jackson, who was buying supplies in Holland, required much of it there. Franklin was expected to repeat with it the miracle of the loaves and fishes. 2,500,000 livres he sent to the States in the same ship which carried John Laurens. 2,200,000 Laurens disposed of in purchasing goods; 1,500,000 were sent to Holland to be thence sent to the States in another ship, so as to divide the risk. But while he thus took care of others, he himself was drawn upon by Jackson for £50,000; and at the same time he was expected to provide for all the bills accepted by Laurens, Jay, and Adams, and now rapidly maturing. He sent in haste to Holland to detain the 1,500,000 livres _in transitu_. "I am sorry," he said, "that this operation is necessary; but it must be done, or the consequences will be terrible." Laurens and Jackson, however, in Holland, had been actually spending this sum, and more. "I applaud the zeal you have both shown in the affair," said the harassed doctor, "but I see that nobody cares how much I am distressed, provided they can carry their own points." Fortunately the money still lay in the hands of the banker, and there Franklin stopped it; whereupon Jackson fell into extreme rage, and threatened some sort of a "proceeding," which Franklin said would only be exceedingly imprudent, useless, and scandalous. "The noise rashly made about this matter" by Jackson naturally injured American credit in Holland, and especially rendered unmarketable his own drafts upon Franklin. In these straits he journeyed to Paris to see Franklin, represented that his goods were on board ship; that they were articles much needed in America; that they must be paid for, or else relanded and returned, or sold, which would be a public disgrace. So Franklin was prevailed upon to engage for the payment, and was "obliged to go with this after-clap to the ministers," a proceeding especially disagreeable because, as he said, "the money was to be paid for the manufactures of other countries and not laid out in those of this kingdom, by whose friendship it was furnished." He was at first "absolutely refused," but in time prevailed, and "hoped the difficulty was over." Not at all! After all this exertion and annoyance, the officers of the ship said she was overloaded, and turned out a large part of the goods, which were accordingly put into two other ships; and then Franklin was offered the option of buying these two vessels, of hiring them at a freight scarcely less than their value, or of having the goods again set on shore. He was now "ashamed to show his face to the minister," and was casting about for resources, when suddenly he was surprised by new demands to pay for the goods which he had every reason to believe had already been paid for. This produced such a dispute and complication that the goods remained long in Holland before affairs could be arranged, and the final settlement is not clearly to be made out. In the spring of 1781 John Adams was in Holland, and of course Congress was drawing bills upon him, and equally of course he had not a stiver with which to meet them. He had "opened a loan," but so little had fallen into the opening that he was barely able to pay expenses; so, still of course, he turned to Franklin: "When they [the bills] arrive and are presented I must write to you concerning them, and desire you to enable me to discharge them." He added that it was a "grievous mortification to find that America has no credit here, while England certainly still has so much." Apparently the pamphlet in which Franklin had so convincingly shown that the reverse of this should be the case had not satisfied the minds of the Dutch bankers. In July, 1781, came a broad hint from Robert Morris: "I will not doubt a moment that, at your instance, his majesty will make pressing representations in support of Mr. Jay's application, and I hope that the authority of so great a sovereign and the arguments of his able ministry will shed auspicious influence on our negotiations at Madrid." This fulsome language, intended of course to be read to de Vergennes, imposed the gratifying duty of begging the French minister to second American begging in Spain. In the same month Franklin wrote to Morris that the French were vexed at the purchasing of goods in Holland, and would not furnish the money to pay for them, and he actually suggested a remittance from America! "Otherwise I shall be ruined, with the American credit in Europe." He might have had some motive besides patriotism in thus uniting himself with the credit of his country; for he had been warned that the consul's court in Paris had power even over the persons of foreign ministers in the case of bills of exchange. September 12, 1781, he announces triumphantly that "the remittances ... which I requested are now unnecessary, and I shall finish the year with honor," notwithstanding "drafts on Mr. Jay and on Mr. Adams much exceeding what I had been made to expect." He was now informed that Congress would not draw upon _other_ ministers without providing funds, but that they would continue to draw on _him_ "funds or no funds," an invidious distinction which "terrified" him; for he had been obliged to promise de Vergennes not to accept any drafts drawn later than March, 1781, unless he should have in hand or in view funds sufficient to pay them. But before long he began to suspect that Congress could outwit the French minister. For so late as January, 1782, bills dated prior to the preceding April were still coming; and he said: "I begin to suspect that the drawing continues, and _that the bills are antedated_. It is impossible for me to go on with demands after demands." The next month also found these old bills on Laurens still coming in. Congress never let the ministers know how many bills it was drawing, perhaps fearing to discourage them by so appalling a disclosure. Franklin now wrote to Adams: "Perhaps from the series of numbers and the deficiencies one may be able to divine the sum that has been issued." Moreover, he reflects that he has never had any instructions to pay the acceptances of Jay and Adams, nor has had any ratification of his payments; neither had he "ever received a syllable of approbation for having done so. Thus I stand charged with vast sums which I have disbursed for the public service without authority." The thought might cause some anxiety, in view of the moral obliquity manifested by Congress in all its financial dealings. In November, 1781, came a long letter from Livingston; everything was wanted; but especially the States must have _money_! December 31, a day that often brings reflection on matters financial, de Vergennes sent a brief warning; 1,000,000 livres, which had been promised, Franklin should have, but not one livre more under any circumstances; if he had accepted, or should accept, Morris's drafts in excess of this sum, he must trust to his own resources to meet his obligations. Accordingly on January 9, 1782, he wrote to Morris: "Bills are still coming in quantities.... You will see by the inclosed letter the situation I am at last brought into.... I shall be able to pay till the end of February, when, if I can get no more money, I must stop." Ten days later he writes to Jay that his solicitations make him appear insatiable, that he gets no assurances of aid, but that he is "very sensible" of Jay's "unhappy situation," and therefore manages to send him $30,000, though he knows not how to replace it. In the sad month of March, 1782, Lafayette nobly helped Franklin in the disagreeable task of begging, but to little purpose; for at length there seemed a general determination to furnish no more money to the States. The fighting was over, and it seemed reasonable that the borrowing should be over likewise. In February, 1782, Franklin says that Mr. Morris supposes him to have a sum "vastly greater than the fact," and has "given orders far beyond my abilities to comply with." Franklin was regarded as a miraculous orange which, if squeezed hard enough, would always yield juice! It could not have been reassuring, either, to have one of the American agents at this time ask to have 150,000 livres advanced to him _at once_; especially since the frankly provident gentleman based his pressing haste upon the avowed fear that, as business was going on, Franklin's embarrassments in money matters were likely to increase. February 13, 1782, Livingston wrote a letter which must have excited a grim smile. He comforts himself, in making more "importunate demands," by reflecting that it is all _for the good of France!_ which thought, he says, may enable Franklin to "press them with some degree of dignity." Franklin's sense of humor was touched. That means, he says, that I am to say to de Vergennes: "Help us, and we shall not be obliged to you." But in some way or another, probably not precisely in this eccentric way, he so managed it that in March he wheedled the French government into still another and a large loan of 24,000,000 livres payable quarterly during the year. March 9 he informs Morris "pretty fully of the state of our funds here, by which you will be enabled so to regulate your drafts as that our credit in Europe may not be ruined and your friend killed with vexation." He now engaged to pay all the drafts which Jay should send to him, so that Jay could extricate himself honorably from those dread engagements which had been giving that harassed gentleman infinite anxiety at Madrid. Some of his acceptances had already gone to protest; but Franklin soon took them all up. By the end of March he began to breathe more freely; he had saved himself and his colleagues thus far and now he hoped that the worst was over. He wrote to Morris: "Your promise that after this month no more bills shall be drawn on me keeps up my spirits and affords me the greatest satisfaction." By the following summer the accounts between France and the States were in course of liquidation, and Franklin called the attention of Livingston to the fact that the king practically made the States a further present "to the value of near two millions. These, added to the free gifts before made to us at different times, form an object of at least twelve millions, for which no returns but that of gratitude and friendship are expected. These, I hope, may be everlasting." But liquidation, though a necessary preliminary to payment, is not payment, and does not preclude a continuance of borrowing; and in August we find that Morris was still pressing for more money, still drawing drafts, in happy forgetfulness of his promises not to do so, and still keeping Franklin in anxious dread of bankruptcy. By the same letter it appears that Morris had directed Franklin to pay over to M. Grand, the banker, any surplus funds in his hands! "I would do it with pleasure, if there were any such," said Franklin; but the question was still of a deficit, not of a surplus. December 14, 1782, finds Franklin still at the old task, preferring "the application so strongly pressed by the Congress for a loan of $4,000,000." Lafayette again helped him, but the result remained uncertain. The negotiations for peace were so far advanced that the ministers thought it time for such demands to cease. But probably he succeeded, for a few days later he appears to be remitting a considerable sum. Peace, however, was at hand, and in one respect at least it was peace for Franklin as well as for his country, for even Congress could no longer expect him to continue borrowing. He had indeed rendered services not less gallant though less picturesque than those of Washington himself, vastly more disagreeable, and scarcely less essential to the success of the cause. CHAPTER XIII HABITS OF LIFE AND OF BUSINESS: AN ADAMS INCIDENT John Adams wielded a vivid and vicious pen; he neglected the Scriptural injunction: "Judge not," and he set honesty before charity in speech. His judgments upon his contemporaries were merciless; they had that kind of truthfulness which precluded contradiction, yet which left a sense of injustice; they were at once accurate and unfair. His strictures concerning Franklin are an illustration of these peculiarities. What he said is of importance because he said it, and because members of the Adams family in successive generations, voluminous contributors to the history of the country, have never divested themselves of the inherited enmity toward Franklin. During Adams's first visit to France the relationship between him and Franklin is described as sufficiently friendly rather than as cordial. December 7, 1778, in a letter to his cousin Samuel Adams, John thus described his colleague:-- "The other you know personally, and that he loves his Ease, hates to offend, and seldom gives any opinion till obliged to do it. I know also, and it is necessary that you should be informed, that he is overwhelmed with a correspondence from all quarters, most of them upon trifling subjects and in a more trifling style, with unmeaning visits from Multitudes of People, chiefly from the Vanity of having it to say that they have seen him. There is another thing that I am obliged to mention. There are so many private families, Ladies and gentlemen, that he visits so often,--and they are so fond of him, that he cannot well avoid it,--and so much intercourse with Academicians, that all these things together keep his mind in a constant state of dissipation. If indeed you take out of his hand the Public Treasury and the direction of the Frigates and Continental vessels that are sent here, and all Commercial affairs, and entrust them to Persons to be appointed by Congress, at Nantes and Bordeaux, I should think it would be best to have him here alone, with such a Secretary as you can confide in. But if he is left here alone, even with such a secretary, and all maritime and Commercial as well as political affairs and money matters are left in his Hands, I am persuaded that France and America will both have Reason to repent it. He is not only so indolent that Business will be neglected, but you know that, although he has as determined a soul as any man, yet it is his constant Policy never to say 'yes' or 'no' decidedly but when he cannot avoid it." This mischievous letter, not actually false, yet misrepresenting and misleading, has unfortunately survived to injure both the man who wrote it and the man about whom it was written. It is quoted in order to show the sort of covert fire in the rear to which Franklin was subjected throughout his term of service. It is astonishing now, when the evidence is all before us and the truth is attainable, to read such a description of such a patriot as Franklin, a man who went through labors and anxieties for the cause probably only surpassed by those of Washington, and whose services did more to promote success than did the services of any other save only Washington. How blind was the personal prejudice of the critic who saw Franklin in Paris and could yet suggest that the charge of the public treasury should be taken from him! To whom else would the Frenchmen have unlocked their coffers as they did to him, whom they so warmly liked and admired? John Adams and Arthur Lee and other Americans who endeavored to deal with the French court got themselves so thoroughly hated there that little aid would have been forthcoming at the request of such representatives. It was to Franklin's personal influence that a large portion of the substantial help in men, ships, and especially in money, accorded by France to the States, was due. He was as much the right man in Europe as was Washington in America. Nevertheless this attribution of traits, so maliciously penned, has passed into history, and though the world does not see that either France or the States had cause "to repent" keeping Franklin in Paris in general charge of affairs, and unwatched by a vigilant secretary, yet all the world believes that in the gay metropolis Franklin was indolent and given over to social pleasures, which flattered his vanity. Undoubtedly there is foundation in fact for the belief. But to arrive at a just conclusion one must consider many things. The character of the chief witness is as important as that of the accused. Adams, besides being a severe critic, was filled to the brim with an irrepressible activity, an insatiate industry, a restlessness and energy, all which were at this period stimulated by the excitement of the times to an intensity excessive and abnormal even for him. To him, in this condition of chronic agitation, the serenity of Franklin's broad intellect and tranquil nature seemed inexplicable and culpable. But Franklin had what Adams lacked, a vast experience in men and affairs. Adams knew the provinces and the provincials; Franklin knew the provinces and England and France, the provincials, Englishmen, Frenchmen, and all ranks and conditions of men,--journeymen, merchants, philosophers, men of letters, diplomatists, courtiers, noblemen, and statesmen. The one was an able colonist, the other was a man of the world, of exceptionally wide personal experience even as such. Moreover Franklin's undertakings were generally crowned with a success which justifies us in saying that, however much or little exertion he visibly put forth, at least he put forth enough. Adams sometimes was for putting forth too much. Franklin, when he arrived in France, was in his seventy-first year; his health was in the main good, yet his strength had been severely tried by his journey to Canada and by the voyage. He was troubled with a cutaneous complaint, of which he makes light, but which was abundant evidence that his physical condition was far from perfect; he was a victim of the gout, which attacked him frequently and with great severity, so that he was often obliged to keep his bed for days and weeks; when he was appointed sole minister of the States to France he remarked that there was "some incongruity in a _plenipotentiary_ who could neither stand nor go;" later on he suffered extremely from stone and gravel; with all these diseases, and with the remorseless disease of old age gaining ground every day, it is hardly surprising that Franklin seemed to the hale and vigorous Adams not to be making that show of activity which would have been becoming in the chief representative of the United States during these critical years. Yet except that he was careless about his papers and remiss in his correspondence, no definite allegations are made against him prior to the treating for peace; no business of importance was ever said to have failed in his hands, which should be a sufficient vindication of his general efficiency. The amount of labor which was laid upon him was enormous: he did as much business as the managing head of a great banking-house and a great mercantile firm combined; he did all the diplomacy of the United States; he was also their consul-general, and though he had agents in some ports, yet they more often gave trouble than assistance; after the commercial treaty with France he had to investigate French laws and tariffs and give constant advice to American merchants upon all sorts of questions as to statutes, trade, customs, dues, and duties. What he did concerning the warships, the privateers, and the prizes has been hinted at rather than stated; what he did in the way of financiering has been imperfectly shown; he was often engaged in planning naval operations either for Paul Jones and others in European waters or for the French fleet in American waters. He had for a perpetual annoyance all the captiousness and the quarrels of the two Lees, Izard, and Thomas Morris. When business had to be transacted, as often occurred, with states at whose courts the United States had no representative, Franklin had to manage it;[71] especially he was concerned with the business in Spain, whither he would have journeyed in person had his health and other engagements permitted. Moreover he was adviser-general to all American officials of any and every grade and function in Europe; and much as some of these gentlemen contemned him, they each and all instinctively demanded his guidance in every matter of importance. Even Arthur Lee deferred to him rather than decide for himself; Dana sought his instructions for the mission to Russia; men of the calibre of Jay and independent John Adams sought and respected his views and his aid, perhaps more than they themselves appreciated. Surely here was labor enough, and even more responsibility than labor; but Franklin's great, well-trained mind worked with the ease and force of a perfectly regulated machine whose smoothness of action almost conceals its power, and all the higher parts of his labor were achieved with little perceptible effort. For the matters of account-keeping and letter-writing, he neglected these things; and one is almost provoked into respecting him for so doing when it is remembered that during all the time of his stay in France Congress never allowed to this aged and overtasked man a secretary of legation, or even an amanuensis or a copyist. He had with him his grandson, Temple Franklin, a lad of sixteen years at the time of his arrival in France, and whom it had been intended to place at school. But Franklin could not dispense with his services, and kept this youngster as his sole clerk and assistant. It should be mentioned also in this connection that it was not only necessary to prepare the customary duplicates of every document of importance, but every paper which was to be sent across the Atlantic had to be copied half a dozen extra times, in order to be dispatched in as many different ships, so great were the dangers of capture. It was hardly fair to expect a minister plenipotentiary to display unwearied zeal in this sort of work. Adams himself would have done it, and grumbled; Franklin did not do it, and preserved his good temper. In conclusion it may be said that, if Franklin was indolent, as in some ways he probably was, he had at least much excuse for indolence, and the trait showed itself only on what may be called the physical side of his duties; upon the intellectual side, it cannot be denied that during the period thus far traversed he did more thinking and to better purpose than any other American of the day. [Note 71: For example, with Norway, with Denmark, and with Portugal.] In saying that Franklin was fond of society and pleased with the admiration expressed for him by the ardent and courteous Frenchmen and by other continental Europeans, Adams spoke correctly. Franklin was always social and always a little vain. But much less would have been heard of these traits if the distinction made between him and his colleagues had been less conspicuous and less constant. That men of the size of the Lees and Izard should inflate themselves to the measure of harboring a jealousy of Franklin's preëminence was only ridiculous; but Adams should have had, as Jay had, too much self-respect to cherish such a feeling. It was the weak point in his character that he could never acknowledge a superior, and the fact that the world at large estimated Washington, Franklin, and Hamilton as men of larger calibre than his own kept him in a state of exasperation all his life. Now the simple truth, forced in a thousand unintended ways upon the knowledge of all American envoys during the Revolution, was, that in Europe Franklin was a distinguished man, while no other American was known or cared for at all. Franklin received deference, where others received civility; Franklin was selected for attentions, for flattery, for official consultations and communications, while his colleagues were "forgotten entirely by the French people." Jay, Dana, and Carmichael accepted this situation in the spirit of sensible gentlemen, but Adams, the Lees, and Izard were incensed and sought an offset in defamation. Compare Carmichael's language with what has been quoted from Adams: he says: "The age of Dr. Franklin in some measure hinders him from taking so active a part in the drudgery of business as his great zeal and abilities would otherwise enable him to execute. He is the Master, to whom we children in politics look up for counsel, and whose name is everywhere a passport to be well received." Still it must have been provoking to be customarily spoken of as "Dr. Franklin's associates." When Franklin was appointed minister plenipotentiary he was obliged to explain that he was not the "sole representative of America in Europe." De Vergennes always wished to deal only with him, and occasionally said things to him in secrecy so close as to be exclusive even of his "associates." Adams honestly admitted that "this court have confidence in him alone." When a favor was to be asked, it was Franklin who could best seek it; and when it was granted it seemed to be vouchsafed to Franklin. In a word, Franklin had the monopoly of the confidence, the respect, and the personal regard of the French ministry. It was the same way also with the English; when they made advances for conciliation or peace, they too selected Franklin for their communications. Adams was not sufficiently familiar with the modes of political life in Europe to appreciate what a substantial value Franklin's social and scientific prestige among the "ladies and gentlemen" and the "academicians" had there. All those tributes which the great "philosopher" was constantly receiving may have been, as Adams said, pleasant food for his vanity, but they were also of practical worth and service, signifying that he was a man of real note and importance in what European statesmen regarded as "the world." If Franklin relished the repast, who among mortals would not? And was his accuser a man to have turned his back on such viands, had he also been bidden to the feast of flattery? Franklin's vanity was a simple, amiable, and harmless source of pleasure to himself; it was not of the greedy or envious type, nor did its gratification do any injury to any person or any interest. Jay, a man of generous temper, understood the advantage reaped by the States from being represented at the French court by a man whose greatness all Europe recognized. More than once he bore this testimony, honorable alike to the giver and to him for whom it was given.[72] [Note 72: See, for example, Franklin's _Works_, vii. 252, note.] Pleasant as were many of the features of Franklin's residence in France, and skillfully as he may have evaded some of the more irksome labors imposed upon him, the attraction was not always sufficient to make him reluctant to have done with the place. Its vexations and anxieties wore upon him grievously. He knew that unfriendly representations concerning him were often made in America, and that these induced some men to distrust him, and caused others to feel anxious about him. He heard stories that he was to be recalled, other stories that there was a cabal to vent a petty ill will by putting an end to the clerkship of his grandson. This cut him to the quick. "I should not part with the child," he said, "but with the employment;" and so the ignoble scheme miscarried; for Congress was not ready to lose Franklin, and did not really feel any extreme dread of harm from a lad who, though the son of a loyalist, had grown up under Franklin's personal influence. At times homesickness attacked him. When he heard of the death of an old friend at home he wrote sadly: "A few more such deaths will make me a stranger in my own country." He was not one of those patriots who like to live abroad and protest love for their own country. Generally he preserved the delightful evenness of his temper with a success quite wonderful in a man troubled with complaints which preëminently make the sufferer impatient and irascible. Only once he said, when he was being very unreasonably annoyed about some shipping business: "I will absolutely have nothing to do with any new squadron project. I have been too long in hot water, plagued almost to death with the passions, vagaries, and ill humors and madnesses of other people. I must have a little repose." A very mild outbreak this, under all his provocations, but it is the only one of which any record remains. His tranquil self-control was a very remarkable trait; he was never made so angry by all the calumny and assaults of enemies peculiarly apt in the art of irritation as to use any immoderate or undignified language. He never retaliated, though he had the fighting capacity in him. Before the tribunal of posterity his patient endurance has counted greatly in his favor. By March, 1781, he had definitively made up his mind to resign, and wrote to the president of Congress a letter which was unmistakably earnest and in parts even touching.[73] When this alarming communication was received all the depreciation of the Lees, Izard, and the rest went for nothing. Without hesitation Congress ignored the request, with far better reason than it could show for the utter indifference with which it was wont to regard pretty much all the other requests which Franklin ever made. Its behavior in this respect was indeed very singular. He recommended his grandson to it, and it paid absolutely no attention to the petition. He repeatedly asked the appointment of consuls at some of the French ports; it created all sorts of other officials, keeping Paris full of useless and costly "ministers" accredited to courts which would not receive them, but appointed no consul. He urged hard, as a trifling personal favor, that an accountant might be appointed to audit his nephew Williams's accounts, but Congress would not attend to a matter which could have been disposed of in five minutes. He never could get a secretary or a clerk, nor even any proper appointment of, or salary for, his grandson. He seldom got an expression of thanks or approbation for anything that he did, though he did many things wholly outside of his regular functions and involving great personal risk and responsibility. Yet when he really wanted to resign he was not allowed to do so; and thus at last he was left to learn by inference that he had given satisfaction.[74] [Note 73: Franklin's _Works_, vii. 207; the letter is unfortunately too long to quote. See also his letter to Lafayette, _Ibid._ 237.] [Note 74: See letter to Carmichael, _Works_, vii. 285.] *** No sooner had Adams got comfortably settled at home than he was obliged to return again to Europe. Franklin, Jay, Laurens, Jefferson, and he were appointed by Congress commissioners to treat for peace, whenever the fitting time should come; and so in February, 1780, he was back in Paris. But peace was still far away in the future, and Adams, meanwhile, finding the intolerable incumbrance of leisure upon his hands, exorcised the demon by writing long letters to de Vergennes upon sundry matters of interest in American affairs. It was an unfortunate scheme. If Nature had maliciously sought to create a man for the express purpose of aggravating de Vergennes, she could not have made one better adapted for that service than was Adams. Very soon there was a terrible explosion, and Franklin, invoked by both parties, had to hasten to the rescue, to his own serious injury. On May 31, 1780, in a letter to the president of Congress, Franklin said: "A great clamor has lately been made by some merchants, who say they have large sums on their hands of paper money in America, and that they are ruined by some resolution of Congress, which reduces its value to one part in forty. As I have had no letter explaining this matter I have only been able to say that it is probably misunderstood, and that I am confident the Congress have not done, nor will do, anything unjust towards strangers who have given us credit." Soon afterward Adams got private information of the passage of an act for the redemption of the paper money at the rate of forty dollars for one in silver. At once he sent the news to de Vergennes. That statesman took fire at the tidings, and promptly responded that foreigners ought to be indemnified for any losses they might suffer, and that Americans alone should "support the expense which is occasioned by the defense of their liberty," and should regard "the depreciation of their paper money only as an impost which ought to fall upon themselves." He added that he had instructed the Chevalier de la Luzerne, French minister to the States, "to make the strongest representations on this subject" to Congress. Adams was alarmed at the anger which he had excited, and besought de Vergennes to hold his hand until Franklin could "have opportunity to make his representations to his majesty's ministers." But this gleam of good sense was transitory, for on the same day, without waiting for Franklin to intervene, he composed and sent to de Vergennes a long, elaborate defense of the course of the States. It was such an argument as a stubborn lawyer might address to a presumably prejudiced court; it had not a pleasant word of gratitude for past favors, or of regret at the present necessity; it was as undiplomatic and ill considered as it certainly was unanswerable. But its impregnability could not offset its gross imprudence. To exasperate de Vergennes and alienate the French government at that period, although by a perfectly sound presentation, was an act of madness as unpardonable as any crime. Upon the same day on which Adams drew up this able, inexcusable brief for his unfortunate client, the Congress, he wrote to Franklin begging him to interfere. On June 29 he followed this request with a humbler note than John Adams often wrote, acknowledging that he might have made some errors, and desiring to be set right. On June 30 de Vergennes also appealed to Franklin, saying, amid much more: "The king is so firmly persuaded, sir, that your private opinion respecting the effects of that resolution of Congress, as far as it concerns strangers and especially Frenchmen, differs from that of Mr. Adams, that he is not apprehensive of laying you under any embarrassment by requesting you to support the representations which his minister is ordered to make to Congress." Franklin, receiving these epistles, was greatly vexed at the jeopardy into which the rash zeal of Adams had suddenly plunged the American interests in France. His indignation was not likely to be made less by the fact that all this letter-writing to de Vergennes was a tacit reproach upon his own performance of his duties and a gratuitous intrenchment upon his province. The question which presented itself to him was not whether the argument of Adams was right or wrong, nor whether the distinction which de Vergennes sought to establish between American citizens and foreigners was practicable or not. This was fortunate, because, while Adams in the States had been forced to ponder carefully all the problems of a depreciating paper currency, Franklin in France had neither necessity, nor opportunity, nor leisure for studying either the ethics or the solution of so perplexing a problem. He now hastily made such inquiries as he could among the Americans lately arrived in Paris, but did not pretend "perfectly to understand" the subject. To master its difficulties, however, did not seem essential, because he recognized that the obvious duty of the moment was to say something which might at least mitigate the present wrath of the French ministry, and so gain time for explanation and adjustment in a better state of feeling. He had once laid down to Arthur Lee the principle: "While we are asking aid it is necessary to gratify the desires and in some sort comply with the humors of those we apply to. Our business now is to carry our point." Acting upon this rule of conciliation, he wrote, on July 10, to de Vergennes:-- "In this I am clear, that if the operation directed by Congress in their resolution of March the 18th occasions, from the necessity of the case, some inequality of justice, that inconvenience ought to fall wholly upon the inhabitants of the States, who reap with it the advantages obtained by the measure; and that the greatest care should be taken that foreign merchants, particularly the French, who are our creditors, do not suffer by it. This I am so confident the Congress will do that I do not think any representations of mine necessary to persuade them to it. I shall not fail, however, to lay the whole before them." In pursuance of this promise Franklin wrote on August 9 a full narrative of the entire matter; it was a fair and temperate statement of facts which it was his duty to lay before Congress.[75] Before sending it he wrote to Adams that de Vergennes, "having taken much amiss some passages in your letter to him, sent the whole correspondence to me, requesting that I would transmit it to Congress. I was myself sorry to see those passages. If they were the effects merely of inadvertence, and you do not, on reflection, approve of them, perhaps you may think it proper to write something for effacing the impressions made by them. I do not presume to advise you; but mention it only for your consideration." But Adams had already taken his own measures for presenting the case before Congress. [Note 75: Franklin's _Works_, vii. 110-112.] Such is the full story of Franklin's doings in this affair. His connection with it was limited to an effort to counteract the mischief which another had done. Whether he thought that the "inconvenience" which "_ought_ to fall" only on Americans could be arranged to do so, does not appear; probably he never concerned himself to work out a problem entirely outside his own department. As a diplomatist, who had to gain time for angry people to cool down for amicable discussion, he was content to throw out this general remark, and to express confidence that his countrymen would do liberal justice. So far as he was concerned, this should have been the end of the matter, and Adams should have been grateful to a man whose tranquil wisdom and skillful tact had saved him from the self-reproach which he would ever have felt had his well-intentioned, ill-timed act borne its full possible fruit of injury to the cause of the States. But Adams, who knew that his views were intrinsically correct, emerged from the imbroglio with an extreme resentment against his rescuer, nor was he ever able to see that Franklin did right in not reiterating the same views. He wished not to be saved but to be vindicated. The consequence has been unfortunate for Franklin, because the affair has furnished material for one of the counts in the indictment which the Adamses have filed against him before the bar of posterity. It may be remarked here that the few words which Franklin ever let drop concerning paper money indicate that he had given it little thought. He said that in Europe it seemed "a mystery," "a wonderful machine;" and there is no reason why he should have understood it better than other people in Europe. He also said that the general effect of the depreciation had operated as a gradual tax on the citizens, and "perhaps the most equal of all taxes, since it depreciated in the hands of the holders of money, and thereby taxed them in proportion to the sums they held and the time they held it, which is generally in proportion to men's wealth."[76] The remark could not keep a place in any very profound discussion of the subject; but it should be noted that in this point of view the contention of de Vergennes might be logically defended, on the ground that a foreigner ought not to be taxed like a citizen; but the insuperable difficulty of making the distinction practicable remained undisposed of. [Note 76: See also Franklin's _Works_, vii. 343.] CHAPTER XIV PEACE NEGOTIATIONS: LAST YEARS IN FRANCE The war had not been long waging before overtures and soundings concerning an accommodation, abetted and sometimes instigated by the cabinet, began to come from England. Nearly all these were addressed to Franklin, because all Europe persisted in regarding him as the one authentic representative of America, and because Englishmen of all parties had long known and respected him far beyond any other American. In March, 1778, William Pulteney, a member of Parliament, came under an assumed name to Paris and had an interview with him. But it seemed that England would not renounce the theory of the power of Parliament over the colonies, though willing by way of favor to forego its exercise. Franklin declared an arrangement on such a basis to be impossible. A few months later there occurred the singular and mysterious episode of Charles de Weissenstein. Such was the signature to a letter dated at Brussels, June 16, 1778. The writer said that independence was an impossibility, and that the English title to the colonies, being indisputable, would be enforced by coming generations even if the present generation should have to "stop awhile in the pursuit to recover breath;" he then sketched a plan of reconciliation, which included offices or life pensions for Franklin, Washington, and other prominent rebels. He requested a personal interview with Franklin, and, failing that, he appointed to be in a certain spot in Notre Dame at a certain hour, wearing a rose in his hat, to receive a written reply. The French police reported the presence at the time and place of a man obviously bent upon this errand, who was traced to his hotel and found, says John Adams, to be "Colonel Fitz-something, an Irish name, that I have forgotten." He got no answer, because at a consultation between the American commissioners and de Vergennes it was so decided. But one had been written by Franklin, and though de Weissenstein and Colonel Fitz-something never saw it, at least it has afforded pleasure to thousands of readers since that time. For by sundry evidence Franklin became convinced, even to the point of alleging that he "knew," that the incognito correspondent was the English monarch himself, whose letter the Irish colonel had brought. The extraordinary occasion inspired him. It is a rare occurrence when one can speak direct to a king as man with man on terms of real equality. Franklin seized his chance, and wrote a letter in his best vein, a dignified, vigorous statement of the American position, an eloquent, indignant arraignment of the English measures for which George III. more than any other one man was responsible. In language which was impassioned without being extravagant, he mingled sarcasm and retort, statement and argument, with a strenuous force that would have bewildered the royal "de Weissenstein." To this day one cannot read these stinging paragraphs without a feeling of disappointment that de Vergennes would not let them reach their destination. Such a bolt should have been sent hotly home, not dropped to be picked up as a curiosity by the groping historians of posterity. The good Hartley also was constantly toiling to find some common ground upon which negotiators could stand and talk. One of his schemes, which now seems an idle one, was for a long truce, during which passions might subside and perhaps a settlement be devised. Franklin ever lent a courteous ear to any one who spoke the word Peace. But neither this strong feeling, nor any discouragement by reason of American reverses, nor any arguments of Englishmen ever induced him to recede in the least from the line of demands which he thought reasonable, nor to abate his uncompromising plainness of speech. With the outbreak of war Franklin's feelings towards England had taken on that extreme bitterness which so often succeeds when love and admiration seem to have been misplaced. "I was fond to a folly," he said, "of our British connections, ... but the extreme cruelty with which we have been treated has now extinguished every thought of returning to it, and separated us forever. You have thereby lost limbs that will never grow again." English barbarities, he declared, "have at length demolished all my moderation." Often and often he reiterated such statements in burning words, which verge more nearly upon vehemence than any other reminiscence which survives to us of the great and calm philosopher. Yet in the bottom of his heart he felt that the chasm should not be made wider and deeper than was inevitable. In 1780 he told Hartley that Congress would fain have had him "make a school-book" from accounts of "British barbarities," to be illustrated by thirty-five prints by good artists of Paris, "each expressing one or more of the different horrid facts, ... in order to impress the minds of children and posterity with a deep sense of your bloody and insatiable malice and wickedness." He would not do this, yet was sorely provoked toward it. "Every kindness I hear of done by an Englishman to an American prisoner makes me resolve not to proceed in the work, hoping a reconciliation may yet take place. But every fresh instance of your devilism weakens that resolution, and makes me abominate the thought of a reunion with such a people." In point of fact the idea of an actual reunion seems never from the very outset to have had any real foothold in his mind. In 1779 he said: "We have long since settled all the account in our own minds. We know the worst you can do to us, if you have your wish, is to confiscate our estates and take our lives, to rob and murder us; and this ... we are ready to hazard rather than come again under your detested government."[77] This sentiment steadily gained strength as the struggle advanced. Whenever he talked about terms of peace he took a tone so high as must have seemed altogether ridiculous to English statesmen. Independence, he said, was established; no words need be wasted about that. Then he audaciously suggested that it would be good policy for England "to act nobly and generously; ... to cede all that remains in North America, and thus conciliate and strengthen a young power, which she wishes to have a future and serviceable friend." She would do well to "throw in" Canada, Nova Scotia, and the Floridas, and "call it ... an indemnification for the burning of the towns." [Note 77: See also a strong statement in letter to Hartley of October 14, 1777; _Works_, vii. 106.] Englishmen constantly warned him of the blunder which the colonies would commit, should they "throw themselves into the arms" of France, and they assured him that the alliance was the one "great stumbling-block in the way of making peace." But he had ever the reply, after the fashion of Scripture: By their fruits ye shall know them. France was as liberal of friendship and good services as England was of tyranny and cruelties. This was enough to satisfy Franklin; he saw no Judas in the constant and generous de Vergennes, and could recognize no inducement to drop the substance France for the shadow England.[78] To his mind it seemed to concern equally the honor and the interest of the States to stand closely and resolutely by their allies, whom to abandon would be "infamy;" and after all, what better bond could there be than a common interest and a common foe? From this view he never wavered to the hour when the definitive treaty of peace was signed.[79] [Note 78: See Franklin's _Works_, vi. 303.] [Note 79: See Franklin's _Works_, vi. 151, 303, 310; vii. 3, for examples of his expressions on this subject.] Such was Franklin's frame of mind when the surrender at Yorktown and the events incident to the reception of the news in England at last brought peace into really serious consideration. The States had already been forward to place themselves in a position for negotiating at the first possible moment. For in 1779 Congress had received from France an intimation that it would be well to have an envoy in Europe empowered to treat; and though it was seizing time very much by the forelock, yet that body was in no mood to dally with so pleasing a hint, and at once nominated John Adams to be plenipotentiary. This, however, by no means, fell in with the schemes of the French ministry, for de Vergennes knew and disliked Mr. Adams's very unmanageable character. Accordingly the French ambassador at Philadelphia was instructed to use his great influence with Congress to effect some amelioration of the distasteful arrangement, and he soon covertly succeeded in inducing Congress to create a commission by appointing Adams, Jay, Franklin, Jefferson, who never went on the mission, and Laurens, who was a prisoner in England and joined his colleagues only after the business had been substantially concluded. Adams promptly came to Paris, created a great turmoil there, as has been in part narrated, and passed on to Holland, where he still remained. Jay, accredited to, but not yet received by, the Spanish court, was at Madrid. Franklin therefore alone was on hand in Paris when the great tidings of the capture of Cornwallis came. It was on November 25, 1781, that Lord North got this news, taking it "as he would have taken a ball in his breast." He recognized at once that "all was over," yet for a short time longer he retained the management of affairs. But his majority in Parliament was steadily dwindling, and evidently with him also "all was over." In his despair he caught with almost pathetic eagerness at what for a moment seemed a chance to save his ministry by treating with the States secretly and apart from France. He was a man not troubled with convictions, and having been obstinate in conducting a war for which he really cared little, he was equally ready to save his party by putting an end to it with the loss of all that had been at stake. Franklin, however, decisively cut off that hope. America, he assured Hartley, would not forfeit the world's good opinion by "such perfidy;" and in the incredible event of Congress instructing its commissioners to treat upon "such ignominious terms," he himself at least "would certainly refuse to act." So Digges, whom Franklin described as "the greatest villain I ever met with," carried back no comfort from secret, tentative errands to Adams in Holland and to Franklin in France. Simultaneous furtive advances to de Vergennes met with a like rebuff. France and America were not to be separated; Lord North and his colleagues were not to be saved by the bad faith of either of their enemies. On February 22, 1782, an address to the king against continuing the American war was moved by Conway. It was carried by a majority of nineteen. A few days later a second, more pointed, address was carried without a division. The next day leave was granted to bring in a bill enabling the king to make a peace or a truce with the colonies. The game was up; the ministry held no more cards to play; on March 20 Lord North announced that his administration was at an end. In his shrewd, intelligent fashion, Franklin was watching these events, perfectly appreciating the significance of each in turn. On March 22 he seized an opportunity which chance threw in his way for writing to Lord Shelburne a short note, in which he suggested a hope that the "returning good disposition" of England towards America would "tend to produce a general peace." It was a note of a few lines only, seemingly a mere pleasant passage of courtesy to an old friend, but significant and timely, an admirable specimen of the delicate tact with which Franklin could meet and almost create opportunity. A few days later the cabinet of Lord Rockingham was formed, composed of the friends of America. In it Charles Fox was secretary for foreign affairs, and Lord Shelburne had the home department, including the colonies. No sooner were the new ministers fairly instated than Shelburne dispatched Richard Oswald, a retired Scotch merchant, of very estimable character, of good temper, reasonable views, and sufficient ability, to talk matters over with Franklin at Paris. Oswald arrived on April 12, and had satisfactory interviews with Franklin and de Vergennes. The important fact of which he became satisfied by the explicit language of Franklin was, that the hope of inducing the American commissioners to treat secretly and separately from France was utterly groundless.[80] After a few days he went back to London, carrying a letter from Franklin to Shelburne, in which Franklin expressed his gratification at these overtures and his hope that Oswald might continue to represent the English minister. Oswald also carried certain "Notes for Conversation," which Franklin had written out; "some loose thoughts on paper," as he called them, "which I intended to serve as memorandums for my discourse, but without a fixed intention of showing them to him." As matters turned out later, it would have been better if Franklin had not been quite so free with these "memorandums," which contained a suggestion that the English should cede Canada and the Americans should recoup the losses of the royalists. Indeed, no sooner had the paper left his hands than he saw his error, and was "a little ashamed of his weakness." The letter only was shown to the whole cabinet. [Note 80: About the same time Laurens was released on parole and sent to confer with Adams in Holland, concerning a separate treating, and brought from Adams the like response as Oswald brought from Franklin.] On May 5 Oswald was again in Paris, charged to discuss terms with Franklin. But on May 7 there arrived also Thomas Grenville, deputed by Fox to approach de Vergennes with the design not only of treating with France, but also of treating with the States through France. The double mission indicated a division in the English cabinet. Fox and Shelburne were almost as hostile to each other as were both to Lord North; and each was aiming to control the coming negotiations with the States. Which should secure it was a nice question. For English purposes of classification the States, until independence was acknowledged, remained colonies, and so within the charge of Shelburne. Hence came Fox's scheme for reaching them indirectly through France, also his avowed willingness to recognize their independence immediately, for foreign business belonged to him. Shelburne, on the other hand, strenuously resisted this; at worst, as he thought, independence must come through a treaty, and with equivalents. Moreover it seems that he cherished an odd, half-defined notion, apparently altogether peculiar to himself, that he might escape the humiliation of a grant of full independence, and in place thereof might devise some sort of "federal union." Perhaps it was out of this strange fancy that there grew at this time a story that the States were to be reconciled and joined to Great Britain by a gift of the same measure of autonomy enjoyed by Ireland. When Oswald and Franklin next met, they made at first little progress; each seemed desirous to keep himself closed while the other unfolded. The result was that Franklin wrote, with unusual _naïveté_: "On the whole I was able to draw so little of the sentiments of Lord Shelburne ... that I could not but wonder at his being again sent to me." At the same time Grenville was offering to de Vergennes to acknowledge the independence of the United States, provided that in other respects the treaty of 1763[81] should be reinstated. That is to say, France was to agree to a complete restoration of the _status quo ante bellum_ in every respect so far as her own interests were concerned, and to accept as the entire recompense for all her expenditures of money and blood a benefit accruing to the American States. This was a humorous assumption of the ingenuousness of her most disinterested protestations. The French minister, we are told, "seemed to smile" at this compliment to the unselfishness of his chivalrous nation,[82] and replied that the American States were making no request to England for independence. As Franklin happily expressed it: "This seems to me a proposition of selling to us a thing that was already our own, and making France pay the price they [the English] are pleased to ask for it." But the design of weaning the States from France, in the treating, was obvious. [Note 81: Made between England and France at the close of the last war, in which France had lost Canada.] [Note 82: "The Peace Negotiations of 1782-83," etc., by John Jay; in Winsor's _Narr. and Crit. Hist. of America_, vol. vii.] Grenville, thus checked, next tried to see what he could do with Franklin in the way of separate negotiation. But he only elicited a statement that the States were under no obligations save those embodied in the treaties of alliance and commerce with France, and a sort of intimation, which might be pregnant of much or of little, that if the purpose of the former were achieved through the recognition of independence, then the commercial treaty alone would remain. This somewhat enigmatical remark doubtless indicated nothing more than that the States would not continue active and aggressive hostilities in order to further purely French designs. Clearly it would depend upon the demands of France whether the States might not find themselves in a somewhat delicate position. Their obligation to make no separate peace with England had been contracted upon the basis that France should ally herself with them to obtain their independence; and the injury expected to result therefrom to England, with the chance of commercial advantages accruing to France, had been regarded as a full consideration. Yet it would seem ungrateful, to say the least, to step out of the fight and leave France in it, and to refuse to back her demands for the recoupment of some of the losses which she had suffered in the previous war. But now the French alliance with Spain threatened grave complications; she had joined France in the war, and the two powers were held closely together by the Bourbon family interests. Spain now had demands of her own in the way of territory on the American continent, where she had made extensive conquests, and even for the cession of Gibraltar. But the States owed little to Spain, vastly less, indeed, than they had tried to owe to her; for their incessant begging had elicited only small sums, and they were more irritated at their failure to obtain much than thankful for the trifles they had extorted. So they now easily and gladly took the position of entire freedom from any obligation, either by treaty or of honor, towards that power. But in the probable event of France standing by Spain, peace might be deferred for the benefit of a country with which the States had no lien, unless the States could treat separately. It was not within the purview of the treaty that they should remain tied to France for such purposes; and to this purport Fox wrote to Grenville. But though it might be tolerably easy to enunciate a theory by which the States could justly control their own affairs, with no regard to France, it was only too probable that the application of that theory to circumstances would be a very nice and perplexing task. It strongly behooved a new country to preserve its good name and its friendships. If Fox had been able to carry his point, matters might have moved more expeditiously. But pending the struggle between him and Shelburne no advance could be made at Paris. Grenville and Oswald could not work in unison. Franklin and de Vergennes became puzzled and suspicious, having only an imperfect inkling by report and gossip concerning the true state of affairs. They suspected, with good show of evidence, that the real object of English diplomacy was to drive in a wedge between the allies. Amid these perplexities, on April 22, Franklin wrote to Jay, begging him to come to Paris: "Here you are greatly wanted, for messengers begin to come and go, ... and I can neither make nor agree to conditions of peace without the assistance of my colleagues.... I wish therefore you would ... render yourself here as soon as possible. You would be of infinite service." Jay arrived on June 23, to Franklin's "great satisfaction," and the meeting was cordial. Jay was thirty-seven years old, and Franklin was seventy-six, but Jay says: "His mind appears more vigorous than that of any man of his age I have known. He certainly is a valuable minister and an agreeable companion." The deadlock continued. Grenville showed a commission to treat with France and "any other prince or state." But the "enabling act," giving the king authority to acknowledge the independence of the States, had not yet been passed by Parliament; and it did not appear that England recognized the ex-colonies as constituting either a prince or a state. Oswald had no commission at all. Franklin, though he found himself "in some perplexity with regard to these two negotiations," strove to set things in motion. He preferred Oswald to Grenville, and intimated to Lord Shelburne his wish that Oswald should receive exclusive authority to treat with the American commissioners. He at the same time suggested sundry _necessary_ articles to be disposed of by the treaty, namely: independence, boundaries, and the fisheries; and sundry _advisable_ articles, namely: an indemnity to be granted by England to the sufferers by the war; an acknowledgment of her error by England, and the cession of Canada. But the duel between Shelburne and Fox must first be settled, and it was now about to be settled suddenly and in an unexpected manner. On July 1, 1782, Lord Rockingham died, and the crown, as Walpole facetiously remarked, thereby descended to the king of England. The monarch at once, though very reluctantly, requested Shelburne to accept the post of prime minister, regarding him as in some degree less obnoxious than Fox. Thereupon Fox and his friends retired in high dudgeon from office, and Grenville promptly asked to be recalled. His opportune request was granted very readily, and his place was given to Fitzherbert, who brought personal letters to Franklin, but who was not accredited to treat with the States. It seemed that this business was now again to fall into the hands of Oswald, and accordingly, though he still remained without any definite authority, active discussion was resumed between him and Franklin. Early in August both believed that an understanding upon all important points had been reached. Jay had been ill almost ever since his arrival in Paris, and was only now recovering; Adams was still in Holland; so that Franklin and Oswald had had the whole matter between themselves. Just at this time Parliament rose; and Shelburne sent Vaughan to Paris to give private assurance to Franklin that there would be no change in policy towards America. A commission was at the same time drawn up and sent to Oswald empowering him to treat with commissioners of the "colonies or plantations, and any body or bodies corporate or politic, or any assembly or assemblies." This singular phraseology at once produced trouble. Jay indignantly repudiated the colonial condition imputed by this language, and resolutely said that independence must be no item in any treaty, but must be recognized before he would even begin to treat. The point was discussed by him with de Vergennes and Franklin. The French minister at first had "objected to these general words as not being particular enough;" but now he changed his mind and advised not to stickle; for independence must be the result of the treaty, and it was not to be expected that the effect should precede the cause. Franklin, with evident hesitation and reluctance,[83] gave his opinion that the commission "would do." Oswald then showed his instructions, which directed him to concede "the complete independence of the thirteen States." Unfortunately the enabling act had not even yet passed, so that there was some doubt as to the power of the ministers to agree to this. Jay's determination remained unchanged; for he suspected that the motives of de Vergennes were not disinterested, and thought that Franklin was hoodwinked by his French predilections. Franklin, on the other hand, thought that the minister wished only to expedite the negotiation as much as possible, a matter in which he himself also was very zealous; for he understood the English political situation and knew that Shelburne's tenure of power was precarious, and that any possible successor of Shelburne would be vastly less well-disposed to the States. This induced him to stretch a point in order to go on with the treating. Parliament was to meet on November 26, and unless peace could be concluded before that time, the chance for it thereafter would be diminished almost to the point of hopelessness. But Adams wrote from Holland that he also disapproved the unusual form of the commission, though a commission to treat with envoys of "the United States of America" would satisfy him, as a sufficient implication of independence without an explicit preliminary acknowledgment of it. [Note 83: Franklin's _Works_, viii. 99, 101, 150, note.] About the middle of August Jay drew up a letter, suggesting very ingeniously that it was incompatible with the dignity of the king of England to negotiate except with an independent power; also that an obstacle which meant everything to the States, but nothing to Great Britain, should be removed by his majesty. Franklin thought that the letter expressed too positively the resolve not to treat save upon this basis of pre-acknowledged independence. He evidently did not wish to bolt too securely the door through which he anticipated that the commissioners might in time feel obliged to withdraw. Moreover Jay thought that at this time "the doctor seemed to be much perplexed and fettered by our instructions to be guided by the advice of this court," a direction correctly supposed to have been procured by the influence of the French envoy at Philadelphia. Jay's suspicions concerning the French minister happened now to receive opportune corroboration. On September 4 Rayneval, secretary to de Vergennes, had a long interview with Jay concerning boundaries, in which he argued strongly against the American claims to the western lands lying between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. This touched Jay nearly, for the navigation of the Mississippi was the one object which he had especially at heart. Six days later the famous letter of Marbois, de la Luzerne's secretary, which had been captured _en route_ from Philadelphia to de Vergennes at Paris, was put into the hands of Jay through the instrumentality of the English cabinet. This outlined a scheme for a secret understanding between England and France to deprive the Americans of the Newfoundland fisheries. This evidence seemed to prove Jay's case; yet Franklin remained strangely unshaken by it, for he reflected that it came from the British ministry and was infected with suspicion by this channel. But still another occurrence came to strengthen Jay's conviction of some latent hostility in the French policy, for he learned that Rayneval was making a rapid and secret journey to London. He felt sure that this errand was to intimate to Shelburne that France did not incline to support the demands of her American allies. In the fullness of his faith he took a courageous, very unconventional, but eminently successful step. He persuaded Vaughan to hasten to London, and to present sundry strong arguments going to show that it was the true policy of England to grant the demands of the States rather than to fall in with the subtle plans of France. He felt with regret that he could not consult Franklin regarding this proceeding, which he undertook upon his own sole responsibility. It put Shelburne in a singular position, as arbiter between two nations enemies of England and allies of each other, but each manoeuvring to secure its own advantage at the cost of its friend, and to that end presuming to advise him upon English interests. He did not ponder long before accepting the American arguments as the better, and deciding that the English policy was rather to be liberal towards a kindred people than to unite with a traditional foe in curtailing their prosperity. He said to Vaughan: "Is the new commission necessary?" "It is," replied Vaughan; and his lordship at once gave orders for making it out. Had he fallen in with the French ideas, he would, upon the contrary, have cherished this disagreement for a while, in order finally to sell out a concession on this point at the price of some such substantial matter as the fisheries or the western lands. Forthwith Vaughan was on his way back to Paris, accompanied by a messenger who carried the amended document empowering Oswald to treat with the commissioners of the "Thirteen United States of America, viz.: New Hampshire," etc., naming them all. "We have put the greatest confidence, I believe, ever placed in man, in the American commissioners. It is now to be seen how far they or America are to be depended upon.... There never was such a risk run; I hope the public will be the gainer, else our heads must answer for it, and deservedly." Such were the grave and anxious words of the prime minister. Upon the receipt of this commission negotiations were actively resumed, Franklin and Jay on one side, Oswald alone on the other. The old ground was gone over again. On October 5-8, both parties assented to a sketch of a treaty, which Oswald transmitted to London for consideration by the ministry. But the raising of the siege of Gibraltar, and reflection upon the probable results of the incipient estrangement between American interests and those of France and Spain, now induced the English to hope for more favorable terms in some particulars. So instead of adopting this draft they sent over Mr. Strachey, a man especially well informed concerning the disputed boundaries, to reinforce Oswald in an effort to obtain modifications on these points. Meantime another serious difference of opinion was developed between Franklin and Jay. The influence of de Vergennes at Philadelphia had by no means been exhausted in securing colleagues for Mr. Adams. He had further desired to have the American envoys instructed that no American demands outside of independence must be allowed to interpose obstacles in the way of French purposes. In this he had been wholly successful. Of the demands which Congress had at first intended to insist upon, one after another was reduced to a mere recommendation, until at last independence alone was left as an absolute and definitive ultimatum. Moreover the closing paragraph of the instructions actually bade the envoys to maintain constant communication with their generous ally the king of France, and in the last resort to be governed in all matters by his advice. This servility had raised the ire of Jay almost to the point of inducing him to refuse a post so hedged around with humiliation. With his views concerning the intentions of de Vergennes it now seemed to him intolerable to jeopard American interests by placing them at the mercy of a cabinet which unmistakably, as it seemed to him, designed to sacrifice them to its own ends. Accordingly he was for disobeying this unworthy instruction of Congress, and for conducting the negotiation in strict secrecy as towards the French minister. But Franklin was no less resolute on the other side. His established and grateful confidence in de Vergennes remained unshaken, and he saw no error in consulting the wisest, and by all proofs the best and truest friend whom the States had ever had. Moreover he saw that the orders of Congress were imperative. It was a serious division. Fortunately it was soon settled by the advent of John Adams, about the end of October. That gentleman, prompt, fearless, and suspicious, at once fell in with Jay's views. In a long evening's talk he apparently read Franklin a pretty severe lecture, and certainly ranged himself very positively on Jay's side. Franklin listened to his vehement colleague, and at the moment held his peace in his wise way. It was true that Adams brought the casting vote, though Franklin of course might resist, and could make his resistance effectual by communicating to de Vergennes all which passed, and in so doing he would be backed by the authority and orders of Congress. But he determined not to pursue this course. When next they all met for conference he turned to Jay and said: "I am of your opinion, and will go on without consulting this court." This was all that passed when thus for a second time Franklin surrendered. Nothing indicates by what motives he was influenced. Some writers suggest that he had a lurking notion that Jay's views were not altogether ill founded; but later he declared the contrary.[84] Others fancy that he simply yielded to a majority vote. To me it seems more probable that, weighing comparative importance, he gave in to what he conceived to be the supreme necessity of advancing to a speedy conclusion; for, as has been said, he keenly appreciated that time was pressing. Parliament was to meet in a few weeks, on November 26, and it daily became more evident that if a treaty was to be made at all, it must be consummated before that date. Now, as in the question concerning the preliminary acknowledgment of independence, peace overruled all considerations of minor points. [Note 84: Franklin's _Works_, viii. 305, 306.] If this was indeed his end, he achieved it, for negotiations were now zealously pushed. The important question of the western boundaries and the navigation of the Mississippi was the especial concern of Jay. Spain covertly wished to see the States worsted upon these demands, and confined between the Alleghanies and the sea; and the Bourbon family compact influenced France to concur with the Spanish plans. But in the secret treating Jay prevailed. The fisheries were the peculiar affair of Adams, as the representative of New England. France would fain have had the States shut out from them altogether; but Adams carried the day. Some concessions were made concerning the collection of debts owing in the States to Englishmen, and then there remained only the matter of indemnification to American royalists. Upon this the fight was waged with zeal by all; yet Franklin had the chief responsibility to bear. For there now arose to plague him that unfortunate proposition of his for the cession of Canada and the restoration of confiscated Tory property in the States. This encouraged the English and gave them a sort of argument. Moreover the indemnification was "uppermost in Lord Shelburne's mind," because, unlike other matters, it seemed a point of honor. With what face could the ministry meet Parliament with a treaty deserting all those who had been faithful to their king? It was indeed a delicate position, and the English were stubborn; but no less so was Franklin, upon the other side. With the great province of Canada as an offset, or quasi fund, the States might have assumed such an obligation, but without it, never. Further the American commissioners reiterated the explanation often given: that Congress had no power in the premises, for the matter lay within the sovereign jurisdiction of each State. This argument, however, really amounted to nothing; for if the fact was so, it behooved the States to give their agent, the Congress, any power that was necessary for making a fair treaty; and England was not to be a loser by reason of defects in the American governmental arrangements. For a while it really seemed that the negotiation would be wrecked upon this issue, so immovable was each side. As Vaughan wrote: "If England wanted to break, she could not wish for better ground on _her_ side. _You_ do not break, and therefore I conclude you both sincere. But in this way I see the treaty is likely of _itself_ to break." Franklin now ingeniously counteracted his earlier imprudence by reviving an old suggestion of his, that immense claims might be preferred against England on behalf of Americans whose property had been wantonly destroyed, especially by the burning and plundering of towns, and he actually presented an article providing for such compensation, and an elaborate written paper sustaining it.[85] At last the Englishmen sought final instructions from Lord Shelburne. He replied with spirit that it should be understood that England was not yet in a position to submit to "humiliation," least of all at the hands of Americans; but finally he so far yielded as to say that indemnification need not be absolutely an ultimatum. This settled the matter; the negotiators who _could_ yield _must_ yield, and they did so. A sort of compromise article was inserted: "that Congress should recommend to the state legislatures to restore the estates, rights, and properties of real British subjects." The American envoys knew that this was worthless, and the English negotiators certainly were not deceived. But the article sounded well, and gave at least a standing ground for the ministry to defend themselves.[86] [Note 85: Franklin's _Works_, viii. 218, text and note.] [Note 86: It is not without interest in this connection to remark that Franklin was very ill disposed towards the "loyalists," having scant toleration for their choice of a party. For a man of his liberality and moderation his language concerning them was severe. He objected to calling them "loyalists," thinking "royalists" a more correct description. To indemnification of their losses by Parliament he had "no objection," for the damnatory reason that "even a hired assassin has a right to his pay from his employer." Franklin's _Works_, ix. 133. He often spoke in the like tone about these people. See, for example, _Works_, ix. 70, 72. But when the war was over and the natural mildness of his disposition could resume its sway, he once at least spoke more gently of them. _Ibid_. 415.] On November 30 the articles were at last signed, with the stipulation that they were for the present merely preliminary and provisional, and that they should be executed as a definitive treaty only simultaneously with the execution of a treaty of peace between France and England. The business was finished none too soon. In order to cover it the meeting of Parliament had been postponed until December 5. The danger which had been escaped, and which would not have been escaped had Franklin had a less correct appreciation of relative values in the negotiation, at once became apparent. The howl of condemnation swelled loud in the House of Commons; it was felt that the ministry had made not a treaty but a "capitulation." The unfortunate Shelburne was driven out of power, pursued by an angry outcry from persons altogether incapable of appreciating the sound statesmanship and the wise forecast of the future advantage of England which he had shown in preferring to give the colonies a chance to become a great, English-speaking, English-sympathizing, commercial people, rather than to feed fat the aspirations of France and Spain. These proceedings would have been good evidence, had evidence been wanting, that the American commissioners had done a brilliant piece of work. De Vergennes also added his testimony, saying: "The English have bought the peace rather than made it." If the original instructions given to Oswald are compared with the treaty it will be found that England had conceded much; on the other hand the Americans, with no ultimatum save independence, had gained in substance all that they had dared seriously to insist upon. One would think that Franklin, Jay, and Adams had fairly won warm gratitude at the hands of their countrymen. Posterity, at least since the publication of long suppressed private papers and archives has shown what powerful occult influences were at work to thwart them, regards their achievement with unlimited admiration. But at that time a different feeling prevailed. No sooner were the preliminary or provisional articles signed than Franklin informed de Vergennes of the fact. That minister was much surprised. He had been quietly biding his time, expecting to be invoked when the English and the Americans should find themselves stopped by that deadlock which he had done his best to bring about by his secret intimations to England. He was now astonished to learn that England had not availed herself of his astute suggestions, but had given terms which the Americans had gladly accepted. The business was all done, and the clever diplomat had not had his chance. At first he said nothing, but for a few days pondered the matter. Then on December 15 he disburdened his mind in a very sharp letter to Franklin. "I am at a loss," he wrote, "to explain your conduct and that of your colleagues on this occasion. You have concluded your preliminary articles without any communication between us, although the instructions from Congress prescribe that nothing shall be done without the participation of the king. You are about to hold out a certain hope of peace to America, without even informing yourself of the state of the negotiation on our part. You are wise and discreet, sir; you perfectly understand what is due to propriety; you have all your life performed your duties; I pray you consider how you propose to fulfill those which are due to the king." Franklin found himself in a painful position; for he could by no means deny that he had duties, or at least something very near akin to duties, to the king, imposed upon him by numerous and weighty obligations which at his request had been conferred upon him and accepted by him on behalf of the American people. The violation of the instructions of Congress gave to the secret treating too much the air of an insulting distrust, of the throwing over a friend when he had been sufficiently used; for whatever might be suspected, it could by no means be proved that de Vergennes was not still the sincere friend which he certainly long had been. This bore hard upon Franklin. The policy which in fact had been forced upon him against his will by his colleagues was now made a matter of personal reproach against him especially, because he was persistently regarded as the head and front of the commission; no European yet dreamed of considering any other American as of much consequence in any matter in which Franklin was concerned. During long years de Vergennes had been his constant and efficient adviser and assistant in many a day of trial and of stress, and Franklin believed him to be still an honest well-wisher to the States. Moreover it actually was only a very few weeks since Franklin had applied for and obtained a new loan at a time when the king was so pressed for his own needs that a lottery was projected, and bills drawn by his own officials were going to protest. All this made the secrecy which had been practiced seem almost like duplicity on Franklin's part, and he felt keenly the ill light in which he was placed. It is true that if he had known then all that we know now, his mind would have been at ease; but he did not know it, and he was seriously disturbed at the situation into which he had been brought. But his usual skill did not desert him, and his reply was aptly framed and prompt. "Nothing," he said, "had been agreed in the preliminaries contrary to the interests of France; and no peace is to take place between us and England till you have concluded yours. Your observation is, however, apparently just that, in not consulting you before they were signed, we have been guilty of neglecting a point of _bienséance_. But as this was not from want of respect for the king, whom we all love and honor, we hope it will be excused, and that the great work which has hitherto been so happily conducted, is so nearly brought to perfection, and is so glorious to his reign, will not be ruined by a single indiscretion of ours. And certainly the whole edifice sinks to the ground immediately if you refuse on that account to give us any further assistance.... It is not possible for any one to be more sensible than I am of what I and every American owe to the king for the many and great benefits and favors he has bestowed upon us.... _The English, I just now learn, flatter themselves they have already divided us._ I hope this little misunderstanding will, therefore, be kept a secret, and that they will find themselves totally mistaken." This letter in a measure accomplished its soothing errand. Yet de Vergennes did not refrain from writing to de la Luzerne that "the reservation retained on our account does not save the infraction of the promise, which we have mutually made, not to sign except conjointly;" and he said that it would be "proper that the most influential members of Congress should be informed of the very irregular conduct of their commissioners in regard to us," though "not in the tone of complaint." "I accuse no person," he added, "not even Dr. Franklin. He has yielded too easily to the bias of his colleagues, who do not pretend to recognize the rules of courtesy in regard to us. All their attentions have been taken up by the English whom they have met in Paris." So soon as the facts were known in the States expressions of condemnation were lavished upon the commissioners by members of Congress who thought that the secrecy as towards France was an inexcusable slight to a generous and faithful ally. Livingston, as secretary for foreign affairs, wrote to the envoys, commending the treaty, but finding fault with the manner of attaining it. Jay, angered at the injustice of a reproof which belonged more especially to him, drew up an exculpatory statement. But Franklin, showing his usual good sense and moderation, sought to mitigate Jay's indignation, drew all the sting out of the document, and insisted upon leaving the vindication to time and second thoughts. For his own part Franklin not only had to take his full share of the reproaches heaped upon the commissioners for insulting France, but upon the other hand he was violently assaulted on the quite opposite ground, that he had desired to be too subservient to that power. Many persons insisted that he "favored, or did not oppose," the designs of France to rule out the States from the fisheries, and to curtail their boundaries; and that it was only due to the "firmness, sagacity, and disinterestedness" of Jay and Adams that these mischiefs were escaped. Such were the fault-findings and criminations to which the diplomatic complexities, which it was impossible then to unravel, gave rise. Fortunately they were soon rendered mere personal and abstract disputes, of little practical consequence, by the simultaneous execution of definitive treaties by France and the United States with Great Britain on September 3, 1783. Many efforts had been made to insert additional articles, especially as to commercial matters; but they were all abortive. The establishment of peace had exhausted the capacity of the States and England to agree together; and the pressure of war being removed, they at once fell into very inimical attitudes. So the definitive treaty was substantially identical with the provisional one. Franklin, after a while, finding that these charges of his having preferred France to his own country were being reiterated with such innuendoes as to bring his integrity into serious question, felt it necessary to appeal to his colleagues for vindication. He wrote to them a modest, manly letter,[87] and in reply received from Jay a generous testimonial,[88] and from Adams a carefully narrow acquittal.[89] The subsequent publication of Franklin's papers written at, and long before, the time of the negotiation, shows that he was inclined to demand from Great Britain fully as much as any American upon either side of the ocean. [Note 87: _Works_, viii. 340; and see _Ibid._ 353.] [Note 88: _Ibid._ 350.] [Note 89: _Ibid._ 354.] In taking leave of the subject it is interesting to know that in point of fact the secret action of the American commissioners was very nearly fraught with serious injury to France. For when the States were practically eliminated from active war by the signing of the provisional articles, five members of Shelburne's cabinet were in favor of breaking off negotiations with France, and continuing the contest with her.[90] [Note 90: I have not endeavored to give a detailed account of this negotiation, though the narrative would be very interesting, because it finds its proper place in the life of _John Jay_ in this Series. In that volume there is a very full and accurate presentation of this entire affair, drawn from those sources which have only very recently become public, and which go far to remove former questions out of the realm of discussion.] During the negotiation Franklin wrote to Laurens: "I have never yet known of a peace made that did not occasion a great deal of popular discontent, clamor, and censure on both sides, ... so that the blessing promised to peacemakers, I fancy, relates to the next world, for in this they seem to have a greater chance of being cursed." The prognostication was fulfilled. The act which gave peace to the warring nations brought anything but good will among the American negotiators. Jay was so just, conscientious, and irreproachable a gentleman in every respect that he escaped unvexed by any personal quarrel; moreover he was not so distinguished as to have become the victim of envy and jealousy. But the antipathy previously so unhappily existing between Franklin and Adams became greatly aggravated, and their respective advocates in historical literature have not to this day reached an accord. Adams was a relentless hater, and has bequeathed bitter diatribes, which, as they can never be obliterated, can never cease to excite the ire of the admirers of Franklin. On the other side, Franklin has at least the merit of having left not a malicious line behind him. I have no mind to endeavor to apportion merits and demerits between these two great foemen, able men and true patriots both, having no room for these personalities of history, which, though retaining that kind of interest always pertaining to a feud, are really very little profitable. Perhaps, after all, the discussion would prove to be not unlike the classic one which led two knights to fight about the golden-silver shield. Yet one dispute, which has been long waged, no longer admits of doubt. The suspicions of the good faith of de Vergennes which Jay first entertained, which Adams adopted, and which Franklin rejected, were undoubtedly correct. As the years go by and collections of private papers and of hitherto suppressed public archives find their way to the light, the accumulated evidence to this effect has become overwhelming. Such being the case, it must be admitted that the vital merit in the conduct of this difficult negotiation rests with Jay; that Adams has the credit belonging to one who accepts a correct view when presented to him; and that Franklin did more wisely than he knew in twice assenting to a course which seemed to him based upon erroneous beliefs. There is abundant evidence that from the very outset Franklin was not less resolute than was Adams about the fisheries; and that he was in perfect accord with Jay about the western boundaries and the Mississippi; though Adams and Jay did most of the talking concerning these subjects, respectively. When it came to the even more difficult matter of the royalists, Franklin in turn took the laboring oar. So far therefore as the three cardinal points of the negotiation were concerned honors were very evenly divided. But the value of Franklin's contribution to the treating is not to be measured either by his backwardness in supporting Jay in certain points, or by his firm attitude about boundaries, royalists, and fisheries. All these things he had outlined and arranged with Oswald at an early stage in the negotiating. Later he fell seriously ill and was for a long while in no fit condition for work. Yet the treaty seemed to be made under his auspices. In reading the great quantity of diaries and correspondence which relate to the transactions, many a passage indicates the sense of respect with which he was looked up to. The high opinion entertained of his ability, integrity, and fair-mindedness influenced very powerfully the minds of the English ministry and their envoys. "I am disposed," said Shelburne, "to expect everything from Dr. Franklin's comprehensive understanding and character." The like feeling, strengthened by personal confidence and regard, went far to keep de Vergennes from untimely intermeddling and from advancing embarrassing claims of supervision. Altogether, it was again the case that Franklin's prestige in Europe was invaluable to America, and it is certainly true that beneath its protection Jay and Adams were able to do their work to advantage. Had they stood alone they would have encountered difficulties which would have seriously curtailed their efforts.[91] It is truth and not theory that Franklin's mere name and presence were sufficient to balance the scale against the abilities and the zeal of both his coadjutors. [Note 91: See, for example, Franklin's _Works_, viii. 29, 67, note, 69, 70, 77, 109, 112, note, 133, note, 260.] It seems hardly necessary to endeavor to palliate Franklin's error in failing to detect the duplicity of de Vergennes. On the contrary, it would give a less agreeable idea of him had he been ready to believe so ill of an old and tried friend. For years Franklin had been the medium through whom had passed countless benefits from France to the States, benefits of which many had been costly and inconvenient for the giver; he had been treated with high consideration at this court, when no other court in all Europe would even receive an American ambassador; he had enjoyed every possible token of esteem and confidence both personally and in his official capacity; he had ever found fair words backed by no less fair deeds. In short, the vast mass of visible evidence seemed to him to lie, and in fact did lie, all on one side. On September 13, 1781, writing to the president of Congress, he said that de Vergennes had just read to him a copy of the instructions prepared by Congress for the commissioners, and that the minister "expressed his satisfaction with the unreserved confidence placed in his court by the Congress, assuring me that they would never have cause to regret it, for that the king had the honor of the United States at heart, as well as their welfare and independence. Indeed, this has been already manifested in the negotiations relative to the plenipotentiaries; and I have already had so much experience of his majesty's goodness to us, in the aids afforded us from time to time, and by the sincerity of this upright and able minister, who never promised me anything that he did not punctually perform, that I cannot but think the confidence well and judiciously placed, and that it will have happy effects." Every event in the history of many years made it natural and right for Franklin to feel in this way; and it surely was no cause for distrust that de Vergennes had had the interest of France in mind as an original motive for aiding America, when throughout the war Franklin had witnessed France straining every nerve and taxing every resource to aid her ally, in perfect sincerity; and when also, upon the suggestion of negotiations, he had just seen de Vergennes adhere rigidly to his word to do no treating save collaterally with the Americans, and refuse to take advantage of Grenville's efforts to reach the Americans through the French minister. Even though de Vergennes had disapproved the delay caused by Jay's objection to the form of the commission, still he had honorably stayed his own negotiation until that matter was favorably settled. Early in the negotiations Grenville said to Franklin that the States owed no gratitude to France, since she had in fact only promoted her own interests. The remark excited Franklin's indignation, and he says: "I told him I was so strongly impressed with the kind assistance afforded us by France in our distress, and the generous and noble manner in which it was granted, without extracting or stipulating for a single privilege or particular advantage to herself in our commerce, or otherwise, that I could never suffer myself to think of such reasonings for lessening the obligation, and I hoped, and indeed did not doubt, but my countrymen were all of the same sentiments." The words do his heart none the less honor, because it has been since discovered that his confidence was too implicit. In truth de Vergennes had been extremely scrupulous and delicate throughout, in all matters which could fall within the observation of the Americans. At the outset he said to Franklin: the English "want to treat with us for you; but this the king will not agree to. He thinks it not consistent with the dignity of your state. You will treat for yourselves; and every one of the powers at war will make its own treaty. All that is necessary is that the treaties go hand in hand, and are all signed on the same day." Thus, to one who could believe de Vergennes, everything seemed fair and sincere, and Franklin at least had a right to believe de Vergennes. Furthermore it was not until negotiations actually began that the previous condition of French relationship, as Franklin had well known it for many years, underwent a sudden and complete change. Then at last were presented new temptations before which friendship and good faith could not stand, and each nation, keeping a decorous exterior, anxiously studied its own advantage. It was the trying hour when the spoils were to be divided. The States themselves preferred the profit of their enemy England to that of their half-friend Spain. Franklin did not appreciate this quick turning of the kaleidoscope, with the instant change of all the previous political proximities; in view of his age, his infirmities, his recent experience in France, and his habitual generous faith in his fellow men, this failure should give rise neither to surprise nor censure. *** In 1782, after signing the preliminary articles, Franklin a second time sent to Congress his resignation. He received no reply to this communication, and again, therefore, after the execution of the definitive treaty, he renewed his request to be relieved. But still Congress delayed. They wished to enter into commercial treaties with the European nations, and in spite of the rebukes which their chairman of the committee for foreign affairs had administered to Franklin, Jay, and Adams, they now showed no readiness to remove these gentlemen from the diplomatic service. Franklin accordingly remained in Paris, probably with no great reluctance, for he was attached to the place and the people, and his affection was warmly returned. It was a light labor to conduct the negotiations for the desired commercial treaties. Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, and even Morocco, all made advances to him almost immediately after the signing of the treaty of peace. For the most part he had the gratification of success. His last official act, just before his departure from Paris, was the signature of a treaty with Prussia, in which it was agreed to abolish privateering,[92] and to hold private property by land and sea secure from destruction in time of war. It was pleasant thus to be introducing his country to the handshaking, so to speak, of the old established nations of the world. So his life glided on agreeably. He was recognized as one of the most illustrious men living; and to enjoy such a reputation in Paris in those days, especially when it was supplemented by personal popularity, was to find one's self in the enjoyment of all which the world could bestow to make delightful days. [Note 92: See letter to Hartley, Franklin's _Works_, viii. 287.] In August, 1784, Jefferson arrived to assist in the commercial business. But it was not until March, 1785, that Congress at last voted that Franklin might "return to America as soon as convenient," and that Jefferson should succeed him as minister at the French court. Jefferson has borne good testimony to Franklin's situation, as he observed it. A few years later, in February, 1791, he wrote: "I can only therefore testify in general that there appeared to me more respect and veneration attached to the character of Dr. Franklin in France, than to that of any other person in the same country, foreign or native. I had opportunities of knowing particularly how far these sentiments were felt by the foreign ambassadors and ministers at the court of Versailles.... I found the ministers of France equally impressed with the talents and integrity of Dr. Franklin. The Count de Vergennes particularly gave me repeated and unequivocal demonstrations of his entire confidence in him." When Jefferson was asked: "C'est vous, Monsieur, qui remplace le Docteur Franklin?" he used to reply: "No one can replace him, sir; I am only his successor;" and we may be sure that the Frenchmen appreciated and fully agreed with an expression of courtesy which chimed so well with their own customs of speech. Later, in 1818, Jefferson wrote an interesting letter concerning the calumnies from which Franklin's reputation still suffered:-- "Dr. Franklin had many political enemies, as every character must which, with decision enough to have opinions, has energy and talent to give them effect on the feelings of the adversary opinion. These enmities were chiefly in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. In the former they were merely of the proprietary party. In the latter they did not commence till the Revolution, and then sprung chiefly from personal animosities, which, spreading by little and little, became at length of some extent. Dr. Lee was his principal calumniator, a man of much malignity, who, besides enlisting his whole family in the same hostility, was enabled, as the agent of Massachusetts with the British government, to infuse it into that State with considerable effect. Mr. Izard, the doctor's enemy also, but from a pecuniary transaction, never countenanced these charges against him. Mr. Jay, Silas Deane, Mr. Laurens, his colleagues also, ever maintained towards him unlimited confidence and respect. That he would have waived the formal recognition of our independence, I never heard on any authority worthy notice. As to the fisheries, England was urgent to retain them exclusively, France neutral, and I believe that, had they ultimately been made a _sine quâ non_, our commissioners (Mr. Adams excepted) would have relinquished them rather than have broken off the treaty. To Mr. Adams's perseverance alone, on that point, I have always understood we were indebted for their reservation. As to the charge of subservience to France, besides the evidence of his friendly colleagues before named, two years of my own service with him at Paris, daily visits, and the most friendly and confidential conversation, convince me it had not a shadow of foundation. He possessed the confidence of that government in the highest degree, insomuch that it may truly be said that they were more under his influence than he under theirs. The fact is that his temper was so amiable and conciliatory, his conduct so rational, never urging impossibilities, or even things unreasonably inconvenient to them, in short so moderate and attentive to their difficulties, as well as our own, that what his enemies called subserviency I saw was only that reasonable disposition which, sensible that advantages are not all to be on one side, yielding what is just and liberal, is the more certain of obtaining liberality and justice. Mutual confidence produces of course mutual influence, and this was all which subsisted between Dr. Franklin and the government of France."[93] [Note 93: Jefferson's _Works_, vii. 108.] When at last, in the summer of 1785, Franklin took his farewell of the much-loved land of France, the distinguished attentions which he received left no doubt of the admiration in which he was held. Indeed, many persons pressed him to remain in France, and three offered him homes in their own families, telling him that not even in America could he expect esteem and love so unalloyed as he enjoyed in France, and warning him also that he might not survive the voyage. But he said: "The desire of spending the little remainder of life with my family is so strong as to determine me to try at least whether I can bear the motion of the ship. If not, I must get them to set me ashore somewhere in the Channel and content myself to die in Europe." When the day of departure from Passy came "it seemed," said Jefferson, "as if the village had lost its patriarch." His infirmities rendered the motion of a carriage painful to him, and the king therefore placed at his disposal one of the queen's litters, which bore him by easy stages to the seacoast. He carried with him the customary complimentary portrait of the king; but it was far beyond the ordinary magnificence, for it was framed in a double circle of four hundred and eight diamonds, and was of unusual cost and beauty. On July 18 he arrived at Havre, and crossed the Channel to take ship at Portsmouth. The British government offset the discourtesy with which it was irritating Mr. Adams by ordering that the effects of Dr. Franklin's party should be exempt from the usual examination at the custom house. His old friend, the Bishop of St. Asaph, "America's constant friend," came to see him. So also did his Tory son, the ex-governor of New Jersey, with whom a sort of reconciliation had been patched up. He sailed with Captain, afterward Commodore, Truxton, who found him a most agreeable companion. Of all things in the world a sea voyage most induces to utter idleness, and it is a striking proof of the mental industry of this aged man that during the seven weeks of this summer passage across the Atlantic he wrote three essays, which remain among his best. But he never in his life found a few weeks in which his mind was relieved from enforced reflection upon affairs of business that he did not take his pen in hand for voluntary tasks. During the last eighteen months of his life in Paris all the social distractions incident to his distinguished position had not prevented his writing some of the best papers which he has bequeathed to literature. CHAPTER XV AT HOME: PRESIDENT OF PENNSYLVANIA: THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION: DEATH On September 12, 1785, the ship brought Franklin into Delaware Bay, and the next morning he rejoiced to find himself "in full view of dear Philadelphia." A multitude, filling the air with huzzas of salutation, greeted his landing and escorted him to his door. Private welcomes and public addresses poured in upon him. His health had been much improved by the sea air and rest, and he rejoiced, as his foot touched the streets of the town which after all his wanderings was his home, to feel himself by no means yet a worn-out man, though in fact he had seventy-nine years of a busy life behind him. His fellow citizens evidently thought that the reservoir which had been so bountiful could not yet be near exhaustion, and were resolved to continue their copious draughts upon it. They at once elected him to the State Council, of which he was made President; and, as he said, "I had not firmness enough to resist the unanimous desire of my country folks; and I find myself harnessed again in their service for another year. They engrossed the prime of my life. They have eaten my flesh, and seem resolved now to pick my bones." A visible and a natural pleasure lurks in the words; old age finds nothing sweeter than a tribute to the freshness of its powers; and especially Franklin saw in this honor a vindication against his maligners. From it he understood that, however some individuals might indulge in dislike and distrust, the overwhelming mass of his fellow citizens esteemed him as highly as he could wish. The distinction, however, cost posterity an unwelcome price, for it prevented further work on the autobiography, which otherwise would probably have been finished.[94] [Note 94: Franklin's _Works_, ix. 459.] He came into office as a peacemaker amid warring factions, and in the fulfillment of his functions gave such satisfaction that in 1786 he was unanimously reëlected; and the like high compliment was paid him again in the autumn of 1787. It was like Washington and the presidency: so long as he would consent to accept the office, no other candidate was thought of. He also took substantially the same course which had been taken by Washington as commander-in-chief concerning his pay; for he devoted his whole salary to public uses. He had the good fortune to be able to carry out his somewhat romantic, and for most persons impracticable, theory in this respect, because his private affairs were prospering. His investments in real estate in Philadelphia had risen greatly in value and in their income-producing capacity since the war, and he was now at least comfortably endowed with worldly goods. He still continued to ply his pen, and the just but annoying complaints which came from Great Britain, that English creditors could not collect their _ante-bellum_ debts from their American debtors, stimulated him to a bit of humor at which his own countrymen at least were sure to laugh, however little droll it might seem to Englishmen, who reasonably preferred good dollars to good jokes. "We may all remember the time," he wrote, "when our mother country, as a mark of her parental tenderness, emptied her gaols into our habitations, '_for the better peopling_,' as she expressed it, '_of the colonies_.' It is certain that no due returns have yet been made for these valuable consignments. We are therefore much in her debt on that account; and as she is of late clamorous for the payment of all we owe her, and some of our debts are of a kind not so easily discharged, I am for doing, however, what is in our power. It will show our good will as to the rest. The felons she planted among us have produced such an amazing increase that we are now enabled to make ample remittance in the same commodity," etc., etc. Nevertheless these English assaults nettled him not a little; and further he dreaded their possible influence in the rest of Europe outside of England. The English newspapers teemed with accounts of the general demoralization and disintegration of the States; it was said that they had found their ruin in their independence, and the unwillingness of American merchants to pay their debts was in one paragraph attributed to their dishonesty, and in the next to the hopeless poverty which was described as having possession of the country. It was in good truth what Mr. John Fiske has called it, "The Critical Period of American History." But Franklin was at once too patriotic and too sanguine to admit that matters were so bad as they seemed. His insight into the situation proved correct, and the outcome very soon showed that the elements of prosperity which he saw were substantial, and not merely the phantoms of a hopeful lover of his country. During these years of humiliation and discouragement he was busy in writing to many friends in England and in France very manly and spirited letters, declaring the condition of things in the States to be by no means so ill as it was represented. Industry had revived, values were advancing, the country was growing, welfare and success were within the grasp of the people. These things he said repeatedly and emphatically, and in a short time the accuracy of his knowledge had to be admitted by all, whether friends or enemies. He would not even admit that the failure to arrange a treaty of commerce with England was the serious misfortune which most Americans conceived it to be. In his usual gallant fashion of facing down untoward circumstances he alleged again and again that the lack of such a treaty was worse for Great Britain than for the States. If British merchants could stand it, American merchants, he avowed, could stand it much better. He was for showing no more concern about it. "Let the merchants on both sides treat with one another. _Laissez les faire_," he said. The presence of such a temper in the States, in so prominent a man, was of infinite service in those troubled years of unsettled, novel, and difficult conditions. Dr. Franklin was not at first elected a member of the deputation from Pennsylvania to the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States. But in May, 1787, he was added in order that, in the possible absence of General Washington, there might be some one whom all could agree in calling to the chair.[95] It was fortunate that even an unnecessary reason led to his being chosen, for all future generations would have felt that an unpardonable void had been left in that famous assemblage, had the sage of America not been there. Certainly the "fitness of things," the historical picturesqueness of the event, imperatively demanded Dr. Franklin's venerable figure in the constitutional convention of the United States of America. [Note 95: Parton's _Life of Franklin_, ii. 565.] As between the two theories of government which divided that body, Franklin ranged himself with the party opposed to a strong and centralized government endowed with many functions and much power.[96] The simplest government seemed to him the best; and he substantially gave in his allegiance to those democratic ideas which afterward constituted the doctrines of the Jeffersonian school in American politics. It was natural that he should do so; he was a cheerful optimist all his life long, and few men have ever so trusted human kind as he did; so now he believed that the people could take care of themselves, as indeed the history of the past few years and the character of the population of the States at that time indicated that they could. He attended regularly all the sessions, and gave his opinions freely; but they are only dimly revealed in the half-light which enfolds in such lamentable obscurity the debates of that interesting body. What little is known can be briefly stated. [Note 96: But later he remarked: "Though there is a general dread of giving too much power to our _governors_, I think we are more in danger from too little obedience in the _governed_."] The same theory which he was practicing concerning his own salary he wished to see introduced as an article of the Constitution. The President, he thought, should receive no salary. Honor was enough reward; a place which gave both honor and profit offered too corrupting a temptation, and instead of remaining a source of generous aspiration to "the wise and moderate, the lovers of peace and good order, the men fittest for the trust," it would be scrambled for by "the bold and the violent, the men o£ strong passions and indefatigable activity in their selfish pursuits."[97] In our day such a notion and such arguments would be quickly sneered out of the debate; but they were in keeping with the spirit of that era when the first generation which for ages had dared to contemplate popular government was carried away by the earliest romantic fervor of inexperienced speculation. [Note 97: Franklin's _Works_, ix. 418. See also letter to Bishop of St. Asaph, _Ibid._ viii. 270.] It is familiar that the gravest question which perplexed the convention was whether the larger and the smaller States should stand upon terms of equality, or whether some proportion should be established. After a discussion, recurred to at intervals during many weeks, had failed to develop any satisfactory solution of this problem, pregnant with failure, Franklin moved that the daily proceedings should be opened with prayer.[98] But Hamilton said that a resort to prayer would indicate to the people that the convention had reached a desperate pass; and either this or some other reason was so potent that scarcely any one voted yea on the motion. What could be more singular than to see the skeptical Franklin and the religious Hamilton thus opposed upon this question! Franklin next suggested a compromise: an equal number of delegates for all States; an equal vote for all States upon all questions respecting the authority or sovereignty of a State, and upon appointments and confirmations; but votes to be apportioned according to the populations of the States respectively upon all bills for raising and spending money. He was in favor of a single legislative chamber, and his plan was designed to be applied to such a system. Its feasibility would probably have been defeated through the inevitable complexity which would have attended upon it in practice.[99] Nevertheless it was a suggestion in the right direction, and contained the kernel of that compromise which later on he developed into the system of an equal representation in the Senate, and a proportionate one in the House. This happy scheme may be fairly said to have saved the Union. [Note 98: Franklin's _Works_, ix. 428.] [Note 99: One becomes quite convinced of this upon reading his presentation of his scheme. _Works_, ix. 423; see also _Ibid._ 395.] Upon the matter of suffrage Franklin voted against limiting it to freeholders, because to do so would be to "depress the virtue and public spirit of our common people," for whose patriotism and good sense he expressed high esteem. He opposed the requirement of a residence of fourteen years as a preliminary to naturalization, thinking four years a sufficient period. He thought that the President should hold office for seven years, and should not be eligible for a second term; he should be subject to impeachment, since otherwise in case of wrong-doing recourse could be had only to revolution or assassination; he should not have the power of an absolute veto. When at last the long discussions were over and the final draft was prepared, Franklin found himself in the position in which also were most of his associates, disapproving certain parts, but thinking adoption of the whole far better than rejection. He was wise enough and singular enough to admit that he was not infallibly right. "Nothing in human affairs and schemes is perfect," he said, "and perhaps that is the case of our opinions." He made an excellent speech,[100] urging that at the close of their deliberations all should harmonize, sink their small differences of opinion, and send the document before the people with the prestige of their unanimous approbation. While the last members were signing, relates Madison, "Dr. Franklin, looking toward the president's chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him that painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. 'I have,' he said, 'often and often in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.'" [Note 100: Franklin's _Works_, ix. 431.] He did what he could to secure the adoption of the instrument by the people; and when that end was happily achieved he joined his voice to the unanimous cry with which the American nation nominated George Washington as the only possible candidate for the presidency. He said: "General Washington is the man whom all our eyes are fixed on for President, and what little influence I may have is devoted to him." It was about the time of the election that he himself took his farewell of public life. The third year of his incumbency in the office of president of Pennsylvania expired in the autumn of 1788, and his physical condition precluded all idea of further official labors. Nature could not have committed such an incongruity, such a sin against æsthetic justice, as not to preserve Benjamin Franklin's life long enough to enable him to see the United States fairly launched as a real nation, with an established government and a sound constitution giving promise of a vigorous career. But evidently with this boon the patience of nature was exhausted; for Franklin's infirmities now increased upon him terribly. He endured extreme pain during periods steadily increasing in length and recurring at ever-shortening intervals. He bore his suffering, which too often became agony, with heroic fortitude; but it was evident that even his strong frame could not long hold out against the debilitating effects of his merciless disease. Yet while it racked his body it fortunately spared his mental faculties; and indeed so lively did his interest in affairs remain that it seemed to require these physical reminders to show him how old he was; save for his body, he was still a man in his prime. He once said: "I often hear persons, whom I knew when children, called _old_ Mr. Such-a-one, to distinguish them from their sons, now men grown and in business; so that by living twelve years beyond David's period, _I seem to have intruded myself into the company of posterity, when I ought to have been abed and asleep_,"--words which should take their place among the fine sayings of the ages. He was courageous and cheerful. In November, 1788, he wrote: "You kindly inquire after my health. I have not of late much reason to boast of it. People that will live a long life and drink to the bottom of the cup must expect to meet with some of the dregs. However, when I consider how many more terrible maladies the human body is liable to, I think myself well off that I have only three incurable ones: the gout, the stone, and old age; and, those notwithstanding, I enjoy many comfortable intervals, in which I forget all my ills, and amuse myself in reading or writing, or in conversation with friends, joking, laughing, and telling merry stories, as when you first knew me, a young man about fifty."[101] He does not seem to have taken undue credit to himself; there is no querulousness, or egotism, or senility in his letters, but a delightful tranquillity of spirit. His sister wrote to him that the Boston newspapers often had matter in his honor. "I am obliged to them," he wrote; "on the other hand, some of our papers here are endeavoring to disgrace me. I take no notice. My friends defend me. I have long been accustomed to receive more blame, as well as more praise, than I have deserved. It is the lot of every public man, and I leave one account to balance the other." So serene was the aged philosopher, a _real_ philosopher, not one who, having played a part in life, was to be betrayed in the weakness and irritability of old age. He felt none of the mental weariness which years so often bring. He was by no means tired of life and affairs in this world, yet he wrote in a characteristic vein to the Bishop of St. Asaph: "The course of nature must soon put a period to my present mode of existence. This I shall submit to with the less regret, as, having seen during a long life a good deal of this world, I feel a growing curiosity to be acquainted with some other." It was characteristic that in these closing days it was the progress of mankind in knowledge and welfare which especially absorbed his thoughts. When he reflected on the great strides that were making he said that he almost wished that it had been his destiny to be born two or three centuries later. He was one of the few men who has left on record his willingness to live his life over again, even though he should not be allowed the privilege of "correcting in the second edition the errors of the first." [Note 101: He habitually wrote in this vein; see, for example, _Works_, ix. 266, 283, and _passim_.] The French Revolution excited his profoundest interest. At first he said that he saw "nothing singular in all this, but on the contrary what might naturally be expected. The French have served an apprenticeship to liberty in this country, and now that they are out of their time they have set up for themselves."[102] He expressed his hope that "the fire of liberty, ... spreading itself over Europe, would act upon the inestimable rights of man as common fire does upon gold: purify without destroying them; so that a lover of liberty may find _a country_ in any part of Christendom." The language had an unusual smack of the French revolutionary slang, in which he seems in no other instance to have indulged. But as the fury swelled, his earlier sympathies became merged in a painful anxiety concerning the fate of his many good old friends. [Note 102: Parton's _Life of Franklin_, ii. 600.] Franklin's last act was a memorial addressed to Congress, signed by him in his capacity as president of the abolition society, and praying that body: "That you will devise means for removing this inconsistency from the character of the American people; that you will promote mercy and justice towards this distressed race; and that you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow men." He had always spoken of slavery with the strongest condemnation, and branded the slave-trade as "abominable," a "diabolical commerce," and a "crime." A large part of the last year or two of his life was passed by Franklin in his bed. At times when his dreadful suffering seemed to become intolerable, it was quelled, so far as possible, by opium. But at intervals it left him, and still whenever he thus got a respite for a few days he was again at work. It was in such an interval that he wrote his paper condemning the liberty, which was becoming the license, of the press. If the law permitted this sort of thing, he said, then it should restore also the liberty of the cudgel. The paper is not altogether antiquated, nor the idea altogether bad! It was even so late as March 23, 1790, that he wrote the humorous rejoinder to the pro-slavery speech delivered in Congress by Jackson of Georgia. But the end was close at hand; and when this brilliant satire was composed, there lacked but a few days of the allotted term when that rare humor was to be stilled forever, and that broad philanthropy was to cease from the toil in which it had never tired alike for the free and the oppressed. On April 12, 1790, a pain in the chest and difficulty of breathing, which had been giving him much trouble, ceased for a short while, and he insisted upon getting up in order to have his bed re-made; for he wished to "die in a decent manner." His daughter expressed the conventional wish that he might yet recover and live many years. "I hope not," he replied. Soon afterward the pain returned, and he was advised to change his position, so that he could breathe more easily. "A dying man can do nothing easy," he said; and these are the last words which he is known to have uttered. Soon afterward he sank into a lethargy, and so remained until at eleven o'clock, P. M., on April 17, 1790, he died. A great procession and a concourse of citizens escorted his funeral, and Congress voted to "wear the customary badge of mourning for one month." The bits of crape were all very well, a conventional, insignificant tribute; but unfortunately the account of the country, or at least of Congress as representing the country, did not stand very honorably, to say nothing of generously, with one of its oldest, most faithful, and most useful servants.[103] Again and again Franklin had asked for some modest office, some slight opening, for his grandson, Temple Franklin. The young man's plans and prospects in life had all been sacrificed to the service of Franklin as his secretary, which was in fact the service of the country; yet he had never been able to collect even the ordinary salary pertaining to such a position. Throughout a long life of public service, often costly to himself in his own affairs, Franklin had never asked any other favor than this, which after all was rather compensation than favor, and this was never given to him. When one reflects how such offices are demanded and awarded in these days, one hardly knows whether to be more ashamed of the present or of the past. But this was not all nor even the worst; for Franklin's repeated efforts to get his own accounts with the government audited and settled never met with any response. It needed only that Congress should appoint a competent accountant to examine and report. Before leaving France Franklin had begged for this act of simple, business-like justice, which it was the duty of Congress to initiate without solicitation; he had the fate of the "poor unhappy Deane" before his eyes, to make him uncomfortable, but in this respect he was treated no better than that misused man. After his return home he continued his urgency during his last years, not wishing to die leaving malignant enemies behind him, and accounts open which he could no longer explain and elucidate. Indeed, stories were already circulating that he was "greatly indebted to the United States for large sums that had been put into [his] hands, and that [he] avoided a settlement;" yet this request was still, with unpardonable disregard of decency and duty, utterly ignored. He never could get the business attended to, and Benjamin Franklin actually could not extort from an indifferent Congress the small satisfaction of having his accounts passed. The consequence was that when he died the United States appeared his debtor, and never extricated itself from that painful position.[104] It was only in this matter that he ever showed the slightest anxiety concerning his reputation with posterity. He wanted to leave the name of an honest man; but otherwise he never was at the trouble of preparing a line to justify any of his actions, therein differing from many of his contemporaries. [Note 103: One of the most painful letters to read which our annals contain is that written by Franklin to Charles Thomson, secretary of Congress, November 29, 1788, _Works_, viii. 26, 30. It is an arraignment which humiliates the descendants of the members of that body.] [Note 104: Parton's _Life of Franklin_, ii. 596.] France showed a livelier affection and warmer appreciation toward the great dead than did his own countrymen. At the opening of the National Assembly, June 11, 1790, Mirabeau delivered an impassioned eulogy in the rhetorical French fashion; and the motion to wear mourning for three days was carried by acclamation. The president of that body, M. Siéyes, was instructed to communicate the resolution to Washington. At the celebration of the municipality of Paris the citizens generally wore a mourning badge; and the grain market, where the oration was delivered, was draped in black. The Academy of Sciences of course did formal honor to his memory, as did likewise the revolutionary clubs. A street at what was in his day Passy, but is now included in Paris, near the Trocadéro, perpetuates by his name the admiration which France felt for him. Among illustrious Americans Franklin stands preëminent in the interest which is aroused by a study of his character, his mind, and his career. One becomes attached to him, bids him farewell with regret, and feels that for such as he the longest span of life is all too short. Even though dead, he attracts a personal regard which renders easily intelligible the profound affection which so many men felt for him while living. It may be doubted whether any one man ever had so many, such constant, and such firm friends as in three different nations formed about him a veritable host. In the States and in France he was loved, and as he grew into old age he was revered, not by those who heard of him only, but most warmly by those who best knew him. Even in England, where for years he was the arch-rebel of all America, he was generally held in respect and esteem, and had many constant friends whose confidence no events could shake. It is true, of course, that he had also his detractors, with most of whom the reader has already made acquaintance. In Pennsylvania the proprietary party cherished an animosity which still survives against his memory, but which does not extend far beyond those who take it as an inheritance. It does him no discredit with persons who understand its source. In New England a loyalty to those famous New Englanders, John Adams and Samuel Adams, seems to involve in the minds of some persons a depreciation of Franklin. In English historical literature the patriotic instinct stands in the way of giving Franklin quite his full due of praise. But the faults and defects of character and conduct which are urged against him appear little more than the expression of personal ill will, when they are compared with the affection and the admiration given to him in liberal measure by the great mass of mankind both in the generations which knew him as a living contemporary and in those which hear of him only as one of the figures of history. It is not worth while to deify him, or to speak with extravagant reverence, as if he had neither faults nor limitations. Yet it seems ungracious to recall these concerning one who did for his fellow men so much as Franklin did. Moral, intellectual, and material boons he conferred in such abundance that few such benefactors of the race can be named, though one should survey all the ages. A man of a greater humanity never lived; and the quality which stood Abou Ben Adhem in good stead should suffice to save Franklin from human criticism. He not only loved his kind, but he also trusted them with an implicit confidence, reassuring if not extraordinary in an observer of his shrewdness and experience. Democrats of the revolutionary school in France and of the Jeffersonian school in the United States have preached an exaggerated gospel of the people, but their words are the dubious ones of fanatics or politicians. Franklin was of a different kind, and had a more genuine and more generous faith in man than the greatest democrat in politics who ever lived. Franklin's inborn ambition was the noblest of all ambitions: to be of practical use to the multitude of men. The chief motive of his life was to promote the welfare of mankind. Every moment which he could snatch from enforced occupations was devoted to doing, devising, or suggesting something advantageous more or less generally to men. His detractors have given a bad, but also a false coloring to this trait. They say that the spirit of all that he did and taught was sordid, that the motives and purposes which he set before men were selfish, that his messages spoken through the mouth of Poor Richard inculcated no higher objects in life than money-getting. This is an utterly unfair form of stating the case. Franklin was a great moralist: though he did not believe in the Christian religion according to the straitlaced orthodox view, he believed in the virtues which that religion embodies; and he was not only often a zealous preacher, but in the main a consistent exemplar of them. Perhaps he did not rest them upon precisely the same basis upon which the Christian preacher does, but at least he put them on a basis upon which they could stand firm. In such matters, however, one may easily make mistakes, breed ill blood, and do harm; and his wisdom and good sense soon led him to put forth his chief efforts and to display especial earnestness and constancy in promoting the well-being of all men. It was an object sufficiently noble, one would think, worthy of the greatest brain and the largest heart, and having certain very commendable traits in the way of practicability and substantial possibilities. His desire was to see the community prosperous, comfortable, happy, advancing in the accumulation of money and of all physical goods, but not to the point of luxury; it was by no means the pile of dollars which was his end, and he did not care to see many men rich, but rather to see all men well to do. He was perfectly right in thinking that virtuous living has the best prospects in a well-to-do society. He gave liberally of his own means and induced others to give, and promoted in proportion to the ability of the community a surprising number of public and quasi public enterprises; and always the fireside of the poor man was as much in his thought as the benefit of the richer circle. Fair dealing and kindliness, prudence and economy in order to procure the comforts and simpler luxuries of life, reading and knowledge for those uses which wisdom subserves, constituted the real essence of his teaching. His inventive genius was ever at work devising methods of making daily life more agreeable, comfortable, and wholesome for all who have to live. In a word, the service of his fellow men was his constant aim; and he so served them that those public official functions which are euphemistically called "public services" seemed in his case almost an interruption of the more direct and far-reaching services which he was intent upon rendering to all civilized peoples. Extreme religionists may audaciously fancy that the judgment of God upon Franklin may be severe; but it would be gross disloyalty for his own kind to charge that his influence has been ignobly material. As a patriot none surpassed him. Again it was the love of the people that induced this feeling, which grew from no theory as to forms of government, no abstractions and doctrines about "the rights of man." He began by espousing the cause of the people of the province of Pennsylvania against proprietary despotism, and for many years he was a patriot in his colony, before the great issue against England made patriotism common. His patriotism had not root in any revolutionary element in his temper, but was the inevitable outcome of his fair-mindedness. That which was unfair as between man and man first aroused his ire against the grinding proprietaries; and afterward it was the unfairness of taxation without representation which especially incensed him; for an intellect of the breadth and clearness of his sees and loves justice above all things. During the struggle of the States no man was more hearty in the cause than Franklin; and the depth of feeling shown in his letters, simple and unrhetorical as they are, is impressive. All that he had he gave. What also strikes the reader of his writings is the broad national spirit which he manifested. He had an immense respect for the dignity of America; he was perhaps fortunately saved from disillusionment by his distance from home. But be this as it may, the way in which he felt and therefore genuinely talked about his nation and his country was not without its moral effect in Europe. Intellectually there are few men who are Franklin's peers in all the ages and nations. He covered, and covered well, vast ground. The reputation of doing and knowing various unrelated things is wont to bring suspicion of perfunctoriness; but the ideal of the human intellect is an understanding to which all knowledge and all activity are germane. There have been a few, very few minds which have approximated toward this ideal, and among them Franklin's is prominent. He was one of the most distinguished scientists who have ever lived. Bancroft calls him "the greatest diplomatist of his century."[105] His ingenious and useful devices and inventions were very numerous. He possessed a masterly shrewdness in business and practical affairs. He was a profound thinker and preacher in morals and on the conduct of life; so that with the exception of the founders of great religions it would be difficult to name any persons who have more extensively influenced the ideas, motives, and habits of life of men. He was one of the most, perhaps the most agreeable conversationist of his age. [Note 105: Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._ ix. 134.] He was a rare wit and humorist, and in an age when "American humor" was still unborn, amid contemporaries who have left no trace of a jest, still less of the faintest appreciation of humor, all which he said and wrote was brilliant with both these most charming qualities of the human mind. Though sometimes lax in points of grammar, as was much the custom in his day, he wrote as delightful a style as is to be found in all English literature, and that too when the stilted, verbose, and turgid habit was tediously prevalent. He was a man who impressed his ability upon all who met him; so that the abler the man and the more experienced in judging men, the higher did he rate Franklin when brought into direct contact with him; politicians and statesmen of Europe, distrustful and sagacious, trained readers and valuers of men, gave him the rare honor of placing confidence not only in his personal sincerity, but in his broad fair-mindedness, a mental quite as much as a moral trait. It is hard indeed to give full expression to a man of such scope in morals, in mind, and in affairs. He illustrates humanity in an astonishing multiplicity of ways at an infinite number of points. He, more than any other, seems to show us how many-sided our human nature is. No individual, of course, fills the entire circle; but if we can imagine a circumference which shall express humanity, we can place within it no one man who will reach out to approach it and to touch it at so many points as will Franklin. A man of active as well as universal good will, of perfect trustfulness towards all dwellers on the earth, of supreme wisdom expanding over all the interests of the race, none has earned a more kindly loyalty. By the instruction which he gave, by his discoveries, by his inventions, and by his achievements in public life he earns the distinction of having rendered to men varied and useful services excelled by no other one man; and thus he has established a claim upon the gratitude of mankind so broad that history holds few who can be his rivals. INDEX Abolition of Slavery, petition for, signed by Franklin, 415, 416. Adams, Abigail, on meeting Franklin, 210. Adams, John, 111, 208; dislike of Franklin, 210; on committee to confer with Lord Howe, 214; pugnacious remarks, 215, 216; rank as diplomate, 220; remarks on Franklin in France, 235, 236; joins Lee in forcing dismissal of Williams, 266; on rum trade, 276; feeling towards France, 286; charged to request admission of United States into Armed Neutrality, 288; replaces Deane, 294; his egotism, 294; endeavors to reform French mission, 294; censorious language, 295; advises having a single minister at Paris, 296, 297; returns home, 298; financial agent in Holland, 307; inability to borrow money, 330; helped by Franklin, 331; judgment of Franklin, 337, 338; unable to appreciate his value, 339; contrast between the two men, 340; really follows Franklin, 342; his vanity, 344; envy of Franklin's popularity, 345; does not understand its value, 346; appointed commissioner to treat for peace, 349; informs Vergennes of paper money redemption in America, 350; writes an unwise defense of repudiation, 351; begs Franklin to help, 351; presents case to Congress, 354; angry at Franklin for not supporting his position, 355; on the De Weissenstein episode, 358; refuses to treat apart from France, 365, note; disapproves Oswald's commission, 374; joins with Jay in deciding to treat without consulting Vergennes, 379; arranges fisheries clause, 380, 392, 399; testimony in behalf of Franklin, 389; feud with Franklin, 390, 391. Adams, Samuel, 107, 111; distrusts Franklin, 138; opposes his nomination as agent for Massachusetts, 138; threatens to form a New England confederacy, 212; supported by Franklin, 212. "Alliance," officers of, helped by Franklin, 317. Arnold, Benedict, mission of Franklin to confer with, 210. "Art of Virtue," a receipt book for virtues, 31, 32. "Armed Neutrality," approved by Franklin, 288; vote of Congress requesting admission of the United States, 288. Austin, J. L., brings news to France of Burgoyne's capture, 270; sent by Franklin on secret mission to opposition in England, 271. Bache, Richard, marries Sarah Franklin, 203. Bancroft, Dr. Edward, tells story of Franklin's Manchester velvet suit, 191, 283; spy for England betrays Deane, 224. Beaumarchais, Caron de, his romantic career, 225; inspired by Arthur Lee to aid the colonies, 226; appeals to Louis XVI., 226; supported by Vergennes, opposed by Turgot, 227; establishes firm of Hortalez & Co. to trade with the colonies, 229; communicates with Deane, 230; project betrayed by Bancroft, 230; fails to do a successful business, 231; suspected and thwarted by Arthur Lee, 238, 239; partly paid by Congress, 241; joy at Burgoyne's surrender, 270; claims cargoes of rice and indigo, 310. Bedford, Duke of, opposes raising a colonial army, 52; irritates George III. into dismissing Grenville, 114. Bollan, ----, agent for Massachusetts Council, works in harmony with Franklin, 155; advises against employing counsel in Hutchinson letter case, 185; changes his opinion, 187. "Bon Homme Richard," 302. Bond, Dr., aided by Franklin in establishing a hospital, 41. Braddock, General, 50, 51; visited by Franklin, 52; distrusted by Pennsylvania farmers, 53, 54; his expedition, 51-54; praises Franklin, 55. Bradford, ----, editor of rival newspaper in Philadelphia, 12; refuses as postmaster to let Franklin's paper go by mail, 12, 13. Burgoyne, General, invades the colonies, 261; captured, 270; effect of news on American loans, 317. Burke, Edmund, Rockingham's secretary, 115; on Franklin's examination by the commons, 120. Burke, William, writes pamphlet in favor of returning Canada to France in order to check the colonies, 79. "Busybody" papers, 31. Bute, Earl of, favors a Stamp Act, 105; complaints against by Bedford, 114; Franklin's witty remark upon, 213. Camden, Lord, counsel for Penn family, 68; predicts American independence, 83; denies unlimited power of Parliament over colonies, 118; enters cabinet, 149. Canada, conquered by English, 78; its recession to France advocated as a check to colonies, 79; controversy on this point, 80-82; suggested as member of confederation by Franklin, 208; mission of Franklin to, 210, 211. Carmichael, William, rank as diplomate, 220; Jay's secretary in Spain, 321; praises Franklin, 345. Charles, ----, agent for Pennsylvania, 70. Chatham, Earl of. See Pitt, William. Chaumont, M. Ray de, lends Franklin a house in Passy, 235. Choiseul, Duc de, predicts American independence, 83. Colden, ----, letter from Franklin to, 40. "Colonial System," criticised by Franklin, 48; defended by Granville, 67; enforced by Grenville, 104. Colonial union, suggested by William Penn, 44; by Franklin, 44, 45; by Gov. Shirley, 46; opposed by colonies and board of trade, 45, 52; proposed at time of Stamp Act, 110. Concord, fight at, 204; effect on Franklin, 205. Constitutional Convention, Franklin chosen a member, 407; the two parties, 408; part played by Franklin, 408; unsalaried presidency, 408; debate on representation, 409; single legislative chamber, 410; suffrage, 410; naturalization, 410; presidential term, 410; story about the "rising sun," 411. Continental Congress, 206-212; its duties, 206; resolves to petition once more, 206; takes no action on Franklin's plan for a confederation, 208; makes Franklin head of postal system, 209; sends him on mission to Montreal, 210; repudiates independence, 211; adopts declaration, 212; forms Confederation, 212; sends Franklin and others to confer with Lord Howe, 214; elects Franklin envoy to France, 219; has difficulty in choosing ministers, 221; instructs Deane to get help from France, 224; sends Franklin on formal embassy, 232; puzzled by letters of Deane, Lee, and Beaumarchais, 239; irritated at Deane's sending military adventurers, 242, 243; sends Austin as special messenger, 270; rejects North's conciliatory offers, 282; votes to request admission into Armed Neutrality, 288; stinginess toward Franklin, 295-343; breaks up French mission, 298; management of finances, 304-336; has power to borrow but not to tax, 304-306; method of drawing bills on foreign envoys, 306, 307; proposes to secure loans by pledging merchandise, 309, 310; orders Franklin to borrow money and build warships, 311; issues drafts on Franklin, 312, 315, 325-327, 330-334; on Jay, 321; on Laurens, 324; on Adams, 330; fails to advise ministers of bills drawn, 313, 315, 318; fails to keep promises, 322, 325, 326, 332; loses confidence of French court, 328; antedates bills to evade a promise, 332; ill-treatment of Franklin, 349; ignores his request to resign, 349; appoints commissioners to treat for peace, 349; passes act to redeem paper money at forty to one, 350; angers Vergennes, 350 seq.; induced by France to name commission instead of plenipotentiary, 363; at French suggestion omits all but independence from ultimatum, 378; instructs commissioners to be guided by France, 378; condemns independent action of commissioners, 388; again refuses Franklin's request to be relieved, 397; finally permits him, 398; honors Franklin's memory, 417; neglects to reward Temple Franklin, 417; neglects to audit Franklin's accounts, 418. Conway, General, opposes Stamp Act, 115; secretary for colonies, 115; reënter's cabinet, 147; suggests treating for peace, 284; moves address against the war, after Yorktown, 364. Conyngham, ----, American privateer, 248, 249. "Cool Thoughts on the Present Situation," a pamphlet by Franklin, 91. Cooper, Sir Grey, thinks Franklin's mission is a desertion, 234. Cooper, Samuel, tells Franklin of the sentiment in Massachusetts regarding his appointment as agent, 138; letter to, regarding Hutchinson letters, 180. "Critical Period of American History" a time of reviving industrial prosperity, 406. Cornwallis, Lord, effect of his surrender, 363. Cumberland, Duke of, forms cabinet, 115; dies, 116. Cushing, Thomas, letter from Franklin to, about the Hutchinson letters, 180. Dana, Francis, his reliance on Franklin, 342, 345. Dartmouth, Lord, suggested as Hillsborough's successor by Franklin, 165; friendly relations with Franklin, 166; later divergence, 166; discusses with Franklin Massachusetts resolves denying parliamentary control, 167; impossibility of agreement, 168, 193; Franklin's memorial to, 200. Deane, Silas, rank as diplomate, 220; first envoy to France, 222; previous career and character, 222; his mistakes, 223; abandons America, 223; introduced in France by Franklin, 223; his instructions, 224; balked by Bancroft, 224; joins plans of Beaumarchais, 230; not interfered with by Franklin, 238; slandered by Arthur Lee, 238, 239; ruined by him, 239; defended by Franklin, 240, 243, 290; sends European officers to America, 242; proposes an ultimatum to France, 269; recalled, 289; confidence in Franklin, 399. De Grey, Lord Chief Justice, in Hutchinson letters affair, 186. Denham, ----, offers Franklin a clerkship, 10; his death, 10. Despencer, Lord le, breakfast party with, 136. D'Estaing, Admiral, sails to aid America, 285. "De Weissenstein" makes mysterious offer of peace with pensions for leading rebels, 358; supposed to be George III., 358; Franklin's reply to, 358, 359. Dickinson, John, defends the Pennsylvania proprietors, 94; personal attack on Franklin, 97, 98; protests against his appointment as agent of the Assembly, 98; advocates renewed petitioning to king in Continental Congress, 206; supported by Franklin, 206. Digges, ----, embezzles funds sent by Franklin to American prisoners, 264; makes secret proposals on behalf of Lord North, 364. Diplomacy of the Revolution, its general character, 220; varied personnel, 220; difficulties in choosing ministers, 221; vagueness as to status of representatives, 222; mission of Silas Deane to France, 222-231; assistance gained from France through Beaumarchais, 225-231; mission of Franklin to France, 232-401; first offer of alliance, 236, 237; dealings of Franklin and Deane with foreign military adventurers, 242-246; management of privateers, 248-252; negotiations relative to exchange of prisoners, 252-264; dealings with opposition in England, 271; alliance with France, 273-279; proposal of Deane to force a decision, 269; effect of news of Burgoyne's capture, 273; discussion over terms of alliance, 273-277; debate over molasses duties, 276; concessions arranged by Franklin, 277, 278; peace with England suggested, 282, 284; quarrels in the French mission, 290-298; Franklin minister plenipotentiary, 298; methods of raising money in Europe, 306; history of Franklin's efforts in France, 306-336 [see Finances of the Revolution]; unique position of Franklin in Europe, 340-343; superiority to other diplomatists, 342, 344-346; mistake of John Adams in irritating Vergennes about American paper money, 350-352; the affair smoothed over by Franklin, 352-355; futile advances toward reconciliation made by English emissaries, 357-360; events leading up to treaty of peace [see treaty of peace], 363-396; commercial treaties with Prussia and other countries, 397. Dubourg, Dr., conveys to Franklin news of French willingness to help colonies, 232. Dunning, ----, counsel for Franklin in Hutchinson letters affair, 187, 188. Edinburgh gives Franklin freedom of the city, 75. East India Company, hurt by colonial non-importation, 175. Finances of the Revolution, difficulties, 304; vague powers of Congress, 304; inability to offer security, 305; methods of raising money adopted, 305, 306; burden of making loans thrown on foreign representatives, 306; situation of Jay, 307; of Adams, 307; real brunt borne by Franklin, 307, 321; unpicturesqueness and indispensableness of his labors, 308, 336; description of them, 308-336; proposed payments by cargoes of American products, 309; failure of this method, 310; loans made by French court on pure credit, 311, 317, 319; Franklin's pamphlet on resources of the United States, 311; neglect of Congress to advise ministers of bills, 312, 313, 326, 332; protests from Franklin, 312, 318, 320; lack of business methods in Congress, 313, 314, 320; extravagance of Lee and Izard, 314-316; difficulties of French court in furnishing money, 319; injurious influence of State agents, 320; difficulties of Jay in Spain, 321, 322, 332; criticisms of Vergennes, 325; neglect of Congress to keep promises, 322, 326, 332; begging from Vergennes, 327; from Necker, 328; difficulties over loan raised in Holland, 328; extravagance of Laurens and Jackson, 329; difficulties of Adams in Holland, 331, 332; antedating of bills to elude a promise, 332; further loans, 334, 336; liquidation of accounts begins, 335; peace alone puts an end to borrowing, 336. Fisheries, importance of, to New England, 380; right to, upheld by Adams, 380, 399. Fitzherbert, ----, replaces Grenville, 372. Florida, suggested as member of Confederation by Franklin, 208. Folger, Abiah, mother of Franklin, 2. Folger, ancestry of Franklin, 3. Fox, C. J., member of opposition, 271; attacks North regarding French and American alliance, 281; in Rockingham cabinet, 365; tries to outdo Shelburne by treating with colonies through France, 366; willing to acknowledge their independence, 367; urges Franklin to negotiate separately, 370; retires from Shelburne's cabinet, 372. France, policy of; early interest in English colonial controversy, 137; regarded as probable ally of colonies, 222; intervention suggested by Beaumarchais and Vergennes, 226-228; enthusiasm over Franklin, 233-235; secret assistance, 251; self-interest of France, 252, 285, 368, 375, 380, 391, 396; treaty of alliance with, 273-279; war with England, 285; financial assistance, 307-336. Franklin ancestry, 2; from Northamptonshire, 2; religious independence, 2. Franklin, Benjamin. _Early years._ Ancestry, 2; birth, 3; intended at first for the church, 3; assists father as tallow chandler, 4; apprenticed as printer to his brother, 4; "escapes being a poet," 4; bold religious speculations, 5; runs away, 6; begins printing in Philadelphia, 6; receives offer of help from Gov. Temple, 6; fails to induce his father to assist, 7; tricked by Temple into sailing for England, 8; lives in London, 8; "errata" in his career, 9; bad company, 9; infidelity, 9; declines proposal to establish swimming school, 10; returns home, 10; composes epitaph, 11; rise as printer in Philadelphia, 11, 12; publishes "Pennsylvania Gazette," 12, 13; matrimonial projects, 13, 14; marriage, 15; rise in society, 19; establishes a library, 20; effective methods of agitation, 21; publishes Poor Richard's almanac, 21; his management of the Gazette, 24; religious and moral views, 24-33; gains political influence through the Junto, 34; establishment of affiliated clubs, 34; studies languages, 35; clerk of General Assembly, 35; postmaster of Philadelphia, 35; invents a stove, and refuses to patent it, 36; founds a philosophical society, 36; an academy, 37; tries to reorganize night-watch, 38; founds the Union Fire Company, 39; begins organization of military force against French, 39; takes a partner, 39; enters public life, 40; appointed to various offices and elected burgess, 40; commissioner to treat with Indians, 40; assists Dr. Bond in founding hospital, 41; induces legislature to make a contingent grant, 42; his pride over this device, 42; improves cleaning and lighting of streets, 42; appointed head of postal system, his successful management of it, 43; receives degree of Master of Arts from Yale and Harvard, 43; deputy to Indian conference at Albany, 44; proposes a colonial union, 44; his plan adopted, 45; later rejected by England and by colonies, 45; speculations as to possible results if successful, 46; opposes Shirley's plan of a parliamentary tax, 47; proclaims theory of no taxation without consent, 47; points out heaviness of existing indirect taxation, 48; doubts feasibility of colonial representation in Parliament, 48, 49; visits Boston, 49; on committee to supervise military expenditure in Pennsylvania, 50; disapproves of Braddock's expedition, 51; acts in behalf of the Assembly, 52; arranges for transportation for the expedition, 53; obliged to give bonds to owners, 54; in danger of ruin owing to failure of expedition and losses of wagons and horses, 54; escapes with slight losses, 54; reputed to have made money, 55; builds forts on frontier, 56; increased popularity, 56; scheme for settling barrier colonies west of mountains, 57; scientific studies, 59; reputation in Europe, 59, 60. _Representative of Pennsylvania in conflict with proprietors._ Sent to England by burgesses to appeal to the king against the proprietors, 63; his share in previous agitation, 63; detained from sailing by Lord Loudoun's procrastination, 65; arrival in London, 66; interview with Lord Granville, 66; dispute over legal rights of the colonies, 67; futile interview with proprietors, 67; with their counsel, 68; kept waiting a year, 68; complained of to the Assembly by the proprietors, 68; learns of an adverse report of the board of trade, 70; engages that proprietors shall be fairly treated by the Assembly, 70; thus gains main contention that proprietors may be taxed, 71; comments on proprietors' behavior, 71, 72; detained two years in England on business, 73; purposely delayed by opponents, 73; suffers from lack of social influence, 74; fails to see Pitt, 74; illness, 74; welcomed in scientific circles, 75; travels, 75; receives degree of Doctor of Laws from St. Andrews and Oxford, 75; friendship with Strahan, 76; attempts at match-making with Sarah Franklin and William Franklin, 76; willing to live in England, 77; regret at leaving, 77; interested in proposal to leave Canada to French in order to overawe colonies, 80; shows fallacy in a pamphlet, 80, 81; denies possibility of colonial independence, 81, 82, 83; predicts future development of the West, 84; returns home, 84; popularity, 84; elected to assembly, 84; receives partial compensation, 84; desires repose, 86; regulates post-office, 86; friendly relations with Governor Penn, 87; condemns "Paxton massacre" of friendly Indians, 88; organizes force to protect Christian Indians in Philadelphia, 89; protects governor in his house, 89; joins popular party in opposing governor, 91; urges change to Royal Government, 91, 92, 93; draws petition to this effect, 93; chosen speaker, 94; attacks governor's methods, 94, 95; defeated in election to Assembly, 96, 97; appointed agent to present petition for Royal Government, 97, 99; attacked by Dickinson, 98; expenses of journey paid by subscription, 100; return to old lodgings in London, 100; fails to gain consideration for his petition, 101, 102. _Colonial representative in England._ Instructed by Pennsylvania to oppose Stamp Act, 105; fruitless interview with Grenville, 106; writes home advising submission, 107; no thought of resistance, 107; names Hughes for stamp-distributer at Grenville's request, 108; temporary fury of Philadelphia at the news, 109; his surprise and mortification, 109, 110; apparent disagreement with colonists, but real unity of opinion, 111; his fitness for diplomatic position in England, 111, 112; sympathizes with both sides, 113; tact and coolness, 113; appears as witness at bar of Commons, 119; ability displayed under cross-examination, 119; thorough mastery of situation, 120; great effect of his testimony, 121; presents American sentiment against the Stamp Act, 122; expresses willingness to sacrifice all rather than submit, 123, 124; states legislative independence of colonies, 124, 125; has friendly feeling for George III., 126; seeks to defend him, 126, 127; thinks colonial representation in Parliament impossible of adoption, 128; views on "virtual" representation, 130; draws distinctions between external and internal taxation, 130, 131; asserts willingness of colonies to bear their share of public burdens, 132; return of popularity in Pennsylvania, 134; satirical publications at expense of English ignorance of colonies, 134, 135; joke concerning a claim of the king of Prussia to England, 136; "rules for reducing a great empire to a small one," 136; communications with the French, 137; appointed agent for Georgia and Massachusetts, 138; opposed by Samuel Adams, 138; increased prestige, 139; pecuniary sacrifice, 139; retains post-mastership, 140; motives of ministry in leaving him undisturbed, 140; rumors circulated in America that he had accepted royal office, 141; his reputation increases in England and France, 144; urges moderation at home, 145; disliked by extremists, 146; hopes advantage from Hillsborough's appointment, 151; discovers Hillsborough's enmity, 152; dispute with him over legality of commission from Massachusetts, 152-157; a telling retort, 157; no longer recognized as agent of Massachusetts, 157; low opinion of Hillsborough, 158; thinks agents quite as valuable to government as to colonies, 158; works to undermine Hillsborough, 159, 160; controverts Hillsborough's objections to two frontier colonies, 162; his arguments prevail with the privy council, 163; drives Hillsborough to resign, 163; snubbed by him, 164; fails to get the grant for frontier provinces, 164; suggests Lord Dartmouth for colonial secretary, 165; amicable relations with him, 166; counsels him to be patient with Massachusetts, 167, 168; would be satisfied with a return to conditions before Stamp Act, 169; begins to forbode separation, but hopes and works for peace, 171; continually urges moderation on colonists, 172; belief in efficacy of non-importation, 173; urges its advantages, 173; and effects upon England, 174; comments on complete financial failure of Stamp Act and Customs Act, 176; shown copies of Tory letters from Massachusetts, 177; sends them to Boston under pledge of secrecy, 178; publishes a letter taking upon himself responsibility of their discovery, 182, 183; presents petition of Massachusetts to Dartmouth, 183; delicacy of his position, 184; learns that Hutchinson and Oliver are to be represented by counsel, 185; fearing trouble and foreseeing an attack, asks for time, 186; threats and rumors, 187; appears before a hostile privy council, 187, 188; violently attacked as a thief by Wedderburn, 188, 189; the "suit of Manchester velvet," 191; begins and abandons a defense of himself, 192; dismissed from office of postmaster, 192; loses his standing in England, 192, 193; resigns agency for Massachusetts, 193; rebuked by Massachusetts for laxity, 194; slandered by Arthur Lee, 194; danger of charges of treason, 195; interview with Lord Chatham, 196; urges policy of colonial self-government, 197; denies that independence is desired, 197; wishes unity of the Empire, 198; attacked by Lord Sandwich in House of Lords, 198; defended by Chatham, 198, 199; irritated at attacks on America in House of Commons, 199; writes an angry letter to Dartmouth, 200; demands reparation for injuries done America and rights denied, 200; saved from presenting this by advice of Walpole, 201, 202; rejects secret attempts by ministry to negotiate, 202; again rejects bribes, 202; last day in London with Priestley, 203; emotion at situation, 203; leaves for home, 203; significance of his failure, 203. _Member of Congress._ Revulsion of feeling on reaching America, 204; anger against England, 205; letters to Priestly and Strahan, 204, 205; elected to Congress, 206; active in committee work, 206; willing to send the Olive Branch petition, 206; hopes thus to put England in the wrong, 206; suggests offer by colonies to pay annual sum for privilege of Free Trade, 207; repels humorously charge of colonial ingratitude, 207, 208; formulates a plan of union, 208; chairman of committee on postal service, 209; postmaster-general, 209; chairman of Committee of Safety, 209; plans defenses for Philadelphia, 209; prevented by necessary oath of allegiance from sitting in Pennsylvania Assembly, 209; sent to Boston to confer with Washington, 209; to Montreal to confer with Arnold, 210; president of Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention, 211; willing to join a New England confederacy rather than none, 212; connection with Declaration of Independence, 212; his famous jests, 212; in the Articles of Confederation wishes votes of States according to population, 212; correspondence with Lord Howe, who wishes reconciliation, 213; replies condemning the English, 213, 214; member of committee of Congress to confer with Howe, 214; remarks, 215; says nothing short of independence is possible, 216; his indignation at British attacks, 217; suggests, in humorous form, to Priestley, the impossibility of conquering the Americans, 217, 218; depth of his feeling, 218. _Minister to France._ Appointed, 219, 232; the only American with diplomatic experience, 220, 221; voyage, 232, 233; alarm of English at news of his arrival, 234; French enthusiasm, 234, 235; settles at Passy, 235; avoids thrusting himself upon the government, 236; presents credentials at audience given by Vergennes, 236, 237; gains a secret loan, 237; not involved in Deane's schemes, 238; befriends Deane, 240; much annoyed by the complications, 241, 242; and by French officers previously encouraged by Deane, 243, 244; discourages them, 245; uses an unvarnished form of letter of recommendation, 245; recognizes value of Lafayette and Steuben, 246; impressed with feeling for liberty in Europe, 247; expects great liberal immigration, 247; advises privateering, 248; charged with duty of regulating it, 249, 250; protects privateers against French government, 250; works to gain time, 251; tries to exchange prisoners with England, 253; tart correspondence with Stormont, 253; indignant at treatment of American prisoners by English, 254, 255; correspondence with Hartley on the subject, 256-262; urges humane treatment, 257, 258; proposes liberation by English "on account," 258, 259, 260; threatens retaliatory treatment, 260, 263; finally succeeds, 261, 262; difficulties raised by English, 262, 263; sends money to prisoners, 263; appoints Williams naval agent, 264; acquiesces in his dismissal, 266; predicts in 1777 the ultimate success of the war, 268; prevents desperate measures on Deane's part, 269; receives news of Burgoyne's surrender, 270; sends J. L. Austin to confer with English liberals, 271; justifies to Hartley the project of a French alliance, 272, 273; secret negotiations with France, 274, 275; misunderstanding with Lee, 275; arranges commercial concessions, 277; plans nearly upset by Lee and Izard, 278-9; signs treaty in "Manchester velvet suit," 279; writes to Hartley urging peace, 281, 282; predicts futility of English conciliatory bills, 282; presented to Louis XVI., 283; his costume, 283; secures in treaty principle of "free ships, free goods," 287; favors the "armed neutrality," 288; meetings with Voltaire, 287, 288; speaks well of Deane, 290; accused of inefficiency and corruption by Lee and Izard, 292, 293, 298; criticised by Adams, 294, 296; personal frugality of Franklin, 297; advises a single representative at Versailles, 297; made minister plenipotentiary, 298; insulted by Lee, 299; supplies money, commissions, and protection to Paul Jones, 300, 301; advises plundering English coast, 301; difficulties with Landais, 302. _Foreign Financial Agent._ Forced to beg money to meet congressional bills, 306; assists Jay, 307; sole effective financier, 307, 308; lends money to Congress, 308; yields two cargoes to Beaumarchais, 310; appeals vainly to Thomas Morris, 310; instructed by Congress to borrow money and build ships of war, 311; writes pamphlet on credit of the United States, 311; agrees to meet interest on congressional loan, 311; obliged to meet drafts, 312; continually surprised by new and old ones, 312; not warned of bills drawn, 312, 313, 318, 332; annoyed by exorbitant demands of Lee and Izard, 314; refuses Izard, 315; attacked bitterly, 316, 317; helps officers of "Alliance," 317; humiliating necessity of begging from France, 318; hampered by state agents making loans, 319; aids Jones, 320; begs Congress not to permit its agents to draw upon him, 320; assists Jay, 321, 322, 333, 335; proposes that Congress furnish supplies to French fleet, 322; urges sacrifice in America, 323, 324; meets drafts on Laurens, 324, 326, 332; overwhelmed by fresh demands, 325; fragment of his diary showing the swarm of bills, 326; more begging from Vergennes, 327, 328; secures loan in Holland, 328; difficulties over William Jackson's purchases, 329, 330; helps John Adams meet drafts, 331; directed by Robert Morris to make further requests, 331; in return asks remittance from America, 331; yet manages to meet drafts, 332; promises Vergennes to accept no drafts dated later than March, 1781, 332; discovers that Congress is antedating bills, 332; personal liability, 332; more demands from Livingston, 333, 334; warned by Vergennes, 333; refused further aid from French, but succeeds in getting more, 334; begins liquidation of accounts, 335; receives further demands for loans, 335, 336; released by treaty of peace, 336; accused of sloth, luxury, and indecision by Adams, 337, 338; political value of his personal popularity in France, 339; breadth of view, 340; carelessness never caused failure, 341; amount of his labors, 341, 342; variety of functions, 342; meagreness of assistance rendered him, 343; his indolence only physical, 344; his great social prestige in Europe, 345; its value, 346; annoyed by attacks at home, 347; patient under calumny, 348; tries vainly to resign, 348; his requests uniformly ignored by Congress, 349; urges Congress not to injure foreign creditors, 350; appealed to by Adams and Vergennes to settle quarrel, 351; agrees with Vergennes in favor of foreign creditors, 353; advises Adams to smooth over unwise expressions to Vergennes, 354; hated by Adams, 355. _Commissioner to make peace._ Approached by Pulteney as to peace, 357; by de Weissenstein, 358; thinks latter an agent for George III., 358; writes a severe answer which he does not send, 359; approached by Hartley as to truce, 359; bitterness toward England, 359, 360; refuses from the outset to discuss possibility of reunion, 360, 361; gratitude toward France, 362; commissioned to treat for peace, 363; refuses to treat separately from France, 364; suggests peace to Shelburne, 364; interview with Oswald, 365; again refuses separate negotiations, 366; sends suggestions to Shelburne, 366, 371; second inconclusive interview with Oswald, 367; dealings with Grenville, 368; urges Jay to join him, 371; asks Shelburne to give Oswald exclusive authority, 371; continues to discuss with Oswald, 372; willing to accept vague commission given Oswald, 373; thinks well of Vergennes' motives, 373; criticises Jay's letter on this point, 374; differs with Jay regarding French duplicity, 375, 378; resumes negotiations with Oswald, 377; surrenders his view to Jay and Adams, probably to save time, 379; on compensation to Tories, 381; suggests counter-claims, 382; antipathy to loyalists, 382; informs Vergennes of treaty, 384; criticised by him, 385; apparent duplicity, 386; tries to defend his action, 387; blamed at home for too great subservience to France, 388; persuades Jay not to write a defense, 388; asks Jay and Adams to vindicate him, 389; increased ill-feeling with Adams, 391; merits of the dispute, 391; large part played by him in negotiations, 392; value of his reputation, 392, 393; his friendly opinion of Vergennes, 393, 394, and of France, 395; again resigns, 396; retained for commercial treaties, 397; pleasant life in Paris, 397, 398; departure from France, 400, 401; voyage, 401, 402. _President of Pennsylvania._ Arrival at Philadelphia, popular welcome, 403; elected President of State Council, 403; acts as peacemaker between factions, 404; successive reëlections, 404; devotes salary to public use, 404; humorous proposal for paying British debts, 405; not discouraged by condition of America, 406; preaches coolness, 407; elected member of Constitutional Convention, 407. _In Constitutional Convention._ Elected in order to preside in possible absence of Washington, 407; opposes centralization, 408; views on constitutional points, 408-411; moves that sessions open with prayer, 409; urges harmony, 411; favors Washington for president, 412; leaves public life, 412; physical infirmities, 412; cheerfulness of mind in later days, 413, 414; applauds French Revolution, 415; president of abolition society, 415; condemns too great license of press, 416; death, 417; public honors in America, 417; but continued neglect on part of Congress to adjust his accounts or recompense Temple Franklin, 417, 418; memorial ceremonies in France, 419. _Character._ General summary 420-427; an unfavorable view, 337, 338; criticisms on the foregoing, 338-344; religious views, 5, 9, 24-29; moral attitude, 21, 24, 29-33; utilitarianism, 29-30; 422-424; wit and humor, 11, 120, 134, 207, 212, 268, 405, 426; humanity, 101, 112, 144, 254-264, 393, 425; patriotism, 203, 424; courage and cheerfulness, 145, 172, 268, 406; business ability, 12, 13, 39; literary ability, 22, 35, 43, 426; diplomatic ability, 338-344; tact, 52, 112, 113, 243, 244, 365; political insight, 121-126; other characteristics, 19, 20, 21, 33, 36, 171, 172, 218; reputation in Europe, 75, 111, 144, 235, 398, 401, 419. _Political Opinions._ On colonial union, 44, 208; on parliamentary supremacy, 46, 47, 196; on colonial representation in Parliament, 49, 128; on relation of colonies to England, 66, 124-126; on external and internal taxation, 130, 131; on free ships and free goods, 207; on colonial system, 48, 197; on paper money, 13, 355; on export duties, 277; on non-importation, 173, 174; on proprietary government, 92, 93; in constitutional convention, favors unpaid presidency, 408; favors representation proportional to population, 212, 409; suggests compromise, 410; favors wide suffrage, 410; brief naturalization period, 410; president for seven years, ineligible for reëlection, and liable to impeachment, 410; on French Revolution, 415; on slavery, 415, 416; a believer in democracy, 408, 421; but from faith in mankind, not mere theory, 421, 424. Franklin, Mrs. Deborah, 6; engaged to Franklin, 14; previous matrimonial experiences, 15; marries Franklin, 15; receives Franklin's illegitimate son, 16; dread of crossing the Atlantic, 76, 78; in danger during Stamp Act riots, 109; Franklin's present of a gown to, 134; death, 203. Franklin, James, takes his brother Benjamin Franklin as apprentice, 4; unfriendly relations, 5. Franklin, Josiah, emigrates to Boston, 2; his family, 2, 3; father of Benjamin Franklin, 3; devotes him to the church, 3; suggests that he become a printer, 4; refuses to aid him in Philadelphia, 7. Franklin, Sarah, offer of marriage, 76; leaves Philadelphia to escape Stamp Act riots, 109; marriage to Richard Bache, 203. Franklin, Temple, assists his grandfather in Paris, 273, 343, 347; neglected by Congress, 417. Franklin, William, birth, 16; refuses to marry Mary Stevenson, 76; appointed governor of New Jersey, 85; becomes a Tory and alienated from his father, 85; partial reconciliation, 85, 401. "Free Ships and Free Goods," doctrine upheld by Franklin, 287. "French and Indian War," 49-58; conflict inevitable, 44, 50; inequality of combatants, 50; Braddock's expedition, 51-55; outcome of war, 78. French Revolution, applauded by Franklin, 415. Gadsden, Christopher, 107, 111. Galloway, Joseph, speech against Pennsylvania Proprietors, 94; defeated for reëlection, 97. Gates, General, captor of Burgoyne, 272, 280, 298. "Gentleman's Magazine," praises Franklin's examination before Commons, 121. George III., desires peace with France, 78; displaces Grenville, 114; favorable opinion of Franklin towards, 126, 127; hatred of Shelburne, 148, 150; vexed with Hillsborough, 160; hatred of Franklin, 284; supposed to be author of De Weissenstein letter, 358; makes Shelburne prime minister, 372. George IV., interview with Austin, 271. Georgia, appoints Franklin its agent, 138. Gérard, M., asks for proposals for alliance, 274; negotiates treaty, 274, 275; arranges reciprocity with Franklin, 278; signs treaty, 279; minister to United States, 285; claims credit of having defeated Lee's schemes, 298. Gibbon, remark on diplomatic events in 1777, 280. Grand, M., banker for Franklin, 314, 327, 336. Granville, Lord, interview with Franklin, 66; asserts that king is legislator for the colonies, 66; defends English colonial system, 67. Greene, General, his remark on meeting Franklin, 210. Grenville, George, proposes enforcement of colonial trade regulations, 104; introduces Stamp Act, 104; honesty of his intentions, 105, 143; unmoved by Franklin's protest, 106; asks Franklin to name a distributer, 108; views on parliamentary power over America, 117; loss of prestige, 143. Grenville, Thomas, sent by Fox to treat with France and with the United States, 366; preposterous offer to Vergennes, 367; relations with Franklin, 368, 369; difficulty over his commission, 371; recalled, 372; remark on self-seeking of France, 395. Guadaloupe. See Canada. Hale, Edward E., quoted, 234, 238, 242, 281, 290, 303. Hall, David, fellow workman of Franklin, 9; taken into partnership, 39. Hamilton, Alexander, mentioned, 344; opposes Franklin's motion to open sessions of Constitutional Convention with prayer, 409. Hamilton, governor of Pennsylvania, superseded, 87. Harrison, Benjamin, on committee with Franklin, 209. Hartley, David, character and friendship with Franklin, 256; aids American prisoners, 256; tries to arrange exchanges, 258; unable to hasten matters, 261; finally succeeds, 262; cautions Franklin against a French alliance, 272; sends copies of conciliatory bills to Franklin, 281; visits him, 282; warning to Franklin, 288; proposes a truce, 359; letters to, 360, 364. Harvard College makes Franklin Master of Arts, 43. Henry, Patrick, 107, 111. Hillsborough, Earl of, replaces Shelburne in charge of the colonies, 151, 157; Franklin's opinion of, 151; holds that colonial agents were illegally appointed, 152; interview and dispute with Franklin, 153-157; angry at Franklin's retort, 157; refuses to recognize Franklin as agent, 157; his theory followed by board of trade, 158; loses prestige, 159; disliked by George III., 160; tries to prevent granting of barrier colonies, 160-162; his action reversed by privy council at Franklin's suggestion, 163; resigns, 163; resentment against Franklin, 164. Hortalez & Co. See Beaumarchais. Howe, Lord, negotiations with Franklin in England, 202; tries to mediate in America, 213; arranges a conference with Franklin, Adams, and Rutledge, 214, 215; fails to find common ground, 216. Hughes, ----, named stamp distributer at Franklin's suggestion, 108. Hume, David, 75. Hunter, William, 43. Hutchinson, Anne, 178 note. Hutchinson, Governor, disputes over parliamentary taxation with Massachusetts Assembly, 166; vexes Dartmouth, 167; writes letters urging ministry to take severe measures in Boston, 177; value of his advice to ministry, 178 note; petition for his removal, 183; advises detention of Franklin, 196. Hutchinson Letters, 177-193; shown to Franklin, 177; sent by him to America under pledge of secrecy, 178; published, 179; manner of transmission unknown, 180; quarrel between Temple and Whately, 181; responsibility taken by Franklin, 182, 183; question as to honorableness of his action, 184; attack on Franklin before Privy Council, 185-191; incident ruins Franklin's standing, 193. Ignorance of English concerning America, 132, 134, 135, 137. Indians, Franklin's dealings with, 40, 44; their opinion of rum, 41; hated in Pennsylvania, 83, 87. Independence of colonies, dreaded in England, 49, 66, 79, 106; its possibility denied by Franklin, 81, 82, 83, 108, 197; foreseen by Pratt, Choiseul, Vergennes, 83; its approach recognized by Franklin, 107, 171; repudiated by Congress, 211; declaration of, 212. Internal and external taxation, dispute concerning difference, 130; identity upheld by Grenville, 130; by Townshend, 149; denied by Franklin, 130, 131. Ireland, suggested as possible member of Confederation by Franklin, 208. Izard, rank as diplomate, 220; sides with Lee against Franklin, 278; quarrel with Franklin, 279; attacks Deane and Franklin, 290; charges against Franklin, 292, 298, 399; extravagant demands for money, 297, 299, 314; letter of Franklin to, 314. Jackson, William, buys supplies in Holland, 328, 329; draws on Franklin, 329; damages American credit, 329; complications about goods, 330; his pro-slavery speech in Congress, 416. Jay, John, his "conscience" in Congress, 208; rank as diplomate, 220; humiliating situation as financial agent in Spain, 307; inability to raise money, 307, 321; helped by Franklin, 307, 322, 332, 333, 335; defers to Franklin's opinion, 342; recognizes importance of Franklin's position, 346; appointed commissioner to treat for peace, 349; sent for by Franklin to aid in treating, 370; illness, 372; insists on recognition of independence in Oswald's commission, 373; suspects Vergennes' motives, 373; is certain that Vergennes is secretly working against United States, 375; persuades Shelburne to grant the new commission, 376; wishes to negotiate without Vergennes, 378; arranges boundaries and Mississippi navigation in the treaty, 380; indignant at congressional reproof, 388; dissuaded by Franklin from replying, 388; testimony in behalf of Franklin, 390, 399; freedom from quarrels, 390; the real leader in the negotiations, 391. Jefferson, Thomas, mentioned, 212; declines mission to France, 232; appointed commissioner to treat for peace, 349; arrival in Paris, 398; succeeds Franklin, 398; describes his popularity, 398; on Franklin's calumniators, 399. Jones, John Paul, his daring exploits, 300, 301; supported by Franklin, 301; advised by him, 301. "Junto," club founded by Franklin, 34; becomes a political engine, 34, 35. Kames, Lord, 75; letters to, 77, 83. Kant, Immanuel, calls Franklin Prometheus, 60. Keimer, ----, Franklin's employer in Philadelphia, 6, 11; prints a newspaper and sells out to Franklin, 12. Keith, Sir William, governor of Pennsylvania, proposes to set Franklin up as printer, 6; tricks him into sailing to England, 7, 8. Knox, ----, agent of Georgia, favors Stamp Act, 105. Lafayette, Marquis de, recommended by Franklin, 246; brings Franklin's commission, 298; tries to help Franklin raise money, 333. Landais, French captain of American vessel, 302; refuses to obey Franklin, 302; goes insane, 302, 303. Laurens, Henry, rank as diplomate, 220; complains of Franklin's neglect, 264; captured, 324; appointed commissioner to treat for peace, 349; letter from Franklin to, 390; confidence in Franklin, 399. Laurens, John, great expenses in Holland, 238, 329. Lee, Arthur, appointed by Massachusetts to succeed Franklin as her agent on his departure from England, 141; praised by Franklin, 141; slanders him, 141; unable to help Franklin when attacked before Privy Council, 185; circulates rumors of Franklin's treachery, 194; still praised by Franklin, 194; succeeds Franklin, 203; rank as diplomate, 220; influences Beaumarchais, 226; appointed Franklin's colleague in France, 232; suspects Deane and Beaumarchais, 238; prevents Congress from sending them goods, 239; ruins Deane, 239, 240; slanders Williams, 265; secures his removal, 266; joins with Franklin against Deane, 270; description of secret meetings of Vergennes with commissioners, 274; jealousy of Franklin, the cake episode, 275; objects to reciprocity with French West Indies, 277; tries to reverse action taken on it, 278; rage with Franklin at not being told of sailing of Gérard and Deane, 290; his evil influence at home, 291; general unpopularity, 291, 317; virulent hatred of Franklin, 292; extravagant slanders, 292, 293, 297; excessive demands for money, 297, 299, 314, 316; sent to Madrid, 298; refuses to give up papers of French embassy, 299; prevents a Spanish loan by his imprudence, 317; defers to Franklin, 342; influence in prejudicing Massachusetts against Franklin, 399. Lee, John, counsel for Franklin in Hutchinson letters affair, 187, 188. Lee, William, rank as diplomate, 220; offended at appointment of Jonathan Williams, 265; sides with Arthur Lee against terms of French treaty, 278; makes charges against Franklin, 298. Lexington, fight at, 204. Library, established by Franklin, 20; parent of later subscription libraries, 20. Livingston, R. R., letters of Franklin to, 323, 335; letters from, asking money, 333, 334; condemns commissioners for making treaty without French advice, 388. "London Chronicle" publishes Franklin's letters to Shirley, 47. Loudoun, Lord, appointed military head of colonies, 64; his procrastination and inefficiency, 65. Louis XVI., puzzled by Beaumarchais' zeal for the colonies, 226; sides with Turgot in opposing intervention, 228; compliments American envoys, 283; civilities to Franklin, 401. Lovell, James, Franklin's letter to, 312. Luzerne, Chevalier de la, French minister to the United States, 351, 363, 387. Lynch, ----, on committee with Franklin, 209. Mansfield, Lord, arranges settlement of Penn dispute with Franklin, 70, 71; upholds parliamentary power over colonies, 118; condemns a pamphlet of Franklin's, 136. Massachusetts appoints Franklin its agent, 138; fails to pay him, 139; quarrels with Hutchinson over parliamentary supremacy, 166; petitions for removal of Hutchinson and Oliver, 183; rebukes Franklin for carelessness, 194. Mauduit, ----, agent for Hutchinson, 185. Meredith, ----, Franklin's partner, 11, 12. Mirabeau, eulogy on Franklin, 419. Molasses trade, its importance to the colonies, 276; remarks of Adams upon, 276; secured in French treaty, 277-279. Morris, Robert, offended at appointment of Jonathan Williams, 265; appointed treasurer, 304; complete reliance on Franklin, 307; urges Franklin to suggest to Vergennes to help America to raise a loan at Madrid, 331; drafts on Franklin, 333-336; letters of Franklin to, 333, 334, 335, 336; directs Franklin to leave surplus, if any, to M. Grand, 336. Morris, Thomas, rank as diplomate, 220; commercial agent at Nantes, 264; his incompetence, 264, 265, 311. Navy, United States, supported by Franklin, 300-303. Necker, induced by Franklin to guarantee a loan, 328. New Jersey, appoints Franklin its agent, 138. "New England Courant," printed under Franklin's name, 5. Noailles, Marquis de, announces to England alliance of French with United States, 284. Non-importation, its effectiveness against the Stamp Act, 115, 116; urged later by Franklin, 173, 175; acts like "protection," 173; its effects upon the East India Company, 175; other effects, 176. Norris, Isaac, declines to represent Pennsylvania against the Proprietors in England, 63; resigns speakership rather than sign petition, 94. North, Lord, chancellor of exchequer, 151; at Privy Council hearing, 190; attempts to bribe Franklin, 202; permits Hartley to correspond with Franklin, 256; forced by Burgoyne's surrender to attempt conciliation with colonies, 280; twitted by Fox with French and American alliance, 281; receives news of Cornwallis's surrender, 363; tries to alienate France from the States, 363, 364; resigns, 364. Oliver, Lieutenant-Governor, his letters, 177; petition for his removal, 183. Oswald, Richard, sent by Shelburne to discuss peace with Franklin, 365; second visit, 366; fruitless interview with Franklin, 367; preferred to Grenville by Franklin, 371; continues negotiation, 372; difficulty over his commission, 373; receives satisfactory commission, 376; agrees to a draft treaty, 377. Otis, James, opposition to Stamp Act, 107, 111. Oxford University makes Franklin Doctor of Laws, 75. Parliament, supremacy of, over colonies, denied by Franklin, 47; asserted by Shirley, 46; by Parliament, 64; Stamp Act raises question, 110; denied by Pitt, 114, 117; debate over declaratory resolution in Parliament, 118; arguments of Franklin before Commons, 124-126; distinction between internal and external taxes, 130; debates under Dartmouth's ministry, 167-170. Parton, James, Life of Franklin, quoted, 3, 16, 23, 36, 97, 208, 222, 232, 240, 241, 271, 281, 283, 407, 415, 419. "Paxton massacre," 87-89; Paxton boys threaten Indians in Philadelphia, 88; overawed by Franklin's preparations, 89; unpopularity of latter with lower classes, 90. Pelham, Henry, said to have planned a Stamp Act, 104. Penn family, proprietaries, strained relations with people, 49, 60; refuse to allow lands to be taxed by Assembly, 61, 62; interviews with Franklin, 67; complain to Pennsylvania of him, 68; endeavor to get taxing acts disallowed, 69; denied by the board of trade, 70, 72; continue struggle with Assembly, 90; their corrupt practices, 94, 95; famous epitaph by Franklin, 95; his hostility later diminished, 95. Penn, John, appointed governor of Pennsylvania, 87; agreeable beginning of administration, 87; protected and directed by Franklin at time of Paxton massacre, 89; vetoes bills of the Assembly, 90, 91. Penn, Thomas, wishes Parliament to tax colonies, 49, 64. Penn, William, suggests colonial union, 44. Pennsylvania, reluctance to take military measures, 39, 49, 52; controversy with proprietors, 60-64, 69, 72, 73, 90-99; desires to be a crown colony, 63, 64, 91-93; labors of Franklin in behalf of, 66-72, 101, 102; adopts a state constitution, 211; chooses Franklin president of legislature, 403, 404. "Pennsylvania Gazette," published by Franklin, 12; its character and success, 13, 23; Franklin's writings in, 44. Pitt, William, refuses audience to Franklin, 74; opposes Stamp Act, 114, 117; upholds American claim to self-taxation, 117; denies parliamentary power over colonies, 118; reorganizes cabinet, 147; supports Shelburne, 148; becomes Earl of Chatham, 148; loses control of affairs, 148, 150; statue erected in America, 149; interview with Franklin, 196; compliments Franklin in House of Lords, 198. "Plain Truth," effect upon Pennsylvania, 39. "Poor Richard's Almanac," 21; its character and influence, 22; wit and wisdom, 22, 23. Pownall, Governor, favors barrier Western colonies, 57. Pratt, Attorney-General [see Camden, Lord]. Price, Dr., humorous message of Franklin to, 217, 218. Priestley, Dr., present at Privy Council hearing, 190; describes Franklin's last day with him in London, 203; letters of Franklin to, 204, 217; protects Austin, 271. Prisoners, exchange of, difficulties attending, 252, 253; hardships of American prisoners, 253, 254, 255; refusal of British to consider them prisoners of war, 254; efforts of Franklin to secure this recognition, 255-264; correspondence with Hartley, 256-262; proposes exchange "on account," 258, 260; final success, 262, 263; refusal to exchange privateer prisoners, 263; retaliation suggested, 263. Privateers, their feats in English waters, 248, 249; protected and commissioned by Franklin, 250, 252. Prussia, treaty with, signed by Franklin, 397. Pulteney, William, visits Franklin with a view to peace, 357. Ralph, James, 9. Rayneval, F. M. G. de, secretary to Vergennes, 375; argues with Jay against American claims to Western lands, 375; secret journey to London, 375. Representation in Parliament, colonial, proposed by Shirley, 48; by others, 127, 128; views of Franklin, 48, 49, 128, 129. Robertson, Dr., 75. Rockingham, Marquis of, prime minister, 115; decides to repeal Stamp Act, 118; on importance of Franklin's arrival in France, 234; forms cabinet after Yorktown, 365; death, 372. "Rules for reducing a great empire to a small one," 136; condemned by Mansfield, 136, 137. Rutledge, Edward, on committee to treat with Lord Howe, 214, 215, 216. Sandwich, Lord, attacks Franklin in House of Lords, 198. Saville, Sir George, friendly to America, 282. Shelburne, Earl of, friendly to America, 147; administers colonial affairs, 147; hampered by Townshend, 148; and hated by George III., 148, 149; superseded by Hillsborough, 151; protects Austin, 271; timely letter of Franklin to, 365; enters Rockingham cabinet, 365; sends Oswald to Franklin, 365; unwilling to admit independence of colonies, 367; idea of a federal union, 367; difficulties with Fox, 366, 370, 372; becomes prime minister, 372; assures Franklin of continuation of previous policy toward America, 372; issues vague commission to Oswald, 372; appealed to by Jay not to be led by Vergennes, 376; his liberal views, 376; gives new commission, 376; his anxiety over the concession, 377; earnest in behalf of Tories, 381, 382; finally yields, 382; condemned in England and loses office, 383. Shirley, governor of Massachusetts, proposes scheme of colonial union, 46; discussion with Franklin, 47-49; appoints auditors for claims under Braddock's expedition, 54; his success as a soldier explained by Franklin, 56. Siéyes, M., 419. Spain, secretly aids Beaumarchais, 229; aid asked in recognizing United States, 274, 275, 279; gives slight financial aid, 307, 317, 321; interests in America threaten to prolong war, 369; or divide France and States, 370; tries to prevent States gaining Western lands, 380. Stamp Act, causes leading to it, 102, 103; colonial taxation proposed by Townshend, 103; plan resumed by Grenville, 104, 105; protests of colonial agents disregarded, 106; passed, 106; opinion of Franklin concerning, 106; causes violent outbreak in Pennsylvania, 109; in other colonies, 110; rouses opposition among Grenville's opponents, 114; among English exporters who find trade cut down, 115, 116; attacked by Pitt, 117; its repeal decided on, 118; way paved by a declaratory resolution of its validity, 118; debated, 118; examination of Franklin as to its effects, 119-123; effect on English sentiment, 121; testimony as to colonial feeling, 122; argument as to colonial right of self-taxation, 124; repealed, 132, 133; popular rejoicing in England, 133; in America, 133, 134; causes for repeal, 142; repeal caused by union of diverse elements, 143. St. Andrews University makes Franklin Doctor of Laws, 75. St. Asaph, Bishop of, friend to America, 282; visits Franklin at Portsmouth, 401; letters to, 409, 414. Steuben, Baron, recommended by Franklin, 246. Stevenson, Mary, scientific tastes, 76; wished by Franklin to marry his son, 76; letters to, 86, 101. Stiles, Ezra, letter to, 28. Stormont, Lord, English ambassador to France, complains of Beaumarchais, 230; threatens to leave if Franklin is allowed to come to Paris, 234; refuses to communicate with Franklin, 253; recalled, 285. Strachey, Henry, sent to Paris by Shelburne, 377. Strahan, William, offers his son to marry Franklin's daughter, 76; letters to, 77, 84, 205. Sullivan, General, carries message of Lord Howe to Congress, 214. Temple, ----, suspected of having sent Hutchinson letters to America, 181; calls on Whately to exonerate him, 181; quarrel and duel, 182; exculpated by Franklin, 182. Thomson, Charles, letters to, 106, 417. Thornton, Major, agent of Franklin to aid prisoners, 257. Townshend, Charles, proposes colonial taxation, 103; goes out of office, 104; hostility to colonies, 116; willing to repeal Stamp Act, 143; chancellor of exchequer, 147; favored by George III., 148; renews proposal to draw a revenue from America, 149; proposes disciplining New York, 150; introduces bill for American customs duties, 150; death, 151. "Townshend duties," introduction, 150; passage, 150; non-importation used against, 174-175; effect in destroying revenue, 175; and increasing cost of collection, 176. Treaty of peace, early suggestions of peace without independence by Pulteney, 357; by "Charles de Weissenstein," 357, 358; latter supposed to be George III., 358; answered by Franklin, 358, 359; proposals by Hartley, 359; high tone of Franklin's replies, 361; effects of capture of Cornwallis, 363; efforts by Lord North to divide the States and France, 363; repudiated by Franklin and by Vergennes, 364; fall of North cabinet, 364; formation of Rockingham cabinet, friendly to America, 365; Shelburne sends Oswald to see Franklin and Vergennes, 365; plan of separate treaty with America again rejected, 365; Laurens brings same news from Adams, 365; Franklin suggests certain concessions, 366, 371; rivalry of Fox and Shelburne, 366; both send emissaries, 366; dealings of Grenville with Vergennes and Franklin, 367-370; possibility that to avoid prolonging war on Spain's account, the States might treat separately, 369; difficulties over Grenville's and Oswald's commissions, 371; retirement of Fox and Grenville from Shelburne ministry, 372; Oswald resumes negotiation, 372; debate over form of his commission, 373-377; Jay and Adams overrule Franklin, 374; their suspicions of French friendliness, 374-376; Jay persuades Shelburne to yield his objections, 376; negotiations resumed, 377; draft agreed upon but rejected by English, 377; difficulties of American commissioners on account of their instructions, 377, 378; Adams and Jay again overrule Franklin and determine not to follow French advice, 379; boundaries agreed upon, 380; fisheries, 380; responsibility of Franklin for dispute over indemnification of Tories, 380; a deadlock, 381; counter-claims suggested by Franklin, 381, 382; Shelburne yields, 382; provisional articles signed, 383; condemnation of treaty in England, 383; real success of Americans, 384; anger of Vergennes, 384, 385, 387; Franklin's reply, 386; condemnation in America, 388; justification of Adams and Jay, 391, 392, 396. Truxton, Commodore, 401. Turgot, opposes France's aiding colonies, 227, 228; on French poverty, 319. University of Pennsylvania, founded by Franklin, 37. Vaughan, Benjamin, sent by Shelburne to Paris, 372; carries Jay's message to Shelburne, 376; fears failure of treaty over royalist indemnity, 381. Vergennes, Comte de, predicts American independence, 83; favors policy of aiding colonies to weaken England, 227; gets control of king's foreign policy, 229; establishes Beaumarchais as Hortalez & Co., 229; maintains outward neutrality, 230, 231; avoids a quarrel on Franklin's account with English ambassadors, 234; meets the commissioners, 237; tries to suppress license of colonial privateers, 250, 251; self-interest of his policy toward America, 252; secret interview with envoys, 274; liberal dealings with States, 285; keeps departure of Gérard and Deane secret, 290; suspects Lee's secretary of being a spy, 290; dislike for Lee, 291; complains of exorbitant financial demands, 325, 328, 333; appealed to by Morris to help American credit in Spain, 331; confidence in Franklin, 345; antipathy to Adams, 350; angry at proposal to scale American paper money, 350; insists that French creditors be spared, 351; appeals to Franklin against Adams, 352; advises against answering "De Weissenstein," 359; trusted by Franklin, 362, 378; refuses to treat with England apart from United States, 364; amused at Grenville's proposal, 368; puzzled at discord between Grenville and Oswald, 370; advises commissioners not to quibble over wording of Oswald's commission, 373; suspected by Jay, 373, 375; succeeds in having American ultimatum reduced to independence, 378; and commissioners instructed to follow his advice, 378; suspected by Adams, 379; praises success of treaty, 383; informed of the conclusion of preliminary articles, 384; angry note to Franklin, 385; to Luzerne, 387; personal regard for Franklin, 387, 393, 398; apparent generosity, 393-396. "Virtual" representation of the colonies in Parliament, 129; Pitt's opinion, 117; Franklin's, 129. Voltaire, relations with Franklin, 288, 289. Walpole, Horace, remarks on Franklin's voyage to France, 232; receives private news of French and American alliance, 281. Walpole, Robert, said to have planned a stamp tax, 104. Walpole, Thomas, astonished at Franklin's proposed memorial to Dartmouth, 200; advises Franklin not to present it, but to leave England, 201, 202; receives private news of French and American alliance, 281. Washington, George, mentioned, 206, 209, 267, 298, 307, 328, 344, 358; harassed by foreign military adventurers, 242; relieved by Franklin, 245; comparison of services with those of Franklin, 308, 339, 404, 407; supported for president by Franklin, 412. Wedderburn, Alexander, solicitor-general and counsel for Hutchinson and Oliver, 186; bitter attack on Franklin before Privy Council, 188, 189. West, the, its expansion foreseen by Franklin, 57, 83, 84. West India Islands, suggested as members of Confederation by Franklin, 208. Whately, Thomas, denies knowledge of Hutchinson letters, 181; refuses to exculpate Temple, 181; quarrel and duel, 182; exculpated by Franklin, 182; sues him, 187. Whately, William, recipient of Hutchinson letters, as secretary of Grenville, 180. Whitehead, ----, deceived by a satire of Franklin, 135, 136. Wickes, ----, colonial privateer, 248. Williams, Jonathan, rank as diplomate, 220; appointed naval agent by Franklin, 264; accused of dishonesty by the Lees, 265; dismissed, 266;thereafterward ill-treated by Congress, 266. Wyndham, Sir William, wishes Franklin to open a swimming-school in London, 10. Yale College makes Franklin Master of Arts, 43. Yorke, Charles, solicitor-general, counsel for Penn family, 68. 
9607	----	FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD LIFE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN By William M. Thayer Author of "From Farm House to White House," "From Log Cabin to White House," "From Pioneer Home to White House," "From Tannery to White House," etc., etc. ILLUSTRATED 1889. PREFACE The life of Benjamin Franklin is stranger than fiction. Its realities surpass the idealities of novelists. Imagination would scarcely venture to portray such victories over poverty, obscurity, difficulties, and hardships. The tact, application, perseverance, and industry, that he brought to his life-work, make him an example for all time. He met with defeats; but they inspired him to manlier efforts. His successes increased his desire for something higher and nobler. He was satisfied only with _going up still higher_. He believed that "one to-day is worth two to-morrows"; and he acted accordingly, with the candle-shop and printing office for his school-room, and Observation for his teacher. His career furnishes one of the noblest examples of success for the young of both sexes to study. We offer his life as one of the brightest and best in American history to inspire young hearts with lofty aims. The first and principal source of material for this book was Franklin's "Autobiography." No other authority, or treasure of material, can take the place of that. Biographies by Sparks, Sargent, Abbott, and Parton have freely consulted together with "Franklin in France," and various eulogies and essays upon his life and character. That Franklin was the real father of the American Union, is the view which the author of this biography presents. It is the view of Bancroft, as follows:-- "Not half of Franklin's merits have been told. He was the true father of the American Union. It was he who went forth to lay the foundation of that great design at Albany; and in New York he lifted up his voice. Here among us he appeared as the apostle of the Union. It was Franklin who suggested the Congress of 1774; and but for his wisdom, and the confidence that wisdom inspired, it is a matter of doubt whether that Congress would have taken effect. It was Franklin who suggested the bond of the Union which binds these States from Florida to Maine. Franklin was the greatest diplomatist of the eighteenth century. He never spoke a word too soon; he never spoke a word too much; he never failed to speak the right word at the right season." The closing years of Franklin's life were so identified with the Union of the States, and the election and inauguration of Washington as the first President, that his biography becomes a fitting companion to the WHITE HOUSE SERIES. CONTENTS I. FROM OLD ENGLAND TO NEW ENGLAND. Persecution Driving Franklin and Others Away--Discussion about Emigrating--Josiah Franklin--His Trade--Benjamin Franklin--Doctor Franklin's Account of His Ancestors--Meetings of Dissenters Broken Up--Why Josiah Decided to Go--Account of Their Family Bible--The Final Decision--The Franklin Family Influential--Thomas Franklin--The Franklin Poet--Doctor Franklin about His Father--What Boston was Then and Now--Exploring the Wilderness--Influence of Franklins in Boston. II. THE FIFTEENTH GIFT. Birth of Benjamin Franklin on Sunday--The Fifteenth Child--God's Gift--Proposition to Baptize Him the Same Day--Discussion over It--Baptized on That Day by Doctor Willard--The Church Record--House in Which He was Born--Josiah's Children--Death of Wife and Second Marriage--The Folger Family--Name for Uncle Benjamin--Personal Beauty--Words of Parton--Josiah Took Up Trade of Tallow-chandler--The Business and Place Described--Sons Apprenticed--Josiah a Good Musician--Condition of the World When Benjamin was Born in 1706. III. PAYING TOO DEAR FOR THE WHISTLE. Seven Years Old--First Money to Spend as He Pleased--Advice Gratis--Boy with Whistle--Benjamin Buys a Whistle--Going into the Concert Business--Scene in the Family--Tormented by John for Paying All His Money--Ben Breaks Down--Father and Mother Takes His Part--The Lesson He Learned--What He Wrote about It at Seventy-two Years of Age--When Boys Pay Too Dear for the Whistle--Dickens--Keeping the Secret--How the Secret Came Out. IV. IN SCHOOL. Uncle Benjamin and His Poetry--His Family--His Letter about Ben--Plans for School and Doctor Willard--Goes to School at Eight Years of Age--Description of His Father--Of His Mother--Inscription on Their Monument--Nathaniel Williams, Teacher--Description of School-house--His Scholarship High--His Teacher Praises Him--Led the School--Prophecies about Him--Webster--Rittenhouse--Stephenson. V. OUT OF SCHOOL. Poverty Forces Him to Leave School--His Mother's View--Hard Time for Ministers--Brownell's School of Penmanship--How Ben Could Help His Father--Boys Put to Work Young Then--His Obedience--A Well-Disciplined Boy--Incident of His Manhood to Rebuke a Landlord--Robert Peel and Harry Garland--The Eight Hall Brothers--His Progress. VI. FROM SCHOOL TO CANDLE-SHOP. Arrival of Uncle Benjamin--Opposed to Taking His Nephew Out of School-- Thinks Ben is Very Talented--Prospects of the Business--Benjamin's Talk with His Mother--Blessings of Industry--Doctor Franklin's Proverbs--Became Wiser Than His Father--Tallow-Chandler at Ten Years of Age--His Father Saw His Dissatisfaction--Josiah, the Runaway Son, Returns--Wanted to Go to Sea--The Proposition Vetoed--Uncle Benjamin Against It. VII. CHOOSING A TRADE AND STEALING SPORT. Love of a Trade Necessary to Success--Following "Natural Bent"--Square Boys in Round Holes--Smeaton--Benjamin Pleased with a New Plan-- Examining Different Trades--The Cutler, Brazier, etc.--Chooses Cutler's Trade--Enters Shop on Trial--Disagreement on Terms--The Good It Did Him--Sport on the Water--An Evil Proposition--Stealing Stones--The Wharf Built--The Thieves Detected--How Benjamin's Father Found Him Out--Benjamin's Confession and Promise--The End. VIII. BECOMING PRINTER-BOY. James Franklin Returns from England a Printer--His Father's Talk About Learning That Trade--Benjamin Likes It--Arrangement with James-- Printing in Its Infancy Then--Censorship over Printing--Bound to His Brother--Form of Indenture--William Tinsley--White Slavery--Poor Children Sold at Auction--A Printer-boy and How He Liked--Time for Reading--Budget!--The Printing-office, Where and What--Being on Time--After a Book Before Breakfast--Washington's Punctuality-- Franklin's Like It. IX. TABLE-TALK EDUCATION. What Franklin Said of Table-talk--What Heard at Table Now--Its Moulding Influence--That of His Grandfather--The Franklins Good in Conversation--Extract from Parton--Letter of Franklin to His Wife in 1758--Pythagoras--Cicero--Josiah Franklin--His Wise Counsels--Origin of His Temperance Principles--No Temperance Cause Then--The Washburne Family--The Way the Twig is Bent. X. LEADER OF SPORTS AND THOUGHTS. Love of Reading and Fun--The Best Swimmer, etc.--Invention to Promote Swimming--His Secret of Success--The Trial of the Apparatus--Hard on the Wrists--Another Experiment Proposed--Swimming Promoted by a Kite--Delight of the Boys--What Franklin Said of It in Manhood--The Seed Thought of Drawing Lightning from a Cloud with a Kite--His Experiment and Joy--What He Wrote about It--Advocate of Liberal Female Education--Correspondence with Collins--His Father's Opinion--How Benjamin Tried to Improve--How He Gained Time--Wise Maxims in Age--Maxims--C.G. Frost and One Hour a Day--What Spare Moments Did for Benjamin. XI. STARTING A NEWSPAPER. Only Three Newspapers in America--Created a Stir--What Newspaper Business is in Boston Now--How to Estimate It--Benjamin Manages the Printing of It--His Interest in It--Its Warm Reception--Proposition to Board Himself--What He Gained by It--His Object Self-improvement-- James Selfish, Benjamin Generous--Their Talk about the Plan--What His Bill-of-Fare Was--How Come to Adopt Vegetable Diet--More Maxims-- Cocker's Arithmetic--His Success. XII. THE RUSE, AND WHAT CAME OF IT. What Parton Says of _Courant_--The Knot of Liberals--Ben's First Anonymous Article, and His Ruse--Discussion over It by the _Courant_ Club--Decided to Publish It--Benjamin Puts It in Type--It Created a Sensation--The Second Article, Better Than First--Excitement over It Still Greater--Ben's Exultation--James' Astonishment--Surprise of the "Knot"--Ben a Favorite Now--How the Autobiography Tells the Story-- Decided Ben's Career--Canning and Microcosm--Examples of Industry, Tact, etc.--Boy without a Name. XIII. BOOKS OF HIS BOYHOOD. Four Classes of Readers--Ben after Diamonds--Hungry Mind--Words of Thomas Hood--What Franklin Said--First Book Pilgrim's Progress--Talk with His Father--What Franklin Said of Narrative--Plutarch's Lives--Easy to Do Good--What They Were--Incident by Parton--Plan to Buy Burton's Historical Collections--Describes Them--Boyle's Lectures--Kind Offer of Matthew Adams--Borrowing Books of Booksellers' Clerks--Great Favor--Books Very Scarce Then--Greenwood's English Grammar--Talk with Collins--Other Books Read--Habit of Taking Notes--Letter of Franklin about It--Professor Atkinson's Words--Garfield Had Same Habit. XIV. LEARNING THE ART OF COMPOSITION. Began to Write Poetry at Seven--Had Practised Putting Thoughts Together--James Praised His Pieces--Proposition to Write, Print, and Sell Verses--Wrote Two--Sold Well--His Father's Severe Rebuke-- After-talk with James--Best Writers Deficient at First--Reporting to James--Benefit to Ben--One of His Verses Preserved--What Franklin Said of It in Manhood--How He Used the _Spectator_--Determined to Improve--His Own Description of His Literary Work--How He Acquired Socratic Method--Rhetoric and Logic--How a Single Book Made Wesley, Martin, Pope, Casey, Lincoln, and Others What They Were--A Striking Case. XV. THE "COURANT" IN TROUBLE. The Startling News from the Assembly--A Discussion--A Sarcastic Letter the Cause--James and Benjamin Summoned before the Council--James Defiant--Benjamin Dismissed--How Mather Assailed the _Courant_--How James Answered Him--James in Prison--Benjamin Editing the Paper-- Quotation from Parton--Persecution of Printers in the Old Country--A Horrible Case--James Released, and Still Defiant--Inoculation a Remedy for Small Pox--The _Mercury_ Denouncing James' Imprisonment--James Still for Freedom of the Press--Secured It for All Time. XVI. THE BOY EDITOR. Attacking the Government--The Council Exasperated--Action of the _Courant_ Club--Plan to Evade Order of the Council--Benjamin, the Boy-editor--His Address in _Courant_--Quotations from _Courant_ of January 14, 1723--Not Libelous--Extract from Parton's Life--When Newspapers Ceased to be Carried Free--How Long Ben Was in Printing Office--Remarks by Mr. Sparks--What He Says of General Court--How the Experience Developed Benjamin--Right Boy in Right Place--Extract from _Courant_ about Bears. XVII. THE YOUNG SKEPTIC. Reading Shaftesbury's Work--Discussion with Collins--Ben's Orthodoxy in Peril--Benjamin a Thinker--Saying Grace over the Pork Barrel--Reading from Collins--Several Paragraphs Repugnant to Orthodoxy--Shaftesbury Attacking Miracles--Ben's Influence over John--Charged with Being Atheist--His Confession--Letter to His Father--Letter to Sister--Seeing His Folly--His Prayer--Sad Experience with Infidel Books--Similar to Lincoln's and Garfield's--Lincoln's Farewell. XVIII. HOW HE QUIT BOSTON. Decision to Leave James--Cruelty of the Latter--The Indenture-- Discussion over It with Collins--Advised to Get Place in Another Printing Office in Boston--James Had Warned Them against Hiring Him--Discloses His Decision to James--Unfair Use of Indenture--What Benjamin Said of It Afterwards--Resolved to Run Away--Planned The Method With Collins--Why Go by Water--How He Obtained Money--Collins Engages His Passage--Collins' Deliberate Lie--On the Road to Ruin--Collins' Report to Benjamin--Final Arrangements--Boarding the Sloop--Scene off Block Island--Ben Converted to Flesh--Benjamin Franklin's Experience Like William Hutton's. XIX. TRIALS OF A RUNAWAY. Applies for Work in New York--Bradford's Advice and Kindness--Starts for Philadelphia--The Drunken Dutch man--Driven on Shore by a Squall-- A Fearful Night--At Amboy--Benjamin Sick--A Young Man Travelling in Maine--Advantage of Reading--Sir Walter Scott's Advice--Going in Rain to Burlington--Landlord Suspected He Was a Runaway--At Doctor Brown's--A Fine Time with the Doctor--Buying Gingerbread of Old Woman--His Disappointment--Way out of It--Unexpected Deliverance--His Skill at Rowing Again Useful--Finally Reaches Philadelphia. XX. THE WALKING COMEDY. Meeting a Boy Eating--Buys Three Loaves--His Surprise--A Walking Comedy--Sees His Future Wife--His Generosity to Mother and Child--A Trait of His Life--Back to the Boat--On the Street Again and in Quaker Church--Sleeping in Church--The Kind Quaker--The Crooked Billet-- Suspected of being a Runaway--Meeting the New York Bradford--Interview with Young Bradford--Interview with Keimer--Showing His Skill at Type-setting--Senior Bradford's Ruse--Giving Account of His Boston Life--Doing Things Well--Case of Budgett--What Parton Said to Maydoll. XXI. GETTING ON. Repairing the Old Printing Press--Caution to Keep Secrets--Repairing for Bradford--Conversation with Bradford about Work in Boston-- Unbelief--Changing Boarding-place--Talk with Boarding-master Read-- Study and Companions There--High Rank of Printing Then--Letter from Collins--Found by His Brother-in-law, Captain Homes--Letter from the Captain--Benjamin's Reply--His Letter Read by Governor Keith--His History Told Keith--The Latter's Promise--Colonel French--Two Traits of Ben's Character, Observation and Humility. XXII. GOING UP HIGHER. Governor Keith and Colonel French Call on Benjamin--Keimer's Surprise--Benjamin's Interview with Them--Proposition to Establish Printing House--Keith Proposed He Should See His Father--Keimer Very Inquisitive about the Interview--Waiting for Vessel to Boston--Letter to Collins--How Long Take to Start Printing House--Tells Keimer He is Going to Boston--Sails for Boston--A Great Storm--Experience in Reaching Boston. XXIII. THE SURPRISE, AND ITS RESULTS. Hastens to See His Parents--Joyful Meeting--Account of Correspondence with Homes--Going to See James--Delight of Journeymen--Many Inquiries-- Proposition to Treat Them--Report of James' Treatment to Parents--His Mother's Counsel--Meets Collins--The Latter Intemperate--Counsels Him to Let Strong Drink Alone--His Father's Opinion of Keith's Letter-- Arrival of Captain Homes--Approves Plans of Benjamin--Calling on Friends--Seeing Doctor Mather--An Incident and Its Lesson--Collins Decides to Go to Philadelphia--Benjamin's Father Declines to Help Him--About _Courant_--Bidding Parents Farewell and Returning. XXIV. HIS RETURN, AND WHAT CAME OF IT. Leaves Boston for New York--Collins to Meet Him There--Calls at Newport to See His Brother John--Takes a Debt to Collect--Finds Collins Drunk in New York--Talk with Landlord--Governor Burnett Sends for Him-- Benjamin's Words about It--Rebukes John Drunk--Arrival in Philadelphia-- Called on Governor Keith--The Governor Proposes to Set Him up--Amusing Talk with Keimer--Collins Can Not Get Work--Trouble with Collins on the Delaware--End of Collins--Governor Keith Sends for Him--Going to England to Buy Outfit. XXV. WORKING, READING, AND COURTING. Keimer's Religious Creed--Argument with Benjamin--Establishing a New Sect and Foregoing a Good Dinner--Benjamin's Three Literary Associates--Literary Club Formed--Discussion on Ralph as a Poet--Benjamin's Views--Each One Writing Poetry--Paraphrase of 18th Psalm--Benjamin Reading Ralph's--Plan to Outwit Osborne--Its Success--Osborne's Mortification--The Club a Good One--Benjamin and Deborah Read--The Result. XXVI. A BOGUS SCHEME. Ralph Going to England with Benjamin--Time to Sail--Governor Keith Promises Letters--No Suspicion of Keith--Letters Not Ready as Promised--Second Application for Letters--Final Promise--Bag of Letters Come on Board--Looked over Letters in English Channel--The Revelation of Rascality--Benjamin's Situation Alone in London--Ralph Discloses that He Has Abandoned His Wife--Rebuked by Benjamin--Advice of Denham--Governor Keith a Fraud--Finds Work at Palmer's Printing House--Had Ralph to Support--Ralph a Schoolmaster--Accepting Trouble Philosophically. XXVII. "OUR WATER DRINKER." Letter from Ralph to Benjamin--Ralph's Epic Poem--Assisted Ralph's Wife--How He and Ralph Separated--Kindness of Wilcox, the Bookseller-- Loaning Books--Benjamin Reviews "Religion of Nature"--Talk with Watts, and His Opinion of It--Interview with Doctor Lyons--Doctor Pemberton-- Lived to See His Folly--Interview with Sir Hans Sloane--Benjamin's Attack on Beer Drinking--His Sound Argument--Jake, the Ale Boy--Called "A Water Drinker"--Discussion with Watts--Refused to Treat the Company-- Visits His Old Press Forty Years After. XXVIII. AT HOME AGAIN. What Became of Ralph--Benjamin Teaching Two Companions to Swim--Who Was Wygate?--The Excursion to Chelsea--Benjamin Swims Four Miles--Antics in the Water--Sir W. Wyndham Proposes He Should Open a Swimming School-- Wygate's Proposition to Travel--Denham's Advice--Cheaper Board--Incident Showing Denham's Character--Denham Offers to Employ Him as Clerk in Philadelphia--Leaves Printing House for Warehouse--Returns to Philadelphia. XXIX. UPS AND DOWNS OF LIFE. Visits Keimer's Printing Office--Calls on Deborah Read--Her Marriage to Rogers, and Divorce--Visit to Deborah Leads to Re-engagement--Now a Merchant's Clerk--Denham and Benjamin Both Sick--Denham Died and Left Legacy to Benjamin--Arrival of Captain Homes--Working for Keimer Again--The Latter Making Trouble--Benjamin Leaves Him--Interview with Meredith--Proposition to Go into Company in Printing Business--Meredith's Father Loans Capital. XXX. THE LEATHERN APRON CLUB. Reflecting on His Religious Belief--Rules He Wrote on the _Berkshire_ and Introduction to Them--The Leathern Apron Club--Patterned after Cotton Mather's--The Questions Asked--Benjamin's Explanation--The Compact Signed--Bringing in Books They Owned--Establishing the First Library in the Land--Questions Discussed by the Club--No Improvement on This Club--Benjamin's View of It in Age--Organizing Other Clubs-- Studying the Languages--Benjamin's Success. XXXI. BRIGHTER DAYS. Proposition from Keimer--Discussion of It with Meredith--Returns to Keimer--Printing Money for New Jersey at Burlington--The Surveyor General's Life--His Talk with Benjamin--Starting New Firm, Franklin and Meredith--The First Job--Predictions of Its Failure by Nickle and Merchants' Club--Doctor Baird Differed--A Proposition from a Stationer--Interview with Webb--Plan for Starting a Paper Made Known-- Keimer's Paper--Benjamin's Articles in _Mercury_--Buys Keimer's Paper--Dissolves Partnership--Rum the Cause--The _Gazette_ a Success. XXXII. NO LONGER A SKEPTIC. Time is Money--The Lounger Rebuked--Maxims--Avoiding Slander and Abuse--Revising His Religious Belief--Articles of Belief--Code of Morals Adopted--Creed for "United Party of Virtue "--Letters to Friends--Proposed Prayers in Congress and Speech--Epitaph for His Tombstone Written at Twenty-three. XXXIII. POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC. Publishing an Almanac--Discussion about It--When It Was Started-- Maxims Found in It--Very Popular, and Great Circulation--Franklin's Fame Spreading--The Junto Pleased--Franklin's Account of Success-- How He Conducted His Paper--The Libeller Suppressed--Success of His Stationer's Shop--Visit to Boston--Visits His Brother James-- Reconciliation--Takes His Son Home--He Buries a Child--His Defense of Rev. George Whitefield--Building a House of Worship for Him. XXXIV. MORE HONORS AND MORE WORK. Clerk of the Assembly--Postmaster--Night-watch Discussed in the Junto--Plan of a Fire Department--Many Fire Companies Formed--Plan to Pave the Streets--Paper on Smoky Chimneys--Franklin Invents a Stove--Gives Away the Patent--Franklin Founds the University of Philadelphia--Its Great Success--Franklin Organized Militia--Influence of Quakers against It--Eighty Companies Formed--Franklin Secured Fast Day--Peace. XXXV. PHILOSOPHER AND STATESMAN. Entering into Partnership with Hall--His Large Income--Time for Study and Research--Rapid Progress in Science--His Fame in Both Hemispheres-- What Mignet Said of His Labors--Kimmersley on His Lightning Rod-- Called Again to Political Life--List of Offices He Filled--Drafting Declaration of Independence--Hanging Separately--Anecdote--His First Labors at Court of England--Minister to England--Source of Troubles-- Hatred of Tories--Firm before House of Commons--Death of Mrs. Franklin-- Famous Letter to Strahan--The Eight Years' War--Franklin Author of the Union--First Name in History--Library and Letters of Franklin, Mass.-- His Death--Bequest to Washington. BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. I. FROM OLD ENGLAND TO NEW ENGLAND. "I am tired of so much persecution under the reign of our corrupt king," said a neighbor to Josiah Franklin, one day in the year 1685, in the usually quiet village of Banbury, England, "and I believe that I shall pull up stakes and emigrate to Boston. That is the most thriving port in America." "Well, I am not quite prepared for that yet," replied Franklin. "Our king is bad enough and tyrannical enough to make us all sick of our native land. But it is a great step to leave it forever, to live among strangers; and I could not decide to do it without a good deal of reflection." "Nor I; but I have reflected upon it for a whole year now, and the more I reflect the more I am inclined to emigrate. When I can't worship God here as my conscience dictates, I will go where I can. Besides, I think the new country promises much more to the common people than the old in the way of a livelihood." "Perhaps so; I have not given the subject much attention. Dissenters have a hard time here under Charles II, and we all have to work hard enough for a livelihood. I do not think you can have a harder time in Boston." Josiah Franklin was not disposed to emigrate when his neighbor first opened the subject. He was an intelligent, enterprising, Christian man, a dyer by trade, was born in Ecton, Leicestershire, in 1655, but removed to Banbury in his boyhood, to learn the business of a dyer of his brother John. He was married in Banbury at twenty-two years of age, his wife being an excellent companion for him, whether in prosperity or adversity, at home among kith and kin, or with strangers in New England. "You better consider this matter seriously," continued the neighbor, "for several families will go, I think, if one goes. A little colony of us will make it comparatively easy to leave home for a new country." "Very true; that would be quite an inducement to exchange countries, several families going together," responded Franklin. "I should enjoy escaping from the oppression of the Established Church as much as you; but it is a too important step for me to take without much consideration. It appears to me that my business could not be as good in a new country as it is in this old country." "I do not see why, exactly. People in a new country must have dyeing done, perhaps not so much of it as the people of an old country; but the population of a new place like Boston increases faster than the older places of our country, and this fact would offset the objection you name." "In part, perhaps. If Benjamin could go, I should almost feel that I must go; but I suppose it is entirely out of the question for him to go." Benjamin was an older brother of Josiah, who went to learn the trade of a dyer of his brother John before Josiah did. The Benjamin Franklin of this volume, our young hero, was named for him. He was a very pious man, who rendered unto God the things that are God's with full as much care as he rendered unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's. He was a very intelligent, bright man, also quite a poet for that day, and he invented a style of short-hand writing that he used in taking down sermons to which he listened. In this way he accumulated several volumes of sermons, which he held as treasures. "I have not spoken with your brother about the matter," replied the neighbor. "I think it would be more difficult for him to arrange to go than for most of us, at least for the present. I intend to speak with him about it." "He will not want me to go if he can not," added Josiah, "and I shall think about it a good while before I should conclude to go without him. We have been together most of our lives, and to separate now, probably never to meet again, would be too great a trial." "You will experience greater trials than that if you live long, no doubt," said the neighbor, "but I want you should think the matter over, and see if it will not be for your interest to make this change. I will see you again about it." While plans are being matured, we will see what Doctor Franklin said, in his "Autobiography," about his ancestors at Ecton: "Some notes, which one of my uncles, who had the same curiosity in collecting family anecdotes, once put into my hands, furnished me with several particulars relative to our ancestors. From these notes I learned that they lived in the same village, Ecton, in Northamptonshire, on a freehold of about thirty acres, for at least three hundred years, and how much longer could not be ascertained. This small estate would not have sufficed for their maintenance without the business of a smith [blacksmith] which had continued in the family down to my uncle's time, the eldest son being always brought up to that employment, a custom which he and my father followed with regard to their eldest sons. When I searched the records in Ecton, I found an account of their marriages and burials from the year 1555 only, as the registers kept did not commence previous thereto. I, however, learned from it that I was the youngest son of the youngest son for five generations back. My grandfather, Thomas, who was born in 1598, lived in Ecton till he was too old to continue his business, when he retired to Banbury, Oxfordshire, to the house of his son John, with whom my father served an apprenticeship. There my uncle died and lies buried. We saw his grave-stone in 1758. His eldest son, Thomas, lived in the house at Ecton, and left it with the land to his only daughter, who, with her husband, one Fisher, of Wellingborough, sold it to Mr. Ioted, now lord of the manor there. My grandfather had four sons, who grew up, viz.: Thomas, John, Benjamin, and Josiah." "I do not know how you like it, but it arouses my indignation to have our meeting broken up, as it was last week," remarked Josiah Franklin to the aforesaid neighbor, a short time after their previous interview. "If anything will make me exchange Banbury for Boston it is such intolerance." "I have felt like that for a long time, and I should not have thought of leaving my native land but for such oppression," replied the neighbor, "and what is worse, I see no prospect of any improvement; on the other hand, it appears to me that our rights will be infringed more and more. I am going to New England if I emigrate alone." "Perhaps I shall conclude to accompany you when the time comes. There do not appear to be room in this country for Dissenters and the Established Church. I understand there is in New England. I may conclude to try it." "I am glad to hear that. We shall be greatly encouraged if you decide to go. I discussed the matter with Benjamin since I did with you, and he would be glad to go if his business and family did not fasten him here. I think he would rather justify your going." "Did he say so?" "No, not in so many words. But he did say that he would go if his circumstances favored it as much as your circumstances favor your going." "Well, that is more than I supposed he would say. I expected that he would oppose any proposition that contemplated my removal to Boston. The more I think of it the more I am inclined to go." The Franklins, clear back to the earliest ancestors, had experienced much persecution. Some of them could keep and read their Bible only by concealing it and reading it in secret. The following, from Franklin's "Autobiography," is an interesting and thrilling incident: "They had an English Bible, and, to conceal it and place it in safety, it was fastened open with tapes under and within the cover of a joint-stool. When my great-grandfather wished to read it to his family, he placed the joint-stool on his knees, and then turned over the leaves under the tapes. One of the children stood at the door to give notice if he saw the apparitor coming, who was an officer of the spiritual court. In that case the stool was turned down again upon its feet, when the Bible remained concealed under it as before. This anecdote I had from Uncle Benjamin." The Dissenters from the Established Church loved their mode of worship more, if any thing, than members of their mother church. But under the tyrannical king, Charles II, they could not hold public meetings at the time to which we refer. Even their secret meetings were often disturbed, and sometimes broken up. "It is fully settled now that we are going to New England," said the aforesaid neighbor to Josiah Franklin subsequently, when he called upon him with two other neighbours, who were going to remove with him; "and we have called to persuade you to go with us; we do not see how we can take no for an answer." "Well, perhaps I shall not say no; I have been thinking the matter over, and I have talked with Benjamin; and my wife is not at all averse to going. But I can't say _yes_ to-day; I may say it to-morrow, or sometime." "That is good," answered one of the neighbors; "we must have one of the Franklins with us to be well equipped. Banbury would not be well represented in Boston without one Franklin, at least." "You are very complimentary," replied Franklin; "even misery loves company, though; and it would be almost carrying home with us for several families to emigrate together. The more the merrier." "So we think. To escape from the intolerant spirit that pursues Dissenters here will make us merry, if nothing else does. Home is no longer home when we can worship God as we please only in secret." "There is much truth in that," continued Franklin. "I am much more inclined to remove to New England than I was a month ago. The more I reflect upon the injustice and oppression we experience, the less I think of this country for a home. Indeed, I have mentally concluded to go if I can arrange my affairs as I hope to." "Then we shall be content; we shall expect to have you one of the company. It will be necessary for us to meet often to discuss plans and methods of emigration. We shall not find it to be a small matter to break up here and settle there." It was settled that Josiah Franklin would remove to New England with his neighbors, and preparations were made for his departure with them. These facts indicate the standing and influence of the Franklins. They were of the common people, but leading families. Their intelligence, industry, and Christian principle entitled them to public confidence and respect. Not many miles away from them were the Washingtons, ancestors of George Washington, known as "the father of his country." The Washingtons were more aristocratic than the Franklins, and possessed more of the world's wealth and honors. Had they been near neighbors they would not have associated with the Franklins, as they belonged to a different guild. Such were the customs of those times. Thomas Franklin was a lawyer, and "became a considerable man in the county,--was chief mover of all public-spirited enterprises for the county or town of Northampton, as well as of his own village, of which many instances were related of him; and he was much taken notice of and patronized by Lord Halifax." Benjamin was very ingenious, not only in his own trade as dyer, but in all other matters his ingenuity frequently cropped out. He was a prolific writer of poetry, and, when he died, "he left behind him two quarto volumes of manuscript of his own poetry, consisting of fugitive pieces addressed to his friends." An early ancestor, bearing the same Christian name, was imprisoned for a whole year for writing a piece of poetry reflecting upon the character of some great man. Note, that he was not incarcerated for writing bad poetry, but for libelling some one by his verse, though he might have been very properly punished for writing such stuff as he called poetry. It is nothing to boast of, that his descendant, Uncle Benjamin, was not sent to prison for producing "two quarto volumes of his own poetry," as the reader would believe if compelled to read it. Dr. Franklin said, in his "Autobiography": "My father married young, and carried his wife with three children to New England about 1685. The conventicles [meetings of Dissenters] being at that time forbidden by law, and frequently disturbed in the meetings, some considerable men of his acquaintance determined to go to that country, and he was prevailed with to accompany them thither, where they expected to enjoy their religion with freedom." Boston was not then what it is now, and no one living expected that it would ever become a city of great size and importance. It contained less than six thousand inhabitants. The bay, with its beautiful islands, spread out in front, where bears were often seen swimming across it, or from one island to another. Bear-hunting on Long Wharf was a pastime to many, and twenty were killed in a week when they were numerous. In the rear of the town stood the primeval forests, where Red Men and wild beasts roamed at their pleasure. It is claimed that an Indian or pioneer might have traveled, at that time, through unbroken forests from Boston to the Pacific coast, a distance of more than three thousand miles, except here and there where western prairies stretched out like an "ocean of land," as lonely and desolate as the forest itself. That, in two hundred years, and less, sixty millions of people would dwell upon this vast domain, in cities and towns of surprising wealth and beauty, was not even thought of in dreams. That Boston would ever grow into a city of three hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, with commerce, trade, wealth, learning, and influence to match, the wildest enthusiast did not predict. A single fact illustrates the prevailing opinion of that day, and even later. The town of Boston appointed a commission to explore the country along Charles River, to learn what prospects there were for settlers. The commissioners attended to their duty faithfully, and reported to the town that they had explored ten miles west, as far as settlers would ever penetrate the forest, and found the prospects as encouraging as could be expected. It was to this Boston that Josiah Franklin emigrated in 1685, thinking to enjoy liberty of conscience, while he supported his growing family by his trade of dyer. There is no record to show that he was ever sorry he came. On the other hand, there is much to prove that he always had occasion to rejoice in the change. Certainly his family, and their posterity, exerted great influence in building up the nation. Next to Washington Josiah's son Benjamin ranked in his efforts to secure American Independence, and all the blessings that followed. II. THE FIFTEENTH GIFT. "The fifteenth!" remarked Josiah Franklin to a relative, as he took the fifteenth child into his arms. "And a son, too; he must bear the name of his Uncle Benjamin." "Then, we are to understand that his name is Benjamin?" answered the relative, inquiringly. "Yes, that is his name; his mother and I settled that some time ago, that the next son should bear the name of my most beloved brother, who, I hope, will remove to this country before long." "Well, a baby is no curiosity in your family," remarked the relative, laughing. "Some men would think that fifteen was too much of a good thing." "A child is God's gift to man, as I view it, for which parents should be thankful, whether it is the first or fifteenth. Each child imposes an additional obligation upon parents to be true to the Giver as well as to the gift. I am poor enough, but no man is poorer for a large family of children. He may have to labor harder when they are young and helpless, but in age they are props on which he can lean." Mr. Franklin spoke out of the depths of his soul. He was a true Christian man, and took the Christian view of a child, as he did of any thing else. While some men are annoyed by the multiplicity of children, he found a source of comfort and contentment in the possession. The seventeenth child, which number he had, he hailed with the same grateful recognition of God's providence that he did when the first was born. Yet he was poor, and found himself face to face with poverty most of the time. Each child born was born to an inheritance of want. But to him children were God's gift as really as sunshine or showers, day or night, the seventeenth just as much so as the first. This fact alone marks Josiah Franklin as an uncommon man for his day or ours. "If more men and women were of your opinion," continued the relative, "there would be much more enjoyment and peace in all communities. The most favorable view that a multitude of parents indulge is, that children are troublesome comforts." "What do you think of the idea of taking this baby into the house of God to-day, and consecrating him to the Lord?" Mr. Franklin asked, as if the thought just then flashed upon his mind. "It is only a few steps to carry him." It was Sunday morning, Jan. 6, 1706, old style; and the "Old South Meeting House," in which Dr. Samuel Willard preached, was on the other side of the street, scarcely fifty feet distant. "I should think it would harmonize very well with your opinion about children as the gift of God, and the Lord may understand the matter so well as to look approvingly upon it, but I think your neighbors will say that you are rushing things somewhat. It might be well to let the little fellow get used to this world before he begins to attend meeting." The relative spoke thus in a vein of humor, though she really did not approve of the proposed episode in the new comer's life. Indeed it seemed rather ridiculous to her, to carry a babe, a few hours old, to the house of God. "I shall not consult my neighbors," Mr. Franklin replied. "I shall consult my wife in this matter, as I do in others, and defer to her opinion. I have always found that her judgment is sound on reducing it to practice." "That is so; your wife is a woman of sound judgment as well as of strong character, and you are wise enough to recognize the fact, and act accordingly. But that is not true of many men. If your wife approves of taking her baby into the meeting-house for consecration to-day, then do it, though the whole town shall denounce the act." There is no doubt his relative thought that Mrs. Franklin would veto the proposition at once, and that would end it. But in less than a half hour he reported that she approved of the proposition. "Benjamin will be consecrated to the Lord in the afternoon; my wife approves of it as proper and expressive of our earnest desire that he should be the Lord's. I shall see Mr. Willard at once, and nothing but his disapproval will hinder the act." "And I would not hinder it if I could," replied his relative, "if your wife and Pastor Willard approve. I shall really be in favor of it if they are, because their judgment is better than mine." "All the difference between you and me," continued Mr. Franklin, with a smile playing over his face, "appears to be that you think a child may be given to the Lord too soon, and I do not; the sooner the better, is my belief. With the consecration come additional obligations, which I am willing to assume, and not only willing, but anxious to assume." "You are right, no doubt; but you are one of a thousand in that view, and you will have your reward." "Yes; and so will that contemptible class of fathers, who can endure _five_ children, but not _fifteen_,--too irresponsible to see that one of the most inconsistent men on earth is the father who will not accept the situation he has created for himself. The Franklins are not made of that sort of stuff; neither are the Folgers [referring to his wife's family], whose fervent piety sanctifies their good sense, so that they would rather please the Lord than all mankind." Mr. Willard was seen, and he endorsed the act as perfectly proper, and in complete harmony with a felt sense of parental obligation. Therefore, Benjamin was wrapped closely in flannel blankets, and carried into the meeting-house in the afternoon, where he was consecrated to the Lord by the pastor. On the "Old Boston Town Records of Births," under the heading, "Boston Births Entered 1708," is this: "Benjamin, son of Josiah Franklin, and Abiah, his wife, born 6 Jan. 1706." From some mistake or oversight the birth was not recorded until two years after Benjamin was born; but it shows that he was born on Jan. 6, 1706. Then, the records of the "Old South Church," among the baptism of infants, have this: "1706, Jan. 6, Benjamin, son of Josiah and Abiah Franklin." Putting these two records together, they establish beyond doubt the fact that Benjamin Franklin was born and baptized on the same day. The Old South Church had two pastors then, and it is supposed that Dr. Samuel Willard officiated instead of Rev. Ebenezer Pemberton, because the record is in the handwriting of Doctor Willard. We are able to furnish a picture of the house in which he was born. It measured twenty feet in width, and was about thirty feet long, including the L. It was three stories high in appearance, the third being the attic. On the lower floor of the main house there was only one room, which was about twenty feet square, and served the family the triple purpose of parlor, sitting-room, and dining-hall. It contained an old-fashioned fire-place, so large that an ox might have been roasted before it. The second and third stories originally contained but one chamber each, of ample dimensions, and furnished in the plainest manner. The attic was an unplastered room, which might have been used for lodgings or storing trumpery. The house stood about one hundred years after Josiah Franklin left it, and was finally destroyed by fire, on Saturday, Dec. 29, 1810. The spot on which it stood is now occupied by a granite warehouse bearing the inscription, "BIRTHPLACE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN." Mr. Franklin had three children when he left Banbury, and four more were given to him during the first four years of his residence in Boston, one of whom died. Soon after the birth of the seventh child Mrs. Franklin died. So young and large a family needed a mother's watch and care, as Josiah Franklin found to his sorrow. The additional burden laid upon him by the death of his wife interfered much with his business, and he saw fresh reasons each day for finding another help-mate as soon as possible. To run his business successfully, and take the whole charge of his family, was more than he could do. In these circumstances he felt justified in marrying again as soon as possible, and, with the aid of interested friends, he made a fortunate choice of Abiah Folger, of Nantucket, a worthy successor of the first Mrs. Franklin. He married her a few months after the death of his first wife. The second Mrs. Franklin became the mother of ten children, which, added to those of the first Mrs. Franklin, constituted a very respectable family of seventeen children, among whom was Benjamin, the fifteenth child. His "Autobiography" says: "Of the seventeen children I remember to have seen thirteen sitting together at the table, who all grew up to years of maturity and were married." Of the second wife it says: "My mother, the second wife of my father, was Abiah Folger, daughter of Peter Folger, one of the first settlers of New England, of whom honorable mention is made by Cotton Mather in his ecclesiastical history of that country, 'as a godly and learned Englishman.'" Josiah Franklin was an admirer not only of his wife, Abiah, but of the whole Folger family, because they were devoutly pious, and as "reliable as the sun, or the earth on its axis." They were unpolished and unceremonial, and he liked them all the more for that. He wrote to his sister in a vein of pleasantry, "They are wonderfully shy. But I admire their honest plainness of speech. About a year ago I invited two of them to dine with me; their answer was that they would if they could not do better. I suppose they did better, for I never saw them afterwards, and so had no opportunity of showing my miff if I had any." We have said that Benjamin was named for his uncle in England, and, possibly some of the other children were named for other relatives in the mother country. Certainly there were enough of them to go round any usual circle of relatives, taking them all in. Uncle Benjamin was very much pleased with the honor conferred upon him, and he always manifested great interest in his namesake, though he did not dream that he would one day represent the country at the court of St. James. It is claimed that the uncle's interest in his namesake brought him to this country, a few years later, where he lived and died. Be that as it may, he ever manifested a lively interest in a protege, and evidently regarded him as an uncommonly bright boy, who would some day score a creditable mark for the family. Benjamin was more than a comely child; he was handsome. From babyhood to manhood he was so fine-looking as to attract the attention of strangers. His eye beamed with so much intelligence as to almost compel the thought, "There are great talents behind them." Mr. Parton says: "It is probable that Benjamin Franklin derived from his mother the fashion of his body and the cast of his countenance. There are lineal descendants of Peter Folger who strikingly resemble Franklin in these particulars; one of whom, a banker in New Orleans, looks like a portrait of Franklin stepped out of its frame." Josiah Franklin did not enter upon the trade of a dyer when he settled in Boston, as he expected. The new country was very different from the old in its fashions and wants. There was no special demand for a dyer. If people could earn money enough to cover their nakedness, they cared little about the color of their covering. One color was just as good as another to keep them warm, or to preserve their decency. There was no room for Josiah Franklin as a dyer. There was room for him, however, as a "tallow-chandler," and he lost no time in taking up this new but greasy business. He must work or starve; and, of the two, he preferred work, though the occupation might not be neat and congenial. The word "chandler" is supposed to have been derived from the French _chandelier_, so that a tallow candle-maker was a sort of chandelier in society at that early day. He furnished light, which was more necessary than color to almost every one. The prevailing method of lighting dwellings and stores was with tallow candles. Candles and whale oil were the two known articles for light, and the latter was expensive, so that the former was generally adopted. Hence, Josiah Franklin's business was honorable because it was necessary; and by it, with great industry and economy, he was able to keep the wolf of hunger from his door. The place where he manufactured candles was at the corner of Hanover and Union streets. The original sign that he selected to mark his place of business was a blue ball, half as large as a man's head, hanging over the door, bearing the name "Josiah Franklin" and the date "1698." The same ball hangs there still. Time has stolen its blue, but not the name and date. Into this building, also, he removed his family from Milk street, soon after the birth of Benjamin. In his "Autobiography," Franklin says: "My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades." Several of them were apprenticed when Benjamin was born. John worked with his father, and learned the "tallow-chandler's" trade well, setting up the business for himself afterwards in Providence. This was the only method that could be adopted successfully in so large a family, except where wealth was considerable. We must not omit the fact that the father of Benjamin was a good singer and a good player of the violin. After the labors of the day were over, and the frugal supper eaten, and the table cleared, and the room put in order for the evening, he was wont to sing and play for the entertainment of his family. He was sure of a good audience every night, if his performance opened before the younger children retired. There is no doubt that this custom exerted a molding influence upon the household, although the music might have been like Uncle Benjamin's poetry, as compared with the music of our day. For the reader, now familiar with the manners, customs, rush of business, inventions, wealth, and fashion of our day, it is difficult to understand the state of society at the time of Franklin's birth. Parton says of it: "1706, the year of Benjamin Franklin's birth, was the fourth of the reign of Queen Anne, and the year of Marlborough's victory at Ramillies. Pope was then a sickly dwarf, four feet high and nineteen years of age, writing, at his father's cottage in Windsor Forest the 'Pastorals' which, in 1709, gave him his first celebrity. Voltaire was a boy of ten, in his native village near Paris. Bolingbroke was a rising young member of the House of Commons, noted, like Fox at a later day, for his dissipation and his oratory. Addison, aged thirty-four, had written his Italian travels, but not the 'Spectator' and was a thriving politician. Newton, at sixty-four, his great work all done, was master of the mint, had been knighted the year before, and elected president of the Royal Society in 1703 Louis XIV was king of France, and the first king of Prussia was reigning. The father of George Washington was a Virginia boy of ten; the father of John Adams was just entering Harvard College; and the father of Thomas Jefferson was not yet born." III. PAYING TOO DEAR FOR THE WHISTLE. When Benjamin was seven years old he had not been to school a day. Yet he was a good reader and speller. In manhood he said: "I do not remember when I could not read, so it must have been very early." He was one of those irrepressible little fellows, whose intuition and observation are better than school. He learned more out of school than he could or would have done in it. His precocity put him in advance of most boys at seven, even without schooling. It was not necessary for him to have school-teachers to testify that he possessed ten talents,--his parents knew that, and every one else who was familiar with him. The first money he ever had to spend as he wished was on a holiday when he was seven years old. It was not the Fourth of July, when torpedoes and firecrackers scare horses and annoy men and women, for Benjamin's holiday was more than sixty years before the Declaration of Independence was declared, and that is what we celebrate now on the Fourth of July. Indeed, his holiday was a hundred years before torpedoes and fire-crackers were invented. It was a gala-day, however, in which the whole community was interested, including the youngest boy in the Franklin family. "See that you spend your money well," remarked his mother, who presented him with several coppers; "and keep out of mischief." "And here is some more," added his father, giving him several coppers to add to his spending money; "make wise investments, Ben, for your reputation depends upon it"; and the latter facetious remark was made in a way that indicated his love for the boy. "What are you going to buy, Ben?" inquired an older brother, who wanted to draw out some bright answer from the child; "sugar-plums, of course," he added. Benjamin made no reply, though his head was crammed with thoughts about his first holiday. "I shall want to know how well you spend your money, Ben," said his mother; "remember that 'all is not gold that glitters'; you've got all the money you can have to-day." All the older members of the family were interested in the boy's pastime, and while they were indulging in various remarks, he bounded out of the house, with his head filled with bewitching fancies, evidently expecting such a day of joy as he never knew before. Perhaps the toy-shop was first in his mind, into which he had looked wistfully many times as he passed, and perhaps it was not. We say toy-shop, though it was not such a toy-shop as Boston has to-day, where thousands of toys of every description and price are offered for sale. But it was a store in which, with other articles, toys were kept for sale, very few in number and variety compared with the toys offered for sale at the present day. Benjamin had seen these in the window often, and, no doubt, had wished to possess some of them. But there were no toys in the Franklin family; there were children instead of toys, so many of them that money to pay for playthings was out of the question. Benjamin had not proceeded far on the street when he met a boy blowing a whistle that he had just purchased. The sound of the whistle, and the boy's evident delight in blowing it, captivated Benjamin at once. He stopped to listen and measure the possessor of that musical wonder. He said nothing, but just listened, not only with his ears, but with his whole self. He was delighted with the concert that one small boy could make, and, then and there, he resolved to go into that concert business himself. So he pushed on, without having said a word to the owner of the whistle, fully persuaded to invest his money in the same sort of a musical instrument. Supposing that the whistle was bought at the store where he had seen toys in the window, he took a bee line for it. "Any whistles?" he inquired, almost out of breath. "Plenty of them, my little man," the proprietor answered with a smile, at the same time proceeding to lay before the small customer quite a number. "I will give you all the money I have for one," said Benjamin, without inquiring the price. He was so zealous to possess a whistle that the price was of no account, provided he had enough money to pay for it. "Ah! all you have?" responded the merchant; "perhaps you have not as much as I ask for them. They are very nice whistles." "Yes, I know they are, and I will give you all the money I have for one of them," was Benjamin's frank response. The fact was, he began to think that he had not sufficient money to purchase one, so valuable did a whistle appear to him at that juncture. "How much money have you?" inquired the merchant. Benjamin told him honestly how many coppers he had, which was more than the actual price of the whistles. The merchant replied: "Yes, you may have a whistle for that. Take your pick." Never was a child more delighted than he when the bargain was closed. He tried every whistle, that he might select the loudest one of all, and when his choice was settled, he exchanged his entire wealth for the prize. He was as well satisfied as the merchant when he left the store. "Ignorance is bliss," it is said, and it was to Benjamin for a brief space. He began his concert as soon as he left the store. He wanted nothing more. He had seen all he wanted to see. He had bought all he wanted to buy. The whole holiday was crowded into that whistle. To him, that was all there was of it. Sweetmeats and knick-knacks had no attractions for him. Military parade had no charm for him, for he could parade himself now. A band of music had lost its charm, now that he had turned himself into a band. At once he started for home, instead of looking after other sights and scenes. He had been absent scarcely half an hour when he reappeared, blowing his whistle lustily as he entered the house, as if he expected to astonish the whole race of Franklins by the shrillness, if not by the sweetness, of his music. "Back so quick!" exclaimed his mother. "Yes! seen all I want to see." That was a truth well spoken, for the whistle just commanded his whole being, and there was room for nothing more. A whistle was all the holiday he wanted. "What have you there, Ben?" continued his mother; "Something to make us crazy?" "A whistle, mother," stopping its noise just long enough for a decent reply, and then continuing the concert as before. "How much did you give for the whistle?" asked his older brother, John. "All the money I had." Benjamin was too much elated with his bargain to conceal any thing. "What!" exclaimed John with surprise, "did you give all your money for that little concern?" "Yes, every cent of it." "You are not half so bright as I thought you were. It is four times as much as the whistle is worth." "Did you ask the price of it?" inquired his mother. "No, I told the man I would give him all the money I had for one, and he took it." "Of course he did," interjected John, "and if you had had four times as much he would have taken it for the whistle. You are a poor trader, Ben." "You should have asked the price of it in the first place," remarked his mother to him, "and then, if there was not enough, you could have offered all the money you had for the whistle. That would have been proper." "If you had paid a reasonable price for it," continued John, "you might had enough money left to have bought a pocket full of good things." "Yes, peppermints, candy, cakes, nuts, and perhaps more," added a cousin who was present, desiring most of all to hear what the bright boy would say for himself. "I must say that you are a smart fellow, Ben, to be taken in like that," continued John, who really wanted to make his seven-year-old brother feel bad, and he spoke in a tone of derision. "All your money for that worthless thing, that is enough to make us crazy! You ought to have known better. If you had five dollars I suppose that you would have given it just as quick for the whistle." Of course he would. The whistle was worth that to him, and he bought it for himself, not for any one else. By this time Benjamin, who had said nothing in reply to their taunts and reproofs, was running over with feeling, and he could hold in no longer. Evidently he saw his mistake, and he burst into tears, and made more noise by crying than he did with his whistle. Their ridicule, and the thought of having paid more than he should for the whistle, overcame him, and he found relief in tears. His father came to his rescue. "Never mind, Ben, you will understand how to trade the next time. We have to live and learn; I have paid too much for a whistle more than once in my life. You did as well as other boys do the first time." "I think so too, Ben," joined in his mother, to comfort him. "John is only teasing you, and trying to get some sport out of his holiday. Better wipe up, and go out in the street to see the sights." Benjamin learned a good lesson from this episode of his early life. He only did what many grown-up boys have done, over and over again; pay too much for a whistle. Men of forty, fifty, and sixty years of age do this same thing, and suffer the consequences. It is one of the common mistakes of life, and becomes a benefit when the lesson it teaches is improved as Franklin improved it. In the year 1779, November 10th, Franklin wrote from Passy, France, to a friend, as follows: "I am charmed with your description of Paradise, and with your plan of living there; and I approve much of your conclusion, that, in the mean time, we should draw all the good we can from this world. In my opinion, we might all draw more good from it than we do, and suffer less evil, if we would take care not to give too much for _whistles_. For to me it seems that most of the unhappy people we meet with are become so by neglect of that caution. You ask what I mean? You love stories, and will excuse my telling one of myself. "When I was a child of seven years old my friends, on a holiday, filled my pocket with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children; and, being charmed with the sound of a _whistle_, that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered and gave all my money for one. I then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my _whistle_, but disturbing all the family. My brothers, sisters, and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth; put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money, and laughed at me so much for my folly that I cried with vexation, and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the _whistle_ gave me pleasure. "This, however, was afterwards of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind; so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, _Don't give too much for the whistle_; and I saved my money. "As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, _who gave too much for the whistle_. "When I saw one too ambitious of court favor, sacrificing his time in attendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends, to attain it, I have said to myself, _This man gives too much for his whistle_. "When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly employing himself in political bustles, neglecting his own affairs, and ruining them by that neglect, _He pays, indeed_, said I, _too much for his whistle_. "If I knew a miser, who gave up every kind of comfortable living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow-citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship, for the sake of accumulating wealth, _Poor man_, said I, _you pay too much for your whistle_. "When I met with a man of pleasure, sacrificing every laudable improvement of the mind, or his fortune, to mere corporeal sensations, and ruining his health in their pursuit, _Mistaken man_, said I, _you are providing pain for yourself, instead of pleasure; you give too much for your whistle_. "If I see one fond of appearance, or fine clothes, fine houses, fine furniture, fine equipages, all above his fortune, for which he contracts debts, and ends his career in a prison, _Alas!_ say I, _he has paid dear, very dear, for his whistle_. "When I see a beautiful, sweet-tempered girl, married to an ill-natured brute of a husband, _What a pity_, say I, _that she should pay so much for a whistle_. "In short, I conceive that great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimates they have made of the value of things, and by their _giving too much for their whistles_. "Yet I ought to have charity for these unhappy people, when I consider that, with all this wisdom of which I am boasting, there are certain things in the world so tempting,--for example, the apples of King John, which happily are not to be bought; for, if they were put to sale by auction, I might very easily be led to ruin myself in the purchase, and find that I had once more given too much for the _whistle_." Thus Benjamin made good use of one of the foolish acts of his boyhood, which tells well both for his head and heart. Many boys are far less wise, and do the same foolish thing over and over again. They never learn wisdom from the past. When a boy equivocates, or deceives, to conceal some act of disobedience from his parents or teachers, and thereby lays the foundation of habitual untruthfulness, he pays too dear for the whistle, and he will learn the truth of it when he becomes older, and can not command the confidence of his friends and neighbors, but is branded by them as an unreliable, dishonest man. In like manner the boy who thinks it is manly to smoke and drink beer, will find that he has a very expensive whistle, when he becomes "a hale fellow well met" among a miserable class of young men, and is discarded by the virtuous and good. So, in general, the young person who is fascinated by mere pleasure, and supposes that wealth and honor are real apples of gold to the possessor, thinking less of a good character than he does of show and glitter, will find that he has been blowing a costly whistle when it is too late to recall his mistake. IV. IN SCHOOL. Uncle Benjamin was so deeply interested in his namesake that he wrote many letters about him. Nearly every ship that sailed for Boston brought a letter from him to the Franklin family, and almost every letter contained a piece of poetry from his pen. One of his letters about that time contained the following acrostic on Benjamin's name: "Be to thy parents an obedient son; Each day let duty constantly be done; Never give way to sloth, or lust, or pride, If free you'd be from thousand ills beside. Above all ills be sure avoid the shelf, Man's danger lies in Satan, sin and self. In virtue, learning, wisdom, progress make; Ne'er shrink at suffering for thy Savior's sake. "Fraud and all falsehood in thy dealings flee; Religious always in thy station be; Adore the maker of thy inward part; Now's the accepted time; give him thine heart; Keep a good conscience, 'tis a constant friend, Like judge and witness this thy acts attend, In heart, with bended knee, alone, adore None but the Three in One for evermore." The sentiment is better than the poetry, and it shows that the hero of our tale had a treasure in the uncle for whom he was named. Doubtless "Uncle Benjamin's" interest was largely increased by the loss of his own children. He had quite a number of sons and daughters, and one after another of them sickened and died, until only one son remained, and he removed to Boston. It was for these reasons, probably, that "Uncle Benjamin" came to this country in 1715. Among his letters was one to his brother Josiah, our Benjamin's father, when the son was seven years old, from which we extract the following: "A father with so large a family as yours ought to give one son, at least, to the service of the Church. That is your tithe. From what you write about Benjamin I should say that he is the son you ought to consecrate specially to the work of the ministry. He must possess talents of a high order, and his love of learning must develop them rapidly. If he has made himself a good reader and speller, as you say, without teachers, there is no telling what he will do with them. By all means, if possible, I should devote him to the Church. It will be a heavy tax upon you, of course, with so large a family on your hands, but your reward will come when you are old and gray-headed. Would that I were in circumstances to assist you in educating him." "He does not know how much thought and planning we have given to this subject," remarked Mr. Franklin to his wife, when he read this part of the letter. "I would do any thing possible to educate Benjamin for the Church, and I think he would make the most of any opportunities we can give him." "There is no doubt of that," responded Mrs. Franklin. "Few parents ever had more encouragement to educate a son for the ministry than we have to educate him." "Doctor Willard said as much as that to me," added Mr. Franklin, "and I think it is true. I do not despair of giving Benjamin an education yet, though I scarcely see how it ever can be done." "That is the way I feel about it," responded Mrs. Franklin. "Perhaps God will provide a way; somehow I trust in Providence, and wait, hoping for the best." "It is well to trust in Providence, if it is not done blindly," remarked Mr. Franklin. "Providence sometimes does wonders for people who trust. It is quite certain that He who parted the waters of the Red Sea for the children of Israel to pass, and fed them with manna from the skies, can provide a way for our Benjamin to be educated. But it looks to me as if some of his bread would have to drop down from heaven." "Well, if it drops that is enough," replied Mrs. Franklin. "I shall be satisfied. If God does any thing for him he will do it in his own time and way, and I shall be content with that. To see him in the service of the Church is the most I want." "Uncle Benjamin's" letter did not introduce a new subject of conversation into the Franklin family; it was already an old theme that had been much canvassed. Outside of the family there was an interest in Benjamin's education. He was the kind of a boy to put through Harvard College. This was the opinion of neighbors who knew him. Nothing but poverty hindered the adoption and execution of that plan. "Uncle Benjamin's" letter did this, however: it hastened a favorable decision, though Benjamin was eight years old when his parents decided that he might enter upon a course of education. They had said very little to their son about it, because they would not awaken his expectations to disappoint them. And finally the decision was reached with several ifs added. "I do not know how I shall come out," added Mr. Franklin, "he may begin to study. It won't hurt him to begin, if I should not be able to put him through a course." The decision to send him to school was arrived at in this doubtful way, and it was not laid more strongly than this before Benjamin for fear of awakening too high hopes in his heart. "I have decided to send you to school," said his father to him, "but whether I shall be able to send you as long as I would like is not certain yet. I would like to educate you for the ministry if I could; how would you like that?" "I should like to go to school; I should like nothing better," answered Benjamin. "About the rest of it I do not know whether I should like it or not." "Well, it may not be best to discuss that," continued his father, "as I may not be able to carry out my plan to the end. It will cost a good deal to keep you in school and educate you, perhaps more than I can possibly raise with so large a family to support. I have to be very industrious now to pay all my bills. But if you are diligent to improve your time, and lend a helping hand at home, out of school hours, I may be able to do it." "I will work all I can out of school, if I can only go," was Benjamin's cheerful pledge in the outset. "When shall I begin?" "Begin the next term. It is a long process to become educated for the ministry, and the sooner you begin the better. But you must understand that it is not certain I can continue you in school for a long time. Make the most of the advantages you have, and we will trust in Providence for the future." Josiah Franklin's caution was proverbial. He was never rash or thoughtless. He weighed all questions carefully. He was very conscientious, and would not assume an obligation that he could not see his way clear to meet. He used the same careful judgment and circumspection about the education of his son that he employed in all business matters. For this reason he was regarded as a man of sound judgment and practical wisdom, and his influence was strong and wide. When his son reached the height of his fame, he wrote as follows of his father: "I suppose you may like to know what kind of a man my father was. He had an excellent constitution, was of a middle stature, well set, and very strong. He could draw prettily and was skilled a little in music. His voice was sonorous and agreeable, so that when he played on his violin, and sung withal, as he was accustomed to do after the business of the day was over, it was extremely agreeable to hear. He had some knowledge of mechanics, and on occasion was handy with other tradesmen's tools. But his great excellence was his sound understanding, and his solid judgment in prudential matters, both in private and public affairs. It is true he was never employed in the latter, the numerous family he had to educate, and the straitness of his circumstances, keeping him close to his trade; but I remember well his being frequently visited by leading men, who consulted him for his opinion in public affairs, and those of the church he belonged to; and who showed a great respect for his judgment and advice. He was also consulted much by private persons about their affairs, when any difficulty occurred, and frequently chosen an arbitrator between contending parties." Of his mother he wrote, at the same time: "My mother had likewise an excellent constitution; she suckled all her ten children. I never knew either my father or mother to have any sickness, but that of which they died--he at eighty-nine, and she at eighty-five years of age. They lie buried together at Boston, where I some years since placed a marble over their grave, with this inscription: JOSIAH FRANKLIN AND ABIAH, HIS WIFE, LIE HERE INTERRED. THEY LIVED LOVINGLY TOGETHER, IN WEDLOCK, FIFTY-FIVE YEARS, AND WITHOUT AN ESTATE, OR ANY GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT, BY CONSTANT LABOR AND HONEST INDUSTRY (WITH GOD'S BLESSING), MAINTAINED A LARGE FAMILY COMFORTABLY; AND BROUGHT UP THIRTEEN CHILDREN AND SEVEN GRANDCHILDREN REPUTABLY. FROM THIS INSTANCE, READER, BE ENCOURAGED TO DILIGENCE IN THY CALLING, AND DISTRUST NOT PROVIDENCE. HE WAS A PIOUS AND PRUDENT MAN, SHE A DISCREET AND VIRTUOUS WOMAN. THEIR YOUNGEST SON, IN FILIAL REGARD TO THEIR MEMORY, PLACES THIS STONE. J.F., BORN 1655, DIED 1744, AET. 89. A.F., BORN 1667, DIED 1752, AET. 85." We may say here that the stone which Doctor Franklin erected, as above, became so dilapidated that in 1827, the citizens of Boston replaced it by a granite obelisk. The bodies repose in the old Granary cemetery, beside Park-street church. * * * * * It was arranged that Benjamin should begin his school-days, and enjoy the best literary advantages which the poverty of his father could provide. He acceded to the plan with hearty good-will, and commenced his studies with such zeal and enthusiasm as few scholars exhibit. The school was taught by Mr. Nathaniel Williams, successor of the famous Boston teacher, Mr. Ezekiel Cheever, who was instructor thirty-five years, and who discontinued teaching, as Cotton Mather said, "only when mortality took him off." The homely old wooden school-house, one story and a half high, stood near by the spot on which the bronze statue of Franklin is now seen, and there was the "school-house green" where "Ben" and his companions played together. Probably it was the only free grammar school that Boston afforded at that time; for the town could not have numbered a population of over eight thousand. From his first day's attendance at school Benjamin gave promise of high scholarship. He went to work with a will, improving every moment, surmounting every difficulty, and enjoying every opportunity with a keen relish. Mr. Williams was both gratified and surprised. That a lad so young should take hold of school lessons with so much intelligence and tact, and master them so easily, was a surprise to him, and he so expressed himself to Mr. Franklin. "Your son is a remarkable scholar for one so young. I am more than gratified with his industry and progress. His love of knowledge is almost passionate." "Yes, he was always so," responded Mr. Franklin. "He surprised us by reading well before we ever dreamed of such a thing. He taught himself, and a book has always been of more value to him than any thing else." "You will give him an education, I suppose?" said Mr. Williams, inquiringly. "Such a boy ought to have the chance." "My desire to do it is strong, much stronger than my ability to pay the bills. It is not certain that I shall be able to continue him long at school, though I shall do it if possible." "Such love of knowledge as he possesses ought to be gratified," continued Mr. Williams. "He excels by far any scholar of his age in school. He will lead the whole school within a short time. His enthusiasm is really remarkable." Within a few months, as the teacher predicts, Benjamin led the school. He was at the head of his class in every study except arithmetic. Nor did he remain at the head of his class long, for he was rapidly promoted to higher classes. He so far outstripped his companions that the teacher was obliged to advance him thus, that his mental progress might not be retarded. Of course, teachers and others were constantly forecasting his future and prophesying that he would fill a high position in manhood. It is generally the case that such early attention to studies, in connection with the advancement that follows, awakens high hopes of the young in the hearts of all observers. These things foreshadow the future character, so that people think they can tell what the man will be from what the boy is. So it was with Franklin, and so it was with Daniel Webster. Webster's mother inferred from his close attention to reading, and his remarkable progress in learning, that he would become a distinguished man, and so expressed herself to others. She lived to see him rise in his profession, until he became a member of Congress, though she died before he reached the zenith of his renown. The same was true of David Rittenhouse, the famous mathematician. When he was but eight years old, he constructed various articles, such as a miniature water-wheel, and at seventeen years of age he made a complete clock. His younger brother declared that he was accustomed to stop, when he was plowing in the field, and solve problems on the fence, and sometimes cover the plow handles with figures. The highest expectations of his friends were more than realized in his manhood. The peculiar genius which he exhibited in his boyhood gave him his world-wide fame at last. Also George Stephenson, the great engineer, the son of a very poor man, who fired the engine at Wylam colliery, began his life-labor when a mere boy. Besides watching the cows, and barring the gates after the coal-wagons had passed, at four cents a day, he amused himself during his leisure moments, in making clay engines, in imitation of that which his father tended. Although he lived in circumstances so humble that ordinarily he would have been entirely unnoticed, his intense interest in, and taste for, mechanical work, attracted the attention of people and led them to predict his future success and fame. In like manner, the first months of Benjamin Franklin's school days foreshadowed the remarkable career of his manhood. Relatives and friends believed that he would one day fill a high place in the land; and in that, their anticipations were fully realized. V. OUT OF SCHOOL. Mr. Franklin's finances did not improve. It was clearer every day to him that he would not be able to keep Benjamin in school. Besides, in a few months, John, who had learned the tallow-chandler's business of his father, was going to be married, and establish himself in that trade in Providence. Some body must take his place. It was quite impossible for his father to prosecute his business alone. "I see no other way," remarked Mr. Franklin to his wife; "I shall be obliged to take Benjamin out of school to help me. My expenses increase from month to month, and must continue to increase for some years, so far as I can see. They will increase heavily if I am obliged to hire a man in John's place." "I am not surprised at all that you have come to that conclusion," replied Mrs. Franklin. "I expected it, as I have intimated to you. Parents must be better off than we are to be able to send a son to college." "If they have as many children to support as we have, you might add. I could easily accomplish it with no larger family than most of my neighbors have. Yet I find no fault with the number. I accept all the Lord sends." "I am sorry for Benjamin," continued Mrs. Franklin. "He will be dreadfully disappointed. I am afraid that he will think little of work because he thinks so much of his school. What a pity that boys who want an education, as he does, could not have it, and boys who do not want it should do the work." "That is the way we should fix it, no doubt, if the ordering were left to us," said Mr. Franklin; "but I never did have my own way, and I never expect to have it, and it is fortunate, I suppose, that I never did have it. If I could have it now, I should send Benjamin to college." "It has been my prayer that he might give his life and his services to the Church," added Mrs. Franklin; "but Providence appears to indicate now that he should make candles for a livelihood, and it is not in me to rebel against the ordering. If frustrated in this plan, I mean to believe that Providence has some thing better in store for him and us." "I was never so reluctant to adopt a conclusion as I have been to take Benjamin out of school," continued Mr. Franklin. "Yet, there has been one thought that reconciled me in part to the necessity, and that is, that there is less encouragement to a young man in the Church now than formerly. It is more difficult to suit the people, and, consequently, there are more trials and hardships for ministers; and many of them appear to be peculiar." "If ministers have a harder time than you do I pity them," rejoined Mrs. Franklin. "I suppose as that is concerned, we are all in the same boat. If we meet them with Christian fortitude, as we should, so much the better for us." "True, very true, and my uppermost desire is to put Benjamin where duty points. But it is clear to me now that Providence has blocked his way to the ministry." "You will not take him out of school until John leaves, will you?" inquired Mrs. Franklin. "I shall have him leave the public school at the close of this term, and that will give him a full year's schooling. And then I shall put him into Mr. Brownwell's school for a while to improve him in penmanship and arithmetic. By that time I must have him in the factory." Mr. Brownwell had a private school, in which he taught penmanship and arithmetic. It was quite a famous school, made so by his success as a teacher in these departments. Benjamin had received no intimation, at this time, that he would be taken out of school. His father shrunk from disclosing his final plan to him because he knew it would be so disappointing. But as the close of the school year drew near, he was obliged to open the subject to him. It was an unpleasant revelation to Benjamin, although it was not altogether unexpected. For, in the outset, his father had said that such might be the necessity. "You are a poor penman and deficient in your knowledge of numbers," said his father; "and improvement in these branches will be of great service to you in my business. You will attend Mr. Brownwell's school for a while in order to perfect yourself in these studies." "I shall like that," answered Benjamin; "but why can I not attend school until I am old enough to help you?" "You are old enough to help me. There are many things you can do as well as a man." "I should like to know what?" said Benjamin, rather surprised that he could be of any service in the candle business at nine years of age. "John had to learn the trade before he could help you much." "You can cut the wicks, fill the moulds for cast-candles, keep the shop in order, run hither and thither with errands, and do other things that will save my time, and thus assist me just as much as a man could in doing the same things." "I am sure that is inducement enough for any boy, but a lazy one, to work," remarked his mother, who had listened to the conversation. "Your father would have to pay high wages to a man to do what you can do as well, if I understand it." "In doing errands you will aid as much, even perhaps more, than in doing any thing else," added Mr. Franklin. "I have a good deal of such running to do, and if you do it I can be employed in the more important part of my business, which no one else can attend to. Besides, your nimble feet can get over the ground much quicker than my older and clumsier ones, so that you can perform that part of the business better than I can myself." This was a new view of the case to Benjamin, and he was more favorably impressed with candle-making by these remarks. He desired to be of good service to his father, and here was an opportunity--a consideration that partially reconciled him to the inevitable change. At that time--about one hundred and seventy-five years ago--boys were put to hard work much earlier than they are now. They had very small opportunities for acquiring knowledge, and the boys who did not go to school after they were ten years old were more in number than those who did. Besides, the schools were very poor in comparison with those of our day. They offered very slim advantages to the young. It was not unusual, therefore, for lads as young as Benjamin to be made to work. Benjamin was somewhat deficient in arithmetic, as his father said, and he had given little attention to penmanship. He did not take to the science of numbers as he did to other studies. He allowed his dislike to interpose and hinder his progress. "I do not like arithmetic very well," he said to his father. "Perhaps not; but boys must study some things they do not like," his father replied. "It is the only way of preparing them for usefulness. You will not accomplish much in any business without a good knowledge of arithmetic. It is of use almost everywhere." "I know that," said Benjamin, "and I shall master it if I can, whether I like it or not. I am willing to do what you think is best." "I hope you will always be as willing to yield to my judgment. It is a good sign for any boy to accept cheerfully the plans of his father, who has had more experience." Benjamin was usually very prompt to obey his parents, even when he did not exactly see the necessity of their commands. He understood full well that obedience was a law of the household, which could not be violated with impunity; therefore, he wisely obeyed. His father was quite rigid in his requirements, a Puritan of the olden stamp, who ruled his own house. Among other things, he required his children to observe the Sabbath by abstaining from labor and amusements, reading the Scriptures, and attending public worship. A walk in the streets, a call upon a youthful friend, or the reading of books not strictly religious, on Sunday, were acts not tolerated in his family. A child might wish to stay away from the house of God on the Sabbath, but it was not permitted. "Going to meeting" was a rule in the family as irrevocable as the laws of the Medes and Persians. It was fortunate for Benjamin that he belonged to such a family; for he possessed an imperious will, that needed to be brought into constant subjection. Though of a pleasant and happy disposition, the sequel will show that, but for his strict obedience, his great talents would have been lost to the world. Nor did he grow restless and impatient under these rigid parental rules, nor cherish less affection for his parents in consequence. He accepted them as a matter of course. We have no reason to believe that he sought to evade them; and there can be no doubt that the influence of such discipline was good in forming his character. He certainly honored his father and mother as long as he lived. In ripe manhood, when his parents were old and infirm, and he lived in Philadelphia, he was wont to perform frequent journeys from that city to Boston, to visit them. It was on one of these journeys that the following incident is related of him: Landlords, and other people, were very inquisitive at that time. They often pressed their inquiries beyond the bounds of propriety. At a certain hotel the landlord had done this to Franklin, and he resolved, on his next visit, to administer a sharp rebuke to the innkeeper. So, on his next visit, Franklin requested the landlord to call the members of his family together, as he had something important to communicate. The landlord hastened to fulfill his request, and very soon the family were together in one room, when Franklin addressed them as follows: "My name is Benjamin Franklin; I am a printer by trade; I live, when at home, in Philadelphia; in Boston I have a father, a good old man, who taught me, when I was a boy, to read my Bible and say my prayers; I have ever since thought it my duty to visit and pay my respects to such a father, and I am on that errand to Boston now. This is all I can recollect at present of myself that I think worth telling you. But if you can think of any thing else that you wish to know about me, I beg you to out with it at once, that I may answer, and so give you an opportunity to get me something to eat, for I long to be on my journey that I may return as soon as possible to my family and business, where I most of all delight to be." A more cutting rebuke was never administered. The landlord took in the full significance of the act, and learned a good lesson therefrom. It is doubtful if his inquisitiveness ever ran away with him again. But the narrative is given here to show that the strict rules of his father's house did not diminish filial affection, but rather solidified and perpetuated it. It is good for boys, who are likely to want their own way, to be brought under exact rules. Franklin would have gone to ruin if he had had his way. The evil tendencies of boyhood need constant restraint. Obedience at home leads to obedience in the school and State. Sir Robert Peel ascribed his success in life to such a home; and he related the following interesting incident to illustrate the sort of obedience that was required and practised in it: A neighbor's son called one day to solicit his company and that of his brothers upon an excursion. He was a young man of fine address, intelligent, smart, and promising, though fond of fun and frolic. He was a fashionable young man, too; we should call him a _dude_ now. He wore "dark brown hair, tied behind with blue ribbon; had clear, mirthful eyes; wore boots that reached above his knees, and a broad-skirted scarlet coat, with gold lace on the cuffs, the collar, and the skirts; with a long waistcoat of blue silk. His breeches were buckskin; his hat was three-cornered, set jauntily higher on the right than on the left side." His name was Harry Garland. To his request that William, Henry, and Robert might go with him, their father replied: "No, they can not go out. I have work for them to do, and they must never let pleasure usurp the place of labor." The boys wanted to go badly, but there was no use in teasing for the privilege; it would only make a bad matter worse. "Our father's yea was yea, and his nay, nay; and that was the end of it." The three brothers of the Peel family became renowned in their country's brilliant progress. But Harry Garland, the idle, foppish youth, who had his own way, and lived for pleasure, became a ruined spendthrift. The fact verifies the divine promise, "Honor thy father and mother (which is the first commandment with promise), that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth." True filial love appears to conciliate the whole world by its consistent and beautiful expression. Such an act as that of the great engineer, George Stephenson, who took the first one hundred and sixty dollars he earned, saved from a year's wages, and paid his blind old father's debts, and then removed both father and mother to a comfortable tenement at Killingworth, where he supported them by the labor of his hands, awakens our admiration, and leads us to expect that the author will achieve success. When the statue of Franklin was unveiled in Boston, in 1856, a barouche appeared in the procession which carried eight brothers, all of whom received Franklin medals at the Mayhew school in their boyhood, sons of Mr. John Hall. All of them were known to fame by their worth of character and wide influence. As the barouche in which they rode came into State street, from Merchants' row, these brothers rose up in the carriage, and stood with uncovered heads while passing a window at which their aged and revered mother was sitting--an act of filial regard so impressive and beautiful as to fill the hearts of all beholders with profound respect for the obedient and loving sons. They never performed a more noble deed, in the public estimation, than this one of reverence for a worthy parent. We have made this digression to show that Franklin's home, with its rigid discipline, was the representative home of his country, in which the great and good of every generation laid the foundation of their useful careers. * * * * * Benjamin was taken out of school, as his father decided, and was put under Mr. Brownwell's tuition in arithmetic and penmanship. As he had endeared himself to Mr. Williams, teacher of the public school, so he endeared himself to Mr. Brownwell by his obedience, studious habits, and rapid progress. He did not become an expert in arithmetic, though, by dint of persistent effort, he made creditable progress in the study. In penmanship he excelled, and acquired an easy, attractive style that was of great service to him through life. VI. FROM SCHOOL TO CANDLE-SHOP. While Benjamin was attending Mr. Brownwell's school, his "Uncle Benjamin," for whom he was named, came over from England. His wife and children were dead, except his son Samuel, who had immigrated to this country. He had been unfortunate in business also, and lost what little property he possessed. With all the rest, the infirmities of age were creeping over him, so that nearly all the ties that bound him to his native land were sundered; and so he decided to spend the remnant of his days in Boston, where Samuel lived. Samuel Franklin was an unmarried young man, intelligent and enterprising, willing and anxious to support his father in this country. But having no family and home to which to introduce his aged parent, "Uncle Benjamin" became a member of his brother Josiah's family, and continued a member of it about four years, or until Samuel was married, when he went to live with him. "Uncle Benjamin" was very much pained to find that his namesake had relinquished the purpose of becoming a minister. His heart was set on his giving his life-service to the Church. "Any body can make candles," he said, "but talents are required for the ministry, and, from all I learn, Benjamin has the talents." "Partly right and partly wrong," rejoined Josiah, who seemed to think that his brother's remark was not altogether complimentary. "Talents are required for the ministry, as you say, but judgment, tact, and industry are required to manufacture candles successfully. A fool would not make much headway in the business." "I meant no reflection upon Boston's tallow-chandler," and a smile played over his face as "Uncle Benjamin" said it; "but I really think that Benjamin is too talented for the business. Five talents can make candles well enough; let ten talents serve the Church." "Well, that is sound doctrine; I shall not object to that," replied Josiah; "but if poverty makes it impossible for ten talents to serve the Church, it is better that they make candles than to do nothing. Candle-making is indispensable; it is a necessary business, and therefore it is honorable and useful." "The business is well enough; a man can be a man and make candles. This way of lighting dwellings is really a great invention; and it will be a long time, I think, when any thing better will supersede it. This new country is fortunate in having such a light, so cheap and convenient, so that the business is to be respected and valued. But Benjamin is greater than the business." The last remark set forth "Uncle Benjamin's" views exactly. He really supposed that no improvement could be made in the method of lighting houses and shops by candles. That was the opinion of all the Franklins. To them a tallow-candle was the climax of advancement on that line. If a prophet had arisen, and foretold the coming of gas and electricity for the lighting of both houses and streets, in the next century, he would have been regarded as insane--too crazy even to make candles. Progress was not a prevailing idea of that day. It did not enter into any questions of the times as a factor. If succeeding generations should maintain the standard of theirs, enjoying as many privileges, it would be all that could be reasonably expected. Candles would be needed until the "new heaven and new earth" of Revelation appeared. Possibly they would have believed that their method of lighting would be popular in "that great city, the Holy Jerusalem," had it not been declared in the Bible that they will "need no candle," because "there shall be no night there." "Uncle Benjamin" added, what really comforted Josiah: "Of course, if you are not able to send Benjamin to college, he can't go, and that ends it. If I were able to pay the bills, I should be only too glad to do it. Benjamin is a remarkable boy, and his talents will manifest themselves whatever his pursuit may be. He will not always make candles for a living; you may depend on that." "Perhaps not," responded Josiah; "if Providence introduces him into a better calling, I shall not object; but I want he should be satisfied with this until the better one comes." As the time drew near for Benjamin to exchange school for the candle-factory, his disappointment increased. To exchange school, which he liked so well, for a dirty business that he did not like at all, was almost too much for his flesh and blood. His feelings revolted against the uncongenial trade. "You do not know how I dread to go into the candle-factory to make it my business for life," he said to his mother. "I feel worse and worse about it." "We are all sorry that you are obliged to do it," replied Mrs. Franklin. "I am sure that your father would have made any sacrifice possible to send you to college, but it was simply impossible. You will have to make the best of it. God may open the way to employment that will be more congenial to you some time. For the present he means that you should help your father, I have no doubt of that; and you must do the best for him that you can." "That is what I intend to do, however much I dislike the business. I want to help father all I can; he has a hard time enough to provide for us." Benjamin expressed himself as frankly to his father, adding, "I really wish you would engage in some other business." "And starve, too?" rejoined his father. "In such times as these we must be willing to do what will insure us a livelihood. I know of no other business that would give me a living at present--certainly none that I am qualified to pursue." "Well, I should rather make soap and candles than starve, on the whole," Benjamin remarked in reply; "but nothing short of starvation could make me willing to follow the business." "One other thing ought to make you willing to do such work," added his father; "a determination to be industrious. Idleness is the parent of vice. Boys like you should be industrious even if they do not earn their salt. It is better for them to work for nothing than to be idle." "I think they better save their strength till they can earn something," said Benjamin. "People must like to work better than I do, to work for nothing." "You do not understand me; I mean to say that it is so important for the young to form industrious habits, that they better work for nothing than to be idle. If they are idle when they are young, they will be so when they become men, and idleness will finally be their ruin. 'The devil tempts all other men, but idle men tempt the devil'; and I hope that you will never consent to verify the proverb." Mr. Franklin had been a close observer all his life, and he had noticed that industry was characteristic of those who accomplished any thing commendable Consequently he insisted that his children should have employment. He allowed no drones in his family hive. All must be busy as bees. All had some thing to do as soon as they were old enough to toil. Under such influences Benjamin was reared, and he grew up to be as much in love with industry as his father was. Some of his best counsels and most interesting sayings, when he became a man, related to this subject. There is no doubt that his early discipline on this line gave to the world his best sayings on this and other subjects. The following are some of his counsels referred to: "Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the used key is always bright." "But dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of." "If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality." "Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all easy; and he that riseth late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night; while laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him." "At the working-man's house hunger looks in but dares not enter." "Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all things to industry." "One to-day is worth two to-morrows." "Drive thy business! let not thy business drive thee." "God helps those that help themselves." He wrote to a young tradesman as follows: "Remember that time is money. He that can earn ten shillings a day by his labor, and goes abroad or sits idle one-half that day, though he spend but sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon _that_ the only expense; he has really spent, or rather thrown away, five shillings besides. "The sound of your hammer at five in the morning, or nine at night, heard by a creditor, makes him easy six months longer; but, if he sees you at a billiard-table, or hears your voice at a tavern, when you should be at work, he sends for his money the next day; demands it before he can receive it in a lump." Benjamin became a better teacher than his father; and, no doubt, was indebted to his father for the progress. Had he gone to college instead of the candle-shop, the world might not have received his legacy of proverbial wisdom. For these were the outcome of secular discipline, when he was brought into direct contact with the realities of business and hardship. Colleges do not teach proverbs; they do not make practical men, but learned men. Practical men are made by observation and experience in the daily work of life. In that way Franklin was made the remarkable practical man that he was. Had "Uncle Benjamin" lived to read such words of wisdom from the pen of his namesake, when his reputation had spread over two hemispheres, he would have said, "I told you so. Did I not say that Benjamin would not always make candles? Did I not prophesy that he would make his mark in manhood?" Benjamin became a tallow-chandler when he was ten years old; and he meant to make a good one, though the business was repulsive to his feelings. At first his industry and tact were all that his father could desire. He devoted the hours of each workday closely to the trade, though his love for it did not increase at all. If any thing, he disliked it more and more as the weeks and months dragged on. Perhaps he became neglectful and somewhat inefficient, for he said, in his manhood, that his father often repeated to him this passage from the Bible: "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men." When Benjamin became the famous Dr. Franklin, and was in the habit of standing before kings, he often recalled this maxim of Solomon, which his father dinged rebukingly in his ear. It was one of the pleasantest recollections of his life. Mr. Franklin watched his boy in the candle-trade closely, to see whether his dislike for it increased or diminished. His anxiety for him was great. He did not wish to compel him to make candles against an increasing desire to escape from the hardship. He had great sympathy for him, too, in his disappointment at leaving school. And it was a hard lot for such a lover of school and study to give them up forever at ten years of age. No more school after that! Small opportunity, indeed, in comparison with those enjoyed by nearly every boy at the present day! Now they are just beginning to learn at this early age. From ten they can look forward to six, eight, or ten years in school and college. Mr. Franklin saw from month to month that his son more and more disliked his business, though little was said by either of them. "Actions speak louder than words," as Mr. Franklin saw to his regret; for it was as clear as noonday that Benjamin would never be contented in the candle-factory. He did his best, however, to make the boy's situation attractive; allowed him frequent opportunities for play, and praised his habit of reading in the evening and at all other times possible. Still, a tallow-candle did not attract him. It shed light, but it was not the sort of light that Benjamin wanted to radiate. One day, nearly two years after he engaged in the candle-business, he said to his father: "I wish I could do something else; I can never like this work." "What else would you like to do?" inquired his father. "I would like to go to sea," was the prompt and straight reply; and it startled Mr. Franklin. It was just what he feared all along. He was afraid that compulsion to make him a tallow-chandler might cause him to run away and go to sea, as his eldest son, Josiah, did. Emphatically his father said: "Go to sea, Benjamin! Never, never, with my consent. Never say another word about it, and never think about it, for that is out of the question. I shall never give my consent, and I know your mother never will. It was too much for me when your brother broke away from us and went to sea. I can not pass through another such trial. So you must not persist in your wish, if you would not send me down to the grave." Josiah, the eldest son, named for his father, became dissatisfied with his home when Benjamin was an infant, ran away, and shipped as a sailor. The parents knew not where he had gone. Month after month they waited, in deep sorrow, for tidings from their wayward boy, but no tidings came. Years rolled on, and still the wanderer was away somewhere--they knew not where. Morning, noon, and night the memory of him lay heavy upon their hearts, turning their cup of earthly joy to bitterness, and furrowing their faces with anxiety and grief. He might be dead. He might be alive and in want in a strange land. The uncertainty and suspense hanging over his fate magnified their sorrow. The outlook was unpleasant; there was no comfort in it. They appealed to God. Before Him they pleaded for their prodigal son--for his safety, his return, his salvation. Not long after Benjamin had expressed his longing for the sea, when almost the last hope of seeing the lost son again had vanished, Josiah returned and startled his parents by his sudden and unexpected presence. They could scarcely believe their eyes. Twelve years, and hard service before the mast, had wrought a great change in his appearance. He was a youth when he ran away,--he was a man now, toughened by exposure, dark as an Indian, stalwart and rough; but still the eldest son and brother, Josiah Franklin, Jr. They were glad to see him. They rejoiced more over this one returning prodigal than they did over the sixteen that went not astray. "The father said: Bring forth the best robe and put it on him; and put a ring on his finger, and shoes on his feet. And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost and is found. And they began to be merry." It was the first time in twelve years that family had been "merry." Past sorrows were forgotten in the joy of their meeting. On that day a new life began around that hearthstone. Father and mother began to live again. As if they had never shed a tear or felt a pang, they looked into the future with cheerful hope and expectation. To return to Benjamin. His father's quick and sharp reply left no room for doubt. If he went to sea it must be against his father's will. He turned to his mother, but was repulsed with equal decision. "You surprise me, Benjamin. Want to go to sea! You must not harbor such a thought. Is it not enough that we have lost one son in that way? You might have known that I should never give my consent. I should almost as lief bury you. How can you want to leave your good home, and all your friends, to live in a ship, exposed to storms and death all the time?" "It is not because I do not love my home and friends; but I have a desire to sail on a voyage to some other country. I like the water, and nothing would suit me better than to be a cabin-boy." "You surprise and pain me, Benjamin. I never dreamed of such a thing. If you do not like work in the candle-factory, then choose some other occupation, but never think of going to sea." "I would choose any other occupation under the sun than candle-making," replied Benjamin. "I have tried to like it for two years, but dislike it more and more. If I could have my own way, I would not go to the factory another day." Perhaps the opposition of his parents would have prevented his going to sea, but the return of Josiah, with no words of praise for the calling, might have exerted a decided influence in leading him to abandon the idea altogether. "Uncle Benjamin," of course, could not tolerate the idea of his nephew becoming a sailor. With his poor opinion of the candle-trade, he would have him pursue the business all his life rather than become a sailor. "Do any thing rather than follow the seas," he said. "If you want to throw yourself away, body and soul, go before the mast. But if you want to be somebody, and do something that will make you respectable and honored among men, never ship for a voyage, long or short. A boy of one talent can be a cabin-boy, but a boy of ten talents ought to be above that business, and find his place on a higher plane of life." VII. CHOOSING A TRADE AND STEALING SPORT. Mr. and Mrs. Franklin canvassed the subject thoroughly, and wisely decided that Benjamin might engage in some other pursuit. "To be successful a man must love his calling," remarked Mr. Franklin, "and Benjamin hates his. He appears to go to each day's work with a dread, and as long as he feels so he will not accomplish any thing." "You have come to a wise decision, I think," responded "Uncle Benjamin." "Ordinarily a boy should choose his own occupation. He may be instructed and assisted by his parents, but if he makes his own selection he is likely to choose what he has tact and taste for. Certainly, I would not compel a son to follow a business that he hates as Benjamin does candle-making." "That is true on the whole, but circumstances alter cases," remarked Mr. Franklin. "I believe I shall take him around to examine different trades in town, and he can see for himself and choose what he likes best." "He has seemed to be interested in my son's business," added "Uncle Benjamin." His son Samuel was a cutler, and he had established the cutlery business in Boston, in which he was quite successful. "Well, he can look into that; I have no objections to it; it is a good business. I will let him examine others, however, and take his choice. I want he should settle the matter of occupation now for life. I do not want to go through another experience with him, such as I have been through two years in the candle-factory." Mr. Franklin had evidently acquired new views about boys, judging from his last remarks. He saw but one way out of the difficulty. Choice of an occupation was a more important matter than he had dreamed of. However, he had acted in accordance with the custom of that day, to choose occupations for sons without the least regard to fitness or their preferences. Boys must not have their own way in that matter any more than they should in other things, was the opinion of that age. But progress has been made on this line. It is thought now that the more nearly the aptitudes of the person fit the occupation, the more congenial and successful is the career. To follow the "natural bent," whenever it is possible, appears to be eminently wise. For square men should be put into square holes and round men into round holes. Failing to regard the drift of one's being in the choice of an occupation, is almost sure to put square men into round holes, and round men into square holes. In this way good mechanics have been spoiled to make poor clergymen or merchants, and a good minister spoiled to make a commonplace artisan. The celebrated English engineer, Smeaton, displayed a marvellous ability for mechanical pursuits even in his childhood. Before he had donned jacket and pants in the place of short dress, his father discovered him on the top of the barn, putting up a windmill that he had made. But he paid no regard to the boy's aptitude for this or that position. He was determined to make a lawyer of him, and sent him to school with that end in view. But the boy thought more of windmills and engines than he did of Euclid or Homer, and the result was unfavorable. His father was trying to crowd a square boy into a round hole, and it was repugnant to the born engineer. Josiah Franklin tried to do with Benjamin just what Smeaton tried to do with his son, squeeze a square boy into a round hole. That was a mistake. The son did not like the operation, and rebelled against the squeezing. This created trouble for both, until, with the aid of "Uncle Benjamin," Josiah discovered the way out of the difficulty. Benjamin was delighted when his father disclosed to him his new plan. "Anything is preferable to making candles," he said. "It will not take me long to choose something in place of a soap-factory." "You have considerable mechanical ingenuity," his father said; "you like to work with tools, and you can see how tools are handled in different trades. How would you like your Cousin Samuel's business?" "I should like it vastly better than making candles, though I have not examined it much. I can tell better when have looked in upon other trades When shall we go?" "Begin to-morrow, and first call upon your Cousin Samuel. His cutlery trade is good, and it must increase as the population grows. Then we will examine other kinds of business. It will take some time to go the rounds." On the morrow, as agreed upon, they went forth upon the memorable errand. Benjamin felt like an uncaged bird, and was highly elated by his prospects. Their first call was at Samuel's shop, where they could see a line of cutlery that was quite ample for that day. Samuel explained his methods, use of tools, etc., and Benjamin listened. He was well pleased with the trade, as Samuel saw at once, who encouraged him to choose it. "I was never sorry that I learned the business," he said. "There is no easier way of getting a living, and the work is interesting, because it requires some ingenuity and skill. Benjamin has both, and will succeed." "But I want he should examine other trades," replied his father. "When he has taken in several he will know more what he wants." "Perhaps he will not know as well what he wants," rejoined Samuel. "If he is like some boys he will be less settled in his mind what to choose than he is now." "My mind is partly settled now," said Benjamin. "I should choose any trade on earth in preference to making candles and boiling soap. I should be content with your business." Next they called on a brazier, who manufactured many articles in brass. This was entirely new to Benjamin; he had never seen any thing of the kind before, and he examined the methods of work with much interest. The brazier was communicative, and explained matters fully and clearly, at the same time assuring Benjamin that he would like to teach a boy like him. In like manner they visited a joiner, or carpenter, as he is called in New England now; also, a turner, who formed various things with a lathe; also, a silversmith, bricklayer, and stone-mason. A part of several days was occupied in this examination; and it was time well spent, for it put much information into Benjamin's head, and enlarged his ideas. Referring to the matter when he had become an old man, he said: "It has ever since been a pleasure to me to see good workmen handle their tools. And it has often been useful to me to have learned so much by it as to be able to do some trifling jobs in the house when a workman was not at hand, and to construct little machines for my experiments at the moment when the intention of making these was warm in my mind." "I like Samuel's trade as well as any," Benjamin remarked, after the trips of examination were concluded; and his father rejoiced to hear it. From the start Mr. Franklin showed that none of the trades suited him so well as his nephew's; so that he was particularly gratified to hear the above remark. "Do you like it well enough to choose it, Benjamin?" "Yes, father; on the whole, I think I shall like it best of any; and cutlery will always be needed." "We will understand, then, that you choose that trade, and I will see Samuel at once. It may be best for you to go into the shop for a short time before I make a bargain with him. Then he will know what you can do, and you will know how you like it." At that time it was customary to bind boys to their employers, in different pursuits, until twenty-one years of age. Benjamin was twelve, and, if he should be bound to his cousin, as was the custom, it would be for nine years. For this reason it was a step not to be hastily taken. If a short service in the shop should prove favorable for both sides, the long apprenticeship could be entered upon more intelligently and cheerfully. Mr. Franklin lost no time in securing a place in Samuel's shop. Both parties agreed that it would be best for Benjamin to spend a brief period in the business before settling the terms of apprenticeship. Accordingly he entered upon his new trade immediately, and was much pleased with it. It was so different from the work of candle-making, and required so much more thought and ingenuity, that he enjoyed it. He went to each day's work with a light and cheerful heart. He was soon another boy in appearance, contented, happy, and hopeful. Samuel recognized his ingenuity and willingness to work, and prophesied that he would become an expert cutler. He was ready to receive him as an apprentice, and Benjamin was willing to be bound to him until he was twenty-one years of age. But when Mr. Franklin conferred with Samuel as to the terms of the apprenticeship, they could not agree. The latter demanded an exorbitant fee for his apprenticeship, which the former did not feel able to pay. With good nature they discussed the subject, with reference to an agreement on the terms; but Samuel was immovable. He had but one price. Benjamin might stay or go. Very much to the disappointment of both father and son, the plan failed and was abandoned. Benjamin was afloat again. He had no disposition to return to candle-making, nor did his father desire that he should. He must choose an occupation again. As it turned out, it would have been better to settle the terms of apprenticeship in the first place. It has been said that "there is no loss without some gain." So there was some gain to Benjamin. He was sadly disappointed; and he had given some time to a trade that amounted to nothing, but it was not all loss. He had learned much about the trades: the importance of a trade to every boy, and its necessity as a means of livelihood, and he never lost the lesson which he learned at that time. In his ripe manhood he wrote,-- "He that hath a trade hath an estate. He that hath a calling hath an office of honor." He believed that a trade was as good as a farm for a livelihood, and that a necessary calling was as honorable as a public office of distinction. How much his early discipline about trades had to do with these noble sentiments of his mature life, we may not say, but very much, without doubt. While Benjamin was waiting for something to turn up, an incident occurred which may be rehearsed in this place. He was already an expert in swimming and rowing, and he loved the water and a boat passionately. He was fond of fishing, also; and there was a marsh, flooded at high tides, where the boys caught minnows. Here they repaired for a fine time one day, Benjamin and several companions. "All aboard!" exclaimed Benjamin, as he bounded into the boat lying at the water's edge. "Now for a ride; only hurry up, and make the oars fly"; and several boys leaped in after him from the shaky, trampled quagmire on which they stood. "We shall be heels over head in mud yet," said one of the number, "unless we try to improve this marsh. There is certainly danger that we shall go through that shaky place, and we do not know where we shall stop when we begin to go down." "Let us build a wharf; that will get rid of the quagmire," suggested Benjamin. "It won't be a long job, if all take hold." "Where will you get your lumber?" inquired John. "Nowhere. We do not want any lumber; stones are better." "That is worse yet, to bring stones so far, and enough of them," said John. "You must like to lift better than I do, and strain your gizzard in tugging stones here." "Look there," continued Benjamin, pointing to a heap of stones only a few rods distant, "there are stones enough for our purpose, and one or two hours is all the time we want to build a wharf with them." "Those stones belong to the man who is preparing to build a house there," said Fred. "The workmen are busy there now." "That may all be, but they can afford to lend them to us for a little while; they will be just as good for their use after we have done with them." There was the rogue's sly look in Benjamin's eye when he made the last remark. "Then you expect they will loan them to you; but I guess you will be mistaken," responded Fred. "I will borrow them in this way: We will go this evening, after the workmen have gone home, and tug them over here, and make the wharf before bedtime." Benjamin made this proposition for the purpose of adding to their sport. "And get ourselves into trouble thereby," answered a third boy. "I will agree to do it if you will bear all the blame of stealing them." "Stealing!" exclaimed Benjamin, who was so bent on sport that he had no thought of stealing. "It is not stealing to take stones. A man could not sell a million tons of them for a copper." "Well, anyhow, the man who has borne the expense of drawing them there won't thank you for taking them." "I do not ask them to thank me. I do not think the act deserves any thanks." And a roguish twinkle of the eye showed that Benjamin knew he was doing wrong for the sake of getting a little sport. "Wouldn't it be a joke on those fellows if they should find their pile of stones missing in the morning?" "Let us do it," said John, who was taken with the idea of playing off a joke. "I will do my part to put it through." "And I will do mine." "And so will I." "And I, too." By this time all were willing to follow Benjamin, their leader. Perhaps some of them were afraid to say "No," as their consciences suggested, now that the enterprise was endorsed by one or two of their number. Both boys and men are quite disposed to "go with the multitude to do evil." They are too cowardly to do what they know is right. The salt marsh bounding a part of the mill-pond where their boat lay was tramped into a quagmire. The boys were wont to fish there at high water, and so many feet treading on the spot reduced it to a very soft condition. It was over this miry marsh that they proposed to build a wharf. The evening was soon there, and the boys, too, upon their rogues' errand. They surveyed the pile of stones, and found it ample for their purpose, though it appeared to be a formidable piece of work to remove them. "Two of us can't lift and carry some of them," said Fred. "Then three of us will hitch on and carry them," replied Benjamin. "They must all be worked into a wharf this evening. Let us begin--there is no time to lose." "The largest must go first," suggested John. "They are capital stones for the foundation. Come, boys, let us make quick work of it." So they went to work with a will and "where there's a will there's a way," in evil as well as good. It was unfortunate for Benjamin that he did not hate such an enterprise as much as he did candle-making. If he had, he would have given a wide berth to the salt marsh and the wharf project. But neither he nor his companions disliked the evil work in which there was sport. We say that they worked with a will; and their perseverance was the only commendable thing about the affair. Sometimes three or four of them worked away at a stone, rolling it along or lifting, as necessity required. Then one alone would catch up a smaller one, and convey it to the wharf at double-quick. Half their zeal, tact, and industry, in doing this wrong, would have made the candle-trade, or any other business, a success. The evening was not quite spent when the last stone was carried away, and the wharf finished,--a work of art that answered their purpose very well, though it was not quite as imposing as Commercial Wharf is now, and was not calculated to receive the cargo of a very large Liverpool packet. "A capital place now for fishing!" exclaimed Fred. "It is worth all it cost for that." "It may cost more than you think for before we get through with it," suggested John. "We sha'n't know the real cost of it until the owner finds his stones among the missing." "I should like to hear his remarks to-morrow morning, when he discovers his loss," remarked Benjamin; "they will not be very complimentary, I think." "I am more anxious to know what he will do about it," responded John. "We shall find out before long, no doubt," said Benjamin. "But I must hurry home, or I shall have more trouble there than anywhere else. Come, boys, let us go." They hastened to their homes, not designing to divulge the labors of the evening, if they could possibly avoid interrogation. They knew that their parents would disapprove of the deed, and that no excuse could shield them from merited censure. Not one of their consciences was at ease. Their love of sport had got the better of their love of right-doing. And yet they were both afraid and ashamed to tell of what they had done. They were at home and in bed and asleep about as early as usual. Twenty-four hours passed away, during which Benjamin's fears had increased rather than diminished. He was all the while thinking about the stones--what the owner would say and do--whether he would learn who took his stones away. His conscience was on duty. It was evening, and Mr. Franklin took his seat at the fireside. Benjamin was reading, the unattractive tallow candle furnishing him light. "Benjamin," said Mr. Franklin, after a little, "where were you last evening?" If his father had fired off a pistol he could not have been more disturbed. His heart leaped into his throat. He thought of the stones. He knew something was up about them--that trouble was ahead. "I was down to the water," Benjamin replied, with as much coolness as he could muster. "What were you doing there?" "Fixing up a place for the boat." He suspected, from his father's appearance, that he would have to tell the whole story. "Benjamin, see that you tell me the truth, and withhold nothing. I wish to know exactly what you did there." "We built a wharf." "What did you build it with?" "We built it of stones." "Where did you get your stones?" "There was a pile of them close by." "Did they belong to you?" "No, sir." "Then you stole them, did you?" "It isn't stealing to take stones." "Why, then, did you take them in the evening, after the workmen had gone home? Why did you not go after them when the workmen were all there? It looks very much as if you thought taking them was stealing them." Benjamin saw that he was fairly cornered. Such a catechetical exercise was somewhat new to him. The Westminster Assembly's Catechism never put him into so tight a place as that. Bright as he was, he could not discover the smallest hole out of which to crawl. It was a bad scrape, and he could see no way out of it except by telling the truth. We dislike very much to say it, but, judging from all the circumstances, he would have told a lie, could he have seen a place to put one in. But there was no chance for a falsehood. He was completely shut up to the truth. He saw that the wharf cost more than he estimated--that stealing stones violated a principle as really as stealing dollars. He was so completely cornered that he made no reply. His father continued: "I see plainly how it is. It is the consequence of going out in the evening with the boys, which I must hereafter forbid. I have been willing that you should go out occasionally in the evening, because I thought it might be better for you than so much reading. But you have now betrayed my confidence, and I am more than ever satisfied that boys should spend their evenings at home, trying to improve their minds. You are guilty of an act that is quite flagrant, although it may have been done thoughtlessly. You should have known better after having received so much instruction at home." "I did know better," was Benjamin's frank confession, determined to make a clean breast of it. "And that makes your guilt so much the greater. Will you learn a lesson from this, and never do the like again?" "I promise that I never will." Thus frankly Benjamin confessed his wrong-doing; and, in mature life, he often referred to it as his "_first wrong act_" from which he learned a lesson for life. It was another way of _paying too dear for a whistle_. What the whistle was to him at seven, the wharf of stones was to him at twelve years of age--sport. The first was innocent sport, however; the last was guilty. It appears that the workmen missed their stones when they first reached the spot in the morning, and soon discovered them nicely laid into a wharf. The proprietor was indignant, and set about learning who were the authors of the deed. In the course of the day he gained the information he sought, and very properly went to the parents of each boy with his complaint. In this way the boys were exposed, and received just rebuke for their misdemeanor. Benjamin was convinced, as he said of it many years thereafter, "that that which is not honest could not be truly useful." VIII. BECOMING PRINTER-BOY. At the time Benjamin was in the candle-factory his brother James was in England learning the printer's trade. He spent several years there, until he had mastered the business, intending to return to Boston and establish that trade. He returned about the time that Benjamin was concluding his disgust with candle-making, and was well under way at the time he abandoned the cutler's trade. James brought press, type, and all the _et ceteras_ of a complete outfit with him from England. "How would you like to learn the printer's trade with your brother James?" inquired his father, a short time after Benjamin left the cutler's shop. "I have been thinking it over, and I really believe that you have more qualifications for it than you have for any other trade. Your love of learning will have a better chance there, too." "How is that?" answered Benjamin. "I do not quite see in what respect I am better qualified to be a printer than a cutler." "Well, you are a good reader, and have an intellectual turn, being fond of books; and a printing office must have more opportunities for mental improvement than the shop of a cutler. A type-setter can be acquiring new and valuable ideas when he is setting up written articles." "If that is so I should like it well; and I should think it might be as you say," Benjamin answered. "I might have a better chance to read." "Of course you would. You may have matter to put in type that is as interesting and profitable as any thing you find in books. Indeed, James will no doubt have pamphlets and books to publish before long. All that you read in books went through the printer's hand first." "I had not thought of that," said Benjamin, quite taken with his father's ideas about the printing business. "I think I should like it better than almost any thing else. How long will it take to learn the trade?" "I suppose that it will take some time, though I know very little about it. You are twelve years of age now, and you can certainly acquire the best knowledge of the trade by the time you are twenty-one." "That is a long time," suggested Benjamin; "nine years ought to make the best printer there is. But that is no objection to me; I shall do as you think best." "I want _you_ should think it best, too," rejoined his father. "If you have no inclination to be a printer, I do not want you should undertake it. You will not succeed in any business you dislike." "I do think it best to try this," replied Benjamin. "If James thinks well of it, I shall, for he knows all about the trade." "I will speak with him about it and learn his opinion," said his father. "If he thinks well of it, I will see what arrangements can be made with him. The prospects of the business are not flattering now, but I think the day is coming when it will prosper." Mr. Franklin lost no time in conferring with James, who favored the plan without any reserve. He proposed to take Benjamin as an apprentice, to serve until he was twenty-one years old, according to the custom of the times, receiving twenty pounds for the same, and giving him board and clothes until the last year, when he would be paid journeyman's wages. This was a good opportunity on the whole, for printing was in its infancy in our country at that time. Not more than six or eight persons had been in the business in Boston before James Franklin commenced, in the year 1717. The demand for printing must have been very small indeed. The first printing press in the United States was set up in Cambridge in 1639 by Rev. Jesse Glover, who gave it to Harvard University. The first thing printed was the "Freeman's oath"; the next, the almanac for New England, calculated by William Pierce, a mariner; the next, a metrical version of the Psalms. It is claimed that ten years later than Benjamin's entering his brother's printing office, there were but three or four printers in our country. Whether that was so or not, it is certain that then, and for many years afterwards, printers were very scarce. In 1692, Old Style, the council of New York adopted the following resolution: "It is resolved in council, that if a printer will come and settle in the city of New York, for the printing of our acts of assembly and public papers, he shall be allowed the sum of forty pounds, current money of New York, per annum, for his salary, and have the benefit of his printing, besides what serves to the public." It is said, also, that when Benjamin Franklin wanted to marry the daughter of Mr. Reed, of Philadelphia, her mother said, "I do not know about giving my daughter to a printer; for there are already four in the United States, and it is doubtful if more could get a living." It is worthy of note here, also, as showing how slowly the printing business advanced in the infancy of our country, that Great Britain did not allow the American Colonies to print the English Bible. Hence, the first Bible printed in this country was published in 1782, a little more than a hundred years ago. For this reason most of the pulpit Bibles in the Congregational and other churches of New England, before that time, were the Oxford editions, in which the Book of Common Prayer and the Psalms were included, and the Articles of Faith of the English Church. Some of these are still preserved as relics. "It will be necessary for you to be bound to your brother, according to law," remarked Mr. Franklin. "These things must be done legally, and such is the law and custom, too." "And I am to board with him, also, if I understand you, father?" Benjamin was thinking of leaving his home, and that would be a trial. True, he would not be far from his father's house; he could step into it every night if he wished; but it was leaving home, nevertheless. "It does not seem quite right for one brother to be bound to another for nine years," added Benjamin, thoughtfully, and after some hesitation. "But such is the custom, however it may appear, and it must be done so to have every thing right and legal. We do not know what may happen in the nine years. It is better to have things in black and white, whether the bargain is with a brother or any one else." Mr. Franklin added more to the last remarks, in order to remove an objection which Benjamin seemed to have to being bound to his brother; and he was successful. The last objection was removed, and cheerfully and gladly Benjamin consented to become a printer-boy. The following was the form of the indenture of apprenticeship that bound Benjamin to his brother for nine years: "This indenture witnesseth that Benjamin Franklin, son of Josiah Franklin, and of Abiah, his wife, of Boston, in the colony of Massachusetts Bay, with the consent of his parents, doth put himself apprentice to his brother, James Franklin, printer, to learn his art, and with him after the manner of an apprentice from the ---- day of ----, in the year of our Lord, 1718, until he shall have fully completed the twenty-first year of his age. During which term the said apprentice his master faithfully shall or will serve, his secrets keep, his lawful commands everywhere gladly do. He shall do no damage to his said master, nor see it to be done of others, but to his power shall let, or forthwith give notice to his said master of the same. The goods of his said master he shall not waste, nor the same without license of him to any give or lend. Hurt to his said master he shall not do, cause, nor procure to be done. He shall neither buy nor sell without his master's license. Taverns, inns, and ale houses he shall not haunt. At cards, dice, tables, or any other unlawful game he shall not play. Matrimony he shall not contract; nor from the service of his said master day nor night absent himself; but in all things as an honest and faithful apprentice shall and will demean and behave himself towards his said master and all his during the said term. And the said James Franklin, the master, for and in consideration of the sum of ten pounds of lawful British money to him in hand paid by the said Josiah Franklin, the father, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, the said apprentice in the art of a printer, which he now useth, shall teach and instruct, or cause to be taught and instructed, the best way and manner that he can, finding and allowing unto the said apprentice meat, drink, washing, lodging, and all other necessaries during the said term. And for the true performance of all and every the covenants and agreements aforesaid, either of the said parties bindeth himself unto the other finally by these presents. In witness whereof, the parties aforesaid to these indentures interchangeably have set their hands and seals this ---- day of ----, in the fifth year of our Sovereign Lord, George the First, by the grace of God of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, and in the year of our Lord, 1718." To this document Benjamin signed his name, with his father and brother, thereby having his liberty considerably abridged. A boy by the name of William Tinsley took the place of Benjamin in Mr. Franklin's candle-shop. He was bound to Mr. Franklin as Benjamin was bound to his brother. But he liked the business no better than Benjamin did, and, finally, to escape from his thraldom, he ran away; whereupon his master inserted the following advertisement in the _New England Courant_ of July, 1722, which reads very much like advertisements for runaway slaves, in that and later days; and, probably, young Tinsley thought he was escaping from a sort of white slavery: "Ran away from his Master, Mr. Josiah Franklin, of Boston, Tallow-chandler, on the first of this instant July, an Irish Man-servant, named William Tinsley, about 20 years of age, of a middle Stature, black Hair, lately cut off, somewhat fresh-colored Countenance, a large lower Lip, of a mean Aspect, large Legs, and heavy in his Going. He had on, when he went away, a felt Hat, a white knit Cap, striped with red and blue, white Shirt, and neck-cloth, a brown-coloured Jacket, almost new, a frieze Coat, of a dark colour, grey yarn Stockings, leather Breeches, trimmed with black, and round to'd Shoes. Whoever shall apprehend the said runaway Servant, and him safely convey to his above said Master, at the Blue Ball in Union street, Boston, shall have Forty Shillings Reward, and all necessary Charges paid." There is no evidence that Tinsley was ever found. He hated the candle-trade so lustily that he put the longest possible distance between himself and it. Had Benjamin been compelled to continue the unpleasant business, he might have escaped from the hardship in a similar way. These facts, together with the foregoing documents, show that, in some respects, many white youth of that day were subjected to an experience not wholly unlike that of the colored youth. Often the indentured parties became the victims of cruelty. Sometimes they were half clothed and fed. Sometimes they were beaten unmercifully. They were completely in the hands of the "master," and whether their experience was pleasant or sad depended upon his temper. Add another fact to the foregoing about the indenture of apprenticeship, and the similarity of white to Negro slavery, in that day, is quite remarkable. No longer than seventy-five years ago, a poor child, left to the town by the death of the father, was put up at auction, and the man who bid the lowest sum was entitled to him. The town paid the amount to get rid of the incumbrance, without much regard to the future treatment of the orphan. A near neighbor of the author, eighty-three years of age, was sold in this manner three times in his early life, suffering more and more with each change, until he was old enough to defend himself and run away. His first buyer, for some reason, wanted to dispose of him, and he sold him at auction to another. The second buyer was heartless and cruel, against which the boy rebelled, and, for this reason, he was sold to a third "master," who proved to be the worst tyrant of the three, subjecting the youth to all sorts of ill-treatment, to escape which he took to his heels. He was not given a day's schooling by either master, nor one holiday, nor the privilege of going to meeting on the Sabbath, nor was he half fed and clothed. At twenty-one he could neither read nor write. We have turned aside from our narrative to record a somewhat barbaric custom of our forefathers, that the reader may appreciate all the more the higher civilization and more congenial experiences of this age. Benjamin had become a printer-boy as fully equipped for duty as documents, pledges, and promises could make him. His _heart_ entered into this new work, and his _head_ also. The business set him to thinking. He liked it. Indeed, he could find no fault with it. The business liked him, too; that is, he had a tact for it--he was adapted to it. The boy and the trade were suited to each other. Hence, he became even fascinated with it. "I like it better than I thought I should," he said to his mother. "I have to use my brains more in putting a single paragraph into type than I did in filling a whole regiment of candle-moulds. I like it better and better." "I am glad to hear that, though I rather expected as much. If you like it as well as James does, you will like it well enough. He is thoroughly satisfied with his trade, and I think he will find it to be a profitable one by and by. In a new country it takes time to build up almost any trade." Mrs. Franklin spoke from a full heart, for she had great interest in Benjamin's chosen pursuit, because she believed that he possessed remarkable talents. She still expected that he would make his mark, though prevented from entering the ministry. "I get some time to read," continued Benjamin, "and I mean to get more, though there is much confusion at my boarding-place." "You must not gain time for reading at the expense of neglecting your work," suggested his mother. "Your time is your brother's, and, first of all, you must fulfill your obligations to him. Fidelity is a cardinal virtue, remember." "Of course," replied Benjamin. "I know what I am in duty bound to do, and I shall do it. James has not found me a minute behind time yet, nor lazy in the printing office; and I mean that he never shall." "That is a good resolution, very good, indeed; and I hope you will keep it. At the same time, do not neglect your Bible, nor cease to attend public worship on the Sabbath. A boy can't get along without these any more than his parents can. As soon as you begin to neglect these you are exposed to danger, and the very worst sort of danger." To those who are determined to succeed, time can be found for reading without interfering with business. Budgett, the rich English merchant, was a great reader. He would not allow his time for reading to interfere with his business, nor his time for business to interfere with his reading. He prepared a time-table by which his work was regulated each day. From an examination of it we learn the number of hours and pages he read the first two weeks of January, 1849. He spent fifty-nine hours in his library, and read _seven hundred_ pages of Josephus' History, _six hundred and sixty_ pages of Milner's Church History, _three hundred and eighty_ pages of Baxter's Saints' Rest, and spent a fair proportion of the time in studying Townsend's Old and New Testaments. Such is what the busiest man can do when he regulates his time for it. James Franklin's printing office, where Benjamin worked, was at the corner of Franklin avenue and Court street. As his brother was unmarried he boarded at a place near by, which James secured. Probably the large family and want of room were the reason he did not continue to board at his father's. The family were always in a strait for room. A vacancy only left room which the remaining members sorely needed, and they occupied it so readily and naturally that the former occupant was scarcely missed. The printer's trade embraced some kinds of work at that time which it does not embrace now, as we judge from the advertisement of James Franklin in the _Boston Gazette_, when he commenced business, as follows: "The printer hereof prints linens, calicoes, silks, etc., in good figures, very lively and durable colors, and without the offensive smell which commonly attends the linens printed here." Such printing was done for ladies who were in need of what there was no manufactory to supply, at that time. When Benjamin had served two years at his trade, he had become indispensable to his brother. He had devoted himself to his work with all his heart, and had made rapid improvement. He had acquired a good understanding of the trade. He was a superior compositor. His judgment was excellent. He was industrious--there was not a lazy bone in him. And he was punctual. The habit of reading that Benjamin had formed tended to make him punctual. In order to command the more time he was promptly at his work, and efficiently discharged every duty. It was this well-formed habit of punctuality that made him so reliable in the printing office. His brother knew that he would be there at such a time, and that he would remain just so many hours. This habit won his confidence, as it does the confidence of every one. There is no quality that does more to gain a good name for an individual, and inspire the confidence of his fellow-men, than this one of being on time. It is so generally found in company with other excellent traits of character, that it seems to be taken for granted, usually, that the punctual person is worthy in other respects. A ripe scholar was the neighbor of Dr. Adam Clarke, the commentator, when the latter had become quite renowned. On the same evening both saw a copy of the Greek Testament by Erasmus advertised. As soon as the ripe scholar had swallowed his breakfast, on the next morning, he hastened to the book-store to purchase the volume. "You are too late; the book is sold," replied the book-seller to the inquiry of the gentleman. "Too late!" exclaimed the scholar; "why, I came as soon as I had eaten my breakfast;" "Yes, but Adam Clarke came _before breakfast_," responded the merchant. The incident shows that the man who is on time has the inside track; and the inside track is nearest the goal. It is the wide-awake man who is prompt, not the dull, sleepy procrastinator. The best qualities of manhood must be on the alert to secure promptness; the poorest qualities will secure the opposite. The prize is taken by the worker who is _on time_. It is lost by him who is _behind time_, as the aforesaid scholar was. He planned to make sure of his breakfast before he did of the book; but Adam Clarke made sure of the book before he did of his breakfast, and he won. In 1788, Washington visited Boston, and he decided to leave for Salem on the morning of a certain day, at eight o'clock, precisely. A company of cavalry volunteered to escort him to Salem. While the clock of the Old South Church was striking eight, Washington mounted his horse and started, though his escort had not put in an appearance. A few minutes later, however, they arrived, and were greatly mortified to find that Washington had gone. Putting spurs to their horses, they galloped forward, and overtook him at Charles river bridge. When they came up, Washington said: "Major, I thought you had been in my family too long not to know when it was eight o'clock." The habit of punctuality which Franklin formed in his youth, distinguished him in his manhood as much as the same habit did Washington. There is no doubt that it exerted a large influence in placing him next to Washington among the founders of our republic. One of the maxims that he wrote in mature life was: "He that riseth late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night." IX. TABLE-TALK EDUCATION. We delay the narrative, at this point, to introduce a subject that Franklin often referred to as influencing his early life. In his "Autobiography," he said: "At his table he [his father] liked to have, as often as he could, some sensible friend or neighbor to converse with; and always took care to start some ingenious or useful topic for discourse, which might tend to improve the minds of his children. By this means he turned our attention to what was good, just, and prudent, in the conduct of life; and little or no notice was ever taken of what related to the victuals on the table; whether it was well or ill dressed, in or out of season, of good or bad flavor, preferable or inferior to this or that other thing of the kind; so that I was brought up in such a perfect inattention to those matters, as to be quite indifferent what kind of food was set before me. Indeed, I am so unobservant of it, that to this day I can scarce tell, a few hours after dinner, of what dishes it consisted. This has been a great convenience to me in travelling, where my companions have been sometimes very unhappy for want of a suitable gratification of their more delicate, because better instructed, tastes and appetites." This was different from much of the table-talk that is heard in many families now. "I do not want any of that, I do not love it," exclaims one child. "I should think you might have a better dinner than this." "What would you have if you could get it; roast chicken and plum pudding?" his mother replies, in a facetious way, instead of reproving him. "I would have something I could eat. You know I do not love that, and never did." "Well, it does boys good, sometimes, to eat what they do not love, especially such particular ones as you are," adds his father. "I sha'n't eat what I do not like, anyhow; I shall go hungry first." "There, now, let me hear no more complaint about your food," adds his father, more sharply. "You are scarcely ever suited with your victuals." "May I have some?" calling for something that is not on the table. "If you will hold your tongue, and get it yourself, you can have it." "And let me have some, too," shouts another child. "I do not love this, neither. May I have some, pa?" "And I, too," exclaims still another. "I must have some if Henry and James do." In this way the table-talk proceeds, until fretting, scolding, crying, make up the sum total of the conversation, and family joy are embittered for the remainder of the day. In contrast with the discipline of instructive conversation, such schooling at the fireside is pitiable indeed. Franklin claimed that this feature of family government exerted a moulding influence upon his life and character. It caused him to value profitable conversation in boyhood and youth. In manhood he frequently found himself posted upon subjects made familiar to him by conversation at the table and hearthstone of his boyhood, especially topics relating to the mother country. He was more particularly edified by conversation at home during the four years that "Uncle Benjamin" was a member of his father's family. For this favorite "Uncle" was a very instructive talker, having been educated by the conversation of his father at home in England, as his nephew Benjamin was by his father in Boston. When "Uncle Benjamin" was very old, he could even recall the expressions which his father used in prayer at the family altar, and he wrote some of them in one of his books of poetry, as follows: "Holy Father, into thy hand we commit our spirits, for thou hast redeemed them, O Lord God of Truth." "Command thine angel to encamp round about our habitation." "Give thine angels charge over us, that no evil may come nigh our dwelling." "Thou knowest our down-lying and rising-up, thou art acquainted with all our ways, and knowest our tho'ts afar off." "We know that in us, that is, in our flesh, there dwelleth no good thing." "Holy Father, keep through thine own name all those that are thine, that none of them be lost." "We thank thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth. Tho' thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, yet thou hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Holy Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." We have copied the language just as it was written by "Uncle Benjamin," and it is chiefly Bible language, showing marked familiarity with the Scriptures. We infer, from the foregoing, that useful conversation was characteristic of the Franklins of each generation, indicating a good degree of intelligence and talents of high order. Ignorance does not indulge in improving conversation; it could not if it would. Nor do small mental powers show themselves in excellence of conversation. So that it is quite evident that talents in the Josiah Franklin family were not limited to Benjamin. They reached back to former generations. Mr. Parton says: "Thomas Franklin, the elder, had four sons: Thomas, John, Benjamin, and Josiah. There lived at Ecton, during the boyhood of these four sons, a Mr. John Palmer, the squire of the parish and lord of an adjacent manor, who, attracted by their intelligence and spirit, lent them books, assisted them to lessons in drawing and music, and, in various ways, encouraged them to improve their minds. All the boys appear to have been greatly profited by Squire Palmer's friendly aid; but none of them so much as Thomas, the eldest, inheritor of the family forge and farm." It was this Thomas who became grandfather of our Benjamin, and whose expressions in prayer we have quoted. Mr. Parton discovers such talents there as make profitable conversation at the table and elsewhere, and are transmitted to posterity. For he says, still further: "In families destined at length to give birth to an illustrious individual, Nature seems sometimes to make an essay of her powers with that material, before producing the consummate specimen. There was a remarkable Mr. Pitt before Lord Chatham; there was an extraordinary Mr. Fox before the day of the ablest debater in Europe; there was a witty Sheridan before Richard Brinsley; there was a Mirabeau before the Mirabeau of the French Revolution. And, to cite a higher instance, Shakespeare's father was, at least, extraordinarily fond of dramatic entertainments, if we may infer any thing certain from the brief records of his mayoralty of Stratford, for he appears to have given the players the kind of welcome that Hamlet admonished Polonius to bestow upon them. Thomas Franklin, the eldest uncle of our Benjamin, learned the blacksmith's trade in his father's shop, but, aided by Squire Palmer and his own natural aptitude for affairs, became, as his nephew tells us, 'a conveyancer, something of a lawyer, clerk of the county court, and clerk to the archdeacon; a very leading man in all county affairs, and much employed in public business.'" The quotation Mr. Parton makes, in his closing lines, is from a letter of Benjamin Franklin, addressed to Mrs. Deborah Franklin, dated London, 6 September, 1758. We quote still further from it, as it is interesting matter relating to the prominence and intelligence of the Franklin ancestors: "From Wellingborough we went to Ecton, about three or four miles, being the village where my father was born, and where his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had lived, and how many of the family before them we know not. We went first to see the old house and grounds; they came to Mr. Fisher with his wife, and, after letting them for some years, finding his rent something ill-paid, he sold them. The land is now added to another farm, and a school is kept in the house. It is a decayed old stone building, but still known by the name of Franklin House. Thence we went to visit the rector of the parish, who lives close by the church--a very ancient building. He entertained us very kindly, and showed us the old church register, in which were the births, marriages, and burials of our ancestors for two hundred years, as early as his book began. His wife, a good-natured, chatty old lady (granddaughter of the famous Archdeacon Palmer, who formerly had that parish and lived there), remembered a great deal about the family; carried us out into the church-yard and showed us several of their grave-stones, which were so covered with moss that we could not read the letters till she ordered a hard brush and a basin of water, with which Peter scoured them clean, and then Billy copied them. She entertained and diverted us highly with stories of Thomas Franklin, Mrs. Fisher's father, who was a conveyancer, something of a lawyer, clerk of the county courts, and clerk to the archdeacon in his visitations; a very leading man in all county affairs, and much employed in public business. He set on foot a subscription for erecting chimes in their steeple and completed it, and we heard them play. He found out an easy method of saving their village meadows from being drowned, as they used to be sometimes by the river, which method is still in being; but, when first proposed, nobody could conceive how it could be, 'but, however,' they said, 'if Franklin says he knows how to do it, it will be done.' His advice and opinion were sought for on all occasions, by all sorts of people, and he was looked upon, she said, by some, as something of a conjurer. He died just four years before I was born, on the same day of the same month." Such kind of men are not given to foolish conversation. They are too sensible to indulge in mere twaddle about the weather. Their talents raise them to a higher plane of thought and remark. Josiah Franklin only observed the custom of his ancestors, no doubt unwittingly, when he sought to improve the minds and hearts of his children by instructive conversation at the table and fireside. Benjamin had a right to claim for it a decided educational influence in the family. Pythagoras set so great value upon useful conversation that he commanded his disciples to maintain silence during the first two years of their instruction. He would have their minds thoroughly furnished, that their conversation might be worthy of the pupils of so illustrious a teacher. He was wont to say: "Be silent, or say something better than silence." No men ever put this wise counsel into practice more thoroughly than Josiah Franklin and his son Benjamin. Cicero said of the mother of the Gracchi: "We have read the letters of Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, from which it appears that the sons were educated not so much in the lap of the mother as by her _conversation_." Josiah Franklin had as poor an opinion of the _lap_ as an educator of his sons, in comparison with _conversation_, as Cornelia had. The poet Cowper wrote: "Though conversation in its better part May be esteemed a gift, and not an art; Yet much depends, as in the tiller's toil, On culture and the sowing of the soil." Josiah Franklin was enough of a poet to understand this and reduce it to practice. As his son said, he delighted to have some intelligent man or woman for a guest at his table, for the improvement of his children. But when there was no guest at the table, he led the way alone by calling the attention of his sons and daughters to some subject of interest and profit. He thought it would divert their attention from the quality of their food, so that they would not be so apt to complain of it, and, at the same time, impart information and set them thinking. He did not allow one of his children to complain of the food on the table, and he would have prevented it by severe measures, if necessary. Before he found the method cited a wise one, and therefore persevered in it. He often made this remark: "You must give heed to little things, although nothing can be considered small that is important. It is of far more consequence how you behave than what you eat and wear." Another remark he would make when the meal was unusually plain was this: "Many people are too particular about their victuals. They destroy their health by eating too much and too rich food. Plain, simple, wholesome fare is all that Nature requires, and young persons who are brought up in this way will be best off in the end." Here is found the origin of Benjamin's rigid temperance principles in eating and drinking, for which he was distinguished through life. In his manhood he wrote and talked upon the subject, and reduced his principles to practice. There scarcely ever lived a man who was so indifferent as to what he ate and drank as he was. When he worked in a printing-office in England, his fellow-printers were hard drinkers of strong beer, really believing that it was necessary to give them strength to endure. They were astonished to see a youth like Benjamin able to excel the smartest of them in the printing office, while he drank only cold water, and they sneeringly called him "The Water American." The temperate habits which Benjamin formed in his youth were the more remarkable because there were no temperance societies at that time, and it was generally supposed to be necessary to use intoxicating drinks. The evils of intemperance were not viewed with so much abhorrence as they are now, and the project of removing them from society was not entertained for a moment. Reformatory movements of this kind did not begin until nearly a century after the time referred to. Yet Benjamin was fully persuaded in his youth that he ought to be temperate in all things. It was a theme of conversation at his father's table and fireside. That conversation instructed him then, as temperance lectures, books, and societies instruct the young now; and it accomplished its purpose. In the sequel we shall learn still more of the moulding power of home lessons, in conversation, to make him the man he became. It is related of the Washburne family, so well known in the public affairs of our country, four or five brothers having occupied posts of political distinction, that, in their early life, their father's house was open to ministers, and was sometimes called "the ministers' hotel." Mr. Washburne was a great friend of this class, and enjoyed their society much. Nearly all the time some one of the ministerial fraternity would be stopping there. His sons were thus brought into their society, and they listened to long discussions upon subjects of a scientific, political, and religious character, though public measures received a large share of attention. The boys acquired valuable information by listening to their remarks, and this created a desire to read and learn more; and so they were started off in a career that "led them on to fame." Their early advantages were few, but the conversation of educated gentlemen, upon important subjects, laid the foundation of their eminence in public life. Benjamin was young, and his heart easily impressed, when he listened to profitable conversation in the home of his boyhood. The way the twig is bent the tree is inclined. His father gave the twig the right bent, and the tree was comely and fruitful. It was a very easy and cheap mode of instruction, always at hand, needing neither text-book nor blackboard, yet pleasant and uplifting. X. LEADER OF SPORTS AND THOUGHT. It is unusual that the same boy should be a leader in nearly all innocent sports, and, at the same time, the most thoughtful and studious boy of all. Generally, the fun-loving youth is an indifferent scholar,--having little taste for reading and study. But it was otherwise with Benjamin. He was as much of an expert in sport as he was in reading,--the best jumper, runner, swimmer, and rower of his age in Boston. And he enjoyed it, too. Perhaps he enjoyed being the best more than any part of the sport. Certainly, when he was in school, he enjoyed being the _best_ scholar more than any part of a pupil's experience; and he so managed to continue the best to the end, though the end came much too soon for him. Swimming was his favorite sport. It was claimed for him that, any time between twelve and sixteen years of age, he could have swam across the Hellespont. Here, as well as elsewhere, his inventive genius was devising ways to promote more rapid swimming. "I believe that I can double my speed in swimming by an invention I have in mind," he said to John Collins, one day. "What sort of an invention? You are always up to something of that sort. I think that arms and legs are all the invention that will ever promote swimming, slow or fast." "Well, you see, John, if I do not invent something to greatly increase speed in swimming," continued Benjamin. "I have been studying on it for some time, and I think I have it." "You do not need anything to increase your speed, Ben; you can beat everybody now, and you ought to be satisfied with that." "I am not satisfied. I want to do better yet. I never did so well in anything yet that I did not want to do better." Right here was really the secret of Benjamin's success,--trying to do better to-morrow than to-day, not satisfied with present attainments, pressing forward to something more desirable, going up higher. Such boys and girls succeed. Difficulties do not alarm or discourage them--they serve to draw them out and make them more invincible. But youth who are satisfied to be just what they are to-day, no larger, broader, or better, live and die mere ciphers. They are destitute of ambition and the spirit of enterprise. They have no just conception of their mission in this world. They do not understand themselves,--what they are for and what they can be if they choose. What is worse, they have no desire to know these things; the effort to know them is too much for their easy, indifferent natures. "I guess that is so," replied John, to Benjamin's last remark. "I never saw a boy just like you; and I think you are right. I want to know more than I do about many things, and I mean to. But what sort of a swimming apparatus have you in mind?" "Well, a sort of palette for the hands and sandals for the feet, fastened tightly so as to be used readily. I have an idea that I can throw myself forward with far greater speed." "I will wait to see it before I pass judgment on it," answered John. "It is risking more than I want to risk to say you can't do it; for there is no telling what you can do." "You will see it in a few days; it will not take long to make it. I will notify you when it is ready, and we will try it. In the mean time keep it a secret, and we will astonish the boys." Within a few days John Collins was notified that the swimming apparatus was ready, and would be tried at a certain time appointed. Other boys were invited to meet at the pond at the same time. Benjamin appeared on the scene with two oval palettes of wood, resembling those used by painters, ten inches long and six broad. A hole was cut in each for the thumb, so that they could be bound to the palms of the hands. A kind of sandal, shaped somewhat like the palettes, was fastened tightly to each foot. When rigged for a swim, Benjamin presented a very singular appearance, and the boys looked on astonished. "That is _you_, all over, Ben," exclaimed Fred; "no one in creation except you would ever have thought of such an apparatus. But I wouldn't wish myself in the water with such a rig. You are a sort of skipper on legs, now." "I do not expect to skip much on the water, but I expect to swim much faster with this device than would be possible without it," replied Benjamin. "It is different from what I thought it was from your description," said John Collins, who had been looking on with particular interest. "It looks as if you might do something with it. Go ahead, Ben, sink or swim, spread your sails and prove that your ingenuity is genuine." Benjamin plunged into the water, and a more interested and excited company did not watch Robert Fulton when he started up Hudson river with his new steamer, eighty years later, than watched him with his new mode of swimming. He struck right out into deep water easily, and moved forward much more rapidly than he ever did before, the cheers and shouts of the boys making the welkin ring. Taking a circuit around the pond for a fair trial, the boys had a good opportunity to watch every movement and to judge of the practicability of such an invention. "That is wonderful," exclaimed one, as he came around to the shore where they stood. "You are a genius, Ben," shouted another. "Capital," added John Collins. "King George ought to make a duke of you. But does it work easy?" "Not so easily as I expected," answered Benjamin. "The apparatus is hard on the wrists, and makes them ache. The sandals on the feet do not help much. I think I could swim just as well without them." "Then you do not consider it a complete success?" said John, inquiringly. "Not entirely so. I can swim very much faster with it, but it is harder work, and the wrists will not hold out long. I do not think I shall apply to King George for a patent." The swimming invention was pretty thoroughly discussed by the boys, one and another suggesting improvements, Benjamin evidently satisfied that swimming at less speed in the usual way was preferable to these artificial paddles and increased rapidity. But their interest was awakened anew when Benjamin informed them that he had another invention that he proposed to try at a future day. "What is it?" inquired two or three at the same time. "You shall see; it is more simple than this apparatus," replied Benjamin. "It will not be so tiresome to use." "When will you let us see it on trial?" asked John Collins, who, perhaps, appreciated Benjamin's spirit and talents more than any of the boys. "Any time you will all agree to be here. You will not know what it is until you see it." The time was appointed for the trial of the unknown device, and the boys separated with their curiosity on tiptoe as to the nature of the other improved method of swimming. They had no idea that it was a humbug, for "Ben" never practised sham. He was so much of a genius that, no doubt, he had something that would surprise them. John Collins was more like Benjamin than other boys in Boston, and he was his most intimate companion. John was talented, and a great reader. He had a craving thirst for knowledge, and used his leisure moments to improve his mind. He frequently discussed profitable subjects with Benjamin, who enjoyed his company very much for this reason. In their tastes, love of books, and high aims, they were suited to each other. Benjamin thought as highly of John as John did of Benjamin. When the time for trying the other device arrived, Benjamin appeared on the scene with a new kite. "A kite!" exclaimed John Collins, in surprise. "I see it now. That _is_ simple." He saw at once that Benjamin was going to make a sail of his kite, and cross the pond. "'T will hinder more than it will help, I think," remarked one of the boys. "We shall know whether it will or not, very soon," responded another. "Ben isn't hindered very often." While this parleying was going on, Benjamin was disrobing and getting ready for the trial. "Fred, you carry my clothes around to the other side of the pond, and I will swim across," said Benjamin, as he sent his kite up into the air. "All right," answered Fred; "I will do it to the best of my ability; and I will be there to see you land." So saying he caught up the clothes and started off upon the run. The kite was high up in the air, when, holding the string with both hands, Benjamin dropped into the water upon his back, and at once began to skim the surface. Without an effort on his part, not so much as the moving of a muscle, the sailing kite pulled him along faster than his arms and feet could have done in the old way of swimming. "That is better than the paddles and sandals," shouted John Collins, who was intensely interested in the simplicity of the method. "Ben is only a ship, now, and the kite is his sail. Nobody but him would ever thought of such a thing." "Not much skill in that way of swimming," suggested another youth; "nor much fatigue, either. Nothing to do but to keep on breathing and swim." "And hold on to the kite," added another. "He must not let go of his sail; he and his kite must be close friends." The boys kept up their watch and conversation while Benjamin crossed the pond, which he accomplished in a few minutes. Dressing himself, while Fred drew in his kite, he hastened to join his companions and receive their congratulations. The boys were extravagant in their expressions of delight, and some of them predicted that so "cute" a mode of swimming would become universal, while others thought that the lack of skill in the method would lead many to discard it. Benjamin said: "The motion is very pleasant indeed, and I could swim all day without becoming fatigued. But there is no skill in it, as you say." Benjamin expressed no opinion as to the adoption of the method by others, and the boys separated to tell the story of Benjamin's exploits on the water over town. Many years afterwards, when Benjamin was a public man, famous in his own country and Europe, he wrote to a Frenchman by the name of Dubourg, of both of these experiments as follows: "When I was a boy, I made two oval palettes, each about ten inches long and six broad, with a hole for the thumb, in order to retain it fast in the palm of my hand. They much resembled a painter's palettes. In swimming, I pushed the edges of these forward, and I struck the water with their flat surfaces as I drew them back. I remember I swam faster by means of these palettes, but they fatigued my wrists. I also fitted to the soles of my feet a kind of sandals; but I was not satisfied with them, because I observed that the stroke is partly given by the inside of the feet and the ankles, and not entirely with the soles of the feet. * * * * * "You will not be displeased if I conclude these hasty remarks by informing you that, as the ordinary method of swimming is reduced to the act of rowing with the arms and legs, and is consequently a laborious and fatiguing operation when the space of water to be crossed is considerable, there is a method in which a swimmer may pass to great distances with, much facility, by means of a sail. This discovery I fortunately made by accident, and in the following manner. "When I was a boy I amused myself one day with flying a paper kite; and, approaching the bank of a pond, which was nearly a mile broad, I tied the string to a stake, and the kite ascended to a very considerable height above the pond, while I was swimming. In a little time, being desirous of amusing myself with my kite, and enjoying at the same time the pleasure of swimming, I returned; and, loosing from the stake the string with the little stick which was fastened to it, went again into the water, where I found that, lying on my back and holding the stick in my hands, I was drawn along the surface of the water in a very agreeable manner. Having then engaged another boy to carry my clothes around the pond, to a place which I pointed out to him on the other side, I began to cross the pond with my kite, which carried me quite over without the least fatigue, and with the greatest pleasure imaginable. I was only obliged occasionally to halt a little in my course, and resist its progress, when it appeared that, by following too quick, I lowered the kite too much; by doing which occasionally, I made it rise again. I have never since that time practised this singular mode of swimming, though I think it not impossible to cross in this manner from Dover to Calais. The packet-boat, however, is still preferable." Doctor Franklin wrote another long letter to a man in mature life, advising him to learn to swim. The man was not inclined to do it on account of his age, whereupon Doctor Franklin wrote: "I can not be of opinion with you, that it is too late in life for you to learn to swim. The river near the bottom of your garden affords a most convenient place for the purpose. And, as your new employment requires your being often on the water, of which you have such a dread, I think you would do well to make the trial; nothing being so likely to remove those apprehensions as the consciousness of an ability to swim to the shore in case of an accident, or of supporting yourself in the water till a boat could come to take you up." It is probable that Benjamin's experiment with his kite in swimming was the seed-thought of his experiment in drawing lightning from the clouds with a kite, thirty years thereafter,--an experiment that startled and electrified the scientific world. The story is a familiar one, and should be repeated here. He believed that lightning and electricity were identical. Experiments for six years had led him to this conclusion. But how could he prove it? He conceived the idea of an electrical kite by which he could settle the truth or falsity of his theory. Having prepared the kite, he waited for a thunder-shower; nor did he wait long. Observing one rising, he took the kite, and with his son, twenty-one years of age, stole away into a field near by, where there was an old cow-shed. He had not informed any one but his son of his purpose, because he wished to avoid ridicule in case the experiment proved a failure. The kite was sent up in season for the coming storm to catch, and, with intense anxiety, Franklin held the string, which was hempen, except the part in the hand, which was silk. He was so confident of success that he brought along with him a Leyden bottle, in which to collect electric fluid from the clouds for a shock. It was a moment of great suspense. His heart beat like a trip-hammer. At first a cloud seemed to pass directly over the kite, and the thunder rattled, and the lightnings played around it, and yet there was no indication of electricity. His heart almost failed him. But in silence he continued the experiment as the storm increased and drew nearer, and the artillery of heaven grew louder and more vivid. Another moment, and he beheld the fibers of the hempen cord rise as the hair of a person does on the insulated stool. What a moment it was! The electric fluid was there! His experiment was successful! Electricity and lightning are identical! Pen nor poesy can describe his emotion. Eagerly he applied his knuckles to the key, attached to the extremity of the hempen cord, and drew a spark therefrom. His joy was immeasurable! Another spark, and then another, and still another, until further confirmation was unnecessary! The Leyden bottle was charged with the precious fluid, from which both father and son received a shock as unmistakable as that from his electric battery at home. Franklin's fame was secured throughout the world. He went home with feelings of indescribable satisfaction. Doctor Franklin was a very modest man, and he wrote a letter to Peter Collinson, member of the Royal Society of London, dated Philadelphia, Oct. 16, 1752, describing the experiment without even hinting that he was the experimenter. As that letter described his electrical kite, and his method of using it, we insert it here: "As frequent mention is made in public papers from Europe of the success of the Philadelphia experiment for drawing the electric fire from clouds by means of pointed rods of iron erected on high buildings, etc., it may be agreeable to the curious to be informed that the same experiment has succeeded in Philadelphia, though made in a different and more easy manner, which is as follows: "Make a small cross of two light strips of cedar, the arms so long as to reach the four corners of a large thin silk handkerchief when extended; tie the corners of the handkerchief to the extremities of the cross, so you have the body of a kite; which being properly accommodated with a tail, loop, and string, will rise in the air like those made of paper; but this, being of silk, is fitter to bear the wet and wind of a thunder-gust without tearing. To the top of the upright stick of the cross is to be fixed a very sharp-pointed wire, rising a foot or more above the wood. To the end of the twine next the hand is to be tied a silk ribbon, and where the silk and twine join a key may be fastened. "This kite is to be raised when a thunder-gust appears to be coming on, and the person who holds the string must stand within a door or window, or under some cover, so that the silk ribbon may not be wet; and care must be taken that the twine does not touch the frame of the door or window. As soon as any of the thunder-clouds come over the kite, the pointed wire will draw the electric fire from them, and the kite, with all the twine, will be electrified, and the loose filaments of the twine will stand out every way, and be attracted by an approaching finger. And when the rain has wetted the kite and twine, so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the key on the approach of your knuckle. At this key the vial may be charged; and from the electric fire thus obtained spirits may be kindled, and all other electric experiments be performed which are usually done by the help of a rubbed glass globe or tube, and thereby the sameness of the electric matter with that of lightning completely demonstrated." We have spoken of the discussions between Benjamin and John Collins upon important subjects. When other boys were accustomed to spend their time in foolish talking and jesting, they were warmly discussing some question in advance of their years, and well suited to improve their minds. One of the subjects was a singular one for that day--female education. Legislators, statesmen, ministers, and teachers did not believe that girls should be educated as thoroughly as boys. Fewer advantages should be accorded to them. John Collins accepted the general view; but Benjamin struck out boldly in favor of liberal female education, being about a hundred years in advance of his times. "It would be a waste of money to attempt to educate girls as thoroughly as boys are educated," said John; "for the female sex are inferior to the male in intellectual endowment." "Pshaw!" exclaimed Benjamin; "you know better than that. The girls are not as simple as you think they are. I believe that females are not a whit inferior to males in their mental qualities." "I would like to know where you discover evidence of it?" replied John. "There is no proof of it in the works they have written." "That may be true, and still they stand upon an equality in respect to intellect. For not half as much is done to educate them as there is to educate the male sex. How can you tell whether they are mentally inferior or not, until they are permitted to enjoy equal advantages?" "As we tell other things," answered John. "Females do not need so high mental endowments as males, since they are not required to lead off in the different branches of business, or to prosecute the sciences. I can see no wisdom in bestowing talents upon them which they never use, and it is often said that 'nothing is made in vain.'" "Well, I must go," said Benjamin; "but I think you have a weak cause to defend. If I had the time I could make out a case." "A poor one, I guess," quickly added John. "We will see, the next time we meet, who can make out a case." "It will be some time before we meet again," replied Benjamin, "and our ardor will be cooled before that time, I am thinking. But it will do us no harm to discuss the subject." "If we keep our temper," said John, tacking his sentence to the last word of Benjamin's reply. And so saying, they parted. After Benjamin had revolved the subject still more in his mind, he became anxious to commit his argument to writing. Accordingly, with pen and paper in hand, he sat down to frame the best argument he could in favor of educating the female sex. He wrote it in the form of a letter, addressed to his friend Collins, and, after having completed, he copied it in a fair hand, and sent it to him. This brought back a long reply, which made it necessary for Benjamin to pen an answer. In this way the correspondence continued, until several letters had passed between them, and each one had gained the victory in his own estimation. Benjamin was anxious that his father should read this correspondence, as he would be a good judge of its quality; and, after a little, he took it to him, saying: "John and I have had some correspondence, and I want you should read our letters." There is little question that Benjamin was so well satisfied with his own argument that he expected his father would give him much credit. Perhaps his father believed, with most men of that day, that the education of females was an unnecessary expense, and Benjamin expected to convert him to his belief. Whether it was so or not, his father replied: "I should like to read it; what is it about?" "You will find out when you read the letters." Mr. Franklin improved the first opportunity to read the correspondence, and report to Benjamin. "I have been very much pleased and profited by this correspondence. It is able for two boys like you and John; but I think John has the advantage of you." "John the advantage!" exclaimed Benjamin, with considerable surprise and anxiety. "How so?" "In some respects, not in all, I mean," added his father. "Tell me of one thing in which he has advantage," and Benjamin manifested disappointment when he made the request. "Well, John's style of composition seems to me more finished, and he expresses himself with more clearness." "I rather think you are prejudiced, father" Benjamin said this for the want of something better to say. "_I_ rather think not," answered his father. "You have the advantage of John in correct spelling, and in punctuation, which is the consequence of working in the printing office. But I can convince you that less method and clearness characterize your letters than his." "I am ready to be convinced," answered Benjamin. "I hardly think I have attained perfection in writing yet." His father proceeded to read from the letters of each, with the design of showing that John's composition was more perspicuous, and that there was more method in his argument. Nor was it a very difficult task. "I am convinced," acknowledged Benjamin, before his father had read all he intended to read. "I can make improvement in those things without much trouble. There is certainly a good chance for it." "That is what I want you should see. I am very much pleased with your letters, for they show that you have talents to improve, and that you are an original, independent thinker. My only reason in calling your attention to these defects is to assist you in mental improvement." Benjamin was just the boy to be benefited by such friendly criticism. It would discourage some boys, and they would despair of any future excellence. The rank and file of boys would not be aroused by it to overcome the difficulty and go up higher. But Benjamin was aroused, and he resolved that his composition should yet be characterized by elegance and perspicuity. He set about that improvement at once. We shall see, in another chapter, how he purchased an old copy of the _Spectator_ for a model, and set about improving his style. It is quite evident that Mr. Franklin thought well of Benjamin's argument on female education, for he did not criticise it. Perhaps it was here that he found proof that his son was "an original and independent thinker." It is somewhat remarkable that a boy at that time should hold and advocate views of female education that have not been advanced generally until within forty years. Looking about now, we see that females stand side by side with males, in schools and colleges, in ability and scholarship; that they constitute a large proportion of teachers in our land now, when, before the American Revolution, it was not thought proper to employ them at all; that many of them are now classed with the most distinguished authors, editors, and lecturers; and that not a few occupy places of distinction in the learned professions, while many others are trusty clerks, book-keepers, saleswomen, and telegraph-operators. Young Franklin's views, the Boston printer-boy, a hundred and seventy years ago, are illustrated and confirmed to-day by the prominence and value of educated females. That a printer-boy of fifteen years could accomplish so much when he was obliged to work from twelve to fifteen hours each day at his trade, seems almost incredible. But he allowed no moments to run to waste. He always kept a book by him in the office, and every spare moment was employed over its pages. In the morning, before he went to work, he found some time for reading and study. He was an early riser, not, perhaps, because he had no inclination to lie in bed, but he had more time to improve his mind. He gained time enough in the morning, by this early rising, to acquire more knowledge than some youth and young men do by going constantly to school. In the evening he found still more time for mental improvement, extending his studies often far into the night. It was his opinion that people generally consume more time than is necessary in sleep, and one of his maxims, penned in ripe manhood, was founded on that opinion: "The sleeping fox catches no poultry." It is not surprising that a boy who subjected himself to such discipline for a series of years should write some of the best maxims upon this subject when he became a man. The following are some of them: "There are no gains without pains; then help, hands, for I have no lands." "Industry pays debts, while despair increaseth them." "Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day." "Leisure is time for doing something useful." "A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things." "Be ashamed to catch yourself idle." "Handle your tools without mittens; remember, a cat in gloves catches no mice." "There is much to be done, and perhaps you are weak-handed; but stick to it steadily, and you will see great effects, for constant dropping wears away stones, and by diligence and patience the mouse ate into the cable." We have spoken of what the printer-boy accomplished as remarkable. And yet it is not remarkable when we consider the work some men have done in leisure hours alone. Just here is one of the most important lessons to be learned from the example and life of Benjamin Franklin. A similar example is before us here in New England; that of Charles G. Frost, of Brattleboro', Vermont, who was a shoemaker by trade. He died a few years since. He wrote of his own life: "When I went to my trade, at fourteen years of age, I formed a resolution, which I have kept till now--extraordinary preventives only excepted--that I would faithfully devote _one hour each day_ to study, in some useful branch of knowledge." Here was the secret of his success--one hour a day. Almost any boy can have that. He was forty-five when he wrote the above, a married man, with three children, still devoting one hour a day, at least, to study, and still at work at his trade. He had made such attainments in mathematical science, at forty-five, it was claimed for him that not more than ten mathematicians could be found in the United States in advance of him. He wrote further of himself: "The first book which fell into my hands was Hutton's Mathematics, an English work of great celebrity, a complete mathematical course, which I then commenced, namely, at fourteen. I finished it at nineteen without an instructor. I then took up those studies to which I could apply my knowledge of mathematics, as mechanics and mathematical astronomy. I think I can say that I possess, and have successfully studied, _all_ the most approved English and American works on these subjects." After this he commenced natural philosophy and physical astronomy; then chemistry, geology, and mineralogy, collecting and arranging a cabinet. Mr. Frost continues: "Next, natural philosophy engaged my attention, which I followed up with close observation, gleaning my information from a great many sources. The works that treat of them at large are rare and expensive. But I have a considerable knowledge of geology, ornithology, entomology, and conchology." Not only this; he added to his store of knowledge the science of botany, and made himself master of it. He made extensive surveys in his own state, of the trees, shrubs, herbs, ferns, mosses, lichens, and fungi. He had the _third_ best collection of ferns in the United States. He, also, directed his attention to meteorology, and devoted much of his time to acquire a knowledge of the law of storms, and the movements of the erratic and extraordinary bodies in the air and heavens. He took up the study of Latin, and pursued it until he could read it fluently. He read all the standard poets, and had copies of their works in his library. Also, he became proficient in history, while his miscellaneous reading was very extensive. Of his books he wrote: "I have a library which I divide into three departments--scientific, religious, literary--comprising the standard works published in this country, containing five or six hundred volumes. I have purchased these books from time to time with money saved for the purpose by some small self-denials." Benjamin Franklin's record, on the whole, may surpass this. Both of them show, however, what the persistent and systematic improvement of spare moments will accomplish. If a girl or boy can command one hour a day for reading, twenty pages could be read thoughtfully in that time, or one hundred and forty pages in a week. In a single year more than seven thousand pages, which is equal to eighteen large duodecimo volumes! In twenty years, one hundred and fifty thousand pages, or three hundred and sixty-five volumes of the size named above! Divide this amount of reading among history, philosophy, chemistry, biography, and general literature, and the reader will be well versed in these several departments of knowledge. The old adage is, "Time is money," but the leisure time of Franklin was worth vastly more than money, as it is to every youth; for it was culture, usefulness, and character. XI. STARTING A NEWSPAPER. Benjamin had been in the printing office about three years when his brother decided to publish a newspaper. It was a doubtful enterprise from the outset, and friends tried to dissuade him from it. But he viewed the matter from his own standpoint, as the Franklins were wont to do, and the paper was started. It was called "THE NEW ENGLAND COURANT," and the first number was issued Aug. 21, 1721. Only three papers in the whole country were published before this. The first one was _The Boston News-letter_, established April 24, 1704, two years before the birth of Benjamin. It was only a half-sheet of paper, about the size of an eight by twelve inch pane of glass, "in two pages folio, with two columns on each page." It could not have contained more printed matter than is now compressed into one-third or one-half page of one of our Boston dailies. The other papers were _The Boston Gazette_, established Dec. 21, 1719; and _The American Weekly Mercury_, of Philadelphia, Dec. 22, 1719. There was not a little commotion when James Franklin launched _The New England Courant_. It was regarded generally as a wild project. It was not thought that three newspapers could live in America. The field was not large enough. This fact, considered in contrast with the supply of papers and journals now, daily, weekly, and monthly, shows the wonderful growth of the country. At that time, there was not a daily paper in the land; now, there are over one thousand,--eight of them in the city of Boston, having a daily circulation of from three to four hundred thousand. The papers and magazines of the United States, of all descriptions, reach the surprising aggregate of nearly twenty thousand, and their circulation is almost fabulous. One hundred thousand, and even two hundred thousand, daily, is claimed for some journals. Some weekly issues reach three hundred thousand, and even four and five hundred thousand. Bind the daily issues of Boston into volumes, containing one hundred sheets each, and we have an enormous library of daily newspapers, numbering about ONE MILLION VOLUMES, the annual production of the Boston daily press now! And this is the aggregate of only the eight dailies, while Boston has nearly two hundred papers and periodicals of all sorts, and the State of Massachusetts nearly four hundred! If the eight Boston dailies measure one yard each in width, when opened, on the average, and they are laid end to end, we have more than three hundred thousand yards of newspapers laid each day, which is equal to _one hundred and seventy miles_ daily, over _one thousand miles_ in a week, and FIFTY-ONE THOUSAND, ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SIX in a year! More than enough papers to reach twice around the earth! Or, suppose we weigh these papers: If ten of them weigh a single pound, then each day's issue weighs _thirty thousand pounds_, each week's issue _one hundred and eighty thousand_, the aggregate of the year amounting to NINE MILLION POUNDS! Load this yearly production upon wagons, one ton on each, and we have a procession of FOUR THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED wagons, that reaches, allowing one rod to a team, over FOURTEEN MILES! And the _New England Courant_ third in the procession! Benjamin was much given to prophesying, but no prophecy from his lips ever covered such a growth as this. He was in favor of starting the paper, but he could not have had the faintest conception of what was going to follow. "I want to set up the paper," he said to James; "I think I can make the best looking paper." "I think you can; and it is going to require much attention and planning to make it a success. I may fail in the attempt, but I'll have the satisfaction of trying." "I will do all I can to make it succeed, if I have to sit up nights," Benjamin continued. "It will give your office notoriety to publish a paper. But how will you dispose of it?" "Sell it on the street; and you will be a good hand to do that. No doubt there will be some regular subscribers, and you can deliver copies to them from week to week." "And be collector, too, I suppose," added Benjamin, who had no objection to any part of the work named. "As you please about that. Doubtless it will be convenient to have you attend to that, at times at least." "You won't make me editor yet, I conclude," remarked Benjamin, facetiously, thinking that about all the work on the paper, except the editorship, had been assigned to him. "Not yet, I think," responded James; "printer, news-dealer, news-carrier, and collector will be as much honor as any one of the Franklins can withstand at once"; and he had as little idea of the part Benjamin would play in the enterprise as the boy himself. There is no doubt that Benjamin had an idea that the paper might have in its columns some of his fugitive pieces, sooner or later. He had been cultivating his talents in this direction, and never was enjoying it more than he was at the time the _New England Courant_ was established. "How many copies shall you publish in the first issue?" inquired Benjamin. "I am not quite decided about that; anywhere from two to three hundred. We will see how it goes first." "How about articles for it? Will you have any trouble about getting articles?" "None at all. I am to have several articles at once for the first number, from parties who can write well; and when the paper is well under way there will be a plenty of volunteer contributors. I have no fears about that." Benjamin might have responded, "Here is one," for there is no doubt that he was already flattering himself with the idea that he would be a contributor to its columns, known or unknown. Here was the real secret of his enthusiastic interest in the enterprise. On the day mentioned the new paper was issued, as had been announced, and great was the anxiety of the publisher. Many citizens awaited its coming with lively anticipations; and, on the whole, it was a memorable occasion. No one's interest surpassed that of the printer-boy, Benjamin, who had no hesitation in selling the paper on the street, and rather liked that part of the business. In his view, it was an honorable and enterprising venture, that challenged the respect and support of every citizen. The reception of the _Courant_ was all that James anticipated. It sold as well as he expected, and the comments upon its ability and character were as favorable as the times and circumstances would warrant. There were criticisms, of course, and severe ones, too, for, in that day, all sorts of projects were subjected to a crucial test. The _Courant_ was no exception to the rule. Now that the newspaper is launched, and there is new interest and activity in consequence in the printing office, we will recur to an episode in Benjamin's career, that occurred two years before; for it sustains a very close relation to the newspaper enterprise and what followed: Benjamin had been in the printing office about a year when he surprised his brother by the inquiry: "How much will you allow me a week if I will board myself?" "Do you think I pay more for your board than it is worth?" replied James, Yankee-like, by asking another question, instead of answering the one propounded. "No more than you will be obliged to pay in any other family, but more than I shall ask you. It costs you now more than you need to pay." James was still boarding Benjamin in a family near by. "Then you think of opening a boarding-house for the special accommodation of Benjamin Franklin, I see," which was treating the subject rather lightly. "I propose to board myself," answered Benjamin, distinctly and emphatically. "I do not eat meat of any kind, as you know, so that I can board myself easily, and I will agree to do it if you will give me weekly one-half the money you pay for my board." "Of course I will agree to it," answered James. "It will be so much in my pocket, and the bargain is made. When will you begin to keep your boarder?" "To-morrow," was Benjamin's quick reply. "A vegetarian can open a boarding-house for himself without much preparation." "To-morrow it is, then; but it will not take you long to become sick of that arrangement. Keeping boarders is not a taking business, even if you have no boarder but yourself." "That is my lookout," continued Benjamin. "I have my own ideas about diet and work, play and study, and some other things; and I am going to reduce them to practice." Benjamin had been reading a work on "vegetable diet," by one Tryon, and it was this which induced him to discard meats as an article of food. He was made to believe that better health and a clearer head would be the result, though from all we can learn he was not lacking in either. Mr. Tryon, in his work, gave directions for cooking vegetables, such dishes as a vegetarian might use, so that the matter of boarding himself was made quite simple. The great object which Benjamin had in view was to save money for buying books. It seemed to be the only way open to get money for that purpose. At the same time, he would have more hours to read. He had been trying the "vegetable diet" at his boarding place for some time, and he liked it. He was really one of Tryon's converts. Other boarders ridiculed his diet, and had considerable sport over his "oddity"; but he cared nothing for that. They could eat what they pleased, and so could he. He was as independent on the subject of diet as he was on any other. He did not pin his faith in any thing upon the sleeve of another; he fastened it to his own sleeve, and let it fly. The incident illustrates the difference between the two brothers. If James had been as unselfish and generous as Benjamin was, he would have paid the latter the full amount of his board weekly. He would have said: "You have a passion for reading and study. You do this for self-improvement. You want to know more, and make the most of yourself that you can. In these circumstances I will not make any money out of you. If I give you the whole amount I pay for board I shall lose nothing, and you will gain considerable. It will help you, and I shall be kept whole in my finances. You shall have it all." But the fact was, James was avaricious, and was bent on making money, though he made it out of his younger brother. On the other hand, Benjamin was large-hearted and generous, or he never would have offered, in the outset, to take half James paid for his board. Had he been as niggardly as James, he could have made a better bargain than that for himself. But it was not a good bargain that he was after; he was after the books. James was curious to see how Benjamin would succeed with his new method of living. So he watched him closely, without saying any thing in particular about it; perhaps expecting that his brother would soon tire of boarding himself. Weeks passed by, and still Benjamin was hale, strong, and wide-awake as ever. His actions indicated that he was well satisfied both with his bargain and his board. Finally, however, James' curiosity grew to such proportions that he inquired one day,-- "Ben, how much do you make by boarding yourself?" "I save just half the money you pay me, so that it costs me just one-quarter as much as you paid for my board." "You understand economy, I must confess," remarked James. "However, I ought to be satisfied if you are." Perhaps his conscience might have troubled him somewhat, and caused him to think how much better off his young brother would have been, if he had given him the full amount of the board, as he should have done. If Benjamin had been a common boy, without high aspirations and noble endeavors, or a spendthrift, or idler, there might have been some excuse for driving a close bargain with him; but, in the circumstances, the act was unbrotherly and ungenerous. "The money I save is not the best part of it," added Benjamin after a little. "I save a half-hour and more usually every noon for reading. After I have eaten my meal, I usually read as long as that before you return from dinner." "Not a very sumptuous dinner, I reckon; sawdust pudding, perhaps, with cold water sauce! When I work I want something to work on. Living on nothing would be hard on me." James indicated by this remark that he had no confidence in that sort of diet. "I live well enough for me. A biscuit or a slice of bread, with a tart or a few raisins, and a glass of water, make a good dinner for me; and then my head is all the lighter for study." "Yes, I should think you might have a light head with such living," retorted James, "and your body will be as light before many weeks, I prophesy." "I will risk it. I am on a study now that requires a clear head, and I am determined to master it." "What is that?" "Cocker's Arithmetic." "Begin to wish that you knew something of arithmetic by this time! Making up for misspent time, I see. Paying old debts is not interesting business." James meant this last remark for a fling at Benjamin's dislike for arithmetic when he attended school. Not devoting himself to it with the enthusiasm he gave to more congenial studies, he was more deficient in that branch of knowledge than in any other. He regretted his neglect of the study now, and was determined to make up his loss. This was very honorable, and showed a noble aim, which merited praise, instead of a fling, from his brother. "I think it must be a sort of luxury to pay old debts, if one has any thing to pay them with," remarked Benjamin. "If I can make up any loss of former years now, I enjoy doing it, even by the closest economy of time." "Well, you estimate time as closely as a miser counts his money, Ben." "And I have a right to do it. As little time as I have to myself requires that I should calculate closely. Time is money to you, or else you would allow me a little more to myself; and it is more than money to me." "How so?" "It enables me to acquire knowledge, which I can not buy with money. Unless I were saving of my time, I should not be able to read or study at all, having to work so constantly." Perhaps, at this time, Benjamin laid the foundation for that economy which distinguished him in later life, and about which he often wrote. Among his wise sayings, in the height of his influence and fame, were the following: "If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as of getting." "What maintains one vice would bring up two children." "Many a little makes a mickle." "A small leak will sink a ship." "At a great penny worth pause awhile." "Silks and satins, scarlets and velvets, put out the kitchen fire." "Always taking out of the meal-tub, and never putting in, soon comes to the bottom." "It is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel." "A penny saved is a penny earned." "A penny saved is two-pence clear." "A pin a day is a groat a year." "He that wastes idly a groat's worth of his time per day, one day with another, wastes the privilege of using one hundred pounds each day." "In short, the way to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, _industry_ and _frugality_; that is, waste neither _time_ nor _money_, but make the best use of both. Without industry and frugality nothing will do, and with them every thing. He that gets all he can honestly, and saves all he gets (necessary expenses excepted), will certainly become _rich_--if that Being who governs the world, to whom all should look for a blessing on their honest endeavors, doth not, in his wise providence, otherwise determine." The reader may desire to know just how Franklin himself speaks of the "vegetable diet" experiment in his "Autobiography"; so we quote it here: "I happened to meet with a book, written by one Tryon, recommending a vegetable diet. I determined to go into it. My brother, being yet unmarried, did not keep house, but boarded himself and his apprentices in another family. My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconvenience, and I was frequently chid for my singularity. I made myself acquainted with Tryon's manner of preparing some of his dishes, such as boiling potatoes or rice, making hasty-pudding, and a few others, and then proposed to my brother, that if he would give me weekly half the money he paid for my board, I would board myself. He instantly agreed to it, and I presently found that I could save half what he paid me. This was an additional fund for buying of books; but I had another advantage in it. My brother and the rest going from the printing house to their meals, I remained there alone, and, despatching presently my light repast (which was often no more than a biscuit, or a slice of bread, a handful of raisins, or a tart from the pastry cook's, and a glass of water), had the rest of the time, till their return, for study; in which I made the greater progress from that greater clearness of head, and quicker apprehension, which generally attend temperance in eating and drinking. Now it was, that, being on some occasion made ashamed of my ignorance in figures, which I had twice failed learning when at school, I took Cocker's book on arithmetic, and went through the whole by myself with the greatest ease." XII. THE RUSE, AND WHAT CAME OF IT. Mr. Parton says of the _Courant_, "It was a most extraordinary sheet. Of all the colonial newspapers, it was the most spirited, witty, and daring. The Bostonians, accustomed to the monotonous dullness of the _News-letter_, received, some with delight, more with horror, all with amazement, this weekly budget of impudence and fun. A knot of liberals gathered around James Franklin, physicians most of them, able, audacious men, who kept him well supplied with squibs, essays, and every variety of sense and nonsense known in that age. The _Courant_ was, indeed, to borrow the slang of the present day, a 'sensational paper.' Such a tempest did it stir up in Boston that the noise thereof was heard in the remote colony of Pennsylvania." The "knot of liberals" who wrote articles for it, met often at the office to discuss their contributions, and the state of public sentiment more or less affected by this venture. The _News-letter_ came in for a large share of the opposition, and they declared war against many of the existing customs,--governmental, political, and social. The scope and circulation of the paper was a frequent topic of remark. Benjamin's ears were always open to their conversation. He heard the merits of different articles set forth, and learned that certain ones were quite popular and elicited favorable remarks from readers generally. This excited his ambition, and he strongly desired to try his own ability in writing for the paper. He feared, however, that his composition would not be regarded favorably, if it were known who was the author; so he resorted to the following expedient: "I will write an anonymous article," he said within himself, "in the best style I can, and get it into James' hand in some way that will not arouse his suspicions. I will disguise my handwriting, and give it some fictitious name, so that he will not dream that it was written in the office." Accordingly the article was prepared, describing his ideal of character, and that was the character he himself formed, and was forming then; and he signed it SILENCE DOGOOD. This article he slipped under the printing office door at night, where James found it in the morning, and read it with evident satisfaction, as Benjamin thought, who narrowly watched him. In a little while some of the "knot of liberals" came in, and the article was read to them. "It is a good article, and it was slipped under the door last night," said James. "It is signed 'Silence Dogood.'" "You have no idea who wrote it, then?" inquired one. "Not the least whatever." "It is capital, whoever the author may be," remarked one of the critics. "Somebody wrote it who knows how to wield his pen," said another. "Ordinarily I shall not publish articles without knowing who the author is," remarked James; "but this is so good that I shall not stop to inquire. I shall put it into the next issue." "By all means, of course," replied one. "No doubt we shall soon learn who the author is; it is a difficult matter to keep such things secret for a long time." "The author is evidently a person of ability," added another; "every sentence in the article is charged with thought. I should judge that he needed only practice to make him a writer of the first class." "Publishing the article will be as likely as any thing to bring out the author," suggested James. "That is so; and the sooner it is published the better," remarked one of the company approvingly. Much more was said in praise of the article. The names of several prominent citizens of Boston were mentioned as the possible author. James himself named one or two, who were Boston's most intelligent and influential citizens, as the possible author. All approved the insertion of the article in the next issue of the paper, much to the satisfaction of Benjamin, who was the most deeply interested party in the office. He scarcely knew how to act in regard to the article, whether to father it at once, or still conceal its parentage. On the whole, however, he decided to withhold its authorship for the present, and try his hand again in the same way. The reader may judge of Benjamin's emotions when he came to put his own article in type for the paper. It was almost too good to be real. Fact was even stranger than fiction to him. In the outset he dreamed that somehow and sometime the columns of the _Courant_ might contain a contribution of his own; and here he was setting up his first article with the approval of James and the whole "knot of liberals." This was more than he bargained for; and his heart never came so near beating through his jacket as then. Never was a printer-boy so happy before. He was happy all over and all through--a lump of happiness. Not one boy in a hundred could have managed to keep the secret as he did, in the circumstances. Their countenances would have exposed it on the spot. But Benjamin possessed his soul in patience, and carried out his ruse admirably. The issue containing Benjamin's article appeared on time, and was greatly praised. "Who is 'Silence Dogood'?" was the most common inquiry. "I wonder who 'Silence Dogood' can be," was a frequent remark, showing that the article attracted much attention. Benjamin wondered as much as any of them. "A queer signature to put to an article," he said. "What in the world could suggest such a _nom de plume_ to a writer?" He enjoyed his ruse more and more: it became the choicest fun of his life. It was so crammed with felicity that he resolved to continue it by writing more articles as well-chosen and good. He was able to prepare a better article for the second one, because he brought to its preparation the enthusiasm and encouragement awakened by the favorable reception of the first. Besides, the many remarks he had heard about it gave him points for another communication, so as to make it sharper, better adapted to the times, and hence more timely. Within a short time, the second article was slipped under the door at night for James to pick up in the morning. "Another article from 'Silence Dogood,'" exclaimed James, as he opened it and read the signature. "I thought we should hear from that writer again," was all the remark that Benjamin vouchsafed. "A good subject!" added James, as he read the caption. "I will read it," and he proceeded to read the article to Benjamin. The latter listened with attention that was somewhat divided between the excellent reception the article was having and the grand success of his ruse. "Better even than the first article," remarked James after having read it. "We must not rest until we find out who the author is. It is somebody of note." The second article was submitted to the "knot of liberals," the same as the first one, and all approved it highly. "It is sharper than the first one, and hits the nail on the head every time," said one of the number. "Dogood is a good name for such a writer." "And we shall have more of them, no doubt," suggested James; "it is quite evident that the writer means to keep on." "I hope he will; such articles will call attention to the paper, and that is what we want," added another. "In the mean time, let us find out if possible who the writer is," suggested still another. "It will be a help to the paper to have it known who is the author, if it is one of the scholars." Charles Dickens was a poorer boy than Benjamin ever was, knowing what it was to go to bed hungry and cold; but his young heart aspired after a nobler life, and, while yet a boy, he wrote an article for the press, disclosing the fact not even to his mother, and then, on a dark night, he dropped it "into a dark letter box, in a dark office, up a dark court in Fleet street." His joy was too great for utterance when he saw it in print. It was the beginning of a career as a writer unparalleled in English or American history. And he told the secret of it when he wrote, "While other boys played, I read Roderick Random, Tom Jones, The Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Bias, and other books. They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place and time." Benjamin heard all that was said, and still kept his secret. It would not have been strange if his vanity had been inflated by these complimentary remarks. Ordinary humanity could scarcely be exposed to so high praise without taking on a new sense of its importance. But Benjamin kept down his pride, and his heart continued to abide under his jacket though it beat mightily. Was it any wonder? Without stopping to narrate details, it is sufficient to say that Benjamin wrote several articles, and sent them forward to James under the door; and they were all pronounced good by James and his friends. He began to think that it was almost time to let out the secret. James was fairly committed to the excellence of all the articles, and so were the other critics. This was important to the success of Benjamin's plan. He had feared, as he had continued industriously to set up type, that a disclosure would knock all his plans into "pi"; but he had no fears now. But how should he disclose? That was the question. It was not long, however, before the question was settled. His brother made some remark about the last article slipped under the door, and wondered that the author had not become known. "I know who the author is," said Benjamin under such a degree of excitement as even an older person would experience on the eve of an important revelation. "You know!" exclaimed James in great surprise. "If you know, why have you not disclosed it before?" "Because I thought it was not wise. It is not best to tell all we know always." "But you have heard us discuss this matter over and over, and take measures to discover the author, and yet you have never intimated that you knew any thing about it." "Well, the author did not wish to be known until the right time came, and that is a good reason for keeping the matter secret, I think." "Will you tell who the author is now?" asked James, impatient to obtain the long-sought information. "Perhaps I will if you are very anxious to know." "Of course I am, and every one else who is interested in the paper." That was the crisis to James. We can scarcely conceive of its interest to the boy-writer. His time of triumph had come. James had not treated him very well, and we think he enjoyed that moment of victory a little more for that reason. That would have been human, and Benjamin was human. His ruse had proved successful, and his talents, too. Now he could startle his brother as much as would a thunder-bolt out of a clear sky. So he answered his inquiry by saying,-- "Benjamin Franklin "; and he said it with emphasis and an air of triumph. If James' countenance could have been photographed at that moment, it would have shown a mixture of amazement, incredulity, and wonder. It was several moments before he so far recovered from the shock as to be able to speak. "What! Do you mean to say that you wrote those articles?" Benjamin might have discovered some doubt in James' tone and appearance when he spoke. "Certainly I do." "But it is not your handwriting." "It is my handwriting disguised. I wa' n't fool enough to let you have the articles in my own handwriting without disguise, when I wished to conceal the authorship." "What could possibly be your object in doing so?" "That the articles might be fairly examined. If I had proposed to write an article for your paper, you would have said that I, a printer-boy, could write nothing worthy of print." "But if I had seen and read the articles, knowing them to be yours, I should have judged them fairly," James insisted, evidently feeling somewhat hurt by his brother's last remark. Nevertheless, Benjamin was right. It is probable that his articles would have been rejected, had he offered them in his own name to the critics. "Well, that was my plan, and the articles have had a fair show, and I am satisfied, whether you are or not," was Benjamin's reply in an independent spirit. Here the conversation dropped. James bestowed no words of commendation upon his brother's ability. Perhaps he thought that he had praised the articles enough when he did not know who the author was. But he appeared to be abstracted in thought until some of the "knot of liberals" came in. "I have discovered who 'Silence Dogood' is," he said. "You have? Who can it be?" and the speaker was very much surprised. "No one that you have dreamed of." "Is that so? I am all the more anxious to learn who it is," he continued. "There he is," replied James, pointing to Benjamin, who was setting type a little more briskly than usual, as if he was oblivious to what was going on. "What! Benjamin? You are joking, surely," replied one. "Your brother out there!" exclaimed another, pointing to Benjamin; "you do not mean it!" "Yes, I do mean it. He is the author, and he has satisfied me that he is. You can see for yourselves." The "knot of liberals" was never so amazed, and now they all turned to Benjamin, and he had to speak for himself. They were not entirely satisfied that there was not some mistake or deception about the matter. But he found little difficulty in convincing them that he was the real author of the communications, whereupon they lavished their commendations upon him to such an extent as to make it perilous to one having much vanity in his heart. From that time Benjamin was a favorite with the literary visitors at the office. They showed him much more attention than they did James, and said so much in his praise, as a youth of unusual promise, that James became jealous and irritable. He was naturally passionate and tyrannical, and this sudden and unexpected exaltation of Benjamin developed his overbearing spirit. He found more fault with him, and became very unreasonable in his treatment. Probably he had never dreamed that Benjamin possessed more talents than other boys of his age. Nor did he care, so long as his brother was an apprentice, and he could rule over him as a master. He did not appear to regard the blood-relationship between them, but only that of master and apprentice. In other words, he was a poor specimen of a brother, and we shall learn more about him in the sequel. In his "Autobiography," Franklin tells the story of his ruse as follows: "James had some ingenious men among his friends, who amused themselves by writing little pieces for this paper, which gained it credit, and made it more in demand, and these gentlemen often visited us. Hearing their conversations, and their accounts of the approbation their papers were received with, I was excited to try my hand among them. But, being still a boy, and suspecting that my brother would object to printing any thing of mine in his paper, if he knew it to be mine, I contrived to disguise my hand, and, writing an anonymous paper, I put it at night under the door of the printing house. It was found in the morning, and communicated to his writing friends, when they called in as usual. They read it, commented on it in my hearing, and I had the exquisite pleasure of finding it met with their approbation, and that, in their different guesses at the author, none were named but men of some character among us for learning and ingenuity. I suppose that I was rather lucky in my judges, and that they were not really so very good as I then believed them to be. Encouraged, however, by this attempt, I wrote and sent in the same way to the press several other pieces, that were equally approved; and I kept my secret till all my fund of sense for such performances was exhausted, and then discovered it, when I began to be considered a little more by my brother's acquaintance. "However, that did not quite please him, as he thought it tended to make me too vain. This might be one occasion of the differences we began to have about this time. Though a brother he considered himself as my master, and me as his apprentice, and accordingly expected the same services from me as he would from another, while I thought he degraded me too much in some he required of me, who from a brother expected more indulgence." The foregoing was one of the incidents of Benjamin's boyhood that decided his future eminent career. It was a good thing to bring out his talents as a writer thus early, and it introduced him to an exercise that was of the first importance in the improvement of his mind. From the time he wrote the first article for the _Courant_, he did not cease to write for the public. Probably no other American boy began his public career so early--sixteen. He had written much before, but it was not for the press. It was done for self-improvement, and not for the public eye. The newspaper opened a new and unexpected channel of communication with the public that was well suited to awaken his deepest interest and inspire his noblest efforts. The incident reminds us of Canning's _Microcosm_. He, the great English statesman, was scarcely as old as Benjamin when he established a boy's periodical in the school at Eton, whither he was sent. It was christened _Microcosm_, which means, literally, "the little world." It was a weekly publication issued from Windsor. It was conducted "after the plan of the _Spectator_"--a work that was of immense value to Benjamin, as we shall see,--"the design being to treat the characteristics of the boys at Eton as Addison and his friends had done those of general society." In this paper several members of the school figured with credit to themselves, though no one was more prominent and capable than Canning. It became one of the prominent influences that decided his future course, as he always affirmed, developing his talents, and stimulating his mind to labor in this honorable way. It also exerted a decided influence upon the character of another boy, named Frere, who afterwards shone as a writer on the pages of the _Anti-Jacobin_. Examples of industry, enterprise, despatch, promptness, punctuality, and circumspection are inspiring to both old and young; and nowhere do these noble qualities appear to better advantage than they do where busy brains and hands make the newspaper in the printing office. It is a remarkably useful school. It was so when Benjamin was a boy. It was a far better school for him than that of Williams or Brownwell. Here he laid the foundation of his learning and fame. The same was true of Horace Greeley, who founded the _New York Tribune_, and of Henry J. Raymond, who made the _Times_ what it is. The late Vice-President Schuyler Colfax was schooled in a printing office for his honorable public career; and the same was true of other distinguished statesmen. But none of these examples are so remarkable as the following, that was made possible by Benjamin Franklin's example. A waif two years of age was taken from a benevolent institution in Boston, and given to a childless sailor, on his way from a voyage to his home in Maine on the Penobscot River. The sailor knew not from what institution the child was taken, nor whence he came. He carried it home, without a name, or the least clue to his ancestry. The sailor's wife was a Christian woman, and had prayed for just such a gift as that. She resolved to train him for the Lord. At twelve years of age he became a Christian, and, from that time, longed to be a minister. But poverty stood in his way, and there was little prospect of his hopes being realized. At length, however, he read the life of Benjamin Franklin; and he learned how the printing office introduced him into a noble life-work. "I will go through the printing office into the ministry," he said to his adopted mother. So, at fifteen, he became a printer in Boston. After a while, his health broke down, and the way to regain it seemed to be through service to a wealthy man on his farm in the country. There his health was restored, and his benevolent employer got him into Andover Academy, where he led the whole class. Near the close of his preparatory course, on a Saturday night, the author met him under the following circumstances: He was then nineteen years of age. On that day he had learned from what institution he was taken, and, going thither, he ascertained that he had a sister three years older than himself, living thirty miles north of Boston. It was the first knowledge he had received about any of his relatives. He was ten years old when his adopted parents informed him that he was taken, a waif, from an institution in Boston. From that time he was curious to find the institution and learn something of his ancestry. He was too young, when he was taken away, to remember that he had a sister. But on that day he learned the fact; and he took the first train to meet her. The author took the train, also, to spend the Sabbath with the minister who reared the sister. We met in the same family. What a meeting of brother and sister! The latter had mourned, through all these years, that she knew not what had become of her baby-brother, whom she well remembered and loved; but here he was, nineteen years of age, a manly, noble, Christian young man! Could she believe her eyes? Could we, who were lookers on, think it real? We received the story of his life from his own lips. He was the best scholar in his class through academy, college, and theological seminary, and is now an able and useful minister of the Gospel, indebted TO THE EXAMPLE AND EXPERIENCE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IN THE PRINTING OFFICE FOR WHAT HE IS! XIII. BOOKS OF HIS BOYHOOD. Coleridge divided readers into four classes, thus: "The first may be compared to an hour-glass, their reading being as the sand; it runs in, and it runs out, and leaves not a vestige behind. A second class resembles a sponge, which imbibes every thing, and returns it merely in the same state, only a little dirtier. A third class is like a jelly-bag, which allows all that is pure to pass away, and retains only the refuse and the dregs. The fourth class may be compared to the slave in the diamond mines of Golconda, who, casting aside all that is worthless, preserves only the pure gem." Benjamin belonged to the fourth class, which is the smallest class of all. The "hour-glass" class, who simply let what they read "run in and run out," is very large. It is not entitled to much respect, however, for it will bring no more to pass than the class who do not read at all. Benjamin sought the "pure gem." If he had any thing, he wanted diamonds. Nor did he accept "a stone for bread." He knew what bread was, which is not true of many readers; and so he had bread or nothing. His mind was a voracious eater, much more of an eater than his body. It demanded substantial food, too, the bread, meat, and potato of literature and science. It did not crave cake and confectionery. There was no mincing and nibbling when it went to a meal. It just laid in as if to shame starvation; it almost gobbled up what was on the table. It devoured naturally and largely. It was fortunate for him that his mind was so hungry all the time; otherwise, his desire to go to sea, his love of sport, and his unusual social qualities might have led him astray. Thousands of boys have been ruined in this way, whom passionate fondness of reading might have made useful and eminent. Thomas Hood said: "A natural turn for reading and intellectual pursuits probably preserved me from the moral shipwrecks so apt to befall those who are deprived in early life of their parental pilotage. My books kept me from the ring, the dog-pit, the tavern, and saloon. The closet associate of Pope and Addison, the mind accustomed to the noble though silent discourse of Shakespeare and Milton, will hardly seek or put up with that sort of company." It was probably as true of Benjamin Franklin as it was of Thomas Hood, that reading saved him from a career of worldliness and worthlessness. In his manhood he regarded the habit in this light, and said: "From my infancy I was passionately fond of reading, and all the money that came into my hands was laid out in the purchasing of books." If he had laid out his money in billiards, boating, theatre-going, and kindred pleasures, as so many do, he might have been known in manhood as Ben, the Bruiser, instead of "Ben, the Statesman and Philosopher." The first book Benjamin read was "Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress." He was fascinated with it, and read it over and over, much to the gratification of his parents. "What is there about it that interests you so much?" inquired his father, hoping that it might be the subject alone. "The dialogues that are carried on in it," replied Benjamin. "Then you think more of the style than you do of the matter?" remarked his father, evidently somewhat disappointed that he was not specially taken with Christian's journey. "It is all interesting. I should never get tired of reading such a book." This reply reassured his father, and he got considerable comfort out of it, after having set before the boy the true idea of Christian's flight from the City of Destruction. "It was written in Bedford jail, England," continued his father. "There was much persecution in his day, and he was thrust into prison to keep him from preaching the Gospel; but the plan did not succeed very well, for he has been preaching it ever since through that book, that he never would have written had he not been imprisoned." "Then he was a minister, was he?" said Benjamin. "No, he was not a minister; he was a tinker, and a very wicked man, so profane that he was a terror to good people. But he was converted and became a Christian, and went about doing good, as Christ did, preaching the Gospel in his way, in houses, by the way side, anywhere that he could, until he was sent to prison for doing good." "A strange reason for sending a man to jail," remarked Benjamin. "They thought that he was doing evil, no doubt. I mean the enemies of the Gospel. They did not believe in the Christian religion which Bunyan had embraced; they thought it would stir up the people to strife and contention, and prove a curse instead of a blessing." Mr. Franklin knew that such information would increase the interest of his son in the book; and it did. The impression wrought upon him by reading this book lasted through his life, and led him to adopt its style in much of his writing when he became a man. He said in manhood: "Narrative mingled with dialogue is very engaging, not only to the young, but to adults, also. It introduces the reader directly into the company, and he listens to the conversation, and seems to see the parties. Bunyan originated this colloquial style, and Defoe and Richardson were his imitators. It is a style so attractive, conveying instruction so naturally and pleasantly, that it should never be superseded." Mr. Franklin owned all of Bunyan's works, his "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners," and his "Holy War," and "Pilgrim's Progress" just spoken of. Benjamin read them all, but "Pilgrim's Progress" was the one that charmed his soul and more or less influenced his life. "Defoe's Essay upon Projects" was another volume of his father's, written in the same style as "Pilgrim's Progress," and, for that reason, very interesting to him. He devoured its contents. Its subject-matter was much above the capacity of most boys of his age; but the dialogue method of imparting instruction made it clear and attractive to him. One subject which it advocated was the liberal education of girls; and it was here, without doubt, that Benjamin obtained his views upon advanced female education, which he advocated in his discussion with John Collins. "Plutarch's Lives" was still another volume his father owned, one of the most inspiring books for the young ever published. He read this so much and carefully that he was made very familiar with the characters therein--information that was of great service to him, later on, in his literary labors and public services. "There was another book in my father's little library, by Doctor Mather, called, 'An Essay to do Good,'" said Doctor Franklin, in his "Autobiography," "which, perhaps, gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events of my life." He wrote to a son of Doctor Mather about it, late in life, as follows: "When I was a boy, I met with a book, entitled 'Essays to do Good,' which I think was written by your father (Cotton Mather). It had been so little regarded by a former possessor that several leaves of it were torn out; but the remainder gave me such a turn of thinking as to have an influence on my conduct through life; for I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good than on any other kind of reputation; and if I have been, as you seem to think, a useful citizen, the public owe the advantage of it to that book." The "Essays to do Good" consisted of twenty-two short essays of a practical character, inculcating benevolence as a duty and privilege, and giving directions to particular classes. It had lessons for ministers, lawyers, doctors, merchants, magistrates, teachers, mechanics, husbands, wives, gentlemen, deacons, sea-captains, and others. The style was quaint, earnest, and direct, exactly suited to appeal to such a boy as Benjamin; and withal it was so practical that it won his heart. Mr. Parton records a singular incident about this Doctor Mather, as follows: "How exceedingly strange that such a work as this should have been written by the man who, in 1692, at Salem, when nineteen people were hanged and one was pressed to death for witchcraft, appeared among the crowd, openly exulting in the spectacle! Probably his zeal against the witches was as much the offspring of his benevolence as his 'Essays to do Good.' Concede his theory of witches, and it had been cruelty to man not to hang them. Were they not in league with Satan, the arch-enemy of God and man? Had they not bound themselves by solemn covenant to aid the devil in destroying human souls and afflicting the elect? Cotton Mather had not the slightest doubt of it." When Benjamin had exhausted the home stock of reading, he showed his sound judgment by saying to his father: "I wish I could have 'Burton's Historical Collections'; it would be a great treat to read those books." "It would, indeed; they are very popular, and I should like to have you read them. But how to get them is more than I can tell." "Would you be willing that I should exchange Bunyan's works for them?" "I did not suppose that you would part with 'Pilgrim's Progress' for Burton's books or any others," was Mr. Franklin's reply. "I should rather keep both; but I have read 'Pilgrim's Progress' until I know it by heart, so that I would be willing to part with it for Burton's books, if I can get them in no other way." "Well, you can see what you can do. I am willing to do 'most any thing to keep you in good books, for they are good companions. I know of no better ones, from all I have heard and read about them, than 'Burton's Collections.'" "Perhaps I can sell Bunyan's books for enough to buy Burton's," suggested Benjamin. Doubtless he had canvassed the matter, and knew of some opportunity for a trade like that. "Well, you may do that, if you can; I have no objection. I hope you will succeed." The result was that Benjamin sold the works of Bunyan, and bought Burton's books in forty small volumes, quite a little library for that day. He was never happier than when he became the owner of "Burton's Historical Collections," famous in England and America, and extensively sold, not only by book-sellers, but also by pedlars. They contained fact, fiction, history, biography, travels, adventures, natural history, and an account of many marvels, curiosities, and wonders, in a series of "twelve-penny books." Doctor Johnson referred to these books in one of his letters: "There is in the world a set of books which used to be sold by the book-sellers on the bridge, and which I must entreat you to procure me. They are called Burton's books. The title of one is, 'Admirable Curiosities, Rarities, and Wonders in England.' They seem very proper to allure backward readers." He might have added, also, _forward_ readers; for they lured Benjamin, who was, perhaps, the most thoughtful and ready reader of his age in Boston In them he discovered a rich mine of thought and information, and he delved there. He found even nuggets of gold to make his mind richer and his heart gladder. His father's books were chiefly theological; yet Benjamin's love of reading caused him to read them. He possessed, also, a collection of religious tracts, called the "Boyle Lectures," because Robert Boyle, the youngest son of an Irish earl, a very pious man, originated them, "designed to prove the truth of the Christian religion among infidels." Benjamin read all of these, and his father was delighted to have him read them at the time, thinking that the moral results would be good. But the sequel will show that the effect of reading them was bad. In order to refute the arguments of deists, it was necessary to print them in the tracks. So Benjamin read both sides, and he thought, in some respects, that the deists had the best argument. Not long after Benjamin became a printer, a prominent citizen of Boston, Matthew Adams, who had heard of his talents and love of reading, met him in the printing office, and entered into conversation with him. "You are a great reader, I learn," he said. "Yes, sir, I read considerable every day." "Do you find all the books you want to read?" "Not all. I should like to read some books I can't get." "Perhaps you can find them in my library; you can come and take out of it any book you would like." "Thank you very much," answered Benjamin, exceedingly gratified by this unexpected offer. "I shall take the first opportunity to call." "Boys who like to read as well as you do, ought to have books enough," continued Mr. Adams. "I think you will find quite a number of entertaining and useful ones. You will know when you examine for yourself." "That I shall do very soon, and be very grateful for the privilege," answered Benjamin. Within a few days, the printer-boy paid Mr. Adams a visit. The latter gave him a cordial welcome, causing him to feel at ease and enjoy his call. He examined the library to his heart's content, and found many books therein he desired to read. "Come any time: take out any and all the books you please, and keep them till you have done with them," was Mr. Adams' generous offer. He had great interest in the boy, and wanted to assist him; and Benjamin fully appreciated his interest and kindness, and paid the library many visits. As long as he lived he never forgot the generous aid of this man, of whom he wrote in his "Autobiography": "After some time, a merchant, an ingenious, sensible man, Mr. Matthew Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, frequented our printing office, took notice of me, and invited me to see his library, and very kindly proposed to lend me such books as I chose to read." The printing office was frequented by book-sellers' apprentices, whose employers wanted jobs of printing done. Benjamin made their acquaintance, and they invited him to call at their stores to examine the books. There were several book-stores in Boston at that time, although the number of books was very limited as compared with the present time. "I will lend you that book to-night," said one of these apprentices to Benjamin, who was manifesting a deep interest in a certain volume. "You can return it in the morning before customers come in." "Very much obliged. I shall be glad to read it. I think I can read it through before I go to bed, and I can leave it when I go to the office in the morning." "You won't have much time for sleep if you read that book through before going to bed. But you are used to short naps, I expect." "I can afford to have a short nap whenever I have the reading of such a book as this," answered Benjamin. "I shall return it in just as good a condition as it is now." "The book is for sale, and we might have a customer for it to-morrow, or I would let you have it longer. If you do not read it through to-night, and we do not sell it to-morrow, you can take it again to-morrow night. I frequently read a volume through, a little at a time, before we have a chance to sell it." This offer of the apprentice was very generous, and Benjamin suitably expressed his appreciation of it. "Your favor is so great that I shall feel myself under special obligation to return the book in season for any customer to-morrow who may want it. If I were in a book-store, as you are, I fear that my love of reading would overcome my love of work. It would just suit me to be in the company of so many books all the time." "You could not have your evenings here for reading, as you do now. Our busiest time is in the evening; so that I catch only fragments of time to read--pretty small fragments, some days," said the apprentice. "Well, it might be only an aggravation to live among so many books, without time to read them," responded Benjamin. "I am content where I am,--a printing office has some advantages over all other places for me." Benjamin made the most of this new opportunity. Borrowing the first book was followed by borrowing many of the apprentices at the book-stores. All the stores were patronized by him, and many a night was shortened at both ends, that he might devour a book. He fairly gorged himself with book-knowledge. The reader must not forget that books were very few in number at that time, and it was long before a public library was known in the land. In Boston there were many literary people, who had come hither from England, and they had a limited supply of books. So that Boston was then better supplied with books than any other part of the country, though its supply was as nothing compared with the supply now. Book-stores, instead of being supplied with thousands of volumes to suit every taste in the reading world, offered only a meagre collection of volumes, such as would be scarcely noticed now. There were no large publishing houses, issuing a new book each week-day of the year, as there are at the present time, manufacturing hundreds of cords of them every year, and sending them all over the land. Neither were there any libraries then, as we have before said. Now the Public Library of Boston offers three or four hundred thousand volumes, free to all the citizens, and that number is constantly increasing. With the Athenaeum, and other large libraries for public use, Boston offers a MILLION volumes, from which the poor printer-boy, and all other boys, can make their choice. In almost every town, too, of two thousand inhabitants, a public library is opened, where several hundred or thousand volumes are found from which to select, while private libraries of from one to thirty thousand volumes are counted by the score. The trouble with boys now is, not how to get books to read, but what they shall select from the vast number that load the shelves of libraries and book-stores. Benjamin had no trouble about selecting books; he took all he could get, and was not overburdened at that. Another book that was of great benefit to Benjamin was an old English grammar which he bought at a book-store. He said of it, in manhood: "While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an English grammar (I think it was Greenwood's), having at the end of it two little sketches on the Arts of Rhetoric and Logic, the latter finishing with a dispute on the Socratic method." "What do you want of such a book as that?" inquired John Collins, when he saw it in the printing office. "To study, of course; I did not study grammar at school, and I want to know something about it," was Benjamin's answer. "I expect that some knowledge of it will not come amiss," said John. "You mean to make the most of these things you can." "I wanted the volume, too, for the chapters on Rhetoric and Logic at the end," added Benjamin. "Of what use are Rhetoric and Logic? Perhaps they may be of service to you; they would not be to me." John spoke thus because he knew nothing about them; he had never studied them. "Every body ought to know something about them, even a printer," added Benjamin. "They have already helped me to form a better opinion of the style and value of some things I have read." "Well, I can't get time to learn every thing. You seem to learn 'most all there is to learn, with very little time. I wish I could, but I can't, and so I won't try." John was always thus complimentary to Benjamin. He gave him full credit for all his achievements. "I mean to learn to speak and write the English language with propriety," continued Benjamin, "and I do not know how it can be done without a knowledge of grammar; do you?" "I know nothing about it, any way whatever. I shall not begin now; am too old. Can't teach old dogs new tricks." John's remark expressed his real views of these things. Although he was a bookish fellow, he was not inclined to go deep into literature or science. Other books that Benjamin read were Locke's "Essay on the Understanding"; "The Art of Thinking," by Messrs. de Port-Royal; Sellers & Stumey's book on "Navigation," with many others of equal merit. Benjamin cultivated the habit of taking notes when he read, jotting down notable facts and striking thoughts for future use. It is a capital practice, and one that has been followed by nearly all learners who have distinguished themselves in scholarship. He realized the advantages of the method to such a degree that, in manhood, he addressed the following letter from London to a bright girl in whose education he was very much interested: "CRAVEN STREET, May 16, 1760. "I send my good girl the books I mentioned to her last night. I beg her to accept of them as a small mark of my esteem and friendship. They are written in the familiar, easy manner for which the French are so remarkable, and afford a good deal of philosophic and practical knowledge, unembarrassed with the dry mathematics used by more exact reasoners, but which is apt to discourage young beginners. "I would advise you to read with a pen in your hand, and enter in a little book short hints of what you find that is curious, or that may be useful; for this will be the best method of imprinting such particulars in your memory, where they will be ready, either for practice on some future occasion, if they are matters of utility, or, at least, to adorn and improve your conversation, if they are rather points of curiosity; and, as many of the terms of science are such as you can not have met with in your common reading, and may therefore be unacquainted with, I think it would be well for you to have a good dictionary at hand, to consult immediately when you meet with a word you do not comprehend the precise meaning of. "This may, at first, seem troublesome and interrupting; but it is a trouble that will daily diminish, as you will daily find less and less occasion for your dictionary, as you become more acquainted with the terms; and, in the mean time, you will read with more satisfaction, because with more understanding. When any point occurs in which you would be glad to have further information than your book affords you, I beg you would not in the least apprehend that I should think it a trouble to receive and answer your questions. It will be a pleasure, and no trouble. For though I may not be able, out of my own little stock of knowledge, to afford you what you require, I can easily direct you to the books where it may most readily be found. "Adieu, and believe me ever, my dear friend, "B. FRANKLIN." Reading with pen or pencil in hand fixes the attention, assists method, strengthens purpose, and charges memory with its sacred trust. A note-book for this purpose is the most convenient method of preserving these treasures. Professor Atkinson, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, advises students thus: "Gather up the scraps and fragments of thought on whatever subject you may be studying--for, of course, by a note-book I do not mean a mere receptacle for odds and ends, a literary dust-bin--but acquire the habit of gathering every thing, whenever and wherever you find it, that belongs in your lines of study, and you will be surprised to see how such fragments will arrange themselves into an orderly whole by the very organizing power of your own thinking, acting in a definite direction. This is a true process of self-education; but you see it is no mechanical process of mere aggregation. It requires activity of thought--but without that what is any reading but mere passive amusement? And it requires method. I have myself a sort of literary bookkeeping. I keep a day-book, and, at my leisure, I post my literary accounts, bringing together in proper groups the fruits of much casual reading." The late President Garfield began this method when he began to study, with a view to a liberal education, at about seventeen years of age. He continued it as long as he lived. His notes and references, including scrap-books, filled several volumes before his Congressional career closed, on a great variety of subjects. A large number of books, in addition to those in his own library, were made available in this way. It was said that his notes were of great service to him in Congress, in the discussion of almost any public question. XIV. LEARNING THE ART OF COMPOSITION. Having delayed the narrative to learn of the books that helped to make him the man he became, it is necessary to delay further to see how he practised writing composition, both prose and poetry, in his early life, thus laying the foundation for the excellence of his writings in manhood. Benjamin was not more than seven years old when he began to write poetry. His "Uncle Benjamin's" frequent poetic addresses to him inspired him to try his hand at the art, and he wrote something and forwarded to his uncle in England. Whatever it was, it has not been preserved. But we know that he wrote a piece, doggerel of course, and sent to him, from the fact that his uncle returned the following reply: "'T is time for me to throw aside my pen, When hanging sleeves read, write, and rhyme like men. This forward spring foretells a plenteous crop; For, if the bud bear grain, what will the top? If plenty in the verdant blade appear, What may we not soon hope for in the ear! When flowers are beautiful before they're blown, What rarities will afterwards be shown! "If trees good fruit uninoculated bear, You may be sure 't will afterwards be rare. If fruits are sweet before they've time to yellow, How luscious will they be when they are mellow! If first-year's shoots such noble clusters send, What laden boughs, Engedi-like, may we expect in end!" There was no time, from the above date, when Benjamin did not indulge, to some extent, his inclination to write. It was done for his own amusement and profit, so that he was not in the habit of showing or speaking of his productions. None of them were preserved. But his talent for composition developed rapidly from the time he was fairly settled in the printing business. He practised putting original thoughts, and thoughts culled from books, into sentences and paragraphs, a very sensible method of self-improvement. He often tried his hand at poetry, if it was only a couplet at a time. Longer compositions he wrote, for no one to see and read but himself. One day his brother James, curious to see what Benjamin was writing so much about, looked over his shoulder. "What have you there, Ben?" he said. "Writing a sermon or your will? Ay! poetry is it?" catching a glimpse of it. "Then you are a poet are you?" "Seeing what I can do," Benjamin replied. "We do not know what we can do till we try. It is not much any way." "Let me read it, and I will tell you whether it is much or not. Authors are not good judges of their own productions. They are like parents, who think their own children handsomest and most promising; they think their articles are better than they are." James was in a happy mood for him when he thus spoke. He knew nothing about Benjamin's ability in writing composition; for this was quite a while before the newspaper was started for which he wrote. "I have been reading much poetry of late," added Benjamin, "and I am anxious to know if I can write it. I like to read it, and I have read several of the poets since I had access to Mr. Adams' library," This was after Mr. Adams invited him take books from his library, of which we have already given an account. "So much the more reason that I should read what you have written," added James. "I do not expect it will be quite equal to Shakespeare." "Well, read it, I do not care." And Benjamin passed it over to his brother without further hesitation. James read it over carefully, and then he re-read it before making a remark, as if to be sure that he was not mistaken in the quality of the composition. "That is good, Ben. It is really good, much better than I supposed you could write. Indeed, I did not know that you could write poetry at all. It is not quite equal to Virgil or Homer, but good for a printer-boy to write. Have you any other pieces?" James was honest in these last remarks, and felt more kindly at the time than he often did towards his brother. "Yes, I have two or three pieces more which I am going to improve somewhat. You had better wait till I have rewritten them before you read them." Benjamin was greatly encouraged by his brother's favorable opinion of his literary venture, when he made this reply. "No need of that. Let me see them now, and I can tell you whether they are worth making better. Some things are not worth making better; and I think this must be particularly true of poetry. Poor poetry is poor stuff; better write new than to try to improve it." James' last plea prevailed, and Benjamin produced the articles for his examination. They were read with as much interest as the first one, and they were re-read too, that there might be no mistake in his judgment. Then his enthusiasm broke out. "I tell you what it is, Ben, these are good, and I believe that you can write something worthy of print if you try hard; and if you will undertake it, you may print and sell a sheet on the street. I have no doubt that it will sell well." "I will see what I can do," Benjamin replied, very much elated over his success. "I hardly think my poetry will read well in print, though. I have not been writing for the press." "We can tell best when we read it in print. Get up something as soon as you can, and let us see," said James. "I will go right about it, and I will not be long in getting up something, good, bad, or indifferent." Within a few days Benjamin produced two street ballads, after the style of that day. They were better than any thing he had written, but still susceptible of great improvement. One was entitled "The Light-house Tragedy," and was founded on the shipwreck of Captain Worthilake and his two daughters. The other was a sailor's song on the capture of the famous _Teach_, or "Blackbeard, the Pirate." James read them critically, to see if it would do to put them in print and offer them to the public. "These are really better than what I read the other day," he remarked, when he had examined them all he desired. "Now, you may put them into type, and sell them about the town, if you are willing. I think a good number of them may be disposed of." "How many copies will you print?" "We can print a few to begin with, and let the type remain standing until we see how they go Then we shall run no risk." "Shall I do it immediately?" "Just as soon as you can. The quicker the better. I am anxious to see how they take with the public." Benjamin was not long in printing the two ballads, and having them ready for sale. Under the direction of his brother, he went forth, in due time, to offer them about the town. Whether he cried them on the streets as the newsboys do the daily papers now, we have no means of knowing. But he was successful in selling his wares, whatever his method was. "The Light-house Tragedy" sold the most readily. That commemorated an event of recent occurrence, and which excited much public feeling and sympathy at the time, so that people were quite prepared to purchase it. It sold even beyond his expectations, and seemed to develop what little vanity there was in his soul. He began to think that he was a genuine born poet, and that distinction and a fortune were before him. If he had not been confronted by his father on the subject, it is possible that the speculation might have proved a serious injury to him. But Mr. Franklin learned of his enterprise, and called him to an account. Perhaps he stepped into his shop, as he was selling them about town, and gave him a copy. Whether so or not, his father learned of the fact, and the following interview will show what he thought of it: "I am ashamed to see you engaged in such a business, Benjamin. It is unworthy of a son of Josiah Franklin." "Why so, father? I can't understand you." "Because it is not an honorable business. You are not a poet, and can write nothing of that sort worth printing." "James approved of the pieces, and proposed that I should print and sell them," Benjamin pleaded. "James is not a good judge of poetry, nor of the propriety of hawking them about town. It is wretched stuff, and I am ashamed that you are known as the author. Look here; let me show you wherein it is defective." Benjamin was so dumbfounded that he could not say much in reply; and his father proceeded to expose the faults of the poetical effusion. He did not spare the young author at all; nor was he cautious and lenient in his criticisms. On the other hand, he was severe. And he went on until Benjamin began to feel sorry that he had ever written a scrap of poetry. "There, I want you should promise me," continued his father, "that you will never deal in such wares again, and that you will stick to your business of setting up type." "Perhaps I may improve by practice," suggested Benjamin, whose estimation of his literary venture was modified considerably by this time. "Perhaps I may yet write something worthy of being read. You could not expect me to write like Pope to begin with." "No; nor to end with," retorted his father. "You are not a poet, and there is no use in your trying to be. Perhaps you can learn to write prose well; but poetry is another thing. Even if you were a poet I should advise you to let the business alone, for poets are usually beggars--poor, shiftless members of society." "That is news to me," responded Benjamin. "How does it happen, then, that some of their works are so popular?" "Because a true poet can write something worthy of being read, while a mere verse-maker, like yourself, writes only doggerel, that is not worth the paper on which it was printed. Now I advise you to let verse-making alone, and attend closely to your business, both for your own sake and your brother's." Mr. Franklin was rather severe upon his son, although what he said of his verses was substantially true, as his son freely admitted in manhood. He overlooked the important fact that it was a commendable effort of the boy to try to improve his mind. Some of the best poets who have lived wrote mere doggerel when they began. Also, many of our best prose writers were exceedingly faulty at first. It is a noble effort for a boy to put his thoughts into language, and Mr. Franklin ought to have recognized it as such. If he does not succeed in the first instance, by patience, industry, and perseverance, he may triumph at last. Benjamin might not have acted wisely in selling his verses about town; but his brother, so much older and more experienced than himself, should have borne the censure of that, since it was done by his direction. Doubtless, his brother regarded the propriety of the act less, because he had an eye on the pecuniary profits of the scheme. The decided opposition that Mr. Franklin showed to verse-making put a damper upon Benjamin's poetic aspirations. The air-castle that his youthful imagination had built, in consequence of the rapid sale of his wares, tumbled in ruins. He went back to the office and his work quite crestfallen. The reader must bear in mind that this incident occurred before the discussion of Benjamin with John Collins upon female education, related in a former chapter. We shall see that his father's criticisms on his arguments in that discussion proved of great value to him. "What has happened now, Ben?" inquired James, observing that his brother looked despondent and anxious. "Are you bringing forth more poetry?" "Father doesn't think much of my printing and selling verses of my own," answered Benjamin. "He has given me such a lecture that I am almost ashamed of myself." "How is that? Don't he think they are worthy of print?" "No. He do not see any merit in them at all. He read them over in his way, and counted faults enough to show that there is precious little poetry in me. A beggar and a poet mean about the same thing to him." "He ought to remember that you are not as old as you will be, if you live; and you will make improvement from year to year. You can't expect to write either prose or verse well without beginning and trying." "All the trial in the world can do nothing for me, I should judge from father's talk. You ought to have heard him; and he did not spare you for suggesting the printing and sale of the pieces on the street." Benjamin said this in a tone of bitter disappointment. "Well, I suppose that he has heard of two men disagreeing on a matter," remarked James. "All is, he and I do not agree. I consider the whole thing wise and proper, and he does not. That is all there is to it." Perhaps it was a good thing for Benjamin to meet with this obstacle in his path to success. Rather discouraging, it is true, nevertheless suited to keep him humble. Benjamin confessed in manhood, that his vanity was inflated by the sale of his ballads, and he might have been puffed up to his future injury, had not his father thus unceremoniously taken the wind out of his sails. That removed the danger. After such a severe handling he was not inclined to over-rate his poetical talents. It had the effect, also, to turn his attention almost wholly to prose writing, in which he became distinguished, as we shall see hereafter. A single verse of these ballads only has descended to our times. It is from the second mentioned--the capture of the pirate, as follows: "Come, all you jolly sailors, You all so stout and brave; Come, hearken, and I'll tell you What happened on the wave. Oh! 't is of that bloody Blackbeard I'm going now to tell; How as to gallant Maynard He soon was sent to hell-- With a down, down, down, derry down." Franklin said of this ballad episode: "I now took a strong inclination for poetry, and wrote some little pieces. My brother, supposing it might turn to account, encouraged me, and induced me to compose two occasional ballads. One was called 'The Light-house Tragedy,' and contained an account of the shipwreck of Captain Worthilake with his two daughters; the other was a sailor's song, on taking the famous _Teach_, or 'Blackbeard, the Pirate.' They were wretched stuff, in street-ballad style; and when they were printed, my brother sent me about the town selling them. The first sold prodigiously, the event being recent, and having made a great noise. This success flattered my vanity; but my father discouraged me by criticising my performances and telling me that verse-makers were generally beggars. Thus I escaped being a poet, and probably a very bad one." From the time that Mr. Franklin criticised his son's argument with John Collins on female education, Benjamin made special efforts to improve his style. He knew that Addison's style was regarded as a model, so he purchased an old volume of his 'Spectator,' and set himself to work with a determination to make his own style Addisonian. He subjected himself to the severest test in order to improve, and counted nothing too hard if he could advance toward that standard. His own account of his perseverance and industry in studying his model, as it appears in his "Autobiography," will best present the facts. "About this time I met with an odd volume of the 'Spectator.' I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished if possible to imitate it. With that view I took some of the papers, and making short hints of the sentiments in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should occur to me. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found that I wanted a stock of words, or readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time, if I had gone on making verses; since the continual search for words of the same import, but of different length to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore, I took some of the tales in the 'Spectator,' and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. "I also sometimes jumbled my collection of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order before I began to form the full sentences and complete the subject. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of the thoughts. By comparing my work with the original, I discovered many faults, and corrected them; but I sometimes had the pleasure to fancy that, in certain particulars of small consequence, I had been fortunate enough to improve the method or the language, and this encouraged me to think that I might in time come to be a tolerable English writer; of which I was extremely ambitious. The time I allotted for writing exercises, and for reading, was at night, or before work began in the morning, or on Sundays, when I contrived to be in the printing house, avoiding as much as I could the constant attendance at public worship, which my father used to exact of me when I was under his care, and which I still continued to consider a duty, though I could not afford time to practise it." Let any boy of even moderate abilities subject himself to such rigid discipline for intellectual improvement as Benjamin did, and his progress will be rapid, and his attainments remarkable. Such application and persistent effort win always. In a similar manner Benjamin acquired the Socratic method of reasoning, which he found at the end of the English grammar that he studied. Subsequently he purchased "Xenophon's Memorabilia" because it would afford him assistance in acquiring the Socratic style. He committed to memory, wrote, practised doing the same thing over and over, persevering, overcoming, conquering. He acquired the method so thoroughly as to be expert therein, and practised it with great satisfaction to himself. Many years thereafter he spoke of the fact as follows: "While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an English grammar (I think it was Greenwood's), having at the end of it two little sketches on the Arts of Rhetoric and Logic, the latter finishing with a dispute in the Socratic method. And, soon after, I procured Xenophon's 'Memorable Things of Socrates,' wherein there are many examples of the same method. I was charmed with it, adopted it, dropped my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer. And being then, from reading Shaftesbury and Collins, made a doubter, as I already was in many points of our religious doctrines, I found this method the safest for myself, and very embarrassing to those against whom I used it; therefore I took delight in it, practised it continually, and grew very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions the consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved. "I continued this method some few years, but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence, never using, when I advanced any thing that may possibly be disputed, the words _certainly, undoubtedly_, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather saying, _I conceive_, or _apprehend_, a thing to be so and so; _It appears to me_, or _I should not think it, so or so, for such and such reasons_; or, _I imagine it to be so_; or, _It is so, if I am not mistaken_. This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me, when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions, and persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time engaged in promoting." This and the preceding chapter show that a book may decide the future character and destiny of a man, by inspiring thought, kindling ambition and a lofty aim, stimulating the mental powers, inspiring practical and, perhaps, elegant composition, and consecrating the whole being to a definite purpose. All this was true of Benjamin Franklin. Rev. John Sharp said, "Shakespeare and the Bible have made me bishop of York." Wesley claimed that the "Imitation of Christ" and "Taylor's Holy Living and Dying" determined his calling and character. Henry Martyn was made a missionary by reading the lives of Brainard and Carey. Pope was indebted to Homer for his poetical inspiration, and it was the origin of his English "Iliad." Bentham read "Telemachus" in his youth, and, many years afterwards, he said, "That romance may be regarded as the foundation-stone of my whole character." Goethe became a poet in consequence of reading the "Vicar of Wakefield." Carey was fired to go on a mission to the heathen by reading "Voyages of Captain Cook." Samuel Drew credited his eminent career to reading Locke's "Essay on the Understanding." The lives of Washington and Henry Clay awakened aspirations in Lincoln's soul, that impelled him forward and gave direction to his life. The national system of education in Great Britain grew out of a book. Joseph Lancastar read "Clarkson on the Slave Trade," when he was fourteen years of age, and it awakened his enthusiasm to teach the blacks in the West Indies. Without the knowledge of his parents he went thither, and commenced labors for their mental and moral improvement. His parents learned where he was and sent for him; but his heart was thoroughly in sympathy with benevolent work, and he opened a school for the poor at home. So great was his success that the town, after a few years, erected a commodious building for his school; and here was the foundation of the present system of education in the mother-country. The author once advised a youth of fourteen to read certain books, accustoming himself to write down in a note-book striking facts and thoughts for preservation. At the same time he was advised to procure a blank book and write therein a sentence or short paragraph each day, without omission, the sentence or paragraph to contain the development of some thought that was waiting utterance. At that time there was no prospect that the youth would ever receive a liberal education. He was a farmer's son, and his father was unable to educate him. The most the author had in view was to provide him,--a bright, active, promising boy, fond of reading,--with a source of improving entertainment and profit. But he caught the idea with so much enthusiasm, and reduced it to practice so thoroughly, that an unquenchable desire for an education was nursed into controlling power; and he went through college, studied theology, became pastor of one of the largest Congregational churches in the country, stood among the most eloquent preachers in the land at thirty, received the degree of Doctor of Divinity at forty, and now, at a little more than fifty, is the beloved and able pastor of a large church in a New England city. This result was brought about by the discipline of reading and writing in his youth, very similar to that which made Benjamin a statesman and philosopher. XV. THE "COURANT" IN TROUBLE. "The Legislature is calling you to an account," said a customer to James Franklin, as he entered the office. "The officials can't put up with your cutting criticisms." "I am aware of that. I heard that they were going to haul the _Courant_ over the coals; but I do not see what they can do about it." "They can stop your printing it, I suppose. It would be an intolerant act, of course; but governments have never been tolerant towards the press, you know." "The day is coming when they will be," responded James. "A free press is indispensable to human progress. So long as I run the _Courant_ it shall speak plainly of intolerance and hypocrisy of every form. I shall hit the corruption of the times in high places or low." "That is sound doctrine," replied the customer. "I endorse it, but government officials do not. They feel very sore, and will make trouble for you if they can." At that moment Benjamin came rushing into the office under considerable excitement. "The Assembly are having a hot debate over the _Courant_," he said. "I heard a gentleman say that they would stop the publication of the paper, if possible." "Perhaps they will, but I doubt it," replied James. "The _Courant_ will not be muzzled so long as I own it." "It ought not to be," responded the customer. "We need an outspoken paper that will rebuke corruption and shams everywhere." "And that is all the trouble," said Benjamin. "That is what the Assembly and the ministers denounce. They are better friends of the British government than they are of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay." "True, very true," rejoined the customer. "The tyrannical control of the English press is a shame; and yet these officials who truckle to the English government want to try it on here. But such intolerance ought not to be borne." The _Courant_ was exceedingly sarcastic, and no writer was more so than Benjamin, young as he was. This was the real cause of the action of the Assembly. A letter appeared in the _Courant_, justly rebuking the government for dilatoriness in looking after a piratical craft off Block Island. The letter purported to come from Newport, and represented that the Colony were fitting out two vessels to capture her. It concluded thus: "We are advised from Boston that the government of the Massachusetts are fitting out a ship (the _Flying Horse_) to go after the pirates, to be commanded by Capt. Peter Papillon, and it is thought he will sail sometime this month, wind and weather permitting." This thrust at the government for tardiness would be regarded as a good joke now, but it was a crime then, and the aristocracy of the Province, always working in harmony with the King and Parliament, was stirred up by it to intolerance. James was summoned before the Council, and his apprentice also, both of whom stood upon their dignity, refusing to answer some of the questions put. Benjamin was dismissed, because it was found that he was only an apprentice. But James was put on trial and pelted with questions. The legislators were determined to find out who wrote the "scurrilous article aforesaid," as they called it, but James refused to tell. He placed himself squarely upon his personal rights as a citizen, and heroically stood by his guns. Come what might, he resolved to defend his course before this august tribunal. The Council became more exasperated by his defiant spirit, and threatened him with incarceration. But James stood his ground like a martyr, without thinking he would soon become one. Benjamin was equally defiant, and refused to answer some questions, but was excused on the ground that "an apprentice was bound not to betray his master's secrets." James was convicted of "a high affront to the government," and the sheriff was directed to commit him to the Boston jail. These new quarters were unexpected to him, but he went thither with the consciousness that he was suffering for a brave effort to correct public wrongs. We have called attention to a single paragraph reflecting upon the government in the _Courant_. It should be told that such criticisms were frequent in its columns. The Governor, Council, and nearly all the ruling class of the Province were in full sympathy with Great Britain, while others were restive under what they regarded as oppressive rule. Most of the ministers belonged to the first class, and so came in for a share of the _Courant's_ sarcastic utterances. The _Courant_ represented the second class--the common people--who read its columns gladly. Dr. Cotton Mather attacked the paper in a paragraph that shows what the paper contained: "We find a notorious, scandalous paper called _The Courant_, full freighted with nonsense, unmanliness, raillery, profaneness, immorality, arrogance, calumnies, lies, contradictions, and what not, all tending to quarrels and divisions, and to debauch and corrupt the mind and manners of New England." Increase Mather, also, assailed the _Courant_ over his own signature, denouncing it as a "wicked libel," because it represented him as one of its supporters, using language uncommonly expressive. "I do hereby declare," he said, "that, although I had paid for two or three of them, I sent him word I was extremely offended with it. In special, because in one of his _vile Courants_, he insinuates, that if a _minister of God approve of a thing, it is a sign it is of the Devil_; which is a horrid thing to be related! And he doth frequently abuse the Ministers of Religion, and many other worthy persons, in a manner which is intolerable. For these and such like reasons I signified to the Printer that I would have no more of their _Wicked Courants_. I, that have known what New England was from the Beginning, cannot but be troubled to see the Degeneracy of this Place. I can well remember when the Civil Government would have taken an effectual Course to suppress such a _Cursed Libel_! which if it be not done I am afraid that some _Awful Judgment_ will come upon this Land, and the _Wrath of God will arise, and there will be no Remedy_. I cannot but pity poor _Franklin_, who, though but a Young Man, it may be _Speedily_ he must appear before the Judgment Seat of God, and what answer will he give for printing things so vile and abominable?" It is quite evident that neither James nor Benjamin had that respect for the "Judgment Seat," which became Christians; but James replied in the _Courant_ to this onslaught, maintaining that Mather had garbled his quotations from the paper, or based his opinion on parts of paragraphs which did not convey the full and correct meaning. He turned the tables upon him, also, by declaring that, while Mather ceased to be a subscriber to his paper, "he sent his grandson every week to buy it; and, paying in this way a higher price, he was more of a supporter of the paper than ever." In the same issue, too, James said: "I would likewise advise the enemies of the _Courant_ not to publish any thing more against me unless they are willing to have the paper continued. What they have already done has been resented by the Town so much to my advantage, that above forty persons have subscribed for the _Courant_ since the first of January, many of whom were before subscribers to the other papers. And by one Advertisement more, the Anti-Couranters will be in great danger of adding forty more to my list before the first of March." James showed that he did not say "if the Ministers of God approve of a thing, it is a Sign it is of the Devil"; but that he did say, "Most of the Ministers are for it, and that induces me to think it is from the Devil; for he often makes use of good men as instruments to obtrude his delusions on the world." There would be decided objection to the first utterance, at that time or since; but the second one, what the _Courant_ did say, was as near the truth as either side was found in most matters. To return to James in prison. He was confined in a cell, and was very uncomfortable. It was a dirty, dismal place, meant to be a place of punishment, indeed. James found it so, and he soon was ready to do almost any thing for freedom of the yard. He sat down and addressed a very humble petition to the Council, confessing his wrong, and imploring forgiveness and release from his cell. "I am truly sensible of and heartily sorry for the offense I have given to the Court in the late _Courant_, relating to the fitting out of a ship by the government, and I truly acknowledge my inadvertency and folly therein in affronting the government, as also my indiscretion and indecency when before the Court; for all of which I intreat the Court's forgiveness, and pray for a discharge from the stone prison, where I am confined by order of the Court, and that I may have the liberty of the yard, being much indisposed, and suffering in my health by the said confinement." While the Council are considering this petition, we will see what has become of the _Courant_. The whole charge of it devolved on Benjamin from the time his brother was imprisoned, and he fearlessly and ably met the emergency. It was truly wonderful that a boy of sixteen should shoulder the responsibility of such an enterprise, in such circumstances, and carry it with so much courage and ease. "I can look after it; there's no trouble in that," said Benjamin to the "liberal club," who assembled as soon as possible after James was incarcerated. "The action of the Court will increase our subscribers; and I propose to make the paper more spicy than ever." "Glad to hear that," responded one of the club. "Let us defy such intolerance, though all the magistrates and ministers in Boston support it; the mass of the people are with us." "That is so," remarked another; "and more are coming over to our side every day. Intimidation does not become us now. We must continue to be outspoken; and if Benjamin can look after the paper, we are all right." "That I can do, and I want no better sport," replied the plucky printer-boy. "You may be sure that such persecution will not be sustained by a great majority of New England people. We are living in _New_ England, and not in _Old_ England, and the people know it." "I think Benjamin understands it," added a third member of the club; "and his courage and ability will meet the occasion. For one I want the _Courant_ to continue to be what it has been, the General Court to the contrary notwithstanding." Benjamin did understand it, and edited the paper on the same line. He forgot all his disagreements with his brother in his sympathy with him under persecution, and in his utter contempt for the action of the Court. In these circumstances, his attacks upon the administration were rather more severe than ever. "The proceedings of the Council were assailed by argument, eloquence, and satire, in prose and verse, in squib and essay. One number, issued just after James Franklin's release, was nearly filled with passages from 'Magna Charta,' and comments upon the same, showing the unconstitutionality of the treatment to which he had been subjected. It is evident that a considerable number of the people of Boston most heartily sympathized with the _Courant_ in its gallant contest for the liberty of the press, and that the issue of the number was, to these and to others, the most interesting event of the week."[1] The authorities considered James' petition, and granted it, but they kept him four weeks in prison before they let him out. He returned to his printing office, resolved to make the _Courant_ more outspoken still for the freedom of the press. The club met him with warm congratulations. "A great many printers have suffered more than you have," said one of the number; "for you have not lost your head, not even an ear. In Old England persecution of printers has been in order for a long time. Less than two years ago, one John Matthews, a youth nineteen years of age, was executed at Tyburn for writing and publishing a tract in favor of the expelled Stuarts." "But such things do not fit our country," answered James. "My father came here to escape that spirit of caste and intolerance that abounds in England, and so did those who came long before he did. To repeat them here is a greater abomination than to act them there." "Let me read to you," interrupted Benjamin, "an account of a printer's execution in England, about twenty years before my father emigrated to this country. I came across it in this book, a few days ago. It is horrible." Benjamin read as follows: "The scene is in a court-room in the Old Bailey, Chief Justice Hyde presiding. The prisoner at the bar was a printer, named John Gwyn, a poor man, with a wife and three children. Gwyn was accused of printing a piece which criticised the conduct of the government, and which contained these words and others similar: 'If the magistrates pervert judgment, the people are bound, by the law of God, to execute judgment without them, _and upon them_.' This was all his offense; but it was construed as a justification of the execution of Charles I, as well as a threat against Charles II, then king of England. The poor man protested he had never read the offensive matter; it was brought to him by a maid-servant; he had earned forty shillings by printing it. "When he was pronounced guilty, he humbly begged for mercy, pleading poverty, his young children, and his ignorance of the contents of the paper. 'I'll tell you what you shall do,' roared the brutal wretch who sat on the bench, 'ask mercy of them that can give it--that is, of God and the king.' The prisoner said, 'I humbly beseech you to intercede with his majesty for mercy.' 'Tie him up, executioner,' cried the judge; 'I speak it from my soul: I think we have the greatest happiness in the world in enjoying what we do under so good and gracious a king; yet you, Gwyn, in the rancor of your heart, thus to abuse him, deserve no mercy.' In a similar strain he continued for several minutes, and then passed upon the prisoner the following sentence: He was to be drawn to the place of execution upon a hurdle, and there hanged by the neck. While still alive he was to be cut down, castrated, and disemboweled. 'And you still living,' added the judge, 'your entrails are to be burnt before your eyes, your head to be cut off, and your head and quarters to be disposed of at the pleasure of the king's majesty.' The printer was overwhelmed with terror, and in his great agony he cried to the judge again to intercede for him. The heartless magistrate replied, 'I would not intercede for my own father in this case.' The prisoner was removed and executed. His head and limbs were set up over the gates of the city." "That was in 1663," said Benjamin as he closed the account; "and, though we have no record of another so fiendish affair, it is a fact that within a few years some printers and editors in England have had their ears cropped, others have been flogged publicly, and others still put into the stocks and pillory. We have not come to that yet." "Not quite," answered one of the club; "but the authorities who would please the king and suppress liberty of the press will go as far as they dare to go in that direction; depend on that. It becomes us to vindicate our rights fearlessly, or we shall yet share the fate of Gwyn." "I do not propose to spike one of my guns," said James, who listened to the last remarks with profound emotion. "We are right, and Americans will support us. The _Courant_ was started for a purpose, and we must not lose sight of it." "Benjamin has run the paper to suit while you were in jail, so that I think both of you together will satisfy us perfectly in the future," added another of the club. "I fully believe, with the rest of you, that it is no time now to cringe before the authorities. A stand for the right is more necessary now than ever before." We should have stated before that, in the infancy of the _Courant_, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu returned from Turkey with the remedy for the small-pox--inoculation. This disease had prevailed fearfully in Boston. When the town had but five or six thousand inhabitants, seven hundred of them died of small-pox in six months. In 1721, when Benjamin was in the printing office, and the population of the town was twelve thousand, the number of deaths by small-pox was eight hundred and fifty. Many persons attacked with it died within two or three days, so that it was a terror to the people. Of course inoculation was received with delight by many. Cotton Mather examined its claims, and so did his father, Increase Mather; and both endorsed it. But the _Courant_, for some reason, opposed it, and brought all its resources of ridicule and sarcasm to make it appear ridiculous. A writer in its columns called it the "minister's remedy," because the clergy favored it. Week after week it denounced the method, and warned the people. Finally, Increase Mather publicly called attention to the scandalous sheet, and besought the people to crush it, lest the judgments of God be brought down upon the land for its highhanded wickedness. That the treatment of James Franklin by the authorities was not justified by thoughtful citizens in other parts of the country is evident from the following extract from the _Philadelphia Mercury_: "The injustice of imprisoning a man without a hearing must be apparent to all. An indifferent person would judge from this conduct, that the Assembly of Massachusetts are oppressors and bigots, who make religion only an engine of destruction to the people. We pity the people who are compelled to submit to the tyranny of priestcraft and hypocrisy." Then followed a sarcastic postscript, over which the reader may smile: "P.S. By private letter from Boston, we are informed, that the bakers are under great apprehensions of being forbid baking any more bread, unless they will submit to the Secretary as supervisor general and weigher of the dough, before it is baked into bread and offered to sale." The closing sentence referred to the action of the Legislature in enacting that Franklin should publish nothing more without first submitting it to the Secretary of the Province and receiving his endorsement--legislation that will be quoted in the next chapter. Franklin continued to issue the _Courant_ after his imprisonment with more plainness and exposure of public wrongs than he did before. For several months he handled the governor and public officers severely, never forgetting those ministers who supported the cause of the king instead of the cause of New England. He little thought that he was fighting a battle for the ages to come. From his day the press in our country began to enjoy liberty. He began a conflict which did not end until liberty of speech and press was proclaimed throughout the land. Men have often contended for right, and started enterprises, the results of which the divinest prophet could never have foretold. When John Pounds, the poor Portsmouth shoemaker, with a passion for doing good to those who needed it most, gathered a few street-arabs into his shanty to teach them something good, while he hammered his leather and mended shoes, he did not dream that he was inaugurating a benevolent enterprise that would spread throughout the Christian world. But he did, and to-day the fifteen millions of old and young in the Sabbath schools of our Republic are but the growth and development he began in his shop. In like manner, the Franklin brothers inaugurated a measure that culminated in the complete freedom of the press. [1] Parton's Life of Franklin, vol. i, p. 88. XVI. THE BOY EDITOR. For six months the _Courant_ continued its attacks upon the government, after the editor came out of prison. It took up also, the inconsistencies of church members, and discussed them with great plainness. But the number of the paper for Jan. 14, 1723, was too much for aristocratic flesh and blood, and almost too much for blood that was not aristocratic. The Council was incensed, and adopted the following order: "IN COUNCIL, Jan. 14, 1723. "WHEREAS, The paper, called _The New England Courant_ of this day's date, contains many passages in which the Holy Scriptures are perverted, and the Civil Government, Ministers, and People of the Province highly reflected on, "_Ordered_, That William Tailer, Samuel Sewell, and Penn Townsend, Esqrs., with such as the Honorable House of Representatives shall join, be a committee to consider and report what is proper for the Court to do thereon." The House of Representatives concurred in the measure, and it was rushed through, as measures are likely to be when the dander of legislators is up, and the committee reported as follows: "That James Franklin, the printer and publisher thereof, be strictly forbidden by the Court to print or publish _The New England Courant_, or any other pamphlet or paper of the like nature, except that it is first supervised by the Secretary of the Province; and the Justices of His Majesty's Sessions of the Peace for the County of Suffolk, at their next adjournment, be directed to take sufficient bonds of the said Franklin for twelve months' time." As soon as the Council took this action, the _Courant_ club was called together, and the whole matter canvassed. "The next thing will be an order that no one of us shall have a pair of breeches without permission from the Secretary of the Province," remarked one, sarcastically. "The Secretary has not brains enough to pass judgment upon some of our articles, and he is too English to judge rightly of New England necessities." "We should appear smart, tugging our articles over to the Secretary each week for his permission to print them," suggested James. "I shall never do it as long as my name is James Franklin." "Nor I," added one of the club. "Nor I," another. "Nor I," another still. There was but one mind in the company; and all were disposed to fight it out on the line of freedom of the press. "But, do you notice," added one of the club, "that no one but James Franklin is forbidden to publish the _Courant_? Some other person can publish it." "Sure enough, that is so," responded James, "and here is our way out of the difficulty." "Of course you can not publish it yourself," addressing James, "in defiance of this order of the Council." "Of course not; but Benjamin Franklin can do it, as he is not forbidden. How would that do?" "That can not be done, because he is only an apprentice," suggested a former speaker. "They can prove that he is your apprentice readily." "Well, I can meet that difficulty without any trouble," said James, who was intent upon evading the order of the Court. "Pray, tell us how? By changing the name of the paper?" "Not by any means. Now is not the time to part with a name that the magistrates and ministers are so much in love with." "How, then, can you meet the difficulty?" "Well, I can return his indenture, with his discharge upon the back of it, and he can show it in case of necessity. At the same time he can sign a new indenture that will be kept a secret." "Capital!" exclaimed one; "I never thought of that. The measure is a practical one, and I move that we reduce it to practice at once." "I support it with all my heart, not only as practical, but ingenious," added another. "It is honorable to meet the tyranny of the Council with an innocent subterfuge like that." All agreed to the plan, and adopted it enthusiastically. "Benjamin Franklin, Editor of the _Courant_," exclaimed a member of the club, rising from his seat and patting Benjamin on the shoulder. "Don't that sound well, my boy? Rather a young fellow to have in charge such an enterprise, but a match, I guess, for the General Court of the Province." "The youngest editor, proprietor, and publisher of a paper in the whole land, no doubt," suggested another. "But it is as true here as it is in other things, 'Old men for counsel, young men for war.' We are at war now, and we do not want an editor who will cry peace, when there is no peace." "A free man, too," suggested another facetiously, "an apprentice no longer, to be knocked about and treated as an underling. At the top, with the laurels of manhood on the brow of sixteen!" Benjamin had not spoken, but he had listened. Affairs had taken an unexpected turn. In the morning he had no idea of becoming editor-in-chief of the paper that made more stir in Boston than the other two combined. The promotion rather startled him. Not that he shrank from the responsibility; for he had no hesitation in assuming that; but the promotion was wholly unexpected. The honors came upon him suddenly, in a way he never dreamed of. It is not strange that he was somewhat dumbfounded, though not confounded. He maintained silence, because, in the circumstances, he could say nothing better than silence. The plan of James having been adopted, all hastened to carry out the details. Benjamin received his indenture, with the endorsement that constituted him a free man, and he was announced as the publisher of the _Courant_, and as such his name appeared upon the paper, also as editor. In the next issue James inserted the following in the _Courant_: "The late publisher of this paper, finding so many inconveniences would arise, by his carrying the manuscripts and the public news to be supervised by the Secretary, as to render his carrying it on unprofitable, has entirely dropped the undertaking." Benjamin inserted an amusing salutatory, as if the _Courant_ was appearing before the public for the first time. It was as follows: "Long has the press groaned in bringing forth a hateful brood of pamphlets, malicious scribbles, and billingsgate ribaldry. No generous and impartial person then can blame the present undertaking, which is designed purely for the diversion and merriment of the reader. Pieces of pleasantry and mirth have a secret charm in them to allay the heats and tumults of our spirits, and to make a man forget his restless resentment. The main design of this weekly paper will be to entertain the town with the most comical and diverting incidents of human life, which, in so large a place as Boston, will not fail of a universal exemplification. Nor shall we be wanting to fill up these papers with a grateful interspersion of more serious words, which may be drawn from the most ludicrous and odd parts of life." Pretty good for a boy of sixteen! Good sense, tact, humor, and rhetoric combined in one brief paragraph! Not only the youngest editor in 1723, but the youngest editor of a city paper from that day to this, so far as we know. On the fact hangs a tale of the wonderful powers of a boy who can occupy such a place, and fill it. We have said that the _Courant_ of Jan. 14, 1723, was filled with matter that exasperated officials of the Province. The reader will want to know what some of those utterances were. We will copy a few: "Religion is indeed the principal thing, but too much of it is worse than none at all. The world abounds with knaves and villains; but, of all knaves, the religious knave is the worst, and villainies acted under the cloak of religion the most execrable. Moral honesty, though it will not itself carry a man to heaven, yet I am sure there is no going thither without it." "But are there such men as these in thee, O New England? Heaven forbid there should be any; but, alas, it is to be feared the number is not small. '_Give me an honest man_,' say some, '_for all a religious man_'; a distinction which I confess I never heard of before. The whole country suffers for the villainies of a few such wolves in sheep's clothing, and we are all represented as a pack of knaves and hypocrites for their sakes." "In old Time it was no disrespect for Men and Women to be called by their own Names. _Adam_ was never called _Master_ Adam; we never heard of Noah, _Esquire_, Lot, _Knight_ and _Baronet_, nor the _Right Honorable_ Abraham, _Viscount_ Mesopotamia, _Baron_ of Canaan. No, no; they were plain Men, honest Country Graziers, that took care of their Families and their Flocks. _Moses_ was a great Prophet, and _Aaron_ a priest of the Lord; but we never read of the _Reverend_ Moses, nor the _Right Reverend Father in God_, Aaron, by Divine Providence, _Lord Arch-Bishop_ of Israel. Thou never sawest _Madam_ Rebecca in the Bible, _My Lady_ Rachel, nor _Mary_, tho' a Princess of the Blood after the death of _Joseph_, called the _Princess Dowager_ of Nazareth. No; plain _Rebecca, Rachel, Mary_, or the _Widow_ Mary, or the like. It was no Incivility then to mention their naked Names as they were expressed. "Yet, one of our Club will undertake to prove, that tho' _Abraham_ was not styled _Right Honorable_, yet he had the Title of _Lord_ given him by his Wife _Sarah_, which he thinks entitles her to the Honour of _My Lady_ Sarah; and _Rachel_, being married into the same Family, he concludes that she may deserve the Title of _My Lady_ Rachel. But this is but the Opinion of one Man; it was never put to vote in the Society." "On the whole, Friend James, we may conclude, that the _Anti-Couranteers_ [opponents of the _Courant_] are a sort of _Precisians_, who, mistaking Religion for the peculiar Whims of their own distemp'rd Brain, are for cutting or stretching all Men to their own Standard of Thinking. I wish Mr. Symmes' Character may secure him from the Woes and Curses they are so free of dispensing among their dissenting neighbours, who are so unfortunate as to discover a Cheerfulness becoming Christianity." It is not questioned that Benjamin wrote these paragraphs, among others; and for keen satire they are very remarkable as the composition of a boy of sixteen. At the present day they would be regarded as quaint, able and truthful, without awakening opposition. But, in 1723, no doubt there were tender consciences among the official sycophants of the English Government, that made a just application of these cutting words, so as to become exasperated and bitter. Hence, their tyrannical and unjustifiable legislation. Mr. Parton mentions a fact that should be noted here: "Until the Revolution, the business of publishing newspapers in America was carried on almost exclusively by postmasters. Newspapers went free of postage in the colonies as late as 1758. Until that time, the postmasters had not only the privilege of sending papers through the mail free, but the still more valuable right of excluding from the mail papers published by others. Accordingly, we find that nearly all the pioneers of the press, in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, were postmasters. When a postmaster lost his office he generally sold out his newspaper, and a new postmaster soon bought or established one. John Campbell, however, feeling himself aggrieved by his removal, did not dispose of the _News-letter_ [first paper in this country]; which induced his successor, William Brocker, to set up a paper of his own, the _Boston Gazette_, which appeared in December, 1719. Mr. Brocker expressly says, in his prospectus, that he started the new paper at the request of several merchants, and others, who 'have been _prevented_ from having their newspaper sent them by the post, ever since Mr. Campbell was removed from being postmaster.'"[2] It is a significant fact that, in 1758, newspapers ceased to be carried free in the mails, and a charge of ninepence a year for each fifty miles of carriage was assessed; and our Benjamin brought about the change. He was then known as Deputy Postmaster General, and made the change in the interest of the public welfare. We think that, at the time, he must have recalled his tussle with the General Court, when, at sixteen, he edited the _Courant_. Benjamin continued in his brother's printing office eight months after the occurrence just narrated, editor and publisher of the _Courant_. His brother never run the paper again in his own name, and, subsequently, he removed to Newport, R.I., where he established the _Rhode Island Gazette_ in 1732. Benjamin kept up his running fire against the truckling representatives of the British government, including ministers who were not outspoken against oppression and the censorship of the press. The blade of his satire became brighter and keener, and the circulation of the paper increased largely, showing that the portion of the population having the true American spirit, were in sympathy with the purpose of the paper. Mr. Sparks says of it: "It touched with great freedom the vices and follies of the time. The weapon of satire was used with an unsparing hand. Neither the government nor the clergy escaped. Much caution was practised, however, in regard to individuals, and names were seldom introduced. There are some severe and humorous criticisms on the poets of the day, which may be classed with the best specimens of this kind of composition in the modern reviews. The humor sometimes degenerates into coarseness, and the phraseology is often harsh; but, bating these faults, the paper contains nothing, which in later times would have been deemed reprehensible." Of the action of the General Court, imprisoning James Franklin, Mr. Sparks says: "He was sentenced by a vote of the Assembly, without any specification of offensive passages, or any trial before a court of justice. This was probably the first transaction, in the American Colonies, relating to the freedom of the press; and it is not less remarkable for the assumption of power on the part of the legislature, than for their disregard of the first principles and established forms of law." This is a fair and just estimate of the affair. Probably officials saw their mistake, and concluded not to repeat it; for Benjamin was not molested in his business, though he continued to be as saucy and sarcastic as ever. From that day freedom of the press was assured in this country. This narrative of Benjamin's connection with the printing office, at the time a new paper was to be established, shows that the circumstances called out a certain kind of talent he possessed, and thus helped to make him what he became. Success depends in a great measure on early directing the young in the path to which their natural endowments point. Square men should be put into square holes, and round men into round holes. Many careers are spoiled by reversing this law of nature, getting square men into round holes, and round men into square holes. A good mechanic has often been spoiled to make an indifferent clergyman or merchant, and a good minister has been spoiled to make a commonplace artisan. Overlooking the "natural bent," the youth has selected an occupation (or his father for him) for which he has no special aptitude, and he brings little to pass. Benjamin was a square youth, and he got into a square hole, which he just fitted. He was not there by his own election; he was there by the lead of Providence, and he cheerfully acquiesced. Becoming the right boy in the right place, he grew into stalwart manhood and a useful life, as naturally as the sapling on congenial soil grows into the thrifty, fruit-bearing tree. In the second chapter we spoke of Boston, in the infancy of Benjamin, as a place where bears were plenty, and other wild animals roamed. The _Courant_ contained the following paragraph, about the time of its contest with the Court, and we copy it as a fitting close to this chapter: "It is thought that not less than twenty Bears have been killed in about a week's time within two miles of Boston. Two have been killed below the Castle, as they were swimming from one island to another, and one attempted to board a boat out in the bay, but the men defended themselves so well with the boat-hook and oars, that they put out her eyes, and then killed her. On Tuesday last two were killed at Dorchester, one of which weighed sixty pounds a quarter. We hear from Providence that the bears appear to be very thick in those parts." [2] Vol. i, p. 78. XVII. THE YOUNG SKEPTIC. "What book have you there, Ben?" inquired John Collins, some time before the newspaper enterprise was started. "Lord Shaftesbury's work. I have been looking into it for some time; and Anthony Collins' work, too," answered Benjamin. "I suppose that my father would say they are not quite Orthodox; but they are very interesting, and I think their views are reasonable." "I have been questioning your Orthodoxy for some time, Ben, but I thought you would come out all right in the end, and so I have said nothing. I do not know about your coming out right if you become a disciple of Shaftesbury." John made this reply more in jest than in earnest, for he cared little whether Benjamin was a skeptic or not. Perhaps he was skeptical himself at that time; some things indicate as much. "I think it is rather difficult to tell how I shall come out, John; but I do not propose to believe any thing in religion, science, or any thing else, just because my father does," responded Benjamin. "I know that I have accepted some religious dogmas because I was taught them, and for no other reason." "Then you do not now believe all that you have been taught about religion, if I understand you?" "No, I am free to say that I do not. There is neither reason nor wisdom in portions of the creed of the Church." "Why, Ben, you surprise me. You are getting to be quite an infidel for a boy. It won't do for you to read Shaftesbury and Collins any more, if you are so easily upset by them. I do not know any thing about them, only from what I hear. I never read a paragraph of either." "One thing is sure," continued Benjamin. "I mean to be classed among the few people who think for themselves. It is a small company I shall be found in, but it is an independent one. Most people are religious because they are so instructed. They embrace the religion of their fathers and mothers, without asking what is true or false. I will not be of that class. I will not be Orthodox or Heterodox because my ancestors were." "There is not much danger that you will do that, Ben. Present appearances rather indicate that the religious opinions of your father will be blown sky-high." John did not mean quite as much as his language in this reply denoted. "You do not understand me. I respect my parents and their religious opinions, though I doubt some of the doctrines they have taught me. I never examined them until I began to read Shaftesbury and Collins, but accepted them as correct because my father and grandfather believed them. I shall do that no more, that is all I meant." "Well, I can not say that you are wrong, Ben. If you make half as good a man as your father is, by believing half the truths he believes and advocates, you will stand pretty well in the world. I expect that we ought to avoid religious cant, bigotry, and intolerance." "I expect so, too; and there is much of all three existing to-day," Benjamin answered. "A bigot may be a well-meaning man, but so much the worse for him. There is so much bigotry in Boston to-day, that the minister of each denomination thinks his denomination has all the truth and all the religion there is. I think that idea is a falsehood, to begin with." "I shall agree with you there, Ben. I have no question that a man may be a Christian without believing half that most denominations profess to believe. And I suppose that the main thing is to be Christians, and not theologians." "You are drifting to my side as fast as is necessary," remarked Benjamin, laughing. "You will come clear over in due time. I am sure you will, if you read Shaftesbury." "Well, I must drift home in a hurry," responded John. "Whether I shall drift to you, the future will reveal. You are now in too deep water for me. I should drown if I got in where you are." John left, and Benjamin went on thinking, as he was wont. He put more thinking into every twenty-four hours than any three boys together in Boston. At this time he was quite a doubter,--really a young skeptic. In the printing office he drifted in that direction faster and faster. He was a kind of speculator from childhood. He loved to argue. He enjoyed being on the opposite side, to indulge his propensity to argue. After he learned the Socratic method of reasoning, he was more inclined to discuss religion with different parties. Perhaps he did it to practise the method, rather than to show his aversion to religion. But, judging from what followed, in the next three or four years, he grew decidedly unbelieving. We can discover his lack of reverence for the Christian religion, and want of confidence in it, in articles he wrote for the _Courant_. Nothing very marked, it is true, but some of his articles lean in that direction. Besides, Benjamin was one of those talented, independent boys, who think it is manly to break away from ancestral creeds. When he was eleven years old he was assisting his father to pack a barrel of pork for winter use. When the work was done he said to his father: "Father, it would save time if you would say grace over the whole barrel now, instead of saying it over a piece at a time." Whether his father flogged him for such irreverence, we are not told; nevertheless, the fact is suggestive of an element in the boy's make-up to which the ingenious skeptic may appeal with success. Possibly it was only the native humor of the boy, which, with his love of fun, cropped out on that occasion. It was irreverence, however, whatever may have been his motive. Many were the conversations that Benjamin had with his friend, John Collins, upon religion, after becoming thoroughly poisoned by reading Shaftesbury and Collins. "By the way, John, I should like to read to you what your namesake says on the subject. Perhaps you descended straight from this illustrious infidel." "Perhaps so; but I shall not spend time in tracing my pedigree," John replied. "I never dared to trace my ancestors far back, for fear I should run into some disreputable family." "It is probably an accident that you are a Collins, so that we can't lay it up against you, John; but I should really like to read two or three paragraphs from Collins' work, that you may judge of him." "Go ahead, and I will give you respectful attention. If it is above my capacity to understand, I will not hold you responsible." Benjamin proceeded to read from Collins' work as follows: "Opinions, how erroneous soever, when the Effect of an impartial Examination, will never hurt Men in the sight of God, but will recommend Men to his Favour. For impartial Examination in the Matter of Opinion is the best that a Man can do towards obtaining Truth, and God, who is a wise, good, and just Being, can require no more of Men than to do their best, and will reward them when they do their best; and he would be the most unjust Being imaginable, if he punished Men, who had done their best endeavor to please him. Besides, if men were to be punished by God for mistaken Opinions, all men must be damned; for all Men abound in mistaken Opinions." "While Rome was in the Height of its glory for Arms, Learning, and Politeness, there were _six hundred different Religions_ professed and allowed therein. And this groat Variety does not appear to have had the least Effect on the Peace of the State, or on the Temper of Men; but, on the contrary, a very good Effect, for there is an entire Silence of History, about the Actions of those ancient Professors, who, it seems, lived so quietly together as to furnish no Materials for an _Ecclesiastical History_, such as Christians have given an Occasion for, which a Reverend Divine thus describes: '_Ecclesiastical History_' says he, 'is chiefly spent in reciting the wild Opinions of Hereticks (that is, in belying Hereticks); the Contentions between Emperors and Popes; the idle and superstitious Canons, and ridiculous Decrees and Constitutions of packed Councils; their Debates about frivolous Matters, and playing the Fool with Religion; the Consultations of Synods about augmenting the Revenues of the Clergy, and establishing their Pride and Grandure; the impostures of Monks and Fryars; the Schisms and Factions of the Church; the Tyranny, Cruelty, and Impiety of the Clergy; insomuch that the excellent _Grotius_ says, '_He that reads Ecclesiastical history_ reads nothing but the _Roguery and Folly of Bishops and Churchmen_.'" "Matthew says, Jesus _came and dwelt at_ Nazareth _that it might_ be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Prophet saying, 'He shall be called a Nazarene.' Which Citation does not expressly occur in any Place of the Old Testament, and therefore cannot be literally fulfilled." "In fine, the Prophecies, cited from the Old Testament by the Authors of the New, do plainly relate, in their obvious and primary Sense, to other Matters than those which they are produced to prove." "Well," said John, interrupting, "I think that will do for my namesake. There is nothing very wonderful to me about that. True enough, I guess, but nothing remarkable. But how about Shaftesbury? What has he written?" "He disproves the miracles of the New Testament. His 'Inquiry Concerning Virtue' and his 'Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour' are interesting as novels to me." "I prefer the novels," interrupted John. "Perhaps you do; but Shaftesbury is one of the most ingenious and pleasant writers known. He does not discard religion; he assails spurious religion only." "And spurious religion is all religion that he do not believe in, I suppose," suggested John, "come from above or below? When a man does not believe the Bible he tries to show it up; and so when a man do not believe any religion but his own, he tries to explode all others." "Read Shaftesbury, and judge for yourself," added Benjamin. "You will fall in love with him, as I have. He is one of the most graceful and fascinating writers I know of." "Perhaps I will read him sometime," replied John. "I must go now; and when I am ready for it I will call for the book." We have not time to follow the companionship of these two youth. It was intimate, and Benjamin succeeded in making a Shaftesbury disciple of John, so that one was about as much of an unbeliever as the other. In his "Autobiography," Benjamin confesses that he "_was made a doubter by reading Shaftesbury and Collins_," although he began to dissent from his father, as we have already seen, in his boyhood, when he read the religious tracts of Boyle. We know that Benjamin was charged with being an atheist by his brother. True, it was when his brother was angry because he left him; still, he would not have been likely to make such a statement to others without some foundation for it. Franklin himself gives one reason for his leaving Boston (in his "Autobiography"): "My indiscreet disputations about religion began to make me pointed at with horror by good people as an infidel and atheist." Another admission in his "Autobiography" reflects upon this subject: "The time I allotted for writing exercises and for reading, was at night, or before work began in the morning, _or on Sundays_, when I contrived to be in the printing house, avoiding as much as I could the constant attendance upon public worship, which my father used to exact of me when I was under his care, and which I still continued to consider a duty, though I could not afford time to practise it." There is an intimate connection between loose religious views and the non-observance of the Sabbath. Skeptics are not friendly to the Sabbath as a class. It is an institution they inveigh against with much spirit. No doubt the change going on in Benjamin's opinions had much to do with his ceasing to attend public worship. Fifteen years afterwards, when Benjamin was fully established in business in Philadelphia, his parents became very anxious about his skeptical ideas, and wrote to him about it. Their letter is not preserved, but we have his in reply, which, while it confirms the fact, shows him to be more reverent and thoughtful than they feared. It is, also, evidence of a filial regard for his father and mother that is always as beautiful as it is honorable. We furnish the letter below: "PHILADELPHIA, April 13, 1738. "_Honored Father_,--I have your favors of the 21st of March, in which you both seem concerned lest I have imbibed some erroneous opinions. Doubtless I have my share, and when the natural weakness and imperfection of human understanding is considered, the unavoidable influence of education, custom, books, and company, upon our ways of thinking, I imagine a man must have a good deal of vanity who believes, and a good deal of boldness who affirms, that all the doctrines he holds are true, and all he rejects are false. And, perhaps, the same may be justly said of every sect, church, and society of men, when they assume to themselves that infallibility which they deny to the pope and councils. "I think opinions should be judged of by their influences and effects; and if man holds none that tend to make him less virtuous or more vicious, it may be concluded he holds none that are dangerous,--which, I hope, is the case with me. "I am sorry you should have any uneasiness on my account, and, if it were a thing possible for one to alter his opinions in order to please another's, I know none whom I ought more willingly to oblige in that respect than yourselves. But, since it is no more in a man's power to _think_ than to _look_ like another, methinks all that should be expected from me is to keep my mind open to conviction; to hear patiently, and examine attentively, whatever is offered me for that end; and, if after all I continue in the same errors, I believe your usual charity will induce you rather to pity and excuse than blame me; in the mean time your care and concern for me is what I am very thankful for. "My mother grieves that one of her sons is an Arian, another an Arminian; what an Arminian or an Arian is, I can not say that I very well know. The truth is, I make such distinctions very little my study. I think vital religion has always suffered when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue; and the Scriptures assure me that at the last day we shall not be examined what we _thought_, but what we _did_; and our recommendation will not be that we said, _Lord! Lord_! but that we did good to our fellow-creatures. See Matt. xx. "As to the free masons, I know no way of giving my mother a better account of them than she seems to have at present (since it is not allowed that women should be admitted into that secret society). She has, I must confess, on that account, some reason to be displeased with it; but, for any thing else, I must entreat her to suspend her judgment till she is better informed, unless she will believe me when I assure her that they are in general a very harmless sort of people, and have no principles or practices that are inconsistent with religion and good manners. "B. FRANKLIN." His sister also, later on, in her great anxiety for his spiritual welfare, wrote to him, and he replied as follows: "PHILADELPHIA, July 28, 1743. "_Dearest Sister Jenny_,--I took your admonition very kindly, and was far from being offended at you for it. If I say any thing about it to you, 't is only to rectify some wrong opinions you seem to have entertained of me; and this I do only because they give you some uneasiness, which I am unwilling to be the occasion of. You express yourself as if you thought I was against worshipping of God, and doubt that good works would merit heaven; which are both fancies of your own, I think, without foundation. I am so far from thinking that God is not to be worshipped, that I have composed and wrote a whole book of devotions for my own use; and I imagine there are few if any in the world so weak as to imagine that the little good we can do here can merit so vast a reward hereafter. "There are some things in your New England doctrine and worship which I do not agree with; but I do not therefore condemn them, or desire to shake your belief or practice of them. We may dislike things that are nevertheless right in themselves; I would only have you make me the same allowance, and have a better opinion both of morality and your brother. Read the pages of Mr. Edwards' late book, entitled, 'Some Thoughts concerning the present Revival of Religion in New England,' from 367 to 375, and, when you judge of others, if you can perceive the fruit to be good, do not terrify yourself that the tree may be evil; be assured it is not so, for you know who has said, 'Men do not gather grapes off thorns, and figs off thistles.' "I have not time to add, but that I shall always be your affectionate brother, "B. FRANKLIN. "P.S. It was not kind in you, when your sister commended good works, to suppose she intended it a reproach to you. 'T was very far from her thoughts." The sequel will show much more concerning the skepticism of Franklin; and that the time came when he saw the folly of such unbelief, and gave his adherence to the Christian religion. At the same time, he learned from experience the danger of reading infidel publications, and warned the young against following his example. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that, as early as 1728, when he was but twenty-two years of age, he was not so much of an infidel as some of his friends supposed; for then he prepared a code of morals and belief for his own use, entitled "Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion." In this document he avows his belief in "One Supreme, most perfect Being," and prays to "be preserved from atheism, impiety, and profaneness." Under the head of "Thanks" occur the following: "For peace and liberty, for food and raiment, for corn, and wine, and milk, and every kind of healthful nourishment,--Good God, I thank Thee! "For the common benefits of air and light, for useful fire and delicious water,--Good God, I thank Thee! "For knowledge, and literature, and every useful art, for my friends and their prosperity, and for the fewness of my enemies,--Good God, I thank Thee! "For all my innumerable benefits, for life, and reason, and the use of speech; for health, and joy, and every pleasant hour,--Good God, I thank Thee!" It is true, there is not much religion in these things; and though they may have been adopted to satisfy the demands of conscience only, they prove that he was not an atheist, as many supposed. Benjamin's experience with skeptical and infidel books recalls the experience of two young men, when about the same age, with publications of kindred character, which came very near depriving the United States of two good Presidents. Before Abraham Lincoln began the study of law, he was connected with a clique or club of young men, who made light of religion, and read books that treated it as a delusion. It was at this time that he read Paine's "Age of Reason" and Volney's "Ruins," through which he was influenced to array himself against the Bible for a time,--as much of a skeptic, almost, as any one of his boon companions. But his early religious training soon asserted itself, and we hear no more of hostility to religion as long as he lived. On the other hand, when he was elected President, he spoke as follows to his friends and neighbors, who had assembled at the station to bid him adieu on leaving for Washington, on the eve of the late bloody Civil war: "My Friends: No one not in my position can appreciate the sadness I feel at this parting. To this people I owe all that I am. Here I have lived more than a quarter of a century. Here my children were born, and here one of them lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see you again. A duty devolves on me, which is greater, perhaps, than that which has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington. He never would have succeeded except for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all times relied. I feel that I can not succeed without the same Divine aid which sustained him, and on the same Almighty Being I place my reliance for support; and I hope you, my friends, will pray that I may receive that Divine assistance, without which I can not succeed, but with which success is certain. Again I bid you all an affectionate farewell." When James A. Garfield became a member of the "Black Salter's" family, he found "Marryatt's Novels," "Sinbad the Sailor," "The Pirates' Own Book," "Jack Halyard," "Lives of Eminent Criminals," "The Buccaneers of the Caribbean Seas"; and being a great reader, he sat up nights to read these works. Their effect upon him was to weaken the ties of home and filial affection, diminish his regard for religious things, and create within him an intense desire for a seafaring life. Nothing but a long and painful sickness, together with the wise counsels of his mother and a popular teacher, saved him from a wild and reckless life upon the sea, by leading him to Christ and a nobler life, in consequence of which his public career was one of honor, and closed in the highest office of the land. Neither Lincoln nor Garfield would have been President of the United States if the spell, with which the influence of corrupt books bound them for the time, had not been broken by juster views of real life and nobler aims. XVIII. HOW HE QUIT BOSTON. "I tell you how it is, John," exclaimed Benjamin, under great excitement; "I have withstood my brother's ill treatment as long as I am going to. I shall leave him." "How is that, Ben? I thought your brother would treat you with more consideration after you immortalized yourself as an editor. I knew you had a hard time with him before the _Courant_ was started." John Collins knew somewhat of Benjamin's troubles, the first two years of his apprenticeship. "He has been worse since my prominence on the _Courant_; that is, at times. I think my success aroused his jealousy, so that it fretted him to see me, his apprentice, occupy a higher position than himself. Once in a while he has seemed to be pleased with my prominence on the paper, and then again it annoyed him." "I should think you had helped him out of trouble enough to stir up his gratitude a little, even if he had no pride in possessing so bright a brother." "Brother! brother!" exclaimed Benjamin. "He never thought of that relation. I was his apprentice, to be lorded over until twenty-one years of age. I do not think he would have treated the greatest stranger as an apprentice more unkindly than he has me. He seemed to think that the relation of master to an apprentice obliterates all blood relationship." "That is unfortunate for both of you," remarked John, "but most unfortunate for him, whom public opinion will judge as a brother, and not as a master. But how will you get along with your indenture if you leave him?" "I am justified by the circumstances in using the indenture, on the back of which is his own endorsement of my freedom. He released me from all obligations to him, that I might run the paper when he could not." "But the understanding between you was, if I remember, that it was only a formality to evade the action of the General Court. He did not mean that you should take advantage of it and refuse to serve him." "That is true; but I say the circumstances justify me in using it as if he really meant to give me my freedom. He has another indenture which I signed, designed to be kept private, but he won't dare to bring that out to the light of day, because it may get him into further trouble with the General Court." "You have the advantage of him there, I see, if you see fit to avail yourself of it. Does James know how you feel about it?" "He ought to know, for I have told him that I should leave him if he continued to treat me as he has done. Probably he does not believe that I shall quit, but I am not responsible for that. He ought to see that such treatment would cause any apprentice to leave his master." "What does he do that is so bad?" inquired John. "He undertook to flog me, the other day. He did strike me, but I showed him that I believed in self-defense, and he desisted. He has beaten me often. I did not like the looks of an elder brother licking a younger one, and so I put myself in a position to make such a scene impossible." "Well, I do not think that such a scene is particularly attractive," responded John in his droll way. "Such a scene in the theatre would be tragedy, I think; it could not be comedy in a civilized land." "That is no worse than other things he does. If he would get mad and beat me, and then be kind and considerate for a while, I should be quite well satisfied. But he is constantly domineering over me, as if he meant I should realize all the while that he is my legal master." "Does your father know about it?" "Yes, and he has been decidedly in my favor until now. We have often laid our differences before him, and in nearly every instance, he has supported me. But for some reason, since the last trouble he has upheld James. Perhaps it was because I did not allow James to beat me as masters often do their apprentices." "What do you propose to do if you leave your brother?" continued John. "Go to New York. I can find work there. If there is nothing there for an extra printer to do, I will turn my hand to something else. I shall leave Boston." "Why not get into one of the other printing offices in town? I do not want you should quit Boston until I do." "For two good reasons. The first is that my connection with the _Courant_ stirred up the officials of the government, so that I am obnoxious to them; and the second is, that my religious opinions have become so well known, and have been so misrepresented, that ministers and other good people consider me no better than an atheist. I prefer to go among strangers, where I can have a chance to make a record for myself." "Better make a record here,--the best chance in the world. Here people know who you are, or they ought to know by this time. Take my advice, and secure a place in another printing office in Boston." The result of this interview with John was, that Benjamin resolved to secure a position in Boston if he could. But when he applied, subsequently, for a situation, each printer declined to employ him. James had been to them, anticipating that he might take this step, and warned them against making any bargain with him. He assured them that he should take legal steps, under the indenture of apprenticeship, to maintain his rights if they employed him. Besides, he told them that Benjamin did not believe the Christian religion, and he had no respect for those who did; that, in short, he was "no better than an atheist." James meant to compel Benjamin to continue to work for him; and he thought if no other printer would hire him, that would end the trouble. But the opposite effect was produced. It determined Benjamin to quit Boston as soon as he could arrange for the change, though he did not make known his decision to his brother. Probably his brother did not dream of his leaving Boston for New York, or any other place. However, Benjamin embraced the first opportunity to announce to him that he should quit. "I am my own man from this time," he cried, holding up his indenture which his brother had returned to him. "This paper makes me free, and I shall take advantage of it to leave you," and he shook the document in James' face. "You know that I never gave up the indenture because I relinquished the bargain we had made. If you use it to assert and establish your freedom, you will be guilty of a mean, contemptible act." "I shall so use it!" and Benjamin was very defiant when he said it. "I have borne your abuse long enough, and I will bear it no longer." "We shall see about that. Father will have a word to say about it, you will find. You are not of age yet." James spoke with remarkable coolness for him, in the circumstances. He probably realized that Benjamin had the advantage of him. "Neither father nor any other man can force me to work for you any longer. You have even been around to other printers, to influence them not to employ me; and you have lied about me, telling them that I am an atheist, and other things as bad." "I told them nothing but the truth," replied James. "You know as well as I do, that you believe Shaftesbury instead of the Bible." "Well, no matter what I believe. I shall not work for you another day. I will resort to the most menial employment for my bread and butter before I will serve a man who will treat his own brother like a slave." And again Benjamin flourished his indenture before the eyes of James, defiantly. It was not fair in Benjamin to take this advantage of his brother, and he knew it; but his resentment triumphed over his regard for right at the time. James returned his indenture only that he might be able to publish the _Courant_ unmolested. It was a deceitful arrangement in the first place, and Benjamin's use of the indenture to assert his liberty was no more unfair and sinful than was James' device to make him the proprietor of the paper, and thus evade the law. James was paid in his own coin. He laid a plan to cheat the government, and he got cheated himself. He was snared in the work of his own hands. This, however, did not justify Benjamin in his course, as he afterwards saw and frankly confessed. In his "Autobiography" he said: "At length, a fresh difference arising between my brother and me, I took upon me to assert my freedom, presuming that he would not venture to produce the new indentures. It was not fair in me to take this advantage, and this I therefore reckon one of the first _errata_ of my life; but the unfairness of it weighed little with me when under the impressions of resentment for the blows his passion too often urged him to bestow upon me, though he was otherwise not an ill-natured man. Perhaps I was too saucy and provoking." There is no doubt that Benjamin erred in the matter. He was by nature headstrong and independent; and, perhaps, he was more self-willed on account of his success in the business. But, after all allowances are made, James must be regarded as the chief offender in the troubles, and on him the responsibility for it rests in a large measure. Benjamin lost no time in reporting his decision to John. "I am going to New York as soon as I can get away," he said. "What do you suppose that fellow has done? He has been around to the other printers and threatened to enforce his claim to my services if they hire me; and he lied about me, also. It is settled that I shall go to New York. I am not going to be banged about any more." "Well, it seems rather necessary for you to go somewhere if you can't get work here," answered John. "But how am I going to get along without you, Ben? Couldn't you turn your hand to something else?" "I could, but I won't. I am fully resolved to quit Boston soon, and I am satisfied that I must leave clandestinely, or I shall not get away." "How is that? Expect that your brother will lay violent hands upon you to prevent?" "I expect that he and father together will prevent my leaving, if possible." "Have you spoken with your father about it?" "No, I have not; nor do I intend to. He sides with James now, and that is enough for me. I shall say nothing to him about the matter." "Perhaps he thinks you will leave Boston if you leave James," suggested John. "He may think that you will clear out and go to sea. He has not forgotten your old hankering for a life on the wave." "Possibly; but I have no desire now to go to sea. I have a trade that I like, and I shall stick to it until I am forced out of it." "How do you propose to get to New York? Got any plans ahead?" "Yes, a plan is all that I have got. It remains to be seen how I can carry it out. I do not think I can accomplish my purpose without your help." "I am at your service now, Ben, as ever before; only I would like to understand just what I can do." "That is what I want to talk with you about. I am not yet clear as to my best way of escape. If I go by land, on foot, they may send officers after me, and overtake me before I get half way there." "Of course it would be poor policy for you to go by land, if you can possibly go by water. There is a New York sloop in the harbor, and no doubt it will return soon." "But how can I get aboard? The captain will want to know who I am, and if he knows that I am a runaway apprentice, he will refuse me a passage." "I can manage that," said John. "I know the captain, and I think I can arrange with him to take you." "Yes, but he will want large pay for it. Of course he will not take me to New York without some money arrangement, and I have precious little money to give him." "You can sell some of your books," suggested John. "You will not take them to New York with you, and you can sell them readily." "That is a good idea, John; I will reduce it to practice at once. I shall not want much money anyway. But suppose the captain is very inquisitive about me, how will you get along with the case? He must be somewhat suspicious when a Boston boy wants to be taken to New York on the sly." "You leave that to me; I have no doubt that I can smuggle you through. He shall not know even that your name is Franklin." "Well, then, I will commit myself to your care. See that you manage adroitly, even if you have to make a package of me for transportation. I am going to New York if I am obliged to walk there." "I will go to see the captain at once, Ben; and I will be back with my report in two hours. Be on hand, and see if I do not make a good bargain for your passage. You always have succeeded, and I think you will succeed now." "Be off, then, in a jiffy, and I will run out to see where I can dispose of my books. I will be back in two hours, and meet you here." They parted, and John hurried away to see the captain. He found him on board his sloop. "Can you take a friend of mine to New York?" he asked. "That depends on circumstances," replied the captain. "Who is your friend? Can't take a pauper or a criminal, you know." "He is neither one nor the other. He is a young man about my age, a printer by trade, and he is going to New York to find work." "Why doesn't he find work in Boston? There are more printers in Boston than there are in New York." "That may be; but he prefers to work in New York. He's tired of Boston." "Perhaps Boston is tired of him--is that so? I want to accommodate, but I don't want to get anybody into trouble, nor get there myself." John saw that there was no evading the captain's questions, and so he resolved to tell the false story he had thought of on his way to the sloop. "Well," said John, "if I must tell you the whole story, the case is this: He is a young fellow who has been flirting with a girl, who wants to marry him, and now her parents are determined that he shall marry her, and he is as determined that he will not; and he proposes to remove secretly to New York. He would have come to see you himself, but his coming might awaken suspicion on the part of some one acquainted with the affair, who might see him and know him. So I came to do the business for him." "He is in a fix, sure," answered the captain; "if there is any man in the world I would help, it is the man who is trying to escape from the girl he don't want to marry. How much will he pay for his passage?" "He will pay your price if it is reasonable. He is not a pauper, though he has not much of a money surplus. He will satisfy you as to that." "Send him along, then; this sloop will sail on Saturday at two o'clock, P.M. He better not come aboard until just before we sail, or somebody may upset his plans, and the girl get him, after all." "All right; he will be here on the mark, and I shall be with him to see him off," answered John, as he turned upon his heels to report his success to Benjamin. A youth who can fabricate a falsehood so unblushingly as John did the foregoing is already on the road to ruin. The reader will not be surprised to learn, before the whole story is told, that he became a miserable, reckless sort of a man. This lie proved that he was destitute of moral principle and would do almost any thing to carry his point. That the captain should have been taken in by such a ruse is inexplicable. But, no doubt, the thought of receiving good pay for his passage led him to receive the passenger. It was so much gain to receive a few dollars from an unexpected source. "The bargain is made, and your passage to New York is assured," exclaimed John to Benjamin, when they met, at the end of two hours. "Have any trouble to accomplish it? You did not awaken his suspicion, did you?" replied Benjamin, evidently relieved of considerable anxiety by the announcement. "No trouble, of course; I did not mean to have any, if lying would prevent it." "Then you had to resort to falsehood to carry your point, did you? How was that, John?" "Well, you see, he questioned me pretty closely, and seemed to be suspicious that you might be a pauper or criminal. He wouldn't want to carry you if you were a pauper, for he would get no pay for it; and he would not carry a criminal, for fear of getting into trouble with the authorities. So I had to originate a little love story, in which you are represented as fleeing from a girl and her parents, who are determined that you shall marry her." "You are more original than I thought you were, John. You might write a novel out of the affair." "Yes; and it would be no worse than half the novels that are written," rejoined John. "I had a plot to get you to New York, and the novel writer often has a plot that is not half so important, nor half so much truth in it." "How soon will the sloop sail?" "Next Saturday, at two o'clock in the afternoon, so you will not have to wait long. You must not go aboard until just before the sloop sails; for the girl might get wind of it, and be after you. The captain will be on the lookout for her; he evidently don't want you to fall into her hands." Benjamin laughed at this way of putting the matter; and, in the circumstances, was not disposed to criticise John's method. But he inquired: "How about the price to be paid for the passage?" "That is left for you and him to adjust," replied John. "I told him that you was not over-burdened with money, but had enough to pay him for your passage. How about your books--can you sell them?" "Yes, and quite as favorably as I had supposed. I see nothing why I shall not be all ready for the sloop on Saturday. I will send my chest of clothes down just before I go myself." "I will be on hand to go to the sloop with you," said John, as they parted, each with a clear understanding as to the future. The plan was carried out to the letter, and Benjamin and John were on their way to the sloop in due time. "Tell no tales out of school," remarked Benjamin. "I prefer that no one should know my whereabouts at present." "They will find out nothing from me; I shall be profoundly ignorant of your movements," answered John. "Perhaps I shall be the most astonished person in Boston over your sudden departure; there's no telling. But I shall want to hear from you, Ben,--can't you write?" "Sha'n't make any pledges. I shall want to hear from you as much as you will from me, and a little more, I guess. For I shall want to hear what is said and done about my unauthorized departure. I suppose that a _runaway_ can not expect many favorable remarks." "Perhaps the _Gazette_ will say that the editor of the _Courant_ has run away," suggested John, in a vein of pleasantry. "There will be considerable more truth in that than I told the captain. It is rather of a singular occurrence, however, Ben, that so popular an editor as you have been should be running away from the editorial chair." By this time the sloop was boarded, and the captain was almost ready to sail. "My friend," said John to the captain, presenting Benjamin. "You will find him good company; he is no fool or knave." "He might be a goner if that girl should be after him before we get under way," suggested the captain. "However, we'll soon be off." "Good luck to you, old friend," said John, as he shook hands with Benjamin. "We shall be nigh each other, though three hundred miles apart." "Good-bye, John; a thousand thanks for what you have done for me," replied Benjamin, with a heavy heart, just beginning to feel that he was going away from home. "Good-bye." Thus they parted, and the sloop sailed for New York. Benjamin avoided conversation with the captain as much as was possible, lest he might ask questions it would be embarrassing to answer. The captain, too, refrained from too much freedom with his youthful passenger, lest he might make it painful for him, now that he was running away from a girl. The sloop was becalmed off Block Island for several hours, when the sailors resorted to catching cod for a pastime, and slapping them down one after another on the deck. "Cruel! Inhumanity!" cried Benjamin, who entertained the singular idea that it was murder to take the life of any harmless creature; and for this reason he would not touch animal food. "What is cruel?" inquired one of the crew. "Taking the life of codfish that never did you any harm." "Pshaw!" exclaimed the captain; "how you goin' to eat 'em before you catch 'em?" "Don't eat them, and then there will be no need of catching them," responded Benjamin. "They are in their native element now; let them stay there, and you keep in yours. They are in as great misery on this deck as you would be down there in the water." "What put such a queer notion as that into your head?" said the captain, who was surprised that a sane man should hold such an opinion. "Don't _you_ eat fish?" "No, nor any other kind of meat; I have not touched a particle for more than two years." "Because you think it is wicked to kill harmless animals of any kind?" remarked another sailor, who had been listening in utter astonishment. "Yes, that is the principal reason, though I do not think that man needs flesh for a diet." "You think that God made beasts, birds, and fish to look at, and not to eat," suggested the captain. "In my opinion, the world would be overrun with dumb animals in time if none were killed for food." "And I think the human family would perish for want of food, if flesh were denied them," added one of the crew. While this conversation was going on, the cook was frying fresh cod, and the sailors were enjoying the odor therefrom. "Don't they smell good?" said one, addressing Benjamin; "I shouldn't want to risk you with one of those fellows if there was no more than I wanted." "I once ate fish, and had a special liking for them, and they smell well enough now in the frying-pan," replied Benjamin. "But I have my own opinions about killing such animals." "I should think you had," responded one of the sailors, laughing; "no one else would ever think of such a thing." Soon the whole crew were eating cod, and in the jolliest manner making remarks at Benjamin's expense. "Look here, my friend," said the cook; "when these fish were opened, I found smaller ones in their stomachs; now, if they can eat one another, I don't see why we can't eat them; do you?" "You must be joking, young man," continued the captain; "better send all such notions adrift and sit down with us to dine on fish; they are splendid." One and another remarked, keeping up a continual fire at Benjamin, with jokes and arguments and ridicule, until he sat down and went to devouring a cod with the rest of them. That was the end of his queer notion about killing fish; it was buried there in the sea; and Benjamin never again resurrected it, but ate what other people did. But the episode furnished sport for the sailors all the way from Block Island to New York, where they arrived in about three days from the time the sloop left Boston. Benjamin did not know a person in the city of New York, nor had he a single letter of recommendation to any one, and the money in his pocket but a trifle. It was in October, 1723, that he arrived in New York, a youth of seventeen years, a runaway in a city, without a solitary acquaintance, and scarcely money enough to pay a week's board! Perhaps, with all the rest, he carried an upbraiding conscience under his jacket, more discomforting than to be a stranger in a strange land. At this crisis of Benjamin's life, he appeared to be on the highway to ruin. There is scarcely one similar case in ten, where the runaway escapes the vortex of degradation. Benjamin would have been no exception, but for his early religious training and his love of books. The case of William Hutton, who was the son of very poor parents, is very similar to that of Benjamin Franklin. He was bound to his uncle for a series of years, but he was treated so harshly that he ran away, at seventeen years of age. The record is, that "on the 12th day of July, 1741, the ill-treatment he received from his uncle in the shape of a brutal flogging, with a birch-broom handle of white hazel, which almost killed him, caused him to run away." A dark prospect was before him, since "he had only twopence in his pocket, a spacious world before him, and no plan of operation." Yet he became an author of much celebrity, and a most exemplary and influential man. He lived to the age of ninety, his last days being gladdened by the reflection of having lived a useful life, and the consciousness of sharing the confidence of his fellow-men. This description of Hutton would apply almost equally well to Franklin. XIX. TRIALS OF A RUNAWAY. On arriving at New York, Benjamin's first thought was of work. His pocket was too near empty to remain idle long; so he called upon Mr. William Bradford, an old printer, who removed from Philadelphia to New York some months before. "Can I find employment in your printing office?" he inquired. "I am not in need of extra help, I am sorry to say," answered Mr. Bradford. "My business is light, and will continue to be so for the present, I think. Are you a printer?" "Yes, sir. I have worked at the business over three years." "Where?" "In Boston." "You ought to understand it well by this time. I wish I had work for you, or for any other young man who is enterprising enough to go from Boston to New York for work." "Do you think I should be likely to find work at some other printing office in town?" "I am sorry to say that I hardly think you can. Very dull times, indeed, my son. But I think you can get work in Philadelphia. My son runs a printing house in that city, and one of his men on whom he relied much recently died. I think he would be glad to employ you." "How far is it to Philadelphia?" "About a hundred miles." "A long distance," was Benjamin's reply, evidently disappointed to find that he was still a hundred miles from work. "It is only one-third as far as you have already traveled for work. If you can find employment by traveling a hundred miles further, in these dull times, you will be fortunate." "Well, I suppose that is so," replied Benjamin, musing on his situation. "What is the conveyance there?" "You can take a boat to Amboy, and there you will find another boat to Philadelphia. A pleasant trip, on the whole." And Mr. Bradford added, for Benjamin's encouragement, "Philadelphia is a better place for a printer than New York, in some respects." Benjamin thanked him for his kindness, expressing much pleasure in making his acquaintance, and bade him good-bye. He took the first boat to Amboy, sending his chest by sea around to Philadelphia. The more he reflected upon his situation, in connection with Mr. Bradford's encouraging words, the more cheerful and hopeful he grew. If he could get work "by going a hundred miles further" he ought to be well satisfied, he said to himself. So he cheered up his almost desponding heart, in Franklin fashion, as he proceeded upon the next hundred miles. But more trials awaited him, however, somewhat different from those already experienced. The boat had been under way but a short time before it was struck by a sudden squall, tearing the rotten sails to pieces, and driving the craft pell-mell upon Long Island. It was the first squall of that sort Benjamin had ever experienced. Other squalls had struck him, and he was fleeing from one at that time, but this squall of wind and rain was altogether a new experience, and he wilted under it. The condition was made more tragic by a drunken Dutchman falling overboard. "Seize him! seize him!" cried the captain; and that was what Benjamin was waiting to do when the miserable fellow should rise to the surface. As soon as he came up from the depths into which he had sunk, Benjamin seized him by the hair of his head and pulled him on board. "There, you fool," exclaimed Benjamin. "I hope that ducking will sober you. You came within sight of eternity that time." "He may thank you for saving his life," remarked one of the boatmen. "He is too drunk for that," replied Benjamin. "He will never know how near he came to his own place. Strange that any man will be so foolish as to drink stuff that will steal away his brains." "Don't you ever drink it?" asked the captain in reply. "Not one drop," his young passenger replied with emphasis, as he rolled over the Dutchman to get the water out of him. "There, are you all right now?" The Dutchman mumbled over something, no one could tell what. It was probably about a book in his jacket; for he took one therefrom, and signified to Benjamin that he wanted it dried; and then he dropped into a sound sleep. "I declare, if it is not my old friend, The Pilgrim's Progress," exclaimed Benjamin; "in Dutch, too! A queer companion for a drunken man to have, though a good one." "Knows more about the bottle than he does about that, I bet," said the captain. "I don't suppose that it makes much difference to him whether he is under the water or on top." "Not just now," replied Benjamin; "but what chance is there for landing on such a rocky shore?" "Not much; we'll drop anchor, and swing out the cable towards the shore," said the captain. "I see men on the shore, and there are boats there; perhaps they can come to our rescue, though the wind is blowing a little too hard for them." The captain hallooed to them, and they returned an answer, but the wind howled so that they could not be understood. "A boat! A boat!" shouted the captain. Others of the crew joined in the call for aid, and made various signs indicating their need of assistance. But neither party could understand the other. "What now?" inquired Benjamin, when he saw the men on shore turning their steps homeward. "A pretty dark night before us." "Yes, dark and perilous, though I have seen a worse one," answered the captain. "When we find ourselves in such a predicament, there is only one thing to be done." "What is that?" asked Benjamin, who was quite nervous and anxious. "Do nothing but wait patiently for the wind to abate." The captain was cool and self-reliant when he spoke. "Then let us turn in with the Dutchman," said one of the boatmen. "I don't want he should have all the sleep there is. He is not in condition to appreciate it as I am." "As you please," said the captain; "might as well improve the time by getting a little rest. We shall be all right in the morning." So all crowded into the hatches, including Benjamin. But the spray broke over the head of the boat so much that the water leaked through upon them. "A wet berth for you, friend," said one of the boatmen to Benjamin. "You are not accustomed to sleeping in such wet blankets. You may get as wet as the Dutchman before morning." "There is only one thing to do in these circumstances," said Benjamin in reply, "take things as they come, and make the best of it." "If you can," added the boatman in a suggestive way. "If _you_ can, I oughter. I've been in this business longer than you have lived." The crew slept soundly; but Benjamin found no rest in such an unusual plight. Sleep was out of the question, and he had all the more time to _think_, and his active mind improved the opportunity, so that Boston, home, the printing office, and his parents were dwelt upon until he began to think he was _paying too dear for the whistle_ again. It is not strange that runaways feel thus, sooner or later, since few of them ever realize their anticipations. The cold, dreary night wore away slowly, and the wind continued to howl, and the breakers to dash and rear, until after the dawn of morning. Benjamin was never more rejoiced to see daylight than he was after that dismal and perilous night. It was the more pleasant to him, because the wind began to abate, and there was a fairer prospect of reaching their destination. As soon as the tumult of the winds and waves had subsided, they weighed anchor, and steered for Amboy, where they arrived just before night, "having been thirty hours on the water without victuals, or any drink but a bottle of filthy rum." In the evening Benjamin found himself feverish, having taken a severe cold by the exposure of the previous night. With a hot head and a heavy heart he retired to rest, first, however, drinking largely of cold water, because he had somewhere read that cold water was good for fever. This was one of the advantages he derived from his early habit of reading. But for his taste for reading, which led him to spend his leisure moments in poring over books, he might never have known this important fact, that, perhaps, saved him a fit of sickness. Availing himself of this knowledge, he drank freely of water before he retired, and the result was a thorough sweating; and he arose in the morning fully restored, so as to continue his journey. A few years ago, a young man was traveling in the state of Maine, soliciting subscribers for a newspaper. On passing a certain farm, he observed some bricks of a peculiar color, and he traced them to their clay-bed, and satisfied himself that the material could be applied to a more valuable purpose than that of making bricks. He at once purchased the farm for fifteen hundred dollars, and, on his return to Boston, sold one-half of it for four thousand dollars. The secret of his success lay in a bit of knowledge he acquired at school. He had given some attention to geology and chemistry, and the little knowledge he had gained therefrom enabled him to discover the nature of the clay on the said farm. Thus even a little knowledge that may be gleaned from a book in a simple leisure half-hour, will sometimes prove the way to a valuable treasure; much more valuable than the farm which the young man purchased. This pecuniary benefit is, after all, the least important advantage derived from reading. The discipline of the mind and heart, and the refined and elevated pleasure which it secures, are far more desirable than any pecuniary advantage gained. A little reading, also, as we have seen, sometimes gives an impulse to the mind in the direction of learning and renown. It was the reading of Echard's Roman History, which Gibbon met with while on a visit to Miltshire, that opened before him the historic path to distinction. Sir Walter Scott warned the young against under valuing the knowledge to be acquired at odd moments by reading and study. He wrote: "If it should ever fall to the lot of youth to peruse these pages, let such readers remember that it is with the deepest regret that I recollect, in my manhood, the opportunities of learning which I neglected in my youth; that through every part of my literary career I have felt pinched and hampered by my own ignorance; and I would this moment give half the reputation I have had the good fortune to acquire, if by so doing I could rest the remaining part upon a sound foundation of learning and science." But we have lost sight of Benjamin. We left him at the "tavern" in Amboy, after having spent the night in a cold-water sweat, about ready to start on his journey. Burlington was fifty miles from Amboy, and there was no public conveyance, so that he was obliged to go on foot, expecting to find a boat there bound for Philadelphia. "Rather a tough day for walking," remarked the landlord, as Benjamin was leaving his house. "Better stay unless your business is driving." "Rain or shine, I must push on," responded Benjamin cheerfully. "I want to be in Philadelphia as soon as possible. Can't melt, as I am neither sugar nor salt." "Well, that is a very encouraging view to take of the situation, and it is a sensible one, too," said the landlord. "There's nothing like taking things as they come." "I have lived long enough to find that out, young as I am," replied Benjamin; "and I expect to find constant use of that spirit in future. Good-bye, sir." "Good luck to you, wherever you go," added the landlord in a friendly tone. Benjamin was wet through before he had traveled a mile, and he began to wish that he had never left Boston; still he hastened on until he reached a "poor inn" about noon. His own description of that day is as follows: "It rained very hard all the day; I was thoroughly soaked, and by noon a good deal tired; so I stopped at a poor inn, where I staid all night, _beginning now to wish I had never left home_. I made so miserable a figure, too, that I found, by the questions asked me, I was suspected to be some runaway indentured servant, and in danger of being taken up on that suspicion." "Where are you from, young man?" "From Boston, sir." "Ah! you are a long way from home for such a youngster. What is your name?" "My name is Benjamin Franklin, and I am going to Philadelphia after work." "No work in Boston, I s'pose, hey? How long since you left?" "About a week. I did not expect to come further this way than New York, but I could find no work there." "No work in New York, hey? What sort of work do you do, that you find it so scarce?" "I am a printer by trade, and I hope to get into a printing office in Philadelphia." "Wall, you are a pretty young one to take such a trip; I should hardly be willing my son should go so far from home, printer or no printer." "I can afford to make such a trip, and even a longer one, if I can find steady work," suggested Benjamin. "Your father and mother living?" "Yes, sir." "How did they feel about your going so far from home?" "A father who loves to work as well as my father does always wants his sons to have enough to do," Benjamin replied, shrewdly evading the close question. "Nothing my father hates so much as idleness." "We all ought to hate it; but many men do not. In these times, can't keep above water without work." The landlord's last words indicated that his suspicions were somewhat allayed. Benjamin managed to answer all the questions of the innkeeper without increasing his suspicions. He ate and slept there, and on the following morning proceeded on his journey, and by night was within eight or ten miles of Burlington. Here he stopped at an inn kept by one Doctor Brown, "an ambulating quack-doctor" and a very social man. "How much further you going?" he inquired of Benjamin. "I am going to Philadelphia." "Where are you from?" "Boston." "Ah! I would like to see Boston; I never did. I have been in South America, England, and some other countries, but I was never in Boston." "It is a good town, and has many educated, intelligent citizens; it is a thriving place," said Benjamin. "I should like to see as much of the world as you have." "I enjoyed it, though my knocking about subjected me to many hardships," replied the doctor. "You would like to see London, and Paris, and Rome; I have seen them all. They are marvellous cities." "I suppose so. My father came from England to Boston less than forty years ago," continued Benjamin. "He enjoys this country more than he did his own." Benjamin had a good time at Doctor Brown's. The latter soon discovered that his youthful guest was very intelligent, so he entered into an account of his travels abroad somewhat in detail to interest him. Benjamin enjoyed the interview very much, and forgot, for the time being, that he was a runaway encountering many hardships. He was sorry to leave him on the next day. "I have enjoyed every minute of my stay here," he said, "and I shall not forget it soon. Perhaps we shall meet again sometime." "I hope we shall. I am glad to make your acquaintance, and I wish you great success. I hope you will become the most successful printer in America. Good-bye." They parted the best of friends, and Benjamin pushed on to Burlington, where he expected to find a boat. In the suburbs of the town he bought some gingerbread of an old woman who kept a shop, and walked on, eating it as he went. To his great disappointment, on reaching the wharf, he found the boat had gone, and there would not be another until Tuesday. It was Saturday, and his money would not hold out if he should get boarded at a hotel till then. What should he do? He was in great trouble about it for a short time, but finally concluded that he would return to the old lady of whom he bought the gingerbread, as he liked her appearance very well, and ask her advice. So back he went. "Ah! back again?" she said, as he entered her shop. "Want more gingerbread?" "No. I was going to take the boat to Philadelphia, but it has gone, and there is not another to go until Tuesday." "Lor', me!" exclaimed the kind-hearted woman; "if that ain't too bad! What kin ye du?" "That is what I want to ask you. Is there any other conveyance to Philadelphia?" "Lor', no; and all ye has to du is to make the best on 't." "And what is that? That is just what I want to know. How can I make the best on 't?" "What ye goin' to Philadelphy for?" she replied, instead of answering his question. "I am going after work. I am a printer, and want to find work in a printing office." "A printer, lor'! Dear me, yer fortin is made to set up business in this 'ere town. There's nothin' of the like here." "I have nothing to set up the business with," said Benjamin. "I would as lief work here as in Philadelphia, if the way was open." The woman did not know what was necessary in establishing a printing house. That types and a press were indispensable articles in such business she did not dream. She thought, doubtless, that he carried all necessary fixtures with him in his pockets. "Lor', then, I'll lodge ye till Tuesday for ----," naming the sum. "I will stay with you, then, and make the best of it," he replied. He found himself in very good quarters, and his hostess proved herself to be very kind and hospitable. He took dinner with her, and remained about the shop until towards night, when he walked forth to view the place. In his walk he came around to the river, and, as he approached it, he discovered a boat with several people in it, and he hailed them: "Whither bound?" "To Philadelphia." "Can you take me in? I was too late for the boat to-day." "Just as well as not," and the boat was turned at once to receive the additional passenger. There was no wind, so that they had to depend upon their oars for progress. Benjamin now had an opportunity to show his skill in rowing which he acquired in his boyhood, in Boston. He was so elated with proceeding on his journey to Philadelphia that he thought neither of the fatigue of rowing nor of the wonder of the old lady in the shop at the unexpected disappearance of her boarder. He did not mean to treat her disrespectfully, for he considered her a very clever woman; but the boat could not wait for him to return and pay the old lady his compliments. Whether she ever learned what became of him, or that he grew up to be Doctor Franklin, the philosopher and statesman, we have no means of knowing. Doubtless she concluded that she had not "entertained an angel unawares," but rather had aided an undeserving fellow in pursuing a vicious course, which was not true. The boat moved on. Benjamin rowed with strong resolution, taking his turn with others, and impressing them by his tact and skill, until midnight, when one of the company said: "We must have passed the city. It can't be that we have been so long getting to it." "That is impossible," answered one of the men; "we must have seen it if we had passed it." "Well, I shall row no more," said the first speaker. "I know that Philadelphia is not so far off as this." "Then, let us put for the shore," said a third, "and find out where we are, if possible." All agreed to the last proposition, and at once rowed towards the shore, entering a small creek, where they landed near an old fence, the rails of which furnished them fuel for a fire. They were very chilly, it being a frosty night of October, and they found the fire very grateful. They remained there till daylight, when one of the company knew that the place was "Cooper's Creek," a few miles above Philadelphia. Immediately they made preparations to continue their journey, which had not been altogether unpleasant, and they were soon in full view of the city, where they arrived between eight and nine o'clock on Sunday morning. They landed at Market-street Wharf. Taking out his money, which consisted of one unbroken dollar and a shilling in copper coin, he offered the latter to the boatman for his passage. "Not a cent, my good fellow! You worked your passage, and did it well, too. You row as if you were an old hand at it. Put your money back in your pocket." "But you _must_ take it," insisted Benjamin. "You are quite welcome to all the rowing I have done. I am glad enough to get here by rowing and paying my passage, too. But for your coming along to take me in, I should have been obliged to stay in Burlington until next Tuesday," and he fairly forced the money upon the boatman. Bidding them good morning, he walked up Market Street. XX. THE WALKING COMEDY. Benjamin was very hungry, and he was considering how he could appease his hunger, when he met a boy who was eating a piece of bread. "That is what I want," he said to the boy; "where did you get that?" "Over there, at the bake-shop," the boy replied, pointing to it. "Thank you," and Benjamin hurried on. He had eaten nothing since he dined with the shop-woman in Burlington, on the day before. Besides, bread was a staple article with him. He had made many a meal of plain bread in his brother's printing office in Boston. Although he knew well which side his bread was buttered, his appetite for unbuttered bread never failed him. Entering the bake-shop, he inquired: "Have you biscuit?" He was thinking of what he had in Boston. "We make nothing of the kind." "Give me a three-penny loaf, then." "We have none." Benjamin began to think he should have to go hungry still, for, evidently, he did not know the names used to designate the different sorts of bread in Philadelphia. But, soon recovering himself, he said: "Then give me three-penny worth of any kind." To his surprise, the baker passed three great puffy rolls to him, enough for three men to eat at one meal. At first, he was puzzled to know what to do with them, whether to take all three or not. "What! All that?" he said, scarcely knowing what he did say. "Yes, there's three-penny worth; that is what you said, was it not?" "It was," and Benjamin paid the money and took the loaves, trying to conceal his surprise, without exposing his ignorance of methods in the Quaker City. He was a boy of remarkable tact, as we have seen, so that he was never put to his wits long without finding a way out. It was so in this case. He put a roll under each arm, and taking the third one in his hand, he proceeded up the street, eating as he went. Recollect that it was Sunday morning, and people were already swarming in the streets, arrayed in their best clothes. Benjamin was clad in his poorest clothes, and they were very shabby. His best suit was in his chest, and that was sent from New York by water. He was a sight to behold as he trudged up Market Street with his three loaves of bread, and his large pockets stuffed with shirts and stockings. He preferred pockets to the usual "bandanna bundle"; they were more convenient for storing away his wardrobe, but contributed largely to his comical appearance. He was a walking comedy. People gazed at him inquiringly and smiled. No doubt, many of them wondered where he came from and where he was going. He was seedy enough, but no one saw the seed of a philosopher or statesman about him. There was no promise in that direction. He was an embryo "Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of France"; but his appearance was that of a shack, or modern tramp, to whom Sunday is like all other days, and whose self-respect is at a large discount. On he went, however, regardless of opinions concerning the figure he cut, stowing away in his stomach the baker's loaf in his hand. He passed by the residence of one Mr. Read, whose daughter, in her teens, Miss Deborah Read, was standing at the door. She gazed in wonder at the singular specimen of humanity passing before her; thought he was the most awkward and comical creature in the form of a man she had ever seen; and turned away with a laugh to tell her people in the house of the queer spectacle. She little thought that she was taking a bird's eye view of her future husband, as the young man with the rolls under his arms turned out to be. But just then he cared more for bread than he did for her; some years thereafter, the case was reversed, and he cared more for her than he did for bread. He turned down Chestnut Street, and walked on until he came round to the wharf where he landed. Being thirsty, he went to the boat for water, where he found the woman and child, who came down the river with them on the previous night, waiting to go further. "Are you hungry?" he said to the little one, who looked wistfully at the bread. "We are both very hungry," replied the mother quickly for herself and child. "Well, I have satisfied my hunger with one loaf, and you may have the other two if you want them"; and Benjamin passed the two rolls under his arms to her. "It appears that, in Philadelphia, three-penny worth of bread is three times as much as a man can eat. If other things can be had in the same proportion, the last dollar I have left will go a great way." "I thank you a thousand times; you are very kind indeed," responded the woman, with a heart overflowing with gratitude, which was as good pay for the bread as Benjamin wanted. "May you never want for bread." "No one would want for bread if they who have it will divide with those who have none, as they should." In the last reply was incorporated a leading virtue of Benjamin's character--a trait that manifested itself, as we shall see, all through his life. His generosity was equal to his wisdom. An American statesman said of him, in a eulogy delivered in Boston: "No form of personal suffering or social evil escaped his attention, or appealed in vain for such relief or remedy as his prudence could suggest, or his purse supply. From that day of his early youth, when, a wanderer from his home and friends in a strange place, he was seen sharing the rolls with a poor woman and child, to the last act of his public life, when he signed that well-known memorial to Congress, a spirit of earnest and practical benevolence runs like a golden thread along his whole career." "I must be after finding a boarding place," said Benjamin to the owner of the boat, as he was about leaving. "I do not know where to go any more than the man in the moon. Are you acquainted here?" "Scarcely at all; could not be of any service to you any way on that line," the owner answered. "Goin' to stop some time in Philadelphy?" "I am going to live here if I can find work, as I expect to, and become a citizen of this town." "Wall, you'll make a good one, I know. May you never have reason to repent of your choice. Goodbye." "Good-bye"; and Benjamin walked up the street again. The people were on their way to meeting, so that he was reminded of divine worship, which he had partially forsaken in Boston. Being very tired, in consequence of a hard time on the boat and a wakeful night, he concluded to follow the people to church. They entered a large old-fashioned meeting-house, and he followed them and took a seat near the door. His appearance attracted much attention, as his dress was not exactly that of a Quaker, and otherwise he was not quite of the Quaker type; and it was a Quaker church in which he was. But he wasted no thoughts upon his apparel, and did not stop to think or care whether he was arrayed in shoddy or fine linen. Whether he did not know that he was in a Quaker congregation, or knowing that fact, was ignorant of the Quaker worship, does not appear; but he waited for something to be said. While waiting for this, he dropped into a sound sleep, and slept through the entire service, and would have slept on, and been fastened into the meeting-house, had not the sexton discovered him. "Hulloo, stranger! Meeting's over; going to shut up the house," shouted the sexton, shaking the sleeper thoroughly. "I was very tired," responded Benjamin, trying to get his eyes open. "I was on the boat last night and got no sleep." "Where did you come from?" "Boston; I came here for work." "Well, Philadelphy is a great place for work; what sort of work do you want?" "I am a printer by trade, and hope to find work in a printing office." "And I hope you will. Sorry to disturb your nap, but I have to lock up the house." Benjamin thanked the sexton for waking him instead of locking him in, and went out into the street. He had not proceeded far before he met a Quaker whose face indicated a man of amiable and generous heart, and Benjamin ventured to speak to him. "I am a stranger in this town; arrived here this morning; can you tell me where I can get a night's lodging?" "Certainly I can; I suppose thee wants a respectable place." The gentleman spoke so kindly as to draw Benjamin to him at once. "Yes, sir; but not an expensive one; my purse will not permit of any extra expense." "Thee going to remain here some time?" "Permanently, if I can get work; I am a printer by trade." "I wish thee success," added the Quaker. "But here we are close by the 'Three Mariners'; but it is not exactly a reputable house, and thee wants a better one." "Yes; I want one that has a good reputation if there is such a one," said Benjamin. "Well, if thee will follow me, I will show thee a better one; it is not far away." Benjamin followed him into Water Street, where he pointed out a public house. "There's the 'Crooked Billet,'" said the Quaker, "a tavern that is reputable, where thee can find board and lodgings for a day or a year." "Thank you, sir, for your kindness," said Benjamin; "I shall not forget you. May every body be as friendly to you as you have been to me." At the same time, Benjamin thought it was a very queer name for a public house. He did not like either part of it, and he said to himself, "'Crooked Billet'!--crookedness and a cudgel to strike down the turbulent with, are suggested." The name did not suggest any thing pleasant to him. But he went in, and engaged lodging and board until Monday. "Where are you from?" asked the landlord, scanning him from head to foot. "I am from Boston." "Boston, hey? How long have you been on the way?" "Two weeks." "Got friends in Philadelphia?" "Not one; all strangers to me." "What did you come here for?" "I came to secure work in a printing office. I am a printer by trade." "How old are you?" "Seventeen." "And came all the way from Boston alone?" "Yes, sir." Benjamin saw by this time that the landlord suspected him of being a runaway apprentice. This class of characters was large at that day, for apprentices were often subjected to cruelty that made them runaways. So he closed the conversation as soon as possible and went to his room, where he slept until six o'clock, when he was called to supper. Not long after supper he went to bed and slept soundly until morning. He arose early, took special pains to make himself as presentable as possible, paid his bill without waiting for breakfast, perhaps because he was reducing his cash so nearly to the last cent, and sallied forth in search of Mr. Bradford. He experienced no trouble in finding the printing office; but was very much surprised to find Mr. Bradford of New York there, father of the young printer Bradford of Philadelphia, to whom the father sent him. "Glad to see you, my young friend. I got here first, after all, as you see," remarked Mr. Bradford, the father, as he welcomed Benjamin with a hearty shake of the hand. "Had any ill-luck on your way?" "Not exactly bad luck, for I considered myself quite lucky to get here at all; but a slow, tedious trip, with delays and storms and disappointments most of the time," was Benjamin's answer, and he entered somewhat into details. "Well, you are here, and I am glad to meet you; and, now, you want work." Then, turning to his son, Mr. Bradford continued: "My son, let me introduce this young man to you. He is a printer by trade, from Boston, in search of work: Benjamin Franklin. He called upon me in New York, and I advised him to come to you, knowing that your leading printer had died." The young printer and the runaway were soon acquainted,--young Bradford being as genial and friendly as the senior. "I regret that I have no work for you now. I have filled the place made vacant by the death of Bolder." "There is another printer here, is there not?" asked the senior Bradford. "Yes, Keimer; it is possible he may want a man. But it is breakfast time now; let us all go to breakfast, and then we'll see what can be done." Benjamin was invited to breakfast with them, and there learned that Mr. Bradford of New York came all the way on horseback, starting very unexpectedly the next day after Benjamin left New York. He was somewhat surprised, also, to learn that Philadelphia had only seven thousand inhabitants at that time--five thousand less than Boston. "I will go with you to see Mr. Keimer," said the senior Bradford, after breakfast. "Perhaps I may be of service to you." "I shall feel myself under great obligations to you if you will," answered Benjamin. "It is quite necessary that I should get work, as my money is nearly gone." "We can fix that, I think," said young Bradford. "I may be able to give you a little something to do, if Keimer don't want you, so that you won't starve. You can lodge at my house." "Thanks," replied Benjamin. "I appreciate your kindness, and hope to be able to make some return for it in the future. I am sorry not to appear before you in more respectable apparel, but my chest of clothes comes by water from New York, and I have not received it yet." "Clothes don't make the man," responded the elder Bradford, who had discovered a remarkably bright and intelligent youth in Benjamin. "Brains take the precedence of clothes in New York and Philadelphia." Benjamin found himself among good friends, so he cheerfully accepted their counsel. The senior Bradford accompanied him to Keimer's. "Neighbor," said Bradford, "I have brought to you a young man from Boston, a printer by trade; he is after work. Perhaps you can employ him." "That depends on his qualifications," answered Mr. Keimer. "I want some one who is acquainted with the business." "You will find him all right, I think; he appears to know what he is about." "How long have you worked at the business?" inquired Keimer, turning to Benjamin. "Over three years." "Do you understand all parts of it so that you can go on with it?" "Yes, I think I do; you can ascertain by trying me." "Take this composing-stick and try your hand; let me see what you can do." Benjamin proceeded to give an exhibition of his skill at type-setting, which he did so rapidly and easily that Keimer was delighted. "Very well done, indeed. I think you told the truth; you must have had considerable experience. I will employ you as soon as I have sufficient work. At present, I have nothing for you to do." "It is not often, Mr. Keimer, that you have the opportunity to employ a skilled hand like this young man," suggested Bradford. "If you could give him enough to do to pay his board, until you are full of work, it may be for your interest and his, too." "That is true. I am at work now upon this Elegy on Aquila Rose, who was clerk of the Pennsylvania Legislature; and I may want him to print it. I shall have it ready in three or four days. I am expecting other work soon, also." "You can return to my son's house to eat and sleep," said Mr. Bradford to Benjamin. "I think Mr. Keimer will want you before long. He expects to have business." "What do you think of my prospects here, sir?" inquired Keimer of Mr. Bradford, supposing him to be a citizen of Philadelphia. "I have hardly got under way yet; it is only a few weeks since I began." "That will depend upon your own exertions and business talents. Philadelphia is a growing town, where industry and perseverance will do wonders." "I shall do all in my power to draw the business of the town; and I think I can do it by industry and giving first-class work." "How can you expect to get all the business when there is another printer here, who has been established some time?" Keimer answered the last inquiry by disclosing his plans, as Bradford artfully drew him out on every point, until he learned how he was calculating to command all the business, and run his son out of it. Nor did Keimer dream that he was conversing with the father of the other printer, whom he designed to deprive of his livelihood. All the while Benjamin stood and listened to their conversation, perceiving that Bradford was shrewdly learning Keimer's plans for the benefit of his son. "You did not know that man, did you?" inquired Benjamin, after Bradford left. "No; but I concluded he was some business man of the town, who would be interested to see a printing office successful, and so took pains to introduce you to me." "Then you will be surprised to learn who he is, when I tell you. That was the father of Andrew Bradford, your neighbor, the printer. He carries on printing in New York." "Can that be?" exclaimed Keimer, astonished over the bit of news, and startled at the thought of having made known his plans to a competitor. "Yes, it is even so. That was Mr. Bradford, the New York printer, father of Andrew Bradford, the printer of your town; and not his apparition." "How in the world did he happen to come here with you?" "I can tell you in a few words," replied Benjamin. "I called on him for work in New York, and he directed me to his son here, who had just lost a good hand by death. Very unexpectedly, on the next day, he started for Philadelphia on horseback, and, when I called upon his son, this morning, I found him there. His son had just hired a man; and so he directed me to you, and his father offered to come and introduce me." "Well, all that is natural enough, but it is pretty hard on me," answered Keimer. "If I had known that was Bradford's father, I should have kept my mouth shut, of course." "You opened it pretty wide to him, and he took advantage of it, as most men will do. But I guess no harm is done. He and his son both appear to be friendly to you; they would not have proposed that I should come here for work, if they had not been." "That looks so, I must confess," said Keimer; "but I have learned one good lesson from it: never to divulge secrets to a stranger. When I do that again I shall not be in my right mind. But I wanted to ask you about your Boston experience in a printing office; what office was you in?" "My brother's, James Franklin. He published a paper, the _New England Courant_. He did a large business." "Yes, our paper here gave some account of it. The editor had some trouble with the Government, did he not?" "Yes, and a serious trouble it was. He believed in the freedom of the press, and the officials did not; so there was a collision. He determined to fight the censorship of the press, and he was imprisoned for it. Then I edited and published the paper in my own name." "You run it!" exclaimed Keimer in a tone of wonder and unbelief. "Yes, I run it,--without letting up one jot in attacking the intolerant Government. It was a hot contest, but the common people, true Americans, rallied to our support, and left the aristocratic officials to toady to the English Government." "A new order of things when a boy edits and publishes a paper in a straight fight with Great Britain," was all that Keimer said, in reply, evidently not believing a word of Benjamin's story about the _Courant_. However, the more he talked with the new comer, the more he was impressed with his intelligence and manly character. He found that his clothes were the poorest part of him, that underneath his shabby garments there dwelt a soul of large possessions and aspirations. Benjamin learned at Keimer's office what a blessing it was to him to have practised _doing things well_. Thoroughness in learning the printer's art, as well as in studying the use of language and composition, characterized him in Boston, as we have seen. Now he was reaping the benefits of it. He handled the composing-stick so dexterously, and answered every question so intelligently and promptly, that Keimer saw at once he was really an expert. Many boys are satisfied if they can only "pass muster." Their ambition rises no higher than that. But not so with Benjamin. He sought to understand the business to which he attended, and to do as well as possible the work he undertook. The consequence was that he was a thorough workman, and, in five minutes, he was able to satisfy Keimer of the fact. This was greatly in his favor; and such a young man is never long out of business. Doctor Johnson said, "What is worth doing at all, is worth doing well." Samuel Budgett said, "In whatever calling a man is found, he ought to strive to be the best in that calling; if only a shoe-black, he should try to be the best shoe-black in the neighborhood." Budgett conducted his immense business, in which he employed six hundred men, on this principle. When a boy was introduced into his warehouse he was set to straightening old nails. If he straightened nails well, he was promoted to bag-mending; if he did not do it well, he was dismissed. The thorough nail-straightener and bag-mender moved upwards into larger and higher fields of work; and so the great English merchant could boast of having the most efficient and faithful class of employes in the British realm. Training them to do their best did it. James Parton said to David Maydole, inventor of the modern hammer and manufacturer of the best hammers in the world, "By this time you ought to be able to make a pretty good hammer." Maydole replied, "No, I can't. I can't make a pretty good hammer, I make the best that's made." Once a party applied for several hammers, to whom Maydole was indebted for some favor, and the party said to him, "You ought to make my hammer a little better than the others." Maydole responded, "I can't make any better ones. When I make a thing, I make it as well as I can, no matter whom it is for." Doing his best every time led him on to fortune. He never pushed his business. He never advertised. Making the best hammer in the market created all the business he wanted. XXI. GETTING ON. "Your press is rather dilapidated, I see," remarked Benjamin to Mr. Keimer, after he had looked it over. "Second-hand, I conclude?" "Yes, I had to buy what I could get cheap, as I had little money to begin with. I guess it can be fixed up to answer my purpose." "That is so; it can be improved very much with little expense," replied Benjamin. "Do you understand a printing press well enough to repair it?" "I can repair that one well enough; I see what is wanted. You can't do good work with it as it is," Benjamin answered. "Then I can employ you at once, and you may go right about putting it in order if you please." "I will do it," Benjamin replied in his emphatic way. "It is not a long job, by any means." "Perhaps you will have it done by the time I get the Elegy set up, and then you may print it." Keimer's interest was deepening since he found that the Boston printer-boy could repair a printing press. He was getting more than he bargained for. Benjamin went to work upon the old press, saying "I may as well go about it at once, and work till dinner time. Mr. Bradford will expect me back then; but I will keep at it until it is done." "Well, I hope you will not expose any secrets as I did," remarked Mr. Keimer, humorously. "Old Bradford will be on the lookout for capital, no doubt. See that he don't make as much out of you as he did out of me." Benjamin met the Bradfords, senior and junior, at the dinner table, where they gave him a cordial welcome. "How does Philadelphia compare with Boston?" inquired the senior Bradford of him. "It is smaller, and I can't tell yet whether it is duller or not. When I have been here a week I can tell more about it." "And what are your prospects at Keimer's?" inquired the junior Bradford. "Well, I have begun to repair his old press. It is a dilapidated affair, and I told him that I could improve it very much." "Do you understand that part of the business?" "I understand it sufficiently to make what repairs that machine requires just now." "Then you can probably do some repairs for me," said the junior Bradford "My press needs some tutoring." "I shall be happy to be its tutor," replied Benjamin, with a smile. "I shall finish Keimer's to-morrow, and then I will take yours in hand. I shall be glad to do something to repay you for your kindness." "You must have had good school advantages in Boston," remarked the elder Bradford to him. "Your conversation indicates that you are well-read and well-informed." "But I am not indebted to the schools for it; I never went to school but two years in my life. But I have studied and read as much as any body of my age, in leisure hours and nights; and I have written more for the press, probably, than any one of my age in Boston." This last remark caused the Bradfords to look at each other with wonder for a moment. But the senior broke the silence by saying: "You write for the press? How is that?" His astonishment charged his questions with peculiar emphasis. "Yes, sir; I wrote much for nearly a year for the _New England Courant_, one of the newspapers in Boston." "And only seventeen years old now?" "I was only sixteen when I wrote the most." That was as far as Benjamin dared to disclose his history, lest he might make trouble for himself. He had disclosed enough, however, to set his host to thinking. Neither of the Bradfords really believed his story about his writing for the press; and yet there was something about him, composed of intelligence, refinement, and manliness, that impressed them. The more they conversed with him, the more were they satisfied that he was an uncommon youth. While that conviction awakened their curiosity to know more of his history, it served, also, to cause them to respect his boy-manhood, and so not to ply him with too many or close questions. Thus Benjamin escaped the necessity of exposing the objectionable part of his career, and left his good friends wondering over the mysterious young printer they were befriending. Benjamin repaired Keimer's press, and then attended to Bradford's, before the Elegy was ready to be printed. By that time, Keimer had engaged to print a pamphlet and do some other small jobs, so that he needed Benjamin's services all the time. "I shall want you right along, now, I think; but you must change your boarding-place. I don't want you should board with a man who knows so much about my business." And Keimer laughed as he made this last remark. "Of course, I shall change. I only intended to stay there until I got work. Mr. Bradford kindly invited me to stay there till I found a place, and I shall not take any advantage of his generosity. I shall always be grateful to him for it." "He was a good friend to you, a stranger," continued Keimer, "and I would have you appreciate his friendship; but, in the circumstances, I think another boarding-place is best." "And now I can make a more respectable appearance," responded Benjamin; "for my chest of clothes has come." "The man who owns this building lives a short distance away, and I am thinking I can get you boarded there; it will be a good place," added Mr. Keimer. "As you please; I can make myself at home any where. I am not used to much style and luxury." "His name is Read, and he has an interesting daughter of eighteen, which may be some attraction to you." The last remark was intended more for pleasantry than any thing. "Work will have to be the chief attraction for me, whose fortune is reduced to the last shilling," responded Benjamin. "It takes money to pay respectful attention to young ladies; and, besides, my _forte_ does not lie in that direction." The result was, that he went to board at Mr. Read's, the father of the young lady who stood in the door when he passed on Sunday morning with a roll of bread under each arm. His appearance was much improved by this time, so that even Miss Read saw that he was an intelligent, promising young man. Benjamin received good wages, attended closely to his work, improved his leisure moments by reading and study, as he did in Boston, and spent his evenings in systematic mental culture. "You appear to be fond of books," said Mr. Read to him. "I think you must have enjoyed good advantages at home. Where is your home?" "Boston. I was born there seventeen years ago." "Only seventeen! I supposed you were older. Your parents living?" "Yes, both of them, as good people as there are in Boston." "Got brothers and sisters?" "Plenty of them. I am the fifteenth child, and have two sisters younger than I am; only one of the whole number is dead." "You surprise me; yours must have been the largest family in Boston," continued Mr. Read. "I am sure we have no family as large as that in Philadelphia. Your father ought to be worth some money to provide for such a family." "He is not, he is a poor man; so poor that he kept me in school less than two years. I went into the shop to work with him when I was ten years old, and have not been to school since. All my brothers were apprenticed at ten or twelve years of age. I was a printer's apprentice at twelve years of age." "And what was your father's business, if I may be permitted to ask? Your story is a very interesting one, and I want to know more about it." "My father is a tallow-chandler. He emigrated to Boston in 1685, from Banbury, England, where he worked at the trade of a dyer. There was no room for that business in Boston, so he took up the business of candle-making." "But you did not work at the candle business long, if you became a printer at twelve?" "No; I disliked the business so thoroughly that I was ready to engage in almost any thing if I could get out of that. The printer's trade has afforded me excellent opportunities for reading and study, and I like it." "Well, printers are generally an intelligent class, and their pursuit is highly respected. One of our printers in Philadelphia is an ignorant man, and not very familiar with the business." "I found that out some time ago," answered Benjamin; "and ignorance is a great drawback to a person in any business whatever. There is no need of a man being ignorant, so long as he can command fragments of time to read and study. What I call my leisure hours are my most profitable and enjoyable hours." Mr. Read had already concluded that Benjamin was never so happy as when he had a book in his hand, or was with some intelligent companion conversing upon a useful topic. He had formed a high estimate of his talents and character in the few weeks he had been a boarder at his house. He saw in him a rising young man, and predicted for him a remarkable career. His daughter, too, was as favorably impressed by acquaintance with him. She learned that he was the youth, who cut such a comical figure on the street, eating his roll of bread, on a Sunday morning a short time before, and she could scarcely believe her eyes. The transformation in him was almost too great for belief. That such a shack in appearance should turn out to be the brightest and best-informed young man who ever boarded at her father's, was an impressive fact. She was gratified at his appearance, and enjoyed conversation with him. Benjamin was well pleased with his boarding-place, and enjoyed himself with the family; especially with the daughter, who was rather a graceful, good-looking, bright girl. Several young men, also, boarded there, whom he made companions. These, with others, whose acquaintance he made within three or four months, became the source of so much pleasure to him that he fast became weaned from Boston. As soon as Benjamin was fairly settled in business, he wrote to his old friend, John Collins, of Boston, giving him a full account of his trip to Philadelphia, his trials and successes, and closing by charging him with secrecy as to his whereabouts. He had given such unjustifiable scope to his resentment of his brother's harsh treatment, and his father's final endorsement of that brother, that he did not stop to think of the sorrow he was bringing upon his parents by his wayward course. For the time being, his filial affection appeared to be sacrificed to his revengeful spirit. At that time, the printer's trade ranked higher, in public estimation, than any other mechanical business. All editors in the country were printers, and most of the printers were better educated than any other artisans; hence their social standing was higher. On this account, a talented and brilliant boy like Benjamin took a high rank at once, and readily found access to the respect and confidence of all who made his acquaintance. In due time, Benjamin received a letter from Collins, detailing the excitement that followed his sudden disappearance from Boston, what was said, the sorrow among his friends over his disgraceful exit, how his brother was getting on, and many other matters about which he was glad to hear. The letter closed by assuring him that no person in Boston was apparently so ignorant of the runaway's whereabouts as himself, from which he inferred that Collins was keeping the secret well. While Benjamin was flattering himself that his friends were entirely ignorant of his place of residence, except John Collins, his brother-in-law, Robert Homes, "master of a sloop that traded between Boston and Delaware," was at Newcastle, forty miles from Philadelphia. There he met a citizen of the latter place, of whom he made inquiries as to the business of the town. Among other things, he said: "A young printer from Boston has settled there recently, who ranks high as a workman and as a talented young man." "Do you know his name?" inquired Captain Homes, startled by the revelation. "Benjamin Franklin." With an effort to conceal his surprise and interest, he asked: "For whom does he work?" "For Mr. Keimer, our new printer." "Are you acquainted with him?" "Not particularly; I have met him." "Is he a young man of standing and good habits?" "He is. It is said that he is very talented, and that he wrote for the press in Boston before he came to Philadelphia." "Is that so?" responded the captain, to conceal that he was any acquaintance of his. "Yes; and, as a matter of course, such a young man is much thought of. He is not set up at all, but appears to be modest and unassuming. He is very much liked by all." "Do you think he means to make Philadelphia his home in the future?" "That is what he intends, as I understand it." In this way, Captain Homes gained whatever information he wanted, without disclosing that Benjamin Franklin was his brother-in-law. Then he embraced the first opportunity to write and forward to him the following letter from Newcastle: "DEAR BROTHER,--I have just learned from a citizen of Philadelphia that you reside in that town. It is the first knowledge that any of us have had of your whereabouts since you ran away from Boston. You can have no idea of the sorrow you caused the family by your unwise and thoughtless act. It well-nigh broke your mother's heart, and added several years to your father's appearance. But I write to advise and entreat you to return to Boston. I am confident that your parents, and all other friends, will receive you with open arms, forgetting the past in their joy over your presence. They do not know even that you are alive; and your return will be to them as one risen from the dead. I trust that this letter will find you well, and disposed to heed my advice, and go back to Boston. It will be the best thing for you and the whole family. Let me hear from you; direct your letter to this place; if sent at once it will reach me here. "Yours affectionately, "ROBERT HOMES." The reader may very properly infer that Benjamin was taken by surprise by this letter. Now his friends would know where he was. How did Captain Homes discover his place of residence? This question kept uppermost in his mind. His letter did not tell. Benjamin pondered the matter through the day, and finally resolved to answer it squarely and promptly in the evening. That night he wrote the following: "CAPTAIN ROBERT HOMES: "_Dear Brother_,--I received your letter to-day, and it was a genuine surprise to me. How in the world you discovered my whereabouts is a mystery to me; but it is all well and will turn out for the best, no doubt. To answer your letter affords me an opportunity to state exactly the cause of my sudden departure from Boston, which I do not think you understand. The sole cause of my leaving was the unjust and harsh treatment of James. Instead of seeing in me a brother, he saw only an apprentice, indentured to him until I was twenty-one, over whom he held the iron rod of a master, and from whom he expected the most servile obedience. At times I may have been saucy and provoking, but it was when I was receiving more than flesh and blood could bear. For, in letting loose his violent temper, he not only lashed me unmercifully with his tongue, but he resorted to blows; and you ought to know enough of the Franklins by this time to understand that no one of them would submit to such oppression. Then, to cap the climax, father, who had always sided with me whenever our difficulties were laid before him, now gave his decision, for some reason, in favor of James. That was the last straw on the camel's back. Nothing but harsh treatment by a master, who asserted his rights under the law, awaited me. To remain was to be trod upon, and suffer, and become a slave instead of a man. To leave was impossible, unless I left clandestinely. For many days a mighty contest was waged in my soul between love of home and escape from a bondage as bad as Negro slavery. "After all I had done for James, in his great trouble with the Government, that he should treat me, his own brother, as a menial to be abused, seemed hard indeed. Under such a burden of trial, scarcely knowing whither to look for a friend, I resolved to escape, and I do not now regret the step. I knew that I should be misjudged--that I should be called a runaway, and thought to be on the road to ruin. But I am not. I mean to make the most of myself possible. I am now among good friends, who kindly second all my efforts at self-improvement, and my business prospects were never so good. If industry, economy, temperance, honesty, and perseverance will win, then I shall win; you may be sure of that. "Yours affectionately, "BENJAMIN." Captain Homes was a strong, good man, used to roughing it in a seafaring life; but when he read Benjamin's letter, tears stood in his eyes, and his lips quivered with emotion, as his great heart went out in sympathy for his wife's young brother. "Read that letter," he said to Governor Keith, who was present, "and then I will tell you about the author of it." Governor Keith read it, with moistened eyes, although he was a stranger to the writer and his romantic history. "A touching letter," he remarked, returning it to the captain. "The author of it is my wife's youngest brother, only a boy now." "How old?" inquired the governor. "Only seventeen." "Indeed, he must be a remarkable boy." "He is. The most gifted boy ever raised in Boston." "Then he ran away from Boston?" "Yes; his father's family is a prominent one in the city, and the eldest son is a printer, to whom this youngest son was apprenticed." "I see now," responded the governor. "That explains the letter. And he is settled now in Philadelphia?" "He is. I accidentally learned where he was, a few days ago, and wrote to him; and this letter is his answer. Let me tell you more about him." And the captain rehearsed his connection with the _Courant_, as correspondent and editor, dwelling upon his ability and power as an independent thinker, capable of canvassing and writing upon almost any public question. "Remarkable, for one so young!" exclaimed the governor, after listening to the detailed account. "Such a young man should be encouraged in his business." "So I think," responded the captain. "His letter has opened my eyes, and I see now that he had good reason to run away. I believe that he will make his mark, live where he may." "Of course he will," replied the governor. "His success is certain, only give him a chance. I will assist him to establish a printing house of his own in Philadelphia, and he shall have the government printing to do." "He is abundantly qualified to do it, and I think any aid of that sort you can give him will be for your interest as well as his. He is reliable and will do his best." The captain said this in the honesty of his heart, having a strong desire to see Benjamin rise. "We have two printing houses in Philadelphia now; but they are poor affairs," continued the governor. "Neither proprietor understands his business, and one of them is very ignorant. I think that this young man would take the lead at once." "I think that I can secure the government printing of Delaware for him," interrupted Colonel French, of Newcastle, who had listened to the conversation with the deepest interest. "Captain Homes, I will see your brother-in-law as soon as I return to Philadelphia," added Governor Keith. "We must not let such a young man be buried up in a one-horse printing house." "I am going to Philadelphia with the governor," interjected Colonel French, "and I will accompany him to see the young man." "I thank you both very much, and I think that neither of you will ever regret your decision." Captain Homes spoke so warmly and approvingly that both governor and colonel felt reassured as they separated. The foregoing discloses two good traits of Benjamin's character, which the reader may consider with profit. First, he must have been very observing. He understood the construction of a printing-press so well, that he could put an old one into running order, young as he was, when its proprietor was unable to do it. This is more remarkable, because he was not obliged to study the mechanism of a printing-press in order to work it. Many persons operate machines without understanding their construction at all. But a class of minds are never satisfied until they understand whatever commands their attention. They are inquisitive, and wish to know the philosophy of things. It was so with Benjamin; and this quality proved a valuable element of his success. It was the secret of his discoveries and inventions in his manhood, as we shall see, just as it was with Stephenson. As soon as he was appointed plugman of an engine, at seventeen years of age, he began to study its construction. In his leisure hours, he took it to pieces, and put it together again several times, in order to understand it. In the second place, Benjamin was not proud. "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." He never came under this condemnation. A sight of him passing up Market Street, with a loaf of bread under each arm, while devouring the third one in his hand, in apparel that was less comely than that of many modern tramps, is proof that pride had no dominion over him. Many boys of seventeen, in such poverty and apparel, would have avoided a public street, and even a Quaker meetinghouse. But these were small matters to Benjamin. He was thinking of greater things--employment and a livelihood. He had a destiny to work out, and in working that he must do as he could, and not as he would. He cared not for the laughs and jeers of those who could dress better and live more sumptuously than himself, since it was absolutely necessary for him to dress as he did in order "to make his ends meet." He might have followed the example of some young men, and incurred a debt, in order "to cut a dash," but he believed then, as he wrote afterwards, that "lying rides on debt's back," and that it is "better to go to bed supperless than to rise in debt"; or, as he expressed himself in other maxims, "Those have a short Lent who owe money to be paid at Easter," and "It is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel." XXII. GOING UP HIGHER. Not many days after Benjamin replied to the letter of Captain Homes, an unusual scene transpired at Keimer's office. "There's Governor Keith on the other side of the street," said Keimer to Benjamin, as they stood looking out of the window. "That tall man with a gentleman walking with him." "I see," replied Benjamin. "I should think they were coming here." "Sure enough, they are crossing the street; they must be coming here; I wonder what for." And Keimer ran down stairs to meet them before the last words, as above, were off his lips. He supposed, of course, that they were coming to see him. He met them politely at the door, for it was not every day that he had the privilege of welcoming a governor to his printing office, but was somewhat taken aback when the governor inquired: "Does Benjamin Franklin work here?" "He does; do you wish to see him?" Keimer was almost bewildered when he answered. "What can the governor want of that boy?" he thought. "Can I see him?" "Certainly, walk in." They walked in and took seats. Benjamin was called. "This is the young man you wanted to see," said Keimer, introducing him. "Governor Keith, Benjamin." "I am very happy to make your acquaintance," responded the governor." I met your brother-in-law, Captain Homes, at Newcastle, the other day, and I promised to call and see you. And this is Colonel French, of Newcastle, who, also, promised Captain Homes to call with me," introducing the colonel. Benjamin was too much astonished to feel at ease. He would not have been so amazed if an officer from Boston had called to arrest him as a runaway. What the governor of Pennsylvania could want of him was beyond his wildest dreams. "If Mr. Keimer can spare you a short time, we would like you to go with us for an interview, as we promised Captain Homes," added the governor. "I am at your service," Benjamin replied, collecting his scattered and wondering thoughts. "Mr. Keimer can spare me, no doubt." Within a few minutes, he was with the governor and Colonel French at a tavern on the corner of Third Street, in a room by themselves. "I am very glad to meet a young man of your abilities," remarked the governor, "and I want to talk with you about setting up the printing business for yourself in this town. Captain Homes told me of your experience and ability, on this and other lines, and I am sure that you can start a printing house of your own, and make a success of it." "But I have nothing to start such a business with. It requires capital." "True, very true; but I think we can arrange that. Perhaps your father could give you a start, judging from what Captain Homes says." "I suppose that he might if he was so disposed; but I doubt whether he would do it." Benjamin was querying, as he spoke, whether Captain Homes had disclosed the fact of his being a runaway. "I can write a letter to him, setting before him the excellent opportunity for a printer here who understands the business as you do, and advise him to render you aid." The governor did not hint that he knew about his leaving home clandestinely. "That is very kind on your part; but is it not true, that two printing houses are as many as this town can support well?" "It would be if they were first-class; but they are not. The proprietors do not understand their business; they have poor equipments, too; and their outfit does not enable them to do first-class work." "The governor will see that you have the government printing of Pennsylvania to do," suggested Colonel French; "and I have no question that I can secure the government printing of Delaware for you, also. This will give you patronage as well as business." "I thank you both very much for your kindness and confidence; and I should like nothing better than to have a printing house of my own." "How would this plan do?" continued the governor. "You return to Boston by the first vessel that goes, taking a letter from me to your father, in which I will lay the whole matter before him, so that he can understand it, recommending that he set you up in business here." "Well," replied Benjamin, after some hesitation, "the plan is good enough; but I fear it will not work." "It will do no hurt to try it," retorted the governor; "and you will have an opportunity to see your friends, and they will have an opportunity to see you." "Yes, and I shall enjoy that; but I could not honorably leave Mr. Keimer at present." "It will not be necessary to leave him at present. It may be three months before a vessel is billed for Boston. You can work for him at present, notifying him that you shall return to Boston on a visit by the first vessel that goes." "Yes, I can do that," said Benjamin. "You will not, of course, divulge your plan of establishing a printing house of your own," suggested the governor. "Keep that a secret. Your plan may not work, so that it will be wise to keep it a secret for the present." "Well, I will defer to your judgment, and return to Boston by the first vessel that sails. If the plan works, and Benjamin Franklin should run a successful business house in this town, the credit of it will belong to you." They separated, with the understanding that Benjamin would return to Boston by the first vessel sailing for that port. The governor and his friend retired, and Benjamin returned to his work at the printing office. The reader will make special note of this unusual scene. Here was the governor of Pennsylvania and a leading public man of Delaware in conference with a boy of seventeen years, about establishing a printing house of his own in Philadelphia, with the promise of the government patronage! What sort of a boy must he be? Not one of common mould or capacity; but one, as the sequel will show, who shall rule in the councils of the nation! Keimer's curiosity was on tiptoe; he wanted to know what business Governor Keith could have with his young employe. "Why," replied Benjamin, "he met my brother-in-law, who is captain of a sloop, at Newcastle, and learned of him that I was working in this town, and so he called." "All that may be; but governors are not in the habit of calling upon boys as a matter of courtesy." And Keimer looked very unbelieving when he said it. "He told my brother-in-law that he should call, and my brother-in-law urged him to do so. Colonel French was a personal friend, who came with him; and he, too, promised Captain Homes that he would call." "That is all right; but you are the first boy that ever lived in Philadelphia, who has attracted the governor's patronage to himself." Keimer was somewhat jocose, while, at the same time, he was evidently suspicious that Benjamin was withholding the real object of the governor's visit. "My brother-in-law had written to me to take the first opportunity I could to make a trip to Boston to see my friends," continued Benjamin, "and he talked with the governor about it. The governor thinks as he does." "Going?" "Not at present. If I go, I must go by sea, and not by land. Can't afford to go by land; and I am told that vessels do not often sail from here to Boston. I shall have to wait to get more money than I have now before I go." "Perhaps the governor will charter a vessel to take you there if you ask him," suggested Keimer, who was evidently chagrined that the governor called to see his employe instead of himself. "Perhaps I shall ask him when I become more familiar with him," Benjamin replied, with a twinkle in his eye. "When I get to be a member of his staff I may be cheeky enough to suggest it." Keimer found that he could not make out much by quizzing his young printer, so he dropped it and dismissed the subject for the time being. Benjamin's thoughts were all the while concentrated on this unexpected turn of affairs. It would not be strange if such interest in his welfare by the highest officer in the state appealed to his vanity somewhat, although Keimer could discover nothing of the kind. The latter gentleman, however, concluded that he had a mysterious character in his employ, and he was greatly puzzled to know just what he was. He might be the son of some great man, for whose sake the governor interested himself in his welfare. Possibly he might have left Boston in some trouble, and his influential friends, together with Captain Homes, induced the governor to look after him. Many theories, by way of explanation, occupied his thoughts. At any rate, he was an enigma to his employer, who was becoming more and more interested in him. The governor's visit served to magnify his abilities and worth in Keimer's view. He thought more of him than he did before. He discovered more talent and efficiency in him. But he could get little satisfaction out of him. Once in a while he would indulge in a spasm of quizzing, and then he would subside into silent musing over the curious boy who was setting type for him. Benjamin continued to work early and late, interesting himself in Keimer's business as if it were his own, thereby becoming an indispensable assistant to him. But he embraced the first opportunity to write to his boon companion in Boston, John Collins, and disclose the unexpected change in his affairs, as follows: "DEAR JOHN: You will be surprised to learn that I expect to make a visit to Boston by the first vessel that sails for that port. It may be three or four months before one sails, but look for me on board. I will tell you how this new order of things was brought about. My brother-in-law, Capt. Robert Homes, was at Newcastle, Delaware, and found out, in some way, that I was living in Philadelphia; and he wrote to me. I replied to his letter, and he showed it to Governor Keith of Pennsylvania, who lives in this town, and told him about me, and interested him in my welfare. So the governor came to see me, and urged me to establish a printing house of my own here, promising me the state printing, and offering to write a letter to my father that I shall take with me when I go to Boston, in which he will set forth the prospects of my success, and urge him to furnish me with money to start. This is the substance of the story, the details of which I will rehearse when I see you. In the mean time continue to keep the secret. I suppose that Captain Homes will disclose the place of my residence, so that it will be a mystery to them no longer; but do not let any thing get abroad from you. When we meet I shall have much to tell you. Until then, good-bye. "Your old friend, "B. FRANKLIN." Governor Keith sent for Benjamin to dine with him. "I wanted to talk with you a little more about your visit to Boston," he remarked at the dinner-table. "How long will you be gone?" "That will depend upon the voyage. There and back will occupy from three to four weeks on the vessel. I do not care about spending over a week in Boston. I shall want to get back as soon as I can to start in business." "Does Mr. Keimer suspect that any thing in particular is on the tapis? I did not know but my visit might awaken his curiosity to learn what it was for." "It did, and he plied me with questions in order to find out for some time. Once in a while now, he is very inquisitive, evidently thinking that I am withholding something from him. He is quite an intelligent man, without any surplus of honesty." "So I understand. Bradford is very ignorant, but honest; while Keimer is bright and well-informed, but unscrupulous." "That is about as near the truth as one can get," continued Benjamin. "I have a pleasant time with Mr. Keimer, however, and have nothing to complain of on that line." "Can you give me any idea of the time it will take, after you return, to get a printing house in running order?" "Not exactly. If my plans succeed, and I bring back a printing-press and materials with me, I think a month will be ample time to put the whole thing in running order." The enterprise was canvassed at the table, the governor conversing with his young guest in the most familiar manner, dropping many complimentary words. Whenever he wanted to see him thereafter, he invited him to dine, which was quite often; all of which Benjamin enjoyed very much. In his old age, referring to these interviews with Governor Keith, Franklin said: "The governor sent for me now and then to dine with him, which I considered a great honor; more particularly as he conversed with me in the most affable, familiar, and friendly manner." A novelist would portray the advantages of running away from home when representing Benjamin, the runaway, at the governor's table. If he had remained in Boston, attacking the officials of the English Government with his pen, the governor might have put him in prison, as he did his brother. But Benjamin never justified the use he made of his legs at that time--that is, he never excused it in his years of maturity. He always spoke of it regretfully. Very few runaways possess as much talent and character as he did, and few ever had so much cause for running away; and here is found the only reason that the act was overruled to his advantage. At length a small vessel was announced to sail for Boston. "I am ready to go in her," he said to Governor Keith. "She sails in about a week." "I am very glad," answered the governor; "you have waited long enough for it. I will have my letter to your father ready in time; and I hope your mission will be successful. Is there any thing more I can do for you?" "Nothing; I have been getting myself in readiness all along, so that I have little to do now. As the time draws near I am very anxious to go. My father and mother will be very happy in looking into my face again." "And I think you will be as happy in looking into their faces again," responded the governor. "Captain Homes spoke in the highest terms of your parents, and of your standing in Boston." Benjamin wondered more than ever whether his brother, Homes, disclosed the fact of his leaving home clandestinely to the governor. No words were dropped to indicate that he did. But Governor Keith was a wise man, and thought it was not best to divulge his acquaintance with that part of the affair. Benjamin improved the first opportunity to announce his departure to Mr. Keimer. "Going to see my parents," he said; "a vessel sails for Boston in about a week." "You have not been away from home long yet. I should think that you might wait a year, at least." "No, I can't wait longer, though I do not intend to stay long. I am attached to Philadelphia, and I shall want to return as soon as I can after letting my father and mother look me over a few days." "Has the governor of the Massachusetts Province sent for you?" Keimer asked jocosely. The fact was he could not get over Governor Keith's interest in Benjamin, because he could not yet understand it. As the weeks rolled on, his employee grew to be more and more an object of curiosity. "No; nor any body else," answered Benjamin. "I shall take the governor by surprise, so that he will have no time to get up a reception. I prefer the governor of Pennsylvania to the governor of Massachusetts." If Keimer had known all the circumstances, he might have replied, "You have reason to feel so; for the governor of Massachusetts would rather see you in prison than running a printing house." Benjamin purchased a nice suit of clothes, also a watch, before starting on his trip; and then had quite a sum of pocket money to take with him. He bade Mr. Keimer good-bye, took leave of the governor with many thanks for his kindness, receiving from him a long, complimentary letter to his father; nor did he forget to call upon the Bradford family, to make known his purpose and thank them again for their hospitality; and, of course, Mr. Read and family received a good share of his thankfulness, especially the daughter, in whom Benjamin had become quite interested. Once on board the vessel, under way, Benjamin began to reflect upon his novel experiences. It appeared to him somewhat like a dream. He could hardly realize that he was on his way back to his home, by the governor's patronage. He took out the governor's letter to his father and read it. He found that it was very complimentary to himself, fully as much so as he had expected; and the prospects of a new printing house, under his care, were set forth strongly. He had scarcely finished reading the letter, when the vessel struck on a shoal; for they were not out of the bay yet. She sprung a leak, and there was considerable excitement on board before the crew could remedy the accident. "A hard storm is near by," said the captain. "You will have a rough passage this time, young man," addressing Benjamin. "Well, I am used to it; I have encountered as many storms as any body of my age," replied Benjamin figuratively, which the captain did not quite understand. "Then you have followed the sea, have you?" "No; I have followed the land mostly; but there are hard storms on the land, are there not?" "Of course"; and the captain thought only of rain storms and snow storms when he answered. "All I meant was," added Benjamin by way of explanation, "that I have had rather of a rough life so far; have seen a good deal of trouble for one of my years; and have rather got accustomed to rough usage. A storm at sea will only vary the experience a little. I think I can withstand it." "You will have to stand it any way. Not much chance to choose when a storm overtakes us out to sea. If I am any judge of weather, a terrible storm is brewing, and it will be on us in a hurry." "Well, I like the water; I meant to have become a sailor once, but my father put his veto on it. If I had been allowed my own way, I should have been serving before the mast now." Benjamin never spoke truer words than these. "Hard life," responded the captain; "if I could live my life over again I should chose any thing on land rather than the best on the sea. I would not command a vessel another day, if there was any thing else I could do; but this is all I know." They had scarcely emerged from the bay when the storm burst upon them. It was the beginning of a long, violent, tempestuous spell of weather, such as mariners encounter on the sea; a new and exciting experience to Benjamin. "I have heard a great deal about storms at sea, and----" "And you will _see_ one now," interrupted the captain. "What you have _heard_ about it gives you a poor idea of the reality, compared with _seeing_ it." "I confess to a kind of desire to see a real hard one," answered Benjamin coolly. "If I should be frightened half out of my wits, I shall be as well off as the rest of you." "The vessel is leaking badly," cried out one of the crew. "Man the pumps," replied the captain. "Enough for all hands to do now." "Including me," responded Benjamin. "I can do as much as any of you at the pump," and he went to work with the crew. Suffice it to say, that the storm continued for days, tossing their small craft about like a shell, keeping all hands busy, night and day, sometimes the sea threatening to swallow the vessel and all it contained in its hungry maw. The vessel was two weeks on its way to Boston, encountering stormy weather nearly the whole time. Most of the voyage the leaky craft was kept from sinking by pumping, in which Benjamin took his turn, proving himself as efficient as any one of the crew; and he was as cool and self-possessed as any one of the number. At the end of two weeks they sailed into Boston harbor; and Benjamin was at home. XXIII. THE SURPRISE, AND ITS RESULTS. Benjamin hastened to the corner of Hanover and Union Streets, where the sign of the familiar blue ball hung, and entered with a fluttering heart. "Benjamin!" exclaimed his father, "can that be you?" and he grasped one of his hands in both of his. "How glad I am to see you!" "No more glad than I am to see you," responded the son, shaking his father's hand heartily. "I am glad to get home." The words were scarcely off his tongue when his mother appeared upon the scene. "Mother!" "O, Benjamin!" And his mother threw her arms about his neck, weeping tears of joy. Benjamin wept, too. He began to realize what months of agony his absence had caused the woman who bore him. "Can it be you, my son? I have mourned for you as dead," she said, as soon as she could command her feelings. "Where have you been?" "In Philadelphia. Has not Captain Homes told you where I was?" "Not a word from him about it." "He wrote to me from Newcastle three months ago, and I replied to his letter. I supposed that you had heard all about it before this time." "We have not heard the least thing from you since you left," said his father; "and they have been seven very long and painful months." "How painful, Benjamin, you can never know," added his mother. "Sometimes it has seemed as if my old heart would break with grief; but I have tried to cast my burden on the Lord. If you had staid at home and died, my sorrow could not have been so great." "Let it end now," replied Benjamin, with a smile, "for I am here again." "Yes, I thank my God, for 'this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.'" And his mother came almost as near to death with joy, as she had been before with sorrow. They sat down together, when Benjamin rehearsed his experience since leaving Boston, not omitting to state the cause of his sudden departure, and the reason of his return. And then he put the letter of Governor Keith into his father's hand. "How is James? I suppose he is at the printing office? I must go to see him." Benjamin's words and tone of speech indicated only good will towards his brother. "I am glad to hear you say that, Benjamin. It has grieved me terribly that he should treat you so unbrotherly; I do hope that you will now be reconciled to each other." His mother spoke with much feeling. "I trust we shall; I am ready to forgive and forget. I have learned a good lesson from experience since leaving Boston." So saying, he started for the printing office, not knowing what sort of a reception awaited him there He hoped for the best, however. "James!" He extended his hand as he spoke. James would not have been more astonished over one who rose from the dead, but he took his hand in a cold, reserved sort of a way, merely saying: "Benjamin!" After surveying him from head to foot a few moments, he turned back to his work again, without another word. The act pierced Benjamin's heart, it was so unkind and cruel. But soon he rose above the situation, and seemed to say, by actions, "I can stand it if you can." The journeymen were delighted to see him. Leaving their work, they pressed around him with a whole catechism of questions. "Where have you been, Ben?" "In Philadelphia." "What kind of a place is it?" "It is a fine place; I like it better than Boston." "Going back?" "Yes; very soon, too. No place like that for the printing business." "Good pay?" "Yes, better pay than in Boston." "How large is the place?" "Seven thousand inhabitants; smaller than Boston, but smarter." "What kind of money do you have there?" There was no established currency in the country at that time, and paper money only was used in Boston. His interrogator wanted to know what they used in Philadelphia. "They use that," replied Benjamin, taking from his pocket nearly five pounds sterling in silver and laying it on the table. "Rather heavier stuff to carry than your Boston paper money." "It looks as if you had struck a silver mine, Ben," remarked one. "Some lucky hit, Ben," said another. "The printing business bring you that?" "No other did. I was a printer when I left, and I am now, and I expect to be in the future. And, what is more, I have no desire for another business." "You sport a watch, I see," said one of the number. "Yes, such as it is; a good companion, though." "Let us see it," one suggested. "You can." And Benjamin passed it to him, and all examined it. "Can't afford such luxuries in Boston," one printer remarked. "It is not a luxury by any means; it is a necessity," replied Benjamin. "I should not know how to get along without a watch now." "Well, Ben, you can afford to have a watch," added one; "for you can live on bread and water, and never want a day of pleasure, and never drink liquors." "And he can afford to treat us all, since he has fared so well," suggested one of the men. "I always did treat you well, and always intend to," was Benjamin's answer, as if he did not understand that treating with intoxicating liquors was meant. "That is so, Ben; but now just treat us with something stronger than water, for old acquaintance' sake." At that time the use of intoxicating liquors was almost universal. Benjamin did not use them, and, once in a while was found a person who did not. Most people were habitual drinkers, and there was little or no opposition to the custom; and the habit of treating was general. "There is a dollar," replied Benjamin, throwing out a dollar in silver. "Take that and drink what you want for old acquaintance' sake." Replacing his watch and money, he left the office with the promise to come around again. While this interview with the men was going on, James would occasionally look up from his work "grim and sullen," as Benjamin said, evidently as unreconciled to his brother as ever. The next day James said to his father and mother, at their house: "It was an insult. He meant to insult me when he came to the office." "No, James," replied his mother; "Benjamin meant no such thing. He told us that he was ready to forgive and forget." "He has a poor way of showing it, then," retorted James, who was too revengeful to be reasonable. "Well, you are brothers," interrupted his father, "and you should act as brothers toward each other. It has a bad look for one brother to be resentful toward another." "And it not only has the _look_" added his mother, "but it is a most wicked state of heart to cherish. You will never prosper, James, so long as you treat your brother so; and you never ought to prosper." Mrs. Franklin spoke with great plainness. She had never justified James at all in his treatment of Benjamin; and now that the former was adding injury to injury by falsely accusing the latter, she could not suppress her feelings. She magnified the severity of her words, by quoting: "Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment." "My advice to you, James, is to let the dead past bury the dead. It will do no good to revive old memories. Make the future as bright as you can--that is the only wise course. I am quite sure that Benjamin will meet you more than half way, in erasing old scores." Mr. Franklin spoke this with much feeling as he turned away to his work. James continued to be resentful, and failed to reduce his father's counsel to practice. Benjamin soon found his old friend, John Collins; and there was mutual satisfaction in their meeting. As soon, however, as the first pleasure of meeting was over, Benjamin discovered that his friend had become intemperate, and he was both surprised and grieved. However, he gratified John with a detailed account of his experience, from the time they separated, not omitting a glowing description of his prospects in Philadelphia. "How soon will you return?" John inquired. "I want to leave here within two weeks if I can. I ought not to stay but a week." "How will it do for me to return with you?" "I think it will do well if you stick closely to business. That is the only way we can succeed in any thing." "I can do that. Work never hurt me, or any thing else." John did not take the hint in Benjamin's last remark. "But strong drink has hurt a great many. I should never expect to succeed in any thing if I used it as many do." "Nor I," answered John, who was blind to his own danger, as all intemperate men are. "We have no need of any such beverage at all," continued Benjamin. "I discard it entirely now, as you know that I did when I lived here in Boston. Water is the best beverage for us both." "You may be right, Ben; you are, generally. But are you not a little odd in discarding what nearly every one uses?" John was trying to find an excuse for himself. "Better be odd than to be disqualified for business. You know, as well as I do, that rum disqualifies more men for business than all other evils put together. Once you were of my opinion, John; but your habits have been changing your opinion." "Well, that is neither here nor there," replied John, who found that Benjamin was becoming rather personal. "What do you think of my going to Philadelphia with you?" "If your habits now are what your personal appearance indicates, you will not succeed in Philadelphia any better than you can in Boston. An intemperate man is a failure anywhere." "Then you don't think I am good enough to go back with you?" said John, with a degree of warmth. "I did not say so, John. To tell you the plain truth, I am shocked at the change drink has wrought in your appearance. You are fast becoming a wreck, I should say; and I don't want a wreck of a friend on my hands." "Then you don't want I should go with you?" "Not if you continue to drink as you do now. Sober John Collins I should delight to have accompany me, especially if he looks upon strong drink as the enemy of mankind. I am your friend now, as much as ever; but I am disappointed, and even shocked, by your appearance. You are fast becoming a wreck." "You are complimentary, Ben, I must confess; but I can't say that you are wrong. You have been about right so far in life; perhaps your views are correct about drink." "I don't ask you to accept my views; but I entreat you to let strong drink alone for your own sake, and my sake, too. If you can give a wide berth to all sorts of intoxicating liquors, as I do, I should be delighted to have you return to Philadelphia with me." "That is, become a water-drinker, you mean, Ben?" "I did not say so; become a reasonable being and not indulge to excess. I do not ask any body to live exactly as I do, though I believe that every person who discards liquors will be better off." At that day, when the temperance cause was not born, and the use of intoxicants was universal, it was generally believed that moderate drinking could be followed without leading to excessive drinking. It is plain that Benjamin had that idea. For himself, he practised entire abstinence from intoxicants, because he thought it was better for him. Another person might drink moderately, in his view, and be just as well off. But intemperance he abhorred, and he thought that every body else ought to abhor it. "I will tell you what it is, Ben," continued John. "There is some sense in what you say; you did not leave it all in Philadelphia when you came away, that is sure. I want to go back with you badly; and I will think it over." "That is it, John. Sober John Collins is an old friend of mine, and I shall enjoy his society in Philadelphia, or any other part of the world. Think it over, and I will see you again." Mr. Franklin read the letter of Governor Keith over and over. It was a good letter to cheer a father's heart, if it was genuine. Evidently he had some doubts whether the affair was all right. While he was querying about the genuineness of the letter from Governor Keith, Captain Homes arrived in Boston, and first of all called upon his father Franklin. "Benjamin is here," said Mr. Franklin, "and according to his story, he has a good prospect before him in Philadelphia. And here is a letter from Sir William Keith, governor of Pennsylvania, that he brought with him"; and he passed the letter to the captain. "I met Governor Keith at Newcastle, and showed him a letter I received from Benjamin," replied Captain Homes, "which satisfied me that he had more reason than I had supposed for running away. I interested the governor in his welfare. On his return to Philadelphia, after having met Benjamin, he wrote to me how much pleased he was with him, and what he had proposed." Captain Homes read the governor's letter through and remarked, "That is substantially what he wrote to me; and it appears to me that there is a good opening for him in Philadelphia." "You think that Sir William Keith is reliable, do you?" "He ought to be. I can't think of any reason why a man in his position should be saying and doing what he don't mean." "Nor I. And yet it seems almost strange that he should favor a boy of eighteen engaging in such an enterprise, without money and without experience." "You are wrong, father," answered the captain; "very few young men twenty-two years of age have had the experience he has had. He has occupied positions and met emergencies every time with the promptness and ability of one ten years older." "That may be so. I think it is so; and it gives me great pleasure that Sir William Keith can write as he does about him. But it can't be expected that a boy of eighteen can have the judgment and wisdom to conduct business for himself, as he will at twenty-two." "I think it can be expected, and should be expected, if these qualities are as fully developed at eighteen as they are in other young men at twenty-two." The captain was emphatic in his endorsement of Benjamin. This conversation was interrupted by Benjamin's appearance. He was delighted to meet Captain Homes, and this gentleman was delighted to meet him. The satisfaction was mutual. One of the first questions that Benjamin asked was: "How did you learn that I was living in Philadelphia?" "From a citizen of that town, of whom I was inquiring about the business of the place. Incidentally he spoke of a young printer from Boston, who had come there. I met him in Newcastle. He even knew your name." "'Murder will out' is an old maxim that finds confirmation in my case," responded Benjamin. "But it is all for the best, I think. I am glad that the way was opened for me to return to Boston." "I have just read Governor Keith's letter to your father, and I hope that he will be able to give you a start in Philadelphia." The captain said this in the presence of Mr. Franklin. While Mr. Franklin was considering the proposition contained in Governor Keith's letter, Benjamin was busy in calling upon old friends and visiting old resorts. He had been absent seven months, and, in that time, had added two or three times that number of months to his personal appearance. He appeared like a young man twenty-one years of age, and his new apparel imparted to him a grace and comeliness that he lacked when he left Boston. He had developed into a handsome, gentlemanly, intelligent, and witty young man. It was during this visit to Boston that he called upon Dr. Increase Mather, to whose preaching he listened when a resident of the town. The doctor received him cordially and invited him into his library, where they chatted for some time about books, Philadelphia, and other matters. When Benjamin arose to go, the doctor said: "Come this way, and I will show you a nearer way out," pointing to a narrow passage with a beam crossing it overhead. They were still talking, the doctor following behind Benjamin, when the latter turned partly about to speak to the former. "_Stoop! Stoop_!" shouted the doctor. Benjamin did not understand what he meant until his head struck the beam overhead with considerable force. "There," said the doctor, laughing, "you are young and have the world before you; stoop as you go through it, and you may miss many hard thumps." Nearly seventy years afterwards the recipient of this counsel wrote as follows: "This advice, thus beaten into my head, has frequently been of use to me; and I often think of it when I see pride mortified, and misfortunes brought upon people by carrying their heads too high." John Collins was a clerk in the post-office. He revolved the matter of going to Philadelphia with Benjamin a sober youth, or remaining in Boston a drunken one. The more he pondered the more he was inclined to accept Benjamin's advice. The appeal from Collins drunk to Collins sober finally met his approval. "I have decided to go with you," he said to Benjamin, the next time they met. "Glad to hear it, John, if you take my advice and leave the drink-habit in Boston. I shall enjoy your company hugely." "You shall have it. I have given up my position in the post-office, and am packing up now. I want to carry my books with the rest of my traps." "And I shall take my books this time. I shall ship to New York, where I have some business, and thence to Philadelphia." "And I want to go by the way of Providence, Rhode Island, to visit friends, and will meet you in New York," responded John. "Agreed; but remember, John, that you and I are going to steer clear of strong drink. Give it a wide berth, and the way is open before you to success." "I see it, and mean to act accordingly." John really meant what he said, but the poor fellow did not understand how weak he was. Neither was Benjamin aware that the drink habit was fastened upon him so tightly. Mr. Franklin had taken a plenty of time to consider the advice of Governor Keith, and Benjamin was getting uneasy to return. "I have considered the matter long and carefully," said Mr. Franklin to Benjamin, "having a desire to aid you if possible; but have come to the conclusion, finally, that I can not do it at present." "I told Governor Keith that I doubted whether you would assist me now, so that your conclusion is not altogether unexpected." Benjamin's reply was cool--almost indifferent. "When you become twenty-one years of age, and need assistance to start in business for yourself, I will gladly render it; but it is hardly safe for a boy of eighteen to engage in such an enterprise. Get more experience." These words were indicative of Mr. Franklin's caution. "Well, I have no great desire to rule a printing house. I am content to serve," and these words expressed Benjamin's real feelings. "At the same time," continued his father, "I am highly gratified that you have conducted yourself so well as to gain the good opinion of even the governor. I trust that you will continue to conduct yourself with propriety. At twenty-one you will save money enough to set up business for yourself, if your economy holds out." "I think it will," responded Benjamin. "My wants are few, and so my expenses are small. And I like work as well as ever." "There is one thing I hope you will avoid, Benjamin. You will, no doubt, be writing for the public press, as you did here. My advice is to avoid lampooning and libeling. You erred in that way here, and furnished occasion for just and severe criticism." "We have not time to discuss that matter now," answered Benjamin; "but if I were to live my life over again, and edit the _Courant_ in the same circumstances, I should repeat the same thing. But for that fight there would be a censorship over the press of Boston to-day." "Possibly," rejoined his father; "but I think there is a wiser course. You must live and learn." "I regret exceedingly that James can not be reconciled to you," interrupted his mother. "He is indulging a very bad spirit, and my prayer is that he may see the folly of it, before you leave, and be at peace with you." "I met him more than half way," replied Benjamin, "and he seemed to stand aloof all the more. Whenever he returns to reason he will find me ready and waiting to forget the past." "It is so painful to see brothers disagree!" And a deep, doleful sigh escaped her heart as his mother said it. Benjamin's separation from his parents was tender and affectionate. They scarcely expected to see his face again on this side of the River, and they presented him with several gifts as tokens of their undying love. With their sincere blessing upon him he turned away from the old home, where so many of his happiest hours had been spent, and, wiping unbidden tears from his eyes, found himself again out on the world's great highway alone, seeking his fortune. XXIV. HIS RETURN, AND WHAT CAME OF IT. John left Boston two or three days before Benjamin. The sloop in which Benjamin sailed stopped at Newport, where his brother John lived, affording him the opportunity to visit him. John was well-nigh overcome by the sight of Benjamin, for whom he ever had the most sincere affection. Their meeting was as glad to him as it was unexpected. There he met a Mr. Vernon, who said: "I have a bill of thirty-five pounds currency in New York, which I have no doubt can be collected readily--could you collect it for me?" "I will do it with pleasure," replied Benjamin. "You can collect and keep it until I write what disposition to make of it. I am not quite certain just now." "Very well; I will hold it subject to your direction." "And I will give you an order for the money, which will be necessary." "Yes, I suppose that is the business way." His stay in Newport was very brief. On returning to the sloop in season to sail, he found that several passengers had been taken on board from that town. Among them was a motherly sort of a Quaker lady, and, also, two young women traveling together. Benjamin was a polite young man, and sought to be of service to them. The old Quaker lady was attended by two servants, yet Benjamin found an opportunity to be of some service to her, and she appreciated his kindness. Nor was he indifferent towards the two young women. He made their acquaintance, and showed them some attention; and they, in turn, showed him attention, with interest. The Quaker lady looked on, understanding the situation better than he did; and finally she called him aside, by some kind of a motion, and said: "Young man, beware of those girls, or they will lead you astray." "How so?" inquired Benjamin, considerably surprised. "They are bad girls, and thee is not much acquainted with the ways of the world." "You are right, madam; I am not much acquainted with the women world, and I dare say they might easily lead me astray." Benjamin did not exactly believe what the Quakeress said, but he was a little given to humor, and so he spoke as he did. "It is a serious matter, young man; thee may depend on that. I know that they are bad girls by their actions. They mean to set a snare for thee." "Well, I assure you that I will not fall into it. They have not caught me yet." "And I hope they won't," added the good lady. "If I were in your place I would cut their acquaintance at once. And she stated some things she had observed of their acts, and a remark one of them made, all of which convinced Benjamin that she was right. "I thank you for your interest," said Benjamin "I will not keep up an acquaintance with them, but will follow your advice." The good lady kept her eye on Benjamin, and so did the girls. The latter plied their arts with considerable ingenuity to lure him on, but his eyes were opened now, and he avoided them as much as he could. Before reaching New York, however, the girls managed to inform him where they lived, and gave him a very pressing invitation to call. The outcome was as follows, given in his own language, as related in his "Autobiography": "When we arrived at New York, they told me where they lived, and invited me to come and see them; but I avoided it, and it was well I did. For the next day the captain missed a silver spoon and some other things, that had been taken out of his cabin, and, knowing that these were a couple of strumpets, he got a warrant to search their lodgings, found the stolen goods, and had the thieves punished. So, though we had escaped a sunken rock, which we scraped upon in the passage, I thought this escape of rather more importance to me." When Benjamin arrived in New York, John Collins was waiting there for him, but it was John Collins drunk. "Waitin' for you, Ben, old fellow," said John, patting him on the back, too much under the power of drink to know exactly what the said or did. "Goin' to Philadelphy; come on." Benjamin was taken by surprise, and scarcely knew what to say. Rallying himself, however, he replied: "You are not the John Collins I invited to accompany me to Philadelphia. I don't wish for _your_ company." "You are joking, Ben, old fellow"; and another pat on his back. "I invited John Collins _sober_ to go to Philadelphia with me; you are John Collins _drunk_." "Complimentary again," answered John, with a show of temper. "It is time," retorted Benjamin, "It is putting me into an embarrassing situation to be tied to a drunken companion. I rather be excused." "Don't see how I can 'scuse you, Ben. It is too late now." And the boozy fellow appeared not to imagine that he was making a fool of himself. On reaching John's boarding place, the landlord said: "He has been drunk ever since he reached New York; and he has gambled, too, I judge." "What makes you think he has gambled?" "Because he is out of money now; every cent he had is gone, I think." "And he owes you for board and lodgings?" "Yes; he has not paid me any thing. His appetite is complete master of him." "Well, I scarcely know what to do," remarked Benjamin thoughtfully; and he rehearsed to the inn-keeper the circumstances of his connection with John, not omitting to repeat his fair promises. "Promises!" retorted the landlord. "What does he care for promises! A fellow with no more control over his appetite than he has don't care for any thing. He's a goner, if I am any judge." Benjamin embraced the first opportunity to canvass the matter with John; and, from his own account, he was satisfied that the case was full as bad as the landlord had represented. John had not a cent left, and he was in a maudlin state of mind, such as Benjamin did not observe in Boston. His self-respect was gone, and he appeared to glory in his shame. While Benjamin was considering what to do, and attending to some matters of business, particularly collecting the thirty-five pounds for Mr. Vernon, the captain of the sloop came to him, saying: "Governor Burnet wants to see you." "Who is Governor Burnet, that he should want to see me?" responded Benjamin in surprise. One governor had been after him, and now that another was seeking his patronage was almost too much to believe. "Governor of New York," answered the captain. "I had some business with him, and I happened to say that a passenger on board my sloop had a large quantity of books with him; and this interested him so much that he wanted I should bring you to his house." "I will go," replied Benjamin; "and I must go at once if I go at all." They posted off, Benjamin querying on the way whether the governor of New York would prove as friendly to him as the governor of Pennsylvania. It was a pleasant call he had upon the governor. This dignitary gave him a cordial welcome, took him into his library, conversed with him about books and authors, complimented him for his love of learning and his evident high aims, and invited him to call whenever he should visit New York. Benjamin began to think that governors had a particular passion for him; and what little vanity he possessed became inflated. Many years thereafter, referring to the experience, he said: "This was the second governor who had done me the honor to take notice of me; and, for a poor boy like me, it was very pleasing." If he had been as foolish as some youth, and some men, too, he would have concluded that it pays to run away, since the only boy that two governors were known to patronize especially was a runaway. But we repeat what we have said before, that Benjamin, the wise son, never concluded that it pays to run away from home. He met with some pleasant experiences, but they came, not through his runaway qualities, but through his aspiring and noble aims. Collins was not too drunk to understand that Benjamin went to see the governor by invitation, and he was on tiptoe to learn what it all meant. "Been to see the governor, hey?" he said. "Yes; and I should have taken you if you had not been drunk." "Good on you, Ben; you'll be governor yourself yet." And John laughed at his own suggestion as only a silly drinker will. "_You_ will not, John, unless you change your course. I have a mind to leave you here in New York; then I shall not be disgraced by you in Philadelphia. If you can't keep sober for your own sake nor mine, I want nothing more to do with you." This was a revelation to John. He had not dreamed of being left penniless and friendless in New York. So he was ready to make promises of the most flattering kind, in order to proceed with Benjamin to Philadelphia. "But you promised me as squarely as possible in Boston that you would not drink any more," continued Benjamin. "Your promise is not worth any thing to me, when it is worth nothing to you; and it is not worth as much to you as a glass of brandy. I am tempted to leave you and all your truck in the sloop here in New York." John begged and entreated Benjamin not to desert him now, and promised by all that was great and good that he would stop drinking and lead a sober life. In the circumstances, Benjamin could scarcely do otherwise than to pay his bill at the inn and take him along with him, though he very reluctantly decided to do so. Having collected the thirty-five pounds for Mr. Vernon, paid John's bill, and transacted some other business, by the time the sloop was ready to sail, they proceeded to Philadelphia. There is no record preserved of his experience on the sloop between New York and Philadelphia, except a paragraph in a letter written by Doctor Franklin to Doctor Priestley, in 1780, when the former was seventy-four years of age. He related the experience in order to illustrate the truth, "that all situations in life have their inconveniences." The paragraph is as follows: "In my youth, I was passenger in a little sloop, descending the river Delaware. There being no wind, we were obliged, when the ebb was spent, to cast anchor and wait for the next. The heat of the sun on the vessel was excessive, the company strangers to me, and not very agreeable. Near the river-side I saw what I took to be a pleasant green meadow, in the middle of which was a large shady tree, where, it struck my fancy, I could sit and read (having a book in my pocket), and pass the time agreeably till the tide turned. I therefore prevailed with the captain to put me ashore. Being landed, I found the greatest part of my meadow was really a marsh, in crossing which, to come at my tree, I was up to my knees in mire; and I had not placed myself under its shade five minutes, before the mosquitoes in swarms found me out, attacked my legs, hands, and face, and made my reading and my rest impossible; so that I returned to the beach, and called for the boat to come and take me on board again, where I was obliged to bear the heat I had strove to quit, and also the laugh of the company. Similar cases in the affairs of life have since frequently fallen under my observation." In these modern days, it would be said that, when Benjamin arrived in Philadelphia, he "had an elephant on his hands." The most unmanageable and dangerous sort of an elephant on one's hands is a dissolute friend. Benjamin scarcely knew what to do with John. It troubled him exceedingly. But he was wont to make the best of everything, and so he did in this case. He took John with him to his boarding place, promising to pay his bills until he could find work in some counting-room. John was well qualified for such business, and Benjamin supposed that he could readily find a situation. His estimate of Collins, before and after he began to drink to excess, is given by his own pen, as follows: "At New York I found my friend Collins, who had arrived there some time before me. We had been intimate from children, and had read the same books together; but he had the advantage of more time for reading and studying, and a wonderful genius for mathematical learning, in which he far outstripped me. While I lived in Boston, most of my hours of leisure for conversation were spent with him, and he continued a sober as well as industrious lad; was much respected for his learning by several of the clergy and other gentlemen, and seemed to promise making a good figure in life. But, during my absence, he had acquired a habit of drinking brandy and I found by his own account, as well as that of others, that he had been drunk every day since his arrival at New York, and behaved himself in a very extravagant manner. He had gamed, too, and lost his money, so that I was obliged to discharge his lodgings, and defray his expenses on the road and at Philadelphia; which proved a great burden to me." Benjamin called upon Governor Keith as soon as possible, with a letter from his father, in which the governor was thanked and praised for his kindness to his son. "Your father is too cautious," remarked the governor, after reading the letter. "Some young men are better qualified to do business for themselves at eighteen than others are at twenty-one." "He said that he would assist me at twenty-one if I should need assistance," replied Benjamin. "Yes; he says so in this letter. But I think you will be established in a good business three years from now, and need no help. Some aid now will do more for you than at any future time." "I dare say that is true; but, as father declines to do it, that ends the matter, I suppose." "No; not by any means," replied the governor, earnestly. "If your father will not set you up in business, I'll see what I can do for you. I want a first-class printing house in this town; and a young man like you, capable of running it, should be encouraged." "That is more than I expected, and I shall feel myself under great obligations to you for aid of that kind, if you deem it best." Benjamin spoke in a tone of grateful feeling, but without the least show of importunity. "I do deem it best; and I will give you a start in business. You can keep the matter a secret; continue at work for Keimer, and use your first leisure moments to make out an inventory of what a first-class printing establishment requires. That will be the first thing." "How soon will you want the inventory of articles?" "As soon as you can make it out. I shall be obliged to send to England for them, and that will take considerable time." It was a lengthy interview that Benjamin had with the governor, and he was very much elated by this turn of affairs. It looked now as if he would start the printing business in Philadelphia under the patronage of the governor himself! That seemed to promise more than to go into business by the aid of only a tallow-chandler. He reported next to Keimer, who was glad to welcome him back, especially so because he had considerable work on hand, and no person could turn it off like Benjamin. "Glad to see you, Ben. I suppose the governor will be round to see you when he hears of your arrival." Keimer spoke in a vein of pleasantry rather than as a fling. "Possibly, unless he should send for me to call on him. The governor of New York sent for me--Governor Burnet--what do you think of that?" "You are joking now, Ben; it can't be that all the governors are after you." "Well, the governor of New York was, and I went to see him." And Benjamin went on to describe his interview with Governor Burnet in detail, and how it came about, to which Keimer listened with the greatest interest and wonder. "Governor Burnet has the largest library in this country," continued Benjamin, "and judging from the number of books I had on the sloop, he concluded that I loved books, and so wanted to show me his." "Well," answered Keimer, after being in a sort of reverie some minutes, "if this thing goes on, you will not be willing to associate long with us fellows in the printing business." "I will give you due notice when I get to that. I will not cut your acquaintance suddenly." Benjamin could treat the matter jocosely as well as Keimer. To return to John Collins. He sought a position as clerk or bookkeeper in several stores; but was unsuccessful. Then he tried other kinds of work; but no one appeared to want him. Benjamin went with him to several places, to introduce him and intercede for him; but there was no opening for him. Days passed away, and still he was without a position; and he kept on drinking, too, not so beast-like as he did in New York, but enough to be more or less disguised. "It is your disgusting habit of intemperance; they smell your breath or study your face, and then don't want you around. I told you in Boston, that no one wants a drinking employee about." Benjamin's patience was nearly exhausted, and he spoke as he felt. "That is your surmise; you are a fanatic on drink, and are not capable of exercising sound judgement when you come to that," John replied with considerable temper. "And you would not be capable of keeping your soul and body together if it were not for my money. You have no regard at all for your word; a promise amounts to nothing with you, and never will until you stop drinking." "I shall not stop drinking until I get ready," retorted John, becoming very angry. "You are an insulting dog, when you get to attacking brandy." Brandy was John's favorite beverage in Philadelphia, as it was in Boston. He frequently borrowed money of Benjamin; the latter not having the heart to deny him, with which he continued to gratify his appetite. Benjamin often remonstrated with him, and threatened to complain of him; but the old friendship of former days always came in to favor John. Frequently they had serious difficulties, for John was very irritable, and daily grew more so. Yet, Benjamin continued to pay his board, and loan him a little money from time to time, though Collins continued unsuccessful in his search for a position. Several young men were enjoying a pastime on the Delaware one day, boating, among them Benjamin and John. The latter was under the influence of drink sufficiently to be very irritable; and he refused to take his turn rowing. "I will be rowed home," he said in anger. "No, you won't, unless you do your part," replied Benjamin, who thought it was quite time to teach the boozy fellow a lesson. "Then we will stay here all night on the water," snapped out John. "Just as you please; I can stay as long as you can," said Benjamin, who had endured about as much of John's impudence as he could. "Come, Ben, let us row him; he don't know what he is about," said one of the other boys; "what signifies it?" "Not one stroke," replied Benjamin emphatically; "it is his turn to row, and he _shall_ row, if he is full of brandy." "I'll make you row, you insulting dog," exclaimed John, as he rose and made for Benjamin. "I'll throw you overboard if you don't row." Approaching Benjamin with the vehemence of a mad bull, determined to throw him into the river, Benjamin clapped his head under his thighs, when he came up and struck at him, and, rising, pitched him head foremost into the river. "He'll drown," shouted one. "No, he won't," answered Benjamin, "he is a good swimmer, and he is not too drunk to swim." "Will you row, John?" shouted another. "No, you ----," he shouted back, with an oath. "We'll take you in when you will promise to row," said Benjamin. "I shall not promise to row; I'll drown first." He turned about to reach the boat, but just as he was ready to grasp it with his hand, the rowers pushed it forward out of his reach. "Will you row now?" shouted Benjamin. "No; but I will give you a thrashing when I can get at you." And he continued to swim after the boat, the rowers pushing it forward out of his reach, whenever he got near enough to seize it. Then Benjamin would cry out: "Will you row now, John?" and back the defiant answer would come: "Never; but I'll throw you into the river if I can get at you." Then forward the rowers would push the boat beyond his reach. For twenty minutes this game was played with the miserable fellow in the water, when one of the number said: "He is giving out, we must take him in, or he'll drown." "Well, we don't want to drown him," replied Benjamin; "I guess we better take him in." Then, turning to John, he continued: "Say, John, we'll take you in now; you are soaked outside as much as you were inside," and, stopping the boat, they hauled the poor fellow in, too much exhausted to throw Benjamin or any one else overboard. "John!" shouted Benjamin, as they laid him down, dripping wet, on the bottom of the boat, "it don't pay to drink too much brandy. You are the only one in the crowd who can't take care of himself." Benjamin was rather severe, but then he had endured insult and ingratitude so long from his old friend, that his patience was exhausted. The outcome of this scrape on the Delaware Benjamin shall tell in his own words: "We hardly exchanged a civil word after this adventure. At length a West India captain, who had a commission to procure a preceptor for the sons of a gentleman at Barbadoes, met with him and proposed to carry him thither to fill the situation. He accepted, and promised to remit what he owed me out of the first money he should receive; but I never heard of him after." Probably he died, a miserable sot, in Barbadoes, without a friend to mark his grave or write the story of his shame. Benjamin lost, of course, all the money he had loaned him. In later life he referred to the end of John Collins, and said that he (Benjamin) received retribution for his influence over Collins, when he made him as much of a skeptic as himself in Boston. It was there that he unsettled his mind as to the reality of religion. At that time he was industrious, temperate, and honest. But, losing his respect for religion, he was left without restraint and went rapidly to ruin. Benjamin was the greatest sufferer by his fall, and thus was terribly rebuked for influencing him to treat religion with contempt. Governor Keith frequently sent for Benjamin to dine with him, that he might converse with him about the proposed printing house. At length Benjamin was able to take with him an inventory of all the articles necessary for establishing a printing house. "It is not on a large scale," said Benjamin. "I think I better begin moderately. I can enlarge as business increases." "That is wise," answered the governor; "but you want a suitable outfit for a first-class printing office." "Yes; and my inventory contemplates that. The cost will be about one hundred pounds sterling, I judge." "Not so expensive as I supposed," remarked Governor Keith. "I have been thinking whether you better not go to England to purchase these articles. You understand what is wanted." "I had not thought of that," replied Benjamin, both surprised and pleased by the proposition to visit London. "I should defer to your judgment in that as in other things." "If you go it will be necessary for you to sail with Captain Annis, who makes a trip once a year from here to London. It will be some months before he will sail, so that you have plenty of time to think and plan." "I think favorably of the proposition now," continued Benjamin. "I could select the types and see that every thing ordered was good of the kind, and this would be of advantage." "That is what I thought. And more than that; while there you can establish correspondences in the book-selling and stationery line." "I think I could; and such acquaintance might prove of advantage to me in other respects." "It certainly would; and I decide that you get yourself ready to sail with Captain Annis. You can continue to work for Keimer, still keeping the secret, but completing your plans." This was the final agreement, and Benjamin never dreamed that Governor Keith was not honest. If he had divulged to Mr. Read, or Bradford, or even to Mr. Keimer, what the governor proposed, they would have exposed his deceitful, unreliable character, and the enterprise would have been abandoned. XXV. WORKING, READING, AND COURTING. Benjamin continued to work for Keimer, who did not suspect that his employee was planning to set up business for himself. Keimer was a very singular, erratic man, believing little in the Christian religion, and yet given to a kind of fanaticism on certain lines. "_Thou shalt not mar the corners of thy beard_," he quoted from the Mosaic law, as a reason for wearing a long beard, when Benjamin inquired of him: "Then you think that passage means 'Thou shalt not shave,' if I understand you?" asked Benjamin. "Yes, that is about it; and I feel religiously bound to observe it." "Well, I prefer a religion that is seated in the heart instead of the beard." And there was a twinkle in Benjamin's eye when he said it. He enjoyed arguing with Keimer, and frequently had a contest with him in argument. Keimer had come to respect his abilities. Indeed, he considered Benjamin the most remarkable young man he ever met. "It is the religion of the heart that settles the length of the beard, my youthful Socrates." By this reference to Socrates, Keimer meant to slap Benjamin's Socratic method of argument, about which he talked much. "Can't you see it?" "And it ought to settle the appetite, also; and the quantity and kind of food that goes into the stomach," rejoined Benjamin, quickly. Keimer was a large eater--never more satisfied than when devouring a good dinner that was exactly to his taste. On the other hand, while Benjamin had abandoned his "vegetable diet," he cared very little about a good dinner, and seemed to eat one thing with about as good relish as another. He often discussed the subject with Keimer, and always maintained that most people ate too much meat. His last remark hit, and Keimer knew where. "I shall not dispute you on that point," Keimer answered; "if we had religion enough in our hearts, I suppose it would regulate all our acts." "It ought to; but there is not much prospect of its regulating you and me at present. Neither of us has much to boast of in that respect." "Perhaps not. I don't propose to carry my religion so far as many people do, and be fanatical," replied Keimer. "Not much danger of it, I think," retorted Benjamin. "You and I will never be charged with that." Benjamin was as much of a skeptic as Keimer, only his skepticism took a different turn. Keimer believed two things thoroughly: first, to wear the beard long, and, second, to keep the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath. Benjamin, on the other hand, regarded these and kindred dogmas as of little consequence, compared with morality and industry. He believed in work, self-improvement, and uprightness; and that was more than Keimer believed or practised. So their disputes were frequent and animated. Of the two, Benjamin's skepticism was the less dangerous. "I am seriously thinking of establishing a new sect," continued Keimer; "if you will join me, I will. I can preach my doctrines, and you can confound all opponents by your Socratic method." "I shall want some latitude if I join you. It is narrowing down a little too much when a creed contains but two articles, like yours, and both of those grave errors." "In starting a sect I should not insist upon those two articles alone; minor doctrines will naturally gather about them. But I am really in earnest about a new sect, Ben; and I am only waiting to win you over." "Well, perhaps I will join you after you adopt my creed, to use no animal food. Your head will be clearer for running your sect, and such respect for your stomach will show more religion than a long beard does." "My constitution would not withstand that sort of a diet; it would undermine my health." "Temperance in eating and drinking never undermined any body's constitution," retorted Benjamin. "You will live twenty years longer to practise it, and possess a much larger per cent, of self-respect." "Perhaps I will try it, if you will; and also, if you will adopt my creed, and go for a new sect." "I am ready to join you any time in discarding animal food; and, if you succeed well, then I will talk with you about the rest of it." "Agreed," responded Keimer, thinking that Benjamin was really inclined to embrace his scheme, whereas he was only laying his plans for sport. He knew that a man, who liked a good meal as well as Keimer did, would have a hard time on the diet he proposed. Referring to it in his "Autobiography" he said: "He was usually a great eater, and I wished to give myself some diversion in half-starving him. He consented to try the practice, if I would keep him company. I did so, and we held it for three months. Our provisions were purchased, cooked, and brought to us regularly by a woman in the neighborhood, who had from me a list of forty dishes, which she prepared for us at different times, in which there entered neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. This whim suited me the better at this time from the cheapness of it,--not costing us above eighteen pence sterling each per week. I have since kept several lents most strictly, leaving the common diet for that, and that for the common, abruptly, without the least inconvenience. So that, I think, there is little in the advice of making those changes by easy gradations. I went on pleasantly, but poor Keimer suffered grievously, grew tired of the project, longed for the flesh pots of Egypt, and ordered a roast pig. He invited me and two women friends to dine with him; but, it being brought too soon upon the table, he could not resist the temptation, and ate the whole before we came." The trial resulted about as Benjamin anticipated, and he got out of it as much fun as he expected. Keimer proved himself a greater pig than the one he swallowed. At the same time, the result left Keimer without a claim on Benjamin to advocate the new sect. So the scheme was dropped. Keimer was no match for Benjamin in disputation. With the use of the Socratic way of reasoning, Benjamin discomfited him every time; so that he grew shy and suspicious. In his ripe years, Benjamin wrote of those days, and said: "Keimer and I lived on a pretty good familiar footing, and agreed tolerably well; for he suspected nothing of my setting up. He retained a great deal of his old enthusiasm, and loved argumentation. We therefore had many disputations. I used to work him so with my Socratic method, and had trepanned him so often by questions apparently so distant from any point we had in hand, yet by degrees leading to the point and bringing him into difficulties and contradictions, that at last he grew ridiculously cautious, and would hardly answer me the most common question, without asking first, 'What do you intend to infer from that?' However, it gave him so high an opinion of my abilities in the confuting way, that he seriously proposed my being his colleague in a project he had of setting up a new sect. He was to preach the doctrines, and I was to confound all opponents." Benjamin found pleasant literary associates in Philadelphia. A gifted young man usually attracts to himself bright young men near his age. Such was the case with Benjamin. Three young men especially became his boon companions, all of them great readers. Their literary tendencies attracted Benjamin, though their characters were not deficient in high aims and integrity. Their names were Charles Osborne, Joseph Matson, and James Ralph. The first two were clerks of Charles Brockden, an eminent conveyancer of the town, and the other was a merchant's clerk. Matson was a pious young man of sterling integrity, while the others were more lax in their religious opinions and principles. All were sensible young men, much above the average of this class in intellectual endowments. Osborne and Ralph were imaginative and poetical, and frequently tried their talents at verse-making. They formed a literary club, and spent their leisure time together, reading to each other, discussing questions, and, in other ways, seeking self-improvement. Sundays they devoted chiefly to intellectual pastime, strolling along the banks of the Schuylkill, except Matson, who was too much of a Christian to desecrate the Sabbath. He always went to the house of God on Sundays; nor was he esteemed any less highly by his skeptical associates for so doing. "You estimate your talent for poetry too highly," said Osborne to Ralph, at one of their literary interviews. "Poets are born, not made; and I hardly think you was born one." "Much obliged for your compliment," replied Ralph, not at all disconcerted by Osborne's rather personal remark; "but I may become poet enough for my own use. All poets are not first-best when they begin. It is practice that makes perfect, you know." "Practice can't make a poet out of a man who is not born one; and you are not such," continued Osborne. "That piece that you just read is not particularly poetical. It is good rhyme, but it lacks the real spirit of poesy." "I agree with you; I do not call it good poetry; but every poet must begin; and his first piece can not be his best. Poets improve as well as clerks." "Real poets!" responded Osborne, with a peculiar smile at the corners of his mouth. And he continued: "You seem to think that a fortune awaits a poet, too; but you are laboring under a great mistake. There is no money in poetry in our day, and there never was." "Perhaps not; nevertheless I am confident that a poet may readily win popularity and a livelihood. At any rate, I am determined to try it, in spite of your decidedly poor opinion of my abilities." "Well, my advice is that you stick to the business for which you were bred, if you would keep out of the poor-house." Osborne said it more to hector Ralph than any thing. "A good clerk is better than a poor poet; you will agree to that." Benjamin listened with a good deal of interest to the foregoing discussion, and he saw that, from jealousy or some other cause, Osborne was not according to Ralph the credit to which he was entitled; and so he interrupted, by saying: "You set yourself up for a critic, Osborne; but I think more of Ralph as a poet than I do of you as a critic. You are unwilling to grant that his productions have any merit at all; but I think have. Moreover, it is a good practice for him, and for all of us, to write poetry, even if it does not come quite up to Milton. It will improve us in the use of language." "Fiddlesticks! It is simply wasting time that might be spent in profitable reading; and good reading will improve the mind more than rhyming." Osborne spoke with much earnestness. "Not half so much as your empty criticisms are wasting your breath," replied Benjamin, with a smile. "But, look here, I have just thought of a good exercise that we better adopt. At our next meeting each one of us shall bring in a piece of poetry of our own composition, and we'll compare notes and criticise each other." "I should like that," responded Ralph; "it is a capital proposition. Perhaps Osborne may think it will be a waste of time and breath." "Not at all," answered Osborne; "I agree to the plan, provided the subject shall be selected now, so that all shall have fair play." "We will do that, of course," said Benjamin. "Have you a subject to suggest?" "None whatever, unless it is a paraphrase of the Eighteenth Psalm, which describes the descent of the Deity." "That is a grand subject," responded Benjamin. "What do you say to taking that, Ralph?" "I think it is an excellent subject, and I am in favor of adopting it." Thus it was understood that each one should write a poetical paraphrase of the Eighteenth Psalm for their next meeting, and, with this understanding, they separated. Just before the time of their next meeting Ralph called upon Benjamin with his paraphrase, and asked him to examine it. "I have been so busy," remarked Benjamin, "that I have not been able to write any thing, and I shall be obliged to say 'unprepared' when my turn comes to read. But I should like to read yours." Benjamin read Ralph's article over, and then reread it. "It is excellent; better than any poetry you have ever written," remarked Benjamin, when he had finished reading. "Osborne will have to praise that." "But he won't; you see if he does. Osborne never allows the least merit in any thing I write. His envy, or jealousy, or something else, hatches severe criticism, whether there is reason for it or not. He will do that with this article; see if he don't." "If he does, it will be proof that he is prejudiced against you, or is no judge of poetry," replied Benjamin. "Suppose we try a little game," continued Ralph. "I think we can put his judgment to a test. He is not so jealous of you as he is of me. Now you take this article, and produce it as your own, and I will make some excuse for not being prepared. We shall then get at his real opinion of the composition." "A very ingenious test, Ralph," exclaimed Benjamin. "I will enter into the plan with all my heart. But I must transcribe the article, so that he will see that it is in my own handwriting." "Certainly; and be careful that you do not let the secret out." So they waited, almost impatiently, for the time of meeting, both feeling almost sure that Osborne would fall into their net. The appointed time came. Matson was the first to read his production. Osborne came next; and his piece was much better than Matson's. Ralph noticed two or three blemishes, but pointed out many beauties in it. Next it was Ralph's turn to read. "I am sorry to confess that I have nothing to read; but I promise to atone for this failure by doing my part faithfully in future." "Poets ought to be ready at any time," remarked Osborne humorously, looking at Ralph. "It is in order for them to fail sometimes, I think," replied Ralph; "especially if they are not _born_ poets." "Well, Ben, we must have yours, then. You will not disappoint us." "I think you must excuse me this time," Benjamin answered, feigning an unwillingness to read. "No, Ben, no excuse for you," said Osborne. "You have it written; I saw it in your hand." "That is true; but after listening to such fine productions as we have heard, I am not ambitious to read mine. I think I must correct it, and dress it up a little before I submit it for criticism." "That was not in the arrangement, Ben, when you suggested the exercise," remarked Ralph. "You are prepared, and, of course, we shall not excuse you." After much bantering and urging, Benjamin proceeded to read his, apparently with much diffidence; and all listened with profound attention. "You must read that again," said Osborne, when he finished reading it. "Two readings of such a poem as that are none too much. Come, read it again." Benjamin read the article again, apparently with more confidence than at first. "You surprise me, Ben," exclaimed Osborne, when the second reading was finished. "You are a genuine poet. I had no idea that you could write like that." "Nor I," added Matson. "It is better than half the poetry that is printed. If the subject had not been given out, I don't know but I should have charged you with stealing it." "What do you say, Ralph?" inquired Osborne. "You are a poet, and poets ought to be good judges of such matters." Another fling at Ralph's claim to poetical ability. "I don't think it is entirely faultless," remarked Ralph, after some hesitation. "I think you have commended it full as highly as it deserves. Not being a _born_ poet, however, I may not be a good judge," glancing his eye at Osborne. "Well done, Ralph!" exclaimed Osborne. "Your opinion of that production is proof positive that you are destitute of real poetical taste, as I have told you before." Osborne was fairly caught. Ralph and Benjamin exchanged glances, as if to inquire if their time of avowed triumph had not come; but both appeared to conclude to keep the secret a little longer. They controlled their risibles successfully, and allowed Osborne to go on and express himself still more strongly in favor of the composition. Ralph walked home with Osborne, in order to play the game a little more, and their conversation was very naturally about Benjamin's poetry. "I had no idea," remarked Osborne, "that Ben could write poetry like that. I was ashamed of my own when I heard his. I knew him to be a talented fellow; but I had no idea that he was a poet. His production was certainly very fine. In common conversation he seems to have no choice of words; he hesitates and blunders; and yet, how he writes!" "Possibly he might not have written it," suggested Ralph; a very natural suggestion in the circumstances, though Osborne thought it was an outrageous reflection. "That is the unkindest cut of all," retorted Osborne; "to charge him with plagiarism. Ben would never descend to so mean a thing as that." They separated for that night; but Ralph embraced the first opportunity to call on Benjamin, to exult over the success of their little scheme. They laughed to their hearts' content, and discussed the point of revealing the secret. They concluded finally, that the real author of the article should be known at their next meeting. Accordingly, the affair was managed so as to bring the facts of the case before their companions at their next gathering. Osborne was utterly confounded when the revelation was made, and knew not what to say for himself. Matson shook his whole frame with convulsive laughter at poor Osborne's expense, and Benjamin joined him with a keen relish. Never was a fellow in a more mortifying predicament than this would-be critic, since it was now perfectly manifest that he was influenced by blind prejudice in his criticisms of Ralph's poetry. For now, disarmed of prejudice, he had given it his most emphatic endorsement. A few years later, Matson died in Benjamin's arms, much lamented by all of his companions, who regarded him as "the best of their set." Osborne removed to the West Indies, where he became an eminent lawyer, but died just past middle life. Of the others we shall have occasion to speak hereafter. Benjamin always spoke well of that literary club. It was an excellent way of using leisure time. It contributed much to his self-advancement, as it did to that of his companions. Such an arrangement converts spare moments into great blessings. The time was drawing near for Benjamin to leave for England; and there was one thing above all others, that he wished to do, viz.: to be betrothed to Deborah Read. They had fallen in love with each other, but were not engaged. He had not opened the subject to her parents; but he must, if he would win her hand before going to England. So he ventured. "Both of you are too young," replied Deborah's mother. "You are only eighteen! You can not tell what changes may occur before you are old enough to be married." "But that need not interfere with an engagement," suggested Benjamin. "We only pledge each to the other against the time we are ready to be married. Sometimes parties are engaged for years before they are married." "It is not a good plan, however. And why, Benjamin, do you deem an engagement necessary in the circumstances?" "Simply because a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," answered Benjamin, laughing. Mrs. Read laughed, too. "I have not quite satisfied myself that it is best to give up my daughter to a printer," she added. "How so?" inquired Benjamin with some anxiety. "Because there are already several printing houses in the country, and I doubt whether another can be supported." "If I can not support her by the printing business, then I will do it by some other," responded Benjamin, emphatically. "I do not call in question your good intentions, by any means; but you may not realize the fulfillment of your hopes. I think you had better leave the matter as it is until you return from England, and see how you are prospered." "Of course, I shall yield to your judgment in the matter," said Benjamin, very politely, "though I shall be somewhat disappointed." "You and Deborah can have such understanding with each other as you wish; but I object to a formal engagement. Leave that until you return." Mrs. Read was decided in her opinions. Her husband died five or six weeks before this interview. So Benjamin had to leave his bird in the bush, instead of having it in hand. And the bird promised to stay there, and sing for him on his return. XXVI. A BOGUS SCHEME. "I'm thinking of going to England with you," said Ralph to Benjamin, one day in October, 1724. "You don't mean it." "I do mean it. I am thinking seriously of going." "I shall be delighted to have your company, but the news is almost too good to be true," continued Benjamin. "I have been looking the matter over ever since you told me that you expected to go; and now it is settled in my own mind that I shall go." "Going out for your employer?" "No, going out to establish a correspondence, if possible, and arrange to obtain goods to sell on commission." "That is a capital scheme, it seems to me, Ralph. I think you can establish a good business with your tact and experience. You'll have to hurry up; for I expect that Captain Annis will sail in three weeks." Benjamin's words showed his gladness that one of his intimate companions would accompany him. "It won't take me long to get ready; I have been arranging matters for some time with reference to going, though I have spoken to no one about it." Ralph was careful not to divulge the real reason of his going, lest Benjamin should disapprove. At length it was announced that the _London Hope_, Captain Annis, master, would sail about the 10th of November. And now, Benjamin was full of business. He made known his intentions to Keimer and other friends, without disclosing the real object of his trip, or that he was going under the patronage of Governor Keith. Considerable surprise and regret were expressed by several friends that he was going, and yet they were free to say that it would prove an excellent school for such a young man as Benjamin. Governor Keith was lavish in his attentions and interest. "You will want letters of introduction from me; and I shall have some instructions, which I will write out carefully," he said. "The letters will be indispensable; and the instructions I shall most surely need to relieve my lack of experience," Benjamin replied. "I will have them all ready two or three days before Captain Annis sails," added the governor, "and you can call for them. I may want to see you again before I get them ready, and I will send for you." Benjamin thanked Governor Keith for his great kindness, assuring him that he should always feel himself under a heavy debt of gratitude, never dreaming that the scheming politician was luring him into a snare. He put his whole heart and soul into preparation to leave. To him it was the great event of his life; and it would have been, if Sir William Keith had been an honest man instead of a rogue. For an American youth, eighteen years of age, to represent the governor of Pennsylvania in the city of London, to consummate a business enterprise of the greatest importance to a thriving American town, was an unusual occurrence. Any youth of considerable ability and ambition must have realized the value and dignity of the enterprise; but to such a youth as Benjamin was,--talented, aspiring, coveting success, striving for the best,--the opportunity of this business enterprise, proposed and patronized by the highest officer in the colony, must have appealed strongly to his manly and noble nature. We shall see, however, as it turned out, that all the honesty and high-minded purpose that invested it was in Benjamin's soul. Treachery, dishonesty, and perfidy blackened the soul of his patron, loading him down with infamy almost without a parallel. Three days before Captain Annis set sail, Benjamin called for his letters. "My time has been so thoroughly occupied by public business that I have not been able to prepare them, but I will attend to it." "I can call again without any trouble," answered Benjamin, exceedingly grateful for the governor's patronage. "I am sorry that I have not been able to prepare them; but I will not disappoint you again. Call day after to-morrow." The more the governor said and promised, the more thankful Benjamin felt that he had fallen into such generous hands. "I will call in the afternoon, day after to-morrow," replied Benjamin; and thanking him again for his great kindness, took his leave. He called as he promised for the letters and other papers. Instead of being ushered into the governor's presence, as usual, his secretary, Colonel French, came out to announce: "The governor regrets exceedingly that he has not the documents ready yet, and desires that you shall call again to-morrow, just before the vessel sails." "Very well, I will call," replied Benjamin, without the least suspicion that any trouble was brewing for him. On the next day, with all his baggage on board, and the "good-bye" said to all his friends, he hastened to the governor's head-quarters for his papers. Again Colonel French met him with the announcement: "The governor desires me to say that he is really ashamed to disappoint you again; but a constant pressure of business has prevented. But the vessel will stop at Newcastle, and he will meet you and deliver yours with other letters he has to send; and he hopes that you will have a pleasant voyage and meet with great success." "Please convey my thanks to him for his many kindnesses and present good wishes," answered Benjamin, "and say to him that I will execute his commands to the very best of my ability, and report at the earliest possible time." So saying, Benjamin returned and boarded the vessel, which soon dropped down the Delaware, thinking all the while of his good fortune in having so great and good a man as Governor Keith for his friend. At Newcastle, Benjamin landed and hastened to see the governor, whom he expected to be there, as Colonel French said; but he met only the secretary, who announced again: "The governor is now writing the last dispatch, and will send your documents, with others, on board before the ship weighs anchor. He would be glad to see you again before you leave, but requires me to say that every moment of his time will be occupied to the very last minute, so he must content himself with sending to you, by me, his last words of confidence and his best wishes." "Convey mine, also, to him," Benjamin replied, as he turned away to go to the vessel. Just as the ship was about to sail, a bag of letters and other documents came on board from the governor. Benjamin supposed that it contained his indispensable letters, and, at a suitable time, he went to the captain and said: "Governor Keith was to furnish me with letters of introduction to friends in London, and I suppose they are in the bag which he sent aboard. Can I look them over for my letters?" "Just now I am too busy to give the matter any attention," Captain Annis said; "but I assure you that, long before we reach London, you shall have the opportunity to examine and take what belongs to you." "That will do; I thank you," replied Benjamin, perfectly satisfied that all was right; and he settled down to enjoy the voyage. When the vessel entered the English Channel, Captain Annis brought out the bag of documents from the governor for Benjamin to inspect. He was surprised beyond measure not to find any letters addressed to himself. He found several addressed to other parties with his name written upon them, as under his care, but not one addressed to himself. It was very singular, he thought, but he concluded that one of the number was devoted to his mission, as it was addressed to Baskett, the king's printer. He found seven or eight letters addressed to different parties, "Care of Benjamin Franklin," and he took them all from the bag. He still supposed that every thing about his mission was correct. They arrived in London on the 24th of December, when Benjamin lacked about a month of being nineteen years old. With Ralph, he proceeded to find lodgings at once; and just as soon as that arrangement was made, he hastened to deliver the letters submitted to his care. The first party upon whom he called was a stationer. "I have the honor of bringing a letter to you, sir, from Governor Keith of Pennsylvania, America," he said, with considerable assurance. "I have not the honor of his acquaintance," answered the stationer. "Pray, tell me who Governor Keith may be." "The letter will inform you, no doubt," replied Benjamin, giving him the letter. The stationer opened it; but read scarcely three lines before he exclaimed, to Benjamin's consternation: "Oh, this is from Riddlesden! I have lately found him to be a complete rascal, and I will have nothing to do with him, nor receive any letters from him," and he handed the letter back to Benjamin without reading all of it, turned upon his heel and went back to his work. Benjamin's feelings can be imagined better than described. He was well-nigh dumbfounded to learn that the letter was not from Governor Keith. And then it was that the first flash of suspicion that he had been deceived entered his mind. He was still more surprised to learn, on examination, that not one of the letters he had taken from the bag was written by Governor Keith. There he was without one letter of introduction to any person in London, the scheme of establishing a printing house in Philadelphia discovered to be a myth, a mere boy, friendless and without work, in a great city, three thousand miles from home. If another American youth was ever lured into a baser trap, by a baser official, his name has never been recorded. Benjamin was at his wits' end--he knew not what to do. His feelings bordered upon despair. Had he not been a wonderful youth to rise superior to difficulties, he must have yielded to overwhelming discouragement. To add to his troubles, when he disclosed his situation to Ralph, he learned that his old companion had abandoned his wife and child, never intending to return to America. "You are a hard-hearted wretch; I never would have thought such a thing of you, Ralph," he exclaimed. "Such meanness ought to be left to baser men than you are." "I suppose that you would never look with any favor upon such a plan as mine, and so I did not tell you," replied Ralph. "It is lucky for you that you did not; for I never would have consented to be the companion of a young man running away from his wife and child." "Well, I have never been treated well by one member of my wife's family from the day I was married, and before, too. I have borne it without complaining to any one, until I could bear it no longer. Now let them reflect." "But that is no excuse for a man to abandon his family, no excuse whatever. Why, Ralph, I am almost as much deceived in you as I have been in Governor Keith. I did not think that you were capable of such meanness." Benjamin meant every word he uttered; and he was not disposed to spare his old friend at all. Another bit of information just here magnified his sorrows. "I am out of funds entirely, Ben, so that I have begun to be cursed already, you see, without yours." Ralph spoke as if the remarks of Ben cut him to the quick. "Out of money!" exclaimed Ben. "Come here dead broke? You must be crazy, Ralph. Abandon your family, and shove yourself upon me to support in London! I am shocked." "I am afraid that both of us will be more shocked than that before we get through," answered Ralph with the utmost coolness. "You have been too good a friend to desert me now, Ben." The last remark touched a tender spot in Benjamin's heart. He and Ralph had been true friends, and passed many happy hours together. He abhorred his inhumanity to his wife and child, and his deceitfulness in claiming to go to London to secure goods to sell on commission and establish correspondence; but he had no heart to abandon him in a strange city. "Get work, Ralph, as soon as possible, or we shall be in a bad plight; for I have only fifteen pistoles in all, which will not keep up a connection between soul and body long." This remark of Benjamin's implied that he should divide what he had with Ralph as long as it lasted. "I shall do that, Ben, you may rest assured; for I will not take advantage of your generosity any longer than I can help. I mean to continue a good friend of yours whether you continue to be a good friend of mine or not." This was a shrewd way of putting it. Ralph knew the young man he was talking with thoroughly. Benjamin resolved to seek the advice of Mr. Denham. He was a Quaker merchant who sailed from Philadelphia with him. He was a stranger to him; but, when Colonel French came on board with letters from the governor at Newcastle, he introduced Benjamin to Denham. For this reason Denham became deeply interested in Benjamin, and showed him many favors. Now his advice would be specially useful to Benjamin; so he sought and found him. "I find, Mr. Denham, that Governor Keith has been deceiving me. I came here under his auspices, and he promised me letters of introduction to parties, and the means to purchase an outfit for a first-class printing house in Philadelphia; and he has not fulfilled either promise. There are no letters for me among the dispatches he sent on board at Newcastle. He has proved himself a fraud and a cheat." "He always did that," Mr. Denham replied. "If I had known that you were depending on Keith for any thing, I could have opened your eyes to his rascality at once. Keith is an official scamp." "Here is a letter from Riddlesden to a stationer here," and passing the letter to Denham, he rehearsed his interview with the stationer. "Riddlesden!" exclaimed Denham; "so base an attorney-at-law never cursed Pennsylvania. He is matched in perfidy only by Keith. Two worse rogues never occupied important positions in any country." Then, reading the letter through, he went on: "And this very letter proves that he is an arrant knave. For here is proof of a conspiracy against Mr. Hamilton, who was booked to sail with Captain Annis, and Keith is in it." Denham read the letter to Benjamin, explaining its meaning as he went along, for he was well posted about Keith and the villainous attorney. "You should keep this letter, Franklin, and show it to Mr. Hamilton when he comes," added Denham. "Hamilton will come just as soon as he can. He came aboard our ship with his son, intending to come; but a party appeared, offering him a very large fee to wait and conduct a case in court, and he consented. He is the greatest lawyer in Pennsylvania. Keep the letter and give it to him." We may say here, once for all, that Benjamin did keep the letter until the arrival of Mr. Hamilton, several months later, when he presented it to him, for which favor Hamilton was very grateful, and became Benjamin's life-long friend. "But what can I do, Mr. Denham?" asked Benjamin. "I am here a stranger in a strange city, with very little money. What would you advise me to do?" "I do not see but one thing that you can do just now. You are a printer, and you can get work without doubt in some printing office until you see fit to return." "I thought of that; but it occurred to me that an American printer would be at a discount here, where the printing business is so much better understood," suggested Benjamin. "You can get over that difficulty quickly by showing them what you can do," answered Mr. Denham. "You have more intelligence and culture than most of the English printers; and that will help you." "I will lose no time in making an application for a place," said Benjamin. "I am under obligations to you for your interest in me." "It may prove of great advantage to you to have this opportunity to become familiar with printing in London," continued Mr. Denham. "You can perfect yourself in the art against the time you return, and set up business in Philadelphia. So you may get some good out of your trials, after all. 'It is an ill wind that blows no one any good.'" "It looks so, certainly," Benjamin answered. "I will accept your advice, and see what I can do." Benjamin had _paid too dear for the whistle_ again; but he made the best of it. First of all, he found a permanent boarding-place for himself and Ralph, where the charges were in proportion to his pecuniary ability. It was in Little Britain Street; and the weekly charge was only three shillings and sixpence. Then both started out in search of work. Benjamin went direct to Palmer's famous printing house in Bartholomew Close, where fifty hands were then employed, and applied for a situation. "What experience have you had?" inquired the overseer. "Several years. I learned the business of my brother, James Franklin, in Boston, America; and he came to your country and learned it, before setting up the business in his own country." "You ought to understand it, then. But why do you seek work in this country?" "I did not come to London for work, but for an outfit with which to establish the business in Philadelphia." And Benjamin rehearsed his arrangement with Governor Keith, and the treachery which had been practised upon him, which interested the manager very much, and, at the same time, won his sympathy. "Though Governor Keith proved so treacherous to you, the facts show his confidence in your ability as a printer," he remarked; "and, surely, in these misfortunes, a friend in need is a friend indeed. I think I can find something for you to do." "You can try me, and I shall be very thankful for the chance," Benjamin answered. "I have no desire to work for any man unless I can suit him." "That is an honorable view of the matter; and I have no doubt of your ability to satisfy me. You can come at once, and I will give you a position." They agreed upon wages that were satisfactory to Benjamin, and the next day he went to work. The truth was, that the boss of Palmer's printing house was very much pleased with Benjamin's appearance. He saw at once that he was a young man of uncommon ability. He was surprised to learn that he was not quite nineteen years of age, since his appearance was that of a young man of twenty-two. Therefore, he was not only desirous of aiding him in his embarrassing situation, but he was glad to employ a young man of so much promise. Ralph was not so successful. Here and there he applied for work, but no one appeared to want him. Benjamin rendered him all the assistance possible evenings; but his efforts met with no success. In advanced life, Benjamin spoke of Ralph's efforts as follows: "He first endeavored to get into the playhouse, believing himself qualified for an actor; but Wilkes, to whom he applied, advised him candidly not to think of that employment, as it was impossible he should succeed in it. Then he proposed to Roberts, a publisher in Pater Noster Row, to write for him a weekly paper like the _Spectator_, on certain conditions; which Roberts did not approve. Then he endeavored to get employment as a hackney writer, to copy for the stationers and lawyers about the Temple; but could not find a vacancy." Ralph possessed considerable ability as an amateur player of tragedy or comedy; and he was quite a racy writer, also; hence his application for a situation as above. Benjamin was familiar with his qualifications on the lines mentioned, and seconded his efforts as best he could; but all to no purpose. As Ralph had no money or work, Benjamin was obliged to support him. He paid his board, and loaned him small sums from time to time, so that he could maintain the appearance of a respectable citizen. But he was another elephant on Benjamin's hands. The weeks multiplied, and still Ralph had no employment. He was a constant bill of expense. Willing to work, abhorring a life of idleness, his condition and prospects were a torment to himself. He was more troubled even than Benjamin over his misfortune. At length, however, he announced: "I am going to put an end to this sort of a life, Ben. I have stood it as long as I can. I am going out into the country to find a school to teach. I am told that I can easily find one." "Not a bad idea, in the circumstances," replied Benjamin. "Teaching is an honorable and useful business; and it will make you friends." "I should much prefer to remain in this city and find a more congenial situation; but beggars can't be choosers, and so I have concluded to make the best of it. I am completely discouraged in trying for work in London." Ralph spoke as he felt, for he had become disheartened. "It seems strange, almost," continued Benjamin "that you can find no situation of any sort in this great city, where----" "I was not born under a lucky star, as you were, Ben," interrupted Ralph. "My experience with Governor Keith doesn't show much of a star any way," rejoined Benjamin. "Certainly, it is not a lucky one, nor a morning star; if it is a star at all, it must be an _evening_ star, seen only when it is getting dark." "I wish I could accept disappointment and defeat as philosophically as you can, Ben; but I can't. It is quite impossible for me to make the best out of the worst; but you can." "It is the way I am made, no doubt," said Benjamin in reply. "I never could make any thing by fretting." "Nor any body else," quickly answered Ralph, "and still I fret and worry as if thereby I could mend the matter. But I am going to strike out for a school, and leave London to suffer the consequences of not employing me." "That is philosophical, sure," added Benjamin. The school was secured within a short time, and Ralph became a schoolmaster a few miles out of London. Benjamin continued to serve in the Palmer printing house, where he gave satisfaction, and made his mark, as we shall see. XXVII. "OUR WATER-DRINKER." A letter from Ralph to Benjamin informed the latter that the former was settled in a small village called Berkshire, where he was teaching about a dozen boys in reading and writing at a sixpence each per week, --not a very flattering position, but, in the circumstances, better than none. What surprised Benjamin, however, was that Ralph had changed his name, and was known in that village as Franklin. He had assumed Franklin's name, thinking that such a position was not honorable for James Ralph to occupy. At first, Benjamin was somewhat displeased to find himself scattered about in such a way, printer and schoolmaster, and he knew not what next. But, on the whole, he concluded to let the matter rest; and, if his old friend could get success out of his name, allow him to do it. So he corresponded with him from time to time, directing his letters to "Mr. Franklin, schoolmaster," as Ralph desired. It was not long before Benjamin began to receive instalments of an epic poem which Ralph was composing, with the request to examine and return remarks and corrections. Benjamin did examine and return it, with the advice to cease writing epic poems and attend to his legitimate business or get into some other. But it was of no use, the poem continued to come by instalments. At this juncture, too, another trial was added to his singular experience. Ralph's English wife called upon him for help. The following is Franklin's account of the manner in which Ralph came into these new relations: "In our house lodged a young woman, a milliner, who, I think, had a shop in the Cloisters. She had been genteelly bred, was sensible, lively, and of a most pleasing conversation. Ralph read plays to her in the evenings, they grew intimate, she took another lodging, and he followed her. They lived together some time, but he being still out of business, and her income not sufficient to maintain them with her child, he took a resolution of going from London to try for a country school." "I need help, and know not where to go except to you," said Mrs. Ralph; "indeed, James told me to apply to you." "I recall," replied Benjamin, "that he asked me in one of his letters to see that you were not in want. I am not in circumstances to do much for you, but I will cheerfully do what I can." "I shall be very much obliged for the smallest favor. My wants are few, and I can make a little assistance go a good way." Benjamin relieved her wants, and from that time continued to call upon her, to see that she was made comfortable and to enjoy her company. These demands upon his purse kept it drained to the last cent all the time, so that he could lay nothing by for himself. He could see no way out of his trouble. He must continue penniless, or let Ralph and his family suffer. But just then an indiscreet act on his part offended Ralph, who, coming to London for a day or two, said to Benjamin: "I consider myself under no obligations to you whatever from this time. I shall ask no more favors of you for myself or family, and will have nothing more to do with you." "Very well," replied Benjamin, "I will so understand it." In this way Benjamin was relieved of a great burden unexpectedly. Incumbrances thus removed, he devoted himself with remarkable energy and industry to his business and self-improvement. About this time Benjamin was offered larger pay at Watts' printing house, near Lincoln's Inn Fields, and he removed thither. He changed his boarding-place, also, to Duke Street, opposite the Romish chapel. Next door to Benjamin's lodgings was a bookstore kept by one Wilcox. He had an immense collection of second-hand books, in which, of course, Benjamin became much interested, spending his leisure time here. "I have not the money to make purchases," he said to Wilcox. "I wish I had. There are so many valuable books here, and they are so cheap, that I wish I was able to make many of them my own." "Well, you are at liberty to spend all the time you can reading them here," answered Wilcox, who had already formed a high opinion of his abilities. "Perhaps some day you will be able to own some of them." "You are very kind indeed, Mr. Wilcox, and I shall avail myself of your generosity to make the acquaintance of some of these authors." Benjamin had already rehearsed the story of the fraud through which he became a London printer, so that Wilcox understood the reason that he was penniless. "Glad to see you here any time; feel perfectly at home, and get all the good you can out of these books," Wilcox added with great kindness. It was not long before an original idea about the use of those books took possession of Benjamin's mind, and he made it known to the bookseller. "A new idea has struck me, Mr. Wilcox. I do not want to take so much advantage of your generosity, and it has occurred to me that I can pay you a sum we can agree upon to take out and read such books as I may select. I mean, pay you a given amount on each book I read." "I had not thought of that; it is an excellent plan, I think. We will have no difficulty about the price," answered Wilcox. "It will take me longer, of course, to read some books than it will others," continued Benjamin; "but I am a rapid reader, and shall be as expeditious as possible with each volume. And, also, I pledge myself that each volume shall be returned in as good a condition as when I take it out." "That is fair; I accept the proposition." The price per volume was agreed upon, and Benjamin reveled in books every night. He never advanced more rapidly in intellectual attainments than he did after this arrangement with Wilcox. This is the first instance of loaning books for a price on record--a practice that has become well-nigh universal since that day. He had not been at Palmer's long before he was employed in composing for the second edition of Wollaston's "Religion of Nature," which was just the kind of a treatise to arouse his intellect, and to set him to thinking and also to speculating. "Poor reasoning!" he said to Mr. Watts; "very fallacious and superficial, too." "Ah!" replied Mr. Watts, considerably surprised that his new employee, just over from a new and uncultivated country, should handle a treatise like that so gingerly; "how is that? Rather a popular work, that of Wollaston's." "Popular enough it may be, but error is often popular. The work is illogical, and not altogether in harmony with facts." Benjamin's criticisms impressed Mr. Watts somewhat, though he thought he was laboring under a mistake. "Perhaps the trouble is in your own mind, and not in Wollaston's," he suggested. "That may be; but I am going to review it for my own satisfaction and benefit," answered Benjamin. "Then I will suspend judgment until I can read your review," said Mr. Watts, at the same time being still more surprised that a youth of his age should be so familiar with such topics. Within a short time Benjamin had his review of "Religion of Nature" prepared and printed, bearing the somewhat dignified title, "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain," and it was inscribed to his friend, James Ralph. A copy was submitted to Mr. Watts for examination, and his opinion awaited with some anxiety. "I confess that it is a remarkable production for a youth like you to father--remarkable in its plan, thought, and reasoning--but it is no credit to your principles," Mr. Watts said. "How so?" "It is really deistical in its position. You remember that I suggested the trouble might be in yourself, instead of Wollaston; and it is, in my judgment." "Wherein is my reasoning illogical or incorrect?" Benjamin's use of the Socratic method of reasoning still adhered to him. "Any reasoning is illogical and fallacious that takes it for granted that there is no God," answered Mr. Watts. "Without a God, we are nowhere; and that is where your pamphlet is. There is ingenuity in it, I grant; but it is false." "From your standpoint, you mean, Mr. Watts?" "Yes, if you please; but my standpoint is the Bible. Any reasoning that ignores the Bible is fallacious. To pretend to understand the things of this world without a God is abominable. 'The _fool_ hath said in his heart, There is no God.'" "Well, you are getting rather personal," Benjamin answered, roguishly. "I suspect that you are rather puritanical in your notions; but I am not." "No, that is quite evident; nothing puritanical about your Dissertation, but a plenty that is fanatical," retorted Mr. Watts. "Much obliged for your opinion, so frankly expressed," added Benjamin, as Mr. Watts turned to answer a call. A short time after the publication of the foregoing Dissertation, a London surgeon, by the name of Lyons, called at Watts' office. "Is there a man at work in your printing house by the name of Franklin--Benjamin Franklin?" he inquired of Mr. Watts. "There is." "Can I see him?" "Yes, I will call him." Benjamin was called and introduced to the gentleman, who said, holding a pamphlet in his hand: "Are you the author of this 'Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain'?" "I am, sir." Benjamin had received such a trimming from his employer, that he was almost sure the stranger had come to stigmatize him for writing that pamphlet. But he was soon relieved by the remark of Lyons: "I have read it with great interest, and have been very much profited by it. I did not dream, however, that it was written by so young a person as you are." Benjamin thanked him for his complimentary words, and the surgeon went on: "I am the author of the book entitled, 'The Infallibility of Human Judgment,' and I think our views harmonize in the main. I should be pleased to loan you a copy if you care to read it." "It will afford me real pleasure to read it, Doctor Lyons, and I shall appreciate your favor." "And when you have read it, I shall be glad to meet you, and compare notes, and discuss the topics." "Nothing will suit me better than that," added Benjamin. Doctor Lyons frequently called on Benjamin to converse upon the subject-matter of his pamphlet, and, at one time, he says, "He carried me to the Horns, a pale-ale house in ------ Lane, Cheapside, and introduced me to Doctor Mandeville, author of the 'Fable of the Bees,' who had a club there, of which he was the soul, being a most facetious, entertaining companion." The religion in Benjamin's pamphlet, and that in Lyons' book, was well suited to a "pale-ale house." It was so _pale_ as scarcely to be discernible in either book or pamphlet--almost entirely faded out. That was why Benjamin's pamphlet pleased Lyons so much--the religion in it was not too much for a "pale-ale house." Doctor Lyons introduced him, also, to one Doctor Pemberton, "at Batson's Coffee-house," a kindred spirit, whose coffee was stronger than his religion--a quick-witted, lively sort of a man. He was very familiar with Benjamin. "Glad to know that your mind is interested in subjects of so grave importance," he said. "In a youth of your age it is evidence of a strong mind and expanding intellect." "Most of my friends do not regard my views with the favor you express; they see evidence, rather, of mental weakness and distortion," said Benjamin in reply. "It is because they do not investigate for themselves. They are content to receive opinions secondhand, labelled and fixed. How would you like to number Sir Isaac Newton among your friends?" Doctor Pemberton spoke as a man of authority. "I should feel myself highly honored," answered Benjamin. "Do you know him?" "I have the honor of his acquaintance; and I will give you an introduction at some future time." "I shall accept your favor with thanks"; and Benjamin waited and waited for the opportunity, but it never came, probably because Newton could never be found in "an ale-house." This was the outcome of Benjamin's literary venture; and the pleasantest part of the whole was that he lived to see the folly of his effort, especially its non-religious character. He became satisfied that Mr. Watts was right when he declared the principles of his Dissertation "abominable." At another time, while Benjamin worked at Watts', Sir Hans Sloane called upon him,--another notable London character of that day. Benjamin was taken aback when he met him,--he could scarcely divine what this titled Englishman could want of him. "I have heard of you, Mr. Franklin, as recently from America, and I have called to make your acquaintance," he said. "Glad to meet you, Sir Hans," replied Benjamin, fully equal to the occasion. "I am at your service." "You are the author of a pamphlet called," and he gave the title, "are you?" "I am." "I have not read it; but I have heard it discussed, and I concluded that a youth of your age must possess a strong mind to undertake such a treatise. And I understand that you brought many curiosities with you to this country." Now, Sir Hans was getting to the subject that was near to his heart; for he was a curiosity-hunter. "A few only--very few," replied Benjamin. "You have a purse, I understand, made of the _asbestos_, which purifies by fire?" "Yes, sir, I have." "I should be delighted to have you call upon me in Bloomsbury Square, and bring the purse; and I will show you _my_ great collection of curiosities. I think you can spend a pleasant and profitable evening in that way." "I will do it with the greatest pleasure, and be obliged for the opportunity," Benjamin answered. And he did. The first opportunity he improved to take the asbestos purse to Bloomsbury Square, where he had a splendid time examining the best collection of curiosities he had ever dreamed of, and where he discussed various topics of interest with the entertaining Sir Hans. "Now," said the host, as Benjamin was about to leave, "I should be glad to add the asbestos purse to my collection, and I will pay you well for it," naming the amount. "I will accommodate you and leave it." Benjamin was happy to add to Sir Hans' collection, in the circumstances. Benjamin felt the need of more physical exercise, so that when he entered the printing house, he "took to working at press." He drank water only; all other employees, about fifty of them, drank strong beer. He was really a curiosity to them. "Beer-guzzling is a detestable habit," he said to a fellow-workman, "and it is a very expensive one, too, for a poor fellow like you." "I could not do a decent day's work without beer. I drink it for strength." "So much the worse for you; beer strength is the worst sort of weakness," continued Benjamin. "Just stop a moment and think what a beer-barrel you make of yourself; a pint before breakfast, a pint at breakfast, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint in the afternoon, a pint at six o'clock, and a pint when you have done work--almost a gallon each day! Why, I could not hold half as much as that; I should run over." "Then you don't believe a man can do more work for drinking strong beer?" "Of course I don't. I can do more work than any man in the establishment, and I can lift more than any other man here; and I drink nothing but water. If beer imparts the strength you imagine, any one of you ought to do more work and lift more than I can; isn't that so?" The workmen had good reason to believe this; for Benjamin had kept his eyes and ears open from the time he entered the printing house, and he had learned just what the men thought about beer, why they drank it, how much work they did, and how much they could lift. Without saying a word about it, he took special pains to turn off a large amount of work, and to lift more than his fellow-workmen. For example, he would carry two forms of type, one in each hand, up and down stairs, while the other workmen carried but one with both hands. Therefore, Watts (the name of the workman) knew that every thing Benjamin claimed about strength was true. "Are all Americans like you?" inquired the workman. "No; too many of them are like you, I am sorry to say; they drink beer and other intoxicants, that disqualify them for business. If more of them would drink water, as I do, they would be far better off physically and pecuniarily." "Some of our best doctors claim that there is much nutriment in beer," he suggested. "And every one of them knows that there is more nutriment in a pennyworth of bread than there is in a whole gallon of beer. Therefore, if you eat the bread and drink the water, you get more strength." The printer acknowledged that there was something in that. "You see," continued Benjamin, "that all the nutriment there is in the barley is destroyed to convert it into beer. Your beer is very dirty water made bitter with malt, out of which nearly every particle of nutriment has been squeezed. There is as much nourishment in dishwater as there is in that stuff." "Here, Jake, where are you?" called out another workman. "Bring on the beer." Jake was the ale-boy, whose business it was to supply the men with beer from the ale-house. "Another nuisance required by your beer business," exclaimed Benjamin. "Better by far pay a boy double price to bring water from the well, instead of bringing that stuff to absorb your money and sodden your brain." "A _Water-American_, indeed!" said Mr. Watts, who heard much of the conversation. "But will you not allow some comfort to hard-working men?" "Certainly; that is what I am after. There is more comfort in one glass of pure water than there is in a whole barrel of beer. Here is Watts, paying out four or five shillings every week for beer, when water would cost him nothing, and he would have that amount to spend for genuine comforts. Besides, beer unfits him to get real comfort out of any thing, even out of his home." "You are about right on that," replied Watts; "beer does make a class of men most miserable. But must I discard it because some men use it to their injury?" "Of course you must," Benjamin answered quickly and triumphantly. "There is where duty and right come in. The strong must bear the infirmities of the weak, or they won't amount to much in the world." "Many of them won't amount to much any way, beer or no beer," responded Watts. "Any of them will amount to more with water than they will with beer," retorted Benjamin, who felt competent to support his side of the question. He went on: "Look here: I am supplied with a large porringer of hot-water gruel, sprinkled with pepper, crumbled with bread, and a bit of butter in it, for just the price of a pint of beer, three half-pence. Now, honestly, is not this much better for me, or for yourself, than the same amount of filthy beer?" "Possibly; it is a new view of the case to me," was all that Mr. Watts could say, evidently conceding that Benjamin was about right. Benjamin exchanged the press-room for the composing-room, after a few weeks. "A treat now, Ben; that is the condition of admission here," said the men. "I guess not; I fulfilled that condition in the press-room," answered Benjamin. "Once will do in this establishment." "But you _will_," retorted a fellow-worker, enforced by a dozen voices. "The rule is irrevocable." "We will see about that," replied Benjamin, with coolness, but determination. "Yes, we _will_ see," chimed in a resolute voice. "And after all your seeing and blustering I shall not do it," added Benjamin, in a tone that indicated he meant what he said. "Ben is right," interrupted Mr. Watts, who had listened to the colloquy; "he has met that condition once in the press-room, and he will not be required to repeat it. I forbid his doing it." "It is a very foolish custom any way," said Benjamin, "and the sooner it is abandoned in England or anywhere else the better." After all he did not carry his point. His own words about the affair were as follows: "I stood out two or three weeks, was accordingly considered as an excommunicate, and had so many little pieces of private malice practised on me, by mixing my sorts, transposing and breaking my matter, etc., etc., if ever I stepped out of the room,--and all ascribed to the _chapel ghost_, which they said ever haunted those not regularly admitted,--that, notwithstanding the master's protection, I found myself obliged to comply and pay the money; convinced of the folly of being on ill terms with those one is to live with continually." Benjamin kept up the fight against beer-drinking until he fairly conquered. One after another yielded to his example and arguments, and abandoned the old habit of swilling down beer, until a thorough reformation was wrought in the printing office. The strength, health, tact, and enterprise of the "_water-drinker_" convinced them that he was right. The title, "_Our Water-drinker_" bandied about the printing house, came to be really an appellation of esteem. The printing press, on which Benjamin worked at Watts' printing house, is now in the Patent Office at Washington, where many visitors go to see it. Forty years after he worked on it, Franklin was in London, where his fame was greater than that of any other man, and he called at the old printing house, and going up to the familiar press, he said to the employees: "It is just forty years since I worked at this press, as you are working now." [Illustration: FRANKLIN'S LONDON PRINTING PRESS] The announcement rather startled them. That a public man of so much fame should ever have even served in a printing office as they were serving, was almost too much for them to believe. The publisher of this volume has in his possession _fac-simile_ letters from different gentlemen in England, fully verifying the press the engraving of which appears above. XXVIII. AT HOME AGAIN. We have seen that James Ralph and Benjamin parted company. Ralph had more brains than heart. His intellectual powers were greater than his principles. The reader may ask what became of him. After continuing poor and unsuccessful, engaging in several literary ventures that did little more than aggravate his poverty, and changing from one kind of work to another, good fortune seemed to become his portion. Mr. Parton says: "As a political writer, pamphleteer, and compiler of booksellers' history, he flourished long. Four ministers thought his pen worth purchasing: Sir Robert Walpole, Mr. Pelham, Lord Bute, and the Duke of Bedford. The nobleman last named evidently held him in high esteem, and furnished the money for one of Ralph's political periodicals. Lord Bute, it is said, settled upon him an annuity of six hundred pounds. Fox praises the fairness, and Hallam the diligence, displayed in his two huge folios of the 'History of William III.' His works may be examined by the curious in the library of Harvard University and in the Philadelphia city library. In estimating the career of this erring man, we should not forget that many of the noblemen and statesmen with whom he associated, and for whose advancement he toiled, had less principle than he, and had not his excuse."[3] "Swimming is one of the fine arts, I think," said Benjamin to Wygate, a printer with whom he was on the most intimate terms. "I feel about as much at home in the water as I do on the land." "Well, I should go to the bottom pretty quick if I should venture where the water is over my head, for I can't swim any more than this printing-press can," answered Wygate. "Why don't you learn? It might be of great use to you sometime." "I should like to know how, but I never tried to learn." "And that is a good reason for not knowing how to swim. You can't expect to know any thing without learning. I can teach you without any trouble." "I accept your offer, and will try my best to learn; and Hall will try with me, I think. You can teach two as well as one, can't you?" "Yes, a dozen, so far as that goes; the more the merrier." "When will you go?" "Just when you please. You and Hall fix the time, and I will be on hand." The result was that Benjamin was in the water with his two pupils within a few days, and he taught both of them to swim well in two lessons. At the same time, he gave them an exhibition of what an expert swimmer can do in the water, performing different feats on and under the water, that filled his two companions with surprise. "You are a water-American in more senses than one," remarked Wygate, in admiration of Benjamin's pranks in the water. "You could live in the water about as well as on the land." "That is not strange," responded Hall; "he believes in water, inside and outside; he only practises what he preaches, and that is what he ought to do." "Some people can't practise what they preach if they try ever so hard, in business or in morals," rejoined Wygate. Wygate was the son of a wealthy man, who educated him quite thoroughly. He could read Latin and French about as well as he could English, and he could write very entertaining articles. He was fond of reading, too, and loved to discuss important questions. Such a young man was not often found in a printing office, and he just suited Benjamin in his literary tastes, so that they became boon companions. Their mutual attachment was strengthened by this experience in the art of swimming. Not long after Wygate learned to swim, and while the feats that Benjamin performed in the water were still a subject of remark, some gentlemen proposed an excursion by water to Chelsea, several miles from London. "Wouldn't you like to go, Ben?" "Of course I would, if you are going." "I will go if you go. I will call round with some of the party and introduce you to them." This was done in due time, and Benjamin learned from them that they were going to Chelsea "to see the college and Don Saltero's curiosities," which object of the excursion more than doubled his interest. On the trip Wygate talked much with some of the party about Benjamin's feats in the water as almost too wonderful to be believed. On returning, one of the gentlemen said: "Franklin, why can you not give us an exhibition of your antics in the water?" "Yes, Ben, do; let them see that what I have told them is literally true," entreated Wygate. "Come, Ben, do it," added Hall; "it will put Saltero's curiosities into the shade. These gentlemen will be so interested in your performances that they will forget all other curiosities." "Well, I am always ready to accommodate," replied Benjamin, "and it will not cross my disposition to have a little frolic in the water, so I will consent." So saying, he took off his clothing and leaped into the river, and was soon as much at home there as a water-fowl. Sometimes he was under the water, and sometimes on it; it did not seem to make much difference to him which. He swam from Chelsea to Blackfriars, four miles, entertaining the company with many manoeuvres all the way. Then he got on board, arrayed himself in his apparel to hear such words of praise as these: "Wonderful! I had no idea that any man could attain to such skill in the water." "No one in London who can do that!" "Nor in all England and Wales." "Couldn't drown you, Franklin, if you were left in the middle of the Atlantic ocean." "You could make a fortune, if you chose to exhibit your skill." As this brief experience, together with his teaching Wygate and Hall to swim, won him quite a reputation on this line, we may state here, that after Benjamin had decided to return to Philadelphia and arranged therefor, he received a note from Sir William Wyndham, a noted public man, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Bolingbroke administration, inviting him to pay him a visit. Benjamin was again perplexed to know what this great man could want of him; but he went to see him. "I am happy to see you, Mr. Franklin, and I hope it has been no inconvenience to you to call at this time." "None at all," answered Benjamin. "On the other hand, I consider myself highly honored by your invitation to call; and I have gladly embraced the first opportunity to do so." "I have heard of your great skill in the art of swimming," continued Sir Wyndham; "and how quickly you taught two young printers to swim." "Yes," modestly answered Benjamin, "I have some skill in the water, and I did teach two of my companions the art of swimming, so that they are excellent swimmers now." "That is what I heard; and I have two sons who are soon to start upon extensive travels, and I want they should learn to swim before they go. It may be of great service to them." "I have no doubt it would prove a benefit to them," responded Benjamin. "I should not want to part with my skill for any consideration whatever." "Can you teach my two sons the art at once?" "I regret to say that I can not, for the reason that I am soon to leave London and return to America." "Sorry for that, very sorry indeed. Allow me to suggest that, if you could prolong your stay here, you might make a real pecuniary success of establishing a swimming school. I should be willing to pay almost any price for the instruction of my two sons." Sir Wyndham was very earnest in his counsel, and made this suggestion sincerely. "I really feel under great obligations for your interest and good opinions," Benjamin answered; "but I have already accepted an invitation to engage in business in Philadelphia, my home, and may leave within a few days." "That settles the matter, of course; but I am sorry that it is so," added Sir Wyndham. "I trust that you may prosper wherever you are." Benjamin thanked him heartily for his complimentary words and good wishes, and left him, almost wishing that he could cancel his engagement with Mr. Denham and open a swimming school. Wygate and Hall assured him that he could do well in that business. Soon after the excursion to Chelsea, Wygate made known to Benjamin a scheme that was in his mind. "I want to travel extensively over Europe," he said, "and I have decided to do it if you will become my traveling companion. We can stop as necessity requires, from time to time, and work at our business, so as to pay our way." "I should like nothing better than to travel all over Europe," answered Benjamin. "I have a desire to see more than I have seen of this part of the world." "Well, what do you think of the plan?" "I should say that it is practicable, although the suggestion is entirely new to me. Could we get work at our business?" "I took it for granted that we could," replied Wygate. "I have no more means of knowing than you have." "I should take it for granted that we could, too," said Benjamin; "still I shall want to consider it; it is quite an enterprise to undertake." "Somewhat of a scheme; but a very interesting and instructive one if successfully prosecuted." "That is so, and I think favorably of it. I will consult my good friend, Denham, about it. He has seen more of the world than we have." Benjamin was evidently favorably impressed with the proposition; for he embraced the first opportunity to lay the subject before Mr. Denham. "It does not strike me favorably," said Mr. Denham. "We could both see and learn a great deal," remarked Benjamin. "That is true; but other things are to be considered, which are of equal importance. What might do for Wygate, whose home is here, might not do for you, whose home is in America." "That may be." Benjamin's brief reply indicated that he was not quite certain on that point. "It appears to me," continued Mr. Denham, "that your first thoughts should be concerned about returning to Philadelphia, that you may set up business for yourself there." "I do not see much prospect of that at present. Of course I should be glad to return home; for there is no place I prefer to Philadelphia." "So far as prospects of which you speak are concerned, we can not always judge; unexpected opportunities sometimes offer; and you do not want to put yourself where you can not accept and use them." "Of course not," Benjamin answered, evidently disappointed that his friend did not endorse the scheme. "I should recommend decidedly that you abandon the project entirely, and think no more about it. Then you can continue your work with the intention of returning to America whenever a favorable opportunity occurs." Benjamin accepted the advice of Mr. Denham, and reported to Wygate, to the no small disappointment of the latter; and both discarded the scheme and devoted themselves to honest labor. Benjamin heard of a place where he could get boarded at two shillings a week, when he was paying three shillings and sixpence a week in Duke Street. "I think I shall be under the necessity of changing," he said to the widow with whom he was boarding. "I want to save all the money I can, so as to return to America." "I shall be very sorry to have you leave, Mr. Franklin, if I can possibly arrange with you to remain." "I have no desire to leave, except to save a little in my expenses, that I may return to America sooner: that is all." "Rather than have you go, I will deduct two shillings a week from what you are paying me now." "That is, you propose to board me for one shilling and sixpence a week?" "Yes, that is it, and it is a bargain if you say so." "It is a bargain, then." And Benjamin continued to board there as long as he remained in London. Before this woman received him for a boarder in the first place, she sent to the printing house to inquire about his character. The report was so favorable that she took him to board. And now she had tried him, and was a greater admirer of his character than ever. It is one of the things to be said in Benjamin's favor, that, with all his faults, he always pleased and satisfied his employers and boarding-house keepers. Benjamin records the following interesting incident respecting his friend Denham, of whom we have spoken, and to whom we shall refer again: "I must record one trait of this good man's character. He had formerly been in business at Bristol, but failed, in debt to a number of people, compounded, and went to America. There, by a close application to business as a merchant, he acquired a plentiful fortune in a few years. Returning to England in the ship with me, he invited his old creditors to an entertainment, at which he thanked them for the easy composition they had favored him with, and, when they expected nothing but the treat, every man at the first remove found under his plate an order on a banker for the full amount of the unpaid remainder, with interest." It was this excellent man and friend, who finally approached Benjamin with a proposition. "How would you like to return to Philadelphia?" he said to Benjamin. "I should like nothing better, if the way was open for me to go." "I will open a way for you if you will go." "How?" "I am going myself. I intend to open a store of goods in Philadelphia, and will employ you in the business, if you will go." "I should like to go; but that will be a new business for me; perhaps I shall not succeed in it." "That is _my_ lookout. I think you will succeed; at any rate, I am prepared to take the risk." "And I am prepared to go if you will." Benjamin was really delighted with the proposition. "I will pay you fifty pounds for one year, and increase your wages thereafter as you become familiar with the business." "That offer is satisfactory, though it is not as much as I make at my trade now." "It will be better if you succeed. When you become well acquainted with the business, I will send you with a cargo of bread and flour to the West Indies, and I will procure you commissions from others that will be profitable. In this way you can establish a good business for yourself." "That is a very generous offer on your part, and I hope that I shall merit your kindness." "It will be necessary for you to close up your business at the printing house at once, as I want you to assist me in purchasing, packing, and shipping goods. My purpose is to carry a large stock to Philadelphia." "I shall accept your proposition, and resign my position at Watts' immediately, and be at your service early and late." Benjamin, no doubt, was more interested to return to America on account of his relation to Miss Deborah Read. He had written to her but once, and that was directly after he began work at Palmer's printing house. He told her of Keith's fraud practised upon him, leaving him in London a stranger and nearly penniless, so that he could not return until he had earned money enough to pay his passage. He did not write to her again, and his conscience had condemned him, so that, at times, he dwelt sadly upon his unfaithfulness. He neglected to write for so long a time, that he became ashamed to write at all; and so the correspondence dropped. Yet, he did not forget Miss Read, nor cast her off; and he blamed himself every time his thoughts dwelt upon his sin of omission. Benjamin's employer was very sorry to part with him. "I am glad to have you as long as I have," he said, "but I wish you would stay. I feel safe to commit work or business to your care. If ever I can do you a favor, let me know, and I will only be too glad to do it." "I thank you for your confidence. I have done the best for you I could, as I always mean to do for every employer. I regret to leave you, and my companions with whom I have spent so many hours. But I have a strong desire to return home." Benjamin spoke with considerable feeling. "That is an honorable desire," answered Mr. Watts, "and I have no doubt that you will be prospered in gratifying it. At any rate, I hope you will." So Benjamin separated from his old friends on the best of terms, and commenced work for Mr. Denham. Nor was it light work. He accompanied his employer from warehouse to warehouse, packing goods that he bought, and forwarding them to the ship _Berkshire_, which would sail on July 21st. It was new business for him, but he liked it all the more for its novelty; and he performed the labors with his accustomed tact and industry. Benjamin had been nineteen months in London when he sailed on the 21st of July, 1726. A few months before, he made the acquaintance of Peter Collinson, a young man of noble English birth, whose talents gave him nearly as much standing as his ancestry. Collinson heard of Benjamin and sought him out, forming a life-long friendship. Collinson accompanied Benjamin to the ship. Just before the vessel weighed anchor, he handed his walking-stick to Benjamin, saying, "Let us exchange." Benjamin exchanged, replying, "And let it be a pledge of friendship forever." "And a pledge, also, of faithful correspondence with each other," added Collinson, as they shook hands and parted. The _Berkshire_, Henry Clark, master, was eighty-two days on its voyage to Philadelphia. Benjamin landed there on the 11th day of October, 1726: and he was at home again. [3] "Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin," vol. i. p. 136. XXIX. UPS AND DOWNS OF LIFE. One of the first places that Benjamin visited was the printing house of Keimer, where he worked before leaving the country. Keimer had made up his mind that Benjamin would never return to America, so that when he entered the printing office he was startled. "Why, Ben! can it be you?" he exclaimed in wonder. "I began to think that you would never be seen in Philadelphia again." "Why did you think so?" "Because you planned to be back here a long time ago; I concluded that you had forsaken us." "Not yet; I have seen no place abroad quite equal to Philadelphia. I did not return as soon as I expected." And Benjamin rehearsed to Keimer substantially his experience with Governor Keith, that he might understand why his return was delayed. "That is what you got for concealing your purpose," said Keimer. "I could have told you that Keith was wholly unreliable, and so could a good many other people. He has been turned out of office because of his rascality." "I am glad to hear that. I am a little curious to see how he will act, and hear what he will say, when I meet him." "He won't meet you if he can help it. I see him occasionally on the street, and he looks crestfallen." "He will look more so, I imagine, when he meets me. I propose to talk matters over very plainly with him." "That can do no good. The less breath you waste in that way, the better for you," replied Keimer. "But I suppose you want to go to work at your old trade? Plenty of work here, and you are just the man to do it." Keimer's business had increased largely, and he had added many facilities for doing work, so that the establishment presented a more attractive appearance. "No; I am a printer no longer," answered Benjamin. "I am booked for the mercantile business in Philadelphia" "How is that? Were you not a printer in London?" "Yes, I followed my trade there, and learned more about it than I ever knew before. London is a great place for printing. Two printing houses there, with more than fifty hands in each." "Think you can do better in trading than printing?" asked Keimer, who was really anxious for Benjamin's services. "Not exactly so. But I should be in London now, had not Mr. Denham's offer to become his clerk brought me home." And Benjamin told the story of his acquaintance with Mr. Denham and the outcome, which was his offer to make him his business manager. "A good opportunity, I should think, if you like that business," answered Keimer; "but I should like to put you in manager of my printing office. You have had the experience, and understand the business much better than any man I have." "That is out of the question now, of course, as I am under obligations to Mr. Denham." "Of course; I only meant to tell you what I would do if you were at liberty." Benjamin was anxious to learn about Miss Read, whom he was quite ashamed to meet because of his neglect. Keimer was acquainted with the family, and first introduced him to them, as was stated in a former chapter. So that he had no doubt he would know all about Deborah. He ventured to inquire: "What can you tell me about Mrs. Read and her daughter?" "Mrs. Read lives where she did, and continues to take a few boarders. Her daughter was married to a miserable fellow, nearly a year ago, but lived with him only a few weeks, when she left him." "Indeed! That was unfortunate for her," Benjamin answered. "She deserves a better experience than that." "She would not have married, had she been left to her own choice, but her mother and other friends persuaded her. Rogers was her husband's name, and he was a potter by trade, a first-class workman; and they thought he was capable of getting a good living, I suppose." "A good character would have been of more service to him," suggested Benjamin; "a very unfortunate affair." "I was going to sway," continued Keimer, "that she had been married but a few weeks before she found that Rogers had another wife. Of course her marriage was not legal, and she left him at once." "Probably her mother made no inquiry about Rogers' character beforehand," remarked Benjamin. "Mothers ought to be wiser than that." "We all have to live and learn, and experience is our best schoolmaster," added Keimer. Keimer knew nothing of Benjamin's relation to Deborah Read, so that he spoke freely. The revelation was startling to Benjamin, and it set him to thinking. He concluded that Mrs. Read inferred from his first and only letter to Deborah that he would never return, or never be in a situation to support a wife and family; and, as time went on, and no other letters were received, she became fixed in her conclusion that he would not return. Benjamin took all the blame upon himself; and the honest sympathy of his heart asserted itself for the girl. He resolved to call upon her as soon as possible and confess his wrong-doing, ask her forgiveness, and renew his attentions. "I should have said," Keimer added, "that Deborah has not changed her name. She refuses to be called Mrs. Rogers, and is still called Miss Read by her friends. This is all right, I suppose, because her marriage was illegal." "Very wise for her, I think," responded Benjamin. "But she may consider herself fortunate to get released from such a bondage." He improved the first opportunity to call at Mrs. Read's, to whom he appeared as one from the dead. She had not heard of his arrival, nor that he was expected. The _American Weekly Mercury_, the only newspaper of the town, announced, "Entered inwards, ship _Berkshire_, Henry Clark, from London." That was all; nothing was said about any passengers. "Benjamin Franklin!" exclaimed Mrs. Read in great astonishment, throwing up her hands at first, as if fearing it was his ghost, and then giving him a most cordial welcome. "Can it be you?" "It can be," Benjamin replied, with his old-time familiarity, being reassured by Mrs. Read's friendly appearance. "If I know myself, this is Benjamin Franklin." Deborah made her appearance before the last words were fairly off the lips of the new comer, equally surprised and glad to see her old friend. "I am really ashamed to meet you, Deborah, after my inexcusable neglect," he said, "and first of all I ask you to forgive me. It scarcely seems possible to myself that I should treat you so." Before Deborah had time to reply her mother spoke: "If there is any blame to be attached to any one, it is to me; for I opposed your engagement, and entreated Deborah to marry that apology for a man Rogers." "But all that does not excuse me for not writing to Deborah," responded Benjamin "It was very wrong in me to treat her with such neglect. And I did not intend to do so; I meant to continue the correspondence, but one thing and another prevented for so long a time, that I really was ashamed to write." "Well, it is all over now, and there is no help for what has been done, except to learn a good lesson from it for the future, if we are all bright enough to do that." Mrs. Read swept the deck by these last remarks. There was no obstacle now to consummate an engagement with Deborah. She did not tell Benjamin to go ahead and make sure of his bird now, that she would not interpose the slightest objection; but she might as well have said so; and he so understood it, so that he felt perfectly at ease. Deborah Read had never lost her first love, and never wholly abandoned the idea that her lover would return. She had no love for Rogers when she married him; she married him to please her mother. Now, her love for Benjamin was as fresh and strong as ever; and so was his love for her. Their intimacy was renewed, an engagement consummated. Benjamin was twenty years old--a fine-appearing, handsome young man. Mr. Denham thought so, and so did Deborah Read. The first was fortunate in securing him for his clerk, and the second was equally fortunate in securing him for her future husband. And Benjamin himself was as fortunate as either of them in having such an employer as Denham, and such a betrothed as Deborah. It was a tidal wave of good fortune now. "And I am prepared to go to work at once." "I will pay you extra wages to take the whole charge of the printing office, so that I can give my attention to the stationer's shop." "I can do that, or any thing else you desire; am not at all particular. I am now twenty-one years old, and ought to be a man any way, and do the best I can wherever I am put." Keimer's offer was liberal, and Benjamin accepted it, and entered upon his work as superintendent of the printing house, a very responsible position. But, in a short time, he had good reason to believe that Keimer paid him so liberal wages because he wanted the poor printers to improve under his superintendence; and when that end was accomplished, he would cut down his wages, or hire another man for less money. However, he went to work with a will, as he always did, resolved to do the best he could for his employer. As the workmen improved under Benjamin's supervision, Keimer evidently began to think of discharging him, or cutting down his wages. On paying his second quarter's wages, he told him that he could not continue to pay him so much. He became uncivil in his treatment, frequently found fault with him, and plainly tried to make his situation uncomfortable so that he would leave. At length a rare opportunity offered for him to make trouble. An unusual noise in the street one day caused Benjamin to put his head out of the window to learn what was the matter. Keimer happened to be in the street, and seeing him, cried out: "Put your head in and attend to your business," adding some reproachful words which all the people around him heard. Then hastening up stairs into the office, he continued his insulting language. "Men who work for me must give better heed to their business. If they care more for a noise in the street than they do for their work, it is high time they left." "I am ready to leave any time you please," retorted Benjamin, nettled by such uncalled-for treatment. "I am not dependent on you for a living, and I shall not bear such treatment long, I assure you." "That, indeed!" replied Keimer, derisively. "You would not stay another day were it not for our agreement, in accordance with which I now warn you that, at the end of this quarter, I shall cease to employ you." "And I will notify you that I shall not work another minute for you. A man who is neither honest, nor a gentleman, does not deserve the service of decent men." Benjamin was aroused. And, as he spoke these last cutting words, he took his hat and left. As he passed down, he said to Meredith: "Bring all my things to my lodgings." In the evening, Meredith carried all the articles belonging to Benjamin to his boarding-place, where he had a long interview. "Keimer lost the last claim for respect that he had on his men to-day," said Meredith. "Not a man in his establishment, who does not condemn his course." "Just what I expected. He does not want to pay me my price, now that the men have learned their business. This was the first occasion he has had to drive me off." Benjamin spoke with the utmost coolness. "It is the worst act for himself that he has done," continued Meredith. "Every man he employs would leave him if work could be had elsewhere." "I think I shall return to Boston, whether I remain there or not. It is a good time for me to visit my friends." "I have something better than that to suggest. My thoughts have been busy on it all day, and I wanted to see you about it to-night before you laid any plans." Meredith's manner indicated something of importance. "What have you to propose? I am ready for any practicable enterprise you can name." "I want to set up the printing business for myself, and I am not sufficiently acquainted with it, and you are. Can we not arrange to go into business together?" Meredith's proposition took Benjamin by surprise, and evidently seemed impracticable to him. "And have poverty for our capital?" replied Benjamin with a laugh. "I am about as rich as you are." "No; have money for our capital, all that is necessary to start us well in business," answered Meredith. "That would be fine, I declare; but I would like to see the money first," added Benjamin, before Meredith could explain. "Hold on a minute, let me explain, and you will see that my plan is not so impracticable as you seem to think. My father has money; and he has always said that he would start me in business whenever I got a good knowledge of it. He knows, of course, that I have not that knowledge yet; but he knows, too, that a man who can run Keimer's establishment has the requisite knowledge, and would be a good partner for me." "But your father will never advance the necessary capital," interrupted Benjamin. "If I was ten years older he might do it." "I am confident that he will; at any rate, I will consult him about the matter, and learn just what he will do. I have told him all about you, and he will think it is a good opportunity for me." Meredith consulted his father, and received the prompt answer: "Yes, I will do it gladly. I know of no young man I would select for your partner in preference to Franklin." In a subsequent interview with Benjamin, Mr. Meredith said: "I am all the more ready to furnish the capital, because your influence over my son has been so good. You influenced him to stop drinking when he was fast becoming intemperate, and I shall always feel grateful for it. You are just the one to be intimately associated with him." It was settled that they should enter into partnership, and start their business as soon as the necessary outfit could be obtained from England. XXX. THE LEATHERN-APRON CLUB. Benjamin began to reflect much upon his religious opinions (or, rather, irreligious), on his return voyage from England, as related to the errors and mistakes of his life. He had much time, during those three long, wearisome months, to study himself, past and present. Evidently he came to possess a more correct knowledge of himself on that voyage than he ever had before. He was so sincere in the matter that he drew up a number of rules by which to regulate his future life. A year and more afterwards he enlarged and perfected this code of morals. The rules which he adopted on the _Berkshire_ were prefaced with the following paragraph: "Those who write of the art of poetry teach us that, if we would write what may be worth reading, we ought always, before we begin, to form a regular plan and design of our piece, otherwise we shall be in danger of incongruity. I am apt to think it is the same as to life. I have never fixed a regular design of life, by which means it has been a confused variety of different scenes. I am now entering upon a new one; let me, therefore, make some resolutions, and form some scheme of action, that thenceforth I may live like a rational creature." The closing sentence shows that his conscience was making him considerable trouble, and that he concluded his life had been very irrational. Perhaps he thought of Collins, whom he made a free thinker, and of Ralph, whom he corrupted in the same way. One of them became a drunkard, and the other a polygamist; both of them cheating him out of a sum of money; might not their free thinking be related to their immoralities? He could not help thinking of these things, and so he wrote down the following rules: "1. It is necessary for me to be extremely frugal for some time till I have paid what I owe. "2. To endeavor to speak truth in every instance; to give nobody expectations that are not likely to be answered, but aim at sincerity in every word and action; the most amiable excellence in a rational being. "3. To apply myself industriously to whatever business I take in hand, and not divert my mind from my business by any foolish project of growing suddenly rich; for industry and patience are the surest means of plenty. "4. I resolve to speak ill of no man whatever, not even in a matter of truth; but rather by some means excuse the faults I hear charged upon others, and, upon proper occasions, speak all the good I know of every body." This was not all he wrote to guide his future career; but we have cited enough to show the current of Benjamin's thoughts at the time of which we are speaking. We shall see hereafter that he did not cease to reflect upon his career, and resolve upon a nobler life. Soon after his return from England, perhaps after the death of Mr. Denham, Benjamin organized a literary club, composed, at first, of eleven members, all of them more or less talented and desirous of self-improvement, and nearly all of them mechanics, which fact caused the institution to be christened "THE LEATHERN-APRON CLUB," although the real name of it, as suggested by Franklin, was "THE JUNTO." The society was patterned after one formed by Cotton Mather in Boston. The first thing done at their meetings was to read the following questions, pausing after reading each for any remarks or propositions members might desire to make. The principal questions were as follows: "1. Is there any remarkable disorder in the place that requires our endeavor for the suppression of it? And in what fair, likely way may we endeavor it? "2. Is there any particular person, whose disorderly behavior may be so scandalous and notorious that we may do well to send unto the said person our charitable admonitions? Or, are there any contending persons whom we should admonish to quench their contentions? "3. Is there any special service to the interest of Religion which we may conveniently desire our ministers to take notice of? "4. Is there any thing we may do well to mention unto the justices for the further promoting good order? "5. Is there any sort of officers among us to such a degree unmindful of their duty that we may do well to mind them of it? "6. Can any further methods be devised that ignorance and wickedness may be chased from our people in general, and that household piety in particular may flourish among them? "7. Does there appear any instance of oppression or fraudulence in the dealings of any sort of people that may call for our essays to get it rectified? "8. Is there any matter to be humbly moved unto the Legislative Power, to be enacted into a Law for the public benefit? "9. Do we know of any person languishing under sore and sad affliction; and is there any thing we can do for the succor of such an afflicted neighbor? "10. Has any person any proposal to make for our own further advantage and assistance, that we ourselves may be in a probable and regular capacity to pursue the intention before us?" "I should pronounce that an ingenious society for doing good and getting good," said Coleman, after the questions were read. "It was so, and Cotton Mather himself was a member of twenty of these societies," said Benjamin. "They became very popular, and I recall with what interest my father participated in the meetings. I often accompanied him, and, young as I was, they were very interesting to me. It was that fact which suggested the questions I have reported for our club." When a person united with the Junto, he was required to stand up, lay his hand on his heart, and answer the following questions: "1. Have you any particular disrespect to any present member? "_Answer_. I have not. "2. Do you sincerely declare that you love mankind in general, of what profession or religion soever? "_Answer_. I do. "3. Do you think any person ought to be harmed in his body, name, or goods, for mere speculative opinion, or his external way of worship? "_Answer_. No. "4. Do you love truth for truth's sake; and will you endeavor impartially to find and receive it yourself, and communicate it to others? "_Answer_. Yes." At one of their earliest meetings Benjamin proposed that each member (the number of members was limited to twelve) should bring his books to the club-room for reference during their discussions. "A capital idea," said Coleman, "and I would suggest that each member have the privilege of reading the books belonging to other members." "Another good idea," rejoined Benjamin; "I second that motion with all my heart." "It will not take any one of us a great while to read all the books we can muster," suggested Potts. At that time there was no bookstore in Philadelphia, nor was there one of considerable note anywhere in the Colonies, except in Boston. The people of Philadelphia sent to England for the books they wanted, which was expensive and inconvenient. After this plan had been successfully used for several months, Benjamin made another proposition. "I propose that we establish a library, interesting parties outside to join us in the enterprise." "Raising money for the same by subscription, do you mean?" inquired Maugridge. "Yes; unless there is a better way of doing it." "I doubt if outsiders can be interested to join us in such a project," said Grace. "Few people care enough about books to put money into such an enterprise." "Perhaps so; but we can try; if we fail we shall still be as well off as we are now," was Benjamin's answer. "Unless we make the effort we shall never know what we can do." "And you are the one to solicit subscriptions, Ben," remarked Godfrey. "If anybody can succeed, you can. If I should undertake and fail, as I should, it would not prove that the scheme is impracticable." "I am perfectly willing to solicit subscriptions, and I will begin at once and be able to report success or failure at the next meeting," was Benjamin's generous offer. At the following meeting he was able to report success, so far as he had been able to work; and he continued until fifty young tradesmen had pledged forty shillings each as a subscription, and, in addition, ten shillings per annum. This was unexpected success, and the members of the Junto were highly elated. Thus was established the first circulating library in this country. Benjamin Franklin was the author of it; and that library numbers now one hundred thousand volumes. Since that day the library scheme has proved so beneficial to individuals and the public, that there are thousands of circulating libraries in the land. Almost every town of two or three thousand inhabitants has one. It must not be forgotten, however, that Benjamin Franklin conceived and reduced the idea to practice. The following are some of the questions discussed by members of the Junto: "Is sound an entity or body? "How may the phenomenon of vapors be explained? "Is self-interest the rudder that steers mankind, the universal monarch to whom all are tributaries? "Which is the best form of government, and what was that form which first prevailed among mankind? "Can any one particular form of government suit all mankind? "What is the reason that the tides rise higher in the Bay of Fundy than the Bay of Delaware? "Is the emission of paper money safe? "What is the reason that men of the greatest knowledge are not the most happy? "How may the possession of the lakes be improved to our advantage? "Why are tumultuous, uneasy sensations united with our desires? "Whether it ought to be the aim of philosophy to eradicate the passions? "How may smoky chimneys be best cured? "Why does the flame of a candle tend upwards in a spire? "Which is the least criminal, a _bad_ action joined with a _good_ intention, or a _good_ action with a _bad_ intention? "Is it inconsistent with the principles of liberty in a free government, to punish a man as a libeller when he speaks the truth?" The foregoing Rules and Questions show that it could not have been an ordinary class of young men to meet and discuss such subjects. Benjamin's talent is manifest both in the organization and the themes considered. Improvements have been the order of the day since the Junto was organized; but we doubt if there has been much improvement upon the Junto in literary organizations for the young. It is not surprising, that, of the original twelve members, two became surveyors-general; one the inventor of a quadrant; one a distinguished mechanic and influential man; one a merchant of great note and a provincial judge, and all but one respected and honored men. At the same time, Benjamin, the founder, became "Minister to the Court of St. James," "Minister Plenipotentiary to France," and the greatest Statesman and Philosopher of America, in the eighteenth century. In old age Doctor Franklin said of the Junto: "It was the best school of philosophy, morality, and politics that then existed in the Province; for our queries, which were read the week preceding their discussion, put us upon reading with attention on the several subjects, that we might speak more to the purpose; and here, too, we acquired better habits of conversation, every thing being studied in our rules which might prevent our disgusting each other." The Junto was copied in England fifty years after Benjamin organized it in Philadelphia, by Cleming Jenkinson (who became Earl of Liverpool) and others; and, within it, they began careers that became illustrious. It has been copied in different parts of our own land down to the present day, blessing the people and the country in more ways than one. "I can tell you how to get over the difficulty," said Benjamin: "let each member get up a club of twelve, and that will give a chance for one hundred and forty-four members." "And when that number is attained, I suppose you will have each one of the one hundred and forty-four organize a Junto, and that will make the membership seventeen hundred and twenty-eight, enough to constitute a good township," suggested Coleman, who did not endorse Benjamin's plan. "One Junto will be of more service to members, as well as to the public, than a dozen can be, only abolish the limit to twelve members, and allow all who desire to join," was Coleman's view. "More interesting, also, to have a larger number of members," suggested Parsons. "Numbers create enthusiasm." "And numbers often create friction, too," retorted Benjamin; "we want to avoid both shoals and rocks." "Another thing that I object to very much is this: if each one of us organizes another Junto, we no longer associate with each other--the very thing for which this Junto was organized." This was the strongest objection that Coleman urged. "That is the selfish side of the question," suggested Benjamin. "On the other hand, there will be twelve times as many persons to be benefited. If we twelve are benefited, how much better and grander to have one hundred and forty-four benefited!" "Ben is right; and I am of the opinion that the sooner we adopt this plan the better. It will be unpleasant to sacrifice our social connections to form new ones, but the new ones may become equally pleasant." Scull thus supported Benjamin's proposition; and so did Meredith, Maugridge, and others. This discussion arose from the popularity of the Junto. It became so popular that large numbers of persons wanted to join it, and besought the members to abolish the rule limiting the membership to twelve. Hence, Benjamin's proposition to meet the exigency, which was carried, with this amendment: "The new clubs shall be auxiliary to this, the original one, each reporting its proceedings to the parent society, that one harmonious purpose and plan may characterize all." All the members did not organize a club, but five or six did, and these clubs flourished for many years, blessing the town and the whole colony. The Junto was not many months old, when Benjamin made another proposition. "The books we read have words and phrases in other languages, and I do not know their meaning. I studied Latin some in Boston, before I was ten years old, and Latin words I can guess at, but French I can't. Suppose we study French." "You can study it if you want to," replied Scull, "but I have not the time for another study." "And I have not the taste for it," said Meredith. "One language is all that I can handle, and I can't handle that as I want to." "I like the suggestion," responded Coleman "and can give a little time to French, though not a great deal. If Ben becomes an expert linguist he can translate the foreign words and phrases for us." "That last suggestion is best of all," remarked Parsons. "Ben can go ahead and become a linguist for our benefit. That is the benevolent side of this question," punning on his argument for the benevolent side of the club question. Whether other members of the Junto studied the languages we have no means of knowing, but Benjamin did, with remarkable success. First he studied French, and when he could read it quite well, he took up Italian and Spanish. By this time he became so interested in foreign languages that he revived his acquaintance with Latin, becoming quite a good scholar therein. It was a mystery to his companions how he found time to accomplish so much; but he did it by method and industry, improving the smallest fragments of time, working early and late. He was very fond of playing chess; but he denied himself the pleasure wholly in order that he might have the more time for study. While at Keimer's he found more time for reading and hard study, because his employer observed Saturday as his Sabbath, giving only five days in the week to work. XXXI. BRIGHTER DAYS. It would require several months for the printing outfit ordered from England to reach Philadelphia. In the mean time, Benjamin was considering what to do; and, while canvassing the field, he received the following note from Keimer: "PHILADELPHIA, 10 Dec., 1727. "MR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: "_Dear Sir_,--It is not wise for old friends like you and I to separate for a few words spoken in passion. I was very hasty, and am sorry for it. I want my old foreman back again at the old price. I have plenty of work, and if you think well of my proposition, come and see me. "Yours truly, "SAMUEL KEIMER." Benjamin's first impulse was to destroy the letter and take no further notice of it. But the second, sober thought led him to consult Meredith, who continued to work for Keimer. Meredith read the letter, and said: "I should advise you to accept his proposition, as you have nothing to do." "But can you tell me what selfish end he has in view, for Keimer would never come down like that unless he had an axe to grind?" Benjamin said. "Most certainly I can. He can have a government job if he can do the work. The Province of New Jersey is going to make a new issue of paper money, and he can get the job; but you are the only printer in Philadelphia who can do that work, so he wants you." "I knew there must be something of that sort, or he never would have asked for my work again. He is too contemptible a man to work for." Benjamin spoke with much feeling; and he was right, too. "But here is the point," continued Meredith. "I am poorly equipped to set up business for myself, and you can teach me. It will be anywhere from six to eight months before our outfit arrives from England, so here is a good opportunity for me to improve." "I suppose that is the best way of looking at it; but Keimer has so little manhood about him that I have no respect for him. I dislike to work for a man whom I despise, and can't help it." Benjamin's language showed that it was almost too much to ask him to return to Keimer's printing office; but Meredith persevered. "For my sake, I want you should decide to accept the proposition. Keimer has made an apology, so that you can return without compromising your manhood at all. It looks to me as if it were wiser to accept his proposal than to decline it." "I will sleep over it to-night before I decide, and let you know in the morning," replied Benjamin, as he took his leave. In the morning Benjamin put in his appearance at Keimer's office, ready for work. He received a hearty welcome, and was at once apprized of the paper-money job of New Jersey. Benjamin succeeded in contriving and completing a copper-plate press; and when cuts and ornaments were all ready, Keimer and he proceeded to Burlington, N.J., where they remained three months to fulfill the contract. It proved a rare school for Benjamin. It brought him in contact with many prominent men, who were of much assistance to him afterwards. He was so much more intelligent than Keimer, that the latter was of little consequence, as very little notice was taken of him. One day Isaac Decon, the surveyor-general, said to him: "You are complete master of your business, and success is before you." "I have improved my opportunities," modestly answered Benjamin, "and done the best I could to learn my trade. I don't like the half-way method of doing business." "I commenced business in a very humble way," continued Decon, "without dreaming that I should ever possess such an estate as I do now." "What was your business?" "I wheeled clay for the brickmakers, and had no opportunity of going to school in my boyhood. I did not learn to write until I became of age. I acquired my knowledge of surveying when I carried a chain for surveyors, who were pleased with my desire to learn the business, and assisted me. By constant industry, and close application, and not a little perseverance, I have succeeded in reaching the place where you now see me." "That is the only way any person ever reached an honorable position," remarked Benjamin, after listening to the interesting story of success. "You are right in that view, and one-half of the battle is fought when correct views of life are fixed. When an employer like Keimer is inferior to his employee in ability, tact, and enterprise, there is a very poor show for him. If you set up for yourself in Philadelphia, you will work him completely out of his business." Late in the spring of 1728 the printing outfit arrived from England. Benjamin and Meredith had settled with Keimer, who was unusually happy because his profits on his paper-money job in New Jersey had tided him over very discouraging embarrassments. Keimer knew nothing of their plans, however, when a settlement was consummated, as both had kept the secret. The first intimation that he, or the public, had of such an enterprise, was the opening of their printing house in the lower part of Market Street--"FRANKLIN & MEREDITH." "Here's a man looking for a printer," said George House, an old friend of Benjamin. "He inquired of me where he could get a job done, and I told him that here was the place above all others." "Thank you for the advertisement, George. Yes, sir, we can serve you here at short notice. What will you have done?" Benjamin won the customer over at once by his genial, familiar way. The man made known his wants; and it proved to be a five-shilling job, all the more acceptable because it was the first. With the members of the Junto all interested in his success, and the public men of New Jersey, who made his acquaintance at Burlington, Benjamin's business was soon well advertised. Many people were taken by surprise, and most of them predicted a failure, since there were two printers in town already. One day Samuel Nickle, an old citizen of the town, known somewhat as a croaker, was passing by, and, looking up, he read the sign. "Another printing house!" he said to himself. "And two in town already! Who can be so thoughtless?" He stopped and mused a few moments, and then entered. "Are you the young man who has opened this printing house?" he inquired of Benjamin. "I am, sir." "I am very sorry for you. You are throwing away your money; you can't succeed with two old printing houses here. You will fail." "What makes you think so?" "Because Philadelphia is degenerating, and half the people are now bankrupt, or nearly so, and how can they support so many printers?" "But the appearance of Philadelphia indicates thrift," answered Benjamin. "See how many buildings are going up, and how rents are rising every month. This does not look like going backward, it seems to me." "These are the very things that will ruin us," responded Nickle. "They are no evidence of prosperity, but of extravagance, that will bring disaster sooner or later." "That sort of disaster is what we want," suggested Benjamin; "the more of it the better. If Philadelphia ever becomes much of a town, it will be in just that way." Benjamin saw at once that he was talking with a croaker and treated him accordingly. There was an organization of business men in Philadelphia at that time, known as the "Merchants' Every-Night Club," answering, perhaps, to a "Board of Trade" of our day. Its purpose was to advance the business interests of the town. A member raised the question, "Can another printing house prosper in town?" "Not with the present population," was the view of one member. "It will be a long time before three printing houses will be required," remarked another. "They could not have had very discreet advisers, it seems to me," still another remarked. In this manner the subject was canvassed, every member but one predicting the failure of the enterprise. That one was Doctor Baird, a prominent physician, and he said: "It will prove a success. For the industry of that Franklin is superior to any thing I ever saw of the kind. I see him still at work when I go home from club, and he is at work again before his neighbors are out of bed." "Doctor, I guess you are right, I did not think of that when I spoke," remarked one who had predicted failure. This member was so much impressed by Doctor Baird's remark that he subsequently went to Benjamin and made this proposition: "I think you can add a stationer's department to your business, and thus increase your profits; and if you think so, I will furnish you with stock on credit." "Your offer is a very generous one, and I thank you for it," answered Benjamin; "but I think we had better stick to our trade at present and not put too many irons in the fire at once." "That is a wise caution, I think, and I am all the more impressed that you are a young man of sound judgment, and you will succeed." He had no doubt now that the printing house would succeed. "Your good opinion encourages me very much, and I shall do my best to have it realized," replied Benjamin. "I thank you very much for your generous offer, and, perhaps, at some future day, I shall wish to accept it." "Let me know whenever you are ready for it," said the gentleman as he took his departure. "We will start a weekly paper as soon as we are able," said Benjamin to Meredith one day; "the _Mercury_ is as near nothing as it can be. I believe that an able paper here, abreast with the times, will succeed." "You can make it succeed if any one can," replied Meredith, to whom his partner had given a full account of his connection with the _New England Courant_ in Boston. They canvassed the subject until it was decided to start a weekly paper as soon as their pecuniary condition would permit. Just then the Oxford student, whose time Keimer had bought, called upon Benjamin. "Will you employ me as journeyman printer?" he asked. "Employ you?" responded Benjamin with much surprise. "I thought your time was Keimer's for four years." "It was; but it is not now; I have bought it back." "I am glad to hear that; you will be more of a man for it; and, before long, I think we should like your work; just now we are not in want of more help." "Your work is increasing, I suppose?" said Webb; "hope I shall not have to wait long." "If you can keep a secret, Webb, I will let you into it," continued Benjamin. "I expect to start a weekly paper before many weeks have passed; and then I shall have plenty of work." "How long shall I have to wait?" "I can't say. It is possible I may want you before I start the newspaper; work is coming in very well. But you must not let Keimer know about the paper. When it starts I want it should be a surprise to him and the public." "I will not divulge your secret," was Webb's ready promise. Nevertheless, Webb did disclose the secret to Keimer himself, who proceeded to start a paper of his own, called the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, and he hired Webb, at good wages, to work on it. It proved to be a miserable affair, without ability or intelligent enterprise, so that a sharp, witty young man like Benjamin could readily make it a "laughing-stock." "I will show up his ignorance and conceit in the _Mercury_" (name of the paper already published by Bradford), he said to Meredith. "See if I don't." "A good idea, Ben; go ahead; it will create a sensation. Bradford will be glad to publish any thing you may write." "I will see him at once." And Benjamin hastened to the office of the _Mercury_, made known his purpose to Bradford, who caught at it at once." "Just the thing I want," responded Bradford. "Let me have something for the next issue." "Certainly; you shall have the first article to-morrow morning." Benjamin hurried away with his mind completely absorbed upon the subjects he should take up. The result was a series of amusing articles, in which he burlesqued Keimer's proposals, and ridiculed his editorials, which really deserved nothing better. He continued to write in this way several months, signing all his articles "_Busy Body_." The public were greatly interested in the communications, because of their real merit. They were bright, even sparkling, full of humor, logical to sharpness, and charged with ability. They drew public attention to Bradford's paper, and public ridicule to Keimer's; so that the subscription list of the former increased, while that of the latter never had over ninety subscribers. People on every hand inquired, "Who is _Busy Body_?" And, finally, the public learned that it was "that young Franklin, the printer." Keimer learned who his critic was; and, after the lapse of six or eight months from the time the first number was issued, who should appear before Benjamin at his office but him, saying: "I understand that you think of starting a weekly newspaper; and I have come to sell you mine." "How is that? Can't you make it go?" Benjamin replied in a familiar way. "No, not as I want to. I don't think I am exactly qualified to run a newspaper." "How many subscribers have you?" "Ninety." "Only ninety?" exclaimed Benjamin. "That number will be of no aid in starting a paper; might as well start new; new paper, new title, new editor, new every thing." The conclusion of the interview was, however, that Benjamin purchased the paper, took possession immediately, advertised his literary enterprise, and "it proved," as he said, "in a few years extremely profitable to me." His economy was equal to his industry. He arrayed himself in the plainest manner, although he aimed to look neat and tidy. His board was simple and cheap, and every thing about his business was conducted on the most economical principles. He wheeled home the paper which he bought, boarded himself some of the time, sleeping in the office, and never stopped to consider whether it was compromising the dignity of a printer to do such things. Keimer left no stone unturned to secure business and cripple Franklin and Meredith. He was never half so active and enterprising as he became after these two young men set up for themselves. One day Keimer was in Benjamin's printing office to transact some business, when the latter said to him: "Look here, Keimer; come with me into the back room." "What you got there?" Keimer answered, following. "See that!" Benjamin said, pointing to a half-devoured loaf and pitcher of water, that he had just made a meal off. "What of that?" said Keimer, not comprehending the drift of Benjamin's remark. "Unless you can live cheaper than I can, it is no use for you to attempt to run me out of business." Both laughed, and Keimer departed. The _Gazette_ flourished finely from the time it came under Benjamin's management. He was able to discuss public questions of importance with manifest ability, and his articles created interest and discussion among public men, who became subscribers in consequence. A dispute was going on between Governor Burnett and the Massachusetts Assembly, and Benjamin commented upon it with so much wisdom and originality that his intimate acquaintance was sought by the most distinguished men. Benjamin's work as a printer excelled that of either Keimer or Bradford. The latter did the government printing, and often it was done in a very bungling manner. This was notably so when he printed an address of the House to the Governor. It was a very inferior job; whereupon Benjamin printed it elegantly and correctly and sent a copy to each member of the House. The House voted to give him the government printing thereafter. By his method of doing the _best_ he could every time, he built up a business rapidly, and won a reputation for industry, integrity, and ability that was worth more than money. To return to Meredith. He had become more intemperate than ever. His father, too, did not find relief from pecuniary embarrassment as he expected. He was to pay two hundred pounds currency for the printing house, and had paid one-half of it. But the other half was not paid when due, for which all three were sued. "Perhaps your father is not pleased with your partner," said Benjamin to Meredith. "If that is the reason he does not advance the money, I will retire, and you shall run the whole thing." "No; my father is well satisfied with my partner, and so am I; so that you need not think he is withholding money for the purpose of getting rid of you. He is really embarrassed." "Then he could not take the concern into his own hands for you to run?" "No, indeed; that would be quite impossible. Besides, I do not want it on my hands." "Why?" inquired Benjamin. "Because I am satisfied that I am not adapted to this business. I was bred a farmer, and ought not to have left that occupation." "Drink water, as I do, and you may succeed as well at printing as farming. A farmer who drinks to excess never succeeds." "Drink or no drink," retorted Meredith, "I am sick of this business and shall quit. Many of our Welsh people are going to settle in North Carolina, where land is cheap, and I am going with them, and shall follow my old employment." "Then you will sell out your interest to me, if I understand you?" That was what Benjamin wanted. "Certainly; you can get enough friends to help you. If you will take the debts of the company upon you, return to my father the hundred pounds he has advanced, pay my little personal debts, and give me thirty pounds and a new saddle, I will relinquish the partnership and leave the whole in your hands." "I will accept your proposition, and we will draw up the papers at once," said Benjamin. The bargain was consummated; and the proper papers were prepared, signed, and sealed. Benjamin accepted the generous aid of Coleman and Grace, and became sole proprietor of the printing house and _Pennsylvania Gazette_. This was near the close of the year 1729, a few months after the _Gazette_ came into his hands. A few months more elapsed, when he concluded to accept the offer of the gentleman, spoken of on a previous page, to provide a stock of stationery, and opened a stationer's shop in his building. This proved a good investment, and led to his marriage, September 1, 1730, to Miss Deborah Read. While Benjamin was thus prospering, Keimer was going to the wall; and finally his printing office, with all its furniture, was sold under the hammer to pay his creditors; and he went to Barbadoes, where he lived in poverty. Thus changes brought Benjamin to the front, and his printing house was the best, doing the most business, of any one in the whole country, except Boston. True, Bradford continued his business and paper; but in a very small way, in no sense a rival to our hero. He stood at the head. XXXII. NO LONGER A SKEPTIC. "Time is money," Doctor Franklin wrote in age. It was what he practised when he conducted his printing business in Philadelphia. One day a lounger stepped into his shop, and, after looking over the articles, asked: "What is the price of that book?" holding it up in his hand. Benjamin had commenced to keep a few books on sale. "One dollar," answered the apprentice in attendance. "One dollar," repeated the lounger; "can't you take less than that?" "No less; one dollar is the price." Waiting a few moments, and still looking over the book, he said, at length: "Is Mr. Franklin at home?" "He is in the printing office." "I want to see him; will you call him?" Franklin was called. "Mr. Franklin, what is the lowest price you will take for this book?" at the same time holding up the book. "One dollar and a quarter," answered Franklin, who had heard the lounger's parleying with his apprentice. "One dollar and a quarter! Your young man asked but a dollar." "True," answered Franklin, "and I could have better afforded to take a dollar then, than to have been called from my business." The Customer seemed puzzled for a few moments, but, finally, concluded that the proprietor was joking. He had not been wont to place so great value upon time. "Come, now, tell me just the lowest you will take for it," he said. "One dollar and a half." "A dollar and a half! Why you offered it yourself for a dollar and a quarter." "True, and I had better taken the price then, than a dollar and a half now," retorted Benjamin with a good deal of spirit. The buyer got the truth into his head at last, paid the price of the book, and sneaked away, with the rebuke lying heavily on his heart. Benjamin wrote of his industry at that time, as follows: "My circumstances, however, grew daily easier. My original habits of frugality continuing, and my father having, among his instructions to me when a boy, frequently repeated a proverb of Solomon, "_Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men_." I thence considered industry as a means of obtaining wealth and distinction, which encouraged me; though I did not think that I should ever literally _stand before kings_,--which, however, has since happened; for I have stood before _five_, and even had the honor of sitting down with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner." It is not strange that such a young man should write such maxims as the following, in his riper years: "Pride breakfasts with plenty, dines with poverty, and sups with infamy." "It is as truly folly for the poor to ape the rich, as for the frog to swell in order to equal the ox." "It is easier to suppress the first desire, than to satisfy all that follow it." His integrity was no less marked. Strict honesty characterized all his dealings with men. An exalted idea of justice pervaded his soul. His word of honor was as good as his note of hand. Even his disposition to castigate and censure in his writings, so manifest in Boston, at sixteen years of age, and which his father rebuked, was overcome. After he had set up a paper in Philadelphia, a gentleman handed him an article for its columns. "I am very busy now," said Benjamin, "and you will confer a favor by leaving it for perusal at my leisure." "That I will do, and call again to-morrow." The following day the author put in his appearance quite early. "What is your opinion of my article?" he asked. "Why, sir, I am sorry to say that I can not publish it." "Why not? What is the matter with it?" "It is highly scurrilous and defamatory," replied Benjamin; "but being at a loss, on account of my poverty, whether to reject it or not, I thought I would put it to this issue. At night when my work was done, I bought a twopenny loaf, on which I supped heartily, and then, wrapping myself in my great coat, slept very soundly on the floor until morning, when another loaf and mug of water afforded a pleasant breakfast. Now, sir, since I can live very comfortably in this manner, why should I prostitute my press to personal hatred or party passion for a more luxurious living?" We have seen that Benjamin began to revise his religious opinions on his return voyage from England. He continued to reflect much upon his loose ways; and there is no doubt that his integrity, industry, economy, and desire to succeed in business had something to do with his moral improvement. He confessed that, along from 1725 to 1730 he was immoral, and was sometimes led astray; but his conscience made him much trouble, and, finally, it asserted its supremacy, and he came off conqueror over his evil propensities. A change from skepticism or deism to a decided belief in the Christian Religion, no doubt exerted the strongest influence in making him a better man. In 1728 he prepared "_Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion_" for his own use every day. This was his ritual, beginning and closing with an humble prayer. Three or four years later, he appears to have taken up this thought of a religious life anew; and he prepared a code of morals, perhaps a revision of his former Articles of Faith, wrote them out carefully in a blank book for use, as follows: "1. TEMPERANCE.--Eat not to dulness; drink not to elevation. "2. SILENCE.--Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. "3. ORDER.--Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. "4. RESOLUTION.--Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. "5. FRUGALITY.--Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; that is, waste nothing. "6. INDUSTRY.--Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. "7. SINCERITY.--Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly. "8. JUSTICE.--Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty. "9. MODERATION.--Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. "10. CLEANLINESS.--Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation. "11. TRANQUILITY.--Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable. "12. CHASTITY.... "13. HUMILITY.--Imitate Jesus and Socrates." At one time he seriously thought of organizing a "United Party for Virtue," in connection with which he prepared this religious creed: "That there is one God, who made all things. "That he governs the world by his providence. "That he ought to be worshipped by adoration, prayer and thanksgiving. "But that the most acceptable service to God is doing good to man. "That the soul is immortal. "And that God will certainly reward virtue and punish vice, either here or hereafter." His letters to relatives and friends, from this time, contained strong words for the Christian Religion, and for the imitation of the virtues practised by its Author. Through his long and useful life, he continued to observe the doctrines and precepts that he named in the foregoing extracts. He was a delegate to the convention for forming a Constitution of the United States, which met at Philadelphia, May, 1787, and he introduced the motion for daily prayers, with remarks thus: "In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for the Divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard; and they were graciously answered. All of us, who were engaged in the struggle, must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? or do we imagine we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time; and, the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, _that_ GOD _governs in the affairs of men_. And, if a sparrow can not fall to the ground without his notice, is it probably that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that 'except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel; we shall be divided by our little, partial, local interests, our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a by-word down to future ages." We will only add here an epitaph that he wrote for his own monument at twenty-three years of age, supposed to have been a paper for the Junto: "THE BODY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, PRINTER (LIKE THE COVER OF AN OLD BOOK, ITS CONTENTS TORN OUT, AND STRIPT OF ITS LETTERING AND GILDING), LIES HERE, FOOD FOR WORMS. BUT THE WORK ITSELF SHALL NOT BE LOST, FOR IT WILL, AS HE BELIEVED, APPEAR ONCE MORE, IN A NEW AND MORE ELEGANT EDITION, REVISED AND CORRECTED BY THE AUTHOR." XXXIII. POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC. "I shall have to publish an almanac to be in fashion," remarked Franklin to his old friend Coleman. "Every printer in this country issues one, so far as I know." From this point, we shall drop the Christian name, Benjamin, and use the surname, Franklin. "A good theme to discuss in the Junto," replied Coleman. "You would publish a better one than the country ever had, if you should undertake it." "I shall make one that differs from all issued hitherto, in some respects. I have devoted considerable thought to the subject, and have formed a plan, although it has not taken an exact shape yet in my own mind. I think I will bring it up in the Junto." "By all means do it," added Coleman; "two or more heads may be better than one alone, even if the one contains more than all the rest." "Much obliged," answered Franklin. "It will aid me essentially to mature my plans, to exchange views with the members of the Junto. I will introduce it at the very next meeting." The subject was introduced into the Junto, as proposed, and every member hailed the project with delight. Franklin's paper had become the most popular one in the country, in consequence of the ability with which it discussed public questions, and the sharp, crisp wisdom and wit that made every issue entertaining; and the members believed that he could make an almanac that would take the lead. The discussion in the Junto settled the question of issuing the almanac. Its appearance in 1732 proved a remarkable event in Franklin's life, much more so than his most sanguine friends anticipated. The Almanac appeared, with the title-page bearing the imprint: "By Richard Saunders, Philomat. Printed and sold by B. Franklin." From the opening to the close of it proverbial sayings, charged with wisdom and wit, were inserted wherever there was space enough to insert one. The following is a sample: "Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the used key is always bright." "Lost time is never found again; and what we call time enough always proves little enough." "Drive thy business, let not that drive thee." "Industry need not hope, and he that lives upon hope will die fasting." "He that hath a trade hath an estate; and he that hath a calling hath an office of profit and honor." "At the working-man's house hunger looks in, but dares not enter." "Never leave that till to-morrow, which you can do to-day." "A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things." "If you would have your business done, go--if not, send." "What maintains one vice would bring up two children." "When the well is dry they know the worth of water." "Pride is as loud a beggar as want, and a great deal more saucy." "Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other." "The good paymaster is lord of another man's purse." These jets of wisdom made the Almanac sparkle. The mechanical execution of the work excelled that of any of its predecessors; but this literary feature marked the Almanac as marvellous. It became popular at once. Every body who saw it, admired and bought it. The Philadelphians were proud that such a document originated in their town. Copies were sent to friends in other parts of the country, until "Poor Richard's Almanac" was known throughout the land. Three editions were exhausted in about a month. For twenty-five years Franklin continued to publish a similar Almanac, the average annual circulation of which was ten thousand copies. The large stock of wisdom and wit which the Almanac contained added wonderfully to Franklin's fame. From the first issue his mental powers were widely praised. He was only twenty-six years of age, but now his intellectual ability was considered superior to that of any other living man under fifty years of age. The members of the Junto were greatly elated over his success. "You have beaten yourself," remarked Coleman to him, "exceeded by far what I expected, high as my expectations were. Nothing has been published yet, that has created so profound interest as the Almanac." "That is all true," said Grace. "Franklin is the theme of remark now everywhere. People seem to be surprised that he could produce a document of so much value. Both his business and newspaper will be advanced by this stroke of wisdom." "And the Junto, too," suggested Parsons; "the father of the Junto can not receive so much applause without benefiting his child. Every body will want to join now, to meet him here." Each member present was too much elated to remain silent. No words were too extravagant to express their admiration of Franklin's ability. To their decided friendship and respect was now added an honorable pride in being able to point to such a friend and associate. The success of his newspaper and Almanac provided Franklin with a supply of money, which he wisely invested. His own words about it were: "My business was now constantly augmenting, and my circumstances growing daily easier; my newspaper having become very profitable, as being, for a time, almost the only one in this and the neighboring provinces. I experienced, too, the truth of the observation, '_that after getting the first hundred pounds, it is more easy to get the second_'; money itself being of a prolific nature." Franklin was aided very much, in the conduct of his paper, by the Junto, where different features of journalism were often discussed. "In Boston I made a mistake," he said. "I was but a boy then, without experience or discretion, and found great delight in personalities. I mean to steer clear of libelling and personal abuse." "You have so far," replied Coleman; "and thereby you have added to the dignity and influence of your paper. There is a kind of sharpness and critical remark that ought to characterize a good paper; and the _Gazette_ is not deficient in that." "That is what makes it sparkle, in my judgment," remarked Scull. "It is not best to be too cautious; some things ought to be hit hard; and that is true of some men, not to say women." "That is one thing a newspaper is for," interjected Parsons, "to expose and remove social and public evils, and, in doing that, some men will get hit." "You do not quite understand me," answered Franklin; "I accept all that Scull and Parsons say, which is not what I mean by libelling and personal abuse. Here is a case. A few days ago a gentleman called with an article for the _Gazette_, I looked it over, and found it very objectionable. "'I can not publish that,' I said to him. "'Why not?' he asked. "'Because it deals in personal abuse, if not in downright libelling.' "'I will pay for its insertion,' he said. "'So much the worse for me, to insert a libelous article for money,' I said. 'On the face of it it appears a personal pique against the party.' "'But we have a free press in this country,' he insisted. "'Free to do right, and be just and honorable toward all men, and not free to injure or abuse them,' I retorted. "'I supposed that a newspaper was like a stage coach, in which any one, who pays for a place, has it,' he continued. "'That is true of some newspapers, but not of mine,' I answered. 'But I will do this: I will print your article separately, and furnish you with as many copies as you want, and you can distribute them where you please, but I will not lumber my columns with detraction, and insult patrons to whom I am pledged to furnish a good paper for their families.' The party did not accept my proposition, but left in high temper." Every member acquiesced in Franklin's views, and encouraged him to continue the conduct of his paper on that line. It was an age of vituperation and libelling. Probably there never has been a time since when so many editors, in proportion to the number of papers, believed that the newspaper was for that purpose. The gentleman of whom Franklin spoke wanted to abuse another; but would have complained bitterly, no doubt, to have been the object of abuse himself. Franklin's stationer's shop proved a success; and very soon he added a small collection of books. From 1733 he imported books from London, and aimed to keep the market supplied with all that were popular there. His trade in books grew to considerable proportions. With all his business, and the improvement of odd moments in reading and study, he found time to attend to music, and became quite an accomplished player on the harp, guitar, and violin. His family and company were often entertained by his musical performances. In 1733 Franklin resolved to visit Boston. He had not visited there for ten years. "I must go now," he said to his foreman, "because my brother at Newport is so feeble that he is not expected to live long. I shall stop at Newport on my way back." "And when will you return?" "As soon as possible. It is only a flying visit I propose to make. I have some business in Boston, and wish to spend a little time with my parents, who are getting old and infirm." He put every thing into a good condition for his foreman to handle in his absence, and then left for Boston, where his parents embraced him with tears of joy. There was no trace of the boy left on him now,--he was a man in the noblest sense of the word. Necessity compelled Franklin to cut short his visit and return, stopping at Newport to see his brother. This was his brother James, the printer to whom he was apprenticed in Boston. He had a prosperous printing business in that town. "I am very glad to see you," said James, giving his brother a cordial and tender welcome. "You find me very feeble; and I was afraid that I should never see you again." "I hear of your sickness, and felt that I must come to see you at once," Franklin replied. "I hope that your prospects are more favorable than you appear to think they are." "It is only a question of time; and short time, too. My disease is incurable, and I am waiting for the end. We will let by-gones be by-gones; I have only love for you now, my dear brother." "You can hardly conceive how glad I am to hear you say that; for I cherish only the sincerest affection for you. I am truly sorry for any wrong I did you in Boston." "That is all blotted out now," continued James, "I have one request to make, and, if you can grant it, I shall be very happy." "What is it?" "My son is now ten years old, and the loss of his father will, indeed, be a great loss to him. I had intended to instruct him in my trade; and, after my death, I want you should take him to your home in Philadelphia, where he can learn the printer's trade, and, when he understands the business well, return him to his mother and sisters, who will continue the printing house here." "With all my heart I will do it; and I am glad to grant this favor, not only for your sake, but for my own," responded Benjamin. "He shall be one of my family, and I will be to him as a father, and he shall be to me as a son." Thus, at the grave's side, the two brothers were thoroughly reconciled to each other, and it was not long before Franklin had James' son in his own family. In 1736 Franklin buried a son, four years old, a child so bright and beautiful that strangers would stop on the street to behold him. It was a terrible blow to the parents. He was laid in Christ Church burying ground, where the defaced and much-broken headstone still bears this inscription: "FRANCIS F., SON OF BENJAMIN AND DEBORAH FRANKLIN, DECEASED NOV. 21, 1736, AGED 4 YEARS, 1 MONTH, AND 1 DAY. THE DELIGHT OF ALL THAT KNEW HIM." Franklin proved a staunch friend of the celebrated George Whitefield when he visited Philadelphia in 1739. There was great opposition to his work. At first, one or two pastors admitted him to their pulpits; but the opposition grew so intense, that all the churches were closed against him, and he was obliged to preach in the fields. Franklin denounced this treatment in his paper and by his voice, in the Junto and on the street. "You talk about being called to the work of the ministry," he said to one of the Philadelphia clergy; "if ability and great power in the pulpit are evidence of being called of God, then Whitefield must have had a louder call than any of you." "But he is very peculiar in his methods, and harsh in his treatment of sinners," suggested the minister. "But if we sinners do not object, why should you saints? We have heard him say nothing but the truth yet." "All that may be true," continued the preacher, "but so much excitement is not healthy for the spiritual growth of the people." "When did you, or any one else, ever see so great moral and spiritual improvement of the people," said Franklin, "as we have seen since Whitefield has been preaching here? The whole population appears to be thinking about religion." "Excitement! excitement!" exclaimed the minister; "and when Whitefield is gone, there will be a reaction, and the last state of the people will be worse than the first." So Franklin supported Whitefield, was a constant attendant upon his ministrations, and a lasting friendship grew up between them. "Let us put up a building for him to preach in, now that he is excluded from the churches," proposed Franklin to a number of Whitefield's friends, who were discussing the situation. "A preacher of so much power and self-denial should be sustained." "A capital suggestion!" answered one of the number, "and you are the man to carry the measure into effect." "A rough building is all that is necessary for our purpose; the finish will be in the preaching," added Franklin. "A preacher of any denomination whatever, who comes here to instruct the people, without money and without price, should be provided with a place for worship." "Yes, even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary here, I would provide a place for him to hold forth and not turn him into the street," responded Coleman. "I will announce in the _Gazette_ at once what our purpose is, and call a meeting," continued Franklin. "The announcement will test the feelings of the people on the subject." "Let it be done in a hurry, too," said Coleman. "Public sentiment is ripe for something now, and I think the citizens will endorse the scheme." The project was announced, a meeting called, and subscriptions obtained with little effort, to erect a building one hundred feet long and seventy wide. In an almost incredibly short time the house of worship was completed, and Whitefield occupied it. XXXIV. MORE HONORS AND MORE WORK. Franklin, in 1736, was chosen Clerk of the General Assembly, and in 1737 appointed Postmaster of Philadelphia. The first position assured him all the Government printing, and introduced him to influential men, who would very naturally become the patrons of his printing house. The second position was of great value to his newspaper, as it "facilitated the correspondence that improved it, and increased its circulation" quite largely, thus making it a source of considerable income. Members of the Junto were as much pleased with his promotion as Franklin himself. "We are not at all surprised," said Coleman to Colonel Spotswood; "we are familiar with Franklin; I mean, we members of the Junto, as no other persons are. He will fill ably any position you can give him." "That was my estimate of the man," answered Spotswood, who was Postmaster-General; "and so I appointed him my deputy here. From all I could learn of him, I thought he would be exact in his way of doing business and reporting to the Government. His predecessor was careless, and even neglectful, so that it was difficult to get any sort of a report from him." "You will find no trouble with Franklin on that score," rejoined Coleman. "He is one of the most exact men I ever knew, and his judgment is remarkable for one of his years. He appears to succeed in whatever he undertakes because of his sound judgment, and great capacity for work. His appointment as Postmaster of Philadelphia gives great satisfaction." "I thought it would," continued Spotswood. "The position should be occupied by a wise man, who challenges public confidence and respect." "And Franklin is the wisest man I ever knew," interjected Coleman. "We see him in this role, in the Junto, as men outside do not. For he lays before us his plans, and reads important articles that he writes, on various subjects, for criticism, before they are published. He has just read a paper on the 'Night-watch,' exposing the worthlessness of the present system, and proposing a remedy; also, another paper on establishing a fire-department for the town. When made public, both of these measures will commend themselves to the people." The discussion over the night-watch and fire-department in the Junto was both animated and instructive. Both projects were entirely new, and were born of Franklin's fertile brain. "The most cumbersome and awkward arrangement I ever heard of," said Franklin, in the Junto; "to have the constable of each ward, in turn, summon to his aid several housekeepers for the night, and such ragamuffins as most of them summon to their assistance!" "A glass of grog will enlist some of them for a whole night," remarked Parsons. "I think the town is safer without any watchmen, unless more responsible men can be employed." "Of course it is," responded Coleman; "the six shillings paid annually to the constable by each man who does not wish to serve is a corruption fund. The constable can pocket three-fourths of it, and, with the other fourth, he can employ the irresponsible characters he does. I wonder the people don't rebel." "That is not all, nor the worst," remarked Breintnal. "A poor widow, with less than fifty pounds to her name, must pay the six shillings just as the wealthiest citizen, with thousands of pounds in his own right, does. It is very unjust." "And my plan removes all of these difficulties and burdens," added Franklin. "I propose to hire suitable men, whose business shall be to watch at night, levying a tax to pay for the same in proportion to property. A man who makes it his business to watch is worth much more than one who occasionally serves under the present system." Franklin ventilated the subject in the _Gazette_, eliciting remarks pro and con, gradually educating the people; and finally, after several years, he had the satisfaction of seeing his plan adopted. Franklin was the author of the "Night-watch" system of our land. His paper on the frequency of fires, from carelessness and accidents, with suggestions as to preventing them and, also, extinguishing them, elicited equal interest in the Junto. "Your suggestion to organize a company to extinguish fires is a capital one," remarked Potts, after listening to Franklin's paper. "It is not only practical, but it can be done very easily; every citizen must appreciate the measure." "If I understand the plan," remarked Maugridge, "each member will be obliged to keep several leathern buckets, in order for instant use, and strong bags, for receiving goods to be conveyed to a place of safety, will be provided." "Yes; and the members must be so well organized and drilled, that when a fire breaks out, each will know just what to do," added Franklin. "It will be necessary for the members of the company to meet monthly, or oftener, to exchange views and make suggestions as to the best way of conducting the organization. Experience will teach us very much." "How many members should the organization embrace?" inquired Scull. "That is immaterial," replied Coleman; "a large or small number can be used to advantage, I should say." "The company must not be too large," responded Franklin. "I should think that thirty members would be as many as could work to advantage. If double that number desire to become members it would be better to organize two companies, to work in different wards." "And how about money? Can't maintain such an organization without money," suggested Potts. "We can raise money for the outfit of leathern buckets and bags by subscription," replied Franklin; "and we can impose a fine upon members for being absent from meetings." "Then, why is not the whole subject fairly before us?" remarked Coleman. "I move that we proceed to organize a fire-company of thirty members at once." Coleman's proposition was adopted unanimously. Franklin discussed the plan in the _Gazette_, and all the members of the Junto worked hard for it outside. Within a short time the first company was organized, then another, and another, the good work continuing until a large part of the property-owners in town belonged to fire-companies. And this method continued until the invention of fire-engines, fire-hooks, and ladders, with other modern implements to assist in extinguishing fires. Franklin was the originator of fire-companies. "It is high time that our people were thinking of paving the streets," said Franklin, at a meeting of the Junto. "It will facilitate cleaning them wonderfully." "You must give us a paper on the subject, and write it up in the _Gazette_," replied Parsons. "People must be enlightened before they will adopt the measure. The mass of them know nothing about it now." "You are right," responded Franklin; "and it will take a good while to enlighten them. The expense of the measure will frighten them." "How expensive will such a measure be? What does paving cost a square yard?" "I am not able to say now; I have not examined that part of it yet; but I shall. I will prepare a paper for the Junto at the earliest possible date." Franklin had canvassed the subject considerably before he introduced it to the members of the Junto. In wet weather the mud in the streets was trodden into a quagmire, and quantities of it carried on the feet into stores and houses. In dry weather the wind blew the abundance of dust into the faces and eyes of pedestrians, and into the doors and windows of dwellings and shops. In his paper, read at the Junto, Franklin set forth these discomforts, with others, and showed how the evil would be remedied by pavement. The members of the Junto were unanimous in supporting his views. From week to week he discussed the subject in the _Gazette_, literally giving line upon line and precept upon precept. Nor did he seem to make much of an impression for many months. But, finally, a strip of brick pavement having been laid down the middle of Jersey Market, he succeeded in getting the street leading thereto paved. "Now I have a project to enlist citizens in paving all the streets," he said at the Junto. "I have hired a poor man to sweep the pavement now laid, and keep it as clean and neat as a pin, that citizens may see for themselves the great benefit of paving the streets." "That is practical," exclaimed Coleman. "You are always practical, Franklin; and you will make a success of that." "I expect to succeed. After two or three weeks I shall address a circular to all housekeepers enjoying the advantages of the pavement, asking them to join with me in paying a sixpence each per month to keep the pavement clean." "A _sixpence_ a month only!" responded Potts, who had listened to Franklin's plan; "is that all it will cost?" "Yes, that is all; and I think that all will be surprised that the work can be done for that price; and, for that reason, they will readily join in the measure." Franklin went forward with his enterprise, and every citizen appealed to accepted his proposition; and out of it grew a general interest to pave the streets of the city. Franklin drafted a bill to be presented to the General Assembly, authorizing the work to be done; and, through the influence of another party, the bill was amended by a provision for lighting the streets at the same time, all of which was agreeable to Franklin. Here, again, we see that Franklin was the originator of another method of adding to the comfort and beauty of cities and large towns. "I will read you a paper to-night upon smoky chimneys," remarked Franklin at the Junto, as he drew from his pocket a written document. "Smoky chimneys!" ejaculated Grace. "I wonder what will command your attention next. A fruitful theme, though I never expected we should discuss it here." "It is, indeed, a fruitful theme," responded Franklin; "for more chimneys carry some of the smoke into the room than carry the whole out of the top; and nobody can tell why." "I had supposed it was because masons do not understand the philosophy of chimney-building," remarked Coleman. "That is it exactly. The subject is not understood at all, because it has not been examined. Men build chimneys as they do, not because they know it is the best way, but because they do not know any thing about it. For instance, nearly every one thinks that smoke is lighter than air, when the reverse is true." "I always had that idea," remarked Potts; "not because I knew that it was, but somehow I got that impression. But let us have your paper, and then we will discuss it." Franklin read his paper, which was more elaborate and exhaustive than any thing of the kind ever published at that time. It named several definite causes of smoky chimneys, and furnished a remedy for each. What is still more remarkable, it suggested a plan of a fire-place or stove, that might remedy the smoking evil of some chimneys, and save much fuel in all. Subsequently, he invented what is known as the Franklin stove, or fire-place, though it was sometimes called the "Pennsylvania stove." It was regarded as a very useful invention, and, for many years, was in general use. "Apply for a patent on your stove," suggested Coleman; "there is much money in it; and you ought to have it if any one." "Not I," responded Franklin. "I am not a believer in patents. If the invention is a real public benefit, the people should have the advantage of it." "Nonsense," retorted Coleman; "no one but you harbors such an idea. I do not see why a man should not receive pay for his invention as much as another does for a day's work." "And there is no reason why the inventor should not give the public the benefit of it, if he chooses," answered Franklin. "Governor Thomas offered to give me a patent on it, but I told him this: As we enjoy great advantages from the invention of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously." "And nobody will ever thank you for it," added Coleman. "I don't ask them to thank me for it; I give it to them without asking one thank-you for it," replied Franklin, who was in a very happy mood. "Well," added Coleman, "the more I see of you, the more I am satisfied that there is but one Ben Franklin in these parts." In brief, we may add here, that Franklin presented the model to a member of the Junto, Robert Grace, who run a furnace, and, for many years, "he found the casting of the plates for these stoves a profitable thing." Still another enterprise which Franklin brought to the attention of the Junto was the founding of an Academy or University for the higher education of youth. He wrote often and much for the _Gazette_ upon doing more for the education of the young. At last, he prepared and printed a pamphlet, entitled "Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania." It was published at his own expense and gratuitously distributed, after it had been read in the Junto, where he disclosed his purpose. "It is the greatest enterprise you have conceived yet," remarked Parsons, after listening to the paper, "and it will be the most difficult one to push forward to success, I think." "Five thousand pounds is a great amount of money to raise," said Breintnal. "I should not want to be the one to raise it." "I should, if I could," retorted Franklin. "To be the author of so great a blessing to the young is pay enough without any salary. At any rate, that is all the pay any man will get for such service." "Do you propose to raise the money yourself?" inquired Coleman. "Chiefly. I expect that interested parties may assist on that line. The fact that the enterprise is to bless their own children, gives me access to them at once. First of all, however, I propose to send this pamphlet, printed, to a long list of persons upon whom I shall call for aid, after ample time for them to read and digest it has elapsed." It is sufficient to say that Franklin successfully prosecuted his purpose, raised all the money necessary, and the academy was founded. Scholars multiplied so rapidly that larger quarters were soon demanded; and now came into use the building which Franklin caused to be erected for the use of Rev. Mr. Whitefield. With some alterations, it was just the building necessary to meet the wants of the popular institution. Franklin was glad when he secured the building for Whitefield; but he was more glad now because it could be used for the "University of Philadelphia," as his school was named afterwards. Perhaps the Junto did not give attention to a more important measure in its whole history than that of establishing militia for public security. Franklin read a paper, having the caption, "Plain Truth," in which he expatiated upon the defenseless condition of Pennsylvania; that, while New England was all aglow with enthusiasm for armed defense against foreign invasion, and some of the southern colonies as well, Pennsylvania was utterly defenseless. "There is not a battery, fort, or gun, on the banks of the Delaware," he said; "not a volunteer company in the whole Province; and what is still more alarming, not guns enough to arm one." "Our people don't believe in resistance, you know," responded Coleman. "Quaker influence is decidedly against shot-guns and batteries." "And that is the trouble," retorted Franklin. "The Legislatures of other Provinces have established public defenses; but the Quaker influence in the Assembly of Pennsylvania has defeated every measure of the kind." "And will continue to do so until a French privateer seizes and sacks this town, as one could very easily," added Parsons. "Or a tribe of savages, so easily set on by French politicians, shall plunder and burn us," added Franklin. "But John Penn and Thomas Penn are not Quakers, like their father, I have been told," remarked Potts; "and certainly the Province has not had Quaker governors." "That is very true; but so many of the people are Quakers that the Assembly is under their control," answered Franklin. "But I think the appearance of a privateer in the river, or an attack by a band of blood-thirsty savages, would knock the non-resistance out of many of them." "Nothing short of that will," responded Coleman; "but Franklin's plan of raising a volunteer militia, and all necessary funds by subscription, will not call out any opposition from them. I believe that many of them will be glad to have such defense if they are not expected to engage in it." "It is not true, even now, that all the Quakers oppose defensive war: for some of them do not; they have told me so," continued Franklin. "They oppose aggressive warfare; but let a privateer come up the river, or savages attack our town, and they will fight for their homes as hard as any of us." "But how do you propose to reach the public, and interest them in your plan?" inquired Maugridge. "I shall publish the paper I have read, with some additions, suggested by our discussion, and distribute it freely throughout the town. At the same time, I shall discuss it in the _Gazette_, and appeal to Quakers themselves, on Bible grounds, to co-operate for the public defense. And when they have had time to read the pamphlet and weigh the proposition, I shall call a public meeting." "Wise again, Franklin," answered Coleman, who was delighted with the plan. "Your scheme will work to a charm; I have no doubt of it. But just what will you do at your public meeting?" "Organize an 'Association for Defense,' after I have harangued the audience upon the perils of the hour. I shall urge every man present, as he values his home and life, to join the league, of whatever sect or party." "Each man to arm himself at his own expense, I suppose?" inquired Grace. "As far as possible," answered Franklin; "and to raise money for a battery, I have thought of a lottery." Lotteries were generally resorted to, at that day, for raising money. "That scheme for raising a battery will succeed, too," said Coleman with a smile. "I can not see why the whole thing will not carry the public by storm." The plan of Franklin succeeded beyond the most sanguine expectations. His pamphlet and articles in the _Gazette_ moved the public to great enthusiasm. When the public meeting was called, there was a general rush to it. It was held in the large building erected for Rev. Mr. Whitefield, and it was filled to overflowing. Twelve hundred men joined the "Association for Public Defense" on that night, and the number was increased to ten thousand within a few days. Within a few weeks, eighty companies were organized in the Province, armed, and drilled, ready to march to any point of danger at a moment's warning. The companies in Philadelphia united to form a regiment, and Franklin was elected Colonel--an honor which he declined because he "considered himself unfit," and recommended a Mr. Lawrence, who was a prominent and influential citizen. The lottery scheme succeeded, also, and eighteen cannon were borrowed of the Governor of New York until the authorities could import the requisite number from England. Not a few Quakers approved of these measures for the public defense. In the midst of the excitement Franklin intensified the feeling, by inducing the Governor to appoint a day of fasting and prayer. Such a day had never been observed in Pennsylvania, and so the Governor and his associates were too ignorant of the measure to undertake it alone. Hence, Franklin, who was familiar with Fast Days in Massachusetts, wrote the proclamation for the Governor, and secured the co-operation of ministers in the observance of the day. It is claimed that Quakers often lent their influence to defensive warfare in an indirect manner. As, for example, when the Assembly made appropriations for the army, "for the purchase of bread, flour, wheat and _other grain_," the latter phrase covered _gunpowder_. Perhaps this suggested to Franklin, when trying to get an appropriation through the Assembly, the following remark: "If we fail, let us move the purchase of a fire-engine with the money; the Quakers can have no objection to that; and then, if you nominate me, and I you, as a committee for that purpose, we will buy a great gun, which is certainly a _fire-engine_." The fears of the colonists were allayed, and these warlike preparations discontinued, when the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was declared, and signed by the British Commissioners, Oct. 7, 1748. XXXV. PHILOSOPHER AND STATESMAN. "I have a proposition to make to you, an important one," remarked Franklin to David Hall, who had worked for him four years. "Come into the office, and I will tell you what it is." Hall followed him into the office, wondering what the proposition could be. When they were seated, Franklin continued: "I must have a partner in this business; and I think you are just the man I want, if we can agree upon the terms. I desire to be released from the care of the printing office, that I may pursue my scientific studies more thoroughly and satisfactorily." "Your proposition is very unexpected to me, and I feel very much flattered by it," answered Hall; "but I hardly know what to say, for I have no capital to put into the business." "And you need none," interrupted Franklin. "My plan is that you take the office just as it is, pay me one thousand pounds a year, for eighteen years, releasing me from all care of the business, and, at the close of eighteen years, the whole business shall be yours, without further consideration." "Well, I ought to be satisfied with that offer, if you are; it is certainly a generous one, and I shall accept it." "And you will get out of it three or four times the amount of your present salary every year," suggested Franklin. "I mean it shall be a profitable enterprise for you; for your long service here has satisfied me that you are the partner I want." This plan was carried into effect, and Franklin was no longer obliged to visit the printing office daily, whither he had been for over twenty years. His printing and newspaper business had been very profitable, so that he was comparatively wealthy for that day. His investments had proved fortunate; and these, with the thousand pounds annually from Hall, and five hundred pounds from two public offices he held, gave him an annual income of about fifteen thousand dollars, which was large for those times--one hundred and forty years ago. "Now I can pursue my studies to my heart's content," Franklin said to his wife. "I have only had fragments of time to devote to electricity and other studies hitherto; but now I can command time enough to make research an object." "I am very glad that you are able to make so favorable arrangements," Mrs. Franklin replied. "You have had altogether too much on your hands for ten years and more. You ought to have less care." "And I have an intense desire to investigate science, especially electricity," Franklin continued. "I see a wide field for research and usefulness before me. But I have time enough to prosecute my plans." Franklin was forty-two years old at this time; and it is a singular fact that his career as a philosopher did not begin really until he had passed his fortieth birthday. But from the time he was released from the care of the printing office, his advancement in science was rapid. His fame spread abroad, both in this country and Europe, so that, in a few years, he became one of the most renowned philosophers in the world. In a former chapter we described his experiment with a kite, to prove that lightning and the electric fluid are identical; and this discovery established his fame as the greatest electrician of the world. The Royal Society of London elected him a member by a unanimous vote, and the next year bestowed upon him the Copley medal. Yale College conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts; and Harvard University did the same. Suddenly Franklin found himself the most conspicuous character in American history--a philosopher of the most honored type. Mignet said of him, "Thus all at once distinguished, the Philadelphia sage became the object of universal regard, and was abundantly loaded with academic honors. The Academy of Sciences of Paris made him an associate member, as it had Newton and Leibnitz. All the learned bodies of Europe eagerly admitted him into their ranks. Kant, the celebrated German philosopher, called him 'the Prometheus of modern times.' To this scientific glory, which he might have extended if he had consecrated to his favorite pursuits his thoughts and his time, he added high political distinction. To this man, happy because he was intelligent, great because he had an active genius and a devoted heart, was accorded the rare felicity of serving his country, skilfully and usefully, for a period of fifty years; and after having taken rank among the immortal founders of the positive sciences, of enrolling himself among the generous liberators of the nations." A few years later, the three Universities of St. Andrew's, Oxford, and Edinburgh, conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. Europe vied with America in tributes of honor and praise. His electrical experiments made him the author of several useful inventions, among which the LIGHTNING ROD was the foremost. It came into general use, not only in our country, but also in Europe. The celebrated Kinnersley wrote to him, "May this method of security from the destructive violence of one of the most awful powers of Nature meet with such further success as to induce every good and grateful heart to bless God for the important discovery! May the benefit thereof be diffused over the whole globe! May it extend to the latest posterity of mankind, and make the name of Franklin, like that of Newton, IMMORTAL!" Franklin did not intend to continue in political life, when he entered into partnership with Mr. Hall; and he so announced to his friends. At that time he had served as Councilman in the city, been a member of the General Assembly, acted as Commissioner on several important occasions, and served the public in various other ways; but now he designed to stop and devote himself entirely to scientific pursuits. Within five years, however, he found himself more deeply involved in political plans and labors than ever before. He was as wise in statesmanship as he was in philosophy; and the services of such a man were in constant demand. The following list of public offices he filled shows that he stood second to no statesman in the land in public confidence and ability in public service: A LEGISLATOR OF PENNSYLVANIA AT TWENTY-SIX YEARS OF AGE, CONTINUED FOR TWENTY YEARS. FOUNDER AND LEADING TRUSTEE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. COLONEL OF MILITIA, WHICH HE ORIGINATED. LEADER OF COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY FOR YEARS, IN TIME OF WAR. POSTMASTER-GENERAL. AGENT OF PENNSYLVANIA, MASSACHUSETTS, NEW JERSEY, AND GEORGIA TO THE KING OF ENGLAND. MINISTER TO THE COURT OF ENGLAND IN 1764. ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS IN 1775, AND A MEMBER OF IT. MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY TO FRANCE IN 1776. AUTHOR OF FIRST TREATY FOR AMERICA IN 1778. MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY TO FRANCE IN 1778. ONE OF FIVE TO DRAFT THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. A LEADER IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. ONE OF THE FRAMERS OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. LIKE WASHINGTON, "FIRST IN WAR, FIRST IN PEACE, AND FIRST IN THE HEARTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN." Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston were associated with Franklin in drafting the Declaration of Independence, which Congress adopted, July 4, 1776. The original draft was by Jefferson, but it contained many interlineations in the hand-writing of Franklin. When they were signing the memorable document, after its passage by Congress, John Hancock remarked: "We must be unanimous,--we must all hang together." "Yes, if we would not hang separately," replied Franklin. Jefferson was viewing, with evident disappointment, the mutilation of his draft of the Declaration in Franklin's hand-writing, when the latter remarked: "I have made it a rule, whenever in my power, to avoid becoming the draftsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body. I took my lesson from an incident which I will relate to you. When I was a journeyman-printer, one of my companions, an apprentice-hatter, having served out his time, was about to open shop for himself. His first concern was to have a handsome sign-board, with a proper inscription. He composed it in these words: _John Thompson, hatter, makes and sells hats for ready money_, with a figure of a hat subjoined. But he thought he would submit to his friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to thought the word _hatter_ tautologous, because followed by the words _makes hats_, which showed he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word _makes_ might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats; if good and to their mind, they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third said he thought the words _for ready money_ were useless, as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit. Every one who purchased expected to pay. They were parted with, and the inscription now stood: _John Thompson sells hats_. '_Sells_ hats?' says his next friend; 'why, nobody will expect you to give them away. What, then, is the use of that word?' It was stricken out, and _hats_ followed, the rather as there was one painted on the board. So his inscription was reduced, ultimately, to _John Thompson_, with the figure of a hat subjoined." It is doubtful if American Independence would have been achieved when it was, but for the services of Franklin at the Court of England. His first appearance there was when his fame as a philosopher was at its zenith, and the greatest men of that country sought his acquaintance. William Strahan, a member of Parliament, wrote to Mrs. Franklin, "I never saw a man who was, in every respect, so perfectly agreeable to me. Some are able in one view, some in another, he in all." The Tories, who meant to keep the Colonies in subjection and burden them with taxes, were the leaders in governmental affairs and the majority in numbers. Of course, the Colonies could not expect many favors from them without the mediation of their strongest statesmen; and Franklin was the one above all others on whom they depended. His first diplomatic career in England, when he was the Agent of Pennsylvania and other Colonies, lasted from 1757 to 1762. He remained at home only a year and a half, when he was appointed "Minister to England," whither he went in 1764, remaining there ten years, a long, stormy period of political troubles, culminating in the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution. We have only to mention the Boston Port Bill, the Stamp Act, quartering British troops in the public buildings of Boston, and other measures which the Colonies considered oppressive, and even tyrannical, to show the line of Franklin's intercession in behalf of his countrymen, and how they came to throw off the yoke of bondage. The Tory hatred towards Franklin was something fearful at times, exceeded only by their hatred towards the people whom he represented. "I am willing to love all mankind except an American," exclaimed Dr. Johnson. And when rebuked for his unchristian disposition, "his inflammable corruption bursting into horrid fire," says Boswell, "he breathed out threatenings and slaughter, calling them rascals, robbers, pirates, and exclaiming that he would burn and destroy them." When Mr. Barclay hinted to Franklin that he might have almost any place of honor if he would consent to a certain line of action, our loyal hero spurned the bribe, saying, "The ministry, I am sure, would rather give me a place in a cart to Tyburn [prison] than any other place whatever." He could neither be coaxed nor frightened into submission to the British crown. In February, 1766, he was summoned before the House of Commons, where he met the enemies of his country face to face, and stood firm through the searching examination. "Will the Americans consent to pay the stamp duty if it is lessened?" he was asked. "No, never; unless compelled by force of arms," he answered. "May not a military force carry the Stamp Act into execution?" "Suppose a military force sent into America; they will find nobody in arms; what are they, then, to do? Then can not force a man to take stamps who chooses to do without them. They will not _find_ a rebellion; they may, indeed, _make_ one." "If the Stamp Act is enforced, will ill-humor induce the Americans to give as much for the worse manufactures of their own, and use them in preference to our better ones?" "_Yes. People will pay as freely to gratify one passion as another,--their resentment as their pride_." "Would the people of Boston discontinue their trade?" "The merchants of Boston are a very small number, and must discontinue their trade, if nobody will buy their goods." "What are the body of the people in the Colonies?" "They are farmers, husbandmen, or planters." "Would they suffer the produce of their lands to rot?" "No; but they would not raise so much. They would manufacture more and plow less. I do not know a single article imported into the Northern Colonies that they can not do without, or make themselves." To Lord Kames he said, "America must become a great country, populous and mighty; and will, _in a less time than is generally conceived_, be able to shake off any shackles that may be imposed upon her, and perhaps place them on the imposers." But his labors availed nothing, although Chatham, Pitt, Burke, Fox, and others, espoused the cause of the Colonies. Affairs hastened to the crisis of 1775, and Franklin returned to Philadelphia, reaching that city soon after the battles of Lexington and Concord were fought, in 1776. A few months before he left England for America, his wife died. Her death occurred on Dec. 17, 1774, though the sad tidings did not reach Franklin until a short time before he took passage for home. It was at this time that his famous letter to his old English friend, William Strahan, was written, of which we are able to furnish a _fac-simile_. The scenes of the Revolution followed. Through the agency of Franklin, as Minister Plenipotentiary to France, the French Government formed an alliance with the Colonies, and the eight years' war was waged to the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown; and Freedom was achieved. No American exerted greater influence in securing the independence of the Colonies than Franklin. He was one of the originators of the Continental Congress, and was the author of the plan for a Union of the States. On his way to the Albany Conference in 1754 he drew up a plan of Union, which he presented to said Conference, composed of delegates from seven Northern Colonies. Other members presented plans, but his was preferred and adopted, with some amendments, and commended to the favorable consideration of the King and Parliament of England. Franklin's plan of Union was substantially that which, subsequently, united the thirteen States into one nation. No name is more conspicuous in history than that of Franklin. At one time in France, "prints, medallion portraits, and busts of him were multiplied throughout that country." In England, the most renowned statesmen and scholars acknowledged his abilities and praised his remarkable career. In America, his statue was set up in halls of learning and legislation, literary societies and institutions were founded in his name, and numerous towns were called after him. Perhaps the author's native town--Franklin, Mass.--was the first to appropriate his name. A few years thereafter, a nephew called his attention to this fact, suggesting that the present of a bell from him would be very acceptable, as the people were erecting a house of worship. Franklin was in Passy, France, at the time, and he immediately addressed the following letter to his old friend, Dr. Price, asking him to select and forward a library: "PASSY, 18 March, 1785. "DEAR FRIEND,--My nephew, Mr. Williams, will have the honor of delivering you this line. It is to request from you a list of a few books, to the value of about twenty-five pounds, such as are most proper to inculcate principles of sound religion and just government. A new town in the State of Massachusetts having done me the honor of naming itself after me, and proposing to build a steeple to their meeting-house if I would give them a bell, I have advised the sparing themselves the expense of a steeple for the present, and that they would accept of books instead of a bell, sense being preferable to sound. These are, therefore, intended as the commencement of a little parochial library for the use of a society of intelligent, respectable farmers, such as our country people generally consist of. Besides your own works, I would only mention, on the recommendation of my sister, Stennett's 'Discourses on Personal Religion,' which may be one book of the number, if you know and approve it. "With the highest esteem and respect, I am ever, my dear friend, yours most affectionately, "B. FRANKLIN." The inhabitants of Franklin got _sense_ instead of _sound_, and were never sorry. Doctor Price, in the course of a letter dated at Newington Green, June 3, 1785, in which he speaks of Mr. Williams' visit, says: "I have, according to your desire, furnished him with a list of such books on religion and government as I think some of the best, and added a present to the parish that is to bear your name, of such of my own publications as I think may not be unsuitable. Should this be the commencement of parochial libraries in the States, it will do great good." The books were duly forwarded to the town of Franklin. The Rev. Nathaniel Emmons, clergyman of the parish for which the library was designed, preached a sermon in commemoration of this bounty, entitled "The Dignity of Man: a Discourse Addressed to the Congregation in Franklin upon the Occasion of their Receiving from Doctor Franklin the Mark of his Respect in a Rich Donation of Books, Appropriated to the Use of a Parish Library." This sermon was printed in the year 1787, with the following dedication: "To his Excellency Benjamin Franklin, President of the State of Pennsylvania, the Ornament of Genius, the Patron of Science, and the Boast of Man, this Discourse is Inscribed, with the Greatest Deference, Humility, and Gratitude, by his Obliged and Most Humble Servant, the Author." The library contained one hundred and sixteen volumes, chiefly relating to Government, Science, and Religion, of which about ninety volumes are still in a good state of preservation. On the 17th of April, 1790, Franklin expired, mourned by a grateful nation and honored by the world. For two years he had lived in anticipation of this event. One day he rose from his bed, saying to his daughter, "Make up my bed, that I may die in a decent manner." "I hope, father, that you will yet recover, and live many years," replied his daughter. "I hope not," was his answer. When told to change his position in bed, that he might breathe more easily, he replied: "A dying man can do nothing easy." His sufferings were so great as to extort a groan from him at one time, whereupon he said: "I fear that I do not bear pain as I ought. It is designed, no doubt, to wean me from the world, in which I am no longer competent to act my part." To a clerical friend, who witnessed one of his paroxysms as he was about to retire, he said: "Oh, no; don't go away. These pains will soon be over. They are for my good; and, besides, what are the pains of a moment in comparison with the pleasures of eternity?" He had a picture of Christ on the cross placed so that he could look at it as he lay on his bed. "That is the picture of one who came into the world to teach men to love one another," he remarked. His last look, as he passed away, was cast upon that painting of Christ. In a codicil to his will was this bequest. "My fine crab-tree walking-stick, with a gold head, curiously wrought in the form of a cap of liberty, I give to my friend, and the friend of mankind, _George Washington_. If it were a sceptre, he has merited it, and would become it." Philanthropist, Scholar, Philosopher, Statesman, were the titles won by the Boston Printer Boy! 
36896	----	file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SELF-REVEALED A BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL STUDY BASED MAINLY ON HIS OWN WRITINGS BY WILLIAM CABELL BRUCE IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME I G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON _The Knickerbocker Press_ 1917 COPYRIGHT, 1917 BY W. CABELL BRUCE _The Knickerbocker Press, New York_ CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I.--FRANKLIN'S MORAL STANDING AND SYSTEM 12 II.--FRANKLIN'S RELIGIOUS BELIEFS 51 III.--FRANKLIN, THE PHILANTHROPIST AND CITIZEN 102 IV.--FRANKLIN'S FAMILY RELATIONS 198 V.--FRANKLIN'S AMERICAN FRIENDS 310 VI.--FRANKLIN'S BRITISH FRIENDS 372 VII.--FRANKLIN'S FRENCH FRIENDS 473 Benjamin Franklin Self-Revealed Introduction In reading the life of Benjamin Franklin, the most lasting impressions left upon the mind are those of versatility and abundance. His varied genius lent itself without effort to the minutest details of such commonplace things as the heating and ventilation of rooms, the correction of smoky chimneys and naval architecture and economy. His severely practical turn of mind was disclosed even in the devices with which he is pictured in his old age as relieving the irksomeness of physical effort--the rolling press with which he copied his letters, the fan which he worked with his foot in warm weather as he sat reading, the artificial hand with which he reached the books on the upper shelves of his library. But, sober as Franklin's genius on this side was, it proved itself equal to some of the most exacting demands of physical science; and above all to the sublime task, which created such a world-wide stir, of reducing the wild and mysterious lightning of the heavens to captivity, and bringing it down in fluttering helplessness to the earth. It was a rare mind indeed which could give happy expression to homely maxims of plodding thrift, and yet entertain noble visions of universal philanthropy. The stretch between Franklin's weighty observations on Population, for instance, and the bright, graceful bagatelles, with which his pen occasionally trifled, was not a short one; but it was compassed by his intellect without the slightest evidence of halting facility. It is no exaggeration to say that this intellect was an organ lacking in no element of power except that which can be supplied by a profound spiritual insight and a kindling imagination alone. _The Many-Sided Franklin_, the title of the essay by Paul Leicester Ford, is a felicitous touch of description. The life, the mind, the character of the man were all manifold, composite, marked by spacious breadth and freedom. It is astonishing into how many different provinces his career can be divided. Franklin, the Man of Business, Franklin, the Philosopher, Franklin, the Writer, Franklin, the Statesman, Franklin, the Diplomatist, have all been the subjects of separate literary treatment. As a man of business, he achieved enough, when the limitations of his time and environment are considered, to make him a notable precursor of the strong race of self-created men, bred by the later material expansion of America. As a scientist, his brilliant electrical discoveries gave him for a while, as contemporary literature so strikingly evinces, a position of extraordinary pre-eminence. As a writer, he can claim the distinction of having composed two productions, _The Autobiography_ and _The Way to Wealth_, which are read the world over. Of his reputation as a statesman it is enough to remark that his signature is attached to the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance between the United States and France, the Treaty of Peace between Great Britain and the United States, and the Federal Constitution. Of his labors as a diplomatist it may be said that, if it is true that, without the continuous assistance of France, our independence would not have been secured, it is perhaps equally true that, without his wisdom, tact and European prestige, we should never have retained this assistance, so often imperilled by the jealousy and vanity of his colleagues as well as by the usual accidents of international intercourse. His life was like a full five-act play--prophetic prologue and stately epilogue, and swelling scene imposed upon swelling scene, until the tallow chandler's son, rising from the humblest levels of human fortune to the highest by uninterrupted gradations of invincible success, finally becomes the recipient of such a degree of impressive homage as has rarely been paid to anyone by the admiration and curiosity of mankind. To such a diversified career as this the element of mere longevity was, of course, indispensable. Renown so solid and enduring as that of Franklin and acquired in so many different fields was not a thing to be achieved by a few fortunate strokes. He did not awake one morning, as did Byron, to find himself famous; though his fame in the province of electrical science travelled fast when it once got under way. Such a full-orbed renown could be produced only by the long gestation of many years of physical vigor and untiring activity. With the meagre opportunities afforded by colonial conditions for the accumulation of wealth, there had to be an extended period of unflagging attention to Poor Richard's saying: "Many a little makes a mickle." To this period belong some things that the self-revelation of the _Autobiography_, unselfish as it is, cannot dignify, or even redeem from moral squalor, and other things which even the frankness itself of the _Autobiography_ is not frank enough to disclose. Then there is the unique story, imprinted upon the face of Philadelphia to this day, of his fruitful exertions as Town Oracle and City Builder. Then there is the episode of scientific inquiry, all too brief, when the prosperous printer and tradesman, appraising wealth at its true value, turns away from his printing press and stock of merchandise to give himself up with enthusiastic ardor to the study of electrical phenomena. Then there is the long term of public employment, beginning with the Clerkship of the Pennsylvania Assembly and not ending until, after many years of illustrious public service as legislator, administrator, diplomatic agent and foreign minister, Franklin complains in a letter to Dr. and Mrs. John Bard that the public, not content with eating his flesh, seems resolved to pick his bones. The amount of work that he did, the mass of results that he accomplished, during the long tract of time covered by his life, is simply prodigious. Primarily, Franklin was a man of action. The reputation that he coveted most was, as he declared, in a letter to Samuel Mather, that of a doer of good. Utility was the standard set by him for all his activities, and even his system of ethics did not escape the hard, griping pressure of this standard. What he aimed at from first to last, whether in the domain of science, literature or government, was practical results, and men, as they are known to experienced and shrewd, though kindly, observers of men, were the agencies with which he sought to accomplish such results. He never lost sight of the sound working principle, which the mere academician or closet philosopher is so prone to forget, that the game cannot be played except with the chess-men upon the board. But happily for the world few men of action have ever bequeathed to posterity such abundant written records of their lives. When Franklin desired to promote any project or to carry any point, he invariably, or all but invariably, invoked the aid of his pen to attain his end. To write for money, or for the mere pleasure of writing, or even for literary fame was totally alien to the purposes for which he wrote. A pen was to him merely another practical instrument for forwarding some private aim of his or some definite public or political object, to which his sympathies and powers were committed, or else but an aid to social amusement. As the result of this secondary kind of literary activity, he left behind him a body of writings of one kind or another which enables us to measure far more accurately than we should otherwise have been able to do the amount of thought and performance crowded into those eventful years of lusty and prolific existence. In the Library of Congress, in the Library of the American Philosophical Society, in the Library of the University of Pennsylvania, in numerous other collections in both hemispheres are found the outflowings of a brain to which exuberance of production was as natural as rank vegetation to a fat soil. Nor should it be forgotten that many of his papers have perished, which, if still extant, would furnish additional proofs of the fertility of his genius and swell the sum of pleasure and instruction which we derive from his works. With the sigh that we breathe over the lost productions of antiquity might well be mingled another over the papers and letters which were confided by Franklin, on the eve of his mission to France, to the care of Joseph Galloway, only to fall a prey to ruthless spoliation and dispersion. To look forward to a long winter evening enlivened by the missing letters that he wrote to his close friends, Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph's, "the good Bishop," as he called him, Sir Edward Newenham, of the Irish Parliament, and Jan Ingenhousz, physician to Maria Theresa, would alone, to one familiar with his correspondence, be as inviting a prospect as could be held out to any reader with a relish for the intimate letters of a wise, witty and humorous letter-writer. The length of time during which the subtle and powerful mind of Franklin was at work is, we repeat, a fact that must be duly taken into account in exploring the foundations of his celebrity. "By living twelve years beyond David's period," he said in one of his letters to George Whatley, "I seem to have intruded myself into the company of posterity, when I ought to have been abed and asleep." He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 6 (old style), 1706, and died in the City of Philadelphia on April 17, 1790. At the time of his birth, Anne was in the fourth year of her reign as Queen of England, and Louis XIV. was King of France. Only eighty-five years had elapsed since the landing at Plymouth. More than three years were to elapse before the battle of Malplaquet, more than five years before the publication of the first _Spectator_, twenty years before the publication of _Gulliver's Travels_. Franklin's name was an honored one not only in his native land but beyond seas before any of the other great men who signed the Declaration of Independence had emerged from provincial obscurity. His birth preceded that of Washington by twenty-six years, that of John Adams by thirty years, that of Jefferson by thirty-seven years. Coming into the world only fifteen years after the outbreak of the witchcraft delusion at Salem, he lived to be a member of the Federal Convention and to pass down to us as modern in spirit and purpose as the American House of Representatives or the American Patent Office. He, at least, is a standing refutation of the claim that all the energetic tasks of human life are performed by young men. He was seventy years of age when he arrived in France to enter upon the laborious diplomatic career which so signally increased the lustre of his fame and so gloriously prospered our national fortunes; and he was seventy-nine years of age when his mission ended. But even then, weighed down though he was by the strong hand of time and vexed by diseases which left him little peace, there was no danger that he would be classed by anyone with the old townsmen of whom Lord Bacon speaks "that will be still sitting at their Street doore though thereby they offer Age to Scorne." After his return from France, he lived long enough to be thrice elected President of the State of Pennsylvania and to be a useful member of the Convention that framed the Federal Constitution; and only twenty-four days before his death he wrote the speech of Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim on the petition of the Erika, or Purists for the abolition of piracy and slavery which is one of the happiest effusions of his satirical genius. _Multos da annos_ is a prayer, we may readily believe, that is often granted by the Gods with a scornful smile. In the case of Franklin, even without such a protracted term of life as was his portion, he would still have enjoyed a distinguished place in the memory of men, but not that broad, branching, full-crowned fame which makes him one of the most conspicuous landmarks of the eighteenth century. And fully in keeping with the extent of this fame was the extent of his relationship to the social and intellectual world of his time. The main background of his life, of course, was American--Lake Champlain, the St. Lawrence, the Charles, the Connecticut, the Hudson, the Delaware and the Ohio rivers; the long western reaches of the Atlantic; the dark curtain of firs and hemlocks and primeval masses of rock which separated the two powers that ceaselessly struggled for the mastery of the continent, and rarely lifted except to reveal some appalling tragedy, chargeable to the French and their dread ally, the Red Indian; Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Fort Duquesne--all the internal features and surroundings in a word of the long, narrow strip of English territory between Boston and Philadelphia with which he was so familiar, and over which his influence was asserted in so many ways. With the exception of his brief sojourn in London in his youth, his whole life was passed in the Colonies until he was fifty-one years of age. Before he sailed for England in 1757, upon his first foreign mission, the circumstances of his career had been such as to make him generally known to the people of the Colonies. His _Almanac_, his _Gazette_, his pithy sayings, his humorous stories, his visits to Boston, attended by the formation of so many wayside friendships, his postal expeditions, the printing presses set up by him at many different points, his private fortune, his public services, his electrical experiments were all breath for the trump of his fame. He knew Colonial America as few Colonial Americans knew it. He was born and reared in Boston, and, after his removal to Philadelphia, he revisited his native city at regular intervals. "The Boston manner, turn of phrase, and even tone of voice, and accent in pronunciation, all please, and seem to refresh and revive me," he said in his old age in a letter to the Rev. John Lathrop. Philadelphia, the most populous and opulent of the colonial towns, was his lifelong place of residence. In the _Autobiography_ he refers to it as "A city I love, having lived many years in it very happily." He appears to have been quite frequently in New York. His postal duties took him as far south as Williamsburg, and the Albany Congress drew him as far north of New York as Albany. He was in the camp of Braddock at Frederick, Maryland, just before that rash and ill-starred general set out upon his long, dolorous march through the wilderness where disaster and death awaited him. Facts like these signify but little now when transit from one distant point to another in the United States is effected with such amazing rapidity, but they signified much under the crude conditions of colonial life. Once at least did Franklin have his shoulder dislocated by an accident on the atrocious roads of Colonial New England. Once he was thrown into the water from an upset canoe near Staten Island. His masterly answers, when examined before the House of Commons, showed how searchingly conversant he was with everything that related to America. For some of our most penetrating glances into colonial life we are indebted to his writings; particularly instructive being his observations upon population in the Colonies, the economic condition and political temper of their people and the characteristics and habits of the Indians. It was a broad experience which touched at one extreme the giddy and artificial life of Paris, on the eve of the French Revolution, and at the other the drunken Indian orgies at the conclusion of the treaty at Carlisle which Franklin has depicted in the _Autobiography_ with a brush worthy of Rembrandt in these words: "Their dark-colour'd bodies, half naked, seen only by the gloomy light of the bonfire, running after and beating one another with firebrands, accompanied by their horrid yellings, form'd a scene the most resembling our ideas of hell that could well be imagin'd." But the peculiar distinction of Franklin is that his life stands out vividly upon an European as well as an American background. It is interesting to contrast the scene at Carlisle with the opera in honor of the Comte du Nord, at which he was present, during the French mission. "The House," he says in his _Journal of the Negotiation for Peace with Great Britain_, "being richly finish'd with abundance of Carving and Gilding, well Illuminated with Wax Tapers, and the Company all superbly drest, many of the Men in Cloth of Tissue, and the Ladies sparkling with Diamonds, form'd altogether the most splendid Spectacle my Eyes ever beheld." Until the august figure of Washington filled the eye of mankind, Franklin was the only American who had ever won a solid and splendid European reputation. The opportunity had not yet arisen for the lively French imagination to declare that he had snatched the sceptre from tyrants, but the first half of Turgot's tremendous epigram had been realized; for the lightning he had snatched, or rather filched, from the sky. It may well be doubted whether any one private individual with such limited pecuniary resources ever did as much for the moral and intellectual welfare of any one community as Franklin did for pre-revolutionary Philadelphia; but it was impossible that such aspirations and powers as his should be confined within the pale of colonial provincialism. His widespread fame, his tolerant disposition, his early residence in England, his later residence there for long periods, his excursions into Scotland and Ireland and Continental countries, the society of men of the world in London and other great cities combined to endow him with a character truly cosmopolitan which was to be still further liberalized by French influence. During his life, he crossed the Atlantic no less than eight times. After 1757 the greater part of his life was spent abroad. Of the eighty-four years, of which his existence was made up, some twenty-six were passed in England and France. He was as much at home on The Strand as on Market Street in Philadelphia. The friendships that he formed in England and France were almost as close as those that he had formed in Pennsylvania with his cronies, Hugh Roberts and John Bartram. He became so thoroughly domesticated in England during his periods of sojourn in that country that he thought of remaining there for the rest of his life, and yet, if the Brillons had only been willing to confer the hand of their daughter upon his grandson, William Temple Franklin, he would contentedly have died in France. If there ever was an American, if there ever was a citizen of the world, if there ever was a true child of the eighteenth century, it was he. His humanitarian sympathies, his catholic temper, his generous, unobstructed outlook enabled him without difficulty to adjust himself with ease to the genius of every people with whom he was brought into familiar contact. In America he was such a thorough American in every respect that Carlyle is said to have termed him on one occasion, "The Father of all the Yankees." In England he was English enough to feel the full glow of her greatness and to see her true interests far more clearly than she saw them herself. He had too many Anglo-Saxon traits to become wholly a Frenchman when he lived in France, but he became French enough to truly love France and her people and to be truly beloved by them. In the opinion of Sainte-Beuve he is the most French of all Americans. CHAPTER I Franklin's Moral Standing and System Until a comparatively recent period totally false conceptions in some respects of Franklin's character were not uncommon. To many he was merely the father of a penurious, cheese-paring philosophy, and to no little extent the idea prevailed that his own nature and conduct corresponded with its precepts. There could be no greater error. Of the whole science of prudential economy a master indeed he was. His observations upon human life, in its pecuniary relations, and upon the methods, by which affluence and ease are to be wrested from the reluctant grasp of poverty, are always sagacious in the highest degree. Poor Richard is quite as consummate a master of the science of rising in the world as Aristotle is of the Science of Politics or Mill of the Science of Political Economy. Given health and strength, a man, who faithfully complied with his shrewd injunctions and yet did not prosper, would be as much a freak of nature as a man who thrust his hand into the fire and yet received no physical hurt. The ready and universal assent given to their full truth and force by human experience is attested by the fact that _The Way to Wealth_, or _The Speech of Father Abraham_, "the plain, clean old Man with white Locks" in which Franklin, when writing one of the prefaces of _Poor Richard's Almanac_, condensed the wit and wisdom, original and second hand, of that incomparable manual of _The Art of Material Success_, has, through innumerable editions and reprints, and translations into every written tongue from the French to the Russian and Chinese, become almost as well known to the entire civilized globe as the unbroken strain of the martial airs of England. So well calculated, it was thought, was it to promote sound principles of diligence and frugality that it was, we are told by Franklin, reprinted in England, to be set up in the form of a broadside in houses, and, when translated into French, was bought by the clergy and gentry of France for distribution among their poor parishioners and tenants. But so far from being the slave of a parsimonious spirit was Franklin that it would be difficult to single out any self-made man who ever formed a saner estimate of the value of money than he did or lived up to it more fearlessly. In seeking money, he was actuated, as his early retirement from business proved, only by the high-minded motive to self-enrichment which is so pointedly expressed in the lines of Burns: "Not for to hide it in a hedge, Nor for a train attendant, But for the glorious privilege Of being independent." No sooner did he accumulate a sufficient fortune to provide for the reasonable wants of his family and himself than he proceeded to make this fortune the handmaid of some of the higher things of life--wholesome reading, scientific research, public usefulness, schemes of beneficence. In 1748, when he was in the full flush of business success and but forty-two years of age, he deliberately, for the sake of such things, retired from all active connection with business pursuits. In a letter to Abiah Franklin, his mother, shortly after he found himself free forever from the cares of his shop, he speaks of himself in these words: "I enjoy, thro' Mercy, a tolerable Share of Health. I read a great deal, ride a little, do a little Business for myself, more for others, retire when I can, and go into Company when I please; so the Years roll round, and the last will come; when I would rather have it said, _He lived Usefully_, than _He died Rich_." About the same time, he wrote to William Strahan, a business correspondent, that the very notion of _dying worth_ a great sum was to him absurd, and just the same as if a man should run in debt for one thousand superfluities, to the end that, when he should be stripped of all, and imprisoned by his creditors, it might be said, he _broke worth_ a great sum. On more than one occasion, when there was a call upon his public zeal, his response was generous to the point of imprudence. The bond that he gave to indemnify against loss the owners of the wagons and horses procured by his energy and address for Braddock's expedition led to claims against him to the amount of nearly twenty thousand pounds, which would have ruined him, if the British Government had not rescued him after long delay from his dreadful situation. Without hesitation he entered during his first mission to England into a personal engagement that an act taxing the estate of the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania in common with the estates of the People of Pennsylvania would not result in any injustice to the Proprietaries. On a later occasion, in order to prevent war between Great Britain and her Colonies, he was willing to bind himself, to the whole extent of his private fortune, to make pecuniary reparation for the destruction of the tea cast into Boston harbor, if the Province of Massachusetts did not do so. One of his last acts before leaving America for his mission to France was to place the sum of three or four thousand pounds, which was a large part of this fortune, and all the ready money at his command, at the disposal of Congress. His salary as President of Pennsylvania was all given or bequeathed by him to public objects. The small sums, to which he became entitled as one of the next of kin of his father and his cousin, Mrs. Fisher, of Wellingborough, England, he relinquished to members of the family connection who needed them more than he did. Once, though a commercial panic was prevailing, he pledged his credit to the extent of five thousand pounds for the purpose of supporting that of a London friend. His correspondence nowhere indicates any degree of pecuniary caution in excess of the proper demands of good sense. On the contrary, it furnishes repeated testimony to his promptitude in honoring the solicitations of private distress or subscribing to public purposes. Conspicuously unselfish was he when the appeal was to his public spirit or to his interest in the general welfare of mankind. Among his innumerable benefactions was a gift of one thousand pounds to Franklin College, Pennsylvania. When he invented his open stove for the better warming of rooms, he gave the model to his friend, Robert Grace, who found, Franklin tells us in the _Autobiography_, the casting of the plates for the stove at his furnace near Philadelphia a profitable thing. So far from begrudging this profit to his friend, he wrote his interesting _Account of the New-invented Pennsylvanian Fireplaces_ to promote the public demand for the invention. A London ironmonger made some small changes in the stove, which were worse than of no value to it, and reaped, Franklin was told, a little fortune by it. "And this," he says in the _Autobiography_, "is not the only instance of patents taken out for my inventions by others, tho' not always with the same success, which I never contested, as having no desire of profiting by patents myself, and hating disputes." When he was actually engaged in the business of printing, a similar motive, so far as public spirit went, led him to offer to print a treatise by Cadwallader Colden on the _Cause of Gravitation_ at his own expense and risk. If he could be the means of communicating anything valuable to the world, he wrote to Colden, he did not always think of gaining nor even of saving by his business. That the character of Franklin should ever have been deemed so meanly covetous is due to _Poor Richard's Almanac_ and the _Autobiography_. The former, with its hard, bare homilies upon the Gospel of Getting on in Life and its unceasing accent upon the duty of scrimping and saving, circulated so long and so widely throughout the Colonies that the real Franklin came to be confused in many minds with the fictitious Poor Richard. Being intended mainly for the instruction and amusement of the common people, whose chief hope of bettering their condition lay in rigid self-denial, it is naturally keyed to unison with the ruder and austerer principles of human thrift. As to the _Autobiography_, with its host of readers, the only Franklin known to the great majority of persons, who have any familiarity with Franklin at all, is its Franklin, and this Franklin is the one who had to "make the night joint-laborer with the day," breakfast on bread and milk eaten out of a two-penny earthen porringer with a pewter spoon, and closely heed all the sage counsels of _Poor Richard's Almanac_ before he could even become the possessor of a china bowl and a silver spoon. It is in the _Autobiography_ that the story of Franklin's struggle, first for the naked means of subsistence, and then for pecuniary competency, is told; and the harsh self-restraint, the keen eye to every opportunity for self-promotion, and the grossly mechanical theory of morals disclosed by it readily give color to the notion that Franklin was nothing more than a sordid materialist. It should be remembered that it is from the _Autobiography_ that we obtain the greatest part of our knowledge of the exertions through which he acquired his fortune, and that the successive ascending stages, by which he climbed the steep slopes that lead up from poverty and obscurity, are indelibly set forth in this lifelike book with a pen as coarse but at the same time as vivid and powerful as the pencil with which Hogarth depicts the descending stages of the Rake's Progress. And along with these facts it should also be remembered that the didactic purpose by which the _Autobiography_ was largely inspired should be duly allowed for before we draw too disparaging inferences about Franklin from anything that he says in that book with respect to his career. It is a curious fact that almost every reproach attaching to the reputation of Franklin is attributable to the candor of the _Autobiography_. It is true that in the political contests between the Proprietary and Popular Parties in Colonial Pennsylvania he was often visited with virulent abuse by the retainers of the Proprietaries. This was merely the dirty froth brought to the surface by every boiling pot. It is also true that, after the transmission of the Hutchinson letters to New England, he was the object of much savage censure at the hands of British Tories. But this censure, for the most part, was as empty as the ravings of the particular bigot who indorsed on the first page of a volume of letters in the Public Record Office, in London, a statement that the thirteen letters of Doctor Franklin in the volume were perhaps then "only precious or Important so far as they prove and discover the Duplicity, Ingratitude, and Guilt of this Arch Traitor whom they unveil and really unmask Displaying him as an accomplish'd Proficient in the blacker Arts of Dissimulation and Guile." Not less hollow was the invective with which the distempered mind of Arthur Lee assailed the character of Franklin when they were together in France. Nor can it be denied that in such Rabelaisian _jeux d'esprit_ as Polly Baker's Speech, the Letter on the Choice of a Mistress, and the Essay on Perfumes, dedicated to the Royal Academy of Brussels, in the _naïveté_ which marked Franklin's relations to his natural son, William Franklin, and to his natural son's natural son, William Temple Franklin, and in the ease with which he adopted in his old age the tone, if not the practices, of French gallantry, we cannot but recognize a nature too deficient in the refinements of early social training, too physically ripe for sensual enjoyment and too unfettered in its intellectual movements to be keenly mindful of some of the nicer obligations of scrupulous conduct. In moral dignity, Franklin was not George Washington, though there was no one held in higher honor by him. "If it were a Sceptre, he has merited it, and would become it," he said in bequeathing a fine crab-tree walking stick to Washington, whom he termed "My friend, and the friend of mankind." If for no other reason, Franklin was not Washington because he lacked the family traditions and early social advantages of Washington, and perhaps Washington might have been more like Franklin, if he had had some of Franklin's humor. While the resemblance is limited, Franklin does resemble in some respects Jefferson who was too scientific in spirit and too liberal in his opinions not to be a little of a skeptic and a heretic himself. But nothing can be more certain than the fact that Franklin was esteemed by his contemporaries not only a great but a good man. We pass by the French extravagance which made him out a paragon of all the virtues as well as the _plus grand philosophe du siècle_; for the French were but mad idolaters where he was concerned. It is sufficient for our purposes to limit ourselves to his English and American panegyrists. Referring to Franklin's humble birth, Benjamin Vaughan, a dull but good man, wrote to him that he proved "how little necessary all origin is to happiness, virtue, or greatness." In another place, Vaughan speaks of the "affection, gratitude and veneration" he bears to Franklin. To the sober Quaker, Abel James, the author of the _Autobiography_ was the "kind, humane, and benevolent Ben. Franklin" whose work almost insensibly led the youth "into the resolution of endeavoring to become as good and eminent" as himself. In urging Franklin to complete the story of his life, he added: "I know of no character living, nor many of them put together, who has so much in his power as thyself to promote a greater spirit of industry and early attention to business, frugality, and temperance with the American youth." As Franklin's letters bring to our knowledge friend after friend of his, among the wisest and best men of his day, on both sides of the Atlantic, we begin to ask ourselves whether anyone ever did have such a genius for exciting the sentiment of true, honest friendship in virtuous and useful men. His correspondence with Catherine Ray, Polly Stevenson, and Georgiana Shipley, though several of his letters to the first of the three are blemished by the freedom of the times and vulgar pleasantry, demonstrates that his capacity for awakening this sentiment was not confined to his own sex. Inclined as he was in his earlier and later years, to use Madame Brillon's phrase, to permit his wisdom to be broken upon the rocks of femininity, unbecoming his advanced age and high position as was the salacious strain which ran through his letters to this beautiful and brilliant woman, as we shall see hereafter, nothing could illustrate better than his relations to Polly Stevenson how essentially incorrupt his heart was when his association was with any member of the other sex who really had modesty to lose. Such was the pure affection entertained for him by this fine woman that, after the death of her celebrated husband, Dr. William Hewson, she removed from London to Philadelphia with her children to be near the friend, little less than a father, who had lavished upon her all that was best in both his mind and heart. There is much in the life of Franklin to make us believe that his standards of sexual morality were entirely too lax, but there is everything in it, too, to make us believe that he would not only have been incapable of seducing female innocence but would have been slow to withhold in any regard the full meed of deferential respect due to a chaste girl or a virtuous matron. It is hard to repress a smile when we read under the head of "Humility" in his _Table of Virtues_, just below the words, in which, under the head of "Chastity," he deprecates the use of "venery" to the injury of one's own or another's peace or reputation, the injunction for his own guidance, "imitate Jesus and Socrates." All the same, it is a fact that one person, at any rate, Jane Mecom, his sister, even thought him not unworthy to be compared with our Saviour. "I think," she said, "it is not profanity to compare you to our Blessed Saviour who employed much of his time while here on earth in doing good to the body as well as souls of men." Elizabeth Hubbard, the stepdaughter of his brother John, even warned him that, if he was not less zealous in doing good, he would find himself alone in heaven. Through all the observations of his contemporaries vibrates the note that he was too wise and benevolent to belong to anything less than the entire human race. Jonathan Shipley, "The Good Bishop," suggested as a motto suitable to his character, "his country's friend, but more of human kind." Burke called him "the lover of his species." By Sir Samuel Romilly he was pronounced "one of the best and most eminent men of the present age." Chatham eulogized him in the House of Lords as one "whom all Europe held in high Estimation for his Knowledge and Wisdom, and rank'd with our Boyles and Newtons; who was an Honour, not to the English Nation only, but to Human Nature." In one of his works, Lord Kames spoke of him as "a man who makes a great figure in the learned world; and who would make a still greater figure for benevolence and candor, were virtue as much regarded in this declining age as knowledge." Less formal was the heartfelt tribute of Dr. Samuel Cooper, of Massachusetts, after many years of intercourse: "Your friendship has united two things in my bosom that seldom meet, pride and consolation: it has been the honor and the balm of my life." And when towards the close of Franklin's life he wrote to George Washington, "In whatever State of Existence I am plac'd hereafter, if I retain any Memory of what has pass'd here, I shall with it retain the Esteem, Respect, and Affection, with which I have long been, my dear Friend, yours most sincerely," he received a reply, which was not only a reply, but the stately, measured judgment of a man who never spoke any language except that of perfect sincerity. "If," said Washington, "to be venerated for benevolence, if to be admired for talents, if to be esteemed for patriotism, if to be beloved for philanthropy, can gratify the human mind, you must have the pleasing consolation to know, that you have not lived in vain." "And I flatter myself," he continued, "that it will not be ranked among the least grateful occurrences of your life to be assured that, so long as I retain my memory, you will be recollected with respect, veneration, and affection by your sincere friend." These were credentials indeed for the old printer to take with him on his journey to the bright orbs which it was a part of his early religious fantasies to believe were swayed by Gods intermediate in the scale of intelligent existence between ourselves and the "one Supreme, most Perfect Being, Author and Father of the Gods themselves."[1] It is, we repeat, the _Autobiography_ which is mainly responsible for the unfavorable impressions that have been formed about the character of Franklin. It is there that we learn what heady liquor his sprightly mind and free spirit quaffed from the cup of boyhood and what errata blurred the fair, fresh page of his early manhood. It is there that he has told us how, as the result of his written attacks upon the Established Order, Puritan Boston began to consider him in an unfavorable light "as a young genius that had a turn for libelling and satyr"; how his indiscreet disputations about religion caused him to be pointed at with horror by good people in the same starch town as an infidel or atheist; how he availed himself of a fraud in the second indentures of apprenticeship between his brother and himself to claim his freedom before his time was up; how, in distant London, he forgot the troth that he had plighted to Deborah Read; how he attempted familiarities with the mistress of his friend Ralph which she repulsed with a proper resentment; how he broke into the money which Mr. Vernon had authorized him to collect; how he brought over Collins and Ralph to his own free-thinking ways; how he became involved in some foolish intrigues with low women which from the expense were rather more prejudicial to him than to them. It is in the _Autobiography_ also that we learn from him how he thought that the daughter of Mrs. Godfrey's relation should bring him as his wife enough money to discharge the remainder of the debt on his printing house even if her parents had to mortgage their house in the loan office; how partly by sheer force and pinching economy and partly by dexterity and finesse, sometimes verging upon cunning, he pushed himself further and further along the road to fortune, and finally how he was so successful with the help of his _Art of Virtue_, despite occasional stumblings and slips, in realizing his dream of moral perfection as to be able to write complacently upon the margin of the _Autobiography_, "nothing so likely to make a man's fortune as virtue." It is things like these in the _Autobiography_ that have tended to create in minds, which know Franklin only in this narrative, the idea that he was a niggard, a squalid utilitarian, and even a little of a rogue; though the same _Autobiography_ witnesses also that he was not so engrossed with his own selfish interests as not to find time for the enlarged projects of public utility which to this day render it almost impossible for us to think of Philadelphia without recalling the figure of Franklin. _Si monumentum requiris circumspice_, was the proud inscription placed over the grave of Sir Christopher Wren in the city where his genius had designed so many edifices. The same inscription might be aptly placed over the grave of Franklin in Christ Church yard in the city where his public spirit and wisdom laid the foundations of so much that has proved enduring. There is unquestionably a shabby side to the _Autobiography_, despite the inspiring sacrifice of his physical wants which Franklin made in his boyhood to gratify his intellectual cravings, the high promptings which the appetites and unregulated impulses of his unguarded youth were powerless to stifle, the dauntless resolution and singleness of purpose with which he defied and conquered his adverse star, the wise moderation of his hour of victory, the disinterested and splendid forms of social service to which he devoted his sagacious and fruitful mind, his manly hatred of injustice and cruelty, his fidelity to the popular cause which neither flattery could cajole nor power overawe. In its mixture of what is noble with what is ignoble the _Autobiography_ reminds us of the merchandise sold at the new printing-office near the Market in Philadelphia, where Franklin conducted his business as a printer and a merchant, where his wife, Deborah, assisted him by folding and stitching pamphlets, tending shop and purchasing old linen rags, and where his mother-in-law, Mrs. Read, compounded her sovereign remedy against the itch and lice. Now it was a translation of Cato's _Moral Distichs_ or a pamphlet against slavery fresh from his own press, now it was a copy of some devotional or useful work which the last packet had brought over from London, now it was a lot of goose feathers, or old rags, or a likely young negro wench. But on the whole we cannot help thinking that the calm view, which Franklin himself, in the cool of the evening of his life, takes of the early part of his existence, was, with some qualifications, not far wrong. Notwithstanding the dangerous season of youth and the hazardous situations, in which he was sometimes placed among strangers, when he was remote from the eye and advice of his sterling father, Josiah Franklin, he believed, as we know from the _Autobiography_, that he had not fallen into any "willful gross immorality or injustice"; and, start as the student of Franklin may at times at things which might chill for the moment the enthusiasm of even such a Boswellian as the late John Bigelow, to whose editorial services the reputation of Franklin is so deeply indebted, he is likely in his final estimate to find himself in very much the same mood as that which impelled Franklin in the _Autobiography_ to make the famous declaration, so true to his normal and intensely vital nature, that, were it offered to his choice, he "should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults of the first." Be this as it may, it is at least safe to say that it is very unfair to judge the character of Franklin by the _Autobiography_ without bearing in mind one of the leading motives by which he was induced to write his own life. To his great honor it can be said that to do good in the higher social sense, to promote the lasting interests of humanity, to free the march of the race from every handicap, every impediment, whether arising in or outside of ourselves, to instruct, to enlighten, were the dominant incentives, the mellow, yet commanding passions of his existence. Like many another philosopher before and since, in his zeal to subserve the general interest he forgot himself. If other young men treading in his footsteps could be deterred by the warnings of his errors from becoming involved in the mistakes and moral lapses in which his youth and inexperience were involved, he was willing, though not without some misgivings, to lay before them and the whole world all the details of these errors. In composing the _Autobiography_, he was influenced to no little degree by the spirit of a man who bequeaths his own body to the surgeons for the advancement of science. If his reputation suffered by his tender of himself as a _corpus vile_ for the benefit of future generations, he was prepared to take this risk, as he was prepared to take the risks of the two electric shocks, which nearly cost him his life, in the promotion of human knowledge. It is impossible for anyone, who is not familiar with the perfect lack of selfish reserve brought by Franklin to the pursuit of truth or the universal interests of mankind, to understand the extent to which, in composing the _Autobiography_, he was moved by generous considerations of this sort. In no other production of his did he show the same disposition to turn the seamier side of his existence to the light for the simple reason that no other production of his was written with the same homiletic purpose as the _Autobiography_. And, if this purpose had not been so strong upon him, how easy it would have been for him by a little judicious suppression here and a few softening touches there to have altered the whole face of the _Autobiography_, and to have rendered it as faithless a transcript of the slips and blots of his life as are most autobiographies of human beings--even those of men who have enjoyed a high repute for moral excellence--in their relations to the indiscretions, the follies and the transgressions of their immaturer years! At any rate, of the offences of Franklin, mentioned in the _Autobiography_, may be said what cannot be said of the similar offences of many men. He handsomely atoned for them all so far as the opportunity to atone for them arose. It was undoubtedly a serious breach of the moral law for him to have begotten William Franklin out of lawful wedlock, and in the impartial affection, which he publicly bestowed upon his illegitimate son and his legitimate daughter, we see another illustration of his insensibility to the finer inflections of human scruples. But when we see him accept this illegitimate son as if he had come to him over his right shoulder instead of his left, take him under his family roof, give him every advantage that education and travel could confer, seek an honorable alliance for him, put him in the way to become the Governor of Colonial New Jersey, even affectionately recognize his illegitimate son as a grandson, we almost feel as if such ingenuous naturalism had a kind of bastard moral value of its own. The _Autobiography_ is interesting in every respect but in none more so than in relation to the System of Morals adopted by Franklin for his self-government in early life, when, to use his own words in that work, he "conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection." This project once formed, he went about its execution in a manner as strictly mechanical as if he had been rectifying a smoky chimney or devising a helpful pair of glasses for his defective eyesight. The virtues were classified by him under thirteen heads: Temperance, Silence, Order, Resolution, Frugality, Industry, Sincerity, Justice, Moderation, Cleanliness, Tranquillity, Chastity and Humility. These terms were all tabulated by him in a little pocketbook kept for that especial purpose, and to each virtue the close attention of a week was successively given by him. If an offence was committed by him on a certain day, it was entered by a little black mark under that date opposite the affronted virtue. The object was to so concentrate his vigilance upon each virtue in turn and to so strengthen his capacity to resist every temptation to violate it as to finally render its practice habitual and instinctive. The plan in spirit was not unlike the system of prudential algebra to which he told Joseph Priestley, many years afterwards, that he resorted when his judgment was in a state of uncertainty about some problem. In one column he would jot down on a piece of paper all the _pros_ of the case, and in another all the _cons_, and then, by appraising the relative value of each _pro_ and _con_ set down before his eye, and cancelling equivalent considerations, decide upon which side the preponderance of the argument lay. Even Franklin himself admits that his plan for making an automatic machine of virtue did not work in every respect. Order he experienced extreme difficulty in acquiring. Indeed, this virtue was so much against his grain that he felt inclined to content himself with only a partial measure of fidelity to it, like the man, he said in the _Autobiography_, who, though at first desirous of having his whole ax bright, grew so tired of turning the grindstone on which it was being polished that when the smith, who was holding it, remarked that it was only speckled, and asked him to turn on, he replied, "But I think I like a speckled ax best." The Humility, too, which Franklin acquired, he was disposed to think was more specious than real. Pride, he moralizes in the _Autobiography_, is perhaps the hardest of our natural passions to subdue, and even, if he could conceive that he had completely overcome it, he would probably, he thought, be proud of his humility. This reminds us of his other observation in the _Autobiography_ that he gave vanity fair quarter wherever he met with it, and that, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life. In the effort, however, to acquire Humility, Franklin did, he informs us in the same work, acquire, as time wore on, the habit of expressing his opinions in such conciliatory forms that no one perhaps for fifty years past had ever heard a dogmatic expression escape him. "And to this habit (after my character of integrity)," he declares, "I think it principally owing that I had early so much weight with my fellow citizens when I proposed new institutions, or alterations in the old, and so much influence in public councils when I became a member; for I was but a bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my choice of words, hardly correct in language, and yet I generally carried my points." On the whole, even though Franklin did find Order and Humility not easy of attainment, he was very well satisfied with the results of his plan for imparting the force of habit to virtue. In his seventy-ninth year the former tradesman sat down to count deliberately his moral gains. To his "little artifice" with the blessing of God he owed, he felt, the constant felicity of his life until that time. To Temperance he ascribed his long-continued health and what was still left to him of a good constitution; to Industry and Frugality the early easiness of his circumstances and the acquisition of his fortune with all that knowledge that enabled him to be a useful citizen and obtained for him some degree of reputation among the learned; to Sincerity and Justice the confidence of his country and the honorable employs it conferred upon him; and to the joint influence of the whole mass of the virtues, even in the imperfect state that he was able to acquire them, all that evenness of temper and that cheerfulness in conversation which made his company still sought for and agreeable even to his younger acquaintance. From other expressions of his in the _Autobiography_ we are left to infer that he believed that Frugality and Industry, by freeing him from the residue of the debt on his printing house and producing affluence and independence, had made more easy the practice of sincerity and justice and the like by him. So highly did Franklin esteem his method that he intended to follow it up with a treatise, to be known as the _Art of Virtue_, containing a practical commentary upon each of the virtues inserted in his little book, and showing just how anyone could make himself virtuous, if he only had a mind to. In this treatise, it was his desire, he says in the _Autobiography_, to expound the doctrine that vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden but forbidden because they are hurtful, the nature of man alone considered, and that it is therefore to the interest of everyone to be virtuous who wishes to be happy even in this world. "I should from this circumstance," he said, "(there being always in the world a number of rich merchants, nobility, states, and princes, who have need of honest instruments for the management of their affairs, and such being so rare), have endeavoured to convince young persons that no qualities were so likely to make a poor man's fortune as those of probity and integrity." The thought was more fully developed in a letter to Lord Kames, dated May 3, 1760. I purpose likewise [he said], a little work for the benefit of youth, to be called the _Art of Virtue_. From the title I think you will hardly conjecture what the nature of such a book may be. I must therefore explain it a little. Many people lead bad lives that would gladly lead good ones, but know not _how_ to make the change. They have frequently _resolved_ and _endeavoured_ it; but in vain, because their endeavours have not been properly conducted. To expect people to be good, to be just, to be temperate, &c., without _shewing_ them _how_ they should _become_ so, seems like the ineffectual charity mentioned by the Apostle, which consisted in saying to the hungry, the cold, and the naked, "Be ye fed, be ye warmed, be ye clothed," without shewing them how they should get food, fire, or clothing. Most people have naturally _some_ virtues, but none have naturally _all_ the virtues. To _acquire_ those that are wanting, and secure what we acquire, as well as those we have naturally, is the subject of _an art_. It is as properly an art as painting, navigation, or architecture. If a man would become a painter, navigator, or architect, it is not enough that he is _advised_ to be one, that he is _convinced_ by the arguments of his adviser, that it would be for his advantage to be one, and that he resolves to be one, but he must also be taught the principles of the art, be shewn all the methods of working, and how to acquire the habits of using properly all the instruments; and thus regularly and gradually he arrives, by practice, at some perfection in the art. The virtue, which this new art was to fabricate, was obviously too much in keeping with the national tendency to turn over tasks of every sort to self-directed machinery. The _Art of Virtue_, however, was never actually penned, owing to the demands of private and public business upon Franklin's time, and the world was consequently left to get along as it best could with virtue of the old impulsive and untutored type. We are also apprised in the _Autobiography_ that the _Art of Virtue_ itself was to be but an incident of a great and extensive project which likewise never reached maturity for the same reasons that arrested the completion of that work. This project was the formation of a United Party for Virtue, to be composed of virtuous men of all nations under the government of suitable good and wise rules. The conditions of initiation into this body, which was to move on sin and debt throughout the world with embattled ranks and flying banners, were to be the acceptance of Franklin's final religious creed, of which we shall have something to say presently, and the continuous practice for thirteen weeks of Franklin's moral regimen; and the members were to engage to afford their advice, assistance and support to each other in promoting one another's interests, business and advancement in life. For distinction, the association was to be called The Society of the Free and Easy, "free, as being, by the general practice and habit of the virtues, free from the dominion of vice; and particularly by the practice of industry and frugality, free from debt, which exposes a man to confinement, and a species of slavery to his creditors." It is in the _Autobiography_ also that Franklin states that he filled the spaces between the remarkable days in the calendar in his _Poor Richard's Almanac_ with proverbial sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality, "as the means," he declared, "of procuring wealth, and thereby securing virtue; it being more difficult for a man in want, to act always honestly, as, to use here one of those proverbs, _it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright_."[2] This prudential view of morality also found utterance in other forms in the writings of Franklin. In the first of the two graceful dialogues between Philocles, the Man of Reason and Virtue, and Horatio, the Man of Pleasure, which appeared in the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, the former warns the latter in honeyed words that he would lose even as a man of pleasure, if, in the pursuit of pleasure, he did not practice self-denial, by taking as much care of his future as his present happiness, and not building one upon the ruins of the other; all of which, of course, was more epigrammatically embodied in that other injunction of Poor Richard, "Deny self for self's sake." No wonder that Horatio was so delighted with a theory of self-denial, which left him still such a comfortable margin for sensual enjoyment, that, when Philocles bids him good night, he replies: "Adieu! thou enchanting Reasoner!" "Money makes men virtuous, Virtue makes them happy"; this is perhaps an unfair way of summarizing Franklin's moral precepts, but it is not remote from fairness. "Truth and Sincerity," he had written in his _Journal of a Voyage from London to Philadelphia_, when he was but twenty years of age, "have a certain distinguishing native lustre about them, which cannot be perfectly counterfeited; they are like fire and flame, that cannot be painted." It would have been well for the moralist of later years to have remembered this statement when he made up his mind to contract the habit of moral perfection. His Milton, from which he borrowed the _Hymn to the Creator_ that is a part of his _Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion_, might have told him, "Virtue could see to do what Virtue would By her own radiant light, though sun and moon Were in the flat sea sunk," or in those other words from the same strains of supernal melody, "If Virtue feeble were Heaven itself would stoop to her." In teaching and pursuing a system of morals, which was nothing but a scheme of enlightened selfishness, dependent for its aliment upon pecuniary ease and habit, he was simply faithful to a general conception of life and character entirely too earthbound and grovelling to satisfy those higher intuitions and ideals which, be the hard laws of our material being what they may, not only never permit our grosser natures to be at peace, but reject with utter disdain the suggestion that they and our vices and infirmities are but offshoots of the same parent stock of selfishness. It cannot be denied that, as a general rule, a man with some money is less urgently solicited to commit certain breaches of the moral law than a man with none, or that we should be in a bad way, indeed, if we did not have the ply of habit as well as the whisper of conscience to assist us in the struggle between good and evil that is ever going on in our own breasts. But the limited freedom from temptation, secured by the possession of money, and the additional capacity for resisting temptation, bred by good habits, are, it is hardly necessary to say, foundations too frail to support alone the moral order of the universe. Beyond money, however conducive it may be in some respects to diminished temptation, there must be something to sweeten the corrupting influence of money. Beyond good habits, however desirable as aids to virtue, there must be something to create and sustain good habits. This thing no merely politic sense of moral necessity can ever be. Franklin's idea of supplying our languid moral energies with a system of moral practice as material as a go-cart or a swimming bladder is one, it is safe to say, upon which neither he nor anyone else could build a character that would, as Charles Townsend might have said, be anything but "a habit of lute string--a mere thing for summer wear." His _Art of Virtue_ was a spurious, pinchbeck, shoddy substitute for the real virtue which has its home in our uninstructed as well as our instructed moral impulses; and for one man, who would be made virtuous by it, ten, we dare say, would be likely to be made shallow formalists or canting scamps. It is a pity that Poor Richard did not make more of that other time-honored maxim, "Virtue is its own reward." Indeed, we shrewdly suspect that even Franklin's idea that he was such a debtor to his factitious system of moral practice was not much better than a conceit. The improvement in his moral character, after he first began to carry the virtues around in his pocket, is, we think, far more likely to have been due to the natural decline of youthful waywardness and dissent, the discipline of steady labor, the settling and sober effects of domestic life and the wider vision in every respect in our relations to the world which comes to us with our older years. It is but just to Franklin to say that, even before he adopted his "little artifice," his character as respects the virtues, which he specifically names as having had a hand in producing the constant felicity of his life, namely, Temperance, Industry, Frugality, Sincerity and Justice was, so far as Temperance, Industry and Frugality were concerned, exceptionally good, and, so far as Sincerity and Justice were concerned, not subject to any ineffaceable reproach. In truth, even he, we imagine, would have admitted with a laugh, accompanied perhaps by a humorous story, that the period of his life, before his dream of moral perfection was formed, when he was so temperate as to be known to his fellow printers in London as the "Water American," and to be able to turn from the common diet to the vegetarian, and back again, without the slightest inconvenience, would compare quite favorably with the period of his life, after his dream of moral perfection had been formed, when he had to confess on one occasion to Polly Stevenson that he had drunk more at a venison feast than became a philosopher, and on another to his friend, John Bartram that, if he could find in any Italian travels a recipe for making Parmesan cheese, it would give him more satisfaction than a transcript of any inscription from any old stone whatever. How far the effect of his moral regimen was to strengthen the virtues of Silence, Resolution, Moderation, Cleanliness and Tranquillity we lack sufficient materials for a judgment. These, assuming that Cleanliness must have gone along with such an eager propensity for swimming as his, were all native virtues of his anyhow we should say. But as to Chastity the invigorating quality of the regimen is certainly open to the most serious doubt. There is only too much in the correspondence which has survived him to give color to the statement of John Adams that even at the age of seventy-odd he had neither lost his love of beauty nor his taste for it. When we bear this in mind and recall what he had to say in the _Autobiography_ about the "hard-to-be-governed passion of youth," which frequently hurried him into intrigues with low women that fell in his way before he resolved to acquire the habit of chastity with the aid of his book, we realize that the artificial scaffolding, which he proposed to build up around his character, reasonably enough broke down at just the point where the natural vigor of his character was the weakest. In point of sexual morality, Franklin was no better than the Europe of the eighteenth century; distinctly worse than the America of that century. His domestic affections were uncommonly strong, but the notable peculiarity about his domestic life is that he was not a whit less soberly dutiful in his irregular than in his regular family connections, and always acted as if the nuptial ceremony was a wholly superfluous form, so far as a proper sense of marital or paternal obligation, or the existence of deep, unreserved affection, upon the part of a husband or father, went. His lack of scruples in this respect almost reminds us of the question put by his own Polly Baker, when she was prosecuted the fifth time for giving birth to a bastard: "Can it be a crime (in the nature of things, I mean) to add to the king's subjects, in a new country, that really wants people?" Apparently no ceremony of any kind ever preceded his union with Deborah, though accompanied by circumstances of cohabitation and acknowledgment which unquestionably rendered it a valid, binding marriage, in every respect, under the liberal laws of Pennsylvania. He simply remarks in the _Autobiography_, "I took her to wife, September 1, 1730." The artlessness with which he extended the full measure of a father's recognition to William Franklin excited comment abroad as well as at home, and, together with the political wounds inflicted by him upon the official arrogance and social pride of the Proprietary Party in Pennsylvania, was mainly responsible for the opprobrium in which his memory was held in the higher social circles of Philadelphia long after his death. So far as we know, there is nothing in his utterances or writings to indicate that the birth of William Franklin ever caused him the slightest shame or embarrassment. His dignity of character, in its way, it has been truly said by Sydney George Fisher, was as natural and instinctive as that of Washington, and, in its relations to illegitimacy, for which he was answerable, seems to have felt the lack of conventional support as little as our first parents, in their pristine state, did the lack of fig leaves. He accepted his natural son and William Temple Franklin, William's natural son, exactly as if both had come recommended to his outspoken affection by betrothal, honest wedding ring and all. The idea that any stigma attached to either, or that they stood upon any different footing from his legitimate daughter, Sarah Bache and her children, was something that his mind does not appear to have harbored at all. His attitude towards them was as unblushingly natural and demonstrative, to get back to the Garden of Eden, as the mutual caresses of Adam and Eve before the Fall of Man. William was born a few months after the marriage of Franklin and Deborah, and his father, so far as we can see, took him under his roof with as little constraint as if his introduction had been duly provided for in the marriage contract. Indeed, John Bigelow, who is always disposed, in the spirit of Franklin's own limping lines on Deborah, to deem all his Joan's faults "exceedingly small," rather ludicrously observes: "William may therefore be said to have been born in wedlock, though he was not reputed to be the son of Mrs. Franklin." So identified did he become with all the other members of Franklin's household that Franklin in his letters not only frequently conveyed "Billy's" duty to his "mother" and "Billy's" love to his "sister" but on one occasion at least even "Billy's" duty to his "grandmother," Mrs. Read, the mother of Mrs. Franklin. As the boy outgrew his pony, of which we obtain a pleasant glimpse in a "lost" notice in the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, we find Franklin in a letter to his own mother, Abiah Franklin, in which he couples the name of "Billy" in the most natural way with that of his daughter Sally, saying: "Will is now nineteen years of age, a tall proper Youth, and much of a Beau." It was with William Franklin, when Governor of New Jersey, that Sally took refuge at the time that her father's house in Philadelphia was threatened with destruction by a Stamp Act mob; and it was to him shortly afterwards, when the tide of popular approval was again running in favor of Franklin, then the agent of Pennsylvania at London, that she dispatched these joyful words: "Dear Brother:--_The Old Ticket forever! We have it by 34 votes! God bless our worthy and noble agent, and all his family!_" Through the influence of his father the son obtained a provincial commission which brought him some military experience, and also filled the office of Postmaster at Philadelphia, and afterwards the office of Clerk of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania. He was with Franklin when the latter sent his kite on its memorable flight into the skies; when he visited Braddock's camp; and when he conducted his military expedition against the murderous Indians. When Franklin sailed for England in 1757, William accompanied him with the view of obtaining a license from the Inns of Court, in which he had already been entered by the former, to practice as a barrister. Abroad, he still remained his father's inseparable companion, living with him, accompanying him in his travelling excursions, attending him, when he was so signally honored at Cambridge and Oxford, even poring with him over the parish records and gravestones at Ecton from which Franklin sought to rescue such information as he could about his humble ancestors, who could not have excited his curiosity more keenly, if they had all been Princes of the Blood. What the two learned at Ecton of the abilities and public spirit of Thomas, an uncle of Franklin, and a man of no little local prominence, suggested such a close resemblance between the uncle and nephew that William Franklin remarked: "Had he died on the same day, one might have supposed a transmigration." Alexander Carlyle in his _Autobiography_ has something to say about an occasion at Doctor Robertson's house in Edinburgh when the pair as well as Hume, Dr. Cullen, Adam Smith and others were present. The son, Carlyle tells us, "was open and communicative, and pleased the company better than his father; and some of us observed indications of that decided difference of opinion between father and son which in the American War alienated them altogether." The favorable impression made by William Franklin on this company at this period of his life, he also made on William Strahan, of whom we shall have much more to say. "Your son," Strahan wrote to Franklin's wife, "I really think one of the prettiest young gentlemen I ever knew from America." Indeed, even in extreme old age the handsome presence, courtly manners and quick intelligence of William Franklin won their way at any social gathering. Speaking of an occasion on which he had met him, Crabbe Robinson says in his _Diary_, "Old General Franklin, son of the celebrated Benjamin was of the party. He is eighty-four years of age, has a courtier-like mien, and must have been a very fine man. He is now very animated and interesting, but does not at all answer to the idea one would naturally form of the son of the great Franklin."[3] A few days after the departure of Franklin from England in August, 1762, the son was married to Miss Elizabeth Downes, of St. James Street, "a very agreeable West India lady," if her father-in-law may be believed. Before the marriage took place, he had been appointed, in the thirty-second year of his age, Governor of New Jersey. If the appointment was made, as has been supposed, to detach Franklin from the Colonial cause, it failed, of course, to produce any such result, but it did have the effect of completely bringing over William Franklin to the Loyalist side, when the storm finally broke, and Franklin pledged his life, his fortune and his sacred honor to the patriot cause. As the Revolution drew on, William Franklin became a partisan of the British Government, and, when he still held fast to his own office, in spite of the dismissal of his father from his office as Deputy Postmaster-General for the Colonies, Franklin wrote to him bluntly: "But you, who are a thorough Courtier, see everything with Government Eyes." The son even disregarded what was practically a request from the father that he should give up an office, which was becoming more and more complicated with the arbitrary measures of the English Ministry, and had been year after year a drain upon the purse of the father. Then followed his ignominious arrest as a Tory by the New Jersey Assembly, his defiant vaunt "_Pro Rege_ and Patria was the motto I assumed, when I first commenced my political life, and I am resolved to retain it till death shall put an end to my mortal existence," his breach with his father, his rancorous activity as the President of the Board of Associated Loyalists, which drew down on him the suspicion of having abetted at least one murderous outrage, and his subsequent abandonment of America for England, where he died long after the war, a pensioner of the British Crown. With the breach between father and son, ended forever the visits that the members of the Franklin family in Philadelphia had been in the habit of paying from time to time to the Colonial Governor, the personal intercourse between the two, which, upon the part of the father, we are told by William Strahan, was at once that of a friend, a brother and an intimate and easy companion, and such filial letters as the one, for example, in which William Franklin wrote to Franklin that he was extremely obliged to him for his care in supplying him with money, and should ever have a grateful sense of that with the other numberless indulgences that he had received from his parental affection. After the restoration of peace between the two waning countries, overtures of reconciliation were made by William Franklin. "I ... am glad," his father wrote, "to find that you desire to revive the affectionate Intercourse, that formerly existed between us. It will be very agreeable to me; indeed nothing has ever hurt me so much and affected me with such keen Sensations, as to find myself deserted in my old Age by my only Son; and not only deserted, but to find him taking up Arms against me, in a Cause, wherein my good Fame, Fortune and Life were all at Stake." Then with an uncertain touch of the native sense of justice, which was so deeply seated in his breast, he continued: "I ought not to blame you for differing in Sentiment with me in Public Affairs. We are Men, all subject to Errors. Our Opinions are not in our own Power; they are form'd and govern'd much by Circumstances, that are often as inexplicable as they are irresistible. Your Situation was such that few would have censured your remaining Neuter, _tho' there are Natural Duties which precede political ones, and cannot be extinguish'd by them_." Responding to a statement in this same letter that the writer would be glad to see him when convenient, but would not have him come to Paris at that time, William Franklin had a brief interview with his father at Southampton, when the latter was returning, after the restoration of peace between Great Britain and the United States, full of gratified patriotism, as well as of years and infirmities, to the land from which the son was an outcast. That immedicable wound, however, was not to be healed by one or even by many interviews, and, while Franklin did subsequently devise his lands in Nova Scotia to William Franklin and release him from certain debts, he could not refrain from a bitter fling in doing so. "The part he acted against me in the late war, which is of public notoriety," the will ran, "will account for my leaving him no more of an estate he endeavoured to deprive me of." Again that remorseless moral system, in comparison with which the flimsy moral system of the _Autobiography_ is, to use Bismarck's figure, but a lath painted to look like iron, had reminded one, who had had the temerity to violate its ordinances, that what is now as luscious as locusts may shortly be as bitter as coloquintida. Surely there are few things in history more pathetic than that the relationship, for which the father had set aside the world and the world's law, and to which the incalculable workings of human love had almost communicated the genuineness and dignity of moral legitimacy, should have been the one thing to turn to ashes upon the lips of a life blessed with prosperity and happiness almost beyond the measure of any that the past has brought home to us![4] It has been suggested that Franklin had another natural child in the wife of John Foxcroft. In a letter to the former, Foxcroft acquaints him that "his daughter" had been safely brought to bed, and had presented the writer with a sweet little girl, and in several letters to Foxcroft Franklin speaks of Mrs. Foxcroft as "my daughter." "God send my Daughter a good time, and you a Good Boy," are the words of one of them. The suggestion has been rejected by Albert Henry Smyth, the accomplished editor of Franklin's writings, on chronological grounds which, it seems to us, are by no means conclusive. The term, "daughter," however, standing alone, would certainly, under any circumstances, be largely deprived of its significance by the fact that Franklin, in his intercourse with other women than Mrs. Foxcroft, seems in the course of his life to have been addressed, in both English and French, by every paternal appellation from Pappy to _Très cher Papa_ known to the language of endearment.[5] Moreover, so singularly free from self-consciousness was he in relation to his own sexual vagaries, so urgent were his affectionate impulses, that it is hard to believe that he could have been the father of such an illegitimate daughter when there is no evidence to show that, aside from a little concession to the jealousy of Mrs. Franklin, he treated her exactly as he did his acknowledged daughter, Sally. The unsophisticated relations of Franklin to William Franklin were also his relations to William Temple Franklin, who was born in England, when his father was in that country with Franklin during the latter's first mission abroad. The mother of his father is unknown, and so is his own. Silence was one of the virtues enjoined on Franklin by his little book, and was an innate attribute of his strong character besides. The case was certainly one, in which, if he had been reproached by his father, William Franklin could have found an extenuating example very near at hand, even if not very readily available for the purposes of recrimination. But there is nothing to lead us to believe that Franklin was more concerned about the second bar sinister in his coat of arms than the first. On the contrary, his affection appropriated his little grandson with a promptitude which reminds us of the story told in one of his letters to his wife about the boy who asked another boy, when the latter was crying over a pennyworth of spilt vinegar, for fear that his mother would whip him, "Have you then got ne'er a Grandmother?" Almost, if not, from the very beginning, Franklin, and not William, was Temple's real father, and, after William became estranged from Franklin, the grandson thenceforth occupied the place in the heart of the latter which the son had previously occupied, or one, if anything, even warmer. When William was appointed Governor of New Jersey, and sailed away with his bride to his province, Temple, then about two years old, was left in London. As he grew older, he was placed by his grandfather, after the return of the grandfather to England in 1764, in a school near London from which he often came to visit the latter at Mrs. Stevenson's house at No. 7 Craven Street. After one of these visits, Franklin writes to William, "Temple has been at home with us during the Christmas Vacation from School. He improves continually, and more and more engages the Regard of all that are acquainted with him, by his pleasing, sensible, manly Behaviour." On another occasion, in settling an account with William Franklin he says proudly, after referring to outlays required by the maintenance and education of Temple, "But that his Friends will not grudge when they see him." For a time, Temple was an inmate of the Craven Street House. When Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1775, he took him with him, and turned him over to William Franklin, whose family name the youth, until then known as William Temple, assumed for the future. Temple, however, after spending some happy months in New Jersey, was soon again with his grandfather at Philadelphia for the purpose of attending the College of Philadelphia, and here he was when Franklin was on the point of setting out on his mission to France. When he did sail, Temple, then sixteen or seventeen years of age, and Benjamin Franklin Bache, the oldest son of Franklin's daughter, Sally, a boy of seven, accompanied him; it being the purpose of Franklin to place Temple at some foreign university, with the design of ultimately making a lawyer of him, and Benjamin at some school in Paris.[6] Governor Franklin, who was a prisoner in Connecticut, did not hear of the departure of his father until several weeks after the three had sailed. "If," he wrote to his wife, "the old gentleman has taken the boy with him, I hope it is only to put him into some foreign university." Abroad, the idea of giving Temple a legal education was first deferred, and then finally dismissed. His grandfather, with an infinite amount to do, and with no clerical help provided by Congress to assist him in doing it, was constrained to employ him as his private secretary, without any aid except that of a French clerk, who was paid a salary of fifty louis per annum. Engaging in person, endowed to some degree with the vivacity of his grandfather and father, speaking French much better than his grandfather, possessed of fair abilities and attentive to his duties, he appears to have filled the post of secretary creditably, though Congress, for one reason or another, could never be induced to recognize his appointment officially. Later on, when John Adams, John Jay, Henry Laurens and Franklin were appointed with Jefferson, who declined to serve, Commissioners to negotiate peace with Great Britain, he became their Secretary at an annual salary of one thousand pounds, but the vain, pathetic efforts of the grandfather, both before and after his return to America from France, when too much time had been lost for Temple to resume the thought of taking up the study of law, to obtain some secondary diplomatic, or other, position in the public service for the grandson, make up one of the despicable chapters in the history of Congress. Remarkable as it now seems, at one time there was even an effort on foot in America to oust Temple from his position as the private secretary of Franklin. It called forth a remonstrance in a letter from the latter to Richard Bache, his son-in-law, which is not only deeply interesting because of its stirring, measured force of expression, but also because of the tenderness for Temple which it manifests. I am surprised to hear [he said] that my grandson, Temple Franklin, being with me, should be an objection against me, and that there is a cabal for removing him. Methinks it is rather some merit, that I have rescued a valuable young man from the danger of being a Tory, and fixed him in honest republican Whig principles; as I think, from the integrity of his disposition, his industry, his early sagacity, and uncommon abilities for business, he may in time become of great service to his country. It is enough that I have lost my _son_; would they add my _grandson_? An old man of seventy, I undertook a winter voyage at the command of the Congress, and for the public service, with no other attendant to take care of me. I am continued here in a foreign country, where, if I am sick, his filial attention comforts me, and, if I die, I have a child to close my eyes and take care of my remains. His dutiful behaviour towards me, and his diligence and fidelity in business, are both pleasing and useful to me. The same indulgent estimate of Temple's capacity is also indicated in a letter to Samuel Huntington in which Franklin requested Congress to take his grandson under his protection. After stating that Temple seemed to be qualified for public foreign affairs "by a sagacity and judgment above his years, and great diligence and activity, exact probity, a genteel address, a facility in speaking well the French tongue, and all the knowledge of business to be obtained by a four years' constant employment in the secretary's office," he added: "After all the allowance I am capable of making for the partiality of a parent to his offspring, I cannot but think he may in time make a very able foreign minister for Congress, in whose service his fidelity may be relied on." A thing most earnestly desired by Franklin was the marriage of Temple to a daughter of Madame Brillon, who sometimes referred to Temple as "M. Franklinet." So ardent was the chase upon his part that he even assured the mother that he was ready to spend the rest of his life in France if the only obstacle to the union was the fear that Temple would return to America with him. Mademoiselle Brillon does not seem to have been inclined to let Temple despair but her parents were unwilling to give their consent. Madame Brillon declared that it would have been sweet to her heart and most agreeable to M. Brillon to have been able to form a union which would have made but one family of the Brillons and the Franklins, and that they liked Temple, and believed that he had everything requisite to make a man distinguished, and to render a woman happy, but they must have, she said, a son-in-law who would be in a situation to succeed her husband in his office, and who was also a man of their religion. This was in reply to a letter from Franklin in which he proposed the match, and had said of Temple, "He is still young, and perhaps the partiality of a father has made me think too highly of him, but it seems to me that he has the stuff in him to make in time a distinguished man." After reading the letters from Franklin about his grandson, we can readily believe that Lafayette did not exaggerate when he wrote to Washington that Franklin loved his grandchild better than anything else in the world. Even when Temple was some twenty-four years of age, Franklin in one of his letters addresses him as "My Dear Child" and signs himself, "Your loving Grandfather." While the two remained in France, the old man improved every opportunity to advance the fortunes of the younger one, matrimonial or otherwise. When his legs grew too gouty to enable him to keep pace in mounting the stairways at Versailles with the other foreign ministers, it was by Temple that he was represented at Court _levées_. By him Temple was also introduced to Voltaire, and enjoyed the unusual honor of having that great man with an expressive gesture say to him: "My child, God and Liberty! Recollect those two words." To Temple, too, was delegated by our envoys the office of handing to Vergennes the memorial proposing an alliance between France, Spain and the United States, and it was he who actually delivered to Lafayette, on behalf of his grandfather, the handsome sword with which Congress had honored the former. When the olive branch extended by William Franklin to Franklin was accepted by him, Temple was sent over by him to William in England for a season as the best peace-offering in the gift of the sender. "I send your Son over to pay his Duty to you," he wrote to William. "You will find him much improv'd. He is greatly esteem'd and belov'd in this Country, and will make his Way anywhere." A letter written to Temple, during his absence on this occasion, by his grandfather, in which his grandfather pathetically complains of his silence, is another minor proof of the devotion felt by Franklin for Temple. And there is every reason to believe that the feeling was fully returned; for even the prospect of being united to the daughter of Madame Brillon, with the full sanction of his grandfather, was not sufficient to reconcile Temple to the thought of being left behind in France by him. So far from being heeded by Congress was the request of Franklin that some public office be conferred upon Temple that the latter was even displaced in his secretaryship by another person without a line of notice from Congress to his grandfather. And when the two arrived in America, after they had lingered long enough at Southampton for William Franklin to transfer to his son a farm of some six hundred acres at Rancocas, in the State of New Jersey, purchased for Temple by Franklin, Temple fared no better at the hands of the American Government than in France. His efforts, first, to secure the Secretaryship of the Federal Convention of 1787, and, afterwards, to obtain some appointment under the administration of Washington, met with no success, despite all that his grandfather could do for him. For a while he lived on his _Terre_, as Franklin called it, at Rancocas, but, after the death of Franklin, who did not forget him in his will, he became restless, and wandered back to the Old World, where he delayed so long the publication of his grandfather's writings, bequeathed to him by the latter, that he was strongly but unjustly suspected for a time of having been bribed by the British Government to suppress them. His slender literary qualifications for giving the proper perspective to such a mass of material had simply stood appalled at the magnitude of their task. FOOTNOTES: [1] The superlative eulogy of Franklin is that of Josiah Quincy, Junior, who expressed his conviction in his journal that Franklin was one of the wisest and best of men upon earth; one, of whom it might be said that this world was not worthy. Of course, no man capable of creating such a conviction as this was safe from "the wolf's black jaw and the dull ass' hoof." Capefigue in his _Memoirs of Louis XVI._ called Franklin "one of the great charlatans" of his age. This is the language of a man who finds a phrase and thinks he has found a fact. Arthur Lee said on one occasion that Franklin was "the meanest of all mean men, the most corrupt of all corrupt men"; but this was merely the froth of a rabid mental condition. Stephen Sayre wrote to Capellen that Franklin was a "great villain," but Sayre had unsuccessfully solicited office from Franklin. Besides, this extraordinary character seems to have nearly, if not quite, answered Franklin's description of a man who has neither good sense enough to be an honest man nor wit enough for a rogue. The only one of Franklin's slanderers whose arrow hit anywhere near the mark was an anonymous French poet who termed him "Caméléon Octogénaire." [2] Franklin was as fearless in applying his ethical principles to himself as to others. After telling his sister Jane in a letter, dated Dec. 30, 1770, that he trusted that no apprehension of removal from his office as Postmaster would make the least alteration in his political conduct, he uses these striking words: "My rule, in which I have always found satisfaction, is, never to turn aside in public affairs through views of private interest; but to go straight forward in doing what appears to me right at the time, leaving the consequences with Providence. What in my younger days enabled me more easily to walk upright, was, that I had a trade, and that I knew I could live upon little; and thence (never having had views of making a fortune) I was free from avarice, and contented with the plentiful supplies my business afforded me. And now it is still more easy for me to preserve my freedom and integrity, when I consider that I am almost at the end of my journey, and therefore need less to complete the expense of it; and that what I now possess, through the blessing of God, may, with tolerable economy, be sufficient for me (great misfortunes excepted), though I should add nothing more to it by any office or employment whatsoever." [3] In a paper on William Franklin, read before the New Jersey Historical Society on Sept. 27, 1848, William A. Whitehead sketches him in this manner: "He was of a cheerful, facetious disposition; could narrate well entertaining stories to please his friends; was engaging in his manners, and possessed good conversational powers. He lived in the recollection of those who saw him in New Jersey as a man of strong passions, fond of convivial pleasures, well versed in the ways of the world, and, at one period of his life not a stranger to the gallantries which so frequently marred the character of the man of that age. He was above the common size, remarkably handsome, strong and athletic, though subject to gout towards the close of his life." His writings, Whitehead thought, though perhaps less remarkable than might be expected from his advantages of education and association, gave evidence of literary attainments which compared favorably with those of most of the prominent men of that day in the Colonies. If _The Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania from its Origin_ is one of them, as has been supposed, we can only say that it at least hardly deserves such praise. The unassimilated material scattered through its pages reminds us of nothing so much as feather pellets and fragments of bone that have passed unchanged through the gastric tract of a hawk. [4] The judgment of Franklin himself as to how far his life had been a fortunate one was freely expressed in a letter to his friend John Sargent, dated Jan. 27, 1783. "Mrs. Sargent and the good Lady, her Mother," he said, "are very kind in wishing me more happy Years. I ought to be satisfy'd with those Providence has already been pleas'd to afford me, being now in my seventy-eighth; a long Life to pass without any uncommon Misfortune, the greater part of it in Health and Vigor of Mind and Body, near Fifty Years of it in continu'd Possession of the Confidence of my Country, in public Employments, and enjoying the Esteem and affectionate, friendly Regard of many wise and good Men and Women, in every Country where I have resided. For these Mercies and Blessings I desire to be thankful to God, whose Protection I have hitherto had, and I hope for its Continuance to the End, which now cannot be far distant." [5] For instance, in a letter to Elizabeth Partridge Franklin signs himself "Your affectionate Papah," and in a letter to Madam Conway, "Your affectionate Father (as you do me the Honor to call me)," and in a letter to Miss Flainville, "Your loving Papa." [6] In a letter from Paris to Jan Ingenhousz, dated Apr. 26, 1777, Franklin told Ingenhousz that he had brought Temple with him from America "partly to finish his Education, having a great Affection for him, and partly to have his Assistance as a Secretary." CHAPTER II Franklin's Religious Beliefs Closely akin to Franklin's system of morals were his views about Religion. Scattered through his writings are sentences full of gratitude to God for His favor in lifting him up from such a low to such a high estate, in bringing him substantially unscathed through the graver dangers and baser temptations of human life, and in affording him the assurance that the divine goodness, of which he had received such signal proofs in his career, would not cease with his death. In the _Autobiography_, after alluding in modest terms to the poverty and obscurity, in which he was born and bred, and the affluence and reputation subsequently won by him, he says: And now I speak of thanking God, I desire with all humility to acknowledge that I owe the mentioned happiness of my past life to His kind providence, which lead me to the means I used and gave them success. My belief of this induces me to hope, though I must not _presume_, that the same goodness will still be exercised toward me, in continuing that happiness, or enabling me to bear a fatal reverse, which I may experience as others have done; the complexion of my future fortune being known to Him only in whose power it is to bless to us even our afflictions. These words, though they occur in the work which Franklin tells us was written when he was not dressed for a ball, he well knew would be read by other eyes than those of the son for whom they were primarily intended; but one of his familiar letters to his wife, written some years before the _Autobiography_ was begun, contains expressions equally devout; associated on this occasion, however, with the aspirations for the welfare of his fellow creatures which constituted the real religion of his life. God is very good to us both in many Respects [he wrote]. Let us enjoy his Favours with a thankful & chearful Heart; and, as we can make no direct Return to him, show our Sense of his Goodness to us, by continuing to do Good to our Fellow Creatures, without Regarding the Returns they make us, whether Good or Bad. For they are all his Children, tho' they may sometimes be our Enemies. The Friendships of this World are changeable, uncertain, transitory Things; but his Favour, if we can secure it, is an Inheritance forever. With respect to the successful issue, to which a manifest Providence had, after so many vicissitudes and perils, conducted the American Revolution, he wrote to Josiah Quincy in words as solemn as a _Te Deum_: Considering all our Mistakes and Mismanagements, it is wonderful we have finished our Affair so well, and so soon. Indeed, I am wrong in using that Expression, "_We have finished our Affair so well_". Our Blunders have been many, and they serve to manifest the Hand of Providence more clearly in our Favour; so that we may much more properly say, _These are Thy Doings, O Lord, and they are marvellous in our Eyes_. Franklin might well have seen the hand of Providence in the momentous result for which he had dared so much and labored so long, and which meant so much to human history, but its shaping power over the destiny of even such a Murad the Unlucky as his hapless nephew, Benny Mecom, is recognized by him in a letter to his beloved sister, Jane Mecom, and her husband when Benny had gone off to seek his fortune as a printer in Antigua. "After all," he concludes, "having taken care to do _what appears to be for the best_, we must submit to God's providence, which orders all things really for the best." On another occasion, in an ingenious paper on Water Spouts, the sage philosopher, seeing in the benign manner in which the waters of the ocean rid themselves of salt, in the process of evaporation, the same God that the poor Indian sees in the clouds or hears in the wind, impressively exclaims: "He who hath proportioned and given proper Qualities to all Things, was not unmindful of this. Let us adore Him with Praise and Thanksgiving." There are certain human feelings which rise in moments of uncommon stress or fervor from the profoundest depths of our being to our lips and take on the form and rhythm of sonorous religious utterance, if for no better reason, because no other language is lofty or musical enough to serve aptly the purposes of such supreme occasions; and this is true even of an individuality so meagrely spiritual as that of Franklin. Other expressions of the same character furnish a religious or quasi-religious setting to Franklin's thoughts upon his own dissolution. To his brave and cheerful spirit, which experienced so little difficulty in accommodating its normal philosophy to all the fixed facts and laws of existence, death was as natural as life--a thing not to be invited before its time but to be accepted with unmurmuring serenity when it came. The only certain things in this world, he said in his home-spun way, are death and taxes. It is the will of God and nature [he wrote in his fifty-first year to Elizabeth Hubbard, after the death of his brother John] that these mortal bodies be laid aside, when the soul is to enter into real life. This is rather an embryo state, a preparation for living. A man is not completely born until he be dead. Why then should we grieve, that a new child is born among the immortals, a new member added to their happy society? We are spirits. That bodies should be lent us, while they can afford us pleasure, assist us in acquiring knowledge, or in doing good to our fellow creatures, is a kind and benevolent act of God. When they become unfit for these purposes, and afford us pain instead of pleasure, instead of an aid become an incumbrance, and answer none of the intentions for which they were given, it is equally kind and benevolent, that a way is provided by which we may get rid of them. Death is that way. We ourselves, in some cases, prudently choose a partial death. A mangled painful limb, which cannot be restored, we willingly cut off. He who plucks out a tooth, parts with it freely, since the pain goes with it; and he, who quits the whole body, parts at once with all pains and possibilities of pains and diseases which it was liable to, or capable of making him suffer. Our friend and we were invited abroad on a party of pleasure, which is to last forever. His chair was ready first, and he is gone before us. We could not all conveniently start together; and why should you and I be grieved at this, since we are soon to follow, and know where to find him? Adieu. It was a sane, bright conception of human destiny indeed which could convert the grim ferryman of the Styx into little more than an obsequious chairman, waiting at the portals of life until it suited the convenience of his fare to issue from them. That Being [he wrote to George Whitefield] who gave me Existence, and thro' almost three-score Years has been continually showering his Favours upon me, whose very Chastisements have been Blessings to me; can I doubt that he loves me? And, if he loves me, can I doubt that he will go on to take care of me, not only here but hereafter? This to some may seem Presumption; to me it appears the best grounded Hope; Hope of the Future, built on Experience of the Past. The same thought is repeated in a letter to William Strahan, followed, however, by the dig which he rarely failed to give to his Tory friend, "Straney," when he had the chance: God has been very good to you, from whence I think you may be _assured_ that he loves you, and that he will take at least as good care of your future Happiness as he has done of your present. What Assurance of the _Future_ can be better founded than that which is built on Experience of the _Past_? Thank me for giving you this Hint, by the Help of which you may die as chearfully as you live. If you had Christian Faith, _quantum suff._, this might not be necessary; but as matters are it may be of Use. This hopeful outlook continued until the end. In a letter to his "dear old friend," George Whatley, which was written about five years before the writer's death, he adds a resource borrowed from his scientific knowledge to the other resources of his tranquil optimism. You see [he said] I have some reason to wish, that, in a future State, I may not only be _as well as I was_, but a little better. And I hope it; for I, too, with your Poet, _trust in God_. And when I observe, that there is great Frugality, as well as Wisdom, in his Works, since he has been evidently sparing both of Labour and Materials; for by the various wonderful Inventions of Propagation, he has provided for the continual peopling his World with Plants and Animals, without being at the Trouble of repeated new Creations; and by the natural Reduction of compound Substances to their original Elements, capable of being employ'd in new Compositions, he has prevented the Necessity of creating new Matter; so that the Earth, Water, Air, and perhaps Fire, which being compounded form Wood, do, when the Wood is dissolved, return, and again become Air, Earth, Fire, and Water; I say that, when I see nothing annihilated, and not even a Drop of Water wasted, I cannot suspect the Annihilation of Souls, or believe, that he will suffer the daily Waste of Millions of Minds ready made that now exist, and put himself to the continual Trouble of making new ones. Thus finding myself to exist in the World, I believe I shall, in some Shape or other, always exist. In a letter to M. Montaudouin in 1779, in reply to one from that friend applying to him the prayer of Horace for Augustus, he remarked: "Tho' the Form is heathen, there is good Christian Spirit in it, and I feel myself very well disposed to be content with this World, which I have found hitherto a tolerable good one, & to wait for Heaven (which will not be the worse for keeping) as long as God pleases." But later on, when seven more years of waning strength had passed, he wrote to his friend Jonathan Shipley, the Bishop of St. Asaph's: I still have Enjoyment in the Company of my Friends; and, being easy in my Circumstances, have many Reasons to like living. But the Course of Nature must soon put a period to my present Mode of Existence. This I shall submit to with less Regret, as, having seen during a long Life a good deal of this World, I feel a growing Curiosity to be acquainted with some other; and can chearfully, with filial Confidence, resign my Spirit to the conduct of that great and good Parent of Mankind, who created it, and who has so graciously protected and prospered me from my Birth to the present Hour. At times, his unfailing humor or graceful fancy even plays lambently over the same stern prospect. In a letter to Mrs. Hewson, written four years before his death, he mentions cards among his amusements, and then adds: I have indeed now and then a little compunction in reflecting that I spend time so idly; but another reflection comes to relieve me, whispering, "_You know that the soul is immortal; why then should you be such a niggard of a little time, when you have a whole eternity before you?_" So, being easily convinced, and, like other reasonable creatures, satisfied with a small reason, when it is in favour of doing what I have a mind to do, I shuffle the cards again and begin another game. "We were long fellow labourers in the best of all works, the work of Peace," he wrote to David Hartley, when the writer was on the point of returning to America from France. "I leave you still in the field, but having finished my day's task, I am going home _to go to bed_! Wish me a good night's rest, as I do you a pleasant evening." This was but another way of expressing the thought of an earlier letter of his to George Whatley, "I look upon Death to be as necessary to our Constitution as Sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the Morning." Your letter [he said to another friend, Thomas Jordan] reminds me of many happy days we have passed together, and the dear friends with whom we passed them; some of whom, alas! have left us, and we must regret their loss, although our Hawkesworth (the compiler of the South Sea discoveries of Capt. Cook) is become an _Adventurer_ in more happy regions; and our Stanley (the eminent musician and composer) gone, "where only his own _harmony_ can be exceeded." Many of these letters, so full of peace and unflinching courage, it should be recollected, were written during hours of physical debility or grievous pain. Every sheet of water takes the hue of the sky above it, and intermixed with these observations of Franklin, which were themselves, to say the least, fully as much the natural fruit of a remarkably equable and sanguine temperament as of religious confidence, are other observations of his upon religious subjects which were deeply colored by his practical genius, tolerant disposition and shrewd insight into the imperfections of human institutions and the shortcomings of human character. With the purely theological and sectarian side of Religion he had no sympathy whatever. It was a source of regret to him that, at a time in his boyhood, when he was consuming books as insatiably as the human lungs consume oxygen, he should have read most of the treatises "in polemic divinity," of which his father's little library chiefly consisted. In a letter to Strahan, when he was in his thirty-ninth year, he said that he had long wanted a judicious friend in London to send him from time to time such new pamphlets as were worth reading on any subject, "religious controversy excepted." To Richard Price he imparted his belief that religious tests were invented not so much to secure Religion itself as its emoluments, and that, if Christian preachers had continued to teach as Christ and His Apostles did, without salaries, and as the Quakers did even in his day, such tests would never have existed. "When a Religion is good," he asserted, "I conceive that it will support itself; and, when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support, so that its Professors are oblig'd to call for the help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one." A favorite saying of his was the saying of Richard Steele that the difference between the Church of Rome and the Church of England is that the one pretends to be infallible and the other to be never in the wrong. "Orthodoxy is my doxy and Heterodoxy your doxy," is a saying which has been attributed to him as his own. His heart went out at once to the Dunkers, when Michael Welfare, one of the founders of that sect, gave, as his reason for its unwillingness to publish the articles of its belief, the fact that it was not satisfied that this belief would not undergo some future changes for the better with further light from Heaven. This modesty in a sect [he remarks in the _Autobiography_] is perhaps a singular instance in the history of mankind, every other sect supposing itself in possession of all truth, and that those who differ are so far in the wrong; like a man traveling in foggy weather, those at some distance before him on the road he sees wrapped up in the fog, as well as those behind him, and also the people in the fields on each side, but near him all appears clear, tho' in truth he is as much in the fog as any of them. The great meeting-house built at Philadelphia, when George Whitefield had worked its people into a state of religious ecstasy by his evangelistic appeals, and the circumstances, under which Franklin was elected to fill a vacancy among the Trustees, appointed to hold this building, were two things of which he speaks with obvious pleasure in the _Autobiography_. The design in erecting the edifice, he declares, was not to accommodate any particular sect but the inhabitants of Philadelphia in general, "so that even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service." The Trustees to hold this building were each the member of some Protestant sect. In process of time, the Moravian died, and then there was opposition to the election of any other Moravian as his successor. "The difficulty then was," Franklin tells us, "how to avoid having two of some other sect, by means of the new choice. "Several persons were named, and for that reason not agreed to. At length one mention'd me, with the observation that I was merely an honest man, and of no sect at all, which prevail'd with them to chuse me." The manner in which Franklin came to occupy this position of sectarian detachment is also set forth in the _Autobiography_. On his father's side, he was descended from sturdy pietists, to whom the difference between one sect and another did not mean merely polemical warmth, as in Franklin's time, but the heat of the stake. In the reign of Bloody Mary, Franklin's great-great-grandfather kept his English Bible open and suspended by tapes, under the concealing cover of a joint-stool, and, when he inverted the stool to read from the pages of the book to his family, one of his children stood at the door to give timely warning of the approach of the dreaded apparitor. In the reign of Charles the Second, the religious scruples of Franklin's father and his Uncle Benjamin, before they crossed the sea to Boston, had been strong enough to induce them to desert the soft lap of the Church of England for the harried conventicles of the despised and persecuted Non-Conformists. To the earlier Franklins Religion meant either all or much that it meant to men in the ages when not Calculating Skill, but, as Emerson tells us, Love and Terror laid the tiles of cathedrals. But Benjamin Franklin was not a scion of the sixteenth century, nor even of the seventeenth, but of the searching and skeptical eighteenth. Some of the dogmas of the creed, in which he was religiously educated by his father, such as the eternal decrees of God, election, reprobation and the like appeared to him unintelligible, others doubtful, he declares in the _Autobiography_. The consequence was that he early absented himself from the public assemblies of the Presbyterian sect in Philadelphia, Sunday being his "studying day," though he never was, he says, without some religious principles. I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that he made the world, and govern'd it by his Providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter. These I esteem'd the essentials of every religion; and, being to be found in all the religions we had in our country, I respected them all, tho' with different degrees of respect, as I found them more or less mix'd with other articles, which, without any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality, serv'd principally to divide us, and make us unfriendly to one another. And then he goes on to inform us that, as Pennsylvania increased in people, and new places of worship were continually wanted, and were generally erected by voluntary contributions, his mite for such purposes, whatever might be the sect, was never refused. This impartial attitude towards the different religious sects he maintained in every particular throughout his life, and from his point of view he had no reason to be dissatisfied with the result, if we may believe John Adams, who tells us: "The Catholics thought him almost a Catholic. The Church of England claimed him as one of them. The Presbyterians thought him half a Presbyterian, and the Friends believed him a wet Quaker." "Mr. Franklin had no--" was as far as Adams himself got in stating his own personal opinion about Franklin's religious views. To have been regarded as an adherent of every sect was a compliment that Franklin would have esteemed as second only to the declaration that he was merely an honest man and of no sect at all. It is certainly one of the most amusing facts narrated in the _Autobiography_ that such a man, only a few years after religious bigotry had compelled him to fly from New England, the land for which Poor Richard, on one occasion, safely predicted a year of "_dry_ Fish and _dry_ Doctrine," should have been invited by Keimer, the knavish eccentric of the _Autobiography_, to become "his colleague in a project he had of setting up a new sect." George Whitefield appears to have come nearer than anyone else to the honor of reducing Franklin to a definite religious status. For this celebrated man he seems to have felt an even warmer regard than that which he usually entertained for every clergyman who was a faithful exponent of sound morals. He begins one of his letters to his brother, John Franklin, with a reference to Whitefield, and then he laconically adds: "He is a good Man and I love him." In the _Autobiography_ he certifies that, in his opinion, Whitefield was in all his conduct "a perfectly _honest man_." But even Whitefield's call to the unconverted, which awakened the conscience of Philadelphia to such a degree "that one could not walk thro' the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street," failed to bring Franklin within the great preacher's fold. "He us'd, indeed, sometimes to pray for my conversion, but never had the satisfaction of believing that his prayers were heard. Ours was a mere civil friendship, sincere on both sides, and lasted to his death." These are the statements of the _Autobiography_. And a mere civil friendship Franklin was inflexibly determined to keep it; for we learn from the same source that, when Whitefield answered an invitation to Franklin's house by saying that, if Franklin made that kind offer for Christ's sake, he would not miss of a reward, the reply promptly came back: "_Don't let me be mistaken; it was not for Christ's sake, but for your sake._" "One of our common acquaintance," says Franklin, "jocosely remark'd, that, knowing it to be the custom of the saints, when they received any favour, to shift the burden of the obligation from off their own shoulders, and place it in heaven, I had contriv'd to fix it on earth." It may truly be said, however, that nothing is recorded of the persuasive eloquence of Whitefield more amazing than the fact that it once swept Franklin for a moment off the feet on which he stood so firmly. He had made up his mind not to contribute to one of Whitefield's charitable projects which did not meet with his approval--but let �sop tell the story in his own characteristic way: I happened soon after to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the coppers. Another stroke of his oratory made me asham'd of that, and determin'd me to give the silver; and he finish'd so admirably, that I empty'd my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all. But Franklin was not long in recovering his equipoise and in again wondering why Whitefield's auditors should so admire and respect him notwithstanding "his common abuse of them, by assuring them they were naturally _half beasts and half devils_." Whitefield, he thought, made a great mistake in publishing his sermons; for _litera scripta manet_ and affords a full opportunity for criticism and censure. If the sermons had not been published, Whitefield's proselytes would have been left, Franklin believed, to feign for him as great a variety of excellences as their enthusiastic admiration might wish him to have possessed. A Deist, if anything, Franklin was when Whitefield first came to Philadelphia, and a Deist, if anything, he was when Whitefield left it for the last time. When the latter wrote in his _Journal, "M. B. was a deist, I had almost said an atheist_," Franklin, indisposed to be deprived of all religious standing, dryly commented: "That is _chalk_, I had almost said _charcoal_." A man, he tells us in the _Autobiography_, is sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps through fear of being thought to have but little, and it is possible that religious faith may sometimes be influenced by the same kind of sensitiveness. The truth of the matter was that as respects theological tenets and sectarian distinctions Franklin was an incurable heretic, if such a term is appropriate to the listless indifference to all dogmas and sects rarely broken except by some merry jest or gentle parable, like his Parable against Persecution or his Parable of Brotherly Love, with which he regarded every sour fermentation of the _odium theologicum_. When he heard that a New Englander, John Thayer, had become a Catholic, the worst that he could find it in his heart to say was: "Our ancestors from Catholic became first Church-of-England men, and then refined into Presbyterians. To change now from Presbyterianism to Popery seems to me refining backwards, from white sugar to brown." In commenting in a letter to Elizabeth Partridge, formerly Hubbard, a year or so before his own death on the death of a friend of theirs, he uses these words: You tell me our poor Friend Ben Kent is gone; I hope to the Regions of the Blessed, or at least to some Place where Souls are prepared for those Regions. I found my Hope on this, that tho' not so orthodox as you and I, he was an honest Man, and had his Virtues. If he had any Hypocrisy it was of that inverted kind, with which a Man is not so bad as he seems to be. And with regard to future Bliss I cannot help imagining, that Multitudes of the zealously Orthodox of different Sects, who at the last Day may flock together, in hopes of seeing (mutilated) damn'd, will be disappointed, and oblig'd to rest content with their own Salvation. Franklin's Kingdom of Heaven was one into which there was such an abundant entrance that even his poor friend, Ben Kent, could hope to arrive there thoroughly disinfected after a brief quarantine on the road.[7] But it is in his _Conte_ that the spirit of religious charity, by which this letter is animated, is given the sparkling, graceful form with which his fancy readily clothed its creations when form and finish were what the workmanship of the occasion required. Montrésor who is very sick, tells his curé that he has had a vision during the night which has set his mind entirely at rest as to his future. "What was your vision?" said the good priest. "I was," replied Montrésor, "at the gate of Paradise, with a crowd of people who wished to enter. And St. Peter asked each one what his religion was. One answered, 'I am a Roman Catholic.' 'Ah, well,' said St. Peter, 'enter, and take your place there among the Catholics.' Another said, that he belonged to the Anglican Church. 'Ah, well,' said St. Peter, 'enter and take your place there among the Anglicans.' Another said that he was a Quaker. 'Enter,' said St. Peter, 'and take your place among the Quakers.' Finally, my turn being come, he asked me what my religion was. 'Alas!' replied I, 'unfortunately poor Jacques Montrésor has none.' 'That is a pity,' said the Saint, 'I do not know where to place you; but enter all the same; and place yourself where you can.'" Perhaps, however, in none of Franklin's writings is his mental attitude towards religious sects and their varied creeds and organizations disclosed with such bland _insouciance_ and delicate raillery as in his letter to Mason Weems and Edward Gantt. Weems was the famous parson Weems whose legendary story of the cherry tree and the hatchet made for many years such a sublime _enfant terrible_ of Washington, and Gantt was a native of Maryland who was destined in the course of time to become a chaplain of the United States Senate. In this letter, after acknowledging a letter from Weems and Gantt telling him that the Archbishop of Canterbury would not permit them to be ordained, unless they took the oath of allegiance, he says that he had obtained an opinion from a clergyman of his acquaintance in Paris that they could not be ordained there, or that, if they were, they would be required to vow obedience to the Archbishop of Paris. He next inquired of the Pope's Nuncio whether they might not be ordained by the Catholic Bishop in America, but received the answer that the thing was impossible unless the gentlemen became Catholics. Then, after a deprecatory statement that the affair was one of which he knew very little, and that he might therefore ask questions or propose means that were improper or impracticable, he pointedly adds: "But what is the necessity of your being connected with the Church of England? Would it not be as well, if you were of the Church of Ireland?" The religion was the same, though there was a different set of Bishops and Archbishops and perhaps the Bishop of Derry, who was a man of liberal sentiments, might give them orders as of the Irish Church. If both Britain and Ireland refused them (and he was not sure that the Bishops of Denmark or Sweden would ordain them unless they became Lutherans), then, in his humble opinion, next to becoming Presbyterians, the Episcopal Clergy of America could not do better than follow the example of the first Clergy of Scotland, who, when a similar difficulty arose, assembled in the Cathedral, and the Mitre, Crosier and Robes of a Bishop being laid upon the Altar, after earnest prayers for direction in their choice, elected one of their own number; when the King said to him: "_Arise, go to the Altar, and receive your Office at the Hand of God._" If the British Isles were sunk in the sea, he continued (and the surface of the Globe had suffered greater changes), his correspondents would probably take some such method as this, and persistence in the denial of ordination to them by the English Church came to the same thing. A hundred years later, when people were more enlightened, it would be wondered at that men in America, qualified by their learning and piety to pray for, and instruct, their neighbors, should not be permitted to do it until they had made a voyage of six thousand miles out and home to ask leave of a cross old gentleman at Canterbury who seemed, by the account of his correspondents, to have as little regard for the souls of the People of Maryland as King William's Attorney-General Seymour had for those of the People of Virginia, when, in reply to the reminder of the Reverend Commissary Blair of William and Mary College that the latter had souls to be saved as well as the People of England, he exclaimed: "_Souls!_ damn your Souls. Make Tobacco." Here we have Franklin absolutely _in puris naturalibus_ as respects the sacerdotal side of Religion, lavishing upon his correspondents in a single letter a series of half-serious, half-mocking sentiments flavored with some of his best intellectual qualities, and doubtless leaving them in a teasing state of uncertainty as to whether he intended to ridicule them or not. In the light of such a letter as this, the reader will hardly be surprised to learn that he did not quit the world until he had put on record his high opinion of heretics. After asking Benjamin Vaughan in one of his letters about a year and a half before his death, to remember him affectionately to the "honest" heretic, Doctor Priestley, he said: I do not call him _honest_ by way of distinction; for I think all the heretics I have known have been virtuous men. They have the virtue of fortitude, or they would not venture to own their heresy; and they cannot afford to be deficient in any of the other virtues, as that would give advantage to their many enemies; and they have not, like orthodox sinners, such a number of friends to excuse or justify them. Holding these views about heretics, it is natural that Franklin should at times have stigmatized religious bigotry as it deserved. In his _Remarks on a Late Protest_, when he was being assailed for one of the most creditable acts of his life, his unsparing denunciation of the murder of hapless Indians by the Paxton Boys, he had a fearless word to say about "those religious Bigots, who are of all Savages the most brutish." And it would be difficult to find a terser or more graphic picture of religious discord than this in one of his letters to Jane Mecom: Each party abuses the other; the profane and the infidel believe both sides, and enjoy the fray; the reputation of religion in general suffers, and its enemies are ready to say, not what was said in the primitive times, Behold how these Christians love one another,--but, Mark how these Christians hate one another! Indeed, when religious people quarrel about religion or hungry people about their victuals, it looks as if they had not much of either among them. Not only did Franklin have no sympathy with sects and their jarring pretensions but he had little patience with either doctrinal theology or ecclesiastical rites and forms of any sort. Even after he decided to keep away from public worship on Sundays, he still retained [he said], a sense of its utility, when rightly conducted, and continued to pay regularly his annual subscription to the Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia which he had attended. Later, he was induced by its pastor to sit now and then under his ministrations; once he states, as if with a slight elevation of the eyebrows, for five Sundays successively, but it all proved unedifying, since not a single moral principle was inculcated or enforced; the aim of the preacher seeming to be rather to make them good Presbyterians than good citizens. At length the devout man took for his text the following verse from the fourth chapter of the Philippians: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely or of good report, if there be any virtue, or any praise, think on these things." Now, thought Franklin, in a sermon on such a text we cannot miss of having some of the "morality" which was to him the entire meat of religion. But the text, promising as it was, had been subjected to such merciless dessication that it resolved itself into five points only "as meant by the apostle, viz.: 1. Keeping holy the Sabbath day. 2. Being diligent in reading the holy Scriptures. 3. Attending duly the publick worship. 4. Partaking of the Sacrament. 5. Paying a due respect to God's ministers." Franklin was disgusted, gave this preacher up entirely, and returned to the use of the _Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion_ which he had previously composed for his own private devotions. Subsequently, however, he was again enticed to church by the arrival in Philadelphia from Ireland of a young Presbyterian minister, named Hemphill, who preached good works rather than dogma in excellent discourses, apparently extemporaneous, and set off with an attractive voice. This minister was soon formally arraigned for heterodoxy by the old orthodox clergy who were in the habit of paying more attention to Presbyterian doctrine than Franklin was, and found a powerful champion in Franklin, who, seeing that Hemphill, while an "elegant preacher," was, for reasons that afterwards became only too patent, a poor writer, wrote several pamphlets and an article in the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ in his behalf. Unfortunately, when the war of words was at its height, Hemphill, who afterwards confessed to Franklin that none of the sermons that he preached were of his own composition, was proved to have purloined a part, at any rate, of one of his sermons from Dr. Foster, of whom Pope had written, "Let modest Foster, if he will excel Ten metropolitans in preaching well." The Synod found against him, but so agreeable to Franklin was the all too-brief taste that he had enjoyed of good works that he adhered to Hemphill to the last. "I stuck by him, however," he says, "as I rather approv'd his giving us good sermons compos'd by others, than bad ones of his own manufacture, tho' the latter was the practice of our common teachers"; among whom he doubtless included the dreary shepherd who had made so little out of the verse in the fourth chapter of Philippians. Everything found its practical level in that mind at last. It might be added that Franklin's stand on this occasion was but in keeping with a final word of counsel which he wrote many years afterwards to his daughter Sally, when he was descending the Delaware on his way to England. After enjoining upon her especial attention her Book of Common Prayer, he continued: "Yet I do not mean you should despise sermons, even of the preachers you dislike, for the discourse is often much better than the man, as sweet and clear waters come through very dirty earth." After the Hemphill disappointment, he ceased to attend the church in which his _protégé_ had come to grief, though he continued to subscribe to the support of its minister for many years. He took a pew in an Episcopal Church, Christ Church, and here he was careful that his family should regularly worship every Sunday, notwithstanding the fact that he was too busy again with his studies on that day to worship there himself, or placed too much confidence in his _Art of Virtue and Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion_ to feel the need for doing so. Here too his daughter and his son Francis who died in childhood were baptized, and here his wife and himself were buried. While he rarely attended the services at this church, he was one of its mainstays in every pecuniary sense. In more than one particular, Franklin was lax in France where he was only liberal in America. At any rate he was even less of a Sabbatarian in the former country than he was in the latter. As respects observance of the Sabbath, he fully fell in with French usages and was in the habit of setting apart the day as a day for attending the play or opera, entertaining his friends, or amusing himself with chess or cards. One of Poor Richard's maxim's was: "Work as if you were to live a hundred years, pray as if you were to die to-morrow," and, while Franklin was not the person to pray in just that rapt fashion, he seems to have thought rather better of prayer than of other religious ceremonies. In the letter of caution to his daughter Sally, from which we have already quoted, he tells her, "Go constantly to church, whoever preaches. The act of devotion in the Common Prayer Book is your principal business there, and if properly attended to, will do more towards amending the heart than sermons generally can do. For they were composed by men of much greater piety and wisdom, than our common composers of sermons can pretend to be." He promptly repelled an intimation of his sister Jane that he was opposed to divine worship with the statement that, so far from thinking that God was not to be worshipped, he had composed and written a whole book of devotions for his own use; meaning his _Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion_. This statement always brings back to us the reply of Charles Sumner, when he was very sick, and was asked whether he was prepared to die, viz. that he had read the Old Testament in the Greek version. A glance at the "First Principles," with which the book begins, would hardly, we fear, have allayed the fears of Jane. That Franklin should ever, even at the age of twenty-two, have composed anything in the way of a creed so fanciful, not to say fantastic, is nothing short of an enormity, even more startlingly out of harmony with his usually sound and sure-footed intelligence than the whimsical letter to General Charles Lee, in which, on the eve of the American Revolution, he advised a return to bows and arrows as efficient instruments of modern warfare. "I believe," commences the creed, "there is one supreme, most perfect Being, Author and Father of the Gods themselves. For I believe that Man is not the most perfect Being but one, rather that as there are many Degrees of Beings his Inferiors, so there are many Degrees of Beings superior to him." Then, after quite a lengthy preamble, follows this Confession of Faith: Therefore I think it seems required of me, and my Duty as a Man, to pay Divine Regards to SOMETHING. I conceive then, that The INFINITE has created many beings or Gods, vastly superior to Man, who can better conceive his Perfections than we, and return him a more rational and glorious Praise. As, among Men, the Praise of the Ignorant or of Children, is not regarded by the ingenious Painter or Architect, who is rather honour'd and pleas'd with the approbation of Wise Men & Artists. It may be that these created Gods are immortal; or it may be that after many Ages, they are changed, and others Supply their Places. Howbeit, I conceive that each of these is exceeding wise and good, and very powerful; and that Each has made for himself one glorious Sun, attended with a beautiful and admirable System of Planets. It is that particular Wise and Good God, who is the author and owner of our System, that I propose for the object of my praise and adoration. Under the same head of "First Principles," there is a slight flavor of the _Art of Virtue:_ "Since without Virtue Man can have no Happiness in this World, I firmly believe he delights to see me Virtuous, because he is pleased when he sees Me Happy." That one of the sanest, wisest, and most terrene of great men, and a man, too, who was not supposed in his time to have any very firm belief in the existence of even one God, should, young as he was, have peopled the stellar spaces with such a hierarchy, half pantheistic, half feudal as this, is, we take it, one of the most surprising phenomena in the history of the human intellect. James Parton surmises that the idea probably filtered to Franklin, when he was a youth in London, through Dr. Pemberton, the editor of the third edition of the _Principia_, from a conjecture thrown out in conversation by Sir Isaac Newton. It reappears in Franklin's _Arabian Tale_. "Men in general," says Belubel, the Strong, "do not know, but thou knowest, that in ascending from an elephant to the infinitely Great, Good, and Wise, there is also a long gradation of beings, who possess powers and faculties of which thou canst yet have no conception." The next head in the book of devotions is "Adoration," under which is arranged a series of liturgical statements, accompanied by a recurrent note of praise, and preceded by an invocation and the following prelude in the nature of a stage direction: Being mindful that before I address the Deity, my soul ought to be calm and serene, free from Passion and Perturbation, or otherwise elevated with Rational Joy and Pleasure, I ought to use a Countenance that expresses a filial Respect, mixed with a kind of Smiling, that Signifies inward Joy, and Satisfaction, and Admiration.[8] The liturgical statements are followed by another direction that it will not be improper now to read part of some such book as Ray's _Wisdom of God in the Creation_, or _Blackmore on the Creation_, or the Archbishop of Cambray's _Demonstration of the Being of a God_, etc., or else to spend some minutes in a serious silence contemplating on those subjects. Then follows another direction calling for Milton's glorious _Hymn to the Creator_; then still another calling for the reading of some book, or part of a book, discoursing on, and inciting to, Moral Virtue; then a succession of resonant supplications, adjuring the aid of the particular Wise and Good God, who is the author and _owner_ (or subfeudatory) of our System, in Franklin's efforts to shun certain vices and infirmities, and to practice certain virtues; all of the vices, infirmities and virtues being set forth in the most specific terms with the limpidity which marked everything that Franklin ever wrote, sacred or profane. One of the supplications was that he might be loyal to his Prince and faithful to his country. This he was until it became impossible for him to be loyal to both. Another was that he might avoid lasciviousness. The prayer was not answered; for William Franklin, on account of whose birth he should have received twenty-one lashes under the laws of Pennsylvania, was born about two years after it was framed. Creed and liturgy end with a series of thanks for the benefits which the author had already received. Both creed and liturgy, we are told by James Parton, were recorded with the utmost care and elegance in a little pocket prayer-book, and the liturgy Franklin practiced for many years. For a large part of his life, he bore his book of devotions and his book of moral practice about on his person wherever he went, as if they were amulets to ward off every evil inclination upon his part to yield to what he calls in the _Autobiography_ "the unremitting attraction of ancient habits." It is likewise a fact that, notwithstanding the high opinion that he expressed to his daughter Sally of the Book of Common Prayer, he undertook at one time to assist Sir Francis Dashwood, Lord Le Despencer in reforming it. The delicious incongruity of the thing is very much enhanced when we remember that a part of Sir Francis' religious training for the task consisted in the circumstance that, in his wilder days, he had been the Abbot of Medmenham Abbey, which numbered among its godless monks--named the Franciscans after himself--the Earl of Sandwich, Paul Whitehead, Budd Doddington and John Wilkes. Over the portals of this infamous retreat was written "Do what you please," and within it the licentious invitation was duly carried into practice by perhaps the most graceless group of blasphemers and libertines that England had ever known. However, when Sir Francis and Franklin became collaborators, the former had, with advancing years, apparently reached the conclusion that this world was one where a decent regard should be paid to something higher than ourselves in preference to giving ourselves up unreservedly to doing what we please, and intercourse, bred by the fact that Sir Francis was a Joint Postmaster-General of Great Britain at the same time that Franklin was Deputy Postmaster-General for America, led naturally to a co-operative venture on their part. Of Sir Francis, when the dregs of his life were settling down into the bottom of the glass, leaving nothing but the better elements of his existence to be drawn off, Franklin gives us a genial picture. Speaking of West Wycombe, Sir Francis' country seat, he says: "But a pleasanter Thing is the kind Countenance, the facetious and very intelligent Conversation of mine Host, who having been for many Years engaged in publick Affairs, seen all Parts of Europe, and kept the best Company in the World, is himself the best existing." High praise this, indeed, from a man who usually had a social equivalent for whatever he received from an agreeable host! Franklin took as his share of the revision the Catechism and the Psalms. Of the Catechism, he retained only two questions (with the answers), "What is your duty to God?" and "What is your duty to your neighbor?" The Psalms he very much shortened by omitting the repetitions (of which he found, he said, in a letter to Granville Sharp, more than he could have imagined) and the imprecations, which appeared, he said, in the same letter, not to suit well the Christian doctrine of forgiveness of injuries and doing good to enemies. As revised by the two friends, the book was shorn of all references to the Sacraments and to the divinity of Our Lord, and the commandments in the Catechism, the Nicene and the Athanasian Creeds, and even the Canticle, "All ye Works of the Lord," so close to the heart of nature, were ruthlessly deleted. All of the Apostle's Creed, too, went, except, to use Franklin's words, "the parts that are most intelligible and most essential." The _Te Deum_ and the _Venite_ were also pared down to very small proportions. Some of the other changes assumed the form of abridgments of the services provided for Communion, Infant Baptism, Confirmation, the Visitation of the Sick and the Burial of the Dead. Franklin loved his species too much, we may be sure, not to approve unqualifiedly the resolution of Sir Francis to omit wholly "the Commination, and all cursing of mankind." Nor was a man, whose own happy marriage had begun with such little ceremony, likely to object strongly to the abbreviation of the service for the solemnization of Matrimony upon which Sir Francis also decided. In fine, the whole of the Book of Common Prayer was reduced to nearly one half its original compass. The preface was written by Franklin. Judging from its terms, the principal motive of the new version was to do away with the physical inconvenience and discomfort caused in one way or another by long services. If the services were abridged, the clergy would be saved a great deal of fatigue, many pious and devout persons, unable from age or infirmities to remain for hours in a cold church, would then attend divine worship and be comfortable, the younger people would probably attend oftener and more cheerfully, the sick would not find the prayer for the visitation of the sick such a burden in their weak and distressed state, and persons, standing around an open grave, could put their hats on again after a much briefer period of exposure. Other reasons are given for the revision, but the idea of holding out brevity as a kind of bait to worship is the dominant one that runs through the Preface. It is written exactly as if there was no such thing in the world as hallowed religious traditions, associations or sentiments, deep as Human Love, strong as Death, to which an almost sacrilegious shock would be given by even moderate innovations. "The book," Franklin says in his letter to Granville Sharp, "was printed for Wilkie, in St. Paul's Church Yard, but never much noticed. Some were given away, very few sold, and I suppose the bulk became waste paper. In the prayers so much was retrenched that approbation could hardly be expected." In America, the Abridgment was known as "Franklin's Prayer Book," and, worthless as it is, in a religious sense, since it became rare, Franklin's fame has been known to give a single copy of it a pecuniary value of not less than one thousand dollars. The literary relations of Franklin to devotion began with a Creed as eccentric as the Oriental notion that the whole world is upheld by a cow with blue horns and ended with partial responsibility for a Prayer Book almost as devoid of a true religious spirit as one of his dissertations on chimneys. He was slow, however, to renounce a practical aim, when once formed. The abridged Prayer Book was printed in 1773, and some fourteen years afterwards in a letter to Alexander Small he expressed his pleasure at hearing that it had met with the approbation of Small and "good Mrs. Baldwin." "It is not yet, that I know of," he said, "received in public Practice anywhere; but, as it is said that Good Motions never die, perhaps in time it may be found useful." Another incident in the relations of Franklin to Prayer was the suggestion made by him in the Federal Convention of 1787 that thenceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessing on the deliberations of the Convention, should be held every morning before the Convention proceeded to business. "In this Situation of this Assembly, groping, as it were, in the dark to find Political Truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir," he asked, "that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our Understandings?" The question was a timely one, and was part of an eloquent and impressive speech, but resulted in nothing more fruitful than an exclamatory memorandum of Franklin, indignant or humorous we do not know which, "The convention, except three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary!" It is only when insisting upon the charitable and fruitful side of religion that Franklin has any wholesome or winning message to deliver touching it; but, when doing this, his utterances are often edifying in the highest degree. In an early letter to his father, who believed that the son had imbibed some erroneous opinions with regard to religion, after respectfully reminding his father that it is no more in a man's power to think than to look like another, he used these words: My mother grieves that one of her sons is an Arian, another an Arminian. What an Arminian or an Arian is, I cannot say that I very well know. The truth is, I make such distinctions very little my study. I think vital religion has always suffered, when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue; and the Scriptures assure me, that at the last day we shall not be examined what we _thought_, but what we _did_; and our recommendation will not be, that we said, _Lord! Lord!_ but that we did good to our fellow creatures. (See Matt. xxv.) These convictions he was destined to reaffirm over and over again in the course of his life. They were most elaborately stated in his forty-eighth year in a letter to Joseph Huey. He had received, he said, much kindness from men, to whom he would never have any opportunity of making the least direct return, and numberless mercies from God who was infinitely above being benefited by our services. Those kindnesses from men he could therefore only return on their fellow men, and he could only show his gratitude for these mercies from God by a readiness to help God's other children and his brethren. For he did not think that thanks and compliments, though repeated weekly, could discharge our real obligations to each other and much less those to our Creator. He that for giving a draught of water to a thirsty person should expect to be paid with a good plantation, would be modest in his demands compared with those who think they deserve Heaven for the little good they do on earth. The faith Huey mentioned, he said, had doubtless its use in the world; but he wished it were more productive of good works than he had generally seen it; he meant real good works, works of kindness, charity, mercy and public spirit; not holiday keeping, sermon reading or hearing, performing church ceremonies, or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments, despised even by wise men and much less capable of pleasing the Deity. The worship of God was a duty; the hearing reading of sermons might be useful, but if men rested in hearing and praying, as too many did, it was as if a tree should value itself on being watered and putting forth leaves though it never produced any fruit. Your great Master [he continued] tho't much less of these outward Appearances and Professions than many of his modern Disciples. He prefer'd the _Doers_ of the Word, to the meer _Hearers_; the Son that seemingly refus'd to obey his Father, and yet perform'd his Commands, to him that profess'd his Readiness, but neglected the Work, the heretical but charitable Samaritan, to the uncharitable tho' orthodox Priest and sanctified Levite; & those who gave Food to the hungry, Drink to the Thirsty, Raiment to the Naked, Entertainment to the Stranger, and Relief to the Sick, tho' they never heard of his Name, he declares shall in the last Day be accepted, when those who cry Lord! Lord! who value themselves on their Faith, tho' great enough to perform Miracles, but have neglected good Works, shall be rejected. And then, after a word about the modesty of Christ, he breaks out into something as much like a puff of anger as anything that his perfect mental balance would allow; "But now-a-days we have scarce a little Parson, that does not think it the Duty of every Man within his Reach to sit under his petty Ministrations." Altogether, the Rev. Mr. Hemphill never stole, and few clergymen ever composed, a more striking sermon on good works than this letter. And this was because the doctrines that it preached belonged fully as much to the province of Human Benevolence as of Religion. A pretty sermon also was the letter of Franklin to his sister Jane on Faith, Hope and Charity. After quoting a homely acrostic, in which his uncle Benjamin, who, humble as his place on Parnassus was, fumbled poetry with distinctly better success than the nephew, had advised Jane to "raise _faith_ and _hope_ three stories higher," he went on to read her a lecture which is too closely knit to admit of compression: You are to understand, then, that _faith_, _hope_, and _charity_ have been called the three steps of Jacob's ladder, reaching from earth to heaven; our author calls them _stories_, likening religion to a building, and these are the three stories of the Christian edifice. Thus improvement in religion is called _building up_ and _edification_. _Faith_ is then the ground floor, _hope_ is up one pair of stairs. My dear beloved Jenny, don't delight so much to dwell in those lower rooms, but get as fast as you can into the garret, for in truth the best room in the house is _charity_. For my part, I wish the house was turned upside down; 'tis so difficult (when one is fat) to go up stairs; and not only so, but I imagine _hope_ and _faith_ may be more firmly built upon _charity_, than _charity_ upon _faith_ and _hope_. However that may be, I think it the better reading to say-- "Raise faith and hope one story higher." Correct it boldly, and I'll support the alteration; for, when you are up two stories already, if you raise your building three stories higher you will make five in all, which is two more than there should be, you expose your upper rooms more to the winds and storms; and, besides, I am afraid the foundation will hardly bear them, unless indeed you build with such light stuff as straw and stubble, and that, you know, won't stand fire. Again, where the author says, "Kindness of heart by words express," strike out _words_ and put in _deeds_. The world is too full of compliments already. They are the rank growth of every soil, and choak the good plants of benevolence, and beneficence; nor do I pretend to be the first in this comparison of words and actions to plants; you may remember an ancient poet, whose works we have all studied and copied at school long ago. "A man of words and not of deeds Is like a garden full of weeds." 'Tis a pity that good works, among some sorts of people, are so little valued, and good words admired in their stead: I mean seemingly pious discourses, instead of humane benevolent actions. To the Rev. Thomas Coombe Franklin expressed the opinion that, unless pulpit eloquence turned men to righteousness, the preacher or the priest was not merely sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal, which were innocent things, but rather like the cunning man in the Old Baily who conjured and told fools their fortunes to cheat them out of their money. The general spirit of these various utterances of Franklin on vital religion were sarcastically condensed in a remark of Poor Richard: "Serving God is doing good to Man, but praying is thought an easier serving, and therefore most generally chosen." In forming an accurate conception of the influences by which the mind of Franklin was brought into its posture of antagonism or indifference to the doctrinal side of religion, it is necessary to take into consideration not only the innate attributes of his intellect and character but also the external pressure to which his opinions were subjected in his early life. It was the religious intolerance and proscriptive spirit of the Puritan society, in which he was born and reared, which drove him, first, into dissent, and then, into disbelief. Borne the day he was born, if tradition may be believed, though the ground was covered with snow, to the Old South Church in Boston, and baptized there, so that he might escape every chance of dying an unregenerate and doomed infant, he grew into boyhood to find himself surrounded by conditions which tended to either reduce the free impulses of his nature to supine or sullen submission or to force him into active revolt. It is hard to suppress a smile when he tells us in the _Autobiography_ that his father, who doubtless knew the difference between an Arian and an Arminian even better than his mother, intended to devote him as the tithe of his sons to the service of the Church. He smiles himself when he adds with a trace of his former commercial calling that his uncle Benjamin approved of the idea and proposed to give him all his shorthand volumes of sermons "as a stock" Franklin supposed, "to set up with." The intention of Josiah was soon abandoned, and Benjamin became the apprentice of his brother James, the owner and publisher of the Boston _Courant_, the fourth newspaper published in America. During the course of this apprenticeship, first, as a contributor to the _Courant_, under the _nom de plume_ of Silence Dogood, and, then, as its publisher in the place of his brother, who had incurred the censure of the Puritan Lord Brethren, he was drawn into the bitter attack made by it upon the religious intolerance and narrowness of the times. During its career, the paper plied the ruling dignitaries of the Boston of that day with so many clever little pasquinades that the Rev. Increase Mather was compelled to signify to the printer that he would have no more of their wicked Courants. I that have known what New England was from the Beginning [he said] can not but be troubled to see the Degeneracy of this Place. I can well remember when the Civil Government would have taken an effectual Course to suppress such a _Cursed Libel!_ which if it be not done I am afraid that some _Awful Judgment_ will come upon this Land, and the _Wrath of God will arise, and there will be no Remedy_. Undaunted, the wicked _Courant_ took pains to let the public know that, while the angry minister was no longer one of its subscribers, he sent his grandson for the paper every week, and by paying a higher price for it in that way was a more valuable patron than ever. The indignation of another writer, supposed to be Cotton Mather, lashed itself into such fury that it seemed as if the vile sheet would be buried beneath a pyramid of vituperative words. "The _Courant_," he declared, was "a notorious, scandalous" newspaper, "full freighted with nonsense, unmannerliness, railery, prophaneness, immorality, arrogance, calumnies, lies, contradictions, and what not, all tending to quarrels and divisions, and to debauch and corrupt the minds and manners of New England." For a time, the Church was too much for the scoffers. James Franklin was not haled for his sins before the Judgment seat of God, as Increase Mather said he might be, speedily, though a young man, but he was, as we shall hereafter see more in detail, reduced to such a plight by the hand of civil authority that he had to turn over the management of the _Courant_ to Benjamin, whose tart wit and literary skill made it more of a cursed libel than ever to arbitrary power and clerical bigotry. The daring state of license, into which the sprightly boy fell, during his connection with the _Courant_, is clearly revealed in the letter contributed by Silence Dogood to it on the subject of Harvard College. In this letter, she tells how the greater part of the rout that left Harvard College "went along a large beaten Path, which led to a Temple at the further End of the Plain, call'd, _The Temple of Theology_." "The Business of those who were employed in this Temple being laborious and painful, I wonder'd exceedingly," she said, "to see so many go towards it; but while I was pondering this Matter in my Mind, I spy'd _Pecunia_ behind a Curtain, beckoning to them with her Hand, which Sight immediately satisfy'd me for whose Sake it was, that a great Part of them (I will not say all) travel'd that Road." While the _Courant_ was running its lively course, young Franklin was shunning church on Sundays, reading Shaftesbury and Anthony Collins, and drifting further and further away from all the fixed shore-lights of religious faith. Then came the hegira, which ended, as all the world knows, at Philadelphia. The first place curiously enough, in which the fugitive slept after reaching that city, was the great Quaker Meeting House, whither he had been swept by the concourse of clean-dressed people, that he had seen walking towards it, when he was sauntering aimlessly about the streets of his new home, shortly after his arrival. "I sat down among them," he says in the _Autobiography_, "and, after looking round awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy thro' labour and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continu'd so till the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough to rouse me." The halcyon calm of this meeting offers a strange enough contrast to the "disputatious turn" which had been engendered in him as he tells us by his father's "books of dispute about religion" before he left Boston. The state of mind with respect to religion that he brought with him to Philadelphia is thus described by him in the _Autobiography_: My parents had early given me religious impressions, and brought me through my childhood piously in the Dissenting way. But I was scarce fifteen, when, after doubting by turns of several points, as I found them disputed in the different books I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself. Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations. Before the inevitable reaction set in, we obtain from the _Autobiography_ a few other items of religious or semi-religious interest. A passing reference has already been made to Keimer's invitation to Franklin to unite with him in founding another sect. He had been so often trepanned by Franklin's Socratic method of argument that he had finally come to entertain a great respect for it. He was to preach the doctrines, and his co-laborer was to confound all opponents. As he was in the habit of wearing his beard at full length, because somewhere in the Mosaic Law it was said, "Thou shalt not mar the corners of thy beard"; and was also in the habit of keeping the seventh day as his Sabbath, he insisted that these two habits of his should be enjoined as essential points of discipline upon the adherents of the new creed. Franklin agreed to acquiesce in this upon the condition that Keimer would confine himself to a vegetable diet. The latter consented, and, though a great glutton, ate no animal food for three months. During this period, their victuals were dressed and brought to them by a woman in their neighborhood who had been given by Franklin a list of forty dishes, to be prepared for them at different times, in all which there was neither fish, flesh nor fowl. "The whim," he declared, "suited me the better at this time from the cheapness of it, not costing us above eighteen pence sterling each per week." At the termination of three months, however, Keimer could live up to his Pythagorean vow no longer, invited two of his women friends and Franklin to dine with him, and ordered a roast pig for the occasion. Unfortunately for his guests, the pig was placed a little prematurely upon the table, and was all consumed by him before they arrived. With the disappearance of the pig, the new sect came to an end too. As sharp as the contrast between Franklin's spirit and the dove-like peace that brooded over the Great Quaker Meeting House, was the contrast between it and that of the self-devoted nun, whom he was once permitted to visit in the garret, in which she had immured herself, of his lodging house in Duke Street, London, opposite the Romish Chapel. As there was no nunnery in England, she had resolved to lead the life of a nun as nearly as possible under the circumstances. Accordingly she had donated all her estate to charitable uses, reserving only twelve pounds a year to live on, and out of this sum she still gave a great deal to charity, subsisting herself on water gruel only, and using no fire but to boil it. For many years, she had been allowed to live in her garret free of charge by successive Catholic tenants of the house, as they deemed it a blessing to have her there. A priest visited her to confess her every day. When asked how she could possibly find so much employment for a confessor, she replied: "Oh! It is impossible to avoid _vain thoughts_." Franklin found her cheerful and polite and of pleasant conversation. Her room was clean, but had no other furniture than a mattress, a table with a crucifix and book, a stool, which she gave him to sit on, and a picture over the chimney of Saint Veronica, displaying her handkerchief, with the miraculous figure of Christ's bleeding face on it, which she explained to Franklin, of all the persons in the world, with great seriousness. She looked pale, but was never sick. "I give it," says Franklin in the _Autobiography_, "as another instance on how small an income, life and health may be supported." At no period of his existence, was he less likely to be in sympathy with the ascetic side of religion than at this. Indeed, while in London at this time, believing that some of the reasonings of Wollaston's _Religion of Nature_, which he was engaged in composing at Palmer's Printing House in Bartholomew Close, where he was employed as a printer, were not well founded, he wrote _A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain_, and dedicated it to his rapscallion friend, James Ralph, whose own ideas about Liberty may be inferred from the fact that he had deserted his family in Philadelphia to seek his fortune in England. This pamphlet Franklin afterwards came to regard as one of the _errata_ of his life, and, of the one hundred copies of it that were printed, he then burnt all that he could lay his hands on except one with marginal notes by Lyons, the author of _The Infallibility of Human Judgment_. The argument of the pamphlet, as Franklin states it in the _Autobiography_, was that, as both virtue and vice owed their origin to an infinitely wise, good and powerful God, "nothing could possibly be wrong in the world," and vice and virtue were empty distinctions. Franklin's efforts to suppress the piece were, naturally enough, ineffectual, for there was an inextinguishable spark of vitality in almost everything that he ever wrote. These utterances make it apparent enough that the religious character of Franklin was subject to too many serious limitations to justify even early American patriotism in holding him up as an exemplar of religious orthodoxy, although our incredulity is not necessarily overtaxed by the statement of Parson Weems that, when Franklin was on his death-bed, he had a picture of Christ on the Cross placed in such a situation that he could conveniently rest his eyes upon it, and declared: "That's the picture of Him who came into the world to teach men to love one another." This kind of a teacher, divine or human, could not fail to awaken in him something as nearly akin to religious reverence as his nature was capable of entertaining. But his mental and moral constitution was one to which it was impossible that the supernatural or miraculous element in Religion could address a persuasive appeal. "In the Affairs of this World, Men are saved, not by Faith, but by Want of it," said Poor Richard, and it was with the affairs of this World that Franklin was exclusively concerned. When he visited the recluse in her Duke Street garret, it was not the crucifix and book, nor the picture over the chimney of Saint Veronica and her handkerchief that arrested his attention, nor was it the self-sacrificing fidelity of the lonely figure under harsh restrictions to a pure and unselfish purpose. It was rather the small income, with its salutary lesson of frugality for the struggling world outside, on which she contrived to support life and health. If he deemed a set of sectarian principles to be whimsical, as he did some of those professed by the Quakers, he humored them in the spirit of his wife who, he reminded his daughter in one of his letters, was in the habit of saying: "_If People can be pleased with small Matters, it is a Pity but they should have them._" Few men have ever been more familiar with the Scriptures than he. Some of his happiest illustrations were derived from its pictured narratives and rich imagery, but the idea that God had revealed His purposes to His children in its pages was one not congenial with his sober and inquisitive mental outlook; and equally uncongenial was the idea, which of all others has exercised the profoundest degree of religious influence upon the human heart, that Christ, the only begotten son of our Lord, was sent into the world to redeem us from our sins with His most precious blood. Even his belief in the existence of a superintending Providence and a system of rewards and punishments here or hereafter for our moral conduct was a more or less vague, floating belief, such as few thoroughly wise, well-balanced and fair-minded men, who have given any real thought to the universe, in which they lived, have ever failed to form to a greater or less degree. In a word, of that real, vital religion, which vivifies even the common, dull details of our daily lives, and irradiates with cheerful hope even the dark abyss, to which our feet are hourly tending, which purifies our hearts, refines our natures, quickens our sympathies, exalts our ideals, and is capable unassisted of inspiring even the humblest life with a subdued but noble enthusiasm, equal to all the shocks of existence--of this religion Franklin had none, or next to none. He went about the alteration of the Book of Common Prayer exactly as if he were framing a constitution for the Albany Congress or for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. That the alterations were to be shaped by any but purely practical considerations, that deep religious feeling has unreasoning reservations which intuitively resent the mere suggestion of change, he does not seem to have realized at all. Religion to him was like any other apparatus, essential to the well-being of organized society, a thing to be fashioned and adapted to its uses without reference to anything but the ordinary principles of utility. "If men are so wicked as we now see them _with religion_, what would they be _if without it_?" was a question addressed by him in his old age to a correspondent whom he was advising to burn a skeptical manuscript written by the former. At the age of twenty, Franklin came back from London to Philadelphia, and it was then that the reaction in his infidel tendencies took place. From extreme dissent he was brought by a process of reasoning, as purely inductive as any that he ever pursued as a philosopher, to believe that he had wandered off into the paths of error, and should make his way back to the narrow but safer road. Under his perverting influence, his friend Collins had become a free-thinker, and Collins had soon acquired a habit of sotting with brandy, and had never repaid to him the portion of Mr. Vernon's money which he had borrowed from him. Under the same influence, his friend, Ralph had become a free-thinker, and Ralph had been equally faithless in the discharge of his pecuniary obligations to him. Sir William Keith, the Colonial Governor of Pennsylvania, whose fair promises, as we shall see, had led him on a fool's errand to London, was a free-thinker, and Sir William had proved an unprincipled cozener. Benjamin Franklin himself was a free-thinker, and Benjamin Franklin had forgotten the faith that he plighted to Deborah Read, and had converted Mr. Vernon's money to his own use. The final result, Franklin tells us, was that his pamphlet on _Liberty and Necessity_ appeared now not so clever a performance as he once thought it, and he doubted whether some error had not insinuated itself unperceived into his argument, so as to infect all that followed, as was common with metaphysical reasonings. From this point, the drift to the _Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion_, the little book of moral practice, the _Art of Virtue_, the Rev. Mr. Hemphill and Christ Church was natural enough. We might add that the views upon which Franklin's mind finally settled down after its recoil from his pamphlet on _Liberty and Necessity_ persisted until his last day. In a letter to Ezra Stiles, written but a little over a month before his death, he made the following statement of his faith: You desire to know something of my Religion. It is the first time I have been questioned upon it. But I cannot take your Curiosity amiss, and shall endeavour in a few Words to gratify it. Here is my Creed. I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable Service we render to him is doing good to his other Children. That the soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with Justice in another Life respecting its Conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental Principles of all sound Religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever Sect I meet with them. As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his Divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that Belief has the good Consequence, as probably it has, of making his Doctrines more respected and better observed; especially as I do not perceive, that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the Unbelievers in his Government of the World with any peculiar Marks of his Displeasure. I shall only add, respecting myself, that, having experienced the Goodness of that Being in conducting me prosperously thro' a long life, I have no doubt of its Continuance in the next, though without the smallest conceit of meriting such Goodness. It is amusing to compare this letter written in America to the President of Yale College with what Franklin had previously written to Madame Brillon, when she objected to the marriage of her daughter to William Temple Franklin partly on the score of religious incompatibility: "These are my ideas. In each Religion, there are certain essential things, and there are others that are only Forms and Modes; just as a loaf of Sugar may happen to be wrapped up in either brown, or white or blue Paper, tied up with either red or yellow hempen or worsted twine. In every instance the essential thing is the sugar itself. Now the essentials of a good Religion consist, it seems to me, in these 5 Articles viz." Then ensues a statement of practically the same fundamental tenets as those that he afterwards laid before Ezra Stiles; except that, when he wrote to Madame Brillon, he was not certain whether we should be rewarded or punished according to our deserts in this life or in the life to come. He then adds: "These Essentials are found in both your Religion and ours, the differences are only Paper and Twine." Dr. Priestley, in his _Autobiography_, laments that a man of Dr. Franklin's general good character and great influence should have been an unbeliever in Christianity, and should also have done as much as he did to make others unbelievers. Franklin acknowledged to this friend that he had not given as much attention as he ought to have done to the evidences of Christianity, and, at his request, Priestley recommended to him several books on the subject, which he does not seem to have read. As Priestley himself rejected the doctrines of the Trinity, the Atonement, Original Sin and Miraculous Inspiration, and considered Christ to be "a mere man," though divinely commissioned and assisted, his fitness for the office of winning Franklin over to Christianity might well have been questioned. He belonged to the same category as Dr. Richard Price, that other warm friend of Franklin, who came into Franklin's mind when Sir John Pringle asked him whether he knew where he could go to hear a preacher of _rational_ Christianity. Franklin, it passes without saying, had his laugh at Religion as he had at everything else at times. "Some have observed," he says of the clergy in his _Apology for Printers_, "that 'tis a fruitful Topic, and the easiest to be witty upon of all others." For the earliest outbreak of his humor on the subject, we are indebted to William Temple Franklin. Young Benjamin found the long graces uttered by his father before and after meals rather tedious. "I think, father," said he one day after the provisions for the winter had been salted, "if you were to say grace over the whole cask, once for all, it would be a vast saving of time." Some of his later jests, at the expense of Religion, read as if they were conceived at the period, upon which his vow of silence called a halt, when, according to the _Autobiography_, he was getting into the habit of prattling, punning and joking, which only made him acceptable to trifling company. Others, however, have the earmarks of his humorous spirit in its more noteworthy manifestations. When he was off on his military excursion against the Indians, his command had for its chaplain a zealous Presbyterian minister, Mr. Beatty, who complained to him that the men did not generally attend his prayers and exhortations. When they enlisted, they were promised, besides pay and provisions, a gill of rum a day, which was punctually served out to them, half in the morning, and the other half in the evening. I observ'd [says Franklin in the _Autobiography_] they were as punctual in attending to receive it; upon which I said to Mr. Beatty, "It is, perhaps, below the dignity of your profession to act as steward of the rum, but if you were to deal it out and only just after prayers, you would have them all about you." He liked the tho't, undertook the office, and, with the help of a few hands to measure out the liquor, executed it to satisfaction, and never were prayers more generally and more punctually attended; so that I thought this method preferable to the punishment inflicted by some military laws for non-attendance on divine service. The efficacy itself of prayer also elicited some bantering comments from him. Alluding to the prayers offered up in New England for the reduction of Louisburg, he wrote to John Franklin: Some seem to think forts are as easy taken as snuff. Father Moody's prayers look tolerably modest. You have a fast and prayer day for that purpose; in which I compute five hundred thousand petitions were offered up to the same effect in New England, which added to the petitions of every family morning and evening, multiplied by the number of days since January 25th, make forty-five millions of prayers; which, set against the prayers of a few priests in the garrison, to the Virgin Mary, give a vast balance in your favour. If you do not succeed, I fear I shall have but an indifferent opinion of Presbyterian prayers in such cases, as long as I live. Indeed, in attacking strong towns I should have more dependence on _works_, than on _faith_; for, like the kingdom of heaven, they are to be taken by force and violence; and in a French garrison I suppose there are devils of that kind, that they are not to be cast out by prayers and fasting, unless it be by their own fasting for want of provisions. We can readily imagine that more than one mirth-provoking letter like this from the pen of Franklin passed into the general circulation of Colonial humor. As for the humorist, he did not fail to return to the subject a little later on, when Louisburg, after being bandied about between English and French control, was again in the hands of the English. "I congratulate you," he said to Jane Mecom, "on the conquest of Cape Breton, and hope as your people took it by praying, the first time, you will now pray that it may never be given up again, which you then forgot." In his _A Letter from China_, he makes the sailor, who is supposed to be narrating his experiences in China, say that he asked his Chinese master why they did not go to church to pray, as was done in Europe, and was answered that they paid the priests to pray for them that they might stay at home, and mind their business, and that it would be a folly to pay others for praying, and then go and do the praying themselves, and that the more work they did, while the priests prayed, the better able they were to pay them well for praying. After expressing his regret in a letter from New York to Colonel Henry Bouquet, the hero of the battle of Bushy Run, that because of business he could enjoy so little of the conversation of that gallant officer at Philadelphia, he exclaimed: "How happy are the Folks in Heaven, who, 'tis said, have nothing to do, but to talk with one another, except now and then a little Singing & Drinking of Aqua Vitæ." His leniency in relation to the Sabbath also vented itself in a jocose letter to Jared Ingersoll: I should be glad to know what it is that distinguishes Connecticut religion from common religion. Communicate, if you please, some of these particulars that you think will amuse me as a virtuoso. When I travelled in Flanders, I thought of our excessively strict observation of Sunday; and that a man could hardly travel on that day among you upon his lawful occasions without hazard of punishment; while, where I was, every one travelled, if he pleased, or diverted himself in any other way; and in the afternoon both high and low went to the play or the opera, where there was plenty of singing, fiddling and dancing. I looked around for God's judgments, but saw no signs of them. The cities were well built and full of inhabitants, the markets filled with plenty, the people well-favoured and well clothed, the fields well tilled, the cattle fat and strong, the fences, houses, and windows all in repair, and no Old Tenor (paper money) anywhere in the country; which would almost make one suspect that the Deity is not so angry at that offence as a New England Justice. The joke sometimes turns up when we are least expecting it, if it can be said that there is ever a time when a flash of wit or humor from Franklin surprises us. In a letter to Richard Price, asking him for a list of good books, such as were most proper to inculcate principles of sound religion and just government, he informs Price that, a new town in Massachusetts having done him the honor to name itself after him, and proposing to build a steeple to their meeting-house, if he would give them a bell, he had advised the sparing themselves the expense of a steeple for the present and that they would accept of books instead of a bell; "sense being preferable to sound." There is a gleam of the same sort in his revised version of the Lord's Prayer; for, almost incredible as the fact is, his irreverent hand tinkered even with this most sacred of human petitions. "Our Liturgy," he said, "uses neither the _Debtors_ of Matthew, nor the _indebted_ of Luke, but instead of them speaks of _those that trespass against us_. Perhaps the Considering it as a Christian Duty to forgive Debtors, was by the Compilers thought an inconvenient Idea in a trading Nation." Sometimes his humor is so delicate and subtle that even acute intellects, without a keen sense of the ludicrous, mistake it all for labored gravity. This is true of his modernized version of part of the first chapter of Job, where, for illustration, for the words, "But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face," he suggests the following: "Try him;--only withdraw your favor, turn him out of his places, and withhold his pensions, and you will soon find him in the opposition." It is a remarkable fact that more than one celebrated man of letters has accepted this exquisite parody as a serious intrusion by Franklin into a reformatory field for which he was unfitted. We dare say that, if Franklin could have anticipated such a result, he would have experienced a degree of pleasure in excess of even that which he was in the habit of feeling when he had successfully passed off his Parable against Persecution on some one as an extract from the Bible. There is undeniably a lack of reality, a certain sort of hollowness about his religious views. When we tap them, a sound, as of an empty cask, comes back to us. They are distinguished by very much the same want of spontaneous, instinctive feeling, the same artificial cast, the same falsetto note as his system of moral practice and his _Art of Virtue_. Indeed, to a very great degree they are but features of his system of morals. That he ever gave any sincere credence to the written creed of his youth, with its graded Pantheon of Gods, is, of course, inconceivable. This was a mere academic and transitional conceit, inspired by the first youthful impulses of his recession from extreme irreligion to lukewarm acquiescence in accepted religious conventions. Nor can we say that his belief in a single Deity was much more genuine or vital, confidently as he professed to commit himself to the wisdom and goodness of this Deity. There is nothing in his writings, full of well-rounded thanksgiving and praise as they sometimes are, to justify the conclusion that to him God was anything more than the personification, more or less abstract, of those cosmic forces, with which he was so conversant, and of those altruistic promptings of the human heart, of which he himself was such a beneficent example. The Fatherhood of God was a passive conception to which his mind was conducted almost solely by his active, ever-present sense of the Brotherhood of Man. But it is no greater misconception to think of Franklin as a Christian than to think of him as a scoffer. He was no scoffer. A laugh or a smile for some ceremonious or extravagant feature of religion he had at times, as we have seen, but no laugh or smile except such as can be reconciled with a substantial measure of genuine religious good-faith. It was never any part of his purpose to decry Religion, to undermine its influence, or to weaken its props. He was too full of the scientific spirit of speculation and distrust, he was too practical and worldly-wise to readily surrender the right of private judgment, or to give himself over to any form of truly devotional fervor, but he had entirely too keen an appreciation of the practical value of religion in restraining human vices and passions and promoting human benevolence to have any disposition to destroy or impair its sway. The motive of his existence was not to unsettle men, nor to cast them adrift, nor to hold out to them novel projects of self-improvement, not rooted in fixed human prepossessions and experience, but to discipline them, to free them from social selfishness, to keep them in subjection to all the salutary restraints, which the past had shown to be good for them. Of these restraints, he knew that those imposed by Religion were among the most potent, and to Religion, therefore, he adhered, if for no other reason, because it was the most helpful ally of human morality, and of the municipal ordinances by which human morality is enforced. From what he said to Lord Kames, it seems that he regarded his _Art of Virtue_ as a supplement to Religion, though really with more truth it might be asserted that it was Religion which was the supplement to his _Art of Virtue_. Christians [he said] are directed to have faith in Christ, as the effectual means of obtaining the change they desire. It may, when sufficiently strong, be effectual with many: for a full opinion, that a Teacher is infinitely wise, good, and powerful, and that he will certainly reward and punish the obedient and disobedient, must give great weight to his precepts, and make them much more attended to by his disciples. But many have this faith in so weak a degree, that it does not produce the effect. Our _Art of Virtue_ may, therefore, be of great service to those whose faith is unhappily not so strong, and may come in aid of its weakness. How little Franklin was inclined to undervalue Religion as a support of good conduct is, among other things, shown by the concern which he occasionally expressed in his letters, when he was abroad, that his wife and daughter should not be slack in attending divine worship. One of his letters to Sally of this nature we have already quoted. Another to his wife expresses the hope that Sally "continues to love going to Church," and states that he would have her read over and over again the Whole Duty of Man and the Lady's Library. In another letter to his wife, he says: "You spent your Sunday very well, but I think you should go oftner to Church." Fortified as he was by his _Art of Virtue_, he felt that church attendance was but a matter of secondary importance for him, but he was eager that his wife and daughter, who had not acquired the habitude of the virtues as he had, should not neglect the old immemorial aids to rectitude. Even to the levity, with which religious topics might be handled, he set distinct limits. He had no objection to a good-humored joke at the expense of their superficial aspects even if it was a little broad, but with malignant or derisive attacks upon religion he had no sympathy whatever. In the _Autobiography_, he denounces with manifest sincerity, as a wicked travesty, the doggerel version of the Bible, composed by Dr. Brown, who kept the inn, eight or ten miles from Burlington, at which he lodged overnight, on his first journey from Boston to Philadelphia. Nothing that he ever wrote is wiser or sounder than the letter which he addressed to a friend, dissuading him from publishing a "piece," impugning the Doctrine of a Special Providence. In its utilitarian conceptions of religion and virtue, in the emphasis placed by it upon habit as the best security for righteous conduct, in the cautious respect that it manifests for the general sentiments of mankind on religious subjects, we have a concise revelation of his whole attitude towards Religion, when he was turning his face seriously towards it. By the Argument it contains against the Doctrines of a particular Providence [he said], tho' you allow a general Providence, you strike at the Foundation of all Religion. For without the Belief of a Providence, that takes Cognizance of, guards, and guides, and may favour particular Persons, there is no Motive to Worship a Deity, to fear its Displeasure, or to pray for its Protection. I will not enter into any Discussion of your Principles, tho' you seem to desire it. At present I shall only give you my Opinion, that, though your Reasonings are subtile, and may prevail with some Readers, you will not succeed so as to change the general Sentiments of Mankind on that Subject, and the Consequence of printing this Piece will be, a great deal of Odium drawn upon yourself, Mischief to you, and no Benefit to others. He that spits against the Wind, spits in his own Face. But, were you to succeed, do you imagine any Good would be done by it? You yourself may find it easy to live a virtuous Life, without the Assistance afforded by Religion; you having a clear Perception of the Advantages of Virtue, and the Disadvantages of Vice, and possessing a Strength of Resolution sufficient to enable you to resist common Temptations. But think how great a Proportion of Mankind consists of weak and ignorant Men and Women, and of inexperienc'd, and inconsiderate Youth of both Sexes, who have need of the Motives of Religion to restrain them from Vice, to support their Virtue, and retain them in the Practice of it till it becomes _habitual_, which is the great Point for its Security. And perhaps you are indebted to her originally, that is, to your Religious Education, for the Habits of Virtue upon which you now justly value yourself. You might easily display your excellent Talents of reasoning upon a less hazardous subject, and thereby obtain a Rank with our most distinguish'd Authors. For among us it is not necessary, as among the Hottentots, that a Youth, to be receiv'd into the Company of men, should prove his Manhood by beating his Mother. I would advise you, therefore, not to attempt unchaining the Tyger, but to burn this Piece before it is seen by any other Person; whereby you will save yourself a great deal of Mortification from the Enemies it may raise against you, and perhaps a good deal of Regret and Repentence. FOOTNOTES: [7] Kent was evidently something of a character. In a letter to his friend Mrs. Catherine Greene, in 1764, Franklin said: "Mr. Kent's compliment is a very extraordinary one, as he was obliged to kill himself and two others in order to make it; but, being killed in imagination only, they and he are all yet alive and well, thanks to God, and I hope will continue so as long as, dear Katy, your affectionate friend, B. FRANKLIN." [8] We are informed by Franklin in the _Autobiography_ that he inserted on one page of his "little book" a "scheme of employment for the twenty-four hours of a natural day." The opening injunction of this plan of conduct brings the wash-basin and the altar into rather amusing juxtaposition: "Rise, wash, and address _Powerful Goodness_!" CHAPTER III Franklin, the Philanthropist and Citizen It may be that, if Franklin had asked the angel, who made the room of Abou Ben Adhem rich, and like a lily in bloom, whether his name was among the names of those who loved the Lord, the angel might have replied: "Nay not so"; but there can be no question that like Ben Adhem Franklin could with good right have added, "I pray thee then, Write me as one that loves his fellow-men." As we have said, the desire to promote the welfare of his fellow-creatures was the real religion of his life--a zealous, constant religion which began with his early manhood and ceased only with his end. This fact reveals itself characteristically in a letter written by him to his wife just after he had narrowly escaped shipwreck off Falmouth Harbor on his second voyage to England. "Were I a Roman Catholic," he said, "perhaps I should on this occasion vow to build a chapel to some saint; but as I am not, if I were to vow at all, it should be to build a _light house_." The weaker side of human character was, in all its aspects, manifest enough to his humorous perceptions. In an amusing paragraph in the _Autobiography_, he tells us how once in his youth he irresolutely adhered to his vegetarian scruples, even when his nose was filled with the sweet savor of frying fish, until he recollected that he had seen some smaller fish removed from their stomachs. Then thought he, "If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you." "So convenient a thing," he adds, "it is to be a _reasonable creature_, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do." On another occasion, he was so disgusted with the workings of human reason as to regret that we had not been furnished with a sound, sensible instinct instead. At intervals, the sly humor dies away into something like real, heartfelt censure of his kind, especially when he reflects upon the baleful state of eclipse into which human happiness passes when overcast by war. Among other reasons, he hated war, because he deprecated everything that tended to check the multiplication of the human species which he was almost ludicrously eager to encourage. No writer, not even Malthus, who was very deeply indebted to him, has ever had a keener insight into the philosophy of population, and no man has ever been a more enthusiastic advocate of the social arrangements which furnish the results for the application of this philosophy. In one of her letters to him, we find his daughter, Sally, saying: "As I know my dear Papa likes to hear of weddings, I will give him a list of my acquaintance that has entered the matrimonial state since his departure." And in one of his letters to his wife, when he was in England on his first mission, he wrote: "The Accounts you give me of the Marriages of our friends are very agreeable. I love to hear of everything that tends to increase the Number of good People."[9] The one thing in French customs that appears to have met with his disapproval was the inclination of French mothers to escape the burdens of maternity. In a letter to George Whatley, he ventured the conjecture that in the year 1785 only one out of every two infants born in Paris was being nursed by its own mother. Is it right [he asked] to encourage this monstrous Deficiency of natural Affection? A Surgeon I met with here excused the Women of Paris, by saying, seriously, that they _could not_ give suck; "_Car," dit il, "Elles n'ont point de tetons._" ("For," said he, "They have no teats.") He assur'd me it was a Fact, and bade me look at them, and observe how flat they were on the Breast; "they have nothing more there," said he, "than I have upon the Back of my hand." I have since thought that there might be some Truth in his Observation, and that, possibly, Nature, finding they made no use of Bubbies, has left off giving them any. I wish Success to the new Project of assisting the Poor to keep their Children at home [Franklin adds later in this letter] because I think there is no Nurse like a Mother (or not many), and that, if Parents did not immediately send their Infants out of their Sight, they would in a few days begin to love them, and thence be spurr'd to greater Industry for their Maintenance. Among his most delightful observations are these on marriage in a letter to John Sargent: The Account you give me of your Family is pleasing, except that your eldest Son continues so long unmarried. I hope he does not intend to live and die in Celibacy. The Wheel of Life, that has roll'd down to him from Adam without Interruption, should not stop with him. I would not have one dead unbearing Branch in the Genealogical Tree of the Sargents. The married State is, after all our Jokes, the happiest, being conformable to our natures. Man & Woman have each of them Qualities & Tempers, in which the other is deficient, and which in Union contribute to the common Felicity. Single and separate, they are not the compleat human Being; they are like the odd Halves of Scissors; they cannot answer the End of their Formation. Equally delightful are his observations upon the same subject in a letter to John Alleyne after Alleyne's marriage: Had you consulted me, as a Friend, on the Occasion, Youth on both sides I should not have thought any Objection. Indeed, from the matches that have fallen under my Observation, I am rather inclin'd to think, that early ones stand the best Chance for Happiness. The Tempers and habits of young People are not yet become so stiff and uncomplying, as when more advanced in Life; they form more easily to each other, and hence many Occasions of Disgust are removed. And if Youth has less of that Prudence, that is necessary to conduct a Family, yet the Parents and elder Friends of young married Persons are generally at hand to afford their Advice, which amply supplies that Defect; and, by early Marriage, Youth is sooner form'd to regular and useful Life; and possibly some of those Accidents, Habits or Connections, that might have injured either the Constitution, or the Reputation, or both, are thereby happily prevented. Particular Circumstances of particular Persons may possibly sometimes make it prudent to delay entering into that State; but in general, when Nature has render'd our Bodies fit for it, the Presumption is in Nature's Favour, that she has not judg'd amiss in making us desire it. Late Marriages are often attended, too, with this further Inconvenience, that there is not the same Chance the parents shall live to see their offspring educated. "_Late Children_," says the Spanish Proverb, "_are early Orphans._" A melancholy Reflection to those, whose Case it may be! With us in America, Marriages are generally in the Morning of Life; our Children are therefore educated and settled in the World by Noon, and thus, our Business being done, we have an Afternoon and Evening of chearful Leisure to ourselves; such as your Friend at present enjoys. By these early Marriages we are blest with more Children; and from the Mode among us, founded in Nature, of every Mother suckling and nursing her own Child, more of them are raised. Thence the swift Progress of Population among us, unparallel'd in Europe. Then, after speaking of the fate of many in England who, having deferred marriage too long, find at length that it is too late to think of it, and so live all their lives in a situation that greatly lessens a man's value, he comes back to what seems to have been a favorite course of illustration of his in relation to marriage. "An odd Volume of a Set of Books you know is not worth its proportion of the Set, and what think you of the Usefulness of an odd Half of a Pair of Scissors? It can not well cut anything. It may possibly serve to scrape a Trencher." With these views about marriage, it is not surprising to find Franklin employing in a letter to Joseph Priestley such language about war as this: Men I find to be a Sort of Beings very badly constructed, as they are generally more easily provok'd than reconcil'd, more disposed to do Mischief to each other than to make Reparation, much more easily deceiv'd than undeceiv'd, and having more Pride and even Pleasure in killing than in begetting one another; for without a Blush they assemble in great armies at Noon-Day to destroy, and when they have kill'd as many as they can, they exaggerate the Number to augment the fancied Glory; but they creep into Corners, or cover themselves with the Darkness of night, when they mean to beget, as being asham'd of a virtuous Action. A virtuous Action it would be, and a vicious one the killing of them, if the Species were really worth producing or preserving; but of this I begin to doubt. In the same letter, he suggests to the celebrated clergyman and philosopher to whom he was writing that perhaps as the latter grew older he might look upon the saving of souls as a hopeless project or an idle amusement, repent of having murdered in mephitic air so many honest, harmless mice, and wish that to prevent mischief he had used boys and girls instead of them.[10] Nor are these by any means the only sentences in Franklin's writings in which he expressed his disgust for the human passions which breed war. A frequently repeated saying of his was that there hardly ever existed such a thing as a bad peace or a good war. "All Wars," he declared to Mrs. Mary Hewson, after the establishment of peace between Great Britain and her revolted colonies, "are Follies, very expensive, and very mischievous ones. When will Mankind be convinced of this, and agree to settle their Differences by Arbitration? Were they to do it, even by the Cast of a Dye, it would be better than by Fighting and destroying each other." I join with you most cordially [he wrote six months later to Sir Joseph Banks] in rejoicing at the return of Peace. I hope it will be lasting, and that Mankind will at length, as they call themselves reasonable Creatures, have Reason and Sense enough to settle their Differences without cutting Throats; for, in my opinion, _there never was a good War, or a bad Peace_. What vast additions to the Conveniences and Comforts of Living might Mankind have acquired, if the Money spent in Wars had been employed in Works of public utility! What an extension of Agriculture, even to the Tops of our Mountains: what Rivers rendered navigable, or joined by Canals: what Bridges, Aqueducts, new Roads, and other public Works, Edifices, and Improvements, rendering England a compleat Paradise, might have been obtained by spending those Millions in doing good, which in the last War have been spent in doing Mischief; in bringing Misery into thousands of Families, and destroying the Lives of so many thousands of working people, who might have performed the useful labor! The same sentiments are repeated in a letter to David Hartley: What would you think of a proposition, if I sh'd make it, of a family compact between England, France and America? America wd be as happy as the Sabine Girls, if she cd be the means of uniting in perpetual peace her father and her husband. What repeated follies are these repeated wars! You do not want to conquer & govern one another. Why then sh'd you continually be employed in injuring & destroying one another? How many excellent things might have been done to promote the internal welfare of each country; What Bridges, roads, canals and other usefull public works & institutions, tending to the common felicity, might have been made and established with the money and men foolishly spent during the last seven centuries by our mad wars in doing one another mischief! You are near neighbors, and each have very respectable qualities. Learn to be quiet and to respect each other's rights. You are all Christians. One is _The Most Christian King_, and the other _Defender of the Faith_. Manifest the propriety of these titles by your future conduct. "By this," says Christ, "shall all men know that ye are my Disciples, if ye love one another." "Seek peace, and ensue it." We make daily great Improvements in _Natural_, there is one I wish to see in _Moral_ Philosophy [he wrote to Richard Price] the Discovery of a Plan, that would induce & oblige Nations to settle their Disputes without first Cutting one another's Throats. When will human Reason be sufficiently improv'd to see the Advantage of this! The aspiration is again voiced in a letter to Joseph Priestley: The rapid Progress _true_ Science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon. It is impossible to imagine the Height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the Power of Man over Matter. We may perhaps learn to deprive large Masses of their Gravity, and give them absolute Levity, for the sake of easy Transport. Agriculture may diminish its Labour and double its Produce; all Diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured, not excepting even that of Old Age, and our Lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian Standard. O that moral Science were in as fair a way of Improvement, that Men would cease to be Wolves to one another, and that human Beings would at length learn what they now improperly call Humanity! Mixed with Franklin's other feelings about war, as we have seen, was a profound sense of its pecuniary wastefulness. It was the greediest of all rat-holes, an agency of impoverishment worse even than the four specified in Poor Richard's couplet, "Women and Wine, Game and Deceit, Make the Wealth small and the Wants great." When [he asked Benjamin Vaughan] will princes learn arithmetic enough to calculate, if they want pieces of one another's territory, how much cheaper it would be to buy them, than to make war for them, even though they were to give a hundred year's purchase? But, if glory cannot be valued, and therefore the wars for it cannot be subject to arithmetical calculation so as to show their advantage or disadvantage, at least wars for trade, which have gain for their object, may be proper subjects for such computation; and a trading nation, as well as a single trader, ought to calculate the probabilities of profit and loss, before engaging in any considerable adventure. This however nations seldom do, and we have had frequent instances of their spending more money in wars for acquiring or securing branches of commerce, than a hundred years' profit or the full enjoyment of them can compensate. A celebrated philosophical writer, Franklin said in the _Propositions Relative to Privateering_, which he communicated to Richard Oswald, had remarked that, when he considered the destruction to human life, caused by the slave trade, so intimately connected with the industry of the sugar islands, he could scarce look on a morsel of sugar without conceiving it spotted with human blood. If this writer, Franklin added, had considered also the blood of one another which the white nations had shed in fighting for these islands, "he would have imagined his sugar not as spotted only, but as thoroughly dyed red." As for Franklin himself, he was satisfied that the subjects of the Emperor of Germany and the Empress of Russia, who had no sugar islands, consumed sugar cheaper at Vienna and Moscow, with all the charge of transporting it after its arrival in Europe, than the citizens of London or of Paris. "And I sincerely believe," he declared, "that if France and England were to decide, by throwing dice, which should have the whole of their sugar islands, the loser in the throw would be the gainer." The future expense of defending the islands would be saved, the sugar would be bought cheaper by all Europe, if the inhabitants of the islands might make it without interruption, and, whoever imported it, the same revenue might be raised by duties on it at the custom houses of the nation that consumed it. "You know," Franklin observed in his famous letter to his daughter Sally on the Order of the Cincinnati, "everything makes me recollect some Story." As respects war, the inevitable story turned up in one of his letters to Priestley: In what Light [he said] we are viewed by superior Beings, may be gathered from a Piece of late West India News, which possibly has not yet reached you. A young Angel of Distinction being sent down to this world on some Business, for the first time, had an old courier-spirit assigned him as a Guide. They arriv'd over the Seas of Martinico, in the middle of the long Day of obstinate Fight between the Fleets of Rodney and De Grasse. When, thro' the Clouds of smoke, he saw the Fire of the Guns, the Decks covered with mangled Limbs, and Bodies dead or dying; the ships sinking, burning, or blown into the Air; and the Quantity of Pain, Misery, and Destruction, the Crews yet alive were thus with so much Eagerness dealing round to one another; he turn'd angrily to his Guide, and said: "You blundering Blockhead, you are ignorant of your Business; you undertook to conduct me to the Earth, and you have brought me into Hell!" "No, sir," says the Guide, "I have made no mistake; this is really the Earth, and these are men. Devils never treat one another in this cruel manner; they have more Sense, and more of what Men (vainly) call _Humanity_." But how little acrid misanthropy there was in this lurid story or in any of the indignant utterances occasionally wrung from Franklin by the sanguinary tendencies of the human race is clearly seen in this very letter; for, after working up his story to its opprobrious climax, he falls back to the genial level of his ordinary disposition: But to be serious, my dear old Friend [he adds], I love you as much as ever, and I love all the honest Souls that meet at the London Coffee-House. I only wonder how it happen'd that they and my other Friends in England came to be such good Creatures in the midst of so perverse a Generation. I long to see them and you once more, and I labour for Peace with more Earnestness, that I may again be happy in your sweet society. The truth is that Franklin was no Timon of Athens, and no such thing as lasting misanthropy could find lodgment in that earth-born and earth-loving nature which fitted into the world as smoothly as its own grass, its running water, or its fruitful plains. If for many generations there has been any man, whose pronouncement, _Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto_, was capable of clothing that trite phrase with its original freshness, this man was Franklin. The day, when the word went out in the humble Milk Street dwelling of his father that another man child was born, was a day that he never regretted; the long years of rational and useful existence which followed he was willing, as has been told, to live all over again, if he could only enjoy the author's privilege of correcting in the second edition the _errata_ of the first; in his declining years he could still find satisfaction in the fact that he was afflicted with only three mortal diseases; and during his last twelve months, when he was confined for the most part to his bed, and, in his paroxysms of pain, was obliged to take large doses of laudanum to mitigate his tortures, his fortitude was such as to elicit this striking tribute from his physician, Dr. John Jones: In the intervals of pain, he not only amused himself with reading and conversing cheerfully with his family, and a few friends who visited him, but was often employed in doing business of a public as well as private nature, with various persons who waited on him for that purpose; and, in every instance displayed, not only that readiness and disposition of doing good, which was the distinguishing characteristic of his life, but the fullest and clearest possession of his uncommon mental abilities; and not unfrequently indulged himself in those _jeux d'esprit_ and entertaining anecdotes, which were the delight of all who heard him. To the very last his wholesome, sunny spirit was proof against every morbid trial. Dr. Jones tells us further that, even during his closing days, when the severity of his pain drew forth a groan of complaint, he would observe that he was afraid that he did not bear his sufferings as he ought, acknowledged his grateful sense of the many blessings he had received from that Supreme Being who had raised him from small and low beginnings to such high rank and consideration among men, and made no doubt but his present afflictions were kindly intended to wean him from a world, in which he was no longer fit to act the part assigned to him. It is plain enough that in practice as well as in precept to Franklin life was ever a welcome gift to be enjoyed so long as corporeal infirmities permit it to be enjoyed, and to be surrendered, when the ends of its institution can no longer be fulfilled, as naturally as we surrender consciousness when we turn into our warmer beds and give ourselves over to our shorter slumbers. The spirit in which he lived is reflected in the concluding paragraph of his _Articles of Belief_ in which, with the refrain, "Good God, I thank thee!" at the end of every paragraph except the last, and, with the words, "My Good God, I thank thee!" at the end of the last, he expresses his gratitude to this God for peace and liberty, for food and raiment, for corn and wine and milk and every kind of healthful nourishment, for the common benefits of air and light, for useful fire and delicious water, for knowledge and literature and every useful art, for his friends and _their_ prosperity, and for the fewness of his enemies, for all the innumerable benefits conferred on him by the Deity, for life and reason and the use of speech, for health and joy and every pleasant hour. Those thanks for his friends and _their_ prosperity was Franklin indeed at his best. On the other hand, the spirit in which he regarded and met the hour of his dissolution is vividly reflected in the lines written by him in his seventy-ninth year: "If Life's compared to a Feast, Near Four-score Years I've been a Guest; I've been regaled with the best, And feel quite satisfyd. 'Tis time that I retire to Rest; Landlord, I thank ye!--Friends, Good Night." These lines, unsteady upon their poetic feet as they are like all of Franklin's lines, may perhaps be pronounced the best that he ever wrote, but they are not so good as his celebrated epitaph written many years before when the hour at the inn of existence was not so late: "The Body of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN Printer, (Like the cover of an old book, Its contents torn out, And stript of its lettering and gilding,) Lies here, food for worms. Yet the work itself shall not be lost, For it will, as he believed, appear once more, In a new And more beautiful edition, Corrected and amended By The Author." So far as we can see, the only quarrel that Franklin had with existence was that he was born too soon to witness many important human achievements, which the future had in store. He was prepared to quit the world quietly when he was duly summoned to do so. The artist who was to paint his portrait for Yale College, he said a few days before his death to Ezra Stiles, must not delay about it, as his subject might slip through his fingers; but it was impossible for such an inquisitive man to repress the wish that, after his decease, he might be permitted to revisit the globe for the purpose of enjoying the inventions and improvements which had come into existence during his absence: the locomotive, the steamship, the Morse and Marconi telegraphs, the telephone, the autocar, the aeroplane, the abolition of American slavery, Twentieth Century London, Paris and New York. I have been long impressed [he said in his eighty-third year to the Rev. John Lathrop] with the same sentiments you so well express, of the growing felicity of mankind, from the improvements in philosophy, morals, politics, and even the conveniences of common living, by the invention and acquisition of new and useful utensils and instruments, that I have sometimes almost wished it had been my destiny to be born two or three centuries hence. For invention and improvement are prolific, and beget more of their kind. The present progress is rapid. Many of great importance, now unthought of, will before that period be produced; and then I might not only enjoy their advantages, but have my curiosity gratified in knowing what they are to be. I see a little absurdity in what I have just written, but it is to a friend, who will wink and let it pass, while I mention one reason more for such a wish, which is, that, if the art of physic shall be improved in proportion with other arts, we may then be able to avoid diseases, and live as long as the patriarchs in Genesis; to which I suppose we should make little objection. Such complete adjustment to all the conditions of human existence, even the harshest, as Franklin exhibited, would, under any circumstances, be an admirable and inspiring thing; but it becomes still more so when we recollect that he prized life mainly for the opportunity that it afforded him to do good. To his own country he rendered services of priceless importance, but it would be utterly misleading to think of him as anything less--to use a much abused term of his time--than a Friend of Man. "Il est ... Surtout pour sa philanthropie, L'honneur de l'Amérique, et de l'humanité." That was what one of his French eulogists sang, and that is what his contemporaries generally felt, about him, and said of him with a thousand and one different variations. It was the general belief of his age that his enlightened intelligence and breadth of charity placed him upon a plateau from which his vision ranged over the wants, the struggles and the aberrations of his fellow beings everywhere, altogether unrefracted by self-interest or national prejudices. He might have scores to settle with Princes, Ministers, Parliaments or Priests, but for the race he had nothing but light and love and compassion. To the poor he was the strong, shrewd, wise man who had broken through the hard incrustations of his own poverty, and preached sound counsels of prudence and thrift as general in their application as the existence of human indigence and folly. To the liberal aspirations of his century, he represented, to use his own figure, the light which all the window-shutters of despotism and priest-craft were powerless to shut out longer. To men of all kinds his benevolent interest in so many different forms in the welfare and progress of human society, his efforts to assuage the ferocity of war, the very rod, with which he disarmed the fury of the storm-cloud, seemed to mark him as a benignant being, widely removed by his sagacity and goodness from the short-sighted and selfish princes and statesmen of his day whose thoughts and aims appeared to be wholly centred upon intrigue and blood. It was in perfect sincerity that Edmund Burke appealed to Franklin not only as a friend but as the "lover of his species" to assist him in protecting the parole of General Burgoyne. How well he knew the man may be inferred from his declaration, when it was suggested that selfish considerations of personal safety had brought Franklin to France. "I never can believe," he said, "that he is come thither as a fugitive from his cause in the hour of its distress, or that he is going to conclude a long life, which has brightened every hour it has continued, with so foul and dishonorable flight." If Franklin is not mistaken, his career as a lover of his species can be traced back to a very early circumstance. In one of his letters, in his old age, to Samuel Mather, the descendant of Increase and Cotton Mather, he states that a mutilated copy of Cotton Mather's _Essays to do Good_, which fell in his way when he was a boy, had influenced his conduct through life, and that, if he had been a useful citizen, the public was indebted for the fact to this book. "I have always set a greater value on the character of a _doer of good_, than on any other kind of reputation," he remarks in the letter. "The noblest question in the world," said Poor Richard, "is what good may I do in it." But, no matter how or when the chance seed was sown, it fell upon ground eager to receive it. It was an observation of Franklin that the quantity of good that may be done by one man, if he will make a business of doing good, is prodigious. The saying in its various forms presupposed the sacrifice of all studies, amusements and avocations. No such self-immolation, it is needless to affirm, marked his versatile and happy career, yet rarely has any single person, whose attention has been engaged by other urgent business besides that of mankind, ever furnished such a pointed example of the truth of the observation. The first project of a public nature organized by him was the Junto, a project of which he received the hint from the Neighborhood Benefit Societies, established by Cotton Mather, who, it would be an egregious error to suppose, did nothing in his life but hound hapless wretches to death for witchcraft. The Junto founded by Franklin, when he was a journeyman printer, about twenty-one years of age, was primarily an association for mutual improvement. It met every Friday evening, and its rules, which were drafted by him, required every member in turn to produce one or more queries on some point of morals, politics or natural philosophy, to be discussed by its members, and once every three months to produce and read an essay of his own writing on any subject he pleased. Under the regulations, the debates were to be conducted with a presiding officer in the chair, and in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth without fondness for dispute or desire for victory. Dogmatism and direct contradiction were made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties. With a few rough strokes Franklin etches to the life in the _Autobiography_ all the first members of the association. We linger just now only on his portrait of Thomas Godfrey, "a self-taught mathematician, great in his way, and afterward inventor of what is now called Hadley's Quadrant. But he knew little out of his way, and was not a pleasing companion; as, like most great mathematicians I have met with, he expected universal precision in everything said, or was forever denying or distinguishing upon trifles, to the disturbance of all conversation. He soon left us." All of the first members except Robert Grace, a young gentleman of some fortune, derived their livelihood from the simple pursuits of a small provincial town, but all in one way or another were under the spell exerted by a love of reading, or something else outside of the dull treadmill of daily necessity. From the number of journeymen mechanics in it the Junto came to be known in Philadelphia as the Leathern Apron Club. An applicant for initiation had to stand up and declare, with one hand laid upon his breast, that he had "no particular disrespect" for any member of the Junto; that he loved mankind in general, of whatsoever profession or religion; that he thought no person ought to be harmed in his body, name or goods for mere speculative opinion, or for his external way of worship, that he loved the truth for the truth's sake, and would endeavor impartially to find and receive it, and communicate it to others. In all this the spirit of Franklin is manifest enough. Quite as manifest, too, is the spirit of Franklin in the twenty-four standing queries which were read at every weekly meeting with "a pause between each while one might fill and drink a glass of wine," and which propounded the following interrogatories: Have you read over these queries this morning, in order to consider what you might have to offer the Junto touching any one of them viz:? 1. Have you met with anything in the author you last read, remarkable, or suitable to be communicated to the Junto, particularly in history, morality, poetry, physic, travels, mechanic arts, or other parts of knowledge? 2. What new story have you lately heard agreeable for telling in conversation? 3. Hath any citizen in your knowledge failed in his business lately, and what have you heard of the cause? 4. Have you lately heard of any citizen's thriving well, and by what means? 5. Have you lately heard how any present rich man, here or elsewhere, got his estate? 6. Do you know of a fellow-citizen, who has lately done a worthy action, deserving praise and imitation; or who has lately committed an error, proper for us to be warned against and avoid? 7. What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately observed or heard; of imprudence, of passion, or of any other vice or folly? 8. What happy effects of temperance, prudence, of moderation, or of any other virtue? 9. Have you or any of your acquaintance been lately sick or wounded? if so, what remedies were used, and what were their effects? 10. Whom do you know that are shortly going voyages or journeys, if one should have occasion to send by them? 11. Do you think of anything at present, in which the Junto may be serviceable to _mankind_, to their country, to their friends, or to themselves? 12. Hath any deserving stranger arrived in town since last meeting, that you have heard of?; and what have you heard or observed of his character or merits?; and whether, think you, it lies in the power of the Junto to oblige him, or encourage him as he deserves? 13. Do you know of any deserving young beginner lately set up, whom it lies in the power of the Junto anyway to encourage? 14. Have you lately observed any defect in the laws of your _country_, of which it would be proper to move the legislature for an amendment?; or do you know of any beneficial law that is wanting? 15. Have you lately observed any encroachment on the just liberties of the people? 16. Hath anybody attacked your reputation lately?; and what can the Junto do towards securing it? 17. Is there any man whose friendship you want, and which the Junto, or any of them, can procure for you? 18. Have you lately heard any member's character attacked, and how have you defended it? 19. Hath any man injured you, from whom it is in the power of the Junto to procure redress? 20. In what manner can the Junto or any of them, assist you in any of your honorable designs? 21. Have you any weighty affair on hand in which you think the advice of the Junto may be of service? 22. What benefits have you lately received from any man not present? 23. Is there any difficulty in matters of opinion, of justice, and injustice, which you would gladly have discussed at this time? 24. Do you see anything amiss in the present customs or proceedings of the Junto, which might be amended? These queries render it obvious that the Junto in actual operation far transcended the scope of a mere association for mutual improvement. Such a strong desire was entertained by its members to bring their friends into it that Franklin finally suggested that each member should organize a separate club, secretly subordinate to the parent body, and in this way help to extend the sphere of the Junto's usefulness; and this suggestion was followed by the formation of five or six such clubs with such names as the Vine, the Union and the Band, which, as time went on, became centres of agitation for the promotion of public aims. Cotton Mather would scarcely have regarded a club with such liberal principles as the Junto as an improvement upon its prototype, the Neighborhood Benefit Society. But, between the answers to the standing queries of the Junto, its essays, its debates, the declamations, which were also features of its exercises, the jolly songs sung at its annual meeting, and its monthly meetings during mild weather "across the river for bodily exercise," it must have been an agreeable and instructive club indeed. It lasted nearly forty years, and "was," Franklin claims in the _Autobiography_, "the best school of philosophy, morality and politics that then existed in the province." A book, in which he entered memoranda of various kinds in regard to it, shows that he followed its proceedings with the keenest interest. Is self interest the rudder that steers mankind?; can a man arrive at perfection in this life?; does it not, in a general way, require great study and intense application for a poor man to become rich and powerful, if he would do it without the forfeiture of his honesty?; why does the flame of a candle tend upward in a spire?; whence comes the dew that stands on the outside of a tankard that has cold water in it in the summer time? --such are some of the questions, thoroughly racy of Franklin in his youth, which are shown by this book to have been framed by him for the Junto. After the association had been under way for a time, he suggested that all the books, owned by its members, should be assembled at the room, in which its meetings were held, for convenience of reference in discussion, and so that each member might have the benefit of the volumes belonging to every other member almost as fully as if they belonged to himself. The suggestion was assented to, and one end of the room was filled with such books as the members could spare; but the arrangement did not work well in practice and was soon abandoned. No sooner, however, did this idea die down than another shot up from its stump. This was the subscription library, now the Philadelphia City Library, founded by Franklin. In the _Autobiography_, he speaks of this library as his first project of a public nature; but it seems to us, as we have already said, that the distinction fairly belongs to the Junto. He brought the project to the attention of the public through formal articles of association, and, by earnest efforts in an unlettered community, which, moreover, had little money to spare for any such enterprise, induced fifty persons, mostly young tradesmen, to subscribe forty shillings each as a contribution to a foundation fund for the first purchase of books, and ten shillings more annually as a contribution for additional volumes. Later, the association was incorporated. It was while soliciting subscriptions at this time that Franklin was taught by the objections or reserve with which his approaches were met the "impropriety of presenting one's self as the proposer of any useful project, that might be suppos'd to raise one's reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's neighbors, when one has need of their assistance to accomplish that project." He, therefore, kept out of sight as much as possible, and represented the scheme as that of a number of friends who had requested him to submit it to such persons as they thought lovers of reading. This kind of self effacement was attended with such happy consequences that he never failed to adopt it subsequently upon similar occasions. From his successful experience, he says in the _Autobiography_, he could heartily recommend it. "The present little sacrifice of your vanity," to use his own words, "will afterwards be amply repaid. If it remains a while uncertain to whom the merit belongs, some one more vain than yourself will be encouraged to claim it, and then even envy will be disposed to do you justice by plucking those assumed feathers, and restoring them to their right owner." Alexander Wedderburn's famous philippic, of which we shall have something to say further on, did not consist altogether of misapplied adjectives. Franklin _was_ at times the "wily American," but usually for the purpose of improving the condition of his fellow creatures in spite of themselves. The library, once established, grew apace. From time to time, huge folios and quartos were added to it by purchase or donation, from which nobody profited more than Franklin himself with his insatiable avidity for knowledge. The first purchase of books for it was made by Peter Collinson of London, who threw in with the purchase as presents from himself Newton's _Principia_ and the _Gardener's Dictionary_, and continued for thirty years to act as the purchasing agent of the institution, accompanying each additional purchase with additional presents from himself. Evidence is not wanting that the first arrival of books was awaited with eager expectancy. Among Franklin's memoranda with regard to the Junto we find the following: "When the books of the library come, every member shall undertake some author, that he may not be without observations to communicate." When the books finally came, they were placed in the assembly room of the Junto; a librarian was selected, and the library was thrown open once a week for the distribution of books. The second year Franklin himself acted as librarian, and for printing a catalogue of the first books shortly after their arrival, and for other printing services, he was exempted from the payment of his annual ten shillings for two years. Among the numerous donations of money, books and curiosities made to the library, were gifts of books and electrical apparatus by Thomas Penn, and the gift of an electrical tube, with directions for its use, by Peter Collinson, which proved of incalculable value to science in the hands of Franklin who promptly turned it to experimental purposes. When Peter Kalm, the Swedish naturalist, was in Philadelphia in 1748, "many little libraries," organized on the same plan as the original library, had sprung from it. Non-subscribers were then allowed to take books out of it, subject to pledges of indemnity sufficient to cover their value, and to the payment for the use of a folio of eight pence a week, for the use of a quarto of six pence, and for the use of any other book of four pence. Kalm, as a distinguished stranger, was allowed the use of any book in the collection free of charge. In 1764, the shares of the library company were worth nearly twenty pounds, and its collections were then believed to have a value of seventeen hundred pounds. In 1785, the number of volumes was 5487; in 1807, 14,457; in 1861, 70,000; and in 1912, 237,677. After overflowing more contracted quarters, the contents of the library have finally found a home in a handsome building at the northwest corner of Locust and Juniper Streets and in the Ridgway Branch Building at the corner of Broad and Christian Streets. But, never, it is safe to say, will this library, enlarged and efficiently administered as it is, perform such an invaluable service as it did in its earlier years. "This," Franklin declares in the _Autobiography_, "was the mother of all the North American subscription libraries, now so numerous. It is become a great thing itself, and continually increasing. These libraries have improved the general conversation of the Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and perhaps have contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the colonies in defence of their privileges." Franklin next turned his attention to the reform of the city watch. Under the existing system, it was supervised by the different constables of the different wards of Philadelphia in turn. The Dogberry in charge would warn a number of householders to attend him for the night. Such householders as desired to be wholly exempt from the service could secure exemption by paying him six shillings a year, which was supposed to be expended by him in hiring substitutes, but the fund accumulated in this way was much more than was necessary for the purpose and rendered the constableship a position of profit. Often the ragamuffins gathered up by a constable as his aids were quite willing to act as such for no reward except a little drink. The consequence was that his underlings were for the most part tippling when they should have been moving around on their beats. Altogether, they seem to have been men who would not have been slow to heed the older Dogberry's advice to his watchmen that, if one of them bid a vagrom man stand, and he did not stand, to take no note of him, but to let him go, and presently call the rest of the watch together and thank God that he was rid of a knave. To this situation Franklin addressed himself by writing a paper for the Junto, not only setting forth the abuses of the existing system but insisting upon its injustice in imposing the same six shilling tax upon a poor widow, whose whole property to be guarded by the watch did not perhaps exceed the value of fifty pounds, as upon the wealthiest merchant who had thousands of pounds' worth of goods in his stores. His proposal was the creation of a permanent paid police to be maintained by an equal, proportional property tax. The idea was duly approved by the Junto, and communicated to its affiliated clubs, as if it had arisen in each of them, and, though it was not immediately carried into execution, yet the popular agitation, which ensued over it, paved the way for a law providing for it which was enacted a few years afterwards, when the Junto and the other clubs had acquired more popular influence. About the same time, the same indefatigable propagandist wrote for the Junto a paper, which was subsequently published, on the different accidents and defaults by which houses were set on fire, with warnings against them, and suggestions as to how they might be averted. There was much public talk about it, and a company of thirty persons was soon formed, under the name of the Union Fire Company, for the purpose of more effectively extinguishing fires, and removing and protecting goods endangered by them. Under its articles of agreement, every member was obliged to keep always in good order, and fit for use, a certain number of leather buckets, with strong bags and baskets for transporting goods, which were to be brought to every fire; and it was further agreed that the members of the company were to meet once a month and spend a social evening together in the discussion and interchange of such useful ideas as occurred to them upon the subject of fires. The formation of this company led to the formation of one company after another until the associations became so numerous as to include most of the inhabitants of Philadelphia who were men of property. It was still flourishing more than fifty years after its establishment, when its history was narrated in the _Autobiography_, and Franklin and one other person, a year older than himself, were the only survivors of its original members. The small fines, paid by its members as penalties for absence from its monthly meetings, had been used to such advantage in the purchase of fire-engines, ladders, fire-hooks and other useful implements for the different companies that Franklin then questioned whether there was a city in the world better provided than Philadelphia with the means for repressing incipient conflagrations. Indeed, he said, since the establishment of these companies, the city had never lost by fire more than one or two houses at a time; and often flames were extinguished before the house they threatened had been half consumed. "Ideas will string themselves like Ropes of Onions," Franklin once declared. This was certainly true of the plans which his public spirit devised for the improvement of Philadelphia. The next thing to which his hand was turned was the creation of an academy. In 1743, he drew up a proposal for one, but, being disappointed in his efforts to persuade the Reverend Mr. Peters to act as its head, he let the project lie dormant for a time. While it remained so, remembering Poor Richard's maxim that leisure is time for doing something useful, he passed to the organization of a system of military defenses for the Province and the founding of a Philosophical Society. Of the former task we shall speak hereafter. The latter was initiated by a circular letter from him to his various learned friends in the Northern Colonies, proposing the formation of a society for the purpose of promoting a commerce of speculation, discovery and experimentation between its members with regard to scientific interests of every sort. A correspondence with the Royal Society of London and the Dublin Society and "all philosophical experiments that let light into the nature of things, tend to increase the power of man over matter, and multiply the conveniences or pleasures of life" were among the things held out in the proposal. Colonial America was far more favorable to practical activity than to philosophical investigation, but the society, nevertheless, performed an office of no little usefulness. When Franklin built a new wing to his residence in Philadelphia, after his return from Paris, he provided a large apartment on the first floor of this addition for the accommodation of the American Philosophical Society into which this Society had been merged. When he made his will, he was the President of the new society, and he bequeathed to it his _History of the Academy of Sciences_, in sixty or seventy volumes quarto; and, when he died, one of its members, Dr. William Smith, pronounced an eulogy upon his character and services. The wing of his house, in which space was set apart for the society, was itself, in its precautions against fire, one worthy of a vigilant and enlightened philosopher. None of the woodwork of one room, for instance, communicated with the woodwork of any other. Franklin thought, however, that the staircases should have been of stone, and the floors tiled as in Paris; and that the roof should have been either tiled or slated.[11] When the Philosophical Society of his early life had been founded, and the restoration of peace between Great Britain and her enemies had diverted his mind from his plans for the military protection of Philadelphia, he turned again to the slumbering Academy. His first step was to secure the assistance of a considerable number of active friends, of whom the Junto furnished a good part, and his next to write and publish a pamphlet entitled _Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania_. In this pamphlet he was careful, as usual, to bring his aim forward rather as that of a group of public-spirited gentlemen than of himself. It was distributed gratuitously among the most prominent citizens of Philadelphia, and, as soon as he thought that their minds had been reduced to a receptive condition by its appeal, he solicited subscriptions for the establishment and maintenance of the Academy, payable in five annual instalments. Four thousand pounds were subscribed, and Franklin and Tench Francis, the attorney-general of the province, and the uncle of Sir Philip Francis, of Junius fame, were appointed by the subscribers to draw up a constitution for the government of the foundation. This was drafted and signed; a house was hired, masters were engaged, and the institution was promptly opened. So fast did the scholars increase that need was soon felt for a larger school-edifice. This was happily found in the great building which had sprung up at the sound of Whitefield's voice as if at the sound of Amphion's lyre. By an arrangement between the Trustees for the building, of whom Franklin was one, and the Trustees for the Academy, of whom Franklin was also one, the building was deeded to the latter Trustees, upon the condition that they would discharge the indebtedness with which it was burdened, keep forever open in it a large hall for occasional preachers, according to the original intent of its builders, and maintain a free school for the instruction of poor children. With some internal changes, and the purchase of an addition to its site, the edifice was soon, under the superintendence of Franklin, made ready for the use of the Academy. Afterwards, the Trustees for the Academy were incorporated, and the institution received various donations from British friends, the Proprietaries and the Provincial Assembly, and, finally, grew into the University of Pennsylvania. Franklin was one of its Trustees for more than forty years, and had, he says in the _Autobiography_, the very great pleasure of seeing a number of the youth, who had received their education in it, distinguished by their improved abilities, serviceable in public stations and ornaments to their country. In none of his creations did Franklin display a keener interest than in the Academy. From its inception until he embarked upon his second voyage to England, his correspondence contains frequent references to it. One of his most earnest desires was to secure the celebrated Episcopal clergyman, Dr. Samuel Johnson, of Connecticut, afterwards the president of King's College, New York, as its Rector. A salary of one hundred pounds sterling per annum, the opportunity to deliver a lecture now and then in the large hall, set apart for what might in our day be called "tramp" preachers, until he could collect a congregation strong enough to build him a church, the usual marriage and christening fees, paid by persons of the best social standing, the occasional presents bestowed by wealthy individuals upon a minister of their liking, and the opening that, as time went on, the change of residence might afford to his son, who in the beginning might be employed as a tutor at a salary of sixty or seventy pounds per annum, were the allurements with which the reverend doctor was approached by Franklin. To the doctor's objection that another Episcopal church in Philadelphia might sap the strength of the existing one, the resourceful tempter replied with the illustration, which has been so much admired: I had for several years nailed against the wall of my house a pigeon-box, that would hold six pair; and, though they bred as fast as my neighbours' pigeons, I never had more than six pair, the old and strong driving out the young and weak, and obliging them to seek new habitations. At length I put up an additional box with apartments for entertaining twelve pair more; and it was soon filled with inhabitants, by the overflowing of my first box, and of others in the neighbourhood. This I take to be a parallel case with the building a new church here. In spite of everything, however, Doctor Johnson proved obdurate to Franklin's coaxing pen. The Academy was opened in 1749. In a letter to Jared Eliot in 1751, Franklin informs us that the annual salaries paid by it were as follows: The Rector, who taught Latin and Greek, two hundred pounds, the English Master, one hundred and fifty pounds, the Mathematical Professor, one hundred and twenty-five pounds, and three assistant tutors each, sixty pounds. The annual fee paid by each pupil was four pounds. With one of the persons who did act as Rector, Franklin seems to have been on intimate terms. This was David Martin, who, after a brief incumbency, died suddenly of a quinsy, and was buried in much state. In a letter to William Strahan, Franklin speaks of him as "Honest David Martin,... my principal Antagonist at Chess." Vice-Provost at one time was Francis Alison, whom Franklin in a letter to Jared Eliot in 1755 introduced as his "particular friend," and twenty or more folio pages, large paper, well filled on the subjects of Agriculture, Philosophy, Eliot's own Catholic Divinity and various other points of learning equally useful and engaging. With still another Rector, Dr. William Smith, Franklin's relations were at first very friendly, but afterwards, when Smith espoused the cause of the Proprietary Party and began to abuse Franklin unstintedly, became so constrained that the two ceased to be on speaking terms. In an early letter to Smith, before Smith became Rector, Franklin said that he should be extremely glad to see and converse with him in Philadelphia, and to correspond with him after he settled in England; "for," he observed, "an acquaintance and communication with men of learning, virtue, and public spirit, is one of my greatest enjoyments." In the same letter, Franklin stated that the mathematical school was pretty well furnished with instruments, and that the English library was a good one, and included a middling apparatus for experimental philosophy, which they purposed to complete speedily. The library left by James Logan, the accomplished Quaker, to the public, "one of the best collections in America," in the opinion of Franklin, was also shortly to be opened. Indeed, Franklin was in hopes, he further declared, that in a few years they would see a perfect institution. In another letter to Smith, written a few days later, he said in reference to a paper on _The Ideal College of Mirania_ written by Smith, "For my part, I know not when I have read a piece that has more affected me; so noble and just are the sentiments, so warm and animated the language." He was too frank a man, however, not to express the wish that the author had omitted from this performance certain reflections upon the discipline and government of Oxford and Cambridge Universities and certain outbreaks of resentment against the author's adversaries. "In such cases," he remarked, "the noblest victory is obtained by neglect, and by shining on." He little knew how soon he would be called upon to reck his own rede. A few years later, Franklin thanks Whitefield for a generous benefaction to the German school. "They go on pretty well," he writes, "and will do better," he adds dryly, in terms which make it apparent enough that the honeymoon of early prepossession was over, "when Mr. Smith, who has at present the principal Care of them, shall learn to mind Party-writing and Party Politicks less, and his proper Business more; which I hope time will bring about." In the succeeding November he was not even on speaking terms with Smith. This fact was communicated by him to Peter Collinson in a letter with this statement about Smith: "He has scribbled himself into universal Dislike here; the Proprietary Faction alone countenances him a little; but the Academy dwindles, and will come to nothing if he is continued." A few weeks later in another letter to Collinson the case against Smith is stated more specifically: "Smith continues still in the Academy; but I imagine will not much longer, unless he mends his Manners greatly, for the Schools decline on his Account. The Number of Scholars, at present, that pay, not exceeding 118, tho' they formerly were 200." From a letter to David Hall, written by Franklin during his second sojourn in England, it would appear that Smith was quicker to pay off debts of resentment than any other kind. In this letter the writer tells Hall that Osborne, the London bookseller, had asked him whether he would be safe in selling to Smith "a large Cargo of Books," and that he had told Osborne that he believed that his "Townsmen who were Smith's Creditors would be glad to see him come back with a Cargo of any kind, as they might have some Chance of being paid out of it." Smith on his part did not fail to do all in his power to keep Franklin from shining on. In a letter to Caleb Whitefoord shortly after his second return from England in 1762, Franklin borrowed a phrase from a line in _The New Foundling Hospital for Wit_. "The Piece from your own Pencil," he said, "is acknowledg'd to bear a strong and striking Likeness, but it is otherwise such a picture of your Friend, as Dr. Smith would have drawn, _black, and all black_." But when it comes to what Franklin in the _Autobiography_ calls "negrofying," he, though he had very little inclination for that kind of competition, was no mean artist himself, if it was an antagonist like Smith upon whose face the pigment was to be laid. I do not wonder at the behaviour you mention of Dr. Smith towards me [he wrote to Polly Stevenson], for I have long since known him thoroughly. I made that Man my Enemy by doing him too much Kindness. 'Tis the honestest Way of acquiring an Enemy. And, since 'tis convenient to have at least one Enemy, who by his Readiness to revile one on all Occasions, may make one careful of one's Conduct, I shall keep him an Enemy for that purpose; and shall observe your good Mother's Advice, never again to receive him as a Friend. She once admir'd the benevolent Spirit breath'd in his Sermons. She will now see the Justness of the Lines your Laureate Whitehead addresses to his Poets, and which I now address to her: "Full many a peevish, envious, slanderous Elf Is, in his Works, Benevolence itself. For all Mankind, unknown, his Bosom heaves; He only injures those, with whom he lives, Read then the Man;--does _Truth_ his Actions guide, Exempt from _Petulance_, exempt from _Pride_? To social Duties does his Heart attend, As Son, as Father, Husband, Brother, _Friend_? _Do those, who know him, love him?_ If they do, You've _my_ Permission: you may love him too." Several months later some observations upon the character of Doctor Smith, equally emphatic, found their way into a letter from Franklin to William Strahan. "Dr. Kelly in his Letter," he said in regard to a letter to Strahan in which Dr. Kelly, a fellow of the Royal Society, had indicated very plainly what he thought of Dr. Smith, "appears the same sensible, worthy, friendly Man I ever found him; and Smith, as usual, just his Reverse.--I have done with him: For I believe nobody here (Philadelphia) will prevail with me to give him another Meeting." In his preface to the speech of Joseph Galloway, Franklin even refers to Smith as "the Poisoner of other Characters." In one of his letters William Franklin referred to him as "that Miscreant Parson Smith." An obscure, or comparatively obscure, person, who is so unfortunate as to have a feud with a great man, is likely to experience some difficulty in obtaining justice at the hands of Posterity which is always ready to retain any number of clever brushes to whitewash the latter and to smear a black coat over the former. But it must be admitted that anyone who quarrelled with such a social, genial, well-balanced being as Franklin cannot hope to escape a very strong presumption that the fault was his own. There is evidence, at any rate, that, on one occasion, when Smith was in England, and had written a letter to Dr. Fry, the President of St. John's College, Oxford, in which Franklin was aspersed, the latter was induced to meet him at Strahan's house, and succeeded in drawing from him, after the letter to Dr. Fry had been read over, paragraph by paragraph, an acknowledgment that it contained many particulars in which the writer had been misled by wrong information, and that the whole was written with too much rancor and asperity. Indeed, Smith even promised that he would write to Dr. Fry admitting the respects in which his statements were false; but, when pressed by Strahan to write this letter on the spot, he declined to do so, though stating that he would call upon Strahan in a day or so and show it to him before it was sent; which he never did. On the contrary, when subsequently questioned at Oxford concerning his promise to write such a letter, he "denied the whole, & even treated the question as a Calumny." So wrote Dr. Kelly to Strahan in the letter already mentioned by us. "I make no other comment on this behaviour," said Dr. Kelly further, "than in considering him (Smith) extremely unworthy of the Honour, he has received, from our University." The fact that, despite all this, at Franklin's death, Dr. Smith, at the request of the American Philosophical Society, made Franklin's character and career the subject of an eulogistic address is certainly calculated to induce us all to unite in the prayer of Franklin in his _Articles of Belief_ to be delivered from "Anger (that momentary Madness)." Dr. Smith proved to be one fly in the Academy gallipot. The other was the extent to which the Latin School was pampered at the expense of the English School which was very close to the heart of Franklin. Its insidious encroachments steadily went on until finally the English School scarcely had a foothold in the institution at all. The result was that in 1769 it had been reduced from its first flourishing condition, when, if Franklin may be believed, the Academy was attended by some little boys under seven, who could deliver an oration with more propriety than most preachers, to a state of bare sufferance. The exercises in English reading and speaking, once the delight of the Trustees and of the parents and other relations of the boys, when these boys were trained by Mr. Dove, the English Master, with all the different modulations of voice required by sense and subject, languished after his resignation on account of his meagre salary, and at length, under the blighting neglect of the Trustees, were wholly discontinued. The English school, to use Franklin's forcible expression, was simply starved. All this was set forth in a long, dignified and able remonstrance which he wrote in nearly his best manner some ten months before his death when his body was racked at times by excruciating pains. In this paper, he narrated with uncommon clearness and skill the gradual succession of influences and events by which the English School had been reduced to a condition of atrophy, and contended that the intentions of the founders of the Academy had been ruthlessly and unconscionably abused. When we recall the circular letter in which he proposed the establishment of the Academy and the fact that it is by no means lacking in deference to the dead languages, which still held the human mind in bondage so firmly, we cannot but feel that the founders of the Academy were not quite so alive to the supreme importance of the English School as Franklin would make out. The truth was that a long time was yet to elapse before the minds of educated men could become emancipated enough to see that a living language, which they are using every day, is quite as worthy of consideration, to say the least, as one which fulfills its highest function in perfecting that use with its own rare discipline, strength and beauty. Franklin saw this before most men of his time, first, because his own lack of academic training saved him from many of the narrowing effects of tradition and routine, and, secondly, because it was idle to expect any but a severely practical view of the relative importance of the dead languages and English from a man who did not shrink from even testing the readiness of the public mind to give its assent to radical alterations in the Lord's Prayer and the Episcopal Prayer Book. Be this as it may, Franklin did not hesitate in this paper to express in the strongest terms his sense of the inutility of Latin and Greek as parts of the course of instruction at the Academy, and, of course, a picturesque illustration of his proposition was duly forthcoming. At what Time [he said], Hats were first introduced we know not, but in the last Century they were universally worn thro'-out Europe. Gradually, however, as the Wearing of Wigs, and Hair nicely dress'd prevailed, the putting on of Hats was disused by genteel People, lest the curious Arrangements of the Curls and Powdering should be disordered; and Umbrellas began to supply their Place; yet still our Considering the Hat as a part of Dress continues so far to prevail, that a Man of fashion is not thought dress'd without having one, or something like one, about him, which he carries under his Arm. So that there are a multitude of the politer people in all the courts and capital cities of Europe, who have never, nor their fathers before them, worn a hat otherwise than as a _chapeau_ bras, though the utility of such a mode of wearing it is by no means apparent, and it is attended not only with some expense, but with a degree of constant trouble. The still prevailing custom of having schools for teaching generally our children in these days, the Latin and Greek languages, I consider therefore, in no other light than as the _Chapeau bras_ of modern Literature. Poor Richard had his word to say about the man who "was so learned, that he could name a horse in nine languages: so ignorant that he bought a cow to ride on." This, however, was not the spirit in which Franklin sought to recruit the deficiencies of his own education--an effort which proved so extraordinarily successful that we are inclined to think that in the pedagogic insight as well as extensive knowledge, disclosed in the circular letter proposing the establishment of the Academy, the "Idea of the English School Sketch'd Out For The Consideration Of The Trustees Of The Philadelphia Academy," and "The Observations Relative To The Intentions Of The Original Founders Of The Academy In Philadelphia" we have the most striking proofs after all of the natural power and assimilative capacity of a mind which, be it recollected, never had any teacher but itself after its possessor became ten years of age. In the _Autobiography_ we are told by Franklin that he was unable to remember when he could not read, that he was sent to the grammar school in Boston when he was eight years of age, that, after he had been at this school for not quite one year, though in that time he had become the head of his class, and had even been advanced to the next class above it,[12] he was shifted by his father to a school for writing and arithmetic in Boston, kept by a then famous man, Mr. George Brownell; that under Brownell he acquired fair writing pretty soon, but made no progress in arithmetic, and that, at ten years of age, he was taken home to assist his father in his business as a tallow chandler and soap boiler. Such was all the education except what was self-imparted that the founder of the University of Pennsylvania had to draw upon when he outlined the future courses of instruction of the Academy. But this self-imparted education was no mean one. Putting altogether out of sight the general reading to which during a large part of his youth Franklin devoted every moment left him by his duties, when he was about sixteen years of age, having been made ashamed on some occasion of his ignorance of figures, he went through the whole of Cocker's _Arithmetic_ by himself with the greatest ease, and followed the feat up by acquainting himself with such little geometry as was contained in Seller's and Shermy's books on Navigation. Some ten or eleven years later, he renewed the study of languages; for, short as was his connection with the Boston grammar school, he had obtained from it some knowledge of Latin. He quickly mastered French, so far as to be able to read French books with facility. Italian he learned by refusing to play chess with a friend who was also learning it, except upon the condition that the victor in every game was to have the right to impose upon his defeated adversary tasks in Italian which the latter was to be bound in point of honor to perform before the next bout. "As we play'd pretty equally," says Franklin, "we thus beat one another into that language." With a little painstaking, he afterwards acquired enough Spanish to read Spanish books too. Then it was that, after acquiring this knowledge of French, Italian and Spanish, he was surprised to find on looking over a Latin testament that he had so much more familiarity with Latin than he imagined. This encouraged him to apply himself to that language again, which he did with the more success, now that the three modern languages had smoothed his way. From these circumstances [he observes in the _Autobiography_], I have thought that there is some inconsistency in our common mode of teaching languages. We are told that it is proper to begin first with the Latin, and, having acquir'd that, it will be more easy to attain those modern languages which are deriv'd from it; and yet we do not begin with the Greek, in order more easily to acquire the Latin. It is true that, if you can clamber and get to the top of a staircase without using the steps, you will more easily gain them in descending; but certainly, if you begin with the lowest you will with more ease ascend to the top; and I would, therefore offer it to the consideration of those who superintend the education of our youth, whether since many of those who begin with the Latin quit the same after spending some years without having made any great proficiency, and what they have learnt becomes almost useless, so that their time has been lost, it would not have been better to have begun with the French, proceeding to the Italian, etc.; for, tho', after spending the same time, they should quit the study of languages and never arrive at the Latin, they would, however, have acquired another tongue or two, that, being in modern use, might be serviceable to them in common life. Even if some design for the benefit of the public did not originate with Franklin, it was likely to fall back ultimately upon him for success. When Dr. Thomas Bond undertook to establish a hospital in Philadelphia, he was compelled by the chariness with which his requests for subscriptions were received, before it was known how Franklin felt about the project, to come to Franklin with the admission that he had found that to put any such public project through in Philadelphia it was necessary to enlist his support. The response was not only a subscription by Franklin but also the inevitable appeal from his hand, pointing out the need for the hospital. After a stroke from that wand, the rock began to yield water more abundantly, but not so copiously that Franklin did not see that legislative aid was necessary as well as private liberality. The country voters, as is usual still in such cases in America, were inclined to think that the townsfolk were enjoying more than their just share of the blessings of civil society. They alleged that the hospital would be of exclusive benefit to the city, and even doubted whether the movement met with the general approval of the townsfolk themselves. Franklin's claim that two thousand pounds would be raised by voluntary subscriptions they regarded as highly extravagant. This was cue enough for his quick wit. A bill was introduced by him into the General Assembly providing that, when the private contributors had organized under the charter granted by it, and had raised two thousand pounds by voluntary subscription, for the free maintenance of the sick poor in the hospital, then the Speaker, upon that fact being certified to his satisfaction, should draw his warrant on the Treasurer of the Province for the payment of two thousand pounds, in two yearly payments, to the treasurer of the hospital, to be applied to its establishment. With the lubricant supplied by this timely condition, the bill slid smoothly down all the legislative grooves. Even the sincerest support of a good legislative measure is not more ardent to all appearances than the specious support sometimes given to such a measure by a member of the Legislature who is opposed to it but sees, or thinks he sees, that it will never become a law, even though he should vote for it. The opponents of Franklin's bill, conceiving that they had a chance to acquire the credit of generosity without paying the pecuniary penalty, agreed to its enactment, and, on the other hand, the condition, by affording to private subscribers the prospect of having their contributions practically doubled from the public purse, furnished them with an additional motive to give. The private contributions even exceeded the sum fixed by the condition, and the credit with which the legislative adversaries of the bill had to content themselves was not that of deceitful but of real bounty. "I do not remember any of my political manoeuvres," Franklin complacently declares in the _Autobiography_, "the success of which gave me at the time more pleasure, or wherein, after thinking of it, I more easily excus'd myself for having made some use of cunning." We experience no difficulty in condoning this cunning when we realize that its fruit was the Pennsylvania Hospital, which, after many years of rare usefulness, is still one of the chief institutions of Philadelphia. It is gratifying to feel that its history has not been unworthy of the admirable inscription which Franklin wrote for its corner-stone: In the year of Christ MDCCLV, George the Second happily reigning (for he sought the happiness of his people), Philadelphia flourishing (for its inhabitants were public spirited), this building, by the bounty of the government, and of many private persons, was piously founded for the relief of the sick and miserable. May the God of Mercies bless the undertaking. The Reverend Gilbert Tennent, one of whose sermons caused Whitefield to say, "Never before heard I such a searching sermon; he is a son of thunder, and does not regard the face of man," was not so fortunate as Dr. Bond when he asked Franklin to assist him in obtaining subscriptions for the erection of a new meeting-house in Philadelphia, for the use of a congregation drawn from among the Presbyterians, who were originally disciples of Whitefield. Franklin says that he absolutely refused to do so because he was unwilling to make himself disagreeable to his fellow-citizens by soliciting contributions from them too frequently. The truth in part, we suspect, was that his zealous interest was not easily excited in any meeting-house where even a missionary sent by the Mufti of Constantinople to preach Mohammedanism to the people of Philadelphia would not find a pulpit at his service. But, if this incident has any general significance, it may be accepted as evidence that, though Franklin might contribute nothing else upon such an occasion, he was prepared to contribute a good joke. When Tennent found that he could get no other kind of assistance from him, he asked him to give him at least his advice. What followed would suffer in telling if not told as the _Autobiography_ tells it: That I will readily do [said Franklin], and, in the first place, I advise you to apply to all those whom you know will give something; next, to those whom you are uncertain whether they will give anything or not, and show them the list of those who have given; and, lastly, do not neglect those who you are sure will give nothing, for in some of them you may be mistaken. He laugh'd and thank'd me, and said he would take my advice. He did so, for he ask'd of _everybody_, and he obtain'd a much larger sum than he expected, with which he erected the capacious and very elegant meeting-house that stands in Arch Street. Other services rendered by Franklin to Philadelphia related to the better paving and lighting of its streets. These streets were laid out with great regularity, but, being wholly unpaved, were mere quagmires in winter and stifling stretches of dust in summer. So bad was their condition as a rule that Philadelphia came to be known among the country people around it as "Filthy-dirty." Franklin, when he lived near the Jersey Market, witnessed with concern the miserable plight of its patrons as they waded about on either side of it in mire deep enough to have prompted the observation of Napoleon, based upon his campaigns in Poland, that mud should be accounted a fifth element. A step was taken when a stretch of ground down the middle of the market was paved with brick. This offered a firm footing, when once attained, but, before a pedestrian could attain it, he might be overshoes in wet clay. By tongue and pen, Franklin at length succeeded in having the spaces between the market and the foot pavements of the streets flanking it laid with stone. The result was that for a season a market woman could reach the market dry-shod, but, in the course of time, the pavements became loaded with mud shaken off the wheels of passing vehicles, and this mud, after being thus deposited, was allowed, for lack of street cleaners, to remain where it fell. Here was an inviting situation, indeed, for such a municipal housewife as Franklin. Having hunted up a poor, industrious man, who was willing to contract for the sum of sixpence per month, per house, to sweep up and carry away the dirt in front of the houses abutting on these pavements, he wrote and published a paper setting forth the marked advantages to the neighborhood that would result from such a small expenditure--the reduced amount of mud that people would carry around on their shoes, the readier access that customers would have to the shops near the market, freedom from wind-borne dust and other kindred benefits not likely to escape the attention of a man to whom even the dust of unpaved streets suggested the following reflections in the _Autobiography_: Human felicity is produc'd not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day. Thus, if you teach a poor young man to shave himself, and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas. The money may be soon spent, the regret only remaining of having foolishly consumed it; but in the other case, he escapes the frequent vexation of waiting for barbers, and of their sometimes dirty fingers, offensive breaths, and dull razors; he shaves when most convenient to him, and enjoys daily the pleasure of its being done with a good instrument. A copy of the paper was sent to each house affected by its proposals, every householder agreed to pay his sixpence, and the sense of comfort experienced by the entire population of Philadelphia in the more commodious use of the market prepared their minds for the bill which Franklin later introduced into the Assembly providing for the paving of the whole city. He was on the point of embarking on his second voyage to England when this was done, and the bill was not passed until after he was gone, and then with an alteration in his method of assessing the paving cost which his judgment did not deem an improvement; but the bill as passed contained a further provision for lighting as well as paving the streets of Philadelphia which he did deem a great improvement. The merit of first suggesting the hospital Franklin is studious to tell us, though ascribed to him, was due to Dr. Bond. So likewise he is quick to admit that the honor of giving the first impulse to municipal lighting in Philadelphia did not belong to him, as had been supposed, but to John Clifton, who had placed a private lamp at his own door. Franklin simply followed Clifton's example; but, when the city began to light its streets, his fertile mind did bring forward a novel idea which proved a highly useful one. Instead of the globes imported from London which became so black and opaque from smoke for lack of air, when the lamps were lighted, that they had to be cleaned every day, and which, moreover, were totally wrecked by a single blow, he suggested that the coverings for the city lamps should be composed of four flat panes, with a long funnel above and inlets below for the free circulation of air. The result was a covering that remained untarnished until morning and was not involved in complete ruin by a single fracture. Such were some of the principal achievements of Franklin for the benefit of Philadelphia. It is not easy to magnify unduly their significance when we bear in mind that they were all crowded into a period of some thirty years during the greater part of which he was faithfully heeding Poor Richard's maxim, "Keep thy shop and thy shop will keep thee"; to say nothing of the claims upon his time of political duties and scientific studies and experiments. Franklin was not the Romulus of Philadelphia; nor was he its Augustus, who found it of brick and left it of marble. There was solid brick enough in the structure of American colonial life, but little marble. However, it can at least be said of him that rarely has any single private individual, with no great fortune, and with no control over the public purse except what is conferred by the favor of public opinion won by personal intelligence and public spirit, laid the foundations of so much that was of lasting and increasing utility to an infant community destined to become one of the populous and opulent cities of the world. In how many other respects his sympathy with human interests in their broader relations made its influence felt in Colonial America we can only conjecture, but in many ways, in addition to those already mentioned, its fructifying results have been brought home to us. It was at his instance that the merchants of Philadelphia sent the ship _Argo_ to the Arctics to discover a Northwest Passage. Kalm, the Swedish botanist, when he came to Pennsylvania, found in him a most helpful friend and patron. He labored untiringly to obtain for Bartram, the American naturalist, the recognition which he richly merited. One of the proudest days of his life was when his eager exertions in behalf of silk culture in Pennsylvania were rewarded by the knowledge that the Queen of England had not only graciously condescended to accept a sample of Pennsylvania silk tendered to her by him but proposed to wear it in the form of a dress. During his third sojourn in England, the hospital at home was frequently reminded of the strength of his concern for its welfare by gifts and suggestions more valuable than gifts. To him was entrusted the commission of purchasing a telescope and other instruments for the Astronomical School at Harvard College. To the library of Harvard he occasionally forwarded parcels of books, either his own gifts or gifts from his friends. In addition to his zealous efforts in the latter part of his life in behalf of negro emancipation and the relief of the free blacks, he was for several years one of the associates charged with the management of the Bray Fund for the conversion of negroes in the British plantations. He was also a trustee of the Society for the benefit of poor Germans, one of the objects of which was the establishment of English schools in the German communities which had become so numerous in Pennsylvania. It was high time that this object should receive the attention of the Englishry of the province as one of his letters indicates. I remember [he said in 1753 in a letter to Richard Jackson] when they [the Germans] modestly declined intermeddling in our Elections, but now they come in Droves and carry all before them, except in one or two Counties. Few of their Children in the Country learn English. They import many Books from Germany; and of the six Printing-Houses in the Province, two are entirely German, two half German half English, and but two entirely English. They have one German Newspaper, and one half-German. Advertisements, intended to be general, are now printed in Dutch and English. The Signs in our Streets have Inscriptions in both Languages, and in some places only German. They begin of late to make all their Bonds and other legal Instruments in their own Language, which (though I think it ought not to be) are allowed good in our Courts, where the German Business so increases, that there is continued need of Interpreters; and I suppose in a few Years they will also be necessary in the Assembly to tell one half of our Legislators what the other half say.[13] As we are said to be indebted to Jefferson for the introduction into America of the Lombardy poplar so it is said that we are indebted to Franklin for the domestication of the yellow willow so useful in the manufacture of wicker-work. The story is that his observant eye noted the sprouts, which a willow basket from abroad had put forth, when refreshed by the water of a creek into which it had been tossed, and that he was at pains to plant some of them on a lot in Philadelphia. Apparently, he was the first person, too, to introduce the rhubarb plant into America. He obtained seed of the broom-corn on one of his visits to Virginia, and took care to disseminate it in Pennsylvania and other Colonies. When the Pennsylvania farmers were skeptical about the value of plaster, he framed in that substance on the surface of a conspicuous field the words: "THIS HAS BEEN PLASTERED," which were soon rewritten in vegetation that rose legibly above the general level of its surroundings. One of his suggestions was an "office of insurance" on the mutual assessment plan against losses from storms, blights, insects, etc., suffered by farmers. Among his essays is a concise but highly instructive one on Maize, or Indian Corn, which was well calculated to make known to the world a plant now hardly less prized by the American for its general usefulness than the date-palm is by the Arab. John Adams informs us in his _Diary_ that, on one occasion, when in Massachusetts, Franklin mentioned that Rhenish grape-vines had been recently planted at Philadelphia, and had succeeded very well, whereupon his host, Edmund Quincy, expressed the wish that he could plant some in his own garden. A few weeks later Quincy received a bundle of the Rhenish slips by sea from Franklin, and a little later another by post. Thus [diarizes Adams, at the time a young man of but twenty-four, when the difficulty with which the slips had been procured by Franklin came to his knowledge] he took the trouble to hunt over the city (Philadelphia) and not finding vines there, he sends seventy miles into the country, and then sends one bundle by water, and, lest they should miscarry, another by land, to a gentleman whom he owed nothing, and was but little acquainted with, purely for the sake of doing good in the world by propagating the Rhenish vines through these provinces. And Mr. Quincy has some of them now growing in his garden. This is an instance, too, of his amazing capacity for business, his memory and resolution: amidst so much business as counselor, postmaster, printer, so many private studies, and so many public avocations too, to remember such a transient hint and exert himself so in answer to it, is surprising. If Adams had only known Franklin better at the time when these words were penned, which was long before his analysis of Franklin's motives could be jaundiced by jealousy or wounded self-love, he might have added that this incident was also an illustration of that unfailing good-nature which made the friendship of Franklin an ever-bubbling well-spring of kindly offices. "Accept my kind offices to thy other children as the only return in my power for thy continual favors to me," one of the petitions in the "little prayer," prefixed to Franklin's manual of self-discipline, expressed an aspiration which, in addition to more impressive forms of fulfilment, was realized many times over in the innumerable small offerings of good feeling that he was in the habit of laying from time to time upon the altar of friendship. In recounting the benefactions, which he bestowed upon his fellow-creatures by his public spirit and private benevolence, it is hard to refrain from speculating as to what he might have accomplished, if his wealth had only, like that of Andrew Carnegie, been commensurate with his wisdom and philanthropic zeal. Then, in truth, would have been united such agencies as have not often worked together for the amelioration of human society. But independent as Franklin was, according to the pecuniary standards of Colonial America, he was in no position to contribute money lavishly to any generous object. When he gave it, he had to give it in such a way as to make it keep itself going until it had gone far by its own mere cumulative energy. This is very interestingly brought out in a letter from him, when at Passy, to Benjamin Webb, a distressed correspondent, to whom he was sending a gift of ten louis d'ors. I do not pretend [he said] to _give_ such a Sum; I only _lend_ it to you. When you shall return to your Country with a good Character, you cannot fail of getting into some Business, that will in time enable you to pay all your Debts. In that Case, when you meet with another honest Man in similar Distress, you must pay me by lending this Sum to him; enjoining him to discharge the Debt by a like operation, when he shall be able, and shall meet with such another opportunity. I hope it may thus go thro' many hands, before it meets with a Knave that will stop its Progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money. I am not rich enough to afford _much_ in good works, and so am obliged to be cunning and make the most of a _little_. It is to be hoped that Webb was but the first link in the golden chain which this letter sought to fashion. It is a remarkable fact that Franklin also endeavored to give even posthumous efficacy to this same idea of economizing pecuniary force. By a codicil to his will, he created two funds of one thousand pounds each, one for the benefit of the inhabitants of the town of Boston, and the other for the benefit of the inhabitants of the town of Philadelphia. The selectmen and the ministers of the oldest Episcopalian, Congregational and Presbyterian churches in Boston were to be the trustees for the management of the Boston fund, and the City Corporation was to manage the Philadelphia fund. The amounts were to be respectively lent in sums not exceeding sixty pounds sterling, nor less than fifteen pounds, for any one person, in the discretion of the respective managers, to such young married artificers, under the age of twenty-five years, as should have served an apprenticeship in the respective towns and have faithfully fulfilled the duties stipulated for in their indentures, upon their producing certificates to their good moral character from at least two respectable citizens, and bonds executed by themselves and these citizens, as sureties, for the repayment of the loans in ten equal annual instalments, with interest at the rate of five per cent. per annum. If there were more applicants than money, the proportions, in which the sums would otherwise have been allotted, were to be ratably diminished in such a way that some assistance would be given to every applicant. As fast as the sums lent were repaid, they were again to be lent out to fresh borrowers. If the plan was faithfully carried out for one hundred years, the fond projector calculated that, at the end of that time, the Boston, as well as the Philadelphia, fund, would amount to one hundred and thirty-one thousand pounds, of which he would have the managers of the Boston fund lay out in their discretion one hundred thousand pounds in public improvements; the remaining thirty-one thousand pounds to be lent out as the original one thousand pounds was for another hundred years. At the end of the second term, Franklin calculated that, mishaps aside, the sum would be four million and sixty-one thousand pounds sterling, of which he bequeathed one million sixty-one thousand pounds to the inhabitants of Boston absolutely, and three million pounds to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts absolutely; not presuming, he said, to carry his views further. At the end of the first one hundred years, if the purpose was not already executed, the City Corporation was to use a part of the fund accumulated for the benefit of the inhabitants of Philadelphia in piping the water of Wissahickon Creek into that city, and the testator also recommended that the Schuylkill should be made completely navigable. In other respects the conditions of the two gifts were the same. An English lawyer characterized the famous will by which Peter Thellusson tried to circumvent the legal rule against perpetuities as "posthumous avarice." If Franklin, too, kept his hand clenched after he left the world, it was not in the vainglory of family pride nor from the mere sordid, uncalculating love of treasured wealth, but only that he might open it as "bounty's instrument," when overflowingly full, for the purpose of conferring upon men a far richer largess of beneficence than it had been capable of conferring in life. Changes in industrial conditions defeated his intentions with respect to artificers, and the Philadelphia fund proved far less crescive than the Boston one, but both have proved enough so to illustrate the procreative quality of money upon which Franklin was so fond of dilating. The Boston fund, including the sum applied at the end of the first one hundred years to the use of Franklin Union, amounted on January 1, 1913, to $546,811.39, and the Philadelphia fund, including the amount applied to the use of Franklin Institute, amounted on January 1, 1913, to $186,807.06. Poor Richard certainly selected a most effective way this time for renewing the reminder with which he ended his _Hints for those that would be Rich_. "A Penny sav'd is Twopence clear A Pin a Day is a groat a year." With the expanding horizon, which came to Franklin in 1757, when he was drawn off into the world-currents of his time, came also larger opportunities for promoting the welfare of the race. There was a double reason why he should not be tardy in availing himself of these opportunities. He was both by nature and training at once a philosopher and a philanthropist. "God grant," he fervently exclaimed in a letter to David Hartley in 1789, "that not only the Love of Liberty, but a thorough Knowledge of the Rights of Man, may pervade all the Nations of the Earth, so that a Philosopher may set his Foot anywhere on its Surface, and say 'This is my country,'" To Joseph Huey he wrote in the letter, from which we have already freely quoted, that the only thanks he desired for a kindness which he had shown the former was that he should always be equally ready to serve any other person who might need his assistance, and so let good offices go round; "for Mankind," Franklin added, "are all of a Family." During his third sojourn in England, he entered earnestly into a scheme for supplying the islands of Acpy-nomawée and Tovy-poennammoo, "called in the maps New Zealand," which contained no useful quadrupeds but dogs, with fowls, hogs, goats, cattle, corn, iron and other commodities of civilized life. The portion of the appeal for pecuniary aid for this purpose, which was borrowed from his pen, after beginning with the statement that Britain itself was said to have originally produced nothing but sloes, adapts itself, as all his writings of this kind usually did, to both the unselfish and selfish instincts of his readers. It was the obligation, he insisted, of those, who thought it their duty to ask bread and other blessings daily from Heaven, to show their gratitude to their great Benefactor by the only means in their power, and that was by promoting the happiness of his other children. _Communiter bona profundere_ Deûm est. And then trade always throve better when carried on with a people possessed of the arts and conveniences of life than with naked savages. As events moved along apace, and Franklin found himself in a world, once again ravaged and ensanguined by war, the triple birth of human folly, greed and atrocity, his heart, irrevocably enlisted as it was in the American cause, went out into one generous effort after another to establish at least a few peaceful sanctuaries where the nobler impulses and aims of human nature might be safe from the destructive rage of its malignant passions. In 1779, when our Minister to France, he issued instructions to the captains of all armed ships holding commissions from Congress not to molest, in any manner, the famous English navigator, Captain Cook, on his return from the voyage of discovery into unknown seas upon which he had been dispatched before the Revolutionary War. This act was handsomely acknowledged by the British Government. One of the gold medals, struck in honor of Captain Cook, was presented to Franklin by the hand of Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society, and the British Admiralty Board also sent him a copy of the Captain's book, with its "elegant collection of plates," and a very polite letter from Lord Howe stating that the gift was made with the express approval of the King. In the same year similar instructions were given by Franklin for the protection of the vessel that was that year to transport the supplies which were annually conveyed from Europe to the Moravian Mission on the coast of Labrador. And later the same ægis was likewise extended over the ship which was expected to bear provisions and clothing from the charitable citizens of Dublin for the relief of suffering in the West Indies. Of the rule that "free ships shall make free goods," Franklin said in a letter to J. Torris, an agent for American cruisers at Dunkirk, "This rule is itself so reasonable, and of a nature to be so beneficial to mankind, that I cannot but wish it may become general." Nor did he stop there. In this letter, such was his confidence that Congress would approve the new rule that he notified Torris that, until he had received its orders on the subject, he should condemn no more English goods found by American cruisers in Dutch vessels, unless contraband of war. How unqualifiedly he was disposed to recognize the neutrality of all such goods is evidenced by other letters of his, too, written when he was in France. But to him also belongs the peculiar glory of insisting that non-combatants should be exempt from the lamentable penalties of war. I approve much [he said in a letter in 1780 to Charles W. F. Dumas] of the Principles of the Confederacy of the Neutral Powers, and am not only for respecting the Ships as the House of a Friend, tho' containing the Goods of an Enemy, but I even wish for the sake of humanity that the Law of Nations may be further improv'd, by determining, that, even in time of War, all those kinds of People, who are employ'd in procuring subsistence for the Species, or in exchanging the Necessaries or Conveniences of Life, which are for the common Benefit of Mankind, such as Husbandmen on their lands, fishermen in their Barques, and traders in unarm'd Vessels, shall be permitted to prosecute their several innocent and useful Employments without interruption or Molestation, and nothing taken from them, even when wanted by an Enemy, but on paying a fair Price for the same. This principle, as well as a stipulation against privateering, was actually made a part of the treaty of amity and commerce between Prussia and the United States, which was signed shortly before Franklin returned to America from the French Mission, and it was not for the lack of effort on his part that similar articles were not inserted in all the treaties between the United States and other European countries that were entered into about the same time. For the practice of privateering he cherished a feeling of intense abhorrence. It behoved merchants, he wrote to Benjamin Vaughan, "to consider well of the justice of a War, before they voluntarily engage a Gang of Ruffians to attack their Fellow Merchants of a neighbouring Nation, to plunder them of their Property, and perhaps ruin them and their Families, if they yield it; or to wound, maim, or murder them, if they endeavour to defend it. Yet these Things are done by Christian Merchants, whether a War be just or unjust; and it can hardly be just on both sides. They are done by English and American Merchants, who, nevertheless, complain of private Thefts, and hang by Dozens the Thieves they have taught by their own Example." Rarely have the injurious results of privateering been presented with more force than they were by Franklin in his _Propositions Relative to Privateering_, sent to Richard Oswald--the industrial loss involved in the withdrawal of so many men from honest labor, "who, besides, spend what they get in riot, drunkenness, and debauchery, lose their habits of industry, are rarely fit for any sober business after a peace, and serve only to increase the number of highwaymen and housebreakers"; and the pecuniary ruin into which their employers are drawn by inability, after the enjoyment of rapidly acquired wealth, to adjust the habits formed by it to normal conditions. "A just punishment," Franklin adds, "for their having wantonly and unfeelingly ruined many honest, innocent traders and their families, whose subsistence was employed in serving the common interests of mankind." And after all, he further said, as in the case of other lotteries, while a few of the adventurers secured prizes, the mass, for reasons that he stated very clearly, were losers. We have already seen how strongly his mind leaned in the direction of arbitration as the proper method for settling international differences. But a grave error it would be to think of Franklin as merely a wise, placid, humane Quaker, or as simply a benignant, somewhat visionary Friend of Man. He knew what the world ought to be, and might be made to be, but he also knew what the world was, and was likely for some time to be. He resembled the Quaker in his shrewd capacity to take care of himself, in his love of thrift and of all that appertains to the rational and useful side of life, and especially in his broad, unreserved, human sympathies. It was for this reason that, though not a Quaker himself, he could usually count with more or less certainty upon the support of Quakers in his public undertakings and political struggles. But rigid, dogged scruples like those which made an effort in Franklin's time to coerce a Pennsylvania Quaker into taking up arms as impotent, as a rule, as blows upon an unresisting punch-bag were wholly out of keeping with such a character as Franklin's. For all that was best in the enthusiastic philanthropy of the French, too, he had no little affinity, but what Lecky has called his "pedestrian intellect" saved him from inane dreams of patriarchal innocence and simplicity in a world from which Roland was to hurry himself because it was too polluted with crime. It was a good story that Franklin's Quaker friend, James Logan, told of William Penn. He was coming over to Pennsylvania as the Secretary of Penn, when their ship was chased by an armed vessel. Their captain made ready for an engagement, but said to Penn that he did not expect his aid or that of his Quaker companions, and that they might retire to the cabin, which they all did except Logan, who remained on deck, and was quartered to a gun. The supposed enemy proved to be a friend, and, when this fact was announced by Logan to Penn and the other refugees below, Penn rebuked him for violating the Quaker principle of non-resistance. Nettled by being reproved before so many persons, Logan replied, "_I being thy servant, why did thee not order me to come down? But thee was willing enough that I should stay and help to fight the ship when thee thought there was danger._" Franklin abhorred the Medusa locks of war, and loved the fair, smiling face of peace as much as any Quaker, but, when there was peril to be braved, he could always be relied upon to incur his share. Both in point of physique and manliness of spirit he was well fitted for leadership and conflict. Josiah, the father of Franklin, we are told in the _Autobiography_, had "an excellent constitution of body, was of middle stature, but well set, and very strong." The description was true to Franklin himself. He is supposed to have been about five feet and ten inches high, was robustly built, and, when a printer at Watts' printing house in London, could carry up and down stairs in each hand a large form of types which one of his fellow printers could carry only with both hands. In his boyhood he was as eager as most healthy-minded boys are to go off to sea; but his father already had one runagate son, Josiah the younger, at sea, and had no mind to have another. However, living as he did near the water, Benjamin was much in and about it, and learnt early to swim well and to manage boats. When in a boat or canoe with other boys [he says in the _Autobiography_], I was commonly allowed to govern, especially in any case of difficulty; and upon other occasions I was generally a leader among the boys, and sometimes led them into scrapes, of which I will mention one instance, as it shows an early projecting public spirit, tho' not then justly conducted. He then tells us how, under his direction, a band of his comrades, late in the afternoon, when no one was about, "like so many emmets," abstracted all the stones collected for the foundation of a new building and constructed with them a wharf on a quagmire for the convenience of the marauders when fishing. The authors of the mischief were discovered. "Several of us," says Franklin, "were corrected by our fathers; and, though I pleaded the usefulness of the work, mine convinced me that nothing was useful which was not honest."[14] Another incident in Franklin's youth, indicative of the way in which leadership was apt to be conceded in moments of perplexity to his hardihood, is narrated in the journal of his first voyage from England to America, and arose when he and two companions, after wandering about the Isle of Wight until dark, were anxiously endeavoring to make their way back across an intercepting creek to their ship, the _Berkshire_, which was only awaiting the first favoring breeze to be up and away. On this occasion, he stripped to his shirt, and waded through the waters of the creek, and at one time, through mud as well up to his middle, to a boat staked nearly fifty yards offshore; the wind all the while blowing very cold and very hard. When he reached the boat, it was only to find after an hour's exertions that he could not release it from its fastenings, and that there was nothing for him to do but to return as he came. Then, just as the unlucky trio were thinking of looking up some haystack in which to spend the night, one of them remembered that he had a horseshoe in his pocket. Again the indomitable Franklin waded back to the boat, and this time, by wrenching out with the shoe the staple by which it was chained to the stake, secured it, and brought it ashore to his friends. On its way to the other shore, it grounded in shoal water, and stuck so fast that one of its oars was broken in an effort to get it off. After striving and struggling for half an hour and more, the party gave up and sat down with their hands before them in despair. It looked as if after being exposed all night to wind and weather, which was bad, they would be exposed the next morning to the taunts of the owner of the boat and the amusement of the whole town of Yarmouth; which was worse. However, when their plight seemed utterly hopeless, a happy thought occurred to them, and Franklin and one of his companions, having got out into the creek and thus lightened the craft, contrived to draw it into deeper water. Still another incident brings into clear relief the resolute will of the youthful Franklin. It is told in the _Autobiography_. He was in a boat on the Delaware with his free-thinking and deep-drinking friend, Collins, who had acquired the habit of "sotting with brandy," and some other young men. Collins was in the state pictured by one or more of the cant phrases descriptive of an inebriate condition which were compiled with such painstaking thoroughness by Franklin in his "Drinker's Dictionary" for the _Pennsylvania Gazette_. It became Collins' turn to row, but he refused to do it. "I will be row'd home," said Collins. "We will not row you," said Franklin. "You must, or stay all night on the water just as you please," said Collins. The others said: "Let us row; what signifies it?" But Franklin's mind was soured by Collins' past misconduct, and he refused to do so. Thereupon Collins swore that he would make him row or throw him overboard, and advanced towards him and struck at him. As he did so, Franklin clapped his hand under Collins' crotch, and, rising, pitched him headforemost into the river. Knowing that Collins was a good swimmer, he felt little concern about him; so the boat was rowed a short distance from Collins, and with a few timely strokes removed slightly out of his reach whenever he attempted to board it; he being asked each time whether he would consent to row. He was ready to die with vexation [says Franklin], and obstinately would not promise to row. However, seeing him at last beginning to tire, we lifted him in and brought him home dripping wet in the evening. We hardly exchang'd a civil word afterwards, and a West India captain, who had a commission to procure a tutor for the sons of a gentleman at Barbadoes, happening to meet with him, agreed to carry him thither. He left me then, promising to remit me the first money he should receive in order to discharge the debt; but I never heard of him after. The debt was for money that Franklin had lent to Collins, when in straits produced by his dissipated habits, out of the vexatious sum collected by Franklin for Mr. Vernon, which cost him so much self-reproach until remitted to that gentleman. The firmness exhibited by Franklin on this occasion he never failed to exhibit in his later life whenever it was necessary for him to do so. Even John Adams, in 1778, though he had worked himself up to the point of charging Franklin with downright indolence and with the "constant policy never to say 'yes' or 'no' decidedly but when he could not avoid it," admitted in the same breath that Franklin had "as determined a soul as any man." If anyone doubts it, let him read the letters written by Franklin upon the rare occasions when he felt that, as a matter of justice or sober self-respect, he could not escape the duty of holding up the mirror of candid speech to the face of misconduct. On these occasions, his rebuke was like a bitter draught administered in a measuring glass, not a drop too much, not a drop too little. Witness his letter of March 12, 1780, to Captain Peter Landais in reply to the demand of that captain that he should be again placed in command of the _Alliance_. The demand, however [Franklin wrote], may perhaps be made chiefly for the sake of obtaining a Refusal, of which you seem the more earnestly desirous as the having it to produce may be of service to you in America. I will not therefore deny it to you, and it shall be as positive and clear as you require it. No one has ever learnt from me the Opinion I formed of you from the Enquiry made into your conduct. I kept it entirely to myself. I have not even hinted it in my Letters to America, because I would not hazard giving to any one a Bias to your Prejudice. By communicating a Part of that Opinion privately to you it can do you no harm for you may burn it. I should not give you the pain of reading it if your Demand did not make it necessary. I think you, then, so imprudent, so litigious and quarrelsome a man, even with your best friends, that Peace and good order and, consequently, the quiet and regular Subordination so necessary to Success, are, where you preside, impossible. These are matters within my observation and comprehension, your military Operations I leave to more capable Judges. If therefore I had 20 Ships of War in my Disposition, I should not give one of them to Captain Landais. All the higher forms of intellectual or moral power suggest the idea of reserve force, and of nothing is this truer than the self-controlled indignation of a really strong man like Franklin or Washington. What Franklin did for Philadelphia, when peace prevailed, we have already seen; what he did for it, when threatened by war, remains to be told. In 1747, England was involved in a struggle with France and Spain, and the city lay at the mercy of French and Spanish privateers, all the efforts of Governor Thomas to induce the Quaker majority in the Assembly to pass a militia law and to make other provision for the security of the Province having proved wholly futile. Under these circumstances, Franklin wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled _Plain Truth_, for the purpose of arousing the people of the Province to a true sense of their perilous predicament. The pamphlet [Franklin tells us in the _Autobiography_], had a sudden and surprising effect, and we can readily believe it, for rarely has an alarum been more artfully sounded. In its pages is to be found every artifice of persuasion that could be skillfully used by an adroit pamphleteer for the purpose of playing upon the fears of his readers and inciting them to determined measures of self-defense. It began by pointing out the causes which had brought about an entire change in the former happy situation of the Province, namely its increased wealth, its defenseless condition, the familiarity acquired by its enemies with its Bay and River through prisoners, bearers of flags of truce, spies, and, perhaps, traitors, the ease with which pilots could be employed by these enemies and the known absence of ships of war, during the greatest part of the year, ever since the war began, from both Virginia and New York. That the enemies of the Province might even then have some of their spies in the Province could not be seriously doubted, it declared, for to maintain such spies had been the practice of all nations in all ages, as for example the five men sent by the Children of Dan to spy out the land of the Zidonians, and search it. (Book of Judges, Chap. XVIII, V. 2). These men, while engaged in their enterprise, met with a certain idolatrous priest of their own persuasion (would to God no such priests were to be found among the Pennsylvanians!) And, when they questioned him as to whether their way would be prosperous, he among other things said unto them, _Go in Peace; before the Lord is your Way wherein you go_. (It was well known that there were many priests in the Province of the same religion as those who, of late, encouraged the French to invade the mother country). _And they came_, (Verse 7) _to Laish, and saw the People that were therein, how they dwelt CARELESS, after the Manner of the Zidonians_, QUIET AND SECURE. They _thought_ themselves secure no doubt; and, as they _never had been_ disturbed, vainly imagined they _never should_. It was not unlikely that some saw the danger they were exposed to by living in that careless manner; but it was not unlikely, too, that if these publicly expressed their apprehensions, the rest reproached them as timorous persons, wanting courage or confidence in their Gods, who (they perhaps said) had hitherto protected them. But the spies (Verse 8) returned, and among other things said to their countrymen (Verse 9), _Arise that we may go up against them; for we have seen the Land and behold it is very good! When ye go, ye shall come unto a People SECURE_ (that is a people that apprehend no danger, and therefore have made no provision against it; great encouragement this), _and to a large Land, and a Place where there is no Want of any Thing_. What could they desire more? Accordingly we find, continued _Plain Truth_, in the succeeding verses that _six hundred Men_ only, _appointed with Weapons of War_, undertook the conquest of this _large Land_; knowing that 600 men, armed and disciplined, would be an overmatch, perhaps, for 60,000 unarmed, undisciplined, and off their guard. And when they went against it, the idolatrous priest (Verse 17) _with his graven Image, and his Ephod, and his Teraphim, and his molten Image_ (plenty of superstitious trinkets) joined with them, and, no doubt, gave them all the intelligence and assistance in his power; his heart, as the text assures us, _being glad_, perhaps, for reasons more than one. And now what was the fate of poor Laish? The 600 men, being arrived, found, as the spies had reported, a people QUIET and SECURE. (Verses 20, 21). _And they smote them with the Edge of the Sword, and burnt the City with_ FIRE; _and there was no_ DELIVERER,_ because it was far from Zidon_--not so far from _Zidon_, however, as _Pennsylvania_ was from _Britain_; and yet we are, said _Plain Truth_, more careless than the people of _Laish_! Having awakened in this clever fashion the slumbering strings of sectarian hatred and religious association, the author of _Plain Truth_ brings the same sure and compelling touch to the other points of his theme: the danger that the Iroquois might, from considerations set forth in the pamphlet with telling force, be wholly gained over by the French; which meant deserted plantations, ruin, bloodshed and confusion; the folly and selfishness of the view that Rural Pennsylvania and the City of Philadelphia did not owe each other mutual obligations of assistance; the ruin in which commerce, trade and industry were certain to be involved by the occlusion of the Delaware; the probability that the enemy, finding that he could come higher and higher up the river, seize vessels, land and plunder plantations and villages, and return with his booty unmolested, might finally be led to believe that all Pennsylvanians were Quakers, against all defence, from a principle of conscience, and thus be induced to strike one bold stroke for the city and for the whole plunder of the river. Then, after dispatching with a few practical observations the fallacy that the expense of a vessel to guard the trade of the Province would be greater than any loss that the enemy could inflict upon the Province at sea, and that it would be cheaper for the Government to open an insurance office and to pay every such loss, the pamphlet presents a harrowing description of the fate that would befall Philadelphia if it passed into the hands of the enemy. It is all limned with the minuteness of a Dutch painting; the confusion and disorder; the outcries and lamentations; the stream of outgoing fugitives (including citizens reputed to be rich and fearful of the torture), hurrying away with their effects; the wives and children hanging upon the necks of their husbands and fathers and imploring them to be gone; the helplessness of the few that would remain; the sack; the conflagration. But what, asked _Plain Truth_, would the condition of the Philadelphians be, if suddenly surprised without previous alarm, perhaps in the night? Confined to their houses, they would have nothing to trust to but the enemy's mercy. Their best fortune would be to fall under the power of commanders of King's ships, able to control the mariners; and not into the hands of licentious privateers. Who could without the utmost horror conceive the miseries of the latter, when their persons, fortunes, wives and daughters would be subject to the wanton and unbridled rage, rapine and lust of negroes, mulattoes and others, the vilest and most abandoned of mankind? And then in a timely marginal note _Plain Truth_ tells how poor Captain Brown, for bravely defending himself and his vessel longer than the ragged crew of a Spanish privateer expected, was barbarously stabbed and murdered, though on his knees begging quarter! It would not be so bad for the rich, said _Plain Truth_. The means of speedy flight were ready to their hands, and they could lay by money and effects in distant and safe places against the evil day. It was by the middling people, the tradesmen, shopkeepers and farmers of the Province and city that the brunt would have to be borne. They could not all fly with their families, and, if they could, how would they subsist? Upon them too the weight of the contributions exacted by the enemy (as was true of ordinary taxes) would rest. Though numerous, this class was quite defenceless as it had neither forts, arms, union nor discipline, and yet on whom could it fix its eyes with the least expectation that they would do anything for its security? Not on that wealthy and powerful body of people, the Quakers, who had ever since the war controlled the elections of the Province and filled almost every seat in the Assembly. Should the Quakers be conjured by all the ties of neighborhood, friendship, justice and humanity to consider the obligations that they owed to a very great part of the people who could have no confidence that God would protect those that neglected the use of rational means for protecting themselves, and the distraction, misery and confusion, desolation and distress which might possibly be the effect of their unreasonable predominancy and perseverance, yet all would be in vain; for the Quakers had already been by great numbers of the people petitioned in vain. The late Governor of the Province did for years solicit, request and even threaten them in vain. The council had twice remonstrated with them in vain. Their religious prepossessions were unchangeable, their obstinacy invincible. The manner in which Franklin makes his strictures on the Quakers in this pamphlet keen enough to shame them into letting the other elements of the population of the Province have the use of enough of the public money to enable them to protect both themselves and the Quakers and yet not keen enough to make the Quakers thoroughly incensed as well as obstinate is one of the notable features of _Plain Truth_. The prospect of the middling people of the Province, the pamphlet continues, was no better, if they turned their eyes to those great and rich men, merchants and others, who were ever railing at the Quakers, but took no one step themselves for the public safety. With their wealth and influence, they might easily promote military ardor and discipline in the Province and effect everything under God for its protection. But envy seemed to have taken possession of their hearts, and to have eaten out and destroyed every generous, noble, public-spirited sentiment, and rage at the disappointment of their little schemes for power gnawed their souls, and filled them with such cordial hatred to their opponents that any proposal, by the execution of which the latter might receive benefit as well as themselves, was rejected with indignation. However, if the city and Province were brought to destruction, it would not be for want of numerous inhabitants able to bear arms in their defence. It was computed that the Province had at least (exclusive of the Quakers) 60,000 fighting men, acquainted with firearms, many of them hunters and marksmen, hardy and bold. All they lacked was order, discipline and a few cannon. At present they were like the separate filaments of flax before the thread is formed, without strength because without connection; but union would make them strong and even formidable. Many of the inhabitants of the Province were of the British race, and, though the fierce fighting animals of those happy islands were said to abate their natural fire and intrepidity, when removed to a foreign clime, yet, with their people this was not so. Among the inhabitants of the Province likewise were those brave men whose fathers in the last age made so glorious a stand for Protestantism and English liberty, when invaded by a powerful French Army, joined by Irish Catholics, under a bigoted Popish King; and also thousands of that warlike nation whose sons had ever since the time of Cæsar maintained the character he gave their fathers of uniting the most obstinate courage to all the other military virtues--the brave and steady Germans. Poor Richard, of course, had to have his proverb in war as well as peace. Were the union formed, and the fighting men of the Province once united, thoroughly armed and disciplined, the very fame of strength and readiness, _Plain Truth_ thought, would be a means of discouraging the enemy, "for," said Franklin, "'tis a wise and true Saying, that _One Sword often keeps another in the Scabbard_. The Way to secure Peace is to be prepared for War." After these weighty maxims, this remarkable pamphlet ends with the statement that, if its hints were so happy as to meet with a suitable disposition of mind from the countrymen and fellow citizens of the writer, he would, in a few days, lay before them a form of association for the purposes mentioned in the pamphlet, together with a practical scheme for raising the money necessary for the crisis without laying a burthen on any man. Like "The drum, That makes the warrior's stomach come," was _Plain Truth_ with its sudden and surprising effect. Agreeably with the popular response to it, Franklin drafted articles of association, after consulting with others, and issued a call for a citizen's rally in the Whitefield meeting-house. When the citizens assembled, printed copies of the articles had already been struck off, and pens and ink had been distributed throughout the hall. Franklin then harangued the gathering a little, read and explained the articles, and handed around the printed copies. They were so eagerly signed that, when the meeting broke up, there were more than twelve hundred signatures, and this number, when the country people were subsequently given an opportunity to sign, swelled to more than ten thousand. All the signers furnished themselves as soon as they could with arms, organized into companies and regiments, chose their own officers, and met every week for military training. The contagion spread even to the women, and, with money raised by their own subscriptions, they procured silk colors for the companies, set off with devices and mottoes furnished by Franklin himself, who had a peculiar turn for designing things of that sort. The next step was for the officers of the companies, constituting the Philadelphia regiment, to meet and choose a colonel. They did so, and selected the only man, or almost the only man, so far as we know, who has ever, in the history of the American Militia, conceived himself to be unfit for the office of colonel, and that is Benjamin Franklin. "Conceiving myself unfit," says Franklin in the _Autobiography_, "I declin'd that station, and recommended Mr. Lawrence, a fine person, and man of influence, who was accordingly appointed." But between building and equipping a battery on the river below Philadelphia, and manipulating Quaker scruples, Franklin had his hands quite as full as were those of Colonel Lawrence. At that time, whether the souls of men were to be saved by the erection of a church or their bodies to be destroyed by the erection of a battery, resort was had to a lottery. Franklin himself, for instance, was twice appointed by the vestry of Christ Church the manager of a lottery for the purpose of building a steeple and buying a chime of bells for that church. A lottery, therefore, was proposed by him to defray the expense of building and equipping the battery. The suggestion was eagerly acted upon, and, with the current of popular enthusiasm running so swiftly, the lottery soon filled, and a battery with merlons framed of logs and packed with earth was rapidly erected. The problem was how to get the necessary ordnance. Some old cannon were bought in Boston, a not over-sanguine request for some was made of the stingy Proprietaries, Richard and Thomas Penn, an order was given to other persons in England to purchase in case the request was not honored, and Colonel Lawrence, William Allen, Abram Taylor and Franklin were dispatched to New York by the association to borrow what cannon they could from Governor George Clinton. Fortunately for Pennsylvania, the cockles of that Governor's heart were of the kind that glow and expand with generous benevolence when warmed by the bottle. At first, he refused peremptorily to let the embassy have any cannon, but, later on when he sat at meat, or rather drink, with the members of his council, there was, we are told by Franklin in the _Autobiography_, great drinking of Madeira wine, as the custom of New York then was. With the progress of the dinner, he softened by degrees, and said that he would lend six. After a few more bumpers, he advanced to ten, and, at length, he very good-naturedly conceded eighteen. They were fine cannon, eighteen-pounders, with their carriages, and were soon transported and mounted on the battery in Pennsylvania, where the associators kept a nightly guard while the war lasted; and where, among the rest, Franklin regularly took his turn of duty as a common soldier. The activity of Franklin at this conjuncture not only won him a high degree of popularity with his fellow-citizens but also the good will of the Governor of Pennsylvania and his Council, who took him into their confidence, and consulted with him whenever it was felt that their concurrence was needed by the association. When they approved his suggestion that a fast should be proclaimed for the purpose of invoking the blessing of Heaven upon the association, and it was found that no such thing had ever been thought of in Pennsylvania before, he even fell back upon his New England training, and drew up a proclamation for the purpose in the usual form which was translated into German, printed in both English and German, and circulated throughout the Province. The fast day fixed by the paper gave the clergy of the different sects in Pennsylvania a favorable opportunity for urging the members of their flocks to enroll themselves as members of the association, and it was the belief of Franklin that, if peace had not soon been declared, all the religious congregations in the Province except those of the Quakers would have been enlisted in the movement for the defence of the Province. The most interesting thing, however, connected with this whole episode was the conduct of the Quakers. James Logan, true to his former principles, wrote a cogent address to his Fellow-Friends justifying defensive war, and placed sixty pounds in Franklin's hands with instructions to him to apply all the lottery prizes that they might win to the cost of the battery. Other Friends also, perhaps most of the younger ones, were in favor of defence, but many Friends preferred to keep up silently the semblance of conformity with their dogma about war, though ready enough to have it refined away by Franklin's astuteness, which had a gift for working around obstacles when it could not climb over or break through them. That the Quakers, as a body, even if they did not relish his new-born intimacy with the executive councillors, with whom they had had a feud of long standing, were not losing much of their placidity over the proposition to protect their throats and chattels against their will, an ambitious young gentleman, who wished to displace Franklin, as the Clerk of the Quaker Assembly, soon learnt. Like the generous Maori of New Zealand, who refrained from descending upon their English invaders until they had duly communicated to them the hour of their proposed onset, he advised Franklin (from good will he said) to resign as more consistent with his honor than being turned out. He little realized apparently that he was attempting to intimidate one of the grimmest antagonists that ever entertained the robuster American ideas about public office, the manner in which it is to be sought, and the prehensile tenacity, with which it is to be clung to, when secured. But for the fact that Franklin was always a highly faithful and efficient officeholder, and the further fact that he gave his entire salary, as President of Pennsylvania, to public objects, he would not fall far short of being a typical American officeholder of the better class, as that class was before the era of civil-service reform. On a later occasion, when his resignation as Deputy Postmaster-General for America was desired, he humorously observed in a letter to his sister, Jane, that he was deficient in the Christian virtue of resignation. "If they would have my Office," he said, "they must take it." And, on another later occasion, he strongly advised his son not to resign his office, as Governor of New Jersey, because, while much might be made of a removal, nothing could be made of a resignation. As long as there was a son, or a grandson of his own, with no fear of the inclination of political competitors to pry into skeleton closets, or a relative of any sort to enjoy the sweets of public office, Franklin appears to have acted consistently upon the principle that the persons whose qualifications we know best, through the accident of family intimacy, are the persons that are likely to confer the highest degree of credit upon us when we appoint them to public positions. With this general outlook upon the part of Franklin in regard to public office, the young man, who wished to be his successor, as clerk, soon found that there was nothing left for him to do except to go off sorrowfully like the young man in the Scriptures. My answer to him [says Franklin in the _Autobiography_] was, that I had read or heard of some public man who made it a rule never to ask for an office, and never to refuse one when offer'd to him. "I approve," says I, "of his rule, and will practice it with a small addition; I shall never _ask_, never _refuse_, nor ever _resign_ an office." If they will have my office of clerk to dispose of to another, they shall take it from me. I will not, by giving it up, lose my right of some time or other making reprisals on my adversaries. Franklin never actually refused an office except when its duties could be discharged only from what was virtually his death-bed, and he never resigned an office, though he was removed from one under circumstances which furnished a fine illustration, indeed, of how much can be made of a removal. On the other hand, he did not keep his vow of never asking for an office; for melancholy to relate, like a raven eying a sick horse, we find him fore-handed enough, when it was manifest that Mr. Elliot Benger, the Deputy Postmaster-General of America, was about to pay his last debt to nature, to apply for the reversion of his office before the debt was actually paid, and to offer, through Chief Justice Allen of Pennsylvania, the sum of three hundred pounds in perquisites and contingent fees and charges for it. Indeed, Benger, though "tho't to be near his end" by Franklin, when the latter first set to work to succeed him, did not die until more than two years afterwards.[15] As we shall see hereafter, to Franklin, as an officeholder, was honorably allotted even the state of supreme beatitude under the spoils system of politics which consists in holding more than one public office at one time. The young aspirant for Franklin's place had nothing but his generous motives to soothe his disappointment, for at the next election Franklin was unanimously elected clerk as usual. Indeed, Franklin had reason to believe that the measures taken for the protection of Pennsylvania were not disagreeable to any of the Quakers, provided that they were not required to participate actively in them. The proportion of Quakers sincerely opposed to resistance, he estimated, after having had a chance to look the field over, was as one to twenty-one only. His long contact with the Assembly, as its clerk, had afforded him excellent opportunities for observing how embarrassed its Quaker majority, which loved political power quite as much as it detested war and Presbyterians, was, whenever applications were made to the Assembly for military grants by order of the Crown, and to what subtle shifts this majority was compelled to resort on such occasions to save its face; ending finally in its voting money simply for the "King's use," and never inquiring how it was spent. Sometimes the demand was not directly from the Crown, and then the conflict, that is being perpetually renewed between eccentric human opinions and the inexorable order of the universe, became acute, indeed, as, for instance, when this majority was urged by Governor Thomas to appropriate a sum of money with which to buy powder for the military needs of New England. Money to buy powder nakedly the Quakers were not willing to vote, but they appropriated three thousand pounds to be put into the hands of the Governor for the purchase of bread, flour, wheat or other _grain_. Some members of the Governor's Council, desirous of still further embarrassing the Assembly, advised him not to accept provisions instead of powder, but he replied: "I shall take the money, for I understand very well their meaning; other grain is gunpowder." Gunpowder he accordingly bought, and the Quakers maintained a silence as profound as that which lulled Franklin to sleep in their great meeting-house when he first arrived in Philadelphia. The esoteric meaning of this kind of language was, of course, not likely to be lost upon a man so prompt as Franklin to take a wink for a nod. With his practical turn of mind, he was the last person in the world to boggle over delphic words when they were clear enough for him to see that they gave him all that he wanted. So, when it was doubtful whether the Quakers in the Union Fire Company would vote a fund of sixty pounds for the purchase of tickets in the lottery, remembering the incident, which has just been related, he said to his friend, Syng, one of its members, "If we fail, let us move the purchase of a fire-engine with the money; the Quakers can have no objection to that; and then, if you nominate me and I you as a committee for that purpose, we will buy a great gun, which is certainly a _fire engine_." But there was no real danger of the fund not being voted. The company consisted of thirty members, of whom twenty-two were Quakers. The remaining eight punctually attended the meeting, at which the vote was to be taken. Only one Quaker, Mr. James Morris, appeared to oppose the grant. The proposition, he said, with the confidence that usually marks statements in a democratic community about the preponderance of popular opinion, ought never to have been made, as Friends were all against it, and it would create such discord as might break up the company. At any rate, he thought that, though the hour for business had arrived, a little time should be allowed for the appearance of other members of the company, who, he knew, intended to come for the purpose of voting against the proposition. While this suggestion was being combated, who should appear but a waiter to tell Franklin that two gentlemen below desired to speak with him. These proved to be two of the Quaker members of the company. Eight of them, they said, were assembled at a tavern just by, who were ready to come and vote for the proposition, if they should be needed, but did not desire to be sent for, if their assistance could be dispensed with. Franklin then went back to Mr. Morris, and after a little seeming hesitation--for at times he had a way of piecing out the skin of the lion with the tail of the fox--agreed to a delay of another hour. This Mr. Morris admitted was extremely fair. Nobody else came, and, upon the expiration of the hour, the proposition was carried by a vote of eight to one. Franklin was a thoroughly normal man himself, but his wit, patience and rare capacity for self-transformation usually enabled him to deal successfully with any degree of abnormality in others, however pronounced. "Sensible people," he once said to his sister Jane, "will give a bucket or two of water to a dry pump, that they may afterwards get from it all they have occasion for." The next time that Franklin crosses the stage of war is when General Braddock and his men, in the buskins of high tragedy, are moving to their doom. It had been reported to the General that, not only had the Pennsylvania Assembly refused to vote money for the King's service, but that the Pennsylvanians themselves had sold provisions to the French, declined to aid in the construction of a road to the West, and withheld wagons and horses sorely needed by the expedition; and the General had just been compelled to settle down for a time in the temper of a chafed bull at Frederick, Maryland, for the want of wagons and horses to transport his army to Fort Duquesne, which he afterwards told Franklin could hardly detain him above three or four days on his triumphant progress to Niagara and Frontenac. Forts, he seemed to think, to recall Franklin's simile, could be taken as easily as snuff. Under these circumstances, the Pennsylvania Assembly decided to ask Franklin to visit Braddock's camp, ostensibly as Deputy Postmaster-General, for the purpose of arranging a plan, by which the General could effectively keep in postal touch with the Colonial Governors, but really for the purpose of removing the prejudices which the General had formed against Pennsylvania. And a pleasant April journey that must have been for the mounted Franklin through Pennsylvania and Delaware, and over "the green-walled hills of Maryland," with his son, and the Governors of New York and Massachusetts, also mounted, as his companions. That such a brave company, as it passed through the mild vernal air of that delightful season from stage to stage of its itinerary, experienced no dearth of hospitable offices, we may rest assured. One Maryland gentleman, the "amiable and worthy" Colonel Benjamin Tasker, who entertained Franklin and William Franklin on this journey with great hospitality and kindness at his country place, even pleasantly claimed that a whirlwind, which Franklin made the subject of a most graphic description in a letter to Peter Collinson, had been got up by him on purpose to treat Mr. Franklin. It was probably the energy and resource of Franklin that were really responsible for Braddock's defeat, paradoxical as this may sound. When that brave but rash and infatuated general and his officers found that only twenty-five wagons could be obtained in Virginia and Maryland for the expedition, they declared that it was at an end; not less than one hundred and fifty wagons being necessary for the purpose. Their hopes, however, were revived when Franklin remarked that it was a pity that the army had not landed in Pennsylvania, as almost every farmer in that Colony had his wagon. This observation was eagerly pounced upon by Braddock, and Franklin was duly commissioned to procure the needed wagons. With such consummate art did he, in an address published by him at Lancaster, partly by persuasion, and partly by threats, work upon the feelings of the prosperous farmers of York, Lancaster and Cumberland Counties that in two weeks the one hundred and fifty wagons, with two hundred and fifty-nine pack-horses, were on their way to Braddock's camp. Nay more; with the aid of William Franklin, who knew something of camp life and its wants, he drew up a list of provisions for Braddock's subaltern officers, whose means were too limited to enable them to victual themselves comfortably for the march, and induced the Pennsylvania Assembly to make a present of them to these officers. The twenty parcels, in which the provisions were packed, were each placed upon a horse and presented to a subaltern together with the horse itself. The twenty horses and their packs arrived in camp as soon as the wagons, and were very thankfully received. The kindness of Franklin in procuring them was acknowledged in letters to him from the colonels of the two regiments composing Braddock's army in the most grateful terms, and Braddock was so delighted with his services in furnishing the wagons and pack-horses that he not only thanked him repeatedly, craved his further assistance, and repaid him one thousand pounds of a sum amounting to some thirteen hundred pounds which he had advanced, but wrote home a letter in which, after inveighing against the "false dealings of all in this country," with whom he had been concerned, he commended Franklin's promptitude and fidelity, and declared that his conduct was almost the only instance of address and fidelity which he had seen in America. The balance of the amount that Franklin advanced he was never able to collect. It is foreign to the plan of this book to describe the horrors of the sylvan inferno in which the huddled soldiers of Braddock stood about as much chance of successfully retaliating upon their flitting assailants as if the latter had been invisible spirits. It is enough for our purpose to say that, as soon as the wagoners, whom Franklin had gathered together, saw how things were going, they each took a horse from his wagon, and scampered away as fast as his steed could carry him, leaving too many wagons, provisions, pieces of artillery, stores and scalps behind them to make it worth the while of the victors to pursue them. Franklin states in the _Autobiography_ that, when Braddock, with whom he dined daily at Frederick, spoke of passing from Fort Duquesne to Niagara, and from Niagara to Frontenac, as lightly as a traveller might speak of the successive inns at which he was to bait on a peaceful journey, he conceived some doubts and fears as to the event of the campaign. He might well have done so, for he knew, if Braddock did not, what a nimble, painted and befeathered Indian in the crepuscular shades of the primeval American forest was. We also learn from the _Autobiography_ that when the Doctors Bond came to Franklin to ask him to subscribe to fireworks, to be set off upon the fall of Fort Duquesne, he looked grave, and said that it would be time enough to prepare for the rejoicing when they knew that they had occasion to rejoice. All this was natural enough in a man whose temper was cautious, and who had dined daily for some time with Braddock. "The General presum'd too much, and was too secure. This the Event proves, but it was my Opinion from the time I saw him and convers'd with him." These were the words of Franklin in a letter to Peter Collinson shortly after the catastrophe. But, when we remember his written assurance in his Lancaster address to the Pennsylvania farmers that the service, to which their wagons and horses would be put, would be light and easy, and above all the individual promises of indemnity, tantamount to the pledge of his entire fortune, which he gave to these farmers, we cannot help feeling that Franklin's doubts and fears were not quite so strong as he afterwards honestly believed them to be, and that his second sight in this instance was, perhaps, somewhat like that of the clairvoyant, mentioned in the letter, contributed by his friend, Joseph Breintnal to one of his Busy-Body essays, who was "only able to discern Transactions about the Time, and for the most Part after their happening." Apart from the evidence afforded by the expedition that, if Braddock had been as able a general as Franklin was a commissary, its result would have been different, its chief interest to the biographer of Franklin consists in the light that it sheds upon the self-satisfied ignorance of American conditions and the complete want of sympathy with the Americans themselves which subsequently aided in rendering the efforts of Franklin to secure a fair hearing in London for his countrymen so difficult. When Franklin ventured to express apprehension that the slender line of Braddock's army, nearly four miles long, might be ambushed by the Indians, while winding its way through the woods, and be cut like a thread into several pieces, Braddock smiled at his simplicity and replied, "These savages may, indeed, be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia, but upon the King's regular and disciplin'd troops, sir, it is impossible they should make any impression." He saw enough before he was fatally wounded to realize that the very discipline of his British soldiers was their undoing, when contending with such a mobile and wily foe as the Indian in the forest, and that a few hundred provincials, skulking behind trees, and giving their French and Indian antagonists a taste of their own tactics, were worth many thousands of such regulars even as his brave veterans. That he came to some conclusion of this kind before the close of his life we may infer from what Captain Orme told Franklin and what Franklin tells us in the _Autobiography_. Captain Orme [says Franklin], who was one of the general's aids-de-camp, and, being grievously wounded, was brought off with him, and continu'd with him to his death, which happen'd in a few days, told me that he was totally silent all the first day, and at night only said "_Who would have thought it?_" That he was silent again the following day, saying only at last, "_We shall better know how to deal with them another time_"; and dy'd in a few minutes after. There was not to be another time for this intrepid but reckless soldier, who, true to the broad, red banner of England, died like a bulldog with his iron jaws set to the last, but the first time might have sufficed for his task if he had only taken Franklin's hint, or freely consulted the advice of George Washington and the other provincial officers who accompanied him, or had not reduced his army merely to the condition of legs without eyes by treating the hundred Indians, invaluable as guides and scouts, whom George Croghan had brought to his aid, with such neglect and slights that they all, by successive defections, gradually dropped away from him. In the _Autobiography_ Franklin contrasts the conduct of the British on their way from the sea to the unbroken wilderness with the conduct of the French allies when making their way from Rhode Island to Yorktown. The former, he says, from their landing till they got beyond the settlements, plundered and stripped the inhabitants, totally ruining some poor families, besides insulting, abusing and confining such persons as remonstrated. This was enough, he adds, to put the Americans out of conceit of such defenders, if they had really wanted any. The French, on the other hand, though traversing the most inhabited part of America for a distance of nearly seven hundred miles, occasioned not the smallest complaint for the loss of a pig, a chicken, or even an apple. Perhaps this was partly because the people gratefully gave them everything that they wanted before there was any occasion to take it. But it was the pusillanimous misbehavior of Colonel Dunbar, left by Braddock in the rear of his army to bring along the heavier part of his stores, provisions and baggage which converted disaster into disgrace. As soon as the fugitives from the battle reached his camp, the panic that they brought with them was instantly imparted to him and his entire force. Though he had at his command more than a thousand men, he thought of nothing better to do than to turn his draft horses to the purposes of flight, and to give all his stores and ammunition to the flames. When he reached the settlements, he was met with requests from the Governors of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania that he would station his troops on the frontier of those states so as to protect them from the fury of the savages, but, so far from stopping to protect anybody else, not one jot of speed did he abate until, to use Franklin's words, "he arriv'd at Philadelphia, where the inhabitants could protect him." "This whole transaction," declares the _Autobiography_, "gave us Americans the first suspicion that our exalted ideas of the prowess of British regulars had not been well founded." When Dunbar did abandon the shelter which he had found at Philadelphia, it was only to give the people of Pennsylvania a parting whiff of his quality. He promised Franklin that, if three poor farmers of Lancaster County would meet him at Trenton, where he expected to be in a few days on his march to New York, he would surrender to them certain indentured servants of theirs whom he had enlisted. Although they took him at his word, and met him at Trenton, at considerable sacrifice of time and money, he refused to perform his promise. The defeat of Braddock and its consequences left the province fully exposed to Indian incursions, and again its ablest and most public-spirited man was compelled to take the lead in providing for its defense. His first act was to draft and push through the Assembly a bill for organizing and disciplining a militia. Each company was to elect a captain, a lieutenant and an ensign, subject to the confirmation of the Governor, and the officers, so elected, of the companies forming each regiment, were to elect a colonel, a lieutenant-colonel and a major for the regiment, subject to the same confirmation. But nothing about the bill is so interesting as the further evidence that it affords of Franklin's finesse in the management of Quakers. The Articles of Association, provided for in the Act, were to be purely voluntary, and nothing in the Act was to be taken as authorizing the Governor or the military officers mentioned in it to prescribe any regulations that would in the least affect such of the inhabitants of the Province as were scrupulous about bearing arms, either in their liberties, persons or estates. There is almost a gleam of the true Franklin humor in the recital in the Act, which, though other parts of the Act safeguarded the Quaker crotchet as to fighting, made the Quaker majority in the Assembly admit that there were some persons in the Province who had been disciplined in the art of war, and even--strange as that might be--conscientiously thought it their duty to fight in defense of their country, their wives, their families and estates. The Militia Act was followed by Franklin's _Dialogue between X Y and Z_ explaining and defending it. This paper is garnished with apt references to the Bible, and, as a whole, is written with much vivacity and force. Its object was to convince the English, Scotch-Irish and German Pennsylvanians that they should fight to keep their own scalps on their heads even though they could not do this without accomplishing as much for the Quakers. "For my part," says Z, "I am no coward, but hang me if I'll fight to save the _Quakers_." "That is to say," says X, "you won't pump ship because 'twill save the rats, as well as yourself." And to Z's suggestion that, if the Act was carried into execution, and proved a good one, they might have nothing to say against the Quakers at the next election, X, no unknown quantity, but Franklin himself, replies with this burst of eloquent exhortation which makes us half doubt Franklin when he says that he was not an orator: O my friends, let us on this occasion cast from us all these little party views, and consider ourselves as _Englishmen_ and _Pennsylvanians_. Let us think only of the service of our king, the honour and safety of our country, and vengeance on its murdering enemies. If good be done, what imports it by whom 'tis done? The glory of serving and saving others is superior to the advantage of being served or secured. Let us resolutely and generously unite in our country's cause, (in which to die is the sweetest of all deaths) and may the God of Armies bless our honest endeavours. When the defeat of Braddock first became known to Governor Morris, he hastened to consult with Franklin about the proper measures for preventing the desertion of the back counties of Pennsylvania, and he even went so far as to offer to make him a general, if he would undertake to conduct a force of provincials against Fort Duquesne. Franklin had, or with his wise modesty affected to have, a suspicion that the offer was inspired not so much by the Governor's confidence in his military abilities as by the Governor's desire to utilize his great personal influence for the purpose of enlisting soldiers and securing money to pay them with; and that, perhaps, without the taxation of the Proprietary estates. The suspicion we should say was groundless. In the land of the blind the one-eyed mole is king, and the probability is that the Governor was actuated by nothing more than the belief that in a province, where there were no seasoned generals, a man with Franklin's talents, energy and resource would be likely to prove the best impromptu commander that he could find. If so, his calculations came to nothing, for Franklin, who always saw things as they were, could discern no reason why he should be unfit to be a colonel and yet fit to be a general. When, however, the Militia Act had been passed, and Z had been silenced by X, and military companies were springing up as rapidly as mushrooms in a Pennsylvania meadow, he did permit himself to be prevailed upon by the Governor to take charge of the northwestern frontier of the Province, and to bend his energies to the task of enlisting soldiers and erecting forts for its protection. He did not think himself qualified for even this quasi-military post, but posterity has taken the liberty of differing from him in this regard. Having speedily rallied five hundred and sixty men to his standard, and called his son, who had had some military training, to his side, as his aide-de-camp, he assembled his little army at Bethlehem, the chief seat of the Moravians, and divided it into three detachments. One he sent off towards the Minisink to build a fort in the upper part of the exposed territory, another he sent off to build a fort in the lower part of the same territory, and the third he conducted himself to Gnadenhutten, a Moravian village, recently reduced to blood and ashes by the Indians, for the purpose of erecting a third fort there. When he reached Bethlehem, he found that not only had the Moravian brethren, who, he had had reason to believe, were conscientiously averse to war, erected a stockade around the principal buildings of the town, and purchased a supply of arms and ammunition for themselves in New York, but that they had even placed a quantity of stones between the windows of their high houses, to be thrown down by their women upon the heads of any Indians by whom these buildings might be invested. "Common sense, aided by present danger, will sometimes be too strong for whimsical opinions," dryly comments Franklin in the _Autobiography_. How death kept his court in that tortured land may be inferred from an incident recorded by Franklin in the _Autobiography_. Just before he left Bethlehem for Gnadenhutten, eleven farmers who had been driven from their plantations by the Indians obtained from him each a gun with a suitable supply of ammunition, and returned to their homes to fetch away their cattle. Ten of the eleven were killed by the Indians. The one who escaped reported that they could not discharge their guns because the priming had become wet with rain--a mishap which the Indians were too dexterous to allow to befall their pieces. The same rain descended upon Franklin and his men on their march from Bethlehem to Gnadenhutten, and disabled their guns too, but fortunately, though at one point they had to pass through a gap in the mountains which their foes might well have turned to deadly account, they were not attacked on the march. Once arrived at Gnadenhutten, as soon as the detachment had sheltered itself under rude huts, and interred with more decent completeness the massacred victims, who had been only half buried by their demoralized neighbors, it proceeded to fell trees and to erect a fort, or rather stockade, with a circumference of four hundred and fifty-five feet. "How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke," was not more aptly written of the peasants whom Gray's _Elegy_ has immortalized, than it might have been of the seventy brawny axemen in Franklin's camp, two of whom could by Franklin's watch in six minutes cut down a pine fourteen inches in diameter. In a week, in spite of drenching rains, a stockade had been constructed of sufficient strength, flimsy as it was, to fend off cannonless Indians. It consisted of palisades eighteen feet long, planted in a trench three feet deep, loopholes, and a gallery, at an elevation of six feet around its interior, for its defenders to stand on and take aim through the loopholes. When it had been finished, a swivel gun was mounted at one of its angles and discharged to let the Indians know that the garrison was supplied with such pieces. They were not far off; for when Franklin began, after he had furnished himself with a place of refuge, in case of retreat, to throw out scouting parties over the adjacent country, he found that they had been watching his movements from the hills with their feet dangling in holes, in which, for warmth, fires, made of charcoal, had been kindled. With their fires going in this way, there was neither light, flame, sparks, nor even smoke, to betray their presence; but it would seem that they were too few in numbers to feel that they could hazard an attack upon the stockade-builders. The impression left upon the mind by this expedition is that it was managed by Franklin with no little good sense and efficiency, though it does seem to us that a man who never lacked the capacity to invent any mechanical device called for by his immediate needs ought to have been too provident to find himself in a narrow defile with guns as impotent as those of the ten poor farmers who had perished that very day. It was inexcusable in Poor Richard at any rate to forget his own saying, "For want of a Nail the Shoe was lost; for want of a Shoe the Horse was lost; and for want of a Horse the Rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the Enemy; all for want of care about a Horse-shoe Nail." In his instructions, before he left Bethlehem, to Captain Vanetta, in relation to certain operations, which the latter was to undertake with a separate force against the Indians, Franklin, though he said nothing about trusting in God, took care to warn the captain to keep his powder dry. The expedition was cut short by a letter from the Governor and letters from Franklin's friends in the Assembly urging him to attend the sessions about to be held by that body. There was no reason why he should not do so; for the three forts were completed, and the country people, relying upon the protection afforded by them, were content to remain on their farms; and especially too as Colonel Clapham, a New England officer, conversant with Indian warfare, had accepted the command in the place of Franklin, and had been introduced by the latter to his men as a soldier much better fitted to lead them than himself. But Franklin, though he had never been engaged in battle, found on his return to Philadelphia that he had won a military prestige upon which he could not easily turn his back. He was elected colonel of the Philadelphia regiment under such circumstances that he was unable to again decline the honor of a colonelcy on the score of unfitness. His regiment consisted of about twelve hundred presentable men, with an artillery company, furnished with six brass field-pieces, which the company had become expert enough to fire off twelve times in a minute. The first time [says Franklin in the _Autobiography] I reviewed my regiment they accompanied me to my house, and_ would salute me with some rounds fired before my door, which shook down and broke several glasses of my electrical apparatus. And my new honour proved not much less brittle; for all our commissions were soon after broken by a repeal of the law in England. If, however, his colonelcy had not been marked by any considerable effusion of blood, he had acquired fame enough to arouse the intense jealousy of Thomas Penn, the Proprietary. When Franklin was on the point of setting out on a journey to Virginia, the officers of his regiment took it into their heads to escort him out of town as far as the Lower Ferry. This ceremonious proceeding was unexpectedly sprung upon him; otherwise, he says, he would have prevented it, being naturally averse to all flourishes of that sort. As it was, just as he was getting on horseback, the officers, thirty or forty in number, came to his door, all mounted, and in their uniforms, and, as soon as the cavalcade commenced to move, made things worse by drawing their swords and riding with them naked the entire distance to the Lower Ferry. The Proprietary, when he heard of the incident, was deeply affronted. No such honor, forsooth, he declared, had ever been paid to him, when in the Province, nor to any of his Governors, and was only proper when due homage was being paid to princes of the blood royal; all of which Franklin innocently tells us might be so for aught such a novice in matters of this kind as he knew. So aroused indeed was the Proprietary by the affair, coming as it did on the heels of the grudge that he already owed Franklin for his part in insisting that the Proprietary estates should sustain their just share of the common burden of taxation, that he even denounced Franklin to the British ministry as the arch obstructionist of measures for the King's service, citing the pomp of this occasion as evidence of the fact that Franklin harbored the intention of taking the government of the Province out of his hands by force. His malice, in fact, did not stop short even of an effort to deprive Franklin of his office as Deputy Postmaster-General for the Colonies; with no effect, however, except that of eliciting a gentle admonition to Franklin from Sir Everard Fawkener, the British Postmaster-General. Thus ended for a time the military career of Franklin amid the crash of his electrical apparatus and the gleam of unfleshed swords. Susceptible of subdivision as his life is, it would hardly justify a separate chapter on Franklin the Soldier; but, all the same, by the splendidly efficient service rendered by him to Braddock, by his pamphlet, _Plain Truth_, by his Articles of Association and his battery, by his X Y Z dialogue and Militia Act, by his tact in conciliating and circumventing the awkward Quaker conviction that "peace unweaponed conquers every wrong," and by the energy and sound judgment brought by him to the expedition to Gnadenhutten he had established his right to be considered in war as well as in peace the man whose existence could be less easily spared than that of any other Pennsylvanian. There is a pleasure in speculating on the turn that his future might have taken if the terms in which Braddock recommended him to the favor of the Crown had been followed by the fall of Fort Duquesne instead of the battle of the Monongahela. While in his relations to Braddock's expedition he was influenced, as he always was in every such case, mainly by generous public spirit, yet it is manifest, too, that he was fully alive to the significance that his first helpful contact with such a British commander as Braddock might have for his own self-advancement. The sterner stuff in the character of Franklin, however, was to be still further tried. During the year succeeding his second return from England in 1762, the minds of the people in the western counties of Pennsylvania, and especially of the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, whose passions were easily deflected into channels of religious fanaticism, were inflamed almost to madness by Indian atrocities, and this mental condition resulted in an act of abominable butchery, such as has rarely blackened even the history of the American Indian himself. Living not far from the town of Lancaster, on the Manor of Conestoga, was the remnant of what had once been a considerable tribe of the Six Nations. The members of this tribe sent messengers to welcome the first English settlers of Pennsylvania with presents of venison, corn and furs, and entered into a treaty of friendship with William Penn which, in the figurative language of the savage, was to last "as long as the Sun should shine, or the Waters run in the Rivers," and which in point of fact was faithfully observed by both parties. In the course of time, as the whites purchased land from them, and hemmed them in more and more closely, they settled down upon a part of the Manor assigned to them by William Penn which they were not allowed by the Provincial Government to alienate, and here they lived on terms of unbroken amity with their white neighbors. In the further course of time, the tribe dwindled to such an extent that there were only twenty survivors, seven men, five women, and eight children of both sexes, whose means of subsistence were supplied to some extent by mendicancy and the chase, but mainly by the sale to the whites of the brooms, baskets and wooden ladles made by the women. The oldest of the band, a man named Shehaes, was old enough to have been present when the original chain of friendship between the tribe and William Penn was brightened by a second treaty between the same contracting parties. The youngest were infants. There is good reason to believe that at least one or two of the band had been in secret commerce with the hostile Indians whose shocking barbarities had filled the souls of such of the Pennsylvania borderers as had not been tomahawked, carried off into captivity or driven from their homes with sensations little short of frenzied desperation. On Wednesday, the 14th of December, 1763, fifty men from the territory about Paxton, a small town in Pennsylvania, on the Susquehanna above Conestoga, all mounted, and armed with firelocks, hangers and hatchets, descended upon the squalid huts of this band, about dawn, and slaughtered in cold blood three men, two women and a young boy--the only members of the vagabond band whom they found at home. The firelocks, hangers and hatchets were all used in perpetrating the bloody work, and the miserable victims were scalped and horribly mangled besides. Shehaes himself was cut to pieces in his bed. Then, after seizing upon such booty as was to be found, and applying the torch to most of the huts, the murderers rode away through the snow-drifts to their homes. A shudder of horror passed through the whites in the vicinity, and a cry of bitter lamentation went up from the younger survivors of the band when they returned to the sickening spot, where the charred bodies of their parents and other relations, looking as one observer said like half burnt logs, told the hideous story. We had known the greater part of them from children [said Susannah Wright, a humane white woman, who resided near the spot], had been always intimate with them. Three or four of the women were sensible and civilized, and the Indians' children used to play with ours, and oblige them all they could. We had many endearing recollections of them, and the manner of effecting the brutal enormity so affected us, that we had to beg visitors to forbear to speak of it. The public officials of the Province appear to have faithfully performed their duty immediately after the tragedy. The survivors were gathered together by the sheriff of Lancaster, and placed in the workhouse for safety. A hundred and forty other friendly Indians, who had been converted by the Moravians, fearing that they might be visited with just such violence, had found, before the descent upon Conestoga, shelter near Philadelphia, at the public expense, under the guidance of a good Moravian minister. The Governor, John Penn, issued a proclamation calling upon all the civil and military officers of the Colony and all His Majesty's other liege subjects to do their duty. But the Governor soon found that he was reckoning with that Scotch-Irish temper, which, at its highest point of rigidity, is like concrete reinforced with iron rods, and which in this instance was more or less countenanced by the sympathy of the entire Province. Despite the proclamation of the Governor under the great seal of the Colony, the incensed frontiersmen, now fired by the fresh taste of blood as well as by the original conviction of the settlements from which they came that an angry God had turned his face from the inhabitants of Pennsylvania, because they had not smitten, hip and thigh, and utterly destroyed the red-skinned Amorites and Canaanites, again assembled, and riding into Lancaster, armed as on the previous occasion, broke in the door of its workhouse and dispatched every solitary one of the poor wretches who had escaped their pitiless hands. Thereupon, they mounted their horses, huzzaed in triumph, and rode off unmolested. The whole thing was like the flight of the pigeon-hawk, so swift and deadly was it; for, within ten or twelve minutes after the alarm was given, the borderers were again in their saddles. By a large part of the population of the Province the deed was applauded as the infliction of just vengeance upon a race which had many unspeakable enormities to answer for in its relations to the whites; by the people of the Province generally, except the Quakers, it was but languidly condemned, and the proclamations of the Governor proved to be mere paper trumpets, for all the efforts of the Government to bring the criminals to justice were wholly unsuccessful. But there was one man in the Province, and he not a Quaker either, to whom justice, mercy and law had not lost their meaning. In his _Narrative of the Late Massacres in Lancaster County_, Franklin, in words as burning as any ever inspired by righteous wrath, denounced with blistering force the assassins and their crimes. Anger, Lord Bacon tells us, makes even dull men witty. Just indignation in this case lifted one of the soberest and most self-contained of men to the level of impassioned feeling and of almost lyrical speech. With a firm yet rapid hand, Franklin sketched the history of the tribe, its peaceful intercourse with the whites, its decline until it numbered only the twenty creatures whom he brings vividly before us with a few familiar strokes of individual description, the infamous circumstances that attended the destruction of defenseless weakness in hut and workhouse. Then, along with illustrations of clemency and magnanimity derived from many different historical and national sources, and even from the annals of semi-civilized and barbarous communities, and graphically contrasted with the conduct of the ruthless men who had wreaked their will upon the Conestoga villagers, male and female, and their children, he poured out a tide of scathing execration upon the heads of the malefactors which showed as nothing else in all his life ever showed how deep were the fountains that fed the calm flow of his ordinary benevolence. O, ye unhappy Perpetrators of this horrid Wickedness! [he exclaimed, rising with a natural crescendo of exalted feeling even into the sublimated province of the apostrophe] reflect a Moment on the Mischief ye have done, the Disgrace ye have brought on your Country, on your Religion, and your Bible, on your Families and Children! Think on the Destruction of your captivated Country-folks (now among the wild _Indians_) which probably may follow, in Resentment of your Barbarity! Think on the Wrath of the United _Five Nations_, hitherto our Friends, but now provoked by your murdering one of their Tribes, in Danger of becoming our bitter Enemies. Think of the mild and good Government you have so audaciously insulted; the Laws of your King, your Country, and your God, that you have broken; the infamous Death that hangs over your Heads; for Justice, though slow, will come at last. All good People everywhere detest your Actions. You have imbrued your Hands in innocent Blood; how will you make them clean? The dying Shrieks and Groans of the Murdered, will often sound in your Ears. Their Spectres will sometimes attend you, and affright even your innocent Children! Fly where you will, your Consciences will go with you. Talking in your Sleep shall betray you, in the Delirium of a Fever you yourselves shall make your own Wickedness known. These were honest, fearless words, but, so far as we know, the Erynnes did not plant any stings of conscience in the breasts of the men from Paxton District whom Franklin elsewhere in this Narrative described as the Christian white savages of Paxton and Donegal. On the contrary, several hundred men from the same region, armed with rifles and hatchets, and clad in hunting shirts, marched towards Philadelphia with the avowed purpose of killing the Moravian Indians who had found refuge in its vicinity. The city was reduced to a state of terror, and Governor Penn, like his predecessors, could think of nothing more expedient to do than to invoke the advice and assistance of Franklin. He accordingly made Franklin's house his headquarters, and freely consulted with him touching every defensive measure required by the crisis. Again Franklin formed an association for the protection of Philadelphia; and, under his auspices, the citizens of Philadelphia were enrolled into nine companies, six of infantry, two of horse, and one of artillery. "Governor Penn," he afterwards declared in a letter to Lord Kames, "made my house for some time his headquarters, and did everything by my advice; so that, for about forty-eight hours, I was a very great man; as I had been once some years before, in a time of public danger." On came the insurgents until they reached Germantown, seven miles from the city. Here they were met by four citizens, of whom Franklin was one, who had been requested by the Governor and his Council to confer with them. While the conference was pending, Franklin's regiment, supported by a detachment of King's troops, remained in the city under arms, and even young Quakers labored incessantly to complete the intrenchments around the barracks, in which the menaced Indians with their Moravian shepherd had been placed. Indeed, now that the waves of the Presbyterian invasion were lapping his own doorsill, the Quaker of every age in Philadelphia appears to have entirely lost sight of the duty of non-resistance. The conference satisfied the insurgents that graver work was ahead of them than that of slaying and scalping old men, women and children, and they retraced their steps. "The fighting face we put on," said Franklin, in his letter to Lord Kames, "and the reasonings we used with the insurgents,... having turned them back and restored quiet to the city, I became a less man than ever; for I had, by these transactions, made myself many enemies among the populace." He had, indeed, but not one whose enmity was not more honorable to him than the friendship of even all his host of friends. Nor did the eagerness of Franklin to bring the Paxton assassins to justice cease with the conference at Germantown. Though pamphlets were sold in the streets of Philadelphia lauding their acts, and inveighing against all who had assisted in protecting the Moravian Indians, though the Governor himself was weak or wicked enough to curry political favor with the party which approved the recent outrages, Franklin still inflexibly maintained that the law should be vindicated by the condign punishment of the Paxton ringleaders. In another place we shall see what his resolute stand cost him politically. FOOTNOTES: [9] In his Plan for Settling Two Western Colonies in North America, Franklin says ruefully that, if the English did not flow westwardly into the great country back of the Appalachian Mountains on both sides of the Ohio, and between that river and the Lakes, which would undoubtedly (perhaps in less than another century) become a populous and powerful dominion, and a great accession of power either to England or France, the French, with the aid of the Indians, would, by cutting off new means of subsistence, discourage marriages among the English, and keep them from increasing; thus (if the expression might be allowed) killing thousands of their children before they were born. [10] The existence of so much evil and misery in the world was a stumbling-block to Franklin as it has been to so many other human beings. In a letter to Jane Mecom, dated Dec. 30, 1770, he told her that he had known in London some forty-five years before a printer's widow, named Ilive, who had required her son by her will to deliver publicly in Salter's Hall a solemn discourse in support of the proposition that this world is the true Hell, or place of punishment for the spirits who have transgressed in a better place and are sent here to suffer for their sins as animals of all sorts. "In fact," Franklin continued, "we see here, that every lower animal has its enemy, with proper inclinations, faculties, and weapons, to terrify, wound, and destroy it; and that men, who are uppermost, are devils to one another; so that, on the established doctrine of the goodness and justice of the great Creator, this apparent state of general and systematical mischief seemed to demand some such supposition as Mrs. Ilive's, to account for it consistently with the honour of the Deity." [11] The American Philosophical Society Held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge was formed in 1769 by the union of the Philosophical Society founded by Franklin, which, after languishing for many years, was revived in 1767, and The American Society Held at Philadelphia for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge; and Franklin, though absent in England, was elected its first President. [12] As a token of his sense of obligation to the instruction derived by him in his boyhood from a free Boston grammar school, Franklin bequeathed the sum of one hundred pounds sterling to the free schools of that city, subject to the condition that it was to be invested, and that the interest produced by it was to be annually laid out in silver medals, to be awarded as prizes. [13] In an earlier letter to James Parker, Franklin commented on the "Dutch" immigration into Pennsylvania very much as a Californian was afterwards in the habit of doing on the Chinese immigration to our Pacific coast. The "Dutch" under-lived, and were thereby enabled, he said, "to under-work and under-sell the English." In his essay on _The Increase of Mankind_, he asked: "Why should the _Palatine Boors_ be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and, by herding together, establish their Language and Manners, to the Exclusion of ours?" Expressions in his letter to Jackson, which we do not mention in our text, make it manifest enough that he gravely doubted whether the German population of Pennsylvania could be relied upon to assist actively in the defence of the Province in the event of its being invaded by the French. However, after suggesting some means of improving the situation, he is compelled to conclude with these words: "I say, I am not against the Admission of Germans in general, for they have their Virtues. Their Industry and Frugality are exemplary. They are excellent Husbandmen; and contribute greatly to the Improvement of a Country." [14] Another sidelight upon the character of Franklin in his boyhood is found in connection with the caution in regard to England that he gave to Robert Morris in 1782, when the Revolutionary War was coming to an end. "That nation," he said, "is changeable. And though somewhat humbled at present, a little success may make them as insolent as ever. I remember that, when I was a boxing boy, it was allowed, even after an adversary said he had enough, to give him a rising blow. Let ours be a douser." [15] Franklin certainly set an example on this occasion of the vigilant regard to the future which he afterwards enjoined in such a picturesque way upon Temple, when he was counselling the latter not to let the season of youth slip by him unimproved by diligence in his studies. "The Ancients," he said, "painted _Opportunity_ as an old Man with Wings to his Feet & Shoulders, a great Lock of Hair on the forepart of his Head, but bald behind; whence comes our old saying, _Take Time by the Forelock_; as much as to say, when it is past, there is no means of pulling it back again; as there is no Lock behind to take hold of for that purpose." The advice of similar tenor in a somewhat later letter from Franklin to Temple has a touch of poetry about it. "If this Season is neglected," he said, "it will be like cutting off the Spring from the Year." So quick was the sympathy of Franklin always with youthful feelings and interests that he never grew too old for the application to him of Emerson's highly imaginative lines, "The old wine darkling in the cask, Feels the bloom on the living vine." CHAPTER IV FRANKLIN'S FAMILY RELATIONS When we turn from Franklin's philanthropic zeal and public spirit to his more intimate personal and social traits, we find much that is admirable, not a little that is lovable, and some things with quite a different aspect. His vow of self-correction, when he had sowed his wild oats and reaped the usual harvest of smut and tares, was, as we have intimated, retrospective as well as prospective. He violated his obligations, as his brother James' apprentice, by absconding from Boston before his time was up, and added aggravation to his original offence by returning to Boston, and exhibiting his genteel new suit, watch and silver money to his brother's journeymen, while he descanted to them upon the land of milk and honey from which he had brought back these indicia of prosperity; his brother all the time standing by grum and sullen, and struggling with the emotions which afterwards caused him to say to his stepmother, when she expressed her wish that the brothers might become reconciled, that Benjamin had insulted him in such a manner before his people that he could never forget or forgive it. In this, however, he was mistaken, as Franklin tersely observes in the _Autobiography_. Some ten years subsequently, on his return from one of his decennial visits to Boston, Franklin stopped over at Newport, to see this brother, who had removed thither, and he found him in a state of rapid physical decline. The former differences were forgotten, the meeting was very cordial and affectionate, and, in compliance with a request, then made of him by James, Franklin took James' son, a boy of ten, as an apprentice, into his own printing house at Philadelphia. Indeed, he did more than he was asked to do; for he sent the boy for some years to school before putting him to work. Afterwards, when the nephew became old enough to launch out into business on his own account, Franklin helped him to establish himself as a printer in New England with gifts of printing materials and a loan of more than two hundred pounds. Thus was the first _deleatur_ of pricking conscience duly heeded by Franklin, the Printer; the first _erratum_ revised. And it is but just to him to say that the _erratum_, if the whole truth were told, was probably more venial than his forgiving spirit allowed him to fully disclose. Under the indentures of apprenticeship, it was as incumbent upon the older brother to abstain from excessive punishment as it was upon the younger not to abscond. Franklin, in the _Autobiography_, while stating that James was passionate and often beat him, also states that James was otherwise not an ill-natured man, and finds extenuation for his brother's violence in the fear of the latter that the success of the Silence Dogood letters might make the young apprentice vain, and in the fact that the young apprentice himself was perhaps too saucy and provoking. Franklin almost always had a word of generous palliation for anyone who had wronged him. The chances, we think, distinctly are that the real nature of the relations between James and Benjamin are to be found not in the text of the _Autobiography_ but in the note to it in which its author declares that the harsh and tyrannical treatment of his brother might have been a means of impressing him with that aversion to arbitrary power which had stuck to him through his whole life. Nor should it be forgotten that the younger brother did not bring the Canaan south of the Delaware, nor the watch and other evidences of the good fortune that he had found there, to the attention of James' journeymen until James, whom he had called to see at the printing house, where these journeymen were employed, had received him coldly, looked him all over, and turned to his work again. There is the fact besides, if Franklin is to be permitted to testify in his own behalf, that, when the disputes between the two brothers were submitted to their father, whose good sense and fairness frequently led him to be chosen as an arbitrator between contending parties, the judgment was generally in Benjamin's favor; either, he says, because he was usually in the right (he fancied) or else was a better pleader. Another _erratum_ was revised when, after plighting his troth to Deborah Read on the eve of his first voyage to London, and then forgetting it in the distractions of the English capital, he subsequently married her. Still another was revised when he discharged the debt to Mr. Vernon, which occasioned him so much mental distress. The debt arose in this manner: On his return journey to Philadelphia, after his first visit to Boston, he was asked by Mr. Vernon, a friend of his brother, John, who resided at Newport, to collect the sum of thirty-five pounds currency due to Mr. Vernon in Pennsylvania, and to keep it until Mr. Vernon gave him instructions about its remittance. The money was duly collected by Franklin on his way to Philadelphia, but unfortunately for him his youthful friend Collins, before his departure from Boston, had decided to remove to Pennsylvania, too, and proceeding from Boston to New York in advance of him, was his companion from New York to Philadelphia. While awaiting Franklin's arrival at New York, Collins drank up and gambled away all his own money. The consequence was that Franklin had to pay his lodging for him at New York and defray all his subsequent expenses. The journey to Philadelphia could be completed only with the aid of the Vernon debt, and, after the two reached Philadelphia, Collins, being unable to obtain any employment because of his bad habits, and knowing that Franklin had the balance of the Vernon collection in his hands, repeatedly borrowed sums from him, promising to repay them as soon as he was earning something himself. By these loans the amount collected for Mr. Vernon was finally reduced to such an extent that Franklin was at a painful loss to know what he should do in case Mr. Vernon demanded payment. The thought of his situation haunted him for some years to come, but happily for him Mr. Vernon was an exception to the saying of Poor Richard that creditors are a superstitious sect, great observers of set days and times. He kindly made no demand upon Franklin for quite a long period, and in the end merely put him in mind of the debt, though not pressing him to pay it; whereupon Franklin wrote to him, we are told by the _Autobiography_, an ingenuous letter of acknowledgment, craved his forbearance a little longer, which was granted, and later on, as soon as he was able to do so, paid the principal with interest and many thanks. Just why Mr. Vernon was such an indulgent creditor the _Autobiography_ does not reveal. If, as Franklin subsequently wrote to Strahan, the New England people were artful to get into debt and but poor pay, Mr. Vernon at any rate furnishes evidence that they could be generous lenders. Perhaps Mr. Vernon simply had his favorable prepossessions like many other men who knew Franklin in his early life, or perhaps he had some of Franklin's own quick sympathy with the trials and struggles of youth, and was not averse to lending him the use, even though compulsory, of a little capital, or, perhaps, he was restrained from dunning Franklin by his friendship for Franklin's brother. The _erratum_ into which Franklin fell in writing and publishing his free-thinking dissertation on _Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain_, which was dedicated to his friend Ralph, he revised, as we have seen, by destroying all the copies upon which he could lay his hands and also, we might add, by a counter pamphlet in which he recanted and combated his own reasonings. In his unreflecting hours he mixed the poison; in his more reflective hours he compounded the antidote. Franklin was guilty of another _erratum_ when Ralph found that it was one thing to have an essay on Liberty dedicated to him by a friend and another thing to have the friend taking liberties with his mistress. This _erratum_ was never revised by Franklin unless upon principles of revision with which Ralph himself at least could not find fault, as the history of the _erratum_ is told in the _Autobiography_. The young woman in this case was a milliner, genteelly bred, sensible, lively, and of most pleasing conversation. Ralph, who, until Pope brought him back with a disillusioning thud to the dull earth by a shaft from the _Dunciad_, imagined himself to be endowed with an exalted poetic genius, read plays to her in the evenings, and finally formed a _liaison_ with her. They lived together for a time, but, finding that her income was not sufficient to sustain them both and the child that was the fruit of the connection, he took charge of a country school where he taught ten or a dozen boys how to read and write at sixpence each a week, assumed Franklin's name because he did not wish the world to know that he had ever been so meanly employed, recommended his mistress to Franklin's protection, and, in spite of every dissuasive that Franklin could bring to bear upon him, including a copy of a great part of one of Young's satires, which set forth in a strong light the folly of courting the Muses, sent to Franklin from time to time profuse specimens of the _magnum opus_ over which he was toiling. In the meantime, the milliner, having suffered on Ralph's account in both reputation and estate, was occasionally compelled to obtain pecuniary assistance from Franklin. The result was that he grew fond of her society, and, presuming upon his importance to her, attempted familiarities with her which she repelled with a proper resentment, and communicated to Ralph, who, on his next return to London, let Franklin know that he considered all his obligations to him cancelled. As these obligations consisted wholly of sums that Franklin had lent to Ralph, or advanced on Ralph's account from time to time out of his earnings from his vocation as a printer, Franklin, we suppose, might fairly conclude, in accordance with Ralph's method of reasoning, that he had revised the _erratum_ by duly paying the penalty for it in terms of money, even if in no other form of atonement. At the time, he consoled himself with the reflection that Ralph's cancellation of obligations, which he had no means of paying, was not very material, and that Ralph's withdrawal of his friendship at least meant relief from further pecuniary loans. He does not say so, but exemption from further instalments of the laboring epic must have counted for something too. The cross-currents of human existence, however, were destined to again bring Ralph and Franklin into personal intercourse. It was after Franklin had arrived in England in 1757 as the agent of the People of Pennsylvania and Ralph, not a Homer or Milton, as he had fondly hoped to be, but a historian, pamphleteer and newspaper writer of no contemptible abilities, had gotten beyond the necessity of doing what Pope in a truculent note to the _Dunciad_ had charged him with doing, namely, writing on both sides of a controversy on one and the same day, and afterwards publicly justifying the morality of his conduct. Indeed, he had gotten far enough beyond it at this stage of his life to be even a sufferer from the gout, and, remarkable as it may seem, in the light of the manner in which he had paid his indebtedness to Franklin, to be equal to the nicety of returning to the Duke of Bedford one hundred and fifty of the two hundred pounds that the Duke of Bedford had contributed to the support of the _Protestor_, a newspaper conducted by Ralph in the interest of the Duke of Bedford against the Duke of Newcastle. The _Autobiography_ states that from Governor Denny Franklin had previously learned that Ralph was still alive, that he was esteemed one of the best political writers in England, had been employed in the dispute between Prince Frederick and the King, and had obtained a pension of three hundred a year; that his reputation was indeed small as a poet, Pope having damned his poetry in the _Dunciad_, but that his prose was thought as good as any man's. A few months after receiving this information, Franklin arrived in England, and Ralph called on him to renew the tie sundered for some thirty years. One sequel was a letter from Franklin to his wife in which he wrote to her as follows: I have seen Mr. Ralph, and delivered him Mrs. Garrigues's letter. He is removed from Turnham Green, when I return, I will tell you everything relating to him, in the meantime I must advise Mrs. Garrigue not to write to him again, till I send her word how to direct her letters, he being unwilling, for some good reasons, that his present wife should know anything of his having any connections in America. He expresses great affection for his daughter and grandchildren. He has but one child here. Other _errata_ of Franklin were due to the amorous disposition over which he took such little pains to draw the veil of delicacy and reserve. Sexual ardor has doubtless exerted quite as imperious a dominion in youth over some other great men, but none of them have been so willing to confess the overbearing force of its importunities. Speaking of the time prior to his marriage, when he was twenty-four years of age, Franklin says in the _Autobiography_: "In the meantime, that hard-to-be-governed passion of youth hurried me frequently into intrigues with low women that fell in my way, which were attended with some expense and great inconvenience, besides a continual risque to my health by a distemper which of all things I dreaded, though by great good luck I escaped it." It was to his son, strangely enough, that this chapter of his personal history was unfolded. Franklin was writing a word of warning as well as of hope for his posterity, and he painted himself, as Cromwell wished to be painted, wart and all. For such _errata_ as these there was no atonement to be made except in the sense of self-degradation likely, in the case of every self-respecting man, to follow the illicit gratification of strong physical appetites, and this Franklin had too ingenuous a way of looking at sexual irregularity to feel very acutely. The only real reinforcement that a nature like his could find against what Ferdinand in the _Tempest_ calls the suggestions of "our worser genius" was the sedative influence of marriage, its duties, its responsibilities, and its calm equable flow of mutual affection; and Franklin was early married and found in marriage and the human interests that cluster about it an uncommon measure of satisfaction and happiness. It is an old, old story, that story of Benjamin and Deborah told in the _Autobiography_. It began on the memorable Sunday morning, when the runaway apprentice, shortly after landing at the Market Street wharf in Philadelphia, hungry, dirty from his journey, dressed in his working clothes, and with his great flap pockets stuffed with shirts and stockings, passed up Market Street before the eyes of his future wife, which were alit with merriment as he passed, clasping a great puffy Philadelphia roll under each arm and eating a third. She saw him from her father's door as he went by, presenting this "awkward, ridiculous appearance," and little realized that the ludicrous apparition which she saw was not only to be her lifelong consort, but, stranger as he then was to every human being in Philadelphia, was in coming years to confer upon that city no small part of the heritage of his own imperishable renown. The pair were soon brought into close relations with each other. Keimer, the printer, with whom Benjamin found employment, could not lodge Benjamin in his own house for lack of furniture; so he found lodging for him with Mr. Read, Keimer's landlord and Deborah's father. And Benjamin was now in a very different plight from that in which she had first seen him; for he was earning a livelihood for himself, and his chest with better clothes in it than those that he had on when he was eating his roll under such difficulties had come around to him by sea. He was not long in forming "a great respect and affection" for Deborah, which he had some reason to believe were reciprocated by her. Courtship followed, but he was on the point of setting out for London on the fool's errand which Governor Keith had planned for him, he and Deborah were but a little over eighteen, and her mother thought that it would be more convenient for the marriage to take place on his return, after he had purchased in London the printing outfit that he was to buy upon the credit of Governor Keith, who really had no credit. "Perhaps, too," adds Franklin, "she thought my expectations not so well founded as I imagined them to be." The fateful day came when the annual ship between London and Philadelphia was to sail. Of the fond parting we have no record except Franklin's old fashioned statement that in leaving he "interchang'd some promises with Miss Read." These promises, so far as he was concerned, were soon lost to memory in the lethean cares, diversions and dissipations of eighteenth century London. By degrees, Franklin tells us, he forgot his engagements with Miss Read, and never wrote more than one letter to her, and that to let her know that he was not likely to return soon. "This," he says, "was another of the great _errata_ of my life, which I should wish to correct if I were to live it over again." Another of those _errata_ of his life, he might have added, in regard to which, like his use of Mr. Vernon's money, his approaches to Ralph's mistress, and his commerce with lewd wenches, the world, with which silence often passes as current as innocence, would never have been the wiser, if he had not chosen, as so few men have been sufficiently courageous and disinterested to do, to make beacons of his own sins for others to steer their lives by. He did return, as we know, but Miss Read was Miss Read no longer. In his absence, her friends, despairing of his return after the receipt of his letter by Deborah (how mercilessly he divulges it all), had persuaded her to marry another, one Rogers, a potter, "a worthless fellow, tho' an excellent workman, which was the temptation to her friends." With him, however, Franklin tells us, "she was never happy, and soon parted from him, refusing to cohabit with him or bear his name, it being now said that he had another wife." One more concise statement from Rogers's marital successor, and Rogers disappears as suddenly as if shot through a stage trap-door. "He got into debt, ran away in 1727 or 1728, went to the West Indies, and died there." At that time, the West Indies seem to have been the dust-pan into which all the human refuse of colonial America was swept. In a letter to his friend Catherine Ray, in 1755, Franklin told her that the cords of love and friendship had in times past drawn him further than from Rhode Island to Philadelphia, "even back from England to Philadelphia." This statement, we fear, if not due to the facility with which every good husband is apt to forget that his wife was not the first woman that he fell in love with, must be classed with Franklin's statement in the _Autobiography_ that Sir Hans Sloane persuaded him to let him add an asbestos purse owned by Franklin to his museum of curiosities, his statement in a letter to his son that he was never sued until a bill in chancery was filed against him after his removal from the office of Deputy Postmaster-General, and his statement made at different times that he never asked for a public office. We know from Franklin's own pen that it was he who solicited from Sir Hans Sloane the purchase, and not Sir Hans Sloane who solicited from him the sale, of the asbestos purse; we know from the _Autobiography_ that he was sued by some of the farmers to whom he gave his bond of indemnity at the time of Braddock's expedition long before his removal from the office of Deputy Postmaster-General, and we know, too, as the reader has already been told, that he sought Benger's office, as Deputy Postmaster-General of the Colonies, before death had done more than cast the shadow of his approach over Benger's face. There is a vast difference between the situation of a man, who relies upon his memory for the scattered incidents of his past life, and that of a biographer whose field of vision takes them all in at one glance. It is true that Franklin did not know, before he left London, that Deborah had married, but the reasons he gives in the _Autobiography_ for desiring to return to Philadelphia are only that he had grown tired of London, remembered with pleasure the happy months that he had spent in Pennsylvania, and wished again to see it. The fact is that he did not renew his courtship of Deborah until the worthless Rogers had left the coast clear by fleeing to the West Indies, and he himself had in a measure been thrown back upon her by rebuffs in other directions. His circuitous proposal after his return to a young relative of Mrs. Godfrey, who with her husband and children occupied a part of his house, was, as described in the _Autobiography_ more like a negotiation for a printing outfit than ordinary wooing. If the love that he brought to this affair had been the only kind of which he was capable, his most ardent biographer, and every biographer seems to adore him more or less in spite of occasional sharp shocks to adoration, might well ask whether his love was not as painfully repellent as his system of morals. The incident would lose some of its hard, homely outlines if clothed in any but the coarse, drab vesture of plain-spoken words with which Franklin clothes it. Mrs. Godfrey [he says in the _Autobiography_] projected a match for me with a relation's daughter, took opportunities of bringing us often together, till a serious courtship on my part ensu'd, the girl being in herself very deserving. The old folks encourag'd me by continual invitations to supper, and by leaving us together, till at length it was time to explain. Mrs. Godfrey manag'd our little treaty. I let her know that I expected as much money with their daughter as would pay off my remaining debt for the printing house, which I believe was not then above a hundred pounds. She brought me word they had no such sum to spare; I said they might mortgage their house in the loan-office. The answer to this, after some days, was, that they did not approve the match; that, on inquiry of Bradford, they had been informed the printing business was not a profitable one; the types would soon be worn out, and more wanted; that S. Keimer and D. Harry had failed one after the other, and I should probably soon follow them; and, therefore, I was forbidden the house, and the daughter shut up. Whether this was a real change of sentiment or only artifice, on a supposition of our being too far engaged in aflection to retract, and therefore that we should steal a marriage, which would leave them at liberty to give or withhold what they pleas'd, I know not; but I suspected the latter, resented it, and went no more. Mrs. Godfrey brought me afterward some more favorable accounts of their disposition, and would have drawn me on again; but I declared absolutely my resolution to have nothing more to do with that family. This was resented by the Godfreys; we differ'd, and they removed, leaving me the whole house. This affair, however, Franklin tells us, turned his thoughts to marriage. He accordingly looked the matrimonial field, or rather market, over, and, to use his own euphemism, made overtures of acquaintance in other places; but he soon found, he further tells us, that, the business of a printer being generally thought a poor one, he was not to expect money with a wife unless with such a one as he should not otherwise think agreeable. Then it was that his heart came back to Deborah, sitting forlorn in the weeds of separation, though not unquestionably in the weeds of widowhood; for it was not entirely certain that Rogers was dead. A friendly intercourse had been maintained all along between Franklin and the members of her family ever since he had first lodged under their roof, and he had often been invited to their home, and had given them sound practical advice. It was natural enough, therefore, that he should pity Miss Read's unfortunate situation (he never calls her Mrs. Rogers), dejected and averse to society as she was, that he should reproach himself with his inconstancy as the cause of her unhappiness, though her mother was good enough to take the whole blame on herself because she had prevented their marriage before he went off to London, and was responsible for the other match, and that compassion and self-accusation should have been gradually succeeded by tenderness and rekindled affection. The result was a marriage as little attended by prudential considerations as any that we could readily imagine; and the words in which Franklin chronicles the event are worthy of exact reproduction: Our mutual affection was revived, but there were now great objections to our union. The match was indeed looked upon as invalid, a preceding wife being said to be living in England; but this could not easily be prov'd, because of the distance; and, tho' there was a report of his death, it was not certain. Then, tho' it should be true, he had left many debts, which his successor might be call'd upon to pay. We ventured, however, over all these difficulties, and I took her to wife, September 1st, 1730. None of the inconveniences happened that we had apprehended; she proved a good and faithful helpmate, assisted me much by attending the shop; we throve together, and have ever mutually endeavour'd to make each other happy. This paragraph from the _Autobiography_ does not contain the only tribute paid by Franklin to his wife as a faithful helpmeet. Elsewhere in that work we find this tribute too: "We have an English proverb that says, '_He that would thrive, must ask his wife_.' It was lucky for me that I had one as much dispos'd to industry and frugality as myself. She assisted me chearfully in my business, folding and stitching pamphlets, tending shop, purchasing old linen rags for the paper-makers, etc., etc." His letters are of the same tenor. In one to her after the repeal of the Stamp Act, he wrote, "Had the Trade between the two Countries totally ceas'd, it was a Comfort to me to recollect, that I had once been cloth'd from Head to Foot in Woolen and Linnen of my Wife's Manufacture." Many years after Deborah's death, he used these words in a letter to Miss Alexander: "Frugality is an enriching Virtue; a Virtue I never could acquire in myself; but I was once lucky enough to find it in a Wife, who thereby became a Fortune to me. Do you possess it? If you do, and I were 20 Years younger, I would give your Father 1,000 Guineas for you." And then he adds with the playful humor which came to him as naturally as a carol to the throat of a blithe bird: "I know you would be worth more to me as a Ménnagere, but I am covetous, and love good Bargains." Win an industrious and prudent wife, he declared on another occasion, and, "if she does not _bring_ a fortune, she will help to _make one_." And when his daughter Sally married Richard Bache, he wrote to her that she could be as serviceable to her husband in keeping a store, if it was where she dwelt, "as your Mother was to me: For you are not deficient in Capacity, and I hope are not too proud." Sixteen years after his marriage, in a rhyming preface to Poor Richard's _Almanac_, he even penned this grateful jingle: "Thanks to kind Readers and a careful Wife, With plenty bless'd, I lead an easy Life." Careful, however, as she had been in her earlier years, Deborah spent enough, as she became older and more accustomed to easy living, to make him feel that he should say a word of caution to her when the news reached him in London that Sally was about to marry a young man who was not only without fortune but soon to be involved in business failure. He advises her not to make an "expensive feasting Wedding," but to conduct everything with the economy required by their circumstances at that time; his partnership with Hall having expired, and his loss of the Post Office not being unlikely. In that event, he said, they would be reduced to their rents and interest on money for a subsistence, which would by no means afford the chargeable housekeeping and entertainments that they had been used to. Though he himself lived as frugally as possible, making no dinners for anybody, and contenting himself with a single dish, when he dined at home, yet such was the dearness of living in London in every article that his expenses amazed him. I see too [he continued], by the Sums you have received in my Absence, that yours are very great, and I am very sensible that your Situation naturally brings you a great many Visitors, which occasion an Expence not easily to be avoided especially when one has been long in the Practice and Habit of it. If we were young enough to begin Business again [he remarks a little later in this letter], it might be another Matter,--but I doubt we are past it; and Business not well managed ruins one faster than no Business. In short, with Frugality and prudent Care we may subsist decently on what we have, and leave it entire to our Children:--but without such Care, we shall not be able to keep it together; it will melt away like Butter in the Sunshine; and we may live long enough to feel the miserable Consequences of our Indiscretion. Eighteen months later, with studied good-feeling, he tells her that, if he does not send her a watch, it will be because the balance on his Post Office account was greatly against him, owing to the large sums that she had received. But Mrs. Franklin was failing, and a few years later, when her memory and other faculties had been enfeebled by paralysis, he found it necessary to give a keener edge to admonition in one of his letters to her. Referring to her disgust with the Messrs. Foxcroft, because they had not supplied her with money to pay for a bill of exchange for thirty pounds, he opened his mind to her with almost cruel bluntness as follows: That you may not be offended with your Neighbours without Cause; I must acquaint you with what it seems you did not know, that I had limited them in their Payments to you, to the sum of Thirty Pounds per Month, for the sake of our more easily settling, and to prevent Mistakes. This making 360 Pounds a Year, I thought, as you have no House Rent to pay yourself, and receive the Rents of 7 or 8 Houses besides, might be sufficient for the Maintenance of your Family. I judged such a Limitation the more necessary, because you never have sent me any Account of your Expences, and think yourself ill-used if I desire it; and because I know you were not very attentive to Money-matters in your best Days, and I apprehend that your Memory is too much impair'd for the Management of unlimited Sums, without Danger of injuring the future Fortune of your daughter and Grandson. If out of more than 500 £ a Year, you could have sav'd enough to buy those Bills it might have been well to continue purchasing them. But I do not like your going about among my Friends to borrow Money for that purpose, especially as it is not at all necessary. And therefore I once more request that you would decline buying them for the future. And I hope you will no longer take it amiss of Messrs. Foxcrofts that they did not supply you. If what you receive is really insufficient for your support satisfy me by Accounts that it is so, and I shall order more. Like an incision in the rind of a beech, which spreads wider and wider with each passing year, is, as a rule, every human failing, as time goes on, and poor Mrs. Franklin, now that senile decay was setting in, seems to have been but another confirmation of this truth. But faithful wife that she was, after the receipt of this letter from her husband, she was scrupulous enough to send him receipts as well as accounts; for in the early part of the succeeding year he writes to her: "I take notice of the considerable Sums you have paid. I would not have you send me any Receipts. I am satisfy'd with the Accounts you give." His letter to her about the Foxcrofts was doubtless not more pointed than the occasion required. In no scales was the salutary medicine of reproof ever weighed more exactly than in his. This letter begins as usual, "My Dear Child," and, after conveying its rebuke, lapses into the old happy, domestic strain. "I am much pleased," he said, "with the little Histories you give me of your fine boy (one of her grandsons) which are confirmed by all that have seen him. I hope he will be spared and continue the same Pleasure and Comfort to you, and that I shall ere long partake with you in it." One instance, perhaps, of inattention to money-matters upon the part of Mrs. Franklin, which helped to produce the climax of this letter, was in the case of a certain Sarah Broughton, who, if we may judge from a single specimen of her spicy humor, was something of a tartar. On July 1, 1766, she wrote to Franklin that his wife owed her a certain sum of money and also the price of a bed, which she had kept for two years, but now wanted to return, because there had been a decline in the price of feathers. She had written, the writer said, a letter to Mrs. Franklin on the subject, but had received the reply from her "that she did not know me, and that I might write to you she was an hegehog." "Now sir," continued Franklin's correspondent, "I don't think her a hegehog but in reallity she has shot a great many quills at me, but thank Heaven none of them has or can hurt me as I doubt not that your known justice will induce you to order the above sum of seven pounds, seven shillings payed." The keen eye that Mrs. Franklin had in this instance to fluctuations in the market price of an article, which her husband and herself had frequently bought and sold at their shop in the past, shows plainly enough that, even when she was on the eve of her grand climacteric, the thriftier instincts of her early life were not wholly dead. Nor does she seem to have reserved all her quills for obdurate creditors. From the Diary of Daniel Fisher we obtain the following entry: As I was coming down from my chamber this afternoon a gentlewoman was sitting on one of the lowest stairs which were but narrow, and there not being room enough to pass, she rose up and threw herself upon the floor and sat there. Mr. Soumien and his wife gently entreated her to arise and take a chair, but in vain; she would keep her seat, and kept it, I think, the longer for their entreaty. This gentlewoman, whom though I had seen before I did not know, appeared to be Mrs. Franklin. She assumed the airs of extraordinary freedom and great humility, lamented heavily the misfortunes of those who are unhappily infected with a too tender or benevolent disposition, said she believed all the world claimed a privilege of troubling her Pappy (so she usually calls Mr. Franklin) with their calamities and distresses, giving us a general history of many such wretches and their impertinent applications to him. Just what all this meant is not entirely clear. Perhaps it was only real sympathy excited by the harassments to which her husband, whom she devotedly loved, was incessantly subjected by his public activity, his reputation for wise counsel, and his ever-increasing renown. Perhaps it was the mere jealousy of affection inspired by her sense of her own unfitness in point of education and intellectual companionship to be the wife of a man whose doorstep could be so haunted. After this incident the diarist became Franklin's clerk, and lived in his house--a footing which enabled him to give us a truer insight than we should otherwise have had as to the extent to which William Franklin was at one time a festering thorn in the side of Mrs. Franklin. Mr. Soumien [Fisher diarizes] had often informed me of great uneasiness and dissatisfaction in Mr. Franklin's family in a manner no way pleasing to me, and which in truth I was unwilling to credit, but as Mrs. Franklin and I of late began to be friendly and sociable I discerned too great grounds for Mr. Soumien's reflection, arising solely from the turbulence and jealousy and pride of her disposition. She suspecting Mr. Franklin for having too great an esteem for his son in prejudice of herself and daughter, a young woman of about 12 or 13 years of age, for whom it was visible Mr. Franklin had no less esteem than for his son young Mr. Franklin. I have often seen him pass to and from his father's apartment upon business (for he does not eat, drink or sleep in the house) without the least compliment between Mrs. Franklin and him or any sort of notice taken of each other, till one day as I was sitting with her in the passage when the young gentleman came by she exclaimed to me (he not hearing): "Mr. Fisher, there goes the greatest villain upon earth." This greatly confounded and perplexed me, but did not hinder her from pursuing her invectives in the foulest terms I ever heard from a gentlewoman. It is pleasant, however, to state that in time Deborah's dislike for William Franklin seems to have considerably abated. In 1767, her husband could write to her, "I am glad you go sometimes to Burlington. The Harmony you mention in our Family and among our Children gives me great Pleasure." And before this letter was written, William Franklin had availed himself of an opportunity to testify his dutiful readiness to extend his protection to her. It was when she had just taken possession of the new house, built by her during her husband's absence in England, and his enemies, availing themselves of the brief unpopularity incurred by him through recommending his friend, John Hughes, as a stamp collector, had aroused the feeling against him in Philadelphia to the point of rendering an attack upon this house not improbable. As soon as William Franklin, then Governor of New Jersey, heard of the danger, to which his father's wife and daughter were exposed, he hastened to Philadelphia to offer them a refuge under his own roof at Burlington. Mrs. Franklin permitted her daughter to accept the offer, but undauntedly refused to accept it herself. This is her own account of the matter to her husband divested of its illiteracy. I was for nine days [she said] kept in a continual hurry by people to remove, and Sally was persuaded to go to Burlington for safety. Cousin Davenport came and told me that more than twenty people had told him it was his duty to be with me. I said I was pleased to receive civility from anybody; so he staid with me some time; towards night I said he should fetch a gun or two, as we had none. I sent to ask my brother to come and bring his gun also, so we turned one room into a magazine; I ordered some sort of defense upstairs, such as I could manage myself. I said, when I was advised to remove, that I was very sure you had done nothing to hurt anybody, nor had I given any offense to any person at all, nor would I be made uneasy by anybody; nor would I stir or show the least uneasiness, but if any one came to disturb me I would show a proper resentment. I was told that there were eight hundred men ready to assist any one that should be molested. Indeed, after his marriage, the correspondence of William Franklin indicates that, if the relations of Mrs. Franklin to him were not altogether what Franklin would fain have had them, that is the relations of Hagar rather than of Sarah, he at least bore himself towards her with a marked degree of respectful consideration. His letters to her were subscribed, "Your ever dutiful son," and, in a letter to his father, he informs him that he and his wife were "on a visit to my mother." When Deborah died, he was the "chief mourner" in the funeral procession, and, in a subsequent letter to his father, he speaks of her as "my poor old mother." After the paralytic stroke, which "greatly affected her memory and understanding," William Franklin expressed the opinion that she should have "some clever body to take care of her," because, he said, she "becomes every day more and more unfit to be left alone." No cleverer body for the purpose, of course, could be found than her own daughter, who came with her husband to reside with and take care of her. In his letter to Franklin announcing her death, William Franklin used these feeling words: "She told me when I took leave of her on my removal to Amboy, that she never expected to see you unless you returned this winter, for that she was sure she should not live till next summer. I heartily wish you had happened to have come over in the fall, as I think her disappointment in that respect preyed a good deal on her spirits." Poor Richard's _Almanac_ had sayings, it is hardly necessary to declare, suitable for such an occasion. "There are three faithful friends; an old wife, an old dog, and ready money." "A good wife lost is God's gift lost." In the light of what we have narrated, it is obvious that there were occasions in Franklin's nuptial life when it was well that he was a philosopher as well as a husband. "You can bear with your own Faults, and why not a fault in your Wife?," is a question that he is known to have asked at least once, and he did not have to leave his own doorstep to find an application for his injunction, "Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards." But if there was defect of temper there was never any defect of devotion upon the part of the jealous, high-spirited, courageous wife. It is true that she had no place in the wider sphere of her husband's existence. She did not concern herself even about such a political controversy as that over the Stamp Tax except to say like the leal wife she was that she was sure that her husband had not done anything to hurt anybody. You are very prudent [he said to her on one occasion] not to engage in Party Disputes. Women never should meddle with them except in Endeavour to reconcile their Husbands, Brothers, and Friends, who happen to be of contrary Sides. If your Sex can keep cool, you may be a means of cooling ours the sooner, and restoring more speedily that social Harmony among Fellow-Citizens, that is so desirable after long and bitter Dissensions. Her interest in her husband's electrical studies probably ceased when he wrote to her as follows with reference to the two bells that he had placed in his house in such a position as to ring when an iron rod with which they were connected was electrified by a storm cloud: "If the ringing of the Bells frightens you, tie a Piece of Wire from one Bell to the other, and that will conduct the lightning without ringing or snapping, but silently." She never became equal even to such social standing as her husband acquired for himself by his talents and usefulness in Philadelphia; and she would have been a serious clog upon him in the social circles to which he was admitted in Great Britain and on the Continent, if her aversion to crossing the ocean had not been insurmountable. Her letters are marked by a degree of illiteracy that make the task of reading them almost like the task of reading an unfamiliar foreign tongue; but it should be recollected that in the eighteenth century in America it was entirely possible for a person to be at once illiterate and a lady. Even Franklin with his _penchant_ for simplified spelling must have felt, after meditating some of Deborah's written words, that the orthographical line had to be drawn somewhere. The following letter from her to her husband, dated October ye 29, 1773, and transcribed exactly as written is neither better nor worse than the rest of her epistles to her husband: My Dear Child:--I have bin verey much distrest aboute you as I did not aney letter nor one word from you nor did I hear one word from oney bodey that you wrote to so I muste submit and inde (?) to submit to what I am to bair I did write by Capt Folkner to you but he is gon down and when I read it over I did not lik t and so if this donte send it I shante like it as I donte send you aney news now I dont go abrode. I shall tell you what Consernes my selef our youngest Grandson is the foreed child us a live he has had the Small Pox and had it very fine and got a brod a gen. Capt All will tell you aboute him and Benj Franklin Beache, but as it is so difficall to writ I have deserd him to tell you, I have sent a squerel for your friend and wish her better luck it is a very fine one I have had very bad luck they one kild and another run a way all thow they are bred up tame I have not a Caige as I donte know where the man lives that makes them my love to Salley Franklin my love to all our Cusins as thow menshond remember me to Mr. and Mrs. Weste doe you ever hear anything of Ninely Evans as was.[16] I thanke you for the silke and hat it at the womons to make it up but have it put up as you wrote (torn) I thonke it it is very prittey; what was the prise? I desier to give my love to everybodey (torn) I shold love Billey was in town 5 or 6 day when the child was in the small pox Mr. Franklin (torn) not sene him yit I am to tell a verey pritey thing about Ben the players is cume to town and they am to ackte on Munday he wanted to see a play he unkill Beache had given him a doler his mama asked him wuther he wold give it for a ticket, or buy his Brother a neckles he sed his Brother a necklas he is a charmm child as ever was Borne my Grand cheldren are the Best in the world Sally will write I cante write aney mor I am your a feckshone wife, D. FRANKLIN. But, in spite of the qualifications we have stated, there was a place after all, even aside from the joint care of the shop, in which the pair throve so swimmingly together, that Deborah could occupy in the thoughts of a man with such quick, strong affections, such liberality of mind and such a keen interest in the ordinary concerns of life as we find in Franklin. This place becomes manifest enough when we read the letters that passed between the two. A more considerate, loving wife than these letters show her to have been it would be hard to conceive. Napoleon said of his marshals that only one of them loved him, the others loved the Emperor. The devotion of Deborah to her husband is all the more noteworthy because it appears to have been but slightly, if at all, influenced by his public distinction. Her attachment was to Franklin himself, the early lover with whom she had "interchanged promises" when but a girl, and who, after deserting her for a time, had come back to her in her desolation like day returning to the dark and lonely night, the business comrade to whom her industry and prudence had proved in effect a fortune, the most admired and beloved man in the circle of her social relationships, the patient, dutiful, affectionate friend and husband, the father of her daughter and son. Inarticulate as were her struggles with syntax and orthography, she was to him the most faithful of correspondents. Long after she had reached an age when the fond diminutives of early married life are usually exchanged for soberer language, she addressed him in her letters as "My Dear Child," and sometimes as "My Dearest Dear Child." "I am set down to confab a little with my dear child," was the way in which she began one of her letters, "Adue my dear child, and take care of your selef for mamey's sake as well as your one," was the way in which she ended another. So frequently, too, did she write to him when they were separated from each other that he repeatedly acknowledged in his replies her extraordinary constancy as a correspondent; on one occasion writing to her: "I think nobody ever had more faithful Correspondents than I have in Mr. Hughes and you.... It is impossible for me to get or keep out of your Debts." When they had been married over twenty-seven years, he thanks her in one of his letters for writing to him so frequently and fully, and, when they had been married nearly forty years, he wrote to her that he thought that she was the most punctual of all his correspondents. And not only did she write often enough to him to elicit these acknowledgments, but her letters afford ample evidence that to lack a letter from him when she expected one was nothing less than a bitter disappointment to her. "I know," he said in a letter to her, "you love to have a Line from me by every Packet, so I write, tho' I have little to say." We have already seen how her failure to hear from, or of, him led her on one occasion to end her plaint with words strong enough to express resignation to the very worst trial to which human life is subject. On another occasion she wrote: "Aprill 7 this day is Cumpleet 5 munthes senes you lefte your one House I did reseve a letter from the Capes senes that not one line I due supose that you did write by the packit but that is not arived yit." The same hunger for everything that related to him, no matter how trivial, finds utterance in her petition in another letter that he _wold_ tell her _hough_ his poor _armes was_ and _hough_ he was on his _voiag_ and _hough_ he _air_ and _everey_ thing is with him _wich_ she wanted _verey_ much to know. Nor did her affection limit itself to letters. Whenever he was absent from her and stationary whether at Gnadenhutten, or London, his table was never wanting in something to remind him of home and of the attentive wife whose domestic virtues in spite of her deficiencies of education gave home so much of its meaning. We have enjoyed your roast beef [he wrote to her from Gnadenhutten] and this day began on the roast veal. All agree that they are both the best that ever were of the kind. Your citizens, that have their dinners hot and hot, know nothing of good eating. We find it in much greater perfection when the kitchen is four score miles from the dining room. The apples are extremely welcome, and do bravely to eat after our salt pork; the minced pies are not yet come to hand, but I suppose we shall find them among the things expected up from Bethlehem on Tuesday; the capillaire is excellent, but none of us having taken cold as yet, we have only tasted it. Other letters of his written from Gnadenhutten testify that she missed no opportunity, so long as he was in the wilderness, to send him something better than the salt pork, to which her apples were such a brave sequel, to relieve the harsh privations of camp life for himself and his brother officers. He tells her in one of his letters that all the gentlemen send their compliments. "They drink your health at every meal, having always something on the table to put them in mind of you." Even when the Atlantic was between them, his life was kept continually refreshed by the same bountiful stream of supplies. A menu, made up of the items that she sent him, might well have softened the heart of even such a rank, swashbuckling enemy of the American Colonies as Dr. Johnson, who loved a good dinner even more than he hated the Americans. Dried venison, bacon, smoked beef, apples, cranberries, nuts, Indian and buckwheat meal, and peaches, dried with and without their skins, are all mentioned in his acknowledgments of her favors. Some of the nuts and apples he presented on one occasion to Lord and Lady Bathurst "a very great lady, the best woman in England," accompanied by a brief note which borrowed the point of its graceful pleasantry from the effort of Great Britain to tax the Colonies without their consent: "Dr. Franklin presents his respectful compliments to Lord Bathurst, with some American nuts; and to Lady Bathurst, with some American apples; which he prays they will accept as a tribute from that country, small indeed, but _voluntary_." Franklin's first absence from his wife in England lasted some five years, his second some ten; and such was Deborah's passionate attachment to him that it can scarcely be doubted that, if he had not, during these periods of absence, cheated himself and her from year to year with the idea that his business would soon permit him to return to Philadelphia, she would have joined him despite her aversion to the sea. This aversion was natural enough under the maritime conditions of that time; for even Franklin, whose numerous transatlantic voyages were usually attended by fair weather, and who was an uncommonly resourceful sailor, left behind him the statement that he never crossed the ocean without vowing that he would do so no more.[17] As it was, the frequently recurring expectation upon her part that a few months more would restore her husband to his home checked any thought that she may have had of making a voyage to England. There is no evidence that she ever harbored any such intention. An interesting feature of Franklin's life in England in his maturer years is the effort of his friend Strahan to induce Mrs. Franklin to come over to that country with Sally and to take up her permanent residence there with her husband. As to Sally, it began with the half jocular, half serious, proposal from Franklin to Strahan, before the former left Pennsylvania for London in 1757, that Sally, then but a mere child, and Strahan's son should make a match of it. "Please to acquaint him," Franklin asked of Strahan on one occasion, after saying that he was glad to hear so good a character of his son-in-law, "that his spouse grows finely and will probably have an agreeable person. That with the best natural disposition in the world, she discovers daily the seeds and tokens of industry, economy, and, in short, of every female virtue, which her parents will endeavour to cultivate for him." Some years later he added that Sally was indeed a very good girl, affectionate, dutiful and industrious, had one of the best hearts, and though not a wit, was, for one of her years, by no means deficient in understanding. Many years later, after time and the cares of motherhood had told on her, a keen observer, Manasseh Cutler, is so ungallant as to speak of this daughter as "a very gross and rather homely lady," but there is evidence that, even if she was never the superbly handsome woman that James Parton says she was, yet in the soft bloom of her young womanhood the prediction of her father that she would have an agreeable person was unquestionably fulfilled. When Franklin passed over to England as the agent of the people of Pennsylvania, Strahan became so fond of him that an earnest effort to fix the whole family in England as a permanent place of residence followed almost as a matter of course, and he not only formally opened up his feelings on the subject to Franklin but indited a letter to Mrs. Franklin which he appears to have believed would prove an irresistible masterpiece of persuasive eloquence. This letter is one of the topics upon which Franklin repeatedly touches in his correspondence with Deborah. In a letter to her of January 14, 1758, he tells her that their friend Strahan had offered to lay him a considerable wager that a letter that Strahan had written would bring her immediately over to England, but that he had told Strahan that he would not pick his pocket, for he was sure that there was no inducement strong enough to prevail with her to cross the seas. Later he wrote to her, "Your Answer to Mr. Strahan was just what it should be. I was much pleas'd with it. He fancy'd his Rhetoric and Art would certainly bring you over." Finding that he was unable himself to persuade Mrs. Franklin to settle down in England, Strahan urged Franklin to try his hand, and the letter in which Franklin reports this fact to his wife makes it apparent enough that Strahan had the matter deeply at heart. He was very urgent with me [says Franklin] to stay in England and prevail with you to remove hither with Sally. He propos'd several advantageous Schemes to me, which appear'd reasonably founded. His Family is a very agreeable one; Mrs. Strahan a sensible and good Woman, the Children of amiable Characters, and particularly the young Man (who is) sober, ingenious and industrious, and a (desirable) Person. In Point of Circumstances there can be no Objection; Mr. Strahan being (now) living in a Way as to lay up a Thousand Pounds every Year from the Profits of his Business, after maintaining his Family and paying all Charges. I gave him, however, two Reasons why I could not think of removing hither, One, my Affection to Pennsilvania and long established Friendships and other connections there: The other, your invincible Aversion to crossing the Seas. And without removing hither, I could not think of parting with my Daughter to such a Distance. I thank'd him for the Regard shown us in the Proposal, but gave him no Expectation that I should forward the Letters. So you are at liberty to answer or not, as you think proper. Let me however know your Sentiments. You need not deliver the Letter to Sally, if you do not think it proper. She did answer, but we are left to infer from a subsequent letter from Franklin to her, in which he alludes to this letter of hers, that, if Strahan was disappointed by his failure to bring about the migration of the Franklins, his disappointment was largely swallowed up in the shock experienced by his literary vanity in finding that his elaborate appeal had not drawn her over. We cannot share his disappointment, whatever it was, when we recollect that to Sally's marriage to Richard Bache we are indebted for more than one descendant of Franklin whose talents and public services have won an honorable place in the history of the nation. It is gratifying to state that no one can read either Franklin's letters to Deborah or to other persons without feeling unqualifiedly assured that he entertained a sincere and profound affection for the good wife whose heart was for nearly fifty years fastened upon him and his every want with such solicitous tenderness. His married life was distinguished to such an eminent degree by the calm, pure flow of domestic happiness that for that reason, if for no other, we find it impossible to reconcile ourselves to the protean facility with which, in his old age, he yielded to the seductions of French love-making. The interval, to say the least, is long between the honest apples, which his own good American wife sent him from time to time, when he was in London, and the meretricious apples which Madame Brillon thought that "King John" i. e. M. Brillon might be decent enough to offer to some extent to his neighbors when they were all together in Paradise where we shall want for nothing. If one wishes fully to realize how little fettered was the mind of Franklin by local ideals and conventions and how quick it was, like the changeful face of the sea, to mirror all its external relations, one has but to read first Franklin's letters to his wife, as thoroughly Anglo-Saxon as any ever penned in an English manse, and then his letters to Madame Brillon, and the exquisite bagatelle, as thoroughly French as the Abbé Morellet's "Humble Petition presented to Madam Helvétius by her Cats," in which he told Madame Helvétius of the new connection formed by Deborah with M. Helvétius in the Elysian Fields. There is every reason to believe that Franklin's marriage vow was never dishonored during Deborah's life, lax as his conduct was before his marriage and lax as his diction at least was after her death. In the Diary from which we have already quoted quite liberally, Fisher, after narrating the extraordinary manner in which Deborah bewailed the troubles of her "Pappy," observes, "Mr. Franklin's moral character is good, and he and Mrs. Franklin live irreproachably as man and wife." Franklin's loyalty to his wife is also evidenced by a letter from Strahan to Deborah in which he uses these words: For my own part, I never saw a man who was, in every respect, so perfectly agreeable to me. Some are amiable in one view, some in another, he in all. Now Madam, as I know the ladies here consider him in exactly the same light I do, upon my word I think you should come over, with all convenient speed, to look after your interest; not but that I think him as faithful to his Joan as any man breathing; but who knows what repeated and strong temptation may in time, and while he is at so great a distance from you, accomplish? This interrogatory was, perhaps, the rhetorical stroke upon which Strahan relied to give the _coup de grâce_ to Mrs. Franklin's abhorrence of the sea. It was certainly calculated to set a jealous-minded wife to thinking. But it seems to have had as little effect upon Deborah as the other artifices of this masterly letter. The terms "his Joan" in it were doubtless suggested by Franklin's song, _My Plain Country Joan_, one verse of which, as good, or rather as bad, as the rest, was as follows: "Some faults we have all, and so has my Joan, But then they're exceedingly small; And, now I am used, they are like my own, I scarcely can see 'em at all, My dear friends, I scarcely can see 'em at all." Another indication of the marital fidelity of which Strahan speaks is found in a letter from Franklin to Deborah after his second return from England in which he said: "I approve of your opening all my English Letters, as it must give you Pleasure to see that People who knew me there so long and so intimately, retain so sincere a Regard for me." But it would be grossly unjust to Franklin to measure the degree of his attachment to his Joan by the fact merely that he preserved inviolate the nuptial pledge which a man of honor can fairly be expected as a matter of course to observe scrupulously. Not only the lines just quoted by us but the general character of his married life demonstrates that the only thing that he ever regretted about his intercourse with Deborah was that his own censurable conduct should have made her for a time the wife of anyone but himself. In his correspondence with his friend Catherine Ray, there are two pleasing references to Deborah. Mrs. Franklin [one reads] was very proud, that a young lady should have so much regard for her old husband, as to send him such a present (a cheese). We talk of you every time it comes to table. She is sure you are a sensible girl, and a notable housewife, and talks of bequeathing me to you as a legacy; but I ought to wish you a better, and hope she will live these hundred years; for we are grown old together, and if she has any faults, I am so used to 'em that I don't perceive 'em; as the song says [and then, after quoting from his _Plain Country Joan_ the stanza which we have quoted, he adds:]. Indeed, I begin to think she has none, as I think of you. And since she is willing I should love you, as much as you are willing to be loved by me, let us join in wishing the old lady a long life and a happy. The other reference to Deborah occurs in a letter to Miss Ray, written after Franklin's return from a recent visit to New England, in which he describes his feelings before reaching Philadelphia. "As I drew nearer," he said, "I found the attraction stronger and stronger. My diligence and speed increased with my impatience. I drove on violently, and made such long stretches, that a very few days brought me to my own house, and to the arms of my good old wife and children." It is to Franklin's own letters to his wife, however, that we must resort to appreciate how fully he reciprocated her affection. Illiterate as her letters were, they were so full of interest to him that he seems to have re-read as well as read them. In one letter to her, for example, after his arrival in England in 1757, he tells her, "I have now gone through all your agreeable letters, which give me fresh pleasure every time I read them." And that he was quick to feel the dearth of such letters we have testimony in the form of a playful postscript to one of his letters to her of the preceding year when he was at Easton, Pennsylvania. The special messenger, he said, that had been dispatched to Philadelphia with a letter from him to her, as well as letters from other persons to their wives and sweethearts, had returned "without a scrap for poor us." The messenger says [he continues] he left the letters at your house, and saw you afterwards at Mr. Duché's, and told you when he would go, and that he lodged at Honey's, next door to you, and yet you did not write; so let Goody Smith (a favorite servant of theirs) give one more just judgment, and say what should be done to you. I think I won't tell you that we are well, nor that we expect to return about the middle of the week, nor will I send you a word of news; that's poz. The letter ends, "I am your _loving_ husband"; and then comes the postscript: "I have _scratched out the loving words_, being writ in haste by mistake, _when I forgot I was angry_." His letters to her bear all the tokens of conjugal love and of a deep, tranquil domestic spirit. At times, he addresses her as "My Dear Debby," and once as "My Dear Love," but habitually as "My Dear Child." This was the form of address in the first of his published letters to her dated December 27, 1755, and in his last, dated July 22, 1774. "I am, dear girl, your loving husband," "I am, my dear Debby, your ever loving husband," are among the forms of expression with which he concludes. The topics of his letters are almost wholly personal or domestic. They illustrate very strikingly how little dependent upon intellectual congeniality married happiness is, provided that there is a mutual sense of duty, mutual respect and a real community of domestic interests. In one of his London letters, he informs her that another French translation of his book had just been published, with a print of himself prefixed, which, though a copy of that by Chamberlin, had so French a countenance that she would take him for one of that lively nation. "I think you do not mind such things," he added, "or I would send you one."[18] To politics he rarely refers except to reassure her when uneasiness had been created in her mind by one of the reckless partisan accusations which husbands in public life soon learn to rate at their real value but their wives never do. "I am concern'd that so much Trouble should be given you by idle Reports concerning me," he says on one occasion. "Be satisfied, my dear, that while I have my Senses, and God vouchsafes me this Protection, I shall do nothing unworthy the Character of an honest Man, and one that loves his Family." As a rule his letters to Deborah have little to say about the larger world in which he moved when he was in England. If he refers to the Royal Family, it is only to mention that the Queen had just been delivered of another Prince, the eighth child, and that there were now six princes and two princesses, all lovely children. After the repeal of the Stamp Act lifted the embargo laid by patriotic Americans on importations of clothing from England, he wrote to Deborah that he was willing that she should have a new gown, and that he had sent her fourteen yards of Pompadour satin. He had told Parliament, he stated, that, before the old clothes of the Americans were worn out, they might have new ones of their own making. "And, indeed," he added, "if they had all as many old Cloathes as your old Man has, that would not be very unlikely, for I think you and George reckon'd when I was last at home at least 20 pair of old Breeches." To his own fame and the social attentions which he received from distinguished men abroad he makes only the most meagre allusion. The agreeable conversation I meet with among men of learning, and the notice taken of me by persons of distinction, are the principal things that soothe me for the present, under this painful absence from my family and friends. Yet those would not keep me here another week, if I had not other inducements; duty to my country, and hopes of being able to do it service. Thus he wrote to his wife about four months after he arrived in England in 1757. A few weeks later, he said: I begin to think I shall hardly be able to return before this time twelve months. I am for doing effectually what I came about; and I find it requires both time and patience. You may think, perhaps, that I can find many amusements here to pass the time agreeable. 'Tis true, the regard and friendship I meet with from persons of worth, and the conversation of ingenious men, give me no small pleasure; but at this time of life, domestic comforts afford the most solid satisfaction, and my uneasiness at being absent from my family, and longing desire to be with them, make me often sigh in the midst of cheerful company.[19] The real interest of Franklin's correspondence with his wife consists in the insight that it gives us into his private, as contrasted with his public, relations. His genius, high as it rose into the upper air of human endeavor, rested upon a solid sub-structure of ordinary stone and cement, firmly planted in the earth, and this is manifest in his family history as in everything else. The topics, with which he deals in his letters to Deborah, are the usual topics with which a kind, sensible, practical husband and householder, without any elevated aspirations of any kind, deals in his letters to his wife. There was no lack of common ground on which she and he could meet in correspondence after the last fond words addressed by him to her just before he left New York for England in 1757 had been spoken, "God preserve, guard and guide you." First of all, there was his daughter Sally to whom he was lovingly attached. In a letter to his wife, shortly before he used the valedictory words just quoted, he said: "I leave Home, and undertake this long Voyage more chearfully, as I can rely on your Prudence in the Management of my Affairs, and Education of my dear Child; and yet I cannot forbear once more recommending her to you with a Father's tenderest Concern." From this time on, during his two absences in England, Sally seems to have ever been in his thoughts. There are several references to her in one of his earliest letters to Deborah after he reached England in 1757. I should have read Sally's French letter with more pleasure [he said], but that I thought the French rather too good to be all her own composing.... I send her a French Pamela. I hear [he further said] there has a miniature painter gone over to Philadelphia, a relation to John Reynolds. If Sally's picture is not done to your mind by the young man, and the other gentleman is a good hand and follows the business, suppose you get Sally's done by him, and send it to me with your small picture, that I may here get all our little family drawn in one conversation piece. This idea was not carried out because, among other reasons, as he subsequently informed Deborah, he found that family pieces were no longer in fashion.[20] In this same letter there is a gentle caress for Sally. Had I been well [he said], I intended to have gone round among the shops and bought some pretty things for you and my dear good Sally (whose little hands you say eased your headache) to send by this ship, but I must now defer it to the next, having only got a crimson satin cloak for you, the newest fashion, and the black silk for Sally; but Billy (William Franklin) sends her a scarlet feather, muff, and tippet, and a box of fashionable linen for her dress. In other letters there are repeated indications of the doting persistency with which his mind dwelt upon his daughter. But the softest touch of all is at the end of one of them. After speaking of the kindness, with which Mrs. Stevenson, Polly Stevenson's mother, had looked after his physical welfare, he adds: "But yet I have a thousand times wish'd you with me, and my little Sally with her ready Hands and Feet to do, and go, and come, and get what I wanted." All these allusions to Sally are found in his letters to Deborah during his first mission to England. But little Sally was growing apace, and, when he returned to England on his second mission in 1764, there was soon to be another person with an equal, if not a superior, claim upon her helpful offices. We have already quoted from his letter to Deborah warning her against "an expensive feasting wedding." In this letter he says of Sally's fiancé, Richard Bache: I know very little of the Gentleman or his Character, nor can I at this Distance. I hope his Expectations are not great of any Fortune to be had with our Daughter before our Death. I can only say, that if he proves a good Husband to her, and a good Son to me, he shall find me as good a Father as I can be:--but at present I suppose you would agree with me, that we cannot do more than fit her out handsomely in Cloaths and Furniture, not exceeding in the whole Five Hundred Pounds, of Value. For the rest, they must depend as you and I did, on their own Industry and Care: as what remains in our Hands will be barely sufficient for our Support, and not enough for them when it comes to be divided at our Decease. Hardly, however, had the betrothal occurred before it was clouded by business reverses which had overtaken the prospective son-in-law. These led to a suggestion from the father that may or may not have been prompted by the thought that a temporary separation might bring about the termination of an engagement marked by gloomy auspices. In your last letters [he wrote to Deborah], you say nothing concerning Mr. Bache. The Misfortune that has lately happened to his Affairs, tho' it may not lessen his Character as an honest or a Prudent man, will probably induce him to forbear entering hastily into a State that must require a great Addition to his Expence, when he will be less able to supply it. If you think that in the meantime it will be some Amusement to Sally to visit her Friends here (in London) and return with me, I should have no Objection to her coming over with Capt. Falkener, provided Mrs. Falkener comes at the same time as is talk'd of. I think too it might be some Improvement to her. Poor Richard had incurred considerable risks when he selected his own mate, and, all things considered, he acquiesced gracefully enough in the betrothal of his daughter to a man of whom he knew practically nothing except circumstances that were calculated to bring to his memory many pat proverbs about the folly of imprudent marriages. If, therefore, his idea was to enlist the chilling aid of absence in an effort to bring the engagement to an end, fault can scarcely be found with him. We know from one of William Franklin's letters that the friends of the family had such misgivings about the union as to excite the anger of Deborah. The suggestion that Sally should be sent over to England did not find favor with her, and in a later letter Franklin writes to her, "I am glad that you find so much reason to be satisfy'd with Mr. Bache. I hope all will prove for the best." And all did prove for the best, as the frequency with which Richard Bache's name occurs in Franklin's will, to say nothing more, sufficiently attests. When the marriage was solemnized, Franklin's strong family affection speedily crowned it with his full approval. In due season, the fact that the contract was a fruitful one is brought to our notice by a letter from him to his wife in which he tells his "Dear Child," then his wife for nearly forty years, that he had written to Sally by Captain Falkener giving her Sir John Pringle's opinion as to the probability of Sally's son having been rendered exempt from the smallpox by inoculation. Thenceforth there is scarcely a letter from the grandfather to the grandmother in which there is not some mention made of this grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, the rabid Jeffersonian and editor of after years, whose vituperative editorials in the Aurora recall Franklin's statement in the latter part of his life that the liberty of the press ought to be attended by the ancient liberty of the cudgel. "I am glad your little Grandson," says one letter, "recovered so soon of his Illness, as I see you are quite in Love with him, and your Happiness wrapt up in his; since your whole long Letter is made up of the History of his pretty Actions." In a subsequent letter to Deborah, he passes to the boy's father, who had come over to England, where his mother and sisters resided, and was on the point of returning to Philadelphia. "Mr. Bache is about returning. His Behaviour here has been very agreeable to me. I have advis'd him to settle down to Business in Philadelphia, where I hope he will meet with Success. I mentioned to you before, that I saw his Mother and Sisters at Preston, who are genteel People, and extreamly agreeable." In the same letter, he tells Deborah that he has advised Bache to deal in the ready money way though he should sell less. He may keep his Store [he said] in your little North Room for the present. And as he will be at no expence while the Family continues with you, I think he may, with Industry and Frugality, get so forward, as at the end of his Term, to pay his Debts and be clear of the World, which I much wish to see. I have given him £200 Sterl'g to add something to his Cargo. It is not long before he is writing to Deborah about "Sister Bache and her amiable Daughters." Like the commerce of material gifts, which his wife and himself kept up with each other, when separated, are the details about his godson, William Hewson, the son of his friend Polly, which he exchanges with Deborah for details about his grandson, who came to be known, it seems, as "the Little King Bird," and the "Young Hercules." In Return for your History of your _Grandson_ [he wrote to her on one occasion], I must give you a little of the History of my _Godson_. He is now 21 Months old, very strong and healthy, begins to speak a little, and even to sing. He was with us a few Days last Week, grew fond of me, and would not be contented to sit down to Breakfast without coming to call _Pa_, rejoicing when he had got me into my Place. When seeing me one Day crack one of the Philada Biscuits into my Tea with the Nut-crackers, he took another and try'd to do the same with the Tea-Tongs. It makes me long to be at home to play with Ben. Indeed, by this time, Franklin had become such a fatuous grandfather that he ceases to call his grandson Ben and speaks of him as "Benny Boy" when he does not speak of him as "the dear boy." In the fulness of time, Richard and Sally Bache were destined to be the parents of numerous children. When Franklin returned from his mission to France, the youngest of them soon became as devoted to him as had been Billy Hewson, or the youthful son of John Jay, whose singular attachment to him is referred to in one of his letters to Jay. In the same description, in which Manasseh Cutler speaks in such sour terms of the person of Mrs. Bache, he tells us that, when he saw her at Franklin's home in Philadelphia, she had three of her children about her, over whom she seemed to have no kind of command, but who appeared to be excessively fond of their grandpapa. Indeed, all children who were brought into close companionship with Franklin loved him, and instinctively turned to him for responsive love and sympathy. Men may be the best judges of the human intellect, but children are the best judges of the human heart. Francis Folger, the only legitimate child of Franklin except Sally, is not mentioned in his correspondence with his wife. The colorless Franky who is was not this child. Franklin's son was born a year after the marriage of Franklin and Deborah in 1730, and died, when a little more than four years of age, and therefore long before the date of the earliest letter extant from Franklin to Deborah. Though warned but a few years previously by an epidemic of smallpox in Philadelphia, which had been accompanied by a high rate of mortality, Franklin could not make up his mind to subject the child to the hazards of inoculation. The consequence was that, when a second epidemic visited the city, Francis contracted the disease, and died. Franklin, to use his own words to his sister Jane Mecom, long regretted him bitterly, and also regretted that he had not given him the disease by inoculation. All, who have seen my grandson [he said in another letter to his sister] agree with you in their accounts of his being an uncommonly fine boy, which brings often afresh to my mind the idea of my son Franky, though now dead thirty-six years, whom I have seldom since seen equaled in every thing, and whom to this day I cannot think of without a sigh. But Sally and his grandson were far from being the only persons who furnished material for Franklin's letters to his wife. These letters also bring before us in many ways other persons connected with him and Deborah by ties of blood, service or friendship. He repeatedly sends his "duty" to his mother-in-law, Mrs. Read, and when he is informed of the death of "our good mother," as he calls her, he observes, "'Tis, I am sure, a Satisfaction to me, that I cannot charge myself with having ever fail'd in one Instance of Duty and Respect to her during the many Years that she call'd me Son." "My love to Brother John Read and Sister, and cousin Debbey, and young cousin Johnny Read, and let them all know, that I sympathize with them all affectionately," was his message to her relations in the same letter. Some of his letters conveyed much agreeable information to Deborah about his and her English relations. Of these we shall have something to say in another connection. "Billy," William Franklin, is mentioned in his father's letters to Deborah on many other occasions than those already cited by us; for he was his father's intimate companion during the whole of the first mission to England. He appears to have truly loved his sister, Sally, and is often mentioned in Franklin's letters to Deborah as sending Sally his love or timely gifts. If he really presented his duty to his mother half as often as Franklin reported, she had no cause to complain of his lack of attention. That her earlier feelings about him had undergone a decided change, before he went to England with his father, we may infer from one of Franklin's letters in which, in response to her "particular inquiry," he tells her that "Billy is of the Middle Temple, and will be call'd to the Bar either this Term or the next." Some seven years later, he tells her that it gave him pleasure to hear from Major Small that he had left her and Sally and "our other children" well also. Mention of Peter, his negro servant, is also several times made in Franklin's letters to Deborah. In one letter, written when he was convalescing after a severe attack of illness, he tells Deborah that not only had his good doctor, Doctor Fothergill, attended him very carefully and affectionately, and Mrs. Stevenson nursed him kindly, but that Billy was of great service to him, and Peter very diligent and attentive. But a later letter does not give quite so favorable a view of Peter, after the latter had inhaled a little longer the free air of England. Peter continues with me [said Franklin] and behaves as well as I can expect, in a Country where they are many Occasions of spoiling servants, if they are ever so good. He has a few Faults as most of them, and I see with only one Eye, and hear only with one Ear; so we rub on pretty comfortably. These words smack of the uxorious policy recommended to husbands by Poor Richard. The same letter gives us a glimpse of another negro servant, who was even more strongly disposed than Peter to act upon the statement in Cowper's _Task_ that slaves cannot breathe in England. King, that you enquire after [says Franklin], is not with us. He ran away from our House, near two Years ago, while we were absent in the Country; But was soon found in Suffolk, where he had been taken in the Service of a Lady, that was very fond of the Merit of making him a Christian, and contributing to his Education and Improvement. As he was of little Use, and often in Mischief, Billy consented to her keeping him while we stay in England. So the Lady sent him to School, has taught him to read and write, to play on the Violin and French Horn, with some other Accomplishments more useful in a Servant. Whether she will finally be willing to part with him, or persuade Billy to sell him to her, I know not. In the meantime he is no Expence to us. And that was certainly something worth noting about a servant who could play upon the French horn. But it is of Goody Smith, the servant in the Franklin household at Philadelphia, whose judgment was invoked upon the failure of Deborah to answer her husband's letter from Easton, that mention is most often made in the portions of Franklin's letters to his wife which relate to servants. In a letter to Deborah from Easton, he expresses his obligations to Goody Smith for remembering him and sends his love to her. In another letter to Deborah, when he was on his way to Williamsburg in Virginia, he says, "my Duty to Mother, and love to Sally, Debby, Gracey, &c., not forgetting the Goodey." Subsequently, when in England, he tells Deborah: I have order'd two large print Common Prayer Books to be bound on purpose for you and Goodey Smith; and that the largeness of the Print may not make them too bulkey, the Christnings, Matrimonies, and everything else that you and she have not immediate and constant Occasion for, are to be omitted. So you will both of you be repriev'd from the Use of Spectacles in Church a little longer. In another letter from England, Franklin mentions that he sends Deborah a pair of garters knit by Polly Stevenson who had also favored him with a pair. "Goody Smith may, if she pleases," he adds, "make such for me hereafter, and they will suit her own fat Knees. My Love to her." And love to her he sends again when he hears that she is recovering from an illness. Franklin likewise refers several times in his letters to Deborah to another servant, John, who accompanied him on his return to England in 1764, but the behavior of this servant seems to have been too unexceptionable for him to be a conspicuous figure in his master's letters. They were evidently a kind master and mistress, Franklin and Deborah. "I am sorry for the death of your black boy," he wrote to her on one occasion from London, "as you seem to have had a regard for him. You must have suffered a good deal in the fatigue of nursing him in such a distemper." Over and over again in his letters to Deborah, Franklin approves himself a "lover of his friends" like his friend Robert Grace. He sends his love to them individually, and he sends his love to them collectively. Even during a brief absence, as when he was off on his military expedition, his letters to Deborah are sprinkled with such messages as "our Compliments to Mrs. Masters and all enquiring Friends," "My Love to Mr. Hall" (his business partner), "Give my hearty Love to all Friends," "Love to all our friends and neighbours." During another brief absence in Virginia, he sends his respects to "Mrs. Masters and all the Officers and in short to all Philadelphia." In a later letter to Deborah, written from Utrecht, the form of his concluding words on the previous occasion is made still more comprehensive. "My Love," he said, "to my dear Sally, and affectionate Regards to all Pennsylvania." In one of his letters from England, he wrote, "Pray remember me kindly to all that love us, and to all that we love. 'Tis endless to name names," and on still another occasion, in asking Deborah to thank all his friends for their favors, which contributed so much to the comfort of his voyage, he added, "I have not time to name Names: You know whom I love and honour." He had such troops of friends that he might well shrink from the weariness of naming them all. Indeed, he scarcely writes a letter to Deborah that does not bear witness to the extent and warmth of his friendships. When he left Philadelphia for England in 1757, about a dozen of his friends accompanied him as far as Trenton, but, in the letter to Deborah which informs us of this fact, he does not give us the names of any of them. This letter was written from Trenton. Mrs. Grace and "Dear Precious Mrs. Shewell," Mrs. Masters, "Mrs. Galloway & Miss," Mrs. Redman, Mrs. Graeme, Mrs. Thomson, Mrs. Story, Mrs. Bartram, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Hilborne all come in at one time, as well as other ladies whom he does not name, for his best respects, in return for friendly wishes that they had transmitted to him through Deborah. In another letter he sends his love to "our dear precious Polly Hunt and all our kind inquiring friends." Friends escorted him to Trenton when he was on his way to England in 1757, friends bestowed all sorts of gifts on him to render his voyage comfortable, Mr. Thomas Wharton even lending him a woollen gown which he found a comfortable companion in his winter passage; friends did him the honor to drink his health in the unfinished kitchen of the new house built in his absence; and friends "honored" the dining-room in this home "with their Company." When he heard of the convivial gathering in the unfinished kitchen, he wrote to Deborah, "I hope soon to drink with them in the Parlour," but there is a tinge of dissatisfaction in his observations to Deborah on the gathering in the dining-room. It gives me Pleasure [he said] that so many of my Friends honour'd our new Dining Room with their Company. You tell me only of a Fault they found with the House, that it was too little, and not a Word of anything they lik'd in it: Nor how the Kitchen Chimneys perform; so I suppose you spare me some Mortification, which [he adds with a slight inflection of sarcasm] is kind. His dear friend, Mr. Rhodes, Mr. Wharton, Mr. Roberts, Mr. and Mrs. Duffield, Neighbor Thomson, Dr. and Mrs. Redman, Mrs. Hopkinson, Mr. Duché, Dr. Morgan and Mr. Hopkinson are other friends mentioned in a later letter of his to Deborah. In the same letter, he rejoices that his "good old Friend, Mr. Coleman, is got safe home, and continues well." Coleman, as we shall see, was one of the two friends who had come to his aid in his early manhood when he was sued and threatened with ruin by his creditors. The death of the dear, amiable Miss Ross, "our Friend Bond's heavy loss," the disorder that had befallen "our friend Kinnersley" and other kindred facts awaken his ready sympathy; presents of books, seeds and the like, as well as messages of love and respect, remind his friends how freshly green his memory of them is. The letters have much to say, too, about the presents to Deborah and Sally which were almost incessantly crossing the outflowing currents of apples and buckwheat meal from Philadelphia. These presents are far too numerous to be all specified by us, but some perhaps it may not be amiss to recall. In one letter, he writes to Deborah that he is sending her a large case marked D. F. No. 1 and a small box marked D. F. No. 2, and that in the large case is another small box containing some English china, viz.: melons and leaves for a dessert of fruit and cream, or the like; a bowl remarkable for the neatness of the figures, made at Bow near London, some coffee cups of the same make, and a Worcester bowl, ordinary. In the same box, to show the difference of workmanship, he said, there was something from all the china works in England and one old true china basin mended of an odd color, four silver salt ladles, newest but ugliest fashion, a little instrument to core apples, another to make little turnips out of great ones and six coarse diaper breakfast cloths. The latter, he stated, were to be spread on the tea table, for nobody breakfasted in London on the naked table but on the cloth set a large tea board with the cups. In the large case were likewise some carpeting for a best room floor, and bordering to go along with it, also two large fine Flanders bed-ticks, two pair of large superfine fine blankets, two fine damask table-cloths and napkins, and forty-three ells of Ghentish sheeting Holland, all of which Deborah had ordered of him; also fifty-six yards of cotton, printed curiously from copper plates, a new invention, to make bed and window curtains, and seven yards of chair bottoms printed in the same way very neat. "These were my Fancy," Franklin remarks, "but Mrs. Stevenson tells me I did wrong not to buy both of the same Colour." In the large case, too, were seven yards of printed cotton, blue ground, to make Deborah a gown. I bought it by Candlelight, and lik'd it then [the letter said], but not so well afterwards. If you do not fancy it, send it as a Present from me to sister Jenny. There is a better Gown for you, of flower'd Tissue, 16 yards, of Mrs. Stevenson's Fancy, cost 9 Guineas; and I think it a great Beauty. There was no more of the Sort, or you should have had enough for a _Negligee_ or Suit. There is also Snuffers, Snuff Stand, and Extinguisher of Steel, which I send for the Beauty of the Work. The Extinguisher is for Spermaceti Candles only, and is of a new Contrivance, to preserve the Snuff upon the Candle. Small box No. 2 contained cut table glass of several sorts. After stating its contents, Franklin adds, "I am about buying a compleat Set of Table China, 2 Cases of silver handled Knives and Forks, and 2 pair Silver Candlesticks; but these shall keep to use here till my Return, as I am obliged sometimes to entertain polite Company." But there is nothing in this letter equal in interest to the paragraph that brings to our mental eye the handsome, buxom figure of Deborah herself. I forgot to mention another of my Fancyings, _viz._: a Pair of Silk Blankets, very fine. They are of a new kind, were just taken in a French Prize, and such were never seen in England before: they are called Blankets, but I think will be very neat to cover a Summer Bed, instead of a Quilt or Counterpain. I had no Choice, so you will excuse the Soil on some of the Folds; your Neighbour Forster can get it off. I also forgot, among the China, to mention a large fine Jugg for Beer, to stand in the Cooler. I fell in Love with it at first Sight; for I thought it look'd like a fat jolly Dame, clean and tidy, with a neat blue and white Calico Gown on, good natur'd and lovely, and put me, in mind of--Somebody. It has the Coffee Cups in its Belly,[21] pack'd in best Chrystal Salt, of a peculiar nice Flavour, for the Table, not to be powder'd. The receipt of such a case and box as these was doubtless an event long remembered in the Franklin home at Philadelphia. In a subsequent letter from Franklin to Deborah, the following gifts to Sally are brought to our attention: By Capt. Lutwidge I sent my dear Girl a newest fashion'd white Hat and Cloak, and sundry little things, which I hope will get safe to hand. I now send her a pair of Buckles, made of French Paste Stones, which are next in Lustre to Diamonds. They cost three Guineas, and are said to be cheap at that Price. These were but a few of the many gifts that Deborah and Sally received from Franklin, when he was in London. In their relations to their own households, philosophers are frequently not unlike the ancient one, who, when told by a messenger that his house was on fire, looked up for a minute from his task to say impatiently that his wife attended to all his domestic affairs. This is not true of Franklin, who was wholly free from the crass ignorance and maladroit touch which render many husbands as much out of place in their own houses as the officious ass in �sop's fable was in his master's dining-hall. Even the fences, the well and the vegetable garden at times are mentioned in his letters to Deborah, and his mechanical skill stood him in good stead as a householder. He knew how the carpets should be laid down, what stuff should be purchased for curtains in the blue chamber, and by what kind of hooks they should be fastened to the curtain rails, and the number of curtains at each window that the London fashions required. In one letter he gives Deborah minute instructions as to how the blue room in his Philadelphia home was to be painted and papered. In a subsequent letter, after saying that he was glad to hear that certain pictures were safe arrived at Philadelphia, he adds, "You do not tell me who mounted the great one, nor where you have hung it up." In his relations to his home, at any rate, we can discern nothing of the lack of order, with which he was so frank in reproaching himself. During the time that he was detained in New York by Lord Loudon, he several times had occasion to send a message to his wife about something that he had left behind in his house at Philadelphia, or in his house at Woodbridge in New Jersey, and nothing could be more exact than his recollection as to just where each thing was. He writes for his best spectacles; he had left them on the table, he said, meaning at Woodbridge. In the right hand little drawer under his desk in Philadelphia was some of the Indian Lady's gut-cambric; it was to be rolled up like a ribbon, wrapt in paper and placed in the Indian seal skin hussiff, with the other things already in it, and the hussiff was to be forwarded to him. It would be an acceptable present to a gimcrack great man in London that was his friend. In certain places on his book-shelves at Woodbridge, which he precisely locates, were the _Gardener's Dictionary_, by P. Miller, and the _Treatise on Cydermaking_. They were to be delivered to Mr. Parker. Occasional shadows, of course, fall across the happy and honored life reflected in Franklin's letters to Deborah. We cannot have the evening, however soft and still, without its fading light; or, as Franklin himself put it in one of these letters, "we are not to expect it will be always Sunshine." Strenuous and absorbing as were his public tasks during each of his missions to England; signalized as the latter were by the honors conferred on him by ancient seats of learning, and the attentions paid him by illustrious men; charming and refreshing as were his excursions for health and recreation about the British Islands and on the Continent, and his hours of social relaxation in the country houses of England, Scotland and Ireland; supplied as he was at No. 7 Craven Street with every domestic comfort that the assiduous management of Mrs. Stevenson--who even took care that his shirts should be well-aired as Deborah directed--could provide, his thoughts, now and then, as we have seen, tristfully reverted to his home on the other side of the Atlantic. Some six months after his arrival in England in 1757, he expressed the hope that, if he stayed another winter, it would be more agreeable than the greatest part of the time that he had spent in England. Some two months after his return to England in 1764, he writes to Deborah that he hopes that a few months--the few months slid into ten years--will finish affairs in England to his wish, and bring him to that retirement and repose, with his little family, so suitable to his years, and which he has so long set his heart upon. Some four years later, he wrote to Deborah: I feel stronger and more active. Yet I would not have you think that I fancy I shall grow young again. I know that men of my Bulk often fail suddenly: I know that according to the Course of Nature I cannot at most continue much longer, and that the living even of another Day is uncertain. I therefore now form no Schemes, but such as are of immediate Execution; indulging myself in no future Prospect except one, that of returning to Philadelphia, there to spend the Evening of Life with my Friends and Family. There was a time when he loved England and would perhaps have contentedly lived and died there, if his Lares and Penates could have been enticed into taking up their abode there. With his broad, tolerant, jocund nature, he was, it must be confessed, not a little like a hare, which soon makes a form for itself wherever it happens to crouch. The homesickness, which colors a few of his letters, is to no little extent the legacy of illness. But much as he was absent from home, alchemist as he always was in transmuting all that is disagreeable in life into what is agreeable, or at least endurable, the family hearthside never ceased to have a bright, cheerful glow for his well-ordered, home-loving nature. Grave illness was more than once his lot during his mission to England.[22] Shortly after his arrival in that country in 1757, he was seized with a violent attack of sickness, accompanied by delirium, which left him in an invalid condition for quite a time. From the account that he gives of the cupping, vomiting and purging that he underwent, under the care of good Doctor Fothergill, there would seem to have been no lack of opportunity for the escape of the disease, which, judging by the amount of bark that he took in substance and infusion, was probably some form of malarial fever. This attack gives a decidedly valetudinary tone to one of his subsequent letters to Deborah. "I am much more tender than I us'd to be," he said, "and sleep in a short Callico Bedgown with close Sleeves, and Flannel close-footed Trousers; for without them I get no warmth all Night. So it seems I grow older apace." Deborah's health, too, about this time was not overgood, for, a few months later, he writes to her: "It gives me Concern to receive such frequent Accts of your being indisposed; but we both of us grow in Years, and must expect our Constitutions, though tolerably good in themselves, will by degrees give way to the Infirmities of Age." Shortly after Franklin's arrival in England in 1764, he was seized with another attack of illness, but he was soon able to declare that, thanks to God, he was got perfectly well, his cough being quite gone, and his arms mending, so that he could dress and undress himself, if he chose to endure a little pain. A few months later, he says it rejoices him to learn that Deborah is freer than she used to be from the headache and the pain in her side. He himself, he said, was likewise in perfect health. Again he writes to Deborah in the succeeding year: "I congratulate you on the soon expected Repeal of the Stamp Act; and on the great Share of Health we both enjoy, tho' now going in Four-score (that is, in the fourth score)." He was not allowed, however, to indulge long the spirit of congratulation, for, a few months later, one of his letters to Deborah brings to our knowledge the fact that he had been very ill. After his recovery from this illness, he does not seem to have been attacked by anything again while in England, beyond a fit or so of the gout, and in 1768 he readily assents to the statement of Deborah that they were both blessed with a great share of health considering their years, then sixty-three. A few years more, however, and Franklin's correspondence indicates plainly enough that this statement was no longer applicable to Deborah. In the letter last-mentioned, her husband writes to her that he wonders to hear that his friends were backward in bringing her his letters when they arrived, and thinks it must be a mere imagination of hers, the effect of some melancholy humor she happened then to be in; and some four years afterwards he recommends to her a dietary for the preservation of her health and the improvement of her spirits. But both were then beyond repair, and, two years later, she was in the Elysian fields where, despite what was reported, as we shall see, by Franklin to Madame Helvétius about his Eurydice and M. Helvétius, it is impossible to believe that she, faithful, loving creature that she was, did anything but inconsolably await his coming. Of course, we are not wholly dependent upon Franklin's letters to Deborah for details relating to Sally and Richard Bache. A very readable letter of his is the one written by him to Sally from Reedy Island on his way to England in 1764. Its opening sentences bring home to us anew the multitude of his friends and the fervid enthusiasm of their friendship. Our good friends, Mr. Galloway, Mr. Wharton, and Mr. James, came with me in the ship from Chester to New Castle and went ashore there [he said]. It was kind to favour me with their good company as far as they could. The affectionate leave taken of me by so many friends at Chester was very endearing. God bless them and all Pennsylvania. Then, after observing that the natural prudence and goodness of heart, with which God had blessed Sally, made it less necessary for him to be particular in giving her advice, Franklin tells her that the more attentively dutiful and tender she was towards her good mama the more she would recommend herself to him, adding, "But why should I mention _me_, when you have so much higher a promise in the commandments, that such conduct will recommend you to the favour of God." After this, he warns her that her conduct should be all the more circumspect, that no advantage might be given to the malevolence of his political enemies, directs her to go constantly to church and advises her in his absence to acquire those useful accomplishments, arithmetic and book-keeping. In his next letter to Sally, he tells her that he has met her husband at Preston, where he had been kindly entertained for two or three days by her husband's mother and sisters, whom he liked much. The comfort that this assurance gave to a wife, who had never met her husband's relatives, can be readily appreciated. He had advised Bache, he said, to settle down to business in Philadelphia, where he would always be with her; almost any profession a man has been educated in being preferable, in his opinion, to an office held at pleasure, as rendering him more independent, more a freeman, and less subject to the caprices of superiors. This means, of course, that the Baches, too, were looking for a seat in the Post-Office carryall, in which room was found for so many of Franklin's relations and _protégés_. By Industry & Frugality [Franklin further said], you may get forward in the World, being both of you yet young. And then what we may leave you at our Death may be a pretty Addition, tho' of itself far from sufficient to maintain & bring up a Family. It is of the more Importance for you to think seriously of this, as you may have a Number of Children to educate. 'Till my Return you need be at no Expence for Rent, etc, as you are all welcome to continue with your Mother, and indeed it seems to be your Duty to attend her, as she grows infirm, and takes much Delight in your Company and the Child's. This Saving will be a Help in your Progress: And for your Encouragement I can assure you that there is scarce a Merchant of Opulence in your Town, whom I do not remember a young Beginner with as little to go on with, & no better Prospects than Mr. Bache. Ben of course is not overlooked. "I am much pleas'd with the Acc' I receive from all Hands of your dear little Boy. I hope he will be continu'd a Blessing to us all." It must have been a great gratification to him to learn that Betsey, William Franklin's wife, as well as Deborah, had stood as godmother for the child. In his next letter to Sally, acknowledging the receipt of a pleasing letter from her, he states that he is glad that she has undertaken the care of the housekeeping, as it would be an ease to her mother, especially if she could manage to her approbation. "_That_," he commented significantly, "may perhaps be at first a Difficulty."[23] It would be of use to her, he continued, if she would get a habit of keeping exact accounts, and it would be some satisfaction to him to see them, for she should remember, for her encouragement in good economy, that, whatever a child saves of its parents' money, will be its own another day. "Study," the letter concludes, "Poor Richard a little, and you may find some Benefit from his Instructions." These letters were all written from London. The rest of Franklin's letters to Sally alone were written from Passy. In the first he says that, if she knew how happy her letters made him, and considered how many of them miscarried, she would, he thought, write oftener. A daughter had then been added to the members of the Bache household, and that he had a word to pen about her goes almost without saying. He expresses the hope that Sally would again be out of the city during the hot months for the sake of this child's health, "for I begin to love the dear little creature from your description of her," he said. This was the letter in which Sally was so pointedly scored for not living more simply and frugally. I was charmed [he declared] with the account you gave me of your industry, the table cloths of your own spinning, &c.; but the latter part of the paragraph, that you had sent for linen from France, because weaving and flax were grown dear, alas, that dissolved the charm; and your sending for long black pins, and lace, and _feathers!_ disgusted me as much as if you had put salt into my strawberries. The spinning, I see, is laid aside, and you are to be dressed for the ball! You seem not to know, my dear daughter, that, of all the dear things in this world, idleness is the dearest, except mischief. Then Ben as usual comes in for notice. As he intended him for a Presbyterian as well as a Republican, he had sent him to finish his education at Geneva, Franklin stated. He is much grown [he continues] in very good health, draws a little, as you will see by the enclosed, learns Latin, writing, arithmetic, and dancing, and speaks French better than English. He made a translation of your last letter to him, so that some of your works may now appear in a foreign language. A few sentences more, with regard to her second son, Will, and another topic and there is a regurgitation of his disgust over Sally's extravagance. When I began [he said] to read your account of the high prices of goods, "a pair of gloves, $7; a yard of common gauze, $24, and that it now required a fortune to maintain a family in a very plain way," I expected you would conclude with telling me, that everybody as well as yourself was grown frugal and industrious; and I could scarce believe my eyes in reading forward, that "there never was so much pleasure and dressing going on," and that you yourself wanted black pins and feathers from France to appear, I suppose, in the mode! This leads me to imagine, that it is perhaps not so much that the goods are grown dear, as that the money is grown cheap, as everything else will do when excessively plenty; and that people are still as easy nearly in their circumstances, as when a pair of gloves might be had for half a crown. The war indeed may in some degree raise the prices of goods, and the high taxes which are necessary to support the war may make our frugality necessary; and, as I am always preaching that doctrine, I cannot in conscience or in decency encourage the contrary, by my example, in furnishing my children with foolish modes and luxuries. I therefore send all the articles you desire, that are useful and necessary, and omit the rest; for, as you say you should "have great pride in wearing anything I send, and showing it as your father's taste," I must avoid giving you an opportunity of doing that with either lace or feathers. If you wear your cambric ruffles as I do, and take care not to mend the holes, they will come in time to be lace, and feathers, my dear girl, may be had in America from every cock's tail. Franklin's last letter to Sally was written from Passy, and contains the inimitable strictures on the Order of the Cincinnati, to which we shall hereafter return, but nothing of any personal or domestic interest. Two of the letters of Franklin are written to Sally and her husband together. "Dear Son and Daughter," is the way he begins, and one ends, "I am ever my dear Children, your affectionate Father." Both of these letters were written from Passy. One of them, in addition to letting the parents know that Ben promised to be a stout, as well as a good, man, presents with no little pathos the situation of the writer on the eve of his departure from France for Philadelphia in 1785. After mentioning his efforts to engage some good vessel bound directly for Philadelphia, which would agree to take him on board at Havre with his grandsons, servants and baggage, he sketches this lugubrious picture of himself. Infirm as I am, I have need of comfortable Room and Accommodations. I was miserably lodg'd in coming over hither, which almost demolish'd me. I must be better stow'd now, or I shall not be able to hold out the Voyage. Indeed my Friends here are so apprehensive for me, that they press me much to remain in France, and three of them have offer'd me an Asylum in their Habitations. They tell me I am here among a People who universally esteem and love me; that my Friends at home are diminish'd by Death in my Absence; that I may there meet with Envy and its consequent Enmity which here I am perfectly free from; this supposing I live to compleat the Voyage, but of that they doubt. The Desire however of spending the little Remainder of Life with my Family, is so strong, as to determine me to try, at least, whether I can bear the Motion of a Ship. If not, I must get them to set me on shore somewhere in the Channel, and content myself to die in Europe. This is melancholy enough, but the wonderful old man weathered out the voyage, and contrived on the way to write three elaborate treatises on practical subjects which, good as they are of their kind, the general reader would gladly exchange for the addition of a few dozen pages to the _Autobiography_. In his last years, he was like the mimosa tree, dying, to all appearances, one year, and the next throwing out fresh verdurous branches from his decaying trunk. Among the writings of Franklin are also letters to Richard Bache alone. The first is dated October 7, 1772, and begins, "Loving Son." But loving son as Bache was, Franklin was too indisposed to encourage pecuniary laxity in a son-in-law, who had to make his way in the world, not to remind him that there remained five guineas unpaid, which he had had of him just on going away. "Send it in a Venture for Ben to Jamaica," he said. The next letter to Bache relates to the hospitable Post-office. Bache, he says, will have heard, before it got to hand, that the writer had been displaced, and consequently would have it no longer in his power to assist him in his views relating to the Post-office; "As things are," he remarked, "I would not wish to see you concern'd in it. For I conceive that the Dismissing me merely for not being corrupted by the Office to betray the Interests of my Country, will make it some Disgrace among us to hold such an Office." The remainder of Franklin's letters to Bache, with the exception of a letter introducing to him Thomas Paine, the author of _Common Sense_, were written from Passy. One of them had something pungent but just enough to say about Lee and Izard and the cabal for removing Temple. Sally declared on one occasion that she hated all South Carolinians from B (Bee, a member of Congress from South Carolina) to Izard. This letter discloses the fact that Ben had been placed at school at Geneva in "_the old thirteen United States of Switzerland_," as the writer calls them. It is signed "I am your affectionate father." Another letter indicates that Franklin had sent a profile of the growing boy to his parents, so that they could see the changes which he had undergone in the preceding four years. This letter also expresses the willingness of the grandfather to give at his expense to William, Bache's second son, the best education that America could afford. In his next and last letter to Bache, Franklin makes these comments upon Ben which not only show how much he loved him but how quietly his temperament could accept even such a disappointment as his failure to secure the merited office for Temple. Benny continues well, and grows amazingly. He is a very sensible and a very good Lad, and I love him much. I had Thoughts of bringing him up under his Cousin, and fitting him for Public Business, thinking he might be of Service hereafter to his Country; but being now convinc'd that _Service is no Inheritance_, as the Proverb says, I have determin'd to give him a Trade that he may have something to depend on, and not be oblig'd to ask Favours or Offices of anybody. And I flatter myself he will make his way good in the World with God's Blessing. He has already begun to learn the business from Masters [a printer and a letter founder] who come to my House, and is very diligent in working and quick in learning. Two letters to the boy himself are among Franklin's published writings. The first is couched in sweet, simple terms, suited to the age of his youthful correspondent, and the second is interesting only as evidencing how closely the grandfather scanned the drawings and handwriting of his grandson, and as emphasizing the importance that he always attached to arithmetic and accounts as elements of an useful education. Sally's reply to her father's rebuke, on account of the modish vanities, that she asked of him, was quite spirited. How could my dear papa [she said] give me so severe a reprimand for wishing a little finery. He would not, I am sure, if he knew how much I have felt it. Last winter (in consequence of the surrender of General Burgoyne) was a season of triumph to the Whigs, and they spent it gayly; you would not have had me, I am sure, stay away from the Embassadors' or Gerard's entertainments, nor when I was invited to spend a day with General Washington and his lady; and you would have been the last person, I am sure, to have wished to see me dressed with singularity: Though I never loved dress so much as to wish to be particularly fine, yet I never will go out when I cannot appear so as to do credit to my family and husband. Apparently, Sally was not always so unsuccessful as she was on this occasion in her efforts to secure something to wear, suitable to her situation as the daughter of a very distinguished citizen of Philadelphia in easy circumstances. Nothing, she once wrote to her father, was ever more admired than her new gown. It is obvious, however, that Franklin was resolved that his daughter at least should heed and profit by what Father Abraham had to say in his discourse about the effect of silks, satins, scarlet and velvets in putting out the kitchen fire. In his will, he bequeathed to her the picture of Louis XV., given to him by the King, which was set with four hundred and eight diamonds, "requesting, however, that she would not form any of those diamonds into ornaments either for herself or daughters, and thereby introduce or countenance the expensive, vain, and useless fashion of wearing jewels in this country." The outer circle of the diamonds was sold by Sally, and on the proceeds she and her husband made the tour of Europe. When Franklin returned from his second mission, it was to reside with his daughter and son-in-law in the new house with the kitchen, dining-room and blue chamber mentioned in his letters to Deborah. Cohabitation with the Baches proved so agreeable that he wrote Polly Hewson that he was delighted with his little family. "Will," he told Temple, "has got a little Gun, marches with it, and whistles at the same time by way of Fife." There are also some amusing observations in a later letter of his to Temple on a letter written by Ben to Temple, when Temple was at the house of his Tory father in New Jersey, but which was never sent. It was thought [said Franklin] to be too full of Pot hooks & Hangers, and so unintelligible by the dividing Words in the Middle and joining Ends of some to Beginnings of others, that if it had fallen into the Hands of some Committee it might have given them too much Trouble to decypher it, on a Suspicion of its containing Treason, especially as directed to a Tory House. An earlier letter from Franklin to Polly Hewson about Ben is marked by the same playful spirit. "Ben," the grandfather said, "when I delivered him your Blessing, inquired the Age of Elizabeth [Mrs. Hewson's daughter] and thought her yet too young for him; but, as he made no other Objection, and that will lessen every day, I have only to wish being alive to dance with your Mother at the Wedding." After his arrival in America, Franklin was appointed Postmaster-General of the Colonies by Congress, and this appointment gave Richard Bache another opportunity to solicit an office from his father-in-law. With his usual unfaltering nepotism, Franklin appointed him Deputy Postmaster-General, but subsequently Congress removed him, and there was nothing for him to do but to court fortune in business again, with such aid as Franklin could give him in mercantile circles in France. In the latter years of Franklin's life, there was a very general feeling that he had made public office too much of a family perquisite, and this feeling weakened Richard Bache's tenure on the Post Office, and helped to frustrate all Franklin's plans for the public preferment of Temple and Benjamin Franklin Bache. Much as Washington admired Franklin the latter was unable to obtain even by the most assiduous efforts an office under his administration for either of them. When Franklin's ship approached Philadelphia on his return from Paris, it was his son-in-law who put off in a boat to bring him and his grandsons ashore, and, when he landed at Market Street wharf, he was received by a crowd of people with huzzas and accompanied with acclamations quite to his door. After his return he again took up his residence with the Baches in the same house as before, and there is but little more to say about the members of the Bache family. There are, however, some complimentary things worth recalling that were said of Sally by some of her French contemporaries. She [Marbois wrote to Franklin in 1781] passed a part of last year in exertions to rouse the zeal of the Pennsylvania ladies; and she made on this occasion such a happy use of the eloquence which you know she possesses, that a large part of the American army was provided with shirts, bought with their money or made by their hands. If there are in Europe [he also said] any women who need a model of attachment to domestic duties and love for their country, Mrs. Bache may be pointed out to them as such. The Marquis de Chastellux tells us that she was "simple in her manners," and "like her respectable father, she possesses his benevolence." Of course, from the letters of Franklin himself we obtain some insight into the domestic conditions by which he was surrounded in his home during the last stages of his existence. To John Jay and Mrs. Jay he wrote, shortly after his arrival in America, that he was then in the bosom of his family, and found four new little prattlers, who clung about the knees of their grandpapa, and afforded him great pleasure. It is a peaceful slope, though near the foot of the hill, which is presented to our eyes in these words written by him to Jan Ingenhousz: Except that I am too much encumber'd with Business, I find myself happily situated here, among my numerous Friends, plac'd at the Head of my Country by its unanimous Voice, in the Bosom of my Family, my Offspring to wait on me and nurse me, in a House I built 23 Years since to my Mind. A still later letter, in which he speaks of Sally, tends to support the idea that it was not his but William Franklin's fault that the reconciliation, which was supposed to have taken place between father and son abroad, was not sufficiently complete to repress the acrid reference made by Franklin in his will to the fact that his son had been a Loyalist. I too [he wrote to his friend, Mather Byles] have a Daughter, who lives with me and is the Comfort of my declining Years, while my Son is estrang'd from me by the Part he took in the late War, and keeps aloof, residing in England, whose Cause he _espous'd_; whereby the old Proverb is exemplified; "My Son is my Son till he take him a Wife; But my Daughter's my Daughter all Days of her Life." We are the quicker to place the blame for the recrudescence of the former bitterness upon William Franklin because the life of Franklin is full of proofs that he had a truly forgiving disposition.[24] It is a fact, however, that his unrelenting antipathy to Loyalists is the one thing in his career unworthy of a sense of justice and breadth of intellectual charity, otherwise well-nigh perfect. We cannot but regret that anything should have shaken the poise of a character which Lecky has truthfully termed "one of the calmest and best balanced of human characters." But it is not given even to a Franklin to see things in their ordinary colors through a blood-red mist, and quite as true as any saying that Poor Richard ever conceived or borrowed is _Acerrima proximorum odia_. In still another letter, one to Madame Brillon, he says, "A dutiful and affectionate Daughter, with her Husband and Six Children compose my Family. The Children are all promising, and even the youngest, who is but four Years old, contributes to my Amusement"; and, about a year and a half before his death, he records in a letter to Elizabeth Partridge, the "Addition of a little good-natured Girl, whom I begin to love as well as the rest." In yet another letter, this time to his friend, Alexander Small, after the birth of this little girl, there is a revelation of the domestic quietude in which his long life closed. "I have," he said, "seven promising grandchildren by my daughter, who play with and amuse me, and she is a kind attentive nurse to me when I am at any time indisposed; so that I pass my time as agreeably as at my age a man may well expect, and have little to wish for, except a more easy exit than my malady seems to threaten." By this time, Benjamin Franklin Bache was old enough to be turning to the practical purposes of self-support the knowledge of printing which he had acquired in France. "I am too old to follow printing again myself," wrote Franklin to Mrs. Catherine Greene, "but, loving the business, I have brought up my grandson Benjamin to it, and have built and furnished a printing-house for him, which he now manages under my eye." The type used by Benjamin in his business were those which his grandfather had cast with the aid of his servants in Paris, and had employed in printing the brilliant little productions penned by his friends and himself, which created so much merriment in the _salon_ of Madame Helvétius. The seven children of Sarah Bache were Benjamin Franklin Bache, who married Margaret Marcoe, William Hartman Bache, who married Catharine Wistar, Eliza Franklin Bache, who married John Edward Harwood, Louis Bache, who married first Mary Ann Swift, and then Esther Egee, Deborah Bache, who married William J. Duane, Richard Bache, who married Sophia B. Dallas, a daughter of Alexander J. Dallas, and Sarah Bache, who married Thomas Sargeant. Besides being a good husband, father and grandfather, Franklin was also a good son. His father, Josiah, had seven children by his first wife, Anne, and ten by his second, Abiah Folger, Franklin's mother. Of this swarm, we are told by the _Autobiography_ that Franklin could remember thirteen children sitting at one time at his father's table, who all grew up to be men and women, and married. Franklin himself was the youngest son, and the youngest child but two. In few subjects was his adult interest keener than in that of population, and the circumstances of his early life were certainly calculated to stimulate it into a high degree of precocious activity. It is a pleasing portrait that he paints of his father for us in the _Autobiography_. After describing his physique in the terms already quoted by us, Franklin says: He was ingenious, could draw prettily, was skilled a little in music, and had a clear pleasing voice, so that when he played psalm tunes on his violin and sung withal, as he sometimes did in an evening after the business of the day was over, it was extremely agreeable to hear. He had a mechanical genius too, and, on occasion, was very handy in the use of other tradesman's tools; but his great excellence lay in a sound understanding and solid judgment in prudential matters, both in private and publick affairs. In the latter, indeed, he was never employed, the numerous family he had to educate and the straitness of his circumstances keeping him close to his trade; but I remember well his being frequently visited by leading people, who consulted him for his opinion in affairs of the town or of the church he belonged to, and showed a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice: he was also much consulted by private persons about their affairs when any difficulty occurred, and frequently chosen an arbitrator between contending parties. At his table he liked to have, as often as he could, some sensible friend or neighbour to converse with, and always took care to start some ingenious or useful topic for discourse, which might tend to improve the minds of his children. By this means he turned our attention to what was good, just, and prudent in the conduct of life; and little or no notice was ever taken of what related to the victuals on the table, whether it was well or ill-dressed, in or out of season, of good or bad flavour, preferable or inferior to this or that other thing of the kind, so that I was bro't up in such a perfect inattention to those matters as to be quite indifferent what kind of food was set before me, and so unobservant of it, that to this day if I am asked I can scarce tell a few hours after dinner what I dined upon. This has been a convenience to me in travelling, where my companions have been sometimes very unhappy for want of a suitable gratification of their more delicate, because better instructed, tastes and appetites. A story is credited to Josiah by Franklin which is quite in the manner of the son. When Charles the First ordered his proclamation authorizing sports on Sunday to be read in all churches, many clergymen complied, some refused and others hurried it through as indistinctly as possible. But a certain clergyman to the surprise of his congregation read it distinctly. He followed the reading, however, with the Fourth Commandment, _Remember to keep holy the Sabbath Day_, and then said, "Brethren, I have laid before you the Command of your King, and the Commandment of your God. I leave it to yourselves to judge which of the two ought rather to be observed." It is to be wished that Franklin could have given us in the _Autobiography_ a companion portrait of his mother also; but this he has not done. He tells us little more than that she was the daughter of Peter Folger, a resident of Nantucket, had, like her husband, an excellent constitution, and suckled all her ten children--a point of capital importance with her son. Franklin further tells us that he never knew either his father or his mother to have any sickness but that of which they died, he at eighty-nine and she at eighty-five. They were both buried in Boston, and rested for many years under a monument, erected over their graves by Franklin, with a happy inscription from his pen, until this monument, having fallen into a state of dilapidation, was replaced in 1827 by a more durable one, erected by a number of citizens of Boston, who were desirous, as their supplementary inscription states, of reminding succeeding generations that he was born in Boston. In his inscription, Franklin, true to his ideals, states with pride that Josiah and Abiah lived lovingly together in wedlock fifty-five years, and, without an estate, or any gainful employment, by constant labor and industry, with God's blessing, maintained a large family comfortably, and brought up thirteen children and seven grandchildren reputably. In the light of the altered domestic standards of the present time, it requires some little effort, after reading these words, to accept the subsequent statement in the inscription that Josiah was not only a pious but a "prudent" man. Peter Folger was evidently regarded by Franklin with distinct favor because of his tolerant characteristics. The flower of tolerance did not often lift up its head in the frigid air of what some one has wittily styled the "ice age" of New England history. In the _Autobiography_, Franklin speaks of Folger as one of the first settlers of New England, of whom honourable mention is made by Cotton Mather, in his church history of that country, entitled _Magnolia Christi Americana_, as "_a godly, learned Englishman_," if he remembers the words rightly. I have heard [the _Autobiography_ goes on] that he wrote sundry small occasional pieces, but only one of them was printed, which I saw now many years since. It was written in 1675, in the home-spun verse of that time and people, and addressed to those then concerned in the government there. It was in favour of liberty of conscience, and in behalf of the Baptists, Quakers, and other sectaries that had been under persecution, ascribing the Indian Wars, and other distresses that had befallen the country, to that persecution, as so many judgments of God to punish so heinous an offense, and exhorting a repeal of those uncharitable laws. The whole appeared to me as written with a good deal of decent plainness and manly freedom. The six concluding lines I remember, though I have forgotten the two first of the stanza; but the purport of them was, that his censures proceeded from good-will, and, therefore, he would be known to be the author, "Because to be a libeller (says he) I hate it with my heart; From Sherburne town, where now I dwell, My name I do put here; Without offense your real friend, It is Peter Folgier." Verses like these, it is to be feared, call for somewhat the same spirit of toleration as that which Folger himself exhibited towards the Baptists and Quakers, but they were well worthy of remembrance, at any rate, for the brave and enlightened spirit by which they were informed.[25] Peter Folger's plainness of speech seems to have been a family characteristic. In a letter to his sister Jane, written in his last years, Franklin told her frankly that, if there had been a misunderstanding between her and one of her relations, he should have concluded that it was her fault, "for I think our Family," he said, "were always subject to being a little Miffy." Then, as was his habit, when he had discharged the disagreeable duty of saying something slightly censorious, he brings the stress of his good nature to bear upon his pen just a little harder than usual. By the way [he asked] is our Relationship in Nantucket worn-out? I have met with none from thence of late years, who were disposed to be acquainted with me, except Captain Timothy Foulger. They are wonderfully shy. But I admire their honest plainness of Speech. About a year ago I invited two of them to dine with me. Their answer was, that they would, if they could not do better. I suppose they did better; for I never saw them afterwards, and so had no Opportunity of showing my Miff, if I had one. The letters from Franklin to his father and mother are few in number but not lacking in interest. To the one to Josiah, in which he made the heinous confession that his mind was not very clear as to the difference between Arianism and Arminianism, we have already adverted. In this letter, besides the burden of defending his religious orthodoxy before a very stern tribunal, he had to assume the burden of satisfying his good mother that there was nothing odious in the principles and practices of the Freemasons; and this in the face of the fact that one of their rules was not to admit women into their lodges. Another letter, which begins "Honoured Father and Mother," and ends, "Your affectionate and dutiful son," discourses in quite a learned fashion upon various remedies that might take the place of the ebbing _vis medicatrix naturæ_ which had served the aged pair so well for such a long span of years; but the son is careful to say that he hopes that his parents will consider his advice upon such subjects only as marks of his good will and put no more of it in practice than should happen to agree with their doctor's directions. Another letter, beginning "Honoured Mother," deals with topics of a very different nature from either religious dogmas or the _sapo philosophorum_ of his medicinal communication. Cousin Josiah Davenport and his spouse had arrived at Philadelphia hearty and well. He had met them the evening before at Trenton, thirty miles off, and had accompanied them to town. How gracious, we may remark, was the old Pennsylvania hospitality which sometimes greeted the coming guest thirty miles away, and, instead of speeding the parting guest, sometimes followed him for as great a distance when he was going! They [Franklin continued] went into their own house on Monday, and I believe will do very well, for he seems bent on industry, and she appears a discreet, notable young woman. My wife has been to see them every day, calling in as she passes by; and I suspect has fallen in love with our new cousin; for she entertains me a deal, when she comes home, with what Cousin Sally does, and what Cousin Sally says, what a good contriver she is, and the like. In his next letter to Abiah, Franklin sends her one of his far-famed almanacs, and then adds, "I send you also a moidore enclosed, which please to accept towards chaise hire, that you may ride warm to meetings this winter." From the moidore he passes to infantile complaints which it must have pained the heart of the mother of ten children to hear had carried off many children in Philadelphia that summer, and then, after just a word about Cousin Coleman and two of the outspoken Folgers, he has this to say about Sally: "Your granddaughter is the greatest lover of her book and school, of any child I ever knew, and is very dutiful to her mistress as well as to us." In one of her letters to her son Abiah tells him that she is very weak and short-breathed, so that she can't sit up to write much, although she sleeps well at night, and her cough is better, and she has a pretty good stomach to her victuals. In the same letter, she also says: "Pray excuse my bad writing and inditing, for all tell me I am too old to write letters." No courtier could have framed a more graceful response to this appeal, let alone the sincerity of filial respect and love. We received your kind Letter of the 2d Instant [wrote Franklin] and we are glad to hear you still enjoy such a Measure of Health, notwithstanding your great Age. We read your Writing very easily. I never met with a Word in your Letters but what I could readily understand; for, tho' the Hand is not always the best, the Sense makes everything plain. The numerous family details in this letter render it the most interesting of Franklin's letters to his mother. They had concluded, he said, to sell at the first good opportunity a negro slave and his wife, who appear to have been guilty of some thievery, "for we do not like Negro Servants," he declared. For the sake of human consistency, it is to be hoped that the pair were sold long before he became the President of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, and assailed the African slave trade with such telling raillery. But, to sell all one's own negroes, and then to enter upon a perfervid course of agitation for the enfranchisement of one's neighbor's negroes, without compensation, was a thing of not uncommon occurrence in American history, so long as the institution of slavery lasted. Will (William Franklin), he tells Abiah, had acquired a habit of idleness on the expedition against Canada, but had begun of late to apply himself to business, and he hoped would become an industrious man. "He imagin'd his Father," said Franklin, "had got enough for him, but I have assured him that I intend to spend what little I have myself, if it please God that I live long enough; and, as he by no means wants Sense, he can see by my going on, that I am like to be as good as my Word." Sally [he says] grows a fine Girl, and is extremely industrious with her Needle, and delights in her Book. She is of a most affectionate Temper, and perfectly dutiful and obliging to her Parents, and to all. Perhaps I flatter myself too much, but I have Hopes that she will prove an ingenious, sensible, notable, and worthy Woman, like her Aunt Jenny. She goes now to the Dancing-School. After Franklin decamped from Boston as a boy, he rarely again saw his parents, but, down to the days of their respective deaths, he kept in touch with them immediately, through his own correspondence with them, and also mediately through his correspondence with his sister Jane. "You have mentioned nothing in your letter of our dear parents," he observes in one of his letters to her. "Dear Sister, I love you tenderly for your care of our father in his sickness," he writes to her on another occasion. And, finally, when Abiah, "home had gone and ta'en her wages," he sent these feeling words to this same sister and her husband: Dear Brother and Sister, I received yours with the affecting news of our dear good mother's death. I thank you for your long continued care of her in her old age and sickness. Our distance made it impracticable for us to attend her, but you have supplied all. She has lived a good life, as well as a long one, and is happy. Josiah left an estate valued at twenty-four hundred dollars. Some years after his death, when Franklin happened to be in Boston, an old man produced a bond, executed by the father for about fifteen or seventeen pounds, and asked the son to pay it. This Franklin declined to do, taking the position that, as he had never received any share of his father's estate, he did not think himself obliged to pay any of the debts due by it. Another reason, as he afterwards stated in a letter to his sister Jane, in which the incident was mentioned, was that he considered the matter one rather for the attention of his brother John, the administrator of his father, than himself. But, in this same letter, nevertheless, he sent these instructions to Jane: "If you know that Person, I wish you would now, out of Hall's Money (a sum that was to be collected for him and to be given to her) pay that Debt; for I remember his Mildness on the Occasion with some Regard." A soft answer, we know, tends to turn away wrath, but it is not often, we imagine, that mildness proves such an effective policy for the collection of a stale debt. "Dear kindred blood! How I do love you all!" the exclamation of Daniel Webster, might as well have issued from the great, loving heart of Franklin. Like the brethren of Joseph, the son of Jacob, pretty much all of his contemporary relations came to share in one way or another in the good fortune of the only prosperous member of the family. Franklin was too young to have ever met the two brothers of his father, who lived and died in England--John, the Banbury dyer, with whom Franklin's paternal grandfather, Thomas resided in his old age, and with whom Franklin's father served an apprenticeship, and Thomas, the Ecton forerunner of Franklin himself, whom we have already mentioned. But his paternal uncle, Benjamin, who followed Franklin's father to New England, and lived in the same house with him for some years, Franklin did know, and brings before us quite clearly in the _Autobiography_. He was bred a silk dyer in England, was an ingenious and very pious man, we are assured by his nephew, and died at a great age. It was to the warm affection that existed between this uncle, whose grandson, Samuel Franklin, was one of Franklin's correspondents, and Franklin's father that Franklin owed his Christian name. Besides being a dyer, a great attender of sermons of the best preachers, "which he took down in his shorthand," he was, the _Autobiography_ states, a poet, and "also much of a politician; too much, perhaps, for his station." In his agreeable life of Franklin, Parton has this to say of the uncle's poetry books. The poetry books of Uncle Benjamin, which are still in perfect preservation, though it is a hundred and eighty years since he bought the first of them, are neatly written and carefully indexed. Many of the pieces are acrostics, and several are curiously shaped on the page-dwindling or expanding in various forms, according to the quaint fancy of the poet. No true poet, of course, ever had the patience to index his poems, and the best that can be said of the uncle as a poet is that, though he did not reach even the lowest slopes of Parnassus, he attained a point distinctly nearer to its base than the nephew ever did. Every family event seems to have been a peg for him to hang a verse upon, and among his lines are these sent across the Atlantic in return for something from the pen of his nephew who was at that time about seven years of age: "'Tis time for me to throw aside my pen, When hanging sleeves read, write, and rhyme like men, This forward spring foretells a plenteous crop; For, if the bud bear grain, what will the top! If plenty in the verdant blade appear, What may we not soon hope for in the ear! When flowers are beautiful before they're blown, What rarities will afterward be shown." The uncle was living in New England when Josiah, Franklin's brother, who had run away to sea, and who had not been heard from for nine years, turned up again in Boston. That was a domestic event of entirely too much importance to be unsung by an uncle at once pious and poetical. So, after some vigorous references to the Deity, who "Stills the storm and does Asswage Proud Dreadfull seas Death-Threatning Rage," the honest poet breaks out into this invocation in which he had every right to believe that the long-lost Josiah would heartily join: "O Let men praise this mighty Lord, And all his Wondrous Works Record; Let all the Sons of men, before Whose Eyes those Works are Done, Adore." But his rhymes appear to have fallen upon an ear deaf to the appeals of both piety and poetry, for one of the poet's poetry books contains this resentful entry: "The Third part of the 107 psalm, Which Follows Next, I composed to sing at First meeting with my Nephew Josiah Franklin, But being unaffected with Gods Great Goodn's: In his many preservations and Deliverances, It was coldly Entertain'd." The extent to which his uncle Benjamin had been a politician in England was brought home to Franklin by a curious incident when he was in London. A second-hand book dealer, who knew nothing of the relationship between the two, offered to sell him a collection of pamphlets, bound in eight volumes folio, and twenty-four volumes, quarto and octavo, and containing all the principal pamphlets and papers on political topics, printed in England from the Restoration down to the year 1715. On examining them, Franklin was satisfied from the handwriting of the tables of contents, memoranda of prices and marginal notes in them, as well as from other circumstances, that his Uncle Benjamin was the collector, and he bought them. In all probability, they had been sold by the uncle, when he emigrated from England to New England more than fifty years before. The _Autobiography_ does not mention the fact that Franklin had at least one aunt on the paternal side, but he had. In a letter in the year 1767 to Samuel Franklin, the grandson of his Uncle Benjamin, after stating that there were at that time but two of their relations bearing the name of Franklin living in England, namely, Thomas Franklin, of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, a dyer, and his daughter, Sally, Franklin asserts that there were besides still living in England Eleanor Morris, an old maiden lady, the daughter of Hannah, the sister of Franklin's father, and Hannah Walker, the granddaughter of John, the brother of Franklin's father, and her three sons. No Arab was ever made happier by the reception of a guest than was Franklin by the discovery of a new Franklin. In 1781, when a lady at Königsberg, who was the granddaughter of a John Franklin, communicated to him certain facts about her family history, he replied in terms that left her no footing for a claim of relationship, but added affably, "It would be a Pleasure to me to Discover a Relation in Europe, possessing the amiable Sentiments express'd in your Letter. I assure you I should not disown the meanest." One of the statements of this letter was that he had exact accounts of every person of his family since the year 1555, when it was established in England. Such a thing as sensitiveness to his humble origin or the social obscurity of his kinsfolk could find no lodgment in a mind so capacious, a heart so kind, or a nature so full of manly self-respect as his. To say nothing more, he was too much of a philosopher not to realize how close even the high-born nobleman, when detached from privilege and social superstition, is to the forked radish, to which elemental man has been likened. It is true that he once wrote to his sister Jane that he would not have her son Peter put the Franklin arms on soap of his making, and this has been cited as evidence that even Franklin had his petty modicum of social pride. The imputation overlooks the reason that he gave, namely, that to use the Franklin coat of arms for such a purpose would look too much like an attempt to counterfeit the soap formerly made by Peter's uncle John. It was Franklin's true pride of character that disarmed the social arrogance which might otherwise have rendered him less triumphantly successful than he was in winning his way into the favor of the most accomplished men, and the most beautiful and elegant women, in France. With regard to his generous conduct to his brother James we have already spoken. Of Jemmy, James' son, who became Franklin's apprentice at James' request, we have a view in a letter from Franklin to his sister Jane in which he uses Jemmy as an illustration of how unreasonably her son Benny, when Mr. Parker's apprentice, might have complained of the clothes furnished to him by his master. I never knew an apprentice [he said] contented with the clothes allowed him by his master, let them be what they would. Jemmy Franklin, when with me, was always dissatisfied and grumbling. When I was last in Boston, his aunt bid him go to a shop and please himself, which the gentleman did, and bought a suit of clothes on my account dearer by one half than any I ever afforded myself, one suit excepted; which I don't mention by way of complaint of Jemmy, for he and I are good friends, but only to show you the nature of boys. What a good friend he proved to Jemmy, when the latter became his own master, we have seen. The _erratum_ of which Franklin was guilty in his relations to his brother James was fully corrected long before he left a will behind him conferring upon James' descendants the same measure of his remembrance as that conferred by him upon the descendants of his brother Samuel and his sisters. Four of Franklin's brothers died young, and Josiah, his sea faring brother, perished at sea not long after he excited the dudgeon of his uncle Benjamin by his indifference to his uncle's line of thanksgiving. As long as Franklin's brothers John and Peter were engaged, as their father had been, in the business of making soap and candles, Franklin assisted them by obtaining consignments of their wares from them, and advertising these wares in his newspaper, and selling them in his shop. Later, when he became Deputy Postmaster-General of the Colonies, he made John postmaster at Boston and Peter postmaster at Philadelphia. Referring to a visit that he paid to John at Newport, Franklin says in the _Autobiography_, "He received me very affectionately, for he always lov'd me." When John died in 1756 at the age of sixty-five, some years after his brother Benjamin had thoughtfully devised a special catheter for his use, the latter wrote to his sister Jane, "I condole with you on the loss of our dear brother. As our number grows less, let us love one another proportionably more." John's widow he made postmistress at Boston in her husband's place. Peter Franklin died in 1766 in the seventy-fourth year of his age. As soon as the news of Peter's death reached Franklin in London, he wrote a most feeling letter to Peter's widow, Mary. It has pleased God at length [he said] to take from us my only remaining Brother, and your affectionate Husband, with whom you have lived in uninterrupted Harmony and Love near half a Century. Considering the many Dangers & Hardships his Way of Life led him into, and the Weakness of his Constitution, it is wonderful that he lasted so long. It was God's Goodness that spared him to us. Let us, instead of repining at what we have lost, be thankful for what we have enjoyed. He then proceeds, in order to allay the widow's fears as to her future, to tell her that he proposes to set up a printing house for her adopted son to be carried on in partnership with her, and to further encourage this son if he managed well.[26] Of Franklin's brother Samuel, we know but little. Franklin's oldest sister, Elizabeth Dowse, the wife of Captain Dowse, lived to a very great age, and fell into a state of extreme poverty. When he was consulted by her relations in New England as to whether it was not best for her to give up the house in which she was living, and to sell her personal effects, he sent a reply full of wise kindness. As _having their own way_ is one of the greatest comforts of life to old people [he said], I think their friends should endeavour to accommodate them in that, as well as in anything else. When they have long lived in a house, it becomes natural to them; they are almost as closely connected with it, as the tortoise with his shell; they die, if you tear them out of it; old folks and old trees, if you remove them, it is ten to one that you kill them; so let our good old sister be no more importuned on that head. We are growing old fast ourselves, and shall expect the same kind of indulgences; if we give them, we shall have a right to receive them in our turn. And as to her few fine things, I think she is in the right not to sell them, and for the reason she gives, that they will fetch but little; and when that little is spent, they would be of no further use to her; but perhaps the expectation of possessing them at her death may make that person tender and careful of her, and helpful to her to the amount of ten times their value. If so, they are put to the best use they possibly can be. I hope you visit sister as often as your affairs will permit, and afford her what assistance and comfort you can in her present situation. _Old age_, _infirmities_, and _poverty_, joined, are afflictions enough. The _neglect_ and _slights_ of friends and near relations should never be added. People in her circumstances are apt to suspect this sometimes without cause; _appearances_ should therefore be attended to, in our conduct towards them, as well as _realities_. And then follows the sentence which indicates that, apart from the value, which belonged to his advice on any practical point, there was good reason why his views about sister Dowse's house and finery should be entitled to peculiar respect. "I write by this post to cousin Williams," he said, "to continue his care, which I doubt not he will do." This letter was addressed to his sister Jane. In another to her, written a few weeks later, he said, "I am glad you have resolved to visit sister Dowse oftener; it will be a great comfort to her to find she is not neglected by you, and your example may, perhaps, be followed by some others of her relations." In the succeeding year, when he was settled in England, he writes to his sister Jane, "My wife will let you see my letter, containing an account of our travels, which I would have you read to sister Dowse, and give my love to her." Another sister of Franklin, Mary, married Captain Robert Holmes. He was the master of a sloop that plied between Boston and the Delaware, and, when he heard at New Castle that his run-a-way brother-in-law was living in Philadelphia, he wrote to him begging him to return to Boston, and received from him a reply, composed with so much literary skill that Governor Keith of Pennsylvania, when the letter was shown to him by Holmes, declared that the writer appeared to be a young man of promising parts, and should be encouraged. Mrs. Holmes died of cancer of the breast, which is responsible for the only occasion perhaps on which Franklin was ever known to incline his ear to the virtues of a nostrum. We have here in town [he wrote to his sister Jane] a kind of shell made of some wood, cut at a proper time, by some man of great skill (as they say), which has done wonders in that disease among us, being worn for some time on the breast. I am not apt to be superstitiously fond of believing such things, but the instances are so well attested, as sufficiently to convince the most incredulous. Another sister of Franklin, Lydia, married Robert Scott, but our information about her is very meagre. This is also true of Anne Harris, still another sister of his. We do know, however, that some of her family wandered away to London before Franklin left America on his mission to France, and that one of them took pains to apprise him of her urgent wants after he arrived there. She was, she said, "Obliged to Worke very hard and Can But just git the common necessarys of life," and therefore had "thoughts of going into a family as housekeeper ... having lived in that station for several years and gave grate satisfaction." With a curious disregard to existing conditions, quite unworthy of her connection with her illustrious relative, she even asked him to aid her in securing the promotion of her son in the British Navy. A daughter of this sister, Grace Harris, married Jonathan Williams, a Boston merchant engaged in the West India trade, who enjoyed the honor of acting as the moderator of the meetings held at Faneuil Hall in 1773 for the purpose of preventing the landing of the odious tea. She must have been an elated mother when she received from her uncle in 1771 a letter in which he spoke of her two sons in these terms: They are, I assure you, exceeding welcome to me; and they behave with so much Prudence, that no two young Men could possibly less need the Advice you would have me give them. Josiah is very happily employ'd in his Musical Pursuits. And as you hinted to me, that it would be agreeable to you, if I employ'd Johnathan in Writing, I requested him to put my Accounts in Order, which had been much neglected. He undertook it with the utmost chearfulness and Readiness, and executed it with the greatest Diligence, making me a compleat new Set of Books, fairly written out and settled in a Mercantile Manner, which is a great Satisfaction to me, and a very considerable service. I mention this, that you may not be in the least Uneasy from an Apprehension of their Visit being burthensome to me; it being, I assure you, quite the contrary. It has been wonderful to me to see a young Man from America, in a Place so full of various Amusements as London is, as attentive to Business, as diligent in it, and keeping as close at home till it was finished, as if it had been for his own Profit; and as if he had been at the Public Diversions so often, as to be tired of them. I pray God to keep and preserve you and yours, and give you again, in due time, a happy Sight of these valuable Sons. The same favorable opinion of these two grandnephews found expression in a letter from Franklin to his sister Jane. Josiah, he said, had attained his heart's desire in being under the tuition of Mr. Stanley (the musical composer), who, though he had long left off teaching, kindly undertook, at Franklin's request, to instruct him, and was much pleased with his quickness of apprehension, and the progress he was making, and Jonathan appeared a very valuable young man, sober, regular and inclined to industry and frugality, which were promising signs of success in business. "I am very happy in their Company," the letter further stated. With the help of Franklin, Jonathan, one of these two young men, became the naval agent of the United States at Nantes, when Franklin was in France. Later, he was charged by Arthur Lee with improperly retaining in his hands in this capacity upwards of one hundred thousand livres due to the United States, and Franklin insisted that Arthur Lee should make good his charge. I have no desire to screen Mr. Williams on acct of his being my Nephew [he said] if he is guilty of what you charge him with. I care not how soon he is deservedly punish'd and the family purg'd of him; for I take it that a Rogue living in (a) Family is a greater Disgrace to it than one _hang'd out_ of it. But, when steps were taken by Franklin to have the accounts passed upon by a body of disinterested referees, Lee haughtily refused to reduce his vague accusation to a form sufficiently specific to be laid before them. After John Adams succeeded Silas Deane, Franklin and himself united in executing an order for the payment to Williams of the balance claimed by him, but Adams had been brought over to the suspicions of Lee to such an extent that the order provided that it was not to be understood as an approval of the accounts, but that Williams was to be responsible to Congress for their correctness. With such impetuosity did Adams adopt these suspicions that, in a few days after his arrival at Paris, when he had really had no opportunity to investigate the matter, he concurred with Lee in ordering Williams to close his existing accounts and to make no new ones. This, of course, was equivalent to dismissal from the employment. Franklin, probably realizing not only the hopelessness of a contest of one against two, but the unwisdom from a public point of view of feeding the flame of such a controversy, united with his colleagues in signing the order.[27] A bequest of books that he made to Williams is one among many other still more positive proofs that his confidence in his grandnephew was never impaired, and it is only fair to the memory of Adams to suppose that, if he ever had any substantial doubts about Williams' integrity, they were subsequently dispelled, for when President he appointed Williams a major of artillery in the federal army; an appointment which ultimately resulted in his being made the first Superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point. The quarrel, however, did neither Franklin nor the American cause any good. It gave additional color to the accusation that he was too quick to billet his relatives upon the public, and had the effect also of intensifying the dissensions between our representatives in France which constitute such a painful chapter in the history of the American Revolution. To make things worse, Jonathan failed in business, before he left France, and had to obtain a _surséance_ against his creditors through the application of his granduncle to the Count de Vergennes. Franklin's sister, Sarah, did not long survive her marriage to Joseph Davenport. Her death, Franklin wrote to his sister Jane, "was a loss without doubt regretted by all that knew her, for she was a good woman." It was at his instance that Davenport removed to Philadelphia, and opened a bakery where he sold "choice middling bisket," and occasionally "Boston loaf sugar" and "choice pickled and spiced oisters in cags." There is a letter from Franklin to Josiah Davenport, the son of Sarah Davenport, written just after the failure of the latter in business which shows that, open as the door of the Post Office usually was to members of the Franklin family, it was sometimes slammed with a bang in the face of a _mauvais sujet_ of that blood. Franklin advises Josiah not to think of any place in the Post Office. The money you receive [he said] will slip thro' your Fingers, and you will run behind hand imperceptibly, when your Securities must suffer, or your Employers. I grow too old to run such Risques, and therefore wish you to propose nothing more of the kind to me. I have been hurt too much by endeavouring to help Cousin Ben Mecom. I have no Opinion of the Punctuality of Cousins. They are apt to take Liberties with Relations they would not take with others, from a Confidence that a Relation will not sue them. And tho' I believe you now resolve and intend well in case of such an Appointment, I can have no Dependence that some unexpected Misfortune or Difficulty will not embarras your Affairs and render you again insolvent. Don't take this unkind. It is better to be thus free with you than to give you Expectations that cannot be answered. So Josiah, who was keeping a little shop at the time, like the famous office-seeker, who is said to have begun by asking Lincoln for an office and to have ended by asking him for a pair of trousers, had to content himself with a gift of four dozen of Evans' maps, "which," said Franklin in his letter, "if you can sell you are welcome to apply the Money towards Clothing your Boys, or to any other Purpose." But, of all Franklin's collateral relatives, the one that he loved best was his sister Jane, the wife of Edward Mecom. She survived her brother four years, dying at the age of eighty-two, and, from her childhood until his death, they cherished for each other the most devoted affection. Her letters show that she was a woman of uncommon force of character and mind, and the possessor of a heart so overflowing with tenderness that, when she heard of the birth of Mrs. Bache's seventh child, she even stated to her brother in her delight that she was so fond of children that she longed to kiss and play with every clean, healthy one that she saw on the street. Mrs. Bache, she thought, might yet be the mother of twelve children like herself, though she did not begin so young. In a letter written to her by Franklin from Philadelphia just after he reached his majority, and when she was a fresh girl of fourteen, he reminds her that she was ever his peculiar favorite. He had heard, he said, that she was grown a celebrated beauty, and he had almost determined to give her a tea table, but when he considered that the character of a good housewife was far preferable to that of being only a pretty gentlewoman he had concluded to send her a spinning wheel, as a small token of his sincere love and affection. Then followed this priggish advice: Sister, farewell, and remember that modesty, as it makes the most homely virgin amiable and charming, so the want of it infallibly renders the most perfect beauty disagreeable and odious. But, when that brightest of female virtues shines among other perfections of body and mind in the same person, it makes the woman more lovely than an angel. The spinning wheel was a fit symbol of the narrow, struggling life, which was to be Jane Mecom's portion, and which would have imposed upon her a load heavier than she could have borne if her good Philadelphia genius had not always been by her side, either in person or by his watchful proxy, Jonathan Williams, the father of his grandnephew of that name, to sustain her fainting footsteps. Children she had, and to spare, but they were all striking illustrations of the truth, uttered by the Virginia planter, who affirmed that it is easier for one parent to take care of thirteen children than it is for thirteen children to take care of one parent. Nothing could be more beautiful than the relations between brother and sister; on the one side a vigilant sympathy and generosity which never lost sight for a moment of the object of their affectionate and helpful offices; on the other a grateful idolatry, slightly tinged with the reserve of reverence. Clothes, flour, firewood, money were among the more direct and material forms assumed by Franklin's assistance, given not begrudgingly and frugally, but always with the anxious fear, to no little extent justified by Jane's own unselfish and self-respecting reticence, that she was not as frank as she might be in laying before him the real measure of her necessities. "Let me know if you want any assistance," he was quick to ask her after his return from England in 1775, signing the letter in which he made the request, "Your very loving brother." "Your bill is honoured," he writes to her on another occasion after his return from France to Philadelphia. "It is impossible for me always to guess what you may want, and I hope, therefore, that you will never be shy in letting me know wherein I can help to make your life more comfortable." How has my poor old Sister gone thro' the Winter? [he inquired of Jonathan Williams, the younger]. Tell me frankly whether she lives comfortably, or is pinched? For I am afraid she is too cautious of acquainting me with all her Difficulties, tho' I am always ready and willing to relieve her when I am acquainted with them. It is manifest that at times he experienced a serious sense of difficulty in doing for her as much as he was disposed to do, and once, when she had thanked him with even more than her usual emphasis for a recent benefaction, he parried her gratitude with one of the humorous stories that served him for so many different purposes. Her letter of extravagant thanks, he said, put him in mind of the story of the member of Parliament who began one of his speeches with saying he thanked God that he was born and bred a Presbyterian; on which another took leave to observe that the gentleman must needs be of a most grateful disposition, since he was thankful for such very small matters. The truth is that her pecuniary condition was such that gifts, which might have seemed small enough to others, loomed large to her. Many doubtless were the shifts to which she had to resort to keep her large family going. When her brother was in London on his second mission, he received a letter from her asking him for some fine old linen or cambric dyed with bright colors, such as with all her own art and the aid of good old Uncle Benjamin's memoranda she had been unable, she said, to mix herself. With this material, she hoped that she and her daughter Jenny, who, with a little of her assistance, had taken to making flowers for the ladies' heads and bosoms with pretty good acceptance, might get something by it worth their pains, if they lived till next spring. Her language was manifestly that of a person whose life had been too pinched to permit her to deal with the future except at very close range. Of course, her request was complied with. The contrast between her situation in life and that of her prosperous and distinguished brother is brought out as clearly as the colors that she vainly sought to emulate in a letter written by her to Deborah, when she hears the rumor that Franklin had been made a Baronet and Governor of Pennsylvania. Signing herself, "Your ladyship's affectionate sister, and obedient humble servant," she wrote: Dear Sister: For so I must call you, come what will, and if I do not express myself proper, you must excuse it, seeing I have not been accustomed to pay my compliments to Governor and Baronet's ladies. I am in the midst of a great wash, and Sarah still sick, and would gladly be excused writing this post, but my husband says I must write, and give you joy, which we heartily join in. This was in 1758 when Franklin and other good Americans rarely alluded to England except as "home"; but sixteen years later the feelings of Jane Mecom about baronetcies and colonial governorships had undergone such a change--for she was a staunch patriot--that, when it was stated in a Boston newspaper that it was generally believed that Franklin had been promoted by the English Government to an office of superior importance, he felt that it was necessary to write to her as follows: But as I am anxious to preserve your good opinion, and as I know your sentiments, and that you must be much afflicted yourself, and even despise me, if you thought me capable of accepting any office from this government, while it is acting with so much hostility towards my native country, I cannot miss this first opportunity of assuring you, that there is not the least foundation for such a report. You need not [he said on one occasion to Jane] be concern'd, in writing to me, about your bad Spelling; for, in my Opinion, as our Alphabet now Stands, the bad Spelling, or what is call'd so, is generally the best, as conforming to the Sound of the Letters and of the Words. To give you an Instance: A Gentleman receiving a Letter, in which were these Words,--_Not finding Brown at hom, I delivard your meseg to his yf_. The Gentleman finding it bad Spelling, and therefore not very intelligible, called his Lady to help him read it. Between them they pick'd out the meaning of all but the _yf_, which they could not understand. The lady propos'd calling her Chambermaid: for Betty, says she, has the best knack at reading bad Spelling of anyone I know. Betty came, and was surprised, that neither Sir nor Madam could tell what _yf_ was. "Why," says she, "_yf_ spells _Wife_; what else can it spell?" And, indeed, it is a much better, as well as shorter method of spelling _Wife_, than by _doubleyou_, _i_, _ef_, _e_, which in reality spells _doubleyifey_. The affectionate interest felt by Franklin in his sister extended to her husband and children. Some of his letters were written to Jane and Edward Mecom jointly, and he evidently entertained a truly fraternal regard for the latter. The fortunes of the children he endeavored to promote by every means in his power. Benny Mecom was placed by him as an apprentice with his partner in the printing business in New York, Mr. Parker, and one of his most admirable letters is a letter to his sister Jane, already mentioned by us, in which he comments upon a complaint of ill-treatment at the hands of Mr. Parker which Benny had made to her. The wise, kindly and yet firm language in which he answers one by one the heads of Benny's complaint, which was obviously nothing more than the grumbling of a disaffected boy, lacks nothing but a subject of graver importance to be among the most notable of his letters. On the whole, it was too affectionate and indulgent in tone to have keenly offended even such parental fondness as that which led Poor Richard to ask, in the words of Gay, "Where yet was ever found the mother Who'd change her booby for another?" But occasionally there is a sentence or so in it which makes it quite plain that Franklin was entirely too wise not to know that the rod has a function to perform in the management of a boy. Referring to Benny's habit of staying out at night, sometimes all night, and refusing to give an account of where he had spent his time or in what company, he said, This I had not heard of before though I perceive you have. I do not wonder at his correcting him for that. If he was my own son I should think his master did not do his duty by him if he omitted it, for to be sure it is the high road to destruction. And I think the correction very light, and not likely to be very effectual, if the strokes left no marks. In the same letter, there is a sly passage which takes us back to the part of Jacques' homily which speaks of "The whining schoolboy with his satchel, And shining morning face creeping like snail, Unwillingly to school." I did not think it anything extraordinary [Franklin said] that he should be sometimes willing to evade going to meeting, for I believe it is the case with all boys, or almost all. I have brought up four or five myself, and have frequently observed that if their shoes were bad they would say nothing of a new pair till Sunday morning, just as the bell rung, when, if you asked them why they did not get ready, the answer was prepared, "I have no shoes," and so of other things, hats and the like; or, if they knew of anything that wanted mending, it was a secret till Sunday morning, and sometimes I believe they would rather tear a little than be without the excuse. Franklin had dipped deeply into the hearts of boys as well as men. When Benny became old enough to enter upon business for himself, his uncle put him in possession of a printing outfit of his own at Antigua with the understanding that Benny was to pay him one third of the profits of the business; the proportion which he usually received in such cases. Apparently there was every promise of success: an established newspaper, no competing printer, high prices and a printer who, whatever his faults, had come to be regarded by Mr. Parker as one of his "best hands." But the curse of Reuben--instability--rested upon Benny. Taking offence at a proposal of his uncle respecting the distribution of the profits of the business, really intended to pave the way, when Benny had conquered his "flighty unsteadiness of temper," to a gift of the whole printing outfit to him, the nephew insisted that his uncle should name some certain price for the outfit, and allow him to pay it off in instalments; for, though he had, he said, a high esteem for his uncle, yet he loved freedom, and his spirit could not bear dependence on any man, though he were the best man living. Provoked by a delay in answering this letter, for which one of Franklin's long journeys was responsible, Benny again wrote to his uncle, stating that he had formed a fixed resolution to leave Antigua, and that nothing that could be said to him would move or shake it. Leave Antigua he did, and, when we next hear of him, it is through a letter from Franklin to Jane in which he tells her that Benjamin had settled his accounts with him, and paid the balance due him honorably, and had also made himself the owner of the printing outfit which had been shipped back from Antigua to Philadelphia. From this time on until Benny slid down into the gulf of insolvency; owing his uncle some two hundred pounds, and leaving assets that the latter reckoned would scarce amount to four shillings in the pound, he seems to have had no success of any sort except that of winning the hand of a girl for whom Franklin and Deborah had a peculiar partiality. This was after Benny had returned to Boston and, as a bookseller as well as a printer, had begun life anew with a loan from his uncle, and with good credit. When he was "near being married" his uncle wrote to Jane: I know nothing of that affair, but what you write me, except that I think Miss Betsey a very agreeable, sweet-tempered, good girl, who has had a housewifely education, and will make, to a good husband, a very good wife. Your sister and I have a great esteem for her; and, if she will be kind enough to accept of our nephew, we think it will be his own fault, if he is not as happy as the married state can make him. The family is a respectable one, but whether there be any fortune I know not; and, as you do not inquire about this particular, I suppose you think with me, that where everything else desirable is to be met with, that is not very material. What Deborah thought of Miss Betsey may be inferred from a postscript that she hastily annexed to this letter: "If Benny will promise to be one of the tenderest husbands in the world, I give my consent. He knows already what I think of Miss Betsey. I am his loving aunt." In a subsequent letter, Franklin wrote to Deborah from London that he was glad that "Ben has got that good girl." Miss Betsey did not prove to be a fortune to her husband, though she did prove to be such a fruitful wife to him that, when the crash of bankruptcy came, there were a number of small children to be included in his schedule of liabilities. Nor is it easy to see how she or any other woman could prove a fortune to any man of whom such a picture could be sketched as that which Thomas, the author of the _History of Printing_, sketches of Benny as he was shortly after his return from Antigua. Benjamin Mecom [writes Thomas] was in Boston several months before the arrival of his press and types from Antigua, and had much leisure. During this interval he frequently came to the house where I was an apprentice. He was handsomely dressed, wore a powdered bob-wig, ruffles, and gloves: gentleman-like appendages, which the printers of that day did not assume--and thus appareled, he would often assist for an hour at the press.... I viewed him at the press with admiration. He indeed put on a apron to save his clothes from blacking, and guarded his ruffles.... He got the nickname of "Queer Notions" among the printers. The result of it all was that the patience of the uncle was at last completely worn out. "I can not comprehend," he wrote to Deborah from London, "how so very sluggish a Creature as Ben. Mecom is grown, can maintain in Philadelphia so large a Family. I hope they do not hang upon you: for really as we grow old and must grow more helpless, we shall find we have nothing to spare." In a subsequent letter to Williams he spoke of his sister's children as if they were all thriftless. If such was the case, it was not because of any lack of interest on his part in them. In a letter, recommending his son William to Jane's motherly care and advice, he says, "My compliments to my new niece, Miss Abiah, and pray her to accept the enclosed piece of gold, to cut her teeth; it may afterwards buy nuts for them to crack." In another letter to his sister, he expresses pleasure at hearing that her son Peter is at a place where he has full employ. If Peter should get a habit of industry at his new place, the exchange, he said pointedly, would be a happy one. In a later letter to Jane, he declares that he is glad that Peter is acquainted with the crown-soap business and that he hopes that he will always take care to make the soap faithfully and never slight the manufacture, or attempt to deceive by appearances. Then he may boldly put his name and mark, and, in a little time, it will acquire as good a character as that made by his uncle (John) or any other person whatever. He also tells Jane that if Peter will send to Deborah a box of his soap (but not unless it be right good) she would immediately return the ready money to him for it. Many years later his letters to his sister show that he was then aiding her in different ways, and among others by buying soap of her manufacture from her, and that some cakes of this soap were sent by him as gifts to friends of his in France. Indeed, he told Jane that she would do well to instruct her grandson in the art of making that soap. In the same letter that he wrote to her about Peter and the crown-soap he sent his love to her son Neddy, and Neddy's wife, and the rest of Jane's children. Neddy, born like Benny under an unlucky star, had at the time not only a wife but a disorder which his uncle hoped that he would wear out gradually, as he was yet a young man. If Eben, another of Jane's sons, would be industrious and frugal, it was ten to one, his uncle said, that he would get rich; for he seemed to have spirit and activity. As to Johnny, still another of Jane's sons, if he ever set up as a goldsmith, he should remember that there was one accomplishment, without which he could not possibly thrive in that trade; that was perfect honesty. In the latter part of his life, after he had been badly hurt by Benny, and had seen so much of his sound counsel come to nothing, he was slower to give advice to the Mecoms. Your Grandson [he wrote to Jane, referring to one of her grandsons, who was for a time in his employment at Philadelphia] behaves very well, and is constantly employ'd in writing for me, and will be so some time longer. As to my Reproving and Advising him, which you desire, he has not hitherto appeared to need it, which is lucky, as I am not fond of giving Advice, having seldom seen it taken. An Italian Poet in his Account of a Voyage to the Moon, tells us that _All things lost on Earth are treasur'd there_. on which somebody observ'd, There must then be in the Moon a great deal of _Good Advice_. Among the letters from Franklin to Jonathan Williams, the elder, is one asking him to lay out for his account the sum of fifty pounds in the purchase of a marriage present for one of Jane's daughters, who thanks him for it in terms that fall little short of ecstacy. But attached as Franklin was to his sister he did not hesitate to reprove her when reproof was in his judgment necessary. There is such a thing as not caring enough for a person to reprove him. "It was not kind in you," he wrote to her on one occasion, "when your sister commended good works, to suppose she intended it a reproach to you. It was very far from her thoughts." His language was still more outspoken on another occasion when Jane wished him to oust a member of the Franklin connection, with whom she was at odds, from the Post Office to make a place for Benny. And now [he said] as to what you propose for Benny, I believe he may be, as you say, well enough qualified for it; and, when he appears to be settled, if a vacancy should happen, it is very probable he may be thought of to supply it; but it is a rule with me not to remove any officer, that behaves well, keeps regular accounts, and pays duly; and I think the rule is founded on reason and justice. I have not shown any backwardness to assist Benny, where it could be done without injuring another. But if my friends require of me to gratify not only their inclinations, but their resentments, they expect too much of me. Above all things I dislike family quarrels, and, when they happen among my relations, nothing gives me more pain. If I were to set myself up as a judge of those subsisting between you and brother's widow and children, how unqualified must I be, at this distance, to determine rightly, especially having heard but one side. They always treated me with friendly and affectionate regard; you have done the same. What can I say between you, but that I wish you were reconciled, and that I will love that side best, that is most ready to forgive and oblige the other? You will be angry with me here, for putting you and them too much upon a footing; but I shall nevertheless be, dear sister, your truly affectionate brother. Nor did he attempt to disguise his real feelings in a letter which he wrote to Jane near the end of his life in which he told her that her son-in-law, Collas, who kept a store in Carolina, had wished to buy some goods on credit at Philadelphia, but could not do it without his recommendation, which he could not give without making himself pecuniarily liable; and _that_ he was not inclined to do, having no opinion either of the honesty and punctuality of the people, with whom Collas proposed to traffic, or of his skill and acuteness in merchandizing. This he wrote, he declared, merely to apologize for any seeming unkindness. The unkindness was but seeming indeed; for the letter also contained these solicitous words: You always tell me that you live comfortably; but I sometimes suspect that you may be too unwilling to acquaint me with any of your Difficulties from an Apprehension of giving me Pain. I wish you would let me know precisely your Situation, that I may better proportion my Assistance to your Wants. Have you any Money at Interest, and what does it produce? Or do you do some kind of Business for a Living? Jane seems to have maintained her good humor in the face of every timely reproof of her brother, and other than timely reproofs, we may be sure, there were none. Indeed, she worshipped him so devoutly--devotedly is too feeble an adverb--that there was no need for her at any time in her relations with him to fall back upon her good nature. A few extracts from her letters to Franklin will show how deeply the love and gratitude excited by her brother's ceaseless beneficence sank into her heart. I am amazed beyond measure [she wrote to Deborah, when she heard of the threatened attack on Franklin's house] that your house was threatened in the tumult. I thought there had been none among you would proceed to such a length to persecute a man merely for being the best of characters, and really deserving good from the hand and tongue of all his fellow creatures.... What a wretched world would this be if the vile of mankind had no laws to restrain them. Additional edge to the indignation, expressed in this letter, was doubtless given by the fact that the writer had just received from her brother, who was then in London, a box containing, among other things, "a printed cotton gown, a quilted coat, a bonnet, a cap, and some ribbons" for herself and each of her daughters. It is made manifest by other letters than this that her brother's benevolence towards her and her family were quite as active when he was abroad as when he was at home. In 1779, she tells him that, in a letter from him to her, he, like himself, does all for her that the most affectionate brother can be desired or expected to do. And though [she further said] I feel myself full of gratitude for your generosity, the conclusion of your letter affects me more, where you say you wish we may spend our last days together. O my dear brother, if this could be accomplished, it would give me more joy than anything on this side Heaven could possibly do. I feel the want of a suitable conversation--I have but little here. I think I could assume more freedom with you now, and convince you of my affection for you. I have had time to reflect and see my error in that respect. I suffered my diffidence and the awe of your superiority to prevent the familiarity I might have taken with you, and ought, and (which) your kindness to me might have convinced me would be acceptable. A little later she wrote: Your very affectionate and tender care of me all along in life excites my warmest gratitude, which I cannot even think on without tears. What manifold blessings I enjoy beyond many of my worthy acquaintance, who have been driven from their home, lost their interest, and some have the addition of lost health, and one the grievous torment of a cancer, and no kind brother to support her, while I am kindly treated by all about me, and ample provision made for me when I have occasion. As heartfelt was another letter written by her while he was still in France: Believe me, my dear brother, your writing to me gives me so much pleasure that the great, the very great presents you have sent me are but a secondary joy. I have been very sick this winter at my daughter's; kept my chamber six weeks, but had a sufficiency for my supply of everything that could be a comfort to me of my own, before I received any intimation of the great bounty from your hand, which your letter has conveyed to me, for I have not been lavish of what I before possessed, knowing sickness and misfortunes might happen, and certainly old age; but I shall now be so rich that I may indulge in a small degree a propensity to help some poor creatures who have not the blessing I enjoy. My good fortune came to me altogether to comfort me in my weak state; for as I had been so unlucky as not to receive the letter you sent me through your son Bache's hands, though he informs me he forwarded it immediately. His letter with a draft for twenty five guineas came to my hand just before yours, which I have received, and cannot find expression suitable to acknowledge my gratitude how I am by my dear brother enabled to live at ease in my old age (after a life of care, labor, and anxiety) without which I must have been miserable. Most touching of all are the words which she addressed to her brother shortly before his death, "Who that know and love you can bear the thought of surviving you in this gloomy world?" Even after his death, his goodness continued to shield her from want, for by his will he devised to her absolutely the house in Unity Street, Boston, in which she lived, and bequeathed to her an annuity of sixty pounds. By his will, he also bequeathed to her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, living at the time of his decease, in equal shares, fifty pounds sterling; the same amount that he bequeathed to the descendants living at that time of his brother Samuel, his sister Anne Harris, his brother James, his sister Sarah and his sister Lydia, respectively. As we have seen, Franklin's feelings about Deborah's relatives were hardly less cordial than his feelings about his own. In addition to his mother-in-law, Mrs. Read, and Brother John Read and Sister Read, and Cousin Debbey, and young cousin Johnny Read, two other kinsmen of Deborah, Joseph Read and James Read are mentioned in his letters. Indeed, at one time he even contrived to ward off the Franklins, Mecoms and Davenports from the Post Office long enough to appoint Joseph to the Postmastership at Philadelphia; but James was so unfortunate as to rub against one of the most highly sensitive surfaces of his disposition. In a letter to him, Franklin says, "Your visits never had but one thing disagreeable in them, that is, they were always too short"; but, in a later letter, he assails Read fiercely for surreptitiously obtaining a judgment against Robert Grace, one of the original members of the Junto, and produces a power of attorney to himself from William Strahan, authorizing him to recover a large sum of money that Read owed Strahan. "Fortune's wheel is often turning," he grimly reminds Read. The whole letter is written with a degree of asperity that Franklin rarely exhibited except when his sense of injustice was highly inflamed, and the circumstances, under which Read secured the judgment, the "little charges," that he had cunningly accumulated on it, and the cordial affection of Franklin for Grace would appear to have fully justified Franklin's stern rebuke and exultant production of Strahan's power of attorney. But everything, it must be confessed, becomes just a little clearer when we learn from a subsequent letter of Franklin to Strahan that, before he received Strahan's power of attorney and account, there had been a misunderstanding between Read and himself, occasion'd by his endeavouring to get a small Office from me (Clerk to the Assembly) which I took the more amiss, as we had always been good Friends, and the Office could not have been of much Service to him, the Salary being small; but valuable to me, as a means of securing the Public Business to our Printing House. The reader will remember that Franklin reserved the right to make full reprisals when anyone undertook to dislodge him from a public office. Nor, as has been apparent enough, was the interest of Franklin limited to contemporary Franklins. If he had been a descendant of one of the high-bred Washingtons of Northamptonshire--the shire to which the lineage of George Washington, as well as his own, ran back--he could not have been more curious about his descent than he was. "I have ever had pleasure," the opening sentence of the _Autobiography_ declares, "in obtaining any little anecdotes of my ancestors." From notes, placed in his hands by his uncle Benjamin, he learned some interesting particulars about his English forbears. They had resided in the village of Ecton, in Northamptonshire, on the great northern turnpike, sixty-six miles from London, for certainly three hundred years, on a freehold of about thirty acres, and the eldest son of the family had always been bred to the trade of a blacksmith.[28] Perhaps as Parton conjectures, some swart Franklin at the ancestral forge on the little freehold may have tightened a rivet in the armor, or replaced a shoe upon the horse, of a Washington, or doffed his cap to a Washington riding past. From the registers, examined by Franklin, when he visited Ecton, which ended with the year 1755, he discovered that he was the youngest son of the youngest son for five generations back. One of his letters to Deborah contained much agreeable information about his and her English relations, which he collected at this time. After leaving Cambridge, where his vanity, he said, had been not a little gratified by the particular regard shown him by the chancellor and the vice-chancellor of the university and the heads of colleges, he found on inquiry at Wellingborough that Mary Fisher, the daughter and only child of Thomas Franklin, his father's eldest brother, was still living. He knew that she had lived at Wellingborough, and had been married there about fifty years before to one Richard Fisher, a grazier and tanner, but, supposing that she and her husband were both dead, he had inquired for their posterity. I was directed [he says] to their house, and we found them both alive, but weak with age, very glad however to see us. She seems to have been a very smart, sensible woman. They are wealthy, have left off business, and live comfortably. They have had only one child, a daughter, who died, when about thirty years of age, unmarried. She gave me several of my uncle Benjamin's letters to her, and acquainted me where the other remains of the family lived, of which I have, since my return to London, found out a daughter of my father's only sister, very old, and never married. She is a good, clever woman, but poor, though vastly contented with her situation, and very cheerful. The others are in different parts of the country. I intend to visit them, but they were too much out of our tour in that journey. This was in 1758. Mary Fisher had good reason to be weak with age; for this letter states that she was five years older than Franklin's sister Dowse, and remembered her going away with Franklin's father and his first wife and two other children to New England about the year 1685, or some seventy-three years before Franklin's visit to Wellingborough. "Where are the old men? I who have seen much, Such have I never seen." Only the truly gray earth, humming, as it revolves on its axis, the derisive song, heard by the fine ear of Emerson, could ask this question, unrebuked by such a stretch of human memory as that. The letter then goes on to say that from Wellingborough the writer passed to Ecton, about three or four miles away, where Franklin's father was born, and where his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had lived, and how many of the family before them they knew not. We went first [Franklin tells us] to see the old house and grounds; they came to Mr. Fisher with his wife, and, after letting them for some years, finding his rent something ill paid, he sold them. The land is now added to another farm, and a school kept in the house. It is a decayed old stone building, but still known by the name of the Franklin House. Thence we went to visit the rector of the parish, who lives close by the church, a very ancient building. He entertained us very kindly, and showed us the old church register, in which were the births, marriages, and burials of our ancestors for two hundred years, as early as his book began. His wife, a good-natured, chatty old lady (granddaughter of the famous Archdeacon Palmer, who formerly had that parish, and lived there) remembered a great deal about the family; carried us out into the churchyard, and showed us several of their gravestones, which were so covered with moss, that we could not read the letters, till she ordered a hard brush and basin of water, with which Peter (Franklin's negro servant) scoured them clean, and then Billy (William Franklin) copied them. She entertained and diverted us highly with stories of Thomas Franklin, Mrs. Fisher's father, who was a conveyancer, something of a lawyer, clerk of the county courts and clerk to the Archdeacon in his visitations; a very leading man in all county affairs, and much employed in public business. He set on foot a subscription for erecting chimes in their steeple, and completed it, and we heard them play. He found out an easy method of saving their village meadows from being drowned, as they used to be sometimes by the river, which method is still in being; but, when first proposed, nobody could conceive how it could be; "but however," they said, "if Franklin says he knows how to do it, it will be done." His advice and opinion were sought for on all occasions, by all sorts of people, and he was looked upon, she said, by some, as something of a conjuror. He died just four years before I was born, on the same day of the same month. The likeness between Thomas and his nephew may have been insufficient under any circumstances to justly suggest the thought of a metempsychosis to William Franklin, but Thomas does seem to have been a kind of tentative effort upon the part of Nature to create a Benjamin Franklin. The letter then states that, after leaving Ecton, the party finally arrived at Birmingham where they were soon successful in looking up Deborah's and cousin Wilkinson's and cousin Cash's relations. First, they found one of the Cashes, and he went with them to Rebecca Flint's where they saw her and her husband. She was a turner, and he a button-maker; they were childless and glad to see any person that knew their sister Wilkinson. They told their visitors what letters they had received from America, and even assured them--such are the short and simple annals of the poor--that they had out of respect preserved a keg in which a gift of sturgeon from America had reached them. Then follow certain details about other members of this family connection, commonplace enough, however, to reconcile us to the fact that they have been cut short by the mordant tooth of time which has not spared the remainder of the letter. On his second mission to England, Franklin paid another visit to these Birmingham relations of his wife, and was in that city for several days. The severest test of a good husband is to ask whether he loves his wife's relations as much as his own. To even this test Franklin appears to have been equal. Sally Franklin, the daughter of Thomas Franklin, of Lutterworth, a second cousin of Franklin, also flits through the correspondence between Deborah and her husband. When she was about thirteen years of age, her father brought her to London to see Franklin, and Mrs. Stevenson persuaded him to leave the child under her care for a little schooling and improvement, while Franklin was off on one of his periodical tours. When I return'd [the latter wrote to Deborah] I found her indeed much improv'd, and grown a fine Girl. She is sensible, and of a sweet, obliging Temper, but is now ill of a violent Fever, and I doubt we shall lose her, which particularly afflicts Mrs. Stevenson, not only as she has contracted a great Affection for the Child, but as it was she that persuaded her Father to leave her there. Sally, however, settled all doubts by getting well and furnishing future material for Franklin's letters to Deborah. One letter tells Deborah that Sally's father was very desirous that Franklin should take her to America with him; another pays the compliment to Sally, who was at the time in the country with her father, of saying that she is a very good girl; another thanks Deborah for her kind attitude toward her husband's partially-formed resolution of bringing Sally over to America with him; another announces that Sally is again with Mrs. Stevenson; and still another doubtless relieved Deborah of no little uncertainty of mind by informing her that Sally was about to be married to a farmer's son. "I shall miss her," comments Franklin, "as she is nimble-footed and willing to run of Errands and wait upon me, and has been very serviceable to me for some Years, so that I have not kept a Man." Among Franklin's papers, too, was found at his death a letter from his father to him, beginning "Loving Son," which also makes some valuable contributions to our knowledge of Franklin's forefathers. As to the original of our name, there is various opinions [says Josiah]; some say that it came from a sort of title, of which a book that you bought when here gives a lively account, some think we are of a French extract, which was formerly called Franks; some of a free line, a line free from that vassalage which was common to subjects in days of old; some from a bird of long red legs. Your uncle Benjamin made inquiry of one skilled in heraldry, who told him there is two coats of armor, one belonging to the Franklins of the North, and one to the Franklins of the west. However, our circumstances have been such as that it hath hardly been worth while to concern ourselves much about these things any farther than to tickle the fancy a little. Josiah then has a word to say about his great-grandfather, the Franklin who kept his Bible under a joint stool during the reign of Bloody Mary, and his grandfather. The former, he says, in his travels went upon liking to a taylor; but he kept such a stingy house, that he left him and travelled farther, and came to a smith's house, and coming on a fasting day, being in popish times, he did not like there the first day; the next morning the servant was called up at five in the morning, but after a little time came a good toast and good beer, and he found good housekeeping there; he served and learned the trade of a smith. Josiah's grandfather, the letter tells us, was a smith also, and settled in Ecton, and "was imprisoned a year and a day on suspicion of his being the author of some poetry that touched the character of some great man." An ancestry that could boast one sturdy Tubal Cain, ready, though the fires of Smithfield were brightly burning, to hazard his life for his religious convictions, and another, with letters and courage enough to lampoon a great man in England in the sixteenth or the seventeenth century, is an ancestry that was quite worthy of investigation. It at least tickles the fancy a little, to use Josiah's phrase, to imagine that the flame of the Ecton forge lit up, generation after generation, the face of some brawny, honest toiler, not unlike the village blacksmith, whose rugged figure and manly, simple-hearted, God-fearing nature are portrayed with so much dignity and beauty in the well-known verses of Longfellow. Be this as it may, the humble lot of neither ancestral nor contemporary Franklins was a source of mortification to Poor Richard even after the popularity of his _Almanac_ had brought in a pair of shoes, two new shifts, and a new warm petticoat to his wife, and to him a second-hand coat, so good that he was no longer ashamed to go to town or be seen there. "He that has neither fools nor beggars among his kindred, is the son of a thunder gust," said Poor Richard. FOOTNOTES: [16] This lady, whose father was Lewis Evans, of Philadelphia, a surveyor and map-maker, was a god-daughter of Deborah, and, according to a letter from Franklin to Deborah, dated July 22, 1774, fell little short of being ubiquitous. He wrote: "She is now again at Tunis, where you will see she has lately lain in of her third Child. Her Father, you know, was a geographer, and his daughter has some connection, I think, with the whole Globe; being born herself in America, and having her first Child in Asia, her second in Europe, and now her third in Africa." [17] A readable essay might be written upon the sea-voyages of Franklin. The sloop, in which he absconded from Boston, in 1723, was favored with a fair wind, and reached New York in three days. His voyage from Philadelphia to Boston in 1724 lasted for about a fortnight. The "little vessel," in which he sailed, he tells us in the _Autobiography_, "struck on a shoal in going down the bay, and sprung a leak." "We had," Franklin says, "a blustering time at sea, and were oblig'd to pump almost continually, at which I took my turn." The cabin accommodations and abundant sea stores that fell to the lot of Ralph and himself, under circumstances already mentioned by us, on their voyage from Philadelphia to England in 1724, in the _London-Hope_, Captain Annis, were rare windfalls; but the voyage was marked by a great deal of bad weather. The return voyage of Franklin from London to Philadelphia in 1726, in the _Berkshire_, Captain Clark, including _obiter_ delays on the south coast of England, consumed the whole interval between July 21 and Oct. 12. All the incidents of this long voyage were entered in the Journal kept by him while it was under way, and there are few writings in which the ordinary features of an ocean passage at that time are so clearly brought before the reader: the baffling winds, the paralyzing calms; the meagre fare; the deadly _ennui_; and the moody sullenness bred by confinement and monotony. The word "helm-a-lee," Franklin states, became as disagreeable to their ears as the sentence of a judge to a convicted malefactor. Once he leapt overboard and swam around the ship to "wash" himself, and another time he was deterred from "washing" himself by the appearance of a shark, "that mortal enemy to swimmers." For a space his ship was in close enough companionship for several days with another ship for the masters of the two vessels, accompanied by a passenger in each instance, to exchange visits. On his second voyage, of about thirty days, to England, in 1757, the packet, in which he was a passenger, easily outstripped the hostile cruisers by which she was several times chased, but wore about with straining masts just in time to escape shipwreck on the Scilly rocks. Of his return to America in 1762, he wrote to Strahan from Philadelphia: "We had a long Passage near ten Weeks from Portsmouth to this Place, but it was a pleasant one; for we had ten sail in Company and a Man of War to protect us; we had pleasant Weather and fair Winds, and frequently visited and dined from ship to ship." At the end of his third voyage to England in 1764, Franklin wrote to Deborah from the Isle of Wight that no father could have been tenderer to a child than Captain Robinson had been to him. "But we have had terrible Weather, and I have often been thankful that our dear Sally was not with me. Tell our Friends that din'd with us on the Turtle that the kind Prayer they then put up for thirty Days fair Wind for me was favourably heard and answered, we being just 30 Days from Land to Land." Of his return voyage to America in 1775, he wrote to Priestley: "I had a passage of six weeks, the weather constantly so moderate that a London wherry might have accompanied us all the way." His thirty-day voyage to France in 1776 proved a rough and debilitating one to him at his advanced age, but Captain Wickes was not only able to keep his illustrious passenger out of the Tower, but to snatch up two English prizes on his way over. We need say no more than we have already incidentally said in our text of the seven weeks that Franklin gave up to his pen and thermometer on his return voyage to America in 1785. After the passage, he wrote to Mrs. Hewson that it had been a pleasant and not a long one in which there was but one day, a day of violent storm, on which he was glad that she was not with them. [18] A copious note on the leading portraits of Franklin will be found in the _Narrative and Critical History of America_, edited by Justin Winsor, vol. vii., p. 37. The best of them resemble each other closely enough to make us feel satisfied that we should recognize him at once, were it possible for us to meet him in life on the street. [19] Franklin was frequently the recipient of one of the most delightful of all forms of social attention, an invitation to a country house in the British Islands. On Oct. 5, 1768, he writes to Deborah that he has lately been in the country to spend a few days at friends' houses, and to breathe a little fresh air. On Jan. 28, 1772, after spending some seven weeks in Ireland and some four weeks in Scotland, he tells the same correspondent that he has received abundance of civilities from the gentry of both these kingdoms. [20] Speaking of a portrait of Sally in a letter to Deborah from London in 1758, Franklin says: "I fancy I see more Likeness in her Picture than I did at first, and I look at it often with Pleasure, as at least it reminds me of her." [21] The only blot upon the useful labors of Jared Sparks, as the editor of Franklin's productions, is the liberties that he took with their wording. Sometimes his alterations were the offspring of good feeling, sometimes of ordinary puristic scruples, and occasionally of the sickly prudery which led our American grandfathers and grandmothers to speak of the leg of a turkey as its "drum-stick." The word "belly" appears to have been especially trying to his nice sense of propriety. One result was these scornful strictures by Albert Henry Smyth in the Introduction to his edition of Franklin's writings: "He is nice in his use of moral epithets; he will not offend one stomach with his choice of words. Franklin speaks of the Scots 'who entered England and _trampled on its belly_ as far as Derby,'--'marched on,' says Sparks. Franklin is sending some household articles from London to Philadelphia. In the large packing case is 'a jug for beer.' It has, he says, 'the coffee cups in its belly.' Sparks performs the same abdominal operation here." [22] The maladies to which Franklin was subject, and the spells of illness that he experienced, like everything else relating to him, have been described in detail by at least one of his enthusiastic latter-day biographers. We are content, however, to be classed among those biographers in whose eyes no amount of genius can hallow an ague or glorify a cutaneous affection. [23] "I must mention to you," Sally said in a letter to her father, dated Oct. 30, 1773, "that I am no longer housekeeper; it gave my dear mama so much uneasiness, and the money was given to me in a manner which made it impossible to save anything by laying in things beforehand, so that my housekeeping answered no good purpose, and I have the more readily given it up, though I think it my duty, and would willingly take the care and trouble off of her, could I possibly please and make her happy." [24] The entire conduct of Franklin towards his son after the dismissal of the father from office by the British Government seems to have been thoroughly considerate and decorous. His wish that William Franklin would resign his office as Governor of New Jersey, which he could not hold without pecuniary loss to his father, and without apparent insensibility to the indignity to which his father had been subjected, was delicately intimated only. Even after William Franklin became a prisoner in Connecticut in consequence of his disloyalty to the American cause, Franklin, while giving Temple some very good practical reasons why he could not consent that he should be the bearer of a letter from Mrs. William Franklin to her husband, takes care to tell Temple that he does not blame his desire of seeing a father that he had so much reason to love. At this time he also relieved with a gift of money the immediate necessities of Mrs. William Franklin. The temper of his letters to Temple, when Temple went over to England from France, at his instance, to pay his duty to William Franklin, was that of settled reconciliation with his son. "Give my Love to your Father," is a message in one of these letters. When he touched at Southampton on his return from his French mission, William Franklin, among others, was there to greet him. In the succeeding year we find Franklin asking Andrew Strahan to send him a volume and to present his account for it to his son. But on one occasion during the last twelve months of his life, he speaks of William no longer as "my son" but as "William Franklin." On the whole, it would appear that it was not so much the original defection of the son from the American cause as the fact that he kept aloof from the father, after the return of the father from France, which was responsible for the asperity with which the latter refers in his will to the political course of William Franklin during the Revolution. [25] Altogether Peter Folger must have been a man of sterling sense and character. He was one of the five Commissioners appointed to survey and measure the land on the Island of Nantucket, and in the order of appointment the following provision was inserted: "Whatsoever shall be done by them, or any three of them, _Peter Folger being one_, shall be accounted legal and valid." [26] That Peter Franklin had some of the ability of his famous brother we may infer from a long letter written to him by Franklin in which the latter, after acknowledging the receipt of a ballad by Peter, descants upon the superiority of the old, simple ditties over modern songs in lively and searching terms which he would hardly have wasted on a man of ordinary intelligence. [27] The first letter from the Commissioners to Jonathan Williams, dated Apr. 13, 1778, simply asked him to abstain from any further purchases as naval agent, and to close his accounts for the present. It was not until May 25, 1778, that a letter was addressed to him by the Commissioners expressly revoking his authority as naval agent on the ground that Congress had authorized William Lee to superintend the commercial affairs of America in general, and he had appointed M. Schweighauser, a German merchant, as the person to look after all the maritime and commercial interests of America in the Nantes district. In signing the letter, Franklin took care to see that this clause was inserted: "It is not from any prejudice to you, Mr. Williams, for whom we have a great respect and esteem, but merely from a desire to save the public money, to prevent the clashing of claims and interests, and to avoid confusion and delays, that we have taken this step." The result was that, instead of the uniform commission of two per cent., charged by Williams for transacting the business of the naval agency, Schweighauser, whose clerk was Ludlow Lee, a nephew of Arthur Lee, charged as much as five per cent. on the simple delivery of tobacco to the farmers-general. Later Williams, who was an expert accountant, was restored to the position which he had really filled with blameless integrity and efficiency. After his return to America, his career was an eminent one. He is termed by General George W. Cullum in his work on the campaigns and engineers of the War of 1812-15 the father of the Engineer Service of the United States. In the same work, General Cullum also speaks of his "noble character." [28] In sending a MS. to Edward Everett, which he placed in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Thomas Carlyle said: "The poor manuscript is an old Tithes-Book of the parish of Ecton, in Northamptonshire, from about 1640 to 1700, and contains, I perceive, various scattered faint indications of the civil war time, which are not without interest; but the thing which should raise it above all tithe-books yet heard of is, that it contains actual notices, in that fashion, of the ancestors of Benjamin Franklin--blacksmiths in that parish! Here they are--their forge-hammers yet going--renting so many 'yard lands' of Northamptonshire Church-soil--keeping so many sheep, etc., etc.,--little conscious that one of the demi-gods was about to proceed out of them." CHAPTER V Franklin's American Friends The friends mentioned in the correspondence between Franklin and Deborah were only some of the many friends with whom Franklin was blessed during the course of his life. He had the same faculty for inspiring friendship that a fine woman has for inspiring love. In reading his general correspondence, few things arrest our attention more sharply than the number of affectionate and admiring intimates, whose lives were in one way or another interwoven with his own, and, over and over again, in reading this correspondence, our attention is unexpectedly drawn for a moment to some cherished friend of his, of whom there is scarcely a hint elsewhere in his writings. It was from real considerations of practical convenience that he sometimes avoided the serious task of enumerating all the friends, to whom he wished to be remembered, by sending his love to "all Philadelphia" or "all Pennsylvania." A dozen of his friends, as we have stated, accompanied him as far as Trenton, when he was on his way to New York to embark upon his first mission abroad in 1757. A cavalcade of three hundred of them accompanied him for sixteen miles to his ship, when he was on his way down the Delaware on his second mission abroad in 1764. Remember me affectionately to all our good Friends who contributed by their Kindness to make my Voyage comfortable [he wrote to Deborah a little later from London]. To Mr. Roberts, Mrs. Thompson, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Potts, Mrs. Shewell; Messrs. Whartons, Capt. Falkner, Brothers & Sisters Reads & Franklins, Cousin Davenport, and everybody. When he returned from England in 1762, he was able to write to Strahan with a flush of pardonable exultation that he had had the happiness to find that Dr. Smith's reports of the diminutions of his friends were all false. "My house," he said, "has been full of a succession of them from morning to night, ever since my arrival, congratulating me on my return with the utmost cordiality and affection." And, several years later, when the news reached Philadelphia that he was again safely in England, the bells rang until near midnight, and libations were poured out for his health, success and every other happiness. "Even your old friend Hugh Roberts," said Cadwallader Evans, who gave this information to Franklin, "stayed with us till eleven o'clock, which you know was a little out of his common road, and gave us many curious anecdotes within the compass of your forty years acquaintance." This rejoicing, of course, was, to a considerable degree, the result of political fermentation, and, if we say nothing of other demonstrations, like the flourish of naked swords, which angered the Proprietary so deeply, and made Franklin himself feel just a little foolish, it is only because it is impossible to declare how far these demonstrations were the tributes of personal friendship rather than of public gratitude. In a letter to Doctor Samuel Johnson, of Connecticut, Franklin tells him that he will shortly print proposals for publishing the Doctor's pieces by subscription, and disperse them among his friends "along the continent." This meant much to an author, coming as it did from a man, of whom it might perhaps be said that he could have travelled all the way from Boston to Virginia without ever being at a loss for the hospitable roof of a friend to shelter him at night. Nowhere outside of Pennsylvania did Franklin have warmer friends than in New England, the land of his birth. He fled from Boston in 1723, and returned to it on a brief visit in 1724. Aside from other occasional returns, he afterwards revisited it at regular intervals of ten years in 1733, 1743, 1753 and 1763. Many pleasant hours were spent by him among his wayside friends in New England on those postal and other journeys which took him within her borders. I left New England slowly, and with great reluctance [he wrote to his friend Catherine Ray, afterwards Greene, at Block Island in 1755]. Short day's journeys, and loitering visits on the road, for three or four weeks, manifested my unwillingness to quit a country, in which I drew my first breath, spent my earliest and most pleasant days, and had now received so many fresh marks of the people's goodness and benevolence, in the kind and affectionate treatment I had everywhere met with. I almost forgot I had a _home_, till I was more than half way towards it, till I had, one by one, parted with all my New England friends, and was got into the western borders of Connecticut, among mere strangers. Then, like an old man, who, having buried all he loved in this world, begins to think of heaven, I began to think of and wish for home. The only drawback to the pleasure of his New England journeys was the vile roads of the time. In a letter to John Foxcroft, in the year 1773, in which he refers to a fall which Foxcroft had experienced, he says, "I have had three of those Squelchers in different Journeys, and never desire a fourth." Two of these squelchers, we know, befell him on the rough roads of New England, in the year 1763; for, in a letter from Boston to his friend Mrs. Catherine Greene (formerly Ray), of that year, he writes to her that he is almost ashamed to say that he has had another fall, and put his shoulder out. "Do you think, after this," he added, "that even your kindest invitations and Mr. Greene's can prevail with me to venture myself again on such roads?" In August of the same year, Franklin informed Strahan that he had already travelled eleven hundred and forty miles on the American Continent since April, and that he would make six hundred and forty more before he saw home. To this and other postal tours of inspection he owed in part those friends "along the continent," to whom he proposed to appeal in Dr. Johnson's behalf, as well as that unrivalled familiarity with American colonial conditions, which stands out in such clear relief in his works. On one occasion, the accidents by flood and field, to which he was exposed on his American journeys, during the colonial era, resulted in a tie, which, while not the tie of friendship, proved to his cost to be even more lasting than that tie sometimes is. When he was about forty-three years of age, a canoe, in which he was a passenger, was upset near Staten Island, while he was endeavoring to board a stage-boat bound for New York. He was in no danger, as he said to a friend forty years afterwards when recalling the incident, for, besides being near the shore, he could swim like a duck or a Bermudian. But, unfortunately for him, there was a Jew on the stage-boat who chose to believe that he had saved Franklin's life by inducing the stage-boat to stop, and take Franklin in. As far as the latter could learn, he was not more indebted to the Jew than to the Jew's fellow-passengers for being plucked from an element which he never wearied of asserting is not responsible even for bad colds, and, in return for the consideration, that he had received from the stage-boat, he dined all its passengers to their general satisfaction, when he reached New York, at "The Tavern"; but the Jew had no mind to allow the benefaction to sink out of sight for the number of the benefactors. This Hayes [Franklin wrote to the friend, who had forwarded to him a letter from Hayes' widow] never saw me afterwards, at New York, or Brunswick, or Phila'da that he did not dun me for Money on the Pretence of his being poor, and having been so happy as to be Instrumental in saving my Life, which was really in no Danger. In this way he got of me some times a double Joannes, sometimes a Spanish Doubloon, and never less; how much in the whole I do not know, having kept no Account of it; but it must have been a very considerable Sum; and he never incurr'd any Risque, nor was at any Trouble in my Behalf, I have long since thought him well paid for any little expence of Humanity he might have felt on the Occasion. He seems, however, to have left me to his Widow as part of her Dowry. This was about as far as the kindly nature of Franklin ever went in dealing with a beggar or a bore. In New York or New Jersey, he was little less at home than in Pennsylvania or New England. In a letter to Deborah in 1763, after telling her that he had been to Elizabeth Town, where he had found their children returned from the Falls and very well, he says, "The Corporation were to have a Dinner that day at the Point for their Entertainment, and prevail'd on us to stay. There was all the principal People & a great many Ladies." As we shall see, the foundations of his New Jersey friendships were laid very early. In following him on his journeys through Maryland, we find him entertained at the country seats of some of the most prominent gentlemen of the Colony, as for instance at Colonel Tasker's and at Mr. Milligan's. He was several times in Virginia in the course of his life, and it is an agreeable thing to a Virginian, who recollects that a Virginian, Arthur Lee, is to be reckoned among the contentious "bird and beast" people, for whom Franklin had such a dislike, to recollect also that not only are Washington and Jefferson to be reckoned among Franklin's loyal and admiring friends, but that, after Franklin had been a few days in Virginia at Mr. Hunter's, he expressed his opinion of both the country and its people in these handsome terms: "Virginia is a pleasant Country, now in full Spring; the People extreamly obliging and polite." There can be no better corrective of the petty sectional spirit, which has been such a blemish on our national history, and has excited so much wholly unfounded and senseless local prejudice, than to note the appreciation which that open, clear-sighted eye had for all that was best in every part of the American Colonies. "There are brave Spirits among that People," he said, when he heard that the Virginia House of Burgesses had appointed its famous Committee of Correspondence for the purpose of bringing the Colonies together for their common defense. He was never in the Carolinas or Georgia, we believe, though he was for a time the Agent in England of Georgia as well as other Colonies. But he had enough friends in Charleston, at any rate, when he was on his first mission abroad, to write to his Charleston correspondent, Dr. Alexander Garden, the eminent botanist from whom Linnæus borrowed a name for the gardenia, that he purposed, God willing, to return by way of Carolina, when he promised himself the pleasure of seeing and conversing with his friends in Charleston. And to another resident of Charleston, Dr. John Lining, several highly interesting letters of his on scientific subjects were written. For Henry Laurens, of South Carolina, his fellow-commissioner for the purpose of negotiating the treaty of peace with Great Britain, he entertained a warm feeling of esteem and good will which was fully reciprocated by Laurens. It was a just remark of Laurens that Franklin knew very well how to manage a cunning man, but that, when he conversed or treated with a man of candor, there was no man more candid than himself. For Colonel John Laurens, of South Carolina, the son of Henry Laurens, the aide to Washington, and the intrepid young soldier, who perished in one of the last conflicts of the Revolutionary War, Franklin formed a strong sentiment of affection, when Laurens came to France, at the instance of Washington, for the purpose of obtaining some additional aids from the King for the prosecution of the war. In a letter to him, signed "most affectionately yours," when Laurens was about to return to America, Franklin inclosed him an order for another hundred louis with an old man's blessing. "Take my Blessing with it," he said, "and my Prayers that God may send you safe & well home with your Cargoes. I would not attempt persuading you to quit the military Line, because I think you have the Qualities of Mind and Body that promise your doing great service & acquiring Honour in that Line."[29] How profound was the mutual respect and affection that Washington and Franklin entertained for each other, we have seen. It is an inspiring thing to note how the words of the latter swell, as with the strains of some heroic measure, when his admiration for the great contemporary, whose services to "the glorious cause" alone exceeded his, lifts him up from the lower to the higher levels of our emotional and intellectual nature. Should peace arrive after another Campaign or two, and afford us a little Leisure [he wrote to Washington from Passy, on March 5, 1780], I should be happy to see your Excellency in Europe, and to accompany you, if my Age and Strength would permit, in visiting some of its ancient and most famous Kingdoms. You would, on this side of the Sea, enjoy the great Reputation you have acquir'd, pure and free from those little Shades that the Jealousy and Envy of a Man's Countrymen and Cotemporaries are ever endeavouring to cast over living Merit. Here you would know, and enjoy, what Posterity will say of Washington. For 1000 Leagues have nearly the same Effect with 1000 Years. The feeble Voice of those grovelling Passions cannot extend so far either in Time or Distance. At present I enjoy that Pleasure for you, as I frequently hear the old Generals of this martial Country (who study the Maps of America, and mark upon them all your Operations) speak with sincere Approbation and great Applause of your conduct; and join in giving you the Character of one of the greatest Captains of the Age. The caprice of future events might well have deprived these words of some of their rich cadence, but it did not, and, even the voice of cis-Atlantic jealousy and envy seems to be as impotent in the very presence of Washington, as at the distance of a thousand leagues away, when we place beside this letter the words written by Franklin to him a few years later after the surrender of Cornwallis: All the world agree, that no expedition was ever better planned or better executed; it has made a great addition to the military reputation you had already acquired, and brightens the glory that surrounds your name, and that must accompany it to our latest posterity. No news could possibly make me more happy. The infant Hercules has now strangled the two serpents (the several armies of Burgoyne and Cornwallis) that attacked him in his cradle, and I trust his future history will be answerable.[30] Cordial relations of friendship also existed between Franklin and Jefferson. In their versatility, their love of science, their speculative freedom and their faith in the popular intelligence and conscience the two men had much in common. As members of the committee, that drafted the Declaration of Independence, as well as in other relations, they were brought into familiar contact with each other; and to Jefferson we owe valuable testimony touching matters with respect to which the reputation of Franklin has been assailed, and also a sheaf of capital stories, that helps us to a still clearer insight into the personal and social phases of Franklin's life and character. One of these stories is the famous story of Abbé Raynal and the Speech of Polly Baker, when she was prosecuted the fifth time for having a bastard child. The Doctor and Silas Deane [Jefferson tells us] were in conversation one day at Passy on the numerous errors in the Abbé's "_Histoire des deux Indes_" when he happened to step in. After the usual salutations, Silas Deane said to him, "The Doctor and myself, Abbé, were just speaking of the errors of fact into which you have been led in your history." "Oh no, Sir," said the Abbé, "that is impossible. I took the greatest care not to insert a single fact, for which I had not the most unquestionable authority." "Why," says Deane, "there is the story of Polly Baker, and the eloquent apology you have put into her mouth, when brought before a court of Massachusetts to suffer punishment under a law which you cite, for having had a bastard. I know there never was such a law in Massachusetts." "Be assured," said the Abbé, "you are mistaken, and that that is a true story. I do not immediately recollect indeed the particular information on which I quote it; but I am certain that I had for it unquestionable authority." Doctor Franklin, who had been for some time shaking with unrestrained laughter at the Abbé's confidence in his authority for that tale, said, "I will tell you, Abbé, the origin of that story. When I was a printer and editor of a newspaper, we were sometimes slack of news, and to amuse our customers I used to fill up our vacant columns with anecdotes and fables, and fancies of my own, and this of Polly Baker is a story of my making, on one of those occasions." The Abbé without the least disconcert, exclaimed with a laugh, "Oh, very well, Doctor, I had rather relate your stories than other men's truths." Another of Jefferson's stories, is the equally famous one of John Thompson, hatter. When the Declaration of Independence [he says] was under the consideration of Congress, there were two or three unlucky expressions in it which gave offence to some members. The words "Scotch and other foreign auxiliaries" excited the ire of a gentleman or two of that country. Severe strictures on the conduct of the British King, in negativing our repeated repeals of the law which permitted the importation of slaves, were disapproved by some Southern gentlemen, whose reflections were not yet matured to the full abhorrence of that traffic. Although the offensive expressions were immediately yielded, these gentlemen continued their depredations on other parts of the instrument. I was sitting by Doctor Franklin, who perceived that I was not insensible to these mutilations. "I have made it a rule," said he, "whenever in my power, to avoid becoming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body. I took my lesson from an incident which I will relate to you. When I was a journeyman printer, one of my companions, an apprentice hatter, having served out his time, was about to open shop for himself. His first concern was to have a handsome signboard, with a proper inscription. He composed it in these words, 'John Thompson, _Hatter, makes_ and _sells hats_ for ready money,' with a figure of a hat subjoined; but he thought he would submit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to thought the word '_Hatter_' tautologous, because followed by the words 'makes hats' which showed he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word '_makes_' might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats. If good and to their mind, they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third said he thought the words '_for ready money_' were useless, as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit; everyone who purchased expected to pay. They were parted with, and the inscription now stood, 'John Thompson sells hats.' '_Sells hats!_' says his next friend. 'Why nobody will expect you to give them away; what then is the use of that word?' It was stricken out, and '_hats_' followed it, the rather as there was one painted on the board. So the inscription was reduced ultimately to 'John Thompson,' with the figure of a hat subjoined." The next story has the same background, the Continental Congress. I was sitting by Doctor Franklin [says Jefferson], and observed to him that I thought we should except books (from the obligations of the non-importation association formed in America to bring England to terms); that we ought not to exclude science, even coming from an enemy. He thought so too, and I proposed the exception, which was agreed to. Soon after it occurred that medicine should be excepted, and I suggested that also to the Doctor. "As to that," said he, "I will tell you a story. When I was in London, in such a year, there was a weekly club of physicians, of which Sir John Pringle was President, and I was invited by my friend Doctor Fothergill to attend when convenient. Their rule was to propose a thesis one week and discuss it the next. I happened there when the question to be considered was whether physicians had, on the whole, done most good or harm? The young members, particularly, having discussed it very learnedly and eloquently till the subject was exhausted, one of them observed to Sir John Pringle, that although it was not usual for the President to take part in a debate, yet they were desirous to know his opinion on the question. He said they must first tell him whether, under the appellation of physicians, they meant to include _old women_, if they did he thought they had done more good than harm, otherwise more harm than good." This incident brings back to us, as it doubtless did to Franklin, the augurs jesting among themselves over religion.[31] It is to be regretted that many other easy pens besides that of Jefferson have not preserved for us some of those humorous stories and parables of which Franklin's memory was such a rich storehouse. Doctor Benjamin Rush, one of his intimate friends, is said to have entertained the purpose of publishing his recollections of Franklin's table-talk. The purpose was never fulfilled, but the scraps of this talk which we find in Dr. Rush's diary are sufficient to show that, even in regard to medicine, Franklin had a stock of information and conclusions which were well worth the hearing. As a member of the Continental Congress, Franklin was brought into close working intercourse with Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and formed a sincere sentiment of friendship for him, which was strengthened by the expedition that they made together to Canada, as two of the three commissioners appointed by Congress to win the Canadians over to the American cause. Samuel Chase, another Marylander, was the third commissioner, and the three were accompanied by John Carroll, the brother of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, whose character as a Catholic priest, it was hoped, would promote the success of the mission. On his way back to Philadelphia, in advance of his fellow-commissioners, Franklin acknowledged in grateful terms the help that he had received on his return journey from the friendly assistance and tender care of this good man, who became his firm friend, and was subsequently made the first Catholic Bishop of America upon his recommendation. William Carmichael, another Marylander, who was for a time the secretary of Silas Deane at Paris, was also one of Franklin's friends. There is a tinge of true affection about his letters to Carmichael, and the latter, in a letter written in the year 1777, while stating that Franklin's age in some measure hindered him from taking so active a part in the drudgery of business as his great zeal and abilities warranted, remarks, "He is the Master to whom we children in politics all look up for counsel, and whose name is everywhere a passport to be well received." When Carmichael was the American Secretary of Legation at Madrid, Franklin still remembered enough of his Spanish to request the former to send him the _Gazette_ of Madrid and any new pamphlets that were curious. "I remember the Maxim you mention of Charles V, _Yo y el Tiempo_," he wrote to Carmichael on one occasion, "and have somewhere met with an Answer to it in this distich, 'I and time 'gainst any two, Chance and I 'gainst Time and you.' "And I think the Gentlemen you have at present to deal with, would do wisely to guard a little more against certain Chances." In another letter, Franklin, referring to his "Essay on Perfumes," dedicated to the Academy of Brussels, writes to Carmichael, "You do my little Scribblings too much honour in proposing to print them; but they are at your Disposition, except the Letter to the Academy which having several English Puns in it, can not be translated, and besides has too much _grossièreté_ to be borne by the polite Readers of these Nations." It was in Pennsylvania and New England, however, so far as America was concerned, that Franklin formed the intimate friendships which led him so often to say towards the close of his life, as one old friend after another dropped through the bridge of Mirzah, that the loss of friends is the tax imposed upon us by nature for living too long. The closest friend of his early youth was his Boston friend, John Collins. The reader has already learnt how soon religious skepticism, drinking and gambling ate out the core of this friend's character. With his intensely social nature, Franklin had hardly found employment in Philadelphia before in his own language he began to have some acquaintance among the young people of the town, that were lovers of reading, with whom he spent his evenings very agreeably. His first group of friends in Philadelphia was formed before he left Pennsylvania for London in 1724. In his pictorial way--for the _Autobiography_ is engraved with a burin rather than written with a pen--Franklin brings the figures of this group before us with admirable distinctness. They were three in number, and all were lovers of reading. Two of them, Charles Osborne and Joseph Watson, were clerks to an eminent conveyancer in Philadelphia, Charles Brogden. The third, James Ralph, who has already been mentioned by us, was clerk to a merchant. Watson was a pious, sensible young man, of great integrity; the others were rather more lax in their principles of religion, particularly Ralph, who, as well as Collins, to quote the precise words of Franklin's confession, had been unsettled by him, "for which," he adds, "they both made me suffer." Osborne [Franklin continues] was sensible, candid, frank; sincere and affectionate to his friends; but, in literary matters, too fond of criticising. Ralph was ingenious, genteel in his manners, and extremely eloquent; I think I never knew a prettier talker. Both of them great admirers of poetry, and began to try their hands in little pieces. Many pleasant walks we four had together on Sundays into the woods, near Schuylkill, where we read to one another, and conferr'd on what we read. Ralph had the most fatal of all gifts for a clever man--the gift of writing poetry tolerably well. Osborne tried to convince him that he had no genius for it, and advised him to stick to mercantile pursuits. Franklin conservatively approved the amusing one's self with poetry now and then so far as to improve one's language, but no farther. Thus things stood when the friends proposed that each should produce at their next meeting a poetical version of the 18th Psalm. Ralph composed his version, showed it to Franklin, who admired it, and, being satisfied that Osborne's criticisms of his muse were the suggestions of mere envy, asked Franklin to produce it at the next symposium of the friends as his own. Franklin, who had a relish for practical jokes throughout his life, fell in readily with Ralph's stratagem. But we shall let a writer, whose diction is as incompressible as water, narrate what followed in his own lively way: We met; Watson's performance was read; there were some beauties in it, but many defects. Osborne's was read; it was much better; Ralph did it justice; remarked some faults, but applauded the beauties. He himself had nothing to produce. I was backward; seemed desirous of being excused; had not had sufficient time to correct, etc.; but no excuse could be admitted; produce I must. It was read and repeated; Watson and Osborne gave up the contest, and join'd in applauding it. Ralph only made some criticisms, and propos'd some amendments; but I defended my text. Osborne was against Ralph, and told him he was no better a critic than poet, so he dropt the argument. As they two went home together, Osborne expressed himself still more strongly in favour of what he thought my production; having restrain'd himself before, as he said, lest I should think it flattery. "But who would have imagin'd," said he, "that Franklin had been capable of such a performance, such painting, such force, such fire! He has even improv'd the original. In his common conversation he seems to have no choice of words; he hesitates and blunders; and yet, good God! how he writes!" When we next met, Ralph discovered the trick we had plaid him, and Osborne was a little laught at. This transaction fixed Ralph in his resolution of becoming a poet. I did all I could to dissuade him from it, but he continued scribbling verses till _Pope_ cured him.[32] Watson, we are told by Franklin, died in his arms a few years after this incident, much lamented, being the best of their set. Osborne went to the West Indies, where he became an eminent lawyer, and made money, but died young. "He and I," observes Franklin, "had made a serious agreement, that the one who happen'd first to die should, if possible, make a friendly visit to the other, and acquaint him how he found things in that separate state. But he never fulfill'd his promise." This group of friends was succeeded on Franklin's return from London by the persons who constituted with him the original members of the Junto: Joseph Breintnal, "a copyer of deeds for the scriveners," Thos. Godfrey, the mathematical precisian, for whom Franklin had so little partiality, Nicholas Scull, "a surveyor, afterwards Surveyor-general, who lov'd books, and sometimes made a few verses," William Parsons, "bred a shoemaker, but, loving reading, had acquir'd a considerable share of mathematics, which he first studied with a view to astrology, that he afterwards laught at," William Maugridge, "a joiner, a most exquisite mechanic, and a solid, sensible man," Hugh Meredith, Stephen Potts, and George Webb, journeymen printers, Robert Grace, "a young gentleman of some fortune, generous, lively, and witty; a lover of punning and of his friends," and William Coleman, then a merchant's clerk about Franklin's age, who had the coolest, clearest head, the best heart, and the exactest morals, Franklin declares, of almost any man he ever met with. Coleman subsequently became a merchant of great note, and a provincial judge; and the friendship between Franklin and himself continued without interruption until Coleman's death, a period of more than forty years. Like Scull, Parsons also became Surveyor-General. The reader will remember how, partly inspired by his affection for Robert Grace, and partly by resentment over a small office, Franklin applied the sharp edge of the _lex talionis_ to Jemmy Read. How both Coleman and Grace came to the aid of Franklin in an hour of dire distress, we shall see hereafter. Such letters from Franklin to Parsons, as have survived, bear the marks of intimate friendship. In one to him, when he was in command of a company at Easton, dated December 15, 1755, in which reference is made to arms and supplies, that had been forwarded for the defence of that town against the Indians, Franklin says, "Be of good Courage, and God guide you. Your Friends will never desert you." Four of the original members of the Junto were among the first members of the Philosophical Society, established by Franklin, Parsons, as Geographer, Thomas Godfrey, as Mathematician, Coleman as Treasurer, and Franklin himself as Secretary. Parsons died during the first mission of Franklin to England, and, in a letter to Deborah the latter comments on the event in these words: "I regret the Loss of my Friend Parsons. Death begins to make Breaches in the little Junto of old Friends, that he had long forborne, and it must be expected he will now soon pick us all off one after another." In another letter, written some months later to Hugh Roberts, a member of the Junto, but not one of the original members, he institutes a kind of Plutarchian contrast between Parsons and Stephen Potts, who is described in the _Autobiography_ as a young countryman of full age, bred to country work, of uncommon natural parts, and great wit and humor, but a little idle. Two of the former members of the Junto you tell me [he said] are departed this life, Potts and Parsons. Odd characters both of them. Parsons a wise man, that often acted foolishly; Potts a wit, that seldom acted wisely. If _enough_ were the means to make a man happy, one had always the _means_ of happiness, without ever enjoying the _thing_; the other had always the _thing_, without ever possessing the _means_. Parsons, even in his prosperity, always fretting; Potts, in the midst of his poverty, ever laughing. It seems, then, that happiness in this life rather depends on internals than externals; and that, besides the natural effects of wisdom and virtue, vice and folly, there is such a thing as a happy or an unhappy constitution. They were both our friends, and loved us. So, peace to their shades. They had their virtues as well as their foibles; they were both honest men, and that alone, as the world goes, is one of the greatest of characters. They were old acquaintances, in whose company I formerly enjoyed a great deal of pleasure, and I cannot think of losing them, without concern and regret. The Hugh Roberts to whom this letter was written was the Hugh Roberts, who found such pleasure in the glad peal of bells, that announced the safe arrival of Franklin in England, and in his reminiscences of his friend of forty years' standing, that he quite forgot that it was his rule to be in bed by eleven o'clock. He was, if Franklin may be believed, an eminent farmer, which may account for the early hours he kept; and how near he was to Franklin the affectionate tone of this very letter abundantly testifies. After expressing his grief because of their friend Syng's loss of his son, and the hope that Roberts' own son might be in every respect as good and useful as his father (than which he need not wish him more, he said) Franklin takes Roberts gently to task for not attending the meetings of the Junto more regularly. I do not quite like your absenting yourself from that Good old club, the Junto. Your more frequent presence might be a means of keeping them from being all engaged in measures not the best for public welfare. I exhort you, therefore, to return to your duty; and, as the Indians say, to confirm my words, I send you a Birmingham tile. I thought the neatness of the figures would please you. Even the Birmingham tile, however, did not have the effect of correcting Roberts' remissness, for in two subsequent letters Franklin returns to the same subject. In the first, he tells Roberts that he had received his letter by the hands of Roberts' son in London, and had had the pleasure withal of seeing this son grow up a solid, sensible young man. He then reverts to the Junto. "You tell me you sometimes visit the ancient Junto. I wish you would do it oftener. I know they all love and respect you, and regret your absenting yourself so much. People are apt to grow strange, and not understand one another so well, when they meet but seldom." Then follow these words which help us to see how he came to declare so confidently on another occasion that, compared with the entire happiness of existence, its occasional unhappiness is but as the pricking of a pin. Since we have held that Club, till we are grown grey together, let us hold it out to the End. For my own Part, I find I love Company, Chat, a Laugh, a Glass, and even a Song, as well as ever; and at the same Time relish better than I used to do the grave Observations and wise Sentences of old Men's Conversation; so that I am sure the Junto will be still as agreeable to me as it ever has been. I therefore hope it will not be discontinu'd, as long as we are able to crawl together. The second of the two letters makes still another appeal of the same nature. I wish [Franklin said] you would continue to meet the Junto, notwithstanding that some Effects of our publick political Misunderstandings may sometimes appear there. 'Tis now perhaps one of the _oldest_ Clubs, as I think it was formerly one of the _best_, in the King's Dominions. It wants but about two years of Forty since it was establish'd. We loved and still love one another; we are grown Grey together, and yet it is too early to Part. Let us sit till the Evening of Life is spent. The Last Hours are always the most joyous. When we can stay no longer, 'tis time enough then to bid each other good Night, separate, and go quietly to bed. When even the bed of death could be made to wear this smooth and peaceful aspect by such a genial conception of existence, it is not surprising that Catherine Shipley, a friend of later date, should have asked Franklin to instruct her in the art of procuring pleasant dreams. It was in this letter, too, that he told Roberts that he was pleased with his punning, not merely because he liked punning in general, but because he learned from the use of it by Roberts that he was in good health and spirits. Of Hugh Roberts it needs to be only further said that he was one of Franklin's many friends who did what they could by courteous offices, when Franklin was abroad, to testify that they loved him too much to be unmindful that he had left a family behind him entitled to their protection and social attentions. For his visits to his family Franklin sometimes thanks him. The Philip Syng mentioned in one of the letters to Hugh Roberts was another Philadelphia crony of Franklin's. He was enough of an electrician to be several times given due credit by the unhesitating candor of Franklin for ideas which the public would otherwise, perhaps, have fathered upon Franklin himself, who was entirely too careless about his own fine feathers to have any desire for borrowed plumage. Samuel Rhoads, also, was one of the intimate Philadelphia friends to whom Franklin was in the habit of sending his love. He, too, was an original member of the Philosophical Society established by Franklin and was set down as "Mechanician" on its roll of membership. At any rate, even if "Mechanician" was a rather pompous term for him, as "Geographer" was for William Parsons, the surveyor, he was enough of a builder to warrant Franklin in imparting to him many valuable points about the construction of houses, which were brought to the former's attention when he was abroad. A striking proof, perhaps, of the strength of the attachment between the two is found in the fact that Rhoads built the new residence, previously mentioned by us, for Franklin without a rupture in their friendship; although there appears to have been enough of the usual provoking delays to cause Franklin no little dissatisfaction. Rhoads was a man of considerable public importance in his time. He enjoyed the distinction of being one of the founders of the Pennsylvania Hospital, a conspicuous member of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, and a Mayor of Philadelphia. He was one, too, of the Committee of the Assembly which audited Franklin's accounts as the Agent of the Colony upon the latter's return from England in 1762, and he was likewise a member of the Committee which had previously reported that the estates of the Proprietaries in Pennsylvania were not being unfairly taxed. In one of Franklin's letters to him, there is a humorous reference to Rhoads' political career. "I congratulate you," he said, "on Your Retirement, and you being able to divert yourself with farming; 'tis an inexhaustible source of perpetual Amusement. Your Country _Seat_ is of a more secure kind than _that_ in the Assembly: and I hope not so much in the Power of the Mob to jostle you out of." A golden sentence in this letter is one of the best that Franklin ever penned. "As long as I have known the World I have observ'd that Wrong is always growing more Wrong till there is no bearing it, and that right however oppos'd, comes right at last." Rhoads, Syng and Roberts were all three included with Luke Morris, another old friend and an _et cetera_, intended to embrace other friends besides, in a letter which Franklin wrote from Passy to Dr. Thomas Bond. I thank you [he said] for the pleasing account you give me of the health and welfare of my old friends, Hugh Roberts, Luke Morris, Philip Syng, Samuel Rhoads, &c., with the same of yourself and family. Shake the old ones by the hand for me, and give the young ones my blessing. For my own part, I do not find that I grow any older. Being arrived at seventy, and considering that by travelling further in the same road I should probably be led to the grave, I stopped short, turned about, and walked back again; which having done these four years, you may now call me sixty-six. Dr. Thomas Bond, the Physician of the Philosophical Society established by Franklin, to whom this letter was written, was also one of Franklin's lifelong friends. He was the Doctor Bond, who found that he could make no headway with his hospital project until it was encouraged by a _ça ira_ from Franklin, something like that which he is said to have uttered many years afterwards in France when the issue of the American Revolution was uncertain. For the society of physicians and liberal-minded clergymen Franklin had a peculiar partiality. To the one class he was attracted by both the scientific and humanitarian nature of their profession, to say nothing of the incessant intercourse with their fellow creatures, which makes all physicians more or less men of the world; and to the questioning spirit of the eighteenth century he was too true not to have a natural affinity for clergymen of the latitudinarian type. The ties between Dr. Thomas Bond, Dr. John Bard and Dr. Benjamin Rush and himself were very close. He had such a high opinion of Dr. Bond's pills that on one occasion he even writes to his wife from Virginia to send him some by post. On another occasion, when he was in England, he tells Deborah to thank Dr. Bond for the care that he takes of her. In a letter to the Doctor himself, he remarks that he did not know why their school of physic in Philadelphia should not soon be equal to that in Edinburgh, an observation which seemed natural enough to later Philadelphians when it was not only considered throughout the United States a high compliment to say of a man that he was as clever as a Philadelphia lawyer, but a medical education was in a large part of the United States deemed incomplete unless it had received the finishing touch from the clinics of that city. When Dr. John Bard removed to New York, where he became the first President of the New York Medical Society, Franklin stated in a letter to Cadwallader Colden that he esteemed Dr. Bard an ingenious physician and surgeon, and a discreet, worthy and honest man. In a letter to Dr. Bard and his wife in 1785, he used these tender words: "You are right in supposing, that I interest myself in everything that affects you and yours, sympathizing in your afflictions, and rejoicing in your felicities; for our friendship is ancient, and was never obscured by the least cloud." Dr. Rush was such a fervid friend and admirer of Franklin that the latter found it necessary to request him, if he published his discourse on the Moral Sense, to omit totally and suppress that most extravagant encomium on his friend Franklin, which hurt him exceedingly in the unexpected hearing, and would mortify him beyond conception if it should appear from the press. The doctor replied by saying that he had suppressed the encomium, but had taken the liberty of inscribing the discourse to Franklin by a simple dedication, and earnestly insisted upon the permission of his friend to send his last as he did his first publication into the world under the patronage of his name. In the "simple" dedication, the panegyric, which had made Franklin so uncomfortable, was moderated to such an extent that no character was ascribed to him more transcendent than that of the friend and benefactor of mankind. To Dr. Rush we are under obligations for several stories about Franklin. He tells us that, when chosen by Congress to be one of our Commissioners to France, Franklin turned to him, and remarked: "I am old and good for nothing; but, as the storekeepers say of their remnants of cloth, 'I am but a fag end, and you may have me for what you please.'" No one doubts now that for the purpose of the French mission he was by far the best piece of goods in the shop. Another story, which came to Dr. Rush at second hand, sounds apocryphal. "Why do you wear that old coat today?" asked Silas Deane of Franklin, when they were on their way to sign the Treaty of Alliance with France. Deane referred to the coat, in which Franklin was clad, when Wedderburn made the rabid attack on him before the Privy Council, to which we shall refer later. "To give it its revenge," was the reply. Franklin may have said that, but it was not like him to say anything of the sort. But we get back to the domain of unquestionable authenticity when we turn to Dr. Rush's account of Franklin's death-bed: The evening of his life was marked by the same activity of his moral and intellectual powers which distinguished its meridian. His conversation with his family upon the subject of his dissolution was free and cheerful. A few days before he died, he rose from his bed and begged that it might be made up for him so _that he might die in a decent manner_. His daughter told him that she hoped he would recover and live many years longer. He calmly replied, "_I hope not._" Upon being advised to change his position in bed, that he might breathe easy, he said, "_A dying man can do nothing easy._" All orders and bodies of people have vied with each other in paying tributes of respect to his memory. A Philadelphia friend, for whom Franklin entertained a peculiar affection, was John Bartram, the botanist. "Our celebrated Botanist of Pennsylvania," Franklin deservedly terms him in a letter to Jan Ingenhousz. In one letter Franklin addresses him as "My ever dear friend," in another as "My good and dear old friend" and in another as "My dear good old friend." In 1751, Bartram published his _Observations on the Inhabitants, Climate, Soil, Rivers, Productions, Animals, and other Matters worthy of Notice. Made by Mr. John Bartram in his Travels from Pensilvania to Onondaga, Oswego, and the Lake Ontario, in Canada_, and, in a letter to Jared Eliot, Franklin, after mentioning the fact that Bartram corresponded with several of the great naturalists in Europe, and would be proud of an acquaintance with him, said: "I make no Apologies for introducing him to you; for, tho' a plain illiterate Man, you will find he has Merit." "He is a Man of no Letters, but a curious Observer of Nature," was his statement in a subsequent letter to the same correspondent. Through the mediation of Franklin, Bartram was made the American botanist to the King, and given a pension for the fearless and tireless search for botanical specimens, which he had prosecuted, when American forest, savannah and everglade were as full of death as the berry of the nightshade. It was the thought of what he had hazarded that led Franklin to write to him in 1769: "I wish you would now decline your long and dangerous peregrinations in search of new plants, and remain safe and quiet at home, employing your leisure hours in a work that is much wanted, and which no one besides is so capable of performing; I mean the writing a Natural History of our country." The pension meant so much to Bartram that he found difficulty in assuring himself that it would last. In one letter, Franklin tells him that he imagines that there is no doubt but the King's bounty to him would be continued, but he must continue on his part to send over now and then a few such curious seeds as he could procure to keep up his claim. In another letter, he tells him that there is no instance in the then King's reign of a pension once granted ever being taken away, unless for some great offence. Franklin himself was first of all a sower of seed, of that seed which produces the wholesome plants of benevolence and utility; so it seems quite in keeping to find him, when he was absent from America, maintaining a constant interchange of different sorts of seed with Bartram. If Bartram chooses to try the seed of naked oats and Swiss barley, six rows to one ear, he can get some, Franklin writes, by calling on Mrs. Franklin. In another letter, he acknowledges the receipt of seeds from Bartram, and, in return for it, sends him some of the true rhubarb seed which he desires; also some green dry peas, highly esteemed in England as the best for making pea soup; and also some caravances or beans, of which a cheese was made in China. Strangely enough, he could learn nothing about the seed of the lucerne or alfalfa plant, one of the oldest of forage plants, for which Bartram wrote. Later, he sends Bartram a small box of upland rice, brought from Cochin China, and also a few seeds of the Chinese tallow tree. Another particular friend of Franklin was John Hughes of Philadelphia. This is the Hughes, out of whose debt as a correspondent Franklin, when in England, found it impossible to keep. He was a man of considerable political importance, for he served on the Committee of the Assembly, which was charged with the expenditure of the £60,000 appropriated by the Assembly, after Braddock's defeat, mainly for the defence of the Province, and on the Committee of the Assembly, which audited Franklin's accounts after his return from England in 1762; and was also one of the delegates appointed by the Assembly to confer with Teedyuscung, the King of the Delawares, at Easton in 1756. Even when Franklin, his party associate, was defeated as a candidate for re-election to the Assembly in 1764, Hughes contrived to clamber back into his own seat. The departure for England of Franklin, shortly after this election, was the signal for the most venomous of all the attacks made upon him by the class of writers which he happily termed "bug-writers"; that is, writers, to use his words, who resemble "those little dirty stinking insects, that attack us only in the dark, disturb our Repose, molesting and wounding us, while our Sweat and Blood are contributing to their Subsistence." But the friendship of Hughes was equal to the emergency. Incensed at the outrageous nature of the attack, he published a card over his signature, in which he promised that, if Chief Justice Allen, or any gentleman of character, would undertake to justify the charges against Franklin, he would pay £10 to the Hospital for every one of these charges that was established; provided that the person, who made them, would pay £5 for every false accusation against Franklin that he disproved. The assailants endeavored to turn Hughes' challenge into ridicule by an anonymous reply, but Hughes rejoined with a counter-reply above his own signature, in which, according to William Franklin, he lashed them very severely for their baseness. This brought on a newspaper controversy, which did not end, until Chief Justice Allen, who was drawn into its vortex, was enraged to find that it had cost him £25. Later, the recommendation of Hughes by Franklin, as the Stamp Distributor for Pennsylvania and the Counties of New Castle, Kent and Sussex, gave the worst shock to the popularity of the latter that it ever received. The fierce heat that colonial resentment kindled under the hateful office proved too much for even such a resolute incumbent as Hughes, but he was not long in finding a compensation in the somewhat lower temperature of the office of Collector of Customs for the Colonies, which he held until his death. Thomas Hopkinson, of Philadelphia, too, was one of Franklin's particular friends. He shared his enthusiasm for electrical experiments, and was the first President of the Philosophical Society established by him. With his usual generosity, Franklin took pains in a note to one of his scientific papers to publish the fact that the power of points to _throw off_ the electrical fire was first communicated to him by this friend, then deceased. Nor did he stop there, but referred to him at the same time as a man "whose virtue and integrity, in every station of life, public and private, will ever make his Memory dear to those who knew him, and knew how to value him." There is an amusing reference to Hopkinson in the _Autobiography_ in connection with the occasion on which Franklin himself was so transported by Whitefield's eloquence as to empty his pockets, gold and all, into the collector's dish. Disapproving of Whitefield's desire to establish an orphan asylum in Georgia, and suspecting that subscriptions would be solicited by him for that object, and yet distrusting his own capacity to resist a preacher, by whom, in the language of Isaiah, the hearts of the people were stirred, as the trees of the wood are stirred with the wind, he took the precaution of emptying his pockets before he left home. But Whitefield's pathos was too much for him also. Towards the conclusion of the discourse, he felt a strong desire to give, and applied to a Quaker neighbor, who stood near him, to borrow some money for the purpose. The application was unfortunately made, the _Autobiography_ says, to perhaps the only man in the company who had the firmness not to be affected by the preacher. His answer was, "_At any other time, Friend Hopkinson, I would lend to thee freely; but not now, for thee seems to be out of thy right senses._" Anyone who enjoyed Franklin's friendship experienced very little difficulty in passing it on to his son at his death. Francis Hopkinson, the son of Thomas Hopkinson, and the author of _Hail Columbia_, is one example of this. Franklin's letters to him are marked by every indication of affection, and he bequeathed to him all his philosophical instruments in Philadelphia, and made him one of the executors of his will with Henry Hill, John Jay and Mr. Edward Duffield, of Benfield, in Philadelphia County. In doing so, with his happy faculty for such things he managed to pay a twofold compliment to both father and son in one breath. After expressing in a letter to Francis Hopkinson his pleasure that Hopkinson had been appointed to the honorable office of Treasurer of Loans, he added: "I think the Congress judg'd rightly in their Choice, and Exactness in accounts and scrupulous fidelity in matters of Trust are Qualities for which your father was eminent, and which I was persuaded was inherited by his Son when I took the liberty of naming him one of the Executors of my Will." Franklin even had a mild word of commendation for Hopkinson's political squibs, some of which, when on their way across the ocean to him, fell into the hands of the British along with Henry Laurens. The captors, it is safe to say, attached very different degrees of importance to the two prizes, and Hopkinson himself accepted the situation with the cheerful observation, "They are heartily welcome to any performance of mine in that way. I wish the dose was stronger and better for their sake." Several of the letters from Franklin to Francis Hopkinson bring out two of the most winning traits of the writer, his ability to find a sweet kernel under every rind however bitter, and his aversion to defamation, which led him to say truthfully on one occasion that between abusing and being abused he would rather be abused. As to the Friends and Enemies you just mention [he declared in one of them], I have hitherto, Thanks to God, had Plenty of the former kind; they have been my Treasure; and it has perhaps been of no Disadvantage to me, that I have had a few of the latter. They serve to put us upon correcting the Faults we have, and avoiding those we are in danger of having. They counteract the Mischief Flattery might do us, and their Malicious Attacks make our Friends more zealous in serving us, and promoting our Interest. At present, I do not know of more than two such Enemies that I enjoy, viz. Lee and Izard. I deserved the Enmity of the latter, because I might have avoided it by paying him a Compliment, which I neglected. That of the former I owe to the People of France, who happen'd to respect me too much and him too little; which I could bear, and he could not. They are unhappy, that they cannot make everybody hate me as much as they do; and I should be so, if my Friends did not love me much more than those Gentlemen can possibly love one another. Every ugly witch is but a transfigured princess. This idea is one that was readily adopted by Franklin's amiable philosophy of life. The thought that enemies are but wholesome mortifications for the pride of human flesh is a thought that he often throws out in his letters to other persons besides Hopkinson. In one to the gallant Col. Henry Bouquet, who was also, it may be said in passing, a warm friend of Franklin, the pen of the latter halts for a moment to parenthesize the fact that God had blessed him with two or three enemies to keep him in order. But there were few facts in which Franklin found more satisfaction than the fact that all his enemies were mere political enemies, that is to say, enemies like Dr. William Smith, who shot poisoned arrows at him, when he was living, and fired minute guns over his grave, when he was dead. You know [he wrote to his daughter Sally from Reedy Island, when he was leaving America on his second mission to England], I have many enemies, all indeed on the public account (for I cannot recollect that I have in a private capacity given just cause of offence to any one whatever), yet they are enemies, and very bitter ones; and you must expect their enmity will extend in some degree to you, so that your slightest indiscretions will be magnified into crimes, in order the more sensibly to wound and afflict me. The same distinction between personal and political hostility is drawn by him in a letter to John Jay of a much later date in which he uses the only terms of self-approval, so far as we can recollect, that a biographer might prefer him never to have employed. I have [he said], as you observe, some enemies in England, but they are my enemies as an _American_; I have also two or three in America; who are my enemies as a _Minister_; but I thank God there are not in the whole world any who are my Enemies as a _Man_; for by his grace, thro' a long life, I have been enabled so to conduct myself, that there does not exist a human Being who can justly say, "Ben. Franklin has wrong'd me." This, my friend, is in old age a comfortable Reflection. In one of the letters to Hopkinson, mentioned by us, he tells Hopkinson that he does well to refrain from newspaper abuse. He was afraid, he declared, to lend any American newspapers in France until he had examined and laid aside such as would disgrace his countrymen, and subject them among strangers to a reflection like that used by a gentleman in a coffee-house to two quarrelers, who, after a mutually free use of the words, _rogue_, _villain_, _rascal_, _scoundrel_, etc., seemed as if they would refer their dispute to him. "I know nothing of you, or your Affair," said he; "I only perceive _that you know one another_." The conductor of a newspaper, he thought, should consider himself as in some degree the guardian of his country's reputation, and refuse to insert such writings as might hurt it. If people will print their abuses of one another, let them do it in little pamphlets, and distribute them where they think proper, instead of troubling all the world with them, he suggested. In expressing these sentiments, Franklin was but preaching what he had actually practised in the management of the _Pennsylvania Gazette_. This fact imparts additional authority to the pungent observations on the liberty of the press contained in one of the last papers that he ever wrote, namely, his _Account of the Supreme Court of Judicature in Pennsylvania, viz.: the Court of the Press_. In this paper, he arraigns the license of the press in his half-serious, half-jocular fashion with undiminished vigor, and ends with the recommendation to the Legislature that, if the right of retaliation by the citizen was not to be left unregulated, it should take up the consideration of both liberties, that of the press and that of the cudgel, and by an explicit law mark their extent and limits. Doctor Cadwallader Evans of Philadelphia was also on a sufficiently affectionate footing with Franklin for the latter to speak of him as his "good old friend." When news of his death reached Franklin in London in 1773, the event awakened a train of reflection in his mind which led him to write to his son that, if he found himself on his return to America, as he feared he would do, a stranger among strangers, he would have to go back to his friends in England. Dr. Evans' idea of establishing a medical library at the Hospital was so grateful to Franklin's untiring public spirit that, as soon as he heard of it from Dr. Evans, he sent him at once the only medical book that he had, and took steps to solicit other donations of such books for the purpose in England. There are some instructive observations on political and medical subjects in his earlier letters to Dr. Evans, but his later ones are mainly given over to the movement for the production of silk in Pennsylvania in which Dr. Evans was deeply interested. The industry, intelligence and enthusiasm with which Franklin seconded his efforts to make the exotic nursling a success is one of the many laudable things in his career. Another close friend of Franklin was Abel James, a Quaker, and an active member of the society in Pennsylvania for the manufacture of silk, or the Filature, as it was called. When he returned to England in 1764, Abel James, Thomas Wharton and Joseph Galloway were the friends who were so loath to part with him that they even boarded his ship at Chester, and accompanied him as far as New Castle. The enduring claim of James upon the attention of posterity consists in the fact that he was so lucky, when the books and papers, entrusted by Franklin to the care of Joseph Galloway were raided, as to recover the manuscript of the first twenty-three pages of the _Autobiography_, which brought the life of Franklin down to the year 1730. Subsequently he sent a copy to "his dear and honored friend," with a letter urging him to complete the work. "What will the world say," he asked, "if kind, humane and benevolent Ben. Franklin should leave his friends and the world deprived of so pleasing and profitable a work; a work which would be useful and entertaining not only to a few, but to millions?" The names of Thomas Wharton and Samuel Wharton, two Philadelphia friends of Franklin, are more than once coupled together in Franklin's letters. Thomas Wharton was a partner of Galloway and Goddard in the establishment of the _Philadelphia Chronicle_. It was his woollen gown that Franklin found such a comfortable companion on his winter voyage. He would seem to have been the same kind of robust invalid as the neurasthenic who insisted that he was dying of consumption until he grew so stout that he had to refer his imaginary ill-health to dropsy. Our friend W---- [Franklin wrote to Dr. Evans], who is always complaining of a constant fever, looks nevertheless fresh and jolly, and does not fall away in the least. He was saying the other day at Richmond, (where we were together dining with Governor Pownall) that he had been pestered with a fever almost continually for these three years past, and that it gave way to no medicines, all he had taken, advised by different physicians, having never any effect towards removing it. On which I asked him, if it was not now time to inquire, whether he had really any fever at all. He is indeed the only instance I ever knew, of a man's growing fat upon a fever. It was with the assistance of Thomas Wharton that Thomas Livezy, a Pennsylvania Quaker, sent Franklin a dozen bottles of wine, made of the "small wild grape" of America, accompanied by a letter, which Franklin with his _penchant_ for good stories, must have enjoyed even more than the wine. Referring to the plan of converting the government of Pennsylvania from a Proprietary into a Royal one, Livezy wrote that, if it was true that there would be no change until the death of Thomas Penn, he did not know but that some people in the Province would be in the same condition as a German's wife in his neighborhood lately was "who said nobody could say she wished her husband dead, but said, she wished she could see how he would look when he was dead." "I honestly confess," Livezy went on to say, "I do not wish him (Penn) to die against his will, but, if he could be prevailed on to die for the good of the people, it might perhaps make his name as immortal as Samson's death did his, and gain him more applause here than all the acts which he has ever done in his life." The humor of Franklin's reply, if humor it can be termed, was more sardonic. The Partizans of the present [he said] may as you say flatter themselves that such Change will not take place, till the Proprietor's death, but I imagine he hardly thinks so himself. Anxiety and uneasiness are painted on his brow and the woman who would like to see how he would look when dead, need only look at him while living. With Samuel Wharton, Franklin was intimate enough to soothe his gout-ridden feet with a pair of "Gouty Shoes" given or lent to him by Wharton. This Wharton was with him one of the chief promoters of the Ohio settlement, of which the reader will learn more later, and the project was brought near enough to success by Franklin for his over-zealous friends to sow the seeds of what might have been a misunderstanding between him and Wharton, if Franklin had not been so healthy-minded, by claiming that the credit for the prospective success of the project would belong to Wharton rather than to Franklin. But, as Franklin said, many things happen between the cup and the lip, and enough happened in this case to make the issue a wholly vain one. Subsequently we know that Franklin in one letter asked John Paul Jones to remember him affectionately to Wharton and in another referred to Wharton as a "particular friend of his." His feelings, it is needless to say, underwent a decided change when later the fact was brought to his attention that Wharton had converted to his own use a sum of money placed in his hands by Jan Ingenhousz, one of the most highly-prized of all Franklin's friends. There is a thrust at Parliament in a letter from Franklin to Samuel Wharton, written at Passy, which is too keen not to be recalled. He is describing the Lord George Gordon riots, during which Lord Mansfield's house was destroyed. If they had done no other Mischief [said Franklin], I would have more easily excused them, as he has been an eminent Promoter of the American War, and it is not amiss that those who have approved the Burning our poor People's Houses and Towns should taste a little of the Effects of Fire themselves. But they turn'd all the Thieves and Robbers out of Newgate to the Number of three hundred, and instead of replacing them with an equal Number of other Plunderers of the Publick, which they might easily have found among the Members of Parliament, they burnt the Building. The relations between Franklin and Ebenezer Kinnersley, who shared his enthusiasm for electrical experiments, John Foxcroft, who became his colleague, as Deputy Postmaster-General for America after the death of Colonel Hunter, and the Rev. Thomas Coombe, the assistant minister of Christ Church and St. Peter's in Philadelphia, were of an affectionate nature, but there is little of salient interest to be said about these relations. Malice has asserted that Franklin did not give Kinnersley due credit for ideas that he borrowed from him in his electrical experiments. If so, Kinnersley must have had a relish for harsh treatment, for in a letter to Franklin, when speaking of the lightning rod, he exclaimed, "May it extend to the latest posterity of mankind, and make the name of FRANKLIN like that of NEWTON _immortal_!" James Wright, and his sister, Susannah Wright, who resided at Hempfield, near Wright's Ferry, Pennsylvania, were likewise good friends of Franklin. Part at any rate of the flour, on which Braddock's army subsisted, was supplied by a mill erected by James Wright near the mouth of the Shawanese Run. Susannah Wright was a woman of parts, interested in silk culture, and fond of reading. On one occasion, Franklin sends her from Philadelphia a couple of pamphlets refuting the charges of plagiarism preferred by William Lauder against the memory of Milton and a book or tract entitled _Christianity not Founded on Argument_. On another occasion, in a letter from London to Deborah, he mentions, as part of the contents of a box that he was transmitting to America, some pamphlets for the Speaker and "Susy" Wright. Another gift to her was a specimen of a new kind of candles, "very convenient to read by." She would find, he said, that they afforded a clear white light, might be held in the hand even in hot weather without softening, did not make grease spots with their drops like those made by common candles, and lasted much longer, and needed little or no snuffing. A sentiment of cordial friendship also existed between Franklin and Anthony Benezet, a Philadelphia Quaker, born in France, who labored throughout his life with untiring zeal for the abolition of the Slave Trade. This trade, in the opinion of Franklin, not only disgraced the Colonies, but, without producing any equivalent benefit, was dangerous to their very existence. When actually engaged in business, as a printer, no less than two books, aimed at the abolition of Slavery, one by Ralph Sandyford, and the other by Benjamin Lay, both Quakers, were published by him. The fact that Sandyford's book was published before 1730 and Lay's as early as 1736, led Franklin to say in a letter to a friend in 1789, when the feeling against Slavery was much more widespread, that the headway, which it had obtained, was some confirmation of Lord Bacon's observation that a good motion never dies--the same reflection, by the way, with which he consoled himself when his abridgment of the Book of Common Prayer fell still-born. When Franklin took a friend to his bosom, it was usually, as he took Deborah, for life. But Joseph Galloway, one of his Philadelphia friends, was an exception to this rule. When Galloway decided to cast his lot with the Loyalists, after Franklin, in a feeling letter to him, had painted their "rising country" in auroral colors, Franklin simply let him lapse into the general mass of detested Tories. Previously, his letters to Galloway, while attended with but few personal details, had been of a character to indicate that he not only entertained a very high estimate of Galloway's abilities but cherished for him the warmest feeling of affection. Indeed, in assuring Galloway of this affection, he sometimes used a term as strong as "unalterable." When Galloway at the age of forty thought of retiring from public life, Franklin told him that it would be in his opinion something criminal to bury in private retirement so early all the usefulness of so much experience and such great abilities. Several years before he had written to Cadwallader Evans that he did not see that Galloway could be spared from the Assembly without great detriment to their affairs and to the general welfare of America. Among the most valuable of his letters, are his letters to Galloway on political conditions in England when the latter was the Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly. In one he expresses the hope that a few months would bring them together, and hazards the belief that, in the calm retirement of Trevose, Galloway's country place, they might perhaps spend some hours usefully in conversation over the proper constitution for the American Colonies. When Franklin learned from his son that hints had reached the latter that Galloway's friendship for Franklin had been chilled by the fear that he and Franklin would be rivals for the same office, Franklin replied by stating that, if this office would be agreeable to Galloway, he heartily wished it for him. No insinuations of the kind you mention [he said], concerning Mr. G.,--have reached me, and, if they had, it would have been without the least effect; as I have always had the strongest reliance on the steadiness of his friendship, and on the best grounds, the knowledge I have of his integrity, and the often repeated disinterested services he has rendered me. In another letter to his son, he said, "I cast my eye over Goddard's Piece against our friend Mr. Galloway, and then lit my Fire with it." The shadow of the approaching cloud is first noticed in a letter to Galloway in 1775, in which Franklin asks him for permission to hint to him that it was whispered in London by ministerial people that he and Mr. Jay of New York were friends to their measures, and gave them private intelligence of the views of the Popular Party. While at Passy, Franklin informed the Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs that General and Lord Howe, Generals Cornwallis and Grey and other British officers had formally given it as their opinion in Parliament that the conquest of America was impracticable, and that Galloway and other American Loyalists were to be examined that week to prove the contrary. "One would think the first Set were likely to be the best Judges," he adds with acidulous brevity. Later on, he did not dispose of Galloway so concisely. In a letter to Richard Bache, after suggesting that some of his missing letter books might be recovered by inquiry in the vicinity of Galloway's country seat, he says, smarting partly under the loss of his letter books, and partly under the deception that Galloway had practised upon him: I should not have left them in his Hands, if he had not deceiv'd me, by saying, that, though he was before otherwise inclin'd, yet that, since the King had declar'd us out of his Protection, and the Parliament by an Act had made our Properties Plunder, he would go as far in the Defence of his Country as any man; and accordingly he had lately with Pleasure given Colours to a Regiment of Militia, and an Entertainment to 400 of them before his House. I thought he was become a stanch Friend to the glorious Cause. I was mistaken. As he was a Friend of my Son's, to whom in my Will I had Left all my Books and Papers, I made him one of my Executors, and put the Trunk of Papers into his Hands, imagining them safer in his House (which was out of the way of any probable March of the enemies' Troops) than in my own. The correspondence between Franklin and Galloway is enlivened by only a single gleam of Franklin's humor. This was kindled by the protracted uncertainty which attended the application of his associates and himself to the British Crown for the Ohio grant. The Affair of the Grant [Franklin wrote to Galloway] goes on but slowly. I do not yet clearly see Land. I begin to be a little of the Sailor's Mind when they were handing a Cable out of a Store into a Ship, and one of 'em said: "Tis a long, heavy Cable. I wish we could see the End of it." "D--n me," says another, "if I believe it has any End; somebody has cut it off."[33] James Logan, the accomplished Quaker scholar, David Hall, Franklin's business partner, and Charles Thomson, the Secretary of Congress, were other residents of Pennsylvania, with whom Franklin was connected by ties of friendship, and we shall have occasion to speak of them again when we come to his business and political career. "You will give an old man leave to say, My Love to Mrs. Thompson," was a closing sentence in one of his letters to Charles Thomson. David Rittenhouse, of Philadelphia, the celebrated astronomer was also a dear friend of his. Of his New York friends, John Jay was the one, of whom he was fondest, and this friendship included the whole of Jay's family. In a letter from Passy to Jay, shortly after Jay arrived at Madrid, as our minister plenipotentiary to Spain, he tells him that he sends for Mrs. Jay at her request a print of himself. The Verses at the bottom [he wrote] are truly extravagant. But you must know, that the Desire of pleasing, by a perpetual rise of Compliments in this polite Nation, has so us'd up all the common Expressions of Approbation, that they are become flat and insipid, and to use them almost implies Censure. Hence Musick, that formerly might be sufficiently prais'd when it was called _bonne_, to go a little farther they call'd it _excellente_, _then superbe_, _magnifique_, _exquise_, céleste, all which being in their turns worn out, there only remains _divine_; and, when that is grown as insignificant as its Predecessors, I think they must return to common Speech and common Sense; as from vying with one another in fine and costly Paintings on their Coaches, since I first knew the Country, not being able to go farther in that Way, they have returned lately to plain Carriages, painted without Arms or Figures, in one uniform Colour. In a subsequent letter, Franklin informs Jay that, through the assistance of the French Court, he is in a position to honor the drafts of Jay to the extent of $25,000. "If you find any Inclination to hug me for the good News of this Letter," he concluded, "I constitute and appoint Mrs. Jay my Attorney, to receive in my Behalf your embraces." Afterwards Jay was appointed one of our Commissioners to negotiate the treaty of peace with Great Britain, and he and his family settled down under the same roof with Franklin at Passy. The result was a mutual feeling of attachment, so strong that when Jay returned to America Franklin could write to him of a kind letter that he had received from him: "It gave me Pleasure on two Accounts; as it inform'd me of the public Welfare, and that of your, I may almost say _our_ dear little Family; for, since I had the Pleasure of their being with me in the same House, I have ever felt a tender Affection for them, equal I believe to that of most Fathers." In other letters to Jay, there are repeated references by Franklin to the child of Jay mentioned above whose singular attachment to him, he said, he would always remember. "Embrace my little Friend for me," he wrote to Jay and his wife, when he was wishing them a prosperous return voyage to America, and, in a later letter, after his own return to America, to the same pair, he said he was so well as to think it possible that he might once more have the pleasure of seeing them both at New York, with his dear young friend, who, he hoped, might not have quite forgotten him. Beyond the Harlem River, his friends were only less numerous than they were in Pennsylvania. Among the most conspicuous were Josiah Quincy, John Winthrop, Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Harvard College, and Dr. Samuel Cooper, the celebrated clergyman and patriot. We mention these three Boston friends of his first because they were feelingly grouped in a letter that he wrote to James Bowdoin, another valued Boston friend of his, towards the close of his life. In this letter, he tells Bowdoin that it had given him great pleasure to receive his kind letter, as it proved that all his friends in Boston were not estranged from him by the malevolent misrepresentations of his conduct that had been circulated there, but that one of the most esteemed still retained a regard for him. "Indeed," Franklin said, "you are now almost the only one left me by nature; Death having, since we were last together, depriv'd me of my dear Cooper, Winthrop, and Quincy." Winthrop, he had said, in an earlier letter to Dr. Cooper, was one of the old friends for the sake of whose society he wished to return from France and spend the small remnant of his days in New England. The friendship between Quincy and Franklin began when Franklin was a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, and had its origin in the sum of ten thousand pounds, which Quincy, as the agent of the Colony of Massachusetts, obtained through the assistance of Franklin from the Colony of Pennsylvania for the military needs of the former colony. Quincy, Franklin said in the _Autobiography_, returned thanks to the Assembly in a handsome memorial, went home highly pleased with the success of his embassy, and ever after bore for him the most cordial and affectionate friendship. For Quincy's highly promising son, Josiah, who died at sea at the early age of thirty-five, Franklin formed a warm regard when Josiah came over to London during the second mission of Franklin to England. To the father he wrote of the son in terms that were doubtless deeply gratifying to him, and, in a letter to James Bowdoin, he said: "I am much pleased with Mr. Quincy. It is a thousand pities his strength of body is not equal to his strength of mind. His zeal for the public, like that of David for God's house, will, I fear, eat him up." Later, when the younger Quincy's zeal had actually consumed him, Franklin wrote to the elder Quincy: The epitaph on my dear and much esteemed young Friend, is too well written to be capable of Improvement by any Corrections of mine. Your Moderation appears in it, since the natural affection of a Parent has not induced you to exaggerate his Virtues. I shall always mourn his Loss with you; a Loss not easily made up to his Country. And then, referring to some of the falsehoods in circulation about his own conduct as Commissioner, he exclaimed: "How differently constituted was his noble and generous Mind from that of the miserable Calumniators you mention! Having Plenty of Merit in himself, he was not jealous of the Appearance of Merit in others, but did Justice to their Characters with as much Pleasure as these People do Injury." When he sat down at Saratoga to write to a few friends by way of farewell, fearing that the mission to Canada at his time of life would prove too much for him, Quincy was the first of his New England friends to whom he sent an adieu. To Dr. Samuel Cooper, Franklin wrote some of the most valuable of all his political letters, but the correspondence between them is marked by few details of a personal or social nature. It was upon the recommendation of Franklin that the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon Cooper by the University of Edinburgh. "The Part I took in the Application for your Degree," he wrote to Dr. Cooper, "was merely doing justice to Merit, which is the Duty of an honest Man whenever he has the Opportunity." That Dr. Cooper was duly grateful, we may infer, among other things, from a letter in which Franklin tells his sister Jane that he is obliged to good Dr. Cooper for his prayers. That he was able to hold his own even with such a skilful dispenser of compliments as Franklin himself we may readily believe after reading the letter to Franklin in which he used these words: "You once told me in a letter, as you were going to France, the public had had the eating your flesh and seemed resolved to pick your bones--we all agree the nearer the bone the sweeter the meat." It was to Dr. Cooper that Franklin expressed the hope that America would never deserve the reproof administered to an enthusiastical knave in Pennsylvania, who, when asked by his creditor to give him a bond and pay him interest, replied: No, I cannot do that; I cannot in conscience either receive or pay Interest, it is against my Principle. You have then the Conscience of a Rogue, says the Creditor: You tell me it is against your Principle to pay Interest; and it being against your Interest to pay the Principal, I perceive you do not intend to pay me either one or t'other. The letters of Franklin to James Bowdoin are full of interest, but the interest is scientific. Another Boston friend of Franklin was Mather Byles. In a letter to him, Franklin expresses his pleasure at learning that the lives of Byles and his daughters had been protected by his "points," and his regret that electricity had not really proved what it was at first supposed to be--a cure for the palsy. It is however happy for you [Franklin said], that, when Old Age and that Malady have concurr'd to infeeble you, and to disable you for Writing, you have a Daughter at hand to nurse you with filial Attention, and to be your Secretary, of which I see she is very capable, by the Elegance and Correctness of her Writing in the Letter I am now answering. Other letters from Franklin to Byles have unhappily perished. This fact is brought to our knowledge by a letter from him to Elizabeth Partridge, which shows that even the famous letter to her, in which he spoke of the end of his brother as if he had gone off quietly from a party of pleasure in a sedan chair, led for a time a precarious existence. If this was the letter, he said, of which she desired a copy, he fancied that she might possibly find it in Boston, as Dr. Byles once wrote to him that many copies had been taken of it. Then follows this playful and characteristic touch. "I too, should have been glad to have seen that again, among others I had written to him and you. But you inform me they were eaten by the Mice. Poor little innocent Creatures, I am sorry they had no better Food. But since they like my Letters, here is another Treat for them." Another Massachusetts friend of Franklin was Samuel Danforth, the President of its Colonial Council. "It gave me great pleasure," Franklin wrote to this friend on one occasion, "to receive so chearful an Epistle from a Friend of half a Century's Standing, and to see him commencing Life anew in so valuable a Son." When this letter was written, Franklin was in his sixty-eighth year, but how far he was from being sated with the joy of living other passages in it clearly manifest. I hope [he said] for the great Pleasure of once more seeing and conversing with you: And tho' living-on in one's Children, as we both may do, is a good thing, I cannot but fancy it might be better to continue living ourselves at the same time. I rejoice, therefore, in your kind Intentions of including me in the Benefits of that inestimable Stone, which, curing all Diseases (even old Age itself) will enable us to see the future glorious state of our America, enjoying in full security her own Liberties, and offering in her Bosom a Participation of them to all the oppress'd of other Nations. I anticipate the jolly Conversation we and twenty more of our Friends may have 100 Years hence on this subject, over that well replenish'd Bowl at Cambridge Commencement. In Connecticut, too, Franklin had some highly prized friends. Among them were Jared Eliot, the grandson of Apostle Eliot, and the author of an essay upon _Field Husbandry in New England_, Ezra Stiles, President of Yale College, Dr. Samuel Johnson and Jared Ingersoll. The letters from Franklin to Eliot are a charming _mélange_ of what is now known as Popular Science and Agriculture. To Franklin there was philosophy even in the roasting of an egg, and for agriculture he had the partiality which no one, so close to all the pulsations of nature as he was, can fail to entertain. When he heard from his friend Mrs. Catherine Greene that her son Ray was "smart in the farming way," he wrote to her, "I think agriculture the most honourable of all employments, being the most independent. The farmer has no need of popular favour, nor the favour of the great; the success of his crops depending only on the blessing of God upon his honest industry." Franklin, of course, was writing before the day of the trust, the high protective tariff, the San José scale and the boll weevil. In one letter to Eliot he gossips delightfully upon such diverse topics as the price of linseed oil, the kind of land on which Pennsylvania hemp was raised, the recent weather, northeast storms, the origin of springs, sea-shell strata and import duties. Something is also said in the letter about grass seed, and it is curious to note that apparently Franklin was not aware that in parts of New England timothy has always been known as herd's-grass. And this reminds us that he repeatedly in his later life protested against the use in New England of the word "improve" in the sense of "employ" as a barbarous innovation, when in point of fact the word had been used in that sense in a lampoon in the _Courant_, when that lively sheet was being published under his youthful management. In another letter, written probably in the year 1749, Franklin tells Eliot that he had purchased some eighteen months before about three hundred acres of land near Burlington, and was resolved to improve it in the best and speediest manner. "My fortune, (thank God)," he said, "is such that I can enjoy all the necessaries and many of the Indulgences of Life; but I think that in Duty to my children I ought so to manage, that the profits of my Farm may Balance the loss my Income will Suffer by my retreat to it." He then proceeds to narrate to Eliot what he had done to secure this result; how he had scoured up the ditches and drains in one meadow, reduced it to an arable condition, and reaped a good crop of oat fodder from it, and how he had then immediately ploughed the meadow again and harrowed it, and sowed it with different kinds of grass seed. "Take the whole together," he said with decided satisfaction, "it is well-matted, and looks like a green corn-field." He next tells how he drained a round pond of twelve acres, and seeded the soil previously covered by it, too. Even in such modest operations as these the quick observation and precise standards of a man, who was perhaps first of all a man of science, are apparent. He noted that the red clover came up in four days and the herd's-grass in six days, that the herd's-grass was less sensitive to frost than the red clover, and that the thicker grass seed is sown the less injured by the frost the young grass is apt to be. By actual experiment, he found that a bushel of clean chaff of timothy or salem grass seed would yield five quarts of seed. In another letter to Eliot he has a word to say about the Schuyler copper mine in New Jersey (the only valuable copper mine in America that he knew of) which yielded good copper and turned out vast wealth to its owners. And then there is a ray from the splendor in which the lordly Schuylers lived in this bit of descriptive detail: Col. John Schuyler, one of the owners, has a deer park five miles round, fenced with cedar logs, five logs high, with blocks of wood between. It contains a variety of land, high and low, woodland and clear. There are a great many deer in it; and he expects in a few years to be able to kill two hundred head a year, which will be a very profitable thing. He has likewise six hundred acres of meadow, all within bank. The fact that Col. John Schuyler had six hundred acres of meadow land within bank was not lost on Eliot; for later Franklin writes to him again promising to obtain from Colonel Schuyler a particular account of the method pursued by him in improving this land. "In return," said Franklin, "(for you know there is no Trade without Returns) I request you to procure for me a particular Acct of the manner of making a new kind of Fence we saw at Southhold, on Long Island, which consists of a Bank and Hedge." With the exactitude of an experimental philosopher, he then details the precise particulars that he desired, disclosing in doing so the fact that Pennsylvania was beginning in many places to be at a loss for wood to fence with. This statement need not surprise the reader, for in his _Account of the New-Invented Pennsylvanian Fireplaces_, published some six years before, Franklin informs us that wood, at that time the common fuel, which could be formerly obtained at every man's door, had then to be fetched near one hundred miles to some towns, and made a very considerable article in the expense of families. From this same essay, we learn that it was deemed uncertain by Franklin whether "Pit-Coal" would ever be discovered in Pennsylvania! In another letter from Franklin to Eliot, along with some items about Peter Collinson, "a most benevolent, worthy man, very curious in botany and other branches of natural history, and fond of improvements in agriculture, &c.," Hugh Roberts' high opinion of Eliot's "Pieces," ditching, the Academy, barometers, thermometers and hygrometers, Franklin has some sprightly observations to make upon the love of praise. Rarely, we venture to say, have more winning arguments ever been urged for the reversal of the world's judgment upon any point. What you mention concerning the love of praise is indeed very true; it reigns more or less in every heart; though we are generally hypocrites, in that respect, and pretend to disregard praise, and our nice, modest ears are offended, forsooth, with what one of the ancients calls _the sweetest kind of music_. This hypocrisy is only a sacrifice to the pride of others, or to their envy; both which, I think, ought rather to be mortified. The same sacrifice we make, when we forbear to _praise ourselves_, which naturally we are all inclined to; and I suppose it was formerly the fashion, or Virgil, that courtly writer, would not have put a speech into the mouth of his hero, which now-a-days we should esteem so great an indecency; "Sum pius �neas ... ... famâ super æther a notus." One of the Romans, I forget who, justified speaking in his own praise by saying, _Every freeman had a right to speak what he thought of himself as well as of others_. That this is a natural inclination appears in that all children show it, and say freely, _I am a good boy; Am I not a good girl?_ and the like, till they have been frequently chid, and told their trumpeter is dead; and that it is unbecoming to sound their own praise, &c. But _naturam expellas furcâ, tamen usque recurret_. Being forbid to praise themselves, they learn instead of it to censure others; which is only a roundabout way of praising themselves; for condemning the conduct of another, in any particular, amounts to as much as saying, _I am so honest, or wise, or good, or prudent, that I could not do or approve of such an action_. This fondness for ourselves, rather than malevolence to others, I take to be the general source of censure and back biting; and I wish men had not been taught to dam up natural currents, to the overflowing and damage of their neighbour's grounds. * * * * * Another advantage, methinks, would arise from freely speaking our good thoughts of ourselves, viz. if we were wrong in them, somebody or other would readily set us right; but now, while we conceal so carefully our vain, erroneous self-opinions, we may carry them to our grave, for who would offer physic to a man that seems to be in health? And the privilege of recounting freely our own good actions might be an inducement to the doing of them, that we might be enabled to speak of them without being subject to be justly contradicted or charged with falsehood; whereas now, as we are not allowed to mention them, and it is an uncertainty whether others will take due notice of them or not, we are perhaps the more indifferent about them; so that, upon the whole, I wish the out-of-fashion practice of praising ourselves would, like other old fashions, come round into fashion again. But this I fear will not be in our time, so we must even be contented with what little praise we can get from one another. And I will endeavour to make you some amends for the trouble of reading this long scrawl, by telling you, that I have the sincerest esteem for you, as an ingenious man and a good one, which together make the valuable member of society. It is letters like this that cause us to feel that, if it were known that the lost letters of Franklin were somewhere still in existence, the world might well organize another company of Argonauts to find them. In a subsequent letter to Eliot, Franklin thanks him for his gift of Merino wool, and tells him that it was one Mr. Masters who made dung of leaves, and not Mr. Roberts. In the same letter, he takes occasion to let Eliot know that Peter Collinson has written to him that the worthy, learned and ingenious Mr. Jackson, who had been prevailed on to give some dissertations on the husbandry of Norfolk for the benefit of the Colonies, admired Eliot's agricultural tracts. In still another letter to Eliot, Franklin, true to the brief that he held for love of praise, writes to him in these terms of unreserved gratification: The _Tatler_ tells us of a Girl, who was observed to grow suddenly proud, and none cou'd guess the Reason, till it came to be known that she had got on a new Pair of Garters. Lest you should be puzzled to guess the Cause, when you observe any Thing of the kind in me, I think I will not hide my new Garters under my Petticoats, but take the Freedom to show them to you, in a paragraph of our friend Collinson's Letter, viz.--But I ought to mortify, and not indulge, this Vanity; I will not transcribe the Paragraph, yet I cannot forbear. He then transcribes the paragraph in which Collinson had informed him that the Grand Monarch of France had commanded the Abbé Mazeas to write a letter in the politest terms to the Royal Society, to return the King's thanks and compliments in an express manner to Mr. Franklin of Pennsylvania for his useful discoveries in electricity, and the application of pointed rods to prevent the terrible effect of thunderstorms. "I think, now I have stuck a Feather in thy Cap," ended Collinson, "I may be allowed to conclude in wishing thee long to wear it." On reconsidering this Paragraph [continued Franklin], I fear I have not so much Reason to be proud as the Girl had; for a Feather in the Cap is not so useful a Thing, or so serviceable to the Wearer, as a Pair of good silk Garters. The Pride of Man is very differently gratify'd; and, had his Majesty sent me a marshal's staff, I think I should scarce have been so proud of it, as I am of your Esteem. There were many principles of congeniality at work to cause Franklin to open his heart so familiarly to Eliot, but one of the most active doubtless was their common love of good stories. "I remember with Pleasure the cheerful Hours I enjoy'd last Winter in your Company," he wrote to Eliot, after his visit to New England in 1754, "and would with all my heart give any ten of the thick old Folios that stand on the Shelves before me, for a _little book_ of the Stories you then told with so much Propriety and Humor." We have already referred to the famous letter, in which, Franklin, a few weeks before his death, stated his religious creed with such unfaltering clearness and directness to Dr. Ezra Stiles, who had written to him, saying that he wished to know the opinion of his venerable friend concerning Jesus of Nazareth, and expressing the hope that he would not impute this to impertinence or improper curiosity in one, who, for so many years, had continued to love, estimate and reverence his abilities and literary character with an ardor and affection bordering on adoration. In his reply, Franklin declared that he had never before been questioned upon religion, and he asked Dr. Stiles not to publish what he had written. I have ever [he said] let others enjoy their religious Sentiments, without reflecting on them for those that appeared to me unsupportable and even absurd. All Sects here, and we have a great Variety, have experienced my good will in assisting them with Subscriptions for building their new Places of Worship; and, as I have never opposed any of their Doctrines, I hope to go out of the World in Peace with them all. This letter is so full of interest for the reader that it is to be regretted that Dr. Stiles did not oftener indulge the national weakness for asking questions before his aged correspondent went out of the world in peace with the sects, which most assuredly would have followed him with a shower of stones as thick as that which overwhelmed St. Stephen, if they had known that the discreet old philosopher, who contrived to keep on such comfortable working terms with every one of them, doubted all the while the divinity of our Lord. This letter also has a readable word to say in response to the honor that Dr. Stiles proposed to do Franklin by placing his portrait in the same room at Yale with that of Governor Yale, whom Franklin pronounced "a great and good man." Yale College, Franklin gratefully recalled, was the first learned society that took notice of him, and adorned him with its honors, though it was from the University of St. Andrews that he received the title which made him known to the world as "Dr. Franklin." Dr. Samuel Johnson has been termed "the venerable father of the Episcopal Church of Connecticut and the apostle of sound learning and elegant literature in New England," and it is not surprising that Franklin should have strained his dialectical skill almost to the point of casuistry in an effort to meet the various reasons which the Doctor gave him for his hesitation about accepting the headship of the Academy, such as his years, his fear of the small-pox, the politeness of Philadelphia and his imagined rusticity, his diffidence of his powers and his reluctance about drawing off parishioners from Dr. Jenney, the rector of Christ Church and St. Peters. As we have seen, even the multiplying effect of setting up more than one pigeon box against a house was ineffective to lure the apprehensive churchman to Philadelphia. In one of his letters to Dr. Johnson, the enthusiasm of Franklin over the Academy project endows his words with real nobility of utterance. I think with you [he said], that nothing is of more importance for the public weal, than to form and train up youth in wisdom and virtue. Wise and good men are, in my opinion, the _strength_ of a state far more so than riches or arms, which, under the management of Ignorance and Wickedness, often draw on destruction, instead of providing for the safety of a people. And though the culture bestowed on _many_ should be successful only with a _few_, yet the influence of those few and the service in their power may be very great. Even a single woman, that was wise, by her wisdom saved a city. I think also, that general virtue is more probably to be expected and obtained from the _education_ of youth, than from the _exhortation_ of adult persons; bad habits and vices of the mind being, like diseases of the body, more easily prevented than cured. I think, moreover, that talents for the education of youth are the gift of God; and that he on whom they are bestowed, whenever a way is opened for the use of them, is as strongly _called_ as if he heard a voice from heaven. Remarkable words these to fall from a man who, some two months later, in another letter to Dr. Johnson, modestly declared himself to be unfit to sketch out the idea of the English School for the Academy, having neither been educated himself (except as a tradesman) nor ever been concerned in educating others, he said. Nobody would imagine [said Dr. Johnson, after reading the sketch,] that the draught you have made for an English education was done by a Tradesman. But so it sometimes is, a true genius will not content itself without entering more or less into almost everything, and of mastering many things more in spite of fate itself. The friendship between Franklin and Jared Ingersoli is preserved in a single letter only, the one from which we have already quoted in which Franklin had his good-natured jest at the expense of the doleful New England Sunday. All of these friends were men, but in Catherine Ray, afterwards the wife of Governor William Greene of Rhode Island, and the mother of Ray Greene, one of the early United States Senators from that State, Franklin had a friend whose sex gave a different turn of sentiment and expression to his pen. His first letter to this young woman ("Dear Katy" is the way he addresses her) was written after his return to Philadelphia from a journey to New England in 1754. She then lived on Block Island, and, when he last saw her, she was fading out of sight on the ocean on her way to that island from the mainland. I thought too much was hazarded [he wrote], when I saw you put off to sea in that very little skiff, tossed by every wave. But the call was strong and just, a sick parent. I stood on the shore, and looked after you, till I could no longer distinguish you, even with my glass; then returned to your sister's, praying for your safe passage. These words are followed by the paragraph already quoted, in which Franklin acknowledged the affectionate hospitality of New England and the paragraph, already quoted, too, in which he spoke of his being restored to the arms of his good old wife and children. Persons subject to the _hyp_ [he continued] complain of the northeast wind, as increasing their malady. But since you promised to send me kisses in that wind, and I find you as good as your word, it is to me the gayest wind that blows, and gives me the best spirits. I write this during a northeast storm of snow, the greatest we have had this winter. Your favours come mixed with the snowy fleeces, which are as pure as your virgin innocence, white as your lovely bosom, and--as cold. But let it warm towards some worthy young man, and may Heaven bless you both with every kind of happiness. The letter concludes with these words: I desired Miss Anna Ward to send you over a little book I left with her, for your amusement in that lonely island. My respects to your good father, and mother, and sister. Let me often hear of your welfare, since it is not likely I shall ever again have the pleasure of seeing you. Accept mine, and my wife's sincere thanks for the many civilities I receiv'd from you and your relations; and do me the justice to believe me, dear girl, your affectionate, faithful, friend, and humble servant. This letter was dated March 4, 1755, and was in reply to one from Miss Ray which, though dated as far back as January of the same year, had just reached him. His next letter was dated September 11, 1755, not long after he rendered his unavailing services to Braddock, and was a reply to three other letters of hers of March 3, March 30 and May 1 of that year. It begins: "Begone, business, for an hour, at least, and let me chat a little with my Katy," and apologizes for his belated reply. Equal returns [he declares], I can never make, tho' I should write to you by every post; for the pleasure I receive from one of yours is more than you can have from two of mine. The small news, the domestic occurrences among our friends, the natural pictures you draw of persons, the sensible observations and reflections you make, and the easy, chatty manner in which you express everything, all contribute to heighten the pleasure; and the more as they remind me of those hours and miles, that we talked away so agreeably, even in a winter journey, a wrong road, and a soaking shower. In answer to Miss Ray's inquiry about his health, he tells her that he still relishes all the pleasures of life that a temperate man can in reason desire, and, through favor, has them all in his power. In answer to her question as to whether everybody loved him yet, and why he made them do so, he replied: I must confess (but don't you be jealous), that many more people love me now, than ever did before; for since I saw you I have been enabled to do some general services to the country, and to the army, for which both have thanked and praised me, and say they love me. They say so, as you used to do; and if I were to ask any favours of them, they would, perhaps, as readily refuse me; so that I find little real advantage in being beloved, but it pleases my humor.... I long to hear, [he says in another part of the same letter] whether you have continued ever since in that monastery (Block Island); or have broke into the world again, doing pretty mischief; how the lady Wards do, and how many of them are married, or about it; what is become of Mr. B---- and Mr. L----, and what the state of your heart is at this instant? But that, perhaps, I ought not to know; and, therefore, I will not conjure, as you sometimes say I do. If I could conjure, it should be to know what was that _oddest question about me that ever was thought_ of, which you tell me a lady had just sent to ask you. I commend your prudent resolutions, in the article of granting favours to lovers. But, if I were courting you, I could not hardly approve such conduct. I should even be malicious enough to say you were too _knowing_, and tell you the old story of the Girl and the Miller. I enclose you the songs you write for, and with them your Spanish letter with a translation. I honour that honest Spaniard for loving you. It showed the goodness of his taste and judgment. But you must forget him, and bless some worthy young Englishman. Then comes the reference to his Joan (Deborah) which we have quoted in another place. She sends her respectful compliments to Miss Ray, he states; and lastly in a postscript he gives Miss Ray this caution: "As to your spelling, don't let those laughing girls put you out of conceit with it. It is the best in the world, for every letter of it stands for something." The sincerity of this conviction he proved at least once on another occasion by himself spelling his Katy's first name with a C instead of a K. It is to be feared that Miss Ray was a lively flirt, and it is hard to read Franklin's frequent allusions to Deborah in his letters to her without suspecting that he found it necessary at times to use his wife just a little as a shield. The next letter from Franklin to Miss Ray is marked by the understrain of coarse license, which ran through his character, and was partly the note of his age, and partly the note of overflowing vital force. I hear you are now in Boston [he said], gay and lovely as usual. Let me give you some fatherly Advice. Kill no more Pigeons than you can eat--Be a good Girl and don't forget your Catechism.--Go constantly to Meeting--or church--till you get a good Husband,--then stay at home, & nurse the Children, and live like a Christian--Spend your spare Hours, in sober Whisk, Prayers, or learning to cypher--You must practise _addition_ to your Husband's Estate, by Industry & Frugality; _subtraction_ of all unnecessary Expenses; _Multiplication_ (I would gladly have taught you that myself, but you thought it was time enough, & wou'dn't learn) he will soon make you a Mistress of it. As to _Division_, I say with Brother Paul, _Let there be no Division among ye_. But as your good Sister Hubbard (my love to her) is well acquainted with _The Rule of Two_, I hope you will become an expert in the _Rule of Three_; that when I have again the pleasure of seeing you, I may find you like my Grape Vine, surrounded with Clusters, plump, juicy, blushing, pretty little rogues, like their Mama. Adieu. The Bell rings, and I must go among the Grave ones, and talk Politics. Passages like these are among the things which really tarnish the reputation of Franklin, and make us feel at times that, essentially admirable as he was, in some respects he was compounded of pipe, and not of porcelain, clay. The postscript to this letter, too, is flavored with the rude gallantry of the husking-bee. "The Plums," it said, "came safe, and were so sweet from the Cause you mentioned, that I could scarce taste the Sugar." But when Deputy-Postmaster Franklin next writes to Miss Ray it is with the light, playful grace of his best hours. Your Apology [he said] for being in Boston, "_that you must visit that Sister once a year_" makes me suspect you are here for some other Reason; for why should you think your being there would need an Excuse to me when you knew that I knew how dearly you lov'd that Sister? Don't offer to hide your Heart from me. You know I can conjure.--Give my best respects, to yr Sister, & tell her and all your other Sisters and Brothers, that they must behave very kindly to you, & love you dearly; or else I'll send a young Gentleman to steal & run away with you, who shall bring you to a Country from whence they shall never hear a word of you, without paying Postage. Mrs. Franklin joins in Love to you & sincere wishes for your welfare, with dear good Girl, your affectionate Friend. Some six months later, when Franklin is on the eve of leaving America on his first mission to England, he writes briefly to Miss Ray again, and tells her he cannot go without taking leave of his dear friend, and is ashamed of having allowed her last letter to remain unanswered so long. Present my best compliments [he adds] to your good mamma, brother and sister Ward, and all your other sisters, the agreeable Misses Ward, Dr. Babcock and family, the charitable Misses Stanton, and, in short, to all that love me. I should have said all that love you, but that would be giving you too much trouble. Adieu, dear good girl, and believe me ever your affectionate friend. On the return of Franklin from England, he resumed his correspondence with Miss Ray; but Miss Ray she was no longer, for the divination of the conjurer had not failed him, and she was then married to William Greene. In a letter to Mrs. Greene, dated January 23, 1763, this fact leads to another smutty joke on Franklin's part over the arithmetic of matrimony, the worse for being jestingly ascribed to Mrs. Franklin, who, he said, accepted Mrs. Greene's apology for dropping the correspondence with her, but hoped that it would be renewed when Mrs. Greene had more leisure. That the joke should be debited to the manners of the day fully as much as to Franklin himself, is made clear enough by the fact that it is immediately followed by the assurance that he would not fail to pay his respects to Mr., as well as Mrs., Greene when he came their way. "Please to make my Compliments acceptable to him," he added. The conclusion of this letter is in the former affectionate vein. "I think I am not much alter'd; at least my Esteem & Regard for my Katy (if I may still be permitted to call her so) is the same, and I believe will be unalterable whilst I am B. Franklin." That they did prove unalterable it is hardly necessary to say. Some twenty-six years after the date of this letter, Franklin writes to Mrs. Greene: "Among the felicities of my life I reckon your friendship, which I shall remember with pleasure as long as that life lasts." And, in the meantime, he had given Mrs. Greene the proof of affectionate interest which, of all others, perhaps, is most endearing in a friend; that is he had taken her children as well as herself to his heart. After a brief visit with Sally to the Greenes in 1763, he wrote to Mrs. Greene, "My Compliments too to Mr. Merchant and Miss Ward if they are still with you; and kiss the Babies for me. Sally says, & _for me too_." This letter ends, "With perfect Esteem & Regard, I am, Dear Katy (I can't yet alter my Stile to Madam) your affectionate friend." In another letter to Mrs. Greene, about a month later, he says, "My best respects to good Mr. Greene, Mrs. Ray, and love to your little ones. I am glad to hear they are well, and that your Celia goes alone." The last two letters mentioned by us were written from Boston. Franklin's next letter to Mrs. Greene was written from Philadelphia, condoles with her on the death of her mother, tells her that his dame sends her love to her with her thanks for the care that she had taken of her old man, and conveys his love to "the little dear creatures." "We are all glad to hear of Ray, for we all love him," he wrote to Mrs. Greene from Paris. In the same letter, he said, "I live here in great Respect, and dine every day with great folks; but I still long for home & for Repose; and should be happy to eat Indian Pudding in your Company & under your hospitable Roof." Hardly had he arrived in America on his return from France before he sent this affectionate message to Mrs. Greene and her husband: "I seize this first Opportunity of acquainting my dear Friends, that I have once more the great Happiness of being at home in my own Country, and with my Family, because I know it will give you Pleasure." As for Mrs. Greene, Jane Mecom informed him that, when she heard of his arrival, she was so overjoyed that her children thought she was afflicted with hysteria. The friendship which existed between Franklin and the Greenes also existed between them and his sister Jane, who was a welcome guest under their roof. "I pity my poor old Sister, to be so harassed & driven about by the enemy," he wrote to Mrs. Greene from Paris in 1778, "For I feel a little myself the Inconvenience of being driven about by my friends." FOOTNOTES: [29] The death of John Laurens in an obscure skirmish, almost at the very end of the Revolutionary War, after a brief career, distinguished by rare intellectual promise and daring valor is one of the most painful tragedies of that war. "He had not a fault that I could discover," Washington said of him, "unless it were intrepidity bordering on rashness." [30] It may be said of the fame of Washington in his own land, with something like approximate accuracy, that a file of wild geese winging its flight along the Atlantic Seaboard from Maine to the alluvial meadows of the Roanoke in Southern Virginia, is, for but brief periods only out of sight of some statue or monument erected in his honor by his grateful countrymen. The fame of Franklin in America is but little less strikingly attested. As long ago as 1864, Parton could say this of it: "As there are few counties in the Union which have not a town named Franklin, so there are few towns of any magnitude, which do not possess a Franklin Street, or a Franklin Square, a Franklin hotel, a Franklin bank, a Franklin fire-engine, a Franklin Lyceum, a Franklin lodge, or a Franklin charitable association. His bust and his portrait are only less universal than those of Washington, and most large cities contain something of the nature of a monument to Franklin." How little this fame has died down since these words were written was seen in the pomp and splendor with which the second centenary of the birth of Franklin was celebrated in the United States and France in 1906. [31] Another story of Franklin's told by Jefferson is good enough at any rate for a footnote. At parties at the French Court he sometimes had a game of chess with the old Duchess of Bourbon. Happening once to put her king into prize, he took it. "Ah," said she, "we do not take kings so." "We do in America," said he. [32] It may be said of Ralph that few names are surer of immortality than his, though not for the reasons upon which he founded his deceitful hopes. Between the _Autobiography_ and the _Dunciad_ he is, not unlike a mummy, preserved long beyond the date at which, in the ordinary course of things, he would have been overtaken by oblivion. This is one of the couplets that Pope bestowed upon him in the _Dunciad_: "Silence, ye Wolves! While Ralph to Cynthia howls, And makes night hideous--answer him, ye owls." The couplet was accompanied by a still more venomous sting in prose: "James Ralph, a name inserted after the first editions, not known till he writ a swearing-piece called _Sawney_, very abusive of Dr. Swift, Mr. Gay, and myself. These lines allude to a thing of his entitled _Night_, a poem. This low writer attended his own works with panegyrics in the Journals, and once in particular praised himself highly above Mr. Addison, in wretched remarks upon that author's account of English poets, printed in a London Journal, September, 1728. He was wholly illiterate and knew no language, not even French. Being advised to read the rules of dramatic poetry before he began a play, he smiled and replied 'Shakspeare writ without rules.' He ended at last in the common sink of all such writers, a political newspaper, to which he was recommended by his friend Arnal, and received a small pittance for pay; and being detected in writing on both sides on one and the same day, he publicly justified the morality of his conduct." Another couplet of the _Dunciad_ is this: "And see! the very Gazetteers give o'er, Ev'n Ralph repents, and Henley writes no more." [33] "The ship Ohio still aground," is the manner in which Franklin communicated on one occasion to Galloway the slow progress that the application for the Ohio grant was making. CHAPTER VI Franklin's British Friends In Great Britain, Franklin had almost as many friends as in America. During his missions to England, he resided at No. 7 Craven Street, London, the home of Mrs. Margaret Stevenson, a widow, and the mother of "Polly," whose filial relations to him constituted an idyll in his life. Into all the interests and feelings of this home, he entered almost as fully and sympathetically as he did into those of his own home in Philadelphia; as is charmingly attested by his Craven Street _Gazette_. Mrs. Stevenson looked after his clothing, attended to him when he was sick, and made the purchases from time to time that the commissions of Deborah and Jane Mecom called for. In one of his letters to Temple, written after his return from his second mission to England, Franklin mentions a long letter that he had received from her in the form of "a kind of Journal for a Month after our Departure, written on different Days, & of different Dates, acquainting me who has call'd, and what is done, with all the small News. In four or five Places, she sends her Love to her dear Boy, hopes he was not very sick at Sea, &c., &c." This journal doubtless set forth in a matter-of-fact way the daily life of the Craven Street household, which Franklin idealized with such captivating vivacity in the humorous pages of the Craven Street _Gazette_. At the Craven Street house, he and his son lived in great comfort, occupying four rooms, and waited upon by his man-servant, and Billy's negro attendant; and, when he moved about the streets of London, it was in a modest chariot of his own. Franklin's letters to Deborah frequently conveyed affectionate messages from Mrs. Stevenson and Polly to Deborah and her daughter Sally. Occasionally, too, presents of one kind or another from Mrs. Stevenson found their way across the Atlantic to Deborah and Sally. Altogether, the Craven Street house, if not a true home to Franklin in every sense of the word, was a cheerful semblance of one. A letter from Dr. Priestley to him, which he received shortly after his return from Canada, during the American Revolution, bears witness to the impression left by his amiable traits upon the memory of the good woman with whom he had resided so long. After telling Franklin that Franklin's old servant Fevre often mentioned him with affection and respect, Dr. Priestley added, "Mrs. Stevenson is much as usual. She can talk about nothing but you." The feeling was fully returned. It is always with great Pleasure [he wrote to her from Passy], when I think of our long continu'd Friendship, which had not the least Interruption in the Course of Twenty Years (some of the happiest of my Life), that I spent under your Roof and in your Company. If I do not write to you as often as I us'd to do, when I happen'd to be absent from you, it is owing partly to the present Difficulty of sure Communication, and partly to an Apprehension of some possible Inconvenience, that my Correspondence might occasion you. Be assured, my dear Friend, that my Regard, Esteem, and Affection for you, are not in the least impair'd or diminish'd; and that, if Circumstances would permit, nothing would afford me so much Satisfaction, as to be with you in the same House, and to experience again your faithful, tender Care, and Attention to my Interests, Health, and Comfortable Living, which so long and steadily attach'd me to you, and which I shall ever remember with Gratitude. And, when the news of Mrs. Stevenson's death was communicated to Franklin by her daughter, the retrospect of the last twenty-five years that it opened up to him framed itself into these tender words in his reply. During the greatest Part of the Time, I lived in the same House with my dear deceased Friend, your Mother; of course you and I saw and convers'd with each other much and often. It is to all our Honours, that in all that time we never had among us the smallest Misunderstanding. Our Friendship has been all clear Sunshine, without the least Cloud in its Hemisphere. Let me conclude by saying to you, what I have had too frequent Occasions to say to my other remaining old Friends, "The fewer we become, the more let us love one another." On the back of the last letter, dated July 24, 1782, that he received from Mrs. Stevenson, he indorsed this memorandum: "This good woman, my dear Friend, died the first of January following. She was about my Age." But the closest friendship that Franklin formed in England was with Mary, or Polly, Stevenson. To her, perhaps, the most delightful of all his familiar letters were written--letters so full of love and watchful interest as to suggest a father rather than a friend. It is not too much to say that they are distinguished by a purity and tenderness of feeling almost perfect, and by a combination of delicate humor and instructive wisdom to which it would be hard to find a parallel. The first of them bears date May 4, 1759, and the last bears date May 30, 1786. That the letters, some forty-six in number, are not more numerous even than they are is due to the fact that, during the period of their intercourse, the two friends were often under the same roof, or, when they were not, saw each other frequently. In his first letter, addressed to "My Dear Child," Franklin tells Polly, who was then about twenty years of age, that he had hoped for the pleasure of seeing her the day before at the Oratorio in the Foundling Hospital, but that, though he looked with all the eyes he had, not excepting even those he carried in his pocket, he could not find her. He had, however, he said, fixed that day se'nnight for a little journey into Essex, and would take Mrs. Stevenson with him as far as the home of Mrs. Tickell, Polly's aunt, at Wanstead, where Polly then was, and would call for Mrs. Stevenson there on his return. "Will," he says in a postscript, "did not see you in the Park." Will, of course, was his son. In the succeeding year, he writes to Polly that he embraces most gladly his dear friend's proposal of a subject for their future correspondence, though he fears that his necessary business and journeys, with the natural indolence of an old man, will make him too unpunctual a correspondent. But why will you [he asks], by the Cultivation of your Mind, make yourself still more amiable, and a more desirable Companion for a Man of Understanding, when you are determin'd, as I hear, to live single? If we enter, as you propose, into _moral_ as well as natural Philosophy, I fancy, when I have fully establish'd my Authority as a Tutor, I shall take upon me to lecture you a little on that Chapter of Duty. He then maps out a course of reading for her, to be conducted in such a manner as to furnish them with material for their letters. "Believe me ever, my dear good Girl," he concludes, "your affectionate Friend and Servant." With his next letter, he sends her a gift of books, and begs her to accept it, as a small mark of his esteem and friendship, and the gift is accompanied with more specific advice as to the manner in which she was to prosecute her studies, and obtain the benefit of his knowledge and counsel. When he writes again, his letter discloses the fact that a brisk interchange of ideas had been actually established between them. "'Tis a very sensible Question you ask," he says, "how the Air can affect the Barometer, when its Opening appears covered with Wood?" And her observation on what she had lately read concerning insects is very just and solid too, he remarks. The question he has no difficulty in answering, and the observation on insects leads to some agreeable statements about the silk-worm, the bee, the cochineal and the Spanish fly, and finally to an interesting account of the way in which the great Swedish naturalist, Linnæus had been successfully called in by his King to suggest some means of checking the ravages of the worm that was doing such injury to the Swedish ships. Nor was all this mellifluous information imparted without a timely caution. There is, however [he concluded], a prudent Moderation to be used in Studies of this kind. The Knowledge of Nature may be ornamental, and it may be useful; but if, to attain an Eminence in that, we neglect the Knowledge and Practice of essential Duties, we deserve Reprehension. For there is no Rank in Natural Knowledge of equal Dignity and Importance with that of being a good Parent, a good Child, a good Husband or Wife, a good Neighbour or Friend, a good Subject or Citizen, that is, in short, a good Christian. Nicholas Gimcrack, therefore, who neglected the Care of his Family, to Pursue Butterflies, was a just Object of Ridicule, and we must give him up as fair Game to the satyrist. A later letter is an amusing illustration of the manner in which he occasionally reminded his pupil that she must not take herself and Philosophy too seriously. Polly was at the time at the famous Wells of Bristol about which so much of the social pageantry of the eighteenth century centred. Your first Question, _What is the Reason the Water at this place, tho' cold at the Spring, becomes warm by Pumping?_ it will be most prudent in me to forbear attempting to answer [he said], till, by a more circumstantial account, you assure me of the Fact. I own I should expect that Operation to warm, not so much the Water pump'd, as the Person pumping. The Rubbing of dry Solids together has been long observ'd to produce Heat; but the like Effect has never yet, that I have heard, been produc'd by the mere Agitation of Fluids, or Friction of Fluids with Solids. He might have let the matter rest there but he did not. The occasion was too opportune a one to impress upon Polly the importance of not jumping at conclusions too quickly for him to refrain from borrowing an apt story from Selden about a young woman who, finding herself in the presence of some gentlemen, when they were examining what they called a Chinese shoe, and carrying on a dispute about it, put in her word, and said modestly, "Gentlemen, are you sure it is a Shoe? Should not that be settled first?" Then he passes to a highly edifying explanation of tidal movements in rivers, so simple that even a child, to say nothing of a bright-witted girl, could experience no difficulty in understanding it, and ends with the question: After writing 6 Folio Pages of Philosophy to a young Girl, is it necessary to finish such a Letter with a Compliment? Is not such a Letter of itself a Compliment? Does it not say, she has a Mind thirsty after Knowledge, and capable of receiving it; and that the most agreeable Things one can write to her are those that tend to the Improvement of her Understanding? With his next letter, he enclosed a paper containing his views on several points relating to the air and the evaporation of water, and informed Polly that he would shortly accompany her good mother again to Wanstead, when they could take a walk to some of Lord Tilney's ponds, and make a few experiments there that would explain the nature of tides more fully. "Adieu, my dear little Philosopher," he exclaims in another letter, after suggesting that thirsty unfortunates at sea might be greatly relieved by sitting in sea water, and declaring that wet clothes do not create colds, whatever damp may do. No one catches cold by bathing, he said, and no clothes can be wetter than water itself. In another letter, he makes some most readable observations upon the evaporation of rivers and the relations of colors to heat. The ignorant, he declared, suppose in some cases that a river loses itself by running underground, whereas in truth it has run up into the air. And, with reference to the interdependence of heat and color, he pursued this fresh train of ideas: What signifies Philosophy that does not apply to some Use? May we not learn from hence, that black Clothes are not so fit to wear in a hot Sunny Climate or Season, as white ones; because in such Cloaths the Body is more heated by the Sun when we walk abroad, and are at the same time heated by the Exercise, which double Heat is apt to bring on putrid dangerous Fevers? That Soldiers and Seamen, who must march and labour in the Sun, should, in the East or West Indies have an Uniform of white? That Summer Hats, for Men or Women, should be white, as repelling that Heat which gives Headaches to many, and to some the fatal Stroke that the French call the _Coup de Soleil_? That the Ladies' Summer Hats, however, should be lined with Black, as not reverberating on their Faces those Rays which are reflected upwards from the Earth or Water? That the putting a white Cap of Paper or Linnen _within_ the _Crown_ of a black Hat, as some do, will not keep out the Heat, tho' it would if placed _without_? That Fruit-Walls being black'd may receive so much Heat from the Sun in the Daytime, as to continue warm in some degree thro' the Night, and thereby preserve the Fruit from Frosts, or forward its Growth?--with sundry other particulars of less or greater Importance, that will occur from time to time to attentive Minds? Sometimes he exchanges language like this for such bantering questions as these: "Have you finish'd your Course of Philosophy? No more Doubts to be resolv'd? No more Questions to ask? If so, you may now be at full Leisure to improve yourself in Cards." Another letter, dated June 7, 1762, was written in contemplation of the fact that he was about to leave the Old World for the New. I fancy I feel a little like dying Saints [he said], who, in parting with those they love in this World, are only comforted with the Hope of more perfect Happiness in the next. I have, in America, Connections of the most engaging kind; and, happy as I have been in the Friendships here contracted, _those_ promise me greater and more lasting Felicity. But God only knows whether these Promises shall be fulfilled. Then came the letter written to her from a "wretched inn" at Portsmouth when he was on the point of embarking for America. It is none the less noteworthy because it reveals the fact that the thought of a marriage between Polly and his son had been a familiar one to him and her. It (the paper on which he wrote) [he said] will tell my Polly how much her Friend is afflicted, that he must, perhaps, never again, see one for whom he has so sincere an Affection, join'd to so perfect an Esteem; who he once flatter'd himself might become his own, in the tender Relation of a Child, but can now entertain such pleasing Hopes no more. Will it tell _how much_ he is afflicted? No, it can not. Adieu, my dearest Child. I will call you so. Why should I not call you so, since I love you with all the Tenderness, All the Fondness of a Father? Adieu. May the God of all Goodness shower down his choicest Blessings upon you, and make you infinitely Happier, than that Event could have made you. No wonder that the fatherless girl should have felt from the day that she received this letter until the day that she helped to assuage the pain of Franklin's last hours by her loving ministrations that the heart in which she was so deeply cherished was one of these blessings. A few months later, Franklin writes to her from America a long, communicative letter, valuable among other reasons for the evidence that it affords of the ready sympathy with which he had entered into her circle of youthful friendships. He tells her that he shares her grief over her separation from her old friend Miss Pitt; "Pitty," he calls her in another place in this letter when he sends his love to her. He congratulates her upon the recovery of her "dear Dolly's" health. This was Dorothea Blount to whom he repeatedly refers in his letters to her. "I love that dear good Girl myself, and I love her other Friends," he said. Polly's statement in the letter, to which his letter was a reply, that she had lately had the pleasure of spending three days with Doctor and Mrs. Hawkesworth at the house of John Stanley, all warm friends of his, elicits from him the exclamation, "It was a sweet Society!" These are but a few of the many details that make up this letter. Polly was one of the stimulating correspondents who brought out all that was best in Franklin's own intellectual resources, and the next time that he wrote to her from America he used this appreciative and grateful language. "The Ease, the Smoothness, the Purity of Diction, and Delicacy of Sentiment, that always appear in your Letters, never fail to delight me; but the tender filial Regard you constantly express for your old Friend is particularly engaging." In later letters to Polly, written after his return to England in 1764, there are other lively passages like those that animated his letters to her before his return to America. On one occasion he answers a letter from her in verse. A Muse, you must know, visited me this Morning! I see you are surpriz'd, as I was. I never saw one before. And shall never see another. So I took the Opportunity of her Help to put the Answer into Verse, because I was some Verse in your Debt ever since you sent me the last Pair of Garters. This letter is succeeded by a highly vivacious one from Paris where he enjoyed the honor of conversing with the King and Queen while they sat at meat. The latter letter is so full of sparkling fun that we cannot but regret that Franklin did not leave behind him equally detailed narratives of his travels in Germany and Holland, and over the face of Great Britain. All the way to Dover, he said, he was engaged in perpetual disputes with innkeepers, hostlers and postilions because he was prevented from seeing the country by the forward tilt of the hoods of the post-chaises in which he was driven; "they insisting that the Chaise leaning forward was an Ease to the Horses, and that the contrary would kill them." "I suppose the chaise leaning forward," he surmised, "looks to them like a Willingness to go forward, and that its hanging back shows a Reluctance." He concludes a humorous description of the seasickness of a number of green passengers between Dover and Calais, who made a hearty breakfast in the morning, before embarking, for fear that, if the wind should fail, they might not get over till supper time, with the remark, "So it seems there are Uncertainties, even beyond those between the Cup and the Lip." Impositions suffered by Franklin on the journey, the smooth highways of France, the contrast between the natural brunettes of Calais and Boulogne and the natural blondes of Abbéville, the Parisian complexions to which nature in every form was a total stranger, the _Grand Couvert_ where the Royal Family supped in public, the magnificence of Versailles and Paris, to which nothing was wanting but cleanliness and tidiness, the pure water and fine streets of Paris, French politeness, the paintings, the plays and operas of the gayest capital in the world all furnished topics for this delightful letter, composed in the high spirits born of rapid movement from one novel experience to another, and doubtless endued, when read, with the never failing charm that belongs to foreign scenes, scanned by the eyes of those we love. Franklin did not know which were the most rapacious, the English or the French boatmen or porters, but the latter had with their knavery, he thought, the most politeness. The only drawback about the roads in France, paved with smooth stone-like streets for many miles together, and flanked on each side with trees, was the labor which the peasants complained that they had to expend upon them for full two months in the year without pay. Whether this was truth, or whether, like Englishmen, they grumbled, cause or no cause, Franklin had not yet been able to fully inform himself. Passing over his speculations as to the origin of the fair complexions of the women of Abbéville, where wheels and looms were going in every house, we stop for a moment to reproduce this unsparing description of the manner in which the women of Paris exercised the art which has never been known to excite any form of approval except feminine self-approval. As to Rouge, they don't pretend to imitate Nature in laying it on. There is no gradual Diminution of the Colour, from the full Bloom in the Middle of the Cheek to the faint Tint near the Sides, nor does it show itself differently in different Faces. I have not had the Honour of being at any Lady's Toylette to see how it is laid on, but I fancy I can tell you how it is or may be done. Cut a hole of 3 Inches Diameter in a Piece of Paper; place it on the Side of your Face in such a Manner as that the Top of the Hole may be just under your Eye; then with a Brush dipt in the Colour, paint Face and Paper together; so when the Paper is taken off there will remain a round Patch of Red exactly the Form of the Hole. This is the Mode, from the Actresses on the Stage upwards thro' all Ranks of Ladies to the Princesses of the Blood, but it stops there, the Queen not using it, having in the Serenity, Complacence, and Benignity that shine so eminently in, or rather through her Countenance, sufficient Beauty, tho' now an old Woman, to do extreamly well without it. In picturing the royal supper, with its gold service and its _� boire pour le Roy_ and its _� boire pour la Reine_, Franklin even draws a sketch of the table so that Polly can see just where the King and Queen and Mesdames Adelaide, Victoria, Louise and Sophie sat, and just where Sir John Pringle and himself stood, when they were brought by an officer of the court to be talked to by the royal personages. This letter also contains what is perhaps the handsomest compliment ever paid to French politeness: "It seems to be a Point settled here universally, that Strangers are to be treated with Respect; and one has just the same Deference shewn one here by being a Stranger, as in England by being a Lady." The grave statement in this letter that travelling is one way of lengthening life, at least in appearance, is made the starting-point for the laughing statement that the writer himself had perhaps suffered a greater change in his own person than he could have done in six years at home. I had not been here Six Days [he declared] before my Taylor and Perruquier had transform'd me into a Frenchman. Only think what a Figure I make in a little Bag-Wig and naked Ears! They told me I was become 20 Years younger, and look'd very _galante_; So being in Paris where the Mode is to be sacredly follow'd I was once very near making Love to my Friend's Wife. The next words in the letter are also full of effervescing gaiety: "This Letter shall cost you a Shilling, and you may consider it cheap, when you reflect, that it has cost me at least 50 Guineas to get into the Situation, that enables me to write it. Besides, I might, if I had staied at home, have won perhaps two Shillings of you at Cribbidge." Among the best of his subsequent letters is the one--instinct with his usual wisdom and good feeling--in which he advises Polly to return to her aunt, Mrs. Tickell, as soon as a temporary separation was at an end, and continue by every means in her power, no matter how sorely tried by her aunt's infirmities, to make the remainder of the latter's days as comfortable as possible. Polly adopted the advice of this letter, and reaped her reward not only in the gratified sense of duty, upon which the letter laid such emphasis, but also in the fortune which she received upon the death of Mrs. Tickell. In 1770, she was married to Dr. William Hewson, a brilliant physician, who was prematurely cut off by surgical infection, leaving her the mother of three young children. It was probably of him that she wrote to Franklin from Margate in the year preceding her marriage with him that she had met with a very sensible physician the day before and would not have Franklin or her mother surprised if she should run off with this young man. To be sure, this would be an imprudent step at the discreet age of thirty; but there was no saying what one should do, if solicited by a man of an insinuating address and good person, though he might be too young for one, and not yet established in his profession. The letter began with a welcome to Franklin, who had just returned from the Continent, and he was quick to respond with a pleasantry to her communication about the young physician. There are certain circumstances in Life, sometimes [he said], wherein 'tis perhaps best not to hearken to Reason. For instance; possibly, if the Truth were known, I have Reason to be jealous of this same insinuating, handsome young Physician; but as it flatters more my Vanity, and therefore gives me more Pleasure, to suppose you were in Spirits on acct of my safe Return, I shall turn a deaf Ear to Reason in this Case, as I have done with Success in twenty others. In a subsequent letter, Franklin tells Polly that her mother has been complaining of her head more than ever before. If she stoops, or looks, or bends her Neck downwards, on any occasion, it is with great Pain and Difficulty, that she gets her Head up again. She has, therefore, borrowed a Breast and Neck Collar of Mrs. Wilkes, such as Misses wear, and now uses it to keep her Head up. Mr. Strahan has invited us all to dine there to-morrow, but she has excused herself. Will you come, and go with me? If you cannot well do that, you will at least be with us on Friday to go to Lady Strachans. His own head, he says, is better, owing, he is fully persuaded, to his extreme abstemiousness for some days past at home, but he is not without apprehensions that, being to dine abroad that day, the next day, and the day after, he may inadvertently bring it on again, if he does not think of his little monitor and guardian angel, and make use of the proper and very pertinent clause she proposes in his grace. This clause was doubtless suggested by his previous letter about the insinuating, handsome physician in which he had written to his little monitor that he had just come home from a venison feast, where he had drunk more than a philosopher ought. His next letter warily refrains from giving his flat approval to Dr. Hewson's proposal. His attitude towards Mrs. Greene's marriage had been equally cautious. He was probably of the opinion that, along with the other good advice, that finds its way to the moon, is not a little relating to nuptial engagements. The whole letter is stamped with the good sense and wholesome feeling which such situations never failed to evoke from him. I assure you [he said] that no Objection has occurr'd to me. His Person you see; his Temper and his Understanding you can judge of; his Character, for anything I have ever heard, is unblemished; his Profession, with the Skill in it he is suppos'd to have, will be sufficient to support a Family, and, therefore, considering the Fortune you have in your Hands (tho' any future Expectation from your Aunt should be disappointed) I do not see but that the Agreement may be a rational one on both sides. I see your Delicacy, and your Humility too; for you fancy that if you do not prove a great Fortune, you will not be lov'd; but I am sure that were I in his situation in every respect, knowing you so well as I do, and esteeming you so highly, I should think you a Fortune sufficient for me without a Shilling. Having thus expressed his concern, equal to any father's, he said, for her happiness, and dispelled the idea on her part that he did not favor the proposal, because he did not immediately advise its acceptance, he left, he concluded, the rest to her sound judgment, of which no one had a greater share, and would not be too inquisitive as to her particular reasons, doubts and fears. They were married only to share the bright vision of unclouded married happiness for some four years, and then to be separated by that tragic agency which few but Franklin have ever been able to invest with the peaceful radiance of declining day. A letter from Franklin to Mrs. Hewson, written shortly after the marriage, laughs as it were through its tears over the mournful plight in which Dolly and he have been left by her desertion, but it shows that he is beginning to get into touch with all the changes brought about by the new connection. We have already seen how fully his heart went out to his godson who sprang from the union. He has a word to say about him in another letter to Mrs. Hewson after a jest at the expense of Mrs. Stevenson's Jacobite prejudices. I thank you [he said] for your intelligence about my Godson. I believe you are sincere, when you say you think him as fine a Child as you wish to see. He had cut two Teeth, and three, in another Letter, make five; for I know you never write Tautologies. If I have over-reckoned, the Number will be right by this Time. His being like me in so many Particulars pleases me prodigiously; and I am persuaded there is another, which you have omitted, tho' it must have occurr'd to you while you were putting them down. Pray let him have everything he likes; I think it of great Consequence while the Features of the Countenance are forming; it gives them a pleasant Air, and, that being once become natural and fix'd by Habit, the Face is ever after the handsomer for it, and on that much of a Person's good Fortune and Success in Life may depend. Had I been cross'd as much in my Infant Likings and Inclinations as you know I have been of late Years, I should have been, I was going to say, not near so handsome; but as the Vanity of that Expression would offend other Folk's Vanity, I change it out of regard to them, and say, a great deal more homely. His next letter is written to Mrs. Hewson, then a widow, from Philadelphia, after his return from his second mission to England, and tells her that the times are not propitious for the emigration to America, which she was contemplating, but expresses the hope that they might all be happy together in Philadelphia a little later on. When he next writes, it is from Paris on January 12, 1777. "My Dear, Dear Polly," he begins, "Figure to yourself an old Man, with grey Hair Appearing under a Martin Fur Cap, among the Powder'd Heads of Paris. It is this odd Figure that salutes you, with handfuls of Blessings on you and your dear little ones." He had failed to bring about a union between Polly and his son, but, inveterate matchmaker that he was, this letter shows that he still had, as a grandfather, the designs on Eliza, Polly's daughter, that he had disclosed in his previous letter to Polly, when he expressed the hope that he might be alive to dance with Mrs. Stevenson at the wedding of Ben and this child. "I give him (Ben)," it said, with a French grimace between its lines, "a little French Language and Address, and then send him over to pay his Respects to Miss Hewson." In another letter, he tells Polly that, if she would take Ben under her care, as she had offered to do, he would set no bad example to her _other_ children. Two or three years later, he wrote to her from Philadelphia that Ben was finishing his studies at college, and would, he thought, make her a good son. Indeed a few days later he referred to Ben in another letter as "your son Ben." "Does my Godson," he asked in a letter from France to Mrs. Hewson, along with many affectionate inquiries about his "dear old Friend," Mrs. Stevenson, and other English friends of theirs, "remember anything of his Doctor Papa? I suppose not. Kiss the dear little Fellow for me; not forgetting the others. I long to see them and you." Then in a postscript he tells Mrs. Hewson that, at the ball in Nantes, Temple took notice that there were no heads less than five, and that there were a few seven lengths of the face above the forehead. "You know," he observes with the old sportive humor, "that those who have practis'd Drawing, as he has, attend more to Proportions, than People in common do." In another letter from Passy, he asks Mrs. Hewson whether Jacob Viny, who was in the wheel business, could not make up a coach with the latest useful improvements and bring them all over in it. In the same letter, he inserts a word to relieve Mrs. Stevenson of her anxiety about her swelled ankles which she attributed to the dropsy; and the paragraph ends with the words, "My tender Love to her." As Polly's children grew older, the references to them in Franklin's letters to the mother became more and more frequent and affectionate. You cannot be more pleas'd [he wrote to her from Passy], in talking about your Children, your Methods of Instructing them, and the Progress they make, than I am in hearing it, and in finding, that, instead of following the idle Amusements, which both your Fortune and the Custom of the Age might have led you into, your Delight and your Duty go together, by employing your Time in the Education of your Offspring. This is following Nature and Reason, instead of Fashion; than which nothing is more becoming the Character of a Woman of Sense and Virtue. Repeatedly Franklin sends little books to Mrs. Hewson's children, and on one occasion he sends two different French grammars, one of which, after the French master of her children had taken his choice, was to be given to his godson, as his New Year's gift, together with the two volumes of _Synonymes Françaises_. At one time before he left France, he thought of visiting Mrs. Hewson in England and asked her advice about doing so in the existing state of the British temper. When she counselled him against the journey, he wrote to her, "Come, my dear Friend, live with me while I stay here, and go with me, if I do go, to America." As the result of this invitation, Mrs. Hewson and her children spent the winter of 1784-85 with him at Passy, and his first letter to her, after she returned to England, bears indications in every line of the regret inspired by his loss of her society, after, to use his own words, he had passed a long winter in a manner that made it appear the shortest of any he ever spent. One of his peculiarities was to make a point of telling a friend anything of a pleasant nature that he had heard about him. Since her departure, M. LeVeillard in particular, he said, had told him at different times what indeed he knew long since, "_C'est une bien digne Femme, cette Madame Hewson, une très amable Femme._" The letter then terminates with the request that, when she prayed at church for all that travelled by land or sea, she would think of her ever affectionate friend, but starts up again in a postscript, in which he sends his love to William, Thomas and Eliza, Mrs. Hewson's children, and asks their mother to tell them that he missed their cheerful prattle. Temple being sick, and Benjamin at Paris, he had found it very _triste_ breakfasting alone, and sitting alone, and without any tea in the evening. "My love to every one of the Children," is his postscript to his next letter, in which, when he was on the eve of leaving France, he told Mrs. Hewson that he said nothing to persuade her to go with him or to follow him, because he knew that she did not usually act from persuasion, but judgment. In nothing was he wiser than in his reserve about giving advice when the persons to be advised were themselves in possession of all the facts of the case essential to a proper decision. When he touched at Southampton, Mrs. Hewson was not yet resolved to sever the ties that connected her with England, but subsequently she did come over with her children to Philadelphia, and made it her home for the rest of her life. The last letter but one that Franklin wrote to her before she sailed is among the most readable letters in the correspondence. Referring to three letters of hers, that had not reached him until nearly ten years after they were written, he said: This pacquet had been received by Mr. Bache, after my departure for France, lay dormant among his papers during all my absence, and has just now broke out upon me, _like words_, that had been, as somebody says, _congealed in northern air_. Therein I find all the pleasing little family history of your children; how William had begun to spell, overcoming, by strength of memory, all the difficulty occasioned by the common wretched alphabet, while you were convinced of the utility of our new one; how Tom, genius-like, struck out new paths, and, relinquishing the old names of the letters, called U _bell_ and P _bottle_; how Eliza began to grow jolly, that is, fat and handsome, resembling Aunt Rooke, whom I used to call _my lovely_. Together with all the _then_ news of Lady Blount's having produced at length a boy; of Dolly's being well, and of poor good Catherine's decease; of your affairs with Muir and Atkinson, and of their contract for feeding the fish in the channel; of the Vinys and their jaunt to Cambridge in the long carriage; of Dolly's journey to Wales with Mrs. Scott; of the Wilkeses, the Pearces, Elphinstones, &c.;--concluding with a kind of promise, that, as soon as the ministry and Congress agreed to make peace, I should have you with me in America. That peace has been some time made; but, alas! the promise is not yet fulfilled. Rarely, indeed, we imagine has one person, even though a father, or a husband, ever enveloped the life of another with such an atmosphere of pure, caressing, intimate sympathy and affection as surrounds these letters. Perhaps, our review of them would be incomplete, if we did not also recall the comments made by Franklin to Polly upon the death of her mother, and Polly's own comments upon the close of his life. The Departure of my dearest Friend [he wrote to Polly from Passy], which I learn from your last Letter, greatly affects me. To meet with her once more in this Life was one of the principal Motives of my proposing to visit England again, before my Return to America. The last Year carried off my Friends Dr. Pringle, and Dr. Fothergill, Lord Kaims, and Lord le Despencer. This has begun to take away the rest, and strikes the hardest. Thus the Ties I had to that Country, and indeed to the World in general, are loosened one by one, and I shall soon have no Attachment left to make me unwilling to follow. This is the description given by Mrs. Hewson of his last years after stating that during the two years that preceded his death he did not experience so much as two months of exemption from pain, yet never uttered one repining or peevish word. When the pain was not too violent to be amused, he employed himself with his books, his pen, or in conversation with his friends; and upon every occasion displayed the clearness of his intellect, and the cheerfulness of his temper. Even when the intervals from pain were so short, that his words were frequently interrupted, I have known him to hold a discourse in a sublime strain of piety. I never shall forget one day that I passed with our friend last summer (1789). I found him in bed in great agony; but, when that agony abated a little, I asked him if I should read to him. He said, "Yes," and the first book I met with was "Johnson's Lives of the Poets." I read the "Life of Watts," who was a favorite author with Dr. Franklin; and instead of lulling him to sleep, it roused him to a display of the powers of his memory and his reason. He repeated several of Watts's "Lyric Poems," and descanted upon their sublimity in a strain worthy of them and of their pious author. Sublime or not, it cannot be denied that the poems of Dr. Watts have been a staff of comfort and support to many a pilgrim on his way to the "fields of endless light where the saints and angels walk." Another very dear English friend of Franklin was William Strahan, King's Printer, the partner at one time of Thomas Cadell the Elder, and the publisher of Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_. The frequent references in Franklin's letters to him to Madeira wine would seem to indicate that, if it had been possible for such a temperate man as Franklin to have what is known as a boon companion, Strahan would have been he. On one occasion, Franklin writes to him that he has a great opinion of his wisdom (Madeira apart), on another, after twitting him good-humoredly with the restless condition of England, he observes: "You will say my _Advice_ 'smells of _Madeira_.' You are right. This foolish Letter is mere chitchat _between ourselves_ over the _second bottle_." The friendship between the two began before they had even seen each other. From writing to each other from time to time, in the course of business, about books and stationery, they finally came to feel as if they really knew each other, and to exchange familiar messages on that footing. In his earliest letter to Strahan, Franklin signs himself, "Your humble servant unknown," but, before he has even carried into execution the floating intention of going over to England, which, again and again, manifests itself in his letters to Strahan, his spouse is corresponding with Mrs. Strahan, and he has arranged a match between Sally and Master Billy, one of Strahan's sons. "My compliments to Mrs. Strahan, and to your promising son, perhaps one day mine," he wrote to Strahan several years before his first mission to England, "God send our children good and suitable matches, for I begin to feel a parents' cares in that respect, and fondly wish to see them well settled before I leave them." A little later, he has arranged the match so entirely to his satisfaction, and, as the event proved, to that of Strahan too, that he writes glibly to Strahan of William Strahan as "our son Billy" and of Sally as "our daughter Sally." The same letter foreshadows the mission to England that brought the two friends for the first time face to face. "Our Assembly," it said, "talk of sending me to England speedily. Then look out sharp, and if a fat old fellow should come to your printing-house and request a little smouting, depend upon it 'tis your affectionate friend and humble servant." The earlier cis-Atlantic letters of Franklin to Strahan are mainly letters of business over which we need not linger here; but they contain some paragraphs of general interest besides those relating to Sally and Master Billy. In one place, Franklin declares that he is glad that the Polybius, which he had ordered from Strahan, did not come; it was intended for his son, who was, when the order was given, in the army, and apparently bent on a military life, but that, as peace had cut off the prospect of advancement in that way, his son would apply himself to other business. In any event, Polybius would appear to have been a rather pedantic authority for the military operations of the American backwoods. The other business to which William Franklin had decided to apply himself was that of the profession, which, in the opinion of the general public, approximates most nearly to a state of warfare--the law, and, in the letters from Franklin to Strahan, William's altered plans are brought home to us in the form of orders for law books and the request that Strahan would have William entered as a student at the Inns of Court. These earlier letters also contain some piquant comments on colonial conditions. Such are the remarks prompted by Pope's sneer in the _Dunciad_ at the supposed popularity of the poetaster, Ward, in "ape-and-monkey climes." That Poet has many Admirers here, and the Reflection he somewhere casts on the Plantations as if they had a Relish for such Writers as Ward only, is injurious. Your Authors know but little of the Fame they have on this side of the Ocean. We are a kind of Posterity in respect to them. We read their Works with perfect impartiality, being at too great distance to be byassed by the Factions, Parties and Prejudices that prevail among you. We know nothing of their Personal Failings; the Blemishes in their Character never reaches (sic) us, and therefore the bright and amiable part strikes us with its full Force. They have never offended us or any of our Friends, and we have no competitions with them, therefore we praise and admire them without Restraint. Whatever Thomson writes send me a dozen copies of. I had read no poetry for several years, and almost lost the Relish of it, till I met with his Seasons. That charming Poet has brought more Tears of Pleasure into my Eyes than all I ever read before. I wish it were in my Power to return him any Part of the Joy he has given me. Many years later, some appreciative observations of the same critic on the poetry of Cowper were to make even that unhappy poet little less proud than the girl in the Tatler with the new pair of garters. The friendship, initiated by the early letters of Franklin to Strahan, ripened fast into the fullest and freest intimacy when Franklin went over to England in 1757. They were both printers, to begin with, and were both very social in their tastes. Strahan was besides no mean political _quid nunc_, and Franklin was all his life an active politician. So interesting were the reports that he made to Franklin at the latter's request on political conditions in England, after Franklin returned to America from his first mission to that country, that Franklin acknowledged his debt in these flattering terms: Your accounts are so clear, circumstantial, and complete, that tho' there is nothing too much, nothing is wanting to give us, as I imagine, a more perfect knowledge of your publick affairs than most people have that live among you. The characters of your speakers and actors are so admirably sketch'd, and their views so plainly opened, that we see and know everybody; they all become of our acquaintance. So excellent a manner of writing seems to me a superfluous gift to a mere printer. If you do not commence author for the benefit of mankind, you will certainly be found guilty hereafter of burying your talent. It is true that it will puzzle the Devil himself to find anything else to accuse you of, but remember he may make a great deal of that. If I were king (which may God in mercy to us all prevent) I should certainly make you the historiographer of my reign. There could be but one objection--I suspect you might be a little partial in my favor. "Straney" was the affectionate nickname by which Franklin addressed Strahan after he came into personal contact with him, and, as usual, the friendship that he formed for the head of the family drew all the other members of the family within its folds. His friendship was rarely, we believe, confined to one member of a family. That was the reason why, in one of his last letters to Mrs. Hewson, he could picture his condition in Philadelphia in these terms: "The companions of my youth are indeed almost all departed, but I find an agreeable society among their children and grandchildren." And so, in Franklin's relations with the Strahans, we find his affection taking in all the members of the household. "My dear Love to Mrs. Strahan," he says in a letter to Strahan from Philadelphia in 1762, "and bid her be well for all our sakes. Remember me affectionately to Rachey and my little Wife and to your promising Sons my young Friends Billy, George and Andrew." A similar message in another letter to Strahan is followed by the statement, "I hope to live to see George a Bishop," and, a few days afterwards, Franklin recurs to the subject in these terms: "Tell me whether George is to be a Church or Presbyterian parson. I know you are a Presbyterian yourself; but then I think you have more sense than to stick him into a priesthood that admits of no promotion. If he was a dull lad it might not be amiss, but George has parts, and ought to aim at a mitre." There are other repeated references in Franklin's letters to Strahan's daughter whom Franklin called his wife. "I rejoice to hear," he says in one of them, "that Mrs. Strahan is recovering; that your family in general is well, and that my little woman in particular is so, and has not forgot our tender connection." In a letter, which we have already quoted, after charging Strahan with not being as good-natured as he ought to be, he says, "I am glad, however that you have this fault; for a man without faults is a hateful creature. He puts all his friends out of countenance; but I love you exceedingly." As for Strahan, he loved Franklin so exceedingly that in his effort to bring Deborah over to England he did not stop short, as we have seen, of letting her know that, when she arrived, there would be a ready-made son-in-law to greet her. Indeed the idea of fixing Franklin in England appears to have been the darling project of his heart if we are to judge by the frequency with which Franklin had to oppose Deborah's fear of the sea to his importunity. More than once it must have appeared to him as if the eloquence on which he prided himself so greatly would bear down all difficulties. After Franklin in 1762 had been for two nights on board of the ship at Portsmouth which was to take him to America, but was kept in port by adverse winds, he wrote to Strahan: The Attraction of Reason is at present for the other side of the Water, but that of Inclination will be for this side. You know which usually prevails. I shall probably make but this one Vibration, and settle here forever. Nothing will prevent it, if I can, as I hope I can, prevail with Mrs. F. to accompany me. That, he said in a subsequent letter, would be the great difficulty. The next year, he even wrote to Strahan from America, after his journey of eleven hundred and forty miles on the American continent that year, that no friend could wish him more in England than he did himself, though, before he went, everything, in which he was concerned, must be so settled in America as to make another return to it unnecessary. But, in the course of his life, Franklin, with his sensibility to social attentions and freedom from provincial restrictions, professed his preference for so many parts of the world as a place of residence that statements of this kind should not be accepted too literally. In one of his letters to Strahan, before his return to England, on his second mission, there is a sly stroke that gives us additional insight into the intimate relations which the two men had contracted with each other. You tell me [Franklin said] that the value I set on your political letters is a strong proof that my judgment is on the decline. People seldom have friends kind enough to tell them that disagreeable truth, however useful it might be to know it; and indeed I learn more from what you say than you intended I should; for it convinces me that you had observed the decline for some time past in other instances, as 'tis very unlikely you should see it first in my good opinion of your writings. With Franklin's return to England on his second mission, the old friendly intercourse between Strahan and himself was resumed, but it came wholly to an end during the American Revolution; for Strahan was the King's Printer, an inveterate Tory, and one of the ministerial phalanx, which followed George III. blindly. When the dragon's teeth sown by the King began to spring up in serried ranks, Franklin wrote, but did not send, to Strahan the letter, which is so well known as to almost make transcription unnecessary. MR. STRAHAN, You are a Member of Parliament, and one of that Majority which has doomed my Country to Destruction.--You have begun to burn our Towns, and murder our People.--Look upon your Hands! They are stained with the Blood of your Relations!--You and I were long Friends:--You are now my Enemy,--and I am Yours, B. FRANKLIN. In this instance, also, Franklin was but true to his practice of sometimes inserting a quip or a quirk into even the gravest contexts. Not until December 4, 1781, does the silence between the two friends, produced by the Revolution, appear to have been really broken. On that date, Franklin wrote to Strahan a formal letter, addressing him no longer as "Dear Straney," but as "Dear Sir," and concluding with none of the former affectionate terminations, but in the stiffest terms of obsequious eighteenth century courtesy. The ostensible occasion for the letter was a package of letters which he asked Strahan to forward to Mrs. Strange, the wife of Robert Strange, the celebrated engraver, whose address he did not remember. He also asked Strahan for a copy of the _Tully on Old Age_, which Franklin had printed in Philadelphia many years before, and had endeavored to sell in part in London through Strahan. Well maintained as the reserve of this letter is, it is plainly enough that of a man, who is feeling his way a little cautiously, because he does not know just how his approaches will be received. Between the lines, we can see that the real object of the requests about the package of letters and the Latin classic was to find out whether Franklin's treason had killed all desire on Straney's part to open a second bottle with him. There is a by-reference to Didot le Jeune, who was bidding fair to carry the art of fine printing to a high pitch of perfection, and an expression of pleasure that Strahan had married his daughter happily, and that his prosperity continued. "I hope," Franklin said, "it may never meet with any Interruption having still, tho' at present divided by public Circumstances, a Remembrance of our ancient private Friendship." Nor did he fail to present his affectionate respects to Mrs. Strahan and his love to Strahan's children. The olive branch was distinctly held out, but, just about the time that this letter reached Strahan, the ministry, of which he was such an unfaltering adherent, suffered a defeat on the American question, and the Tully was transmitted by Mrs. Strange's husband with the statement that he really believed that Strahan himself would have written to Franklin but for the smart of the Parliamentary disaster of that morning. Several years later, there came to Franklin an acknowledgment by Strahan of the very friendly and effectual patronage which had been afforded to a distant kinswoman of his at Philadelphia by Franklin's family. The letter also eagerly urged Franklin to come to England once more, and with Franklin's reply, signed "yours ever most affectionately," the old _entente_ was fully re-established. In the high animal spirits, aroused by the renewal of the former relationship, he fell back upon the technical terms of the printing house, so familiar to the two friends, for the purpose of illustrating his pet proposition that England would never be at rest until all the enormous salaries, emoluments and patronage of her great offices were abolished, and these offices were made, instead of places of profit, places of expense and burthen. Ambition and avarice [he said] are each of them strong Passions, and when they are united in the same Persons, and have the same Objects in view for their Gratification, they are too strong for Public Spirit and Love of Country, and are apt to produce the most violent Factions and Contentions. They should therefore be separated, and made to act one against the other. Those Places, to speak in our old stile (Brother Type) may be for the good of the _Chapel_, but they are bad for the Master, as they create constant Quarrels that hinder the Business. For example, here are near two Months that your Government has been employed _in getting its form to press_; which is not yet fit to _work on_, every Page of it being _squabbled_, and the whole ready to fall into _pye_. The Founts too must be very scanty, or strangely _out of sorts_, since your _Compositors_ cannot find either _upper_ or _lower case Letters_ sufficient to set the word ADMINISTRATION, but are forc'd to be continually _turning for them_. However, to return to common (tho' perhaps too saucy) Language, don't despair; you have still one resource left, and that not a bad one, since it may reunite the Empire. We have some Remains of Affection for you, and shall always be ready to receive and take care of you in Case of Distress. So if you have not Sense and Virtue enough to govern yourselves, e'en dissolve your present old crazy Constitution, and _send members to Congress_. This is the letter that Franklin said was mere chitchat between themselves over the second bottle. Where America was concerned, Strahan was almost credulous enough to have even swallowed the statement in Franklin's humorous letter "To the Editor of a Newspaper," written about the time of the Stamp Act in ridicule of English ignorance respecting America, that the grand leap of the whale in his chase of the cod up the Fall of Niagara was esteemed by all who had seen it as one of the finest spectacles in Nature. In 1783, Captain Nathaniel Falconer, another faithful friend of Franklin, wrote to him with the true disregard of an old sea-dog for spelling and syntax: "I have been over to your old friends Mr. Strawns and find him just the same man, believes every Ly he hears against the United States, the French Army and our Army have been killing each other, and that we shall be glad to come to this country again." In reply, Franklin said: "I have still a regard for Mr. Strahan in remembrance of our ancient Friendship, tho' he has as a Member of Parliament dipt his Hands in our Blood. He was always as credulous as you find him." And, if what Franklin further says in this letter is true, Strahan was not only credulous himself but not above publishing mendacious letters about America as written from New York, which in point of fact were fabricated in London. A little over a year later, when the broken bones of the ancient friendship had reknit, Franklin had his chance to remind Strahan of the extent to which he and those of the same mind with him had been deceived by their gross misconceptions of America. His opportunity came in the form of a reply to a letter from Strahan withholding his assent from the idea of Franklin, so utterly repugnant to the working principles of Strahan's party associates, that public service should be rendered gratuitously. "There are, I make no doubt," said Franklin "many wise and able Men, who would take as much Pleasure in governing for nothing, as they do in playing Chess for nothing. It would be one of the noblest of Amusements." Then, when he has fortified the proposition by some real or fancied illustrations, drawn from French usages, he proceeds to unburden his mind to Strahan with a degree of candor that must have made the latter wince a little at times. I allow you [he said] all the Force of your Joke upon the Vagrancy of our Congress. They have a right to sit _where_ they please, of which perhaps they have made too much Use by shifting too often. But they have two other Rights; those of sitting _when_ they please, and as _long_ as they please, in which methinks they have the advantage of your Parliament; for they cannot be dissolved by the Breath of a Minister, or sent packing as you were the other day, when it was your earnest desire to have remained longer together. You "fairly acknowledge, that the late War terminated quite contrary to your Expectation." Your expectation was ill founded; for you would not believe your old Friend, who told you repeatedly, that by those Measures England would lose her Colonies, as Epictetus warned in vain his Master that he would break his Leg. You believ'd rather the Tales you heard of our Poltroonery and Impotence of Body and Mind. Do you not remember the Story you told me of the Scotch sergeant, who met with a Party of Forty American Soldiers, and, tho' alone, disarm'd them all, and brought them in Prisoners? A Story almost as Improbable as that of the Irishman, who pretended to have alone taken and brought in Five of the Enemy by _surrounding_ them. And yet, my Friend, sensible and Judicious as you are, but partaking of the general Infatuation, you seemed to believe it. The Word _general_ puts me in mind of a General, your General Clarke, who had the Folly to say in my hearing at Sir John Pringle's, that, with a Thousand British grenadiers, he would undertake to go from one end of America to the other, and geld all the Males, partly by force and partly by a little Coaxing. It is plain he took us for a species of Animals, very little superior to Brutes. The Parliament too believ'd the stories of another foolish General, I forget his Name, that the Yankeys never _felt bold_. Yankey was understood to be a sort of Yahoo, and the Parliament did not think the Petitions of such Creatures were fit to be received and read in so wise an Assembly. What was the consequence of this monstrous Pride and Insolence? You first sent small Armies to subdue us, believing them more than sufficient, but soon found yourselves obliged to send greater; these, whenever they ventured to penetrate our Country beyond the Protection of their Ships, were either repulsed and obliged to scamper out, or were surrounded, beaten and taken Prisoners. An America Planter, who had never seen Europe, was chosen by us to Command our Troops, and continued during the whole War. This Man sent home to you, one after another, five of your best Generals baffled, their Heads bare of Laurels, disgraced even in the opinion of their Employers. Your contempt of our Understandings, in Comparison with your own, appeared to be not much better founded than that of our Courage, if we may judge by this Circumstance, that, in whatever Court of Europe a Yankey negociator appeared, the wise British Minister was routed, put in a passion, pick'd a quarrel with your Friends, and was sent home with a Flea in his Ear. But after all, my dear Friend, do not imagine that I am vain enough to ascribe our Success to any superiority in any of those Points. I am too well acquainted with all the Springs and Levers of our Machine, not to see, that our human means were unequal to our undertaking, and that, if it had not been for the Justice of our Cause, and the consequent Interposition of Providence, in which we had Faith, we must have been ruined. If I had ever before been an Atheist, I should now have been convinced of the Being and Government of a Deity! It is he who abases the Proud and favours the Humble. May we never forget his Goodness to us, and may our future Conduct manifest our Gratitude. It was characteristic of Franklin to open his heart to a friend in this candid way even upon sensitive topics, and there can be no better proof of the instinctive confidence of his friends in the essential good feeling that underlay such candor than the fact that they never took offence at utterances of this sort. They knew too well the constancy of affection and placability of temper which caused him to justly say of himself in a letter to Strahan, "I like immortal friendships, but not immortal enmities." The retrospective letter from which we have just quoted had its genial afterglow as all Franklin's letters had, when he had reason to think that he had written something at which a relative or a friend might take umbrage. But let us leave these serious Reflections [he went on], and converse with our usual Pleasantry. I remember your observing once to me as we sat together in the House of Commons, that no two Journeymen Printers, within your Knowledge, had met with such Success in the World as ourselves. You were then at the head of your Profession, and soon afterwards became a Member of Parliament. I was an Agent for a few Provinces, and now act for them all. But we have risen by different Modes. I, as a Republican Printer, always liked a Form well _plain'd down_; being averse to those _overbearing_ Letters that hold their Heads so _high_, as to hinder their Neighbours from appearing. You, as a Monarchist, chose to work upon _Crown_ Paper, and found it profitable; while I work'd upon _pro patria_ (often call'd _Fools Cap_) with no less advantage. Both our _Heaps hold out_ very well, and we seem likely to make a pretty good day's Work of it. With regard to Public Affairs (to continue in the same stile) it seems to me that the Compositors in your Chapel do not _cast off their Copy_ well, nor perfectly understand _Imposing_; their _Forms_, too, are continually pester'd by the _Outs_ and _Doubles_, that are not easy to be corrected. And I think they were wrong in laying aside some _Faces_, and particularly certain _Headpieces_, that would have been both useful and ornamental. But, Courage! The Business may still flourish with good Management; and the Master become as rich as any of the Company. Less than two years after these merry words were penned, Franklin wrote to Andrew Strahan, Strahan's son, saying, "I condole with you most sincerely on the Departure of your good Father and Mother, my old and beloved Friends." Equally dear to Franklin, though in a different way, was Jonathan Shipley, the Bishop of St. Asaph's, whom he termed in a letter to Georgiana, one of the Bishop's daughters, "that most honoured and ever beloved Friend." In this same letter, Franklin speaks of the Bishop as the "good Bishop," and then, perhaps, not unmindful of the unflinching servility with which the Bench of Bishops had supported the American policy of George III., exclaims, "Strange, that so simple a Character should sufficiently distinguish one of that sacred Body!" During the dispute with the Colonies, the Bishop was one of the wise Englishmen, who could have settled the questions at issue between England and America, to the ultimate satisfaction of both countries, with little difficulty, if they had been given a _carte blanche_ to agree with Franklin on the terms upon which the future dependence of America was to be based. Two productions of his, the "Sermon before the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts" and his "Speech intended to have been spoken on the Bill for Altering the Charters of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay," were among the compositions which really influenced the course of the events that preceded the American Revolution. We know from Franklin's pen that the sermon was for a time "universally approved and applauded," and, in letters to Thomas Cushing, he said that the speech was admired in England as a "Masterpiece of Eloquence and Wisdom," and "had an extraordinary Effect, in changing the Sentiments of Multitudes with regard to America." For both sermon and speech the Bishop was all the more to be honored by Americans, because, as Franklin observed to Galloway of the sermon, the Bishop's censure of the mother country's treatment of the Colonies, however tenderly expressed, could not recommend him at court or conduce in the least to his promotion. On the contrary, it probably cost him the most splendid temporal reward that could be conferred upon a Churchman, the Archbishopric of Canterbury; for, when Charles James Fox was desirous of elevating him to that exalted office, the King defeated his intentions by hastily appointing another person to it. At Chilbolton, by Twyford, the country seat of the Bishop, some of the most pleasant days that Franklin spent in England were passed. So fond of Franklin were the Bishop and his wife that the latter carried in her memory even the ages of all Franklin's children and grandchildren. As he was on the point of leaving Twyford, at the end of the three weeks' visit, during which he began the _Autobiography_, she insisted on his remaining that day, so that they might all celebrate the anniversary of Benjamin Bache's birth together. Accordingly, at dinner there was among other things a floating island, such as the hosts always had on the several birthdays of their own six children; all of whom, with one exception, were present as well as a clergyman's widow upwards of one hundred years old. The story is thus told by Franklin to his wife: The chief Toast of the Day was Master Benjamin Bache, which the venerable old Lady began in a Bumper of Mountain. The Bishop's Lady politely added, _and that he may be as good a Man as his Grandfather_. I said I hop'd he would be _much better_. The Bishop, still more complaisant than his Lady, said, "We will compound the Matter, and be contented, if he should not prove _quite_ so good." This Chitchat is to yourself only, in return for some of yours about your Grandson, and must only be read to Sally, and not spoken of to anybody else; for you know how People add and alter Silly stories that they hear, and make them appear ten times more silly. The room at the Bishop's home, in which the _Autobiography_ was begun, was ever subsequently known as Franklin's room. After his return to America from France, Catherine Louisa Shipley, one of the Bishop's daughters, wrote to him, "We never walk in the garden without seeing Dr. Franklin's room and thinking of the work that was begun in it." In a letter to the Bishop in 1771, Franklin says: I regret my having been oblig'd to leave that most agreeable Retirement which good Mrs. Shipley put me so kindly in possession of. I now breathe with Reluctance the Smoke of London, when I think of the sweet Air of Twyford. And by the Time your Races are over, or about the Middle of next Month (if it should then not be unsuitable to your Engagements or other Purposes) I promise myself the Happiness of spending another Week or two where I so pleasantly spent the last. Close behind this letter, went also one of his "books," which he hoped that Miss Georgiana, another daughter of the Bishop, would be good enough to accept as a small mark of his "Regard for her philosophic Genius," and a quantity of American dried apples for Mrs. Shipley. A month later, he writes to the Bishop that he had been prevented from coming to Twyford by business, but that he purposed to set out on the succeeding Tuesday for "that sweet Retreat." How truly sweet it was to him a letter that he subsequently wrote to Georgiana from Passy enables us in some measure to realize. Among other things, it contained these winning and affecting words: Accept my Thanks for your Friendly Verses and good Wishes. How many Talents you possess! Painting, Poetry, Languages, etc., etc. All valuable, but your good Heart is worth the whole. Your mention of the Summer House brings fresh to my mind all the Pleasures I enjoyed in the sweet Retreat at Twyford: the Hours of agreeable and instructive Conversation with the amiable Family at Table; with its Father alone; the delightful Walks in the Gardens and neighbouring Grounds. Pleasures past and gone forever! Since I have had your Father's Picture I am grown more covetous of the rest; every time I look at your second Drawing I have regretted that you have not given to your Juno the Face of Anna Maria, to Venus that of Emily or Betsey, and to Cupid that of Emily's Child, as it would have cost you but little more Trouble. I must, however, beg that you will make me up a compleat Set of your little Profiles, which are more easily done. You formerly obliged me with that of the Father, an excellent one. Let me also have that of the good Mother, and of all the Children. It will help me to fancy myself among you, and to enjoy more perfectly in Idea, the Pleasure of your Society. My little Fellow-Traveller, the sprightly Hetty, with whose sensible Prattle I was so much entertained, why does she not write to me? If Paris affords anything that any of you wish to have, mention it. You will oblige me. It affords everything but _Peace_! Ah! When shall we again enjoy that Blessing. Previously he had written to Thomas Digges that the portrait of the Bishop mentioned by him had not come to hand; nor had he heard anything of it, and that he was anxious to see it, "having no hope of living to see again the much lov'd and respected original." His request for the little profiles of the Shipleys was complied with, we know, because in a letter to the Bishop some two years afterwards he said: "Your Shades are all plac'd in a Row over my Fireplace, so that I not only have you always in my Mind, but constantly before my Eyes." This letter was written in reply to a letter from the Bishop which was the first to break the long silence that the war between Great Britain and America had imposed upon the two friends. "After so long a Silence, and the long Continuance of its unfortunate Causes," Franklin began, "a Line from you was a Prognostic of happier Times approaching, when we may converse and communicate freely, without Danger from the Malevolence of Men enrag'd by the ill success of their distracted Projects." Among the entries in the desultory Journal that Franklin kept of his return from France to America, are these relating to the visit paid him at Southampton by the Bishop: "Wrote a letter to the Bishop of St. Asaph, acquainting him with my arrival, and he came with his lady and daughter, Miss Kitty, after dinner, to see us; they talk of staying here as long as we do. Our meeting was very affectionate." For two or three days, the reunited friends all lodged at the Star, at Southampton, and took their meals together. The day before his ship sailed, Franklin invited the Bishop and his wife and daughter to accompany him on board, and, when he retired, it was with the expectation that they would spend the night on the ship, but, when he awoke the next morning, he found that they had thoughtfully left the ship, after he retired, to relieve the poignancy of the farewell, and that he was off on his westward course. In his last letter to the Bishop, Franklin expresses his regret that conversation between them at Southampton had been cut short so frequently by third persons, and thanks him for the pleasure that he derived from the copy of Paley's _Moral Philosophy_, given to him by the Bishop there. Along with the usual contradiction of the English and Loyalist view at this time of our national condition, and the usual picture of himself encircled by his grandchildren, he indulges in these striking reflections about the chequered fate of parental expectations: He that raises a large Family does, indeed, while he lives to observe them, _stand_, as Watts says, _a broader Mark for Sorrow_; but then he stands a broader Mark for Pleasure too. When we launch our little Fleet of Barques into the Ocean, bound to different Ports, we hope for each a prosperous Voyage; but contrary Winds, hidden Shoals, Storms, and Enemies come in for a Share in the Disposition of Events; and though these occasion a Mixture of Disappointment, yet, considering the Risque where we can make no Insurance, we should think ourselves happy if some return with Success. Timed as they were, the force of these reflections were not likely to be lost upon the Bishop. Some years before, Georgiana had married with his bitter disapproval Francis Hare-Naylor, the writer of plays and novels, and author of the _History of the Helvetic Republics_, who was so unfortunate as to be arrested for debt during his courtship, while in the episcopal coach of the Bishop with Georgiana and her parents. After the Bishop refused to recognize the husband, the Duchess of Devonshire settled an annuity of three hundred pounds a year upon the couple, and among the wise, weighty letters of Franklin is one that he wrote from France to Georgiana, after her marriage, in which he replies to her inquiries about the opening that America would afford to a young married couple, and refers to this annuity. The concluding portion of this letter also has its value as another illustration of the calm manner in which Franklin looked forward to his end. He tells Georgiana that, if he should be in America, when they were there, his best counsels and services would not be wanting, and that to see her happily settled and prosperous there would give him infinite pleasure, but that, of course, if he ever arrived there, his stay could be but short. Franklin survived the Bishop, and his letter to Catherine, in reply to hers, announcing the death of her father, is in his best vein. That excellent man has then left us! His departure is a loss, not to his family and friends only, but to his nation, and to the world; for he was intent on doing good, had wisdom to devise the means, and talents to promote them. His "Sermon before the Society for Propagating the Gospel," and his "Speech intended to have been spoken," are proofs of his ability as well as his humanity. Had his counsels in those pieces been attended to by the ministers, how much bloodshed might have been prevented, and how much expense and disgrace to the nation avoided! Your reflections on the constant calmness and composure attending his death are very sensible. Such instances seem to show, that the good sometimes enjoy in dying a foretaste of the happy state they are about to enter. According to the course of years, I should have quitted this world long before him. I shall however not be long in following. I am now in my eighty-fourth year, and the last year has considerably enfeebled me; so that I hardly expect to remain another. You will then, my dear friend, consider this as probably the last line to be received from me, and as a taking leave. Present my best and most sincere respects to your good mother, and love to the rest of the family, to whom I wish all happiness; and believe me to be, while I _do_ live, yours most affectionately. His friendship in this instance, as usual, embraced the whole family. In a letter in 1783 to Sir William Jones, the accomplished lawyer and Oriental scholar, who married Anna Maria, one of the Bishop's daughters, he said that he flattered himself that he might in the ensuing summer be able to undertake a trip to England for the pleasure of seeing once more his dear friends there, among whom the Bishop and his family stood foremost in his estimation and affection. To the Bishop himself he wrote from Passy in the letter which mentioned the shades of the Shipleys above his fireplace: "Four daughters! how rich! I have but one, and she, necessarily detain'd from me at 1000 leagues distance. I feel the Want of that tender Care of me, which might be expected from a Daughter, and would give the World for one." And later in this letter he says with the bountiful affection, which made him little less than a member of the families of some of his friends, "Please to make my best Respects acceptable to Mrs. Shipley, and embrace for me tenderly all our dear Children." At the request of Catherine, he wrote the _Art of Procuring Pleasant Dreams_ in which hygiene and the importance of preserving a good conscience are so gracefully blended, and received from her a reply, in which, after declaring that it flattered her exceedingly that he should employ so much of his precious time in complying with her request, she put to him the question, "But where do you read that Methusaleh slept in the open air? I have searched the Bible in vain to find it." When Sir William Jones was on the eve of being married to Anna Maria, and of sailing away to India, where he was to win so much distinction, Franklin wrote to him the letter already mentioned, joining his blessing on the union with that of the good Bishop, and expressing the hope that the prospective bridegroom might return from that corrupting country with a great deal of money honestly acquired, and with full as much virtue as he carried out. The affection that he felt for Catherine and Georgiana, his letters to them, from which we have already quoted, sufficiently reveal. Of the four daughters, Georgiana was, perhaps, his favorite, and she is an example with Mary Stevenson of the subtle magnetism that his intellect and nature had for feminine affinities of mind and temperament. It was to Georgiana, when a child, that he wrote his well-known letter containing an epitaph on her squirrel, which had been dispatched by a dog. The letter and epitaph are good enough specimens of his humor to be quoted in full: DEAR MISS, I lament with you most sincerely the unfortunate end of poor Mungo. Few squirrels were better accomplished; for he had had a good education, had travelled far, and seen much of the world. As he had the honor of being, for his virtues, your favourite, he should not go, like common skuggs, without an elegy or an epitaph. Let us give him one in the monumental style and measure, which, being neither prose nor verse, is perhaps the properest for grief; since to use common language would look as if we were not affected, and to make rhymes would seem trifling in sorrow. EPITAPH Alas! poor Mungo! Happy wert thou, hadst thou known Thy own felicity. Remote from the fierce bald eagle, Tyrant of thy native woods, Thou hadst nought to fear from his piercing talons, Nor from the murdering gun Of the thoughtless sportsman. Safe in thy wired castle, GRIMALKIN never could annoy thee. Daily wert thou fed with the choicest viands, By the fair hand of an indulgent mistress; But, discontented, Thou wouldst have more freedom. Too soon, alas! didst thou obtain it; And wandering, Thou art fallen by the fangs of wanton, cruel Ranger! Learn hence, Ye who blindly seek more liberty, Whether subjects, sons, squirrels or daughters, That apparent restraint may be real protection; Yielding peace and plenty With security. You see, my dear Miss, how much more decent and proper this broken style is, than if we were to say, by way of epitaph, Here SKUGG Lies snug, As a bug In a rug. and yet, perhaps, there are people in the world of so little feeling as to think that this would be a good-enough epitaph for poor Mungo. If you wish it, I shall procure another to succeed him; but perhaps you will now choose some other amusement. Two of Georgiana's letters to Franklin, after his arrival in France, are very interesting, and one of them especially could not have been written by any but a highly gifted and accomplished woman. In this letter, the first of the two, she begins by expressing her joy at unexpectedly receiving a letter from him. How good you were [she exclaimed] to send me your direction, but I fear I must not make use of it as often as I could wish, since my father says it will be prudent not to write in the present situation of affairs. I am not of an age to be so very prudent, and the only thought that occurred to me was your suspecting that my silence proceeded from other motives. I could not support the idea of your believing that I love and esteem you less than I did some few years ago. I therefore write this once without my father's knowledge. You are the first man that ever received a private letter from me, and in this instance I feel that my intentions justify my conduct; but I must entreat that you will take no notice of my writing, when next I have the happiness of hearing from you. She then proceeds to tell Franklin all about her father, her mother, her sister Emily and Emily's daughter, "a charming little girl, near fifteen months old, whom her aunts reckon a prodigy of sense and beauty." The rest of her sisters, she said, continued in _statu quo_. Whether that proceeded from the men being difficult or from _their_ being difficult, she left him to determine. His friends all loved him almost as much as she did; as much she would not admit to be possible. Dr. Pringle had made her extremely happy the preceding winter by giving her a print of her excellent friend, which, was certainly very like him, although it wanted the addition of his own hair to make it complete; but, as it was, she prized it infinitely, now that the dear original was absent. She then has a word to say about Smith's _Wealth of Nations_, Gibbon's _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ and the _Economics_, which she had read with great attention, as indeed everything else she could meet with relative to Socrates; for she fancied she could discover in each trait of that admirable man's character a strong resemblance between him and her much-loved friend--the same clearness of judgment, the same uprightness of intention and the same superior understanding. Other words are bestowed on the account which Sir William Hamilton had lately given her of a new electrical machine invented in Italy, the happiness that she would enjoy, if Franklin were in England to explain it to her, and the envy excited in her by the opportunities that his grandson had for showing him kindness and attention. "Did my family," she further declares, "know of my writing, my letter would scarce contain the very many things they would desire me to say for them. They continue to admire and love you as much as they did formerly, nor can any time or event in the least change their sentiments." She then concludes partly in French and partly in English in these words: Adieu, mon cher Socrate; conservez-vous pour l'amour de moi, et pour mille autres raisons plus importants. Je ne vous en dirai pas d'advantage pour aujourd'hui, mais je veux esperer de vous entretenir plus á mon aise, avant que soit longue. Pray write whenever a safe conveyance opens, since the receiving letters is reckoned very different from answering them. I must once more repeat nobody knows of this scroll; "a word to the wise,"--as Poor Richard says. In her second letter, Georgiana speaks of the difficulty she experienced in having her letters conveyed safely to Passy. "Strange," she declared, "that I should be under the necessity of concealing from the world a correspondence which it is the pride and glory of my heart to maintain." His _Dialogue with the Gout_, she said, was written with his own cheerful pleasantry, and _La belle et la mauvaise Jambe_ recalled to her mind those happy hours they once passed in his society, where they were never amused without learning some useful truth, and where she first acquired a taste _pour la conversation badinante and réfléchie_. Her father grew every year fonder of the peace of Twyford; having found his endeavors to serve his country ineffectual, he had yielded to a torrent which it was no longer in his power to control. Sir John Pringle (Franklin's friend) had left London and gone to reside in Scotland; she feared that he was much straitened in his circumstances; he looked ill and was vastly changed from what he remembered him; Dr. Priestley (another friend of Franklin) was then on a short visit to his friends in town; good Dr. Price (another friend of Franklin) called on them often, and gave them hopes of a visit to Twyford. The letter also informed Franklin that the first opportunity that they had of sending a parcel to Paris he might expect _all_ their shades; and expressed her gratitude to Mr. Jones for undertaking the care of her letter, and giving her an opportunity of assuring Franklin how much she did and ever should continue to love him. Catherine Ray was not far wrong when she spoke of Franklin as a conjurer. Catherine Shipley's letter to him, after she had parted with him at Southampton, though without the romantic flush of these two letters, spoke the same general language of deep-seated affection. She was quite provoked with herself, she said, when she got to Southampton that she had not thought of something, such as a pincushion, to leave with him, that might have been useful to him during the voyage to remind him of her. "Did you ever taste the ginger cake," she asked, "and think it had belonged to your fellow-traveller? In short, I want some excuse for asking whether you ever think about me." And from this letter it appears that he had a place in the hearts of Emily and Betsey too. She had had a letter from Emily, Catherine further said, the night after she got home, to inquire whether his stay at Southampton would allow time for her coming to see him. Betsey regretted much that she had lost that happiness, and the writer had written to dear Georgiana a long account of him, for she knew every circumstance would be interesting to her. "Indeed, my dear sir," the letter ended, "from my father and mother down to their _youngest child_, we all respect and love you."[34] When Franklin was told by Georgiana that Sir John Pringle was pinched by poverty, and looked ill, he must have been sorely distressed; for Sir John he once described as his "steady, good friend." A pupil of Boerhaave, a high authority upon the application of sanitary science to the prevention of dysentery and hospital fevers, physician to the Queen, and President of the Royal Society, Dr. Pringle was one of the distinguished men of his time. What churchmen were to the preservation of classical learning, before teaching became a special calling, physicians were to general scientific knowledge before science became such; and, among these physicians, he occupied an honorable position.[35] "His speech in giving the last medal, (of the Royal Society) on the subject of the discoveries relating to the air," Franklin wrote to Jan Ingenhousz, "did him great honour." He was quite unlike the courtiers who sought to convince King Canute that he could stay the incoming tide by his command, as George III. found out when he asked him, after the outbreak of the American Revolution, to pronounce an opinion in favor of the substitution of blunt for pointed lightning rods on Kew Palace. The laws of nature, Sir John hinted, were not changeable at royal pleasure, but positions of honor and profit he soon learnt, if he did not know it before, were; for he fell into such disfavor with the King that he had to resign as President of the Royal Society, and was deprived of his post as physician to the Queen. The circumstances in which his disgrace originated leave us at but little loss to understand why the King should have become such a dogged partisan of blunt conductors. Prior to the Revolution, Franklin had been consulted by the British Board of Ordnance as to the best means of protecting the arsenals at Purfleet from lightning, and, after he had visited the powder magazine there, the Royal Society, too, was asked by the Board for its opinion. The Society accordingly appointed a committee of learned men, including Cavendish and Franklin, to make a report on the subject. All of the committee except Benjamin Wilson, who dissented, reported in favor of pointed conductors as against blunt ones, and Franklin, the inventor of pointed lightning rods, drew up the report. The scientific controversy that followed soon assumed a political character, when Franklin dropped the philosophical task of snatching the lightning from the skies for the rebellious task of snatching the sceptre from a tyrant. When he heard that George III. was, like Ajax, obstinate enough to defy even the lightning, he wrote to an unknown correspondent: The King's changing his _pointed_ conductors for _blunt_ ones is, therefore, a matter of small importance to me. If I had a wish about it, it would be that he had rejected them altogether as ineffectual. For it is only since he thought himself and family safe from the thunder of Heaven, that he dared to use his own thunder in destroying his innocent subjects. Dr. Ingenhousz, however, was not so self-contained, and made such an angry attack on Wilson that Franklin, who invariably relied in such cases upon silence and the principle that Truth is a cat with nine lives to defend him, laughingly remarked, "He seems as much heated about this _one point_, as the Jansenists and Molinists were about the _five_." As for King George, he had at least the satisfaction of realizing that his people still had a ready fund of wit for timely use. One homely couplet of the period, referring to Franklin's famous kite, ran in this way: "He with a kite drew lightning from the sky, And like a kite he pecked King George's eye." Another more polished poet penned these neat lines: "While you, great George, for knowledge hunt, And sharp conductors change for blunt, The Empire's out of joint. Franklin another course pursues And all your thunder heedless views By keeping to the point." If we may believe Franklin, Sir John held the efficacy of the healing art in very moderate esteem. The reader has already been told of the humorous manner in which he let it be known that, in his opinion, of the two classes of practitioners, old women and regular physicians, the former had done the most to save the honor of the profession. Franklin also informed Dr. Rush that Sir John "once told him 92 fevers out of 100 cured themselves, 4 were cured by Art, and 4 proved fatal." But many people must have had a more favorable opinion of the professional value of Sir John than Sir John himself had, for his "Conversations" were in high repute. On this point, there is some evidence in a letter from Franklin to Dr. Thomas Bond, who was desirous of giving his son Richard the benefit of a foreign medical education. Referring to Sir John, Franklin wrote: Every Wednesday Evening he admits young Physicians and Surgeons to a Conversation at his House, which is thought very improving to them. I will endeavour to introduce your Son there when he comes to London. And to tell you frankly my Opinion, I suspect there is more valuable knowledge in Physic to be learnt from the honest candid Observations of an old Practitioner, who is past all desire of more Business, having made his Fortune, who has none of the Professional Interest in keeping up a Parade of Science to draw Pupils, and who by Experience has discovered the Inefficacy of most Remedies and Modes of Practice, than from all the formal Lectures of all the Universities upon Earth. That Dr. John cured at least one patient, we are told by Dr. Rush on the authority of Franklin, but it was Only himself of a tremor, and that by simply ceasing to take snuff. Dr. Pringle and himself, Franklin told Dr. Rush, observed that tremors of the hands were more frequent in France than elsewhere, and probably from the excessive use of snuff. "He concluded," says Dr. Rush, "that there was no great advantage in using tobacco in any way, for that he had kept company with persons who used it all his life, and no one had ever advised him to use it. The Doctor in the 81st year of his age declared he had never snuffed, chewed, or smoked." Among the persons who sought Sir John's professional advice was Franklin himself. It was in relation to a cutaneous trouble which vexed him for some fourteen years, and broke out afresh when he was in his eighty-third year. But the best medicine that Franklin ever obtained from Sir John was his companionship upon two continental tours, one of which was inspired by the latter's desire to drink the waters at Pyrmont, and the other by the attractions of the French capital. When the news of Sir John's death reached Franklin at Passy he paid the usual heartfelt tribute. "We have lost our common Friend," he wrote to Jan Ingenhousz, "the excellent Pringle. How many pleasing hours you and I have pass'd together in his Company!" Another English physician, for whom Franklin entertained a feeling of deep affection, was the Quaker Dr. John Fothergill. After the death of this friend, in a letter to Dr. John Coakley Lettsom, still another friend of his, and one of the famous English physicians of the eighteenth century, he expressed this extraordinary opinion of Dr. Fothergill's worth: "If we may estimate the goodness of a man by his disposition to do good, and his constant endeavours and success in doing it, I can hardly conceive that a better man has ever existed." No faint praise to be uttered by the founder of the Junto and one who valued above all things the character of a doer of good! Like Sir John Pringle, Dr. Fothergill belonged to the class of physicians who pursued medicine, as if it were a mistress not to be wooed except with the favor of the other members of the scientific sisterhood. He was an ardent botanist, and his collection of botanical specimens and paintings on vellum of rare plants was among the remarkable collections of his age. Two of his correspondents were the Pennsylvania botanists, John Bartram and Humphrey Marshall, who brought to his knowledge a flora in many shining instances unknown to the woods and fields of the Old World. His medical writings were held in high esteem, and were published after his death under the editorial supervision of Dr. Lettsom. As a practitioner, he was eminently successful, and numbered among his patients many representatives of the most powerful and exclusive circles in London. What the extent of his practice was we can infer from a question put to him by Franklin in 1764. By the way [he asked], when do you intend to live?--_i. e._, to enjoy life. When will you retire to your villa, give yourself repose, delight in viewing the operations of nature in the vegetable creation, assist her in her works, get your ingenious friends at times about you, make them happy with your conversation, and enjoy theirs: or, if alone, amuse yourself with your books and elegant collections? To be hurried about perpetually from one sick chamber to another is not living. Do you please yourself with the fancy that you are doing good? You are mistaken. Half the lives you save are not worth saving, as being useless, and almost all the other half ought not to be saved, as being mischievous. Does your conscience never hint to you the impiety of being in constant warfare against the plans of Providence? Disease was intended as the punishment of intemperance, sloth, and other vices, and the example of that punishment was intended to promote and strengthen the opposite virtues. All of which, of course, except the suggestion about retirement, which was quite in keeping with Franklin's conception of a rational life, was nothing more than humorous paradox on the part of a man who loved all his fellow-creatures too much to despair of any of them. When Franklin himself was seized with a grave attack of illness shortly after his arrival in England on his first mission, Doctor Fothergill was his physician, and seems to have cupped and physicked him with drastic assiduity. The patient was not a very docile one, for he wrote to Deborah that, too soon thinking himself well, he ventured out twice, and both times got fresh cold, and fell down again; and that his "good doctor" grew very angry with him for acting contrary to his cautions and directions, and obliged him to promise more observance for the future. Always to Franklin the Doctor remained the "good Doctor Fothergill." Even in a codicil to his will, in bequeathing to one of his friends the silver cream pot given to him by the doctor, with the motto "Keep bright the chain," he refers to him by that designation. Nor were his obligations as a patient the only obligations that Franklin owed to this friend. When his early letters on electricity were sent over to England, only to be laughed at in the first instance, they happened to pass under the eye of the Doctor. He saw their merit, advised their publication, and wrote the preface to the pamphlet in which they were published by Cave. But the things for which Franklin valued the Doctor most were his public spirit and philanthropy. He was well known in Philadelphia, and, when Franklin arrived in London in 1757, he was actively assisted by the Doctor in his effort to secure a settlement of the dispute over taxation between the Pennsylvania Assembly and the Proprietaries. Afterwards, when Franklin's second mission to England was coming to an end, the Doctor was drawn deeply into a vain attempt made by Lord Howe and his sister and David Barclay, another Quaker friend of Franklin, to compose the American controversy by an agreement with Franklin. For this business, among other reasons, because of "his daily Visits among the Great, in the Practice of his Profession," of which Franklin speaks in his history of these negotiations, he would have been a most helpful ally; if the quarrel had not become so embittered. But, as it was, the knot, which the negotiators were striving to disentangle, was too intricate for anything but the edge of the sword. When the negotiations came to nothing, the good Doctor, who knew the sentiments of "the Great" in London at that time, if any private person did, had no advice to give to Franklin except, when he returned to America, to get certain of the Doctor's friends in Philadelphia, and two or three other persons together, and to inform them that, whatever specious pretences were offered by the English ministry, they were all hollow, and that to obtain a larger field, on which to fatten a herd of worthless parasites, was all that was regarded. It was a bad day, indeed, for England when one of the best men in the land could hold such language. The silk experiment in Pennsylvania furnished still another congenial field for the co-operation of Franklin and Doctor Fothergill; and, in a letter to Franklin, the latter also declared in startlingly modern terms that, in the warmth of his affection for mankind, he could wish to see "the institution of a College of Justice, where the claims of sovereigns should be weighed, an award given, and war only made on him who refused submission." "Dr. Fothergill, who was among the best men I have known, and a great promoter of useful projects," is the way in which Franklin alludes to the Doctor in the _Autobiography_. He then states in the same connection the plan that he submitted to the Doctor for "the more effectual cleaning and keeping clean the streets of London and Westminster"; but this plan, though not unworthy of the public zeal and ingenuity of its author, is too embryonic, when contrasted with modern municipal methods, and too tamely suggestive of the broom and dust-pan of ordinary domestic housekeeping, to deserve detailed attention. Franklin was eminently what Dr. Johnson called a "clubable" man. When in England, he often dined at the London Coffee House in Ludgate Hill with the group of scientific men and liberal clergymen, who frequented the place, and of whom he spoke on one occasion as "that excellent Collection of good Men, the Club at the _London_." He also sometimes dined at St. Paul's Coffee House and the Dog Tavern on Garlick Hill, and with the Society of Friends to the Cause of Liberty at Paul's Head Tavern, Cateaton Street, where, upon every 4th day of November, the landing of King William and the Glorious Revolution were enthusiastically toasted. When he ate or drank at a club, he liked to do so in an atmosphere of free thought and free speech. Religion, spiced with heresy, and Politics flavored with liberalism, were the kinds of religion and politics that best suited his predilections. It was at St. Paul's Coffee House that he became acquainted with Dr. Richard Price, the celebrated clergyman and economist, who was then preaching every Sunday afternoon at Newington Green, where Franklin advised Sir John Pringle to go to hear in the Doctor a preacher of _rational_ Christianity. It is probable that Sir John, in inquiring of Franklin where he could go to hear such a preacher, was moved rather by curiosity than piety; for Franklin wrote to Dr. Price: "At present I believe he has no view of attending constantly anywhere, but now and then only as it may suit his convenience." The acquaintance between Franklin and Doctor Price, once formed, became a deeply-rooted friendship, and on Franklin's part it was accompanied by a degree of admiration for the Doctor's abilities which hurried him on one occasion into language that had little in common with the sober language in which his judgments were usually pronounced. Of Doctor Price's _Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt_, he wrote to the author in the most enthusiastic terms, "it being in my Opinion," he said, "consider'g the profound Study, & steady Application of Mind that the Work required, & the sound Judgment with which it is executed, and its great and important Utility to the Nation, the foremost Production of human Understanding, that this Century has afforded us." And to Franklin on one occasion this friend wrote that he considered his friendship one of the honors and blessings of his life. When the American controversy arose, Dr. Price zealously espoused the cause of the Colonies, and this still further strengthened the friendship between the two. For his _Observations on Civil Liberty and the Justice and Policy of the War with America_, the City of London presented him with the freedom of the city in a gold box of fifty pounds value; and so outspoken was he in the expression of his political convictions that Franklin wrote to John Winthrop in 1777 that "his Friends, on his Acct, were under some Apprehensions from the Violence of Government, in consequence of his late excellent Publications in favour of Liberty." Indeed, so near was he to making the American cause absolutely his own that Congress, while the American War was still raging, even invited him to become an American citizen and to assist in regulating the American finances, but that was one step further than he was willing to go. In a letter to Joseph Priestley, shortly after the Battle of Bunker's Hill, Franklin makes an amusing allusion to the mathematical genius of Dr. Price which was equal to the abstrusest problems involved in the calculation of annuities. Britain [he said], at the expense of three millions, has killed one hundred and fifty Yankees this campaign, which is twenty thousand pounds a head; and at Bunker's Hill she gained a mile of ground, half of which she lost again by our taking post on Ploughed Hill. During the same time sixty thousand children have been born in America. From these _data_ his (Dr. Price's) mathematical head will easily calculate the time and expense necessary to kill us all, and conquer our whole territory. Always in the American controversy, Franklin relied upon the loins as well as the hands of the Colonists for the final victory. While mentioning Priestley, we might recall the compliment in a letter from Franklin to Dr. Price, in which the former brought the names of Priestley and Price into a highly honorable conjunction. Speaking of dissensions in the Royal Society, he said, "Disputes even on small Matters often produce Quarrels for want of knowing how to differ decently; an Art which it is said scarce anybody possesses but yourself and Dr. Priestley." Dr. Price was one of the habitués of the London Coffee House, and, in Franklin's letters to him from Passy, there are repeated references to the happy hours that the writer had spent there. "I never think of the Hours I so happily spent in that Company," he said in one letter, "without regretting that they are never to be repeated: For I see no Prospect of an End to the unhappy War in my Time." In another letter, he concluded with a heartfelt wish that he might embrace Dr. Price once more, and enjoy his sweet society in peace among his honest, worthy, ingenious friends at the _London_. In another letter, after peace was assured, he said that he longed to see and be merry with the Club, and, in a still later letter, he told Dr. Price that he might "pop" in some Thursday evening when they least expected him. In enclosing, on one occasion, to Dr. Price a copy of his Rabelaisian _jeu d'esprit_ on "Perfumes," which was intended also for the eye of Priestley, Franklin cracks an obscene joke at the expense of Priestley's famous researches with regard to gases, but, when Dr. Price states in his reply, "We have been entertained with the pleasantry of it, and the ridicule it contains," we are again reminded that the eighteenth century was not the twentieth. Dr. Price was one of the correspondents to whom Franklin expounded his theory that England's only chance for self-reformation was to render all places unprofitable and the King too poor to give bribes and pensions. Till this is done [he said], which can only be by a Revolution (and I think you have not Virtue enough left to procure one), your Nation will always be plundered, and obliged to pay by Taxes the Plunderers for Plundering and Ruining. Liberty and Virtue therefore join in the call, _COME OUT OF HER, MY PEOPLE_! In a later letter, he returns to the same subject in these words so pregnant with meaning for a student of the political conditions which palsied the influence of Chatham and Burke in their effort to avert the American War: As it seems to be a settled Point at present, that the Minister must govern the Parliament, who are to do everything he would have done; and he is to bribe them to do this, and the People are to furnish the Money to pay these Bribes; the Parliament appears to me a very expensive Machine for Government, and I apprehend the People will find out in time, that they may as well be governed, and that it will be much cheaper to be governed, by the Minister alone; no Parliament being preferable to the present. There are also some thoughtful observations in one of Franklin's letters to Dr. Price on the limited influence of Roman and Grecian oratory, as compared with the influence of the modern newspaper. "We now find," he observed, "that it is not only right to strike while the iron is hot, but that it may be very practicable to heat it by continually striking." His last letter to Dr. Price was written less than a year before his own death. It refers to the death of the Bishop of St. Asaph's, and once more there is a mournful sigh from the Tree of Existence. My Friends drop off one after another, when my Age and Infirmities prevent my making new Ones [he groaned], & if I still retained the necessary Activity and Ability, I hardly see among the existing Generation where I could make them of equal Goodness: So that the longer I live I must expect to be very wretched. As we draw nearer the Conclusion of Life, Nature furnishes with more Helps to wean us from it, among which one of the most powerful is the Loss of such dear Friends. With Dr. Joseph Priestley, the famous clergyman and natural philosopher, Franklin was very intimate. The discoveries of Priestley, especially his discovery that carbonic acid gas is imbibed by vegetation, awakened Franklin's keenest interest, and, some years before Priestley actually received a medal from the Royal Society for his scientific achievements, Franklin earnestly, though vainly, endeavored to obtain one for him. "I find that you have set all the Philosophers of Europe at Work upon Fix'd Air," he said in one of his letters to Priestley, "and it is with great Pleasure I observe how high you stand in their Opinion; for I enjoy my Friend's fame as my own." And no one who knows his freedom from all petty, carking feelings of every sort, such as envy and jealousy, can doubt for a moment that he did. For a time, fixed air aroused so much speculation that it was thought that it might even be a remedy for putrid fevers and cancers. The absorption of carbonic acid gas by vegetation is all simple enough now, but it was not so simple when Priestley wrote to Franklin that he had discovered that even aquatic plants imbibe pure air, and emit it as excrementitious to them, in a dephlogisticated state. On one occasion, Franklin paid his fellow-philosopher the compliment of saying that he knew of no philosopher who started so much good game for the hunters after knowledge as he did. For a time Priestley enjoyed the patronage of Lord Shelburne, who, desirous of having the company of a man of general learning to read with him, and superintend the education of his children, took Priestley from his congregation at Leeds, settled three hundred pounds a year upon him for ten years, and two hundred pounds for life, with a house to live in near his country seat. So Franklin stated in a letter to John Winthrop, when Priestley was engaged in the task of putting Lord Shelburne's great library into order. Subsequently patron and client separated amicably, but, before they did, Priestley consulted Franklin as to whether he should go on with the arrangement. The latter in a few judicious sentences counselled him to do so until the end of the term of ten years, and, by way of illustrating the frequent and troublesome changes, that human beings make without amendment, and often for the worse, told this story of his youth: In my Youth, I was a Passenger in a little Sloop, descending the River Delaware. There being no Wind, we were obliged, when the Ebb was spent, to cast anchor, and wait for the next. The Heat of the Sun on the Vessel was excessive, the Company Strangers to me, and not very agreeable. Near the river Side I saw what I took to be a pleasant green Meadow, in the middle of which was a large shady Tree, where it struck my Fancy I could sit and read, (having a Book in my Pocket,) and pass the time agreeably till the tide turned. I therefore prevail'd with the Captain to put me ashore. Being landed, I found the greatest part of my Meadow was really a Marsh, in crossing which, to come at my Tree, I was up to my knees in Mire; and I had not placed myself under its Shade five Minutes, before the Muskitoes in Swarms found me out, attack'd my Legs, Hands, and Face, and made my Reading and my Rest impossible; so that I return'd to the Beach, and call'd for the Boat to come and take me aboard again, where I was oblig'd to bear the Heat I had strove to quit, and also the Laugh of the Company. Similar Cases in the Affairs of Life have since frequently fallen under my Observation. Deterrent as was the advice, pointed by such a graphic story, Priestley did not take it, and, fortunately for him, the pleasant green meadow and large shady tree to which he retired did not prove such a deceptive mirage. After the separation, Lord Shelburne endeavored to induce him to renew their former relation, but he declined. Priestley was one of the witnesses of the baiting, to which Franklin was subjected at the Cockpit, on account of the Hutchinson letters, on the famous occasion, of which it could be well said by every thoughtful Englishman a little later in the words of the ballad of Chevy-Chase, "The child may rue that is unborne The hunting of that day." Or "the speaking" of that day, as Lord Campbell has parodied the lines. Priestley was also among those eye-witnesses of the scene, who testified to the absolutely impassive countenance with which Franklin bore the ordeal. As he left the room, however, he pressed Priestley's hand in a way that indicated much feeling. The next day, they breakfasted together, and Franklin told Priestley "that, if he had not considered the thing for which he had been so much insulted, as one of the best actions of his life, and what he should certainly do again in the same circumstances, he could not have supported it." To Priestley also the world was first indebted for knowledge of the fact that, when Franklin afterwards came to sign in France the Treaty of Alliance between that country and the United States, he took pains to wear the same suit of spotted Manchester velvet that he wore when he was treated with such indecency at the Cockpit. From France Franklin wrote to Priestley a letter expressing the horror--for no other term is strong enough to describe the sentiment--in which he held the unnatural war between Great Britain and her revolted Colonies. The Hint you gave me jocularly [he said], that you did not quite despair of the Philosopher's Stone, draws from me a Request, that, when you have found it, you will take care to lose it again; for I believe in my conscience, that Mankind are wicked enough to continue slaughtering one another as long as they can find Money to pay the Butchers. But, of all the Wars in my time, this on the part of England appears to me the wickedest; having no Cause but Malice against Liberty, and the Jealousy of Commerce. And I think the Crime seems likely to meet with its proper Punishment; a total loss of her own Liberty, and the Destruction of her own Commerce. But Franklin was not too incensed to have his joke in this same letter over even such a grim subject for merriment as powder. "When I was at the camp before Boston," he declared, "the Army had not 5 Rounds of Powder a Man. This was kept a Secret even from our People. The World wonder'd that we so seldom fir'd a Cannon; we could not afford it." Another English friend of Franklin was Benjamin Vaughan, the son of a West Indian planter, and at one time the private secretary of Lord Shelburne. His family was connected with the House of Bedford, and his wife, Sarah Manning, was an aunt of the late Cardinal Manning. To Vaughan the reputation of Franklin is doubly indebted. In 1779, he brought out a new edition of Franklin's writings, and it was partly the entreaties of Abel James and himself which induced Franklin to continue the _Autobiography_, after work on it had been long suspended by its author because of the demands of the Revolution on his time. The spirit, in which the edition of Franklin's writings was prepared, found expression in the preface. "Can _Englishmen_," Vaughan asked, "read these things and not sigh at reflecting that the _country_ which could produce their author, was once without controversy _their own_!" Before Franklin left France he longed to pay another visit to England, and this matter is touched upon in a letter to Vaughan which sheds a sidelight upon the intimacy which existed between the two men. By my doubts of the propriety of my going soon to London, [he said], I meant no reflection on my friends or yours. If I had any call there besides the pleasure of seeing those whom I love, I should have no doubts. If I live to arrive there, I shall certainly embrace your kind invitation, and take up my abode with you. Some of the sagest observations ever made by Franklin are found in his letters to Vaughan, and several of his happy stories. The following reflections, prompted by English restraints upon commerce, were not intended to be taken literally, but they contain profound insight enough to merit transcription. It is wonderful how preposterously the affairs of this world are managed. Naturally one would imagine, that the interest of a few individuals should give way to general interest; but individuals manage their affairs with so much more application, industry, and address, than the public do theirs, that general interest most commonly gives way to particular. We assemble parliaments and councils, to have the benefit of their collected wisdom, but we necessarily have, at the same time, the inconvenience of their collected passions, prejudices, and private interests. By the help of these, artful men overpower their wisdom, and dupe its possessors; and if we may judge by the acts, _arrêts_, and edicts, all the world over, for regulating commerce, an assembly of great men is the greatest fool upon earth. When Franklin sat down to write this letter, Vaughan had asked him what remedy he had for the growing luxury of his country which gave so much offence to all English travellers without exception. In replying to this rather tactless question, Franklin's pen ran on until he had completed not so much a letter as an economic essay. Our People [he begins] are hospitable, and have indeed too much Pride in displaying upon their Tables before Strangers the Plenty and Variety that our Country affords. They have the Vanity, too, of sometimes borrowing one another's Plate to entertain more splendidly. Strangers being invited from House to House, and meeting every Day with a Feast, imagine what they see is the ordinary Way of living of all the Families where they dine; when perhaps each Family lives a Week after upon the Remains of the Dinner given. It is, I own, a Folly in our People to give _such Offence to English Travellers_. The first part of the Proverb is thereby verified, that _Fools make Feasts_. I wish in this Case the other were as true, _and Wise Men eat them_. These Travellers might, one would think, find some Fault they could more decently reproach us with, than that of our excessive Civility to them as Strangers. With this introduction, he proceeds to say a good word for luxury. "Is not the Hope of one day being able to purchase and enjoy Luxuries a great Spur to Labour and Industry?" he asked. And this question brought up one of the inevitable stories. The Skipper of a Shallop, employed between Cape May and Philadelphia, had done us some small Service, for which he refused Pay. My Wife, understanding that he had a Daughter sent her as a Present a new-fashioned Cap. Three Years After, this Skipper being at my House with an old Farmer of Cape May, his Passenger, he mentioned the Cap, and how much his Daughter had been pleased with it. "But," says he, "it proved a dear Cap to our Congregation." "How so?" "When my Daughter appeared in it at Meeting, it was so much admired, that all the Girls resolved to get such Caps from Philadelphia, and my Wife and I computed, that the whole could not have cost less than a hundred Pound." "True," says the Farmer, "but you do not tell all the Story. I think the Cap was nevertheless an Advantage to us, for it was the first thing that put our Girls upon Knitting worsted Mittens for Sale at Philadelphia, that they might have wherewithal to buy Caps and Ribbands there, and you know that that Industry has continued, and is likely to continue and increase to a much greater Value, and answer better Purposes." Upon the whole, I was more reconciled to this little Piece of Luxury, since not only the Girls were made happier by having fine Caps, but the Philadelphians by the Supply of warm Mittens. Then he argues still further as follows that luxury may not always be such an evil as it seems: A Shilling spent idly by a Fool, may be picked up by a Wiser Person, who knows better what to do with it. It is therefore not lost. A vain, silly Fellow builds a fine House, furnishes it richly, lives in it expensively, and in few years ruins himself; but the Masons, Carpenters, Smiths, and other honest Tradesmen have been by his Employ assisted in maintaining and raising their Families; the Farmer has been paid for his labour, and encouraged, and the Estate is now in better Hands. There were exceptional cases, of course. "If there be a Nation, for Instance, that exports its Beef and Linnen, to pay for its Importation of Claret and Porter, while a great Part of its People live upon Potatoes, and wear no Shirts, wherein does it differ from the Sot, who lets his Family starve, and sells his Clothes to buy Drink." He meant Ireland, it is needless to add. A little in this way, he confessed, was the exchange of American victuals for West Indian rum and sugar. The existence of so much want and misery in the world, he thought, was due to the employment of men and women in works that produce neither the necessaries nor the conveniences of life. Such people, aided by those who do nothing, consume the necessaries raised by the laborious. This idea, he developed with his inborn lucidity, ending, however, of course, with the reflection that we should naturally expect from a man, who was so thoroughly in touch with his kind, that, upon the whole, the quantity of industry and prudence among mankind exceeded the quantity of idleness and folly. This "long, rambling Letter" he called it--this "brief, pointed and masterly letter," we term it--concludes quite in the style of one of Poor Richard's dissertations: Almost all the Parts of our Bodies require some Expence. The Feet demand Shoes; the Legs, Stockings; the rest of the Body, Clothing; and the Belly, a good deal of Victuals. _Our_ Eyes, tho' exceedingly useful, ask, when reasonable, only the cheap Assistance of Spectacles, which could not much impair our Finances. But _the Eyes of other People_ are the Eyes that ruin us. If all but myself were blind, I should want neither fine Clothes, fine Houses, nor fine Furniture. Another letter to Vaughan is really an essay on the Criminal Laws and the practice of privateering. And a wise, humane and sprightly essay it is, fully worthy of a man, who was entirely too far in advance of his age to approve the savage English laws, which hanged a thief for stealing a horse, and had no better answer to make to the culprit, when he pleaded that it was hard to hang a man for _only_ stealing a horse, than the reply of Judge Burnet: "Man, thou art not to be hanged _only_ for stealing, but that horses may not be stolen." Not unworthy either was this essay of a man whose benevolence was too clear-sighted and generous to be cheated by the pretence that the practice of privateering has its root in anything better than the rapacity of the highwayman. A highwayman, he said, was as much a robber, when he plundered in a gang, as when single; and a nation, that made an unjust war, was only a great gang. How could England, which had commissioned no less than seven hundred gangs of privateering robbers, he asked, have the face to condemn the crime of robbery in individuals, and hang up twenty criminals in a morning. It naturally put one in mind of a Newgate anecdote. "One of the Prisoners complain'd, that in the Night somebody had taken his Buckles out of his Shoes; 'What, the Devil!' says another, 'have we then _Thieves_ among us? It must not be suffered, let us search out the Rogue, and pump him to death." Vaughan was a prolix correspondent, and in reading his letters we cannot but be reminded at times of the question put to him by Franklin, when inveighing against the artifices adopted by booksellers for the purpose of padding books. After remarking that they were puffed up to such an extent that the selling of paper seemed the object, and printing on it, only the pretence, he said, "You have a law, I think, against butchers blowing of veal to make it look fatter; why not one against booksellers' blowing of books to make them look bigger." Vaughan was among the friends who did not fail to hasten to Southampton when Franklin touched there on his return from France to America. In what affectionate esteem Franklin held his two English friends, Dr. John Hawkesworth, the author and writer of oratorios, and John Stanley, the blind musician and organist of the Society of the Inner Temple, we have already seen. Stanley composed the music for Dr. Hawkesworth's oratorios _Zimri_ and _The Fall of Egypt_, and like music and words the two friends themselves were blended in the mind of Franklin. Writing in the latter years of his life to another English friend of his, Thomas Jordan, the brewer, who had recently sent him a cask of porter, he had this to say about them, in connection with the two satellites of Georgium Sidus, which Herschel had just discovered. Let us hope, my friend, that, when free from these bodily embarrassments, we may roam together through some of the systems he has explored, conducted by some of our old companions already acquainted with them. Hawkesworth will enliven our progress with his cheerful, sensible converse, and Stanley accompany the music of the spheres. Several times, in his letter, Franklin refers to Hawkesworth as the "good Doctor Hawkesworth," and it was from him that he learned to call Strahan "Straney." Another English friend of Franklin was John Sargent, a London merchant, a director of the Bank of England, and a member of Parliament. The friendship was shared by Mrs. Sargent, "whom I love very much," Franklin said in one of his letters to her husband. After his return from his second mission to England, he wrote to Sargent, asking him to receive the balance due him by Messrs. Browns and Collinson, and keep it for him or his children. "It may possibly," he declared, "soon be all I shall have left: as my American Property consists chiefly of Houses in our Seaport Towns, which your Ministry have begun to burn, and I suppose are wicked enough to burn them all." In connection with Sargent, it may also be mentioned that he was one of the applicants with Franklin for the Ohio grant, and that it was at his country seat at Halstead, in Kent, that Lord Stanhope called for the purpose of taking Franklin to Hayes, the country seat of Chatham, where Chatham and Franklin met for the first time. Another English friend of Franklin was John Canton, who was, however, rather a scientific than a social comrade, though a fellow-tourist of his on one of his summer excursions; and still another was Dr. Alexander Small, for whom he cherished a feeling of real personal affection. In one letter to Small, he tells him that he had found relief from the gout by exposing his naked foot, when he was in bed, and thereby promoting the process of transpiration. He gave the fact, he said, to Small, in exchange for his receipt for tartar emetic, because the commerce of philosophy as well as other commerce was best promoted by taking care to make returns. In another letter to Small, there is a growl for the American Loyalists. As to the Refugees [he observed], whom you think we were so impolitic in rejecting, I do not find that they are miss'd here, or that anybody regrets their Absence. And certainly they must be happier where they are, under the Government they admire; and be better receiv'd among a People, whose Cause they espous'd and fought for, than among those who cannot so soon have forgotten the Destruction of their Habitations, and the spilt Blood of their dearest Friends and near Relations. Then there is a reference in this letter to the learned and ingenious friends, who had left Dr. Small and himself to join the majority in the world of spirits. Every one of them [he said] now knows more than all of us they have left behind. It is to me a comfortable Reflection, that, since we must live forever in a future State, there is a sufficient Stock of Amusement in reserve for us, to be found in constantly learning something new to Eternity, the present Quantity of human Ignorance infinitely exceeding that of human Knowledge. Adieu, my dear Friend, and believe me, in whatever World, yours most affectionately. In a subsequent letter, there is a softer word for the Loyalists. He believed, he said, that fear and error rather than malice occasioned their desertion of their country's cause and the adoption of the King's. The public resentment against them was then so far abated that none, who asked leave to return, were refused, and many of them then lived in America much at their ease. But he thought that the politicians, who were a sort of people that loved to fortify themselves in their projects by precedent, were perhaps waiting, before they ventured to propose the restoration of the confiscated estates of the Loyalists, to see whether the English Government would restore the forfeited estates in Scotland to the Scotch, those in Ireland to the Irish and those in England to the Welsh! He was glad that the Loyalists, who had not returned to America, had received, or were likely to receive, some compensation for their losses from England, but it did not seem so clearly consistent with the wisdom of Parliament for it to provide such compensation on behalf of the King, who had seduced these Loyalists by his proclamations. Some mad King, in the future, might set up such action on the part of Parliament as a precedent, as was realized by the Council of Brutes in the old fable, a copy of which he enclosed. The fable, of course, was not an old fable at all, but one of his own productions, in which the horse with the "boldness and freedom that became the nobleness of his nature," succeeded in convincing the council of the beasts, against the views of the wolves and foxes, that the lion should bestow no reward upon the mongrels, who, sprung in part from wolves and foxes, and corrupted by royal promises of great rewards, had deserted the honest dogs, when the lion, notwithstanding the attachment of these dogs to him, had, under the influence of evil counsellors, contracted an aversion to them, condemned them unheard and ordered his tigers, leopards and panthers to attack and destroy them. In this letter, there is another reference to the reformed prayer-book which Dr. Small and good Mrs. Baldwin had done him the honor, as we have seen, to approve. The things of this world, he said, took up too much of the little time left to him for him to undertake anything like a reformation in matters of religion. When we can sow good seed, we should, however, do it, and await with patience, when we can do no better, Nature's time for their sprouting. A later letter assured Dr. Small that Franklin still loved England, and wished it prosperity, but it had only another growl for the Loyalists. Someone had said, he declared, that we are commanded to forgive our enemies, but that we are nowhere commanded to forgive our friends. The Loyalists, after uniting with the savages for the purpose of burning the houses of the American Whigs, and murdering and scalping their wives and children, had left them for the Government of their King in England and Nova Scotia. "We do not miss them," he said, "nor wish their return; nor do we envy them their present happiness."[36] This letter also mildly deprecates the honor that Small did him in naming him with Timoleon. "I am like him only in retiring from my public labours," he declared, "which indeed my stone, and other infirmities of age, have made indispensably necessary." The enthusiasm of the French people had drawn so freely upon the heroes of antiquity for a parallel to him that Dr. Small, perhaps, had to put up with Timoleon in default of a better classical congener. Other English friends of Franklin were John Alleyne, Edward Bridgen, Edmund Burke, Mrs. Thompson, John Whitehurst, Anthony Tissington, Thomas Viny and Caleb Whitefoord. Our attention has already been called to his pithy reflections on early marriages in one of his letters to John Alleyne. Treat your Wife [he said, in the concluding sentences of this admirable letter] always with Respect; it will procure Respect to you, not from her only but from all that observe it. Never use a slighting Expression to her, even in jest, for Slights in Jest, after frequent bandyings, are apt to end in angry earnest. Be studious in your Profession, and you will be learned. Be industrious and frugal, and you will be rich. Be sober and temperate, and you will be healthy. Be in general virtuous, and you will be happy. At least, you will, by such Conduct, stand the best Chance for such Consequences. In another letter to Alleyne, with his unerring good sense, he makes short work of the perverse prejudice against intermarriage with a deceased wife's sister which was destined to die so hard in the English mind. To Edward Bridgen, a merchant of London, Franklin referred in a letter to Governor Alexander Martin of North Carolina as "a particular Friend of mine and a zealous one of the American Cause." The object of the letter was to reclaim from confiscation property in that state belonging to Bridgen. And it was to Bridgen that Franklin made the suggestion that, instead of repeating continually upon every half penny the dull story that everybody knew (and that it would have been no loss to mankind if nobody had ever known) that George III. was King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, etc., etc., there should be inscribed on the coin some important proverb of Solomon, some pious moral, prudential or economical precept, calculated to leave an impression upon the mind, especially of young persons, such as on some, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom"; on others, "Honesty is the best Policy"; on others, "He that by the plow would thrive, himself must either hold or drive"; on others, "Keep thy Shop, and thy Shop will keep thee"; on others, "A penny saved is a penny got"; on others, "He that buys what he has no need of, will soon be forced to sell his necessaries"; and on others, "Early to bed and early to rise, will make a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." With Edmund Burke Franklin does not appear to have been intimate, but they knew each other well enough for the former in a letter to the latter to term the friendship between them an "old friendship." It was Burke who remarked, when Franklin was examined before the House of Commons on American affairs, that it was as if a school-master was being catechized by his pupils. For every reason, the judgment of so great a man about such an incident has its value, but among other reasons because Burke was accounted one of the best-informed men in England in relation to American affairs. The only glimpse we obtain of Mrs. Thompson is in a letter written to her by Franklin from Paris, shortly after his arrival in France in 1776, but the raillery of this letter is too familiar in tone to have marked the course of anything but real intimacy. You are too early, _Hussy_ [he wrote], (as well as too saucy,) in calling me _Rebel_; you should wait for the Event, which will determine whether it is a _Rebellion_ or only a _Revolution_. Here the Ladies are more civil; they call us _les Insurgens_, a Character that usually pleases them: And methinks all other Women who smart, or have smarted, under the Tyranny of a bad Husband, ought to be fixed in Revolution Principles, and act accordingly. Then Mrs. Thompson is told some gossipy details about a common friend whom Franklin had seen during the preceding spring at New York, and these are succeeded by some gay sallies with regard to Mrs. Thompson's restlessness. Pray learn [he said], if you have not already learnt, like me, to be pleased with other People's Pleasures, and happy with their Happiness, when none occur of your own; and then perhaps you will not so soon be weary of the Place you chance to be in, and so fond of Rambling to get rid of your _Ennui_. I fancy you have hit upon the right Reason of your being Weary of St. Omer's, viz. that you are out of Temper, which is the effect of full Living and Idleness. A Month in Bridewell, beating Hemp, upon Bread and Water, would give you Health and Spirits, and subsequent Cheerfulness and Contentment with every other Situation. I prescribe that Regimen for you, my dear, in pure good will, without a Fee. And let me tell you, if you do not get into Temper, neither Brussels nor Lisle will suit you. I know nothing of the Price of Living in either of those Places; but I am sure a single Woman, as you are, might with Economy upon two hundred Pounds a year maintain herself comfortably anywhere, and me into the Bargain. Do not invite me in earnest, however, to come and live with you; for, being posted here, I ought not to comply, and I am not sure I should be able to refuse. This letter was written shortly after Franklin's arrival in France, but he had already caught the infection of French gallantry. It closes with a lifelike portrait of himself. I know you wish you could see me [he said], but, as you can't, I will describe myself to you. Figure me in your mind as jolly as formerly, and as strong and hearty, only a few years older; very plainly dress'd, wearing my thin gray strait hair, that peeps out under my only Coiffure, a fine Fur Cap, which comes down my Forehead almost to my Spectacles. Think how this must appear among the Powder'd Heads of Paris! I wish every gentleman and Lady in France would only be so obliging as to follow my Fashion, comb their own Heads as I do mine, dismiss their _Friseurs_, and pay me half the Money they paid to them. You see, the gentry might well afford this, and I could then enlist those _Friseurs_, who are at least 100,000, and with the Money I would maintain them, make a Visit with them to England, and dress the Heads of your Ministers and Privy Counsellors; which I conceive to be at present _un peu dérangées_. Adieu, Madcap; and believe me ever, your affectionate Friend and humble Servant. John Whitehurst, who was a maker of watches and philosophical instruments, and the author of an _Inquiry into the Original State and Formation of the Earth_, and his friend, Anthony Tissington, were residents of Derbyshire. Some of Whitehurst's letters to Franklin are still in existence, but none from Franklin to Whitehurst are. A letter from Franklin to Tissington has preserved one of the writer's characteristic stories. After speaking of the rheumatic pains, to which Mrs. Tissington was subject, he said: 'Tis a most wicked Distemper, & often puts me in mind of the Saying of a Scotch Divine to some of his Brethren who were complaining that their Flocks had of late been infected with _Arianism_ and _Socinianism_. Mine, says he, is infected with a worse ism than either of those.--Pray, Brother, what can that be?--It is, the _Rheumatism_. Thomas Viny was a wheel manufacturer of Tenterden, Kent. In a letter to him, Franklin tells him that he cannot without extreme reluctance think of using any arguments to persuade him to remove to America, because of the pain that the removal would occasion to Viny's brother. Possibly, however, he added, Viny might afterwards judge it not amiss, when the many children that he was likely to have, were grown up, to plant one of them in America, where he might prepare an asylum for the rest should any great calamity, which might God avert, befall England. A man he knew, who had a number of sons, used to say that he chose to settle them at some distance from each other, for he thought they throve better, as he remarked that cabbages, growing too near together, were not so likely to come to a head. I shall be asleep before that time [Franklin continued], otherwise he might expect and command my best Advice and Assistance. But as the Ancients who knew not how to write had a Method of transmitting Friendships to Posterity; the Guest who had been hospitably entertain'd in a strange Country breaking a Stick with every one who did him a kindness; and the Producing such a Tally at any Time afterwards, by a Descendant of the Host, to a Son or Grandson of the Guest, was understood as a good Claim to special Regard besides the Common Rights of Hospitality: So if this Letter should happen to be preserv'd, your Son may produce it to mine as an Evidence of the Good will that once subsisted between their Fathers, as an Acknowledgment of the Obligations you laid me under by your many Civilities when I was in your Country and a Claim to all the Returns due from me if I had been living. Another letter from Franklin to Viny was written at Passy. He joined most heartily he said with Viny in his prayers that the Almighty, who had favored the just cause, would perfect his work, and establish freedom in the New World as an asylum for those of the Old who deserved it. He thought the war a detestable one, and grieved much at the mischief and misery it was occasioning to many; his only consolation being that he did all in his power to prevent it. What a pleasure it would be to him on his return to America to see his old friend and his children settled there! "I hope," Franklin concluded, "he will find Vines and Fig-trees there for all of them, under which we may sit and converse, enjoying Peace and Plenty, a good Government, good Laws, and Liberty, without which Men lose half their Value." Caleb Whitefoord resided at No. 8 Craven Street, London, or next door to Mrs. Stevenson's, where Franklin resided during his two missions to England, and the friendship between Franklin and himself, though very cordial on Whitefoord's part, would seem to have been on Franklin's part, though cordial, the friendship mainly of mere propinquity.[37] Far more significant were the ties which bound Franklin to such English friends as Peter Collinson, the Rev. George Whitefield, Lord Le Despencer, James Hutton, David Hartley and George Whatley. Peter Collinson was a London mercer who had a considerable correspondence with America. He not only enjoyed an acquaintance with men of prominence and influence in the Colonies, but he earnestly interested himself in promoting the production of American flax, hemp, silk and wine. He was a fellow of the Royal Society, besides being one of the founders of the Society of Antiquaries, and it was directly due to the electric tube sent over by him to the Library Company of Philadelphia that Franklin entered upon those experiments in electricity which he communicated to Collinson in a series of memorable letters, that brought lasting renown to their author when given to the world by Collinson. In a letter to Michael Collinson, Franklin speaks of Peter Collinson as our "dear departed Friend," and pays a feeling tribute to his unselfish patronage of the Library at Philadelphia. He alludes to the valuable presents made to the Library by Collinson and others, whose generosity had been kindled by Collinson's zeal, and he states the remarkable fact that for more than thirty years successively Collinson had participated in the annual selection of books for the Library, and had shouldered the whole burden of buying them in London, and shipping them to Philadelphia without ever charging or even accepting any consideration for his trouble. Nay more, during the same time, he had transmitted to the directors of the Library Company the earliest account of every new European improvement in Agriculture and the Arts, or discovery in Philosophy. Curious in botany as Collinson may have been, it is not hazardous to say that he never gathered or sowed any seed more fruitful than these benefactions, and we can readily understand how deeply his friendship must have been cherished by a spirit so congenial with his as that of Franklin. They were friends before they ever met, but it was not until Franklin arrived in London on his first mission to England that they greeted each other face to face. Franklin's first letter to America, written the day after he reached London, was hastily penned at Collinson's house, and, the next day, John Hanbury, the great Virginia merchant, by an arrangement with Collinson, called for Franklin in his carriage, and conveyed him to the house of Lord Granville for an interview with that nobleman. The letters from Franklin to Collinson on the subject of electricity are, we hardly need say, the most important of the former's letters to him, but very valuable, too, are some of his observations in other letters to his correspondent on political conditions in Pennsylvania and the relations between the Colonies and the mother country. To the scientific letters and to these observations we shall have occasion to revert further on. Beyond a reference to some black silk, sent by Collinson to Deborah, with a generous disregard of the fact that the fowl meadow grass seed that Franklin had sent to him from America never came up, the correspondence between Collinson and Franklin is marked by few intimate features. It was, however, on the back of a letter from Franklin to Collinson, in which the former condoled with the latter on the loss of his wife, that this good man, for such we must believe Collinson to have been, indorsed these singular comments, the offspring probably of purely morbid self-reproach: There was no occasion of any Phylosophy on this ever to be lamented occasion. Peter Collinson had few feelings but for Himself. The same Principle that led him to deprive his son of his Birthright when that son lay in the Agonies of Death and knew not what he put his hand to, supported Peter Collinson in the loss of the best of Women in a manner that did no Honour to his Feelings, his Gratitude or his Humanity. The eye of the reader has already been drawn to the Rev. George Whitefield, whose eloquence, we are told by Franklin in the _Autobiography_, "had a wonderful power over the hearts and purses of his hearers." After the death of Whitefield, Franklin paid this handsome tribute to him in a letter to Robert Morris and Thomas Leach. "I knew him intimately upwards of thirty years. His Integrity, Disinterestedness, and indefatigable Zeal in prosecuting every good Work, I have never seen equalled, I shall never see exceeded." To Franklin, too, we are indebted for a striking description of his characteristics as an orator, when he came over to Philadelphia from Ireland, and, after being at first permitted to preach in some churches, was later compelled to preach in the fields, because the clergy took a dislike to him, and refused him their pulpits. He had a loud and clear voice, and articulated his words and sentences so perfectly, that he might be heard and understood at a great distance, especially as his auditories, however numerous, observ'd the most exact silence. He preach'd one evening from the top of the Court-house steps, which are in the middle of Market-Street, and on the west side of Second-Street, which crosses it at right angles. Both streets were fill'd with his hearers to a considerable distance. Being among the hindmost in Market-Street, I had the curiosity to learn how far he could be heard, by retiring backwards down the street towards the river; and I found his voice distinct till I came near Front-Street, when some noise in the street obscur'd it. Imagining then a semi-circle, of which my distance should be the radius, and that it were fill'd with auditors, to each of whom I allow'd two square feet, I computed that he might well be heard by more than thirty thousand. This reconcil'd me to the newspaper accounts of his having preach'd to twenty-five thousand people in the fields, and to the antient histories of generals haranguing whole armies, of which I had sometimes doubted. By experience, Franklin came to distinguish easily between Whitefield's newly composed sermons and those which he had often preached in the course of his travels. His delivery of the latter was so improv'd by frequent repetitions that every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly well turn'd and well plac'd, that, without being interested in the subject, one could not help being pleas'd with the discourse; a pleasure of much the same kind with that receiv'd from an excellent piece of musick. Notwithstanding the extraordinary influence of Whitefield's oratory over his auditors, to which Franklin testifies so unqualifiedly, it is obvious enough, as we have seen, that a nature so little given to extreme forms of enthusiasm as that of Franklin could not but regard the hysteria produced by it with some degree of contemptuous amusement. Who [he asked in his Essay on "Shavers and Trimmers," in the _Pennsylvania Gazette_], has been more notorious for shaving and fleecing, than that Apostle of Apostles, that Preacher of Preachers, the Rev. Mr. G. W.? But I forbear making farther mention of this spiritual Shaver and Trimmer, lest I should affect the Minds of my Readers as deeply as his Preaching has affected their Pockets. This was mere jesting on the part of a man to whom everything had its humorous as well as its serious side. Very different in spirit are some of the passages in Franklin's letters to Whitefield. I am glad to hear [he wrote on one occasion] that you have frequent opportunities of preaching among the great. If you can gain them to a good and exemplary life, wonderful changes will follow in the manners of the lower ranks; for _ad exemplum regis_, etc. On this principle, Confucius, the famous Eastern reformer, proceeded. When he saw his country sunk in vice, and wickedness of all kinds triumphant, he applied himself first to the grandees; and having, by his doctrine, won _them_ to the cause of virtue, the commons followed in multitudes. The mode has a wonderful influence on mankind; and there are numbers who, perhaps, fear less the being in hell, than out of the fashion. Our most western reformations began with the ignorant mob; and when numbers of them were gained, interest and party views drew in the wise and great. Where both methods can be used, reformations are likely to be more speedy. O that some method could be found to make them lasting! He who discovers that will, in my opinion, deserve more, ten thousand times, than the inventor of the longitude. Another letter from Franklin to Whitefield is not only distinguished by the same missionary accent but also by the deep-seated loyalty to the English Crown which was so slow in yielding first to disillusionment and then to detestation. Alluding to Whitefield's desire to be the chaplain of an American army, he said that he wished that they could be jointly employed by the Crown to settle a colony on the Ohio. What a glorious Thing [he exclaimed] it would be, to settle in that fine Country a large strong Body of Religious and Industrious People! What a Security to the other Colonies; and Advantage to Britain, by Increasing her People, Territory, Strength and Commerce! Might it not greatly facilitate the Introduction of pure Religion among the Heathen, if we could, by such a Colony, show them a better Sample of Christians than they commonly see in our Indian Traders, the most vicious and abandoned Wretches of our Nation?... Life, like a dramatic Piece, should not only be conducted with Regularity, but methinks it should finish handsomely. Being now in the last Act, I begin to cast about for something fit to end with. Or if mine be more properly compar'd to an Epigram, as some of its few Lines are but barely tolerable, I am very desirous of concluding with a bright Point. In such an Enterprise I could spend the Remainder of Life with Pleasure; and I firmly believe God would bless us with Success, if we undertook it with a sincere Regard to his Honour, the Service of our gracious King, and (which is the same thing) the Publick Good. From the joint enterprise of settling a colony on the Ohio with Whitefield to the joint enterprise of abridging the Book of English Prayer with Lord Le Despencer was a far cry, but not too far for Franklin, as we have seen. Lord Le Despencer, or Sir Francis Dashwood, as he was known, when he was one of the jolly monks of Medmenham Abbey, was numbered by Franklin among his best friends, and at West Wycombe, the country seat of this nobleman, Franklin spent many happy hours. On one occasion, he writes to his son that he has passed sixteen days there most agreeably. On another occasion, he tells him that he has just come to West Wycombe to spend a few days and breathe a little fresh air. "I am in this House," he said, "as much at my Ease as if it was my own; and the Gardens are a Paradise." After a journey to Oxford, with Lord Le Despencer, he informed the same correspondent that the former was very good to him on all occasions and seemed of late very desirous of his company. Whatever else the owner of West Wycombe may have been, Franklin's letters leave us no room to doubt that he was a capital host. To a very different type of character in every respect belonged James Hutton, another dear friend of Franklin. He was a bookseller at the sign of the Bible and Sun, west of Temple Bar, and for fifty-five years a zealous member of the Moravian Church. His interest in the missionary labors of that Church, his benevolence, which knew no sectarian limitations, his sense and simplicity of manners won for him an honorable standing even in Court Circles. We are told by William Temple Franklin that he was highly esteemed by George III. and his consort, and was well known to many of the English nobility and men of letters; not being refused admittance to the highest ranks even at Buckingham House, though his ardent benevolence inclined him greatly to neglect his own dress that he might better feed the hungry and cover the naked. A man of that kind always had easy access to the heart of Franklin, open though its hospitable portals were to other friends of a very different description. In a letter to David Hartley from Passy, Franklin speaks of Hutton in these terms: "An old Friend of mine, Mr. Hutton, a Chief of the Moravians, who is often at the Queen's Palace, and is sometimes spoken to by the King, was over here lately." In a letter to Hutton himself from Passy, Franklin applies to him the term, "My dear old friend," which with its different variations meant with him the high-water mark of intimacy. Hutton is also brought to our sight, though in a droll way, in the Craven Street _Gazette_, the mock Chronicle, in which Franklin, with a delicacy and richness of humor all his own, pictures No. 7 Craven Street as a Court, Mrs. Stevenson as a Queen, with lords and ladies in her train, and Hutton and himself as rivals for the good graces of Dolly Blount, Polly's friend. This Morning [the _Gazette_ notes, under date of Tuesday, Sept. 25], my good Lord Hutton call'd at Craven-Street House and enquir'd very respectfully & affectionately concerning the Welfare of the Queen. He then imparted to the big Man (Franklin himself) a Piece of Intelligence important to them both, and but just communicated by Lady Hawkesworth, viz. that the amiable and delectable Companion, Miss D (orothea) B (lount), had made a Vow to marry absolutely him of the two whose Wife should first depart this Life. It is impossible to express the various Agitations of Mind appearing in both their Faces on this Occasion. _Vanity_ at the Preference given them over the rest of Mankind; _Affection_ to their present Wives, _Fear_ of losing them, _Hope_, if they must lose them, to obtain the proposed Comfort; _Jealousy_ of each other in case both Wives should die together, &c. &c. &c.,--all working at the same time jumbled their Features into inexplicable Confusion. They parted at length with Professions & outward Appearances indeed of ever-enduring Friendship, but it was shrewdly suspected that each of them sincerely wished Health & long Life to the other's Wife; & that however long either of these Friends might like to live himself, the other would be very well pleas'd to survive him. Hutton was one of the simple and warm-hearted friends of Franklin who endeavored by their individual exertions to accelerate the restoration of peace between Great Britain and America, and, like all of Franklin's English friends, who kept up a correspondence with him, while the war was going on, he had to read some scathing fulminations against England. You have lost by this mad War [Franklin said in one letter to Hutton], and the Barbarity with which it has been carried on, not only the Government and Commerce of America, and the public Revenues and private Wealth arising from that Commerce, but what is more, you have lost the Esteem, Respect, Friendship, and Affection of all that great and growing People, who consider you at present, and whose Posterity will consider you, as the worst and wickedest Nation upon Earth. Twelve days later, Franklin annexed a postscript to this letter which must have been an even severer trial to Hutton's equanimity than the letter itself. I abominate with you [he said], all Murder, and I may add, that the Slaughter of Men in an unjust Cause is nothing less than Murder; I therefore never think of your present Ministers and their Abettors, but with the Image strongly painted in my View, of their Hands, red, wet, and dropping with the Blood of my Countrymen, Friends, and Relations. Franklin's opinion of the King was imparted to Hutton in terms fully as indignant. The letter, in which this was done, was prompted by a letter from Hutton to a third person giving an account of some abominable murders inflicted by American frontiersmen upon the poor Moravian Indians. This time it was not English, but American hands that were red with blood, but Franklin was resourceful enough all the same to fix the responsibility for the murders by a train of indirect reasoning on the King. Why, he asked, had a single man in England, who happened to love blood and to hate Americans, been permitted to gratify that bad temper by hiring German murderers, and joining them with his own to destroy, in a continued course of bloody years, near 100,000 human creatures, many of them possessed of useful talents, virtues and abilities to which he had no pretension! It was he who had furnished the savages with hatchets and scalping knives, and engaged them to fall upon defenceless American farmers, and murder them with their wives and children, paying for their scalps, of which the account kept in America already amounted, he had heard, to near two thousand. Perhaps, the people of the frontiers, he declared, exasperated by the cruelties of the Indians, had been induced to kill all Indians that fell into their hands without distinction; so that even these horrid murders of the poor Moravians might be laid to the King's charge. And yet [said Franklin] this Man lives, enjoys all the good Things this World can afford, and is surrounded by Flatterers, who keep even his Conscience quiet by telling him he is the best of Princes! I wonder at this, but I can not therefore part with the comfortable Belief of a Divine Providence; and the more I see the Impossibility, from the number & extent of his Crimes, of giving equivalent Punishment to a wicked Man in this Life, the more I am convinc'd of a future State, in which all that here appears to be wrong shall be set right, all that is crooked made straight. In this Faith let you & I, my dear Friend, comfort ourselves; it is the only Comfort, in the present dark Scene of Things, that is allowed us. The friendship between Franklin and David Hartley had to endure the concussion of some knocks even harder than these. Hartley was the son of David Hartley, the philosopher, from whom Hartley Coleridge, the poet, derived his name. He was a B. A. of Corpus Christi, Oxford, and a fellow of Merton College, and represented Hull in Parliament from 1774 to 1780 and from 1782 to 1784. An adherent of Lord Rockingham, and a warm friend of Franklin, he was naturally enough selected as the British plenipotentiary to assist in drawing up the treaty of peace between Great Britain and America. Before this time, however, he had been engaged in a protracted correspondence with Franklin, marked by a degree of liberality and humane feeling on his part which did him great honor. To alleviate the condition of American prisoners in England, to promote the exchange of these prisoners and British prisoners in America, to bring about a reunion between Great Britain and her colonies, and, that failing, a separation attended by as little mutual animosity as possible, were the generous objects to which his efforts were addressed. In pursuing these objects, he must have found it difficult at times to submit meekly to some of the ireful invective against his King, Parliament and People, which punctuates Franklin's solicitation of his mediatory offices, in behalf of American prisoners, and pleas for a peace between Great Britain and America, attended by really generous concessions upon the part of Great Britain. The year after his arrival in France as our minister, Franklin wrote to Hartley: As to our submitting to the government of Great Britain, it is vain to think of it. She has given us, by her numberless barbarities in the prosecution of the war, and in the treatment of prisoners, by her malice in bribing slaves to murder their masters, and savages to massacre the families of farmers, with her baseness in rewarding the unfaithfulness of servants, and debauching the virtue of honest seamen, intrusted with our property, so deep an impression of her depravity, that we never again can trust her in the management of our affairs and interests. As the war went on, leaving its trail of blood and increasing hatred behind it, his language at times becomes even more intense. About a year and a half later, he wrote to Hartley, "We know that your King hates Whigs and Presbyterians; that he thirsts for our Blood, of which he has already drunk large Draughts; that his servile unprincipled Ministers are ready to execute the Wickedest of his Orders, and his venal Parliament equally ready to vote them just." This outburst was evoked by what he conceived to be a cunning effort of the English Ministry to divide America and her French ally. The next outburst was provoked by the same cause. "The Truth is," he said, "we have no kind of Faith in your Government, which appears to us as insidious and deceitful as it is unjust and cruel; its Character is that of the Spider in Thomson, "Cunning and fierce, Mixture abhorr'd!!" Finally, all the hurrying feelings aroused in him at times by what he called "bloody and insatiable Malice and Wickedness" became condensed in an abstract term so full of passion as "devilism." Franklin was not the man to take hold of the handles of a plough and then turn back. In his correspondence with Hartley, as with his other English friends, after he entered upon his mission to France, is the clearest recognition of the fact, to use his own robust figure of speech, that England had lost limbs which would never grow again, and his unwavering resolution to give his assent to nothing less than the complete independence of the Colonies. For him, for his country, there were never more to be any connecting links between Great Britain and America except those of mere international good will and commercial comity. Upon propositions of every sort, looking to a reconciliation between the two lands, he lingered solely for the purpose of obtaining for America, when peace finally came, as large a measure of territorial aggrandizement as he could possibly secure. Of a conciliatory bill, of which Hartley sent him a copy, he said, "It might have erected a Wall of Brass round England, if such a Measure had been adopted, when Fryar Bacon's brazen Head cried out, TIME IS! But the wisdom of it was not seen, till after the fatal Cry of TIME'S PAST!" It was the almost pathetic desire of such correspondents of Franklin as Hartley to save some sort of organic tie between the two countries from the wreckage wrought by the fatal policy of the British Ministry, which makes it difficult for us to read Franklin's French letters to men like Hutton and Hartley without feeling that the harsh terms, which he often employed in these letters about the English King, Parliament and People, were hardly fair to that courageous and high-minded band of English patriots, who made the American cause almost as much theirs as his own, and stopped only short of treason in the assertion of their belief that the immemorial liberties of England as well as the liberties of America were staked upon the issue of the American contest. It was the extreme outspoken dissatisfaction, with which English Whigs regarded the effort of the British Ministry to force its own violent and technical views of colonial policy upon America, that made it possible for Franklin to write to Englishmen as he did about their government without exciting either frank or sullen resentment. But there was undoubtedly still another reason with which politics had nothing to do. These Whigs not only respected the manly candor, with which Franklin expressed convictions that they knew had been formed by a singularly enlightened, generous and sober mind, once devotedly attached by the strongest ties of tradition and affection to the colonial connection between Great Britain and America, but they had been too intimate with him personally not to be aware that it was not in his nature to harbor any real or lasting malignity of feeling towards anyone. And that this view of his character was correct is shown by more than one feature of his correspondence with Hartley. In a letter to Hartley, he said that, when Hartley's nation was hiring all the cutthroats it could collect of all countries and colors to destroy the Americans, it was hard to persuade the Americans not to ask, or accept of, aid from any country that might be prevailed with to grant it, and this from the hope that, though the British then thirsted for their blood, and pursued them with fire and sword, they might in some future time treat them kindly. But the outbreak does not seem so fierce when he goes on to say, "America has been _forc'd_ and _driven_ into the Arms of France. She was a dutiful and virtuous Daughter. A cruel Mother-in-law turn'd her out of Doors, defam'd her, and sought her Life. All the World knows her Innocence, and takes her part; and her Friends hope soon to see her honorably married." One of the peculiarities of that kindly and facetious nature was that its sense of humor would at times work its way even between the lines of formal state papers; to say nothing of letters to a familiar friend on the conduct of an enemy. Nor could Hartley doubt that the old well-springs of mirth and loving kindness were as full as ever to overflowing, when, in response to a letter from him to Franklin, containing the Scotch ballad, _Auld Robin Gray_, he received this lively application of the ballad to existing conditions: I cannot make an entire application of it to present Circumstances; but, taking it in Parts, and changing Persons, some of it is extremely _apropos_. First Jenie may be supposed Old England, and Jamie, America. Jenie laments the loss of Jamie, and recollects with Pain his Love for her, his Industry in Business to promote her Wealth and Welfare, and her own Ingratitude. "Young Jamie loved me weel, And sought me for his Bride, But saving ane Crown, He had naithing beside, To make that Crown a Pound, my Jamie gang'd to Sea, And the Crown and the Pound were all for me." Her grief for this Separation is expressed very pathetically. "The ship was a Wrack, Why did na Jennie die; O why was I spared To cry, Wae is me!" There is no Doubt but that honest Jamie had still so much Love for her as to Pity her in his Heart, tho' he might, at the same time, be not a little angry with her. Towards the Conclusion, we must change the Persons, and let Jamie be old England, Jennie, America, and old Robin Gray, the Kingdom of France. Then honest Jenie, having made a Treaty of Marriage with Gray, expresses her firm Resolution of Fidelity, in a manner that does Honour to her good Sense, and her Virtue. "I may not think of Jamie, For that would be a Sin, But I maun do my best, A gude wife to be; For auld Robin Gray Is very kind to me." How was it possible for Hartley to remain angry with a man like this, even if he was told by him in another letter that, though there could be but few things, in which he would venture to disobey the orders of Congress, he would, nevertheless, instantly renounce the commission that he held from it, and banish himself forever from so infamous a country as America, if Congress were to instruct him to seek a truce of ten years with Great Britain, with the stipulation that America was not to assist France during that time, if the war between Great Britain and France continued? This was trying, though not so trying perhaps as his statement in still another letter to Hartley that he thought of his reasonings to show that, if France should require of America something unreasonable, America would not be obliged by the treaty between them to continue the war as her ally, what he supposed an honest woman would think, if a gallant should entertain her with suppositions of cases in which infidelity to her husband would be justifiable. Nor was the merry adaptation of the ballad of _Auld Robin Gray_ the only thing of the kind that tended to relieve the tension of the reproaches heaped by Franklin upon Great Britain in his letters to Hartley. In the same letter, in which he depicts the King as thirsty for still further draughts of American blood, and repels with apparently hot wrath the suggestion of Hartley that the alliance between France and America was the greatest stumbling-block in the way of peace between Great Britain and France, he tells Hartley that the proposition to separate France and America puts him in mind of the comic farce entitled _God-send, or The Wreckers_. It was not hard, of course, for him to be put in mind of something conceived by his own mind. The farce opens with this stage introduction: (A Ship riding at anchor in a great Storm. A Lee Shore full of Rocks, and lin'd with people, furnish'd with Axes & Carriages to cut up Wrecks, knock the Sailors on the Head, and carry off the Plunder; according to Custom.) Then, after a lively dialogue between the wreckers, who have grown impatient with the staunch way in which the ship is riding out the storm, they put off in a boat in the hope of luring her to the shore, and come under her stern, and try to persuade her captain, in the course of another lively dialogue, that his cable is a damned rotten French cable, and will part of itself in half an hour; only to be told by the captain that they are rogues, and offer nothing but treachery and mischief, and that his cable is good and strong, and would hold long enough to balk their projects. The dialogue ends with the exclamation by the spokesman of the wreckers, "Come, my Lads, let's be gone. This Fellow is not so great a Fool as we took him to be." Familiar affection glistens in every line of the letters from Franklin to George Whatley, and one of them is suffused with the genial warmth of his best social hours. After some strictures on an epitaph by Pope, he said in this letter: I like better the concluding Sentiment in the old Song, call'd _The Old Man's Wish_, wherein, after wishing for a warm house in a country Town, an easy Horse, some good old authors, ingenious and cheerful Companions, a Pudding on Sundays, with stout Ale, and a bottle of Burgundy, &c., &c., in separate Stanzas, each ending with this burthen, "May I govern my Passions with an absolute sway, Grow wiser and better as my Strength wears away, Without Gout or Stone, by a gentle Decay"; he adds, "With a courage undaunted may I face my last day, And, when I am gone, may the better Sort say, 'In the Morning when Sober, in the Evening when mellow, He's gone, and has not left behind him his Fellow; For he governed his Passions, &c.'" But what signifies our Wishing? Things happen, after all, as they will happen. I have sung that _wishing Song_ a thousand times, when I was young, and now find, at Four-score, that the three Contraries have befallen me, being subject to the Gout and the Stone, and not being yet Master of all my Passions. Like the proud Girl in my Country, who wished and resolv'd not to marry a Parson, nor a Presbyterian, nor an Irishman; and at length found herself married to an Irish Presbyterian Parson. In the course of one of the summer rambles, which he took every year for twenty years, for health and recreation, Franklin twice visited Scotland, once in 1759, and once in 1771. As the result of civilities received by him in that country at the hands of Sir Alexander Dick, the President of the College of Physicians at Edinburgh, and Henry Home, Lord Kames, a Judge of the Court of Session, and author of _The Elements of Criticism_ and _The Sketches of the History of Man_, he became a fast friend of these two eminent men. After completing with his son a tour of nearly 1500 miles in 1759, he wrote to Sir Alexander Dick, whose guests they had been for a time, that the many civilities, favors and kindnesses heaped upon them, while they were in Scotland, had made the most lasting impression upon their minds, and endeared that country to them beyond expression. In the same letter, he asked Sir Alexander to assure Lady Dick that he had great faith in her parting prayers that the purse she honored him with would never be quite empty. His letters to Lord Kames testified in even stronger terms to the happy hours that he had spent in Scotland on this visit. How unfortunate I was [he wrote to him] that I did not press you and Lady Kames more strongly to favor us with your company farther. How much more agreeable would our journey have been, if we could have enjoyed you as far as York. We could have beguiled the way, by discoursing of a thousand things, that now we may never have an opportunity of considering together; for conversation warms the mind, enlivens the imagination, and is continually starting fresh game, that is immediately pursued and taken, and which would never have occurred in the duller intercourse of epistolary correspondence. So that whenever I reflect on the great pleasure and advantage I received from the free communication of sentiment, in the conversations we had at Kames, and in the agreeable little rides to the Tweed side, I shall forever regret our premature parting. Even more fervid was the conclusion of this letter: Our conversation till we came to York, was chiefly a recollection of what we had seen and heard, the pleasure we had enjoyed, and the kindness we had received in Scotland, and how far that country had exceeded our expectations. On the whole, I must say, I think the time we spent there, was six weeks of the _densest_ happiness I have met with in any part of my life: and the agreeable and instructive society we found there in such plenty, has left so pleasing an impression on my memory, that did not strong connexions draw me elsewhere, I believe Scotland would be the country I should choose to spend the remainder of my days in. In a later letter to Lord Kames, he returns to the same pleasing field of association. Your invitation to make another jaunt to Scotland, and offer to meet us half way _en famille_, was extremely obliging. Certainly I never spent my time anywhere more agreeably, nor have I been in any place, where the inhabitants and their conversation left such lastingly pleasing impressions on my mind, accompanied with the strongest inclination once more to visit that hospitable, friendly, and sensible people. When we recall Franklin's distaste for theology and metaphysics, the humor that ever lurked about his lips, and Sydney Smith's famous observation that it requires a surgical operation to get a joke into a Scotchman's head, we may well experience a sensation of momentary surprise when we read these earnest tributes to the charm of Scotch social conditions in 1759--a sense of surprise increased by the fact that, in the _Autobiography_, Franklin ends a little dissertation on the odious nature of disputation with these words: "Persons of good sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it, except lawyers, university men, and men of all sorts that have been bred at Edinborough." But all such sensations of surprise pass away when we remember that manly simplicity, practical sagacity, a spirit of enterprise and a love of learning, which no discouragements can chill, were also Scotch characteristics that Franklin shared with Scotchmen. When Franklin returned in 1771 to the "odious-smells, barbarous sounds, bad suppers, excellent hearts and most enlightened understandings," amid which Sydney Smith, with his exaggerated humor, afterwards pictured himself as dwelling when he was a resident of Edinburgh, William Franklin did not accompany him. In Scotland [Franklin wrote to his son after this second visit] I spent 5 Days with Lord Kaims at his Seat, Blair Drummond near Stirling, two or three Days at Glasgow, two Days at Carron Iron Works, and the rest of the Month in and about Edinburgh, lodging at David Hume's, who entertain'd me with the greatest Kindness and Hospitality, as did Lord Kaims & his Lady. All our old Acquaintance there, Sir Alex'r Dick and Lady, Mr. McGowan, Drs. Robertson, Cullen, Black, Ferguson, Russel, and others, enquired affectionately of your Welfare. I was out three Months, and the Journey was evidently of great service to my Health. The letters from Franklin to Lord Kames cover a great variety of topics; and to his observations on some of these topics, which were of a political or scientific nature, we shall return in other connections. One letter was written, when Franklin was on the eve of sailing from Portsmouth to America in 1762, and that the moment of embarkation upon the perilous seas of that time was a solemn one is manifest enough in its opening statements: MY DEAR LORD, I am now waiting here only for a wind to waft me to America, but cannot leave this happy island and my friends in it, without extreme regret, though I am going to a country and a people that I love. I am going from the old world to the new; and I fancy I feel like those, who are leaving this world for the next: grief at the parting; fear of the passage; hope of the future. But never were votive chaplets woven and gratefully suspended by a voyager after a more prosperous passage than this. Franklin left England in company with ten sail of merchant ships, under the convoy of a man-of-war, touched at the heavenly Madeira Islands, and was then caught up in the benign trade winds, and borne safely to the American coast. The weather was so favourable [he stated in another letter to Lord Kames] that there were few days in which we could not visit from ship to ship, dining with each other, and on board of the man-of-war; which made the time pass agreeably, much more so than when one goes in a single ship; for this was like travelling in a moving village, with all one's neighbours about one. Among the things upon which Franklin prided himself was the fact that he shaved himself, and in one of his letters to Lord Kames this trivial circumstance is brought to our notice in these wise words: I have long been of an opinion similar to that you express, and think happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life. Thus I reckon it among my felicities, that I can set my own razor, and shave myself perfectly well; in which I have a daily pleasure, and avoid the uneasiness one is sometimes obliged to suffer from the dirty fingers or bad breath of a slovenly barber. There was also a link of friendship between Franklin and David Hume. In a letter to Strahan, Franklin, when on his visit to Scotland in 1771, writes to him that Hume, agreeably to the precepts of the Gospel, had received the stranger, and that he was then living with him at his house in the New Town at Edinburgh most happily. In another letter, a week or so later, he informed Strahan, after a short excursion from Edinburgh, that he was well and again under the hospitable roof of the good Samaritan. Hume was too much of a bigoted Tory not to snarl a little at Franklin's "factious" spirit, when the Revolution was coming on, but, when Franklin was leaving England in 1762, he paid him this handsome compliment: I am very sorry, that you intend soon to leave our hemisphere. America has sent us many good things, gold, silver, sugar, indigo, &c; but you are the first philosopher, and indeed the first great man of letters for whom we are beholden to her. It is our own fault, that we have not kept him; whence it appears, that we do not agree with Solomon, that wisdom is above gold; for we take care never to send back an ounce of the latter, which we once lay our fingers upon. It was a dangerous thing to enter into a competition of compliments with Franklin, as his reply to this letter showed. Your compliment of _gold_ and _wisdom_ [he said] is very obliging to me, but a little injurious to your country. The various value of everything in every part of this world arises, you know, from the various proportions of the quantity to the demand. We are told, that gold and silver in Solomon's time were so plenty, as to be of no more value in his country than the stones in the street. You have here at present just such a plenty of wisdom. Your people are, therefore, not to be censured for desiring no more among them than they have; and if I have _any_, I should certainly carry it where, from its scarcity, it may probably come to a better market. This was certainly a ponderous compliment, but it does not seem quite so much so, when read after the alleviating story which immediately preceded it. Referring to a ridiculous dispute, mentioned by his correspondent, he said: Judges in their decisions often use precedents. I have somewhere met with one, that is what the lawyers call a _case in point_. The Church people and the Puritans in a country town had once a bitter contention concerning the erecting of a Maypole, which the former desired and the latter opposed. Each party endeavoured to strengthen itself by obtaining the authority of the mayor, directing or forbidding a Maypole. He heard their altercation with great patience, and then gravely determined thus; "You, that are for having no Maypole, shall have no Maypole; and you, that are for having a Maypole, shall have a Maypole. Get about your business, and let me hear no more of this quarrel." Other Scotch friends of Franklin were William Alexander, a connection of Lord Stirling, and his two daughters, one of whom, Mariamne, became the wife of Franklin's nephew, Jonathan Williams. A letter from Alexander to Franklin has its value because of the knowledge that it affords to us of the personal bearing of Arthur Lee who was, we shall see, jealous, haughty and sensitive enough to curdle even the sweet milk of Franklin's amiable nature. "I see," wrote Alexander, "you have made my old friend Lee a minister at Madrid, I think he has very much the manners of a Spaniard when he is not angry." It was Alexander also whose careful mercantile habits impelled him to write to Franklin, when he observed the disorder in which the latter kept his papers at Passy, this word of caution: Will you forgive me my Dear Sir for noticing, that your Papers seem to me to lye a little loosely about your hands--you are to consider yourself as surrounded by spies and amongst people who can make a cable from a thread; would not a spare half hour per day enable your son to arrange all your papers, useless or not, so that you could come at them sooner, and not one be visible to a prying eye. The only intimate friend, we believe, that Franklin had in Ireland was Sir Edward Newenham, a member of the Irish Parliament, whose sympathy with the American cause was so extreme that he appeared in his seat in deep mourning when the news of General Montgomery's death reached Ireland. Unfortunately, of the many letters, that Franklin wrote to him, only two or three, of comparatively meagre interest, survive. But of Ireland itself we have some graphic details in his letters to other persons. In one to Thomas Cushing, he says of the Irish, after a tour of the island with his friend, Richard Jackson, "There are many brave Spirits among them. The Gentry are a very sensible, polite, friendly and handsome People. Their Parliament makes a most respectable Figure, with a number of very good Speakers in both Parties, and able Men of Business." He then tells Cushing in modest terms how, when he was on his way to the gallery in the Parliament House at Dublin, the whole assembly, upon being informed by the Speaker that there was in town an American gentleman of distinguished character and merit, who was a member or delegate of some of the Parliaments in America, by a loud, unanimous expression of its will voted to admit him to the privileges of the floor; whereupon two members came to him without the bar, where he was standing, led him in and placed him very honorably. Other friends of Franklin there were whom it is difficult to classify either as Englishmen or Americans, such as General Horatio Gates and General Charles Lee, who were born in England but became celebrated in America, and Benjamin West, the painter, who was born in America, but passed his mature life in England. That Franklin was on very friendly relations with Gates there can be no doubt, for in one of his letters to him he calls him his "Dear old friend," and that was a term never applied by him to any but his intimates. Nor can there be much doubt as to what it was that brought and kept Franklin and Gates together as friends. It was the game to which Franklin was so much addicted that he even expounded its morals in an essay--chess. "When," he wrote to Gates from Passy, "shall we meet again in cheerful converse, talk over our adventures, and finish with a quiet game of chess?" And on the same day that he addressed to Washington the noble letter, declaring that, if the latter were to come to Europe, he would know and enjoy what posterity would say of Washington, he wrote to Gates, "May God give us soon a good Peace, and bring you and I (_sic_) together again over a Chess board, where we may have Battles without Bloodshed." How an eccentric and perfidious man like General Charles Lee, whose temper alone was so repugnant to Franklin's dislike of disputation as to win for him the nickname of "Boiling Water" from the Indians, could ever have passed himself off with Franklin as genuine coin is hard to understand, but he appears to have done so. "Yours most affectionately," is the manner in which one of Franklin's letters to him ends. In another letter to Lee, Franklin gravely sums up in formal numerical sequence his reasons for thinking that bows and arrows were good weapons not wisely laid aside. The idea is one so little in harmony with his practical turn of mind, and is reasoned out so elaborately, that we form a shrewd suspicion as we read that this was after all but his humorous way of replying to his erratic friend's suggestion that the use of pikes by the American Army might not be a bad thing. A very different kind of friend was Benjamin West. It was he that Franklin had in mind when he wrote to Polly Stevenson in 1763, "After the first Cares for the Necessaries of Life are over, we shall come to think of the Embellishments. Already some of our young Geniuses begin to lisp Attempts at Painting, Poetry, and Musick. We have a young Painter now studying at Rome." Twenty years later, the lisping attempts of America at painting had become so distinctly articulate, and the young painter, who was studying at Rome, had become so famous, that Franklin could write to Jan Ingenhousz, "In England at present, the best History Painter, West; the best Portrait Painter, Copley, and the best Landscape Painter, Taylor, at Bath, are all Americans." Benjamin West, and his wife, as Elizabeth Shewell, were friends of Franklin and Deborah before West left his native Pennsylvania for Europe; and the friendship between the artist and his wife and Franklin was kept alive by affectionate intercourse in England. For one of West's sons Franklin became godfather. "It gave me great Pleasure," he said in a letter to West, referring to a letter from West to him, "as it informed me of the Welfare of a Family I so much esteem and love, and that my Godson is a promising Boy." The letter concludes with loving words for the godson and Raphael, West's oldest son, and "Betsey," West's wife. We have by no means taken a complete census of Franklin's American and British friends. For instance, in a letter to Doctor Cooper from London, he refers to a Mr. Mead, first Commissioner of the Customs in England, whom we have not mentioned, as a particular and intimate friend of his; to say nothing of other persons with whom his intercourse was very friendly but either too colorless to arrest our attention in reading his correspondence, or to even bring them up in his correspondence at all. But we have marshalled quite enough of these friends before the eye of the reader, we are sure, to satisfy him that few human beings ever had such a wealth of affection heaped on them as Franklin. FOOTNOTES: [34] "Mrs. Shipley and her daughter Kitty, in their passion for you rival Georgiana." Letter from Jonathan Shipley to Franklin, Nov. 27, 1785. [35] To a series of experiments, conducted by Sir John Pringle, we owe our knowledge of the fact that mosquito hawks are so whimsically constituted that they live longer with their heads off than on. One of these decapitated moths was so tenacious of his existence as to survive for 174 days. [36] A letter from Franklin to Francis Maseres, dated Passy, June 26, 1785, suggests an additional reason why the antipathy of the American Whigs to the American loyalists was so unrelenting. "The war against us was begun by a general act of Parliament, declaring all our estates confiscated; and probably one great motive to the loyalty of the royalists was the hope of sharing in these confiscations. They have played a deep game, staking their estates against ours; and they have been unsuccessful. But it is a surer game, since they had promises to rely on from your government, of indemnification in case of loss; and I see your Parliament is about to fulfil those Promises. To this I have no objection, because, though still our enemies, they are men; they are in necessity; and I think even a hired assassin has a right to his pay from his employer." [37] The business of Whitefoord as a wine-merchant was carried on at No. 8 Craven Street, and he enjoyed a considerable reputation for wit in his time. He served as Secretary to the Commission that settled the terms of peace with the United States. He was, Burke thought, a mere _diseur de bons mots_. Goldsmith deemed him of sufficient importance to make him the subject of an epitaph intended to be worked into the Retaliation, and reading as follows: "Here Whitefoord reclines, deny it who can; Tho' he merrily lived, he is now a grave man. What pity, alas! that so lib'ral a mind Should so long be to Newspaper Essays confined! Who perhaps to the summit of science might soar, Yet content if the table he set in a roar; Whose talents to fit any station were fit, Yet happy if Woodfall confessed him a wit." His intimacy with Franklin, Whitefoord said on one occasion, had been the "pride and happiness" of his life. CHAPTER VII Franklin's French Friends To the host of friends mentioned above, numerous as it was, another great addition was to be made when Franklin became one of our envoys to France. In the various Colonies of America, so unlike each other in many respects, in England, in Scotland, his liberal instincts and quick sympathies ran out into new social forms almost with the fluid ease of the melted tallow which he had poured, in his boyhood, into his father's candle moulds; but of all the impressions that he ever derived from any society, that which was made upon him by French society certifies most strikingly to the wonderful plasticity of his nature, under the pressure of new conditions. So permeated did he--one of the truest progenitors of distinctively American ideas and attributes, and one of the truest exponents of the robust Anglo-Saxon character--become with the genius of the French People that a Frenchman, Henri Martin, the historian, has declared that he was "of a mind altogether French in its grace and elasticity." There was a time, of course, when Franklin, apart from the inveteracy of the old English prejudice, which believed that upon every pair of English legs marched three Frenchmen, had no good blood for the French because of the agony in which they had for so many years, with the aid of their savage friends, kept the colonial frontier. "I fancy that intriguing nation would like very well to meddle on occasion, and blow up the coals between Britain and her colonies; but I hope we shall give them no opportunity." This was his quiet comment even as late as 1767 in a letter to William Franklin upon the sedulous attentions recently paid to him by Monsieur Durand, the French plenipotentiary in London, whose masters were fully awake to the fact that the quarrel between Great Britain and her Colonies might be a pretty one from the point of view of French interests, and that in duels it is not the pistols but the seconds that kill. But this was politics. Long before Franklin crossed the Atlantic on his French mission, he had felt, during his visits to France in 1767 and 1769, the bewitching influence of social conditions perpetually enlivened and refreshed by the vivacity and inventive resource which were such conspicuous features of his own character. After his return from France in 1767, he wrote to D'Alibard: "The Time I spent in Paris, and in the improving Conversation and agreeable Society of so many learned and ingenious Men, seems now to me like a pleasing Dream, from which I was sorry to be awaked by finding myself again at London." These agreeable impressions were confirmed by his return to France in 1769. After stating in a letter to Dupont de Nemours in the succeeding year that he expected to return to America in the ensuing summer, he exclaimed, "Would to God I could take with me Messrs. Dupont, du Bourg, and some other French Friends with their good Ladies! I might then, by mixing them with my Friends in Philadelphia, form a little happy Society that would prevent my ever wishing again to visit Europe." It was, therefore, to no entirely novel social conditions that Franklin was introduced when he found himself again in France in 1776. At any rate, no chameleon was ever quicker to absorb the color of his latest background. As time elapsed, nothing but his inability to write and speak French with the facility of a native-born Frenchman separated him in a social sense from the mass of French men and women, by whom he was admired, courted and flattered almost from the day that he set foot in France until the day that he was conveyed in one of the Queen's litters to the coast on his return to America. How far this assimilation was the deliberate achievement of a wise man, who never failed to act upon the principle that the best way of managing men is to secure their good will first, how far but the unconscious self-adjustment of a pliable disposition it is impossible to say. But there can be no doubt about the amazing sympathy with which Franklin entered into the social life of the French people. Beneath the gay, pleasure-loving exterior that he presented to French society, there was always the thought of that land over-sea, so singularly blessed by Providence with material comfort and equality of fortune, with the general diffusion of education and enlightenment, and with political institutions bound to the past only by the wisdom of experience. Always beneath that exterior, too, was a glowing resentment of the wrongs that England had inflicted upon America, an enthusiastic sense of the "glorious cause" in which America was engaged, and a resolution as fixed as the eye of Nemesis that no hand but the hand of America itself should fill out the outlines of the imperial destiny, in which he had once been so eagerly, even pathetically, desirous that England should share. But these were thoughts and purposes reserved for the hours of business, or of confidential intercourse with his American compatriots, or for such moments as the one when he heard of the fall of Philadelphia and the surrender of Burgoyne. In his purely social relations with the French People, he preserved only enough of his republican ideas, dress and manners to give a certain degree of piquancy to his _ensemble_. He adopted French usages and customs; he composed exquisite little stories and dialogues in the French manner, and, old as he was, he made love like a French _galant_. "As it is always fair Weather in our Parlours, it is at Paris always Peace," he wrote to the Chevalier de la Luzerne, and this remark comes home to us with full force when we remember with what unrestrained gaiety of heart, notwithstanding the shudder sent through him at times by the American War, he enjoyed the social life of Paris. Long before he left France, he had learnt to love the country and its people with a sincere, fervent attachment. After saying in a letter to Josiah Quincy, that the French had certainly advanced in politeness and civility many degrees beyond the English, he paid them this compliment: I find them here a most amiable Nation to live with. The Spaniards are by common Opinion suppos'd to be cruel, the English proud, the Scotch insolent, the Dutch Avaricious, &c., but I think the French have no national Vice ascrib'd to them. They have some Frivolities, but they are harmless. To dress their Heads so that a Hat cannot be put on them, and then wear their Hats under their Arms, and to fill their Noses with Tobacco, may be called Follies, perhaps, but they are not Vices. They are only the effects of the tyranny of Custom. In short, there is nothing wanting in the Character of a Frenchman, that belongs to that of an agreeable and worthy Man. There are only some Trifles surplus, or which might be spared. These, however, were but frigid words in comparison with those subsequently employed by him in relation to a country, where, to use his own language, everybody strove to make him happy. "The French are an amiable People to live with," he told his old friend, Captain Nathaniel Falconer, "They love me, & I love them." In a later letter to William Franklin, he said, "I am here among a People that love and respect me, a most amiable Nation to live with; and perhaps I may conclude to die among them; for my Friends in America are dying off, one after another, and I have been so long abroad, that I should now be almost a Stranger in my own Country." Nor did the love for France that he took back with him to the United States grow at all fainter with absence and the flow of time. To the Duc de la Rochefoucauld he wrote from Philadelphia, "I love France, I have 1000 Reasons for doing so: And whatever promotes or impedes her Happiness affects me as if she were my Mother." To Madame Lavoisier he used terms that communicate to us an even more vivid conception of the ambrosial years that he had passed in France. These [he said, referring to his good fortune in his old age in its different aspects] are the blessings of God, and depend on his continued goodness; yet all do not make me forget Paris, and the nine years' happiness I enjoyed there, in the sweet society of a people whose conversation is instructive, whose manners are highly pleasing, and who, above all the nations of the world, have, in the greatest perfection, the art of making themselves beloved by strangers. And now, even in my sleep, I find, that the scenes of all my pleasant dreams are laid in that city, or in its neighbourhood.[38] Mingled with these pleasant dreams, it is safe to say were some of the lively and charming women to whose embraces he submitted, if his sister Jane was not misinformed, in a spirit quite remote from that of the rigors of penance. You mention the Kindness of the French Ladies to me [he wrote to Elizabeth Partridge, whose husband was the superintendent of the almshouse in Boston], I must explain that matter. This is the civilest nation upon Earth. Your first Acquaintances endeavour to find out what you like, and they tell others. If 'tis understood that you like Mutton, dine where you will you find Mutton. Somebody, it seems, gave it out that I lov'd Ladies; and then everybody presented me their Ladies (or the Ladies presented themselves) to be _embrac'd_, that is to have their Necks kiss'd. For as to kissing of Lips or Cheeks it is not the Mode here, the first, is reckon'd rude, & the other may rub off the Paint. The French Ladies have however 1000 other ways of rendering themselves agreeable; by their various Attentions and Civilities, & their sensible Conversation. 'Tis a delightful People to live with. I hope, however [he wrote to another correspondent after denying a story about himself], to preserve, while I stay, the regard you mention of the French ladies; for their society and conversation, when I have time to enjoy them, are extremely agreeable. And that the French ladies found his society and conversation extremely agreeable no one can well doubt who has had occasion to become familiar with the scented missives, full of artful coquetry, that were addressed by many fair hands to "très cher papa," or "Dear American papa" or "amiable papa," when he was in the land where somebody had been so considerate as to give it out that he liked ladies. At times, these notes run along in mingled French and English as if the writers were determined to bring to bear upon him the blandishments not only of the former language but of his own familiar tongue besides. "Je vous envoye a sweet kiss, dear Papa, envoyez moi en revanche, un Mot de Réponse," was one languishing request. Even Franklin's bad French mattered but little when a woman, Madame Brillon, whom the daughter of Abigail Adams pronounced "one of the handsomest women in France," could write to him, "It is always very good French to say, 'Je vous aime.' My heart always goes out to meet this word when you say it to me." From such words as these to his saying that the best master of languages is a mistress the transition was not very difficult.[39] It was at Passy, then a suburb of Paris, that Franklin resided during the eight and a half years that he was one of our representatives in France. His surroundings were thus described by him in reply to a question from Mrs. Stevenson: You wish to know how I live. It is in a fine House, situated in a neat Village, on high Ground, half a Mile from Paris, with a large Garden to walk in. I have abundance of Acquaintance, dine abroad Six days in seven. Sundays I reserve to dine at home, with such Americans as pass this Way; and I then have my grandson Ben, with some other American Children from his school. The house mentioned by Franklin was known as the Basse Cour de Monsieur Le Ray de Chaumont, and had originally, with the inscription over its door, "Se sta bene, non si muove" not been unknown to fame as the Hôtel de Valentinois. Indeed, John Locke, who visited Paris in 1679, declared that it was among the twenty-four _belles maisons_ in Paris that best rewarded the curiosity of the stranger at that time. The circumstances, under which it passed into the possession of Franklin, were another proof of the flaming zeal with which many of the foremost inhabitants of France espoused the cause of the Colonies. Chaumont was Grand Maître des Eaux et Forets de France and Intendant Honoraire des Invalides, a friend of the Duc de Choiseul, and a man of large wealth, with a château on the Loire as well as the mansion at Passy, of which the building occupied by Franklin was a part. In his generous enthusiasm for American liberty, he declined a post in the French Ministry, offered to him by Choiseul, because he thought that by declining it he might be a more useful intermediary between America and the French Government. When John Adams came to Passy, and found a home under the same roof with Franklin, he felt obliged to write to Chaumont asking him to consider what rent they should pay to him for the use of his house and furniture. Every part of Chaumont's conduct towards him and Americans in general, and in all their affairs, he said, had been polite and obliging, as far as he had an opportunity of observing, and he had no doubt it would continue, but it was not reasonable that they should occupy such an elegant mansion without any compensation to the owner, and it was not right that they should live at too great or at too uncertain an expense to their constituents. The reply of Chaumont was worthy of a paladin of Ancient France. "When I consecrated my home to Dr. Franklin and his associates who might live with him," he said, "I made it fully understood that I should expect no compensation, because I perceived that you had need of all your means to send to the succor of your country, or to relieve the distresses of your countrymen escaping from the chains of their enemies." This is a world, however, in which it is too much to expect an absolutely free gift of house rent, and the answer of Chaumont to John Adams does not altogether agree with the version of the matter given by Franklin in a letter to Robert R. Livingston, in which he said that Chaumont had originally proposed to leave the article of rent unsettled until the end of the war, and then to accept for it a piece of American land from the Congress such as they might judge equivalent. Considering the serious uncertainty as to whether there would then be any Congress, this was quite generous enough. It is painful to relate, however, that Chaumont engaged so recklessly in the hazardous business of shipping supplies to America for the patriot army as to become involved in pecuniary embarrassments, which produced some degree of temporary constraint in his intercourse with Franklin. "I find that in these Affairs with him, a Bargain tho' ever so clearly express'd signifies nothing," wrote Franklin in a moment of disgust with his volatility to Jonathan Williams. A few months before, Franklin had made this entry in a journal kept by him during a brief portion of his residence at Passy. "Visit at M. de Chaumont's in the evening; found him cold and dry." But before Franklin left France, the old cordiality of intercourse appears to have been fully re-established, for we find the two dining with each other again, and besides, when Franklin was on his way to the seacoast, on his return to America, Chaumont and his daughter accompanied him part of the way. The entire restoration of good feeling between the two men is also shown in the letters and conduct of Franklin after his return to America. Chaumont was one of the group of French friends favored by him with gifts of the Franklin Myrtle Wax Soap, "thought," he said, "to be the best in the World, for Shaving & for washing Chinces, and other things of delicate Colours." In one of his letters from Philadelphia, Franklin tells Chaumont that Donatien Le Ray Chaumont, the Younger, who had come over to America to press certain claims of the elder Chaumont against the United States, was out at that time with his "son Bache" and some others on a hunt. It is in this letter, by the way, that he said of Finck, his _maître d' hôtel_ at Passy, who was pretending that he was not wholly paid, "He was continually saying of himself, Je suis honnête homme, Je suis honnête homme. But I always suspected he was mistaken; and so it proves." In another letter, he wrote to Chaumont, "I have frequently the Pleasure of seeing your valuable Son, whom I love as my own," and in this letter he sent his love to all Chaumont's children in France, one of whom he was in the habit of addressing as "ma femme," another as "ma chere amie," and still another as "mon enfant." "Present my affectionate Respects to Madame de Chaumont, and Love to Mad'e Foucault, to ma Femme, ma chere Amie, et mon Enfant," was one of his messages to Chaumont. This Madame Foucault was the favorite mentioned by William Temple Franklin, when he wrote to his grandfather some nine months after the latter found the manner of Chaumont "cold and dry," "All the family (the Chaumonts) send their love to you, and the beautiful M'e Foucault accompanys hers with an English kiss." A challenge of that kind was always promptly caught up by Franklin. "Thanks to Mad'e Foucault," he replied, "for her kindness in sending me the Kiss. It was grown cold by the way. I hope for a warm one when we meet." An amusing observation of Madame Chaumont, which has its value, as an illustration of eighteenth-century manners in France, is quoted in a letter from Franklin to John Paul Jones: L'Abbé Rochon had just been telling me & Madame Chaumont [wrote Franklin] that the old Gardiner & his Wife had complained to the Curate, of your having attack'd her in the Garden about 7 o'clock the evening before your Departure, and attempted to ravish her relating all the Circumstances, some of which are not fit for me to write. The serious Part of it was yt three of her Sons were determin'd to kill you, if you had not gone off; the Rest occasioned some Laughing; for the old Woman being one of the grossest, coarsest, dirtiest & ugliest that we may find in a thousand, Madame Chaumont said it gave a high Idea of the Strength of Appetite & Courage of the Americans. A Day or two after, I learnt yt it was the femme de Chambre of Mademoiselle Chaumont who had disguis'd herself in a Suit, I think, of your Cloaths, to divert herself under that Masquerade, as is customary the last evening of Carnival: and that meeting the old Woman in the Garden, she took it into her Head to try her Chastity, which it seems was found Proof. The wit of Madame de Chaumont, however, shows to better advantage in connection with another incident. One of Franklin's friends was Mademoiselle Passy, a beautiful girl, whom he was in the habit of calling, so John Adams tells us, "his favorite, and his flame, and his love," which flattered the family, and did not displease the young lady. When her engagement to the Marquis de Tonnerre was announced, Madame de Chaumont exclaimed to Franklin, "Hélas! tous les conducteurs de Monsieur Franklin n'ont pas empêché le tonnerre de tomber sur Mademoiselle de Passy." Franklin himself was entirely too good a conductor of wit not to pass a thing like this on. It gives me great Pleasure Madam my respected Neighbour, [he said in a letter to Madame de Boulainvilliers, the mother of the Semele upon whom the Marquis was about to descend] to learn that our lovely Child is soon to be married with your Approbation & that we are not however to be immediately depriv'd of her Company. I assure you I shall make no Use of my Paratonnerre [lightning-rod] to prevent this Match. Franklin's republican simplicity began and ended with his unpowdered hair, worn straight, and covered with a cap of marten fur, and his russet dress. At Passy, he lived in a manner that Vergennes, accustomed to the splendor and profusion of European Courts, might well call modest, but which was quite as lavish as was consistent with the reputation of a plain democrat or of a veritable philosopher. Under the terms of his contract with his _maître d'hôtel_, the latter was to provide _déjeuner_ and dinner daily for five persons. The _déjeuner_ was to consist of bread and butter, honey, and coffee or chocolate with sugar, and the dinner of a joint of beef, or veal or mutton, followed by fowl or game with "deux plats d'entremets, deux plats de legumes, et un plat de Pattisserie, avec hors d'oeuvre, de Beurres, cornichons, radis, etc." For dessert, there were to be "deux de Fruit en hiver et 4 en Eté." There were also to be at dinner: "Deux compottes, un assiette de fromage, un de Biscuits, et un de bonbons," and "Des Glaces, 2 fois par Semaine en Eté et un fois en Hyver." The cost of this service per month was 720 livres. There was also an allowance of 240 livres per month for nine domestic servants, and of 400 livres per month for extra dinners for guests; making the total monthly cost of Franklin's table 1360 livres. And there was no lack of good wine, red or white, _ordinaire_ or _extraordinaire_. In 1778, there were 1180 bottles of wine and rum in the cellar at Passy, and, some four and one half years later, there were 1203. Franklin also maintained a carriage and coachman at a cost of 5018 livres per year. By a resolution of Congress, the salaries of the different Commissioners of the United States in Europe were fixed at 11,428 livres tournois per annum, in addition to their reasonable expenses, and the total expenses of Franklin in France are computed by Smyth to have been about $15,000 per annum, a moderate sum, indeed, in comparison with the amount necessary to sustain the dignity of our Minister to France at the present time. Nevertheless, the _ménage_ at Passy was luxurious enough for him to be warned that it had been described at home by some of his guests in such terms as to provoke popular censure on the part of his countrymen. They must be contented for the future [Franklin said in a letter to John Adams] as I am, with plain beef and pudding. The readers of Connecticut newspapers ought not to be troubled for any more accounts of our extravagance. For my own part, if I could sit down to dinner on a piece of excellent salt pork and pumpkin, I would not give a farthing for all the luxuries of Paris. After this time, Franklin did not keep such an open house as before, considerably to the relief of his gout. Previously, if we may believe John Adams, he had made a practice of inviting everybody to dine with him on Sunday at Passy. Sometimes, his company was made up exclusively, or all but exclusively, of Americans, and sometimes partly of Americans, and partly of French, and, now and then, there was an Englishman or so. Miss Adams mentions a "sumptuous dinner," at which the members of the Adams family, the Marquis de la Fayette and his wife, Lord Mount Morris, an Irish Volunteer, Dr. Jeffries, and Paul Jones were guests. Another dinner is mentioned by her at which all the guests were Americans, except M. Brillon, who had dropped in, he said, "à demander un diné à Père Franklin." A whimsical story is told by Jefferson of still another dinner at which one half of the guests were Americans and one half French. Among the last [he says] was the Abbé (Raynal). During the dinner he got on his favorite theory of the degeneracy of animals, and even of men, in America, and urged it with his usual eloquence. The Doctor at length noticing the accidental stature and position of his guests, at table, "Come," says he, "M. L'Abbé, let us try this question by the fact before us. We are here one half Americans, and one half French, and it happens that the Americans have placed themselves on one side of the table, and our French friends are on the other. Let both parties rise, and we will see on which side nature has degenerated." It happened that his American guests were Carmichael, Harmer, Humphreys, and others of the finest stature and form; while those of the other side were remarkably diminutive, and the Abbé himself, particularly, was a mere shrimp. He parried the appeal, however, by a complimentary admission of exceptions, among which the Doctor himself was a conspicuous one. Not the least interesting of the guests that Franklin drew around his table at Passy were lads, who had a claim upon his notice, either because they were the sons, or grandsons, of friends of his, or because they were friends of his grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache. In a letter to Doctor Cooper, Franklin tells him that his grandson, Samuel Cooper Johonnot appeared a very promising lad, in whom he thought that the doctor would have much satisfaction, and was well on the preceding Sunday, when he had had the pleasure of his company to dinner with Mr. Adams' sons, and some other young Americans. There is still in existence a letter from John Quincy Adams, then a boy of eleven, to Franklin, which indicates that the latter had quite won his heart, though, do what he might, he could never win the heart of the elder Adams. It was a brilliant society, to which Franklin was introduced, after the first reserve of the French Court, before its recognition of American independence, was laid aside. He had the magpie habit of hoarding every scrap of paper or cardboard, that bore the imprint of his existence, and Smyth, the latest editor of Franklin's works, has, with his usual diligence, compiled the names that appear most frequently on the visiting cards, found among Franklin's papers. They are such significant names as those of La Duchesse d'Enville, her son Le Duc de la Rochefoucauld, M. Turgot, Duc de Chaulnes, Comte de Crillon, Vicomte de Sarsfield, M. Brisson, of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Comte de Milly, Prince des Deuxponts, Comte d'Estaing, Marquis de Mirabeau and M. Beaugeard, Treasurer of the State of Brittany. The Diary of John Adams reveals Franklin and himself dining on one occasion with La Duchesse d'Enville, and "twenty of the great people of France," on another with M. Chalut, one of the farmers-general, and the old Marshal Richelieu, and "a vast number of other great company," on another with the Prince de Tingry, Duc de Beaumont, of the illustrious House of Montmorency, and on another with La Duchesse d'Enville, along with her daughter and granddaughter, and dukes, abbots and the like so numerous that the list ends with a splutter of et ceteras. "Dukes, and bishops and counts, etc." are the overburdened words with which Adams closes his list of the guests at a dinner given by Vergennes, the minister of Louis XVI. But, after all, it was the circle of intimate friends, to which Franklin promised to introduce John Jay on the arrival of Jay in France, that constitutes the chief interest of the former's social life in France. Three of these friends were Madame Helvétius, Madame Brillon and the Comtesse d'Houdetot. With Madame Helvétius, he dined every Saturday at Auteuil, with Madame Brillon twice a week at the home of her husband, not far from his, and with the Comtesse d'Houdetot frequently at Sanois, in the Valley of Montmorency. Madame Helvétius was known to her friends as "Our Lady of Auteuil." She was the widow of Helvétius, the philosopher, who had left her a handsome fortune, amassed by him when one of the farmers-general. In testimony of her affection for him, she kept under glass, on a table in her bedroom, a monument erected to his memory, with his picture hung above it. Her _salon_ was one of the best-known in France, and it was maintained on such a sumptuous scale that, in one of his letters, after his return to America, Franklin told her that often in his dreams he placed himself by her side on one of her thousand sofas. It was at Auteuil that he passed some of his happiest hours in France, plying its mistress with flattery and badinage, and enjoying the music of her two daughters, known to the household as "the Stars," and the conversation of her friends, the younger Cabanis, and the Abbés Morellet and de la Roche. One of the amusements of the inner circle at Auteuil was to read aloud to each other little trifles, full of point and grace which they had composed. Thus, though after Franklin had returned to America, was ushered into the world the Abbé Morellet's _Very Humble Petition to Madame Helvétius from her Cats_--animals which appear to have had a position in her home as assured as that of "the Stars" or the Abbés themselves; and several of the wittiest of the productions, which Franklin called his Bagatelles, originated in the same way. If homage, seasoned with delightful humor and wit, could have kept the mistress of Auteuil, at the age of sixty, from incurring the malice of the female contemporary, who, we are told by Miss Adams, compared her with the ruins of Palmyra, that of Franklin would assuredly have done it. When she complained that he had not been to see her for a long time, he evaded the reproach of absence by replying, "I am waiting, Madame, until the nights are longer." Whatever others might think, she was to him, "his fair friend at Auteuil," who still possessed "health and personal charms." What cleverer application could there be than this of the maxim of Hesiod that the half is sometimes more than the whole: Very dear Friend, we shall have some good music to-morrow morning at breakfast. Can you give me the pleasure of sharing in it. The time will be half past ten. This is a problem that a mathematician will experience some trouble in explaining; In sharing other things, each of us has only one portion; but in sharing pleasures with you, my portion is doubled. The part is more than the whole. On another occasion, when Madame Helvétius reminded Franklin that she expected to meet him at Turgot's, he replied, "Mr. Franklin never forgets any party at which Madame Helvétius is expected. He even believes that, if he were engaged to go to Paradise this morning, he would pray for permission to remain on earth until half-past one, to receive the embrace promised him at the Turgots." Poor Deborah seems altogether lost, and forgotten when we read these lines that he wrote to the Abbé de la Roche: I have often remarked, when reading the works of M. Helvétius, that, although we were born and reared in two countries so remote from each other, we have frequently had the same thoughts; and it is a reflection very flattering to me that we have loved the same studies, and, as far as we have both known them, the same friends, and the same woman. But the image of Deborah was not so completely effaced from Franklin's memory that he could not conjure up her shade for a moment to excite a retaliatory impulse in the breast which he had found insensible to his proposals of marriage, serious, or affected. If Madame Helvétius, who was illiterate like Deborah, did not appreciate the light, aërial humor of the following dream from the pen of the author of _The Art of Procuring Pleasant Dreams_, we may be sure that her witty Abbés did: Mortified by your cruel resolution, declared by you so positively yesterday evening, to remain single the rest of your life, out of respect for your dear husband, I retired to my home, threw myself upon my bed, and dreamt that I was dead and in the Elysian Fields. I was asked whether I wished to see any persons in particular. "Conduct me to the philosophers," I replied. "There are two who live here close by in this garden; they are very good neighbors and very friendly with each other," I was told. "Who are they?" "Socrates and Helvétius." "I esteem them both immensely, but let me see Helvétius first, because I understand a little French, but not a word of Greek." He received me with much courtesy, having known me, he said, by reputation for some time past. He asked me a thousand questions about the war, the present state of religion, of liberty, and politics in France. "You do not ask me then," I said, "anything about your dear _amie_, Madame Helvétius; yet she loves you still exceedingly, and I was at her home only an hour ago." "Ah," said he, "you bring back to me my past happiness, but it must be forgotten to be happy here. During several of my first years here, I thought only of her, but at length I am consoled. I have taken another wife, one as much like her as I could find. She is not, it is true, quite so handsome, but she has as much good sense, and much _esprit_, and she loves me infinitely. Her continuous aim is to please me, and she is at this moment gone to look up the best nectar and ambrosia to regale me with this evening; stay here awhile, and you will see her." "I perceive," said I, "that your former _amie_ is more faithful than you are; for she has had several good offers, but has refused them all. I confess that I myself have loved her to distraction, but she was obdurate, and has rejected me peremptorily for love of you." "I pity your misfortune," said he, "for in truth she is a good and handsome woman, and very lovable." "But are not the Abbé de la R---- and the Abbé M---- still some times at her house?" "Yes, to be sure, for she has not lost a single one of your friends." "If you had induced the Abbé M----(with some good coffee and cream) to say a word for you, you would, perhaps, have succeeded; for he is as subtle a reasoner as Duns Scotus or St. Thomas; he marshals his arguments in such good order that they become almost irresistible. And if the Abbé de la R---- had been induced (by some fine edition of an old classic) to say a word against you, that would have been better; for I have always observed that when he advised her to do anything she had a very strong inclination to do the reverse." As he was saying this, the new Madame Helvétius entered with the nectar, and I recognized her instantly as my former American _amie_, Mrs. Franklin. I laid claim to her but she said to me coldly: "I was a good wife to you for forty-nine years and four months, almost a half century; be content with that. I have formed a new connection here which will last to eternity." Indignant at this refusal of my Eurydice, I at once resolved to quit those ungrateful shades, and to return to this good world, and to gaze again upon the sun and you. Here I am; let us avenge ourselves. It is an animated picture, too, that Franklin strikes off of Our Lady of Auteuil in a letter to Cabanis, when the latter had been absent for a time from Auteuil: We often talk of you at Auteuil, where everybody loves you. I now and then offend our good lady who can not long retain her displeasure, but, sitting in state on her sopha, extends graciously her long, handsome arm, and says "la; baisez ma main: Je vous pardonne," with all the dignity of a sultaness. She is as busy as ever, endeavoring to make every creature about her happy, from the Abbés down thro' all ranks of the family to the birds and Poupon. Poupon was one of the fair lady's eighteen cats. This letter ends with the request that Cabanis present to his father the writer's thanks to him for having gotten so valuable a son. A lively note to Cabanis is in the same vein: M. Franklin risen, washed, shaved, combed, beautified to the highest degree, of which he is capable, entirely dressed, and on the point of going out, with his head full of the four Mesdames Helvétius, and of the sweet kisses that he proposes to snatch from them, is much mortified to find the possibility of this happiness being put off until next Sunday. He will exercise as much patience as he can, hoping to see one of these ladies at the home of M. de Chaumont Wednesday. He will be there in good time to see her enter with that grace and dignity which charmed him so much seven weeks ago in the same place. He even plans to seize her there, and to keep her at his home for the rest of her life. His remaining three Mesdames Helvétius at Auteuil can suffice for the canaries and the Abbés. Another note to Cabanis illustrates how readily pleasantry of this kind ran in the eighteenth century into gross license: M. Franklin is sorry to have caused the least hurt to those beautiful tresses that he always regards with pleasure. If that Lady likes to pass her days with him, he would like as much to pass his nights with her; and since he has already given many of his days to her, although he had such a small remnant of them to give, she would seem ungrateful to have never given him a single one of her nights, which run continually to pure waste, without promoting the good fortune of any one except Poupon. When the reader is told that this letter ended with the words, "to be shown to our Lady of Auteuil," his mind is not unprepared for the graphic description by Abigail Adams of a dinner at which Madame Helvétius was the central figure: She entered the room with a careless, jaunty air; upon seeing ladies who were strangers to her, she bawled out, "Ah, mon Dieu, where is Franklin? Why did you not tell me there were ladies here?" You must suppose her speaking all this in French. "How I look!" said she, taking hold of a chemise made of tiffany, which she had on over a blue lutestring, and which looked as much upon the decay as her beauty, for she was once a handsome woman; her hair was frizzled; over it she had a small straw hat, with a dirty gauze half-handkerchief round it, and a bit of dirtier gauze than ever my maids wore was bowed on behind. She had a black gauze scarf thrown over her shoulders. She ran out of the room; when she returned, the Doctor entered at one door, she at the other; upon which she ran forward to him, caught him by the hand, "Hélas! Franklin;" then gave him a double kiss, one upon each cheek, and another upon his forehead. When we went into the room to dine, she was placed between the Doctor and Mr. Adams. She carried on the chief of the conversation at dinner, frequently locking her hands into the Doctor's, and sometimes spreading her arms upon the backs of both the gentlemen's chairs, then throwing her arm carelessly upon the Doctor's neck. I should have been greatly astonished at this conduct, if the good Doctor had not told me that in this lady I should see a genuine Frenchwoman, wholly free from affectation or stiffness of behaviour, and one of the best women in the world. For this I must take the Doctor's word; but I should have set her down for a very bad one, although sixty years of age, and a widow. I own I was highly disgusted, and never wish for an acquaintance with any ladies of this cast. After dinner, she threw herself upon a settee, where she showed more than her feet. She had a little lapdog, who was, next to the Doctor, her favorite. This she kissed, and when he wet the floor she wiped it up with her chemise. This is one of the Doctor's most intimate friends, with whom he dines once every week, and she with him. She is rich, and is my near neighbour; but I have not yet visited her. Thus you see, my dear, that manners differ exceedingly in different countries. I hope however, to find among the French ladies manners more consistent with my ideas of decency, or I shall be a mere recluse. This, of course, in part, was but the New England snowdrop expressing its disapproval of the full-blown red rose of France, but it is impossible for all the pigments in the picture, painted by the skilful hand of Abigail Adams, to have been supplied by the moral austerity of Puritanism. Miss Adams, we might add, followed up her mother's impression with a prim ditto in her journal: "Dined at Mr. Franklin's by invitation; a number of gentlemen and Madame Helvétius, a French lady sixty years of age. Odious indeed do our sex appear when divested of those ornaments, with which modesty and delicacy adorn us." But we suspect that the Doctor was right in saying that Madame Helvétius, free and tawdry as she seemed to Abigail Adams and her daughter, was one of the best women in the world; that is to say her world. We are told that, when she was convalescing from an illness, four hundred persons assembled at Auteuil to express the pleasure they felt at the prospect of her recovery. Beneath the noisy, lax manners, which Mrs. Adams delineates so mercilessly, there must have been another and a very different Madame Helvétius to have won such a tribute as the following from a man who had known what it was to be tenderly beloved by more than one pure, thoroughly refined and accomplished woman: And now I mention your friends, let me tell you, that I have in my way been trying to form some hypothesis to account for your having so many, and of such various kinds. I see that statesmen, philosophers, historians, poets, and men of learning of all sorts are drawn around you, and seem as willing to attach themselves to you as straws about a fine piece of amber. It is not that you make pretensions to any of their sciences; and if you did, similarity of studies does not always make people love one another. It is not that you take pains to engage them; artless simplicity is a striking part of your character. I would not attempt to explain it by the story of the ancient, who, being asked why philosophers sought the acquaintance of kings, and kings not that of philosophers, replied that philosophers knew what they wanted, which was not always the case with kings. Yet thus far the comparison may go, that we find in your sweet society that charming benevolence, that amiable attention to oblige, that disposition to please and be pleased, which we do not always find in the society of one another. It springs from you; it has its influence on us all, and in your company we are not only pleased with you, but better pleased with one another and ourselves. There can be no doubt that the friendship between the two was a real, genuine sentiment. When Franklin was doubting whether he was not too old and decrepit to cross the Atlantic, she was one of the three friends who urged him to spend his last days in France, and live with them. It was hardly fair, therefore, when she exclaimed after the departure of Franklin from France, in the presence of Madame Brillon, "Ah, that great man, that dear man, we shall see him no more," for Madame Brillon to retort, "It is entirely your fault, Madame." From Havre he sent back tender farewells to his "très chere amie." They were awaiting, he said, their baggage and fellow-voyager, Mr. Houdon, the sculptor. "When they come, we shall quit France, the country of the world that I love the best; and I shall leave there my dear Helvetia. She can be happy there. I am not sure of being happy in America; but it is necessary for me to go there. Things seem to me to be badly arranged here below, when I see beings so well constituted to be happy together compelled to separate." Then after a message of friendship to "the Abbés the good Abbés," the _vale_ dies out in these fond words: "I do not tell you that I love you. I might be told that there was nothing strange or meritorious in that, because the whole world loves you. I only hope that you will always love me a little." Nor did the separation worked by the Atlantic produce any change in these feelings. In the letters written by Franklin to Madame Helvétius, and the members of her circle, after his return to Philadelphia, there is the same spirit of affection for her and for them, as well as a wistful retrospect of his chats with her on her thousand sofas, his walks with her in her garden, and the repasts at her table, always seasoned by sound sense, sprightliness and friendship. One of his commissions seems to have been to obtain a cardinal red bird for the "good dame," as he calls her in a letter to the Abbé Morellet from Philadelphia. "The good Dame, whom we all love, and whose Memory I shall love and honour as long as I have any Existence," were his words. But the commission was difficult of execution. The Virginia cardinal, he wrote to the Abbé, was a tender bird that stood the sea but poorly. Several sent out to France for their dame by Mr. Alexander, in his tobacco ships, had never arrived, he understood, and, "unless a Friend was going in the Ship who would take more than common Care of them," he supposed, "one might send an hundred without landing one alive." They would be very happy, I know [he said], if they were once under her Protection; but they cannot come to her, and she will not come to them. She may remember the Offer I made her of 1,000 Acres of Woodland, out of which she might cut a great Garden and have 1,000 Aviaries if she pleased. I have a large Tract on the Ohio where Cardinals are plenty. If I had been a Cardinal myself perhaps I might have prevail'd with her. In his efforts to transport the Cardinal, Franklin even enlisted the services of Mr. Paradise, who, if contemporary gossip is reliable, might well have pleaded the preoccupation imposed upon him of protecting himself from the beak of his own termagant wife. Madame Helvétius, however, was not so eager for a cardinal as not to be willing to wait until one could be brought over by a proper escort. "I am in no hurry at all," she wrote to Franklin; "I will wait; for I am not willing to be the death of these pretty creatures. I will wait." In this same letter, there is an amusing mixture of tenderness and banter. Declining health and advancing years, she said, would but enable them the sooner to meet again as well as to meet again those whom they had loved, she a husband and he a wife; "but I believe," she wipes the moisture from her eyes long enough to say, "that you who have been a rogue (_coquin_) will be restored to more than one." From what we have said, it is plain enough that the friendship felt by Madame Helvétius for the Abbés Morellet and de la Roche was shared by Franklin. When he touched at Southampton, after leaving Havre, on his return to America, he wafted another fond farewell to Madame Helvétius; "I will always love you," he said, "think of me sometimes, and write sometimes to your B. F." This letter, too, contained the usual waggish reference to the Abbés. "Adieu, my very, very, very dear amie. Wish us a good voyage, and tell the good Abbés to pray for us, since that is their profession." The _Very Humble Petition to Madame Helvétius from her Cats_ was long ascribed to Franklin, but it was really written by the Abbé Morellet. After reading it, Franklin wrote to the Abbé that the rapidity, with which the good lady's eighteen cats were increasing, would, in time, make their cause insupportable, and that their friends should, therefore, advise them to submit voluntarily either to transportation or castration. How deeply the Abbé Morellet was attached to Franklin is feelingly revealed in the letters which he wrote to him after the latter had arrived safely in America; to say nothing of the Abbé's Memoirs. May your days [he wrote in one of these letters] be prolonged and be free from pain; may your friends long taste the sweetness and the charm of your society, and may those whom the seas have separated from you be still happy in the thought that the end of your career will be, as our good La Fontaine says, "the evening of a fine day." Then, after some political reflections, suggested by the liberal institutions of America, the Abbé indulges in a series of gay comments on the habit that their Lady of Auteuil had, in her excessive love of coffee, of robbing him of his share of the cream, on the vicious bulldog brought over by Temple to France from England and on the host of cats, that had multiplied in the woodhouse and woodyard at Auteuil, under the patronage of their mistress, and did nothing but keep their paws in their furred gowns, and warm themselves in the sun. Friends of liberty, these cats, the Abbé said, were entirely out of place under the governments of Europe. Nothing could be more suitable than to load a small vessel with them and ship them to America. Another letter from the Abbé concluded with these heartfelt words: I shall never forget the happiness I have enjoyed in knowing you, and seeing you intimately. I write to you from Auteuil, seated in your arm-chair, on which I have engraved, _Benjamin Franklin hic sedebat_, and having by my side the little bureau, which you bequeathed to me at parting, with a drawer full of nails to gratify the love of nailing and hammering, which I possess in common with you. But believe me, I have no need of all these helps to cherish your endeared _remembrance_, and to love you, "Dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus hos reget artus." During their jolly intercourse in France, the Abbé Morellet and Franklin touched glasses in two highly convivial productions. On one of the anniversaries of the birth of Franklin, or of American liberty, the Abbé could not remember which, the Abbé composed a drinking song in honor of Franklin, and among the letters written by Franklin when he was in France was one to the Abbé in which wine is lauded in terms of humorous exaggeration. One of the verses of the Abbé's production refers to the American War, and has been translated in these words by Parton: "Never did mankind engage In a war with views more sage; They seek freedom with design, To drink plenty of French wine; Such has been The intent of Benjamin." The other verses are no better and no worse, and the whole poem is even more inferior in wit to Franklin's letter to the Abbé than the _Very Humble Petition to Madame Helvétius from her Cats_, clever though it be, is to Franklin's _Journey to the Elysian Fields_. If we had nothing but these bibulous productions to judge by, we might infer that love of wine, quite as much as love of Madame Helvétius was the tie of connection between the Abbé Morellet and Franklin. Indeed, in the letter to Franklin with respect to the cats, the Abbé was quite as candid about expressing his partiality for one form of spirits as Franklin was in his unblushing eulogy of wine. He did not know, he said, what duties his cats, in the unsettled condition of the commercial relations between France and the United States, would be made to pay on arriving at Philadelphia; "and then," he continued, "if my vessel should find nothing to load with among you but grain, it could not touch at our islands to take in sugar, or to bring me back good rum either, which I love much." When the Abbé de la Roche made a gift to Franklin of a volume of Helvétius' poems, Franklin was quick to give him a recompense in the form of a little drinking song which he had composed some forty years before. The plan of this poem is for the chorus, whenever the singer dwells upon any other source of gratification, to insist so vociferously upon friends and a bottle as the highest as to finally, so to speak, drown the singer out. Thus: SINGER "Fair Venus calls; her voice obey, In beauty's arms spend night and day. The joys of love all joys excel, And loving's certainly doing well. CHORUS "Oh! no! Not so! For honest souls know, Friends and a bottle still bear the bell." In a letter to William Carmichael, enclosing his brilliant little bagatelle, _The Ephemera_, Franklin described Madame Brillon in these terms: The person to whom it was addressed is Madame Brillon, a lady of most respectable character and pleasing conversation; mistress of an amiable family in this neighbourhood, with which I spend an evening twice in every week. She has, among other elegant accomplishments, that of an excellent musician; and, with her daughters, who sing prettily, and some friends who play, she kindly entertains me and my grand son with little concerts, a cup of tea, and a game of chess. I call this _my Opera_, for I rarely go to the Opera at Paris. Madame Brillon was the wife of a public functionary much older than herself, who yet, as her own letters to Franklin divulge, did not feel that strict fidelity to her was necessary to soften the difference in their ages. My father [she wrote on one occasion to Franklin], marriage in this country is made by weight of gold. On one end of the scale is placed the fortune of a boy, on the other that of a girl; when equality is found the affair is ended to the satisfaction of the relatives. One does not dream of consulting taste, age, congeniality of character; one marries a young girl whose heart is full of youth's fire and its cravings to a man who has used them up; then one exacts that this woman be virtuous--my friend, this story is mine, and of how many others! I shall do my best that it may not be that of my daughters, but alas, shall I be mistress of their fate? The correspondence between Madame Brillon and Franklin was very voluminous. Among the Franklin papers in the possession of the American Philosophical Society, there are no less than 119 letters from her to him, and in the same collection there are also the rough drafts of some of his letters in French to her. More than one of them are marked with corrections by her hand. Repeated statements of hers show that she took a very indulgent view of his imperfect mastery of the French language. When he sent to the Brillons his French translation of his _Dialogue between the Gout and M. Franklin_, she returned it to him, "corrected and made worse in several particulars by a savant, and devoted to destruction by the critical notes of a woman who is no savant," and she took occasion at the same time to say: Your dialogue has greatly amused me, but your corrector of French has spoiled your work. Believe me, leave your productions as they are, use words which mean something, and laugh at the grammarians who enfeeble all your phrases with their purisms. If I had the brains, I should utter a dire diatribe against those who dare to touch you up, even if it were the Abbé de la Roche, or my neighbor Veillard. And after reading _The Whistle_ of Franklin, she wrote to him, "M. Brillon has laughed heartily over the Whistle: we find that what you call your bad French often gives a piquant flavor to your narrative by reason of a certain turn of phraseology and the words you invent." It may well be doubted whether there is anything more brilliant in literary history than the letters which make up the correspondence between Madame Brillon and Franklin, and the marvel is that the intellectual quality of his letters should, in every respect, be as distinctly French as that of hers. His easy, fleeting touch, his unflagging vivacity, his wit, his fertility of invention, his amative coloring are all as thoroughly French as bonbons or champagne. The tame domesticity of his forty-nine years of sober American wedlock, the calm, well-regulated flow of his thoughts and habits in conservative England, under the roof of Mrs. Stevenson, and at the country seat of the "Good Bishop," the Philosophy of Poor Richard, the Art of Virtue, are exchanged for a character which, except when a suitable match was to be found for M. Franklinet, as Madame Brillon called William Temple Franklin, apparently took no account of anything but the pursuit of pleasure, as pleasure was pursued by the people, who have, of all others, most nearly succeeded in giving to it the rank of a respectable divinity. In all the letters of Franklin to Madame Brillon, there is not a sentiment with a characteristic American or English inflection in it. How far his approaches to the beautiful and clever wife of M. Brillon were truly erotic, and how far merely the conventional courtship of a gifted but aged man, who had survived everything, that belongs to passion but its language, it is impossible to say. We only know that, if his gallantry was specious merely, he maintained it with a degree of pertinacity, which there is only too much reason to believe might have had a different issue if it had been more youthful and genuine. A handsome, talented Frenchwoman, of the eighteenth century, burdened with a faithless husband, not too old for the importunity of a heart full, to use her own expression, of youth's fire and cravings, and tolerant enough to sit on an admirer's knees, and to write responsive replies to letters from him, accompanied by a perpetual refrain of sexuality, would, to say the least, have been in considerable danger of forgetting her marriage vows if her Colin had been younger. As it was, the tenderness of Madame Brillon for her "cher Papa" appears to have produced no results worse than a series of letters from her pen, as finished as enamel, which show that in every form of defensive warfare, literary or amorous, she was quite a match for the great man, who was disposed to forget how long he had lingered in a world which has nothing but a laugh for the efforts of December to pass itself off as May. "Do you know, my dear Papa," she wrote to him on one occasion, "that people have criticized my pleasant habit of sitting on your lap, and yours of asking me for what I always refuse?" In this world, she assured him, she would always be a gentle and virtuous woman, and the most that she would promise was to be his wife in Paradise, if he did not ogle the maidens there too much while waiting for her. When the hardy resolution is once formed of reviewing the correspondence between Franklin and Madame Brillon, the most difficult task is that of compression. What! [she wrote to "Monsieur Papa" from Nice, after the capitulation of Cornwallis] You capture entire armies in America, you burgoinise Cornwallis, you take cannon, vessels, munitions of war, men, horses, etc., etc. you capture everything and from everybody, and the gazette alone brings it to the knowledge of your friends, who befuddle themselves with drinking to your health, to that of Washington, of Independence, of the King of France, of the Marquis de la Fayette, of the Mrs: de Rochambault, Chalelux etc., etc. while you do not exhibit a sign of life to them; yet you should be a bon vivant at this time, although you rarely err in that respect, and you are surely twenty years younger because of this good news, which ought to bring us a lasting peace after a glorious war. To this letter, Franklin replied on Christmas Day of the year 1781, the birthday of the Dauphin of Heaven, he called it in the letter. He was very sensible, he said, to the greatness of their victory, but war was full of vicissitudes and uncertainty, and he played its game with the same evenness of temper that she had seen him bring to the good and bad turns of a game of chess. That was why he had said so little of the surrender, and had only remarked that nothing could make him perfectly happy under certain circumstances. The point, of course, was that still another capitulation was essential to his happiness. He then proceeds to tell Madame Brillon that, everywhere from Paris to Versailles, everyone spoke of her with respect, and some with affection and even admiration; which was music to his ears. I often pass before your house [he adds]. It wears a desolate look to me. Heretofore, I have broken the commandment in coveting it along with my neighbour's wife. Now I do not covet it. Thus I am the less a sinner. But with regard to the wife, I always find these commandments very inconvenient, and I am sorry that we are cautioned to practise them. Should you find yourself in your travels at the home of St. Peter, ask him to recall them, as intended only for the Jews, and as too irksome for good Christians. These specimens are true to the language of the entire correspondence, but further excerpts from it will not be amiss for the purpose of enabling us to realize how agreeable the flirtation between the two must have been to have produced such a lengthy correspondence despite the fact that Franklin visited Madame Brillon at least every Wednesday and Saturday. On Nov. 2, 1778, she wrote to Franklin as follows: The hope that I had of seeing you here, my dear Papa, has kept me from writing to you for Saturday's tea. Hope is the remedy for all our ills. If one suffers, one hopes for the end of the trouble; if one is with friends, one hopes to remain with them always; if one is away from them, one hopes to rejoin them,--and this is the only hope that is left to me. I shall count the days, the hours, the moments; each moment gone brings me nearer to you. We like to grow older when it is the only means of reuniting us to those whom we love. The person, who takes life thus, seeks unceasingly to shorten it; he plans, desires; without the future, it seems to him that he has nothing. When my children are grown up--in ten years--the trees in my garden will shade me. The years slip by, then one regrets them. I might have done such and such a thing, one says then. Had I not been only twenty-five years old, I should not have done the foolish thing of which I now repent. The wise man alone enjoys the present, does not regret the past, and awaits peacefully the future. The wise man, who, like you, my Papa, has passed his youth in acquiring knowledge and enlightening his fellow-men, and his mature years in obtaining liberty for them, brings a complaisant eye to bear on the past, enjoys the present, and awaits the reward of his labors in the future; but how many are wise? I try to become so, and am so in some respects: I take no account of wealth, vanity has little hold upon my heart; I like to do my duty; I freely forgive society its errors and injustices. But I love my friends with an idolatry that often does me much harm: a prodigious imagination, a soul of fire will always get the better of all my plans and thoughts. I see, Papa, that I must never lay claim to any but the one perfection of loving the most that is possible. May this quality make you love your daughter always!... Come, you always know how to combine a great measure of wisdom with a touch of roguishness; you ask Brillon for news of me at the very moment when you are receiving a letter from me; you play the part of the neglected one, just when you are being spoiled, and then you deny it like a madman when the secret is discovered. Oh, I have news of you! ... Mama, my children, and Mlle. Jupin present their respects to you. May I venture to beg you to give my kind regards to Mr. Franklinet? Another letter in the same vein from Madame Brillon to Franklin bears date May 11, 1779: You are quite right, my good Papa, we should find true happiness only in peace of mind; it is not in our power to change the nature of those with whom we live, nor to check the course of the contradictions that surround us. It is a wise man who speaks, and who tries to comfort his too sensitive daughter by telling her the truth. Oh, my father, I beseech your friendship, your healthy philosophy; my heart hears you and is submissive to you. Give me strength to take the place of an indifference that your child can never feel. But admit, my friend, that for one who knows how to love, ingratitude is a frightful misfortune; that it is hard for a woman who would give her life without hesitation to insure her husband's happiness to see the results of her exertions and her longings wiped out by intrigue, and falsity. Time will make everything right; my Papa has said so, and I believe it. But my Papa has also said that time is the stuff that life is made of. _My_ life, my friend, is made of a fine and thin stuff, that grief rends cruelly; if I had anything to reproach myself with, I should long have ceased to exist. My soul is pure, simple, frank. I dare to tell my Papa so; I dare to tell him that it is worthy of him; I dare still to assure him that my conduct, which he has deemed wise, will not belie itself, that I shall await justice with patience, that I shall follow the advice of my worthy friend with steadiness and confidence. Adieu, you whom I love so much--my kind Papa. Never call me anything but "my daughter." Yesterday you called me "Madame," and my heart shrank, I examined myself, to see whether I had done you any wrong, or if I had some failings that you would not tell me of. Pardon, my friend; I am not visiting you with a reproach, I am accusing myself of a weakness. I was born much too sensitive for my happiness and for that of my friends; cure me, or pity me; if you can, do one or the other. Tomorrow, Wednesday, you will come to tea, will you not? Believe me, my Papa, that the pleasure I feel in receiving you is shared by my husband, my children, and my friends; I cannot doubt it, and I assure you of it. Franklin's reply to this letter is for a brief moment that of a real father rather than Monsieur Papa. This reminds us that, in one of her letters to him, she states that in her own father she had lost her first and best friend, and recalled the fact that Franklin had told her of the custom of certain savages, who adopt the prisoners, that they capture in war, and make them take the place of the relations whom they have lost. In answer to her statement that ingratitude is a frightful misfortune, he says: "That is true--to ingrates--but not to their benefactors. You have conferred benefits on those that you have believed worthy of them; you have, therefore, done your duty, as it is a part of our duty to be kindly, and you ought to be satisfied with that and happy in the reflection." This was followed by the advice to his "very dear and always lovable daughter" to continue to fulfill all her duties as a good mother, a good wife, a good friend, a good neighbor, a good Christian, etc. We shall see a little later on what he deemed a part of the duty of a good charitable Christian to be. The letter terminates with an apology for his bad French. "It may," he said, "disgust you, you who write that charming language with so much purity and elegance. But, if you can in the end decipher my awkward and improper expressions, you will, at least, perhaps, experience the kind of pleasure that we find in solving enigmas or discovering secrets." His letter transmitting his _Dialogue with the Gout_ to Madame Brillon was not so decorous. It was in it that he had a word to say about the other kind of Christian conduct that he was in the habit of enjoining upon her. A part of this letter was the following: One of the characters in your story, namely, the Gout appeared to me to reason well enough, with the exception of his supposition that mistresses have had something to do with producing this painful malady. I myself believe the entire contrary, and this is my method of reasoning. When I was a young man, and enjoyed the favors of the sex more freely than at present, I had no gout. Therefore, if the ladies of Passy had had more of that kind of Christian charity, that I have often recommended to you in vain, I would not have the gout at present. This seems to me to be good logic. I am much better. I suffer little pain, but I am very feeble. I can, as you see, joke a little, but I cannot be really gay before I hear that your precious health is re-established. I send you my Dialogue in the hope that it may amuse you at times. Many thanks for the three last volumes of Montaigne that I return. The visit of your ever lovable family yesterday evening has done me much good. My God! how I love them all from the Grandmother and the father to the smallest child. The reply of Madame Brillon was in kindred terms: Saturday, 18th November, 1780. There would be many little things indeed to criticise in your logic, which you fortify so well, my dear Papa. "When I was a young man," you say, "and enjoyed the favors of the sex more freely than at present, I had no gout." "Therefore," one might reply to this, "when I threw myself out of the window, I did not break my leg." Therefore, you could have the gout without having deserved it, and you could have well deserved it, as I believe, and not have had it. If this last argument is not so brilliant as the others, it is clear and sure; what is neither clear nor sure are the arguments of philosophers who insist that everything that happens in the world is necessary to the general movement of the universal machine. I believe that the machine would go neither better nor worse if you did not have the gout, and if I were forever rid of my nervous troubles. I do not see what help, more or less, these little incidents can give to the wheels that turn this world at random, and I know that my little machine goes very much the worse for them. What I know very well besides, is that pain sometimes becomes mistress of reason, and that patience alone can overcome these two nuisances. I have as much of it as I can, and I advise you, my friend, to have the same amount. When frosts have cast a gloom over the earth, a bright sun makes us forget them. We are in the midst of frosts, and must wait patiently for this bright sun, and, while waiting for it, amuse ourselves in the moments when weakness and pain leave us some rest. _This_, my dear Papa, is _my_ logic.... Adieu, my good Papa. My big husband will take my letter to you; he is very happy to be able to go to see you. For me, nothing remains but the faculty of loving my friends. You surely do not doubt that I shall do my best for you, even to Christian charity, that is to say, with the exception of your Christian charity. She writes a brief letter to Franklin on New Year's Day of 1781: If I had a good head and good legs--if, in short, I had everything that I lack,--I should have come, like a good daughter, to wish a happy New Year to the best of papas. But I have only a very tender heart to love him well, and a rather bad pen to scribble him that this year, as well as last year, and all the years of my life, I shall love him, myself alone, as much as all the others that love him, put together. Brillon and the children present their respects to the kind Papa; and we also send a thousand messages for M. Franklinet. Some four years later, after Franklin had vainly endeavored to marry Temple Franklin to a daughter of Madame Brillon, we find him writing a letter of congratulation to her upon the happy _accouchement_ of her daughter. It elicits a reply in which the cheek of the "beautiful and benignant nature," of which she speaks, undergoes a considerable amount of artificial coloring. 2nd December, 1784. Your letter, my kind Papa, has given me keen pleasure; but, if you would give me still more, remain in France until you see my sixth generation. I only ask you for fifteen or sixteen years: my granddaughter will be marriageable early; she is fair and strong. I am tasting a new feeling, my good Papa, to which my heart surrenders itself with pleasure, it is so sweet to love. I have never been able to conceive how beings exist who are such enemies to themselves as to reject friendship. They are ingrates, we say; well we are deceived; that is a little hard sometimes, but we are not always so; and to feel oneself incapable of returning the treachery affords a satisfaction of itself that consoles us for it. My little nurse is charming and fresh as a morning rose. The first days the child had difficulty,... but patience and the mother's courage overcame it; all goes well now, and nothing could be more interesting than this picture of a young and pretty person nursing a superb child, the father uninterruptedly occupied with the spectacle, and joining his attentions to those of his wife. My eyes are unceasingly moist, and my heart rejoices, my kind Papa. You realize so well the value of all that belongs to beautiful and benignant nature that I owe you these details. My daughter charges me with her thanks and compliments to you; _ma Cadette_ and my men present their regards, and as for me, my friend, I beg you to believe that my friendship and my existence will always be one as respects you. Once Franklin sought to corner Madame Brillon with a story, which makes us feel for a moment as if the rod of transformation was beginning to work a backward spell, and the Benjamin Franklin of Craven Street and Independence Hall to be released from the spell of the French Circe: To make you better realize the force of my demonstration that you do not love me, I commence with a little story: A beggar asked a rich Bishop for a louis by way of alms. You are wild. No one gives a louis to a beggar. An écu then. No. That is too much. A liard then,--or your benediction. My benediction! Yes, I will give it to you. No, I will not accept it. For if it was worth a liard, you would not be willing to give it to me. That was how this Bishop loved his neighbor. That was his charity! And, were I to scrutinize yours, I would not find it much greater. I am incredibly hungry for it and you have given me nothing to eat. I was a stranger, and I was almost as love-sick as Colin when you were singing, and you have neither taken me in, nor cured me, nor eased me. You who are as rich as an Archbishop in all the Christian and moral virtues, and could sacrifice a small share of some of them without visible loss, you tell me that it is asking too much, and that you are not willing to do it. That is your charity to a poor wretch, who once enjoyed affluence, and is unfortunately reduced to soliciting alms. Nevertheless, you say you love him. But you would not give him your friendship if it involved the expenditure of the least little morsel, of the value of a liard, of your wisdom. But see how nimbly the coquette eludes her pursuer: MY DEAR PAPA: Your bishop was a niggard and your beggar a queer enough fellow. You are a logician all the cleverer because you argue in a charming way, and almost awaken an inclination to yield to your unsound arguments founded on a false principle. Is it of Dr. Franklin, the celebrated philosopher, the profound statesman, that a woman speaks with so much irreverence? Yes, this erudite man, this legislator, has his infirmities (it is the weakness, moreover, of great men: he has taken full advantage of it). But let us go into the matter. To prove that I do not love you, my good Papa, you compare yourself to a beggar who asked alms from a bishop. Now, the rôle of a bishop is not to refuse to give to beggars when they are really in want; he honors himself in doing good. But in truth the kind of charity which you ask of me so amusingly can be found everywhere. You will not grow thin because of my refusals! What would you think of your beggar, if, the bishop having given him the "louis" which he asked, he had grumbled because he did not get two? That, however, is your case, my good friend. You adopted me as your daughter, I chose you for my father: what do you expect of me? Friendship! Well, I love you as a daughter should love her father. The purest, the most respectful, the tenderest affection for you fills my soul; you asked me for a "louis"; I gave it to you, and yet you murmur at not getting another one, which does not belong to me. It is a treasure which has been entrusted to me, my good Papa; I guard it and will always guard it carefully. Even if you were like "Colin sick," in truth I could not cure you; and nevertheless, whatever you may think or say, no one in this world loves you more than I. In this letter she puts him off with the teasing assurance of friendship. In another, written from Marseilles, it is with other charming women that she mocks him: I received on my arrival here, my good Papa, your letter of October 1st. It has given me keen pleasure; I found in it evidences of your friendship and a tinge of that gayety and gallantry which make all women love you, because you love them all. Your proposition to carry me on your wings, if you were the angel Gabriel, made me laugh; but I would not accept it, although I am no longer very young nor a virgin. That angel was a sly fellow and your nature united to his would become too dangerous. I should be afraid of miracles happening, and miracles between women and angels might well not always bring a redeemer.... I have arranged, my good friend, to write alternately to my "great neighbor" and to you; the one to whom I shall not have written will kindly tell the other that I love him with all my heart, and when your turn comes you will add an embrace for the good wife of our neighbor, for her daughter, for little Mother Caillot, for all the gentle and pretty women of my acquaintance whom you may meet. You see that not being able to amuse you, either by my singing or by chess, I seek to procure you other pleasures. If you had been at Avignon with us, it is there you would have wished to embrace people. The women there are charming; I thought of you every time I saw one of them. Adieu, my good Papa; I do not relate to you the details of my journey, as I have written of them to our neighbor, who will communicate them to you. I limit myself to assuring you of the most constant and the tenderest friendship on my part. At times the pursuer is too badly afflicted with gout in his legs to maintain the pursuit, and the pursued has to come to his assistance to keep the flirtation going: How are you, my good Papa? Never has it cost me so much to leave you; every evening it seems to me that you would be very glad to see me, and every evening I think of you. On Monday, the 21st, I shall go to meet you again; I hope that you will then be very firm on your feet, and that the teas of Wednesday and Saturday, and that of Sunday morning, will regain all their brilliance. I will bring you _la bonne évéque_. My fat husband will make you laugh, our children will laugh together, our great neighbor will quiz, the Abbés La Roche and Morellet will eat all the butter, Mme. Grand, her amiable niece, and M. Grand will help the company out, Père Pagin will play _God of Love_ on his violin, I the march on the Piano, and you _Petits Oiseaux_ on the armonica. O! my friend, let us see in the future fine and strong legs for you, and think no more of the bad one that has persecuted you so much. After what is bad, one enjoys what is good more; life is sown with both, which she changes unceasingly. What she cannot keep from being equal and uniform is my tenderness for you, that time, place, and events will never alter. My mother and all my family wish to be remembered to you. I have had some news of you through our neighbor, but I must absolutely have some from you. Amusingly enough, M. Brillon contributes his part to the restoration of the gouty legs to something like normal activity. The visits of your good husband during my sickness [wrote Franklin to Madame Brillon] have been very agreeable to me. His conversation has eased and enlivened me. I regret that, instead of seeking it when I have been at your home, I have lost so much time in playing chess. He has many stories and always applies them well. If he has despoiled you of some, you can repeat them all the same, for they will always please me, coming from your mouth. There is another letter from Madame Brillon to Franklin which drew a reply from him, in which he ascended into the Christian heaven with almost as much literary facility as marked his entrance into the Pagan Elysium. Her letter was written during an absence from home: Here I am reduced to writing to you, my good Papa, and to telling you that I love you. It was sweeter no doubt to let you see it in my eyes. How am I going to spend the Wednesdays and Saturdays? No teas, no chess, no music, no hope of seeing or embracing my good papa! It seems to me that the privation which I experience from your absence would suffice to make me change my views, were I inclined to materialism. Happiness is so uncertain, so full of crosses, that the deep conviction that we shall be happier in another life can alone tide us over the trials of this one. In Paradise we shall be reunited, never to leave each other again! We shall there live on roasted apples only; the music will be made up of Scotch airs; all parties will be given over to chess, so that no one may be disappointed; every one will speak the same language; the English will be neither unjust nor wicked there; the women will not be coquettes, the men will be neither jealous nor too gallant; "King John" will be left to eat his apples in peace; perhaps he will be decent enough to offer some to his neighbors--who knows? since we shall want for nothing in paradise! We shall never suffer from gout or nervous troubles there. Mr. Mesmer will content himself with playing on the armonica, without wearying us with the electric fluid; ambition, envy, snobbery, jealousy, prejudice, all these will vanish at the sound of the trumpet. A lasting, sweet and peaceful friendship will animate every gathering. Every day we shall love one another, in order that we may love one another still more the day after; in a word, we shall be completely happy. In the meantime, let us get all the good we can out of this poor world of ours. I am far from you, my good Papa; I look forward to the time of our meeting, and I am pleased to think that your regrets and desires equal mine. My mother and my children send you a thousand tender messages of respect; we should all like to have you here. May I venture to ask you to remember us to your grandson? And this was the deft reply of Franklin which has come down to us in French corrected by Madame Brillon's hand: Since you have assured me that we shall meet each other again, and shall recognize each other, in Paradise, I have reflected continually on our arrangements in that country; for I have great confidence in your assurances, and I believe implicitly what you believe. Probably more than forty years will pass away, after my arrival there, before you will follow me. I fear a little that, in the course of such a long time, you may forget me; that is why I have had thoughts of proposing to you that you give me your word that you will not renew your contract with M. Brillon. I would give you mine at the same time to wait for you, but this monsieur is so good, so generous to us--he loves you--and we him--so well--that I can not think of this proposition without some scruples of conscience--however the idea of an eternity, in which I should not be more favored than to be allowed to kiss your hands, or your cheeks occasionally, and to pass two or three hours in your sweet society at Wednesday and Saturday evening parties, is frightful. In fine, I can not make that proposal, but since, like all who know you, I desire to see you happy in every respect, we may agree to say nothing more about it at this time, and to leave you at liberty to decide, when we are all together again: there to determine the question as you deem best for your happiness and ours; but, determine it as you will, I feel that I shall love you eternally. Should you reject me, perhaps, I shall pay my addresses to Madame D'Hardancourt (the mother of Madame Brillon), who might be glad to keep house for me. In that event I should pass my domestic hours agreeably with her; and I should be better prepared to see you. I should have enough time in those forty years there to practise on the armonica, and, perhaps, I should play well enough to be worthy to accompany your pianoforte. We should have little concerts from time to time, good father Pagin would be of the company, your neighbor and his dear family [M. Jupin], M. de Chaumont, M. B., M. Jourdan, M. Grammont, Madame du Tartre, the little mother, and some other select friends will be our audience, and the dear, good girls, accompanied by some other young angels, whose portraits you have already given me, will sing hallelujahs with us; we shall eat together apples of Paradise, roasted with butter and nutmeg; and we shall pity them who are not dead. In another letter, he complains that she shuts him out from everything except a few civil and polite kisses such as she might give to some of her small cousins. All this, however, was but preliminary to the treaty, which the signer of the Treaty of Alliance between France and the United States formally submitted to her in this letter. Among the articles of this treaty were to be these: Article 6. And the said Mr. F. on his part stipulates and covenants that he is to call at the home of M'de B. as often as he pleases. Article 7. That he is to remain there as long as he pleases. Article 8. And that when he is with her, he is to do what he pleases. He did not have much hope, he said, of obtaining her consent to the eighth article. In another letter, the aged lover tells Madame Brillon that she must not accuse others of being responsible for his having left her half an hour sooner than usual. The truth was that he was very much fatigued for special reasons that he mentions, and thought it more decent to leave her than to fall asleep, which he was beginning to do on a bench in her garden after her descent into it. After all a half-hour with an old man, who could not make the best use of it, was a thing of very little importance. Saturday evening, he would remain with her until she wished him to go, and, in spite of her usual polite phrases, he would know the time by her refusal to give him a little kiss. With another note, he sent to Madame Brillon his Essay on the Morals of Chess. It was only proper that it should be dedicated to her, he said, as its good advice was copied from her generous and magnanimous way of playing the game. In the same letter, he stated that his grandson had inspected the house that she had urged him to apply for, but, true still to his adopted character, he said, "He finds it too magnificent for simple Republicans." In another letter, he told Madame Brillon that he loved to live, because it seemed to him that there was much more pleasure than pain in existence. We should not blame Providence rashly. She should reflect how many even of our duties it had made pleasures, and that it had been good enough, moreover, to call several pleasures sins to enhance our enjoyment of them. One more letter from Madame Brillon and we shall let her retire from the chess-board with the credit of having proved herself fully a match for Franklin in the longest and most absorbing game of chess that he played in France: 25th of December at Nice. The atonement is adequate, my dear Papa. I shall no longer call you _Monseigneur_ nor even _Monsieur_. My petition succeeded before reaching you; our tears are dried. You love us, you tell us so; you are in good health, and are as roguish as ever, since you are planning to steal me from Brillon, and to take me on a trip to America without letting anyone know it. Everything is as usual. I recognize your fine mask, and I am wholly satisfied. But, my good Papa, why say that you write French badly,--that your pleasantries in that language are only nonsense? To make an academic discourse, one must be a good grammarian; but to write to our friends all we need is a heart, and you combine with the best heart, my lovable Papa, when you wish, the soundest ethics, a lively imagination, and that roguishness, so pleasant, which shows that the wisest man in the world allows his wisdom to be perpetually broken against the rocks of femininity. Write to me, therefore, write to me often and much, or from spite I shall learn English. I should want to know it quickly, and that would hurt me as I have been forbidden all study, and you would be the cause of my ills, for having refused me a few lines of your bad French, which my family and I--and we are not simpletons--consider very good; ask my neighbors, M. d'Estaing, Mme. Helvétius and her abbés, if it would be right for you to prejudice the improvement which the sun here has caused in my health, for the sake of a little _amour propre_ which is beneath My Lord the Ambassador, Benjamin Franklin. One more letter from Franklin, and we shall cease to walk upon eggs. The French drapery is gone and nothing is left but Saxon nudity: I am charm'd with the goodness of my spiritual guide, and resign myself implicitly to her Conduct, as she promises to lead me to heaven in so delicious a Road when I could be content to travel thither even in the roughest of all ways with the pleasure of her company. How kindly partial to her Penitent in finding him, on examining his conscience, guilty of only one capital sin and to call that by the gentle name of Foible! I lay fast hold of your promise to absolve me of all Sins past, present, & future, on the easy & pleasing Condition of loving God, America and my guide above all things. I am in rapture when I think of being absolv'd of the future. People commonly speak of Ten Commandments.--I have been taught that there are twelve. The first was increase & multiply & replenish the earth. The twelfth is, A new Commandment I give unto you, _that you love one another_. It seems to me that they are a little misplaced, And that the last should have been the first. However I never made any difficulty about that, but was always willing to obey them both whenever I had an opportunity. Pray tell me dear Casuist, whether my keeping religiously these two commandments tho' not in the Decalogue, may not be accepted in Compensation for my breaking so often one of the ten, I mean that which forbids coveting my neighbour's wife, and which I confess I break constantly God forgive me, as often as I see or think of my lovely Confessor, and I am afraid I should never be able to repent of the Sin even if I had the full Possession of her. And now I am Consulting you upon a Case of Conscience I will mention the Opinion of a certain Father of the church which I find myself willing to adopt though I am not sure it is orthodox. It is this, that the most effectual way to get rid of a certain Temptation is, as often as it returns, to comply with and satisfy it. Pray instruct me how far I may venture to practice upon this Principle? But why should I be so scrupulous when you have promised to absolve me of the future? Adieu my charming Conductress and believe me ever with the sincerest Esteem & affection. Your most obed't hum. Serv. B F It would be easy enough to treat this correspondence too seriously. When we recall the social sympathies and diversions which drew the parties to it together, the advanced age of Franklin, the friendly relations sustained by him to all the members of the Brillon household, his attempt to bring about a matrimonial union between Temple Franklin and the daughter of Madame Brillon, the good-humored complaisance of M. Brillon, the usages of Parisian society at that time, the instinctive ease with which Franklin adopted the tone of any land in which he happened to be, and the sportive grace and freedom, brought by his wit and literary dexterity to every situation that invited their exercise, we might well infer that, perhaps, after all, on his part, as well on that of the clever coquette, whose bodkin was quite as keen as his sword, it was understood that the _liaison_ was to be only a paper one--an encounter of wit rather than of love. From first to last, the attitude of Madame Brillon towards Franklin was simply that of a beautiful and brilliant woman, to whom coquetry was an art, and whose intellectual activity had been stimulated, and vanity gratified, by the homage of a brilliant, magnetic and famous man, who possessed to a remarkable degree the faculty of rendering his splendid intellectual powers subservient to purely social uses. It was no slight thing to a woman such as Madame Brillon to be the _Vainqueur du Vainqueur de la Terre_, and little less than this did all France at that time insist that Franklin was. There is nothing in her letters to Franklin to indicate that she ever really had any thought of allowing him any greater degree of intimacy with her than he actually enjoyed. On that point she was apparently as firm as she was in her courteous and kindly but inflexible opposition to a marriage between her daughter and William Temple Franklin. I despise slanderers [she wrote to Franklin on one occasion], and am at peace with myself, but that is not enough, one must submit to what is called _propriety_ (that word varies in each century in each country) to sit less often on your knees. I shall certainly love you none the less, nor will our hearts be more or less pure; but we shall close the mouth of the malicious, and it is no slight thing even for the sage to silence them. On the other hand there is much to support the idea that the motive at the back of Franklin's letters to Madame Brillon was very much the same as that which inspired the _Journey to the Elysian Fields_ and the _Ephemera_. They were to a great extent, at any rate, mere literary bagatelles as those performances were--the offerings of an opulent wit and fancy at the shrine of beauty and fashion, which to be successful in an academic sense had to be informed by the spirit, and attuned to the note, of the time and place. All the same, the letters from Franklin to Madame Brillon are painful reading. Like not a little else in his life, they tend to confirm the impression that upright, courageous, public-spirited, benevolent, loving and faithful in friendship as he was, on the sensual side of his nature he was lamentably callous to the moral laws and conventions and the personal and social refinements which legitimize and dignify the physical intercourse of the sexes. The pinchbeck glitter, the deceitful vacuity of his moral regimen and _Art of Virtue_, assume an additional meaning, when we see him mumbling the cheek of Madame Brillon, and month after month and year after year writing to her in strains of natural or affected concupiscence. It was things of this sort which have assisted in strengthening the feeling, not uncommon, that Franklin's _Art of Virtue_ was a purely counterfeit thing, and the moralist himself an untrustworthy guide to righteous conduct. In a letter to M. de Veillard, Franklin after his return to America from France referred to the Brillon family as "that beloved family." Restored to his home surroundings, he forgot his French lines, and was again as soberly American as ever in thought and speech. Who would recognize the lover of Madame Brillon in this russet picture that he paints of himself in his eighty-third year in a letter to her? You have given me Pleasure by informing me of the Welfare and present agreable Circumstances of yourself and Children; and I am persuaded that your Friendship for me will render a similar Account of my Situation pleasing to you. I am in a Country where I have the happiness of being universally respected and beloved, of which three successive annual Elections to the Chief Magistracy, in which Elections the Representatives of the People in Assembly and the Supreme Court join'd and were unanimous, is the strongest Proof; this is a Place of Profit as well as of Honour; and my Friends chearfully assist in making the Business as easy to me as possible. After a word more with regard to the dwelling and the dutiful family, so often mentioned in his twilight letters, he concludes in this manner: My Rents and Incomes are amply sufficient for all my present Occasions; and if no unexpected Misfortunes happen during the time I have to live, I shall leave a handsome Estate to be divided among my Relatives. As to my Health, it continues the same, or rather better than when I left Passy; but being now in my 83rd year, I do not expect to continue much longer a Sojourner in this world, and begin to promise myself much Gratification of my Curiosity in soon visiting some other. In this letter, Franklin was looking forward, we hardly need say, to a very different world from the one where Madame Brillon was to be the second Mrs. Franklin, and they were to eat together apples of Paradise roasted with butter and nutmeg. And it is only just to the memory of Madame Brillon to recall the genuine words, so unlike the tenor of her former letters to Franklin, in which she bade him farewell, when he was leaving the shores of France: I had so full a heart yesterday in leaving you that I feared for you and myself a grief-stricken moment which could only add to the pain which our separation causes me, without proving to you further the tender and unalterable affection that I have vowed to you for always. Every day of my life I shall recall that a great man, a sage, was willing to be my friend; my wishes will follow him everywhere; my heart will regret him incessantly; incessantly I shall say I passed eight years with Doctor Franklin; they have flown, and I shall see him no more! Nothing in the world could console me for this loss, except the thought of the peace and happiness that you are about to find in the bosom of your family. It was to the Comtesse d'Houdetot of Rousseau's _Confessions_, however, that Franklin was indebted for his social apotheosis in France. In a letter to her after his return to America, he calls her "ma chere & toujours--amiable Amie," and declares that the memory of her friendship and of the happy hours that he had passed in her sweet society at Sanois, had often caused him to regret the distance which made it impossible for them to ever meet again. In her letters to him, after his return to America, she seeks in such words as "homage," "veneration" and "religious tenderness" to express the feelings with which he had inspired her. In these letters, there are also references to the _fête champêtre_ which she gave in his honor at her country seat at Sanois on the 12th day of April, in the year 1781, and which was one of the celebrated events of the time. When it was announced that Franklin's carriage was approaching the château, the Countess and a distinguished retinue of her relations set out on foot to meet him. At a distance of about half a mile from the château, they came upon him, and gathered around the doors of his carriage, and escorted it to the grounds of the château, where the Countess herself assisted Franklin to alight. "The venerable sage," said a contemporary account, "with his gray hairs flowing down upon his shoulders, his staff in his hand, the spectacles of wisdom on his nose, was the perfect picture of true philosophy and virtue." As soon as Franklin had descended from the carriage, the whole company grouped themselves around him, and the Countess declaimed, with proper emphasis we may be sure, these lines: "Soul of heroes and wise men, Oh, Liberty! First boon of the Gods! Alas! It is too remotely that we pay thee our vows; It is only with sighs that we render homage To the man who made happy his fellow-citizens." All then wended their way through the gardens of the Countess to the château, where they were soon seated at a noble feast. With the first glass of wine, a soft air was played, and the Countess and her relations rose to their feet, and sang in chorus these lines, which they repeated in chorus after every succeeding glass of wine: "Of Benjamin let us celebrate the renown, Let us sing the good that he has done to mortals; In America he will have altars, And at Sanois we drink to his fame." When the time for the second glass of wine came, the Countess sang this quatrain: "He gives back to human nature its rights, To free it he would first enlighten it, And virtue to make itself adored, Assumed the form of Benjamin." And at the third glass, the Vicomte d'Houdetot sang these words: "William Tell was brave but savage, More highly our dear Benjamin I prize, While shaping the destiny of America, At meat he laughs just as does your true sage." And at the fourth glass, the Vicomtesse d'Houdetot sang these words: "I say, live Philadelphia, too! Freedom has its allurement for me; In that country, I would gladly dwell, Though neither ball nor comedy is there." And at the fifth glass, Madame de Pernan sang these words: "All our children shall learn of their mothers, To love, to trust, and to bless you; You teach that which may reunite All the sons of men in the arms of one father." And at the sixth glass, the aged Comte de Tressan sang these words: "Live Sanois! 'Tis my Philadelphia. When I see here its dear law-giver; I grow young again in the heart of delight, And I laugh, and I drink and list to Sophie." And at the seventh glass, the Comte d'Apché sang these lines, in which some violence was done to the facts of English History, and the French Revolution was foreshadowed: "To uphold that sacred charter Which Edward accorded to the English, I feel that there is no French Knight Who does not desire to use his sword." And so quatrain preceded glass and chorus followed quatrain until every member of the eulogistic company had sung his or her song. The banqueters then rose from the table, and the Countess, followed by her relations, conducted Franklin to an arbor in her gardens, where he was presented with a Virginia locust by her gardener, which he was asked to honor the family by planting with his own hands. When he had done so, the Countess declaimed some additional lines, which were afterwards inscribed upon a marble pillar, erected near the tree: "Sacred tree, lasting monument Of the sojourn deigned to be made here by a sage, Of these gardens henceforth the pride, Receive here the just homage Of our vows and of our incense; And may you for all the ages, Forever respected by time, Live as long as his name, his laws and his deeds." On their way back to the château, the concourse was met by a band which played an accompaniment, while the Countess and her kinsfolk sang this song: "May this tree, planted by his benevolent hand, Lifting up its new-born trunk, Above the sterile elm, By its odoriferous flower, Make fragrant all this happy hamlet. The lightning will lack power to strike it, And will respect its summit and its branches, 'Twas Franklin who, by his prosperous labors, Taught us to direct or to extinguish that, While he was destroying other evils, Still more for the earth's sake to be pitied." This over, all returned to the château where they were engaged for some time in agreeable conversation. In the late afternoon, Franklin was conducted by the Countess and the rest to his carriage, and, when he was seated, they gathered about the open door of the vehicle, and the Countess addressed her departing guest in these words: "Legislator of one world, and benefactor of two! For all time mankind will owe thee its tribute, And it is but my part that I here discharge Of the debt that is thy due from all the ages." The door of the carriage was then closed, and Franklin returned to Paris duly deified but as invincibly sensible as ever. Another French woman with whom Franklin was on terms of familiar affection was the wife of his friend, Jean Baptiste Le Roy. His endearing term for her was _petite femme de poche_ (little pocket wife), and, in a letter after his return to Philadelphia, she assured him that, as long as his _petite femme de poche_ had the breath of life, she would love him. On one occasion, when he was in France, she wrote to him, asking him to dine with her on Wednesday, and saying that she would experience great pleasure in seeing and embracing him. Assuredly, he replied, he would not fail her. He found too much pleasure in seeing her, and in hearing her speak, and too much happiness, when he held her in his arms, to forget an invitation so precious. In another letter to her, after his return to America--the letter which drew forth her declaration that her love for him would last as long as her breath--he told her that she was very courageous to ascend so high in a balloon, and very good, when she was so near heaven, not to think of quitting her friends, and remaining with the angels. Competition might well have shunned an effort to answer such a flourish as that in kind, but a lady, who had been up in a balloon among the angels, was not the person to lack courage for any experiment. She only regretted, she said, that the balloon could not go very far, for, if it had been but able to carry her to him, she _would have been_ among the angels, and would have given him proofs of the respect and esteem for him, ineffaceably engraved upon her heart. Sad to relate, in the same letter she tells Franklin that her husband had proved hopelessly recreant to every principle of honor and good feeling. We say, "sad to relate," not for general reasons only, but because Franklin, when he had heard in 1772 that Le Roy was well and happily married, had felicitated him on the event, and repeated his oft-asserted statement that matrimony is the natural condition of man; though he omitted this time his usual comparison of celibacy with the odd half of a pair of scissors. The estrangement between his little pocket wife and her husband, however, did not affect his feeling of devoted friendship for Jean Baptiste Le Roy. Some two years and five months later, when the wild Walpurgis night of the French Revolution was setting in, he wrote to Le Roy to find out why he had been so long silent. "It is now more than a year," he said, "since I have heard from my dear friend Le Roy. What can be the reason? Are you still living? Or have the mob of Paris mistaken the head of a monopolizer of knowledge, for a monopolizer of corn, and paraded it about the streets upon a pole?" The fact that Le Roy, who was a physicist of great reputation, was a member of both the American Philosophical Society and the Royal Society, led Franklin in one of his letters to address him as his "Dear double _Confrère_." Le Roy's three brothers, Pierre, Charles and David were also friends of Franklin. Indeed, in a letter to Jean Baptiste, Franklin spoke of David, to whom he addressed his valuable paper entitled _Maritime Observations_, as "our common Brother." Other friendships formed by Franklin with women in France were those with Madame Lavoisier, Madame de Forbach and Mademoiselle Flainville. Madame Lavoisier was first the wife of the famous chemist of that name, and, after he was guillotined, during the French Revolution, the wife of the equally famous Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford. She painted a portrait of Franklin, and sent it to him at Philadelphia. It is allowed by those, who have seen it [he wrote to her], to have great merit as a picture in every respect; but what particularly endears it to me is the hand that drew it. Our English enemies, when they were in possession of this city (Philadelphia) and my house, made a prisoner of my portrait, and carried it off with them, leaving that of its companion, my wife, by itself, a kind of widow. You have replaced the husband, and the lady seems to smile as well pleased. So his Eurydice, as soon as the enchantments of the French sorceress lost their power, was re-united to him after all. Among his French friends, Madame de Forbach, the Dowager Duchess of Deux-Ponts, was conspicuous for the number of the presents that she made to him. Among others, was the fine crab-tree walking stick, surmounted with a gold head, wrought in the form of a cap of liberty, which he bequeathed to Washington. Other gifts of hers are alluded to in a letter from Franklin to her, acknowledging the receipt of a pair of scissors. It is true [he said] that I can now neither walk abroad nor write at home without having something that may remind me of your Goodness towards me; you might have added, that I can neither play at Chess nor drink Tea without the same sensation: but these had slipt your Memory. There are People who forget the Benefits they receive, Mad'e de Forbach only those she bestows. His only letter to Mademoiselle Flainville is addressed to "ma chere enfant," and is signed "Your loving Papa." It helps, along with innumerable other kindred scraps of evidence, to prove how infirm is the train of reasoning which seeks to establish a parental tie between Franklin and anyone simply upon the strength of his epistolary assumption of fatherhood. He might as well be charged with polygamy because he addressed so many persons as "my wife" or "ma femme." This letter also has its interest, as exemplifying the natural manner in which he awaited the sedan chair that was to bear him away from his fleshly tenement. "I have been harassed with Illness this last Summer," he told her, "am grown old, near 83, and find myself very infirm, so that I expect to be soon call'd for." This is far from being a complete list of the French women with whom Franklin was on terms of affectionate intimacy. To go no further, we know that Madame Brillon, in addition to writing to him on one occasion, "Give this evening to my amiable rival, Madame Helvétius, kiss her for yourself and for me," granted him on another a power of attorney to kiss for her until her return, whenever he saw them, her two neighbors, Le Veillard, and her pretty neighbor, Caillot. The truth is that Franklin had a host of friends of both sexes in France. When Thomas Paine visited that country, after the return of Franklin to America, he wrote to the latter that he found his friends in France "very numerous and very affectionate"; and we can readily believe it. Among them were Buffon, Condorcet, Lafayette, the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, Lavoisier, Chastellux, Grand, Dupont, Dubourg and Le Veillard. To Buffon, the great naturalist, Franklin was drawn by common scientific sympathies. Like Franklin, he became a sufferer from the stone, and one of the results was a letter in which the former, in reply to an inquiry from him as to how he obtained relief from the malady, stated that his remedy was to take, on going to bed, "the Bigness of a Pigeon's Egg of Jelly of Blackberries"; which, in the eyes of modern medical science was, as a palliative, hardly more effective than a bread pill. With Condorcet, the philosopher, Franklin was intimate enough to call him, and to be called by him, "My dear and illustrious Confrère"; and it was he, it is worthy of mention, who happily termed Franklin "the modern Prometheus." For Lafayette, that winning figure, forever fixed in the American memory, despite his visit to America in old age, in immortal youth and freshness, like the young lover and the happy boughs on Keats's Grecian Urn, Franklin had a feeling not unlike that of Washington. In referring to the expedition against England, in which Temple Franklin was to have accompanied Lafayette, Franklin said in a letter to the latter, "I flatter myself, too, that he might possibly catch from you some Tincture of those engaging Manners that make you so much the Delight of all that know you." In another letter, he observed in reply to the statement by Lafayette that the writer had had enemies in America, "You are luckier, for I think you have none here, nor anywhere." When it became his duty to deliver to Lafayette the figured sword presented to the latter by Congress, he performed the office, though ill-health compelled him to delegate the actual delivery of the gift to his grandson, in the apt and pointed language which never failed him upon such occasions. "By the help," he said, "of the exquisite Artists France affords, I find it easy to express everything but the Sense we have of your Worth and our Obligations to you. For this, Figures and even Words are found insufficient." Through all his letters to Lafayette there is a continuous suggestion of cordial attachment to both him and his wife. When Lafayette wrote to him that Madame de Lafayette had just given birth to a daughter, and that he was thinking of naming her Virginia, he replied, "In naming your Children I think you do well to begin with the most antient State. And as we cannot have too many of so good a Race I hope you & Mme de la Fayette will go thro the Thirteen." This letter was written at Passy. In a later letter to Lafayette, written at Philadelphia, he concluded by saying, "You will allow an old friend of four-score to say he _loves_ your wife, when he adds, and children, and prays God to bless them all." For the Duc de la Rochefoucauld he entertained the highest respect as well as a cordial feeling of friendship. "The good Duke," he terms him in a letter to Dr. Price. And it was to the judgment of the Duke and M. le Veillard in France, as it was to that of Vaughan and Dr. Price in England, as we shall see, that he left the important question as to whether any of the _Autobiography_ should be published, and, if so, how much. Among the many tributes paid to his memory, was a paper on his life and character read by the Duke before the Society of 1789. One of the Duke's services to America was that of translating into French, at the request of Franklin, for European circulation all the constitutions of the American States. Lavoisier was a member with Franklin of the commission which investigated the therapeutic value of mesmerism, and exposed the imposture of Mesmer. There are no social incidents in the intercourse of the two men, friendly as it was, so far as we know, worthy of mention; but, in a passage in one of Franklin's letters to Jan Ingenhousz, we have a glimpse of the master, of whom, when guillotined, after the brutal declaration of Coffinhal, the President of the Revolutionary Tribunal, that the Republic had no need for _savants_, Lagrange remarked, "They needed but a moment to lay that head low, and a hundred years, perhaps, will not be sufficient to reproduce its like." Speaking of an experiment performed by Lavoisier, Franklin wrote to Jan Ingenhousz, "He kindled a hollow Charcoal, and blew into it a Stream of dephlogisticated Air. In this Focus, which is said to be the hottest fire human Art has yet been able to produce, he melted Platina in a few Minutes." Franklin's friend, the Chevalier (afterwards Marquis) de Chastellux, who served with the Comte de Rochambeau in America, and was the author of the valuable _Travels in North America in the Years 1780, 81 and 82_, succeeded in making himself as agreeable to American women as Franklin succeeded in making himself to French women. There is an echo of this popularity in one of Franklin's letters to him. "Dare I confess to you," he said, when he was still at Passy, and the Chevalier was still in America, "that I am your rival with Madame G----? (Franklin's Katy). I need not tell you, that I am not a dangerous one. I perceive that she loves you very much; and so does, dear Sir, yours, &c." Through the influence of Leray de Chaumont, Ferdinand Grand, who was a Swiss Protestant, became the banker of our representatives in France, and, after Franklin's return to America, he remained entrusted with some of Franklin's private funds upon which the latter was in the habit of drawing from time to time. The correspondence between Franklin and himself is almost wholly lacking in social interest, but it indicates a deep feeling of affection upon Franklin's part. For Dupont de Nemours, the distinguished economist, and the founder of the family, which has been so conspicuous in the industrial, military and naval history of the United States, Franklin cherished a feeling distinctly friendly. His acquaintance with Dupont as well as with Dubourg, who, like Dupont, was a member of the group of French Economists, known as the Physiocrats, was formed, as we have seen, before his mission to France. The correspondence between Franklin and Dupont, however, like that between Franklin and Grand, has but little significance for the purposes of this chapter.[40] This, however, is not true of the relations between Dr. Barbeu Dubourg, a medical practitioner of high standing, and Franklin. They not only opened their minds freely to each other upon a considerable variety of topics, but their intercourse was colored by cordial association. Of all the men who came under the spell of Franklin's genius, Dubourg, who was, to use Franklin's own words, "a man of extensive learning," was one of the American philosopher's most enthusiastic pupils. "My dear Master," was the term that he habitually used in speaking of him, and his reverence for the object of his admiration led him to translate into French, with some additions, the edition of Franklin's scientific papers, brought out in London by David Henry in 1769. Nothing that he had ever written, he told his master, had been so well received as the preface to this compilation. "So great," he declared, "is the advantage of soaring in the shadow of Franklin's wings." We pass by the communications from Franklin to Dubourg on purely scientific subjects. One letter from the former to him brings to our knowledge a curious habit into which Franklin was drawn by the uncompromising convictions that he entertained in regard to the origin of bad colds and the virtues of ventilation, of which we shall hereafter speak more particularly. You know [he said] the cold bath has long been in vogue here as a tonic; but the shock of the cold water has always appeared to me, generally speaking, as too violent, and I have found it much more agreeable to my constitution to bathe in another element, I mean cold air. With this view I rise almost every morning, and sit in my chamber without any clothes whatever, half an hour or an hour, according to the season, either reading or writing. This practice is not in the least painful, but, on the contrary, agreeable; and, if I return to bed afterwards, before I dress myself, as sometimes happens, I make a supplement to my night's rest of one or two hours of the most pleasing sleep that can be imagined. I find no ill consequences whatever resulting from it, and that at least it does not injure my health, if it does not in fact contribute much to its preservation. Another letter from Franklin to Dubourg is a dissertation on swimming--the only form of outdoor exercise, to which he was addicted--but in which he was, throughout his life, such an adept that he could even make the following entry in his Journal, when he was at Southampton on his return to America from France: "I went at noon to bathe in Martin's salt-water hot-bath, and, floating on my back, fell asleep, and slept near an hour by my watch without sinking or turning! a thing I never did before, and should hardly have thought possible. Water is the easiest bed that can be!" In the letter to Dubourg, he recalls the assertion of a M. Robinson that fat persons with small bones float most easily upon the water, makes a passing reference to the diving bell and the swimming waist-coat, now known as the life-preserver, and suggests the comfort of varying the progressive motion of swimming by turning over occasionally upon one's back, and otherwise. He also states that the best method of allaying cramp is to give a sudden vigorous and violent shock to the affected region; which may be done in the air as the swimmer swims along on his back, and recalls an incident illustrative of the danger of throwing one's self, when thoroughly heated, into cold spring water. The exercise of swimming [he declared] is one of the most healthy and agreeable in the world. After having swam for an hour or two in the evening, one sleeps coolly the whole night, even during the most ardent heat of summer. Perhaps, the pores being cleansed, the insensible perspiration increases and occasions this coolness. It is certain that much swimming is the means of stopping a diarrhoea, and even of producing a constipation. In this letter, too, Franklin tells Dubourg how, when he was a boy, he quickened his progress in swimming by aiding the stroke of his hands with oval palettes, and attempted to do so by attaching a kind of sandals to the soles of his feet; and also how in his boyhood, on one occasion, he lay on his back in a pond and let his kite draw him across it without the least fatigue, and with the greatest pleasure imaginable. He thought it not impossible to cross in this manner from Dover to Calais. Another letter from Franklin to Dubourg on what he calls the doctrines of life and death is a delightful example of both his insatiable inquisitiveness and the readiness with which he could give a pleasant fillip to any subject however grave. He is speaking of some common flies that had been drowned in Madeira wine, apparently about the time when it was bottled in Virginia to be sent to London, where the writer was: At the opening of one of the bottles, at the house of a friend where I then was [he said], three drowned flies fell into the first glass that was filled. Having heard it remarked that drowned flies were capable of being revived by the rays of the sun, I proposed making the experiment upon these; they were therefore exposed to the sun upon a sieve, which had been employed to strain them out of the wine. In less than three hours, two of them began by degrees to recover life. They commenced by some convulsive motions of the thighs, and at length they raised themselves upon their legs, wiped their eyes with their fore feet, beat and brushed their wings with their hind feet, and soon after began to fly, finding themselves in Old England, without knowing how they came thither. The third continued lifeless till sunset, when, losing all hopes of him, he was thrown away. I wish it were possible, from this instance, to invent a method of embalming drowned persons, in such a manner that they may be recalled to life at any period, however distant; for having a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of America a hundred years hence, I should prefer to any ordinary death, the being immersed in a cask of Madeira wine, with a few friends, till that time, to be then recalled to life by the solar warmth of my dear country! But since in all probability we live in an age too early and too near the infancy of science, to hope to see such an art brought in our time to its perfection, I must for the present content myself with the treat, which you are so kind as to promise me, of the resurrection of a fowl or turkey cock. The friendship of Dubourg for Franklin bore good fruit for America, when the American Revolution came on; for a sanguine letter from him exerted a determining influence in inducing Congress to send Franklin to France. Le Veillard, who was a neighbor of Franklin at Passy, was one of the friends whom Franklin loved as he loved Hugh Roberts or John Hughes, Strahan or Jan Ingenhousz. And this feeling, as usual, included the members of his friend's family. Public cares, he wrote to Le Veillard, after his return to America, could not make him forget that he and Le Veillard loved one another. In the same letter, he spoke of Madame Le Veillard, as "the best of good women," and of her daughter as the amiable daughter, who, he thought, would tread in her footsteps. In a later letter, he told Le Veillard that he could not give him a better idea of his present happiness in his family than by informing him that his daughter had all the virtues of a certain good lady whom Le Veillard allowed him to love; the same tender affections and intentions, ingenuity, industry, economy, etc. "Embrace that good dame for me warmly, and the amiable daughter," he added. "My best wishes attend the whole family, whom I shall never cease to love while I am B. Franklin." This wealth of affection was richly repaid. The closest relations existed between Franklin and the Le Veillard family, while he was in France, and, when he left that country, Le Veillard was not content to accompany him simply to the seacoast, but was his companion as far as Southampton. To him, Abel James, Benjamin Vaughan and the Shipleys we are beholden for the fact that the _Autobiography_ was brought down to the year 1757; there to stop like the unfinished tower which tantalized the world with a haunting sense of its rare worth and incompleteness. Like a faithful, good wife, who avails herself of her intimacy with her husband to bring the continuous pressure of her influence to bear upon him for the purpose of arousing him to a proper sense of his duty, Le Veillard spared neither entreaty nor reproach to secure additions to the precious sibylline leaves of the _Autobiography_. "You blame me for writing three pamphlets and neglecting to write the little history," Franklin complained. "You should consider they were written at sea, out of my own head; the other could not so well be written there for want of the documents that could only be had here." After this bit of self-defense, Franklin goes on to describe his physical condition. He realized that the stone in his bladder had grown heavier, he said, but on the whole it did not give him more pain than when he was at Passy, and, except in standing, walking or making water, he was very little incommoded by it. Sitting or lying in bed, he was generally quite easy, God be thanked, and, as he lived temperately, drank no wine, and used daily the exercise of the dumb-bell, he flattered himself that the stone was kept from augmenting so much as it might otherwise do, and that he might still continue to find it tolerable. "People who live long," the unconquerable devotee of human existence declared, "who will drink of the cup of life to the very bottom, must expect to meet with some of the usual dregs." The view taken by Franklin in this letter of his physical condition was entirely too cheerful to work any alteration in the resolution of Le Veillard that the _Autobiography_ should be completed, if the unremitting appeal of an old friend could prevail. In a subsequent letter, Franklin tells him that in Philadelphia his time was so cut to pieces by friends and strangers that he had sometimes envied the prisoners in the Bastile. His three years of service as President, however, would expire in the succeeding October, and he had formed the idea of retiring then to Temple's farm at Rancocas, where he would be free from the interruption of visits, and could complete the work for Le Veillard's satisfaction. In the meantime, in view of the little remnant of life left to him, the accidents that might happen before October, and Le Veillard's earnest desire, he had resolved to proceed with the _Autobiography_ the very next day, and to go on with it daily until finished. This, if his health permitted, might be in the course of the ensuing summer. In a still later letter, Franklin declared that Le Veillard was a hard taskmaster to his friend. "You insist," he said, "on his writing _his life_, already a long work, and at the same time would have him continually employed in augmenting the subject, while the time shortens in which the work is to be executed." Some months later, he is able to send to Le Veillard the joyful intelligence that he had recently made great progress in the work that his friend so urgently demanded, and that he had come as far as his fiftieth year. Indeed, he even stated that he expected to have the work finished in about two months, if illness, or some unforeseen interruption, did not prevent. This expectation was not realized, and the reason for it is stated in painful terms in a subsequent letter from Franklin to Le Veillard. I have a long time [he said] been afflicted with almost constant and grevious Pain, to combat which I have been obliged to have recourse to Opium, which indeed has afforded me some Ease from time to time, but then it has taken away my Appetite and so impeded my Digestion that I am become totally emaciated, and little remains of me but a Skeleton covered with a Skin. In this Situation I have not been able to continue my Memoirs, and now I suppose I shall never finish them. Benjamin has made a Copy of what is done, for you, which shall be sent by the first safe Opportunity. The copy was subsequently sent to Le Veillard, and, after the death of Franklin, was given by him to William Temple Franklin, to whom Franklin bequeathed most of his papers, in exchange for the original manuscript of the _Autobiography_. The motive for the exchange was doubtless the desire of Temple to secure the most legible "copy" that he could find for the printer of his edition of his grandfather's works. The original manuscript finally became the property by purchase of the late John Bigelow. There is reason to believe that, even after the receipt of the copy of the _Autobiography_, Le Veillard still cherished the hope that the work might be brought down to a later date. Writing to Le Veillard only a few days before Franklin's death, Jefferson said: I wish I could add to your happiness by giving you a favourable account of the good old Doctor. I found him in bed where he remains almost constantly. He had been clear of pain for some days and was chearful and in good spirits. He listened with a glow of interest to the details of your revolution and of his friends which I gave him. He is much emaciated. I pressed him to continue the narration of his life and perhaps he will. That Le Veillard had a lively mind we may well infer from an amusing paragraph in one of his letters to Franklin in which he pictures the jealousy with which Madame Helvétius and Madame Brillon regarded each other after the departure of Franklin from France. You had two good friends here [he said] who might have lived harmoniously enough with each other, because they almost never saw each other, and you assured each of them privately that it was she that you loved the best; but do you venture to write to one and keep silent to the other? The first does not fail to brag and show her letter everywhere; what do you wish to become of the other? Two women draw their knives, their friends take sides, the war becomes general, now see what you have done. You set fire with a bit of paper to one half of the world, you who have so effectively aided in pacifying the other half! It was a singularly unhappy prophecy that Franklin, after his return to Philadelphia, made to this friend whose lips were so soon to be dyed with the red wine of the guillotine. "When this fermentation is over," he wrote to him with regard to the popular tumults in which France was then involved, "and the troubling parts subsided, the wine will be fine and good, and cheer the hearts of those who drink it." A bright letter from the daughter of Le Veillard merits a passing word. In reply to the statement of Franklin that she did not embrace him with a good grace, she says: You know doubtless a great number of things; you have travelled much; you know men, but you have never penetrated the head of a French girl. Well! I will tell you their secret: When you wish to embrace one and she says that it does not pain her, that means that it gives her pleasure. Very dear, too, to Franklin, was Dr. Jan Ingenhousz, the eminent scientist and physician to Maria Theresa. Many years after Franklin made his acquaintance, he received from Franklin the assurance that he had always loved him ever since he knew him, with uninterrupted affection, and he himself in a previous letter to Franklin styled him in his imperfect English "the most respectful" of all his friends. Only a few of the numerous letters that Franklin must have written to this friend are known to be in existence, and these are not particularly interesting from a social point of view. In one respect, however, they strikingly evince the kindness of heart which made Franklin so lovable. As was true of many other Europeans of his time, Ingenhousz incurred considerable pecuniary loss in American business ventures, and, like King David, who in his haste called all men liars, he was disposed at one time to call all Americans knaves. One of his American debtors, as we have already stated, was Samuel Wharton, of Philadelphia. I know we should be happy together [wrote Franklin to Ingenhousz when the writer was about to return to America], and therefore repeat my Proposition that you should ask Leave of the Emperor to let you come and live with me during the little Remainder of Life that is left me. I am confident his Goodness would grant your Request. You will be at no expence while with me in America; you will recover your Debt from Wharton, and you will make me happy. And the letter concludes with the request that Ingenhousz, who shared his enthusiasm for electrical experiments, would let him know soon whether he would make him happy by accepting his invitation. "I have Instruments," he declared, in terms that remind us of Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim, when they were planning their future military diversions together, "if the Enemy did not destroy them all, and we will make Plenty of Experiments together." Such were the more conspicuous of the friendships which clustered so thickly about the life of Franklin.[41] When we remember that all these men and women have with him said "good-night" to his Landlord of Life and Time, and gone off to their still chambers, we experience a feeling something like that of Xerxes when he gazed upon his vast army and reflected that not a man in it might return from Greece. The thought that there might never again be any movement in those cheerless rooms, nor any glimmer of recurring day was well calculated to make one, who loved his friends as Franklin did, exclaim, "I too with your Poet trust in God." The wide sweep of his sympathies and charities, the open prospect ever maintained by his mind, are in nothing made clearer to us than in the extent and variety of his friendships. They were sufficiently elastic, as we have seen, to include many diverse communities, and such extremes as Joseph Watson and James Ralph, George Whitefield and Lord le Despencer, John Jay and General Charles Lee, Polly and Madame Brillon. The natural, instinctive side of his character is brought to our attention very plainly in a letter from him to David Hartley, which reveals in an engaging manner the profound effect worked upon his imagination by a poor peasant, but _véritable philosophe_, who had walked all the way to Paris from one of the French provinces for the purpose of communicating a purely benevolent project to the world. But, at the same time, he never found any difficulty in accommodating himself to aberrant or artificial types of character, or to alien usages, customs and modes of thought. He belonged to the _genus homo_ not to the species _homo Americanus_ or _Britannicus_. Like the politic and much-experienced Ulysses of Tennyson, familiar with "Cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments," he could say, "I am a part of all that I have met." Wherever he went into the world, he realized his own aspiration that the time might come when a philosopher could set his foot on any part of the earth, and say, "This is my Country." Wherever he happened to be, he was too exempt from local bias, thought thoughts, cherished feelings, and spoke a language too universal not to make a strong appeal to good will and friendship. FOOTNOTES: [38] In a letter to Count de Moustiers, dated Philadelphia, Feb. 10, 1788, Franklin termed Louis XVI. and France "the best of Kings & the most beloved of Nations." [39] Franklin was too old when he entered upon the French mission to acquire a real mastery of the French language. On one occasion, when at the theatre with Madame de Boufflers, from whom he took his cue in helping to swell the plaudits of the evening, he was chagrined to find that his most vigorous applause had been bestowed on flattering allusions to himself. [40] No humanitarian levels were too high for the aspirations of Franklin, but he always took care, to use one of the sayings that he conceived or borrowed, not to ride before the horse's head. There is just a suspicion of unconscious sarcasm in a letter from him to Dupont in which he expresses the wish that the Physiocratic philosophy may grow and increase till it becomes the governing philosophy of the human species, "as it must be that of superior beings in better worlds." [41] Franklin had many intimate friends besides those mentioned in our text. In two letters to Samuel Rhoads he refers to his "dear old Friend Mrs. Paschal." In a letter to Thomas Mifflin, congratulating him upon his election as President of Congress, he speaks of their "ancient friendship." William Hunter he addresses in 1786 as "my dear old friend." In a letter to him in 1782, Thomas Pownall, the former Colonial Governor, says: "Permett me to say how much I have been your old invariable friend of four or five and twenty years standing." Jean Holker and his wife, of Rouen, were "dear friends" of his, and he was on terms of intimacy with John Joseph Monthieu, a Paris merchant, and Turgot, the French statesman. He writes to Miss Alexander from Passy that he has been to pay his respects to Madame La Marck, "not merely," he says, "because it was a Compliment due to her, but because I love her; which induces me to excuse her not letting me in." One of Franklin's friends, Dr. Edward Bancroft, a native of Massachusetts, who kept one foot in London and one foot in Paris during the Revolution, for the purpose, as was supposed by those of our envoys who were on good terms with him, of collecting, and imparting to our mission, information about the plans of the British Ministry, has come to occupy an equivocal position in the judgment of history. George Bancroft, the American historian, has set him down as "a double spy," and the view of Bancroft has been followed by others, including Henri Doniol, in his work on the participation of France in the establishment of the United States. But it would seem difficult for anyone to take this view after reading the acute and vigorous discussion of the subject by Dr. Francis Wharton in the _Diplomatic Correspondence of the Revolution_. In a letter to David Hartley of Feb. 22, 1779, Franklin pronounced Bancroft a "Gentleman of Character and Honour." 
36897	----	file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SELF-REVEALED A BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL STUDY BASED MAINLY ON HIS OWN WRITINGS BY WILLIAM CABELL BRUCE IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME II G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON _The Knickerbocker Press_ 1917 COPYRIGHT, 1917 BY W. CABELL BRUCE _The Knickerbocker Press, New York_ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I.--FRANKLIN'S PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 1 II.--FRANKLIN AS A MAN OF BUSINESS 26 III.--FRANKLIN AS A STATESMAN 95 IV.--FRANKLIN AS A MAN OF SCIENCE 350 V.--FRANKLIN AS A WRITER 423 INDEX 531 Benjamin Franklin Self-Revealed CHAPTER I Franklin's Personal Characteristics The precise explanation of the great concourse of friends that Franklin drew about him, at the different stages of his long journey through the world, is to be found partly in his robust, honorable character and mental gifts. The sterner virtues, which are necessarily the foundations of such esteem as he enjoyed, he possessed in an eminent degree. An uncommonly virile and resolute spirit animated the body, which was equal in youth to the task of swimming partly on and partly under water from near Chelsea to Blackfriars, and of exhibiting on the way all of Thevenot's motions and positions as well as some of its own, and which shortly afterwards even sported about the becalmed Berkshire in the Atlantic almost with the strength and ease of one of the numerous dolphins mentioned by Franklin in his Journal of his voyage on that ship from England to America. He hated cruelty, injustice, rapacity and arbitrary conduct. It was no idle or insincere compliment that Burke paid him when he spoke of his "liberal and manly way of thinking." How stoutly his spirit met its responsibilities in Pennsylvania, prior to the Declaration of Independence, we have seen. The risks incident to the adoption of that declaration it incurred with the same fearless courage. Of all the men who united in its adoption, he, perhaps, was in the best position to know, because of his long residence in England, and familiarity with the temper of the English monarch and his ministry, what the personal consequences to the signers were likely to be, if the American cause should prove unsuccessful. He had a head to lose even harder to replace than that of his friend Lavoisier, he had a fortune to be involved in flame or confiscation, the joy of living meant to him what it has meant to few men, and more than one statement in his writings affords us convincing proof that, quite apart from the collective act of all the signers in pledging their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to the "glorious cause," he did not lose sight of the fact that the Gray Tower still stood upon its ancient hill with its eye upon the Traitor's Gate, and its bosom stored with instruments of savage vengeance. Indeed, it was the thought that his son had been engaged against him in a game, in which not only his fortune but his neck had been at stake, that made it so difficult for him, forgiving as he was, to keep down the bile of violated nature. But, when the time came for affixing his signature to the Declaration, he not only did it with the equanimity of the rest, but, if tradition may be believed, with a light-hearted intrepidity like that of Sir Walter Raleigh jesting on the scaffold with the edge of the axe. "We must all hang together," declared John Hancock, when pleading for unanimity. "Yes," Franklin is said to have replied, "we must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." The inability of old age, partly from sheer loss of animal vigor, and partly from the desire for peace, produced by the general decline in vividness of everything in a world, that it is about to quit, to assert itself with the force of will and temper, that belongs to us in our prime, is one of the most noticeable phenomena of the later stages of human existence. But John Adams to the contrary, the evidence all tends to show that the resolution of character exhibited by Franklin in the heyday of his physical strength he exhibited to the last. He was always slow to anger. Independent of the remarkable self-control, which enabled him to preserve a countenance, while Wedderburn was traducing him, as fixed as if it had been carved out of wood, his anger was not kindled quickly, among other reasons because he was too wise and just not to know that, if we could lay aside the sensitiveness of exaggerated self-importance, there would be but little real occasion for anger in the ordinary course of human life. But when meanness, injustice or other aggravated forms of human depravity were to be rebuked, the indignation of Franklin remained deliberate, judicious, calculating and crushing to the last. One illustration of this we have already given in his letter to Captain Peter Landais. Others we shall have brought to our attention in several of his letters to Arthur Lee. Upon these occasions, angry as he was, he was apt to make out his case with very much the same cool completeness as that with which he demonstrated in a letter to the British Post Office that it would be a mistake to shift His Majesty's mails from the Western to the Eastern Post Route in New Jersey. The time never came when he was not fully as militant as the occasion required, though never more so. And his integrity was as marked as his courage. "Splashes of Dirt thrown upon my Character, I suffered while fresh to remain," he once said. "I did not chuse to spread by endeavouring to remove them, but rely'd on the vulgar Adage _that they would all rub off when they were dry_." And such was his reputation for uprightness that, as a rule, he could neglect attacks upon his character with impunity. The one vaunt of his life, if such it can be called, was his statement to John Jay that no person could truthfully declare that Benjamin Franklin had wronged him. A statement of that kind, uttered by an even better man than Franklin, might well be answered in the spirit that prompted Henry IV of France, when his attention was called to a memorial inscription, which asserted that its subject never knew fear, to remark, "Then he never snuffed a candle with his fingers." But that Franklin was a man of sterling probity is unquestionable.[1] "We ought always to do what appears best to be done without much regarding what others may think of it," he wrote to William Carmichael, and, at more than one trying crisis of his career, he rose without difficulty to the requirements of his maxim. Lord North had little love for him, but he is credited with the remarkable statement, during the American War, that, in his belief, Franklin was the only man in France whose hands were not stained with stock jobbery. When the false charge was made that Franklin had never accounted for one of the many millions of livres entrusted to him by our French ally, no pride could suffer more acutely than did his from its inability to disprove the charge immediately. When enemies, to whom he had never given any just cause of offence whatever, were calumniating him towards the close of his life, his desire to leave the reputation of an honest man behind him became the strongest of his motives. The flattering language of great men, he said in his _Journal of the Negotiation for Peace with Great Britain_, did not mean so much to him when he found himself so near the end of life as to esteem lightly all personal interests and concerns except that of maintaining to the last, and leaving behind him the tolerably good character that he had previously supported. Still later he wrote to Henry Laurens, accepting the offer of that true patriot and gentleman to refute the slanders with regard to his career in France, and saying: I apprehend that the violent Antipathy of a certain person to me may have produced some Calumnies, which, what you have seen and heard here may enable you easily to refute. You will thereby exceedingly oblige one, who has lived beyond all other Ambition, than that of dying with the fair Character he has long endeavoured to deserve.[2] When the negotiations for peace between Great Britain and the United States began, Richard Oswald, the envoy of Lord Shelburne, told Franklin that a part of the confidence felt in him by the English Ministry was inspired by his repute for open, honest dealing. This was not a mere diplomatic _douceur_, but a just recognition of his candid, straightforward conduct in his commerce with men. He was very resourceful and dexterous, if need were, and, in his early life, when he was promoting his own, or the public interests, he exhibited at times a finesse that bordered upon craftiness; but, when Wedderburn taxed him with duplicity, he imputed to Franklin's nature a vice incompatible with his frank, courageous disposition. It was his outspoken sincerity of character that enabled him, during the American War, to retain the attachment of his English friends even when he was holding up their land as one too wicked for them to dwell in. His intellectual traits, too, were of a nature to win social fame. In his graphic description of Franklin in extreme old age, Doctor Manasseh Cutler, of Massachusetts, brings him before us with these telling strokes of his pencil: I was highly delighted with the extensive knowledge he appeared to have of every subject, the brightness of his memory, and clearness and vivacity of all his mental faculties, notwithstanding his age. His manners are perfectly easy, and everything about him seems to diffuse an unrestrained freedom and happiness. He has an incessant vein of humour, accompanied with an uncommon vivacity, which seems as natural and involuntary as his breathing. In other words, whatever knowledge Franklin had was readily available for social purposes, and suffused with the gaiety and humor which are so ingratiating, when accompanied, as they were in his case, by the desire to please and do good.[3] "He had wit at will," is the testimony of an unfriendly but honest witness, John Adams. His humor it would be difficult to over-emphasize. It ranged from punning, trifling, smutty jests and horse laughter to the sly, graceful merriment of Addison and the bitter realism of Swift. It irradiated his conversation, his letters, his writings, his passing memoranda, at times even his scientific essays and political papers. "Iron is always sweet, and every way taken is wholesome and friendly to the human Body," he states in his _Account of the New-Invented Pennsylvanian Fireplaces_; but his waggish propensity is too much for him, and he adds, "except in Weapons." Jefferson said that Franklin was not allowed to draft the Declaration of Independence for fear that he would insert a joke in it. So far as his humor assumed literary forms, we shall speak of it in another place. We are concerned with it now only so far as it influenced his conversation. In the _Autobiography_ he tells us that his reputation among his fellow-printers at Watts's Printing House in London as "a pretty good _riggite_, that is, a jocular verbal satirist," helped to support his consequence in the society. In the same book, he also tells us that later, wishing to break a habit that he was getting into of prattling, punning and joking, which made him acceptable to trifling company only, he gave Silence the second place in his little _Book of Virtues_. "What new story have you lately heard agreeable for telling in conversation?" was one of the standing questions, of his conception, which were to be answered by the members of the Junto at each of its meetings. And, even when he was in his eighty-third year, he could say to Elizabeth Partridge that, notwithstanding the gout, the stone and old age, he enjoyed many comfortable intervals, in which he forgot all his ills, and amused himself in reading or writing, or in conversation with friends, joking, laughing and telling merry stories, as when she first knew him a young man about fifty. His puns at times were as flat as puns usually are, and some of his stories could hardly have prospered in the ear that heard them, if they had not been set off by high animal spirits and contagious good humor. But some of those that crept into his letters, whether original or borrowed, are good enough for repetition. He seems to have had one for every possible combination of circumstances. "The Doctor," Miss Adams observes, "is always silent unless he has some diverting story to tell, of which he has a great collection." The mutinous and quarrelsome temper of his soldiers at Gnadenhutten, when they were idle, put him in mind of the sea-captain, who made it a rule to always keep his men at work, and who exclaimed, upon being told by his mate, that there was nothing more to employ them about, "_Oh, make them scour the anchor._" His absent-mindedness, when electrocuting a turkey, in setting up an electric circuit through his own body, which cost him the loss of his consciousness, and a numbness in his arms and the back of his neck, which did not wear off until the next morning, put him in mind of the blunderer who, "being about to steal powder, made a hole in the cask with a hot iron." At times, there was a subjective quality about his stories which lifted them above the level of mere jests. When the suggestion was made that, in view of the favor conferred upon America by the repeal of the Stamp Act by Parliament, America could not, with any face of decency, refuse to defray the expense incurred by Great Britain in stamping so much paper and parchment, Franklin did not lack an apposite story in which a hot iron was again made to figure. The whole Proceeding [he said] would put one in Mind of the Frenchman that used to accost English and other Strangers on the Pont-Neuf, with many Compliments, and a red hot Iron in his Hand; _Pray Monsieur Anglois_, says he, _Do me the Favour to let me have the Honour of thrusting this hot Iron into your Backside?_ Zoons, what does the Fellow mean! Begone with your Iron or I'll break your Head! _Nay Monsieur_, replies he, _if you do not chuse it, I do not insist upon it. But at least, you will in Justice have the Goodness to pay me something for the heating of my Iron._ This story was too good not to have a sequel. As you observe [he wrote to his sister Jane] there was no swearing in the story of the poker, when I told it. The late new dresser of it was, probably, the same, or perhaps akin to him, who, in relating a dispute that happened between Queen Anne and the Archbishop of Canterbury, concerning a vacant mitre, which the Queen was for bestowing on a person the Archbishop thought unworthy, made both the Queen and the Archbishop swear three or four thumping oaths in every sentence of the discussion, and the Archbishop at last gained his point. One present at this tale, being surprised, said, "But did the Queen and the Archbishop swear so at one another?" "O no, no," says the relator; "that is only _my way_ of telling the story." Another rather elaborate story was prompted by Franklin's disapproval of the Society of the Cincinnati. The States [he said in his famous letter to his daughter] should not only restore to them the _Omnia_ of their first Motto (omnia reliquit servare rempublicam) which many of them have left and lost, but pay them justly, and reward them generously. They should not be suffered to remain, with (all) their new-created Chivalry, _entirely_ in the Situation of the Gentleman in the Story, which their _omnia reliquit_ reminds me of.... He had built a very fine House, and thereby much impair'd his Fortune. He had a Pride, however, in showing it to his Acquaintance. One of them, after viewing it all, remark'd a Motto over the Door [Transcriber's note: The = represents a dash above the O] "[=O]IA VANITAS." "What," says he, "is the Meaning of this [=O]IA? It is a word I don't understand." "I will tell you," said the Gentleman; "I had a mind to have the Motto cut on a Piece of smooth Marble, but there was not room for it between the Ornaments, to be put in Characters large enough to be read. I therefore made use of a Contraction antiently very common in Latin Manuscripts, by which the _m's_ and _n's_ in Words are omitted, and the Omissions noted by a little Dash above, which you may see there; so that the Word is _omnia_, OMNIA VANITAS." "O," says his Friend, "I now comprehend the Meaning of your motto, it relates to your Edifice; and signifies, that, if you have abridged your _Omnia_, you have, nevertheless, left your VANITAS legible at full length." The determination of the enemies of America after the Revolution to have it that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, America was going from bad to worse, brought out still another story: They are angry with us and hate us, and speak all manner of evil of us; but we flourish, notwithstanding [he wrote to his grandnephew, Jonathan Williams]. They put me in mind of a violent High Church Factor, resident some time in Boston, when I was a Boy. He had bought upon Speculation a Connecticut Cargo of Onions, which he flatter'd himself he might sell again to great Profit, but the Price fell, and they lay upon hand. He was heartily vex'd with his Bargain, especially when he observ'd they began to _grow_ in the Store he had fill'd with them. He show'd them one Day to a Friend. "Here they are," says he, "and they are _growing_ too! I damn 'em every day; but I think they are like the Presbyterians; the more I curse 'em, the more they _grow_." It was impossible for such an irrational thing as the duel to escape Franklin's humorous insight, and a story like the following tended far more effectively to end the superstition upon which it throve than any pains or penalties that law could devise: A Man [wrote Franklin from Passy to Thomas Percival] says something, which another tells him is a Lie. They fight; but, whichever is killed, the Point in dispute remains unsettled. To this purpose they have a pleasant little Story here. A Gentleman in a Coffee-house desired another to sit farther from him. "Why so?" "Because, Sir, you stink." "That is an Affront, and you must fight me." "I will fight you, if you insist upon it; but I do not see how that will mend the Matter. For if you kill me, I shall stink too; and if I kill you, (you) will stink, if possible, worse than you do at present." This is one of those stories which make their own application, but the grave reflections, by which it was followed, are well worthy of quotation too. How can such miserable Sinners as we are [added Franklin] entertain so much Pride, as to conceit that every Offence against our imagined Honour merits _Death_? These petty Princes in their own Opinion would call that Sovereign a Tyrant, who should put one of them to death for a little uncivil Language, tho' pointed at his sacred Person; yet every one of them makes himself Judge in his own Cause, condemns the offender without a Jury, and undertakes himself to be the Executioner. Some _bon mots_, too, of Franklin have come down to us with his stories. When a neighbor of his in Philadelphia consulted him as to how he could keep trespassers from coming into his back yard, and stealing small beer from a keg, which he kept there, he replied, "Put a pipe of Madeira alongside of it." When Lord Stormont, the British Ambassador to France, hatched the report that a large part of Washington's army had surrendered, Franklin was asked whether it was true. "No sir," he said, "it is not a truth, it is only a stormont." The result was that for some time no lies were told in Paris but only "stormonts." It was not often that the wit of Franklin was barbed with malice, but there were good reasons why the malice in this instance should never have cost him any regret. When the American Commissioners proposed an exchange of prisoners to Lord Stormont, he did not deign to reply, but when they followed up their proposition with another letter, he returned a communication to them without date or signature in these insolent words: "The King's Ambassador receives no letters from rebels but when they come to implore his Majesty's mercy." The American Commissioners, with Franklin doubtless as their scrivener, were quite equal to the occasion. "In answer to a letter which concerns some of the most material interests of humanity, and of the two nations, Great Britain and the United States of America, now at war," they retorted, "we received the inclosed _indecent_ paper, as coming from your lordship, which we return, for your lordship's more mature consideration." Between Franklin and the vivacity of the Parisians, Lord Stormont found it not a little difficult to maintain his position of frigid and relentless dignity. Commenting in a letter to John Lovell, after Lord Stormont had left France, upon the expense entailed upon the United States by supernumerary commissioners, Franklin takes this parting shot at the Ambassador; we reduce such of his words as were in French to English: I imagine every one of us spends nearly as much as Lord Stormont did. It is true, he left behind him the character of a niggard; and, when the advertisement appeared for the sale of his household goods, all Paris laughed at an article of it, perhaps very innocently expressed, "a great quantity of table linen, which has never been used." "That is very true," say they, "for he has never given any one anything to eat."[4] Another _bon mot_ of Franklin was his reply when he was told that Howe had taken Philadelphia. "No," he said, "Philadelphia has taken Howe"; and so it proved. Still another owed its origin to the balloon in its infancy. "Of what use is a balloon?" someone asked in Franklin's presence. "Of what use," he answered, "is a new-born baby?" But to form a correct impression of Franklin's humor we should think of it, to use Dr. Cutler's comparison, as something as natural to him as the rise and fall of his chest in breathing. It played like an iris over the commonest transactions of his life. If it was only a lost prayer book of his wife that he was advertising for in his _Gazette_, he did it in such terms as these: Taken out of a Pew in the Church some months since, a Common Prayer-Book, bound in Red, gilt, and letter'd D. F. on each corner. The Person who took it is desir'd to open it, and read the Eighth Commandment, and afterwards return it to the same Pew again; upon which no further Notice will be taken. At times, the humor is mere waggishness. When he was the Colonial Deputy Postmaster-General, he indorsed his letters, "Free, B. Franklin," but, after he became the Postmaster-General of the United States, out of deference for the American struggle for liberty, he changed the indorsement to "B. Free Franklin." Even in his brief memoranda on the backs of letters, there are gleams of the same overflowing vivacity. Upon the manuscript of a long poem, received by him, when in France, he jotted down the words: "From M. de Raudiere, a poor Poet, who craves assistance to enable him to finish an epic poem which he is writing against the English. He thinks General Howe will be off as soon as the poem appears." When a Benedictine monk, the prior for a time of the Abbey of St. Pierre de Chalon, lost money at cards, and wrote to him for his aid, he made this endorsement upon the letter: "Dom Bernard, Benedictine, wants me to pay his Gaming Debts--and he will pray for success to our Cause!" The humor of Franklin was too broad at times not to find expression occasionally in practical jokes. When in England, during his maturer years, he was in the habit of pretending to read his Parable against Persecution, which he had learnt by heart, and in which the manner of the Old Testament is skilfully imitated, out of his Bible, as the fifty-first Chapter of the Book of Genesis. The remarks of the Scripturians on it, he said in a letter written by him a year before his death, were sometimes very diverting. On one occasion, he wrote to the famous English printer, John Baskerville, that, to test the acumen of a connoisseur, who had asserted that Baskerville would blind all the readers of the nation by the thin and narrow strokes of his letters, he submitted to the inspection of the gentleman, as a specimen of Baskerville's printing, what was in reality a fragment of a page printed by Caslon. Franklin protested that he could not for his life see in what respects the print merited the gentleman's criticism. The gentleman saw in it everywhere illustrations of the justice of this criticism and declared that he could not even then read the specimen without pain in his eyes. I spared him that Time [said Franklin] the Confusion of being told, that these were the Types he had been reading all his life, with so much Ease to his Eyes; the Types his adored Newton is printed with, on which he has pored not a little; nay, the very Types his own Book is printed with, (for he is himself an Author) and yet never discovered this painful Disproportion in them, till he thought they were yours.[5] Associated with these moral and intellectual traits was a total lack of all anti-social characteristics or habits. When Franklin was in his twenty-first year, he made this sage entry in his Journal of his voyage from London to Philadelphia: Man is a sociable being, and it is, for aught I know, one of the worst of punishments to be excluded from Society. I have read abundance of fine things on the subject of solitude, and I know 'tis a common boast in the mouths of those that affect to be thought wise, _that they are never less alone than when alone_. I acknowledge solitude an agreeable refreshment to a busy mind; but were these thinking people obliged to be always alone, I am apt to think they would quickly find their very being insupportable to them. In his youth he adopted the Socratic method of argument, and grew, he tells us in the _Autobiography_, very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions, the consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither he nor his cause always deserved. But, in a few years, he discovered that these victories were Pyrrhic victories, and he gradually left off this doubtful kind of dialectics, retaining only the habit of expressing himself in terms of modest diffidence, never using when he advanced anything, that might possibly be disputed, the words "certainly," "undoubtedly" or any others that gave the air of positiveness to an opinion, but rather saying "I conceive" or "apprehend" a thing to be so and so; "it appears to me," or "I should think it is so or so" for such and such reasons; or "I imagine it to be so," or "it is so if I am not mistaken." As the chief ends of conversation [he declared] are to _inform_ or to be _informed_, to _please_ or to _persuade_, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat every one of those purposes for which speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving information or pleasure. And that Franklin completely succeeded in rooting out the last vestige of dogmatism in his nature we not only have his testimony but that of Jefferson, who was not even born when he resolved to do it. "It was one of the rules which, above all others, made Dr. Franklin the most amiable of men in society," he said, "never to contradict anybody." Long before this, when Franklin was only in his forty-fifth year, James Logan wrote of him to Peter Collinson in these words: "Our Benjamin Franklin is certainly an extraordinary man, one of a singular good judgment, but of equal modesty." How noble was his capacity for self-effacement in the investigation of truth we shall see later on. In this place, it is enough to say that even the adulation poured out upon him in France did not in the slightest degree turn his head. He accepted it with the ingenuous pleasure with which he accepted everything that tended to confirm his impression that life was a game fully worth the candle, but, much as he loved France and the French, ready as he was to take a sip of everything that Paris pronounced exquisite, celestial or divine, it is manifest enough that he regarded with no little amusement the effort of French hyperbole to assign to him the rôle of Jupiter Tonans. When Felix Nogaret submitted to him his French version of Turgot's epigram, "Eripuit cælo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis," Franklin, after acknowledging the flood of compliments that he could never hope to merit, with which the writer had overwhelmed him in his letter, added, "I will only call your attention to two inaccuracies in the original line. In spite of my electrical experiments, the lightning descends just the same before my very nose and beard, and, as to tyrants, there have been more than a million of us engaged in snatching his sceptre from him." His pen, however, was wasting its breath when it attempted to convince a Frenchman of that day that his countrymen did not owe their liberties solely to him. If the French had not been too generous and well-bred to remind him of the millions of livres obtained by him from the French King for the support of the American cause, he might have found it more difficult to deny that he was the real captor of Cornwallis. How heartily Franklin hated disputation we have already had some occasion to see. This aversion is repeatedly expressed in the _Autobiography_. Referring to his arguments with Collins, he tells us in one place that the disputatious turn of mind is apt to become a very bad habit, making people often extremely disagreeable in company by the contradiction that is necessary to bring it into practice; and thence, besides souring and spoiling the conversation, is productive of disgusts and perhaps enmities where you may have occasion for friendship. In another place, he has this to say of the contentious Governor Morris, one of the Colonial governors of Pennsylvania: He had some reason for loving to dispute, being eloquent, an acute sophister, and, therefore, generally successful in argumentative conversation. He had been brought up to it from a boy, his father, as I have heard, accustoming his children to dispute with one another for his diversion, while sitting at table after dinner; but I think the practice was not wise; for, in the course of my observation, these disputing, contradicting, and confuting people are generally unfortunate in their affairs. They get victory sometimes, but they never get good will, which would be of more use to them. The same thought is stated in a letter from Franklin to Robert Morris in which the former told the latter that he would see, on comparing a letter which Franklin had written, with the answer, that, if he had replied, which he could easily have done, a dispute might have arisen out of it, in which, if he had got the better, he should perhaps have got nothing else. Facetious and agreeable as he was, he was likewise free from the unsocial habit of monopolizing conversation: The great secret of succeeding in conversation, [he declared], is to admire little, to hear much; always to distrust our own reason, and sometimes that of our friends; never to pretend to wit, but to make that of others appear as much as possibly we can; to hearken to what is said, and to answer to the purpose. Nor, in making or borrowing these just observations, was Franklin like Carlyle who has been wittily said to have preached the doctrine of silence in thirty volumes. What he preached in these respects, he practised. He was friendly and agreeable in conversation [Miss Logan tells us], which he suited to his company, appearing to wish to benefit his hearers. I could readily believe that he heard nothing of consequence himself but what he turned to the account he desired, and in his turn profited by the conversation of others. It is hardly just to Franklin, however, to portray his social character negatively. The truth is, as the extracts from his correspondence have clearly enough shown, he was one of the most companionable and one of the kindest and most sympathetic and affectionate of human beings. He detested wrangling and discord. He had no patience with malice, and refused to allow the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ to be made a vehicle for detraction. To tell a chronic grumbler that he was hurt by his "voluminous complaints," or to write to a friend that he would have sent him a longer letter but for the coming in of a _bavard_ who had worried him till evening was about as close as he ever got to fretfulness. There is testimony to the effect that he never uttered a hasty or angry word to any member of his household, servant or otherwise. Even where he had strong reasons for resentment, he was remarkably just, generous and forgiving. Speaking in the _Autobiography_ of the manner in which he had been deceived by Governor Keith, he had only these mild words of reproof for him: He wish'd to please everybody; and, having little to give, he gave expectations. He was otherwise an ingenious, sensible man, a pretty good writer, and a good governor for the people, tho' not for his constituents, the proprietaries, whose instructions he sometimes disregarded. Several of our best laws were of his planning and passed during his administration. When Bradford was Postmaster, he refused to allow his post-riders to carry any newspaper but his own. When the tables were turned, and Franklin was in the position as Postmaster himself to shut out every publication from the mails except his _Gazette_, he declined to retaliate on Bradford's meanness. Drained of money, as he was by Ralph, when they were in London together, he nevertheless summed up the situation in the _Autobiography_ with the charitable statement: "I lov'd him, notwithstanding, for he had many amiable qualities." If there was any person for whom Franklin entertained, and had just cause to entertain, a bitter feeling of contempt and dislike, it was Thomas Penn. Yet, when Lady Penn solicited his assistance, for the protection of her interests in Pennsylvania, after the Proprietary Government in that Province had collapsed with the royal authority, he did all that he could properly do to aid her. He was always ready for a friendly game of cribbage, cards or chess. Though entirely too temperate to indulge any physical appetite to excess, he was not insensible to the pleasures of the table in his later years. Wine, too, he relished sufficiently to thank God for it liturgically in his youth, and to consume a second bottle of it at times in middle age with the aid of his friend "Straney." When Col. Henry Bouquet was looking forward to a hot summer in Charleston, he wrote to him that he did all that he could for his relief, by recommending him to an ingenious physician of his acquaintance, who knew the rule of making cool, weak, refreshing punch, not inferior to the nectar of the gods. It would not do, of course, to accept too literally the song in which Franklin exalted Bacchus at the expense of Venus, or the Anacreontic letter to the Abbé Morellet, in which wine was extolled as if it were all milk of our Blessed Lady. But these convivial effusions of his pen nevertheless assist us in arriving at a correct interpretation of his character. He was fond of music also, and was something of a musician himself. He could play on the harp, the guitar and the violin, and he improved the armonica, which acquired some temporary repute. His interest in this musical instrument owed its birth to the melodious sounds which a member of the Royal Society, Mr. Delavel, happened to produce in his presence by rubbing his fingers on the edges of bowls, attuned to the proper notes by the different measures of water that they contained. It was upon the armonica that Franklin played at the social gatherings under M. Brillon's roof which he called his Opera, and to which such lively references are made in the letters that passed between Madame Brillon and himself. The advantages of the instrument, he wrote to Giambatista Beccaria, were that its tones were incomparably sweet beyond those of any other; that they could be swelled and softened at pleasure by stronger or weaker pressures of the fingers, and continued to any length; and that the instrument, being once well tuned, never again required tuning. Blend with all this the happy disposition, which led Franklin to declare in his eighty-second year that he comforted himself with the reflection that only three incurable diseases, the gout, the stone, and old age, had fallen to his share, and that they had not yet deprived him of his natural cheerfulness, his delight in books, and enjoyment of social conversation, and we can form some adequate idea of what he brought to intercourse with his fellow-creatures. Only about two weeks before his death he wrote to Jane Mecom from his death-bed: I do not repine at my malady, though a severe one, when I consider how well I am provided with every convenience to palliate it, and to make me comfortable under it; and how many more horrible evils the human body is subject to; and what a long life of health I have been blessed with, free from them all. In his _Proposals Relating to Education_, he dwelt upon the importance of "that _Benignity of Mind_, which shows itself in _searching for_ and _seizing_ every Opportunity _to serve_ and _to oblige_; and is the Foundation of what is called Good Breeding; highly useful to the Possessor, and most agreeable to all." This benignity of mind belonged to him in an eminent degree. The grape vines that he procured for his friend Quincy at the cost of so much trouble to himself were but one of the ten thousand proofs that he gave his friends of his undiminished affection and unselfish readiness to serve them. Throughout his whole life, he had a way of keeping friendship fresh by some thoughtful gift or act of kindness. Books, pamphlets, writing materials, seeds of many descriptions, candles, hams, American nuts and dried apples, even choice soap, were among the articles with which he reminded his friends that he had not forgotten them. The Box not being full [he wrote to Collinson], I have put in a few more of our Candles which I recommend for your particular Use when you have Occasion to read or write by Night; they give a whiter Flame than that of any other kind of Candle, and the Light is more like Daylight than any other Light I know; besides they need little or no Snuffing, and grease nothing. There is still a little Vacancy at the End of the Box, so I'll put in a few Cakes of American Soap made of Myrtle Wax, said to be the best Soap in the World for Shaving or Washing fine Linnens etc. Mrs. Franklin requests your Daughter would be so good as to accept 3 or 4 Cakes of it, to wash your Grandson's finest Things with. In a letter to Bartram, who had informed him that his eye sight was failing, Franklin surmises that this good and dear old friend did not have spectacles that suited him. Therefore [he said] I send you a complete set, from number one to thirteen, that you may try them at your ease; and, having pitched on such as suit you best at present, reserve those of higher numbers for future use, as your eyes grow still older; and with the lower numbers, which are for younger people, you may oblige some other friends. My love to good Mrs. Bartram and your children. Afterwards, he sends to Bartram several sorts of seed and the English medal which had been awarded to him for his botanical achievements. And with them went also one of the compliments in which his urbanity abounded. Alluding to the medal, he says, "It goes in a Box to my Son Bache, with the Seeds. I wish you Joy of it. Notwithstanding the Failure of your Eyes, you write as distinctly as ever." "Please to accept a little Present of Books, I send by him, curious for the Beauty of the Impression," he wrote to Benjamin Vaughan, when Temple was on the point of visiting England. One of his last gifts was a collection of books to Abdiel Holmes, the father of Oliver Wendell Holmes. In addition to the gifts that he made to his friends, and the numerous commissions that he executed for them, when he was in London, he was prompt to let them feel that they could always be certain of his sympathy in every respect that affected their prosperity or happiness for good or for evil. In one of his letters, he assures Jared Eliot that, if he should send any of his steel saws to Philadelphia for sale, the writer would not be wanting, where his recommendation might be of service. When at Passy, he wrote to George Whatley for a copy of his "excellent little Work," _The Principles of Trade_. "I would get it translated and printed here," he said. The same generous impulse led him to write to Robert Morris, when Morris was acquiring his reputation as "The Financier," "No one but yourself can enjoy your growing reputation more than I do." Often as he was honored both at home and abroad by institutions of learning, it is safe to say that no honor that he ever received afforded him more pleasure than he experienced when the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred at his instance by the University of Edinburgh upon Dr. Samuel Cooper. In no respect, however, did Franklin commend himself more signally to the affection of his friends than in the notice that he took of their children. His relations to some of these children were closely akin to those of adoption. To John Hughes, Josiah Quincy, Henry Laurens and de Chaumont, he wrote at one time or another referring to their "valuable" sons, and filling their bosoms with the parental joy that his commendation could not fail to excite. In these attributes of mind, character and nature can readily be found, we think, the explanation of that capacity for winning and retaining friends which made the life of Franklin as mellow as a ripe peach. The most important of them in a social sense lead us, of course, simply to the statement that he was far more beloved than most men are because he was himself influenced far more than most men are by the spirit of love. His sympathy and affection were given to men in gross, and they were given to men in detail. His heart was capacious enough to take in the largest enterprises of human benevolence, but, unlike the hearts of many philanthropists and reformers, it was not so intensely preoccupied with them as to have no place for That best portion of a good man's life,-- His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of Kindness and of Love. FOOTNOTES: [1] In his _True Benjamin Franklin_, p. 163, Sydney George Fisher makes these statements: "In a letter written to Mrs. Stevenson in London, while he (Franklin) was envoy to France, he expresses surprise that some of the London tradespeople still considered him their debtor for things obtained from them during his residence there some years before, and he asks Mrs. Stevenson, with whom he had lodged, how his account stands with her.... He appears to have overdrawn his account with Hall, for there is a manuscript letter in the possession of Mr. Howard Edwards, of Philadelphia, written by Hall, March 1, 1770, urging Franklin to pay nine hundred and ninety-three pounds which had been due for three years." What Franklin's letter to Mrs. Stevenson, which is dated Jan. 25, 1779, states is that he had been told after reaching France that Mr. Henley, the linen-draper, had said that, when the former left England for America, he had gone away in his debt. The letter questions whether Henley ever made such a statement, asks Mrs. Stevenson to let the writer know the meaning of it all, and adds: "I thought he had been fully paid, and still think so, and shall, till I am assur'd of the contrary." The account that the letter asks of Mrs. Stevenson was probably for the shipping charges on the white cloth suit, sword and saddle, which had been forwarded, as the letter shows, to Franklin at Passy by Mrs. Stevenson. Or it may have well been for expense incurred by Mrs. Stevenson in performing some similar office for him. For instance, when he was on the point of leaving England in 1775, he wrote to a friend on the continent that, if he had purchased a certain book for the writer, Mrs. Stevenson, in whose hands he left his little affairs till his return, which he proposed, God willing, in October, would pay the draft for it. A letter from Franklin to Mrs. Stevenson, dated July 17, 1775, shows that there had been mutual accounts between them during his long and familiar intercourse with her under the Craven Street roof. With this letter, he incloses an order for a sum of money that she had intrusted to him for investment, and also an order for £260 more, "supposing," he says, "by the Sketch Mr. Williams made of our Accts. that I may owe you about that Sum." "When they are finally settled," he further says, "we shall see where the Ballance lies, and easily rectify it." If the account in question had any connection with these accounts the unliquidated nature of the latter, the abruptness with which Franklin was compelled to leave England in 1775, coupled with his expectation of returning, the troubled years which followed and the difficulty of finally settling detailed accounts, when the parties to them are widely separated, furnish a satisfactory explanation of the delay in settlement. If Franklin did not pay a balance claimed from him by Hall on the settlement of their partnership accounts, after the expiration of the partnership in 1766, it was doubtless because of his own copyright counter-claim to which we have already referred in our text. [2] In recent years there has been a tendency to disparage the merits of Henry Laurens. The Hales in their _Franklin in France_ speak of him "as a very worthy, but apparently very inefficient, member of the Commission." In his admirable prolegomena to the _Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution_, which is well calculated to excite the regret that lawyers do not oftener bring the professional habit of weighing evidence to bear upon historical topics, Dr. Francis Wharton says: "The influence he exerted in the formation of the treaty was but slight, and his attitude as to the mode of its negotiation and as to its leading provisions so uncertain as to deprive his course in respect to it of political weight." Dr. Wharton also reaches the conclusion that Henry Laurens was deficient, in critical moments, both in sagacity and resolution. On the other hand Moses Coit Tyler in his _Literary History of the American Revolution_ declares that, coming at last upon the arena of national politics, Laurens was soon recognized for what he was, "a trusty, sagacious, lofty, imperturbable character." In another place in the same work, Tyler speaks of the "splendid sincerity, virility, wholesomeness and competence of this man--himself the noblest Roman of them all--the unsurpassed embodiment of the proudest, finest, wittiest, most efficient, and most chivalrous Americanism of his time." And in still another place in the same work the _Narrative of the Capture of Henry Laurens_ is described "as a modest and fascinating story of an heroic episode in the history of the Revolution, a fragment of autobiography fit to become a classic in the literature of a people ready to pay homage to whatever is magnanimous, exquisite and indomitable in the manly character." To anyone familiar with the whole conduct of Laurens in the Tower and the other facts upon which Dr. Wharton based his judgment as to his sagacity and firmness at trying conjunctures, these statements of Tyler are to a certain extent mere academic puffery. We see no reason, however, to shade the character that we have ascribed to Laurens in the text. Writing to Franklin about him after his release from the Tower, John Adams said: "I had vast pleasure in his conversation; for I found him possessed of the most exact judgment concerning our enemies, and of the same noble sentiments in all things which I saw in him in Congress." And some eighteen months later Franklin wrote to Laurens himself in terms as strong as that he should ever look on his friendship as an honor to him. [3] The Abbé Morellet in his Memoirs gives us very much the same impression of the social characteristics of Franklin that Cutler does. "His conversation was exquisite--a perfect good nature, a simplicity of manners, an uprightness of mind that made itself felt in the smallest things, an extreme gentleness, and, above all, a sweet serenity that easily became gayety." But this was Franklin when he was certain of his company. "He conversed only with individuals," John Adams tells us, "and freely only with confidential friends. In company he was totally silent." If we may judge by the few specimens reserved by the Diary of Arthur Lee, the Diary of John Baynes, an English barrister, and Hector St. John, the author of _Letters from an American Farmer_, the grave talk of Franklin was as good as his conversation in its livelier moods. After a call with Baynes upon Franklin at Passy, Sir Samuel Romilly wrote in his Journal: "Of all the celebrated persons whom in my life I have chanced to see, Dr. Franklin, both from his appearance and his conversation, seemed to me the most remarkable. His venerable patriarchal appearance, the simplicity of his manner and language, and the novelty of his observations, at least the novelty of them at that time to me, impressed me with an opinion of him as one of the most extraordinary men that ever existed." [4] The lack of generous fare imputed by the Parisians to the table of Lord Stormont was in keeping with the hopelessly rigid and bigoted nature revealed by his dispatches when in France. Writing from Paris on Dec. 11, 1776, to Lord Weymouth, he says of Franklin: "Some people think that either some private dissatisfaction or despair of success have brought him into this country. I can not but suspect that he comes charged with a secret commission from the Congress, and as he is a subtle, artful man, and void of all truth, he will in that case use every means to deceive, will avail himself of the general ignorance of the French, to paint the situation of the rebels in the falsest colours, and hold out every lure to the ministers, to draw them into an open support of that cause. He has the advantage of several intimate connexions here, and stands high in the general opinion. In a word, my Lord, I look upon him as a dangerous engine, and am very sorry that some English frigate did not meet with him by the way." In another letter to Lord Weymouth, dated Apr. 16, 1777, Lord Stormont declared that he was thoroughly convinced that few men had done more than Franklin to poison the minds of the Americans, or were more totally unworthy of his Majesty's mercy. [5] It was Balzac who said that the _canard_ was a discovery of Franklin--the inventor of the lightning rod, the hoax, and the republic. CHAPTER II Franklin as a Man of Business When some one said to Erskine that punning was the lowest kind of wit, he replied that the statement was true, because punning was the foundation of all wit. The business career of Franklin did not move upon such an exalted plane as his scientific or political career, but it was the basis on which the entire superstructure of his renown as a philosopher and a statesman was built up; inasmuch as it was his early release from pecuniary cares which enabled him to apply himself with single-minded devotion to electrical experiments, and to accept at the hands of the people of Pennsylvania the missions to England which opened up the wider horizon of his postmeridian life. Quite apart, however, from the scientific and political reputation, to which his material success smoothed the way, his business career has an intrinsic interest of its own. In itself alone, when the limited opportunities afforded by Colonial conditions for the accumulation of a fortune are considered, it is a remarkable illustration of the extent to which sleepless energy and wise conduct rise superior to the most discouraging circumstances. Comparatively few young men aspire to be philosophers or statesmen, but almost every young man of merit finds himself under the necessity of striving for a pecuniary independence or at any rate for a pecuniary livelihood. How this object can be most effectually accomplished, is the problem, above all others in the world, the most importunate; and the effort to solve it from generation to generation is one of the things that invest human existence with perpetual freshness. To a young man, involved in the hopes and anxieties of his first struggles for a foothold in the world, the history of Franklin, as a business man, could not but be full of inspiration, even if it had not flowered into higher forms of achievement, and were not reflected in publications of rare literary value. But, putting altogether out of sight the great fame acquired by Franklin in scientific and political fields, a peculiar vividness is imparted to his business career by other circumstances which should not be overlooked. His main calling was that of a printer, a vocation of unusual importance and influence in a free community. "I, Benjamin Franklin, of Philadelphia, printer, late Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States of America to the Court of France, now President of the State of Pennsylvania," is the way in which he describes himself in his will executed less than two years before his death. And from that day to this, upon one memorable occasion or another, guilds of printers on both sides of the Atlantic have acclaimed him as little less than the patron saint of their craft. Two of his commercial enterprises were the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, the most readable newspaper of Colonial America, and _Poor Richard's Almanac_, the only almanac that has ever attained the rank of literature. And finally the story of Franklin's business vicissitudes and the fortune, that he ultimately won, has been pictured with incomparable distinctness in the fascinating _Autobiography_. There he has set forth, as no other man with such lowly beginnings has had the genius to set forth, the slow, painful progress of a printer and merchant, under harsh and rigid conditions, from poverty to wealth. That fortune cannot be won under such circumstances except by the exercise of untiring industry, pinching frugality and unceasing vigilance, but that, with good health, good character, unquailing courage and due regard to Father Abraham's harangue, every man can conquer adversity, is the moral which the _Autobiography_ has for the youth who has no inheritance but his own hands or brain. It is sad to reflect how much more impressive and stimulating this moral would be, if the _Autobiography_ did not also disagreeably remind us that pecuniary ideals subject human character to many peculiar temptations of their own, and that, as the result of the destructive competition, which extends even to the sapling struggling in the thick set copse for its share of light and air, the success of one man in business is too often founded upon the ruins of that of another. The business life of Franklin began when he was ten years old. At that age, he was taken from Mr. Brownell's school in Boston, and set to the task at the Blue Ball, his father's shop, of "cutting wick for the candles, filling the dipping mold and the molds for cast candles, attending the shop, going of errands, etc." At this he continued until he was twelve years of age, but his duties were so distasteful to him that his father feared that, unless he could find some more congenial occupation for him, he would run off to sea. To avert this danger, Josiah sometimes took Benjamin about with him, and showed him joiners, bricklayers, turners, braziers and other artisans at their several trades in the hope of awakening an inclination in him for one of them. The walks were not unprofitable to the son. It has ever since [he says in the _Autobiography_] been a pleasure to me to see good workmen handle their tools; and it has been useful to me, having learnt so much by it as to be able to do little jobs myself in my house when a workman could not readily be got, and to construct little machines for my experiments, while the intention of making the experiment was fresh and warm in my mind. After this circuit of the various handicrafts, Josiah decided to make a cutler of Benjamin, and he placed him on probation with Samuel Franklin, a cutler, and a son of Josiah's brother, Benjamin. But Samuel thought that he should be paid a fee for instructing his cousin, and the suggestion was so displeasing to Josiah that he took the lad back to his own home. He doubtless felt that Samuel might have remembered whose roof it was that had sheltered his father when the latter first came over from England to Boston. The real inclination, however, that Benjamin discovered at this period of his life was for books. His father observed it, and decided to make a printer of him, and it was when James, an older son of Josiah, returned from England, with a press and letters, to set up as a printer at Boston, that Benjamin was finally persuaded to enter into indentures of apprenticeship with him. He did not yield at once, because, while he preferred the business of a printer to that of a tallow chandler, the salt of the sea was still in his blood. Under the provisions of the indentures, he was to serve as his brother's apprentice, until he was twenty-one years of age, but he was to be allowed the wages of a journeyman during the last year of the apprenticeship. It was a fortunate thing for the apprentice that he should have become bound to a master, who had been trained for his craft in London, and the extraordinary skill which he early acquired as a printer was probably due in part to this circumstance. Among the publications printed by James, while the apprenticeship lasted, were Stoddard's _Treatise on Conversion_, Stone's _Short Catechism_ and _A Prefatory Letter about Psalmody_. These publications were all of the kind that Franklin afterwards came to regard as hopelessly dry pemmican. Other publications, printed by James Franklin, during the same time, were various New England sermons, _The Isle of Man, or Legal Proceedings in Manshire against Sin_, an allegory, _A Letter from One in the Country to his Friend in Boston_, _News from the Moon_, _A Friendly Check from a kind Relation to the Chief Cannoneer_ and _A Word of Comfort to a Melancholy Country_--all political pamphlets,--several papers on inoculation, and a production bearing the quaint title _Hooped Petticoats Arraigned by the Light of Nature and the Law of God_. But it was through a publication of a very different nature from these that James Franklin has come to occupy his position of prominence in the life of his apprentice. This publication was the _New England Courant_, already mentioned above. Its first issue appeared at Boston on August 21, 1721, and so bold were its pungent comments upon the clergy and magistrates of the Colony that, within a year, James Franklin was by the Council summoned before it for what it conceived to be highly injurious reflections upon the civil authorities. The reflections consisted in this: A letter from Newport in the _Courant_ for June 11, 1722, stated that a piratical vessel had been seen off Block Island, and that two vessels were being fitted out to pursue her. "We are advised from Boston," was the conclusion of the letter, "that the Government of the Massachusetts are fitting out a ship (The Flying Horse) to go after the pirates, to be commanded by Captain Peter Papillon, and 'tis thought he will sail some time this month, wind and weather permitting." The letter, of course, was fictitious, and but a mild piece of satire in comparison with some of the prior utterances of the _Courant_. But this time the magistracy of the Colony was too much exasperated by the past misdemeanors of the _Courant_ to overlook such a gibe at the expense of its activity. When questioned by the Council, James admitted that he was the owner of the paper, but refused to disclose the name of the author of the offensive letter. Benjamin was questioned, too, and united in the refusal. This was excusable in him as it was a point of honor for an apprentice not to betray his master's secrets, but James had no such plea behind which to shelter himself. Indeed, his bearing before the Council appears to have been too haughty to warrant the idea that he was much concerned about bringing forward any sort of defence. The examination resulted in a decision by the Council that the letter was "a high affront to the Government" and an order to the Sheriff to commit James to the Boston Jail. A week in jail was sufficient to bring James a whining suppliant to the feet of his oppressors. At the end of that time, he addressed an humble petition to the Council, acknowledging his folly in affronting the civil government, and his indecent behavior, when arraigned for it, and praying for forgiveness and less rigorous confinement. The petition was granted, but, when he was released, he had been a whole month in durance. In the meantime, however, Benjamin, who had attracted the attention of his brother and the group of writers, who contributed to the columns of the _Courant_, by a sprightly series of letters signed Silence Dogood, of which we shall say something hereafter, had been conducting the publication, and, with the aid of his literary coadjutors, assailing the proceedings of the Council in prose and verse. These attacks continued for six months after James was released, and were borne by the Council with a supineness which was probably due to the fear of exciting popular sympathy with the _Courant_ as a champion of free speech. But in the issue of the _Courant_ for January 14, 1723, appeared an article so caustic that the Council could contain itself no longer. It was headed by the well known lines of _Hudibras_, which are significant of the spirit in which the youthful Franklin confronted the whole system of Puritan Asceticism: In the wicked there's no vice, Of which the saints have not a spice; And yet that thing that's pious in The one, in t'other is a sin. Is't not ridiculous and nonsense, A saint should be a slave to conscience? The performance has so many earmarks of Franklin's peculiar modes of thought and speech that it is hard not to ascribe its authorship to him without hesitation. Besides thrusts at the Governor and other public functionaries, it lashed the pietists of the place and time with unsparing severity. Many persons, it declared, who seemed to be more than "ordinarily religious," were often found to be the greatest cheats imaginable. They would dissemble and lie, snuffle and whiffle, and, if it were possible, would overreach and defraud all who dealt with them. For my own part [the writer further declared] when I find a man full of religious cant and pellavar, I presently suspect him to be a knave. Religion is, indeed, the _principal thing_; but too much of it is worse than none at all. The world abounds with knaves and villains; but of all knaves, the _religious knave_ is the worst; and villainies acted under the cloak of religion are the most execrable. Moral honesty, though it will not of itself, carry a man to heaven, yet I am sure there is no going thither _without it_. And however such men, of whom I have been speaking, may palliate their wickedness, they will find that _publicans and harlots will enter the kingdom of heaven before themselves_. The same day, on which this issue of the _Courant_ appeared, the Council passed an order, denouncing it in scathing terms, and appointing a committee of three persons to consider and report what was proper for the Court to do with regard to it. It did not take the committee long to report. They condemned the _Courant_ in stern language as an offence to church and state, and "for precaution of the like offence for the future," humbly proposed that "James Franklin, the printer and publisher thereof, be strictly forbidden by this Court to print or publish the New England _Courant_, or any other pamphlet or paper of the like nature, except it be first supervised by the Secretary of this Province." The report was approved, and followed by an order, carrying its recommendations into execution. But the proprietor of the _Courant_ and his literary retainers were equal to the crisis. They assembled at once, and resolved that the paper should thenceforth be issued in the name of Benjamin, at that time a boy of seventeen. At the same time, to retain his hold on his apprentice until the expiration of his term, James resorted to a knavish expedient. The contrivance [the _Autobiography_ tells us] was that my old indenture should be return'd to me, with a full discharge on the back of it, to be shown on occasion, but to secure to him the benefit of my service, I was to sign new indentures for the remainder of the term, which were to be kept private. A very flimsy scheme it was; however, it was immediately executed. As the final step in the fraud, the next issue of the _Courant_ announced that the late publisher of the paper, finding that so many inconveniences would arise by his taking the manuscripts and public news to be supervised by the Secretary as to render his carrying it on unprofitable, had entirely dropped the undertaking. The _Courant_ itself, however, went merrily along in its old evil courses, despite the fact that the same issue, speaking through its new management, as if it were an entire stranger to its guilty past, deprecated newspaper license in the strongest terms, looked forward to a future of genial good-humor only, and even gave expression to such a deceitful sentiment as this: "Pieces of pleasancy and mirth have a secret charm in them to allay the heats and tumors of our spirits, and to make a man forget his restless resentments." These debonair pretences were hardly uttered before they were laid aside, and the attacks on the clergy and their sanctimonious adherents renewed with as much wit and vivacity as formerly, if not more; and so eagerly read were the lampoons of the _Courant_ by the population of Boston, which, perhaps, after all, stiff-necked as it was, did not differ from most urban populations in containing more sinners than saints, that, under the management of "Old Janus," the mask behind which young Franklin concealed his features, the _Courant_ was in a few months able to raise its price from ten to twelve shillings a year. It was a lawless sheet, but, in its contest against arbitrary power and muffled speech, it was swimming with a current that was to gather up additional elements of irresistible volume and force at every stage of its journey towards the open main of present American political ideas. In the management of the _Courant_, Franklin had scored his first business success. James might well have made his gifted apprentice his co-partner; but, whether from jealousy, the sauciness of the apprentice, mere choler, or the domineering temper that we should naturally expect in a man who meekly kissed the hand of tyranny after a single week in jail, he was far from doing anything of the sort. Smarting under the snubs and blows administered to him by a brother, from whose fraternal relationship to him he thought that he was entitled to receive somewhat more than the ordinary indulgence shown an apprentice, Benjamin, to use his own words, took upon him to assert his freedom; presuming that James would not venture to produce the new indentures. When James found that his apprentice was about to leave him, he prevented him from securing employment with any other Boston printer by warning them all against him. The consequence was that the boy, between his reputation as "a young genius that had a turn for libelling and satyr," the horror with which he was pointed at by good people as an infidel or atheist, the lowering eye of the Provincial Government, and the rancor with which he was pursued by his brother, found himself under a cloud of opprobrium from which he could not escape except by making his home in another place than Boston. Knowing that his father would detain him, if he learnt that he was about to go elsewhere, he sold enough of his books to obtain a small sum of money for his journey, and contrived, through the management of Collins, to be secretly taken on board of a sloop on the eve of sailing for New York, under the pretence of his being a young acquaintance of Collins, who had got a naughty girl with child. The flight which followed has been narrated and pictured until it is almost as well known as the exodus of the Old Testament. He would be a rash writer, indeed, who imagined that he could tell that story over again in any words except those of Franklin himself without dispelling a charm as subtle as that which forbids a seashell to be removed from the seashore. How, with a fair wind, he found himself, a boy of seventeen, in New York,[6] without a claim of friendship, acquaintance or recommendation upon a human being in that town; how he fruitlessly applied for employment to the only printer there, William Bradford, and was advised by him to go on to Philadelphia; how, owing to an ugly squall, he was thirty hours on the waters of New York Bay before he could make the Kill, without victuals, or any drink except a bottle of filthy rum, and with no companion except his boatman and a drunken Dutchman; how after breaking up a fever, brought on by this experience, with copious draughts of cold water, he trudged on foot all the way across New Jersey from Amboy to Burlington; stopping the first day for the night at a poor inn, where travel-stained and drenched to the skin by rain, he was in danger of being taken up as a runaway servant; stopping the second day at an inn within eight or ten miles of Burlington, kept by a Dr. Brown, an infidel vagabond, with a flavor of letters, and arriving the next morning at Burlington, where a kindly old woman of whom he had bought gingerbread, to eat on his way down the Delaware, gave him a dinner of ox cheek with great good will, and accepted only a pot of ale in return--all these things are told in the _Autobiography_ in words as well known to the ordinary American boy as the prominent incidents of his own life. And so also is the descent of the Delaware in the timely boat that hove in sight as Benjamin was walking in the evening by the water-side at Burlington on the day of his arrival there, and took him aboard, putting in about midnight at Cooper's Creek for fear that it had passed in the darkness the town which has since grown to be a vast city more luminous at night than the heavens above it, and landing at Market Street, Philadelphia, the next day, Sunday, at eight or nine o'clock. Here the dirty, hungry wayfarer found himself in a land marked by many surprising contrasts with the one from which he had fled. There was no biscuit to be had in the town, nor could he even obtain a three-penny loaf at the baker shop on Second Street; but for three pence he purchased to his astonishment three great puffy rolls, so large that, after sating his hunger with one of them, as he walked up Market Street as far as Fourth Street, and then back by other streets for a drink of river-water to the Market Street Wharf, he still had the other two left to give to a mother and child, who had come down the Delaware with him, and were on their way to a more distant point. But, doubtless, of all the things in that unfamiliar place, the one that seemed to him most unlike his former home was the serene, mild face that religion wore. It must have been like mollifying oil poured into a wound for him to find himself in such an edifice as the Great Quaker meeting house near the market with a placid, clean-dressed concourse of worshippers, whose brooding silence, so unlike the strident voices of the Saints, with whom he had been warring in Boston, soon lulled him to sleep; a sleep not so deep or so long, however, that the youth, exhausted by the labor of rowing, and the want of rest, could not, when diverted from the sign of the disreputable Three Mariners, and directed to the sign of the more reputable Crooked Billet, in Water Street, by a friendly Quaker guide, consume in profound slumber, with a brief intermission for supper, the entire time between dinner and the next morning. He was too young yet to need to be reminded by any Poor Richard that there is sleeping enough in the grave, and the next morning was to see the beginning of a struggle, first for subsistence, and then for a fortune, hard as a muscle tense with the utmost strain that it can bear. With the return of day, he made himself as tidy as he could without the aid of his clothes chest, which was coming around by sea, and repaired to the printing shop of Andrew Bradford, to whom he had been referred by William Bradford, the father of Andrew, in New York. When he arrived at the shop, he found the father there. By travelling on horseback, he had reached Philadelphia before Benjamin. By him Benjamin was introduced to Andrew Bradford, who received him civilly, and gave him breakfast but told him that he was not at present in need of a hand, having recently secured one. There was another printer in town, however, he said, lately set up, one Keimer, who perhaps might employ him. If not, Benjamin was welcome to lodge at his house, and he would give him a little work to do now and then until he could find steadier employment for him. Benjamin then went off to see Keimer; and William Bradford accompanied him; for what purpose soon became apparent enough. "Neighbor," said Bradford, "I have brought to see you a young man of your business; perhaps you may want such a one." Keimer asked Benjamin a few questions, put a composing stick in his hands to test his competency, and declared that he would employ him soon though he had just then nothing for him to do. Then taking old Bradford, whom he had never seen before, and whose relationship to Andrew he never suspected, to be a friendly fellow townsman, he opened up his plans and prospects to his visitors, and announced that he expected to get the greater part of the printing business in Philadelphia into his hands. This announcement prompted William Bradford to draw him on "by artful questions, and starting little doubts, to explain all his views, what interest he reli'd on, and in what manner he intended to proceed." "I," observes Franklin, "who stood by and heard all, saw immediately that one of them was a crafty old sophister, and the other a mere novice. Bradford left me with Keimer, who was greatly surpris'd when I told him who the old man was." There was room enough in Philadelphia for such an expert craftsman as Benjamin. Andrew Bradford had not been bred to the business of printing, and was very illiterate, and Keimer, though something of a scholar, was a mere compositor, and knew nothing of presswork. His printing outfit consisted of an old shattered press, and one small, worn-out font of English letters. When Benjamin called on him, he was composing directly out of his head an elegy on Aquila Rose, a worthy young Philadelphian who had just died: What mournful accents thus accost mine ear, What doleful echoes hourly thus appear! What sighs from melting hearts proclaim aloud The solemn mourning of this numerous crowd. In sable characters the news is read, Our Rose is withered, and our Eagle's fled, In that our dear Aquila Rose is dead. These are a few of the many lines in which Keimer, disdaining ink-bottle and quill, traced with his composing stick alone from birth to death the life of his lost Lycidas. As there was no copy, and but one pair of cases, and the threnody was likely to require all the letters that Keimer had, no helper could be of any assistance to him. So Benjamin put the old press into as good a condition as he could, and, promising Keimer to come back and print off the elegy, as soon as it was transcribed into type from the tablets of his brain, returned to Bradford's printing-house. Here he was given a small task, and was lodged and boarded until Keimer sent for him to strike off his poem. While he had been away, Keimer had procured another pair of cases, and had been employed to reprint a pamphlet; and upon this pamphlet Benjamin was put to work. During the period of his employment by Keimer, an incident arose which gave a decisive turn to his fortunes for a time. Happening to be at New Castle, his brother-in-law, Robert Holmes, the master of a sloop that plied between Boston and the Delaware River, heard that he was at Philadelphia, and wrote to him, earnestly urging him to return to Boston. To this letter Benjamin replied, thanking Holmes for his advice, but stating his reasons for leaving Boston fully and in such a way as to convince him that the flight from Boston was not so censurable as he supposed. The letter was shown by Holmes to Sir William Keith, who read it, and was surprised when he was told the age of the writer. Benjamin, he said, appeared to be a young man of promising parts, and should, therefore, be encouraged, for the printers at Philadelphia were wretched ones, and he did not doubt that, if Benjamin would set up as a printer there, he would succeed. As to himself, he would procure him the public printing and render him any other service in his power. Before these circumstances were brought to the knowledge of Benjamin, the Governor and Col. French of New Castle proceeded to look him up, and one day, while he and Keimer were working together near the window of the Keimer printing-office, they saw the pair coming across the street in their fine clothes towards its door. As soon as they were heard at the door, Keimer, assuming that they were calling upon him, ran down to greet them, but the Governor inquired for Benjamin, walked upstairs, and, with a condescension and politeness to which the youth was quite unaccustomed, paid him many compliments, expressed a desire to be acquainted with him, blamed him kindly for not making himself known to him, when Benjamin first came to Philadelphia, and invited him to accompany him to the tavern where he was going, he said, with Col. French to taste some excellent Madeira. "I," says Franklin, "was not a little surprised, and Keimer star'd like a pig poison'd." But the invitation was accepted, and, at a tavern, at the corner of Third Street, and over the Madeira, Keith suggested that the youth should become a printer on his own account, and pointed out to him the likelihood of his success; and both he and Col. French assured him that he would have their interest and influence for the purpose of securing the public printing in Pennsylvania and the three Lower Counties on the Delaware. When Benjamin stated that he doubted whether his father would assist him in the venture, Keith replied that he would give him a letter to Josiah, presenting the advantages of the scheme, and that he did not doubt that it would be effectual. The result of the conversation was a secret understanding that Benjamin should return to Boston in the first available vessel with Keith's letter, and, while he was awaiting this vessel, Benjamin continued at work with Keimer as usual; Keith sending for him now and then to dine with him, and conversing with him in the most affable, familiar and friendly manner imaginable. Later a little vessel came along bound for Boston. With Keith's letter in his possession, Benjamin took passage in her, and, after a dangerous voyage of two weeks, found himself again in the city from which he had fled seven months before. All the members of his family gave him a hearty welcome except his brother James, but Josiah, after reading the Governor's letter, and considering its contents for some days, expressed the opinion that he must be a man of small discretion to think of setting up a boy in business who wanted yet three years of being at man's estate. He flatly refused to give his consent to the project, but wrote a civil letter to the Governor, thanking him for the patronage that he had proffered Benjamin, and stating his belief that his son was too young for such an enterprise. Nevertheless, Josiah was pleased with the evidences of material success and standing that his son had brought back with him from Philadelphia, and, when Benjamin left Boston on his return to Philadelphia, it was with the approbation and blessing of his parents, and some tokens, in the form of little gifts, of their love, and with the promise, moreover, of help from Josiah, in case he should not, by the time he reached the age of twenty-one, save enough money by his industry and frugality to establish himself in business. When Benjamin arrived at Philadelphia, and communicated Josiah's decision to Keith, the Governor was not in the least disconcerted. There was a great difference in persons he was so kind as to declare. Discretion did not always accompany years, nor was youth always without it. "And since he will not set you up," he said to Benjamin, "I will do it myself. Give me an inventory of the things necessary to be had from England, and I will send for them. You shall repay me when you are able; I am resolv'd to have a good printer here, and I am sure you must succeed." This, the _Autobiography_ tells us, was uttered with such apparently heartfelt cordiality that Benjamin did not entertain the slightest doubt of Keith's sincerity, and, as he had kept, and was still keeping, his plans entirely secret, there was no one more familiar with Keith's character than himself to warn him that the actual value of Keith's promises was a very different thing from their face value. Believing the Governor to be one of the best men in the world to have thus unsolicited made such a generous offer to him, Benjamin drew up an inventory calling for a small printing outfit of the value of about one hundred pounds sterling, and handed it to him. It met with his approval, but led him to ask whether it might not be of some advantage for Benjamin to be on the spot in England to choose the type, and to see that everything was good of its kind. Moreover, he suggested that, when Benjamin was there, he might make some useful acquaintance, and establish a profitable correspondence with book-sellers and stationers. To the advantage of all this Benjamin could not but assent. "Then," said Keith, "get yourself ready to go with Annis"; meaning the master of the _London Hope_, the annual ship, which was the only one at that time plying regularly between London and Philadelphia. Until Annis sailed, Benjamin continued in the employment of Keimer, whom he still kept entirely in ignorance of his project, and was frequently at the home of Keith. During this time, Keith's intention of establishing him in business was always mentioned as a fixed thing, and it was understood that he was to take with him letters of recommendation from Keith to a number of the latter's friends in England besides a letter of credit from Keith to supply him with the necessary money for buying the printing outfit and the necessary printer's supplies. Before Annis' ship sailed, Benjamin repeatedly called upon Keith for these letters at different times appointed by him, but on each occasion their delivery was postponed to a subsequent date. Thus things went on until the ship was actually on the point of sailing. Then, when Benjamin called on Keith, to take his leave of him and to receive the letters, the Governor's secretary, Dr. Bard, came out from Keith and told him that the Governor was busily engaged in writing, but would be at New Castle before the ship, and that there the letters would be delivered. Upon the arrival of the ship at New Castle, Keith, true to his word, was awaiting it, but, when Benjamin went to Keith's lodgings to get the letters, the Governor's secretary again came out from him with a statement by him that he was then absorbed in business of the utmost importance, but that he would send the letters aboard. The message was couched in highly civil terms, and was accompanied by hearty wishes that Benjamin might have a good voyage, and speedily be back again. "I returned on board," says Franklin in the _Autobiography_, "a little puzzled, but still not doubting." At the very beginning of the voyage, Benjamin and his graceless friend Ralph had an unusual stroke of good luck. Andrew Hamilton, a famous lawyer of Philadelphia, who was accompanied by his son, afterwards one of the Colonial Governors of Pennsylvania, Mr. Denham, a Quaker merchant, and Messrs. Onion and Russell, the masters of the Principio Iron Works in Cecil County, Maryland, had engaged the great cabin of the ship; so that it looked as if Benjamin and Ralph, who were unknown to any of the cabin passengers, were doomed to the obscurity and discomfort of the steerage. But, while the ship was at New Castle, the elder Hamilton was recalled to Philadelphia by a great fee in a maritime cause, and, just before she sailed, Col. French came on board, and treated Benjamin with such marked respect that he and Ralph were invited by the remaining cabin passengers to occupy the cabin with them--an invitation which the two gladly accepted. They had good reason to do so. The cabin passengers formed a congenial company, the plenteous supply of provisions laid in by Andrew Hamilton, with the stores to which they were added, enabled them to live uncommonly well, and Mr. Denham contracted a lasting friendship for Benjamin. The latter, however, had not lost sight of the letters from Keith which had been so long on their way to his hands. As soon as he learnt at New Castle that Col. French had brought the Governor's dispatches aboard, he asked the captain for the letters that were to be under his care. The captain said that all were put into the bag together, and that he could not then come at them, but that, before they landed in England, Benjamin should have the opportunity of picking them out. When the Channel was reached, the captain was as good as his word, and Benjamin went through the bag; but no letters did he find that were addressed in his care. He picked out six or seven, however, that he thought from the handwriting might be the promised letters, especially as one was addressed to Basket, the King's printer, and another to some stationer. On the 24th day of December, 1724, the ship reached London. The first person that Benjamin waited upon was the stationer, to whom he delivered the letter addressed to him, with the statement that it came from Governor Keith. "I don't know such a person," the stationer said, but, on opening the letter, he exclaimed, "O! this is from Riddlesden. I have lately found him to be a compleat rascal, and I will have nothing to do with him, nor receive any letters from him." With that he gave the letter back to Benjamin and turned on his heel to serve a customer. Then it was that Benjamin, putting two and two together, began to doubt Keith's sincerity, and looked up Mr. Denham, and told him what had happened. There was not the least probability, Mr. Denham declared, that Keith had written any letters for him. No one, he said, who knew the Governor, trusted him in the slightest degree, and, as for his giving a letter of credit to Benjamin, he had no credit to give. One advantage, however, Benjamin reaped from the deception practised upon him. Both Mr. Denham and himself as well as the stationer knew that Riddlesden was a knave. Not to go further, Deborah's father by becoming surety for him had been half ruined. His letter disclosed the fact that there was a scheme on foot to the prejudice of Andrew Hamilton, and also the fact that Keith was concerned in it with Riddlesden; so, when Hamilton came over to London shortly afterwards, partly from ill will to Keith and Riddlesden, and partly from good will to Hamilton, Benjamin adopted the advice of Mr. Denham and waited on him, and gave him the letter. He thanked Benjamin warmly, and from that time became his friend, to his very great advantage on many future occasions. "I got his son once £500," notes the grateful Franklin briefly in a foot-note of the _Autobiography_. By cozenage almost incredible, Benjamin, at the age of eighteen, had been thus lured off to London; the London of Addison, Pope and Sir Isaac Newton. Rather than confess the emptiness of his flattering complaisance Keith preferred to rely upon the chance that, once in London, the youth would be either unable or disinclined to return to his own native land. It would be hard to say what might have become of him if he had not had the skill as a printer which exemplified in a striking way the truth of two of the sayings of Poor Richard, "He that hath a Trade hath an Estate" and "He that hath a Calling, hath an Office of Profit and Honour." The most serious stumbling block to his advancement in London was the one that he brought over seas with him, namely, Ralph himself, who had deserted his wife and child in Philadelphia, and now let his companion know for the first time that he never meant to return to that city. All the money that Ralph had, when he left home, had been consumed by the expenses of the voyage, but Benjamin was still the possessor of fifteen pistoles when the voyage was over, and from this sum Ralph occasionally borrowed while he was endeavoring to convert some of his high-flown ambitions into practical realities. First, he applied for employment as an actor, only to be told by Wilkes that he could never succeed on the stage, then he tried to induce Roberts, a publisher in Paternoster Row, to establish a weekly periodical like the _Spectator_, with himself as the Addison, on certain conditions to which Roberts would not give his assent. Finally, he was driven to the stress of seeking employment as a copyist for stationers and lawyers about the Temple, but he could not find an opening for even such ignoble drudgery as this. Soon all of Benjamin's pistoles were gone. But, in the meantime, with his training as a printer, he had secured employment without difficulty at Palmer's, a famous printing-house in Bartholomew Close, where he remained for nearly a year. Here he labored pretty diligently, but with Ralph as well as himself to maintain, and with the constant temptations to expense, afforded by playhouses and other places of amusement, he was unable to hoard enough money to pay his passage back to Philadelphia. For a time, after Ralph and himself arrived at London, they were inseparable companions, occupying the same lodgings in Little Britain, the home of bookstalls, and sharing the same purse. But when Ralph drifted off into the country, all intercourse between the friends was brought to an end by the overtures that Benjamin made to his mistress in his absence. It was then that Benjamin, relieved of the burden which the pecuniary necessities of Ralph had imposed on him, began to think of laying aside a little money, and left Palmer's to work at Watts' near Lincoln's Inn Fields, a still more important printing-house, where he was employed so long as he remained in London. His reminiscences of this printing-house are among the most interesting in the _Autobiography_. One episode during his connection with it presents him to us with some of the lines of his subsequent maturity plainly impressed on him. "I drank," he says, "only water; the other workmen, near fifty in number, were great guzzlers of beer." When they observed that his physical strength was superior to theirs, they wondered that the Water-American, as they called him, should be stronger than they who drank strong beer. A boy was incessantly running between an alehouse and the printing-house for the purpose of keeping the latter supplied with drink. Benjamin's pressmate drank every day a pint of beer before breakfast, a pint at breakfast, with his bread and cheese, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint in the afternoon about six o'clock, and another pint when he had done his day's work. Franklin vainly endeavored to convince him that the physical strength, produced by beer, could only be in proportion to the grain or barley-flour dissolved in water that the beer contained, that there was more flour in a pennyworth of bread, and that, therefore, if he would eat that with a pint of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer. As it was, he had four or five shillings to pay out of his wages every Saturday night for muddling liquor, and in this way he and his fellow-workmen kept themselves always under. Benjamin began at Watts' as a pressman, but, after some weeks of service, he was transferred by the master to the composing-room. There a toll of five shillings for drink was demanded of him by the other compositors as the price of his admission to their society. At first he refused to pay it, as he had already paid a similar _bienvenu_ in the press-room, and the master followed his refusal up by positively forbidding him to pay it; but after a few weeks of recusancy he learnt how despotic a thing an inveterate custom is. He was excommunicated for a while by all his fellow-workmen, and could not leave the composing-room for even the briefest time without having his sorts mixed or his pages transposed by the Chapel ghost, who was said to have a deep grudge against all imperfectly initiated compositors. Master or no master, he finally found himself forced to comply with the custom and to pay the exaction, convinced as he became of the folly of being on ill terms with those with whom one is bound to live continually. Erelong his offence was forgotten, and his influence firmly established among his fellow-compositors. It was prevailing enough to enable him to propose some reasonable changes in the Chapel laws, and to carry them through in the face of all opposition. At the same time, the example of temperance, set by him, induced a great part of his companions to give up their breakfast of beer, bread and cheese, and to supply themselves from a neighboring public-house with a large porringer of hot water-gruel, seasoned with butter and pepper, and crumbed with bread, for the price of a pint of beer, namely, three half-pence. This made a more comfortable as well as a cheaper breakfast, and one that left their heads clear besides. Those of Benjamin's fellow-workmen whom he could not reclaim fell into the habit of using his credit for the purpose of getting beer when their _light_ at the alehouse, to use their own cant expression, was out. To protect himself, he stood by the pay-table on Saturday night, and collected enough from their wages to cover the sums for which he had made himself responsible, amounting sometimes to as much as thirty shillings a week. The loan of his credit in this way and his humor gave him an assured standing in the composing-room. On the other hand, his steadiness--for he never, he says, made a St. Monday--recommended him to the favor of his master; and his uncommon quickness in composing enabled him to secure the higher compensation which was paid for what would now be termed "rush work." His situation was at this time very agreeable and his mind became intently fixed upon saving as much of his wages as he could. Finding that his lodgings in Little Britain were rather remote from his work, he obtained others in Duke Street, opposite the Romish Chapel, with a widow, who had been bred a Protestant, but had been converted to Catholicism by her husband, whose memory she deeply revered. It is a pleasing face that looks out at us from the portrait painted of her by Franklin in the _Autobiography_. She had lived much among people of distinction, and knew a thousand anecdotes of them as far back as the time of Charles the Second. She was lame in her knees with the gout, and, therefore, seldom stirred out of her room, so sometimes wanted company; and hers was so highly amusing to me, that I was sure to spend an evening with her whenever she desired it. Our supper was only half an anchovy each, on a very little strip of bread and butter, and half a pint of ale between us; but the entertainment was in her conversation. My always keeping good hours, and giving little trouble in the family, made her unwilling to part with me; so that, when I talk'd of a lodging I had heard of, nearer my business, for two shillings a week, which, intent as I now was on saving money, made some difference, she bid me not think of it, for she would abate me two shillings a week for the future, so I remained with her at one shilling and six pence as long as I staid in London. It was in the garret of this house that the nun mentioned by us in connection with the religious opinions of Franklin passed her secluded life. It was while he resided here that Wygate, a fellow-printer, made a proposal to him that, if accepted, might have given a different direction to his career. Drawn to Benjamin, who had taught him how to swim, by common intellectual tastes, and by the admiration excited in him by Benjamin's vigor and agility as a swimmer, he suggested to the latter that they should travel all over Europe together, and support themselves as they went by the exercise of their handicraft. Benjamin was disposed to adopt the suggestion, but, when he mentioned it to his friend, Mr. Denham, upon whom he was in the habit of calling, the latter disapproved of it, and advised him to dismiss every thought from his mind except that of returning to Pennsylvania, which he was about to do himself. Nay more, he told Benjamin that he expected to take over a large amount of merchandise with him, and to open a store in Philadelphia; and he offered to employ Benjamin as his clerk to keep his books, when the latter had acquired a sufficient knowledge of bookkeeping under his instruction, copy his letters, and attend to the store. In addition, he promised that, as soon as Benjamin should have the requisite experience, he would promote him by sending him with a cargo of bread-stuffs to the West Indies, and would, moreover, procure profitable commissions for him from others, and, if Benjamin made a success of these opportunities, establish him in life handsomely. The proposal was accepted by Benjamin. He was tired of London, remembered with pleasure the happy months spent by him in Pennsylvania, and was desirous of seeing it again. He agreed, therefore, at once, to become Mr. Denham's clerk at an annual salary of fifty pounds, Pennsylvania money. This was less than he was earning at the time as a compositor, but Mr. Denham's offer held out the prospect of a better future on the whole to him. After entering into this agreement, Benjamin supposed that he was done with printing forever. During the interval preceding the departure of Mr. Denham and himself for America, he went about with his employer, when he was purchasing goods, saw that the goods were packed properly for shipment, and performed other helpful offices. After the stock of goods had been all safely stored on shipboard, he was, to his surprise, sent for by Sir William Wyndham, who had heard of his swimming exploits, and who offered to pay him generously, if he would teach his two sons, who were about to travel, how to swim; but the two youths had not yet come to town, and Benjamin did not know just when he would sail; so he was compelled to decline the invitation. The offer of Sir William, however, made him feel that he might earn a good deal of money, were he to remain in England and open a swimming school, and the reflection forced itself upon his attention so strongly that he tells us in the _Autobiography_ that, if Sir William had approached him earlier, he would probably not have returned to America so soon. He left Gravesend for Philadelphia on July 23, 1726, after having been in London for about eighteen months. During the greater part of this time, he had worked hard, and spent but little money upon himself except in seeing plays and for books. It was Ralph who had kept him straitened by borrowing sums from him amounting in the whole to about twenty-seven pounds. "I had by no means improv'd my fortune," Franklin tells us in the _Autobiography_, "but I had picked up some very ingenious acquaintance, whose conversation was of great advantage to me; and I had read considerably."[7] After a long voyage, he was again in Philadelphia, and Keith was now a private citizen. When Benjamin met him on the street, he showed a little shame at the sight of his dupe, but he passed on without saying anything. Keimer seemed to have a flourishing business. He had moved into a better house, and had a shop well supplied with stationery, plenty of type, and a number of hands, though none of them were efficient. Mr. Denham opened a store in Water Street, and the merchandise brought over with him was placed in it. Benjamin gave his diligent attention to the business, studied accounts, and was in a little while an expert salesman. But then came one of those sudden strokes of misfortune, which remind us on what perfidious foundations all human hopes rest. Beginning with his relations to Mr. Denham, Franklin narrates the circumstances in these words: We lodg'd and boarded together; he counsell'd me as a father, having a sincere regard for me. I respected and loved him, and we might have gone on together very happy, but, in the beginning of February, 1726/7, when I had just pass'd my twenty-first year, we both were taken ill. My distemper was a pleurisy, which very nearly carried me off. I suffered a good deal, gave up the point in my own mind, and was rather disappointed when I found myself recovering, regretting, in some degree, that I must now, some time or other, have all that disagreeable work to do over again. I forget what his distemper was; it held him a long time, and at length carried him off. He left me a small legacy in a nuncupative will, as a token of his kindness for me, and he left me once more to the wide world; for the store was taken into the care of his executors, and my employment under him ended. Franklin did have all that disagreeable work to do over again, for it was of a pleuritic abscess that he died in the end. Of Mr. Denham we cannot take our leave without drawing upon the _Autobiography_ for an incident which shows that he was one of the many good men whose friendship was given so generously to Franklin. He was at one time a merchant at Bristol, and failed in business. After compounding with his numerous creditors, he migrated to America where he made a fortune in a few years. While he was in England with Benjamin, he invited his former creditors to an entertainment, and, when they were all seated, thanked them for the easy terms on which they had compromised their claims against him. Duly thanked, they supposed that there was nothing in store for them but the ordinary hospitality of such an occasion, but, when each turned his plate over, he found under it an order upon a banker for the full amount, with interest, of the unpaid balance of the debt that he had released. At the time of Mr. Denham's death, Franklin had only recently arrived at the age of twenty-one. Holmes, his brother-in-law, now urged him to return to his trade, and Keimer offered him a liberal yearly wage to take charge of his printing-office, so that he himself might have more time for his stationery business. Franklin had heard a bad character of Keimer in London from Keimer's wife and her friends, and he was reluctant to have anything more to do with him; so much so that he endeavored to secure employment as a merchant's clerk, but, being unable to do so, he closed with Keimer. I found in his house [says the _Autobiography_] these hands: Hugh Meredith, a Welsh Pennsilvanian, thirty years of age, bred to country work; honest, sensible, had a great deal of solid observation, was something of a reader, but given to drink. Stephen Potts, a young countryman of full age, bred to the same, of uncommon natural parts, and great wit and humour, but a little idle. These he had agreed with at extream low wages per week, to be rais'd a shilling every three months, as they would deserve by improving in their business; and the expectation of these high wages, to come on hereafter, was what he had drawn them in with. Meredith was to work at press, Potts at book-binding, which he, by agreement, was to teach them, though he knew neither one nor t'other. John,--a wild Irishman, brought up to no business, whose service, for four years, Keimer had purchased from the captain of a ship; he, too, was to be made a pressman. George Webb, an Oxford scholar, whose time for four years he had likewise bought, intending him for a compositor, of whom more presently; and David Harry, a country boy, whom he had taken apprentice. George Webb is later described by Franklin as being lively, witty, good-natured and a pleasant companion, but idle, thoughtless, and imprudent to the last degree. While a student at Oxford, he had become possessed with the desire to see London and be a player. Yielding to this impulse, he walked outside of Oxford, hid his gown in a furze bush, and strode on to London where he fell into bad company, spent all his money, pawned his clothes and lacked bread; having failed to secure an opening as a player. While in this situation, he was induced by his necessities to bind himself to go over to America as an indentured servant, and this he did without ever writing a line to his friends to let them know what had become of him. John, the Irishman, soon absconded. With the rest of Keimer's awkward squad, Franklin quickly formed very agreeable relations, all the more so because they had found Keimer incapable of teaching them, but now found that Franklin taught them something daily. By Keimer, too, Franklin was for a time treated with great civility and apparent regard. The selfish reasons for such treatment were patent enough. Our printing-house [declares the _Autobiography_] often wanted sorts, and there was no letter-founder in America; I had seen types cast at James's in London, but without much attention to the manner; however, I now contrived a mould, made use of the letters we had as puncheons, struck the matrices in lead, and thus supply'd in a pretty tolerable way all deficiencies. I also engrav'd several things on occasion; I made the ink; I was warehousman, and everything, and, in short, quite a fac-totum. Keimer was simply using Franklin to lick his rough cubs into shape. The value of Franklin's services declined every day as his other hands became more efficient, and, when he paid him his wages for the second quarter, he let him know that he thought that he should submit to a reduction. By degrees, he grew less civil, assumed a more imperious air, became fault-finding and captious, and seemed ready for an outbreak. Nevertheless, Franklin preserved his patience, thinking that Keimer's demeanor was partly due to his embarrassed circumstances. But a very small spark was enough to produce an explosion. Startled one day by a loud noise near the court-house, Franklin put his head out of the window of the printing-office to see what was the matter. Just then, Keimer, who was in the street, looked up and saw him, and called out to him in vociferous and angry tones to mind his business, adding some reproachful words that nettled Franklin the more because they were heard by the whole neighborhood. Keimer made things still worse by coming up into the printing-office and continuing his rebuke. High words passed between the two, and Keimer gave Franklin the quarter's notice to quit, to which he was entitled, saying as he did it that he wished he could give him a shorter one. Franklin replied that the wish was unnecessary, and, taking up his hat, walked out of doors, requesting Meredith, as he left, to take care of some of his things that remained behind him, and to bring them to his lodgings. This Meredith, who had a great regard for Franklin, and regretted very much the thought of being in the printing-office without him, did the evening of the same day, and he availed himself of the opportunity to dissuade Franklin from returning to New England. Keimer, he said, was in debt for all that he possessed, his creditors were beginning to be uneasy, and he managed his shop wretchedly, often selling without profit for ready money, and frequently giving credit without keeping an account. He must, therefore, fail, which would make an opening for Franklin. To this reasoning Franklin objected his want of means. Meredith then informed him that his father had a high opinion of him, and, from some things, that his father had said to him, he was sure that, if Franklin would enter into a partnership with him, the elder Meredith would advance enough money to set them going in business. His time with Keimer, he further said, would be out in the spring. Before then, they might procure their press and type from London. "I am sensible," added Meredith, "I am no workman; if you like it, your skill in the business shall be set against the stock I furnish, and we will share the profits equally." Franklin acceded to the proposal, and Meredith's father ratified it all the more willingly as he saw that Franklin had a great deal of influence with his son, had prevailed on him to abstain from dram-drinking for long periods of time, and might be able to induce him to give up the miserable habit entirely when they came to form the close relations of partners with each other. An inventory of what was needed for the business was accordingly given to the father; an order for it was placed by him in the hands of a merchant; and the things were sent for. Until they arrived, the partnership was to be kept secret, and Franklin was to seek employment from Bradford. Bradford, however, was not in need of a hand, and for some days Franklin was condemned to idleness. But opportunely enough the chance presented itself to Keimer just at this time of being employed to print some paper money for the Province of New Jersey which would require cuts and type that nobody but Franklin was clever enough to execute or make. Fearing that Bradford might employ him, and secure the work, Keimer sent Franklin word that old friends should not be estranged by a few passionate words, and that he hoped Franklin would return to him. Influenced by the desire of Meredith to derive still further benefit from his instruction, Franklin did return to Keimer, and entered upon relations with him that proved more satisfactory than any that he had had with him for some time past. Keimer secured the New Jersey contract. The New Jersey jobb was obtain'd [the _Autobiography_ states], I contriv'd a copperplate press for it, the first that had been seen in the country; I cut several ornaments and checks for the bills. We went together to Burlington, where I executed the whole to satisfaction; and he received so large a sum for the work as to be enabled thereby to keep his head much longer above water. One of the attractive things about the youth of Franklin is the extent to which his love of reading and intellectual superiority gave him a standing with distinguished or prominent men much older than himself. In the case of Sir William Keith, the standing produced nothing but deception and disappointment, but, in the case of Cotton Mather, it supplied Franklin with one of those moral lessons for which his mind had such an eager appetency. The last time I saw your father [he wrote late in life to Samuel Mather, the son of Cotton] was in the beginning of 1724, when I visited him after my first trip to Pennsylvania. He received me in his library, and on my taking leave showed me a shorter way out of the house through a narrow passage, which was crossed by a beam overhead. We were still talking as I withdrew, he accompanying me behind, and I turning partly toward him, when he said hastily, _Stoop, stoop!_ I did not understand him, till I felt my head hit against the beam. He was a man that never missed any occasion of giving instruction, and upon this he said to me, "_You are young, and have the world before you_; STOOP _as you go through it, and you will miss many hard thumps_." This advice, thus beat into my head, has frequently been of use to me; and I often think of it, when I see pride mortified, and misfortune brought upon people by their carrying their heads too high. Gov. William Burnet, of New York, the son of the famous English Bishop of that name, was another conspicuous personage to whose friendly notice the youth was brought. Shortly after the apt admonition of Cotton Mather, when Franklin was on his return to Philadelphia, the Governor heard from the captain of the vessel, by which Franklin had been conveyed to New York, that a young man, one of his passengers, had a great many books with him, and asked the captain to bring this young man to see him. The Governor loved books and lovers of books. I waited upon him accordingly [says Franklin] and should have taken Collins with me but that he was not sober. The gov'r. treated me with great civility, show'd me his library, which was a very large one, and we had a good deal of conversation about books and authors. This was the second governor who had done me the honour to take notice of me; which, to a poor boy like me, was very pleasing. The happy consequences to Ralph and himself of the respect, shown him by Col. French at New Castle, and the lasting sense of gratitude that he soon afterwards excited in Andrew Hamilton have just been mentioned. This capacity for arresting the attention of men of years and influence now made its mark in New Jersey. Some of the principal men of the province were appointed by the Assembly to oversee the working of Keimer's press, and to take care that no more bills were printed than were authorized by law. They discharged this duty by turns, and usually each one, when he came, brought a friend or so with him for company. In this way, Franklin was introduced to a considerable group of persons who invited him to their houses, introduced him to their friends, and showed him much attention. Keimer, on the other hand, perhaps, Franklin surmises, because his mind had not been so much improved by reading as his, was a little neglected, though the master. The explanation given by Franklin for this neglect would seem a rather inadequate one when we recollect that in the same context he sums up the character of Keimer in these trenchant words: "In truth, he was an odd fish; ignorant of common life, fond of rudely opposing receiv'd opinions, slovenly to extream dirtiness, enthusiastic in some points of religion, and a little knavish withal." Like St. Sebastian, poor Keimer will never be drawn without that arrow in his side. For three months Franklin remained at Burlington, making printer's ink money. At the end of that time, he could reckon among his friends Judge Allen, Samuel Bustill, the Secretary of the Province, Isaac Pearson, Joseph Cooper, and several of the Smiths, members of the Assembly, and Isaac Decow, the surveyor-general. The latter [he says] was a shrewd, sagacious old man, who told me that he began for himself, when young, by wheeling clay, for the brickmakers, learned to write after he was of age, carri'd the chain for surveyors, who taught him surveying and he had now by his industry, acquir'd a good estate; and says he, "I foresee that you will soon work this man out of his business, and make a fortune in it at Philadelphia." He had not then the least intimation of my intention to set up there or anywhere. These friends were afterwards of great use to me, as I occasionally was to some of them. They all continued their regard for me as long as they lived. Shortly after the completion of the New Jersey contract, the new type, which had been ordered for Franklin and Meredith from London, arrived at Philadelphia. With Keimer's consent, the two friends left him before he knew of its arrival. They rented a house near the market, and, to reduce the rent of twenty-four pounds a year, they sublet a part of it to Thomas Godfrey, who was to board them. They had scarcely made ready for business when George House, an acquaintance of Franklin, brought to them a countryman who had inquired of him on the street where he could find a printer. By this countryman the firm was paid for the work that he gave them the sum of five shillings, and this sum, Franklin declares in the _Autobiography_, being their first fruits, and coming in at a time when they had expended all their available cash in preparing for business, awakened more pleasure in him than any crown that he had ever since earned, and, besides, made him prompter than he, perhaps, would otherwise have been to help beginners. Whether there were any "boomers," to use the cant term of to-day, in Philadelphia at that time the _Autobiography_ does not tell us, but there was, to use another cant term of to-day, at least one "knocker." There are croakers in every country [says Franklin in the _Autobiography_] always boding its ruin. Such a one then lived in Philadelphia: a person of note, an elderly man, with a wise look and a very grave manner of speaking; his name was Samuel Mickle. This gentleman, a stranger to me, stopt one day at my door, and asked me if I was the young man who had lately opened a new printing-house. Being answered in the affirmative, he said he was sorry for me, because it was an expensive undertaking, and the expense would be lost; for Philadelphia was a sinking place, the people already half bankrupts, or near being so; all appearances to the contrary, such as new buildings and the rise of rents, being to his certain knowledge fallacious, for they were, in fact, among the things that would soon ruin us. And he gave me such a detail of misfortunes now existing, or that were soon to exist, that he left me half melancholy. Had I known him before I engaged in this business, probably I never should have done it. This man continued to live in this decaying place, and to declaim in the same strain, refusing for many years to buy a house there, because all was going to destruction; and at last I had the pleasure of seeing him give five times as much for one as he might have bought it for when he first began his croaking. The outlook of Franklin was a cheerful, optimistic one, and he had no sympathy with pessimists of any sort. Even his civic interests came back to him in personal profit, since, aside from its public aims, the Junto was a most useful aid to the business of Franklin and Meredith. All its members made a point of soliciting patronage for the new printing firm. Breintnal, for instance, obtained for it the privilege of printing forty sheets of the history which the Quakers published of their sect; the rest having gone to Keimer. The price was low, and the job cost Franklin and Meredith much hard labor. The work, Franklin tells us, with the fond minuteness with which a man is disposed to dwell upon the events of his early life, was a folio, of _pro patria_ size, and in pica, with long primer notes. Franklin composed it at the rate of a sheet a day, and Meredith ran off what was composed at the press. It was often eleven at night and later, when Franklin had completed his distribution for the work of the next day, for now and then he was set back by other business calls. So resolved, however, was he never to default on his sheet a day that one night, when one of his forms was accidentally broken up, and two pages of his work reduced to pi, he immediately distributed and composed it over again before he went to bed, though he had supposed, when the accident occurred, that a hard day's task had ended. This industry brought the firm into favorable notice, and especially was Franklin gratified by what Dr. Baird had to say about it. When the new printing-office was mentioned at the Merchants' Every Night Club, and the opinion was generally expressed that three printing-offices could not be maintained in Philadelphia, he took issue with this view; "For the industry of that Franklin," he said, "is superior to anything I ever saw of the kind; I see him still at work when I go home from club, and he is at work again before his neighbors are out of bed." This statement led one of the persons who heard it to offer to furnish the new firm with stationery; but it was not yet ready to open a stationery shop. About this time, George Webb, who had bought his time of Keimer, with the aid of one of his female friends, solicited from the firm employment as a journeyman. Its situation was not such as to warrant his employment, but Franklin indiscreetly let him know as a secret that he expected to establish a newspaper soon; when he might have work for him. Bradford's newspaper, _The American Mercury_, he told Webb, was a paltry thing, stupid and wretchedly managed, and yet was profitable. "Three can keep a Secret if two are dead," is a saying of Poor Richard. It would have been well if Franklin on this occasion had been mindful of the wisdom in which it was conceived. He requested Webb not to mention what he said; but, as is often true under such circumstances, it would have been more prudent for him to have asked him to mention it. Webb did tell Keimer, and he immediately published the prospectus of a newspaper on which Webb was to be employed. This was resented by Franklin, and, to counteract the scheme, he and his friend Breintnal wrote some clever little essays for Bradford's newspaper under the title of the "Busy Body." In that dull sheet, they were, to borrow Shakespeare's image, like bright metal on sullen ground. Public attention was fixed upon them, and Keimer's prospectus was overlooked. He founded his newspaper nevertheless, and conducted it for nine months under the prolix name of the _Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences and Pennsylvania Gazette_. It never had, at any time, more than ninety subscribers, and, at the end of the nine months, in 1729, Franklin, who had for some time had his arms extended to catch it when it fell, bought it at a trifling price. Under his ownership, the cumbrous name of the paper was cut down simply to that of the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, and the absurd plan formed by Keimer of publishing an instalment of Chambers' Universal Dictionary of all the Arts and Sciences in every issue was abandoned for a strain of original comment and unctuous humor which made the _Gazette_ in popularity second only to _Poor Richard's Almanac_. Under Franklin's hands, the paper assumed from the beginning a better typographical appearance than any previously known to the Province, and some spirited observations by him on a controversy between Governor Burnet and the Massachusetts Assembly, which called into play his aversion to political tyranny, aroused so much public attention that all the leading citizens of the Province became subscribers. Many other subscribers followed in their train, and the subscriptions went on continually increasing until in a few years, to quote Franklin's own words, the _Gazette_ proved extremely profitable to him. This was one of the first good effects of my having learnt a little to scribble [he tells us], another was that the leading men, seeing a newspaper now in the hands of one who could also handle a pen, thought it convenient to oblige and encourage me. Bradford still printed the Votes and laws, and other publick business. He had printed an address of the House to the Governor, in a coarse, blundering manner; we reprinted it elegantly and correctly, and sent one to every member. They were sensible of the difference: it strengthened the hands of our friends in the House, and they voted us their printers for the year ensuing. Among these friends, was the grateful Andrew Hamilton. The young printer had pushed himself forward successfully enough to make his competition keenly felt by both Keimer and Bradford. But now unexpectedly, when all the omens were so fair, he found himself on the brink of ruin. For some time past, he had faithfully observed his obligations to Meredith, though his friends lamented his connection with him. Meredith was no compositor, and but a poor pressman, and, if he had been the best compositor or pressman in the world, he would have been a poor partner, for he was seldom sober. While Franklin was bearing him along on his back as well as he could, Meredith's father found himself unable to advance for the firm the second instalment of one hundred pounds, necessary to complete the payment for its printing outfit. The result was that the merchant, who had sold it to the firm, grew impatient, and sued them all. They gave bail, but realized that, if the money could not be raised in time, judgment and execution would follow, and that the outfit would be sold at half price. Then it was, to recall the simple and affecting words of Franklin himself in the _Autobiography_, that two true friends, William Coleman and Robert Grace, whose kindness he had never forgotten, and never would forget, while he could remember anything, came to him separately, unknown to each other, and, without any application from him, each offered to advance to him all the money that should be necessary to enable him to acquire the whole business of the firm, if that should be practicable.[8] They did not like the idea of his continuing to be a partner of Meredith, who, they said, was often seen drunk in the streets, and playing at low games in alehouses to the discredit of the firm. Distressing, however, as his situation was, Franklin appears to have acted with a high-minded regard to the proprieties of the occasion. He told Coleman and Grace that, so long as there was any prospect that the Merediths might live up to their agreement, he was under too great obligations to them for what they had done, and would do, if they could, to suggest a dissolution of the partnership, but that, if they finally defaulted in the performance of their part of the agreement, and the partnership was dissolved, he would feel at liberty to accept the assistance of his friends. But he was astute as well as conscientious. After the matter had rested in this position for some time, he said to Meredith: Perhaps your father is dissatisfied at the part you have undertaken in this affair of ours, and is unwilling to advance for you and me what he would for you alone. If that is the case, tell me, and I will resign the whole to you, and go about my business. No, said he, my father has really been disappointed, and is really unable; and I am unwilling to distress him farther. I see this is a business I am not fit for. I was bred a farmer, and it was a folly in me to come to town, and put myself, at thirty years of age, an apprentice to learn a new trade. Many of our Welsh people are going to settle in North Carolina, where land is cheap. I am inclin'd to go with them, and follow my old employment. You may find friends to assist you. If you will take the debts of the company upon you; return to my father the hundred pound he has advanced; pay my little personal debts, and give me thirty pounds and a new saddle, I will relinquish the partnership, and leave the whole in your hands. Franklin agreed to this proposal. It was made the basis of a contract which was immediately signed and sealed. Meredith received the thirty pounds and the saddle, and soon afterwards went off to North Carolina, whence he sent to Franklin the next year two long letters containing the best account of the climate, soil, husbandry and other features of that Province that had been given up to that time. "For in those matters," adds Franklin, with his usual generosity, "he was very judicious. I printed them in the papers, and they gave great satisfaction to the publick." After the departure of Meredith for North Carolina, Franklin turned to the two friends who had proffered their help. He accepted from each of them, because he would not give an unkind preference to either, one half of the money he needed, paid off the debts of the partnership, advertised its dissolution and went on with the business in his own name. This was on July 14, 1730. Seasonably for him, there was a loud cry among the people at this time for a more abundant issue of paper money. The wealthier members of the community were all against the proposition. They feared that an addition to the existing paper circulation would depreciate, as it had done in New York, and that the debts due to them would be discharged by payment in a medium worth less than its nominal value. The question was discussed by the Junto, and Franklin argued in favor of the issue; being persuaded that the prosperity of the Province had been very much promoted by a small previous issue of paper money in 1723. He remembered, he says in the _Autobiography_, that, when he first walked about the streets of Philadelphia, eating his roll, most of the houses on Walnut Street, between Second and Front Streets, and many besides, on Chestnut and other streets, were placarded, "To be let"; which made him feel as if the inhabitants of Philadelphia were deserting the town one after the other; whereas at the time of this discussion all the old houses were occupied, and many new ones were in process of construction. Not content with presenting his views on the subject to the Junto, he wrote an anonymous pamphlet on it entitled _The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency_. This pamphlet was well received by the common people, he tells us, but met with the disfavor of the rich, because it swelled the clamor for more money. Their opposition, however, for lack of writers, competent to refute its reasoning, languished, and the issue was authorized by the Assembly. Franklin's friends in the house rewarded him for his part in the controversy over it by employing him to print the money. "A very profitable jobb and a great help to me," remarks Franklin complacently in the _Autobiography_, and he adds, "This was another advantage gain'd by my being able to write." Through the influence of his friend Hamilton, he likewise secured the contract for printing the paper money, issued by the Three Lower Counties on the Delaware. "Another profitable jobb as I then thought it," he says, "small things appearing great to those in small circumstances." Hamilton also procured for him the privilege of printing the laws and legislative proceedings of the Three Lower Counties, and he retained it as long as he remained in the printing business. Now, for the first time, he felt that his position was assured enough for him to open up a small stationery shop, where he sold blanks of all sorts, paper, parchment, chapmen's books and other such wares. The blanks he believed to be "the correctest that ever appear'd among us, being assisted in that by my friend Breintnal." The demands on his printing-office, too, increased to such a degree that he employed a compositor, one Whitemarsh, an excellent workman, whom he had known in London, and undertook the care of an apprentice, a son of the ever-to-be-lamented Aquila Rose. Soon he was prospering to such an extent that he could begin to pay off the debt that he owed on his printing outfit. These are the words in which he himself described his situation at this time: In order to secure my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care not only to be in _reality_ industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to the contrary. I drest plainly; I was seen at no places of idle diversion. I never went out a fishing or shooting; a book, indeed, sometimes debauch'd me from my work, but that was seldom, snug, and gave no scandal; and, to show that I was not above my business, I sometimes brought home the paper I purchas'd at the stores thro' the streets on a wheel-barrow. Thus being esteem'd an industrious, thriving young man, and paying duly for what I bought, the merchants who imported stationery solicited my custom; others proposed supplying me with books, and I went on swimmingly. In the meantime, Keimer's credit and business declining daily, he was at last forc'd to sell his printing-house to satisfy his creditors. He went to Barbadoes, and there lived some years in very poor circumstances. For some time before Keimer went off to Barbadoes, he had been in the condition of an unsound tree, which still stands but with a dry rot at its heart momentarily presaging its fall. As far back as Issue No. 27 of _The Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences_, and _Pennsylvania Gazette_, he had found it necessary to explain a week's delay in the publication of that issue by stating to the public that he had been awakened, when fast asleep in bed, about eleven at night, over-tired with the labor of the day, and taken away from his dwelling by a writ and summons; it being basely and confidently given out that he was that very night about to run away, though there was not the least color or ground for such a vile report. He was, he further declared, "the shuttlecock of fortune ... the very but for villany to shoot at, or the continued mark for slander and her imps to spit their venom upon." It was remarkable, he thought, that a person of strict sincerity, refin'd justice, and universal love to the whole creation, should for a series of near twenty years, be the constant but of slander, as to be three times ruin'd as a master-printer, to be nine times in prison, one of which was six years together, and often reduc'd to the most wretched circumstances, hunted as a partridge upon the mountains, and persecuted with the most abominable lies the devil himself could invent or malice utter. It was but the old story of the man, who is dizzy, thinking that the whole world is spinning around. David Harry, Keimer's former apprentice, had also opened a printing-office in Philadelphia. When his enterprise was in its inception, Franklin regarded his rivalry with much uneasiness on account of his influential connections. He accordingly proposed a partnership to him, a proposal which, fortunately for the former, was disdainfully refused. "He was very proud," says Franklin, "dress'd like a gentleman, liv'd expensively, took much diversion and pleasure abroad, ran in debt, and neglected his business; upon which, all business left him." The result was that Harry had to follow Keimer to Barbadoes, taking his printing outfit with him. Here the former apprentice employed the former master as a journeyman; they frequently quarrelled with each other; Harry steadily fell behind, and was compelled to sell his type, and to return to his country work in Pennsylvania. The purchaser of the outfit employed Keimer to operate it, but, in a few years more, Keimer was transported by death out of the world, which for a considerable part of his life he had seen only through the gratings of a jail. The departure of Harry left Franklin without any competitor except his old one, Bradford, who was too rich and easy-going to actively push for business. But, in one respect, Bradford was a formidable rival. He was the Postmaster at Philadelphia, and his newspaper flourished at the expense of the _Gazette_ upon the public impression that his connection with the Post-office gave him facilities for gathering news and for circulating advertisements that Franklin did not enjoy. To this period belong Franklin's treaty for a wife with enough means to discharge the balance of one hundred pounds still due on his printing outfit, and his final recoil to Deborah whose industry and frugality were far more than the pecuniary equivalent of one hundred pounds. After his marriage, he was, if anything, even more industrious than before, and this is what he has to say about his habits and employments during the period that immediately followed that event: Reading was the only amusement I allow'd myself. I spent no time in taverns, games, or frolicks of any kind; and my industry in my business continu'd as indefatigable as it was necessary. I was indebted for my printing-house; I had a young family coming on to be educated, and I had to contend with for business two printers, who were established in the place before me. My circumstances, however, grew daily easier. My original habits of frugality continuing, and my father having among his instructions to me when a boy, frequently repeated a proverb of Solomon, "Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men," I from thence considered industry as a means of obtaining wealth and distinction, which encourag'd me, tho' I did not think that I should ever literally _stand before_ kings, which, however, has since happened; for I have stood before _five_, and even had the honour of sitting down with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner. Another passage in the _Autobiography_ tells us just what degree of frugality Franklin and Deborah practiced at this stage of his business career. We kept no idle servants [he says], our table was plain and simple, our furniture of the cheapest. For instance, my breakfast was a long time bread and milk (no tea), and I ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer, with a pewter spoon. But mark how luxury will enter families, and make a progress, in spite of principle: being call'd one morning to breakfast, I found it in a China bowl, with a spoon of silver! They had been bought for me without my knowledge by my wife, and had cost her the enormous sum of three-and-twenty shillings, for which she had no other excuse or apology to make, but that she thought _her_ husband deserv'd a silver spoon and China bowl as well as any of his neighbors. This was the first appearance of plate and China in our house, which afterward, in a course of years, as our wealth increased, augmented gradually to several hundred pounds in value. In 1732 was first published, at fivepence a copy, Franklin's famous almanac known as _Poor Richard's Almanac_, which for twenty-five years warmed the homes of Pennsylvania with the ruddy glow of its wit, humor and wisdom. His endeavor in conducting it he tells us was to make it both entertaining and useful, and he was so successful that he reaped considerable profit from the nearly ten thousand copies of it that he annually sold. Hundreds of the inhabitants of Pennsylvania, who read nothing else, read the _Almanac_. Its infectious humor, its coarse pleasantry, its proverbs and sayings so much wiser than the wisdom, and so much wittier than the wit of any single individual, made the name of Franklin a common household word from one end of Pennsylvania to another, and, when finally strained off into Father Abraham's speech, established his reputation as a kindly humorist and moral teacher throughout the world. In somewhat the same spirit of instruction as well as entertainment was the _Gazette_, too, conducted. I considered my newspaper, also [says Franklin], as another means of communicating instruction, and in that view frequently reprinted in it extracts from the _Spectator_, and other moral writers; and sometimes publish'd little pieces of my own, which had been first compos'd for reading in our Junto. The caution exercised by the _Gazette_ in shutting out malice and personal abuse from its columns is the subject of one of the weightiest series of statements in the _Autobiography_. In the conduct of my newspaper [Franklin declares] I carefully excluded all libelling and personal abuse, which is of late years become so disgraceful to our country. Whenever I was solicited to insert anything of that kind, and the writers pleaded, as they generally did, the liberty of the press, and that a newspaper was like a stage-coach, in which any one who would pay had a right to a place, my answer was, that I would print the piece separately if desired, and the author might have as many copies as he pleased to distribute himself, but that I would not take upon me to spread his detraction; and that, having contracted with my subscribers to furnish them with what might be either useful or entertaining, I could not fill their papers with private altercation, in which they had no concern, without doing them manifest injustice. Now, many of our printers make no scruple of gratifying the malice of individuals by false accusations of the fairest characters among ourselves, augmenting animosity even to the producing of duels; and are, moreover, so indiscreet as to print scurrilous reflections on the government of neighboring states, and even on the conduct of our best national allies, which may be attended with the most pernicious consequences. These things I mention as a caution to young printers, and that they may be encouraged not to pollute their presses and disgrace their profession by such infamous practices, but refuse steadily, as they may see by my example that such a course of conduct will not, on the whole, be injurious to their interests. By 1733 Franklin was sufficiently established in business to branch out still more. That year he sent one of his journeymen, Thomas Whitemarsh, to Charleston, South Carolina, where a printer was needed, under an agreement of partnership which was the prototype of most of the subsequent articles of copartnership formed by him with other printers under similar conditions; that is to say, he furnished the printing outfit, paid one third of the expenses, and received one third of the profits. The history of this partner gave Franklin an opportunity to moralize a little in the _Autobiography_ upon the importance of a knowledge of accounts rather than of music or dancing as a part of female education. The Carolina printer was a man of education and honest, but ignorant of accounts, and, though he made occasional remittances, Franklin could never get any account from him, nor any satisfactory statement of the condition of the partnership business. On his death, however, his widow, who had been born and bred in Holland, not only sent Franklin as clear a statement as was possible of the past transactions of the firm, but subsequently rendered him an exact account every quarter with the utmost punctuality, and, besides, managed the business with such success that she reared a family of children decently, and, upon the expiration of the copartnership, purchased the outfit from Franklin, and turned it over to her son. The success of the Carolina partnership encouraged Franklin to form partnerships with other journeymen of his, and by 1743 he had opened three printing-offices in three different colonies, and proposed to open a fourth, if he could find a suitable person to take charge of it. Others were opened by him later. Among the persons besides Whitemarsh, established by him at different times as printers, under one arrangement or another with himself, were Peter Timothy in South Carolina, Smith and Benjamin Mecom in Antigua, James Parker in New York, his brother in Rhode Island, Hall and Miller and Samuel Holland at Lancaster, and William Daniell at Kingston, Jamaica. Speaking of his partners in the _Autobiography_, he says of them: Most of them did well, being enabled at the end of our term, six years, to purchase the types of me and go on working for themselves, by which means several families were raised. Partnerships often finish in quarrels; but I was happy in this, that mine were all carried on and ended amicably, owing, I think, a good deal to the precaution of having very explicitly settled, in our articles, everything to be done by or expected from each partner, so that there was nothing to dispute, which precaution I would therefore recommend to all who enter into partnerships; for, whatever esteem partners may have for, and confidence in each other at the time of the contract, little jealousies and disgusts may arise, with ideas of inequality in the care and burden of the business, etc., which are attended often with breach of friendship and of the connection, perhaps with lawsuits and other disagreeable consequences. Two other business enterprises of Franklin merit notice. He was the founder of the first newspaper in the United States to be published in a foreign tongue, namely, the _Philadelphische Zeitung_, which owed its origin to the large number of Germans who came over to Pennsylvania during the Colonial Period. He was also the founder of a monthly literary magazine which for some reason he does not mention in the _Autobiography_ at all. It was the second enterprise of the kind undertaken in America, and was known as _The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle for All the British Plantations in America_. To Franklin as a business man might aptly be applied the words of Emerson with respect to Guy: Stream could not so perversely wind But corn of Guy's was there to grind. One exception, however, appears to have been this magazine which lasted but a short time. It was ill-starred from the start. When Franklin was ready to spring it upon the public, he engaged John Webbe as its editor, but Webbe betrayed the project to Bradford, who at once announced that, a little later, a magazine would be offered to the public edited by Webbe, and published by himself. When the first number of Franklin's magazine came out, he stated that its publication was earlier than he had intended because of the faithless conduct of Webbe. This Webbe resented by charging Franklin, who was then Postmaster at Philadelphia, with shutting out Bradford's _Mercury_ from the post, but Franklin silenced his fire by stating and proving that he had had no choice in the matter, because he had been commanded by Postmaster-General Spottswood, on account of Bradford's failure as Postmaster at Philadelphia to account with him, to suffer no longer any of his newspapers or letters to be conveyed by post free of charge. The business of Franklin received another push forward with the political consequence which he acquired through the _Gazette_ and the influence of the Junto. In 1736, he was chosen Clerk of the General Assembly, and in the succeeding year he was appointed Postmaster at Philadelphia, in the place of Bradford, by Alexander Spottswood, who had been Governor of Virginia, and was then the Deputy Postmaster-General for America. The salary of the Postmastership was small, but, for the purposes of the _Gazette_, the office gave him the same advantage that Bradford had enjoyed, when he refused to allow that newspaper to be carried by his post-riders. The positions of the two men were now reversed, but Franklin was too magnanimous to remind Bradford, sternly, as he did Jemmy Read, that Fortune's Wheel is ever turning. "My old competitor's newspaper," he says, "declined proportionably, and I was satisfy'd without retaliating his refusal, while postmaster, to permit my papers being carried by the riders." Bradford had suffered, Franklin adds, "for his neglect in due accounting." And this gave him occasion to observe that regularity and clearness in rendering accounts and punctuality in making remittances are "the most powerful of all recommendations to new employments and increase of business." The office of Clerk of the Assembly also had its business value. Besides the pay for the immediate service as clerk [Franklin says] the place gave me a better opportunity of keeping up an interest among the members, which secur'd to me the business of printing the votes, laws, paper money, and other occasional jobbs for the public, that, on the whole, were very profitable. The first year that he came up for election the vote in his favor was unanimous, but the next year, while he was elected, it was only after a new member had made a long speech against him in the interest of another candidate. How Franklin conciliated the unfriendliness of this member is fully told in the _Autobiography_; I therefore did not like the opposition of this new member, who was a gentleman of fortune and education, with talents that were likely to give him, in time, great influence in the House, which, indeed, afterwards happened. I did not, however, aim at gaining his favour by paying any servile respect to him, but, after some time, took this other method. Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he would do me the favour of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I return'd it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favour. When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death. This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says, "_He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged._" And it shows how much more profitable it is prudently to remove, than to resent, return, and continue inimical proceedings. The artifice practised by Franklin on this occasion has been condemned. What he really did, of course, was to use gratified vanity as a foil to mortified vanity. The possible consequences of the new member's hostility were too serious for him to say as Washington was in the habit of saying when he had a bad cold: "Let it go as it came." He knew that the malice was as shallow as the good will; and the alternatives were resentment, sycophancy, or a little subtlety. Under the circumstances, Franklin would not have been Franklin, if he had not elected subtlety. Nothing was now wanting to the full development of his business career except the repetition in other communities of the success that had crowned his personal exertions in Pennsylvania. Referring to the state of his business at this time, he says in the _Autobiography_; My business was now continually augmenting, and my circumstances growing daily easier, my newspaper having become very profitable, as being for a time almost the only one in this and the neighboring provinces. I experienced, too, the truth of the observation, "_that after getting the first hundred pound, it is more easy to get the second_," money itself being of a prolific nature. The outcome of it all was that, in the year 1748, at the age of forty-two, he flattered himself, to repeat his own language, that, by the sufficient, though moderate, fortune which he had acquired, he had secured leisure during the rest of his life for philosophical studies and amusements. The plan that he formed for securing this leisure, which he turned to such fruitful, purposes, was marked by his usual good judgment. In 1744, he had taken into his employment David Hall, a Scotch journeyman, and a friend of Strahan. He now admitted Hall to partnership with him. "A very able, industrious, and honest partner, Mr. David Hall, with whose character I was well acquainted, as he had work'd for me for four years," are the terms in which he speaks of Hall in the _Autobiography_. "He took off my hands," he continues, "all care of the printing-office, paying me punctually my share of the profits. The partnership continued eighteen years, successfully for us both." Under the provisions of the partnership agreement, Hall was to carry on the printing and publishing business of Franklin in his own way, but in the firm name of Franklin and Hall, and Hall was to pay to Franklin a thousand pounds a year for eighteen years; at the end of which period Hall was to become the sole proprietor of the business.[9] Exactly what income Franklin was deriving from his printing and publishing business at the time that this agreement was entered into is not known, but reasonable conjecture has placed it at something like two thousand pounds a year. At that time he was also the owner of a considerable amount of property, representing invested returns from his business in the past. The _Gazette_ continued to be published until the year 1821. When the term of eighteen years, during which the partnership was to last, expired in 1766, the profits had been over twelve thousand pounds, Pennsylvania currency, from subscriptions, and over four thousand pounds, Pennsylvania currency, from advertisements. Judged by the standards of the time and place, it was an extraordinary degree of success which had enabled Franklin in some twenty years to establish so lucrative a business as that which he handed over to the management of Hall in 1748, and few indeed have been the men in mercantile history, who have been willing, after so long a period of prosperous addiction to gain, to turn away to purely intellectual and unremunerative pursuits from such a prospect of increasing self-enrichment as that renounced by Franklin when he wrote to Cadwallader Colden that he, too, was taking the proper measures for obtaining leisure to enjoy life and his friends more than in the past; having put his printing-house under the care of his partner, David Hall, absolutely left off book-selling, and removed to a more quiet part of the town, where he was settling his old accounts, and hoped soon to be quite master of his own time, and no longer, as the song had it, at everyone's call but his own. Nobody knew better than he that, if, after getting the first hundred pounds, it is easier to get the second, it is still easier, after getting the second hundred pounds, to get the third. For Hall, Franklin entertained uninterrupted feelings of respect and affection, down to the date of the former's death on December 17, 1772. "My Love to Mr. Hall," is one of his messages to Deborah some seven years after the firm of Franklin and Hall was created. Before that he had written to Strahan, "Our friend, Mr. Hall, is well, and manages perfectly to my satisfaction." Many years after the death of Hall, the account between Franklin and him had not been wholly settled, and a letter from the former to Strahan in the year 1785 tells him that Hall and himself had not been of the same mind as to "the value of a copyright in an established newspaper, of each of which from eight to ten thousand were printed," but "were to be determined" by Strahan's opinion. "My long absence from that country, and immense employment the little time I was there," Franklin wrote, "have hitherto prevented the settlement of all the accounts that had been between us; though we never differed about them, and never should if that good honest man had continued in being." Franklin's failure to forecast the stubborn hostility of the Colonies to the Stamp Act not only cost him some personal popularity but it caused his firm some pecuniary loss. Anticipating with his usual shrewdness the passage of that Act, which imposed a tax of a sterling half-penny on every half-sheet of a newspaper, however small, he sent over to Hall one hundred reams of large half-sheet paper, but permission could not be obtained to have it stamped in America, and it was all reshipped to England at a loss. As to the Paper sent over [he wrote to Hall] I did it for the best, having at that time Expectations given me that we might have had it stampt there; in which case you would have had great Advantage of the other Printers, since if they were not provided with such Paper, they must have either printed but a half sheet common Demi, or paid for two Stamps on each Sheet. The Plan was afterward alter'd notwithstanding all I could do, it being alledged that Scotland & every Colony would expect the same Indulgence if it was granted to us. The Papers must not be sent back again: But I hope you will excuse what I did in Good will, tho' it happen'd wrong. After the retirement of Franklin from active business, he still continued to hold his office as Postmaster at Philadelphia, and, while holding it, he was employed by the Deputy Postmaster-General for America as his comptroller to examine and audit the accounts of several of his subordinate officers. Upon the death of the Deputy Postmaster-General, he was appointed his successor, jointly with William Hunter, of Virginia, by the British Postmasters-General. When the pair were appointed, the office had never earned any net revenue for the British Crown. Under the terms of their appointment, they were to have six hundred pounds a year between them, if they could make that sum out of its profits, and, when they entered upon it, so many improvements had to be effected by them that, in the first four years, it ran into debt to them to the extent of upwards of nine hundred pounds; but, under the skilful management of Franklin, it became remunerative, and, before he was removed by the British Government, after his arraignment before the Privy Council, it had been brought to yield three times as much clear revenue to the Crown as the Irish Post-office. "Since that imprudent transaction," Franklin observes in the _Autobiography_, "they have receiv'd from it--not one farthing!" On August 10, 1761, eight years after the appointment of Franklin and Hunter, and a few weeks before Foxcroft succeeded Hunter, there was a net balance of four hundred and ninety-four pounds four shillings and eight pence due by the American Post-office to the British Crown; which was duly remitted. "And this," exclaims the astonished official record of the fact in England, "is the first remittance ever made of the kind." Between August 10, 1761, and the beginning of 1764, the net profits of the American Post-office amounted to two thousand and seventy pounds twelve shillings and three and one quarter pence, and drew from the British Postmasters-General the statement, "The Posts in America are under the management of persons of acknowledged ability." With this record of administrative success, it is not surprising that, when Franklin was removed from office, he should have written to Thomas Cushing these bitter words: I received a written notice from the Secretary of the general post-office, that His Majesty's postmaster-general _found it necessary_ to dismiss me from my office of deputy postmaster-general in North America. The expression was well chosen, for in truth they were _under a necessity_ of doing it; it was not their own inclination; they had no fault to find with my conduct in the office; they knew my merit in it, and that, if it was now an office of value, it had become such chiefly through my care and good management; that it was worth nothing, when given to me; it would not then pay the salary allowed me, and, unless it did, I was not to expect it; and that it now produces near three thousand pounds a year clear to the treasury here. They had beside a personal regard for me. But as the postoffices in all the principal towns are growing daily more and more valuable, by the increase of correspondence, the officers being paid _commissions_ instead of _salaries_, the ministers seem to intend, by directing me to be displaced on this occasion, to hold out to them all an example that, if they are not corrupted by their office to promote the measures of administration, though against the interests and rights of the colonies, they must not expect to be continued. Not only was the American postal service made by Franklin's able management to yield a net revenue to the British Crown, but it was brought up to a much higher level of efficiency. For one thing, the mails between New York and Philadelphia were increased from one a week in summer and two a month in winter to three a week in summer and one a week in winter. In 1764, a Philadelphia merchant could mail a letter to New York and receive a reply the next day. For another thing, post-riders were required to carry all newspapers offered to them for carriage whether the newspapers of postmasters or not. In the discharge of his postal duties, Franklin was compelled to make many long journeys outside of Pennsylvania, and these journeys did much, as we have said, to extend his reputation on the American continent and to confirm his extraordinary familiarity with American conditions. As soon as he was appointed Deputy Postmaster-General for America with Hunter, William Franklin was appointed Comptroller of the Post-office. The post-office at Philadelphia he first conferred upon William Franklin, then upon Joseph Read, one of Deborah's relatives, and then upon Peter Franklin, Franklin's brother. Indeed, so long as there was a Franklin or a Read willing to enter the public service, Franklin's other fellow-countrymen had very little chance of filling any vacant post in the American Post-office. This was doubtless due not only to his clannishness but also to the fact that, as far as we can now judge, nepotism was a much more venial offence in the eyes of the public during the colonial era than now. Even now it may be doubted whether the disfavor with which it is regarded is prompted so much by its prejudicial tendency from a public point of view as by its tendency, from the point of view of the spoilsman, to interfere with the repeated use of office for partisan purposes. The income upon which Franklin retired from business was the sum of one thousand pounds a year for eighteen years, which Hall agreed to pay him, the small salary, arising from the office of Postmaster at Philadelphia, and the income, supposed to be about seven hundred pounds a year, produced by his invested savings. When in England, in addition to the one thousand pounds a year, paid to him by Hall, which ended in the year 1766, and the income derived by him from invested savings, he received a salary of three hundred pounds a year from his office as Deputy Postmaster-General for America, until he was removed in 1774, and for briefer periods a salary of five hundred pounds a year from his office as Colonial Agent for Pennsylvania, and salaries of four hundred pounds, two hundred pounds and one hundred pounds as the Colonial Agent of Massachusetts, Georgia and New Jersey, respectively. With his removal from his office of Deputy Postmaster-General, all these agencies and the salaries attached to them came to an end. When the annuity paid to him by Hall ceased, his income was so seriously curtailed that he was compelled, as we have seen, to remind Deborah of the fact. After his return from England in 1775, he was appointed the Postmaster-General of the United States at a salary of one thousand pounds a year. For his public services in France, he was allowed at first a salary of five hundred pounds a year and his expenses, and subsequently, when his rank was advanced to that of ambassador, two thousand five hundred pounds a year. When he returned from France to America, he communicated to his old friend, Charles Thomson, the Secretary of Congress, his hope that Congress might be kind enough to recognize the value of his services and sacrifices in the American cause by granting him some small tract of land in the West. He saw, he said, that Congress had made a handsome allowance to Arthur Lee for his services to America in England before his appointment as Commissioner to France, though it had made none to the writer or to Mr. Bollan, who were also parties to these services. Moreover, Lee, on his return to America, as well as John Jay, had been rewarded by Congress with a good office. The letter, of course, made out an irrefragable case; for, if the United States had given the whole Northwest Territory to Franklin, his heirs and assigns forever, the gift would hardly have exceeded the value of his services. It was written just before the Old Congress gave way to the First Congress under the Federal Constitution, and nothing ever came of it. The conduct of the Old Congress to Franklin in other respects had been so ungenerous that it is hardly likely that it would have made any response to the appeal anyhow unless solicited by a more intriguing spirit than his. The State of Georgia was more mindful of its obligations to him, and voted him the right to take up three thousand acres of land within its limits. After his return from France, a great rise took place in the value of real estate in Philadelphia, and his houses and lots reaped its benefits to a conspicuous degree. On Jan. 29, 1786, he wrote to Ferdinand Grand, "My own Estate I find more than tripled in Value since the Revolution"; and similar statements are to be found in other letters of his at this time. At this period of his life, a considerable amount of his attention was given to the improvement of his property. On Apr. 22, 1787, in a letter to Ferdinand Grand, he said, "The three Houses which I began to build last year, are nearly finished, and I am now about to begin two others. Building is an Old Man's Amusement. The Advantage is for his Posterity." When Franklin died, his estate consisted of ten houses in Philadelphia, and almost as many vacant lots, a pasture lot near Philadelphia, a farm near Burlington, New Jersey, a house in Boston, the right to the three thousand acres of land in Georgia, a tract of land on the Ohio, a tract of land in Nova Scotia, twelve shares of the capital stock of the Bank of North America and bonds of individuals in excess of eighteen thousand pounds. The value of his entire estate was supposed to be between two hundred and two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Under his management, the _Gazette_ was probably the best newspaper produced in Colonial America. In its early history, it appeared first twice a week, and then weekly, and consisted of but a single sheet, which, when folded, was about 12 by 18 inches square. Parton is not accurate, as his own context shows, in stating that Franklin "originated the modern system of business-advertising." Other newspapers of the time, including Bradford's _Mercury_, contained advertisements for the recovery of runaway servants and slaves, and lost or stolen articles, and for the sale of different kinds of merchandise. When Franklin fled from Boston, his brother James advertised for another apprentice in the _Courant_. Nor is Parton accurate, either, in stating that Franklin "invented the plan of distinguishing advertisements by means of little pictures, which he cut with his own hands." There were such cuts in Bradford's _Mercury_ even before the _Gazette_ was founded. The _Gazette_ won a position of its own because its proprietor and editor brought to its issues that knowledge of human life and human nature and that combination of practical sagacity, humor and literary skill which he carried into everything. The latest advices of the day, foreign and domestic, which were tardy enough, extracts from the _Spectator_ and other moral writers of the age, verses from contemporary poets, cuttings from the English newspapers, broad, obscene jokes, as unconscious of offence as the self-exposure of a child or an animal, all assembled with the instinctive eye to unity of effect, which is the most consummate achievement of journalistic art, made up the usual contents of the _Gazette_. Now, along with news items of local and outside interest, we have a humorous account of a lottery in England, by which, for the better increase of the King's subjects, all the old maids are to be raffled for; now some truculent flings at the Catholics, the _caput lupinum_ of that age; now a hint to a delinquent subscriber that it was considerably in his power to contribute towards the happiness of his most humble obliged servant; now an exasperating intimation that the _Mercury_ has been depredating upon the columns of its rival; now some little essay or dialogue from the pen of Franklin himself, good enough to be classed as literature. The open, kindly, yet shrewd, face, with the crow's-feet, furrowed by the incessant play of humor about the corners of its eyes, looks out at us from every page. The editor of the _Gazette_ sustains to his readers a relation as personal as that sustained by Poor Richard to his. He goes off to New Jersey to print some paper currency for that Colony, and he inserts this paragraph in the _Gazette_: "The Printer hopes the irregular Publication of this Paper will be excused a few times by his Town Readers, on consideration of his being at Burlington with the press, labouring for the publick Good, to make Money more plentiful." The statement that a flash of lightning in Bucks County had melted the pewter buttons off the waistband of a farmer's breeches elicits the observation, "Tis well nothing else thereabouts was made of pewter." When contributions by others failed him, he even wrote letters to himself under feigned names. "Printerum est errare," we are told, and then, under this announcement, Franklin, in another name, addresses the following facetious letter to himself: Sir, As your last Paper was reading in some Company where I was present, these Words were taken Notice of in the Article concerning Governor Belcher (After which his Excellency, with the Gentlemen trading to New England, died elegantly at Pontack's). The Word died should doubtless have been dined, Pontack's being a noted Tavern and Eating house in London for Gentlemen of Condition; but this Omission of the Letter (n) in that Word, gave us as much Entertainment as any Part of your Paper. One took the Opportunity of telling us, that in a certain Edition of the Bible, the Printer had, where David says I am fearfully and wonderfully made, omitted the Letter (e) in the last Word, so that it was, I am fearfully and wonderfully mad; which occasion'd an ignorant Preacher, who took that Text, to harangue his Audience for half an hour on the Subject of Spiritual Madness. Another related to us, that when the Company of Stationers in England had the Printing of the Bible in their Hands, the Word (not) was left out of the Seventh Commandment, and the whole Edition was printed off with Thou shalt commit Adultery, instead of Thou shalt not, &c. This material Erratum induc'd the Crown to take the Patent from them which is now held by the King's Printer. The Spectator's Remark upon this Story is, that he doubts many of our modern Gentlemen have this faulty edition by 'em, and are not made sensible of the Mistake. A Third Person in the Company acquainted us with an unlucky Fault that went through a whole Impression of Common-Prayer Books; in the Funeral Service, where these Words are, We shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an Eye, &c., the Printer had omitted the (c) in changed, and it read thus, We shall all be hanged, &c. And lastly, a Mistake of your Brother News-Printer was mentioned, in The Speech of James Prouse written the Night before he was to have been executed, instead of I die a Protestant, he has put it, I died a Protestant. Upon the whole you came off with the more favourable Censure, because your Paper is most commonly very correct, and yet you were never known to triumph upon it, by publickly ridiculing and exposing the continual Blunders of your Contemporary Which Observation was concluded by a good old Gentleman in Company, with this general just Remark, That whoever accustoms himself to pass over in Silence the Faults of his Neighbours, shall meet with much better Quarter from the World when he happens to fall into a Mistake himself; for the Satyrical and Censorious, whose Hand is against every Man, shall upon such Occasions have every Man's Hand against him. This is an accusation of plagiarism made by Franklin against Bradford: When Mr. Bradford publishes after us [he declared], and has Occasion to take an Article or two out of the _Gazette_, which he is always welcome to do, he is desired not to date his Paper a Day before ours, (as last Week in the Case of the Letter containing Kelsey's Speech, &c) lest distant Readers should imagine we take from him, which we always carefully avoid. Bradford hit back as best he could. On one occasion he charged that the contract for printing paper money for the Province of New Jersey had been awarded to Franklin at a higher bid than that of another bidder. "Its no matter," he said, "its the Country's Money, and if the Publick cannot afford to pay well, who can? Its proper to serve a Friend when there is an opportunity." One of Franklin's favorite devices for filling up gaps in the _Gazette_ was to have himself, in the guise of a correspondent, ask himself questions, and then answer them. "I am about courting a girl I have had but little acquaintance with; how shall I come to a knowledge of her faults, and whether she has the virtues I imagine she has," is one such supposititious question. "Commend her among her female acquaintance," is the ready-made answer. Another imaginary question was of this tenor: "Mr. Franklin: Pray let the prettiest Creature in this Place know (by publishing this), that if it was not for her Affectation she would be absolutely irresistible." Next week a flood of replies gushed out of the editor's pigeon-holes. One ran thus: "I cannot conceive who your Correspondent means by 'the prettiest creature' in this Place; but I can assure either him or her, that she who is truly so, has no Affectation at all." And another ran thus: "Sir, Since your last Week's Paper I have look'd in my Glass a thousand Times, I believe, in one way; and if it was not for the Charge of Affectation I might, without Partiality believe myself the Person meant." At times we cannot but suspect that Franklin has deliberately created a sensation for the purpose of quickening the sale of the _Gazette_. For instance, a peruke maker in Second Street advertises that he will "leave off the shaving business after the 22nd of August next." Commenting on this advertisement, Franklin observes that barbers are peculiarly fitted for politics, for they are adept shavers and trimmers; and, when the angry peruke maker calls him to task for his levity, he replies that he cherishes no animosity at all towards him, and can only impute his feelings to a "Want of taste and relish for pieces of that force and beauty which none but a University bred gentleman can produce." On another occasion, when advertising the sailing of a ship, he added this N. B. of his own: "No Sea Hens, nor Black Gowns will be admitted on any terms." To such a degree were some of the clergy incensed by it that they withdrew their subscriptions; but it is not unlikely that in a day or so twice their number in scoffers were added to the subscription list of the young printer. At times the fooling is bald buffoonery. On Thursday last [he informed his readers] a certain P--r ('tis not customary to give names at length on these occasions) walking carefully in clean clothes over some barrels of tar on Carpenter's Wharf, the head of one of them unluckily gave way, and let a leg of him in above the knee. Whether he was upon the Catch at that time, we can not say, but 'tis certain he caught a _Tar-tar_, 'Twas observed he sprang out again right briskly, verifying the common saying, as nimble as a Bee in a Tar barrel. You must know there are several sorts of bees: 'tis true he was no honey bee, nor yet a humble bee: but a _Boo-bee_ he may be allowed to be, namely B. F. Franklin was a publisher of books as well as a newspaper proprietor. Most of the books and pamphlets published by him were of a theological or religious nature, in other words books which, aside from the pecuniary profit of printing them, he was very much disposed to regard as no books at all. Others were of a description to serve the practical wants of a society yet simple in its structure, such as _The Gentlemen's Pocket Farrier_ and _Every Man his Own Doctor, or the Poor Planter's Physician_. But some were of real note such as two little volumes of native American poetry, Colden's _Essay on the Iliac Passion_, which is said to have been the first American medical treatise, Cadwallader's _Essay on the West India Dry Gripes_, and James Logan's translation of Cato's _Moral Distichs_, which Franklin regarded as his _chef d'oeuvre_, and which is said to have been the first book in the Latin tongue to have been both translated and printed in America. Worthy of mention also are various publications on the subject of slavery, precursors of the endless succession a little later on of anti-slavery tracts, books and speeches, which anon became a mountain. The mercantile business, of which Franklin's stationery shop was the nucleus, was of a highly miscellaneous character. In addition to books and pamphlets printed by himself, he imported and sold many others including chapmen's books and ballads. At the time I establish'd myself in Pennsylvania [he tells us in the _Autobiography_], there was not a good bookseller's shop in any of the Colonies to the southward of Boston. In New York and Philad'a the printers were indeed stationers; they sold only paper, etc., almanacs, ballads, and a few common school-books. Those who lov'd reading were oblig'd to send for their books from England. The spirit in which he imported the pamphlets sold by him is indicated in one of his letters to Strahan. "Let me have everything, good or bad, that makes a Noise and has a Run," he says. His stock of merchandise included everything usually sold at a stationer's shop such as good writing paper, choice writing parchment, cyphering slates and pencils, Holman's ink powders, ivory pocket books, pounce and pounce boxes, sealing wax, wafers, pencils, fountain pens, choice English quills, brass inkhorns, and sand glasses. There were besides "fine mezzotints, a great variety of maps, cheap pictures engraved on copper plate of all sorts of birds, beasts, fishes, fruits, flowers etc., useful to such as would learn to draw." Along with these things, and choice consignments of the Franklin Crown Soap, were vended articles almost as varied as the contents of a junkshop, such as the following: very good sack at 6s per gallon, glaz'd fulling papers and bonnet-papers, very good lamp-black, very good chocolate, linseed oil, very good coffee, compasses and scales, Seneca rattlesnake root, with directions how to use it in the pleurisy &c, dividers and protractors, a very good second hand two-wheel chaise, a very neat, new fashion'd vehicle, or four wheel'd chaise, very convenient to carry weak or other sick persons, old or young, good Rhode Island cheese and codfish, quadrants, forestaffs, nocturnals, mariner's compasses, season'd murchantable boards, coarse and fine edgings, fine broad scarlet cloth, fine broad black cloth, fine white thread hose and English sale duck, very good iron stoves, a large horse fit for a chair or saddle, the true and genuine Godfrey's cordial, choice bohea tea, very good English saffron, New York Lottery tickets, choice makrel, to be sold by the barrel, a large copper still, very good spermacety, fine palm oyl, very good Temple spectacles and a new fishing net. Another commodity in which Franklin dealt was the unexpired time of indentured or bond servants, who had sold their services for a series of years in return for transportation to America. This traffic is illustrated in such advertisements in the _Gazette_ as these: "To be sold. A likely servant woman, having three years and a half to serve. She is a good spinner"; "To be sold. A likely servant lad about 15 years of age, and has 6 years to serve." And alas! the humanitarian, who strove so earnestly, during the closing years of his life, when he was famous and rich, and the President of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, to bring home the horrors of slavery to the Southern conscience, was himself what involved until the end utter social disrepute in the slaveholding South, that is to say, a negro-trader. "Some of these slaves," Paul Leicester Ford tells us in _The_ _Many Sided Franklin_, "he procured from New England where, as population grew in density, the need for them passed, leading to their sale in the colonies to the southward." The business was certainly a repulsive one, even when conducted by such a lover of the human species as Franklin. How far this is true the reader can judge for himself when he reads the following advertisements, which are but two of the many of the same kind that appeared in the _Gazette_: To be sold a likely negro woman, with a man-child, fit for town or country business. Enquire of the printer hereof. To be sold. A prime able young negro man, fit for laborious work, in town or country, that has had the small pox: As also a middle aged negro man, that has likewise had the small pox. Enquire of the printer hereof: Or otherwise they will be expos'd to sale by publick vendue, on Saturday the 11th of April next, at 12 o'clock, at the Indian-king, in Market Street. While Franklin was printing pamphlets against slavery and selling negroes, and Deborah was stitching pamphlets and vending old rags, Mrs. Read, the mother of Deborah, was engaged in compounding and vending an ointment suited to conditions still graver than those for which the Franklin Crown Soap was intended. We can hardly doubt that this advertisement, which was published in the _Gazette_, was penned by the same hand which wrote the _Ephemera_: The Widow Read, removed from the upper End of High Street to the _New Printing Office_ near the Market, continues to make and sell her well-known Ointment for the ITCH, with which she has cured abundance of People in and about this City for many Years past. It is always effectual for that purpose, and never fails to perform the Cure speedily. It also kills or drives away all Sorts of Lice in once or twice using. It has no offensive Smell, but rather a pleasant one; and may be used without the least Apprehension of Danger, even to a sucking Infant, being perfectly innocent and safe. Price 2s. a Galleypot containing an Ounce; which is sufficient to remove the most inveterate Itch, and render the Skin clear and smooth. The same advertisement informed the public that the Widow Read also continued to make and sell her excellent _Family Salve_ or Ointment, for Burns or Scalds, (Price 1s. an Ounce) and several other Sorts of Ointments and Salves as usual. From this review of the business career of Franklin, it will be seen that the stairway, by which he climbed to pecuniary independence and his wider fame, though not long, was, in its earlier gradations, hewn step by step from the rock. From the printing office of Keimer to Versailles and the _salon_ of Madame Helvétius was no primrose path. As long as the human struggle in its thousand forms, for subsistence and preferment, goes on, as long as from year to year youth continues to be rudely pushed over the edge of the nest, with no reliance except its own strength of wing, it is safe to say that the first chapters of the _Autobiography_ will remain a powerful incentive to human hope and ambition. FOOTNOTES: [6] In 1723 the town of New York had a population of seven or eight thousand persons. [7] In his edition of Franklin's works, vol. x., p. 154, Smyth says of him, when he was in London in his youth, "His nights were spent in cynical criticism of religion or in the company of dissolute women." It is likely enough that the religious skepticism of Franklin at this time found expression in his conversation as well as in his _Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity_, though there is no evidence to justify the extreme statement that his nights _were spent_ in irreligious talk. His days, we do know, were partly spent in listening to London preachers. He may have had good reason, too, to utter a _peccavi_ in other sexual relations than those that he so disastrously attempted to sustain to Ralph's mistress; but of this there is no evidence whatever. [8] The ineffaceable impression of gratitude left upon the mind of Franklin by the timely assistance of these two dear friends was again expressed in the Codicil to his Will executed in 1789. In it he speaks of himself as "assisted to set up" his business in Philadelphia by kind loans of money from two friends there, which was the foundation, he said, of his fortune and of all the utility in life that might be ascribed to him. [9] The interest of Franklin in the Art of Printing did not end with his retirement from his vocation as a printer. When he arrived in England in 1757, he is said to have visited the composing-room at Watts' printing establishment, where he was employed many years before, and to have celebrated the occasion by giving to the composing force there a _bienvenu_, or fee for drink, and proposing as a toast "Success to Printing." The type of Baskerville, the "charming Editions" of Didot _le Jeune_, the even finer _Sallust_, and _Don Quixote_ of Madrid, and the method of cementing letters, conceived by John Walter, the founder of the _London Times_, all came in for his appreciative attention. It is said that the process of stereotyping was first communicated to Didot by him. When he visited the establishment of the latter, in 1780, he turned to one of his presses, and printed off several sheets with an ease which excited the astonishment of the printers about him. Until the close of his life he had a keen eye for a truly black ink and superfine printing paper and all the other niceties of his former calling. The only trace of eccentricity in his life is to be found in his methods of punctuation, which are marked by a sad lack of uniformity in the use of commas, semicolons and colons, and by the lavish employment of the devices to denote emphasis which someone has happily termed "typographical yells." CHAPTER III Franklin as a Statesman The career of Franklin as a public official began in 1736, when he was appointed Clerk of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania. In this position, he remained until his retirement from business precipitated so many political demands upon him that he had to give it up for still higher responsibilities. The publick [he says in the _Autobiography_] now considering me as a man of leisure, laid hold of me for their purposes, every part of our civil government, and almost at the same time, imposing some duty upon me. The Governor put me into the commission of the peace; the corporation of the city chose me of the common council, and soon after an alderman; and the citizens at large chose me a burgess to represent them in Assembly.[10] His legislative seat was all the more agreeable to him because he had grown tired as clerk of listening to debates in which he could take no part, and which were frequently so lifeless that for very weariness he had to amuse himself with drawing magic squares or circles, or what not, as he sat at his desk. The office of justice of the peace he withdrew from by degrees, when he found that, to fill it with credit, more knowledge of the common law was requisite than he possessed, and, in this connection, the belief maybe hazarded that his influence in Congress and the Federal Convention of 1787 would have been still greater, if he had been a better lawyer, and, therefore, more competent to cope in debate with contemporaries fitter than he was to discuss questions which, true to the time-honored Anglo-Saxon traditions, turned largely upon the provisions of charters and statutes. That he was lacking in fluency of speech we have, as we have seen, his own admission--a species of evidence, however, by no means conclusive in the case of a man so little given to self-praise as he was. But there is testimony to convince us that, as a debater, Franklin was, at least, not deficient in the best characteristic of a good debater, that of placing the accent upon the truly vital points of his case. I served [declares Jefferson] with General Washington in the legislature of Virginia, before the revolution, and, during it, with Dr. Franklin in Congress. I never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point, which was to decide the question. They laid their shoulders to the great points, knowing that the little ones would follow of themselves. What John Adams has to say about Franklin as a legislator is manifestly the offspring of mere self-love. After taking a view of his own legislative activity through the highly magnifying lens, which he brought to bear upon everything relating to himself, he pictures Franklin in Congress as "from day to day, sitting in silence, a great part of his time fast asleep in his chair." But whatever were the demerits of Franklin as a speaker, his influence was very great in every legislative assembly in which he ever sat. To begin with, he had the kind of eloquence that gives point to his own saying, "Whose life lightens, his words thunder." Commenting in the latter part of his career to Lord Fitzmaurice upon the stress laid by Demosthenes upon action as the point of first importance in oratory, he said that he thought another kind of action of more importance to an orator, who would persuade people to follow his advice, viz. such a course of action in the conduct of life, as would impress them with an opinion of his integrity as well as of his understanding; that, this opinion once established, all the difficulties, delays, and oppositions, usually occasioned by doubts and suspicions, were prevented; and such a man, though a very imperfect speaker, would almost always carry his points against the most flourishing orator, who had not the character of sincerity. In the next place, Franklin's rare knowledge and wisdom made him an invaluable counsellor for any deliberative gathering. He was the protagonist in the Pennsylvania Assembly of the Popular Party, in its contest with the Proprietary Party, and was for a brief time its Speaker. As soon as he returned from Europe, at the beginning of the Revolution, he was thrice honored by being elected to the Continental Congress, the Pennsylvania Assembly, and the Convention to frame a constitution for Pennsylvania. Besides appointing him Postmaster-General, Congress placed him upon many of its most important committees; the Assembly made him Chairman of its Committee of Safety, a post equivalent, for all practical purposes, to the executive headship of the Province; and the Convention made him its President. It is safe to say that, had there not been a Washington, even his extreme old age and physical infirmities would not have kept him from being the presiding officer of the Federal Convention of 1787 and the first President of the United States. The intellect of Franklin was too solid to be easily imposed upon by mere glibness of speech. "Here comes the orator, with his flood of words and his drop of reason," remarks Poor Richard. Equally pointed is that other saying of his, "The worst wheel of the cart makes the most noise." But Franklin was fully alive to the splendid significance of human eloquence, when enlisted in the service of high-minded and far-seeing statesmanship. Speaking in a letter to Lord Stanhope of Lord Chatham's speech in support of his motion for the removal of the King's troops from Boston, he said, "Dr. F. is fill'd with admiration of that truly great Man. He has seen, in the course of Life, sometimes Eloquence without Wisdom, and often Wisdom without Eloquence; in the present Instance he sees both united; and both, as he thinks, in the highest Degree possible." When Franklin took his seat in the Assembly, William Franklin was elected its clerk in his place; for heredity as well as consanguinity was a feature of the Franklin system of patronage. Once elected to the Assembly, he acquired a degree of popularity and influence that rendered his re-election for many years almost a matter of course. "My election to this trust," he says in the _Autobiography_, "was repeated every year for ten years, without my ever asking any elector for his vote, or signifying, either directly or indirectly, any desire of being chosen." So eager were his constituents to confer the honor upon him that they kept on conferring it upon him year after year, even when he was abroad.[11] He proved himself eminently worthy of this confidence. By nature and training, he was a true democrat, profoundly conservative at the core, but keenly sensitive to every rational and wholesome appeal to his liberal or generous instincts. He loved law and order, stable institutions, and settled forms and tendencies, rooted in the soil of transmitted wisdom and experience. He was too much of an Englishman to have any sympathy with hasty changes or rash innovations. Much as he loved France he could never have been drawn into such a delirious outburst as the French Revolution. He loved liberty as Hampden loved it, as Chatham loved it, as Gladstone loved it. John Wilkes, though in some respects an ignoble, was in other respects an indubitable champion of English freedom; yet Franklin utterly failed to see in him even a case for the application of his reminder to his daughter that sweet and clear waters come through very dirty earth. His happy nature and his faith in individual thrift sometimes made him slow to believe that masses of men had as much cause for political discontent as they claimed, and for such mob violence, as attended the career of Wilkes, of whom he speaks in one of his letters to his son as "an outlaw and an exile, of bad personal character, not worth a farthing," it was impossible for his deep-seated respect for law and order to have any toleration; though he did express on one occasion the remarkable conviction that, if George the Third had had a bad private character, and John Wilkes a good one, the latter might have turned the former out of his kingdom. It is certain, however, that few men have ever detested more strongly than he did the baseness and meanness of arbitrary power. And he had little patience at the same time with conditions of any sort that rested upon mere precedent, or prescription. He welcomed every new triumph of science over inert matter, every fresh victory of truth over superstition, bigotry, or the unseeing eye, every salutary reform that vindicated the fitness of the human race for its destiny of unceasing self-advancement. His underlying instincts were firmly fixed in the ground, but his sympathies reached out on every side into the free air of expanding human hopes and aspirations. In his faith in the residuary wisdom and virtue of the mass of men, he is more like Jefferson than any of his Revolutionary compeers. "The People seldom continue long in the wrong, when it is nobody's Interest to mislead them," he wrote to Abel James. The tribute, it must be confessed, is a rather equivocal one, as it is always somebody's interest to mislead the People, but the sanguine spirit of the observation pervades all his relations to popular caprice or resentment. Less equivocal was his statement to Galloway: "The People do not indeed always see their Friends in the same favourable Light; they are sometimes mistaken, and sometimes misled; but sooner or later they come right again, and redouble their former Affection." Few were the public men of his age who looked otherwise than askance at universal suffrage, but he was not one of them. Liberty, or freedom [he declared in his _Some Good Whig Principles_], consists in having _an actual share_ in the appointment of those who frame the laws, and who are to be the guardians of every man's life, property, and peace; for the _all_ of one man is as dear to him as the _all_ of another; and the poor man has an _equal_ right, but _more_ need, to have representatives in the legislature than the rich one. For similar reasons he was opposed to entails, and favored the application of the just and equal law of gavelkind to the division of intestate estates. It was impossible for such a man as this not to ally himself with the popular cause, when he became a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly. At that time, the Proprietary Government of Pennsylvania had proved as odious to the people of the Province as the proprietary governments of South Carolina and the Jerseys had proved to the people of those Colonies. Almost from the time of the original settlement, the relations between the Assembly and the Penns had been attended by mutual bickerings and reproaches. First William Penn had scolded the Assembly in a high key, then his sons; and, in resolution after resolution, the Assembly had, in true British fashion, stubbornly asserted the liberties and privileges of their constituents, and given the Proprietary Government, under thinly veiled forms of parliamentary deference, a Roland for its every Oliver. The truth was that a Proprietary Government, uniting as it did governmental functions, dependent for their successful exercise upon the popular faith in the disinterestedness of those who exercised them, with the selfish concerns of a landlord incessantly at loggerheads with his vendees and tenants over purchase money and quitrents, was utterly incompatible with the dignity of real political rule,[12] and hopelessly repugnant to the free English spirit of the Pennsylvanians. Under such circumstances, there could be no such thing as a true commonwealth; nor anything much better than a feudal fief. Political sovereignty lost its aspect of detachment and legitimate authority in the eyes of the governed, and wore the appearance of a mere organization for the transaction of private business. Almost as a matter of course, the Proprietaries came to think and speak of the Province as if it were as much their personal property as one of their household chattels, refusing, as Franklin said, to give their assent to laws, unless some private advantage was obtained, some profit got or unequal exemption gained for their estate, or some privilege wrested from the people; and almost, as a matter of course, the disaffected people of the Province sullenly resented a situation so galling to their pride and self-respect. Franklin saw all this with his usual clearness. After conceding in his _Cool Thoughts_ that it was not unlikely that there were faults on both sides, "every glowing Coal being apt to inflame its Opposite," he expressed the opinion that the cause of the contentions was radical, interwoven in the Constitution, and so become of the very Nature, of Proprietary Governments. And [he added] as some Physicians say, every Animal Body brings into the World among its original Stamina the Seeds of that Disease that shall finally produce its Dissolution; so the Political Body of a Proprietary Government, contains those convulsive Principles that will at length destroy it. The Proprietary Government of Pennsylvania was bad enough in principle; it was made still worse by the unjust and greedy manner in which it was administered by Thomas and Richard Penn, who were the Proprietaries, when Franklin became a member of the Assembly. The vast estate of William Penn in Pennsylvania, consisting of some twenty-six million acres of land, held subject to the nominal obligation of the owner to pay to the King one fifth of such gold and silver as the Province might yield, descended upon the death of Penn to his sons John, Thomas and Richard, in the proportion of one half to John, as the eldest son, and in the proportion of one fourth each to Thomas and Richard. John died in 1746, after devising his one half share to Thomas; thus making Thomas the owner of three out of the four shares.[13] The political powers of the Proprietaries were exercised by a deputy-governor whose position was in the highest degree vexatious and perplexing. He held his office by appointment of the Proprietaries, who resided in England, and the mode in which he was to discharge his duties was prescribed by rigid "instructions," issued to him by them. His salary, however, was derived from the Assembly, which was rarely at peace with the Proprietary Government. If he obeyed his instructions, he ran the risk of losing his salary; if he disobeyed them, he was certain to lose his place. Incredible as it may now seem, the main duty imposed upon him by his instructions was that of vetoing every tax bill enacted by the Assembly which did not expressly exempt all the located, unimproved and unoccupied lands of the Proprietaries, and all the quitrents, fines and purchase money out at interest, to which they were entitled, that is to say, the greater part of their immense estate. This was the axis about which the bitter controversy between the Popular and Proprietary parties, in which Franklin acquired his political training and reputation, revolved like one of the lurid waterspouts with which a letter that his correspondent John Perkins received from him has been illustrated. The Assembly insisted that they should not be required to vote money for the support of the Proprietary Government, unless the proprietary estate bore its proper share of the common burden. The Governor did not dare to violate his instructions for fear of being removed by his masters, and of being sued besides on the bond by which he had bound himself not to violate them. At times, the feud was so intense and absorbing, that, like a pair of gamecocks, too intent on their own deadly encounter to hear an approaching footstep, the combatants almost lost sight of the fact that, under the shelter of their dissensions, the Indian was converting the frontiers of Pennsylvania into a charred and blood-stained wilderness. Occasionally the Assembly had to yield the point with a reservation asserting that its action was not to be taken as a precedent, and once, when England as well as America was feeling the shock of Braddock's defeat, the pressure of public opinion in England was sufficient to coerce the Proprietaries into adding five thousand pounds to the sum appropriated by the Assembly for the defence of the Province. But, as a general thing, there was little disposition on either side to compromise. The sharpness of the issue was well illustrated in the bill tendered by the Assembly to Governor Morris for his signature after Braddock's defeat. Both before, and immediately after that catastrophe, he had, in reliance upon the critical condition of the public safety, endeavored to drive the Assembly into providing for the defence of the Province without calling upon the proprietary estate for a contribution. The bill in question declared "that all estates, real and personal, were to be taxed, those of the proprietaries _not_ excepted." "His amendment," says Franklin in his brief way, "was, for _not_ read _only_; a small, but very material alteration."[14] This dependence of the Governor upon the Assembly for his salary and the dependence of the Assembly upon the Governor for the approval of its enactments brought about a traffic in legislation between them which was one of the most disgraceful features of the Proprietary régime; though it became so customary that even the most honorable Governor did not scruple to engage in it. This traffic is thus described by Franklin in his stirring "Preface to the Speech of Joseph Galloway, Esq.": Ever since the Revenue of the Quit-rents first, and after that the Revenue of Tavern-Licenses, were settled irrevocably on our Proprietaries and Governors, they have look'd on those Incomes as their proper Estate, for which they were under no Obligations to the People: And when they afterwards concurr'd in passing any useful Laws, they considered them as so many Jobbs, for which they ought to be particularly paid. Hence arose the Custom of Presents twice a Year to the Governors, at the close of each Session in which Laws were past, given at the Time of Passing. They usually amounted to a Thousand Pounds per Annum. But when the Governors and Assemblies disagreed, so that Laws were not pass'd, the Presents were withheld. When a Disposition to agree ensu'd, there sometimes still remain'd some Diffidence. The Governors would not pass the Laws that were wanted, without being sure of the Money, even all that they call'd their Arrears; nor the Assemblies give the Money without being sure of the Laws. Thence the Necessity of some private Conference, in which mutual Assurances of good Faith might be receiv'd and given, that the Transactions should go hand in hand. This system of barter prevailed even before Franklin became a member of the Assembly, and how fixed and ceremonious its forms sometimes were we can infer from what happened on one of the semi-annual market days during Governor Thomas' administration. Various bills were lying dormant in his hands. Accordingly the House ordered two of its members to call upon him and acquaint him that it had long "waited for his Result" on these bills, and desired to know when they might expect it. They returned and reported that the Governor was pleased to say that he had had the bills long under consideration, and "_waited the Result_" of the House. Then, after the House had resolved itself into a committee of the whole, for the purpose of taking the "Governor's support" into consideration, there was a further interchange of communications between the House and the Governor; the former reporting "some progress" to the Governor, and the Governor replying that, as he had received assurances of a "_good disposition_," on the part of the House, he thought it incumbent upon him to show _the like_ on his part by sending down the bills, which lay before him, without any amendment. The manifestation of a good disposition was not the same thing as an actual promise to approve the bills; so the wary assembly simply resolved that, on the passage of such bills as then lay before the Governor, and of the Naturalization Bill, and such other bills as might be presented to him during the pending session, there should be paid to him the sum of five hundred pounds; and that, on the passage of the same bills, there should be paid to him the further sum of one thousand pounds for the current year's support. Agreeably with this resolution, orders were drawn on the Treasurer and Trustees of the Loan-Office, and, when the Governor was informed of the fact, he appointed a time for passing the bills which was done with one hand, while he received the orders in the other. Thereupon with the utmost politeness he thanked the House for the fifteen hundred pounds as if it had been a free gift, and a mere mark of respect and affection. "_I thank you_, Gentlemen," he said, "for this _Instance_ of _your Regard_; which I am the more pleased with, as it gives an agreeable Prospect of _future Harmony_ between me and the Representatives of the People." Despicably enough, while this treaty was pending, the Penns had a written understanding with the Governor, secured by his bond, that they were to receive a share of all money thus obtained from the people whom they sought to load with the entire weight of taxation. Indeed, emboldened as Franklin said by the declining sense of shame, that always follows frequent repetitions of sinning, they later in Governor Denny's time had the effrontery to claim openly, in a written reply to a communication from the Assembly, with respect to their refusal to bear any part of the expenses entailed on the Province by the Indians, that the excess of these donatives over and above the salary of the Governor should belong to them. By the Constitution, they said, their consent was essential to the validity of the laws enacted by the People, and it would tend the better to facilitate the several matters, which had to be transacted with them, for the representatives of the People to show a regard to them and their interest. The Assembly hotly replied that they hoped that they would always be able to obtain needful laws from the goodness of their sovereign without going to the market for them to a subject. But the hope was a vain one, and to that market, directly or indirectly, the People of Pennsylvania still had to go, for some time to come. To use Franklin's language, there was no other market that they could go to for the commodity that they wanted. Do not, my courteous Reader [he exclaims with fine scorn in the "Preface to the Speech of Joseph Galloway, Esq."] take Pet at our Proprietary Constitution, for these our Bargain and Sale Proceedings in Legislation. 'Tis a happy Country where Justice, and what was your own before, can be had for Ready Money. 'Tis another Addition to the Value of Money, and of Course another Spur to Industry. Every Land is not so bless'd. There are Countries where the princely Proprietor claims to be Lord of all Property; where what is your own shall not only be wrested from you, but the Money you give to have it restor'd, shall be kept with it, and your offering so much, being a Sign of your being too Rich, you shall be plunder'd of every Thing that remain'd. These Times are not come here yet: Your present Proprietors have never been more unreasonable hitherto, than barely to insist on your Fighting in Defence of their Property, and paying the Expences yourselves; or if their estates must, (ah! _must_) be tax'd towards it, that the _best_ of their Lands shall be tax'd no higher than the _worst_ of yours. Governor Hamilton, who succeeded Governor Thomas, so far departed from the vicious practice of buying and selling laws as to sign them without prepayment, but, when he observed that the Assembly was tardy in making payment, and yet asked him to give his assent to additional laws, before prior ones had been paid for, he stated his belief to it that as many useful laws had been enacted by him as by any of his predecessors in the same space of time, and added that, nevertheless, he had not understood that any allowance had been made to him for his support, as had been customary in the Province. The hint proved effective, the money was paid and the bills were approved. From the time that Franklin became a member of the Assembly until the time that the minor controversy between the Proprietary Party and the Popular Party in Pennsylvania was obscured by the larger controversy between the Crown and all the American Colonies, he was engaged in an almost uninterrupted struggle with the Proprietaries, first, for the annulment of their claim to exemption from taxation, and, secondly, for the displacement of their government by a Royal Government. If there was ever an interlude in this struggle, it was only because, in devising measures for the defence of the Province, a Proprietary Governor found it necessary, at some trying conjuncture, to rely upon the management of Franklin to quiet the Quakers, who constituted a majority of the Assembly and detested both war and the Proprietaries, or upon the general abilities and popularity of Franklin to strengthen his own feeble counsels. If there was any political tranquillity in the Province during this time, it was, to employ one of Franklin's own comparisons, only such tranquillity as exists in a naval engagement between two broadsides. On the one hand were ranged the official partisans and dependents of the Proprietary Government and other adherents of the kind, whose allegiance is likely to be won by the social prestige and political patronage of executive authority. To this faction, in the latter stages of the conflict, was added a large body of Presbyterians whose sectarian sympathies had been excited by the Scotch-Irish uprising against the Indians, of which we have previously spoken. On the other hand were ranged the Quakers, upon whom the burden of resisting the Proprietary encroachments upon the popular rights had mainly rested from the origin of the Province, and middle-class elements of the population whose views and sympathies were not highly colored by any special influences. The task of preparing resolutions, addresses and remonstrances, voicing the popular criticism of the Proprietaries, was mainly committed to Franklin by the Assembly. It was with him, too, as the ablest and most influential representative of the popular interest that the various Proprietary Governors usually dealt. We first find him high in favor with Governor Thomas and his Council at the time of the Association because of his activity, when still only Clerk of the Assembly, in providing for the defence of the Province and arousing a martial spirit in its people. This was the period when the Quaker found it necessary to help his conscience out a little with his wit, and when Franklin made good use of the principle that men will countenance many things with their backs that they will not countenance with their faces. The Quaker majority in the Assembly did not relish his intimacy at this time with the members of the Council who had so often trod on their punctilio about military expenditures, and it might have been pleased, he conjectured, if he had voluntarily resigned his clerkship; "but," he declares in the _Autobiography_, "they did not care to displace me on account merely of my zeal for the association, and they could not well give another reason." Governor Hamilton became so sick of the broils, in which he was involved by the Proprietary instructions, that he resigned. His successor was the Governor Morris whose father loved disputation so much that he encouraged his children to practise it when he was digesting his dinner. Franklin met him at New York when he was on his way to Boston, and Morris was on his way to Philadelphia to enter upon his duties as Governor. So ready for a war of words was the new Governor that, when Franklin returned from Boston to Philadelphia, he and the House had already come to blows, and the conflict never ceased as long as he remained Governor. In the conflict, Franklin was his chief antagonist. Whenever a speech or message of the Governor was to be answered, he was made a member of the Committee appointed to answer it, and by such committees he was invariably selected to draft the answer. "Our answers," he says, "as well as his messages, were often tart, and sometimes indecently abusive." But the Governor was at heart an amiable man, and Franklin, resolute as he was, when his teeth were fairly set, had no black blood in his veins. Though one might have imagined, he says, that he and the Governor could not meet without cutting throats, so little personal ill-will arose between them that they even often dined together. One afternoon [he tells us in the _Autobiography_] in the height of this public quarrel, we met in the street. "Franklin," says he, "you must go home with me and spend the evening; I am to have some company that you will like"; and, taking me by the arm, he led me to his house. In gay conversation over our wine, after supper, he told us, jokingly, that he much admir'd the idea of Sancho Panza, who, when it was proposed to give him a government, requested it might be a government of _blacks_, as then, if he could not agree with his people, he might sell them. One of his friends, who sat next to me, says, "Franklin, why do you continue to side with these damn'd Quakers? Had you not better sell them? The Proprietor would give you a good price." "The Governor," says I, "has not yet _blacked_ them enough." He, indeed, had laboured hard to blacken the Assembly in all his messages, but they wip'd off his colouring as fast as he laid it on, and plac'd it, in return, thick upon his own face; so that, finding he was likely to be negrofied himself, he, as well as Mr. Hamilton, grew tir'd of the contest, and quitted the Government. All these disputes originated in the instructions given by the Proprietaries to their Governors not to approve any tax measure enacted by the Assembly that did not expressly exempt their estates; conduct which Franklin justly terms in the _Autobiography_ "incredible meanness." The ability of Governor Morris to keep on good terms with Franklin in spite of the perpetual wrangling between the Assembly and himself Franklin sometimes thought was due to the fact that the Governor was bred a lawyer and regarded him as simply the advocate of the Assembly and himself as simply the advocate of the Proprietaries. However this was, he sometimes called upon Franklin in a friendly way to advise with him on different points; and occasionally, though not often, Franklin tells us, took his advice. But when the miserable fugitives, who escaped from the _Aceldama_ on the Monongahela, brought back to the settlements their awful tale of carnage and horror, and Dunbar and his rout were cravenly seeking the protection of those whom they should have protected, Governor Morris was only too glad to consult, and take the advice of, the strongest man on the American Continent, except the gallant Virginian, young in years, but from early responsibilities and hardships, as well as native wisdom and intrepidity, endowed with a calm judgment and tempered courage far beyond his years, whom Providence almost seemed to have taken under its direct guardianship for its future purposes on the day that Braddock fell. Later, when it appeared as if the Indians would carry desolation and death into the very bowels of Pennsylvania, the Governor was equally glad to place Franklin in charge of its Northwestern Frontier, and to thrust blank military commissions into his hands to be filled up by him as he pleased. And later still, when the desire of the Governor to consult with Franklin about the proper measures for preventing the desertion of the back counties of Pennsylvania had brought the latter home from the Northwestern Frontier, the Governor did not hesitate, in planning an expedition against Fort Duquesne, to offer Franklin a commission as general. If Franklin had accepted the offer, we are justified, we think, in assuming that he would have won at least as high a degree of credit as that which he accorded to Shirley. "For tho' Shirley," he tells us in the _Autobiography_, "was not a bred soldier, he was sensible and sagacious in himself, and attentive to good advice from others, capable of forming judicious plans, and quick and active in carrying them into execution." No mean summary of the military virtues of Franklin himself as a citizen soldier. But Franklin knew the limitations of his training too well to be allured by such a deceitful honor. There were few civil tasks to which he was not equal, but, when it came to being a military commander, he had the good sense to make an admission like that which Shirley made to him. When a banquet was given to Lord Loudon by the city of New York, Shirley was present, though the occasion was due to the fact that the command previously held by him had just been transferred to Loudon. Franklin noticed that he was sitting in a very low seat. "They have given you, sir, too low a seat," he said. "No matter, Mr. Franklin," replied Shirley, "I find _a low seat_ the easiest." When Governor Morris saw that, disputatious as he was, he was no match in that respect for the Assembly, he was succeeded by Governor Denny, who brought over with him from England the gold medal awarded by the Royal Society to Franklin for his electrical discoveries. This honor as well as the political experience of his predecessors was calculated to impress upon the Governor the importance of being on good terms with Franklin. At all events, when the medal was delivered by him to Franklin at a public dinner given to himself, after his arrival at Philadelphia, he added to the gift some very polite expressions of his esteem, and assured Franklin that he had long known him by reputation. After dinner, he left the diners with their wine, and took Franklin aside into another room, and told him that he had been advised by his friends in England to cultivate a friendship with him as the man who was best able to give him good advice, and to make his task easy. Much also was said by the Governor about the good disposition of the Proprietary towards the Province and the advantage that it would be to everyone and to Franklin particularly if the long opposition to the Proprietary was abandoned, and harmony between him and the people restored. No one, said the Governor, could be more serviceable in bringing this about than Franklin himself, who might depend upon his services being duly acknowledged and recompensed. "The drinkers," the _Autobiography_ goes on, "finding we did not return immediately to the table, sent us a decanter of Madeira, which the Governor made liberal use of, and in proportion became more profuse of his solicitations and promises." To these overtures Franklin replied in a proper strain of mingled independence and good feeling, and concluded by expressing the hope that the Governor had not brought with him the same unfortunate instructions as his predecessors. The only answer that the Governor ever gave to this inquiry was given when he settled down to the duties of his office. It then became plain enough that he was under exactly the same instructions as his predecessors; the old ulcer broke out afresh, and Franklin's pen was soon again prodding Proprietary selfishness. But through it all he contrived to maintain the same relations of personal amity with Governor Denny that he had maintained with Governor Morris. "Between us personally," he says, "no enmity arose; we were often together; he was a man of letters, had seen much of the world, and was very entertaining and pleasing in conversation." But the situation, so far as the Province was concerned, was too grievous to be longer borne without an appeal for relief to the Crown. The Assembly had enacted a bill, appropriating the sum of sixty thousand pounds for the King's use, ten thousand pounds of which were to be expended on Lord Loudon's orders, and the Governor, in compliance with his instructions, had refused to give it his approval. This brought things to a head, the House resolved to petition the King to override the instructions and Franklin was appointed its agent to go over to England and present the petition. His passage was engaged, his sea-stores were actually all on board, when Lord Loudon himself came over to Philadelphia for the express purpose of bringing about an accommodation between the jarring interests. The Governor and Franklin met him at his request, and opened their minds fully to him; Franklin revamping all the old popular arguments, so often urged by him, and the Governor pleading his instructions, the bond that he had given and the ruin that awaited him if he disregarded it. "Yet," says Franklin, "seemed not unwilling to hazard himself if Lord Loudon would advise it." This his Lordship did not choose to do, though Franklin once thought that he had nearly prevailed on him to do it; and finally he entreated Franklin to use his influence with the Assembly to induce it to yield, promising, if it did, to employ unsparingly the King's troops for the defence of the frontiers of Pennsylvania, but stating that, if it did not, those frontiers must remain exposed to hostile incursion. The result was that the packet, in which Franklin engaged passage, sailed off with his sea-stores, while the parties were palavering, and the Assembly, after entering a formal protest against the duress, under which it gave way, abandoned its bill, and enacted another with the hateful exemption in it which was promptly approved by the Governor. Franklin was now free to embark upon his voyage, whenever he could find a ship ready to sail, but, unfortunately for him, all the packets by which he could sail were at the beck of Lord Loudon, who was the most vacillating of human beings. When Franklin, before leaving Philadelphia, inquired of him the precise time at which a packet boat, that he said would be off soon, would sail, he replied: "I have given out that she is to sail on Saturday next; but I may let you know, _entre nous_, that if you are there by Monday morning, you will be in time, but do not delay longer." Because of detention at a ferry, Franklin did not reach New York before noon on Monday, but he was relieved, when he arrived, to be told that the packet would not sail until the next day. This was about the beginning of April. In point of fact, it was near the end of June when it got off. At the time of Franklin's arrival in New York, it was one of the two packets, that were being kept waiting in port for the dispatches, upon which his Lordship appeared to be always engaged. While thus held up, another packet arrived only to be placed under the same embargo. Each had a list of impatient passengers, and many letters and orders for insurance against war risks from American merchants, but, day after day, his Lordship, entirely unmindful of the impatience and anxiety that he was creating, sat continually at his desk, writing his interminable dispatches. Calling one morning to pay his respects, Franklin found in his ante-chamber Innis, a Philadelphia messenger, who had brought on a batch of letters to his Lordship from Governor Denny, and who told Franklin that he was to call the next day for his Lordship's answer to the Governor, and would then set off for Philadelphia at once. On the strength of this assurance, Franklin the same day placed some letters of his own for delivery in that city in Innis' hands. A fortnight afterwards, he met the messenger in the same ante-chamber. "So, you are soon return'd, Innis" he said. "_Return'd!_" replied Innis, "No, I am not _gone_ yet." "How so?" "I have called here by order every morning these two weeks past for his lordship's letter, and it is not yet ready." "Is it possible, when he is so great a writer? for I see him constantly at his escritoire." "Yes," says Innis, "but he is like St. George on the signs, _always on horseback, and never rides on_." Indeed, so purely rotatory was all his Lordship's epistolary energy, unremitting as it seemed to be, that one of the reasons given by William Pitt for subsequently removing him was that "_the minister never heard from him, and could not know what he was doing_." Finally, the three packets dropped down to Sandy Hook to join the British fleet there. Not knowing but that they might make off any day, their passengers thought it safest to board them before they dropped down. The consequence was that they found themselves anchored at Sandy Hook for about six weeks, "as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean," and driven to the necessity of consuming all their sea-stores and buying more. At length, when the fleet did weigh anchor, with his Lordship and all his army on board, bound for the reduction of Louisburg, the three packets were ordered to attend it in readiness to receive the dispatches which the General was still scribbling upon the element that was not more mutable than his own purposes. When Franklin had been five days out, his packet was finally released, and stood off beyond the reach of his Lordship's indefatigable pen, but the other two packets were still kept in tow by him all the way to Halifax, where, after exercising his men for some time in sham attacks on sham forts, he changed his mind about besieging Louisburg, and returned to New York with all his troops and the two packets and their passengers. In the meantime, the French and their savage friends had captured Fort George, and butchered many of the garrison after its capitulation. The captain of one of the two packets, that were brought back to New York, afterwards told Franklin in London that, when he had been detained a month by his Lordship, he requested his permission to heave his ship down and clear her bottom. He was asked how long that would require. He answered three days. His Lordship replied, "If you can do it in one day, I give leave; otherwise not; for you must certainly sail the day after tomorrow." So he never obtained leave, though detained afterwards, from day to day, during full three months. No wonder that an irate passenger, who represented himself as having suffered considerable pecuniary loss, swore after he finally reached London in Franklin's presence, that he would sue Lord Loudon for damages. As Oxenstiern's son was enjoined by his father to do, Franklin had gone out into the world and seen with what little wisdom it is ruled. "On the whole," he says in the _Autobiography_, "I wonder'd much how such a man came to be intrusted with so important a business as the conduct of a great army; but, having since seen more of the great world, and the means of obtaining, and motives for giving places, my wonder is diminished." The _Autobiography_ makes it evident enough that for Loudon Franklin came to entertain the heartiest contempt.[15] His Lordship's movements in 1757 he stigmatized as frivolous, expensive and disgraceful to the nation beyond conception. He was responsible, Franklin thought, for the loss of Fort George, and for the foundering of a large part of the Carolina fleet, which, for lack of notice from him, remained anchored in the worm-infested waters of Charleston harbor for three months, after he had raised his embargo on the exportation of provisions. Nor does Franklin hesitate to charge that this embargo, while laid on the pretence of cutting off the enemy from supplies, was in reality laid for the purpose of beating down the price of provisions in the interest of the contractors, in whose profits, it was suspected, that Loudon had a share. Not only did his Lordship decline, on the shallow pretext that he did not wish to mix his accounts with those of his predecessors, to give Franklin the order that he had promised him for the payment of the balance, still due him on account of Braddock's expedition, though liquidated by his own audit, but, when Franklin urged the fact that he had charged no commission for his services, as a reason why he should be promptly paid, his Lordship cynically replied, "O, Sir, you must not think of persuading us that you are no gainer; we understand better those affairs, and know that everyone concerned in supplying the army finds means, in the doing it, to fill his own pockets." Franklin and his son arrived in London on July 27, 1757. Shortly after he had settled down in his lodgings, he called upon Dr. Fothergill, whose counsel he had been advised to obtain, and who thought that, before an application was made to the British Government, there should be an effort to reach an understanding with the Penns themselves. Then took place the interview between Franklin and Lord Granville, at which his Lordship, after some preliminary discourse, expressed this alarming opinion: You Americans have wrong ideas of the nature of your constitution; you contend that the King's instructions to his governors are not laws, and think yourselves at liberty to regard or disregard them at your own discretion. But those instructions are not like the pocket instructions given to a minister going abroad, for regulating his conduct in some trifling point of ceremony. They are first drawn up by judges learned in the laws; they are then considered, debated, and perhaps amended in Council, after which they are signed by the king. They are then, so far as they relate to you, the _law of the land_, for the King is the LEGISLATOR OF THE COLONIES. The correctness of this opinion was combated by Franklin. He told his Lordship that this was new doctrine to him, and that he had always understood from the American charters that the colonial laws were to be enacted by the assemblies of the Colonies, and that, once enacted and assented to by the King, the King could not repeal or alter them, and that, as the colonial assemblies could not make laws for themselves without his assent, so he could not make laws for them without their assent. The great man's reply was as brief as a great man's reply is only too likely to be when his opinions are questioned by his inferiors. It was merely that Franklin was totally mistaken. Franklin did not think so, and, concerned for fear that Lord Granville might be but expressing the sentiment of the Court, he wrote down what had been said to him as soon as he returned to his lodgings. The utterance reminded him that some twenty years before a bill had been introduced into Parliament by the ministry of that time containing a clause, intended to make the King's instructions laws in the Colonies, but that the clause had been stricken out of it by the House of Commons. For this, he said, the Colonies adored the Commons, as their friends and the friends of liberty, until it afterwards seemed as if they had refused the point of sovereignty to the King only that they might reserve it for themselves. A meeting between the Proprietaries and Franklin was arranged by Doctor Fothergill. It assumed the form that such meetings are apt to assume, that is of mutual professions of an earnest desire to agree, repetition of the old antagonistic reasonings and a disagreement as stubborn as before. However, it was agreed that Franklin should reduce the complaints against the Proprietaries to writing, and that the Proprietaries were to consider them. When the paper was drawn, they submitted it to their solicitor, Ferdinand John Paris, who had represented them in the celebrated litigation between the Penns and the Lords Baltimore over the boundary line between Pennsylvania and Maryland, and had written all their papers and messages in their disputes with the Pennsylvania Assembly. "He was," says Franklin, "a proud, angry man, and as I had occasionally in the answers of the Assembly treated his papers with some severity, they being really weak in point of argument and haughty in expression, he had conceived a mortal enmity to me." With Paris, Franklin refused to discuss the points of his paper, and the Proprietaries then, on the advice of Paris, placed it in the hands of the Attorney- and Solicitor-Generals for their opinion and advice. By them no answer was given for nearly a year, though Franklin frequently called upon the Proprietaries for an answer only to be told that they had not yet received the opinion of their learned advisers. What the opinion was when it was finally rendered the Proprietaries did not let Franklin know, but instead addressed a long communication, drawn and signed by Paris, to the Assembly, reciting the contents of Franklin's paper, complaining of its lack of formality as rudeness, and justifying their conduct. They would be willing, they said, to compose the dispute, if the Assembly would send out _some person of candor_ to treat with them. Franklin supposed that the incivility imputed to him consisted in the fact that he had not addressed the Proprietaries by their assumed title of True and Absolute Proprietaries of the Province of Pennsylvania. The letter of the Proprietaries was not answered by the Assembly. While they were pretending to treat with Franklin, Governor Denny had been unable to withstand the pressure of his situation, and, at the request of Lord Loudon, had approved an act subjecting the estates of the Penns to taxation. When this Act was transmitted to England, the Proprietaries, upon the advice of Paris, petitioned the King to withhold his assent from it, and, when the petition came on for hearing, the parties were represented by counsel. On the one hand it was contended that the purpose of the Act was to impose an oppressive burden upon the Proprietary estates, and that the assessment under it would be so unequal because of the popular prejudice against the Penns that they would be ruined. To this it was replied that the Act was not conceived with any such purpose, and would not have any such effect, that the assessors were honest and discreet men under oath, and that any advantage that might inure to them individually from over-assessing the property of the Proprietaries would be too trifling to induce them to perjure themselves. It was also urged in opposition to the petition that the money, for which the Act provided, had been printed and issued, and was now in the hands of the inhabitants of the Province, and would be deprived of all value, to their great injury, if the Act did not receive the royal assent merely because of the selfish and groundless fears of the Proprietaries. At this point, Lord Mansfield, one of the counsel for the Proprietaries, led Franklin off into a room nearby, while the other lawyers were still pleading, and asked him if he was really of the opinion that the Proprietary estate would not be unfairly taxed if the Act was executed. "Certainly," said Franklin. "Then," said he, "you can have little objection to enter into an engagement to assure that point." "None at all," replied Franklin. Paris was then called in, and, after some discussion, a paper, such as Lord Mansfield suggested, was drawn up and signed by Franklin and Mr. Charles, who was the agent of Pennsylvania for ordinary purposes, and the law was given the royal assent with the further engagement, upon the part of Franklin and Mr. Charles, that it should be amended in certain respects by subsequent legislation. This legislation, however, the Assembly afterwards declined to enact when a committee, appointed by it, upon which it was careful to place several close friends of the Proprietaries, brought in an unanimous report stating that the yearly tax levied before the order of the Council reached Pennsylvania had been imposed with perfect fairness as between the Proprietaries and the other tax-payers. In the most important respect, therefore, Franklin's mission to England had resulted in success. The principle was established by the Crown that the estate of the Proprietaries was subject to taxation equally with that of the humblest citizen of Pennsylvania; and the credit of the paper money, then scattered throughout the province, was saved. The Assembly rewarded its servant, when he returned to Pennsylvania, with its formal thanks and the sum of three thousand pounds. He responded in the happy terms which he always had at his command on occasions of this sort. "He made answer," says the official report, "that he was thankful to the House, for the very handsome and generous Allowance they had been pleased to make him for his Services; but that the Approbation of this House was, in his Estimation, far above every other kind of Recompense." The Proprietaries punished their servant, Governor Denny, by removing him and threatening him with suit for the breach of his bond, but it is a pleasure to be told in the _Autobiography_ that his position was such that he could despise their threats. While the duel was going on between the Proprietaries and the Assembly, Franklin had some significant things at times to say about it in his familiar letters. As far as we can see, his political course, during this period, was entirely candid and manly. He was on agreeable personal terms with all the colonial governors, he seems to have cherished an honest desire to be helpful to the Proprietaries, so far as their own illiberality and folly would allow him to be, and it is very plain that he was not without the feeling that the demands of the Popular Party itself were occasionally immoderate. He was quite willing for the sake of peace to concede anything except the essential points of the controversy, but when it came to these he was immovable as men of his type usually are when they realize that a claim upon them is too unjust or exorbitant even for their pacific temper. I am much oblig'd to you for the favourable Light you put me in, to our Proprietor, as mention'd in yours of July 30 [he wrote to Peter Collinson in 1754], I know not why he should imagine me not his Friend, since I cannot recollect any one Act of mine that could denominate me otherwise. On the contrary if to concur with him, so far as my little Influence reach'd in all his generous and benevolent Designs and Desires of making his Province and People flourishing and happy be any Mark of my Respect and Dutyful Regard to him, there are many who would be ready to say I could not be suppos'd deficient in such Respect. The Truth is I have sought his _Interest_ more than his _Favour_; others perhaps have sought both, and obtain'd at least the latter. But in my Opinion great Men are not always best serv'd by such as show on all Occasions a blind Attachment to them: An Appearance of Impartiality in general gives a Man sometimes much more Weight when he would serve in particular instances. To the friend to whom these words were written Franklin was disposed to unbosom himself with unusual freedom, and, in the succeeding year, in another letter to Collinson, he used words which showed plainly enough that he thought that the Assembly too was at times inclined to indulge in more hair-splitting and testiness than was consistent with the public welfare. You will see [he said] more of the same Trifling in these Votes in both sides. I am heartily sick of our present Situation; I like neither the Governor's Conduct, nor the Assembly's; and having some Share in the Confidence of both, I have endeavour'd to reconcile 'em but in vain, and between 'em they make me very uneasy. I was chosen last Year in my Absence and was not at the Winter Sitting when the House sent home that Address to the King, which I am afraid was both ill-judg'd and ill-tim'd. If my being able now and then to influence a good Measure did not keep up my Spirits I should be ready to swear never to serve again as an Assembly Man, since both Sides expect more from me than they ought, and blame me sometimes for not doing what I am not able to do, as well as for not preventing what was not in my Power to prevent. The Assembly ride restive; and the Governor tho' he spurs with both heels, at the same time reins in with both hands, so that the Publick Business can never move forward, and he remains like St. George on the Sign, Always a Horseback and never going on. Did you never hear this old Catch? _Their was a mad Man--He had a mad Wife, And three mad Sons beside; And they all got upon a mad Horse And madly they did ride._ Tis a Compendium of our Proceedings and may save you the Trouble of reading them. In a still later letter to the same correspondent, Franklin asserted that there was no reason for excluding Quakers from the House, since, though unwilling to fight themselves, they had been brought to unite in voting the sums necessary to enable the Province to defend itself. Then, after referring to the defamation, that was being heaped upon him by the Proprietary Party, in the place of the court paid to him when he had exerted himself to secure aids from the House for Braddock and Shirley, he said, "Let me know if you learn that any of their Slanders reach England. I abhor these Altercations and if I did not love the Country and the People would remove immediately into a more quiet Government, Connecticut, where I am also happy enough to have many Friends." However, there was too much fuel for the fire to die down. The claim of the Proprietaries to exemption from taxation was only the most aggravated result of their efforts, by their instructions to their Governors, to shape the legislation of the Province in accordance with their own personal aims and pecuniary interests instead of in the spirit of the royal charter, which gave to William Penn, and his heirs, and his, or their, deputies or lieutenants, free, full and absolute power, for the good and happy government of Pennsylvania, to make and enact any laws, according to their best discretion, by and with the advice, assent and approbation of the freemen of the said country, or of their delegates or deputies. In the report of the Committee of Aggrievances of the Assembly, drawn by Franklin, the case of the freemen of the Province against the Penns, which led to Franklin's first mission to England, is clearly stated. They are arraigned not only for seeking to exempt the bulk of their estate from the common burden of taxation, but also, apart from this, for stripping, by their instructions, their governors, and thereby the People themselves, of all real discretion in fixing by legislation the measure and manner in which, and the time at which, aids and supplies should be furnished for the defence of the Province. They had even, the report charged, prohibited their governors, by their instructions, from assenting to laws disposing of interest arising from the loan of bills of credit or money raised by excise taxes--forms of revenue to which the Proprietary estate did not contribute at all--unless the laws contained a clause giving their governors the right to negative a particular application of the sums. Another grievance was the issuance by the governor of commissions to provincial judges, to be held during the will and pleasure of the governors instead of during good behavior, as covenanted by William Penn--a practice which gave the Proprietaries control of the judicial as well as the executive Branch of the provincial government. For a time, after Franklin returned to Pennsylvania in 1762, there was something like peace between the Proprietaries and the people. When a nephew of Thomas Penn was appointed governor, the Assembly accepted him as a family pledge of restored good feeling. The Assembly [Franklin wrote to Dr. Fothergill] received a Governor of the Proprietary family with open arms, addressed him with sincere expressions of kindness and respect, opened their purses to them, and presented him with six hundred pounds; made a Riot Act and prepared a Militia Bill immediately, at his instance, granted supplies, and did everything that he requested, and promised themselves great happiness under his administration. And no governor was ever so dependent upon the good will of the Assembly. It was during his administration that the Scotch-Irish inhabitants of the frontier, inflamed by Indian outrages, imbrued their hands in the blood of the Conestoga Indians, and, so far from being intimidated by the public proclamations issued by the Governor for their arrest and punishment, marched to the very threshold of Philadelphia itself with the purpose of destroying the Moravian Indians huddled there in terror of their lives. The whole Province outside of the City of Philadelphia was given over to lawlessness and disorder. In the contagious excitement of the hour, a considerable portion of its population even believed that the Quakers had gained the friendship of the Indians by presents, supplied them secretly with arms and ammunition, and engaged them to fall upon and kill the whites on the Pennsylvania frontier. Under these circumstances, the Governor simply did what Governor Morris and Governor Denny had been compelled to do before him, namely, call in the aid of the man who could in a letter to Peter Collinson truthfully sum up all that there was in the military demonstration which angered Thomas Penn so deeply with the simple utterance, "The People happen to love me." The whole story was told by Franklin to Dr. Fothergill in the letter from which we have just quoted. More wonders! You know that I don't love the Proprietary and that he does not love me. Our totally different tempers forbid it. You might therefore expect that the late new appointments of one of his family would find me ready for opposition. And yet when his nephew arrived, our Governor, I considered government as government, and paid him all respect, gave him on all occasions my best advice, promoted in the Assembly a ready compliance with everything he proposed or recommended, and when those daring rioters, encouraged by general approbation of the populace, treated his proclamation with contempt, I drew my pen in the cause; wrote a pamphlet (that I have sent you) to render the rioters unpopular; promoted an association to support the authority of the Government and defend the Governor by taking arms, signed it first myself, and was followed by several hundreds, who took arms accordingly. The Governor offered me the command of them, but I chose to carry a musket and strengthen his authority by setting an example of obedience to his order. And would you think it, this proprietary Governor did me the honour, in an alarm, to run to my house at midnight, with his counsellors at his heels, for advice, and made it his head-quarters for some time. And within four and twenty hours, your old friend was a common soldier, a counsellor, a kind of dictator, an ambassador to the country mob, and on his returning home, nobody again. All this has happened in a few weeks. With the retirement of the backwoodsmen from Philadelphia to their homes, sprang up one of the angriest factional contests that Pennsylvania had ever known. Every malignant passion, political or sectarian, that lurked in the Province was excited into the highest degree of morbid life. The Presbyterians, the Churchmen, even some of the Quakers, acclaimed the Paxton Boys as instruments of a just vengeance, and they constituted a political force, which the Governor was swift to utilize for the purpose of strengthening his party. He dropped all efforts to apprehend the murderers of the Conestoga Indians, granted a private audience to the insurgents, and accused the Assembly of disloyalty, and of encroaching upon the prerogatives of the Crown, only because it had been presumptuous enough to make an appointment to a petty office in a bill tendered to him for his assent. It was during his administration, too, that the claim was made that, even if the Proprietary estate had been subjected to taxation by the Lords in Council, under the terms of one of the amendments, proposed by them, "_the best and most valuable_," of the Proprietary lands "should be tax'd no higher than the _worst and least valuable_ of the People's." When the conflict was reopened, the Assembly boldly brought it to an issue. One of its committees, with Franklin at its head, reported a series of resolutions censuring the proprietaries, condemning their rule as too weak to maintain its authority and repress disorder, and petitioning the King to take over the Government of the Province, after such compensation to the Proprietaries as was just. The Assembly then adjourned to sound the temper of their constituents, and their adjournment was the signal for a pamphlet war attended by such a hail of paper pellets as rarely marked any contest so early in the history of the American Colonies. Among the best of them was the pamphlet written by Franklin, and entitled _Cool Thoughts on the Present Situation of our Public Affairs_, which has already been mentioned, and which denounced in no uncertain terms the "insolent Tribunitial VETO," with which the Proprietaries were in the habit of declaring that nothing should be done, unless their private interests in certain particulars were served. On May 14, 1764, the Assembly met again, and was soon deeply engaged in a debate as to whether an address should be sent to the King, praying the abolition of the Proprietary Government. Long did the debate last; Joseph Galloway making the principal argument in support of the proposition, and John Dickinson the principal one against it. When the vote was taken, the affirmative prevailed, but, as Isaac Norris, who had been a member of the body for thirty years, and its speaker for fifteen, was about to be bidden by it to sign the address, he stated that, since he did not approve it, and yet would have to sign it as speaker, he hoped that he might have time to draft his objections to it. A short recess ensued, and when the members convened again, Norris sent word that he was too sick to be present, and requested that another person should be chosen as speaker. The choice of the body then fell upon Franklin, who immediately signed the paper. The next sitting of the Assembly was not to be held until the succeeding October, and before that time the annual election for members of the Assembly was to take place. For the purpose of influencing public opinion, Dickinson, upon its adjournment, published his speech with a long preface by Dr. William Smith. Galloway followed suit by publishing his speech with a long preface by Franklin. This preface is one of Franklin's masterpieces, marked it is true by some quaint conceits and occasional relaxations of energy, but full of power and withering sarcasm. Preceded by such a lengthy and brilliant preface, Galloway must have felt that his speech had little more than the secondary value of an appendix. With the consummate capacity for pellucid statement, which was one of Franklin's most remarkable gifts, it narrated the manner in which the practice of buying legislation from the Proprietaries had been pursued. With equal force and ingenuity, it demonstrated that five out of the six amendments, proposed by the Lords in Council to the Act, approved by Governor Denny, did not justify the charge that the circumstances, in which they originated, involved any real injustice to the Proprietaries, and that the sixth, which forbade the tender to the Proprietaries of paper bills of fluctuating value, in payment of debts payable to them, under the terms of special contracts, in coin, if a measure of justice to them, would be also a measure of justice to other creditors in the same situation, who were not mentioned in the amendment. Referring to the universal practice in America of making such bills a legal tender and the fact that the bills in question would have been a legal tender as respects the members of the Assembly and their constituents as well as the Proprietaries, Franklin's preface glows like an incandescent furnace in these words: But if he (the reader) can not on these Considerations, quite excuse the Assembly, what will he think of those _Honourable_ Proprietaries, who when Paper Money was issued in their Colony for the Common Defence of their vast Estates, with those of the People, and who must therefore reap, at least, equal Advantages from those Bills with the People, could nevertheless _wish_ to be exempted from their Share of the unavoidable Disadvantages. Is there upon Earth a Man besides, with any Conception of what is honest, with any Notion of Honor, with the least Tincture in his Veins of the Gentleman, but would have blush'd at the Thought; but would have rejected with Disdain such undue Preference, if it had been offered him? Much less would he have struggled for it, mov'd Heaven and Earth to obtain it, resolv'd to ruin Thousands of his Tenants by a Repeal of the Act, rather than miss of it, and enforce it afterwards by an audaciously wicked Instruction, forbidding Aids to his King, and exposing the Province to Destruction, unless it was complied with. And yet,--these are _Honourable Men_.... Those who study Law and Justice, as a Science [he added in an indignant note] have established it a Maxim in Equity, "Qui sentit commodum, sentire debet et onus." And so consistent is this with the _common_ Sense of Mankind, that even our lowest untaught Coblers and Porters feel the Force of it in their own Maxim, (which _they_ are _honest enough_ never to dispute) "Touch Pot, touch Penny." Other passages in the Preface were equally scorching. Replying to the charge of the Proprietaries that the Quaker Assembly, out of mere malice, because they had conscientiously quitted the Society of Friends for the Church, were wickedly determined to ruin them by throwing the entire burden of taxation on them, Franklin had this to say: How foreign these Charges were from the Truth, need not be told to any Man in _Pennsylvania_. And as the Proprietors knew, that the Hundred Thousand Pounds of paper money, struck for the defence of their enormous Estates, with others, was actually issued, spread thro' the Country, and in the Hands of Thousands of poor People, who had given their Labor for it, how base, cruel, and inhuman it was, to endeavour by a Repeal of the Act, to strike the Money dead in those Hands at one Blow, and reduce it all to Waste Paper, to the utter Confusion of all Trade and Dealings, and the Ruin of Multitudes, merely to avoid paying their own just Tax!--Words may be wanting to express, but Minds will easily conceive, and never without Abhorrence! But fierce as these attacks were, they were mild in comparison with the shower of stones hurled by Franklin at the Proprietaries in the Preface in one of those lapidary inscriptions which were so common in that age. The prefacer of Dickinson's Speech had inserted in his introduction a lapidary memorial of William Penn made up of tessellated bits of eulogy, extracted from the various addresses of the Assembly itself. This gave Franklin a fine opportunity to retort in a similar mosaic of phrases and to contrast the meanness of the sons with what the Assembly had said of the father. That these Encomiums on the Father [he said] tho' sincere, have occurr'd so frequently, was owing, however, to two Causes; first, a vain Hope the Assemblies entertain'd, that the Father's Example, and the Honors done his Character, might influence the Conduct of the Sons; secondly, for that in attempting to compliment the Sons on their own Merits, there was always found an extreme Scarcity of Matter. Hence _the Father, the honored and honorable Father_, was so often repeated, that the Sons themselves grew sick of it; and have been heard to say to each other with Disgust, when told that A, B, and C. were come to wait upon them with Addresses on some public Occasion, "_Then I suppose we shall hear more about our Father._" So that, let me tell the Prefacer, who perhaps was unacquainted with this Anecdote, that if he hop'd to curry more Favor with the Family, by the Inscription he has fram'd for that great Man's Monument, he may find himself mistaken; for,--there is too much in it of _our Father_. If therefore, he would erect a Monument to the Sons, the Votes of Assembly, which are of such Credit with him, will furnish him with ample Materials for his Inscription. To save him Trouble, I will essay a Sketch for him, in the Lapidary Style, tho' mostly in the Expressions, and everywhere in the Sense and Spirit of the Assembly's Resolves and Messages. Be this a Memorial Of T-- and R-- P--, P-- of P,-- Who, with Estates immense, Almost beyond Computation, When their own Province, And the whole _British_ Empire Were engag'd in a bloody and most expensive War, Begun for the Defence of those Estates, Could yet meanly desire To have those very Estates Totally or Partially Exempted from Taxation, While their Fellow-Subjects all around them, Groan'd Under the Universal Burthen. To gain this Point, They refus'd the necessary Laws For the Defence of their People, And suffer'd their Colony to welter in its Blood, Rather than abate in the least Of these their dishonest Pretensions. The Privileges granted by their Father Wisely and benevolently To encourage the first Settlers of the Province, They, Foolishly and cruelly, Taking Advantage of public Distress, Have extorted from the Posterity of those Settlers; And are daily endeavouring to reduce them To the most abject Slavery: Tho' to the Virtue and Industry of those People In improving their Country, They owe all that they possess and enjoy. A striking Instance Of human Depravity and Ingratitude; And an irrefragable Proof, That Wisdom and Goodness Do not descend with an Inheritance; But that ineffable Meanness May be connected with unbounded Fortune. It may well be doubted whether any one had ever been subjected to such overwhelming lapidation as this since the time of the early Christian martyrs. There are many other deadly thrusts in the Preface, and nowhere else are the issues between the Proprietaries and the People so clearly presented, but the very completeness of the paper renders it too long for further quotation. Franklin, however, was by no means allowed to walk up and down the field, vainly challenging a champion to come out from the opposing host and contend with him. At his towering front the missiles of the Proprietary Party were mainly directed. Beneath one caricature of him were these lines: "Fight dog, fight bear! You're all my friends: By you I shall attain my ends, For I can never be content Till I have got the government. But if from this attempt I fall, Then let the Devil take you all!" Another writer strove in his lapidary zeal to fairly bury Franklin beneath a whole cairn of opprobrious accusations, consuming nine pages of printed matter in the effort to visit his political tergiversation, his greed for power, his immorality and other sins, with their proper deserts, and ending with this highly rhetorical apostrophe: "Reader, behold this striking Instance of Human Depravity and Ingratitude; An irrefragable Proof That neither the Capital services of _Friends_ Nor the attracting Favours of the Fair, Can fix the Sincerity of a Man, _Devoid of Principles_ and Ineffably mean: Whose ambition is POWER, And whose intention is TYRANNY." The illegitimacy of William Franklin, of course, was freely used during the conflict as a means of paining and discrediting Franklin. In a pamphlet entitled, _What is sauce for a Goose is also Sauce for a Gander_, the writer asserted that the mother of William was a woman named Barbara, who worked in Franklin's house as a servant for ten pounds a year, that she remained in this position until her death and that Franklin then stole her to the grave in silence without pall, tomb or monument. A more refined spirit, which could not altogether free itself from the undertow of its admiration for such an extraordinary man, penned these lively lines entitled, "Inscription on a Curious Stove in the Form of An Urn, Contrived in such a Manner As To Make The Flame Descend Instead of Rising from the Fire, Invented by Dr. Franklin." "Like a Newton sublimely he soared To a summit before unattained, New regions of science explored And the palm of philosophy gained. "With a spark which he caught from the skies He displayed an unparalleled wonder, And we saw with delight and surprise That his rod could secure us from thunder. "Oh! had he been wise to pursue The track for his talents designed, What a tribute of praise had been due To the teacher and friend of mankind. "But to covet political fame Was in him a degrading ambition, The spark that from Lucifer came And kindled the blaze of sedition. "Let candor then write on his urn, Here lies the renowned inventor Whose fame to the skies ought to burn But inverted descends to the centre." The election began at nine o'clock in the morning on October 1, 1764. Franklin and Galloway headed the "Old Ticket," and Willing and Bryan the "New." The latter ticket was supported by the Dutch Calvinists, the Presbyterians and many of the Dutch Lutherans and Episcopalians; the former by the Quakers and Moravians and some of the McClenaghanites. So great was the concourse of voters that, until midnight, it took fifteen minutes for one of them to work his way from the end of the line of eager electors to the polling place. Excitement was at white heat, and, while the election was pending, hands were busy scattering squibs and campaign appeals in English and German among the crowd. Towards three the next morning, the new-ticket partisans moved that the polls be closed, but the motion was opposed by their old-ticket foes, because they wished to bring out a reserve of aged or lame retainers who could not stand long upon their feet. These messengers were dispatched to bring in such retainers from their homes in chairs and litters, and, when the new-ticket men saw the success, with which the old-ticket men were marshalling their recruits, they, too, began to scour the vicinage for votes, and so successful were the two parties in mobilizing their reserves that the polls did not close until three o'clock in the afternoon of the second day. Not until the third day were the some 3900 real and fraudulent votes cast counted; and, when the count was over, it was found that Franklin and Galloway had been defeated. "Franklin," said an eye-witness of the election, "died like a philosopher. But Mr. Galloway agonized in death like a mortal deist, who has no hopes of a future life." As for Franklin, his enemies had simply kicked him upstairs. A majority of the persons returned as elected belonged to his faction, and, despite the indignant eloquence of Dickinson, who declared him to be the most bitterly disliked man in Pennsylvania, the Assembly, by a vote of nineteen to eleven, selected him as the agent of the Province to go over to England, and assist Richard Jackson, its standing agent, in "representing, soliciting and transacting the affairs" of the Province for the ensuing year. The minority protested; and moved that its protest be spread upon the minutes, and, when this motion was denied, it published its remonstrance in the newspapers. This act provoked a pamphlet in reply from Franklin entitled _Remarks on a Late Protest_. Though shorter it is as good, as far as it goes, as the preface to Galloway's speech. He tosses the protestants and their reasons for believing him unfit for the agency on his horns with astonishing ease and strength, calls attention to the trifling majority of some twenty-five votes by which he was returned defeated, and chills the habit that we often indulge of lauding the political integrity and decorum of our American ancestors at our own expense by inveighing against the "many Perjuries procured among the wretched Rabble brought to swear themselves intitled to a Vote" and roundly saying to the protestants to their faces, "Your Artifices did not prevail everywhere; nor your double Tickets, and Whole Boxes of Forged Votes. A great Majority of the new-chosen Assembly were of the old Members, and remain uncorrupted." Apart from the reference to the illegitimacy of William Franklin, Franklin had passed through the heated contest with the Proprietaries without the slightest odor of fire upon his garments. With his hatred of contention, it is natural enough that he should have written to Collinson, when the pot of contention was boiling so fiercely in Pennsylvania in 1764: "The general Wish seems to be a King's Government. If that is not to be obtain'd, many talk of quitting the Province, and among them your old Friend, who is tired of these Contentions & longs for philosophic Ease and Leisure." But he did not overstate the case when he wrote to Samuel Rhoads in the succeeding year from London, "The Malice of our Adversaries I am well acquainted with, but hitherto it has been Harmless; all their Arrows shot against us, have been like those that Rabelais speaks of which were headed with Butter harden'd in the Sun." Franklin was a doughty antagonist when at bay, but he had few obdurate resentments, and was quick to see the redeeming virtues of even those who had wronged him. He assisted in the circulation of John Dickinson's famous Farmer's Letters, and curiously enough when Dickinson was the President of the State of Pennsylvania at the close of the Revolution, and the 130,000 pounds which that State had agreed to pay for the vacant lots and unappropriated wilderness lands of the Penns was claimed to be an inadequate consideration by some of them, he gave to John Penn, the son of Thomas Penn, a letter of recommendation to "the Civilities and Friendship" of Dickinson. I would beg leave to mention it to your Excellency's Consideration [he said], whether it would not be reputable for the Province, in the cooler Season of Peace to reconsider that Act, and if the Allowance made to the Family should be found inadequate, to regulate it according to Equity, since it becomes a Virgin State to be particularly careful of its Reputation, and to guard itself not only against committing Injustice, but against even the suspicion of it. But nothing better proves what a selfish cur Thomas Penn was than the fact that, more than twenty years after the election, of which we have been speaking, so magnanimous a man as Franklin could express this sober estimate of his conduct and character in a letter to Jan Ingenhousz: In my own Judgment, when I consider that for near 80 Years, viz., from the Year 1700, William Penn and his Sons receiv'd the Quit-rents which were originally granted for the Support of Government, and yet refused to support the Government, obliging the People to make a fresh Provision for its Support all that Time, which cost them vast Sums, as the most necessary Laws were not to be obtain'd but at the Price of making such Provision; when I consider the Meanness and cruel Avarice of the late Proprietor, in refusing for several Years of War, to consent to any Defence of the Frontiers ravaged all the while by the Enemy, unless his Estate should be exempted from paying any Part of the Expence, not to mention other Atrocities too long for this letter, I can not but think the Family well off, and that it will be prudent in them to take the Money and be quiet. William Penn, the First Proprietor, Father of Thomas, the Husband of the present Dowager, was a wise and good Man, and as honest to the People as the extream Distress of his Circumstances would permit him to be, but the said Thomas was a miserable Churl, always intent upon Griping and Saving; and whatever Good the Father may have done for the Province was amply undone by the Mischief received from the Son, who never did anything that had the Appearance of Generosity or Public Spirit but what was extorted from him by Solicitation and the Shame of Backwardness in Benefits evidently incumbent on him to promote, and which was done at last in the most ungracious manner possible. The Lady's Complaints of not duly receiving her Revenues from America are habitual; they were the same during all the Time of my long Residence in London, being then made by her Husband as Excuses for the Meanness of his Housekeeping and his Deficiency in Hospitality, tho' I knew at the same time that he was then in full Receipt of vast Sums annually by the Sale of Lands, Interest of Money, and Quit-rents. But probably he might conceal this from his Lady to induce greater Economy as it is known that he ordered no more of his Income home than was absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, but plac'd it at Interest in Pennsylvania & the Jerseys, where he could have 6 and 7 per Cent, while Money bore no more than 5 per cent in England. I us'd often to hear of those Complaints, and laugh at them, perceiving clearly their Motive. They serv'd him on other as well as on domestic Occasions. You remember our Rector of St. Martin's Parish, Dr. Saunders. He once went about, during a long and severe Frost, soliciting charitable Contributions to purchase Coals for poor Families. He came among others to me, and I gave him something. It was but little, very little, and yet it occasion'd him to remark, "You are more bountiful on this Occasion than your wealthy Proprietary, Mr. Penn, but he tells me he is distress'd by not receiving his Incomes from America." The Incomes of the family there must still be very great, for they have a Number of Manors consisting of the best Lands, which are preserved to them, and vast Sums at Interest well secur'd by Mortgages; so that if the Dowager does not receive her Proportion, there must be some Fault in her Agents. You will perceive by the length of this Article that I have been a little _échauffé_ by her making the Complaints you mention to the Princess Dowager of Lichtenstein at Vienna. The Lady herself is good & amiable, and I should be glad to serve her in anything just and reasonable; but I do not at present see that I can do more than I have done. And Thomas Penn, too, like St. Sebastian, will never be drawn without _that_ arrow in _his_ side. When Franklin was appointed agent, the provincial treasury was empty, but so deeply aroused was public sentiment, in favor of the substitution of a royal for the proprietary government, that the merchants of Philadelphia in a few hours subscribed a sum of eleven hundred pounds, to defray his expenses. Of this amount, however, he refused to accept but five hundred pounds, and, after a trying passage of thirty days, he found himself again at No. 7 Craven Street. So far as the immediate object of his mission was concerned, it proved a failure. Before he left Pennsylvania, George Grenville, the Prime Minister of England, had called the agents of the American Colonies, resident at London, together and informed them that a debt of seventy-three millions sterling had been imposed upon England by the recent war, and that he proposed to ask Parliament to place a part of it upon the American Colonies. In the stream of events, which began with this proposal, the proprietary government in Pennsylvania and the royal governments in other American Colonies were alike destined to be swept away. After the arrival of Franklin in England, the local struggle in Pennsylvania was of too secondary importance to command serious attention; and, beyond a few meagre allusions to it, there is no mention made of it in his letters. The temper of the English Ministry was not friendly to such a revolutionary change as the abolition of the proprietary government, and Franklin, after he had been in England a few years, had too many matters of continental concern to look after to have any time left for a single phase of the general conflict between the Colonies and the mother country. Before passing to his share in this conflict, a word should be said about the Albany Congress, in which he was the guiding spirit. In 1754, when another war between England and France was feared, a Congress of Commissioners from the several Colonies was ordered by the Lords of Trade to be held at Albany. The object of the call was to bring about a conference between the Colonies and the Chiefs of the Six Nations as to the best means of defending their respective territories from invasion by the French. When the order reached Pennsylvania, Governor Hamilton communicated it to the Assembly, and requested that body to provide proper presents for the Indians, who were to assemble at Albany; and he named Franklin and Isaac Norris, the Speaker of the Assembly, as the Commissioners from Pennsylvania, to act in conjunction with Thomas Penn and Richard Peters, the Secretary of the Proprietary Government. The presents were provided, and the nominations confirmed by the Assembly, and Franklin and his colleagues arrived at Albany in the month of June, 1754. He brought his usual zeal to the movement. Before he left Philadelphia, with a view to allaying the jealousies, which existed between the different colonies, he published an article in his _Gazette_ pointing out the importance of unanimity, which was accompanied by a woodcut representing a snake severed into as many sections as there were colonies. Each section bore the first letter of the name of a colony, and beneath the whole, in capital letters, were the words, "Join or die." On his way to Albany, he drafted a plan of union, looking to the permanent defence of the colonies, which closely resembled a similar plan of union, put forward thirty-two years before by Daniel Coxe in a tract entitled _A Description of the English Province of Carolina_. The Congress was attended by Commissioners from all the Colonies except New Jersey, Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia. One of its members was Thomas Hutchinson, of Massachusetts, who was to bring down on Franklin's head the most trying crisis in his career. James De Lancey, the Lieutenant-Governor of New York, was chosen to be its presiding officer. Mingled with the Commissioners and the inhabitants of Albany, as they walked its streets, were the representatives of the Iroquois, whose tribes had cherished an unappeasable hatred for the French ever since the fatal day when Frontenac had thrown in his fortunes with those of their traditional enemies, the Hurons. Much time had to be expended by the Commissioners in distributing among them the presents that they had brought for them, and in conducting with ceremonious and tedious formality the long powwows in which the Indian heart, if there was such a thing, so dearly delighted. When the assembly entered upon its deliberations, a committee of seven was appointed by it to consider the objects of the Congress, and it was composed of one commissioner from each colony; Franklin being the member from Pennsylvania, and Thomas Hutchinson the member from Massachusetts. After the Commissioners gathered at Albany, it was found that plans of union had been framed by other members of the Congress besides Franklin. All the plans were compared and considered by the committee, and Franklin's was adopted, amended and reported to the Congress, and was by it, after a long debate, approved, and recommended to the favorable consideration of Parliament and the King whose assent, it was conceded, was essential to its efficacy. It was a simple but comprehensive scheme of government. The several colonies were to remain independent except so far as they surrendered their autonomy for purposes of mutual defence; there were to be a President-General, appointed and paid by the King, who was to be the executive arm of the Union, and a Grand Council of forty-eight members, elected by the different Colonial Assemblies, which was to be its legislative organ. The first meeting of the Council was to be at Philadelphia[16]; it was to meet once a year or oftener, if there was need, at such times and places as it should fix on adjournment, or as should be fixed, in case of an emergency, by the call of the President-General, who was authorized to issue such a call, with the consent of seven members of the Council; the tenure of members of the Council was to be for three years, and, on the death or resignation of a member, the vacancy was to be filled by the Assembly of his colony at its next sitting; after the election of the first members of the Council, the representation of the colonies in it was to be in proportion to their respective contributions to the Treasury of the Union, but no colony was to be represented by more than seven nor less than two members; the Council was to have the power to choose its Speaker, and was to be neither dissolved, prorogued nor continued in session longer than six weeks at one time without its consent, or the special command of the Crown; its members were to be allowed for their services ten shillings sterling a day, whether in session or journeying to or from the place of meeting; twenty-five members were to constitute a quorum, provided that among this number was at least one member from a majority of the Colonies; the assent of the President General was to be essential to the validity of all acts of the Council, and it was to be his duty to see that they were carried into execution, and the President-General and Council were to negotiate all treaties with the Indians, declare war and make peace with them, regulate all trade with them, purchase for the Crown from them all lands sold by them, and not within the limits of the old Colonies; and make and govern new settlements on such lands until erected into formal colonies. They were also to enlist and pay soldiers, build forts and equip vessels for the defence of the Colonies, but were to have no power to impress men in any colony without the consent of its assembly; all military and naval officers of the Union were to be named by the President-General with the approval of the Council, and all civil officers of the Union were to be named by the Council with the approval of the President-General; in case of vacancies, resulting from death or removal, in any such offices, they were to be filled by the Governors of the Provinces in which they occurred until appointments could be made in the regular way; and the President-General and Council were also to have the power to appoint a General Treasurer for the Union and a Local Treasurer for the Union in each colony, when necessary. All funds were to be disbursed on the joint order of the President-General and the Council, except when sums had been previously appropriated for particular purposes, and the President-General had been specially authorized to draw upon them; the general accounts of the Union were to be each year communicated to the several Colonial Assemblies; and, for the limited purposes of the Union, the President-General and the Council were authorized to enact laws, and to levy general duties, imposts and taxes; the laws so enacted to be transmitted to the King in Council for his approbation, and, if not disapproved within three years, to remain in force. A final feature of the plan was the provision that each Colony might in a sudden emergency take measures for its own defence, and call upon the President-General and Council for reimbursement. The Albany plan of union was one of the direct lineal antecedents of the Federal Constitution. In other words, it was one of the really significant things in our earlier history that tended to foster the habit of union, without which that constitution could never have been adopted. But, when considered in the light of the jealousy with which the mother country then regarded the Colonies, and with which the Colonies regarded each other, it is not at all surprising that the plan recommended by it should have to come to nothing. "Its fate was singular," says Franklin in the _Autobiography_. "The assemblies did not adopt it, as they all thought there was too much _prerogative_ in it, and in England it was judg'd to have too much of the _democratic_." Even in Pennsylvania, though the Governor laid it before the Assembly with a handsome tribute to "the great clearness and strength of judgment," with which it had been drawn up, that body, when Franklin was absent, condemned it without giving it any serious consideration. In England it met with the disapproval of the Board of Trade, and "another scheme," to recur to the _Autobiography_, "was form'd, supposed to answer the same purpose better, whereby the governors of the provinces, with some members of their respective councils, were to meet and order the raising of troops, building of forts, etc., and to draw on the treasury of Great Britain for the expense, which was afterwards to be refunded by an act of Parliament laying a tax on America." The Albany plan was an eminently wise one, and Franklin was probably justified in forming the favorable view of it which he expressed in these words in the _Autobiography_: The different and contrary reasons of dislike to my plan makes me suspect that it was really the true medium; and I am still of opinion it would have been happy for both sides the water if it had been adopted. The colonies, so united, would have been sufficiently strong to have defended themselves; there would then have been no need of troops from England; of course, the subsequent pretence for taxing America, and the bloody contest it occasioned, would have been avoided. But such mistakes are not new; history is full of the errors of states and princes. "Look round the habitable world, how few Know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue!" Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom _adopted from previous wisdom, but forc'd by the occasion_. In the autumn of 1754, Franklin made a journey to Boston. There he met Shirley, and was apprised by him of the plan formed in England for the defence of the Colonies. This intelligence elicited three notable letters from him to Shirley in which he succinctly but luminously and vigorously stated his objections to the plan. In the first letter, he deprecated in brief but grave general terms a scheme of colonial administration, in which the people of the Colonies were to be excluded from all share in the choice of the Grand Council contemplated by the scheme, and were to be taxed by a Parliament in which they were to have no representation. Where heavy burdens are laid on the people, it had been found useful, he said, to make such burdens as much as possible their own acts. The people bear them better when they have, or think they have, some share in the direction; and, when any public measures are generally grievous, or even distasteful to the people, the wheels of government move more heavily. In the second letter, Franklin states what in his opinion the people of the Colonies were likely to say of the proposed plan, namely, that they were as loyal as any other subjects of the King; that there was no reason to doubt their readiness to grant such sums as they could for the defence of the Colonies; that they were likely to be better judges of their own military necessities than the remote English Parliament; that the governors, who came to the Colonies, often came merely to make their fortunes, and to return to England, were not always men of the best abilities or integrity, had little in common with the colonists, and might be inclined to lavish military expenditures for the sake of the profit to be derived from such expenditures by them for themselves and their friends and dependents; that members of colonial councils being appointed by the Crown, on the recommendation of colonial governors, and being often men of small estates, and dependent on such governors for place, were too subject to influence; that Parliament was likely to be misled by such governors and councils; and yet their combined influence would probably shield them against popular resentment; that it was deemed an unquestionable right of Englishmen not to be taxed but by their own consent, given through their representatives, and that the Colonies had no representation in Parliament; that to tax the people of the Colonies without such representation, and to exclude them altogether from the proposed plan was a reflection on their loyalty, or their patriotism, or their intelligence, and that to tax them without their consent, was, indeed, more like raising contributions in an enemy's country than the taxation of Englishmen. Such were some of the objections stated in this letter to the imposition of taxes on the Colonies by the British Parliament. There were others of a kindred nature, and still others, based upon the claim that the Colonies were already paying heavy secondary taxes to England. Taxes, paid by landholders and artificers in England, Franklin declared, entered into the prices paid in America for their products, and were therefore really taxes paid by America to Britain. The difference between the prices, paid by America for these products, and the cheaper prices, at which they could be bought in other countries, if America were allowed to trade with them, was also but a tax paid by America to Britain and, where the price was paid for goods which America could manufacture herself, if allowed by Great Britain to do so, the whole of it was but such a tax. Such a tax, too, was the difference between the price that America received for its own products in Britain, after the payment of duties, and the price that it could obtain in other countries, if allowed to trade with them. In fine, as America was not permitted to regulate its trade, and restrain the importation and consumption of British superfluities, its whole wealth ultimately found its way to Great Britain, and, if the inhabitants of Great Britain were enriched in consequence, and rendered better able to pay their taxes, that was nearly the same thing as if America itself was taxed. Of these kinds of indirect taxes America did not complain, but to pay direct taxes, without being consulted as to whether they should be laid, or as to how they should be applied, could not but seem harsh to Englishmen, who could not conceive that by hazarding their lives and fortunes in subduing and settling new countries, and in extending the dominion and increasing the commerce of the mother country, they had forfeited the native rights of Britons; which they thought that, on these accounts, might well be given to them, even if they had been before in a state of slavery. Another objection to the scheme, the letter asserted, was the likelihood that the Governors and Councillors, not being associated with any representatives of the people, to unite with them in their measures, and to render these measures palatable to the people, would become distrusted and odious; and thus would embitter the relations between governors and governed and bring about total confusion. The letter, short as it is, sums up almost all the main points of the more copious argument that was, in a few years, to be made with so much pathos as well as power by the Colonies against the resolve of the British Ministry to tax them without their consent. Franklin's third letter to Shirley is but the statement in embryo of the sagacious and enlarged views of the policy of Great Britain, with respect to the Colonies, which he subsequently expressed in so many impressive forms. The letter is, first of all, interesting as showing that the subject of promoting a closer union between Great Britain and her colonies by allowing the latter to be represented in Parliament had already been discussed by Shirley and Franklin in conversation. It is also an indication, for all that was said later about the submissive loyalty of the Colonies, that the sense of injustice and hardship worked by the repressive effects of the existing British restrictions on American commerce and manufactures was widely diffused in America. The proposal to allow America representatives in Parliament would, Franklin thought, be very acceptable to the Colonies, provided the presentation was a reasonable one in point of numbers, and provided all the old acts of Parliament, limiting the trade, or cramping the manufactures, of the Colonies, were, at the same time, repealed and the cis-Atlantic subjects of Great Britain put on the same footing of commercial and industrial freedom as its trans-Atlantic subjects, until a Parliament, in which both were represented, should deem it to be to the interest of the whole empire that some or all of the obnoxious laws should be revived. Franklin also was too much of a latter-day American not to believe that laws, which then seemed to the colonists to be unjust to them, would be acquiesced in more cheerfully by them, and be easier of execution, if approved by a Parliament in which they were represented. The letter ended with a series of original reflections, highly characteristic of the free play, which marked the mental operations of the writer in dealing with any subject, encumbered by short-sighted prejudices. Of what importance was it, he argued, whether manufacturers of iron lived at Birmingham or Sheffield, or both, since they were still within the bounds of Great Britain? Could the Goodwin Sands be laid dry by banks, and land, equal to a large county thereby gained to England, and presently filled with English inhabitants, would it be right to deprive such inhabitants of the common privileges enjoyed by other Englishmen, the right of vending their produce in the same ports, or of making their own shoes, because a merchant or a shoemaker, living on the old land, might fancy it more for his advantage to trade or make shoes for them? Would this be right even if the land was gained at the expense of the State? And would it seem less right if the charge and labor of gaining the additional territory to Great Britain had been borne by the settlers themselves? Now I look on the colonies [Franklin continued] as so many counties gained to Great Britain, and more advantageous to it than if they had been gained out of the seas around its coasts, and joined to its land: For being in different climates, they afford greater variety of produce, and being separated by the ocean, they increase much more its shipping and seamen; and since they are all included in the British Empire, which has only extended itself by their means; and the strength and wealth of the parts are the strength and wealth of the whole; what imports it to the general state, whether a merchant, a smith, or a hatter, grow rich in Old or New England? To this question, of course, the nineteenth or twentieth century could only have had one answer; but the eighteenth, blinded by economic delusions, had many. In the opinion of Franklin, expressed in his letters to Peter Collinson, until the Albany plan of union, or something like it, was adopted, no American war would ever be carried on as it should be, and Indian affairs would continue to be mismanaged. But he was fair-minded and clear-sighted enough to see that, if some such plan was not adopted, the fault would lie with the Colonies rather than with Great Britain. In one of his letters to Peter Collinson, he declared that, in his opinion, it was not likely that any of them would agree to the plan, or even propose any amendments to it. Every Body [he said] cries, a Union is absolutely necessary; but when they come to the Manner and Form of the Union, their weak Noddles are perfectly distracted. So if ever there be an Union, it must be form'd at home by the Ministry and Parliament. I doubt not but they will make a good one, and I wish it may be done this winter. The essential features of the Albany plan of union were all outlined by Franklin three or four years before the Albany Congress met, in a letter to James Parker, his New York partner. A union of the colonies, under existing conditions, was, he thought, impracticable. If a governor became impressed with the importance of such a union, and asked the other colonial governors to recommend it to their assemblies, the request came to nothing, either because the governors were often on ill terms with their assemblies, and were seldom the men who exercised the most influence over them, or because they threw cold water on the request for fear that the cost of such a union might make the people of their colonies less able or willing to give to them, or simply because they did not earnestly realize the necessity for it. Besides, under existing conditions, there was no one to back such a request or to answer objections to it. A better course would be to select half a dozen men of good understanding and address, and send them around, as ambassadors to the different colonies, to urge upon them the expediency of the union. It would be strange, indeed, Franklin thought, if the six Iroquois tribes of ignorant savages could be capable of forming a union which had lasted for ages, and yet ten or a dozen English colonies be incapable of forming a similar one. These views were elicited by a pamphlet on the importance of gaining and preserving the friendship of the Indians, which had been sent to Franklin by Parker, and they constitute a natural introduction to a brief review of the relations sustained by one of the most reasonable of the children of men to perhaps the most unreasonable of all the children of men, the Indian of the American forest. With the Indians, their habits, characteristics, polity and trade Franklin was very conversant. Repeatedly, during his lifetime, the frontiers of Pennsylvania were harried by the tomahawk and scalping-knife. In a letter, written a few months after Braddock's defeat to Richard Partridge, he mentions, for instance, that the savages had just surprised and cut off eight families near Shamokin, killing and scalping thirteen grown persons and kidnapping twelve children. In another letter to Peter Collinson, written the next year, he made this appalling summary of what, with the aid of the French, the revenge of the Delawares for the imposition practised upon them in the Walking Purchase was supposed to have cost the Province. "Some Hundreds of Lives lost, many Farms destroy'd and near £100,000 spent, yet," he added, "the Proprietor refuses to be taxed except for a trifling Part of his Estate." During the incursions of this period, the Indian war-parties pushed their outrages to a point only eighty miles from Philadelphia. A diarist, Thomas Lloyd, who accompanied Franklin on his expedition to Gnadenhutten, gives us this ghastly description of what they found there: Here all round appears nothing but one continued scene of horror and destruction. Where lately flourished a happy and peaceful village, it is now all silent and desolate; the houses burnt; the inhabitants butchered in the most shocking manner; their mangled bodies, for want of funerals, exposed to birds and beasts of prey; and all kinds of mischief perpetrated that wanton cruelty can invent. Not even a Rizpah left to brood over the scalpless forms, and to drive away the buzzard and the wild things of the forest! In this scene, and the pettier but similarly tragic scenes of death and havoc, furnished, from time to time, over a wide range of frontier territory, by lonely fields and cabins, upon which the tomahawk had ruthlessly descended, is to be found the psychology of the furious passions, which hurried the wretched Conestoga Indians out of existence, and of the outspoken or covert sympathy, which made a mockery of the attempt to bring their butchers to justice. Even men cooler than the Paxton Boys, hardened by revolting cruelties, not distinguishable from those inflicted by talon or tooth, except in their atrocious refinements of torture, and yet brought home in some form or other to almost every fireside in Pennsylvania, came to think of killing and mutilating an Indian with no more compunction than if he were a rattlesnake. James Parton mentions with a natural shudder the fact that Governor John Penn, after the retirement of the Paxton Boys from Philadelphia, offered the following bounties: For every captive male Indian of any hostile tribe one hundred and fifty dollars; for every female captive one hundred and thirty-eight dollars, for the scalp of a male Indian one hundred and thirty-four dollars, for the scalp of a female Indian fifty dollars. To Franklin himself, when on the Gnadenhutten expedition, fell the duty of instructing a Captain Vanetta, who was about to raise a company of foot-soldiers for the protection of upper Smithfield, while its inhabitants were looking after their corn, that forty dollars would be allowed and paid by the Provincial Government for each Indian scalp produced by one of his men with the proper attestations. How accustomed even Franklin became to the ever-repeated story of Indian barbarities, and to occasional reprisals by the whites, hardly less shocking, is revealed by a brief letter from him to Peter Collinson in 1764, in which, with the dry conciseness of an old English chronicler, he reports the narratives of a British soldier, Owens, who had deserted to the Indians, and a white boy, whom Owens had brought back with him from captivity, together with five propitiatory Indian scalps, when he returned to his former allegiance. The Account given by him and the Boy [wrote Franklin] is, that they were with a Party of nine Indians, to wit, 5 men, 2 Women, and 2 Children, coming down Susquehanah to fetch Corn from their last Year's Planting Place; that they went ashore and encamp'd at Night and made a Fire by which they slept; that in the Night Owens made the White Boy get up from among the Indians, and go to the other side of the Fire; and then taking up the Indians' Guns, he shot two of the Men immediately, and with his Hatchet dispatch'd another Man together with the Women and Children. Two men only made their escape. Owens scalp'd the 5 grown Persons, and bid the White Boy scalp the Children; but he declin'd it, so they were left. Franklin, however, was not the man to say, as General Philip Sheridan was many years afterwards to be reputed to have said, that the only good Indian is a dead Indian. In the course of his varied life, he had many opportunities for becoming familiarly acquainted with the history and character of the Indians, and forming a just judgment as to how far their fiendish outbreaks were due to sheer animal ferocity, and how far to the provocation of ill-treatment by the whites; and he was too just not to know and declare that almost every war between the Indians and the whites in his time had been occasioned by some injustice of the latter towards the former. As far back as 1753, he and Isaac Norris, the Speaker of the Assembly, were appointed commissioners by it to unite with Richard Peters, the Secretary of the Proprietary Government, in negotiating a treaty with the western Indians at Carlisle, and the manner, in which this treaty was conducted, is told in the _Autobiography_ in his lively way. In 1756, he again served as a commissioner, this time with William Logan and Richard Peters, two members of the Governor's Council, and Joseph Fox, William Masters and John Hughes, three members of the Assembly, for the purpose of negotiating a treaty at Easton with Teedyuscung, the King of the Delawares. At this conference, Governor Denny himself was likewise present. In 1763, he was appointed one of the commissioners to expend the money appropriated by the Assembly for levying a military force to defend the Pennsylvania frontier against the Indians. The Albany Congress, as we have seen, brought him into direct personal contact with the Iroquois who, to a fell savagery only to be compared with that of the most ferocious beasts of the jungle, united a capacity for political cohesion and the rudiments of civilized life which gave them quite an exceptional standing in the history of the American Indian. By virtue of these circumstances, to say nothing of other sources of knowledge and information, Franklin obtained an insight, at once shrewd and profound, into everything that related to the American Indian, including the best methods by which his good will could be conciliated and his trade secured. The following remarks in his Canada Pamphlet give us a good idea of the mobility and special adaptation to his physical environment which made the Indian, in proportion to his numbers, the most formidable foe that the world has ever seen: They go to war, as they call it, in small parties, from fifty men down to five. Their hunting life has made them acquainted with the whole country, and scarce any part of it is impracticable to such a party. They can travel thro' the woods even by night, and know how to conceal their tracks. They pass easily between your forts undiscovered; and privately approach the settlements of your frontier inhabitants. They need no convoys of provisions to follow them; for whether they are shifting from place to place in the woods, or lying in wait for an opportunity to strike a blow, every thicket and every stream furnishes so small a number with sufficient subsistence. When they have surpriz'd separately, and murder'd and scalp'd a dozen families, they are gone with inconceivable expedition through unknown ways, and 'tis very rare that pursuers have any chance of coming up with them. In short, long experience has taught our planters, that they cannot rely upon forts as a security against _Indians_: The inhabitants of _Hackney_ might as well rely upon the tower of _London_ to secure them against highwaymen and housebreakers. This is the Indian seen from the point of view of the soldier and colonial administrator. He is fully as interesting, when considered by Franklin in a letter to Richard Jackson from the point of view of the philosopher: They visit us frequently, and see the advantages that arts, sciences, and compact societies procure us. They are not deficient in natural understanding; and yet they have never shown any inclination to change their manner of life for ours, or to learn any of our arts. When an Indian child has been brought up among us, taught our language, and habituated to our customs, yet, if he goes to see his relatives, and makes one Indian ramble with them, there is no persuading him ever to return. And that this is not natural to them merely as Indians, but as men, is plain from this, that when white persons, of either sex, have been taken prisoners by the Indians, and lived a while with them, though ransomed by their friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first opportunity of escaping again into the woods, from whence there is no redeeming them. One instance I remember to have heard, where the person was brought home to possess a good estate; but, finding some care necessary to keep it together, he relinquished it to a younger brother, reserving to himself nothing but a gun and a match-coat, with which he took his way again into the wilderness. So that I am apt to imagine that close societies, subsisting by labour and art, arose first not from choice but from necessity, when numbers, being driven by war from their hunting grounds, and prevented by seas, or by other nations, from obtaining other hunting grounds, were crowded together into some narrow territories, which without labour could not afford them food. A man had to be humorous, indeed, to see anything humorous in the American Indian, but Franklin's sense of the ludicrous was equal to even that supreme achievement. We have already referred to the image of hell that he saw in the nocturnal orgies of the drunken Indians at Carlisle. Prudently enough, they were not allowed by the Provincial Commissioners to have the rum that was in store for them until they had ratified the treaty entered into on that occasion; an artifice that doubtless proved quite as effective in hastening its consummation as the one adopted by Chaplain Beatty of distributing the rum before, instead of after, prayers, did in securing the punctual attendance of Franklin's soldiers at them. But diabolical as were the gestures and yells of the drink-crazed Indians, men and women, at Carlisle, Franklin contrived to bring away a facetious story from the conference for the _Autobiography_. The orator, who called on the Commissioners the next day, after the debauch, for the purpose of apologizing for the conduct of himself and his people, laid it upon the rum; and then endeavoured to excuse the rum by saying, "_The Great Spirit, who made all things, made everything for some use, and whatever use he design'd anything for, that use it should always be put to. Now, when he made rum, he said 'Let this be for the Indians to get drunk with'; and it must be so._"... And indeed [adds Franklin] if it be the design of Providence to extirpate these savages in order to make room for cultivators of the earth, it seems not improbable that rum may be the appointed means. It has already annihilated all the tribes who formerly inhabited the seacoast. There is another good Indian story in the letter from Franklin to Richard Jackson from which we have recently quoted. When everything had been settled at a conference between the Six Nations and some of the Colonies, and nothing remained to be gone through with but a mutual exchange of civilities, the English Commissioners told the Indians that they had in their country a college for the instruction of youth in the various languages, arts and sciences, and that, if the Indians were willing, they would take back with them a half-dozen of their brightest lads and bring them up in the best manner. The Indians, after weighing the proposal, replied that they remembered that some of their youths had formerly been educated at that college, but that it had been observed that for a long time, after they returned to their friends, they were absolutely good for nothing; being neither acquainted with the true methods of killing deer, catching beaver, or surprising an enemy. The proposition, however, they regarded as a mark of kindness and good will on the part of the English, which merited a grateful return, and therefore, if the English gentlemen would send a dozen or two of their children to Opondago, the Great Council would take care of their education, bring them up in what was really the best manner, and make men of them.[17] That the whites had much to answer for in their intercourse with the Indians Franklin saw clearly. The Canada Pamphlet speaks of the goods sold to them by French and English traders as loaded with all the impositions that fraud and knavery could contrive to enhance their value, and in one of Franklin's notes on the Albany plan of union he referred many Indian wars to cheating, practised by Indian traders on Indians, whom they had first made drunk. These traders he termed on another occasion, "the most vicious and abandoned Wretches of our Nation." "I do not believe we shall ever have a firm peace with the Indians," he wrote to Thomas Pownall in 1756, "till we have well drubbed them." This was the natural language of a man who had no toleration for wanton applications of force but did not shrink from applying it, when nothing else would answer. But no man could have been more fearless than he in denouncing outrages committed by the whites upon inoffensive Indians, or Indians of any sort, when not on the war path. "It grieves me," he wrote to Sir William Johnson in 1766, "to hear that our Frontier People are yet greater Barbarians than the Indians, and continue to murder them in time of peace." His views about the proper methods of controlling the Indians and securing their trade were worthy of his liberal and enlightened mind. Their friendship he deemed to be of the greatest consequence to the Colonies, and the best way to make sure of it, he thought, was to regulate trade between the whites and the Indians in such a way as to convince the latter that, as between France and England, the English goods were the best and cheapest, and the English merchants the most honorable, and to form a union between the Colonies strong enough to make the Indians feel that they could depend on it for protection against the French, or that they would suffer at its hands if they should break with it. The Indian trade, for which the colonists had sacrificed so much blood and treasure, was, he boldly reminded his auditors, in his famous examination before the House of Commons, not an American but a British interest, maintained with British manufactures for the profit of British merchants and manufacturers. In a letter to Cadwallader Colden, he even suggested that the Government should take it over, and furnish goods to the Indians at the cheapest prices, without regard to profit, as Massachusetts had done. Other suggestions of Franklin with respect to the conduct of the Indian trade were hardly less interesting. Pittsburg, he contended, after the restoration of peace in 1759, should be retained by the English, with a small tract of land about it for supplying the fort with provisions, and with sufficient hunting grounds in its vicinity for the peculiar needs of their Indian friends. A fort, and a small population of sober, orderly people there, he thought, would help to preserve the friendship of the Indians by bringing trade and the arts into close proximity to them, and would bridle them, if seduced from their allegiance by the French, or would, at least, stand in the gap, and be a shield to the other American frontiers. Another suggestion of his was that, in time of peace, parties should be allowed to issue from frontier garrisons on hunting expeditions, with or without Indians, and enjoy the profits of the peltry that they brought back. In this way, a body of wood-runners would be formed, well acquainted with the country and of great value in time of war as guides and scouts. Every Indian was a hunter, every Indian was a disciplined soldier. They hunted in precisely the same manner as they made war. The only difference was that in hunting they skulked, surprised and killed animals, and, in making war, men. It was just such soldiers that the colonies needed; for the European military discipline was of little use in the woods. These words were penned four or five years before the battle of the Monongahela confirmed so bloodily their truth. Franklin also thought that a number of sober, discreet smiths should be encouraged to reside among the Indians. The whole subsistence of Indians depended on their keeping their guns in order. They were a people that thought much of their temporal, but little of their spiritual interests, and, therefore, a smith was more likely to influence them than a Jesuit. In a letter to his son, he mentions that he had dined recently with Lord Shelburne, and had availed himself of the occasion to urge that a colony should be planted in the Illinois country for furnishing provisions to military garrisons more cheaply, clinching the hold of the English upon the country, and building up a strength which, in the event of a future war, might easily be poured down the Mississippi upon the lower country, and into the Bay of Mexico, to be used against Cuba or Mexico itself. The reader has already had brought to his attention the provisions of the Albany plan of union which were intended to vest in the government sketched by it the control of Indian treaties, trade and purchases. The ignorance of the Indian character, which prevailed in England, often, we may be sure, brought a smile to the face of Franklin. Among his writings are remarks made at the request of Lord Shelburne on a plan for regulating Indian affairs submitted to him by the latter. It is to be regretted that the circumstances of the case were such that it was impossible for Franklin to escape the restraints of official gravity even when he was assigning the rambling habits of the Indians as his reason for believing that an Indian chief would hardly be willing to reside permanently with one of the functionaries, who was to aid in carrying the plan into effect, or when he was giving the high value, that the Indian attached to personal liberty, and the low value, that he attached to personal property, as his reason for thinking that imprisonment for debt was scarcely consistent with aboriginal ideas of equity. The plan was of a piece with the suggestion attributed to Dean Tucker that the colonies should be protected from Indian incursions by clearing away the trees and bushes from a tract of land, a mile in width, at the back of the colonies. As Benjamin Vaughan said, this brilliant idea not only involved a first cost (not to mention the fact that trees and bushes grow again when cut down) of some £128,000 for every hundred miles but quite overlooked the fact that the Indians, like other people, knew the difference between day and night. He forgot, said Franklin, "that there is a night in every twenty-four hours." The distinction, which Franklin enjoyed in England, during his first mission to that country, was due to his philosophical and literary reputation, but his second mission to England and the colonial agencies, held by him while it lasted, afforded him an opportunity for playing a conspicuous part in the stirring transactions, which ushered in the American Revolution. Apart from all other considerations, his place in the history of these transactions will always be an extraordinary one because of the consummate wisdom and self-restraint exhibited by him in his relations to the controversy that finally ended in a fratricidal war between Great Britain and her colonies, which should never have been kindled. To the issues, involved in this controversy, he brought a vision as undimmed by political bigotry and false economic conceptions of colonial dependence as that of a British statesman of the present day. It is easy to believe that, if his counsels had been heeded, Great Britain and the communities, which make up the American Union, would now be connected by some close organic or federative tie. It is, at least, certain that no other Englishman on either side of the Atlantic saw as clearly as he did the true interests of both parties to the fatal conflict, or strove with such unerring sagacity and sober moderation of purpose to avert the breach between the two great branches of the English People. In no way can the extreme folly, which forced independence upon the colonies, be better measured than by contrasting the heated vehemence of Franklin's later feelings about the King and Parliament with his earlier sentiments towards the country that he did not cease to call "home" until to call it so would have been mockery. Devoted attachment to England, the land endeared to him by so many ties of family, intellectual sympathy and friendship, profound loyalty to the British Crown, deep-seated reverence for the laws, institutions and usages of the noble people, in whose inheritance of enlightened freedom he vainly insisted upon having his full share as an Englishman, were all characteristics of his, before the alienation of the colonies from Great Britain.[18] His earlier utterances breathe a spirit of ingrained loyalty to the British Crown. The French were "mischievous neighbors," France "that perfidious nation." "I congratulate you on the defeat of Jacobitism by your glorious Duke," he wrote to Strahan in 1746, after the Duke of Cumberland had earned his title of "The Butcher" at Culloden. "I pray God to preserve long to Great Britain the English Laws, Manners, Liberties, and Religion," was an exclamation seven years later in one of his letters to Richard Jackson. "Wise and good prince," "the best of Kings," "Your good King," are some of the terms in which he expressed his opinion of his royal master. In the light of later events, there is something little short of amusing about the horoscope which he framed of the reign of George the Third in a letter to Strahan a year or so before the passage of the Stamp Act. Replying to forebodings of Strahan, Franklin said of the Prince, whom he styled "Our virtuous young King": On the contrary, I am of Opinion that his Virtue and the Consciousness of his sincere Intentions to make his People happy will give him Firmness and Steadiness in his Measures and in the Support of the honest Friends he has chosen to serve him; and when that Firmness is fully perceiv'd, Faction will dissolve and be dissipated like a Morning Fog before the rising Sun, leaving the rest of the Day clear with a Sky serene and cloudless. Such after a few of the first Years will be the future course of his Majesty's Reign, which I predict will be happy and truly glorious. In his letter to Polly about the French King and Queen, whom he had seen dining in state, which was written the year after the repeal of the Stamp Act, he declared, in his fear that he might seem to be too well pleased with them, that no Frenchman should go beyond him in thinking his own King and Queen, "the very best in the World, and the most amiable." The popular commotions in the succeeding year, with their watch cry of Wilkes and Liberty, seemed to him to indicate that some punishment was preparing for a people, who were ungratefully abusing the best Constitution and the best King that any nation was ever blessed with. As late as 1770, he wrote to Dr. Samuel Cooper, "Let us, therefore, hold fast our Loyalty to our King, who has the best Disposition towards us, and has a Family Interest in our Prosperity." Indeed, even two years later than this, he complacently wrote to his son, "The King, too, has lately been heard to speak of me with great regard." Strangely enough it was not until two years before the battle of Bunker Hill that he awoke sufficiently from his fool's paradise to write to his son, "Between you and I, the late Measures have been, I suspect, very much the King's own, and he has in some Cases a great Share of what his Friends call _Firmness_." Even then he hazarded the opinion that by painstaking and proper management the wrong impression of the colonists that George the Third had received might be removed. Down to this time so secretly had the King pursued the insidious system of corruption by which he kept his Parliamentary majority unmurmuringly subservient to his system of personal government, that Franklin does not appear to have even suspected that his was the master hand, or rather purse, which shaped all its proceedings against America. When the whole truth, however, was made manifest to Franklin, his awakening was correspondingly rude and unforgiving. How completely reversed became the current of all his feelings towards George the Third, after the Revolution began, we have already seen in some of our references to letters written by him to his English friends, in which the King, whom he once revered, was scored in terms of passionate reprobation. Tenacious, too, was the affection with which Franklin clung to England and the English people. Some years before the passage of the Stamp Act, he wrote to Lord Kames from London that he purposed to give form to the material that he had been gathering for his _Art of Virtue_ when he returned to his _other_ country, that is to say, America. Of all the enviable Things England has [he wrote a few years later to Polly], I envy it most its People. Why should that petty Island, which compar'd to America, is but like a stepping Stone in a Brook, scarce enough of it above Water to keep one's Shoes dry; why, I say, should that little Island enjoy in almost every Neighbourhood, more sensible, virtuous, and elegant Minds, than we can collect in ranging 100 Leagues of our vast Forests? How eagerly even when he was in the New World he relished the observations of his friend Strahan on current English politics, we have already seen. We have also already seen how seriously he entertained even the thought of transferring his family for good to England. Indeed his intense loyalty to English King and People, together with his remoteness from the contagious excitement of the Colonies over the passage of the Stamp Act, caused him for a time, with a curious insensibility to the real state of public opinion in America, to lag far behind the revolutionary movement in that country. Not only, before he was fully aroused to the stern purpose of his fellow-countrymen to resist the collection of the stamp tax to the last extremity, did he recommend his friend John Hughes to the British Ministry as a stamp-tax collector, and send to his partner Hall a large quantity of paper for the use of the _Gazette_, of such dimensions as to secure a saving in stamps for its issues, but he wrote to Hughes in these terms besides: If it (the Stamp Act) continues, your undertaking to execute it may make you unpopular for a Time, but your acting with Coolness and Steadiness, and with every Circumstance in your Power of Favour to the People, will by degrees reconcile them. In the meantime, a firm Loyalty to the Crown & faithful Adherence to the Government of this Nation, which it is the Safety as well as Honour of the Colonies to be connected with, will always be the wisest Course for you and I to take, whatever may be the Madness of the Populace or their blind Leaders, who can only bring themselves and Country into Trouble and draw on greater Burthens by Acts of Rebellious Tendency. The rashness of the Virginia Assembly in relation to the Stamp Act he thought simply amazing. Much better known is the letter that he wrote about the same time to Charles Thomson. After stating that he had done everything in his power to prevent the passage of the Stamp Act, he said: But the Tide was too strong against us. The nation was provoked by American Claims of Independence, and all Parties joined in resolving by this act to settle the point. We might as well have hindered the sun's setting. That we could not do. But since 'tis down, my Friend, and it may be long before it rises again, let us make as good a night of it as we can. We may still light candles. Frugality and Industry will go a great way toward indemnifying us. Idleness and Pride tax with a heavier hand than Kings and Parliaments; if we can get rid of the former, we may easily bear the latter. Six months later, when the loud and fierce protest of his fellow-countrymen against the Stamp Act had reached his ear, and convinced him that they were more likely to light camp-fires than candles, he held a very different language. Asked, during his famous examination before the House of Commons, whether he thought that the people of America would submit to pay the Stamp Tax, if it were moderated, he replied, "No, never, unless compelled by force of arms." Public leaders, after all, to use Gladstone's happy image with regard to the orator, do little more than give back in rain what they receive in mist from the mass of men. But with the repeal of the Stamp Act, and part of the duties imposed upon America, Franklin would readily have lapsed in every respect into his old affectionate relations to England, if Parliament had not, by its unwise reservation of its right to tax America, fallen into the bad surgery, to use his own words, of leaving splinters in the wound that it had inflicted. It now seems strange enough that, after the turbulent outbreak in America, which preceded the repeal, he should have been willing to accept a post under the Duke of Grafton, and to remain in England for some time longer if not for the rest of his life; yet such is the fact. When he heard through a friend that the Duke had said that, if he chose rather to reside in England than to return to his office as Deputy Postmaster-General for America, it would not be the Duke's fault, if he was not well provided for, he declared in the polished phrases of a courtier that there was no nobleman, to whom he could from sincere respect for his great abilities and amiable qualities so cordially attach himself, or to whom he should so willingly be obliged for the provision mentioned, as to the Duke of Grafton, if his Grace should think that he could in any station, where he might be placed, be serviceable to him and to the public. To any one who knows what a profligate the Duke was, during the most scandalous part of his career, this language sounds not a little like the conventional phrases in which Franklin, during his mission to France, assured Crocco, the blackmailing emissary of the piratical emperor of Morocco that he had no doubt but that, as soon as the affairs of the United States were a little settled, they would manifest equally good dispositions as those of his master and take all the proper steps to cultivate and secure the friendship of a monarch, whose character, Franklin knew, they had long esteemed and respected. But in the same letter to his son, in which the declaration about the Duke of Grafton was recalled, Franklin made it clear that he was unwilling, by accepting office, to place himself in the power of any English Minister committed to the fatuous policy of taxing America. It was not until forbearance had ceased to be a virtue, and an American Whig could no longer hold an English office without reproach, that his innate conservatism of character yielded to the forces which were slowly but certainly rending the two countries apart. Three years after the repeal of the Stamp Act, which he dubbed "the mother of mischief," he wrote to Jean Baptiste Le Roy of the popular disturbances in Boston as "sudden, unpremeditated things, that happened only among a few of the lower sort." A month later, he wrote to Dr. Cooper: I have been in constant Pain since I heard of Troops assembling at Boston, lest the Madness of Mobs, or the Insolence of Soldiers, or both, should, when too near each other, occasion some Mischief difficult to be prevented or repaired, and which might spread far and wide. "I hope however," he added, "that Prudence will predominate, and keep all quiet." A little later still, in another letter to the same correspondent, after saying that he could scarcely conceive a King of better dispositions, of more exemplary virtues, or more truly desirous of promoting the welfare of all his subjects than was George the Third, he further and truly said: "The Body of this People, too, is of a noble and generous Nature, loving and honouring the Spirit of Liberty, and hating arbitrary Power of all sorts. We have many, very many, friends among them." As late as the autumn of 1774 he was grieved to hear of mobs and violence and the pulling down of houses in America, which the friends of America in England could not justify, and which gave a great advantage to the enemies of America in that country. He was in perpetual anxiety, he wrote Thomas Cushing, lest the mad measures of mixing soldiers among a people whose minds were in such a state of irritation might be attended with some mischief, for an accidental quarrel, a personal insult, an imprudent order, an insolent execution of even a prudent one, or twenty other things might produce a tumult, unforeseen, and, therefore, impossible to be prevented, in which such a carnage might ensue as to make a breach that could never afterwards be healed. That the insults of Wedderburn, heaped upon Franklin in the Privy Council Chamber, under circumstances, calculated to make him feel as if all England were pillorying him, and his subsequent dismissal from the office of Deputy Postmaster-General for America, exerted some degree of corrosive influence upon his mind cannot be denied; but he still kept up his counsels of patience to his people upon the other side of the Atlantic until patience no longer had any meaning, and, when his last efforts, just before he left England for Independence Hall, to bring about a satisfactory adjustment of the quarrel between Great Britain and her colonies finally came to nothing, the tears that Priestley tells us wet his cheeks, as he was leaving England, were proof enough that even a nature, little given to weakness, might well grow faint at the thought of such a tragic separation as that of England and the thirteen colonies nurtured at her breast. But no one can read the life of Franklin without feeling that there never was a time when his heart was not wholly true to the just rights of America. In America, he might miss the companionship of the learned and distinguished friends from whose conversation he derived so much profit and pleasure in England and France. Only such a capital as London or Paris could fully gratify the social and intellectual wants of a man whose survey of human existence was so little subject to cramping restrictions of any kind. But it was the very breadth of Franklin's character which made him first of all an American, instinct with the free spirit of the New World, and faithful to the democratic institutions and ideals, which throve on its freshness and exemption from inherited complications. Over and over again, when he is abroad, he compares the economic and political conditions of his own country with those of foreign countries to the marked disadvantage of the latter. The painful impression, left upon his mind by the squalor and misery of the lower orders of the Irish people, is manifest enough in his correspondence. Ireland is in itself [he declared in a letter to Thomas Cushing] a poor Country, and Dublin a magnificent City; but the appearances of general extreme poverty among the lower people are amazing. They live in wretched hovels of mud and straw, are clothed in rags, and subsist chiefly on potatoes. Our New England farmers, of the poorest sort, in regard to the Enjoyment of all the Comforts of life, are princes when compared to them. Such is the effect of the discouragements of industry, the non-residence not only of pensioners, but of many original landlords, who lease their lands in gross to undertakers that rack the tenants and fleece them skin and all to make estates to themselves, while the first rents, as well as most of the pensions, are spent out of the country. An English gentleman there said to me, that by what he had heard of the good grazing in North America, and by what he saw of the plenty of flax-seed imported in Ireland from thence, he could not understand why we did not rival Ireland in the beef and butter trade to the West Indies, and share with it in its linen trade. But he was satisfied when I told him that I supposed the reason might be, _our people eat beef and butter every day, and wear shirts themselves_. In short, the chief exports of Ireland seem to be pinched off the backs and out of the bellies of the miserable inhabitants. Darker and more forbidding still glooms the background of the joyous hours spent by Franklin in Ireland, Scotland and England in these painful words which he wrote to Dr. Joshua Babcock in the early part of 1772: I have lately made a Tour thro' Ireland and Scotland. In those Countries a small Part of the Society are Landlords, great Noblemen, and Gentlemen, extreamly opulent, living in the highest Affluence and Magnificence: The Bulk of the People Tenants, extreamly poor, living in the most sordid Wretchedness, in dirty Hovels of Mud and Straw, and cloathed only in Rags. I thought often of the Happiness of New England, where every Man is a Freeholder, has a Vote in publick Affairs, lives in a tidy, warm House, has plenty of good Food and Fewel, with whole cloaths from Head to Foot, the Manufacture perhaps of his own Family. Long may they continue in this Situation! But if they should ever envy the Trade of these Countries, I can put them in a Way to obtain a Share of it. Let them with three fourths of the People of Ireland live the Year round on Potatoes and Buttermilk, without shirts, then may their Merchants export Beef, Butter, and Linnen. Let them, with the Generality of the Common People of Scotland, go Barefoot, then may they make large exports in Shoes and Stockings: And if they will be content to wear Rags, like the Spinners and Weavers of England, they may make Cloths and Stuffs for all Parts of the World. Farther, if my Countrymen should ever wish for the honour of having among them a gentry enormously wealthy, let them sell their Farms & pay rack'd Rents; the Scale of the Landlords will rise as that of the Tenants is depress'd, who will soon become poor, tattered, dirty, and abject in Spirit. Had I never been in the American Colonies, but was to form my Judgment of Civil Society by what I have lately seen, I should never advise a Nation of Savages to admit of Civilization: For I assure you, that, in the Possession & Enjoyment of the various Comforts of Life, compar'd to these People every Indian is a Gentleman: And the Effect of this kind of Civil Society seems only to be, the depressing Multitudes below the Savage State that a few may be rais'd above it. America on the other hand, as Franklin pictured it, was the land of neither the very rich nor the very poor, but one in which "a general happy mediocrity" prevailed. It was not a Lubberland, nor a Pays de Cocagne, where the streets were paved with half-peck loaves, and the houses tiled with pancakes, and where the fowls flew about ready roasted, crying Come eat me! These were all wild imaginations. On the contrary, it was a land of labor, but also a land where multitudes of emigrants from foreign lands, who would never have emerged from poverty, if they had remained at home, had, with savings out of the wages, earned by them, after they arrived in America, acquired land, and, in a few years, become wealthy farmers. It was a land, too, where religious infidelity was unknown, and where all the means of education were plenteous, the general manners simple and pure, and the temptations to vice and folly fewer than in England. The contrast between political conditions in Great Britain and political conditions in America was in Franklin's opinion equally unfavorable to Great Britain. Loyal as he was to the King, attached as he was to the English people, he harbored a deep feeling of aversion and contempt for the Parliament which he did not realize was but the marionette of the King. When certain residents of Oxford, after being confined for some days in Newgate for corrupt practices, knelt before the Speaker of the House of Commons, and received his reprimand, Franklin wrote to Galloway: The House could scarcely keep countenances, knowing as they all do, that the practice is general. People say, they mean nothing more than to _beat down the price_ by a little discouragement of borough jobbing, now that their own elections are all coming on. The price indeed is grown exorbitant, no less than _four thousand pounds_ for a member. In the same letter, a grim story is told of the callous levity with which the Parliamentary majority regarded its own debasement. It was founded upon a bill brought in by Beckford for preventing bribery and corruption at elections, which contained a clause obliging every member to swear, on his admission to the House, that he had not directly or indirectly given any bribe to any elector. This clause was so generally opposed as answering no end except that of inducing the members to perjure themselves that it was withdrawn. Commenting on the incident, Franklin said: It was indeed a cruel contrivance of his, worse than the gunpowder plot; for that was only to blow the Parliament up to heaven, this to sink them all down to ----. Mr. Thurlow opposed his bill by a long speech. Beckford, in reply, gave a dry hit to the House, that is repeated everywhere. "The honourable gentleman," says he, "in his learned discourse, gave us first one definition of corruption, then he gave us another definition of corruption, and I think he was about to give us a third. Pray does that gentleman imagine _there is any member of this House that does not_ KNOW what corruption is?" which occasioned only a roar of laughter, for they are so hardened in the practice, that they are very little ashamed of it. Later Franklin wrote to Galloway that it was thought that near two million pounds would be spent in the Parliamentary election then pending, but that it was computed that the Crown had _two millions a year in places and pensions to dispose of_. On the same day, he wrote to his son, "In short, this whole venal nation is now at market, will be sold for about two millions, and might be bought out of the hands of the present bidders (if he would offer half a million more) by the very Devil himself." To Thomas Cushing he wrote that luxury brought most of the Commons as well as Lords to market, and that, if America would save for three or four years the money she spent in the fashions and fineries and fopperies of England, she might buy the whole Parliament, minister and all. Over against these depraved electoral conditions he was in the habit of placing the simpler and purer conditions of his native land. In most of the Colonies, he declared in his _Rise and Progress of the Differences between Great_ _Britain and her American Colonies_, there was no such thing as standing candidate for election. There was neither treating nor bribing. No man expressed the least inclination to be chosen. Instead of humble advertisements, entreating votes and interest, one saw before every new election requests of former members, acknowledging the honor done them by preceding elections, but setting forth their long service and attendance on the public business in that station, and praying that in consideration thereof some other person might be chosen in their room. After a dissolution, the same representatives might be and usually were re-elected without asking a vote or giving even a glass of cider to an elector. On the eve of his return to America in 1775, the contrast between the extreme corruption prevalent in the old rotten state and the glorious public virtue, so predominant in rising America, as he expressed it, assumed a still more aggravated form. After mentioning in his last letter to his friend Galloway the "Numberless and needless Places, enormous Salaries, Pensions, Perquisites, Bribes, groundless Quarrels, foolish Expeditions, false Accounts or no Accounts, Contracts and Jobbs," which in England devoured all revenue, and produced continual necessity in the midst of natural plenty, he said: I apprehend, therefore, that to unite us intimately will only be to corrupt and poison us also. It seems like Mezentius's coupling and binding together the dead and the living. "Tormenti genus, et sanie taboque fluentes, Complexu in misero, longâ sic morte necabat." However [he added with his readily re-awakened loyalty to the mother country], I would try anything, and bear anything that can be borne with Safety to our just Liberties, rather than engage in a War with such near relations, unless compelled to it by dire Necessity in our own Defence. Nor was any American of Franklin's time more profoundly conscious than he of the growing power and splendid destiny of the Colonies. His familiarity with America was singularly minute and accurate. He had supped at its inns and sojourned in its homes, been delayed at its ferries and crippled on its roads. In one way or another, he had acquired a correct and searching insight into almost everything that related to its political, social and industrial life. His answers to the questions put to him during his famous examination before the House of Lords have been justly reputed to be among the most striking of all the proofs of ability that he ever gave, marked as they were by great wisdom and acuteness, marvellous conciseness as well as clearness of statement, invincible tact and dexterity. But in no respect are these answers more remarkable than in the knowledge that they display of colonial America in all its relations. Accompanying this knowledge, too, was unquestionably a powerful feeling of affection for the land of his birth which renders us more or less skeptical as to whether he was at all certain of himself on the different occasions when he expressed his willingness to die in some other land than his own. I have indeed [he wrote to his son from England in 1772] so many good kind Friends here, that I could spend the Remainder of my Life among them with great Pleasure, if it were not for my American connections, & the indelible Affection I retain for that dear Country, from which I have so long been in a State of Exile. At all times the tread of those coming millions of human beings, which the family fecundity of America made certain, sounded majestically in his ears. Referring to America in a letter to Lord Kames in the year after the repeal of the Stamp Act, he employed these significant words: She may suffer at present under the arbitrary power of this country; she may suffer for a while in a separation from it; but these are temporary evils that she will outgrow. Scotland and Ireland are differently circumstanced. Confined by the sea, they can scarcely increase in numbers, wealth and strength, so as to overbalance England. But America, an immense territory, favoured by Nature with all advantages of climate, soil, great navigable rivers, and lakes, &c. must become a great country, populous and mighty; and will, in a less time than is generally conceived, be able to shake off any shackles that may be imposed on her, and perhaps place them on the imposers. In the mean time, every act of oppression will sour their tempers, lessen greatly, if not annihilate the profits of your commerce with them, and hasten their final revolt; for the seeds of liberty are universally found there, and nothing can eradicate them. Even, if confined westward by the Mississippi and northward by the St. Lawrence and the Lakes, he thought that, in some centuries, the population of America would amount to one hundred millions of people. Such were the prepossessions brought by Franklin to the controversy between Great Britain and her colonies. In his view he was none the less an Englishman because he was an American, and, as the controversy gained in rancor, his dual allegiance to the two countries led to no little misconstruction. To an unknown correspondent he wrote several years after the repeal of the Stamp Act that he was becoming weary of talking and writing about the quarrel, "especially," he said, "as I do not find that I have gained any point, in either country, except that of rendering myself suspected by my impartiality; in England of being too much an American, and in America, of being too much an Englishman." His view of the legal tie between England and the Colonies was very simple. How, he wrote to William Franklin, the people of Boston could admit that the General Court of Massachusetts was subordinate to Parliament, and yet, in the same breath, deny the power of Parliament to enact laws for them, he could not understand; nor could he understand what bounds the Farmer's Letters set to the authority in Parliament, which they conceded, to "regulate the trade of the Colonies." It was difficult, he thought, to draw lines between duties for regulation and those for revenue; and, if Parliament was to be the judge, it seemed to him that the distinction would amount to little. Two years previously, however, when examined before the House of Commons; he had stated that, while the right of a Parliament in which the colonies were not represented to impose an internal tax upon them was generally denied in America, he had never heard any objection urged in America to duties laid by Parliament to regulate commerce; and, when he was asked whether there was any kind of difference between the two taxes to the colonies on which they might be laid, he had a prompt answer: I think the difference is very great. An external tax is a duty laid on commodities imported; that duty is added to the first cost and other charges on the commodity, and, when it is offered to sale, makes a part of the price. If the people do not like it at that price, they refuse it; they are not obliged to pay it. But an internal tax is forced from the people without their consent, if not laid by their own representatives. And then, when asked immediately afterwards whether, if the external tax or duty was laid on the necessaries of life imported into Pennsylvania, that would not be the same thing in its effects as an internal tax, he doubtless filled the minds of his more insular auditors with astonishment by replying, "I do not know a single article imported into the Northern Colonies, but what they can either do without, or make themselves." Another neat answer in the examination was his answer when asked whether there was any kind of difference between a duty on the importation of goods and an excise on their consumption: Yes, a very material one; an excise, for the reasons I have just mentioned, they (the colonists) think you can have no right to lay within their country. But the sea is yours; you maintain, by your fleets, the safety of navigation in it, and keep it clear of pirates; you may have therefore a natural and equitable right to some toll or duty on merchandizes carried through that part of your dominions, towards defraying the expence you are at in ships to maintain the safety of that carriage. Finally he grew weary of the repeated effort to fix the reproach of inconsistency upon the colonies because of their acquiescence in Parliamentary regulation of their commerce; and, when asked whether Pennsylvania might not, by the same interpretation of her charter, object to external as well as internal taxation without representation, he replied: They never have hitherto. Many arguments have been lately used here to show them, that there is no difference, and that, if you have no right to tax them internally, you have none to tax them externally, or make any other law to bind them. At present they do not reason so; but in time they may possibly be convinced by these arguments. Nearly ten years later, Franklin had in a conversation with Lord Chatham at his country seat a notable opportunity to say something further with respect to Parliamentary regulations of American commerce. On this occasion, the great English statesman, then earnestly engaged in a last effort to avert the approaching rupture, observed that the opinion prevailed in England that America aimed at setting up for itself as an independent state; or at least getting rid of the Navigation Acts; and Franklin assured him that, having more than once travelled almost from one end of the continent to the other, and kept a great variety of company, eating, drinking and conversing with them freely, he never had heard in any conversation from any person, drunk or sober, the least expression of a wish for a separation, or hint that such a thing would be advantageous to America. And, as to the Navigation Act, he said that the main material part of it, that of carrying on trade in British or Plantation bottoms, excluding foreign ships from colonial ports, and navigating with three fourths British seamen was as acceptable to America as it could be to Britain. Indeed, he declared, America was not even against regulations of the general commerce by Parliament, provided such regulations were _bona fide_ for the benefit of the whole empire, not for the small advantage of one part to the great injury of another, such as obliging American ships to call in England with their wine and fruit from Portugal or Spain, the restraints on American manufactures in the woollen and hat-making branches, the prohibiting of slitting-mills, steel-works and the like. In the opinion of Franklin, Great Britain and America were legally connected as England and Scotland were before the Union by having one common sovereign. He denied that the instructions of the King had the force of law in the Colonies, as Lord Granville had contended, or that the King and Parliament had any legislative authority over them. "Something," he told his son, "might be made of either of the extremes; that Parliament has a power to make _all laws_ for us, or that it has a power to make _no laws_ for us; and I think the arguments for the latter more numerous and weighty than those for the former." The King with his Plantation Parliaments was, in his opinion, the sole legislator of his American subjects, and, in that capacity, was, and ought to be, free to exercise his own judgment, unrestrained and unlimited by the English Parliament.[19] That the Colonies were originally constituted distinct states and intended to be continued such, was clear to him, he wrote to Dr. Cooper, from a thorough consideration of their first charters and the whole conduct of the crown and nation towards them until the Restoration. Since that time Parliament had usurped an authority of making laws for them which before it had not, and America had for some time submitted to the usurpation partly through ignorance and inattention and partly from its weakness and inability to contend. He wished therefore that such expressions as "the supreme authority of Parliament," "the subordinacy of our Assemblies to the Parliament" and the like were no longer employed in the colonies. These opinions were formed at a time when he labored under the egregious error of supposing that, in spite of the wicked machinations of his Parliament, the King regarded his colonies with the eye of mild paternal favor; but they remained his opinions long after he ceased to be the cheat of this delusion. How far Franklin's idea of the legal bond between Great Britain and the Colonies was a correct one is a technical inquiry that we need not discuss; but his conception of the solidarity of interests which should exist between all parts of the British Empire was as generous and glowing as any federal rhapsodist of the present day could form. When he expounded it to Lord Chatham at Hayes, the latter in his grand way declared that it was a sound one, worthy of a great, benevolent and comprehensive mind. And such it was. The truth is that Franklin was an Imperialist, and the union which he saw was that of a vast English-speaking empire, made up of parts, held in harmony with each other not only by their common English heritage but also by a measure of self-government liberal enough to assure to each of them an intelligent and sympathetic administration of its particular interests. Until the colonial history of England began, all great empires, he told Lord Chatham, had crumbled first at their extremities, because Countries remote from the Seat and Eye of Government which therefore could not well understand their Affairs for want of full and true Information, had never been well governed but had been oppress'd by bad Governors, on Presumption that Complaint was difficult to be made and supported against them at such a distance. Had this process of disintegration not been invited in recent years by wrong politics (which would have Parliament to be omnipotent, though it ought not to be so unless it could at the same time be omniscient) they might have gone on extending their Western Empire, adding Province to Province, as far as the South Sea. It has long appeared to me [he said in his _Tract relative to the Affair of Hutchinson's Letters_], that the only true British Politicks were those which aim'd at the Good of the _Whole British Empire_, not that which sought the Advantage of _one Part_ in the Disadvantage of the others; therefore all Measures of procuring Gain to the Mother Country arising from Loss to her Colonies, and all of Gain to the Colonies arising from or occasioning Loss to Britain, especially where the Gain was small and the Loss great, every Abridgment of the Power of the Mother Country, where that Power was not prejudicial to the Liberties of the Colonists, and every Diminution of the Privileges of the Colonists, where they were not prejudicial to the Welfare of the Mo. Country, I, in my own Mind, condemned as improper, partial, unjust, and mischievous; tending to create Dissensions, and weaken that Union, on which the Strength, Solidity, and Duration of the Empire greatly depended; and I opposed, as far as my little Powers went, all Proceedings, either here or in America, that in my Opinion had such Tendency. But in no words of Franklin is his inspiring idea of British unity more strikingly expressed than in one of his letters to Lord Howe during the Revolutionary War. Long did I endeavour, with unfeigned and unwearied Zeal [was his touching language] to preserve from breaking that fine and noble China Vase, the British Empire; for I knew, that, being once broken, the separate Parts could not retain even their Shares of the Strength and Value that existed in the Whole, and that a perfect Reunion of those Parts could scarce ever be hoped for. Your Lordship may possibly remember the tears of Joy that wet my Cheek, when, at your good Sister's in London, you once gave me Expectations that a Reconciliation might soon take place. That there was only one way in which the fair vase upon which his eye lingered so fondly and proudly could for certainty be preserved from irreparable ruin, namely, by admitting the colonies to representation in the British Parliament, Franklin saw with perfect clearness. Repeatedly the thought of such a union emerges from his correspondence only to be dismissed as impracticable. As far back as 1766, he wrote from London to Cadwallader Evans these pregnant words: My private opinion concerning a union in Parliament between the two countries is, that it would be best for the whole. But I think it will never be done. For though I believe, that, if we had no more representatives than Scotland has, we should be sufficiently strong in the House to prevent, as they do for Scotland, anything ever passing to our disadvantage; yet we are not able at present to furnish and maintain such a number, and, when we are more able, we shall be less willing than we are now. The Parliament here do at present think too highly of themselves to admit representatives from us, if we should ask it; and, when they will be desirous of granting it, we shall think too highly of ourselves to accept of it. It would certainly contribute to the strength of the whole, if Ireland and all the dominions were united and consolidated under one common council for general purposes, each retaining its particular council or parliament for its domestic concerns. But this should have been more early provided for. In the infancy of our foreign establishments it was neglected, or was not thought of. And now the affair is nearly in the situation of Friar Bacon's project of making a brazen wall round England for its eternal security. His servant, Friar Bungey, slept while the brazen head, which was to dictate how it might be done, said _Time is_, and _Time was_. He only waked to hear it say, _Time is past_. An explosion followed, that tumbled their house about the conjuror's ears. In a subsequent letter to his son in 1768, Franklin again indulges the same day dream, and again reaches the conclusion that such a union would be the best for the whole, and that, though particular parts might find particular disadvantages in it, they would find greater advantages in the security arising to every part from the increased strength of the whole. But such a union, he concluded, was not likely to take place, while the nature of the existing relation was so little understood on both sides of the water, and sentiments concerning it remained so widely different. Nothing, therefore, remained for Franklin to do except to fall back upon this relation and to make the best of it, to insist that the only constitutional tie between England and the Colonies was the King, and that Parliament had no more right to tax America than to tax Hanover, though the legislative assemblies of the colonies would always be ready in the future as they had been in the past to honor the requisitions for pecuniary aids made upon them by the King, through his Secretary of State; to combat the political and economic dogmas and the national prejudices which stood in the way of the full recognition by England of the fact that her true interest was to be found in the liberal treatment of the Colonies; to warn the Colonies that their connection with England was attended with too many obligations and advantages to be hastily or prematurely forfeited by rash resentments, so long as there was any definite prospect of their appeal to English self-interest and good-feeling not proving in vain; and finally to couple the warning with the suggestion that they should unceasingly keep up the assertion of their just rights, and be prepared, all else failing, to maintain them with an unabated military spirit. It was not to be expected of a man so conservative and constant in nature, and bound to England by so many strong and endearing associations, that he should wage a solitary combat for American rights on English soil before he or any man had reason to know how bitterly the Stamp Act would be returned upon the head of Parliament by America, but never, after the temper of his countrymen in regard to it, was made manifest to him, were his elbows again out of touch with those of his compatriots in America. To their assistance and to the assistance as well of the great body of wise and generous Englishmen, who loved liberty too much at home to begrudge it to Englishmen in America, he brought his every resource, his scientific fame, his social gifts, his personal popularity, his knowledge of the world and the levers by which it is moved, the sane, searching mind, too full of light for bigotry, superstition, or confusion, the pen that enlisted satirical point as readily as grave dissertation in the service of instruction. It cannot be doubted that his exertions should be reckoned among the potent influences that secured the repeal of the Stamp Act. To Charles Thomson he wrote that he had reprinted everything from America that he thought might help their common cause. His examination before the House of Commons was published and had a great run. "You guessed aright," he wrote to Lord Kames with regard to the repeal, "in supposing that I would not be a _mute in that play_. I was extremely busy, attending Members of both Houses, informing, explaining, consulting, disputing, in a continual hurry from morning to night, till the affair was happily ended." Some years after the repeal of the Stamp Act, he wrote to Jane Mecom that, at the time of the repeal, the British Ministry were ready to hug him for the assistance that he had afforded them in bringing it about. From the time of the repeal until he returned to America in 1775, his one absorbing object was to create a better understanding between England and her colonies, and to avert the possibility of war between them. Among the things with which he had to contend in accomplishing his aims was the haughty spirit in which the English people were disposed to look down upon the colonists, and to resent any manifestation of independence upon their part as insolent. It was this spirit which made him feel that the assent of England would never be obtained to the representation of America in Parliament. I am fully persuaded with you [he wrote to Lord Kames], that a _Consolidating Union_, by a fair and equal representation of all the parts of this Empire in Parliament, is the only firm basis on which its political grandeur and prosperity can be founded. Ireland once wished it, but now rejects it. The time has been, when the colonies might have been pleased with it; they are now _indifferent_ about it; and if it is much longer delayed, they too will _refuse it_. But the pride of this people can not bear the thought of it, and therefore it will be delayed. Every man in England seems to consider himself as a piece of a sovereign over America; seems to jostle himself into the throne with the King, and talks of _our subjects in the Colonies_. This was the sentiment of England in general. In the guard-room and barracks, it assumed at times the grosser form of such contempt as that which led General Clarke to believe as we have seen that the emasculation of all the male Americans would be little more than a holiday task for a handful of British grenadiers. Along with this haughty spirit went a crass ignorance of America and Americans which Franklin despaired of ever enlightening except by good-natured ridicule. An illustration of the manner in which he employed this agency is found in his letter to the Editor of a Newspaper. It had been claimed, he said, that factories in America were impossible because American sheep had but little wool, and the dearness of American labor rendered the profitable working of iron and other materials, except in some few coarse instances, impracticable. Dear Sir [was his reply], do not let us suffer ourselves to be amus'd with such groundless Objections. The very Tails of the American Sheep are so laden with Wooll, that each has a little Car or Waggon on four little Wheels, to support & keep it from trailing on the Ground. Would they caulk their Ships, would they fill their Beds, would they even litter their Horses with Wooll, if it were not both plenty and cheap? And what signifies Dearness of Labour, when an English shilling passes for five and Twenty? Their engaging 300 Silk Throwsters here in one Week, for New York, was treated as a Fable, because, forsooth, they have "no Silk there to throw." Those, who made this Objection, perhaps did not know, that at the same time the Agents from the King of Spain were at Quebec to contract for 1000 Pieces of Cannon to be made there for the Fortification of Mexico, and at New York engaging the annual Supply of woven Floor-Carpets for their West India Houses, other Agents from the Emperor of China were at Boston treating about an Exchange of raw Silk for Wooll, to be carried in Chinese Junks through the Straits of Magellan. Another thing, with which Franklin had to contend, was the misrepresentations that the colonial governors were constantly making about American conditions. These misrepresentations were in keeping with the unworthy character of some of them and with the transitory relation that almost all of them bore to the Colonies, of which they were the executives. What the Americans truly thought of them is pointedly expressed in Franklin's _Causes of the American Discontents_. They say then as to Governors [he declared], that they are not like Princes whose posterity have an inheritance in the Government of a nation, and therefore an interest in its prosperity; they are generally strangers to the Provinces they are sent to govern, have no estate, natural connexion, or relation there, to give them an affection for the country; that they come only to make money as fast as they can; are sometimes men of vicious characters and broken fortunes, sent by a Minister merely to get them out of the way; that as they intend staying in the country no longer than their government continues, and purpose to leave no family behind them, they are apt to be regardless of the goodwill of the people, and care not what is said or thought of them after they are gone. That such men were biased and untrustworthy witnesses touching American conditions goes without saying, but, when discontent became deeply implanted in the breasts of the colonists, their partisan and perverted reports to the English Government as to the state of America did much to mislead their masters. The burden of these reports as a rule was that the disaffected were few in numbers and persons of little consequence, that the colonists of property and social standing were satisfied, and inclined to submit to Parliamentary taxation, that it was impossible to establish manufacturing industries in America, and that, if Parliament would only steadily persist in the exercise of its legislative authority over America, the non-importation agreements and other defensive measures adopted by its people would be abandoned. But the most intractable of all the obstacles with which Franklin had to contend was the policy of commercial and industrial restriction, partly the result of economic purblindness, peculiar to the time, and partly the result of sheer selfishness, which England relentlessly pursued in her relations to the colonies. Every suggestion that this policy should be relaxed was met by its more extreme champions, such as George Grenville, with the statement that the Acts of Navigation were the very Palladium of England. On no account were the Colonies to be allowed to import wine, oil and fruit directly from Spain and Portugal, or to even import iron directly from foreign countries. Enlarged as was the understanding of Lord Chatham himself, it could not tolerate the thought that America should be permitted to convert any form of crude material into manufactured products. Every hat made in America, every shipload of emigrants that left the shores of England for America, was jealously regarded as signifying so much pecuniary loss to England. The colonists were to be mere _adscripti glebæ_, mere tillers of the American soil for the purpose of wringing from it the price of the manufactured commodities, with which they were to be exclusively supplied by the factories and shops of the mother country. The idea that, in any other sense, the expanding numbers and wealth of America could inure to the benefit of England, was one that seemed to be wholly foreign to its consciousness. To this Little England Franklin steadfastly opposed his conception of an Imperial England, based upon the freedom of all its parts to contribute to the wealth and importance of the whole by the full enjoyment of all their peculiar natural gifts and advantages. No one can more sincerely rejoice than I do [he wrote to Lord Kames in 1760], on the reduction of Canada; and this is not merely as I am a colonist, but as I am a Briton. I have long been of opinion, that the _foundations of the future grandeur and stability of the British Empire lie in America_; and though, like other foundations, they are low and little seen, they are, nevertheless, broad and strong enough to support the greatest political structure human wisdom ever yet erected. These words, splendid as was the vision by which they were illumined, were but the utterance in another form of the thought that he had expressed nine years before in America in his essay on the _Increase of Mankind_. Speaking of the population of the colonies at that time he said: This Million doubling, suppose but once in 25 years, will, in another Century, be more than the People of _England_, and the greatest Number of _Englishmen_ will be on this Side the Water. What an Accession of Power to the _British Empire_ by Sea as well as Land! What Increase of Trade and Navigation! What Numbers of Ships and Seamen! We have been here but little more than 100 years, and yet the Force of our Privateers in the late War, united, was greater, both in Men and Guns, than that of the whole _British_ Navy in Queen _Elizabeth's_ time. Indeed so fully possessed was he even as late as 1771 with the federative spirit, which has brought recruits from Canada and Australia to the side of England in recent wars that, after urging upon Thomas Cushing the importance of a well-disciplined militia being maintained by Massachusetts, for her protection against invasion by a foreign foe, he added, "And what a Glory would it be for us to send, on any trying Occasion, ready and effectual Aid to our Mother Country!" It is only by reading such words as these that we can begin to divine what the divulsion of England and America has really meant to the vast host of human beings throughout the world who speak the English tongue. To all the shallow sophistries or sottish errors, that tended to falsify his glorious dream of world-wide British unity, Franklin presented a merciless intellect. With regard to the intention of Parliament to tax the colonies, he had these pointed words to say in a letter to Peter Collinson in 1764: "What we get above a Subsistence we lay out with you for your Manufactures. "Therefore what you get from us in Taxes you must lose in Trade. The Cat can yield but her skin." Even more acute was his letter to the _Public Advertiser_ on a proposed Act to prevent emigration from England. Such an Act, he declared, was unnecessary, impracticable, impolitic and unjust. What is more, with an insight into the laws governing population, superior to that of any man of his time, he made his assertions good. To illustrate this claim in part, we need go no further than what he had to say about the necessity of the Act. As long as the new situation shall be _far_ preferable to the old [he said], the emigration may possibly continue. But when many of those, who at home interfered with others of the same rank (in the competition for farms, shops, business, offices, and other means of subsistence), are gradually withdrawn, the inconvenience of that competition ceases; the number remaining no longer half starve each other; they find they can now subsist comfortably, and though perhaps not quite so well as those who have left them, yet, the inbred attachment to a native country is sufficient to overbalance a moderate difference; and thus the emigration ceases naturally. The waters of the ocean may move in currents from one quarter of the globe to another, as they happen in some places to be accumulated, and in others diminished; but no law, beyond the law of gravity, is necessary to prevent their abandoning any coast entirely. Thus the different degrees of happiness of different countries and situations find, or rather make, their level by the flowing of people from one to another; and where that level is once found, the removals cease. Add to this, that even a real deficiency of people in any country, occasioned by a wasting war or pestilence, is speedily supplied by earlier and more prolific marriages, encouraged by the greater facility of obtaining the means of subsistence. So that a country half depopulated would soon be repeopled, till the means of subsistence were equalled by the population. All increase beyond that point must perish, or flow off into more favourable situations. Such overflowings there have been of mankind in all ages, or we should not now have had so many nations. But to apprehend absolute depopulation from that cause, and call for a law to prevent it, is calling for a law to stop the Thames, lest its waters, by what leave it daily at Gravesend, should be quite exhausted. Twenty-three years before he had stated the same truths more sententiously in his essay on the _Increase of Mankind_. In fine [he said in that essay] a Nation well regulated is like a Polypus; take away a Limb, its Place is soon supply'd; cut it in two, and each deficient Part shall speedily grow out of the Part remaining. Thus if you have Room and Subsistence enough, as you may by dividing, make ten Polypes out of one, you may of one make ten Nations, equally populous and powerful; or rather increase a Nation ten fold in Numbers and Strength. Franklin clearly saw that, with the increase of population in the colonies, the demand for British manufactures would increase _pari passu_, and that, with the increased demand for them, the population of Great Britain would increase, perhaps, tenfold. Much as he made of the economic conditions that tended to give a purely agricultural direction to the energies of America, he laughed to scorn the idea that America would always remain in a state of industrial subjection to England. Only consider _the rate of our Increase_ [he wrote to Peter Collinson, after stating that it was folly to expect that America would always be supplied with cloth by England] and tell me if you can increase your Wooll in that Proportion, and where, in your little Island you can feed the Sheep. Nature has put Bounds to your Abilities, tho' none to your Desires. Britain would, if she could, manufacture & trade for all the World; England for all Britain;--London for all England;--and every Londoner for all London. So selfish is the human Mind! But 'tis well there is One above that rules these Matters with a more equal Hand. The agency that Franklin held for Pennsylvania in the first instance, and the agencies that he afterwards held for Massachusetts, New Jersey and Georgia, too, afforded him a solid standing for influencing public opinion both in England and America. He was actually in England, and, at the same time, in incessant correspondence with the popular leaders in America. With the beginning of the agitation for the repeal of the Stamp Act he entered upon a course of political activity which added greatly, in another form, to the reputation already acquired by him as a man of science. For his services in securing the repeal, including the flood of light that his answers, when examined before the House of Commons, shed upon the points at issue between the two countries, he was repaid by the English Ministry with attentions which he describes by a term as strong as "caress." Even when the dust of the conflict had thickened, and popular sentiment in England had ranged itself more and more on the side of the King and Parliament, his advice was still eagerly sought by Chatham, Camden, Shelburne and Burke and other liberal and sagacious English statesmen, when they were vainly striving in opposition to restore sanity to the distracted counsels that were menacing the security of the Empire.[20] Those must have been proud moments for Franklin, when the elder Pitt, whom he had come to regard in the earlier stages of his maturer life in England as an "inaccessible," received him as an honored guest under his roof at Hayes, or conferred with him at No. 7 Craven Street, or delivered him to the doorkeepers in the House of Lords, saying aloud, "This is Dr. Franklin, whom I would have admitted into the House." There have been few men who might not have envied the privilege of intimate communion with a man not greater, when he was making his country the mistress of the world, than, when decrepit, and in a hopeless minority, he rose in the House of Lords to plead with a voice, inspired not only by his own matchless eloquence but by all that was best in the history and temper of England for the removal of His Majesty's troops from the town of Boston. On the other side of the Atlantic, too, as the final catastrophe drew nearer, Franklin acquired a position, as the champion of the Colonies, which led Governor Hutchinson of Massachusetts to say of the memorable report, made by a committee to the town meeting, held in Boston on November 20, 1772, that "although at its first appearance it was considered as their own work, yet they had little more to do than to make the necessary alterations in the arrangement of materials prepared for them by their great director in England, whose counsels they obeyed, and in whose wisdom and dexterity they had an implicit faith." And with entire truth it can be said that, until war became inevitable, Franklin used his influence in both countries with the unwavering purpose of promoting the best interests of both. The representation of America in Parliament at that time he saw was impracticable, and it is hard to believe, though the imbecility of a government without a sanction had not yet been forced upon his attention by the Articles of Confederation, that so practical a man could have had much faith in the steady efficacy of mere requisitions for aids by the Crown on the colonial assemblies. But, within the limits set him by the insurmountable barriers of the hour, it can not be doubted, bold as such an assertion may be, that the wisest thing that both England and the Colonies could have done, if such an idea is conceivable, would have been to leave the controversy between them to his sole arbitration. The most striking tribute that can be paid to the wisdom and open-mindedness of Franklin is to say that, if this had been done, an accommodation would unquestionably have been reached with due regard to the honor, dignity and essential interests of both countries. His attitude in England was that of a loyal friend to both parties to the controversy, who, as he viewed it, had no cause for disagreement that a temperate and sensible man would not know how to readily remove. To the British public he addressed with numerous variations the following arguments: Notwithstanding the rapid increase of population in America, its area was so vast, and contained so much vacant land, that even such artisans as it had soon drifted into the possession and cultivation of land. The danger, therefore, of industrial competition between the two countries was very remote. The people of America, however, would multiply so rapidly that, in the course of a brief time, the demand for manufactures would increase to such an extent that Great Britain would be powerless alone to supply it. He had satisfied himself by an inspection of the cloth factories in Yorkshire that, with a population doubling as did that of America every twenty-five years, Great Britain would in the future be unable to keep the Americans clothed. It was not right that the interests of a particular class of British merchants, tradesmen or artificers should outweigh those of all the King's subjects in the Colonies. Iron was to be found everywhere in America, and beaver furs were the natural productions of that country; hats, nails and steel were wanted there as well as in England. It was of no importance to the common welfare of the empire whether a subject of the King got his living by making hats on one or the other side of the water, whether he grew rich on the Thames or the Ohio, in Edinburgh or Dublin. Yet the hatters of England had obtained an act in their own favor, restraining that manufacture in America in order to oblige the Americans to send their beaver to England to be manufactured, and to purchase back the hats loaded with the charges of a double transportation. In the same manner, had a few nail-makers and a still smaller body of steel-makers (perhaps there were not a half-dozen of these in England) been able to totally forbid by an Act of Parliament the erecting of slitting mills or steel-furnaces in America. All money made by America in trade, or derived by it from fisheries, the produce of the soil or commerce, finally centred in England; yet, though America was drained of all its specie in the purchase of English goods, often mere luxuries and superfluities, she was not even allowed to issue paper money, however carefully safeguarded, to take its place. The idea that the numerous and separate colonies might become dangerous to the mother country was visionary. They were so jealous of each other that they had been wholly unable to agree upon a union for their common defence or to unite in requesting the mother country to establish one for them. The truth was that they loved England much more than they loved each other. There remained among them so much respect, veneration and affection for Britain, that, if cultivated prudently, with kind usage, and tenderness for their privileges, they might be easily governed still for ages, without force, or any considerable expense. Parliament had no constitutional right to levy a direct tax of any kind on America. The King was the only bond between America and Great Britain. In the beginning, no claim had been made by Parliament of a right to even regulate American commerce, but the power had long been exercised by it without any objection on the part of the colonies, and could, at any rate, be reasonably defended on the ground that Great Britain was put to a great expense in policing the seas over which American commerce moved. If England felt that she could not rely upon the voluntary grants of America, to defray the charges imposed upon her by America, then the logical and proper thing to do before she levied direct taxes upon America was to provide for the representation of the Colonies in Parliament. Until that was done, if it was practicable to do it, she should confine herself to the old constitutional practice of requisitions for pecuniary aid, issued by the Secretary of State, at the instance of the Crown, to the Legislative Assemblies of America. These requisitions of a gracious King had been freely honored in the past. Indeed, the pecuniary burden of the wars, which had been carried on in America, though they were not of her kindling, had been borne by America in a larger proportion to her means than England. But to impose a stamp or tea duty upon America by Act of Parliament was simple madness. No taxes of that sort would ever be collected in America except such as were stained with blood. If Parliament, in which America was not represented, had the right to take from her a penny in a pound, what was there to hinder it from calling, whenever it pleased, for the other nineteen shillings and eleven pence? The only result of a continued attempt to tax America would be the complete loss of her respect and affection, and all the political and commercial advantages that accompanied them. It was a mistake to heed the statements of the Colonial Governors as to the limited extent of popular disaffection in America and the inability of the Colonies to dispense with English manufactures. Their dependence was such as to render them more eager to conciliate court than colonial favor. It was also a mistake to suppose that America could not either make or forego any articles whatsoever that she was in the habit of buying from England. Men would tax themselves as heavily to gratify their resentment as their pride. The Americans had resolved to wear no more mourning, and it was now totally out of fashion with near two millions of people. They had resolved to eat no more lamb, and not a joint of lamb had since been seen on any of their tables, but the lambs themselves were all alive with the prettiest of fleeces on their backs imaginable. Look, too, at the pitiful sum of eighty pounds which was all that the odious tea duty banned by America had produced in a year to defray the expense of some hundreds of thousands of pounds incurred by England in maintaining armed ships and soldiers to support the innumerable officeholders charged with the duty of enforcing the tax. The argument addressed by Franklin to America was equally earnest. The protection that England could afford her, the office of umpire that England could perform for her, in case of disputes between the Colonies, so that they could go on without interruption with their improvements, and increase their numbers, were the advantages that America enjoyed in her connection with England. By the Exercise of prudent Moderation on her part, mix'd with a little Kindness [Franklin wrote to Thomas Cushing], and by a decent Behaviour on ours, excusing where we can excuse from a Consideration of Circumstances, and bearing a little with the Infirmities of her Government, as we would with those of an aged Parent,[21] tho' firmly asserting our Privileges, and declaring that we mean at a proper time to vindicate them, this advantageous Union may still be long continued. We wish it, and we may endeavour it; but God will order it as to His Wisdom shall seem most suitable. The Friends of Liberty here, wish we may long preserve it on our side the Water, that they may find it there if adverse Events should destroy it here. They are therefore anxious and afraid, lest we should hazard it by premature Attempts in its favour. They think we may risque much by violent Measures and that the Risque is unnecessary, since a little Time must infallibly bring us all we demand or desire, and bring it us in Peace and Safety. I do not presume to advise. There are many wiser men among you, and I hope you will be directed by a still superior Wisdom. Every personal difference Franklin contended did not justify a quarrel nor did every act of oppression on the part of the mother country justify a war. The policy, which he laid down for the Colonies, was to exercise patience and forbearance, and to look to political changes in England and their own rapidly increasing numbers and wealth for the ultimate redress of their grievances, but, in the meantime, to reaffirm fearlessly their constitutional rights on every proper occasion. This policy is again and again recommended in his letters to his friends and political correspondents over-sea. Even before the Stamp Act was actually repealed, he wrote to Charles Thomson expressing the hope that, when that happened, the behavior of America would be so prudent, decent and grateful that their friends in England would have no reason to be ashamed, and their enemies in England, who had predicted that Parliamentary indulgence would only make them more insolent and ungovernable, would find themselves, and be found, false prophets. After the repeal of the Stamp Act, in a letter to Galloway, he expressed deep regret that the English merchants, who had helped to secure that result, and to communicate the knowledge of it, at their expense to America, should feel that the Americans had proved themselves ingrates, and he accordingly said that he hoped that some decent acknowledgments or thanks would be sent to these merchants by the colonial assemblies. When the idea of taxing America was subsequently revived, he wrote to the same correspondent that he knew not what to advise, but that they should all do their endeavors on both sides the water to lessen the present unpopularity of the American cause, conciliate the affections of the British towards them, increase by all possible means the number of their friends, and be careful not to weaken their hands, and strengthen their enemies, by rash proceedings on their side; the mischiefs of which were inconceivable. In a letter to the printer of the _Gazetteer_, signed "New England," he said: "I only hate calumniators and boutefeus on either side the water, who would for the little dirty purposes of faction, set brother against brother, turn friends into mortal enemies, and ruin an empire by dividing it." In a letter to Cadwallader Evans, in 1768, he even approved the idea that America should manufacture only such things as England neglected. These are but scant gleanings from the numerous letters in which, down to the very last, Franklin unweariedly repeated his counsels of self-restraint to his fellow-countrymen. Accompanying them was every word of good cheer that he thought might tend to make this self-restraint easier. Several times he assured his American correspondents that, in the debate with the mother country, America had the sympathy of all Europe. For a long time, he endeavored to allay the resentment of his countrymen, under the sting of parliamentary injustice, by voicing the delusion that the King did not share the sentiments of the corrupt legislature which, as a matter of fact, he was all the time corrupting for the purpose of fostering such sentiments. Every indication of a favorable disposition towards the Colonies upon the part of the English People, during the alternations of anxiety and confidence that his mind underwent with the rise and fall of English ministries, friendly or unfriendly to America, was promptly observed by him and reported to America. At times, it is plain enough that he thought a war it would be; yet as late as 1775, when he believed that the adverse ministry of that time was tottering, his sanguine nature reached the conclusion in a letter to James Bowdoin that the redoubled clamor of the trading, manufacturing and Whig interests in England would infallibly overthrow all the enemies of America, and produce an acknowledgment of her rights and satisfaction for her injuries. Parliament rarely gave him any occasion to speak of it except in terms of mingled amazement and indignation; but it is agreeable to remember that, in a letter in 1774 to Jane Mecom, he made grateful mention of "the generous and noble friends of America" in both houses, whose names, dear to the highest traditions of human genius and public spirit, should never be forgotten in any movement to reintegrate in some form the broken fragments of the china vase in which Franklin saw a symbol of the unity of the British Empire. Accompanying Franklin's counsels of patience, however, was also an unceasing warning to America not to alter for a moment her posture of resistance and protest. "If under all the Insults and Oppressions you are now exposed to," he told Dr. Cooper, "you can prudently, as you have lately done, continue quiet, avoiding Tumults, but still resolutely keeping up your Claim and asserting your Rights, you will finally establish them, and this military Cloud that now blusters over you will pass away, and do no more Harm than a Summer Thunder Shower." "The Colonies," he wrote subsequently to Robert Morris and Thomas Leach, "have Adversaries enow to their common Privileges: They should endeavour to agree among themselves, and avoid everything that may make ill-Blood and promote Divisions, which must weaken them in their common Defence." To Thomas Cushing he wrote that America should continue from time to time to assert its rights in occasional solemn resolves and other public acts, never yielding them up, and avoiding even the slightest expressions that seemed confirmatory of the claim that had been set up against them. As the end of it all became more and more obvious, his note of warning assumed an additional significance. In a letter to Thomas Cushing in 1773, he wrote: But our great Security lies, I think, in our growing Strength, both in Numbers and Wealth; that creates an increasing Ability of assisting this Nation in its Wars, which will make us more respectable, our Friendship more valued, and our Enmity feared; thence it will soon be thought proper to treat us not with Justice only, but with Kindness, and thence we may expect in a few Years a total Change of Measures with regard to us; unless, by a Neglect of military Discipline, we should lose all martial Spirit, and our Western People become as tame as those in the Eastern Dominions of Britain, when we may expect the same Oppressions; for there is much Truth in the Italian saying, _Make yourselves Sheep_, _and the Wolves will eat you_. Indeed the almost miraculous way in which the population and wealth of America were increasing from year to year was one of the facts which entered most deeply into Franklin's calculation of the resources upon which she could rely not for the purpose of breaking away from the British connection but for the purpose of preventing it from being abused by England. No one saw more clearly than he that the day would come when some descendant, such as Gladstone, of one of his British contemporaries might well apostrophize America as a daughter that, at no very distant time, would, whether fairer or less fair, be unquestionably stronger than the mother.[22] To Thomas Cushing he wrote in 1773 that the longer England delayed the accommodation, which finally for her own sake she must obtain, the worse terms she might expect, since the inequality of power and importance that then subsisted between her and America was daily diminishing; while the latter's sense of her own rights and of England's injustice was continually increasing. Optimistic on the whole, however, as was Franklin's outlook during the interval of political strife which preceded the American Revolution, intently as he watched every ebb and flow of English feeling, while this period lasted, it is manifest that in its later stages he realized that the currents upon which he was being borne were steadily moving towards the jaws of the maelstrom. This is apparent enough in his perspicacious letter of May 15, 1771, to the Committee of Correspondence in Massachusetts. I think one may clearly see, in the system of customs to be exacted in America by act of Parliament, the seeds sown of a total disunion of the two countries, though, as yet, that event may be at a considerable distance. The course and natural progress seems to be, first, the appointment of needy men as officers, for others do not care to leave England; then, their necessities make them rapacious, their office makes them proud and insolent, their insolence and rapacity make them odious, and, being conscious that they are hated, they become malicious; their malice urges them to a continual abuse of the inhabitants in their letters to administration, representing them as disaffected and rebellious, and (to encourage the use of severity), as weak, divided, timid, and cowardly. Government believes all; thinks it necessary to support and countenance its officers; their quarreling with the people is deemed a mark and consequence of their fidelity; they are therefore more highly rewarded, and this makes their conduct still more insolent and provoking. The resentment of the people will, at times and on particular incidents, burst into outrages and violence upon such officers, and this naturally draws down severity and acts of further oppression from hence. The more the people are dissatisfied, the more rigor will be thought necessary; severe punishments will be inflicted to terrify; rights and privileges will be abolished; greater force will then be required to secure execution and submission; the expense will become enormous; it will then be thought proper, by fresh exactions, to make the people defray it; thence, the British nation and government will become odious, the subjection to it will be deemed no longer tolerable; war ensues, and the bloody struggle will end in absolute slavery to America, or ruin to Britain by the loss of her colonies; the latter most probable, from America's growing strength and magnitude. But, as the whole empire must, in either case, be greatly weakened, I cannot but wish to see much patience and the utmost discretion in our general conduct, that the fatal period may be postponed, and that, whenever this catastrophe shall happen, it may appear to all mankind that the fault has not been ours. Franklin's written comments upon the American controversy between the passage of the Stamp Act and his return to America in 1775 are usually marked by a sobriety and dignity of expression worthy of their wisdom. It is only at times that the strong character, habitually held in leash by innate prudence and severely disciplined self-control, breaks out into impatience. Naturally enough now and then he has a word of scorn for the graceless venality which made Westminster almost as much a market as Smithfield, and was, after all, the real thing that rendered England deaf to the warning "Time is" of Friar Bacon's brazen mouth-piece. Many think the new Parliament will be for reversing the late proceedings [he wrote to Galloway in 1774], but that depends on the Court, on which every Parliament seems to be dependent; so much so, that I begin to think a Parliament here of little Use to the People: For since a Parliament is always to do as a ministry would have it, why should we not be govern'd by the Ministry in the first Instance? They could afford to govern us cheaper, the Parliament being a very expensive Machine, that requires a vast deal of oiling and greasing at the People's Charge; for they finally pay all the enormous Salaries of Places, the Pensions, and the Bribes, now by Custom become necessary to induce the Members to vote according to their Consciences. Franklin would have been more than human if he had not had a resentful word to say too, when, as the result of the refusal of the Americans to drink any tea, except such as was smuggled into America, free of the detested duty, by the commercial rivals of England, the East India Company could no longer meet its debts, let alone pay dividends and the annuity of four hundred thousand pounds, payable by it to the British Government, and bankruptcy was following bankruptcy like a series of falling bricks, and thousands of Spitalfield and Manchester weavers were starving, or subsisting upon charity. "Blessed Effects of Pride, Pique, and Passion in Government, which should have no Passions," was the caustic observation of Franklin in one of his letters to his son. Bitterness welled up again in his throat when, after he had been bayed by the Privy Council, and dismissed from his office, a special instruction was issued to the Governor of Massachusetts not to sign any warrant on the Treasury for the purpose of paying him any salary as the agent of Massachusetts or reimbursing him for any expenses incurred on her behalf. The Injustice [he said in his _Tract Relative to the Affair of Hutchinson's Letters_] of thus depriving the People there of the Use of their own Money, to pay an Agent acting in their Defence, while the Governor, with a large Salary out of the Money extorted from them by Act of Parliament, was enabled to pay plentifully Maudit and Wedderburn to abuse and defame them and their Agent, is so evident as to need no Comment. But this they call GOVERNMENT! Indecent, however, as was the treatment accorded by the Privy Council to the man, who had striven so loyally, so zealously and so wisely to promote the greatness and glory of England, it hardly conveyed a ruder shock to his mind than that which it received later when he saw the plan for the settlement of the American Controversy drafted by Lord Chatham rejected by the House of Lords, with as much contempt he told Charles Thomson, "as they could have shown to a Ballad offered by a drunken Porter." To hear so many of these _Hereditary_ Legislators [he said in his _Account of Negotiations in London_], declaiming so vehemently against, not the Adopting merely, but even the _Consideration_ of a Proposal so important in its Nature, offered by a Person of so weighty a Character, one of the first Statesmen of the Age, who had taken up this Country when in the lowest Despondency, and conducted it to Victory and Glory, thro' a War with two of the mightiest Kingdoms in Europe; to hear them censuring his Plan, not only for their own Misunderstandings of what was in it, but for their Imaginations of what was not in it, which they would not give themselves an Opportunity of rectifying by a second Reading; to perceive the total Ignorance of the Subject in some, the Prejudice and Passion of others, and the wilful Perversion of Plain Truth in several of the Ministers; and upon the whole to see it so ignominiously rejected by so great a Majority, and so hastily too, in Breach of all Decency, and prudent Regard to the Character and Dignity of their Body, as a third Part of the National Legislature, gave me an exceeding mean Opinion of their Abilities, and made their Claim of Sovereignty over three Millions of Virtuous, sensible People in America seem the greatest of Absurdities, since they appear'd to have scarce Discretion enough to govern a Herd of Swine. _Hereditary Legislators_! thought I. There would be more Propriety, because less Hazard of Mischief, in having (as in some University of Germany) _Hereditary Professors of Mathematicks_. Yet this is the Government [Franklin declared in the letter to Charles Thomson, in which he used the simile of the ballad and the drunken porter, and also referred to equally rash conduct upon the part of the House of Commons], by whose Supreme Authority, we are to have our Throats cut, if we do not acknowledge, and whose dictates we are implicitly to obey, while their conduct hardly entitles them to Common Respect. But it was only after he had been shamelessly and publicly proscribed, under circumstances which gave him good reason to believe that he was but the vicarious victim of a People unfeelingly doomed to the cruel alternatives of fratricidal resistance or vassalage, that he gave way, though still engaged in a last effort to stave off the evil day of separation, to such reproachful or denunciatory utterances as these. Indeed, as it is a satisfaction to a stupid man to know that Homer sometimes nodded, and to a vicious man to know that the character of Washington is supposed to have been at last successfully fly-specked by some petty scandal-monger, so it ought to be a relief to a hasty man to know that Franklin was once on the point of succumbing entirely to a sudden flaw of anger. Goaded beyond endurance by the reflections, which he had just heard in the House of Lords on everything American, including American courage, honesty and intelligence, reflections as contemptuous, he said, as if his countrymen were the lowest of mankind, and almost of a different species from the English of Britain, he drew up a heated protest, as the agent of Massachusetts, demanding from Great Britain present satisfaction for the blockade of Boston, and stating that satisfaction for the proposed exclusion of Massachusetts from the Newfoundland and other fisheries, if carried into effect, would probably also some day be demanded. When he showed the paper to his friend, Thomas Walpole, a member of the House of Commons, Walpole, we are told by him, looked at it and him several times alternately, as if he apprehended him to be out of his senses. However, Franklin asked him to lay it before Lord Camden, which he undertook to do. When it came back to Franklin, it was with a note from Walpole telling him simply that it was thought that it might be attended with dangerous consequences to his person, and contribute to exasperate the nation. The caution that Franklin exhibited before permitting the protest to pass from his possession suggests the idea that, in writing it, he was merely seeking a safe vent for the mental ferment of the moment. It was doubtless well for him that the paper got no further; for it is painful to relate that the disposition was not wanting in England to construe some of his letters to Thomas Cushing as treasonable. In a letter to Cushing, he said that he was not conscious of any treasonable intention, but that, after the manner in which he had recently been treated in the matter of the Hutchinson letters, he was not to wonder if less than a small lump in his forehead was voted a horn. Six months later, he wrote to Galloway that it was thought by many that, if the British soldiers and the New Englanders should come to blows, he would probably be taken up; for the ministerial people affected everywhere to represent him as the cause of all the misunderstanding. We know nothing better calculated to show how hopeless it is for the lamb downstream to convince the wolf upstream that the water flowing by him was not muddied from below than the fact that, during the debate over Lord Chatham's conciliatory Plan, Lord Sandwich referred to Franklin as one of the bitterest and most mischievous enemies that England had ever known. That is to say, Franklin, the loyal Englishman who, in one of his early papers on electricity, could not even mention the King without adding, "God preserve him," who had shrunk in the beginning from the agitation against the Stamp Act as little less than treason, who had deprecated the Boston tea-party as lawless violence, and had, from first to last, condemned mob-license in every form in America as steadfastly as tyranny in England. The wonder is that he should not have reached the decision sooner than he did that there was nothing to be gained for his country by his longer sojourn in England. His intercourse, as an American agent with Lord Hillsborough, when Secretary of State for America and First Commissioner to the Board of Trade, was alone enough to bring him to such a decision.[23] As an Irishman, familiar with the repressive policy of England in Ireland, Hillsborough could not well approve of British restrictions upon American commerce and manufactures; but there his sympathy with America ceased. Franklin truly said that the agents of the Colonies in England were quite as useful to England as to the Colonies, since they had more than once by timely advice kept the English Government from making mistakes arising out of ignorance of special conditions peculiar to America. But this view was not shared by Hillsborough. He insisted that no agent from Massachusetts should be recognized in England, who was not appointed, from year to year, by the General Court of Massachusetts by an act, to which the Governor of that colony had given his assent. As the Governor was dependent for his appointment upon the British Ministry, and would hardly fail to name any one as agent, who might be selected by it, such a tenure was equivalent to vesting the selection of the agent in Hillsborough himself, whose wishes, when selected, the agent was not likely to oppose. Under such conditions, an agent would be of no value to the colony, Franklin declared, and, under such conditions, he further declared, he would not be willing himself to hold the post. "His Character is Conceit, Wrongheadedness, Obstinacy, and Passion." Such were the terms in which Franklin summed up the moral attributes of Hillsborough to Dr. Cooper, after he had vainly striven for several years to give the former some salutary conception of the importance of ascertaining the real sentiments and wants of America. The letter, in which these terms were employed, was accompanied by minutes of a spirited dialogue between Franklin and Hillsborough, which almost makes us regret that the former, among his other literary ventures, had not tested his qualifications as a playwright. The part of Hillsborough in the colloquy was to let Franklin fully know in language of mixed petulance and contempt that he declined to recognize him as an agent. No such appointment shall be entered [he is minuted as declaring]. When I came into the administration of American affairs, I found them in great disorder. By _my firmness_ they are now something mended; and, while I have the honour to hold the seals, I shall continue the same conduct, the same _firmness_. I think my duty to the master I serve, and to the government of this nation, requires it of me. If that conduct is not approved, _they_ may take my office from me when they please. I shall make them a bow, and thank them; I shall resign with pleasure. That gentleman knows it, (_pointing to Mr. Pownall_), but, while I continue in it, I shall resolutely persevere in the same FIRMNESS. (_Spoken with great warmth, and turning pale in his discourse, as if he was angry at something or somebody besides the agent, and of more consequence to himself._) Then follows Franklin's reply: B. F. (_Reaching out his hand for the paper, which his Lordship returned to him_). I beg your Lordship's pardon for taking up so much of your time. It is, I believe, of no great importance whether the appointment is acknowledged or not, for I have not the least conception that an agent can _at present_ be of any use to any of the colonies. I shall therefore give your Lordship no further trouble. (Withdrew.) As the dialogue discloses, Hillsborough had quite enough enemies already to render it prudent for him to abstain from making another of a man who had declared in the letter, with which it was enclosed, that, if there was to be a war between them, he would do his best to defend himself, and annoy his adversary little, regarding the story of the Earthen Pot and Brazen Pitcher. One encouragement I have [Franklin said in his letter], the knowledge, that he is not a whit better lik'd by his Colleagues in the Ministry, than he is by me, that he can not probably continue where he is much longer, and that he can scarce be succeeded by anybody, who will not like me the better for his having been at Variance with me. Later, Franklin wrote to Thomas Cushing: This Man's Mandates have been treated with Disrespect in America, his Letters have been criticis'd, his Measures censur'd and despis'd; which has produced in him a kind of settled Malice against the Colonies, particularly ours, that would break out into greater Violence if cooler Heads did not set some Bounds to it. I have indeed good Reason to believe that his Conduct is far from being approved by the King's other Servants, and that he himself is so generally dislik'd by them that it is not probable he will continue much longer in his present Station, the general Wish here being to recover (saving only the Dignity of Government) the Good-Will of the Colonies, which there is little reason to expect while they are under his wild Administration. Their permitting so long his Eccentricities (if I may use such an Expression) is owing, I imagine, rather to the Difficulty of knowing how to dispose of or what to do with a man of his wrong-headed bustling Industry, who, it is apprehended, may be more mischievous out of Administration than in it, than to any kind of personal Regard for him. The Earthen Pot and the Brazen Pitcher _did_ collide, and, contrary to every physical law, it was not the Earthen Pot that suffered. Certain Americans, including Franklin himself, and certain Englishmen had applied to the Crown for a tract of land between the Alleghanies and the Ohio River, and their petition was referred to the Board of Trade of which Hillsborough was President. It asked for the right to settle two million, five hundred thousand acres. Hillsborough, who was secretly hostile to the grant, for the purpose of over-loading the application, deceitfully suggested that the applicants should ask for enough land to constitute a province; whereupon Franklin took him at his word and changed the acreage petitioned for to twenty-three million acres. When the report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, drafted by Hillsborough, was made, it opposed the grant. If a vast territory [said His Majesty's Governor of Georgia, in a letter to the Commissioners, which is quoted in the Report], be granted to any set of gentlemen, who really mean to people it, and actually do so, it must draw and carry out a great number of people from Great Britain; and I apprehend they will soon become a kind of separate and independent people, and who will set up for themselves; that they will soon have manufactures of their own; that they will neither take supplies from the mother country, nor from the provinces, at the back of which they are settled; that, being at a distance from the seat of government, courts, magistrates, &c., &c., they will be out of the reach and control of law and government; that it will become a receptacle and kind of asylum for offenders, who will fly from justice to such new country or colony. To this report, which sought to confine America to practically the same limits as those fixed by the French, Franklin, with his knowledge of American conditions, and breadth of vision, made such a crushing reply that, when the report and the reply came before the Privy Council, the application for the grant, partly because of the strength of Franklin's reply, and, partly from dislike to Hillsborough, was approved. Mortified by this action, Hillsborough resigned his office, and was succeeded by Lord Dartmouth, the nobleman described by Cowper as "One who wears a coronet, and prays." In keeping with the deceit, practiced by Hillsborough, in endeavoring to give an extravagant turn to the Ohio petition, was his previous bearing towards Franklin after the interview with the latter, at which he paid such a fulsome tribute to his own firmness. During the year preceding the action of the Privy Council, Franklin had heard that Hillsborough had expressed himself about him in very angry terms, calling him a Republican, a factious, mischievous fellow, and the like. Nevertheless, a few weeks later, when he was in Ireland, Hillsborough pressed him so warmly to call upon him at his country-seat, upon his way to the North of Ireland, that he did so, and was detained there no less than four days, in the enjoyment of a hospitality so assiduous that his host, Franklin tells us, even put his oldest son, Lord Kilwarling, into his phaeton with him, to drive him a round of forty miles, that he might see the country, the seats, manufactures, etc., and moreover covered him with his own great coat lest he should take cold. Later, after both Franklin and Hillsborough had returned to London, the former called upon the latter repeatedly for the purpose of thanking him for his civilities in Ireland. On each day, he was told that his Lordship was not at home, although on two of them he had good reason to know the contrary. On the last of the two, which was one of his Lordship's levee days, the porter, seeing Franklin, came out and surlily chid the latter's coachman for opening the door of his coach before he had inquired whether his Lordship was at home. Then, turning to Franklin, he said, "My Lord is not at home." "I have never since been nigh him," Franklin wrote to his son, "and we have only abused one another at a distance." During the year succeeding the action of the Privy Council, when Franklin was with his friend Lord Le Despencer at Oxford, Lord Hillsborough, upon being told by Lord Le Despencer, as they were descending the stairs in Queen's College, that Franklin was above, reascended them immediately, and, approaching Franklin in the pleasantest manner imaginable, said, "Dr. Franklin, I did not know till this Minute that you were here, and I am come back _to make you my Bow_! I am glad to see you at Oxford, and that you look so well," &c. In Return for this Extravagance [Franklin said in a letter to his son], I complimented him on his Son's Performance in the Theatre, tho' indeed it was but indifferent, so that Account was settled. For as People say, when they are angry, _If he strikes me_, _I'll strike him again_; I think sometimes it may be right to say, _If he flatters me_, _I'll flatter him again_. This is _Lex Talionis_, returning Offences in kind. His Son however (Lord Fairford), is a valuable young Man, and his Daughters, Ladys Mary and Charlotte, most amiable young Women. My Quarrel is only with him, who, of all the Men I ever met with, is surely the most unequal in his Treatment of People, the most insincere, and the most wrong-headed. Such was the man, to whom the oversight of American affairs was committed at a highly critical period in the relations of England and the Colonies. Speaking of Hillsborough's successor, Lord Dartmouth, Franklin said, "he is truly a good Man, and wishes sincerely a good Understanding with the Colonies, but does not seem to have Strength equal to his Wishes." This minister was wise enough to recognize the agents of the American colonies, including Franklin, again, despite the stand taken by Hillsborough against them. But, when Lord Chatham's conciliatory plan was so summarily rejected by the House of Lords, Dartmouth, though he had, when the motion was first made, suggested that it should be deliberately considered, was later swept along unresistingly by the majority. In his account of the incident, Franklin said, "I am the more particular in this, as it is a Trait of that Nobleman's Character, who from his Office is suppos'd to have so great a Share in American affairs, but who has in reality no Will or Judgment of his own, being with Dispositions for the best Measures, easily prevail'd with to join in the worst." But it is in the history of the Hutchinson letters that we find the most convincing proof of the hopelessness of Franklin's task in his endeavor to bring public opinion in England over to his generous views of her true interests. On one occasion, when speaking in terms of warm resentment of the conduct of the ministry in dispatching troops to Boston, he was to his great surprise, to use his own words, assured by a gentleman of character and distinction that the action of the ministry in this, and the other respects, obnoxious to America, had been brought about by some of the most reputable persons among the Americans themselves. He was skeptical, and the gentleman, whose name he never revealed, being desirous of establishing the truth of his statement to the satisfaction of both Franklin and Franklin's countrymen, called upon Franklin a few days afterwards, and exhibited to him letters from Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson and Secretary Andrew Oliver of Massachusetts, and other residents of that colony which only too conclusively confirmed what had been said. The gentleman would not permit copies to be taken of the letters, but he delivered the originals to Franklin with the express understanding that they were not to be printed, that no copies were to be taken of them, that they were to be shown only to a few leading men in Massachusetts, and were to be carefully returned. Franklin transmitted them, subject to these conditions, to Thomas Cushing of the Committee of Correspondence at Boston. He did so, he tells us, because he thought that to shift the responsibility for the recent ministerial measures from England to America would tend to restore good feeling between the people of Massachusetts and England, and, moreover, because he felt that intelligence of such importance should not be withheld from the constituents whose agent he was. In his communication, accompanying the letters, Franklin stipulated that they were to be read only by the members of the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence, Messrs. Bowdoin and Pitts of the Council, Drs. Chauncey, Cooper and Winthrop, and a few such other persons as Cushing might select; and were to be returned in a few months to him; but it is not true, as was afterwards alleged by his enemies, that his communication was attended by any effort to conceal his personal relations to the letters. A part of the communication is too good a specimen of the precision that Franklin always brought to the language of rebuke or condemnation not to be quoted at length. As to the writers [he said], I can easily as well as charitably conceive it possible, that a Man educated in Prepossessions of the unbounded Authority of Parliament, &c. may think unjustifiable every Opposition even to its unconstitutional Exactions, and imagine it their Duty to suppress, as much as in them lies, such Opposition. But when I find them bartering away the Liberties of their native Country for Posts, and negociating for Salaries and Pensions extorted from the People; and, conscious of the Odium these might be attended with, calling for Troops to protect and secure the Enjoyment of them: When I see them exciting Jealousies in the Crown, and provoking it to Wrath against so great a Part of its most faithful Subjects; creating Enmities between the different Countries of which the Empire consists; occasioning a great Expence to the _Old_ Country for Suppressing or Preventing imaginary Rebellions in the _New_, and to the new Country for the Payment of needless Gratifications to useless Officers and Enemies; I can not but doubt their Sincerity even in the political Principles they profess, and deem them mere Time-servers seeking their own private Emolument, thro' any Quantity of Publick Mischief; Betrayers of the Interest, not of their native Country only, but of the Government they pretend to serve, and of the whole English Empire. Later, after strong representations had been made to Franklin by Cushing that the letters could be put to no effective use, unless they could be retained or copied, Franklin obtained leave from the gentleman, who had entrusted them to him, to authorize Cushing to show them to any persons that he chose. The fact that the letters were in Boston was soon noised abroad, whereupon the Assembly required them to be laid before it, though under its promise that they would not be printed. An occasion or pretext for disregarding this promise soon arose, when copies were produced in the House by a member who was said to have received them from England. Then the Assembly adopted a series of indignant resolutions, declaring, among other things, that the authors of the letters were justly chargeable with the great corruption of morals, and all the confusion, misery and bloodshed which had been the natural effects of the introduction of troops into the Province, and that it was its bounden duty to pray that his Majesty would be pleased to remove Hutchinson and Oliver forever from the Government thereof. These resolutions were duly followed by a petition for the removal which was transmitted to Franklin and by him transmitted to Lord Dartmouth, who laid it before the King. When the news reached England that the letters had been published in Massachusetts, there was great curiosity to know who had transmitted them. Thomas Whately, a London banker, and the brother of William Whately, then deceased, to whom they were written, was suspected; he suspected John Temple, a former Governor of New Hampshire, who had had access to the papers of the decedent, and, his suspicions having been brought to the attention of Temple, the latter called upon him, denied all knowledge of the letters, and demanded a public exoneration. The written statement from Whately which followed was not satisfactory to Temple, and he challenged the former to a duel in which Whately was severely wounded. Up to this time, it was not known except to a few persons that Franklin had forwarded the letters to America; nor even for a time after the duel did he feel that it was incumbent upon him to tell the world that he had done so. But, when he heard that the duel would probably be renewed, as soon as Whately recovered his strength, he felt discharged from the obligation of silence that he had previously recognized to the person from whom he had received the letters, and published a communication in the _Public Advertiser_ stating that it was impossible for Whately to have sent the letters to Boston, or for Temple to have purloined them from Whately, because they had never been in Whately's possession, and that he, Franklin alone, was the person who "obtained and transmitted to Boston the letters in question."[24] Franklin had put his head into the lion's jaws. While he was preparing for his return to America, for the purpose of attending to a matter arising out of the operations of the American Post-office Department, he received a notice from the Clerk of the Privy Council, informing him that the Lords of the Committee for Plantation Affairs would meet at the Cockpit on Tuesday, January 11, 1774, at noon, for the purpose of considering the petition for the removal of Hutchinson and Oliver, which had been referred to the Council by the King, and requiring him to be present. A similar notice was sent to Bollan, the London Agent of the Massachusetts Council. When the petition came on for hearing, at the request of Franklin, its consideration was postponed for some three weeks, so that he could retain counsel to face Alexander Wedderburn, the Solicitor-general, who had been retained by Israel Mauduit, the agent of the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts. The counsel retained by Franklin were John Dunning, a former Solicitor-general, and subsequently Lord Ashburton, and John Lee, who later became the Solicitor-general under the administration of Charles James Fox. When the hearing did take place, it proved for every reason a memorable one. Edmund Burke could not recollect that so many Privy Councillors had ever attended a meeting of the Council before. There were no less than thirty-five in attendance. The Lord President Gower presided. In the audience, among other persons, were the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord North, the Prime Minister, Lord Shelburne, Edmund Burke, Joseph Priestley, Jeremy Bentham, Arthur Lee, of Virginia, then a law student in London, who had been selected by the Legislature of Massachusetts to act as its agent, in the event of the absence or death of Franklin, Ralph Izard, of South Carolina, who had borne Temple's challenge to Thomas Whately, and Dr. Edward Bancroft, who was afterwards at Paris with Franklin. The hearing was opened by the reading of the letter written by Franklin to Lord Dartmouth, when transmitting the petition to him, the petition itself, the resolutions of the Massachusetts Assembly and the letters upon which they were based. In Franklin's opinion, Dunning and Lee in their pleas "acquitted themselves very handsomely." Dunning's points, Burke thought, were "well and ably put." The appeal of the Massachusetts Assembly, Dunning argued was to the wisdom and goodness of his Majesty; they were asking a favor, not demanding justice. As they had no impeachment to make, so they had no evidence to offer. Of similar tenor was the address of John Lee. The reply of Wedderburn was pointed and brilliant, and as rabid as if he had been summing up against an ordinary criminal at an ordinary assize. The letters, could not have come to Dr. Franklin [he argued], by fair means. The writers did not give them to him; nor yet did the deceased correspondent, who, from our intimacy, would otherwise have told me of it. Nothing, then, will acquit Dr. Franklin of the charge of obtaining them by fraudulent or corrupt means, for the most malignant of purposes, unless he stole them from the person who stole them. This argument is irrefragable. I hope, my lords, you will mark and brand the man, for the honor of this country, of Europe, and of mankind. Private correspondence has hitherto been held sacred in times of the greatest party rage, not only in politics but religion.... He has forfeited all the respect of societies and of men [the orator went on]. Into what companies will he hereafter go with an unembarrassed face, or the honest intrepidity of virtue? Men will watch him with a jealous eye; they will hide their papers from him, and lock up their escritoirs. He will henceforth esteem it a libel to be called a _man of letters_; _homo TRIUM literarum_! [_Trium litterarum homo_, a man of three letters, was a fur, or thief]. But [continued Wedderburn], he not only took away the letters from one brother; but kept himself concealed till he nearly occasioned the murder of the other. It is impossible to read his account, expressive of the coolest and most deliberate malice, without horror. Amidst these tragical events, of one person nearly murdered, of another answerable for the issue, of a worthy governor hurt in his dearest interests, the fate of America in suspense; here is a man, who, with the utmost insensibility of remorse, stands up and avows himself the author of all. I can compare it only to Zanga, in Dr. Young's _Revenge_: "Know then 'twas--I; I forged the letter, I disposed the picture; I hated, I despised, and I destroy." I ask, my Lords, whether the revengeful temper attributed by poetic fiction only, to the bloody African, is not surpassed by the coolness and apathy of the wily American? More than one bystander has recorded the impressions left upon his mind by this savage philippic. I was not more astonished [Jeremy Bentham tells us] at the brilliancy of his lightning, than astounded at the thunder that accompanied it. As he stood, the cushion lay on the council table before him; his station was between the seats of two of the members, on the side of the right hand of the Lord President. I would not for double the greatest fee the orator could on that occasion have received, been in the place of that cushion; the ear was stunned at every blow. "At the sallies of his sarcastic wit," Priestley declares, "all the members of the Council, the President himself not excepted, frequently laughed outright. No person belonging to the Council behaved with decent gravity, except Lord North, who, coming late, took his stand behind the chair opposite to me." Burke spoke of the attack on "Poor Dr. Franklin" as "beyond all bounds and decency," and the language, used by Lord Shelburne, in describing it to Lord Chatham, was hardly, if any, less emphatic. "The behavior of the Judges," he said, "exceeded, as was agreed on all hands, that of any committee of elections." Dunning's rejoinder to Wedderburn was wholly ineffective. His voice, always thick, was, from illness, feebler and huskier than usual even in his first address, and, exhausted as he was by standing for three hours in a room, in which no one was allowed to sit but the Privy Councillors themselves, who were supposed on such occasions to be the immediate representatives of the King, his second address was hardly audible. Lee was equally ineffective. Wedderburn's speech, therefore, which from a purely forensic point of view was really a masterpiece, was left to assert its full effect, to become the sensation of every Club in London, and to win the plaudit of every bigoted or unreflecting Englishman. "All men," Fox said, "tossed up their hats and clapped their hands in boundless delight at it." What of Franklin during the malignant assault? The apartment, in which the hearing took place, was a small one. At one end, was an open fireplace, with a recess on each side of it. The Council table stretched from a point near this fireplace to the other end of the room. The Lord President sat at its head, and the other councillors were ranged in seats down its sides. Such spectators as had been able to secure the highly-prized privilege of being present remained standing throughout the session. In the chimney recess to the left of the President, stood Franklin with Burke and Priestley nearby. The dialectical ability and skill, which made his examination before the House of Commons so famous, he now had no opportunity to display; and unfailing fortitude was all that he could oppose to the outrage for which he had been singled out. With that, however, his uncommon strength of character abundantly supplied him. The Doctor was dressed in a full dress suit of spotted Manchester velvet [Dr. Edward Bancroft wrote years afterwards to William Temple Franklin], and stood _conspicuously erect_, without the smallest movement of any part of his body. The muscles of his face had been previously composed, so as to afford a placid, tranquil expression of countenance, and he did not suffer the slightest alteration of it to appear during the continuance of the speech, in which he was so harshly and improperly treated. In short, to quote the words which he employed concerning himself on another occasion, he kept "his countenance as immovable as if his features had been made of wood." Alone, in the recess on the left hand of the president, stood Benjamin Franklin [is the account of Bentham], in such position as not to be visible from the situation of the president, remaining the whole time like a rock, in the same posture, his head resting on his left hand; and in that attitude abiding the pelting of the pitiless storm. Nothing but Jedburgh justice, of course, was to be expected from such a Committee in such a case, represented by such an advocate. Its report, dated the same day as its sitting, and as likely as not drafted beforehand, found that the letters had been surreptitiously obtained, and contained "nothing reprehensible"; that the petition was based on resolutions, formed on false and erroneous allegations; and was groundless, vexatious and scandalous; and calculated only for the seditious purpose of keeping up a spirit of clamor and discontent in the province; and that nothing had been laid before the Committee which did, or could, in their opinion, in any manner, or in any degree, impeach the honor, integrity, or conduct of the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor. Wherefore, the Lords of the Committee were humbly of the opinion that the petition ought to be dismissed. This recommendation was approved by the King, and an order was issued by him that the petition be dismissed, as answering the character imputed to it by the Committee. Nor did vengeance stop here. On the second day, after the Committee rose, Franklin was handed a communication from the Postmaster-General, informing him in brief terms that the King had "found it necessary" to dismiss him from the office of Deputy Postmaster-General in America. In reporting the manner in which he had been affronted by the Privy Council to his Massachusetts constituents, Franklin used language in keeping with the sober spirit in which he had striven from the beginning to bring about an understanding between England and her Colonies. What I feel on my own account [he said], is half lost in what I feel for the public. When I see, that all petitions and complaints of grievances are so odious to government, that even the mere pipe which conveys them becomes obnoxious, I am at a loss to know how peace and union are to be maintained or restored between the different parts of the empire. Grievances cannot be redressed unless they are known; and they cannot be known but through complaints and petitions. If these are deemed affronts, and the messengers punished as offenders, who will henceforth send petitions? And who will deliver them? It has been thought a dangerous thing in any state to stop up the vent of griefs. Wise governments have therefore generally received petitions with some indulgence, even when but slightly founded. Those, who think themselves injured by their rulers, are sometimes, by a mild and prudent answer, convinced of their error. But where complaining is a crime, hope becomes despair. His fellow-Americans were not so self-restrained. The American Post Office was shunned by its former patrons, and letters were delivered largely by private agencies, effigies of Wedderburn and Hutchinson were carried about the streets of Philadelphia, and, at night, were burnt, we are told, by Joseph Reed, "with the usual ceremonies, amidst the acclamations of the multitude." "Nothing can exceed," the same narrator adds, "the veneration in which Dr. Franklin is now held, but the detestation we have of his enemies." Wedderburn, who had complained in his speech of the attention paid by the press to the movements of Franklin, as though he were a great diplomatic character, had more occasion than ever to sneer at his public prominence. Hutchinson was compelled to resign his office, and to retire from execration in America to a slender pension and obscurity in England. Even in England, Horace Walpole stayed the pen, to which we are indebted for so many charming letters, long enough to write: "Sarcastic Sawney, swol'n with spite and prate, On silent Franklin poured his venal hate, The calm philosopher, without reply, Withdrew, and gave his country liberty."[25] Lord John Russell has said that it is "impossible to justify the conduct of Franklin" in the matter of the Hutchinson letters, and from time to time the same idea has been more or less hesitatingly advanced by others. Its justice, we confess, has never been apparent to us. That the letters did pass into the possession of Franklin, under the circumstances stated by him, which certainly do not reflect in any manner upon his honor, can hardly be doubted, unless mere suspicion is to give the lie to a life of uniform integrity. The mode, in which they were transmitted to America, under the restrictions imposed by him, was attended with so little regard to secrecy, so far as his connection with them was concerned, that Dr. Cooper wrote to him, "I can not, however, but admire your honest openness in this affair, and noble negligence of any inconveniences that might arise to yourself in this essential service to our injured country." It was not until the letters had been printed in America, contrary to his engagement with the gentleman, who had handed them to him, that he expressed the wish to Dr. Cooper that the fact of his having sent them should be kept secret, and not then until his inclinations on the subject were pointedly sounded by Dr. Cooper. As soon as they threatened to cause bloodshed, which he had a chance to avert, he made his connection with them public, and assumed the full responsibility for his act. Moreover, he truly said of the letters, when he assumed this responsibility in his communication to the _Public Advertiser_, "They were not of the nature of _private_ letters between friends. They were written by public officers to persons in public stations, on public affairs, and intended to procure public measures; they were therefore handed to other public persons, who might be influenced by them to produce those measures." Little can be added to this convincing statement. If a political agent of England in Boston had, under the same circumstances, come into possession of letters from English officials in England to Cushing or Dr. Cooper, revealing a deliberate intent on the part of the writers to initiate measures aimed at the just prerogatives of the Crown or Parliament, who would have thought the worse of him if he had transmitted them to King or Parliament? Were letters designed to help along the introduction of a military force into Boston for the purpose of abridging the political liberties of its people entitled to any higher degree of privacy? The accusation that Franklin had violated the confidence of private correspondence came with but poor grace, to say the least, from a Government which made a practice of breaking the seals of letters, and of no letters oftener than of those of Franklin, entrusted to its care. Indeed, not only were the seals of Franklin's letters frequently broken, and the letters read, but, in some instances, the letters were permanently retained by the English Government. It was the fashion in England for a long time to ascribe the intense resentment felt by Franklin against England, after war broke out between that country and the colonies, to the indignity to which he was subjected by the Privy Council, and his dismission from office. The statement is not supported by the facts. That these circumstances made a deep impression upon his mind is undeniable, but it was really not until he found himself in America in 1775 that he gave himself up to the conclusion that nothing was to be gained by his remaining longer in England. After his removal from office, he still counselled his correspondents in America to adhere to a policy of patience and self-restraint, and in a letter to Thomas Cushing and others, written only a few days after the hearing at the Cockpit, he termed the destruction of the tea at Boston an unwarrantable destruction of private property and "an Act of violent Injustice." To all the efforts of Lord Chatham and his high-minded associates, after this hearing, to bring about a reconciliation between England and America, he lent the full weight of his advice and experience. And, when some of the members of the British Ministry, after it, ashamed to deal with him directly, covertly opened up an interchange of proposals with him through David Barclay, Dr. Fothergill and Lord Howe, in regard to the terms upon which a reconciliation might still be reached, he entered into the negotiations with a spirit singularly free from personal bitterness. There are few things more pathetic in the history of sundered ties than the account that Priestley has given us of the last days that Franklin spent in England in 1775. "A great part of the day above-mentioned that we spent together," Priestley tells us, "he was looking over a number of American newspapers, directing me what to extract from them for the English ones; and in reading them, he was frequently not able to proceed for the tears literally running down his cheeks." These, however, were not womanish tears, but rather such iron tears as ran down Pluto's cheeks. Never was there a time after the heart of America was laid bare to Franklin by the remonstrance against the Stamp Act when he was not unflinchingly prepared, if the painful necessity was forced upon him, to unite with his countrymen in defying the armed power of England. As the fateful issue of the protracted controversy approached nearer and nearer, his language became bolder and bolder. The eyes of all Christendom [he wrote to James Bowdoin a few days before he left England in 1775], are now upon us, and our honour as a people is become a matter of the utmost consequence to be taken care of. If we tamely give up our rights in this contest, a century to come will not restore us in the opinion of the world; we shall be stamped with the character of dastards, poltrons and fools; and be despised and trampled upon, not by this haughty, insolent nation only, but by all mankind. Present inconveniences are, therefore, to be borne with fortitude, and better times expected. "Informes hyemes reducit Jupiter; idem Summovet. Non si male nunc, et olim Sic erit."[26] When he reached the shores of his native land, it was to hear that, while he was at sea, the battles of Lexington and Concord had been fought, and that the veins of the two countries, which he had striven so hard to keep closed, were already open and running.[27] From that day, Franklin took his place with Washington, the Adamses, Jefferson and Patrick Henry as an inflexible champion of armed resistance to England. If he humored the more timid patriots, who were disposed to make still further appeals to English generosity, it was not because he shared their fallacious hopes but because he did not wish one column of the revolutionary movement to get too far in advance of the other. At this period of his life, his reputation was already very great. The English Tories believed or affected to believe that he was the father of all the mischief responsible for the American crisis. The English Whigs leaned upon his advice and assistance as those of a man who had the welfare of the entire British Empire deeply at heart. How he was regarded at home, is well illustrated in what General Nathanael Greene and Abigail Adams had to say of him when he subsequently visited Washington's head-quarters during the siege of Boston as a member of the Committee appointed by Congress to confer with Washington and delegates from the New England Colonies as to the best plan for raising, maintaining and disciplining the continental army. Recalling an occasion at this time, when Franklin had been brought under his observation, Greene wrote, "During the whole evening, I viewed that very great man with silent admiration." The language of Abigail Adams was not less intense. I had the pleasure of dining with Dr. Franklin [she said], and of admiring him, whose character from my infancy I had been taught to venerate. I found him social but not talkative; and, when he spoke, something useful dropped from his tongue. He was grave, yet pleasant and affable. You know I make some pretensions to physiognomy, and I thought I could read in his countenance the virtues of his heart, among which, patriotism shone in its full lustre: and with that is blended every virtue of a Christian. Those were dramatic hours when highly wrought feelings readily ran into hyperbole; nor had any Madame Helvétius come along yet with her "Hélas! Franklin," and disordered skirts. The reputation, which called forth these tributes, brought Franklin at once to the very forefront of the American Revolution, when he arrived at Philadelphia. The morning after his arrival, he, Thomas Willing and James Wilson, were elected by the Assembly of Pennsylvania as additional deputies to the Continental Congress that was to meet in Philadelphia in a few days, and he was re-elected to Congress at every succeeding election until his departure for France. By the first Congress, he was appointed Chairman of a Committee to devise a postal system for America; and when this Committee recommended the appointment of a Postmaster-General and various postal subordinates, and the establishment of a line of posts from Falmouth (now Portland) in Maine to Savannah, with as many cross posts as the Postmaster-General might think fit, Franklin was elected by Congress the Postmaster-General for the first year. He was also appointed by Congress one of the members of a committee to draw up a declaration, to be published by Washington when he took command of the American army, but the paper drafted by him does not appear to have ever been presented by him to Congress. At any rate, it adds nothing to his literary reputation, and is disfigured by one of the unseasonable _facetiæ_ into which he had a way of wandering at times on grave occasions, after he found his feet again in the easy slippers of his old American environment. Franklin also made some wise suggestions to Congress with respect to the best method of preventing the depreciation of the paper money issued by it. His first suggestion was that the bills should bear interest. This suggestion was rejected. His next was that, instead of the issuance of any more paper money, what had already been issued should be borrowed back upon interest. His last was that the interest should be paid in hard money, but both of the latter suggestions, though approved by Congress, were approved too late to accomplish their objects. After due tenderness had been exhibited by him to John Dickinson and the other members of Congress, who still clung to the hope of a reconciliation with England, Franklin brought forward a plan for the permanent union and efficient government of the Colonies. Under this plan each colony was to retain its internal independence, but its external relations, especially as respected resistance to the measures of the English Ministry, were committed to an annually-elected Congress. The supreme executive authority of the union was to be vested in a council of twelve, to be elected by the Congress. Ireland, Canada, the West Indies, Bermuda, Nova Scotia and Florida as well as the thirteen colonies within the present limits of the United States, were to be invited to join the confederacy. The union was to last until British oppression ceased, and reparation was made to the Colonies for the injuries inflicted upon them; which, of course, under the circumstances, meant until the Greek Calends. The plan was referred to a committee, but it was never acted upon by the House; being too bold a project to suit the cautious scruples of John Dickinson and the other moderate members of the Continental Congress, who dreaded the effect of a project of union upon the mind of the King, while the petition of Congress to him was pending. Among other important committees upon which Franklin served, when a member of the first Continental Congress, was one to investigate the sources of saltpetre; another to treat with the Indians; another to look after the engraving and printing of the continental paper money; another to consider Lord North's conciliatory resolution; another on salt and lead; and still another to report a plan for regulating and protecting the commerce of the Colonies. At the next session of the Congress, he was equally active. Among the things in which we find him engaged at this session, are the arrangement of a system of posts and expresses for the rapid transmission of dispatches; the establishment of a line of packets between America and Europe; an effort to promote the circulation of the continental money; and the preparation of instructions for the American generals. It was at this session of Congress, too, that Thomas Lynch, of South Carolina, Benjamin Harrison, of Virginia, and himself were appointed the committee to visit Washington's camp before Boston. The journey to Boston consumed thirteen days, and the conference, which followed with the American Commander-in-Chief and the delegates from the New England Colonies, resulted in many judicious conclusions with regard to the organization of the American army, and the conduct of the war, and, moreover, was an additional assurance to Washington and New England that, in the military operations before Boston, they could count upon the support of all America. It is obvious enough from writings, found among the papers of Franklin in his handwriting, that months before the Declaration of Independence was signed he was fully ready to renounce all allegiance to Great Britain. When the more conservative members of Congress so far yielded to their fears as to adopt, with the aid of some of the members from New England, a declaration that independence was not their aim, Franklin approved a plan then formed by Samuel Adams of bringing at least all the New England provinces together in a confederacy. "If you succeed," he said to Adams, "I will cast in my lot among you." This was six months before the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin also served with John Jay and Thomas Jefferson upon a committee to interview a mysterious foreigner who had repeatedly expressed a desire to make a confidential communication to Congress. The stranger, who possessed a military bearing and spoke with a French accent, assured the committee that his most Christian Majesty, the King of France, had heard with pleasure of the exertions made by the American Colonies in defence of their rights and privileges, wished them success, and would, when necessary, manifest in a more open manner his friendly sentiments towards them. But, as often as he was asked by the committee for his authority for conveying such flattering assurances, he contented himself with drawing his hand across his throat, and saying, "Gentlemen, I shall take care of my head." When the report of this committee was made to Congress, a motion on the strength of it to send envoys to France was defeated, but later a committee composed of Benjamin Harrison, John Dickinson, Thomas Johnson, John Jay and Franklin was appointed "to correspond secretly with friends in Great Britain, Ireland, and other parts of the world." The duties of this committee were mainly discharged by Franklin, who had, as we have seen, contracted many durable friendships abroad with men whose aid might mean much to America. To Charles W. F. Dumas, a native of Switzerland, residing at The Hague, he wrote, asking him to sound secretly the ambassadors of the different Powers, other than Great Britain, there for the purpose of ascertaining whether any of their courts were inclined to aid the Colonies or to form alliances with them, to let the mercantile world know that America was prepared to pay very high prices for arms, gunpowder and saltpetre, to send to America two engineer officers qualified to direct siege operations, construct forts and field-works and command artillery, and to receive and forward all letters that passed between the committee and its friends and agents abroad. A draft for one hundred pounds sterling accompanied the letter, together with an assurance from the committee that Dumas' services would be "considered and honorably rewarded by Congress." A similar letter was sent to Arthur Lee in London, accompanied by a remittance of two hundred pounds as his compensation. By the same ship went a letter from Franklin to Don Gabriel de Bourbon of Spain, in which, after thanking the Prince for the copy which he had sent him of the handsome Sallust, printed several years before at the royal press at Madrid, Franklin cleverly leads the attention of the Prince on to the consideration of a rising state which seemed likely soon to act a part of some importance on the stage of human affairs, and to furnish materials for a future Sallust. This letter, in which literary sympathy, the high-bred courtesy of a Spanish hidalgo and political address are mingled with the happiest effect, is a good example of what it meant to America to have such a man as Franklin as her world-interpreter. These letters were all entrusted to the care of a special messenger, Thomas Story. Soon after he left America, M. Penet, a merchant of Nantes, sailed for France with a contract from the committee for furnishing arms, ammunition and clothing to the American army and various letters from Franklin to friends of his in France, including his devoted pupil, Dr. Dubourg. Subsequently, before a reply had been received to any of the letters written by Franklin on its behalf, the committee decided to send an agent to Paris duly empowered to treat with the French King. Silas Deane, a Yale graduate, and a man, who might have left an unblemished reputation as an American patriot behind him, if Arthur Lee had not hounded him out of France and America into England, was selected for this mission. He was selected, Adams is so unkind as to intimate, because he was a Congressman who had lost his seat in Congress. For him Franklin drew up a letter of instruction, fixing the character that he was to assume, that of a merchant, when he reached France, mentioning the persons friendly to America with whom he was to establish a familiar intercourse, and prescribing the manner in which he was to approach M. de Vergennes, the French Minister, for the purpose of soliciting the friendship and assistance of France. Another important call was made upon the services of Franklin, when with Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll of Carrollton, as his colleagues, he was appointed by Congress to visit Canada, and to endeavor to rescue our affairs in that country from the lamentable condition of confusion and distress into which they had fallen. Quebec had been assaulted by Montgomery and Arnold, and had repelled the assault, Montgomery being killed and Arnold wounded in the attempt, and the American army was wasting away in the face of the intense cold, hunger and the small-pox. For the Continental paper money the Canadians had come to entertain a supreme contempt, and their attitude towards the Americans, with whom they had so often been at war in their earlier history, was in every respect that of distrust and aversion. With the committee went John Carroll, the brother of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who had been educated for the priesthood in France, and spoke its language with perfect fluency. It was thought at the time that for the Commission to take with it to Catholic and French Canada such a companion was a masterly stroke of policy. The powers, with which the Commission were clothed, were of a plenary description; to admit Canada into the union of the Colonies, when brought over to the American cause by the appeals of the Commissioners, and to admit it with a republican form of government, to settle disputes between the civil and military authorities in Canada, and to exercise an extraordinary degree of authority in one form or another with respect to the military forces of America there. They were even to take steps to establish a newspaper in Canada to help along the American propaganda. Of all the episodes in the life of Franklin, this is the one upon which the reader dwells with the least satisfaction. He was entirely too old for the fatigues and hardships of the long April journey of five hundred miles from Philadelphia to New York, and up the Hudson, and over Lakes George and Champlain, and across the country at the head of Lake Champlain to Montreal. The distance between Philadelphia and New York was covered by the party in two days, the journey up the Hudson to Albany was made in a sloop, engaged for them by Lord Stirling, and from Albany to the country seat of General Philip Schuyler at Saratoga, thirty-two miles from Albany, they were conveyed over deep roads in a large country-wagon furnished by the General. Here it was that Franklin, debilitated by the exposure and shocks, to which his frame had been subjected, began to apprehend that he had undertaken a fatigue which, at his time of life, might prove too much for him, and sat down to write to some of his friends by way of farewell. After a few days' rest at Saratoga, the party, preceded by General Schuyler, went forward to Lake George. Though it was the middle of April, the lakes of that country were still covered with ice, and the roads with six inches of snow. After two days and a half of further travel, the southern end of the lake was reached. So encumbered with ice was it that the batteau, equipped with an awning for a cabin, with which General Schuyler had provided the party, took about thirty-six hours to traverse the thirty-six miles between the southern extremity of the lake and its northern. Then came the portage over the neck of land between Lake George and Lake Champlain, and the re-embarkation, after a delay of five days, on the waters of the latter lake. The portage was effected by placing the batteau on wheels and yoking it up to a string of oxen. Three days and a half more brought the party to St. John's, near the head of Lake Champlain, after a strenuous struggle with baffling ice and head winds. Another day's journey in _calèches_ brought them to Montreal where they were received by Arnold and a concourse of officers and citizens, and saluted with military honors. It is enough to say that the Commissioners found American credit in Canada sunk to the lowest point. Even the express, sent by them from St. John's to tell Arnold of their arrival at that point, was held at a ferry for the ferriage charge until a friend, who was passing, changed an American paper dollar for him into silver; nor would the _calèches_ have come for the Commissioners if this friend had not engaged to pay the hire. Military defeat, violated contracts, discredited paper money and the anticipated coming of a British force overhung like a bank of nimbus cloud the entire horizon of American hopes in Canada. The Commissioners could not borrow money either upon the public or upon their own private credit. In a letter to Congress after they had been in Canada a week, they declared that, if money could not be had to support the American army in Canada with honor, so as to be respected instead of being hated by the people, it was their firm and unanimous opinion that it would be better to immediately withdraw it. With his usual public spirit, Franklin advanced on the credit of Congress to Arnold and other servants of Congress three hundred and fifty-three pounds in gold out of his own pocket--a loan which proved of great service in procuring provisions for the American army at a time of dire necessity. Two days after the letter of the Commissioners to Congress was written, news came to Montreal that a British fleet, full of troops, had reached Quebec, and landed a force, which had routed the small American army there. The decision was at once reached that there was nothing for the American forces to do but to retire to St. John's, and to prepare to resist at that point the advance of the British. This decision was acted upon at once, and the next morning Franklin, attended by John Carroll, set out on his return to Philadelphia; leaving his fellow-commissioners to oversee the retreat to St. John's and the establishment of defensive works at that point. With the assistance of General Schuyler, he and his companion passed safely down the lakes to Albany, and from Albany, after they had again enjoyed the General's hospitality, they were conveyed by his chariot to New York. Here Franklin wrote to his fellow-commissioners that he grew daily more feeble, and thought that he could hardly have got along so far but for Mr. Carroll's friendly assistance and tender care of him. Some symptoms of the gout, he further said, had appeared, which made him believe that his indisposition had been a smothered fit of that disorder, which his constitution wanted strength to form completely. But, with the reappearance of his old malady, came back the wit which, indeed, seems to have languished but little at any time under the rigors of his arduous mission. After congratulating Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll upon the recent capture of a British prize, loaded with seventy-five tons of gunpowder and a thousand carbines with bayonets, he further wrote: "The German Auxiliaries are certainly coming. It is our Business to prevent their Returning." In the early part of June, Franklin was again in Philadelphia after an absence of about ten weeks. A little later the Declaration of Independence was reported to Congress by the committee, consisting of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Robert R. Livingston, Roger Sherman and himself, which had been elected by Congress to draft it, and after a debate, during which John Adams won only less reputation in defending, than Jefferson in writing, it, was adopted and given to the world, whose political opinions it was to influence so profoundly. Owing to a serious attack of the gout, Franklin had no hand in its preparation beyond suggesting a few verbal alterations. His part, however, in the adoption of the Articles of Confederation was more active. To the plan of allowing the thirteen States to vote on all questions by States, and of giving to each State, without reference to population or wealth, a single vote, he was strongly opposed; so much so that he even thought at one time of counselling Pennsylvania not to enter into the union if the plan was adopted. He hotly declared that a confederation upon such iniquitous terms would not last long. But we know from what Jefferson tells us that he also had his humorous fling at it. "At the time of the union of England and Scotland," he said, "the Duke of Argyle was most violently opposed to that measure, and among other things predicted that, as the whale had swallowed Jonah, so Scotland would be swallowed by England." "However," added Franklin, "when Lord Bute came into the government, he soon brought into its administration so many of his countrymen that it was found, in event, that Jonah had swallowed the whale." About the same time, Franklin, Jefferson and John Adams were appointed a committee by Congress to hit upon a device for the seal of the Confederacy. No more congenial task could possibly have been set for Franklin, whose ingenuity always revelled in conceits of this kind. A device, based upon the drowning of Pharaoh, and accompanied by the motto, "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God," was suggested by him, and was made by the Committee, together with the Eye of Providence in a radiant triangle, the motto, _E Pluribus Unum_, and other elaborate features a part of its recommendation. As soon as Franklin was safely out of the country in France, Congress, perhaps not forgetting his story of John Thompson, the hatter, rejected as too redundant the entire complicated design except the _E Pluribus Unum_ and the Eye of Providence. In the summer of 1776, Franklin also endeavored to carry out in another form his idea of preventing the Hessians from returning to their own country by assisting in distributing among them tobacco wrapped in copies of an address offering in the name of Congress a tract of land to every soldier who should desert the British service. Congress could not see why, if these hirelings were to be sold, they should not do the selling themselves instead of their Princes. It was in the summer of 1776, too, that Franklin, John Adams and Edward Rutledge, of South Carolina, were elected a committee by Congress to call upon Lord Howe at Staten Island for the purpose of ascertaining whether he had any authority to negotiate a treaty of peace, and, if so, of learning what that authority was, and of receiving such propositions as he should think fit to make. Lord Howe was at the time the Admiral of the King's naval forces in America and joint commissioner with his brother General William Howe to grant pardons to such of the American rebels as should be ready to renew their allegiance to the King. On his arrival in July, 1776, at Sandy Hook, he had taken steps to distribute throughout the Colonies a declaration explaining the nature of the commission committed to his brother and himself. At the same time, he had written a letter to Franklin indicating his earnest desire to be instrumental in restoring peace between England and America. The same carrier delivered a copy of the declaration to Congress and the letter to Franklin. Both the declaration and the letter were given rude rebuffs. Congress ordered the declaration to be inserted in the newspapers so that, as it said, the few, who still remained suspended by a hope, founded either in the justice or moderation of their late King, might now at length be convinced that the valor alone of their country was to save its liberties. Franklin, after obtaining the permission of Congress, sent a reply to Lord Howe's letter by the hand of Colonel Palfrey of the American army. It is one of the best letters that he ever wrote, and told Lord Howe such blunt truths, and gave him such candid advice that, after reading it with surprise repeatedly flitting over his face, Lord Howe remarked to Colonel Palfrey with a gentleness as honorable to his amiable character as to that of Franklin that his old friend had expressed himself very warmly. Then subsequently had followed the disaster on Long Island, and the arrival of General Sullivan on parole at Philadelphia with a verbal message from Lord Howe to Congress, stating that he would like to confer with some of its members as private individuals though he could not yet treat with Congress itself. The result was the appointment of the committee to call upon him at Staten Island. The conference between the committee and Lord Howe took place at a house on that island and came to nothing. The committee had no authority to do anything except to receive proposals from Lord Howe, who really had no seasonable proposition to make, and Lord Howe had no authority to do anything except to grant pardons to persons who were not conscious of having committed any offence. When he stated in polite terms that he could not confer with the members of the committee as a committee of Congress but only as gentlemen of great ability and influence in the colonies, Adams declared in his emphatic way that he was willing to consider himself for a few moments in any character which would be agreeable to his Lordship except that of a British subject. "Mr. Adams," gravely observed Lord Howe, "is a decided character." All three of the Commissioners one by one made it clear to Lord Howe that the colonies were irrevocably committed to Independence. There was, therefore, nothing for him to do except to say in the end, "I am sorry, gentlemen, that you have had the trouble of coming so far to so little purpose." Minutes of this interesting conference were jotted down by Henry Strachey, Lord Howe's Secretary, and he has recorded two highly characteristic utterances of Franklin on the occasion. Such, Lord Howe declared, were his feelings towards America, on account of the honor conferred upon his family, by its recognition of the services rendered to it by his eldest brother (Viscount Howe), that, if America should fall, he would feel and lament it like the loss of a brother. Franklin's answer to this generous outburst is thus recorded by Strachey. "Dr. Franklin (with an easy air, a collected countenance, a bow, a smile, and all that _naïveté_ which sometimes appeared in his conversation and often in his writings), My Lord, we will use our utmost endeavors to save your Lordship that mortification." Later, when Lord Howe assured Franklin that it was the commerce, the strength, the men of America rather than her money that Great Britain wanted, Franklin, ever alive to the military advantage possessed by the Colonies in the amazing capacity for reproduction of their people, replied, "Ay, My Lord, we have in America a pretty considerable manufactory of men." Strachey supposed that he meant to convey by this remark the impression that the American army was a large one, but Lord Howe knew Franklin's turn of mind better, and penciled on the margin of Strachey's manuscript, "No; their increasing population." Lord Howe seems to have borne himself on this occasion in every respect like a gallant gentleman. When the three members of Congress reached the shore opposite to Staten Island, after the journey from Philadelphia, which Adams had made on horseback, and Franklin and Rutledge in chairs, they found a barge from him awaiting them with an officer in it as a hostage for their safe return from the island. Adams suggested that the hostage should be dispensed with, and his colleagues, he tells us in his grandiose way, "exulted in the proposition and agreed to it instantly." The fact was communicated to the officer, who bowed his assent, and re-embarked with the Americans. When Lord Howe saw the barge approaching the beach of the island, he walked down to meet it, and the Hessian regiment, which attended him, was drawn up in two lines facing each other. Upon seeing that the officer, whom he had sent over to the Jersey shore, had returned, Lord Howe exclaimed, "Gentlemen, you make me a very high compliment, and you may depend upon it I will consider it as the most sacred of things." When the party landed, he shook hands very cordially with Franklin, and, after being introduced to Adams and Rutledge, conducted the three between the two files of Hessians to the house where the conference was to take place; all four chatting pleasantly together as they walked along. Adams, who was far too intense an American not to hate savagely a Hessian, fresh from the cattle-pen of his Prince, described these soldiers as "looking fierce as ten Furies, and making all the grimaces, and gestures, and motions of their muskets with bayonets fixed, which, I suppose, military etiquette requires, but which we neither understood nor regarded." The house, which was to be the scene of the conference, was dilapidated and dirty from military use, but the apartment, into which the Americans were ushered, had been hung with moss and branches by Lord Howe with such refinement of taste that Adams subsequently pronounced it "not only wholesome, but romantically elegant." After reaching it, the whole party, including the colonel of the Hessian regiment, sat down to a collation "of good claret, good bread, cold ham, tongues, and mutton." When the repast was over, the colonel withdrew, the table was cleared and the fruitless conference began. Nor was the activity of Franklin after his return from England limited to his duties as a member of Congress. If he fell asleep at times, when questions were under discussion by that body, it might well have been because he had no other time to sleep. Shortly after his return, he was elected Chairman of the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, which was charged with the duty of arming and defending the Province, and of issuing bills of credit to defray the expense. In this office, he proved quite as fertile in expedients as he had done at the time of the Association years before. In the course of a year, the Delaware was effectively protected by forts and batteries and by a marine _chevaux-de-frise_, planned by Franklin himself; so much so that, when a British fleet attempted several years later to ascend the river, its progress was blocked for two months. Other features of the defensive plans adopted by the committee were row-galleys, fully armed and manned, of which Josiah Quincy spoke in a letter to Washington as "Dr. Franklin's row-galleys." In the morning at six [Franklin wrote to Priestley], I am at the Committee of Safety, appointed by the Assembly to put the Province in a state of defence; which committee holds till near nine, when I am at the Congress, and that sits till after four in the afternoon. Both these bodies proceed with the greatest unanimity, and their meetings are well attended. It will scarce be credited in Britain, that men can be as diligent with us from zeal for the public good, as with you for thousands per annum. Such is the difference between uncorrupted new states, and corrupted old ones. To the period when the Committee of Safety was holding its sessions belongs a story which William Temple Franklin tells us of his grandfather. Some of the more intolerant Pennsylvanians asked the Committee to call upon the Episcopal clergy to refrain from prayers for the King. The measure [said Franklin, who always preserved his sense of proportion] is quite unnecessary; for the Episcopal clergy, to my certain knowledge, have been constantly praying, these twenty years, that "_God would give to the king and his council wisdom_"; and we all know that not the least notice has ever been taken of that prayer. While a member of Congress and the Committee of Safety, Franklin was also elected a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, but, as the members of that body were still required before taking their seats to pledge their allegiance to the King, he was unwilling to actually take his seat. The Assembly was under the dominion of John Dickinson, the leader of the Proprietary Party, and was very reluctant to break finally with the Crown. Nevertheless, it re-elected Franklin to Congress, though he alone of the nine delegates, elected from Pennsylvania to that body, was unhesitatingly in favor of independence. This position of isolation he was not condemned to occupy long. At a subsequent election, the party in Pennsylvania, which shared Franklin's views, obtained the upper hand, followed the lead of Congress in repudiating all authority derived from the King and declared the Proprietary Government dissolved. For a time, there was no government of any kind in Pennsylvania for even the most elementary needs of society. The result, however, was an impressive illustration of the fact that all government is by no means on paper, for, at a later period of his life, Franklin told Sir Samuel Romilly that, while this anarchical condition lasted, order was perfectly preserved in every part of Pennsylvania, and that no man, who should have attempted to take advantage of the situation, for the purpose of evading the payment of a debt, could have endured the contempt with which he would have been visited. The first step towards the restoration of civil government was taken by the Committee of Safety. It advised the people of Pennsylvania to elect delegates to a conference; they responded by doing so, and the delegates met at Philadelphia, sat five days, renounced allegiance to the King, took an oath of obedience to Congress and issued a call to the people to elect delegates to meet in convention and to form a constitution. At the election, which ensued, Franklin was one of the eight delegates elected from Philadelphia, and, when the convention met, he was unanimously chosen its President. On account of his duties as a member of Congress, his attendance upon the sessions of the convention was irregular, but it was regular enough to exert a marked influence over the proceedings of the body. In one respect, that is in the adoption of a single legislative chamber, the constitution framed by the convention bore the unmistakable impress of his peculiar political ideas.[28] A few weeks after the Declaration of Independence was adopted, Franklin received a long letter from Dubourg addressed to "My Dear Master," which justified at least the inference that Vergennes leaned towards the cause of the Colonies. Encouraged by this letter, Congress elected three envoys to represent America in France: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Silas Deane. Deane was already in France. Jefferson was compelled by the ill health of his wife to decline, and Arthur Lee, then in London, was elected in his stead. After a voyage of thirty days in the _Reprisal_, commanded by Captain Wickes, a small war-vessel in the service of Congress, Franklin reached Quiberon Bay. Thence he proceeded by land to Nantes and from Nantes to Paris. After his arrival at Paris, he lodged at the Hôtel d'Hambourg, in the Rue de l'Université, until he found a home in the house at Passy placed at his disposal by M. Donatien LeRay de Chaumont. For a time, he courted retirement, but, as France was drawn more and more closely into concert with the American rebels, his activity became more and more open, until the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga induced that country to abandon the policy of connivance and secret assistance, which it had pursued behind the screen, supplied by the commercial adventures of Caron de Beaumarchais, even before Franklin landed in Europe, and to enter into the treaty of alliance with the United States which made Adams, Lee and himself our fully acknowledged representatives at the French Court. The circumstances, under which the news of Burgoyne's capitulation was communicated to Franklin and his colleagues, constitute one of the most thrilling moments in history. The messenger, who conveyed it, was Jonathan Loring Austin, a young New Englander, and the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of War; and he was sent in a swift vessel for the very purpose by the State of Massachusetts. "Whatever in thy wise providence thou seest best to do with the young man, we beseech thee most fervently, at all events, to preserve the packet," is the tactless petition that Dr. Cooper is said to have addressed to Heaven on the Sunday before Austin sailed. The rumor of his coming preceded his arrival at Passy, and, when his chaise was heard in the court of the Hôtel de Chaumont, Deane, Arthur and William Lee, Ralph Izard, Dr. Bancroft, Beaumarchais and Franklin went out to meet him. "Sir," said Franklin, "_is_ Philadelphia taken?" "Yes, sir," replied Austin. At this Franklin clasped his hands and turned as if to go back into the house. "But, sir," said Austin, "I have greater news than that. General Burgoyne and his whole army are prisoners of war!" The night of American adversity was now for the first time lit up by a real augury of dawn, and the treaties of amity and commerce and alliance between France and the United States, in the existing state of French feeling, followed almost as a matter of course. When, weak from his long voyage, Franklin started out on the journey from the seashore to Paris, which led him at one point through the forest haunts of a bloodthirsty gang of robbers, he was seventy years of age. "Yet," he could truly declare some ten years later to George Whatley, "had I gone at seventy, it would have cut off twelve of the most active years of my life, employed too in matters of the greatest importance." These were indeed years of precious service to his country and of a fame for himself as resplendent as any in modern history which lacks the lustre of military glory. What Washington was to America in the field, Franklin was to her in the foreign relations upon which it may well be doubted whether the success of her arms did not at times depend. To obtain material aid in the form of money and munitions of war, soldiers and fleets from the one powerful country in Europe, which manifested a disposition to side actively with America, was the cardinal object of American policy after the outbreak of the Revolution, and rarely has any man ever been more richly qualified for the accomplishment of any object than was Franklin for the accomplishment of this. In the first place, his liberal and sympathetic nature, with its unrivalled capacity for assimilating foreign usages and habits of thought and feeling, slid without the slightest friction into every recess of its French environment. This was a fact of supreme importance in the case of a people so distinctive in point of race and temperament, and so irredeemably wedded to their own national prepossessions and prejudices as the French. Doubtless, Franklin was too wise a man not to have courted French favor, in a social sense, to some extent as a matter of political policy. Then, too, there is every reason to know that he was sincerely grateful to France for the benefits which she showered upon his country and himself. But it was mainly the spell of La Belle France herself, with her cordial appeal to his delight in existence, which finally produced the state of mutual affection that enabled him to say with truth that he loved the French and that they loved him. What this meant to our cause we can easily divine when we remember how wholly some of the colleagues of Franklin failed to recommend themselves to the good will of the people, whose good will it was of the utmost concern to America that they should conciliate, or to abstain from untimely dissensions. The exact reverse of what Franklin said of himself might be said of them. They disliked the French People, and the French People disliked them.[29] More than once it required all the management of Franklin to placate feelings that they had aroused in Vergennes, the French Minister, by lack of tact or good judgment. On one occasion, after being lectured by Adams, on the subject of the American paper money, held by citizens of France, Vergennes wrote to Franklin that nothing could be less analogous than the language of Adams to the alliance subsisting between his Majesty and the United States. In the same letter, he asked Franklin to lay the whole correspondence between Adams and himself before Congress, adding that his Majesty flattered himself that that Assembly, inspired with principles different from those which Mr. Adams had discovered, would convince his Majesty that they knew how to prize those marks of favor which the King had constantly shown to the United States. No choice was left to Franklin except to comply with the request and to do what he could to satisfy Vergennes that the sentiments of Congress and of Americans generally were very different from those of Adams. But unfortunately, before the correspondence between Adams and Vergennes could reach Congress, Adams had again, by his officious conduct in another particular, elicited a sharp rebuke from Vergennes. This correspondence, too, Vergennes requested Franklin to lay before Congress, which Franklin did with comments not more severe than the occasion called for, but which the pride of Adams, already deeply infected with the jealousy of Franklin, which he shared with Arthur Lee, so far as his manlier and wholesomer nature allowed, never fully forgave. "He," Vergennes said of Adams, in a letter to La Luzerne, "possesses a rigidity, a pedantry, an arrogance and a vanity which render him unfit to treat political questions." After peace was restored between Great Britain and the United States, the strictures of Adams upon Vergennes and France became so imprudent and outspoken that Franklin wrote to Robert Morris: I hope the ravings of a certain mischievous madman here against France and its ministers, which I hear of every day, will not be regarded in America, so as to diminish in the least the happy union that has hitherto subsisted between the two nations, and which is indeed the solid foundation of our present importance in Europe. Four months later, Franklin, to use his own words, hazarded a mortal enmity by making this communication to Robert R. Livingston: I ought not, however, to conceal from you, that one of my Colleagues is of a very different Opinion from me in these Matters. He thinks the French Minister one of the greatest Enemies of our Country, that he would have straitned our Boundaries, to prevent the Growth of our People; contracted our Fishery, to obstruct the Increase of our Seamen; and retained the Royalists among us, to keep us divided; that he privately opposes all our Negociations with foreign Courts, and afforded us, during the War, the Assistance we receiv'd, only to keep it alive, that we might be so much the more weaken'd by it; that to think of Gratitude to France is the greatest of Follies, and that to be influenc'd by it would ruin us. He makes no Secret of his having these Opinions, expresses them publicly, sometimes in presence of English Ministers, and speaks of hundreds of Instances which he could produce in Proof of them. All this Franklin believed to be as imaginary as I know his Fancies to be, that Count de V. and myself are continually plotting against him, and employing the News-Writers of Europe to depreciate his Character, &c. But as Shakespear says, "Trifles light as Air, &c." I am persuaded, however, that he means well for his Country, is always an honest Man, often a wise one, but sometimes, and in some things, absolutely out of his senses. A clever and just flash of characterization but for the usual inability of Franklin to refer abnormal conduct to anything short of dementia.[30] In the latter part of the same year, Franklin again had occasion to write to Robert Morris, My Apprehension that the Union between France and our States might be diminished by Accounts from hence, was occasioned by the extravagant and violent Language held here by a Public Person, in public Company, which had that Tendency; and it was natural for me to think his Letters might hold the same Language, in which I was right; for I have since had Letters from Boston informing me of it. Luckily here, and I hope there, it is imputed to the true Cause, a Disorder in the Brain, which, tho' not constant, has its Fits too frequent. Apart from more general considerations, as Franklin was, at the very time that Adams was holding this kind of discourse, soliciting more money from Vergennes for the United States, it was natural enough that he should fear the tendency of such ungrateful and provoking language to chill the liberality of the French Minister. It is agreeable, however, to recollect that in the succeeding year the able, upright and patriotic statesman, who had to such a conspicuous degree the defects of his virtues, was so far restored to reason, that Franklin could write to William Temple Franklin that he had walked to Auteuil on Saturday to dine with Mr. A. &c., with whom he went on comfortably. As to how far Arthur Lee succeeded in ingratiating himself with Vergennes, the correspondence of that Minister with the French Minister in America enables us to judge without difficulty. In one letter, he wrote that he had too good an opinion of the intelligence and wisdom of the members of Congress and of all true patriots to suppose that they would allow themselves to be led astray by the representations of a man (Lee) whose character they ought to know. As to Dr. Franklin [he continued], his conduct leaves nothing for Congress to desire. It is as zealous and patriotic, as it is wise and circumspect; and you may affirm with assurance, on all occasions where you think proper, that the method he pursues is much more efficacious than it would be if he were to assume a tone of importunity in multiplying his demands, and above all in supporting them by menaces, to which we should neither give credence nor value, and which would only tend to render him personally disagreeable. The writer might as well have added "as is Arthur Lee." In another letter, Vergennes stated that the four millions more that France had decided to grant Dr. Franklin would convince Congress that they had "no occasion to employ the false policy of Mr. Izard and Mr. Lee to procure succors."[31] For very different reasons, even Jay, with his admirable character, did not achieve any success in dealing with the French people beyond the kind of success which the French themselves damn with the phrase _succès d'estime_. The complaint that M. Grand made of him, when he was in Spain, "that he always appeared very much buttoned up," was hardly less applicable to him when he was transferred to Paris as one of our Peace Commissioners. "Mr. Jay," diarizes Adams, "likes Frenchmen as little as Mr. Lee and Mr. Izard did. He says they are not a moral people; they know not what it is; he don't like any Frenchman; the Marquis de Lafayette is clever, but he is a Frenchman." John Laurens, too, when he came over to Paris to solicit money for the American army, _beau sabreur_ as he was, handled the French as awkwardly as the rest. "He was indefatigable, while he staid," Franklin wrote to William Carmichael, "and took true Pains, but he _brusqu'd_ the Ministers too much, and I found after he was gone that he had thereby given more Offence than I could have imagin'd." The truth is that, until the watchful detachment of Adams and Jay from their foreign environment became of some service to the United States in helping to assure to them the full fruits of their victory in the final shuffle of diplomacy over the Treaty of Peace, Franklin after the return of Silas Deane to America was the only one of our diplomatic representatives who can be said to have earned his salt in France.[32] The rest, so far from promoting the objects of the French mission, did much to jeopard its success. The United States could well have afforded to keep them all at home and to pay them double the amount of the salaries which were wasted upon them abroad. They either could not rise above the limitations and prejudices of foreigners in dealing with a people peculiarly tenacious of their own national views and characteristics, or were too lacking in diplomatic instinct and _savoir faire_ to hold their own grating idiosyncracies of temper and disposition in check, when it was of the highest importance to their country that they should do so; or they were so restive under the pre-eminence of Franklin as to be unable to control the envy and ill-feeling, which harassed his peace, and tended to discredit the cause, in which they were engaged. Congress did not do many wise things in regard to our interests in France during the Revolution, but undoubtedly it did one, when it finally brought the discord of its envoys in that country to an end by declining to accept the resignation of Franklin and appointing him the sole Ambassador of the United States at Paris.[33] Under no circumstances, does his success in obtaining succor for America from France stand out so clearly as when contrasted with the futile missions of Arthur Lee, William Lee, Ralph Izard, Francis Dana and John Jay to other courts than that of France. So far from obtaining any material aid for the United States from the countries, to which they were accredited, and should never have been sent,[34] they had to fall back upon Franklin himself for their own subsistence; though it is only fair to them to say that some of them were allowed by these countries too little freedom of approach to make an impression of any kind upon them, good or otherwise. For the bad feeling entertained by Adams, Lee and Izard towards Franklin there is no valid reason for holding Franklin responsible. It is plain that he did not lack the inclination to be on friendly terms with Adams; and there is no evidence that he in any way provoked the malice which he suffered at the hands of Arthur Lee, or the passionate animosity which he excited in Ralph Izard. As late as 1780, after the return of Adams to Europe as a peace commissioner, Franklin wrote to William Carmichael that Adams and himself lived on good terms with each other, though the former, he added, had never communicated anything of his business to him, and he had made no inquiries of him. If Franklin did not live on good terms with Arthur Lee, it was because no one, unless it were Adams, or Ralph Izard, when drawn to Lee by common jealousy of Franklin, could live on good terms with a man whose character was so hopelessly soured and perverted by suspicion and spleen. It was doubtless with entire truth that Franklin in a letter to William Carmichael, in which he termed Lee the most malicious enemy that he ever had, declared that there was not the smallest cause for his enmity. It had been inspired in England, as it had been revived in France, simply by the brooding desire of Lee to displace Franklin. In 1771, he made it plain in a letter from England to Samuel Adams that Franklin, in his opinion, was not too good to be the instrument of Lord Hillsborough's treachery in pretending that all designs against the charter of Massachusetts had been laid aside. The possession of a profitable office at will, the having a son in a high post at pleasure, the grand purpose of his residence here being to effect a change in the government of Pennsylvania, for which administration must be cultivated and courted [Lee wrote], are circumstances which, joined with the temporizing conduct he has always held in American affairs, preclude every rational hope that, in an open contest between an oppressive administration and a free people, Dr. Franklin can be a faithful advocate for the latter. In another letter he intimated a suspicion that Dr. Franklin had been "bribed to betray his trust." The motive for such communications is made clear enough by still another letter that he sent over to Boston stating that, while Dr. Franklin frequently assured him that he would sail for Philadelphia in a few weeks, he believed he would not quit them till he was gathered to his fathers.[35] The insidious calumnies that Lee sowed in Massachusetts, when he was coveting Franklin's agency for that colony, were only too effective for a time in creating even in the minds of such men as Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Josiah Quincy an impression unfavorable to Franklin's fidelity to the American cause. How little based on any real misgivings as to the character of the man, whose place he craved, were the innuendoes and accusations of Lee, may be inferred from his statement at the time of the Privy Council outrage that Franklin bore the assaults of Wedderburn "with a firmness and equanimity which conscious integrity can inspire." In a letter to Lord Shelburne in 1776, he even spoke of Franklin as "our _Pater Patriæ_." In France, the same sense of having a young man's revenue withered out by tedious expectation led to similar misrepresentations and intrigue. This time, the object was to bring about the transfer of Franklin from France, where the jealousy of Lee was incessantly inflamed by his great reputation and influence, to some other post, and the appointment of Lee himself as his successor. If the change had not been such as to foreshadow utter ruin to American interests in France, the letters that Arthur Lee wrote to his brother Richard Henry Lee in the prosecution of these aims would be little less than ludicrous. "My idea of adapting characters and places is this," he said in one letter, "Dr. F. to Vienna, as the first, most respectable, and quiet; Mr. Deane to Holland.... France remains the centre of political activity, and here, therefore, I should choose to be employed." There was but one way, he said in another letter to his brother, of bringing to an end the neglect, dissipation, and private schemes, which he saw in every department of the American Mission at Paris, and that was the plan he had before suggested of appointing the Dr. _honoris causa_ to Vienna, Mr. Deane to Holland, and Mr. Jennings to Madrid, and of leaving him (Lee) at Paris. To Samuel Adams he wrote that he had been at the several courts of Spain, Vienna and Berlin, and found that of France to be the great wheel that moved them all. He would, therefore, be much obliged to Adams for remembering that he should prefer being at the court of France. Lee was a man of considerable ability, though his incurable defects of disposition and temper almost wholly deprived him of the profitable use of it, and he was from first to last, when in Europe, loyal to the American cause. But, if there ever was a person born under the malignant sign, Scorpio, it was he. He was "More peevish, cross and splenetic Than dog distract or monkey sick." In the course of his suspicious, jealous and quarrelsome life he appears to have inflicted a venomous sting upon almost every human being that ever crossed the path of his inordinate and intriguing ambition. In the monopoly of intelligence and public virtue that he arrogated to himself he was not unlike the French woman who was credited by Franklin with the assertion that she met with nobody but herself that was always in the right. With a few exceptions, no prominent American in France, when he was in that country, escaped his insidious defamation. Silas Deane was the accomplice of Beaumarchais in his effort to make the United States pay for free gifts of the French King. Franklin was a cunning rogue ever on the watch to line the pockets of his grandnephew, Jonathan Williams; indeed Lee did not scruple to term him "the father of corruption"; every day gave him fresh reasons for suspecting William Carmichael; John Paul Jones was merely the captain of "a cruising job of Chaumont and Dr. Franklin." And so on with the other contemporaries, whose character he did his best to tarnish with the breath of calumny, ever actuated as he was by the sinister, backward-spelling disposition which "Never gives to truth and virtue that Which simpleness and merit purchaseth." What both Lee and Adams could not forgive in Franklin was the fact that, though there were three American envoys at Paris, the French Ministry and People would have it that there was only one, "_le digne Franklin_,"[36] "_le plus grand philosophe du siècle_," "_l'honneur de l'Amérique, et de l'humanité_." The wounded sense of self-importance, awakened by this fact, assumed in Adams, except in his more extravagant moments, no worse form than that of quickened self-assertion, or the charge that Franklin was grown too inert, from years and physical infirmities, to conduct the routine business of the mission with the proper degree of order and system, or was too susceptible to social and academic flattery to keep a vigilant eye upon the more selfish side of French policy. But in the case of Lee, lacerated vanity not only led him along finally to the conclusion that Deane and Franklin were both rascals, but early convinced him that all their transactions, even the simplest, where he was concerned, were shaped by a desire to slight or affront him, or to deprive him of his just privileges and standing as one of the Commissioners. He had hardly been in France a year before his perverse pen was lecturing and scolding Franklin as if he were one of the most arbitrary and inconsiderate of men instead of one of the most reasonable and considerate. At first, Franklin did not reply to such letters, but his failure to reply simply supplied Lee with another excuse for scolding. At last, Lee, after taxing him with tardiness in settling the accounts of the Commissioners, and with keeping him in the dark about the mission on which M. Gérard had been sent to America, expressed the hope that he would not treat this letter from him as he had many others with the indignity of not answering it. It is true [said Franklin], that I have omitted answering some of your Letters, particularly your angry ones, in which you, with very magisterial Airs, school'd and documented me, as if I had been one of your Domestics. I saw in the strongest Light the Importance of our living in decent Civility towards each other, while our great Affairs were depending here. I saw your jealous, suspicious, malignant and quarrelsome Temper, which was daily manifesting itself against Mr. Deane, and almost every other Person you had any Concern with: I therefore pass'd your Affronts in Silence; did not answer but burnt your angry Letters, and received you when I next saw you with the same Civility as if you had never wrote them. These words are taken from a letter in which Franklin replied in detail to all the grievances vented in Lee's letter. On the day before, he had written a curter reply which gives us a good idea of what his anger was at flood-tide. It is true [this reply began], I have omitted answering some of your Letters. I do not like to answer angry Letters. I hate Disputes. I am old, can not have long to live, have much to do and no time for Altercation. If I have often receiv'd and borne your Magisterial Snubbings and Rebukes without Reply, ascribe it to the right Causes, my Concern for the Honour & Success of our Mission, which would be hurt by our Quarrelling, my Love of Peace, my Respect for your good Qualities, and my Pity of your Sick Mind, which is forever tormenting itself, with its Jealousies, Suspicions & Fancies that others mean you ill, wrong you, or fail in Respect for you. If you do not cure yourself of this Temper it will end in Insanity, of which it is the Symptomatick Forerunner, as I have seen in several Instances. God preserve you from so terrible an Evil: and for his sake pray suffer me to live in quiet. The petition was not heeded. Cut off by his impracticable temper and the dis-esteem of the French Ministry from any participation in the more important transactions of the Mission, the industrious malice of Lee found employment in accusations of peculation against the other agents of the United States in France and in petty refinements over the proper methods of keeping the accounts and papers of the Commissioners. Everything that he touched threw out thorns and exuded acrid juices. Franklin might well have said of him what he said of his brother, William Lee, that he was not only a disputatious but a very artful man. He pursued Deane with such plausible misrepresentations, when the latter sought justice at the hands of Congress, that the unhappy man was finally hurried, to use Franklin's phrase, into joining his friend, Arnold. How he harried Jonathan Williams, we have already seen. So well understood was his litigious, malevolent temper that, when the State of Virginia desired to purchase arms and military stores in France, several merchants refused to have any dealings with him, and one firm dealt with him only to be involved in the usual web of fine-spun suspicion and controversy. I hope, however [wrote Franklin to Patrick Henry, at the time Governor of Virginia, who had solicited Franklin's assistance in the matter], that you will at length be provided with what you want, which I think you might have been long since, if the Affair had not been in Hands, which Men of Honour and Candour here are generally averse to dealing with, as not caring to hazard Quarrels and Abuses in the settlement of their Accounts. He dared not meddle, he said, with the dispute in which Lee was engaged, "being charg'd by the Congress to endeavour at maintaining a good Understanding with their other Servants," which was, "indeed, a hard task with some of them," he declared. As his acquaintance with Lee and his brother, William Lee, extended, Franklin became more and more wary in dealing with them. This was illustrated in his attitude towards the papers of Thomas Morris, the brother of Robert Morris, and the Commercial Agent of the United States at Nantes. When this gentleman, who, according to one of his contemporaries, "turned out the greatest drunkard the world ever produced," had duly paid the forfeit of his bibulous life, William Lee, with the aid of an order from the French Ministry, secured possession of all his papers, public and private, and, when on the eve of setting out for Germany, placed the trunk containing them sealed in the custody of Franklin. The key, Franklin told him, he would rather have in the keeping of Arthur Lee. A correspondence followed between Franklin and John Ross, who had obtained an order from Congress for the delivery of the trunk to him. If it had been Pandora's box, Franklin could not have undertaken the delivery of the papers in a more gingerly manner. I am glad [he wrote to Ross], an Order is come for delivering them to you. But as the Dispute about them may hereafter be continued, and Papers suspected to be embezzled by somebody; and as I have sign'd a terrible long Receipt for the Trunk, of which I have no copy, and only remember that it appear'd to be constructed with all the Circumspection of the Writers Motto, _Non incautus futuri_ and that it fill'd a Half Sheet so full there was scarce Room for the Names of the four Evidences he requir'd to witness it; I beg you will not expect me to send it to you at Nantes but appoint who you please to receive it for you here. For I think I must deliver it before Witnesses, who may certify the State of the Seals; nothing being more likely than that Seals on a Trunk may rub off in the Carriage on so long a Journey; and then I should be expos'd to the Artful Suggestions of some who do not love me, & whom I conceive to be of very malignant Dispositions. Afterwards, when Arthur Lee informed Franklin that, unless he was furnished with money by him, he would have to give up the thought of proceeding to Spain, Franklin replied dryly: "As I can not furnish the Expence, and there is not, in my Opinion, any Likelihood at Present of your being received at that Court, I think your Resolution of returning forthwith to America is both wise and honest." And, even when he supposed that he was finally rid of the gad-fly, which had annoyed him so long, and that Lee was off for America, with his poisoned ink-well and busy pen, Franklin took pains that he should not have everything his own way, though a thousand leagues distant. "There are some Americans returning hence," he wrote to Samuel Cooper, "with whom our people should be upon their guard, as carrying with them a spirit of enmity to this country. Not being liked here themselves, they dislike the people; for the same reason, indeed, they ought to dislike all that know them." Three days later, he wrote to Joseph Reed, of Pennsylvania, a letter in which, after denying a false statement made about the writer by Lee, he said, "He proposes, I understand, to settle in your Government. I caution you to beware of him; for, in sowing Suspicions and Jealousies, in creating Misunderstandings and Quarrels among friends, in Malice, Subtilty, and indefatigable industry, he has I think no equal." A few days later, he wrote to William Carmichael, "Messrs. Lee and Izard are gone to L'Orient, in order to embark in the _Alliance_ together, but they did not travel together from hence. No soul regrets their departure. They separately came to take leave of me, very respectfully offering their services to carry any dispatches, etc." But gone the gad-fly was not yet. After Lee reached L'Orient, the officers and men of the _Alliance_ refused to weigh anchor until certain claims of theirs to wages and prize money were complied with, and, while John Paul Jones, their captain, was away at Paris, engaged in an effort to hasten the payment of the prize-money, Captain Peter Landais, acting under the advice of Arthur Lee and Commodore Gillon, took possession of the ship and sailed off for America. As soon as the news of the mutiny came to Franklin, he suspected that Arthur Lee was at the bottom of it. I have no doubt [he wrote to Samuel Wharton, in regard to Landais] that your suspicion of his Adviser is well founded. That Genius must either find or make a Quarrel wherever he is. The only excuse for him that his Conduct will admit of, is his being at times out of his Senses. This I always allow, and am persuaded that if some of the many Enemies he provokes do not kill him sooner he will die in a madhouse. The sequel of this high-handed proceeding afforded Franklin another opportunity to question Lee's mental soundness. The _Alliance_ was not long out before Landais exhibited such flightiness that its passengers deposed him, and placed the ship in command of its first lieutenant. Commenting on the incident, Franklin wrote to Samuel Cooper: Dr. Lee's accusation of Capt. Landais for Insanity was probably well founded; as in my Opinion would have been the same Accusation, if it had been brought by Landais against Lee; For tho' neither of them are permanently mad, they are both so at times; and the Insanity of the Latter is the most Mischievous. How truly high-handed the rape of the _Alliance_ was, will be realized, when the reader is told that at the time Landais had been deprived of the captaincy of the _Alliance_, upon the charge of gross misconduct in the glorious engagement between the _Serapis_ and the _Bon Homme Richard_, and was looking forward to a court-martial in America upon specifications involving a capital offence; that he had abandoned the ship, and that Jones, who had won imperishable honor and renown in the conflict between the _Serapis_ and the _Bon Homme Richard_, had been placed in command of her by Franklin, and had been in command of her for eight months; and that Franklin had in a letter to Landais sternly refused to restore her to him. Of William Lee, Franklin had, as we have just seen, very much the same opinion that he had of Arthur Lee. When he talked to Franklin of nominating Jonathan Williams, his grandnephew, and Mr. Lloyd in the place of Thomas Morris and himself as the Commercial Agents of the United States at Nantes, Franklin wrote to Williams: "I question whether there be Flesh enough upon the Bone for two to pick. I doubt its being worth your while to accept of it. I did not thank him for mentioning you because I do not wish to be much oblig'd to him and less to be a little oblig'd." Not long after this, Franklin had less cause to think well of William Lee than ever. Upon representations being made by Ralph Izard and him to the three Commissioners, Arthur Lee, Deane and Franklin, that, though they had been appointed Ministers to the courts of Berlin, Vienna and Florence by Congress, no provision for their expenses had reached them, the three Commissioners asked what sums they would require. William Lee replied that he could not exactly compute in advance what he would need, but that, if he was empowered to draw upon the banker of the Commissioners, he would certainly only draw from time to time for such sums as were absolutely necessary; and that it was therefore a matter of little importance at what amount the credit was fixed. "It would however look handsome & confidential," he said, "if the sum were two Thousand Louis." Thereupon, Franklin tells us, the Commissioners "did frankly but unwarily give the Orders." Soon afterwards, Deane and Franklin were informed that William Lee and Izard had gone directly to the banker of the Commissioners, and drawn out the whole amount of the credit, and had deposited it to their own account exclusively. After that, even an order from Congress, empowering William Lee and Izard to draw upon the Commissioners for their expenses at foreign courts, was unavailing to open Franklin's purse strings. Doubtless, he wrote with calm irony to the Committee on Foreign Affairs at home, Congress, when it passed its resolution, intended to supply the Commissioners with funds for meeting the drafts of William Lee and Izard. And, to make things still worse for the disappointed beneficiaries of the resolution, he further said: "I could have no intention to distress them, because I must know it is out of my Power, as their private Fortunes and Credit will enable them at all times to pay their own Expences." Arthur Lee had taken good care to protect himself against any such afterclaps. In a formal letter to him, refusing to accede to his suggestion that no orders should be drawn upon the banker of the Commissioners, unless signed by all three of the Commissioners, Franklin told him flatly that he did not choose to be obliged to ask Mr. Lee's consent, whenever he might have occasion to draw for his subsistence, as that assent could not be expected from any necessity of a reciprocal compliance on Mr. Franklin's part, Mr. Lee having secured his subsistence by taking into his own disposition 185,000 livres, and his brother, by a deception on the Commissioners, 48,000. Ralph Izard, of South Carolina, was very closely linked with Arthur Lee in Franklin's mind. Though appointed by Congress Commissioner to the court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany at Florence, this court refused to receive him for fear of offending England, and he remained in Paris during the entire period of his appointment. In a letter to James Lovell, Franklin stated that he had made it a constant rule to answer no angry, affronting or abusive letters, of which he had received many, and long ones, from Mr. Lee and Mr. Izard. The hostility of Izard to Franklin, due in the main to the same causes as Arthur Lee's, was whetted partly by the fact that he was not consulted, when the treaty of alliance was entered into between the American Commissioners and France, and partly by the fact that Franklin refused to honor some of his pecuniary applications. In a letter from Passy to Francis Hopkinson, Franklin, as we have seen, said that he deserved Izard's enmity because he might have avoided it by paying him a compliment which he neglected, but elsewhere in his correspondence he rests this enmity upon substantially the same grounds as that of Arthur Lee. When Izard assailed him, because he had not conferred with him in relation to the treaty of alliance, Franklin replied that he would give his letter a full answer when he had the honor of seeing him. "But," he said, "I must submit to remain some days under the Opinion you appear to have form'd not only of my poor Understanding in the general Interests of America, but of my Defects in Sincerity, Politeness & Attention to your Instructions." It is doubtful whether a letter in which, in reply to an application for money, he reminded Izard of the latter's own pecuniary independence, was ever sent; but part of it is too pointed not to bear quotation. After dwelling upon the many calls upon the funds in the hands of the Commissioners, it goes on in these words: In this Situation of our Affairs, we hope you will not insist on our giving you a farther Credit with our Banker, with whom we are daily in danger of having no farther Credit ourselves. It is not a Year since you received from us the sum of Two Thousand Guineas, which you thought necessary on Acct of your being to set out immediately for Florence. You have not incurr'd the Expence of that Journey. You are a Gentleman of Fortune. You did not come to France with any Dependence on being maintained here with your Family at the Expence of the United States, in the Time of their Distress, and without rendering them the equivalent Service they expected. Izard seems to have had the kind of temper that heats as readily as iron but cools off as slowly as a footbrick, wrapped up in flannels.[37] Speaking of the indignity, to which Franklin had been subjected in his sight before the Privy Council, he said: "When Dr. Franklin was so unmercifully bespattered by Wedderburn, I sat upon thorns; and had it been me that was so grossly insulted, I should instantly have repelled the attack, in defiance of every consequence." It is not unlikely that he would have been as good as his word, so prompt was the second, who had borne the challenge from Temple to Whately, to give free play to his irascible and imperious nature. But Graydon is our authority for the statement, too, that as long as four years after Izard had returned in the _Alliance_ from France to the United States, the name of Franklin could not be mentioned in his presence without hurrying him into a state of excitement. Altogether, our readers will agree with us, we are sure, in thinking that few things in our national history are calculated to leave a more painful impression upon the mind than the conduct of some of the men, who were supposed to represent the United States abroad, while Franklin, in spite of the jarring discords, of which he was the innocent author, was manfully struggling with the responsibilities which belonged in part to others, but never really rested upon any but his own old shoulders (as he termed them). By character and temperament, in some instances, they were conspicuously unfitted for the delicate tasks of diplomacy, and were too raw and rigidly set in their personal and national prejudices besides ever to succeed in repressing their dislike for the French. There can be no doubt, Jay aside, that they would have quarrelled with each other as rancorously as they did with Franklin but for the cohesion created by their common jealousy of him. How indefensible their attitude towards him was becomes all the more apparent when we recollect that rarely has any man ever been endowed with a mind or nature better fitted to disarm malice than those of Franklin. It is a hard judgment, not to be formed without due allowance for the extent to which the testimony of history is always suborned by the glamour of a great reputation, but it is nevertheless, we believe, only a just judgment, to declare that Franklin spoke the simple truth when he wrote to William Carmichael, "Lee and Izard are open, and, so far, honourable Enemies; the Adams, if Enemies, are more covered. I never did any of them the least Injury, and can conceive no other Source of their Malice but Envy." The excessive respect, shown him in France by all ranks of people, he said in the same letter, and the little notice taken of them, was a mortifying circumstance, but it was what he could neither prevent nor remedy. This "excessive respect," or justly deserved fame, as the biographer of Franklin might call it, was another thing which contributed to Franklin's brilliant success at the Court of France. When he arrived in that country, he was no stranger there. His two previous visits to it had made him well acquainted with Turgot, Quesnay, Dupont de Nemours, the elder Mirabeau, Dubourg and Morellet and the other members of the group, known as the Physiocrats, whose speculative passion for Agriculture was one of the active intellectual forces of the time. His literary and scientific attainments had likewise won him the favor of other famous Frenchmen. These are facts of no slight importance, when we recall the extent to which the currents of French thought, on the eve of the French Revolution, were fed and directed by men of letters and philosophers. When Franklin found himself in France, for the third time, he was a member of the Royal Society at London and the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, and had been honored with academic degrees not only by Yale, Harvard and William and Mary in his own country, but by Oxford in England and St. Andrews in Scotland.[38] An edition of his scientific works had been translated into French by his friend Dubourg, and his _Way to Wealth_ had been translated into the same language, and distributed broadcast by bishops and curés among the members of their flocks as incentives to industry and frugality. It was in France, too, that D'Alibard had verified the sublime hypothesis of Franklin by drawing down the lightning from the clouds. Moreover, before he left England at the end of his second mission to that country, his activity and prominence in resisting the arbitrary measures of the British Ministry had made his political influence and standing thoroughly familiar to the French Cabinet, which had for many years kept a close watch upon every movement or event that portended a revolt of the American Colonies. Along with these solid claims to the attention and respect of the French people were certain other circumstances that strongly tended to heighten the fame of Franklin. It was the era when the modern Press was beginning to assert its new-born power, and the fur cap, one of the badges of the mediæval printer, that he wore, was hardly necessary to remind the newspapers of that day, with all their facilities for rouging public reputation by artful and persistent publicity, that Franklin was first of all a printer. It was also the era when the idea of the universal brotherhood of men of all classes and races made an uncommonly strong appeal to democratic and humanitarian impulses. Such an age could readily enough regard a man like Franklin as a true citizen of the world, a veritable friend of man and a torch-bearer of the new social and political freedom. It was also the era when it was the mode to indulge dreams of primitive beatitude and idyllic simplicity, and around no figure could such dreams more naturally gather than that of the venerable and celebrated man, whose thin white hair, worn straight without wig or powder, plain dress and frank, direct speech seemed to make him the ideal exemplar of a state of society devoid of monarch, aristocrat or hierarch.[39] That Franklin, when he came to Paris, as the representative of a country, which was not only at war with the hereditary enemy of France, but had fearlessly avowed general political sentiments, that France herself was eager to avow, should, with his fame, simple manners and social charm, have excited for a time the surpassing enthusiasm which he did is not surprising; for what the French ardently admire they usually festoon with fireworks and crown with flowers; but that this enthusiasm should have continued, so far as we can see, wholly unabated for nine years, is a surprising thing, indeed, when we recollect how inclined the fickle populace of every country is to beat in its hour of inevitable reaction the idol before which it has prostrated itself in its hour of infatuation. While in France, Franklin was not simply the mode, he was the rage. Learned men from every part of Europe thought a visit to Paris quite incomplete, if it did not include a call upon him. Even the Emperor Joseph, "a King by trade," as he once termed himself, intrigued to meet him _incognito_. Among the many letters that he received from individuals, distinguished or obscure, who sought to flatter him or to draw upon his wisdom or treasured knowledge, was Robespierre--then a young advocate at Arras--who sent him a copy of his argument in defence of the lightning rod before the Council of Artois, and Marat who, true enough to his future, was investigating the physical laws of heat and flame. In the letter to Franklin, by which the copy of his argument was accompanied, Robespierre spoke of Franklin as "a man whose least merit is to be the most illustrious _savant_ of the world." To have a Franklin stove in its fireplace, with a portrait of Franklin on the wall above it, grew to be a common feature of the home of the wealthier householder in Paris. His spectacles, his marten fur cap, his brown coat, his bamboo cane became objects of general imitation. Canes and snuff-boxes were carried _à la Franklin_. Portraits, busts and medallions of him were multiplied without stint. Among the busts were some in Sèvres china, set in blue stones with gold borders, and among the medallions were innumerable ones made of clay dug at Passy. The clay medallion of me [Franklin wrote to Sarah Bache] you say you gave to Mr. Hopkinson was the first of the kind made in France. A variety of others have been made since of different sizes; some to be set in the lids of snuff-boxes, and some so small as to be worn in rings; and the numbers sold are incredible. These, with the pictures, busts, and prints (of which copies upon copies are spread everywhere) have made your father's face as well known as that of the moon, so that he durst not do anything that would oblige him to run away, as his phiz would discover him wherever he should venture to show it. It was computed that some two hundred different kinds of representations of his face were turned out to be set in rings, watches, snuff-boxes, bracelets, looking-glasses and other chattels. One print of him is said to have made the fortune of the engraver. Particularly striking is the testimony of John Adams to the fame of Franklin when in France, which is part of the remarkable letter published by him in the _Boston Patriot_ on May 11, 1811, in answer to Franklin's strictures on his conduct in France: His reputation was more universal than that of Leibnitz or Newton, Frederick or Voltaire; and his character more beloved and esteemed than any or all of them.... His name was familiar to government and people, to kings, courtiers, nobility, clergy, and philosophers, as well as plebeians, to such a degree that there was scarcely a peasant or a citizen, a _valet de chambre_, coachman or footman, a lady's chambermaid, or a scullion in a kitchen, who was not familiar with it, and who did not consider him as a friend to human kind. When they spoke of him, they seemed to think he was to restore the golden age. To the pen of Adams we are also indebted for an account of the first public meeting between Voltaire and Franklin, which also testified with such dramatic _éclat_ to the place occupied by Franklin in the hearts of the French people. This was at the hall of the Academy of Science in Paris. Voltaire and Franklin were both present, and there presently arose a general cry that M. Voltaire and M. Franklin should be introduced to each other. This was done, and they bowed and spoke to each other. This was no satisfaction; there must be something more. Neither of our philosophers seemed to divine what was wished or expected; they, however, took each other by the hand. But this was not enough; the clamor continued, until the explanation came out. "_Il faut s'embrasser, à la Française._" The two aged actors upon this great theatre of philosophy and frivolity then embraced each other, by hugging one another in their arms, and kissing each other's cheeks, and then the tumult subsided. And the cry immediately spread through the whole kingdom, and, I suppose, over all Europe, _"Qu'il était charmant de voir embrasser Solon et Sophocle!"_ A few weeks later Voltaire was dead, and, in the fall of the same year, his Apotheosis was celebrated by the Lodge of Nine Sisters--a Freemason's Lodge in Paris. An account of this memorable occasion was subsequently published by the officers of the Lodge. Madame Denis, the niece of Voltaire, and the Marchioness of Villette, whom he called his _Belle et Bonne_, and under whose roof he died, were present. After various addresses and strains of orchestral music, a clap of thunder was heard. Then the sepulchral pyramid disappeared, great light succeeded the gloom which had prevailed till now, an agreeable symphony sounded in the place of the mournful music, and an immense picture of the apotheosis of Voltaire was disclosed. The picture represented Corneille, Racine and Molière above Voltaire as he leaves his tomb. Truth and Beneficence present him to them. Envy pulls at his shroud, in the wish to hold him back, but is driven away by Minerva. Higher up may be seen Fame, publishing the triumph of Voltaire. Crowns were then laid upon the heads of La Dixmerie, the orator, Gauget, the painter, and Franklin, who lifted them from their heads and laid them at the feet of Voltaire's image. Madame Campan in her _Memoirs_ mentions another occasion on which the most beautiful of three hundred women was designated to place a crown of laurel on Franklin's head, and to kiss him on each cheek. Add to all these evidences of popular admiration and affection the intimate footing maintained by Franklin in so many French homes, and we begin to understand how powerfully his public and social standing helped to swell the resistless tide of sympathy and enthusiasm which bore down all opposition to the French alliance. But far more than to his mere congeniality with the social spirit of the French People, or to his literary and scientific fame, or to his kinship with all the liberal tendencies of the eighteenth century in America and Europe, was the success of Franklin at the French court due to those general attributes of mind and character which he brought to every exigency of his private or public life: his good sense, his good feeling, his perfect equipoise, his tact, his reasonableness, his kindly humor. It was these things which, above everything else, enabled him to surmount all the trying difficulties of his situation, and to give to the world the most imposing example of fruitful pecuniary solicitation that it has ever known. The firm hold that he obtained upon the esteem and good will of Vergennes, "that just and good man" he terms him in one of his letters, was but the merited reward of personal qualities which invite, secure and retain esteem and good will under all human conditions. Vergennes, who held the keys of the French money-chest, and directed the policies of France, respected, trusted and liked Franklin, because Franklin, at any rate, duly recognized and acknowledged the generous motives which had, in part, inspired French intervention in the American contest, because he exhibited a considerate appreciation of the sacrifices which it cost France, still bleeding from her last struggle with Great Britain, to make such large and repeated loans to the United States, and because his tactful and discreet applications for pecuniary assistance for his country were never marked by disgusting importunity or thinly veiled menaces. How true this is we have already seen; and its truth is still further confirmed by the testimony of Franklin's successor, Jefferson, who, when asked in Paris, whether he replaced Franklin, was in the habit of replying, "No one can replace him, sir; I am only his successor." After stating the circumstances, including his own association with Franklin at Paris, which had convinced him that the charge of subservience to France, made against Franklin, had not a shadow of foundation, Jefferson pays this impressive tribute to him: He possessed the confidence of that Government in the highest degree, insomuch, that it may truly be said, that they were more under his influence than he under theirs. The fact is, that his temper was so amiable and conciliatory, his conduct so rational, never urging impossibilities, or even things unreasonably inconvenient to them, in short, so moderate and attentive to _their_ difficulties as well as our own, that what his enemies called subserviency, I saw was only that reasonable disposition, which, sensible that advantages are not all to be on one side, yielding what is just and liberal, is the more certain of obtaining liberality and justice. Mutual confidence produces, of course, mutual influence, and this was all which subsisted between Dr. Franklin and the government of France. To Jefferson we are also indebted for the statement that, when he was in France, there appeared to him more respect and veneration attached to the character of Franklin than to that of any other person in the same country, foreign or native. The volume of multifarious tasks performed by Franklin in France was immense. The most valuable service rendered by him to the United States was in obtaining from the French King the pecuniary aids which helped Congress to defray the expenses of the Revolutionary War. It has been truly said that he, and not Robert Morris, was the real financier of the Revolution. Until the triumph of the patriot cause was assured, he was the only one of the American envoys in Europe whose pecuniary solicitations met with any material success. Sometimes even such sums as were obtained by others outside of France were more attributable to his indirect influence than to their own direct efforts. No matter upon whom Congress might recklessly draw drafts, they were certain to come around to the aged negotiator, who appeared to be able to secure money from France even when France had no money for herself. He might be told that a loan which he had just procured from Vergennes was positively the last that France could make, and, yet, when he was compelled by desperation at home to give another reluctant rub to his magic lamp, there always stood the French servitor with his chest of gold. The aggregate amount of the loans and gifts made by France to the United States was on February 21, 1783, little short of forty-three millions of francs. It was these loans and gifts, transformed into munitions of war and military supplies, which again and again infused reviving life into the fainting bosom of his country, and enabled her soldiers to turn an undaunted face to her foes. How a man of Franklin's years could have borne up under such frightful anxieties as those imposed upon him by the pecuniary demands of Congress and her other foreign envoys, to say nothing of additional burdens, it is difficult to understand. In the second year after his arrival in France, when drafts began to pour in on him from Congress, he reminded it that the envoys had not undertaken to do more than to honor its bills for interest on certain specified sums; and this reminder was frequently repeated. It might as well have been syllabled to the winds. Though most of the limited cargoes of tobacco and other products remitted by Congress as a basis of credit fell into the hands of the ever-watchful British cruisers, almost every ship brought over bills upon the envoys or large orders for clothing, arms and ammunition. At one time, they had notice that bills for interest had been drawn on them to the amount of two million and a half, when they did not have a fifth of that sum on deposit with their banker. In a letter to the Committee on Foreign Affairs in 1779, Franklin, who was really our sole envoy for the purpose of paying such bills, enumerates the great quantities of clothing, arms, ammunition and naval stores, which the envoys had sent over to America, the heavy drafts paid by them that Congress had drawn in favor of officers returning to France, or of other persons, the outlays of the envoys for the benefit of American prisoners, the amounts advanced by them to other agents of the United States, the freight charges paid by them and the sums expended by them in fitting out Captain Conygham and the _Raleigh_, _Alfred_, _Boston_, _Providence_, _Alliance_, _Ranger_ and other frigates. "And now," he concluded, "the Drafts of the Treasurer of the Loans coming very fast upon me, the Anxiety I have suffered, and the Distress of Mind lest I should not be able to pay them, has for a long time been very great indeed." This was but one of the earlier crises in the financial experience which led Franklin to say that his seemed to be the Gibeonite task of drawing water for all the congregation of Israel. The point of the observation becomes still more manifest when the reader is told that drafts were also frequently drawn on Franklin by the European agents of the Committee of Commerce of Congress, and that even the foreign agents of individual States of the Union, finding that no American abroad but he seemed to have any credit, applied to him for assistance in effecting loans for their principals. Indeed, one agent of the United States, a Mr. Bingham, did not scruple, without authority from Congress, or any other source, to notify Franklin that the _Deane_ and the _General Gates_ had just arrived at Martinique and were in need of overhauling and provisions, and that he would have to draw upon him for the expense. This was too much even for Franklin's patience, and, when Mr. Bingham's bills were returned protested, that gentleman loudly complained that his credit had been effectually ruined. And, as the necessities of Congress became greater and greater, it almost wholly ceased to recognize that there were any limitations upon its right to draw upon Franklin, or that there was even any reason why it should notify him that such drafts were drawn. It simply drew, hit or miss. For pursuing this course in regard to him, there was at least the excuse that, no matter how freely it drew upon him, he somehow contrived to preserve the credit of Congress unstained. But Congress had no such excuse for drawing bills in this reckless manner, as it did too often, upon John Jay, Henry Laurens or John Adams. It is a laughable fact that, when some of its bills drawn upon Henry Laurens reached Europe, the drawee, who had never arrived in Holland, the country to which he was accredited, at all, was a prisoner in the Tower. As none of the other envoys, upon whom Congress drew, had any resource but to beg Franklin to pay the drafts, these drafts might as well have been drawn upon him in the first instance. No wonder that, with this accumulation of responsibility upon his shoulders, Franklin should have written to John Jay in Spain in these terms: But the little Success that has attended your late applications for money mortified me exceedingly; and the Storm of Bills, which I found coming upon us both has terrified and vexed me to such a Degree, that I have been deprived of Sleep, and so much indispos'd by continual anxiety, as to be render'd almost incapable of writing. This very letter, however, bears witness to his remarkable aptitude for dunning without incurring its odious penalties. Overcoming his almost invincible reluctance, he said, he had made another application to the French Court for more money, and had been told to make himself easy as he would be assisted with what was necessary. Indeed, so generous was its conduct on this occasion that, when Franklin, in part payment for the loan, proposed that Congress should provision the French army in America with produce demanded from the States, his Majesty declined the proposal, saying that to furnish his army with such a large quantity of provisions as it needed might straiten Congress. "You will not wonder at my loving this good prince," Franklin concluded. Amid all the cruel embarrassments of his situation, however, he never abated one jot of heart or hope, nor for one moment lost sight of the imperial future which he so clearly foresaw for the country that was adding sixty thousand children to her numbers annually. In this same letter, he let Jay know that in his opinion no amount of present distress should induce the United States to make the concessions to Spain that she was disposed to hold out as the price of her assistance. "Poor as we are," his indomitable spirit declared, "yet, as I know we shall be rich, I would rather agree with them to buy at a great Price the whole of their Right on the Mississippi, than sell a Drop of its waters. A Neighbour might as well ask me to sell my Street Door." Loyal, too, to Congress he remained from first to last. The worst that he was willing to say in a letter to Thomas Ruston of its rash conduct in flooding the world with bills that for all it knew might never be paid was a quiet, "That body Is, as you suppose, not well skill'd in Financing." Less than two months after his letter to Jay, we find him again appealing to Vergennes for pecuniary aid with which to enable Congress to co-operate with the French forces in America, and, a few weeks later, when the vitality of the American cause was at its lowest point, he again takes up, on fresh calls from Congress, the same tedious refrain. The letter written by him to Vergennes on this occasion is one of his supplicatory masterpieces. He lays before the French Minister evidence that the spirit of the United States is unbroken, and that the recent success of the British in Carolina was chiefly due to the lack of the necessary means for "furnishing, marching, and paying the Expence of Troops sufficient to defend that Province." He tells him that Lafayette had written that it was impossible to conceive, without seeing it, the distress that the troops had suffered for want of clothing; and that Washington, too, had written to him that the situation of the United States made one of two things essential to them, a peace, or the most vigorous aid of their allies, particularly in the article of money. For the aid, so necessary in the present conjuncture, he said, they could rely on France alone, and the continuance of the King's goodness towards them. And then he concluded with these affecting but not altogether artless words: I am grown old. I feel myself much enfeebled by my late long Illness, and it is probable I shall not long have any more Concern in these Affairs. I therefore take this Occasion to express my Opinion to your Excellency, that the present Conjuncture is critical; that there is some Danger lest the Congress should lose its Influence over the people, if it is found unable to procure the Aids that are wanted; and that the whole System of the New Governt in America may thereby be shaken; that, if the English are suffer'd once to recover that Country, such an Opportunity of effectual Separation as the present may not occur again in the Course of Ages; and that the Possession of those fertile and extensive Regions, and that vast Sea Coast, will afford them so Broad a Basis for future Greatness, by the rapid growth of their Commerce, and Breed of Seamen and Soldiers, as will enable them to become the _Terror of Europe_, and to exercise with impunity that Insolence, which is so natural to their Nation, and which will increase enormously with the Increase of their Power. Hard upon the heels of this letter came a letter from John Adams, inquiring whether Franklin could furnish funds for paying bills to the amount of ten thousand pounds sterling which had been drawn by Congress on Adams. Franklin replied by saying that he had not yet received a positive answer to his last appeal for aid to the French King, but that he had, however, two of the Christian Graces, Faith and Hope, though his faith was only that of which the Apostle speaks--the evidence of things not seen. In truth, he declared, he did not see at that time how so many bills drawn at random on the Ministers of Congress in France, Spain and Holland were to be paid. But all bills drawn upon them by Congress should be accepted at any risk; and he would accordingly do his best, and, if those endeavors failed, he was ready to break, run away or go to prison with Adams, as it should please God. His endeavors were successful, so startlingly successful that Vergennes informed him that his Majesty, to give the States a signal proof of his friendship, had resolved to grant them the sum of six millions, not as a loan, but as a free gift. But the announcement was accompanied by the significant statement that, as the supplies previously purchased in France by the United States, were supposed to be of bad quality, the Ministers would themselves take care of the purchase, with part of the gift, of such articles as were urgently needed in America, and the balance, remaining after these purchases, was to be drawn for by General Washington upon M. d'Harvelay, Garde du Trèsor Royal. "There was no room to dispute on this point," Franklin wrote to Samuel Huntington, "every donor having the right of qualifying his gifts with such terms as he thinks proper"; but the restrictions upon the gift would seem, after all, to have been waived. Shortly after the six millions was promised, Colonel Laurens, who was supposed by Washington to be peculiarly competent to state the needs of the American army, arrived in France, and to him Franklin delegated the task of making purchases for Congress with part of the sum. Franklin was already supporting Adams, Dana, Jay and Carmichael on the proceeds of his persuasive approaches to the French King, and, at best, the arrival of Laurens would have meant little except another ministerial mouth to feed. Unfortunately, however, it signified much more to Franklin's peace. Before returning to America, with two millions and a half of the six millions, Laurens made such free use of the remainder that Franklin, unable to meet bills, with which he was threatened, was compelled to write to Adams not to accept any more bills that were expected to be paid by him without notice to him, and to Jay that, if the bills drawn upon him some months before could not be paid by him, they would have to go to protest. "For," Franklin said, "it will not be in my Power to help you. And I see that nothing will cure the Congress of this Madness of Drawing upon the Pump at Aldgate, but such a Proof that its Well has a Bottom." To make things worse, though Congress continued to draw bills upon Franklin after the gift of the six millions, it deprived him of the ability to use that fund by forbidding any portion of it to be used without its order. Franklin by prompt action did succeed in intercepting a part of the six millions, which Laurens had taken to Holland, and which was about to follow him to America. Speaking of this in a letter to William Jackson, who had come over with Laurens, and was very angry with Franklin for detaining the amount, Franklin wrote, "I see, that nobody cares how much I am distressed, provided they can carry their own Points. I must, therefore, take what care I can of mine, theirs and mine being equally intended for the Service of the Public." It would have been well for Jackson if he had let the matter rest there, but he did not, and had the temerity to write to Franklin a saucy letter to which he replied in these terms: These Superior Airs you give yourself, young Gentleman, of Reproof to me, and Reminding me of my Duty do not become you, whose special Department and Employ in Public Affairs, of which you are so vain, is but of yesterday, and would never have existed but by my Concurrence, and would have ended in Disgrace if I had not supported your enormous Purchases by accepting your Drafts. The charging me with want of oeconomy is particularly improper in _you_, when the only Instance you know of it is my having indiscreetly comply'd with your Demand in advancing you 120 Louis for the Expence of your Journey to Paris and when the only Instance I know of your oeconomizing Money is your sending me three Expresses, one after another, on the same Day, all the way from Holland to Paris, each with a Letter saying the same thing to the same purpose. One of the transactions, mentioned in this correspondence, is a good illustration of the pecuniary "afterclaps," to use Franklin's term, to which Franklin was frequently subjected. He had agreed to pay for goods for the United States to the amount of fifteen thousand pounds. Instead of the purchases amounting to fifteen thousand pounds, they amounted to fifty thousand, and he persistently refused to pay for them. Jackson then hurried express to him, urged that the goods were bought by order of Colonel Laurens, that they were on shipboard, and that, if Franklin did not pay for them, they would have to be relanded and returned, or sold; which would be a disgrace, he insisted, to the United States. In the end, Franklin accepted the bills for the whole amount, and applied to the French Ministry for the money with which to pay for them. The application was a particularly disagreeable one to him, not only because all the fiscal calculations of the French Government for the year had been completed, but because no part of the purchase price of the goods would be expended in France. At first, the grant was absolutely refused, but at length Franklin obtained it, and hoped that the difficulty was over. It was not. Afterwards, the officers of the ship decided that she was overloaded, and the goods were transferred to two other ships, whose owners required Franklin to either buy the ships, or to pay them a freight bill nearly equal to the value of the ships. This whole transaction was bad enough, but William Jackson at least had the grace to notify Franklin that the bills in this instance were about to descend upon him before their descent. This, we know from a mildly reproachful letter, written by Franklin to John Paul Jones, a Mr. Moylan was not kind enough to do when he drew upon Franklin for nearly one hundred thousand livres for supplies ordered by Jones for the _Ariel_. These are but typical instances of the financial complications in which Franklin was involved from time to time while he was drawing water for all the congregation of Israel. Long after their date, bills were still making his life miserable. This serves chiefly to acquaint you [he wrote on one occasion to John Adams] that I will endeavour to pay the Bills that have been presented to you drawn on Mr. Laurens. But you terrify me, by acquainting me that there are yet a great number behind. It is hard that I never had any information sent me of the Sums drawn, a Line of Order to pay, nor a Syllable of Approbation for having paid any of the Bills drawn on Mr. Laurens, Mr. Jay or yourself. To John Jay about the same time he wrote, "The cursed Bills, as you justly term them, do us infinite Prejudice." In a letter to John Adams, he speaks of "the dreaded Drafts." At times it looked as if the stream of French bounty was at last exhausted. "With the million mentioned," he wrote to John Adams in substantially the same terms as he had written to Robert Morris two days before, "I can continue paying to the end of February, and then, if I get no more I must shut up shop." This was in January, 1782, when France, in addition to assisting the United States with a fleet and army, had advanced great additional sums to them since the beginning of the preceding year. At this time, for very shame Franklin could scarcely pluck up courage enough to make another pecuniary application to the French Ministry. In giving in a letter to John Jay his reasons for not holding out the hope of pecuniary relief to him, he said, "I had weary'd this friendly & generous Court with often repeated after-clap Demands, occasioned by these unadvised (as well as ill advis'd) & therefore unexpected Drafts, and was ashamed to show my Face to the Minister." In the same letter, Franklin also said: "We have been assisted with near 20 Millions since the Beginning of last Year, besides a Fleet and Army; and yet I am oblig'd to worry [them] with my Solicitations for more, which makes us appear insatiable." But the most interesting passage in this letter is the following: "You mention my Proposing to repay the Sum you want in America. I had try'd that last year. I drew a Bill on Congress for a considerable Sum to be advanced me here, and paid in provisions for the French Troops. My Bill was not honoured!" Worst of all, when Bills from Congress still showered upon him, after its promise that no more bills would be drawn on him subsequent to a fixed date, he began to suspect that the drawing was still going on, and that the bills were antedated. To no American was the heedless reliance of Congress upon the generosity of France more mortifying than to him. He repeatedly suggested the obligation of his own country to look more to self-help and less to the aid of her friendly and generous ally, and, at times, in his characteristic way, he would demonstrate arithmetically how easy it would be for the United States to support the burden of the war themselves if they would only keep down the spirit of luxury and extravagance at home, and cease to buy so many foreign gewgaws and superfluities and so much tea. "In my opinion, the surest way to obtain liberal aid from others is vigorously to help ourselves," he wrote to Robert R. Livingston. "It is absurd," he said later in another letter to Robert Morris, "the pretending to be lovers of liberty while they (the American people) grudge paying for the defence of it." He was generously prompt always also to ascribe any temporary interruption to the flow of French subsidy to the pressing necessities of France herself. Full, too, always he was of simple-hearted gratitude to France for the princely help that she had given to the American cause. No one knew better than he that this help originated partly in selfish policy, and was continued partly because it had been extended too liberally already to be easily discontinued. "Those, who have begun to assist us," he shrewdly observed to Jay, when counselling him that every first favor obtained from Spain was _tant de gagné_, "are more likely to continue than to decline." Every appeal that he ever made in his life to liberality in any form took the bias of self-interest duly into account. But he was merely true to his settled principle that human character is an amalgam of both unselfish and selfish motives, when, realizing that the aid rendered by France to the United States originated partly in the glow of a generous enthusiasm for the cause of human liberty and fraternity, he wrote to Robert R. Livingston on August 12, 1782, a letter in which, after stating that the whole amount of the indebtedness, then due by the United States to France, amounted to eighteen million livres, exclusive of the Holland loan guaranteed by the King of France, he said: In reading it [a statement of the account] you will discover several fresh marks of the King's goodness towards us, amounting to the value of near two millions. These, added to the free gifts before made to us at different times, form an object of at least twelve millions, for which no returns but that of gratitude and friendship are expected. These, I hope, may be everlasting. In a subsequent letter to Vergennes, Franklin referred to the King as our "Friend and Father." But naturally enough deep-seated gratitude found its most impressive utterance when the long and bloody war was at an end, the independence of the United States fully established and Franklin ready, as he wrote to Robert R. Livingston, to say with old Simeon, "Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." May I beg the favour of you, Sir [he wrote to Vergennes, when he was soon to leave France forever], to express respectfully for me to his Majesty, the deep Sense I have of all the inestimable Benefits his Goodness has conferr'd on my Country; a Sentiment that it will be the Business of the little Remainder of Life now left me, to impress equally on the Minds of all my Countrymen. My sincere Prayers are, that God may shower down his Blessings on the King, the Queen, their children, and all the royal Family to the latest Generations! It would be irksome to detail all the loans obtained by Franklin from the French King, and all the terrifying drafts drawn upon him. Profuse from first to last as were the bills, which he was called upon to pay, he appears to have met them all, with a few exceptions, whether drawn upon Adams, Jay, Laurens or himself. Nor, when an extortioner attempted to perpetrate an outrage upon the United States, did he fail to oppose him with a wit quite as keen as his and with a spirit far more resolute. Such a skinflint seems to have been De Neufville, of Amsterdam, who offered on one occasion to borrow money for the United States, provided that their representatives hypothecated to his firm, in the name of the whole Congress of the Thirteen United States, as security for the loan, all the lands, cities, territories and possessions of the said Thirteen States, present or prospective. After mercilessly analyzing in a letter to John Adams the unconscionable covenants by which this tremendous hypothecation was to be accompanied, Franklin ended with these observations: By this time, I fancy, your Excellency is satisfy'd, that I was wrong in supposing J. de Neufville as much a Jew as any in Jerusalem (a reference to what he had said in a former letter) since Jacob was not content with any per cents, but took the whole of his Brother Esau's Birthright, & his Posterity did the same by the Cananites, & cut their Throats into the Bargain; which, in my Conscience, I do not think M. J. de Neufville has the least Inclination to do by us,--while he can get anything by our being alive. The immediate occasion for this letter was the refusal of De Neufville to allow the goods which had bred trouble between Franklin and William Jackson to be delivered to the agents of the United States until a claim for damages that he had preferred against the United States was satisfied. "We have, you observe" Franklin had written in an earlier letter to John Adams, "our Hands in the Lyon's Mouth; but if Mr. N. is a Lyon, I am a Bear, and I think I can hug & gripe him till he lets go our Hands." And he was as good as his word, and let De Neufville know that, if he did not deliver the goods, the bills drawn by him on Franklin for the price, though accepted, would not be paid. A few days later, in another letter to Adams with respect to the same matter, Franklin said in regard to a proposal of settlement made by De Neufville, "I think that the less we have to do with that Shark the better; his jaws are too strong, his teeth too many and his appetite immensely voracious." Before the episode was ended, De Neufville was only too glad to dispatch his son to Paris to beseech the bear to relax his hug. There was still another reason why the arrival of bills from America should be feared by Franklin. They were drawn in three sets each, and there was constant danger, as the sets came in at different times, of the same bill being paid more than once. In fact, repeated efforts were fraudulently made to palm off duplicates and triplicates as firsts upon Franklin. To shut off frauds, the minutest inspection of the bills, as they were presented for payment, was indispensable, and, for this task, Franklin, Congress having wholly ignored his request for a secretary, had no one to help him but Temple and the French clerk at fifty louis a year. The task was rendered especially laborious by the fact that a host of the bills was drawn by Congress in very small amounts for the payment of interest abroad. Far less tedious, of course, but still burdensome enough, was the labor of copying the dispatches that left Franklin's hands. At one time, the Atlantic was so alive with British cruisers that a dispatch on its way to Congress from France had almost as little chance of escape as a jettisoned dog in a shark-infested sea. Adams [stated one of the letters in 1777 of our envoys in France], by whom we wrote early this summer, was taken on this coast, having sunk his dispatches. We hear that Hammond shared the same fate on your coast. Johnson, by whom we wrote in September, was taken going out of the channel, and poor Captain Wickes (of the _Reprisal_) who sailed at the same time, and had duplicates, we just now hear foundered near Newfoundland, every man perishing but the cook. It was a batch of papers tossed into the ocean, and snatched up by a nimble British sailor, before they sank, that first apprised the British Ministry of the treaty for an alliance hatching between Holland and the United States, and led Great Britain to declare war promptly against Holland. With such perilous conditions to face, Franklin's dispatches were sometimes copied as often as seven times. Besides the copy retained by him, and the copy sent to Congress, other copies were later sent to Congress by the next ships leaving France for the United States. Another most onerous function imposed upon Franklin, until the appointment of Thomas Barclay, a merchant, as Consul-General to France, was that of purchasing supplies for Congress and fitting out ships. Special provision for this function should, of course, have been made by Congress, so as to leave him free to give his attention to what he termed his political duties, but it was not until after he had repeatedly begged Congress to relieve him from it that Congress first appointed for that purpose Colonel Palfrey, who was lost at sea, on his way over to France, and then Barclay. In the meantime, Franklin had suffered infinite annoyance in the performance of duties for which he had no time, and insisted that he had no knowledge or training. Writing to Jonathan Williams about the dispatch of certain goods to America, he said: At this Distance from the Ports, and unacquainted as I am with such Affairs, I know not what to advise about getting either that Cloathing or the small Arms and Powder at L'Orient or the Cloth of Mr. Ross transported to America; and yet everybody writes to me for Orders, or Advice, or Opinion, or Approbation, which is like calling upon a blind Man to judge of Colours. Writing later to Williams about the same matter, when it had assumed a still more vexatious aspect, he peremptorily turned down a project laid before him by Williams, saying with an ebullition of impatience quite unlike the ordinary tenor of his even temper, "I have been too long in hot Water, plagu'd almost to Death with the Passions, Vagaries, and ill Humours and Madnesses of other People. I must have a little Repose." Another office performed by Franklin, though no special commission for the purpose was ever issued to him by Congress, was that of a Judge in Admiralty. A large quantity of blank commissions for privateers having been sent to him by Congress shortly after his arrival in France, he delivered them to cruisers, fitted out in the ports of France, and manned by smugglers, who knew every creek and cove on the English coast which they had so often visited by night as well, to use a simile employed by one of Franklin's correspondents, as they knew the corners of their beds. The alarm and loss created by these privateers was no mean offset to the destructive efficiency of the British cruisers. One privateer, the _Black Prince_, took in the course of three months more than thirty sail. Such was the apprehension excited by the depredations of American privateers that the seacoasts of England were kept in a constant state of panic, and the premium rate on marine insurance was largely enhanced. As prizes were brought into French harbors, the papers seized in them were examined by Franklin for the purpose of passing upon their legality and the liability of the prizes to sale. It was also under the patronage of Franklin and Deane that the _Reprisal_, the first American ship to fire a gun or capture a prize in European waters, the _Lexington_, a sloop-of-war, of fourteen guns, fitted out by Congress, and commanded by Captain Johnson, the _Dolphin_, a cutter of ten guns, purchased by our envoys from M. de Chaumont, and the _Surprise_, a cutter, commanded by the doughty Captain Gustavus Conyngham, inflicted such injury upon English commerce, including the capture of the Lisbon packet by Captain Wickes, that the French Ministry was compelled to heed the remonstrances of Lord Stormont, the English Minister, so far as to make a deceitful show, in one form or another, of vindicating the outraged neutrality of France. But, when the flimsiest ruses were allowed by the French Ministry to circumvent its interdiction of the abuse of its ports by American ships, with prizes in tow, and Captain Conyngham and his crew, after passing a few days in luxury in a French prison, found means in some unaccountable manner to escape, just as two English men-of-war were coming over to ask that they be delivered to them as pirates, there was little fear anywhere along the French coast, or in the breasts of our envoys, that any sternly vigorous embargo was likely to be laid upon the privateering activities of the United States by anything except the naval energy of England itself. At this time, Franklin was eager to retaliate the destruction and suffering wantonly inflicted upon some of the defenceless seacoast towns of America by the British. He, therefore, advised Congress to put three frigates into the very best fighting trim, and to send them, loaded with tobacco, as if they were common merchantmen, to Nantes or Bordeaux, but with instructions, when they reached the one or the other port, to make off suddenly for some unsuspecting British port, pounce upon the vessels in its harbor, levy contributions, burn, plunder and get away before any harm could be done to them by a counterstroke. The burning or plundering of Liverpool or Glasgow [he said] would do us more essential service than a million of treasure and much blood spent on the continent. It would raise our reputation to the highest pitch, and lessen in the same degree that of the enemy. We are confident it is practicable, and with very little danger. In a letter to Lafayette, too, Franklin stated that the coasts of England and Scotland were extremely open and defenceless, and that there were many rich towns in those countries near the sea "which 4 or 5000 Men, landing unexpectedly, might easily surprize and destroy, or exact from them a heavy Contribution taking a part in ready Money and Hostages for the rest." He even calculated in livres the amounts that might be demanded of Bristol, Bath, Liverpool, Lancaster and other English towns. But the most eventful thing that Franklin ever did in relation to American activity on the sea was to invite John Paul Jones to take command of a fine frigate that the envoys had ordered from Holland, but had been compelled by the vigilance of Great Britain to turn over to France, when but partially built. While at Brest, Jones received a confidential note from Franklin telling him that the King had asked the loan of him to the French navy for a while, and wished him to take command of the frigate. "She is at present," he said, "the property of the King; but, as there is no war yet declared, you will have the commission and flag of the United States, and act under their orders and laws." The frigate, however, was far from being completed, and the thought of a stranger being placed in command of her was highly irritating to French naval officers with a mind to promotion. Chafing under the delay and uncertainty, occasioned by these circumstances, Jones, whose remarkable literary facility, despite his lack of education, is at least one illustration of the truth of Dogberry's saying that reading and writing come by nature, wrote impatient appeals to the French Minister, Franklin, the members of the Royal Family and the King himself. While in this humor, his eye happened to fall upon a maxim in one of Poor Richard's Almanacs, "If you would have your business done, go; if not, send." He heeded the suggestion, proceeded to Versailles and secured an order for the purchase of the forty-gun ship, which, in honor of his monitor, he called the _Bon Homme Richard_. What she did, old as she was, with her heroic commander, and her medley crew of Americans, Irish, English, Scotch, French, Portuguese, Maltese and Malay sailors, before she relaxed her dying clutch upon the _Serapis_, and sank, immortalized by a splendid victory, to the bottom of the ocean, there is no need for the biographer of Franklin to tell. It is enough to say that for Franklin Jones ever entertained a feeling little short of passionate reverence. "The letter which I had the honor to receive from your Excellency to-day ... would make a coward brave," was his reply to one of Franklin's wise and humane letters of instruction. This letter is evidence enough that Franklin was not so incensed by the ruthless conduct at times of the British in America as to be lost to the clemency of his own abstract views about the proper limits of warfare. Altho' [he said] the English have wantonly burnt many defenceless Towns in America, you are not to follow this Example, unless where a Reasonable Ransom is refused; in which Case, your own generous feelings, as well as this Instruction, will induce you to give timely Notice of your Intention, that sick and ancient Persons, Women and Children, may be first removed. The relief of American prisoners in England was another thing which continually taxed the attention of Franklin during the Revolutionary War. "I was sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not," was a reproach that no one of them could justly address to him. His nature was a truly compassionate one, and, in few respects, does it show to greater advantage than in his unceasing efforts to secure the exchange of his unhappy countrymen, confined at Portsmouth and Plymouth, or, that failing, to provide them with all the pecuniary succor in his power, in addition to that so generously extended to them by many kind hearts in England.[40] In his friend, David Hartley, a man, whose peaceful and humane instincts even the vilest passions of war could not efface, he had an agent in a position to reach the ear of the English Ministry for the purpose of promoting the exchange of prisoners. For different reasons, the task was a painfully slow one. In the beginning, all American prisoners were committed to prison upon the charge of high treason, a charge entirely inconsistent with the idea of exchange. Besides, England was reluctant to relinquish the advantage that she had, until the treaty of alliance between France and America was consummated, in the fact that American ships had nowhere to confine their prisoners except under their own hatches. They tried to meet this difficulty by releasing English prisoners on parole on their each promising that they would secure the release of an American prisoner, but the English Admiralty, after some hesitation, finally refused to surrender a single American prisoner in exchange for such paroled Englishmen. Commenting upon this fact, along with another incident, Franklin wrote to James Lovell, "There is no gaining anything upon these Barbarians by Advances of Civility or Humanity." At last, however, several cartels were agreed upon, and he enjoyed the great happiness of seeing some hundred or so American captives brought over to France and released. He was still, however, to incur a great disappointment when, owing to the fear on the part of Holland of provoking English resentment, the five hundred prisoners, transferred to Holland by John Paul Jones, after his engagement with the _Serapis_, had to be exchanged for French instead of American prisoners. The French Ministry promised to make this disappointment good by advancing to Franklin an equal number of English prisoners taken by French ships, but the English Ministry promptly met this promise by refusing to exchange American prisoners for any English prisoners except such as had been captured by American ships. It was also a great disappointment to Franklin that he could not induce the English Ministry to give its assent to a formal proposition from him that prisoners, taken by either country, should be immediately released upon the understanding that an equal number of prisoners held by the other should also be released. The high-minded conduct of Hartley, inspired in part by the hope that lenient treatment of American prisoners might help to re-unite the two countries, was all the more admirable, when contrasted with the harsh words, in which Franklin sometimes in his letters to him inveighed against the English King, Parliament and People. It is inconceivable that even Hartley would not have gradually wearied of well-doing, if his perfect knowledge of Franklin's benevolent nature had not taught him how to make liberal allowances for his friend's occasional gusts of indignation. This indignation was usually visited upon the English King and Ministry, but upon one occasion it was visited upon the English people as well. It is now impossible [he wrote to Hartley] to persuade our people, as I long endeavoured, that the war was merely ministerial, and that the nation bore still a good will to us. The infinite number of addresses printed in your gazettes, all approving this conduct of your government towards us, and encouraging our destruction by every possible means, the great majority in Parliament constantly manifesting the same sentiments, and the popular public rejoicings on occasion of any news of the slaughter of an innocent and virtuous people, fighting only in defence of their just rights; these, together with the recommendations of the same measures by even your celebrated moralists and divines, in their writings and sermons, that are cited approved and applauded in your great national assemblies; all join in convincing us, that you are no longer the magnanimous and enlightened nation, we once esteemed you, and that you are unfit and unworthy to govern us, as not being able to govern your own passions. Indeed, in this letter Franklin even told Hartley that, if the resentment of the English people did not speedily fall on their ministry, the future inhabitants of America would detest the name of Englishman as much as the children in Holland did those of Alva and Spaniard. But, scold as he might England and her rulers, he deeply appreciated the magnanimity of the good man, who even took pains to see that sums placed in his hands by Franklin were duly applied to the relief of the prisoners for whose liberty he strove so disinterestedly. Referring in one of his letters to Hartley to two little bills of exchange that he had sent to him for this purpose, he said, "Permit me to repeat my thankful Acknowledgments for the very humane and kind part you have acted in this Affair. If I thought it necessary I would pray God to bless you for it. But I know he will do it without my Prayers." Correspondingly stern was the rebuke of Franklin for the heartless knave, Thomas Digges, equal even to the theft of an obolus placed upon the closed eyelids of a dead man as the price of his ferriage across the Styx--who drew upon Franklin in midwinter for four hundred and ninety-five pounds sterling for the relief of the American prisoners, and converted all but about thirty pounds of the sum to his own personal use. "We have no Name in our Language," said Franklin in a letter to William Hodgson, "for such atrocious Wickedness. If such a Fellow is not damn'd, it is not worth while to keep a Devil." Besides Hartley, to say nothing of this William Hodgson, a merchant, who performed offices for Franklin similar to those of Hartley, there was another Englishman whose humanity with regard to American prisoners elicited the grateful acknowledgments of Franklin. This was Thomas Wren, a Presbyterian minister at Portsmouth, who was untiring in soliciting contributions from his Christian brethren in England, and applying the sums thus obtained by him, as well as the weekly allowances sent to him by Franklin, to the wants of American prisoners in Forton Prison. "I think some public Notice," Franklin wrote to Robert R. Livingston, "should be taken of this good Man. I wish the Congress would enable me to make him a Present, and that some of our Universities would confer upon him the Degree of Doctor." The suggestion bore fruit, Congress sent Wren a vote of thanks, and the degree of Doctor in Divinity was conferred upon him by Princeton College. He, too, did not need the prayers of Franklin to receive the blessings reserved for the few rare spirits who can hear the voice of the God of Mercy even above the tumult of his battling children. There were many other engrossing claims of a public or quasi-public nature upon Franklin's attention in France. In the earlier stages of the Revolutionary War, he was fairly besieged by foreign officers eager to share in its peril and glory. Several of those recommended by him to Congress--such as Steuben--gave a good account of themselves in America, but the number of those, who had no special title to his recommendation, was so great, that his ingenuity and sense of humor were severely strained to evade them or laugh them off. You can have no Conception [he wrote to a friend] how I am harass'd. All my Friends are sought out and teiz'd to teize me. Great officers of all Ranks, in all Departments; Ladies, great and small, besides professed Sollicitors, worry me from Morning to Night. The Noise of every Coach now that enters my Court terrifies me. I am afraid to accept an Invitation to dine abroad, being almost sure of meeting with some Officer or Officer's Friend, who, as soon as I am put in a good Humour by a Glass or two of Champaign, begins his Attack upon me. Luckily I do not often in my sleep dream myself in these vexatious Situations, or I should be afraid of what are now my only Hours of Comfort. If, therefore, you have the least remaining Kindness for me, if you would not help to drive me out of France, for God's sake, my dear friend, let this your 23rd Application be your last. The friend to whom this letter was written was a Frenchman, and the lecture that Franklin read to him in it on the easy-going habits of his countrymen in giving recommendations is also worthy of quotation: Permit me to mention to you [he said] that, in my Opinion, the natural complaisance of this country often carries People too far in the Article of _Recommendations_. You give them with too much Facility to Persons of whose real Characters you know nothing, and sometimes at the request of others of whom you know as little. Frequently, if a man has no useful Talents, is good for nothing and burdensome to his Relations, or is indiscreet, Profligate, and extravagant, they are glad to get rid of him by sending him to the other end of the World; and for that purpose scruple not to recommend him to those that they wish should recommend him to others, as "_un bon sujet, plein de mérite_," &c. &c. In consequence of my crediting such Recommendations, my own are out of Credit, and I can not advise anybody to have the least Dependence on them. If, after knowing this, you persist in desiring my Recommendation for this Person, who is known neither to _me_ nor to _you_, I will give it, tho', as I said before, I ought to refuse it. The subject was one that repeatedly awakened his humorous instincts. You can have no conception of the Arts and Interest made use of to recommend and engage us to recommend very indifferent persons [he wrote to James Lovell]. The importunity is boundless. The Numbers we refuse incredible: which if you knew you would applaud us for, and on that Account excuse the few we have been prevail'd on to introduce to you. But, as somebody says, "Poets lose half the Praise they would have got, Were it but known what they discreetly blot." The extent to which Silas Deane yielded to the solicitations of eager candidates abroad for military honor was one of the things that helped to destroy his standing with Congress. A second letter was written by Franklin to Lovell in which he had a word of extenuation for Deane's weakness in this respect. I, who am upon the spot [he said] and know the infinite Difficulty of resisting the powerful Solicitations here of great Men, who if disoblig'd might have it in their Power to obstruct the Supplies he was then obtaining, do not wonder, that, being a Stranger to the People, and unacquainted with the Language, he was at first prevail'd on to make some such Agreements, when all were recommended, as they always are, as _officiers expérimentés_, _braves comme leurs épées_, _pleins de Courage, de Talents, et de Zèle pour notre Cause_, &c. &c. in short, mere Cesars, each of whom would have been an invaluable Acquisition to America. Franklin even had the temerity to draft this _jeu d'esprit_ to suit the character of the more extreme class of applications made to him for military employment, and it was actually used at times according to William Temple Franklin. The bearer of this, who is going to America, presses me to give him a Letter of Recommendation, tho' I know nothing of him, not even his Name. This may seem extraordinary, but I assure you it is not uncommon here. Sometimes, indeed one unknown Person brings another equally unknown, to recommend him; and sometimes they recommend one another! As to this Gentleman, I must refer you to himself for his Character and Merits, with which he is certainly better acquainted than I can possibly be. I recommend him however to those Civilities, which every Stranger, of whom one knows no Harm, has a Right to; and I request you will do him all the good Offices, and show him all the Favour that, on further Acquaintance, you shall find him to deserve. An ill-balanced man might have fretted himself into an angry outbreak or a state of physical decline under the exasperation of such importunities, but none of the petty annoyances of Franklin's position were too rough to withstand the smoothing effect of his unctuous humor. It was like the oil that he was in the habit of carrying around with him in the hollow joint of a bamboo cane during the period of his life when he was testing the tranquillizing effect of oil upon ruffled water. At times, however, the unreasonableness of some of the applicants was too much even for Rabelais in his easy chair. First [he wrote to a M. Lith], you desired to have Means procur'd for you of taking a Voyage to America "_avec sureté_"; which is not possible, as the Dangers of the Sea subsist always, and at present there is the additional Danger of being taken by the English. Then you desire that this may be _sans trop grandes Dépenses_, which is not intelligible enough to be answer'd, because, not knowing your Ability of bearing expences, one can not judge what may be _trop grandes_. Lastly, you desire Letters of Address to the Congress and to General Washington; which it is not reasonable to ask of one who knows no more of you, than that your name is Lith, and that you live at Bayreuth. Another applicant, who thirsted for military renown, was one, Louis Givanetti Pellion, "ci-devant Garde du Corps de S. M. le Roi de Sardaigne, aujourd'hui Controlleur de la Cour de S. Mo susdite." "I know how," this gentleman wrote, "to accommodate myself to all climates, manners, circumstances, and times. I am passionately fond of travel, I love to see the great world, its armies and navies. Neither cards, nor wine nor women have any influence over me; but a ship, an army, long voyages, all these are Paradise to me." It was also Franklin's lot to receive many letters of inquiry about the New World from individuals in Europe, who were thinking of migrating to America for peaceable purposes. What of its climate, its trade, its people, its laws? These were some of the questions relating to the New Eldorado which these individuals wished answered. To all who questioned him about the opportunities held out by America, when he did not simply refer the questioners to Crèvecoeur's "Letters from an American Farmer," his answers were substantially the same. The emigrants to America would find a good climate, good air, good soil, good government, good laws and liberty there, but no Lotus Land. One Reuben Harvey wrote to him from Cork that about one hundred poor Irish tradesmen and husbandmen desired to settle in America. Franklin replied sententiously, "They will go to a Country where People do not Export their Beef and Linnen to import Claret, while the Poor at home live on Potatoes and wear Rags. Indeed America has not Beef and Linnen sufficient for Exportation because every man there, even the poorest, eats Beef and wears a Shirt." Numerous letters came to him from authors inviting his literary criticism, or asking him to accord to them the honor of permitting them to dedicate their works to him. Allamand, the Warden of the forests and waters of the Island of Corsica, wished to know from him what canals there were in America. None, he replied, unless a short water-way, cut, it was said, in a single night across a loop formed by a long bend in Duck Creek, in the State of Delaware, could be called such. Projectors of all kinds solicited his views about their several projects, sane or crack-brained. Sheer beggars, as we have already seen, were likewise among his correspondents. One, La Baronne de Randerath, tells him that she has been advised by the doctors to take her husband to Aix, and, as her justification for requesting a loan from Franklin for the purpose, she mentions that her husband and Franklin are both Masons, though members of different lodges. Another letter requests him to exercise his influence with the Minister of Marine in behalf of the writer, a sea captain, who wishes to be discharged from the King's service. Dartmouth College, Brown University, Princeton College and Dickinson College all appealed to him for his aid in their efforts to secure money or other gifts abroad. In a word, he was not only world-famous but paid fully all the minor as well as major penalties of world-fame. How curdled by the animosities of the Revolutionary War was the milk of human kindness even in such an amiable breast as that of Franklin, we have already had reason enough to know. His nature yielded slowly to the intense feelings, aroused by the long conflict between Great Britain and her Colonies, but it was equally slow to part with them when once inflamed. The most notable thing about his attitude towards Great Britain, after the first effusion of American blood at Lexington, was the inexorable firmness with which he repelled all advances upon the part of England that fell short of the recognition of American Independence. When the English Ministry fully realized that Great Britain was not waging war against a few rebellious malcontents but against a whole people in arms, overture after overture was informally made to Franklin by one English emissary or another, in the effort to dissolve the alliance between France and the United States, and to restore, as far as possible, the old connection between Great Britain and America. Among the first of these emissaries was Franklin's good friend, James Hutton. Franklin received him with the most affectionate kindness, but a letter, which he wrote to Hutton, after Hutton had returned to England, showed how entirely fruitless the journey of the latter had been. A peace, Franklin said, England might undoubtedly obtain by dropping all her pretensions to govern America, but, if she did not, with the peace, recover the affections of the American people, it would be neither a lasting nor a profitable one. To recover the respect and affection of America, England must tread back the steps that she had taken and disgrace the American advisers and promoters of the war, with all those who had inflamed the nation against America by their malicious writings; and all the ministers and generals who had prosecuted the war with such inhumanity. A little generosity, in the way of territorial concessions added to the counsels of necessity, would have a happy effect. For instance, Franklin said, if England would have a real friendly as well as able ally in America, and avoid all occasions of future discord, which would otherwise be continually arising along its American frontiers, it might throw in Canada, Nova Scotia and the Floridas. Hutton was succeeded by William Pulteney, a member of Parliament. All of his propositions were predicated upon the continued dependence of America. Every proposition, Franklin let him know, which implied the voluntary return of America to dependence on Great Britain was out of the question. The proper course for Great Britain, in his judgment, was to acknowledge the independence of the United States, and to enter into such a treaty of peace, friendship and commerce with them as France itself had formed. The concluding words of Franklin's letter were hardly necessary to convince Pulteney of the hopelessness of his task. "May God at last," they ran, "grant that Wisdom to your national Councils, which he seems long to have deny'd them, and which only sincere, just, and humane Intentions can merit or expect." Ten days before this letter was written, the American envoys had been presented to the French King. Then followed David Hartley and Mr. George Hammond, the father of the George Hammond, who, many years afterwards, became Minister Plenipotentiary from England to the United States. When they arrived at Paris, it was only to find that the treaty of alliance between France and the United States had already been signed, and to learn soon afterwards that one of its clauses obliged the United States to make common cause with France, in case England declared war against her. How authentic were the credentials of the next emissary it is impossible to say, but Franklin was entirely confident that he came over to France under the direct patronage of George III. The circumstances were these. One morning, a lengthy letter was thrown into a window of Franklin's residence at Passy, written in English, dated at Brussels, and signed Charles de Weissenstein. The letter conjured Franklin in the name of the Just and Omniscient God, before whom all must soon appear, and by his hopes of future fame, to consider if some expedient could not be devised for ending the desolation of America and preventing the war imminent in Europe. It then declared that France would certainly at last betray America, and suggested a plan for the union of England and America. Under the plan, among other things, judges of the American courts were to be named by the King, and to hold their offices for life, and were to bear titles either as peers of America, or otherwise, as should be decided by his Majesty; there were to be septennial sessions of Congress, or more frequent ones, if his Majesty should think fit to call Congress together oftener, but all its proceedings were to be transmitted to the British Parliament, without whose consent no money was ever to be granted by Congress, or any separate State of America to the Crown; the chief offices of the American civil list were to be named in the plan, and the compensation attached to them was to be paid by America; the naval and military forces of the Union were to be under the direction of his Majesty, but the British Parliament was to fix their extent, and vote the sums necessary for their maintenance. It was also proposed by the letter that, to protect Franklin, Washington, Adams, Hancock and other leaders of the American Revolution from the personal enmity in England, by which their talents might otherwise be kept down, they were to have offices or pensions for life at their option. The promise was also made that, in case his Majesty, or his successors, should ever create American peers, then those persons, or their descendants, were to be among the first peers created, if they desired. Moreover, _Mr._ Washington was to have immediately a brevet of lieutenant-general, and all the honors and precedence incident thereto, but was not to assume or bear any command without a special warrant, or letter of service for that purpose, from the King. The writer further asked for a personal interview with Franklin for the purpose of discussing the details of the project, or, he stated, if that was not practicable, he would be in a certain part of the Cathedral of Notre Dame on a certain day at noon precisely, with a rose in his hat, to receive a written answer from Franklin which he would transmit directly to the King himself. Franklin laid the letter before his colleagues, and it was agreed that it should be answered by him, and that both it and the answer should be laid before Vergennes, and that the answer should be sent or kept back as Vergennes believed best. The French Minister decided that it had best not be sent. At the hour fixed for the interview, however, an agent of the French police was on hand, and he reported that a gentleman, whose name he afterwards ascertained to be an Irish one by tracking him to his hotel, did appear at the appointed time, and, finding no one to meet him, wandered about the Cathedral, looking at the altars and pictures, but never losing sight of the place suggested for the tryst, and often returning to it, and gazing anxiously about him as if he expected some one. The scornful tone of the letter, drafted by Franklin, which is not unlike one of the scolding speeches, with which the Homeric heroes expressed their opinions of each other, leaves little room for doubt that he truly believed himself to be assailing no less a person than the bigoted King himself. After some savage thrusts, which remind us of those aimed by Hamlet at Polonius behind the arras, he bursts out into these exclamatory words: This proposition of delivering ourselves, bound and gagged, ready for hanging, without even a right to complain, and without a friend to be found afterwards among all mankind you would have us embrace upon the faith of an act of Parliament! Good God! An act of your Parliament! This demonstrates that you do not yet know us, and that you fancy we do not know you; but it is not merely this flimsy faith, that we are to act upon; you offer us _hope_, the hope of PLACES, PENSIONS, and PEERAGES. These, judging from yourselves, you think are motives irresistible. This offer to corrupt us, Sir, is with me your credential, and convinces me that you are not a private volunteer in your application. It bears the stamp of British court character. It is even the signature of your King. The next bearer of the olive branch, who came over to Paris, came under very different auspices. This was William Jones, afterwards Sir William Jones, who was at the time affianced to Anna Maria Shipley. He did not come as the representative of the King or his Ministers, but as the representative of the generous and patriotic Englishmen, who had cherished the same dream of world-wide British unity as Franklin himself, and whose sacrifices in behalf of their fellow-Englishmen in America should be almost as gratefully remembered by us as the Continental soldiers who perished at Monmouth or Camden. Draping his thoughts with academic terms, he submitted a paper to Dr. Franklin entitled _A Fragment from Polybius_ in which England, France, the United States and Franklin are given names borrowed from antiquity, and various suggestions are made for the settlement of the existing controversy between Great Britain and America. England becomes Athens, France, Caria, America, the Islands, and Franklin, Eleutherion; and Jones himself is masked as an Athenian lawyer. This I _know_ [observes the latter-day Athenian] and positively pronounce, that, while Athens is Athens, her proud but brave citizens will never _expressly_ recognize the independence of the Islands; their resources are, no doubt, exhaustible, but will not be exhausted in the lives of us and of our children. In this resolution all parties agree. There should be, the writer suggested, "a perfect coordination between Athens and the Thirteen United Islands, they considering her not as a parent, whom they must obey, but as an elder sister, whom they can not help loving, and to whom they shall give pre-eminence of honor and co-equality of power." Other suggestions were that the new constitutions of the Islands should remain intact, but that, on every occasion, requiring acts for the general good, there should be an assembly of deputies from the Senate of Athens, and the Congress of the Islands, who should fairly adjust the whole business, and settle the ratio of the contributions on both sides; that this committee should consist of fifty Islanders and fifty Athenians, or of a smaller number chosen by them, and that, if it was thought necessary, and found convenient, a proportionate number of Athenian citizens should have seats, and the power of debating and voting on questions of common concern in the great assembly of the Islands, and a proportionable number of Islanders should sit with the like power in the Assembly at Athens. The whole reminds the reader of the classical fictions to which the first Parliamentary reporters were driven by press censorship. The paper, drafted by Jones, was little more than a mere literary exercise, prompted by ingenuous enthusiasm, but we may be sure that it kindled in Franklin very different feelings from those aroused in him by the insidious appeal of Charles de Weissenstein. The shortcomings, which Franklin is supposed by his enemies to have exhibited in France with respect to the duties of his post, require but little attention. Apart from a lack of clerical neatness and system, such as might more justly be imputed as a serious reproach to a book-keeper or clerk, they rest upon evidence easily perverted by enmity or jealousy.[41] Adams had no little to say about Franklin's love of ease and tranquillity, the social and academic distractions, to which he was subject, and the extent to which his time was consumed by curious visitors. It is a sufficient answer to all such disparagement to declare that he successfully dispatched an enormous amount of public business with but very little aid, and unflinchingly bore a load of responsibility only less weighty than that of Washington; that no spy, such as obtained secret access to the papers of Silas Deane and Arthur Lee for the purposes of the British Government, ever abstracted any valuable information from his papers; and that his position in the polite and learned world, and the popular curiosity, excited by his fame, were among the things which tended most effectually to recommend him to the favor of the French People and Ministry. The effort was also made by John Adams to create the impression that Franklin was unduly subservient to the influence of France, and that, but for the superior firmness of John Jay and himself, the United States would not have concluded a peace with England on terms anything like so favorable as those actually obtained from her. In what respects Franklin can be truly said to have been servile to French influence, it is impossible to see. If by this is meant that he did not share the prejudices of Adams and Jay against the French people, did not harbor their keen distrust of the motives of the French ministry and did not feel as free as they to ignore the proprieties, arising out of the profound obligations of America to France, the reflection is just enough. Neither Adams nor Jay ever succeeded in making himself sufficiently acceptable to the French people or ministry, or obtained sufficient benefits from them for his countrymen, to feel any sense of personal indebtedness to them, or to be inclined to show any unusual degree of consideration to them. This was true of Jay, if for no other reason, because his intercourse with them was but limited in point of time. Franklin, on the other hand, was the idol of the French people, and received from Vergennes as decisive proofs of confidence as one individual can confer upon another. No one could have been in a better position than he was to know that the French alliance was hardly more the fruit of selfish policy upon the part of the French ministry, or of a desire upon its part to avenge historic injuries, than of the generous sensibility of the French people to the liberal and democratic impulses, which were hurrying them on to the fiercest outbreak of uncalculating enthusiasm that the world has ever seen. He had never entered the cabinet of the French Minister to sue for pecuniary aid without coming away with a fresh cordial for the drooping energies of his people. That upright and able minister, he wrote to Samuel Huntington, on one occasion, had never promised him anything which he did not punctually perform.[42] No matter how dark were the thick clouds that enveloped the fate of his country, no matter how acute was the pecuniary distress of France herself, there was always another million at the bottom of the stocking of the French tax-payer for the land of freedom and opportunity. Franklin had even known what it was to beg for a loan from the French King and to receive it as a gracious gift. He would have been fashioned of ignoble materials, indeed, if he had been too quick, in seeking the selfish advantage of his country, to forget the extraordinary magnanimity of her ally, and to suspect a disposition upon her part to deprive the United States of the just rewards of the triumph, which they might never have achieved but for her. And he, at any rate, with his strong sense of justice, was not likely to commit himself with unhesitating alacrity to a coldblooded scramble for concessions from England to America which took no account of the fact that France not only had the interests of America, but also her own necessities to consult, and that it was as essential to her interests that America should not make peace with England before she did, as it was to the interests of America that France should not make peace with England before America did. In the Treaty of Alliance, France had assumed no obligation to the United States except that of continuing to wage war against England until their independence was acknowledged, and of not concluding any peace with England that did not include them. She had never bound herself to secure to America the right of fishery on the Newfoundland Banks, or to oppose every restriction upon the extension of her western boundaries. In the course of the war, there was a time when the situation of America was so desperate that Vergennes was, with perfect fidelity to the American cause, brought to the conclusion that the Thirteen States might well afford to surrender a part of their territory to England as the price of independence; and this was a conclusion to which any honest American mind might have been brought under the circumstances. And, even after this crisis had passed, and negotiations for peace were pending between Great Britain and the Allies, it is not surprising that he should not have foreseen that he would ever have occasion to say, as he did after England and America came to terms, that England had bought rather than made a peace, but should have thought that England might still hold out stubbornly enough to cause even America to feel that she could be reasonably expected by France to forego more than one minor expectation to make certain of her independence. There was also the fact, which could hardly escape the attention of a man so deferential to the authority of his principals as Franklin always was, that Congress had positively instructed its Commissioners to make the most candid and confidential communications upon all subjects to the minister of its generous ally, the King of France, to undertake nothing in the negotiations for peace or a truce without the knowledge and concurrence of the Minister and King, and ultimately to govern themselves by their advice and opinion. And there was also the fact that Franklin had always had such marked success in influencing the conclusions of Vergennes, that he might well have confided in his ability to bring the French minister over to any reasonable views that he might form about the results that America had the right to expect from the Peace; particularly as Vergennes had long been possessed with a haunting fear that America might be detached from her alliance with France. In the light of all these circumstances, it is not strange that Franklin should have been reluctant, in the first instance, to unite with Adams and Jay in signing the preliminary treaty of peace with England without previously consulting with Vergennes; for that is the only tangible foundation for the claim that he was too submissive to the selfish designs of France; and there is no substantial evidence that any real point was gained by America by the act, or that it awakened any feeling in Vergennes profounder than the passing disappointment, born of realized distrust and affronted pride, which led him to write to M. de la Luzerne, the French Minister to the United States, immediately after it as follows: I think it proper that the most influential members of Congress should be informed of the very irregular conduct of their Commissioners in regard to us. You may speak of it not in the tone of complaint. I accuse no person; I blame no one, not even Dr. Franklin. He has yielded too easily to the bias of his colleagues, who do not pretend to recognize the rules of courtesy in regard to us. All their attentions have been taken up by the English whom they have met in Paris. If we may judge of the future from what has passed here under our eyes, we shall be but poorly paid for all that we have done for the United States, and for securing to them a national existence. When we recollect how faithfully France had rejected every effort upon the part of England to treat for peace with her separately, and insisted that the treaty of peace between England and France, on the one hand, and the treaty of peace between England and the United States, on the other, should go hand in hand, how entirely Vergennes had refrained from inquiring into the course of the pending negotiations between England and our commissioners, which resulted in the signing of the preliminary treaty of peace between England and the United States; and how singularly limited was the measure of concession that France asked for herself from England, these words cannot be read by any true American without a highly painful impression. When Franklin appealed, after the peace, to both Adams and Jay to deny the statement, current in America, that he had not stood up stoutly for American rights, when the peace was being concluded, Jay complied with unreserved emphasis, and Adams with a reluctant note which rendered his testimony but the stronger. The truth is that, if Franklin's conduct during the peace negotiations was not admirable in every respect, it was only because he found that he could not decline to unite with his colleagues in violating the instruction of Congress without breaking with them and hazarding discord that might be fatal to the interests of his country. He did not, of course, believe that France, after the enormous sacrifices that she had made for American independence, was engaged in a treacherous effort to shackle the growth of the United States. He could not readily have entertained such a totally ungrounded suspicion as that which led Jay, when he learnt that De Rayneval was going over to London to have an interview with Shelburne, to leap to the conclusion that it was for the purpose of confounding American aspirations, and to inform Shelburne that now was the time for England to outbid France for the favor of America by executing at once preliminary articles of peace, conceding to America the points about which she was most concerned. The overture was a bold one, but if it had not been accepted in the manner that it was, and had been communicated by Shelburne to Vergennes, it might have been attended by consequences inimical to the Alliance which even the personal influence of Franklin might not have been able to prevent. Franklin was too prudent to risk rashly the support of an ally, from which the United States still found it necessary to borrow money, even after their independence was acknowledged, and too grateful to risk lightly the friendship of an ally which had not only aided the United States with soldiers, ships and money to secure their independence, but had repeatedly declined to treat with England except on the basis of American independence. His inclination naturally and properly enough was to maintain with Vergennes until the last the frank and intimate relations that he had always maintained with him; to avoid everything that might have the least savor of faithlessness or sharp practice in the opinion of our ally, and to rely upon our growing importance and the ordinary appeals of argument and persuasion for a peace at once fair and just to both the United States and France. But never once from the time that he wrote to Lord Shelburne the brief letter, that initiated the negotiations for peace between England and the United States, until the day that he threw himself, after the consummation of peace, into the arms of the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, saying, "My friend! Could I have hoped at my age to enjoy such a happiness," was he animated by any purpose except that of securing for his countrymen the most generous terms that he could. It is by no means improbable that, if he had been our sole negotiator, he would not only have obtained for us all that was secured by his Fellow-Commissioners and himself but Canada besides, and would, moreover, have saved the United States the reproach that justly attached to them because of the precipitate signature of the preliminary articles of peace. As we have already seen, the acquisition of Canada by the United States was something that he had definitely in mind even before the negotiations for peace began, and, when they did begin, this was one of the things that he specified in a memorandum that he gave to Oswald, the British envoy, as concessions that it was advisable for England to make, and we also know from the correspondence of Oswald that it was a topic to which his conversation frequently turned. With such address did he ply Oswald upon this point that the latter went so far as to say that it might be conceded. To compass it, he was even willing to agree that the Loyalists should be compensated by the United States for their losses; which was the point upon which the English Ministry was most earnestly bent, and the one which aroused in him feelings of the deepest antagonism. What a trifling recompense the compensation of the Loyalists would have been for such an addition to our national domain as Canada we hardly need say; nor need we dilate upon the far-sighted statesmanship which so surely foresaw what futurity held in store for a country which, as late as 1760, had been gravely proposed to be exchanged with France for the Island of Guadeloupe. It is to be regretted by the United States, if the present happy lot of Canada is to be the subject of regret at all, that the desire of Franklin to secure Canada for them was not more urgently seconded by Adams and Jay. The former was enthusiastically resolved, as was but proper, to secure for New England the right to fish on the Newfoundland Banks, and the latter was especially eager, as any statesman with the slightest glow of imagination might well have been, to remove every obstacle in our pathway westward. Neither appears to have been zealously alive to the considerations, which led Franklin to cast a covetous eye upon Canada, and to make it one of the primary objects of his efforts to promote the interests of America during the peace negotiations. On the other hand, Franklin was not less impressed than they were with the importance of our North Eastern Fisheries and our Western Destiny; and was quite as stiff as they in maintaining our rights with respect to them. Moreover, when the insistence of the English Ministry upon compensation for the Loyalists threatened to be the only rock, upon which the negotiations were likely to split, it was his suggestiveness which relieved the situation by proposing, as an offset to the losses of the Loyalists, the payment by England of the pecuniary losses wantonly inflicted by her upon the inhabitants of such towns as Fairfield and Norfolk on our Atlantic seaboard. After this timely counter-claim, a compromise was soon reached, under which it was agreed that the Loyalists should be referred to the justice of the individual States with a favorable recommendation from the Commissioners. This was but a diplomatic way of disposing of the proposition adversely without seeming to do so, for Shelburne as well as the American Commissioners must have realized that the recommendation was the only form of indemnity that the Loyalists were likely to obtain. Friendly as Franklin was to the French Court, it was only where some treaty stipulation was involved, or some definite rule of courtesy was to be observed, that he recognized the right of France to influence the course of the negotiations between England and the American Commissioners. He knew as well as Adams and Jay that French policy, partly because of considerations, peculiar to France herself, and partly because of obligations, that France owed to Spain, differed in some very material respects from American policy. But he entertained the belief, and justly entertained the belief, that this was no reason why Vergennes should necessarily be moved by the settled, perfidious purpose of arresting an agreement between England and America until the negotiations between England and France and Spain had gone too far for the United States to be any longer in the position to insist effectively upon their fishery and boundary claims. The disposition of the French Minister to contemplate contingencies, in which concessions would have to be made by America, was in Franklin's judgment "due to the moderation of the minister and to his desire of removing every obstacle to speedy negotiations for peace"; and there is no real reason to believe that he was not right. It is quite true that Marbois, when he was the French Secretary of Legation in the United States, in his famous letter to Vergennes, which the English were at pains to bring to the notice of John Jay, suggested to Vergennes that he should let the Americans know that their pretensions to the Newfoundland fisheries were not well founded, and that the French King did not mean to support them; but, as Vergennes wrote to M. de la Luzerne, the successor of Gérard, the opinion of Marbois was not necessarily that of the King, and, moreover the views of his letter had not been followed. When Franklin made his suggestion to Oswald in respect to Canada, he did not bring it to the knowledge of Vergennes. In the very commencement of the negotiations between England and the United States, he let it be known to Grenville, the envoy of Charles James Fox, that, when Great Britain acknowledged the independence of America, the treaty, that America had made with France for gaining it, ended, and no conventional tie remained between America and France but that of the treaty of commerce which England, too, might establish between America and herself, if she pleased. Indeed, Vergennes himself clearly recognized the right of the American Commissioners to make the best terms that they could for themselves in the matter of the fisheries, the western boundaries or any other object of American policy. We are [he wrote Luzerne on April 9, 1782], and shall always be, disposed to consent that the American plenipotentiaries in Europe should treat according to their instructions directly and without our intervention with those of the Court of London, while we on our side shall treat in the same way, provided that the two negotiations continue at the same rate, and that the two treaties shall be signed the same day, and shall not be good the one without the other. The hesitation of Franklin about executing the preliminary articles of peace between England and the United States was not due to any doubt as to the technical right of the American Commissioners to sign it, aside from the instruction of Congress that they were not to take any important step without the advice of the French Ministry. He hesitated to sign it because he was subject to this instruction, and also because he felt that for the Commissioners to sign such a treaty, without taking Vergennes into their confidence, was hardly compatible with the scrupulous deference due to such a timely, generous and powerful ally as France had proved herself to be and might be again. His reason for disregarding the instruction of Congress, and uniting with his colleagues in signing the articles doubtless was that he deemed it unwise, in any view of the case, not to subordinate his own judgment, after full discussion, to that of the majority of the Commission in a case where, if the French Minister were acting in bad faith, it was but proper that his bad faith should be anticipated, and where, if he were acting in good faith, his resentment was not likely to be more serious than that which is usually visited upon a mere breach of diplomatic decorum. The execution of the articles was expressly made subject to the proviso that they were to have no force, if England did not reach an understanding with France also. Without such a proviso, the action of our Commissioners, of course, would have merited the contempt of the world. With it, Franklin was left free to say, disingenuously it must be confessed, to Vergennes that, in signing the articles, the Commissioners had at the most been guilty of neglecting a point of _bienséance_. No one knew better than he that no such soothing pretence could be set up by Adams and Jay, and that, even as respected himself, though the extent of his offence consisted, as Vergennes truly divined, in yielding to the bias of his colleagues, he had been drawn into a position in which it was impossible for him to separate himself wholly from either the motives or the moral responsibilities of his colleagues. In transmitting with them to Congress a copy of the articles, he united with them in this statement: As we had reason to imagine that the Articles respecting the boundaries, the refugees and fisheries, did not correspond with the policy of this court, we did not communicate the preliminaries to the Minister until after they were signed, and not even then the separate Article. We hope that these considerations will excuse our having so far deviated from the spirit of our instructions. The Count de Vergennes, on perusing the Articles, appeared surprised, but not displeased, at their being so favorable to us. The separate article was one fixing the northern boundary of West Florida, in case Great Britain, at the conclusion of the war, should recover, or be put in possession of, that Province. In reply to a letter from Robert R. Livingston, disapproving the manner, in which the articles had been signed, Franklin said that they had done what appeared to all of them best at the time, and, if they had done wrong, the Congress would do right, after hearing them, to censure them. The nomination by Congress of five persons to the service, he further said, seemed to mark that they had some dependence on their joint judgment, since one alone could have made a treaty by direction of the French Ministry, as well as twenty. But there can be no doubt that the individual views of Franklin about the aims of the French Court, in relation to the United States, are to be found not in the letter of the Commissioners to Congress, but in his own words in this same reply to Livingston: I will only add [he said] that, with respect to myself, neither the Letter from M. de Marbois, handed us thro' the British Negociators (a suspicious Channel) nor the Conversations respecting the Fishery, the Boundaries, the Royalists, &c., recommending Moderation in our Demands, are of Weight sufficient in my Mind to fix an Opinion, that this Court wish'd to restrain us in obtaining any Degree of Advantage we could prevail on our Enemies to accord; since those Discourses are fairly resolvable, by supposing a very natural Apprehension, that we, relying too much on the Ability of France to continue the War in our favour, and supply us constantly with Money, might insist on more Advantages than the English would be willing to grant, and thereby lose the Opportunity of making Peace, so necessary to all our friends. It is impossible, however, to believe that Franklin could have taken such a step except with grave misgivings as to its effect on the mind of Vergennes. This is shown by the reserve which he, as well as his fellow-commissioners, maintained towards Vergennes, while the preliminary articles were being matured. According to the injunctions of Congress [Vergennes wrote to Luzerne], they should have done nothing without our participation. I have pointed out to you, Sir, that the King would not have sought to interest himself in the negotiations, save in so far as his offices might be necessary to his friends. The American Commissioners will not say that I have sought to intervene in their business, still less that I have wearied them by my curiosity. They have kept themselves carefully out of my way. It must have taxed even the nice judgment of Franklin to calculate precisely the degree of resentment that the act of the Commissioners would excite. He took the precaution of sending a copy of the articles to Vergennes the day after they were signed. His receipt of them was followed by an ominous silence. Some days later, Franklin called upon Vergennes, and the latter took pains to let him perceive that the signing of the articles had little in it which could be agreeable to the King, and Franklin advanced such excuses for his colleagues and himself as the case permitted. According to Vergennes, the conversation was amicable, but for a time it did not efface the impression that his mind had received. A week or so later, when Franklin proposed to send the preliminary articles to America by a ship, for which an English passport had been provided, and was soliciting a loan of twenty millions of francs from France, Vergennes gave him a bad quarter of an hour. I am at a loss sir [he said] to explain your conduct, and that of your colleagues on this occasion. You have concluded your preliminary articles without any communication between us, although the instructions from Congress prescribe that nothing shall be done without the participation of the King. You are about to hold out a certain hope of peace to America, without even informing yourself on the state of the negotiation on our part. You are wise and discreet, sir; you perfectly understand what is due to propriety; you have all your life performed your duties. I pray you to consider how you propose to fulfill those, which are due to the King! I am not desirous of enlarging these reflections; I commit them to your own integrity. When you shall be pleased to relieve my uncertainty, I will entreat the King to enable me to answer your demands. The reply of Franklin was almost abject. Nothing [he said] has been agreed in the preliminaries contrary to the interests of France; and no peace is to take place between us and England, till you have concluded yours. Your observation is, however, apparently just, that, in not consulting you before they were signed, we have been guilty of neglecting a point of _bienséance_. But, as this was not from want of respect for the King, whom we all love and honour, we hope it will be excused, and that the great work, which has hitherto been so happily conducted, is so nearly brought to perfection, and is so glorious to his reign, will not be ruined by a single indiscretion of ours. And certainly the whole edifice sinks to the ground immediately, if you refuse on that account to give us any further assistance. Again, unpromising as the conditions were, there was no resisting the voice of the seductive mendicant. France did not lend the twenty millions of francs to the United States because she did not have that much to lend; but she did lend six. If any loss of dignity or self-respect was suffered on this occasion it was not by her. The definitive treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States was signed at Paris on September 3, 1783, and was ratified a few months later by both the contracting powers. Several weeks after it was signed, Franklin again tendered his resignation to Congress, but it was not accepted until March 7, 1785. Three days later, Jefferson, who had been in France ever since August, 1784, for the purpose of co-operating with Franklin and Adams in the negotiation of commercial treaties with England and other European countries, was appointed the American plenipotentiary at the Court of Versailles in the place of Franklin. Shortly after the return of Franklin to Philadelphia, he was elected President of the Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and, in 1787, he was elected a member of the convention which adopted the Federal Constitution. There was only one man in the United States whose claims to the Presidency of the Convention could possibly be deemed paramount to his; and that was Washington. The nomination of Washington to the position was to have been made by him, but the weather on the day, fixed for it, was too bad to permit him at his advanced age, and in his infirm condition, to venture abroad. The honor of making the nomination, therefore, fell to Robert Morris, another member of the Pennsylvania delegation. It was thought becoming and graceful in Pennsylvania, Madison tells us, to pass by her own distinguished citizen as President, and to take the lead in giving that pre-eminence to the late Commander-in-Chief of the American Army, which the country felt to be his due.[43] At the next session of the Convention, Franklin was present, and thereafter he attended its sessions regularly for five hours each day for more than four months. His stone made it impossible for him to stand long upon his feet, and, when he participated on any important occasion in the discussions of the body, it was his habit to reduce his thoughts to writing, and to have them read to the body by one of his colleagues, usually James Wilson. Copies of these speeches were made by Madison from the original manuscripts for his reports of the debates of the Convention, and, unlike the speeches of the other leading members of the Assembly, the speeches of Franklin have consequently come down to us in their entirety. Of his general course in the Convention, it is enough to say that it was strongly marked by liberalism, faith in the popular intelligence and virtue, and the aversion to arbitrary power which was always such a prominent feature of his conduct in every relation. He had a quick eye to the abuses of authority, and it is probable that, if he had been a younger man, when the Convention met, and had lived until the clash between the Federalists and the Republicans arose, he would have been a Republican. Inane idealism, lack of energy and resolution did not belong to his character, but, to say nothing more, what he had seen of the workings of monarchical and aristocratic institutions, during the long dispute between England and her colonies, was not calculated to prejudice him in their favor.[44] The compensation that should be paid to the Chief Magistrate of the Union was the first topic to which he formally addressed himself as a member of the Convention. In his opinion, no pecuniary compensation should be paid to him. The argument that he pursued in support of his proposition was one that he had often made with respect to the Government of Great Britain. Sir [he said] there are two Passions which have a powerful Influence in the Affairs of Men. These are _Ambition and Avarice_; the Love of Power and the Love of Money. Separately, each of these has great Force in prompting Men to Action; but when united in View of the same Object, they have in many Minds the most violent Effects. Place before the Eyes of such Men a Post of _Honour_, that shall at the same time be a Place of _Profit_, and they will move Heaven and Earth to obtain it. The vast Number of such Places it is that renders the British Government so tempestuous. The Struggles for them are the true source of all those Factions which are perpetually dividing the Nation, distracting its Councils, hurrying it sometimes into fruitless and mischievous Wars, and often compelling a Submission to dishonorable Terms of Peace. The argument, of course, fell upon deaf ears. It really presupposes a numerous class, at once sufficiently free from pecuniary anxieties to give its exclusive attention to public duties, and sufficiently qualified to discharge them with the requisite degree of success. Such a class was not to be found in America, at any rate, and, even if it was, it would have been invidious in the eyes of a democratic community to limit the enjoyment of public office to it. The subsequent history of the Republic showed that, in the beginning of our national existence, even moderate salaries did not suffice to keep some of the ablest men in the United States from declining or resigning federal office. The long journeys and the bad roads and taverns of that day were probably responsible for this state of things. In the first thirty years after the adoption of the Federal Constitution, no less than one hundred and ten seats in the United States Senate were resigned, and Washington experienced great difficulty in inducing lawyers to accept positions even on the Supreme Bench of the United States. It is a remarkable fact that, during the first thirty years after the adoption of the Federal Constitution, ten persons either declined to serve as associate justices of the Supreme Court, or resigned the office. It is a still more remarkable fact that both Jay and Ellsworth resigned as Chief Justice after brief terms of office. There was, however, undoubtedly an element of expediency in the views of Franklin, for it is no uncommon thing in the United States to see the supervisory functions of certain offices, connected with the educational or eleemosynary systems of the country, more efficiently and faithfully exercised, when exercised without pay by men, in whom public spirit or philanthropic zeal is highly developed, than they would be, if exercised by the very different kind of men who would be attracted to them, if salaried. In connection with another question, the extent to which the superior wealth and population of the larger states were to be represented in Congress, it was the fortune of Franklin to exert a powerful and decisive influence. The debate over this question was so protracted and heated, the smaller States demanding equal representation with the larger in both Houses of Congress, and the larger repelling the claim as utterly unreasonable and unjust, that it looked, at one time, as if the Convention would break up like a ship lodged on a fatal rock. Then it was that Franklin found out to his surprise that his colleagues did not set the same value as himself upon the harmonizing influence of prayer. Not only was his suggestion that the proceedings of the Convention be opened each day with it rejected, but the controversy became more acrimonious than ever; John Dickinson, one of the members from Delaware, who always had a way of chafing in harness, even declaring that rather than be deprived of an equality of representation in the Legislature he would prefer to be a foreign subject. At this point, Franklin came forward with a proposition of compromise, accompanied by one of his happy illustrations. The diversity of opinion [he said] turns on two points. If a proportional representation take place, the small States contend that their liberties will be in danger. If an equality of votes is to be put into its place, the larger States say their money will be in danger. When a broad table is to be made, and the edges of the planks do not fit, the artist takes a little from both, and makes a good joint. He then proposed that all the States should have an equal number of delegates in Congress, and that on all questions affecting the authority or sovereignty of a State, or, when appointments and confirmations were under consideration, every State should have an equal vote, but that on bills to raise or expend money every State should have a vote proportioned to its population. This compromise did not meet with the favor of the smaller States. Under the lead of Dickinson, they still contended for unvarying equality between them and the larger States. At length, a committee was appointed to consider the matter, and to report a compromise, and Franklin was one of its members. It came back with a plan, proposed by his constructive intellect, namely, that, in the Senate, every State should have equal representation, but that, in the other House, every State should have a representation proportioned to its population; and that bills to raise or expend money should originate in the other House. The report of the committee was adopted, and no device of the Constitution has, in practice, more strikingly vindicated the wisdom of the brain by which it was conceived than that hit upon by Franklin for disarming the jealousy and fears of the smaller States represented in the Convention. He approved the proposed article making the presidential term of office seven years, and declaring its incumbent ineligible for a second term. The sagacity of this conclusion has been confirmed by experience. There was nothing degrading, Franklin thought, in the idea of the magistrate returning to the mass of the people; for in free governments rulers are the servants, and the people are their superiors and sovereigns. The same popular bias manifested itself when the proposition was made to limit the suffrage to freeholders. "It is of great consequence," he said, "that we should not depress the virtue and public spirit of our common people, of which they displayed a great deal during the war, and which contributed principally to the favorable issue of it." The British statute, setting forth the danger of tumultuous meetings, and, under that pretext, narrowing the right of suffrage to persons having freeholds of a certain value, was soon followed, he added, by another, subjecting the people, who had no votes, to peculiar labors and hardships. Some days later, Madison informs us, he expressed his dislike to everything that tended to debase the spirit of the common people. If honesty was often the companion of wealth, and, if poverty was exposed to peculiar temptations, it was not less true, he declared, that the possession of property increased the desire for more property. Some of the greatest rogues he was ever acquainted with were the richest rogues. They should remember the character which the Scriptures require in rulers, that they should be men hating covetousness. The Constitution would be much read and attended in Europe, and, if it should betray a great partiality to the rich, would not only cost them the esteem of the most liberal and enlightened men there, but discourage the common people from removing to America. He strongly favored the clause giving Congress the power to impeach the President. When the head of the government cannot be lawfully called to account, the people have no recourse, he said, against oppression but revolution and assassination. These, it should be recollected, were the utterances of a man who was from age too near the end of political ambition to be possibly influenced by demagogic designs of any sort. Franklin also opposed the idea of conferring an absolute veto upon the President, and the requirement of fourteen years' residence as a condition of citizenship. Four years he believed to be enough. He approved the article making an overt act essential to the crime of treason, and exacting the evidence of two witnesses to establish the overt act. He also forcibly expressed his views with regard to the respective powers with which the two Houses of Congress should be invested. When the Convention was drawing to a close, he urged its members in a tactful and persuasive speech to lay aside their individual disappointments, and to give their work to the world with the stamp of unanimity. As is well known, when the last members were signing, he looked towards the President's chair, at the back of which there was a representation of a rising sun, and, after observing to some of his associates near him that painters had found it difficult in their art to distinguish a rising from a setting sun, he concluded with this exultant peroration: "I have often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: but now, at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising and not a setting sun." And a rising sun, indeed, it was, starting out upon its splendid circuit like the sun in the lines of Charles Lamb, "with all his fires and travelling glories round him." The opinions of Franklin with regard to general political topics are always acute and interesting, and, unlike the opinions of most great men, even the greatest, are rarely, if ever, flecked by the errors of his time. In some quarters, there has been a disposition to reproach him with being an advocate of what since his day has come to be known in the United States as rag or fiat money. The reproach loses sight of the fact that the currency problems, with which he had to deal, did not turn upon the true respective functions of paper and real money, under conditions that permit their application to their several natural and proper uses. No such conditions existed in America during the colonial period or the Revolutionary War. There was no California, Alaska, Nevada, or Colorado then. "Gold and Silver," Franklin said in 1767, in his _Remarks and Facts Concerning American Paper Money_, "are not the Produce of _North-America_, which has no Mines." Every civilized community, unless it is to be remanded to mere barter, must have some kind of convenient medium for the exchange of commodities and the payment of debts, even though it be no better than wampum or tobacco. Paper money, whether it bore interest or not, and whether it was a legal tender or not, was, unsupported by any real provision for its redemption, a dangerous currency for America, in her early history, as it is for any country, whatever its state of maturity; but she had no choice. It was either that or something not even as good on the whole for monetary purposes. Not only were there no gold or silver mines in North America, but the balance of trade between the Colonies and Great Britain was so greatly in favor of the latter country that even such gold and silver coin, as found its way to them, was at once drawn off to her. However fit [bitterly declared Franklin in the pamphlet, to which we have just referred], a particular Thing may be for a particular Purpose, wherever that Thing is not to be had, or not to be had in sufficient Plenty, it becomes necessary to use something else, the fittest that can be got, in lieu of it. In America, this undoubtedly was a paper currency, even though issued as real, and not representative, money. At times, in the history of the Colonies, it worked much pecuniary loss and debasement of morals, but, makeshift as it was, it was the best makeshift that the situation of the Colonies allowed; and, when New England petitioned for the Act of Parliament, depriving it of the legal-tender quality within her limits, it was only, Franklin contended, because the close intercourse between the four provinces, of which she was constituted, and the large supply of hard money, derived by her from her whale and cod fisheries, took the sting out of the act. But, when the act was afterwards extended to the other colonies, it became a real grievance, and, as such, was stated by Franklin, in his examination before the House of Commons, to be one of the causes, which had lessened the respect of the Colonies for Parliament. "It seems hard therefore," he said in the paper just mentioned, "to draw all their real Money from them, and then refuse them the poor Privilege of using Paper instead of it." In the same essay, the circumstances, in which the need for a paper currency in the Colonies originated, are stated in his perspicuous manner: "The Truth is, that the Balance of their Trade with Britain being generally against them, the Gold and Silver is drawn out to pay that Balance; and then the Necessity of some Medium of Trade has induced the making of Paper Money, which could not be carried away." In his capacity as colonial agent, Franklin earnestly strove to secure the repeal of the British legislation, forbidding the use of paper money in the Colonies as a legal tender, and he even enlisted for this purpose the aid of a large body of London merchants, engaged in the American trade, but his efforts met with slight success. Some of the members of the Board of Trade, who had united in recommending the restraint upon colonial paper money, were, it was said, at the time in the state of mind of Soame Jenyns, who had laughingly declared, when he was asked as a member of the Board to concur in some measure, "I have no kind of objection to it, provided we have heretofore signed nothing to the contrary."[45] Worse still, Grenville threw out the chilling suggestion in the House of Commons that Great Britain should make the paper money for the Colonies, issue it upon loan there, take the interest and apply it as Parliament might think proper.[46] This suggestion, and the interest excited by it led to a letter from Franklin to Galloway in which he said that he was not for applying again very soon for a repeal of the restraining act. "I am afraid," he remarked, "an ill use will be made of it. The plan of our adversaries is to render Assemblies in America useless; and to have a revenue independent of their grants, for all the purposes of their defence, and supporting governments among them." These comments were followed by the suggestion that the Pennsylvania Assembly might be petitioned by the more prominent citizens of Pennsylvania to authorize a moderate emission of paper money, though without the legal-tender feature; the petition to be accompanied by a mutual engagement upon the part of the petitioners to take the money in all business transactions at rates fixed by law. Or, perhaps, Franklin said, a bank might be established that would meet the currency needs of the community. In any event, should the scarcity of money continue, they would rely more upon their own industrial resources, to the detriment of the British merchant, and by keeping in Pennsylvania the real cash, that came into it, would, in time, have a quantity sufficient for all their occasions. The same thought, tinged with a trace of resentment, emerges in one of his letters to Lord Kames: As I think a scarcity of money will work with our other present motives for lessening our fond extravagance in the use of the superfluous manufactures of this country, which unkindly grudges us the enjoyment of common rights, and will tend to lead us naturally into industry and frugality, I am grown more indifferent about the repeal of the act, and, if my countrymen will be advised by me, we shall never ask it again.[47] The relations sustained by Franklin to the Continental paper currency we have already seen. There was an apparent element of inconsistency in his suggestion that it should bear interest; for interest-bearing bills, he had contended in his _Remarks and Facts Concerning American Paper Money_, were objectionable as currency, because it was tedious to calculate interest on one of them, as often as it changed hands, and also because a distinct advantage was to be gained by hoarding them. The Continental bills depreciated so rapidly that in 1777 the price of a bushel of salt at Baltimore was nine pounds. Three years later, the price of a yard of cassimere in America was $300, and of a yard of jean and habit cloth $60. Inflated as the bills were, Franklin with his cheerful habit of mind was not at a loss to say a good word for them. There was some advantage to the general public, at any rate, he wrote to Stephen Sayre, in the facility with which taxes could be paid off with the depreciated paper. Congress, he wrote to Dr. Cooper, had blundered in not earlier adopting his suggestion that the interest on the bills should be paid in real money. The _only Remedy_ now [he said] seems to be a Diminution of the Quantity by a vigourous Taxation, of great nominal Sums, which the People are more able to pay, in proportion to the Quantity and diminished Value; and the _only Consolation_ under the Evil is, that the Publick Debt is proportionably diminish'd with the Depreciation; and this by a kind of imperceptible Tax, everyone having paid a Part of it in the Fall of Value that took place between his receiving and Paying such Sums as pass'd thro' his hands. In this same letter, Franklin declared that it was a mystery to foreign politicians how America had been able to continue a war for four years without money, and how it could pay with paper that had no previously fixed fund appropriated specifically to redeem it. "This Currency, as we manage it," he said, "is a wonderful Machine. It performs its Office when we issue it; it pays and clothes Troops, and provides Victuals and Ammunition; and when we are obliged to issue a Quantity excessive, it pays itself off by Depreciation." The paper he subsequently wrote to Thomas Ruston had really operated as a tax, and was perhaps the most equal of all taxes, since it depreciated in the hands of holders of money, and thereby taxed them in proportion to the sums they held and the time they held them, which generally was in proportion to men's wealth. All this, of course, was but making the best of a _pis-aller_. Franklin in a sense held a brief for paper money all his life, because, during almost his whole life, his country had to put up with paper money, whether she wanted to do so or not. When the Revolutionary War was over, he could be less of an advocate, and more of a judge with respect to such money; and the change is neatly illustrated in the words that he wrote from Philadelphia to the Duc de la Rochefoucauld in 1787. "Paper money in moderate quantities has been found beneficial; when more than the occasions of commerce require, it depreciated and was mischievous; and the populace are apt to demand more than is necessary." To see at once how quickly Franklin could evade the danger, lurking in the proposition, urged by John Adams upon Vergennes, that the subjects of King Louis were as fairly amenable to the will of Congress, in reducing the value of paper money in their hands to one part in forty, as the Americans themselves, and yet how perfectly Franklin understood the workings of a depreciated paper currency, we need but turn to a letter from him to M. Le Veillard dated Feb. 17, 1788. Where there is a free government [he said in this letter] and the people make their own laws by their representatives, I see no injustice in their obliging one another to take their own paper money. It is no more so than compelling a man by law to take his own note. But it is unjust to pay strangers with such money against their will. The making of paper money with such a sanction is however a folly, since, although you may by law oblige a citizen to take it for his goods, you cannot fix his prices; and his liberty of rating them as he pleases, which is the same thing as setting what value he pleases on your money, defeats your sanction. Franklin was a free-trader, but his opinions with regard to import duties are sometimes streaked with Protectionist reasoning. All the natural leanings of such a broad-minded man were, it almost goes without saying, in favor of unrestricted commerce. His general attitude towards commercial restrictions was emphatically expressed in one of his letters to Peter Collinson from which we have already quoted. In time perhaps [he said] Mankind may be wise enough to let Trade take its own Course, find its own Channels, and regulate its own Proportions, etc. At present, most of the Edicts of Princes, Placaerts, Laws & Ordinances of Kingdoms & States for that purpose, prove political Blunders. The Advantages they produce not being _general_ for the Commonwealth; but _particular_, to private Persons or Bodies in the State who procur'd them, and _at the Expence of the rest of the People_. Many years later, he wrote to Benjamin Vaughan, "The making England entirely a free port would have been the wisest step ever taken for its advantage." In recent years, his _Wail of a Protected Manufacturer_ has been reprinted and widely circulated in England by the opponents of the Fair Trade movement: Suppose a country, X, which has three industries--cloth, silk, iron--and supplies three other countries--A, B, and C--therewith, wishes to increase the sale and raise the price of cloth in favour of its cloth-makers. To that end X prohibits the importation of cloth from A. In retaliation A prohibits silks coming from X. The workers in silk complain of the decline in their trade. To satisfy them X excludes silk from B. B, to retaliate, shuts out iron and hardware against X. Then the makers of iron and hardware cry out that their trades are being ruined. So X closes its doors against iron and hardware from C. In return C refuses to take cloth from X. Who is the gainer by all these prohibitions? Answer All the four countries have diminished their common fund of the enjoyments and conveniences of life. The open ports of the United States, after the conclusion of the American Revolution, were a source of keen gratification to Franklin. They had brought in, he thought, a vast plenty of foreign goods, and occasioned a demand for domestic produce; so that America enjoyed the double advantage of buying what they consumed cheap, and of selling what they could spare dear. The following views in a letter from him to Jared Eliot, as far back as the year 1747, sound like a recent tariff reform speech in Congress: First, I imagine that the Five Per Cent Duty on Goods imported from your Neighbouring Governments, tho' paid at first Hand by the Importer, will not upon the whole come out of his Pocket, but be paid in Fact by the Consumer; for the Importer will be sure to sell his Goods as much dearer as to reimburse himself; so that it is only another Mode of Taxing your own People tho' perhaps meant to raise Money on your Neighbours. But then follows what a free trader, using Franklin's own coarse phrase, might call "spitting in the soup." "Yet, if you can make some of the Goods, heretofore imported, among yourselves, the advanc'd price of five per cent may encourage your own Manufacture, and in time make the Importation of such Articles unnecessary, which will be an Advantage." In another place, he employed language in harmony with the importance that the Protectionist assigns to his favorite system as a means of building up local markets for the produce of the farmer.[48] It may be truly said, however, as has already been hinted, that Franklin was never more friendly to the principle of international free trade than in the latter years of his life. In his letter to Le Veillard of Feb. 17, 1788, he used language which demonstrates that he was still convinced that import duties are paid by the consumer, and in an earlier letter to Robert R. Livingston in 1783 he said that he felt inclined to believe that a State, which left all her ports open to all the world, upon equal terms, would, by that means, have foreign commodities cheaper, sell its own productions dearer and be on the whole the most prosperous. For export duties, he had a fierce contempt. "To lay duties on a commodity exported, which our neighbours want," he wrote to James Lovell in 1778, "is a knavish attempt to get something for nothing. The statesman who first invented it had the genius of a pickpocket, and would have been a pickpocket if fortune had suitably placed him." How thoroughly Franklin understood the principles, which regulate the ebb and flow of population, we have had occasion to note. With equal intelligence, he laid bare the pauperizing effect of aid injudiciously extended to the poor in too generous a measure. Commenting in his essay on the Laboring Poor on the liberal provision, made for indigence in England, he said: I fear the giving mankind a dependance on anything for support, in age or sickness, besides industry and frugality during youth and health, tends to flatter our natural indolence, to encourage idleness and prodigality, and thereby to promote and increase poverty, the very evil it was intended to cure; thus multiplying beggars instead of diminishing them. In his essay, Franklin makes the interesting statement that the condition of the poor in England was by far the best in Europe; "for that," he adds, "except in England and her American colonies, there is not in any country of the known world, not even in Scotland or Ireland, a provision by law to enforce a support of the poor. Everywhere else necessity reduces to beggary." The whole essay is a highly ingenious argument to the effect that it is a misconception to think of a rich man as the sole possessor of his wealth, and that in one way or another the laboring poor have the usufruct of the entire clear income of all the property owners in the community. Nobody knew better than Poor Richard that no help is worth speaking of save that which promotes self-help. The support of the poor [he wrote to Richard Jackson] should not be by maintaining them in idleness, but by employing them in some kind of labour suited to their abilities of body, as I am informed begins to be of late the practice in many parts of England, where workhouses are erected for that purpose. If these were general, I should think the poor would be more careful, and work voluntarily to lay up something for themselves against a rainy day, rather than run the risk of being obliged to work at the pleasure of others for a bare subsistence, and that too under confinement. For Agriculture, Franklin always had an appreciative word. "Agriculture," he observed in a letter to Cadwallader Evans, "is truly _productive of new wealth_; manufacturers only change forms, and, whatever value they give to the materials they work upon, they in the meantime consume an equal value in provisions, &c." His other observations on Agriculture are worthy of being read for the light that they cast on his own character, if for no other reason. It is, he declared, in a letter to Jonathan Shipley, "the most useful, the most independent, and therefore the noblest of Employments." Another remark of his in his _Positions to be Examined, Concerning National Wealth_ is that there seemed to him but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth: The first is by _war_, as the Romans did, in plundering their conquered neighbors. This is _robbery_. The second by _commerce_, which is _generally_ cheating. The third by _agriculture_, the only _honest way_, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the hand of God in his favour, as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous industry. The same spirit gives life to the following observations too in his essay on "The Internal State of America": "The Agriculture and Fisheries of the United States are the great Sources of our Encreasing Wealth. He that puts a Seed into the Earth is recompens'd, perhaps, by receiving twenty out of it; and he who draws a Fish out of our Waters, draws up a Piece of Silver." In Franklin's time as now there was a feeling that the farmer did not receive his full share of the blessings of organized society. In his _Price of Corn, and Management of the Poor_, he makes a farmer say, "I am one of that class of people, that feeds you all, and at present is abused by you all. In short I am a _farmer_." Franklin's views about punishment were also conspicuously worthy of his kind heart and sound sense. His letter to Benjamin Vaughan on the Criminal Laws is one of his best essays, and merited the honor conferred on it by Samuel Romilly, when he added it in the form of an appendix to his own observations on _Dr. Madan's Thoughts on Executive Justice_. In the course of his feeling exposures of existing fallacies with respect to the philosophy of punishment, Franklin, who did not scruple to say that there would be less crime, if there were no criminal laws, asked these searching questions: I see, in the last Newspaper from London, that a Woman is capitally convicted at the Old Bailey, for privately stealing out of a Shop some Gauze, value 14 Shillings and three pence; is there any Proportion between the Injury done by a Theft, value 14/3, and the Punishment of a human Creature, by Death, on a Gibbet? Might not that Woman, by her Labour, have made the Reparation ordain'd by God, in paying fourfold? Is not all Punishment inflicted beyond the Merit of the Offence, so much Punishment of Innocence? In this light, how vast is the annual Quantity of not only _injured_, but _suffering_ Innocence, in almost all the civilized States of Europe! That Franklin was opposed to imprisonment for debt it is hardly necessary to say. His sense of humor, if nothing else, was sufficient to point out to him the absurdity of depriving a debtor of all means of earning money until he earned enough to satisfy his creditors. John Baynes, in his Journal, informs us that, in a conversation with him, Franklin expressed his disapprobation of "this usage" in very strong terms. He said he could not compare any sum of money with imprisonment--they were not commensurable quantities. Both slavery and the slave trade were held by Franklin in just reprobation, but his views on these subjects, it must be confessed, would be weightier, if he had not trafficked at one time in slaves himself. As it is, he occupies somewhat the same equivocal position as that which inspired Thomas Moore to pen the blackguard lines in which he pictured the American slaveholding patriot as dreaming of Freedom in his bondmaid's arms.[49] The economic truth, however, of what he had to say about Slave Labor in his essay on "The Increase of Mankind" is undeniable. Tis an ill-grounded Opinion [he declared] that by the Labour of slaves, _America_ may possibly vie in Cheapness of Manufactures with _Britain_. The Labour of Slaves here can never be so cheap here as the Labour of working Men is in _Britain_. Anyone may compute it. Interest of Money is in the Colonies from 6 to 10 per Cent. Slaves one with another cost 30£ Sterling per Head. Reckon then the Interest of the first Purchase of a Slave, the Insurance or Risque on his Life, his Cloathing and Diet, Expences in his Sickness and Loss of Time, Loss by his Neglect of Business (Neglect is natural to the Man who is not to be benefited by his own Care or Diligence), Expence of a Driver to keep him at Work, and his Pilfering from Time to Time, almost every Slave being _by Nature_ a Thief, and compare the whole Amount with the Wages of a Manufacturer of Iron or Wool in _England_, you will see that Labour is much cheaper there than it ever can be by Negroes here. In this essay, the introduction of slaves is enumerated as one of the causes that diminish the growth of white population. The Negroes brought into the _English_ Sugar _Islands_ [he says] have greatly diminish'd the Whites there; the Poor are by this Means deprived of Employment, while a few Families acquire vast Estates; which they spend on Foreign Luxuries, and educating their Children in the Habit of those Luxuries; the same Income is needed for the Support of one that might have maintain'd 100. The Whites who have Slaves, not labouring, are enfeebled, and therefore not so generally prolific; the Slaves being work'd too hard, and ill fed, their Constitutions are broken, and the Deaths among them are more than the Births; so that a continual Supply is needed from _Africa_. The Northern Colonies, having few Slaves, increase in Whites. Slaves also pejorate the Families that use them; the white Children become proud, disgusted with Labour, and being educated in Idleness, are rendered unfit to get a Living by Industry.[50] FOOTNOTES: [10] There is no evidence that, while he was a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, Franklin ever had occasion, as every member of an American State legislature is likely to have, to deal with a bill for the extermination of hawks and owls; but a skeleton sketch by his hand of his services as an assemblyman shows that he shared the fate of the ordinary member of an American State legislature in having a bill relating to dogs referred to a Committee of which he was a member. [11] Franklin, though in no sense a time server, rarely got out of touch with the majority simply because he always saw things as the best collective intelligence of the community is likely to see them--only a little sooner and more clearly. "Friend Joseph," one Quaker is said to have asked of an acquaintance, "didst thee ever know Dr. Franklin to be in a minority?" [12] "I believe it will in time be clearly seen by all thinking People that the Government and Property of a Province should not be in the same family. Tis too much weight in one scale." Letter from Franklin to Israel Pemberton, Mar. 19, 1759. [13] In 1768, the revenues of the Proprietaries from their Pennsylvania estates were estimated by Joseph Galloway to be not much short of one hundred thousand pounds. [14] "The shocking news of the strange, unprecedented and ignominious defeat of General Braddock," William Franklin said, "had no more effect upon Governor Morris than the miracles of Moses had on the heart of Pharaoh." [15] Franklin's first impressions of Lord Loudon were very different from his later ones. In a letter to Strahan from New York, dated July 27, 1756, he said: "I have had the honour of several conferences with him on our American affairs, and am extremely pleased with him. I think there can not be a fitter person for the service he is engaged in." [16] In connection with this feature of the proposed Plan of Union, Franklin gives us some interesting facts in regard to the distances that could be made in a day's journey in America in 1754. Philadelphia, he said, was named as the place for the first meeting of the Grand Council because it was central, and accessible by high roads, which were for the most part so good that forty or fifty miles a day might very well be, and frequently were, travelled over them. It could also be reached under very favorable conditions by water. In summer the passage from Charleston to Philadelphia often did not consume more than a week. Two or three days were required for the passage from Rhode Island to New York, through the Sound, and the distance between New York and Philadelphia could be covered in two days by stage-boats and wheel-carriages that set out every other day. The transit from Charleston to Philadelphia could be facilitated by the use of the Chesapeake Bay. But, if all the members of the Grand Council were to set out for Philadelphia on horseback, the most distant ones, those from New Hampshire and South Carolina, could probably arrive at their destination in fifteen or twenty days. [17] Another good Indian story is told by Franklin in his _Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America_: "A Swedish Minister, having assembled the chiefs of the Susquehanah Indians, made a Sermon to them, acquainting them with the principal historical Facts on which our Religion is founded; such as the Fall of our First Parents by eating an Apple, the coming of Christ to repair the Mischief, his Miracles and Suffering, &c. When he had finished, an Indian Orator stood up to thank him. 'What you have told us,' says he, 'is all very good. It is indeed bad to eat Apples. It is better to make them all into Cyder. We are much oblig'd by your kindness in coming so far, to tell us these Things which you have heard from your Mothers. In return, I will tell you some of those we have heard from ours. In the Beginning, our Fathers had only the Flesh of Animals, to subsist on; and if their Hunting was unsuccessful, they were starving. Two of our young Hunters, having kill'd a Deer, made a Fire in the Woods to broil some Part of it. When they were about to satisfy their Hunger, they beheld a beautiful young Woman descend from the Clouds, and seat herself on that Hill, which you see yonder among the blue Mountains. They said to each other, it is a Spirit that has smelt our broiling Venison, and wishes to eat of it; let us offer some to her. They presented her with the Tongue; she was pleas'd with the Taste of it, and said, "Your kindness shall be rewarded; come to this Place after thirteen Moons, and you shall find something that will be of great Benefit in nourishing you and your children to the latest Generations." They did so, and, to their surprise, found Plants they had never seen before; but which, from that ancient time, have been constantly cultivated among us, to our great Advantage. Where her right Hand had touched the Ground, they found Maize; where her left hand had touch'd it, they found Kidney-Beans, and where her Back side had sat on it they found Tobacco.' The good Missionary, disgusted with this idle Tale, said: 'What I delivered to you were sacred Truths; but what you tell me is mere Fable, Fiction, and Falsehood.' The Indian, offended, reply'd, 'My brother, it seems your Friends have not done you Justice in your Education; they have not well instructed you in the Rules of common Civility. You saw that we, who understand and practise those Rules, believ'd all your stories; why do you refuse to believe ours?'" [18] When asked in the course of his examination before the House of Commons what the temper of America towards Great Britain was before the year 1763, Franklin made this reply: "The best in the world. They submitted willingly to the government of the Crown, and paid, in all their courts, obedience to acts of parliament. Numerous as the people are in the several provinces, they cost you nothing in forts, citadels, garrisons, or armies, to keep them in subjection. They were governed by this country at the expence only of a little pen, ink and paper. They were led by a thread. They had not only a respect, but an affection for Great-Britain; for its laws, its customs and manners, and even a fondness for its fashions, that greatly increased the commerce. Natives of Britain were always treated with particular regard; to be an Old England man was, of itself, a character of some respect, and gave a kind of rank among us." How little colored by the exigencies of the moment these words were is made apparent in a letter from Franklin to Francis Maseres after the independence of the Colonies had been acknowledged by England. "The true _loyalists_ were the people of America, against whom they (the Tories) acted. No people were ever known more truly loyal, and universally so, to their sovereigns. The Protestant succession in the House of Hanover was their idol. Not a Jacobite was to be found from one end of the Colonies to the other. They were affectionate to the people of England, zealous and forward to assist in her wars, by voluntary contributions of men and money, even beyond their proportion. The King and Parliament had frequently acknowledged this by public messages, resolutions, and reimbursements. But they were equally fond of what they esteemed their rights; and, if they resisted when those were attacked, it was a resistance in favour of a British constitution, which every Englishman might share in enjoying, who should come to live among them; it was resisting arbitrary impositions, that were contrary to common right and to their fundamental constitutions, and to constant ancient usage. It was indeed a resistance in favour of the liberties of England, which might have been endangered by success in the attempt against ours; and therefore a great man in your Parliament did not scruple to declare, he _rejoiced that America had resisted_. I, for the same reason, may add this very resistance to the other instances of their loyalty." [19] The view that Franklin took of the constitutional tie between Great Britain and America was expressed in many different forms. One of the concisest is to be found in a letter to his grandnephew Jonathan Williams, dated Feb. 12, 1786, and, therefore, written after the tie, whatever its exact nature was, had become a subject for the historian rather than the politician. Speaking of a controversy in which Williams had been involved, he says: "It seems to me that instead of discussing _When_ we ceas'd to be British Subjects you should have deny'd our _ever having been such_. We were Subjects to the King of G. Britain, as were also the Irish, the Jersey and Guernsey People and the Hanoverians, but we were American Subjects as they were Irish, Jersey and Hanoverian Subjects. None are British Subjects but those under the Parliament of Britain." [20] "Your medallion is in good company; it is placed with those of Lord Chatham, Lord Camden, Marquis of Rockingham, Sir George Saville, and some others, who honoured me with a show of friendly regard, when in England." (Letter from Franklin to Geo. Whatley, May 18, 1787.) [21] This idea is advanced also in _The Mother Country_, _A Song_, which Jared Sparks thought was probably written by Franklin about the time of the Stamp Act or a little later: "We have an old mother that peevish is grown; She snubs us like children that scarce walk alone; She forgets we're grown up and have sense of our own; Which nobody can deny, deny, Which nobody can deny. If we don't obey orders, whatever the case, She frowns, and she chides and she loses all pati- Ence, and sometimes she hits us a slap in the face, Which nobody can deny, etc. Her orders so odd are, we often suspect That age has impaired her sound intellect. But still an old mother should have due respect, Which nobody can deny, etc. Let's bear with her humors as well as we can; But why should we bear the abuse of her man? When servants make mischief, they earn the rattan, Which nobody should deny, etc. Know too, ye bad neighbours, who aim to divide The sons from the mother, that still she's our pride; And if ye attack her we're all of her side, Which nobody can deny, etc. We'll join in her lawsuits, to baffle all those, Who, to get what she has, will be often her foes; For we know it must all be our own, when she goes, Which nobody can deny, deny, Which nobody can deny." [22] "But there can hardly be a doubt, as between the America and the England of the future, that the daughter, at some no very distant time, will, whether fairer or less fair, be unquestionably yet stronger than the mother. "'O matre forti filia fortior.'" _Kin Beyond Sea_, by William E. Gladstone. [23] Jared Sparks hardly overstates the case when he asserts that the policy and acts of Lord Hillsborough contributed more, perhaps, than those of any other man towards increasing the discontents which led to the separation of the Colonies from Great Britain. [24] On Jan. 28, 1820, John Adams stated in a letter to Dr. Hosack, of New York, that Temple had told him in Holland that he had communicated the Hutchinson letters to Dr. Franklin, though "I swear to you," he said to Adams, "that I did not procure them in the manner represented." [25] Worldly success has rarely been less effective in gilding an unworthy character than it was in the case of Wedderburn. American indignation over his tirade against Franklin, indecent as it was under the circumstances, would seem to be somewhat overdone, when we remember the professional license allowed from time immemorial to the pleas of lawyers. It is enough to say that we can safely leave his English contemporaries to take care of his forbidding reputation. The searing irons of two of the most ferocious satirists of literary history have left ineffaceable scars upon his forehead. In the _Rosciad_ Churchill lifted the veil from the future in these terms: "To mischief train'd, e'en from his mother's womb, Grown old in fraud, tho. yet in manhood's bloom, Adopting arts, by which gay villains rise, And reach the heights, which honest men despise." "In vain," Junius wrote to the Duke of Grafton, some ten years later, "would our gracious sovereign have looked round him for another character as consummate as yours. Lord Mansfield shrinks from his principles; Charles Fox is yet in blossom; and as for Mr. Wedderburn, there is something about him which even treachery can not trust." But the "gracious sovereign," to whom Wedderburn, afterwards Lord Rosslyn, sold his Whig principles, when they had reached just the right stage of merchantable maturity, was equally hard upon him. "When he died," Lord Brougham tells us, "after a few hours' illness, the intelligence was brought to the King, who, with a circumspection abundantly characteristic, asked the bearer of it if he was quite _sure_ of the fact, as Lord Rosslyn had not been ailing before; and, upon being assured that a sudden attack of gout in the stomach had really ended the days of his late servant and once assiduous courtier, his majesty was graciously pleased to exclaim: 'Then he has not left a worse man behind him.'" [26] It is hard to think of a man, whose life was so essentially urban as that of Franklin, becoming a backwoodsman, but such he was ready to become, if necessary. In his _Hints for a Reply to the Protests of Certain Members of the House of Lords against the Repeal of the Stamp Act_, he uses this resolute language: "I can only Judge of others by myself. I have some little property in America. I will freely spend nineteen shillings in the pound to defend my right of giving or refusing the other shilling, and, after all, if I can not defend that right, I can retire cheerfully with my little family into the boundless woods of America, which are sure to afford freedom and subsistence to any man who can bait a hook or pull a trigger." [27] In 1780, Franklin wrote from Passy to Georgiana Shipley: "I am unhappily an Enemy, yet I think there has been enough of Blood spilt, and I wish what is left in the Veins of that once lov'd People, may be spared by a Peace solid and everlasting." [28] Franklin's three political hobbies were gratuitous public service, a plural executive and a single legislature. Through his influence, the second and third of these two ideas were engrafted upon the Revolutionary Constitution of the State of Pennsylvania, and were later ably defended by him, when assailed. The manner in which he illustrated his opposition to a bi-cameral legislature is well-known. "Has not," he said, "the famous political Fable of the Snake, with two Heads and one Body, some useful Instruction contained in it? She was going to a Brook to drink, and in her Way was to pass thro' a Hedge, a Twig of which opposed her direct course; one Head chose to go on the right side of the Twig, the other on the left; so that time was spent in the Contest, and, before the Decision was completed, the poor Snake died with thirst." As far as carrying the idea of gratuitous public service into execution was concerned, Franklin, of course, might as well have attempted to grow pineapples in the squares of Philadelphia. [29] In his Diary John Adams states shortly after his arrival in France that it was said among other things that Arthur Lee had given offence by an unhappy disposition, and by indiscreet speeches before servants and others concerning the French nation and government--despising and cursing them. [30] Deprived of its epigrammatic form, this estimate does not differ so very greatly from that of Jefferson a few years later: "He is vain, irritable and a bad calculator of the force and probable effects of the motives which govern men. This is all the ill which can possibly be said of him. He is as disinterested as the being who made him; he is profound in his views and accurate in his judgment, except when a knowledge of the world is necessary to form a judgment. He is so amiable, that I pronounce you will love him if ever you become acquainted with him. He would be, as he was, a great man in Congress." [31] On Oct. 29, 1778, Vergennes finally wrote to Gérard, the French Minister at Philadelphia, that his fear of Lee and of _ses entours_ made the communication of state secrets to him impossible, and he instructed Gérard to inform Congress that Lee's conduct had "created the highest disgust" in the courts of France and Spain. It is doubtful whether any man of the same degree of parts, courage and patriotic constancy as Arthur Lee was ever more irredeemably condemned by the general verdict of his contemporaries or posterity. It would be a profitless task to bring together the most notable of these judgments. Jefferson summed up most of them in a few words: "Dr. Lee," he said, "was his (Franklin's) principal calumniator, a man of much malignity, who, besides enlisting his whole family in the same hostility, was enabled, as the agent of Massachusetts with the British Government, to infuse it into that State with considerable effect. Mr. Izard, the Doctor's enemy also, but from a pecuniary transaction, never countenanced these charges against him. Mr. Jay, Silas Deane, Mr. Laurens, his colleagues also, ever maintained towards him unlimited confidence and respect." Silas Deane, the most efficient envoy except Franklin sent abroad by Congress during the Revolution, derived a degree of unaffected pleasure from the respect felt for Franklin in France that contrasts most favorably with the base jealousy of Arthur Lee and the ignoble jealousy of John Adams. After telling how the French populace on a certain occasion showed Franklin a measure of deference seldom paid to their first princes of the blood, he says: "When he attended the operas and plays, similar honors were paid him, and I confess I felt a joy and pride which was pure and honest, though not disinterested, for I considered it an honor to be known to be an American and his acquaintance." [32] John Adams admits in his Diary that Deane was "active, diligent, subtle and successful, having accomplished the great purpose of his mission to advantage." After the recall of Deane from France, Franklin wrote of him to Henry Laurens: "Having lived intimately with him now fifteen months, the greatest part of the time in the same House, and been a constant witness of his public Conduct, I can not omit giving this Testimony, tho. unasked, in his Behalf, that I esteem him a faithful, active, and able Minister, who, to my Knowledge, has done in various ways great and important Service to his Country, whose Interests I wish may always, by every one in her employ, be as much and as effectually promoted." On other occasions, Franklin spoke in equally laudatory terms of the abilities and services of Deane. But when Deane, soured by the persistent malevolence of Arthur Lee and the injustice of Congress, was weak enough to fall away from "the glorious cause," Franklin gave him up. "I see no place for him but England," he wrote to Robert Morris. "He continues, however, to sit croaking at Ghent chagrined, discontented, and dispirited." Franklin, however, was too nice a judge of conduct, and of the balanced considerations, which have to be taken into account in passing upon it, not to refer later to Deane as "poor, unhappy Deane,"--language such as he would have been the last man in the world to use with regard to a perfidious scoundrel like Benedict Arnold. [33] The Diary of John Adams shows that shortly after he arrived in France Franklin took pains to lay before him the lamentable situation created by the impracticable tempers of the Lees and Izard. It would have been well for the reputation of Adams if this conversation had resulted in a thorough understanding between Franklin and himself, but the bias that he brought to France as a member of the Adams-Lee faction in Congress and the inability of his egotistical, jealous, suspicious and bustling, though honorable and fearless, nature, to reconcile itself to the overshadowing fame and influence of Franklin at the French Court drew him into working relations with Lee and Izard, which abundantly verified all that Franklin had said to him about them. "There are two men in the world," he declares in his Diary, "who are men of honor and integrity, I believe, but whose prejudices and violent tempers would raise quarrels in the Elysian fields, if not in Heaven." At times the vanity of Adams--easily mortified, easily elated as all vanity is--was humbled by some fresh proof of the dwarfing prominence of Franklin. "Neither Lee nor myself is looked upon of much consequence," he observes in his Diary. On another occasion, when Arthur Lee suggested that the papers of the mission should be kept in a room in his own house, Adams objected for the reason, among others, that nine tenths of the public letters would ever be carried where Dr. Franklin was. These were but temporary reactions. When down, the vanity of Adams was soon on its legs again. The reminder given by Vergennes to the officious, tactless reasonings and strictures, to which he was subjected by Adams, that Franklin was the sole American plenipotentiary in France, and the steps that the latter was compelled to take, both by the request of Vergennes and his own sense of the peril, that such injudicious conduct on the part of Adams signified to the American cause, to smooth over the rupture, sent Adams off to Holland in a resentful but subdued state of mind. But his success in negotiating a loan in Holland and the prospect of engaging in a matter of such supreme importance as the final negotiations for peace lifted him up to giddy heights of intoxicated self-importance again. Referring to the loan in his Diary, he says: "The compliment of _Monsieur_, _Vous êtes le Washington de la négociation_ (Sir, you are the Washington of the negotiation) was repeated to me by more than one person.... A few of these compliments would kill Franklin if they should come to his ears." His observations in his Diary on Jay and Franklin, when he came over to France to participate with them in the final negotiations for peace, are equally characteristic. "Between two as subtle spirits as any in this world, the one malicious, the other, I think honest, I shall have a delicate, a nice, a critical part to act. Franklin's cunning will be to divide us; to this end he will provoke, he will insinuate, he will intrigue, he will manoeuvre. My curiosity will at least be employed in observing his invention and his artifice." [34] "I think," said Franklin in a letter to Charles W. F. Dumas, in 1778, "that a young State like a young Virgin, should modestly stay at home, & wait the Application of Suitors for an Alliance with her; and not run about offering her Amity to all the World; and hazarding their Refusal." "Our Virgin," he added a line or so later, "is a jolly one; and tho. at present not very rich, Will in time be a great Fortune." [35] Franklin was entirely cognizant of the motive by which Lee was influenced. Referring in a letter to Thomas Cushing, dated July 7, 1773, to censure with which he had been visited for supposed neglect in not sending earlier intelligence to Massachusetts of certain English measures affecting her welfare, he said, "This Censure, tho. grievous, does not so much surprize me, as I apprehended from the Beginning, that between the Friends of an old Agent, my Predecessor, who thought himself hardly us'd in his Dismission, and those of a young one impatient for the Succession, my situation was not likely to be a very comfortable one, as my Faults could scarce pass unobserved." [36] On one occasion this expression gave rise to an incident that is worth recalling. We tell it as it is told by Parton. A large cake was sent to the apartment in which the envoys were assembled, bearing this inscription: _Le digne Franklin_--the worthy Franklin. Upon reading the inscription, Mr. Deane said: "As usual, Doctor, we have to thank you for our accommodation, and to appropriate your present to our joint use." "Not at all," said Franklin, "this must be intended for all the Commissioners; only these French people can not write English. They mean no doubt, Lee, Deane, Franklin." "That might answer," remarked the magnanimous Lee, "but we know that whenever they remember us at all they always put you first." [37] "It must," Adams says in his letter to the Boston _Patriot_ of Aug. 21, 1811, with the whiff of bombast that is wafted to us from so many of his vigorous and vivid utterances, "suffice to say that Mr. Izard, with a fund of honor, integrity, candor and benevolence in his character, which must render him eternally estimable in the sight of all moral and social beings, was, nevertheless, the most passionate, and in his passions the most violent and unbridled in his expressions, of any man I ever knew." [38] In the latter part of his life, it must have severely taxed the memory of Franklin to recollect all the honors paid to him by educational institutions and learned societies of one kind or another. The honorary degree of Master of Arts was conferred on him in July, 1753, by Harvard College, and in September of the same year by Yale College. In April, 1756, the degree of Master of Arts was bestowed on him by William and Mary College. In 1759, he received the degree of Doctor in Laws from the University of St. Andrews, and in 1762, he was made a Doctor of Civil Laws by the University of Oxford. At various times in his life, he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, an Honorary Fellow of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, a member of the Royal Society of London, one of the eight foreign associates of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, an honorary member of the Medical Society of London, the first foreign associate of the Royal Society of Medicine at Paris, and a member of other learned societies or academies at Padua, Turin, Orleans, Madrid, Rotterdam, Göttingen and elsewhere. [39] "It would be difficult," says Count Ségur, "to describe the eagerness and delight with which the American envoys, the agents of a people in a state of insurrection against their monarch, were received in France, in the bosom of an ancient monarchy. Nothing could be more striking than the contrast between the luxury of our capital, the elegance of our fashions, the magnificence of Versailles, the still brilliant remains of the monarchical pride of Louis XIV., and the polished and superb dignity of our nobility on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the almost rustic apparel, the plain but firm demeanor, the free and direct language of the envoys, whose antique simplicity of dress and appearance seemed to have introduced within our walls, in the midst of the effeminate and servile refinement of the eighteenth century, some sages contemporary with Plato, or republicans of the age of Cato and of Fabius. This unexpected apparition produced upon us a greater effect in consequence of its novelty, and of its occurring precisely at the period when literature and philosophy had circulated amongst us an unusual desire for reforms, a disposition to encourage innovations, and the seeds of an ardent attachment to liberty." [40] Compassion, it must be confessed, was not the only motive that made Franklin so eager to secure the freedom of his imprisoned countrymen. "If we once had our Prisoners from England," he wrote to M. de Sartine on Feb. 13, 1780, "several other privateers would immediately be manned with them." [41] A Commissioner, Thomas Barclay, was appointed by Congress to audit the accounts of all the servants of the United States who had been entrusted with the expenditure of money in Europe during the Revolutionary War. "I rendered to him," said Franklin in a letter to Cyrus Griffin, the President of Congress, dated Nov. 29, 1788, "all my accounts, which he examined, and stated methodically. By this statement he found a balance due me on the 4th of May, 1785, of 7,533 livres, 19 sols, 3 den., which I accordingly received of the Congress banker; the difference between my statement and his being only seven sols, which by mistake I had overcharged;--about three pence half penny sterling." [42] The dogged steadfastness with which Vergennes pursued his task of humbling the pride and power of England through her rebellious colonies was in keeping with the main point of what Choiseul had said about him as the French Ambassador at Constantinople: "The Count de Vergennes has something to say against whatever is proposed to him, but he never finds any difficulty in carrying out his instructions. Were we to order him to send us the Vizier's head, he would write that it was dangerous, but the head would come." The levity of Maurepas, as President of the Council of State, and the grave diligence of Vergennes, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, led D'Aranda to say of them, "I chat with M. de Maurepas, I negotiate with M. de Vergennes." [43] In a letter to William Carmichael in 1788, after saying that he presumed that there would not be a vote against the election of Washington to the Presidency, Jefferson added: "It is more doubtful who will be Vice-President. The age of Dr. Franklin, and the doubt whether he would accept it, are the only circumstances that admit a question, but that he would be the man." Some twenty-two years afterwards, he wrote to Col. William Duane that he believed that a greater or better character than Franklin had rarely existed. [44] Optimist and thorough-going democrat as Franklin was, Shays' Rebellion and the heated conflict of opposing principles, concomitant with the adoption of the Federal Constitution, set up a slight current of reaction in his sanguine nature. On May 25, 1789, he wrote to Charles Carroll of Carrollton: "We have been guarding against an evil that old States are most liable to, _excess of power_, in the rulers; but our present danger seems to be _defect of obedience_ in the subjects." Some six months later, in his _Queries and Remarks respecting Alterations in the Constitution of Pennsylvania_, he quoted the advice of the prophet, "Stand in the old ways, view the ancient Paths, consider them well, and be not among those that are given to Change." But in this instance Franklin was really invoking the spirit of conservatism in aid of liberalism; for the occasion for the Biblical reference was the suggestion that the Pennsylvania Assembly should no longer consist of a single chamber but of an Upper House based on property and a Lower House based on population. [45] This remark brings up in a timely way another member of the Board of Trade, Lord Clare, whose habits were such as to aid us in understanding why the Board did not always retain a clear recollection of its past transactions. Speaking of an interview with him, Franklin wrote to his son: "He gave me a great deal of flummery; saying, that though at my Examination (before the House of Commons) I answered some of his questions a little pertly, yet he liked me, from that day, for the spirit I showed in defence of my country; and at parting, after we had drank a bottle and a half of claret each, he hugged and kissed me, protesting he never in his life met with a man he was so much in love with." [46] The story told by Franklin of a running colloquy between George Grenville, who had on one occasion, as usual, been denouncing the Americans as rebels and Colonel Onslow, a warm friend of America, is good enough to be related. After recalling the Roman practice of sending a commission to a disaffected province for the purpose of investigating the causes of its discontent, Onslow declared his willingness, if the House of Commons should think fit to appoint them, to go over to America _with that honorable gentleman_. "Upon this there was a great laugh, which continued some time, and was rather increased by Mr. Grenville's asking, 'Will the gentleman engage, that I shall be safe there? Can I be assured that I shall be allowed to come back again to make the report?' As soon as the laugh was so far subsided, as that Mr. Onslow could be heard again, he added: 'I can not absolutely engage for the honorable gentleman's safe return, but if he goes thither upon this service, I am strongly of opinion the _event_ will contribute greatly to the future quiet of both countries.' On which the laugh was renewed and redoubled." [47] The principal features of a plan for the issuance of a stable colonial currency proposed by Franklin and Governor Pownall to the British Ministry, in 1764, 1765 and 1766 were these: bills of credit to a certain amount were to be printed in England for the use of the Colonies; and a loan office was to be established in each colony, empowered to issue the bills, take security for their payment and receive payment of them. They were to be paid in full in ten years, and were to bear interest at the rate of five per centum per annum; and one tenth of the principal was to be paid each year with the proper proportion of interest. They were to be a legal tender. [48] "Here in England," Franklin wrote to Humphrey Marshall on Apr. 22, 1771, "it is well known and understood, that whenever a Manufacture is established which employs a Number of Hands, it raises the Value of Lands in the neighbouring Country all around it; partly by the greater Demand near at hand for the produce of the Land; and partly from the Plenty of Money drawn by the Manufacturers to that part of the Country. It seems therefore the Interest of all our Farmers and Owners of Lands, to encourage our Young Manufactures in preference to foreign ones imported among us from distant Countries." [49] The patriot, fresh from Freedom's Councils come, Now pleas'd retires to lash his slaves at home; Or woo, perhaps, some black Aspasia's charms, And dream of freedom in his bondsmaid's arms. To Thomas Hume, Esq., M.D. From the City of Washington. [50] By his will Franklin released his son-in-law from the payment of a bond for £2172, 5s, with the request that he would immediately after the death of the testator set free "his negro man Bob." CHAPTER IV Franklin as a Man of Science Franklin, as we have said, was primarily a man of action. If we do not always think of him as deeply involved in what Goethe calls "being's ocean, action's storm," it is only because he moved from appointed task to appointed task with such frictionless self-command and ease. But, throughout his life, his mind was quick to make excursions into the domain of philosophical speculation and experiment, whenever business cares or political responsibilities allowed it to do so. Poor Richard would seem to have little in common with Prometheus, but Prometheus, if Condorcet is to be believed, as well as Poor Richard, Franklin was; to say nothing of other transmigrations. That his interest in natural phenomena began at a very early age, is disclosed by his _Journal of a Voyage from London to Philadelphia_ in 1726, when he was in his twenty-first year. Throughout the course of this voyage, his faculties were intently concentrated upon all the marvels of the sea and its setting. With sedulous minuteness, he registers the state of the winds each day, and records the impression made on him by every object with a secret at its heart, to be plucked out by an inquisitive mind. A lunar rainbow, an eclipse of the sun, which darkened ten twelfths of his disk, an eclipse of the moon, which spread over six digits of her surface, dolphins in their bright mail of mixed green, silver and gold, a shark moving around the ship in a slow, majestic manner, and attended by an obsequious retinue of pilot fish, schools of harried flying fish, groups of young crabs, clinging to seaweeds, with indented leaves about three quarters of an inch long, and small yellow berries filled with nothing but wind, a white, tropical bird, said never to be seen further north than latitude 40, and marked by short wings and a single tail feather, other birds, too near the western continent not to be Americans, are among the things that the open-eyed and thoughtful youth jotted down in his Journal in terms that plainly enough indicated not only the eager curiosity but the exactitude of a future man of science. As almost always, the child was but the father of the man. Upon each of his subsequent six voyages across the Atlantic, Franklin exhibited the same, though severer, and more practised, vigilance in observing everything that the ocean, including the instruments of commerce afloat on it, have for a penetrating and suggestive intelligence. How essentially he was a man of science, is demonstrated by the fact that, whenever he was on the element, where alone he could hope for exemption from the political demands of his countrymen, his intellect turned at once with ardor to the study of Nature. Old and feeble as he was, he wrote no less than three valuable dissertations on his last voyage across the Atlantic, one on the causes and cure of smoky chimneys, one on his smoke-consuming stove, and a third, distinguished by an extraordinary wealth of knowledge and observation, on the construction, equipment and provisioning of ships, and the winds, currents and temperature of the sea; which was accompanied by valuable thermometric tables, based upon observations made by him during three of his transatlantic voyages. The maritime essay was written with the closest regard to detail, and contains such a mass of information and luminous comment as has rarely been condensed into the same space. It makes up some thirty-four quarto pages of Smyth's edition of Franklin's works, exclusive of the thermometric notes. The other two essays occupy some forty-nine pages more. All three are elucidated by numerous explanatory charts and illustrations, and are marked by the mastery of scientific principles, which no mere artificer or artisan could have displayed in discussing such topics; but, at the same time, they could not have been more intensely practical, as respects minutiæ of construction, if Franklin had been a professional sailor, mason or stove-maker. The maritime observations range from the Chinese method of dividing the hulls of vessels into separate compartments, which is now regarded as one of the most efficient devices for securing the safety of ocean greyhounds, to an inquiry into the reason why fowls served up at sea are usually too tough to be readily masticated and the best means of dishing soup on a rolling and pitching vessel. After his return in his youth from London to Philadelphia, Franklin was for a long time too much immersed in business and civic projects to give much attention to natural phenomena. "Why does the flame of a candle tend upward in a spire?", "whence comes the dew, that stands on the outside of a tankard that has cold water in it in the summer time?", are among the few questions of a scientific nature that he appears to have framed for the discussions of the Junto; and they are elementary enough. But with the coming of pecuniary ease, the natural bent of his mind soon asserted itself. While in Boston in 1746, he happened to see some electrical experiments performed by a Dr. Spence, who had recently arrived from Scotland. They were clumsily conducted, but crude as they were, they filled his mind with mixed sensations of surprise and delight; so much so that, when, shortly after his return to Philadelphia from Boston, the Library Company found itself the owner of a glass tube, for the production of electricity by friction, given to it by Peter Collinson, then a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, with instructions for its use, he eagerly availed himself of Collinson's generosity to repeat the experiments that he had witnessed at Boston, and, by continuous practice, became very expert in making them as well as others. Indeed, his house was soon overrun to such an extent with eager visitors that he was compelled in self-defence to relieve it of its congestion by supplying some of his friends with similar tubes blown at the Philadelphia glass-house. One of these friends was his ingenious neighbor, Kinnersley, who chanced at the time to be out of business. Franklin advised him to exhibit the experiments for profit, and followed up the advice by preparing two lectures for him, in which the details of the experiments were clearly set forth. Kinnersley himself employed skilled workmen to make the necessary electrical apparatus for him, modelled upon the rough agencies designed by Franklin for himself, and used in his own exhibitions. The lectures, when delivered by him in Philadelphia, were so well attended that he made a tour of all the chief towns of the Colonies with a considerable degree of pecuniary success. Some years later, similar instructions given by Franklin to Domien, a Greek priest, proved so useful to him on a long tramp that he wrote to his benefactor that he had lived eight hundred miles upon electricity, and that it had been meat, drink and clothing to him. When Franklin last heard from him, he was contemplating a journey from Havana to Vera Cruz, thence through Mexico to Acapulco, on its western coast, and from Acapulco to Manila, and from Manila through China, India, Persia and Turkey to his home in Transylvania; all with electricity as his main _viaticum_. Franklin's own experiments fortunately ended in something better than vagabondage, however respectable or profitable. Grateful to Collinson for his timely gifts, he wrote to him several letters, laying before him the results of the Philadelphia experiments. Collinson procured for these letters the privilege of being read before the Royal Society, where they did not excite enough notice to be printed among its Transactions. Another letter, one to Kinnersley, in which Franklin propounded the identity of lightning and electricity, he sent to Dr. Mitchell, an acquaintance of his, and also a member of the Royal Society, who replied by telling him that it had been read before the Society, but had been laughed at by the connoisseurs. Then it was that the happy obstetric suggestion of Dr. Fothergill that the letters were of too much value to be stifled led Collinson to gather them together for publication by Cave in the _Gentleman's Magazine_. They were not published in this magazine, but Cave did bring them out in pamphlet form with a preface by Dr. Fothergill. The event showed that he and the general public had more acumen than the sages of the Royal Society, for the letters, when subsequently published in a quarto volume, with additions by Franklin, ran through five editions, without the cost of a penny to Cave for copyright. It was from France, however, that they first received the full meed of prompt approbation that they deserved. A copy of them happened to fall into the hands of Buffon, who prevailed upon D'Alibard to translate them into French. Their publication in that language provoked an attack upon them by the Abbé Nollet, Preceptor in Natural Philosophy to the Royal Family, and the author of a popular theory of Electricity. At first, the Abbé could not believe that America was capable of producing such letters, and insisted that they must have been fabricated at Paris for the purpose of discrediting his system. In fact, he even doubted whether there was such a person as Franklin, but, afterwards, being convinced upon that point, he published a volume of letters, mainly addressed to Franklin, in which he defended his own theory, and denied the accuracy of Franklin's experiments and conclusions. Le Roy, of the Royal Academy of Sciences, rejoined on behalf of Franklin, who had decided to let the truth be its own champion, and easily refuted the Abbé. The papers could not have asked for a better advertisement than this controversy. They were further translated into the Italian, German and Latin languages, and Franklin's theory of electricity was so generally adopted by the learned men of Europe, in preference to that of the Abbé, that the latter lived, Franklin tells us, to see himself the last of his sect, except Monsieur B. of Paris, his _élève_ and immediate disciple. It is surprising that even the solitary _élève_ should have been left clinging to his master; for, in the meantime, the most momentous experiment, suggested by Franklin in his letters, had been performed, substantially in the manner outlined by him, with brilliant success, by D'Alibard, on a hill at Marly-la-Ville, where a pointed rod of iron, forty feet high, and planted on an electric stand, had been erected for the purpose of carrying it into execution. When a thundercloud passed over the rod on May 10, 1752, between 2 and 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the persons, set by D'Alibard to watch it, had drawn near "and attracted from it sparks of fire, perceiving the same kind of commotions as in the common electrical experiments." A week later, the fire and crackling sound, elicited by M. de Lor from a rod, erected at his house in Paris on a cake of resin, and electrified by a cloud between 4 and 5 o'clock in the afternoon, told the same story. He had previously performed what he called the "Philadelphia experiments" in the presence of Louis XV., who seems to have been as much delighted with them as if they had been a new mistress. In a short time, they became so popular that we are told by Franklin that "all the curious of Paris flocked to see them." One of the results of the fame acquired by him in France was a letter written by Dr. Wright, an English physician, then in Paris, to a member of the Royal Society, apprising the latter of the excitement that the experiments had created in France, and expressing his astonishment that Franklin's papers had been so little noticed in England. Quickened by Dr. Wright's words, the Society reconsidered the letters which had been read before them, and caused an abstract of them and the other letters on electricity, sent to England by Franklin, to be printed among its Transactions. Afterwards, when several members of the Society had themselves drawn down lightning from the clouds, it elected Franklin a member, and, in view of the fact that the honor had not been sought by him, voted that he "was not to pay anything"; which meant that he was to be liable for neither admission fee nor annual dues, and was even to receive his copy of the Transactions of the Society free of charge. Nor did it stop here. It also awarded to Franklin, for the year 1753, the Copley gold medal, accompanied by an address, in which Lord Macclesfield, its President, endeavored to make full amends to him for its belated recognition of the value of his discoveries. The suggestion by Franklin, which led to the experiments of D'Alibard and De Lor, is as matter-of-fact as a cooking recipe. To determine the question [he said in a letter to Peter Collinson] whether the clouds that contain lightning are electrified or not, I would propose an experiment to be try'd where it may be done conveniently. On the top of some high tower or steeple, place a kind of centry box,... big enough to contain a man and an electrical stand. From the middle of the stand let an iron rod rise and pass bending out of the door, and then upright 20 or 30 feet, pointed very sharp at the end. If the electrical stand be kept clean and dry, a man standing on it when such clouds are passing low, might be electrified and afford sparks, the rod drawing fire to him from a cloud. If any danger to the man should be apprehended (though I think there would be none), let him stand on the floor of his box, and now and then bring near to the rod the loop of a wire that has one end fastened to the leads, he holding it by a wax handle; so the sparks, if the rod is electrified, will strike from the rod to the wire, and not affect him. Before the news of the success achieved by D'Alibard and De Lor reached Franklin, he himself had conducted a similar experiment "though made in a different and more easy manner." This experiment has become one of the veriest commonplaces of physical science. It was performed, when a thunder gust was coming on, in a field near Philadelphia, with such simple materials as a silk kite, topped off with a foot or more of sharp pointed wire, and controlled by a twine string, equipped with a key for casting off the electric sparks, and ending in a silk ribbon to secure the safety of the hand that held it. The whole construction is set out in a letter written to Collinson by Franklin shortly after the incident, in which, with his usual modesty, the latter describes the kite as if he had had nothing to do with it. Something like the feelings of Sir Isaac Newton, when the falling apple brought to his ear the real music of the spheres, must have been those of Franklin, when the loose filaments of twine bristled up stiffly, as if stirred by some violated instinct of wild freedom, and the stream of sparks from the key told him that he was right in supposing that the mysterious and appalling agency, which had for centuries been associated in the human mind with the resistless wrath of Omnipotence, was but the same subtle fluid that had so often lit up his electrical apparatus with its playful corruscations. The letters to Collinson contained another suggestion almost equally pregnant. Speaking of the power of pointed conductors to draw off electricity noiselessly and harmlessly, Franklin asked, May not the knowledge of this power of points be of use to mankind, in preserving houses, churches, ships, &c. from the stroke of lightning, by directing us to fix on the highest parts of those edifices, upright rods of iron made sharp as a needle, and gilt to prevent rusting, and from the foot of those rods a wire down the outside of the building into the ground, or down round one of the shrouds of a ship, and down her side till it reaches the water? Would not these pointed rods probably draw the electrical fire silently out of a cloud before it came nigh enough to strike, and thereby secure us from that most sudden and terrible mischief? The suggestion was but slowly adopted, not in Europe, indeed, at all, until the efficacy of the lightning rod in protecting buildings had been generally recognized in America. In time, however, the device came into use both in Great Britain and on the Continent; Voltaire being one of the first persons in Geneva to erect one, and, wherever it was erected, it helped to confirm the fame of Franklin by its silent effect upon the human imagination. In recent years, the lightning rod, once in almost universal use in America, has fallen into neglect, but the explanation of this fact is to be found not in any just doubts about its utility, when properly constructed, affixed and grounded, but in the growth of fire insurance, and the inutility, or danger, of such rods, if carelessly set in place.[51] The domestication of lightning and the invention of the lightning rod were the two things to which Franklin was principally indebted for his brilliant reputation as a philosopher. At this day, the application of electricity to common uses is so familiar to us that it is hard, without a little reflection, to realize how well calculated his electrical achievements were to send a thrill of astonishment and awe through the human mind. Of all the manifestations of the physical world, lightning with its inscrutable, swift, and all but irresistible, stroke, followed by the sublime detonations of thunder, is the one most suggestive of supernatural influence exerted by an all-powerful deity. The mythological dreams of the Greeks, the visions of the Old Testament, the simple emotions of the savage had all paid their homage of dread to the fearful force--like a madman pitilessly destructive, and yet like a madman diverted from its rage by the barest trifle--which had clothed Jove with the greater part of his grandeur, licked up even the water that was in the trench about the altar, built by Elijah in the name of the Lord, and filled the breast of the Indian with superstitious terror. Discovery, that laid bare the real nature and destructive limits of this force, could not fail to excite an extraordinary degree of attention everywhere. It was the singular fortune of Franklin, though a practical, sober-minded denizen of the earth, if ever man was, to have enjoyed in his day a reputation not unlike that of a divinity of the upper ether.[52] It so happens that the atmosphere was, in one way or another, the home of all the scientific problems which engaged his interest most deeply. His philosophical Pegasus, so little akin to the humble brute bestrid by Poor Richard, was "a beast for Perseus--pure air and fire"; and especially, it is needless to say, was this true of his relations to the lightning. When the fact became known throughout the civilized world that human ingenuity had succeeded in even snaring it, Franklin was exalted for a time to a seat on Olympus. All the literature of the period, as well as that of a much later period, bears out the statement that rarely has any single, peaceful incident ever so fired the human imagination.[53] For many years, the natural background for a portrait of Franklin might have been a bank of cloud lit up by the incessant play of summer lightning. _Eripuit coelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis_, was but the mightiest of the electrical discharges that flattery poured upon him. Turn where we may to the poetry of the latter half of the eighteenth century, and of the earlier part of the nineteenth, whether epigram or otherwise, we are likely to come upon some imprint left upon the thought of those periods by the subjugation of lightning. The interest of Franklin in electrical science was but another sequel of the world-wide avidity with which learned men had recently turned to the study of that subject. One of them, Grey, had pursued a series of experiments for the purpose of determining the relative conductivity of various substances, another, Du Fay, had erroneously classified electricity as resinous and vitreous, and the perfected Leyden Jar particularly had given a new momentum to the progress of electrical investigation. Into this movement, after witnessing Dr. Spence's awkward experiments at Boston, Franklin threw himself with the utmost enthusiasm, and his discovery of the identity of lightning and electricity and his lightning-rod conception were but the chief fruits of this enthusiasm. Between the _Autobiography_ and his letters, we are at no loss to follow closely the steps by which he reached all the results which have given him such a high position as an electrical investigator. "I purchased all Dr. Spence's apparatus ..." he tells us in the _Autobiography_, "and I proceeded in my electrical experiments with great alacrity." How keen this alacrity became, after he had been rubbing for a time the glass tube, sent over to Philadelphia by Collinson, may be seen in what he wrote to Collinson himself on March 28, 1747: For my own part, I never was before engaged in any study that so totally engrossed my attention and my time as this has lately done; for what with making experiments when I can be alone, and repeating them to my Friends and Acquaintance, who, from the novelty of the thing, come continually in crouds to see them, I have, during some months past, had little leisure for anything else. The result of this experimentation was the various letters to Collinson and others that constitute Franklin's highest claim to distinction as a man of science. By following them in their chronological order, the reader can trace with little difficulty the genesis of each of his more valuable conclusions touching electricity. They are distinguished by remarkable simplicity and force of reasoning and by a clearness of statement as transparent as crystal. Moreover, they are even enlivened at times by gleams of fancy or humor. In a word they indisputably merit the judgment that Sir Humphry Davy, no mean judge of style as well as scientific truth, passes upon them: The style and manner of his publication on electricity are almost as worthy of admiration as the doctrine it contains. He has endeavoured to remove all mystery and obscurity from the subject. He has written equally for the uninitiated and the philosopher; and he has rendered his details amusing as well as perspicuous, elegant as well as simple. Science appears in his language in a dress wonderfully decorous, the best adapted to display her native loveliness. He has in no instance exhibited that false dignity, by which philosophy is kept aloof from common applications; and he has sought rather to make her a useful inmate and servant in the common habitations of man, than to preserve her merely as an object of admiration in temples and palaces. While recalling these words, it is not amiss to recall, too, what Lord Brougham had to say about the agencies with which Franklin conducted his experiments. He could make an experiment [said Brougham] with less apparatus and conduct his experimental inquiry to a discovery with more ordinary materials than any other philosopher we ever saw. With an old key, a silk thread, some sealing wax and a sheet of paper he discovered the identity of lightning and electricity. The truth of these observations is strikingly instanced in a story told of Franklin in Pettigrew's _Life of Lettsom_. When Henry Smeathman was insisting that the flight of birds is on inclined planes, and that they could not fly at all, but would simply float with the wind, if they were not heavier than the air, Franklin launched half a sheet of paper obliquely into the air, observing, as he watched its course, that that was an evident proof of the propriety of Smeathman's doctrines. In a letter to Collinson, dated July 11, 1747, Franklin communicated to him the earliest results of his experimental use of the glass tube that Collinson had sent over to Philadelphia. The first phenomenon, which fixed his attention, was the wonderful effect of pointed bodies in drawing off the electrical fire. This was the lightning rod in its protoplasmal stage. The manner in which he described the experiment, by which this particular truth was demonstrated, is a good specimen of his remarkable faculty for simple and clear statement: Place an iron shot of three or four inches diameter on the mouth of a clean dry glass bottle. By a fine silken thread from the ceiling, right over the mouth of the bottle, suspend a small cork ball, about the bigness of a marble; the thread of such a length, as that the cork ball may rest against the side of the shot. Electrify the shot, and the ball will be repelled to the distance of four or five inches, more or less, according to the quantity of Electricity. When in this state, if you present to the shot the point of a long slender sharp bodkin, at six or eight inches distance, the repellency is instantly destroy'd, and the cork flies to the shot. A blunt body must be brought within an inch, and draw a spark, to produce the same effect. To prove that the electrical fire is _drawn off_ by the point, if you take the blade of the bodkin out of the wooden handle, and fix it in a stick of sealing wax, and then present it at the distance aforesaid, or if you bring it very near, no such effect follows; but sliding one finger along the wax till you touch the blade, and the ball flies to the shot immediately. If you present the point in the dark, you will see, sometimes at a foot distance, and more, a light gather upon it, like that of a firefly, or glowworm; the less sharp the point, the nearer you must bring it to observe the light; and, at whatever distance you see the light, you may draw off the electrical fire, and destroy the repellency. If a cork ball so suspended be repelled by the tube, and a point be presented quick to it, tho' at a considerable distance, 'tis surprizing to see how suddenly it flies back to the tube. Points of wood will do near as well as those of iron, provided the wood is not dry; but perfectly dry wood will no more conduct electricity than sealing-wax. The repellency between the ball and the shot was likewise destroyed, Franklin stated, 1, by sifting fine sand on it; this did it gradually, 2, by breathing on it, 3, by making a smoke about it from burning wood, and 4, by candlelight, even though the candle was at a foot distance; these did it suddenly. * * * * * The same result was also produced, he found, by the light of a bright coal from a wood fire, or the light of red-hot iron; but not at so great a distance. Such was not the effect, however, he said, of smoke from dry resin dropped on hot iron. It was merely attracted by both shot and cork ball, forming proportionable atmospheres round them, making them look beautifully, somewhat like some of the figures in Burnet's or Whiston's _Theory of the Earth_. Franklin also noted the fact that, unlike fire-light, sunlight, when thrown on both cork and shot, did not impair the repellency between them in the least. In the same letter, guided by the belief that he had formed that electricity is not created by friction but, except when accumulated or depleted by special causes, is equally diffused through material substances generally, he also reached the conclusion that electrical discharges are due to circuits set up by substances that offer little resistance to the transit of the electrical current between bodies charged with more than the ordinary quantity of electrical energy and bodies not in that condition. In other words, electricity is always alert to restore its equilibrium when lost, and, if accumulated beyond its normal measure in one body, seeks with violent eagerness, as soon as a favorable medium of transmission is presented to it, to pass on its surplus of electrical energy to another body less amply supplied. These conceptions, too, which lie at the very foundations of modern electrical science, are illustrated by Franklin with extraordinary simplicity and clearness as follows: 1. A person standing on wax, and rubbing the tube, and another person on wax drawing the fire, they will both of them, (provided they do not stand so as to touch one another) appear to be electrised, to a person standing on the floor; that is, he will perceive a spark on approaching each of them with his knuckle. 2. But, if the persons on wax touch one another during the exciting of the tube, neither of them will appear to be electrised. 3. If they touch one another after exciting the tube, and drawing the fire as aforesaid, there will be a stronger spark between them, than was between either of them and the person on the floor. 4. After such strong spark, neither of them discover any electricity. These appearances we attempt to account for thus: We suppose, as aforesaid, that electrical fire is a common element, of which every one of the three persons above mentioned has his equal share, before any operation is begun with the tube. A, who stands on wax and rubs the tube, collects the electrical fire from himself into the glass; and his communication with the common stock being cut off by the wax, his body is not again immediately supply'd. B, (who stands on wax likewise) passing his knuckle along near the tube, receives the fire which was collected by the glass from A; and his communication with the common stock being likewise cut off, he retains the additional quantity received. To C, standing on the floor, both appear to be electrised: for he having only the middle quantity of electrical fire, receives a spark upon approaching B, who has an over quantity; but gives one to A, who has an under quantity. If A and B approach to touch each other, the spark is stronger, because the difference between them is greater: After such touch there is no spark between either of them and C, because the electrical fire in all is reduced to the original equality. If they touch while electrising, the equality is never destroy'd, the fire only circulating. Hence have arisen some new terms among us: We say, B, (and bodies like circumstanced) is electrised _positively_; A, _negatively_. Or rather, B is electrised _plus_; A, _minus_. And we daily in our experiments electrise bodies _plus_ or _minus_, as we think proper. To electrise _plus_ or _minus_, no more needs to be known than this, that the parts of the tube or sphere that are rubbed, do, in the instant of the friction, attract the electrical fire, and therefore take it from the thing rubbing: The same parts immediately, as the friction upon them ceases, are disposed to give the fire they have received, to anybody that has less. Thus you may circulate it, as Mr. _Watson_ has shown; you may also accumulate or subtract it upon, or from anybody, as you connect that body with the rubber or with the receiver, the communication with the common stock being cut off. The same letter recounts some of the tricks that Franklin and his fellow-experimenters were in the habit of making their new plaything perform. They fired spirits, lit candles just blown out, mimicked lightning, produced sparks with the touch of the finger, on the human hand or face, and gave electrical kisses. Other feats consisted in animating an artificial spider in such a way as to keep him oscillating in a very lifelike and entertaining manner between two wires, and lighting up the gilding on the covers of a book with a brilliant flash. This letter also shows that the provincial philosophers had already made improvements in the usual electrical methods. They had found that it was better to fill the phial with granulated lead than with water because of the superior facility with which the former could be warmed, and kept warm and dry in a damp place. They rubbed their tubes with buckskin, and, by observing certain precautions, such as never sullying the tubes by handling them, and keeping them in tight, close-fitting cases of pasteboard, lined with flannel, increased their efficiency. Their spheres for charging phials with electricity were mounted on iron axes with a small handle on one end, with which they could be set revolving like a common grindstone. It was in this same letter that Franklin with his usual generosity was careful to state that the power of pointed bodies to throw off as well as draw off the electrical fire was a discovery of his friend Hopkinson, and that the revolving sphere used by them was the invention of his friend Syng. About a month later, Franklin wrote to Collinson that, in the course of further experiments, he had observed several phenomena which made him distrust some of his former conclusions. "If there is no other use discover'd of Electricity," he said, "this however is something considerable, that it may _help to make a vain man humble_." Another letter from Franklin to Collinson, written about two weeks later, communicated to him some valuable observations upon "M. Muschenbroeck's wonderful bottle"--the Leyden Jar. This bottle was a mere ordinary bottle, with a common cork in its neck, into which a common wire had been inserted. He wrote that, at the same time that the wire and the top of the bottle were electrised positively or plus, the bottom of the bottle was electrised negatively or minus, in exact proportion; the consequence was that, whatever quantity of electrical fire was thrown in at the top, an equal quantity went out at the bottom until, if the process was kept up long enough, the point was reached in the operation, when no more could be thrown into the upper part of the bottle, because no more could be drawn out of the lower part. If the attempt was made to throw more in, the fire was spewed back through the wire, or flew out in loud cracks through the sides of the bottle. He also noted that an equilibrium could not be restored in the bottle by inward communication or contact of the parts, but only by a communication, formed without the bottle between its top and bottom. He also noted that no electrical fire could be thrown into the top of the bottle, when none could get out at its bottom, either because the bottom was too thick, or because it stood on some non-conducting material, and likewise that, when the bottle was electrified, but little of the electrical fire could be drawn from the top by touching the wire, unless an equal quantity could at the same time get in at the bottom. So wonderfully [he adds] are these two states of electricity, the _plus_ and _minus_, combined and balanced in this miraculous bottle! situated and related to each in a manner that I can by no means comprehend! If it were possible that a bottle should in one part contain a quantity of air strongly comprest, and in another part a perfect vacuum, we know the equilibrium would be instantly restored _within_. But here we have a bottle containing at the same time a _plenum_ of electrical fire, and a _vacuum_ of the same fire; and yet the equilibrium cannot be restored between them but by a communication without! though the _plenum_ presses violently to expand, and the hungry vacuum seems to attract as violently in order to be filled. The letter concludes with an elaborate statement of the experiments by which the correctness of its conclusions could be established. Franklin's next discovery communicated to Collinson in a letter dated the succeeding year was that, when the bottle was electrified, the electric fluid resided in the glass itself of the bottle. The manner in which he proved this fact is a good example of his inductive thoroughness. Purposing [he said] to analyze the electrified bottle, in order to find wherein its strength lay, we placed it on glass, and drew out the cork and wire, which for that purpose had been loosely put in. Then taking the bottle in one hand, and bringing a finger of the other near its mouth, a strong spark came from the water, and the shock was as violent as if the wire had remained in it, which shewed that the force did not lie in the wire. Then, to find if it resided in the water, being crouded into and condensed in it, as confin'd by the glass, which had been our former opinion, we electrified the bottle again, and, placing it on glass, drew out the wire and cork as before; then, taking up the bottle, we decanted all its water into an empty bottle, which likewise stood on glass; and taking up that other bottle, we expected, if the force resided in the water, to find a shock from it; but there was none. We judged then, that it must either be lost in decanting, or remain in the first bottle. The latter we found to be true; for that bottle on trial gave the shock, though filled up as it stood with fresh unelectrified water from a teapot. By a similar course of experimentation with sash glass and lead plates, he also demonstrated that the form of the glass in the bottle was immaterial, that the power resided in the glass as glass, and that the non-electrics in contact served only like the armature of a loadstone to unite the force of the several parts, and to bring them at once to any point desired; it being the property of a non-electric that the whole body instantly receives or gives what electric fire is given to, or taken from, anyone of its parts. These experiments suggested the idea of intensifying the application of electrical forces by grouping numerous electrical centres. We made [he said] what we called an _electrical battery_, consisting of eleven panes of large sash-glass, arm'd with thin leaden plates, pasted on each side, placed vertically, and supported at two inches distance on silk cords, with thick hooks of leaden wire, one from each side, standing upright, distant from each other, and convenient communications of wire and chain, from the giving side of one pane, to the receiving side of the other; that so the whole might be charged together, and with the same labour as one single pane; and another contrivance to bring the giving sides, after charging, in contact with one long wire, and the receivers with another, which two long wires would give the force of all the plates of glass at once through the body of any animal forming the circle with them. The plates may also be discharged separately, or any number together that is required. When the idea of the electrical battery was formed by him, Franklin was not aware that Smeaton and Bains had previously assembled panes of glass for the purpose of giving an electrical shock. At the time that this letter was written, Franklin had added to his electrical exploits that of electrifying a mezzotint of the King in such a manner that, if anyone attempted to take the crown off his head, he would receive a "terrible blow." If the picture were highly charged [he said], the consequence might perhaps be as fatal as that of high treason. The operator [he continues], who holds the picture by the upper end, where the inside of the frame is not gilt, to prevent its falling, feels nothing of the shock, and may touch the face of the picture without danger, which he pretends is a test of his loyalty. If a ring of persons take the shock among them, the experiment is called _The Conspirators_. Another far more significant exploit was the application of electrical energy in such a way as to set an electrical Jack revolving with such force and swiftness as to carry a spitted fowl around before a fire with a motion fit for roasting. This wheel was driven by an electrical battery, but Franklin also devised what he called a self-moving wheel that was, by a different electrical method, revolved with so much force and rapidity that he thought that it might be used for the ringing of chimes and the movement of light-made orreries. And after observing that a thin glass bubble, about an inch in diameter, weighing only six grains, being half filled with water, partly gilt on the outside, and furnished with a wire hook, gave, when electrified, as great a shock as a man can well bear, Franklin exclaims, "How great must be the quantity (of electrical fire) in this small portion of glass! It seems as if it were of its very substance and essence. Perhaps if that due quantity of electrical fire so obstinately retained by glass, could be separated from it, it would no longer be glass; it might lose its transparency, or its brittleness, or its elasticity." This letter also reaches the conclusion that bodies, having less than the common quantity of electricity, repel each other, as well as those that have none. It concludes with a lively paragraph: Chagrined a little that we have been hitherto able to produce nothing in this way of use to mankind; and the hot weather coming on, when electrical experiments are not so agreeable, it is proposed to put an end to them for this season, somewhat humorously, in a party of pleasure on the banks of _Skuylkil_. Spirits, at the same time, are to be fired by a spark sent from side to side through the river, without any other conductor than the water; an experiment which we some time since performed, to the amazement of many. A turkey is to be killed for our dinner by the _electrical shock_, and roasted by the _electrical jack_, before a fire kindled by the _electrified bottle_; when the healths of all the famous electricians in _England_, _Holland_, _France_ and _Germany_ are to be drank in _electrified bumpers_, under the discharge of guns from the _electrical_ battery. An electrified bumper, a note to the letter explained, was a small thin glass tumbler, nearly filled with wine, and charged, which, when brought to the lips of a person, gave him a shock, if he was close-shaved, and did not breathe on the liquor. Another note states that the biggest animal that the experimenters had yet killed was a hen. A later letter to Collinson on the phenomena of thunder-gusts takes Franklin away from the Leyden Jar of the laboratory to the stupendous batteries of the outer universe--from the point of a bodkin to the lofty natural or artificial objects, upon which lightning descends from the illimitable sky. "As electrified clouds pass over a country," he remarks, "high hills and high trees, lofty towers, spires, masts of ships, chimneys, &c., as so many prominencies and points, draw the electrical fire, and the whole cloud discharges there." From this observation to the lightning rod was but a short step. Another letter to Collinson in the succeeding year brings us to the lightning rod in principle if not in name. Speaking of what a sea captain had said of luminous objects, which had settled on the spintles at the topmast heads of his ship before an electrical shock, and burned like very large torches, he says: According to my opinion, the electrical fire was then drawing off, as by points, from the cloud; the largeness of the flame betokening the great quantity of electricity in the cloud: and had there been a good wire communication from the spintle heads to the sea, that could have conducted more freely than tarred ropes, or masts of turpentine wood, I imagine there would either have been no stroke; or, if a stroke, the wire would have conducted it all into the sea without damage to the ship. In the same letter, there is an adumbration of his grandest experiment, when he speaks of the flash from two of his jars as "our mimic lightning." This letter also shows that with electricity Franklin had frequently imparted polarity to needles and reversed it at pleasure. Wilson, at London, he said, had failed to produce these results because he had tried it on too large masses and with too small force. The letter also evidences the fact that he had employed the electric spark for the practical purpose of firing gunpowder. Another letter to Collinson dated July 29, 1750, is accompanied by an additional paper on the properties and effects of the Electrical Matter. It acknowledges the debt that Franklin owed to Collinson for the glass tube and the instructions which attended it, and to the Proprietary for the generous present of a complete electrical apparatus which "that bountiful benefactor to our library," as he calls him, had made to it. The telegraph, the Marconi tower, the telephone, the electric bulb, the electric automobile and the trolley car rise up before us when we read this observation in the paper that accompanied the letter: "The beneficial uses of this electric fluid in the creation, we are not yet well acquainted with, though doubtless such there are, and those very considerable." The paper is the most important that Franklin ever wrote on electricity; containing as it does the two suggestions which, when carried into execution, made his name famous throughout the world, that is to say, his suggestion, already quoted by us at length, that houses, churches and ships might be protected by upright rods of iron, and his suggestion, already quoted by us, too, as to how the identity of lightning and electricity could be established. The point of the bodkin and the electrified shot and ball, and the mimic brightness, agility and fury of the lurking fire in the wonderful bottle had led, step by step, to two of the most splendid conceptions in the early history of electrical science.[54] With the discovery that electricity and lightning were the same thing, the real achievements of Franklin in the province of electricity came to an end. But he still continued his electrical experiments with undiminished ardor. We find him on one occasion prostrating with a single shock six persons who were so obliging as to lend themselves to the pursuit of scientific truth. Twice he was the victim of his own inadvertence. Speaking of one of these occasions, in a letter to a friend in Boston, he said: The flash was very great, and the crack as loud as a pistol; yet, my senses being instantly gone, I neither saw the one nor heard the other; nor did I feel the stroke on my hand, though I afterwards found it raised a round swelling where the fire entered, as big as half a pistol-bullet; by which you may judge of the quickness of the electrical fire, which by this instance seems to be greater than that of sound, light, or animal sensation.... I then felt what I know not how well to describe; a universal blow throughout my whole body from head to foot, which seemed within as well as without; after which the first thing I took notice of was a violent quick shaking of my body, which gradually remitting, my sense as gradually returned, and then I thought the bottles must be discharged, but could not conceive how, till at last I perceived the chain in my hand, and recollected what I had been about to do. That part of my hand and fingers, which held the chain, was left white, as though the blood had been driven out, and remained so eight or ten minutes after, feeling like dead flesh; and I had a numbness in my arms and the back of my neck, which continued till the next morning, but wore off. Nothing remains now of this shock, but a soreness in my breast-bone, which feels as if it had been bruised. I did not fall, but suppose I should have been knocked down, if I had received the stroke in my head. The whole was over in less than a minute. On the second occasion, while making ready to give a healing shock to a paralytic, he received a charge through his own head. He did not see the flash, hear the report or feel the stroke. When my Senses returned [he told Jan Ingenhousz], I found myself on the Floor. I got up, not knowing how that had happened. I then again attempted to discharge the Jars; but one of the Company told me they were already discharg'd, which I could not at first believe, but on Trial found it true. They told me they had not felt it, but they saw I was knock'd down by it, which had greatly surprised them. On recollecting myself, and examining my Situation, I found the Case clear. A small swelling rose on the Top of my Head, which continued sore for some Days; but I do not remember any other Effect good or bad. One of Franklin's contemporaries, Professor Richmann, of St. Petersburg, did not fare so well; for a stroke of the lightning that he had allured from the clouds brought his life to an end. Priestley, however, seems to have regarded such a death as a form of euthanasia. At any rate, in speaking of this martyr of science in his _History of Electricity_ he terms him "the justly envied Richmann." After Franklin learned how to impound lightning, his intercourse with electricity was more familiar than ever. In September, 1752 [he wrote to Collinson], I erected an iron rod to draw the lightning down into my house, in order to make some experiments on it, with two bells to give notice when the rod should be electrify'd: a contrivance obvious to every electrician. I found the bells rang sometimes when there was no lightning or thunder, but only a dark cloud over the rod; that sometimes, after a flash of lightning, they would suddenly stop; and, at other times, when they had not rang before, they would, after a flash, suddenly begin to ring; that the electricity was sometimes very faint, so that, when a small spark was obtain'd, another could not be got for some time after; at other times the sparks would follow extremely quick, and once I had a continual stream from bell to bell, the size of a crow quill: Even during the same gust there were considerable variations. In the winter following I conceived an experiment, to try whether the clouds were electrify'd _positively_ or _negatively_. The result of these experiments, conducted with Franklin's usual painstaking completeness, was the conclusion on his part that thunder-clouds are, as a rule, in a negatively electrical state, and that, therefore, generally speaking, they do not discharge electricity upon the earth, but receive it from the earth. For the most part, he said, "_tis the earth that strikes into the clouds, and not the clouds that strike into the earth_." The thoroughness with which he addressed himself to the study of electricity was very marked. His investigation was as searching and minute as that of an anatomist engaged in the dissection of nervous tissue. Under his hands, the bare Leyden Jar became a teeming storehouse of instruction and amusement. He collected electricity from common objects by friction, he brought it down from the sky, he sought its properties in amber, in the tourmaline stone, in the body of the torpedo; he thought that he discerned it in the radiance of the Aurora Borealis. He put it through all its vagaries, juggled with it, teased it, cowed it until it confessed its kinship with the tempestuous heavens. He tested its destructive effects upon hens and turkeys, its therapeutic value to paralytic patients, its efficacy as a corrective of tough meat. He even, it is said, charged the railing under his windows with it to repel loafers standing about his front door. And, in his relations to electricity, as to everything else, his purposes were always those of practical utility. In one of his papers, he admits that he cannot tell why points possess the power of drawing off the electrical fire; nor is it of much importance to us [he adds] to know the manner in which nature executes her laws. 'Tis enough if we know the laws themselves. 'Tis of real use to know that china left in the air unsupported will fall and break; but _how_ it comes to fall, and _why_ it breaks, are matters of speculation. 'Tis a pleasure indeed to know them, but we can preserve our china without it. He anticipated, or, in some instances, all but anticipated, several of the more important discoveries of modern electrical science. He knew that, when a number of Leyden jars are connected up under certain conditions, the extent, to which each jar can be charged from a given source, varies inversely as the number of jars. For a time, he was puzzled by the fact that the light of a candle, or of a fire-coal, or of red-hot iron, would destroy the repellency between his electrified ball and shot, but that the light of the sun would not. But it was not long before he hit upon this ingenious explanation: This different Effect probably did not arise from any difference in the light, but rather from the particles separated from the candle, being first attracted and then repelled, carrying off the electric matter with them; and from the rarefying the air, between the glowing coal or red-hot iron, and the electrised shot, through which rarefied air the electric fluid could more readily pass. Referring to what Franklin had to say about the action of sunlight in this connection, Arthur Schuster, in his _Some Remarkable Passages in the Writings of Benjamin Franklin_, observes: "Had Franklin used a clean piece of zinc instead of iron shot he might have anticipated Hertz's discovery of the action of strong light on the discharge of gases." In the course of one of his experiments with an electrified can, Franklin reached the conclusion that a cork, which he had lowered into the can, was not attracted to its internal surface, as it would have been to its external, because the mutual repulsion of the two inner opposite sides of the can might prevent the accumulation of an electrical atmosphere upon them. From the same experiment, the genius of Henry Cavendish deduced his law that electrical repulsion varies inversely as the square of the distance between the charges. Instead of declining, it can truly be said that the reputation of Franklin as an electrical investigator and writer has increased with the progress of electrical science. "We shall, I am sure," remarks Professor J. J. Thomson in his _Electricity and Matter_, "be struck by the similarity between some of the views which we are led to take by the results of the most recent researches, with those enunciated by Franklin in the very infancy of the subject." Nor should we omit a tribute of Dr. William Garnett, in his _Heroes of Science_, in regard to the statements in Franklin's first letters to Collinson. "They are," he says, "perfectly consistent with the views held by Cavendish and by Clerk Maxwell, and, though the phraseology is not that of modern text-books, the statements themselves can hardly be improved upon to-day." If Franklin achieved a higher degree of success in the electrical than in any other scientific field, it was partly, at any rate, because he never again had the opportunity to give such continuous attention to scientific pursuits. To him this was at times a source of very great disappointment. In one of his letters to Beccaria, dated Sept. 21, 1768, he tells the latter that, preoccupied as he was, he had constantly cherished the hope of returning home, where he could find leisure to resume the philosophical studies that he had shamefully put off from time to time. In a letter, some eleven years later, from Paris, to the same correspondent, he said that he was then prevented by similar distractions from pursuing those studies in which he always found the highest satisfaction, and that he was grown so old as hardly to hope for a return of the leisure and tranquillity, so necessary for philosophical disquisitions. To Sir Joseph Banks he was inspired some years later, by recent astronomical discoveries, made under the patronage of the Royal Society, to write: "I begin to be almost sorry I was born so soon, since I cannot have the happiness of knowing what will be known 100 years hence," Indeed, to him, leisure, whether only the seclusion of a thirty-day voyage across the Atlantic, or the final cessation of public life, was but another term for recurrence to his scientific predilections. When he received his leave from Congress to return home from Paris, he wrote joyously to Ingenhousz: "I shall now be free of Politicks for the Rest of my Life. Welcome again my dear Philosophical Amusements." There was, to use his own expression, still too much flesh on his bones for his countrymen to allow him any time except for political experiments; but, for proof of the eager interest that he felt in science, and of the prominent position, that he occupied in the scientific world of America, until the last, we need go no further than the fact that, when he died, the meetings of the American Philosophical Society had, for some time, been held at his home in Philadelphia. How far Franklin might have added to his reputation as a man of science, if he had not become engrossed by political duties and cares, is mere matter of surmise. But there can be no doubt that he was eminently fitted in many respects for scientific inquiry. The scientific temperament he possessed in the very highest degree. He loved the truth too much to allow the workings of human weakness in himself or others to deface its fair features. In reporting to Collinson the electrical achievements, which crowned him with such just renown, he almost invariably spoke of them as if they were the joint achievements of a group of collaborators, of whom he was but one. The generous alacrity, with which he credits to his friends Hopkinson, Kinnersley, or Syng exclusively special discoveries or inventions, made by them, shows conclusively enough how little this was true. There is no reason to believe that his letters to Collinson on electricity would ever have been published but for the unsolicited initiative of Dr. Fothergill and Collinson; or that they would ever have been translated into French but for the spontaneous persuasion that Buffon brought to bear upon D'Alibard. In a letter to Collinson, after expressing distrust of an hypothesis, advanced by him in former letters to the same correspondent, he declares that he is ashamed to have expressed himself in so positive a manner. Indeed, he said, he must request Collinson not to expose those letters, or, if he communicated them to any of his friends, at least to conceal the name of the author. His attitude towards his scientific triumphs was, when not that of entire self-effacement, always that of unaffected humility. I am indebted for your preceding letter [he wrote in his forty-seventh year to John Perkins] but business sometimes obliges one to postpone philosophical amusements. Whatever I have wrote of that kind, are really, as they are entitled, but _Conjectures_ and _Suppositions_; which ought always to give place, when careful observation militates against them. I own I have too strong a penchant to the building of hypotheses; they indulge my natural indolence: I wish I had more of your patience and accuracy in making observations, on which, alone, true philosophy can be founded. Equally candid and noble are other observations in a subsequent letter to the same correspondent. Referring to certain objections, made by Perkins to his theory of water spouts, he observed: Nothing certainly can be more improving to a Searcher into Nature, than Objections judiciously made to his Opinions, taken up perhaps too hastily: For such Objections oblige him to re-study the Point, consider every Circumstance carefully, compare Facts, make Experiments, weigh Arguments, and be slow in drawing Conclusions. And hence a sure Advantage results; for he either confirms a Truth, before too lightly supported; or discovers an Error, and receives Instruction from the Objector. In this View I consider the Objections and Remarks you sent me, and thank you for them sincerely. When he found that he was in error, it cost him no struggle to recant. For a while he believed the sea to be the grand source of lightning, and built up an imposing fabric of conclusions upon the belief; but he did not hesitate afterwards to admit that he had embraced this opinion too hastily. The same thing is true of the opinion that he held for a time, that the progress of a ship westward, across the Atlantic, is retarded by the diurnal motion of the earth. He supposed that the melting brought about by the action of lightning was a cold fusion until holes burnt in a floor by portions of a molten bell wire convinced him that this was not so. I was too easily led into that error [he said] by accounts given even in philosophical books, and from remote ages downwards, of melting money in purses, swords in scabbards, etc. without burning the inflammable matters that were so near those melted metals. But men are, in general, such careless observers, that a philosopher can not be too much on his guard in crediting their relations of things extraordinary, and should never build an hypothesis on anything but clear facts and experiments, or it will be in danger of soon falling, as this does, like a house of cards. In one of his letters to Collinson, he declared that, even though future discoveries should prove that certain conjectures of his were not wholly right, yet they ought in the meantime to be of some use by stirring up the curious to make more experiments and occasion more exact disquisitions. Following out the same thought in another letter to Collinson he concluded: "You are at liberty to communicate this paper to whom you please; it being of more importance that knowledge should increase, than that your friend should be thought an accurate philosopher." In a letter to John Lining, in which he described the experiment from which Cavendish deduced the law of which we have spoken, he observed: I find a frank acknowledgement of one's ignorance is not only the easiest way to get rid of a dificulty, but the likeliest way to obtain information, and therefore I practise it: I think it an honest policy. Those who affect to be thought to know everything, and so undertake to explain everything often remain long ignorant of many things that others could and would instruct them in, if they appeared less conceited. The fact is that Franklin had such a keen sense of the dignity and invincibility of truth that he could not be induced to enter into any personal controversy about it. His feelings with regard to such controversies are pointedly expressed in the _Autobiography_ in connection with the attack made by the Abbé Nollet upon his electrical experiments. I once purpos'd [he said] answering the abbé, and actually began the answer; but, on consideration that my writings contain'd a description of experiments which anyone might repeat and verify, and if not to be verifi'd, could not be defended; or of observations offer'd as conjectures, and not delivered dogmatically, therefore not laying me under any obligation to defend them; and reflecting that a dispute between two persons, writing in different languages, might be lengthened greatly by mistranslations, and thence misconceptions of one another's meaning, much of one of the abbé's letters being founded on an error in the translation, I concluded to let my papers shift for themselves, believing it was better to spend what time I could spare from public business in making new experiments, than in disputing about those already made. But in this instance, too, after all, he acted upon the principle, stated in one of his letters to Cadwallader Colden, that he who removes a prejudice, or an error from our minds contributes to their beauty, as he would do to that of our faces who should clear them of a wart or a wen. He went through his experiments again, and satisfied himself that the Abbé had not shaken his positions. At one time, when he was hesitating as to whether he should reply to him, he heard that D'Alibard was preparing to do so. "Perhaps," he wrote to his friend, James Bowdoin, "it may then appear unnecessary for me to do anything farther in it. And will not one's vanity be more gratified in seeing one's adversary confuted by a disciple, than even by one's self?" When Wilson published a pamphlet, contending that lightning rods should be blunt rather than pointed, he simply observed, "I have not answered it, being averse to Disputes." Not only his temperament but his general mental attitude was instinctively scientific. As we have seen, while Whitefield's other auditors were standing mute and spellbound, he was carefully computing the distance that the words of the orator would carry. As we have also seen, when his soldiers were cutting down the giant pines at Gnadenhutten, he had his watch out, deep in his observation of the time that it took them to fell a tree. When his friend, Small, complained of deafness, he wrote to him that he had found by an experiment at midnight that, by putting his thumb and fingers behind his ear, and pressing it out and enlarging it as it were with the hollow of his hand, he could hear the tick of a watch at the distance of forty-five feet which was barely audible at a distance of twenty feet without these aids. Even in his relations to the simplest concerns of life, he had always the eye of a man of science to weight, measure, dimension and distance. If anyone wishes to see how easily he reduced everything to its scientific principles, let him read Franklin's letter to Oliver Neave, who thought that it was too late in life for him to learn to swim. With the confidence bred by a proper sense of the specific gravity of the human body as compared with that of water, Franklin said, there was no reason why a human being should not swim at the first trial. If Neave would only wade out into a body of water, until it came up to his breast and by a cast of his hand sink an egg to the bottom, between him and the shore, where it would be visible, but could not be reached except by diving, and then endeavor to recover it, he would be surprised to find what a buoyant thing water was. Franklin also had all the inquisitiveness of a born philosopher. The winds, the birds, the fish, the celestial phenomena brought to his attention on his first voyage from England, the sluggish movement of his ship on his voyage to England in 1757, the temperature and movement of the Gulf Stream, the social and religious characteristics of the Moravians, Indian traits and habits, the still flies in their bath of Madeira wine--all excited his insatiable curiosity, and started him off on interesting trains of observation or reflection. He was in the 78th year of his age, when, in the sight of fifty thousand people, one of the balloons recently invented by the Montgolfiers, and inflated with gas, produced by pouring oil of vitriol on iron filings, ascended from the Champs de Mars, shining brightly in the sun during the first stages of its ascent, then dwindling until it appeared scarcely larger than an orange, and then melting away in the clouds that had never before been invaded by such a visitant. But so fresh still was his interest in every triumph of human ingenuity, that it required a long letter to Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society, supplemented by two postscripts, to disburthen his mind of the sensations and thoughts excited by the thrilling spectacle. Mingled in this letter with many precise details of size, weight and distance are the speculations of the Parisians with respect to the practical uses to which the toy might be put. Some believed that, now that men might be supported in the air, nothing was wanted but some light handy instruments to give and direct motion. Others believed that a running footman, or a horse, slung and suspended under such a globe, so as to diminish the weight of their feet on the ground to perhaps eight or ten pounds, might, with a fair wind, run in a straight line across country as fast as that wind, and over hedges, ditches and even waters. Still other fantasies were that in time such globes might be kept anchored in the air for the purpose of preserving game, or converting water into ice; or might be turned to pecuniary profit as a means of giving recreation-seekers a chance, at an altitude of a mile, to see far below them a vast stretch of the terrestrial surface. Already, said Franklin, one philosopher, M. Pilâtre de Rozier, had applied to the Academy for the privilege of ascending in a larger Montgolfier in order to make certain scientific experiments. The peasants at Gonesse, however, who had seen the balloon, cut adrift on the Champs de Mars, fall to the earth, had regarded it with very different feelings from the citizens of Paris. Frightened, and conceiving from its bounding a little, when it touched the ground, that there was some living animal in it, they had attacked it with stones and knives, so that it was much mangled. With a subsequent letter to Dr. Price, Franklin enclosed a small balloon, which his grandson had filled with inflammable air the night before, and which, after mounting to the ceiling of Franklin's chamber, had remained rolling about there for some time. "If a Man," this letter suggestively asks, "should go up with one of the large ones, might there not be some mechanical Contrivance to compress the Globe at pleasure; and thereby incline it to descend, and let it expand when he inclines to rise again?" The same eager curiosity about the balloon was manifested by Franklin in many other later letters. Another great one, he informed Banks, had gone up from Versailles. It was supposed to have been inflated with air, heated by burning straw, and to have risen about two hundred toises; but did not continue long at that height, and, after being wafted in a horizontal direction by the wind, descended gently, as the air in it grew cooler. "So vast a Bulk," said Franklin, "when it began to rise so majestically in the Air, struck the Spectators with Surprise and Admiration. The Basket contain'd a Sheep, a Duck & a Cock, who except the Cock receiv'd no hurt by the fall." Another balloon of about five feet in diameter, the same letter stated, had been sent up about one o'clock in the morning with a large lanthorn under it by the Duke de Crillon at an entertainment, given by him, during the preceding week, in the Bois de Boulogne in honor of the birth of two Spanish princes. These were but a few of many recent ascensions. Most interesting of all, however, a new balloon, designed by Messieurs Charles and Robert, who were men of science and mechanical dexterity, was to carry up a man. Another balloon, described by Franklin in one of his letters to Banks, was open at the bottom, and was fed with heated air from a grate, fixed in the middle of the opening, which was kept replenished with faggots and sheaves of straw by men, posted in a wicker gallery, attached to the outside of the lower part of the structure. By regulating the amount of fire in the grate, the balloon could be given an upward or downward direction at pleasure. It was thought, Franklin said, that a balloon of this type, because of the rapidity and small expense, with which it could be inflated, might be made useful for military purposes. Still another balloon described by Franklin in the same letter was one which was to be first filled with "permanently elastic inflammable air," and then closed. It was twenty-six feet in diameter, and made of gores of red and white silk, which presented a beautiful appearance. There was a very handsome triumphal car, to be suspended from it, in which two brothers, the Messrs. Robert, were to ascend with a table for convenience in jotting down their thermometric and other observations. There was no telling, Franklin declared, how far aeronautic improvements might be pushed. A few months before, the idea of witches riding through the air on a broomstick, and that of philosophers upon a bag of smoke would have appeared equally impossible and ridiculous. The machines, however, he believed, would always be subject to be driven by the winds, though perhaps mechanic art might find easy means of giving them progressive motion in a calm, and of slanting them a little in the wind. English philosophy was too bashful, and should be more emulous in this field of competition. If, in France, they did a foolish thing, they were the first to laugh at it themselves, and were almost as much pleased with a _bon mot_ or a good _chanson_, that ridiculed well the disappointment of the project, as they might have been with its success. The experiment might be attended with important consequences that no one could foresee. Beings of a frank and--nature far superior to ours [the letter continued] have not disdained to amuse themselves with making and launching balloons, otherwise we should never have enjoyed the light of those glorious objects that rule our day and night, nor have had the pleasure of riding round the sun ourselves upon the balloon we now inhabit. In due course, the Messrs. Robert, accompanied by M. Charles, a professor of experimental philosophy, and an enthusiastic student of aeronautics, made their perilous venture, which was likewise fully chronicled by Franklin. The spectators, he said, were infinite, crowding about the Tuileries, on the quays and bridges, in the fields and streets, and at the windows, and on the roofs, of houses. The device of stimulating flagging ascent by dropping sand bags from the car was one of the features of this incident, and so was the device of protecting the envelope of the balloon from rupture by covering it with a net, as well as that of lowering it by letting a part of its contents escape through a valve controlled by a cord. Between one and two o'clock [Franklin's narrative states] all eyes were gratified with seeing it rise majestically from among the trees, and ascend gradually above the buildings, a most beautiful spectacle. When it was about two hundred feet high, the brave adventurers held out and waved a little white pennant, on both sides their car, to salute the spectators who returned loud claps of applause. When Franklin last saw the vanishing form of this balloon, it appeared no bigger than a walnut. The experiment proved a most prosperous one. From first to last the aerial navigators retained perfect command of their air-ship, descending, when they pleased, by letting some of the air in it escape, and rising, when they pleased, by discharging sand; and at one time skimming over a field so low as to be able to talk to some laborers. Pleased as Franklin was with the experiment, he wrote to Henry Laurens that he yet feared that the machine would hardly become a common carriage in his time, though, being the easiest of all _voitures_, it would be extremely convenient to him, now that his malady forbade him the use of the old ones over a pavement. The idea, however, was such an agreeable one to him that, when he returned to Philadelphia, he wrote to his friend Jean Baptiste Le Roy that he sometimes wished that he had brought a balloon from France with him sufficiently large to raise him from the ground, and to permit him, without discomfort from his stone, to be led around in his novel conveyance by a string, attached to it, and held by an attendant on foot. On the whole, it appeared to Franklin that the invention of the balloon was a thing of great importance. Convincing sovereigns of the Folly of Wars [he wrote to Ingenhousz] may perhaps be one Effect of it; since it will be impracticable for the most potent of them to guard his Dominions. Five thousand Balloons, capable of raising two Men each could not cost more than Five Ships of the Line; and where is the Prince who can afford so to cover his Country with Troops for its Defence, as that Ten Thousand Men descending from the Clouds might not in many places do an infinite deal of mischief, before a Force could be brought together to repel them? But nothing happened in Franklin's time, nor has happened since, to warrant the belief that human flying-devices of any sort will ever be free enough from danger to human life to be a really useful vehicle of transportation in times of peace. So far their principal value has been during war, when human safety has little to choose between the earth and the sky, but it is fair to say that Franklin would have loathed war even more deeply than he did, if he could have lived to see them in the form of aeroplane or dirigible, making their way through the air like winged monsters of the antediluvian past, and dropping devilish agencies of death and desolation upon helpless innocence, and the fairest monuments of human industry and art. Poor M. Pilâtre de Rozier, whom we have already mentioned, and who was no less a person than the Professor of Chemistry, at the Athenée Royale, of which he was the founder, fell with a companion, from an altitude of one thousand toises to the rocky coast near Boulogne-sur-Mer, and was, as well as his companion, dashed to pieces. Since his time the discharioted Phaetons, who have fallen from the upper levels of the atmosphere, even when not engaged in war, with the same fearful result, have been numerous enough to constitute a ghastly necrology. Nor, it would appear, was the peril under the conditions of aerial navigation in its earliest stages limited to the aeronaut himself. In dissuading Ingenhousz from attempting a balloon experiment, Franklin said that it was a serious thing to draw out from their affairs all the inhabitants of a great city and its environs, and that a disappointment made them angry. At Bordeaux lately, a person, who pretended to send up a balloon, and had received money from many people, not being able to make it rise, the populace were so exasperated that they pulled down his house, and had like to have killed him. Anyone, who has ever heard the execrations hurled at the head of a baseball umpire in the United States, when one of his decisions has failed to command general assent, will experience no difficulty, we are sure, in understanding the force of the impulse that provoked this outbreak of Gallic excitement. The enthusiasm, aroused in Franklin by the balloon, is not more noticeable than his brooding desire to find some practical use for it. The visionary speculation, which seeks to take the moon in its teeth, was no part of his character. He grew no orchids in the air. To use his homely words in a letter to Charles Thomson, he made no shoes for feet that he had never measured. Every conclusion, every hypothesis had to be built upon a basis of patient observation and gradual induction; every invention or discovery had to have some useful application. At an earlier period than that of the discovery of the balloon, his inquisitive spirit had led him to the study of marsh-gas and the pacifying effect of oil upon troubled waters. In 1764, he had reason to believe that a friend of his had succeeded in igniting the surface of a river in New Jersey, after stirring up the mud beneath it, but his scientific friends in England found it difficult to believe that he had not been imposed upon; and the Royal Society withheld from publication among its Transactions a paper on the experiment, written by Dr. Finley, the President of Princeton College, and read before it. Franklin twice tried it in England without success, and he prosecuted his investigation with such energy and persistency that he finally contracted an intermittent fever by bending over the stagnant water of a deep ditch, and inhaling its foul breath, or, as would now be said, by being bitten by a mosquito hovering about it. In 1757, when on one of the ships, bound on Lord Loudon's fool's errand to Louisburg, he observed that the water in the wake of two of them was remarkably smooth, while that in the wake of the others was ruffled by the wind, which was blowing freshly, and, when he spoke of the circumstance to his captain, the latter answered somewhat contemptuously, as if to a person ignorant of what everybody else knew, "The cooks have, I suppose, been just emptying their greasy water through the scuppers, which has greased the sides of those ships a little." The incident, and what he had read in Pliny about the practice among the seamen of Pliny's time of calming rough seas with oil, made him resolve to test the matter by experiment at the first opportunity. This intention was afterwards strengthened, when he was again at sea in 1762, by the "wonderful quietness" of oil, resting on the surface of an agitated bed of water in the glass lamp swinging in his cabin, and by the supposition of an old sea captain that the phenomenon was in keeping with the practice, pursued by the Bermudians, of putting oil on water, when they would strike fish. By the same captain, he was told that he had heard that fishermen at Lisbon were in the habit of emptying a bottle or two of oil on the sea, when the breakers on the bar at that port were running too high for their boats to cross it in safety. From another person, he learnt that, when divers in the Mediterranean needed more light for their business, they spewed out from their mouths now and then a small quantity of oil, which, rising to the surface, smoothed out its refracting waves. This additional information supplied his curiosity with still further fuel. It all ended in his dropping a little oil from a cruet on a large pond at Clapham. The fluid spread with surprising swiftness over the surface, on which it had fallen; but he found that he had made the mistake of dropping it on the leeward, instead of the windward, side of the pond. When this mistake was repaired, and a teaspoonful of oil was poured on its windward side, where the waves were in an incipient state, and the oil could not be driven back on the shore, an instant calmness diffused itself over a space several yards square, which extended gradually until it reached the lee side of the pond, making all that quarter of it, perhaps half an acre, as smooth as a looking-glass. After this, he took with him, whenever he went into the country, a little oil, in the upper hollow joint of his bamboo cane for the purpose of repeating his experiment, whenever he had a chance to do so, and, when he did repeat it, it was usually with success. Far from being so successful, however, was the experiment when, on a blustering, unpleasant day, he attempted, with the co-operation of Sir Joseph Banks and other friends, to still the surf on a shore at Portsmouth with oil poured continually on the sea, at some distance away, through a hole, somewhat bigger than a goose quill, in the cork of a large stone bottle, though the effusion did flatten out a considerable tract of the sea to such an extent that a wherry, making for Portsmouth, seemed to turn into that tract of choice, and to use it from end to end as a piece of turnpike road. All this is described by Franklin in a letter to William Brownrigg, dated November 7, 1773, in which he cited some other illustrations of the allaying effect of oil on waves besides those that we have mentioned, and developed the philosophy of the subject with that incomparable clarity of his, not unlike the action of oil itself in subduing refractions of light. Now I imagine [he says] that the wind, blowing over water thus covered with a film of oil, can not easily _catch_ upon it, so as to raise the first wrinkles, but slides over it, and leaves it smooth as it finds it. It moves a little the oil indeed, which being between it and the water, serves it to slide with, and prevents friction, as oil does between those parts of a machine that would otherwise rub hard together. Hence the oil dropped on the windward side of a pond proceeds gradually to leeward, as may be seen by the smoothness it carries with it, quite to the opposite side. For the wind being thus prevented from raising the first wrinkles, that I call the elements of waves, cannot produce waves, which are to be made by continually acting upon, and enlarging those elements, and thus the whole pond is calmed. And the water in which the Bermudian struck his fish is not more limpid than these observations suggested by the Portsmouth experiment: I conceive, that the operation of oil on water is, first, to prevent the raising of new waves by the wind; and, secondly, to prevent its pushing those before raised with such force, and consequently their continuance of the same repeated height, as they would have done, if their surface were not oiled. But oil will not prevent waves being raised by another power, by a stone, for instance, falling into a still pool; for they then rise by the mechanical impulse of the stone, which the greasiness on the surrounding water cannot lessen or prevent, as it can prevent the winds catching the surface and raising it into waves. Now waves once raised, whether by the wind or any other power, have the same mechanical operation, by which they continue to rise and fall, as a _pendulum_ will continue to swing a long time after the force ceases to act by which the motion was first produced; that motion will, however, cease in time; but time is necessary. Therefore, though oil spread on an agitated sea may weaken the push of the wind on those waves whose surfaces are covered by it, and so, by receiving less fresh impulse, they may gradually subside; yet a considerable time, or a distance through which they will take time to move, may be necessary to make the effect sensible on any shore in a diminution of the surf; for we know, that, when wind ceases suddenly, the waves it has raised do not as suddenly subside, but settle gradually, and are not quite down till after the wind has ceased. So, though we should, by oiling them, take off the effect of wind on waves already raised, it is not to be expected that those waves should be instantly levelled. The motion they have received will, for some time, continue; and, if the shore is not far distant, they arrive there so soon, that their effect upon it will not be visibly diminished. Nor was it on Clapham Pond and at Portsmouth alone that Franklin, when in England, tested the tranquillizing properties of oil. He performed the same experiment on Derwentwater and a small pond near the house of John Smeaton, the celebrated engineer, at Austhorpe Lodge; and also on a large sheet of water at the head of the Green Park. And the idea that there was something almost supernatural about his quick insight and fertility of conception, of which we find more than one trace in the utterances of his contemporaries, is suggested in an interesting manner in the account left to us by the Abbé Morellet of one of these experiments, which he witnessed when Colonel Barre, Dr. Hawkesworth, David Garrick, Franklin and himself happened to be guests of Lord Shelburne at Wycombe in 1772. It is true [the Abbé says] it was not upon the waves of the sea but upon those of a little stream which flowed through the park at Wycombe. A fresh breeze was ruffling the water. Franklin ascended a couple of hundred paces from the place where we stood, and simulating the grimaces of a sorcerer, he shook three times upon the stream a cane which he carried in his hand. Directly the waves diminished and soon the surface was smooth as a mirror. On one occasion, William Small wrote to him from Birmingham that Matthew Boulton had "astonished the rural philosophers exceedingly by calming the waves _à la Franklin_." Struck, when travelling on a canal in Holland, with the statement of a boatman that their boat was going slow because the season had been a dry one, and the water in the canal was not as deep as usual, Franklin, by experiment with a trough and a little boat borrowed for the purpose, established the fact that the friction caused by the displacement by a moving boat of shallow water is measurably greater than that caused by the displacement by such a boat of deeper water. Under like conditions in other respects, the difference, he concluded, in a distance of four leagues, was the difference between five and four hours. A conversation with Captain Folger, of Nantucket, produced far more important consequences. Influenced by what the captain told him of the knowledge that the Nantucket whalers had acquired of the retarding effect of the Gulf Stream upon navigation, Franklin induced him to plat for him the dimensions, course and swiftness of the stream, and to give him written directions as to how ships, bound from the Newfoundland Banks to New York, might avoid it, and at the same time keep clear of certain dangerous banks and shoals. The immediate object of Franklin was to procure information for the English Post Office that would enable the mail packets between England and America to shorten their voyages. At his instance, Captain Folger's drawing was engraved on the old chart of the Atlantic at Mount and Page's, Tower Hill, and copies of it were distributed among the captains of the Falmouth packets. Ever afterwards the Gulf Stream was a favorite field of investigation to him, when at sea, and its phenomena were mastered by him with remarkable thoroughness. It was generated, he conjectured, by the great accumulation of water on the eastern coast of America created by the trade winds which constantly blew there. He found that it was always warmer than the sea on each side of it, and that it did not sparkle at night; and he assigned to its influence the tornadoes, waterspouts and fogs by which its flow was attended. Franklin also possessed to a striking degree the inventive capacity which is such a valuable qualification for experimental philosophy. We have already seen how ready his mechanical skill was in supplying printing deficiencies. Speaking of the pulse glasses, made by Nairne, in which water could be brought to the boiling point with the heat of the hand, he tells us: I plac'd one of his glasses, with the elevated end against this hole (a hole that he had opened through the wainscot in the seat of his window for the access of outside air); and the bubbles from the other end, which was in a warmer situation, were continually passing day and night, to the no small surprize of even philosophical spectators. As he sat in his library at Philadelphia, in his last years, he was surrounded by various objects conceived by his own ingenuity. The seat of his chair became a step-ladder, when reversed, and to its arm was fastened a fan that he could work with a slight motion of his foot. Against his bookcase rested "the long arm" with which he lifted down the books on its upper shelves. The hours, minutes and seconds were told for him by a clock, of his own invention, with only three wheels and two pinions, in which even James Ferguson, mathematician as he was, had to confess that he experienced difficulty in making improvements. The very bifocal glasses, now in such general use, that he wore were a triumph of his own quick wit. Describing this invention of his in a letter to George Whatley, he said: I therefore had formerly two Pair of Spectacles, which I shifted occasionally, as in travelling I sometimes read, and often wanted to regard the Prospects. Finding this Change troublesome, and not always sufficiently ready, I had the Glasses cut, and half of each kind associated in the same Circle.... By this means, as I wear my Spectacles constantly, I have only to move my Eyes up or down, as I want to see distinctly far or near, the proper Glasses being always ready. This I find more particularly convenient since my being in France, the Glasses that serve me best at Table to see what I eat, not being the best to see the Faces of those on the other Side of the Table who speak to me; and when one's Ears are not well accustomed to the Sounds of a Language, a Sight of the Movements in the Features of him that speaks helps to explain; so that I understand French better by the help of my Spectacles. The shrinking that a mahogany box, given to him in England, underwent, when subjected to the atmospheric conditions of America, suggested a hygrometer to him which Nairne afterwards constructed in accordance with his plans.[55] His mind seems to have had no torpid moments, except, perhaps, when some Congressional orator was speaking. When, in early life, he had nothing else better to do, he would address himself to making magic squares and circles as intricate as Rosamond's walk. "He took it into his head," James Logan wrote to Collinson, "to think of _magical squares_, in which he outdid Frenicle himself, who published above eighty pages in folio on that subject alone." Not willing to be outdone even by Stifelius, Franklin drew a square of such extraordinary numerical properties that not only did the numbers on all the rows and diagonals on its face total 2056, but the sum of the numbers on every group of 16 smaller squares on its face, when revealed through a hole in a piece of paper, moved backwards and forwards over its face, equalled precisely 2056 too. He likewise drew a magick circle, consisting of 8 concentric circles, and 8 radial rows, filled with a series of numbers, from 12 to 75, inclusive, so disposed as that the numbers of each circle or each radial row, being added to the central number 12, they made exactly 360, the number of degrees in a circle; and this circle had, moreover, all the properties of the square of 8. Both of these conceits were duly forwarded to Collinson and, with regard to the square of 16, Franklin wrote to him playfully that he made no question but that he would readily allow that it was the most magically magical of any magic square ever made by any magician. From the terms of this letter, it is plain that the practical intellect of Franklin was a little ashamed of these feats as but _difficiles nugæ_, but his misgivings were somewhat soothed by the suggestion of Logan that they might not be altogether useless if they produced by practice an habitual readiness and exactness in mathematical disquisitions. Hardly more profitable than the magic squares but indicative, too, of the same mental initiative, was the scheme formed by Franklin for a new alphabet and a reformed mode of spelling. In the new alphabet, the first effort was to arrange the letters in what was supposed to be a more natural order than that of the old alphabet by beginning with the simple sounds framed by the breath with no or very little help from the tongue, teeth and lips, and proceeding gradually forward from sounds, produced at the back of the mouth, to the sound produced by closing the lips, that is _m_. The _c_ of the old alphabet was omitted, _k_ being left to supply its hard sound, and _s_ its soft, and _k_ being also left to supply the place of _q_, and with an _s_ added, the place of _x_. _W_ as well as _q_ and _x_ was also dismissed from service, the vowel _u_, sounded as _oo_, being relied upon to perform its function. _Y_ also went by the board, _i_ taking its place, where used singly, and two vowels, where used as a diphthong. _J_ was superseded by an entirely new symbol, shaped something like a small _h_, and sounded as _ish_, when used singly, but subserving various other offices, when conjoined with _d_, _t_ and _z_. As a whole, the new alphabet was so systematized that the sound of any letter, vowel or consonant was always the same, wherever it occurred, or whatever its alphabetical collocation. Nor did the new alphabet contain any silent letters, or fail to provide a letter for every distinct sound in the language. The difference between short and long vowels was compassed by a single vowel where short, and a double one, where long. For illustration, "mend" remained "mend" and "did," "did," but "remained" reappeared as "remeened," and "deed" as "diid." Typographical obstacles prevent us from bringing to the eye of the reader a specimen of the reformed alphabet and spelling as they looked on a printed page. They, of course, issued from the mind of Franklin as stillborn as his reformed Episcopal Prayer Book. His only proselytes appear to have been Polly, who even wrote a letter to him in the strange forms, and his loving sister, Jane, who was delighted to have another language with which to express her affection for him. Our world is one in which some things are made but others make themselves, and, however arbitrary their character, will not allow themselves to be made over, even at the behest of such merciless rationalism as that of Franklin. In the latter part of Franklin's life, Noah Webster, the lexicographer, also formed a scheme for the reform of the alphabet, and Franklin had the pleasure of writing to him, "Our Ideas are so nearly similar, that I make no doubt of our easily agreeing on the Plan." Several years later, Webster, in his _Dissertations on the English Language_, stated that Franklin had compiled a dictionary, based upon his own reformatory system, and procured the types for printing it, but, finding himself too old to prosecute his design, had offered both manuscript and types to him. "Whether this project, so deeply interesting to this country," Webster said, "will ever be effected; or whether it will be defeated by insolence and prejudice, remains for my countrymen to determine." Another thing upon which the ingenuity of Franklin was brought to bear, as the reader has already been told, was the Armonica. In his letter to Beccaria, extolling its merits, he describes it with a wealth of detail, not only thoroughly in keeping with his knack for mechanics, but showing that to music as to everything else, that won the favor of his intellect, he brought the ken of a man of science. The letter concludes with a dulcet compliment, which harmonizes well with its subject: "In honour of your musical language (the Italian), I have borrowed from it the name of this instrument, calling it the Armonica." In one of his papers, he drew up instructions for the proper use of the instrument which nothing but the most intimate familiarity with its operation could have rendered possible. Admiration has often been expended upon the acuteness with which Franklin, in a letter to Lord Kames, accounted for the pleasure afforded by the old Scotch tunes, as compared with the pleasure afforded by the difficult music of his day, which, he said, was of the same nature as that awakened by the feats of tumblers and rope-dancers. The reason was this. The old Scotch melodies were composed by the minstrels of former days, to be played on the harp, accompanied by the voice. The harp was strung with wire (which gives a sound of long continuance) and had no contrivance like that in the modern harpsichord, by which the sound of the preceding note could be stopped, the moment a succeeding note began. To avoid _actual_ discord, it was therefore necessary that the succeeding emphatic note should be a chord with the preceding, as their sounds must exist at the same time. Hence arose that beauty in those tones that had so long pleased, and would please forever, though men scarce knew why. The most useful invention of Franklin was what came to be known as the Franklin stove. With modifications, it is still in use, and the essay written on it by Franklin, entitled _An Account of the New-invented Pennsylvanian Fireplaces_, is one of the best illustrations of the capacity of his scientific genius to adapt itself to the hardest and barest offices that human comfort and convenience could impose upon it with a nicety and accuracy of trained insight and touch worthy of the cleverest journeyman, a command of scientific principles to be expected only of a professional student, and a gift of clear, lively expression which reminds us of the remark of Stella that Dean Swift could write agreeably even about a broomstick. The principle upon which the Franklin stove was constructed was that of making the heat from its open fireplace, after first ascending to its top, descend in such a manner at its back, before passing off into the chimney, as to diffuse by radiation through the room, in which it stood, a large part of its warmth. The essay enumerates the different methods of heating rooms then in use: the great, open, smoky chimney-place, that the unremitting labor of one man could scarce keep supplied with fuel, and that gave out little more heat for human warmth than a fire outdoors; this chimney-place reduced to a smaller size with jambs, and free, to a great extent from the reproach of smokiness, yet, with its contraction setting up strong currents of whistling and howling air, which reminded Franklin of the Spanish proverb, "If the Wind blows on you thro' a Hole, Make your Will, and take Care of your Soul"; the expensive and intricate French fireplaces with hollow backs, hearths and jambs of iron; the Holland stove, which shut off the sight of the fire, and could not conveniently be used for any purposes except those of warmth; the German stove which was subject to very much the same disadvantages as the Holland stove; and charcoal fires in pots which emitted disagreeable and dangerous fumes and were used chiefly in the shops of handicraftsmen. From the shortcomings of all these methods of heating rooms, the Franklin stove, its inventor contended, was exempt. It diffused heat equally throughout a whole room; if you sat in an apartment warmed by it, you were not scorched before, while you were frozen behind; nor were you exposed to the drafts from which so many women, particularly, got colds in the head, rheums and defluxions that fell upon their jaws and gums, and destroyed early many a fine set of teeth in the northern colonies, and from which so many persons of both sexes contracted coughs, catarrhs, toothaches, fevers, pleurisies and other diseases. It kept a sick room supplied with a fresh and yet properly tempered flow of pure air. It conserved heat. It economized fuel. With it, Franklin said, he could make his room twice as warm as it used to be with a quarter of the wood that he used to consume. If you burned candles near it, they did not flare and run off into tallow as in the case of ordinary fireplaces with their excessive drafts. It corrected most smoky chimneys. It prevented all kinds of chimneys from fouling, and if they fouled made them less likely to fire, and, if they fired, made the fire easier to repress. A flame could be speedily kindled in it with the help of the shutter or trap-bellows that went along with it. A fire could be readily extinguished in it, or could be so secured in it that not one spark could fly out of it to do any damage. A room once warmed remained warm all night. "With all these Conveniences," concludes Franklin, "you do not lose the pleasing Sight nor Use of the Fire, as in the Dutch Stoves, but may boil the Tea-Kettle, warm the Flat-Irons, heat Heaters, keep warm a Dish of Victuals by setting it on the Top, &c. &c." Some years after the publication of this essay, Franklin devised an improvement in the open chimney-place which tended to abate drafts and check the escape of heat up the chimney by contracting the chimney opening, bringing its breast down to within three feet of the hearth, and placing an iron frame just under this breast, with grooves on each side of the frame, in which an iron plate could be slid backwards and forwards at pleasure, for the purpose of cutting off the mouth of the chimney entirely from the chimney itself, when there was no fire on the hearth, or of leaving a space of not more than two inches for the escape of smoke between the further edge of the plate and the back of the chimney-mouth. This improved chimney-place was described by Franklin in letters to Alexander Dick and James Bowdoin. The letter to Bowdoin seems to leave little to be said on the subject of chimneys. It indicates that Franklin had subjected them to a scrutiny hardly less close than that which he had fixed upon the Leyden Jar. In connection with the currents and reverse currents, set up in them in summer by the relations of inequality, which the air in them sustains, at different hours of the day and night, to the outside temperature, he suggests that joints of meat might keep for a week or more during the hottest weather in chimney-openings, if well wrapt three or four fold in wet linen cloths, sprinkled once a day with water to prevent evaporation. Butter and milk in vessels and bottles covered with wet cloths might, he thought, be preserved in the same way. And he even thought, too, that the movements of air in chimneys might, with the aid of smoke-jack vanes, be applied to some mechanical purposes, where a small but pretty constant power only was needed. To appreciate how patiently and exhaustively Franklin was in the habit of pursuing every course of observation or reflection opened up by his scientific propensities, the whole of this letter, which had much more to say on the subject of chimneys than we have mentioned, should be read. At a later period of his life, Franklin describes to Turgot what he called his new stove. The novel feature of this consisted of an aerial syphon by which the smoke from the fireplace of the stove was first drawn upwards through the longer leg of the syphon, and then downwards through its shorter leg, and over burning coals, by which it was kindled into flame and consumed. The ingenuity of Franklin was also exerted very successfully in the rectification of smoky chimneys. In his essay on the causes and cure of such chimneys, written on his last ocean voyage, he resolved the causes into no less than nine heads, and stated with his accustomed perspicuity and precision the remedy for each cause. In his time, the art of properly carrying off smoke through chimneys was but imperfectly understood by ordinary builders and mechanics, and it was of too humble a nature to tempt discussion by such men of science as were capable of clearly expounding the physical principles upon which it rested. It was not strange, therefore, that Franklin, who deemed nothing, that was useful, to be beneath the dignity of philosophy, should have acquired in his time the reputation of being a kind of "universal smoke doctor" and should have been occasionally consulted by friends of his, such as Lord Kames, about refractory chimneys. The only smoky chimney, that seems to have completely baffled his investigation, recalls in a way the philosopher, who thought that he had discovered a new planet, but afterwards found that what he saw was only a fly in the end of his telescope. After exhausting every scientific resource in an effort to ascertain why the chimney in the country-house of one of his English friends smoked, Franklin was obliged to own the impotence for once of his skill; but, subsequently, his friend, who made no pretensions to the character of a fumist, climbed to the top of the funnel of his chimney by a ladder, and, on peering down into it, found that it had been filled by nesting birds with twigs and straw, cemented with clay, and lined with feathers. Nor was the attention given by Franklin to ventilation by any means confined to chimneys. Air vitiated by human respiration also came in for a share of it. Describing an experiment by which he demonstrated the manner in which air affected in this way is purified, Alexander Small said: The Doctor confirmed this by the following experiment. He breathed gently through a tube into a deep glass mug, so as to impregnate all the air in the mug with this quality. He then put a lighted bougie into the mug; and upon touching the air therein the flame was instantly extinguished; by frequently repeating the operation, the bougie gradually preserved its light longer in the mug, so as in a short time to retain it to the bottom of it; the air having totally lost the bad quality it had contracted from the breath blown into it. Franklin became deeply interested in the brilliant course of investigation pursued by Priestley with respect to gases, and several penetrating glances of his into the relations of carbonic acid gas to vegetation have come down to us. Observing on a visit to Priestley the luxuriance of some mint growing in noxious air, he suggested to Priestley that "the air is mended by taking something from it, and not by adding to it." He hoped, he said in a letter to Priestley, that the nutriment derived by vegetation from carbonic acid gas would give some check to the rage of destroying trees that grew near houses, which had accompanied recent improvements in gardening from an opinion of their being unwholesome. Just as he was consulted about the best methods of protecting St. Paul's Cathedral and the arsenals at Purfleet from lightning, so he was also consulted by the British Government as to the best method for ventilating the House of Commons. "The personal atmosphere surrounding the members," he thought, "might be carried off by making outlets in perpendicular parts of the seats, through which the air might be drawn off by ventilators, so placed, as to accomplish this without admitting any by the same channels." The experiment might be tried upon some of our City Councilmen. Principles of ventilation, expounded by Franklin, were also utilized by the Messrs. Adam of the Adelphi, in the construction of the large room built by them for the meetings of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts. We also find him suggesting openings, close to the ceilings of rooms, and communicating with flues, constructed alongside of chimney flues, as effective means for ventilating rooms. With all his primary and secondary gifts for scientific research, it is difficult to believe that, if Franklin had not been diverted from it by engrossing political cares, he would have added both to his special reputation as a student of electricity and to his general reputation as a man of science. As it was, his civic activity and popular leadership in Pennsylvania, his several agencies abroad, his participation in the American Revolution, his career as Minister to France, and his official duties, after his return, made such imperious demands upon his time that he had little or no leisure left for scientific pursuits. This picture of his situation which he presented in a letter to Ingenhousz, when he was in France, was more or less true of almost every part of his life after he became famous: Besides being harass'd with too much Business, I am expos'd to numberless Visits, some of Kindness and Civility, many of mere idle Curiosity, from Strangers of America & of different Parts of Europe, as well as the Inhabitants of the Provinces who come to Paris. These devour my Hours, and break my Attention, and at Night I often find myself fatigu'd without having done anything. Celebrity may for a while flatter one's Vanity, but its Effects are troublesome. I have begun to write two or three Things, which I wish to finish before I die; but I sometimes doubt the possibility. Some of the reflections of Franklin on scientific subjects, such as his early letters to Cadwallader Colden with regard to "perspirants and absorbents" are, to use his own expression in one of them, too plainly _ultra crepidam_ to have any value. Of others, we might fairly say that his knowledge of the topics which he handled in them was hardly deep enough to deserve any praise more confident than that which he allowed himself when writing to Cadwallader Colden in 1751 of the Philadelphia Experiments. "So," he said to Colden in this letter, "we are got beyond the skill of _Rabelais's_ devils of two years old, who, he humorously says, had only learnt to thunder and lighten a little round the head of a cabbage." All the same, even aside from his electrical experiments, Franklin acquired no little fame as a philosopher, made more than one fruitful suggestion to fellow-workers of his in the domain of science and contributed many useful observations to the general fund of scientific thought. Apparently his views on medical topics were held in very considerable respect. In 1777, he was elected a member of the Royal Medical Society of Paris, and in 1787 an honorary member of the Medical Society of London. Many works on medical subjects were dedicated to him by their authors. He was one of the commission which exposed the imposture of Mesmer. There are few things that give us a better idea of the extraordinary celebrity enjoyed by him than the wide currency obtained by a spurious opinion of his, ascribing great merit to tobacco ashes as a remedy for dropsy. It won such an extensive circulation, and brought down on his head such a flood of questions from physicians and others, that he was compelled to deny flatly the truth of the story. One person, Lord Cadross, afterwards the Earl of Buchan, firmly believed that he would have perished at the hands of a professional physician, who wished to blister him, when he was afflicted with a fever, if Franklin had not dissented from the treatment. Franklin probably deserved no higher credit for his dissent on this occasion than that of sharing the opinion of Sir John Pringle, who was convinced that, out of every one hundred fevers, ninety-two cured themselves. So far as we can see, there is nothing in the works of Franklin to warrant the belief that he possessed any uncommon degree of medical knowledge, though he was full of curiosity with regard to medicine as with regard to every other branch of human learning. In one of his letters to Colden, written in his fortieth year, he expressed the hope that future experiment would confirm the idea that the yaws could be cured by tar-water. In a later letter to Colden, he expressed his pleasure at hearing more instances of the success of the poke-weed "in the Cure of that horrible Evil to the human Body, a Cancer." At his suggestion, a young physician, with the aid of Sanctorius' balance, tested alternately each hour, for eight hours, the amount of the perspiration from his body, when naked, and when warmly clad, and found that it was almost as great during the hours when he was naked. By his investigations into the malady known in his time popularly as "the dry bellyache," and learnedly as the "_colica Pictonum_," he conferred a real benefit upon medical science. His views upon the subject received the honor of being incorporated with due acknowledgments into Dr. John Hunter's essay on the _Dry Bellyache of the Tropics_. Summarily speaking they were that the complaint was a form of lead poisoning. I have long been of opinion [he wrote to Dr. Cadwallader Evans in 1768] that that distemper proceeds always from a metallic cause only; observing that it affects, among tradesmen, those that use lead, however different their trades,--as glaziers, letter-founders, plumbers, potters, white-lead makers, and painters;... although the worms of stills ought to be of pure tin, they are often made of pewter, which has a great mixture in it of lead. The year before this letter was written, Franklin had found on reading a pamphlet, containing the names and vocations of the persons, who had been cured of the colic at Charité, a Parisian hospital, that all of them had followed trades, which handle lead in some form or other. On going over the vocations, he was at first puzzled to understand why there should be any stonecutters or soldiers among the sufferers, but his perplexity was cleared up by a physician at the hospital, who informed him that stonecutters frequently used melted lead for fixing the ends of iron balustrades in stone, and that the soldiers had been employed as laborers by painters, when grinding colors. These facts were long afterwards communicated by Franklin to Benjamin Vaughan in a letter, in which he cited other incidents, interesting partly because they corroborated his theory, and partly because they are additional proofs of his vigilance and patience in collecting facts, before advancing an hypothesis, as well as of a memory, which retained every instructive circumstance imparted to it by eye or ear as imperishably as hardening cement retains the impression of a dog's foot. When he was a boy at Boston, Franklin said, it was discovered that New England rum, which had produced the dry bellyache and paralyzed the limbs in North Carolina, had been made by distilleries with leaden still-heads and worms. Later, when he was in London, he had been warned by an old workman at Palmer's printing-house, as well as by an obscure pain in his own hands, that it was a dangerous practice to handle a heated case of types. About the same time, a letter-founder in the same close at Palmer's, in a conversation with him, ascribed the existence of the ailment among his workmen to the fact that some of them were slovenly enough to go to their meals with unwashed hands that had come into contact with molten lead. He had also observed in Derbyshire that the smoke from lead furnaces was pernicious to grass and other vegetables, and in America had often observed that streaks on shingle roofs, made by white lead, washed from balusters or dormer window frames, were always entirely free from moss. He had also been told of a case where this colic had afflicted a whole family, and was supposed to be due to the corrosive effect of the acid in leaves, shed upon the roof, from which the family derived the supply of rain water, upon which it relied for drink. More important still than the insight that Franklin obtained into the Painter's Colic was the insight which he obtained into the salutary effect of the custom which is now almost universal, except in the homes of the ignorant and squalid, of sleeping at night in rooms with the windows up. This custom, as well as the outdoor regimen, which has proved of such signal value in the treatment of tuberculosis, originated in hygienic conceptions identical with those steadfastly inculcated by him. His opinions with regard to colds and the benefits of pure air were expressed at many different times, and in many different forms, but nowhere so conveniently for the purposes of quotation as in a letter which he wrote to Dr. Benjamin Rush in 1773. I hope [he said in this letter] that after having discovered the benefit of fresh and cool air applied to the sick, people will begin to suspect that possibly it may do no harm to the well. I have not seen Dr. Cullen's book, but am glad to hear that he speaks of catarrhs or colds by contagion. I have long been satisfied from observation, that besides the general colds now termed _influenzas_ (which may possibly spread by contagion, as well as by a particular quality of the air), people often catch cold from one another when shut up together in close rooms, coaches, &c., and when sitting near and conversing so as to breathe in each other's transpiration; the disorder being in a certain state. I think, too, that it is the frouzy, corrupt air from animal substances, and the perspired matter from our bodies, which being long confined in beds not lately used, and clothes not lately worn, and books long shut up in close rooms, obtains that kind of putridity, which occasions the colds observed upon sleeping in, wearing, and turning over such bedclothes, or books, and not their coldness or dampness. From these causes, but more from too full living, with too little exercise, proceed in my opinion most of the disorders, which for about one hundred and fifty years past the English have called _colds_. As to Dr. Cullen's cold or catarrh _a frigore_, I question whether such an one ever existed. Travelling in our severe winters, I have suffered cold sometimes to an extremity only short of freezing, but this did not make me _catch cold_. And, for moisture, I have been in the river every evening two or three hours for a fortnight together, when one could suppose I might imbibe enough of it to _take cold_ if humidity could give it; but no such effect ever followed. Boys never get cold by swimming. Nor are people at sea, or who live at Bermudas, or St. Helena, small islands, where the air must be ever moist from the dashing and breaking of waves against their rocks on all sides, more subject to colds than those who inhabit part of a continent where the air is driest. Dampness may indeed assist in producing putridity and those miasmata which infect us with the disorder we call a cold; but of itself can never by a little addition of moisture hurt a body filled with watery fluids from head to foot. Franklin's belief that colds and overeating often went hand in hand also found expression in one of his letters to Polly Stevenson. When sending her an account of some seamen, who had experienced considerable relief from thirst by wearing clothes kept constantly wet with salt water, he said, "I need not point out to you an Observation in favour of our Doctrine, that you will make on reading this Paper, that, _having little to eat_, these poor People in wet Clothes Day and Night _caught no cold_." In every, or in practically every, case, he seems to have referred colds to what he rather vaguely calls a siziness and thickness of the blood, resulting from checked perspiration, produced by different agencies, including a gross diet. Thus [he says in his _Notes and Hints for Writing a Paper Concerning what is called Catching Cold_], People in Rooms heated by a Multitude of People, find their own Bodies heated; thence the quantity of perspirable Matter is increased that should be discharged, but the Air, not being changed, grows so full of the same Matter, that it will receive no more. So the Body must retain it. The Consequence is, the next Day, perhaps sooner, a slight putrid Fever comes on, with all the Marks of what we call a Cold, and the Disorder is suppos'd to be got by coming out of a warm Room, whereas it was really taken while in that Room. He did not shrink from any of the consequences of his reasoning about colds however extreme. Be so kind as to tell me at your leisure [he wrote to Barbeu Dubourg], whether in France, you have a general Belief that moist Air, and cold Air, and damp Shirts or Sheets, and wet Floors, and Beds that have not lately been used, and Clothes that have not been lately worn, and going out of a warm Room into the Air, and leaving off a long-worn Wastecoat, and wearing leaky Shoes, and sitting near an Open Window, or Door, or in a Coach with both Glasses down, are all or any of them capable of giving the Distemper we call _a Cold_, and you _a Rheum, or Catarrh_? Or are these merely _English_ ideas? His views on the wholesomeness of fresh air were far in advance of the general intelligence of his time, and were expressed in spirited terms. After stating in a letter to Jean Baptiste Le Roy that he had become convinced that the idea that perspiration is checked by cold was an error as well as the idea that rheum is occasioned by cold, he added: But as this is Heresy here, and perhaps may be so with you, I only whisper it, and expect you will keep my Secret. Our Physicians have begun to discover that fresh Air is good for People in the Small-pox & other Fevers. I hope in time they will find out that it does no harm to People in Health. At times his language on what he called _aerophobia_ grew highly animated. What Caution against Air [he said in a letter to Thomas Percival], what stopping of Crevices, what wrapping up in warm Clothes, what shutting of Doors and Windows! even in the midst of Summer! Many London Families go out once a day to take the Air; three or four Persons in a Coach, one perhaps Sick; these go three or four Miles, or as many Turns in Hide Park, with the Glasses both up close, all breathing over & over again the same Air they brought out of Town with them in the Coach with the least change possible, and render'd worse and worse every moment. And this they call _taking the Air_. Indeed, there is at times something just a little ludicrous in the uncompromising fervor with which Franklin insisted upon his proposition. It seemed strange he said, in the letter from which we have just quoted, that a man whose body was composed in great part of moist fluids, whose blood and juices were so watery, and who could swallow quantities of water and small beer daily without inconvenience, should fancy that a little more or less moisture in the air should be of such importance; but we abound in absurdity and inconsistency. It is a delightful account that John Adams gives us of a night which he spent in the same bed with Franklin at New Brunswick, on their way to the conference with Lord Howe: The chamber [Adams tells us] was little larger than the bed, without a chimney, and with only one small window. The window was open, and I, who was an invalid, and afraid of the air in the night, shut it close. "Oh!" says Franklin, "don't shut the window, we shall be suffocated." I answered I was afraid of the evening air. Dr. Franklin replied, "The air within this chamber will soon be, and indeed is now, worse than that without doors. Come, open the window and come to bed, and I will convince you. I believe you are not acquainted with my theory of colds." Opening the window and leaping into bed, I said I had read his letters to Dr. Cooper, in which he had advanced that nobody ever got cold by going into a cold church or any other cold air, but the theory was so little consistent with my experience, that I thought it a paradox. However, I had so much curiosity to hear his reasons, that I would run the risk of a cold. The Doctor then began a harangue upon air and cold, and respiration and perspiration, with which I was so much amused that I soon fell asleep, and left him and his philosophy together; but I believe they were equally sound and insensible within a few minutes after me, for the last words I heard were pronounced as if he was more than half asleep. I remember little of the lecture, except that the human body, by respiration and perspiration, destroys a gallon of air in a minute; that two such persons as we were now in that chamber would consume all the air in it in an hour or two; that by breathing over again the matter thrown off by the lungs and the skin, we should imbibe the real cause of colds, not from abroad, but from within. At times Franklin merely gave hints to brother philosophers and left them to run the hints down. For instance, he suggested to M. De Saussure, of Geneva, who succeeded in ascending Mont Blanc, the idea of ascertaining the lateral attraction of the Jura Mountains for the purpose of discovering the mean density of the earth upon the Newtonian theory of gravitation. This was subsequently done with complete success by Nevil Maskelyne on Mt. Schehallion in Perthshire. To Ingenhousz he suggested the idea of "hanging a weight on a spiral spring, to discover if bodies gravitated differently to the earth during the conjunctions of the sun and moon, compared with other times." He gave very close study to the philosophy of waterspouts and whirlwinds and came to the conclusion that they were generated by the same causes, and were of the same nature, "the only Difference between them being, that the one passes over Land, the other over Water." He was the first person to discover that northeast storms did not begin in the northeast at all. The manner in which he did it is another good illustration of his quickness in noting the significance of every fact by which his attention was challenged. He desired to observe a lunar eclipse at nine o'clock in the evening at Philadelphia, but his efforts were frustrated by a northeast storm, which lasted for a night and a day, and did much damage all along the Atlantic coast. To his surprise he afterwards learnt from the Boston newspapers that the eclipse had been visible there, and, upon writing to his brother for particulars, was informed by him that it had been over for an hour when the storm set in at Boston; though it was apparently fair to assume that the storm began sooner at Boston than at Philadelphia. This information and further inquiry satisfied him that northeast storms commence southward and work their way to the northeast at the rate of a hundred miles an hour. When we read the words in which he stated his theory of such storms, we begin to understand what Sir Humphry Davy meant in saying that science appeared in Franklin's language in a dress wonderfully decorous, and best adapted to display her native loveliness. Suppose [he said to Jared Eliot] a great tract of country, land and sea, to wit, Florida and the Bay of Mexico, to have clear weather for several days, and to be heated by the sun, and its air thereby exceedingly rarefied. Suppose the country northeastward, as Pennsylvania, New England, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, to be at the same time covered with clouds, and its air chilled and condensed. The rarefied air being lighter must rise, and the denser air next to it will press into its place; that will be followed by the next denser air, that by the next, and so on. Thus, when I have a fire in my chimney, there is a current of air constantly flowing from the door to the chimney; but the beginning of the motion was at the chimney, where the air being rarefied by the fire rising, its place was supplied by the cooler air that was next to it, and the place of that by the next, and so on to the door. So the water in a long sluice or mill-race, being stopped by a gate, is at rest like the air in a calm; but as soon as you open the gate at one end to let it out, the water next the gate begins first to move, that which is next to it follows; and so, though the water proceeds forward to the gate, the motion which began there runs backward, if one may so speak, to the upper end of the race, where the water is last in motion. It may be truly said of every province of scientific research into which Franklin ventured that he brought to it a bold and original spirit of speculation which gave it new interest and meaning. Even when he was not the first to kindle a light, he had a happy and effective way of trimming it anew and freshening its radiance. To Collinson he wrote on one occasion, "But I must own I am much in the _Dark_ about _Light_." But noonday is not more luminous than what he had to say on the subject in this letter. May not all the Phaenomena of Light [he asked] be more conveniently solved, by supposing universal Space filled with a subtle elastic Fluid, which, when at rest, is not visible, but whose Vibrations affect that fine Sense the Eye, as those of Air do the grosser Organs of the Ear? We do not, in the Case of Sound, imagine that any sonorous Particles are thrown off from a Bell, for Instance, and fly in strait Lines to the Ear; why must we believe that luminous Particles leave the Sun and proceed to the Eye? Some Diamonds, if rubbed, shine in the Dark, without losing any Part of their Matter. I can make an Electrical Spark as big as the Flame of a Candle, much brighter, and, therefore, visible farther, yet this is without Fuel; and, I am persuaded no part of the Electric Fluid flies off in such Case to distant Places, but all goes directly, and is to be found in the Place to which I destine it. May not different Degrees of Vibration of the above-mentioned Universal Medium occasion the Appearances of different Colours? I think the Electric Fluid is always the same; yet I find that weaker and stronger Sparks differ in apparent Colour; some white, blue, purple, red; the strongest, White; weak ones, red. Thus different Degrees of Vibration given to the Air produce the 7 different Sounds in Music, analagous to the 7 Colours, yet the Medium, Air, is the same. "Universal Space, as far as we know of it," he declared in his _Loose Thoughts on a Universal Fluid_, "seems to be filled with a subtil Fluid, whose Motion, or Vibration is called Light." And he then proceeds to found on this statement a series of speculations marked by too high a degree of temerity to have much scientific value. One sentiment in the paper, however, is well worth recalling as showing how clearly its author had grasped the conservation of matter. "The Power of Man relative to Matter," he observed, "seems limited to the dividing it, or mixing the various kinds of it, or changing its Form and Appearance by different Compositions of it; but does not extend to the making or creating of new Matter, or annihilating the old." The Science of Palæontology was in its infancy during the lifetime of Franklin. Many years before Cuvier gave the name of mastodon to the prehistoric beast, whose fossil remains had been brought to sight from time to time in different parts of the world, George Croghan, the Indian trader, sent to Franklin a box of tusks and grinders, which had been found near the Ohio, and which he supposed to be parts of a dismembered elephant. In his reply of thanks, Franklin observed that the tusks were nearly of the same form and texture as those of the African and Asiatic elephant. "But the grinders differ," he added, "being full of knobs, like the grinders of a carnivorous animal; when those of the elephant, who eats only vegetables, are almost smooth. But then we know of no other animal with tusks like an elephant, to whom such grinders might belong." The fact that, while elephants inhabited hot countries only, fragments such as those sent to him by Croghan were found in climates like those of the Ohio Territory and Siberia, looked, Franklin concluded, "as if the earth had anciently been in another position, and the climates differently placed from what they are at present." Contrasting the observations of this letter with the paper read long afterwards by Thomas Jefferson before the American Philosophical Society on the bones of a large prehistoric quadruped resembling the sloth, William B. Scott, the American palæontologist, remarks: Franklin's opinions are nearer to our present beliefs than were Jefferson's, written nearly forty years later. Of course, we now know that Franklin was mistaken in supposing that such bones were found only in what is now Kentucky and in Peru, and his comparison of the teeth of the mastodon with the "grinders of a carnivorous animal" is not very happy, but the inferences are remarkably sound, when we consider the state of geological knowledge in 1767. In a letter to Antoine Court de Gébelin, the author of the _Monde Primitif_, Franklin gave him a valuable caution, in relation to apparent linguistic variations. Strangers, who learnt the language of an Indian nation, he said, finding no orthography, formed each his own orthography according to the usual sounds given to the letters in his own language. Thus the same words of the Mohawk language, written by an English, a French and a German interpreter, often differed very much in the spelling. Franklin's letters to Herschel, Maskelyne, Rittenhouse, Humphrey Marshall and James Bowdoin reveal a keen interest in astronomy, but this is not one of the fields from which he came off _cum laude_. Gratifying to the pride of an American, however, is an observation which he made to William Herschel, when the latter sent to him for the American Philosophical Society a catalogue of one thousand new nebulæ and star-clusters and stated at the same time that he had discovered two satellites, which revolved about the Georgian planet. In congratulating him on the discovery, Franklin said: You have wonderfully extended the Power of human Vision, and are daily making us Acquainted with Regions of the Universe totally unknown to mankind in former Ages. Had Fortune plac'd you in this part of America, your Progress in these Discoveries might have been still more rapid, as from the more frequent clearness of our Air, we have near one Third more in the year of good observing Days than there are in England. The production of cold by evaporation was another subject which enlisted the eager interest of Franklin. In co-operation with Dr. Hadley, the Professor of Chemistry at Cambridge, England, he was so successful in covering a ball with ice by wetting it from time to time with ether, and blowing upon the ether with a bellows, that he could write to John Lining in these words: "From this experiment one may see the possibility of freezing a man to death on a warm summer's day, if he were to stand in a passage through which the wind blew briskly, and to be wet frequently with ether, a spirit that is more inflammable than brandy, or common spirits of wine." Geology was in its infancy during Franklin's time, but he hazarded some conjectures about the formation of the earth that are perhaps not less trustworthy than those advanced by riper geologists. In the letter, in which these conjectures were communicated to the Abbé Soulavie, he said: Part of the high county of Derby being probably as much above the level of the sea, as the coal mines of Whitehaven were below it, seemed a proof that there had been a great _bouleversement_ in the surface of that Island (Great Britain), some part of it having been depressed under the sea, and other parts which had been under it being raised above it.... Such changes in the superficial parts of the globe [he continued] seemed to me unlikely to happen if the earth were solid to the centre. I therefore imagined that the internal parts might be a fluid more dense, and of greater specific gravity than any of the solids we are acquainted with; which therefore might swim in or upon that fluid. Thus the surface of the globe would be a shell, capable of being broken and disordered by the violent movements of the fluid on which it rested. The letter contains other speculations equally bold: It has long been a supposition of mine that the iron contained in the substance of this globe, has made it capable of becoming as it is a great magnet. That the fluid of magnetism exists perhaps in all space; so that there is a magnetical North and South of the universe as well as of this globe, and that if it were possible for a man to fly from star to star, he might govern his course by the compass. That it was by the power of this general magnetism this globe became a particular magnet. In soft or hot iron the fluid of magnetism is naturally diffused equally; when within the influence of the magnet, it is drawn to one end of the Iron, made denser there, and rare at the other, while the iron continues soft and hot, it is only a temporary magnet: If it cools or grows hard in that situation, it becomes a permanent one, the magnetic fluid not easily resuming its equilibrium. Perhaps it may be owing to the permanent magnetism of this globe, which it had not at first, that its axis is at present kept parallel to itself, and not liable to the changes it formerly suffered, which occasioned the rupture of its shell, the submersions and emersions of its lands and the confusion of its seasons. It was probably, Franklin thought, different relations between the earth and its axis in the past that caused much of Europe, including the mountains of Passy, on which he lived, and which were composed of limestone rock and sea shells, to be abandoned by the sea, and to change its ancient climate, which seemed, he said, to have been a hot one. The physical convulsions to which the earth had been subject in the past were, however, in his opinion beneficent. Had [he said in a letter to Sir John Pringle] the different strata of clay, gravel, marble, coals, limestone, sand, minerals, &c., continued to lie level, one under the other, as they may be supposed to have done before these convulsions, we should have had the use only of a few of the uppermost of the strata, the others lying too deep and too difficult to be come at; but the shell of the earth being broke, and the fragments thrown into this oblique position, the disjointed ends of a great number of strata of different kinds are brought up to-day, and a great variety of useful materials put into our power, which would otherwise have remained eternally concealed from us. So that what has been usually looked upon as a _ruin_ suffered by this part of the universe, was, in reality, only a preparation or means of rendering the earth more fit for use, more capable of being to mankind a convenient and comfortable habitation. The scientific conjectures of Franklin may not always have been sound, but they are invariably so readable that we experience no difficulty in understanding why the Abbé Raynal should have preferred his fictions to other men's truths. FOOTNOTES: [51] The lightning rod in its origin encountered the same religious misgivings as inoculation and insurance and many other ideas which have promoted human progress and happiness. The Rev. Thomas Prince at the time of the Lisbon earthquake thought that the more lightning rods there were the greater was the danger that the earth might become perilously surcharged with electricity. "In Boston," he said, "are more erected than anywhere else in New England; and Boston seems to be more dreadfully shaken. Oh! there is no getting out of the Mighty Hand of God! If we think to avoid it in the Air we can not in the Earth. Yea, it may grow more fatal." [52] The lines under the portrait of Franklin by Cochin do not hesitate to exalt him above the most powerful forces of Nature and the authority of the Gods: "C'est l'honneur et l'appui du nouvel hémisphère, Les flots de l'Océan s'abaissent à sa voix; Il réprime ou dirige à son gré le tonnerre. Qui désarme les dieux peut-il craindre les rois?" [53] "With Franklin grasp the lightning's fiery wing," is a line in Thomas Campbell's _Pleasures of Hope_. In his _Age of Bronze_, Byron asks in one place why the Atlantic should "gird a tyrant's grave" "While Franklin's quiet memory climbs to heaven, Calming the lightning which he thence hath riven." And in another place in the same poem he speaks of "Stoic Franklin's energetic shade, Robed in the lightnings which his hand allayed." Crabbe in his tribute to "Divine Philosophy" in the _Library_ exclaims, "'Tis hers the lightning from the clouds to call, And teach the fiery mischief where to fall." [54] The inductive process by which Franklin arrived at the identity of lightning and electricity was set forth in one of his letters to John Lining, of Charleston, dated March 18, 1755. The minutes kept by him of his experiments and observations, contained, he said, the following entry: "November 7, 1749. Electrical fluid agrees with lightning in these particulars. 1. Giving light. 2. Colour of the light. 3. Crooked direction. 4. Swift motion. 5. Being conducted by metals. 6. Crack or noise in exploding. 7. Subsisting in water or ice. 8. Rending bodies it passes through. 9. Destroying animals. 10. Melting metals. 11. Firing inflammable substances. 12. Sulphureous smell. The electric fluid is attracted by points. We do not know whether this property is in lightning. But since they agree in all particulars wherein we can already compare them, is it not probable they agree likewise in this? Let the Experiment be made." [55] The standing of Franklin as an inventor would be better established if he had not been so resolute in his unwillingness to take out patents upon his inventions. Besides the various inventions mentioned by us in the text, he was the father of other valuable mechanical conceptions. The first hint of the art of engraving upon earthenware appears to have originated with him. Moved by his constant desire to inculcate moral truths, he suggested about 1753 to a correspondent the idea of engraving from copper plates on square chimney tiles "moral prints"; "which," to use his words, "being about our Chimneys, and constantly in the Eyes of Children when by the Fireside, might give Parents an Opportunity, in explaining them, to impress moral Sentiments." He also appears to have anticipated the Argand burner. A description has come down to us of a lamp devised by him which, with only three small wicks, had a lustre equal to six candles. It was fitted with a pipe that supplied fresh and cool air to its lights. If Franklin did not invent, he was the first to communicate to his friend, Mr. Viny, the wheel manufacturer at Tenderden, Kent, the art of flexing timber used in making wheels for vehicles. But of few things did Franklin take a gloomier view than the fate of the inventor as his observations in a letter to John Lining, dated March 18, 1755, demonstrate. "One would not," he said, "of all faculties or qualities of the mind, wish, for a friend, or a child, that he should have that of invention. For his attempts to benefit mankind in that way, however well imagined, if they do not succeed, expose him, though very unjustly, to general ridicule and contempt; and, if they do succeed, to envy, robbery, and abuse." CHAPTER V Franklin as a Writer Franklin, as Hume truly said, was the first great man of letters, for whom Great Britain was beholden to America, and, among his writings, are some that will always remain classics. But it is a mistake to think of him as in any sense a professional author. He was entirely accurate when he declared in the _Autobiography_ that prose-writing had been of great use to him in the course of his life and a principal means of his advancement; but always to him a pen was but an implement of action. When it had accomplished its purpose, he threw it aside as a farmer discards a worn-out plowshare, or a horse casts a shoe.[56] There is nothing in his writings or his utterances to show that he ever regarded himself as a literary man, or ever harbored a thought of permanent literary fame. The only productions of his pen, which suggest the sandpaper and varnish of a professional writer, are his Bagatelles, such as _The Craven Street Gazette_ and _The Ephemera_, composed for the amusement of his friends; and, in writing them, the idea of permanency was as completely absent from his mind as it was from that of the Duke of Crillon, when he sent up his balloon in honor of the two Spanish princes. The greater part of his writings were composed in haste, and published anonymously, and without revision. And, when once published, if they did not remain dispersed and neglected, it was only because their merits were too great for them not to be snatched from the "abhorred abyss of blank oblivion" by some disciple or friend of his, who had more regard for posterity than he had. So far as we are aware, no edition of his scientific essays or other writings was ever in the slightest degree prompted by any personal concern or request of his. As soon as the didactic purpose of the earlier chapters of the _Autobiography_ had been gratified by the composition of those chapters, it was only by incessant proddings and importunities that he could be induced to bring his narrative down to as late a period as he did. When Lord Kames expressed a desire to have all his publications, the only ones on which he could lay his hands were the _Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind_, _Peopling of Countries, etc._, the _Account of the New-invented Pennsylvanian Fireplaces_, and some little magazine sketches. He had had, he wrote Lord Kames, daily expectations of procuring some of his performances from a friend to whom he had formerly sent them, when the author was in America, but this friend had at length told him that he could not find them. "Very mortifying this to an author," said Franklin, "that his works should so soon be lost!" When Jefferson called upon him, during his last days, he placed in the former's hands the valuable manuscript of his negotiations with Lord Howe, and it was not until he had twice told Jefferson to keep it, in reply to statements by Jefferson that he would return it, after reading it, that the recipient could realize that the intention was to turn over the manuscript to him absolutely. In a letter to Vaughan, he mentions that, after writing a parable, probably that on Brotherly Love, he laid it aside and had not seen it for thirty years, when a lady, a few days before, furnished him with a copy that she had preserved. The indifference of Franklin to literary reputation is all the more remarkable in view of the clearness with which he foresaw the increased patronage that the future had in store for English authors. "I assure you," he wrote on one occasion to Hume, "it often gives me pleasure to reflect, how greatly the _audience_ (if I may so term it) of a good English writer will, in another century or two, be increased by the increase of English people in our colonies." Twenty-four years later, he had already lived long enough to see his prescience in this respect to no little extent verified. By the way [he wrote to William Strahan], the rapid Growth and extension of the English language in America, must become greatly Advantageous to the book-sellers, and holders of Copy-Rights in England. A vast audience is assembling there for English Authors ancient, present, and future, our People doubling every twenty Years; and this will demand large and of course profitable Impressions of your most valuable Books. I would, therefore, if I possessed such rights, entail them, if such a thing be practicable, upon my Posterity; for their Worth will be continually augmenting. This grave advice was followed by the jolly laugh that was never long absent from the intercourse between Franklin and Strahan. "This," Franklin said, "may look a little like Advice, and yet I have drank no _Madeira_ these Ten Months." The manner in which Franklin acquired the elements of his literary education is one of the inspiring things in the history of knowledge. At the age of ten, as we have seen, he was done forever with all schools except those of self-education and experience; but he had one of those minds that simply will not be denied knowledge. Even while he was pouring tallow into his father's moulds, he was reading the _Pilgrim's Progress_, Burton's _Historical Collections_, "small chapmen's books, and cheap, 40 or 50 in all," Plutarch's _Lives_, Defoe's _Essay on Projects_ and Cotton Mather's _Essay upon the Good that is to be Devised and Designed by those who desire to answer the Great end of Life, and to do Good while they Live_; all books full of wholesome and stimulating food for a hungry mind. Happily for him, his propensity for reading found ampler scope when his father bound him over as an apprentice to James Franklin. Here he had access to better books. An acquaintance with the apprentices of book-sellers [he tells us in the _Autobiography_] enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening and to be returned early in the morning, lest it should be missed or wanted. This clandestine use of what did not belong to him or to his obliging young friends was an illicit enjoyment; but was one of those offences, we may be sure, for which the Recording Angel has an expunging tear. More legitimate was the use that he made of the volumes lent to him by Mr. Matthew Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, and who frequented the printing-house, took notice of him and invited him to his library, and very kindly lent him such books as he chose to read. As we have seen, it was not long before Benjamin struck a bargain with his brother, by which the obligation of the latter to board him was commuted into a fixed weekly sum, which, though only half what had been previously paid by James for his weekly board, proved large enough to afford the boy a fund for buying books with. Not only under this arrangement did he contrive to save for this purpose one half of the sum allowed him by James but also to secure an additional margin of time for reading. My brother and the rest [Franklin tells us in the _Autobiography_] going from the printing-house to their meals, I remained there alone, and, despatching presently my light repast, which often was no more than a bisket or a slice of bread, a handful of raisins or a tart from the pastry-cook's, and a glass of water, had the rest of the time till their return for study, in which I made the greater progress, from that greater clearness of head and quicker apprehension which usually attend temperance in eating and drinking. Then it was that he read Locke's _Essay on Human Understanding_ and the _Art of Thinking_ by "Messrs. du Port Royal." To the same period belongs his provoking dalliance with the Socratic method of reasoning. From reading the works of others to what Sir Fopling Flutter called "the natural sprouts" of one's own brain is always but a short step for a clever and ambitious boy. Franklin's first literary ventures were metrical ones, the lispings that filled the mind of his uncle Benjamin with such glowing anticipations, and "some little pieces" which excited the commercial instincts of James Franklin to the point of putting Benjamin to composing occasional ballads. The subject of one ballad, _The Light House Tragedy_, was the death by drowning of Captain Worthilake and his two daughters; another ballad was a sailor's song on the taking of Teach (or Blackbeard), the flagitious pirate. The opinion of these ballads held by Franklin is probably just enough, if we may judge by his subsequent irruptions into the province of Poetry. They were wretched stuff, in the Grub-Street-ballad style [he says in the _Autobiography_], and when they were printed he (James Franklin) sent me about the town to sell them. The first sold wonderfully, the event being recent, having made a great noise. This flattered my vanity; but my father discouraged me by ridiculing my performances, and telling me verse-makers were generally beggars. So I escaped being a poet, most probably a very bad one. From the doggerel, thus condemned by the hard head of Josiah, Benjamin turned to prose. Believing that in oral discussion with his friend Collins on the qualifications of women for learning, he had been borne down rather by the fluency than the logic of his antagonist, he reduced his arguments to writing, copied them in a fair hand and sent them to Collins. He replied, and Franklin rejoined, and no less than three or four letters had been addressed by each of the friends to the other when the correspondence happened to fall under the eye of Josiah. Again the son had reason to be thankful for the candid discernment of the father, for Josiah pointed out to him that, while he had the advantage of Collins in correct spelling and pointing (thanks to the printing-house) he fell far short of Collins in elegance of expression, method and perspicuity, all of which he illustrated by references to the correspondence. The son realized the justice of the father's criticisms, and resolved to amend his faults. The means to which he resorted he has laid before us in the _Autobiography_: About this time [he says] I met with an odd volume of the _Spectator_. It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, try'd to compleat the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my _Spectator_ with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses; since the continual occasion for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales, and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collection of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavoured to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and compleat the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method of the language, and this encouraged me to think I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extreamly ambitious. My time for these exercises and for reading was at night, after work or before it began in the morning, or on Sundays, when I contrived to be in the printing-house alone, evading as much as I could the common attendance on public worship which my father used to exact of me when I was under his care, and which indeed I still thought a duty, though I could not, as it seemed to me, afford time to practise it. The next step in Benjamin's literary development was when he contrived to disguise his handwriting and thrust the first of his Silence Dogood letters under the door of his brother's printing-house; and we can readily imagine what his feelings were when the group of contributors to the _Courant_, who frequented the place, read it and commented on it, in his hearing, and afforded him what he terms in the _Autobiography_ the exquisite pleasure of finding that it met with their approbation; and that in their different guesses at the author none were named but men of some character in the town for learning and ingenuity. Encouraged by his success, he wrote and communicated to the _Courant_ in the same furtive way the other letters in the Silence Dogood series, keeping his secret, he tells us, until his small fund of sense for such performances was pretty well exhausted, when he disclosed his authorship, only to arouse the jealousy of the churlish brother, who, alone of the _Courant_ circle, failed to regard him with augmented respect. If there was no extrinsic evidence to fix the authorship of the Dogood letters, their intrinsic characteristics, incipient as they are, would be enough to disclose the hand of Franklin. The good dame, who finally succumbed to the rhetoric of her reverend master and protector, after he had made several fruitless attempts on the more topping part of her sex, bears very much the same family lineaments as the Anthony Afterwit and Alice Addertongue of the _Pennsylvania Gazette_. Deprived of her good husband by inexorable death, when her sun was in its meridian altitude, she proceeds to gratify her natural inclination for observing and reproving the faults of others, and to open up her mind in a way that leaves us little room for doubt as to who the lively, free-spirited and free-spoken boy was that she concealed beneath her petticoats. "A hearty Lover of the Clergy and all good Men, and a mortal Enemy to arbitrary Government & unlimited Power," she was, she assures us in one letter, besides being courteous and affable, good-humored (unless first provoked) and handsome, and sometimes witty. In her next paper, she tells us that she had from her youth been indefatigably studious to gain and treasure up in her mind all useful and desirable knowledge, especially such as tends to improve the mind and enlarge the understanding. With this frontispiece, she, from time to time, delivers her views on various topics with glib vivacity, set off by Latin quotations. In one letter, she falls asleep in her usual place of retirement under the Great Apple Tree, and is transported in a dream to the Temple of Learning (Harvard College), which we can only hope was not quite so bad as it appeared to be when seen through the distorting medium of her slumbers. Describing the concourse of outgoing students, she says, "SOME I perceiv'd took to Merchandizing, others to Travelling, some to one Thing, some to another, and some to Nothing; and many of them from henceforth, for want of Patrimony, liv'd as poor as church Mice, being unable to dig, and asham'd to beg, and to live by their Wits it was impossible." In another letter, Silence unsparingly lashes the existing system of female education. "Their Youth," she says, borrowing the words of an "ingenious writer," is spent to teach them to stitch and sow, or make Baubles. "They are taught to read indeed and perhaps to write their Names, or so; and that is the Heigth of a Womans Education." In another letter, she holds up hoop-petticoats to laughter. If a number of them, she declared, were well mounted on Noddle's Island, they would look more like engines of war for bombarding the town than ornaments of the fair sex; and she concludes by asking her sex, "whether they, who pay no Rates or Taxes, ought to take up more Room in the King's Highway, than the Men, who yearly contribute to the Support of the Government." Another letter makes unmerciful fun of an Elegy upon the much Lamented Death of Mrs. Mehitebell Kitel, the wife of Mr. John Kitel, of Salem etc. Two lines, "Come let us mourn, for we have lost a Wife, a Daughter, and a Sister," affords Silence an opportunity for some merry satire. Contrasting these lines with Dr. Watts' "GUNSTON the Just, the Generous, and the Young," she says: The latter (Watts) only mentions three Qualifications of _one_ Person who was deceased, which therefore could raise Grief and Compassion but for _One_. Whereas the former, (_our most excellent Poet_) gives his Reader a Sort of an Idea of the Death of _Three Persons_, viz. --a Wife, a Daughter, and a Sister, which is _Three Times_ as great a Loss as the Death of _One_, and consequently must raise _Three Times_ as much Grief and Compassion in the Reader. It was a pity, Silence added, that such an excellent piece should not be dignified with a particular name. Seeing that it could not justly be called either _Epic_, _Saphhic_, _Lyric_ or _Pindaric_, nor any other name yet invented, she presumed it might (in honour and remembrance of the dead) be called the Kitelic. The next letter on freedom of speech was, or purported to be, an extract from the _London Journal_, and is written in such a totally masculine spirit that the reader might well have exclaimed like Hugh Evans in the _Merry Wives of Windsor_: "I like not when a 'oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard under her muffler." This is one of its masculine sentiments: "Who ever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing the Freeness of Speech; a _Thing_ Terrible to Publick Traytors." And this is another, phrased very much as Grover Cleveland might have phrased it. "The Administration of Government is nothing else but the Attendance of the _Trustees of the People_ upon the Interest and Affairs of the People." The next letter inveighs against hypocritical pretenders to religion. It had for some time, Silence says, been a question with her whether a commonwealth suffers more by hypocritical pretenders to religion, or by the openly profane; but she is inclined to think that the hypocrite is the most dangerous person of the two, especially if he sustains a post in the Government, and his conduct is considered as it regards the public. The local application of these remarks to Boston at the time could be left to take care of itself. The next letter gives us another peep under Silence's petticoats, for it advances a plan for the insurance of widows, worked out with actuarial precision, and bearing the unmistakable earmarks of the projecting spirit of the founder of the Junto. "For my own Part," Silence ends, "I have nothing left to live on, but Contentment and a few Cows; and tho' I cannot expect to be reliev'd by this Project, yet it would be no small Satisfaction to me to See it put in Practice for the Benefit of Others." The next letter contains a missive from Margaret After cast, a forlorn Virgin, well stricken in years and repentance, to Silence, in which the writer, prompted by the provision for widows proposed by Silence, begs her to form a project also for the relief of "all those penitent Mortals of the fair Sex, that are like to be punish'd with their Virginity until old Age, for the Pride and Insolence of their Youth." The next letter is a clever discourse on drunkenness. It hints at the truth that Franklin afterwards insisted upon in the "Dialogue between Horatio and Philocles" that we must stint sensual pleasure to really enjoy it, and sets forth a vocabulary of cant terms for intoxication similar to that subsequently published by him in the _Pennsylvania Gazette_. The next letter is on the forbidding subject of night-walkers. The familiarity that it exhibits with the peripatetic side of Boston Common after dark at that day makes it a little difficult for us to understand why Franklin should ever have had occasion to tell us in the _Autobiography_, as he does, how on his second voyage from Boston to New York, a grave, sensible, matronlike Quakeress rescued him from the clutches of two young women, who afterwards proved to be a couple of thievish strumpets. The final letter in the series is on the danger of religious zeal, if immoderate. We have referred to these letters at some length, not only because they are not too immature to be even now read with pleasure for their wit and humor, but because they help to give us a still more faithful idea of the rebellious youth of Franklin, which, if it had not been so full of scornful protest against the whole system of New England Puritanism, might have shaded off, with the chastening effects of time, into too passive a type of liberalism for such a career as his. From the Dogood letters Benjamin passed as we have seen to the editorship of the _Courant_ and to the gibes at the Boston clergy and magistracy, which ended in his ignominious flight from that city. But never was there a time in his youth, however restive under the check-rein, when his love of books was not the chief resource of his life. When on his return from Boston to Philadelphia, after receiving his father's blessing, it was the fact that he had a great many books with him which led Governor Burnet of New York to send for him, and to show him his large library, and to discourse with him at considerable length about books and authors. He had previously begun to have "some acquaintance among the young people" of Philadelphia "that were lovers of reading," and subsequently came those academic strolls with Osborne, Watson and Ralph through the woods along the Schuylkill. And later even London, with all its tumult and dissipation, could not long extinguish his thirst for the sweet, cool wells of human thought and sentiment from which the soul of a gifted boy drinks with such passionate eagerness. Circulating libraries were unknown at that time, but he agreed on reasonable terms with Wilcox, a bookseller, with an immense collection of second-hand books, whose shop was next door to his place of lodging in Little Britain, that he might take home and read and return any of his wares. We have already quoted the passages in the _Autobiography_ in which he tells us that, during the eighteen months that he was in London in his youth, he spent little upon himself except in seeing plays, and for books; and that he read considerably. The _Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain_, which he wrote while in London, of little value as it was in itself, yet also aided in confirming his literary tendencies; for it arrested the attention of Lyons, the author of _The Infallibility of Human Judgment_, who introduced him to Bernard Mandeville, the author of the _Fable of the Bees_, "a most facetious, entertaining companion," and Dr. Henry Pemberton, the author of _A View of Sir I. Newton's Philosophy_. The love of reading, thus acquired by Franklin in early life, never deserted him, and was afterwards strengthened by his own ever-increasing library, which, before his death, became so large that he had to build a spacious room for its reception at his home in Philadelphia, the books owned by the other members of the Junto, the extensive library of James Logan at Stenton, and the collections of the Philadelphia Library Company. Even when his private business was too exacting to allow him time for any other form of recreation, he still found time for reading, including the acquirement of several modern languages, and the consequence was that, when he began to write in earnest, he was well supplied with all the materials for literary workmanship. While Franklin never became a professional writer, he was very scrupulous about the typographical dress of what he wrote and not a little of a purist in his choice of words. Nor does he seem to have been less averse than authors usually are to editorial mutilation. Among his letters is one to Woodfall, the printer of Junius' Letters, asking him to take care that the compositor observed "strictly the Italicking, Capitalling and Pointing" of the copy enclosed with the letter. Referring in a letter to William Franklin to a reprint in the _London Chronicle_ of his "Edict by the King of Prussia," he said: It is reprinted in the _Chronicle_, where you will see it, but stripped of all the capitaling and italicing, that intimate the allusions and mark the emphasis of written discourses, to bring them as near as possible to those spoken: printing such a piece all in one even small character, seems to me like repeating one of Whitefield's sermons in the monotony of a schoolboy. On another occasion he was led by the alterations made in the text of one of his papers to write to William Franklin in these terms: "The editor of that paper, one Jones, seems a Grenvillian, or is very cautious, as you will see by his corrections and omissions. He has drawn the teeth and pared the nails of my paper, so that it can neither scratch nor bite." Among the many delightful letters of Franklin is one that he wrote in his extreme old age to Noah Webster, acknowledging the receipt of a copy of the latter's _Dissertations on the English Language_, and applauding his zeal for preserving the purity of the English language both in its expressions and pronunciation; and in correcting the popular errors into which several of the States were continually falling with respect to both. In this letter, the writer again takes occasion to reprobate the use in New England of the word "improved" in the sense of "employed." The word in that signification appears to have been decidedly obnoxious to him, for he had previously banned it in a letter to Jared Eliot. Among the ludicrous instances that he gave in his letter to Webster of its use in its perverted sense was an obituary statement to the effect that a certain deceased country gentleman had been for more than thirty years _improved_ as a justice of the peace. He also found, he said, that, during his absence in France, several newfangled words had been introduced into the parliamentary vocabulary of America, such as the verb formed from the substantive "Notice," as "_I should not have NOTICED this, were it not that the Gentleman_, &c.," the verb formed from the substantive "Advocate," as "_the Gentleman who ADVOCATES or has ADVOCATED that Motion_, &c.," and the verb formed from the substantive "progress," the most awkward and abominable of the three, as "_the committee, having PROGRESSED resolved to adjourn_." He also found that the word "opposed," though not a new word, was used in a new manner, as "_the Gentlemen who are OPPOSED to this Measure_." From these verbal criticisims he passed to the advantages that had inured to the French language from obtaining the universal currency in Europe previously enjoyed by Latin. It was perhaps, he thought, owing to the fact that Voltaire's treatise on Toleration was written in French that it had exerted so sudden and so great an effect on the bigotry of Europe as almost entirely to disarm it. The English language bid fair to occupy a place only second to that of the French, and the effort therefore should be to relieve it still more of all the difficulties, however small, which discouraged its more general diffusion. A book, ill-printed, or a pronunciation in speaking, not well articulated, would render a sentence unintelligible, which from a clear print, or a distinct speaker, would have been immediately comprehended. Instead of diminishing, however, the obstacles to the extension of the English language, Franklin declared, had increased. The practice, for illustration, of beginning all substantives with a capital letter, which had done so much to promote intelligibility, had been laid aside. And so, from the same fondness for an even and uniform appearance, had been the practice of italicizing important words, or words which should be emphasized when read. Another innovation was the use of the short round s instead of the long one which had formerly served so well to distinguish a word readily by its varied aspect. Certainly the omission of these prominent letters made the line appear more even, but it rendered it less immediately legible; as the paring all men's noses might smooth and level their faces, but would render their physiognomies less distinguishable. All these, Franklin said, were improvements backwards, and classed with them too should be the modern fancy that gray printing--read with difficulty by old eyes--unless in a very strong light and with good glasses, was more beautiful than black. A comparison between a volume of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, printed between the years 1731 and 1740, and one printed in the last ten years would demonstrate the contrary. Lord Chesterfield pleasantly remarked this difference to Faulkener, the printer of the _Dublin Journal_, when he was vainly making encomiums on his own paper as the most complete of any in the world. "But, Mr. Faulkener," said my Lord, "don't you think it might be still farther improved by using Paper and Ink not quite so near of a Colour"? Another point in favor of clear and distinct printing was that it afforded the eye, when it was being read aloud, an opportunity to take a look forward in time to supply the voice with the proper modulations for coming words. But, if words were obscurely printed or disguised by omitting the capitals and the long s, or otherwise, the reader was apt to modulate wrong, and, finding that he had done so, would be obliged to go back, and begin the sentence again, with a loss of pleasure to his hearers. Two features, however, of the old system of printing did not meet with the approval of Franklin. It was absurd to place the interrogation point at the end of a sentence where it is not descried until it is too late for the inflection of interrogation to be given. The practice of the Spanish of putting this point at the beginning of the sentence was more sensible. The same reasoning was applicable to the practice of putting the stage direction "aside" at the end of a sentence. Nice, however, as were the prejudices of Franklin with respect to the use of words, some of his own did not escape the vigilant purism of Hume, who, notwithstanding his admiration for Franklin, as the first great man of letters produced by America, was, where fastidious diction was concerned, not unlike John Randolph of Roanoke, whose exquisite fidelity to correct English impelled him even on his death-bed, when asked whether he _lay_ easily, to reply with marked emphasis, "I _lie_ as easily as a dying man can." After reading Franklin's Canada pamphlet and essay on Population, Hume took exception to several of his expressions; as is shown by one of the latter's letters to him. I thank you [wrote Franklin] for your friendly admonition relating to some unusual words in the pamphlet. It will be of service to me. The "_pejorate_" and the "_colonize_," since they are not in common use here, I give up as bad; for certainly in writings intended for persuasion and for general information, one can not be too clear; and every expression in the least obscure is a fault. The "_unshakeable_" too, though clear, I give up as rather low. The introducing new words, where we are already possessed of old ones sufficiently expressive, I confess must be generally wrong, as it tends to change the language; yet, at the same time, I can not but wish the usage of our tongue permitted making new words, when we want them, by composition of old ones whose meanings are already well understood. The German allows of it, and it is a common practice with their writers. Many of our present English words were originally so made; and many of the Latin words. In point of clearness, such compound words would have the advantage of any we can borrow from the ancient or from foreign languages. For instance, the word _inaccessible_, though long in use among us, is not yet, I dare say, so universally understood by our people, as the word _uncomeatable_ would immediately be, which we are not allowed to write. But I hope with you, that we shall always in America make the best English of this Island our standard, and I believe it will be so. Franklin has left behind him his own conception of what constitutes a good piece of writing. To be good [he says] it ought to have a tendency to benefit the reader, by improving his virtue or his knowledge. But, not regarding the intention of the author, the method should be just; that is, it should proceed regularly from things known to things unknown, distinctly and clearly without confusion. The words used should be the most expressive that the language affords, provided that they are the most generally understood. Nothing should be expressed in two words that can be as well expressed in one; that is, no synonymes should be used, or very rarely, but the whole should be as short as possible, consistent with clearness; the words should be so placed as to be agreable to the ear in reading; summarily it should be smooth, clear and short, for the contrary qualities are displeasing. Though entirely familiar, as we know from one of his letters, with the fate that befell Gil Blas, when he was so imprudent as to comply with the invitation of his master, the Archbishop, Franklin did not shrink from the peril of telling Benjamin Vaughan at his request what the faults of his writings were; and the terms in which he performed this delicate and hazardous office were suggested in part at least by his own methods of composition. Your language [he told Vaughan] seems to me to be good and pure, and your sentiments generally just; but your style of composition wants perspicuity, and this I think owing principally to a neglect of method. What I would therefore recommend to you is, that, before you sit down to write on any subject, you would spend some days in considering it, putting down at the same time, in short hints, every thought which occurs to you as proper to make a part of your intended piece. When you have thus obtained a collection of the thoughts, examine them carefully with this view, to find which of them is properest to be presented _first_ to the mind of the reader that he, being possessed of that, may the more easily understand it, and be better disposed to receive what you intend for the _second_; and thus I would have you put a figure before each thought, to mark its future place in your composition. For so, every preceding proposition preparing the mind for that which is to follow, and the reader often anticipating it, he proceeds with ease, and pleasure, and approbation, as seeming continually to meet with his own thoughts. In this mode you have a better chance for a perfect production; because the mind attending first to the sentiments alone, next to the method alone, each part is likely to be better performed, and I think too in less time. The writings of Franklin as a whole were true to his literary ideals, for they are, as a rule, smooth, clear and short; and the paper of preliminary hints that he drew up for the composition of the _Autobiography_ was in accord with his advice to Vaughan in regard to the value of such aids to perspicuity. His familiar letters, agreeable as they are, bear evidence at times of haste and lack of revision, and even his more informal writings, other than letters, occasionally betray a certain sort of carelessness of construction and expression. This is conspicuously true of the _Autobiography_, and, indeed, it is one of the merits of that work, so perfectly is it in keeping with its easy, meandering narrative. But, generally speaking, the compositions of Franklin are fully in harmony with his best standards of literary accomplishment. They are flowing and euphonious, moving with a steady, smooth and sometimes powerful, current from things known to things unknown, distinctly and lucidly without confusion. They are as clear as a trout stream. If one of his sentences is read a second time, it is not for his meaning, but merely for a renewal of the gratification that the mind derives from a thought presented free from the slightest trace of intercepting obscurity. They are so concise that the endeavor to make an abstract of one of them is likely to result in a sacrifice of brevity. But smoothness, clearness, and brevity, are far from being the only merits of Franklin's writings. He was not richly endowed with imagination; though he was by no means destitute of that sovereign faculty; placid and sober as the ordinary operations of his mind were. But Fancy, the graceful sister of Imagination, Invention, Wit and Humor, and remarkable powers of statement and reasoning, all, except humor in its more wayward moods, under the complete sway of a sound judgment, gave life and strength to almost all that he wrote. His similes and metaphors are often strikingly original and apt; never more so than when they light up with a sudden flash the dark core of some abstruse scientific problem. A vivacity of spirits that nothing could long depress, accompanied by a quick but kindly sense of the ludicrous rises like bubbles of mellow wine to the surface of his intimate letters, and other lighter compositions; and, when associated with conceptions lured from the bright heaven of invention, and elaborated with the utmost finish, as in the case of his Bagatelles, imparts to his productions a quality that does not belong to any but the best creations of literary genius. It is interesting to note how even the most intractable subject, the new-invented Pennsylvania fireplace, smoky chimneys, interest calculations become suffused with some sort of intellectual charm, born of absolute transparency of speech, if nothing else, as soon as they pass through the luminous and tapestried cells of his spacious mind. That mind, indeed, like all minds of the same comprehensive character, in which the balance has not been lost between the subjective and objective faculties, was prone to see everything in large pictorial outlines. Fable, epilogue, parable, a story that was not so much the jest of a moment as the wisdom of all time, a historical incident, that pointed some grave moral, or enforced some invaluable truth, came naturally to his mind as they might well do to the minds of all men who are creed-founders, or teachers, in any sense, on a large scale, of the mass of men, as he was. How naturally such methods of instruction belonged to him is well illustrated in the story told of him by John Adams. One evening, at a social gathering, shortly before he left England, at the close of his second mission to that country, a gentleman expressed the opinion that writers like �sop and La Fontaine had exhausted the resources of fable. Franklin, so far from concurring with this view, declared that many new and instructive fables could still be invented, and, when asked whether he could think of one, replied that, if he was furnished with pen and paper, he would produce one forthwith. The pen and paper were handed to him, and, in a few minutes, he summed up the existing relations between England and America in this fable: Once upon a time, an eagle, scaling round a farmer's barn, and espying a hare, darted down upon him like a sunbeam, seized him in his claws, and remounted with him in the air. He soon found that he had a creature of more courage and strength than a hare; for which, notwithstanding the keenness of his eyesight, he had mistaken a cat. The snarling and scrambling of the prey was very inconvenient; and, what was worse, she had disengaged herself from his talons, grasped his body with her four limbs, so as to stop his breath, and seized fast hold of his throat with her teeth. "Pray," said the eagle, "let go your hold, and I will release you." "Very fine," said the cat, "I have no fancy to fall from this height, and be crushed to death. You have taken me up, and you shall stoop, and let me down." The eagle thought it necessary to stoop accordingly. In the course of the preceding pages, we have had occasion to refer at considerable length to not a few of Franklin's writings, but by no means to all. Among the best of his published pamphlets, is the one entitled _The Interest of Great Britain considered with regard to her Colonies and the Acquisitions of Canada and Guadaloupe_. Remarkable as it may now seem, when the peace of 1763 between Great Britain and France was approaching, there was some division of opinion in the former country as to whether she should insist upon the cession by France to her of Canada or Guadeloupe, then one of the rich sugar islands of the West Indies; and the object of this pamphlet was to establish the superior claims of Canada. It is written with great lucidity and force of argument, and is especially valuable for its revelations of the extent to which the acquisition of Canada by England was opposed in England for fear that it would tend to augment the power and precipitate the independence of the American Colonies. Richard Jackson is alleged to have had a share in its composition, exactly what Benjamin Vaughan was unable to say after a careful investigation before the publication of his edition of Franklin's writings in 1779. For our part, we find it difficult to believe that he could have had any considerable share in its production. Internal evidences of authorship are undoubtedly misleading, but it is hard to read this paper, so similar to Franklin's other pamphlets in point of peculiarities of diction and method without exclaiming, "St. Dunstan or the Devil!" Its intimate, nay perfect, familiarity with Indian habits and characteristics could not well have been possessed by anyone who had never personally mixed with the Indians, and formed his knowledge of them from his own and other first-hand information. The arguments, too, employed in the pamphlet to allay English jealousy of colonial aggrandizement, are the same that are found scattered through Franklin's other writings. There is also the fact that the authorship of the paper is referred to in the paper itself throughout in the first person singular. There is also the fact that in the same letter to Hume, in which Franklin disclaims the authorship of the _Historical Review_, he told him, in reply to one of his criticisms, that he gave up as rather low the word "unshakeable," used in the Canada pamphlet, but said nothing to indicate that the pamphlet was not wholly his own. More conclusive are the words in the paper of hints upon which the composition of the _Autobiography_ was based. "_Canada delenda est_. My Pamphlet. Its reception and effect." Certainly a man, whose relations to his own productions were always marked by an uncommon degree of modesty, if not of indifference, and whose generosity in awarding due credit to the labors of others was one of his most striking and laudable qualities, was scarcely the man to have used such words as these about a pamphlet, mainly or largely the work of another hand. There is besides the fact that in the Franklin collection of the Pennsylvania Historical Society there is a copy of the pamphlet indorsed in the handwriting of Franklin as presented "to the Rev. Dr. Mayhew, from his humble servt, the Author." In view of these circumstances we should say that the probabilities decidedly are that the connection of Jackson with the pamphlet, whatever it may have been, was of a purely subordinate character. The papers, written by Franklin from time to time during the controversy between Great Britain and her Colonies, before the sword grew too impatient to remain in its scabbard, such as his letters to the _London Chronicle_ and the _London Public Advertiser_, his Answers to Strahan's _Queries respecting American Affairs_, his essay on _Toleration in Old England and New England_, his _Tract relative to the Affair of Hutchinson's Letters_, and his _Account of Negotiations in London for effecting a Reconciliation between Great Britain and the American Colonies_ were, taken as a whole, pamphleteering or narration of a very interesting and effective order. The substance of the majority of them is found in his Examination before the House of Commons, as the quintessence of most that is best in _Poor Richard's Almanac_ is found in Father Abraham's Speech. They are written, as a rule, in a singularly clear and readable style, present with unusual skill and cogency all the points of the colonial argument, and display the insight of an almost faultlessly honest and sane intelligence into the true obligations and interests of the mother country and her disaffected children. Among these graver productions, Franklin also contributed to the American controversy, in addition to the humorous letter to the press, in which he held up to English ignorance of America, as one of the finest spectacles in nature, the grand leap of the whale, in his chase of the cod up Niagara Falls, two papers worthy of the satirical genius of Swift. One is his _Edict by the King of Prussia_ and the other is his _Rules by Which a Great Empire May be Reduced to a Small One_. In the first piece, Frederick the Great is gravely credited with an edict, in which, after reciting that Great Britain was colonized in the beginning by subjects of his renowned ducal ancestors, led by Hengist, Horsa, Hella, Uff, Cerdicus, Ida and others, he proceeds to impose _seriatim_ upon the English descendants of these German colonists in terms, exactly like those employed by the prohibitory and restrictive statutes of Great Britain, bearing upon the commerce and industry of America, all the disabilities and burdens under which America labored. The parallel is sustained with unbroken spirit and the happiest irony from beginning to end. After all the manacles by which the freedom of America was restrained have been duly fastened by the arbitrary mandates of the edict upon Great Britain herself, it concludes with these words: We flatter ourselves, that these our royal regulations and commands will be thought just and reasonable by our much-favoured colonists in England; the said regulations being copied from their statutes of 10 and 11 William III. c. 10, 5 Geo. II. c. 22, 23 Geo. II. c. 29, 4 Geo. I. c. 11, and from other equitable laws made by their parliaments; or from instructions given by their Princes; or from resolutions of both Houses, entered into for the good government of their _own colonies in Ireland and America_. The second paper commences in this manner: "An ancient Sage boasted, that, tho' he could not fiddle, he knew how to make a _great city_ of a _little one_. The science that I, a modern simpleton, am about to communicate, is the very reverse." Then, assuming as a postulate that a great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges, the paper goes on to point out one by one as the best means for reducing such an empire to a small one the very British policies and abuses that were then producing incurable disaffection in the mind of America, and menacing the power and prestige of Great Britain herself. These two papers, though clothed in forms that belong to literature rather than to politics, assert the whole case of the Colonies against Great Britain almost, if not altogether, as fully as the Declaration of Independence afterwards did. They have in every respect the polished completeness given by Franklin to all the productions of his pen that called for the exercise of true literary art, and deserve to be included in any separate publication of the best creations of his literary genius. They both met with the popular favor that they merited. The Rules was read with such eagerness that it was reprinted in the _Public Advertiser_ at the request of many individuals and some associations of individuals, and this notwithstanding the fact that it had been copied in several other newspapers and _The Gentleman's Magazine_. So great was the demand for the issue of the _Advertiser_, in which the Edict appeared, that, the day after its appearance, Franklin's clerk could obtain but two copies of it, though he endeavored to obtain more both at the office of the _Advertiser_ and elsewhere. Its authorship being unknown except to a few of the writer's friends, he had the pleasure besides, he tells us, of hearing it spoken of in the highest terms as the keenest and severest piece that had been published in London for a long time. Lord Mansfield, he was informed, said of it that it was very able and artful indeed, and would do mischief by giving in England a bad impression of the measures of government, and in the Colonies by encouraging them in their contumacy. Among the persons taken in by its apparent genuineness was Paul Whitehead. I was down at Lord Le Despencer's [Franklin wrote to William Franklin] when the post brought that day's papers. Mr. Whitehead was there, too, (Paul Whitehead, the author of _Manners_,) who runs early through all the papers, and tells the company what he finds remarkable. He had them in another room, and we were chatting in the breakfast parlour, when he came running in to us, out of breath, with the paper in his hand. Here! says he, here's news for ye! _Here's the King of Prussia, claiming a right to this kingdom!_ All stared, and I as much as anybody; and he went on to read it. When he had read two or three paragraphs, a gentleman present said, _Damn his impudence, I dare say, we shall hear by next post that he is upon his march with one hundred thousand men to back this._ Whitehead who is very shrewd, soon after began to smoke it, and looking in my face said, _I'll be hanged if this is not some of your American jokes upon us._ The reading went on, and ended with abundance of laughing, and a general verdict that it was a fair hit; and the piece was cut out of the paper and preserved in My Lord's collection. There are some humorous passages in other contributions made by Franklin, in one assumed character or another, to the American controversy. The dialogue as well as the fable was, as the reader is aware, one of his striking methods of arresting popular attention when he wished to make an impression upon the popular mind. In an anonymous letter to the _Public Advertiser_, he undertook to defend Dr. Franklin from the charge of ingratitude to the Ministry, which had, it was alleged, given him the Post Office of America, offered him a post of five hundred a year in the Salt Office, if he would relinquish the interests of his country and made his son a colonial governor. As it was a settled point in government in England that every man had his price, it was plain, the letter declared, that the English Ministers were bunglers in their business, and had not given him enough. Their Master had as much reason to be angry with them as Rodrigue in the play with his apothecary for not effectually poisoning Pandolpho, and they must probably make use of the Apothecary's Justification, as urged in the following colloquy: SCENE IV. _Rodrigue_ and _Fell_, the Apothecary _Rodrigue._ You promised to have this Pandolpho upon his Bier in less than a Week; 'tis more than a Month since, and he still walks and stares me in the face. _Fell._ True and yet I have done my best Endeavours. In various ways I have given the Miscreant as much Poison as would have kill'd an Elephant. He has swallow'd Dose after Dose; far from hurting him, he seems the better for it. He hath a wonderfully strong Constitution. I find I can not kill him but by cutting his Throat, and that, as I take it, is not my Business. _Rodrigue._ Then it must be mine. Another letter, signed "A Londoner," illustrates the difficulty which the sober good-sense of Franklin, always disposed to reduce things to their material terms, experienced in understanding the recklessness with which the British Government was hazarding the commercial value of the colonies. To us in the Way of Trade comes now, and has long come [he said] all the superlucration arising from their Labours. But will our reviling them as Cheats, Hypocrites, Scoundrels, Traitors, Cowards, Tyrants, &c., &c., according to the present Court Mode in all our Papers, make them more our Friends, more fond of our Merchandise? Did ever any Tradesmen succeed, who attempted to drub Customers into his Shop? And will honest JOHN BULL, the Farmer, be long satisfied with Servants, that before his Face attempt to kill his _Plow Horses?_ In his eager desire to influence public sentiment in England in behalf of the Colonies, Franklin even devised and distributed a rude copper plate engraving, visualizing the woful condition to which Great Britain would be reduced, if she persisted in her harsh and unwise conduct towards her colonies. Many impressions of this engraving were struck off at his request on the cards which he occasionally used in writing his notes, and the design he also had printed for circulation on half sheets of paper with an explanation and a moral of his composition. The details of the illustration, which are all duly elucidated in the explanation, are those of abject and irredeemable ruin. The limbs of Britannia, duly labelled Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York and New England respectively, lie scattered about her, and she herself, with her eyes and arm stumps, uplifted to Heaven, is seen sliding off the globe, with a streamer inscribed _Date Obolum Bellisario_ thrown across all that remains of her legs. Her shield, which she is unable to handle, lies useless by her side. The leg, labelled New England, has been transfixed by her lance. The hand of the arm, labelled Pennsylvania, has released its grasp upon a small spray of laurel. The English oak has lost its crown, and stands a bare trunk with briars and thorns at its feet, and a single dry branch sticks out from its side. In the background are Britannia's ships with brooms at their topmastheads denoting that they are for sale. The moral of the whole was that the Thames and the Ohio, Edinburgh and Dublin were all one, and that invidious discriminations in favor of one part of the Empire to the prejudice of the rest could not fail to be attended with the most disastrous consequences to the whole State. Nothing produced by Franklin between the date of his return from his second mission to England and his departure from America for France needs to be noticed. The two or three papers from his pen, which belong to this period, are distinctly below his ordinary standards of composition. Nor are any of the graver writings composed by him during the remainder of his life with some exceptions very noteworthy. In one, his comparison of Great Britain and the United States in regard to the basis of credit in the two countries, he presented with no little ability the proposition that, by reason of general industry, frugality, ability, prudence and virtue, America was a much safer debtor than Britain; to say nothing of the satisfaction that generous minds were bound to feel in reflecting that by loans to America they were opposing tyranny, and aiding the cause of liberty, which was the cause of all mankind. The object of this paper was to forward the loan of two millions of pounds sterling that the United States were desirous of procuring abroad. Unfortunately, the matter was one not to be settled by argument but by the Bourse, which has a barometric reasoning of its own. In another paper, thrown into the form of a catechism, Franklin, by a series of clever questions and answers, brings to the attention of the world the fact that it would take one hundred and forty-eight years, one hundred and nine days and twenty-two hours for a man to count the English national debt, though he counted at the rate of one hundred shillings per minute, during twelve hours of each day. That the shillings, making up this enormous sum, would weigh sixty-one millions, seven hundred and fifty-two thousand, four hundred and seventy-six Troy pounds, that it would take three hundred and fourteen ships, of one hundred tons each, or thirty-one thousand, four hundred and fifty-two carts to move them, and that, if laid close together in a straight line, they would stretch more than twice around the circumference of the earth, are other facts elicited by the questions of the catechism. It concludes in this manner: Q. When will government be able to pay the principal? A. When there is more money in England's treasury than there is in all Europe. Q. And when will that be? A. Never. This was very ingenious and clever, and has been imitated a hundred times over since by _ad captandum_ statisticians, but it needed an interest default on the part of John Bull to make it effective. Franklin's conceit in the Edict that Saxony was as much the mother country of England as England was of America was, it must be admitted, made to do rather more than its share of service. It reappeared in his _Vindication and Offer from Congress to Parliament_, when, in repelling the charge that America was ungrateful to England, he said that there was much more reason for retorting that charge on Britain which not only never contributed any aid, nor afforded, by an exclusive commerce, any advantages, to Saxony, _her_ mother country, but no longer since than the last war, without the least provocation, subsidized the King of Prussia, while he ravaged that mother country, and carried fire and sword into its capital, the fine City of Dresden. The same conceit also reappeared a second time in the _Dialogue between Britain, France, Spain, Holland, Saxony and America_, which he wrote soon after he arrived in France as one of our envoys. In this lively dialogue, Britain beseeches Spain, France and Holland successively not to supply America with arms. Spain reminds her of her intervention in behalf of the Dutch, and expresses surprise at her impudence. France reminds her of her intervention in behalf of the Huguenots, and tells her that she must be a little silly, and Holland ends by informing her defiantly that, with the prospect of a good market for brimstone, she, Holland, would make no scruple of even sending her ships to Hell, and supplying the Devil with it. America then takes a hand, and denounces Britain as a bloodthirsty bully, to which Britain replies as quickly as her choking rage will permit by denouncing America as a wicked--Whig-Presbyterian--serpent. To this America rejoins with the statement that she will not surrender her liberty and property but with her life, and some additional statements which cause Britain to exclaim: "You impudent b--h! Am not I your Mother Country? Is that not a sufficient Title to your Respect and Obedience?" At this point Saxony, for the first time breaks in: "_Mother Country!_ Hah, hah, he! What Respect have _you_ the front to claim as a Mother Country? You know that _I_ am _your_ Mother Country, and yet you pay me none. Nay, it is but the other day, that you hired Ruffians to rob me on the Highway, and burn my House. For shame! Hide your Face and hold your Tongue. If you continue this Conduct, you will make yourself the Contempt of Europe!" This is too much for even the assurance of the dauntless termagant who, before the American war was over, was to be engaged in conflict at one time with every one of the other parties to the dialogue except Saxony. "O Lord," she exclaims in despair, "where are my friends?" The question does not remain long unanswered. "_France, Spain, Holland, and Saxony, all together_. Friends! Believe us, you have none, nor ever will have any, 'till you mend your Manners. How can we, who are your Neighbours, have any regard for you, or expect any Equity from you, should your Power increase, when we see how basely and unjustly you have us'd both _your own Mother--and your own Children_?" With such rollicking fun, did Franklin, beguile his Gibeonite tasks. A letter of information to those who would remove to America, an essay on the _Elective Franchises enjoyed by the Small Boroughs in England_, the three essays on Smoky Chimneys, the New Stove, and Maritime Topics, _The Retort Courteous_, in which some pithy reasons were given why Americans were slow in paying their old debts to British merchants, the _Observations Relative to the Intentions of the Original Founders of the Academy in Philadelphia_, the _Address of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage_, the _Plan for Improving the Condition of the Free Blacks_, the essay on _The Internal State of America_ and the paper on _Good Whig Principles_ make up the bulk of the graver pamphlets and papers written by Franklin between the beginning of his mission to France and his death. Some, if not all, of them have already come in for our attention, and most of them invite no special comment. All, like everything that he wrote, even the _marginalia_ on the books that he read, have some kind of salt in them that keeps them sweet, assert itself as time will. Other serious papers of Franklin, not inspired by political motives, belong to an earlier date, and, with the exception of those, to which we have more than barely referred in previous chapters of this book, call for a word of comment. Two, _The Hints for Those that would be Rich_ and the _Advice to a Young Tradesman_ are merely echoes of _Poor Richard's Almanac_ but are good examples of the teachings that make Franklin the most effective of all propagandists. "He that loses 5s. not only loses that Sum, but all the Advantage that might be made by turning it in Dealing, which, by the time that a young Man becomes old, amounts to a comfortable Bag of Money." This is a typical sentence taken from the Hints. After reading such a discourse as the _Advice to a Young Tradesman_, it is easy enough to see why it was that pecuniary truisms took on new life when vitalized by the mind of Franklin. Money he tells the young tradesman is of the prolific, generating nature. "He that kills a breeding sow, destroys all her offspring to the thousandth generation. He that murders a crown, destroys all that it might have produced, even scores of pounds." The young novice is also told that the most trifling actions that affect a man's credit are to be regarded. "The sound of your hammer at five in the morning, or nine at night, heard by a creditor, makes him easy six months longer; but, if he sees you at a billiard-table, or hears your voice at a tavern, when you should be at work, he sends for his money the next day." The paper ends with this pointed sermon: In short, the way to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, _industry_ and _frugality_; that is, waste neither _time_ nor _money_, but make the best use of both. Without industry and frugality nothing will do, and with them everything. He that gets all he can honestly, and saves all he gets (necessary expenses excepted) will certainly become _rich_, if that Being who governs the world, to whom all should look for a blessing on their honest endeavours, doth not, in his wise providence, otherwise determine. Scattered through the works of Franklin are various miscellaneous productions of no slight literary value. The _Parable against Persecution_ was an ancient conception, old, we are told by Jeremy Taylor in his _Liberty of Prophesying_, as the Jews' Books. Franklin never claimed more credit for it, as he stated in a letter to Vaughan, "than what related to the style, and the addition of the concluding threatening and promise." These qualifications, however, leave him quite a different measure of credit from that of an artist who merely touches up a portrait by another hand, as a perusal of the parable will satisfy any reader. The incident, upon which the story turns, is the reception by Abraham into his tent of a stranger who fails to bless God at meat. Abraham expels him from the tent with blows for not worshipping the most high God, Creator of Heaven and Earth; only to be rebuked by the Almighty in these impressive words: "Have I borne with him these hundred and ninety and eight years, and nourished him, and cloathed him, notwithstanding his rebellion against me; and couldst not thou, who art thyself a sinner, bear with him one night?" Only less felicitous was Franklin's _Parable on Brotherly Love_. Simeon, Levi and Judah are successively denied by their brother Reuben the use of an axe which he had bought of the Ishmaelite merchants, and which he highly prized. Therefore, they buy axes themselves from the Ishmaelites, and, as luck will have it, while Reuben is hewing timber on the river bank, his axe slips into the water and is lost. Reuben then applies to each of his three brothers in turn for the use of their axes. Simeon reminds him of his selfishness, and flatly refuses. Levi reproaches him, but adds that he will be better than he, and will lend his axe to him. Reuben, however, is too ashamed to accept it. Judah, seeing the grief and shame in his countenance, anticipates the request and exclaims, "My brother, I know thy loss; but why should it trouble thee? Lo, have I not an axe that will serve both thee and me!" And then the lovely parable continues in these words: And Reuben fell on his neck, and kissed him, with tears, saying, "Thy kindness is great, but thy goodness in forgiving me is greater. Thou art indeed my brother, and whilst I live, will I surely love thee." And Judah said, "Let us also love our other brethren: behold, are we not all of one blood?" And Joseph saw these things, and reported them to his father Jacob. And Jacob said, "Reuben did wrong, but he repented. Simeon also did wrong; and Levi was not altogether blameless. But the heart of Judah is princely. Judah hath the soul of a king. His father's children shall bow down before him, and he shall rule over his brethren." The papers contributed by Franklin to the _Busy-Body_ and the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ clearly indicate the influence of Addison and Steele. The Ridentius and Eugenius of the second issue, Ridentius, the wight, who gave himself an hour's diversion on the cock of a man's hat, the heels of his shoes or on one of his unguarded expressions or personal defects, Eugenius who preferred to make himself a public jest rather than be at the pains of seeing his friend in confusion, pale phantoms though they be, are palpably imitations of the Spectator and Tatler. So are the Cato of the third issue of the _Busy-Body_, whose countenance revealed habits of virtue that made one forget his homespun linen and seven days' beard, and the Cretico of the same issue, the "sowre Philosopher" who commanded nothing better from his dependents than the submissive deportment, which was like the worship paid by the Indians to the Devil. Unlike these characters, the Patience of the fourth issue of the _Busy-Body_ is a real creature of flesh and blood. She writes to the Busy-Body for advice, informing him that she is a single woman, and keeps a shop in the town for her livelihood, and has a certain neighbor, who is really agreeable company enough, and has for some time been an intimate of hers, but who, of late, has tried her out of all patience by her frequent and long visits. She cannot do a thing in the world but this friend must know all about it, and her friend has besides two children just big enough to run about and do petty mischief, who accompany their mother on her visits and put things in the shop out of sorts; so that the writer has all the trouble and pesterment of children without the pleasure--of calling them her own. Pray, Sir [concludes the unhappy Patience], tell me what I shall do; and talk a little against such unreasonable Visiting in your next Paper; tho' I would not have her affronted with me for a great Deal, for sincerely I love her and her Children, as well, I think, as a Neighbour can, and she buys a great many Things in a Year at my Shop. But I would beg her to consider that she uses me unmercifully, Tho' I believe it is only for want of Thought. But I have twenty Things more to tell you besides all this: There is a handsome Gentleman, that has a Mind (I don't question) to make love to me, but he can't get the least Opportunity to--O dear! here she comes again; I must conclude, yours, &c. This letter is made the subject of some sensible comments by the _Busy-Body_ on the importance of remembering the words of the Wise Man, "Withdraw thy Foot from the House of thy Neighbour, lest he grow weary of thee, and so hate thee." Later the same caution was to be conveyed in Poor Richard's, "Fish and Visitors smell after three days." The paper ends with the approval by the _Busy-Body_ of the Turkish practice of admonishing guests that it is time for them to go, without actually asking them to do so, by having a chafing dish with the grateful incense of smoking aloes rising from it brought into the room and applied to their beards. Even more lifelike than Patience are Anthony Afterwit, Celia Single, Mr. and Mrs. Careless and Alice Addertongue, the figures brought to our eye by the _Pennsylvania Gazette_. Indeed, Addison himself would have had no occasion to be ashamed of them, if they had been figments of his own fancy. In his letter to the editor of the _Gazette_, Anthony Afterwit told him that about the time that he first addressed his spouse her father let it be known that, if she married a man of his liking, he would give two hundred pounds with her on the day of marriage, and that he had made some fine plans, and had even, in some measure, neglected his business on the strength of this assurance, but that, when the old gentleman saw that the writer was pretty well engaged, he, without assigning any reason, grew very angry, forbade him the house and told his daughter that, if she married him, he would not give her a farthing. However (as the father foresaw), he stole a wedding, and took his wife to his house, where they were not in quite so poor a condition as the couple described in the Scotch song who had "Neither Pot nor Pan, But four bare Legs together," for he had a house tolerably furnished for an ordinary man. His wife, however, was strongly inclined to be a gentlewoman. His old-fashioned looking-glass was one day broke, "_No Mortal could tell which way_," she said, and was succeeded by a large fashionable one. This in turn led to another table more suitable to such a glass, and the new table to some very handsome chairs. Thus, by degrees, he found all his old furniture stored up in the garret and everything below altered for the better. Then, on one pretext or another, came along a tea-table with all its appurtenances of china and silver, a maid, a clock, and a pacing mare, for which he paid twenty pounds. The result was that, receiving a very severe dun, which mentioned the next court, he began in earnest to project relief. His dear having gone over the river the preceding Monday to see a relation, and stay a fortnight, because she could not bear the heat of the town, he took his turn at alterations. He dismissed the maid, bag and baggage; he sold the pacing mare, and bought a good milch cow with three pounds of the money; he disposed of the tea-table, and put a spinning wheel in its place; he stuffed nine empty tea canisters with flax, and with some of the money, derived from the sale of the tea-furniture, he bought a set of knitting needles; "for to tell you a truth, which I would have go no farther," added honest Anthony, "_I begin to want stockings_." The stately clock he transformed into an hour glass, by which he had gained a good round sum, and one of the pieces of the old looking-glass, squared and framed, supplied the place of the old one. In short, the face of things was quite changed, and he had paid his debts and found money in his pocket. His good dame was expected home next Friday, and, if she could conform with his new scheme of living, they would be the happiest couple, perhaps, in the Province, and, by the blessings of God, might soon be in thriving circumstances. He had reserved the great glass for her, and he would allow her, when she came in, to be taken suddenly ill with the _headache_, the _stomachache_, the fainting fits, or whatever other disorder she might think more proper, and she might retire to bed as soon as she pleased, but, if he did not find her in perfect health, both of body and mind, the next morning, away would go the aforesaid great glass, with several other trinkets, to the _vendue_ that very day. That the wife of Anthony did succumb to the situation, we know, for it was an unfortunate reference to her that caused Celia Single to write her letter to the editor of the _Gazette_. During the morning of the preceding Wednesday, she said, she happened to be in at Mrs. Careless', when the husband of that lady returned from market, and showed his wife some balls of thread which he had bought. "My Dear," says he, "I like mightily these Stockings, which I yesterday saw Neighbour Afterwit knitting for her Husband, of Thread of her own Spinning. I should be glad to have some such stockins myself: I understand that your Maid Mary is a very good Knitter, and seeing this Thread in Market, I have bought it, that the Girl may make a Pair or two for me." Then, according to Celia, there took place in her presence a dialogue between husband and wife so animated that, knowing as she did that a man and his wife are apt to quarrel more violently, when before strangers, than when by themselves, she got up and went out hastily. She was glad, however, to understand from Mary, who came to her of an errand in the evening, that the couple dined together pretty peaceably (the balls of thread, that had caused the difference, being thrown into the kitchen fire). The story, beginning with the reply of Mrs. Careless to the offensive suggestion of Mr. Careless, is too good not to be reproduced in full. Mrs. Careless was just then at the Glass, dressing her Head, and turning about with the Pins in her Mouth, "Lord, Child," says she, "are you crazy? What Time has Mary to knit? Who must do the Work, I wonder, if you set her to Knitting?" "Perhaps, my Dear," says he, "you have a mind to knit 'em yourself; I remember, when I courted you, I once heard you say, that you had learn'd to knit of your Mother." "I knit Stockins for you!" says she; "not I truly! There are poor Women enough in Town, that can knit; if you please, you may employ them." "Well, but my Dear," says he, "you know _a penny sav'd is a penny got_, A pin a day is a groat a year, every little makes a muckle, and there is neither Sin nor Shame in Knitting a pair of Stockins; why should you express such a mighty Aversion to it? As to _poor_ Women, you know we are not People of Quality, we have no Income to maintain us but what arises from my Labour and Industry: Methinks you should not be at all displeas'd, if you have an Opportunity to get something as well as myself." "I wonder," says she, "how you can propose such a thing to me; did not you always tell me you would maintain me like a Gentlewoman? If I had married Captain ----, he would have scorn'd even to mention Knitting of Stockins." "Prithee," says he, (a little nettled,) "what do you tell me of your Captains? If you could have had him, I suppose you would, or perhaps you did not very well like him. If I did promise to maintain you like a Gentlewoman, I suppose 'tis time enough for that, when you know how to behave like one; Meanwhile 'tis your Duty to help make me able. How long, d'ye think, I can maintain you at your present Rate of Living?" "Pray," says she, (somewhat fiercely, and dashing the Puff into the Powder-box,) "don't use me after this Manner, for I assure you I won't bear it. This is the Fruit of your poison Newspapers; there shall come no more here, I promise you." "Bless us," says he, "what an unaccountable thing is this? Must a Tradesman's Daughter, and the Wife of a Tradesman, necessarily and instantly be a Gentlewoman? You had no Portion; I am forc'd to work for a Living; you are too great to do the like; there's the Door, go and live upon your Estate, if you can find it; in short, I don't desire to be troubled w'ye." And then it was that Celia Single gathered up her skirts and left. The letter from Alice Addertongue to the editor of the _Gazette_ is exactly in the manner of the _School for Scandal_, written many years later. She is a young girl of about thirty-five, she says, and lives at present with her mother. Like the Emperor, who, if a day passed over his head, during which he had conferred no benefit on any man, was in the habit of saying, _Diem perdidi_, _I have lost a Day_, she would make use of the same expression, were it possible for a day to pass over her head, during which she had failed to scandalize someone; a misfortune, thanks be praised, that had not befallen her these dozen years. My mother, good Woman, and I [the forked tongue plays precisely as it might have done in the mouth of Lady Sneerwell] have heretofore differ'd upon this Account. She argu'd, that Scandal spoilt all good Conversation; and I insisted, that without it there would be no such Thing. Our Disputes once rose so high, that we parted Tea-Tables, and I concluded to entertain my Acquaintance in the Kitchin. The first Day of this Separation we both drank Tea at the same Time, but she with her Visitors in the Parlor. She would not hear of the least Objection to anyone's Character, but began a new sort of Discourse in some queer philosophical Manner as this; "I am mightily pleas'd sometimes," says she, "when I observe and consider, that the World is not so bad as People out of humour imagine it to be. There is something amiable, some good Quality or other, in everybody. If we were only to speak of People that are least respected, there is such a one is very dutiful to her Father, and methinks has a fine Set of Teeth; such a one is very respectful to her Husband; such a one is very kind to her poor Neighbours, and besides has a very handsome Shape; such a one is always ready to serve a Friend, and in my opinion there is not a Woman in Town that has a more agreable Air and Gait." This fine kind of Talk, which lasted near half an Hour, she concluded by saying, "I do not doubt but everyone of you have made the like Observations, and I should be glad to have the Conversation continu'd upon this Subject." Just at that Juncture I peep'd in at the Door, and never in my Life before saw such a Set of simple vacant Countenances. They looked somehow neither glad, nor sorry, nor angry, nor pleas'd, nor indifferent, nor attentive; but (excuse the Simile) like so many blue wooden images of Rie Doe. I in the Kitchin had already begun a ridiculous Story of Mr. ----'s Intrigue with his Maid, and his Wife's Behaviour upon the Discovery; at some Passages we laugh'd heartily, and one of the gravest of Mama's Company, without making any Answer to her Discourse, got up _to go and see what the Girls were so merry about_: She was follow'd by a Second, and shortly by a Third, till at last the old Gentlewoman found herself quite alone, and, being convinc'd that her Project was impracticable, came herself and finish'd her Tea with us; ever since which _Saul also has been among the Prophets_, and our Disputes lie dormant. It was in the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, too, that Franklin published his "Dialogue between Philocles and Horatio," in which Philocles twice meets Horatio in the fields, and, in accents full of persuasive blandishment, diverts his feet from the pursuit of sensual pleasure into paths of contentment and peace. In the first dialogue, the moralist takes as his thesis the proposition that self-denial is not only the most reasonable but the most pleasant thing in the world. In the second, he holds up to Horatio the constant and durable happiness, so unlike the chequered, fleeting pleasures of Sense, which springs from acts of humanity, friendship, generosity and benevolence. One maxim in the last dialogue is worth many of the sayings of Poor Richard: "The Foundation of all Virtue and Happiness is Thinking rightly." Other papers from the hand of Franklin that appeared in the _Gazette_ were _A Witch Trial at Mount Holly_, _An Apology for Printers_, _A Meditation on a Quart Mugg_, _Shavers and Trimmers_, and _Exporting of Felons to the Colonies_. In the "Witch Trial at Mount Holly," Franklin describes in a highly humorous manner the results of the ordeals to which a man and a woman, accused by a man and a woman of witchcraft, were subjected. One of these ordeals consisted in weighing the accused in scales against a Bible for the purpose of seeing whether it would prove too heavy for them. Then [the facetious narrative relates] came out of the House a grave, tall Man carrying the Holy Writ before the supposed Wizard etc., (as solemely as the Sword-Bearer of London before the Lord Mayor) the Wizard was first put in the Scale, and over him was read a Chapter out of the Books of Moses, and then the Bible was put in the other Scale, (which, being kept down before) was immediately let go; but, to the great surprize of the Spectators, Flesh and Bones came down plump, and outweighed that great good Book by abundance. After the same Manner the others were served, and their Lumps of Mortality severally were too heavy for Moses and all the Prophets and Apostles. This ordeal was followed by the Trial by Water. Both accused and accusers were stripped, except that the women were not deprived of their shifts, bound hand and foot and let down into the water by ropes from the side of a barge. The rest is thus told: The accused man being thin and spare with some Difficulty began to sink at last; but the rest, every one of them, swam very light upon the Water. A Sailor in the Flat jump'd out upon the Back of the Man accused thinking to drive him down to the Bottom; but the Person bound, without any Help, came up some time before the other. The Woman Accuser being told that she did not sink, would be duck'd a second Time; when she swam again as light as before. Upon which she declared, That she believed the Accused had bewitched her to make her so light, and that she would be duck'd again a Hundred Times but she would duck the Devil out of her. The Accused Man, being surpriz'd at his own swimming, was not so confident of his Innocence as before, but said, "If I am a Witch, it is more than I know." The more thinking Part of the Spectators were of Opinion that any Person so bound and placed in the Water (unless they were mere Skin and Bones) would swim, till their breath was gone, and their Lungs fill'd with Water. But it being the general Belief of the Populace that the Women's Shifts and the Garters with which they were bound help'd to support them, it is said they are to be tried again the next Warm Weather, naked. In the "Apology for Printers," Franklin defends his guild with much point and good sense, in terms modern enough to be fully applicable to newspapers at the present time. It was inspired by the resentment which his advertisement relating to Sea Hens and Black Gowns excited, and, though written in a half-humorous style, states the difficulties of an editor, between his duty to publish everything, and the certainty of private resentment, if he does, with about as much felicity of presentation as they are ever likely to be stated. Among the various solid reasons, set forth in formal numerical sequence, that he gave, by way of mitigation, for publishing the advertisement, he mentioned these, too: "6. That I got Five Shillings by it. "7. That none who are angry with me would have given me so much to let it alone." In answer to the accusation that printers sometimes printed vicious or silly things not worth reading, he charged the fact up to the vicious taste of the public itself. He had known, he said, a very numerous impression of Robin Hood's songs to go off in the Province at 2 s. per book in less than a twelvemonth, when a small quantity of David's Psalms (an excellent version) had lain upon his hands about twice that long. * * * * * In the "Meditation on a Quart Mugg" Franklin begins with the exclamation, "WRETCHED, miserable, and unhappy Mug!" and traces with mock sympathy all the misfortunes of its ignoble and squalid career from the time that it is first forced into the company of boisterous sots, who lay all their nonsense, noise, profane swearing, cursing and quarrelling on it, though it speaks not a word, until the inevitable hour when it is broken into pieces, and finds its way for the most part back to Mother Earth. The paper is only a trifle, but a trifle fashioned with no little skill to hit the fancy of an age that, as Franklin's "Drunkard's Vocabulary" (also published in the _Gazette_) shows, had innumerable cant terms for the condition for which the mug was held to such an unjust responsibility. The paper on "Shavers and Trimmers" is not so happy and well sustained, but its classifications of the different species of persons, answering these descriptions, is not without humor. One sentence in it, when Franklin speaks of the species of Shavers and Trimmers, who "cover (what is called by an eminent Preacher) _their poor Dust_ in tinsel Cloaths and gaudy Plumes of Feathers," reads like a paragraph in the _Courant_. "A competent Share of religious Horror thrown into the Countenance," he says, "with proper Distortions of the Face, and the Addition of a lank Head of Hair, or a long Wig and Band, commands a most profound Respect to Insolence and Ignorance." The paper on the "Exporting of Felons to the Colonies" is marked by the grim, biting irony of Swift, but was no severer than the practice of setting British criminals at large in America deserved. Such tender parental concern, Franklin said, called aloud for due returns of gratitude and duty, and he suggested that these returns should assume the form of rattlesnakes, "Felons-convict from the Beginning of the World." In the spring of the year, when they first crept out of their holes, they were feeble, heavy, slow and easily taken, and, if a small bounty was allowed per head, some thousands might be collected annually, and transported to Britain. There he proposed that they should be carefully distributed in St. James' Park, in the Spring Gardens, and other pleasure resorts about London, and in the gardens of all the nobility and gentry throughout the nation, but particularly in the gardens of the Prime Ministers, the Lords of Trade and Members of Parliament; for to them they were most particularly obliged. Such a paper, it is needless to say, was better calculated for its purpose than a thousand appeals of the ordinary type would have been. The speech of Polly Baker is one of the most famous of Franklin's _jeux d'esprit_. The introduction to it states that it was delivered when she was prosecuted for the fifth time for having a bastard child, and with such effect that the court decided not to punish her; indeed with such effect that one of her judges even married her the next day, and in time had fifteen children by her. The perfectly ingenuous manner in which the traverser refuses to admit that she has committed any offence whatever and insists that, in default of honorable suitors, she has but dutifully, though irregularly, complied with the first and great command of nature and nature's God--increase and multiply--is undoubtedly, coarse as it is, a stroke of art, but the performance is too gross for modern scruples. More decorous reading is the fictitious discourse by a Spanish Jesuit on the "Meanes of disposing the Enemie to Peace," which Franklin, during his first mission to England, contributed to the _London Chronicle_ for the purpose of rousing the English people to a sense of the artifices, that were being employed by the French to build up a party in England for peace at any price. In the introduction to the discourse, it is stated that it was taken from a book containing a number of discourses, addressed by the Jesuit to the King of Spain in 1629, and that nothing was needed to render it _apropos_ to the existing situation of England except the substitution of France for Spain. The discourse points out in detail, with shrewd insight into all the selfish and timid impulses, by which a society is corrupted or enervated, when cunningly practised upon, the different classes in the country of the enemy that could be manipulated in one way or another until no sound but that of Peace, Peace, Peace would be heard from any quarter. _The Craven Street Gazette_, written in mock court language, and replete with the subtle suggestions of household intimacy, is one of the most exquisite triumphs of Franklin's wit and fancy. This morning [it begins], Queen Margaret, accompanied by her first maid of honour, Miss Franklin, (Sally Franklin) set out for Rochester. Immediately on their departure, the whole street was in tears--from a heavy shower of rain. It is whispered, that the new family administration which took place on her Majesty's departure, promises, like all other new administrations, to govern much better than the old one. We hear, that the great person (so called from his enormous size), of a certain family in a certain street, is grievously affected at the late changes, and could hardly be comforted this morning, though the new ministry promised him a roasted shoulder of mutton and potatoes for his dinner. It is said, that the same great person intended to pay his respects to another great personage this day, at St. James's, it being coronation-day; hoping thereby a little to amuse his grief; but was prevented by an accident, Queen Margaret, or her maid of honour having carried off the key of the drawers, so that the lady of the bed-chamber could not come at a laced shirt for his Highness. Great clamours were made on this occasion against her Majesty. And so the _Gazette_ goes on, gay and graceful as the play of sunshine on the surface of a dimpled sea, from incident to incident that took place during the absence of Queen Margaret (Mrs. Stevenson) and Miss Franklin, investing each with a ceremonious dignity and importance that never descend to buffoonery. These are some of the occurrences chronicled as taking place on the first Sunday after the departure of the Queen. Walking up and down in his room we might observe was one of Franklin's ways of taking exercise. Lord and Lady Hewson walked after dinner to Kensington, to pay their duty to the Dowager, and Dr. Fatsides made four hundred and sixty-nine turns in his dining-room, as the exact distance of a visit to the lovely Lady Barwell, whom he did not find at home; so there was no struggle for and against a kiss, and he sat down to dream in the easy-chair that he had it without any trouble. And these are some of the observations made under the date of the succeeding Tuesday. It is remark'd, that the Skies have wept every Day in Craven Street, the Absence of the Queen. The Publick may be assured that this Morning a certain _great_ Personage was asked very complaisantly by the Mistress of the Household, if he would chuse to have the Blade-Bone of Saturday's Mutton that had been kept for his Dinner to-day _broil'd_ or _cold_. _He answer'd gravely, If there is any Flesh on it, it may be broil'd; if not, it may as well be cold._ Orders were accordingly given for Broiling it. But when it came to Table, there was indeed so very little Flesh, or rather none, (Puss having din'd on it yesterday after Nanny)[57] that if our new Administration had been as good Oeconomists as they would be thought, the Expence of Broiling might well have been saved to the Publick, and carried to the Sinking Fund. It is assured the _great_ Person bears all with infinite Patience. But the Nation is astonish'd at the insolent Presumption, that dares treat so much Mildness in so cruel a manner! Under the same date is made the announcement that at six o'clock, that afternoon, news had come by the post that her Majesty arrived safely at Rochester on Saturday night. "The Bells," the _Gazette_ adds, "immediately rang--for Candles to illuminate the Parlour, the Court went into Cribbidge, and the Evening concluded with every other Demonstration of Joy." This is followed by a letter to the _Gazette_ from a person signing himself "Indignation," who says that he makes no doubt of the truth of the statement that a certain great person is half-starved on the blade-bone of a sheep by a set of the most careless, worthless, thoughtless, inconsiderate, corrupt, ignorant, blundering, foolish, crafty & knavish ministers that ever got into a house and pretended to govern a family and provide a dinner. "Alas for the poor old England of Craven Street!" this correspondent exclaims, "If they continue in Power another Week, the Nation will be ruined. Undone, totally undone, if I and my Friends are not appointed to succeed them." This letter is accompanied by another signed, "A Hater of Scandal," which takes "Indignation" to task, and declares that the writer believes that, even if the Angel Gabriel would condescend to be their minister, and provide their dinners, he would scarcely escape newspaper defamation from a gang of hungry, ever-restless, discontented and malicious scribblers. It was a piece of justice, he declared, that the publisher of the _Gazette_ owed to their righteous administration to undeceive the public on this occasion by assuring them of the fact, which is that there was provided and actually smoking on the table under his royal nose at the same instant as the blade-bone as fine a piece of ribs of beef roasted as ever knife was put into, with potatoes, horse-radish, pickled walnuts &c. which his Highness might have eaten, if so he had pleased to do. Along with the political intelligence and the letters the _Gazette_ also contains these notices and stock quotations: MARRIAGES, none since our last--but Puss begins to go a Courting. DEATHS, In the back Closet and elsewhere, many poor Mice. STOCKS Biscuit--very low. Buckwheat & Indian Meal--both sour. Tea, lowering daily--in the Canister. Wine, shut. The _Petition of the Letter Z_ was a humorous offshoot of Franklin's Reformed Alphabet. In a formal complaint after the manner of a bill in chancery, to the worshipful Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Censor-General, Z complains that his claims to respect are as good as those of the other letters of the Alphabet, but that he had not only been placed at its tail, when he had as much right as any of his companions to be at its head, but by the injustice of his enemies had been totally excluded from the word WISE and his place filled by a little hissing, crooked, serpentine, venomous letter, called S, though it must be evident to his worship and to all the world that W, I, S, E does not spell _Wize_ but _Wise_. The petition ends with the prayer that, in consideration of his long-suffering and patience, the petitioner may be placed at the head of the Alphabet, and that S may be turned out of the word _wise_, and the Petitioner employed instead of him. Z did not make out his case, for at the foot of the petition is appended this order: "Mr. Bickerstaff, having examined the allegations of the above petition, judges and determines, that Z be admonished to be content with his station, forbear reflections upon his brother letters, and remember his own small usefulness, and the little occasion there is for him in the Republic of Letters, since S whom he so despises can so well serve instead of him." Some of the liveliest of the lighter papers of Franklin were written during the course of his French Mission. His inimitable _Journey to the Elysian Fields_ and _Conte_ have already received our attention in an earlier chapter. Among the others was _The Sale of the Hessians_, _The Supplement to the Boston Independent Chronicle_, _The Ephemera_, _The Whistle_, his letter to the Abbé de la Roche, communicating to him the _petite chanson à boire_ that he had written forty years before, his letter to the Abbé Morellet on wine, the _Dialogue between him and the Gout_, _The Handsome and Deformed Leg_ and _The Economical Project_. If there was nothing else to support the claim of Franklin to the authorship of _The Sale of the Hessians_, the difficulty of abridging it would be one proof. Its humor is as trenchant as that of Frederick the Great in levying the same toll upon these hirelings, when passing through his dominions on their way to America, pursuant to the mercenary engagements between their German masters and George III., as that levied by him upon other cattle. The paper is thrown into the form of a letter from the Count De Schaumbergh to the Baron Hohendorf, commanding the Hessian troops in America. It begins as follows: MONSIEUR DE BARON:--On my return from Naples, I received at Rome your letter of the 27th December of last year. I have learned with unspeakable pleasure the courage our troops exhibited at Trenton, and you cannot imagine my joy on being told that of the 1,950 Hessians engaged in the fight, but 345 escaped. There were just 1,605 men killed, and I can not sufficiently commend your prudence in sending an exact list of the dead to my minister in London. This precaution was the more necessary, as the report sent to the English Ministry does not give but 1,455 dead. This would make 483,450 florins instead of 643,500 which I am entitled to demand under our convention. You will comprehend the prejudice which such an error would work in my finances, and I do not doubt you will take the necessary pains to prove that Lord North's list is false and yours correct. This is another paragraph: I am about to send to you some new recruits. Don't economize them. Remember glory before all things. Glory is true wealth. There is nothing degrades the soldier like the love of money. He must care only for honour and reputation, but this reputation must be acquired in the midst of dangers. A battle gained without costing the conqueror any blood is an inglorious success, while the conquered cover themselves with glory by perishing with their arms in their hands. Do you remember that of the 300 Lacedaemonians who defended the defile of Thermopylae, not one returned? How happy should I be could I say the same of my brave Hessians! It is true that their King, Leonidas, perished with them: but things have changed, and it is no longer the custom for princes of the empire to go and fight in America for a cause with which they have no concern. The Baron is further commended for sending back to Europe that Dr. Crumerus who was so successful in curing dysentery, and is told that it is better that the Hessians should burst in their barracks than fly in a battle, and tarnish the glory of the Count's arms. Besides [the Count continues], you know that they pay me as killed for all who die from disease, and I don't get a farthing for runaways. My trip to Italy, which has cost me enormously, makes it desirable that there should be a great mortality among them. You will therefore promise promotion to all who expose themselves; you will exhort them to seek glory in the midst of dangers; you will say to Major Maundorff that I am not at all content with his saving the 345 men who escaped the massacre of Trenton. Through the whole campaign he has not had ten men killed in consequence of his orders. Finally, let it be your principal object to prolong the war and avoid a decisive engagement on either side, for I have made arrangements for a grand Italian opera, and I do not wish to be obliged to give it up. Meantime I pray God, my dear Baron de Hohendorf, to have you in his holy and gracious keeping. The _Supplement to the Boston Independent Chronicle_ is distinguished by the same sort of cool, dry mocking verisimilitude. Captain Gerrish, of the New England Militia, is supposed to write a letter in which he says that the members of a recent expedition against the Indians were struck with horror to find among the packages of peltry captured by them eight large ones containing scalps of their unhappy country-folks taken in the last three years by the Seneca Indians from the heads of inhabitants of the frontiers of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and sent by them as a present to Colonel Haldimand, the Governor of Canada; to be forwarded by him to England. The scalps, Captain Gerrish asserts, were accompanied by a curious letter to the Governor from one, James Craufurd. Then is set forth this letter which describes with the minuteness of a mercantile invoice the contents of each of the eight packages of scalps, some of Congress soldiers, some of farmers surprised in their houses at night, some of farmers killed in their houses by day, some of farmers killed in the fields, some of women, some of boys, some of girls and some of little infants ripped from the womb. The contents of several of the packages are described as mixed lots. The letter also fully explains the Indian triumphal marks painted upon the different scalps, which were all cured, dried and stretched like the pelts of the otter or beaver on hoops. The black circle denoted that the victim had perished at night, the little red foot that he had died in defence of his life and family, the little yellow flame that he had been tortured at the stake. The hair braided in the Indian fashion meant that the victim was a mother, other tokens that the victim was a boy or a girl. A band fixed to the hoop of one of the scalps signified that the head to which it had been attached was that of a rebel clergyman. Many gruesome tokens are explained in the same systematic and businesslike manner. Along with several other passages from a speech of Conejogatchie in Council, the letter also communicates one in which the speaker declares that his people wished the scalps to be sent across the water to the great King that he might regard them and be refreshed. In concluding his own letter, Captain Gerrish states that Lieutenant Fitzgerald would have undertaken to convey the scalps to England and to hang them all up some dark night on the trees in St. James' Park, where they could be seen from the King and Queen's Palaces in the morning. But this proposal, the _Chronicle_ says, was not approved in Boston. It was proposed instead to make the scalps up in decent little packets, and to seal and direct them; one to the King containing a sample of every kind for his museum, one to the Queen, with some of women and children; the rest to be distributed among both Houses of Parliament, and a double quantity to be given to the Bishops. The relations of the _Chronicle_ to this production were, of course, as purely fictitious as every other part of it. Associated with the performance, as another publication in the _Chronicle_, is a fictitious letter, too, from Paul Jones to Sir Joseph Yorke, the English Ambassador to Holland, in which he defends himself with considerable spirit from the charge of being a pirate, and reminds Sir Joseph of the freebooting principles upon which England was waging war against America. When he read this letter, Horace Walpole wrote to the Countess of Ossory, "Have you seen in the papers an excellent letter of Paul Jones to Sir Joseph Yorke? Elle nous dit bien des vérités! I doubt poor Sir Joseph cannot answer them! Dr. Franklin himself, I should think, was the author. It is certainly written by a first-rate pen, and not by a common man of war." _The Ephemera_ was addressed to Madame Brillon, and is one of the most justly famous of all Franklin's writings. In a letter to William Carmichael, he states that the thought was partly taken from a little piece of some unknown writer, which he had met with fifty years before in a newspaper. Another proof, we might say in passing, how little disposed Franklin was to borrow from Richard Jackson, or any one else without due acknowledgment. So dependent is every part of this paper for its effect upon the whole that to quote only a portion of it would be as futile as an effort to divide a bubble without destroying it. These are the precise words in full of this bewitching little production: You may remember, my dear friend, that when we lately spent that happy day in the delightful garden and sweet society of the Moulin Joly, I stopt a little in one of our walks, and staid some time behind the company. We had been shown numberless skeletons of a kind of little fly, called an ephemera, whose successive generations, we were told, were bred and expired within the day. I happened to see a living company of them on a leaf, who appeared to be engaged in conversation. You know I understand all the inferior animal tongues; my too great application to the study of them is the best excuse I can give for the little progress I have made in your charming language. I listened through curiosity to the discourse of these little creatures; but as they, in their national vivacity, spoke three or four together, I could make but little of their conversation. I found, however, by some broken expressions that I heard now and then, they were disputing warmly on the merit of two foreign musicians, one a _cousin_, the other a _moscheto_; in which dispute they spent their time, seemingly as regardless of the shortness of life as if they had been sure of living a month. Happy people! thought I, you are certainly under a wise, just, and mild government, since you have no public grievances to complain of, nor any subject of contention but the perfections and imperfections of foreign music. I turned my head from them to an old grey-headed one, who was single on another leaf, and talking to himself. Being amused with his soliloquy, I put it down in writing, in hopes it will likewise amuse her to whom I am so much indebted for the most pleasing of all amusements, her delicious company and heavenly harmony. It was [said he] the opinion of learned philosophers of our race, who lived and flourished long before my time, that this vast world, the Moulin Joly, could not itself subsist more than eighteen hours; and I think there was some foundation for that opinion, since, by the apparent motion of the great luminary that gives life to all nature, and which in my time has evidently declined considerably towards the ocean at the end of our earth, it must then finish its course, be extinguished in the waters that surround us, and leave the world in cold and darkness, necessarily producing universal death and destruction. I have lived seven of those hours, a great age, being no less than four hundred and twenty minutes of time. How very few of us continue so long! I have seen generations born, flourish, and expire. My present friends are the children and grandchildren of the friends of my youth, who _are now_, alas, no more! And I must soon follow them; for, by the course of nature, though still in health, I cannot expect to live above seven or eight minutes longer. What now avails all my toil and labor, in amassing honey-dew on this leaf, which I cannot live to enjoy! What the political struggles I have been engaged in, for the good of my compatriot inhabitants of this bush, or my philosophical studies for the benefit of our race in general! for, in politics, what can laws do without morals? Our present race of ephemeræ will in a course of minutes become corrupt, like those of other and older bushes, and consequently as wretched. And in philosophy how small our progress! Alas! art is long, and life is short! My friends would comfort me with the idea of a name, they say, I shall leave behind me; and they tell me I have lived long enough to nature and to glory. But what will fame be to an ephemera who no longer exists? And what will become of all history in the eighteenth hour, when the world itself, even the whole Moulin Joly, shall come to its end, and be buried in universal ruin? To me, after all my eager pursuits, no solid pleasures now remain, but the reflection of a long life spent in meaning well, the sensible conversation of a few good lady ephemeræ, and now and then a kind smile and a tune from the ever amiable _Brillante_. _The Whistle_, too, was addressed to Madame Brillon and is also one of the most celebrated of Franklin's bagatelles, but is scarcely equal, we think, to the best of them. In his opinion, Franklin said, they might all draw more good from the world than they did if they would take care not to give too much for whistles. With this foreword, he tells his story. When a child of seven years of age, his friends on a holiday filled his pocket with coppers, and, being charmed with the sound of a whistle that he met by the way in the hands of another boy, he voluntarily offered, and gave all his money for one. He then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with his whistle, but disturbing the entire family. But his brothers and sisters told him that he had given four times as much for the whistle as it was worth, put him in mind of what good things he might have bought with the rest of the money and laughed at him so much for his folly that he cried with vexation. The lesson, however, was of use to him, so that often, when he was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, he said to himself, "_Don't give too much for the whistle_," and he saved his money. And so, when he grew up, came into the world and observed the actions of men, he thought he met with many, very many who gave too much for the whistle. He then mentions who some of these men were, the man ambitious of court favor, the man covetous of political popularity, the miser, the slave of pleasure, the devotee of fashion, the beautiful, sweet-tempered girl, married to an ill-natured brute of a husband, and, after the mention of each, comes the running comment, "This man gives too much for his whistle," or its equivalent. Yet [Franklin concludes], I ought to have charity for these unhappy people, when I consider, that, with all this wisdom of which I am boasting, there are certain things in the world so tempting, for example, the apples of King John, which happily are not to be bought; for if they were put to sale by auction, I might very easily be led to ruin myself in the purchase, and find that I had once more given too much for the _whistle_. The reader has already had occasion to know what kind of fruit these apples of King John were, and in whose orchard they grew. To realize what an indifferent poet Franklin was, and yet at the same time what a master of prose, one has but to first read his _petite chanson à boire_ beginning, "Fair Venus calls; her voice obey," and then his letter to the Abbé Morellet on wine. The letter was written to repay the Abbé for some of his excellent drinking songs. "In vino veritas," said the sage, [is the way Franklin begins]. Before Noah, when men had nothing but water to drink, they could not find the truth, so they went astray, and became abominably wicked, and were justly exterminated by the water that they were fond of drinking. Good man Noah, seeing that this bad drink had been the death of all his contemporaries, contracted an aversion to it, and God to quench his thirst, created the vine, and revealed to him the art of making wine. With its aid, Noah discovered many and many a truth, and, since his time, the word "divine" has been in use, meaning originally to discover by means of wine.... Since that time, too, all excellent things, even deities themselves, have been called divine or divinities. Men speak of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage of Cana as a miracle. But this change is worked every day by the goodness of God under our eyes. Witness the water, that falls from the skies upon our vineyards, and then passes into the roots of the vines to be converted into wine, a constant proof that God loves us, and that he is pleased to see us happy. The miracle in question was performed merely to hasten the operation on an occasion of sudden need that made it indispensable. It is true that God has also taught men how to reduce wine to water; but what kind of water? Why _l'eau-de-vie_. Franklin then begs his Christian brother to be kindly and beneficent like God and not to spoil his good work. When he saw his table companion pour wine into his glass he should not hasten to pour water into it. Why should he desire to drown the truth? His neighbor was likely to know better what suited him than he. Perhaps he does not like water, perhaps he wishes only a few drops of it out of complaisance to the fashion of the day, perhaps he does not wish another to see how little he puts in his glass. Water then should be offered only to children; it was a false and annoying form of politeness to do otherwise. This the writer told the Abbé as a man of the world, and he would end as he had begun, like a good Christian, by making one very important religious observation suggested by the Holy Scriptures. While the Apostle Paul had gravely advised Timothy to put wine into his water for his health, not one of the Apostles, nor any of the Holy Fathers, had ever advised anyone to put water into wine. The "Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout" owes its value not so much to its humor as to the knowledge that it incidentally affords us of the personal habits of the former and his intimacy with Madame Helvétius and Madame Brillon. Along with the reproaches and twinges of pain which evoke repeated Ehs! and Ohs! from Franklin, as the colloquy proceeds, the Gout contrives to communicate to us no little information on these subjects in terms in which physiology, hygiene and gallantry are each made to do duty. He tells Franklin that he, the Gout, very well knows that the quantity of meat and drink proper for a man, who takes a reasonable degree of exercise, is too much for another who never takes any. If his, Franklin's, situation in life is a sedentary one, his amusements and recreations at least should be active. He ought to walk or ride, or, if the weather prevents that, play at billiards. But, instead of gaining an appetite for breakfast by salutary exercise, he amuses himself with books, pamphlets or newspapers, which commonly are not worth the reading. Yet he eats an inordinate breakfast, four dishes of tea, with cream, and one or two buttered toasts, with slices of hung beef, which the Gout fancies are not things the most easily digested. Immediately afterwards he sits down to write at his desk or converse with persons who apply to him on business. Thus the time passes till one without any kind of bodily exercise. This might be pardoned out of regard, as Franklin said, for his sedentary condition, but what is his practice after dinner? Walking in the beautiful gardens of those friends with whom he had dined would be the choice of men of sense. His was to be fixed down to chess, where he was found engaged for two or three hours! This was his perpetual recreation, which was the least eligible of any for a sedentary man, because, instead of accelerating the motion of the fluids, the rigid attention it required helped to retard the circulation and obstruct internal secretions. Wrapped in the speculations of this wretched game, he destroyed his constitution. What could be expected from such a course of living but a body replete with stagnant humours, ready to fall a prey to all kinds of dangerous maladies, if he, the Gout, did not occasionally bring him relief by agitating those humors, and so purifying or dissipating them. If it was in some nook or alley in Paris deprived of walks that Franklin played awhile at chess after dinner, this might be excusable, but the same taste prevailed with him in Paris, at Auteuil Montmartre or Sanois, places where there were the finest, gardens and walks, a pure air, beautiful women and most agreeable and instructive conversation; all of which he might enjoy by frequenting the walks. At this point, Franklin, after some more prolonged Ehs! and Ohs!, manages to remind the Gout that it is not fair to say that he takes no exercise when he does so very often in going out to dine and returning in his carriage; but this statement the Gout brushes brusquely aside. That of all imaginable exercises, he asserts, is the most slight and insignificant, if Franklin alludes to the motion of a carriage suspended on springs. By observing the degree of heat obtained by different kinds of motion, we may form an estimate of the quantity of exercise given by each. Thus, for example, if Franklin should turn out to walk in winter with cold feet, in an hour's time he would be in a glow all over; if he should ride on horseback, the same effect would scarcely be perceived by four hours' round trotting, but, if he should loll in a carriage, such as he had mentioned, he might travel all day, and gladly enter the last inn to warm his feet by a fire.[58] Providence has appointed few to roll in carriages, while it has given to all a pair of legs, which are machines infinitely more commodious and serviceable. He should observe, when he walked, that all his weight was alternately thrown from one leg to the other; this occasions a great pressure upon the vessels of the foot, and repels their contents. When relieved by the weight being thrown on the other foot, the vessels of the first are allowed to replenish, and, by a return of this weight, this repulsion again succeeds; thus accelerating the circulation of the blood, with the result that the cheeks are ruddy and the health established. Behold [the Gout is then artfully made to say], your fair friend at Auteuil (Madame Helvétius); a lady who received from bounteous nature more really useful science, than half a dozen such pretenders to philosophy as you have been able to extract from all your books. When she honours you with a visit, it is on foot. She walks all hours of the day, and leaves indolence, and its concomitant maladies, to be endured by her horses. In this see at once the preservative of her health and personal charms. Nor does the Gout go off before he is with equal art made to say a flattering word about the Brillons. You know [he declares], M. Brillon's gardens, and what fine walks they contain; you know the handsome flight of an hundred steps, which lead from the terrace above to the lawn below. You have been in the practice of visiting this amiable family twice a week, after dinner, and it is a maxim of your own, that "a man may take as much exercise in walking a mile, up and down stairs, as in ten on level ground." What an opportunity was here for you to have had exercise in both these ways. Did you embrace it, and how often? Franklin is bound to admit that he cannot immediately answer the question, and the Gout answers it for him. "Not once," he says, and then goes on to chide Franklin with the fact that, during the summer, he is in the habit of going to M. Brillon's at six o'clock and contenting himself with the view from his terrace, tea and the chess-board, though the charming lady, with her lovely children and friends, are eager to walk with him, and entertain him with their agreeable conversation. A little more interchange of conversation and poor Franklin in despair asks, "What then would you have me do with my carriage?" and the Gout replies, "Burn it if you choose; you would at least get heat out of it once in this way." In the end, Franklin promises that, if his persecutor will only leave him, he will never more play at chess, but will take exercise daily, and live temperately--a promise the Gout tells him that, with a few months of good health, "will be forgotten like the forms of last year's clouds." "The Handsome and Deformed Leg" divides the world into two classes, the happy, who fix their eyes on the bright side of things and enjoy everything, and the unhappy, who fix their eyes on the dark side of things, and criticise everything; and thereby render themselves completely odious. An old philosophical friend of his, Franklin said, carefully avoided any intimacy with the latter class of people. He had, like other philosophers, a thermometer to show him the heat of the weather, and a barometer to mark when it was likely to prove good or bad; but, there being no instrument invented to discern at first sight whether a person had their unpleasant disposition, he, for that purpose, made use of his legs, one of which was remarkably handsome, and the other, by some accident, crooked and deformed. If a stranger, at the first interview, regarded his ugly leg more than his handsome one, he doubted him. If he spoke of it and took no notice of the handsome leg, that was sufficient to determine this philosopher to have no further acquaintance with him. Everybody [concludes Franklin] has not this two-legged Instrument, but every one with a little Attention, may observe Signs of that carping, fault-finding Disposition, & take the same Resolution of avoiding the Acquaintance of those infected with it. I therefore advise those critical, querulous, discontented, unhappy People, that if they wish to be respected and belov'd by others, & happy in themselves they should _leave off looking at the ugly leg_. "The Economical Project" is a happy combination of humor and prudential instruction, and was written about the time when the Quinquet lamp was an object of general public curiosity. An inquiry having been started on one occasion in his presence, Franklin says, as to whether its brightness was not offset by its lavish consumption of oil, he went home, and to bed, three or four hours after midnight, with his head full of the subject. At about six in the morning, he was awakened by a noise, and was surprised to find his room full of light. At first, he imagined that he was surrounded by a number of Quinquet lamps, but, on rubbing his eyes, he perceived that the light came in at the windows, and, when he got up and looked out to see what caused it, he saw the sun just rising above the horizon. His servant had forgotten the preceding evening to close the shutters. Looking at his watch, and finding that it was but six o'clock, and still thinking it something extraordinary that the sun should rise so early, he consulted an almanac, and ascertained that it was just the hour for sunrise on that day, and, moreover, he learned from the almanac that the sun would rise still earlier every day till towards the end of June. His readers, he was sure, would be as much astonished as he was when they heard that the sun rises so early, and especially when he assured them that it gives light as soon as it rises. He was convinced of this. He was certain of his fact. One could not be more certain of any fact. On repeating his observation the three following mornings, he found always precisely the same result. Yet when he spoke of the matter it was to incredulous countenances. One auditor, a learned natural philosopher, assured him that he must certainly be mistaken as to the light coming into his room, for, it being well known that there could be no light abroad at that hour, it followed that none could enter from without, and that, of consequence, his open windows, instead of letting in the light, must have only served to let out the darkness. This philosopher, Franklin confessed, puzzled him a little, but subsequent observation confirmed him in his first opinion. On the strength of these facts, Franklin enters upon a series of elaborate calculations to demonstrate that, between the 20th of March and 20th of September, the Parisians, because of their habit of preferring candlelight in the evening to sunlight in the morning, had consumed sixty-four millions and fifty thousand pounds of candles, which, at an average price of thirty sols per pound, made ninety-six millions and seventy-five thousand livres tournois. An immense sum! that the City of Paris might save every year by the economy of using sunshine instead of candles; to say nothing of the period of the year during which the days are shorter. This computation is succeeded by a number of suggestions as to the different means by which such of the Parisians as did not amend their hours upon learning from this paper that it is daylight when the sun rises could be induced to reform their habits. For his discovery, Franklin further said that he demanded neither place, pension, exclusive privilege nor any other reward whatever. He was looking only to the honor of it. He would not deny, when he was assailed by little, envious minds, that the ancients knew that the sun rises at certain hours. They too possibly had almanacs, but it does not follow that they knew that it gives light as soon as it rises. That was what he claimed as his discovery. It was certainly unknown to the moderns, at least to the Parisians; which to prove he need use but one plain, simple argument. It was impossible that a people as well-instructed, judicious and prudent as any in the world, all professing to be lovers of economy, and subject to onerous taxation, should have lived so long by the smoky, unwholesome and enormously expensive light of candles, if they had really known that they might have as much pure light of the sun for nothing. _A Letter from China_ in which a sailor, who had passed some time in that country, is made to narrate in a simple, bald way what he saw and experienced while there, is worth reading, if only because of the evidence that it furnishes that almost every trifle from Franklin's pen has a certain literary quality. One sentence in the letter at any rate possesses the true Franklin flavor; that in which the wanderer states that in China stealing, robbing and housebreaking are punished severely, but that cheating is free there in everything, as cheating in horses is among gentlemen in England. Other humorous or satirical compositions from the hand of Franklin belong to the period between his return from the French mission and his death. His letter to the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ on the _Abuse of the Press_, deprecates in a familiar and jocular way the scurrilous license which marked the newspaper controversies of the time. After recalling insulting epithets heaped upon other public servants, he mentions that he, too, the unanimous choice as President of the Council and Assembly of Pennsylvania, had been denounced as "_An old Rogue_," who had given his assent to the Federal Constitution merely to avoid the refunding of money that he had purloined from the United States. There is--indeed [the letter ends], a good deal of manifest _Inconsistency_ in all this, and yet a Stranger, seeing it in your own Prints, tho' he does not believe it all, may probably believe enough of it to conclude, that Pennsylvania is peopled by a Set of the most unprincipled, wicked, rascally and quarrelsome Scoundrels upon the Face of the Globe. I have sometimes, indeed, suspected that those Papers are the Manufacture of foreign Enemies among you, who write with a view of disgracing your Country, and making you appear contemptible and detestable all the World over; but then I wonder at the Indiscretion of your Printers in publishing such Writings! There is, however, one of your _Inconsistencies_ that consoles me a little, which is, that tho' _living_, you give one another the characters of Devils; _dead_, you are all Angels! It is delightful, when any of you die, to read what good Husbands, good Fathers, good Friends, good Citizens, and good Christians you were, concluding with a Scrap of Poetry that places you, with certainty, every one in Heaven. So that I think Pennsylvania a good country _to dye in_, though a very bad one to _live in_. The _Comparison of the Conduct of the Ancient Jews and of the Anti-Federalists in the United States of America_ belongs to the same category as _Plain Truth_ rather than to the class of writings which Franklin termed "Bagatelles." The parallel, however, between the jealousy, worked upon by insidious men, pretending public good, but with nothing really in view except private interest, which led the Israelites to oppose the establishment of the New Constitution, after the flight from Egypt, and the hostility of the Anti-Federalists to the work of the Convention of 1787, is pursued with such cleverness as to lift it out of the province of the ordinary newspaper essay. There is an unwonted strain of solemnity in its last sentences. To conclude [Franklin declares], I beg I may not be understood to infer, that our General Convention was divinely inspired, when it form'd the new federal Constitution, merely because that Constitution has been unreasonably and vehemently opposed; yet I must own I have so much Faith in the general Government of the world by _Providence_, that I can hardly conceive a Transaction of such momentous Importance to the Welfare of Millions now existing, and to exist in the Posterity of a great Nation, should be suffered to pass without being in some degree influenc'd, guided, and governed by that omnipotent, omnipresent and beneficent Ruler, in whom all inferior Spirits live, and move, and have their Being. Of the _Account of the Supremest Court of Judicature in Pennsylvania, viz., the Court of the Press_, in which Franklin suggested that formal cognizance should be taken of the Cudgel as well as of the Liberty of the Press, we have already said enough. The pretended speech of Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim, a member of the Divan of Algiers against the Petition of the Erika or Purists, asking that Piracy and Slavery be abolished, was written by him on the eve of his death, and is one of his best satirical thrusts. It was a parody on a speech that had been lately delivered in Congress in defence of negro slavery by Mr. Jackson of Georgia, and its wit consists in the art with which it appositely urges in justification of the Algerian practice of plundering and enslaving Christians all the considerations urged by Jackson in his plea for African slavery. In his letter, conveying Sidi's speech to the _Federal Gazette_, Franklin states that it might be found in Martin's Account of the former's consulship, anno 1687, and we are told that this statement caused many persons to apply to bookstores and libraries for Martin's supposed work. Then, as now, there could be no better means for determining how matter-of-fact a person was than to test his sense of humor with one of Franklin's facetious cheats. The exact time at which the _Petition of the Left Hand to those who have the Superintendency of Education_ was written is unknown. Its _motif_ is not unlike that of the _Petition of the Letter Z_. It complains that from infancy the petitioner had been led to consider her sister as a being of more elevated rank. She had been suffered to grow up without the least instruction while nothing was spared in the education of the latter, who had had masters to teach her writing, drawing, music and other accomplishments. If by chance the Petitioner touched a pencil, a pen or a needle, she was bitterly rebuked, and more than once had been beaten for being awkward and wanting a graceful manner. But conceive not Sirs [says the left hand further], that my complaints are instigated merely by vanity. No; my uneasiness is occasioned by an object much more serious. It is the practice in our family, that the whole business of providing for its subsistence falls upon my sister and myself. If any indisposition should attack my sister,--and I mention it in confidence upon this occasion, that she is subject to the gout, the rheumatism, and cramp, without making mention of other accidents,--what would be the fate of our poor family? Must not the regret of our parents be excessive, at having placed so great a difference between sisters who are so perfectly equal? Alas! we must perish from distress; for it would not be in my power even to scrawl a suppliant petition for relief, having been obliged to employ the hand of another in transcribing the request which I have now the honour to prefer to you. One of the essays of Franklin is an essay which he termed a "bagatelle," but which is of a different cast from most of his papers bearing that designation. This is the essay on the _Morals of Chess_. As a mere literary production, it possesses remarkable merit, but it is more valuable still for the singular union of wisdom and benevolence found in all of the writer's precepts relating to the conduct of life. It is only upon the contracted face of an ordinary chess-board that the sagacious reflections and salutary counsels of this paper are based, but many of them are quite extensive enough in their application to be suitable for the morals of the wider chess-board on which men and women themselves are the pawns, and the universal currents of human nature and human existence the players. By playing at chess, Franklin thought, we may learn foresight, circumspection, caution and hopefulness. When playing it, if the agreement is that the rules of the game shall be strictly observed, they should be strictly observed by both parties. If the agreement is that they shall not be strictly observed, one party should claim no indulgence for himself that he is not willing to grant to his adversary. No false move should ever be made by a player to extricate himself from a difficulty or to gain an advantage. There can be no pleasure in playing with a person once detected in such an unfair practice. If your adversary is long in playing, you should not hurry him, or express any uneasiness at his delay, nor sing, nor whistle, nor look at your watch, nor take up a book to read, nor tap with your feet on the floor, or with your fingers on the table, nor do anything that may disturb his attention. For all these things displease, and they do not show your skill in playing but your craftiness or your rudeness. * * * * * You should not endeavor to amuse and deceive your adversary by pretending to have made bad moves in order to render him confident and careless and inattentive to your schemes. This is fraud and deceit, not skill. If you gain the victory, you should not give way to exultation or insult, nor show too much pleasure. On the contrary, you should endeavor to console your adversary, and soothe his wounded pride by every sort of civil expression that may be used with truth, such as, "You understand the game better than I, but you are a little inattentive," or "You play too fast," or "You had the best of the game, but something happened to divert your thoughts, and that turned it in my favour." If you are simply a spectator, you should observe the most perfect silence; for, if you give advice, you offend both parties, him, against whom you give it, because it may cause the loss of his game, him, in whose favour you give it, because though it be good, and he follows it, he loses the pleasure he might have had, if you had permitted him to think until it had occurred to himself. And thus this essay, so full of wholesome, kind advice from a counsellor, who loved men none the less because he knew all their failings and foibles as well as virtues, continues a little longer, until the reader, already won over to its perfect rectitude of sentiment and purpose, entirely forgets how obvious are all the truisms of its stating that he has so often offended. The measure of self-abnegation, suggested by the conclusion of the essay, is, we fear, rather too exacting for the tug of chess-board selfishness upon the weaker side of human nature. If it is agreed that the rules of the game are not to be rigorously enforced, then, says Franklin, moderate your desire of victory over your adversary, and be pleased with one over yourself. Do not snatch eagerly at every advantage offered by his unskilfulness or inattention, but point out to him kindly that by such a move he places or leaves a piece in danger and unsupported; or that by another he will put his king in a perilous situation &c. "By this generous civility (so opposite to the unfairness above forbidden) you may, indeed, happen to lose the game to your opponent," the close of the essay declares, "but you will win what is better, his esteem, his respect, and his affection, together with the silent approbation and goodwill of impartial spectators." We shall not linger upon the letters of Franklin. The substance of them has already been worked into this book too freely for that. It is sufficient to say that they are among the very best in the English language. It would be idle to compare them with those of Gray, Horace Walpole, Cowper, Byron or Fitzgerald, the acknowledged masters of that form of composition. Franklin was not a conscious man of letters at all, and is not to be judged by such academic standards. If he was, we might say that Cowper aerated with a little of Walpole most nearly, though, after all, but remotely, suggests a true conception of what Franklin was as a letter-writer. Few men were ever saner than Cowper was during his really lucid intervals; but then Cowper was not a man of business, a statesman or a philosopher, and the elixir of Walpole's gaiety differs from that of Franklin's as a stimulant of the wine-shop differs from fresh air and sunshine. The official and semi-official letters of Franklin contain some of the most solid and sagacious of his reflections and observations on political topics. His familiar letters to his kinsfolk and friends often run out into thoughts upon the management of our individual lives and our relations to the visible and invisible universe which are likely to be a part of the currency of human wisdom as long as human society lasts. And almost all of his known letters have value enough to make us feel, when still another of the thousands written by him happens to be reclaimed from loss, as Reuben in his parable might have felt, if he had recovered his precious axe. Among the cleverest of his letters was his familiar one to his daughter on the Order of the Cincinnati. If his advice had been asked, he said, he perhaps would not have objected to their wearing their ribbon and badge themselves, if they derived pleasure from such trivial things, but he certainly should have objected to the idea of making the honor hereditary. And this was the amusing and original way in which he presented his views on the subject: For Honour, worthily obtain'd (as for Example that of our Officers), is in its Nature a _personal_ Thing, and incommunicable to any but those who had some Share in obtaining it. Thus among the Chinese, the most ancient, and from long Experience the wisest of Nations, honour does not _descend_, but _ascends_. If a man from his Learning, his Wisdom, or his Valour, is promoted by the Emperor to the Rank of Mandarin, his Parents are immediately entitled to all the same Ceremonies of Respect from the People, that are establish'd as due to the Mandarin himself; on the supposition that it must have been owing to the Education, Instruction, and good Example afforded him by his Parents, that he was rendered capable of serving the Publick. This _ascending_ Honour is therefore useful to the State, as it encourages Parents to give their Children a good and virtuous Education. But the _descending Honour_, to Posterity who could have no Share in obtaining it, is not only groundless and absurd, but often hurtful to that Posterity, since it is apt to make them proud, disdaining to be employ'd in useful Arts, and thence falling into Poverty, and all the Meannesses, Servility, and Wretchedness attending it; which is the present case with much of what is called the _Noblesse_ in Europe. Or if to keep up the Dignity of the Family, Estates are entailed entire on the Eldest male heir, another Pest to Industry and Improvement of the Country is introduc'd, which will be followed by all the odious mixture of pride and Beggary, and idleness, that have half depopulated [and _decultivated_] Spain; occasioning continual Extinction of Families by the Discouragements of Marriage [and neglect in the improvement of estates]. I wish, therefore, that the Cincinnati, if they must go on with their Project, would direct the Badges of their Order to be worn by their Parents, instead of handing them down to their Children. It would be a good Precedent, and might have good Effects. It would also be a kind of Obedience to the Fourth Commandment, in which God enjoins us to honour our Father and Mother, but has nowhere directed us to honour our Children. And certainly no mode of honouring those immediate Authors of our Being can be more effectual, than that of doing praiseworthy Actions, which reflect Honour on those who gave us our Education; or more becoming, than that of manifesting, by some public Expression or Token, that it is to their Instruction and Example we ascribe the Merit of those Actions. But the Absurdity of _descending Honours_ is not a mere Matter of philosophical Opinion; it is capable of mathematical Demonstration. A Man's Son, for instance, is but half of his Family, the other half belonging to the Family of his Wife. His Son, too, marrying into another Family, his Share in the Grandson is but a fourth; in the Great Grandson, by the same Process, it is but an Eighth; in the next Generation a Sixteenth; the next a Thirty-second; the next a Sixty-fourth; the next an Hundred and Twenty-eighth; the next a Two hundred and Fifty-sixth; and the next a Five hundred and twelfth; thus in nine Generations, which will not require more than 300 years (no very great Antiquity for a Family), our present Chevalier of the Order of Cincinnatus's Share in the then existing Knight, will be but a 512th part; which, allowing the present certain Fidelity of American Wives to be insur'd down through all those Nine Generations, is so small a Consideration, that methinks no reasonable Man would hazard for the sake of it the disagreeable Consequences of the Jealousy, Envy, and Ill will of his Countrymen. Let us go back with our Calculation from this young Noble, the 512th part of the present Knight, thro' his nine Generations, till we return to the year of the Institution. He must have had a Father and Mother, they are two. Each of them had a Father and Mother, they are four. Those of the next preceding Generation will be eight, the next Sixteen, the next thirty-two, the next sixty-four, the next one hundred and Twenty-eight, the next Two hundred and fifty-six, and the ninth in this Retrocession Five hundred and twelve, who must be now existing, and all contribute their Proportion of this future _Chevalier de Cincinnatus_. These, with the rest, make together as follows: 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 ---- 1022 One Thousand and Twenty-two Men and Women, contributors to the formation of one Knight. And if we are to have a Thousand of these future Knights, there must be now and hereafter existing One Million and Twenty-two Thousand Fathers and Mothers, who are to contribute to their Production, unless a Part of the Number are employ'd in making more Knights than One. Let us strike off then the 22,000, on the Supposition of this double Employ, and then consider whether, after a reasonable Estimation of the Number of Rogues, and Fools, and Royalists and Scoundrels and Prostitutes, that are mix'd with, and help to make up necessarily their Million of Predecessors, Posterity will have much reason to boast of the noble Blood of the then existing Set of Chevaliers de Cincinnatus. [The future genealogists, too, of these Chevaliers, in proving the lineal descent of their honour through so many generations (even supposing honour capable in its nature of descending), will only prove the small share of this honour, which can be justly claimed by any one of them; since the above simple process in arithmetic makes it quite plain and clear that, in proportion as the antiquity of the family shall augment, the right to the honour of the ancestor will diminish; and a few generations more would reduce it to something so small as to be very near an absolute nullity.] I hope, therefore, that the Order will drop this part of their project, and content themselves, as the Knights of the Garter, Bath, Thistle, St. Louis, and other Orders of Europe do, with a Life Enjoyment of their little Badge and Ribband, and let the Distinction die with those who have merited it. This I imagine will give no offence. For my own part, I shall think it a Convenience, when I go into a Company where there may be Faces unknown to me, if I discover, by this Badge, the Persons who merit some particular Expression of my Respect; and it will save modest Virtue the Trouble of calling for our Regard, by awkward roundabout Intimations of having been heretofore employ'd in the Continental Service. The Gentleman, who made the Voyage to France to provide the Ribands and Medals, has executed his Commission. To me they seem tolerably done; but all such Things are criticis'd. Some find Fault with the Latin, as wanting classic Elegance and Correctness; and, since our Nine Universities were not able to furnish better Latin, it was pity, they say, that the Mottos had not been in English. Others object to the Title, as not properly assumable by any but Gen. Washington, [and a few others] who serv'd without Pay. Others object to the _Bald Eagle_ as looking too much like a _Dindon_, or Turkey. For my own Part, I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen as the Representative of our Country; he is a Bird of bad moral Character; he does not get his living honestly; you may have seen him perch'd on some dead Tree, near the River where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing-Hawk; and, when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the support of his Mate and young ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him, and takes it from him. With all this Injustice he is never in good Case; but, like those among Men who live by Sharping and Robbing, he is generally poor, and often very lousy. Besides, he is a rank Coward; the little _King Bird_, not bigger than a Sparrow, attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District. He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America, who have driven all the _King-birds_ from our Country; though exactly fit for that Order of Knights, which the French call _Chevaliers d'Industrie_. I am, on this account, not displeas'd that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turk'y. For in Truth, the Turk'y is in comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America. Eagles have been found in all Countries, but the Turk'y was peculiar to ours; the first of the Species seen in Europe being brought to France by the Jesuits from Canada, and serv'd up at the Wedding Table of Charles the Ninth. He is, [though a little vain and silly, it is true, but not the worse emblem for that,] a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards, who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a _red_ Coat on. Nor need we dwell longer either upon Franklin as a poet. Considered seriously as such, he was undoubtedly one of the kind, that, as Horace says, neither Gods nor men can endure. But he should not be seriously regarded as a poet at all. We should bring no severer judgment, to his couplets than was brought to them by the plowmen and frontiersmen, who kept _Poor Richard's Almanac_ suspended over their mantelpieces; and his anacreontics should be read, as they were sung, after the edge of criticism has been dulled by a bottle or so. It is only fair to Poor Richard, however, to say that no one had a poorer opinion of his gifts as a poet than himself. "I know as thee," he says in one of his prefaces, "that I am no _Poet born_: and it is a Trade I never learnt, nor indeed could learn. _If I make Verses, 'tis in Spight of Nature and my Stars, I write._" In another preface, after honoring his friend Taylor, of Ephemerides fame, with a considerable number of lines, he exclaims: "Souse down into Prose again, my Muse; for Poetry's no more thy Element, than Air is that of the Flying-Fish." And we need go no further than one of Franklin's lively letters to Polly, at which we have already glanced, to satisfy ourselves that he placed quite as low an estimate on his verses as Poor Richard did on his. Speaking of the Muse, which he mentioned in his letter as having visited him that morning, he observes in his light-hearted way: This Muse appear'd to be no Housewife. I suppose few of them are. She was _drest_ (if the Expression is allowable) in an _Undress_, a kind of slatternly _Negligée_, neither neat nor clean, nor well made; and she has given the same sort of Dress to my Piece. On reviewing it, I would have reform'd the lines and made them all of a Length, as I am told Lines ought to be; but I find I can't lengthen the short ones without stretching them on the Rack, and I think it would be equally cruel to cut off any Part of the long ones. Besides the Superfluity of _these_ makes up for the Deficiency of _those_; and so, from a Principle of Justice, I leave them at full Length, that I may give you, at least in one Sense of the Word, _good Measure_. Of all the productions of Franklin, the _Autobiography_ and _Poor Richard's Almanac_, are those upon which his literary fame will chiefly rest. Of the former, we have already said too much to say much more about it. It is the only thing written by Franklin that can properly be called a book, and even it is marked by the brevity which he regarded as one of the essentials of good writing. If he did not write other books, it was not, so far as we can see, because, as has been charged, he lacked constructive capacity, but rather because, when he resorted to the pen, he did it not for literary celebrity, but for practical purposes of the hour, best subserved by brief essays or papers. It is true that in writing the early chapters of the _Autobiography_, which brought his life down to the year 1730, he was not exactly writing for the moment, but, still, the motive by which he was actuated was a purely practical one. "They were written to my Son," he said in a letter to Matthew Carey, "and intended only as Information to my Family." Even in the later chapters, which brought his life down to his fiftieth year, he still had a similar incentive to literary effort, highly congenial with the general bent of his character, that is to say, the opportunity that they afforded him to point to his business success as an example of what might be accomplished by frugality and industry. "What is to follow," he wrote to the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, "will be of more important Transactions: But it seems to me that what is done will be of more general Use to young Readers; as exemplifying strongly the Effects of prudent and imprudent Conduct in the Commencement of a Life of Business." Two days later, he wrote to Benjamin Vaughan from Philadelphia that he was diligently employed in writing the _Autobiography_, to which his persuasions had not a little contributed. To shorten the work [he said], as well as for other reasons, I omit all facts and transactions, that may not have a tendency to benefit the young reader, by showing him from my example, and my success in emerging from poverty, and acquiring some degree of wealth, power, and reputation, the advantages of certain modes of conduct which I observed, and of avoiding the errors which were prejudicial to me. To the limited nature of the inducements to the composition of the _Autobiography_, disclosed by these letters, it was due that the interest of Franklin in the subsequent continuation of the work was too languid for the completion of the whole plan of the _Autobiography_, as intimated in the Hints which he gives of its intended scope, notwithstanding the urgent appeals which his friends never ceased to make to him to complete it. If one of the effects of the fearless self-arraignment of the _Autobiography_ has been to lower the standing of Franklin in some respects with posterity, we should remember the unselfish motive, which induced him to turn his youthful errors to the profit of others, and also the fact that he had his own misgivings about the bearing upon his reputation of such outspoken self-exposure, and submitted the propriety of publishing the _Autobiography_ unreservedly to the judgment of friends who were certainly competent judges in every regard of what the moral sense of their time would approve. I am not without my Doubts concerning the Memoirs, whether it would be proper to publish them, or not, at least during my Life time [he wrote to the Duc de la Rochefoucauld], and I am persuaded there are many Things that would, in Case of Publication, be best omitted; I therefore request it most earnestly of you, my dear Friend, that you would examine them carefully & critically, with M. Le Veillard, and give me your candid & friendly Advice thereupon, as soon as you can conveniently. Later, he wrote to Benjamin Vaughan from Philadelphia that he had, of late, been so interrupted by extreme pain, which obliged him to have recourse to opium, that, between the effects of both, he had but little time, in which he could write anything, but that his grandson was copying what was done, which would be sent to Vaughan for his opinion by the next vessel; for he found it a difficult task to speak decently and properly of one's own conduct, and felt the want of a judicious friend to encourage him in scratching out. The next time that Franklin wrote to Vaughan it was when opium alone could render existence tolerable to him, but in the interim, he had happily discovered that he could dictate even when he could not write. What is already done [he said] I now send you, with an earnest request that you and my good friend Dr. Price [later in the letter he calls him "my dear Dr. Price"] would be so good as to take the trouble of reading it, critically examining it, and giving me your candid opinion whether I had best publish or suppress it; and if the first, then what parts had better be expunged or altered. I shall rely upon your opinions, for I am now grown so old and feeble in mind, as well as body, that I can not place any confidence in my own judgment. Of the same tenor was a still later letter to M. Le Veillard, in which Franklin expressed the hope that Le Veillard would, with the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, read the Memoirs over carefully, examine them critically and send him his friendly, candid opinion of the parts that he would advise him to correct or expunge, in case he should think that the work was generally proper to be published, but, if he judged otherwise, that he would inform him of that fact, too, as soon as possible, and prevent him from incurring further trouble in the endeavor to finish the work. The world has reason to be thankful that the fate of the _Autobiography_ should thus have been left to the decision of men who, even if they had not lived in the eighteenth century, would have been robust enough, in point of intelligence and morals, to believe that the youthful _errata_ laid bare in that book were more than atoned for by the manly and generous aims that inspired it. Of the _Autobiography_ it is enough now to say that it is one of the few books which have arrested and permanently riveted the attention of the whole civilized world. Commenting in it on the copy of _Pilgrim's Progress_, "in Dutch, finely printed on good paper, with copper cuts," which the drunken Dutchman, whom he drew up by the shock-pate from the waters of New York Bay, on his first journey to Philadelphia, handed to him to dry, Franklin says: "I have since found that it has been translated into most of the languages of Europe, and suppose it has been more generally read than any other book, except perhaps the Bible." The _Autobiography_ is hardly less popular. It, too, has been translated into most of the languages of Europe, and has been printed and reprinted until it is one of the most widely-read books in existence. Such it is likely to remain always, not simply because it was written by a very famous man, who possessed, to an extraordinary degree, the power of impressing his thoughts and fancies on the hearts and imagination of the human race, but because it tells a story of self-conquest and self-promotion full of warning, guidance and hope for every human being, who wishes to make the best of his own opportunities and powers. As a mere composition, dressed though it is like the poetic Muse described by Franklin in his letter to Polly "in a kind of slatternly Negligée," it is one of the masterpieces of literature. Its very careless loquacity is but suggestive of a mind overflowing with its own profusion of experience and reflection. There is no better test of the extent, to which a writer has proved himself equal to the highest possibilities of his art, than to ask how readily his conceptions can be pictured; for the mind of a great writer is but a gallery hung with such pictures as the painter reduces to material form and color. Tried by this test, the universal popularity of the _Autobiography_ can be readily understood. The Book of Genesis, the plays of Shakespeare, _Pilgrim's Progress_, the novels of Sir Walter Scott, are not more easily illustrated than are the incidents depicted to the life in its early chapters. Some of them wear a hard and coarse aspect as if they had been struck off from ruder plates than any belonging to the present state of the art of engraving, but this is only another proof of the fidelity of Franklin to his eighteenth century background. We might as well quarrel with the squalor and sluttishess of Hogarth's scenes. _Poor Richard's Almanac_, including the "Way to Wealth," or Father Abraham's Speech is Franklin's other master-work. One would hardly look to almanac-making for a classic contribution to letters, but it is not extravagant to say that Poor Richard is one of the most lifelike figures in the literature of the world. Nestor, Falstaff, Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, Sir Roger de Coverley, Captain Dugald Dalgetty and Colonel Newcome are not more distinctly delineated, or rather we should say are not more manifest to the eye and palpable to the touch. To the people of Pennsylvania, its tradesmen, its farmers, even its rude borderers, he was a personage fully as real as the colonial governor at Philadelphia, and far more popular. Thousands of its inhabitants never turned over the pages of any other book except those of the Bible. And finally the wise sayings of Poor Richard, in the form of the "Way to Wealth," applicable as they were to the primal and universal conditions of human existence everywhere, became known from the Thames to the Ganges. The middle of the eighteenth century was the heyday of almanac-making, and the best proof of the durable stuff, of which _Poor Richard's Almanac_ was woven, is the utter oblivion that has overtaken all his competitors except those who are preserved in his pages like flies in amber. The prefaces of _Poor Richard_, the proverbial maxims with which his almanacs are bestrewn, the compendious speech on which these maxims are finally strung like bright beads, have survived, because they were adapted, with consummate art, to the simple habits and mental wants of the rude audience, to which they were addressed. For upwards of thirty years, Poor Richard, with a distinctness and consistency of character as perfect as those of Santa Claus, made his annual bow to the People of Pennsylvania, and served up to their delighted palates his highly seasoned _ollapodrida_ of mock astrology, homely wisdom and coarse jollity in prose and verse. Sometimes the humor is mere horse laughter. But always the shrewd, worldly-wise, merry-tempered old philomath and stargazer hits the fancy of his readers with unerring accuracy between wind and water. His weather predictions and prognostications of planetary conjunctions are just serious enough for unlettered rustics whose minds have been partially but not wholly disabused of the belief that rain comes with the change of the moon. His proverbs are the proverbs of men whose lives are too meagre and straitened to permit them to forget his saying that if you will not hear Reason she'll surely rap your knuckles. His humor is the humor of men whose grave, weather-beaten features do not relax into a smile or grin except under the compelling influence of some broad joke or ridiculous spectacle. Just as the most successful inventor is the one who invents the device that has the widest application to material uses, so the most successful writer is the one who conceives the thoughts that have the widest application to the moral and intellectual needs of mankind. The thoughts that Poor Richard conceived or adopted are such thoughts; for what he taught was full of significance to every man who desires to obtain a correct insight into the moral and economic laws that govern the world for the purpose of winning its favor; which means all men except those who either prey on the world or merely drift along with its current. In the Prefaces to his _Almanac_, Poor Richard manages to keep both his wife Bridget and himself close to the footlights. In the first preface, he says that, if he were to declare that he wrote almanacs with no other view than of the public good, he should not be sincere. The plain Truth of the Matter is [he confesses], I am excessive poor, and my Wife, good Woman, is, I tell her, excessive proud; she cannot bear, she says, to sit spinning in her Shift of Tow, while I do nothing but gaze at the Stars; and has threatned more than once to burn all my Books and Rattling-Traps (as she calls my Instruments) if I do not make some profitable Use of them for the Good of my Family. In the preface of the succeeding year he announces that the patronage of his readers the year before had made his circumstances much easier. His wife had been enabled to get a pot of her own, and was no longer obliged to borrow one from a neighbor; nor had they ever since been without something of their own to put in it. She had also got a pair of shoes, two new shifts, and a new, warm petticoat, and for his part he had bought a second-hand coat, so good that he was no longer ashamed to go to town or be seen there. These things had rendered Bridget's temper so much more pacific than it used to be that he might say that he had slept more, and more quietly within the last year than in the three foregoing years put together. In a later preface, he declares that, if the generous purchaser of his labors could see how often his fi-pence helped to light up the comfortable fire, line the pot, fill the cup and make glad the heart of a poor man and an honest good old woman, he would not think his money ill laid out, though the almanac of his Friend and Servant, R. Saunders, were one half blank paper. A year later, Mistress Saunders avails herself of the fact that her good man had set out the week before for Potowmack to visit an old stargazer of his acquaintance, and to see about a little place for the couple to settle, and end their days on, to scratch out the preface to the copy of the almanac for that year which he had left behind him for the press, because it had undertaken to let the world know that she, who had already been held out in former prefaces as proud and loud and the possessor of a new petticoat, had lately, forsooth, taken a fancy to drink a little tea now and then. Upon looking over the months, she saw that he had put in abundance of foul weather this year, and therefore she had scattered here and there, where she could find room, some fair, pleasant sunshiny days for the good women to dry their clothes in. If what she promised did not come to pass, she would at any rate have shown her goodwill. In the next preface, referring to the impression that the great yearly demand for his almanac had made him so rich that he should call himself Poor Dick no longer, and pretending that he and the printer were different persons, Poor Richard says: When I first begun to publish, the Printer made a fair Agreement with me for my copies, by Virtue of which he runs _away with_ the greatest Part of the Profit--However much good may't do him; I do not grudge it him; he is a Man I have a great Regard for, and I wish his Profit ten times greater than it is. For I am, dear Reader, his as well as thy _Affectionate Friend_, R. SAUNDERS. But the five pence came in too rapidly for the almanac-maker to persist in putting up a poor mouth of this kind. In his twelfth year, after frankly admitting that he had labored not for the benefit of the public but for the benefit of his own dear self, not forgetting in the meantime his gracious consort and Duchess, the peaceful, quiet, silent Lady Bridget, he states that, whether his labors had been of any service to the public or not, he must acknowledge that they had been of service to him. It was by such personal touches as these that Poor Richard made Bridget and himself as familiar to his patrons as the signs of the Zodiac. Astrology itself was, of course, too good a subject for keen ridicule to be spared. Formerly, Poor Richard declares in one preface, no prince would make war or peace, nor any general fight a battle without first consulting an astrologer, who examined the aspects and configurations of the heavenly bodies, and marked the lucky hour. But "now," he goes on, "the noble art (more shame to the age we live in) is dwindled into contempt; the Great neglect us, Empires make Leagues, and Parliaments Laws without advising with us; and scarce any other use is made of our learned labours than to find the best time of cutting corns or gelding Pigs." In many sly ways, Poor Richard let his readers know that his forecasts are not to be accepted too seriously. It is no wonder, he says in his fifth preface, that, among the multitude of astrological predictions, some few should fail; for, without any defect in the art itself, 'tis well known that a small error, a single wrong figure overseen in a calculation, may occasion great mistakes, but, however the almanac-makers might miss it in other things, he believed it would be generally allowed that they always hit the day of the month, and that, he supposed, was esteemed one of the most useful things in an almanac. In another issue of the almanac, he indulges in a great variety of confident predictions as to the year 1739. The crabs will go sidelong and the rope-makers backwards, the belly will wag before, and another part of the body, which we shall not name, but he does, will sit down first, Mercury will so confound the speech of people that, when a Pennsylvanian will wish to say panther, he will say _painter_, and, when a New Yorker will attempt to say _this_, he will say _diss_, and the people of New England and Cape May will not be able to say _cow_ for their lives, but will be forced to say _keow_ by a certain involuntary twist in the root of their tongues. As for Connecticut men and Marylanders, they will not be able to open their mouths but _sir_ shall be the first or last syllable they will pronounce, and sometimes both. Some of his other predictions are that the stone blind will see but very little, the deaf will hear but poorly and the dumb will not speak very plain, while whole flocks, herds and droves of sheep, swine and oxen, cocks and hens, ducks and drakes, geese and ganders will go to pot, but the mortality will not be altogether so great among cats, dogs and horses. As for age, it will be incurable because of the years past, and, towards the fall, some people will be seized with an unaccountable inclination to eat their own ears. But the worst disease of all will be a certain most horrid, dreadful, malignant, catching, perverse and odious malady, almost epidemical, insomuch that many will run mad upon it. "I quake for very Fear," exclaims Poor Richard, "when I think on't; for I assure you very few will escape this Disease, which is called by the learned Albumazar _Lacko'mony_." That the orange trees in Greenland will go near to fare the worse for the cold, that oats will be a great help to horses and that there will not be much more bacon than swine, are still other prophecies hazarded by the astrologer. In another preface, he declares that he has gone into retirement, and that it is time for an old man such as he is to think of preparing for his Great Remove. Then follow these impatient statements: The perpetual Teasing of both Neighbours and Strangers, to calculate Nativities, give Judgments on Schemes, erect Figures, discover Thieves, detect Horse-Stealers, describe the Route of Run-a-ways and stray'd Cattle; the Croud of Visitors with a 1000 trifling Questions; _will my Ship return Safe?_ _Will my Mare win the Race?_ _Will her next Colt be a Pacer?_ _When will my Wife die?_ _Who shall be my Husband, and HOW LONG first?_ _When is the best time to cut Hair, trim Locks or sow Sallad?_ These and the like Impertinences I have now neither Taste nor Leisure for. I have had enough of 'em. All that these angry Folks can say, will never provoke me to tell them where I live. I would eat my Nails first. At times the horse laughter is even slightly flavored with the stercoraceous smell of the stable. Ignorant Men [says Poor Richard in his seventh preface] wonder how we Astrologers foretell the Weather so exactly, unless we deal with the old black Devil. Alas! 'tis as easy as.... For Instance; the Stargazer peeps at the heavens thro' a long Glass: He sees perhaps TAURUS, or the Great Bull, in a mighty Chafe, stamping on the Floor of his House, swinging his Tail about, stretching out his Neck, and opening wide his Mouth. 'Tis natural from these Appearances to judge that this furious Bull is puffing, blowing and roaring. Distance being consider'd and Time allow'd for all this to come down, there you have Wind and Thunder. He spies perhaps VIRGO (or the Virgin;) she turns her Head round as it were to see if anybody observ'd her; then crouching down gently, with her Hands on her Knees, she looks wistfully for a while right forward. He judges rightly what she's about: And having calculated the Distance and allow'd Time for its Falling, finds that next Spring we shall have a fine _April_ shower. In his preface for 1754, Poor Richard advances the proposition that the first astrologers were honest husbandmen, and he proceeds to prove it partly by the names of the Zodiacal signs, which were related for the most part, he asserts, to rural affairs. The Ram, the Bull, the Twins, the Crab, the Lion, the Wench, the Balance, the Scorpion, the Archer, the Goat, the Waterbearer, the Fish, one by one he tells them off in the course of his demonstration, making his own comments on their several meanings as he goes along. The Lion and the Wench, he says, were intended by the Ancients to mark the summer months and dog days when those creatures were most mischievous. The Balance, one of the autumnal signs, was intended by them to mark out the time for weighing and selling the summer's produce, or for holding courts of justice in which they might plague themselves and their neighbors. The Scorpion, with the sting in his tail, certainly denoted the paying of costs. The Goat accompanies the short days and long nights of winter, to show the season of mirth, feasting and jollity; for what could Capricorn mean but dancing or cutting of capers? Lastly came Pisces, or the two Shads, to signify the approaching return of those fish up the rivers. "Make your Wears, hawl your Seins, Catch 'em and pickle 'em, my Friends," advised Poor Richard "they are excellent Relishars of Old Cyder." But Poor Richard's prefaces are not altogether made up of hearty, hilarious jests and loud guffaws. The raillery, with which he plies his rival philomath, Titan Leeds, would be as admirable as any humor in his writings, if it were not borrowed so manifestly from Dean Swift's ridicule of Partridge, the almanac-maker. In his very first preface in 1733, he says that he would have published an almanac many years before had he not been restrained by his regard for his good friend and fellow-student, Mr. Titan Leeds, whose interest he was extremely unwilling to hurt. But this Obstacle (I am far from speaking it with Pleasure) [declares Poor Richard] is soon to be removed, since inexorable Death, who was never known to respect Merit, has already prepared the mortal Dart, the fatal Sister has already extended her destroying Shears, and that ingenious Man must soon be taken from us. He dies, by my Calculation made at his Request, on Oct. 17, 1733. 3 h. 29 m. P.M. at the very instant of the conjunction of Sun and Mercury. By his own Calculation he will survive till the 26th of the same Month. This small Difference between us we have disputed whenever we have met these 9 Years past; but at length he is inclinable to agree with my Judgment: Which of us is most exact, a little Time will now determine. As therefore these Provinces may not longer expect to see any of his Performances after this Year, I think myself free to take up the Task, and request a share of the publick Encouragement. To these assertions Leeds returned a hot answer in his American Almanac for the succeeding year. Notwithstanding the false prediction of the writer, who proposed to succeed him in the writing of almanacs, he had, he said, by the mercy of God lived to write a diary for the year 1734 and to publish the folly and ignorance of the presumptuous author, whom he did not scruple, in the rising tide of his wrath, to term "a Fool and a Lyar" and "a conceited Scribler." This, of course, was just what Poor Richard was calculating on. In his next preface, he is at his very best. In the Preface to my last Almanack [he says], I foretold the Death of my dear old Friend and Fellow-Student, the learned and ingenious Mr. _Titan Leeds_, which was to be on the 17th of _October_, 1733, 3 h. 29 m. P.M. at the very Instant of the conjunction of Sun and Mercury. By his own Calculation he was to survive till the 26th of the same Month, and expire in the Time of the Eclipse, near 11 o'clock A.M. At which of these Times he died, or whether he be really yet dead, I can not at this present Writing positively assure my Readers; forasmuch as a Disorder in my own Family demanded my Presence, and would not permit me as I had intended, to be with him in his last Moments, to receive his last Embrace, to close his Eyes, and do the Duty of a Friend in performing the last Offices to the Departed. Therefore it is that I can not positively affirm whether he be dead or not; for the Stars only show to the Skilful, what will happen in the natural and universal Chain of Causes and Effects; but 'tis well known, that the Events which would otherwise certainly happen at certain Times in the Course of Nature are sometimes set aside or postpon'd for wise and good Reasons by the immediate particular Dispositions of Providence; which particular Dispositions the Stars can by no Means discover or foreshow. There is however (and I can not speak it without Sorrow) there is the strongest Probability that my dear Friend is no more; for there appears in his Name, as I am assured, an Almanack for the year 1734, in which I am treated in a very gross and unhandsome Manner; in which I am called _a false Predicter_, _an Ignorant_, _a conceited Scribler_, _a Fool_, _and a Lyar_. Mr. Leeds was too well bred to use any Man so indecently and so scurrilously, and moreover his Esteem and Affection for me was extraordinary: So that it is to be feared that Pamphlet may be only a Contrivance of somebody or other, who hopes perhaps to sell two or three Years Almanacks still, by the sole Force and Virtue of Mr. _Leed's_ Name; but certainly, to put Words into the Mouth of a Gentleman and a Man of Letters, against his Friend, which the meanest and most scandalous of the People might be asham'd to utter even in a drunken Quarrel, is an unpardonable Injury to his Memory, and an Imposition upon the Publick. Mr. _Leeds_ was not only profoundly skilful in the useful Science he profess'd, but he was a Man of _exemplary_ Sobriety, a most _sincere Friend_, and an _exact Performer of his Word_. These valuable Qualifications, with many others so much endear'd him to me, that although it should be so, that, contrary to all Probability, contrary to my Prediction and his own, he might possibly be yet alive, yet my Loss of Honour as a Prognosticator, can not afford me so much Mortification, as his Life, Health and Safety would give me Joy and Satisfaction. By these observations, the burden was again imposed upon Titan Leeds of demonstrating that he was still alive, and accordingly in his next preface his indignant shade did not fail to take notice of them. But, with the succeeding revolution of the earth about the sun, Poor Richard was at his sport again. Whatever may be the Musick of the Spheres [he said], how great soever the Harmony of the Stars, 'tis certain there is no Harmony among the Stargazers; but they are perpetually growling and snarling at one another like strange Curs, or like some Men at their Wives: I had resolved to keep the Peace on my own part, and affront none of them; and I shall persist in that Resolution: But having receiv'd much Abuse from _Titan Leeds_ deceas'd (_Titan Leeds_ when living would not have us'd me so!) I say, having receiv'd much Abuse from the Ghost of _Titan Leeds_, who pretends to be still living, and to write Almanacks in Spight of me and my Predictions, I can not help saying, that tho' I take it patiently, I take it very unkindly. And whatever he may pretend, 'tis undoubtedly true that he is really defunct and dead. First because the Stars are seldom disappointed, never but in the Case of wise Men, _sapiens dominabitur astris_, and they foreshow'd his Death at the Time I predicted it. Secondly, 'Twas requisite and necessary he should die punctually at that Time, for the Honour of Astrology, the Art professed both by him and his Father before him. Thirdly, 'Tis plain to every one that reads his two last Almanacks (for 1734 and 35) that they are not written with that _Life_ his Performances use to be written with; the Wit is low and flat, the little Hints dull and spiritless, nothing smart in them but _Hudibras's Verses_ against Astrology at the Heads of the Months in the last, which no Astrologer but a _dead one_ would have inserted, and no man _living_ would or could write such Stuff as the rest. In a later preface, Poor Richard complains that certain ill-willers of his, despited at the great reputation that he had gained by exactly predicting another man's death, had endeavored to deprive him of it all at once in the most effective manner by reporting that he himself was never alive. It was not civil treatment, he said, to endeavor to deprive him of his very being, and to reduce him to a non-entity in the opinion of the public; but, so long as he knew himself to walk about, eat, drink and sleep, he was satisfied that there was really such a man as he was, whatever they might say to the contrary. As his printer seemed as unwilling to father his offspring as he was to lose the credit of them, to clear him entirely as well as to vindicate his own honor he made this public and serious declaration, which he desired might be believed, to wit, that what he had written theretofore and did now write neither had been nor was written by any other man or men, person or persons whatsoever. Those who were not satisfied with this must needs be very unreasonable. To cap the climax of all this fun, Poor Richard finally published, in one of his prefaces, a letter, alleged by him to have been written to him by Titan Leeds from the other world, which stated that the writer was grieved at the aspersions cast on Poor Richard by avaricious publishers of almanacs, who envied his success, and pretended that the writer remained alive many years after the hour predicted for his death by Poor Richard, and certified that he, Titan Leeds, did die presently at that hour with a variation only of 5 m. 53 sec.; which must be allowed to be no great matter in such cases. Nay more, in this letter Titan Leeds was made to predict that another Pennsylvania philomath and competitor of Poor Richard, one John Jerman would be openly reconciled to the Church of Rome, and give all his goods and chattels to the Chapel, being perverted by a certain country schoolmaster. In a former year, Poor Richard had already charged Jerman with making such flexible prophecies as "Snow here or in New England," "Rain here or in South Carolina," "Cold to the Northward," "Warm to the Southward." If he were to adopt that method, he said, he would not be so likely to have his mistakes detected, but he did not consider that it would be of any service to anybody to know what weather it was 1000 miles off, and therefore he always set down positively what weather his reader would have, be he where he might be at the time. All he modestly desired was only the favorable allowance of a day or two before and a day or two after the precise day against which the weather was set. On another previous occasion, Poor Richard had made his readers a promise about Jerman which he does not seem to have ever redeemed. "When my Brother J-m-n," he said, "erected a Scheme to know which was best for his sick Horse, to sup a new-laid Egg, or a little Broth, he found that the Stars plainly gave their Verdict for Broth, and the Horse having sup'd his Broth;--Now, what do you think became of that Horse? You shall know in my next." When the prediction of Titan Leeds from beyond the grave that Jerman would apostatize was duly published, the latter resented it; and, in his Almanac for the year 1742, Poor Richard felt it necessary to say a word about the matter himself. My last Adversary [he declared] is J. J--n, Philomat., who _declares and protests_ (in his preface, 1741) that the _false Prophecy put in my Almanack, concerning him, the Year before, is altogether_ false and untrue: _and that I am one of Baal's false Prophets_. This _false, false Prophecy_ he speaks of, related to his Reconciliation with the Church of Rome; which, notwithstanding his Declaring and Protesting, is, I fear, too true. Two Things in his elegiac Verses confirm me in this Suspicion. He calls the first of _November_ by the name of _All Hallows Day_. Reader; does not this smell of Popery? Does it in the least savour of the pure Language of Friends? But the plainest Thing is; his Adoration of Saints, which he confesses to be his Practice, in these Words, page 4. "When any Trouble did me befal, To my dear _Mary_ then I would call." Did he think the whole World were so stupid as not to take Notice of this? So ignorant as not to know, that all Catholicks pay the highest Regard to the _Virgin Mary_? Ah! Friend _John_, we must allow you to be a _Poet_, but you are certainly no Protestant. I could heartily wish your Religion were as good as your Verses. Mingled with the other contents of _Poor Richard's Almanac_ were pointed maxims and sayings worthy of Lord John Russell's happy definition of a proverb "the wit of one and the wisdom of many," and at times first- or second-hand verses also. Among the best of the latter are the following: When Robin now three days had married been, And all his friends and neighbours gave him joy, This question of his wife he asked then, Why till her marriage day she proved so coy? Indeed said he, 'twas well thou didst not yield, For doubtless then my purpose was to leave thee: O, sir, I once before was so beguil'd, And was resolved the next should not deceive me. Poetry for December, 1734 By Mrs. Bridget Saunders, my Dutchess in answer to the December verses of last year. He that for the sake of drink neglects his trade, And spends each night in taverns till 'tis late, And rises when the sun is four hours high, And ne'er regards his starving family, God in his mercy may do much to save him But, woe to the poor wife, whose lot is to have him. * * * * Time eateth all things, could old poets say. But times are chang'd, our times _drink_ all away * * * * Old Batchelor would have a wife that's wise, Fair, rich and young a maiden for his bed; Not proud, nor churlish, but of faultless size A country housewife in the city bred. He's a nice fool and long in vain hath staid; He should bespeak her, there's none ready made. And this is Poor Richard's version of how Cupid and Campaspe played for kisses: My love and I for kisses play'd, She would keep stakes, I was content, But when I won, she would be paid, This made me ask her what she meant: Quoth she, since you are in the wrangling vein Here take your kisses, give me mine again. The first preface to _Poor Richard's Almanac_ appeared in the issue for 1733. In 1758, the proverbs and sayings, scattered through the preceding issues of the publication, were assembled in the _Way to Wealth_ or _Father Abraham's Speech_. Even John Bach McMaster in his brief, though admirable, work on Franklin as a man of letters found that he could not abridge this renowned production; so we offer no apology for inserting it here in its entirety: COURTEOUS READER I have heard that nothing gives an Author so great Pleasure, as to find his Works respectfully quoted by other learned Authors. This Pleasure I have seldom enjoyed; for tho' I have been, if I may say it without Vanity, an _eminent Author_ of Almanacks annually now a full Quarter of a Century, my Brother Authors in the same Way, for what Reason I know not, have ever been very sparing in their Applauses, and no other Author has taken the least Notice of me, so that did not my Writings produce me some solid _Pudding_, the great Deficiency of _Praise_ would have quite discouraged me. I concluded at length, that the People were the best Judges of my Merit; for they buy my Works; and besides, in my Rambles, where I am not personally known, I have frequently heard one or other of my Adages repeated, with, _as Poor Richard says_, at the End on 't; this gave me some Satisfaction, as it showed not only that my Instructions were regarded, but discovered likewise some Respect for my Authority; and I own, that to encourage the Practice of remembering and repeating those wise Sentences, I have sometimes _quoted myself_ with great Gravity. Judge, then how much I must have been gratified by an Incident I am going to relate to you. I stopt my Horse lately where a great Number of People were collected at a Vendue of Merchant Goods. The Hour of Sale not being come, they were conversing on the Badness of the Times and one of the Company call'd to a plain clean old Man, with white Locks, "Pray, Father Abraham, what think you of the Times? Won't these heavy Taxes quite ruin the Country? How shall we be ever able to pay them? What would you advise us to?" Father _Abraham_ stood up, and reply'd, "If you'd have my Advice, I'll give it you in short, for _A Word to the Wise is enough_, and _many Words won't fill a Bushel_, as _Poor Richard_ says." They join'd in desiring him to speak his Mind, and gathering round him, he proceeded as follows; "Friends," says he, "and Neighbours, the Taxes are indeed very heavy, and if those laid on by the Government were the only Ones we had to pay, we might more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our _Idleness_, three times as much by our Pride, and four times as much by our _Folly_; and from these Taxes the Commissioners cannot ease or deliver us by allowing an Abatement. However let us hearken to good Advice, and something may be done for us; _God helps them that help themselves_, as _Poor Richard_ says, in his Almanack of 1733. "It would be thought a hard Government that should tax its People one-tenth Part of their _Time_, to be employed in its Service. But _Idleness_ taxes many of us much more, if we reckon all that is spent in absolute _Sloth_, or doing of nothing, with that which is spent in idle Employments or Amusements, that amount to nothing. _Sloth_, by bringing on Diseases, absolutely shortens Life. _Sloth, like Rust, consumes faster than Labour wears; while the used Key is always bright_ as _Poor Richard_ says. _But dost thou love Life, then do not squander Time, for that's the stuff Life is made of_, as _Poor Richard_ says. How much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep, forgetting that _The sleeping Fox catches no Poultry_, and that _There will be sleeping enough in the Grave_, as _Poor Richard_ says. "_If Time be of all Things the most precious, wasting Time must be_, as _Poor Richard_ says, _the greatest Prodigality_; since, as he elsewhere tells us, _Lost Time is never found again; and what we call Time enough, always proves little enough_: Let us then be up and doing, and doing to the Purpose; so by Diligence shall we do more with less Perplexity. _Sloth makes all Things difficult, but Industry all easy_, as _Poor Richard_ says; and _He that riseth late must trot all Day, and shall scarce overtake his Business at Night_; while _Laziness travels so slowly, that Poverty soon overtakes him_, as we read in _Poor Richard_, who adds, _Drive thy Business, let not that drive thee_; and _Early to Bed, and early to rise, makes a Man healthy, wealthy, and wise_. "So what signifies _wishing_ and _hoping_ for better Times. We may make these Times better, if we bestir ourselves. _Industry need not wish_, as _Poor Richard_ says, _and he that lives upon Hope will die fasting_. _There are no Gains without Pains; then Help Hands, for I have no Lands_, or if I have, they are smartly taxed. And, as _Poor Richard_ likewise observes, _He that hath a Trade hath an Estate; and he that hath a Calling, hath an Office of Profit_ and Honour; but then the _Trade_ must be worked at, and the _Calling_ well followed, or neither the _Estate_ nor the _Office_ will enable us to pay our Taxes. If we are industrious, we shall never starve; for, as _Poor Richard_ says, _At the working Man's House Hunger looks in, but dares not enter_. Nor will the Bailiff or the Constable enter, for _Industry pays Debts, while Despair encreaseth them_, says _Poor Richard_. What though you have found no Treasure, nor has any rich Relation left you a Legacy, _Diligence is the Mother of Goodluck_ as _Poor Richard_ says _and God gives all Things to Industry_. _Then plough deep, while Sluggards sleep, and you shall have Corn to sell and to keep_, says _Poor Dick_. Work while it is called To-day, for you know not how much you may be hindered To-morrow, which makes _Poor Richard_ say, _One to-day is worth two To-morrows_, and farther, _Have you somewhat to do To-morrow, do it To-day_. If you were a Servant, would you not be ashamed that a good Master should catch you idle? Are you then your own Master, _be ashamed to catch yourself idle_, as _Poor Dick_ says. When there is so much to be done for yourself, your Family, your Country, and your gracious King, be up by Peep of Day; _Let not the Sun look down and say, Inglorious here he lies_. Handle your Tools without Mittens; remember that _The Cat in Gloves catches no Mice_, as _Poor Richard_ says. 'Tis true there is much to be done, and perhaps you are weak-handed, but stick to it steadily; and you will see great Effects, for _Constant Dropping wears away Stones_, and by _Diligence and Patience the Mouse ate in two the Cable_; and _Little Strokes fell great Oaks_, as _Poor Richard_ says in his Almanack, the Year I cannot just now remember. "Methinks I hear some of you say, _Must a Man afford himself no Leisure?_ I will tell thee, my friend, what _Poor Richard_ says, _Employ thy Time well, if thou meanest to gain Leisure; and, since thou are not sure of a Minute, throw not away an Hour_. Leisure is Time for doing something useful; this Leisure the diligent Man will obtain, but the lazy Man never; so that, as _Poor Richard_ says _A Life of Leisure and a Life of Laziness are two Things_. Do you imagine that Sloth will afford you more Comfort than Labour? No, for as _Poor Richard_ says, _Trouble springs from Idleness, and grievous Toil from needless Ease. Many without Labour, would live by their Wits only, but they break for want of Stock._ Whereas Industry gives Comfort, and Plenty, and Respect: _Fly Pleasures, and they'll follow you_. _The diligent Spinner has a large Shift; and now I have a Sheep and a Cow, everybody bids me good Morrow_; all which is well said by _Poor Richard_. "But with our Industry, we must likewise be _steady_, _settled_, and _careful_, and oversee our own Affairs _with our own Eyes_, and not trust too much to others; for, as _Poor Richard_ says _I never saw an oft-removed Tree, Nor yet an oft-removed Family, That throve so well as those that settled be._ And again, _Three Removes is as bad as a Fire_; and again, _Keep thy Shop, and thy Shop will keep thee_; and again, _If you would have your Business done, go; if not, send_, and again, _He that by the Plough would thrive, Himself must either hold or drive._ And again, _The Eye of a Master will do more Work than both his Hands_; and again, _Want of Care does us more Damage than Want of Knowledge_; and again, _Not to oversee Workmen, is to leave them your Purse open_. Trusting too much to others' Care is the Ruin of many; for, as the Almanack says, _In the Affairs of this World, Men are saved, not by Faith, but by the Want of it_; but a Man's own Care is profitable; for, saith _Poor Dick_, _Learning is to the Studious_, and _Riches to the Careful_, as well as _Power to the Bold, and Heaven to the Virtuous_, And farther, _If you would have a faithful Servant, and one that you like, serve yourself_. And again, he adviseth to Circumspection and Care, even in the smallest Matters, because sometimes _A little Neglect may breed great Mischief_; adding, _for want of a Nail the Shoe was lost; for want of a Shoe the Horse was lost; and for want of a Horse the Rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the Enemy; all for want of Care about a Horse-shoe Nail_. "So much for Industry, my Friends, and Attention to one's own Business; but to these we must add _Frugality_, if we would make our _Industry_ more certainly successful. A Man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, _keep his Nose all his Life to the Grindstone_, and die not worth a Groat at last. A _fat Kitchen makes a lean Will_, as _Poor Richard_ says; and _Many Estates are spent in the Getting,_ _Since Women for Tea forsook Spinning and Knitting,_ _And Men for Punch forsook Hewing and Splitting._ _If you would be wealthy_, says he, in another Almanack, _think of Saving as well as of Getting: The Indies have not made Spain rich, because her Outgoes are greater than her Incomes_. "Away then with your expensive Follies, and you will not then have so much Cause to complain of hard Times, heavy Taxes, and chargeable Families; for, as _Poor Dick_ says, Women and Wine, Game and Deceit, Make the Wealth small and the Wants great. And farther, _What maintains one Vice, would bring up two Children_. You may think perhaps, that a _little_ Tea, or a _little_ Punch now and then, Diet a _little_ more costly, Clothes, a _little_ finer, and a _little_ Entertainment now and then, can be no _great_ Matter; but remember what _Poor Richard_ says, _Many a Little makes a Mickle_; and farther, _Beware of little Expences; A small Leak will sink a great Ship_; and again, _Who Dainties love, shall Beggars prove_; and moreover, _Fools make Feasts, and wise Men eat them_. "Here you are all got together at this Vendue of _Fineries_ and _Knicknacks_. You call them _Goods_; but if you do not take Care, they will prove _Evils_ to some of you. You expect they will be sold _Cheap_, and perhaps they may for less than they cost; but if you have no Occasion for them, they must be _dear_ to you. Remember what _Poor Richard_ says; _Buy what thou hast no Need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy Necessaries_. And again, _At a great Pennyworth pause a while_: He means, that perhaps the Cheapness is _apparent_ only, and not _Real_; or the bargain by straitening thee in thy Business, may do thee more Harm than Good. For in another Place he says, _Many have been ruined by buying good Pennyworths._ Again, _Poor Richard_ says, _'tis foolish to lay out Money in a Purchase of Repentance_; and yet this Folly is practised every Day at Vendues, for want of minding the Almanack. _Wise Men_, as _Poor Dick_ says, _learn by others Harms, Fools scarcely by their own_; but _felix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum_. Many a one, for the Sake of Finery on the Back, have gone with a hungry Belly, and half-starved their Families. _Silks and Sattins, Scarlet and Velvets_, as _Poor Richard_ says, _put out the Kitchen Fire_. "These are not the _Necessaries of Life_; they can scarcely be called the _Conveniences_; and yet only because they look pretty, how many _want_ to _have_ them! The _artificial_ Wants of Mankind thus become more numerous than the _Natural_; and, as _Poor Dick_ says, _for one poor Person, there are an hundred indigent_. By these, and other Extravagancies, the Genteel are reduced to poverty, and forced to borrow of those whom they formerly despised, but who through Industry and Frugality have maintained their Standing; in which Case it appears plainly, that _A Ploughman on his Legs is higher than a Gentleman on his Knees_, as _Poor Richard_ says. Perhaps they have had a small Estate left them, which they knew not the Getting of; they think, _'tis Day, and will never be Night_; that a little to be spent out of so much, is not worth minding; _a Child and a Fool_, as _Poor Richard_ says, _imagine Twenty shillings and Twenty Years can never be spent_ but, _always taking out of the Meal-tub, and never putting in, soon comes to the Bottom_; as _Poor Dick_ says, _When the Well's dry, they know the Worth of Water_. But this they might have known before, if they had taken his Advice; _If you would know the Value of Money, go and try to borrow some; for, he that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing_; and indeed so does he that lends to such People, when he goes _to get it in again_. _Poor Dick_ farther advises, and says, _Fond Pride of Dress is sure a very Curse;_ _E'er Fancy you consult, consult your Purse._ And again, _Pride is as loud a Beggar as Want, and a great deal more saucy_. When you have bought one fine Thing, you must buy ten more, that your Appearance may be all of a Piece; but _Poor Dick_ says, '_Tis easier to suppress the first Desire, than to satisfy all that follow it_. And 'tis as truly Folly for the Poor to ape the Rich, as for the Frog to swell, in order to equal the ox. _Great Estates may venture more,_ _But little Boats should keep near Shore._ 'Tis, however, a Folly soon punished; for _Pride that dines on Vanity, sups on Contempt_, as _Poor Richard_ says. And in another Place, _Pride breakfasted with Plenty, dined with Poverty, and supped with Infamy_. And after all, of what Use is this _Pride of Appearance_, for which so much is risked so much is suffered? It cannot promote Health, or ease Pain; it makes no Increase of Merit in the Person, it creates Envy, it hastens Misfortune. _What is a Butterfly? At best_ _He's but a Caterpillar drest_ _The gaudy Fop's his Picture just,_ as _Poor Richard_ says. "But what Madness must it be to _run in Debt_ for these Superfluities! We are offered, by the Terms of this Vendue, _Six Months' Credit_; and that perhaps has induced some of us to attend it, because we cannot spare the ready Money, and hope now to be fine without it. But, ah, think what you do when you run in Debt; _you give to another Power over your Liberty_. If you cannot pay at the Time, you will be ashamed to see your Creditor; you will be in Fear when you speak to him; you will make poor pitiful sneaking Excuses, and by Degrees come to lose your Veracity, and sink into base downright lying; for, as _Poor Richard_ says _The second Vice is Lying, the first is running in Debt_. And again, to the same Purpose, _Lying rides upon Debt's Back_. Whereas a free-born _Englishman_ ought not to be ashamed or afraid to see or speak to any Man living. But Poverty often deprives a Man of all Spirit and Virtue: _'Tis hard for an empty Bag to stand upright_, as _Poor Richard_ truly says. "What would you think of that Prince, or that Government, who should issue an Edict forbidding you to dress like a Gentleman or a Gentlewoman, on Pain of Imprisonment or Servitude? Would you not say, that you were free, have a Right to dress as you please, and that such an Edict would be a Breach of your Privileges, and such a Government tyrannical? And yet you are about to put yourself under that Tyranny, when you run in Debt for such Dress! Your Creditor has Authority, at his Pleasure to deprive you of your Liberty, by confining you in Goal for Life, or to sell you for a Servant, if you should not be able to pay him! When you have got your Bargain, you may, perhaps, think little of Payment; but _Creditors_, _Poor Richard_ tells us, _have better Memories than Debtors_; _and_ in another Place says, _Creditors are a superstitious Sect, great Observers of set Days and Times_. The Day comes round before you are aware, and the Demand is made before you are prepared to satisfy it, Or if you bear your Debt in Mind, the Term which at first seemes so long, will, as it lessens, appear extreamly short. _Time_ will seem to have added Wings to his Heels as well as Shoulders. _Those have a short Lent_, saith _Poor Richard_, _who owe Money to be paid at Easter_. Then since, as he says, _The Borrower is a Slave to the Lender, and the Debtor to the Creditor_, disdain the Chain, preserve your Freedom; and maintain your Independency; Be _industrious_ and _free_; be _frugal_ and _free_. At present, perhaps, you may think yourself in thriving Circumstances, and that you can bear a little Extravagance without Injury; but, _For Age and Want, save while you may;_ _No Morning Sun lasts a whole Day._ as _Poor Richard_ says. Gain may be temporary and uncertain, but ever while you live, Expence is constant and certain; and _'tis easier to build two Chimnies, than to keep one in Fuel_, as _Poor Richard_ says. So, _Rather go to Bed supperless than rise in Debt_. _Get what you can, and what you get hold;_ _'Tis the Stone that will turn all your lead into Gold,_ as _Poor Richard_ says. And when you have got the Philosopher's Stone, sure you will no longer complain of bad Times, or the Difficulty of paying Taxes. "This Doctrine, my Friends, is _Reason_ and _Wisdom_; but after all, do not depend too much upon your own _Industry_, and _Frugality_, and _Prudence_, though excellent Things, for they may all be blasted without the Blessing of Heaven; and therefore, ask that Blessing humbly, and be not uncharitable to those that at present seem to want it, but comfort and help them. Remember, _Job_ suffered, and was afterwards prosperous. "And now to conclude, _Experience keeps a dear School, but Fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that_; for it is true, _we may give Advice, but we cannot give Conduct_, as _Poor Richard_ says: However, remember this, _They that won't be counselled, can't be helped_, as _Poor Richard_ says: and farther, That, _if you will not hear Reason, she'll surely rap your Knuckles_." Thus the old Gentleman ended his Harangue. The People heard it and approved the Doctrine, and immediately practised the contrary, just as if it had been a common Sermon; for the Vendue opened, and they began to buy extravagantly, notwithstanding, his Cautions and their own Fear of Taxes. I found the good Man had thoroughly studied my Almanacks, and digested all I had dropt on these Topicks during the Course of Five and twenty Years. The frequent Mention he made of me must have tired any one else, but my Vanity was wonderfully delighted with it, though I was conscious that not a tenth Part of the Wisdom was my own, which he ascribed to me, but rather the _Gleanings_ I had made of the Sense of all Ages and Nations. However, I resolved to be the better for the Echo of it; and though I had at first determined to buy Stuff for a new Coat, I went away resolved to wear my old One a little longer. _Reader_, if thou wilt do the same, thy Profit will be as great as mine, _I am, as ever, thine to serve thee_, RICHARD SAUNDERS. Imperfect as this chapter is, it is adequate enough, we hope, to make the reader feel that Sydney Smith was not altogether insensible to natural obligations when he told his daughter that he would disinherit her, if she did not admire everything written by Franklin. SUMMARY Such was Benjamin Franklin, as mirrored for the most part in his own written and oral utterances. Whether his fame is measured by what he actually accomplished, or by the impression that he made upon his contemporaries, or by the influence that he still exercises over the human mind, he was a truly great man.[59] Not simply because he was one of the principal actors in a revolutionary movement destined to establish in the free air of the Western World on lasting foundations, and on a scale of moral and material grandeur, of which history furnishes few examples, a state, without king, noble or pontiff, and deriving its inspiration and energy solely from the will of the People; nor yet merely because his brilliant discoveries in the province of electricity conspicuously helped to convert one of the most elusive and defiant of all the forces of nature into an humble and useful drudge of modern industry and progress; nor yet merely because, in addition to many other productions, marked by the indefinable charm of unerring literary intuition, he wrote several which are read in every part of the globe where a printed page is read; nor even because of all these things combined. They are, of course, the main pillars upon which his splendid fame rests. But what imparts to Franklin his aspect of greatness, and endows him with his irresistible appeal to the interest and admiration of the whole human race is the striking extent to which he was, in point of both precept and example, representative of human existence in all its more rational, more fruitful and more sympathetic manifestations. His vision was not that of the enthusiast; his was no Pentecostal tongue--cloven and aflame. He took little account of the higher spiritual forces which at times derange all the sober, prudent calculations of such a materialist as Poor Richard, and his message to mankind was blemished, as we have seen, by the excessive emphasis placed by it upon pecuniary thrift and the relations of pecuniary thrift to sound morals as well as physical comfort. But all the same, limited to the terrestrial horizon as he is, he must be reckoned one of the great leaders and teachers of humanity. He loved existence, shared it joyously and generously with his fellow-creatures, and vindicated its essential worth by bringing to bear upon everything connected with the conduct of life the maxims of a serene and almost infallible wisdom, and by responding with a mind as completely free from the prejudices and errors of his age as if he had lived a hundred years later, and with a heart as completely unconstrained by local considerations as if men were all of one blood and one country, to every suggestion that tended to make human beings happier, more intelligent and worthier in every respect of the universe which he found so delightful. It is this harmony with the world about him, this insight into what that world requires of everyone who seeks, to make his way in it, this enlightenment, this sympathy with human aspirations and needs everywhere, together with the rare strain of graphic and kindly instruction by which they were accompanied that cause the name of Franklin to be so often associated with those of the other great men whose fame is not the possession of a single class or land, but of all mankind. The result is that, when the faces of the few individuals, who are recognized by the entire world as having in the different ages of human history rendered service to the entire world, are ranged in plastic repose above the shelves of some public library or along the walls of some other institution, founded for the promotion of human knowledge or well-being, the calm, meditative face of Franklin is rarely missing. It is to be regretted that a character so admirable and amiable in all leading respects as his, so strongly fortified by the cardinal virtues of modesty, veracity, integrity and courage, and so sweetly flavored with all the finer charities of human benevolence and affection, should in some particulars have fallen short of proper standards of conduct. But it is only just to remember that the measure of his lapses from correct conduct is to be mainly found in humorous license, for which the best men of his own age, like Dr. Price and Charles Carroll of Carrollton, had only a laugh,[60] and in offences against sexual morality, which, except so far as they assumed in his youth the form of casual intercourse with low women, whose reputations were already too sorely injured to be further wounded, consisted altogether in the adoption by a singularly versatile nature of a foreign code of manners which imposed upon the members of the society, by which it was formed, the necessity of affecting the language of gallantry even when gallantry itself was not actually practised. There is at any rate no evidence to show that the long married life of Franklin, so full of domestic concord and tenderness, was ever sullied by the slightest violation of conjugal fidelity. On the whole, therefore, it is not strange that, repelled as we are at times by some passing episode or revelation in his life or character, everyone who has lingered upon his career finds it hard to turn away from it except with something akin to the feelings of those friends who clung to him so fondly. He was so kind, so considerate, so affectionate, so eager to do good, both to individuals and whole communities, that we half forget the human conventions that his bountiful intellect and heart overflowed. Of him it can at least be said that, if he had some of a man's failings, he had all of a man's merits; and his biographer, in taking leave of him, may well, mindful of his eminent virtues as well as of his brilliant achievements and services, waive all defence of the few vulnerable features of his life and conduct by summing up the final balance of his deserts in the single word engraved upon the pedestal of one of his busts in Paris at the time of his death. That word was "Vir"--a Man, a very Man. FOOTNOTES: [56] What Sir Walter Scott said of Jonathan Swift is as true of Franklin: "Swift executed his various and numerous works as a carpenter forms wedges, mallets, or other implements of his art, not with the purpose of distinguishing himself, by the workmanship bestowed on the tools themselves, but solely in order to render them fit for accomplishing a certain purpose, beyond which they were of no value in his eyes." [57] There is the following reference to Nanny in a letter from Franklin to Deborah, dated June 10, 1770, "Poor Nanny was drawn in to marry a worthless Fellow, who got all her Money, and then ran away and left her. So she is return'd to her old Service with Mrs. Stevenson, poorer than ever, but seems pretty patient, only looks dejected." [58] These conclusions about physical exercise had been previously expounded by Franklin to his son in a letter, dated Aug. 19, 1772, in which he expressed his concern at hearing that William was not well. In that connection they do not seem quite so pedantic. The writer thought that, when tested by the amount of corporeal warmth produced, there was, roughly speaking, more exercise in riding one mile on horseback than five in a coach, more in walking one mile on foot than five on horseback, and more in walking one mile up and down stairs than five on a level floor. He also had a good word to say for the use of the dumb-bell as a "compendious" form of exercise; stating that by the use of dumb-bells he had in forty swings quickened his pulse from sixty to one hundred beats in a minute, counted by a second watch. Warmth, he supposed, generally increased with a rapid pulse. Upon one occasion in France, when John Adams told him that he fancied that he did not exercise so much as he was wont, he replied: "Yes, I walk a league every day in my chamber. I walk quick, and for an hour, so that I go a league; I make a point of religion of it." [59] In the judgment of Matthew Arnold, Franklin was "a man who was the very incarnation of sanity and clear sense, a man the most considerable, it seems to me, whom America has yet produced." [60] In his _Jeu d'esprit_, commonly known as _The Choice of a Mistress_, Franklin gave various reasons why an elderly mistress should be preferred to a younger one; and, in a letter to him on Aug. 12, 1777, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, after expressing the hope that he continued to enjoy his usual health and the flow of spirits, which contributed to make the jaunt to Canada so agreeable to his fellow-travellers, adds: "Mr. John Carroll, and Chase are both well; the latter is now at Congress, and has been so fully and constantly employed that I believe he has not had leisure to refute your reasons in favor of the old ladies." INDEX A A Letter from China, i., 95; ii., 487 Abuse of the Press, ii., 488 Account of the Negotiation in London for effecting a Reconciliation between Great Britain and her American Colonies, ii., 446 Account of the New-Invented Pennsylvanian Fireplaces, i., 15, 358; ii., 8, 401, 424 Account of the Supremest Court of Judicature of Pennsylvania, i., 342; ii., 489 Adams, Abigail, i., 492; ii., 232 Adams, John, i., 6, 35, 61, 149, 161, 284, 480, 483, 484, 486; ii., 6 (note), 8, 7 (note), 96, 220 (note), 237, 241, 242, 244, 245, 246, 252, 252 (note), 256, 257, 257 (note), 258 (note), 259, 261, 263, 274, 278, 287, 288, 290, 291, 294, 312, 316, 319, 320, 322, 342, 414, 443, 483 (note) Adams, John Quincy, i., 486 Adams, Miss, i., 478, 485, 488, 493; ii., 9 Address of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, ii., 454 Advice to a Young Tradesman, ii., 455 Albany Congress, ii., 141 Alexander, Miss (Mariamne Williams), i., 211, 469, 542 (note) Alexander, William, i., 469, 495 Alison, Francis, Vice-Provost, i., 131 Allen, Chief Justice William, i., 170, 174, 337 Alleyne, John, i., 105, 442 American Philosophical Society, i., 128 (note) Answers to Strahan's Queries, ii., 446 Apology for Printers, i., 93; ii., 464, 465 Arabian Tale, i., 73 Argo, The, i., 146 Arnold, Matthew, ii., 527 (note) Art of Procuring Pleasant Dreams, i., 412, 489 Art of Virtue, i., 29, 34, 98, 521 Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion, i., 72, 113 Austin, Jonathan Loring, ii., 250 Autobiography, i., 16, 19, 22, 343, 349, 432, 531, 537; ii., 27, 35, 424, 441, 499 B Babcock, Dr. Joshua, ii., 172 Bache, Benjamin Franklin, i., 45, 238, 239, 241, 255, 256, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 266, 388, 390, 406, 486 Bache, Richard, i., 46, 212, 236, 237, 238, 239, 254, 257, 259, 262, 263, 300, 349, 390, 481; ii., 24, 349 (note) Bache, Sally, i., 37, 38, 70, 71, 99, 103, 110, 212, 225, 228, 235, 238, 240, 241, 243, 244, 246, 248, 253, 254, 255, 255 (note), 257, 259, 260, 261, 263, 264, 265, 266, 272, 273, 287, 340, 373, 393; ii., 277, 494 Bache, William, i., 257, 260, 261 Baker, Speech of Polly, ii., 467 Balzac, Honoré de, ii., 16 (note) Bancroft, Dr. Edward, i., 542 (note); ii., 221, 224, 250 Bancroft, George, i., 542 (note) Banks, Sir Joseph, i., 107, 154; ii., 378, 384, 385, 386, 392 Barclay, David, i., 423 Barclay, Thomas, ii., 296, 315 (note) Bard, Dr. and Mrs. John, i., 4, 332, 333; ii., 43 Bartram, John, i., 35, 146, 334, 421; ii., 23 Baskerville, John, ii., 15 Bathurst, Lord and Lady, i., 224 Baynes, John, ii., 7 (note), 348 Beatty, Rev. Mr., i., 93 Beccaria, Giambatista, ii., 22, 378, 400 Benezet, Anthony, i., 347 Benger, Elliot, i., 174 Bentham, Jeremy, ii., 221, 223, 225 Bigelow, John, i., 24, 37, 540 Bingham, Mr. Wm., ii., 283 Blount, Dorothea, i., 380, 386, 391, 454 Bond, Dr. Thomas, i., 140, 145, 180, 246, 331, 420 Boston, City of, i., 8, 151, 312 Boufflers, Madame de, i., 479 (note) Bouquet, Col. Henry, i., 95, 340; ii., 21 Bourbon, Don Gabriel de, ii., 236 Bowdoin, James, i., 352, 353, 354; ii., 203, 218, 230, 383, 403 Braddock, General, i., 177 Bradford, Andrew, ii., 21, 37, 62, 69, 74, 75, 88 Bradford, William, ii., 35, 37 Breintnal, Joseph, i., 180, 326; ii., 67 Bridgen, Edward, i., 442 Brillon, Madame, i., 19, 47, 92, 229, 265, 478, 487, 494, 500, 529, 540; ii., 22, 476, 478, 481, 484 Brillon, M., i., 485 Brougham, Lord, ii., 227 (note), 362 Broughton, Sarah, i., 214 Brown, Dr., i., 99 Brownell, George, i., 138; ii., 28 Brownrigg, William, ii., 392 Buffon, Comte de, i., 530; ii., 379 Burke, Edmund, i., 20, 116, 442, 443; ii., 1, 195, 221, 223, 224 Byles, Mather, i., 264, 354 C Cabanis, Pierre Jean Georges, i., 488, 491 Cadross, Lord, ii., 408 Camden, Lord, ii., 195, 210 Canada Pamphlet, ii., 439, 444 Canton, John, i., 438 Capefigue, i., 21 (note) Carlyle, Alexander, i., 38 Carlyle, Thomas, i., 11, 303 (note) Carmichael, Wm., i., 322, 485, 500; ii., 5, 257, 260, 263, 268, 274, 330 (note), 476 Carroll of Carrollton, Charles, i., 321; ii., 237, 241, 331 (note), 529 Carroll, John, i., 321; ii., 238, 240, 529 (note) Cats, The Very Humble Petition to Madame Helvétius from her, i., 488, 497 Causes of the American Discontents, ii., 189 Chastellux, Marquis de, i., 263, 503, 530, 532 Chatham, Lord, i., 20, 438; ii., 98, 180, 183, 195, 208, 210, 223, 229 Chaumont, M. Donatien LeRay de, i., 479, 515, 532; ii., 25, 249, 250, 263 Chaumont, Madame Donatien LeRay de, i., 482 Chaumont, Donatien LeRay de (the younger), i., 481 Chess, Essay on the Morals of, i., 516; ii., 491 Choice of a Mistress, ii., 529 (note) Christ Church, Philadelphia, i., 23, 70, 130, 170, 346, 363 Cincinnati, Franklin's letter on the, ii., 494 Clapham, Col., i., 188 Clare, Lord, ii., 338 (note) Clifton, John, i., 145 Clinton, Gov. George, i., 170 Cochin, ii., 359 (note) Colden, Cadwallader, i., 15; ii., 79, 90, 382, 407, 408 Coleman, William, i., 246, 326; ii., 64, 64 (note), 66 Collas, Mr., i., 298 Collins, John, i., 90, 160, 200, 323; ii., 35, 58, 428 Collinson, Peter, i., 123, 124, 133, 178, 180, 361, 449; ii., 17, 23, 123, 126, 137, 150, 151, 152, 154, 192, 342, 352, 353, 354, 356, 357, 361, 362, 367, 368, 371, 372, 375, 378, 381, 397, 398, 416 Committee of Correspondence in Massachusetts, ii., 205 Comparison of the Conduct of the Ancient Jews and the Anti-Federalists, ii., 489 Condorcet, Marquis de, i., 530; ii., 350 Conte, i., 64 Conway, Madame, i., 43 (note) Conygham, Capt. Gustavus, ii., 283, 297, 298 Cook, Capt. James, i., 154 Cool Thoughts, ii., 102, 128 Coombe, Rev. Thomas, i., 81, 346 Cooper, Dr. Samuel, i., 21, 352, 353, 472, 486; ii., 25, 165, 170, 182, 203, 212, 218, 228, 250, 267, 341, 414 Council of Brutes, The, i., 440 Courant, The Boston, i., 83, 357; ii., 30, 31, 85, 429, 434 Craven Street Gazette, i., 372; ii., 468 Croghan, George, i., 182; ii., 418 Cushing, Thomas, i., 405, 470; ii., 81, 170, 172, 175, 191, 199, 203, 204, 210, 213, 218, 219, 229, 261 (note) Cutler, Dr. Manasseh, i., 226; ii., 7 D D'Alibard, Thomas Francis, i., 474; ii., 354, 355, 383 Danforth, Samuel, i., 355 Dartmouth, Lord, ii., 215 Davenport, Josiah, i., 217, 271, 286, 311 Davenport, Sarah, i., 286, 301 Davy, Sir Humphry, ii., 361 Deane, Silas, i., 318, 322, 334; ii., 237, 249, 250, 255 (note), 262, 263 (note), 265, 306 DeForbach, Madame, i., 528 DeLancey, James, ii., 142 Denham, Mr., ii., 43, 44, 45, 50, 52 Denny, Gov. William, i., 204; ii., 112, 120, 122, 155 DeNeufville, ii., 294 DeSaussure, M., ii., 414 D'Houdetot, Comtesse, i., 487, 522 Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout, i., 501; ii., 472, 481 Dialogue between Philocles and Horatio, i., 32; ii., 464 Dialogue between X Y and Z, i., 184 Dick, Sir Alexander, i., 463, 466; ii., 403 Dick, Lady, i., 464 Dickinson, John, ii., 128, 136, 137, 233, 234, 247, 333, 334 Digges, Thomas, i., 408; ii., 303 Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, i., 87, 90, 202; ii., 435 Doniol, Henri, i., 542 (note) Dove, Mr., i., 136 Dowse, Elizabeth, i., 280, 281, 304 Drinkers' Dictionary, i., 160 Dubourg, Dr. Barbeu, i., 474, 530, 533; ii., 237, 274, 412 Dumas, Chas. W. F., i., 155; ii., 236, 259 (note) Dunbar, Col., i., 182 Dunning, John, ii., 221, 222, 223 DuPont (DeNemours), i., 474, 530, 533; ii., 274 E Economical Project, ii., 472, 485 Edict by the King of Prussia, ii., 436, 446 Editor of a Newspaper, To the, i., 401; ii., 188 Elective Franchises Enjoyed by the Small Boroughs in England, ii., 454 Eliot, Jared, i., 131, 335, 356; ii., 24, 344, 416 Ephemera, The, i., 500; ii., 472, 476 Epitaph by Franklin on himself, i., 114 Evans, Cadwallader, i., 311, 342, 343, 348; ii., 184, 202, 346, 409 Evans, Lewis, i., 220 (note) Exporting of Felons to the Colonies, ii., 464, 467 F Falconer, Capt. Nathaniel, i., 311, 401, 476 Father Abraham's Speech, ii., 517 Fisher, Daniel, i., 215, 216, 229 Fisher, Mary, i., 15, 303 Fisher, Sydney George, i., 36; ii., 4 (note) Flainville, Mlle., i., 43 (note), 528, 529 Folger, Peter, i., 268, 269, 270, 270 (note) Ford, Paul Leicester, i., 2; ii., 92 Fothergill, Dr. John, i., 242, 252, 320, 391, 421; ii., 118, 119, 126, 230, 354 Foucault, Madame, i., 482 Fox, Charles James, ii., 221, 224, 227 (note) Foxcroft, John, i., 43, 213, 312, 346; ii., 81 Foxcroft, Mrs. John, i., 43 Francis, Tench, i., 129 Franklin, Abiah, i., 13, 37, 78, 85, 266, 268, 270, 271, 272; ii., 41 FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN: _General Comments on his Life and Character_ Wrote for purely practical reasons, i., 4. Stands out from both European and American backgrounds, 9. His shortcomings, 18. Atoned for his early offences, 26. Summary of his career and character, ii., 527. _His Moral Standing and System_ Not covetous, i., 12. Unselfish relations to patents, 15. Candor of Autobiography responsible for almost every blemish on his reputation, 17, 22. Attacks on his character, 17, 21 (note). Coarser side of his character, 17. Contemporary tributes to his moral worth, 18. His prudential view of morality, 23, 31. Real extent of his moral offences, 24, 34. Had no objection to repeating his life, 24, 112, 113. Motives back of Autobiography, 25. Atoned for his offences, 26. System of Morals adopted by him, 26. Story of the axe, 27. Observations on vanity, 28. Freedom from dogmatism, 28. His cheerful disposition, 29, 112. Art of Virtue, 29, 97, 98. United Party for Virtue, 31. Society of the Free and Easy, 31. His relations to eating and drinking, 35, 385. His standing in point of sexual morality, 35, 204. William Franklin, his natural son, 37. Franklin's contentment with his life, 42 (note). Supposed natural daughter, 43. William Temple Franklin, his natural grandson, 44. Story of the crying boy and the grandmother, 44. _His Religious Views_ Gratitude to God, i., 51. Faith in Providence, 52. Confidence in a future state, 53. Utterances about death and sleep, 57. Saying about orthodoxy, 58. Want of sympathy with purely theological and sectarian side of religion, 58, 63, 68, 78, 88. A trustee to hold Whitefield meeting-house, 59. Early doubts, 60. Impartial attitude towards sects, 61. Relations to Whitefield, 61. His Conte, 65. Letter to Weems and Gantt, 65. Views about heretics, 67. About bigotry, 67. Rev. Mr. Hemphill, 69. Comments on sermons, 70. Connection with Christ Church, Philadelphia, 70. Habits as to church attendance, 70, 71. His Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion, 71. Collaboration with Le Despencer in the reform of the Book of Common Prayer, 74. Suggestion about prayers in Federal Convention, 78. Views about practical religion, 78. Effect of early environment on his beliefs, 82. Attacks of Courant on intolerance, 83. Youthful skepticism, 84, 85. Falls asleep in Quaker meeting-house, 84. London nun, 86. Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, 87. Picture of Christ mentioned by Parson Weems, 88. Miraculous element in Religion foreign to his nature, 88. Purely practical character of his relations to Religion, 89. Recession from youthful skepticism, 90. Latterday beliefs as expressed to Madame Brillon and Ezra Stiles, 91. Priestley's comments on his Christianity, 92. His jests at the expense of the clergy and religion, 93. Lack of reality about his religious faith but no scoffer, 97. Injunctions to his wife and daughter about church attendance, 99. Dr. Brown's travesty on Bible, 99. Strictures by Franklin on letter against doctrine of special providence, 100. _As Philanthropist and Citizen_ Observation on escape from shipwreck, i., 102. Humorous remarks on workings of human reason, 103. Eager interest in increase of his species, 103. Aversion to war, 107. Comments on existence of evil in the world, 107 (note). His freedom from misanthropy, 111. Lines on Landlord of Life and Time, 113. His famous epitaph, 114. His desire to revisit world after death, 115. Nothing less than a Friend of Man, 116. Termed "lover of his species" by Burke, 116. Indebtedness to Mather's Essays to do Good, 117. Character of doer of good that most highly prized by him, 117. His saying, that power of one man for doing good is prodigious, 117. The Junto, 117. The Philadelphia City Library, 122. His comments on importance of modesty in promoting public objects, 122. The Philadelphia City Watch, 125. The Philadelphia Fire Company, 126. The Philadelphia Academy, 127, 128. The Philadelphia Philosophical Society, 127. His opposition to Latin and Greek, 137. His pedagogic insight, 138. His early education, 138. His bequest to schools of Boston, 138 (note). His self-education, 139. His observations on proper methods of teaching languages, 140. The Philadelphia Hospital, 140. Advice to Rev. Gilbert Tennent to solicit from everybody, 142. Paving projects, 143. Remarks on triviality of origin of human felicity, 144. Philadelphia City lighting, 145. Significance of Franklin's services to Philadelphia, 146. Suggests voyage of the Argo to the Arctics, 146. Efforts in behalf of Kalm and Bartram, the naturalists, 146. Efforts in behalf of silk culture, 146. Gifts to Philadelphia hospital, 147. Purchases for and gifts to Harvard College, 147. Services in connection with negro emancipation, the free blacks, the Bray Fund and the Society for benefit of poor Germans, 147. Comments on Germans in Pennsylvania, 147, 148 (note). Introduces yellow willow and rhubarb plant, 148. Disseminates broom-corn seed, 148. Proves value of plaster, 148. Suggests insurance against storms, etc., 148. Essay on Maize, 149. John Adams' story of the grapevines, 149. Franklin's prayer that he might be useful to his fellow-creatures, 150. His trick for doing much with little money, 150. His posthumous benefactions to Boston and Philadelphia, 151. Breadth of his philanthropy, 153. Supports plan for supplying New Zealand with certain quadrupeds, 153. Protects Capt. Cook, 154. Also Moravian Mission vessel, 155. Also Irish ship for West Indian relief, 155. Enforces rule "free ships, free goods," 155. Approves exemption of non-combatants from penalties of war, 155. Stipulation against privateering in Prussian Treaty, 156. Detestation of privateering, 156. Franklin no Quaker or visionary, 157. Story of Logan and William Penn, 157. Physical characteristics of Franklin, 158. Youthful love of water, 158. Story of the purloined building stones and Josiah Franklin's lecture, 159. Was a boxing boy, 159 (note). Adventure on the Isle of Wight, 159. How he punished Collins, 160. His firmness of character, 161. Letter of rebuke to Capt. Landais, 162. Circumstances which produced Plain Truth, 163. Results of this pamphlet, 169. Journey to New York in quest of cannon, 170. Close relations at this time with Governor and Council, 171. Draws up fast proclamation, 171. Bearing of Quakers in regard to defence of Pennsylvania, 171. Advice of young man to Franklin to resign his office as Clerk to Assembly, 172. Franklin as an office-holder, 172. Forehandedness about office in keeping with his advice to grandson, 174 (note). Real extent of opposition of Quakers to defensive warfare, 174. Relations of Franklin and his son to Braddock expedition, 177. Pusillanimous conduct of Col. Dunbar, 182. Dunbar violates promise to return servants, 183. Franklin's Militia Bill, 183. Dialogue between X Y and Z, 184. Governor offers to make Franklin a general, 185. Takes charge of N. W. frontier of Pennsylvania, 185. Incidents on his way to and at Gnadenhutten, 186. Returns to Philadelphia and is elected Colonel, 188. His regiment and experiences as Colonel, 189. Summary of military services of Franklin, 190. Massacre of Indians by Paxton Boys and its denunciation by Franklin, 191. _His Family Relations_ Generous conduct to his brother James, i., 198. And to James' son, 199. Story of Franklin and Deborah, 205. Their marriage, 211. Her helpfulness to him, 211. Advises her not to make an expensive wedding for their daughter Sally, 212. Letter of rebuke from him to her, 213. Deborah and Sarah Broughton's charges, 214. Incidents relating to Deborah told by Daniel Fisher in his Diary, 215. Later improved relations between Deborah and William Franklin, 217, 218. Resolute conduct of Deborah when house threatened, 217. Devotion of Deborah to Franklin, 219, 221. Her illiteracy, 220, 222, 223. Supplies sent by her to Franklin when absent, 223. Absences of Franklin from her, 224. Her aversion to the sea, 224. Transatlantic voyages of Franklin, 224 (note). Efforts of Strahan to get Deborah to England, 225, 227. Early correspondence between Strahan and Franklin as to the latter's daughter Sally, 225. Personal appearance of this daughter, 226. Affection of Franklin for Deborah, 228. Loyalty to her irreproachable, 229. Verses on his Plain Country Joan, 230. References to Deborah in his letters to Catherine Ray, 231. Correspondence between him and Deborah, 231. References to his daughter in his letters to Deborah, 235. Portrait of his daughter, 236 (note). His son-in-law, Richard Bache, 236. His grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, 238, 239, 240, 256, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 266. His godson, William Hewson, 239. Other children of his daughter, 240. Francis Folger, son of Franklin, 240. "Franky" not his son, 240. References to Deborah's relations in Franklin's letters to her, 241. References to William Franklin in these letters, 241. References to servants, 242. References to Franklin's Pennsylvania friends, 244. References to his new house, 245. Exchanges of gifts between Franklin and Deborah, 246. Gifts to his daughter, 248. Familiarity with household affairs and articles, 249. Occasional home-sickness, 250. Illness when in England, 251. Deborah's ill-health, 252. Letters to his daughter and her husband, 253. Letter from her to him about housekeeping for her mother, 255 (note). Sally's hatred of South Carolinians, 259. William Bache, Franklin's grandson, 260, 261. Bequest of diamonds to Sally by Franklin, 261. Appoints Richard Bache to office, 262. On his return from his second mission he resided with the Baches, 261. And after his return from France, 263. Comments on Sally Bache by Marbois and De Chastellux, 263. Domestic conditions surrounding Franklin towards his end, 263, 265. Later relations between Franklin and his son William, 264, 264 (note). Family of Sally Bache at close of Franklin's life, 265, 266. Franklin's father and mother, 266. Story told by his father, 268. Franklin's grandfather, Peter Folger, 269. The Folgers, 270. Franklin's letters to his father and mother, 270. Her letters to him, 272. Letters to his sister Jane about their parents, 273. Estate left by his father, 274. Loving relations of Franklin with his kinsfolk, 274. His uncles John and Thomas and grandfather Thomas, 274, 275. His uncle Benjamin, 275. This uncle's poetry books, 275. And collection of pamphlets, 277. Samuel Franklin, grandson of this uncle, 277. Remaining relations of Franklin in England in 1767, 277. His letter to a Franklin at Königsberg, 277. Had exact account of Franklins from 1555, 278. Observations on Jemmy Franklin, 278. Bequest to his brother James' descendants, 279. Franklin's four brothers who died young and his brother Josiah, 279. His brothers John and Peter, 279, 280 (note). His letter to Peter's widow, 280. His brother Samuel, 280. His sister Dowse, 280. Wise and feeling letter about her, 280. His sister Mrs. Holmes, 282. His sister Lydia Scott, 282. His sister Anne Harris and her descendants, 282. Her daughter Grace Harris and her husband Jonathan Williams and her sons, 283. His sister Sarah Davenport, 286. Letter from him to Josiah Davenport refusing him an office, 286. Relations between him and his sister Jane Mecom and her family, 287. Bequests by Franklin to members of his father's family, 301. Relations between him and Deborah's family, 301. Sharp letter to James Read, 301. Franklin's interest in his ancestors, 302. Notes on subject by his uncle Benjamin, 302. Visit to his relation, Mary Fisher, in England, 303. Old Tythes Book sent by Carlyle to Edw. Everett, 303 (note). Thomas Franklin, 305. Deborah's English relations, 306. Sally Franklin and her father Thomas Franklin, of Lutterworth, 306. Letter from Josiah Franklin about his ancestors, 307. _His American Friends_ Friends who accompanied him to Trenton, i., 310. House full of friends on his return from England in 1762, 311. Rejoicing over his safe return to England, 311. His friends "along the Continent," 311. Many friends in New England, 312. Visits to Boston, 312. Description of his return from New England in 1755, 312. Accidents to Franklin, 312. Friends in New York and New Jersey, 314. Visits to Maryland and Virginia, 314. Friends in Charleston, 315. Dr. Garden, Dr. Lining, Henry Laurens and John Laurens, 315. Death of John Laurens, 316 (note). Relations between Franklin and Washington, 316. Widespread fame of the two in America, 317 (note). Relations between Franklin and Jefferson, 318. Humorous stories about Franklin by Jefferson, 318, 321 (note). Franklin and Charles Carroll of Carrollton, 321. Franklin and John Carroll, 321. Franklin and William Carmichael, 322. James Ralph and other young Philadelphia friends of Franklin, 323. Ralph's version of 18th Psalm, 324. Comments of author on Ralph, 325 (note). Junto friends, 326. Hugh Roberts, 328. Philip Syng, 330. Samuel Rhoads, 330. Luke Morris, 331. Dr. Thomas Bond, 332. Dr. John Bard, 332. Dr. Benjamin Rush, 332. Stories about Franklin by Dr. Rush, 333. John Bartram, 334. John Hughes, 336. Thomas Hopkinson, 337. Effect of Whitefield's eloquence on him, 338. Francis Hopkinson, 338. Col. Henry Bouquet, 340. Lee and Izard, Franklin's only two enemies, 340. Warning to his daughter about his enemies, 340. Dr. Cadwallader Evans, 342. Abel James and Thomas Wharton, 343. Samuel Wharton, 343. Ebenezer Kinnersley, 345. John Foxcroft and Rev. Thos. Coombe, 346. James Wright and Susannah Wright, 346. Anthony Benezet, 347. Joseph Galloway, 347. James Logan, David Hall and Charles Thomson, 350. David Rittenhouse, 350. John Jay, 350. Josiah Quincy, John Winthrop and Dr. Samuel Cooper, 352. James Bowdoin, 352. Young Josiah Quincy, 352. Mather Byles, 354. Samuel Danforth, 355. Jared Eliot, 356. Dr. Ezra Stiles, 362. Dr. Samuel Johnson, 363, 364. Jared Ingersoll, 364. Catherine Ray, 364. _His British Friends_ Mrs. Margaret Stevenson, i., 372. Polly Stevenson, 374. Wm. Strahan, 392. Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph's, 405. Catherine Louisa Shipley, 407, 409, 410, 412, 417, 417 (note). Georgiana Shipley, 407, 410, 413. Anna Maria Shipley, 411, 412. Dr. John Pringle, 415, 416, 417, 417 (note). Dr. John Fothergill, 421. David Barclay, 423. Franklin a "clubable" man, 424. Dr. Price, 425. Dr. Joseph Priestley, 429. Benjamin Vaughan, 432. Dr. John Hawkesworth and John Stanley, 437. John Sargent, 438. John Canton, 438. Dr. Alexander Small, 439. John Alleyne, 442. Edward Bridgen, 442. Edmund Burke, 443. Mrs. Thompson, 442, 443. John Whitehurst, 442, 445. Anthony Tissington, 442, 445. Thomas Viny, 442, 445. Caleb Whitefoord, 442, 447, 447 (note). Peter Collinson, 447. Rev. George Whitefield, 447, 449. David Hartley, 447, 456. Ballad of Auld Robin Gray, 460. The Farce, God-send or the Wreckers, 462. George Whatley, 447, 463. Lord LeDespencer, 447, 452. James Hutton, 447, 453. Sir Alexander Dick, 463. Lady Alexander Dick, 464. Lord Kames, 464. Scotch social conditions in 1759, 464, 465. David Hume, 467. William Alexander, 469. Mariamne Williams, wife of Jonathan Williams, Jr., 469. Sir Edward Newenham, 469. Richard Jackson, 470. Gen. Horatio Gates, 470. Gen. Charles Lee, 470, 471. Benjamin West, 470, 471. Mrs. Benjamin West, 472. Raphael West, 472. Mr. Mead, 472. _His French Friends_ Social life of Franklin in France, i., 473, 474. His love of France and the French people, 476. His opinion of the French people, 476. DuPont De Nemours, 474, 530, 533. D'Alibard, 474. Dr. Barbeu Dubourg, 474, 530, 533. Relations to French women, 477. Franklin's residence at Passy, 479. LeRay de Chaumont, 479. LeRay de Chaumont, the younger, 481. DeChaumont's family, 482. Madame Foucault, 482. Her kiss, 482. Madame Chaumont, her comments on supposed attack of John Paul Jones on an old woman, 482. Her comment on the engagement of Mlle. Passy to the Marquis de Tonnerre, 483. Franklin's witty letter to the mother of this girl, 483. Franklin's mode of life at Paris, 483. His salary, 484. His letter to John Adams about American criticism on his mode of life, 484. His hospitality at Passy, 485. Dinners mentioned by Miss Adams, 485. Story of the Abbé Raynal and American degeneracy, 485. Letter from John Quincy Adams to Franklin, 486. Franklin's visiting list, 486. Entertainments attended by Franklin, 486. Madame Helvétius, 487. Madame Brillon, 487, 500. Comtesse D'Houdetot, 487, 522. Fête Champêtre, 523. Jean Georges Cabanis, 488. Abbé Morellet, 488. Abbé de la Roche, 488. Abbé Morellet's Very Humble Petition to Madame Helvétius from her Cats, 488. Letter to the Abbé de la Roche from Franklin with regard to Madame Helvétius, 489. The Journey to the Elysian Fields, 489. Letters from Franklin to Cabanis, 491. Description of Madame Helvétius by Abigail Adams, 492. Comment by Miss Adams on Madame Helvétius, 493. The Abbés, 496. Feeling letters from Abbé Morellet to Franklin, 497, 498. The Abbé Morellet's drinking song, 498. The Abbé Morellet's observations on good rum, 499. Franklin's drinking song, 499. Essay on the Morals of Chess, 516. Madame Jean Baptiste Le Roy, 526. Jean Baptiste Le Roy, 527. Pierre Le Roy, 528. Charles Le Roy, 528. David Le Roy, 528. Madame Lavoisier, 528. Madame de Forbach, 528. Mlle. Flainville, 528, 529. Buffon, 530. Condorcet, 530. Lafayette, 530. Madame de Lafayette, 531. Duc de la Rochefoucauld, 530, 531. Lavoisier, 530, 532. Chastellux, 530, 532. Ferdinand Grand, 530, 532. LeVeillard, 530, 537. Madame LeVeillard, 537. Jefferson's letter to LeVeillard about the Autobiography, 540. Letter from LeVeillard to Franklin about Mesdames Helvétius and Brillon, 540. Letter from LeVeillard's daughter to Franklin, 541. Dr. Jan Ingenhousz, 541. Debt due him by Samuel Wharton, 541. Mrs. Paschal, 542 (note). Thomas Mifflin, 542 (note). Wm. Hunter, 542 (note). Thomas Pownall, 542 (note). Mr. and Mrs. Jean Holker, 542 (note). Monthieu, 542 (note). Madame La Marck, 542 (note). Dr. Edward Bancroft, 542 (note). Marquis de Turgot, 542 (note). _His Personal and Social Characteristics_ Humorous observations on Vanity, i., 28. Franklin's physique, 158. Early eagerness of Franklin for the sea, 158. Portraits of Franklin, 233 (note). Sterner virtues of Franklin, ii., 1. Statement of Franklin to Hancock that they must all hang together, 2. Franklin slow to anger, 3. His integrity, 3. Description of Franklin by Dr. Cutler, 7. His wit, 7. His humor, 8. Story of the powder cask, 9. Story of the anchor, 9. Story of the hot iron, 10. Story of the Archbishop and the queen, 10. The story of omnia vanitas, 11. The story of the onions, 11. Duelling story, 12. His bon mots, 12. His love of practical jokes, 15. Remarks on man as a sociable being, 16. Early Socratic method of arguing, 16. Franklin's modesty and lack of dogmatism, i., 28; ii., 17. His level-headedness, 18. His dislike of disputation, 18. Franklin a good listener, 19. His amiable, generous disposition, i., 29; ii., 20, 22. His love of games, 21. His physical appetites, 21. His fondness for music, 22. His armonica. 22. Cheerfulness under suffering, 22. Benignity of mind, 23. His habit of making gifts, 23. His loyalty in friendship, 24. His interest in his friend's children, 25. Franklin's physical exercises, 483 (note). _As a Man of Business_ General Comments on, ii., 26. Main calling that of printer, 27. Set as a boy to cutting wicks, 28. Taken around among workmen by Josiah, 28. Josiah makes a printer of him, 29. Becomes apprentice to his brother, 29. Nature of his brother's publications, 29. James Franklin embroiled with magistracy, 30. Courant issued in name of Franklin, 33. Rubs between Franklin and his brother, 34. Absconds from Boston, 35. Passage from New York to New Jersey, 35. Dr. Brown, the infidel, 36. The kindly old woman at Burlington, 36. Lands at Philadelphia, 36. Falls asleep in Quaker Meeting-house, 37. Puts up at the Crooked Billet, 37. Calls on Andrew Bradford, 37. Calls on Keimer, 37. Keimer's printing outfit and elegy, 38. Works for Bradford and Keimer, 39. Is brought to the notice of Sir William Keith, 39. Keith and Col. French call on him, 40. Returns to Boston, 41. Keith's promises, 41. Continues at work with Keimer, 42. Keith's continued deceit, 42, 43. Sails for London, 43, 44. Discovers Keith's perfidy, 44. Makes a friend of Andrew Hamilton, 45. And repays his kindness, 45. Ralph a stumbling block to him in London, 45. Franklin is employed at Palmer's, 46. And at Watts', 46. Relations to his fellow-printers in London, 47, 48. Lodges with a Catholic widow, 49. His skill as a swimmer, 49. Is employed by Mr. Denham, 50. Is invited by Sir Wm. Wyndham to teach his sons how to swim, 50. Returns to Philadelphia and meets Keith on the street, 51. Habits in London, 51 (note). Mr. Denham dies, 52. Franklin nearly dies, 52. Story of Mr. Denham, 52. Franklin goes back to Keimer, 53. Keimer's other hands, 53. Keimer benefits by Franklin's inventive faculty, 54. Franklin quits Keimer, 55. Meredith proposes partnership to Franklin, 56. The latter is employed by Keimer again, 56. And again proves very useful to him, 57. New Jersey job, 57. Story of Cotton Mather, 57. Franklin attracts the attention of Governor Burnet, 58. Acquires good will of prominent New Jersey men, 58. Portrait of Keimer by Franklin, 59. Prediction of Isaac Decow as to Franklin, 59. Meredith and Franklin enter into partnership, 59. First money earned by them, 60. Samuel Mickle, the croaker, 60. New firm helped by members of The Junto, 61. Franklin's industry wins attention, 61. Webb betrays Franklin, 62. Franklin buys Keimer's newspaper, 62. Franklin founds Pennsylvania Gazette, 63. Its practical value to him, 63. On the brink of ruin, 63. Meredith a drunkard, 64. Coleman and Grace come to Franklin's aid, 64, 64 (note). Partnership of Meredith and Franklin dissolved, 65. Franklin continues, 66. Advocates more paper money, 66. Secures paper money printing contracts, 67. Opens up a stationery shop, 67. Employs a compositor, 67. Personal and business habits at this time, 67. Keimer goes to Barbadoes, 68. His railings at fortune, 68. David Harry declines Franklin's offer of partnership, 69. Franklin seeks a wife, 69. Franklin's industry in business, 70. His frugality, 70. Establishes his Poor Richard's Almanac, 71. Its success, 71. Principles on which Franklin conducted the Pennsylvania Gazette, 71. Extends his printing business, 72. Establishes a German newspaper and a magazine, 74. Latter project betrayed by John Webbe, 74. Chosen Clerk of General Assembly and appointed Postmaster, 75. Refuses to retaliate Bradford's meanness, 75. Business value of office of Clerk, 75. Conciliates a member of the Assembly, 76. Business increases, 77. Gazette profitable, 77. Admits Hall to partnership, 77. Terms of partnership, 78. Business income of Franklin, 78. Profits from the Gazette, 78. Franklin's interest in art of printing, 78 (note). Disagreement between him and Hall over a copyright, 79. Franklin burns his fingers with the Stamp Tax, 80. Appointed Comptroller of Post Office accounts, 80. Appointed Deputy Postmaster-General, 80. Success in managing Post Office, 81, 82. Comments of Franklin on his removal from office of Postmaster, 81. Gives Post Office patronage to relations, 83. Income of Franklin from other sources than business, 83. Appointed Postmaster General of the United States, 84. Gift of land to him by State of Georgia, 84. His estate at his death, 85. Character of the Pennsylvania Gazette, 86. Books published by Franklin, 90. Sold other books, 91. Miscellaneous side of his business, 91. Sold bond servants and negroes, 92. Mrs. Read's ointments, 93. _As a Statesman_ Appointed Clerk of General Assembly, ii., 95. Appointed and elected to other offices including a seat in the Assembly, 95. Minor legislation in which he had a hand, 95 (note). Lacking in fluency but spoke to the point, 96. Influence very great in every Assembly in which he sat, 96. Remarks on the importance of character to an orator, 97. Political positions occupied by him, 97. Not easily imposed on by mere glibness, but alive to eloquence like that of Lord Chatham, 98. Repeatedly re-elected to Assembly, 98. Usually with the majority, 98 (note). A true democrat, 98. Detested arbitrary power, 99. Conservative, yet liberal, 99. Believed in universal suffrage and law of gavelkind, 100. History of the conflict between the Proprietary and Popular Parties in Pennsylvania, 100. And reasons therefor, 101. Value of the Penn Estate in Pennsylvania, 102, 102 (note). Strictures of Franklin on the Proprietary Government, 102, 104, 107. Traffic in legislation, 104. Despicable conduct of the Proprietaries, 106. Bitterness of the struggle between the Proprietaries and the Assembly, 108. Stand of the Quakers in the struggle, 108. Franklin the leader of the Popular Party, 109. His relations to Governors of Pennsylvania during the struggle, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114. Story about a dinner at the house of Governor Morris, 110. Reply of Shirley to Franklin at a banquet, 112. Governor Denny brings over gold medal to Franklin, 112. Plies Franklin with solicitations, 112. Franklin appointed agent to go to England, 114. Lord Loudon intervenes in the conflict, 114. Vacillating conduct of Lord Loudon about sailing, 114. "Always on horseback, and never rides on," said Innis, 115. Long detention of Franklin at New York, 115. Franklin's opinion of Lord Loudon, 117, 117 (note). Loudon's reply to Franklin about filling his own pockets, 118. Franklin arrives in London, 118. Interview with Lord Granville, 118. Meeting between Proprietaries and Franklin, 119. Settlement of dispute with Proprietaries, 120. Franklin thanks Assembly, 122. His personal relations to the Proprietaries and their governors, 122. Proprietary oppression, 124. Governor Penn's dependence on Franklin, 126. Letter to Dr. Fothergill from Franklin about the Proprietary, 127. Factional dissensions in Pennsylvania, 127. Popular conflict with Governor Penn, 127. Franklin elected Speaker, 129. Writes preface to Galloway's speech, 129. Denunciation of Proprietaries by him, 130. Lapidary attacks on Thomas and Richard Penn by him, 132. Factious attacks on him in prose and verse, 133. Franklin defeated at election, 135. Franklin attacks fairness of the election, 136. Wearies of political contentions, 137. Recommends son of Thomas Penn to good will of Dickinson, 138. Scathing comments by Franklin on Thomas Penn's meanness, 138. Philadelphia merchants raise sum to send him abroad as agent, 140. Pennsylvania feud sinks into the background, 140. The Albany Congress, 141. A day's journey under colonial conditions, 143 (note). Letters from Franklin to Shirley on the colonial connection, 146. Letter to James Parker from Franklin anticipating Albany Plan of Union, 151. Franklin and the Indians, 152. Humorous stories about the Indians told by him, 157, 158 (note). Distinction enjoyed by him in England during his first and second missions, 162. General relations to England before Revolution, 163, 164 (note). Loyalty to England and its king, 163, 170. Subsequent change of attitude, 168. Willingness to accept office under the Duke of Grafton, 169. His counsels of moderation, 170. First of all an American, 171. His gloomy pictures of Irish and Scotch conditions, 172. Favorable view of American conditions taken by him as contrasted with foreign, 171. Parliamentary corruption, 174, 206. Franklin's familiarity with American conditions, 177. His foresight into the American future, 178, 191, 193, 204. Misconstruction produced by his fairness during colonial contest, 178. His view of legal tie between England and the Colonies and Parliamentary supremacy, 178. An imperialist, 182, 191. Favored representation of Colonies in Parliament, but realized its impracticability, 184, 187. General position taken by Franklin in colonial contest, 185. His relations to the Stamp Act, 187, 194, 206, 230. English haughtiness towards, and ignorance of, Colonies, 188. Misrepresentations by Colonial Governors, 189. Economic restrictions on Colonies, 190. Views in regard to the taxation of the Colonies, 192. And in regard to English emigration, 192. Influence exerted by Franklin as colonial agent, 194. Impartiality of Franklin during colonial contest, 196. Summary of argument addressed by him to the British and American Public, 196. His advice to the Colonies, 201. His final sense of certainty of armed conflict, 205. Comments on tea duty, 207. Refusal to recognize Franklin as agent, 207, 211. His comments on rejection of Chatham's plan, 208. Draws up angry protest, 209. Lord Sandwich attacks him as enemy of England, 210. Franklin's relations to Hillsborough, 211. His opinion of Lord Dartmouth, 216. Wedderburn's tirade against Franklin, 222. Efforts of Franklin after dismissal from office to avert war, 229. He leaves England, 231. His reputation at this time very high, 231. Elected to Congress, 232. His services in Congress, 232, 235, 241. Made member of committee to visit Washington's camp, 234. Early stand in favor of independence, 235. Interviews French stranger, 235. Made member of committee of secret correspondence with foreign friends of America, 236. His mission to Canada, 237. His relations to the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, 241. Devises seal, 242. Offers lure to Hessians, 242. Meets Lord Howe, 242. Other services by Franklin at beginning of Revolution, 246. His political hobbies, 249 (note). Goes to France, 249. Receives news of Burgoyne's surrender, 250. Peculiar fitness of Franklin for French mission, 251. Unfitness of his colleagues, 252. Rubs between John Adams and Vergennes, 252. Vergennes' opinion of John Adams, 253. Comments on John Adams by Franklin, 253. Jefferson's opinion of John Adams, 254 (note). Vergennes' strictures on Arthur Lee and Izard, 255, 255 (note). Vergennes' opinion of Franklin, 255. Judgments on Arthur Lee, 255 (note). Jay's dislike of the French, 256. John Laurens comes to Paris, 256. Deane's efficiency, 257 (note). Inutility of Franklin's colleagues, 257, 273. Testimony of John Adams as to tempers of Arthur Lee and Izard, 258 (note). Adams' vanity, 258 (note). A young state should be like a young virgin, thought Franklin, 259 (note). Franklin not to blame for enmity of his colleagues, 259. Causes of Lee's enmity to Franklin purely selfish, 260. Arthur Lee's character, 262. Jealousy of Franklin felt by Arthur Lee and Adams, 263, 263 (note). Rebukes from Franklin to Arthur Lee, 264. Disputatious and artful natures of Arthur and William Lee, 265. Trunk entrusted to Franklin by William Lee, 266. Franklin's opinion of Arthur Lee, 267. His opinion of William Lee, 269. Treacherous conduct of William Lee and Izard, 270. Relations of Franklin to Izard, 271. Izard's passionate temper, 272, 272 (note). Enmity of colleagues ascribed by Franklin to envy, 274. Franklin's first French friends, 274. Franklin's fame when in France, 274. His academic degrees, 274, 274 (note). Special causes underlying fame of Franklin in France, 275, 276 (note), 280. Comments of Count Ségur on the American envoys, 276 (note). John Adams' testimony to fame of Franklin, 278. Meeting between Voltaire and Franklin, 278. Apotheosis of Voltaire, 279. Franklin's opinion of Vergennes, 280. Jefferson on Franklin in France, 281. History of pecuniary aids obtained by Franklin from France, 281. His remark about the Mississippi, 285. His relations to bills of exchange, 295. To dispatches, 295. Duty devolved on him of purchasing supplies and fitting out ships, 296. This duty disagreeable to him, 296. Was also a Judge in Admiralty, 297. Success of American privateers, 297. Franklin advises attacks on English cities, 298. His relations to John Paul Jones, 299. His efforts for the release of American prisoners, 300. Rascality of Thomas Digges, 303. Services by Thomas Wren to American prisoners, 304. Pressure on Franklin for place in American army, 304. Applications of Messrs. Lith and Pellion, 307. Inquiries about America made of Franklin, 308. Beset by beggars, 308. Intense feelings aroused in Franklin by war, 309. Hutton's mission to France, 309. Pulteney's mission, 310. Mission of Hartley and Hammond, 311. Weissenstein's mission, 311. Sir William Jones' mission, 313. Audit of Franklin's accounts, 315 (note). Adams' accusation of subserviency to the French against Franklin, 316. Vergennes' persistency of character, 317 (note). Comment of D'Aranda on M. de Maurepas and Vergennes, 317 (note). Franklin justified in opposing signing of preliminary treaty of peace without consent of Vergennes, 319. Franklin's efforts to acquire Canada, 321. Final treaty of peace signed, 329. Franklin resigns, 329. Returns to Pennsylvania and is further honored, 329. Elected a member of Federal Convention of 1787, 329. Jefferson's estimate of Franklin as a man, 330 (note). Part taken by Franklin in the Convention of 1787, 330. Reaction in his liberalism, 331 (note). Franklin and paper currency, 336. Franklin and free trade, 342. Franklin and export duties, 345. Franklin and pauperism, 345. Franklin and agriculture, 346. Franklin and the criminal laws, 347. Franklin and imprisonment for debt, 348. Franklin and slavery 348. _As a Man of Science_ Indifference to his inventions, i., 15. Early interest of Franklin in science, ii., 350, 352. Essentially a man of science, 351. His three essays written at sea, 351. Relations of Franklin to electricity, 352. Qualifications of Franklin for scientific inquiry, 379. Franklin's interest in balloons, 384. Franklin's study of marsh gas and effect of oil on water, 390. Franklin's inquiry into the effect of depth of water on speed and navigation, 394. His interest in the Gulf Stream, 395. Franklin and pulse glasses, 396. Inventions of Franklin, 396. Franklin and magic squares, 397. Franklin's alphabet and reform spelling, 398. Franklin and the armonica, 400. The Franklin stove, 401, 404. Chimney, place improvements by Franklin, 403. Franklin and smoky chimneys, 404. Franklin and ventilation, 405. Distraction to which Franklin was subject in the pursuit of science, 406. Cruder reflections of Franklin on scientific subjects 407. Franklin's relations to medicine, 407. Franklin and the dry bellyache, 408. Franklin's ideas about colds, 410. Franklin lectures John Adams on open windows, 414. Franklin and waterspouts, whirlwinds and northeast storms, 415. Franklin on light, 416. Loose Thoughts on a Universal Fluid, 417. Franklin on the conservation of matter, 417. Franklin and the mastodon, 417. Letter from Franklin to Gébelin on language variations, 418. Franklin and astronomy, 419. Franklin and refrigeration, 419. Franklin and geology, 420. Franklin and the physical convulsions of the earth, 421. _As a Writer_ Lost letters, i., 5. Way to Wealth known to whole civilized globe, 13. Franklin first American man of letters in the opinion of Hume, ii., 423. Franklin an author for practical purposes only, 423. Indifference to his own writings, 424. Franklin foresaw increased patronage of English authors, 425. Manner in which he was educated, 425. His early love of books, 426. His ballads, 427. His controversy with Collins, 428. Means adopted by him to improve himself as a writer, 428. Silence Dogood letters, 429. Meets Governor Burnet, 434. Forms acquaintance with Ralph and other lovers of reading in Philadelphia, 434. Love of books, 434. Franklin's scruples about niceties of authorship and printing, 435. Criticism of Hume on his use of words, 439. Franklin's conception of good writing, 440. Advice to Benjamin Vaughn as to writing, 440. General character of Franklin's writings, 441. His fable of the eagle and the hare, 443. Canada pamphlet, 439, 444. Papers written by Franklin on the Colonial controversy before his return from his second mission to England, 446. Effect of the Edict by the King of Prussia and its companion satire, 447. Letters to the Public Advertiser, 449. Dialogue between Rodrigue and Fell, the apothecary, 449. Copper plate engraving designed by Franklin, 450. Papers written by Franklin in France to promote the American Cause, 451. His dialogue between Britain and other countries, 452. Graver latter-day writings by Franklin, 454. His papers on how to grow rich, 455. Parable against Persecution, 456. Parable on Brotherly Love, 456. Papers contributed by Franklin to the Busybody and the Pennsylvania Gazette, 457. Speech of Polly Baker, 467. Means of Disposing the Enemy to Peace, 468. Craven Street Gazette, 468. Petition of the Letter Z, 471. Sale of the Hessians, 472. Supplement to the Boston Independent Chronicle, 472, 474. The Ephemera, 472, 476. The Whistle, 472, 478. His petite chanson à boire, 472, 479. His letter to the Abbé Morellet on wine, 472, 480. Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout, 472, 481. Handsome and Deformed Leg, 472, 484. Economical Project, 472, 485. A Letter from China, 487. Abuse of the Press, 488. Comparison of the Conduct of the Ancient Jews and of the Anti-Federalists, 489. Account of the Supremest Court of Judicature in Pennsylvania, 489. Speech of Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim against the Erika, 489. Petition of the Left Hand, 490. Morals of Chess, 491. Franklin's letters, 492. His letter on the Cincinnati, 494. General observations on the history and contents of the Autobiography, 499. General observations on Poor Richard's Almanac, 503. The Way to Wealth, or Father Abraham's Speech, 517 Franklin, Benjamin (Franklin's uncle), i., 60, 82, 275, 276, 277, 289, 304 Franklin College, Pa., i., 15 Franklin, Deborah, i., 52, 70, 88, 99, 103, 205, 211, 218, 224 (note), 290, 303, 306, 307, 314, 336, 346, 367, 372, 373, 423, 449, 489; ii., 23, 45, 70, 79, 93, 470 (note) Franklin, Francis Folger, i., 70, 240 Franklin in France, by the Hales, ii., 6 (note) Franklin, James, i., 83, 199, 279, 301; ii., 29, 30, 41, 426, 427 Franklin, James, Jr., i., 199, 278, 279 Franklin, John (Franklin's brother), i., 53, 94, 274, 278, 279, 296 Franklin, John (Franklin's uncle), i., 274, 277 Franklin, Josiah (Franklin's father), i., 60, 78, 82, 85, 158, 159, 200, 266, 267, 268, 270, 274, 304, 307; ii., 28, 41, 428 Franklin, Josiah, Jr., i., 158, 276, 279 Franklin, Peter, i., 279, 280 (note); ii., 83 Franklin, Sally (daughter of Thomas Franklin, of Lutterworth), i., 277, 306; ii., 469 Franklin, Samuel (Franklin's brother), i., 280, 301 Franklin, Samuel (son of Franklin's Uncle Benjamin), ii., 29 Franklin, Samuel (grandson of Franklin's Uncle Benjamin), i., 275, 277 Franklin, Thomas (Franklin's uncle), i., 38, 275, 303, 305 Franklin, Thomas (Franklin's grandfather), i., 275 Franklin, Thomas (of Lutterworth), i., 277, 306 Franklin, William, i., 26, 36, 44, 48, 134, 173, 178, 216, 218, 236, 238, 241, 262, 264, 264 (note), 273, 295, 305, 337, 348, 375, 379, 393, 453, 474, 476; ii., 82, 83, 98, 104 (note), 134, 166, 175, 177, 178, 181, 185, 207, 338 (note), 436, 448, 483 (note) Franklin, Mrs. William, i., 40, 255, 264 (note) Franklin, William Temple, i., 44, 92, 93, 174 (note), 261, 264 (note), 372, 388, 390, 453, 482, 497, 530, 539; ii., 24, 224, 247, 255, 295, 306 French, Col. ii., 40, 43 G Galloway, Joseph, i., 5, 253, 343, 347; ii., 100, 128, 129, 135, 136, 174, 175, 176, 201, 206, 210, 339 Gantt, Edward, i., 65 Garden, Dr. Alexander, i., 315 Gates, Gen. Horatio, i., 470 Gazetteer, Letter to, ii., 202 Gébelin, Antoine Court de, ii., 418 General Magazine and Historical Chronicle for all the British Plantations in America, ii., 74 George III, i., 418, 419, 453, 455, 457; ii., 99, 165 Gladstone, Wm. E., ii., 168, 204 Godfrey, Mrs., i., 208 Godfrey, Thomas, i., 118, 326, 327; ii,. 59 Grace, Robert, i., 15, 118, 301, 326; ii., 64, 64 (note), 66 Grafton, Duke of, ii., 169, 227 (note) Grand, Ferdinand, i., 513, 530, 532; ii., 85 Granville, Lord, i., 448; ii., 118 Greene, Gen. Nathanael, ii., 232 Grenville, George, ii., 140, 190, 338, 339 (note) H Hall, David, i., 133, 244, 350; ii., 4 (note), 77, 79, 167 Hamilton, Andrew, ii., 43, 45, 63, 67 Hamilton, Gov. James, ii., 107, 109, 110, 141, 145 Hancock, John, ii., 2, 312 Handsome and Deformed Leg, ii., 472, 484 Harris, Anne, i., 282, 301 Harris, Grace, i., 283 Harry, David, ii., 54, 69 Hartley, David, i., 57, 108, 153, 447, 456, 542 (note), 543; ii., 301, 302, 311 Hawkesworth, Dr. John, i., 57, 380, 437; ii., 394 Helvétius, M., i., 489 Helvétius, Madame, i., 487, 518, 529, 540; ii., 481, 483 Hemphill, Rev. Mr., i., 69 Herschel, Sir William, ii., 419 Hewson, Elizabeth, i., 262, 387, 390 Hewson, Mary (Polly Stevenson), i., 19, 35, 56, 107, 133, 224 (note), 243, 261, 262, 372, 373, 374, 471; ii., 165, 167, 399, 412, 469, 499 Hewson, Dr. William, i., 19, 384, 385; ii., 469 Hewson, William (Franklin's godson), i., 239, 388, 390 Hints for Those that would be Rich, ii., 455 Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania from its Origin, i., 39 (note) Hodgson, William, ii., 303 Holker, Jean, i., 542 (note) Holker, Mrs. Jean, i., 542 (note) Holmes, Abdiel, ii., 24 Holmes, Mary, i., 282 Holmes, Capt. Robert, i., 282; ii., 39, 53 Hopkinson, Francis, i., 246, 338, 339, 341; ii., 277 Hopkinson, Thomas, i., 339; ii., 379 Howe, Lord, i., 154, 423; ii., 184, 230, 242, 424 Hubbard (or Partridge), Elizabeth, i., 20, 43 (note), 53, 64, 265, 355, 477; ii., 9 Huey, Joseph, i., 79, 153 Hughes, John, i., 217, 222, 336; ii., 25, 155, 167 Hume, David, i., 466, 467; ii., 423, 425 Hunter, William, i., 542 (note); ii., 80, 81 Huntingdon, Samuel, i., 47; ii., 287, 317 Hutchinson Letters, Tract Relative to the Affair of, ii., 183, 207, 217, 446 Hutchinson, Gov. Thomas, ii., 142, 195, 217, 226 Hutton, James, i., 447, 453 I Idea of the English School Sketched out for the Consideration of the Trustees of the Philadelphia Academy, i., 138 Increase of Mankind, Essay on, ii., 191, 193, 348, 424 Ingenhousz, Jan, i., 5, 45 (note), 263, 334, 345, 418, 419, 421, 472, 532, 541; ii., 138, 374, 379, 388, 389, 406, 415 Ingersoll, Jared, i., 95, 356, 364 Interest of Great Britain Considered with Regard to her Colonies, etc., ii., 444 Internal State of America, The, ii., 347, 454 Izard, Ralph, ii., 221, 250, 255 (note), 256, 258 (note), 268, 270, 271, 274 J Jackson, Richard, i., 147, 361, 470; ii., 136, 156, 158, 165, 346, 444 Jackson, William, ii., 288 James, Abel, i., 18, 253, 342, 539; ii., 100 Jay, John, i., 263, 339, 341, 350, 487; ii., 4, 84, 235, 255 (note), 256, 257, 258 (note), 284, 285, 288, 290, 291, 292, 316, 319, 320, 321, 324, 333 Jefferson, Thomas, i., 6, 18, 318, 485, 540; ii., 8, 17, 96, 235, 241, 242, 249, 255 (note), 281, 330 (note), 424 Jenyns, Soame, ii., 338 Johnson, Samuel, i., 130, 311, 356, 363 Johnson, Gov. William, ii., 160 Jones, Dr. John, i., 112 Jones, John Paul, i., 482, 485; ii., 263, 268, 290, 299, 301, 476 Jones, Sir William, i., 411, 412, 416; ii., 313 Jordan, Thomas, i., 57, 438 Journal of the Negotiation for Peace with Great Britain, i., 9; ii., 5 Journal of a Voyage from London to Philadelphia, i., 32; ii., 16, 350 Journey to the Elysian Fields, i., 489 Junius, ii., 227 (note) Junto, The, i., 117; ii., 9, 66 K Kalm, Peter, i., 124, 146 Kames, Lord, i., 20, 29, 98, 196, 391, 464, 466; ii., 166, 177, 187, 191, 400, 424 Keimer, Samuel, i., 85, 206; ii., 37, 51, 53, 62, 68, 69 Keith, Sir William, i., 90, 282; ii., 20, 39, 40, 41, 51 Kelly and Fry, Doctors, i., 134, 135 Kent, Benjamin, i., 64, 64 (note) Kinnersley, Ebenezer, i., 246, 345; ii., 353, 379 L Lafayette, Marquis de, i., 48, 485, 503, 530; ii., 256, 298 Lafayette, Madame de, i., 531 LaLuzerne, Chevalier de, ii., 253, 319, 324, 327 LaMarck, Madame, i., 542 (note) Landais, Peter, i., 162; ii., 268 Lathrop, Rev. John, i., 8, 115 Laurens, Henry, i., 315; ii., 5, 6 (note), 25, 255 (note), 257 (note), 284, 388 Laurens, Col. John, i., 315, 316 (note); ii., 256, 288 Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent, i., 530, 532 Lavoisier, Madame, i., 477, 528 Lawrence, Col., i., 170 Lee, Arthur, i., 21 (note), 284, 285 (note), 469; ii., 7 (note), 221, 236, 237, 249, 250, 252 (note), 255, 255 (note), 256, 258 (note), 260, 263 (note), 267, 268, 271, 274 Lee, Gen. Charles, i., 71, 470, 471 Lee, John, ii., 221, 222 Lee, Ludlow, i., 285 (note) Lee, William, i., 285 (note); ii., 250, 265, 266, 270 LeDespencer, Lord (Sir Francis, Dashwood), i., 74, 391, 447, 452; ii., 216, 448 LeRoy, Charles, i., 528 LeRoy, David, i., 528 LeRoy, Jean Baptiste, i., 526; ii., 170, 354, 388, 413 LeRoy, Madame Jean Baptiste, i., 526 LeRoy, Pierre, i., 528 Lettsom, Dr. John Coakley, i., 421, 422 Le Veillard, M. Louis, i., 389, 501, 521, 530, 537; ii., 342, 344 Le Veillard, Madame, i., 530, 537 Le Veillard, Mlle., i., 541 Lining, John, i., 315; ii., 373 (note), 381, 397 (note), 419 Lith, M., ii., 307 Livezey, Thomas, i., 344 Livingston, Robert R., i., 480; ii., 241, 253, 292, 293, 304, 326, 327, 345 Lloyd, Thomas, ii., 152 Logan, James, i., 132, 158, 171, 350; ii., 17, 90, 397 Logan, Miss, ii., 20 Loose Thoughts on a Universal Fluid, ii., 417 Lor, M. de, ii., 355 Loudon, Lord, ii., 112, 114, 117 (note) Lovell, James, ii., 13, 301, 305, 345 M Madison, James, ii., 330, 335 Maize, Essay on, i., 149 Mansfield, Lord, ii., 121, 227 (note), 448 Marat, Jean Paul, ii., 277 Marbois, i., 263; ii., 324, 327 Maritime Observations, i., 528 Marshall, Humphrey, i., 421; ii., 344 (note) Martin, David, i., 131 Martin, Henri, i., 473 Maseres, Francis, i., 441 (note) Mather, Cotton, i., 83, 117, 269; ii., 57 Mather, Rev. Increase, i., 83, 117 Mather, Samuel, i., 117; ii., 57 Maurepas, M. de, ii., 317 (note) Meanes of Disposing the Enemie to Peace, ii., 468 Mecom, Benny, i., 286, 291, 297; ii., 73 Mecom, Mrs. Benny, i., 294 Mecom, Edward, i., 291 Mecom, Jane, i., 20, 31 (note), 52, 68, 71, 80, 95, 107 (note), 172, 177, 240, 270, 273, 274, 278, 279, 281, 282, 284, 287, 295, 297, 354, 371, 372, 477; ii., 10, 22, 187, 203, 399 Meditation on a Quart Mugg, ii., 464, 466 Meredith, Hugh, i., 326; ii., 53, 55, 63 Mesmer, ii., 407 Mifflin, Thomas, i., 542 (note) Militia Act, i., 183; ii., 126 Mitchell, Dr., ii., 354 Montaudouin, M., i., 56 Monthieu, John Joseph, i., 542 (note) Morellet, Abbé, i., 229, 488, 495, 496, 497, 513, 518; ii., 7 (note), 274, 394, 472, 480 Morellet, Abbé, Franklin's letter to, on wine, ii., 472 Morris, Eleanor, i., 277 Morris, Robert, i., 159 (note); ii., 19, 24, 253, 254, 257 (note), 266, 291, 292, 330 Morris, Gov. Robert Hunter, i., 185; ii., 19, 104, 104 (note), 109, 111 Morris, Robert and Thomas Leach, ii., 203 Morris, Thomas, ii., 266, 269 Moustiers, Comte de, i., 477 (note) N Narrative of the Late Massacres in Lancaster County, i., 194 Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency, ii., 66 Neave, Oliver, ii., 383 Newenham, Sir Edward, i., 5, 469 New York, ii., 35 (note) New Zealand, i., 153 Nogaret, Felix, ii., 18 Nollet, Abbé, ii., 354, 382 Norris, Isaac, ii., 129, 141, 155 North, Lord, ii., 5, 221, 223 Notes and Hints for a Paper on Catching Cold, ii., 412 O Observations Relative to the Intentions of the Original Founders of the Academy in Philadelphia, i., 136, 138 Onslow, Col., ii., 339 (note) Osborne, Charles, i., 323 Oswald, Richard, i., 110, 156; ii., 7, 322 P Paine, Thomas, i., 259, 530 Parable of Brotherly Love, i., 64; ii., 425, 456 Parable against Persecution, i., 64; ii., 15, 456 Paradise, Mr., i., 496 Paris, Ferdinand John, ii., 119 Parker, James, i., 148 (note), 291, 293; ii., 73 Parsons, William, i., 326, 327 Parton, James, i., 73, 74, 227, 275, 303; ii., 85, 153 Paschal, Mrs., i., 542 (note) Passy, Mlle., de, i., 483 Pellion, Louis Givanetti, ii., 307 Penn, Gov. John, i., 193, 196, 197; ii., 126, 153 Penn, Thomas, i., 124, 170, 189; ii., 102, 102 (note), 131, 141 Penn, Lady Thomas, ii., 21, 139 Penn, William, i., 158, 191; ii., 101, 102, 125, 131, 138 Pennsylvania Gazette, ii., 20, 21, 27, 62, 69, 75, 78, 85 Percival, Thomas, ii., 12 Perkins, John, ii., 380 Peters, Rev. Mr., i., 127 Peters, Richard, ii., 141, 155 Petition of the Left Hand, ii., 490 Petition of the Letter Z, ii., 471 Philadelphia, i., 8, 151 Philadelphische Zeitung, ii., 74 Pitt, Miss, i., 380 Plain Truth, i., 163 Plan for Improving the Condition of the Free Blacks, ii., 454 Plan for Settling two Western Colonies in North America, i., 103, (note) Poetry of Franklin, i., 113, 230, 275, 380, 499; ii., 427, 498 Poor, Essay on the Laboring, ii., 345 Poor Richard's Almanac, i., 16, 27; ii., 503 Potts, Stephen, i., 326, 327; ii., 53 Pownall, Thomas, i., 343, 542 (note); ii., 159, 340 (note) Preface to the Speech of Joseph Galloway, ii., 104, 129 Price, Dr. Richard, i., 58, 93, 96, 416, 425, 531; ii., 385, 529 Price of Corn, ii., 347 Priestley, Joseph, i., 27, 67, 92, 106, 109, 110, 224 (note), 373, 416, 426, 427, 429; ii., 171, 221, 223, 224, 230, 375, 405 Prince, Rev. Thomas, ii., 358 (note) Pringle, Sir John, i., 93, 320, 391, 402, 415, 416, 417, 417 (note), 421, 425; ii., 408, 421 Proposals Relating to Education, i., 129; ii., 23 Proposition Relative to Privateering, i., 110, 156 Prussia, i., 156 Public Advertiser, Letters to, ii., 192, 220, 228, 449 Q Queries and Remarks in Relation to the Pennsylvania Constitution, ii., 331 (note) Quincy, Edmund, i., 149 Quincy, Josiah, i., 52, 352, 353, 476; ii., 25, 247, 261 Quincy, Josiah, Jr., i., 21 (note), 352 R Ralph, James, i., 87, 90, 202, 224 (note), 323; ii., 21, 43, 45 Ray, Catherine (or Mrs. William Greene), i., 207, 231, 266, 312, 356, 364, 385, 533 Raynal, Abbé, i., 318, 485 Read, James, i., 301 Read, Joseph, i., 301; ii., 83 Read, Mrs. (Franklin's mother-in-law), i., 24, 37, 206, 241, 243, 301; ii., 93 Reed, Joseph, ii., 226, 268 Remarks and Facts Concerning American Paper Money, ii., 336, 340 Remarks on the Late Protest, i., 67; ii., 136 Retort Courteous, The, ii., 454 Rhoads, Samuel, i., 246, 330, 542 (note); ii., 137 Rise and Progress of the Differences between Great Britain and her American Colonies, ii., 175 Rittenhouse, David, i., 350 Robert, Messrs., ii., 386, 387 Roberts, Hugh, i., 246, 311, 327, 328, 330, 331, 359 Robespierre, ii., 277 Robinson, Crabbe, i., 39 Roche, Abbé de la, i., 488, 489, 496, 499, 501, 513, 518 Rochefoucauld, Duc de la, i., 477, 486, 530, 531; ii., 321, 342 Romilly, Sir Samuel, i., 20; ii., 7 (note), 248, 347 Rozier, M. Pilâtre de, ii., 385, 389 Rules by Which a Great Empire May be Reduced to a Small One, ii., 446 Rush, Dr. Benjamin, i., 321, 332, 333, 420; ii., 410 Russell, Lord John, ii., 227 Ruston, Thomas, ii., 341 S Sainte-Beuve, i., 11 Sale of the Hessians, ii., 472 Sargent, John, i., 42 (note), 104, 438 Sayre, Stephen, i., 21 (note); ii., 340 Schuyler, Gen. Philip, ii., 238, 240 Schweighauser, M., i., 285 (note) Scott, Lydia, i., 282, 301 Sharp, Granville, i., 76, 77 Shavers and Trimmers, ii., 464, 467 Shelburne, Lord, i., 430; ii., 161, 162, 195, 221, 223, 261, 320, 321, 394 Shipley, Anna Maria, i., 408, 411, 412; ii., 313 Shipley, Catherine, i., 330, 407, 409, 410, 412, 416, 417, 417 (note) Shipley, Emily, i., 408, 414, 417 Shipley, Georgiana, i., 405, 407, 410, 412, 413, 417, 417 (note); ii., 231 (note) Shipley, Jonathan (Bishop of St. Asaph's), i., 5, 20, 56, 405, 537; ii., 346 Shipley, Mrs. Jonathan, i., 406, 407, 412, 417 (note) Shirley, Gen. William, ii., 112, 146 Silence Dogood, i., 83, 84; ii., 31 Small, Alexander, i., 77, 265, 439; ii., 383, 405 Smeathman, Henry, ii., 362 Smith, Sydney, i., 465, 466; ii., 527 Smith, Dr. William, i., 128, 131, 311, 340; ii., 129 Smyth, Albert Henry, i., 43, 248 (note), 484 Some Good Whig Principles, ii., 100, 454 Soulavie, Abbé, ii., 420 Sparks, Jared, i., 248 (note); ii., 200 (note), 211 (note) Speech of Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim against the Erika, i., 7; ii., 489 St. John, Hector, ii., 7 (note) Stanley, John, i., 57, 284, 380, 437 Stevenson, Mrs. Margaret, i., 44, 134, 236, 242, 247, 250, 306, 307, 372, 373, 386, 388, 391, 454, 479; ii., 4 (note), 468, 469, 470, 470 (note) Stiles, Ezra, i., 91, 114, 356, 362 Stories, i., 27, 44, 67, 110, 289, 297, 318, 319, 320, 321 (note), 338, 341, 349, 354, 361, 377, 402, 430, 434, 437, 445, 469, 510; ii., 9, 10, 11, 12, 241, 247 Stormont, Lord, ii., 13, 14 (note) Strachey, Henry, ii., 244 Strahan, William, i., 14, 39, 41, 55, 58, 131, 134, 201, 224 (note), 225, 227, 229, 230, 302, 311, 313, 385, 392, 438, 467; ii., 21, 79, 91, 117, 164, 165, 425 Sumner, Charles, i., 71 Supplement to the Boston Independent Chronicle, ii., 472, 474 Syng, Philip, i., 328, 330, 331; ii., 367, 379 T Tasker, Col. Benjamin, i., 178, 314 Temple, John, ii., 220, 220 (note) Tennent, Rev. Gilbert, i., 142 Thayer, John, i., 64 Thomas, Sir George, i., 175; ii., 105, 109 Thompson, Mrs., i., 442, 443 Thomson, Charles, i., 246, 350; ii., 84, 168, 187, 201, 208, 209, 390 Tissington, Anthony, i., 442, 445 Toleration in Old England and New England, ii., 446 Torris, J. i., 155 Transatlantic Voyages of Franklin, i., 224 (note) Tucker, Dean, ii., 162 Turgot, Marquis de, i., 9, 486, 488, 542 (note); ii., 18, 274, 404 Tyler, Moses Coit, ii., 6 (note) V Vanetta, Capt., i., 188; ii., 513 Vaughan, Benjamin, i., 18, 67, 109, 156, 432, 531, 537; ii., 24, 162, 343, 347, 409, 440, 444 Vergennes, Comte de, i., 487; ii., 252, 253, 255, 280, 285, 287, 293, 312, 317 (note), 318, 319, 320, 321, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 342 Vernon, Mr., i., 200 Vindication and Offer from Congress to Parliament, ii., 452 Viny, Thomas, i., 391, 442, 445; ii., 397 (note) Virginia, i., 315 Voltaire, i., 48; ii., 278, 358 W Walker, Hannah, i., 277 Walpole, Horace, ii., 227, 476 Walpole, Thomas, ii., 209 Washington, George, i., 6, 18, 21, 182, 261, 262, 302, 316, 403, 529; ii., 96, 111, 247, 287, 312, 329 Watson, Joseph, i., 323 Way to Wealth, i., 12; ii., 517 Webb, Benjamin, i., 150 Webb, George, i., 326; ii., 54, 62 Webster, Noah, ii., 400, 436 Wedderburn, Alexander, ii., 221, 227 (note) Weems, Mason, i., 65, 88 Weissenstein, Charles de, ii., 311 Welfare, Michael, i., 58 West, Benjamin, i., 470, 471 West Wycombe, i., 75, 452 Wharton, Dr. Francis, i., 542 (note); ii., 6 (note) Wharton, Samuel, i., 311, 343, 344, 541; ii., 268 Wharton, Thomas, i., 245, 246, 253, 311, 343, 344 Whatley, George, i., 6, 55, 57, 104, 447, 463; ii., 251, 396 Whateley, Thomas, ii., 220 Whateley, William, ii., 220 Whistle, The, i., 501; ii., 472, 478 Whitefield, George, i., 54, 59, 61, 132, 142, 338, 447. 449 Whitefoord, Caleb, i., 133, 442, 447, 447 (note) Whitehead, Paul, i., 75; ii., 448 Whitehead, Wm. A., i., 39 (note) Whitehurst, John, i., 442, 445 Wickes, Capt., ii., 249, 295, 297 Wilkes, John, i., 75; ii., 99, 165 Williams, Jonathan, i., 281, 283, 288, 295, 297 Williams, Jonathan, Jr., i., 283, 289, 469, 481; ii., 4 (note), 11, 263, 269, 296 Williams, Josiah, i., 283 Williams, Mariamne (Miss Alexander), i., 211, 469, 542 (note) Winthrop, John, i., 352, 426, 430; ii., 218 Witch Trial at Mt. Holly, ii., 464 Wren, Thomas, ii., 304 Wright, Dr., ii., 355 Wright, James, i., 346 Wright, Susannah, i., 192, 346 Wygate, ii., 49 
48138	----	TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE This is Volume 3 of a 3-volume set. The other two volumes are also accessible in Project Gutenberg using http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48136 and http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48137. Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources. More detail can be found at the end of the book. The WORKS Of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, L.L.D. VOL. 3. [Illustration: (Stalker Sculptor.)] PRINTED, for Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme, Paternoster Row, London. THE COMPLETE WORKS, IN PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS, AND MORALS, OF THE LATE DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, NOW FIRST COLLECTED AND ARRANGED: WITH MEMOIRS OF HIS EARLY LIFE, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. London: PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD; AND LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1806. JAMES CUNDEE, PRINTER, LONDON. CONTENTS. VOL. III. PAPERS ON AMERICAN SUBJECTS BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY TROUBLES. _Page._ Albany papers; containing, I. reasons and motives on which the plan of union for the colonies was formed;--II. reasons against partial unions;--III. and the plan of union drawn by B. F. and unanimously agreed to by the commissioners from New Hampshire, Massachusett's Bay, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, and Pensylvania, met in congress at Albany, in July 1754, to consider of the best means of defending the king's dominions in America, &c. a war being then apprehended; with the reasons or motives for each article of the plan 3 Albany papers continued. I. letter to Governor Shirley, concerning the imposition of direct taxes upon the colonies, without their consent 30 II. Letter to the same; concerning direct taxes in the colonies imposed without consent, indirect taxes, and the Albany plan of union 31 III. Letter to the same, on the subject of uniting the colonies more intimately with Great Britain, by allowing them representatives in parliament 37 Plan for settling two Western colonies in North America, with reasons for the plan, 1754 41 Report of the committee of aggrievances of the assembly of Pensylvania, dated Feb. 22, 1757 50 An historical review of the constitution and government of Pensylvania, from its origin; so far as regards the several points of controversy which have, from time to time, arisen between the several governors of that province, and their several assemblies. Founded on authentic documents 59 The interest of Great Britain considered, with regard to her colonies, and the acquisitions of Canada and Guadaloupe 89 Remarks and facts relative to the American paper-money 144 To the freemen of Pensylvania, on the subject of a particular militia-bill, rejected by the proprietor's deputy or governor 157 Preface by a member of the Pensylvanian assembly (Dr. Franklin) to the speech of Joseph Galloway, Esq. one of the members for Philadelphia county; in answer to the speech of John Dickinson, Esq. delivered in the house of the assembly of the province of Pensylvania, May 24, 1764, on occasion of a petition drawn up by order, and then under the consideration of the house, praying his majesty for a royal, in lieu of a proprietary government 163 Remarks on a late protest against the appointment of Mr. Franklin as agent for this province (of Pensylvania) 203 Remarks on a plan for the future management of Indian affairs 216 PAPERS ON AMERICAN SUBJECTS DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY TROUBLES. Causes of the American discontents before 1768 225 Letter concerning the gratitude of America, and the probability and effects of an union with Great Britain; and concerning the repeal or suspension of the stamp act 239 Letter from Governor Pownall to Dr. Franklin, concerning an equal communication of rights, privileges, &c. to America by Great Britain 243 Minutes to the foregoing, by Dr. Franklin 244 The examination of Dr. Franklin before the English house of commons, in February, 1766, relative to the repeal of the American stamp act 245 Attempts of Dr. Franklin for conciliation of Great Britain with the colonies 286 Queries from Mr. Strahan 287 Answer to the preceding queries 290 State of the constitution of the colonies, by Governor Pownall; with remarks by Dr. Franklin 299 Concerning the dissentions between England and America 310 A Prussian edict, assuming claims over Britain 311 Preface by the British editor (Dr. Franklin) to "The votes and proceedings of the freeholders, and other inhabitants of the town of Boston, in town-meeting assembled according to law (published by order of the town), &c." 317 Account of governor Hutchinson's letters 322 Rules for reducing a great empire to a small one, presented to a late minister, when he entered upon his administration 334 State of America on Dr. Franklin's arrival there 346 Proposed vindication and offer from congress to parliament, in 1775 347 Reprobation of Mr. Strahan's parliamentary conduct 354 Conciliation hopeless from the conduct of Great Britain to America 355 Account of the first campaign made by the British forces in America 357 Probability of a separation 358 Letter to Monsieur Dumas, urging him to sound the several courts of Europe, by means of their ambassadors at the Hague, as to any assistance they may be disposed to afford America in her struggle for independence 360 Letter from Lord Howe to Dr. Franklin 365 Dr. Franklin's answer to Lord Howe 367 Comparison of Great Britain and America as to credit, in 1777 372 PAPERS, DESCRIPTIVE OF AMERICA, OR RELATING TO THAT COUNTRY, WRITTEN SUBSEQUENT TO THE REVOLUTION. Remarks concerning the savages of North America 383 The internal state of America; being a true description of the interest and policy of that vast continent 391 Information to those who would remove to America 398 Concerning new settlements in America 409 A comparison of the conduct of the ancient Jews, and of the Antifederalists in the United States of America 410 Final speech of Dr. Franklin in the late federal convention 416 PAPERS ON MORAL SUBJECTS AND THE ECONOMY OF LIFE. The busy-body 421 The way to wealth, as clearly shown in the preface of an old Pensylvania almanack, intitled, Poor Richard Improved 453 Advice to a young tradesman 463 Necessary hints to those that would be rich 466 The way to make money plenty in every man's pocket 467 New mode of lending money 468 An economical project 469 On early marriages 475 Effect of early impressions on the mind 478 The whistle 480 A petition to those who have the superintendency of education 483 The handsome and deformed leg 485 Morals of chess 488 The art of procuring pleasant dreams 493 Dialogue between Franklin and the gout 499 On the death of relatives 507 The ephemera an emblem of human life 508 APPENDIX, NO. I.--CONTAINING PAPERS PROPER FOR INSERTION, BUT OMITTED IN THE PRECEDING VOLUMES. Letter to Sir Hans Sloane 513 Letter to Michael Collinson, Esq. 514 Letter respecting captain Cook 515 An address to the public, from the Pensylvania society for promoting the abolition of slavery, and the relief of free negroes, unlawfully held in bondage 517 Plan for improving the condition of the free blacks 519 Paper: a poem 523 Plain truth; or, serious considerations on the present state of the city of Philadelphia, and province of Pensylvania 524 Four letters to Mr. Whetley 543* APPENDIX, NO. II.--CONTAINING LETTERS BY SEVERAL EMINENT PERSONS, ILLUSTRATIVE OF DR. FRANKLIN'S MANNERS AND CHARACTER. Letter from the late Dr. Price to a gentleman in America 543 Letter from Mr. Thomas Jefferson to the late Dr. William Smith, of Philadelphia 545 Letter from the late Dr. Joseph Priestly 547 _ERRATA._ _Page._ _Line._ 24 8 from the bottom: for DAY, read LAY. 39 6, for iuppose, read suppose. 60 5 from the bottom: for Cruger, read Stuber. 449 7 from the bottom: for PLEIADS, read PLEIADES. PAPERS ON AMERICAN SUBJECTS BEFORE THE _REVOLUTIONARY TROUBLES_. [_The papers under the present head, of American Politics before the Troubles, in the volume of Dr. Franklin's works, printed for Johnson in 1799, from which they are nearly all taken, were divided into two parts, as if distinct from each other, viz. Papers on American Subjects before the Troubles; and Papers on Subjects of Provincial Politics. As we can see no grounds for this distinction, we have brought them together, and have placed them in the order of their dates, conceiving such to be the natural order of papers furnishing materials for history._] PAPERS ON AMERICAN SUBJECTS, BEFORE THE _REVOLUTIONARY TROUBLES_. ALBANY PAPERS. _Containing_, I. _Reasons and Motives on which the_ PLAN _of_ UNION _for the_ COLONIES _was formed_;--II. _Reasons against partial Unions_;--III. _And the Plan of Union drawn by B. F. and unanimously agreed to by the Commissioners from New Hampshire, Massachusett's Bay, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, and Pensylvania[1], met in Congress at Albany, in July 1754, to consider of the best Means of defending the King's Dominions in America, &c. a War being then apprehended; with the Reasons or Motives for each Article of the Plan._ B. F. was one of the four commissioners from Pensylvania[2]. I. _Reasons and Motives on which the Plan of Union was formed._ The commissioners from a number of the northern colonies being met at Albany, and considering the difficulties that have always attended the most necessary general measures for the common defence, or for the annoyance of the enemy, when they were to be carried through the several particular assemblies of all the colonies; some assemblies being before at variance with their governors or councils, and the several branches of the government not on terms of doing business with each other; others taking the opportunity, when their concurrence is wanted, to push for favourite laws, powers, or points, that they think could not at other times be obtained, and so creating disputes and quarrels; one assembly waiting to see what another will do, being afraid of doing more than its share, or desirous of doing less; or refusing to do any thing, because its country is not at present so much exposed as others, or because another will reap more immediate advantage; from one or other of which causes, the assemblies of six (out of seven) colonies applied to, had granted no assistance to Virginia, when lately invaded by the French, though purposely convened, and the importance of the occasion earnestly urged upon them; considering moreover, that one principal encouragement to the French, in invading and insulting the British American dominions, was their knowledge of our disunited state, and of our weakness arising from such want of union; and that from hence different colonies were, at different times, extremely harassed, and put to great expence both of blood and treasure, who would have remained in peace, if the enemy had had cause to fear the drawing on themselves the resentment and power of the whole; the said commissioners, considering also the present incroachments of the French, and the mischievous consequences that may be expected from them, if not opposed with our force, came to an unanimous resolution,--_That an union of the colonies is absolutely necessary for their preservation_. The manner of forming and establishing this union was the next point. When it was considered, that the colonies were seldom all in equal danger at the same time, or equally near the danger, or equally sensible of it; that some of them had particular interests to manage, with which an union might interfere; and that they were extremely jealous of each other; it was thought impracticable to obtain a joint agreement of all the colonies to an union, in which the expence and burthen of defending any of them should be divided among them all; and if ever acts of assembly in all the colonies could be obtained for that purpose, yet as any colony, on the least dissatisfaction, might repeal its own act and thereby withdraw itself from the union, it would not be a stable one, or such as could be depended on: for if only one colony should, on any disgust withdraw itself, others might think it unjust and unequal that they, by continuing in the union, should be at the expence of defending a colony, which refused to bear its proportionable part, and would therefore one after another, withdraw, till the whole crumbled into its original parts. Therefore the commissioners came to another previous resolution, viz. _That it was necessary the union should be established by act of parliament_. They then proceeded to sketch out a _plan of union_, which they did in a plain and concise manner, just sufficient to show their sentiments of the kind of union that would best suit the circumstances of the colonies, be most agreeable to the people, and most effectually promote his majesty's service and the general interest of the British empire. This was respectfully sent to the assemblies of the several colonies for their consideration, and to receive such alterations and improvements as they should think fit and necessary; after which it was proposed to be transmitted to England to be perfected, and the establishment of it there humbly solicited. This was as much as the commissioners could do[3]. * * * * * II. _Reasons against partial Unions._ It was proposed by some of the commissioners, to form the colonies into two or three distinct unions; but for these reasons that proposal was dropped even by those that made it: [viz.] 1. In all cases where the strength of the whole was necessary to be used against the enemy, there would be the same difficulty in degree, to bring the several unions to unite together, as now the several colonies; and consequently the same delays on our part and advantage to the enemy. 2. Each union would separately be weaker than when joined by the whole, obliged to exert more force, be oppressed by the expence, and the enemy less deterred from attacking it. 3. Where particular colonies have _selfish views_, as New York with regard to Indian trade and lands; or are less exposed, being covered by others, as New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland; or have particular whims and prejudices against warlike measures in general, as Pensylvania, where the Quakers predominate; such colonies would have more weight in a partial union, and be better able to oppose and obstruct the measures necessary for the general good, than where they are swallowed up in the general union. 4. The Indian trade would be better regulated by the union of the whole than by partial unions. And as Canada is chiefly supported by that trade, if it could be drawn into the hands of the English (as it might be if the Indians were supplied on moderate terms, and by honest traders appointed by and acting for the public) that alone would contribute greatly to the weakening of our enemies. 5. The establishing of new colonies westward on the Ohio and the lakes (a matter of considerable importance to the increase of British trade and power, to the breaking that of the French, and to the protection and security of our present colonies,) would best be carried on by a joint union. 6. It was also thought, that by the frequent meetings-together of commissioners or representatives from all the colonies, the circumstances of the whole would be better known, and the good of the whole better provided for; and that the colonies would by this connection learn to consider themselves, not as so many independent states, but as members of the same body; and thence be more ready to afford assistance and support to each other, and to make diversions in favour even of the most distant, and to join cordially in any expedition for the benefit of all against the common enemy. These were the principal reasons and motives for forming the plan of union as it stands. To which may be added this, that as the union of the ******* The remainder of this article is lost. III. _Plan of a proposed Union of the several Colonies of Massachusett's Bay, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pensylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, for their mutual Defence and Security, and for extending the British Settlements in North America, with the Reasons and Motives for each Article of the Plan [as far as could be remembered.]_ It is proposed--That humble application be made for an act of parliament of Great Britain, by virtue of which one general government may be formed in America, including all the said colonies, within and under which government each colony may retain its present constitution, except in the particulars wherein a change may be directed by the said act, as hereafter follows[4]. PRESIDENT GENERAL, AND GRAND COUNCIL. _That the said general government be administered by a president general, to be appointed and supported by the crown; and a grand council, to be chosen by the representatives of the people of the several colonies met in their respective assemblies._ It was thought that it would be best the president general should be supported as well as appointed by the crown; that so all disputes between him and the grand council concerning his salary might be prevented; as such disputes have been frequently of mischievous consequence in particular colonies, especially in time of public danger. The quit-rents of crown-lands in America might in a short time be sufficient for this purpose.--The choice of members for the grand council is placed in the house of representatives of each government, in order to give the people a share in this new general government, as the crown has its share by the appointment of the president-general. But it being proposed by the gentlemen of the council of New York, and some other counsellors among the Commissioners, to alter the plan in this particular, and to give the governors and council of the several provinces a share in the choice of the grand council, or at least a power of approving and confirming or of disallowing the choice made by the house of representatives, it was said: "That the government or constitution proposed to be formed by the plan, consists of two branches; a president general appointed by the crown, and a council chosen by the people, or by the people's representatives, which is the same thing. "That by a subsequent article, the council chosen by the people can effect nothing without the consent of the president general appointed by the crown; the crown possesses therefore full one half of the power of this constitution. "That in the British constitution, the crown is supposed to possess but one third, the lords having their share. "That this constitution seemed rather more favorable for the crown. "That it is essential, to English liberty, [that] the subject should not be taxed but by his own consent, or the consent of his elected representatives. "That taxes to be laid and levied by this proposed constitution will be proposed and agreed to by the representatives of the people, if the plan in this particular be preserved: "But if the proposed alteration should take place, it seemed as if matters may be so managed, as that the crown shall finally have the appointment not only of the president general, but of a majority of the grand council; for seven out of eleven governors and councils are appointed by the crown: "And so the people in all the colonies would in effect be taxed by their governors. "It was therefore apprehended, that such alterations of the plan would give great dissatisfaction, and that the colonies could not be easy under such a power in governors, and such an infringement of what they take to be English liberty. "Besides, the giving a share in the choice of the grand council would not be equal with respect to all the colonies, as their constitutions differ. In some, both governor and council are appointed by the crown. In others, they are both appointed by the proprietors. In some, the people have a share in the choice of the council; in others, both government and council are wholly chosen by the people. But the house of representatives is every where chosen by the people; and therefore, placing the right of choosing the grand council in the representatives is equal with respect to all. "That the grand council is intended to represent all the several houses of representatives of the colonies, as a house of representatives doth the several towns or counties of a colony. Could all the people of a colony be consulted and unite in public measures, a house of representatives would be needless: and could all the assemblies conveniently consult and unite in general measures, the grand council would be unnecessary. "That a house of commons or the house of representatives, and the grand council, are thus alike in their nature and intention. And as it would seem improper that the king or house of lords should have a power of disallowing or appointing members of the house of commons;--so likewise, that a governor and council appointed by the crown should have a power of disallowing or appointing members of the grand council (who, in this constitution, are to be the representatives of the people.) "If the governors and councils therefore were to have a share in the choice of any that are to conduct this general government, it should seem more proper that they chose the president-general. But this being an office of great trust and importance to the nation, it was thought better to be filled by the immediate appointment of the crown. "The power proposed to be given by the plan to the grand council is only a concentration of the powers of the several assemblies in certain points for the general welfare; as the power of the president general, is of the powers of the several governors in the same points. "And as the choice therefore of the grand council by the representatives of the people, neither gives the people any new powers, nor diminishes the power of the crown, it was thought and hoped the crown would not disapprove of it." Upon the whole, the commissioners were of opinion, that the choice was most properly placed in the representatives of the people. ELECTION OF MEMBERS. _That within [___] months after the passing such act, the house of representatives, that happen to be sitting within that time, or that shall be especially for that purpose convened, may and shall choose members for the grand council, in the following proportion, that is to say,_ Massachussett's Bay 7 New Hampshire 2 Connecticut 5 Rhode Island 2 New York 4 New Jerseys 3 Pennsylvania 6 Maryland 4 Virginia 7 North Carolina 4 South Carolina 4 ---- 48 It was thought, that if the least colony was allowed two, and the others in proportion, the number would be very great and the expence heavy; and that less than two would not be convenient, as a single person, being by any accident prevented appearing at the meeting, the colony he ought to appear for would not be represented. That as the choice was not immediately popular, they would be generally men of good abilities for business, and men of reputation for integrity; and that forty-eight such men might be a number sufficient. But, though it was thought reasonable, that each colony should have a share in the representative body in some degree, according to the proportion it contributed to the general treasury: yet the proportion of wealth or power of the colonies is not to be judged by the proportion here fixed; because it was at first agreed, that the greatest colony should not have more than seven members, nor the least less than two: and the settling these proportions between these two extremes was not nicely attended to, as it would find itself, after the first election from the sums brought into the treasury, as by a subsequent article. PLACE OF FIRST MEETING. --_who shall meet for the first time at the city of Philadelphia Pensylvania, being called by the president-general as soon as conveniently may be after his appointment._ Philadelphia was named as being the nearer the centre of the colonies, where the commissioners would be well and cheaply accommodated. The high-roads, through the whole extent, are for the most part very good, in which forty or fifty miles a day may very well be and frequently are travelled. Great part of the way may likewise he gone by water. In summer time, the passages are frequently performed in a week from Charles Town to Philadelphia and New York; and from Rhode Island to New York through the Sound, in two or three days; and from New York to Philadelphia, by water and land, in two days, by stage boats and wheel-carriages that set out every other day. The journey from Charles Town to Philadelphia may likewise be facilitated by boats running up Chesapeak Bay three hundred miles. But if the whole journey be performed on horseback, the most distant members (viz. the two from New Hampshire and from South Carolina) may probably render themselves at Philadelphia in fifteen or twenty days; the majority may be there in much less time. NEW ELECTION. _That there shall be a new election of the members of the grand council every three years; and on the death or resignation of any member, his place shall be supplied by a new choice at the next silting of the assembly of the colony he represented._ Some colonies have annual assemblies, some continue during a governor's pleasure; three years was thought a reasonable medium, as affording a new member time to improve himself in the business, and to act after such improvement; and yet giving opportunities, frequent enough, to change him, if he has misbehaved. PROPORTION OF MEMBERS AFTER THE FIRST THREE YEARS. _That after the first three years, when the proportion of money arising out of each colony to the general treasury can be known, the number of members to be chosen for each colony shall from time to time, in all ensuing elections, be regulated by that proportion (yet so as that the number to be chosen by any one province be not more than seven, nor less than two.)_ By a subsequent article it is proposed, that the general council shall lay and levy such general duties, as to them may appear most equal and least burthensome, &c. Suppose, for instance, they lay a small duty or excise on some commodity imported into or made in the colonies, and pretty generally and equally used in all of them; as rum perhaps, or wine; the yearly produce of this duty or excise, if fairly collected, would be in some colonies greater, in others less, as the colonies are greater or smaller. When the collector's accounts are brought in, the proportions will appear; and from them it is proposed to regulate the proportion of representatives to be chosen at the next general election, within the limits however of seven and two. These numbers may therefore vary in course of years, as the colonies may in the growth and increase of people. And thus the quota of tax from each colony would naturally vary with its circumstances; thereby preventing all disputes and dissatisfactions about the just proportions due from each; which might otherwise produce pernicious consequences, and destroy the harmony and good agreement that ought to subsist between the several parts of the union. MEETINGS OF THE GRAND COUNCIL, AND CALL. _That the grand council shall meet once in every year, and oftener if occasion require, at such time and place as they shall adjourn to at the last preceding meeting, or as they shall be called to meet at by the president general on any emergency; he having first obtained in writing the consent of seven of the members to such call, and sent due and timely notice to the whole._ It was thought, in establishing and governing new colonies or settlements, regulating Indian trade, Indian treaties, &c. there would be every year sufficient business arise to require at least one meeting, and at such meeting many things might be suggested for the benefit of all the colonies. This annual meeting may either be at a time or place certain, to be fixed by the president general and grand council at their first meeting; or left at liberty, to be at such time and place as they shall adjourn to, or be called to meet at by the president general. In time of war it seems convenient, that the meeting should be in that colony, which is nearest the seat of action. The power of calling them on any emergency seemed necessary to be vested in the president general; but that such power might not be wantonly used to harass the members, and oblige them to make frequent long journies to little purpose, the consent of seven at least to such call was supposed a convenient guard. CONTINUANCE. _That the grand council have power to choose their speaker; and shall neither be dissolved, prorogued, nor continued sitting longer than six weeks at one time, without their own consent or the special command of the crown._ The speaker should be presented for approbation; it being convenient, to prevent misunderstandings and disgusts, that the mouth of the council should be a person agreeable, if possible, both to the council and president general. Governors have sometimes wantonly exercised the power of proroguing or continuing the sessions of assemblies, merely to harass the members and compel a compliance; and sometimes dissolve them on slight disgusts. This it was feared might be done by the president general, if not provided against: and the inconvenience and hardship would be greater in the general government than in particular colonies, in proportion to the distance the members must be from home, during sittings, and the long journies some of them must necessarily take. MEMBERS' ALLOWANCE. _That the members of the grand council shall be allowed for their service ten shillings sterling per diem, during their session and journey to and from the place of meeting; twenty miles to be reckoned a day's journey._ It was thought proper to allow _some_ wages, lest the expence might deter some suitable persons from the service;--and not to allow _too great_ wages, lest unsuitable persons should be tempted to cabal for the employment, for the sake of gain. Twenty miles was set down as a day's journey, to allow for accidental hinderances on the road, and the greater expences of travelling than residing at the place of meeting. ASSENT OF PRESIDENT GENERAL AND HIS DUTY. _That the assent of the president general be requisite to all acts of the grand council; and that it be his office and duty to cause them to be carried into execution._ The assent of the president general, to all acts of the grand council was made necessary, in order to give the crown its due share of influence in this government, and connect it with that of Great Britain. The president general, besides one half of the legislative power, hath in his hands the whole executive power. POWER OF PRESIDENT GENERAL AND GRAND COUNCIL. TREATIES OF PEACE AND WAR. _That the president general, with the advice of the grand council, hold or direct all Indian treaties in which the general interest of the colonies may be concerned; and make peace or declare war with Indian nations._ The power of making peace or war with Indian nations is at present supposed to be in every colony, and is expressly granted to some by charter, so that no new power is hereby intended to be granted to the colonies. But as, in consequence of this power, one colony might make peace with a nation that another was justly engaged in war with; or make war on slight occasions without the concurrence or approbation of neighbouring colonies, greatly endangered by it; or make particular treaties of neutrality in case of a general war, to their own private advantage in trade, by supplying the common enemy; of all which there have been instances--it was thought better, to have all treaties of a general nature under a general direction; that so the good of the whole may be consulted and provided for. INDIAN TRADE. _That they make such laws as they judge necessary for regulating all Indian trade._ Many quarrels and wars have arisen between the colonies and Indian nations, through the bad conduct of traders, who cheat the Indians after making them drunk, &c. to the great expence of the colonies both in blood and treasure. Particular colonies are so interested in the trade as not to be willing to admit such a regulation as might be best for the whole; and therefore it was thought best under a general direction. INDIAN PURCHASES. _That they make all purchases, from Indians for the crown, of lands not now within the bounds of particular colonies, or that shall not be within their bounds when some of them are reduced to more convenient dimensions._ Purchases from the Indians, made by private persons, have been attended with many inconveniences. They have frequently interfered, and occasioned uncertainty of titles, many disputes and expensive law-suits, and hindered the settlement of the land so disputed. Then the Indians have been cheated by such private purchases, and discontent and wars have been the consequence. These would be prevented by public fair purchases. Several of the colony charters in America extend their bounds to the South Sea, which may be perhaps three or four thousand miles in length to one or two hundred miles in breadth. It is supposed they must in time be reduced to dimensions more convenient for the common purposes of government[5]. Very little of the land in those grants is yet purchased of the Indians. It is much cheaper to purchase of them, than to take and maintain the possession by force: for they are generally very reasonable in their demands for land[6]; and the expence of guarding a large frontier against their incursions is vastly great; because all must be guarded, and always guarded, as we know not where or when _to expect them_[7]. NEW SETTLEMENTS. _That they make new settlements on such purchases, by granting lands in the king's name, reserving a quit-rent to the crown for the use of the general treasury._ It is supposed better that there should be one purchaser than many; and that the crown should be that purchaser, or the union in the name of the crown. By this means the bargains may be more easily made, the price not inhanced by numerous bidders, future disputes about private Indian purchases, and monopolies of vast tracts to particular persons (which are prejudicial to the settlement and peopling of country) prevented; and the land being again granted in small tracts to the settlers, the quit-rents reserved may in time become a fund for support of government, for defence of the country, ease of taxes, &c. Strong forts on the lakes, the Ohio, &c. may, at the same time they secure our present frontiers, serve to defend new colonies settled under their protection; and such colonies would also mutually defend and support such forts, and better secure the friendship of the far Indians. A particular colony has scarce strength enough to extend itself by new settlements, at so great a distance from the old: but the joint force of the union might suddenly establish a new colony or two in those parts, or extend an old colony to particular passes, greatly to the security of our present frontiers, increase of trade and people, breaking off the French communication between Canada and Louisiana, and speedy settlement of the intermediate lands. The power of settling new colonies is therefore thought a valuable part of the plan, and what cannot so well be executed by two unions as by one. LAWS TO GOVERN THEM. _That they make laws for regulating and governing such new settlements, till the crown shall think fit to form them into particular governments._ The making of laws suitable for the new colonies, it was thought, would be properly vested in the president general and grand council; under whose protection they will at first necessarily be, and who would be well acquainted with their circumstances, as having settled them. When they are become sufficiently populous, they may by the crown be formed into complete and distinct governments. The appointment of a sub-president by the crown, to take place in case of the death or absence of the president general, would perhaps be an improvement of the plan; and if all the governors of particular provinces were to be formed into a standing council of state, for the advice and assistance of the president general, it might be another considerable improvement. RAISE SOLDIERS AND EQUIP VESSELS, &C. _That they raise and pay soldiers and build forts for the defence of any of the colonies, and equip vessels of force to guard the coasts and protect the trade on the ocean, lakes[8], or great rivers; but they shall not impress men in any colony, without the consent of the legislature._ It was thought, that quotas of men, to be raised and paid by the several colonies, and joined for any public service, could not always be got together with the necessary expedition. For instance, suppose one thousand men should be wanted in New Hampshire on any emergency; to fetch them by fifties and hundreds out of every colony, as far as South Carolina, would be inconvenient, the transportation chargeable and the occasion perhaps passed before they could be assembled; and therefore, that it would be best to raise them (by offering bounty-money and pay) near the place where they would be wanted, to be discharged again when the service should be over. Particular colonies are at present backward to build forts at their own expence, which they say will be equally useful to their neighbouring colonies; who refuse to join, on a presumption that such forts _will_ be built and kept up, though they contribute nothing. This unjust conduct weakens the whole; but the forts being for the good of the whole, it was thought best they should be built and maintained by the whole, out of the common treasury. In the time of war, small vessels of force are sometimes necessary in the colonies to scour the coast of small privateers. These being provided by the union will be an advantage in turn to the colonies which are situated on the sea, and whose frontiers on the land-side, being covered by other colonies, reap but little immediate benefit from the advanced forts. POWER TO MAKE LAWS, LAY DUTIES, &C. _That for these purposes they have power to make laws, and lay and levy such general duties, imports, or taxes, as to them shall appear most equal and just (considering the ability and other circumstances of the inhabitants in the several colonies,) and such as may be collected with the least inconvenience to the people; rather discouraging luxury, than loading industry with unnecessary burthens._ The laws which the president general and grand council are impowered to make _are such only_ as shall be necessary for the government of the settlements; the raising, regulating, and paying soldiers for the general service; the regulating of Indian trade; and laying and collecting the general duties and taxes. (They should also have a power to restrain the exportation of provisions to the enemy from any of the colonies, on particular occasions, in time of war.) But is it not intended that they may interfere with the constitution and government of the particular colonies; who are to be left to their own laws, and to lay, levy, and apply their own taxes as before. GENERAL TREASURER AND PARTICULAR TREASURER. _That they may appoint a general treasurer and particular treasurer in each government when necessary; and from time to time may order the sums in the treasuries of each government into the general treasury; or draw on them for special payments, as they find most convenient._ The treasurers here meant are only for the general funds, and not for the particular funds of each colony, which remain in the hands of their own treasurers at their own disposal. MONEY HOW TO ISSUE. _Yet no money to issue but by joint orders of the president general and grand council; except where sums have been appropriated to particular purposes, and the president general is previously impowered by an act to draw for such sums._ To prevent misapplication of the money, or even application that might be dissatisfactory to the crown or the people, it was thought necessary, to join the president general and grand council in all issues of money. ACCOUNTS. _That the general accounts shall be yearly settled and reported to the several assemblies._ By communicating the accounts yearly to each assembly, they will be satisfied of the prudent and honest conduct of their representatives in the grand council. QUORUM. _That a quorum of the grand council, impowered to act with the president general, do consist of twenty-five members; among whom there shall be one or more from a majority of the colonies._ The quorum seems large, but it was thought it would not be satisfactory to the colonies in general, to have matters of importance to the whole transacted by a smaller number, or even by this number of twenty-five, unless there were among them one at least from a majority of the colonies; because otherwise, the whole quorum being made up of members from three or four colonies at one end of the union, something might be done that would not be equal with respect to the rest, and thence dissatisfactions and discords might rise to the prejudice of the whole. LAWS TO BE TRANSMITTED. _That the laws made by them for the purposes aforesaid shall not be repugnant, but, as near as may be, agreeable to the laws of England, and shall be transmitted to the king in council for approbation as soon as may be after their passing; and if not disapproved within three years after presentation, to remain in force._ This was thought necessary for the satisfaction of the crown, to preserve the connection of the parts of the British empire with the whole, of the members with the head, and to induce greater care and circumspection in making of the laws, that they be good in themselves and for the general benefit. DEATH OF THE PRESIDENT GENERAL. _That in case of the death of the president general, the speaker of the grand council for the time being shall succeed, and be vested with the same powers and authorities, to continue till the king's pleasure be known._ It might be better, perhaps, as was said before, if the crown appointed a vice president, to take place on the death or absence of the president general; for so we should be more sure of a suitable person at the head of the colonies. On the death or absence of both, the speaker to take place (or rather the eldest king's-governor) till his majesty's pleasure be known. OFFICERS HOW APPOINTED. _That all military commission officers, whether for land or sea-service, to act under this general constitution, shall be nominated by the president general; but the approbation of the grand council is to be obtained, before they receive their commissions. And all civil officers are to be nominated by the grand council, and to receive the president general's approbation before they officiate._ It was thought it might be very prejudicial to the service, to have officers appointed unknown to the people, or unacceptable, the generality of Americans serving willingly under officers they know: and not caring to engage in the service under strangers, or such as are often appointed by governors through favour or interest. The service here meant, is not the stated settled service in standing troops; but any sudden and short service, either for defence of our own colonies, or invading the enemies country; (such as, the expedition to Cape Breton in the last war; in which many substantial farmers and tradesmen engaged as common soldiers under officers of their own country, for whom they had an esteem and affection; who would not have engaged in a standing army, or under officers from England.)--It was therefore thought best, to give the council the power of approving the officers, which the people will look upon as a great security of their being good men. And without some such provision as this, it was thought the expence of engaging men in the service on any emergency would be much greater, and the number who could be induced to engage much less; and that therefore it would be most for the king's service and general benefit of the nation, that the prerogative should relax a little in this particular throughout all the colonies in America; as it had already done much more in the charters of some particular colonies, viz. Connecticut and Rhode Island. The civil officers will be chiefly treasurers and collectors of taxes; and the suitable persons are most likely to be known by the council. VACANCIES HOW SUPPLIED. _But in case of vacancy by death, or removal of any officer civil or military under this constitution, the governor of the province in which such vacancy happens may appoint, till the pleasure of the president general and grand council can be known._ The vacancies were thought best supplied by the governors in each province, till a new appointment can be regularly made; otherwise the service might suffer before the meeting of the president general and grand council. EACH COLONY MAY DEFEND ITSELF ON EMERGENCY, &C. _That the particular military as well as civil establishments in each colony remain in their present state, the general constitution notwithstanding; and that on sudden emergencies any colony may defend itself, and lay the accounts of expence thence arising before the president general and general council, who may allow and order payment of the same, as far as they judge such accounts just and reasonable._ Otherwise the union of the whole would weaken the parts, contrary to the design of the union. The accounts are to be judged of by the president general and grand council, and allowed if found reasonable: this was thought necessary to encourage colonies to defend themselves, as the expence would be light when borne by the whole; and also to check imprudent and lavish expence in such defences.[9] FOOTNOTES: [1] The reader must be informed here, that this plan was intended for all the colonies; but, commissioners from some of them not attending (from causes which I cannot specify) their consent to it was not, in this respect, universally expressed. Governor Pownall, however, says, "That he had an opportunity of conversing with, and knowing the sentiments of the commissioners appointed by their respective provinces, to attend this congress, to which they were called by the crown; of learning from their experience and judgment, the actual state of the American business and interest; and of hearing amongst them, the grounds and reasons of that American union, which they then had under deliberation, and transmitted the plan of to England;" and he adds, in another place, "that the sentiments of our colonies were collected in an authentic manner on this subject in the plan proposed by Dr. Franklin, and unanimously agreed to in congress." See Governor Pownall's Administration of the British Colonies. Vol. I. p. 13. Edit. 4, 1774, and Vol. II. p. 86. B. V. [2] "Mr. [since Governor] Hutchinson was one of the commissioners for Massachusetts Bay." Governor Pownall as above, Vol. II. p. 144. "Thomas Pownall, Esq.; brother to John Pownall, Esq.; one of the secretaries to the board of trade, and afterwards Governor of the Massachusetts, was upon the spot." History of the British Empire in North America, p. 25. B. V. [3] Dr. Davenant was so well convinced of the expediency of an union of the colonies, that he recites, at full length, a plan contrived, as he says, with good judgment for the purpose. Davenant, Vol. I. p. 40, 41, of Sir C. Whitworth's Edition. B. V. [4] The reader may perceive, by the difference of the type, which is the text of the plan, and which the _reasons and motives_ mentioned in the title. They are thus consolidated for his convenience. The editor has taken one or two farther liberties in _transposing_ these Albany papers; but the sense remains as before. B. V. [5] Mr. Baron M----, in page 200 of his account of the Proceedings at Quebec, for obtaining an Assembly, has the following hint: "The vast enlargement of the province of Quebec by adding to it a new territory that contains, according to Lord Hillsborough's estimation, of it, five hundred and eleven millions of acres (that is, more land than Spain, Italy, France, and Germany put together, and most of it good land) is a measure that would require an ample discussion."----That the reader may not suspect that these dimensions were convenient for uncommon purposes of government, I shall quote the motives assigned upon this occasion by the act regulating the government of Quebec. "By the arrangements made by the royal proclamation, a very large extent of [outlying] country, within which there were several colonies and settlements of the subjects of France, who claimed to remain therein under the faith of the said treaty, was left without any provision being made for the administration of civil government therein:" _i. e._ a few Indian traders were a pretext for this appropriation of a tract of country, which, according to the minister's estimate, was more than thirteen times larger than England and Wales united, nearly one hundred and twenty eight times larger than Jamaica, almost one-eighth part of Europe, and considerably more than one-thirty-eighth part of the whole habitable earth (comparing it with the several calculations in The Political Survey of Great Britain, by Dr. Campbell, and in that of Jamaica, by Mr. Long.) "Now _all_ the inhabitants of the province of Quebec," says this very act, "amounted at the conquest to above sixty-five thousand [only,] professing the religion of the church of Rome, and enjoying an established form of constitution and system of laws." B.V. [6] "Dr. Franklin (says Mr. Kalm the Swede,) and several other gentlemen, frequently told me, that a powerful Indian, who possessed Rhode Island, had sold it to the English for a pair of spectacles: it is large enough for a prince's domain, and makes a peculiar government at present. This Indian knew how to set a true value upon a pair of spectacles: for undoubtedly if those glasses were not so plentiful, and only a few of them could be found, they would, on account of their great use, bear the same price with diamonds." See Kalm's Travels into North America, Vol. I. p. 386, 387. "At the time when the Swedes first arrived, they bought land at a very inconsiderable price. For a piece of baize, or a pot full of brandy, or the like, they could get a piece of ground, which at present would be worth more than 290_l._ sterling." Ib. Vol. II. p. 118.--The truth is, that the Indians considered their lands as mere _hunting-manors_, and not as farms. B. V. [7] To guard against the incursions of the Indians, a plan was sent over to America (and, as I think, by authority) suggesting the expediency of clearing away the woods and bushes from a tract of land, a mile in breadth, and extending along the back of the colonies. Unfortunately, besides the large expence of this undertaking (which, if one acre cost 2_l._ sterling, and six hundred and forty acres make a square mile, is 128,000_l._ _first cost_ for every 100 miles) it was forgotten, that the Indians, like other people, knew the difference between day and night, and that a mile of advance and another of retreat were nothing to the celerity of such an enemy.--This plan, it is said, was the work of Dean Tucker; and possibly might contain many other particulars. The plans of Doctor Franklin and Governor Pownall appear much more feasible. B. V. [8] "According to a plan which had been proposed by Governor Pownall, and approved of by congress."--Administration of the Colonies, Vol. II. p. 143. B. V. [9] This plan of union, it will appear from the next page, was rejected; and another proposed to be substituted by the English minister, which had for its chief object, the taking power from the _people_ in the colonies in order to give it to the _crown_. B. V. ALBANY PAPERS CONTINUED. I. LETTER _to Governor Shirley, concerning the Imposition of direct Taxes upon the Colonies, without their Consent_.[10] _Tuesday Morning._ SIR, I return you the loose Sheets of the plan, with thanks to your excellency for communicating them. I apprehend, that excluding the people of the colonies from all share in the choice of the grand council will give extreme dissatisfaction; as well as the taxing them by act of parliament, where they have no representation. It is very possible, that this general government might be as well and faithfully administered without the people, as with them; but where heavy burdens are to be laid upon them, it has been found useful, to make it as much as possible their own act; for they bear better, when they have, or think they have, some share in the direction; and when any public measures are generally grievous, or even distasteful, to the people, the wheels of government move more heavily. FOOTNOTE: [10] These letters to Governor Shirley first appeared in the London Chronicle for Feb. 6-8, 1766, with an introduction signed _A Lover of Britain_. In the beginning of the year 1776, they were republished in Almon's Remembrancer, with an additional prefatory piece, under the signature of _A Mourner over our Calamities_.--I shall explain the subject of them in the words of one of these writers. "The Albany Plan of Union was sent to the government here for approbation: had it been approved and established by authority from hence, English America thought itself sufficiently able to cope with the French, without other assistance; several of the colonies having alone, in former wars, withstood the whole power of the enemy, unassisted not only by the mother-country, but by any of the neighbouring provinces.--The plan, however, was not approved here; but a _New one_ was formed instead of it; by which it was proposed, that 'the governors of all the colonies, attended by one or two members of their respective councils, should assemble, and concert measures for the defence of the whole, erect forts where they judged proper, and raise what troops they thought necessary, with power to draw on the treasury here for the sums that should be wanted, and the treasury to be reimbursed by a _tax laid on the colonies by act of parliament_.'--This _New plan_ being communicated by Governor Shirley to a gentleman of Philadelphia (Dr. Franklin) then in Boston (who hath very eminently distinguished himself, before and since that time, in the literary world, and whose judgment, penetration, and candor, as well as his readiness and ability to suggest, forward, or carry into execution, every scheme of public utility, hath most deservedly endeared him, not only to our fellow-subjects throughout the continent of North America, but to his numberless friends on this side the Atlantic) occasioned the following remarks from him, which perhaps may contribute in some degree to its being laid aside. As they very particularly show the then sentiments of the Americans on the subject of a parliamentary tax, before the French power in that country was subjected, and before the late restraints on their commerce; they satisfy me, and I hope they will convince your readers (contrary to what has been advanced by some of your correspondents) that those particulars have had no share in producing the present opposition to such a tax, nor in disturbances occasioned by it, which these papers indeed do almost prophetically foretel. For this purpose, having accidentally fallen into my hands, they are communicated to you by one who is, not _partially_, but in the _most enlarged sense_, "A LOVER OF BRITAIN." B. V. II. LETTER _to the same; concerning direct Taxes in the Colonies imposed without Consent, indirect Taxes, and the Albany Plan of Union_. _Wednesday Morning._ SIR, I mentioned it yesterday to your excellency as my opinion, that excluding the people of the colonies from all share in the choice of the grand council would probably give extreme dissatisfaction, as well as the taxing them by act of parliament, where they have no representation. In matters of general concern to the people, and especially where burdens are to be laid upon them; it is of use to consider, as well what they will be apt to think and say, as what they ought to think: I shall therefore, as your excellency requires it of me, briefly mention what of either kind occurs to me on this occasion. First, they will say, and perhaps with justice, that the body of the people in the colonies are as loyal, and as firmly attached to the present constitution, and reigning family, as any subjects in the king's dominions. That there is no reason to doubt the readiness and willingness of the representatives they may choose, to grant from time to time such supplies for the defence of the country, as shall be judged necessary, so far as their abilities will allow. That the people in the colonies, who are to feel the immediate mischiefs of invasion and conquest by an enemy, in the loss of their estates, lives, and liberties, are likely to be better judges of the quantity of forces necessary to be raised and maintained, forts to be built and supported, and of their own abilities to bear the expence than the parliament of England, at so great a distance. That governors often come to the colonies merely to make fortunes, with which they intend to return to Britain; are not always men of the best abilities or integrity; have many of them no estates here, nor any natural connections with us, that should make them heartily concerned for our welfare; and might possibly be fond of raising and keeping up more forces than necessary, from the profits accruing to themselves, and to make provision for their friends and dependents. That the counsellors in most of the colonies, being appointed by the crown, on the recommendation of governors, are often persons of small estates, frequently dependent on the governors for offices, and therefore too much under influence. That there is therefore great reason to be jealous of a power, in such governors and councils, to raise such sums as they shall judge necessary, by drafts on the lords of the treasury, to be afterwards laid on the colonies by act of parliament, and paid by the people here; since they might abuse it, by projecting useless expeditions, harassing the people, and taking them from their labour to execute such projects, merely to create offices and employments, and gratify their dependents, and divide profits. That the parliament of England is at a great distance, subject to be misinformed and misled by such governors and councils, whose united interests might probably secure them against the effect of any complaint from hence. That it is supposed an undoubted right of Englishmen, not to be taxed but by their own consent, given through their representatives: That the colonies have no representatives in parliament. That to propose taxing them by parliament, and refuse them the liberty of choosing a representative council, to meet in the colonies, and consider and judge of the necessity of any general tax, and the quantum, shows a suspicion of their loyalty to the crown, or of their regard for their country, or of their common sense and understanding; which they have not deserved. That compelling the colonies to pay money without their consent, would be rather like raising contributions in an enemy's country, than taxing of Englishmen for their own public benefit. That it would be treating them as a conquered people, and not as true British subjects. That a tax laid by the representatives of the colonies might be easily lessened as the occasions should lessen; but, being once laid by parliament under the influence of the representations made by governors, would probably be kept up, and continued for the benefit of governors; to the grievous burthen and discontentment of the colonies, and prevention of their growth and increase. That a power in governors, to march the inhabitants from one end of the British and French colonies to the other, being a country of at least one thousand five hundred miles long, without the approbation or the consent of their representatives first obtained to such expeditions, might be grievous and ruinous to the people, and would put them upon a footing with the subjects of France in Canada, that now groan under such oppression from their governor, who for two years past has harrassed them with long and destructive marches to Ohio. That if the colonies in a body may be well governed by governors and councils appointed by the crown, without representatives; particular colonies may as well, or better be so governed; a tax may be laid upon them all by act of parliament for support of government; and their assemblies may be dismissed as an useless part of the constitution. That the powers proposed by the Albany plan of union, to be vested in a grand council representative of the people, even with regard to military matters, are not so great, as those which the colonies of Rhode Island and Connecticut are entrusted with by their charters, and have never abused; for by this plan, the president general is appointed by the crown, and controls all by his negative; but in those governments, the people choose the governor, and yet allow him no negative. That the British colonies bordering on the French are properly frontiers of the British empire; and the frontiers of an empire are properly defended at the joint expence of the body of the people in such empire:--it would now be thought hard by act of parliament to oblige the Cinque ports or sea coasts of Britain, to maintain the whole navy, because they are more immediately defended by it, not allowing them at the same time a vote in choosing members of the parliament; and, as the frontiers of America bear the expence of their own defence, it seems hard to allow them no share in voting the money, judging of the necessity and sum, or advising the measures. That besides the taxes necessary for the defence of the frontiers, the colonies pay yearly great sums to the mother-country unnoticed:--for 1. Taxes paid in Britain by the landholder or artificer must enter into and increase the price of the produce of land and manufactures made of it; and great part of this is paid by consumers in the colonies, who thereby pay a considerable part of the British taxes. 2. We are restrained in our trade with foreign nations; and where we could be supplied with any manufacture cheaper from them, but must buy the same dearer from Britain, the difference of price is a clear tax to Britain. 3. We are obliged to carry a great part of our produce directly to Britain; and where the duties laid upon it lessen its price to the planter, or it sells for less than it would in foreign markets, the difference is a tax paid to Britain. 4. Some manufactures we could make, but are forbidden, and must take them of British merchants: the whole price is a tax paid to Britain. 5. By our greatly encreasing the demand and consumption of British manufactures, their price is considerably raised of late years; the advantage is clear profit to Britain, and enables its people better to pay great taxes; and much of it being paid by us, is clear tax to Britain. 6. In short, as we are not suffered to regulate our trade, and restrain the importation and consumption of British superfluities (as Britain can the consumption of foreign superfluities) our whole wealth centers finally amongst the merchants and inhabitants of Britain; and if we make them richer, and enable them better to pay their taxes, it is nearly the same as being taxed ourselves, and equally beneficial to the crown. These kind of secondary taxes, however, we do not complain of, though we have no share in the laying or disposing of them: but to pay immediate heavy taxes, in the laying, appropriation, and disposition of which, we have no part, and which perhaps we may know to be as unnecessary as grievous, must seem hard measure to Englishmen, who cannot conceive, that by hazarding their lives and fortunes in subduing and settling new countries, extending the dominion, and increasing the commerce of the mother-nation, they have forfeited the native rights of Britons; which they think ought rather to be given to them, as due to such merit, if they had been before in a state of slavery. -- -- -- These, and such kinds of things as these, I apprehend, will be thought and said by the people, if the proposed alteration of the Albany plan should take place. Then the administration of the board of governors and council so appointed, not having the representative body of the people to approve and unite in its measures, and conciliate the minds of the people to them, will probably become suspected and odious; dangerous animosities and feuds will arise between the governors and governed; and every thing go into confusion. Perhaps I am too apprehensive in this matter; but having freely given my opinion and reasons, your excellency can judge better than I, whether there be any weight in them, and the shortness of the time allowed me will I hope in some degree excuse the imperfections of this scrawl. With the greatest respect and fidelity, I have the honour to be your excellency's most obedient, and most humble servant, B. FRANKLIN. III. LETTER _to the same, on the Subject of uniting the Colonies more intimately with Great Britain, by allowing them Representatives in Parliament_. _Boston, Dec. 22, 1754._ SIR, Since the conversation your excellency was pleased to honour me with, on the subject of _uniting the colonies_ more intimately with Great Britain, by allowing them _representatives in parliament_, I have something further considered that matter, and am of opinion, that such an union would be very acceptable to the colonies, provided they had a reasonable number of representatives allowed them; and that all the old acts of parliament restraining the trade or cramping the manufactures of the colonies be at the same time repealed, and the British subjects _on this side the water_ put, in those respects, on the same footing with those in Great Britain, till the new parliament, representing the whole, shall think it for the interest of the whole to re-enact some or all of them: it is not that I imagine so many representatives will be allowed the colonies, as to have any great weight by their numbers; but I think there might be sufficient to occasion those laws to be better and more impartially considered, and perhaps to overcome the interest of a petty corporation, or of any particular set of artificers or traders in England, who heretofore seem, in some instances, to have been more regarded than all the colonies, or than was consistent with the general interest, or best natural good. I think too, that the government of the colonies by a parliament, in which they are fairly represented, would be vastly more agreeable to the people, than the method lately attempted to be introduced by royal instruction; as well as more agreeable to the nature of an English constitution, and to English liberty; and that such laws, as now seem to bear hard on the colonies, would (when judged by such a parliament for the best interest of the whole) be more cheerfully submitted to, and more easily executed. I should hope too, that by such an union, the people of Great Britain, and the people of the colonies, would learn to consider themselves, as not belonging to different communities with different interest, but to one community with one interest; which I imagine would contribute to strengthen the whole, and greatly lessen the danger of future separations. It is, I suppose, agreed to be the general interest of any state, that its people be numerous and rich; men enow to fight in its defence, and enow to pay sufficient taxes to defray the charge; for these circumstances tend to the security of the state, and its protection from foreign power. But it seems not of so much importance, whether the fighting be done by John or Thomas, or the tax paid by William or Charles. The iron manufacture employs and enriches British subjects, but is it of any importance to the state, whether the manufacturer lives at Birmingham or Sheffield, or both; since they are still within its bounds, and their wealth and persons still at its command? Could the Goodwin Sands be laid dry by banks, and land equal to a large country thereby gained to England, and presently filled with English inhabitants, would it be right to deprive such inhabitants of the common privileges enjoyed by other Englishmen, the right of vending their produce in the same ports, or of making their own shoes; because a merchant or a shoemaker, living on the old land, might fancy it more for his advantage to trade or make shoes for them? Would this be right, even if the land were gained at the expence of the state? And would it not seem less right, if the charge and labour of gaining the additional territory to Britain had been borne by the settlers themselves? and would not the hardship appear yet greater, if the people of the new country should be allowed no representatives in the parliament enacting such impositions? Now I look on the colonies as so many countries gained to Great Britain, and more advantageous to it, than if they had been gained out of the seas around its coasts, and joined to its lands; for being in different climates, they afford greater variety of produce, and materials for more manufactures; and being separated by the ocean, they increase much more its shipping and seamen: and, since they are all included in the British empire, which has only extended itself by their means; and the strength and wealth of the parts is the strength and wealth of the whole; what imports it to the general state, whether a merchant, a smith, or a hatter, grow rich in Old or New England? and if, through increase of people, two smiths are wanted for one employed before, why may not the _new_ smith be allowed to live and thrive in the _new_ country, as well as the _old_ one in the _old_? In fine, why should the countenance of a state be _partially_ afforded to its people, unless it be most in favour of those who have most merit? and if there be any difference, those who have most contributed to enlarge Britain's empire and commerce, increase her strength, her wealth, and the numbers of her people, at the risque of their own lives and private fortunes in new and strange countries, methinks ought rather to expect some preference. With the greatest respect and esteem, I have the honour to be Your Excellency's most obedient and humble Servant, B. FRANKLIN. _Plan for settling two Western Colonies in North America, with Reasons for the Plan, 1754[11]._ The great country back of the Apalachian mountains, on both sides the Ohio, and between that river and the lakes is now well known, both to the English and French, to be one of the finest in North America, for the extreme richness and fertility of the land; the healthy temperature of the air, and mildness of the climate; the plenty of hunting, fishing, and fowling; the facility of trade with the Indians; and the vast convenience of inland navigation or water-carriage by the lakes and great rivers, many hundred of leagues around. From these natural advantages it must undoubtedly (perhaps in less than another century) become a populous and powerful dominion; and a great accession of power, either to England or France. The French are now making open encroachments on these territories, in defiance of our known rights; and, if we longer delay to settle that country, and suffer them to possess it,--these _inconveniences and mischiefs_ will probably follow: 1. Our people, being confined to the country between the sea and the mountains, cannot much more increase in number; people increasing in proportion to their room and means of subsistence. (See the Observations on the Increase of Mankind, &c. Vol. II.) 2. The French will increase much more, by that acquired room and plenty of subsistence, and become a great people behind us. 3. Many of our debtors, and loose English people, our German servants, and slaves, will probably desert to them, and increase their numbers and strength, to the lessening and weakening of ours. 4. They will cut us off from all commerce and alliance with the western Indians, to the great prejudice of Britain, by preventing the sale and consumption of its manufactures. 5. They will both in time of peace and war (as they have always done against New England) set the Indians on to harrass our frontiers, kill and scalp our people, and drive in the advanced settlers; and so, in preventing our obtaining more subsistence by cultivating of new lands, they discourage our marriages, and keep our people from increasing; thus (if the expression may be allowed) killing thousands of our children before they are born. -- -- -- If two strong colonies of English were settled between the Ohio and lake Erie, in the places hereafter to be mentioned,--these advantages might be expected: 1. They would be a great security to the frontiers of our other colonies; by preventing the incursions of the French and French Indians of Canada, on the back parts of Pensylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas; and the frontiers of such new colonies would be much more easily defended, than those of the colonies last mentioned now can be, as will appear hereafter. 2. The dreaded junction of the French settlements in Canada with those of Louisiana would be prevented. 3. In case of a war, it would be easy, from those new colonies, to annoy Louisiana, by going down the Ohio and Mississippi; and the southern part of Canada, by sailing over the lakes; and thereby confine the French within narrower limits. 4. We should secure the friendship and trade of the Miamis or Twigtwees (a numerous people, consisting of many tribes, inhabiting the country between the west end of lake Erie, and the south end of lake Hurons, and the Ohio) who are at present dissatisfied with the French, and fond of the English, and would gladly encourage and protect an infant English settlement in or near their country, as some of their chiefs have declared to the writer of this memoir. Further, by means of the lakes, the Ohio, and the Mississippi, our trade might be extended through a vast country, among many numerous and distant nations, greatly to the benefit of Britain. 5. The settlement of all the intermediate lands, between the present frontiers of our colonies on one side, and the lakes and Mississippi on the other, would be facilitated and speedily executed, to the great increase of Englishmen, English trade, and English power. The grants to most of the colonies are of long narrow slips of land, extending west from the Atlantic to the South Sea. They are much too long for their breadth; the extremes at too great a distance; and therefore unfit to be continued under their present dimensions. Several of the old colonies may conveniently be limited westward by the Allegeny or Apalachian mountains; and new colonies formed west of those mountains. A single old colony does not seem strong enough to extend itself otherwise than inch by inch: it cannot venture a settlement far distant from the main body, being unable to support it: but if the colonies were united under one governor-general and grand council, agreeable to the Albany plan, they might easily, by their joint force, establish one or more new colonies, whenever they should judge it necessary or advantageous to the interest of the whole. But if such union should not take place, it is proposed that two charters be granted, _each_ for some considerable part of the lands west of Pensylvania and the Virginian mountains, to a number of the nobility and gentry of Britain; with such Americans as shall join them in contributing to the settlement of those lands, either by paying a proportion of the expence of making such settlements, or by actually going thither in person, and settling themselves and families. That by such charters it be granted, that every actual settler be intitled to a tract of [___] acres for himself, and [___] acres for every poll in the family he carries with him; and that every contributor of [___] guineas be intitled to a quantity of acres, equal to the share of a single settler, for every such sum of [___] guineas contributed and paid to the colony treasurer; a contributor for [___] shares to have an additional share _gratis_; that settlers may likewise be contributors, and have right of land in both capacities. That as many and as great privileges and powers of government be granted to the contributors and settlers, as his majesty in his wisdom shall think most fit for their benefit and encouragement, consistent with the general good of the British empire; for extraordinary privileges and liberties, with lands on easy terms, are strong inducements to people to hazard their persons and fortunes in settling new countries; and such powers of government as (though suitable to the circumstances, and fit to be trusted with an infant colony) might be judged unfit, when it becomes populous and powerful; these might be granted for a term only; as the choice of their own governor for ninety-nine years; the support of government in the colonies of Connecticut and Rhode Island (which _now_ enjoy that and other like privileges) being much less expensive, than in the colonies under the immediate government of the crown, and the constitution more inviting. That the first contributors to the amount of [___] guineas be empowered to choose a treasurer to receive the contribution. That no contributions be paid till the sum of [___] thousand guineas be subscribed. That the money thus raised be applied to the purchase of the lands from the Six Nations and other Indians, and of provisions, stores, arms, ammunition, carriages, &c. for the settlers; who, after having entered their names with the treasurer, or person by him appointed to receive and enter them, are, upon public notice given for that purpose, to rendezvous at a place to be appointed, and march in a body to the place destined for their settlement, under the [charge] of the government to be established over them. Such rendezvous and march however not to directed, till the number of names of settlers entered, capable of bearing arms, amount at least to [___] thousand. -- -- -- It is apprehended, that a great sum of money might be raised in America on such a scheme as this; for there are many who would be glad of any opportunity, by advancing a small sum at present, to secure land for their children, which might in a few years become very valuable; and a great number it is thought of actual settlers might likewise be engaged (some from each of our present colonies) sufficient to carry it into full execution by their strength and numbers; provided only, that the crown would be at the expence of removing the little forts the French have erected in their incroachments on his majesty's territories, and supporting a strong one near the falls of Niagara, with a few small armed vessels, or half-galleys to cruize on the lakes. * * * * * -- -- -- For the security of this colony in its infancy, a small fort might be erected and for some time maintained at Buffalonic on the Ohio, above the settlement; and another at the mouth of the Hioaga, on the south side of lake Erie, where a port should be formed, and a town erected, for the trade of the lakes.--The colonists for _this settlement_ might march by land through Pensylvania. -- -- -- The river Siotha, which runs into the Ohio about two hundred miles below Logs Town, is supposed the fittest seat for the _other colony_; there being for forty miles on each side of it and quite up to its heads a body of all rich land; the finest spot of its bigness in all North America, and has the particular advantage of sea-coal in plenty (even above ground in two places) for fuel, when the woods shall be destroyed. This colony would have the trade of the Miamis or Twigtwees; and should, at first, have a small fort near Hock-kockin, at the head of the river; and another near the mouth of Wabash. Sandoski, a French fort near the lake Erie, should also be taken; and all the little French forts south and west of the lakes, quite to the Mississippi, be removed, or taken and garrisoned by the English.--The colonists for this settlement might assemble near the heads of the rivers in Virginia, and march over land to the navigable branches of the Kanhawa, where they might embark with all their baggage and provisions, and fall into the Ohio, not far above the mouth of Siotha. Or they might rendezvous at Will's Creek, and go down the Mohingahela to the Ohio. The fort and armed vessels at the strait of Niagara would be a vast security to the frontiers of these new colonies against any attempts of the French from Canada. The fort at the mouth of the Wabash would guard that river, the Ohio, and Cutava river, in case of any attempt from the French of Mississippi. (Every fort should have a small settlement round it; as the fort would protect the settlers, and the settlers defend the fort and supply it with provisions.) -- -- -- The difficulty of settling the first English colonies in America, at so great a distance from England, must have been vastly greater, than the settling these proposed new colonies: for it would be the interest and advantage of all the present colonies to support these new ones; as they would cover their frontiers, and prevent the growth of the French power behind or near their present settlements; and the new country is nearly at equal distance from all the old colonies, and could easily be assisted from all of them. And as there are already in the old colonies many thousands of families that are ready to swarm, wanting more land; the richness and natural advantage of the Ohio country would draw most of them thither, were there but a tolerable prospect of a safe settlement. So that the new colonies would soon be full of people; and from the advantage of their situation, become much more terrible to the French settlements, than those are now to us. The gaining of the back Indian trade from the French, by the navigation of the lakes, &c. would of itself greatly weaken our enemies:--it being now their principal support, it seems highly probable, that in time they must be subjected to the British crown, or driven out of the country. Such settlements may better be made now, than fifty years hence, because it is easier to settle ourselves, and thereby prevent the French settling there as they seem now to intend, than to remove them when strongly settled. If these settlements are postponed, then more forts and stronger, and more numerous and expensive garrisons must be established, to secure the country, prevent their settling, and secure our present frontiers; the charge of which may probably exceed the charge of the proposed settlements, and the advantage nothing near so great. The fort at Oswego should likewise be strengthened, and some armed half-gallies, or other small vessels, kept there to cruise on lake Ontario, as proposed by Mr. Pownall in his paper laid before the commissioners at the Albany treaty[12]. If a fort was also built at Tirondequat on lake Ontario and a settlement made there near the lake side, where the lands are said to be good, (much better than at Oswego;) the people of such settlements would help to defend both forts on any emergency[13] FOOTNOTES: [11] For the occasion which produced this plan, see what follows. I apprehend it was given to Governor Pownall, 1754, for the purpose of being inserted in his memorial; but this point of anecdote I cannot sufficiently ascertain. "Extract of a Memorial drawn up by Order of, and presented to his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland, 1756, by T. Pownall. "In other parts of our frontier, that are not the immediate residence and country of Indians, some other species of barrier should be thought of, of which nothing can be more effectual than a barrier colony: but even this cannot be carried ... into execution and effect, without the previous measure of _entrepôts_ in the country between us and the enemy.... All mankind must know, that no body of men, whether as an army, or as an emigration of colonists, can march from one country to another, through an inhospitable wilderness, without magazines; nor with any safety, without posts communicating among each other by practicable roads, to which to retire in case of accidents, repulse, or delay. "It is a fact, which experience evinces the truth of, that we have always been able to outsettle the French; and have driven the Indians out of the country more by settling than fighting; and that whenever our settlements have been wisely and completely made, the French, neither by themselves nor their dogs of war, the Indians, have been able to remove us. It is upon this fact I found the propriety of the measure of settling a barrier colony in those parts of our frontiers, _which are not the immediate residence or hunting-grounds of our_ Indians. This is a measure that will be effectual; and will not only in time pay its expence, but make as great returns as any of our present colonies do; will give a strength and unity to our dominions in North America; and give us possession of the country, as well as settlement in it. But above all this, the state and circumstances of our settlements render such a measure not only proper and eligible, but absolutely necessary. The English settlements, as they are at present circumstanced, are absolutely at a stand; they are settled up to the mountains: and in the mountains there is no where together land sufficient for a settlement large enough to subsist by itself, and to defend itself, and preserve a communication with the present settlements. "If the English would advance one step further, or cover themselves where they are, it must be at once, by one large step over the mountains, with a numerous and military colony. Where such should be settled, I do not take upon me to say: at present I shall only point out the measure and the nature of it, by inserting two schemes, one of Mr. Franklin's, the other of your memorialist; and if I might indulge myself with scheming, I should imagine that two such were sufficient, and only requisite and proper: one at the back of Virginia, filling up the vacant space between the five nations and southern confederacy, and connecting, into one system, our barrier; the other somewhere in the Cohass or Connecticut river, or wherever best adapted to cover the New England colonies. These, with the little settlements mentioned above in the Indian countries, complete my idea of this branch." See Governor Pownall's Administration of the Colonies. Vol. II. p. 228-231, 5th edition. The reader must carry along with him a distinction between the plans of Dr. Franklin and Governor Pownall here referred to. The first (which is before him) is particular, and proposes a plan for _two_ settlements in the unlocated lands to the westward of Pensylvania and the Virginian mountains, and is totally silent with respect to a settlement in New England: the other treats of the mode of settling new colonies in North America in general, leaving the precise situation to be in some measure pointed out by the foregoing extract. The copy from which this paper is printed, has appearances of being rather incorrectly taken from the original. B. V. [12] See his work above quoted, Vol. II. p. 234. _et seq._ and p. 179. _et seq._ B. V. [13] This whole proposal was neglected, though the French thought a considerable settlement very practicable, in order to get at the Ohio. See Governor Pownall, Vol. II. p. 236. Dr. Franklin also failed in another proposal for settling to the south of the Ohio. B. V. _Report of the Committee of Aggrievances of the Assembly of Pensylvania, dated Feb. 22, 1757[14]._ In obedience to the order of the house, we have drawn up the heads of the most important aggrievances that occur to us, which the people of this province with great difficulty labour under; the many infractions of the constitution (in manifest violation of the royal grant, the proprietary charter, the laws of this province, and of the laws, usages, and customs of our mother-country) and other matters; which we apprehend call aloud for redress. They are as follow: _First_, By the royal charter (which has ever been, ought to be, and truly is, the principal and invariable fundamental of this constitution) King Charles the Second did give and grant unto William Penn, his heirs and assigns, the province of Pensylvania; and also to him and his heirs, and his or their _deputies_ or lieutenants, free, full, and absolute power, for the good and happy government thereof, to make and enact any laws, "according to their best discretion; by and with the advice, assent, and approbation of the _freemen_ of the said country, or of their delegates or deputies;" for the raising of money, or any other end appertaining to the public state, peace, or safety of the said country. By the words of this grant, it is evident, that full powers are granted to the _deputies_ and lieutenants of William Penn and his heirs, to concur with the people in framing laws for their protection and the safety of the province, according to their best discretion; independent of any instructions or directions they should receive from their _principals_. And it is equally obvious to your committee, that the _people_ of this province and their representatives were interested in this royal grant; and by virtue thereof have an original right of legislation inherent in them; which neither the proprietors nor any other person whatsoever can divest them of, restrain, or abridge, without manifestly violating and destroying the letter, spirit, and design of this grant. Nevertheless we unfortunately find, that the proprietaries of this province, regardless of this sacred fundamental of our rights and liberties, have so abridged and restricted their late and present _governor's_ discretion in matters of legislation, by their illegal, impracticable, and unconstitutional instructions and prohibitions; that no bill for granting aids and supplies to our most gracious sovereign (be it ever so reasonable, expedient, and necessary for the defence of this his majesty's colony, and safety of his people) unless it be agreeable thereto, can meet with his approbation: by means whereof the many considerable sums of money which have been offered for those purposes, by the assemblies of this province (ever anxious to maintain his honour and rights,) have been rejected; to the great encouragement of his majesty's enemies, and the imminent danger of the loss of this colony. _Secondly_, The representatives of the people in general assembly met, by virtue of the said royal grant, and the charter of privileges granted by the said William Penn, and a law of this province, have right to, and ought to enjoy all the powers and privileges of an assembly, according to the rights of the free-born subjects of England, and as is usual in any of the plantations in America: [also] it is an indubitable and now an incontested right of the commons of England, to _grant aids_ and supplies to his majesty in any manner they think most easy to themselves and the people; and they [also] are the sole judges of the _measure_, _manner and time_ of granting and raising the same. Nevertheless the proprietaries of this province, in contempt of the said royal grant, proprietary charter, and law of their colony, designing to subvert the fundamentals of this constitution, to deprive the assembly and people of their rights and privileges, and to assume an arbitrary and tyrannical power over the liberties and properties of his majesty's liege subjects, have so restrained their governors by the _despotic instructions_ (which are not to be varied from, and are particularly directory in the framing and passing of money-bills and supplies to his majesty, as to the mode, measure, and time) that it is impossible for the assembly, should they lose all sense of their most essential rights, and comply with those instructions, to grant sufficient aids for the defence of this his majesty's province from the common enemy. _Thirdly_, In pursuance of sundry acts of general assembly, approved of by the crown, [and] a natural right inherent in every man antecedent to all laws, the assemblies of this province have had the power of _disposing_ of the _public_ monies, that have been raised for the encouragement of trade and support of government, by the interest money arising by the loan of the bills of credit and the excise. No part of these monies was ever paid by the _proprietaries_, or ever raised on their estates; and therefore they can have no pretence of right to a voice in the disposition of them. They have ever been applied with prudent frugality to the honour and advantage of the public, and the king's immediate service, to the general approbation of the people: the credit of the government has been preserved, and the debts of the public punctually discharged. In short, no inconveniencies, but great and many advantages have accrued, from the assembly's prudent care and management of these funds. Yet the proprietaries resolved to deprive the assemblies of the power and means of _supporting an agent_ in England, and of prosecuting their complaints and remonstrating their aggrievances, when injured and oppressed, to his majesty and his parliament: and to rob them of this natural right (which has been so often approved of by their gracious sovereign) have, by their said instructions, prohibited their governor from giving his assent to any laws emitting or re-emitting any paper-currency or bills of credit, or for raising money by excise or any other method; unless the governor or commander in chief for the time being, by clauses to be inserted therein, has _a negative in the disposition_ of the monies arising thereby; let the languishing circumstances of our trade be ever so great, and a further or greater medium be ever so necessary for its support. _Fourthly_, By the laws and statutes of England, the chief rents, honours, and castles of the crown are taxed, and _pay their proportion_ to the supplies that are granted to the king for the defence of the realm and support of government: his majesty, the nobility of the realm, and all the British subjects, do now actually contribute their proportion towards the defence of America in general, and this province in particular: and it is in a more especial manner the duty of the _proprietaries_ to pay their proportion of a tax, for the immediate preservation of their own estates, in this province. To exempt therefore any part of their estates from their reasonable part of this necessary burthen, it is unjust as it is illegal, and as new as it is arbitrary. Yet the proprietaries, notwithstanding the general danger to which the nation and its colonies are exposed, and great distress of this province in particular, by their said instructions, have prohibited their governors from passing laws for the raising supplies for its defence; _unless_ all their located, unimproved, and unoccupied lands, quit-rents, fines, and purchase monies on interest (the much greater part of their enormous estates in this colony) are expressly exempted from paying any part of the tax. _Fifthly_, By virtue of the said royal charter, the proprietaries are invested with a power of doing every thing "which unto a compleat establishment of justice, unto courts and tribunals, forms of judicature, and manner of proceedings, do belong." It was certainly the import and design of this grant, that the courts of judicature should be formed, and the _judges_ and officers thereof hold their commissions, in a manner not repugnant, but agreeable to the laws and customs of England: that thereby they might remain free from the influence of persons in power, the rights of the people might be preserved, and their properties effectually secured. That the guarantee, William Penn (understanding the said grant in this light) did, by his original frame of government, covenant and grant with the people, that the judges and other officers should hold their commissions during their _good behaviour, and no longer_. Notwithstanding which, the governors of this province have, for many years past, granted all the commissions to the judges of the king's bench or supreme court of this province, and to the judges of the court of common pleas of the several counties, to be held during their _will and pleasure_; by means whereof, the said judges being subject to the influence and directions of the proprietaries and their governors, their favourites and creatures, the laws may not be duly administered or executed, but often wrested from their true sense; to serve particular purposes, the foundation of justice may be liable to be destroyed; and the lives, laws, liberties, privileges, and properties of the people thereby rendered precarious and altogether insecure; to the great disgrace of our laws, and the inconceivable injury of his majesty's subjects. Your committee further beg leave to add, that besides these aggrievances, there are other hardships the people of this province have experienced, that call for redress.--The _inlistment of servants, without the least satisfaction_ being made to the masters, has not only prevented the cultivation of our lands, and diminished the trade and commerce of the province, but is a burthen extremely unequal and oppressive to individuals. And should the practice continue, the consequence must prove very discouraging to the further settlement of this colony, and prejudicial to his majesty's future service.--Justice, therefore, demands, that satisfaction should be made to the masters of such inlisted servants; and that the right of masters to their servants be confirmed and settled.--But as those servants have been inlisted into his majesty's service for the general defence of America, and not of this province only, but all the colonies, and the nation in general, have and will receive equal benefit from their service; this satisfaction should be made at the expence of the nation, and not of the province only. That the people now labour under _a burthen of taxes_, almost insupportable by so young a colony, for the defence of its long-extended frontier, of about two hundred miles from New Jersey to Maryland; without either of those colonies, or the three lower counties on Delaware, contributing their proportion thereto; though their frontiers are in a great measure covered and protected by our forts. And should the war continue, and with it this unequal burthen, many of his majesty's subjects in this province will be reduced to want, and the province, if not lost to the enemy, involved in debt, and sunk under its load. That notwithstanding this weight of taxes, the assemblies of this province _have given to the general service_ of the nation, five thousand pounds to purchase provisions for the troops under General Braddock; 2,985_l._ 0_s._ 11_d._ for clearing a road by his orders; 10,514_l._ 10_s._ 1_d._ to General Shirley, for the purchasing provisions for the New England forces; and expended the sum of 2,385_l._ 0_s._ 2½_d._ in supporting the inhabitants of Nova Scotia; which likewise we conceive ought to be a national expence. And that his majesty's subjects, the merchants and insurers in England, as well as the merchants here and elsewhere, did during the last, and will during the present war, greatly suffer in their property, trade, and commerce, by the _enemy's privateers_ on this coast, and at our capes, unless some method be fallen on to prevent it. Wherefore your committee are of opinion, That the commissioners intended to be sent to England[15], to solicit a memorial and redress of the many infractions and violations of the constitution; should also have it in charge, and be instructed to represent to our most gracious sovereign and his parliaments, the several unequal burthens and hardships before-mentioned;--and endeavour to procure satisfaction to the masters of such servants as have been inlisted, and the right of masters to their servants established and confirmed;--and obtain a repayment of the said several sums of money, some assistance towards defending our extensive frontier, and a vessel of war to protect the trade and commerce of this province. Submitted to the correction of the house. _Feb. 22, 1757._ FOOTNOTES: [14] The English colony-governments seem to have been considered as of three sorts. First, _provincial_ governments; where the constitution originally depends on the king's commission, and instructions given to his governors; and the assemblies, held under that authority, have their share in making local ordinances not repugnant to English law. Next, _proprietary_ governments; where a district of country is given by the crown to individuals, attended with certain legislative powers in the nature of a fief; with a provision for the sovereignty at home, and also for the fulfilment of the terms and end of the grant. Lastly, _charter_ governments, where the fundamentals of the government are previously prescribed and made known to the settlers, being in no degree left subject to a governor's commission or proprietor's will. (See Blackstone, Vol. I. Introd. § 4.)--Good faith however to mankind seemed to require, that the constitutions, once begun under the provincial or proprietary governments, should remain unaltered (except for improvement) to the respective settlers, equally as in charter-governments. B. V. [15] Dr. Franklin was afterwards appointed to present this address, as agent for the province of Pensylvania, and departed from America for the purpose in June 1757. See his life, Vol. I. p. 134. While in England, the more effectually to accomplish the business upon which he was sent, he wrote the article that follows in the next page, entitled An historical Review, &c. _Editor._ _An historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pensylvania, from its Origin; so far as regards the several Points of Controversy which have, from Time to Time, arisen between the several Governors of that Province, and their several Assemblies. Founded on authentic Documents._ Those who would give up _essential liberty_, to purchase a little _temporary safety_, deserve neither _liberty_ nor _safety_. Griffiths, 1759[16]. DEDICATION. To the right honourable Arthur Onslow, speaker of the honourable House of Commons. SIR, The subject of the following sheets is an unhappy one: the controversy between the proprietaries and successive assemblies of Pensylvania: a controversy which has often embarrassed, if not endangered the public service: a controversy which has been long depending, and which still seems to be as far from an issue as ever. Our blessed saviour reproaches the Pharisees with laying heavy burdens on men's shoulders, which they themselves would not stir with a single finger. Our proprietaries, sir, have done the same; and, for the sake of the commonwealth, the province has hitherto submitted to the imposition: not indeed, without the most strenuous endeavours to lay the load equally, the fullest manifestations, and the strongest protestations against the violence put upon them. Having been most injuriously misrepresented and traduced in print, by the known agents and dependents of those gentlemen their fellow subjects, they at last find themselves obliged to set forth an historical state of their case, and to make their appeal to the public upon it. With the public opinion in their favour, they may with the more confidence lift up their eyes to the wisdom of parliament and the majesty of the crown, from whence alone they can derive an effectual remedy. To your hands, sir, these papers are most humbly presented, for considerations so obvious, that they scarce need any explanation. The Roman provinces did not stand more in need of patronage than ours: and such clients as we are would have preferred the integrity of Cato to the fortune of Cæsar. The cause we bring is in fact the cause of all the provinces in one: it is the cause of every British subject in every part of the British dominions: it is the cause of every man who deserves to be free every where. The propriety, therefore, of addressing these papers to a gentleman, who, for so many successive parliaments, with so much honour to himself and satisfaction to the public, has been at the head of the commons of Great Britain, cannot be called in question. You will smile, sir, perhaps, as you read the references of a provincial assembly to the rights and claims of parliament; but we humbly conceive, it will be without the least mixture of resentment; those assemblies having nothing more in view, than barely to establish their privileges on the most rational and solid basis they could find, for the security and service of their constituents. And you are humbly besought, sir, not to think the worse of this address, because it has been made without your permission or privity. Nobody asks leave to pay a debt: every Briton is your debtor, sir: and all we have said, or can say, is but a poor composition for what we owe you. You have conferred as much honour on the chair you fill, as the chair has conferred on you. Probity and dignity are your characteristics. May that seat always derive the same lustre from the same qualities! This at least ought to be our prayer, whether it is or not within our expectations. For the province of Pensylvania, as well as in my own private capacity, I have the honour to be, with the most profound respect, Sir, your most obedient humble servant, THE EDITOR. INTRODUCTION. To obtain an infinite variety of purposes by a few plain principles is the characteristic of nature. As the eye is affected so is the understanding: objects at distance strike it according to their dimensions, or the quantity of light thrown upon them; near, according to their novelty or familiarity as they are in motion or at rest. It is the same with actions. A battle is all motion; a hero all glare: while such images are before us, we can attend to nothing else. Solon and Lycurgus would make no figure in the same scene with the king of Prussia; and we are at present so lost in a military scramble on the continent next us, in which it must be confessed we are deeply interested, that we have scarce time to throw a glance towards America, where we have also much at stake, and where, if any where, our account must be made up at last. We love to stare more than to reflect, and to be indolently amused at our leisure, than to commit the smallest trespass on our patience by winding a painful tedious maze, which would pay us in nothing but knowledge. But then as there are some eyes that can find nothing marvellous but what is marvellously great, so there are others equally disposed to marvel at what is marvellously little; and who can derive as much entertainment from this microscope in examining a mite, as Dr. ---- in ascertaining the geography of the moon, or measuring the tail of a comet. Let this serve as an excuse for the author of these sheets, if he needs any, for bestowing them on the transactions of a colony, till of late hardly mentioned in our annals; in point of establishment one of the last upon the British list, and in point of rank one of the most subordinate, as being not only subject, in common with the rest, to the crown, but also to the claims of a _proprietary_, who thinks he does them _honour_ enough in governing them by _deputy_; consequently so much further removed from the royal eye, and so much the more exposed to the pressure of self-interested _instructions_. Considerable, however, as most of them, for happiness of situation, fertility of soil, product of valuable commodities, number of inhabitants, shipping, amount of exportations, latitude of rights and privileges, and every other requisite for the being and well-being of society, and more considerable than any of them all for the celerity of its growth, unassisted by any human help but the vigour and virtue of its own excellent constitution. A father and his family, the latter united by interest and affection, the former to be revered for the wisdom of his institutions and the indulgent use of his authority, was the form it was at first presented in. Those who were only ambitious of repose found it here; and as none returned with an evil report of the land, numbers followed: all partook of the leaven they found: the community still wore the same equal face: nobody aspired: nobody was oppressed: industry was sure of profit, knowledge of esteem, and virtue of veneration. An assuming _landlord_, strongly disposed to convert free tenants into abject vassals, and to reap what he did not sow, countenanced and abetted by a few desperate and designing dependents, on the one side; and on the other, all who have sense enough to know their rights, and spirit enough to defend them, combined as one man against the said landlord and his encroachment in the form it has since assumed. And surely a nation born to liberty like this, bound to leave it unimpaired as they received it from their fathers in perpetuity to their heirs, and interested in the conservation of it in every appendix to the British empire, the particulars of such a contest cannot be wholly indifferent. On the contrary, it is reasonable to think, the first workings of power against liberty, and the natural efforts of unbiassed men to secure themselves against the first approaches of oppression, must have a captivating power over every man of sensibility and discernment amongst us. Liberty it seems thrives best in the woods. America best cultivates what Germany brought forth. And were it not for certain ugly comparisons, hard to be suppressed, the pleasure arising from such a research would be without alloy. In the feuds of Florence recorded by Machiavel, we find more to lament and less to praise. Scarce can we believe the first citizens of the ancient republics had such pretensions to consideration, though so highly celebrated in ancient story. As to ourselves, we need no longer have recourse to the late glorious stand of the French parliament to excite our emulation. It is a known custom among farmers, to change their corn from season to season, for the sake of filling the bushel: and in case the wisdom of the age should condescend to make the like experiment in another shape, from hence we may learn, whither to repair for the proper species. It is not however to be presumed, that such as have long been accustomed to consider the colonies in general as only so many dependencies on the council board, the board of trade, and the board of customs; or, as a hot-bed for causes, jobs and other pecuniary emoluments, and as formed as effectually by _instructions_ as by _laws_, can be prevailed on to consider those patriot rustics with any degree of respect. But how contemptibly soever these gentlemen may talk of the colonies, how cheap soever they may hold their assemblies, or how insignificant the planters and traders who compose them, truth will be truth, and principle, principle, notwithstanding. Courage, wisdom, integrity, and honour are not to be measured by the place assigned them to act in, but by the trials they undergo and the vouchers they furnish: and if so manifested, need neither robes or titles to set them off. CONTENTS. List of governors of Pensylvania, and dates of the several charters, &c. of that province. Abstract of the charter granted to William Penn. Certain conditions or concessions of Mr. Penn to the first adventurers in, and settlers of, Pensylvania. Mr. Penn's first frame of government. His reservation of quit rents. His second frame of government. The province of Pensylvania and the territory of the three lower counties united by his management. Remonstrance of a subsequent assembly against the said union. Motives of the planters, assigned by the said assembly, for accepting the second frame of government. Mr. Penn's return to England, and appointment of commissioners to administer the government. Disorders which ensued during his absence. Captain Blackwell's government. The government assumed into the lands of the crown in 1693, and administered by colonel Fletcher, governor of New York. He declares the constitution of Mr. Penn's government, and that of their majesties, to be directly opposite to each other. He menaces the assembly with an annexion of their province to that of New York. Protestation against passing of bills, amended by the governor and council, without the previous assent of the assembly to those amendments, and of money-bills before grievances have been redressed. Remonstrance to Mr. Penn concerning this period. The governor admits the principles of the quakers, not to carry arms, or levy money to make war; and solicits a supply to feed the hungry and clothe the naked (Indians). The assembly insist on their right to appropriate as well as to raise money. The government of William Markham, Esq. A new act of settlement or frame of government. The government resumed by Mr. Penn. The province purged from the odium of favouring pirates, and carrying on an illicit trade. A new model of elections agreed to. The assembly formed thereon dissolved. Another assembly called upon another model, to meet at Newcastle instead of Philadelphia. Aids granted for the proprietary-governor, in exchange for a conformation of property. An aid of 350_l._ sterling to the crown on this account. Mr. Penn's plausible speech to a new assembly. Three of the requisitions they made to him, with his answers and their replies. A breach between the province and the territory. The last charter of privileges, which, under the royal charter, is _now_ the rule of government. It is unanimously rejected by the freemen of the territory. Mr. Penn's departure for England. Andrew Hamilton, Esq. deputy-governor, in vain endeavours to unite the territory with the province. John Evans, Esq. succeeds Hamilton, and makes the like endeavour, also in vain. Controversy between him and the assembly concerning the bill to confirm the charter. Nine several heads of complaint entered in the minutes of the assembly, as the ground of a representation to the proprietary; being the representation several times before cited. The remainder of that representation. A copy of it demanded by the governor and refused by the assembly. The latter make a merit of having forborne to make their representation public. The governor obtains an assembly to his wish, by undue practices. Animosities between Lloyd, speaker of the assembly, and Logan, secretary to the governor and council. The governor censures the proprietary's charter of property. The draughtman's defence of it. The governor declares the proprietary's high resentment of the assembly's representation. The assembly's reply. The governor refers to the charter of privileges as the only rule of government. The assembly complains of infractions made in it. Their representation to the proprietary against the governor. Logan impeached by the assembly. An unanimous vote of thanks to the proprietary for recalling Evans. General view of Gookin's government. Assembly's character of themselves. A proprietary-governor a wretched thing. Artful conduct of governor Keith. Mr. Penn's death. The province left in the hands of trustees. Logan, one of those trustees, obtains a majority in the council against the governor. Logan makes a voyage to England, and returns with private instructions to Keith, which Keith communicates to the assembly. The governor and assembly in concert pay no regard to the said instructions. A controversy in print, between the governor and Logan thereon. A breach between the governor and speaker. The province in a state of tranquillity for nine years under his administration. A pathetic reflection on the melancholy case of governors recalled. Pensylvania easy to be governed, if well governed. Private instructions from the proprietary in two several instances declared void. The proprietary of Pensylvania too inconsiderable here at home to be a patron to the province, and too unsizeably great there. The proprietaries the sole purchasers of Indian lands:--the people at the sole expence of Indian affairs:--treaties and purchases concomitant. The quit-rents of Pensylvania, paid to the proprietary, first demanded and granted to defray the charge of government. Notwithstanding which the people now pay taxes for that purpose, and the proprietaries insist on holding their estates tax-free. Paper-money first issued in Pensylvania. Precautions taken to secure it from depreciation. Mr. Penn's trustees averse to the said issue, till a provision was made, at the expence of the province, to render his heirs gainers by it. Room left in the constitution of the province for self defence by force of arms, though the use of arms was not consistent with the principles of quakers. In consequence of complaints to parliament, of the mischiefs arising from excessive issues of paper-money by the eastern governments (that is to say those of New England) a general instruction was sent to _all_ the governors of North America, not to give their assent to any farther bills of that nature, without a suspending clause, till his majesty's pleasure should be known. The assembly grants money in aid of the expedition against Carthagena. The governor inlists indented servants upon that occasion; and the assembly apply the money they had given to indemnify the masters. They give 3,000_l._ towards the public service, to be applied as his majesty should direct. Also another sum of 4,000_l._ to furnish necessaries to the troops in Louisburgh. And yet another sum of 5,000_l._ towards the intended expedition against Canada in the year 1746, by an addition of the like sum to their paper currency, and notwithstanding the above instruction, the governor gave his assent to the bill for that purpose. The proprietaries of Pensylvania oppose the bill brought into parliament for restraining the northern colonies from issuing paper bills of credit, and make a merit of it in the province. The assembly call upon the proprietaries to contribute to the expence of Indian affairs, which they decline. The assembly's representation thereon. A bill for increasing the provincial paper-currency in proportion to the increase of the province, by an addition of 20,000_l._ thereto. Rejected by the governor for being unseasonably timed. And petitioned by the inhabitants. A message from the governor (Hamilton) preparing the house to expect incursions from the French among the Indians in alliance with them, and requiring assistance on their behalf. The answer of the proprietaries to the representation of the assembly concerning the expence of Indian affairs. The assembly's message sent to the governor, together with the currency-bill he had before rejected. Another message to him concerning Indian affairs, and notifying a present of condolence to the Twigtwee tribe. Governor's message, importing his assent to the currency-bill, with a suspending clause. Resolution of the assembly not to accept this clause, with their reasons. A note of regret, that some temperament had not been found out at home, to prevent the controversy, which was now on the point of breaking out. Remonstrance of the assembly against the said clause. The governor's message of adherence thereto. The assembly's reply. Their reply to the proprietary's answer to the representation on Indian expences. Unanimous resolution of the assembly concerning the necessity of a remission of their paper-currency. Lord Holdernesse's letter and other papers laid before them, together with a written message from the governor thereon. The assembly's answer, accompanied with their currency-bill. The governor rejects it; but offers to pass a bill for striking a farther sum on a proper fund for sinking the same in a few years. The assembly prudently avail themselves of the cautions in lord Holdernesse's letter concerning _undoubted limits_, to decline taking any part in the broil, till the government of Virginia, as first concerned, should set the first example. The governor revives the old controversy concerning the paper-money instruction. Declares in another paper he had _undoubted assurance_, that part of his majesty's dominions _within_ his government was at that time invaded, and demands supplies to arm the province, &c. The assembly demur, and desire a short adjournment. The governor not only persists in his former declaration, but maintains, that the case was the same, whether the invasion of the enemy was made in Virginia or Pensylvania. The assembly adjourn to May 6, and are assembled by the governor April 2, in order to lay before them papers from governor Dinwiddie; and demand a supply. Debates in the assembly on the _quantum_, and a new adjournment. Another session, and a message from the governor, accompanied with intelligence, that the French were before the fort built by the Virginians on the Ohio; with dispatches and a proposition from the governors of Boston and New York, for an union of the colonies, &c. A joint bill for granting an aid of 10,000_l._ to the king, and 20,000_l._ for replacing torn and ragged bills, offered. Amendments proposed by the governor. Unanimously rejected by the assembly, and for what reasons. The governor's reply. A reflection thereon. Resolutions of the assembly. And message to the governor before their adjournment. They are re-convened by special summons on the occasion of Washington's defeat, and required to form chearful and vigorous resolutions for dislodging the enemy, in concurrence with Virginia. The proceedings of the commissioners at Albany laid before them. They prepare and present a bill for striking 35,000_l._ in bills of credit, and the rest for replacing defective bills. Which the governor evades for want of sufficient powers to pass it. Governor Morris's arrival at Philadelphia, and first speech to a new assembly. The assembly's answer and adjournment. Being assembled again, a letter from Sir Thomas Robinson, secretary of state, is laid before them; and the governor in his speech requires them to raise and keep up a considerable body of troops. They present a bill for raising 40,000_l._ on the former plan; half of this sum for the public service; with a message, expressing their concern at a paragraph in the secretary of state's letter, by which it appeared their conduct had not been fairly represented at home. The old instruction, and an opinion of the attorney-general's, pleaded by the governor in bar of his assent, unless the money was raised in a five-years fund. A letter from Sir Thomas Robinson to the governor of Pensylvania, dispatched at the same time with others of similar tendency to the other governors of the northern colonies. Which the governor, in his comment upon it, endeavours to narrow the application of, to Pensylvania only. A message from the assembly, fully demonstrating, that Pensylvania was not comprehended in the instruction insisted upon; and that in case it was, the present emergency was one of those, which, according to the very letter of that instruction, might be provided for notwithstanding: also desiring a sight of the instructions he himself had received from his principals. A second message, in which they call upon the governor to give his assent to the bill, as what would answer all the purposes recommended to them in Sir Thomas Robinson's letter. The governor's reply, declining the bill as before; because the supply might be otherwise raised, and evading the communication of his instructions. The assembly's rejoinder, justifying the requisition they made of his instructions; and intimating, that an appeal to the crown was the only method left them of being continued in the use and benefit of their birthright, and charter liberties. The governor questions their right to have these instructions laid before them, and endeavours to put them beside their point, by magnifying the preparations of the French, &c. The assembly order the papers which had passed between the proprietaries and them to be printed, which till then they had avoided. Their unanimous resolutions concerning the proprietary instructions, in which they declare it as their opinion, that the said instructions were the principal if not the sole obstruction to their bill: also the most essential points contained in their reply to the governor's charges against them. A brief of the governor's sur-rejoinder. Some general remarks. The assembly make their appeal to the crown, inform the governor thereof, signify their inclination to adjourn till May, and give his instructions the _coup de grace_. The governor's expostulatory message thereon. He demands a copy of their minutes; they order him one when the printed copies were _finished_, and adjourn. Upon Braddock's arrival in Virginia, they are re-assembled by special summons: the demands made by message on that occasion. The governor reprimands them for having published Sir Thomas Robinson's letter in their minutes, and for not delivering him a copy of those minutes so soon as he had required them. The assembly's answer thereto. Orders and counter-orders to the printer of these minutes. Two messages from the governor; one communicating a design of general Shirley to build a fort _within the limits_ of his majesty's territories near _Crown Point_, to which the assembly is required to contribute; and the other, notifying first the arrival of Braddock's forces, and then the expectations entertained at home, that the colonies would raise an additional number of forces, furnish provisions, &c. all terminated with a kind of menace of the resentment of his majesty and the parliament, in case of a disappointment. _Twenty five thousand pounds_ granted to the king's use, to be raised by an emission of paper-bills to the same amount, and to be sunk by an extension of the excise for ten years. Refused by the governor, on the old pretence of a contrary instruction. A provision demanded for the expence of an Indian treaty. A memorial to the assembly from Mr. Quincy, a commissioner from the government of Massachusett's Bay, expressing both his concern, that the governor could not be induced to pass the said money-bill, and his acknowledgments of the _chearfulness_ shown by them in granting 10,000_l._ for victualling the forces to be employed in New England; being part of the money so granted; and urging them to find out some other means of rendering their purpose effectual. The assembly resolve to raise the said sum on the credit of the province. Another paper of acknowledgment from the said Mr. Quincy. The governor refuses to return the said bill to the assembly; informs them the French had fitted out fifteen sail of the line, with six thousand land forces, and calls upon them to put the province into a state of defence, as the enemy could not be ignorant how plentiful and defenceless it was; yet advises a short adjournment. They meet again, and a squabble arising between them about a bill merely provincial, he revives the former controversy. The assembly's spirited answer to this captious message. A remark thereon. They are re-assembled. A hardy assertion, concerning the paper-money act passed by governor Thomas, refuted by a fact. An acknowledgment from the officers of the regular forces of certain presents made to them by the assembly. The governor's message to the assembly, said to be founded on a representation of general Braddock's, requiring them to enable him to furnish the said general with provisions under proper convoys, &c. &c. The assembly desire to have the general's letter laid before them, which the governor declines, and thereby occasions a new controversy. The assembly send up two other bills; one of 10,000_l._ for exchanging old bills, and one of 15,000_l._ for the king's use, on the model of that formerly passed by governor Thomas, and confirmed at home by the royal authority, since the instruction so often cited had been sent to the said governor. Such amendments offered to it by the governor, as he could not but be pre-convinced would not be allowed. The assembly adjourn till September; but are again convoked in July, on occasion of Braddock's defeat. The governor's speech. The assembly vote an aid of 50,000_l._ by a tax on all real and personal estates. The governor makes a pompous offer in the proprietary's name, of certain lands west of Allegheny mountains, to such adventurers as would fight for them, and calls upon the assembly to afford some assistance to such as should accept the same. A remonstrance which certain inhabitants of certain places were induced to present to the assembly. The address of the assembly to the governor. Their 50,000_l._ money-bill returned, with an amendment, by which the WHOLE _proprietary estate_ was to be _exempted_ from tax. The message of the assembly to the governor on that occasion, desiring his reasons for that exemption. The governor's reply, containing four curious reasons. The assembly's rejoinder, refuting those reasons. Other papers which passed between them at the same crisis. The residue of Braddock's troops being recalled from the frontiers, notwithstanding an application of the assembly to the governor requesting their continuance, he calls upon the house to provide for the security of the Back-inhabitants. A remark thereon. The governor alarms and embarrasses them with petitions from certain persons requiring to be armed; _intelligence_ of Indians actually set out, to fall upon their frontiers; recommendations to provide by law against exporting provisions to the enemy, as a requisite to facilitate the reduction of Louisburgh; and _demands_ of all manner of _things_ for the assistance of colonel Dunbar, who, by orders from general Shirley, was again to proceed towards Fort Duquesne. A proposal from certain gentlemen of Philadelphia to subscribe 500_l._ in lieu of the proprietary proportion of the tax in question, and upon a presumption that the proprietaries would honourably reimburse them. The assembly send up their bill to the governor again, together with the said proposal, as containing by implication an acknowledgment that the tax was founded in equity, and also a farther security to the governor, in case he should give his assent to the bill. Their message to the governor, correcting his manner of stating the Louisburgh point, and observing, that all required of them from New England was to prolong the excellent laws they had already made. Some seasonable remarks. The governor's verbal answer to the assembly's message concerning the money-bill, adhering to his amendment. He contends for a militia. The assembly order 1,000_l._ if so much remain in their treasury, to arm the Back-inhabitants. They signify their purpose to adjourn, and refer the affair of a militia-bill to a new assembly. Their proceedings at the next meeting: the governor demands an additional supply of provision to be sent to Albany, at the requisition of governor Phipps, for the use of the forces of Massachusett's Bay: and another supply for the provisional troops of Connecticut and Rhode Island, which he was _informed_ were raised in addition to those already employed in the reduction of Crown-Point. The assembly apply for a sight of Phipps's letter, which is refused. The old controversy renewed. A new one concerning the roads opened at the expence of the province for the convenience of the king's forces, which is carried on with much acrimony on both sides. As a last effort for the public service the assembly authorize by vote a loan, or voluntary subscription, of 10,000_l._ to be raised in a fortnight, and refer the lenders to the next assembly for payment. An apology for the length of this treatise; and a brief state of the province at this period. The new assembly, after a session of four days, suffered to adjourn themselves without proceeding to business, for want of having the intelligence then in the governor's hands in due form imparted to them. Being re-convoked, the governor informs them, that a party of French and Indians had passed the mountains, and were encamped within eight miles of the capital, and, after a liberal intermixture of upbraidings and self-sufficiencies, demands a supply; premising, that it might be raised by an emission of any sum in paper, provided funds were found for sinking it in five years, &c. A reference to the only act of parliament extant, and that an ineffectual one, to prevent the oppressions practised by provincial governors. Politics of various kinds, and from various quarters, presented to the assembly. The assembly reduce and rectify the matter of alarm communicated by the governor; and advise such measures as might reclaim the Indians, &c. A new message concerning the depredations of the Indians. _Sixty thousand pounds_ granted, to be struck in bills of credit, which were to be sunk by a tax of _six-pence_ in the pound; and a poll-tax of _ten shillings_ a head, yearly, for four years; which the governor refuses, and talks of _setting off_ for the back counties. A new message, reporting, that the Susquehanna Indians had offered their service to the province, provided it was accepted without delay. Two messages from the assembly to the governor; the first concerning peace with the Indians, and the money bill; the other an answer to his concerning the Susquehanna Indians. They send up a bill for regulating the Indian trade. The famous Kentish petition to the house of commons, in 1701, outdone by the mayor of Philadelphia, and one hundred and thirty three other inconsiderates, in a demand on their assembly to constitute a militia forthwith. A petition of certain of the people called Quakers, for peaceable measures. Progress of the controversy concerning the bill, which the governor offers to pass with a suspending clause. Resolutions of the assembly hereupon. Message from the governor concerning another Indian massacre, and demanding an immediate supply, &c. Another from the assembly to him, justifying their bill both in matter and manner. They send him up a militia bill. The governor's invective against their whole conduct. He passes the militia bill, under the specific declaration that it was an improper one. He communicates to the assembly a discussion of Indian affairs, as prepared by his council; calls upon them to provide for a swarm of French banished out of Nova Scotia; and signifies, that the proprietaries had sent an order upon their receiver-general, for 5000_l._ as a free gift to the public. Another remonstrance from the mayor of Philadelphia and his posse. The assembly's reply to the governor's invective, which for the present they declined making use of. The answer they did make use of. Parley between the speaker and twenty-nine petitioners, or rather prescribers to the assembly. Unanimous resolutions concerning the right of granting supplies to the crown; and a new money bill, out of which the proprietary estate was excepted, in consideration of the late grant of 5000_l._ The assembly's message to the governor, explaining the use and pressing the dispatch of the Indian trade bill. The governor's evasive answer. His message desiring the advice of the house. The assembly's answer. Their message relative to the complaint of the Shawanese Indians. Their resolution concerning the Indian trade bill; also concerning irregular and improper petitions. They adjourn; and two months after re-assemble by special summons. The governor's message on that occasion. The message of the assembly in regard to the inlisting purchased servants. General Shirley's letter of acknowledgment for a voluntary present of clothing sent by the province to his troops. The assembly remind the governor of the Indian trade bill. He returns it with amendments; as also their bill for extending the excise. They adhere to their bills and assign their reasons. The governor goes to Newcastle and the assembly adjourn. Sir William Johnson's treaty with the six nations laid before them at their next meeting. The governor appearing strongly inclined to involve the province in a war with the Delawares and Shawanese, some of the people called Quakers petition for specific measures. The governor on the other hand alarms the house with an account of a number of people coming in a body to make _demands_ upon them. Their unanimity on that occasion. The governor takes advantage of this incident to declare war against the said two Indian nations. He also demands farther supplies, and intimates, that certain Indians, long subsisted by the province, were retiring in discontent, &c. The assembly's answer. The return made by the governor. The resolutions of the assembly concerning a plan of military operations communicated to them by the governor. They adjourn and are re-assembled. The governor's message to them from a place called _Harris's Ferry_. A petition of the association companies in Philadelphia, concerning the insufficiency of the militia law. The reply of the assembly to the governor's message, accompanied with a bill for prohibiting provisions. Another session, and two other messages from the governor, who was still posted at Harris's Ferry. A money bill ordered, but postponed on the receipt of intelligence from Sir Charles Hardy and Sir William Johnson, that the Delawares and Shawanese were disposed to renew their alliance. The governor proclaims a suspension of arms. The assemblies' message to him, in which they again press him to pass the Indian trade bill; he promises to reconsider it; and a second time calls upon them to make some (additional) provision for his support. Six members desire leave upon the adjournment to quit their seats, and at the next session present a written paper to the house as a testimonial thereof. The resignation accepted and new writs issued. The governor's message notifying the appointment of Lord Loudoun to be commander in chief in America; as also the act of parliament for raising a regiment of foreigners; recommending particularly, that the masters of such indented servants as should engage in the service might be indemnified; and that, as by the expiration of an act passed in the Lower Counties, the Pensylvanian act, lately passed, would expire also, they would prepare a proper bill for continuing the embargo, &c. The assembly's reply; in which they show, the governor had invalidated the acts of all the other colonies by the law he had passed in the Lower Counties. Their message concerning the excise and Indian trade bills; and his answer, that he would not recede from his amendments because of his proprietary instruction. The instruction itself. A remark; and the resolution of the house on the said instruction. An act for emitting 4000_l._ in bills of credit, on behalf of the proprietaries, to supply so far the public occasions, till their receiver-general should be enabled by his receipts to make good their order. An act, for striking and issuing the sum of 40,000_l._ for the king's use, sent up to the governor. His message concerning an attack to be apprehended from the Indians about harvest time. The assembly's answer. A bill to permit the exportation of provisions for the king's service, notwithstanding the act of prohibition. The governor's evasive conduct in relation thereto. The assembly apprise him, July 5, of their intention to adjourn till August 2; and are told that he has no objection. Notwithstanding which, he re-assembles them a fortnight afterwards, in the midst of their harvest, under the pretence of continuing the prohibition act. Petition of the merchants in relation to the embargo. The assembly's answer to the governor's message. Another message to him concerning the preamble to the 4000_l._ bill on behalf of the proprietaries. The governor's answer. He sends down another preamble, which is not relished; refuses to pass the excise bill, and expunges the clause in the 40,000_l._ bill for taxing the proprietary estate. His message concerning Indian affairs, and the expence of conducting them. The assembly's answer. The governor's reply. A parting compliment from general Shirley to the province. A new session, and the governor's message thereon. The assembly's answer. Governor Morris is superseded by governor Denny. The governor complimented on his arrival. The first speech a continuation of the old system. The business of the assembly at a stand for a few days. Their address; and message, requesting copies of his proprietary instructions. Certain of the said instructions communicated. A short comment upon them. A message to the governor. The governor's answer. A bill prepared for striking the sum of 60,000_l._ for the king's use, to be sunk by an excise. A conference on the said bill. The assembly's answer to the governor's objections. The governor's answer, signifying, that he _would not_ give his assent to it. Resolutions of the assembly after a _protest_ against the _instructions_, and a _salvo_ for their own _rights_, to prepare a new bill. A new bill prepared and passed. A brief apology for the conduct of the assembly on this occasion. A remonstrance voted. Conclusion; with a testimonial of commodore Sprag in behalf of the assembly. AN APPENDIX, containing sundry original papers relative to the several points in controversy between the governors and assemblies of Pensylvania, viz. 1. The representation of the assembly to the proprietaries, requesting them to bear a proportionable part of Indian expences. 2. The proprietaries' answer; and assembly's remarks thereon. 3. A message from governor Morris, containing his additional arguments to show the _unreasonableness_ of taxing the proprietary estate for its defence, and in support of the restrictions he was under in that respect. 4. The assembly's answer thereto. 5. The governor's reply. 6. The assembly's rejoinder. [Note. _In the above four messages great part of the points in dispute between the proprietaries and people of the province are fully litigated; and the perusal of them is necessary to those who would have a thorough knowledge of the controversy._] 7. The speaker of the Pensylvanian assembly's paper of authorities relating to the rights of the commons over money-bills, and in support of the 50,000_l._ bills passed by the assembly, so far as it relates to the taxing the proprietary estate within that province. 8. Report of a committee of assembly on the proprietary _instructions_ relative to _money-bills_; clearly demonstrating, that though the proprietaries would at length appear to be willing to have their estates taxed in common with other estates, yet that were laws passed pursuant to these instructions, much the greatest part of their estate would be exempted, and that the sums necessary to be granted for his majesty's service in that province could not possibly be raised thereby, &c. &c. _A paper of importance._ 9. Mr. Thomas Penn's estimate of the _value_ of the proprietary estate in Pensylvania, upwards of twenty years ago; with remarks thereon, showing its prodigious increase since that time, the profits arising to the HOUSE OF PENN from their Indian purchases, and the huckstering manner in which they dispose of lands to the king's subjects in that province. 10. A specimen of the anonymous abuses continually published against the inhabitants of Pensylvania, by the proprietaries and their agents, with Mr. W. Franklin's refutation thereof. 11. Some remarks on the conduct of the last and present governor, with regard to their employing the provincial forces as _regulars_, rather than as _rangers_; and showing the secret reason why that province is at present without a _militia-law_, notwithstanding the several bills which have been lately passed by the assembly for that purpose. 12. An account of sundry sums of money paid by the province for his majesty's service, _since the commencement of the present troubles in America_. 13. An extract from an original letter of Mr. Logan, containing, among other things, his opinion of the proprietary right to the government of the three Delaware counties; and which serves to account for the particular favour shown that government from time to time. FOOTNOTE: [16] This is the title of an octavo volume, consisting of nearly five hundred pages closely printed. It was written, as mentioned in the preceding note, while Dr. Franklin was in England as agent for the province of Pensylvania, to further the ends of his mission, by removing the unfavourable impressions which had taken place to the prejudice of the Pensylvanians: and "it must be confessed," as a reviewer of the work observes, "they had in our author a most zealous and able advocate. His sentiments are manly, liberal, and spirited; his style close, nervous, and rhetorical. By a forcible display of the oppressions his clients have sustained, he inclines us to pity their condition; by an enumeration of their virtues he endeavours to remove the idea, which many have entertained, of their unimportance, and, abstracted from their consideration in a political light, they claim our regard by reason of their own personal merits." Interesting however as the controversy between the governors and the assembly of Pensylvania may have been at the time, it is too little so now to justify the insertion of so voluminous an account of it in the present collection, and we shall content ourselves therefore with extracting the dedication, preface, and contents. It is singular, that neither the editor of Dr. Franklin's works, whom we have designated by the letters B. V.; nor Dr. Stuber, the continuator of his life, should have mentioned this publication. The work is indeed anonymous, but it is so well known to have been Dr. Franklin's, that in the common library catalogue of the British Museum it is ranked under his name. _Editor._ _The Interest of Great Britain considered, with Regard to her Colonies, and the Acquisitions of Canada and Guadaloupe[17]._ I have perused with no small pleasure the Letter addressed to Two Great Men, and the Remarks on that letter. It is not merely from the beauty, the force and perspicuity of expression, or the general elegance of manner conspicuous in both pamphlets, that my pleasure chiefly arises; it is rather from this, that I have lived to see subjects of the greatest importance to this nation publicly discussed without party views, or party heat, with decency and politeness, and with no other warmth, than what a zeal for the honour and happiness of our king and country may inspire; and this by writers, whose understanding (however they may differ from each other) appears not unequal to their candour and the uprightness of their intention. But, as great abilities have not always the best information, there are, I apprehend, in the Remarks, some opinions not well founded, and some mistakes of so important a nature, as to render a few observations on them necessary for the better information of the public. The author of the Letter, who must be every way best able to support his own sentiments, will, I hope, excuse me, if I seem officiously to interfere; when he considers, that the spirit of patriotism, like other qualities good and bad, is catching; and that his long silence since the Remarks appeared has made us despair of seeing the subject farther discussed by his masterly hand. The ingenious and candid remarker, too, who must have been misled himself before he employed his skill and address to mislead others, will certainly, since he declares he _aims at no seduction_[18], be disposed to excuse even the weakest effort to prevent it. And surely, if the general opinions that possess the minds of the people may possibly be of consequence in public affairs, it must be fit to set those opinions right. If there is danger, as the remarker supposes, that "extravagant expectations" may embarrass "a virtuous and able ministry," and "render the negotiation for peace a work of infinite difficulty[19];" there is no less danger that expectations too low, through want of proper information, may have a contrary effect, may make even a virtuous and able ministry less anxious, and less attentive to the obtaining points, in which the honour and interest of the nation are essentially concerned; and the people less hearty in supporting such a ministry and its measures. The people of this nation are indeed respectable, not for their numbers only, but for their understanding and their public spirit: they manifest the first, by their universal approbation of the late prudent and vigorous measures, and the confidence they so justly repose in a wise and good prince, and an honest and able administration; the latter they have demonstrated by the immense supplies granted in parliament unanimously, and paid through the whole kingdom with chearfulness. And since to this spirit and these supplies our "victories and successes[20]" have in great measure been owing, is it quite right, is it generous to say, with the remarker, that the people "had no share in acquiring them?" The mere mob he cannot mean, even where he speaks of the madness of the people; for the madness of the mob must be too feeble and impotent, armed as the government of this country at present is, to "overrule[21]," even in the slightest instances, the virtue "and moderation" of a firm and steady ministry. While the war continues, its final event is quite uncertain. The victorious of this year may be the vanquished of the next. It may therefore be too early to say, what advantages we ought absolutely to insist on, and make the _sine quibus non_ of a peace. If the necessity of our affairs should oblige us to accept of terms less advantageous than our present successes seem to promise us; an intelligent people, as ours is, must see that necessity, and will acquiesce. But as a peace, when it is made, may be made hastily; and as the unhappy continuance of the war affords us time to consider, among several advantages gained or to be gained, which of them may be most for our interest to retain, if some and not all may possibly be retained; I do not blame the public disquisition of these points, as premature or useless. Light often arises from a collision of opinions, as fire from flint and steel; and if we can obtain the benefit of the _light_, without danger from the _heat_ sometimes produced by controversy, why should we discourage it? Supposing then, that heaven may still continue to bless his majesty's arms, and that the event of this just war may put it in our power to retain some of our conquests at the making of a peace; let us consider, [1. _The security of a dominion, a justifiable and prudent ground upon which to demand cessions from an enemy._] _Whether we are_ to confine ourselves to those possessions only _that were "the objects for which we began the war[22]."_ This the remarker seems to think right, when the question relates to "_Canada, properly so called_; it having never been mentioned as one of those objects, in any of our memorials or declarations, or in any national or public act whatsoever." But the gentleman himself will probably agree, that if the cession of Canada would be a real advantage to us; we may demand it under his second head, as an "_indemnification_ for the charges incurred" in recovering our just rights; otherwise, according to his own principles, the demand of Guadaloupe can have no foundation.--That "our claims before the war were large enough for possession and for security too[23]," though it seems a clear point with the ingenious remarker, is, I own, not so with me. I am rather of the contrary opinion, and shall presently give my reasons. But first let me observe, that we did not make those claims because they were large enough for security, but because we could rightfully claim no more. Advantages gained in the course of this war may increase the extent of our rights. Our claims before the war contained _some_ security; but that is no reason why we should neglect acquiring _more_, when the demand of more is become reasonable. It may be reasonable in the case of America, to ask for the security recommended by the author of the Letter[24], though it would be preposterous to do it in many other cases. His proposed demand is founded on the little value of Canada to the French; the right we have to ask, and the power we may have to insist on an indemnification for our expences; the difficulty the French themselves will be under of restraining their restless subjects in America from encroaching on our limits and disturbing our trade; and the difficulty on our parts of preventing encroachments, that may possibly exist many years without coming to our knowledge. But the remarker "does not see why the arguments, employed concerning a security for a peaceable behaviour in Canada, would not be equally cogent for calling for the same security in Europe[25]." On a little farther reflection, he must I think be sensible, that the circumstances of the two cases are widely different.--_Here_ we are separated by the best and clearest of boundaries, the ocean, and we have people in or near every part of our territory. Any attempt to encroach upon us, by building a fort even in the obscurest corner of these islands, must therefore be known and prevented immediately. The aggressors also must be known, and the nation they belong to would be accountable for their aggression. In America it is quite otherwise. A vast wilderness, thinly or scarce at all peopled, conceals with ease the march of troops and workmen. Important passes may be seized within our limits, and forts built in a month, at a small expence, that may cost us an age, and a million, to remove. Dear experience has taught this. But what is still _worse_, the wide extended forests between our settlements and theirs, are inhabited by barbarous tribes of savages, that delight in war, and take pride in murder; subjects properly neither of the French nor English, but strongly attached to the former by the art and indefatigable industry of priests, similarity of superstitions, and frequent family alliances. These are easily, and have been continually, instigated to fall upon and massacre our planters, even in times of full peace between the two crowns; to the certain diminution of our people and the contraction of our settlements[26]. And though it is known they are supplied by the French, and carry their prisoners to them, we can, by complaining, obtain no redress; as the governors of Canada have a ready excuse, that the Indians are an independent people, over whom they have no power, and for whose actions they are therefore not accountable. Surely circumstances so widely different may reasonably authorise different demands of security in America, from such as are usual or necessary in Europe. The remarker however thinks, that our real dependance for keeping "France or any other nation true to her engagements, must not be in demanding securities which no nation whilst _independent_ can give; but on our own strength and our own vigilance[27]." No nation that has carried on a war with disadvantage, and is unable to continue it, can be said, under such circumstances, to be _independent_; and while either side thinks itself in a condition to demand an indemnification, there is no man in his senses, but will, cæteris paribus, prefer an indemnification, that is a cheaper and more effectual security than any other he can think of. Nations in this situation demand and cede countries by almost every treaty of peace that is made. The French part of the island of St. Christophers was added to Great Britain in circumstances altogether similar to those in which a few months may probably place the country of Canada. Farther security has always been deemed a motive with a conqueror to be less moderate; and even the _vanquished_ insist upon security as a reason for demanding what they acknowledge they could not otherwise properly ask. The security of the frontier of France _on the side of the Netherlands_ was always considered in the negotiation, that began at Gertrudenburgh, and ended with that war. For the same reason they demanded and had Cape Breton. But a war, concluded to the advantage of France, has always added something to the power, either of France, or the house of Bourbon. Even that of 1733, which she commenced with declarations of her having no ambitious views, and which finished by a treaty, at which the ministers of France repeatedly declared, that she desired nothing for herself, in effect gained for her Lorrain, an indemnification ten times the value of all her North American possessions. In short, security and quiet of princes and states have ever been deemed sufficient reasons, when supported by power, for disposing of rights; and such disposition has never been looked on as want of moderation. It has always been the foundation of the most general treaties. The security of Germany was the argument for yielding considerable possessions there to the Swedes: and the security of Europe divided the Spanish monarchy by the partition-treaty, made between powers who had no other right to dispose of any part of it. There can be no cession that is not supposed at least, to increase the power of the party to whom it is made. It is enough that he has a right to ask it, and that he does it not merely to serve the purposes of a dangerous ambition. Canada, in the hands of Britain, will endanger the kingdom of France as little as any other cession; and from its situation and circumstances cannot be hurtful to any other state. Rather, if peace be an advantage, this cession may be such to all Europe. The present war teaches us, that disputes arising in America may be an occasion of embroiling nations; who have no concerns there. If the French remain in Canada and Louisiana, fix the boundaries as you will between us and them, we must border on each other for more than fifteen hundred miles. The people that inhabit the frontiers are generally the refuse of both nations, often of the worst morals and the least discretion; remote from the eye, the prudence, and the restraint of government. Injuries are therefore frequently, in some part or other of so long a frontier, committed on both sides, resentment provoked, the colonies first engaged, and then the mother countries. And two great nations can scarce be at war in Europe, but some other prince or state thinks it a convenient opportunity to revive some ancient claim, seize some advantage, obtain some territory, or enlarge some power at the expence of a neighbour. The flames of war, once kindled, often spread far and wide, and the mischief is infinite. Happy it proved to both nations, that the Dutch were prevailed on finally to cede the New Netherlands (now the province of New York) to us at the peace of 1674; a peace that has ever since continued between us, but must have been frequently disturbed, if they had retained the possession of that country, bordering several hundred miles on our colonies of Pensylvania westward, Connecticut and the Massachusetts eastward. Nor is it to be wondered at, that people of different language, religion, and manners, should in those remote parts engage in frequent quarrels; when we find, that even the people of our _own colonies_ have frequently been so exasperated against _each other_, in their disputes about boundaries, as to proceed to open violence and bloodshed. [2. _Erecting forts in the back settlements, almost in no instance a sufficient security against the Indians and the French; but the possession of Canada implies every security, and ought to be had, while in our power._] But the remarker thinks _we shall be_ sufficiently _secure in America, if we "raise English forts at such passes as may at once make us respectable to the French and to the Indian nations[28]."_ The security desirable in America may be considered as of three kinds. 1. A security of possession, that the French shall not drive us out of the country. 2. A security of our planters from the inroads of savages, and the murders committed by them. 3. A security that the British nation shall not be obliged, on every new war, to repeat the immense expence occasioned by this, to defend its possessions in America. Forts, in the most important passes, may, I acknowledge, be of use to obtain the _first_ kind of security: but as those situations are far advanced beyond the inhabitants, the expence of maintaining and supplying the garrisons will be very great even in time of full peace, and immense on every interruption of it; as it is easy for skulking-parties of the enemy, in such long roads through the woods, to intercept and cut off our convoys, unless guarded continually by great bodies of men.--The _second_ kind of security will not be obtained by such forts, unless they were connected by a wall like that of China, from one end of our settlements to the other. If the Indians, when at war, marched like the Europeans, with great armies, heavy cannon, baggage, and carriages; the passes through which alone such armies could penetrate our country, or receive their supplies, being secured, all might be sufficiently secure; but the case is widely different. They go to war, as they call it, in small parties; from fifty men down to five. Their hunting life has made them acquainted with the whole country, and scarce any part of it is impracticable to such a party. They can travel through the woods even by night, and know how to conceal their tracks. They pass easily between your forts undiscovered; and privately approach the settlements of your frontier inhabitants. They need no convoys of provisions to follow them; for whether they are shifting from place to place in the woods, or lying in wait for an opportunity to strike a blow, every thicket and every stream furnishes so small a number with sufficient subsistence. When they have surprised separately, and murdered and scalped a dozen families, they are gone with inconceivable expedition through unknown ways; and it is very rare that pursuers have any chance of coming up with them[29]. In short, long experience has taught our planters, that they cannot rely upon forts as a security against Indians: the inhabitants of Hackney might as well rely upon the tower of London, to secure them against highwaymen and housebreakers.--As to the _third_ kind of security, that we shall not, in a few years, have all we have now done, to do over again in America, and be obliged to employ the same number of troops, and ships, at the same immense expence, to defend our possessions there, while we are in proportion weakened here: such forts I think, cannot prevent this. During a peace, it is not to be doubted the French, who are adroit at fortifying, will likewise erect forts in the most advantageous places of the country we leave them; which will make it more difficult than ever to be reduced in case of another war. We know by the experience of this war, how extremely difficult it is to march an army through the American woods, with its necessary cannon and stores, sufficient to reduce a very slight fort. The accounts at the treasury will tell you, what amazing sums we have necessarily spent in the expeditions against two very trifling forts, Duquesne, and Crown Point. While the French retain their influence over the Indians, they can easily keep our long extended frontier in continual alarm, by a very few of those people; and with a small number of regulars and militia, in such a country, we find they can keep an army of ours in full employ for several years. We therefore shall not need to be told by our colonies, that if we leave Canada, however circumscribed, to the French, "we have done nothing[30];" we shall soon be made sensible _ourselves_ of this truth, and to our cost. I would not be understood to deny, that even if we subdue and retain Canada, some _few forts_ may be of use to secure the goods of the traders, and protect the commerce, in case of any sudden misunderstanding with any tribe of Indians: but these forts will be best under the care of the colonies interested in the Indian trade, and garrisoned by their provincial forces, and at their own expence. Their own interest will then induce the American governments to take care of such forts in proportion to their importance, and see that the officers keep their corps full, and mind their duty. But any troops of ours placed there, and accountable here, would, in such remote and obscure places, and at so great a distance from the eye and inspection of superiors, soon become of little consequence, even though the French were left in possession of Canada. If the four independent companies, maintained by the crown in New York more than forty years, at a great expence, consisted, for most part of the time, of faggots chiefly; if their officers enjoyed their places as sinecures, and were only, as a writer[31] of that country styles them, a kind of military monks; if this was the state of troops posted in a populous country, where the imposition could not be so well concealed; what may we expect will be the case of those, that shall be posted two, three, or four hundred miles from the inhabitants, in such obscure and remote places as Crown Point, Oswego, Duquesne, or Niagara? they would scarce be even faggots; they would dwindle to mere names upon paper, and appear no where but upon the muster-rolls. Now _all the kinds_ of security we have mentioned are obtained by subduing and _retaining_ Canada. Our present possessions in America are secured; our planters will no longer be massacred by the Indians, who, depending absolutely on us for what are now become the necessaries of life to them (guns, powder, hatchets, knives, and clothing) and having no other Europeans near, that can either supply them, or instigate them against us; there is no doubt of their being always disposed, if we treat them with common justice, to live in perpetual peace with us. And with regard to France, she cannot, in case of another war, put us to the immense expence of defending that long extended frontier; we shall then, as it were, have our backs against a wall in America; the sea coast will be easily protected by our superior naval power: and here "our own watchfulness and our own strength" will be properly, and cannot but be successfully employed. In this situation, the force, now employed in that part of the world, may be spared for any other service here or elsewhere; so that both the offensive and defensive strength of the British empire, on the whole, will be greatly increased. But to leave the French in possession of Canada, _when it is in our power to remove them, and depend_ (as the remarker proposes) _on our own_ "strength and watchfulness[32]" _to prevent the mischiefs that may attend it, seems neither safe nor prudent_. Happy as we now are, under the best of kings, and in the prospect of a succession promising every felicity a nation was ever blessed with; happy too in the wisdom and vigour of every part of the administration; we cannot, we ought not to promise ourselves the uninterrupted continuance of those blessings. The safety of a considerable part of the state, and the interest of the whole, are not to be trusted to the wisdom and vigour of _future administrations_; when a security is to be had more effectual, more constant, and much less expensive. They, who can be moved by the apprehension of dangers so remote, as that of the future independence of our colonies (a point I shall hereafter consider) seem scarcely consistent with themselves, when they suppose we may rely on the wisdom and vigour of an administration for their safety.--I should indeed think it less material whether Canada were ceded to us or not, if I had in view only the security of _possession_ in our colonies. I entirely agree with the remarker, that we are in North America "a far greater continental as well as naval power;" and that only cowardice or ignorance can subject our colonies there to a French conquest. But for the same reason I disagree with him widely upon another point. [3. _The blood and treasure spent in the American wars, not spent in the cause of the colonies alone._] I do not think, that our "blood and treasure has been expended," as he intimates, "_in the cause of the colonies_," and that we are "making conquests for _them_[33];" yet I believe this is too common an error. I do not say, they are altogether unconcerned in the event. The inhabitants of them are, in common with the other subjects of Great Britain, anxious for the glory of her crown, the extent of her power and commerce, the welfare and future repose of the whole British people. They could not therefore but take a large share in the affronts offered to Britain; and have been animated with a truly British spirit to exert themselves beyond their strength, and against their evident interest. Yet so unfortunate have they been, that their virtue has made against them; for upon no better foundation than this have they been supposed the authors of a war, carried on for their advantage only. It is a great mistake to imagine, that the American country in question between Great Britain and France is claimed as the property of any _individuals or public body in America_; or that the possession of it by Great Britain is likely, in any lucrative view, to redound at all to the advantage of any person there. On the other hand, the bulk of the inhabitants of North America are _land-owners_, whose lands are inferior in value to those of Britain, only by the want of an equal number of people. It is true, the accession of the large territory claimed before the war began (especially if that be secured by the possession of Canada) will tend to the increase of the British subjects faster, than if they had been confined within the mountains: yet the increase within the mountains only would evidently make the comparative population equal to that of Great Britain much sooner than it can be expected, when our people are spread over a country six times as large. I think this is the only point of light in which this question is to be viewed, and is the only one in which any of the colonies are concerned.--No colony, no possessor of lands in any colony, therefore wishes for conquests, or can be benefitted by them, otherwise than as they may be a means of _securing peace on their borders_. No considerable advantage has resulted to the colonies by the conquests of this war, or can result from confirming them by the peace, but what they must enjoy in common with the rest of the British people; with this evident drawback from their share of these advantages, that they will necessarily lessen, or at least prevent the increase of the value of what makes the principal part of their private property [their land]. A people, spread through the whole tract of country on this side the Mississippi, and secured by Canada in our hands, would probably for some centuries find employment in agriculture, and thereby free us at home effectually from our fears of American manufactures. Unprejudiced men well know, that all the penal and prohibitory laws that ever were thought on will not be sufficient to prevent manufactures in a country, whose inhabitants surpass the number that can subsist by the husbandry of it. That this will be the case in America soon, if our people remain confined within the mountains, and almost as soon should it be unsafe for them to live beyond, though the country be ceded to us, no man acquainted with political and commercial history can doubt. Manufactures are founded in poverty: it is the multitude of poor without land in a country, and who must work for others at low wages or starve, that enables undertakers to carry on a manufacture, and afford it cheap enough to prevent the importation of the same kind from abroad, and to bear the expence of its own exportation.--But no man, who can have a piece of land of his own, sufficient by his labour to subsist his family in plenty, is poor enough to be a manufacturer, and work for a master. Hence, while there is land enough in America for our people, there can never be manufactures to any amount or value. It is a striking observation of a very _able pen_[34], that the natural livelihood of the thin inhabitants of a forest country is hunting; that of a greater number, pasturage: that of a middling population, agriculture; and that of the greatest, manufactures; which last must subsist the bulk of the people in a full country, or they must be subsisted by charity, or perish. The extended population, therefore, that is most advantageous to Great Britain, will be best effected, because only effectually secured, by our possession of Canada. So far as the _being_ of our present colonies in North America is concerned, I think indeed with the remarker, that the French there are not _"an enemy to be apprehended[35];"_--but the expression is too vague to be applicable to the present, or indeed to any other case. Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, unequal as they are to this nation in power and numbers of people, are enemies to be still apprehended; and the Highlanders of Scotland have been so for many ages, by the greatest princes of Scotland and Britain. The wild Irish were able to give a great deal of disturbance even to Queen Elizabeth, and cost her more blood and treasure than her war with Spain. Canada, in the hands of France, has always stinted the growth of our colonies, in the course of this war, and indeed before it, has disturbed and vexed even the best and strongest of them; has found means to murder thousands of their people, and unsettle a great part of their country. Much more able will it be to starve the growth of an infant settlement. Canada has also found means to make this nation spend two or three millions a year in America; and a people, how small soever, that in their present situation, can do this as often as we have a war with them, is, methinks, "an enemy to be apprehended." Our North American colonies are to be considered as the _frontier of the British empire_ on that side. The frontier of any dominion being attacked, it becomes not merely "the cause" of the people immediately attacked (the inhabitants of that frontier) but properly "the cause" of the whole body. Where the frontier people owe and pay obedience, there they have a right to look for protection: no political proposition is better established than this. It is therefore invidious, to represent the "blood and treasure" spent in this war, as spent in "the cause of the colonies" only; and that they are "absurd and ungrateful," if they think we have done nothing, unless we "make conquests for them," and reduce Canada to gratify their "vain ambition," &c. It will not be a conquest for _them_, nor gratify any vain ambition of theirs. It will be a conquest for the _whole_; and all our people will, in the increase of trade, and the ease of taxes, find the advantage of it. Should we be obliged at any time, to make a war for the protection of our commerce, and to secure the exportation of our manufactures, would it be fair to represent such a war, merely as blood and treasure spent in the cause of the weavers of Yorkshire, Norwich, or the West; the cutlers of Sheffield, or the button-makers of Birmingham? I hope it will appear before I end these sheets, that if ever there was a national war, this is truly such a one: a war in which the interest of the whole nation is directly and fundamentally concerned. Those, who would be thought deeply skilled in human nature, affect to discover self-interested views every where at the bottom of the fairest, the most generous conduct. Suspicions and charges of this kind meet with ready reception and belief in the minds even of the multitude, and therefore less acuteness and address, than the remarker is possessed of, would be sufficient to persuade the nation generally, that all the zeal and spirit, manifested and exerted by the colonies in this war, was only in "their own cause," to "make conquests for themselves," to engage us to make more for them, to gratify their own "vain ambition." But should they now humbly address the mother-country in the terms and the sentiments of the remarker; return her their grateful acknowledgments for the blood and treasure she had spent in "their cause;" confess that enough had not been done "for them;" allow that "English forts, raised in proper passes, will, with the wisdom and vigour of her administration," be a sufficient future protection; express their desires that their people may be confined within the mountains, lest [if] they are suffered to spread and extend themselves in the fertile and pleasant country on the other side, they should "increase infinitely from all causes," "live wholly on their own labour" and become independent; beg therefore that the French may be suffered to remain in possession of Canada, as their neighbourhood may be useful to prevent our increase, and the removing them may "in its consequences be even dangerous[36]:"--I say, should such an address from the colonies make its appearance here (though, according to the remarker, it would be a most just and reasonable one) would it not, might it not with more justice be answered:--We understand you, gentlemen, perfectly well: you have only your own interest in view: you want to have the people confined within your present limits, that in a few years the lands you are possessed of may increase tenfold in value! you want to reduce the price of labour, by increasing numbers on the same territory, that you may be able to set up manufactures and vie with your mother-country! you would have your people kept in a body, that you may be more able to dispute the commands of the crown, and obtain an independency. You would have the French left in Canada, to exercise your military virtue, and make you a warlike people, that you may have more confidence to embark in schemes of disobedience, and greater ability to support them! You have tasted too, the sweets of TWO OR THREE MILLIONS sterling per annum spent among you by our fleets and forces, and you are unwilling to be without a pretence for kindling up another war, and thereby occasioning a repetition of the same delightful doses! But, gentlemen, allow us to understand _our_ interest a little likewise: we shall remove the French from Canada, that you may live in peace, and we be no more drained by your quarrels. You shall have land enough to cultivate, that you may have neither necessity nor inclination to go into manufactures; and we will manufacture for you, and govern you. A reader of the Remarks may be apt to say, if this writer would have us restore Canada, on principles of moderation, how can we, consistent with those principles, retain Guadaloupe, which he represents of so much greater value!--I will endeavour to explain this, because by doing it I shall have an opportunity of showing the truth and good sense of the answer to the interested application I have just supposed: The author then is only apparently and not really inconsistent with himself. If we can obtain the credit of moderation by restoring Canada, it is well: but we should, however, restore it at _all events_; because it would not only be of no use to us; but "the possession of it (in his opinion) may in its consequences be dangerous[37]." As how? Why, plainly, (at length it comes out) if the French are not left there to check the growth of our colonies, "they will extend themselves almost without bounds into the inland parts, and increase infinitely from all causes; becoming a numerous, hardy, independent people; possessed of a strong country, communicating little or not at all with England, living wholly on their own labour, and in process of time knowing little and enquiring little about the mother-country." In short, according to this writer, our present colonies are large enough and numerous enough; and the French ought to be left in North America to prevent their increase, lest they become not only useless, but dangerous to Britain. I agree with the Gentleman, that with Canada in our possession, our people in America will increase amazingly. I know, that their common rate of increase, where they are not molested by the enemy, is doubling their numbers every twenty-five years, by natural generation only; exclusive of the accession of foreigners[38]. I think this increase continuing would probably, in a century more, make the number of British subjects on that side the water more numerous than they now are on this; But, [4. _Not necessary that the American colonies should_ cease being useful to the _mother-country_. _Their_ preference _over the West-Indian colonies stated_.] _I am far from entertaining on that account, any fears of their becoming either useless or dangerous to us; and I look on those fears to be merely imaginary, and without any probable foundation._--The remarker is reserved in giving his reasons; as in his opinion this "is not a fit subject for discussion."--I shall give mine, because I conceive it a subject necessary to be discussed; and the rather, as those fears, how groundless and chimerical soever, may, by possessing the multitude, possibly induce the ablest ministry to conform to them against their own judgment; and thereby prevent the assuring to the British name and nation a stability and permanency, that no man acquainted with history durst have hoped for, till our American possessions opened the pleasing prospect. The remarker thinks, that our people in America, "finding no check from Canada, would extend themselves almost without bounds into the inland parts, and increase infinitely from all causes." The very reason he assigns for their so extending, and which is indeed the true one (their being "invited to it by the pleasantness, fertility, and plenty of the country,") may satisfy us, that this extension will continue to proceed, as long as there remains any pleasant fertile country within their reach. And if we even suppose them confined by the waters of the Mississippi westward, and by those of St. Laurence and the lakes to the northward; yet still we shall leave them room enough to increase, even in the manner of settling now practised there, till they amount to perhaps a hundred millions of souls. This must take some centuries to fulfil: and in the _mean time_, this nation must necessarily supply them with the manufactures they consume; because the new settlers will be employed in agriculture; and the new settlements will so continually draw off the spare hands from the old, that our present colonies will not, during the period we have mentioned, find themselves in a condition to manufacture, even for their own inhabitants, to any considerable degree, much less for those who are settling behind them. Thus our trade must, till that country becomes as fully peopled as England (that is for centuries to come) be continually increasing, and with it our naval power; because the ocean is between us and them, and our ships and seamen must increase as that trade increases.--The human body and the political differ in this; that the first is limited by nature to a certain stature, which, when attained, it cannot ordinarily exceed: the other, by better government and more prudent police, as well as by change of manners and other circumstances, often takes fresh starts of growth, after being long at a stand; and may add tenfold to the dimensions it had for ages been confined to. The mother, being of full stature, is in a few years equalled by a growing daughter: but in the case of a mother-country and her colonies, it is quite different. The growth of the children tends to increase the growth of the mother, and so the difference and superiority is longer preserved. Were the inhabitants of this island limited to their present number by any thing in nature, or by unchangeable circumstances, the equality of population between the two countries might indeed sooner come to pass: but sure experience, in those parts of the island where manufactures have been introduced, teaches us; that people increase and multiply in proportion as the means and facility of gaining a livelihood increase; and that this island, if they could be employed, is capable of supporting ten times its present number of people. In proportion, therefore, as the demand increases for the manufactures of Britain, by the increase of people in her colonies, the number of her people at home will increase; and with them, the strength as well as the wealth of the nation. For satisfaction in this point, let the reader compare in his mind the number and force of our present fleets, with our fleet in Queen Elizabeth's time[39], before we had colonies. Let him compare the ancient, with the present state of our towns on or near our western coast (Manchester, Liverpool, Kendal, Lancaster, Glasgow, and the countries round them) that trade with any manufacture for our colonies (not to mention Leeds, Halifax, Sheffield, and Birmingham,) and consider what a difference there is in the numbers of people, buildings, rents, and the value of land and of the produce of land; even if he goes back no farther than is within man's memory. Let him compare those countries with others on the same island, where manufactures have not yet extended themselves; observe the present difference, and reflect how much greater our strength may be (if numbers give strength) when our manufacturers shall occupy every part of the island where they can possibly be subsisted. But, say the objectors, "there is a _certain distance from the sea_, in America, beyond which the expence of carriage will put a stop to the sale and consumption of your manufactures; and this, with the difficulty of making returns for them, will oblige the inhabitants to manufacture for themselves; of course, if you suffer your people to extend their settlements beyond that distance, your people become useless to you:" and this distance is limited by some to two hundred miles, by others to the Apalachian mountains.--Not to insist on a very plain truth, that no part of a dominion, from whence a government may on occasion draw supplies and aids both of men and money (though at too great a distance to be supplied with manufactures from some other part) is therefore to be deemed useless to the whole; I shall endeavour to show, that these imaginary limits of utility, even in point of commerce, are much too narrow. The inland parts of the continent of Europe are farther from the sea, than the limits of settlement proposed for America. Germany is full of tradesmen and artificers of all kinds, and the governments there are not all of them always favourable to the commerce of Britain; yet it is a well-known fact, that our manufactures find their way even into the heart of Germany. Ask the great manufacturers and merchants of the Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, Manchester, and Norwich goods; and they will tell you, that some of them send their riders frequently through France or Spain, and Italy, up to Vienna, and back through the middle and northern parts of Germany, to show samples of their wares, and collect orders, which they receive by almost every mail, to a vast amount. Whatever charges arise on the carriage of goods are added to the value, and all paid by the consumer. If these nations, over whom we have no government, over whose consumption we can have no influence, but what arises from the cheapness and goodness of our wares, whose trade, manufactures, or commercial connections are not subject to the control of our laws, as those of our colonies certainly are in some degree; I say, if these nations purchase and consume such quantities of our goods, notwithstanding the remoteness of their situation from the sea; how much less likely is it, that the settlers in America, who must for ages be employed in agriculture chiefly, should make cheaper for themselves the goods our manufacturers at present supply them with: even if we suppose the carriage five, six, or seven hundred miles from the sea as difficult and expensive, as the like distance into Germany: whereas in the latter, the natural distances are frequently doubled by political obstructions; I mean the intermixed territories and clashing interests of princes[40]. But when we consider, that the inland parts of America are penetrated by great navigable rivers; that there are a number of great lakes, communicating with each other, with those rivers, and with the sea, very small portages here and there excepted[41]; that the sea-coasts (if one may be allowed the expression) of those lakes only amount at least to two thousand seven hundred miles, exclusive of the rivers running into them (many of which are navigable to a great extent for boats and canoes, through vast tracts of country); how little likely is it that the expence on the carriage of our goods into those countries should prevent the use of them. If the poor Indians in those remote parts are now able to pay for the linen, woollen, and iron wares they are at present furnished with by the French and English traders (though Indians have nothing but what they get by hunting, and the goods are loaded with all the impositions fraud and knavery can contrive to inhance their value) will not industrious English farmers, hereafter settled in those countries, be much better able to pay for what shall be brought them in the way of fair commerce? If it is asked, _What_ can such farmers raise, wherewith to pay for the manufactures they may want from us? I answer, that the inland parts of America in question are well known to be fitted for the production of hemp, flax, pot-ash, and above all, silk; the southern parts may produce olive-oil, raisins, currants, indigo, and cochineal. Not to mention horses and black cattle, which may easily be driven to the maritime markets, and at the same time assist in conveying other commodities. That the commodities first mentioned may easily, by water and land-carriage, be brought to the sea-ports from interior America, will not seem incredible, when we reflect, that _hemp_ formerly came from the Ukraine and most southern parts of Russia to Wologda, and down the Dwina to Archangel; and thence, by a perilous navigation, round the North Cape to England, and other parts of Europe. It now comes from the same country up the Dnieper, and down the Duna[42], with much land-carriage. Great part of the Russia _iron_, no high-priced commodity, is brought three hundred miles by land and water from the heart of Siberia. _Furs_ [the produce too of America] are brought to Amsterdam from all parts of Siberia, even the most remote, Kamstchatka. The same country furnishes me with another instance of extended inland commerce. It is found worth while to keep up a mercantile communication between Pekin in China, and Petersburgh. And none of these instances of inland commerce _exceed_ those of the courses by which, at several periods, _the whole trade of the East_ was carried on. Before the prosperity of the Mameluke dominion in Egypt fixed the staple for the riches of the East at Cairo and Alexandria (whither they were brought from the Red Sea) great part of those commodities were carried to the cities of Cashgar and Balk. (This gave birth to those towns, that still subsist upon the remains of their ancient opulence, amidst a people and country equally wild.) From thence those goods were carried down the Amû (the ancient Oxus) to the Caspian Sea, and up the Wolga to Astrachan; from whence they were carried over to, and down the Don, to the mouth of that river; and thence again the Venetians directly, and the Genoese and Venetians indirectly (by way of Kaffa and Trebisonde) dispersed them through the Mediterranean and some other parts of Europe. Another part of those goods was carried over-land from the Wolga to the rivers Duna and Neva; from both they were carried to the city of Wisbuy in the Baltic (so eminent for its sea-laws); and from the city of Ladoga on the Neva, we are told they were even carried by the Dwina to Archangel; and from thence round the North Cape.--If iron and hemp will bear the charge of carriage from this inland country, _other metals_ will, as well as iron; and certainly _silk_, since 3_d._ per _lb._ is not above 1 per cent on the value, and amounts to 28_l._ per ton. If the _growths_ of a country find their way out of it; the _manufactures_ of the country where they go will infallibly find their way into it. They, who understand the economy and principles of manufactures, know, that it is impossible to establish them in places not populous: and even in those that are populous, hardly possible to establish them to the prejudices of the places _already in possession of them_. Several attempts have been made in France and Spain, countenanced by the government, to draw from us, and establish in those countries, our hard-ware and woollen manufactures; but without success. The reasons are various. A manufacture is part of a great system of commerce, which takes in conveniencies of various kinds; methods of providing materials of all sorts, machines for expediting and facilitating labour, all the channels of correspondence for vending the wares, the credit and confidence necessary to found and support this correspondence, the mutual aid of different artizans, and a thousand other particulars, which time and long experience have _gradually_ established. A part of such a system cannot support itself without the whole: and before the whole can be obtained the part perishes. Manufactures, where they are in perfection, are carried on by a multiplicity of hands, each of which is expert only in his own part; no one of them a master of the whole; and, if by any means spirited away to a foreign country, he is lost without his fellows. Then it is a matter of the extremest difficulty to persuade a complete set of workmen, skilled in all parts of a manufactory, to leave their country together, and settle in a foreign land. Some of the idle and drunken may be enticed away; but these only disappoint their employers, and serve to discourage the undertaking. If by royal munificence, and an expence that the profits of the trade alone would not bear, a complete set of good and skilful hands are collected and carried over, they find so much of the system imperfect, so many things wanting to carry on the trade to advantage, so many difficulties to overcome, and the knot of hands so easily broken by death, dissatisfaction, and desertion; that they and their employers are discouraged together, and the project vanishes into smoke. Hence it happens, that established manufactures are hardly ever lost, but by foreign conquest, or by some eminent interior fault in manners or government; a bad police oppressing and discouraging the workmen, or religious persecutions driving the sober and industrious out of the country. There is, in short, scarce a single instance in history of the contrary, where manufactures have once taken firm root. They sometimes start up in a new place; but are generally supported, like exotic plants, at more expence than they are worth for any thing but curiosity; until these new seats become the refuge of the manufacturers driven from the old ones. The conquest of Constantinople, and final reduction of the Greek empire, dispersed many curious manufacturers into different parts of Christendom. The former conquests of its provinces, had _before_ done the same. The loss of liberty in Verona, Milan, Florence, Pisa, Pistoia, and other great cities of Italy, drove the manufacturers of woollen cloths into Spain and Flanders. The latter first lost their trade and manufactures to Antwerp and the cities of Brabant; from whence, by persecution for religion, they were sent into Holland and England: [while] the civil wars, during the minority of Charles the First of Spain, which ended in the loss of the liberty of their great towns, ended too in the loss of the manufactures of Toledo, Segovia, Salamanca, Medina del campo, &c. The revocation of the _edict of Nantes_ communicated, to all the protestant part of Europe, the paper, silk, and other valuable manufacturers of France; almost peculiar at that time to that country, and till then in vain attempted elsewhere. To be convinced, that it is not soil and climate, or even freedom from taxes, that determines the residence of manufacturers, we need only turn our eyes on Holland; where a multitude of manufactures are still carried on (perhaps more than on the same extent of territory any where in Europe) and sold on terms upon which they cannot be had in any other part of the world. And this too is true of those _growths_, which, by their nature and the labour required to raise them, come the nearest to manufactures. As to the common-place objection to the North-American settlements, that they are _in the same climate, and their produce the same as that of England_;--in the first place it is not true; it is particularly not so of the countries now likely to be added to our settlements; and of our present colonies, the products, lumber, tobacco, rice, and indigo, great articles of commerce, do not interfere with the products of England: in the next place, a man must know very little of the trade of the world, who does not know, that the greater part of it is carried on between countries whose climate differs very little. Even the trade between the different parts of these British islands is greatly superior to that between England and all the West India Islands put together. If I have been successful in proving that a considerable commerce may and will subsist between us and our future most inland settlements in North America, notwithstanding their distance; I have more than half proved no _other inconveniency will arise_ from their distance. Many men in such a country must "know," must "think," and must "care" about the country they chiefly trade with. The juridical and other connections of government are yet a faster hold than even commercial ties, and spread, directly and indirectly, far and wide. Business to be solicited and causes depending create a great intercourse, even where private property is _not_ divided in different countries;--yet this division _will_ always subsist, where different countries are ruled by the same government. Where a man has landed property both in the mother country and a province, he will almost always live in the mother country: this, though there were no trade, is singly a sufficient gain. It is said, that Ireland pays near a million sterling annually to its absentees in England: the balance of trade from Spain, or even Portugal, is scarcely equal to this. Let it not be said we have _no absentees_ from North America. There are many, to the writer's knowledge; and if there are at present but few of them, that distinguish themselves here by great expence, it is owing to the mediocrity of fortune among the inhabitants of the Northern colonies, and a more equal division of landed property, than in the West India islands, so that there are as yet but few large estates. But if those, who have such estates, reside upon and take care of them themselves, are they worse subjects than they would be if they lived idly in England?--Great merit is assumed for the gentlemen of the West Indies,[43] on the score of their residing and spending their money in England. I would not depreciate that merit; it is considerable; for they might, if they pleased, spend their money in France: but the difference between their spending it here and at home is not so great. What do they spend it in when they are here, but the produce and manufactures of this country;--and would they not do the same if they were at home? Is it of any great importance to the English farmer, whether the West India gentleman comes to London and eats his beef, pork, and tongues, fresh; or has them brought to him in the West Indies salted? whether he eats his English cheese and butter, or drinks his English ale, at London or in Barbadoes? Is the clothier's, or the mercer's, or the cutler's, or the toyman's profit less, for their goods being worn and consumed by the same persons residing on the other side of the ocean? Would not the profits of the merchant and mariner be rather greater, and some addition made to our navigation, ships and seamen? If the North American gentleman stays in his own country, and lives there in that degree of luxury and expence with regard to the use of British manufactures, that his fortune entitles him to; may not his example (from the imitation of superiors, so natural to mankind) spread the use of those manufactures among hundreds of families around him, and occasion a much greater demand for them, than it would do if he should remove and live in London?--However this may be, if in our views of immediate advantage, it seems preferable, that the gentlemen of large fortunes in North America should reside much in England; it is what may surely be expected, as fast as such fortunes are acquired there. Their having "colleges of their own for the education of their youth," will not prevent it: a little knowledge and learning acquired increases the appetite for more, and will make the conversation of the learned on this side the water more strongly desired. Ireland has its university likewise; yet this does not prevent the immense pecuniary benefit we receive from that kingdom. And there will always be, in the conveniencies of life, the politeness, the pleasures, the magnificence of the reigning country, many other attractions besides those of learning, to draw men of substance there, where they can (apparently at least) have the best bargain of happiness for their money. Our _trade to the West India islands_ is undoubtedly a valuable one: but whatever is the amount of it, it _has long been at a stand_. Limited as our sugar planters are by the scantiness of territory, they cannot increase much beyond their present number; and this is an evil, as I shall show hereafter, that will be little helped by our keeping Guadaloupe.--The trade to our Northern Colonies is not only greater, but yearly increasing with the increase of people: and even in a greater proportion, as the people increase in wealth and the ability of spending, as well as in numbers.[44]--I have already said, that _our people in the northern colonies_ double in about 25 years, exclusive of the accession of strangers. That I speak within bounds, I appeal to the authentic accounts frequently required by the board of trade, and transmitted to that board by the respective governors; of which accounts I shall select one as a sample, being that from the colony of Rhode-Island;[45] a colony that of all the others receives the least addition from strangers.--For the increase of our _trade to those colonies_, I refer to the accounts frequently laid before Parliament, by the officers of the customs, and to the custom-house books: from which I have also selected one account, that of the trade from England (exclusive of Scotland) to Pensylvania[46]; a colony most remarkable for the plain frugal manner of living of its inhabitants, and the most suspected of carrying on manufactures, on account of the number of German artizans, who are known to have transplanted themselves into that country; though even these, in truth, when they come there, generally apply themselves to agriculture, as the surest support and most advantageous employment. By this account it appears, that the exports to that province have in 28 years, increased nearly in the proportion of 17 to 1; whereas the people themselves, who by other authentic accounts appear to double their numbers (the strangers who settle there included) in about 16 years, cannot in the 28 years have increased in a greater proportion than as 4 to 1. The additional demand then, and consumption of goods from England, of 13 parts in 17 more than the additional number would require, must be owing to this; that the people having by their industry mended their circumstances, are enabled to indulge themselves in finer clothes, better furniture, and a more general use of all our manufactures than heretofore. In fact, the occasion for English goods in North America, and the inclination to have and use them, is, and must be for ages to come, much greater than the ability of the people to pay for them; they must therefore, as they now do, deny themselves many things they would otherwise chuse to have, or increase their industry to obtain them. And thus, if they should at any time manufacture some coarse article, which on account of its bulk or some other circumstance, cannot so well be brought to them from Britain; it only enables them the better to pay for finer goods, that _otherwise_ they could not indulge themselves in: so that the exports thither are not diminished by such manufacture, but rather increased. The single article of manufacture in these colonies, mentioned by the remarker, is _hats_ made in New-England. It is true, there have been, ever since the first settlement of that country, a few hatters there; drawn thither probably at first by the facility of getting beaver, while the woods were but little cleared, and there was plenty of those animals. The case is greatly altered now. The beaver skins are not now to be had in New-England, but from very remote places and at great prices. The trade is accordingly declining there; so that, far from being able to make hats in any quantity for exportation, they cannot supply their home demand; and it is well known, that some thousand dozens are sent thither yearly from London, Bristol, and Liverpool, and sold there cheaper than the inhabitants can make them of equal goodness. In fact, the colonies are so little suited for establishing of manufactures, that they are continually losing the few branches they accidentally gain. The working brasiers, cutlers, and pewterers, as well as hatters, who have happened to go over from time to time and settle in the colonies, gradually drop the working part of their business, and import their respective goods from England, whence they can have them cheaper and better than they can make them. They continue their shops indeed, in the same way of dealing; but become _sellers_ of brasiery, cutlery, pewter, hats, &c. brought from England, instead of being _makers_ of those goods. [5. _The American colonies_ not dangerous _in their nature to Great Britain_.] Thus much to the apprehension of our colonies becoming useless to us. I shall next consider the other supposition, that their growth may render them _dangerous_.--Of this, I own, I have not the least conception, when I consider that we have already _fourteen separate governments_ on the maritime coast of the continent; and, if we extend our settlements, shall probably have as many more behind them on the inland side. Those we now have are not only under different governors, but have different forms of government, different laws, different interests, and some of them different religious persuasions and different manners.--Their jealousy of each other is so great, that however necessary an union of the colonies has long been, for their common defence and security against their enemies, and how sensible soever each colony has been of that necessity; yet they have never been able to effect such an union among themselves; nor even to agree in requesting the mother country to establish it for them. Nothing but the immediate command of the crown has been able to produce even the imperfect union, but lately seen there, of the forces of some colonies. If they could not agree to unite for their defence against the French and Indians, who were perpetually harassing their settlements, burning their villages, and murdering their people; can it reasonably be supposed there is any danger of their uniting against their own nation, which protects and encourages them, with which they have so many connections and ties of blood, interest and affection, and which, it is well known, they all love much more than they love one another? In short, there are so many causes that must operate to prevent it, that I will venture to say, an union amongst them for such a purpose is not merely improbable, it is impossible. And if the union of the whole is impossible, the attempt of a part must be madness; as those colonies that did not join the rebellion would join the mother-country in suppressing it. When I say such an union is impossible, I mean, without the most grievous tyranny and oppression. People who have property in a country which they may lose, and privileges which they may endanger, are generally disposed to be quiet, and even to bear much, rather than hazard all. While the government is mild and just, while important civil and religious rights are secure, such subjects will be dutiful and obedient. The waves do not rise but when the winds blow. What such an administration as the Duke of Alva's in the Netherlands might produce, I know not; but this I think I have a right to deem impossible. And yet there were two very manifest differences between that case, and ours; and both are in our favour. The _first_, that Spain had already united the seventeen provinces under one visible government, though the states continued independent: the _second_, that the inhabitants of those provinces were of a nation, not only different from, but utterly unlike the Spaniards. Had the Netherlands been peopled from Spain, the worst of oppression had probably not provoked them to wish a separation of government. It might, and probably would, have ruined the country; but would never have produced an independent sovereignty. In fact, neither the very worst of governments, the worst of politics in the last century, nor the total abolition of their remaining liberty, in the provinces of Spain itself, in the present, have produced any independency [in Spain] that could be supported. The same may be observed of France. And let it not be said, that the neighbourhood of these to the seat of government has prevented a separation. While our strength at sea continues, the banks of the Ohio (in point of easy and expeditious conveyance of troops) are nearer to London, than the remote parts of France and Spain to their respective capitals; and much nearer than Connaught and Ulster were in the days of Queen Elizabeth. No body foretels the dissolution of the Russian monarchy from its extent; yet I will venture to say, the eastern parts of it are already much more inaccessible from Petersburgh, than the country on the Mississippi is from London; I mean, more men, in less time, might be conveyed the latter than the former distance. The rivers Oby, Jenesea, and Lena, do not facilitate the communication half so well by their course, nor are they half so practicable as the American rivers. To this I shall only add the observation of Machiavel, in his Prince; that a government seldom long preserves its dominion over those who are foreigners to it; who, on the other hand, fall with great ease, and continue inseparably annexed to the government of their own nation: which he proves by the fate of the English conquests in France. Yet with all these disadvantages, so difficult is it to overturn an established government, that it was not without the assistance of France and England, that the United Provinces supported themselves: which teaches us, that [6. _The French remaining in Canada, an encouragement to disaffections in the British Colonies_.--_If they prove a_ check, _that check of the most barbarous nature_.] _If the visionary danger of independence in our colonies is to be feared; nothing is more likely to render it substantial, than the neighbourhood of foreigners at enmity with the sovereign governments, capable of giving either_ aid[47], _or an_ asylum, _as the event shall require_. Yet against even these disadvantages, did Spain preserve almost ten provinces, merely through their want of union; which indeed could never have taken place among the others, but for causes, some of which are in our case impossible, and others it is impious to suppose possible. The Romans well understood that policy, which teaches the security arising to the chief government from separate states among the governed; when they restored the liberties of the states of Greece (oppressed but united under Macedon) by an edict, that every state should live under its own laws. They did not even name a governor. Independence of each other, and separate interests (though among a people united by common manners, language, and I may say religion; inferior neither in wisdom, bravery, nor their love of liberty, to the Romans themselves;) was all the security the sovereigns wished for their sovereignty. It is true, they did not call themselves sovereigns; they set no value on the title; they were contented with possessing the thing. And possess it they did, even without a standing army: (what can be a stronger proof of the security of their possession?) And yet by a policy, similar to this throughout, was the Roman world subdued and held: a world composed of above an hundred languages, and sets of manners, different from those of their masters. Yet this dominion was unshakeable, till the loss of liberty and corruption of manners in the sovereign state overturned it. _But what is the prudent policy, inculcated by the remarker to obtain this end, security of dominion over our colonies? It is_, to leave the French _in_ Canada, to "check" their growth; _for otherwise, our people may "increase infinitely from all causes[48]."_ We have already seen in what manner the French and their Indians check the growth of our colonies. It is a modest word, this _check_, for massacring men, women, and children. The writer would, if he could, hide from himself as well as from the public, the horror arising from such a proposal, by couching it in general terms: it is no wonder he thought it a "subject not fit for discussion" in his letter; though he recommends it as "a point that should be the constant object of the minister's attention!" But if Canada is restored on this principle, will not Britain be guilty of all the blood to be shed, all the murders to be committed, in order to check this dreaded growth of our own people? Will not this be telling the French in plain terms, that the horrid barbarities they perpetrate with their Indians on our colonists are agreeable to us; and that they need not apprehend the resentment of a government, with whose views they so happily concur? Will not the colonies view it in this light? Will they have reason to consider themselves any longer as subjects and children, when they find their cruel enemies hallooed upon them by the country from whence they sprung; the government that owes them protection, as it requires their obedience? Is not this the most likely means of driving them into the arms of the French, who can invite them by an offer of that security, their own government chuses not to afford them? I would not be thought to insinuate, that the remarker wants humanity. I know how little many good-natured persons are affected by the distresses of people at a distance, and whom they do not know. There are even those, who, being present, can sympathize sincerely with the grief of a lady on the sudden death of a favourite bird; and yet can read of the sinking of a city in Syria with very little concern. If it be, after all, thought necessary to check the growth of our colonies, give me leave to propose a method less cruel. It is a method of which we have an example in scripture. The murder of husbands, of wives, of brothers, sisters and children, whose pleasing society has been for some time enjoyed, affects deeply the respective surviving relations; but grief for the death of a child just born is short, and easily supported. The method I mean is that which was dictated by the Egyptian policy, when the "infinite increase" of the children of Israel was apprehended as dangerous to the state[49]. Let an act of parliament then be made, enjoining the colony midwives to stifle in the birth every third or fourth child. By this means you may keep the colonies to their present size. And if they were under the hard alternative of submitting to one or the other of these schemes for checking their growth, I dare answer for them, they would prefer the latter. _But all this debate about the propriety or impropriety of keeping or restoring Canada_ is possibly too early. We have taken the capital indeed, but the country is yet far from being in our possession; and perhaps never will be: for if our m----rs are persuaded by such counsellors as the remarker, that the French there are "not the worst of neighbours," and that if we had conquered Canada, we ought, for our own sakes, to restore it, as a check to the growth of our colonies; I am then afraid we shall never take it. For there are many ways of avoiding the completion of the conquest, that will be less exceptionable and less odious than the giving it up. [7. _Canada easily peopled_, without draining Great Britain _of any of its inhabitants_.] _The objection I have often heard, that if we had Canada we could not people it, without draining Britain of its inhabitants, is founded on ignorance of the nature of population in new countries._ When we first began to colonize in America, it was necessary to send people, and to send seed-corn; but it is not now necessary that we should furnish, for a new colony, either one or the other. The annual increment alone of our present colonies, without diminishing their numbers, or requiring a man from hence, is sufficient in ten years to fill Canada with double the number of English that it now has of French inhabitants[50]. Those who are protestants among the French will probably choose to remain under the English government; many will choose to remove, if they can be allowed to sell their lands, improvements, and effects: the rest in that thin-settled country will in less than half a century, from the crowds of English settling round and among them, be blended and incorporated with our people both in language and manners. [8. _The merits of Guadaloupe to Great Britain_ over-valued; _yet likely to be paid_ much dearer for, _than Canada_.] _In Guadaloupe the case is somewhat different_; and though I am far from thinking[51] we have sugar-land enough[52], I cannot think Guadaloupe is so desirable an increase of it, as other objects the enemy would probably be infinitely more ready to part with. A country, _fully inhabited_ by any nation, is no proper possession for another of different languages, manners, and religion. It is hardly ever tenable at less expence than it is worth. But the isle of _Cayenne, and its appendix, Equinoctial-France_, having but very few inhabitants, and these therefore easily removed, would indeed be an acquisition every way suitable to our situation and desires. This would hold all that migrate from Barbadoes, the Leeward Islands, or Jamaica. It would certainly recal into an English government (in which there would be room for millions) all who have before settled or purchased in Martinico, Guadaloupe, Santa-Cruz, or St. John's; except such as know not the value of an English government, and such I am sure are not worth recalling. But should we keep Guadaloupe, we are told it would _enable us to export 300,000_l._ in sugars_. Admit it to be true, though perhaps the amazing increase of English consumption might stop most of it here,--to whose profit is this to redound? To the profit of the French inhabitants of the island: except a small part, that should fall to the share of the English purchasers, but whose whole purchase-money must first be added to the wealth and circulation of France. I grant, however, much of this 300,000_l._ would be expended in British manufactures. Perhaps too, a few of the land-owners of Guadaloupe might dwell and spend their fortunes in Britain (though probably much fewer than of the inhabitants of North America.) I admit the advantage arising to us from these circumstances (as far as they go) in the case of Guadaloupe, as well as in that of our other West-India settlements. Yet even this consumption is little better than that of an allied nation would be, who should take our manufactures and supply us with sugar, and put us to no great expence in defending the place of growth. But though our own colonies expend among us almost the whole produce of our sugar[53], _can we, or ought we_ to promise ourselves this will be the case of Guadaloupe? One 100,000_l._ will supply them with British manufactures; and supposing we can effectually prevent the introduction of those of France (which is morally impossible in a country used to them) the other 200,000_l._ will still be spent in France, in the education of their children and support of themselves; or else be laid up there, where they will always think their home to be. Besides this consumption of British manufactures, _much is said of the benefit we shall have from the_ situation of Guadaloupe; and we are told of a trade to the Caraccas and Spanish Main. In what respect Guadaloupe is better situated for this trade than Jamaica, or even any of our other islands, I am at a loss to guess. I believe it to be not so well situated for that of the windward coast, as Tobago and St. Lucia; which in this, as well as other respects, would be more valuable possessions, and which, I doubt not, the peace will secure to us. Nor is it nearly so well situated for that of the rest of the Spanish Main as Jamaica. As to the greater safety of our trade by the possession of Guadaloupe, experience has convinced us, that in reducing a single island, or even more, we stop the privateering business but little. Privateers still subsist, in equal if not greater numbers, and carry the vessels into Martinico, which before it was more convenient to carry into Guadaloupe. Had we all the Caribbees, it is true, they would in those parts be without shelter. Yet, upon the whole, I suppose it to be a doubtful point, and well worth consideration, whether our obtaining possession of all the Caribbees would be more than a temporary benefit; as it would necessarily soon fill the French part of Hispaniola with French inhabitants, and thereby render it five times more valuable in time of peace, and little less than impregnable in time of war, and would probably end in a few years in the uniting the whole of that great and fertile island under a French government. It is agreed on all hands, that our conquest of St. Christopher's, and driving the French from thence, first furnished Hispaniola with skilful and substantial planters, and was consequently the first occasion of its present opulence. On the other hand, I will hazard an opinion, that valuable as the French possessions in the West Indies are, and undeniable the advantages they derive from them, there is somewhat to be weighed in the opposite scale. They cannot at present make war with England, without exposing those advantages, while divided among the numerous islands they now have, much more than they would, were they possessed of St. Domingo only; their own share of which would, if well cultivated, grow more sugar, than is now grown in all their West-India islands. _I have before said, I do not deny the utility of the conquest, or even of our future possession of Guadaloupe, if not bought too dear._ The trade of the West Indies is one of our most valuable trades. Our possessions there deserve our greatest care and attention. So do those of North America. I shall not enter into the invidious task of comparing their due estimation. It would be a very long, and a very disagreeable one, to run through every thing material on this head. It is enough to our present point, if I have shown, that the value of North America is capable of an immense increase, by an acquisition and measures, that must necessarily have an effect the direct contrary of what we have been industriously taught to fear; and that Guadaloupe is, in point of advantage, but a very small addition to our West-India possessions; rendered many ways less valuable to us, than it is to the French, who will probably set more value upon it, than upon a country [Canada] that is much more valuable to us than to them. There is a great deal more to be said on all the parts of these subjects; but as it would carry me into a detail, that I fear would tire the patience of my readers, and which I am not without apprehensions I have done already, I shall reserve what remains till I dare venture again on the indulgence of the public[54]. FOOTNOTES: [17] In the year 1760, upon the prospect of a peace with France, the late Earl of Bath addressed a Letter to Two Great Men (Mr. Pitt and the Duke of Newcastle) on the terms necessary to be insisted upon in the negociation. He preferred the acquisition of Canada, to acquisitions in the West Indies. In the same year there appeared Remarks on the letter addressed to two great men, containing opposite opinions on this and other subjects. At this moment a philosopher stepped into the controversy, and wrote a pamphlet entitled, The Interest of Great Britain considered, with Regard to her Colonies, &c. The arguments he used, appear to have carried weight with them at the courts of London and Paris, for Canada was kept by the peace. The editor thinks it necessary to add the following further explanations.--The above piece (which first came to his hands in the shape of a pamphlet, printed for Becket, 1761, 2d edit.) has none of the eight subdivisions it is now thrown into, marked out by the author. He conceived however that they might be useful, and has taken the liberty of making them, but guards it with this apology. The better to suit his purpose, the division of the paragraphs, &c. and the italics of the original, are not accurately adhered to. It was impossible for him however to alter one word in the sense, style, or disposition, of his author: this was a liberty for which he could make no apology. In the original, the author has added his observations concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, &c. [printed in the 2d Vol. of this work] and introduced it with the following note. "In confirmation of the writer's opinion concerning population, manufactures, &c. he has thought it not amiss to add an extract from a piece written some years since in America, where the facts must be well known, on which the reasonings are founded. It is entitled, Observations, &c." With respect to the arguments used by the authors of the Letter, and of the Remarks, it is useless to repeat them here. As far as they are necessary for the understanding of Dr. Franklin, they are to be collected from his own work. B. V. [18] Remarks, p. 6. [19] Ibid. p. 7. [20] Remarks, p. 7. [21] Ibid. [22] Remarks, p. 19. [23] Ibid. [24] Page 30, of the Letter, and p. 21, of the Remarks. [25] Remarks, p. 28. [26] A very intelligent writer of that country, Dr. Clark, in his Observations on the late and present Conduct of the French, &c. printed at Boston, 1755, says, "The Indians in the French interest are, upon all proper opportunities, _instigated by their priests_ (who have generally the chief management of their public councils) to acts of hostility against the English, even in time of profound peace between the two crowns. Of this there are many undeniable instances: the war between the Indians and the colonies of the Massachusett's Bay and New Hampshire, in 1723, by which those colonies suffered so much damage, was begun by the instigation of the French: their supplies were from them; and there are now original letters of several Jesuits to be produced, whereby it evidently appears, that they were continually animating the Indians, when almost tired with the war, to a farther prosecution of it. The French not only excited the Indians, and supported them, but joined their own forces with them in all the late hostilities that have been committed within his majesty's province of Nova Scotia. And from an intercepted letter this year from the Jesuits at Penobscot, and from other information, it is certain, that they have been using their utmost endeavours to excite the Indians to new acts of hostility against his majesty's colony of the Massachusett's Bay; and some have been committed. The French not only excite the Indians to acts of hostility, but reward them for it, by _buying the English prisoners of them_: for the ransom of each of which they afterwards demand of us the price that is usually given for a slave in these colonies. They do this under the specious pretence of rescuing the poor prisoners from the cruelties and barbarities of the savages; but in reality to encourage them to continue their depredations, as they can by this means get more by hunting the English, than by hunting wild-beasts; and the French at the same time are thereby enabled to keep up a large body of Indians, entirely at _the expence of the English_." [27] Remarks, p. 25. [28] Remarks, p. 25. [29] "Although the Indians live scattered, as a hunter's life requires, they may be collected together from almost any distance; as they can find their subsistence from their gun in their travelling. But let the number of the Indians be what it will, they are not formidable merely on account of their numbers; there are many other circumstances that give them a great advantage over the English. The English inhabitants, though numerous, are extended over a large tract of land, five hundred leagues in length on the sea shore; and although some of their trading towns are thick settled, their settlements in the country towns must be at a distance from each other: besides, that in a new country where lands are cheap, people are fond of acquiring large tracts to themselves; and therefore in the out-settlements, they must be more remote: and as the people that move out are generally poor, they sit down either where they can easiest procure land, or soonest raise a subsistence. Add to this, that the English have fixed settled habitations, the easiest and shortest passages to which the Indians, by constantly hunting in the woods, are perfectly well acquainted with; whereas the English know little or nothing of the Indian country, nor of the passages through the woods that lead to it. The Indian way of making war is by sudden attack upon exposed places; and as soon as they have done mischief, they retire, and either go home by the same or some different route, as they think safest; or go to some other place at a distance, to renew their stroke. If a sufficient party should happily be ready to pursue them, it is a great chance, whether in a country consisting of woods and swamps, which the English are not acquainted with, the enemy do not lie in ambush for them in some convenient place, and from thence destroy them. If this should not be the case, but the English should pursue them, as soon as they have gained the rivers, by means of their canoes (to the use of which they are brought up from their infancy) they presently get out of their reach: further, if a body of men were to march into their country, to the place where they are settled, they can, upon the least notice, without great disadvantage, quit their present habitation, and betake themselves to new ones." _Clark's Observations_, p. 13. "It has been already remarked, that the tribes of the Indians, living upon the lakes and rivers that run upon the back of the English settlements in North America, are very numerous, and can furnish a great number of fighting men, all perfectly well acquainted with the use of arms as soon as capable of carrying them, as they get the whole of their subsistence from hunting; and that this army, large as it may be, can be maintained by the French without any expence. From their numbers, their situation, and the rivers that run into the English settlements, it is easy to conceive, that they can at any time make an attack upon, and constantly annoy as many of the exposed English settlements as they please, and those at any distance from each other. The effects of such incursions have been too severely felt by many of the British colonies, not to be very well known. The entire breaking up places, that had been for a considerable time settled at a great expence both of labour and money; burning the houses, destroying the flock, killing and making prisoners great numbers of the inhabitants, with all the cruel usage they meet with in their captivity, is only a part of the scene. All other places that are exposed are kept in continual terror; the lands lie waste and uncultivated, from the danger that attends those that shall presume to work upon them: besides the immense charge the governments must be at in a very ineffectual manner to defend their extended frontiers; and all this from the influence the French have had over, but comparatively, a few of the Indians. To the same or greater evils still will every one of the colonies be exposed, whenever the same influence shall be extended to the whole body of them." Ibid. p. 20. [30] Remarks, p. 26. [31] Douglass. [32] Remarks, p. 25. [33] Remarks, p. 26. [34] This I believe is meant for Dr. Adam Smith, who seems not at this time to have printed any of his political pieces. B. V. [35] Remarks, p. 27. [36] Remarks, p. 50, 51. [37] Remarks, p. 50, 51. [38] The reason of this greater increase in America than in Europe is, that in old settled countries, all trades, farms, offices, and employments are full; and many people refrain marrying till they see an opening, in which they can settle themselves, with a reasonable prospect of maintaining a family: but in America, it being easy to obtain land, which, with moderate labour will afford subsistence and something to spare, people marry more readily and earlier in life, whence arises a numerous offspring and the swift population of those countries. It is a common error, that we cannot fill our provinces or increase the number of them, without draining this nation of its people. The increment alone of our present colonies is sufficient for both those purposes. [Written in 1760.] [39] Viz. forty sail, none of more than forty guns. [40] Sir C. Whitworth has the following assertion: "Each state in Germany is jealous of its neighbours; and hence, rather than facilitate the export or transit of its neighbours' products or manufactures, they have all recourse to strangers." State of Trade, p. xxiv. B. V. [41] From New York into lake Ontario, the land-carriage of the several portages altogether, amounts to but about twenty-seven miles. From lake Ontario into lake Erie, the land-carriage at Niagara is but about twelve miles. All the lakes above Niagara communicate by navigable straits, so that no land-carriage is necessary, to go out of one into another. From Presqu'isle on lake Erie, there are but fifteen miles land-carriage, and that a good waggon-road, to Beef River, a branch of the Ohio; which brings you into a navigation of many thousand miles inland, if you take together the Ohio, the Mississippi, and all the great rivers and branches that run into them. [42] I beg pardon for attempting to remind the reader that he must not confound the river Duna, with the river Dwina.--The fork of the Ohio is about four hundred miles distant from the sea, and the fork of the Mississippi about nine hundred: it is four hundred miles from Petersburgh to Moscow, and very considerably more than four thousand from Petersburgh to Pekin. This is enough to justify Dr. Franklin's positions in the page above, without going into farther particulars. B. V. [43] Remarks, p. 47, 48, &c. [44] The writer has [since] obtained accounts of the exports to North America, and the West India Islands; by which it appears, that there has been some increase of trade to those islands as well as to North America, though in a much less degree. The following extract from these accounts will show the reader at one view the amount of the exports to each, in two different terms of five years; the terms taken at ten years distance from each other, to show the increase, viz. _First term, from 1744 to 1748, inclusive._ _Northern Colonies._ _West India Islands._ 1744 £.640,114 12 4 £.796,112 17 9 1745 534,316 2 5 503,669 19 9 1746 754,945 4 3 472,994 19 7 1747 726,648 5 5 856,463 18 6 1748 830,243 16 9 734,095 15 3 --------------- --------------- Total, £.3,486,261 1 2 Tot. £.3,363,337 10 10 Difference, 122,930 10 4 ------------- £.3,486,268 1 2 _Second term, from 1754 to 1758, inclusive._ _Northern Colonies._ _West India Islands._ 1754 1,246,615 1 11 685,675 3 0 1755 1,177,848 6 10 694,667 13 3 1756 1,428,720 18 10 733,458 16 3 1757 1,727,924 2 10 776,488 0 6 1758 1,832,948 13 10 877,571 19 11 --------------- --------------- Total, £.7,414,057 4 3 Tot. £.3,767,841 12 11 Difference, 3,646,215 11 4 --------------- £.7,414,057 4 3 In the first term, total of West India islands, 3,363,337 10 10 In the second term, ditto 3,767,841 12 11 --------------- Increase, only £.0,404,504 2 1 In the first term, total for Northern Colonies, 3,486,268 1 2 In the second term, ditto 7,414,057 4 3 --------------- Increase, £.3,927,789 3 1 By these accounts it appears, that the exports to the West India islands, and to the northern colonies, were in the first term nearly equal (the difference being only 122,936_l._ 10s. 4d.) and in the second term, the exports to those islands had only increased 404,504_l._ 2s. 1d.--Whereas the increase to the northern colonies is 3,927,789_l._ 3s. 1d. almost _four millions_. Some part of this increased demand for English goods may be ascribed to the armies and fleets we have had both in North America and the West Indies; not so much for what is consumed by the soldiery; their clothing, stores, ammunition, &c. sent from hence on account of the government, being (as is supposed) not included in these accounts of merchandize exported; but, as the war has occasioned a great plenty of money in America, many of the inhabitants have increased their expence. N. B. These accounts do not include any exports from Scotland to America, which are doubtless proportionally considerable; nor the exports from Ireland. [I shall carry on this calculation where Dr. Franklin left it. For four years, from 1770 to 1773 inclusively, the same average _annual_ exports to the same ports of the West Indies is 994,463_l._, and to the same ports of the North American plantations 2,919,669_l._ But the annual averages of the first and second terms of the former were 672,668_l._ and 753,568_l._: of the latter, 697,254_l._ and 1,482,811_l._ In ten years therefore (taking the middle years of the terms) the North American trade is found to have _doubled_ the West Indian: in the next sixteen years it becomes greater by _three-fold_.--With respect to itself, the North American trade in 32 years (taking the extremes of the terms) has quadrupled; while the West Indian trade increased only one half; of which increase I apprehend Jamaica has given more than one-third, chiefly in consequence of the quiet produced by the peace with the maroon negroes.--Had the West Indian trade continued stationary, the North American trade would have quadrupled with respect to it, in 26 years; and this, notwithstanding the checks given to the latter, by their non-importation agreements and the encouragement of their own manufactures. There has been an accession to both these trades, produced by the cessions at the treaty of Paris, not touched upon by Dr. Franklin. The average _annual_ export-trade, from 1770 to 1773 inclusively, to the ceded West India islands, amounted to 258,299_l._: to the ceded North American territory it has been 280,423_l._ See Sir Charles Whitworth's State of Trade. B. V.] [45] _Copy of the Report of Governor Hopkins to the Board of Trade, on the Numbers of People in Rhode-Island._ In obedience to your lordships' commands, I have caused the within account to be taken by officers under oath. By it there appears to be in this colony at this time 35,939 white persons, and 4697 blacks, chiefly negroes. In the year 1730, by order of the then lords commissioners of trade and plantations, an account was taken of the number of people in this colony, and then there appeared to be 15,302 white persons, and 2633 blacks. Again in the year 1748, by like order, an account was taken of the number of people in this colony, by which it appears there were at that time 29,755 white persons, and 4373 blacks. _Colony of Rhode Island, Dec. 24, 1755._ STEPHEN HOPKINS. [46] _An Account of the Value of the Exports from England to Pensylvania, in one Year, taken at different Periods, viz._ In 1723 they amounted only to £. 15,992 19 4 1730 they were 48,592 7 5 1737 56,690 6 7 1742 75,295 3 4 1747 82,404 17 7 1752 201,666 19 11 1757 268,426 6 6 N. B. The accounts for 1758 and 1759, are not yet completed; but those acquainted with the North American trade know, that the increase in those two years has been in a still greater proportion; the last year being supposed to exceed any former year by a third; and this owing to the increased ability of the people to spend, from the greater quantities of money circulating among them by the war. [47] The _aid_ Dr. Franklin alludes to must probably have consisted in early and full supplies of arms, officers, intelligence, and trade of export and of import, through the river St. Lawrence, on risques both public and private; in the encouragement of splendid promises and a great ally; in the passage from Canada to the back settlements, being _shut_ to the British _forces_; in the quiet of the _great body_ of Indians; in the support of emissaries and discontented citizens; in loans and subsidies to congress, in ways _profitable to France_; in a refuge to be granted them in case of defeat, in vacant lands, as settlers; in the probability of war commencing earlier between England and France, at the gulph of St. Lawrence (when the shipping taken, were _rightfully_ addressed to Frenchmen) than in the present case. All this might have happened, as soon as America's distaste of the sovereign had exceeded the fear of the foreigner; a circumstance frequently seen possible in history, and which our ministers took care should not be wanting. This explanation would have required apology for its insertion, were not the opinion pretty common in England, that _had not the French been removed from Canada, the revolt of America never would have taken place_. Why then were the French _not left_ in Canada, at the peace of 1763? Or, since they _were not_ left there, why was the American dispute begun? Yet in one sense, perhaps this opinion is true; for _had_ the French been left in Canada, ministers would not only have _sooner_ felt, but _sooner_ have seen, the strange fatality of their plans. B. V. [48] Remarks, p. 50, 51. [49] And Pharoah said unto his people, behold the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; come on, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land. And the king spake to the Hebrew midwives, &c. Exodus, chap. 1. [50] In fact, there have not gone from Britain [itself] to our colonies these twenty years past to settle there, so many as ten families a year; the new settlers are either the offspring of the old, or emigrants from Germany, or the north of Ireland. [51] Remarks, p. 30, 34. [52] It is often said we have plenty of sugar-land still unemployed in Jamaica: but those who are well acquainted with that island know, that the remaining vacant land in it is generally situated among mountains, rocks, and gullies, that make carriage impracticable, so that no profitable use can be made of it; unless the price of sugars should so greatly increase, as to enable the planter to make very expensive roads, by blowing up rocks, erecting bridges, &c. every two or three hundred yards. [Our author was somewhat misinformed here. B. V.] [53] Remarks, p. 47. [54] Dr. Franklin has often been heard to say, that in writing this pamphlet he received considerable assistance from a learned friend, who was not willing to be named. B. V. _Remarks and Facts relative to the American Paper-money._[55] In the Report of the Board of Trade, dated Feb. 9, 1764, the following reasons are given for _restraining the emission_ of paper-bills of credit in America, as _a legal tender_. 1. "That it _carries the gold and silver out_ of the province, and so ruins the country; as _experience has shewn_, in every colony where it has been practised in any great degree. 2. "That the _merchants_ trading to America _have suffered_ and lost by it. 3. "That the restriction [of it] _has had a beneficial effect_ in New England. 4. "That every _medium of trade should have an intrinsic value_, which paper-money has not. Gold and silver are therefore the fittest for this medium, as they are an equivalent; which paper never can be. 5. "That _debtors_ in the assemblies make paper-money with _fraudulent views_. 6. "That in the middle colonies, where the credit of the paper-money has been best supported, the bills have _never kept to their nominal value_ in circulation; but have constantly depreciated to a certain degree, whenever the quantity has been increased." To consider these reasons in their order; the first is, 1. "_That paper-money_ carries the gold and silver out _of the province, and so ruins the country; as_ experience has shewn, _in every colony where it has been practised in any great degree_."--This opinion, of its ruining the country, seems to be merely speculative, or not otherwise founded than upon misinformation in the matter of fact. The truth is, that the balance of their trade with Britain being greatly against them, the gold and silver are drawn out to pay that balance; and then the necessity of some medium of trade has induced the making of paper-money, which could _not_ be carried away. Thus, if carrying out all the gold and silver ruins a country, every colony was ruined before it made paper-money.--But, far from being ruined by it, the colonies that have made use of paper-money have been, and are all, in a thriving condition. The debt indeed to Britain has increased, because their numbers, and of course their trade, have increased; for all trade having always a proportion of debt outstanding, which is paid in its turn, while fresh debt is contracted, the proportion of debt naturally increases as the trade increases; but the improvement and increase of estates in the colonies have been in a greater proportion than their debt. New England, particularly in 1696 (about the time they began the use of paper-money) had in all its four provinces but 180 churches or congregations; in 1760 they were 530. The number of farms and buildings there is increased in proportion to the numbers of people; and the goods exported to them from England in 1750, before the restraint took place, were near five times as much as before they had paper-money. Pensylvania, before it made any paper-money, was totally stript of its gold and silver; though they had from time to time, like the neighbouring colonies, agreed to take gold and silver coins at higher nominal values, in hopes of drawing money into, and retaining it, for the internal uses of the province. During that weak practice, silver got up by degrees to 8s. 9d. per ounce, and English crowns were called six, seven, and eight-shilling pieces, long before paper-money was made. But this practice of increasing the denomination was found not to answer the end. The balance of trade carried out the gold and silver as fast as they were brought in; the merchants raising the price of their goods in proportion to the increased denomination of the money. The difficulties for want of cash were accordingly very great, the chief part of the trade being carried on by the extremely inconvenient method of barter; when in 1723 paper-money was first made there; which gave new life to business, promoted greatly the settlement of new lands (by lending small sums to beginners on easy interest, to be repaid by instalments) whereby the province has so greatly increased in inhabitants, that the export from hence thither is now more than tenfold what it then was; and by their trade with foreign colonies, they have been able to obtain great quantities of gold and silver to remit hither in return for the manufactures of this country. New York and New Jersey have also increased greatly during the same period, with the use of paper-money; so that it does not appear to be of the ruinous nature ascribed to it. And if the inhabitants of those countries are glad to have the use of paper among themselves, that they may thereby be enabled to spare, for remittances hither, the gold and silver they obtain by their commerce with foreigners; one would expect, that no objection against their parting with it could arise here, in the country that receives it. The 2d reason is, "_That the_ merchants _trading to America have_ suffered _and lost by the paper-money_."--This may have been the case in particular instances, at particular times and places: as in South Carolina, about 58 years since; when the colony was thought in danger of being destroyed by the Indians and Spaniards; and the British merchants, in fear of losing their whole effects there, called precipitately for remittances; and the inhabitants, to get something lodged in safe countries, gave any price in paper-money for bills of exchange; whereby the paper, as compared with bills, or with produce, or other effects fit for exportation, was suddenly and greatly depreciated. The unsettled state of government for a long time in that province had also its share in depreciating its bills. But since that danger blew over, and the colony has been in the hands of the crown; their currency became fixed, and has so remained to this day. Also in New England, when much greater quantities were issued than were necessary for a medium of trade, to defray the expedition against Louisbourg; and, during the last war in Virginia and North Carolina, when great sums were issued to pay the colony troops, and the war made tobacco a poorer remittance, from the higher price of freight and insurance: in these cases, the merchants trading to those colonies may sometimes have suffered by the sudden and unforeseen rise of exchange. By slow and gradual rises, they seldom suffer; the goods being sold at proportionable prices. But war is a common calamity in all countries, and the merchants that deal with them cannot expect to avoid a share of the losses it sometimes occasions, by affecting public credit. It is hoped, however, that the profits of their subsequent commerce with those colonies may have made them some reparation. And the merchants trading to the middle colonies (New York, New Jersey, and Pensylvania) have never suffered by any rise of exchange; it having ever been a constant rule there, to consider British debts as payable in Britain, and not to be discharged but by as much paper (whatever might be the rate of exchange) as would purchase a bill for the full sterling sum. On the contrary, the merchants have been great gainers by the use of paper-money in those colonies; as it enabled them to send much greater quantities of goods, and the purchasers to pay more punctually for them. And the people there make no complaint of any injury done them by paper-money, with a legal tender; they are sensible of its benefits; and petition to have it so allowed. The 3d reason is, "_That the_ restriction _has had a_ beneficial effect _in New England_." Particular circumstances in the New England colonies made paper-money less necessary and less convenient to them. They have great and valuable fisheries of whale and cod, by which large remittances can be made. They are four distinct governments; but having much mutual intercourse of dealings, the money of each used to pass current in all: but the whole of this common currency not being under one common direction, was not so easily kept within due bounds; the prudent reserve of one colony in its emissions being rendered useless by excess in another. The Massachusets, therefore, were not dissatisfied with the restraint, as it restrained their neighbours as well as themselves; and perhaps _they_ do not desire to have the act repealed. They have not yet felt much inconvenience from it; as they were enabled to abolish their paper-currency, by a large sum in silver from Britain to reimburse their expences in taking Louisbourg, which, with the gold brought from Portugal, by means of their fish, kept them supplied with a currency; till the late war furnished them and all America with bills of exchange; so that little cash was needed for remittance. Their fisheries too furnish them with remittance through Spain and Portugal to England; which enables them the more easily to retain gold and silver in their country. The middle colonies have not this advantage; nor have they tobacco; which in Virginia and Maryland answers the same purpose. When colonies are so different in their circumstances, a regulation, that is not inconvenient to one or a few, may be very much so to the rest. But the pay is now become so indifferent in New England, at least in some of its provinces, through the want of currency, that the trade thither is at present under great discouragement. The 4th reason is, "_That every_ medium of trade _should have an_ intrinsic value; _which paper-money has not_. _Gold and silver are therefore the fittest for this medium, as they are an equivalent; which paper never can be."_ However fit a particular thing may be for a particular purpose; wherever that thing is not to be had, or not to be had in sufficient quantity; it becomes necessary to use something else, the fittest that can be got, in lieu of it. Gold and silver are not the produce of North America, which has no mines; and that which is brought thither cannot be kept there in sufficient quantity for a currency. Britain, an independent great state, when its inhabitants grow too fond of the expensive luxuries of foreign countries, that draw away its money, can, and frequently does, make laws to discourage or prohibit such importations; and by that means can retain its cash. The _colonies_ are dependent governments; and their people having naturally great respect for the sovereign country, and being thence immoderately fond of its modes, manufactures, and superfluities, cannot be restrained from purchasing them by any province law; because such law, if made, would immediately be repealed here, as prejudicial to the trade and interest of Britain. It seems hard therefore, to draw all, their real money from them, and then refuse them the poor privilege of using paper instead of it. Bank bills and bankers notes are daily used _here_ as a medium of trade, and in large dealings perhaps the greater part is transacted by their means; and yet _they_ have no intrinsic value, but rest on the credit of those that issue them; as paper-bills in the colonies do on the credit of the respective governments there. Their being payable in cash upon sight by the drawer is indeed a circumstance that cannot attend the colony bills; for the reasons just above-mentioned; their cash being drawn from them by the British trade; but the legal tender being substituted in its place is rather a greater advantage to the possessor; since he need not be at the trouble of going to a _particular bank_ or banker to demand the money, finding (wherever he has occasion to lay out money in the province) a person that is obliged to take the bills. So that even out of the province, the knowledge, that every man within that province is obliged to take its money, gives the bills a credit among its neighbours, nearly equal to what they have at home. And were it not for the laws _here_, that restrain or prohibit as much as possible all losing trades, the cash of _this_ country would soon be exported: every merchant, who had occasion to remit it, would run to the bank with all its bills, that came into his hands, and take out his part of its treasure for that purpose; so that in a short time, it would be no more able to pay bills in money upon sight, than it is now in the power of a colony treasury so to do. And if government afterwards should have occasion for the credit of the bank, it must of necessity make its bills a legal tender; funding them however on taxes by which they may in time be paid off; as has been the general practice in the colonies.--At this very time, even the silver-money in England is obliged to the legal tender for part of its value; that part which is the difference between its real weight and its denomination. Great part of the shillings and sixpences now current are, by wearing, become five, ten, twenty, and some of the sixpences even fifty per cent. too light. For this difference between the _real_ and the _nominal_, you have no _intrinsic_ value; you have not so much as paper, you have nothing. It is the legal tender, with the knowledge that it can easily be repassed for the same value, that makes three-pennyworth of silver pass for sixpence. Gold and silver have undoubtedly _some_ properties that give them a fitness above paper, as a medium of exchange; particularly their _universal estimation_; especially in cases where a country has occasion to carry its money abroad, either as a stock to trade with, or to purchase _allies_ and _foreign succours_. Otherwise, that very universal estimation is an inconvenience, which paper-money is free from; since it tends to deprive a country of even the quantity of currency that should be retained as a necessary instrument of its internal commerce, and obliges it to be continually on its guard in making and executing, at a great expence, the laws that are to prevent the trade which exports it. Paper-money well funded has another great advantage over gold and silver; its lightness of carriage, and the little room that is occupied by a great sum; whereby it is capable of being more easily, and more safely, because more privately, conveyed from place to place. Gold and silver are not _intrinsically_ of equal value with iron, a metal in itself capable of many more beneficial uses to mankind. Their value rests chiefly in the estimation they happen to be in among the generality of nations, and the credit given to the opinion, that that estimation will continue. Otherwise a pound of gold would not be a real equivalent for even a bushel of wheat. Any other well-founded credit, is as much an equivalent as gold and silver; and in some cases more so, or it would not be preferred by commercial people in different countries. Not to mention again our own bank bills; Holland, which understands the value of cash as well as any people in the world, would never part with gold and silver for credit (as they do when they put it into their bank, from whence little of it is ever afterwards drawn out) if they did not think and find the credit a full equivalent. The 5th reason is, "_That_ debtors _in the assemblies make paper-money_ with fraudulent views." This is often said by the adversaries of paper-money, and if it has been the case in any particular colony, that colony should, on proof of the fact, be duly punished. This, however, would be no reason for punishing other colonies, who have _not_ so abused their legislative powers. To deprive all the colonies of the convenience of paper-money, because it has been charged on some of them, that they have made it an instrument of fraud, is as if all the India, Bank, and other stocks and trading companies were to be abolished, because there have been, once in an age, Mississippi and South-Sea schemes and bubbles. The 6th and last reason is, "_That in the middle colonies, where the paper-money has been best supported, the bills have_ never kept to their nominal value _in circulation; but have constantly depreciated to a certain degree, whenever the quantity has been increased_." If the rising of the value of any particular commodity wanted for exportation, is to be considered as a depreciation of the values of _whatever remains_ in the country; then the rising of silver above paper to that height of additional value, which its capability of exportation only gave it, may be called a depreciation of the paper. Even here, as bullion has been wanted or not wanted for exportation, its price has varied from 5_s._ 2_d._ to 5_s._ 8_d._ per ounce. This is near 10 per cent. But was it ever said or thought on such an occasion, that all the bank bills, and all the coined silver, and all the gold in the kingdom, were depreciated 10 per cent? Coined silver is now wanted here for change, and 1 per cent is given for it by some bankers: are gold and bank notes therefore depreciated 1 per cent.? The fact in the middle colonies is really this: on the emission of the first paper-money, a difference soon arose between that and silver; the latter having a property the former had not, a property always in demand in the colonies; to wit, its being fit for a remittance. This property having soon found its value, by the merchants bidding on one another for it, and a dollar thereby coming to be rated at 8_s._ in paper-money of New York, and 7_s._ 6_d._ in paper of Pensylvania, it has continued uniformly at those rates in both provinces now near forty years, without any variation upon new emissions; though, in Pensylvania, the paper-currency has at times increased from 15,000_l._ the first sum, to 600,000_l._ or near it. Nor has any alteration been occasioned by the paper-money, in the price of the necessaries of life, when compared with silver: they have been for the greatest part of the time no higher than before it was emitted; varying only by plenty and scarcity, or by a less or greater foreign demand. It has indeed been usual with the adversaries of a paper-currency, to call every rise of exchange with London, a depreciation of the paper: but this notion appears to be by no means just: for if the paper purchases every thing but bills of exchange, at the former rate, and these bills are not above one-tenth of what is employed in purchases; then it may be more properly and truly said, that the exchange has risen, than that the paper has depreciated. And as a proof of this, it is a certain fact, that whenever in those colonies bills of exchange have been dearer, the purchaser has been constantly obliged to give more in silver, as well as in paper, for them; the silver having gone hand in hand with the paper at the rate above-mentioned; and therefore it might as well have been said, that the silver was depreciated. There have been several different schemes for furnishing the colonies with paper-money, that should _not_ be a legal tender, viz. 1. _To form a bank, in imitation of the bank of England, with a sufficient stock of cash_ to pay the bills on sight. This has been often proposed, but appears impracticable, under the present circumstances of the colony-trade; which, as is said above, draws all the cash to Britain, and would soon strip the bank. 2. _To raise a fund by some yearly tax, securely lodged in the bank of England as it arises, which should_ (during the term of years _for which the paper-bills are to be current_) _accumulate to a sum sufficient to discharge them all at their_ original value. This has been tried in Maryland: and the bills so funded were issued without being made a general legal tender. The event was, that as notes payable in time are naturally subject to a discount proportioned to the time: so these bills fell at the beginning of the term so low, as that twenty pounds of them became worth no more than twelve pounds in Pensylvania, the next neighbouring province; though both had been struck near the same time at the same nominal value, but the latter was supported by the general legal tender. The Maryland bills however began to rise as the term shortened, and towards the end recovered their full value. But, as a depreciating currency injures creditors, _this_ injured debtors; and by its continually changing value, appears unfit for the purpose of money, which should be as fixed as possible in its own value; because it is to be the measure of the value of other things. 3. _To make the bills_ carry an interest _sufficient to support their value_. This too has been tried in some of the New England colonies; but great inconveniencies were found to attend it. The bills, to fit them for a currency, are made of various denominations, and some very low, for the sake of change; there are of them from 10_l._ down to 3_d._ When they first come abroad, they pass easily, and answer the purpose well enough for a few months; but as soon as the interest becomes worth computing, the calculation of it on every little bill in a sum between the dealer and his customers, in shops, warehouses and markets, takes up much time, to the great hindrance of business. This evil, however, soon gave place to a worse; for the bills were in a short time gathered up and hoarded; it being a very tempting advantage to have money bearing interest, and the principal all the while in a man's power, ready for bargains that may offer; which money out on mortgage is not. By this means numbers of people became usurers with small sums, who could not have found persons to take such sums of them upon interest, giving good security; and would therefore not have thought of it; but would rather have employed the money in some business, if it had been money of the common kind. Thus trade, instead of being increased by such bills, is diminished; and by their being shut up in chests, the very end of making them (viz. to furnish a medium of commerce) is in a great measure, if not totally defeated. On the whole, no method has hitherto been formed to establish a medium of trade, in lieu of money, equal in all its advantages, to bills of credit--funded on sufficient taxes for discharging it, or on land-security of double the value for repaying it at the end of the term; and in the mean time, made a GENERAL LEGAL TENDER. The experience of now near half a century in the middle colonies has convinced them of it among themselves; by the great increase of their settlements, numbers, buildings, improvements, agriculture, shipping, and commerce. And the same experience has satisfied the British merchants, who trade thither, that it has been greatly useful to them, and not in a single instance prejudicial. It is therefore hoped, that securing the full discharge of British debts, which are payable here, and in all justice and reason ought to be fully discharged here in sterling money; the restraint on the legal tender within the colonies will be taken off; at least for those colonies that desire it, and where the merchants trading to them make no objection to it[56]. FOOTNOTES: [55] The best account I can give of the occasion of the Report, to which this paper is a reply, is as follows. During the war there had been a considerable and unusual trade to America, in consequence of the great fleets and armies on foot there, and the clandestine dealings with the enemy, who were cut off from their own supplies. This made great debts. The briskness of the trade ceasing with the war, the merchants were anxious for payment, which occasioned some confusion in the colonies, and stirred up a clamour here against paper-money. The board of trade, of which lord Hilsborough was the chief, joined in this opposition to paper-money, as appears by the report. Dr. Franklin being asked to draw up an answer to their report, wrote the paper given above. B. V. [56] I understand that Dr. Franklin is the friend who assisted governor Pownall in drawing up a plan for a general paper-currency for America, to be established by the British government. See Governor Pownall's Administration of the Colonies, 5th Edition, p. 199, and 208. B. V. _To the Freemen of Pensylvania, on the Subject of a particular Militia-Bill, rejected by the Proprietor's Deputy or Governor._ _Philadelphia, Sept. 28, 1764._ GENTLEMEN, Your desire of knowing how the militia-bill came to fail in the last assembly shall immediately be complied with. As the governor pressed hard for a militia-law to secure the internal peace of the province, and the people of this country had not been accustomed to militia service; the house, to make it more generally agreeable to the freeholders, formed the bill so as that they might have some share in the election of the officers; to secure them from having absolute strangers set over them, or persons generally disagreeable. This was no more, than that every company should choose, and recommend to the governor, three persons for each office of captain, lieutenant, and ensign; _out of which three_, the governor was to commission _one_, that he thought most proper, or which he pleased, to be the officer. And that the captains, lieutenants, and ensigns, so commissioned by the governor, should, in their respective regiments, choose and recommend three persons for each office of colonel, lieutenant-colonel, and major; out of which three the governor was to commission _one_, whichever he pleased, to each of the said offices. The governor's amendment to the bill in this particular was, to strike out wholly this privilege of the people, and take to himself the _sole_ appointment of all the officers. The next amendment was to aggravate and _enhance all the fines_. A fine, that the assembly had made one hundred pounds, and thought heavy enough, the governor required to be three hundred pounds. What they had made fifty pounds, he required to be one hundred and fifty. These were fines on the commissioned officers for disobedience to his commands; but the non-commissioned officers, or common soldiers, whom, for the same offence, the assembly proposed to fine at ten pounds, the governor insisted should be fined fifty pounds. These fines, and some others to be mentioned hereafter, the assembly thought ruinously high: but when, in a subsequent amendment, the governor would, for offences among the militia, take away the _trial by jury_ in the common courts; and required, that the trial should be by a court-martial, composed of officers of his own sole appointing, who should have power of sentencing even to death; the house could by no means consent thus to give up their constituents' liberty, estate, and life itself, into the absolute power of a proprietary governor; and so the bill failed. That you may be assured I do not misrepresent this matter, I shall give you the last-mentioned amendment (so called) at full length; and for the truth and exactness of my copy I dare appeal to Mr. Secretary Shippen. The words of the bill, p. 43, were, "Every such person, so offending, being legally convicted thereof, &c." By the words _legally convicted_, was intended a conviction after legal trial, in the common course of the laws of the land. But the governor required this addition immediately to follow the words ["convicted thereof"] viz. 'by a court-martial, shall suffer DEATH, or such other punishment as such court, by their sentence or decree, shall think proper to inflict and pronounce. And be it farther enacted by the authority aforesaid, That when and so often as it may be necessary, the governor and commander in chief for the time being shall appoint and commissionate, under the great seal of this province, sixteen commissioned officers in each regiment; with authority and power to them, or any thirteen of them, to hold courts-martial, of whom a field-officer shall always be one, and president of the said court; and such courts-martial shall, and are hereby impowered to administer an oath to any witness, in order to the examination or trial of any of the offences which by this act are made cognizable in such courts, and shall come before them. Provided always, that in all trials by a court-martial by virtue of this act, every officer present at such trial, before any proceedings be had therein, shall take an _oath_ upon the holy evangelists, before one justice of the peace in the county where such court is held, who are hereby authorized to administer the same, in the following words, that is to say, "I A. B. do swear, that I will duly administer justice according to evidence, and to the directions of an act, entitled, An act for forming and regulating the militia of the province of Pensylvania, without partiality, favour, or affection; and that I will not divulge the sentence of the court, until it shall be approved of by the governor or commander in chief of this province for the time being; neither will I, upon any account, at any time whatsoever, disclose or _discover the vote or opinion_ of any particular member of the court-martial. So help me God."--And no sentence of death, or other sentence shall be given against any offender but by the concurrence of nine of the officers so sworn. And no sentence, passed against any offender by such court-martial, shall be put in execution, until report be made of the whole proceedings to the governor or commander in chief of this province for the time being, and his directions signified thereupon.' It is observable here, that by the common course of justice, a man is to be tried by a jury of his neighbours and fellows; impannelled by a sheriff, in whose appointment the people have a choice: the prisoner too has a right to challenge twenty of the pannel, without giving a reason, and as many more as he can give reasons for challenging; and before he can be convicted, the jury are to be unanimous; they are all to agree that he is guilty, and are therefore all accountable for their verdict. But by this amendment, the jury (if they may be so called) are all officers of the governor's sole appointing, and not one of them can be challenged; and though a common militia-man is to be tried, no common militia-man shall be of that Jury; and so far from requiring all to agree, a bare majority shall be sufficient to condemn you. And lest that majority should be under any check or restraint, from an apprehension of what the world might think or say of the severity or injustice of their sentence, an oath is to be taken, never to discover the vote or opinion of any particular member! These are some of the chains attempted to be forged for you by the proprietary faction! Who advised the g----r is not difficult to know. They are the very men, who now clamour at the assembly for a proposal of bringing the trial of a particular murder to this county, from another, where it was not thought safe for any man to be either juryman or witness; and call it disfranchising the people! who are now bawling about the constitution, and pretending vast concern for your liberties! In refusing you the least means of recommending or expressing your regard for persons to be placed over you as officers, and who were thus to be made your judges in life and estate; they have not regarded the example of the king, our wise, as well as kind master, who, in all his requisitions made to the colonies, of raising troops for their defence, directed, that "the better to facilitate the important service, the commissions should be given to such as from their weight and credit with the people may be best enabled to effectuate the levies[57]." In establishing a militia for the defence of the province, how could the "weight and credit" of men with the people be better discovered, than by the mode that bill directed; viz. by a majority of those that were to be commanded nominating three for each office to the governor, of which three he might take the one he liked best? However, the courts-martial being established, and all of us thus put into his honour's absolute power, the governor goes on to enhance the fines and penalties; thus, in page 49 of the bill, where the assembly had proposed the fine to be ten shillings, the governor required it to be ten pounds: in page 50, where a fine of five pounds was mentioned, the governor's amendment required it to be made fifty pounds. And in page 44, where the assembly had said, "shall forfeit and pay any sum not exceeding five pounds," the governor's amendment says, "shall suffer DEATH, or such other punishment, as shall, according to the nature of the offence, be inflicted by the sentence of a court-martial!" The assembly's refusing to admit of these amendments in that bill is one of their offences against the Lord Proprietary; for which that faction are now abusing them in both the languages[58] of the province, with all the virulence that reverend malice can dictate; enforced by numberless barefaced falshoods, that only the most dishonest and base would dare to invent, and none but the most weak and credulous can possibly believe. VERITAS. FOOTNOTES: [57] See Secretary of State's Letters in the printed Votes. [58] It is hardly necessary to mention here, that Pensylvania was settled by a mixture of German and English. B. V. _Preface by a Member of the Pensylvanian Assembly (Dr. Franklin) to the Speech of Joseph Galloway, Esq. one of the Members for Philadelphia County; in Answer to the Speech of John Dickinson, Esq.; delivered in the House of the Assembly of the Province of Pensylvania, May 24, 1764, on Occasion of a Petition drawn up by Order, and then under the Consideration of the House, praying his Majesty for a Royal, in lieu of a Proprietary, Government_[59]. It is not merely because Mr. Dickinson's speech was ushered into the world by a preface, that one is made to this of Mr. Galloway. But as, in that preface, a number of aspersions were thrown on our assemblies, and their proceedings grossly misrepresented, it was thought necessary to wipe those aspersions off by some proper animadversions, and by a true state of facts, to rectify those misrepresentations. The preface begins with saying, "That governor Denny (whose administration will never be mentioned but with disgrace in the annals of this province) was induced, by considerations to which the world is now no stranger, to pass sundry acts," &c. thus insinuating, that by some unusual base bargain, secretly made, but afterwards discovered, he was induced to pass them. It is fit therefore, without undertaking to justify all that governor's administration, to show _what_ those considerations were. Ever since the revenue of the quit-rents first, and after that, the revenue of tavern-licences, were settled irrevocably on our proprietors and governors, they have looked on those incomes as their proper estate, for which they were under no obligations to the people: and when they afterwards concurred in passing any useful laws, they considered them as so many jobs, for which they ought to be particularly paid. Hence arose the custom of _presents_ twice a year to the governors, at the close of each session in which laws were passed, given at the time of passing: they usually amounted to a thousand pounds per annum. But when the governors and assemblies disagreed, so that laws were not passed, the presents were withheld. When a disposition to agree ensued, there sometimes still remained some _diffidence_. The governors would not pass the laws that were wanted, without being sure of the money, even all that they called their arrears; nor the assemblies give the money, without being sure of the laws. Thence the necessity of some private conference, in which mutual assurances of good faith might be received and given, that the transactions should go hand in hand. What name the impartial reader will give to this kind of commerce, I cannot say: to me it appears an extortion of more money from the people, for that to which they had before an undoubted right, both by the constitution and by purchase; but there was no other shop they could go to for the commodity they wanted, and they were obliged to comply. Time established the custom, and made it seem honest; so that our governors, even those of the most undoubted honour, have practised it. Governor Thomas, after a long misunderstanding with the assembly, went more openly to work with them in managing this commerce, and they with him. The fact is curious, as it stands recorded in the votes of 1742-3. Sundry bills, sent up to the governor for his assent, had lain long in his hands, without any answer. Jan. 4, the house "ordered, that Thomas Leech and Edward Warner wait upon the governor, and acquaint him, that the house had long waited for his result on the bills that lie before him, and desire to know, when they may expect it:" the gentlemen return, and report, "that they waited upon the governor, and delivered the message of the house according to order; and that the governor was pleased to say, he had had the bills long under consideration, and _waited the result_ of the _house_." The house well understood this hint; and immediately resolved into a committee of the whole house, to take what was called _the governor's support_ into consideration; in which they made (the minutes say) _some progress_; and the next morning it appears, that that _progress_, whatever it was, had been communicated to him; for he sent them down this message by his secretary: "Mr. Speaker, the governor commands me to acquaint you, that as he has received assurances of a _good disposition_ in the house, he thinks it incumbent on him to show _the like_ on his part; and therefore sends down the bills which lay before him, without any amendment." As this message only showed a good disposition, but contained no promise to pass the bills, the house seem to have had their doubts; and therefore, February 2, when they came to resolve, on the report of the grand committee, to give the money, they guarded their resolves very cautiously, viz. "Resolved, that _on the passage_ of such bills as now lie before the governor, (the naturalization bill, and such other bills as may be presented to him during this sitting) there be PAID him the sum of _five hundred pounds_. Resolved also, that on the passage of such bills as now lie before the governor (the naturalization bill, and such other bills as may be presented to him this sitting) there be PAID to the governor the _further_ sum of _one thousand pounds_, for the current year's support; and that orders be drawn on the treasurer and trustees of the loan-office, pursuant to these resolves." The orders were accordingly drawn; with which being acquainted, he appointed a time to pass the bills; which was done with one hand, while he received the orders in the other: and then with the utmost politeness [he] thanked the house for the fifteen hundred pounds, as if it had been a pure free gift, and a mere mark of their respect and affection. "I _thank you_, gentlemen (says he) for this instance of _your regard_; which I am the more pleased with, as it gives an agreeable prospect of _future harmony_ between me and the representatives of the people." This, reader, is an exact _counterpart_ of the transaction with governor Denny; except that Denny sent word to the house, that he would pass the bills _before_ they voted the support. And yet _here_ was no proprietary clamour about bribery, &c. And why so? Why at that time the proprietary family, by virtue of a _secret bond_ they had obtained of the governor at his appointment, were to _share with_ him the sums so obtained of the people! This reservation of the proprietaries they were at that time a little ashamed of; and therefore such bonds were then to be secrets. But as, in every kind of sinning, frequent repetition lessens shame, and increases boldness, we find the proprietaries ten years afterwards openly insisting on these advantages to themselves, _over and above_ what was paid to their deputy: "Wherefore (say they) on this occasion it is necessary that we should inform the people, through yourselves their representatives, that as by the constitution _our consent is necessary_ to their _laws_, at the same time that they have an _undoubted right_ to such as are necessary for the defence and real service of the country; so it will tend the better to facilitate the several matters which must be transacted with us, for their representatives to show a regard _to us_ and our _interest_." This was in their answer to the representation of the assembly [Votes, December, 1754, p. 48.] on the justice of their contributing to Indian expences, which they had refused. And on this clause the committee make the following remark: "They tell us their consent is necessary to our laws, and that it will tend the better to facilitate the matters which must be transacted with them, for the representatives to show a regard to their _interest_: that is (as we understand it) though the proprietaries have a deputy here, supported by the province, who is, or ought to be, fully impowered to pass all laws necessary for the service of the country; yet, before we can obtain such laws, we must facilitate their passage by paying money for the proprietaries, which they ought to pay; or in some shape make it their particular _interest_ to pass them. We hope, however, that if this practice has ever been begun, it will never be continued in this province; and that since, as this very paragraph allows, we have an undoubted right to such laws, we shall always be able to obtain them from the goodness of our sovereign, without going to market for them to a subject." Time has shown, that those hopes were vain; they have been obliged to go to that market ever since, directly or indirectly, or go without their laws. The practice has continued, and will continue, as long as the proprietary government subsists, intervening between the crown and the people. Do not, my courteous reader, take pet at our proprietary constitution, for these our bargain and sale proceedings in legislation. It is a happy country where justice, and what was your own before, can be had for ready money. It is another addition to the value of money, and of course another spur to industry. Every land is not so blessed. There are countries where the princely proprietor claims to be lord of all property; where what is your own shall not only be wrested from you, but the money you give to have it restored shall be kept with it; and your offering so much, being a sign of your being too rich, you shall be plundered of every thing that remained. These times are not come here yet: your present proprietors have never been more unreasonable hitherto, than barely to insist on your fighting in defence of _their_ property, and paying the expence yourselves; or if their estates must [ah! _must_] be taxed towards it, that the _best_ of their lands shall be taxed no higher than the _worst_ of yours. Pardon this digression, and I return to governor Denny; but first let me do governor Hamilton the justice to observe, that whether from the uprightness of his own disposition, or from the odious light the practice had been set in on Denny's account, or from both; he did not attempt these bargains, but passed such laws as he thought fit to pass, without any _previous_ stipulation of pay for them. But then, when he saw the assembly tardy in the payment he expected, and yet calling upon him still to pass more laws; he openly put them in mind of the money, as a _debt_ due to him from custom. "In the course of the present year (says he, in his message of July 8, 1763) a great deal of public business hath been transacted by me, and I believe as many useful laws enacted, as by any of my predecessors in the same space of time: yet I have not understood that any allowance hath hitherto been made to me for my support, as hath been customary in this province." The house having then some bills in hand, took the matter into immediate consideration, and voted him five hundred pounds, for which an order or certificate was accordingly drawn: and on the same day the speaker, after the house had been with the governor, reported, "That his honour had been pleased to give his assent to the bills, by enacting the same into laws. And Mr. Speaker farther reported, That he had then, in behalf of the house, presented their certificate of five hundred pounds to the governor, who was pleased to say, he was obliged to the house for the same." Thus we see the practice of purchasing and paying for laws is interwoven with our proprietary constitution, used in the best times, and under the best governors. And yet, alas! poor assembly! how will you steer your brittle bark between these rocks? If you pay _ready money_ for your laws, and those laws are not liked by the proprietaries, you are charged with bribery and corruption: if you wait a while before you pay, you are accused of detaining the governor's customary right, and dunned as a negligent or dishonest debtor, that refuses to discharge a just debt! But governor Denny's case, I shall be told, differs from all these; for the acts he was induced to pass were, as the prefacer tell us, "_contrary to his duty, and to every tie of honour and justice_." Such is the imperfection of our language, and perhaps of all other languages, that, notwithstanding we are furnished with dictionaries innumerable, we cannot precisely know the import of words, unless we know of what party the man is that uses them. In the mouth of an assembly-man, or true Pensylvanian, "contrary to his duty and to every tie of honour and justice" would mean, the governor's long refusal to pass laws, however just and necessary, for taxing the proprietary estate: a refusal, contrary to the trust reposed in the lieutenant-governor by the royal charter, to the rights of the people, whose welfare it was his duty to promote, and to the nature of the contract made between the governor and the governed, when the quit-rents and licence-fees were established, which confirmed what the proprietaries call our "undoubted right" to necessary laws. But in the mouth of the proprietaries, or their creatures, "contrary to his duty, and to every tie of justice and honour" means, his passing laws contrary to proprietary instructions, and contrary to the bonds he had previously given to observe those instructions: instructions however, that were unjust and unconstitutional; and bonds, that were illegal and void from the beginning. Much has been said of the wickedness of governor Denny in passing, and of the assembly in prevailing with him to pass, those acts. By the prefacer's account of them, you would think the laws, so obtained, were _all_ bad; for he speaks of but _seven_, of which, six, he says, were repealed, and the seventh reported to be "fundamentally _wrong_ and _unjust_," "and ought to be repealed, _unless_ six certain amendments were made therein[60]." Whereas in fact there were _nineteen_ of them, and several of those must have been good laws, for even the proprietaries did not object to them. Of the eleven that they opposed, only six were repealed; so that it seems, these good gentlemen may themselves be sometimes as wrong in opposing, as the assembly in enacting laws. But the words, "fundamentally _wrong_ and _unjust_," are the great fund of triumph to the proprietaries and their partizans. These, their subsequent governors have unmercifully dinned in the ears of the assembly on all occasions ever since; for they make a part of near a dozen of their messages. They have rung the changes on those words, till they worked them up to say, that the law was fundamentally wrong and unjust in _six several articles_ (Governor's Message, May 17, 1764) instead of "ought to be repealed, _unless_ six alterations or amendments could be made therein." A law, unjust in six several articles, must be an unjust law indeed. Let us therefore, once for all, _examine_ this unjust law, article by article, in order to see, whether our assemblies have been such villains as they have been represented. The _first_ particular in which their lordships proposed the act should be amended was, "That the real estates to be taxed, be _defined with precision_; so as not to include the unsurveyed waste land belonging to the proprietaries." This was at most but an _obscurity_ to be cleared up. And though the law might well appear to their lordships uncertain in that particular, with us, who better know our own customs, and that the proprietaries waste unsurveyed land was never here considered among estates real, subject to taxation; there was not the least doubt or supposition, that such lands were included in the words "all estates, real and personal." The agents therefore, knowing that the assembly had no intention to tax those lands, might well suppose they would readily agree to remove the obscurity. Before we go farther, let it be observed, that the main design of the proprietaries in opposing this act was, to _prevent their estates being taxed at all_. But as they knew, that the doctrine of proprietary exemption, which they had endeavoured to enforce here, could not be supported there[61], they bent their whole strength against the act on _other_ principles to procure its repeal, pretending great willingness to submit to an equitable tax; but that the assembly (out of mere malice, because they had conscientiously quitted quakerism for the church!) were wickedly determined to ruin them, to tax all their unsurveyed wilderness-lands, and at the highest rates: and by that means exempt themselves and the people, and throw the whole burden of the war on the proprietary family. How foreign these charges were from the truth, need not be told to any man in Pensylvania. And as the proprietors knew, that the hundred thousand pounds of paper-money, struck for the defence of _their_ enormous estates, with others, was actually issued, spread through the country, and in the hands of thousands of poor people, who had given their labour for it; how base, cruel, and inhuman it was to endeavour, by a repeal of the act, to strike the money dead in those hands at one blow, and reduce it all to waste paper, to the utter confusion of all trade and dealings, and the ruin of multitudes, merely to avoid paying their own just tax--Words may be wanting to express,--but minds will easily conceive,--and never without abhorrence! The _second_ amendment proposed by their lordships was, "That the located uncultivated lands, belonging to the proprietaries, shall not be assessed higher than the _lowest_ rate, at which any located uncultivated lands belonging to the inhabitants shall be assessed." Had there been any provision in the act, that the proprietaries' lands, and those of the people, of the same value, should be taxed differently, the one high, and the other low; the act might well have been called in this particular fundamentally wrong and unjust. But as there is no such clause, this cannot be one of the particulars on which the charge is founded; but, like the first, is merely a requisition to make the act _clear_, by express directions therein, that the proprietaries' estate should not be, as they pretended to believe it would be, taxed higher in proportion to its value than the estates of others. As to their present claim, founded on that article, "that the best and most valuable of their lands, should be taxed no higher than the worst and least valuable of the people's," it was not _then_ thought of; they made no such demand; nor did any one dream that so iniquitous a claim would ever be made by men, who had the least pretence to the characters of honourable and honest. The _third_ particular was, "That all lands, _not granted_ by the proprietaries _within boroughs and towns_, be deemed located uncultivated lands, and rated accordingly; and not as lots." The clause in the act that this relates to is, "And whereas many valuable lots of ground within the city of Philadelphia, and the several boroughs and towns within this province, remain unimproved; Be it enacted, &c. That _all_ such unimproved lots of ground within the city and boroughs aforesaid, shall be rated and assessed according to their situation and value for, and towards raising the money hereby granted." The reader will observe, that the word is, _all_ unimproved lots; and that _all_ comprehends the lots belonging to the people, as well as those of the proprietary. There were many of the former; and a number belonging even to members of the then assembly; and considering the value, the tax must be proportionably as grievous to them, as the proprietary's to him. Is there among us a single man, even a proprietary relation, officer, or dependant, so insensible of the differences of right and wrong, and so confused in his notions of just and unjust, as to think and say, that the act in this particular was fundamentally wrong and unjust? I believe not one. What then could their lordships mean by the proposed amendment? Their meaning is easily explained. The proprietaries have considerable tracts of land within the bounds of boroughs and towns, that have not yet been divided into lots: they pretended to believe, that by virtue of this clause an imaginary division would be made of _those_ lands into lots, and an extravagant value set on such imaginary lots, greatly to their prejudice. It was answered, that no such thing was intended by the act: and that by lots was meant only such ground as _had_ been surveyed and divided into lots, and not the open undivided lands. If this only is intended, say their lordships, then let the act be amended, so as _clearly_ to express what is intended. This is the full amount of the third particular. How the act was understood here, is well known by the execution of it before the dispute came on in England, and therefore before their lordships' opinion on the point could be given, of which full proof shall presently be made. In the mean time it appears, that the act was not on _this_ account fundamentally wrong and unjust. The _fourth_ particular is, "That the _governor's consent_ and approbation be made necessary to every issue and application of the money, to be raised by virtue of such act." The assembly intended this, and thought they had done it in the act. The words of the clause being, "That [the commissioners named] or the major part of them, or of the survivors of them, _with the consent_ or approbation of the governor or commander in chief of this province for the time being, shall order and appoint _the disposition of the monies_ arising by virtue of this act, for and towards paying and clothing two thousand seven hundred effective men," &c. It was understood here, that as the power of disposing was expressly to be with the consent and approbation of the governor, the commissioners had no power to dispose of the money without that approbation: but their lordships, jealous (as their station requires) of this prerogative of the crown, and being better acquainted with the force and weakness of law expression, did not think the clause explicit enough, unless the words, "_and not otherwise_," were added, or some other words equivalent. This particular, therefore, was no more than another requisition of greater _clearness_ and precision; and by no means a foundation for the charge of fundamentally wrong and unjust. The _fifth_ particular was, "That _provincial_ commissioners be named, to hear and _determine appeals_, brought on the part of the inhabitants, as well as the proprietaries." There was already subsisting a provision for the appointment of _county_ commissioners of appeal; by whom the act might be, and actually has been (as we shall presently show) justly and impartially executed with regard to the proprietaries; but _provincial_ commissioners appointed in the act it was thought might be of use, in regulating and equalizing the modes of assessment of different counties, where they were unequal; and by affording a second appeal, tend more to the satisfaction both of the proprietaries and the people.--This particular was therefore a mere proposed improvement of the act, which could not be, and was not, in this respect, denominated fundamentally wrong and unjust. We have now gone through five of the six proposed amendments, without discovering any thing on which that censure could be founded; but the _sixth_ remains; which points at a part of the act wherein we must candidly acknowledge there is something, that, in their lordships' view of it, must justify their judgment. The words of the _sixth_ article are, "That the payments by the tenants to the proprietaries of their rents, shall be according to the terms of their respective grants, as if such act had never been passed." This relates to that clause of the act by which the _paper-money_ was made a _legal tender_ in "discharge of all manner of debts, rents, sum and sums of money whatsoever, &c. at the rates ascertained in the act of parliament made in the sixth of Queen Anne." From the great injustice frequently done to creditors, and complained of from the colonies, by the vast depreciation of paper bills, it was become a general fixed principle with the ministry, that such bills (whose value, though fixed in the act, could not be kept fixed by the act) ought _not_ to be made a legal tender in any colony at those rates. The parliament had before passed an act, to take that tender away in the four New England colonies, and have since made the act general. This was what their lordships would therefore have proposed for the amendment. But it being represented, That the chief support of the credit of the bills was the legal tender; and that without it they would become of no value, it was allowed generally to remain; with an exception to the proprietaries' rents, where[62] there was a special contract for payment in another coin. It cannot be denied but that _this_ was doing justice to the proprietaries; and that, had the requisition been in favour of _all other_ creditors also, the justice had been equal, as being general. We do not therefore presume to impeach their lordships' judgment, that the act, as it enforced the acceptance of bills for money at a value which they had only nominally, and not really, was in that respect fundamentally wrong and unjust. And yet we believe the reader will not think the assembly so much to blame, when he considers, that the making paper-bills a legal tender had been the universal mode in America for more than threescore years; that there was scarce a colony that had not practised that mode more or less; that it had always been thought absolutely necessary, in order to give the bills a credit, and thereby obtain from them the uses of money; that the inconveniences were therefore submitted to, for the sake of the greater conveniences; that acts innumerable of the like kind had been approved by the crown; and that if the assembly made the bills a legal tender at those rates to the proprietaries, they made them also a legal tender to themselves and all their constituents, many of whom might suffer in their rents, &c. as much in proportion to their estates as the proprietaries. But if he cannot, on these considerations, quite excuse the assembly, what will he think of those honourable proprietaries, who, when paper-money was issued in their colony, for the common defence of their vast estates, with those of the people, and who must therefore reap at least equal advantages from those bills with the people, could nevertheless wish to be exempted from their share of the unavoidable disadvantages. Is there upon earth a man besides, with any conception of what is honest, with any notion of honour, with the least tincture in his veins of the gentleman, but would have blushed at the thought; but would have rejected with disdain such undue preference, if it had been offered him? Much less would he have struggled for it, moved heaven and earth to obtain it, resolved to ruin thousands of his tenants by a repeal of the act, rather than miss of it[63]; and enforce it afterwards by an audaciously wicked instruction; forbidding aids to his king, and exposing the province to destruction, unless it was complied with. And yet,--These are _honourable_ men[64]. Here then we have a full view of the assembly's injustice; about which there has been so much insolent triumph! But let the proprietaries and their discreet deputies hereafter recollect and remember, that the same august tribunal, which censured some of the modes and circumstances of that act, did at the same time establish and confirm the grand principle of the act, viz. "That the proprietary estate ought, with other estates, to be taxed:" and thereby did in effect determine and pronounce, that the opposition so long made in various shapes to that just principle, by the proprietaries, was fundamentally _wrong_ and _unjust_. An injustice they were not, like the assembly, under any necessity of committing for the public good, or any other necessity but what was imposed on them by those base passions, that act the tyrant in bad minds; their selfishness, their pride, and their avarice. I have frequently mentioned the _equitable intentions_ of the house in those parts of the act, that were supposed obscure, and how they were understood here. A clear proof thereof is found, as I have already said, in the actual execution of the act; in the execution of it before the contest about it in England; and therefore before their lordships' objections to it had a being. When the report came over, and was laid before the house, one year's tax had been levied: and the assembly, conscious that no injustice had been intended to the proprietaries, and willing to rectify it if any should appear, appointed a _committee_ of members from the several counties to examine into the state of the proprietaries' taxes through the province, and nominated on that committee a gentleman of known attachment to the proprietaries, and their chief justice, Mr. Allen; to the end that the strictest inquiry might be made. _Their report_ was as follows: "We, the committee appointed to inquire into, and consider the state of the proprietary taxation through the several counties, and report the same to the house, have, in pursuance of the said appointment, carefully examined the returns of property, and compared them with the respective assessments thereon made through the whole province; and find, _first_, That no part of the _unsurveyed_ waste lands belonging to the proprietaries have, in any instance, been included in the estates taxed. _Secondly_, That some of the _located uncultivated_ lands belonging to the proprietaries in several counties _remain unassessed_; and are not in any county assessed higher, than the lands under like circumstances belonging to the inhabitants. _Thirdly_, That all _lands_; _not_ granted by the proprietaries, _within boroughs_ and towns, remain _untaxed_; excepting in a few instances, and in those they are rated as _low_, as the lands which are granted in the said boroughs and towns. The whole of the proprietary tax of eighteen pence in the pound amounts to 566_l._ 4_s._ 10_d._ And the sum of the tax on the inhabitants for the same year amounts, through the several counties, to 27,103_l._ 12_s._ 8_d._ And it is the opinion of your committee, that there has not been any injustice done to the proprietaries, or attempts made to rate or assess any part of their estates higher than the estates of the like kind belonging to the inhabitants are rated and assessed; but, on the contrary, we find that their estates are rated, in many instances, below others. Thomas Leech, George Ashbridge, Joseph Fox, Emanuel Carpenter, Samuel Rhoads, John Blackburn, Abraham Chapman, William Allen." The house communicated this report to governor Hamilton, when he afterwards pressed them to make the stipulated act of amendment; acquainting him at the same time, that as in the execution of the act no injustice _had_ hitherto been done to the proprietary, so, by a yearly inspection of the assessments, they would take care that none _should_ be done him; for that if any should appear, or the governor could at any time point out to them any that had been done, they would immediately rectify it; and therefore, as the act was shortly to expire, they did not think the amendments necessary. Thus that matter ended during that administration. And had his successor, governor Penn, permitted it still to sleep, we are of opinion it had been more to the honour of the family, and of his own discretion. But he was pleased to found upon it a _claim_ manifestly unjust, and which he was totally destitute of reason to support. A claim, that the proprietaries best and most valuable located uncultivated lands, should be taxed no _higher_ than the worst and least valuable of those belonging to the inhabitants: to enforce which, as he thought the words of one of the stipulations seemed to give some countenance to it, he insisted on using those very words as sacred; from which he could "neither in decency or in duty," deviate; though he had agreed to deviate from words [in] the same report, and therefore equally sacred in every other instance. A conduct which will (as the prefacer says in governor Denny's case) for ever disgrace the annals of _his_ administration[65]. Never did any administration open with a more _promising_ prospect [than this of governor Penn]. He assured the people, in his first speeches, of the proprietaries' paternal regard for them, and their sincere disposition to do every thing that might promote their happiness. As the proprietaries had been pleased to appoint a son of the family to the government, it was thought not unlikely, that there might be something in these professions; for that they would probably choose to have his administration made easy and agreeable; and to that end might think it prudent to withdraw those harsh, disagreeable, and unjust instructions with which most of his predecessors had been hampered: the assembly therefore believed fully, and rejoiced sincerely. They showed the new governor every mark of respect and regard that was in their power. They readily and cheerfully went into every thing he recommended to them. And when he and his authority were insulted and endangered by a lawless murdering mob, they and their friends took arms at his call, and formed themselves round him for his defence, and the support of his government. But when it was found, that those mischievous instructions still subsisted, and were even farther extended; when the governor began, unprovoked, to send the house affronting messages, seizing every imaginary occasion of reflecting on their conduct; when every other symptom appeared of fixed deep-rooted family malice, which could but a little while bear the unnatural covering that had been thrown over it, what wonder is it, if all the old wounds broke out and bled afresh? if all the old grievances, still unredressed, were recollected; if despair succeeded of [seeing] any peace with a family, that could make such returns to all their overtures of kindness! And when in the very proprietary council, composed of staunch friends of the family, and chosen for their attachment to it, it was observed, that the _old men_ (1 Kings, chap. xii.) withdrew themselves, finding their opinion slighted, and that all measures were taken by the advice of two or three _young men_ (one of whom too denies his share in them) is it any wonder, since like causes produce like effects, if the assembly, notwithstanding all their veneration for the first proprietor, should say, with the children of Israel, under the same circumstances, "What portion have we in David, or inheritance in the son of Jesse? To your tents, O Israel!" Under these circumstances, and a conviction that while so many natural sources of difference subsisted between proprietaries and people, no harmony in government long subsist (without which neither the commands of the crown could be executed, nor the public good promoted) the house resumed the consideration of a measure that had often been proposed in former assemblies; a measure, that every _proprietary province in_ America had, from the same causes, found themselves obliged to take, and had actually taken, or were about to take; and a measure, that had happily succeeded, wherever it was taken; I mean the recourse to an immediate _royal government_. They therefore, after a thorough debate, and making no less than twenty-five unanimous resolves, expressing the many grievances this province had long laboured under, through the proprietary government, came to the following resolution, viz. "Resolved, nemine contradicente, That this house will adjourn, in order to _consult their constituents_, whether an humble _address_ should be drawn up and transmitted to _his Majesty_; praying that he would be graciously pleased to take the people of this province under his immediate protection and government, by completing the agreement heretofore made with the first proprietary for the sale of the government to the crown, or otherwise as to his wisdom and goodness shall seem meet[66]." This they ordered to be made public; and it was published accordingly in all the newspapers: the house then adjourned for no less than _seven weeks_, to give their constituents time to consider the matter, and themselves an opportunity of taking their opinion and advice. Could any thing be more deliberate, more fair and open, or more respectful to the people that chose them?--During this recess, the people, in many places, held little meetings with each other; the result of which was, that they would manifest their sentiments to their representatives, by petitioning the crown directly of themselves, and requesting the assembly to transmit and support those petitions. At the next meeting many of these petitions were delivered to the house with that request; they were signed by a very great[67] number of the most substantial inhabitants; and not the least intimation was received by the assembly from any other of their constituents, that the method was _disapproved_; except in a petition from an obscure town-ship in Lancaster county, to which there were about forty names indeed, but all evidently signed by three hands only. What could the assembly infer from the expressed willingness of a part, and silence of the rest; but that the measure was universally agreeable! They accordingly resumed the consideration of it; and though a small, very small opposition then appeared to it in the house; yet as even that was founded not on the impropriety of the thing; but on supposed unsuitableness of the time or the manner, and a majority of nine tenths being still for it; a petition was drawn agreeable to the former resolve, and ordered to be transmitted to his majesty. But the preface tells us, that these _petitioners_ for a change were a "number of rash, ignorant, and inconsiderate people," and generally of a _low rank_. To be sure they were not of the proprietary officers, dependents, or expectants; and those are chiefly the people of high rank among us; but they were otherwise generally men of the best estates in the province, and men of reputation. The assembly, who come from all parts of the country, and therefore may be supposed to know them, at least as well as the prefacer, have given that testimony of them. But what is the testimony of the assembly; who in his opinion are equally rash, ignorant, and inconsiderate with the petitioners? And if his judgment is right, how imprudently and contrary to their charter, have his _three hundred thousand souls_ acted in their elections of assembly-men these twenty years past; for the charter requires them to choose men of _most note_ for _virtue_, _wisdom_ and _ability_! But these are qualities engrossed, it seems, by the _proprietary_ party. For they say, "the _wiser_ and _better_ part of the province had far different notions of this measure: they considered, that the moment they put their hands to these petitions they might be surrendering up their birthright." I felicitate them on the _honour_ they have thus bestowed upon themselves; on the _sincere_ compliments thus given and accepted; and on their having with such noble freedom discarded the snivelling pretence to modesty, couched in that threadbare form of words, "though we say it, that should not say it." But is it not surprising, that, during the seven weeks recess of the assembly, expressly to consult their constituents on the expediency of this measure, and during the fourteen days the house sat deliberating on it after they met again, these their wisdoms and betternesses should never be so kind as to communicate the least scrap of their prudence, their knowledge, or their consideration, to their rash, ignorant, and inconsiderate representatives? Wisdom in the mind is not like money in the purse, diminished by communication to others: they might have lighted up our farthing candles for us, without lessening the blaze of their own flambeaux. But they suffered our representatives to go on in the dark till the fatal deed was done; and the petition sent to the king, praying him to take the government of this province into his immediate care: whereby, if it succeeds, "our glorious plan of public liberty and charter of privileges is to be bartered away," and we are to be made slaves for ever! Cruel parsimony! to refuse the charity of a little understanding, when God had given you so much, and the assembly begged it as an alms! O that you had but for once remembered and observed the counsel of that wise poet Pope, where he says, Be niggards of advice on no pretence; For the worst avarice is that of sense. In the constitution of our government, and in that of one more, there still remains a particular thing that none of the other American governments have; to wit, the appointment of a governor by the _proprietors_, instead of an appointment by the _crown_. This particular in government has been found inconvenient; attended with contentions and confusions wherever it existed; and has therefore been gradually taken away from colony after colony, and every where greatly to the satisfaction and happiness of the people. Our wise first proprietor and founder was fully sensible of this; and being desirous of leaving his people happy, and preventing the mischiefs that he foresaw must in time arise from that circumstance if it was continued, he determined to take it away, if possible, during his own lifetime. They accordingly entered into a contract for the sale of the proprietary right of government to the crown, and actually received a sum in part of the consideration. As he found himself likely to die before that contract (and with it, his plan for the happiness of his people) could be completed, he carefully made it a part of his last will and testament; devising the right of the government to two noble lords, in trust, that they should release it to the crown. Unfortunately for us, this has never yet been done. And this is merely what the assembly now desire to have done. Surely he that formed our constitution, must have understood it. If he had imagined, that all our privileges depended on the proprietary government; will any one suppose, that he would himself have meditated the change; that he would have taken such effectual measures, as he thought them, to bring it about speedily, whether he should live or die? Will any of those, who now extol him so highly, charge him at the same time with the baseness of endeavouring thus to defraud his people of all the liberties and privileges he had promised them, and by the most solemn charters and grants assured to them, when he engaged them to assist him in the settlement of his province? Surely none can be so inconsistent!--And yet this proprietary right of governing or appointing a governor has all of a sudden changed its nature; and the preservation of it become of so much importance to the welfare of the province, that the assembly's only petitioning to have their venerable founder's will executed, and the contract he entered into for the good of his people completed, is stiled, an "attempt to violate the constitution for which our fathers planted a wilderness; to barter away our glorious plan of public liberty and charter privileges; a risquing of the whole constitution; an offering up of our whole charter rights; a wanton sporting with things sacred, &c." Pleasant surely it is to hear the proprietary partizans, of all men, bawling for the constitution, and affecting a terrible concern for our liberties and privileges. They, who have been these twenty years cursing our constitution, declaring that it was no constitution, or worse than none; and that things could never be well with us till it was new modelled, and made exactly conformable to the British constitution: they, who have treated our distinguishing privileges as so many illegalities and absurdities; who have solemnly declared in print, that though such privileges might be proper in the infancy of a colony to encourage its settlement, they became unfit for it in its grown state, and ought to be taken away: they, who by numberless falshoods, propagated with infinite industry in the mother country, attempted to procure an act of parliament for the actual depriving a very great part of the people of their privileges: they too, who have already deprived the whole people of some of their most important rights, and are daily endeavouring to deprive them of the rest: are these become patriots and advocates for our constitution? Wonderful change! astonishing conversion! Will the wolves then protect the sheep, if they can but persuade them to give up their dogs? Yes; the assembly would destroy all their own rights, and those of the people; and the proprietary partizans are become the champions for liberty! Let those who have faith now make use of it: for if it is rightly defined, the evidence of things not seen, certainly never was there more occasion for such evidence, the case being totally destitute of all other. It has been long observed, that men are with that party, angels or demons, just as they happen to concur with or oppose their measures. And I mention it for the comfort of _old sinners_, that in politics, as well as in religion, repentance and amendment, though late, shall obtain forgiveness, and procure favour. Witness the late speaker, Mr. Norris; a steady and constant opposer of all the proprietary encroachments; and whom, for thirty years past, they have been therefore continually abusing, allowing him no one virtue or good quality whatsoever: but now, as he shewed some unwillingness to engage in this present application to the crown, he is become all at once the "faithful servant;"--but let me look at the text, to avoid mistakes--and indeed I was mistaken--I thought it had been "faithful servant of the public," but I find it is only "of the house." Well chosen that expression, and prudently guarded. The former, from a proprietary pen, would have been praise too much, only for disapproving the _time_ of the application. Could _you_, much respected [Mr. Norris], go but a little farther, and disapprove the application itself? Could you but say, the proprietary government is a good one, and ought to be continued; then might all your political offences be done away, and your scarlet sins become as snow and wool; then might you end your course with (proprietary) honour. P---- should preach your funeral sermon, and S----, the poisoner of other characters, embalm your memory. But those honours you will never receive; for with returning health and strength you will be found in your old post, firm for your country. There is encouragement too for _young sinners_. Mr. Dickenson, whose speech our prefacer has introduced to the world, (though long hated by some, and disregarded by the rest of the proprietary faction) is at once, for the same reason as in Mr. Norris's case, become a sage in the law, and an oracle in matters relating to our constitution. I shall not endeavour to pluck so much as a leaf from these the young gentleman's laurels. I would only advise him carefully to preserve the panegyrics with which they have adorned him: in time they may serve to console him, by balancing the calumny they shall load him with, when he does not go through with them in all their measures: he will not probably do the one, and they will then assuredly do the other. There are mouths that can blow hot as well as cold, and blast on your brows the bays their hands have placed there. "Experto crede Roberto." Let but the moon of _proprietary_ favour withdraw its shine for a moment, and that "great number of the _principal gentlemen_ of Philadelphia," who applied to you for the copy of your speech, shall immediately despise and desert you. "Those principal gentlemen!" What a pity it is that their names were not given us in the preface, together with their admirable letter! We should then have known, where to run for advice on all occasions. We should have known, who to choose for our future representatives: for undoubtedly these were they that are elsewhere called "the _wiser_ and _better_ part of the province." None but their wisdoms could have known before-hand, that a speech which they never heard, and a copy of which they had never seen, but were then requesting to see, was "a spirited defence," and "of our charter privileges," and that "the publication of it would be of great utility, and give general satisfaction." No inferior sagacity could discover, that the appointment of a governor by the proprietor was one of our "charter privileges," and that those who opposed the application for a royal government were therefore patriot members, appearing on the side of our privileges and our charter! Utterly to _confound the assembly_, and show the excellence of proprietary government, the prefacer has extracted from their own votes, the _praises_ they have from time to time bestowed on the _first_ proprietor, in their addresses to his sons. And though addresses are not generally the best repositories of historical truth, we must not in this instance deny their authority. * * * * * What then avails it to the honour of the present proprietors, that our founder and their father gave us privileges, if they, the sons, will not permit the use of them, or forcibly rend them from us? David may have been a man after God's own heart, and Solomon the wisest of proprietors and governors; but if Rehoboam will be a tyrant and a ----, who can secure him the affections of the people? The virtue and merit of his ancestors may be very great, but his presumption in depending upon those alone may be much greater. I lamented, a few pages ago, that we were not acquainted with the names of those "principal gentlemen, the wiser and better part of the province." I now rejoice that we are likely, some time or other, to know them; for a copy of a _petition to the king_ is now before me; which, from its similarity with their _letter_, must be of their inditing, and will probably be recommended to the people, by their leading up the signing. On this petition I shall take the liberty of making a few _remarks_, as they will save me the necessity of following farther the preface; the sentiments of this and that being nearly the same. It begins with a formal quotation from the [assembly's] petition, which they own they have not seen, and of words that are not in it; and after relating very imperfectly and unfairly the fact relating to their application for a copy of it, which is of no importance, proceeds to set forth, "that as we and all your American subjects must be governed by persons authorised and approved by your Majesty, on the best recommendation that can be obtained of them; we cannot perceive our condition in this respect to be _different_ from our fellow-subjects around us, or that we are thereby less under your majesty's particular care and protection than they are; since there can be no _governors_ of this province without your majesty's _immediate approbation_ and authority." Such a declaration from the wiser part of the province is really a little surprising. What! when disputes concerning matters of property are daily arising between you and your proprietaries, cannot your wisdoms perceive the least difference between having the judges of those disputes appointed by a _royal_ governor, who has no interest in the cause, and having them appointed by the _proprietaries_ themselves, the principal parties against you; and _during their pleasure_ too? When supplies are necessary to be raised for your defence, can you perceive no difference between having a royal governor, free to promote his majesty's service by a ready assent to your laws; and a proprietary governor, shackled by instructions, forbidding him to give that assent, unless some private advantage is obtained, some profit got, or unequal exemption gained for their estate, or some privilege wrested from you? When prerogative, that in other governments is only used for the good of the people, is here strained to the extreme, and used to their prejudice, and the proprietaries benefit, can you perceive no difference? When the direct and immediate rays of majesty benignly and mildly shine on all _around_ us, but are transmitted and thrown upon _us_ through the burning-glass of proprietary government, can your sensibilities feel no difference? Sheltered perhaps in proprietary offices, or benumbed with expectations, it may be you cannot. But surely you might have known better than to tell his majesty, "that there can be no governors of this province, without his immediate approbation." Don't you know, who know so much, that by our blessed constitution the _proprietors_ themselves, whenever they please, may govern us in _person_, without such approbation? The petition proceeds to tell his majesty, "that the particular mode of government which we enjoy, under your majesty, is held in the _highest estimation_ by good men of all denominations among us; and hath _brought multitudes_ of industrious people from various parts of the world," &c. Really! Can this be from proprietary partizans? That constitution, which they were for ever censuring as defective in a legislative council, defective in government powers, too popular in many of its modes, is it now become so excellent? Perhaps, as they have been tinkering it these twenty years, till they have stripped it of some of its most valuable privileges, and almost spoiled it, they now begin to like it. But then it is not surely this _present_ constitution, that brought hither those multitudes. They came before. At least it was not that particular in our constitution (the proprietary power of appointing a governor) which attracted them, that single particular, which alone is now in question, which our venerable founder first, and now the assembly, are endeavouring to change. As to the remaining valuable part of our constitution, the assembly have been equally full and strong in expressing their regard for it, and perhaps stronger and fuller; for _their_ petition, in that respect, is in the nature of a petition of right: it lays claim, though modestly and humbly, to those privileges on the foundation of royal grants, on laws confirmed by the crown, and on justice and equity, as the grants were the consideration offered to induce them to settle, and which they have in a manner purchased and paid for, by executing that settlement without putting the crown to any expence. Whoever would know what our constitution was, when it was so much admired, let him peruse that elegant farewell speech of Mr. Hamilton, father of our late governor, when, as speaker, he took his leave of the house, and of public business, in 1739; and then let him compare that constitution with the present. The power of _appointing public officers_ by the representatives of the people, which he so much extols, where is it now? Even the bare naming to the governor in a bill, a trivial officer to receive a light-house duty (which could be considered as no more than a mere recommendation) is, in a late message, styled, "an encroachment on the prerogative of the crown!" The sole power of _raising and disposing of public money_, which he says was then lodged in the assembly, that inestimable privilege, what is become of it? Inch by inch they have been wrested from us in times of public distress; and the rest are going the same way. I remember to have seen, when governor Hamilton was engaged in a dispute with the assembly on some of those points, a copy of that speech, which then was intended to be reprinted, with a dedication to that honourable gentleman, and this motto from John Rogers's verses in the Primer: We send you here a little book, For you to look upon; That you may see your father's face, Now he is dead and gone. Many a such little book has been sent by our assemblies to the present proprietaries: but they do not like to see their father's face; it puts their own out of countenance. The petition proceeds to say, "that such disagreements as have arisen in this province, we have beheld with sorrow; but as others around us are not exempted from the _like misfortunes_, we can by no means conceive them incident to the nature of our government, which hath _often_ been administered with remarkable harmony: and your majesty, before whom our late disputes have been laid, can be at no loss, in your great wisdom, to discover, whether they proceed from the above cause, or should be ascribed to some others." The disagreements in question are proprietary disagreements in government, relating to proprietary private interests. And are not the _royal_ governments around us exempt from _these_ misfortunes? Can you really, gentlemen, by no means conceive, that proprietary government disagreements are incident to the nature of proprietary governments? If your wisdoms are so hard to conceive, I am afraid they will never bring forth. But then our government "hath _often_ been administered with remarkable harmony." Very true; as often as the assembly have been able and willing to purchase that harmony, and pay for it, the mode of which has already been shown. And yet that word _often_ seems a little unluckily chosen: the flame that is often put out, must be as often lit. If our government hath often been administered with remarkable harmony, it hath as often been administered with remarkable discord: one often is as numerous as the other. And his majesty, if he should take the trouble of looking over our disputes (to which the petitioners, to save themselves a little pains, modestly and decently refer him) where will he, for twenty years past, find any but _proprietary_ disputes concerning proprietary interests; or disputes that have been connected with and arose from them? The petition proceeds to assure his majesty, "that this province (except from the Indian ravages) enjoys the _most perfect internal tranquillity_!"--Amazing! what! the most perfect tranquillity! when there have been three atrocious riots within a few months! when in two of them, horrid murders were committed on twenty innocent persons; and in the third, no less than one hundred and forty like murders were meditated, and declared to be intended, with as many more as should be occasioned by any opposition! when we know that these rioters and murderers have none of them been punished, have never been prosecuted, have not even been apprehended! when we are frequently told, that they intend still to execute their purposes, as soon as the protection of the king's forces is withdrawn! Is our tranquillity more perfect now, than it was between the first riot and the second, or between the second and the third? And why "except the Indian ravages," is a _little intermission_ to be denominated "the most perfect tranquillity?" For the Indians too have been quiet lately. Almost as well might ships in an engagement talk of the most perfect tranquillity between two broadsides. But "a spirit of riot and violence is foreign to the general temper of the inhabitants." I hope and believe it is; the assembly have said nothing to the contrary. And yet is there not too much of it? Are there not pamphlets continually written, and daily sold in our streets, to justify and encourage it? Are not the mad armed mob in those writings instigated to embrue their hands in the blood of their fellow-citizens, by first applauding their murder of the Indians, and then representing the assembly and their friends as worse than Indians, as having privately stirred up the Indians to murder the white people, and armed and rewarded them for that purpose? LIES, gentlemen, villanous as ever the malice of hell invented, and which, to do you justice, not one of you believes, though you would have the mob believe them. But your petition proceeds to say, "that where such disturbances have happened, they have been _speedily quieted_." By whom were they quieted? The _two first_, if they can be said to be quieted, were quieted only by the rioters themselves going home quietly (that is, without any interruption) and remaining there till their next insurrection, without any pursuit, or attempt to apprehend any of them. And the _third_, was it quieted, or was the mischief they intended prevented, or could it have been prevented, without the aid of the king's troops, marched into the province for that purpose?--"The civil powers have been supported," in some sort. We all know how they were supported; but have they been _fully_ supported? Has the government sufficient strength, even with all its supports, to venture on the apprehending and punishment of those notorious offenders? If it has not, why are you angry at those who would strengthen its hands by a more immediate royal authority? If it has, why is not the thing done? Why will the government, by its conduct, strengthen the suspicions (groundless no doubt) that it has come to a private understanding with those murderers, and that impunity for their past crimes is to be the reward of their future political services?--O! but says the petition, "there are perhaps cases in all governments where it may _not be possible speedily to discover offenders_." Probably; but is there any case in any government where it is not possible to _endeavour_ such a discovery? There may be cases where it is not safe to do it: and perhaps the best thing our government can say for itself is, that that is our case. The only objection to such an apology must be, that it would justify that part of the assembly's petition to the crown, which relates to the _weakness_ of our present government.[68] Still, if there is any _fault_, it must be _in the assembly_; for, says the petition, "if the executive part of our government should seem in any case too weak, we conceive it is the duty of the assembly, and in _their_ power, to strengthen it." This weakness, however, you have just denied. "Disturbances you say _have_ been speedily quieted, and the civil power supported," and thereby you have deprived your insinuated charge against the assembly of its only support. But is it not a fact known to you all, that the assembly _did_ endeavour to strengthen the hands of the government? That, at his honour's instance, they prepared and passed in a few hours a bill for extending hither the act of parliament for dispersing rioters? That they also passed and presented to him a militia bill, which he refused, unless powers were thereby given him over the lives and properties of the inhabitants, which the public good did not require; and which their duty to their constituents would not permit them to trust in the hands of any proprietary governor? You know the points, gentlemen: they have been made public. Would you have had your representatives give up those points? Do _you_ intend to give them up, when at the next election _you_ are made assemblymen? If so, tell it us honestly beforehand, that we may know what we are to expect when we are about to choose you? I come now to the last clause of your petition, where, with the same wonderful sagacity with which you in another case discovered the excellency of a speech you never heard, you undertake to _characterise a petition_ [_from the_ assembly] _you own you never saw_; and venture to assure his majesty, that it is "exceeding grievous in its nature, that it by no means contains a proper representation of the state of this province, and is repugnant to the general sense of his numerous and loyal subjects in it." Are then his majesty's "numerous and loyal subjects" in this province all as great wizards as yourselves, and capable of knowing, without seeing it, that a petition is repugnant to their general sense? But the inconsistence of your petition, gentlemen, is not so much to be wondered at; the _prayer_ of it is _still more_ extraordinary, "We therefore most humbly pray, that your majesty would be graciously pleased _wholly to disregard_ the said petition of the assembly." What! without enquiry! without examination! without a hearing of what the assembly might say in support of it! "wholly disregard" the petition of your representatives in assembly, accompanied by other petitions, signed by thousands of your fellow-subjects as loyal, if not as wise and as good, as yourselves! Would you wish to see your great and amiable prince act a part that could not become a dey of Algiers? Do you, who are Americans, pray for a _precedent_ of such contempt in the treatment of an American assembly! such "total disregard" of their humble applications to the throne? Surely your wisdoms here have overshot yourselves.--But as wisdom shows itself not only in doing what is right, but in confessing and _amending_ what is wrong, I recommend the latter particularly to your present attention; being persuaded of this consequence, that though you have been mad enough to sign such a petition, you never will be fools enough to present it. There is one thing mentioned in the preface, which I find I omitted to take notice of as I came along, _the refusal of the house to enter Mr. Dickinson's protest_ on their minutes. This is mentioned in such a manner there and in the newspapers, as to insinuate a charge of some partiality and injustice in the assembly. But the _reasons_ were merely these, that though protesting may be a practice with the lords of parliament, there is no instance of it in the house of commons, whose proceedings are the model followed by the assemblies of America; that there is no precedent of it on our votes, from the beginning of our present constitution; and that the introducing such a practice would be attended with inconveniences, as the representatives in assembly are not, like the lords in parliament, unaccountable to any constituents, and would therefore find it necessary for their own justification, if the reasons of the minority for being against a measure were admitted in the votes, to put there likewise the reasons that induced the majority to be for it: whereby the votes, which were intended only as a register of propositions and determinations, would be filled with the disputes of members with members, and the public business be thereby greatly retarded, if ever brought to a period. As that protest was a mere abstract of Mr. Dickinson's speech, every particular of it will be found answered in the following speech of Mr. Galloway, from which it is fit that I should no longer detain the reader.[69] FOOTNOTES: [59] As I am very much unacquainted with the history and principles of these provincial politics, I shall confine myself to some imperfect anecdotes concerning the parties, &c. A speech, which Mr. Dickinson had delivered in the Pensylvania assembly against the abolition of the proprietary government, having been published, and a preface having been written to it, as I think by a Dr. Smith, Mr. Galloway's speech was held forth as a proper answer to that speech, while the preface to it appeared balanced by the above preface from Dr. Franklin. Mr. Galloway's speech, or probably the advertisement that attended it, urged, I believe, Mr. Dickinson first to a challenge, and then to a printed reply.--The controversy was quickly republished in England, or at least the principal parts of it; and it is from the English edition of Mr. Galloway's speech (printed in London by Nichols in 1765) that I have copied the above. These several gentlemen however seem, for a time, to have better agreed in their subsequent opinions concerning American taxation by Great Britain; Mr. Dickinson, in particular, having taken a very spirited line in the Farmer's Letters and other pieces, which procured him considerable reputation. The congress declaration, nevertheless, for independence, was reported not to have given perfect satisfaction at first, either to himself or to Mr. Galloway. And in the event, Mr. Galloway thought proper to come over to General Howe, and afterwards to embark for England. B. V. [60] This act is intitled, An Act for granting to his Majesty the Sum of One Hundred Thousand Pounds: striking the same in Bills of Credit, and sinking the Bills by a Tax on all Estates real and personal. [61] i. e. In England, I suppose, when the laws were brought home to receive the king's assent. B. V. [62] Possibly this word _where_, means _wherever_. B. V. [63] This would have been done, and the money all sunk in the hands of the people, if the agents, Benjamin Franklin, and Robert Charles, had not interposed, and voluntarily, without authority from the assembly so to do, but at their own risque, undertaken, that these amendments should be made, or that they themselves would indemnify the proprietaries from any damages they might sustain for want thereof. An action which, as the prefacer says in another case, "posterity perhaps may find a name for." [64] It is not easy to guess from what source our proprietaries have drawn their principles. Those who study law and justice as a science have established it a maxim in equity, "Qui sentit commodum, sentire debet et onus." And so consistent is this with the common sense of mankind, that even our lowest untaught coblers and porters feel the force of it in their own maxim (which they are honest enough never to dispute) "Touch pot, touch penny." [65] For a fuller account of this dispute the reader is referred to the newspapers and votes of assembly. [66] These words, "by completing the agreement," &c. are omitted by the honest prefacer, in his account of the resolve, that they might not interfere with his insinuation of the measure's being impracticable, "have the proprietors, by any act of theirs, forfeited the least tittle of what was granted them by his Majesty's royal ancestors? Or can they be _deprived_ of their charter rights without their consent?" &c. Sensible that these questions are impertinent, if those rights are already sold. [67] The prefacer, with great art, endeavours to represent this number as insignificant. He says the petitioners were but 3500, and that the province contains near three hundred thousand _souls_! His reader is to imagine, that _two hundred and ninety six thousand five hundred_ of them were applied to, and refused to sign it. The truth is, that his number of souls is vastly exaggerated. The dwelling-houses in the province in 1752 did not exceed 20,000. Political arithmeticians reckon generally but five souls to a house, one house with another; and therefore, allowing for houses since built, there are not probably more than an hundred and ten thousand souls in the province; that of these, scarce twenty two thousand could with any propriety be petitioners. And considering the scattered settlement of the province; the general inattention of mankind, especially in new countries, to public affairs; and the indefatigable pains taken by the proprietaries' new allies the presbyterian clergy of Philadelphia, (who wrote circular letters to every congregation in the county, to deter them from petitioning, by dutiful intimations, that if we were reduced to a royal government, it would be the "ruin of the province;") it is a wonder the number (near a sixth part) was so great as it was. But if there had been no such petitions, it would not have been material to the point. The _assembly_ went upon another foundation. They had adjourned to consult their constituents; they returned satisfied that the measure was agreeable to them, and _nothing appeared to the contrary_. [68] The assembly being called upon by the governor for their advice on that occasion did, in a message, advise his sending for and examining the magistrates of Lancaster county and borough, where the murders were committed, in order to discover the actors; but neither that nor any of the other measures recommended were ever taken. Proclamations indeed were published, but soon discontinued. [69] Mr. Galloway's speech is of course omitted here. _Editor._ _Remarks on a late Protest against the Appointment of Mr. Franklin as Agent for this Province_ [of Pensylvania]. I have generally passed over, with a silent disregard, the _nameless_ abusive pieces that have been written against me; and though this paper, called a _protest_, is signed by some respectable names, I was, nevertheless, inclined to treat it with the same indifference; but, as the assembly is therein reflected on upon my account, it is thought more my duty to make some remarks upon it. I would first observe then, that this mode of _protesting_ by the minority, with a string of reasons against the proceedings of the majority of the house of assembly, is quite new among us; the present is the second we have had of the kind, and both within a few months. It is unknown to the practice of the house of commons, or of any house of representatives in America, that I have heard of; and seems an affected imitation of the lords in parliament, which can by no means become assemblymen of America. Hence appears the absurdity of the complaint, that the house refused the protest an _entry_ on their minutes. The protesters know, that they are not, by any custom or usage, intitled to such an entry; and that the practice here is not only useless in itself, but would be highly inconvenient to the house, since it would probably be thought necessary for the majority also to enter their reasons, to justify themselves to their constituents; whereby the minutes would be incumbered and the public business obstructed. More especially will it be found inconvenient, if such protests are made use of as a new form of libelling, as the vehicles of personal malice, and as means of giving to private abuse the appearance of a sanction as public acts. Your protest, gentlemen, was therefore properly refused; and since it is no part of the proceedings of assembly, one may with the more freedom examine it. Your first reason against my appointment is, that you "believe me to be the chief author of the measures pursued by the last assembly, which have occasioned _such uneasiness_ and distraction among the good people of this province." I shall not dispute my share in those measures; I hope they are such as will in time do honour to all that were concerned in them. But you seem mistaken in the order of time: it was the uneasiness and distraction among the good people of the province that occasioned the measures; the province was in confusion before they were taken, and they were pursued in order to prevent such uneasiness and distraction for the future. Make one step farther back, and you will find proprietary injustice supported by proprietary minions and creatures, the original cause of all our uneasiness and distractions. Another of your reasons is, "that I am, as you are informed, very _unfavourably_ thought of by several of his _majesty's ministers_." I apprehend, gentlemen, that your informer is mistaken. He indeed has taken great pains to give unfavourable impressions of me, and perhaps may flatter himself, that it is impossible so much true industry should be totally without effect. His long success in maiming or murdering all the reputations that stand in his way (which has been the dear delight and constant employment of his life) may likewise have given him some just ground for confidence, that he has, as they call it, _done for me_, among the rest. But, as I said before, I believe he is mistaken. For what have I done, that they should think unfavourably of me? It cannot be my constantly and uniformly promoting the measures of the crown, ever since I had any influence in the province. It cannot, surely, be my promoting the change from a proprietary to a royal government. If indeed I had, by speeches and writings, endeavoured to make his majesty's government universally odious in the province: if I had harangued by the week to all comers and goers, on the pretended injustice and oppressions of royal government, and the slavery of the people under it: if I had written traitorous papers to this purpose, and got them translated into other languages, to give his majesty's foreign subjects here those horrible ideas of it: if I had declared, written, and printed, that "the king's little finger we should find heavier than the proprietor's whole loins," with regard to our liberties; _then indeed_ might the ministers be supposed to think unfavourably of me. But these are not exploits for a man, who holds a profitable office under the crown, and can expect to hold it no longer than he behaves with the fidelity and duty that becomes every good subject. They are only for officers of proprietary appointment, who hold their commissions during his, and not the king's pleasure; and who, by dividing among themselves and their relations, offices of many thousands a year enjoyed by proprietary favour, _feel_ where to place their loyalty. I wish they were as good subjects to his majesty; and perhaps they may be so, when the proprietary interferes no longer. Another of your reasons is, "that the proposal of me for _an agent_ is extremely disagreeable to a very great number of the most serious and reputable inhabitants of the province; and the _proof_ is, my having been rejected at the last election, though I had represented the city in assembly for fourteen years." And do those of you, gentlemen, reproach me with this, who, among near four thousand voters, had scarcely a score more than I had? It seems then, that your _elections_ were very near being _rejections_, and thereby furnishing the same proof in your case that you produce in mine, of _your_ being likewise extremely disagreeable to a very great number of the most serious and reputable people. Do you, honourable sir, reproach me with this, who, for almost twice fourteen years have been rejected (if _not being chosen_ is _to be rejected_) by the same people? and (unable, with all your wealth and connections, and the influence they give you, to obtain an election in the county where you reside, and the city where you were born, and are best known) have been obliged to accept a seat from one of the out-counties, the remotest of the province!--It is known, sir, to the persons who proposed me, that I was first chosen against my inclination, and against my entreaties that I might be suffered to remain a private man. In none of the fourteen elections you mention, did I ever appear as a candidate. I never did, directly or indirectly, solicit any man's vote. For six of the years in which I was annually chosen, I was absent, residing in England; during all which time, your secret and open attacks upon my character and reputation were incessant; and yet you gained no ground. And can you really, gentlemen, find matter of triumph in this _rejection_ as you call it? A moment's reflection on the means by which it was obtained must make you ashamed of it. Not only my duty to the crown, in carrying the post-office act more duly into execution, was made use of to exasperate the ignorant, as if I was encreasing my own profits, by picking their pockets; but my very zeal in opposing the murderers, and supporting the authority of government; and even my humanity, with regard to the innocent Indians under our protection, were mustered among my offences, to stir up against me those religious bigots, who are of all savages the most brutish. Add to this, the numberless falshoods propagated as truths, and the many perjuries procured among the wretched rabble, brought to swear themselves intitled to a vote: And yet so _poor a superiority_ obtained at all this expence of honour and conscience! can this, gentlemen, be matter of triumph? Enjoy it then. Your exultation, however, was short. Your artifices did not prevail every where; nor your double tickets and whole boxes of forged votes. A great majority of the new-chosen assembly were of the old members, and remain uncorrupted. They still stood firm for the people, and will obtain justice from the proprietaries. But what does that avail to you, who are in the proprietary interest? And what comfort can it afford you, when, by the assembly's choice of an agent, it appears that the same, to you obnoxious, man (notwithstanding all your venomous invectives against him) still retains so great a share of the public confidence? But "this step, you say, gives you the more lively affliction, as it is taken at the _very moment_ when you were informed by a member of the house, that the governor had assured him of his having received instructions from the proprietaries, to give his assent to the taxation of their estates; in the _same manner_ that the estates of other persons are to be taxed; and also _to confirm_, for the public use, the several squares formerly _claimed_ by the city." O the force of friendship! the power of interest! What politeness they infuse into a writer, and what _delicate_ expressions they produce!--The dispute between the proprietaries and us was about the _quantum_, the _rate_ of their taxation, and not about the _manner_; but now, when all the world condemns them for requiring a partial exemption of their estates, and they are forced to submit to an honest equality, it is called "_assenting_ to be taxed in the _same manner_ with the people." Their _restitution_ of five public squares in the plan of the city, which they had near forty years unjustly and dishonourably seized and detained from us, (directing their surveyor to map streets over them, in order to turn them into lots, and their officers to sell a part of them;) this their _disgorging_ is softly called _confirming_ them for the public use; and instead of the plain words "_formerly given_ to the city, by the first proprietary, their father," we have the cautious pretty expression of "formerly _claimed_ by the city:" Yes; not only _formerly_, but _always_ claimed, ever since they were _promised_ and _given_ to encourage the settlers; and ever will be _claimed_, till we are put in actual possession of them. It is pleasant, however, to see how lightly and tenderly you trip over these matters, as if you trod upon eggs. But that "_very moment_," that precious moment! Why was it so long delayed? Why were those healing instructions so long withheld and concealed from the people? They were, it seems, brought over by Mr. Allen:[70] intelligence was received by various hands from London, that orders were sent by the proprietaries, from which great hopes were entertained of an accommodation. Why was the bringing and the delivery of such orders so long _denied_? The reason is easily understood. Messieurs Barclays, friends to both proprietaries and people, wished for that gentleman's happy arrival; hoping his _influence_, added to the _power_ and _commissions_ the proprietaries had vested him with, might prove effectual in restoring harmony and tranquillity among us; but _he_, it seems, hoped his _influence_ might do the business, without those additions. There appeared on his arrival some prospect (from sundry circumstances) of a _change_ to be made in the house by the approaching election. The proprietary friends and creatures knew the heart of their master; and how extremely disagreeable to him that _equal taxation_, that _restitution_, and the other _concessions_ to be made for the sake of a reconciliation, must necessarily be. They hoped therefore to spare him all those mortifications, and thereby secure a greater portion of his favour. Hence the instructions were not produced to the last assembly, though they arrived before the September sitting, when the governor was in town, and actually did business with the house. Nor to the new assembly were they mentioned, till the "_very moment_," the fatal moment, when the house were on the point of choosing that wicked adversary of the proprietary to be an _agent_ for the province in England. But I have, you say, a "fixed _enmity to the proprietaries_," and "you believe it will _preclude all accommodation_ of our disputes with them, even on just and reasonable terms." And why do you think I have a fixed enmity to the proprietaries? I have never had any personal difference with them. I am no land-jobber; and therefore have never had any thing to do with their land-office or officers; if I had, probably, like others, I might have been obliged to truckle to their measures, or have had like causes of complaint. But our private interests never clashed; and all their resentment against me, and mine to them, has been on the public account. Let them do justice to the people of Pensylvania, act honourably by the citizens of Philadelphia, and become honest men; my enmity, if that's of any consequence, ceases from the "_very moment_;" and, as soon as I possibly can, I promise to love, honour and respect them. In the mean time, why do you "believe it will preclude all _accommodation_ with them on just and reasonable terms?" Do you not boast, that their gracious condescensions are in the hands of the governor; and that "if this had been the usual time for business, his honour would have sent them down in a message to the house." How then can my going to England prevent this accommodation? The governor can call the house when he pleases; and, one would think, that, at least in your opinion, my being out of the way would be a favourable circumstance. For then, by "cultivating the disposition shown by the proprietaries, every _reasonable demand_ that can be made on the part of the people might be obtained: in vigorously insisting on which, you promise to unite most earnestly with the rest of the house." It seems then we have "_reasonable demands_" to make, and, as you call them a little higher, _equitable demands_. This is much for proprietary minions to own; but you are all growing better, in imitation of your master, which is indeed very commendable. And if the accommodation here should fail, I hope, that though you dislike the person a majority of two to one in the house have thought fit to appoint an agent, you will nevertheless, in duty to your country, continue the noble resolution of uniting with the rest of the house, in vigorously insisting on that _equity_ and _justice_, which such an union will undoubtedly obtain for us. I pass over the trivial charge against the assembly, that they "acted with _unnecessary haste_ in proceeding to this appointment, without making a small adjournment," &c. and your affected apprehensions of danger from that haste. The necessity of expedition on this occasion is as obvious to every one out of doors, as it was to those within; and the fears you mention are not, I fancy, considerable enough to break your rest. I come then to your _high_ charge against me, "that I heretofore ventured, _contrary_ to an act of assembly, to place the public money in the stocks; whereby this province suffered a loss of 6000_l._ and that sum, added to the 5000_l._ granted for my expences, makes the whole cost of my former voyage to England amount to _eleven thousand pounds_!" How wisely was that form in our laws contrived, which, when a man is arraigned for his life, requires the evidence to speak _the truth_, the _whole truth_, and _nothing but the truth_! The reason is manifest. A falshood may destroy the innocent, so may _part of a truth_ without _the whole_; and a mixture of truth and falshood may be full as pernicious. You, Mr. Chief Justice, and the other justices among the protesters, and you, sir, who are a counsellor at law, must all of you be well acquainted with this excellent form; and when you arraigned my reputation (dearer to me than life) before the assembly, and now at the respectable tribunal of the public, would it not have well become your honours to have had some small regard at least to the spirit of that form? You might have mentioned, that the direction of the act, to lodge the money in the bank, subject to the drafts of the trustees of the loan-office here, was impracticable; that the bank refused to receive it on those terms, it being contrary to their settled rules to take charge of money subject to the orders of unknown people living in distant countries. You might have mentioned, that the house being informed of this, and having no immediate call for the money, did _themselves_ adopt the measure of placing it in the stocks, which then were low, where it might on a peace produce a considerable profit, and in the mean time accumulate an interest: that they even passed a bill, directing the subsequent sums granted by parliament to be placed with the former: that the measure was prudent and safe; and that the loss arose, not from _placing_ the money _in_ the stocks, but from the imprudent and unnecessary _drawing it out_ at the very time when they were lowest, on some slight uncertain rumours of a peace concluded: that if the assembly had let it remain another year, instead of losing they would have gained _six thousand pounds_; and that after all, since the exchange at which they sold their bills was near _twenty per cent_ higher when they drew than when the stocks were purchased, the loss was far from being so great as you represent it. All these things you might have said; for they are, and you know them to be, part of the _whole truth_; but they would have spoiled your accusation. The late speaker of your honourable house, Mr. Norris, (who has, I suppose, all my letters to him, and copies of his own to me, relating to that transaction) can testify with how much integrity and clearness I managed the whole affair. All the house were sensible of it, being from time to time fully acquainted with the facts. If I had gone to gaming in the stocks with the public money, and through my fault a sum was lost, as your protest would insinuate, why was I not censured and punished for it when I returned? You, honourable sir, (my enemy of seven years standing) was then in the house. You were appointed on the committee for examining my accounts; you reported, that you found them just, and signed that report.[71] I never solicited the employ of agent; I made no bargain for my future service, when I was ordered to England by the assembly; nor did they vote me any salary. I lived there near six years at my own expence, and I made no charge or demand when I came home. You, sir, of all others, was the very member that proposed (for the honour and justice of the house) a compensation to be made me of the _five thousand pounds_ you mention. Was it with an intent to reproach me thus publicly for accepting it? I thanked the house for it then, and I thank you now for proposing it: though you, who have lived in England, can easily conceive, that besides the prejudice to my private affairs by my absence, a _thousand pounds_ more would not have reimbursed me. The money voted was immediately paid me. But if I had occasioned the loss of _six thousand pounds_ to the province, here was a fair opportunity of securing easily the greatest part of it; why was not the _five thousand pounds_ deducted, and the remainder called for? The reason is, this accusation was not then invented. Permit me to add, that supposing the whole _eleven thousand pounds_ an expence occasioned by my voyage to England, yet the taxation of the proprietary estate now established will, when valued by years purchase, be found in time an advantage to the public, far exceeding that expence. And if the expence is at present a burthen, the odium of it ought to lie on those, who, by their injustice, made the voyage necessary; and not on me, who only submitted to the orders of the house in undertaking it. I am now to take leave (perhaps a last leave) of the country I love, and in which I have spent the greatest part of my life.--ESTO PERPETUA.--I wish every kind of prosperity to my friends,--and I forgive my enemies. B. FRANKLIN. _Philadelphia, Nov. 5, 1764._ FOOTNOTES: [70] _Extract of a Letter, dated London, August 6, 1764, from David Barclay and Sons, to Messieurs James and Drinker._ "We very much wish for William Allen's happy arrival on your side; when we hope his influence, added to the _power_ and _commissions_ the proprietaries have invested him with, may prove effectual, in restoring harmony and tranquillity among you, so much to be desired by every well-wisher to your province. Pray be assured of our sincerest and best wishes for the success of this salutary work, and that nothing in our power, to contribute thereto, will ever be wanting." [71] _Report of the Committee on Benjamin Franklin's Accounts._ "In obedience to the order of the house, we have examined the account of Benjamin Franklin, Esq. with the vouchers to us produced in support thereof, and do find the same account to be just, and that he has expended, in the immediate service of this province, the sum of _seven hundred and fourteen pounds, ten shillings and seven-pence_, out of the sum of _fifteen hundred pounds_ sterling to him remitted and paid, exclusive of any allowance or charge for his support and services for the province. JOHN MORTON, JOHN HUGHES, WILLIAM ALLEN, SAMUEL RHOADS, JOHN ROSS, JOHN WILKINSON, JOHN MOOR, ISAAC PEARSON. JOSEPH FOX, February 19, 1763. "The house taking the foregoing report of the committee of accounts into consideration, and having spent some time therein, "RESOLVED, "That the sum of _five hundred pounds_ sterling _per annum_ be allowed and given to Benjamin Franklin, Esq. late agent for the province of Pensylvania at the court of Great Britain, during his absence of six years from his business and connections, in the service of the public; and that the thanks of this house be also given to the said gentleman by Mr. Speaker, from the chair; as well for the faithful discharge of his duty to this province in particular, as for the many and important services done America in general, during his residence in Great Britain." _Thursday, March 31, 1763._ "Pursuant to a resolve of the nineteenth of last month, that the thanks of this house be given to Benjamin Franklin, Esq. for his many services not only to the province of Pensylvania, but to America in general, during his late agency at the court of Great Britain; the same were this day accordingly given in form from the chair.--To which Mr. Franklin, respectfully addressing himself to the Speaker, made answer, That he was thankful to the house, for the very handsome and generous allowance they had been pleased to make him for his services; but that the approbation of this house was, in his estimation, far above every other kind of recompence." _Votes_, 1763. _Remarks on a Plan for the future Management of Indian Affairs[72]._ The regulations in this plan seem to me to be in general very good: but some few appear to want explanation, or farther consideration. _Clause_ 3. Is it intended by this clause, to prevent the trade that Indians, living near the frontiers, may choose to carry on with the inhabitants, by bringing their skins into the [English] settlements? This prevention is hardly practicable; as such trade may be carried on in many places out of the observation of government; the frontier being of great extent, and the inhabitants thinly settled in the woods, remote from each other. The Indians too do not every where live in towns sufficiently numerous to encourage traders to reside among them, but in scattered families, here and there, often shifting their situation for the sake of better hunting; and if they _are_ near the English settlements, it would seem to them very hard to be obliged to carry their skins for sale to remote towns or posts, when they could dispose of them to their neighbours, with less trouble, and to greater advantage; as the goods they want for them, are and must be dearer at such remote posts. 4. The colony "laws for regulating Indian affairs or commerce" are the result of long experience, made by people on the spot, interested to make them good; and it would be well to consider the matter thoroughly, before they are repealed, to make way for new untried schemes. By whom are they to be repealed? By the colony assemblies, or by parliament? Some difficulty will arise here. 13. The districts seem too large for this. The Indians under the care of the northern superintendant, by this plan, border on the colonies of Nova Scotia, Quebec, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pensylvania, Maryland, Virginia: the superintendant's situation, remote from many of these, may occasion great inconvenience, if his consent is always to be necessary in such cases. 14. This seems too much to be done, when the vastness of the district is considered. If there were more districts and smaller, it might be more practicable. 15 and 16. Are these agents or commissaries to try causes where life is concerned? Would it not be better, to send the criminals into some civil well settled government or colony for trial, where good juries can be had? 18. "_Chief for the whole tribe; who shall constantly reside with the commissary, &c._" Provision must then be made for his maintenance, as particular Indians have no estates, but live by hunting, and their public has no funds or revenues. Being used to rambling, it would perhaps not be easy to find one, who would be obliged to this constant residence; but it may be tried. 22. If the agent and his deputies, and the commissaries, are not to trade, should it not be a part of their oath, that they will have no concern in such trade, directly or indirectly? Private agreements between them and the traders, for share of profits, should be guarded against, and the same care taken to prevent, if possible, private agreements between them and the purchasers of Indian lands. 31. ---- "or trading at any other post, &c." This should be so expressed, as to make the master liable for the offence of the servant; otherwise it will have no effect. 33. I doubt the settling of _tariffs_ will be a matter of difficulty. There may be differences of fineness, goodness, and value, in the goods of different traders, that cannot be properly allowed for by general tariffs. And it seems contrary to the nature of commerce, for government to interfere in the prices of commodities. Trade is a voluntary thing between buyer and seller; in every article of which, each exercises his own judgment, and is to please himself. Suppose either Indian or trader is dissatisfied with the tariff, and refuses barter on those terms, are the refusers to be compelled? if not, why should an Indian be forbidden to take more goods for skins than your tariff allows, if the trader is willing to give them, or a trader more skins for his goods, if the Indian is willing to give them? Where there are a number of different traders, the separate desire of each to get more custom will operate in bringing down their goods to a reasonable price. It therefore seems to me, that trade will best find and make its own rates; and that government cannot well interfere, unless it will take the whole trade into its own hands (as in some colonies it does) and manage it by its own servants, at its own risque. 38. I apprehend, that if the Indians cannot get _rum_ of fair traders, it will be a great means of defeating all these regulations, that direct the trade to be carried on at certain posts. The countries and forests are so very large, it is scarce possible to guard every part, so as to prevent unlicensed traders drawing the Indians and the trade to themselves, by rum and other spiritous liquors, which all savage people are so fond of. I think they will generally trade where they can get rum, preferably to where it is refused them; and the proposed prohibition will therefore be a great encouragement to unlicensed traders, and promote such trade. If the commissaries, or officers at the posts, can prevent the selling of rum during the barter for other goods, and until the Indians are about going away, it is perhaps all that is practicable or necessary. The missionaries will, among other things, endeavour to prevail with them to live soberly and avoid drunkenness. 39. The Indian trade, so far as _credit_ is concerned, has hitherto been carried on wholly upon honour. They have among themselves no such things as prisons or confinements for debt. This article seems to imply, that an Indian may be compelled by law to pay a debt of fifty shillings or under. Our legal method of compulsion is by imprisonment: the Indians cannot and will not imprison one another; and if we attempt to imprison them, I apprehend it would be generally disliked by the nations, and occasion breaches. They have such high ideas of the value of personal liberty, and such slight ones of the value of personal property;[73] that they would think the disproportion monstrous between the liberty of a man, and a debt of a few shillings; and that it would be excessively inequitable and unjust, to take away the one for a default in payment of the other. It seems to me therefore best, to leave that matter on its present footing; the debts _under_ fifty shillings as irrecoverable by law, as this article proposes for the debts _above_ fifty shillings. Debts of honour are generally as well paid as other debts. Where no compulsion can be used, it is more disgraceful to be dishonest. If the trader thinks his risque greater in trusting any particular Indian, he will either not do it, or proportion his price to his risque. 44. As the goods for the Indian trade all come from England, and the peltry is chiefly brought to England; perhaps it will be best to lay the duty here, on the exportation of the one, and the importation of the other, to avoid meddling with the question, of the right to lay duties in America by parliament here. If it is thought proper to carry the trading part of this plan into execution, would it not be well to _try it first in a few posts_, to which the present colony laws for regulating the Indian trade do not reach; that by experience its utility may be ascertained, or its defects discovered and amended, before it is made general, and those laws repealed to make way for it?--If the Indians find by experience, that they are better used in their trade at the posts, under these regulations, than at other places, may it not make them desirous of having the regulations extended to other places; and when extended, better satisfied with them upon reflection and comparison[74]? FOOTNOTES: [72] The plan remarked upon was under the consideration of ministry before the close of the year 1766, and (as I am inclined to think) after the commencement of 1765. I can go no nearer as to its date. It is needless to enter into the particulars of it, as the remarks explain themselves; except perhaps as to the following points. The trade was to be open; there were to be two superintendants to it; in the northern district the trade was to be carried on at fixed posts, in the southern within the Indian town; the military were to have no power over the superintendants or the Indian trade, even in war time, unless with the superintendants' assent, or in great exigencies; the superintendants, by themselves or deputies, were to make annual visitations among the Indians, to see to justice, &c. and their proceedings were to be very summary; and no credit was to be given to the Indians beyond fifty shillings, for no higher debt was to be made recoverable. B. V. [73] For an account of the sentiments and manners of the Indians, see an essay by our author in a subsequent part of this volume. _Editor._ [74] The editor has given the following memorandum of Indian _fighting men_, inhabiting near the distant posts, in 1762; to indulge the curious in future times. The paper is in Dr. Franklin's hand-writing: but it must not be mistaken as containing a list of the whole of the nations enumerated, but only such part of them as lived near the places described. B. V. A list of the number of fighting men of the different nations of Indians, through which I (George Croghan) passed, living at or near the several posts. SANDUSKY. Wyandotts and Mohickons 200 DETROIT. Poutauwautimies 150 Ottawas 250 Wyandotts 250 Cheapwas 320 970 MICHILEMAKINAC. Ottawas 250 Cheapwas 400 650 LA BAY. Meynomeneys 110 Pervons 360 Sax 300 Reynard 320 1090 ST. JOSEPH'S. Poutauwautimies 200 Ottawas (some distance) 150 350 THE MIAMIES. Mincamies or Twigtwees 230 OUITANON. Ouitanons 200 Thickapoose 180 Musquiton 90 Pyankishaws 100 570 SHAWANESE. At the lower town, on Scioto 240 At the upper town, on Muskingum 60 300 ---- 4360 There is a nation, back of the Bay, who used formerly to come there to visit the French when they were in possession of that post, called _La Sieu_, computed to be 2500 fighting men; who have this summer sent word to Mr. Gorrell, who commands there, that they purpose paying him a visit late this fall or in the spring. PAPERS ON AMERICAN SUBJECTS, DURING THE _REVOLUTIONARY TROUBLES_. PAPERS ON AMERICAN SUBJECTS, DURING THE _REVOLUTIONARY TROUBLES_. _Causes of the American Discontents before 1768[75]._ The waves never rise but when the winds blow. PROV. SIR, As the cause of the present ill humour in America, and of the resolutions taken there to purchase less of our manufactures, does not seem to be generally understood, it may afford some satisfaction to your readers, if you give them the following short historical state of facts. From the time that the colonies were first considered as capable of _granting aids to the crown_, down to the end of the last war, it is said, that the constant mode of obtaining those aids was, by requisition made from the crown, through its governors, to the several assemblies, in circular letters from the secretary of state, in his majesty's name, setting forth the occasion, requiring them to take the matter into consideration, and expressing a reliance on their prudence, duty, and affection to his majesty's government, that they would grant such sums, or raise such numbers of men, as were suitable to their respective circumstances. The colonies, being accustomed to this method, have from time to time granted money to the crown, or raised troops for its service, in proportion to their abilities, and, during all the last war, beyond their abilities; so that considerable sums were returned them yearly by parliament, as they had exceeded their proportion. Had this happy method of requisition been continued (a method that left the king's subjects in those remote countries the pleasure of showing their zeal and loyalty, and of imagining that they recommended themselves to their sovereign by the liberality of their voluntary grants) there is no doubt, but all the money that could reasonably be expected to be raised from them in any manner, might have been obtained, without the least heart-burning, offence, or breach of the harmony of affections and interests, that so long subsisted between the two countries. It has been thought wisdom in a government exercising sovereignty over different kinds of people, to have _some regard to prevailing and established opinions_ among the people to be governed, wherever such opinions might in their effects obstruct or promote public measures. If they tend to obstruct public service, they are to be changed, if possible, before we attempt to act against them; and they can only be changed by reason and persuasion. But if public business can be carried on without thwarting those opinions, if they can be, on the contrary, made subservient to it; they are not unnecessarily to be thwarted, how absurd such popular opinions may be in their nature. This had been the wisdom of our government with respect to raising money in the colonies. It was well known, that the colonists universally were of opinion, that no money could be levied from English subjects but by their own consent, given by themselves or their chosen representatives; that therefore whatever money was to be raised from the people in the colonies must first be granted by their assemblies, as the money raised in Britain is first to be granted by the house of commons; that this right of granting their own money was essential to English liberty; and that if any man, or body of men in which they had no representative of their choosing, could tax them at pleasure, they could not be said to have any property, any thing they could call their own. But as these opinions did not hinder their granting money voluntarily and amply, whenever the crown, by its servants, came into their assemblies (as it does into its parliaments of Britain or Ireland) and demanded aids; therefore that method was chosen, rather than the hateful one of arbitrary taxes. I do not undertake here to support these opinions of the Americans; they have been refuted by a late act of parliament, declaring its own power; which very parliament, however, showed wisely so much tender regard to those inveterate prejudices, as to repeal a tax that had militated against them. And those prejudices are still so fixed and rooted in the Americans, that it has been supposed, not a single man among them has been convinced of his error, even by that act of parliament. The person then, who first projected to lay aside the accustomed method of requisition, and to raise money on America by _stamps_, seems not to have acted wisely, in deviating from that method (which the colonists looked upon as constitutional) and thwarting unnecessarily the fixed prejudices of so great a number of the king's subjects. It was not, however, for want of knowledge, that what he was about to do would give them offence; he appears to have been very sensible of this, and apprehensive that it might occasion some disorders; to prevent or suppress which, he projected another bill, that was brought in the same session with the stamp act, whereby it was to be made lawful for military officers in the colonies to quarter their soldiers in private houses. This seemed intended to awe the people into a compliance with the other act. Great opposition however being raised here against the bill by the agents from the colonies and the merchants trading thither (the colonists declaring, that under such a power in the army, no one could look on his house as his own, or think he had a home, when soldiers might be thrust into it and mixed with his family at the pleasure of an officer) that part of the bill was dropped; but there still remained a clause, when it passed into a law, to oblige the several assemblies to provide quarters for the soldiers, furnishing them with firing, bedding, candles, small beer or rum, and sundry other articles, at the expence of the several provinces. And this act continued in force when the stamp act was repealed; though, if obligatory on the assemblies, it equally militated against the American principle above mentioned, that money is not to be raised on English subjects without their consent. The colonies, nevertheless, being put into high good humour by the repeal of the stamp act, chose to avoid a fresh dispute upon the other, it being temporary and soon to expire, never, as they hoped, to revive again; and in the mean time they, by various ways, in different colonies, provided for the quartering of the troops, either by acts of their own assemblies, without taking notice of the act of parliament, or by some variety or small diminution, as of salt and vinegar, in the supplies required by the act; that what they did might appear a voluntary act of their own, and not done in due obedience to an act of parliament, which, according to their ideas of their rights, they thought hard to obey. It might have been well if the matter had then passed without notice; but a governor having written home an angry and aggravating letter upon this conduct in the assembly of his province, the outed [proposer[76]] of the stamp act and his adherents (then in the opposition) raised such a clamour against America, as being in rebellion, and against those who had been for the repeal of the stamp act, as having thereby been encouragers of this supposed rebellion; that it was thought necessary to enforce the quartering act by another act of parliament, taking away from the province of New York (which had been the most explicit in its refusal) all the powers of legislation, till it should have complied with that act. The news of which greatly alarmed the people every where in America, as the language of such an act seemed to them to be--obey implicitly laws made by the parliament of Great Britain to raise money on you without your consent, or you shall enjoy no rights or privileges at all. At the same time a person lately in high office[77] projected the levying more money from America, by new duties on various articles of our own manufacture (as glass, paper, painters' colours, &c.) appointing a new board of customs, and sending over a set of commissioners, with large salaries, to be established at Boston, who were to have the care of collecting those duties, which were by the act expressly mentioned to be intended for the payment of the salaries of governors, judges, and other officers of the crown in America; it being a pretty general opinion here, that those officers ought not to depend on the people there, for any part of their support. It is not my intention to combat this opinion. But perhaps it may be some satisfaction to your readers, to know what ideas the Americans have on the subject. They say then, as to governors, that they are not like princes whose posterity have an inheritance in the government of a nation, and therefore an interest in its prosperity; they are generally strangers to the provinces they are sent to govern; have no estate, natural connection, or relation there, to give them an affection for the country; that they come only to make money as fast as they can; are sometimes men of vicious characters and broken fortunes, sent by a minister merely to get them out of the way; that as they intend staying in the country no longer than their government continues, and purpose to leave no family behind them, they are apt to be regardless of the good-will of the people, and care not what is said or thought of them after they are gone. Their situation at the same time gives them many opportunities of being vexatious; and they are often so, notwithstanding their dependence on the assemblies for all that part of their support, that does not arise from fees established by law, but would probably be much more so, if they were to be supported by money drawn from the people without their consent or good-will, which is the professed design of this new act. That if by means of these forced duties, government is to be supported in America, without the intervention of the assemblies, their assemblies will soon be looked upon as useless; and a governor will not call them, as having nothing to hope from their meeting, and perhaps something to fear from their inquiries into, and remonstrances against, his mal-administration. That thus the people will be deprived of their most essential right. That it being (as at present) a governor's interest to cultivate the good-will, by promoting the welfare of the people he governs, can be attended with no prejudice to the mother-country, since all the laws he may be prevailed on to give his assent to are subject to revision here, and if reported against by the board of trade, are immediately repealed by the crown; nor dare he pass any law contrary to his instructions; as he holds his office during the pleasure of the crown, and his securities are liable for the penalties of their bonds, if he contravenes those instructions. This is what they say as to governors. As to _judges_, they alledge, that being appointed from hence, and holding their commissions not during good behaviour, as in Britain, but during pleasure: all the weight of interest or influence would be thrown into one of the scales (which ought to be held even) if the salaries are also to be paid out of duties raised upon the people without their consent, and independent of their assemblies approbation or disapprobation of the judges behaviour. That it is true, judges should be free from all influence; and therefore, whenever government here will grant commissions to able and honest judges during good behaviour, the assemblies will settle permanent and ample salaries on them during their commissions; but at present, they have no other means of getting rid of an ignorant or an unjust judge (and some of scandalous characters have, they say, been sometimes sent them) left, but by starving them out. I do not suppose these reasonings of theirs will appear here to have much weight. I do not produce them with an expectation of convincing your readers. I relate them merely in pursuance of the task I have imposed on myself, to be an impartial historian of American facts and opinions. -- -- The colonists being thus greatly alarmed, as I said before, by the news of the act for abolishing the legislature of New York, and the imposition of these new duties, professedly for such disagreeable purposes (accompanied by a new set of revenue officers, with large appointments, which gave strong suspicions, that more business of the same kind was soon to be provided for them, that they might earn their salaries) began seriously to consider their situation; and to revolve afresh in their minds, grievances, which, from their respect and love for this country, they had long borne and seemed almost willing to forget. They reflected how lightly the interest of _all_ America had been estimated here, when the interests of a _few_ of the inhabitants of Great Britain happened to have the smallest competition with it. That the whole American people was forbidden the advantage of a direct importation of wine, oil, and fruit, from Portugal; but must take them loaded with all the expence of a voyage one thousand leagues round about, being to be landed first in England, to be re-shipped for America; expences amounting, in war-time, at least to thirty pounds per cent more than otherwise they would have been charged with; and all this merely, that a few Portugal merchants in London may gain a commission on those goods passing through their hands. (Portugal merchants, by the bye, that can complain loudly of the smallest hardships laid on their trade by foreigners, and yet even in the last year could oppose with all their influence the giving ease to their fellow-subjects labouring under so heavy an oppression!) That on a slight complaint of a few Virginia merchants, nine colonies had been restrained from making paper-money, become absolutely necessary to their internal commerce, from the constant remittance of their gold and silver to Britain.--But not only the interest of a particular body of _merchants_, but the interest of any small body of British _tradesmen or artificers_ has been found, they say, to outweigh that of all the king's subjects in the colonies. There cannot be a stronger natural right than that of a man's making the best profit he can of the natural produce of his lands, provided he does not thereby hurt the state in general. Iron is to be found every where in America, and beaver are the natural produce of that country: hats, and nails and steel are wanted there as well as here. It is of no importance to the common welfare of the empire, whether a subject of the king gets his living by making hats on this, or on that side of the water. Yet the hatters of England have prevailed to obtain an act in their own favour, restraining that manufacture in America; in order to oblige the Americans to send their beaver to England to be manufactured, and purchase back the hats, loaded with the charges of a double transportation. In the same manner have a few nail-makers, and still a smaller body of steel-makers (perhaps there are not half a dozen of these in England) prevailed totally to forbid by an act of parliament the erecting of slitting-mills, or steel furnaces in America; that the Americans may be obliged to take all their nails for their buildings, and steel for their tools, from these artificers, under the same disadvantages.[78] Added to these, the Americans remembered the act authorizing the most cruel insult that perhaps was ever offered by one people to another, that of _emptying our gaols_ into their settlements; Scotland too having within these two years obtained the privilege it had not before, of sending its rogues and villains also to the plantations--I say, reflecting on these things, they said one to another (their newspapers are full of such discourses) "These people are not content with making a monopoly of us (forbidding us to trade with any other country of Europe, and compelling us to buy every thing of them, though in many articles we could furnish ourselves ten, twenty, and even to fifty per cent cheaper elsewhere;) but now they have as good as declared they have a right to tax us ad libitum, internally and externally; and that our constitutions and liberties shall all be taken away, if we do not submit to that claim. "They are not content with the high prices at which they sell us their goods, but have now begun to enhance those prices by new duties, and by the expensive apparatus of a new set of officers, appear to intend an augmentation and multiplication of those burthens, that shall still be more grievous to us. Our people have been foolishly fond of their superfluous modes and manufactures, to the impoverishing our own country, carrying off all our cash, and loading us with debt; they will not suffer us to restrain the luxury of our inhabitants, as they do that of their own, by laws: they can make laws to discourage or prohibit the importation of French superfluities: but though those of England are as ruinous to us as the French ones are to them, if we make a law of that kind, they immediately repeal it. Thus they get all our money from us by trade; and every profit we can any where make by our fisheries, our produce, or our commerce, centres finally with them;--but this does not satisfy.--It is time then to take care of ourselves by the best means in our power. Let us unite in solemn resolution and engagements with and to each other, that we will give these new officers as little trouble as possible, by not consuming the British manufactures on which they are to levy the duties. Let us agree to consume no more of their expensive gewgaws. Let us live frugally, and let us industriously manufacture what we can for ourselves: thus we shall be able honourably to discharge the debts we already owe them; and after that, we may be able to keep some money in our country, not only for the uses of our internal commerce, but for the service of our gracious sovereign, whenever he shall have occasion for it, and think proper to require it of us in the old constitutional manner.--For notwithstanding the reproaches thrown out against us in their public papers and pamphlets, notwithstanding we have been reviled in their senate as rebels and traitors, we are truly a loyal people. Scotland has had its rebellions, and England its plots against the present royal family; but _America is untainted with those crimes_; there is in it scarce a man, there is not a single native of our country, who is not firmly attached to his King by principle and by affection. But a new kind of loyalty seems to be required of us, a loyalty to parliament; a loyalty, that is to extend, it is said, to a surrender of all our properties, whenever a house of commons, in which there is not a single member of our chusing, shall think fit to grant them away without our consent, and to a patient suffering the loss of our privileges as Englishmen, if we cannot submit to make such surrender. We were separated too far from Britain by the ocean, but we were united to it by respect and love; so that we could at any time freely have spent our lives and little fortunes in its cause: but this unhappy new system of politics tends to dissolve those bands of union, and to sever us for ever." These are the wild ravings of the, at present, half-distracted Americans. To be sure, no reasonable man in England can approve of such sentiments, and, as I said before, I do not pretend to support or justify them: but I sincerely wish, for the sake of the manufactures and commerce of Great Britain, and for the sake of the strength, which a firm union with our growing colonies would give us, that these people had never been thus needlessly driven out of their senses. I am, yours, &c. F. S.[79] FOOTNOTES: [75] This letter first appeared in a London paper, January 7, 1768, and was afterwards reprinted as a postscript to The true Sentiments of America, printed for Almon, 1768. B. V. [76] Mr. George Grenville. B. V. [77] Mr. Charles Townsend. B. V. [78] I shall here give the reader the note at the end of the fourth paragraph of the farmer's seventh letter (written by Mr. Dickenson.) "Many remarkable instances might be produced of the extraordinary inattention with which bills of great importance concerning these colonies have passed in parliament; which is owing, as it is supposed, to the bills being brought in, by the persons who have points to carry, so artfully framed, that it is not easy for the members in general in the haste of business, to discover their tendency. "The following instances show the truth of this remark. "When Mr. Grenville, in the violence of reformation and innovation, formed the 4th George III. chap. 15th, for regulating the American trade, the word 'Ireland' was dropt in the clause relating to our iron and lumber, so that we could send these articles to no other part of Europe, but to Great Britain. This was so unreasonable a restriction, and so contrary to the sentiments of the legislature, for many years before, that it is surprising it should not have been taken notice of in the house. However, the bill passed into a law. But when the matter was explained, this restriction was taken off in a subsequent act. "I cannot say, how long after the taking off this restriction, as I have not the acts, but I think in less than eighteen months, another act of parliament passed, in which the word 'Ireland' was left out as it had been before. The matter being a second time explained was a second time regulated. "Now if it be considered, that the omission mentioned, struck off, with one word, so very great a part of our trade, it must appear remarkable: and equally so is the method by which rice became an enumerated commodity, and therefore could be carried to Great Britain only. "The enumeration was obtained, (says Mr. Gee on Trade, p. 32) by one Cole, a captain of a ship, employed by a company then trading to Carolina; for several ships going from England thither, and purchasing rice for Portugal, prevented the aforesaid captain of a loading. Upon his coming home he possessed one Mr. Lowndes, a member of parliament, (who was frequently employed to prepare bills) with an opinion, that carrying rice directly to Portugal was a prejudice to the trade of England, and privately got a clause into an act to make it an enumerated commodity, by which means he secured a freight to himself. But the consequence proved a vast loss to the nation. "I find that this clause, 'privately got into an act, for the benefit of Captain Cole, to the vast loss of the nation,' is foisted into the 3d Anne, chapter 5th, intitled, 'an act for granting to her majesty a further subsidy on wines and merchandizes imported,' with which it has no more connection, than with 34th Edward I. 34th and 35th of Henry VIII. or the 25th Charles II. which provide that no person shall be taxed but by himself or his representatives." B. V. [79] F. S. possibly means Franklin's Seal. The paper, however, is undoubtedly the production of Dr. Franklin. In the _collection of tracts on the subjects of taxing the British colonies in America, and regulating their trade_ (printed in 1773, in 4 vols. 8vo. by Almon) I find _two_ papers, said there to have been published originally in 1739, and to have been drawn up by a club of American merchants, at the head of whom were Sir William Keith (governor of Pensylvania), Joshua Gee, and many other eminent persons. The _first_ paper proposes the raising a small body of regular troops under the command of an officer appointed by the crown and independent of the governors (who were nevertheless to assist him in council on emergent occasions) in order to protect the Indian trade, and take care of the boundaries and back settlements. They were to be supported by a revenue to be established by _act of parliament_, in America; which revenue was to arise out of a duty on _stampt paper and parchment_. The _second_ paper goes into the particulars of this proposed stamp duty, offers reasons for extending it over all the British plantations, and recites its supposed advantages. If these papers are at all genuine (a fact about which I am not in the least informed) Mr. George Grenville does not appear to have been original in conceiving _stamps_ as a proper subject for his new tax. See ib. vol. I. B. V. _Letter concerning the Gratitude of America, and the probability and effects of an Union with Great Britain; and concerning the Repeal or Suspension of the Stamp-Act._[80] _Jan. 6, 1766._ SIR, I have attentively perused the paper you sent me, and am of opinion, that the measure it proposes, of an _union_ with the colonies, is a wise one: but I doubt it will hardly be thought so here, till it is too late to attempt it. The time has been, when the colonies would have esteemed it a great advantage, as well as honour to them, to be permitted to send members to parliament; and would have asked for that privilege, if they could have had the least hopes of obtaining it. The time is now come, when they are indifferent about it, and will probably not ask it, though they might accept it if offered them; and the time will come, when they will certainly refuse it. But if such an union were now established (which methinks it highly imports this country to establish) it would probably subsist as long as Britain shall continue a nation. This people, however, is too proud, and too much despises the Americans, to bear the thought of admitting them to such an equitable participation in the government of the whole. Then the _next best_ thing seems to be, leaving them in the quiet enjoyment of their respective constitutions; and when money is wanted for any public service in which they ought to bear a part, calling upon them by requisitorial letters from the crown (according to the long established custom) to grant such aids as their loyalty shall dictate, and their abilities permit. The very sensible and benevolent author of that paper, seems not to have known, that such a constitutional custom subsists, and has always hitherto been practised in America; or he would not have expressed himself in this manner: "It is evident beyond a doubt, to the intelligent and impartial, that after the very extraordinary efforts, which were effectually made by Great Britain in the late war to save the colonists from destruction, and attended of necessity with an enormous load of debts in consequence, that the same colonists, now firmly secured from foreign enemies, should be somehow induced to contribute some proportion towards the exigencies of state in future." This looks as if he conceived the war had been carried on at the sole expence of Great Britain, and the colonies only reaped the benefit, without hitherto sharing the burthen, and were therefore now indebted to Britain on that account. And this is the same kind of argument that is used by those who would fix on the colonies the heavy charge of unreasonableness and ingratitude, which I think your friend did not intend. Please to acquaint him then, that the fact is not so: that every year during the war, requisitions were made by the crown on the colonies for raising money and men; that accordingly they made _more extraordinary_ efforts, in proportion to their abilities, than Britain did; that they raised, paid and clothed, for five or six years, near 25,000 men, besides providing for other services (as building forts, equipping guard-ships, paying transports, &c.) And that this was more than their fair proportion is not merely an opinion of mine, but was the judgment of government here, in full knowledge of all the facts; for the then ministry, to make the burthen more equal, recommended the case to parliament, and obtained a reimbursement to the Americans of about 200,000_l._ sterling every year; which amounted only to about two fifths of their expence; and great part of the rest lies still a load of debt upon them; heavy taxes on all their estates, real and personal, being laid by acts of their assemblies to discharge it, and yet will not discharge it in many years. While then these burthens continue: while Britain restrains the colonies in every branch of commerce and manufactures that she thinks interferes with her own; while she drains the colonies, by her trade with them, of all the cash they can procure by every art and industry in any part of the world, and thus keeps them always in her debt: (for they can make no law to discourage the importation of your to _them_ ruinous superfluities, as _you_ do the superfluities of France; since such a law would immediately be reported against by your board of trade, and repealed by the crown:) I say while these circumstances continue, and while there subsists the established method of royal requisitions, for raising money on them by their own assemblies on every proper occasion; can it be necessary or prudent to distress and vex them by taxes laid here, in a parliament wherein they have no representative, and in a manner which they look upon to be unconstitutional and subversive of their most valuable rights; and are they to be thought unreasonable and ungrateful if they oppose such taxes? Wherewith, they say, shall we show our loyalty to our gracious king, if our money is to be given by others, without asking our consent? And if the parliament has a right thus to take from us a penny in the pound, where is the line drawn that bounds that right, and what shall hinder their calling whenever they please for the other nineteen shillings and eleven pence? Have we then any thing that we can call our own? It is more than probable, that bringing representatives from the colonies to sit and act here as members of parliament, thus uniting and consolidating your dominions, would in a little time _remove_ these objections and difficulties, and make the future government of the colonies easy: but, till some such thing is done, I apprehend no taxes, laid there by parliament here, will ever be collected, but such as must be stained with blood: and I am sure the profit of such taxes will never answer the expence of collecting them, and that the respect and affection of the Americans to this country will in the struggle be totally lost, perhaps never to be recovered; and therewith all the commercial and political advantages, that might have attended the continuance of this respect and this affection. In my own private judgment I think an immediate repeal of the stamp-act would be the best measure for _this_ country; but a suspension of it for three years, the best for _that_. The _repeal_ would fill them with joy and gratitude, re-establish their respect and veneration for parliament, restore at once their ancient and natural love for this country, and their regard for every thing that comes from it; hence the trade would be renewed in all its branches; they would again indulge in all the expensive superfluities you supply them with, and their own new assumed home industry would languish. But the _suspension_, though it might continue their fears and anxieties, would at the same time keep up their resolutions of industry and frugality; which in two or three years would grow into habits, to their lasting advantage. However, as the repeal will probably not be now agreed to,[81] from what I think a mistaken opinion, that the honour and dignity of government is better supported by persisting in a wrong measure once entered into, than by rectifying an error as soon as it is discovered; we must allow the next best thing for the advantage of both countries is, the suspension; for as to executing the act by force, it is madness, and will be ruin to the whole. The rest of your friend's reasonings and propositions appear to me truly just and judicious; I will therefore only add, that I am as desirous of his acquaintance and intimacy, as he was of my opinion. I am, with much esteem, Your obliged friend. FOOTNOTES: [80] The name of the person to whom this letter is addressed cannot be made out in the original copy. The letter, to which it is a reply, appears to have contained the letter of some third person equally unknown to the editor. B. V. [81] It was however agreed to in the same year, viz. in 1766. B. V. _Letter from Governor Pownall to Dr. Franklin, concerning an equal communication of rights, privileges, &c. to America by Great Britain._[82] DEAR SIR, The following _objection_ against communicating to the colonies the rights, privileges, and powers of the realm, as to parts of the realm, has been made. I have been endeavouring to obviate it, and I communicate [it] to you, in hopes of your promised assistance. If, _say the objectors_, we communicate to the colonies the power of sending representatives, and in consequence expect them to participate in an _equal share and proportion_ of all our taxes, we must grant to them all the powers of trade and manufacturing, which any other parts of the realm within the isle of Great Britain enjoy: if so, perchance the profits of the Atlantic commerce may converge to some centre in America; to Boston, New-York, Philadelphia, or to some of the isles: if so, then the natural and artificial produce of the colonies, and in course of consequences the landed interest of the colonies, will be promoted; while the natural and artificial produce and landed interest of Great Britain will be depressed, to its utter ruin and destruction; and consequently the balance of the power of government, although still _within the realm_, will be _locally_ transferred from Great Britain to the colonies. Which consequence, however it may suit a citizen of the world, must be folly and madness to a Briton.--My fit is gone off, and though weak, both from the gout and a concomitant and very ugly fever, I am much better.--Would be glad to see you. Your friend, J. POWNALL. FOOTNOTE: [82] This letter bears no date. It was written possibly about the time that governor Pownall was engaged in publishing his book on the _administration of the colonies_. B. V. _On the back of the foregoing letter of Governor Pownall, are the following minutes, by Dr. Franklin._ This _objection_ goes upon the supposition, that whatever the colonies gain, Britain must lose; and that if the _colonies_ can be kept from gaining an advantage, _Britain will gain it_:-- If the colonies are fitter for a particular trade than Britain, they should have it, and Britain apply to what it is more fit for. The whole empire is a gainer. And if Britain is not so fit or so well situated for a particular advantage, _other_ countries will get it, _if the colonies do not_. Thus Ireland was forbid the woollen manufacture and remains poor: but this has given to the French the trade and wealth Ireland might have gained for the British empire. The government cannot _long_ be retained without the union. Which is best (supposing your case) to have a total separation, or a change of the seat of government?--It by no means follows, that promoting and advancing the landed interest in America will depress that of Britain: the contrary has always been the fact. Advantageous situations and circumstances will always secure and fix manufactures: Sheffield against all Europe for these 300 years past.-- Impracticability. Danger of innovation. * * * * * _The Examination of Dr. Benjamin Franklin before the English House of Commons, in February, 1766, relative to the Repeal of the American Stamp Act._[83] _Q._ What is your name, and place of abode? _A._ Franklin, of Philadelphia. _Q._ Do the Americans pay any considerable taxes among themselves? _A._ Certainly many, and very heavy taxes. _Q._ What are the present taxes in Pensylvania, laid by the laws of the colony? _A._ There are taxes on all estates real and personal; a poll tax; a tax on all offices, professions, trades and businesses, according to their profits; an excise on all wine, rum, and other spirits; and a duty of ten pounds per head on all negroes imported, with some other duties. _Q._ For what purposes are those taxes laid? _A._ For the support of the civil and military establishments of the country, and to discharge the heavy debt contracted in the last war. _Q._ How long are those taxes to continue? _A._ Those for discharging the debt are to continue till 1772, and longer, if the debt should not be then all discharged. The others must always continue. _Q._ Was it not expected that the debt would have been sooner discharged? _A._ It was, when the peace was made with France and Spain. But a fresh war breaking out with the Indians, a fresh load of debt was incurred; and the taxes, of course, continued longer by a new law. _Q._ Are not all the people very able to pay those taxes? _A._ No. The frontier counties, all along the continent, having been frequently ravaged by the enemy and greatly impoverished, are able to pay very little tax. And therefore, in consideration of their distresses, our late tax laws do expressly favour those counties, excusing the sufferers; and I suppose the same is done in other governments. _Q._ Are not you concerned in the management of the _post-office_ in America? _A._ Yes. I am deputy post-master general of North America. _Q._ Don't you think the distribution of stamps _by post_ to all the inhabitants very practicable, if there was no opposition? _A._ The posts only go along the sea-coasts; they do not, except in a few instances, go back into the country; and if they did, sending for stamps by post would occasion an expence of postage, amounting, in many cases, to much more than that of the stamps themselves. _Q._ Are you acquainted with Newfoundland? _A._ I never was there. _Q._ Do you know whether there are any post-roads on that island? _A._ I have heard that there are no roads at all, but that the communication between one settlement and another is by sea only. _Q._ Can you disperse the stamps by post in Canada? _A._ There is only a post between Montreal and Quebec. The inhabitants live so scattered and remote from each other in that vast country, that posts cannot be supported among them, and therefore they cannot get stamps per post. The _English colonies_ too along the frontiers are very thinly settled. _Q._ From the thinness of the back settlements, would not the stamp act be extremely inconvenient to the inhabitants, if executed? _A._ To be sure it would; as many of the inhabitants could not get stamps when they had occasion for them, without taking long journeys, and spending perhaps three or four pounds, that the crown might get six-pence. _Q._ Are not the colonies, from their circumstances, very able to pay the stamp duty? _A._ In my opinion there is not gold and silver enough in the colonies to pay the stamp duty for one year.[84] _Q._ Don't you know that the money arising from the stamps was all to be laid out in America? _A._ I know it is appropriated by the act to the American service; but it will be spent in the conquered colonies, where the soldiers are; not in the colonies that pay it. _Q._ Is there not a balance of trade due from the colonies where the troops are posted, that will bring back the money to the old colonies? _A._ I think not. I believe very little would come back. I know of no trade likely to bring it back. I think it would come from the colonies where it was spent, directly to England; for I have always observed, that in every colony the more plenty the means of remittance to England, the more goods are sent for, and the more trade with England carried on. _Q._ What number of white inhabitants do you think there are in Pensylvania? _A._ I suppose there may be about one hundred and sixty thousand. _Q._ What number of them are Quakers? _A._ Perhaps a third. _Q._ What number of Germans? _A._ Perhaps another third; but I cannot speak with certainty. _Q._ Have any number of the Germans seen service, as soldiers, in Europe? _A._ Yes, many of them, both in Europe and America. _Q._ Are they as much dissatisfied with the stamp duty as the English? _A._ Yes, and more; and with reason, as their stamps are, in many cases, to be double[85]. _Q._ How many white men do you suppose there are in North America? _A._ About three hundred thousand, from sixteen to sixty years of age[86]. _Q._ What may be the amount of one year's imports into Pensylvania from Britain? _A._ I have been informed that our merchants compute the imports from Britain to be above 500,000_l._ _Q._ What may be the amount of the produce of your province exported to Britain? _A._ It must be small, as we produce little that is wanted in Britain. I suppose it cannot exceed 40,000_l._ _Q._ How then do you pay the balance? _A._ The balance is paid by our produce carried to the West Indies (and sold in our own islands, or to the French, Spaniards, Danes, and Dutch)--by the same [produce] carried to other colonies in North America, (as to New England, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Carolina, and Georgia)--by the same, carried to different parts of Europe, (as Spain, Portugal, and Italy.) In all which places we receive either money, bills of exchange, or commodities that suit for remittance to Britain; which, together with all the profits on the industry of our merchants and mariners, arising in those circuitous voyages, and the freights made by their ships, centre finally in Britain to discharge the balance, and pay for British manufactures continually used in the province, or sold to foreigners by our traders. _Q._ Have you heard of any difficulties lately laid on the Spanish trade? _A._ Yes, I have heard that it has been greatly obstructed by some new regulations, and by the English men of war and cutters stationed all along the coast in America. _Q._ Do you think it right that America should be protected by this country, and pay no part of the expence? _A._ That is not the case. The colonies raised, clothed, and paid, during the last war, near twenty-five thousand men, and spent many millions. _Q._ Were you not reimbursed by parliament? _A._ We were only reimbursed what, in your opinion, we had advanced beyond our proportion, or beyond what might reasonably be expected from us; and it was a very small part of what we spent. Pensylvania, in particular, disbursed about 500,000_l._ and the reimbursements, in the whole, did not exceed 60,000_l._ _Q._ You have said, that you pay heavy taxes in Pensylvania, what do they amount to in the pound? _A._ The tax on all estates, real and personal, is eighteen pence in the pound, fully rated; and the tax on the profits of trades and professions, with other taxes, do, I suppose, make full half-a-crown in the pound. _Q._ Do you know any thing of the _rate of exchange in_ Pensylvania, and whether it has fallen lately? _A._ It is commonly from one hundred and seventy to one hundred and seventy-five. I have heard, that it has fallen lately from one hundred and seventy-five to one hundred sixty-two and a half; owing, I suppose, to their lessening their orders for goods; and when their debts to this country are paid, I think the exchange will probably be at par. _Q._ Do not you think the people of America would submit to pay the stamp duty, if it was moderated? _A._ No, never, unless compelled by force of arms. _Q._ Are not the taxes in Pensylvania laid on unequally, in order to burthen the English trade; particularly the tax on professions and business? _A._ It is not more burthensome in proportion, than the tax on lands. It is intended, and supposed to take an equal proportion of profits. _Q._ How is the assembly composed? Of what kinds of people are the members; landholders or traders? _A._ It is composed of landholders, merchants, and artificers. _Q._ Are not the majority landholders? _A._ I believe they are. _Q._ Do not they, as much as possible, shift the tax off from the land, to ease that, and lay the burthen heavier on trade? _A._ I have never understood it so. I never heard such a thing suggested. And indeed an attempt of that kind could answer no purpose. The merchant or trader is always skilled in figures, and ready with his pen and ink. If unequal burthens are laid on his trade, he puts an additional price on his goods; and the consumers, who are chiefly landholders, finally pay the greatest part, if not the whole. _Q._ What was the temper of America towards Great Britain _before the year_ 1763[87]? _A._ The best in the world. They submitted willingly to the government of the crown, and paid, in their courts, obedience to acts of parliament. Numerous as the people are in the several old provinces, they cost you nothing in forts, citadels, garrisons, or armies, to keep them in subjection. They were governed by this country at the expence only of a little pen, ink, and paper: they were led by a thread. They had not only a respect, but an affection for Great Britain; for its laws, its customs, and manners, and even a fondness for its fashions, that greatly increased the commerce. Natives of Britain were always treated with particular regard; to be an _Old England-man_ was, of itself, a character of some respect, and gave a kind of rank among us. _Q._ And what is their temper now? _A._ O, very much altered. _Q._ Did you ever hear the authority of parliament to make laws for America questioned till lately? _A._ The authority of parliament was allowed to be valid in all laws, except such as should lay internal taxes. It was never disputed in laying duties to regulate commerce. _Q._ In what proportion hath population increased in America? _A._ I think the inhabitants of all the provinces together, taken at a medium, double in about twenty-five years. But their demand for British manufactures increases much faster; as the consumption is not merely in proportion to their numbers, but grows with the growing abilities of the same numbers to pay for them. In 1723, the whole importation from Britain to Pensylvania was but about 15,000_l._ sterling; it is now near half a million. _Q._ In what light did the people of America use to consider the parliament of Great Britain? _A._ They considered the parliament as the great bulwark and security of their liberties and privileges, and always spoke of it with the utmost respect and veneration. Arbitrary ministers, they thought, might possibly, at times, attempt to oppress them; but they relied on it, that the parliament, on application, would always give redress. They remembered, with gratitude, a strong instance of this, when a bill was brought into parliament, with a clause, to make royal instructions laws in the colonies, which the house of commons would not pass, and it was thrown out. _Q._ And have they not still the same respect for parliament? _A._ No, it is greatly lessened. _Q._ To what causes is that owing? _A._ To a concurrence of causes; the restraints lately laid on their trade, by which the bringing of foreign gold and silver into [the] colonies was prevented; the prohibition of making paper-money among themselves,[88] and then demanding a new and heavy tax by stamps, taking away, at the same time, trials by juries, and refusing to receive and hear their humble petitions. _Q._ Don't you think they would submit to the stamp act, if it was modified, the obnoxious parts taken out, and the duty reduced to some particulars, of small moment? _A._ No, they will never submit to it. _Q._ What do you think is the reason that the people in America increase faster than in England? _A._ Because they marry younger, and more generally. _Q._ Why so? _A._ Because any young couple, that are industrious, may easily obtain land of their own, on which they can raise a family. _Q._ Are not the lower rank of people more at their ease in America than in England? _A._ They may be so, if they are sober and diligent; as they are better paid for their labour. _Q._ What is your opinion of a future tax, imposed on the same principle with that of the stamp act? how would the Americans receive it? _A._ Just as they do this. They would not pay it. _Q._ Have not you heard of the resolutions of this house, and of the house of lords, asserting the right of parliament relating to America, including a power to tax the people there? _A._ Yes, I have heard of such resolutions. _Q._ What will be the opinion of the Americans on those resolutions? _A._ They will think them unconstitutional and unjust. _Q._ Was it an opinion in America before 1763, that the parliament had no right to lay taxes and duties there? _A._ I never heard any objection to the right of laying duties to regulate commerce, but a right to lay internal taxes was never supposed to be in parliament, as we are not represented there. _Q._ On what do you found your opinion, that the people in America made any such distinction? _A._ I know that whenever the subject has occurred in conversation where I have been present, it has appeared to be the opinion of every one, that we could not be taxed in a parliament where we were not represented. But the payment of duties laid by act of parliament as regulations of commerce, was never disputed. _Q._ But can you name any act of assembly, or public act of any of your governments, that made such distinction? _A._ I do not know that there was any; I think there was never an occasion to make any such act, till now that you have attempted to tax us: _that_ has occasioned resolutions of assembly, declaring the distinction, in which I think every assembly on the continent, and every member in every assembly, have been unanimous. _Q._ What then could occasion conversations on that subject before that time? _A._ There was in 1754 a proposition made (I think it came from hence) that in case of a war, which was then apprehended, the governors of the colonies should meet, and order the levying of troops, building of forts, and taking every other necessary measure for the general defence; and should draw on the treasury here for the sums expended; which were afterwards to be raised in the colonies by a general tax, to be laid on them by _act of parliament_. This occasioned a good deal of conversation on the subject; and the general opinion was, that the parliament neither would nor could lay any tax on us, till we were duly represented in parliament; because it was not just, nor agreeable to the nature of an English constitution. _Q._ Don't you know there was a time in New York, when it was under consideration to make an application to parliament to lay taxes on that colony, upon a deficiency arising from the assembly's refusing or neglecting to raise the necessary supplies for the support of the civil government? _A._ I never heard of it. _Q._ There was such an application under consideration in New York:--and do you apprehend they could suppose the right of parliament to lay a tax in America was only local, and confined to the case of a deficiency in a particular colony, by a refusal of its assembly to raise the necessary supplies? _A._ They could not suppose such a case, as that the assembly would not raise the necessary supplies to support its own government. An assembly that would refuse it must want common sense; which cannot be supposed. I think there was never any such case at New York, and that it must be a misrepresentation, or the fact must be misunderstood. I know there have been some attempts, by ministerial instructions from hence, to oblige the assemblies to settle permanent salaries on governors, which they wisely refused to do; but I believe no assembly of New York, or any other colony, ever refused duly to support government by proper allowances, from time to time, to public officers. _Q._ But in case a governor, acting by instruction, should call on an assembly to raise the necessary supplies, and the assembly should refuse to do it, do you not think it would then be for the good of the people of the colony, as well as necessary to government, that the parliament should tax them? _A._ I do not think it would be necessary. If an assembly could possibly be so absurd, as to refuse raising the supplies requisite for the maintenance of government among them, they could not long remain in such a situation; the disorders and confusion occasioned by it must soon bring them to reason. _Q._ If it should not, ought not the right to be in Great Britain of applying a remedy? _A._ A right, only to be used in such a case, I should have no objection to; supposing it to be used merely for the good of the people of the colony. _Q._ But who is to judge of that, Britain or the colony? _A._ Those that feel can best judge. _Q._ You say the colonies have always submitted to external taxes, and object to the right of parliament only in laying internal taxes; now can you show, that there is any kind of _difference between the two taxes_ to the colony on which they may be laid? _A._ I think the difference is very great. An _external_ tax is a duty laid on commodities imported; that duty is added to the first cost and other charges on the commodity, and, when it is offered to sale, makes a part of the price. If the people do not like it at that price, they refuse it; they are not obliged to pay it. But an _internal_ tax is forced from the people without their consent, if not laid by their own representatives. The stamp act says, we shall have no commerce, make no exchange of property with each other, neither purchase nor grant, nor recover debts; we shall neither marry nor make our wills, unless we pay such and such sums; and thus it is intended to extort our money from us, or ruin us by the consequences of refusing to pay it. _Q._ But supposing the external tax or duty to be laid on the necessaries of life imported into your colony, will not that be the same thing in its effects as an internal tax? _A._ I do not know a single article imported into the _northern_ colonies, but what they can either do without, or make themselves. _Q._ Don't you think cloth from England absolutely necessary to them? _A._ No, by no means absolutely necessary; with industry and good management, they may very well supply themselves with all they want. _Q._ Will it not take a long time to establish that manufacture among them; and must they not in the mean while suffer greatly? _A._ I think not. They have made a surprising progress already. And I am of opinion, that before their old clothes are worn out, they will have new ones of their own making. _Q._ Can they possibly find wool enough in North America? _A._ They have taken steps to increase the wool. They entered into general combinations to eat no more lamb; and very few lambs were killed last year. This course, persisted in, will soon make a prodigious difference in the quantity of wool. And the establishing of great manufactories, like those in the clothing towns here, is not necessary, as it is where the business is to be carried on for the purposes of trade. The people will all spin, and work for themselves, in their own houses. _Q._ Can there be wool and manufacture enough in one or two years? _A._ In three years, I think there may. _Q._ Does not the severity of the winter, in the northern colonies, occasion the wool to be of bad quality? _A._ No, the wool is very fine and good. _Q._ In the more southern colonies, as in Virginia, don't you know, that the wool is coarse, and only a kind of hair? _A._ I don't know it. I never heard it. Yet I have been sometimes in Virginia. I cannot say I ever took particular notice of the wool there, but I believe it is good, though I cannot speak positively of it; but Virginia, and the colonies south of it, have less occasion for wool; their winters are short, and not very severe; and they can very well clothe themselves with linen and cotton of their own raising for the rest of the year. _Q._ Are not the people in the more northern colonies obliged to fodder their sheep all the winter? _A._ In some of the most northern colonies they may be obliged to do it, some part of the winter. _Q._ Considering the resolutions of parliament[89], _as to the right_; do you think, if the stamp act is repealed, that the North Americans will be satisfied? _A._ I believe they will. _Q._ Why do you think so? _A._ I think the resolutions of _right_ will give them very little concern, if they are never attempted to be carried into practice. The colonies will probably consider themselves in the same situation, in that respect, with Ireland: they know you claim the same right with regard to Ireland, but you never exercise it. And they may believe you never will exercise it in the colonies, any more than in Ireland, unless on some very extraordinary occasion. _Q._ But who are to be the judges of that extraordinary occasion? Is not the parliament? _A._ Though the parliament may judge of the occasion, the people will think it can never exercise such right, till representatives from the colonies are admitted into parliament; and that, whenever the occasion arises, representatives _will_ be ordered. _Q._ Did you never hear that Maryland, during the last war, had refused to furnish a quota towards the common defence? _A._ Maryland has been much misrepresented in that matter. Maryland, to my knowledge, never refused to contribute, or grant aids to the crown. The assemblies, every year during the war, voted considerable sums, and formed bills to raise them. The bills were, according to the constitution of that province, sent up to the council, or upper house, for concurrence, that they might be presented to the governor, in order to be enacted into laws. Unhappy disputes between the two houses--arising from the defects of that constitution principally--rendered all the bills but one or two abortive. The proprietary's council rejected them. It is true, Maryland did contribute its proportion; but it was, in my opinion, the fault of the government, not of the people. _Q._ Was it not talked of in the other provinces as a proper measure, to apply to parliament to compel them? _A._ I have heard such discourse; but as it was well known, that the people were not to blame, no such application was ever made, nor any step taken towards it. _Q._ Was it not proposed at a public meeting? _A._ Not that I know of. _Q._ Do you remember the abolishing of the paper-currency in New England, by act of assembly? _A._ I do remember its being abolished in the Massachusett's Bay. _Q._ Was not lieutenant-governor Hutchinson principally concerned in that transaction? _A._ I have heard so. _Q._ Was it not at that time a very unpopular law? _A._ I believe it might, though I can say little about it, as I lived at a distance from that province. _Q._ Was not the _scarcity of gold and silver_ an argument used against abolishing the paper? _A._ I suppose it was[90]. _Q._ What is the present opinion there of that law? Is it as unpopular as it was at first? _A._ I think it is not. _Q._ Have not instructions from hence been sometimes sent over to governors, highly oppressive and unpolitical? _A._ Yes. _Q._ Have not some governors dispensed with them for that reason? _A._ Yes, I have heard so. _Q._ Did the Americans ever dispute the controling power of parliament to regulate the commerce? _A._ No. _Q._ Can any thing less than a military force carry the stamp act into execution? _A._ I do not see how a military force can be applied to that purpose. _Q._ Why may it not? _A._ Suppose a military force sent into America, they will find nobody in arms; what are they then to do? They cannot force a man to take stamps who chooses to do without them. They will not find a rebellion: they may indeed make one. _Q._ If the act is not repealed, what do you think will be the consequences? _A._ A total loss of the respect and affection the people of America bear to this country, and of all the commerce that depends on that respect and affection. _Q._ How can the commerce be affected? _A._ You will find, that if the act is not repealed, they will take very little of your manufactures in a short time. _Q._ Is it in their power to do without them? _A._ I think they may very well do without them. _Q._ Is it their interest not to take them? _A._ The goods they take from Britain are either necessaries, mere conveniences, or superfluities. The first, as cloth, &c. with a little industry they can make at home; the second they can do without, till they are able to provide them among themselves; and the last, which are much the greatest part, they will strike off immediately. They are mere articles of fashion, purchased and consumed, because the fashion in a respected country; but will now be detested and rejected. The people have already struck off, by general agreement, the use of all goods fashionable in mournings, and many thousand pounds worth are sent back as unsaleable. _Q._ Is it their interest to make cloth at home? _A._ I think they may at present get it cheaper from Britain, I mean of the same fineness and neatness of workmanship: but when one considers other circumstances, the restraints on their trade, and the difficulty of making remittances, it is their interest to make every thing. _Q._ Suppose an act of internal regulations connected with a tax, how would they receive it? _A._ I think it would be objected to. _Q._ Then no regulation with a tax would be submitted to? _A._ Their opinion is, that when aids to the crown are wanted, they are to be asked of the several assemblies, according to the old established usage; who will, as they always have done, grant them freely. And that their money ought not to be given away, without their consent, by persons at a distance, unacquainted with their circumstances and abilities. The granting aids to the crown is the only means they have of recommending themselves to their sovereign; and they think it extremely hard and unjust, that a body of men, in which they have no representatives, should make a merit to itself of giving and granting what is not its own, but theirs; and deprive them of a right they esteem of the utmost value and importance, as it is the security of all their other rights. _Q._ But is not the post-office, which they have long received, a tax as well as a regulation? _A._ No; the money paid for the postage of a letter is not of the nature of a tax; it is merely a _quantum meruit_ for a service done; no person is compellable to pay the money, if he does not choose to receive the service. A man may still, as before the act, send his letter by a servant, a special messenger, or a friend, if he thinks it cheaper and safer. _Q._ But do they not consider the regulations of the post-office, by the act of last year, as a tax? _A._ By the regulations of last year the rate of postage was generally abated near thirty per cent through all America; they certainly cannot consider such abatement _as a tax_. _Q._ If an excise was laid by parliament, which they might likewise avoid paying, by not consuming the articles excised, would they then not object to it? _A._ They would certainly object to it, as an excise is unconnected with any service done, and is merely an aid, which they think ought to be asked of them, and granted by them, if they are to pay it; and can be granted for them by no others whatsoever, whom they have not impowered for that purpose. _Q._ You say, they do not object to the right of parliament, in laying duties on goods to be paid on their importation: now, is there any kind of difference between a duty on the _importation_ of goods, and an excise on their _consumption_? _A._ Yes; a very material one: an excise, for the reasons I have just mentioned, they think you can have no right to lay within their country. But _the sea_ is yours; you maintain, by your fleets, the safety of navigation in it, and keep it clear of pirates; you may have therefore a natural and equitable right to some _toll_ or duty on merchandizes carried through that part of your dominions, towards defraying the expence you are at in ships to maintain the safety of that carriage. _Q._ Does this reasoning hold in the case of a duty laid on the produce of their lands _exported_? And would they not then object to such a duty? _A._ If it tended to make the produce so much dearer abroad, as to lessen the demand for it, to be sure they would object to such a duty; not to your right of laying it, but they would complain of it as a burthen, and petition you to lighten it. _Q._ Is not the duty paid on the tobacco exported, a duty of that kind? _A._ That, I think, is only on tobacco carried coast-wise, from one colony to another, and appropriated as a fund for supporting the college at Williamsburgh, in Virginia. _Q._ Have not the assemblies in the West Indies the same natural rights with those in North America? _A._ Undoubtedly. _Q._ And is there not a tax laid there on their sugars exported? _A._ I am not much acquainted with the West Indies; but the duty of four and a half per cent on sugars exported was, I believe, granted by their own assemblies.[91] _Q._ How much is the poll-tax in your province laid on unmarried men? _A._ It is, I think, fifteen shillings, to be paid by every single freeman, upwards of twenty-one years old. _Q._ What is the annual amount of _all_ the taxes in Pensylvania? _A._ I suppose about 20,000_l._ sterling. _Q._ Supposing the stamp act continued and enforced, do you imagine that ill-humour will induce the Americans to give as much for worse manufactures of their own, and use them, preferably to better of ours? _A._ Yes, I think so. People will pay as freely to gratify one passion as another, their resentment as their pride. _Q._ Would the people at Boston discontinue their trade? _A._ The merchants are a very small number compared with the body of the people, and must discontinue their trade, if nobody will buy their goods. _Q._ What are the body of the people in the colonies? _A._ They are farmers, husbandmen, or planters. _Q._ Would they suffer the produce of their lands to rot? _A._ No; but they would not raise so much. They would manufacture more, and plow less. _Q._ Would they live without the administration of justice in civil matters, and suffer all the inconveniencies of such a situation for any considerable time, rather than take the stamps, supposing the stamps were protected by a sufficient force, where every one might have them? _A._ I think the supposition impracticable, that the stamps should be so protected as that every one might have them. The act requires sub-distributors to be appointed in every county town, district, and village, and they would be necessary. But the _principal_ distributors, who were to have had a considerable profit on the whole, have not thought it worth while to continue in the office; and I think it impossible to find sub-distributors fit to be trusted, who, for the trifling profit that must come to their share, would incur the odium, and run the hazard that would attend it; and if they could be found, I think it impracticable to protect the stamps in so many distant and remote places. _Q._ But in places where they could be protected, would not the people use them, rather than remain in such a situation, unable to obtain any right, or recover, by law, any debt? _A._ It is hard to say what they would do. I can only judge what other people will think, and how they will act, by what I feel within myself. I have a great many debts due to me in America, and I had rather they should remain unrecoverable by any law, than submit to the stamp act. They will be debts of honour. It is my opinion the people will either continue in that situation, or find some way to extricate themselves, perhaps by generally agreeing to proceed in the courts without stamps. _Q._ What do you think a sufficient military force to protect the distribution of the stamps in every part of America? _A._ A very great force, I can't say what, if the disposition of America is for a general resistance. _Q._ What is the number of men in America able to bear arms, or of disciplined militia? _A._ There are, I suppose, at least---- [_Question objected to. He withdrew. Called in again._] _Q._ Is the American stamp act an equal tax on the country? _A._ I think not. _Q._ Why so? _A._ The greatest part of the money must arise from law-suits for the recovery of debts, and be paid by the lower sort of people, who were too poor easily to pay their debts. It is therefore a heavy tax on the poor, and a tax upon them for being poor. _Q._ But will not this increase of expence be a means of lessening the number of law-suits? _A._ I think not; for as the costs all fall upon the debtor, and are to be paid by him, they would be no discouragement to the creditor to bring his action. _Q._ Would it not have the effect of excessive usury? _A._ Yes, as an oppression of the debtor. _Q._ How many ships are there laden annually in North America with _flax-seed_ for Ireland? _A._ I cannot speak to the number of ships, but I know, that in 1752 ten thousand hogsheads of flax-seed, each containing seven bushels, were exported from Philadelphia to Ireland. I suppose the quantity is greatly increased since that time, and it is understood, that the exportation from New York is equal to that from Philadelphia. _Q._ What becomes of the flax that grows with that flax-seed? _A._ They manufacture some into coarse, and some into a middling kind of linen. _Q._ Are there any _slitting-mills_ in America?[92] _A._ I think there are three, but I believe only one at present employed. I suppose they will all be set to work, if the interruption of the trade continues. _Q._ Are there any _fulling-mills_ there? _A._ A great many. _Q._ Did you never hear, that a great quantity of stockings were contracted for, for the army, during the war, and manufactured in Philadelphia? _A._ I have heard so. _Q._ If the stamp-act should be repealed, would not the Americans think they could oblige the parliament to repeal every external tax-law now in force? _A._ It is hard to answer questions of what people at such a distance will think. _Q._ But what do you imagine they will think were the motives of repealing the act? _A._ I suppose they will think, that it was repealed from a conviction of its inexpediency; and they will rely upon it, that while the same inexpediency subsists, you will never attempt to make such another. _Q._ What do you mean by its inexpediency? _A._ I mean its inexpediency on several accounts, the poverty and inability of those who were to pay the tax, the general discontent it has occasioned, and the impracticability of enforcing it. _Q._ If the act should be repealed, and the legislature should show its resentment to the opposers of the stamp-act, would the colonies acquiesce in the authority of the legislature? What is your opinion they would do? _A._ I don't doubt at all, that if the legislature repeal the stamp-act, the colonies will acquiesce in the authority. _Q._ But if the legislature should think fit to ascertain its right to lay taxes, by any act laying a small tax, contrary to their opinion, would they submit to pay the tax? _A._ The proceedings of the people in America have been considered too much together. The proceedings of the assemblies have been very different from those of the mobs, and should be distinguished, as having no connection with each other. The _assemblies_ have only peaceably resolved what they take to be their rights: they have taken no measures for opposition by force, they have not built a fort, raised a man, or provided a grain of ammunition, in order to such opposition. The ring-leaders of riots, they think ought to be punished; they would punish them themselves, if they could. Every sober, sensible man would wish to see rioters punished, as otherwise peaceable people have no security of person or estate.--But as to an internal tax, how small soever, laid by the legislature here on the people there, while they have no representatives in this legislature, I think it will never be submitted to: they will oppose it to the last.--They do not consider it as at all necessary for you to raise money on them by your taxes; because they are, and always have been, ready to raise money by taxes among themselves, and to grant large sums, equal to their abilities, upon requisition from the crown. They have not only granted equal to their abilities, but, during all the last war, they granted far beyond their abilities, and beyond their proportion with this country (you yourselves being judges) to the amount of many hundred thousand pounds; and this they did freely and readily, only on a sort of promise, from the secretary of state, that it should be recommended to parliament to make them compensation. It was accordingly recommended to parliament, in the most honourable manner for them. America has been greatly misrepresented and abused here, in papers, and pamphlets, and speeches, as ungrateful, and unreasonable, and unjust; in having put this nation to immense expence for their defence, and refusing to bear any part of that expence. The colonies raised, paid, and clothed, near twenty-five thousand men during the last war; a number equal to those sent from Britain, and far beyond their proportion; they went deeply into debt in doing this, and all their taxes and estates are mortgaged, for many years to come, for discharging that debt. Government here was at that time very sensible of this. The colonies were recommended to parliament. Every year the king sent down to the house a written message to this purpose, "that his majesty, being highly sensible of the zeal and vigour with which his faithful subjects in North America had exerted themselves, in defence of his majesty's just rights and possessions; recommended it to the house to take the same into consideration, and enable him to give them a proper compensation." You will find those messages on your own journals every year of the war to the very last; and you did accordingly give 200,000_l._ annually to the crown, to be distributed in such compensation to the colonies. This is the strongest of all proofs that the colonies, far from being unwilling to bear a share of the burthen, did exceed their proportion; for if they had done less, or had only equalled their proportion, there would have been no room or reason for compensation. Indeed the sums, reimbursed them, were by no means adequate to the expence they incurred beyond their proportion: but they never murmured at that; they esteemed their sovereign's approbation of their zeal and fidelity, and the approbation of this house, far beyond any other kind of compensation, therefore there was no occasion for this act, to force money from a willing people: they had not refused giving money for the _purposes_ of the act, no requisition had been made, they were always willing and ready to do what could reasonably be expected from them, and in this light they wish to be considered. _Q._ But suppose Great Britain should be engaged in a _war in Europe_, would North America contribute to the support of it? _A._ I do think they would, as far as their circumstances would permit. They consider themselves as a part of the British empire, and as having one common interest with it: they may be looked on here as foreigners, but they do not consider themselves as such. They are zealous for the honour and prosperity of this nation; and, while they are well used, will always be ready to support it, as far as their little power goes.--In 1739 they were called upon to assist in the expedition against Carthagena, and they sent three thousand men to join your army.[93] It is true Carthagena is in America, but as remote from the northern colonies, as if it had been in Europe. They make no distinction of wars, as to their duty of assisting in them. I know the _last war_ is commonly spoken of here as entered into for the defence, or for the sake of the people in America. I think it is quite misunderstood. It began about the limits between Canada and Nova Scotia; about territories to which the _crown_ indeed laid claim, but [which] were not claimed by any British _colony_; none of the lands had been granted to any colonist, we had therefore no particular concern or interest in that dispute.--As to the Ohio, the contest there began about your right of trading in the Indian country, a right you had by the treaty of Utretcht, which the French infringed; they seized the traders and their goods, which were your manufactures; they took a fort which a company of your merchants, and their factors and correspondents had erected there, to secure that trade. Braddock was sent with an army to re-take that fort (which was looked on here as another incroachment on the king's territory) and to protect your trade. It was not till after his defeat that the colonies were attacked.[94] They were before in perfect peace with both French and Indians; the troops were not therefore sent for their defence. The trade with the Indians, though carried on in America, is not an _American interest_. The people of America are chiefly farmers and planters, scarce any thing that they raise or produce is an article of commerce with the Indians. The Indian trade is a _British interest_; it is carried on with British manufactures, for the profit of British merchants and manufacturers; therefore the war, as it commenced for the defence of territories of the crown (the property of no American) and for the defence of a trade purely British, was really a British war--and yet the people of America made no scruple of contributing their utmost towards carrying it on, and bringing it to a happy conclusion. _Q._ Do you think then that the taking possession of the king's territorial rights, and _strengthening the frontiers_, is not an American interest? _A._ Not particularly, but conjointly a British and an American interest. _Q._ You will not deny that the preceding war, the _war with Spain_, was entered into for the sake of America; was it not _occasioned by captures made in the American_ seas? _A._ Yes; captures of ships carrying on the British trade there with British manufactures. _Q._ Was not the _late war with the_ Indians, _since the peace with France_, a war for America only? _A._ Yes; it was more particularly for America than the former; but it was rather a consequence or remains of the former war, the Indians not having been thoroughly pacified; and the Americans bore by much the greatest share of the expence. It was put an end to by the army under General Bouquet; there were not above three hundred regulars in that army, and above one thousand Pensylvanians. _Q._ Is it not necessary to send troops to America, to defend the Americans against the Indians? _A._ No, by no means; it never was necessary. They defended themselves when they were but an handful, and the Indians much more numerous. They continually gained ground, and have driven the Indians over the mountains, without any troops sent to their assistance from this country. And can it be thought necessary now to send troops for their defence from those diminished Indian tribes, when the colonies are become so populous, and so strong? There is not the least occasion for it, they are very able to defend themselves. _Q._ Do you say there were no more than three hundred regular troops employed in the late Indian war? _A._ Not on the Ohio, or the frontiers of Pensylvania, which was the chief part of the war that affected the colonies. There were garrisons at Niagara, Fort Detroit, and those remote posts kept for the sake of your trade; I did not reckon them; but I believe that on the whole the number of Americans, or provincial troops, employed in the war, was greater than that of the regulars. I am not certain, but I think so. _Q._ Do you think the assemblies have a right to levy money on the subject there, to grant _to the crown_? _A._ I certainly think so, they have always done it. _Q._ Are they acquainted with the declaration of rights? And do they know that, by that statute, money is not to be raised on the subject but by consent of parliament? _A._ They are very well acquainted with it. _Q._ How then can they think they have a right to levy money for the crown, or for any other than local purposes? _A._ They understand that clause to relate to subjects only within the realm; that no money can be levied on them for the crown, but by consent of parliament. _The colonies_ are not supposed to be within the realm; they have assemblies of their own, which are their parliaments, and they are, in that respect, in the same situation with Ireland. When money is to be raised for the crown upon the subject in Ireland, or in the colonies, the consent is given in the parliament of Ireland, or in the assemblies of the colonies. They think the parliament of Great Britain cannot properly give that consent, till it has representatives from America; for the petition of right expressly says, it is to be by _common consent in parliament_; and the people of America have no representatives in parliament, to make a part of that common consent. _Q._ If the stamp act should be repealed, and an act should pass, ordering the assemblies of the colonies to indemnify the sufferers by the riots, would they obey it? _A._ That is a question I cannot answer. _Q._ Suppose the king should require the colonies to grant a revenue, and the parliament should be against their doing it, do they think they can grant a revenue to the king, _without_ the consent of the parliament of Great Britain? _A._ That is a deep question. As to my own opinion, I should think myself at liberty to do it, and should do it, if I liked the occasion. _Q._ When money has been raised in the colonies, upon requisitions, has it not been granted to the king? _A._ Yes, always; but the requisitions have generally been for some service expressed, as to raise, clothe, and pay troops, and not for money only. _Q._ If the act should pass, requiring the American assemblies to make compensation to the sufferers, and they should disobey it, and then the parliament should, by another act, lay an internal tax, would they then obey it? _A._ The people will pay no internal tax; and I think an act to oblige the assemblies to make compensation is unnecessary; for I am of opinion, that as soon as the present heats are abated, they will take the matter into consideration, and if it is right to be done, they will do it of themselves. _Q._ Do not letters often come into the post-offices in America directed to some inland town where no post goes? _A._ Yes. _Q._ Can any private person take up those letters and carry them as directed? _A._ Yes; any friend of the person may do it, paying the postage that has accrued. _Q._ But must not he pay an additional postage for the distance to such inland town? _A._ No. _Q._ Can the post-master answer delivering the letter, without being paid such additional postage? _A._ Certainly he can demand nothing, where he does no service. _Q._ Suppose a person, being far from home, finds a letter in a post-office directed to him, and he lives in a place to which the post generally goes, and the letter is directed to that place, will the post-master deliver him the letter, without his paying the postage receivable at the place to which the letter is directed? _A._ Yes; the office cannot demand postage for a letter that it does not carry, or farther than it does carry it. _Q._ Are not ferrymen in America obliged, by act of parliament, to carry over the posts without pay? _A._ Yes. _Q._ Is not this a tax on the ferrymen? _A._ They do not consider it as such, as they have an advantage from persons travelling with the post. _Q._ If the stamp-act should be repealed, and the crown should make a requisition to the colonies for a sum of money, would they grant it? _A._ I believe they would. _Q._ Why do you think so? _A._ I can speak for the colony I live in; I had it in _instruction_ from the assembly to assure the ministry, that as they always had done, so they should always think it their duty, to grant such aids to the crown as were suitable to their circumstances and abilities, whenever called upon for that purpose, in the usual constitutional manner; and I had the honour of communicating this instruction to that honourable gentleman then minister.[95] _Q._ Would they do this for a British concern, as suppose a war in some part of Europe, that did not affect them? _A._ Yes, for any thing that concerned the general interest. They consider themselves as part of the whole. _Q._ What is the usual constitutional manner of calling on the colonies for aids? _A._ A letter from the secretary of state. _Q._ Is this all you mean; a letter from the secretary of state? _A._ I mean the usual way of requisition, in a circular letter from the secretary of state, by his majesty's command, reciting the occasion, and recommending it to the colonies to grant such aids as became their loyalty, and were suitable to their abilities. _Q._ Did the secretary of state ever write for _money_ for the crown? _A._ The requisitions have been to raise, clothe, and pay men, which cannot be done without money. _Q._ Would they grant money alone, if called on? _A._ In my opinion they would, money as well as men, when they have money, or can make it. _Q._ If the parliament should repeal the stamp act, will the assembly of Pensylvania rescind their resolutions? _A._ I think not. _Q._ Before there was any thought of the stamp act, did they wish for a representation in parliament? _A._ No. _Q._ Don't you know that there is, in the Pensylvanian charter, an express reservation of the right of parliament to lay taxes there? _A._ I know there is a clause in the charter, by which the king grants that he will levy no taxes on the inhabitants, unless it be with the consent of the assembly, or by act of parliament. _Q._ How then could the assembly of Pensylvania assert, that laying a tax on them by the stamp act was an infringement of their rights? _A._ They understand it thus: by the same charter, and otherwise, they are intitled to all the privileges and liberties of Englishmen; they find in the great charters, and the petition and declaration of rights, that one of the privileges of English subjects is, that they are not to be taxed but by their _common consent_; they have therefore relied upon it, from the first settlement of the province, that the parliament never would, nor could, by colour of that clause in the charter, assume a right of taxing them, _till_ it had qualified itself to exercise such right, by admitting representatives from the people to be taxed, who ought to make a part of that common consent. _Q._ Are there any words in the charter that justify that construction? _A._ The common rights of Englishmen, as declared by Magna Charta, and the petition of right, all justify it. _Q._ Does the distinction between internal and external taxes exist in the words of the charter? _A._ No, I believe not. _Q._ Then may they not, by the same interpretation, object to the parliament's right of external taxation? _A._ They never _have_ hitherto. Many arguments have been lately used here to show them that there is no difference, and that if you have no right to tax them internally, you have none to tax them externally, or make any other law to bind them. At present they do not reason so; but in time they may possibly be convinced by these arguments. _Q._ Do not the resolutions of the Pensylvania assembly say--all taxes? _A._ If they do, they mean only internal taxes; the same words have not always the same meaning here and in the colonies. By taxes they mean internal taxes; by duties they mean customs; these are their ideas of the language. _Q._ Have you not seen the resolutions of the Massachusett's Bay assembly? _A._ I have. _Q._ Do they not say, that neither external nor internal taxes can be laid on them by parliament? _A._ I don't know that they do; I believe not. _Q._ If the same colony should say, neither tax nor imposition could be laid, does not that province hold the power of parliament can lay neither? _A._ I suppose that by the word imposition, they do not intend to express duties to be laid on goods imported, as _regulations of commerce_. _Q._ What can the colonies mean then by imposition as distinct from taxes? _A._ They may mean many things, as impressing of men, or of carriages, quartering troops on private houses, and the like; there may be great impositions that are not properly taxes. _Q._ Is not the post-office rate an internal tax laid by act of parliament? _A._ I have answered that. _Q._ Are all parts of the colonies equally able to pay taxes? _A._ No, certainly; the frontier parts, which have been ravaged by the enemy, are greatly disabled by that means; and therefore, in such cases, are usually favoured in our tax-laws. _Q._ Can we, at this distance, be competent judges of what favours are necessary? _A._ The parliament have supposed it, by claiming a right to make tax-laws for America; I think it impossible. _Q._ Would the repeal of the stamp act be any discouragement of your manufactures? Will the people that have begun to manufacture decline it? _A._ Yes, I think they will; especially if, at the same time, the trade is opened again, so that remittances can be easily made. I have known several instances that make it probable. In the war before last, tobacco being low, and making little remittance, the people of Virginia went generally into family-manufactures. Afterwards, when tobacco bore a better price, they returned to the use of British manufactures. So fulling-mills were very much disused in the last war in Pensylvania, because bills were then plenty, and remittances could easily be made to Britain for English cloth and other goods. _Q._ If the stamp act should be repealed, would it induce the assemblies of America to acknowledge the rights of parliament to tax them, and would they erase their resolutions? _A._ No, never. _Q._ Are there no means of obliging them to erase those resolutions? _A._ None that I know of; they will never do it, unless compelled by force of arms. _Q._ Is there a power on earth that can force them to erase them? _A._ No power, how great soever, can force men to change their opinions. _Q._ Do they consider the post-office as a tax, or as a regulation? _A._ Not as a tax, but as a regulation and conveniency; _every assembly_ encouraged it, and supported it in its infancy, by grants of money, which they would not otherwise have done; and the people have always paid the postage. _Q._ When did you receive the instructions you mentioned? _A._ I brought them with me, when I came to England, about fifteen months since. _Q._ When did you communicate that instruction to the minister? _A._ Soon after my arrival,--while the stamping of America was under consideration, and _before_ the bill was brought in. _Q._ Would it be most for the interest of Great Britain, to employ the hands of Virginia in tobacco, or in manufactures? _A._ In tobacco, to be sure. _Q._ What used to be the pride of the Americans? _A._ To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain. _Q._ What is now their pride? _A._ To wear their old clothes over again, till they can make new ones. _Withdrew._ FOOTNOTES: [83] 1766. Feb. 3. Benjamin Franklin, Esq. and a number of other persons were "ordered to attend the committee of the whole house [of commons] to whom it was referred, to consider farther the several papers [relative to America] which were presented to the house by Mr. Secretary Conway, &c." Feb. 13. Benjamin Franklin, Esq. having passed through his examination, was exempted from farther attendance. Feb. 24. The resolutions of the committee were reported by the chairman, Mr. Fuller, their _seventh_ and last resolution setting forth "that it was their opinion that the house be moved, that leave be given to bring in a bill to repeal the stamp act." A proposal for re-committing this resolution was negatived by 240 votes to 133. (See the Journals of the House of Commons.) This examination of Dr. Franklin was printed in the year 1767, under the form of a shilling pamphlet. It is prior in point of date to some of the foregoing pieces; but I readily submitted to this derangement, thinking by this means to provide the reader with a knowledge of the proceedings on which the examination was grounded. B. V. [84] "The stamp act says, that the Americans shall have no commerce, make no exchange of property with each other, neither purchase nor grant nor recover debts; they shall neither marry nor make their wills, unless they pay such and such sums" in _specie_ for the stamps which must give validity to the proceedings. The operation of such a tax, had it obtained the consent of the people, appeared inevitable; and its annual productiveness, if I recollect well, was estimated by its proposer in the house of commons at the committee for supplies, at 100,000_l._ sterling. The colonies being already reduced to the necessity of having _paper_-money, by sending to Britain the specie they collected in foreign trade, in order to make up for the deficiency of their other returns for Britain's manufactures; there were doubts where could remain the _specie_ sufficient to answer the tax. B. V. [85] The stamp act provides that a double duty should be laid "where the instrument, proceedings, &c. shall be engrossed, written, or printed, within the said colonies and plantations, in any other than the English language." This measure, I presume, appeared to be suggested by motives of convenience, and the policy of assimilating persons of foreign to those of British descent, and preventing their interference in the conduct of law business till this change should be effected. It seems however to have been deemed too precipitate, immediately to extend this clause to newly-conquered countries. An exemption therefore was granted, in this particular, with respect to Canada and Grenada, for the space of five years, to be reckoned from the commencement of the duty. (See the Stamp Act.) B. V. [86] Strangers excluded, some parts of the northern colonies double their numbers in fifteen or sixteen years; to the southward they are longer, but, taking one with another, they have doubled by natural generation only, once in twenty-five years. Pensylvania, I believe, _including strangers_, has doubled in about sixteen years. The calculation for February 1766 will not then suit 1779. B. V. [87] In the year 1733--"for the welfare and prosperity of our sugar colonies in America," and "for remedying discouragements of planters;" duties were "_given and granted_" to George the Second upon all rum, spirits, molasses, syrups, sugar, and paneles of foreign growth, produce, and manufacture, imported into our colonies. This _regulation of trade_, for the benefit of the general empire was acquiesced in, notwithstanding the introduction of the novel terms "give and grant." But the act, which was made only for the term of five years, and had been several times renewed in the reign of George the Second, and once in the reign of George the Third; was renewed again in the year 1763, in the reign of George the Third, and _extended to other articles, upon new and altered grounds_. It was stated in the preamble to this act, "that it was expedient that new provisions and regulations should be established for _improving the revenue of this kingdom_;" "that it was just and necessary that a revenue should be raised in America for defending, protecting, and securing the same;" "and that the commons of Great Britain ... desirous of making some provision ... towards _raising the said revenue_ in America, have resolved to give and grant to his majesty the several rates and duties, &c." Mr. Mauduit, agent for Massachusett's Bay, tells us, that he was instructed in the following terms to oppose Mr. Grenville's taxing system.--"You are to remonstrate against these measures, and, if possible, to obtain a repeal of the sugar act, and prevent the imposition of any further duties or taxes on the colonies. Measures will be taken that you may be joined by all the other agents. _Boston, June 14, 1764._" The question proposed to Dr. Franklin alludes to this sugar act in 1763. Dr. Franklin's answer appears to deserve the best attention of the reader. B. V. [88] Some of the colonies have been reduced to the necessity of bartering, from the want of a medium of traffic. See p. 146. B. V. [89] Afterwards expressed in the Declaratory-Act. B. V. [90] See the answer to the report of the board of trade, p. 144. B. V. [91] See the note to Lord Howe's letter to our author. B. V. [92] i. e. Mills for the slitting of iron. B. V. [93] Admiral Vernon and General Wentworth commanded this expedition; with what success, is well known. B. V. [94] When this army was in the utmost distress from the want of waggons, &c. our author and his son voluntarily traversed the country, in order to collect a sufficient quantity; and they had zeal and address enough to effect their purpose, upon pledging themselves, to the amount of many thousand pounds, for payment. It was but just before Dr. Franklin's last return to America, that the accounts in this transaction were passed at home. B. V. [95] I take the following to be the history of this transaction. Until 1763, and the years following, whenever Great Britain wanted supplies directly from the colonies, the secretary of state, in his majesty's name, sent them a letter of requisition, in which the occasion for the supplies was expressed; and the colonies returned a _free gift_, the mode of levying which _they_ wholly prescribed. At this period, a chancellor of the exchequer (Mr. George Grenville) steps forth and says to the house of commons: _We must call for money from the colonies in the way of a tax_;--and to the colony-agents, _write to your several colonies, and tell them, if they dislike a duty upon stamps, and prefer any other method of raising the money themselves, I shall be content, provided the_ amount _be but raised_. "That is," observed the colonies, when commenting upon his terms, "if we will not tax ourselves, _as we may be directed_, the parliament will tax us," Dr. Franklin's instructions, spoken of above, related to this gracious option. As the colonies could not choose "_another_ tax," while they disclaimed _every_ tax; the parliament passed the stamp-act. It seems that the only part of the offer which bore a show of favour, was the grant of the _mode of levying_--and this was the only circumstance which was _not new_. See Mr. Mauduit's account of Mr. Grenville's conference with the agents, confirmed by the agents for Georgia and Virginia, and Mr. Burke's speech, in 1774, p. 55. B. V. _Attempts of Dr. Franklin for Conciliation of Great Britain with the Colonies[96]._ _London, Nov. 28, 1768._ DEAR SIR, I received your obliging favour of the 12th instant. Your sentiments of the importance of the present dispute between Great Britain and the colonies, appear to me extremely just. There is nothing I wish for more than to see it amicably and equitably settled. But Providence will bring about its own ends by its own means; and if it intends the downfal of a nation, that nation will be so blinded by its pride, and other passions, as not to see its danger, or how its fall may be prevented. Being born and bred in one of the countries, and having lived long and made many agreeable connexions of friendship in the other, I wish all prosperity to both: but I have talked, and written so much and so long on the subject, that my acquaintance are weary of hearing, and the public of reading any more of it, which begins to make me weary of talking and writing; especially as I do not find that I have gained any point, in either country, except that of rendering myself suspected, by my impartiality; in England, of being too much an American, and in America of being too much an Englishman. Your opinion, however, weighs with me, and encourages me to try one effort more, in a full, though concise state of facts, accompanied with arguments drawn from those facts; to be published about the meeting of parliament, after the holidays. If any good may be done I shall rejoice; but at present I almost despair. Have you ever seen the barometer so low as of late? The 22d instant mine was at 28, 41, and yet the weather fine and fair. With sincere esteem, I am, dear friend, Yours, affectionately, B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTE: [96] I cannot pretend to say what is the publication promised in this letter; unless it alludes to the one given above at p. 225; in which case there is a mistake in the date of the year. B. V. _Queries from Mr. Strahan._ TO DR. FRANKLIN[97]. _Nov. 21, 1769._ DEAR SIR, In the many conversations we have had together about our present disputes with North America, we perfectly agreed in wishing they may be brought to a speedy and happy conclusion. How this is to be done, is not so easily ascertained. _Two objects_, I humbly apprehend, his majesty's servants have now in contemplation. 1st. To relieve the colonies from the taxes complained of, which they certainly had no hand in imposing. 2dly, To preserve the honour, the dignity, and the supremacy of the British legislature over all his majesty's dominions. As I know your singular knowledge of the subject in question, and am as fully convinced of your cordial attachment to his majesty, and your sincere desire to promote the happiness equally of all his subjects, I beg you would in your own clear, brief, and explicit manner, send me an answer to the following questions: I make this request now, because this matter is of the utmost importance, and must very quickly be agitated. And I do it with the more freedom, as you know me and my motives too well to entertain the most remote suspicion that I will make an improper use of any information you shall hereby convey to me. 1st. Will not a repeal of all the duties (that on tea excepted, which was before paid here on exportation, and of course no new imposition) fully satisfy the colonists[98]? If you answer in the negative, 2d. Your reasons for that opinion? 3d. Do you think the only effectual way of composing the present differences is to put the Americans precisely in the situation they were in before the passing of the late stamp-act?--If that is your opinion, 4th. Your reasons for that opinion? 5th. If this last method is deemed by the legislature, and his majesty's ministers, to be repugnant to their duty, as guardians of the just rights of the crown and of their fellow-subjects; can you suggest any other way of terminating these disputes, consistent with the ideas of justice and propriety conceived by the king's subjects on both sides of the Atlantic? 6. And if this method was actually followed, do you not think it would actually encourage the violent and factious part of the colonists to aim at still farther concessions from the mother-country? 7th. If they are relieved in part only, what do you, as a reasonable and dispassionate man, and an equal friend to both sides, imagine will be the probable consequences? The answers to these questions, I humbly conceive, will include all the information I want; and I beg you will favour me with them as soon as may be. Every well-wisher to the peace and prosperity of the British empire, and every friend to our truly happy constitution, must be desirous of seeing even the most trivial causes of dissention among our fellow-subjects removed. Our domestic squabbles, in my mind, are nothing to what I am speaking of. This you know much better than I do, and therefore I need add nothing farther to recommend this subject to your serious consideration. I am, with the most cordial esteem and attachment, dear sir, your faithful and affectionate humble servant, W. S. FOOTNOTES: [97] These letters have often been copied into our public prints. Mr. Strahan, the correspondent, is printer to the king, and now representative in parliament for Malmsbury in Wiltshire. An intimacy of long standing had subsisted between him and Dr. Franklin. B. V. It was the father of the present Mr. Strahan, who is also king's-printer, and member of parliament. The friendship, which so long subsisted between Mr. Strahan and Dr. Franklin, the latter, in 1775, formally abjured, in a letter addressed to Mr. Strahan, which will be found in the order of its date, in a subsequent part of this work. _Editor._ [98] In the year 1767, for the express purpose of raising a revenue in America, glass, red-lead, white-lead, painters' colours, paper, and _tea_ (which last article was subject to various _home_-impositions) became charged by act of parliament, with new _permanent_ duties payable in the American ports. Soon after, in the same sessions, (the East-India Company promising indemnification for the experiment) a _temporary_ alteration was made with respect to the _home_ customs or excise upon certain teas, in the hope that a deduction in the nominal imposition, by producing a more extended consumption, would give an increased sum to the exchequer. Mr. Strahan, comparing only the _amounts_ of the imposed American duty, and the deducted home duty, determines that the Americans had suffered no new imposition. The Americans it seems, thought otherwise. Had we established this precedent for a revenue, we thought we had every thing to hope; yet we affect surprise, when the colonies avoided an acquiescence which by parity of reasoning gave _them_ every thing to fear. B. V. _Answer to the preceding Queries._ _Craven Street, Nov. 29, 1769._ DEAR SIR, Being just returned to town from a little excursion, I find yours of the 21st, containing a number of queries, that would require a pamphlet to answer them fully. You, however, desire only brief answers, which I shall endeavour to give. Previous to your queries, you tell me, that "you apprehend his majesty's servants have now in contemplation, 1st, To relieve the colonists from the taxes complained of; 2d, To preserve the honour, the dignity, and the supremacy of the British legislature over all his majesty's dominions." I hope your information is good; and that what you suppose to be in contemplation will be carried into execution, by repealing all the laws, that have been made for raising a revenue in America by authority of parliament without the consent of the people there. The honour and dignity of the British legislature will not be hurt by such an act of justice and wisdom. The wisest councils are liable to be misled, especially in matters remote from their inspection. It is the persisting in an error, not the correcting it, that lessens the honour of any man or body of men. The supremacy of that legislature, I believe, will be best preserved by making a very sparing use of it; never but for the evident good of the colonies themselves, or of the whole British empire; never for the partial advantage of Britain to their prejudice. By such prudent conduct, I imagine, that supremacy may be gradually strengthened, and in time fully established; but otherwise, I apprehend it will be disputed, and lost in the dispute. At present the colonies consent and submit to it, for the regulations of general commerce; but a submission to acts of parliament was no part of their original constitution. Our former kings governed their colonies, as they had governed their dominions in France, without the participation of British parliaments. The parliament of England never presumed to interfere in that prerogative, till the time of the great rebellion, when they usurped the government of all the king's other dominions, Ireland, Scotland, &c. The colonies that held for the king, they conquered by force of arms, and governed afterwards as conquered countries; but New England, having not opposed the parliament, was considered and treated as a sister-kingdom, in amity with England (as appears by the Journals, _March 10, 1642_.) 1st. "Will not a repeal of all the duties (that on tea excepted, which was before paid here on exportation, and of course no new imposition) fully satisfy the colonists?" _Answer_, I think not. 2d. "Your reasons for that opinion?" _A._ Because it is not the sum paid in that duty on tea that is complained of as a burden, but the principle of the act, expressed in the preamble, viz. That those duties were laid for the better support of government, and the administration of justice in the colonies[99]. This the colonists think unnecessary, unjust, and dangerous to their most important rights. _Unnecessary_, because in all the colonies (two or three new ones excepted[100]) government and the administration of justice were, and always had been, well supported without any charge to Britain: _unjust_, as it has made such colonies liable to pay such charge for others, in which they had no concern or interest: _dangerous_, as such mode of raising money for those purposes tended to render their assemblies useless; for if a revenue could be raised in the colonies for all the purposes of government by act of parliament, without grants from the people there, governors, who do not generally love assemblies, would never call them; they would be laid aside; and when nothing should depend on the people's good-will to government, their rights would be trampled on; they would be treated with contempt. Another reason, why I think they would not be satisfied with such a partial repeal, is that their agreements, not to import till the repeal takes place, include the whole; which shows, that they object to the whole; and those agreements will continue binding on them, if the whole is not repealed. 3d. "Do you think the only effectual way of composing the present differences is to put the Americans precisely in the situation they were in before the passing of the late stamp act?" _A._ I think so. 4th. "Your reasons for that opinion?" _A._ Other methods have been tried. They have been refused or rebuked in angry letters. Their petitions have been refused or rejected by parliament. They have been threatened with the punishments of treason by resolves of both houses. Their assemblies have been dissolved and troops have been sent among them: but all these ways have only exasperated their minds and widened the breach. Their agreements to use no more British manufactures have been strengthened; and these measures, instead of composing differences, and promoting a good correspondence, have almost annihilated your commerce with those countries, and greatly endanger the national peace and general welfare. 5th. "If this last method is deemed by the legislature, and his majesty's ministers, to be repugnant to their duty as guardians of the just rights of the crown, and of their fellow-subjects; can you suggest any other way of terminating these disputes, consistent with the ideas of justice and propriety conceived by the king's subjects on _both_ sides the Atlantic?" _A._ I do not see how that method can be deemed repugnant to the rights of the crown. If the Americans are put into their former situation, it must be an act of parliament; in the passing of which by the king, the rights of the crown are exercised, not infringed. It is indifferent to the crown, whether the aids received from America are granted by parliament here, or by the assemblies there, provided the quantum be the same; and it is my opinion, that more will be generally granted there voluntarily, than can ever be exacted or collected from thence by authority of parliament. As to the rights of fellow-subjects (I suppose you mean the people of Britain) I cannot conceive how those will be infringed by that method. They will still enjoy the right of granting their own money, and may still, if it pleases them, keep up their claim to the right of granting ours; a right they can never exercise properly, for want of a sufficient knowledge of us, our circumstances and abilities (to say nothing of the little likelihood there is that we should ever submit to it) therefore a right that can be of no good use to them; and we shall continue to enjoy in fact the right of granting our money, with the opinion, now universally prevailing among us, that we are free subjects of the king, and that fellow-subjects of one part of his dominions are not sovereigns over fellow-subjects in any other part. If the subjects on the different sides of the Atlantic have different and opposite ideas of "justice and propriety," no one "method" can possibly be consistent with both. The best will be, to let each enjoy their own opinions, without disturbing them, when they do not interfere with the common good. 6th. "And if this method were actually allowed, do you not think it would encourage the violent and factious part of the colonists, to aim at still farther concessions from the mother-country?" _A._ I do not think it would. There may be a few among them that deserve the name of factious and violent, as there are in all countries; but these would have little influence, if the great majority of sober reasonable people were satisfied. If any colony should happen to think, that some of your regulations of trade are inconvenient to the general interest of the empire, or prejudicial to them without being beneficial to you, they will state these matters to parliament in petitions as heretofore; but will, I believe, take no violent steps to obtain what they may hope for in time from the wisdom of government here. I know of nothing else they can have in view: the notion that prevails here, of their being desirous to set up a kingdom or commonwealth of their own, is to my certain knowledge entirely groundless. I therefore think, that on a total repeal of all duties, laid expressly for the purpose of raising a revenue on the people of America without their consent, the present uneasiness would subside; the agreements not to import would be dissolved; and the commerce flourish as heretofore; and I am confirmed in this sentiment by all the letters I have received from America, and by the opinions of all the sensible people who have lately come from thence, crown-officers excepted. I know, indeed, that the people of Boston are grievously offended by the quartering of troops among them, as they think, contrary to law, and are very angry with the board of commissioners, who have calumniated them to government; but as I suppose the withdrawing of those troops may be a consequence of reconciliating measures taking place; and that the commission also will be either dissolved, if found useless, or filled with more temperate and prudent men, if still deemed useful and necessary; I do not imagine these particulars would prevent a return of the harmony so much to be wished[101]. 7th. "If they are relieved in part only, what do you, as a reasonable and dispassionate man, and an equal friend to both sides, imagine will be the probable consequence?" _A._ I imagine, that repealing the offensive duties in part will answer no end to this country; the commerce will remain obstructed, and the Americans go on with their schemes of frugality, industry, and manufactures, to their own great advantage. How much that may tend to the prejudice of Britain, I cannot say; perhaps not so much as some apprehend, since she may in time find new markets. But I think, if the union of the two countries continues to subsist, it will not hurt the general interest; for whatever wealth Britain loses by the failing of its trade with the colonies, America will gain; and the crown will receive equal aids from its subjects upon the whole, if not greater. And now I have answered your questions, as to what may be, in my opinion, the consequences of this or that supposed measure, I will go a little further, and tell you, what I fear is more likely to come to pass in _reality_. I apprehend, that the ministry, at least the American part of it, being fully persuaded of the right of parliament, think it ought to be enforced, whatever may be the consequences; and at the same time do not believe, there is even now any abatement of the trade between the two countries on account of these disputes; or that if there is, it is small, and cannot long continue. They are assured by the crown-officers in America, that manufactures are impossible there; that the discontented are few, and persons of little consequence; that almost all the people of property and importance are satisfied, and disposed to submit quietly to the taxing power of parliament; and that, if the revenue-acts are continued, and those duties only that are called anti-commercial be repealed, and others perhaps laid in their stead, the power ere long will be patiently submitted to, and the agreements not to import be broken, when they are found to produce no change of measures here. From these and similar misinformations, which seem to be credited, I think it likely, that no thorough redress of grievances will be afforded to America this session. This may inflame matters still more in that country; farther rash measures there may create more resentment here, that may produce not merely ill-advised dissolutions of their assemblies, as last year, but attempts to dissolve their constitution[102]; more troops may be sent over, which will create more uneasiness; to justify the measures of government, your writers will revile the Americans in your newspapers, as they have already begun to do, treating them as miscreants, rogues, dastards, rebels, &c. to alienate the minds of the people here from them, and which will tend farther to diminish their affections to this country. Possibly too, some of their warm patriots may be distracted enough to expose themselves by some mad action to be sent for hither, and government here be indiscreet enough to hang them, on the act of Henry VIII[103]. Mutual provocations will thus go on to complete the separation; and instead of that cordial affection, that once and so long existed, and that harmony, so suitable to the circumstances, and so necessary to the happiness, strength, safety, and welfare of both countries, an implacable malice and mutual hatred, such as we now see subsisting between the Spaniards and Portuguese, the Genoese and Corsicans, from the same original misconduct in the superior governments, will take place: the sameness of nation, the similarity of religion, manners, and language not in the least preventing in our case, more than it did in theirs.--I hope, however, that this may all prove false prophecy, and that you and I may live to see as sincere and perfect a friendship established between our respective countries, as has so many years subsisted between Mr. Strahan, and his truly affectionate old friend, B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTES: [99] "Men may lose little property by an act which takes away all their freedom. When a man is robbed of a trifle on the highway, it is not the two-pence lost that makes the capital outrage." "Would twenty shillings have ruined Mr. Hampden's fortune? No! but the payment of half twenty shillings, on the principle it was demanded, would have made him a slave." See Mr. Burke's speeches in 1774 and 1775. B. V. [100] Nova Scotia, Georgia, the Floridas, and Canada. B. V. [101] "The opposition [to Lord Rockingham's administration]" says Lord Chesterfield, "are for taking vigorous, as they call them, but I call them violent measures; not less than _les dragonades_; and to have the tax collected by the troops we have there. For my part, I never saw a forward child mended by whipping: and I would not have the mother become a step-mother." Letter, No. 360. "Is it a certain maxim," pleads Mr. Burke, "that the fewer causes of dissatisfaction are left by government, the more the subject will be inclined to resist and rebel?" "I confess I do not feel the least alarm from the discontents which are to arise from putting people at their ease. Nor do I apprehend the destruction of this empire, from giving, by an act of free grace and indulgence, to two millions of my fellow-citizens, some share of those rights, upon which I have always been taught to value myself." Speeches in 1774 and 1775. B. V. [102] This was afterwards attempted by the British legislature, in the case of the Massachusett's Bay. B. V. [103] The lords and commons very prudently concurred in an address for this purpose, and the king graciously assured them of his compliance with their wishes. B. V. _State of the Constitution of the Colonies, by Governor Pownall[104]; with Remarks by Dr. Franklin._ [PRINCIPLES.] 1. Wherever any Englishmen go forth without the realm, and make settlements in partibus exteris, "These settlements as English settlements, and these inhabitants as English subjects (carrying with them the laws of the land wherever they form colonies, and receiving his majesty's protection by virtue of his royal charter[105]" or commissions of government) "have and enjoy all liberties and immunities of free and natural subjects, to all intents constructions and purposes whatsoever, as if they and every of them were born within the realm[106];" and are bound by the like allegiance as every other subject of the realm. Remarks. _The settlers of colonies in America did not carry with them the_ laws of the land, _as being bound by them wherever they should settle. They left the realm to avoid the inconveniences and hardships they were under, where some of those laws were in force, particularly ecclesiastical laws, those for payment of tythes and others. Had it been understood, that they were to carry these laws with them, they had better have staid at home among their friends, unexposed to the risques and toils of a new settlement. They carried with them, a right to_ such parts _of the_ laws of the land, _as they should judge advantageous or useful to them; a right to be free from those they thought hurtful; and a right to make such others, as they should think necessary, not infringing the general rights of Englishmen: and such_ new _laws they were to form, as agreeable as might be to the laws of England_. B. F. 2. Therefore the _common law of England_, and all _such statutes_ as were enacted and in force at _the time_ in which such settlers went forth, and such colonies and plantations were established, (except as hereafter excepted) together with all such alterations and amendments as the said common law may have received, is from time to time, and at all times, the law of those colonies and plantations. Rem. _So far as they adopt it, by express laws or by practice._ B. F. 3. Therefore all statutes, touching the _right of the succession_, and settlement of the crown, with the statutes of treason relating thereto[107]; all statutes, _regulating_ or limiting the general powers and _authority of the crown_, and the exercise of the jurisdiction thereof; all statutes, _declaratory of the rights and liberty of the subject_, do extend to all British subjects in the colonies and plantations as of common right, and as if they and every of them were born within the realm. Rem. _It is doubted, whether any settlement of the crown by parliament, takes place in the colonies, otherwise than by consent of the assemblies there. Had the rebellion in 1745 succeeded so far as to settle the Stuart family again on the throne, by act of parliament, I think the colonies would not have thought themselves bound by such act. They would still have adhered to the present family as long as they could._ B. F. Observation in reply. _They are bound to the king and his successors, and we know no succession but by act of parliament._ T. P. 4. All statutes enacted _since_ the establishment of colonies and plantations do extend to and operate within the said colonies and plantations, in which statutes the same _are specially named_. Rem. _It is doubted, whether any act of parliament should_ of right _operate in the colonies_: in fact _several of than have and do operate_. B. F. 5. Statutes and customs, which respect only the _special and local circumstances_ of the realm, do not extend to and operate within said colonies and plantations, where no such special and local circumstances are found.--(Thus the _ecclesiastical and canon_ law, and all _statutes respecting tythes_, the laws respecting _courts baron and copyholds_, the _game acts_, the statutes _respecting the poor_ and settlements, and all other laws and statutes, having special reference to special and local circumstances and establishments within the realm, do not extend to and operate within these settlements, in partibus exteris, where no such circumstances or establishments exist.) Rem. _These laws have no force in America: not merely because local circumstances differ, but because they have never been adopted, or brought over by acts of assembly or by practice in the courts._ B. F. 6. No statutes made _since_ the establishment of said colonies and plantations (_except_ as above described in articles 3 and 4) do extend to and operate within said colonies and plantations. Query.--Would any statute made since the establishment of said colonies and plantations, which statute imported, to _annul_ and abolish the powers and jurisdictions of their respective constitutions of government, where the same was not contrary to the laws, or any otherwise forfeited or abated; or which statute imported, to take away, or did take away, the rights and privileges of the settlers, as British subjects: would such statute, as of right, extend to and operate within said colonies and plantations? Answer. _No. The parliament has no such power. The charters cannot be altered but by consent of both parties--the king and the colonies._ B. F. [COROLLARIES FROM THE FOREGOING PRINCIPLES.] Upon the matters of fact, right and law, as above stated, it is, that the British subjects thus settled in partibus exteris without the realm, so long as they are excluded from an intire union with the realm as parts of and within the same, have a right to have (as they have) and to be governed by (as they are) a _distinct intire civil government_, of the like powers, pre-eminences and jurisdictions (conformable to the like rights, privileges, immunities, franchises, and civil liberties) as are to be found and are established in the British government, respecting the British subject within the realm. Rem. _Right._ B. F. Hence also it is, that the _rights of the subject_, as declared in the petition of right, that the _limitation of prerogative_ by the act for abolishing the star-chamber and for regulating the privy-council, &c. that the habeas corpus act, the statute of frauds, the bill of rights, do of common right extend to and are in force within said colonies and plantations. Rem. _Several of these rights are established by special colony laws. If any are not yet so established, the colonies have right to such laws: and the covenant having been made in the charters by the king, for himself and his successors, such laws ought to receive the royal assent_ as of right. B. F. Hence it is, that the _freeholders_ within the precincts of these jurisdictions have (as of right they ought to have) a _share in the power of making those laws_ which they are to be governed by, by the right which they have of sending their representatives to act for them and to consent for them in all matters of legislation, which representatives, when met in general assembly, have, together with the crown, a right to perform and do all the like acts respecting the matters, things and rights within the precincts of their jurisdiction, as the parliament hath respecting the realm and British dominions. Hence also it is, that all the _executive offices_ (from the supreme civil magistrate, as locum tenens to the king, down to that of constable and head-borough) must of right be established with all and the like powers, neither more nor less than as defined by the constitution and law, as in fact they are established. Hence it is, that the _judicial offices and courts of justice_, established within the precincts of said jurisdictions, have, as they ought of right to have, all those jurisdictions and powers "as fully and amply to all intents and purposes whatsoever, as the courts of king's bench, common pleas, and exchequer, within his majesty's kingdom of England, have, and ought to have, and are empowered to give judgment and award execution thereupon[108]." Hence it is, that by the possession enjoyment and exercise of his majesty's _great seal_, delivered to his majesty's governor, there is established within the precincts of the respective jurisdictions all the same and like _powers of chancery_ (except where by charters specially excluded) as his majesty's chancellor within his majesty's kingdom of England hath, and of right ought to have, by delivery of the great seal of England.--And hence it is, that all the like rights, privileges and powers, follow the use, exercise and application of the great seal of each colony and plantation within the precincts of said jurisdiction, as doth, and ought of right to follow the use, exercise, and application of the great seal. Hence also it is, that _appeals in real actions_, "whereby the lands, tenements, and hereditaments of British subjects may be drawn into question and disposed of[109]," do not lie, as of right and by law they ought not to lie, to the king in council. Hence also it is, that there is _not_ any law now in being, whereby _the subject_ within said colonies and plantations can be _removed[110] from the jurisdiction to which he is amenable_ in all his right, and through which his service and allegiance must be derived to the crown, and from which no appeal lies in criminal causes, so as that such subject may become amenable to a jurisdiction foreign to his natural and legal resiancy; to which he may be thereby transported, and under which he may be brought to trial and receive judgment, contrary to the rights and privileges of the subject, as declared by the spirit and intent and especially by the 16th § of the habeas corpus act. And if the person of any subject within the said colonies and plantations _should_ be seized or detained by any power issuing from any court, without the jurisdiction of the colony where he then had his legal resiancy, it would become the duty of the courts of justice _within_ such colony (it is undoubtedly of their jurisdiction so to do) to issue the writ of _habeas corpus_[111]. Hence also it is, that in like manner as "the _command and disposition of the militia, and of all forces by sea and land_, and of all forts and places of strength, is, and by the laws of England ever was, the undoubted right of his majesty and his royal predecessors, kings and queens of England, within all his majesty's realms and dominions[112]," in like manner as the supreme military power and command (so far as the constitution knows of and will justify its establishment) is inseparably annexed to, and forms an essential part of the office of supreme civil magistrate, the office of king: in like manner, in all _governments under the king_, where the constituents are British subjects and of full and perfect right entitled to the British laws and constitution, the supreme military command within the precincts of such jurisdictions must be inseparably annexed to the office of supreme civil magistrate, (his majesty's regent, vice-regent, lieutenant, or locum tenens, in what form soever established) so that the king cannot, by any[113] commission of regency, by any commission or charter of government, separate or withdraw the supreme command of the military from the office of supreme civil magistrate--either by reserving this command in his own hands, to be exercised and executed independent of the civil power; or by granting a distinct commission to any military commander in chief, so to be exercised and executed; but more especially not within such jurisdictions where such supreme military power (so far as the constitution knows and will justify the same) is _already_ annexed and granted to the office of supreme civil magistrate.--And hence it is, that the king cannot erect or establish any law martial or military command, by any commission which may supersede and not be subject to the supreme civil magistrate, within the respective precincts of the civil jurisdictions of said colonies and plantations, otherwise than in such manner as the said law martial and military commissions are annexed or subject to the supreme civil jurisdiction within his majesty's realms and dominions of Great Britain and Ireland; and hence it is, that the establishment and exercise of such commands and commissions would be illegal[114]. Rem. _The king has the command of all military force in his dominions: but in every distinct state of his dominions there should be the consent of the parliament or assembly (the representative body) to the_ raising and keeping up _such military force. He cannot even raise troops and quarter them in another, without the consent of that other. He cannot_ of right _bring troops raised in Ireland and quarter them in Britain, but with the consent of the parliament of Britain: nor carry to Ireland and quarter there, soldiers raised in Britain, without the consent of the Irish parliament, unless in time of war and cases of extreme exigency.--In 1756, when the Speaker went up to present the money-bills, he said among other things, that "England was capable of fighting her own battles and defending herself; and although ever attached to your majesty's person, ever at ease under your just government, they cannot forbear taking notice of some circumstances in the present situation of affairs, which nothing but the confidence in your justice could hinder from alarming their most serious apprehensions. Subsidies to foreign princes, when already burthened with a debt scarce to be borne, cannot but be severely felt._ An army of foreign troops, a thing unprecedented, unheard of, unknown, brought into England, _cannot but alarm, &c. &c._" (_See the Speech._) _N. B. These_ foreign troops _were part of the king's subjects, Hanoverians, and all in _his_ service, which the same thing as_**** B. F. FOOTNOTES: [104] This State of the Constitution of the Colonies was printed at the close of 1769, and communicated to various persons, with a view to prevent mischief, from the misunderstandings between the government of Great Britain and the people of America. I have taken the liberty of ascribing it to governor Pownall, as his name could have been no secret at the time. Dr. Franklin's remarks (which from their early date are the more curious) are in manuscript, and from an observation in reply signed T. P. appear to have been communicated to governor Pownall. B. V. [105] Pratt and York. [106] General words in all charters. [107] [i. e.] All statutes respecting the general relation between the crown and the subject, not such as respect any particular or peculiar establishment of the realm of England. As for instance: by the 13th and 14th of Car. II. c. 2, the supreme military power is declared to be in general, without limitation, in his majesty, and to have always been of right annexed to the office of king of England, throughout all his majesty's realms and dominions; yet the enacting clause, which respects only the peculiar establishment of the militia of England, extends to the realm of England only: so that the supreme military power of the crown in all other his majesty's realms and dominions stands, _as to this statute_, on the basis of its general power, unlimited. However, the several legislatures of his majesty's kingdom of Ireland, of his dominions of Virginia, and of the several colonies and plantations in America, have, by laws to which the king hath given his consent, operating within the precincts of their several jurisdictions, limited the powers of it and regulated the exercise thereof. [108] Law in New England, confirmed by the crown, Oct. 22, 1700. [109] 16th Car. I. c. 10. [110] The case of the court erected by act of parliament 11 and 12th of William III. c. 7, (since the enacting of the habeas corpus act) for the trial of piracies, felonies and robberies committed in or upon the sea, or in any haven, river, creek or place _where the admiral has jurisdiction_, does no way affect this position: nor doth the 14 § of the said statute, directing that the commissioners, of whom such court consists, may issue their warrant for apprehending such pirates, &c. in order to their being tried in the colonies, or _sent into England_, any way militate with the doctrine here laid down: nor can it be applied as _the case of a jurisdiction actually existing_, which supersedes the jurisdictions of the courts in the colonies and plantations, and as what authorises the taking the accused of such piracies &c. _from those jurisdictions_, and the sending such _so taken_ to England for trial.--It cannot be applied as a case similar and in point to the application of an act of parliament (passed in the 35th of Henry VIII. concerning the _trial of treasons_) lately recommended in order to the sending persons accused of committing crimes in the plantations to England for trial: because this act of the 11th and 12th of William, c. 7, respects _crimes_ committed in places, "_where the admiral has jurisdiction_," and _cases_ to which the jurisdiction of those provincial courts _do not extend_. In the _case of treasons committed within the jurisdiction of the colonies and plantations_, there are courts competent to try such crimes and to give judgment thereupon, where the trials of such are regulated by laws to which the king hath given his consent: from which there lies no appeal, and wherein the king hath given power and instruction to his governor as to execution or respite of judgment. The said act of Henry VIII, which provides remedy for a case which supposes _the want_ of due legal jurisdiction, cannot be any way, or by any rule, applied to a case where there _is_ due legal and competent jurisdiction. [111] [The] referring to an old act made for the trial of treasons committed out of the realm, by such persons as had no legal resiancy but within the realm, and who were of the realm, applying the purview of that statute, which was made to bring subjects of the realm who had committed treason out of the realm (where there was _no criminal jurisdiction to which they could be amenable_) to trial within the realm, under that criminal jurisdiction to which alone by their legal resiancy and allegiance they were amenable; applying this to the case of subjects whose _legal_ resiancy is _without_ the realm, and who are by that resiancy and their allegiance amenable to a jurisdiction authorized and empowered to try and give judgment upon all capital offences whatsoever without appeal; thus applying this statute so as to take up a proceeding, for which there is no legal process either by common or statute law as now established, but in defiance of which there is a legal process established by the habeas corpus act;----would be, to disfranchise the subject in America of those rights and liberties which by statute and common law he is now entitled to. [112] 13th and 14th Car. II. c. 2. [113] If the king was to absent himself for a time from the realm, and did as usual leave a regency in his place, (his locum tenens as supreme civil magistrate) could he authorize and commission any military commander in chief to command the militia forts and forces, _independent of such regency_? Could he do this in Ireland? Could he do this in the colonies and plantations, where the governor is already, by commission or charter or both under the great seal, military commander in chief, as part of (and inseparably annexed to) the office of supreme civil magistrate, his majesty's locum tenens within said jurisdictions? If he could, then, while openly, by patent according to law, he appeared to establish a free British constitution, he might by a fallacy establish a military power and government. [114] Governor P. accompanied this paper to Dr. F. with a sort of prophetic remark. After stating, that these theorems, and their application to existing cases, were intended to remedy the prejudice, indigestion, indecision and errors, then prevailing either in opinions or conduct; he adds, "the very attention to the investigation may lead to the discovery of _some truths respecting the whole British empire_, then little thought of and scarce even suspected, and which perhaps it would not be _prudent_ at this time to mark and point out."--The minister however judged the _discussion_ of _dubious_ rights over growing states, a better policy than possession, discretion and silence; he turned civilian, and lost an empire. B. V. TO MR. DUBOURG. _Concerning the Dissentions between England and America._[115] _London, October 2, 1770._ I see with pleasure that we think pretty much alike on the subjects of English America. We of the colonies have never insisted, that we ought to be exempt from contributing to the common expences necessary to support the prosperity of the empire. We only assert, that having parliaments of our own, and not having representatives in that of Great Britain, our parliaments are the only judges of what we can and what we ought to contribute in this case; and that the English parliament has no right to take our money without our consent. In fact, the British empire is not a single state; it comprehends many; and though the parliament of Great Britain has arrogated to itself the power of taxing the colonies, it has no more right to do so, than it has to tax Hanover. We have the same king, but not the same legislatures. The dispute between the two countries has already cost England many millions sterling, which it has lost in its commerce, and America has in this respect been a proportionable gainer. This commerce consisted principally of superfluities; objects of luxury and fashion, which we can well do without; and the resolution we have formed, of importing no more till our grievances are redressed, has enabled many of our infant manufactures to take root; and it will not be easy to make our people abandon them in future, even should a connection more cordial than ever succeed the present troubles. I have indeed no doubt, that the parliament of England will finally abandon its present pretensions, and leave us to the peaceable enjoyment of our rights and privileges. B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTE: [115] Re-translated from the French edition of Dr. Franklin's works. _Editor._ _A Prussian Edict, assuming Claims over Britain._ _Dantzick, Sept. 5, 1773._[116] We have long wondered here at the supineness of the English nation, under the Prussian impositions upon its trade entering our port. We did not, till lately, know the claims, ancient and modern, that hang over that nation, and therefore could not suspect, that it might submit to those impositions from a sense of duty, or from principles of equity. The following edict, just made public, may, if serious, throw some light upon this matter: "FREDERICK, by the grace of God, king of Prussia &c. &c. &c. to all present and to come,[117] health. The peace now enjoyed throughout our dominions, having afforded us leisure to apply ourselves to the regulation of commerce, the improvement of our finances, and at the same time the easing our _domestic_ subjects in their taxes: for these causes, and other good considerations us thereunto moving, we hereby make known, that, after having deliberated these affairs in our council, present our dear brothers, and other great officers of the state, members of the same; we, of our certain knowledge, full power, and authority royal, have made and issued this present edict, viz. "Whereas it is well known to all the world, that the first German settlements made in the island of Britain, were by colonies of people, subjects to our renowned ducal ancestors, and drawn from their dominions, under the conduct of Hengist, Horsa, Hella, Uffa, Cerdicus, Ida, and others; and that the said colonies have flourished under the protection of our august house, for ages past, have never been emancipated therefrom, and yet have hitherto yielded little profit to the same: and whereas we ourself have in the last war fought for and defended the said colonies, against the power of France, and thereby enabled them to make conquests from the said power in America, for which we have not yet received adequate compensation: and whereas it is just and expedient that a revenue should be raised from the said colonies in Britain towards our indemnification; and that those who are descendants of our ancient subjects, and thence still owe us due obedience, should contribute to the replenishing of our royal coffers: (as they must have done, had their ancestors remained in the territories now to us appertaining) we do therefore hereby ordain and command, that, from and after the date of these presents, there shall be levied and paid to our officers of the _customs_, on all goods, wares, and merchandizes, and on all grain and other produce of the earth, exported from the said island of Britain, and on all goods of whatever kind imported into the same, a duty of four and a half per cent ad valorem, for the use of us and our successors.--And that the said duty may more effectually be collected, we do hereby ordain, that all ships or vessels bound from Great Britain to any other part of the world, or from any other part of the world to Great Britain, shall in their respective voyages touch at our port of Koningsberg, there to be unladen, searched, and charged with the said duties. "And whereas there hath been from time to time discovered in the said island of Great Britain, by our colonists there, many mines or beds of _iron_-stone; and sundry subjects of our ancient dominion, skilful in converting the said stone into metal, have in time past transported themselves thither, carrying with them and communicating that art; and the inhabitants of the said island, presuming that they had a natural right to make the best use they could of the natural productions of their country, for their own benefit, have not only built furnaces for smelting the said stone into iron, but have erected plating-forges, slitting-mills, and steel-furnaces, for the more convenient manufacturing of the same, thereby endangering a diminution of the said manufacture in our ancient dominion; we do therefore hereby farther ordain, that, from and after the date hereof, no mill or other engine for slitting or rolling of iron, or any plating-forge to work with a tilt-hammer, or any furnace for making steel, shall be erected or continued in the said island of Great Britain: and the lord lieutenant of every county in the said island is hereby commanded, on information of any such erection within his county, to order, and by force to cause the same to be abated and destroyed, as he shall answer the neglect thereof to us at his peril. But we are nevertheless graciously pleased to permit the inhabitants of the said island to transport their iron into Prussia, there to be manufactured, and to them returned, they paying our Prussian subjects for the workmanship, with all the costs of commission, freight, and risk, coming and returning; any thing herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding. "We do not, however, think fit to extend this our indulgence to the article of _wool_; but meaning to encourage not only the manufacturing of woollen cloth, but also the raising of wool in our ancient dominions, and to prevent both, as much as may be, in our said island, we do hereby absolutely forbid the transportation of wool from thence even to the mother-country, Prussia: and that those islanders may be farther and more effectually restrained in making any advantage of their own wool, in the way of manufacture, we command, that none shall be carried out of one country into another; nor shall any worsted, bay, or woollen-yarn, cloth, says, bays, kerseys, serges, frizes, druggets, cloth-serges, shalloons, or any other drapery stuffs or woollen manufactures whatsoever, made up or mixed with wool in any of the said counties, be carried into any other county, or be water-borne even across the smallest river or creek, on penalty of forfeiture of the same, together, with the boats, carriages, horses, &c. that shall be employed in removing them.--Nevertheless, our loving subjects there are hereby permitted (if they think proper) to use all their wool as manure, for the improvement of their lands. "And whereas the art and mystery of making _hats_ hath arrived at great perfection in Prussia, and the making of hats by our remoter subjects ought to be as much as possible restrained: and forasmuch as the islanders before mentioned, being in possession of wool, beaver, and other furs, have presumptuously conceived they had a right to make some advantage thereof, by manufacturing the same into hats, to the prejudice of our domestic manufacture: we do therefore hereby strictly command and ordain, that no hats or felts whatsoever, dyed or undyed, finished or unfinished, shall be loaden or put into or upon any vessel, cart, carriage, or horse, to be transported or conveyed out of one county in the said island into another county, or to any other place whatsoever, by any person or persons whatsoever, on pain of forfeiting the same, with a penalty of five hundred pounds sterling for every offence. Nor shall any hat-maker in any of the said counties employ more than two apprentices, on penalty of five pounds sterling per month: we intending hereby that such hat-makers, being so restrained, both in the production and sale of their commodity, may find no advantage in continuing their business. But, lest the said islanders should suffer inconveniency by the want of hats, we are farther graciously pleased to permit them to send their beaver furs to Prussia, and we also permit hats made thereof to be exported from Prussia to Britain; the people thus favored to pay all costs and charges of manufacturing, interest, commission to our merchants, insurance and freight going and returning, as in the case of iron. "And lastly, being willing farther to favour our said colonies in Britain, we do hereby also ordain and command, that all the _thieves_, highway and street robbers, housebreakers, forgerers, murderers, s--d--tes, and villains of every denomination, who have forfeited their lives to the law in Prussia, but whom we, in our great clemency, do not think fit here to hang, shall be emptied out of our gaols into the said island of Great Britain, for the better peopling of that country. "We flatter ourselves, that these our royal regulations and commands will be thought _just and reasonable_ by our much-favoured colonists in England; the said regulations being copied from their statutes of 10 and 11 Will. III. c. 10.--5 Geo. II. c. 22.--23 Geo. II. c. 29.--4 Geo. I. c. 11. and from other equitable laws made by their parliaments, or from instructions given by their princes, or from resolutions of both houses, entered into for the good government of their _own colonies in Ireland and America_. "And all persons in the said island are hereby cautioned, not to oppose in any wise the execution of this our edict, or any part thereof, such opposition being high-treason; of which all who are suspected shall be transported in fetters from Britain to Prussia, there to be tried and executed according to the Prussian law. "Such is our pleasure. "Given at Potsdam, this twenty-fifth day of the month of August, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-three, and in the thirty-third year of our reign. "By the king, in his council. "RECHTM�SSIG, Sec." Some take this edict to be merely one of the king's _jeux d'esprit_: others suppose it serious, and that he means a quarrel with England: but all here think the assertion it concludes with, "that these regulations are copied from acts of the English parliament respecting their colonies," a very injurious one; it being impossible to believe, that a people distinguished for their love of liberty; a nation so wise, so liberal in its sentiments, so just and equitable towards its neighbours, should, from mean and injudicious views of petty immediate profit, treat its own children in a manner so arbitrary and tyrannical! FOOTNOTES: [116] This _intelligence extraordinary_, I believe, first appeared in the Public Advertiser. I have reprinted it from a copy which I found in the Gentleman's Magazine. B. V. [117] _A tous presens et à venir._ ORIGINAL. _Preface by the British Editor [Dr. Franklin] to "The Votes and Proceedings of the Freeholders, and other Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, in Town-Meeting assembled according to Law (published by Order of the Town), &c[118]._" All accounts of the discontent, so general in our colonies, have of late years been industriously smothered and concealed here, it seeming to suit the views of the American minister[119] to have it understood, that by his great abilities, all faction was subdued, all opposition suppressed, and the whole country quieted. That the true state of affairs there may be known, and the true causes of that discontent well understood, the following piece (not the production of a private writer, but the unanimous act of a large American city) lately printed in New England, is republished here. This nation, and the other nations of Europe, may thereby learn, with more certainty, the grounds of a dissention, that possibly may, sooner or later, have consequences interesting to them all. The colonies had, from their first settlement, been governed with more ease than perhaps can be equalled by any instance in history of dominions so distant. Their affection and respect for this country, while they were treated with kindness, produced an almost implicit obedience to the instructions of the prince, and even to acts of the British parliament, though the right of binding them by a legislature, in which they were unrepresented, was never clearly understood. That respect and affection produced a partiality in favour of every thing that was English; whence their preference of English modes and manufactures; their submission to restraints on the importation of foreign goods, which they had but little desire to use; and the monopoly we so long enjoyed of their commerce, to the great enriching of our merchants and artificers. The mistaken policy of the stamp act first disturbed this happy situation; but the flame thereby raised was soon extinguished by its repeal, and the old harmony restored, with all its concomitant advantage to our commerce. The subsequent act of another administration, which, not content with an established exclusion of foreign manufactures, began to make our own merchandize dearer to the consumers there by heavy duties, revived it again; and combinations were entered into throughout the continent, to stop trading with Britain till those duties should be repealed. All were accordingly repealed but one--_the duty on tea_. This was reserved (professedly so) as a standing claim and exercise of the right, assumed by parliament, of laying such duties[120]. The colonies, on this repeal, retracted their agreement, so far as related to all other goods, except that on which the duty was retained. This was trumpeted here by the minister for the colonies as a triumph; there it was considered only as a decent and equitable measure, showing a willingness to meet the mother-country in every advance towards a reconciliation; and this disposition to a good understanding was so prevalent, that possibly they might soon have relaxed in the article of tea also. But the system of commissioners of customs, officers without end, with fleets and armies for collecting and enforcing those duties, being continued; and these acting with much indiscretion and rashness (giving great and unnecessary trouble and obstruction to business, commencing unjust and vexatious suits, and harassing commerce in all its branches, while that minister kept the people in a constant state of irritation by instructions which appeared to have no other end than the gratifying his private resentment[121]) occasioned a persevering adherence to their resolutions in that particular; and the event should be a lesson to ministers, not to risque, through pique, the obstructing any one branch of trade; since the course and connection of general business may be thereby disturbed to a degree, impossible to be foreseen or imagined. For it appears, that the colonies, finding their humble petitions to have this duty repealed were rejected and treated with contempt, and that the produce of the duty was applied to the rewarding, with undeserved salaries and pensions, every one of their enemies; the duty itself became more odious, and their resolution to starve it more vigorous and obstinate. The Dutch, the Danes, and French, took this opportunity, thus offered them by our imprudence, and began to smuggle their teas into the plantations. At first this was something difficult; but at length, as all business is improved by practice, it became easy. A coast fifteen hundred miles in length could not in all parts be guarded, even by the whole navy of England; especially where their restraining authority was by all the inhabitants deemed unconstitutional, the smuggling of course considered as patriotism. The needy wretches too, who, with small salaries, were trusted to watch the ports day and night, in all weathers, found it easier and more profitable, not only to wink, but to sleep in their beds; the merchants' pay being more generous than the king's. Other India goods also, which, by themselves, would not have made a smuggling voyage sufficiently profitable, accompanied tea to advantage; and it is feared the cheap French silks, formerly rejected as not to the taste of the colonies, may have found their way with the wares of India, and now established themselves in the popular use and opinion. It is supposed, that at least a million of Americans drink tea twice a day, which, at the first cost here, can scarce be reckoned at less than half-a-guinea a head per annum. This market, that, in the five years which have run on since the act passed, would have paid 2,500,000 guineas for tea alone into the coffers of the company, we have wantonly lost to foreigners. Meanwhile it is said the duties have so diminished, that the whole remittance of the last year amounted to no more than the pitiful sum of 85_l._[122] for the expence of some hundred thousands, in armed ships and soldiers to support the officers. Hence the tea, and other India goods, which might have been sold in America, remain rotting in the company's warehouses[123]; while those of foreign ports are known to be cleared by the American demand. Hence, in some degree, the company's inability to pay their bills; the sinking of their stock, by which millions of property have been annihilated; the lowering of their dividend, whereby so many must be distressed; the loss to government of the stipulated 400,000_l._ a year[124], which must make a proportionable reduction in our savings towards the discharge of our enormous debt: and hence in part the severe blow suffered by credit in general[125], to the ruin of many families; the stagnation of business in Spitalfields and at Manchester, through want of vent for their goods; with other future evils, which, as they cannot, from the numerous and secret connections in general commerce, easily be foreseen, can hardly be avoided. FOOTNOTES: [118] "Boston printed: London reprinted, and sold by J. Wilkie, in St. Paul's Church-yard. 1773."--I have given the reader _only the preface_. It is said, that this little piece very much irritated the ministry. It was their determination, that the Americans should receive teas only from Great Britain. And accordingly the East-India company sent out large cargoes under their protection. The colonists every where refused, either entrance, or else permission of sale, except at Boston, where, the force of government preventing more moderate measures, certain persons in disguise threw it into the sea. The preamble of the stamp act produced the tea act; the tea act produced violence; violence, acts of parliament; acts of parliament, a revolt. ----"A little neglect," says _poor Richard_, "may breed great mischief: for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; for want of a horse the rider was lost; being overtaken and slain by the _enemy_; all for want of a little care about a horse-shoe nail." B. V. [119] Lord Hilsborough.--This nobleman, already first lord of trade, was introduced in 1768 into the _new-titled office_ of secretary of state for the colonies. B. V. [120] Mr. Burke tells us (in his speech in 1774) that this preambulary tax had lost us at once the benefit of the west and of the east; had thrown open folding-doors to contraband; and would be the means of giving the profits of the colony-trade to every nation but ourselves. He adds in the same place, "It is indeed a tax of sophistry, a tax of pedantry, a tax of disputation, a tax of war and rebellion, a tax for any thing but benefit to the imposers, or satisfaction to the subject." B. V. [121] Some of his circular letters had been criticised, and exposed by one or two of the American assemblies. [122] "Eighty-five pounds I am assured, my lords, is the whole equivalent, we have received for all the hatred and mischief, and all the infinite losses this kingdom has suffered during that year, in her disputes with North America." See the bishop of St. Asaph's intended speech. B. V. [123] At this time they contained many millions of pounds of tea, including the usual stock on hand. Mr. Burke, in his speech in 1774, supposes, that America might have given a vent for ten millions of pounds. This seems to have been the greater part of the whole quantity. B. V. [124] On account of a temporary compromise of certain disputes with government. B. V. [125] Seen in certain memorable mercantile failures in the year 1772. B. V. _Account of Governor Hutchinson's Letters[126]._ TO THE CLERK OF THE COUNCIL IN WAITING. (Copy.) _Whitehall, Dec. 3, 1773._ SIR, The agent for the house of representatives of the province of Massachusett's Bay [Dr. Franklin] having delivered to lord Dartmouth, an address of that house to the king, signed by their speaker; complaining of the conduct of the governor [Hutchinson] and lieutenant governor [Andrew Oliver] of that province, in respect to certain private letters written by them to their correspondent in England, and praying that they may be removed from their posts in that government; his lordship hath presented the said address to his majesty, and his majesty having signified his pleasure, that the said address should be laid before his majesty in his privy council, I am directed by lord Dartmouth to transmit the same accordingly, together with a copy of the agent's letter to his lordship, accompanying the said address. I am, sir, Your most obedient humble servant, (Signed) J. POWNALL. TO THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF DARTMOUTH. (Copy.) _London, Aug. 21, 1773._ MY LORD, I have just received from the house of representatives of the Massachusett's Bay, their address to the king, which I now inclose, and send to your lordship, with my humble request in their behalf, that you would be pleased to present it to his majesty the first convenient opportunity. I have the pleasure of hearing from that province by my late letters, that a sincere disposition prevails in the people there to be on good terms with the mother-country; that the assembly have declared their desire only to be put into the situation they were in before the stamp act: _They aim at no novelties_. And it is said, that having lately discovered, as they think, the authors of their grievances to be some of their own people, their resentment against Britain is thence much abated. This good disposition of theirs (will your lordship permit me to say) may be cultivated by a favourable answer to this address, which I therefore hope your goodness will endeavour to obtain. With the greatest respect, I have the honour to be, my lord, &c. B. FRANKLIN, _Agent for the House of Representatives_. THE PETITION. TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN, We your majesty's loyal subjects, the representatives of your ancient colony of Massachusett's Bay, in general court legally assembled, by virtue of your majesty's writ under the hand and seal of the governor, beg leave to lay this our humble petition before your majesty. Nothing but the sense of duty we owe to our sovereign, and the obligation we are under to consult the peace and safety of the province, could induce us to remonstrate to your majesty [concerning] the mal-conduct of persons, who have heretofore had the confidence and esteem of this people; and whom your majesty has been pleased, from the purest motives of rendering your subjects happy, to advance to the highest places of trust and authority in the province. Your majesty's humble petitioners, with the deepest concern and anxiety, have seen the discords and animosities which have too long subsisted between your subjects of the parent-state and those of the American colonies. And we have trembled with apprehensions, that the consequences, naturally arising therefrom, would at length prove fatal to both countries. Permit us humbly to suggest to your majesty, that your subjects here have been inclined to believe, that the grievances which they have suffered, and still continue to suffer, have been occasioned by your majesty's ministers and principal servants being, unfortunately for us, _misinformed_ in certain facts of very interesting importance to us. It is for this reason that former assemblies have, from time to time, prepared a true state of facts to be laid before your majesty; but their humble remonstrances and petitions, it is presumed, have by some means been prevented from reaching your royal hand. Your majesty's petitioners have very lately had before them _certain papers_, from which they humbly conceive, it is most reasonable to suppose, that there has been long a conspiracy of evil men in this province, who have contemplated measures and formed a plan to advance themselves to power, and raise their own fortunes, by means destructive of the charter of the province, at the expence of the quiet of the nation, and to the annihilating of the rights and liberties of the American colonies. And we do with all due submission to your majesty beg leave particularly to complain of the conduct of his excellency Thomas Hutchinson, Esq. governor, and the honourable Andrew Oliver, Esq. lieutenant-governor of this your majesty's province, as having a natural and efficacious tendency to interrupt and alienate the affections of your majesty, our rightful sovereign, from this your loyal province; to destroy that harmony and good-will between Great Britain and this colony, which every honest subject should strive to establish; to excite the resentment of the British administration against this province; to defeat the endeavours of our agents and friends to serve us by a fair representation of our state of facts; to prevent our humble and repeated petitions from reaching the ear of your majesty, or having their desired effect. And finally, that the said Thomas Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver have been among the chief instruments in introducing a fleet and army into this province, to establish and perpetuate their plans, whereby they have been not only greatly instrumental [in] disturbing the peace and harmony of the government, and causing unnatural and hateful discords and animosities between the several parts of your majesty's extensive dominions; but are justly chargeable with all that corruption of morals, and all that confusion, misery, and bloodshed, which have been the natural effects of posting an army in a populous town. Wherefore we most humbly pray, that your majesty would be pleased to remove from their posts in this government the said Thomas Hutchinson, Esquire, and Andrew Oliver, Esquire; who have, by their above-mentioned conduct, and otherwise, rendered themselves justly obnoxious to your loving subjects, and entirely lost their confidence; and place such good and faithful men in their stead, as your majesty in your wisdom shall think fit. In the name and by order of the house of representatives, THOMAS CUSHING, _Speaker_. TO THE LORDS COMMITTEE OF HIS MAJESTY'S PRIVY COUNCIL FOR PLANTATION AFFAIRS. THE PETITION OF ISRAEL MAUDUIT, _Humbly sheweth unto your lordships_, That having been informed, that an address, in the name of the house of representatives of his majesty's colony of Massachusett's Bay, has been presented to his majesty by Benjamin Franklin, Esquire, praying the removal of his majesty's governor and lieutenant-governor, which is appointed to be taken into consideration on Thursday next; your petitioner, on the behalf of the said governor and lieutenant governor, humbly prays, that he may be heard by counsel in relation to the same, before your lordships shall make any report on the said address. ISRAEL MAUDUIT. _Clement's Lane, Jan. 10, 1775._ _The Examination of Dr. Franklin, at the Council Chamber, Jan. 17, 1774[127]. Present, Lord President, the Secretaries of State, and many other Lords; Dr. Franklin and Mr. Bollan; Mr. Mauduit and Mr. Wedderburn._ Dr. Franklin's Letter and the Address, Mr. Pownall's Letter, and Mr. Mauduit's Petition, were read. _Mr. Wedderburn._ The address mentions certain papers: I could wish to be informed what are those papers? _Dr. Franklin._ They are the letters of Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Oliver. _Court._ Have you brought them? _Dr. Franklin._ No, but here are attested copies. _Court._ Do you mean to found a charge upon them? if you do, you must produce the letters. _Dr. Franklin._ These copies are attested by several gentlemen at Boston, and a notary public. _Mr. Wedderburn._ My lords, we shall not take advantage of any imperfection in the proof. We admit that the letters are Mr. Hutchinson's and Mr. Oliver's hand writing: reserving to ourselves the right of inquiring how they were obtained. _Dr. Franklin._ I did not expect that counsel would have been employed on this occasion. _Court._ Had you not notice sent you of Mr. Mauduit's having petitioned to be heard by counsel on behalf of the governor and lieutenant governor. _Dr. Franklin._ I did receive such notice; but I thought this had been a matter of _politics_, not of law, and have not brought my counsel. _Court._ Where a charge is brought, the parties have a right to be heard by counsel or not, as they choose. _Mr. Mauduit._ My lords, I am not a native of that country, as these gentlemen are. I know well Dr. Franklin's abilities, and wish to put the defence of my friends more upon a parity with the attack; he will not therefore wonder that I choose to appear before your lordships with the assistance of counsel. My friends, in their letters to me, have desired (if any proceedings, as they say, should be had upon this address) that they may have a hearing in their own justification, that their innocence may be fully cleared, and their honour vindicated, and have made provision accordingly. I do not think myself at liberty therefore to give up the assistance of my counsel, in defending them against this unjust accusation. _Court._ Dr. Franklin may have the assistance of counsel, or go on without it, as he shall choose. _Dr. Franklin._ I desire to have counsel. _Court._ What time do you want? _Dr. Franklin._ Three weeks. _Ordered_ that the further proceedings be on Saturday 29th instant[128]. _To the Printer of the Public Advertiser._[129] SIR, Finding that two gentlemen have been unfortunately engaged in a duel about a transaction and its circumstances, of which both of them are totally ignorant and innocent, I think it incumbent upon me to declare (for the prevention of farther mischief, as far as such a declaration may contribute to prevent it) that I alone am the person, who obtained and transmitted to Boston the letters in question. Mr. W. could not communicate them, because they were never in his possession; and for the same reason they could not be taken from him by Mr. T. They were not of the nature of _private_ letters between friends. They were written by public officers to persons in public stations, on public affairs, and intended to procure public measures; they were therefore handed to other public persons, who might be influenced by them to produce those measures. Their tendency was to incense the mother-country against her colonies, and, by the steps recommended, to widen the breach, which they effected. The chief caution expressed with regard to privacy was, to keep their contents from the colony agents, who, the writers apprehended, might return them, or copies of them, to America. That apprehension was, it seems, well founded, for the first agent who laid his hands on them thought it his duty to transmit them to his constituents[130]. _Craven Street, Dec. 25, 1773._ B. FRANKLIN, _Agent for the House of Representatives of the Massachusett's Bay_. FOOTNOTES: [126] Governor Hutchinson, lieutenant-governor Andrew Oliver, Charles Paxton, Esq. Nathaniel Rogers, Esq. and Mr. G. Roome, having sent from Boston certain representations and informations to Thomas Whately, Esq. member of parliament, private secretary to Mr. George Grenville (the father of the stamp act) when in office, and afterwards one of the lords of trade; these letters were, by a particular channel, conveyed back to Boston. The assembly of the province were so much exasperated, that they returned home attested copies of the letters, accompanied with a petition and remonstrance, for the removal of governor Hutchinson, and lieutenant-governor Andrew Oliver, from their posts. The council of the province likewise, on their part, entered into thirteen resolves, in tendency and import similar to the petition of the assembly; five of which resolves were unanimous, and only one of them had so many as three dissentients. In consequence of the assembly's petition, the above proceedings and examination took place. Dr. Franklin having naturally a large share in these transactions, made still larger by the impolitic and indecent persecution of his character, I have exhibited the whole more at length, than I should otherwise have thought proper. B. V. [127] The editor has taken this examination from Mr. Mauduit's copy of the Letters of Governor Hutchinson, &c. second edition, 1774, p. 17. He has Mr. Mauduit's authority for supposing it faithfully represented. B. V. [128] The privy council accordingly met on the 29th of January, 1774, when Mr. Dunning and Mr. John Lee appeared as counsel for the assembly, and Mr. Wedderburn as counsel for the governor and lieutenant governor. Mr. Wedderburn was very long in his answer, which chiefly related to the mode of obtaining and sending away Mr. Whately's letters; and spoke of Dr. Franklin in terms of abuse, which never escape from one gentleman towards another. In the event, the committee of the privy council made a report, in which was expressed the following opinion: "The lords of the committee do agree humbly to report, as their opinion to your majesty, that the petition is founded upon resolutions formed on false and erroneous allegations; and is groundless, vexatious, and scandalous, and calculated only for the seditious purposes of keeping up a spirit of clamour and discontent in the said province. And the lords of the committee do further humbly report to your majesty, that nothing has been laid before them which does or can, in their opinion, in any manner, or in any degree, impeach the honour, integrity, or conduct of the said governor or lieutenant-governor; and their lordships are humbly of opinion, that the said petition ought to be dismissed." Feb. 7th, 1774. "His majesty, taking the said report into consideration, was pleased, with the advice of his privy-council, to approve thereof; and to order, that the said petition of the house of representatives of the province of Massachusett's Bay be dismissed the board--as groundless, vexatious, and scandalous; and calculated only for the seditious purpose of keeping up a spirit of clamour and discontent in the said province."--A former petition against governor Bernard met with a dismission couched in similar terms. B. V. [129] Some letters had passed in the public prints between Mr. Thomas Whately's brother and Mr. John Temple, concerning the manner in which the letters of Governor Hutchinson &c. had escaped from among the papers of Mr. Thomas Whately, at this time deceased. The one gentleman wished to avoid the charge of having given them, the other of having taken them. At length the dispute became so personal and pointed, that Mr. Temple thought it necessary to call the brother into the field. The letter of provocation appeared in the morning, and the parties met in the afternoon. Dr. Franklin, was not then in town; it was after some interval that he received the intelligence. What had passed he could not foresee; he endeavoured to prevent what still might follow. B. V. [130] It was in consequence of this letter that Mr. Wedderburn ventured to make the most odious personal applications. Mr. Mauduit has prudently omitted part of them in his account of the proceedings before the privy-council. They are given here altogether however (as well as they could be collected) to mark the politics of the times, and the nature of the censures passed in England upon Dr. Franklin's character. "The letters could not have come to Dr. Franklin," said Mr. Wedderburn, "by fair means. The writers did not give them to him, nor yet did the deceased correspondent, who, from our intimacy, would otherwise have told me of it: nothing then will acquit Dr. Franklin of the charge of obtaining them by fraudulent or corrupt means, for the most malignant of purposes; unless he stole them, from the person who stole them. This argument is irrefragable."---- "I hope, my lords, you will mark [and brand] the man, for the honour of this country, of Europe, and of mankind. Private correspondence has hitherto been held sacred in times of the greatest party rage, not only in politics but religion."--"He has forfeited all the respect of societies and of men. Into what companies will he hereafter go with an unembarassed face, or the honest intrepidity of virtue. Men will watch him with a jealous eye, they will hide their papers from him, and lock up their escrutoires. He will henceforth esteem it a libel to be called a _man of letters, homo_ trium[131] _literarum_! "But he not only took away the letters from one brother, but kept himself concealed till he nearly occasioned the murder of the other. It is impossible to read his account, expressive of the coolest and most deliberate malice, without horror." [_Here he read the letter above, Dr. Franklin being all the time present._]--Amidst these tragical events, of one person nearly murdered, of another answerable for the issue, of a worthy governor hurt in his dearest interests, the fate of America in suspense; here is a man, who, with the utmost insensibility of remorse, stands up and avows himself the author of all. I can compare it only to Zanga in Dr. Young's _Revenge_.[132] "Know then 'twas----I: I forged the letter, I disposed the picture; I hated, I despised, and I destroy. "I ask, my lords, whether the revengeful temper, attributed by poetic fiction only to the bloody African, is not surpassed by the coolness and apathy of the wily American?" These pleadings for a time worked great effect: the lords assented, the town was convinced, Dr. Franklin was disgraced[133], and Mr. Wedderburn seemed in the road for every kind of advancement.--Unfortunately for Mr. Wedderburn, the events of the war did not correspond with his systems. Unfortunately too for his "irrefragable argument," Dr. Franklin afterwards took an oath in chancery[134], that at the time that he transmitted the letters he was ignorant of the party to whom they had been addressed, having himself received them from a third person, and for the express purpose of their being conveyed to America. Unfortunately also for Mr. Wedderburn's "worthy governor," that governor himself, _before_ the arrival of Dr Franklin's packet in Boston, sent over one of Dr. Franklin's own "private" letters to England, expressing some little coyness indeed upon the occasion, but desiring secrecy, lest he should be prevented procuring _more_ useful intelligence from the same source[135]. Whether Mr. Wedderburn in his speech intended to draw a particular case and portraiture, for the purpose only of injuring Dr. Franklin, or meant that his language and epithets should apply generally to all, whether friends or foes, whose practice should be found similar to it, is a matter that must be left to be adjusted between governor Hutchinson and Mr. Wedderburn. But to return to Dr. Franklin. It was not singular perhaps, that, as a man of honour, he should surrender his name to public scrutiny in order to prevent mischief to others, and yet not betray his coadjutor (even to the present moment) to relieve his own fame from the severest obloquy; but perhaps it belonged to few besides Dr. Franklin, to possess mildness and magnanimity enough to refrain from intemperate expressions and measures against Mr. Wedderburn and his supporters, after all that had passed. B. V. [131] i. e. Fur (or _thief_). [132] Act Vth. [133] He was dismissed from his place in the post-office. [134] A copy of the proceedings in chancery has been in my possession, but being at present mislaid I speak only from memory here. [135] See the Remembrancer for the year 1776, part 2d. p. 61 col. 1st, and 2d. _Rules for reducing a Great Empire to a small one, presented to a late Minister, when he entered upon his Administration._[136] An ancient sage valued himself upon this, that though he could not fiddle, he knew how to make a great city of a little one. The science, that I, a modern, simpleton, am about to communicate, is the very reverse. I address myself to all ministers, who have the management of extensive dominions, which, from their very greatness, are become troublesome to govern--because the multiplicity of their affairs leaves no time for fiddling. I. In the first place, gentlemen, you are to consider, that a great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges. Turn your attention therefore first to your _remotest_ provinces; that, as you get rid of them, the next may follow in order. II. That the possibility of this separation may always exist, take special care the provinces are _never incorporated with the mother-country_; that they do not enjoy the same common rights, the same privileges in commerce, and that they are governed by severer laws, all of your enacting, without allowing them any share in the choice of the legislators. By carefully making and preserving such distinctions, you will (to keep to my simile of the cake) act like a wise gingerbread-baker; who, to facilitate a division, cuts his dough half through in those places, where, when baked, he would have it broken to pieces. III. Those remote provinces have perhaps been acquired, purchased, or conquered, at the sole expence of the settlers or their ancestors, without the aid of the mother-country. If this should happen to increase her strength, by their growing numbers, ready to join in her wars; her commerce, by their growing demand for her manufactures; or her naval power, by greater employment for her ships and seamen, they may probably suppose some merit in this, and that it entitles them to some favour: you are therefore to _forget it all, or resent it_, as if they had done you injury. If they happen to be zealous whigs, friends of liberty, nurtured in revolution principles; remember all that to their prejudice, and contrive to punish it: for such principles, after a revolution is thoroughly established, are of no more use; they are even odious and abominable. IV. However peaceably your colonies have submitted to your government, shown their affection to your interests, and patiently borne their grievances, you are to suppose them _always inclined to revolt_, and treat them accordingly. Quarter troops among them, who, by their insolence, may provoke the rising of mobs, and by their bullets and bayonets suppress them. By this means, like the husband who uses his wife ill from suspicion, you may in time convert your suspicions into realities. V. Remote provinces must have governors and judges, to represent the royal person and execute every where the delegated parts of his office and authority. You, ministers, know, that much of the strength of government depends on the opinion of the people, and much of that opinion on the _choice of rulers_ placed immediately over them. If you send them wise and good men for governors, who study the interest of the colonists, and advance their prosperity; they will think their king wise and good, and that he wishes the welfare of his subjects. If you send them learned and upright men for judges, they will think him a lover of justice. This may attach your provinces more to his government. You are therefore to be careful who you recommend for those offices.--If you can find prodigals, who have ruined their fortunes, broken gamesters or stock-jobbers, these may do well as governors, for they will probably be rapacious, and provoke the people by their extortions. Wrangling proctors and pettyfogging lawyers too are not amiss, for they will be for ever disputing and quarrelling with their little parliaments. If withal they should be ignorant, wrong-headed and insolent, so much the better. Attorneys clerks and Newgate solicitors will do for chief justices, especially if they hold their places during your pleasure:--and all will contribute to impress those ideas of your government, that are proper for a people you would wish to renounce it. VI. To confirm these impressions, and strike them deeper, whenever the injured come to the capital with complaints of mal-administration, oppression, or injustice, _punish such suitors_ with long delay, enormous expence, and a final judgment in favour of the oppressor. This will have an admirable effect every way. The trouble of future complaints will be prevented, and governors and judges will be encouraged to farther acts of oppression and injustice, and thence the people may become more disaffected, and at length desperate. VII. When such governors have crammed their coffers, and made themselves so odious to the people, that they can no longer remain among them with safety to their persons, _recal and reward_ them with pensions. You may make them baronets too, if that respectable order should not think fit to resent it. All will contribute to encourage new governors in the same practice, and make the supreme government detestable. VIII. If, when you are engaged in war, your colonies should vie in liberal aids of men and money against the common enemy upon your simple requisition, and give far beyond their abilities,--reflect, that a penny, taken from them by your power, is more honourable to you, than a pound presented by their benevolence; _despise therefore their voluntary grants_, and resolve to harass them with _novel taxes_.--They will probably complain to your parliament, that they are taxed by a body in which they have no representative, and that this is contrary to common right. They will petition for redress. Let the parliament flout their claims, reject their petitions, refuse even to suffer the reading of them, and treat the petitioners with the utmost contempt. Nothing can have a better effect in producing the alienation proposed; for though many can forgive injuries, none ever forgave contempt. IX. In laying these taxes, _never regard the heavy burthens_ those remote people already undergo, in defending their own frontiers, supporting their own provincial government, making new roads, building bridges, churches, and other public edifices, which in old countries have been done to your hands, by your ancestors, but which occasion constant calls and demands on the purses of a new people.--Forget the restraint you lay on their trade for your own benefit, and the advantage a monopoly of this trade gives your exacting merchants. Think nothing of the wealth those merchants and your manufacturers acquire by the colony commerce, their increased ability thereby to pay taxes at home, their accumulating, in the price of their commodities, most of those taxes, and so levying them from their consuming customers: all this, and the employment and support of thousands of your poor by the colonists, you are entirely to forget. But remember to make your arbitrary tax more grievous to your provinces, by public declarations, importing, that your power of taxing them has _no limits_, so that when you take from them without their consent a shilling in the pound, you have a clear right to the other nineteen. This will probably weaken every idea of security in their property, and convince them, that under such a government they have nothing they can call their own; which can scarce fail of producing the happiest consequences! X. Possibly indeed some of them might still comfort themselves and say, "though we have no property, we have yet something left that is valuable, we have constitutional _liberty, both of person and of conscience_. This king, these lords, and these commons, who it seems are too remote from us to know us and feel for us, cannot take from us our habeas corpus right, or our right of trial by a jury of our neighbours: they cannot deprive us of the exercise of our religion, alter our ecclesiastical constitution, and compel us to be papists, if they please, or Mahometans." To annihilate this comfort, begin by laws to perplex their commerce with infinite regulations, impossible to be remembered and observed: ordain seizures of their property for every failure, take away the trial of such property by jury, and give it to arbitrary judges of your own appointing, and of the lowest characters in the country, whose salaries and emoluments are to arise out of the duties or condemnations, and whose appointments are during pleasure. Then let there be a formal declaration of both houses, that opposition to your edicts is treason, and that persons suspected of treason in the provinces may, according to some obsolete law, be seized and sent to the metropolis of the empire for trial; and pass an act, that those there charged with certain other offences shall be sent away in chains from their friends and country, to be tried in the same manner for felony. Then erect a new court of inquisition among them, accompanied by an armed force, with instructions to transport all such suspected persons, to be ruined by the expence, if they bring over evidences to prove their innocence, or be found guilty and hanged, if they cannot afford it. And lest the people should think you cannot possibly go any farther, pass another solemn declaratory act, "that king, lords, and commons had, have, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the unrepresented provinces _in all cases whatsoever_." This will include spiritual with temporal, and taken together must operate wonderfully to your purpose, by convincing them, that they are at present under a power, something like that spoken of in the Scriptures, which can not only kill their bodies, but damn their souls to all eternity, by compelling them, if it pleases, to worship the devil. XI. To make your taxes more odious, and more likely to procure resistance, send from the capital a _board of officers_ to superintend the collection, _composed of the most indiscreet_, ill-bred, and insolent you can find. Let these have large salaries out of the extorted revenue, and live in open grating luxury upon the sweat and blood of the industrious, whom they are to worry continually with groundless and expensive prosecutions, before the above-mentioned arbitrary revenue-judges; all at the cost of the party prosecuted, though acquitted, because the king is to pay no costs. Let these men, by your order, be exempted from all the common taxes and burthens of the province, though they and their property are protected by its laws. If any revenue officers are suspected of the least tenderness for the people, discard them. If others are justly complained of, protect and reward them. If any of the under officers behave so as to provoke the people to drub them, promote those to better offices: this will encourage others to procure for themselves such profitable drubbings, by multiplying and enlarging such provocations, and all will work towards the end you aim at. XII. Another way to make your tax odious is, to _misapply the produce of it_. If it was originally appropriated for the defence of the provinces, and the better support of government, and the administration of justice, where it may be necessary; then apply none of it to that defence, but bestow it, where it is not necessary, in augmenting salaries or pensions to every governor, who has distinguished himself by his enmity to the people, and by calumniating them to their sovereign. This will make them pay it more unwillingly, and be more apt to quarrel with those that collect it, and those that imposed it, who will quarrel again with them, and all shall contribute to your own purpose, of making them weary of your government. XIII. If the people of any province have been accustomed to _support their own governors and judges_ to satisfaction, you are to apprehend, that such governors and judges may be thereby influenced to treat the people kindly, and to do them justice. This is another reason for applying part of that revenue in larger salaries to such governors and judges, given, as their commissions are, during _your_ pleasure only, forbidding them to take any salaries from their provinces; that thus the people may no longer hope any kindness from their governors, or (in crown cases) any justice from their judges. And as the money, thus misapplied in one province, is extorted from all, probably all will resent the misapplication. XIV. If the parliaments of your provinces should dare to claim rights, or complain of your administration, order them to be harassed with _repeated dissolutions_. If the same men are continually returned by new elections, adjourn their meetings to some country village, where they cannot be accommodated, and there keep them during pleasure; for this, you know, is your prerogative, and an excellent one it is, as you may manage it, to promote discontents among the people, diminish their respect, and increase their disaffection. XV. Convert the brave honest officers of your _navy_ into pimping tide-waiters and colony officers of the _customs_. Let those, who in time of war fought gallantly in defence of the commerce of their countrymen, in peace be taught to prey upon it. Let them learn to be corrupted by great and real smugglers; but (to show their diligence) scour with armed boats every bay, harbour, river, creek, cove or nook, throughout the coast of your colonies; stop and detain every coaster, every wood-boat, every fisherman, tumble their cargoes and even their ballast inside out, and upside down; and if a pennyworth of pins is found un-entered, let the whole be seized and confiscated. Thus shall the trade of your colonists suffer more from their friends in time of peace, than it did from their enemies in war. Then let these boats' crews land upon every farm in their way, rob their orchards, steal their pigs and poultry, and insult the inhabitants. If the injured and exasperated farmers, unable to procure other justice, should attack the aggressors, drub them, and burn their boats, you are to call this _high treason and rebellion_, order fleets and armies into their country, and threaten to carry all the offenders three thousand miles to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.--O! this will work admirably! XVI. If you are told of _discontents_ in your colonies, never believe that they are general, or that you have given occasion for them; therefore do not think of applying any remedy, or of changing any offensive measure. Redress no grievance, lest they should be encouraged to demand the redress of some other grievance. Grant no request, that is just and reasonable, lest they should make another, that is unreasonable. Take all your informations of the state of the colonies from your governors and officers in enmity with them. Encourage and reward these leasing-makers, secrete their lying accusations, lest they should be confuted, but act upon them as the clearest evidence; and believe nothing you hear from the friends of the people. Suppose all _their_ complaints to be invented and promoted by a few factious demagogues, whom if you could catch and hang, all would be quiet. Catch and hang a few of them accordingly, and the blood of the martyrs shall work miracles in favour of your purpose[137]. XVII. If you see _rival nations_ rejoicing at the prospect of your disunion with your provinces, and endeavouring to promote it, if they translate, publish and applaud all the complaints of your discontented colonists, at the same time privately stimulating you to severer measures, let not that alarm or offend you. Why should it? since you all mean the same thing? XVIII. If any colony should _at their own charge erect a fortress_, to secure their _port_ against the fleets of a foreign enemy, get your governor to betray that fortress into your hands. Never think of paying what it cost the country, for that would look, at least, like some regard for justice; but turn it into a citadel, to awe the inhabitants and curb their commerce. If they should have lodged in such fortress the very arms they bought and used to aid you in your conquests, seize them all; it will provoke like ingratitude added to robbery. One admirable effect of these operations will be, to discourage every other colony from erecting such defences, and so their and your enemies may more easily invade them, to the great disgrace of your government, and of course the furtherance of your project. XIX. Send armies into their country, under pretence of protecting the inhabitants; but, instead of garrisoning the forts on their frontiers with those troops, to prevent incursions, demolish those forts, and order the troops into the heart of the country, that the savages may be encouraged to attack the frontiers[138], and that the troops may be protected by the inhabitants: this will seem to proceed from your _ill-will or your ignorance_, and contribute farther to produce and strengthen an opinion among them, that you are no longer fit to govern them[139]. XX. Lastly, invest the _general of your army in the provinces_ with great and unconstitutional powers, and free him from the controul of even your own civil governors. Let him have troops enow under his command, with all the fortresses in his possession, and who knows but (like some provincial generals in the Roman empire, and encouraged by the universal discontent you have produced) he may take it into his head to set up for himself? If he should, and you have carefully practised these few excellent rules of mine, take my word for it, all the provinces will immediately join him--and you will that day (if you have not done it sooner) get rid of the trouble of governing them, and all the plagues attending their commerce and connection from thenceforth and for ever. FOOTNOTES: [136] These rules first appeared in a London newspaper about the beginning of the year 1774, and have several times since been introduced into our public prints.--The minister alluded to is supposed to be the Earl of Hillsborough. "The causes and motions of seditions (says Lord Bacon) are, innovation in religion, taxes, alteration of laws and customs, breaking of privileges, general oppression, advancement of unworthy persons, strangers, dearths, disbanded soldiers, factions grown desperate, and whatsoever in offending people joineth and knitteth them in a common cause." B. V. [137] One of the American writers affirms, "That there has not been a single instance in which _they_ have complained, without being rebuked, or in which they have been complained _against_, without being punished."--A fundamental mistake in the minister occasioned this. Every individual in New England (the peccant country) was held a coward or a knave, and the disorders, which spread abroad there, were treated as the result of the _too great lenity_ of Britain! By the aid of this short and benevolent rule, judgment was ever wisely predetermined, to the shutting out redress on the one hand, and inforcing every rigour of punishment on the other. B. V. [138] I am not versed in Indian affairs, but I find, that in April, 1773, the assembled chiefs of the western nations told one of our Indian agents, "that they remembered their father, the king of Great Britain's message, delivered to them last fall, of demolishing Fort Pittsburg (on the Ohio) and removing the soldiers with their sharp-edged weapons out of the country:--this gave them great pleasure, as it was a strong proof of his paternal kindness towards them." (See Considerations on the Agreement with Mr. T. Walpole for Lands upon the Ohio, p. 9). This is general history: I attempt no application of facts, personally invidious. B. V. [139] As the reader may be inclined to divide his belief between the wisdom of ministry and the candor and veracity of Dr. Franklin, I shall inform him that two contrary objections may be made to the truth of this representation. The first is, that the conduct of Great Britain is made _too_ absurd for possibility, and the second, that it is not made absurd _enough_ for fact. If we consider that this piece does not include the measures subsequent to 1773, the latter difficulty is easily set aside. The former I can only solve by the many instances in history, where the infatuation of individuals has brought the heaviest calamities upon nations. B. V. _State of America on Dr. Franklin's Arrival there._ _Philadelphia, May 16, 1775._ DEAR FRIEND[140], You will have heard before this reaches you, of a march stolen by the regulars into the country by night, and of their _expedition_ back again. They retreated 20 miles in [6] hours. The governor had called the assembly to propose Lord North's pacific plan, but, before the time of their meeting, began cutting of throats.--You know it was said he carried the sword in one hand, and the olive branch in the other; and it seems he chose to give them a taste of the sword first. He is doubling his fortifications at Boston, and hopes to secure his troops till succour arrives. The place indeed is naturally so defensible, that I think them in no danger. All America is exasperated by his conduct, and more firmly united than ever. The breach between the two countries is grown wider, and in danger of becoming irreparable. I had a passage of six weeks, the weather constantly so moderate that a London wherry might have accompanied us all the way. I got home in the evening, and the next morning was unanimously chosen by the assembly a delegate to the congress, now sitting. In coming over, I made a valuable philosophical discovery, which I shall communicate to you when I can get a little time. At present am extremely hurried. * * * * * Yours most affectionately, B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTES: [140] I run much risque in the publication of the three following letters[141]; but I think they contain such valuable facts, and show so well the nature of Dr. Franklin's temper, that I ought to encounter some difficulty, rather than suffer them to be lost. B. V. [141] The other two letters will be found in the order of their dates, July 7, and Oct. 3, 1775. _Editor._ _Proposed Vindication and Offer from Congress to Parliament, in 1775[142]._ Forasmuch as the enemies of America, in the parliament of Great Britain, to render us odious to the nation, and give an ill impression of us in the minds of other European powers, have represented us as unjust and ungrateful in the highest degree; asserting on every occasion, that the colonies were settled at the expence of Britain; that they were, at the expence of the same, protected in their infancy; that they now ungratefully and unjustly refuse to contribute to their own protection, and the common defence of the nation; that they aim at independence; that they intend an abolition of the navigation acts; and that they are fraudulent in their commercial dealings, and purpose to cheat their creditors in Britain, by avoiding the payment of their just debts:-- [And] as, by frequent repetition, these groundless assertions and malicious calumnies may, if not contradicted and refuted, obtain farther credit, and be injurious throughout Europe to the reputation and interest of the confederate colonies, it seems proper and necessary to examine them in our own just vindication. With regard to the first, _that the colonies were_ settled _at the expence of Britain_, it is a known fact, that none of the twelve united colonies were settled, or even discovered, at the expence of England. Henry the VIIth indeed granted a commission to Sebastian Cabot, a Venetian, and his sons, to sail into the western seas for the discovery of new countries; but it was to be "_suis_ eorum propriis sumptibus et expensis," at their _own_ costs and charges[143]. They discovered, but soon slighted and neglected, these northern territories; which were, after more than a hundred years dereliction, purchased of the natives, and settled at the charge and by the labour of private men and bodies of men, our ancestors, who came over hither for that purpose. But our adversaries have never been able to produce any record, that ever the _parliament_ or government of England was at the smallest expence on these accounts: on the contrary, there exists on the journals of parliament a solemn declaration in 1642, (only twenty-two years after the first settlement of the Massachusetts, when, if such expence had ever been incurred, some of the members must have known and remembered it) "That these colonies had been planted and established _without any expence to the state_.[144]" _New-York_ is the only colony in the founding of which England can pretend to have been at any expence, and that was only the charge of a small armament to take it from the Dutch, who planted it. But to retain this colony at peace, another at that time, full as valuable, planted by private countrymen of _ours_, was given up by the crown to the Dutch in exchange, viz. Surinam, now a wealthy sugar-colony in Guiana, and which, but for that cession, might still have remained in our possession. Of late, indeed, Britain has been at some expence in planting two colonies, _Georgia_[145] and _Nova Scotia_; but those are not in our confederacy; and the expence she has been at in their name, has chiefly been in grants of sums unnecessarily large, by way of salaries to officers sent from England, and in jobs to friends, whereby dependants might be provided for; those excessive grants not being requisite to the welfare and good government of the colonies; which good government (as experience in many instances of other colonies has taught us) may be much more frugally, and full as effectually provided for, and supported. With regard to the second assertion, _that these colonies were_ protected _in their infant state by England_, it is a notorious fact, that in none of the many wars with the Indian natives, sustained by our infant settlements for a century after our first arrival, were ever any troops or forces of any kind sent from England to assist us; nor were any forts built at her expence to secure our sea-ports from foreign invaders; nor any ships of war sent to protect our trade, till many years after our first settlement, when our commerce became an object of revenue, or of advantage to British merchants, and then it was thought necessary to have a frigate in some of our ports, during peace, to give weight to the authority of custom-house officers, who were to restrain that commerce for the benefit of England. Our own arms, with our poverty, and the care of a kind providence, were all this time our only protection, while we were neglected by the English government; which either thought us not worth its care, or, having no good will to some of us, on account of our different sentiments in religion and politics, was indifferent what became of us. On the other hand, the colonies have not been wanting to do what they could in every war for annoying the enemies of Britain. They formerly assisted her in the conquest of Nova Scotia. In the war before last they took Louisbourg, and put it into her hands. She made her peace with that strong fortress, by restoring it to France, greatly to their detriment. In the last war, it is true, Britain sent a fleet and army, who acted with an equal army of ours, in the reduction of Canada; and perhaps thereby did more for us, than we in the preceding wars had done for her. Let it be remembered however, that she rejected the plan we formed in the congress at Albany, in 1754, for our own defence, by an union of the colonies; an union she was jealous of, and therefore chose to send her own forces; otherwise her aid to protect us was not wanted. And from our first settlement to that time, her military operations in our favour were small, compared with the advantages she drew from her exclusive commerce with us. We are however willing to give full weight to this obligation; and as we are daily growing stronger, and our assistance to her becomes of more importance, we should with pleasure embrace the first opportunity of showing our gratitude, by returning the favour in kind. But when Britain values herself as affording us protection, we desire it may be considered, that we have followed _her_ in all _her_ wars, and joined with her at our own expence against all she thought fit to quarrel with. This she has required of us, and would never permit us to keep peace with any power she declared her enemy, though by separate treaties we might well have done it. Under such circumstances, when, at her instance, we made nations our enemies, whom we might otherwise have retained our friends; we submit it to the common sense of mankind, whether her protection of us in these wars was not our _just due_, and to be claimed of _right_, instead of being received as a _favour_? And whether, when all the parts of an empire exert themselves to the utmost in their common defence, and in annoying the common enemy, it is not as well the _parts_ that protect the _whole_, as the _whole_ that protects the _parts_? The protection then has been proportionably mutual. And whenever the time shall come, that our abilities may as far exceed hers, as hers have exceeded ours, we hope we shall be reasonable enough to rest satisfied with her proportionable exertions, and not think we do too much for a part of the empire, when that part does as much as it can for the whole. The charge against us, _that we refuse to_ contribute _to our own protection_, appears from the above to be groundless: but we farther declare it to be absolutely false; for it is well known, that we ever held it as our duty to grant aids to the crown, upon requisition, towards carrying on its wars; which duty we have cheerfully complied with, to the utmost of our abilities; insomuch that frequent and grateful acknowledgments thereof by king and parliament appear on their records[146]. But as Britain has enjoyed a most gainful monopoly of our commerce, the same, with our maintaining the dignity of the king's representative in each colony, and all our own separate establishments of government, civil and military, has ever hitherto been deemed an equivalent for such aids, as might otherwise be expected from us in time of peace. And we hereby declare, that on a reconciliation with Britain, we shall _not only_ continue _to grant aids in time of war_, as aforesaid; but, whenever she shall think fit to abolish her monopoly, and give us the same privileges of trade as Scotland received at the union, and allow us a free commerce with all the rest of the world, we shall willingly agree (and we doubt not it will be ratified by our constituents) to _give and pay_ into the sinking fund [100,000_l._] sterling per annum for the term of one hundred years, which, duly, faithfully, and inviolably applied to that purpose, is demonstrably more than sufficient to extinguish _all her present national_ debt, since it will in that time amount, at legal British interest, to more than 230,000,000_l._[147] But if Britain does not think fit to accept this proposition, we, in order to remove her groundless jealousies, _that we aim at independence, and an abolition of the navigation act_, (which hath in truth never been our intention) and to avoid all future disputes about the right of making that and other acts for regulating our commerce, do hereby declare ourselves ready and willing to enter into a _covenant with Britain_, that she shall fully possess, enjoy, and exercise that right, for an hundred years to come, the same being _bonâ fide_ used for the common benefit; and in case of such agreement, that every assembly be advised by us, to confirm it solemnly, by laws of their own, which, once made, cannot be repealed without the assent of the crown. The last charge, _that we are dishonest traders, and aim at defrauding our creditors in Britain_, is sufficiently and authentically refuted by the solemn declarations of the British merchants to parliament, (both at the time of the stamp-act and in the last session) who bore ample testimony to the general good faith and fair dealing of the Americans, and declared their confidence in our integrity, for which we refer to their petitions on the journals of the house of commons. And we presume we may safely call on the body of the British tradesmen, who have had experience of both, to say, whether they have not received much more punctual payment from us than they generally have from the members of their own two houses of parliament. On the whole of the above it appears, that the charge of _ingratitude_ towards the mother country, brought with so much confidence against the colonies, is totally without foundation; and that there is much more reason for retorting that charge on Britain, who not only never contributes any aid, nor affords, by an exclusive commerce, any advantages to Saxony, _her_ mother country; but no longer since than in the last war, without the least provocation, subsidized the king of Prussia while he ravaged that _mother country_, and carried fire and sword into its capital, the fine city of Dresden. An example we hope no provocation will induce us to imitate. FOOTNOTES: [142] The following paper was drawn up in a committee of congress, June 25, 1775, but does not appear on their minutes, a severe act of parliament, which arrived about that time, having determined them not to give the sum proposed in it.--[It was first printed in the Public Advertiser for July 18, 1777. B. V.] [143] See the Commission in the Appendix to Pownall's Administration of the Colonies. Edit. 1775. [144] "Veneris, 10 March, 1642. Whereas the plantations in New England have, by the blessing of the Almighty, had good and prosperous success, _without any public charge to this state_, and are now likely to prove very happy for the propagation of the gospel in those parts, and very beneficial and commodious to this kingdom and nation: the commons, now assembled in parliament, &c. &c. &c." See Governor Hutchinson's History. B. V. [145] Georgia has since acceded, July, 1775. [146] Supposed to allude to certain passages in the Journals of the house of commons on the 4th of April, 1748, 28th January, 1756, 3d February, 1756, 16th and 19th of May, 1757, 1st of June, 1758, 26th and 30th of April, 1759, 26th and 31st of March, and 28th of April, 1760, 9th and 20th January, 1761, 22d and 26th January, 1762, and 14th and 17th March, 1763. B. V. [147] See Dr. Price's Appeal on the National Debt. B. V. _Reprobation of Mr. Strahan's parliamentary Conduct._[148] _Philadelphia, July 5, 1775._ MR. STRAHAN, You are a member of that parliament, and have formed part of that majority, which has condemned my native country to destruction. You have begun to burn our towns, and to destroy their inhabitants! Look at your hands!--they are stained with the blood of your relations and your acquaintances. You and I were long friends; you are at present my enemy, and I am yours. B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTE: [148] This letter appeared, shortly after the period of its date, in most of the public papers. We extract it from the Gentleman's Magazine. _Editor._ _Conciliation hopeless from the Conduct of Great Britain to America._ _Philadelphia, July 7, 1775._ DEAR FRIEND[149], * * * * * The congress met at a time when all minds were so exasperated by the perfidy of general Gage, and his attack on the country people, that propositions of attempting an accomodation were not much relished; and it has been with difficulty that we have carried another humble petition to the crown, to give Britain one more chance, one opportunity more of recovering the friendship of the colonies; which however I think she has not sense enough to embrace, and so I conclude she has lost them for ever. She has begun to burn our sea-port towns; secure, I suppose, that we shall never be able to return the outrage in kind. She may doubtless destroy them all; but if she wishes to recover our commerce, are these the probable means? She must certainly be distracted; for no tradesman out of Bedlam ever thought of encreasing the number of his customers by knocking them [on] the head; or of enabling them to pay their debts by burning their houses. If she wishes to have us subjects and that we should submit to her as our compound sovereign, she is now giving us such miserable specimens of her government, that we shall ever detest and avoid it, as a complication of robbery, murder, famine, fire and pestilence. You will have heard, before this reaches you, of the treacherous conduct * * * to the remaining people in Boston, in detaining their goods, after stipulating to let them go out with their effects, on pretence that merchants' goods were not effects; the defeat of a great body of his troops by the country people at Lexington; some other small advantages gained in skirmishes with their troops; and the action at Bunker's-hill, in which they were twice repulsed, and the third time gained a dear victory. Enough has happened, one would think, to convince your ministers, that the Americans will fight, and that this is a harder nut to crack than they imagined. We have not yet applied to any foreign power for assistance, nor offered our commerce for their friendship. Perhaps we never may: yet it is natural to think of it, if we are pressed. We have now an army on the establishment which still holds yours besieged. My time was never more fully employed. In the morning at six, I am at the committee of safety, appointed by the assembly to put the province in a state of defence; which committee holds till near nine, when I am at the congress, and that sits till after four in the afternoon. Both these bodies proceed with the greatest unanimity, and their meetings are well attended. It will scarce be credited in Britain, that men can be as diligent with us from zeal for the public good, as with you for thousands per annum. Such is the difference between uncorrupted new states, and corrupted old ones. Great frugality and great industry are now become fashionable here: gentlemen, who used to entertain with two or three courses, pride themselves now in treating with simple beef and pudding. By these means, and the stoppage of our consumptive trade with Britain, we shall be better able to pay our voluntary taxes for the support of our troops. Our savings in the article of trade amount to near five million sterling per annum. I shall communicate your letter to Mr. Winthrop, but the camp is at Cambridge, and he has as little leisure for philosophy as myself. * * * Believe me ever, with sincere esteem, my dear friend, Yours most affectionately. FOOTNOTE: [149] This and the two following letters were addressed to Dr. Priestley, as appears by a letter from that gentleman to the editor of the Monthly Magazine, which will be found in the appendix to the present volume. _Editor._ _Account of the first Campaign made by the British Forces in America[150]._ _Philadelphia, Oct. 3, 1775._ DEAR SIR, I am to set out to-morrow for the camp[151], and having but just heard of this opportunity, can only write a line to say that I am well and hearty.--Tell our dear good friend * * *, who sometimes has his doubts and despondencies about our firmness, that America is determined and unanimous; a very few tories and place-men excepted, who will probably soon export themselves.--Britain, at the expence of three millions, has killed one hundred and fifty Yankies this campaign, which is 20,000_l._ a head; and at Bunker's Hill she gained a mile of ground, half of which she lost again by our taking post on Ploughed Hill. During the same time sixty thousand children have been born in America. From these _data_ his mathematical head will easily calculate the time and expence necessary to kill us all, and conquer our whole territory. My sincere respects to * * * *, and to the club of honest whigs at * * * * *. Adieu. I am ever Yours most affectionately, B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTES: [150] This letter has been several times very incorrectly printed: it is here given from a genuine copy. B. V. [151] Dr. Franklin, col. Harrison, and Mr. Lynch, were at this time appointed by congress (of which they were members) to confer on certain subjects with gen. Washington. The American army was then employed in blocking up gen. Howe in Boston; and I believe it was during this visit, that gen. Washington communicated the following memorable anecdote to Dr. Franklin; _viz._ "that there had been a time, when this army had been so destitute of military stores, as not to have powder enough in all its magazines, to furnish more than _five_ rounds per man for their small arms." Great guns were out of the question; they were fired now and then, only to show that they had them. Yet this secret was kept with so much address and good countenance from both armies, that gen. Washington was enabled effectually to continue the blockade. B. V. _Probability of a Separation._ _Philadelphia, Oct. 3, 1775._ I wish as ardently as you can do for peace, and should rejoice exceedingly in co-operating with you to that end. But every ship from Britain brings some intelligence of new measures, that tend more and more to exasperate: and it seems to me, that until you have found by dear experience the reducing us by force impracticable, you will think of nothing fair and reasonable. We have as yet resolved only on defensive measures. If you would recal your forces and stay at home, we should meditate nothing to injure you. A little time so given for cooling on both sides would have excellent effects. But you will goad and provoke us. You despise us too much; and you are insensible of the Italian adage, that _there is no little enemy_. I am persuaded the body of the British people are our friends; but they are changeable, and by your lying gazettes may soon be made our enemies. Our respect for them will proportionally diminish; and I see clearly we are on the high road to mutual enmity, hatred, and detestation. A separation will of course be inevitable. It is a million of pities so fair a plan, as we have hitherto been engaged in for increasing strength and empire with _public felicity_, should be destroyed by the mangling hands of a few blundering ministers. It will not be destroyed: God will protect and prosper it: you will only exclude yourselves from any share in it. We hear, that more ships and troops are coming out. We know you may do us a great deal of mischief, but we are determined to bear it patiently as long as we can; but if you flatter yourselves with beating us into submission, you know neither the people nor the country. The congress is still sitting, and will wait the result of their _last_ petition. _Letter to Monsieur Dumas, urging him to sound the several Courts of Europe, by Means of their Ambassadors at the Hague, as to any Assistance they may be disposed to afford America in her Struggle for Independence[152]._ _Philadelphia, Dec. 9, 1775._ DEAR SIR, I received your several favours, of May 18, June 30, and July 8, by Messrs. Vaillant and Pochard; whom, if I could serve upon your recommendation, it would give me great pleasure. Their total want of English is at present an obstruction to their getting any employment among us; but I hope they will soon obtain some knowledge of it. This is a good country for artificers or farmers, but gentlemen of mere science in _les belles lettres_ cannot so easily subsist here, there being little demand for their assistance among an industrious people, who, as yet, have not much leisure for studies of that kind. I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of _Vattel_. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the law of nations. Accordingly that copy which I kept (after depositing one in our own public library here, and sending the other to the college of Massachusett's Bay, as you directed) has been continually in the hands of the members of our congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author. Your manuscript _Idée sur le government et la royauté_, is also well relished, and may, in time, have its effect. I thank you, likewise, for the other smaller pieces, which accompanied Vattel. _Le court exposé de ce qui s'est passé entre la cour Br. et les colonies, &c._ being a very concise and clear statement of facts, will be reprinted here for the use of our new friends in Canada. The translations of the proceedings of our congress are very acceptable. I send you herewith what of them has been farther published here, together with a few newspapers, containing accounts of some of the successes providence has favoured us with. We are threatened from England with a very powerful force, to come next year against us. We are making all the provision in our power here to oppose that force, and we hope we shall be able to defend ourselves. But, as the events of war are always uncertain, possibly, after another campaign, we may find it necessary to ask aid of some foreign power. It gives us great pleasure to learn from you, that _toute l'Europe nous souhaite le plus heureux succes pour le maintien de nos libertés_. But we wish to know, whether any one of them, from principles of humanity, is disposed magnanimously to step in for the relief of an oppressed people, or whether, if, as it seems likely to happen, we should be obliged to break off all connection with Britain, and declare ourselves an independent people, there is any state or power in Europe, who would be willing to enter into an alliance with us for the benefit of our commerce, which amounted, before the war, to near seven millions sterling per annum, and must continually increase, as our people increase most rapidly. Confiding, my dear friend, in your good will to us and our cause, and in your sagacity and abilities for business, the committee of congress, appointed for the purpose of establishing and conducting a correspondence with our friends in Europe, of which committee I have the honour to be a member, have directed me to request of you, that, as you are situated at the Hague, where ambassadors from all the courts reside, you would make use of the opportunity that situation affords you, of discovering, if possible, the disposition of the several courts with respect to such assistance or alliance, if we should apply for the one, or propose the other. As it may possibly be necessary, in particular instances, that you should, for this purpose, confer directly with some great ministers, and show them this letter as your credential, we only recommend it to your discretion, that you proceed therein with such caution, as to keep the same from the knowledge of the English ambassador, and prevent any public appearance, at present, of your being employed in any such business, as thereby, we imagine, many inconveniences may be avoided, and your means of rendering us service, increased. That you may be better able to answer some questions, which will probably be put to you, concerning our present situation, we inform you--that the whole continent is very firmly united--the party for the measures of the British ministry being very small, and much dispersed--that we have had on foot, the last campaign, an army of near twenty-five thousand men, wherewith we have been able, not only to block up the king's army in Boston, but to spare considerable detachments for the invasion of Canada, where we have met with great success, as the printed papers sent herewith will inform you, and have now reason to expect the whole province may be soon in our possession--that we purpose greatly to increase our force for the ensuing year; and thereby we hope, with the assistance of well-disciplined militia, to be able to defend our coast, notwithstanding its great extent--that we have already a small squadron of armed vessels, to protect our coasting trade, who have had some success in taking several of the enemy's cruisers, and some of their transport vessels and store-ships. This little naval force we are about to augment, and expect it may be more considerable in the next summer. We have hitherto applied to no foreign power. We are using the utmost industry in endeavouring to make salt-petre, and with daily increasing success. Our artificers are also every where busy in fabricating small arms, casting cannon, &c. yet both arms and ammunition are much wanted. Any merchants, who would venture to send ships, laden with those articles, might make great profit; such is the demand in every colony, and such generous prices are and will be given; of which, and of the manner of conducting such a voyage, the bearer, Mr. Storey, can more fully inform you: and whoever brings in those articles, is allowed to carry off the value in provisions, to our West Indies, where they will probably fetch a very high price, the general exportation from North America being stopped. This you will see more particularly in a printed resolution of the congress. We are in great want of good engineers, and wish you could engage, and send us two able ones, in time for the next campaign, one acquainted with field service, sieges, &c. and the other with fortifying of sea-ports. They will, if well recommended, be made very welcome, and have honourable appointments, besides the expences of their voyage hither, in which Mr. Storey can also advise them. As what we now request of you, besides taking up your time, may put you to some expense, we send you for the present, enclosed, a bill for one hundred pounds sterling, to defray such expences, and desire you to be assured that your services will be considered, and honourably rewarded by the congress. We desire, also, that you would take the trouble of receiving from Arthur Lee, esquire, agent for the congress in England, such letters as may be sent by him to your care, and of forwarding them to us with your dispatches. When you have occasion to write to him to inform him of any thing, which it may be of importance that our friends there should be acquainted with, please to send your letters to him, under cover, directed to Mr. Alderman Lee, merchant, on Tower-hill, London; and do not send it by post, but by some trusty shipper, or other prudent person, who will deliver it with his own hand. And when you send to us, if you have not a direct safe opportunity, we recommend sending by way of St. Eustatia, to the care of Messrs. Robert and Cornelius Stevenson, merchants there, who will forward your dispatches to me. With sincere and great esteem and respect, I am, sir, Your most obedient, humble servant, B. FRANKLIN. Mons. Dumas. FOOTNOTE: [152] This letter is taken from an American periodical publication entitled The Port Folio, in which it appeared July 31, 1802. _Editor._ _Letter from Lord Howe to Dr. Franklin[153]._ _Eagle, June the 20th, 1776._ I cannot, my worthy friend, permit the letters and parcels, which I have sent (in the state I received them) to be landed, without adding a word upon the subject of the injurious extremities in which our unhappy disputes have engaged us. You will learn the nature of my mission, from the official dispatches which I have recommended to be forwarded by the same conveyance. Retaining all the earnestness I ever expressed, to see our differences accommodated; I shall conceive, if I meet with the disposition in the colonies which I was once taught to expect, the most flattering hopes of proving serviceable in the objects of the king's paternal solicitude, by promoting the establishment of lasting peace and union with the colonies. But if the deep-rooted prejudices of America, and the necessity of preventing her trade from passing into foreign channels, must keep us still a divided people; I shall, from every private as well as public motive, most heartily lament, that this is not the moment wherein those great objects of my ambition are to be attained; and that I am to be longer deprived of an opportunity, to assure you personally of the regard with which I am Your sincere and faithful humble servant, HOWE. P. S. I was disappointed of the opportunity I expected for sending this letter, at the time it was dated; and have ever since been prevented by calms and contrary winds from getting here, to inform general Howe of the commission with which I have the satisfaction to be charged, and of his being joined in it. _Off of Sandy Hook, 12th of July._ Superscribed, HOWE. _To Benjamin Franklin, Esq. Philadelphia._ FOOTNOTE: [153] In the year 1776 an act of parliament passed, to prohibit and restrain, on the one hand, the trade and intercourse of the refractory colonies respectively during the revolt; and on the other hand, to enable persons appointed by the crown to grant _pardons_ and declare any particular district at the _king's peace, &c._ Lord Howe (who had been previously appointed commander of the fleet in North America) was, on May 3, declared joint _commissioner_ with his brother gen. Howe, for the latter purposes of the act. He sailed May 12; and while off the Massachusett's coast prepared a declaration announcing this commission, and accompanied it with circular letters. July 4, independence had been declared; but nevertheless congress (invited by various attempts made to procure a conference) resolved to send Messieurs Franklin, J. Adams, and E. Rutledge, to learn the propositions of the commissioners, by whom authorized, and to whom addressed. The commissioners having no power to treat with congress in its public capacity, and congress not being impowered by their representatives to rescind the act of independence, the conference was broken off. It remains only to add, that, on Sept. 19, the commissioners declared themselves ready to confer with any of the well-affected, on the means of restoring peace and permanent union with every colony as part of the British empire; and promised a _revision_ of the several royal _instructions_ supposed to lay improper restraints on colony-legislation, and also the king's _concurrence_ in a revision of the objectionable acts of parliament: which seemed the ultimatum of the commission.--Parliament however, by a subsequent act (which, among other things, formally renounced taxation in North America and the West Indies) authorized five commissioners to treat, settle, and agree, even with congress; but subject to the farther confirmation of parliament. Lord Carlisle, and Messieurs Johnson and Eden, with the commanders in chief of the land and sea forces, were the commissioners appointed by the crown under this act; and Dr. Adam Ferguson was made secretary to the commission. Mr. Henry Strachey had been secretary to the _first_ commission, attended with the following singular circumstance, as stated in the house of lords. In this commission for restoring peace to America, "(or _in other words_ to induce America at once to put a confidence in the crown, and to believe that the parliament of England is a sufficiently powerful and honest barrier for them to trust to) the secretary (Mr. Strachey) had 500_l._ granted for life out of the _four and a half_ per cent. duty, filched by the crown from the West-India Islands, and in opposition to a solemn address of parliament desiring that it might be applied to the original purposes for which it was granted by the respective assemblies of the islands."--What these original purposes of the grants were, I meant very briefly to have stated: but have not been able to procure the proper documents in time. B. V. _Dr. Franklin's Answer to Lord Howe._ _Philadelphia, July 30, 1776._ MY LORD, I received safe the letters your lordship so kindly forwarded to me, and beg you to accept _my_ thanks. The official dispatches to which you refer me, contain nothing more than what we had seen in the act of parliament, viz. "Offers of pardon upon submission;" which I was sorry to find; as it must give your lordship pain to be sent so far on so hopeless a business. Directing pardons to be offered to the colonies, who are the very parties injured, expresses indeed that opinion of our ignorance, baseness, and insensibility, which your uninformed and proud nation has long been pleased to entertain of us; but it can have no other effect than that of encreasing our resentments.----It is impossible we should think of submission to a government, that has, with the most wanton barbarity and cruelty, burned our defenceless towns in the midst of winter; excited the savages to massacre our (peaceful) farmers; and our slaves to murder their masters; and is even now[154] bringing foreign mercenaries to deluge our settlements with blood. These atrocious injuries have extinguished every spark of affection for that parent country we once held so dear: but were it possible for _us_ to forget and forgive them, it is not possible for _you_ (I mean the British nation) to forgive the people you have so heavily injured; you can never confide again in those as fellow-subjects, and permit them to enjoy equal freedom, to whom you know you have given such just causes of lasting enmity; and this must impel you, were we again under your government, to endeavour the breaking our spirit by the severest tyranny, and obstructing by every means in your power our growing strength and prosperity. But your lordship mentions "the king's paternal solicitude for promoting the establishment of lasting peace and union with the colonies." If by _peace_ is here meant, a peace to be entered into by distinct states, now at war; and his majesty has given your lordship powers to treat with us of such a peace, I may venture to say, though without authority, that I think a treaty for that purpose not quite impracticable, before we enter into foreign alliances. But I am persuaded you have no such powers. Your nation, though, by punishing those American governors who have fomented the discord, rebuilding our burnt towns, and repairing as far as possible the mischiefs done us, she might recover a great share of our regard; and the greatest share of our growing commerce, with all the advantages of that additional strength, to be derived from a friendship with us; yet I know too well her abounding pride and deficient wisdom, to believe she will ever take such salutary measures. Her fondness for conquest as a warlike nation; her lust of dominion as an ambitious one; and her thirst for a gainful monopoly as a commercial one (none of them legitimate causes of war) will join to hide from her eyes every view of her true interest, and continually goad her on in these ruinous distant expeditions, so destructive both of lives and of treasure, that they must prove as pernicious to her in the end, as the Croisades formerly were to most of the nations of Europe. I have not the vanity, my lord, to think of intimidating, by thus predicting the effects of this war; for I know it will in England have the fate of all my former predictions; not to be believed till the event shall verify it. Long did I endeavour, with unfeigned and unwearied zeal, to preserve from breaking that fine and noble porcelaine vase----the British empire; for I knew that being once broken, the separate parts could not retain even their _share_ of the strength and value that existed in the whole; and that a perfect _re-union_ of those parts could scarce ever be hoped for. Your lordship may possibly remember the tears of joy that wetted my cheek, when, at your good sister's in London, you once gave me expectations, that a reconciliation might soon take place. I had the misfortune to find these expectations disappointed, and to be treated as the cause of the mischief I was labouring to prevent. My consolation under that groundless and malevolent treatment was, that I retained the friendship of many wise and good men in that country; and among the rest, some share in the regard of lord Howe. The well-founded esteem, and permit me to say affection, which I shall always have for your lordship, make it painful to me to see you engaged in conducting a war, the great ground of which (as described in your letter) is "the necessity of preventing the American _trade_ from passing into foreign channels." To me it seems, that neither the obtaining or retaining any trade, how valuable soever, is an object for which men may justly spill each other's blood; that the true and sure means of extending and securing commerce are the goodness and cheapness of commodities; and that the profits of no trade can ever be equal to the expence of compelling it, and holding it by fleets and armies. I consider this war against us, therefore, as both unjust and unwise; and I am persuaded, that cool and dispassionate posterity will condemn to infamy those who advised it; and that even success will not save from some degree of dishonour, those who have voluntarily engaged to conduct it. I know your great motive in coming hither, was the hope of being instrumental in a reconciliation; and I believe, when you find that to be impossible, on any terms given you to propose, you will then relinquish so odious a command, and return to a more honourable private station. With the greatest and most sincere respect, I have the honour to be, My lord, Your lordship's most obedient, humble servant, B. FRANKLIN[155]. FOOTNOTES: [154] About this time the Hessians, &c. had just arrived from Europe, at Staten Island and New York. B. V. [155] It occurs to me to mention that Dr. Franklin was supposed to have been the inventor of a little _emblematical design_ at the commencement of our disputes, representing the state of Great Britain and her colonies, should the former persist in restraining the latter's trade, destroying their currency, and taxing their people by laws made by a legislature in which they were not represented.--Great Britain was supposed to have been placed upon the globe: but the colonies, her limbs, being severed from her, she was seen lifting her eyes and mangled stumps to heaven; her shield, which she was unable to wield, lay useless by her side; her lance had pierced New England; the laurel branch was fallen from the hand of Pensylvania; the English oak had lost its head, and stood a bare trunk with a few withered branches; briars and thorns were on the ground beneath it; our ships had brooms at their topmast heads, denoting their being upon sale; and Britannia herself was seen sliding off the world, no longer able to hold its balance; her fragments overspread with the label _date obolum Belisario_.--This in short, was the fable of the belly and the members reversed. But I tell the story chiefly for the sake of the _moral_, which has the air of having been suggested by Dr. Franklin[156]; and is as follows.--"The political moral of this picture is now easily discovered. History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of its people. The ordaining of laws in favour of _one_ part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of _another_, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An _equal_ dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is intitled to, and ought to enjoy; it being a matter of no moment to the state, whether a subject grows rich and flourishing on the Thames or the Ohio, in Edinburgh or Dublin. These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favoured and the people oppressed: from whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manners of connections, necessarily ensues; by which the whole state is weakened and perhaps ruined for ever." This language is part of the same system with the following fragment of a sentence, which Dr. Franklin inserted in a political publication of one of his friends. "The attempts to establish _arbitrary power_ over so great a part of the British empire, [are] to the imminent hazard of our most valuable commerce, and of that national strength, security, and felicity, which depend on _union_ and _liberty_;"--The preservation of which, I am told, he used to say, had been the great object and labour of his life; the whole being such a thing _as the world before never saw_. B. V. [156] This design was printed on a _card_, and Dr. Franklin at the time I believe occasionally used to write his notes on such cards. It was also printed on a _half sheet of paper_, with an explanation by some other person, and the moral given above. The drawing was but moderately executed. _Comparison of Great Britain and America as to Credit, in 1777[157]._ In borrowing money a man's credit depends on some or all of the following particulars. First, His known conduct respecting former loans, and his punctuality in discharging them. Secondly, His industry. Thirdly, His frugality. Fourthly, The amount and the certainty of his income, and the freedom of his estate from the incumbrances of prior debts. Fifthly, His well founded prospects of greater future ability, by the improvement of his estate in value, and by aids from others. Sixthly, His known prudence in managing his general affairs, and the advantage they will probably receive from the loan which he desires. Seventhly, His known probity and honest character, manifested by his voluntary discharge of debts, which he could not have been legally compelled to pay. The circumstances which give credit to an _individual_ ought to have, and will have, their weight upon the lenders of money to _public bodies_ or nations. If then we consider and compare Britain and America, in these several particulars, upon the question, "To which is it safest to lend money?" We shall find, 1. Respecting _former loans_, that America, which borrowed ten millions during the last war for the maintenance of her army of 25,000 men and other charges, had faithfully discharged and paid that debt, and all her other debts, in 1772. Whereas Britain, during those ten years of peace and profitable commerce, had made little or no reduction of her debt; but on the contrary, from time to time, diminished the hopes of her creditors, by a wanton diversion and misapplication of the sinking fund destined for discharging it. 2. Respecting _industry_; every man [in America] is employed, the greater part in cultivating their own lands, the rest in handicrafts, navigation, and commerce. An idle man there is a rarity, idleness and inutility are disgraceful. In England, the number of that character is immense, fashion has spread it far and wide; hence the embarrassments of private fortunes, and the daily bankruptcies arising from an universal fondness for appearance and expensive pleasures; and hence, in some degree, the mismanagement of public business; for habits of business, and ability in it, are acquired only by practice; and where universal dissipation, and the perpetual pursuit of amusement are the mode, the youth, educated in it, can rarely afterwards acquire that patient attention and close application to affairs, which are so necessary to a statesman charged with the care of national welfare. _Hence_ their frequent errors in policy, and hence the weariness at public councils, and backwardness in going to them, the constant unwillingness to engage in any measure that requires thought and consideration, and the readiness for postponing every new proposition; which postponing is therefore the only part of business that they come to be expert in, an expertness produced necessarily by so much daily practice. Whereas in America, men bred to close employment in their private affairs, attend with ease to those of the public, when engaged in them, and nothing fails through negligence. 3. Respecting _frugality_; the manner of living in America is more simple and less expensive than that in England: plain tables, plain clothing, and plain furniture in houses prevail, with few carriages of pleasure; there, an expensive appearance hurts credit, and is avoided: in England, it is often assumed to gain credit, and continued to ruin. Respecting _public_ affairs, the difference is still greater. In England, the salaries of officers, and emoluments of office are enormous. The king has a million sterling per annum, and yet cannot maintain his family free of debt: secretaries of state, lords of treasury, admiralty, &c. have vast appointments: an auditor of the exchequer has sixpence in the pound, or a fortieth part of all the public money expended by the nation; so that when a war costs forty millions one million is paid to him: an inspector of the mint, in the last new coinage, received as his fee 65,000_l._ sterling per annum; to all which rewards no service these gentlemen can render the public is by any means equivalent. All this is paid by the people, who are oppressed by taxes so occasioned, and thereby rendered less able to contribute to the payment of necessary national debts. In America, salaries, where indispensible, are extremely low; but much of the public business is done gratis. The honour of serving the public ably and faithfully is deemed sufficient. _Public spirit_ really exists there, and has great effects. In England it is universally deemed a non-entity, and whoever pretends to it is laughed at as a fool, or suspected as a knave. The committees of congress which form the board of war, the board of treasury, the board of foreign affairs, the naval board, that for accounts, &c. all attend the business of their respective functions, without any salary or emolument whatever, though they spend in it much more of their time than any lord of treasury or admiralty in England can spare from his amusements. A British minister lately computed, that the whole expence of the Americans, in their _civil_ government over three millions of people amounted to but 70,000_l._ sterling, and drew from thence a conclusion, that they ought to be taxed, until their expence was equal in proportion to that which it costs Britain to govern eight millions. He had no idea of a contrary conclusion, that if three millions may be well governed for 70,000_l._ eight millions may be as well governed for three times that sum, and that therefore the expence of his own government should be diminished. In that corrupted nation no man is ashamed of being concerned in lucrative _government jobs_, in which the public money is egregiously misapplied and squandered, the treasury pillaged, and more numerous and heavy taxes accumulated, to the great oppression of the people. But the prospect of a greater number of such jobs by a war is an inducement with many, to cry out for war upon all occasions, and to oppose every proposition of peace. Hence the constant increase of the national debt, and the absolute improbability of its ever being discharged. 4. Respecting the _amount and certainty of income, and solidity of security_; the _whole_ thirteen states of America are engaged for the payment of every debt contracted by the congress, and the debt to be contracted by the present war is the _only_ debt they will have to pay; all, or nearly all, the former debts of particular colonies being already discharged. Whereas England will have to pay not only the enormous debt this war must occasion, but all their vast preceding debt, or the interest of it,--and while America is enriching itself by prizes made upon the British commerce, more than it ever did by any commerce of its own, under the restraints of a British monopoly; Britain is growing poorer by the loss of that monopoly, and the diminution of its revenues, and of course less able to discharge the present indiscreet increase of its expences. 5. Respecting prospects of greater future ability, Britain has none such. Her islands are circumscribed by the ocean; and excepting a few parks or forests, she has no new land to cultivate, and cannot therefore extend her improvements. Her numbers too, instead of increasing from increased subsistence, are continually diminishing from growing luxury, and the increasing difficulties of maintaining families, which of course discourage early marriages. Thus she will have fewer people to assist in paying her debts, and that diminished number will be poorer. America, on the contrary, has, besides her lands already cultivated, a vast territory yet to be cultivated; which, being cultivated, continually increases in value with the increase of people; and the people, who double themselves by a _natural propagation_ every twenty-five years, will double yet faster, by the accession of _strangers_, as long as lands are to be had for new families; so that every twenty years there will be a double number of inhabitants obliged to discharge the public debts; and those inhabitants, being more opulent, may pay their shares with greater ease. 6. Respecting _prudence_ in general affairs, and the advantages to be expected from the loan desired; the Americans are cultivators of land; those engaged in fishery and commerce are few, compared with the others. They have ever conducted their several governments with wisdom, avoiding wars, and vain expensive projects, delighting only in their peaceable occupations, which must, considering the extent of their uncultivated territory, find them employment still for ages. Whereas England, ever unquiet, ambitious, avaricious, imprudent, and quarrelsome, is half of the time engaged in war, always at an expence infinitely greater than the advantage to be obtained by it, if successful. Thus they made war against Spain in 1739, for a claim of about 95,000_l._ (scarce a groat for each individual of the nation) and spent forty millions sterling in the war, and the lives of fifty thousand men; and finally made peace without obtaining satisfaction for the sum claimed. Indeed, there is scarce a nation in Europe, against which she has not made war on some frivolous pretext or other, and thereby imprudently accumulated a debt, that has brought her on the verge of bankruptcy. But the most indiscreet of all her wars, is the present against America, with whom she might, for ages, have preserved her profitable connection only by a just and equitable conduct. She is now acting like a mad shop-keeper, who, by beating those that pass his doors, attempts to make them come in and be his customers. America cannot submit to such treatment, without being first ruined, and, being ruined, her custom will be worth nothing. England, to effect this, is increasing her debt, and irretrievably ruining herself. America, on the other hand, aims only to establish her liberty, and that freedom of commerce which will be advantageous to all Europe; and by abolishing that monopoly which she laboured under, she will profit infinitely more than enough to repay any debt, which she may contract to accomplish it. 7. Respecting _character in the honest payment of debts_; the punctuality with which America has discharged her public debts was shown under the first head. And the general good disposition of the people to such punctuality has been manifested in their faithful payment of _private_ debts to England, since the commencement of this war. There were not wanting some politicians [in America] who proposed _stopping that payment_, until peace should be restored, alleging, that in the usual course of commerce, and of the credit given, there was always a debt existing equal to the trade of eighteen months: that the trade amounting to five millions sterling per annum, the debt must be seven millions and an half; that this sum paid to the British merchants would operate to prevent that distress, intended to be brought upon Britain, by our stoppage of commerce with her; for the merchants, receiving this money, and no orders with it for farther supplies, would either lay it out in the public funds, or in employing manufacturers to accumulate goods for a future hungry market in America upon an expected accommodation, by which means the funds would be kept up and the manufacturers prevented from murmuring. But _against this it was alleged_, that injuries from ministers should not be revenged on merchants; that the credit was in consequence of private contracts, made in confidence of good faith; that these ought to be held sacred and faithfully complied with; for that, whatever public utility might be supposed to arise from a breach of private faith, it was unjust, and would in the end be found unwise--honesty being in truth the best policy. On this principle the proposition was universally rejected; and though the English prosecuted the war with unexampled barbarity, burning our defenceless towns in the midst of winter, and arming savages against us; the debt was punctually paid; and the merchants of London have testified to the parliament, and will testify to all the world, that from their experience in dealing with us they had, before the war, no apprehension of our unfairness; and that since the war they have been convinced, that their good opinion of us was well founded. England, on the contrary, an old, corrupt, extravagant, and profligate nation, sees herself deep in debt, which she is in no condition to pay; and yet is madly, and dishonestly running deeper, without any possibility of discharging her debt, but by a public bankruptcy. It appears, therefore, from the general industry, frugality, ability, prudence, and virtue of America, that she is a much safer debtor than Britain;--to say nothing of the satisfaction generous minds must have in reflecting, that by loans to America they are opposing tyranny, and aiding the cause of liberty, which is the cause of all mankind. FOOTNOTE: [157] This paper was written, translated, printed, and circulated, while Dr. Franklin was at the court of Paris, for the purpose of inducing foreigners to lend money to America in preference to Great Britain. PAPERS, DESCRIPTIVE OF AMERICA, OR RELATING TO THAT COUNTRY, WRITTEN _SUBSEQUENT TO THE REVOLUTION_. PAPERS, DESCRIPTIVE OF AMERICA, OR RELATING TO THAT COUNTRY, WRITTEN _SUBSEQUENT TO THE REVOLUTION_. _Remarks concerning the Savages of North-America[158]._ Savages we call them, because their manners differ from ours, which we think the perfection of civility; they think the same of theirs. Perhaps, if we could examine the manners of different nations with impartiality, we should find no people so rude, as to be without any rules of politeness; nor any so polite, as not to have some remains of rudeness. The Indian men, when young, are hunters and warriors; when old, counsellors; for all their government is by the council or advice of the sages; there is no force, there are no prisons, no officers to compel obedience, or inflict punishment. Hence they generally study oratory, the best speaker having the most influence. The Indian women till the ground, dress the food, nurse and bring up the children, and preserve and hand down to posterity the memory of public transactions. These employments of men and women are accounted natural and honourable. Having few artificial wants, they have abundance of leisure for improvement by conversation. Our laborious manner of life, compared with theirs, they esteem slavish and base; and the learning on which we value ourselves, they regard as frivolous and useless. An instance of this occurred at the treaty of Lancaster, in Pensylvania, anno 1744, between the government of Virginia and the six nations. After the principal business was settled, the commissioners from Virginia acquainted the Indians by a speech, that there was at Williamsburg a college, with a fund, for educating Indian youth; and that if the chiefs of the Six Nations would send down half a dozen of their sons to that college, the government would take care that they should be well provided for, and instructed in all the learning of the white people. It is one of the Indian rules of politeness, not to answer a public proposition the same day that it is made; they think it would be treating it as a light matter, and that they show it respect by taking time to consider it, as of a matter important. They therefore deferred their answer till the day following; when their speaker began, by expressing their deep sense of the kindness of the Virginia government, in making them that offer; "for we know," says he, "that you highly esteem the kind of learning taught in those colleges, and that the maintenance of our young men, while with you, would be very expensive to you. We are convinced therefore, that you mean to do us good by your proposal; and we thank you heartily. But you, who are wise, must know, that different nations have different conceptions of things; and you will therefore not take it amiss, if our ideas of this kind of education happen not to be the same with yours. We have had some experience of it: several of our young people were formerly brought up at the colleges of the northern provinces; they were instructed in all your sciences; but when they came back to us, they were bad runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods, unable to bear either cold or hunger, knew neither how to build a cabin, take a deer, or kill an enemy, spoke our language imperfectly, were therefore neither fit for hunters, warriors, or counsellors; they were totally good for nothing. We are however not the less obliged by your kind offer, though we decline accepting it: and to show our grateful sense of it, if the gentlemen of Virginia will send us a dozen of their sons, we will take great care of their education, instruct them in all we know, and make _men_ of them." Having frequent occasions to hold public councils, they have acquired great order and decency in conducting them. The old men sit in the foremost ranks, the warriors in the next, and the women and children in the hindmost. The business of the women is to take exact notice of what passes, imprint it in their memories, for they have no writing, and communicate it to their children. They are the records of the council, and they preserve tradition of the stipulations in treaties a hundred years back; which, when we compare with our writings, we always find exact. He that would speak, rises. The rest observe a profound silence. When he has finished and sits down, they leave him five or six minutes to recollect, that, if he has omitted any thing he intended to say, or has any thing to add, he may rise again and deliver it. To interrupt another, even in common conversation, is reckoned highly indecent. How different this is from the conduct of a polite British house of commons, where scarce a day passes without some confusion, that makes the speaker hoarse in calling _to order_; and how different from the mode of conversation in many polite companies of Europe, where, if you do not deliver your sentence with great rapidity, you are cut off in the middle of it by the impatient loquacity of those you converse with, and never suffered to finish it! The politeness of these savages in conversation is indeed carried to excess, since it does not permit them to contradict or deny the truth of what is asserted in their presence. By this means they indeed avoid disputes; but then it becomes difficult to know their minds, or what impression you make upon them. The missionaries who have attempted to convert them to christianity, all complain of this as one of the great difficulties of their mission. The Indians hear with patience the truths of the gospel explained to them, and give their usual tokens of assent and approbation: you would think they were convinced. No such matter. It is mere civility. A Swedish minister, having assembled the chiefs of the Sasquehannah Indians, made a sermon to them, acquainting them with the principal historical facts on which our religion is founded; such as the fall of our first parents by eating an apple, the coming of Christ to repair the mischief, his miracles and suffering, &c.--When he had finished, an Indian orator stood up to thank him. "What you have told us," says he, "is all very good. It is indeed bad to eat apples. It is better to make them all into cyder. We are much obliged by your kindness in coming so far, to tell us those things which you have heard from your mothers. In return, I will tell you some of those we have heard from ours. "In the beginning, our fathers had only the flesh of animals to subsist on, and if their hunting was unsuccessful, they were starving. Two of our young hunters having killed a deer, made a fire in the woods to broil some parts of it. When they were about to satisfy their hunger, they beheld a beautiful young woman descend from the clouds, and seat herself on that hill which you see yonder among the Blue Mountains. They said to each other, it is a spirit that perhaps has smelt our broiling venison, and wishes to eat of it: let us offer some to her. They presented her with the tongue: she was pleased with the taste of it, and said, Your kindness shall be rewarded. Come to this place after thirteen moons, and you shall find something that will be of great benefit in nourishing you and your children to the latest generations. They did so, and to their surprise, found plants they had never seen before; but which, from that ancient time, have been constantly cultivated among us, to our great advantage. Where her right hand had touched the ground, they found maize; where her left hand had touched it, they found kidney-beans; and where her backside had sat on it, they found tobacco." The good missionary, disgusted with this idle tale, said, "What I delivered to you were sacred truths, but what you tell me is mere fable, fiction, and falsehood." The Indian, offended, replied, "My brother, it seems your friends have not done you justice in your education; they have not well instructed you in the rules of common civility. You saw that we, who understand and practice those rules, believed all your stories, why do you refuse to believe ours?" When any of them come into our towns, our people are apt to crowd round them, gaze upon them, and incommode them where they desire to be private; this they esteem great rudeness, and the effect of the want of instruction in the rules of civility and good manners. "We have," say they, "as much curiosity as you, and when you come into our towns, we wish for opportunities of looking at you; but for this purpose we hide ourselves behind bushes, where you are to pass, and never intrude ourselves into your company." Their manner of entering one another's villages has likewise its rules. It is reckoned uncivil in travelling strangers, to enter a village abruptly, without giving notice of their approach. Therefore, as soon as they arrive within hearing, they stop and hollow, remaining there till invited to enter. Two old men usually come out to them, and lead them in. There is in every village a vacant dwelling, called the strangers' house. Here they are placed, while the old men go round from hut to hut, acquainting the inhabitants, that strangers are arrived, who are probably hungry and weary; and every one sends them what he can spare of victuals, and skins to repose on. When the strangers are refreshed, pipes and tobacco are brought; and then, but not before, conversation begins, with enquiries who they are, whither bound, what news, &c. and it usually ends with offers of service, if the strangers have occasion for guides, or any necessaries for continuing their journey; and nothing is exacted for the entertainment. The same hospitality, esteemed among them as a principal virtue, is practised by private persons; of which _Conrad Weiser_, our interpreter, gave me the following instance. He had been naturalized among the Six Nations, and spoke well the Mohuck language. In going through the Indian country, to carry a message from our governor to the council at Onondaga, he called at the habitation of Canassetego, an old acquaintance, who embraced him, spread furs for him to sit on, and placed before him some boiled beans and venison, and mixed some rum and water for his drink. When he was well refreshed, and had lit his pipe, Canassetego began to converse with him: asked how he had fared the many years since they had seen each other, whence he then came, what occasioned the journey, &c. Conrad answered all his questions; and when the discourse began to flag, the Indian, to continue it, said, "Conrad, you have lived long among the white people, and know something of their customs; I have been sometimes at Albany, and have observed, that once in seven days they shut up their shops, and assemble all in the great house; tell me what it is for? What do they do there?" "They meet there," says Conrad, "to hear and learn _good things_." "I do not doubt," says the Indian, "that they tell you so; they have told me the same: but I doubt the truth of what they say, and I will tell you my reasons. I went lately to Albany to sell my skins and buy blankets, knives, powder, rum, &c. You know I used generally to deal with Hans Hanson; but I was a little inclined this time to try some other merchants. However, I called first upon Hans, and asked him what he would give for beaver. He said he could not give more than four shillings a pound: but, says he, I cannot talk on business now; this is the day when we meet together to learn _good things_, and I am going to the meeting. So I thought to myself, since I cannot do any business to-day, I may as well go to the meeting too, and I went with him. There stood up a man in black, and began to talk to the people very angrily. I did not understand what he said; but perceiving that he looked much at me, and at Hanson, I imagined he was angry at seeing me there; so I went out, sat down near the house, struck fire, and lit my pipe, waiting till the meeting should break up. I thought too, that the man had mentioned something of beaver, and I suspected it might be the subject of their meeting. So when they came out I accosted my merchant. Well, Hans, says I, I hope you have agreed to give more than four shillings a pound? No, says he, I cannot give so much, I cannot give more than three shillings and sixpence. I then spoke to several other dealers, but they all sung the same song, three and sixpence, three and sixpence. This made it clear to me that my suspicion was right; and that whatever they pretended of meeting to learn _good things_, the real purpose was to consult how to cheat Indians in the price of beaver. Consider but a little, Conrad, and you must be of my opinion. If they met so often to learn _good things_, they would certainly have learned some before this time. But they are still ignorant. You know our practice. If a white man, in travelling through our country, enters one of our cabins, we all treat him as I do you; we dry him if he is wet, we warm him if he is cold, and give him meat and drink, that he may allay his thirst and hunger; and we spread soft furs for him to rest and sleep on: we demand nothing in return[159]. But if I go into a white man's house at Albany, and ask for victuals and drink, they say, Where is your money? and if I have none, they say, Get out you Indian dog. You see they have not yet learned those little _good things_, that we need no meetings to be instructed in, because our mothers taught them to us when we were children; and therefore it is impossible their meetings should be, as they say, for any such purpose, or have any such effect; they are only to contrive _the cheating of Indians in the price of beaver_." FOOTNOTES: [158] This paper and the two next in order were published in separate pamphlets in this country, in the year 1784, and afterwards, in 1787, formed part of a small collection of our author's papers, printed for Dilly. It is from this collection we extract them. _Editor._ [159] It is remarkable, that in all ages and countries, hospitality has been allowed as the virtue of those, whom the civilized were pleased to call Barbarians. The Greeks celebrated the Scythians for it, the Saracens possessed it eminently; and it is to this day the reigning virtue of the wild Arabs. St. Paul too, in the relation of his voyage and shipwreck, on the island of Melita, says, "The barbarous people shewed us no little kindness; for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold." _The internal State of America; being a true Description of the Interest and Policy of that vast Continent._ There is a tradition, that, in the planting of New-England, the first settlers met with many difficulties and hardships; as is generally the case when a civilized people attempt establishing themselves in a wilderness country. Being piously disposed, they sought relief from Heaven, by laying their wants and distresses before the Lord, in frequent set days of fasting and prayer. Constant meditation and discourse on these subjects kept their minds gloomy and discontented; and, like the children of Israel, there were many disposed to return to that Egypt, which persecution had induced them to abandon. At length, when it was proposed in the assembly to proclaim another fast, a farmer of plain sense rose, and remarked, that the inconveniences they suffered, and concerning which they had so often wearied heaven with their complaints, were not so great as they might have expected, and were diminishing every day as the colony strengthened; that the earth began to reward their labour, and to furnish liberally for their subsistence; that the seas and rivers were found full of fish, the air sweet, the climate healthy; and, above all, that they were there in the full enjoyment of liberty, civil and religious: he therefore thought, that reflecting and conversing on these subjects would be more comfortable, as tending more to make them contented with their situation; and that it would be more becoming the gratitude they owed to the Divine Being, if, instead of a fast, they should proclaim a thanksgiving. His advice was taken; and from that day to this they have, in every year, observed circumstances of public felicity sufficient to furnish employment for a thanksgiving day; which is therefore constantly ordered and religiously observed. I see in the public newspapers of different states frequent complaints of _hard times, deadness of trade, scarcity of money, &c. &c._ It is not my intention to assert or maintain, that these complaints are entirely without foundation. There can be no country or nation existing, in which there will not be some people so circumstanced, as to find it hard to gain a livelihood; people who are not in the way of any profitable trade, and with whom money is scarce, because they have nothing to give in exchange for it; and it is always in the power of a small number to make a great clamour. But let us take a cool view of the general state of our affairs, and perhaps the prospect will appear less gloomy than has been imagined. The great business of the continent is agriculture. For one artisan, or merchant, I suppose, we have at least one hundred farmers, by far the greatest part cultivators of their own fertile lands, from whence many of them draw not only food necessary for their subsistence, but the materials of their clothing, so as to need very few foreign supplies; while they have a surplus of productions to dispose of, whereby wealth is gradually accumulated. Such has been the goodness of Divine Providence to these regions, and so favourable the climate, that, since the three or four years of hardship in the first settlement of our fathers here, a famine or scarcity has never been heard of amongst us; on the contrary, though some years may have been more, and others less plentiful, there has always been provision enough for ourselves, and a quantity to spare for exportation. And although the crops of last year were generally good, never was the farmer better paid for the part he can spare commerce, as the published price currents abundantly testify. The lands he possesses are also continually rising in value with the increase of population; and, on the whole, he is enabled to give such good wages to those who work for him, that all who are acquainted with the old world must agree, that in no part of it are the labouring poor so generally well fed, well clothed, well lodged, and well paid, as in the United States of America. If we enter the cities, we find, that, since the revolution, the owners of houses and lots of ground have had their interest vastly augmented in value; rents have risen to an astonishing height, and thence encouragement to increase building, which gives employment to an abundance of workmen, as does also the increased luxury and splendour of living of the inhabitants, thus made richer. These workmen all demand and obtain much higher wages than any other part of the world would afford them, and are paid in ready money. This rank of people therefore do not, or ought not, to complain of hard times; and they make a very considerable part of the city inhabitants. At the distance I live from our American fisheries, I cannot speak of them with any degree of certainty; but I have not heard, that the labour of the valuable race of men employed in them is worse paid, or that they meet with less success, than before the revolution. The whale-men indeed have been deprived of one market for their oil; but another, I hear, is opening for them, which it is hoped may be equally advantageous; and the demand is constantly increasing for their spermaceti candles, which therefore bear a much higher price than formerly. There remain the merchants and shopkeepers. Of these, though they make but a small part of the whole nation, the number is considerable, too great indeed for the business they are employed in; for the consumption of goods in every country has its limits; the faculties of the people, that is, their ability to buy and pay, being equal only to a certain quantity of merchandize. If merchants calculate amiss on this proportion, and import too much, they will of course find the sale dull for the overplus, and some of them will say, that trade languishes. They should, and doubtless will, grow wiser by experience, and import less. If too many artificers in town, and farmers from the country, flattering themselves with the idea of leading easier lives, turn shopkeepers, the whole natural quantity of that business divided among them all may afford too small a share for each, and occasion complaints, that trading is dead; these may also suppose, that it is owing to scarcity of money, while, in fact, it is not so much from the fewness of buyers, as from the excessive number of sellers, that the mischief arises; and, if every shopkeeping farmer and mechanic would return to the use of his plough and working tools, there would remain of widows, and other women, shopkeepers sufficient for the business, which might then afford them a comfortable maintenance. Whoever has travelled through the various parts of Europe, and observed how small is the proportion of people in affluence or easy circumstances there, compared with those in poverty and misery; the few rich and haughty landlords, the multitude of poor, abject, rack-rented, tythe-paying tenants, and half-paid and half-starved ragged labourers; and views here the happy mediocrity, that so generally prevails throughout these states, where the cultivator works for himself, and supports his family in decent plenty, will, methinks, see abundant reason to bless Divine Providence for the evident and great difference in our favour, and be convinced, that no nation known to us enjoys a greater share of human felicity. It is true, that in some of the states there are parties and discords; but let us look back, and ask if we were ever without them? Such will exist wherever there is liberty; and perhaps they help to preserve it. By the collision of different sentiments, sparks of truth are struck out, and political light is obtained. The different factions, which at present divide us, aim all at the public good: the differences are only about the various modes of promoting it. Things, actions, measures, and objects of all kinds, present themselves to the minds of men in such a variety of lights, that it is not possible we should all think alike at the same time on every subject, when hardly the same man retains at all times the same ideas of it. Parties are therefore the common lot of humanity; and ours are by no means more mischievous or less beneficial than those of other countries, nations, and ages, enjoying in the same degree the great blessing of political liberty. Some indeed among us are not so much grieved for the present state of our affairs, as apprehensive for the future. The growth of luxury alarms them, and they think we are from that alone in the high road to ruin. They observe, that no revenue is sufficient without economy, and that the most plentiful income of a whole people from the natural productions of their country may be dissipated in vain and needless expences, and poverty be introduced in the place of affluence. This may be possible. It however rarely happens: for there seems to be in every nation a greater proportion of industry and frugality, which tend to enrich, than of idleness and prodigality, which occasion poverty; so that upon the whole there is a continual accumulation. Reflect what Spain, Gaul, Germany, and Britain were in the time of the Romans, inhabited by people little richer than our savages, and consider the wealth they at present possess, in numerous well-built cities, improved farms, rich moveables, magazines stocked with valuable manufactures, to say nothing of plate jewels, and coined money; and all this, notwithstanding their bad, wasteful, plundering governments, and their mad destructive wars; and yet luxury and extravagant living has never suffered much restraint in those countries. Then consider the great proportion of industrious frugal farmers inhabiting the interior parts of these American states, and of whom the body of our nation consists, and judge whether it is possible, that the luxury of our sea-ports can be sufficient to ruin such a country.--If the importation of foreign luxuries could ruin a people, we should probably have been ruined long ago; for the British nation claimed a right, and practised it, of importing among us not only the superfluities of their own production, but those of every nation under heaven; we bought and consumed them, and yet we flourished and grew rich. At present our independent governments may do what we could not then do, discourage by heavy duties, or prevent by heavy prohibitions, such importations, and thereby grow richer; if, indeed, which may admit of dispute, the desire of adorning ourselves with fine clothes, possessing fine furniture, with elegant houses, &c. is not, by strongly inciting to labour and industry, the occasion of producing a greater value, than is consumed in the gratification of that desire. The agriculture and fisheries of the United States are the great sources of our increasing wealth. He that puts a seed into the earth is recompensed, perhaps, by receiving forty out of it; and he who draws a fish out of our water, draws up a piece of silver. Let us (and there is no doubt but we shall) be attentive to these, and then the power of rivals, with all their restraining and prohibiting acts, cannot much hurt us. We are sons of the earth and seas, and, like Antæus in the fable, if, in wrestling with a Hercules, we now and then receive a fall, the touch of our parents will communicate to us fresh strength and vigour to renew the contest. _Information to those who would remove to America._ Many persons in Europe having directly or by letters, expressed to the writer of this, who is well acquainted with North-America, their desire of transporting and establishing themselves in that country; but who appear to him to have formed, through ignorance, mistaken ideas and expectations of what is to be obtained there; he thinks it may be useful, and prevent inconvenient, expensive, and fruitless removals and voyages of improper persons, if he gives some clearer and truer notions of that part of the world, than appear to have hitherto prevailed. He finds it is imagined by numbers, that the inhabitants of North America are rich, capable of rewarding, and disposed to reward, all sorts of ingenuity; that they are at the same time ignorant of all the sciences, and consequently, that strangers, possessing talents in the belles-lettres, fine arts, &c. must be highly esteemed, and so well paid, as to become easily rich themselves; that there are also abundance of profitable offices to be disposed of, which the natives are not qualified to fill; and that, having few persons of family among them, strangers of birth must be greatly respected, and of course easily obtain the best of those offices, which will make all their fortunes: that the governments too, to encourage emigrations from Europe, not only pay the expence of personal transportation, but give lands gratis to strangers, with negroes to work for them, utensils of husbandry, and stocks of cattle. These are all wild imaginations; and those who go to America with expectations founded upon them will surely find themselves disappointed. The truth is, that though there are in that country few people so miserable as the poor of Europe, there are also very few that in Europe would be called rich; it is rather a general happy mediocrity that prevails. There are few great proprietors of the soil, and few tenants; most people cultivate their own lands, or follow some handicraft or merchandise; very few rich enough to live idly upon their rents or incomes, or to pay the high prices given in Europe for painting, statues, architecture, and the other works of art, that are more curious than useful. Hence the natural geniuses, that have arisen in America with such talents, have uniformly quitted that country for Europe, where they can be more suitably rewarded. It is true, that letters and mathematical knowledge are in esteem there, but they are at the same time more common than is apprehended; there being already existing nine colleges or universities, viz. four in New England, and one in each of the provinces of New York, New Jersey, Pensylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, all furnished with learned professors; besides a number of smaller academies: these educate many of their youth in the languages, and those sciences that qualify men for the professions of divinity, law, or physic. Strangers indeed are by no means excluded from exercising those professions; and the quick increase of inhabitants every where gives them a chance of employ, which they have in common with the natives. Of civil offices, or employments, there are few; no superfluous ones, as in Europe; and it is a rule established in some of the states, that no office should be so profitable as to make it desirable. The thirty-sixth article of the constitution of Pensylvania runs expressly in these words: "As every freeman, to preserve his independence (if he has not a sufficient estate) ought to have some profession, calling, trade, or farm, whereby he may honestly subsist, there can be no necessity for, nor use in, establishing offices of profit; the usual effects of which are dependence and servility, unbecoming freemen, in the possessors and expectants; faction, contention, corruption, and disorder among the people. Wherefore, whenever an office, through increase of fees or otherwise, becomes so profitable, as to occasion many to apply for it, the profits ought to be lessened by the legislature." These ideas prevailing more or less in all the United States, it cannot be worth any man's while, who has a means of living at home, to expatriate himself, in hopes of obtaining a profitable civil office in America; and as to military offices, they are at an end with the war, the armies being disbanded. Much less is it adviseable for a person to go thither, who has no other quality to recommend him but his birth. In Europe it has indeed its value; but it is a commodity that cannot be carried to a worse market than to that of America, where people do not enquire concerning a stranger, _What is he?_ but _What can he do?_ If he has any useful art, he is welcome; and if he exercises it, and behaves well, he will be respected by all that know him; but a mere man of quality, who on that account wants to live upon the public by some office or salary, will be despised and disregarded. The husbandman is in honour there, and even the mechanic, because their employments are useful. The people have a saying, that God Almighty is himself a mechanic, the greatest in the universe; and he is respected and admired more for the variety, ingenuity, and utility of his handiworks, than for the antiquity of his family. They are pleased with the observation of a negro, and frequently mention it, that Boccarora (meaning the white man) make de black man workee, make de horse workee, make de ox workee, make ebery ting workee; only de hog. He de hog, no workee; he eat, he drink, he walk about, he go to sleep when he please, he libb like a gentleman. According to these opinions of the Americans, one of them would think himself more obliged to a genealogist, who could prove for him that his ancestors and relations for ten generations had been ploughmen, smiths, carpenters, turners, weavers, tanners, or even shoemakers, and consequently that they were useful members of society; than if he could only prove that they were gentlemen, doing nothing of value, but living idly on the labour of others, mere _fruges consumere nati_[160], and otherwise _good for nothing_, till by their death their estates, like the carcase of the negro's gentleman-hog, come to be _cut up_. With regard to encouragements for strangers from government, they are really only what are derived from good laws and liberty. Strangers are welcome, because there is room enough for them all, and therefore the old inhabitants are not jealous of them; the laws protect them sufficiently, so that they have no need of the patronage of great men; and every one will enjoy securely the profits of his industry. But if he does not bring a fortune with him, he must work and be industrious to live. One or two years residence give him all the rights of a citizen; but the government does not at present, whatever it may have done in former times, hire people to become settlers, by paying their passages, giving land, negroes, utensils, stock, or any other kind of emolument whatsoever. In short, America is the land of labour, and by no means what the English call Lubberland, and the French Pays de Cocagne, where the streets are said to be paved with half-peck loaves, the houses tiled with pancakes, and where the fowls fly about ready roasted, crying, _Come eat me!_ Who then are the kind of persons to whom an emigration to America may be advantageous? And what are the advantages they may reasonably expect? Land being cheap in that country, from the vast forests still void of inhabitants, and not likely to be occupied in an age to come, insomuch that the propriety of an hundred acres of fertile soil full of wood may be obtained near the frontiers, in many places, for eight or ten guineas, hearty young labouring men, who understand the husbandry of corn and cattle, which is nearly the same in that country as in Europe, may easily establish themselves there. A little money saved of the good wages they receive there, while they work for others, enables them to buy the land and begin their plantation, in which they are assisted by the good-will of their neighbours, and some credit. Multitudes of poor people from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Germany, have by this means in a few years become wealthy farmers, who, in their own countries, where all the lands are fully occupied, and the wages of labour low, could never have emerged from the mean condition wherein they were born. From the salubrity of the air, the healthiness of the climate, the plenty of good provisions, and the encouragement to early marriages, by the certainty of subsistence in cultivating the earth, the increase of inhabitants by natural generation is very rapid in America, and becomes still more so by the accession of strangers; hence there is a continual demand for more artisans of all the necessary and useful kinds, to supply those cultivators of the earth with houses, and with furniture and utensils of the grosser sorts, which cannot so well be brought from Europe. Tolerably good workmen in any of those mechanic arts are sure to find employ, and to be well paid for their work, there being no restraints preventing strangers from exercising any art they understand, nor any permission necessary. If they are poor, they begin first as servants or journeymen; and if they are sober, industrious, and frugal, they soon become masters, establish themselves in business, marry, raise families, and become respectable citizens. Also, persons of moderate fortunes and capitals, who, having a number of children to provide for, are desirous of bringing them up to industry, and to secure estates for their posterity, have opportunities of doing it in America, which Europe does not afford. There they may be taught and practise profitable mechanic arts, without incurring disgrace on that account, but on the contrary acquiring respect by such abilities. There small capitals laid out in lands, which daily become more valuable by the increase of people, afford a solid prospect of ample fortunes thereafter for those children. The writer of this has known several instances of large tracts of land, bought, on what was then the frontier of Pennsylvania, for ten pounds per hundred acres, which, when the settlements had been extended far beyond them, sold readily, without any improvement made upon them, for three pounds per acre. The acre in America is the same with the English acre, or the acre of Normandy. Those, who desire to understand the state of government in America, would do well to read the constitutions of the several states, and the articles of confederation that bind the whole together for general purposes, under the direction of one assembly, called the congress. These constitutions have been printed, by order of congress, in America; two editions of them have also been printed in London; and a good translation of them into French has lately been published at Paris. Several of the princes of Europe of late, from an opinion of advantage to arise by producing all commodities and manufactures within their own dominions, so as to diminish or render useless their importations, have endeavoured to entice workmen from other countries, by high salaries, privileges, &c. Many persons, pretending to be skilled in various great manufactures, imagining, that America must be in want of them, and that the congress would probably be disposed to imitate the princes above mentioned, have proposed to go over, on condition of having their passages paid, lands given, salaries appointed, exclusive privileges for terms of years, &c. Such persons, on reading the articles of confederation, will find, that the congress have no power committed to them, or money put into their hands, for such purposes; and that if any such encouragement is given, it must be by the government of some separate state. This, however, has rarely been done in America; and when it has been done, it has rarely succeeded, so as to establish a manufacture, which the country was not yet so ripe for as to encourage private persons to set it up; labour being generally too dear there, and hands difficult to be kept together, every one desiring to be a master, and the cheapness of land inclining many to leave trades for agriculture. Some indeed have met with success, and are carried on to advantage; but they are generally such as require only a few hands, or wherein great part of the work is performed by machines. Goods that are bulky, and of so small value as not well to bear the expence of freight, may often be made cheaper in the country than they can be imported; and the manufacture of such goods will be profitable wherever there is a sufficient demand. The farmers in America produce indeed a good deal of wool and flax; and none is exported, it is all worked up; but it is in the way of domestic manufacture, for the use of the family. The buying up quantities of wool and flax, with the design to employ spinners, weavers, &c. and form great establishments, producing quantities of linen and woollen goods for sale, has been several times attempted in different provinces; but those projects have generally failed, goods of equal value being imported cheaper. And when the governments have been solicited to support such schemes by encouragements, in money, or by imposing duties on importation of such goods, it has been generally refused, on this principle, that if the country is ripe for the manufacture, it may be carried on by private persons to advantage; and if not, it is a folly to think of forcing nature. Great establishments of manufacture require great numbers of poor to do the work for small wages; those poor are to be found in Europe, but will not be found in America, till the lands are all taken up and cultivated, and the excess of people, who cannot get land, want employment. The manufacture of silk, they say, is natural in France, as that of cloth in England, because each country produces in plenty the first material: but if England will have a manufacture of silk as well as that of cloth, and France of cloth as well as that of silk, these unnatural operations must be supported by mutual prohibitions, or high duties on the importation of each other's goods; by which means the workmen are enabled to tax the home consumer by greater prices, while the higher wages they receive makes them neither happier nor richer, since they only drink more and work less. Therefore the governments in America do nothing to encourage such projects. The people, by this means, are not imposed on either by the merchant or mechanic: if the merchant demands too much profit on imported shoes, they buy of the shoe-maker; and if he asks too high a price, they take them of the merchant: thus the two professions are checks on each other. The shoemaker, however, has, on the whole, a considerable profit upon his labour in America, beyond what he had in Europe, as he can add to his price a sum nearly equal to all the expences of freight and commission, risque or insurance, &c. necessarily charged by the merchant. And the case is the same with the workmen in every other mechanic art. Hence it is, that artisans generally live better and more easily in America than in Europe; and such as are good economists make a comfortable provision for age, and for their children. Such may, therefore, remove with advantage to America. In the old long-settled countries of Europe, all arts, trades, professions, farms, &c. are so full, that it is difficult for a poor man who has children to place them where they may gain, or learn to gain, a decent livelihood. The artisans, who fear creating future rivals in business, refuse to take apprentices, but upon conditions of money, maintenance, or the like, which the parents are unable to comply with. Hence the youth are dragged up in ignorance of every gainful art, and obliged to become soldiers, or servants, or thieves, for a subsistence. In America, the rapid increase of inhabitants takes away that fear of rivalship, and artisans willingly receive apprentices from the hope of profit by their labour, during the remainder of the time stipulated, after they shall be instructed. Hence it is easy for poor families to get their children instructed; for the artisans are so desirous of apprentices, that many of them will even give money to the parents, to have boys from ten to fifteen years of age bound apprentices to them, till the age of twenty-one; and many poor parents have, by that means, on their arrival in the country, raised money enough to buy land sufficient to establish themselves, and to subsist the rest of their family by agriculture. These contracts for apprentices are made before a magistrate, who regulates the agreement according to reason and justice, and, having in view the formation of a future useful citizen, obliges the master to engage by a written indenture, not only that, during the time of service stipulated, the apprentice shall be duly provided with meat, drink, apparel, washing, and lodging, and at its expiration with a complete new suit of clothes, but also, that he shall be taught to read, write, and cast accounts; and that he shall be well instructed in the art or profession of his master, or some other, by which he may afterwards gain a livelihood, and be able in his turn to raise a family. A copy of this indenture is given to the apprentice or his friends, and the magistrate keeps a record of it, to which recourse may be had, in case of failure by the master in any point of performance. This desire among the masters, to have more hands employed in working for them, induces them to pay the passages of young persons, of both sexes, who, on their arrival, agree to serve them one, two, three, or four years; those who have already learned a trade, agreeing for a shorter term, in proportion to their skill, and the consequent immediate value of their service; and those who have none, agreeing for a longer term, in consideration of being taught an art their poverty would not permit them to acquire in their own country. The almost general mediocrity of fortune that prevails in America, obliging its people to follow some business for subsistence, those vices, that arise usually from idleness, are in a great measure prevented. Industry and constant employment are great preservatives of the morals and virtue of a nation. Hence bad examples to youth are more rare in America, which must be a comfortable consideration to parents. To this may be truly added, that serious religion, under its various denominations, is not only tolerated, but respected and practised. Atheism is unknown there; infidelity rare and secret; so that persons may live to a great age in that country, without having their piety shocked by meeting with either an atheist or an infidel. And the Divine Being seems to have manifested his approbation of the mutual forbearance and kindness with which the different sects treat each other, by the remarkable prosperity with which he has been pleased to favour the whole country. FOOTNOTE: [160] ... born Merely to eat up the corn. WATTS. TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN[161]. _Concerning new Settlements in America._ _Passy, March 17, 1783._ MY LORD, I received the letter your lordship did me the honour of writing to me the 18th past, and am much obliged by your kind congratulations on the return of peace, which I hope will be lasting. With regard to the terms on which lands may be acquired in America, and the manner of beginning new settlements on them, I cannot give better information than may be found in a book lately printed at London, under some such title as--_Letters from a Pensylvanian Farmer_, by Hector St. John. The only encouragement we hold out to strangers are, _a good climate, fertile soil, wholesome air and water, plenty of provisions and food, good pay for labour, kind neighbours, good laws, and a hearty welcome_. The rest depends on a man's own industry and virtue. Lands are cheap, but they must be bought. All settlements are undertaken at private expence; the public contributes nothing but defence and justice. I have long observed of your people, that their sobriety, frugality, industry and honesty, seldom fail of success in America, and of procuring them a good establishment among us. I do not recollect the circumstance you are pleased to mention, of my having saved a citizen at St. Andrew's by giving a turn to his disorder; and I am curious to know, what the disorder was, and what the advice I gave, that proved so salutary[162]. With great regard I have the honour to be, my lord, your lordship's most obedient and most humble servant, B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTES: [161] From the Gentleman's Magazine, for July, 1794, to which it was communicated by the nobleman to whom it is addressed. _Editor._ [162] It was a fever in which the Earl of Buchan, then lord Cadross, lay sick at St. Andrew's; and the advice was, not to blister, according to the old practice and the opinion of the learned Dr. Simson, brother of the celebrated geometrician at Glasgow. B. _A Comparison of the Conduct of the Ancient Jews, and of the Antifederalists in the United States of America[163]._ A zealous advocate for the proposed federal constitution in a certain public assembly said, that "the repugnance of a great part of mankind to good government was such, that he believed, that if an angel from heaven was to bring down a constitution, formed there for our use, it would nevertheless meet with violent opposition." He was reproved for the supposed extravagance of the sentiment, and he did not justify it. Probably it might not have immediately occurred to him, that the experiment had been tried, and that the event was recorded in the most faithful of all histories, the Holy Bible; otherwise he might, as it seems to me, have supported his opinion by that unexceptionable authority. The Supreme Being had been pleased to nourish up a single family, by continued acts of his attentive providence, till it became a great people: and having rescued them from bondage by many miracles, performed by his servant Moses, he personally delivered to that chosen servant, in presence of the whole nation, a constitution and code of laws for their observance, accompanied and sanctioned with promises of great rewards, and threats of severe punishments, as the consequence of their obedience or disobedience. This constitution, though the Deity himself was to be at its head (and it is therefore called by political writers a theocracy) could not be carried into execution but by the means of his ministers; Aaron and his sons were therefore commissioned to be, with Moses, the first established ministry of the new government. One would have thought, that the appointment of men, who had distinguished themselves in procuring the liberty of their nation, and had hazarded their lives in openly opposing the will of a powerful monarch, who would have retained that nation in slavery, might have been an appointment acceptable to a grateful people; and that a constitution, framed for them by the Deity himself, might on that account have been secure of an universal welcome reception. Yet there were, in every one of the thirteen tribes, some discontented, restless spirits, who were continually exciting them to reject the proposed new government, and this from various motives. Many still retained an affection for Egypt, the land of their nativity, and these, whenever they felt any inconvenience or hardship, though the natural and unavoidable effect of their change of situation, exclaimed against their leaders as the authors of their trouble: and were not only for returning into Egypt, but for stoning their deliverers[164]. Those inclined to idolatry were displeased that their golden calf was destroyed. Many of the chiefs thought the new constitution might be injurious to their particular interests, that the profitable places would be _engrossed by the families and friends of Moses and Aaron_, and others, equally well born, excluded.[165]--In Josephus, and the Talmud, we learn some particulars, not so fully narrated in the scripture. We are there told, that Corah was ambitious of the priesthood, and offended that it was conferred on Aaron; and this, as he said, by the authority of Moses only, _without the consent of the people_. He accused Moses of having, by various artifices, fraudulently obtained the government, and deprived the people of their liberties, and of conspiring with Aaron to perpetuate the tyranny in their family. Thus, though Corah's real motive was the supplanting of Aaron, he persuaded the people, that he meant only the public good; and they, moved by his insinuations, began to cry out, "Let us maintain the common liberty of our _respective tribes_; we have freed ourselves from the slavery imposed upon us by the Egyptians, and shall we suffer ourselves to be made slaves by Moses? If we must have a master, it were better to return to Pharaoh, who at least fed us with bread and onions, than to serve this new tyrant, who, by his operations, has brought us into danger of famine." Then they called in question the _reality of his conference_ with God, and objected to the privacy of the meetings, and the preventing any of the people from being present at the colloquies, or even approaching the place, as grounds of great suspicion. They accused Moses also of _peculation_, as embezzling part of the golden spoons and the silver chargers, that the princes had offered at the dedication of the altar[166], and the offerings of gold by the common people[167], as well as most of the poll tax[168]; and Aaron they accused of pocketing much of the gold of which he pretended to have made a molten calf. Besides peculation, they charged Moses with _ambition_; to gratify which passion, he had, they said, deceived the people, by promising to bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey; instead of doing which, he had brought them _from_ such a land; and that he thought light of all this mischief, provided he could make himself an _absolute prince_[169]. That, to support the new dignity with splendour in his family, the partial poll tax, already levied and given to Aaron[170], was to be followed by a general one[171], which would probably be augmented from time to time, if he were suffered to go on promulgating new laws, on pretence of new occasional revelations of the divine will, till their whole fortunes were devoured by that aristocracy. Moses denied the charge of peculation, and his accusers were destitute of proofs to support it; though _facts_, if real, are in their nature capable of proof. "I have not," said he (with holy confidence in the presence of God), "I have not taken from this people the value of an ass, nor done them any other injury." But his enemies had made the charge, and with some success among the populace; for no kind of accusation is so readily made, or easily believed, by knaves, as the accusation of knavery. In fine, no less than two hundred and fifty of the principal men "famous in the congregation, men of renown[172]," heading and exciting the mob, worked them up to such a pitch of phrenzy, that they called out, stone 'em, stone 'em, and thereby secure our liberties; and let us choose other captains, that may lead us back into Egypt, in case we do not succeed in reducing the Canaanites. On the whole, it appears, that the Israelites were a people jealous of their newly acquired liberty, which jealousy was in itself no fault; but that, when they suffered it to be worked upon by artful men, pretending public good, with nothing really in view but private interest, they were led to oppose the establishment of the new constitution, whereby they brought upon themselves much inconvenience and misfortune. It farther appears, from the same inestimable history, that when, after many ages, the constitution had become old and much abused, and an amendment of it was proposed, the populace, as they had accused Moses of the ambition of making himself a prince, and cried out, stone him, stone him; so, excited by their high-priests and scribes, they exclaimed against the Messiah, that he aimed at becoming king of the Jews, and cried, crucify him, crucify him. From all which we may gather, that popular opposition to a public measure is no proof of its impropriety, even though the opposition be excited and headed by men of distinction. To conclude, I beg I may not be understood to infer, that our general convention was divinely inspired when it formed the new federal constitution, merely because that constitution has been unreasonably and vehemently opposed: yet, I must own, I have so much faith in the general government of the world by Providence, that I can hardly conceive a transaction of such momentous importance to the welfare of millions now existing, and to exist in the posterity of a great nation, should be suffered to pass without being in some degree influenced, guided and governed by that omnipotent, omnipresent and beneficent ruler, in whom all inferior spirits live, and move, and have their being. FOOTNOTES: [163] From the Repository, vol. II. p. 313. _Editor._ [164] Numbers, chap. xiv. [165] Numbers, chap. xvi. ver. 3. "And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregations are holy, every one of them,--wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation." [166] Numbers, chap. vii. [167] Exodus, chapter xxxv. ver. 22. [168] Numbers, chap. iii. and Exodus, chap. xxx. [169] Numbers, chap. xvi. ver. 13. "Is it a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in this wilderness, except thou make thyself altogether a prince over us?" [170] Numbers, chap. iii. [171] Exodus, chap. xxx. [172] Numbers, chap. xvi. _Final Speech of Dr. Franklin in the late Federal Convention[173]._ MR. PRESIDENT, I confess that I do not entirely approve of this constitution at present: but, Sir, I am not sure I shall never approve it; for having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is, therefore, that, the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men, indeed, as well as most sects in religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that whenever others differ from them, it is so far error. Steel, a protestant, in a dedication, tells the pope, that "the only difference between our two churches, in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines is, the Romish church is infallible, and the church of England never in the wrong." But, though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain French lady, who, in a little dispute with her sister, said, I don't know how it happens, sister, but I meet with nobody but myself that is always in the right. _Il n'y a que moi qui a toujours raison._ In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this constitution, with all its faults, if they are such, because I think a general government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing, if well administered; and I believe farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other. I doubt too, whether any other convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better constitution. For when you assemble a number of men, to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear, that our councils are confounded, like those of the builders of Babylon, and that our states are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting each other's throats. Thus I consent, sir, to this constitution, because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that this is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die. If every one of us, in returning to our constituents, were to report the objections he has had to it, and endeavour to gain partisans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and thereby lose all the salutary effects and great advantages resulting naturally in our favour among foreign nations, as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity. Much of the strength and efficiency of any government, in procuring and securing happiness to the people, depends on opinion, on the general opinion of the goodness of that government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its governors. I hope therefore, that for our own sakes, as part of the people, and for the sake of our posterity, we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this constitution, wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts and endeavours to the means of having it well administered. On the whole, sir, I cannot help expressing a wish, that every member of the convention, who may still have objections, would with me, on this occasion, doubt a little of his own infallibility, and, to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument. [The motion was then made for adding the last formula, viz. Done in Convention, by the unanimous consent, &c. which was agreed to, and added accordingly.] FOOTNOTE: [173] From the American Museum, vol. II. p. 558. _Editor._ PAPERS ON MORAL SUBJECTS AND _THE ECONOMY OF LIFE_. PAPERS ON MORAL SUBJECTS AND _THE ECONOMY OF LIFE_. _The Busy-Body._--No. I[174]. FROM THE AMERICAN WEEKLY MERCURY, FROM TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, TO TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1728,--9. MR. ANDREW BRADFORD, I design this to acquaint you, that I, who have long been one of your courteous readers, have lately entertained some thought of setting up for an author myself; not out of the least vanity, I assure you, or desire of showing my parts, but purely for the good of my country. I have often observed with concern, that your Mercury is not always equally entertaining. The delay of ships expected in, and want of fresh advices from Europe, make it frequently very dull; and I find the freezing of our river has the same effect on news as trade.--With more concern have I continually observed the growing vices and follies of my country folk: and though reformation is properly the concern of every man, that is, every one ought to mend one; yet it is too true in this case, that what is every body's business is no body's business, and the business is done accordingly. I therefore, upon mature deliberation, think fit to take no body's business wholly into my own hands; and, out of zeal for the public good, design to erect myself into a kind of censor morum; purposing, with your allowance, to make use of the Weekly Mercury as a vehicle, in which my remonstrances shall be conveyed to the world. I am sensible I have, in this particular, undertaken a very unthankful office, and expect little besides my labour for my pains. Nay, it is probable, I may displease a great number of your readers, who will not very well like to pay ten shillings a year for being told of their faults. But as most people delight in censure, when they themselves are not the objects of it, if any are offended at my publicly exposing their private vices, I promise they shall have the satisfaction, in a very little time, of seeing their good friends and neighbours in the same circumstances. However, let the fair sex be assured, that I shall always treat them and their affairs with the utmost decency and respect. I intend now and then to dedicate a chapter wholly to their service; and if my lectures any way contribute to the embellishment of their minds, and brightening of their understandings, without offending their modesty, I doubt not of having their favour and encouragement. It is certain, that no country in the world produces naturally finer spirits than ours, men of genius for every kind of science, and capable of acquiring to perfection every qualification, that is in esteem among mankind. But as few here have the advantage of good books, for want of which, good conversation is still more scarce, it would, doubtless, have been very acceptable to your readers, if, instead of an old out-of-date article from Muscovy or Hungary, you had entertained them with some well chosen extract from a good author. This I shall sometimes do, when I happen to have nothing of my own to say that I think of more consequence. Sometimes, I purpose to deliver lectures of morality of philosophy, and (because I am naturally inclined to be meddling with things that do not concern me) perhaps I may sometimes talk politics. And if I can by any means furnish out a weekly entertainment for the public, that will give a rational diversion, and at the same time be instructive to the readers, I shall think my leisure hours well employed: and if you publish this, I hereby invite all ingenious gentlemen and others (that approve of such an undertaking) to my assistance and correspondence. It is like, by this time, you have a curiosity to be acquainted with my name and character. As I do not aim at public praise, I design to remain concealed: and there are such numbers of our family and relations at this time in the country, that, though I have signed my name at full length, I am not under the least apprehension of being distinguished and discovered by it. My character indeed, I would favour you with, but that I am cautious of praising myself, lest I should be told my trumpeter's dead: and I cannot find in my heart, at present, to say any thing to my own disadvantage. It is very common with authors in their first performances, to talk to their readers thus, If this meets with a suitable reception, or, if this should meet with due encouragement, I shall hereafter publish, &c.--This only manifests the value they put on their own writings, since they think to frighten the public into their applause, by threatening, that unless you approve what they have already wrote, they intend never to write again; when perhaps it may not be a pin matter, whether they ever do or no. As I have not observ'd the critics to be more favourable on this account, I shall always avoid saying any thing of the kind; and conclude with telling you, that if you send me a bottle of ink and a quire of paper by the bearer, you may depend on hearing further from, Sir, Your most humble servant, THE BUSY-BODY. _The Busy-Body._--No. II. FROM TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, TO TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1728,--9. All fools have still an itching to deride, And fain would be upon the laughing side.--POPE. Monsieur Rochefocault tells us somewhere in his Memoirs, that the Prince of Condé delighted much in ridicule, and used frequently to shut himself up for half a day together, in his chamber, with a gentleman, that was his favourite, purposely to divert himself with examining what was the foible, or ridiculous side, of every noted person in the court. That gentleman said afterwards in some company, that he thought nothing was more ridiculous in any body, than this same humour in the prince; and I am somewhat inclined to be of this opinion. The general tendency there is among us to this embellishment (which I fear has too often grossly imposed upon my loving countrymen instead of wit) and the applause it meets with from a rising generation, fill me with fearful apprehensions for the future reputation of my country: a young man of modesty (which is the most certain indication of large capacities) is hereby discouraged from attempting to make any figure in life: his apprehensions of being outlaughed, will force him to continue in a restless obscurity, without having an opportunity of knowing his own merit himself, or discovering it to the world, rather than venture to expose himself in a place, where a pun or a sneer shall pass for wit, noise for reason, and the strength of the argument be judged by that of the lungs. Among these witty gentlemen let us take a view of Ridentius: what a contemptible figure does he make with his train of paltry admirers? This wight shall give himself an hour's diversion with the cock of a man's hat, the heels of his shoes, an unguarded expression in his discourse, or even some personal defect; and the height of his low ambition is to put some one of the company to the blush, who perhaps must pay an equal share of the reckoning with himself. If such a fellow makes laughing the sole end and purpose of his life, if it is necessary to his constitution, or if he has a great desire of growing suddenly fat, let him eat; let him give public notice where any dull stupid rogues may get a quart of four-penny for being laugh'd at; but it is barbarously unhandsome, when friends meet for the benefit of conversation, and a proper relaxation from business, that one should be the butt of the company, and four men made merry at the cost of the fifth. How different from this character is that of the good-natured, gay Eugenius? who never spoke yet but with a design to divert and please; and who was never yet baulked in his intention. Eugenius takes more delight in applying the wit of his friends, than in being admired himself: and if any one of the company is so unfortunate as to be touched a little too nearly, he will make use of some ingenious artifice to turn the edge of ridicule another way, chusing rather to make himself a public jest, than be at the pain of seeing his friend in confusion. Among the tribe of laughers I reckon the pretty gentlemen, that write satyrs, and carry them about in their pockets, reading them themselves in all company they happen into; taking an advantage of the ill taste of the town, to make themselves famous for a pack of paltry, low nonsense, for which they deserve to be kicked, rather than admired, by all who have the least tincture of politeness. These I take to be the most incorrigible of all my readers; nay, I expect they will be squibbing at the Busy-Body himself. However, the only favour he begs of them is this, that if they cannot controul their overbearing itch of scribbling, let him be attacked in downright biting lyricks; for there is no satyr he dreads half so much, as an attempt towards a panegyrick. _The Busy-Body._--No. III. FROM TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, TO TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1728,--9. Non vultus instantis Tyranni Mente quatit solida, nec auster, Dux inquieti turbidus Adriæ, Nec fulminantis magna Jovis manus.--HOR. It is said, that the Persians, in their ancient constitution, had public schools, in which virtue was taught as a liberal art or science: and it is certainly of more consequence to a man, that he has learnt to govern his passions; in spite of temptation, to be just in his dealings, to be temperate in his pleasures, to support himself with fortitude under his misfortunes, to behave with prudence in all his affairs, and in every circumstance of life; I say, it is of much more real advantage to him to be thus qualified, than to be a master of all the arts and sciences in the world beside. Virtue alone is sufficient to make a man great, glorious, and happy.--He that is acquainted with Cato, as I am, cannot help thinking as I do now, and will acknowledge he deserves the name, without being honoured by it. Cato is a man whom fortune has placed in the most obscure part of the country. His circumstances are such, as only put him above necessity, without affording him many superfluities: yet who is greater than Cato? I happened but the other day to be at a house in town, where, among others, were met, men of the most note in this place; Cato had business with some of them, and knocked at the door. The most trifling actions of a man, in my opinion, as well as the smallest features and lineaments of the face, give a nice observer some notion of his mind. Methought he rapped in such a peculiar manner, as seemed of itself to express there was one who deserved as well as desired admission. He appeared in the plainest country garb; his great coat was coarse, and looked old and thread bare; his linen was homespun; his beard, perhaps, of seven days growth; his shoes thick and heavy; and every part of his dress corresponding. Why was this man received with such concurring respect from every person in the room, even from those, who had never known him or seen him before? It was not an exquisite form of person or grandeur of dress, that struck us with admiration. I believe long habits of virtue have a sensible effect on the countenance: there was something in the air of his face, that manifested the true greatness of his mind; which likewise appeared in all he said, and in every part of his behaviour, obliging us to regard him with a kind of veneration. His aspect is sweetened with humanity and benevolence, and at the same time emboldened with resolution, equally free from diffident bashfulness and an unbecoming assurance. The consciousness of his own innate worth and unshaken integrity renders him calm and undaunted in the presence of the most great and powerful, and upon the most extraordinary occasions. His strict justice and known impartiality make him the arbitrator and decider of all differences, that arise for many miles around him, without putting his neighbours to the charge, perplexity, and uncertainty of law-suits. He always speaks the thing he means, which he is never afraid or ashamed to do, because he knows he always means well; and therefore is never obliged to blush, and feel the confusion of finding himself detected in the meanness of a falshood. He never contrives ill against his neighbour, and therefore is never seen with a lowring, suspicious aspect. A mixture of innocence and wisdom makes him ever seriously chearful. His generous hospitality to strangers, according to his ability, his goodness, his charity, his courage in the cause of the oppressed, his fidelity in friendship, his humility, his honesty and sincerity, his moderation and his loyalty to the government, his piety, his temperance, his love to mankind, his magnanimity, his public spiritedness, and, in fine, his consummate virtue, make him justly deserve to be esteemed the glory of his country. The brave do never shun the light, Just are their thoughts, and open are their tempers; Freely without disguise they love and hate; Still are they found in the fair face of day, And heaven and men are judges of their actions.--ROWE. Who would not rather choose, if it were in his choice, to merit the above character, than be the richest, the most learned, or the most powerful man in the province without it? Almost every man has a strong natural desire of being valued and esteemed by the rest of his species; but I am concerned and grieved to see how few fall into the right and only infallible method of becoming so. That laudable ambition is too commonly misapply'd and often ill employed. Some, to make themselves considerable, pursue learning; others grasp at wealth; some aim at being thought witty; and others are only careful to make the most of an handsome person: but what is wit, or wealth, or form, or learning, when compared with virtue? It is true, we love the handsome, we applaud the learned, and we fear the rich and powerful; but we even worship and adore the virtuous. Nor is it strange; since men of virtue are so rare, so very rare to be found. If we were as industrious to become good, as to make ourselves great, we should become really great by being good, and the number of valuable men would be much increased; but it is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness; and I pronounce it as certain, that there was never yet a truly great man, that was not at the same time truly virtuous. O Cretico! thou sour philosopher! thou cunning statesman! thou art crafty, but far from being wise. When wilt thou be esteemed, regarded, and beloved like Cato? When wilt thou, among thy creatures, meet with that unfeigned respect and warm good-will that all men have for him? Wilt thou never understand, that the cringing, mean, submissive deportment of thy dependants, is (like the worship paid by Indians to the devil) rather through fear of the harm thou mayst do them, than out of gratitude for the favours they have received of thee? Thou art not wholly void of virtue; there are many good things in thee, and many good actions reported of thee. Be advised by thy friend: neglect those musty authors; let them be covered with dust, and moulder on their proper shelves; and do thou apply thyself to a study much more profitable, the knowledge of mankind and of thyself. This is to give notice, that the Busy-Body strictly forbids all persons, from this time forward, of what age, sex, rank, quality, degree, or denomination soever, on any pretence, to inquire who is the author of this paper, on pain of his displeasure (his own near and dear relations only excepted). It is to be observed, that if any bad characters happen to be drawn in the course of these papers, they mean no particular person, if they are not particularly applied. Likewise, that the author is no party-man, but a general meddler. N. B. Cretico lives in a neighbouring province. _The Busy-Body._--No. IV. FROM TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, TO TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1728,--9. Nequid nimis. In my first paper, I invited the learned and the ingenious to join with me in this undertaking; and I now repeat that invitation. I would have such gentlemen take this opportunity (by trying their talent in writing) of diverting themselves and friends, and improving the taste of the town. And because I would encourage all wit of our own growth and produce, I hereby promise, that whoever shall send me a little essay on some moral or other subject, that is fit for public view in this manner, (and not basely borrowed from any other author) I shall receive it with candour, and take care to place it to the best advantage. It will be hard, if we cannot muster up in the whole country a sufficient stock of sense to supply the Busy-Body at least for a twelve-month. For my own part, I have already professed, that I have the good of my country wholly at heart in this design, without the least sinister view; my chief purpose being to inculcate the noble principles of virtue, and depreciate vice of every kind. But as I know the mob hate instruction, and the generality would never read beyond the first line of my lectures, if they were actually filled with nothing but wholesome precepts and advice, I must therefore sometimes humour them in their own way. There are a set of great names in the province, who are the common objects of popular dislike. If I can now and then overcome my reluctance, and prevail with myself to satirize a little, one of these gentlemen, the expectation of meeting with such a gratification will induce many to read me through, who would otherwise proceed immediately to the foreign news. As I am very well assured the greatest men among us have a sincere love for their country, notwithstanding its ingratitude, and the insinuations of the envious and malicious to the contrary, so I doubt not but they will cheerfully tolerate me in the liberty I design to take for the end abovementioned. As yet I have but few correspondents, though they begin now to increase. The following letter, left for me at the printer's, is one of the first I have received, which I regard the more for that it comes from one of the fair sex, and because I have myself oftentimes suffered under the grievance therein complained of. _To the Busy-Body._ SIR, You having set yourself up for a censuror morum (as I think you call it) which is said to mean a reformer of manners, I know no person more proper to be applied to for redress in all the grievances we suffer from want of manners in some people. You must know, I am a single woman, and keep a shop in this town for a livelihood. There is a certain neighbour of mine, who is really agreeable company enough, and with whom I have had an intimacy of some time standing; but of late she makes her visits so exceedingly often, and stays so very long every visit, that I am tired out of all patience. I have no manner of time at all to myself; and you, who seem to be a wise man, must needs be sensible, that every person has little secrets and privacies, that are not proper to be exposed even to the nearest friend. Now I cannot do the least thing in the world, but she must know about it; and it is a wonder I have found an opportunity to write you this letter. My misfortune is, that I respect her very well, and know not how to disoblige her so much as to tell her, I should be glad to have less of her company; for if I should once hint such a thing, I am afraid she would resent it so as never to darken my door again.--But alas, Sir, I have not yet told you half my affliction. She has two children that are just big enough to run about and do pretty mischief: these are continually along with mamma, either in my room or shop, if I have ever so many customers or people with me about business. Sometimes they pull the goods off my low shelves down to the ground, and perhaps where one of them has just been making water. My friend takes up the stuff, and cries, "Oh! thou little wicked mischievous rogue!" But however, it has done no great damage; it is only wet a little, and so puts it up upon the shelf again. Sometimes they get to my cask of nails behind the counter, and divert themselves, to my great vexation, with mixing my ten-penny and eight-penny and four-penny together. I endeavour to conceal my uneasiness as much as possible, and with a grave look go to sorting them out. She cries, "Don't thee trouble thyself, neighbour. Let them play a little; I'll put all to rights before I go." But things are never so put to rights but that I find a great deal of work to do after they are gone. Thus, Sir, I have all the trouble and pesterment of children, without the pleasure of calling them my own; and they are now so used to being here that they will be content no where else. If she would have been so kind as to have moderated her visits to ten times a day, and staid but half an hour at a time, I should have been contented, and I believe never have given you this trouble. But this very morning they have so tormented me that I could bear no longer; for while the mother was asking me twenty impertinent questions, the youngest got to my nails, and with great delight rattled them by handfuls all over the floor; and the other at the same time made such a terrible din upon my counter with a hammer, that I grew half distracted. I was just then about to make myself a new suit of pinners, but in the fret and confusion I cut it quite out of all manner of shape, and utterly spoiled a piece of the first muslin. Pray, sir, tell me what I shall do. And talk a little against such unreasonable visiting in your next paper: though I would not have her affronted with me for a great deal, for sincerely I love her and her children, as well, I think, as a neighbour can, and she buys a great many things in a year at my shop. But I would beg her to consider, that she uses me unmercifully, though I believe it is only for want of thought. But I have twenty things more to tell you besides all this: there is a handsome gentleman that has a mind (I don't question) to make love to me; but he can't get the opportunity to----O dear, here she comes again; I must conclude "Your's, &c. "PATIENCE." Indeed, it is well enough, as it happens, that she is come to shorten this complaint, which I think is full long enough already, and probably would otherwise have been as long again. However, I must confess, I cannot help pitying my correspondent's case, and in her behalf, exhort the visitor to remember and consider the words of the wise man, withdraw thy foot from the house of thy neighbour, lest he grow weary of thee and so hate thee. It is, I believe, a nice thing and very difficult, to regulate our visits in such a manner, as never to give offence by coming too seldom, or too often, or departing too abruptly, or staying too long. However, in my opinion, it is safest for most people, in a general way, who are unwilling to disoblige, to visit seldom, and tarry but a little while in a place; notwithstanding pressing invitations, which are many times insincere. And though more of your company should be really desired; yet in this case, too much reservedness is a fault more easily excused than the contrary. Men are subject to various inconveniencies merely through lack of a small share of courage, which is a quality very necessary in the common occurrences of life, as well as in a battle. How many impertinencies do we daily suffer with great uneasiness, because we have not courage enough to discover our dislike? And why may not a man use the boldness and freedom of telling his friends, that their long visits sometimes incommode him? On this occasion, it may be entertaining to some of my readers, if I acquaint them with the Turkish manner of entertaining visitors, which I have from an author of unquestionable veracity; who assures us, that even the Turks are not so ignorant of civility and the arts of endearment, but that they can practise them with as much exactness as any other nation, whenever they have a mind to show themselves obliging. "When you visit a person of quality (says he) and have talked over your business, or the compliments, or whatever concern brought you thither, he makes a sign to have things served in for the entertainment, which is generally a little sweetmeat, a dish of sherbet, and another of coffee; all which are immediately brought in by the servants, and tendered to all the guests in order, with the greatest care and awfulness imaginable. At last comes the finishing part of your entertainment, which is, perfuming the beards of the company; a ceremony which is performed in this manner. They have for the purpose a small silver chaffing dish, covered with a lid full of holes, and fixed upon a handsome plate. In this they put some fresh coals, and upon them a piece of lignum aloes, and shutting it up, the smoke immediately ascends with a grateful odour through the holes of the cover. This smoke is held under every one's chin, and offered as it were a sacrifice to his beard. The bristly idol soon receives the reverence done to it, and so greedily takes in and incorporates the gummy steam, that it retains the savour of it, and may serve for a nosegay a good while after. "This ceremony may perhaps seem ridiculous at first hearing; but it passes among the Turks for an high gratification. And I will say this in its vindication, that its design is very wise and useful. For it is understood to give a civil dismission to the visitants, intimating to them, that the master of the house has business to do, or some other avocation, that permits them to go away as soon as they please; and the sooner after this ceremony the better. By this means you may, at any time, without offence, deliver yourself from being detained from your affairs by tedious and unseasonable visits; and from being constrained to use that piece of hypocrisy, so common in the world, of pressing those to stay longer with you, whom perhaps in your heart you wish a great way off for having troubled you so long already." Thus far my author. For my own part, I have taken such a fancy to this Turkish custom, that for the future I shall put something like it in practice. I have provided a bottle of right French brandy for the men, and citron water for the ladies. After I have treated with a dram, and presented a pinch of my best snuff, I expect all company will retire, and leave me to pursue my studies for the good of the public. _Advertisement._ I give notice, that I am now actually compiling, and design to publish in a short time, the true history of the rise, growth, and progress of the renowned Tiff Club. All persons who are acquainted with any facts, circumstances, characters, transactions, &c. which will be requisite to the perfecting and embellishment of the said work, are desired to communicate the same to the author, and direct their letters to be left with the printer hereof. The letter signed Would-be-something is come to hand. _The Busy-Body._--No. V. FROM TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, TO TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 1728,--9. Vos, o patricius sanguis, quos vivere fas est, Occipiti cæco, posticæ occurrite sannæ. PERSIUS. This paper being design'd for a terror to evil doers, as well as a praise to them that do well, I am lifted up with secret joy to find, that my undertaking is approved, and encourag'd by the just and good, and that few are against me but those who have reason to fear me. There are little follies in the behaviour of most men, which their best friends are too tender to acquaint them with; there are little vices and small crimes which the law has no regard to or remedy for: there are likewise great pieces of villany sometimes so craftily accomplished, and so circumspectly guarded, that the law can take no hold of the actors. All these things, and all things of this nature, come within my province as Censor, and I am determined not to be negligent of the trust I have reposed in myself, but resolve to execute my office diligently and faithfully. And that all the world may judge with how much humanity, as well as justice, I shall behave in this office; and that even my enemies may be convinced I take no delight to rake into the dunghill lives of vicious men; and to the end that certain persons may be a little eased of their fears, and relieved from the terrible palpitations they have lately felt and suffered, and do still suffer; I hereby graciously pass an act of general oblivion, for all offences, crimes, and misdemeanors of what kind soever, committed from the beginning of the year 1681, until the day of the date of my first paper, and promise only to concern myself with such as have been since and shall hereafter be committed. I shall take no notice who has (heretofore) raised a fortune by fraud and oppression, nor who by deceit and hypocrisy; what woman has been false to her good husband's bed, nor what man has, by barbarous usage or neglect, broke the heart of a faithful wife, and wasted his health and substance in debauchery; what base wretch has betrayed his friend, and sold his honesty for gold, nor what baser wretch first corrupted him, and then bought the bargain: all this, and much more of the same kind, I shall forget, and pass over in silence; but then it is to be observed, that I expect and require a sudden and general amendment. These threatenings of mine, I hope will have a good effect, and, if regarded, may prevent abundance of folly and wickedness in others, and, at the same time, save me abundance of trouble: and that people may not flatter themselves with the hopes of concealing their loose misdemeanors from my knowledge, and in that view persist in evil doing, I must acquaint them, that I have lately entered into an intimacy with the extraordinary person, who some time since wrote me the following letter; and who, having a wonderful faculty, that enables him to discover the most secret iniquity, is capable of giving me great assistance in my designed work of reformation. "MR. BUSY-BODY, "I rejoice, sir, at the opportunity you have given me to be serviceable to you, and, by your means, to this province. You must know, that such have been the circumstances of my life, and such were the marvellous concurrences of my birth, that I have not only a faculty of discovering the actions of persons, that are absent or asleep, but even of the devil himself, in many of his secret workings, in the various shapes, habits, and names of men and women: and having travelled and conversed much, and met but with a very few of the same perceptions and qualifications, I can recommend myself to you as the most useful man you can correspond with. My father's father's father (for we had no grandfathers in our family) was the same John Bunyan that writ that memorable book, The Pilgrim's Progress, who had, in some degree, a natural faculty of second sight. This faculty (how derived to him our family memoirs are not very clear) was enjoyed by all his descendants, but not by equal talents. It was very dim in several of my first cousins, and probably had been nearly extinct in our particular branch, had not my father been a traveller. He lived, in his youthful days, in New England. There he married, and there was born my elder brother, who had so much of this faculty, as to discover witches in some of their occult performances. My parents transporting themselves to Great Britain, my second brother's birth was in that kingdom. He shared but a small portion of this virtue, being only able to discern transactions about the time of, and for the most part after, their happening. My good father, who delighted in the Pilgrim's Progress, and mountainous places, took shipping, with his wife, for Scotland, and inhabited in the Highlands, where myself was born; and whether the soil, climate, or astral influences, of which are preserved divers prognosticks, restored our ancestor's natural faculty of second sight, in a greater lustre to me, than it had shined in through several generations, I will not here discuss. But so it is, that I am possessed largely of it, and design, if you encourage the proposal, to take this opportunity of doing good with it, which I question not will be accepted of in a grateful way by many of your honest readers, though the discovery of my extraction bodes me no deference from your great scholars and modern philosophers. This my father was long ago aware of, and lest the name alone should hurt the fortunes of his children, he, in his shiftings from one country to another, wisely changed it. "Sir, I have only this further to say, how I may be useful to you, and as a reason for my not making myself more known in the world: by virtue of this great gift of nature, second-sightedness, I do continually see numbers of men, women, and children, of all ranks, and what they are doing, while I am sitting in my closet; which is too great a burthen for the mind, and makes me also conceit, even against reason, that all this host of people can see and observe me, which strongly inclines me to solitude, and an obscure living; and, on the other hand, it will be an ease to me to disburthen my thoughts and observations in the way proposed to you, by sir, your friend and humble servant." I conceal this correspondent's name, in my care for his life and safety, and cannot but approve his prudence, in chusing to live obscurely. I remember the fate of my poor monkey: he had an illnatured trick of grinning and chattering at every thing he saw in peticoats: my ignorant country neighbours got a notion, that pug snarled by instinct at every female who had lost her virginity. This was no sooner generally believed, than he was condemned to death: by whom I could never learn, but he was assassinated in the night, barbarously stabbed and mangled in a thousand places, and left hanging dead on one of my gate posts, where I found him the next morning. The Censor observing, that the itch of scribbling begins to spread exceedingly, and being carefully tender of the reputation of his country, in point of wit and good sense, has determined to take all manner of writings in verse or prose, that pretend to either, under his immediate cognizance; and accordingly, hereby prohibits the publishing any such for the future, till they have first passed his examination, and received his imprimatur: for which he demands as a fee only sixpence per sheet. N. B. He nevertheless permits to be published, all satirical remarks on the Busy-Body, the above prohibition notwithstanding, and without examination, or requiring the said fees; which indulgence the small wits, in and about this city, are advised gratefully to accept and acknowledge. The gentleman, who calls himself Sirronio, is directed, on receipt of this, to burn his great book of Crudities. P. S. In compassion to that young man, on account of the great pains he has taken, in consideration of the character I have just received of him, that he is really good natured, and on condition he shows it to no foreigner, or stranger of sense, I have thought fit to reprieve his said great book of Crudities from the flames, till further order. Noli me tangere I had resolved, when I first commenced this design, on no account to enter into a public dispute with any man; for I judged it would be equally unpleasant to me and my readers, to see this paper filled with contentious wrangling, answers, replies, &c. which is a way of writing that is endless, and, at the same time, seldom contains any thing that is either edifying or entertaining. Yet, when such a considerable man as Mr. ---- finds himself concerned so warmly to accuse and condemn me, as he has done in Keimer's last Instructor, I cannot forbear endeavouring to say something in my own defence, from one of the worst of characters that could be given me by a man of worth. But as I have many things of more consequence to offer the public, I declare, that I will never, after this time, take notice of any accusations, not better supported with truth and reason; much less may every little scribbler, that shall attack me, expect an answer from the Busy-Body. The sum of the charge delivered against me, either directly or indirectly, in the said paper, is this: not to mention the first weighty sentence concerning vanity and ill-nature, and the shrewd intimation, that I am without charity, and therefore can have no pretence to religion, I am represented as guilty of defamation and scandal, the odiousness of which is apparent to every good man, and the practice of it opposite to christianity, morality, and common justice, and, in some cases, so far below all these, as to be inhuman; as a blaster of reputations; as attempting, by a pretence, to screen myself from the imputation of malice and prejudice; as using a weapon, which the wiser and better part of mankind hold in abhorrence; and as giving treatment which the wiser and better part of mankind dislike on the same principles, and for the same reason, as they do assassination, &c.; and all this is inferred and concluded from a character I have wrote in my Number III. In order to examine the justice and truth of this heavy charge, let us recur to that character. And here we may be surprized to find what a trifle has raised this mighty clamour and complaint, this grievous accusation!--The worst thing said of the person, in what is called my gross description (be he who he will to whom my accuser has applied the character of Cretico) is, that he is a sour philosopher, crafty, but not wise. Few humane characters can be drawn that will not fit some body, in so large a country as this; but one would think, supposing I meant Cretico a real person, I had sufficiently manifested my impartiality, when I said, in that very paragraph, that Cretico is not without virtue; that there are many good things in him, and many good actions reported of him; which must be allowed in all reason, very much to overbalance in his favour those worst words, sour tempered, and cunning. Nay, my very enemy and accuser must have been sensible of this, when he freely acknowledges, that he has been seriously considering, and cannot yet determine, which he would choose to be, the Cato or Cretico of that paper; since my Cato is one of the best of characters. Thus much in my own vindication. As to the only reasons there given, why I ought not to continue drawing characters, viz. Why should any man's picture be published which he never sat for; or his good name taken from him any more than his money or possessions, at the arbitrary will of another, &c. I have but this to answer: the money or possessions, I presume, are nothing to the purpose; since no man can claim a right either to those or a good name, if he has acted so as to forfeit them. And are not the public the only judges what share of reputation they think proper to allow any man? Supposing I was capable, and had an inclination, to draw all the good and bad characters in America, why should a good man be offended with me for drawing good characters? And if I draw ill ones, can they fit any but those that deserve them? And ought any but such to be concerned that they have their deserts? I have as great an aversion and abhorrence for defamation and scandal as any man, and would, with the utmost care, avoid being guilty of such base things: besides I am very sensible and certain, that if I should make use of this paper to defame any person, my reputation would be sooner hurt by it than his; and the Busy-Body would quickly become detestable; because, in such a case, as is justly observed, the pleasure arising from a tale of wit and novelty soon dies away in generous and honest minds, and is followed with a secret grief, to see their neighbours calumniated. But if I myself was actually the worst man in the province, and any one should draw my true character, would it not be ridiculous in me to say, he had defamed and scandalized me, unless he had added in a matter of truth? If any thing is meant by asking, why any man's picture should be published which he never sat for? it must be, that we should give no character without the owner's consent. If I discern the wolf disguised in harmless wool, and contriving the destruction of my neighbour's sheep, must I have his permission, before I am allowed to discover and prevent him? If I know a man to be a designing knave, must I ask his consent, to bid my friends beware of him? If so, then, by the same rule, supposing the Busy-Body had really merited all his enemy had charged him with, his consent likewise ought to have been obtained, before so terrible an accusation was published against him. I shall conclude with observing, that in the last paragraph save one of the piece now examined, much ill nature and some good sense are co-inhabitants (as he expresses it). The ill nature appears, in his endeavouring to discover satire, where I intended no such thing, but quite the reverse: the good sense is this, that drawing too good a character of any one is a refined manner of satire, that may be as injurious to him as the contrary, by bringing on an examination that undresses the person, and in the haste of doing it, he may happen to be stript of what he really owns and deserves. As I am Censor, I might punish the first, but I forgive it. Yet I will not leave the latter unrewarded; but assure my adversary, that in consideration of the merit of those four lines, I am resolved to forbear injuring him on any account in that refined manner. I thank my neighbour P---- W----l for his kind letter. The lions complained of shall be muzzled. _The Busy-Body._--No. VIII. FROM TUESDAY, MARCH 20, TO THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 1729. Quid non mortalia pectora cogis, Auri sacra fames?----VIRGIL. One of the greatest pleasures an author can have, is, certainly, the hearing his works applauded. The hiding from the world our names, while we publish our thoughts, is so absolutely necessary to this self-gratification, that I hope my well-wishers will congratulate me on my escape from the many diligent, but fruitless enquiries, that have of late been made after me. Every man will own, that an author, as such, ought to be hid by the merit of his productions only; but pride, party, and prejudice, at this time, run so very high, that experience shows we form our notions of a piece by the character of the author. Nay, there are some very humble politicians in and about this city, who will ask, on which side the writer is, before they presume to give their opinion of the thing wrote. This ungenerous way of proceeding I was well aware of before I published my first speculation; and therefore concealed my name. And I appeal to the more generous part of the world, if I have, since I appeared in the character of the Busy-Body, given an instance of my siding with any party more than another, in the unhappy divisions of my country; and I have, above all, this satisfaction in myself, that neither affection, aversion, or interest, have biassed me to use any partiality towards any man, or set of men; but whatsoever I find nonsensical, ridiculous, or immorally dishonest, I have, and shall continue openly to attack, with the freedom of an honest man, and a lover of my country. I profess I can hardly contain myself, or preserve the gravity and dignity that should attend the censorial office, when I hear the odd and unaccountable expositions, that are put upon some of my works, through the malicious ignorance of some, and the vain pride of more than ordinary penetration in others; one instance of which many of my readers are acquainted with. A certain gentleman has taken a great deal of pains to write a key to the letter in my Number IV, wherein he has ingeniously converted a gentle satyr upon tedious and impertinent visitants, into a libel on some of the government. This I mention only as a specimen of the taste of the gentleman; I am, forsooth, bound to please in my speculations, not that I suppose my impartiality will ever be called in question on that account. Injustices of this nature I could complain of in many instances; but I am at present diverted by the reception of a letter, which, though it regards me only in my private capacity, as an adept, yet I venture to publish it for the entertainment of my readers. "_To Censor Morum, Esq. Busy-Body General of the Province of Pennsylvania, and the Counties of Newcastle, Kent, and Sussex upon Delaware._ "HONOURABLE SIR, "I judge by your lucubrations, that you are not only a lover of truth and equity, but a man of parts and learning, and a master of science; as such I honour you. Know then, most profound sir, that I have, from my youth up, been a very indefatigable student in, and admirer of, that divine science, astrology. I have read over Scot, Albertus Magnus, and Cornelius Agrippa, above three hundred times; and was in hopes, by my knowledge and industry, to gain enough to have recompensed me for my money expended, and time lost in the pursuit of this learning. You cannot be ignorant, sir, (for your intimate second-sighted correspondent knows all things) that there are large sums of money hidden under ground in divers places about this town, and in many parts of the country: but alas, sir, notwithstanding I have used all the means laid down in the immortal authors before mentioned, and when they failed the ingenious Mr. P--d--l, with his mercurial wand and magnet, I have still failed in my purpose. This, therefore, I send, to propose and desire an acquaintance with you, and I do not doubt, notwithstanding my repeated ill fortune, but we may be exceedingly serviceable to each other in our discoveries; and that if we use our united endeavours, the time will come, when the Busy-Body, his second-sighted correspondent, and your very humble servant, will be three of the richest men in the province: and then, sir, what may we not do? A word to the wise is sufficient. "I conclude with all demonstrable respect, "Yours and Urania's Votary, "TITAN PLEIADES." In the evening after I had received this letter, I made a visit to my second-sighted friend, and communicated to him the proposal. When he had read it, he assured me, that to his certain knowledge, there is not at this time so much as one ounce of silver or gold hid under ground in any part of this province; for that the late and present scarcity of money had obliged those, who were living, and knew where they had formerly hid any, to take it up, and use it in their own necessary affairs: and as to all the rest, which was buried by pirates and others in old times, who were never like to come for it, he himself had long since dug it all up, and applied it to charitable uses; and this he desired me to publish for the general good. For, as he acquainted me, there are among us great numbers of honest artificers and labouring people, who, fed with a vain hope of growing suddenly rich, neglect their business, almost to the ruining of themselves and families, and voluntarily endure abundance of fatigue in a fruitless search after imaginary hidden treasure. They wander through the woods and bushes by day, to discover the marks and signs; at midnight they repair to the hopeful spots with spades and pickaxes; full of expectation, they labour violently, trembling at the same time in every joint, through fear of certain malicious demons, who are said to haunt and guard such places. At length a mighty hole is dug, and perhaps several cartloads of earth thrown out; but, alas, no cag or iron pot is found! no seaman's chest crammed with Spanish pistoles, or weighty pieces of eight! Then they conclude, that through some mistake in the procedure, some rash word spoke, or some rule of art neglected, the guardian spirit had power to sink it deeper into the earth, and convey it out of their reach. Yet, when a man is once thus infatuated, he is so far from being discouraged by ill success, that he is rather animated to double his industry, and will try again and again in a hundred different places, in hopes at last of meeting with some lucky hit, that shall at once sufficiently reward him for all his expense of time and labour. This odd humour of digging for money through a belief, that much has been hid by pirates formerly frequenting the river, has for several years been mighty prevalent among us; insomuch that you can hardly walk half a mile out of the town on any side, without observing several pits dug with that design, and perhaps some lately opened. Men, otherwise of very good sense, have been drawn into this practice, through an overweening desire of sudden wealth, and an easy credulity of what they so earnestly wished might be true. While the rational and almost certain methods of acquiring riches by industry and frugality are neglected or forgotten. There seems to be some peculiar charm in the conceit of finding money; and if the sands of Schuylkil were so much mixed with small grains of gold, that a man might in a day's time, with care and application, get together to the value of half a crown, I make no question but we should find several people employed there, that can with ease earn five shillings a day at their proper trades. Many are the idle stories told of the private success of some people, by which others are encouraged to proceed; and the astrologers, with whom the country swarms at this time, are either in the belief of these things themselves, or find their advantage in persuading others to believe them; for they are often consulted about the critical times for digging, the methods of laying the spirit, and the like whimsies, which renders them very necessary to, and very much caressed by, the poor deluded money-hunters. There is certainly something very bewitching in the pursuit after mines of gold and silver and other valuable metals, and many have been ruined by it. A sea-captain of my acquaintance used to blame the English for envying Spain their mines of silver, and too much despising or overlooking the advantages of their own industry and manufactures. For my part, says he, I esteem the banks of Newfoundland to be a more valuable possession than the mountains of Potosi; and when I have been there on the fishing account, have looked upon every cod pulled up into the vessel as a certain quantity of silver ore, which required only carrying to the next Spanish port to be coined into pieces of eight; not to mention the national profit of fitting out and employing such a number of ships and seamen. Let honest Peter Buckram, who has long, without success, been a searcher after hidden money, reflect on this, and be reclaimed from that unaccountable folly. Let him consider, that every stitch he takes when he is on his shop board is picking up part of a grain of gold, that will in a few days time amount to a pistole; and let Faber think the same of every nail he drives, or every stroke with his plane. Such thoughts may make them industrious, and of consequence in time they may be wealthy. But how absurd is it to neglect a certain profit for such a ridiculous whimsey: to spend whole days at the George, in company with an idle pretender to astrology, contriving schemes to discover what was never hidden, and forgetful how carelessly business is managed at home in their absence: to leave their wives and a warm bed at midnight (no matter if it rain, hail, snow, or blow a hurricane, provided that be the critical hour) and fatigue themselves with the violent exercise of digging for what they shall never find, and perhaps getting a cold that may cost their lives, or at least disordering themselves so as to be fit for no business beside for some days after. Surely this is nothing less than the most egregious folly and madness. I shall conclude with the words of my discreet friend, Agricola, of Chester County, when he gave his son a good plantation:--"My son," says he, "I give thee now a valuable parcel of land; I assure thee I have found a considerable quantity of gold by digging there; thee mayst do the same; but thee must carefully observe this, Never to dig more than plow-deep." FOOTNOTE: [174] These are the "humorous pieces" mentioned by Dr. Franklin in his Memoirs, page 86. We are indebted for them to an American correspondent, who obtained a copy with great difficulty, some depredating hand having torn from the file of the Mercury, in the Philadelphia Library, several of the numbers containing the pieces in question. _Editor._ _The Way to Wealth, as clearly shown in the Preface of an old Pensylvania Almanack, intitled, Poor Richard Improved[175]._ COURTEOUS READER, I have heard, that nothing gives an author so great pleasure, as to find his works respectfully quoted by others. Judge, then, how much I must have been gratified by an incident I am going to relate to you. I stopped my horse lately, where a great number of people were collected, at an auction of merchants goods. The hour of the sale not being come, they were conversing on the badness of the times; and one of the company called to a plain clean old man, with white locks, 'Pray, Father Abraham, what think you of the times? Will not these heavy taxes quite ruin the country? How shall we ever be able to pay them? What would you advise us to?'--Father Abraham stood up, and replied, 'If you would have my advice, I will give it you in short, "for a word to the wise is enough," as Poor Richard says.' They joined in desiring him to speak his mind, and gathering round him, he proceeded as follows: 'Friends, says he, the taxes are, indeed, very heavy, and, if those laid on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we might more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly; and from these taxes the commissioners cannot ease or deliver us, by allowing an abatement. However, let us hearken to good advice, and something may be done for us; "God helps them that help themselves," as poor Richard says. 'I. It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part of their time, to be employed in its service: but idleness taxes many of us much more; sloth, by bringing on diseases, absolutely shortens life. "Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labour wears, while the used key is always bright," as poor Richard says. "But dost thou love life, then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of," as poor Richard says. How much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep! forgetting, that "the sleeping fox catches no poultry, and that there will be sleeping enough in the grave," as poor Richard says. '"If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be," as poor Richard says, "the greatest prodigality;" since, as he elsewhere tells us, "lost time is never found again; and what we call time enough always proves little enough:" let us then up and be doing, and doing to the purpose; so by diligence shall we do more with less perplexity. "Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all easy; and he that riseth late, must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night; while laziness travels so slowly, that poverty soon overtakes him. Drive thy business, let not that drive thee; and early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise," as poor Richard says. 'So what signifies wishing and hoping for better times? We may make these times better, if we bestir ourselves. "Industry need not wish, and he that lives upon hope will die fasting. There are no gains without pains; then help hands, for I have no lands," or, if I have, they are smartly taxed. "He, that hath a trade, hath an estate; and he, that hath a calling, hath an office of profit and honour," as poor Richard says; but then the trade must be worked at, and the calling well followed, or neither the estate nor the office will enable us to pay our taxes. If we are industrious, we shall never starve; for, "at the working man's house, hunger looks in, but dares not enter." Nor will the bailiff or the constable enter, for "industry pays debts, while despair increaseth them." What though you have found no treasure, nor has any rich relation left you a legacy, "diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all things to industry. Then plow deep, while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn to sell and to keep." Work while it is called to-day, for you know not how much you may be hindered to-morrow. "One to-day is worth two to-morrows," as poor Richard says; and farther, "never leave that till to-morrow, which you can do to-day." If you were a servant, would you not be ashamed that a good master should catch you idle? Are you then your own master? Be ashamed to catch yourself idle, when there is so much to be done for yourself, your family, your country, and your king. Handle your tools without mittens; remember, that "the cat in gloves catches no mice," as poor Richard says. It is true, there is much to be done, and perhaps you are weak-handed; but stick to it steadily, and you will see great effects, for "constant dropping wears away stones; and by diligence and patience the mouse ate in two the cable; and little strokes fell great oaks." 'Methinks I hear some of you say, "must a man afford himself no leisure?" I will tell thee, my friend, what poor Richard says; "employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure; and since thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour." Leisure is time for doing something useful; this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man never; for "a life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. Many, without labour, would live by their wits only, but they break for want of stock;" whereas industry gives comfort, and plenty, and respect. "Fly pleasures, and they will follow you. The diligent spinner has a large shift; and now I have a sheep and a cow, every body bids me good-morrow." 'II. But with our industry we must likewise be steady, settled, and careful, and oversee our own affairs with our own eyes, and not trust too much to others; for, as poor Richard says, "I never saw an oft-removed tree, Nor yet an oft-removed family, That throve so well as those that settled be." And again, "three removes is as bad as a fire;" and again, "keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee;" and again, "if you would have your business done, go, if not, send." And again, "He that by the plough would thrive, Himself must either hold or drive." And again, "the eye of a master will do more work than both his hands;" and again, "want of care does us more damage than want of knowledge;" and again, "not to oversee workmen, is to leave them your purse open." Trusting too much to other's care is the ruin of many; for, "in the affairs of this world, men are saved, not by faith, but by the want of it;" but a man's own care is profitable; for, "if you would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve yourself. A little neglect may breed great mischief; for want of a nail the shoe was lost, and for want of a shoe the horse was lost, and for want of a horse the rider was lost," being overtaken and slain by the enemy; all for want of a little care about a horse-shoe nail. 'III. So much for industry, my friends, and attention to ones own business; but to these we must add frugality, if we would make our industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, "keep his nose all his life to the grind-stone, and die not worth a groat at last. A fat kitchen makes a lean will;" and "Many estates are spent in the getting, Since women for tea forsook spinning and knitting, And men for punch forsook hewing and splitting." "If you would be wealthy, think of saving, as well as of getting. The Indies have not made Spain rich, because her outgoes are greater than her incomes." 'Away then, with your expensive follies, and you will not then have so much cause to complain of hard times, heavy taxes, and chargeable families; for "Women and wine, game and deceit, Make the wealth small, and the want great." And farther, "what maintains one vice, would bring up two children." You may think, perhaps, that a little tea, or a little punch now and then, diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer, and a little entertainment now and then, can be no great matter; but remember, "many a little makes a mickle." Beware of little expences; "a small leak will sink a great ship," as poor Richard says; and again, "who dainties love, shall beggars prove;" and moreover, "fools make feasts, and wise men eat them." 'Here you are all got together to this sale of fineries and nick-nacks. You call them _goods_, but if you do not take care, they will prove _evils_ to some of you. You expect they will be sold cheap, and perhaps they may, for less than they cost; but, if you have no occasion for them, they must be dear to you. Remember what poor Richard says, "buy what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessaries." And again, "at a great penny-worth pause a while." He means, that perhaps the cheapness is apparent only, and not real; or the bargain, by straitening thee in thy business, may do thee more harm than good. For in another place he says, "many have been ruined by buying good pennyworths." Again, "it is foolish to lay out money in a purchase of repentance;" and yet this folly is practised every day at auctions, for want of minding the almanack. Many a one, for the sake of finery on the back, have gone with a hungry belly, and half starved their families; "silks and satins, scarlet and velvets, put out the kitchen fire," as poor Richard says. These are not the necessaries of life, they can scarcely be called the conveniences; and yet, only because they look pretty, how many want to have them? By these and other extravagancies, the genteel are reduced to poverty, and forced to borrow of those whom they formerly despised, but who, through industry and frugality, have maintained their standing; in which case it appears plainly, that "a ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees," as poor Richard says. Perhaps they have had a small estate left them, which they knew not the getting of; they think "it is day, and will never be night;" that a little to be spent out of so much is not worth minding; but "always taking out of the meal-tub, and never putting in soon comes to the bottom," as poor Richard says; and then, "when the well is dry, they know the worth of water." But this they might have known before, if they had taken his advice: "if you would know the value of money go and try to borrow some; for he that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing," as poor Richard says; and indeed so does he that lends to such people, when he goes to get it in again. Poor Dick farther advises, and says, "Fond pride of dress is sure a very curse, Ere fancy you consult, consult your purse." And again, "pride is as loud a beggar as want, and a great deal more saucy." When you have bought one fine thing, you must buy ten more, that your appearance may be all of a piece; but poor Dick says, "it is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it:" and it is as truly folly for the poor to ape the rich, as for the frog to swell, in order to equal the ox. "Vessels large may venture more, But little boats should keep near shore." It is, however, a folly soon punished; for, as poor Richard says, "pride that dines on vanity, sups on contempt; pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy." And, after all, of what use is this pride of appearance, for which so much is risked, so much is suffered? It cannot promote health, nor ease pain; it makes no increase of merit in the person; it creates envy, it hastens misfortune. 'But what madness must it be to _run in debt_ for these superfluities! We are offered, by the terms of this sale, six months credit; and that, perhaps, has induced some of us to attend it, because we cannot spare the ready money, and hope now to be fine without it. But ah! think what you do when you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty. If you cannot pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your creditor, you will be in fear when you speak to him, you will make poor pitiful sneaking excuses, and, by degrees, come to lose your veracity, and sink into base, downright lying; for, "the second vice is lying, the _first_ is running in debt," as poor Richard says; and again, to the same purpose, "lying rides upon debt's back;" whereas a free-born Englishman ought not to be ashamed nor afraid to see or speak to any man living. But poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue. "It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright." What would you think of that prince, or of that government, who should issue an edict, forbidding you to dress like a gentleman or gentlewoman, on pain of imprisonment or servitude? Would you not say, that you were free, have a right to dress as you please, and that such an edict would be a breach of your privileges, and such a government tyrannical? And yet you are about to put yourself under that tyranny, when you run in debt for such dress! your creditor has authority, at his pleasure, to deprive you of your liberty, by confining you in gaol for life, or by selling you for a servant, if you should not be able to pay him. When you have got your bargain, you may, perhaps, think little of payment; but, as poor Richard says, "creditors have better memories than debtors; creditors are a superstitious sect, great observers of set-days and times." The day comes round before you are aware, and the demand is made before you are prepared to satisfy it; or, if you bear your debt in mind, the term, which at first seemed so long, will, as it lessens, appear extremely short: time will seem to have added wings to his heels as well as his shoulders. "Those have a short lent, who owe money to be paid at Easter." At present, perhaps, you may think yourselves in thriving circumstances, and that you can bear a little extravagance without injury; but "For age and want save while you may, No morning sun lasts a whole day." Gain may be temporary and uncertain, but ever, while you live, expence is constant and certain; and, "it is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel," as poor Richard says: so "rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt." "Get what you can, and what you get hold, 'Tis the stone that will turn all your lead into gold." And when you have got the philosopher's stone, sure you will no longer complain of bad times, or the difficulty of paying taxes. 'IV. This doctrine, my friends, is reason and wisdom: but, after all, do not depend too much upon your own industry, and frugality, and prudence, though excellent things; for they may all be blasted, without the blessing of heaven; and therefore ask that blessing humbly, and be not uncharitable to those that at present seem to want it, but comfort and help them. Remember Job suffered, and was afterwards prosperous. 'And now, to conclude, "experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other," as poor Richard says, and scarce in that; for, it is true, "we may give advice, but we cannot give conduct:" however, remember this, "they that will not be counselled cannot be helped;" and farther, that "if you will not hear reason she will surely rap your knuckles," as poor Richard says.' Thus the old gentleman ended his harangue. The people heard it and approved the doctrine; and immediately practised the contrary, just as if it had been a common sermon, for the auction opened and they began to buy extravagantly.--I found the good man had thoroughly studied my almanacks, and digested all I had dropt on those topics during the course of twenty-five years. The frequent mention he made of me must have tired any one else; but my vanity was wonderfully delighted with it, though I was conscious, that not a tenth part of the wisdom was my own, which he ascribed to me, but rather the gleanings that I had made of the sense of all ages and nations. However, I resolved to be the better for the echo of it; and, though I had at first determined to buy stuff for a new coat, I went away, resolved to wear my old one a little longer. Reader, if thou wilt do the same, thy profit will be as great as mine. I am, as ever, Thine to serve thee, RICHARD SAUNDERS. FOOTNOTE: [175] Dr. Franklin, as I have been made to understand, for many years published the Pensylvania Almanack, called _Poor Richard [Saunders]_, and furnished it with various sentences and proverbs, which had principal relation to the topics of "industry, attention to one's own business, and frugality." The whole or chief of these sentences and proverbs he at last collected and digested in the above general preface, which his countrymen read with much avidity and profit. B. V. _Advice to a Young Tradesman[176]._ Written Anno 1748. TO MY FRIEND A. B. As you have desired it of me, I write the following hints, which have been of service to me, and may, if observed, be so to you. Remember, that _time_ is money. He, that can earn ten shillings a day by his labour, and goes abroad, or sits idle one half of that day, though he spends but sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon _that_ the only expence; he has really spent, or rather thrown away, five shillings besides. Remember, that _credit_ is money. If a man lets his money lie in my hands after it is due, he gives me the interest, or so much as I can make of it, during that time. This amounts to a considerable sum where a man has good and large credit, and makes good use of it. Remember, that money is of a prolific generating nature. Money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more, and so on. Five shillings turned is six, turned again it is seven and three-pence, and so on till it becomes an hundred pounds. The more there is of it, the more it produces every turning, so that the profits rise quicker and quicker. He that kills a breeding sow destroys all her offspring to the thousandth generation. He that murders a crown destroys all that it might have produced, even scores of pounds. Remember, that six pounds a year is but a groat a day. For this little sum (which may be daily wasted either in time or expence unperceived) a man of credit may, on his own security, have the constant possession and use of an hundred pounds. So much in stock, briskly turned by an industrious man, produces great advantage. Remember this saying, "the good paymaster is lord of another man's purse." He that is known to pay punctually and exactly to the time he promises may at any time, and on any occasion, raise all the money his friends can spare. This is sometimes of great use. After industry and frugality, nothing contributes more to the raising of a young man in the world than punctuality and justice in all his dealings: therefore, never keep borrowed money an hour beyond the time you promised, lest a disappointment shut up your friend's purse for ever. The most trifling actions that affect a man's credit are to be regarded. The sound of your hammer at five in the morning, or nine at night, heard by a creditor, makes him easy six months longer: but if he sees you at a billiard-table, or hears your voice at a tavern, when you should be at work, he sends for his money the next day; demands it before he can receive it in a lump. It shows, besides, that you are mindful of what you owe; it makes you appear a careful as well as an honest man, and that still increases your credit. Beware of thinking all your own that you possess, and of living accordingly. It is a mistake that many people who have credit fall into. To prevent this, keep an exact account for some time, both of your expences and your income. If you take the pains at first to mention particulars, it will have this good effect: you will discover how wonderfully small trifling expences mount up to large sums, and will discern what might have been, and may for the future be saved, without occasioning any great inconvenience. In short, the way to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, _industry_ and _frugality_; that is, waste neither _time_ nor _money_, but make the best use of both. Without industry and frugality nothing will do, and with them every thing. He, that gets all he can honestly, and saves all he gets (necessary expences excepted), will certainly become _rich_--if that Being who governs the world, to whom all should look for a blessing on their honest endeavours, doth not, in his wise providence, otherwise determine. AN OLD TRADESMAN. FOOTNOTE: [176] This paper and the hints that follow it are from the Repository, vol. II. p. 169 and 171, where, as they are placed under the head of original articles, we presume they first appeared. _Editor._ _Necessary Hints to those that would be Rich._ Written Anno 1736. The use of money is all the advantage there is in having money. For six pounds a year you may have the use of one hundred pounds, provided you are a man of known prudence and honesty. He, that spends a groat a day idly, spends idly above six pounds a year, which is the price for the use of one hundred pounds. He, that wastes idly a groat's worth of his time per day, one day with another, wastes the privilege of using one hundred pounds each day. He, that idly loses five shillings worth of time, loses five shillings, and might as prudently throw five shillings into the sea. He, that loses five shillings, not only loses that sum, but all the advantage that might be made by turning it in dealing, which, by the time that a young man becomes old, will amount to a considerable sum of money. Again: he, that sells upon credit, asks a price for what he sells equivalent to the principal and interest of his money for the time he is to be kept out of it; therefore, he, that buys upon credit, pays interest for what he buys, and he, that pays ready money, might let that money out to use: so that he, that possesses any thing he has bought, pays interest for the use of it. Yet, in buying goods, it is best to pay ready money, because he, that sells upon credit, expects to lose five per cent by bad debts; therefore he charges, on all he sells upon credit, an advance, that shall make up that deficiency. Those, who pay for what they buy upon credit, pay their share of this advance. He, that pays ready money, escapes, or may escape, that charge. A penny sav'd is two-pence clear, A pin a day's a groat a year. _The way to make Money Plenty in every Man's Pocket[177]._ At this time, when the general complaint is, that "money is scarce," it will be an act of kindness to inform the moneyless how they may reinforce their pockets. I will acquaint them with the true secret of money-catching, the certain way to fill empty purses, and how to keep them always full. Two simple rules, well observed, will do the business. First, let honesty and industry be thy constant companions; and Secondly, spend one penny less than thy clear gains. Then shall thy hide-bound pocket soon begin to thrive, and will never again cry with the empty belly-ach: neither will creditors insult thee, nor want oppress, nor hunger bite, nor nakedness freeze thee. The whole hemisphere will shine brighter, and pleasure spring up in every corner of thy heart. Now, therefore, embrace these rules and be happy. Banish the bleak winds of sorrow from thy mind, and live independent. Then shalt thou be a man, and not hide thy face at the approach of the rich, nor suffer the pain of feeling little when the sons of fortune walk at thy right hand: for independency, whether with little or much, is good fortune, and placeth thee on even ground with the proudest of the golden fleece. Oh, then, be wise, and let industry walk with thee in the morning, and attend thee until thou reachest the evening hour for rest. Let honesty be as the breath of thy soul, and never forget to have a penny when all thy expences are enumerated and paid: then shalt thou reach the point of happiness, and independence shall be thy shield and buckler, thy helmet and crown; then shall thy soul walk upright, nor stoop to the silken wretch because he hath riches, nor pocket an abuse because the hand which offers it wears a ring set with diamonds. FOOTNOTE: [177] From the American Museum, vol. II. p. 86. _Editor._ _New Mode of Lending Money[178]._ _Paris, April 22, 1784._ I send you herewith a bill for ten louis d'ors. I do not pretend to give such a sum. I only _lend_ it to you. When you shall return to your country, you cannot fail getting into some business, that will in time enable you to pay all your debts. In that case, when you meet with another honest man in similar distress, you must _pay me_ by lending this sum to him, enjoining him, to _discharge the debt_ by a like operation, when he shall be able, and shall meet with such another opportunity. I hope it may thus go through many hands before it meet with a _knave_ to stop its progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a good deal with a little money. I am not rich enough to afford _much_ in good works, and so am obliged to be cunning and make the most of a _little_. B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTE: [178] From the Gentleman's Magazine, for September, 1797; communicated by the gentleman who received it. _Editor._ _An Economical Project[179]._ TO THE AUTHORS OF THE JOURNAL. MESSIEURS, You often entertain us with accounts of new discoveries. Permit me to communicate to the public, through your paper, one, that has lately been made by myself, and which I conceive may be of great utility. I was the other evening in a grand company, where the new lamp of Messrs. Quinquet and Lange was introduced, and much admired for its splendor; but a general enquiry was made, whether the oil it consumed was not in proportion to the light it afforded, in which case there would be no saving in the use of it. No one present could satisfy us in that point, which all agreed ought to be known, it being a very desirable thing to lessen, if possible, the expence of lighting our apartments, when every other article of family expence was so much augmented. I was pleased to see this general concern for economy, for I love economy exceedingly. I went home, and to bed, three or four hours after midnight, with my head full of the subject. An accidental sudden noise waked me about six in the morning, when I was surprised to find my room filled with light; and I imagined at first, that a number of those lamps had been brought into it: but, rubbing my eyes, I perceived the light came in at the windows. I got up and looked out to see what might be the occasion of it, when I saw the sun just rising above the horison, from whence he poured his rays plentifully into my chamber, my domestic having negligently omitted the preceding evening to close the shutters. I looked at my watch, which goes very well, and found that it was but six o'clock; and still thinking it something extraordinary, that the sun should rise so early, I looked into the almanack, where I found it to be the hour given for his rising on that day. I looked forward too, and found he was to rise still earlier every day till towards the end of June; and that at no time in the year he retarded his rising so long as till eight o'clock. Your readers, who with me have never seen any signs of sunshine before noon, and seldom regard the astronomical part of the almanack, will be as much astonished as I was, when they hear of his rising so early; and especially when I assure them, _that he gives light as soon as he rises_. I am convinced of this. I am certain of my fact. One cannot be more certain of any fact. I saw it with my own eyes. And, having repeated this observation the three following mornings, I found always precisely the same result. Yet so it happens, that when I speak of this discovery to others, I can easily perceive by their countenances, though they forbear expressing it in words, that they do not quite believe me. One, indeed, who is a learned natural philosopher, has assured me, that I must certainly be mistaken as to the circumstance of the light coming into my room; for it being well known, as he says, that there could be no light abroad at that hour, it follows that none could enter from without; and that of consequence, my windows being accidentally left open, instead of letting in the light, had only served to let out the darkness: and he used many ingenious arguments to shew me how I might, by that means, have been deceived. I own, that he puzzled me a little, but he did not satisfy me; and the subsequent observations I made, as above mentioned, confirmed me in my first opinion. This event has given rise in my mind to several serious and important reflections. I considered that, if I had not been awakened so early in the morning, I should have slept six hours longer by the light of the sun, and in exchange have lived six hours the following night by candle-light; and the latter being a much more expensive light than the former, my love of economy induced me to muster up what little arithmetic I was master of, and to make some calculations, which I shall give you, after observing that utility is, in my opinion, the test of value in matters of invention, and that a discovery which can be applied to no use, or is not good for something, is good for nothing. I took for the basis of my calculation the supposition that there are 100,000 families in Paris, and that these families consume in the night half a pound of bougies, or candles per hour. I think this is a moderate allowance, taking one family with another; for though I believe some consume less, I know that many consume a great deal more. Then estimating seven hours per day, as the medium quantity between the time of the sun's rising and ours, he rising during the six following months from six to eight hours before noon, and there being seven hours of course per night in which we burn candles, the account will stand thus:-- In the six months between the twentieth of March and the twentieth of September, there are Nights 183 Hours of each night in which we burn candles 7 ------- Multiplication gives for the total number of hours 1,281 These 1,281 hours multiplied by 100,000, the number of inhabitants give 128,100,000 One hundred twenty-eight millions and one hundred thousand hours, spent at Paris by candle-light, which, at half a pound of wax and tallow per hour, gives the weight of 64,050,000 Sixty-four millions and fifty thousand of pounds, which, estimating the whole at the medium price of thirty sols the pound, makes the sum of ninety-six millions and seventy-five thousand livres tournois 96,075,000 An immense sum! that the city of Paris might save every year, by the economy of using sunshine instead of candles. If it should be said, that people are apt to be obstinately attached to old customs, and that it will be difficult to induce them to rise before noon, consequently my discovery can be of little use: I answer, _Nil desperandum_. I believe all who have common sense, as soon as they have learnt from this paper that it is day-light when the sun rises, will contrive to rise with him; and, to compel the rest, I would propose the following regulations: First. Let a tax be laid of a louis per window, on every window that is provided with shutters to keep out the light of the sun. Second. Let the same salutary operation of police be made use of to prevent our burning candles, that inclined us last winter to be more economical in burning wood; that is, let guards be placed in the shops of the wax and tallow chandlers, and no family be permitted to be supplied with more than one pound of candles per week. Third. Let guards also be posted to stop all the coaches, &c. that would pass the streets after sun-set, except those of physicians, surgeons, and midwives. Fourth. Every morning, as soon as the run rises, let all the bells in every church be set ringing; and if that is not sufficient, let cannon be fired in every street, to wake the sluggards effectually, and make them open their eyes to see their true interest. All the difficulty will be in the first two or three days: after which the reformation will be as natural and easy as the present irregularity: for, _ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute_. Oblige a man to rise at four in the morning, and it is more than probable he shall go willingly to bed at eight in the evening; and, having had eight hours sleep, he will rise more willingly at four the morning following. But this sum of ninety-six millions and seventy-five thousand livres is not the whole of what may be saved by my economical project. You may observe, that I have calculated upon only one half of the year, and much may be saved in the other, though the days are shorter. Besides, the immense stock of wax and tallow left unconsumed during the summer will probably make candles much cheaper for the ensuing winter, and continue them cheaper as long as the proposed reformation shall be supported. For the great benefit of this discovery, thus freely communicated and bestowed by me on the public, I demand neither place, pension, exclusive privilege, nor any other reward whatever. I expect only to have the honour of it. And yet I know there are little envious minds who will, as usual, deny me this, and say, that my invention was known to the ancients, and perhaps they may bring passages out of the old books in proof of it. I will not dispute with these people, that the ancients knew not the sun would rise at certain hours; they possibly had, as we have, almanacks that predicted it: but it does not follow from thence, that they knew _he gave light as soon as he rose_. This is what I claim as my discovery. If the antients knew it, it might have been long since forgotten, for it certainly was unknown to the moderns, at least to the Parisians, which to prove, I need use but one plain simple argument. They are as well-instructed, judicious and prudent a people as exist any where in the world, all professing, like myself, to be lovers of economy; and, from the many heavy taxes required from them by the necessities of the state, have surely an abundant reason to be economical. I say it is impossible, that so sensible a people, under such circumstances, should have lived so long by the smoaky, unwholesome and enormously expensive light of candles, if they had really known, that they might have had as much pure light of the sun for nothing. I am, &c. An ABONNE. FOOTNOTE: [179] "A translation of this letter appeared in one of the daily papers of Paris about the year 1784. The following is the original piece, with some additions and corrections made in it by the author." Note by the editor of the Repository, from which we extract the letter. _Editor._ TO JOHN ALLEYNE, ESQ.[180] _On early Marriages._ _Craven Street, Aug. 9, 1768_. DEAR JACK, You desire, you say, my impartial thoughts on the subject of an early marriage, by way of answer to the numberless objections, that have been made by numberless persons, to your own. You may remember, when you consulted me on the occasion, that I thought youth on both sides to be no objection. Indeed, from the marriages that have fallen under my observation, I am rather inclined to think, that early ones stand the best chance of happiness. The temper and habits of the young are not yet become so stiff and uncomplying, as when more advanced in life; they form more easily to each other, and hence many occasions of disgust are removed. And if youth has less of that prudence, which is necessary to manage a family, yet the parents and elder friends of young married persons are generally at hand to afford their advice, which amply supplies that defect; and by early marriage, youth is sooner formed to regular and useful life; and possibly some of those accidents or connections, that might have injured the constitution, or reputation, or both, are thereby happily prevented. Particular circumstances of particular persons may possibly sometimes make it prudent to delay entering into that state; but in general, when nature has rendered our bodies fit for it, the presumption is in nature's favour, that she has not judged amiss in making us desire it. Late marriages are often attended, too, with this further inconvenience, that there is not the same chance that the parents shall live to see their offspring educated. "Late children," says the Spanish proverb, "are early orphans." A melancholy reflection to those whose case it may be! With us in America, marriages are generally in the morning of life; our children are therefore educated and settled in the world by noon; and thus, our business being done, we have an afternoon and evening of cheerful leisure to ourselves, such as our friend at present enjoys. By these early marriages we are blessed with more children; and from the mode among us, founded by nature, of every mother suckling and nursing her own child, more of them are raised. Thence the swift progress of population among us, unparalleled in Europe. In fine, I am glad you are married, and congratulate you most cordially upon it. You are now in the way of becoming a useful citizen; and you have escaped the unnatural state of celibacy for life--the fate of many here, who never intended it, but who, having too long postponed the change of their condition, find, at length, that it is too late to think of it, and so live all their lives in a situation, that greatly lessens a man's value. An odd volume of a set of books bears not the value of its proportion to the set: what think you of the odd half of a pair of scissars? it cannot well cut any thing; it may possibly serve to scrape a trencher. Pray make my compliments and best wishes acceptable to your bride. I am old and heavy, or I should ere this have presented them in person. I shall make but small use of the old man's privilege, that of giving advice to younger friends. Treat your wife always with respect; it will procure respect to you, not only from her, but from all that observe it. Never use a slighting expression to her, even in jest; for slights in jest, after frequent bandyings, are apt to end in angry earnest. Be studious in your profession, and you will be learned. Be industrious and frugal, and you will be rich. Be sober and temperate, and you will be healthy. Be in general virtuous, and you will be happy. At least, you will, by such conduct, stand the best chance for such consequences. I pray God to bless you both! being ever your affectionate friend, B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTE: [180] From the Gentleman's Magazine for May 1789. _Editor._ TO DOCTOR MATHER OF BOSTON[181]. _Effect of early Impressions on the Mind._ REV. SIR, I received your kind letter, with your excellent advice to the people of the United States, which I read with great pleasure, and hope it will be duly regarded. Such writings, though they may be lightly passed over by many readers, yet, if they make a deep impression on one active mind in a hundred, the effects may be considerable. Permit me to mention one little instance, which, though it relates to myself, will not be quite uninteresting to you. When I was a boy, I met with a book entitled, "Essays to do good," which I think was written by your father. It had been so little regarded by a former possessor, that several leaves of it were torn out; but the remainder gave me such a turn of thinking, as to have an influence on my conduct through life: for I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good, than any other kind of reputation; and if I have been, as you seem to think, a useful citizen, the public owes the advantage of it to that book. You mention your being in your seventy-eighth year. I am in my seventy ninth. We are grown old together. It is now more than sixty years since I left Boston; but I remember well both your father and grandfather, having heard them both in the pulpit, and seen them in their houses. The last time I saw your father was in the beginning of 1724, when I visited him after my first trip to Pensylvania. He received me in his library; and, on my taking leave, showed me a shorter way out of the house, through a narrow passage, which was crossed by a beam overhead. We were still talking as I withdrew, he accompanying me behind, and I turning partly towards him, when he said hastily, "Stoop, stoop!" I did not understand him, till I felt my head hit against the beam. He was a man who never missed any occasion of giving instruction; and upon this he said to me: "You are young, and have the world before you: stoop as you go through it, and you will miss many hard thumps." This advice, thus beat into my heart, has frequently been of use to me: and I often think of it, when I see pride mortified, and misfortunes brought upon people by their carrying their heads too high. I long much to see again my native place; and once hoped to lay my bones there. I left it in 1723. I visited it in 1733, 1743, 1753, and 1763; and in 1773 I was in England. In 1775 I had a sight of it, but could not enter, it being in possession of the enemy. I did hope to have been there in 1783, but could not obtain my dismission from this employment here; and now I fear I shall never have that happiness. My best wishes however attend my dear country, "_esto perpetua_." It is now blessed with an excellent constitution: may it last for ever! This powerful monarchy continues its friendship for the United States. It is a friendship of the utmost importance to our security, and should be carefully cultivated. Britain has not yet well digested the loss of its dominion over us; and has still at times some flattering hopes of recovering it. Accidents may increase those hopes, and encourage dangerous attempts. A breach between us and France would infallibly bring the English again upon our backs: and yet we have some wild beasts among our countrymen, who are endeavouring to weaken that connection. Let us preserve our reputation, by performing our engagements; our credit, by fulfilling our contracts; and our friends, by gratitude and kindness: for we know not how soon we may again have occasion for all of them. With great and sincere esteem, I have the honour to be, Reverend Sir, Your most obedient and most humble servant, B. FRANKLIN. _Passy, May 12, 1784._ FOOTNOTE: [181] From the American Museum, Vol. VII. p. 100. _Editor._ _The Whistle[182]._ _Passy, Nov. 10, 1779._ I received my dear friend's two letters, one for Wednesday, and one for Saturday. This is again Wednesday. I do not deserve one for to day, because I have not answered the former. But indolent as I am, and averse to writing, the fear of having no more of your pleasing epistles, if I do not contribute to the correspondence, obliges me to take up my pen: and as Mr. B. has kindly sent me word, that he sets out to-morrow to see you; instead of spending this Wednesday evening, as I have done its name-sakes, in your delightful company, I sit down to spend it in thinking of you, in writing to you, and in reading over and over again your letters. I am charmed with your description of Paradise, and with your plan of living there; and I approve much of your conclusion, that in the mean time, we should draw all the good we can from this world. In my opinion, we might all draw more good from it than we do, and suffer less evil, if we would but take care not to give too much for _whistles_. For to me it seems, that most of the unhappy people we meet with, are become so by neglect of that caution. You ask, what I mean? You love stories, and will excuse my telling one of myself. When I was a child, at seven years old, my friends, on a holiday, filled my pocket with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children; and being charmed with the sound of a _whistle_, that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered him all my money for it. I then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my _whistle_, but disturbing all the family. My brothers, and sisters, and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth. This put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money; and they laughed at me so much for my folly, that I cried with vexation; and the reflection gave me more chagrin, than the _whistle_ gave me pleasure. This however was afterwards of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind; so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, _Don't give too much for the whistle_; and so I saved my money. As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, who _gave too much for the whistle_. When I saw any one too ambitious of court favours, sacrificing his time in attendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends, to attain it, I have said to myself, _This man gives too much for his whistle_. When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly employing himself in political bustles, neglecting his own affairs, and ruining them by that neglect, _He pays, indeed_, says I, _too much for his whistle_. If I knew a miser, who gave up every kind of comfortable living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow-citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship, for the sake of accumulating wealth, _Poor man_, says I, _you pay too much for your whistle_. When I meet a man of pleasure, sacrificing every laudable improvement of the mind, or of his fortune, to mere corporeal sensations, and ruining his health in their pursuit, _Mistaken man_, says I, _you are providing pain for yourself, instead of pleasure: you give too much for your whistle_. If I see one fond of appearance, of fine clothes, fine houses, fine furniture, fine equipages, all above his fortune, for which he contracts debts, and ends his career in a prison, _Alas_, says I, _he has paid dear, very dear, for his whistle_. When I see a beautiful, sweet-tempered girl, married to an ill-natured brute of a husband, _What a pity it is_, says I, _that she has paid so much for a whistle_! In short, I conceived, that great part of the miseries of mankind were brought upon them by the false estimates they had made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their _whistles_. Yet I ought to have charity for these unhappy people, when I consider, that with all this wisdom of which I am boasting, there are certain things in the world so tempting, for example, the apples of king John, which happily are not to be bought; for if they were put to sale by auction, I might very easily be led to ruin myself in the purchase, and find, that I had once more given too much for the _whistle_. Adieu, my dearest friend, and believe me ever yours very sincerely and with unalterable affection, B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTE: [182] This story has generally been supposed to have been written by Dr. Franklin for his nephew: but it seems, by the introductory paragraphs, which we have no where seen prefixed to the story but in a small collection of our author's works printed at Paris, to have been addressed to some female relative. The two concluding paragraphs, which are from the same source, are equally new to us. _Editor._ _A Petition to those who have the Superintendency of Education[183]._ I address myself to all the friends of youth, and conjure them to direct their compassionate regards to my unhappy fate, in order to remove the prejudices of which I am the victim. There are twin sisters of us: and the two eyes of man do not more resemble, nor are capable of being upon better terms with each other, than my sister and myself, were it not for the partiality of our parents, who make the most injurious distinctions between us. From my infancy, I have been led to consider my sister as a being of a more elevated rank. I was suffered to grow up without the least instruction, while nothing was spared in her education. She had masters to teach her writing, drawing, music, and other accomplishments; but if by chance I touched a pencil, a pen, or a needle, I was bitterly rebuked: and more than once I have been beaten for being aukward, and wanting a graceful manner. It is true, my sister associated me with her upon some occasions; but she always made a point of taking the lead, calling upon me only from necessity, or to figure by her side. But conceive not, sirs, that my complaints are instigated merely by vanity--No; my uneasiness is occasioned by an object much more serious. It is the practice in our family, that the whole business of providing for its subsistence falls upon my sister and myself. If any indisposition should attack my sister--and I mention it in confidence upon this occasion, that she is subject to the gout, the rheumatism and cramp, without making mention of other accidents--what would be the fate of our poor family? Must not the regret of our parents be excessive, at having placed so great a difference between sisters, who are so perfectly equal? Alas! we must perish from distress: for it would not be in my power even to scrawl a suppliant petition for relief, having been obliged to employ the hand of another in transcribing the request, which I have now the honour to prefer to you. Condescend, sirs, to make my parents sensible of the injustice of an exclusive tenderness, and of the necessity of distributing their care and affection among all their children equally. I am, with a profound respect, Sirs, Your obedient servant, THE LEFT HAND. FOOTNOTE: [183] From the American Museum, Vol. VII. p. 265. _Editor._ _The handsome and deformed Leg[184]._ There are two sorts of people in the world, who, with equal degrees of health and wealth, and the other comforts of life, become, the one happy, and the other miserable. This arises very much from the different views in which they consider things, persons, and events; and the effect of those different views upon their own minds. In whatever situation men can be placed, they may find conveniences and inconveniences; in whatever company, they may find persons and conversation more or less pleasing: at whatever table, they may meet with meats and drinks of better and worse taste, dishes better and worse dressed; in whatever climate, they will find good and bad weather: under whatever government, they may find good and bad laws, and good and bad administration of those laws; in whatever poem, or work of genius, they may see faults and beauties; in almost every face, and every person, they may discover fine features and defects, good and bad qualities. Under these circumstances, the two sorts of people above mentioned fix their attention, those, who are disposed to be happy, on the conveniences of things, the pleasant parts of conversation, the well-dressed dishes, the goodness of the wines, the fine weather, &c. and enjoy all with cheerfulness. Those, who are to be unhappy, think and speak only of the contraries. Hence they are continually discontented themselves, and, by their remarks, sour the pleasures of society, offend personally many people, and make themselves every where disagreeable. If this turn of mind was founded in nature, such unhappy persons would be the more to be pitied. But as the disposition to criticise, and to be disgusted, is, perhaps, taken up originally by imitation, and is, unawares, grown into a habit, which, though at present strong, may nevertheless be cured, when those who have it are convinced of its bad effects on their felicity; I hope this little admonition may be of service to them, and put them on changing a habit, which, though in the exercise it is chiefly an act of imagination, yet has serious consequences in life, as it brings on real griefs and misfortunes. For, as many are offended by, and nobody loves, this sort of people, no one shows them more than the most common civility and respect, and scarcely that; and this frequently puts them out of humour, and draws them into disputes and contentions. If they aim at obtaining some advantage in rank or fortune, nobody wishes them success, or will stir a step, or speak a word, to favour their pretensions. If they incur public censure or disgrace, no one will defend or excuse, and many join to aggravate their misconduct, and render them completely odious. If these people will not change this bad habit, and condescend to be pleased with what is pleasing, without fretting themselves and others about the contraries, it is good for others to avoid an acquaintance with them; which is always disagreeable, and sometimes very inconvenient, especially when one finds oneself entangled in their quarrels. An old philosophical friend of mine was grown, from experience, very cautious in this particular, and carefully avoided any intimacy with such people. He had, like other philosophers, a thermometer, to show him the heat of the weather, and a barometer, to mark when it was likely to prove good or bad; but there being no instrument invented to discover, at first sight, this unpleasing disposition in a person, he, for that purpose, made use of his legs; one of which was remarkably handsome, the other, by some accident, crooked and deformed. If a stranger, at the first interview, regarded his ugly leg more than his handsome one, he doubted him. If he spoke of it, and took no notice of the handsome leg, that was sufficient to determine my philosopher to have no further acquaintance with him. Every body has not this two-legged instrument; but every one, with a little attention, may observe signs of that carping, fault-finding disposition, and take the same resolution of avoiding the acquaintance of those infected with it, I therefore advise those critical querulous, discontented, unhappy people, that, if they wish to be respected and beloved by others, and happy in themselves, they should _leave off looking at the ugly leg_. FOOTNOTE: [184] From the Columbian Magazine, Vol. I. p. 61. _Editor._ _Morals of Chess[185]._ Playing at chess is the most ancient and most universal game known among men; for its original is beyond the memory of history, and it has, for numberless ages, been the amusement of all the civilized nations of Asia, the Persians, the Indians, and the Chinese. Europe has had it above a thousand years; the Spaniards have spread it over their part of America, and it begins lately to make its appearance in these states. It is so interesting in itself, as not to need the view of gain to induce engaging in it; and thence it is never played for money. Those, therefore, who have leisure for such diversions, cannot find one that is more innocent; and the following piece, written with a view to correct (among a few young friends) some little improprieties in the practice of it, shows, at the same time, that it may, in its effects on the mind, be not merely innocent, but advantageous, to the vanquished as well as the victor. The game of chess is not merely an idle amusement. Several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired or strengthened by it, so as to become habits, ready on all occasions. For life is a kind of chess, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree, the effects of prudence or the want of it. By playing at chess, then, we may learn, I. _Foresight_, which looks a little into futurity, and considers the consequences that may attend an action: for it is continually occurring to the player, "If I move this piece, what will be the advantage of my new situation? What use can my adversary make of it to annoy me? What other moves can I make to support it, and to defend myself from his attacks?" II. _Circumspection_, which surveys the whole chess-board, or scene of action, the relations of the several pieces and situations, the dangers they are respectively exposed to, the several possibilities of their aiding each other, the probabilities that the adversary may take this or that move, and attack this or the other piece, and what different means can be used to avoid his stroke, or turn its consequences against him. III. _Caution_, not to make our moves too hastily. This habit is best acquired by observing strictly the laws of the game, such as, "If you touch a piece, you must move it somewhere: if you set it down, you must let it stand:" and it is therefore best that these rules should be observed, as the game thereby becomes more the image of human life, and particularly of war; in which, if you have incautiously put yourself into a bad and dangerous position, you cannot obtain your enemy's leave to withdraw your troops, and place them more securely, but you must abide all the consequences of your rashness. And, lastly, we learn by chess the habit of _not being discouraged by present bad appearances in the state of our affairs_, the habit of _hoping for a favourable change_, and that of _persevering in the search of resources_. The game is so full of events, there is such a variety of turns in it, the fortune of it is so subject to sudden vicissitudes, and one so frequently, after long contemplation, discovers the means of extricating oneself from a supposed insurmountable difficulty, that one is encouraged to continue the contest to the last, in hopes of victory by our own skill, or at least of getting a stale mate, by the negligence of our adversary. And whoever considers, what in chess he often sees instances of, that particular pieces of success are apt to produce presumption, and its consequent inattention, by which the loss may be recovered, will learn not to be too much discouraged by the present success of his adversary, nor to despair of final good fortune upon every little check he receives in the pursuit of it. That we may, therefore, be induced more frequently to choose this beneficial amusement, in preference to others, which are not attended with the same advantages, every circumstance which may increase the pleasures of it should be regarded; and every action or word that is unfair, disrespectful, or that in any way may give uneasiness, should be avoided, as contrary to the immediate intention of both the players, which is to pass the time agreeably. Therefore, first, if it is agreed, to play according to the strict rules; then those rules are to be exactly observed by both parties, and should not be insisted on for one side, while deviated from by the other--for this is not equitable. Secondly, if it is agreed, not to observe the rules exactly, but one party demands indulgencies, he should then be as willing to allow them to the other. Thirdly, no false move should ever be made to extricate yourself out of difficulty, or to gain an advantage. There can be no pleasure in playing with a person once detected in such unfair practice. Fourthly, if your adversary is long in playing you ought not to hurry him, or express any uneasiness at his delay. You should not sing, nor whistle, nor look at your watch, nor take up a book to read, nor make a tapping with your feet on the floor, or with your fingers on the table, nor do any thing that may disturb his attention. For all these things displease; and they do not show your skill in playing, but your craftiness or your rudeness. Fifthly, you ought not to endeavour to amuse and deceive your adversary, by pretending to have made bad moves, and saying, that you have now lost the game, in order to make him secure and careless, and inattentive to your schemes: for this is fraud and deceit, not skill in the game. Sixthly, you must not, when you have gained a victory, use any triumphing or insulting expression, nor show too much pleasure; but endeavour to console your adversary, and make him less dissatisfied with himself, by every kind of civil expression, that may be used with truth, such as, "you understand the game better than I, but you are a little inattentive;" or, "you play too fast;" or, "you had the best of the game, but something happened to divert your thoughts, and that turned it in my favour." Seventhly, if you are a spectator while others play, observe the most perfect silence. For if you give advice, you offend both parties, him against whom you give it, because it may cause the loss of his game, him in whose favour you give it, because, though it be good and he follows it, he loses the pleasure he might have had, if you had permitted him to think until it had occurred to himself. Even after a move or moves, you must not, by replacing the pieces, show how it might have been placed better: for that displeases, and may occasion disputes and doubts about their true situation. All talking to the players lessens or diverts their attention, and is therefore unpleasing. Nor should you give the least hint to either party, by any kind of noise or motion. If you do, you are unworthy to be a spectator. If you have a mind to exercise or show your judgment, do it in playing your own game, when you have an opportunity, not in criticising, or meddling with, or counselling the play of others. Lastly, if the game is not to be played rigorously, according to the rules above mentioned, then moderate your desire of victory over your adversary, and be pleased with one over yourself. Snatch not eagerly at every advantage offered by his unskilfulness or inattention; but point out to him kindly, that by such a move he places or leaves a piece in danger and unsupported; that by another he will put his king in a perilous situation, &c. By this generous civility (so opposite to the unfairness above forbidden) you may, indeed, happen to lose the game to your opponent, but you will win what is better, his esteem, his respect, and his affection, together with the silent approbation and good-will of impartial spectators. FOOTNOTE: [185] This letter has appeared in too many forms in this country, and is too well known to be Dr. Franklin's, to require being authenticated. _Editor._ _The Art of procuring Pleasant Dreams[186]._ INSCRIBED TO MISS ****, Being written at her request. As a great part of our life is spent in sleep, during which we have sometimes pleasing, and sometimes painful dreams, it becomes of some consequence to obtain the one kind, and avoid the other; for, whether real or imaginary, pain is pain, and pleasure is pleasure. If we can sleep without dreaming, it is well that painful dreams are avoided. If, while we sleep, we can have any pleasing dreams, it is, as the French say, _tant gagné_, so much added to the pleasure of life. To this end, it is, in the first place, necessary, to be careful in preserving health, by due exercise, and great temperance; for, in sickness, the imagination is disturbed; and disagreeable, sometimes terrible, ideas are apt to present themselves. Exercise should precede meals, not immediately follow them: the first promotes, the latter, unless moderate, obstructs digestion. If, after exercise, we feed sparingly, the digestion will be easy and good, the body lightsome, the temper cheerful, and all the animal functions performed agreeably. Sleep, when it follows, will be natural and undisturbed, while indolence, with full feeding, occasions nightmares and horrors inexpressible: we fall from precipices, are assaulted by wild beasts, murderers, and demons, and experience every variety of distress. Observe, however, that the quantities of food and exercise are relative things: those who move much may, and indeed ought, to eat more; those who use little exercise should eat little. In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eat about twice as much as nature requires. Suppers are not bad, if we have not dined; but restless nights naturally follow hearty suppers, after full dinners. Indeed, as there is a difference in constitutions, some rest well after these meals; it costs them only a frightful dream, and an apoplexy, after which they sleep till doomsday. Nothing is more common in the newspapers, than instances of people, who, after eating a hearty supper, are found dead a-bed in the morning. Another means of preserving health, to be attended to, is the having a constant supply of fresh air in your bed-chamber. It has been a great mistake, the sleeping in rooms exactly closed, and in beds surrounded by curtains. No outward air that may come into you is so unwholesome, as the unchanged air, often breathed, of a close chamber. As boiling water does not grow hotter by longer boiling, if the particles that receive greater heat can escape; so living bodies do not putrify, if the particles, as fast as they become putrid, can be thrown off. Nature expels them by the pores of the skin and the lungs, and in a free open air they are carried off; but, in a close room, we receive them again and again, though they become more and more corrupt. A number of persons crowded into a small room thus spoil the air in a few minutes, and even render it mortal, as in the Black Hole at Calcutta. A single person is said to spoil only a gallon of air per minute, and therefore requires a longer time to spoil a chamber full; but it is done, however, in proportion, and many putrid disorders hence have their origin. It is recorded of Methusalem, who, being the longest liver, may be supposed to have best preserved his health, that he slept always in the open air; for, when he had lived five hundred years, an angel said to him: "Arise, Methusalem, and build thee an house, for thou shalt live yet five hundred years longer." But Methusalem answered and said, "If I am to live but five hundred years longer it is not worth while to build me an house--I will sleep in the air, as I have been used to do." Physicians, after having for ages contended, that the sick should not be indulged with fresh air, have at length discovered, that it may do them good. It is therefore to be hoped, that they may in time discover likewise, that it is not hurtful to those who are in health, and that we may be then cured of the _aërophobia_, that at present distresses weak minds, and make them choose to be stifled and poisoned, rather than leave open the window of a bed-chamber, or put down the glass of a coach. Confined air, when saturated with perspirable matter[187], will not receive more; and that matter must remain in our bodies, and occasion diseases: but it gives some previous notice of its being about to be hurtful, by producing certain uneasinesses, slight indeed at first, such as, with regard to the lungs, is a trifling sensation, and to the pores of the skin a kind of restlessness, which is difficult to describe, and few that feel it know the cause of it. But we may recollect, that sometimes, on waking in the night, we have, if warmly covered, found it difficult to get asleep again. We turn often without finding repose in any position. This figettiness, to use a vulgar expression for want of a better, is occasioned wholly by an uneasiness in the skin, owing to the retension of the perspirable matter--the bed-clothes having received their quantity, and, being saturated, refusing to take any more. To become sensible of this by an experiment, let a person keep his position in the bed, but throw off the bed-clothes, and suffer fresh air to approach the part uncovered of his body; he will then feel that part suddenly refreshed; for the air will immediately relieve the skin, by receiving, licking up, and carrying off, the load of perspirable matter that incommoded it. For every portion of cool air, that approaches the warm skin, in receiving its part of that vapour, receives therewith a degree of heat, that rarifies and renders it lighter, when it will be pushed away, with its burthen, by cooler and therefore heavier fresh air; which, for a moment, supplies its place, and then, being likewise changed and warmed, gives way to a succeeding quantity. This is the order of nature, to prevent animals being infected by their own perspiration. He will now be sensible of the difference between the part exposed to the air, and that which, remaining sunk in the bed, denies the air access: for this part now manifests its uneasiness more distinctly by the comparison, and the seat of the uneasiness is more plainly perceived, than when the whole surface of the body was affected by it. Here, then, is one great and general cause of unpleasing dreams. For when the body is uneasy, the mind will be disturbed by it, and disagreeable ideas of various kinds will, in sleep, be the natural consequences. The remedies, preventative and curative, follow: 1. By eating moderately (as before advised for health's sake) less perspirable matter is produced in a given time; hence the bed-clothes receive it longer before they are saturated; and we may, therefore, sleep longer, before we are made uneasy by their refusing to receive any more. 2. By using thinner and more porous bed-clothes, which will suffer the perspirable matter more easily to pass through them, we are less incommoded, such being longer tolerable. 3. When you are awakened by this uneasiness, and find you cannot easily sleep again, get out of bed, beat up and turn your pillow, shake the bed-clothes well, with at least twenty shakes, then throw the bed open, and leave it to cool; in the meanwhile, continuing undrest, walk about your chamber, till your skin has had time to discharge its load, which it will do sooner as the air may be drier and colder. When you begin to feel the cold air unpleasant, then return to your bed, and you will soon fall asleep, and your sleep will be sweet and pleasant. All the scenes presented to your fancy will be of the pleasing kind. I am often as agreeably entertained with them, as by the scenery of an opera. If you happen to be too indolent to get out of bed, you may, instead of it, lift up your bed-clothes with one arm and leg, so as to draw in a good deal of fresh air, and, by letting them fall, force it out again. This, repeated twenty times, will so clear them of the perspirable matter they have imbibed, as to permit your sleeping well for some time afterwards. But this latter method is not equal to the former. Those who do not love trouble, and can afford to have two beds, will find great luxury in rising, when they wake in a hot bed, and going into the cool one. Such shifting of beds would also be of great service to persons ill of a fever, as it refreshes and frequently procures sleep. A very large bed, that will admit a removal so distant from the first situation as to be cool and sweet, may in a degree answer the same end. One or two observations more will conclude this little piece. Care must be taken when you lie down, to dispose your pillow so as to suit your manner of placing your head, and to be perfectly easy; then place your limbs so as not to bear inconveniently hard upon one another, as, for instance, the joints of your ancles: for though a bad position may at first give but little pain and be hardly noticed, yet a continuance will render it less tolerable, and the uneasiness may come on while you are asleep, and disturb your imagination. These are the rules of the art. But though they will generally prove effectual in producing the end intended, there is a case in which the most punctual observance of them will be totally fruitless. I need not mention the case to you, my dear friend, but my account of the art would be imperfect without it. The case is, when the person, who desires to have pleasant dreams, has not taken care to preserve, what is necessary above all things, A GOOD CONSCIENCE. FOOTNOTES: [186] From the Columbian Magazine, vol. I. p. 64. _Editor._ [187] What physicians call the perspirable matter, is that vapour which passes off from our bodies, from the lungs, and through the pores of the skin. The quantity of this is said to be five-eighths of what we eat. _Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout[188]._ _Midnight, October 22, 1780._ _Franklin._--Eh! Oh! Eh! What have I done to merit these cruel sufferings? _Gout._--Many things; you have ate and drank too freely, and too much indulged those legs of yours in their indolence. _Franklin._--Who is it that accuses me? _Gout._--It is I, even I, the gout. _Franklin._--What! my enemy in person? _Gout._--No, not your enemy. _Franklin._--I repeat it; my enemy: for you would not only torment my body to death, but ruin my good name: you reproach me as a glutton and a tipler; now all the world that knows me will allow, that I am neither the one nor the other. _Gout._--The world may think as it pleases: it is always very complaisant to itself, and sometimes to its friends; but I very well know, that the quantity of meat and drink proper for a man, who takes a reasonable degree of exercise, would be too much for another, who never takes any. _Franklin._--I take--Eh! Oh!--as much exercise--Eh!--as I can, Madam Gout. You know my sedentary state, and on that account, it would seem, Madam Gout, as if you might spare me a little, seeing it is not altogether my own fault. _Gout._--Not a jot: your rhetoric and your politeness are thrown away; your apology avails nothing. If your situation in life is a sedentary one, your amusements, your recreations, at least, should be active. You ought to walk or ride; or, if the weather prevents that, play at billiards. But let us examine your course of life. While the mornings are long, and you have leisure to go abroad, what do you do? Why, instead of gaining an appetite for breakfast, by salutary exercise, you amuse yourself with books, pamphlets, or newspapers, which commonly are not worth the reading. Yet you eat an inordinate breakfast, four dishes of tea, with cream, and one or two buttered toasts, with slices of hung beef, which I fancy are not things the most easily digested. Immediately afterward you sit down to write at your desk, or converse with persons who apply to you on business. Thus the time passes till one, without any kind of bodily exercise. But all this I could pardon, in regard, as you say, to your sedentary condition. But what is your practice after dinner. Walking in the beautiful gardens of those friends with whom you have dined would be the choice of men of sense: yours is to be fixed down to chess, where you are found engaged for two or three hours! This is your perpetual recreation, which is the least eligible of any for a sedentary man, because, instead of accelerating the motion of the fluids, the rigid attention it requires helps to retard the circulation and obstruct internal secretions. Wrapt in the speculations of this wretched game, you destroy your constitution. What can be expected from such a course of living, but a body replete with stagnant humours, ready to fall a prey to all kinds of dangerous maladies, if I, the gout, did not occasionally bring you relief by agitating these humours, and so purifying or dissipating them. If it was in some nook or alley in Paris, deprived of walks, that you played awhile at chess after dinner, this might be excusable, but the same taste prevails with you in Passey, Auteuil, Montmartre, or Sanoy, places where there are the finest gardens and walks, a pure air, beautiful women, and most agreeable and instructive conversation; all which you might enjoy by frequenting the walks! But these are rejected for this abominable game of chess. Fie, then, Mr. Franklin! But amidst my instructions, I had almost forgot to administer my wholsome corrections: so take that twinge--and that. _Franklin._--Oh! Eh! Oh!--Ohhh! As much instruction as you please, Madam Gout, and as many reproaches, but pray, Madam, a truce with your corrections! _Gout._--No, sir, no--I will not abate a particle of what is so much for your good--therefore-- _Franklin._--Oh! Ehhh!--It is not fair to say I take no exercise, when I do very often, going out to dine, and returning in my carriage. _Gout._--That of all imaginable exercise is the most slight and insignificant, if you allude to the motion of a carriage suspended on springs. By observing the degree of heat obtained by different kinds of motion we may form an estimate of the quantity of exercise given by each. Thus, for example, if you turn out to walk in winter with cold feet, in an hour's time you will be in a glow all over; ride on horseback, the same effect will scarcely be perceived by four hours round trotting: but if you loll in a carriage, such as you have mentioned, you may travel all day, and gladly enter the last inn to warm your feet by a fire. Flatter yourself then no longer, that half an hour's airing in your carriage deserves the name of exercise. Providence has appointed few to roll in carriages, while he has given to all a pair of legs, which are machines infinitely more commodious and serviceable. Be grateful, then, and make a proper use of yours. Would you know, how they forward the circulation of your fluids, in the very action of transporting you from place to place? observe when you walk, that all your weight is alternately thrown from one leg to the other; this occasions a great pressure on the vessels of the foot, and repels their contents. When relieved, by the weight being thrown on the other foot, the vessels of the first are allowed to replenish, and by a return of this weight, this repulsion again succeeds; thus accelerating the circulation of the blood. The heat produced in any given time depends on the degree of this acceleration: the fluids are shaken, the humours attenuated, the secretions facilitated, and all goes well; the cheeks are ruddy, and health is established. Behold your fair friend at Auteuil: a lady who received from bounteous nature more really useful science, than half a dozen such pretenders to philosophy, as you, have been able to extract from all your books. When she honours you with a visit, it is on foot. She walks all hours of the day, and leaves indolence and its concomitant maladies to be endured by her horses. In this see at once the preservative of her health and personal charms. But you, when you go to Auteuil, must have your carriage, though it is no farther from Passy to Auteuil, than from Auteuil to Passy. _Franklin._--Your reasonings grow very tiresome. _Gout._--I stand corrected. I will be silent and continue my office: take that, and that. _Franklin._--Oh! Ohh! Talk on, I pray you! _Gout._--No, no; I have a good number of twinges for you to-night, and you may be sure of some more to-morrow. _Franklin._--What, with such a fever! I shall go distracted. Oh! Eh! Can no one bear it for me? _Gout._--Ask that of your horses; they have served you faithfully. _Franklin._--How can you so cruelly sport with my torments? _Gout._--Sport? I am very serious. I have here a list of your offences against your own health distinctly written, and can justify every stroke inflicted on you. _Franklin._--Read it then. _Gout._--It is too long a detail; but I will briefly mention some particulars. _Franklin._--Proceed--I am all attention. _Gout._--Do you remember how often you have promised yourself, the following morning, a walk in the grove of Boulogne, in the garden de la Muette, or in your own garden, and have violated your promise, alledging, at one time, it was too cold, at another too warm, too windy, too moist, or what else you pleased; when in truth it was too nothing, but your insuperable love of ease? _Franklin._--That I confess may have happened occasionally, probably ten times in a year. _Gout._--Your confession is very far short of the truth; the gross amount is one hundred and ninety-nine times. _Franklin._--Is it possible? _Gout._--So possible that it is fact; you may rely on the accuracy of my statement. You know Mr. B----'s gardens, and what fine walks they contain; you know the handsome flight of an hundred steps, which lead from the terrace above to the lawn below. You have been in the practice of visiting this amiable family twice a week after dinner, and as it is a maxim of your own, that "a man may take as much exercise in walking a mile up and down stairs, as in ten on level ground," what an opportunity was here for you to have had exercise in both these ways? Did you embrace it, and how often? _Franklin._--I cannot immediately answer that question. _Gout._--I will do it for you; not once. _Franklin._--Not once? _Gout._--Even so. During the summer you went there at six o'clock. You found the charming lady, with her lovely children and friends, eager to walk with you, and entertain you with their agreeable conversation: and what has been your choice? Why to sit on the terrace, satisfying yourself with the fine prospect, and passing your eye over the beauties of the garden below, without taking one step to descend and walk about in them. On the contrary, you call for tea, and the chess-board; and lo! you are occupied in your seat till nine o'clock, and that beside two hours play after dinner; and then, instead of walking home, which would have bestirred you a little, you step into your carriage. How absurd to suppose, that all this carelessness can be reconcileable with health, without my interposition! _Franklin._--I am convinced now of the justness of poor Richard's remark, that, "Our debts and our sins are always greater than we think for." _Gout._--So it is! you philosophers are sages in your maxims, and fools in your conduct. _Franklin._--But do you charge among my crimes, that I return in a carriage from Mr. B----'s? _Gout._--Certainly: for having been seated all the while, you cannot object the fatigue of the day, and cannot want therefore the relief of a carriage. _Franklin._--What then would you have me do with my carriage? _Gout._--Burn it, if you choose; you would at least get heat out of it once in this way; or if you dislike that proposal, here's another for you: observe the poor peasants who work in the vineyards and grounds about the villages of Passy, Anteuil, Chaillois, &c.; you may find every day among these deserving creatures, four or five old men and women, bent and perhaps crippled by weight of years, and too long and too great labour. After a most fatiguing day, these people have to trudge a mile or two to their smoky huts. Order your coachmen to set them down. That is an act that will be good for your soul; and at the same time, after your visit to the B----'s, if you return on foot, that will be good for your body. _Franklin._--Ah! how tiresome you are. _Gout._--Well then, to my office; it should not be forgotten, that I am your physician. There. _Franklin._--Ohhh! what a devil of a physician! _Gout._--How ungrateful are you to say so! Is it not I, who, in the character of your physician, have saved you from the palsy, dropsy, and apoplexy? one or other of which would have done for you long ago, but for me. _Franklin._--I submit, and thank you for the past, but intreat the discontinuance of your visits for the future: for in my mind one had better die, than be cured so dolefully. Permit me just to hint, that I have also not been unfriendly to _you_. I never feed physician, or quack of any kind, to enter the list against you; if then you do not leave me to my repose, it may be said you are ungrateful too. _Gout._--I can scarcely acknowledge that as any objection. As to quacks, I despise them: they may kill you, indeed, but cannot injure me. And as to regular physicians, they are at last convinced, that the gout, in such a subject as you are, is no disease, but a remedy; and wherefore cure a remedy?--but to our business--There.-- _Franklin._--Oh! Oh!--for heaven's sake leave me; and I promise faithfully never more to play at chess, but to take exercise daily, and live temperately. _Gout._--I know you too well. You promise fair; but, after a few months of good health, you will return to your old habits; your fine promises will be forgotten like the forms of the last year's clouds. Let us then finish the account and I will go. But I leave you with an assurance, of visiting you again at a proper time and place; for my object is your good, and you are sensible now, that I am your real friend. FOOTNOTE: [188] We have no authority for ascribing this paper to Dr. Franklin, but its appearance, with his name, in a small collection of his works printed a few years ago at Paris, and cited before, page 480. As the rest of the papers in that collection are genuine, this probably is also genuine. What we give is a translation. _Editor._ TO MISS HUBBARD. _On the Death of Relatives[189]._ _Philadelphia, Feb. 22, 1756._ I condole with you. We have lost a most dear and valuable relation[190]. But it is the will of God and nature, that these mortal bodies be laid aside, when the soul is to enter into real life. This is rather an embryo state, a preparation for living. A man is not completely born until he be dead. Why then should we grieve, that a new child is born among the immortals, a new member added to their happy society? We are spirits. That bodies should be lent us, while they can afford us pleasure, assist us in acquiring knowledge, or doing good to our fellow-creatures, is a kind and benevolent act of God. When they become unfit for these purposes, and afford us pain instead of pleasure, instead of an aid become an incumbrance, and answer none of the intentions for which they were given, it is equally kind and benevolent, that a way is provided by which we may get rid of them. Death is that way. We ourselves, in some cases, prudently choose a partial death. A mangled painful limb, which cannot be restored, we willingly cut off. He, who plucks out a tooth, parts with it freely, since the pain goes with it: and he, who quits the whole body, parts at once with all pains, and possibilities of pains and diseases, it was liable to, or capable of making him suffer. Our friend and we were invited abroad on a party of pleasure, which is to last for ever. His chair was ready first, and he is gone before us. We could not all conveniently start together: and why should you and I be grieved at this, since we are soon to follow, and know where to find him? Adieu. B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTES: [189] From the Columbian Magazine, Vol. I, p. 208. _Editor._ [190] Dr. Franklin's brother, Mr. John Franklin. TO MADAME BRILLIANT. _The Ephemera an Emblem of human Life[191]._ You may remember, my dear friend, that when we lately spent that happy day, in the delightful garden and sweet society of the Moulin Joly, I stopt a little in one of our walks, and staid some time behind the company. We had been shown numberless skeletons of a kind of little fly, called an ephemera, whose successive generations, we were told, were bred and expired within the day. I happened to see a living company of them on a leaf, who appeared to be engaged in conversation. You know I understand all the inferior animal tongues: my too great application to the study of them is the best excuse I can give for the little progress I have made in your charming language. I listened through curiosity to the discourse of these little creatures; but as they, in their national vivacity, spoke three or four together, I could make but little of their conversation. I found, however, by some broken expressions that I heard now and then, they were disputing warmly on the merit of two foreign musicians, one a _cousin_, the other a _muscheto_; in which dispute they spent their time, seemingly as regardless of the shortness of life, as if they had been sure of living a month. Happy people! thought I, you live certainly under a wise, just, and mild government, since you have no public grievances to complain of, nor any subject of contention, but the perfections or imperfections of foreign music. I turned my head from them to an old grey-headed one, who was single on another leaf, and talking to himself. Being amused with his soliloquy, I put it down in writing, in hopes it will likewise amuse her to whom I am so much indebted for the most pleasing of all amusements, her delicious company, and heavenly harmony. "It was," says he, "the opinion of learned philosophers of our race, who lived and flourished long before my time, that this vast world, the Moulin Joly, could not itself subsist more than eighteen hours: and I think there was some foundation for that opinion; since, by the apparent motion of the great luminary, that gives life to all nature, and which in my time has evidently declined considerably towards the ocean at the end of our earth, it must then finish its course, be extinguished in the waters that surround us, and leave the world in cold and darkness, necessarily producing universal death and destruction. I have lived seven of those hours; a great age, being no less than four hundred and twenty minutes of time. How very few of us continue so long? I have seen generations born, flourish, and expire. My present friends are the children and grand-children of the friends of my youth, who are now, alas no more! And I must soon follow them; for, by the course of nature, though still in health, I cannot expect to live above seven or eight minutes longer. What now avails all my toil and labour, in amassing honey-dew on this leaf, which I cannot live to enjoy! What the political struggles I have been engaged in, for the good of my com-patriot inhabitants of this bush, or my philosophical studies, for the benefit of our race in general! for in politics (what can laws do without morals?) our present race of ephemeræ will in a course of minutes become corrupt, like those of other and older bushes, and consequently as wretched: and in philosophy how small our progress! Alas! art is long, and life is short! My friends would comfort me with the idea of a name, they say, I shall leave behind me; and they tell me, I have lived long enough to nature and to glory. But what will fame be to an ephemera, who no longer exists? and what will become of all history in the eighteenth hour, when the world itself, even the whole Moulin Joly, shall come to its end, and be buried in universal ruin?"---- To me, after all my eager pursuits, no solid pleasures now remain, but the reflection of a long life spent in meaning well, the sensible conversation of a few good lady ephemeræ, and now and then a kind smile and a tune from the ever amiable Brilliant. B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTE: [191] From the American Museum, Vol. VIII. p. 183. It was written during the author's residence at Passy, and a translation of it at that time appeared in one of the Parisian periodical publications. This appears to be the original piece. _Editor._ APPENDIX: CONTAINING 1. PAPERS PROPER FOR INSERTION, BUT OMITTED, IN THE PRECEDING VOLUMES: AND 2. LETTERS BY SEVERAL EMINENT PERSONS, ILLUSTRATIVE OF DR. FRANKLIN'S MANNERS AND CHARACTER. APPENDIX, No. I. CONTAINING PAPERS PROPER FOR INSERTION, BUT OMITTED, IN THE PRECEDING VOLUMES. _Letter to Sir Hans Sloane[192]._ _June 2, 1725._ SIR, Having lately been in the northern parts of America, I have brought from thence a purse made of the _asbestos_, a piece of the stone, and a piece of the wood, the pithy part of which is of the same nature, and called by the inhabitants salamander cotton. As you are noted to be a lover of curiosities, I have informed you of these: and if you have any inclination to purchase or see them, let me know your pleasure, by a line directed for me at the Golden Fan in Little Britain, and I will wait upon you with them. I am, sir, Your most humble servant, B. FRANKLIN. P. S. I expect to be out of town in two or three days, and therefore beg an immediate answer. FOOTNOTE: [192] From the Gentleman's Magazine, for [___], 1780, where it appears among other original letters to Sir Hans Sloane, from different persons. _Editor._ _Letter to Michael Collinson, Esq[193]._ [No date.] DEAR SIR, Understanding that an account of our dear departed friend, Mr. Peter Collinson, is intended to be given to the public, I cannot omit expressing my approbation of the design. The characters of good men are exemplary, and often stimulate the well disposed to an imitation, beneficial to mankind, and honourable to themselves. And as you may be unacquainted with the following instances of his zeal and usefulness in promoting knowledge, which fell within my observation, I take the liberty of informing you, that in 1730, a subscription library being set on foot at Philadelphia, he encouraged the design by making several very valuable presents to it, and procuring others from his friends: and as the library company had a considerable sum arising annually to be laid out in books, and needed a judicious friend in London to transact the business for them, he voluntarily and cheerfully undertook that service, and executed it for more than thirty years successively, assisting in the choice of books, and taking the whole care of collecting and shipping them, without ever charging or accepting any consideration for his trouble. The success of this library (greatly owing to his kind countenance and good advice) encouraged the erecting others in different places on the same plan; and it is supposed, there are now upwards of thirty subsisting in the several colonies, which have contributed greatly to the spreading of useful knowledge in that part of the world; the books he recommended being all of that kind, and the catalogue of this first library being much respected and followed by those libraries that succeeded. During the same time he transmitted to the directors of the library the earliest accounts of every new European improvement in agriculture and the arts, and every philosophical discovery; among which, in 1745, he sent over an account of the new German experiments in electricity, together with a glass tube, and some directions for using it so as to repeat those experiments. This was the first notice I had of that curious subject, which I afterwards prosecuted with some diligence, being encouraged by the friendly reception he gave to the letters I wrote to him upon it. Please to accept this small testimony of mine to his memory, for which I shall ever have the utmost respect; and believe me, with sincere esteem, dear sir, Your most humble servant, B. FRANKLIN. FOOTNOTE: [193] From the London Magazine, for April, 1776. _Editor._ _Letter respecting Captain Cook._ To all captains and commanders of armed ships, acting by commission from the congress of the United States of America, now in war with Great Britain. GENTLEMEN, A ship having been fitted out from England, before the commencement of this war, to make discoveries of new countries in unknown seas, under the conduct of that most celebrated navigator, Captain Cook,--an undertaking truly laudable in itself, as the increase of geographical knowledge facilitates the communication between distant nations, in the exchange of useful products and manufactures, and the extension of arts whereby the common enjoyments of human life are multiplied and augmented, and science of other kinds increased, to the benefit of mankind in general.--This is therefore most earnestly to recommend to every one of you, that in case the said ship, which is now expected to be soon in the European seas on her return, should happen to fall into your hands, you would not consider her as an enemy, nor suffer any plunder to be made of the effects contained in her, nor obstruct her immediate return to England, by detaining her or sending her into any other part of Europe or America, but that you would treat the said captain Cook and his people with all civility and kindness, affording them, as common friends to mankind, all the assistance in your power, which they may happen to stand in need of. In so doing, you will not only gratify the generosity of your own dispositions, but there is no doubt of your obtaining the approbation of the congress[194], and your own American owners. I have the honour to be, gentlemen, Your most obedient, &c. B. FRANKLIN, Minister plenipotentiary from the congress of the United States to the court of France. _At Passy, near Paris, this 10th day of March, 1779._ FOOTNOTE: [194] Dr. Kippis, in his Life of Captain Cook, had asserted, upon what he deemed unquestionable authority, that Dr. Franklin's orders were instantly reversed, and that it was directed by congress, to seize captain Cook, if an opportunity of doing it occurred: but, finding that the information was false, he addressed a letter to the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine, in September, 1795, publicly acknowledging his mistake. In the American Museum, from which we have taken Dr. Franklin's letter, the correspondent who communicated the letter says, that "the generous proceeding of Dr. Franklin in writing it was so well known in England, and the sentiments it manifested so much approved by the government there, that, when Cook's Voyage was printed, the admiralty sent to Dr. Franklin a copy of the same in three volumes quarto, accompanied with the elegant collection of plates, and a very polite letter from lord Howe, signifying, that the present was made with his majesty's express approbation; and the royal society having, in honour of that illustrious navigator, one of their members, struck some gold medals to be distributed among his friends and the friends of his voyage, one of those medals, was also sent to Dr. Franklin, by order of the society, together with a letter from their worthy president, sir Joseph Banks, expressing likewise, that it was sent with the approbation of his majesty." _Editor._ _An Address to the Public, from the Pensylvania Society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and the Relief of free Negroes, unlawfully held in Bondage[195]._ It is with peculiar satisfaction, we assure the friends of humanity, that, in prosecuting the design of our association, our endeavours have proved successful, far beyond our most sanguine expectations. Encouraged by this success, and by the daily progress of that luminous and benign spirit of liberty, which is diffusing itself throughout the world, and humbly hoping for the continuance of the divine blessing on our labours, we have ventured to make an important addition to our original plan, and do, therefore, earnestly solicit the support and assistance of all, who can feel the tender emotions of sympathy and compassion, or relish the exalted pleasure of beneficence. Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils. The unhappy man, who has long been treated as a brute animal, too frequently sinks beneath the common standard of the human species. The galling chains, that bind his body, do also fetter his intellectual faculties, and impair the social affections of his heart. Accustomed to move like a mere machine, by the will of a master, reflection is suspended; he has not the power of choice; and reason and conscience have but little influence over his conduct, because he is chiefly governed by the passion of fear. He is poor and friendless--perhaps worn out by extreme labour, age, and disease. Under such circumstances, freedom may often prove a misfortune to himself, and prejudicial to society. Attention to emancipated black people, it is therefore to be hoped, will become a branch of our national police; but as far as we contribute to promote this emancipation, so far that attention is evidently a serious duty incumbent on us, and which we mean to discharge to the best of our judgment and abilities. To instruct, to advise, to qualify those, who have been restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty, to promote in them habits of industry, to furnish them with employments suited to their age, sex, talents, and other circumstances, and to procure their children an education calculated for their future situation in life; these are the great outlines of the annexed plan, which we have adopted, and which we conceive will essentially promote the public good, and the happiness of these our hitherto too much neglected fellow-creatures. A plan so extensive cannot be carried into execution without considerable pecuniary resources, beyond the present ordinary funds of the society. We hope much from the generosity of enlightened and benevolent freemen, and will gratefully receive any donations or subscriptions for this purpose, which may be made to our treasurer, James Starr, or to James Pemberton, chairman of our committee of correspondence. Signed by order of the society, B. FRANKLIN, PRESIDENT. _Philadelphia, 9th of November, 1789._ FOOTNOTE: [195] In an American periodical publication, this address and the plan that follows it are ascribed to the pen of Dr. Franklin, which induces us to give them a place here. _Editor._ _Plan for improving the Condition of the Free Blacks._ The business relative to free blacks shall be transacted by a committee of twenty-four persons, annually elected by ballot, at the meeting of this society, in the month called April; and in order to perform the different services with expedition, regularity, and energy, this committee shall resolve itself into the following sub-committees, viz: I. A committee of inspection, who shall superintend the morals, general conduct, and ordinary situation of the free negroes, and afford them advice and instruction, protection from wrongs, and other friendly offices. II. A committee of guardians, who shall place out children and young people with suitable persons, that they may (during a moderate time of apprenticeship, or servitude) learn some trade or other business of subsistence. The committee may effect this partly by a persuasive influence on parents and the persons concerned; and partly by co-operating with the laws, which are, or may be enacted for this, and similar purposes: in forming contracts on these occasions, the committee shall secure to the society, as far as may be practicable, the right of guardianship over the persons so bound. III. A committee of education, who shall superintend the school-instruction of the children and youth of the free blacks; they may either influence them to attend regularly the schools, already established in this city, or form others with this view; they shall, in either case, provide, that the pupils may receive such learning, as is necessary for their future situation in life; and especially a deep impression of the most important, and generally acknowledged moral and religious principles. They shall also procure and preserve a regular record of the marriages, births, and manumissions of all free blacks. IV. A committee of employ, who shall endeavour to procure constant employment for those free negroes who are able to work: as the want of this would occasion poverty, idleness, and many vicious habits. This committee will, by sedulous enquiry, be enabled to find common labour for a great number; they will also provide, that such, as indicate proper talents, may learn various trades, which may be done by prevailing upon them to bind themselves for such a term of years, as shall compensate their masters for the expence and trouble of instruction and maintenance. The committee may attempt the institution of some useful and simple manufactures, which require but little skill, and also may assist, in commencing business, such as appear to be qualified for it. Whenever the committee of inspection shall find persons of any particular description requiring attention, they shall immediately direct them to the committee, of whose care they are the proper objects. In matters of a mixed nature, the committees shall confer, and, if necessary, act in concert. Affairs of great importance shall be referred to the whole committee. The expence, incurred by the prosecution of this plan, shall be defrayed by a fund, to be formed by donations, or subscriptions, for these particular purposes, and to be kept separate from the other funds of this society. The committee shall make a report of their proceedings, and of the state of their stock, to the society, at their quarterly meetings, in the months called April and October. _Philadelphia, 26th October, 1789._ _Paper: a Poem[196]._ Some wit of old--such wits of old there were-- Whose hints show'd meaning, whose allusions care, By one brave stroke to mark all human kind, Call'd clear blank paper ev'ry infant mind; When still, as opening sense her dictates wrote, Fair virtue put a seal, or vice a blot. The thought was happy, pertinent, and true; Methinks a genius might the plan pursue. I (can you pardon my presumption), I-- No wit, no genius, yet for once will try. Various the papers various wants produce, The wants of fashion, elegance, and use. Men are as various: and, if right I scan, Each sort of _paper_ represents some _man_. Pray note the fop--half powder and half lace-- Nice, as a bandbox were his dwelling-place: He's the _gilt-paper_, which apart you store, And lock from vulgar hands in the 'scrutoire. Mechanics, servants, farmers, and so forth, Are _copy-paper_, of inferior worth; Less priz'd, more useful, for your desk decreed, Free to all pens, and prompt at ev'ry need. The wretch, whom av'rice bids to pinch and spare, Starve, cheat, and pilfer, to enrich an heir, Is coarse _brown-paper_; such as pedlars choose To wrap up wares, which better men will use. Take next the miser's contrast, who destroys Health, fame, and fortune, in a round of joys. Will any paper match him? Yes, throughout, He's a true _sinking-paper_, past all doubt. The retail politician's anxious thought Deems _this_ side always right, and _that_ stark nought; He foams with censure; with applause he raves-- A dupe to rumours, and a tool of knaves; He'll want no type his weakness to proclaim, While such a thing as _fools-cap_ has a name. The hasty gentleman, whose blood runs high, Who picks a quarrel, if you step awry, Who can't a jest, or hint, or look endure: What's he? What? _Touch-paper_ to be sure. What are our poets, take them as they fall, Good, bad, rich, poor, much read, not read at all? Them and their works in the same class you'll find; They are the mere _waste-paper_ of mankind. Observe the maiden, innocently sweet, She's fair _white-paper_, an unsullied sheet; On which the happy man, whom fate ordains, May write his _name_, and take her for his pains. One instance more, and only one I'll bring; 'Tis the _great man_ who scorns a little thing, Whose thoughts, whose deeds, whose maxims are his own, Form'd on the feelings of his heart alone: True genuine _royal-paper_ is his breast; Of all the kinds most precious, purest, best. FOOTNOTE: [196] We have been told, that this poem is not Franklin's, and the name of some other person was at the time mentioned to us as the author; but as we have forgotten both the name and the authority, and as the poem has been ascribed to Dr. Franklin in the American Museum, we think it not right to omit it. _Editor._ _Plain Truth; or serious Considerations on the present State of the City of Philadelphia, and Province of Pensylvania:_ BY A TRADESMAN OF PHILADELPHIA[197]. Capta urbe, nihil fit reliqui victis. Sed, per deos immortales, vos ego appello, qui semper domos, villas, signa, tabulas vestras, tantæ æstimationis fecistis; si ista, cujuscumque modi sint, quæ amplexamini, retinere, si voluptatibus vestris otium præbere vultis; expergiscimini aliquando, & capessite rempublicam. Non agitur nunc de sociorum injuriis; _libertas & anima_ nostra in dubio est. Dux hostium cum exercitu supra caput est. Vos cunctamini etiam nunc, & dubitatis quid faciatis? Scilicet, res ipsa aspera est, sed vos non timetis eam. Imo vero maxime; sed inertiâ & mollitiâ animi, alius alium expectantes, cunctamini; videlicit, diis immortalibus confisi, qui hanc rempublicam in maximis periculis servavere _non votis, neque suppliciis muliebribus, auxilia deorum parantur_: vigilando, agendo, bene consulendo, prospere omnia cedunt. Ubi socordiæ tete atque ignaviæ tradideris, nequicquam deos implores; irati, infestique sunt. M. POR. CAT. IN SALUST. It is said, the wise Italians make this proverbial remark on our nation, viz. The English _feel_, but they do not _see_. That is, they are sensible of inconveniences when they are present, but do not take sufficient care to prevent them: their natural courage makes them too little apprehensive of danger, so that they are often surprised by it, unprovided of the proper means of security. When it is too late, they are sensible of their imprudence: after great fires, they provide buckets and engines: after a pestilence, they think of keeping clean their streets and common sewers: and when a town has been sacked by their enemies, they provide for its defence, &c. This kind of _after-wisdom_ is indeed so common with us, as to occasion the vulgar, though very insignificant saying, _When the steed is stolen, you shut the stable door_. But the more insensible we generally are of public danger and indifferent when warned of it, so much the more freely, openly, and earnestly, ought such as apprehend it to speak their sentiments; that, if possible, those who seem to sleep may be awakened, to think of some means of avoiding or preventing the mischief, before it be too late. Believing therefore, that it is my _duty_, I shall honestly speak my mind in the following paper. War, at this time, rages over a great part of the known world; our newspapers are weekly filled with fresh accounts of the destruction it every where occasions. Pensylvania, indeed, situate in the centre of the colonies, has hitherto enjoyed profound repose; and though our nation is engaged in a bloody war, with two great and powerful kingdoms, yet, defended, in a great degree, from the French, on the one hand, by the northern provinces, and from the Spaniards, on the other, by the southern, at no small expence to each, our people have, till lately, slept securely in their habitations. There is no British colony, excepting this, but has made some kind of provision for its defence; many of them have therefore never been attempted by an enemy; and others, that were attacked, have generally defended themselves with success. The length and difficulty of our bay and river have been thought so effectual a security to us, that hitherto no means have been entered into, that might discourage an attempt upon us, or prevent its succeeding. But whatever security this might have been while both country and city were poor, and the advantage to be expected scarce worth the hazard of an attempt, it is now doubted, whether we can any longer safely depend upon it. Our wealth, of late years much encreased, is one strong temptation, our defenceless state another, to induce an enemy to attack us; while the acquaintance they have lately gained with our Bay and river, by means of the prisoners and flags of truce they have had among us; by spies which they almost every where maintain, and perhaps from traitors among ourselves; with the facility of getting pilots to conduct them; and the known absence of ships of war, during the greatest part of the year, from both Virginia and New York, ever since the war began, render the appearance of success to the enemy far more promising, and therefore highly encrease our danger. That our enemies may have spies abroad, and some even in these colonies, will not be made much doubt of, when it is considered, that such has been the practice of all nations in all ages, whenever they were engaged, or intended to engage, in war. Of this we have an early example in the book of Judges (too pertinent to our case, and therefore I must beg leave a little to enlarge upon it) where we are told, _Chap._ xviii, v. 2. That _the children of Dan sent of their family five men from their coasts to spie out the land, and search it, saying, Go, search the land_. These Danites it seems were at this time not very orthodox in their religion, and their spies met with a certain idolatrous priest of their own persuasion, v. 3, and they said to him, _Who brought thee hither? What makest thou in this place? And what hast thou here?_ [Would to God no such priests were to be found among us]. And they said unto him, v. 5. _Ask counsel of God, that we may know, whether our way which we go shall be prosperous: and the priest said unto them, Go in peace; before the Lord is your way wherein you go._ [Are there no priests among us, think you, that might, in the like case, give an enemy as good encouragement? It is well known, that we have numbers of the same religion with those, who of late encouraged the French to invade our Mother Country.] _And they came_, verse 7, _to Laish, and saw the people that were therein, how they dwelt_ CARELESS, _after the manner of the Zidonians_, QUIET _and_ SECURE. They _thought_ themselves secure, no doubt; and as they _never had been_ disturbed, vainly imagined they _never should_. It is not unlikely, that some might see the danger they were exposed to by living in that _careless_ manner; but that, if these publicly expressed their apprehensions, the rest reproached them as timorous persons, wanting courage or confidence in their gods, who (they might say) had hitherto protected them. But the spies, verse 8, returned, and said to their countrymen, verse 9, _Arise, that we may go up against them; for we have seen the land, and behold it is very good! And are ye still? Be not slothful to go._ Verse 10, _when ye go, ye shall come to a people_ SECURE; [that is, a people that apprehend no danger, and therefore have made no provision against it; great encouragement this!] _and to a large land, and a place where there is no want of any thing_. What could they desire more? Accordingly we find, in the following verses, that _six hundred men_ only, _appointed with weapons of war_, undertook the conquest of this _large land_; knowing that 600 men, armed and disciplined, would be an over-match perhaps for 60,000, unarmed, undisciplined, and off their guard. And when they went against it, the idolatrous priest, verse 17, _with his graven image, and his ephod, and his seraphim, and his molten image_, [plenty of superstitious trinkets] joined with them, and, no doubt, gave them all the intelligence and assistance in his power; his heart, as the text assures us, _being glad_, perhaps for reasons more than one. And now, what was the fate of poor Laish! The 600 men being arrived, found, as the spies had reported, a people QUIET and SECURE, verse 20, 21, _And they smote them with the edge of the sword, and burnt the city with_ FIRE; _and there was no_ DELIVERER, _because it was far from Zidon_.--Not so far from Zidon, however, as Pensylvania is from Britain; and yet we are, if possible, more _careless_ than the people of Laish! As the scriptures are given for our reproof, instruction and warning, may we make a due use of this example, before it be too late! And is our _country_, any more than our city, altogether free from danger? Perhaps not. We have, it is true, had a long peace with the Indians: but it is a long peace indeed, as well as a long lane, that has no ending. The French know the power and importance of the Six Nations, and spare no artifice, pains or expence, to gain them to their interest. By their priests they have converted many to their religion, and these[198] have openly espoused their cause. The rest appear irresolute what part to take; no persuasions, though enforced with costly presents, having yet been able to engage them generally on our side, though we had numerous forces on their borders, ready to second and support them. What then may be expected, now those forces are, by orders from the crown, to be disbanded, when our boasted expedition is laid aside, through want (as it may appear to them) either of strength or courage; when they see, that the French and their Indians, boldly, and with impunity, ravage the frontiers of New York, and scalp the inhabitants; when those few Indians, that engaged with us against the French, are left exposed to their resentment: when they consider these things, is there no danger that, through disgust at our usage, joined with fear of the French power, and greater confidence in their promises and protection than in ours, they may be wholly gained over by our enemies, and join in the war against us? If such should be the case, which God forbid, how soon may the mischief spread to our frontier countries? And what may we expect to be the consequence, but desertion of plantations, ruin, bloodshed and confusion! Perhaps some in the city, towns, and plantations near the river, may say to themselves, "An Indian war on the frontiers will not affect us; the enemy will never come near our habitations; let those concerned take care of themselves." And others who live in the country, when they are told of the danger the city is in from attempts by sea, may say, "What is that to us? The enemy will be satisfied with the plunder of the town, and never think it worth his while to visit our plantations: let the town take care of itself."--These are not mere suppositions, for I have heard some talk in this strange manner. But are these the sentiments of true Pensylvanians, of fellow-countrymen, or even of men, that have common sense or goodness? Is not the whole province one body, united by living under the same laws, and enjoying the same privileges? Are not the people of city and country connected as relations, both by blood and marriage, and in friendships equally dear? Are they not likewise united in interest, and mutually useful and necessary to each other? When the feet are wounded, shall the head say, it is not me; I will not trouble myself to contrive relief! Or if the head is in danger, shall the hands say, we are not affected, and therefore will lend no assistance! No. For so would the body be easily destroyed: but when all parts join their endeavours for its security, it is often preserved. And such should be the union between the country and the town; and such their mutual endeavours for the safety of the whole. When New England, a distant colony, involved itself in a grievous debt to reduce Cape Breton, we freely gave four thousand pounds for _their_ relief. And at another time, remembering that Great Britain, still more distant, groaned under heavy taxes in supporting the war, we threw in our mite to their assistance, by a free gift of three thousand pounds: and shall country and town join in helping strangers (as those comparatively are) and yet refuse to assist each other? But whatever different opinions we have of our security in other respects, our TRADE, all seem to agree, is in danger of being ruined in another year. The great success of our enemies, in two different cruizes this last summer in our bay, must give them the greatest encouragement to repeat more frequently their visits, the profit being almost certain, and the risk next to nothing. Will not the first effect of this be, an enhancing of the price of all foreign goods to the tradesman and farmer, who use or consume them? For the rate of insurance will increase, in proportion to the hazard of importing them; and in the same proportion will the price of those goods increase. If the price of the tradesman's work, and the farmer's produce, would increase equally with the price of foreign commodities, the damage would not be so great: but the direct contrary must happen. For the same hazard or rate of insurance, that raises the price of what is imported, must be deducted out of, and lower the price of what is exported. Without this addition and deduction, as long as the enemy cruize at our capes, and take those vessels that attempt to _go out_, as well as those that endeavour to _come in_, none can afford to trade, and business must be soon at a stand. And will not the consequences be, a discouragement of many of the vessels that used to come from other places to purchase our produce, and thereby a turning of the trade to ports that can be entered with less danger, and capable of furnishing them with the same commodities, as New York, &c.; a lessening of business to every shopkeeper, together with multitudes of bad debts, the high rate of goods discouraging the buyers, and the low rates of their labour and produce, rendering them unable to pay for what they had bought; loss of employment to the tradesman, and bad pay for what little he does; and lastly, loss of many inhabitants, who will retire to other provinces not subject to the like inconveniences; whence a lowering of the value of lands, lots, and houses. The enemy, no doubt, have been told, that the people of Pensylvania are Quakers, and against all defence, from a principle of conscience; this, though true of a part, and that a small part only of the inhabitants, is commonly said of the whole; and what may make it look probable to strangers is, that in fact, nothing is done by any part of the people towards their defence. But to refuse defending one's self, or one's country, is so unusual a thing among mankind, that possibly they may not believe it, till by experience, they find they can come higher and higher up our river, seize our vessels, land and plunder our plantations and villages, and retire with their booty unmolested. Will not this confirm the report, and give them the greatest encouragement to strike one bold stroke for the city, and for the whole plunder of the river? It is said by some, that the expence of a vessel, to guard our trade, would be very heavy, greater than perhaps all the enemy can be supposed to take from us at sea would amount to; and that it would be cheaper for the government to open an insurance office, and pay all losses. But is this right reasoning? I think not; for what the enemy takes is clear loss to us, and gain to him; increasing his riches and strength, as much as it diminishes ours, so making the difference double; whereas the money, paid our own tradesmen for building and fitting out a vessel of defence, remains in the country, and circulates among us; what is paid to the officers and seamen, that navigate her, is also spent ashore, and soon gets into other hands; the farmer receives the money for her provisions, and, on the whole, nothing is clearly lost to the country but her wear and tear, or so much as she sells for at the end of the war less than her first cost. This loss, and a trifling one it is, is all the inconvenience; but how many and how great are the conveniences and advantages! and should the enemy, through our supineness and neglect to provide for the defence both of our trade and country, be encouraged to attempt this city, and after plundering us of our goods, either _burn it_, or put it to ransom, how great would that loss be! besides the confusion, terror, and distress, so many hundreds of families would be involved in! The thought of this latter circumstance so much affects me, that I cannot forbear expatiating somewhat more upon it. You have, my dear countrymen and fellow citizens, riches to tempt a considerable force to unite and attack you, but are under no ties or engagements to unite for your defence. Hence, on the first alarm, _terror_ will spread over all; and as no man can with certainty depend that another will stand by him, beyond doubt very many will seek safety by a speedy flight. Those, that are reputed rich, will flee, through fear of torture, to make them produce more than they are able. The man, that has a wife and children, will find them hanging on his neck, beseeching him with tears to quit the city, and save his life, to guide and protect them in that time of general desolation and ruin. All will run into confusion, amidst cries and lamentations, and the hurry and disorder of departers, carrying away their effects. The few that remain will be unable to resist. _Sacking_ the city will be the first, and _burning_ it, in all probability, the last act of the enemy. This, I believe, will be the case, if you have timely notice. But what must be your condition, if suddenly surprized, without previous alarm, perhaps in the night! Confined to your houses, you will have nothing to trust to but the enemy's mercy. Your best fortune will be, to fall under the power of commanders of king's ships, able to controul the mariners; and not into the hands of _licentious privateers_. Who can, without the utmost horror, conceive the miseries of the latter! when your persons, fortunes, wives, and daughters, shall be subject to the wanton and unbridled rage, rapine, and lust, of negroes, mulattoes, and others, the vilest and most abandoned of mankind[199]. A dreadful scene! which some may represent as exaggerated. I think it my duty to warn you: judge for yourselves. It is true, with very little notice, the rich may shift for themselves. The means of speedy flight are ready in their hands; and with some previous care to lodge money and effects in distant and secure places, though they should lose much, yet enough may be left them, and to spare. But most unhappily circumstanced indeed are we, the middling people, the tradesmen, shopkeepers, and farmers of this province and city! We cannot all fly with our families; and if we could, how shall we subsist? No; we and they, and what little we have gained by hard labour and industry, must bear the brunt: the weight of contributions, extorted by the enemy (as it is of taxes among ourselves) must be surely borne by us. Nor can it be avoided, as we stand at present; for though we are numerous, we are quite defenceless, having neither forts, arms, union, nor discipline. And though it were true, that our trade might be protected at no great expence, and our country and our city easily defended, if proper measures were but taken; yet, who shall take these measures? Who shall pay that expence? On whom may we fix our eyes with the least expectation, that they will do any thing for our security? Should we address that wealthy and powerful body of people, who have ever since the war governed our elections, and filled almost every seat in our assembly; should we intreat them to consider, if not as friends, at least as legislators, that _protection_ is as truly due from the government to the people, as _obedience_ from the people to the government; and that if, on account of their religious scruples, they themselves could do no act for our defence, yet they might retire, relinquish their power for a season, quit the helm to freer hands during the present tempest, to hands, chosen by their own interest too, whose prudence and moderation, with regard to them, they might safely confide in; secure, from their own native strength, of resuming again their present station, whenever it shall please them: should we remind them, that the public money, raised _from all_, belongs _to all_; that since they have, for their own ease, and to secure themselves in the quiet enjoyment of their religious principles (and may they long enjoy them) expended such large sums to oppose petitions, and engage favourable representations of their conduct, if they themselves could by no means be free to appropriate any part of the public money for our defence; yet it would be no more than justice, to spare us a reasonable sum for that purpose, which they might easily give to the king's use as heretofore, leaving all the appropriation to others, who would faithfully apply it as we desired: should we tell them, that though the treasury be at present empty, it may soon be filled by the outstanding public debts collected; or at least credit might be had for such a sum, on a single vote of the assembly: that though _they_ themselves may be resigned and easy under this naked, defenceless state of the country, it is far otherwise with a very great part of the people; with _us_, who can have no confidence that God will protect those, that neglect the use of rational means for their security; nor have any reason to hope, that our losses, if we should suffer any, may be made up by collections in our favour at home. Should we conjure them by all the ties of neighbourhood, friendship, justice, and humanity, to consider these things; and what distraction, misery, and confusion, what desolation and distress, may possibly be the effect of their _unseasonable_ predominancy and perseverance; yet all would be in vain: for they have already been, by great numbers of the people, petitioned in vain. Our late governor did for years solicit, request, and even threaten them in vain. The council have since twice remonstrated to them in vain. Their religious prepossessions are unchangeable, their obstinacy invincible. Is there then the least hope remaining, that from that quarter any thing should arise for our security? And is our prospect better, if we turn our eyes to the strength of the opposite party, those great and rich men, merchants and others, who are ever railing at Quakers for doing what their principles seem to require, and what in charity we ought to believe they think their duty, but take no one step themselves for the public safety. They have so much wealth and influence, if they would use it, that they might easily, by their endeavours and example, raise a military spirit among us, make us fond, studious of, and expert in, martial discipline, and affect every thing that is necessary, under God, for our protection. But _envy_ seems to have taken possession of their hearts, and to have eaten out and destroyed every generous, noble, public-spirited sentiment. _Rage_ at the disappointment of their little schemes for power, gnaws their souls, and fills them with such cordial hatred to their opponents, that every proposal, by the execution of which _those_ may receive benefit as well as themselves, is rejected with indignation. "What," say they, "shall we lay out our money to protect the trade of Quakers? Shall we fight to defend Quakers? No; let the trade perish, and the city burn; let what will happen, we shall never lift a finger to prevent it." Yet the Quakers have _conscience_ to plead for their resolution not to fight, which these gentlemen have not. Conscience with you, gentlemen, is on the other side of the question: conscience enjoins it as a _duty_ on you (and indeed I think it such on every man) to defend your country, your friends, your aged parents, your wives, and helpless children: and yet you resolve not to perform this duty, but act contrary to your own consciences, because the Quakers act according to theirs. Till of late, I could scarce believe the story of him, who refused to pump in a sinking ship, because one on board, whom he hated, would be saved by it as well as himself. But such, it seems, is the unhappiness of human nature, that our passions, when violent, often are too hard for the united force of reason, duty, and religion. Thus unfortunately are we circumstanced at this time, my dear countrymen and fellow-citizens; we, I mean, the middling people; the farmers, shopkeepers, and tradesmen of this city and country. Through the dissensions of our leaders, through mistaken principles of religion, joined with a love of worldly power, on the one hand; through pride, envy, and implacable resentment on the other; our lives, our families, and little fortunes, dear to us as any great man's can be to him, are to remain continually exposed to destruction, from an enterprising, cruel, now well-informed, and by success encouraged, enemy. It seems as if heaven, justly displeased at our growing wickedness, and determined to punish[200] this once-favoured land, had suffered our chiefs to engage in these foolish and mischievous contentions, for _little posts_ and _paltry distinctions_, that our hands might be bound up, our understandings darkened and misled, and every means of our security neglected. It seems as if our greatest men, our _cives nobilissimi_[201] of both parties, had sworn the ruin of the country, and invited the French, our most inveterate enemy to destroy it. Where then shall we seek for succour and protection? The government we are immediately under denies it to us; and if the enemy comes, we are _far from Zidon, and there is no deliverer near_. Our case is dangerously bad; but perhaps there is yet a remedy, if we have but the prudence and the spirit to apply it. If this new flourishing city, and greatly improving colony, is destroyed and ruined, it will not be for want of numbers of inhabitants able to bear arms in its defence. It is computed, that we have at least (exclusive of the Quakers) sixty thousand fighting men, acquainted with fire arms, many of them hunters and marksmen, hardy and bold. All we want is order, discipline, and a few cannon. At present we are like the separate filaments of flax before the thread is formed, without strength, because without connection; but UNION would make us strong, and even formidable. Though the _great_ should neither help nor join us; though they should even oppose our uniting, from some mean views of their own, yet, if we resolve upon it, and it please God to inspire us with the necessary prudence and vigour, it _may_ be effected. Great numbers of our people are of British race, and though the fierce fighting animals of those happy islands are said to abate their native fire and intrepidity, when removed to a foreign clime, yet with the people it is not so; our neighbours of New England afford the world a convincing proof, that Britons, though a hundred years transplanted, and to the remotest part of the earth, may yet retain, even to the third and fourth descent, that zeal for the public good, that military prowess, and that undaunted spirit, which has in every age distinguished their nation. What numbers have we likewise of _those brave people_, whose fathers in the last age made so glorious a stand for our religion and liberties, when invaded by a powerful French army, joined by Irish Catholics, under a bigotted popish king! Let the memorable siege of Londonderry, and the signal actions of the Iniskillingers, by which the heart of that prince's schemes was broken, be perpetual testimonies of the courage and conduct of those noble warriors! Nor are there wanting amongst us, thousands of _that warlike_ nation, whose sons have ever since the time of Cæsar maintained the character he gave their fathers, of joining the most _obstinate courage_ to all the other military virtues: I mean the brave and steady Germans. Numbers of whom have actually borne arms in the service of their respective princes; and if they fought well for their tyrants and oppressors, would they refuse to unite with us in defence of their newly acquired and most precious liberty and property? Were this union formed, were we once united, thoroughly armed and disciplined, was every thing in our power done for our security, as far as human means and foresight could provide, we might then, with more propriety, humbly ask the assistance of Heaven, and a blessing on our lawful endeavours. The very fame of our strength and readiness would be a means of discouraging our enemies; for it is a wise and true saying, that _one sword often keeps another in the scabbard_. The way to secure peace is to be prepared for war. They, that are on their guard, and appear ready to receive their adversaries, are in much less danger of being attacked, than the supine, secure and negligent. We have yet a winter before us, which may afford a good and almost sufficient opportunity for this, if we seize and improve it with a becoming vigour. And if the hints contained in this paper are so happy as to meet with a suitable disposition of mind in his countrymen and fellow-citizens, the writer of it will, in a few days, lay before them a form of an ASSOCIATION for the purposes herein mentioned, together with a practicable scheme for raising the money necessary for the defence of our trade, city, and country, without laying a burthen on any man. _May the God of wisdom, strength, and power, the Lord of the armies of Israel, inspire us with prudence in this time of danger, take away from us all the seeds of contention and division, and unite the hearts and counsels of all of us, of whatever sect or nation, in one bond of peace, brotherly love, and generous public spirit; may he give us strength and resolution to amend our lives, and remove from among us every thing that is displeasing to him; afford us his most gracious protection, confound the designs of our enemies, and give peace in all our borders, is the sincere prayer of_ A TRADESMAN of Philadelphia. FOOTNOTES: [197] For this pamphlet we are indebted to the same American correspondent, who furnished us with the papers intitled The Busy-Body: but it came too late for insertion in its proper place, which, agreeably to its date, is at the commencement of the present volume. Dr. W. Smith, in his eulogium on our author, delivered before the American philosophical society, speaks of this production as follows: "In 1744, a Spanish privateer, having entered the Bay of Delaware, ascended as high as Newcastle, to the great terror of the citizens of Philadelphia. On this occasion Franklin wrote his first political pamphlet called Plain Truth, to exhort his fellow-citizens to the bearing of arms; which laid the foundation of those military associations, which followed, at different times, for the defence of the country." We presume that Dr. Smith is correct in his date, but the copy sent us by our correspondent, which is the second edition, was printed in 1747. _Editor._ [198] The praying Indians. [199] By accounts, the ragged crew of the Spanish privateer that plundered Mr. Liston's, and another plantation, a little below Newcastle, was composed of such as these. The _honour_ and _humanity_ of their officers may be judged of, by the treatment they gave poor captain Brown, whom they took with Martin's ship in returning from their cruize. Because he bravely defended himself and vessel longer than they expected, for which every generous enemy would have esteemed him, did they, after he had struck and submitted, barbarously _stab_ and _murder_ him, though on his knees begging quarter! [200] When God determined to punish his chosen people, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who, though breakers of his other laws, were scrupulous observers of that ONE, which required keeping holy the Sabbath-day; he suffered even the strict observation of that command to be their ruin: for Pompey, observing that they then obstinately refused to fight, made a general assault on that day, took the town, and butchered them with as little mercy as he found resistance. JOSEPHUS. [201] Conjuravere cives nobilissimi patriam incendere; GALLORUM GENTEM, infestissimam nomini Romano, ad bellum arcessunt. CAT. IN SALUST. _Four Letters[202] to George Whatley, Esq. Treasurer of the Foundling Hospital, London._ Letter I. _Passy, near Paris, Aug. 21, 1784._ MY DEAR OLD FRIEND, I received your kind letter of May 3, 1783. I am ashamed that it has been so long unanswered. The indolence of old age, frequent indisposition, and too much business, are my only excuses. I had great pleasure in reading it, as it informed me of your welfare. Your excellent little work, "The Principles of Trade," is too little known. I wish you would send me a copy of it by the bearer, my grandson and secretary, whom I beg leave to recommend to your civilities. I would get it translated and printed here, and if your bookseller has any quantity of them left, I should be glad he would send them to America. The ideas of our people there, though rather better than those that prevail in Europe, are not so good as they should be: and that piece might be of service among them. Since and soon after the date of your letter, we lost, unaccountably as well as unfortunately, that worthy, valuable young man you mention, your namesake Maddeson. He was infinitely regretted by all that knew him. I am sorry your favourite charity does not go on as you could wish it. It is shrunk indeed by your admitting only 60 children in a year. What you have told your brethren respecting America is true. If you find it difficult to dispose of your children in England, it looks as if you had too many people. And yet you are afraid of emigration. A subscription is lately set on foot here to encourage and assist mothers in nursing their infants themselves at home; the practice of sending them to the _Enfans Trouvés_ having risen here to a monstrous excess, as by the annual bills it appears they amount to near one third of the children born in Paris. This subscription is likely to succeed, and may do a great deal of good, though it cannot answer all the purposes of a foundling hospital. Your eyes must continue very good, since you are able to write so small a hand without spectacles. I cannot distinguish a letter even of large print, but am happy in the invention of double spectacles, which, serving for distant objects as well as near ones, make my eyes as useful to me as ever they were. If all the other defects and infirmities of old age could be as easily and cheaply remedied, it would be worth while, my friend, to live a good deal longer. But I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitutions as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.--Adieu, and believe me ever, Your's most affectionately, B. FRANKLIN. Letter II. _Passy, May 19, 1785._ DEAR OLD FRIEND, I received the very good letter you sent me by my grandson, together with your resemblance, which is placed in my chamber and gives me great pleasure: there is no trade, they say, without returns, and therefore I am punctual in making those you have ordered. I intended this should have been a long epistle, but I am interrupted, and can only add, that I am ever, Yours, most affectionately, B. FRANKLIN. My grandson presents his most affectionate respects. Letter III. _Passy, May 23, 1785._ DEAR OLD FRIEND, I sent you a few lines the other day with the medallion, when I should have written more, but was prevented by the coming in of a _bavard_, who worried me till evening. I bore with him, and now you are to bear with me, for I shall probably _bavarder_ in answering your letter. I am not acquainted with the saying of Alphonsus, which you allude to as a sanctification of your rigidity in refusing to allow me the plea of old age as an excuse for my want of exactitude in correspondence. What was that saying?--You do not, it seems, feel any occasion for such an excuse, though you are, as you say, rising 75, but I am rising (perhaps more properly falling) 80--and I leave the excuse with you till you arrive at that age; perhaps you may then be more sensible of its validity, and see fit to use it for yourself. I must agree with you, that the gout is bad, and that the stone is worse. I am happy in not having them both together, and I join in your prayer, that you may live till you die without either. But I doubt the author of the epitaph you sent me is a little mistaken, when, speaking of the world, he says, that ----------------He ne'er car'd a pin What they said or may say of the mortal within. It is so natural to wish to be well spoken of, whether alive or dead, that I imagine he could not be quite exempt from that desire, and that at least he wished to be thought a wit, or he would not have given himself the trouble of writing so good an epitaph to leave behind him. Was it not worthy of his care, that the world should say he was an honest and a good man? I like better the concluding sentiment in the old song, called the old man's wish, wherein, after wishing for a warm house in a country town, an easy horse, some good old authors, ingenious and cheerful companions, pudding on Sundays, with stout ale and a bottle of burgundy, &c. &c. in separate stanzas, each ending with this burden, May I govern my passions with absolute sway, And grow wiser and better as strength wears away, Without gout or stone by a gentle decay-- he adds for the last stanza, With courage undaunted may I face my last day, And when I am gone may the better sort say, In the morning when sober, in the evening when mellow, He's gone--and not left behind him his fellow. For he govern'd his passions, &c. What signifies our wishing? Things happen after all as they will happen. I have sung that _wishing song_ a thousand times when I was young, and now find at fourscore, that the three contraries have befallen me, being subject to the gout, and the stone, and not being yet master of all my passions. Like the proud girl in my country, who wished and resolved not to marry a parson, nor a presbyterian, nor an Irishman, and at length found herself married to an Irish presbyterian parson! You see I have some reason to wish that in a future state I may not only be _as well as I was_, but a little better. And I hope it: for I too, with your poet, _trust in God_. And when I observe, that there is great frugality as well as wisdom in his works, since he has been evidently sparing, both of labour and materials; for by the various wonderful inventions of propagation, he has provided for the continual peopling his world with plants and animals without being at the trouble of repeated new creations; and by the natural reduction of compound substances to their original elements, capable of being employed in new compositions, he has prevented the necessity of creating new matter; for that the earth, water, air, and perhaps fire, which being compounded, form wood, do, when the wood is dissolved, return, and again become air, earth, fire and water:--I say, that when I see nothing annihilated, and not even a drop of water wasted, I cannot suspect the annihilation of souls, or believe that he will suffer the daily waste of millions of minds ready made that now exist, and put himself to the continual trouble of making new ones. Thus finding myself to exist in the world, I believe I shall in some shape or other always exist. And with all the inconveniences human _life_ is liable to, I shall not object to a new edition of mine; hoping, however, that the errata of the last may be corrected. I return your note of children received in the foundling hospital at Paris, from 1741 to 1755 inclusive, and I have added the years preceding, as far back as 1710, together with the general christenings of the city; and the years succeeding, down to 1770. Those since that period I have not been able to obtain. I have noted in the margin the gradual increase, viz. from every tenth child so thrown upon the public, till it comes to every third. Fifteen years have passed since the last account, and probably it may now amount to one half. Is it right to encourage this monstrous deficiency of natural affection? A surgeon I met with here excused the women of Paris, by saying seriously, that they _could not_ give suck, _Car, dit-il, ils n'ont point de tetons_. He assured me it was a fact, and bade me look at them, and observe how flat they were on the breast; they have nothing more there, says he, than I have upon the back of my hand. I have since thought that there might be some truth in his observation, and that possibly Nature finding they made no use of bubbies, has left off giving them any. Yet since Rousseau, with admirable eloquence pleaded for the rights of children to their mother's milk, the mode has changed a little, and some ladies of quality now suckle their infants and find milk enough. May the mode descend to the lower ranks, till it becomes no longer the custom to pack their infants away, as soon as born, to the _Enfants Trouvés_, with the careless observation, that the king is better able to maintain them. I am credibly informed, that nine-tenths of them die there pretty soon; which is said to be a great relief to the institution, whose funds would not otherwise be sufficient to bring up the remainder. Except the few persons of quality above-mentioned, and the multitude who send to the hospital, the practice is to hire nurses in the country, to carry out the children and take care of them there. Here is an office for examining the health of nurses and giving them licences. They come to town on certain days of the week in companies to receive the children, and we often meet trains of them on the road returning to the neighbouring villages with each a child in arms. But those who are good enough to try this way of raising their children are often not able to pay the expence, so that the prisons of Paris are crouded with wretched fathers and mothers confined _pour mois de nourice_; though it is laudably a favourite charity to pay for them, and set such prisoners at liberty. I wish success to the new project of assisting the poor to keep their children at home, because I think there is no nurse like a mother (or not many) and that if parents did not immediately send their infants out of their sight, they would in a few days begin to love them, and thence be spurred to greater industry for their maintenance. This is a subject you understand better than I, and therefore, having perhaps said too much, I drop it. I only add to the notes a remark from the history of the Academy of Sciences, much in favour of the foundling institution. The Philadelphia bank goes on, as I hear, very well. What you call the Cincinnati institution is no institution of our government, but a private convention among the officers of our late army, and so universally disliked by the people, that it is supposed it will be dropped. It was considered as an attempt to establish something like an hereditary rank or nobility. I hold with you that it was wrong; may I add, that all descending honours are wrong and absurd; that the honour of virtuous actions appertains only to him that performs them, and is in its nature incommunicable. If it were communicable by descent, it must also be divisible among the descendants, and the more ancient the family the less would be found existing in any one branch of it; to say nothing of the greater chance of unlucky interruptions. Our constitution seems not to be well understood with you. If the congress were a permanent body, there would be more reason in being jealous of giving it powers. But its members are chosen annually, and cannot be chosen more than three years successively, nor more than three years in seven, and any of them may be recalled at any time, whenever their constituents shall be dissatisfied with their conduct. They are of the people, and return again to mix with the people, having no more durable pre-eminence than the different grains of sand in an hour-glass. Such an assembly cannot easily become dangerous to liberty. They are the servants of the people, sent together to do the people's business and promote the public welfare; their powers must be sufficient, or their duties cannot be performed. They have no profitable appointments, but a mere payment of daily wages, such as are scarcely equivalent to their expences, so that having no chance for great places and enormous salaries or pensions, as in some countries, there is no briguing or bribing for elections. I wish old England were as happy in its government, but I do not see it. Your people, however, think their constitution the best in the world, and affect to despise ours. It is comfortable to have a good opinion of one's self, and of every thing that belongs to us, to think one's own religion, king, and wife, the best of all possible wives, kings, and religions. I remember three Greenlanders, who had travelled two years in Europe, under the care of some Moravian missionaries, and had visited Germany, Denmark, Holland and England, when I asked them at Philadelphia (when they were in their way home) whether, now they had seen how much more commodiously the white people lived by the help of the arts, they would not chuse to remain among us--their answer was, that they were pleased with having had an opportunity of seeing many fine things, _but they chose to live in their own country_: which country, by the way, consisted of rock only, for the Moravians were obliged to carry earth in their ship from New York, for the purpose of making there a cabbage garden! By Mr. Dollond's saying, that my double spectacles could only serve particular eyes, I doubt he has not been rightly informed of their construction, I imagine it will be found pretty generally true, that the same convexity of glass through which a man sees clearest and best at the distance proper for reading, is not the best for greater distances. I therefore had formerly two pair of spectacles, which I shifted occasionally, as in travelling I sometimes read and often want to regard the prospects. Finding this change troublesome, and not always sufficiently ready, I had the glasses cut out and half of each kind associated in the same circle, the least convex, for distant objects the upper half, and the most convex, for reading, the lower half: by this means, as I wear my spectacles constantly, I have only to move my eyes up or down, as I want to see distinctly far or near, the proper glasses being always ready. This I find more particularly convenient since my being in France; the glasses that serve me best at table to see what I eat, being the best to see the faces of those on the other side of the table who speak to me, and when one's ears are not well accustomed to the sounds of a language, a sight of the movements in the features of him that speaks helps to explain; so that I understand French better by the help of my spectacles. My intended translator of your piece, the only one I know who understands _the subject_ as well as the two languages, which a translator ought to do, or he cannot make so good a translation, is at present occupied in an affair that prevents his undertaking it; but that will soon be over.--I thank you for the notes. I should be glad to have another of the printed pamphlets. We shall always be ready to take your children, if you send them to us; I only wonder, that since London draws to itself and consumes such numbers of your country people, your country should not, to supply their places, want and willingly receive the children you have to dispose of. That circumstance, together with the multitude who voluntarily part with their freedom as men, to serve for a time as lacqueys, or for life as soldiers in consideration of small wages, seems to me a proof that your island is over-peopled, and yet it is afraid of emigrations! Adieu, my dear friend, and believe me ever, Yours, very affectionately, B. FRANKLIN. Letter IV. _Philadelphia, May 18, 1787._ I received duly my good old friend's letter of the 19th of February, with a copy of one from Mr. Williams, to whom I shall communicate it when I see him, which I expect soon to do. He is generally a punctual correspondent, and I am surprised you have not heard from him. I thank you much for your notes on banks; they are just and solid, as far as I can judge of them. Our bank here has met with great opposition, partly from envy, and partly from those who wish an emission of more paper-money, which they think the bank influence prevents. But it has stood all attacks, and went on well notwithstanding the assembly repealed its charter; a new assembly has restored it; and the management is so prudent, that I have no doubt of its continuing to go on well. The dividend has never been less than 6 per cent, nor will that be augmented for some time, as the surplus profit is reserved to face accidents. The dividend of 11 per cent, which was once made, was from a circumstance scarce avoidable. A new company was proposed, and prevented only by admitting a number of new partners. As many of the first set were averse to this, and chose to withdraw; it was necessary to settle their accounts; so all were adjusted, the profits shared that had been accumulated, and the new and old proprietors jointly began on a new and equal footing. Their notes are always instantly paid on demand, and pass on all occasions as readily as silver, because they will always produce silver. Your medallion is in good company, it is placed with those of Lord Chatham, Lord Camden, Marquis of Rockingham, Sir George Savil, and some others, who honoured me with a share of friendly regard when in England. I believe I have thanked you for it, but I thank you again. I believe with you, that if our plenipotentiary is desirous of concluding a treaty of commerce, he may need patience. But if I were in his place, and not otherwise instructed, I should be apt to say, Take your own time, gentlemen. If the treaty cannot be made as much to your advantage as to ours, don't make it. I am sure the want of it is not more to our disadvantage than to yours. Let the merchants on both sides treat with one another. _Laissez les faire._ I have never considered attentively the congress scheme for coining, and I have it not now at hand, so that at present I can say nothing to it. The chief uses of coining seem to be ascertaining the fineness of the metals, and saving the time that would otherwise be spent in weighing to ascertain the quantity. But the convenience of fixed values to pieces is so great as to force the currency of some whose stamp is worn off, that should have assured their fineness, and which are evidently not of half their due weight; this is the case at present with the sixpences in England, which one with another do not weigh three-pence. You are now 78, and I am 82. You tread fast upon my heels: but, though you have more strength and spirit, you cannot come up with me till I stop; which must now be soon; for I am grown so old as to have buried most of the friends of my youth; and I now often hear persons, whom I knew when children, called _old_ Mr. such a one, to distinguish them from their sons now men grown, and in business; so that by living twelve years beyond _David's_ period, I seem to have intruded myself into the company of posterity, when I ought to have been a-bed and asleep. Yet had I gone at 70, it would have cut off 12 of the most active years of my life, employed too in matters of the greatest importance; but whether I have been doing good or mischief, is for time to discover. I only know that I intended well, and I hope all will end well. Be so good as to present my affectionate respects to Dr. Rowley. I am under great obligations to him, and shall write to him shortly. It will be a pleasure to him to hear that my malady does not grow sensibly worse, and that is a great point: for it has always been so tolerable, as not to prevent my enjoying the pleasures of society, and being cheerful in conversation. I owe this in a great measure to his good counsels. Adieu, my dear friend, and believe me ever, Yours, most affectionately, B. FRANKLIN. _Geo. Whatley, Esq._ FOOTNOTE: [202] These letters did not come into our possession till the preceding sheets and even the subsequent appendix were printed. We are indebted for them to Mr. I. T. Rutt, the originals of which were put into his hands about twelve years ago by a relation of his, the nephew of the gentleman to whom they were addressed. "Mr. Whatley, the friend of Dr. Franklin," Mr. Rutt informs us, "had engaged in mercantile pursuits, and was for some time a British consul in the Mediterranean. During the latter years of his life, he devoted his time to various objects of public utility, for which he was well qualified, and particularly attached himself to the interests of the Foundling Hospital, of which he was the treasurer. He died in 1791, aged 82, having survived his correspondent not quite a year." _Editor._ APPENDIX, No. II. CONTAINING LETTERS, BY SEVERAL EMINENT PERSONS, ILLUSTRATIVE OF DR. FRANKLIN'S MANNERS AND CHARACTER. _Letter from the late Dr. Price to a Gentleman in America._ _Hackney, June 19, 1790._ DEAR SIR, I am hardly able to tell you how kindly I take the letters with which you favour me. Your last, containing an account of the death of our excellent friend, Dr. Franklin, and the circumstances attending it, deserves my particular gratitude. The account which he has left of his life will show, in a striking example, how a man, by talents, industry, and integrity, may rise from obscurity to the first eminence and consequence in the world; but it brings his history no lower than the year 1757, and I understand, that since he sent over the copy, which I have read, he has been able to make no additions to it. It is with a melancholy regret I think of his death; but to death we are all bound by the irreversible order of nature, and in looking forward to it, there is comfort in being able to reflect--that we have not lived in vain, and that all the useful and virtuous shall meet in a better country beyond the grave. Dr. Franklin, in the last letter I received from him, after mentioning his age and infirmities, observes, that it has been kindly ordered by the author of nature, that, as we draw nearer the conclusion of life, we are furnished with more helps to wean us from it, among which one of the strongest is the loss of dear friends. I was delighted with the account you gave in your letter of the honour shown to his memory at Philadelphia, and by congress; and yesterday I received a high additional pleasure, by being informed, that the national assembly of France had determined to go into mourning for him[203].--What a glorious scene is opened there! The annals of the world furnish no parallel to it. One of the honours of our departed friend is, that he has contributed much to it. I am, with great respect, Your obliged and very humble servant, RICHARD PRICE. FOOTNOTE: [203] Congress ordered a general mourning throughout the United States for a month: the national assembly of France decreed, that the assembly do wear mourning for three days, that a funeral oration be delivered by M. Mirabeau, the elder, and that the president write a letter of condolence to congress: and the common-council of Paris paid the extraordinary tribute, of attending in a body at a funeral oration, delivered by the Abbe Fauchet, in the Rotunda of the market-place, which was hung with black, illuminated with chandeliers and rows of lamps, and decorated with suitable devices. _Editor._ _Letter from Mr. Thomas Jefferson to the late Dr. William Smith, of Philadelphia[204]._ I feel both the wish and the duty to communicate, in compliance with your request, whatever, within my knowledge, might render justice to the memory of our great countryman, Dr. Franklin, in whom philosophy has to deplore one of its principal luminaries extinguished. But my opportunities of knowing the interesting facts of his life have not been equal to my desire of making them known. I can only, therefore, testify in general, that there appeared to me more respect and veneration attached to the character of Dr. Franklin in France, than to that of any other person in the same country, foreign or native. I had opportunities of knowing particularly, how far these sentiments were felt by the foreign ambassadors and ministers at the court of Versailles. The fable of his capture by the Algerines, propagated by the English newspapers, excited no uneasiness, as it was seen at once to be a dish cooked up to please certain readers; but nothing could exceed the anxiety of his diplomatic brethren on a subsequent report of his death, which, although premature, bore some marks of authenticity. I found the ministers of France equally impressed with his talents and integrity. The count de Vergennes, particularly, gave me repeated and unequivocal demonstrations of his entire confidence in him. When he left Passy, it seemed as if the village had lost its patriarch. On taking leave of the court, which he did by letter, the king ordered him to be handsomely complimented, and furnished him with a litter and mules of his own, the only kind of conveyance the state of his health could bear. The succession to Dr. Franklin, at the court of France, was an excellent school of humility to me. On being presented to any one, as the minister of America, the common-place question was, "_c'est vous Monsieur, qui remplacez le Docteur Franklin?_"--is it you, sir, who replace Dr. Franklin? I generally answered--"No one can replace him, sir; I am only his successor." I could here relate a number of those _bon mots_, with which he was used to charm every society, as having heard many of them; but these are not your object. Particulars of greater dignity happened not to occur, during his stay of nine months after my arrival in France. A little before that time, Argand had invented his celebrated lamp, in which the flame is spread into a hollow cylinder, and thus brought into contact with the air, within as well as without. Dr. Franklin had been on the point of the same discovery. The idea had occurred to him; but he had tried a bullrush as a wick, which did not succeed. His occupations did not permit him to repeat and extend his trials to the introduction of a larger column of air, than could pass through the stem of a bullrush. About that time, also, the king of France gave him a signal testimony of respect, by joining him with some of the most illustrious men of the nation to examine that ignis-fatuus of philosophy, the animal magnetism of the maniac, Mesmer; the pretended effects of which had astonished all Paris. From Dr. Franklin's hand, in conjunction with his brethren of the learned committee, that compound of fraud and folly was unveiled, and received its death-wound. After this nothing very interesting was before the public, either in philosophy or politics, during his stay; and he was principally occupied in winding up his affairs, and preparing for his return to America. These small offerings to the memory of our great and dear friend (whom time will be making still greater, while it is spunging us from its records) must be accepted by you, sir, in that spirit of love and veneration for him, in which they are made; and not according to their insignificancy in the eyes of a world, which did not want this mite to fill up the measure of his worth. His death was an affliction which was to happen to us at some time or other. We have reason to be thankful he was so long spared; that the most useful life should be the longest also; that it was protracted so far beyond the ordinary span allotted to humanity, as to avail us of his wisdom and virtue, in the establishment of our freedom in the west; and to bless him with a view of its dawn in the east, where men seemed till now to have learned every thing--but _how to be free_. FOOTNOTE: [204] Extracted from the Eulogium on Dr. Franklin, delivered by Dr. W. Smith, before the American philosophical society. _Editor._ _Letter from the late Dr. Joseph Priestley to the Editor of the Monthly Magazine[205]._ SIR, I have just read in the Monthly Review, vol. 36, p. 357, that the late Mr. Pennant said of Dr. Franklin, that, "living under the protection of our mild government, he was secretly playing the incendiary, and too successfully inflaming the minds of our fellow subjects in America, till that great explosion happened, which for ever disunited us from our once happy colonies." As it is in my power, as far as my testimony will be regarded, to refute this charge, I think it due to our friendship to do it. It is probable, that no person now living was better acquainted with Dr. Franklin and his sentiments on all subjects of importance, than myself, for several years before the American war. I think I knew him as well as one man can generally know another. At that time I spent the winters in London, in the family of the Marquis of Lansdown, and few days passed without my seeing more or less of Dr. Franklin; and the last day that he passed in England, having given out that he should depart the day before, we spent together, without any interruption, from morning till night. Now he was so far from wishing for a rupture with the colonies, that he did more than most men would have done, to prevent it. His constant advice to his countrymen, he always said, was "to bear every thing from England, however unjust;" saying, that "it could not last long, as they would soon outgrow all their hardships." On this account Dr. Price, who then corresponded with some of the principal persons in America, said, he began to be very unpopular there. He always said, "If there must be a war, it will be a war of ten years, and I shall not live to see the end of it." This I have heard him say many times. It was at his request, enforced by that of Dr. Fothergil, that I wrote an anonymous pamphlet, calculated to show the injustice and impolicy of a war with the colonies, previous to the meeting of a new parliament. As I then lived at Leeds, he corrected the press himself, and, to a passage, in which I lamented the attempt to establish arbitrary power in so large a part of the British empire, he added the following clause, "to the imminent danger of our most valuable commerce, and of that national strength, security, and felicity, which depend on union and on liberty." The unity of the British empire, in all its parts, was a favourite idea of his. He used to compare it to a beautiful China vase, which, if once broken, could never be put together again: and so great an admirer was he at the time of the British constitution, that he said he saw no inconvenience from its being extended over a great part of the globe. With these sentiments he left England; but when, on his arrival in America, he found the war begun, and that there was no receding, no man entered more warmly into the interests of what he then considered as _his country_, in opposition to that of Great Britain. Three of his letters to me, one written immediately on his landing, and published in the collection of his Miscellaneous Works, p. 365, 552, and 555[206], will prove this. By many persons, Dr. Franklin is considered as having been a cold-hearted man, so callous to every feeling of humanity, that the prospect of all the horrors of a civil war could not affect him. This was far from being the case. A great part of the day abovementioned that we spent together, he was looking over a number of American newspapers, directing me what to extract from them for the English ones; and, in reading them, he was frequently not able to proceed for the tears literally running down his cheeks. To strangers he was cold and reserved; but where he was intimate, no man indulged to more pleasantry and good humour. By this he was the delight of a club, to which he alludes in one of the letters above referred to, called the _whig-club_, that met at the London coffee-house, of which Dr. Price, Dr. Kippis, Mr. John Lee, and others of the same stamp, were members. Hoping that this vindication of Dr. Franklin will give pleasure to many of your readers, I shall proceed to relate some particulars relating to his behaviour, when lord Loughborough, then Mr. Wedderburn, pronounced his violent invective against him at the privy-council, on his presenting the complaints of the province of Massachusetts (I think it was) against their governor. Some of the particulars may be thought amusing. On the morning of the day on which the cause was to be heard, I met Mr. Burke, in Parliament-street, accompanied by Dr. Douglas, afterwards bishop of Carlisle; and after introducing us to each other, as men of letters, he asked me whither I was going? I said I could tell him where I _wished_ to go. He then asking me where that was, I said to the privy-council, but that I was afraid I could not get admission. He then desired me to go along with him. Accordingly I did; but when we got into the anti-room, we found it quite filled with persons as desirous of getting admission as ourselves. Seeing this, I said, we should never get through the crowd. He said, "Give me your arm;" and locking it fast in his, he soon made his way to the door of the privy-council. I then said, Mr. Burke, you are an excellent leader; he replied, "I wish other persons thought so too." After waiting a short time, the door of the privy-council opened, and we entered the first, when Mr. Burke took his stand behind the first chair next to the president, and I behind that the next to his. When the business was opened, it was sufficiently evident, from the speech of Mr. Wedderburn, who was counsel for the governor, that the real object of the court was to insult Dr. Franklin. All this time he stood in a corner of the room, not far from me, without the least apparent emotion. Mr. Dunning, who was the leading counsel on the part of the colony, was so hoarse, that he could hardly make himself heard; and Mr. Lee, who was the second, spoke but feebly in reply; so that Mr. Wedderburn had a complete triumph. At the sallies of his sarcastic wit, all the members of the council, the president himself (Lord Gower) not excepted, frequently laughed outright. No person belonging to the council behaved with decent gravity, except Lord North, who, coming late, took his stand behind the chair opposite to me. When the business was over, Dr. Franklin, in going out, took me by the hand, in a manner that indicated some feeling. I soon followed him, and going through the anti-room, saw Mr. Wedderburn there surrounded with a circle of his friends and admirers. Being known to him, he stepped forwards as if to speak to me; but I turned aside, and made what haste I could out of the place. The next morning I breakfasted with the doctor, when he said, "He had never before been so sensible of the power of a good conscience; for that if he had not considered the thing for which he had been so much insulted, as one of the best actions of his life, and what he should certainly do again in the same circumstances, he could not have supported it." He was accused of clandestinely procuring certain letters, containing complaints against the governor, and sending them to America, with a view to excite their animosity against him, and thus to embroil the two countries. But he assured me, that he did not even know that such letters existed, till they were brought to him as agent for the colony, in order to be sent to his constituents; and the cover of the letters on which the direction had been written, being lost, he only guessed at the person to whom they were addressed, by the contents. That Dr. Franklin, notwithstanding he did not show it at the time, was much impressed by the business of the privy council, appeared from this circumstance: when he attended there, he was dressed in a suit of Manchester velvet; and Silas Dean told me, that, when they met at Paris to sign the treaty between France and America, he purposely put on that suit. Hoping that this communication will be of some service to the memory of Dr. Franklin, and gratify his friends, I am, sir, your's, &c. J. PRIESTLEY. _Northumberland, Nov. 10, 1802._ FOOTNOTES: [205] Inserted in the number for February, 1803. _Editor._ [206] Answering to page [___] of the present volume. _Editor._ FINIS. JAMES CUNDEE, PRINTER, _Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row_. INDEX. A. _Accent_, or emphasis, wrong placing of, a fault in modern tunes, ii. 345. _Accidents_ at sea, how to guard against, ii. 172. _Adams_, Mr. Matthew, offers the use of his library to Franklin, i. 16. _Addison_, Franklin an assiduous imitator of, in his youth, i. 13. _Advice_ to youth in reading, ii. 378. to emigrants to America, iii. 398. to a crafty statesman, 430. to a young tradesman, 463. to a young married man, 477. to players at chess, 490. _�pinus_, his hypothesis of magnetism, i. 412. _Agriculture_ takes place of manufactures till a country is fully settled, iii. 107. the great business of America, 393. _Air_, some of the properties of, ii. 226. its properties with respect to electricity, i. 204. properties of its particles, 205. ii. 1. its currents over the globe, i. 207. resists the electric fluid and confines it to bodies, 241. its effects in electrical experiments, 253. its elasticity not affected by electricity, 254. its friction against trees, 270, 323. has its share of electricity, 333. its electricity denser above than below, 335. in rooms, electrified positively and negatively, 353. attracts water, ii. 1. when saturated with water precipitates it, 2. dissolves water, and, when dry, oil, 4. why suffocating, when impregnated with oil or grease, _ibid._ supports water, 5, 46, 49. why less heated in the higher regions than near the earth's surface, 6. how it creates hurricanes, _ibid._ winds, 8. whirlwinds, 10. effects of heat upon, 50. its effects on the barometer, 92. condensed, supposed to form the centre of the earth, 119, 127. noxious, corrected by vegetation, 129. observations on the free use of, 213. rare, no bad conductor of sound, 337. fresh, beneficial effects of, in bed-rooms, iii. 495. _Air-thermometer_, electrical, experiments with, i. 336. _Albany_ plan of union, short account of, i. 127. its singular fate, 129. papers relating to, iii. 3. motives on which formed, 4. rejects partial unions, 6. its president and grand council, 9. election of members, 12. place of first meeting, 13. new election, _ibid._ proportion of members after three years, 15. meetings of the grand council and call, 16. allowance to members, 17. power of president and his duty, 18. treaties of peace and war, _ibid._ Indian trade and purchases, 19. new settlements, 21. military establishments, 23. laws and taxes, 24, 26. issuing of money, 25. appointment of officers, 27. rejected in England, 29. _Almanack._ _See Poor Richard._ _Alphabet_, a new one proposed, ii. 357. examples of writing in it, 360. correspondence on its merits, 361. _Amber_, electrical experiments on, i. 403. _America_, North, air of, drier than that of England and France, ii. 140. why marriages are more frequent there than in Europe, 385. why labour will long continue dear there, _ibid._ argument against the union of the colonies of, under one government, 401. state of toleration there, 457. reflections on the scheme of imposing taxes on, without its consent, iii. 30. thoughts on the representation of, in the British parliament, 37. interest of Great Britain with regard to, 39. forts in the back settlements of, no security against France, 99. wars carried on there against the French, not merely in the cause of the colonies, 105. preference of the colonies of, to the West Indian colonies, 113. great navigable rivers of, favourable to inland trade, 118. what commodities the inland parts of, are fitted to produce, 119. the productions of, do not interfere with those of Britain, 123. union of the colonies of, in a revolt against Britain, impossible but from grievous oppression, 132. reasons given for restraining paper-bills of credit there, 144. intended scheme of a bank there, described, 155. attempts of Franklin for conciliation of Britain with, 286. feeling of, as to Britain, in May 1775, 346. conciliation of Britain with, hopeless, 355. account of the first campaign of the British forces against, 357. application of, to foreign courts, for aid in its independence, 360. credit of, with that of Britain, in 1777, compared, 372. true description of the interest and policy of, 391. information to those emigrating thither, 398. terms on which land may be obtained for new settlements there, 409. _Americans_, their prejudices for whatever is English, i. 144. _Anchor_, a swimming one proposed, ii. 181, 185. _Ancients_, their experimental learning too often slighted, ii. 146. _Anecdote_ of Franklin's early spirit of enterprise, i. 11. of a Swedish clergyman among the Indians, iii. 386. of an Indian who went to church, 389. _Animal_ food, Franklin's abstinence from, i. 20. return to, 47. humorous instance of abstinence from, 49. heat, whence it arises, ii. 79, 125. magnetism, detected and exposed, i. 150. _Animalcules_, supposed to cause the luminous appearance of sea-water, ii. 89. _Animals_, how to kill them by electricity, i. 415. _Antifederalists_ of America, comparison of, to the ancient Jews, iii. 410. _Apprentices_ easier placed out in America than in Europe, iii. 407. indentures of, how made in America, 408. _Argumentation_, bad effects of, as a habit, i. 17. best method of, 22. _Armies_, best means of supporting them, ii. 400. _Armonica_, musical instrument so called, described, ii. 330. manner of playing on it, 334. _Asbestos_, specimen of, sold by Franklin to Sir Hans Sloane, i. 60. letter relating to it, iii. 513. _Astrology_, letter to the Busy-body on, iii. 448. _Atmosphere_ sometimes denser above than below, ii. 6. electrical, its properties, i. 294. _Aurora borealis_ explained, i. 212. conjectures respecting, 257, ii. 69. query concerning, i. 293. B. _Badoin_, Mr. letters from, i. 314, 324. _Ballads_, two, written by Franklin in his youth, i. 16. _Balls_ of fire in the air, remark concerning, ii. 337. _Barometer_, how acted on by air, ii. 92. _Barrels_ for gunpowder, new sort proposed, i. 376. _Bass_, unnecessary in some tunes, ii. 343. _Bathing_ relieves thirst, ii. 104. observations on, 211. _Battery_, electrical, its construction, i. 193. _Baxter_, Mr. observations on his enquiry into the nature of the soul, ii. 110. _Beccaria_, character of his book on electricity, i. 310. _Beer_, not conducive to bodily strength, i. 62. _Bells_, form in consecrating them at Paris, i. 384. _Belly-ache_, dry, lead a cause of, ii. 220. _Bermuda_, little thunder there, i. 216. _Bermudian_ sloops, advantages of their construction, ii. 173. _Bernoulli_, Mr. his plan for moving boats, ii. 179. _Bevis_, Dr. draws electricity from the clouds, i. 429. _Bible_, anecdote of its concealment in the reign of Mary, i. 7. travestied by Dr. Brown, 31. _Bills_ of mortality, reasonings, formed on those for capital cities, not applicable to the country, ii. 383. _Birth_, noble, no qualification in America, iii. 400. _Bishops_, none in America, and why, ii. 456, 458. _Black clothes_ heat more and dry sooner than white, ii. 108. not fit for hot climates, 109. _Blacksmith_, trade of, hereditary in Franklin's family, i. 4. _Blindness_ occasioned both by lightning and electricity, i. 228. _Boats_, difference of their sailing in shoal and deep water, ii. 160. management of, best understood by savages, 176. how rowed by the Chinese, 177. methods of moving them by machinery, _ibid._ improvement of Mr. Bernoulli's plan for moving them, 179. proposal for a new mode of moving them, _ibid._ double, advantage of, 173, 174. one built by Sir W. Petty, _ibid._ _Bodies_, electrified negatively, repel each other, ii. 294. effect of blunt, compared with pointed ones, i. 172, 223. _Body_, human, specifically lighter than water, ii. 208. political and human, compared, iii. 115. _Boerhaave_, his opinion of the propagation of heat, ii. 58. of steam from fermenting liquors, 59. _Boiling_ water, experiments with, i. 332, 344, 345. pot, bottom of, why cold, 387. _Bolton_, Mr. experiment by, i. 346. _Books_ read by Franklin in his youth, i. 15, 18, 20, 21. _Boston_, the birth-place of Franklin, i. 8. why quitted by him in his youth, 27, its inhabitants decrease, ii. 210. preface to proceedings of the town meeting of, iii. 317. _Boyle's_ lectures, effect of, on Franklin, i. 79. _Braddock_, general, defeat of, i. 131. _Bradford_, printer at Philadelphia, i. 34, 102. _Brass_, hot, yields unwholesome steams, ii. 249 _Brientnal_, Joseph, a member of the Junto club, i. 83. _Brimstone_, when fluid, will conduct electricity, i. 256. _Bristol waters_, an alledged fact concerning, ii. 95. _Britain_, incapacity of, to supply the colonies with manufactures, ii. 386. _British empire_, an union of several states, iii. 310. _Brown_, Dr. acquaintance of Franklin's, i. 30. travestied the bible, 31. _Bubbles_ on the surface of water, hypothesis respecting, ii. 48. _Buchan_, earl of, letter to, on the price of land for new settlements in America, iii. 409. _Buildings_, what kind safest from lightning, i. 379. _Bullion_, causes of its variation in price, iii. 153. _Bunyan's_ Voyages, a book early read by Franklin, i. 15, 28. _Bur_, cause of, round a hole struck through pasteboard, i. 280. _Burnet_, governor, his attention to Franklin in his youth, i. 44. _Busy-body_, essays under the title of, i. 86. iii. 422. C. _Cabinet-work_, veneered in England, shrinks and flies in America, ii. 140. _Cables_, why apt to part when weighing anchor in a swell, ii. 167. this defect of, remedied, 168. _Cabot_, Sebastian, his commission from Henry VII., iii. 348. _Calvinism_, Franklin educated in the principles of, i. 79. _Campaign_ in America, account of the first, iii. 357. _Canals_, observations on their depth, ii. 159. _Canada_, importance of, to England, i. 136. visited by Franklin, 147. its extent, iii. 20. pamphlet on the importance of, 89. easily peopled without draining Britain, 139. _Cancers_, specific for, i. 260, 261. _Candles_ lighted by electricity, i. 176. distance at which the flame of, may be seen, ii. 90. _Cann_, silver, a singular experiment on, i. 307. _Canoes_ of the American Indians, their advantages, ii. 176. _Canton_, Mr. John, experiments by, i. 286, 346. draws electricity from the clouds, 428. _Capitals_, their use in printing, ii. 352. _Caribbees_, possession of, only a temporary benefit, iii. 142. _Carolina_, South, see _Lightning_. _Cavendish_, lord Charles, his electrical experiments, i. 348. _Cayenne_ would be a great acquisition to Britain, iii. 140. _Centre_ of the earth, hypothesis concerning, ii. 119, 127. _Cessions_ from an enemy, on what grounds may be demanded, iii. 93. _Chapel_, nickname for a printing house, i. 63. _Character_, remarks on the delineation of, iii. 445. _Charcoal-fires_, hurtful, ii. 235. _Charging_ and discharging, in electricity, explained, i. 190. a number of bottles at once, how done, _ibid._ _Charters_ of the colonies could not be altered by parliament, iii. 332. _Chess_, morals of, iii. 488. not an idle amusement, _ibid._ teaches various virtues, 489. advice to those who play, 490. too intense an application to, injurious, 500. _Chimnies_, different kinds of, enumerated, ii. 228. inconvenience of the old-fashioned ones, 229. defect of more modern ones, 230. have not long been in use in England, 277. Staffordshire, described, 285. have a draft of air up and down, 289. may be used for keeping provisions in summer, 290. may be of use to miners, 291. funnels to, what the best, 292, 295. method of contracting them, 317. smoky. See _Smoky_. _China_, provision made there against famine, ii. 407. _Chinese_ wisely divide the holds of their vessels by partitions, ii. 171. how they row their boats, 177. their method of warming ground floors, 292. improvement in this method suggested, 293. their method of making large paper, 349. _Circle_, magical, account of, ii. 327, 328. _Cities_, spring water gradually deteriorates in, i. 163. do not supply themselves with inhabitants, ii. 384. _Clark_, Dr. of Boston, quoted, on the instigation of the American Indians against the English, iii. 95, 100, 102. _Clothes_, wet, may preserve from lightning, i. 213. will relieve thirst, ii. 104. do not give colds, _ibid._ imbibe heat according to their colour, 108. white, most suitable for hot climates, _ibid._ _Clothing_ does not give, but preserves, warmth, ii. 81. _Clouds_, at land and at sea, difference between, i. 207. formed at sea, how brought to rain on land, 208. driven against mountains, form springs and rivers, 209. passing different ways, accounted for, 211. electrical, attracted by trees, spires, &c. 213. manner in which they become electrised, 257, 305. are electrised sometimes negatively and sometimes positively, 274, 277, 284, 292. electricity drawn from them, at Marly, 420. by Mr. Cauton, 428. by Dr. Bevis, 429, by Mr. Wilson, _ibid._ how supported in air, ii. 5. how formed, 7. whether winds are generated or can be confined in them, 57. have little more solidity than fogs, _ibid._ _Club_, called the Junto, instituted by Franklin, i. 82. rules of, ii. 366, 369. questions discussed in, 369. _Coal_, sea, letter on the nature of, ii. 128. _Cold_, why seemingly greater in metals than in wood, ii. 56, 77. sensation of, how produced, 57. only the absence of heat, 81. produced by chemical mixtures, _ibid._ evaporation. See _Evaporation_. _Colden_, Mr. his remarks on Abbé Nollet's letters, i. 430. meteorological observations, ii. 51. observations on water-spouts, 53. _Colds_, causes of, ii. 214, 230. _Coleman_, William, a member of the Junto club, i. 84, 89. _Colica pictorum_, caused by lead, ii. 219. _Collins_, John, an early friend of Franklin's, i. 17, 27, 41, 43, 44. _Collinson_, Mr. some account of, iii. 514. _Colonial_ governments in America of three kinds, iii. 50. _Colonies_, the settlement of, does not diminish national numbers, ii. 391. their prosperity beneficial to the mother country, iii. 113. are intitled to distinct governments, 303. American, preferable to the West Indies, _ibid._ not dangerous to Britain, 132. aids to government, how given by, 225, 226. originally governed by the crown, independent of Parliament, 291. not settled at the expence of Britain, 348. _Colonists_ in America, double their number in 25 years, iii. 113. from Britain, their rights, 299. _Colours._ See _Clothes_. _Comazants_, or corposants, are electrical appearances, i. 248. _Commerce_, influence of, on the manners of a people, ii. 400. is best encouraged by being left free, 415. should not be prohibited in time of war, 417. by inland carriage, how supported, iii. 116. _Common-sense_, by Paine, Franklin supposed to have contributed to, i. 148. _Compass_, instances of its losing its virtue by lightning, i. 248. how to remedy the want of, at sea, ii. 191. _Conductors_ of lightning, very common in America, i. 113. first suggestion of the utility of, 227. construction of, 358. particulars relating to, 377. of electricity, difference in the action of, 200, 303. which the most perfect, 253, 256. and non-conductors, other terms substituted for, _ibid._ of common fire, their properties and differences, ii. 76, 77. experiments on, ii. 77. _Congress_, Franklin appointed a delegate to, i. 146. proposed overture from, in 1775, iii. 347. _Consecration_ of bells in France, form of, i. 384. _Conspirators_, electrical, meaning of the term, i. 196. _Controversy_, benefit of, iii. 92. _Conversation_, advantage of useful topics of, at dinner, i. 12. _Cook_, captain, circular letter concerning, iii. 515. copy of the voyages of, presented to Franklin, by the Admiralty, 517. Cookery, at sea, generally bad, ii. 194. _Copper_, manner of covering houses with, ii. 318, 320, 322. _Copper_ plate printing-press, the first in America, constructed by Franklin, i. 77. _Corn_, ill policy of laying restraints on the exportation of, ii. 413, 418. _Countries_, distant and unprovided, a plan for benefiting, ii. 403. _Creation_, conjectures as to, ii. 118. _Credit_, that of America and Britain in 1777, compared, iii. 372. depends on payment of loans, 373. industry and frugality, 374. public spirit, 375. income and security, 376. prospects of future ability, _ibid._ prudence, 377. character for honesty, 378. is money to a tradesman, 464. _Criminal_ laws, reflections on, ii. 439. _Crooked_ direction of lightning explained, i. 316. _Cutler_, circumstance that prevented Franklin's being apprenticed to one, i. 14. _Currents_ at sea, often not perceivable, ii. 185. _Cyder_, the best quencher of thirst, ii. 195. D. _Dalrymple_, Mr. scheme of a voyage under his command to benefit remote regions, ii. 403. _Damp_ air, why more chilling than dry air that is colder, ii. 56, 77. _Dampier_, account of a water-spout by, ii. 33. references to his voyage, on the subject of water-spouts, 58. _Dampness_ on walls, cause of, ii. 50. _Day-light_, proposal to use it instead of candle-light, iii. 470. _Deacon_, Isaac, from an underling to a surveyor, becomes inspector- general of America, i. 78. prognosticates the future eminence in life of Franklin, _ib._ _Death_ of Franklin, i. 153. letter from Dr. Price on, iii. 541. of relatives, reflections on, 507. _Deism_, effects on Franklin of books written against, i. 79. _Deluge_, accounted for, ii. 127. _Denham_, a quaker, a friend of Franklin's, i. 54. extraordinary trait of honesty of, to his creditors, 67. Franklin's engagement with, as a clerk, 68, 70. _Denmark_, the people of, not subject to colds, ii. 244. _Denny_, governor, remarks on his official conduct in Pensylvania, iii. 170. _Desaquiliers_, his experiment on the vapour of hot iron, ii. 249. _Dew_, how produced, i. 207. _Dialogue_, between Franklin and the gout, iii. 499. _Dickenson_, Mr. his remarks on the views of England in framing laws over the colonies, iii. 234. remarks on his conduct, 192. on his protest, 202. _Discontented_ dispositions satirized, iii. 485. _Discontents_ in America before 1768, causes of, iii. 225. _Dissentions_ between England and America, letter on, iii. 310. _Dissertation_, early one of Franklin's, that he repented having written, i. 58. _Disputation_, modesty in, recommended, i. 21. ii. 317. _Disputes_ between Franklin and his brother, to whom he was apprenticed, i. 24. _Domien_, a traveller, short account of, i. 302. _Drawling_, a defect in modern tunes, ii. 345. _Dreams_, art of procuring pleasant ones, iii. 493. _Dumas_, Monsieur, letter to, on the aid wanted by America in her struggle for independence, iii. 360. _Duna_ river, not to be confounded with the Dwina, iii. 119, note. _Dust_, how raised and carried up into the air, ii. 3. _Duties_, moral, the knowledge of, more important than the knowledge of nature, ii. 95. _Dutch_ iron stove, advantages and defects of, ii. 233. E. _Early_ impressions, lasting effect of, on the mind, iii. 478. _Earth_ will dissolve in air, ii. 2. dry, will not conduct electricity, i. 206. the, sometimes strikes lightning into the clouds, 274. grows no hotter under the summer sun, why, ii. 86. different strata of, 116. theory of, 117. _Earthquakes_, general good arising from, ii. 116. how occasioned, 120, 128. _Eaton_, in Northamptonshire, residence of Franklin's family, i. 3. _Ebb_ and flood, explanation of the terms, ii. 100. _Economical_ project, iii. 469. _Edinburgh_, an ordinance there against the purchase of prize-goods, ii. 447. _Education_ of women, controversy respecting, i. 17. _Eel_, electrical, of Surinam, i. 408, 409. _Effluvia_ of drugs, &c. will not pass through glass, i. 243. _Electrical_ air-thermometer described, i. 336, _et seq._ atmosphere, how produced, 221. how drawn off, 222. atmospheres repel each other, 294. repel electric matter in other bodies, _ib._ battery, its construction, 193. clouds, experiment regarding, 229. death, the easiest, 307. experiments, Franklin's eager pursuit of, 104. made in France, 109. various, 182, 229, 254, 255, 261, 271, 278, 286, 294, 307, 327, 337, 348, 371, 434. fire, not created by friction, but collected, 173. passes through water, 202. loves water and subsists in it, 203. diffused through all matter, 205 visible on the surface of the sea, _ibid._ its properties and uses, 214, _et seq._ produces common fire, 214, 238, 356. has the same crooked direction as lightning, 315. fluid, its beneficial uses, 219. is strongly attracted by glass, 236. manner of its acting through glass hermetically sealed, 241. a certain quantity of, in all kinds of matter, 275. nature of its explosion, 280. chooses the best conductor, 281, 378. force, may be unboundedly increased, 251. horse-race, 334. jack for roasting, 197. kiss, its force increased, 177. kite, described, 268. machine; simple and portable one, described, 178. matter, its properties, 217, 294. party of pleasure, 202. phial, or Leyden bottle, its phenomena explained, 179. shock, observations on, 182. effects of a strong one on the human body, 297, 306. spark, perforates a quire of paper, 195. wheel, its construction, 196. self-moving one, 198. _Electricity_, summary of its progress, i. 104. positive and negative, discovered, 106. distinguished, 175. in a tourmalin, 370. does not affect the elasticity of the air, 254. its similarity to lightning, 288. its effects on paralysis, 401. of fogs in Ireland, 405. supposed affinity between, and magnetism, 410. _Electrics per se_ and non-electrics, difference between, i. 242, 258. _Electrified_ bumpers described, i. 203. _Electrisation_, what constitutes the state of, i. 218. various appearances of, 175. variety of, 176. _Electrising_ one's self, manner of, i. 174. _Elocution_, how best taught, ii. 374. _Embassador_ from the United States to France, Franklin appointed to the office of, i. 148. _Emblematical_ design illustrative of the American troubles, iii. 371. _Emigrants_ to America, advice to, iii. 398. _Empire_, rules for reducing a great one, iii. 334. _England_, Franklin's first arrival in, i. 55. second arrival in, as agent for the province of Pensylvania, 134. third arrival in, as agent for the same province, 141. its air moister than that of America, ii. 140. decrease of population in, doubtful, 296. _English_, effect of the ancient manners of, ii. 399. language, innovations in, 351. _Enterprises_, public, Franklin's early disposition for, i. 10. _Ephemera_, an emblem of human life, iii. 508. _Epitaph_ on Franklin's parents, i. 13. on himself, 155. _Episcopalians_, conduct of the American legislature towards, ii. 455. _Errors_ of Franklin's early life, i. 45, 58, 61, 80, 97. _Ether_, what, ii. 59. _Evaporation_, cold produced by, i. 344, ii. 76, 83, 85. of rivers, effects of, 106. _Examination_ of Franklin before the house of commons, i. 142, iii. 245. before the privy council, 328. further particulars of, 551. _Exchange_, rate of, between Philadelphia and Britain, iii. 252. _Exercise_, should precede meals, iii. 493. _Experiments_, to show the electrical effect of points, i. 171, 172. to prove the electrical state of the Leyden phial, 182. of firing spirits by a spark sent through a river, 202. to show how thunder-storms produce rain, 209. on the clouds, proposed, 228. on drugs electrified, 243. on the elasticity of the air, 254. on the electric fluid, 255. by Mr. Kennersley, 261. on the electricity of the clouds, 271. for increasing electricity, 278. by Mr. Canton, 286. in pursuance of those of Mr. Canton, 294. on a silver cann, 307. on the velocity of the electric fluid, 327, 329, 330. for producing cold by evaporation, 344. on the different effects of electricity, 357. by lord Charles Cavendish, 348. on the tourmalin, 371. to show the utility of long pointed rods to houses, 389. on amber, 403 _et seq._ on the Leyden phial, 434. on different coloured cloths, ii. 108, 109. on the sailing of boats, 160. _Exportation_ of gold and silver, observations on, ii. 416. _Exports_ to North America and the West Indies, iii. 127, 128. to Pensylvania, 129, 250. from ditto, 250. _Eye_, retains the images of luminous objects, ii. 340. F. _Facts_, should be ascertained before we attempt to account for them, ii. 96. _Family_ of Franklin, account of, i. 5. _et seq._ _Famine_, how provided against in China, ii. 407. _Fanning_, how it cools, ii. 87. _Farmers_, remonstrance in behalf of, ii. 420. _Federal_ constitution, speech on, iii. 416. _Felons_, transportation of, to America, highly disagreeable to the inhabitants, iii. 235. _Fermenting_ liquors, their steam deleterious, ii. 59. Fire, not destroyed by water, but dispersed, i. 172. makes air specifically lighter, 206. exists in all bodies, 214. common and electrical, exist together, _ibid._ a region of, above our atmosphere, 257, ii. 124. many ways of kindling it, i. 356. exists in a solid or quiescent state in substances, _ibid._ ii. 80, 122. recovers its fluidity by combustion, _ibid._ is a fluid permeating all bodies, 76. conductors of, are also best conductors of the electric fluid, _ibid._ difference between, and electrical conductors, 77. how diffused through substances, 78. how generated in animated bodies, 79. theory of, 122. a fixed and permanent quantity of, in the universe, 123. its properties, 227. electrical, see _Electrical_. _Fire-companies_, numerous at Philadelphia, i. 103. _Fire-places_, Pensylvanian, account of, ii. 225. large and open, inconvenient, 228. hollow backed, by Gauger, 232. Staffordshire, 285. an ingenious one for serving two rooms, 296. _Fires_, at sea, how often produced, ii. 174. great and bright, damage the eyes and skin, 230. _Fisheries_, value of those of Newfoundland, iii. 452. _Flame_, preserves bodies from being consumed while surrounding them, ii. 310, 311. _Flaxseed_, amount of the exportation of from America to Ireland, iii. 270. _Flesh_, of animals, made tender by lightning and by electricity, i. 359, 414. _Flies_, drowned in America, brought to life in England, ii. 223. _Flood_ and ebb, explanation of the terms, ii. 100. _Florence_ flask, when filled with boiling water, not chargeable with electricity, i. 332, 345. _Fog_, great, in 1783, ii. 68. conjectures as to its cause, _ibid._ _Fogs_, how supported in air, ii. 5. electricity of, in Ireland, i. 405. _Folger_, family-name of Franklin's mother, i. 8. _Foreigners_, the importation of, not necessary to fill up occasional vacancies in population, ii. 390. _Forts_ in the back settlements, not approved of, iii. 99. _Foster_, judge, notes on his argument for the impress of seamen, ii. 437. _Foundering_ at sea, accidents that occasion it, ii. 169, 170. _Fountain_, when electrified, its stream separates, i. 206. _Fowls_, improperly treated at sea, ii. 193. _Fragments_, political, ii. 411. _France_, its air moister than that of America, ii. 140. effects of its military manners, 399. _Franklin_, derivation of the name, i. 4. genealogy of the family of, 5. _Franks_, the improper use of, reprobated, ii. 435. _Freezing_ to death in summer, possibility of, ii. 84. _French_ language, its general use, ii. 353. _Frontiers_, in America, the attack of, the common cause of the state, iii. 109. _Frugality_, advantages of, ii. 397. observance of, in America, iii. 374 _Fruit-walls_, blacking them recommended, ii. 110. _Fuel_, scarce in Philadelphia, ii. 225. _Fulling-mills_ in America, iii. 270. _Fusion_, cold, of metals, supposed, i. 215. proves a mistake, 339. error respecting it acknowledged, 355. G. _Galloway_, Mr, preface to his speech, iii. 163. _Garnish-money_, practice among printers of demanding it, i. 63. _Gauger_, M. his invention for fire-places, ii. 232. _Genealogy_ of the Franklin family, i. 5. _German_ stoves, advantages and disadvantages of, ii. 234. _Germany_, why the several states of, encourage foreign manufactures in preference to those of each other, iii. 118. note. _Gilding_, its properties as a conductor, i. 201. the effects of lightning and of electricity on, 229. fails as a conductor after a few shocks, 231. _Glass_, has always the same quantity of electrical fire, i. 191. possesses the whole power of giving a shock, 192, 247. in panes, when first used in an electrical experiment, 193, 194. great force in small portions of, 199. impermeable to the electric fluid, 234, 310. strongly attracts the electric fluid, 236. cannot be electrified negatively, _ibid._ its opposite surfaces, how affected, _ibid._ its component parts and pores extremely fine, 237. manner of its operation in producing electricity, _ibid._ its elasticity, to what owing, 239. thick, resists a change of the quantity of electricity of its different sides, 242. rod of, will not conduct a shock, _ibid._ when fluid, or red hot, will conduct electricity, 256. difference in its qualities, 301. error as to its pores, 302. will admit the electric fluid, when moderately heated, 345, 347. when cold retains the electric fluid, 346. experiments on warm and cold, 348. singular tube and ball of, 386. _Glasses_, musical, described, ii. 330, _et seq._ _God_, saying in America respecting, iii. 401. _Godfrey_, Thomas, a lodger with Franklin, i. 81. a member of the Junto, 83. inventor of Hadley's quadrant, _ibid._ wishes Franklin to marry a relation of his, 95. _Gold_ and silver, remarks on exportation of, ii. 416. _Golden_ fish, an electrical device, i. 233. _Government_, free, only destroyed by corruption of manners, ii. 397. _Gout_, dialogue with that disease, iii. 499. _Grace_, Robert, member of the Junto club, i. 84, 89. _Gratitude_ of America, letter on, iii. 239. _Greasing_ the bottoms of ships, gives them more swiftness, ii. 180. _Greece_, causes of its superiority over Persia, ii. 397. _Greek_ empire, the destruction of, dispersed manufacturers over Europe, iii. 122. _Green_ and red, relation between the colours of, ii. 341. _Greenlanders_, their boats best for rowing, ii. 176. _Guadaloupe_, its value to Britain over-rated, iii. 139. _Gulph-stream_, observations on, ii. 186. whalers frequent its edges, _ibid._ long unknown to any but the American fishermen, _ibid._ how generated, 187. its properties, _ibid._ tornadoes and water-spouts attending it, accounted for, 188. how to avoid it, 197. Nantucket whalers best acquainted with it, 198. thermometrical observations on, 199. journal of a voyage across, _ibid._ _Gunpowder_, fired by electricity, i. 250. magazines of, how to secure them from lightning, 375. proposal for keeping it dry, 376. H. _Habits_, effects of, on population, ii. 393. 394. _Hadley's_ quadrant, by whom invented, i. 83, 95. _Hail_, brings down electrical fire, i. 292. how formed, ii. 66. _Hamilton_, Mr. a friend of Franklin's, i. 54, 88. _Handel_, criticism on one of his compositions, ii. 345. _Harmony_, in music, what, ii. 339. _Harp_, effect of, on the ancient Scotch tunes, ii. 340. _Harry_, David, companion of Franklin's, i. 72, 93. _Hats_, summer, should be white, ii. 109. the manufacture of, in New England, in 1760, iii. 131. _Health_ of seamen, Captain Cook's method of preserving it recommended, ii. 190. _Heat_, produced by electricity and by lightning, i. 338, 339. better conducted by some substances than others, ii. 56, 58. how propagated, 58. the pain it occasions, how produced, 78. in animals, how generated, 79, 125. in fermentation, the same as that of the human body, 80. great, at Philadelphia, in 1750, 85. general theory of, 122. _Herrings_, shoals of, perceived by the smoothness of the sea, ii. 150. _Hints_ to those that would be rich, iii. 466. _Holmes_, Robert, brother-in-law to Franklin, i. 37, 71. _Honesty_, often a very partial principle of conduct, ii. 430. _Honours_, all descending ones absurd, iii. 550. _Hopkins_, governor, his report of the number of inhabitants in Rhode Island, iii. 129. _Horse-race_, electrical, i. 335. _Hospital_, one founded by the exertions of Franklin, i. 126. _Hospitals_, foundling, state of in England and France, iii. 544*, 548*. _Hospitality_, a virtue of barbarians, iii. 391. _Houses_, remarks on covering them with copper, ii. 318, 320. many in Russia covered with iron plates, 319. their construction in Paris renders them little liable to fires, 321. _Howe_, lord, letter from, to Franklin, iii. 365. Franklin's answer to, 367. _Hudson's_ river, winds there, ii. 52, 59. _Hunters_, require much land to subsist on, ii. 384. _Hurricanes_, how produced, ii. 7. why cold in hot climates, _ibid._ _Hutchinson_, governor, cause of the application for his removal, iii. 323. account of the letters of, 331, 551. _Hygrometer_, best substances for forming one, ii. 136. mahogany recommended for forming one, 141. I. J. _Jackson_, Mr. remarks on population by, ii. 392. _Jamaica_, its vacant lands not easily made sugar lands, iii. 140. _Javelle_, his machinery for moving boats, ii. 177. _Ice_ will not conduct an electric shock, i. 201. _Ice-islands_, dangerous to shipping, ii. 176. _Idleness_, the heaviest tax on mankind, ii. 411, iii. 454. encouraged by charity, ii. 422. reflections on, iii. 428. _Jefferson_, Mr. letter from, on the character of Franklin, iii. 545. _Jesuits_, hostility of the Indians in America excited by, iii. 95. _Ignorance_, a frank acknowledgment of, commendable, i. 308. _Imports_ into Pensylvania from Britain before 1766, iii. 250. _Impress_ of seamen, notes on Judge Foster's argument in favour of, ii. 437. _Inarticulation_ in modern singing, censured, ii. 348. _Increase_ of mankind, observations on, ii. 383, and _seq._ what prevented by, 386, 387. how promoted, 388, 389. further observations on, 393. _Indemnification_, just ground for requiring cessions from an enemy, iii. 93. _Independence_, soon acquired in America, iii. 402. _Indian trade_ and affairs, remarks on a plan for the future management of, iii. 216. spirituous liquors the great encouragement of, 219. the debts from, must be left to honour, 220. not an American but a British interest, 275. _Indians_, of North America, a number of, murdered, i. 139. often excited by the French against the English, iii. 95. list of fighting men in the different nations of, 221. difference of their warfare from that of Europeans, 100. remarks concerning, 383. their mode of life, 384. public councils, 385. politeness in conversation, 386. rules in visiting, 388. _Industry_, effects of Franklin's, i. 85. the cause of plenty, ii. 396. essential to the welfare of a people, 411. relaxed by cheapness of provisions, 415. a greater portion of, in every nation, than of idleness, 396, 429, iii. 396. its prevalence in America, iii. 373. _Inflammability_ of the surface of rivers, ii. 130. _Inland_ commerce, instances of, iii. 120. _Innovations_ in language and printing, ii. 351. _Inoculation_, letter on the deaths occasioned by, ii. 215. success of, in Philadelphia, 216, 217. _Insects_, utility of the study of, ii. 93. _Interrogation_, the mark of, how to be placed, ii. 356. _Invention_, the faculty of, its inconveniences, i. 308. _Inventions_, new, generally scouted, _ibid._ _Journal_ of a voyage, crossing the gulph-stream, ii. 199. from Philadelphia to France, 200, 201. from the channel to America, 202, _et seq._ _Iron_ contained in the globe, renders it a great magnet, ii. 119. query whether it existed at the creation, 126. hot, gives no bad smell, 247. yields no bad vapours, 248. rods, erected for experiments on the clouds, i. 270. conduct more lightning in proportion to their thickness, 282. _Islands_ far from a continent have little thunder, i. 216. _Italic_ types, use of, in printing, ii. 355. _Judges_, mode of their appointment in America, in 1768, iii. 23. _Junto._ See _Club_. K. _Keimer_, a connection of Franklin's, some account of, i. 35, 70, 93. _Keith_, sir William, Franklin patronized by, i. 39. deceived by, 54. character of, 57. _Kinnersley_, Mr. electrical experiments by, i. 261, _et seq._, 331. _Kiss_, electrical, i. 177. _Kite_ used to draw electricity from the clouds, i. 108. electrical, described, i. 268. _Knobs_, not so proper as points, for conducting lightning, i. 359. L. _Labour_, why it will long continue dear in America, ii. 385. its advantages, 427, 428. _Land_, terms on which it may be obtained in America, by settlers, iii. 409. _Landing_ in a surf, supposed practicable, how, ii. 154. tried without success, 155. _Language_, remarks on innovations in, ii. 351, _et seq._ _Laughers_, satyrized, iii. 425. _Law_, the old courts of, in the colonies, as ample in their powers, as those in England, iii. 304. _Law-expenses_, no discouragement to law-suits, iii. 270. _Law-stamps_, a tax on the poor, iii. 269. _Lead_, effects of, on the human constitution, ii. 219. _Leaks_ in ships, why water enters by them most rapidly at first, ii. 109. means to prevent their being fatal, 170. _Leather_ globe, proposed, instead of glass, for electrical experiments, i. 267. _Left_ hand, a petition from, iii. 483. _Leg_, handsome and deformed, humourous anecdote of, iii. 437. _Legal_ tender of paper-money, its advantages, iii. 150. further remarks on, 151. _Lending_ money, new mode of, iii. 463. _Letter-founding_ effected by Franklin in America, i. 74. _Leutmann_, J. G. extract from his vulcanus famulans, ii. 298. _Leyden_ bottle, its phenomena explained, i. 179. analysed, 192. experiment to prove its qualities, 245. when sealed hermetically, retains long its electricity, 345. _Liberty_ of the press, observations on, ii. 463. abused, 465. of the cudgel, should be allowed in return, 467. _Libraries_, public, the first in America set on foot by Franklin, i. 99. are now numerous in America, 100. advantages of, to liberty, 101. _Life_ and death, observations on the doctrines of, ii. 222. _Light_, difference between that from the sun and that from a fire in electrical experiments, i. 173. difficulties in the doctrines of, i. 253. queries concerning, _ibid._ visibility of its infinitely small particles computed, ii. 90. new theory of, 122. _Lighthouse-tragedy_, an early poem of Franklin's, i. 16. _Lightning_, represented by electricity, i. 176. drawn from the clouds, by a kite, 268. by an iron rod, _ibid._ reasons for proposing the experiment on, 304. its effects at Newbury, 310. will leave other substances, to pass through metals, 312. communicates magnetism to iron, 314. objections to the hypothesis of its being collected from the sea, 318, 323. effects of, on a wire at New York, 326. on Mr. West's pointed rod, 340, _et seq._ how it shivers trees, 359. effects of, on conductors in Carolina, 361, 362, 364. does not enter through openings, 368. should be distinguished from its light, 369. an explosion always accompanies it, _ibid._ observations on its effects on St. Bride's church, 374, 382. how to preserve buildings from, 377. personal danger from, how best avoided, 381. brought down by a pointed rod, in a large quantity, 389. how to prevent a stroke of, at sea, ii. 175. _Linnæus_, instance of public benefit arising from his knowledge of insects, ii. 94. _London_, atmosphere of, moister than that of the country, ii. 139. _Loyalty_ of America before the troubles, iii. 237. _Luxury_, beneficial when not too common, ii. 389. definition of, 395, 425. extinguishes families, 395. not to be extirpated by laws, 401. further observations on, 425. _Lying-to_, the only mode yet used for stopping a vessel at sea, ii. 181. M. _Maddeson_, Mr. death of, lamented, iii. 544*. _Magazine_ of powder, how to secure it from lightning, i. 375. _Magical_ circle of circles, ii. 327. picture, i. 195. square of squares, ii. 324. _Magnetism_, animal, detected and exposed, i. 150. given by electricity, 248, 314. and electricity, affinity between, 410. supposed to exist in all space, ii. 119, 126. conjectures as to its effects on the globe, 120. enquiry how it first came to exist, 126. _Mahogany_, expands and shrinks, according to climate, ii. 138. recommended for an hygrometer, 141. _Mandeville_, Franklin's acquaintance with, i. 39. _Manners_, effects of, on population, ii. 393, _et seq._ letter to the Busy-body on the want of, iii. 432. _Manufactures_, produce greater proportionate returns than raw materials, ii. 410. founded in the want of land for the poor, iii. 107. are with difficulty transplanted from one country to another, 121. hardly ever lost but by foreign conquest, 122. probability of their establishment in America, 260. want no encouragement from the government, if a country be ripe for them, 405. _Maritime_ observations, ii. 162. _Marly_, experiments made at, for drawing lightning from the clouds, i. 421. _Marriage_ of Franklin, i. 97. _Marriages_, where the greatest number take place, ii. 383. why frequent and early in America, 385. iii. 113, 403. early, letter on, iii. 475. _Maryland_, account of a whirlwind there, ii. 61. of paper bills formerly issued there, iii. 155. its conduct in a French war, previous to the American troubles, defended, 262. _Massachusets_ bay, petition of the inhabitants of, to the king, iii. 325. _Matter_, enquiry into the supposed vis inertiæ of, ii. 110. man can neither create nor annihilate it, 123. _Mawgridge_, William, member of the Junto club, i. 84. _Maxims_, prudential, from poor Richard's almanack, iii. 453. _Mazeas_, abbe, letter from, i. 420. _Meal_, grain, &c. manner of preserving them good for ages, i. 376. ii. 190. _Mechanics_, advantages of an early attention to, i. 14. _Mediocrity_, prevalence of, in America, iii. 399. _Melody_ in music, what, ii. 340. _Men_, six, struck down by an electric shock, i. 306. _Mercer_, Dr. letter from, on a water-spout, ii. 34. _Merchants_ and shopkeepers in America, iii. 394. _Meredith_, Hugh, companion of Franklin, short account of, i. 72, 76, 89. _Metalline_ rods, secure buildings from lightning, i. 281. either prevent or conduct a stroke, 310. _Metals_, melted by electricity and by lightning, i. 215, 229. when melted by electricity, stain glass, 232. polished, spotted by electrical sparks, 253. feel colder than wood, why, ii. 56. _Meteorological_ observations, ii. 1, 45, 66. _Methusalem_ slept always in the open air, iii. 495. _Mickle_, Samuel, a prognosticator of evil, i. 81. _Military_ manners, effects of, ii. 398, 399. power of the king, remarks on, iii. 307. _Militia_ bill, Franklin the author of one, i. 132. particular one, rejected by the governor of Pensylvania, 100. iii. 157. _Mines_, method of changing air in them, ii. 291. of rock salt, conjectures as to their formation, 92. _Mists_, how supported in air, ii. 5. _Modesty_ in disputation recommended, ii. 317. _Money_, how to make it plenty, iii. 467. new mode of lending, 468. _Moral_ principles, state of Franklin's mind respecting, on his entering into business, i. 79. _Morals_ of chess, iii. 488. _Motion_, the communication and effects of, ii. 7, 8. of vessels at sea, how to be stopped, 181. _Mountains_, use of, in producing rain and rivers, i. 208. why the summits of, are cold, ii. 6. conjecture how they became so high, 91. _Music_, harmony and melody of the old Scotish, ii. 338. modern, defects of, 343. _Musical_ glasses described, ii. 330. N. _Nantucket_ whalers best acquainted with the gulph-stream, ii. 198. _National_ wealth, data for reasoning on, ii. 408. three ways of acquiring, 410. _Navigation_, difference of, in shoal and deep water, ii. 158. observations on, 195, 196. from Newfoundland to New York, 197. inland, in America, iii. 118. _Needle_ of a compass, its polarity reversed by lightning, i. 248, 325. of wood, circular motion of, by electricity, 332, 351. _Needles_, magnetised by electricity, i. 148. and pins, melted by electricity, 249. _Negatively_ electrised bodies repel each other, i. 294. _Negroes_ bear heat better, and cold worse, than whites, ii. 86. _Newbury_, effects of a stroke of lightning there, i. 310. _New-England_, former flourishing state of, from the issue of paper money, iii. 145. circumstances which rendered the restriction of paper money there not injurious, 148. abolition of paper currency there, 263. _Newfoundland_ fisheries, more valuable than the mines of Peru, iii. 452. _Newspaper_, one sufficient for all America, in 1721, i. 23. instance of one set up by Franklin at Philadelphia, 86. _New-York_, effects of lightning there, i. 326. former flourishing state of, from the issue of paper-money, iii. 146. sentiments of the colonists on the act for abolishing the legislature of, 232. obtained in exchange for Surinam, 349. _Nollet_, Abbé, Franklin's theory of electricity opposed by, i. 113. remarks on his letters, 430. _Non-conductors_ of electricity, i. 378. _Non-electric_, its property in receiving or giving electrical fire, i. 193. _North-east_ storms in America, account of, ii. 68. _Nurses_, office at Paris for examining the health of, iii. 549*. O. _Oak_ best for flooring and stair-cases, ii. 321. _Ohio_, distance of its fort from the sea, iii. 119, note. _Oil_, effect of heat on, ii. 4. evaporates only in dry air, _ibid._ renders air unfit to take up water, _ibid._ curious instance of its effects on water in a lamp, 142. stilling of waves by means of, 144, 145, 148, 150, 151, 154. _Old_ man's wish, song so called quoted, iii. 546*. _Onslow_, Arthur, dedication of a work to, by Franklin, iii. 59. _Opinions_, vulgar ones too much slighted, ii. 146. regard to established ones, thought wisdom in a government, iii. 226. _Orthography_, a new mode of, ii. 359. _Osborne_, a friend of Franklin's, i. 50, 53 _Oversetting_ at sea, how it occurs, ii. 172. how to be prevented, _ibid._, 173. _Outriggers_ to boats, advantages of, ii. 173. P. _Packthread_, though wet, not a good conductor, i. 200. _Paine's_ Common Sense, Franklin supposed to have contributed to, i. 148. _Paper_, how to make large sheets, in the Chinese way, ii. 349. a poem, iii. 522. _Paper-credit_, cannot be circumscribed by law, ii. 418. _Paper-money_, pamphlet written by Franklin on, i. 91. American, remarks and facts relative to, iii. 144. advantages of, over gold and silver, iii. 152. _Papers_ on philosophical subjects, i. 169, _et seq._ ii. 1, _et seq._ on general politics, ii. 383, _et seq._ on American subjects, before the revolution, iii. 3, _et seq._ during the revolution, iii. 225, _et seq._ subsequent to the revolution, iii. 383, _et seq._ on moral subjects, iii. 421, _et seq._ _Parable_ against persecution, ii. 450. _Paradoxes_ inferred from some experiments, i. 262. _Paralysis_, effects of electricity on, i. 401. _Parliament_ of England, opinions in America, in 1766, concerning, iii. 254. _Parsons_, William, member of the Junto club, i. 83. _Parties_, their use in republics, iii. 396. _Party_ of pleasure, electrical, i. 202. _Passages_ to and from America, how to be shortened, ii. 138. why shorter from, than to, America, 189. _Passengers_ by sea, instructions to, ii. 192. _Patriotism_, spirit of, catching, iii. 90. _Peace_, the victorious party may insist on adequate securities in the terms of, iii. 96. _Penn_, governor, remarks on his administration, iii. 183. sold his legislative right in Pensylvania, but did not complete the bargain, 189. _Pensylvania_, Franklin appointed clerk to the general assembly of, i. 102. forms a plan of association for the defence of, 104. becomes a member of the general assembly of, 114. aggrievances of, iii. 50. infraction of its charter, 52. review of the constitution of, 59. former flourishing state of, from the issue of paper-money, 146. rate of exchange there, 154. letter on the militia bill of, 157. settled by English and Germans, 162. English and German, its provincial languages, _ib._ pecuniary bargains between the governors and assembly of, 165. taxes there, 246, 251. number of its inhabitants, 249. proportion of quakers, and of Germans, _ibid._ exports and imports, 250. assembly of, in 1766, how composed, 252. _Pensylvanian_ fire-places, account of, ii. 223. particularly described, 235. effects of, 239. manner of using them, 241. advantages of, 243. objections to, answered, 247. directions to bricklayers respecting, 251. _Peopling_ of countries, observations on, ii. 383, _et seq._ _Perkins_, Dr. letter from, on water-spouts, ii. 11. on shooting stars, 36. _Persecution_, parable against, ii. 450. of dissenters, letter on, 452. of quakers in New England, 454. _Perspirable_ matter, pernicious, if retained, ii. 50. _Perspiration_, necessary to be kept up, in hot climates, ii. 86. difference of, in persons when naked and clothed, 214. _Petition_ from the colonists of Massachusets bay, iii. 325. of the left hand, 483. _Petty_, sir William, a double vessel built by, ii. 174. _Philadelphia_, Franklin's first arrival at, i. 32. account of a seminary there, instituted by Franklin, 116 to 127. state of the public bank at, iii. 551*. _Phytolacca_, or poke weed, a specific for cancers, i. 261. _Picture_, magical, described, i. 195. _Plain_ truth, Franklin's first political pamphlet, iii. 524. _Plan_ for benefiting distant countries, ii. 403. for settling two western colonies, iii. 41. for the management of Indian affairs, remarks on, 216. for improving the condition of the free blacks, 519. _Planking_ of ships, improvement in, ii. 189. _Pleurisy_, Franklin attacked by, i. 71, 154. _Plus_ and minus electricity, in the Leyden bottle, i. 181. in other bodies, 185. _Pointed_ rods, secure buildings from lightning, i. 283, 381. experiments and observations on, 388. objections to, answered, 395, 396. _Points_, their effects, i. 170. property of, explained, 223. experiment showing the effect of, on the clouds, 283. mistake respecting, 310. _Poke-weed_, a cure for cancers, i. 260, 261. _Polarity_ given to needles by electricity, i. 248. _Poles_ of the earth, if changed, would produce a deluge, ii. 127. _Political_ fragments, ii. 411. _Polypus_, a nation compared to, ii. 391. _Poor_, remarks on the management of, ii. 418. the better provided for, the more idle, 422. _Poor_ Richard, maxims of, iii. 453. _Pope_, criticism on two of his lines, i. 23. _Population_, observations on, ii. 383. causes which diminish it, 386. occasional vacancies in, soon filled by natural generation, 390. rate of its increase in America, 385. iii. 113, 250, 254. why it increases faster there, than in England, iii. 255. _Positions_ concerning national wealth, ii. 408. _Positiveness_, impropriety of, ii. 318. _Postage_, not a tax, but payment for a service, iii. 265. state of, in America, in 1766, 279. _Post-master_, and deputy post-master general, Franklin appointed to the offices of, i. 102, 127. _Potts_, Stephen, a companion of Franklin's, i. 72, 84. _Poultry_, not good at sea, ii. 193. _Powder-magazines_, how secured from lightning, i. 375. _Power_ to move a heavy body, how to be augmented, ii. 191. _Pownall_, governor, memorial of, to the Duke of Cumberland, iii. 41. letter from, on an equal communication of rights to America, 243. constitution of the colonies by, 299. _Preface_ to Mr. Galloway's speech, iii. 163. to proceedings of the inhabitants of Boston, 317. _Presbyterianism_, established religion in New England, ii. 454. _Press_, account of the court of, ii. 463. liberty of, abused, 465. _Pressing_ of seamen, animadversions on, ii. 437. _Price_, Dr. letter from, on Franklin's death, iii. 541. _Priestley_, Dr. letter from, on Franklin's character, iii. 547. _Printers_ at Philadelphia before Franklin, i. 36. _Printing_, Franklin apprenticed to the business of, i. 15. works at it as a journeymen in England, 58, 62. in America, 35, 71. enters on the business of, as master, 78. observations on fashions in, ii. 355. _Prison_, society for relieving the misery of, i. 151. not known among the Indians of America, iii. 220. _Privateering_, reprobated, ii. 436. further observations on, 446. article to prevent it, recommended in national treaties, 448. inserted in a treaty between America and Prussia, 449. _Proas_, of the pacific ocean, safety of, ii. 173. flying, superior to any of our sailing boats, 176. _Produce_ of the inland parts of America, iii. 119. _Products_ of America, do not interfere with those of Britain, iii. 124. _Prose-writing_, method of acquiring excellence in, i. 18. _Protest_ against Franklin's appointment as colonial agent, remarks on, iii. 203. _Provisions_, cheapness of, encourages idleness, ii. 415. _Prussian_ edict, assuming claims over Britain, iii. 311. _Public_ services and functions of Franklin, i. 125. spirit, manifest in England, iii. 91. different opinion respecting it expressed, 375. _Punctuality_ of America in the payment of public debts, iii. 373. _Puckridge_, Mr. inventor of musical glasses, i. 136. Q. _Quaker-lady_, good advice of one to Franklin in his youth, i. 42. _Quakers_, persecution of, in New England, ii. 454. proportion of, in Pensylvania, iii. 249. _Quebec_, remarks on the enlargement of the province of, iii. 20, note. _Queries_ concerning light, i. 258. proposed at the Junto club, ii. 366. from Mr. Strahan, on the American disputes, iii. 287. _Questions_ discussed by the Junto club, ii. 369. R. _Rain_, how produced, i. 207. generally brings down electricity, 292. why never salt, ii. 32. different quantities of, falling at different heights, 133. _Ralph_, James, a friend of Franklin's, i. 50, 53, 54, 57, 60. _Rarefaction_ of the air, why greater in the upper regions, ii. 6. _Read_, maiden name of Franklin's wife, i. 33, 37, 49, 54, 59, 70, 96. _Reading_, Franklin's early passion for, i. 15, 16. how best taught, ii. 372. advice to youth respecting, 378. _Recluse_, a Roman Catholic one, in London, i. 65. _Red_ and green, relation between the colours of, ii. 341. _Regimen_, sudden alterations of, not prejudicial, i. 49. _Religious_ sect, new one, intended establishment of, i. 48. _Repellency_, electrical, how destroyed, i. 172. _Representation_, American, in the British parliament, thoughts on, iii. 37, 243. _Repulsion_, electrical, the doctrine of, doubted, i. 333. considerations in support of, 349. _Revelation_, doubted by Franklin in his youth, i. 79. _Rhode-Island_, purchased for a pair of spectacles, iii. 21. its population at three periods, iii. 129. _Rich_, hints to those that would be, iii. 466. _Ridicule_, delight of the prince of Condé in, iii. 424. _Rivers_, from the Andes, how formed, i. 209. motion of the tides in, explained, ii. 96, 102. do not run into the sea, 105. evaporate before they reach the sea, 106. inflammability of the surface of, 130. _Rods_, utility of long pointed ones, to secure buildings from lightning, i. 388. See farther. _Iron._ _Lightning._ _Metalline._ _Rome_, causes of its decline enquired into, ii. 398. political government of its provinces, iii. 136. _Rooms_, warm, advantages of, ii. 249. do not give colds, ibid. _Roots_, edible, might be dried and preserved for sea-store, ii. 190. _Rosin_, when fluid, will conduct electricity, i. 256. _Rousseau_, his opinion of tunes in parts, ii. 342. _Rowing_ of boats, Chinese method of, ii. 177. _Rowley_, Dr. Franklin's obligations to, iii. 555*. S. _Sailing_, observations on, ii. 163. _Sails_, proposed improvements in, ii. 164, 166. _Saint_ Bride's church, stroke of lightning on, i. 374. _Salt_, dry, will not conduct electricity, i. 258. rock, conjectures as to its origin, ii. 91. _Saltness_ of the sea-water considered, _ib._ _Savage_, John, a companion of Franklin's, i. 72. _Savages_ of North America, remarks on, iii. 383, _et seq._ _School_, sketch of one, for Philadelphia, ii. 370. _Scotch_ tunes, harmony of, and melody, ii. 338. _Screaming_, a defect in modern tunes, ii. 345. _Scull_, Nicholas, member of the Junto club, i. 83. _Sea_, electrical qualities of its component parts, i. 205. opinion, that it is the source of lightning, considered, 269, 321, 322. supposed cause of its luminous appearance, ii. 88. from what cause, salt, 91. has formerly covered the mountains, _ib._ _Sea-coal_, has a vegetable origin, ii. 128. prejudices against the use of, at Paris, 278. _Sea-water_, soon loses its luminous quality, i. 269. considerations on the distillation of, ii. 103. how to quench thirst with, 104. thermometrical observation on, 199, _et seq._ _Security_, a just ground to demand cessions from an enemy, iii. 93. _Separation_ of the colonies from Britain, probability of, in 1775, iii. 356. _Servants_ in England, the most barren parts of the people, ii. 395. _Settlements_, new, in America, letter concerning, iii. 409. _Settlers_ of British colonies, their rights, iii. 299. _Sheep_, a whole flock killed by lightning, i. 415. _Ships_, abandoned at sea, often saved, ii. 169. may be nicely balanced, 170. accidents to, at sea, how guarded against, 172. _Shirley_, governor, letters to, on the taxation of the colonies, iii. 30. on American representation in the British parliament, 37. _Shooting-stars_, letter on, ii. 36. _Shop-keepers_ in America, iii. 394. _Sides_ of vessels, the best construction of, ii. 172. _Silver_ cann, experiment with, i. 307. vessels, not so easily handled as glass, when filled with hot liquors, ii. 57. _Slavery_, society for the abolition of, i. 151. address to the public on the abolition of, iii. 517. _Slaves_, not profitable labourers, ii. 386. diminish population, ii. 387. _Slave-trade_, sentiment of a French moralist respecting, ii. 195. parody on the arguments in favour of, 450. _Sliding-plates_ for smoky chimnies described, ii. 287. _Slitting-mills_ in America, iii. 270. _Small_, Mr. Alexander, letter from, i. 374. _Smell_ of electricity, how produced, i. 244. _Smoke_, principle by which it ascends, ii. 257. stove that consumes it, 296. the burning of, useful in hot-houses, 316. _Smoky_ chimnies, observation on the causes and cure of, ii. 256. remedy for, if by want of air, 261, 262. if by too large openings in the room, 266, 268. if by too short a funnel, 269. if by overpowering each other, 270, 271. if by being overtopped, 271, 272. if by improper situation of a door, 273. if by smoke drawn down their funnels, 274, 275. if by strong winds, 275, 276. difficult sometimes to discover the cause of, 282. _Smuggling_, reflections on, ii. 430. encouragement of, not honest, 432. _Snow_, singular instance of its giving electricity, i. 373. _Soap-boiler_, part of Franklin's early life devoted to the business of, i. 10, 14. _Societies_, of which Franklin was president, i. 151. learned, of which he was a member, 135. _Socrates_, his mode of disputation, i. 21. _Songs_, ancient, give more pleasure than modern, ii. 342. modern, composed of all the defects of speech, 344. _Soul_, argument against the annihilation of, iii. 548*. _Sound_, best mediums for conveying, ii. 335. observations on, 336. queries concerning, 337. _Sounds_ just past, we have a perfect idea of their pitch, ii. 340. _Soup-dishes_ at sea, how to be made more convenient, ii. 195. _Spain_, what has thinned its population, ii. 390. _Specific_ weight, what, ii. 226. _Spectacles_, double, advantages of, iii. 544*, 551*. _Speech_, at Algiers, on slavery and piracy, ii. 450. of Mr. Galloway, preface to, iii. 163. last of Franklin, on the federal constitution, 416. _Spelling_, a new mode of, recommended, ii. 359. _Spheres_, electric, commodious ones, i. 178. _Spider_, artificial, described, i. 177. _Spirits_, fired without heating, i. 214, 245. linen wetted with, cooling in inflammations, ii. 87. should always be taken to sea in bottles, 175. _Spots_ in the sun, how formed, i. 260. _Squares_, magical square of, ii. 324. _Staffordshire_ chimney, description of, ii. 285. _Stamp-act_ in America stigmatized, iii. 228. letter on the repeal of, iii. 239. examination of Franklin on, 245. _Stars._ See _Shooting_. _State_, internal, of America, iii. 291. _Storms_, causes of, ii. 65. _Stove_, Dutch, its advantages and defects, ii. 233. German, ditto, 234. to draw downwards, by J. G. Leutmann, 298. for burning pit-coal and consuming its smoke, 301, 304, 308. _Strata_ of the earth, letter on, ii. 116. _Strahan_, Mr. queries by, on American politics, iii. 287. answer to the queries, 290. letter to, disclaiming his friendship, iii. 354. _Stuber_, Dr. continuator of Franklin's life, i. 98. _Studies_ of trifles, should be moderate, ii. 95. _Stuttering_, one of the affected beauties of modern tunes, ii. 245. _Sugar_, cruelties exercised in producing it, ii. 196. _Sulphur_ globe, its electricity different from that of the glass globe, i. 265. _Sun_, supplies vapour with fire, i. 207. why not wasted by expense of light, 259. effect of its rays on different coloured clothes, ii. 108. light of, proposed to be used instead of candlelight, iii. 470, 473. discovered to give light as soon as it rises, 471. _Surfaces_ of glass, different state of its opposite ones, when electrised, i. 191, 238. _Swimming_, skill of Franklin in, i. 66. art of, how to be acquired, ii. 206 how a person unacquainted with it may avoid sinking, 208. a delightful and wholesome exercise, ii. 209, 211. advantage of, to soldiers, 210. inventions to improve it, _ibid._ 212. medical effects of, _ibid._ T. _Tariffs_, not easily settled in Indian trade, iii. 218. _Tautology_, an affected beauty of modern songs, ii. 345. _Taxation_, American, letters to governor Shirley on, iii. 30. American, Dr. Franklin's examination on, iii. 246, 256. internal and external, distinguished, 259. on importation of goods and consumption, difference between, 266. _Tea-act_, the duty on, in America, how considered there, iii. 261, 317, 319. characterized by Mr. Burke, 319, _note_. _Teach_, or Blackbeard, name of a ballad written by Franklin in his youth, i. 16. _Thanks_ of the assembly of Pensylvania to Franklin, iii. 214. _Thanksgiving-days_ appointed in New England instead of fasts, iii. 392. _Theory_ of the earth, ii. 117. of light and heat, 122. _Thermometer_, not cooled by blowing on, when dry, ii. 87. electrical, described, and experiments with, ii. 336. _Thermometrical_ observations on the gulph-stream, ii. 199. on the warmth of sea-water, 200. _Thirst_, may be relieved by sea-water, how, ii. 105. _Thunder_ and lightning, how caused, i. 209. seldom heard far from land, 216. comparatively little at Bermuda, _ibid._ defined, 378. _Thunder-gusts_, what, i. 203. hypothesis to explain them, 203, _et seq._ _Tides_ in rivers, motion of, explained, ii. 96, 102. _Time_, occasional fragments of, how to be collected, ii. 412. is money to a tradesman, iii. 463. _Toads_ live long without nourishment, ii. 223. _Toleration_ in Old and New England compared, ii. 457. _Torpedo_, how to determine its electricity, i. 408, 409. _Tourmalin_, its singular electrical properties, i. 370. experiments on it, 371, 372. _Trade_, pleasure attending the first earnings in, i. 81. should be under no restrictions, ii. 415. exchanges in, may be advantageous to each party, 418. inland carriage no obstruction, to, iii. 116. great rivers in America, favourable to, 118. bills of credit, in lieu of money, the best medium of, 156. will find and make its own rates, 219. _Tradesman_, advice to a young one, iii. 463. _Transportation_ of felons to America, highly disagreeable to the inhabitants there, iii. 235. _Treaty_ between America and Prussia, humane article of, ii. 449. _Treasures_, hidden, search after, ridiculed, iii. 450. _Trees_, dangerous to be under, in thunder-storms, i. 213. the shivering of, by lightning, explained, 359. why cool in the sun, ii. 87. _Tubes_ of glass, electrical, manner of rubbing, i. 178. lined with a non-electric, experiment with, 240. exhausted, electric fire moves freely in, 241. _Tunes_, ancient Scotch, why give general pleasure, ii. 338. composed to the wire-harp, 341. in parts, Rousseau's opinion of, 342. modern, absurdities of, 344, _et seq._ _Turkey_ killed by electricity, i. 299. _Turks_, ceremony observed by, in visiting, iii. 436. V. U. _Vacuum_, Torricellian, experiment with, i. 291. electrical experiment in, 317. _Vapour_, electrical experiment on, i. 343. _Vapours_ from moist hay, &c. easily fired by lightning, i. 215. cause of their rising considered, ii. 46, 49. _Vanity_, observation on, i. 2. _Varnish_, dry, burnt by electric sparks, i. 199. _Vattel's_ Law of Nations, greatly consulted by the American congress, iii. 360. _Vegetable_ diet, observed by Franklin, i. 20. abandoned by Franklin, why, 47. _Vegetation_, effects of, on noxious air, ii. 129. _Velocity_ of the electric fire, i. 319. _Virtue_ in private life exemplified, iii. 427. _Vernon_, Mr. reposes a trust in Franklin, which he violates, i. 44. _Vis_ inertiæ of matter, observations on, ii. 110. _Visits_, unseasonable and importunate, letter on, iii. 432. _Unintelligibleness_, a fault of modern singing, ii. 345. _Union_, Albany plan of. See _Albany_. _Union_ of America with Britain, letter on, iii. 239. _United_ states of America, nature of the congress of, iii. 550*. _Voyage_, from Boston to New York, i. 27. from New York to Philadelphia, 28. from Newfoundland to New York, remarks on, ii. 197. crossing the gulph stream, journal of, 199. from Philadelphia to France, 200, 201. from the channel to America, 202. to benefit distant countries, proposed, 403. _Vulgar_ opinions, too much slighted, ii. 146. W. _Waggons_, number of, supplied by Franklin, on a military emergency, i. 131. _War_, civil, whether it strengthens a country considered, ii. 399. observations on, 435. laws of, gradually humanized, _ib._ humane article respecting, in a treaty between Prussia and America, ii. 449. French, of 1757, its origin, iii. 274. _Warm_ rooms do not make people tender, or give colds, ii. 249. _Washington_, early military talents of, i. 130. Franklin's bequest to, 164. _Water_, a perfect conductor of electricity, i. 201. strongly electrified, rises in vapour, 204. particles of, in rising, are attached to particles of air, 205. and air, attract each other, 206. exploded like gunpowder, by electricity, 358. expansion of, when reduced to vapour, _ib._ saturated with salt, precipitates the overplus, ii. 2. will dissolve in air, _ib._ expands when boiling, _ib._ how supported in air, 45. bubbles on the surface of, hypothesis respecting, 48. agitated, does not produce heat, 49, 96. supposed originally all salt, 91. fresh, produce of distillation only, _ib._ curious effects of oil on, 142. _Water-casks_, how to dispose of, in leaky vessels, ii. 170. _Water-spouts_, observations on, ii. 11. whether they descend or ascend, 14, 23, 38. various appearances of, 16. winds blow from all points towards them, 21. are whirlwinds at sea, _ib._ effect of one on the coast of Guinea, 33. account of one at Antigua, 34. various instances of, 38. Mr. Colden's observations on, 53. _Watson_, Mr. William, letter by, on thunder-clouds, i. 427. _Waves_, stilled by oil, ii. 144, 145, 148. greasy water, 146. _Wax_, when fluid will conduct electricity, i. 256. may be electrised positively and negatively, 291. _Wealth_, way to, iii. 453. national, positions to be examined concerning, ii. 408. but three ways of acquiring it, 410. _Webb_, George, a companion of Franklin's, i. 72, 84, 86. _Wedderburn_, Mr. remarks on his treatment of Franklin before the privy council, iii. 330, 332, notes; 550. _West_, Mr. his conductor struck by lightning, i. 340. _Western_ colonies, plan for settling them, iii. 41. _Whatley_, Mr. four letters to, iii. 543*. _Wheels_, electrical, described, i. 196. _Whirlwinds_, how formed, ii. 10. observations on, 20. a remarkable one at Rome, 24. account of one in Maryland, 61. _Whistle_, a story, iii. 480. _White_, fittest colour for clothes in hot climates, ii. 109. _Will_, extracts from Franklin's, i. 155. _Wilson_, Mr. draws electricity from the clouds, i. 429. _Wind_ generated by fermentation, ii. 59. _Winds_ explained, ii. 8, 9, 48. the explanation objected to, 50, 51. observations on, by Mr. Colden, 52. whether confined to, or generated in, clouds, 57. raise the surface of the sea above its level, 188. effect of, on sound, 337. _Winters_, hard, causes of, ii. 68. _Winthrop_, professor, letters from, i. 373, 382. _Wire_ conducts a great stroke of lightning, though destroyed itself, i. 282. _Wolfe_, general, i. 136. _Women_ of Paris, singular saying respecting, as mothers, iii. 548*. _Wood_, dry, will not conduct electricity, i. 172. why does not feel so cold as metals, ii. 56. _Woods_, not unhealthy to inhabit, ii. 130. _Woollen_, why warmer than linen, ii. 57, 81. _Words_, to modern songs, only a pretence for singing, ii. 348. _Wygate_, an acquaintance of Franklin's, i. 66. _Wyndham_, sir William, applies to Franklin to teach his sons swimming, i. 69. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources. For consistency and clarity, the pound abbreviation 'l.' has been italicized, so for example '123,321l.' has been replaced by '123,321_l._' in the etext. For consistency, the date and salutation at the beginning of each letter, and the closing and name at the end of each letter, have been put on separate lines (they were sometimes placed on the same line in the original printed text). Three or more asterisks, sometimes spaced, were used by the editor to indicate omitted text, and sometimes '-- -- --' or '----' were used. Missing names were indicated by '----' or by '****'. For this reason thought breaks in the text are indicated by two blank lines, not by a line of asterisks. A deliberate blank space in the text is indicated by [___]. All the changes noted in the Errata (pg vi) have been applied to the text. Many Footnotes have the signature 'B. V.' rather than 'Editor'. This is explained in Vol 1 p 399 Footnote [90], and is copied below for the reader's convenience:- Wherever this signature occurs, the note is taken from a volume of Dr. Franklin's writings, entitled Political, Miscellaneous, and Philosophical Pieces, printed for Johnson, 1779. The editor of that volume, though a young man at the time, had already evinced extraordinary talents, and was the friend and correspondent of our author. As he has chosen to withhold his name, we conceive ourselves not entitled to disclose it: but we shall take the freedom of an acquaintance to use the notes occasionally, deeming them in many instances valuable historical records. Editor. Except for those changes noted below, misspelling in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained. For example, compleat; controul; inclose; smoaky; Pensylvania; Massachussets; New-England, New England; shopkeeper, shop-keeper. In addition: Pg vi Errata. Page '59' replaced by '39'. Pg 11. 'infringment' replaced by 'infringement'. Pg 23. 'would he' replaced by 'would be'. Pg 29. 'and slso to' replaced by 'and also to'. Pg 31. 'problably give' replaced by 'probably give'. Pg 39. 'iron mafacture' replaced by 'iron manufacture'. Pg 47. 'thesettlers;' replaced by 'the settlers;'. Pg 59 FN [16] 'our anthor' replaced by 'our author'. Pg 70. 'provice for' replaced by 'province for'. Pg 71. 'Twightwee' replaced by 'Twigtwee'. Pg 74. 'in theuse' replaced by 'in the use'. Pg 81. 'poll-tax of sen' replaced by 'poll-tax of ten'. Pg 84. 'Lower Countries' replaced by 'Lower Counties'. Pg 90. 'msy inspire' replaced by 'may inspire'. Pg 95 FN [26] 'Observatious' replaced by 'Observations'. Pg 104. 'meer names' replaced by 'mere names'. Pg 126 FN [44] '3,353,337' replaced by the correct total '3,363,337'. Pg 129 FN [46] 'those swo' replaced by 'those two'. Pg 131. 'Londom' replaced by 'London'. Pg 188. 'satisfacton' replaced by 'satisfaction'. Pg 196. 'farewel-speech' replaced by 'farewell speech'. Pg 204. 'sauction' replaced by 'sanction'. Pg 234 FN [78] 'Great Britian' replaced by 'Great Britain'. Pg 235. 'cruel idsult' replaced by 'cruel insult'. Pg 238 FN [79] 'trroops' replaced by 'troops'. Pg 253 FN [87] 'repeal or' replaced by 'repeal of'. Pg 267. 'Snpposing' replaced by 'Supposing'. Pg 267 et seq. Seventeen instances of '2.' replaced by 'Q.' Pg 281. 'T. In my opinion' replaced by 'A. In my opinion'. Pg 283. 'Q. I suppose' replaced by 'A. I suppose'. Pg 292 FN [99] ' slave' replaced by 'a slave.'. Pg 295 FN [101] 'froward child' replaced by 'forward child'. Pg 307. 'vice-gerent' replaced by 'vice-regent'. Pg 315. 'adn villains' replaced by 'and villains'. Pg 319 FN [120] 'wolud be' replaced by 'would be'. Pg 332 FN [130] 'Wedderburne' replaced by 'Wedderburn'. Pg 354. Missing anchor for Footnote [148] added. Pg 361. 'la royanté' replaced by 'la royauté'. Pg 361. 'send yon' replaced by 'send you'. Pg 389. 'our intrepreter' replaced by 'our interpreter'. Pg 399. 'genuises' replaced by 'geniuses'. Pg 475. Missing anchor for Footnote [180] added. Pg 524 FN [197] 'who furnised' replaced by 'who furnished'. Pg 537. 'sentimeat' replaced by 'sentiment'. Pg 550*. 'oo muc h' replaced by 'too much'. Index Pg 4i. 'Animalcnles' replaced by 'Animalcules'. Index Pg 29i. 'relation batween' replaced by 'relation between'. The Index covers all three volumes and was originally printed at the end of Volume 1 only. It has been copied to the end of Volume 2 and 3 as a convenience for the reader. The Index had no page numbers in the original text; page numbers from 1i to 36i have been added for completeness. For clarity, some volume identifiers (i. or ii. or iii.) have been added, or removed, in the Index. Only references within this volume have been hyperlinked. The Index has some references to page numbers with a *, eg 551*. These are valid references; the book printer inserted pages 543*-556* between pages 542 and 543 in Vol iii.